Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 425

REALLY! INDEED! IMPOSSIBLE!

During a prolonged summer sojourn with kind friends resident in a quiet country town, we became quite interested in the tactics of the neighbours, and acquainted with their social condition.

'I think we have almost exhausted our visiting round,' said our hostess, Mrs Smith, one morning, as she replenished her card-case, 'with the exception of Really, Indeed, and Impossible, to whom we must introduce you. You look puzzled! but I mean the three Misses Bonderlay, who are usually distinguished by these interjectional names. We will forthwith send them an invitation to tea this very evening, and they shall be their own etymologists.'

At the appointed hour, three ladies were ushered into the drawing-room, bearing so startling a resemblance to each other in person, manner, and costume, that we at once decided they must be trins. Not so, however; there was a year or two's difference in age between them, which rendered the strong resemblance more remarkable. They were tall, well-formed, plump ladies, of middle or uncertain age; with round, unmeaning faces, flaxen locks, and pale-blue eyes. There was not a perceptible thread or pucker different in their three dresses, which must have fitted all indiscriminately; the flaxen curls were arranged in precisely the same waves round each mealy countenance; and the neat caps, with bright-green ribbons, doubtless had the same exact quantity of tulle and gauze in their fashioning. Each sister owned a delicate work-basket—trinal baskets also; and in each receptacle reposed a similar square of worsted-work, the same to the last stitch. We heard the visitors named as Miss Bonderlay, Miss Paulina Bonderlay, and Miss Constantia Bonderlay; but that was of no use, since they were not ticketed, and our blunders became embarrassing and ludicrous. We addressed Miss Bonderlay as Miss Paulina, when the senior lady drew up with dignified composure, and pointing to a sister, said: 'I am Miss Bonderlay: that lady is Miss Paulina Bonderlay.' And so on with the other two, who explained that they were juniors, as they waved a lily hand towards their eldest sister, indicative of her supremacy. But as the evening advanced, we learned to distinguish them by a peculiarity of expression, which had gained for these amiable maidens the somewhat singular cognomens of Really! Indeed! and Impossible! for their conversation, if conversation it could be called, consisted almost wholly of these interjections, pronounced in an unvarying, monotonous voice, while no shadow of emotion was perceptible on the cloudless expanse of their unwrinkled physiognomies.

When they were addressed in the usual conversational appeal which demands a reply of some kind, Miss Bonderlay, sipping her tea, or bending over her work, softly ejaculated: 'Really!' If you turned to Miss Paulina for some more tangible announcement of her opinion, she responded, in precisely the same tone: 'Indeed!' And when, as a last resource, you looked towards Miss Constantia, the word 'Impossible!' and that word alone, fell in honeyed accents from her ruby lips. By this means they were easily distinguished; and their most intimate friends often failed to recognise which was which when apart, and sometimes even when they were together, until the talismanic syllables gave to each her individuality. The peculiarity gave rise to a little good-humoured ridicule; but for our part, we thought it quite wonderful how well they played their part in conversation with so small a stock of words. There is much pliability of meaning, however, in an interjection; and in company, where there are always several persons who are anxious to be heard, it is a positive virtue. In Miss Constantia's intonation of her favourite 'impossible!' it seemed to me that there mingled a dash of sadness, a kind of musical and melancholy cadence, which was followed by an unconscious absence of mind, evidencing the fact, that her thoughts were what is vulgarly termed 'wool-gathering.' On mentioning this impression to Mrs Smith, she complimented us on our keen observation, since, in truth, a tinge of the romantic did attach to the history of the fair Constantia; and she then sketched the following outline, leaving all details to be filled up by the imagination of the auditor:—

