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Saki (H.H. Munro), ‘The Reticence of Lady Anne’, 1910.
Egbert came into the large, dimly lit drawing-room with the air of a man who is not certain whether
he is entering a dovecote or a bomb factory, and is prepared for either eventuality. The little
domestic quarrel over the luncheon-table had not been fought to a definite finish, and the question
was how far Lady Anne was in a mood to renew or forgo hostilities. Her pose in the arm-chair by
the tea-table was rather elaborately rigid; in the gloom of a December afternoon Egbert's pince-nez
did not materially help him to discern the expression of her face.
By way of breaking whatever ice might be floating on the surface he made a remark about a
dim religious light. He or Lady Anne were accustomed to make that remark between 4.30 and 6 on
winter and late autumn evenings; it was a part of their married life. There was no recognised
rejoinder to it, and Lady Anne made none.
Don Tarquinio lay astretch on the Persian rug, basking in the firelight with superb
indifference to the possible ill-humour of Lady Anne. His pedigree was as flawlessly Persian as the
rug, and his ruff was coming into the glory of its second winter. The page- boy, who had
Renaissance tendencies, had christened him Don Tarquinio. Left to themselves, Egbert and Lady
Anne would unfailingly have called him Fluff, but they were not obstinate.
Egbert poured himself out some tea. As the silence gave no sign of breaking on Lady Anne's
initiative, he braced himself for another Yermak effort.
"My remark at lunch had a purely academic application," he announced; "you seem to put an
unnecessarily personal significance into it."
Lady Anne maintained her defensive barrier of silence. The bullfinch lazily filled in the
interval with an air from Iphigenie en Tauride. Egbert recognised it immediately, because it was the
only air the bullfinch whistled, and he had come to them with the reputation for whistling it. Both
Egbert and Lady Anne would have preferred something from The Yeomen of the Guard, which was
their favourite opera. In matters artistic they had a similarity of taste. They leaned towards the
honest and explicit in art, a picture, for instance, that told its own story, with generous assistance
from its title. A riderless warhorse with harness in obvious disarray, staggering into a courtyard full
of pale swooning women, and marginally noted "Bad News", suggested to their minds a distinct
interpretation of some military catastrophe. They could see what it was meant to convey, and
explain it to friends of duller intelligence.
The silence continued. As a rule Lady Anne's displeasure became articulate and markedly
voluble after four minutes of introductory muteness. Egbert seized the milkjug and poured some of
its contents into Don Tarquinio's saucer; as the saucer was already full to the brim an unsightly
overflow was the result. Don Tarquinio looked on with a surprised interest that evanesced into
elaborate unconsciousness when he was appealed to by Egbert to come and drink up some of the
spilt matter. Don Tarquinio was prepared to play many roles in life, but a vacuum carpet-cleaner
was not one of them.
"Don't you think we're being rather foolish?" said Egbert cheerfully. If Lady Anne thought so she didn't say so.
"I dare say the fault has been partly on my side," continued Egbert, with evaporating
cheerfulness. "After all, I'm only human, you know. You seem to forget that I'm only human."
He insisted on the point, as if there had been unfounded suggestions that he was built on
Satyr lines, with goat continuations where the human left off.
The bullfinch recommenced its air from Iphigenie en Tauride. Egbert began to feel
depressed. Lady Anne was not drinking her tea. Perhaps she was feeling unwell. But when Lady
Anne felt unwell she was not wont to be reticent on the subject. "No one knows what I suffer from
indigestion" was one of her favourite statements; but the lack of knowledge can only have been
caused by defective listening; the amount of information available on the subject would have
supplied material for a monograph.
Evidently Lady Anne was not feeling unwell. Egbert began to think he was being unreasonably dealt with; naturally he began to make
concessions.
"I dare say," he observed, taking as central a position on the hearth-rug as Don Tarquinio
could be persuaded to concede him, "I may have been to blame. I am willing, if I can thereby
restore things to a happier standpoint, to undertake to lead a better life."
