Penelope

by William Pitt Scargill

It is easy to conceive what effect such language as this must have had on the sensitive mind and almost broken heart of Penelope Primrose. It is very true that, in this address to her, Mr Darnley had no malicious or cruel intention, though every sentence which he uttered grieved her to the very soul. Well was it for Penelope that she was partly prepared for something of this kind, and that her sorrows had crept upon her gradually. Therefore she bore all this with a most enduring patience, and never attempted to make any explanation or apology otherwise than by meekly and calmly replying to the elaborate harangue of Mr Darnley:

“I thank you, sir, for your advice; I hope and trust I shall attend to it; but I wish you to understand that I am not acting purely according to my own inclinations in adopting this employment. I am sorry that I am under the necessity—”

The sentence was unfinished, and the tone in which it was uttered excited Mr Darnley’s compassion: but he thought it very strange that Miss Primrose should express any reluctance to engage in a pursuit which, according to all appearance, she had voluntarily and unnecessarily adopted. The young ladies also were very sorry for her, but still they could not help blaming her mentally for her fickleness towards their brother; for they were sure that he was attached to her, and they plainly saw, or at least thought they saw, that she had withdrawn her affections from him. Penelope also was very well convinced, by this interview with the family, that all her hopes of Robert Darnley were gone.

To avoid any farther unpleasantness, she then took leave of her late friends, and, with a very heavy heart, returned to Smatterton to make immediate preparation for her journey to London. Alas! poor girl, she was not in a frame of mind favourable to the purposes of festivity or the notes of gladness. She, in whose heart was no gladness, was expected to be the means of delighting others. Thus does it happen, that the tears of one are the smiles of another, and the pleasures of mankind are founded in each others pains. Never do the burning words and breathing thoughts of poetry spring with such powerful energy and sympathy-commanding force, as when they come from a heart that has felt the bitterness of grief, and that has been agitated even unto bursting.

Our heroine would then have appeared to the greatest advantage, and would then have commanded the deepest sympathy in those moments of solitude, which intervened between the last leave-taking and her departure for a metropolis of which she had seen nothing, heard much, and thought little. But now her mind was on the rack of thought, and so deeply and painfully was it impressed, that her feeling was of the absolute impossibility of effectually answering the designs and intentions of her friend the Countess. She could not bear to look back to the days that were past—she felt an indescribable reluctance to look forward, but her mind was of necessity forced in that direction. All that spirit of independence and feeling of almost pride, which formed no small part of her character, seemed now to have taken flight, and to have left her a humble, destitute, helpless creature. It was a pretty conceit that came into her head, and though it was sorrowful she smiled at it; for she thought that her end would be swanlike, and that her first song would be her last, with which she should expire while its notes were trembling on her lips.

CHAPTER XI.

It was not very considerate of the Countess of Smatterton to let a young lady like Penelope Primrose take a long and solitary journey of two hundred miles in a stage-coach without any guide, companion, or protector. The Earl had a very ample supply of travelling apparatus, and it would have been quite as easy to have found room for Penelope in one of the carriages when the family travelled up to town. But they who do not suffer inconveniences themselves, can hardly be brought to think that others may. Penelope felt rather mortified at this neglect, and it was well for her that she did, as it was the means of taking away her attention from more serious but remoter evil. It was also productive of another advantage; for it gave Mr Kipperson an opportunity of exhibiting his gallantry and politeness. For, the very morning before Penelope was to leave Smatterton, Mr Kipperson called in person on the young lady, and stated that imperious business would compel him to visit the metropolis, and he should have infinite pleasure in accompanying Miss Primrose on her journey, and perhaps that might be more agreeable to her than travelling alone or with total strangers. Penelope could not but acknowledge herself highly obliged by Mr Kipperson’s politeness, nor did she, with any affectation or foolery, decline what she might perhaps be compelled to accept. On the following morning, therefore, Miss Primrose, escorted by Mr Kipperson, left the sweet village of Smatterton. That place had been a home to Penelope from almost her earliest recollections, and all her associations and thoughts were connected with that place, and with its little neighbour Neverden. Two hundred miles travelling in a stage-coach is a serious business to one who has hardly ever travelled but about as many yards. It is also a very tedious affair even to those who are accustomed to long journies by such conveyance. In the present instance, however, the journey did not appear too long to either of our travellers. For Penelope had looked forward to the commencement of her journey with too much repugnance to have any very great desire for its completion, and Mr Kipperson was too happy in the company of Miss Primrose to wish the wheels of time, or of the coach, to put themselves to the inconvenience of rolling more rapidly than usual on his account. It was also an additional happiness to Mr Kipperson that there were in the coach with him two fellow travellers who had long heard of his fame, but had never before seen his person; and when they discovered that they were in company with the great agriculturist, and the great universal knowledge promoter, Mr Kipperson, they manifested no small symptoms of satisfaction and admiration.

Now the mind of the scientific agriculturist was so constructed as to experience peculiar pleasure and delight at aught which came to his ear in the form of compliment and admiration. And, when Mr Kipperson was pleased, he was in general very eloquent and communicative; and he informed his fellow travellers that he was now hastening up to London on business of the utmost importance. He had received despatches from town, calling him up to attend the House of Commons, and to consult with, or rather to advise, certain committees connected with the agricultural interest. And he, the said Mr Kipperson, certainly could not decline any call which the deeply vital interests of agriculture might make upon him. Thereupon he proceeded to shew that there was no one individual in the kingdom uniting in himself those rare combinations of talent, which were the blessing and distinction of the celebrated Mr Kipperson of Smatterton; and that if he should not pay attention to the bill then before the House, or at least likely to be before the House, by the time he should arrive in London, the agricultural interest must be completely ruined; there could be no remunerating price, and then the farmers would throw up their farms and leave the country, taking with them all their implements, skill, forethought, and penetration; and then all the land would be out of cultivation, and the kingdom would be but one vast common, only maintaining, and that very scantily, donkeys and geese.

When the safety of a nation depends upon one individual, that individual feels himself very naturally of great importance. But perhaps this is a circumstance not happening quite so often as is imagined. Strange indeed must it be that, if out of a population of ten or twelve millions, only one or two can be found on whose wisdom the state can rely, or from whose councils it can receive benefit. But as the pleasure of imagining one’s self to be of importance is very great, that pleasure is very liberally indulged in. And thus the number of those rarities, called “the only men in the world,” is considerably increased. Now Mr Kipperson was the only man in the world who had sagacity and penetration enough to know wherein consisted the true interest of agriculture; and he was most happy in giving his time and talents to the sacred cause of high prices. Enough of this: we do not like to be panegyrical, and it is very probable that our readers will not be much disappointed if we protest that it is not our intention to enter very deeply into the subject of political economy. Indeed were we to enter very deeply into the subject with which Mr Kipperson was intimate, we should be under the necessity of making an encyclopedia, or of plundering those already made, beyond the forbearance of their proprietors.

That must be an exceedingly pleasant mode of travelling which does not once, during a very long journey, provoke the traveller to wish himself at his journey’s end. Pleased as was Mr Kipperson at the opportunity afforded him of behaving politely to Miss Primrose, and gratified as he was by the respectful veneration with which his two other fellow travellers received the enunciations of his oracular wisdom; fearful as was Penelope that her new life would be the death of her, and mourning as she was under the actual loss of one most excellent friend, and contemplating the possible loss of others, still both were pleased to be at their journey’s end.