The Misses Bonderlay, it seems, had attained the age of womanhood, when, by the decease of their surviving parent, a man of high moral rectitude, but a stern disciplinarian, they were left in possession of a comfortable independence, fully equal to their moderate wants. They had been governed with such an iron rule, and treated as such absolute automata from their childhood, that when the hand of death released them from the despotic sway, its effects still continued apparent in the constraint which habit had rendered second nature. They continued to reside in their native town, only removing to a smaller house, and pursued undeviatingly the routine they had always been accustomed to—a routine which might well bear comparison, in its monotony and apathy, with that of monastic seclusion. Rumour, with her thousand tongues, had never singled out these vestal ladies as objects of matrimonial schemes; no suitors darkened their doors or disturbed their peace; they made no enemies, and, perhaps, no very enthusiastic friends. They listened to the gossip retailed by their neighbours, as in politeness bound, but the imperturbable 'Really!' Indeed!' and 'Impossible!' gave no encouragement to gossip: they never asked questions, never propagated reports, but listened and ejaculated, and ejaculated and listened, giving and receiving no offence. It never was positively ascertained whether the Misses Bonderlay conversed among themselves; but popular opinion maintained, that they did not, assigning the ill-natured reason, that they had nothing to say. Being neither oral inquirers nor readers, what could they have to talk about? Still, popular opinion is often wrong, and perhaps it was so in this instance. At anyrate, if they did not exchange confidential sentiments, quarrels were avoided; and smoothly the three fair sisters sailed down the troublous stream of time.

It was a great and stirring event in their tranquil lives, when a maternal uncle, as if to vindicate the fidelity of old romance, did actually return from India to his native land with a large fortune. Mr Elliston, a childless widower, took up his abode at a watering-place, and sent for his eldest niece, Miss Bonderlay. She promptly obeyed the summons, and of course it was generally reported, and with some colouring, that the bulk of the nabob's fortune would be hers if she 'played her cards well.' But she did not play her cards well, as the event turned out; for the old splenetic Indian tired very soon of the monotonous 'Really!'—the sole response to his wonderful narratives of tiger-hunting and Eastern marvels in general. At length, Mr Elliston bluntly gave his visitor to understand that he wished to see Miss Paulina; and poor, crestfallen Miss Bonderlay returned home, and Miss Paulina departed in her turn to fill the vacant place at the nabob's board. She remained a considerable time longer than her elder sister had done; and it was surmised that 'Indeed!' had proved more agreeable than 'Really!' But, alas! for human foresight and conjecture, the second Miss Bonderlay re-appeared in her native town for the purpose of despatching the third relief in the person of Miss Constantia. 'The young one will have a human tongue,' muttered the choleric Indian: 'I want a companion, not a parrot.' The poor gentleman never imagined that there could be three parrots in one family; and he naturally concluded, that his choice had fallen on the right niece at last.

When he found out his mistake—and we need hardly say that he was not long about that—his chagrin and consternation may be imagined. Indeed, had it not been for the presence of a certain Major George, there is no doubt that when he heard the sweet 'Impossible!' of Miss Constantia, he would instantly have consigned her to the banishment and oblivion of her sisters. But Major George's quiet influence restrained the threatened ebullition of wrath; though when his best stories and jokes after dinner were received with a gentle 'impossible!' which meant either 'really,' or 'indeed,' or anything else it might pass for, Uncle Elliston struck the table violently with his clenched hand, exclaiming in a passion: 'Impossible? madam—impossible? Do you mean to give me the lie? I tell you, the anecdote I have just related is perfectly possible, and, moreover, perfectly true. What do you mean by impossible? I hate impossibles. Nothing is impossible! Do you mean to insult me, madam—heigh?'

'Impossible, dear uncle—impossible!' meekly ejaculated the gentle fair, affrighted at such an unusual display of excitement; and it was fortunate that Major George called off her uncle's attention from poor Miss Constantia's unconscious delinquency.

Major George was an Indian crony of Uncle Elliston's; considerably younger, however, than the latter, and, as the spinsters remarked sententiously, only sallow enough to be interesting, and only old enough to be sedate! His purse was amply filled, and Major George was on the look-out for a wife; but being most painfully shy and sensitive, it seemed rather a doubtful case if he would succeed in his aspirings. With the nabob, Major George was an immense favourite; but except that they had hunted tigers together, there seemed no adequate reason for so strong a preference—the taciturnity of the one being as remarkable as the communicativeness of the other. Mr Elliston called George a 'good fellow,' and slapped his shoulder approvingly; and introduced him to Miss Constantia with sly and peculiar empressement. Major George's visit was prolonged, and Miss Constantia's visit was prolonged far beyond the period allotted to her sisters; and Uncle Elliston gradually ceased to rave at 'Impossible!' But a terrible climax approached, and how it came about no one ever knew: Major George set off for Paris early one fine morning, and Miss Constantia appeared at the breakfast-table with eyes red and swollen with weeping. The nabob insisted on knowing what was the matter, and why his favourite had taken flight so unceremoniously.