He wondered vaguely how it would be possible. Temptations came to him, in middle age,
tentatively and without insistence, like a neglected butcher-boy who asks for a Christmas box in
February for no more hopeful reason that than he didn't get one in December. He had no more idea
of succumbing to them than he had of purchasing the fish-knives and fur boas that ladies are
impelled to sacrifice through the medium of advertisement columns during twelve months of the
year. Still, there was something impressive in this unasked-for renunciation of possibly latent
enormities.
Lady Anne showed no sign of being impressed. Egbert looked at her nervously through his glasses. To get the worst of an argument with her
was no new experience. To get the worst of a monologue was a humiliating novelty.
"I shall go and dress for diner," he announced in a voice into which he intended some shade
of sternness to creep.
At the door a final access of weakness impelled him to make a further appeal. "Aren't we being very silly?" "A fool" was Don Tarquinio's mental comment as the door closed on Egbert's retreat. Then
he lifted his velvet forepaws in the air and leapt lightly on to a bookshelf immediately under the
bullfinch's cage. It was the first time he had seemed to notice the bird's existence, but he was
carrying out a long-formed theory of action with the precision of mature deliberation. The bullfinch,
who had fancied himself something of a despot, depressed himself of a sudden into a third of his
normal displacement; then he fell to a helpless wing-beating and shrill cheeping. He had cost
twenty-seven shillings without the cage, but Lady Anne made no sign of interfering. She had been
dead for two hours.
near enough. That's the fault I have to find wi' you, Bessy; if you see a stick i' the road, you're allays
thinkin' you can't step over it. You'd want me not to hire a good wagoner, 'cause he'd got a mole on
his face."
"Dear heart!" said Mrs. Tulliver, in mild surprise, "when did I iver make objections to a man
because he'd got a mole on his face? I'm sure I'm rether fond o' the moles; for my brother, as is dead
an' gone, had a mole on his brow. But I can't remember your iver offering to hire a wagoner with a
mole, Mr. Tulliver. There was John Gibbs hadn't a mole on his face no more nor you have, an' I was
all for having you hire him ; an' so you did hire him, an' if he hadn't died o' th' inflammation, as we
paid Dr. Turnbull for attending him, he'd very like ha' been drivin' the wagon now. He might have a
mole somewhere out o' sight, but how was I to know that, Mr. Tulliver?"
"No, no, Bessy; I didn't mean justly the mole; I meant it to stand for summat else; but niver
mind–it's puzzling work, talking is. What I'm thinking on, is how to find the right sort o' school to
send Tom to, for I might be ta'en in again, as I've been wi' th' academy. I'll have nothing to do wi' a
'cademy again: whativer school I send Tom to, it sha'n't be a 'cademy; it shall be a place where the
lads spend their time i' summat else besides blacking the family's shoes, and getting up the potatoes.
It's an uncommon puzzling thing to know what school to pick."
Mr. Tulliver paused a minute or two, and dived with both hands into his breeches pockets as
if he hoped to find some suggestion there. Apparently he was not disappointed, for he presently
said, "I know what I'll do: I'll talk it over wi' Riley; he's coming to-morrow, t' arbitrate about the
dam."
"Well, Mr. Tulliver, I've put the sheets out for the best bed, and Kezia's got 'em hanging at
the fire. They aren't the best sheets, but they're good enough for anybody to sleep in, be he who he
will; for as for them best Holland sheets, I should repent buying 'em, only they'll do to lay us out in.
An' if you was to die to-morrow, Mr. Tulliver, they're mangled beautiful, an' all ready, an' smell o'
lavender as it 'ud be a pleasure to lay 'em out; an' they lie at the left-hand corner o' the big oak linen-
chest at the back: not as I should trust anybody to look 'em out but myself."
