_The Rev. Dr. Opimian._ Agapete is often translated "adoptive sister."
A very possible relation, I think, where there are vows of celibacy, and inward spiritual grace.
_Mrs. Opimian._ Very possible, indeed: and equally possible where there are none.
_The Rev. Dr. Opimian._ But more possible where there are seven adoptive sisters, than where there is only one.
_Mrs. Opimian._ Perhaps.
_The Rev. Dr. Opimian._ The manners, my dear, of these damsels towards their young master are infallible indications of the relations between them. Their respectful deference to him is a symptom in which I cannot be mistaken.
_Mrs. Opimian._ I hope you are not.
_The Rev. Dr. Opimian._ I am sure I am not. I would stake all my credit for observation and experience on the purity of the seven Vestals. I am not strictly accurate in calling them so: for in Rome the number of Vestals was only six. But there were seven Pleiads, till one disappeared. We may fancy she became a seventh Vestal. Or as the planets used to be seven, and are now more than fifty, we may pa.s.s a seventh Vestal in the name of modern progress.
_Mrs. Opimian._ There used to be seven deadly sins. How many has modern progress added to them?
_The Rev. Dr. Opimian._ None, I hope, my dear. But this will be due, not to its own tendencies, but to the comprehensiveness of the old definitions.
_Mrs. Opimian._ I think I have heard something like your Greek word before.
_The Rev. Dr. Opimian._ Agapemone, my dear. You may have heard the word Agapemone.
_Mrs. Opimian._ That is it. And what may it signify?
_The Rev. Dr. Opimian._ It signifies Abode of Love: spiritual love of course.
_Mrs. Opimian._ Spiritual love, which rides in carriages and four, fares sumptuously, like Dives, and protects itself with a high wall from profane observation.
_The Rev. Dr. Opimian._ Well, my dear, and there may be no harm in all that.
_Mrs. Opimian._ Doctor, you are determined not to see harm in anything.
_The Rev. Dr. Opimian._ I am afraid I see more harm in many things than I like to see. But one reason for not seeing harm in this Agapemona matter is, that I hear so little about it The world is ready enough to promulgate scandal; but that which is quietly right may rest in peace.
_Mrs. Opimian._ Surely, doctor, you do not think this Agapemone right?
_The Rev. Dr. Opimian._ I only say I do not know whether it is right or wrong. It is nothing new. Three centuries ago there was a Family of Love, on which Middleton wrote a comedy. Queen Elizabeth persecuted this family; Middleton made it ridiculous; but it outlived them both, and there may have been no harm in it after all.
_Mrs. Opimian._ Perhaps, doctor, the world is too good to see any novelty except in something wrong.
_The Rev. Dr. Opimian._ Perhaps it is only wrong that arrests attention, because right is common, and wrong is rare. Of the many thousand persons who walk daily through a street you only hear of one who has been robbed or knocked down. If ever Hamlet"s news--"that the world has grown honest"--should prove true, there would be an end of our newspaper. For, let us see, what is the epitome of a newspaper? In the first place, specimens of all the deadly sins, and infinite varieties of violence and fraud; a great quant.i.ty of talk, called by courtesy legislative wisdom, of which the result is "an incoherent and undigested ma.s.s of law, shot down, as from a rubbish-cart, on the heads of the people ";{1} lawyers barking at each other in that peculiar style of dylactic delivery which is called forensic eloquence, and of which the first and most distinguished pract.i.tioner was Cerberus;{2} bear-garden meetings of mismanaged companies, in which directors and shareholders abuse each other in choice terms, not all to be found even in Rabelais; burstings of bank bubbles, which, like a touch of harlequin"s wand, strip off their masks and dominoes from "highly respectable" gentlemen, and leave them in their true figures of cheats and pickpockets; societies of all sorts, for teaching everybody everything, meddling with everybody"s business, and mending everybody"s morals; mountebank advertis.e.m.e.nts promising the beauty of Helen in a bottle of cosmetic, and the age of Old Parr in a box of pills; folly all alive in things called reunions; announcements that some exceedingly stupid fellow has been "entertaining" a select company; matters, however multiform, multifarious, and mult.i.tudinous, all brought into family likeness by the varnish of false pretension with which they are all overlaid.
1 Jeremy Bentham.
2 Cerberus forensis erat causidicus.--Petronius Arbiter.
_Mrs. Opimian._ I did not like to interrupt you, doctor; but it struck me, while you were speaking, that in reading the newspaper you do not hear the bark of the lawyers.
