Qui quaerit alia his, malum videtur quaerere.
—Plautus: In Pseudolo.
Where sport, mirth, wine, joy, grace, conspire1 to please,
He seeks but ill who seeks aught else than these.
The frost continued. The lake was covered over with solid ice. This became the chief scene of afternoon amusement, and Lord Curryfin carried off the honours of the skating. In the dead of the night there came across his memory a ridiculous stave:
There's Mr. Tait, he cuts an eight,
He cannot cut a nine:
and he determined2 on trying if he could not out-do Mr. Tait.
He thought it would be best to try his experiment without witnesses: and having more than an hour's daylight before breakfast, he devoted3 that portion of the morning to his purpose. But cutting a nine by itself baffled his skill, and treated him to two or three tumbles, which, however, did not abate4 his ardour. At length he bethought him of cutting a nine between two eights, and by shifting his feet rapidly at the points of difficulty, striking in and out of the nine to and from the eights on each side. In this he succeeded, and exhibiting his achievement in the afternoon, adorned5 the surface of the ice with successions of 898, till they amounted to as many sextillions, with their homogeneous sequences. He then enclosed the line with an oval, and returned to the bank through an admiring circle, who, if they had been as numerous as the spectators to the Olympic games, would have greeted him with as loud shouts of triumph as saluted6 Epharmostus of Opus.{1}
Among the spectators on the bank were Miss Niphet and Mr. MacBorrowdale, standing7 side by side. While Lord Curryfin was cutting his sextillions, Mr. MacBorrowdale said: 'There is a young gentleman who is capable of anything, and who would shine in any pursuit, if he would keep to it. He shines as it is, in almost everything he takes in hand in private society: there is genius even in his failures, as in the case of the theatrical8 vases; but the world is a field of strong competition, and affords eminence9 to few in any sphere of exertion10, and to those few rarely but in one.'
Miss Niphet. Before I knew him, I never heard of him but as a lecturer on Fish; and to that he seems to limit his public ambition. In private life, his chief aim seems to be that of pleasing his company. Of course, you do not attach much value to his present pursuit. You see no utility in it.
Mr. MacBorrowdale. On the contrary, I see great utility in it. I am for a healthy mind in a healthy body: the first can scarcely be without the last, and the last can scarcely be without good exercise in pure air. In this way, there is nothing better than skating. I should be very glad to cut eights and nines with his lordship: but the only figure I should tut would be that of as many feet as would measure my own length on the ice.
Lord Curryfin, on his return to land, thought it his duty first to
accost11 Miss Gryll, who was looking on by the side of Miss Ilex.
He asked her if she ever skated. She answered in the
negative. 'I have tried it,' she said, 'but unsuccessfully. I admire it
extremely, and regret my inability to participate in it.' He then went
up to Miss Niphet, and asked her the same question. She answered: 'I
have skated often in our grounds at home.' 'Then why not now?' he asked.
She answered: 'I have never done it before so many witnesses.' 'But
what is the objection?' he asked. 'None that I know of,' she answered.
'Then,' he said, 'as I have done or left undone12 some things to please
you, will you do this one thing to please me?'
1 (Greek phrase)—PIND. Olymp. ix.
With what a clamour he passed through the circle.
'Certainly,' she replied: adding to herself: 'I will do anything in my power to please you.'
She equipped herself expeditiously13, and started before he was well aware. She was half round the lake before he came up with her. She then took a second start, and completed the circle before he came up with her again. He saw that she was an Atalanta on ice as on turf. He placed himself by her side, slipped her arm through his, and they started together on a second round, which they completed arm-in-arm. By this time the blush-rose bloom which had so charmed him on a former occasion again mantled14 on her cheeks, though from a different cause, for it was now only the glow of healthful exercise; but he could not help exclaiming, 'I now see why and with what tints15 the Athenians coloured their statues.'
'Is it clear,' she asked, 'that they did so?'
'I have doubted it before,' he answered, 'but I am now certain that they did.'
In the meantime, Miss Gryll, Miss Ilex, and the Reverend Doctor Opimian had been watching their movements from the bank.
Miss Ilex. I have seen much graceful17 motion in dancing, in private society and on the Italian stage; and some in skating before to-day; but anything so graceful as that double-gliding over the ice by those two remarkably18 handsome young persons, I certainly never saw before.
Miss Gryll. Lord Curryfin is unquestionably handsome, and Miss Niphet, especially with that glow on her cheeks, is as beautiful a young woman as imagination can paint. They move as if impelled19 by a single will. It is impossible not to admire them both.
The Rev16. Dr. Opimian. They remind me of the mythological20 fiction, that Jupiter made men and women in pairs, like the Siamese twins; but in this way they grew so powerful and presumptuous21, that he cut them in two; and now the main business of each half is to look for the other; which is very rarely found, and hence so few marriages are happy. Here the two true halves seem to have met.
The doctor looked at Miss Gryll, to see what impression this remark might make on her. He concluded that, if she thought seriously of Lord Curryfin, she would show some symptom of jealousy
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CHAPTER XX ALGERNON AND MORGANA—OPPORTUNITY AND REPENTANCE—THE FOREST IN WINTER
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CHAPTER XXII THE SEVEN AGAINST THEBES—A SOLILOQUY ON CHRISTMAS
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