I have heard a brother of the story-telling trade, at Naples, preaching
to a pack of good-for-nothing honest lazy fellows by the sea-shore,
work himself up into such a rage and passion with some of the villains
whose wicked deeds he was describing and inventing, that the audience
could not resist it; and they and the poet together would burst out
into a roar of oaths and execrations against the fictitious monster of
the tale, so that the hat went round, and the bajocchi tumbled into it,
in the midst of a perfect storm of sympathy.
At the little Paris theatres, on the other hand, you will not only hear
the people yelling out "Ah gredin! Ah monstre:" and cursing the tyrant
of the play from the boxes; but the actors themselves positively refuse
to play the wicked parts, such as those of infames Anglais, brutal
Cossacks, and what not, and prefer to appear at a smaller salary, in
their real characters as loyal Frenchmen. I set the two stories one
against the other, so that you may see that it is not from mere
mercenary motives that the present performer is desirous to show up and
trounce his villains; but because he has a sincere hatred of them,
which he cannot keep down, and which must find a vent in suitable abuse
and bad language.
I warn my "kyind friends," then, that I am going to tell a story of
harrowing villainy and complicated--but, as I trust, intensely
interesting--crime. My rascals are no milk-and-water rascals, I
promise you. When we come to the proper places we won't spare fine
language--No, no! But when we are going over the quiet country we must
perforce be calm. A tempest in a slop-basin is absurd. We will
reserve that sort of thing for the mighty ocean and the lonely
midnight. The present Chapter is very mild. Others--But we will not
anticipate THOSE.
And, as we bring our characters forward, I will ask leave, as a man and
a brother, not only to introduce them, but occasionally to step down
from the platform, and talk about them: if they are good and kindly, to
love them and shake them by the hand: if they are silly, to laugh at
them confidentially in the reader's sleeve: if they are wicked and
heartless, to abuse them in the strongest terms which politeness admits
of.
Otherwise you might fancy it was I who was sneering at the practice of
devotion, which Miss Sharp finds so ridiculous; that it was I who
laughed good-humouredly at the reeling old Silenus of a
baronet--whereas the laughter comes from one who has no reverence
except for prosperity, and no eye for anything beyond success. Such
people there are living and flourishing in the world--Faithless,
Hopeless, Charityless: let us have at them, dear friends, with might
and main. Some there are, and very successful too, mere quacks and
fools: and it was to combat and expose such as those, no doubt, that
Laughter was made.