Olla Podrida Part 50

_A._ But he's not coming in from a walk--he's not yet out of bed.

_B._ You don't understand it.--"Gloved left hand he applied a gentle friction to the portal of his right eye, which unclosing at the silent summons, enabled him to perceive a repeater studded with brilliants, and ascertain the exact minute of time, which we have already made known to the reader, and at which our history opens."

_A._ A very grand opening indeed!

_B._ Not more than it ought to be for a fas.h.i.+onable novel.--"At the sound of a silver _clochette_, his faithful Swiss valet Coridon, who had for some time been unperceived at the door, waiting for some notice of his master, having thrown off the empire of Somnus, in his light pumps, covered with beaver, moved with noiseless step up to the bedside, like the advance of eve stealing over the face of nature."

_A._ Rather an incongruous simile.

_B._ Not for a fas.h.i.+onable novel.--"There he stood, like Taciturnity bowing at the feet of proud Authority."

_A._ Indeed, Barnstaple, that is too _outre_.

_B._ Not a whit: I am in the true "Cambysis' vein."--"Coridon having softly withdrawn the rose-coloured gros de Naples bed-curtains, which by some might have been thought to have been rather too extravagantly fringed with the finest Mechlin lace, exclaimed with a tone of tremulous deference and affection, '_Monsieur a bien dormi?_' 'Coridon,' said the Honourable Augustus Bouverie, raising himself on his elbow in that eminently graceful att.i.tude, for which he was so remarkable when reclining on the ottomans at Almack's----"

_A._ Are you sure they have ottamans there?

_B._ No; but your readers can't disprove it.--"'Coridon,' said he, surveying his attendant from head to foot, and ultimately a.s.suming a severity of countenance, 'Coridon, you are becoming gross, if not positively what the people call _fat_.' The Swiss attendant fell back in graceful astonishment three steps, and arching his eyebrows, extending his inverted palms forward, and raising his shoulders above the apex of his head, exclaimed, '_Pardon, mi lor, j'en aurois un horreur parfait._'

'I tell you,' replied our gracefully rec.u.mbent hero, 'that it is so, Coridon; and I ascribe it to your partiality for that detestable wine called Port. Confine yourself to Hock and Moselle, sirrah: I fear me, you have a base hankering after mutton and beef. Restrict yourself to salads, and do not sin even with an omelette more than once a week.

Coridon must be visionary and diaphanous, or he is no Coridon for me.

Remove my night-gloves, and a.s.sist me to rise: it is past four o'clock, and the sun must have, by this time, sufficiently aired this terrestrial globe.'"

_A._ I have it now; I feel I could go on for an hour.

_B._ Longer than that, before you get him out of his dressing-room. You must make at least five chapters before he is apparelled, or how can you write a fas.h.i.+onable novel, in which you cannot afford more than two incidents in the three volumes? Two are absolutely necessary for the editor of the ---- Gazette to extract as specimens, before he winds up an eulogy. Do you think that you can proceed now for a week, without my a.s.sistance?

_A._ I think so, if you will first give me some general ideas. In the first place, am I always to continue in this style?

_B._ No; I thought you knew better. You must throw in patches of philosophy every now and then.

_A._ Philosophy in a fas.h.i.+onable novel?

_B._ Most a.s.suredly, or it would be complained of as trifling; but a piece, now and then, of philosophy, as unintelligible as possible, stamps it with deep thought. In the dressing-room, or boudoir, it must be occasionally Epicurean; elsewhere, especially in the open air, more Stoical.

_A._ I'm afraid that I shall not manage that without a specimen to copy from. Now I think of it, Eugene Aram says something very beautiful on a starry night.

_B._ He does: it is one of the most splendid pieces of writing in our language. But I will have no profanation, Arthur;--to your pen again, and write. We'll suppose our hero to have retired from the crowded festivities of a ball-room at some lordly mansion in the country, and to have wandered into a churchyard, damp and dreary with a thick London fog. In the light dress of fas.h.i.+on, he throws himself on a tombstone.

"Ye dead!" exclaims the hero, "where are ye? Do your disembodied spirits now float around me, and, shrouded in this horrible veil of nature, glare unseen upon vitality? Float ye upon this intolerable mist, in yourselves still more misty and intolerable? Hold ye high jubilee to-night? or do ye crouch behind these monitorial stones, gibbering and chattering at one who dares thus to invade your precincts? Here may I hold communion with my soul, and, in the invisible presence of those who could, but dare not to reveal. Away! it must not be."

_A._ What mustn't be?

_B._ That is the mystery which gives the point to his soliloquy. Leave it to the reader's imagination.

_A._ I understand. But still the Honourable Augustus cannot lie in bed much longer, and I really shall not be able to get him out without your a.s.sistance. I do not comprehend how a man can get out of bed _gracefully_; he must show his bare legs, and the alteration of position is in itself awkward.

_B._ Not half so awkward as you are. Do you not feel that he must not be got out of bed at all--that is, by description.

_A._ How then?

_B._ By saying nothing about it. Re-commence as follows:--"'I should like the bath at seventy-six and a half, Coridon,' observed the Honourable Augustus Bouverie, as he wrapped his embroidered dressing-gown round his elegant form, and sank into a _chaise longue_, wheeled by his faithful attendant to the fire." There, you observe, he is out of bed, and nothing said about it.

_A._ Go on, I pray thee.

