A Book of English Prose Part 8

"That's quite unnecessary; I see Jane every day;--but {116} as you like. It is to be a morning scheme, you know, Knightley; quite a simple thing. I shall wear a large bonnet, and bring one of my little baskets hanging on my arm. Here,--probably this basket with pink ribbon. Nothing can be more simple, you see. And Jane will have such another. There is to be no form or parade--a sort of gipsy party. We are to walk about your gardens, and gather the strawberries ourselves, and sit under trees; and whatever else you may like to provide, it is to be all out of doors; a table spread in the shade, you know.

Everything as natural and simple as possible. Is not that your idea?"

"Not quite. My idea of the simple and the natural will be to have the table spread in the dining-room. The nature and the simplicity of gentlemen and ladies, with their servants and furniture, I think is best observed by meals within doors. When you are tired of eating strawberries in the garden, there shall be cold meat in the house."

"Well, as you please; only don't have a great set-out. And, by the bye, can I or my housekeeper be of any use to you with our opinion?

Pray be sincere, Knightley. If you wish me to talk to Mrs Hodges, or to inspect anything----"

"I have not the least wish for it, I thank you.'"

"Well,--but if any difficulties should arise, my housekeeper is extremely clever."

"I will answer for it that mine thinks herself full as clever, and would spurn anybody's a.s.sistance."

"I wish we had a donkey. The thing would be for us all to come on donkeys, Jane, Miss Bates, and me, {117} and my _caro sposo_ walking by. I really must talk to him about purchasing a donkey. In a country life I conceive it to be a sort of necessary; for, let a woman have ever so many resources, it is not possible for her to be always shut up at home; and very long walks, you know--in summer there is dust, and in winter there is dirt."

"You will not find either between Donwell and Highbury. Donwell Lane is never dusty, and now it is perfectly dry. Come on a donkey, however, if you prefer it. You can borrow Mrs Cole's. I would wish everything to be as much to your taste as possible."

"That I am sure you would. Indeed I do you justice, my good friend.

Under that peculiar sort of dry, blunt manner, I know you have the warmest heart. As I tell Mr E., you are a thorough humourist. Yes, believe me, Knightley, I am fully sensible of your attention to me in the whole of this scheme. You have hit upon the very thing to please me."

Mr Knightley had another reason for avoiding a table in the shade. He wished to persuade Mr Woodhouse, as well as Emma, to join the party; and he knew that to have any of them sitting down out of doors to eat would inevitably make him ill. Mr Woodhouse must not, under the specious pretence of a morning drive, and an hour or two spent at Donwell, be tempted away to his misery.

He was invited on good faith. No lurking horrors were to upbraid him for his easy credulity. He did consent. He had not been at Donwell for two years. "Some very fine morning, he, and Emma, and Harriet {118} could go very well; and he could sit still with Mrs Weston while the dear girls walked about the gardens. He did not suppose they could be damp now, in the middle of the day. He should like to see the old house again exceedingly, and should be very happy to meet Mr and Mrs Elton, and any other of his neighbours. He could not see any objection at all to his, and Emma's, and Harriet's going there some very fine morning. He thought it very well done of Mr Knightley to invite them; very kind and sensible; much cleverer than dining out. He was not fond of dining out."

Mr Knightley was fortunate in everybody's most ready concurrence. The invitation was everywhere so well received, that it seemed as if, like Mrs Elton, they were all taking the scheme as a particular compliment to themselves.

(_Emma_.)

WILLIAM HAZLITT 1778-1830

COLERIDGE AS PREACHER

It was in January of 1798 that I rose one morning before daylight, to walk ten miles in the mud to hear this celebrated person preach.

Never, the longest day I have to live, shall I have such another walk as this cold, raw, comfortless one, in the winter of the year 1798.

When I got there the organ was playing the 100th Psalm, and when it was done Mr Coleridge rose and gave out {119} his text, "And he went up into the mountain to pray, _himself, alone_." As he gave out this text his voice "rose like a stream of rich distilled perfumes," and when he came to the two last words, which he p.r.o.nounced loud, deep, and distinct, it seemed to me, who was then young, as if the sounds had echoed from the bottom of the human heart, and as if that prayer might have floated in solemn silence through the universe. The idea of St John came into my mind, "of one crying in the wilderness, who had his loins girt about, and whose food was locusts and wild honey." The preacher then launched into his subject like an eagle dallying with the wind. The sermon was upon peace and war; upon church and state--not their alliance but their separation--on the spirit of the world and the spirit of Christianity, not as the same, but as opposed to one another.

