Olla Podrida Part 52

_A._ I'm all attention.

_B._ Get up a splendid dinner party for their first casual meeting.

Place the company at table.

_A._ Surely you are not going to choke her with the bone of a chicken.

_B._ You surely are about to murder me, as Samson did the Philistines----

_A._ With the jaw-bone of a fas.h.i.+onable novel writer, you mean.

_B._ Exactly. But to proceed:--they are seated at table; can you describe a grand dinner?

_A._ Certainly, I have partaken of more than one.

_B._ Where?

_A._ I once sat down three hundred strong at the Freemasons' Tavern.

_B._ Pshaw! a mere hog feed.

_A._ Well, then, I dined with the late lord mayor.

_B._ Still worse. My dear Ansard, it is however of no consequence.

Nothing is more difficult to attain, yet nothing is more easy to describe, than a good dinner. I was once reading a very fas.h.i.+onable novel by a very fas.h.i.+onable bookseller, for the author is a mere nonent.i.ty, and was very much surprised at the accuracy with which a good dinner was described. The mystery was explained a short time afterwards, when casually taking up Eustache Eude's book in Sams's library, I found, that the author had copied it out exactly from the injunctions of that celebrated gastronome. You can borrow the book.

_A._ Well, we will suppose that done; but I am all anxiety to know what is the danger from which the heroine is to be rescued.

_B._ I will explain. There are two species of existence--that of mere mortal existence, which is of little consequence, provided, like Caesar, the hero and heroine die decently: the other is of much greater consequence, which is fas.h.i.+onable existence. Let them once lose caste in that respect, and they are virtually dead, and one mistake, one oversight, is a death-blow for which there is no remedy, and from which there is no recovery. For instance, we will suppose our heroine to be quite confounded with the appearance of our hero--to have become _distraite, reveuse_--and, in short, to have lost her recollection and presence of mind. She has been a.s.sisted to _fillet de soles_. Say that the only sauce ever taken with them is _au macedoine_--this is offered to her, and, at the same time, another, which to eat with the above dish would be unheard of. In her distraction she is about to take the wrong sauce--actually at the point of ruining herself for ever and committing suicide upon her fas.h.i.+onable existence, while the keen grey eyes of Sir Antinous Antibes, the arbiter of fas.h.i.+on, are fixed upon her. At this awful moment, which is for ever to terminate her fas.h.i.+onable existence, the Honourable Augustus Bouverie, who sits next to her, gently touches her _seduisante_ sleeve--blandly smiling, he whispers to her that the _other_ is the sauce _macedoine_. She perceives her mistake, trembles at her danger, rewards him with a smile, which penetrates into the deepest recesses of his heart, helps herself to the right sauce, darts a look of contemptuous triumph upon Sir Antinous Antibes, and, while she is dipping her sole into the sauce, her soul expands with grat.i.tude and love.

_A._ I see, I see. Many thanks; my heroine is now a fair counterpart of my hero.

"Ah, sure a pair were never seen, So justly form'd to meet by nature."

_B._ And now I'll give you another hint, since you appear grateful. It is a species of claptrap in a novel, which always takes--to wit, a rich old uncle or misanthrope, who, at the very time that he is bitterly offended and disgusted with the hero, who is in awkward circ.u.mstances, pulls out a pocket-book and counts down, say fifteen or twenty thousand pounds in bank notes, to relieve him from his difficulties. An old coat and monosyllables will increase the interest.

_A._ True (_sighing._) Alas! there are no such uncles in real life; I wish there were.

_B._ I beg your pardon; I know no time in which _my uncle_ forks out more bank notes than at the present.

_A._ Yes, but it is for value, or more than value, received.

_B._ That I grant; but I'm afraid it is the only _uncle_ left now; except in a fas.h.i.+onable novel. But you comprehend the value of this new auxiliary.

_A._ Nothing can be better. Barnstaple, you are really----, but I say no more. If a truly great man cannot be flattered with delicacy, it must not be attempted at all; silence then becomes the best tribute. Your advice proves you to be truly great. I am _silent_, therefore you understand the full force of the oratory of my thanks.

_B._ (_bowing._) Well, Ansard, you have found out the cheapest way of paying off your bills of grat.i.tude I ever heard of. "Poor, even in thanks," was well said by Shakespeare; but you, it appears, are rich, in having nothing at all wherewith to pay. If you could transfer the same doctrine to your tradesmen, you need not write novels.

_A._ Alas! my dear fellow, mine is not yet written. There is one important feature, nay, the most important feature of all--the style of language, the diction--on that, Barnstaple, you have not yet doctrinated.

_B._ (_pompously._) When Demosthenes was asked what were the three princ.i.p.al attributes of eloquence, he answered, that the first was action; on being asked which was the second, he replied, action; and the third, action; and such is the idea of the Irish _mimbers_ in the House of Commons. Now there are three important requisites in the diction of a fas.h.i.+onable novel. The first, my dear fellow, is--flippancy; the second, flippancy; and flippancy is also the third. With the dull it will pa.s.s for wit, with some it will pa.s.s for scorn, and even the witty will not be enabled to point out the difference, without running the risk of being considered invidious. It will cover every defect with a defect still greater; for who can call small beer tasteless when it is sour, or dull when it is bottled and has a froth upon it?

