Part 1 (2/2)
George Saintsbury.
GRYLL GRANGE
Opinion governs all mankind, Like the blind leading of the blind:-- And like the world, men's jobbemoles Turn round upon their ears the poles, And what they're confidently told By no sense else can be controll'd.
In the following pages the New Forest is always mentioned as if it were still unenclosed. This is the only state in which the Author has been acquainted with it. Since its enclosure, he has never seen it, and purposes never to do so.
The mottoes are sometimes specially apposite to the chapters to which they are prefixed; but more frequently to the general scope, or, to borrow a musical term, the _motivo_ of the _operetta_.
CHAPTER I
MISNOMERS
Ego sic semper et ubique vixi, ut ultimam quamque lucem, taraquam non redituram, consumerem.--Petronius Arbiter.
Always and everywhere I have so lived, that I might consume the pa.s.sing light as if it were not to return.
'Palestine soup!' said the Reverend Doctor Opimian, dining with his friend Squire Gryll; 'a curiously complicated misnomer. We have an excellent old vegetable, the artichoke, of which we eat the head; we have another of subsequent introduction, of which we eat the root, and which we also call artichoke, because it resembles the first in flavour, although, _me judice_, a very inferior affair. This last is a species of the helianthus, or sunflower genus of the _Syngenesia frustranea_ cla.s.s of plants. It is therefore a girasol, or turn-to-the-sun. From this girasol we have made Jerusalem, and from the Jerusalem artichoke we make Palestine soup.'
_Mr. Gryll._ A very good thing, doctor.
_The Rev. Dr. Opimian._ A very good thing; but a palpable misnomer.
_Mr. Gryll._ I am afraid we live in a world of misnomers, and of a worse kind than this. In my little experience I have found that a gang of swindling bankers is a respectable old firm; that men who sell their votes to the highest bidder, and want only 'the protection of the ballot' to sell the promise of them to both parties, are a free and independent const.i.tuency; that a man who successively betrays everybody that trusts him, and abandons every principle he ever professed, is a great statesman, and a Conservative, forsooth, _a nil conservando_; that schemes for breeding pestilence are sanitary improvements; that the test of intellectual capacity is in swallow, and not in digestion; that the art of teaching everything, except what will be of use to the recipient, is national education; and that a change for the worse is reform. Look across the Atlantic. A Sympathiser would seem to imply a certain degree of benevolent feeling. Nothing of the kind. It signifies a ready-made accomplice in any species of political villainy. A Know-Nothing would seem to imply a liberal self-diffidence--on the scriptural principle that the beginning of knowledge is to know that thou art ignorant.
No such thing. It implies furious political dogmatism, enforced by bludgeons and revolvers. A Locofoco is the only intelligible term: a fellow that would set any place on fire to roast his own eggs. A Filibuster is a pirate under national colours; but I suppose the word in its origin implies something virtuous: perhaps a friend of humanity.
_The Rev. Dr. Opimian._ More likely a friend of roaring-(Greek phrase)--in the sense in which roaring is used by our old dramatists; for which see Middleton's _Roaring Girl_, and the commentators thereon.
_Mr. Gryll._ While we are on the subject of misnomers, what say you to the wisdom of Parliament?
_The Rev. Dr. Opimian._ Why, sir, I do not call that a misnomer. The term wisdom is used in a parliamentary sense. The wisdom of Parliament is a wisdom _sui generis_. It is not like any other wisdom. It is not the wisdom of Socrates, nor the wisdom of Solomon. It is the wisdom of Parliament. It is not easily a.n.a.lysed or defined; but it is very easily understood. It has achieved wonderful things by itself, and still more when Science has come to its aid. Between them they have poisoned the Thames, and killed the fish in the river. A little further development of the same wisdom and science will complete the poisoning of the air, and kill the dwellers on the banks. It is pleasant that the precious effluvium has been brought so efficiently under the Wisdom's own wise nose. Thereat the nose, like Trinculo's, has been in great indignation.
The Wisdom has ordered the Science to do something. The Wisdom does not know what, nor the Science either. But the Wisdom has empowered the Science to spend some millions of money; and this, no doubt, the Science will do. When the money has been spent, it will be found that the something has been worse than nothing. The Science will want more money to do some other something, and the Wisdom will grant it. _Redit labor actus in orbem_.{1} But you have got on moral and political ground.
My remark was merely on a perversion of words, of which we have an inexhaustible catalogue.
__Mr. Gryll.__ Whatever ground we take, doctor, there is one point common to most of these cases: the word presents an idea which does not belong to the subject, critically considered. Palestine soup is not more remote from the true Jerusalem, than many an honourable friend from public honesty and honour. However, doctor, what say you to a gla.s.s of old Madeira, which I really believe is what it is called?
_The Rev. Dr. Opimian._ _In vino Veritas_. I accept with pleasure.
_Miss Gryll._ You and my uncle, doctor, get up a discussion on everything that presents itself; dealing with your theme like a series of variations in music. You have run half round the world _a propos_ of the soup.{1} What say you to the fish?
1 The labour returns, compelled into a circle.
_The Rev. Dr. Opimian._ Premising that this is a remarkably fine slice of salmon, there is much to be said about fish: but not in the way of misnomers. Their names are single and simple. Perch, sole, cod, eel, carp, char, skate, tench, trout, brill, bream, pike, and many others, plain monosyllables: salmon, dory, turbot, gudgeon, lobster, whitebait, grayling, haddock, mullet, herring, oyster, sturgeon, flounder, turtle, plain dissyllables: only two trisyllables worth naming, anchovy and mackerel; unless any one should be disposed to stand up for halibut, which, for my part, I have excommunicated.
_Mr. Gryll._ I agree with you on that point; but I think you have named one or two that might as well keep it company.
_The Rev. Dr. Opimian._ I do not think I have named a single unpresentable fish.
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