Poor Miss Finch by Wilkie Collins (heaven official's blessing novel english txt) đ
- Author: Wilkie Collins
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âDelighted to make your acquaintance, Mrs. FinchâI have long wished for this pleasure. Thank you, Mr. Finch, for all your kindness to my brother. Madame Pratolungo, I presume? Permit me to shake hands. It is needless to say, I have heard of your illustrious husband. Aha! hereâs a baby. Yours, Mrs. Finch? Girl or boy, maâam? A fine childâif a bachelor may be allowed to pronounce an opinion. Tweetâtweetâtweet!â
He chirruped to the baby, as if he had been a family man, and snapped his fingers gaily. Poor Oscarâs blue face turned in silent triumph towards me. âWhat did I tell you?â his look asked. âDid I not say Nugent fascinated everybody at first sight?â Most true. An irresistible man. So utterly different in his manner from Oscarâexcept when he was in reposeâand yet so like Oscar in other respects, I can only describe him as his brother completed. He had the pleasant lively flow of spirits, the
easy winning gentlemanlike confidence in himself, which Oscar wanted. And, then, what excellent taste he possessed. He liked children! he respected the memory of my glorious Pratolungo!âIn half a minute from the time when he entered the room, Nugent Dubourg had won Mrs. Finchâs heart and mine.
He turned from the baby to Mr. Finch, and pointed to the open Shakespeare on the table.
âYou were reading to the ladies?â he said. âI am afraid we have interrupted you.â
âDonât mention it,â said the rector, with his lofty politeness. âAnother time will do. It is a habit of mine, Mr. Nugent, to read aloud in my family circle. As a clergyman and a lover of poetry (in both capacities) I have long cultivated the art of elocutionâ-â
âMy dear sir, excuse me, you have cultivated it all wrong!â
Mr. Finch paused, thunderstruck. A man in his presence presuming to have an opinion of his own! a man in the rectory parlor capable of interrupting the rector in the middle of a sentence! guilty of the insane audacity of telling him, as a readerâwith Shakespeare open before themâthat he read wrong!
âOh, we heard you as we came in!â proceeded Nugent, with the most undiminished confidence, expressed in the most gentlemanlike manner. âYou read it like this.â He took up Hamlet and read the opening line of the Fourth Scene, (âThe air bites shrewdly. It is very coldâ) with an irresistibly-accurate imitation of Mr. Finch. âThatâs nor the way Hamlet would speak. No man in his position would remark that it was very cold in that bow-wow manner. What is Shakespeare before all things? True to nature; always true to nature. What condition is Hamlet in when he is expecting to see the Ghost? He is nervous, and he feels the cold. Let him show it naturally; let him speak as any other man would speak, under the circumstances. Look here! Quick and quietâlike this. âThe air bites shrewdlyââthere Hamlet stops and shiversâpur-rer-rer! âit is very cold.â Thatâs the way to read Shakespeare!â
Mr. Finch lifted his head into the air as high as it could possibly go, and brought the flat of his hand down with a solemn and sounding smack on the open book.
âAllow me to say, sirâ-!â he began.
Nugent stopped him again, more good-humouredly than ever.
âYou donât agree with me? All right! Quite useless to dispute about it. I donât know what you may beâI am the most opinionated man in existence. Sheer waste of time, my dear sir, to attempt convincing Me. Now, just look at that child!â Here Mr. Nugent Dubourgâs attention was suddenly attracted by the baby. He twisted round on his heel, and addressed Mrs. Finch. âI take the liberty of saying, maâam, that a more senseless dress doesnât exist, than the dress that is put, in this country, on infants of tender years. What are the three main functions which that childâthat charming child of yours-performs? He sucks; he sleeps; and he grows. At the present moment, he isnât sucking, he isnât sleepingâhe is growing with all his might. Under those interesting circumstances, what does he want to do? To move his limbs freely in every direction. You let him swing his arms to his heartâs contentâand you deny him freedom to kick his legs. You clothe him in a dress three times as long as himself. He tries to throw his legs up in the air as he throws his arms, and he canât do it. There is his senseless long dress entangling itself in his toes, and making an effort of what Nature intended to be a luxury. Can anything be more absurd? What are mothers about? Why donât they think for themselves? Take my adviceâshort petticoats, Mrs. Finch. Liberty, glorious liberty, for my young friendâs legs! Room, heaps of room, for that infant martyrâs toes!â
Mrs. Finch listened helplesslyâlifted the babyâs long petticoats, and looked at themâstared piteously at Nugent Dubourgâopened her lips to speakâand, thinking better of it, turned her watery eyes on her husband, appealing to him to take the matter up. Mr. Finch made another attempt to assert his dignityâa ponderously satirical attempt, this time.