As Mrs. Tulliver uttered the last sentence, she drew a bright bunch of keys from her pocket,
and singled out one, rubbing her thumb and finger up and down it with a placid smile while she
looked at the clear fire. If Mr. Tulliver had been a susceptible man in his conjugal relation, he might
have supposed that she drew out the key to aid her imagination in anticipating the moment when he
would be in a state to justify the production of the best Holland sheets. Happily he was not so; he
was only susceptible in respect of his right to water-power; moreover, he had the marital habit of
not listening very closely, and since his mention of Mr. Riley, had been apparently occupied in a
tactile examination of his woollen stockings.
Ernest Hemingway, ‘Hills Like White Elephants’, 1927.
The hills across the valley of the Ebro were long and white. On this side there was no shade and no
trees and the station was between two lines of rails in the sun. Close against the side of the station
there was the warm shadow of the building and a curtain, made of strings of bamboo beads, hung
across the open door into the bar, to keep out flies. The American and the girl with him sat at a table
in the shade, outside the building. It was very hot and the express from Barcelona would come in
forty minutes. It stopped at this junction for two minutes and went to Madrid.
‘What should we drink?’ the girl asked. She had taken off her hat and put it on the table. ‘It’s pretty hot,’ the man said. ‘Let’s drink beer.’ ‘Dos cervezas,’ the man said into the curtain. ‘Big ones?’ a woman asked from the doorway. ‘Yes. Two big ones.’ The woman brought two glasses of beer and two felt pads. She put the felt pads and the beer
glass on the table and looked at the man and the girl. The girl was looking off at the line of hills.
They were white in the sun and the country was brown and dry.
‘They look like white elephants,’ she said.
[…]
He picked up the two heavy bags and carried them around the station to the other tracks. He
looked up the tracks but could not see the train. Coming back, he walked through the bar-room,
where people waiting for the train were drinking. He drank an Anis at the bar and looked at the
people. They were all waiting reasonably for the train. He went out through the bead curtain. She
was sitting at the table and smiled at him.
‘Do you feel better?’ he asked. ‘I feel fine,’ she said. ‘There’s nothing wrong with me. I feel fine.’
of nature,—endow'd with the same loco-motive powers and faculties with us:—That he consists as
we do, of skin, hair, fat, flesh, veins, arteries, ligaments, nerves, cartilages, bones, marrow, brains,
glands, genitals, humours, and articulations;—is a Being of as much activity,—and in all senses of
the word, as much and as truly our fellow-creature as my Lord Chancellor of England.—He may be
benefitted,—he may be injured,—he may obtain redress; in a word, he has all the claims and rights
of humanity, which Tully, Puffendorf, or the best ethick writers allow to arise out of that state and
relation.
Now, dear Sir, what if any accident had befallen him in his way alone!—or that through
terror of it, natural to so young a traveller, my little Gentleman had got to his journey's end
miserably spent;—his muscular strength and virility worn down to a thread;—his own animal spirits
ruffled beyond description,—and that in this sad disorder'd state of nerves, he had lain down a prey
to sudden starts, or a series of melancholy dreams and fancies, for nine long, long months
together.—I tremble to think what a foundation had been laid for a thousand weaknesses both of
body and mind, which no skill of the physician or the philosopher could ever afterwards have set
thoroughly to rights.
Chapter 3
To my uncle Mr. Toby Shandy do I stand indebted for the preceding anecdote, to whom my father,
who was an excellent natural philosopher, and much given to close reasoning upon the smallest
matters, had oft, and heavily complained of the injury; but once more particularly, as my uncle Toby
well remember'd, upon his observing a most unaccountable obliquity, (as he call'd it) in my manner
of setting up my top, and justifying the principles upon which I had done it,—the old gentleman
shook his head, and in a tone more expressive by half of sorrow than reproach,—he said his heart
all along foreboded, and he saw it verified in this, and from a thousand other observations he had
made upon me, That I should neither think nor act like any other man's child:—But alas! continued
he, shaking his head a second time, and wiping away a tear which was trickling down his cheeks,
My Tristram's misfortunes began nine months before ever he came into the world.
