“Well, mamma,” said she, when they were all returned to the breakfast-room, “and what do you think of my husband? Is not he a charming man? I am sure my sisters must all envy me. I only hope they may have half my good luck. They must all go to Brighton. That is the place to get husbands. What a pity it is, mamma, we did not all go!”
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[167] The manner in which this episode is introduced, is well illustrated by the following remarks of Mure, vol. i. p.298: “The poet’s method of introducing his episode, also, illustrates in a curious manner his tact in the dramatic department of his art. Where, for example, one or more heroes are despatched on some commission, to be executed at a certain distance of time or place, the fulfilment of this task is not, as a general rule, immediately described. A certain interval is allowed them for reaching the appointed scene of action, which interval is dramatised, as it were, either by a temporary continuation of the previous narrative, or by fixing attention for a while on some new transaction, at the close of which the further account of the mission is resumed.”
The White Rabbit put on his spectacles. “Where shall I begin, please your Majesty?” he asked.
It was not to be supposed that time would give Lydia that embarrassment from which she had been so wholly free at first. Her ease and good spirits increased. She longed to see Mrs. Philips, the Lucases, and all their other neighbours, and to hear herself called “Mrs. Wickham” by each of them; and in the meantime she went after dinner to show her ring and boast of being married to Mrs. Hill and the two housemaids.
“Ah, Jane, I take your place now, and you must go lower, because I am a married woman.”
“Read them,” said the King.
Dryden’s Virgil, i. 670
Elizabeth could bear it no longer. She got up and ran out of the room; and returned no more, till she heard them passing through the hall to the dining-parlour. She then joined them soon enough to see Lydia, with anxious parade, walk up to her mother’s right hand, and hear her say to her eldest sister,--
“It proves nothing of the sort!” said Alice. “Why, you don’t even know what they’re about!”
[166] “Meantime the Trojan dames, oppress’d with woe, To Pallas’ fane in long procession go, In hopes to reconcile their heav’nly foe: They weep; they beat their breasts; they rend their hair, And rich embroider’d vests for presents bear.”
“That proves his guilt,” said the Queen.
Rowe’s Lucan, bk. ii.
“Oh, mamma, do the people hereabouts know I am married to-day? I was afraid they might not; and we overtook William Goulding in his curricle, so I was determined he should know it, and so I let down the side glass next to him, and took off my glove and let my hand just rest upon the window frame, so that he might see the ring, and then I bowed and smiled like anything.”
There was a general clapping of hands at this: it was the first really clever thing the King had said that day.
[165] “The ruthless steel, impatient of delay, Forbade the sire to linger out the day. It struck the bending father to the earth, And cropt the wailing infant at the birth. Can innocents the rage of parties know, And they who ne’er offended find a foe?”
Her father lifted up his eyes, Jane was distressed, Elizabeth looked expressively at Lydia; but she, who never heard nor saw anything of which she chose to be insensible, gaily continued,--
“If you didn’t sign it,” said the King, “that only makes the matter worse. You must have meant some mischief, or else you’d have signed your name like an honest man.”
[164] Oh impotent, &c. “In battle, quarter seems never to have been given, except with a view to the ransom of the prisoner. Agamemnon reproaches Menelaus with unmanly softness, when he is on the point of sparing a fallen enemy, and himself puts the suppliant to the sword.”—Thirlwall, vol. i. p. 181
“Only think of its being three months,” she cried, “since I went away: it seems but a fortnight, I declare; and yet there have been things enough happened in the time. Good gracious! when I went away, I am sure I had no more idea of being married till I came back again! though I thought it would be very good fun if I was.”
[163] Rich heaps of brass. “The halls of Alkinous and Menelaus glitter with gold, copper, and electrum; while large stocks of yet unemployed metal—gold, copper, and iron are stored up in the treasure-chamber of Odysseus and other chiefs. Coined money is unknown in the Homeric age—the trade carried on being one of barter. In reference also to the metals, it deserves to be remarked, that the Homeric descriptions universally suppose copper, and not iron, to be employed for arms, both offensive and defensive. By what process the copper was tempered and hardened, so as to serve the purpose of the warrior, we do not know; but the use of iron for these objects belongs to a later age.”—Grote, vol. ii. p. 142.