Delphi complete works of.., p.625
Delphi Complete Works of Stephen Leacock, page 625
FRANCIS BRET HARTE (1836-1902) in his Condensed Novels not only parodied the form of the leading European writers, but at the same time satirized the life and thought they represented. The following tale called Lothaw is a parody of Disraeli’s Lothair, a fact which is quite immaterial. It can stand by itself as a parody on England.
LOTHAW;
OR, THE ADVENTURES OF A YOUNG GENTLEMAN IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION.
BY MR. BENJAMINS.
[“What causes young people to ‘come out,’ but the noble ambition of matrimony? What sends them trooping to watering-places? What keeps them dancing till five o’clock in the morning through a whole mortal season? What causes them to labour at pianoforte sonatas, and to learn four songs from a fashionable master at a guinea a lesson, and to play the harp if they have handsome arms and neat elbows, and to wear Lincoln Green toxophilite hats and feathers, but that they may bring down some ‘desirable’ young man with those killing bows and arrows of theirs?” — THACKERAY.]
CHAPTER I
I REMEMBER HIM a little boy,” said the Duchess. “His mother was a dear friend of mine; you know, she was one of my bridesmaids.”
“And you have never seen him since, mamma?” asked the oldest married daughter, who did not look a day older than her mother.
“Never; he was an orphan shortly after. I have often reproached myself, but it is so difficult to see boys.”
This simple yet first-class conversation existed in the morning-room of Plusham, where the mistress of the palatial mansion sat involved in the sacred privacy of a circle of her married daughters.
One dexterously applied golden knitting-needles to the fabrication of a purse of floss silk of the rarest texture, which none who knew the almost fabulous wealth of the Duke would believe was ever destined to hold in its silken meshes a less sum than £1,000,000 sterling; another adorned a slipper exclusively with seed pearls; a third emblazoned a page with rare pigments and the finest quality of gold-leaf.
Beautiful forms leaned over frames glowing with embroidery, and beautiful frames leaned over forms inlaid with mother-of-pearl.
Others, more remote, occasionally burst into melody as they tried the passages of a new and exclusive air given to them in MS. by some titled and devoted friend, for the private use of the aristocracy alone, and absolutely prohibited for publication.
The Duchess, herself the superlative of beauty, wealth, and position, was married to the highest noble in the Three Kingdoms.
Those who talked about such matters said that their progeny were exactly like their parents — a peculiarity of the aristocratic and wealthy.
They all looked like brothers and sisters, except their parents, who, such was their purity of blood, the perfection of their manners, and the opulence of their condition, might have been taken for their own children’s elder son and daughter.
The daughters, with one exception, were all married to the highest nobles in the land.
That exception was the Lady Coriander, who — there being no vacancy above a marquis and a rental of £1,000,000 — waited.
Gathered around the refined and sacred circle of their breakfast-table, with their glittering coronets, which, in filial respect to their father’s Tory instinct and their mother’s Ritualistic tastes, they always wore on their regal brows, the effect was dazzling as it was refined.
It was this peculiarity and their strong family resemblance which led their brother-in-law, the good-humoured St. Addlegourd, to say that, “Ton my soul, you know, the whole precious mob looked like a ghastly pack of court cards — don’t you know?”
St. Addlegourd was a radical.
Having a rent-roll of £15,000,000., and belonging to one of the oldest families in Britain, he could afford to be.
“Mamma, I’ve just dropped a pearl,” said the Lady Coriander, bending over the Persian hearth-rug.
“From your lips, sweet friend,” said Lothaw, who came of age and entered the room at the same moment.
“No, from my work. It was a very valuable pearl, mamma; papa gave Isaacs and Sons £50,000 for the two.”
“Ah, indeed,” said the Duchess, languidly rising; “let us go to luncheon.”
“But your Grace,” interposed Lothaw, who was still quite young, and had dropped on all-fours on the carpet in search of the missing gem, “consider the value—”
“Dear friend,” interposed the Duchess, with infinite tact, gently lifting him by the tails of his dress-coat, “I am waiting for your arm.”
CHAPTER II
Lothaw was immensely rich.
The possessor of seventeen castles, fifteen villas, nine shooting-boxes, and seven town houses, he had other estates of which he had not even heard.
