Gryll Grange Part 13

_Mr. MacBorrowdale._ After dinner, my lord, after dinner. I work hard all the morning at serious things, sometimes till I get a headache, which, however, does not often trouble me. After dinner I like to crack my bottle and chirp and talk nonsense, and fit myself for the company of Jack of Dover.

_Lord Curryfin._ Jack of Dover! Who was he?

_Mr. MacBorrowdale._ He was a man who travelled in search of a greater fool than himself, and did not find him.{1}

1 _Jacke of Dover His Quest of Inquirie, or His Privy Search for the Veriest Foote in England._ London, 1604. Reprinted for the Percy Society, 1842.

_The Rev. Dr. Opimian._ He must have lived in odd times. In our days he would not have gone far without falling in with a teetotaller, or a decimal coinage man, or a school-for-all man, or a compet.i.tive examination man, who would not allow a drayman to lower a barrel into a cellar unless he could expound the mathematical principles by which he performed the operation.

_Mr. MacBorrowdale._ Nay, that is all pragmatical fooling. The fooling Jack looked for was jovial fooling, fooling to the top of his bent, excellent fooling, which, under the semblance of folly, was both merry and wise. He did not look for mere unmixed folly, of which there never was a deficiency. The fool he looked for was one which it takes a wise man to make--a Shakespearian fool.{1}

1 OEuvre, ma foi, ou n'est facile atteindre: Pourtant qu'il faut parfaitement sage etre, Pour le vrai fol bien navement feindre.

EUTRAPEL, p. 28.

_The Rev. Dr. Opimian._ In that sense he might travel far, and return, as he did in his own day, without having found the fool he looked for.

_Mr. MacBorrowdale_. A teetotaller! Well! He is the true Heautontimorumenos, the self-punisher, with a jug of toast-and-water for his Christmas wa.s.sail. So far his folly is merely pitiable, but his intolerance makes it offensive. He cannot enjoy his own tipple unless he can deprive me of mine. A fox that has lost his tail. There is no tyrant like a thoroughpaced reformer. I drink to his own reformation.

_Mr. Gryll._ He is like Bababec's faquir, who sat in a chair full of nails, _pour avoir de la consideration._ But the faquir did not want others to do the same. He wanted all the consideration for himself, and kept all the nails for himself. If these meddlers would do the like by their toast-and-water, n.o.body would begrudge it them.

_The Rev. Dr. Opimian._ Now, sir, if the man who has fooled the greatest number of persons to the top of their bent were to be adjudged the fittest companion for Jack of Dover, you would find him in a distinguished meddler with everything who has been for half-a-century the merry-andrew of a vast arena, which he calls moral and political science, but which has in it a dash of everything that has ever occupied human thought.

_Lord Curryfin._ I know whom you mean; but he is a great man in his way, and has done much good.

_The Rev. Dr. Opimian._ He has helped to introduce much change; whether for good or for ill remains to be seen. I forgot he was your lordship's friend. I apologise, and drink to his health.

_Lord Curryfin_. Oh! pray, do not apologise to me. I would not have my friendships, tastes, pursuits, and predilections interfere in the slightest degree with the fullest liberty of speech on all persons and things. There are many who think with you that he is a moral and political Jack of Dover. So be it. Time will bring him to his level.

_Mr. MacBorrowdale._ I will only say of the distinguished personage, that Jack of Dover would not pair off with him. This is the true universal science, the oracle of _La Dive Bouteille._

_Mr. Gryll._ It is not exactly Greek music, Mr. Minim, that you are giving us for our Aristophanic choruses.

_Mr. Minim._ No, sir; I have endeavoured to give you a good selection, as appropriate as I can make it.

_Mr. Pallet._ Neither am I giving you Greek painting for the scenery. I have taken the liberty to introduce perspective.

_The Rev. Dr. Opimian._ Very rightly both, for Aristophanes in London.

_Mr. Minim._ Besides, sir, we must have such music as your young ladies can sing.

_The Rev. Dr. Opimian._ a.s.suredly; and so far as we have yet heard them rehea.r.s.e, they sing it delightfully.

After a little more desultory conversation, they adjourned to the drawing-rooms.