—My mother, who was sitting by, look'd up, but she knew no more than her backside what my
father meant,—but my uncle, Mr. Toby Shandy, who had been often informed of the affair,—
understood him very well.
Claire Keegan, ‘The Parting Gift’, 2007.
When sunlight reaches the foot of the dressing table, you get up and look through the staircase
again. It’s hot in New York but it may turn cold in winter. All morning the bantam cocks have
crowed. It’s not something you will miss. You must dress and wash, polish your shoes. Outside,
dew lies on the fields, white and blank as pages. Soon the sun will burn it off. It’s a fine day for the
hay.
In her bedroon your mother is moving things around, opening and closing doors. You
wonder what it will be like for her when you leave. Part of you doesn’t care. She talks through the
door.
‘You’ll have a boiled egg?’ ‘No, thanks, Ma.’ ‘You’ll have something?’ ‘Later on, maybe.’ ‘I’ll put one on for you.’ Downstairs, water spills into the kettle, the bolt slides back. You hear the dogs rush in, the
shutters folding. You’ve always preferred this house in summer: cool feeling in the kitchen, the back
door open, scent of the dark wallflowers after rain.
In the bathroom you brush your teeth. The screws in the mirror have rusted, and the glass is
cloudy. You look at yourself and know you have failed the Leaving Cert. The last exam was history
and you blanked out on the dates. You confused the methods of warfare, the kings. English was
worse. You tried to explain that line about the dancer and the dance.
You go back to the bedroom and take out the passport. You look strange in the photograph,
lost. The ticket says you will arrive in Kennedy Airport at 12.25, much the same time as you leave.
You take one last look around the room: walls papered yellow with roses, high ceiling stained where
the slate came off, cord of the electric heater swinging out like a tail from under the bed. It used to
be an open room at the top of the stairs but Eugene put an end to all of that, got the carpenters in
and the partition built, installed the door. You remember him giving you the keys, how much that
meant to you at the time.
liquid state, that we found it what Steerforth called 'rather a tight fit' for four.
These preparations happily completed, I bought a little dessert in Covent Garden Market,
and gave a rather extensive order at a retail wine-merchant's in that vicinity. When I came home in
the afternoon, and saw the bottles drawn up in a square on the pantry floor, they looked so
numerous (though there were two missing, which made Mrs. Crupp very uncomfortable), that I was
absolutely frightened at them.
One of Steerforth's friends was named Grainger, and the other Markham. They were both
very gay and lively fellows; Grainger, something older than Steerforth; Markham, youthful-looking,
and I should say not more than twenty. I observed that the latter always spoke of himself
indefinitely, as 'a man', and seldom or never in the first person singular.
'A man might get on very well here, Mr. Copperfield,' said Markham - meaning himself. 'It's not a bad situation,' said I, 'and the rooms are really commodious.' 'I hope you have both brought appetites with you?' said Steerforth. 'Upon my honour,' returned Markham, 'town seems to sharpen a man's appetite. A man is
hungry all day long. A man is perpetually eating.'
Being a little embarrassed at first, and feeling much too young to preside, I made Steerforth
take the head of the table when dinner was announced, and seated myself opposite to him.
Everything was very good; we did not spare the wine; and he exerted himself so brilliantly to make
the thing pass off well, that there was no pause in our festivity. I was not quite such good company
during dinner as I could have wished to be, for my chair was opposite the door, and my attention
was distracted by observing that the handy young man went out of the room very often, and that his
shadow always presented itself, immediately afterwards, on the wall of the entry, with a bottle at its
mouth. The 'young gal' likewise occasioned me some uneasiness: not so much by neglecting to
wash the plates, as by breaking them. For being of an inquisitive disposition, and unable to confine
herself (as her positive instructions were) to the pantry, she was constantly peering in at us, and
constantly imagining herself detected; in which belief, she several times retired upon the plates
(with which she had carefully paved the floor), and did a great deal of destruction.