Everybody at Plusham played croquet, and none badly. Next to their purity of blood and great wealth, the family were famous for this accomplishment.
Yet Lothaw soon tired of the game, and after seriously damaging his aristocratically large foot in an attempt to “tight croquet” the Lady Aniseed’s ball, he limped away to join the Duchess.
“I’m going to the hennery,” she said.
“Let me go with you. I dearly love fowls —
* * * * *
broiled,” he added, thoughtfully.
“The Duke gave Lady Montairy some large Cochins the other day,” continued the Duchess, changing the subject with delicate tact.
“Lady Montairy, Quite contrairy, How do your Cochins grow?” sang Lothaw gaily.
The Duchess looked shocked. After a prolonged silence Lothaw abruptly and gravely said —
“If you please, ma’am, when I come into my property, I should like to build some improved dwellings for the poor, and marry Lady Coriander.”
“You amaze me, dear friend, and yet both your aspirations are noble and eminently proper,” said the Duchess; “Coriander is but a child — and yet,” she added, looking graciously upon her companion, “for the matter of that, so are you.”
CHAPTER III
Mr. Putney Padwick’s was Lothaw’s first grand dinnerparty.
Yet, by carefully watching the others, he managed to acquit himself creditably, and avoided drinking out of the finger-bowl by first secretly testing its contents with a spoon.
The conversation was peculiar and singularly interesting.
“Then you think that monogamy is simply a question of the thermometer?” said Mrs. Putney Padwick to her companion.
“I certainly think that polygamy should be limited by isothermal lines,” replied Lothaw.
“I should say it was a matter of latitude,” observed a loud, talkative man opposite.
He was an Oxford Professor, with a taste for satire, and had made himself very obnoxious to the company, during dinner, by speaking disparagingly of a former well-known Chancellor of the Exchequer, — a great statesman, and brilliant novelist, — whom he feared and hated.
Suddenly there was a sensation in the room: among the females it absolutely amounted to a nervous thrill.
His Eminence, the Cardinal, was announced.
He entered with great suavity of manner, and, after shaking hands with everybody, asking after their relatives, and chucking the more delicate females under the chin with a high-bred grace peculiar to his profession, he sat down, saying —
“And how do we all find ourselves this evening, my dears?” in several different languages, which he spoke fluently.
Lothaw’s heart was touched.
His deeply religious convictions were impressed.
He instantly went up to this gifted being, confessed, and received absolution.
“To-morrow,” he said to himself, “I will partake of the Communion, and endow the Church with my vast estates. For the present I’ll let the improved cottages go.”
CHAPTER IV
As Lothaw turned to leave the Cardinal, he was struck by a beautiful face.
It was that of a matron, slim, but shapely as an Ionie column.
Her face was Grecian, with Corinthian temples; Hellenic eyes, that looked from jutting eyebrows like dormer-windows in an Attic forehead, completed her perfect Athenian outline.
She wore a black frock-coat tightly buttoned over her bloomer trousers, and a standing collar.
“Your Lordship is struck by that face,” said a social parasite.
“I am; who is she?”
“Her name is Mary Ann. She is married to an American, and has lately invented a new religion.”
“Ah!” said Lothaw eagerly, with difficulty restraining himself from rushing toward her.
“Yes; shall I introduce you?”
Lothaw thought of Lady Coriander’s High Church proclivities, of the Cardinal, and hesitated.
“No, I thank you, not now.”
CHAPTER V
Lothaw was maturing.
He had attended two woman’s rights conventions, three Fenian meetings, had dined at White’s, and had danced vis-à-vis to a prince of the blood, and eaten off of gold plates at Crecy House.
His stables were near Oxford, and occupied more ground than the University.
He was driving over there one day, when he perceived some rustics and menials endeavouring to stop a pair of runaway horses attached to a carriage in which a lady and gentleman were seated.
Calmly awaiting the termination of the accident, with high-bred courtesy Lothaw forbore to interfere until the carriage was overturned, the occupants thrown out, and the runaways secured by the servants, when he advanced and offered the lady the exclusive use of his Oxford stables.
Turning upon him a face whose perfect Hellenic details he remembered, she slowly dragged a gentleman from under the wheels into the light and presented him with lady-like dignity as her husband, Major-General Camper-down, an American.
