Saturday, December 7, 2024

 The Wheel seems drawn to Headlong Hall (1816), and now we land at Chapter VI. 


The Reverend Doctor Caster seated himself in the corner of a sofa near Miss Philomela Poppyseed. Miss Philomela detailed to him the plan of a very moral and aristocratical novel she was preparing for the press, and continued holding forth, with her eyes half shut, till a long drawn nasal tone from the reverend divine compelled her suddenly to open them in all the indignation of surprise. The cessation of the hum of her voice awakened the reverend gentleman, who, lifting up first one eyelid, then the other, articulated, or rather murmured, "Admirably planned, indeed!" 

 "I have not quite finished, sir," said Miss Philomela, " Will you have the goodness to inform me where I left off?" 

The doctor hummed a while, and at length answered: " I think you had just laid it down as a position, that a thousand a year is an indispensable ingredient in the passion of love, and that no man, who is not so far gifted by nature, can reasonably presume to feel that passion himself, or be correctly the object of it with a well-educated female." 

 "That, sir," said Miss Philomela, highly incensed, "is the fundamental principle which I lay down in the first chapter, and which the whole four volumes, of which I detailed to you the outline, are intended to set in a strong practical light."

 "Bless me!" said the doctor, "what a nap I must have had!"