Note.—To ask whether there is any thing between two persons of opposite sexes, is one way of inquiring whether they are in love with each other. It is not, however, in our opinion, a very happy phrase, inasmuch as whatever intervenes between a couple of fond hearts, must tend to prevent them from coming together. Pyramus and Thisbe, as Ovid informs us, had more between them than they liked—a conjunction disjunctive in the shape of a wall. And by the bye, now that we are speaking of Pyramus and Thisbe, we may as well expend a word or two on a matter which, though of much interest, has never yet been noticed by the learned. Pyramus and Thisbe, it is well known, used to kiss each other through a hole in the wall which separated them. Now we have always been puzzled to imagine how they managed it. We are told by the Poet that they lived—
“Ubi dicitur altam
Coctilibus muris cinxisse Semiramis urbem”—
that is to say, where Semiramis is said to have surrounded a lofty city—not with cock-tail mice, as Mr. Canning facetiously translated “Coctilibus muris,”—but with brick walls. The wall which separated two adjoining houses must have been at least a brick thick; and although it be possible, “with Love’s light wings” to “o’erperch” an exceedingly high wall, it occurs to us that it would be no easy thing for Love’s long lips, let them be as long as you will, to reach through a moderately thick one. We do not know exactly what was the breadth of an Assyrian brick, but supposing it to have been three inches, an inch and a half of lip would have been required on the part of either lover for a kiss which could barely be sworn by;—a sort of presentation salute;—but for one worth giving or taking, we must allow an additional half inch of mouth to the gentleman. After all, their noses must have been so much in the way, that to make the operation at all feasible, either these features must have been particularly flat, or the aperture a very large one; whereas it is well known to have been merely a chink. Common observation on the part of their respective parents would have detected such a gap, and common prudence would have stopped it up. How, then, are we to reconcile Ovid’s story with truth? Now, remember, reader, what has been said about noses and lips. Our deliberate opinion is that Pyramus and Thisbe were a couple of negroes. We shall be told that it is one utterly irreconcileable with the description of them given in the Metamorphoses. No matter—
“The lunatic, the lover, and the poet,
Are of imagination all compact.”
And considering that the lover—
“Sees Helen’s beauty in a brow of Egypt,”
we do not see why Abyssinian charms should not be transformed by a poet into those of Assyria. And so, having proved (to our own satisfaction at least) that the beautiful Thisbe was a Hottentot Venus, we will resume the consideration of conjunctions.
RULE XIX.
Some conjunctions govern the indicative; some the subjunctive mood. In general, it is right to use the subjunctive, when contingency or doubt is implied: as, “If I were to say that the moon is made of green cheese.” “If I were a wiseacre.” “If I were a Wiltshire-man.” “A lady, unless she be toasted, is never drunk.”
And when she is toasted, those who are drunk are generally the gentlemen.