Between two or three years have elapsed, and our scene changes from
the country town of Wimborne to the gay and pleasant capital of
Belgium.
Mr and Miss Bloomfield had made a bold, and, for them, quite a
tremendous resolution, to take a trip upon the Continent, which
should extend--as far as their courage held out. The pleasure and
profit this would afford their niece, was no mean inducement to the
enterprise. Mr Bloomfield judged that his ward, after the course of
studies she had pursued, and the proficiency she had attained in
most feminine accomplishments, was ripe to take advantage of foreign
travel. Mr Bloomfield judged wisely; but Mr Bloomfield neither
judged, nor was, perhaps, capable of judging how far, in fact, the
mind of his niece _had_ advanced, or what singular good use she
had made of his own neglected library. She had been grappling with
all sorts of books--of philosophy and of science, as well as of
history and poetry. But that cheerful quietude which distinguished
her manner, concealed these more strenuous efforts of her mind. She
never talked for display--she had, indeed, no arena for display--and
the wish for it was never excited in her mind. What she read and
thought, she revolved in herself, and was perfectly content. How it
might have been had she lived amongst those who would have called
her forth, and overwhelmed her with praise, it would be difficult to
tell. As it was, Mildred Willoughby presented to the imagination the
most fascinating combination of qualities it would be possible to
put together. A young girl of most exquisite beauty, (she had grown
paler than when we last saw her, but this had only given increased
lustre to her blue eye)--of manners the most unaffected--of a temper
always cheerful, always tranquil--was familiar with trains of deep
reflection--possessed a practised intellect and really cultivated
mind. In this last respect, there was not a single person in all
Wimborne or its neighbourhood who had divined her character. That
she was a charming girl, though a little too pale--very amiable,
though a little too reserved--of a temper provokingly calm, for
she was not ruffled even where she ought to be--and that she sang
well, and played well; such would have been the summary of her good
qualities from her best and most intimate friends. She was now
enjoying, with her uncle and aunt--but in a manner how different
from theirs!--the various novelties, great and small, which a
foreign country presents to the eye.
Those who, in their travels, estimate the importance of any spot by
its distance or its difficulty of access, will hardly allow such
a place as Brussels to belong to _foreign parts_. It is no more
than an excursion to Margate: it is but a day's journey. True; but
your day's journey has brought you to another people--to another
religion. We are persuaded that a man shall travel to Timbuctoo,
and he shall not gain for himself a stronger impression of novelty,
than a sober Protestant shall procure by entering the nearest
country where the Roman Catholic worship is in full practice.
He has seen cathedrals--many and beautiful--but they were mere
architectural monuments, half deserted, one corner only employed for
the modest service of his church--the rest a noble space for the
eye to traverse, in which he has walked, hat in hand, meditating
on past times and the middle ages. But if he cross the Channel,
those past times--they have come back again; those middle ages--he
is in the midst of them. The empty cathedral has become full to
overflowing; there are the lights burning in mid-day, and he hears
the Latin chant, and sees high-priests in gorgeous robes making
mystic evolutions about the altar; and there is the incense, and
the sprinkling of holy water, and the tinkling bell, and whatever
the Jew or the Pagan has in times past bequeathed to the Christian.
Or let him only look up the street. Here comes, tottering in the
air, upon the shoulders of its pious porters, Our Lady herself,
with the Holy Child in one arm, and her sceptre in the other, and
the golden crown upon her head. Here she is in her satin robe,
stiff with embroidery, and gay with lace, and decked with tinsel
ornaments beyond our power of description. If the character of the
festival require it, she is borne by six or eight maidens clad in
white, with wreaths of white roses on their heads; and you hear it
whispered, as they approach, that such a one is beautiful Countess
of C----; and, countess or not, there is amongst those bearers a
face very beautiful, notwithstanding that the heat of the day, and
a burden of no light weight, has somewhat deranged the proportions
of the red and white which had been so cunningly laid on. And then
comes the canopy of cloth of gold, borne over the bare head of the
venerable priest, who holds up to the people, inclosed in a silver
case, imitative of rays of glory, the sacred host; holds it up with
both his hands, and fastens both his eyes devoutly on the back of
it; and boys in their scarlet tunics, covered with white lace, are
swinging the censor before it; and the shorn priests on each side,
with lighted tapers in their hands, tall as staves, march, chanting
forth--we regret to say, with more vehemence than melody.
