"Laugh it down, and what do you leave? In Miss Austen's time silly girls

ran to balls after militiamen, now, if they run to schools and charities

more for the curate's sake than they quite know, is not the alternative

better?"

"It is greater humbug," said Rachel. "But I knew you would not agree, at

least beforehand, it is appreciation that I want."

Never did Madame de Genlis make a cleverer hit than in the reading of

the Genius Phanor's tragedy in the Palace of Truth. Comically absurd

as the inconsistency is of transporting the lecture of a Parisian

academician into an enchanted palace, full of genii and fairies of the

remotest possible connexion with the Arab jinn, the whole is redeemed

by the truth to nature of the sole dupe in the Palace of Truth being the

author reading his own works. Ermine was thinking of him all the time.

She was under none of the constraint of Phanor's auditors, though she

carried a perpetual palace of truth about with her; she would not have

had either fears or compunctions in criticising, if she could. The paper

was in the essay style, between argument and sarcasm, something after

the model of the Invalid's Letters; but it was scarcely lightly touched

enough, the irony was wormwood, the gravity heavy and sententious, and

where there was a just thought or happy hit, it seemed to travel in a

road-waggon, and be lost in the rumbling of the wheels. Ermine did

not restrain a smile, half of amusement, half of relief, at the

self-antidote the paper contained; but the smile passed with the

authoress as a tribute to her satire.

"In this age," she said, "we must use those lighter weapons of wit, or

no one will attend."

"Perhaps," said Ermine, "if I approve your object, I should tell you you

don't use them lightly."

"Ah! but I know you don't approve it. You are not lay woman enough to be

impartial, and you belong to the age that was trying the experiment of

the hierarchy modified: I to that which has found it will not do. But at

least you understand my view; I have made out my case."

"Yes, I understand your view; but--"

"You don't sympathize. Of course not; but when it receives its full

weight from the printer's bands, you will see that it will tell. That

bit about the weak tea fumes I thought of afterwards, and I am afraid I

did not read it well."

"I remember it; but forgive me if I say first I think the whole is

rather too--too lengthy to take."

"Oh, that is only because manuscript takes long to read aloud. I counted

the words, so I can't be mistaken, at least I collated twenty lines,

and multiplied; and it is not so long as the Invalid's last letter about

systematic reading."




readonlinefreebook.com Copyright 2016 - 2024