Nightmare Abbey - Thomas Love Peacock (best classic books TXT) 📗

the library. Marionetta sat at the harp; the Honourable Mr. Listless sat by her and turned over her music, though the exertion was almost too much for him. The Reverend Mr. Larynx relieved him occasionally in this delightful labour. Scythrop, tormented by the demon Jealousy, sat in the corner biting his lips and fingers. Marionetta looked at him every now and then with a smile of most provoking good humour, which he pretended not to see, and which only the more exasperated his troubled spirit. He took down a volume of Dante, and pretended to be deeply interested in the Purgatorio, though he knew not a word he was reading, as Marionetta was well aware; who, tripping across the room, peeped into his book, and said to him, “I see you are in the middle of Purgatory.”

“I am in the middle of hell,” said Scythrop furiously.

“Are you?” said she; “then come across the room, and I will sing you the finale of Don Giovanni.”

“Let me alone,” said Scythrop.

Marionetta looked at him with a deprecating smile, and said, “You unjust, cross creature, you.”

“Let me alone,” said Scythrop, but much less emphatically than at first, and by no means wishing to be taken at his word.

Marionetta left him immediately, and returning to the harp, said, just loud enough for Scythrop to hear⁠—“Did you ever read Dante, Mr. Listless? Scythrop is reading Dante, and is just now in Purgatory.”

“And I,” said the Honourable Mr. Listless, “am not reading Dante, and am just now in Paradise,” bowing to Marionetta.

Marionetta

You are very gallant, Mr. Listless; and I dare say you are very fond of reading Dante.

The Honourable Mr. Listless

I don’t know how it is, but Dante never came in my way till lately. I never had him in my collection, and if I had had him I should not have read him. But I find he is growing fashionable, and I am afraid I must read him some wet morning.

Marionetta

No, read him some evening, by all means. Were you ever in love, Mr. Listless?

The Honourable Mr. Listless

I assure you, Miss O’Carroll, never⁠—till I came to Nightmare Abbey. I dare say it is very pleasant; but it seems to give so much trouble that I fear the exertion would be too much for me.

Marionetta

Shall I teach you a compendious method of courtship, that will give you no trouble whatever?

The Honourable Mr. Listless

You will confer on me an inexpressible obligation. I am all impatience to learn it.

Marionetta

Sit with your back to the lady and read Dante; only be sure to begin in the middle, and turn over three or four pages at once⁠—backwards as well as forwards, and she will immediately perceive that you are desperately in love with her⁠—desperately.

The Honourable Mr. Listless sitting between Scythrop and Marionetta, and fixing all his attention on the beautiful speaker, did not observe Scythrop, who was doing as she described. The Honourable Mr. Listless

You are pleased to be facetious, Miss O’Carroll. The lady would infallibly conclude that I was the greatest brute in town.

Marionetta

Far from it. She would say, perhaps, some people have odd methods of showing their affection.

The Honourable Mr. Listless

But I should think, with submission⁠—

Mr. Flosky

Joining them from another part of the room. Did I not hear Mr. Listless observe that Dante is becoming fashionable?

The Honourable Mr. Listless

I did hazard a remark to that effect, Mr. Flosky, though I speak on such subjects with a consciousness of my own nothingness, in the presence of so great a man as Mr. Flosky. I know not what is the colour of Dante’s devils, but as he is certainly becoming fashionable I conclude they are blue; for the blue devils, as it seems to me, Mr. Flosky, constitute the fundamental feature of fashionable literature.

Mr. Flosky

The blue are, indeed, the staple commodity; but as they will not always be commanded, the black, red, and grey may be admitted as substitutes. Tea, late dinners, and the French Revolution, have played the devil, Mr. Listless, and brought the devil into play.

Mr. Toobad

Starting up.

Having great wrath.

Mr. Flosky

This is no play upon words, but the sober sadness of veritable fact.

The Honourable Mr. Listless

Tea, late dinners, and the French Revolution. I cannot exactly see the connection of ideas.

Mr. Flosky

I should be sorry if you could; I pity the man who can see the connection of his own ideas. Still more do I pity him, the connection of whose ideas any other person can see. Sir, the great evil is, that there is too much commonplace light in our moral and political literature; and light is a great enemy to mystery, and mystery is a great friend to enthusiasm. Now the enthusiasm for abstract truth is an exceedingly fine thing, as long as the truth, which is the object of the enthusiasm, is so completely abstract as to be altogether out of the reach of the human faculties; and, in that sense, I have myself an enthusiasm for truth, but in no other, for the pleasure of metaphysical investigation lies in the means, not in the end; and if the end could be found, the pleasure of the means would cease. The mind, to be kept in health, must be kept in exercise. The proper exercise of the mind is elaborate reasoning. Analytical reasoning is a base and mechanical process, which takes to pieces and examines, bit by bit, the rude material of knowledge, and extracts therefrom a few hard and obstinate things called facts, everything in the shape of which I cordially hate. But synthetical reasoning, setting up as its goal some unattainable abstraction, like an imaginary quantity in algebra, and commencing its course with taking for granted some two assertions which cannot be proved, from the union of these two assumed truths produces a third assumption, and so on in infinite series, to the unspeakable benefit of the human intellect. The beauty of this process is, that at every step it strikes out into two branches, in a compound ratio of ramification; so that you are perfectly sure of