Is not all this strange enough? The state-carriage of the King of
the Ashantees was, some years ago, captured in war, and exhibited in
London; and a curious vehicle it was, with its peacocks' feathers,
and its large glass beads hung round the roof to glitter and jingle
at the same time. But the royal carriage of the Ashantees, or all
that the court of the Ashantees could possibly display, is not half
so curious, half so strange to any meditative spirit, as this image
of the Holy Virgin met as it parades the streets, or seen afterwards
deposited in the centre of the temple, surrounded by pots of
flowers, real and artificial, by vases filled with lilies of glazed
muslin, and altogether tricked out with such decorations as a child
would lavish on its favourite doll if it had an infinite supply of
tinsel.
And they worship _that_!
"No!" exclaims some very candid gentleman. "No sir, they by no means
worship it; and you must be a very narrow-minded person if you think
so. Such images are employed by the Catholic as representatives,
as symbols only--visible objects to direct his worship to that
which is invisible." O most candid of men! and most liberal of
Protestants! we do not say that Dr Wiseman or M. Chateaubriand
worship images. But just step across the water--we do not ask you to
travel into Italy or Spain, where the symptoms are ten times more
violent--just walk into some of these churches in Belgium, _and
use your own eyes_. It is but a journey of four-and-twenty hours;
and if you are one of those who wish to bring into our own church
the more frequent use of form and ceremony and visible symbol, it
will be the most salutory journey you ever undertook. Meanwhile
consider, and explain to us, why it is--if images are understood
to have only this subordinate function--that one image differs so
much from another in honour and glory. This Virgin, whom we have
seen parade the streets, is well received and highly respected; but
there are other Virgins--ill-favoured, too, and not at all fit to
act as representatives of any thing feminine--who are infinitely
more honoured and observed. The sculpture of Michael Angelo never
wins so much devotion as you shall see paid here, in one of their
innumerable churches, to a dark, rude, and odious misrepresentation
of Christ. They put a mantle on it of purple cotton, edged with
white, and a reed in its hand, and they come one after the other,
and kiss its dark feet; and mothers bring their infants, and put
their soft lips to the wound that the nail made, and then depart
with full sense of an act of piety performed. And take this into
account, that such act of devotion is no casual enthusiasm, no
outbreak of passionate piety overleaping the bounds of reason;
it is done systematically, methodically; the women come with
their green tin cans, slung upon their arm, full of their recent
purchases in the market, you see them enter--approach--put down the
can--kiss--take up the can, and depart. They have fulfilled a duty.
But we have not arrived in Brussels to loiter in churches or discuss
theology.
"Monsieur and the ladies will go to the ball to-night," said their
obliging host to our party. "It is an annual ball," he continued,
"given by the Philanthropical Society for the benefit of the poor.
Their Majesties, the king and the queen, will honour it with their
presence, and it is especially patronised by your fair countrywomen.
"Enough," said Mr Bloomfield; "we will certainly go to the ball.
To be in the same room with a living king and queen--it is an
opportunity by no means to be lost."
"And then," said Miss Bloomfield, "it is an act of charity."
This species of charity is very prevalent at Brussels. You dance
there out of pure commiseration. It is an excellent invention, this
gay benevolence. You give, and you make no sacrifice; you buy balls
and concerts with the money you drop into the beggar's hat; charity
is all sweetness. Poverty itself wears quite a festive air; the poor
are the farmers-general of our pleasures; it is they who give the
ball. Long live the dance! Long live the poor!
