Tales and Novels Volume VI Part 66

One morning the gentlemen had been so much occupied with their plantation, that they did not attend the breakfast-table precisely in due time: the contrast in the looks of the two ladies when their husbands entered the room was striking. Griselda was provoked with Mrs. Granby for being so good-humoured.

"Lord bless me! Mrs. Granby, how you spoil these men," cried she.

All the time the gentlemen were at breakfast, Mrs. Bolingbroke played with her tea-spoon, and did not deign to utter a syllable; and when the gentlemen left the breakfast-table, and returned to their business, Griselda, who was, as our readers may have observed, one of the fas.h.i.+onable lollers by profession, established herself upon a couch, and began an attack upon Emma, for spoiling her husband in such a sad manner. Emma defended herself in a playful way, by answering that she could not venture to give unnecessary pain, because she was not so sure as some of her friends might be of their power of giving pleasure. Mrs. Bolingbroke proceeded to descant upon the difference between friends.h.i.+p and love: with some vanity, and some malice, she touched upon the difference between the _sorts of sentiments_ which different women excited. Pa.s.sion, she argued, could be kept alive only by a certain happy mixture of caprice and grace, coldness and ill-humour. She confessed that, for her part, she never could be content with the friends.h.i.+p of a husband. Emma, without claiming or disclaiming her pretensions to love, quoted the saying of a French gentleman:

"L'Amitie est l'Amour sans ailes."

"Friends.h.i.+p is Love deprived of his wings."

Griselda had no apprehension that love could ever fly from her, and she declared she could not endure him without his wings.

Our heroine did not imagine that any of the little vexations which she habitually inflicted upon her husband could really diminish his regard. She, never had calculated the prodigious effects which can be produced by petty causes constantly acting. Indeed this is a consideration, to which the pride or short-sightedness of human nature is not p.r.o.ne.

Who in contemplating one of Raphael's finest pictures, fresh from the master's hand, ever bestowed a thought upon the wretched little worm which works its destruction? Who that beholds the gilded vessel gliding in gallant trim--"youth at the prow, and pleasure at the helm;" ever at that instant thought of--barnacles? The imagination is disgusted by the anti-climax; and of all species of the bathos, the sinking from visionary happiness to sober reality is that from which human nature is most averse. The wings of the imagination, accustomed to ascend, resist the downward flight.

Confident of her charms, heedless of danger, accustomed to think her empire absolute and eternal; our heroine, to amuse herself, and to display her power to Emma, persisted in her practice of tormenting.

The ingenuity with which she varied her tortures was certainly admirable. After exhausting old ones, she invented new; and when the new lost their efficacy, she recurred to the old. She had often observed, that the blunt method of contradicting, which some bosom friends practise in conversation, is of sovereign power to provoke; and this consequently, though unpolite, she disdained not to imitate.

It had the greater effect, as it was in diametrical opposition to the style of Mrs. Granby's conversation; who, in discussions with her husband, or her intimate friends, was peculiarly and habitually attentive to politeness.

CHAPTER XII.

"Ella biasmandol sempre, e dispregiando Se gli venia piu sempre inimicando."

By her judicious and kind interposition, Emma often prevented the disagreeable consequences that threatened to ensue from Griselda's disputatious habits; but one night it was past her utmost skill to avert a violent storm, which arose about the p.r.o.nunciation of a word.

It began about eleven o'clock. Just as the family were sitting down to supper, seemingly in perfect harmony of spirits, Mr. Bolingbroke chanced to say, "I think the wind is rising." (He p.r.o.nounced the word _wi*nd, short_.)

[Transcriber's note: What is printed in the original text as an "i"

with a breve is rendered here as "i*".]

"_Wi*nd_! my dear," cried his wife, echoing his p.r.o.nunciation; "do, for heaven's sake, call it wi*nd."

The lady sounded this word long.

"Wind! my love," repeated he after her: "I doubt whether that be the right p.r.o.nunciation."

