The “want,” however, had made Bob’s eyes particularly and unusually luminous; nor did Kate take his proposition “to launch all the hampers and baskets, after their recent contents, into the sea,” to be any additional proof of his self-possession; and when, with a caper and whoop, he sent Mulholland’s basket to the fishes, her suspicions that he was slightly elevated became considerably strengthened.
“Mrs Harvey,” said Mr Sharpe, “you think your party unfortunate. I have been upon a great many parties of this kind, and I assure you I have seen far more unpleasant affairs—(Gentlemen, here are a few bottles of wine that have escaped the watery fate of their unhappy companions). Now, the very last party that I was on last season, three or four of the gentlemen quarrelled (pass the wine if you please), and one of them, in the scrimmage, was knocked over the rocks into the sea.”
“Mercy on us, Mr Sharpe! was he drowned?”
“Why, no, but his collar-bone was broken, and his shoulder dislocated. But a worse accident happened in coming home.”
“What was it?”
“Poor Singleton had come, with his wife and two nieces, in a job carriage; the driver got drunk, and overturned the whole concern, just where the road branches off down to the strand; they rolled over the cliff, and fell about twenty feet; the horses were both killed, and the whole party dreadfully injured, barely escaping with life. Then, the quarrel after dinner (by which Jones got his collar-bone broken) led to a duel on the following morning, in which one of the parties, Edwards, fell; and his antagonist, young O’Neill, got a bullet in his knee, which has lamed and disfigured him for life. Pass the wine, gentlemen.”
“No! no! no!” screamed Mrs Harvey, on whom the above delectable recital had had the desired effect, and who was worked into a desperate state of terror, “no more wine, gentlemen, if you please. Come, ladies, we must return at once, before evening closes in.”
Each lady being perfectly satisfied that the gentleman who had fallen to her lot would keep sober, whatever others might do, demurred to the early retreat; but Mrs Harvey was too much frightened at the prospect of returning with gentlemen and drivers drunk, not to be determined; and, accordingly, with much growling, and the most general dissatisfaction, the party broke up.
“I am done with pic-nics—I’ll never have any thing to say to one again,” said the disappointed directress. “There never was any affair more perfectly arranged, never was so much care taken to have things regular. I never proposed to myself such enjoyment as I expected this day.”
“My dear Mrs Harvey,” said O’Gorman, to whose countenance the last four or five shells of wine had imparted an air of the most profound wisdom, “my dear Mrs Harvey, ‘the whole art of happiness is contentment.’ This is the great secret of enjoyment in this life—this is the talisman that clothes poverty in imperial robes, and imparts to the hovel a grandeur unknown to the halls of princes—this is the true philosopher’s stone, for which alchymists so long have sought in vain, that converts all it touches into gold—this is the cosmetic that beautifies the ill-favoured wife, and the magic wand that bestows upon the frugal board the appearance of surpassing plenty—this is the shield of adamantine proof, on which disappointment vainly showers its keenest darts—this is the impregnable fortress, ensconced in which, we may boldly bid defiance to the combined forces of sublunary ills—and whether it be announced from the pulpit or the cliff, by the dignified divine or the college scamp; be it soothingly whispered in the ear of the deposed and exiled monarch, or tendered as comfort to the discomfited authoress of a pic-nic, it still retains, in undiminished force, its universality of application”——