'You don't mean to say you've refused him, Niece Con?' cried her uncle, 'for I know he meant to make you an offer of his hand and heart.'

'O no, uncle, no!—impossible!' sobbed the weeping lady.

'Oh! deuce take your impossibles, Con Bonderlay. Tell me if the lad asked you to marry him, and what your answer was?'

She hesitated—looked up—looked down—looked startled; and then murmured, as if examining for the first time the word, as it slipped musically from between her lips, 'Impossible!'

'Well, Niece Con, I think you're said impossible once too often in your life, if this is to be the upshot. Come now, be candid and don't be a fool! Did you intend to refuse Major George?'

'Impossible!' was the reply; which, habitual as it was, burst forth this time in a passion of tears and blushes.

Mr Elliston always affirmed that he saw at a glance how the matter stood: that, in short, Major George had made a 'fool of himself.' The lady had not intended to reject him; but the major, from his shy, shamefaced nature, on hearing Miss Constantia's fatal 'impossible!' in reply to his love-suit, had flown from the scene of disappointment without an attempt at explanation. Acting on such a supposition (for mere supposition it remained, neither the lady nor gentleman making the slightest confession), Mr Elliston addressed his niece with more gentleness, a dash of pity mingling in his tone: 'Niece Constantia, I shall write to Major George, and bring him back again; but mind you don't say "impossible" a second time!'

However, Mr Elliston indulged in the fault of procrastination, which in him often led to results he did not anticipate: he rarely remembered that excellent maxim, which advises us never to postpone till to-morrow what can be performed as well to-day. To-morrow came, indeed; but with it also came an attack of gout, which incapacitated him from exertion for weeks: and scarcely was he convalescent, when a letter was put into his hands from the absentee, announcing the marriage of Major George with a very pretty and charming young lady. Mr Elliston handed the missive to his niece: she perused it in silence; but her uncle told Mrs Smith, in strict confidence, that he felt almost sure a tear fell on the paper. Be that as it might, shortly afterwards, when Mr Elliston signified his intention of inviting Major George, Major George's young bride, and the young bride's elder sister, to pay him a visit, Miss Constantia expressed a desire to return home. Her uncle acquiesced with rather too much alacrity for conventional politesse, exclaiming as he did so: 'I only hope, Niece Con, that George's wife won't be a "Dear me!" or a "Well, I never!" but a hearty, comfortable, chattering woman, with a will and a way of her own!'

Nor were Mr Elliston's hopes in this instance doomed to disappointment; for Mrs Major George had not only an actual tongue, but a way and a will of her own so decided, that ere the expiration of their visit, she succeeded in bringing about a union between the nabob and her elder sister. Some folks affirmed, that Mr Elliston came speedily to endure the flat contradictions of his wife with the humility of a broken spirit, and to speak with tender regret of his meek and inoffensive nieces. They, quiet souls, heard of their uncle the nabob's marriage without surprise, and without expressing emotion of any kind, beyond the 'Really!' 'Indeed!' and 'Impossible!' appertaining to each, as her distinguishing characteristic or mark of identity. When we first met the Misses Bonderlay, with their trinal baskets and squares of worsted-work, they were preparing a beautiful hearth-rug as a present for their uncle's wife, to be formed of these identical squares, with numerous others of a similar construction, and surrounded by a corresponding handsome border. Since that period, we have been favoured with exquisite specimens of their united industry; for the greatest pleasure of their lives consists in bestowing such-like gifts of handiwork on their friends and acquaintance.

But we have derived another benefit from our intercourse with the sisters. Whenever we find ourselves at a loss for an inoffensive reply, or are unwilling to pursue a discussion, we find a safe refuge in copying their harmless peculiarity; for, after all, the meaning of words depends very much on intonation: and we have not unfrequently had confirmed, by our own experience, the theory we have ventured to promulgate—that there is much virtue in such interjections as Really! Indeed! and Impossible!

