Olla Podrida - Фредерик Марриет 8 стр.

And now that I have made known to my fraternity that we also have a saint, all they have to do is to call upon him six or seven times, when their brains are at sixes and sevens. I opine that holy Saint Brandon made a very hazard-ous voyage, for it is quite clear that, in the whole arrangement, it wassevens the main.

Chapter Thirteen

Passed Waterloowas informed that two days before the Marquis of Anglesey had arrived there, and stayed a short time to visit the cemetery of his leg; a regular family visit of course, as all the members were present.

Slept at Namur. The French are certainly superior to us in the art of rendering things agreeable. Now, even in the furnishing of a common apartment, there is always something to relieve the eye, if not to interest you. I recollect when I was last in London, in furnished apartments, that as I lay awake in the morning, my eye caught the pattern of the paper. It was a shepherdess with her dog in repose, badly executed, and repeated without variation over the whole apartment. Of course I had nothing to do but to calculate how many shepherdesses and dogs there were in the room, which, by counting the numbers in length and breadth, squaring the results, and deducting for door and windows, was soon accomplished. But how different was the effect produced by the paper of the room in which I slept last night! It was the history of Dunois, the celebrated bastard of France, who prays in his youth that he may prove the bravest of the brave, and be rewarded with the fairest of the fair. This was not the true history, perhaps, of Dunois; but I am drawing the comparison between the associations and reminiscences conjured up by this decoration in opposition to the dull and tasteless recapitulation of the English manufacture. From the latter I could not extract a bare idea, except that shepherdesses are, as a race, extinct, and that Lord Althorp had taken the tax off shepherds dogs, by way of a bonus, to relieve a distressed capital of some hundred millions, to which the agricultural interest had very properly replied, Thank you for nothing, my Lord; but from the sight of the French paper what a host of recollections started up at the moment! The mind flew back to history, and was revelling in all the romance of chivalry, from King Arthur and his Knights, to the Field of the Cloth of Gold.

Yet, after all, thought I, at the end of a long reverie, divest chivalry, so called, of its imposing effect, examine well into its nature and the manners of the times, and it must be acknowledged that the modern warfare has a much greater claim than the ancient to the title of chivalry. In former times men were cased in armour of proof, and, before the discovery of gunpowder, had little to fear in a mélée, except from those who, like themselves, were equally well armed and equally protected, and even then only from flesh wounds, which were seldom mortal. The lower classes, who served as common soldiers, were at the mercy of the mounted spearsmen, and could seldom make any impression upon their defences. In those days, as in the present, he who could command most gold carried the day, for the gold procured the steel harness, and a plump of spears brought into the field was more than equal to a thousand common men. He who had the best tempered armour was the most secure, and that was it be only procured by gold. He who could mount and case in iron the largest number of his followers was the most powerful, and, generally speaking, the most lawless. Divest chivalry of its splendour, which threw a halo round it, and it was brutal, and almost cowardly. Single combats did certainly prove courage; but even in them, skill, and more than skill, personal strength, or the best horse, decided the victory. In fact, although not the origin, it was the upholder of the feudal system, in which might was right; and we may add, that the invention of gunpowder, which placed every man upon a level, if not the cause of, certainly much assisted to break up the system. How much more of the true spirit of chivalry is required in the warfare of the present day, in which every man must stand for hours to be shot at like a target, witnessing the mowing down of his comrades, and silently filling up the intervals in the ranks made by their deaths, exposed to the same leaden messengers; a system of warfare in which every individual is a part of a grand whole, acting upon one concerted and extended plan, and forced a hundred times to exhibit the passive and more perfect bravery of constancy, for once that he may forget his danger in the ardour of the charge! When shall we learn to call things by their right names?

Our landlord is a most loyal man, but there is a reason for it. Leopold took up his quarters at this hotel in his way to Spa. In every room we have upon every article of fayenceLeopold, with the Genius of Belgium crowning him with laurels, while Truth is looking on. Every plate, every dish, is impressed with this proof print of loyalty. But this is not all, as the man said in the packet, Oh, no! All the wash-hand basins, jugs, and every other article required in a bed-chamber, have the same loyal pattern at the bottom. Now it appeared to me, when I went to bed, that loyalty might be carried too far; and what may have been intended as respect, may be the cause of his Majesty being treated with the greatest disrespect; and not only his sacred Majesty, but the glorious Belgian constitution also. As for poor Truth, she is indeed said to sojourn at the bottom of a well; but in this instance, it would, perhaps, be as well that she should not be insultedI am wrong, she always is, and always will be, insulted, when she appears in the purlieus of a court, or in the presence of a king.