These, however, were small drawbacks, and easily forgotten when the cloth was cleared, and
the dessert put on the table; at which period of the entertainment the handy young man was
discovered to be speechless. Giving him private directions to seek the society of Mrs. Crupp, and to
remove the 'young gal' to the basement also, I abandoned myself to enjoyment.
I began, by being singularly cheerful and light-hearted; all sorts of half-forgotten things to
talk about, came rushing into my mind, and made me hold forth in a most unwonted manner. I
laughed heartily at my own jokes, and everybody else's; called Steerforth to order for not passing
the wine; made several engagements to go to Oxford; announced that I meant to have a dinner-party
exactly like that, once a week, until further notice; and madly took so much snuff out of Grainger's
box, that I was obliged to go into the pantry, and have a private fit of sneezing ten minutes long.
I went on, by passing the wine faster and faster yet, and continually starting up with a
corkscrew to open more wine, long before any was needed. I proposed Steerforth's health. I said he
was my dearest friend, the protector of my boyhood, and the companion of my prime. I said I was
delighted to propose his health. I said I owed him more obligations than I could ever repay, and held
him in a higher admiration than I could ever express. I finished by saying, 'I'll give you Steerforth!
God bless him! Hurrah!' We gave him three times three, and another, and a good one to finish with.
I broke my glass in going round the table to shake hands with him, and I said (in two words)
'Steerforth - you'retheguidingstarofmyexistence.'
I went on, by finding suddenly that somebody was in the middle of a song. Markham was
the singer, and he sang 'When the heart of a man is depressed with care'. He said, when he had sung
it, he would give us 'Woman!' I took objection to that, and I couldn't allow it. I said it was not a
respectful way of proposing the toast, and I would never permit that toast to be drunk in my house
otherwise than as 'The Ladies!' I was very high with him, mainly I think because I saw Steerforth
and Grainger laughing at me - or at him - or at both of us. He said a man was not to be dictated to. I
said a man was. He said a man was not to be insulted, then. I said he was right there - never under
my roof, where the Lares were sacred, and the laws of hospitality paramount. He said it was no
derogation from a man's dignity to confess that I was a devilish good fellow. I instantly proposed
his health.
Somebody was smoking. We were all smoking. I was smoking, and trying to suppress a
rising tendency to shudder. Steerforth had made a speech about me, in the course of which I had
been affected almost to tears. I returned thanks, and hoped the present company would dine with me
tomorrow, and the day after - each day at five o'clock, that we might enjoy the pleasures of
conversation and society through a long evening. I felt called upon to propose an individual. I
would give them my aunt. Miss Betsey Trotwood, the best of her sex!
Somebody was leaning out of my bedroom window, refreshing his forehead against the cool
stone of the parapet, and feeling the air upon his face. It was myself. I was addressing myself as
'Copperfield', and saying, 'Why did you try to smoke? You might have known you couldn't do it.'
Now, somebody was unsteadily contemplating his features in the looking-glass. That was I too. I
was very pale in the looking-glass; my eyes had a vacant appearance; and my hair - only my hair,
nothing else - looked drunk.
[…] On somebody's motion, we resolved to go downstairs to the dress-boxes, where the
ladies were. A gentleman lounging, full dressed, on a sofa, with an opera-glass in his hand, passed
before my view, and also my own figure at full length in a glass. Then I was being ushered into one
of these boxes, and found myself saying something as I sat down, and people about me crying
'Silence!' to somebody, and ladies casting indignant glances at me, and - what! yes! - Agnes, sitting
on the seat before me, in the same box, with a lady and gentleman beside her, whom I didn't know. I
see her face now, better than I did then, I dare say, with its indelible look of regret and wonder
turned upon me.
'Agnes!' I said, thickly, 'Lorblessmer! Agnes!' 'Hush! Pray!' she answered, I could not conceive why. 'You disturb the company. Look at the
stage!'
I tried, on her injunction, to fix it, and to hear something of what was going on there, but
quite in vain. I looked at her again by and by, and saw her shrink into her corner, and put her gloved
hand to her forehead.
