University of Virginia Library

12. CHAPTER XII.
In which the history is perfectly becalmed.

Our heroine remained in a state of mind requiring
motion. She felt a sort of fidgeting impatience of
repose which almost always accompanies the little
perplexities and uncertainties of life. She took out
the silk purse to net; but the thought struck her that
Highfield might be too much elated if he saw her
thus employed. She took up a book, and though
it was one of the very latest fashionable works, she
actually yawned over the first chapter. She then
as a last resort took up a new garment, that had
just been sent home by the mantua maker; which
fortunately gave a new turn to her ideas. The
sleeves were exactly the thing. She retired to her
mysterious boudoir, and arrayed herself like King
Solomon in all his glory. She put on a pink hat
with a black velvet lining, and a feather that swept
the ground; she put on her white satin cloak that
hid her pretty figure as effectually as a sack; and she
adorned her pretty ancles with spatterdashes. She
arrayed herself with the Foulard silk; the Foulard
damasce; the gros des Indes; the embroidered collar,
cape, Fichu, Alavielle and Fiorelle; the Blonde

gauze, and the Decoupe gauze, the fancy ribands,
trimmings, &c. &c. &c.; in short she made herself
one of the most beautiful fancy articles ever imported,
before she had done. She then looked into a
full lengh mirror and saw that all was good; for
her hat was mighty to behold; her shoulders broader
than those of Sampson with the gates of Gaza on
his back; and not the African Venus herself—but
hush my muse nor meddle too deeply with mysteries
unknown to the sacred nine!

Highfield met her just as she was going forth into
the Aceldama, the field of blood, the Flanders of the
new world—Broadway—where more whiskered
dandies have been slain outright by stout broad
shouldered ladies, and the empire of more hearts
contested than in all the universe besides. He stood
in speechless admiration, for his cousin was really
so beautiful, that it was out of the power of milliner
or mantua maker to make her look ugly.

“Will you take me with you?” said he.

Lucia felt like the ox-eyed Juno, in her glorious
paraphernalia.

The most unpropitious moment for approaching
a belle is doubtless when she is full dressed for
Broadway. She treads on air; she sees herself reflected
in the mirror of her imagination at full
length; the rustling of silks whispers an alarum to
her vanity; and the waving of feathers is the signal
for conquering the world.

“Will you take me with you?” repeated Highfield.

How handsome and interesting he is, thought our
heroine as she looked at herself in the glass. If he
only had whiskers he would be irresistible.

“I am afraid,” said she, “the weather is too keen
for you this morning; you look pale, and don't
seem well;” and nature forced her voice into a tuneful
sympathy.

“Oh, I never was better in my life.”

“Well, it is not my business,” said she, again assuming
the woman—“If you choose to risk it, 'tis
nothing to me.” And the father of hypocrisy himself
could not have put on a more freezing indifference.
“I am going to call on Miss Appleby; my
aunt promised to meet me there.”

“I'd rather go any where else with you.”

“Oh, yes, I know you don't like literary people.”

“I don't like pretenders to literature.”

“Then let me go by myself,” said she abruptly.

“No—I'll go, and take the mighty Goshawk by
the beard, e'en though he were a metaphor, as saith
our azure aunt.”

This sally made Lucia smile, and restored her
good humour, which indeed was never long away.
Her anger was never chronic, and so much the better.
An unforgiving woman is worse than a man
that forgives every body. Lucia put her arm within
Highfield's, and they went away as gay as boblincons
in a clover meadow. Lucia forgot for a

moment her plan of making him jealous; but there
was a little imp of mischief at her elbow that soon
put her in mind of it again.

The gentle reader need not expect to find our little
history a Newgate chronicle of bloody, remorseless
crimes; or a chaotic congeries—as an azure
would call it—of accidents and incidents, piled one
upon the other with a profusion and confusion, mocking
both art and nature to arrange into order, propriety,
or probability. He will we hope take our
word, when we assure him upon our honour, that nothing
in the whole art and mystery of works of imagination,
is more vulgarly easy than to weave adventures
without probability; to paint characters without
nature or consistency; to elevate into astonishment
by incidents entirely unexpected because there
is nothing to render them credible; to delineate the
excesses of unbridled and ferocious depravity; the
crimes of unqualified wickedness; and the daring
pranks of lawless savages, as little restrained by the
behests of the law, as is the author by the canons of
taste and criticism. Such indeed is the utter recklessness
with which the truly fashionable and intellectual
writers and readers in this age of developement,
plunge into seas of blood, and revel in sights
and scenes that even the case hardened sympathies of
vulgar ignorance, would shrink from contemplating
in real life; such, in short, the rage for mere excitement
in the prevailing taste for literature, that it

would give us little surprise to see a writer administering
to this ravenous appetite, by introducing a
sentimental Caliban, or a Sycorax dying for the love
of a well dressed dandy. Adventures and incidents,
unconnected and without motive, have taken place
of delineations of the windings of the human heart,
the intricacies and vagaries of passion, and the
nice and wary caution, with which the authors of a
better period, traced every effect to its cause, every
cause to its effects. They introduced no incident to
excite a mere vulgar surprise, nor any adventure,
but what was a spoke in the wheel of the story, accelerating
its progress, and rendering the denouement
more probable. They delighted not in the naked,
unadorned, unmitigated personification of crimes.
They found human nature a mixture of good and
evil; human actions springing from the like mixture
of motives, and so they endeavoured to delineate
them. Their design was to paint men, not monsters;
and such we confess at humble distance is
ours. The enlightened reader must therefore, not
expect to find in our story, either the excitement of
blood, murder, adultery, and crime, nor to detect us
wallowing in the very mire of sentimental sensuality.
Such feasts as these are not we confess to our taste,
and what we do not relish ourselves we disdain to
palm upon others, even though it might peradveture
be for our temporary advantage. We close these
remarks, by cautioning the reader against believing
for a single instant that they have the most remote
reference to the excellent Sir Walter, whose genius
is almost sufficient to atone for the crying offences
of a thousand bad imitators.