They drive to the ball-room in the Rue Ducale. They enter an oblong
room, spacious, of good proportions, and brilliantly lit up with
that gayest of all artificial lights--the legitimate wax candle,
thickly clustered in numerous chandeliers. Two rows of Corinthian
columns support the roof, and form a sort of arcade on either side
for spectators or the promenade, the open space in the centre being,
of course, devoted to the dance. At the upper end is a raised dais
with chairs of state for their Majesties. What, in day-time, were
windows are filled with large mirrors, most commodiously reflecting
the fair forms that stand or pass before them. How smooth is the
inlaid polished floor! and how it seems to foretell the dance
for which its void space is so well prepared! No incumbrance of
furniture here; no useless decorations. Some cushioned forms covered
with crimson velvet, some immense vases occupying the corners of the
room filled with exotic plants, are all that could be admitted of
one or the other.
The orchestra, established in a small gallery over the door, strikes
up the national air, and the royal party, attended by their suite,
proceed through the centre of the room, bowing right and left. They
take their seats. That instant the national air changes to a rapid
waltz, and in the twinkling of an eye, the whole of that spacious
floor is covered thick with the whirling multitude. The sober Mr
Bloomfield, to whom such a scene is quite a novelty, grows giddy
with the mere view of it. He looks with all his might, but he ought
to have a hundred pairs of eyes to watch the mazes of this dance.
One couple after another appear and vanish as if by enchantment. He
sees a bewitching face--he strives to follow it--impossible!--in
a minute fifty substitutes are presented to him--it is lost in a
living whirlpool of faces.
To one long accustomed to the quiet and monotony of a country life,
it would be difficult to present a spectacle more novel or striking
than this of a public ball-room; and though for such a novelty it
was not necessary to cross the water, yet assuredly, in his own
country, Mr Bloomfield would never have been present at such a
spectacle. We go abroad as much to throw ourselves for a time into
new manners of life, as to find new scenes of existence. He stood
bewildered. Some two hundred couples gyrating like mad before him.
Sometimes the number would thin, and the fervour of the movement
abate--the floor began, in parts, to be visible--the storm and the
whirlwind were dying away. But a fresh impulse again seized on both
musicians and dancers--the throng of these gentle dervishes, of
these amiable mænads, became denser than ever--the movement more
furious--the music seemed to madden them and to grow mad itself: he
shut his eyes, and drew back quite dizzy from the scene.
It is a singular phenomenon, this waltz, retained as it is in the
very heart of our cold and punctilious civilisation. How have we
contrived, amidst our quiet refinement and fastidious delicacy,
to preserve an amusement which has in it the very spirit of the
Cherokee Indian? There is nothing sentimental--nothing at all,
in the waltz. In this respect, mammas need have no alarm. It is
the mere excitement of rapid movement--a dextrous and delirious
rotation. It is the enthusiasm only of the feet--the ecstacy of
mere motion. Yes! just at that moment when, on the extended arm of
the cavalier, the soft and rounded arm of his partner is placed so
gently and so gracefully--(as for the hand upon the whalebone waist
no electricity comes that way)--just then there may be a slight
emotion which would be dangerous if prolonged; but the dance begins,
and there is no room for any other rapture than that of its own
swift and giddy course. There are no beatings of the heart after
that; only pulsations of the great artery.
Found where it is, it is certainly a remarkable phenomenon, this
waltz. Look now at that young lady--how cold, formal, stately!--how
she has been trained to act the little queen amongst her admirers
and flatterers! See what a _reticence_ in all her demeanour. Even
feminine curiosity, if not subdued, has been dissimulated; and
though she notes every thing and every body, and can describe,
when she returns home, the dress of half the ladies in the room,
it is with an eye that seems to notice nothing. Her head has just
been released from the hair-dresser, and every hair is elaborately
adjusted. To the very holding of an enormous bouquet, "round
as my shield," which of itself seems to forbid all thoughts of
motion--every thing has been arranged and re-arranged. She sits
like an alabaster figure; she speaks, it is true, and she smiles as
she speaks; but evidently the smile and the speech have no natural
connexion with one another; they co-exist, but they have both been
quite separately studied, prepared, permitted. Well, the waltz
strikes up, and at a word from that bowing gentleman, himself a
piece of awful formality, this pale, slow, and graceful automaton
has risen. Where is she now? She is gone--vanished--transformed.