"I am surprised you can doubt it," said she, "for I never heard any body call it _wi*nd_ but yourself."

"Did not you, my love? that is very extraordinary: many people, I believe, call it _wi*nd_."

"Vulgarians, perhaps!"

"Vulgarians! No, indeed, my dear; very polite, well-informed people."

Griselda, with a look of unutterable contempt, reiterated the word _polite_.

"Yes, my dear, _polite_," persisted Mr. Bolingbroke, who was now come to such a pa.s.s, that he would defend his opinion in opposition to hers, stoutly and warmly. "Yes, _polite_, my dear, I maintain it; the most _polite_ people p.r.o.nounce it as I do."

"You may maintain what you please, my dear," said the lady, coolly; "but I maintain the contrary."

"a.s.sertion is no proof on either side, I acknowledge," said Mr.

Bolingbroke, recollecting himself.

"No, in truth," said Mrs. Bolingbroke, "especially such an absurd a.s.sertion as yours, my dear. Now I will go no farther than Mrs.

Granby:--Mrs. Granby, did you ever hear any person, who knew how to speak, p.r.o.nounce wi*nd--_wi*nd_?"

"Mrs. Granby, have not you heard it called _wi*nd_ in good company?"

The disputants eagerly approached her at the same instant, and looked as if their fortunes or lives depended upon the decision.

"I think I have heard the word p.r.o.nounced both ways, by well-bred and well-informed people," said Mrs. Granby.

"That is saying nothing, my dear," said Mrs. Bolingbroke, pettishly.

"This is saying all I want," said Mr. Bolingbroke, satisfied.

"I would lay any wager, however, that Mr. ----, if he were here, would give it in my favour; and I suppose you will not dispute his authority."

"I will not dispute the authority of Sheridan's Dictionary," cried Mr.

Bolingbroke, taking it down from the book-case, and turning over the leaves hastily.--"Sheridan gives it for me, my dear," said he, with exultation.

"You need not speak with such triumph, my dear, for I do not submit to Sheridan."

"No! Will you submit to Kenrick, then?"

"Let us see what he says, and I will then tell you," said the lady.

"No--Kenrick was not of her opinion, and he was no authority." Walker was produced; and this battle of the p.r.o.nouncing dictionaries seemed likely to have no end. Mrs. Granby, when she could be heard, remarked that it was difficult to settle any dispute about p.r.o.nunciation, because in fact no reasons could be produced, and no standard appealed to but custom, which is perpetually changing; and, as Johnson says, "whilst our language is variable with the caprice of all who use it, words can no more be ascertained in a dictionary, than a grove in the agitation of a storm can be accurately delineated from its picture in the water."

The combatants would scarcely allow Emma time to finish this allusion, and certainly did not give themselves time to understand it; but continued to fight about the word custom, the only word that they had heard.

"Yes, custom! custom!" cried they at once, "custom must decide, to be sure." Then came _my_ custom and _your_ custom; the custom of the stage, the custom of the best company, the custom of the best poets; and all these were opposed to one another with increasing rapidity.

"Good heavens, my dear! did you ever hear Kemble say, 'Rage on, ye _wi*nds_!'--Ridiculous!"

"I grant you on the stage it may be winds; but in common conversation it is allowable to p.r.o.nounce it as I do, my dear."

"I appeal to the best poets, Mr. Bolingbroke: nothing can be more absurd than your way of--"

"Listen, lively lordlings all!" interrupted Emma, pressing with playful vehemence between the disputants; "I must be heard, for I have not spoken this half hour, and thus I p.r.o.nounce--You both are right, and both are wrong.

"And now, my good friends, had not we better go to rest?" said she; "for it is past midnight."

As they took their candles, and went up stairs, the parties continued the battle: Mrs. Bolingbroke brought quotations innumerable to her aid, and in a shrill tone repeated,

"'He might not let even the winds of heaven Visit her face too roughly.'