He talked of those who had "inscribed the cross of Christ on banners dripping with human gore." He made a poetical and pastoral excursion--and to show the fatal effects of war, drew a striking contrast between the simple shepherd boy, driving his team afield, or sitting under the hawthorn, piping to his flock, "as though he should never be old," and the same poor country lad, crimped, kidnapped, brought into town, made drunk at an alehouse, turned into a wretched drummer-boy, with his hair sticking on end with powder and pomatum, a long cue at his back, and tricked out in the loathsome finery of the profession of blood:

"Such were the notes our once-loved poet sung."

And for myself, I could not have been more delighted if I had heard the music of the spheres. Poetry and {120} Philosophy had met together.

Truth and Genius had embraced, under the eye and with the sanction of Religion. This was even beyond my hopes. I returned home well satisfied. The sun that was still labouring pale and wan through the sky, obscured by thick mists, seemed an emblem of the good cause; and the cold, dank drops of dew that hung half melted on the beard of the thistle had something genial and refres.h.i.+ng in them; for there was a spirit of hope and youth in all nature that turned everything into good.

(_Winterslow_.)

THOMAS DE QUINCEY 1785-1859

A DREAM

Sweet funeral bells from some incalculable distance, wailing over the dead that die before the dawn, awakened me as I slept in a boat moored to some familiar sh.o.r.e. The morning twilight even then was breaking; and, by the dusky revelations which it spread, I saw a girl, adorned with a garland of white roses about her head for some great festival, running along the solitary strand in extremity of haste. Her running was the running of panic; and often she looked back as to some dreadful enemy in the rear. But when I leaped ash.o.r.e, and followed on her steps to warn her of a peril in front, alas! from me she fled as from another peril, and vainly I shouted to her of quicksands that lay ahead.

Faster and faster she ran; round a promontory of rocks she {121} wheeled out of sight; in an instant I also wheeled round it, but only to see the treacherous sands gathering above her head. Already her person was buried; only the fair young head and the diadem of white roses around it were still visible to the pitying heavens; and, last of all, was visible one white marble arm. I saw by early twilight this fair young head, as it was sinking down to darkness--saw this marble arm, as it rose above her head and her treacherous grave, tossing, faltering, rising, clutching, as at some false deceiving hand stretched out from the clouds--saw this marble arm uttering her dying hope, and then uttering her dying despair. The head, the diadem, the arm--these all had sunk; at last over these also the cruel quicksand had closed; and no memorial of the fair young girl remained on earth, except my own solitary tears, and the funeral bells from the desert seas, that, rising again more softly, sang a requiem over the grave of the buried child, and over her blighted dawn.

I sat, and wept in secret the tears that men have ever given to the memory of those that died before the dawn, and by the treachery of earth, our mother. But suddenly the tears and funeral bells were hushed by a shout as of many nations, and by a roar as from some great king's artillery, advancing rapidly along the valleys, and heard afar by echoes from the mountains. "Hus.h.!.+" I said, as I bent my ear earthwards to listen--"hus.h.!.+--this either is the very anarchy of strife, or else"--and then I listened more profoundly, and whispered as I raised my head--"or else, oh heavens! it is _victory_ that is final, victory that swallows up all strife."

(_The English Mail-coach_.)

{122}

JOHN KEATS 1795-1821

THE USE OF POETRY

I had an idea that a Man might pa.s.s a very pleasant life in this manner--Let him on a certain day read a certain page of full Poesy or distilled Prose, and let him wander with it, and muse upon it, and reflect from it, and bring home to it, and prophesy upon it, and dream upon it: until it becomes stale--But when will it do so? Never--When Man has arrived at a certain ripeness in intellect any one grand and spiritual pa.s.sage serves him as a starting-post towards all "the two-and-thirty Palaces." How happy is such a voyage of conception, what delicious diligent indolence! A doze upon a sofa does not hinder it, and a nap upon Clover engenders ethereal finger-pointings--the prattle of a child gives it wings, and the converse of middle-age a strength to beat them--a strain of music conducts to "an odd angle of the Isle," and when the leaves whisper it puts a girdle round the earth.--Nor will this sparing touch of n.o.ble Books be any irreverence to their Writers--for perhaps the honours paid by Man to Man are trifles in comparison to the benefit done by great works to the "spirit and pulse of good" by their mere pa.s.sive existence. Memory should not be called Knowledge--Many have original minds who do not think it--they are led away by Custom. Now it appears to me that almost any Man may, like the spider, spin from his own inwards his own airy Citadel--the points of leaves and twigs on which {123} the spider begins her work are few, and she fills the air with a beautiful circuiting. Man should be content with as few points to tip with the fine Web of his Soul, and weave a tapestry empyrean--full of symbols for his spiritual eye, of softness for his spiritual touch, of s.p.a.ce for his wandering, of distinctness for his luxury. But the minds of mortals are so different and bent on such diverse journeys that it may at first appear impossible for any common taste and fellows.h.i.+p to exist between two or three under these suppositions. It is however quite the contrary.