_B._ "'How is the bath perfumed?' '_Eau de mille fleurs._' '_Eau de mille fleurs!_ Did not I tell you last week that I was tired of that villanous compound? It has been adulterated till nothing remains but its name. Get me another bath immediately _au violet_; and, Coridon, you may use that other scent, if there is any left, for the poodle; but observe, only when _you_ take him an airing, not when he goes with _me_.'"

_A._ Excellent! I now feel the real merits of an exclusive; but you said something about dressing-room, or in-door philosophy.

_B._ I did; and now is a good opportunity to introduce it. Coridon goes into the ante-chamber to renew the bath, and of course your hero has met with a disappointment in not having the bath to his immediate pleasure.

He must press his hands to his forehead. By-the-bye, recollect that his forehead, when you describe it, must be high and white as snow: all aristocratical foreheads are--at least, are in a fas.h.i.+onable novel.

_A._ What! the women's and all?

_B._ The heroine's must be; the others you may lower as a contrast. But to resume with the philosophy. He strikes his forehead, lifts his eyes slowly up to the ceiling, and drops his right arm as slowly down by the side of the _chaise longue_; and then in a voice so low that it might have been considered a whisper, were it not for its clear and brilliant intonation, he exclaims----

_A._ Exclaims in a whisper!

_B._ To be sure; you exclaim mentally,--why should you not in a whisper?

_A._ I perceive--your argument is unanswerable.

_B._ Stop a moment; it will run better thus:--"The Honourable Augustus Bouverie no sooner perceived himself alone, than he felt the dark shades of melancholy ascending and brooding over his mind, and enveloping his throbbing heart in their--their _adamantine_ chains. Yielding to the overwhelming force, he thus exclaimed, 'Such is life--we require but one flower, and we are offered noisome thousands--refused that we wish, we live in loathing of that not worthy to be received--mourners from our cradle to our grave, we utter the shrill cry at our birth, and we sink in oblivion with the faint wail of terror. Why should we, then, ever commit the folly to be happy?'"

_A._ Hang me, but that's a poser!

_B._ Nonsense! hold your tongue; it is only preparatory to the end.

"Conviction astonishes and torments--destiny prescribes and falsifies--attraction drives us away--humiliation supports our energies. Thus do we recede into the present, and shudder at the Elysium of posterity."

_A._ I have written all that down, Barnstaple; but I cannot understand it, upon my soul!

_B._ If you had understood one particle, that particle I would have erased. This is your true philosophy of a fas.h.i.+onable novel, the extreme interest of which consists in its being unintelligible. People have such an opinion of their own abilities, that if they understood you, they would despise you; but a dose like this strikes them with veneration for your talents.

_A._ Your argument is unanswerable; but you said that I must describe the dressing-room.

_B._ Nothing more easy; as a simile, compare it to the shrine of some favoured saint in a richly-endowed Catholic church. Three tables at least, full of materials in methodised confusion--all tending to the beautification of the human form divine. Tinted perfumes in every variety of cut crystal receivers, gold and silver. If at a loss, call at Bayley's and Blew's, or Smith's in Bond Street. Take an accurate survey of all you see, and introduce your whole catalogue. You cannot be too minute. But, Arthur, you must not expect me to write the whole book for you.

_A._ Indeed I am not so exorbitant in my demands upon your good-nature; but observe, I may get up four or five chapters already with the hints you have given me, but I do not know how to move such a creation of the brain--so ethereal, that I fear he will melt away; and so fragile, that I am in terror lest he fall to pieces. Now only get him into the breakfast-room for me, and then I ask no more for the present. Only dress him, and bring him _down stairs_.

_B._ There again you prove your incapability. Bring him down stairs!

Your hero of a fas.h.i.+onable novel never ascends to the first floor.

Bed-room, dressing-room, breakfast-room, library, and boudoir, all are upon a level. As for his dressing, you must only describe it as perfect when finished; but not enter into a regular detail, except that, in conversation with his valet, he occasionally asks for something unheard-of, or fastidious to a degree. You must not walk him from one chamber to another, but manage it as follows:--"It was not until the beautiful airs of the French clock that decorated the mantel-piece had been thrice played, with all their variations, that the Honourable Augustus Bouverie entered his library, where he found his a.s.siduous Coridon burning an aromatic pastile to disperse the compound of villanous exhalations arising from the condensed metropolitan atmosphere. Once more in a state of repose, to the repeated and almost affecting solicitations of his faithful attendant, who alternately presented to him the hyson of Pekoe, the bohea of Tw.a.n.kay, the fragrant berry from the Asiatic sh.o.r.e, and the frothing and perfumed decoction of the Indian nut, our hero shook his head in denial, until he at last was prevailed upon to sip a small liqueur gla.s.s of _eau sucree_." The fact is, Arthur, he is in love--don't you perceive? Now introduce a friend, who rallies him--then a resolution to think no more of the heroine--a billet on a golden salver--a counter resolution--a debate which equipage to order--a decision at last--hat, gloves, and furred great-coat--and by that time you will have arrived to the middle of the first volume.

_A._ I perceive; but I shall certainly stick there without your a.s.sistance.

_B._ You shall have it, my dear fellow. In a week I will call again, and see how you get on. Then we'll introduce the heroine; that, I can tell you, requires some tact--_au revoir._

_A._ Thanks, many thanks, my dear Barnstaple. Fare you well.

[_Exit Barnstaple._