Olla Podrida

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

A. Philosophy in a fashionable novel?

B. Most assuredly, 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 fashion, 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 assistance. 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. Recommence 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.

A. “‘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 villainous compound? It has been adulterated till nothing remains but its name. Get me another bath immediately à la violette; 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-by, recollect that his forehead, when you describe it, must be high and white as snow: all aristocratical foreheads are—at least, are in a fashionable 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 fashionable 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 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 fashionable 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 assiduous Coridon burning an aromatic pastille to disperse the compound of villainous 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 Twankay, the fragrant berry from the Asiatic shore, 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 glass of eau sucré.” 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 assistance.

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.

A (looking over his memoranda.)—It will do! (Hopping and dancing about the room.) Hurrah! my tailor’s bill will be paid after all!

Part II

Mr Arthur Ansard’s Chambers as before. Mr Ansard. with his eyes fixed upon the wig block, gnawing the feather end of his pen. The table, covered with sundry sheets of foolscap, show strong symptoms of the Novel progressing.

Ansard (solus)

Where is Barnstaple? If he do not come soon, I shall have finished my novel without a heroine. Well, I’m not the first person who has been foiled by a woman. (Continues to gnaw his pen in a brown study.)

Barnstaple enters unperceived, and slaps Ansard on the shoulder. The latter starts up.

B. So, friend Ansard, making your dinner off your pen: it is not every novel-writer who can contrive to do that even in anticipation. Have you profited by my instructions?

A. I wish I had. I assure you that this light diet has not contributed, as might be expected, to assist a heavy head, and one feather is not sufficient to enable my genius to take wing. If the public knew what dull work it is to write a novel, they would not be surprised at finding them dull reading. Ex nihilo nihil fit. Barnstaple, I am at the very bathos of stupidity.

B. You certainly were absorbed when I entered, for I introduced myself.

A. I wish you had introduced another personage with you—you would have been doubly welcome.

B. Who is that?

A. My heroine. I have followed your instructions to the letter. My hero is as listless as I fear my readers will be, and he is not yet in love. In fact, he is only captivated with himself. I have made him dismiss Coridon.

B. Hah! how did you manage that?

A. He was sent to ascertain the arms on the panel of a carriage. In his eagerness to execute his master’s wishes, he came home with a considerable degree of perspiration on his brow, for which offence he was immediately put out of doors.

B. Bravo—it was unpardonable—but still—

A. O! I know what you mean—that is all arranged; he has an annuity of one hundred pounds per annum.

B. My dear Ansard, you have exceeded my expectations; but now for the heroine.

A. Yes, indeed; help me—for I have exhausted all my powers.

B. It certainly requires much tact to present your heroine to your readers. We are unfortunately denied what the ancients were so happy to possess,—a whole cortège of divinities that might be summoned to help any great personage in, or the author out of, a difficulty; but since we cannot command their assistance, like the man in the play who forgot his part, we will do without it. Now, have you thought of nothing new, for we must not plagiarise even from fashionable novels?

A. I have thought—and thought—and can find nothing new, unless we bring her in in a whirlwind: that has not yet been attempted.

B. A whirlwind! I don’t know—that’s hazardous. Nevertheless, if she were placed on a beetling cliff, overhanging the tempestuous ocean, lashing the rocks with its wild surge; of a sudden, after she has been permitted to finish her soliloquy, a white cloud rising rapidly and unnoticed—the sudden vacuum—the rush of mighty winds through the majestic and alpine scenery—the vortex gathering round her—first admiring the vast efforts of nature; then astonished; and, lastly, alarmed, as she finds herself compelled to perform involuntary gyrations, till at length she spins round like a well-whipped top, nearing the dangerous edge of the precipice. It is bold, and certainly quite novel—I think it will do. Portray her delicate little feet, peeping out, pointing downwards, the force of the elements raising her on her tip toes, now touching, now disdaining the earth. Her dress expanded wide like that of Herbelé in her last and best pirouette—round, round she goes—her white arms are tossed frantically in the air. Corinne never threw herself into more graceful attitudes. Now is seen her diminishing ankle—now the rounded symmetry—mustn’t go too high up though—the wind increases—her distance from the edge of the precipice decreases—she has no breath left to shriek—no power to fall—threatened to be ravished by the wild and powerful god of the elements—she is discovered by the Honourable Augustus Bouverie, who has just finished his soliloquy upon another adjacent hill. He delights in her danger—before he rushes to her rescue, makes one pause for the purpose of admiration, and another for the purpose of adjusting his shirt collar.