Minds would leave each other in contrary directions, traverse each other in numberless points, and at last greet each other at the journey's end. An old man and a child would talk together and the old man be led on his path and the child left thinking. Man should not dispute or a.s.sert, but whisper results to his Neighbour, and thus, by every germ of spirit sucking the sap from mould ethereal, every human might become great, and humanity instead of being a wide heath of furze and briars, with here and there a remote Oak or Pine, would become a grand democracy of forest trees. It has been an old comparison for urging on--the bee-hive--however it seems to me that we should rather be the flower than the Bee--for it is a false notion that more is gained by receiving than giving--no, the receiver and the giver are equal in their benefits. The flower, I doubt not, receives a fair guerdon from the Bee--its leaves blush deeper in the next spring--and who shall say between Man and Woman which is the most delighted? Now it is more n.o.ble to sit like Jove than to fly like Mercury:--let us not therefore go hurrying about and collecting honey, {124} bee-like, buzzing here and there impatiently from a knowledge of what is to be arrived at. But let us open our leaves like a flower, and be pa.s.sive and receptive; budding patiently under the eye of Apollo and taking hints from every n.o.ble insect that favours us with a visit--Sap will be given us for meat, and dew for drink.

(_Letters_.)

THOMAS CARLYLE 1795-1881

THE FLIGHT TO VARENNES

One finds that in the second week in June Colonel de Choiseul is privately in Paris; having come "to see his children." Also that Fersen has got a stupendous new Coach built, of the kind named _Berline_; done by the first artists; according to a model: they bring it home to him, in Choiseul's presence; the two friends take a proof-drive in it, along the streets; in meditative mood; then send it up to "Madame Sullivan's, in the Rue de Clichy," far north, to wait there till wanted. Apparently a certain Russian Baroness de Korff, with Waiting-woman, Valet, and two Children, will travel homewards with some state: in whom these young military gentlemen take interest? A Pa.s.sport has been procured for her, and much a.s.sistance shewn, with Coachbuilders and such-like;--so helpful-polite are young military men. . . These are the Phenomena, or visual Appearances, of this wide-working terrestrial world: which truly is all phenomenal, what they call spectral; and never rests at any moment; one never at any moment can know why.

On Monday night, the Twentieth of June 1791, about eleven o'clock, there is many a hackney-coach and {125} gla.s.s-coach still rumbling or at rest on the streets of Paris. But of all gla.s.s-coaches we recommend this to thee, O Reader, which stands drawn up in the Rue de l'Ech.e.l.le, hard by the Carrousel and outgate of the Tuileries; in the Rue de l'Ech.e.l.le that then was, "opposite Ronsin the saddler's door," as if waiting for a fare there. Not long does it wait: a hooded Dame, with two hooded Children has issued from Villequier's door, where no sentry walks, into the Tuileries' Court-of-Princes; into the Carrousel; into the Rue de l'Ech.e.l.le; where the Gla.s.s-coachman readily admits them; and again waits. Not long; another Dame, likewise hooded or shrouded, leaning on a servant, issues in the same manner; bids the servant good-night; and is, in the same manner, by the Gla.s.s-coachman, cheerfully admitted. Whither go so many Dames? 'Tis his Majesty's _Couchee_, Majesty just gone to bed, and all the Palace-world is retiring home. But the Gla.s.s-coachman still waits; his fare seemingly incomplete.

