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The last arrivals were Mr Cornelius Chromatic, the most profound and scientific of all amateurs of the fiddle, with his two blooming daughters, Miss Tenorina and Miss Graziosa; Sir Patrick O'Prism, a dilettante painter of high renown, and his maiden aunt, Miss Philomela Poppyseed, an indefatigable compounder of novels, written for the express purpose of supporting every species of superstition and prejudice; and Mr Panscope, the chemical, botanical, geological, astronomical, mathematical, metaphysical, meteorological, anatomical, physiological, galvanistical, musical, pictorial, bibliographical, critical philosopher, who had run through the whole circle of the sciences, and understood them all equally well.
"I admit," said Mr Foster, "there are many things that may, and therefore will, be changed for the better." "Not on the present system," said Mr Escot, "in which every change is for the worse." "In matters of taste I am sure it is," said Mr Gall: "there is, in fact, no such thing as good taste left in the world." "Oh, Mr Gall!" said Miss Philomela Poppyseed, "I thought my novel "
Mash followed at a short distance behind, not because she did not think herself fully as good as Miss Philomela, but because she wished to indulge unchecked in the mild luxury of tears. A new visitor was now announced. He was a curly-headed, neatly dressed boy of nineteen years. His face was one that is handsomer in promise than in fact.
Sweeping open that door, she closed it softly, standing for the moment against it, her hand crossed in back and on the knob. It was as if standing there with her head cocked and beneath a shadowy blue sailor-hat, a smile coming out something within her was playing, sweetly insistent to be heard. Philomela, at the first sound of her nightingale self, must have stood thus, trembling with melody.
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.
My brother doesn't want crying women about him at this time." "Don't be too sure of that, sister. Tears come naturally from a woman. They are her best evidence of sympathy, and therefore precious to one who needs it." Mash, the cook, gave vent to a fresh shower of tears at this encouraging remark, and made Miss Philomela shrug her shoulders in disgust. "Oh! don't be silly.
"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!"
The warm breeze blew from Egypt. Philomela sang in the olive groves. The snows on Pentelicus faded. Around the city ran bands of children singing the “swallow’s song,” and beseeching the spring donation of honey cakes:— “She is here, she is here, the swallow; Fair seasons bringing,—fair seasons to follow.”
Mr Nightshade and Mr Mac Laurel joined the trio; and it was secretly resolved, that Miss Philomela should furnish them with a portion of her manuscripts, and that Messieurs Gall & Co. should devote the following morning to cutting and drying a critique on a work calculated to prove so extensively beneficial, that Mr Gall protested he really envied the writer.
The Elizabethan poets, however, when they talked of Philomel, 'her breast against a thorn, were unaware that they and the Greeks were talking of two different birds; that our English Lusciola Luscinia is not Lusciola Philomela, one of the various birds called Bulbul in the East. Whether his song be really sad, let those who have heard him say.
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