After all, mine is a strange sort of Diary. It is not a diary of events, but of thoughts and reminiscences, which are thrown up and caught as they float to the surface in the whirlpool of my brain. No wonder!events are but as gleanings compared to the harvest of many years, although so negligently gathered into store. I have been puzzling myself these last two hours to find out what a mans brain is like. It is like a kaleidoscope, thought I; it contains various ideas of peculiar colours, and as you shift them round and past, you have a new pattern every moment. But no, it was not like a kaleidoscope, for the patterns of a kaleidoscope are regular, and there is very little regularity in my brain, at all events.

It is like a pawnbrokers shop, thought I, full of heterogeneous pledges; and if you would take anything out, experience stands at the counter, and makes you pay her compound interest, while many articles of value are lost for ever, because memory cannot produce the duplicate.

And then I compared it to almost every thing, but none of my comparisons would hold good. After all, thought I, I have been only playing at What are my thoughts like? which is a childish game; and how can I possibly find out what my brain is like, when my brain dont choose to tell? So I rose, and opening the window, lighted my cigar, and smoked myself into a reverie, as I watched the smoke ascending from the chimneys of the good town of Liege.

And this is the city which travellers pass through, describing it as a mere manufacturing town, thought I. A city which has, in its time, produced a greater moral influence upon society than any other in existencea city that has led the van in the cause of religion and liberty. Liege presents a curious anomaly among the states of Europe. It is the only town and province, with the exception of Rome, which has been, for centuries, ruled by the clerical power. But be it recollected, that at the very period that Christianity was offering up her martyrs at the blood-stained arena of the Coliseum, it was from Liege (or rather Tongres, for Liege was not then built) that she was spreading wide her tenets, unpersecuted and unrestrained, for she was too far removed from idolatry and imposture to be regarded. The province of Liege was the cradle of the Christian faith. From the earliest records there were bishops at Tongres; and it was about five hundred years after Christ, that Saint Monulphe, the reigning bishop, founded the city of Liege. From that time until the French Revolution, this town and these fertile provinces had always remained under clerical authority.

And then I compared it to almost every thing, but none of my comparisons would hold good. After all, thought I, I have been only playing at What are my thoughts like? which is a childish game; and how can I possibly find out what my brain is like, when my brain dont choose to tell? So I rose, and opening the window, lighted my cigar, and smoked myself into a reverie, as I watched the smoke ascending from the chimneys of the good town of Liege.

And this is the city which travellers pass through, describing it as a mere manufacturing town, thought I. A city which has, in its time, produced a greater moral influence upon society than any other in existencea city that has led the van in the cause of religion and liberty. Liege presents a curious anomaly among the states of Europe. It is the only town and province, with the exception of Rome, which has been, for centuries, ruled by the clerical power. But be it recollected, that at the very period that Christianity was offering up her martyrs at the blood-stained arena of the Coliseum, it was from Liege (or rather Tongres, for Liege was not then built) that she was spreading wide her tenets, unpersecuted and unrestrained, for she was too far removed from idolatry and imposture to be regarded. The province of Liege was the cradle of the Christian faith. From the earliest records there were bishops at Tongres; and it was about five hundred years after Christ, that Saint Monulphe, the reigning bishop, founded the city of Liege. From that time until the French Revolution, this town and these fertile provinces had always remained under clerical authority.

Although these prince-bishops proved that, upon necessity, they could change the crosier for the coat of mail, still, as by endowments and benefactions they increased their revenues, so did they, by the mildness of their sway, induce thousands to settle in their territory; and to increase their population (which was to increase their wealth), they first granted to their citizens those privileges and liberties, which have, upon their precedent, been obtained by force or prayers by others. The very boast of the English of the present day, that every mans house is his castle, was the sacred grant of one of the bishops to the citizens at Liege, long before the feudal system had been abolished in our island.