She is nowhere to be seen. But in her stead there is a breathless
girl, with flushed cheeks, ringlets given to the wind, dress flying
all abroad, spinning round the room, darting diagonally across it,
whirling fast as her little feet can carry her--faster, faster--for
it is her more powerful cavalier, who, holding her firmly by the
waist, sustains and augments her speed.
Perhaps some ingenious mind may discover a profound philosophy in
all this; perhaps, by retaining this authorised outlet for the mere
rage of movement, the rest of civilised life is better protected
against any disturbance of that quietude of deportment which it is
so essential to maintain.
But if the waltz appeared to Mr Bloomfield like dancing gone mad,
the quadrille which divided the evening with it, formed a sort of
compensation by carrying matters to the opposite extreme. A fly in
a glue-pot moves with about the same alacrity, and apparently the
same amount of pleasure, as did the dancers this evening in their
crowded quadrille. As no one, of course, could be permitted to stand
with his back to royalty, they were arranged, not in squares, but
in two long files as in a country-dance. The few couples that stood
near their majesties were allowed a reasonable share of elbow-room,
and could get through their evolutions with tolerable composure. But
as the line receded from this point, the dancers stood closer and
closer together, and at the other extremity of the room it became
nothing less than a dense crowd; a crowd where people were making
the most persevering and ingenious efforts to accomplish the most
spiritless of movements--with a world of pains just crawling in
and out again. The motions of this _dancing_ crowd viewed from a
proper elevation, would exactly resemble those slow and mysterious
evolutions one sees, on close examination, in the brown dust of a
cheese, in that condition which some people call ripe, and others
rotten.
As to Miss Bloomfield, she keeps her eyes, for the most part, on the
king and queen. Having expected to see them rise and join the dance,
she was somewhat disappointed to find them retain their seats, the
king chatting to a lady at his right, the queen to a lady on her
left. Assuredly, if there were any one in that assembly who had
come there out of charity, it was their Majesties. Or rather, they
were there in performance of one of the duties of royalty, perhaps
not the least onerous, that of showing itself in public on certain
occasions. When they rose, it was to take their leave, which they
were doubtless very glad to do. Nor, indeed, were those who had
been most attracted by the advertised presence of their Majesties
sorry to witness their departure. They would carry many away with
them--there would be more room for the dance--and the quadrille
could reassume its legitimate form.
But Mildred--what was she doing or thinking all this time? To her
the scene was entirely new; for though Mr and Miss Bloomfield
probably attended county balls in their youth, they had not, for
some years, so far deviated from the routine of their lives as
to frequent any such assemblies. Besides, she had to encounter,
what they certainly had not, the gaze of every eye as she passed,
and the whispered exclamations of applause. But to have judged
from her manner--from that delightful composure which always
distinguished it, as free from insipidity as from trepidation or
fluster, you would have thought her quite familiar with such scenes
and such triumphs. Reflection supplied the place of experience.
You saw that those clear blue eyes, from which she looked out with
such a calm and keen inquiry, were by no means to be imposed on;
that they detected at once the true meaning of the scene before
her. She was solicited to dance, but neither the waltz nor the
quadrille were at all enticing, and she contented herself with the
part of spectator. Her chief amusement was derived from the novel
physiognomies which the room presented; and indeed the assortment,
comprising, as it did, a sprinkling of many nations--French and
Belgian, English and German--was sufficiently varied. There were
even two or three _lions_ of the first magnitude, who (judging from
the supreme _hauteur_ with which they surveyed the scene) must have
been imported from the patron capital of Paris. Lions, bearded
magnificently--no mere luxuriance, or timid overgrowth of hair, but
the genuine full black glossy beard--faces that might have walked
out of Titian's canvass. Mildred would have preferred them in the
canvass; they were much too sublime for the occasion. Then there
were two or three young English _exquisites_, gliding about with
that published modesty that proclaimed indifference, which seeks
notoriety by the very graceful manner in which it seems struggling
to avoid it. You see a smile upon their lips as they disengage
themselves from the crowd, as if they rallied themselves for taking
any share in the bustle or excitement of the scene; but that smile,
be it understood, is by no means intended to escape detection.