“Ah,” said Lothaw, carelessly, “I believe I have some land there. If I mistake not, my agent, Mr. Putney Padwick, lately purchased the State of — Illinois — I think you call it.”
“Exactly. As a former resident of the city of Chicago, let me introduce myself as your tenant.”
Lothaw bowed graciously to the gentleman, who, except that he seemed better dressed than most Englishmen, showed no other signs of inferiority and plebeian extraction.
“We have met before,” said Lothaw to the lady as she leaned on his arm, while they visited his stables, the University, and other places of interest in Oxford. “Pray tell me, what is this new religion of yours?”
“It is Woman Suffrage, Free Love, Mutual Affinity, and Communism. Embrace it — and me.”
Lothaw did not know exactly what to do.
She however soothed and sustained his agitated frame, and sealed with an embrace his speechless form.
The General approached and coughed slightly with gentlemanly tact.
“My husband will be too happy to talk with you further on this subject,” she said with quiet dignity, as she regained the General’s side.
“Come with us to Oneida. Brook Farm is a thing of the past.”
CHAPTER VI
As Lothaw drove toward his country-seat, the “The Mural Enclosure,” he observed a crowd, apparently of the working class, gathered around a singular looking man in the picturesque garb of an Ethiopian serenader.
“What does he say?” inquired Lothaw of his driver.
The man touched his hat respectfully, and said, “My Mary Ann.”
“‘My Mary Ann!’”
Lothaw’s heart beat rapidly.
Who was this mysterious foreigner?
He had heard from Lady Coriander of a certain Popish plot; but could he connect Mr. Camperdown with it?
The spectacle of two hundred men-at-arms who advanced to meet him at the gates of the Mural Enclosure drove all else from the still youthful and impressible mind of Lothaw. Immediately behind them, on the steps of the baronial halls, were ranged his retainers, led by the chief cook and bottlewasher, and head crumb-remover.
On either side were two companies of laundry-maids, preceded by the chief crimper and fluter, supporting a long Ancestral Line, on which depended the family linen, and under which the youthful lord of the manor passed into the halls of his fathers.
Twenty-four scullions carried the massive gold and silver plate of the family on their shoulders, and deposited it at the feet of their master.
The spoons were then solemnly counted by the steward, and the ceremony was ended.
Lothaw sighed.
He sought out the gorgeously gilded “Taj,” or sacred mausoleum erected to his grandfather in the second story front room, and wept over the man he did not know.
He wandered alone in his magnificent park, and then, throwing himself on a grassy bank, pondered on the Great First Cause, and the necessity of religion.
“I will send Mary Ann a handsome present,” said Lothaw, thoughtfully.
CHAPTER VII
“Each of these pearls, my Lord, is worth fifty thousand guineas,” said Mr. Emanuel Amethyst, the fashionable jeweller, as he lightly lifted a large shovelful from a con» venient bin behind his counter.
“Indeed,” said Lothaw, carelessly, “I should prefer to see some expensive ones.”
“Some number sixes, I suppose,” said Mr. Emanuel Amethyst, taking a couple from the apex of a small pyramid that lay piled on the shelf. “These are about the size of the Duchess of Billingsgate’s, but they are in finer condition. The fact is, her Grace permits her two children, the Marquis of Smithfield and the Duke of St. Giles — two sweet pretty boys, my Lord — to use them as marbles in their games. Pearls require some attention, and I go down there regularly twice a week to clean them. Perhaps your Lordship would like some ropes of pearls?”
“About half a cable’s length,” said Lothaw, shortly. “And send them to my lodgings.”
Mr. Emanuel Amethyst became thoughtful.
“I am afraid I have not the exact number — that is — excuse me one moment. I will run over to the Tower and borrow a few from the Crown jewels.”
And before Lothaw could prevent him, he seized his hat and left Lothaw alone.
His position certainly was embarrassing.
He could not move without stepping on costly gems which had rolled from the counter; the rarest diamonds lay scattered on the shelves; untold fortunes in priceless emeralds lay within his grasp.
Although such was the aristocratic purity of his blood and the strength of his religious convictions that he probably would not have pocketed a single diamond, still he could not help thinking that he might be accused of taking some.
“You can search me, if you like,” he said, when Mr. Emanuel Amethyst returned; “but I assure you, upon the honour of a gentleman, that I have taken nothing.”