I may also observe, for it is to be gained from the chronicles of this province, that the time at which it may be said that the primitive Christian church first fell into error, appears to have been about one thousand years after the death of our Saviour. And as I thought of all this, and a great deal more, and smoked my cigar, I felt a great deal of respect for the good old city of Liege; and then I wandered back to the country I had passed through the day before, excelling in all lovely scenery. I had seen it before, but it was many years ago; and it may be seen many times without the least degree of satiety. I do not know any scenery which raises up such pleasurable sensations as that of the Valley of Meuse, taking it the whole way from Namur to Liege, and from Liege to Spa. It is not so magnificent as the Rhine, to which it bears a miniature resemblance. It is not of that description creating a strong excitement, almost invariably succeeded by depression; but it is of that unchanging and ever-pleasing, joyous description, that you are delighted without being fatigued, and have stimulus sufficient to keep you constantly in silent admiration without demanding so much from the senses as to weary them. If I could have divested myself from the knowledge that I was in motion, and have fancied that the scene was moving past, I could have imagined myself seated at one of our large theatres, watching one of Stanfields splendid panoramas. But the lighted end of my cigar at last approximated so near to my nose, that I was burnt out of my reverie; I took the last saveall whiffs, tried to hit an old womans cap with the end of it, as I tossed it into the street, and retreated to the diurnal labour of shavingof all human miseries, certainly, the unkindest cut of allespecially when the maids have borrowed your razor, during your absence, to pare down the apex of their corns.

Chapter Fourteen

I have been reading the Salmonia of Sir Humphry Davy: what a pity it is that he did not write more! there are so many curious points started in it. I like that description of book, which, after reading a while, you drop it on your knee, and are led into a train of thought which may last an hour, before you look for the page where you left off. There are two cases argued in this work, which led me into a meditation. The one is, a comparison between reason and instinct, and the other, as to the degree of pain inflicted upon fish by taking them with the hook. Now it appeared to me, in the first question, what has been advanced is by no means conclusive, and although it is the custom to offer a penny for your thoughts, I shall give mine for nothing, which is perhaps as much as they are worth, (I say that, to prevent others from making the sarcastic remark), and in the second question, I think I can assist the cause of the lovers of the gentle art of anglingwhy gentle, I know not, unless it be that anglers bait with gentles, and are mostly gentle-men.

But before I attempt to prove that angling is not a cruel sport, I must first get rid of reason and instinct. Of reason most undoubtedly a philanthropist would reply, Be it so; nevertheless, I will argue the point, and if I do not succeed, I have only to hedge back upon Solomon, and inquire, If man was born to misery as the sparks fly upwards, why are not the inferior classes of creation to have their share of it?

I do not think that any one can trace out the line of demarcation between reason and instinct. Instinct in many points in wonderful, especially among insects, but where it is wonderful, it is a blind obedience, and inherited from generation to generation. We observe, as in the case of the bees, that they obey the truest laws of mathematics, and from these laws they never have deviated from their creation, and that all animals, as far as their self-defence or their sustenance is concerned, show a wonderful blind obedience to an unerring power, and a sagacity almost superior to reason. But wonderful as this is, it is still but instinct, as the progenitors of the race were equally guided by it, and it is handed down without any improvement, or any decay in its power. Now if it could be asserted that the instinct of animals was only thus inherited from race to race, and could go no farther, the line of demarcation between reason and instinct would at once be manifest, as instinct would be blindly following certain fixed laws, while reason would ever be assisted by memory and invention. But we have not this boasted advantage on the side of reason, for animals have both memory and invention, and, moreover, if they have not speech, they have equal means of communicating their ideas. That this memory and invention cannot be so much exercised as our own, may be true, but it is exercised to an extent equal to their wants, and they look no further; that is to say, that if any want not prepared for, or anything should take place interfering with their habits and economy, instinct will enable them to meet the difficulty. There is nothing more wonderful than the application of mechanical power by ants. No engineer could calculate with greater nicety, and no set of men work together with such combination of force. After they have made ineffectual attempts to remove a heavy body, you will observe them to meet together, consult among themselves, and commence an entire new plan of operations. Bees, also, are always prepared to meet any new difficulty. If the sphinx atropos, or deaths head moth, forces its way into the hive, the bees are well known, after having killed it with their stings, to embalm the dead body with waxtheir reason for this is, that the body was too large for them to remove through the passage by which it entered, and they would avoid the unpleasant smell of the carcass. It may be argued, that instinct had always imparted to them this knowledge; but if so, they must have had a fresh accession of instinct after they had been domiciled with men: for it is well known that the hole in the tree, in which the wild bees form their cells, is invariably too small to admit any animal larger than themselves, and the bodies of such sized animals they could remove with as much ease as they do the bodies of their own dead.