“I’ll fetch him in now, eh, Casaubon?”
said Mr. Brooke. “He wouldn’t come
in till I had announced him, you know. And we’ll
go down and look at the picture. There you are
to the life: a deep subtle sort of thinker with
his fore-finger on the page, while Saint Bonaventure
or somebody else, rather fat and florid, is looking
up at the Trinity. Everything is symbolical,
you know— the higher style of art:
I like that up to a certain point, but not too far—it’s
rather straining to keep up with, you know. But
you are at home in that, Casaubon. And your painter’s
flesh is good—solidity, transparency, everything
of that sort. I went into that a great deal at
one time. However, I’ll go and fetch Ladislaw.”
CHAPTER XXXV.
“Non, je ne comprends
pas de plus charmant plaisir
Que de voir d’heritiers
une troupe affligee
Le maintien interdit,
et la mine allongee,
Lire un long testament
ou pales, etonnes
On leur laisse un bonsoir
avec un pied de nez.
Pour voir au naturel
leur tristesse profonde
Je reviendrais, je crois,
expres de l’autre monde.”
—REGNARD:
Le Legataire Universel.
When the animals entered the Ark in pairs, one may
imagine that allied species made much private remark
on each other, and were tempted to think that so many
forms feeding on the same store of fodder were eminently
superfluous, as tending to diminish the rations.
(I fear the part played by the vultures on that occasion
would be too painful for art to represent, those birds
being disadvantageously naked about the gullet, and
apparently without rites and ceremonies.)
The same sort of temptation befell the Christian Carnivora
who formed Peter Featherstone’s funeral procession;
most of them having their minds bent on a limited
store which each would have liked to get the most of.
The long-recognized blood-relations and connections
by marriage made already a goodly number, which, multiplied
by possibilities, presented a fine range for jealous
conjecture and pathetic hopefulness. Jealousy
of the Vincys had created a fellowship in hostility
among all persons of the Featherstone blood, so that
in the absence of any decided indication that one
of themselves was to have more than the rest, the
dread lest that long-legged Fred Vincy should have
the land was necessarily dominant, though it left abundant
feeling and leisure for vaguer jealousies, such as
were entertained towards Mary Garth. Solomon
found time to reflect that Jonah was undeserving,
and Jonah to abuse Solomon as greedy; Jane, the elder
sister, held that Martha’s children ought not
to expect so much as the young Waules; and Martha,
more lax on the subject of primogeniture, was sorry
to think that Jane was so “having.”
These nearest of kin were naturally impressed with
the unreasonableness of expectations in cousins and
second cousins, and used their arithmetic in reckoning