“Enough, my Lord,” said Mr. Emanuel Amethyst, with a low bow, “we never search the aristocracy.”
CHAPTER VIII
As Lothaw left Mr. Emanuel Amethyst’s, he ran against General Camperdown.
“How is Mary Ann?” he asked, hurriedly.
“I regret to state that she is dying,” said the General, with a grave voice, as he removed his cigar from his lips and lifted his hat to Lothaw.
“Dying!” said Lothaw, incredulously.
“Alas, too true!” replied the General.
“The engagements of a long lecturing season, exposure in travelling by railway during the winter, and the imperfect nourishment afforded by the refreshments along the road, have told on her delicate frame. But she wants to see you before she dies. Here is the key of my lodging. I will finish my cigar out here.”
Lothaw hardly recognised those wasted Hellenic outlines as he entered the dimly lighted room of the dying woman.
She was already a classic ruin, — as wrecked and yet as perfect as the Parthenon.
He grasped her hand silently.
“Open-air speaking twice a week, and saleratus’ bread in the rural districts, have brought me to this,” she said feebly; “but it is well. The cause progresses. The tyrant man succumbs.”
Lothaw could only press her hand.
“Promise me one thing. Don’t — whatever you do — become a Catholic.”
“Why?”
“The Church does not recognise divorce. And now embrace me. I would prefer at this supreme moment to introduce myself to the next world through the medium of the best society in this. Good-bye. When I am dead be good enough to inform my husband of the fact.”
CHAPTER IX
Lothaw spent the next six months on an Aryan island, in an Aryan climate, and with an Aryan race.
“This is an Aryan landscape,” said his host, “and that is a Mary Ann statue.”
It was, in fact, a full-length figure in marble of Mrs. General Camperdown!
“If you please, I should like to become a Pagan,” said Lothaw, one day, after listening to an impassioned discourse on Greek art from the lips of his host.
But that night, on consulting a well-known spiritual medium, Lothaw received a message from the late Mrs. General Camperdown, advising him to return to England.
Two days later he presented himself at Plusham.
“The young ladies are in the garden,” said the Duchess. “Don’t you want to go and pick a rose?” she added, with a gracious smile, and the nearest approach to a wink that was consistent with her patrician bearing and aquiline nose.
Lothaw went, and presently returned with the blushing Coriander upon his arm.
“Bless you, my children,” said the Duchess. Then, turning to Lothaw, she said, “You have simply fulfilled and accepted your inevitable destiny. It was morally impossible for you to marry out of this family.
“For the present, the Church of England is safe.”
Chapter Ten . MARK TWAIN
BOYHOOD AS TOM Sawyer — Roughing It Out West as Sam Clemens — Returns East as Mark Twain — Discovers Europe as an Innocent Abroad — Rediscovers America as Huck Finn, and England as a Connecticut Yankee.
THE NAME AND FAME of Mark Twain towers over all others who might claim a place among the American humorists. His reputation even in his lifetime had reached the remotest corners of the civilized earth. His work has been translated into every language capable of expressing an American joke. All this is deservedly so. For Mark Twain far outran and surpassed all his contemporaries and his predecessors. After all, such people as Seba Smith (Major Downing) and Sam Slick (Judge Haliburton) are now of little more than historic interest. Washington Irving and Hawthorne were not so much American humorists as humorists in America; so too was, very largely, Bret Harte, apart from his poetic excursions in the character of Truthful James. Artemus Ward was a personality rather than an author. But the development of Mark Twain’s peculiar genius and its embodiment in his greatest works of humor represents the full blossoming of the flower that adorned this new field. It is time that a younger generation is growing up which knows not Mark Twain; or knows him only as a legend; or at second and third hand; or in the cold storage of a college textbook. Mark Twain was a singularly mixed product. Among his own writings he never seemed able to distinguish the grain from the chaff. The book he treasured most among his works, his Joan of Arc, is worthless as history, practically without humor, utterly false and artificial in its picture of the times, and bears witness to nothing more than the desire of a man hailed as a humorist to show that he has a bitter nature too. Mark Twain’s fierce elemental theology, his denial of things that people of today don’t take the trouble even to deny — his “Visits to Heaven” and his “Mysterious Strangers” on earth — these things belong only to the daring speculations of a rebellious Sunday-school pupil of Missouri in the eighteen forties.