There were a greater number of fat and elderly gentlemen than
Mildred would have expected, taking part in the dance, or
circulating about the room with all or more than the vivacity
of youth. How happy!--how supremely blest!--seems that rotund
and bald-headed sire, who, standing on the edge of the dais, now
forsaken by their Majesties, surveys the whole assembly, and invites
the whole assembly to return the compliment. How beautifully the
bland sympathy he feels for others mingles with and swells his sense
of self-importance! How he dominates the whole scene! How fondly
patronises! And then his smile!--why, his heart is dancing with them
all; it is beating time to twice two hundred feet. An old friend
approaches him--he is happy too--would shake him by the hand. The
hand he gives; but he cannot withdraw his eye from the wide scene
before him; he cannot possibly call in and limit his sympathies at
that moment to one friend, however old and dear. And he who solicits
his hand, he also is looking around him at the same time, courting
the felicitations of the crowd, who will not fail to observe that he
too is there, and there amongst friends.
In the female portion of the assembly there was not so much novelty.
Mildred could only remark that there was a large proportion of
_brunettes_, and that the glossy black hair was parted on the
head and smoothed down on either side with singular neatness and
precision. Two only out of this part of the community attracted her
particular notice, and they were of the most opposite description.
Near to her stood a lady who might have been either thirty,
or forty, or fifty, for all that her sharp and lively features
betrayed. She wore one of those small round hats, with the feather
drooping round it, which formed, we believe, a part of the costume
of Louis XV.; and that which drew the notice of Mildred was the
strange resemblance she bore, in appearance and manner, to the
portraitures which some French memoirs had made familiar to her
imagination. As she watched her in conversation with an officer in
full regimentals, who stood by her side, her fancy was transported
to Versailles or St Cloud. What a caustic pleasantry! What a
malicious vivacity! It was impossible to doubt that the repartees
which passed between her and her companion were such as to make the
ears of the absent tingle. There were some reputations suffering
there as the little anecdote was so trippingly narrated. Her
physiognomy was redolent of pleasant scandal--
"Tolerably mild,
To make a wash she'd hardly stew a child;"
but to extract a jest, there was no question she would have
distilled half the reputations in the room.
The other object of Mildred's curiosity, we pause a moment to
describe, because she will cross our path again in the course of
this narrative. Amongst all the costly and splendid dresses of her
sex, there was a young girl in some simple striped stuff, the most
unsophisticated gown imaginable, falling flat about her, with a
scanty cape of the same material about her neck--the walking-dress,
in short, of a school-girl. The only preparation for the ball-room
consisted of a wreath imitative of daisies, just such a wreath as
she might have picked up in passing through a Catholic cemetry. And
the dress quite suited the person. There she stood with eyes and
mouth wide open, as if she saw equally through both apertures, full
of irrepressible wonder, and quite confounded with delight. She
had been asked to dance by some very young gentleman, but as she
elbowed her way through the quadrille, she was still staring right
and left with unabated amazement. Mildred smiled to herself as she
thought that with the exception of that string of white tufts round
her head, no larger than beads, which was to pass for a wreath, she
looked for all the world as if some spirit had suddenly snatched her
up from the pavement of the High Street of Wimborne, and deposited
her in the ball-room of Brussels. Little did Mildred imagine that,
that crude little person, absurd, untutored, ridiculous as she was,
would one day have it in her power to subdue, and torture, and
triumph over her!