Olla Podrida

A. Your argument is unanswerable; but you said that I must describe the dressing-room.

B. Nothing more easy; as a simile, compare it to the shrine of some favoured saint in a richly-endowed Catholic church. Three tables at least, full of materials in methodised confusion—all tending to the beautification of the human form divine. Tinted perfumes in every variety of cut crystal receivers, gold and silver. If at a loss, call at Bayley and Blew’s, or Smith’s in Bond Street. Take an accurate survey of all you see, and introduce your whole catalogue. You cannot be too minute. But, Arthur, you must not expect me to write the whole book for you.

A. Indeed I am not so exorbitant in my demands upon your good-nature; but observe, I may get up four or five chapters already with the hints you have given me, but I do not know how to move, such a creation of the brain—so ethereal, that I fear he will melt away; and so fragile, that I am in terror lest he fall to pieces. Now only get him into the breakfast-room for me, and then I ask no more for the present. Only dress him, and bring him down stairs.

B. There again you prove your incapability. Bring him down stairs! Your hero of a fashionable novel never ascends to the first floor. Bed-room, dressing-room, breakfast-room, library, and boudoir, all are upon a level. As for his dressing, you must only describe it as perfect when finished; but not enter into a regular detail, except that, in conversation with his valet, he occasionally asks for something unheard-of, or fastidious to a degree. You must not walk him from one chamber to another, but manage it as follows:– “It was not until the beautiful airs of the French clock that decorated the mantel-piece had been thrice played, with all their variations, that the Honourable Augustus Bouverie entered his library, where he found his assiduous Coridon burning an aromatic pastille to disperse the compound of villainous exhalations arising from the condensed metropolitan atmosphere. Once more in a state of repose, to the repeated and almost affecting solicitations of his faithful attendant, who alternately presented to him the hyson of Pekoe, the bohea of Twankay, the fragrant berry from the Asiatic shore, and the frothing and perfumed decoction of the Indian nut, our hero shook his head in denial, until he at last was prevailed upon to sip a small liqueur glass of eau sucré.” The fact is, Arthur, he is in love—don’t you perceive? Now introduce a friend, who rallies him—then a resolution to think no more of the heroine—a billet on a golden salver—a counter resolution—a debate which equipage to order—a decision at last—hat, gloves, and furred great coat—and by that time you will have arrived to the middle of the first volume.

A. I perceive; but I shall certainly stick there without your assistance.

B. You shall have it, my dear fellow. In a week I will call again, and see how you get on. Then we’ll introduce the heroine; that, I can tell you, requires some tact—au revoir.

A. Thanks, many thanks, my dear Barnstaple. Fare you well.

    Exit Barnstaple.

A (looking over his memoranda.)—It will do! (Hopping and dancing about the room.) Hurrah! my tailor’s bill will be paid after all!

Part II

Mr Arthur Ansard’sChambers as before. Mr Ansard. with his eyes fixed upon the wig block, gnawing the feather end of his pen. The table, covered with sundry sheets of foolscap, show strong symptoms of the Novel progressing.

Ansard (solus)

Where is Barnstaple? If he do not come soon, I shall have finished my novel without a heroine. Well, I’m not the first person who has been foiled by a woman. (Continues to gnaw his pen in a brown study.)

Barnstapleenters unperceived, and slapsAnsardon the shoulder. The latter starts up.

B. So, friend Ansard, making your dinner off your pen: it is not every novel-writer who can contrive to do that even in anticipation. Have you profited by my instructions?

A. I wish I had. I assure you that this light diet has not contributed, as might be expected, to assist a heavy head, and one feather is not sufficient to enable my genius to take wing. If the public knew what dull work it is to write a novel, they would not be surprised at finding them dull reading. Ex nihilo nihil fit. Barnstaple, I am at the very bathos of stupidity.

B. You certainly were absorbed when I entered, for I introduced myself.

A. I wish you had introduced another personage with you—you would have been doubly welcome.

B. Who is that?

A. My heroine. I have followed your instructions to the letter. My hero is as listless as I fear my readers will be, and he is not yet in love. In fact, he is only captivated with himself. I have made him dismiss Coridon.

B. Hah! how did you manage that?

A. He was sent to ascertain the arms on the panel of a carriage. In his eagerness to execute his master’s wishes, he came home with a considerable degree of perspiration on his brow, for which offence he was immediately put out of doors.

B. Bravo—it was unpardonable—but still—

A. O! I know what you mean—that is all arranged; he has an annuity of one hundred pounds per annum.

B. My dear Ansard, you have exceeded my expectations; but now for the heroine.

A. Yes, indeed; help me—for I have exhausted all my powers.

B. It certainly requires much tact to present your heroine to your readers. We are unfortunately denied what the ancients were so happy to possess,—a whole cortège of divinities that might be summoned to help any great personage in, or the author out of, a difficulty; but since we cannot command their assistance, like the man in the play who forgot his part, we will do without it. Now, have you thought of nothing new, for we must not plagiarise even from fashionable novels?

