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Mudie will sell surplus copies of his works at a reduction, and I shall cease to be worried by his disgusting success. I watched the little spurts of flame jet out from between the writhing pages of my manuscript, watched the sheets coil up in their fiery anguish and start one from another.
The subscribers to the Mudie of the period had to be considered, and their taste for the marvelous was probably not much inferior to that of our own day. When, therefore, Herodotus describes the reservoir of Moeris as formed for the control of the river floods of Nile-nourished Egypt, and of another constructed by Nebuchadnezzar at Sippara, of 140 miles in circumference, we must make allowances.
Sheldon came home from the City rather earlier than usual, and found Charlotte alone in the drawing-room, reading a ponderous volume from Mudie of an instructive and edifying character, with a view to making herself clever, in order that she might better understand that prodigy of learning, Mr. Hawkehurst.
But at Cross Hall not a half-hour would be allowed to pass without enquiry as to its purpose. At Cross Hall there would be no novels, except those of Miss Edgeworth, which were sickening to her. She might have all Mudie down to the deanery if she chose to ask for it.
True it is that we still continued to subscribe to his library, true it is that we still continued to go to church, true it is that we turned our faces away when Mdlle. de Maupin or the Assommoir was spoken of; to all appearance we were as good and chaste as even Mudie might wish us; and no doubt he looked back upon his forty years of effort with pride; no doubt he beat his manly breast and said, "I have scorched the evil one out of the villa; the head of the serpent is crushed for evermore;" but lo, suddenly, with all the horror of an earthquake, the slumbrous law courts awoke, and the burning cinders of fornication and the blinding and suffocating smoke of adultery were poured upon and hung over the land.
Autumn will make the boughs of my mountain-ash scarlet, and, later, the asbestos in my grate will put forth its blossoms of flame. The infrequent cart of Buszard or Mudie will pass my window at all seasons. Nor will this be all. I shall have friends. Next door, there is a retired military man who has offered, in a most neighbourly way, to lend me his copy of the Times.
Lord Arthur was a little consoled by this reflection, but even here he was destined to disappointment, for two days afterwards, as he was going upstairs, the Duchess called him into her boudoir, and showed him a letter she had just received from the Deanery. 'Jane writes charming letters, said the Duchess; 'you must really read her last. It is quite as good as the novels Mudie sends us.
Mudie, that when a clergyman had been able to attend, and divine service was about to commence, upon his estate, he noticed but few of the convicts there, the rest declining to come, upon the plea of their being Roman Catholics.
It embraced some ten families, who drew up their Mudie lists in common and sent the books from house to house. The Vicar and Dr. Roughsedge had been till now mainly responsible for these lists so far, at least, as "serious books" were concerned, the ladies being allowed the chief voice in the novels. Mrs. Roughsedge, a little fluttered, asked for information.
Mudie drove a roaring trade in it; but in the well-bred world, immersed in all its engagements, triple-deep in its projects and promises for pleasure, where was the time, where the opportunity, for this pleasant fooling?
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