THE GREAT AFGHAN BLUNDER

Every war is a blunder; every battle a blot of shame upon human nature; and the greatest wisdom a successful belligerent can shew, even when he has been forced into the fray by his beaten antagonist, is to get out of it as fast as he can. But some wars are viewed, not as they ought to be, as indications of the slow progress of the human race from barbarism, but through the medium of the lofty and chivalrous feelings of the resisting party, or the party which takes arms against oppression. Hence, war and glory have come to be associated in the vulgar mind; and hence the mere act of fighting is termed honourable, although it is obvious that, abstractedly, it should excite only feelings of shame. Even the late Afghan war is looked upon as a calamity, relieved throughout by flashes of heroism and gleams of success—a war which, rightly viewed, is either one of the greatest crimes, or one of the most stupendous blunders recorded in history!

This war, we observe, has already found a chronicler, and one peculiarly qualified, both by his knowledge and talent, to do justice to the subject.1 Although possessing all the essentials of history, however, the book has something more, and is therefore not strictly a history, in the conventional sense of the term; the text as well as the margin being burdened with letters, diaries, and documents of all kinds—the crude materials which it is the province of the historian to digest. The author, notwithstanding, has a clear historical head; his narrative, when he permits it to flow uninterrupted, is animated; his reflections generally philosophical; his summaries of individual character acute and distinct; and so peculiar have been his sources of information, that henceforward no man will sit down to write upon this era of the history of India, or of Central Asia, before carefully consulting the volumes of Mr Kaye.

These volumes, however, comprise between thirteen and fourteen hundred octavo pages, filled with hard names and minute details, and rendered more difficult by the unpardonable want of an index. Although a necessity, therefore, for the more respectable libraries, and a thing to be hoarded by all collectors as a work of reference, the book has little chance of being known to the mass of the public; and we propose, therefore, to arrange the few extracts we are able to give, in such a way as, with the aid of our own filling up, may convey to the general reader—what, we suspect, he has never received before—some distinct idea of one of the most fantastic tricks that ever made the angels weep.

There is no country in the world more secure from external invasion than India; but on the west, more especially, nature has interposed between her and the more civilised powers of Europe and Asia a succession of rivers, mountains, and deserts, absolutely impassable by an army of any formidable magnitude. Notwithstanding this, there had been long an uneasy feeling connected with the idea of the territorial aggrandisement of Russia, and of late years, by the desire manifested by that power to interfere in the affairs of Persia. In 1837-38, therefore, when a Persian army was before Herat, with Russian officers busy in the camp, it is no wonder that, to previously excited imaginations, the danger should have seemed to assume a tangible form. The principality of Herat, although on the other side of intervening deserts, extending for many hundred miles, was in itself a fertile and beautiful oasis, where a numerous army might be refreshed and provisioned, and established as on a vantage-ground. From thence the Persians, strengthened and officered by the Russians, might roll on towards Cabool, and there prepare for a descent upon India. This magnificent but terrible idea was not examined in its details—it was taken for granted as a thing not only possible but probable; and the far-distant region of Hindostan, separated as it was by deserts, mountains, and rivers from the tumult that agitated Central Asia, was stirred by conflicting feelings of terror and exultation. British India, from the Himalaya to the sea, is dotted here and there with native states, which the inconsistent policy of the Company in Leadenhall Street has preserved in a kind of liberty, as relics and remembrancers of a past régime. But besides these uncertain protégés, we had to look to the natives in our own provinces, who seemed to expect that something would happen—they knew not what, any more than their rulers. 'Among our Mussulman subjects,' says Mr Kaye, 'the feeling was somewhat akin to that which had unsettled their minds at the time when the rumoured advent of Zemaun Shah made them look for the speedy restoration of Mohammedan supremacy in Hindostan. In their eyes, indeed, the movement beyond the Afghan frontier took the shape of a Mohammedan invasion; and it was believed that countless thousands of true believers were about to pour themselves over the plains of the Punjab and Hindostan, and to wrest all the country between the Indus and the sea from the hands of the infidel usurpers. The Mohammedan journals, at this time, teemed with the utterances of undisguised sedition. There was a decline in the value of public securities; and it went openly from mouth to mouth, in the streets and the bazaars, that the Company's Raj was nearly at an end.'