âIn offering your advice to my wife, Mr. Nugent,â said the rector, âyou must permit me to remark that it would have had more practical force if it had been the advice of a married man. I beg to remind youâ-â
âYou beg to remind me that it is the advice of a bachelor? Oh, come! that really wonât do at this time of day. Doctor Johnson settled that argument at once and for ever, a century since. âSir!â (he said to somebody of your way of thinking) âyou may scold your carpenter, when he has made a bad table, though you canât make a table yourself.â I say to youââMr. Finch, you may point out a defect in a babyâs petticoats, though you havenât got a baby yourself!â Doesnât that satisfy you? All right! Take another illustration. Look at your room here. I can see in the twinkling of an eye, that itâs badly lit. You have only got one windowâyou ought to have two. Is it necessary to be a practical builder to discover that? Absurd! Are you satisfied now? No! Take another illustration. Whatâs this printed paper, here, on the chimney-piece? Assessed Taxes. Ha! Assessed Taxes will do. Youâre not in the House of Commons; youâre not Chancellor of the Exchequerâbut havenât you an opinion of your own about taxation, in spite of that? Must you and I be in Parliament before we can presume to see that the feeble old British Constitution is at its last gaspâ-?â
âAnd the vigorous young Republic drawing its first breath of life!â I burst in; introducing the Pratolungo programme (as my way is) at every available opportunity.
Nugent Dubourg instantly wheeled round in my direction; and set me right on my subject, just as he had set the rector right on reading Hamlet, and Mrs. Finch right on clothing babies.
âNot a bit of it!â he pronounced positively. âThe âyoung Republicâ is the ricketty child of the political family. Give him up, maâam. You will never make a man of him.â
I tried to assert myself as the rector had tried before meâwith precisely the same result. I appealed indignantly to the authority of my illustrious husband.
âDoctor Pratolungoââ I began.
âWas an honest man,â interposed Nugent Dubourg. âI am an advanced Liberal myselfâI respect him. But he was quite wrong. All sincere republicans make the same mistake. They believe in the existence of public spirit in Europe. Amiable delusion! Public spirit is dead in Europe. Public spirit is the generous emotion of young nations, of new peoples. In selfish old Europe, private interest has taken its place. When your husband preached the republic, on what ground did he put it? On the ground that the republic was going to elevate the nation. Pooh! Ask me to accept the republic, on the ground that I elevate Myselfâand, supposing you can prove it, I will listen to you. If you are ever to set republican institutions going, in the Old Worldâ_there_ is the only motive power that will do it!â
I was indignant at such sentiments. âMy glorious husbandââ I began again.
âWould have died rather than appeal to the meanest instincts of his fellow-creatures. Just so! There was his mistake. Thatâs why he never could make anything of the republic. Thatâs why the republic is the ricketty child of the political family. Quod erat demonstrandum,â said Nugent Dubourg, finishing me off with a pleasant smile, and an easy indicative gesture of the hand which said, âNow I have settled these three people in succession, I am equally well satisfied with myself and with them!â
His smile was irresistible. Bent as I was on disputing the degrading conclusions at which he had arrived, I really had not fire enough in me, at the moment, to feed my own indignation. As to Reverend Finch, he sat silently swelling in a corner; digesting, as he best might, the discovery that there was another man in the world, besides the Rector of Dimchurch, with an excellent opinion of himself, and with perfectly unassailable confidence and fluency in expressing it. In the momentary silence that now followed, Oscar got his first opportunity of speaking. He had, thus far, been quite content to admire his clever brother. He now advanced to me, and asked what had become of Lucilla.
âThe servant told me she was here,â he said. âI am so anxious to introduce her to Nugent.â
Nugent put his arm affectionately round his brotherâs neck, and gave him a hug. âDear old boy! I am just as anxious as you are.â
âLucilla went out a little while since,â I said, âto take a turn in the garden.â
âIâll go and find her,â said Oscar. âWait here, Nugent. Iâll bring her in.â
He left the room. Before he could close the door one of the servants appeared, to claim Mrs. Finchâs private ear, on some mysterious domestic emergency. Nugent facetiously entreated her, as she passed him, to clear her mind of prejudice, and consider the question of infant petticoats on its own merits. Mr. Finch took offense at this second reference to the subject. He rose to follow his wife.
âWhen you are a married man, Mr. Dubourg,â said the rector severely, âyou will learn to leave the management of an infant in its motherâs hands.â
âThereâs another mistake!â remarked Nugent, following him with unabated good humour, to the door. âA married manâs idea of another man as a husband, always begins and ends with his idea of himself.â He turned to me, as the door closed on Mr. Finch. âNow we are alone, Madame Pratolungo,â he said, âI want to speak to you about Miss Finch. There is an opportunity, before she comes in. Oscarâs letter only told me that she was blind. I am naturally interested in everything that relates to my brotherâs future wife. I am particularly interested about this affliction of hers. May I ask how long she has been blind?â
âSince she was a year old,â I replied.
âThrough an accident?â
âNo.â
âAfter a fever? or a disease of any other sort?â
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