Whatever these family quarrels may have been, let bygones be bygones, and let us be perfectly sure, that to whatever purpose Miss Ethel Newcome, for good or for evil, might make her mind up, she had quite spirit enough to hold her own. She chose to be Countess of Kew because she chose to be Countess of Kew; had she set her heart on marrying Mr. Kuhn, she would have had her way, and made the family adopt it, and called him dear Fritz, as by his godfathers and godmothers, in his baptism, Mr. Kuhn was called. Clive was but a fancy, if he had even been so much as that, not a passion, and she fancied a pretty four-pronged coronet still more.
So that the diatribe wherein we lately indulged, about the selling of virgins, by no means applies to Lady Anne Newcome, who signed the address to Mrs Stowe, the other day, along with thousands more virtuous British matrons; but should the reader haply say, Is thy fable, O Poet, narrated concerning Tancred Pulleyn, Earl of Dorking, and Sigismunda, his wife? the reluctant moralist is obliged to own that the cap does fit those noble personages, of whose lofty society you will, however, see but little.
For though I would like to go into an Indian Brahmins house, and see the punkahs, and the purdahs and tattys, and the pretty brown maidens with great eyes, and great nose-rings, and painted foreheads, and slim waists cased in Cashmir shawls, Kincob scarfs, curly slippers, gilt trousers, precious anklets and bangles; and have the mystery of Eastern existence revealed to me (as who would not who has read the Arabian Nights in his youth?), yet I would not choose the moment when the Brahmin of the house was dead, his women howling, his priests doctoring his child of a widow, now frightening her with sermons, now drugging her with bang, so as to push her on his funeral pile at last, and into the arms of that carcase, stupefied, but obedient and decorous. And though I like to walk, even in fancy, in an earls house, splendid, well ordered, where there are feasts and fine pictures and fair ladies and endless books and good company; yet there are times when the visit is not pleasant; and when the parents in that fine house are getting ready their daughter for sale, and frightening away her tears with threats, and stupefying her grief with narcotics, praying her and imploring her, and dramming her and coaxing her, and blessing her, and cursing her perhaps, till they have brought her into such a state as shall fit the poor young thing for that deadly couch upon which they are about to thrust her. When my lord and lady are so engaged I prefer not to call at their mansion, Number 1000 in Grosvenor Square, but to partake of a dinner of herbs rather than of that stalled ox which their cook is roasting whole. There are some people who are not so squeamish. The family comes, of course; the Most Reverend the Lord Arch-Brahmin of Benares will attend the ceremony; there will be flowers and lights and white favours; and quite a string of carriages up to the pagoda; and such a breakfast afterwards; and music in the street and little parish boys hurrahing; and no end of speeches within and tears shed (no doubt), and His Grace the Arch-Brahmin will make a highly appropriate speech, just with a faint scent of incense about it as such a speech ought to have; and the young person will slip away unperceived, and take off her veils, wreaths, orange-flowers, bangles and finery, and will put on a plain dress more suited for the occasion, and the house-door will open and there comes the SUTTEE in company of the body: yonder the pile is waiting on four wheels with four horses, the crowd hurrahs and the deed is done. male strap on harness