“Before commencing my address I beg to observe that, while I was yet unfallen, it fortunately occurred to me to note down the more important heads of my universal knowledge. For I had, in my condition of innocence, a perfect and intuitive knowledge of all the sciences, of history, both universal and literary, the various criminal and other codes of law, all the dead languages as well as the living, and was a kind of live Pindus and Pegasus, a portable Lodge of Light and learned society, a pocket university, and miniature golden Siècle de Louis XIV. Considering what my mental powers were at that juncture it is a miracle (and what’s more, a very lucky job) that in my leisure moments I put down the cream of my universal knowledge on paper, because when I subsequently fell, and became simple and ignorant, I had these excerpts, or Catalogues raisonnés, of my former wisdom by me, so that I could refer to them.
“‘Virgin!’ (it was thus that the sermon delivered outside Paradise commenced) ‘it is true we are the first of parents, and are minded to originate all the subsequent parents; though all that you think about is sticking your spoon into a forbidden apple. However, I, being a man and protoplast, reflect and ponder, and as we walk to and fro, I shall undertake the office of preacher of the sermon on this, the occasion of our entering into the bonds of wedlock (not having as yet, unfortunately, begotten anybody else to do it), and, in a brief wedding exhortation, direct your attention to the doubts affecting and the reasons deciding, the protoplasts, or the first parents and first of wedded couples (that is to say, you and me), in the act of reflecting and considering, and how—
“‘In the first place, they consider the reasons why they should not people the earth, but emigrate this very day, the one into the old world, the other into the new; and
“‘In the second place, the reasons why they should do nothing of the kind, but marry.
“‘After which a short elench, or usus epanorthoticus, will be adduced, and will conclude the lecture and the night.’
IN THE FIRST PLACE
“‘My dearly beloved!
“‘Here, in my sheepskin, as I appear before you, grave, thoughtful, and wise, it is nevertheless the fact that I am full to the very brim of—not so much follies as fools, with a good many wise men stuck in here and there between them by way of parentheses. I am of short stature, it is true, and the ocean[[29]] came a good deal above my ancles, and besprinkled my new beasts’ skin; and yet, as I walk up and down here, I am girt about with a seed cloth, containing the seeds of all nations, and carrying the repertory of the whole human race, an entire world in miniature and orbis pictus, round my middle like a pedlar’s stock in trade. For Bonnet, who is in me among the rest, will sit down at his desk (when he comes out), and prove that they are all one inside the other, like a nest of boxes or a set of parentheses, that the father contains the son, that the grandfather contains them both, the great-grandfather consequently the grandfather and all the contents of him, the great-great-grandfather the great-grandfather and the contents of his contents and all his episodes, all sitting waiting one inside the other. Are there not then here embodied in thy bridegroom—this is a point, dear bride, which cannot be made too intelligible to you—all religious sects, excepting the Preadamites, but including the Adamites,[[30]] and all giants, the great Christopher himself among them every individual of every nation of all the earth—all the shiploads of negroes destined for America, and the packets marked with red containing the soldiers promised by England to Anspach and Bayreuth? Eve, am I not, as I stand here before you, a whole Jews’-quarter—a Louvre of all the crowned heads of the earth—since I can bring them all into existence if I please, and if I am not induced by this first head of my discourse to refrain from doing so? You will admire me, and yet laugh at me at the same time if you but look at me well, lay your hand on my shoulder, and say to yourself: “Now, in this man and protoplast are contained all mankind, all the learned faculties, all schools of philosophy, and of sewing and spinning, cheek by jowl in peace and harmony, the highest and noblest royal families and princely houses (though not yet sorted out from among the common ship’s company), all free imperial orders of knighthood, packed higgledy-piggledy with their vassals, cottiers, and tenants, it is true—monasteries and nunneries next door to each other—barracks and members of Parliament, to say nothing of cathedral chapters, with all their provosts, deans, priors, sub-priors, and canons! What a man! What an Anak!” you will add. You are right, dear, I am indeed—the very nest dollar of the human coin-cabinet, the universal court of assembly of all judicatures, with all the members of all assemblies, not one out of its place, the walking corpus juris of all civil, canon, criminal, feudal, and municipal law. Haven’t I Meusel’s ‘Learned Germany’ and Jöcher’s ‘Scholastic