By-and-by, we note a thickset Individual, in round hat and peruke, arm in arm with some servant, seemingly of the Runner or Courier sort; he also issues through Villequier's door; starts a s...o...b..ckle as he pa.s.ses one of the sentries, stoops down to clasp it again; is however, by the Gla.s.s-coachman, still more cheerfully admitted. And _now_, is his fare complete? Not yet; the Gla.s.s-coachman still waits.--Alas! and the false Chambermaid has warned Gouvion that she thinks the Royal Family will fly this very night; and Gouvion, distrusting his own glazed eyes, has sent express for Lafayette; and Lafayette's Carriage, flaring with lights, rolls this moment through the inner arch of the Carrousel,--where a Lady shaded in {126} broad gypsy-hat, and leaning on the arm of a servant, also of the Runner or Courier sort, stands aside to let it pa.s.s, and has even the whim to touch a spoke of it with her _badine_,--light little magic rod which she calls _badine_, such as the Beautiful then wore. The flare of Lafayette's carriage rolls past: all is found quiet in the Court-of-Princes; sentries at their post; Majesties' Apartments closed in smooth rest. Your false Chambermaid must have been mistaken? Watch thou, Gouvion, with Argus' vigilance; for of a truth treachery is within these walls.

But where is the Lady that stood aside in gypsy-hat, and touched the wheel-spoke with her _badine_? O Reader, that Lady that touched the wheel-spoke was the Queen of France! She has issued safe through that inner arch, into the Carrousel itself; but not into the Rue de l'Ech.e.l.le. Flurried by the rattle and rencounter, she took the right hand, not the left; neither she nor her Courier knows Paris; he is indeed no Courier, but a loyal stupid _ci-devant_ Body-guard disguised as one. They are off, quite wrong, over the Pont Royal and River; roaming disconsolate in the Rue du Bac; far from the Gla.s.s-coachman, who still waits. Waits, with flutter of heart; with thoughts--which he must b.u.t.ton close up, under his jarvie-surtout!

Midnight clangs from all the City-steeples; one precious hour has been spent so; most mortals are asleep. The Gla.s.s-coachman waits; and in what mood! A brother jarvie drives up, enters into conversation; is answered cheerfully in jarvie-dialect: the brothers of the whip exchange a pinch of snuff; decline drinking together; and part with good-night. Be the Heavens blest! here at length is the Queen-lady, in gypsy-hat; {127} safe after perils; who has had to enquire her way.

She too is admitted; her Courier jumps aloft, as the other, who is also a disguised Bodyguard, has done; and now, O Gla.s.s-coachman of a thousand,--Count Fersen, for the Reader sees it is thou,--drive!

Dust shall not stick to the heels of Fersen: crack! crack! The Gla.s.s-coach rattles, and every soul breathes lighter. But is Fersen on the right road? North-eastward, to the Barrier of Saint-Martin and Metz Highway, thither were we bound: and lo, he drives right Northward!

The royal Individual, in round hat and peruke, sits astonished; but right or wrong, there is no remedy. Crack, crack, we go incessant, through the slumbering City. Seldom, since Paris rose out of mud, or the Longhaired Kings went in bullock-carts, was there such a drive.

Mortals on each hand of you, close by, stretched out horizontal, dormant; and we alive and quaking! Crack, crack, through the Rue de Grammont; across the Boulevard; up the Rue de la Chaussee d'Antin,--these windows, all silent, of Number 42, were Mirabeau's.

Towards the Barrier, not of Saint-Martin, but of Clichy on the utmost north! Patience, ye royal Individuals; Fersen understands what he is about. Pa.s.sing up the Rue de Clichy, he alights for one moment at Madame Sullivan's: "Did Count Fersen's Coachman get the Baroness de Korff's new Berline?"--"Gone with it an hour and a half ago," grumbles responsive the drowsy Porter.--"_C'est bien_." Yes, it is well;--though had not such hour-and-half been _lost_, it were still better. Forth therefore, O Fersen, fast, by the Barrier de Clichy; then eastward along the Outer Boulevard, what horses and whipcord can do!

{128} Thus Fersen drives, through the ambrosial night. Sleeping Paris is now all on the right-hand of him; silent except for some snoring hum: and now he is eastward as far as the Barrier of Saint-Martin; looking earnestly for Baroness de Korff's Berline. This Heaven's Berline he at length does descry, drawn up with its six horses, his own German coachman waiting on the box. Right, thou good German: now haste, whither thou knowest!--And as for us of the Gla.s.s-coach, haste too, O haste; much time is already lost! The august Gla.s.s-coach fare, six Insides, hastily packs itself into the new Berline; two Body-guard Couriers behind. The Gla.s.s-coach itself is turned adrift, its head towards the City, to wander where it lists,--and be found next morning tumbled in a ditch. But Fersen is on the new box, with its brave new hammer-cloths; flouris.h.i.+ng his whip; he bolts forward towards Bondy.