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There were the stormy revellers, as the rabble rout of Comus and his crew, filling that luxurious room with the sounds of noisy execration and half-drunken strife.
When she had had her say his method of retort was not the soft answer that turneth away wrath but the inconsequent one that shelves it. "Let's go and dress for dinner." The meal, like so many that Francesca and Comus had eaten in each other's company of late, was a silent one. Now that the full bearings of the disaster had been discussed in all its aspects there was nothing more to be said.
They are not "superior" like Romola, nor flighty and destitute of taste like Maggie Tulliver; among Fielding's crowd of fribbles and sots and oafs they carry that pure moly of the Lady in "Comus."
There is no justification for this; it is mere pandering, under whatever pretence, to evil propensities; it makes the divine art of Fiction "procuress to the Lords of Hell," If our established morality is in any way narrow and unjust, appeal to Philosophy, not to Comus; and remember that the mass of readers are not philosophers.
Milton, in his "Comus," thus alludes to the Aegis: "What was that snaky-headed Gorgon-shield That wise Minerva wore, unconquered virgin, Wherewith she freezed her foes to congealed stone, But rigid looks of chaste austerity, And noble grace that dashed brute violence With sudden adoration and blank awe!"
And, if Lawes had done so much for Milton's verse, it was fitting that Milton should make some return in kind. He had indeed introduced skilful compliments to Lawes personally in his Comus; but something more express might be now appropriate. Accordingly, on the 9th of February, 1645-6, or five weeks after the publication of the Poems, Milton wrote the following:
Proteus, Momus, the Mistick Krewe of Comus, and the other lesser societies celebrated their distinctive nights with torch and float and tableau; the city was transformed by day with bunting and flags, by night it was garlanded with fire; merrymakers thronged the streets, their carnival spirit entered into every breast.
A few days subsequently we were joined by the "Cleopatra," late of the flying squadron, but detached at Suez for service on this station. The "Comus," meanwhile, is about to leave for the Pacific to replace the "Champion," ordered to join our flag.
"After this, I shall apply myself to 'Comus' with added comprehension," she said. "But you take my breath away; have you, then, delved so deep in the mine of English history that you can people 'most every ruined pile in Britain with the men and women of the dead years?" He laughed, and colored a little, with true British confusion at having been caught in an extravagant mood.
Thus, staring at the picture as though he were studying its every detail, and seeing really only that wistful friendly smile, Comus made his plans and dispositions for a battle that was already fought and lost. The crowd grew thicker in the galleries, cheerfully enduring an amount of overcrowding that would have been fiercely resented in a railway carriage.
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