A. The devil he does!

B. To be sure. The hero of a fashionable novel never loses caste. Whether in a storm, a whirlwind, up to his neck in the foaming ocean, or tumbling down a precipice, he is still the elegant and correct Honourable Augustus Bouverie. To punish you for your interruption, I have a great mind to make him take a pinch of snuff before he starts. Well—he flies to her assistance—is himself caught in the rushing vortex, which prevents him from getting nearer to the lady, and, despite of himself, takes to whirling in the opposite direction. They approach—they recede—she shrieks without being heard—holds out her arms for help—she would drop them in despair, but cannot, for they are twisted over her head by the tremendous force of the element. One moment they are near to each other, and the next they are separated; at one instant they are close to the abyss, and the waters below roar in delight of their anticipated victims, and in the next a favouring change of the vortex increases their distance from the danger—there they spin—and there you may leave them, and commence a new chapter.

A. But is not all this naturally and physically impossible?

B. By no means; there is nothing supernatural in a whirlwind, and the effect of a whirlwind is to twist everything round. Why should the heroine and the Honourable Augustus Bouverie not be submitted to the laws of nature? besides, we are writing a fashionable novel. Wild and improbable as this whirlwind may appear, it is within the range of probability: whereas, that is not at all adhered to in many novels—witness the drinking scene in —, and others equally outrées, in which the author, having turned probability out of doors, ends by throwing possibility out of the window—leaving folly and madness to usurp their place—and play a thousand antics for the admiration of the public, who, pleased with novelty, cry out “How fine!”

A. Buy the book, and laud the author.

B. Exactly. Now, having left your hero and heroine in a situation peculiarly interesting, with the greatest nonchalance, pass over to the continent, rave on the summit of Mont Blanc, and descant upon the strata which compose the mountains of the Moon in Central Africa. You have been philosophical, now you must be geological. No one can then say that your book is light reading.

A. That can be said of few novels. In most of them even smoke assumes the ponderosity of lead.

B. There is a metal still heavier, which they have the power of creating—gold—to pay a dunning tailor’s bill.

A. But after being philosophical and geological, ought one not to be a little moral.

B. Pshaw! I thought you had more sense. The great art of novel-writing is to make the vices glorious, by placing them in close alliance with redeeming qualities. Depend upon it, Ansard, there is a deeper, more heartfelt satisfaction that mere amusement in novel-reading; a satisfaction no less real, because we will not own it to ourselves; the satisfaction of seeing all our favourite and selfish ideas dressed up in a garb so becoming, that we persuade ourselves that our false pride is proper dignity, our ferocity courage, our cowardice prudence, our irreligion liberality, and our baser appetites, mere gallantry.

A. Very true, Barnstaple; but really I do not like this whirlwind.

B. Well, well! I give it up then: it was your own idea. We’ll try again. Cannot you create some difficulty or dilemma, in which to throw her, so that the hero may come to her rescue with éclat.

A. Her grey palfrey takes fright.

B. So will your readers; stale—quite stale!

A. A wild bull has his horns close to her, and is about to toss her.

B. As your book would be!—away with contempt. Vapid—quite vapid!

A. A shipwreck—the waves are about to close over her.

B. Your book would be closed at the same moment—worn out—quite worn out.

A. In the dead of the night, a fire breaks out—she is already in the midst of the flames—

B. Where your book would also be by the disgusted reader—worse and worse.

A. Confound it—you will not allow me to expose her to earth, air, fire, or water. I have a great mind to hang her in her garters, and make the hero come and cut her down.

B. You might do worse—and better.

A. What—hang myself?

B. That certainly would put an end to all your difficulties. But, Ansard, I think I can put your heroine in a situation really critical and eminently distressing, and the hero shall come to her relief, like the descent of a god to the rescue of a Greek or Trojan warrior.

A. Or of Bacchus to Ariadne in her distress.

B. Perhaps a better simile. The consequence will be, that eternal gratitude in the bosom of the maiden will prove the parent of eternal love, which eternity of passion will of course until they are married.