_The Rev. Dr. Opimian._ True; but no one who has once heard the wow-wow can fail to reproduce it in imagination.
_Mrs. Opimian._ You have omitted accidents, which occupy a large s.p.a.ce in the newspaper. If the world grew ever so honest, there would still be accidents.
_The Rev. Dr. Opimian._ But honesty would materially diminish the number. High-pressure steam-boilers would not scatter death and destruction around them, if the dishonesty of avarice did not tempt their employment, where the more costly low pressure would ensure absolute safety. Honestly built houses would not come suddenly down and crush their occupants. Ships, faithfully built and efficiently manned, would not so readily strike on a lee sh.o.r.e, nor go instantly to pieces on the first touch of the ground. Honestly made sweetmeats would not poison children; honestly compounded drugs would not poison patients. In short, the larger portion of what we call accidents are crimes.
_Mrs. Opimian._ I have often heard you say, of railways and steam-vessels, that the primary cause of their disasters is the insane pa.s.sion of the public for speed. That is not crime, but folly.
_The Rev. Dr. Opimian._ It is crime in those who ought to know better than to act in furtherance of the folly. But when the world has grown honest, it will no doubt grow wise. When we have got rid of crime, we may consider how to get rid of folly. So that question is adjourned to the Greek kalends.
_Mrs. Opimian._ There are always in a newspaper some things of a creditable character.
_The Rev. Dr. Opimian._ When we are at war, naval and military heroism abundantly; but in time of peace these virtues sleep. They are laid up like ships in ordinary. No doubt, of the recorded facts of civil life some are good, and more are indifferent, neither good nor bad; but good and indifferent together are scarcely more than a twelfth part of the whole. Still, the matters thus presented are all exceptional cases. A hermit reading nothing but a newspaper might find little else than food for misanthropy; but living among friends, and in the bosom of our family, we see the dark side of life in the occasional picture, the bright is its every-day aspect The occasional is the matter of curiosity, of incident, of adventure, of things that really happen to few, and may possibly happen to any. The interest attendant on any action or event is in just proportion to its rarity; and, happily, quiet virtues are all around us, and obtrusive virtues seldom cross our path.
On the whole, I agree in opinion with Theseus,{1} that there is more good than evil in the world.
1 Eurip. Suppl. 207: Herm.
_Mrs. Opimian._ I think, doctor, you would not maintain any opinion if you had not an authority two thousand years old for it.
_The Rev. Dr. Opimian._ Well, my dear, I think most opinions worth mentioning have an authority of about that age.
CHAPTER VIII
PANTOPRAGMATICS
Cool the wine, Doris. Pour it in the cup, Simple, unmixed with water. Such dilution Serves only to wash out the spirit of man.
The doctor, under the attraction of his new acquaintance, had allowed more time than usual to elapse between his visits to Gryll Grange, and when he resumed them he was not long without communicating the metamorphosis of the old Tower, and the singularities of its inhabitants. They dined well as usual, and drank their wine cool.
_Miss Gryll._ There are many things in what you have told us that excite my curiosity; but first, what do you suppose is the young gentleman"s religion?
_The Rev. Dr. Opimian._ From the great liking he seems to have taken to me, I should think he was of the Church of England, if I did not rather explain it by our Greek sympathy. At the same time, he kept very carefully in view that Saint Catharine is a saint of the English Church Calendar. I imagine there is less of true piety than of an abstract notion of ideal beauty, even in his devotion to her. But it is so far satisfactory that he wished to prove his religion, such as it is, to be within the pale of the Church of England.
_Miss Gryll._ I like the idea of his closing the day with a hymn, sung in concert by his seven Vestals.
_The Rev. Dr. Opimian._ I am glad you think charitably of the damsels.
It is not every lady that would. But I am satisfied they deserve it.
_Mr. Gryll._ I should like to know the young gentleman. I wish you could manage to bring him here. Should not you like to see him, Morgana?
_Miss Gryll._ Yes, uncle.
_Mr. Gryll._ Try what you can do, doctor. We shall have before long some poetical and philosophical visitors. That may tempt him to join us.
_The Rev. Dr. Opimian._ It may; but I am not confident. He seems to me to be indisposed to general society, and to care for nothing but woods, rivers, and the sea; Greek poetry, Saint Catharine, and the seven Vestals. However, I will try what can be done.
_Mr. Gryll._ But, doctor, I think he would scarcely have provided such a s.p.a.cious dining-room, and so much domestic accommodation, if he had intended to shut himself up from society altogether. I expect that some day when you go there you will find a large party. Try if he will co-operate in the Aristophanic comedy.