Lexicon’ within me all complete, and Jöcher and Meusel themselves, to say nothing of their supplementary volumes? I wish I could just let you see Cain—who, if head second of this discourse should determine me, would be our first offshoot and sucker, our Prince of Wales, Calabria, Asturias and the Brazils. You would see, if he were transparent—as I believe him to be—how he contains all the rest, one inside the other, like beer glasses—all œcumenical councils, inquisitions, and propaganda, and the devil and his grandmother. But, loveliest, thou didst not write down any of thy scientia media before thy fall, as I did, and consequently thou starest into the future as blind as a bat. I, however, who see into it quite clearly, am enabled by my chrestomathy to perceive that, where other men beget perhaps some ten fools, I shall beget whole millions of tens, and units into the bargain, seeing that the Bohemians, Parisians, Viennese, Leipzigers, Bayreuthers, Hofians, Dublinese, Kuhschnappelers (and their wives and daughters over and above) have all got to come into existence through me, and that in every million of them there will always be at least five hundred who neither have, nor will listen to, reason. Duenna, as yet you know little of the human race, but two in fact, for the serpent is not one; but I know what sort of race I am going to produce, and that in opening my limbus infantum, I open at the same time a Bedlam. By heaven, I weep and lament when I merely peep in between the leaves of the centuries in their long course, and see nothing there but gouts of gore, and a congeries of idiots—when I think of the trouble and pain to be undergone before a century shall learn to write a legible hand, a hand even as good as a minister’s or an elephant’s trunk—before poor humanity gets through its dame’s school, and private tutors, and French governesses, so as to be fit for Latin grammar schools, public schools, Jesuit seminaries, and next for fencing classes, dancing classes, dogmatic and clinical courses. By old Harry, I feel hot. Nobody will think of you as the brood-hen of the coming flock of starlings, as the spawning codfish in whom Leuwenhack will count 9½ millions of eggs; not you, my little Eve, but your husband, will get all the blame, who should have known better, and rather begotten nothing than such a rabble of thieves and robbers, crowned emperors on the Roman throne, and vicegerents on the Roman chair, the former of whom will call themselves after Antoninus and Cæsar, the latter after Christus and Petrus, and among whom there are men whose thrones shall be Lüneburg torture chairs for the human race, if not the converse of a Place de Grève, where the masses shall be put to death, and the single individual feted and amused.[[31]] And I shall be taken to task on account of Borgia, Pizarro, St. Dominic, and Potemkin. Even supposing I should manage to evade being blamed for black exceptions such as these, I should be obliged to admit that my descendants really cannot get through the space of half-an-hour without either thinking or doing something foolish, that the war of giants, waged in them by their passions, is never broken by a peace, seldom even by a truce; that the greatest of all man’s faults is that he has such a number of little ones; that his conscience serves for scarcely anything but hating his neighbours and being morbidly sensitive to their transgressions; that he never leaves off evil ways till he is on his deathbed; that, he learns and loves the language of virtue, but is at enmity with the virtuous—just as the English employ French language teachers, though they detest the French themselves. Eve, Eve, we shall have little to congratulate ourselves upon if we marry; Adam means in the original “red earth,” and truly my cheeks will consist entirely thereof, and will blush scarlet at the mere thought of the indescribable and unparalleled conceit and vanity of our great-grandchildren, increasing as the centuries go on. Nobody will tweak himself by the nose—unless perhaps when he is shaving. Critics will set themselves up above authors, authors above critics—Heimlicher von Blaise will give his hand to be kissed by orphans; ladies theirs to be kissed by all and sundry; mighty ones the embroidered hems of their garments. Eve, I had only got as far on with my prophetic extracts from the world’s history as the sixth century, when you bit the apple under the tree, and I, like a fool, did as you did, and everything slipped out of my head: God only knows what sort of a set the fools and foolesses of the subsequent centuries may turn out to be. Virgin, wilt thou now put into action thy Sternocleidomastoideum, as Sömmering styles the muscle which nods the head, and so express your “yes” when I put to you the question, “Wilt thou have the marriage-preacher to thy wedded husband?”
“‘You will no doubt reply, let us first hear the second head of the discourse, in which the subject is considered from another point of view. And indeed, dearly beloved, we had almost forgotten that we must proceed to the