'Agnes!' I said. 'I'mafraidyou'renorwell.' 'Yes, yes. Do not mind me, Trotwood,' she returned. 'Listen! Are you going away soon?' 'Amigoarawaysoo?' I repeated.
Charles Dickens, Nicholas Nickleby , 1838-39. Chapter 27.
Punctual to its time came the promised vehicle, which was no hackney coach, but a private chariot,
having behind it a footman, whose legs, although somewhat large for his body, might, as mere
abstract legs, have set themselves up for models at the Royal Academy. It was quite exhilarating to
hear the clash and bustle with which he banged the door and jumped up behind after Mrs Nickleby
was in; and as that good lady was perfectly unconscious that he applied the gold-headed end of his
long stick to his nose, and so telegraphed most disrespectfully to the coachman over her very head,
she sat in a state of much stiffness and dignity, not a little proud of her position.
At the theatre entrance there was more banging and more bustle, and there were also Messrs
Pyke and Pluck waiting to escort her to her box; and so polite were they, that Mr Pyke threatened
with many oaths to ‘smifligate’ a very old man with a lantern who accidentally stumbled in her way
- to the great terror of Mrs Nickleby, who, conjecturing more from Mr Pyke’s excitement than any
previous acquaintance with the etymology of the word that smifligation and bloodshed must be in
the main one and the same thing, was alarmed beyond expression, lest something should occur.
Fortunately, however, Mr Pyke confined himself to mere verbal smifligation, and they reached their
box with no more serious interruption by the way, than a desire on the part of the same pugnacious
gentleman to ‘smash’ the assistant box-keeper for happening to mistake the number.
Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse , 1927. From chapter 17
But what have I done with my life? thought Mrs Ramsay, taking her place at the head of the table,
and looking at all the plates making white circles on it. “William, sit by me,” she said. “Lily,” she
said, wearily, “over there.” They had that — Paul Rayley and Minta Doyle — she, only this — an
infinitely long table and plates and knives. At the far end was her husband, sitting down, all in a
heap, frowning. What at? She did not know. She did not mind. She could not understand how she
had ever felt any emotion or affection for him. She had a sense of being past everything, through
everything, out of everything, as she helped the soup, as if there was an eddy — there — and one
could be in it, or one could be out of it, and she was out of it. It’s all come to an end, she thought,
while they came in one after another, Charles Tansley —”Sit there, please,” she said — Augustus
Carmichael — and sat down. And meanwhile she waited, passively, for some one to answer her, for
something to happen. But this is not a thing, she thought, ladling out soup, that one says.
Raising her eyebrows at the discrepancy — that was what she was thinking, this was what
she was doing — ladling out soup — she felt, more and more strongly, outside that eddy; or as if a
shade had fallen, and, robbed of colour, she saw things truly. The room (she looked round it) was
very shabby. There was no beauty anywhere. She forebore to look at Mr Tansley. Nothing seemed
to have merged. They all sat separate. And the whole of the effort of merging and flowing and
creating rested on her. Again she felt, as a fact without hostility, the sterility of men, for if she did
not do it nobody would do it, and so, giving herself a little shake that one gives a watch that has
stopped, the old familiar pulse began beating, as the watch begins ticking — one, two, three, one,
two, three. And so on and so on, she repeated, listening to it, sheltering and fostering the still feeble
pulse as one might guard a weak flame with a news-paper. And so then, she concluded, addressing
herself by bending silently in his direction to William Bankes — poor man! who had no wife, and
no children and dined alone in lodgings except for tonight; and in pity for him, life being now
strong enough to bear her on again, she began all this business, as a sailor not without weariness
sees the wind fill his sail and yet hardly wants to be off again and thinks how, had the ship sunk, he
would have whirled round and round and found rest on the floor of the sea.
“Did you find your letters? I told them to put them in the hall for you,” she said to William
Bankes.