CHAPTER XV

EXPRESSION IN MUSIC--THE DAPPLED PALFREY--LOVE AND AGE--COMPEt.i.tIVE EXAMINATION

(Greek pa.s.sage) Anthologia Palatina: v. 72.

This, this is life, when pleasure drives out care.

Short is the span of time we each may share.

To-day, while love, wine, song, the hours adorn, To-day we live: none know the coming morn.

Lord Curryfin's a.s.siduities to Miss Gryll had discomposed Mr. Falconer more than he chose to confess to himself. Lord Curryfin, on entering the drawing-rooms, went up immediately to the young lady of the house; and Mr. Falconer, to the amazement of the reverend doctor, sat down in the outer drawing-room on a sofa by the side of Miss Ilex, with whom he entered into conversation.

In the inner drawing-room some of the young ladies were engaged with music, and were entreated to continue their performance. Some of them were conversing, or looking over new publications.

After a brilliant symphony, performed by one of the young visitors, in which runs and crossings of demisemiquavers in _tempo prestissimo_ occupied the princ.i.p.al share, Mr. Falconer asked Miss Ilex how she liked it.

_Miss Ilex._ I admire it as a splendid piece of legerdemain; but it expresses nothing.

_Mr. Falconer._ It is well to know that such things can be done; and when we have reached the extreme complications of art, we may hope to return to Nature and simplicity.

_Miss Ilex._ Not that it is impossible to reconcile execution and expression. Rubini identified the redundancies of ornament with the overflowings of feeling, and the music of Donizetti furnished him most happily with the means of developing this power. I never felt so transported out of myself as when I heard him sing _Tu che al ciel spiegasti l' ali._

_Mr. Falconer._ Do you place Donizetti above Mozart?

_Miss Ilex._ Oh, surely not. But for supplying expressive music to a singer like Rubini, I think Donizetti has no equal; at any rate no superior. For music that does not require, and does not even suit, such a singer, but which requires only to be correctly interpreted to be universally recognised as the absolute perfection of melody, harmony, and expression, I think Mozart has none. Beethoven perhaps: he composed only one opera, Fidelio; but what an opera that is! What an effect in the sudden change of the key, when Leonora throws herself between her husband and Pizarro: and again, in the change of the key with the change of the scene, when we pa.s.s from the prison to the hall of the palace!

What pathos in the songs of affection, what grandeur in the songs of triumph, what wonderful combinations in the accompaniments, where a perpetual stream of counter-melody creeps along in the ba.s.s, yet in perfect harmony with the melody above!

_Mr. Falconer._ What say you to Haydn?

_Miss Ilex._ Haydn has not written operas, and my princ.i.p.al experience is derived from the Italian theatre. But his music is essentially dramatic. It is a full stream of perfect harmony in subjection to exquisite melody; and in simple ballad-strains, that go direct to the heart, he is almost supreme and alone. Think of that air with which every one is familiar, 'My mother bids me bind my hair': the graceful flow of the first part, the touching effect of the semitones in the second: with true intonation and true expression, the less such an air is accompanied the better.

_Mr. Falconer._ There is a beauty and an appeal to the heart in ballads which will never lose its effect except on those with whom the pretence of fashion overpowers the feeling of Nature.{1}

1 Braham said something like this to a Parliamentary Committee on Theatres, in 1832.

_Miss Ilex._ It is strange, however, what influence that pretence has, in overpowering all natural feelings, not in music alone.

'Is it not curious,' thought the doctor, 'that there is only one old woman in the room, and that my young friend should have selected her for the object of his especial attention?'

But a few simple notes struck on the ear of his young friend, who rose from the sofa and approached the singer. The doctor took his place to cut off his retreat.

Miss Gryll, who, though a proficient in all music, was particularly partial to ballads, had just begun to sing one.

[Ill.u.s.tration: In vain was pursuit, though some followed pell-mell 132-100]

THE DAPPLED PALFREY{1}

1 Founded on Le Vair Palefroi: among the Fabliaux published by Barbazan.

'My traitorous uncle has wooed for himself: Her father has sold her for land and for pelf: My steed, for whose equal the world they might search, In mockery they borrow to bear her to church.