Under these circumstances, it seemed necessary to look to the intervening country, Afghanistan, which in this summary manner was to be made a 'platform of observation' for the Perso-Russian army to prepare for its descent upon Hindostan. The Afghans were tribes of hardy mountaineers, inhabiting a wild and thinly-peopled country. They consisted of soldiers, husbandmen, and shepherds, all convertible, at a moment's notice, into thieves and bandits; and through their formidable defiles flowed an uncertain stream of commerce, connecting India with the distant provinces of Persia and Russia. So little was known of these mountaineers, that in the early part of this century, their prince, Shah Zemaun, was a formidable bugbear to the Indian Council, and nothing was thought of for a time but an invasion of the Afghans. In one of the sudden revolutions, however, so common in semi-barbarous states, this shah was taken captive, and his eyes punctured with a lancet—a summary act of deposition in the East, for a blind man cannot reign. Two of his brothers competed for the vacant throne; and notwithstanding the efforts of a famous king-making vizier, Futteh Khan, the prize fell for a time to the lot of him who is so well known to English readers by the name and style of Shah Soojah. But his incapacity was soon manifest. Sometimes a king, sometimes a bandit, and sometimes a fugitive subsisting by the sale of his jewels, his cause at length became altogether hopeless; and after being robbed of his last treasure, the Koh-i-Noor—as has already been detailed in this Journal2—he took refuge in the British territory.

Futteh Khan, the king-making vizier, had twenty brothers; but one of the younger fry he treated with especial neglect. 'The son of a woman of the Kuzzilbash tribe, looked down upon by the high-bred Douranee ladies of his father's household, the boy had begun life in the degrading office of a sweeper at the sacred cenotaph of Lamech. Permitted, at a later period, to hold a menial office about the person of the powerful Wuzeer, he served the great man with water, or bore his pipe; was very zealous in his ministrations; kept long and painful vigils; saw everything, heard everything in silence; bided his time patiently, and when the hour came, trod the stage of active life as no irresolute novice. A stripling of fourteen, in the crowded streets of Peshawur in broad day, as the buyers and the sellers thronged the thoroughfares of the city, he slew one of the enemies of Futteh Khan, and galloped home to report the achievement to the Wuzeer. From that time his rise was rapid. The neglected younger brother of Futteh Khan became the favourite of the powerful chief, and following the fortunes of the warlike minister, soon took his place among the chivalry of the Douranee Empire.'

The name of this youth is well known in the annals of our time: he was Dost Mahomed, a gay, bold, frank, daring character, who rose from the excesses of his early years into something resembling a hero of romance. One of these excesses was committed when he had taken by assault the Palace of Herat. It consisted in tearing the jewelled waistband from the person of the wife of one of the royal princes—a terrible outrage in the eyes of these barbarous soldiers of the farther East, who, even when covered with blood, and loaded with rapine, cast down their eyes before the females of their enemies' household. In this case, the profaned garment was sent by the lady to her brother, the son of the then Afghan king, and a bloody vengeance followed, not upon the author of the outrage, but on the king-making vizier, who, falling into the hands of the prince whom he had himself placed upon the throne, was literally hacked to pieces. Dost Mahomed now rose like a rocket. The base and feeble remains of legitimacy seemed to die away of its own weakness, and the despised younger son of the king-making vizier soon reigned supreme at Cabool. Let us note that this was in 1826. The new king, says Mr Kaye, 'had hitherto lived the life of a dissolute soldier. His education had been neglected, and in his very boyhood he had been thrown in the way of pollution of the foulest kind. From his youth, he had been greatly addicted to wine, and was often to be seen in public reeling along in a state of degrading intoxication, or scarcely able to keep his place in the saddle. All this was now to be reformed. He taught himself to read and to write, accomplishments which he had before, if at all, scantily possessed. He studied the Koran, abandoned the use of strong liquors, became scrupulously abstemious, plain in his attire, assiduous in his attention to business, urbane and courteous to all.' In 1833, Shah Soojah, issuing from the British territory, made an abortive attempt to recover his kingdom; but Runjeet Singh, the ruler of the Sikhs, was more successful in wresting from him Peshawur, a province of Afghanistan, and Dost Mahomed, both in rage and terror, began to look around him for a foreign alliance. His grand aim was to secure the friendship of the British; but this was scornfully refused. The governor-general, with exquisite irony, replied to his overture: 'My friend, you are aware that it is not the practice of the British government to interfere with the affairs of other independent states!' and a British envoy to Cabool, while refusing everything that was important for him to ask, kindly cautioned him to abstain from connecting himself with any other power.