A. I have thought—and thought—and can find nothing new, unless we bring her in in a whirlwind: that has not yet been attempted.

B. A whirlwind! I don’t know—that’s hazardous. Nevertheless, if she were placed on a beetling cliff, overhanging the tempestuous ocean, lashing the rocks with its wild surge; of a sudden, after she has been permitted to finish her soliloquy, a white cloud rising rapidly and unnoticed—the sudden vacuum—the rush of mighty winds through the majestic and alpine scenery—the vortex gathering round her—first admiring the vast efforts of nature; then astonished; and, lastly, alarmed, as she finds herself compelled to perform involuntary gyrations, till at length she spins round like a well-whipped top, nearing the dangerous edge of the precipice. It is bold, and certainly quite novel—I think it will do. Portray her delicate little feet, peeping out, pointing downwards, the force of the elements raising her on her tip toes, now touching, now disdaining the earth. Her dress expanded wide like that of Herbelé in her last and best pirouette—round, round she goes—her white arms are tossed frantically in the air. Corinne never threw herself into more graceful attitudes. Now is seen her diminishing ankle—now the rounded symmetry—mustn’t go too high up though—the wind increases—her distance from the edge of the precipice decreases—she has no breath left to shriek—no power to fall—threatened to be ravished by the wild and powerful god of the elements—she is discovered by the Honourable Augustus Bouverie, who has just finished his soliloquy upon another adjacent hill. He delights in her danger—before he rushes to her rescue, makes one pause for the purpose of admiration, and another for the purpose of adjusting his shirt collar.

A. The devil he does!

B. To be sure. The hero of a fashionable novel never loses caste. Whether in a storm, a whirlwind, up to his neck in the foaming ocean, or tumbling down a precipice, he is still the elegant and correct Honourable Augustus Bouverie. To punish you for your interruption, I have a great mind to make him take a pinch of snuff before he starts. Well—he flies to her assistance—is himself caught in the rushing vortex, which prevents him from getting nearer to the lady, and, despite of himself, takes to whirling in the opposite direction. They approach—they recede—she shrieks without being heard—holds out her arms for help—she would drop them in despair, but cannot, for they are twisted over her head by the tremendous force of the element. One moment they are near to each other, and the next they are separated; at one instant they are close to the abyss, and the waters below roar in delight of their anticipated victims, and in the next a favouring change of the vortex increases their distance from the danger—there they spin—and there you may leave them, and commence a new chapter.

A. But is not all this naturally and physically impossible?

B. By no means; there is nothing supernatural in a whirlwind, and the effect of a whirlwind is to twist everything round. Why should the heroine and the Honourable Augustus Bouverie not be submitted to the laws of nature? besides, we are writing a fashionable novel. Wild and improbable as this whirlwind may appear, it is within the range of probability: whereas, that is not at all adhered to in many novels—witness the drinking scene in —, and others equally outrées, in which the author, having turned probability out of doors, ends by throwing possibility out of the window—leaving folly and madness to usurp their place—and play a thousand antics for the admiration of the public, who, pleased with novelty, cry out “How fine!”

A. Buy the book, and laud the author.

B. Exactly. Now, having left your hero and heroine in a situation peculiarly interesting, with the greatest nonchalance, pass over to the continent, rave on the summit of Mont Blanc, and descant upon the strata which compose the mountains of the Moon in Central Africa. You have been philosophical, now you must be geological. No one can then say that your book is light reading.

A. That can be said of few novels. In most of them even smoke assumes the ponderosity of lead.

B. There is a metal still heavier, which they have the power of creating—gold—to pay a dunning tailor’s bill.

A. But after being philosophical and geological, ought one not to be a little moral.

B. Pshaw! I thought you had more sense. The great art of novel-writing is to make the vices glorious, by placing them in close alliance with redeeming qualities. Depend upon it, Ansard, there is a deeper, more heartfelt satisfaction that mere amusement in novel-reading; a satisfaction no less real, because we will not own it to ourselves; the satisfaction of seeing all our favourite and selfish ideas dressed up in a garb so becoming, that we persuade ourselves that our false pride is proper dignity, our ferocity courage, our cowardice prudence, our irreligion liberality, and our baser appetites, mere gallantry.

A. Very true, Barnstaple; but really I do not like this whirlwind.

B. Well, well! I give it up then: it was your own idea. We’ll try again. Cannot you create some difficulty or dilemma, in which to throw her, so that the hero may come to her rescue with éclat.

A. Her grey palfrey takes fright.

B. So will your readers; stale—quite stale!

A. A wild bull has his horns close to her, and is about to toss her.

B. As your book would be!—away with contempt. Vapid—quite vapid!

A. A shipwreck—the waves are about to close over her.

B. Your book would be closed at the same moment—worn out—quite worn out.

A. In the dead of the night, a fire breaks out—she is already in the midst of the flames—

B. Where your book would also be by the disgusted reader—worse and worse.

A. Confound it—you will not allow me to expose her to earth, air, fire, or water. I have a great mind to hang her in her garters, and make the hero come and cut her down.