_A._ The advice is excellent; but I fear that this flippancy is as difficult to acquire as the tone of true eloquence.

_B._ Difficult! I defy the writers of the silver-fork school to write out of the style flippant. Read but one volume of ----, and you will be saturated with it; but if you wish to go to the fountain-head, do as have done most of the late fas.h.i.+onable novel writers, repair to their instructors--the lady's-maid, for flippancy in the vein _spirituelle_; to a London footman for the vein critical; but, if you wish a flippancy of a still higher order, at once more solemn and more empty, which I would call the vein political, read the speeches of some of our members of Parliament. Only read them; I wish no man so ill as to inflict upon him the torture of hearing them--read them, I say, and you will have taken the very highest degree in the order of inane flippancy.

_A._ I see it at once. Your observations are as true as they are severe.

When we would harangue geese, we must condescend to hiss; but still, my dear Barnstaple, though you have fully proved to me that in a fas.h.i.+onable novel all plot is unnecessary, don't you think there ought to be a catastrophe, or sort of a kind of an end to the work, or the reader may be brought up short, or as the sailors say, "all standing,"

when he comes to the word "Finis," and exclaim with an air of stupefaction,--"And then----"

_B._ And then, if he did, it would be no more than the fool deserved. I don't know whether it would not be advisable to leave off in the middle of a sentence, of a word, nay of a syllable, if it be possible: I'm sure the winding-up would be better than the lackadaisical running-down of most of the fas.h.i.+onable novels. Snap the main-spring of your watch, and none but an a.s.s can expect you to tell by it what it is o'clock; snap the thread of your narrative in the same way, and he must be an unreasonable being who would expect a reasonable conclusion. Finish thus, in a case of delicate distress; say, "The honourable Mr Augustus Bouverie was struck in a heap with horror. He rushed with a frantic grace, a deliberate haste, and a graceful awkwardness, and whispered in her ear these dread and awful words, 'IT IS TOO LATE!'" Follow up with a ---- and Finis.

_A._ I see; the fair and agitated reader will pa.s.s a sleepless night in endeavouring to decipher the mutilated sentence. She will fail, and consequently call the book delightful. But should there not have been a marriage previously to this happy awful climax?

_B._ Yes; everything is arranged for the nuptials--carriages are sent home, jewellery received but not paid for, dresses all tried on, the party invited--nay, a.s.sembled in the blue-and-white drawing-room. The right reverend, my lord bishop, is standing behind the temporary altar--he has wiped his spectacles, and thumbed his prayer-book--all eyes are turned towards the door, which opens not--the bride faints, for the bridegroom cometh not--he's not "i' the vein"--a something, as like nothing as possible, has given him a disgust that is insurmountable--he flings his happiness to the winds, though he never loved with more outrageous intensity than at the moment he discards his mistress; so he fights three duels with the two brothers and father. He wounds one of the young men dangerously, the other slightly; fires his pistol in the air when he meets her father--for how could he take the life of him who gave life to his adored one? Your hero can always. .h.i.t a man just where he pleases--_vide_ every novel in Mr C.'s collection. The hero becomes misanthropical, the heroine maniacal. The former marries an antiquated and toothless dowager, as an escape from the imaginary disgust he took at a sight of a matchless woman; and the latter marries an old brute, who threatens her life every night, and puts her in bodily fear every morning, as an indemnity in full for the loss of the man of her affections. They are both romantically miserable; and then come on your tantalising scenes of delicate distress, and so the end of your third volume, and then finish without any end at all. _Verb. sap. sat._ Or, if you like it better, kill the old dowager of a surfeit, and make the old brute who marries the heroine commit suicide; and, after all these unheard-of trials, marry them as fresh and beautiful as ever.

_A._ A thousand thanks. Your _verba_ are not thrown to a _sap._ Can I possibly do you any favour for all this kindness?

_B._ Oh, my dear fellow! the very greatest. As I see yours will be, at all points, a most fas.h.i.+onable novel, do me the inestimable favour _not_ to ask me _to read it_.

How to write a Book of Travels

_Mr Ansard's Chambers._

_A._ (_alone._) Well, I thought it hard enough to write a novel at the dictate of the bibliopolist; but to be condemned to sit down and write my travels--travels that have never extended farther than the Lincoln's Inn Coffee House for my daily food, and a walk to Hampstead on a Sunday.

These travels to be swelled into Travels up the Rhine in the year 18--.

Why, it's impossible. O that Barnstaple were here, for he has proved my guardian angel! Lazy, clever dog!

_Enter Barnstaple._

_B._ Pray, my dear Ansard, to whom did you apply that last epithet?

_A._ My dear Barnstaple, I never was more happy to see you. Sit down, I have much to tell you, all about myself and my difficulties.

_B._ The conversation promises to be interesting to me, at all events.

_A._ Everything is interesting to true friends.h.i.+p.

_B._ Now I perceive that you do want something. Well, before you state your case, tell me, how did the novel go off?

_A._ Wonderfully well. It was ascribed to Lord G----: the bait took, and 750 went off in a first edition, and the remainder of the copies printed went off in a second.

_B._ Without being reprinted?

_A._ Exactly. I was surprised at my success, and told my publisher so; but he answered that he could sell an edition of any trash he pleased.