Lily Briscoe watched her drifting into that strange no-man’s land where to follow people is
impossible and yet their going inflicts such a chill on those who watch them that they always try at
least to follow them with their eyes as one follows a fading ship until the sails have sunk beneath
the horizon.
How old she looks, how worn she looks, Lily thought, and how remote. Then when she
William Shakespeare, Sonnet 18, 1609.
Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more louely and more temperate.
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date.
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimmed,
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature’s changing course untrimmed;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st,
Nor shall death brag thou wander’st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st.
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
3b. Edmund Spenser, Amoretti , 1595. Sonnet 70
Fresh spring the herald of loves mighty king,
In whose cote armour richly are displayed
all sorts of flowers the which on earth do spring
in goodly colours gloriously arrayd:
Goe to my loue, where she is careless layd,
yet in her winters bower not well awake:
tell her the joyous time wil not be staid
unless she do him by the forelock take.
Bid her therefore herself soon ready make,
to wait on love amongst his lovely crew:
where every one that misseth then her make
shall be by him amearst with penance due.
Make haste therefore sweet love, whilest it is prime,
for none can call again the passed time.
Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest , 1895. From Act One.
Morning-room in Algernon’s flat in Half-Moon Street. The room is luxuriously and artistically furnished. The sound of a piano is heard in the adjoining room.
[ Lane is arranging afternoon tea on the table, and after the music has ceased, Algernon enters.]
Algernon. Did you hear what I was playing, Lane?
Lane. I didn’t think it polite to listen, sir.
Algernon. I’m sorry for that, for your sake. I don’t play accurately—any one can play accurately—but I play with wonderful expression. As far as the piano is concerned, sentiment is my forte. I keep science for Life.
Lane. Yes, sir.
Algernon. And, speaking of the science of Life, have you got the cucumber sandwiches cut for Lady Bracknell?
Lane. Yes, sir. [Hands them on a salver.]
Algernon. [Inspects them, takes two, and sits down on the sofa.] Oh!... by the way, Lane, I see from your book that on Thursday night, when Lord Shoreman and Mr. Worthing were dining with me, eight bottles of champagne are entered as having been consumed.
Lane. Yes, sir; eight bottles and a pint.
Algernon. Why is it that at a bachelor’s establishment the servants invariably drink the champagne? I ask merely for information.
Lane. I attribute it to the superior quality of the wine, sir. I have often observed that in married households the champagne is rarely of a first-rate brand.
Algernon. Good heavens! Is marriage so demoralising as that?
Lane. I believe it is a very pleasant state, sir. I have had very little experience of it myself up to the present. I have only been married once. That was in consequence of a misunderstanding between myself and a young person.
Algernon. [Languidly_._ ] I don’t know that I am much interested in your family life, Lane.
Lane. No, sir; it is not a very interesting subject. I never think of it myself.
Algernon. Very natural, I am sure. That will do, Lane, thank you.
Lane. Thank you, sir. [ Lane goes out.]
Algernon. Lane’s views on marriage seem somewhat lax. Really, if the lower orders don’t set us a good example, what on earth is the use of them? They seem, as a class, to have absolutely no sense of moral responsibility.
[…]
Lady Bracknell. [Sitting down.] You can take a seat, Mr. Worthing.
[Looks in her pocket for note-book and pencil.]
Jack. Thank you, Lady Bracknell, I prefer standing.
Lady Bracknell. [Pencil and note-book in hand.] I feel bound to tell you that you are not down on my list of eligible young men, although I have the same list as the dear Duchess of Bolton has. We
Jack. I have lost both my parents.
Lady Bracknell. To lose one parent, Mr. Worthing, may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness. Who was your father? He was evidently a man of some wealth. Was he born in what the Radical papers call the purple of commerce, or did he rise from the ranks of the aristocracy?
Jack. I am afraid I really don’t know. The fact is, Lady Bracknell, I said I had lost my parents. It would be nearer the truth to say that my parents seem to have lost me... I don’t actually know who I am by birth. I was... well, I was found.
Lady Bracknell. Found!