A. I’m all attention.

B. Get up a splendid dinner party for their first casual meeting. Place the company at table.

A. Surely you are not going to choke her with the bone of a chicken.

B. You surely are about to murder me, as Sampson did the Philistines—

A. With the jaw-bone of a fashionable novel-writer, you mean.

B. Exactly. But to proceed:– they are seated at table; can you describe a grand dinner?

A. Certainly, I have partaken of more than one.

B. Where?

A. I once sat down three hundred strong at the Freemasons’ Tavern.

B. Pshaw! a mere hog feed.

A. Well, then, I dined with the late lord mayor.

B. Still worse. My dear Ansard, it is however of no consequence. Nothing is more difficult to attain, yet nothing is more easy to describe, than a good dinner. I was once reading a very fashionable novel by a very fashionable bookseller, for the author is a mere nonentity, and was very much surprised at the accuracy with which a good dinner was described. The mystery was explained a short time afterwards, when casually taking up Eustache Eude’s book in Sams’s library, I found that the author had copied it out exactly from the injunctions of that celebrated gastronome. You can borrow the book.

A. Well, we will suppose that done; but I am all anxiety to know what is the danger from which the heroine is to be rescued.

B. I will explain. There are two species of existence—that of mere mortal existence, which is of little consequence, provided, like Caesar, the hero and heroine die decently: the other is of much greater consequence, which is fashionable existence. Let them once lose caste in that respect, and they are virtually dead, and one mistake, one oversight, is a death-blow for which there is no remedy, and from which there is no recovery. For instance, we will suppose our heroine to be quite confounded with the appearance of our hero—to have become distraite, rêveuse—and, in short, to have lost her recollection and presence of mind. She has been assisted to filet de soles. Say that the only sauce ever taken with them is au macédoine—this is offered to her, and, at the same time, another, which to eat with the above dish would be unheard of. In her distraction she is about to take the wrong sauce—actually at the point of ruining herself for ever and committing suicide upon her fashionable existence, while the keen grey eyes of Sir Antinous Antibes, the arbiter of fashion, are fixed upon her. At this awful moment, which is for ever to terminate her fashionable existence, the Honourable Augustus Bouverie, who sits next to her, gently touches her séduisante sleeve—blandly smiling, he whispers to her that the other is the sauce macédoine. She perceives her mistake, trembles at her danger, rewards him with a smile, which penetrates into the deepest recesses of his heart, helps herself to the right sauce, darts a look of contemptuous triumph upon Sir Antinous Antibes, and, while she is dipping her sole into the sauce, her soul expands with gratitude and love.

A. I see, I see. Many thanks; my heroine is now a fair counterpart of my hero.

    “Ah, sure a pair were never seen,    So justly form’d to meet by nature.”

B. And now I’ll give you another hint, since you appear grateful. It is a species of clap-trap in a novel, which always takes—to wit, a rich old uncle or misanthrope, who, at the very time that he is bitterly offended and disgusted with the hero, who is in awkward circumstances, pulls out a pocketbook and counts down, say fifteen or twenty thousand pounds in bank notes, to relieve him from his difficulties. An old coat and monosyllables will increase the interest.

A. True. (sighing.) Alas! there are no such uncles in real life; I wish there were.

B. I beg your pardon; I know no time in which my uncle forks out more bank notes than at present.

A. Yes, but it is for value, or more than value, received.

B. That I grant; but I am afraid it is the only “uncle” left now; except in a fashionable novel. But you comprehend the value of this new auxiliary.

A. Nothing can be better. Barnstaple, you are really —, but I say no more. If a truly great man cannot be flattered with delicacy, it must not be attempted at all; silence then becomes the best tribute. Your advice proves you to be truly great. I am silent, therefore you understand the full force of the oratory of my thanks.

B (bowing.) Well, Ansard, you have found out the cheapest way of paying off your bills of gratitude I ever heard of. “Poor, even in thanks,” was well said by Shakespeare; but you, it appears, are rich, in having nothing at all wherewith to pay. If you could transfer the same doctrine to your tradesmen, you need not write novels.

A. Alas! my dear fellow, mine is not yet written. There is one important feature, nay, the most important feature of all—the style of language, the diction—on that, Barnstaple, you have not yet doctrinated.

B (pompously.) When Demosthenes was asked what were the principal attributes of eloquence, he answered, that the first was action; on being asked which was the second, he replied, action; and the third, action; and such is the idea of the Irish mimbers in the House of Commons. Now there are three important requisites in the diction of a fashionable novel. The first, my dear fellow, is—flippancy; the second, flippancy; and flippancy is also the third. With the dull it will pass for wit, with some it will pass for scorn,—and even the witty will not be enabled to point out the difference, without running the risk of being considered invidious. It will cover every defect with a defect still greater; for who can call small beer tasteless when it is sour, or dull when it is bottled and has a froth upon it?