Jack. The late Mr. Thomas Cardew, an old gentleman of a very charitable and kindly disposition, found me, and gave me the name of Worthing, because he happened to have a first-class ticket for Worthing in his pocket at the time. Worthing is a place in Sussex. It is a seaside resort.
Lady Bracknell. Where did the charitable gentleman who had a first-class ticket for this seaside resort find you?
Jack. [Gravely.] In a hand-bag.
Lady Bracknell. A hand-bag?
Jack. [Very seriously.] Yes, Lady Bracknell. I was in a hand-bag—a somewhat large, black leather hand-bag, with handles to it—an ordinary hand-bag in fact.
Lady Bracknell. In what locality did this Mr. James, or Thomas, Cardew come across this ordinary hand-bag?
Jack. In the cloak-room at Victoria Station. It was given to him in mistake for his own.
Lady Bracknell. The cloak-room at Victoria Station?
Jack. Yes. The Brighton line.
Lady Bracknell. The line is immaterial. Mr. Worthing, I confess I feel somewhat bewildered by what you have just told me. To be born, or at any rate bred, in a hand-bag, whether it had handles or not, seems to me to display a contempt for the ordinary decencies of family life that reminds one of the worst excesses of the French Revolution. And I presume you know what that unfortunate movement led to? As for the particular locality in which the hand-bag was found, a cloak-room at a railway station might serve to conceal a social indiscretion—has probably, indeed, been used for that purpose before now—but it could hardly be regarded as an assured basis for a recognised position in good society.
Jack. May I ask you then what you would advise me to do? I need hardly say I would do anything in the world to ensure Gwendolen’s happiness.
Lady Bracknell. I would strongly advise you, Mr. Worthing, to try and acquire some relations as soon as possible, and to make a definite effort to produce at any rate one parent, of either sex, before the season is quite over.
Jack. Well, I don’t see how I could possibly manage to do that. I can produce the hand-bag at any moment. It is in my dressing-room at home. I really think that should satisfy you, Lady Bracknell.
Lady Bracknell. Me, sir! What has it to do with me? You can hardly imagine that I and Lord Bracknell would dream of allowing our only daughter—a girl brought up with the utmost care—to marry into a cloak-room, and form an alliance with a parcel? Good morning, Mr. Worthing!
[ Lady Bracknell sweeps out in majestic indignation.]
Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice (1813). Chapter One.
It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.
However little known the feelings or views of such a man may be on his first entering a neighbourhood, this truth is so well fixed in the minds of the surrounding families, that he is considered the rightful property of some one or other of their daughters.
"My dear Mr. Bennet," said his lady to him one day, "have you heard that Netherfield Park is let at last?"
Mr. Bennet replied that he had not.
"But it is," returned she; "for Mrs. Long has just been here, and she told me all about it."
Mr. Bennet made no answer.
"Do you not want to know who has taken it?" cried his wife impatiently.
" You want to tell me, and I have no objection to hearing it."
This was invitation enough.
"Why, my dear, you must know, Mrs. Long says that Netherfield is taken by a young man of large fortune from the north of England; that he came down on Monday in a chaise and four to see the place, and was so much delighted with it, that he agreed with Mr. Morris immediately; that he is to take possession before Michaelmas, and some of his servants are to be in the house by the end of next week."
"What is his name?"
"Bingley."
"Is he married or single?"
"Oh! Single, my dear, to be sure! A single man of large fortune; four or five thousand a year. What a fine thing for our girls!"
"How so? How can it affect them?"
"My dear Mr. Bennet," replied his wife, "how can you be so tiresome! You must know that I am thinking of his marrying one of them."
"Is that his design in settling here?"
"Design! Nonsense, how can you talk so! But it is very likely that he may fall in love with one of them, and therefore you must visit him as soon as he comes."
"I see no occasion for that. You and the girls may go, or you may send them by themselves, which perhaps will be still better, for as you are as handsome as any of them, Mr. Bingley may like you the best of the party."
