Henry Craik, ed. English Prose. 1916.
Vol. I. Fourteenth to Sixteenth Century
Thomas Love Peacock (1785–1866)
E
Elphin motioned Teithrin to approach, and sit next to him.
Prince Seithenyn, whose liquor was “his eating and his drinking solely,” seemed to measure the gastronomy of his guests by his own; but his groom of the pantry thought the strangers might be disposed to eat, and placed before them a choice of provision, on which Teithrin ap Tathral did vigorous execution.
“I pray your excuses,” said Seithenyn, “my stomach is weak, and I am subject to dizziness in the head, and my memory is not so good as it was, and my faculties of attention are somewhat impaired, and I would dilate more upon the topic, whereby you should hold me excused, but I am troubled with a feverishness and parching of the mouth, that very much injures my speech, and impedes my saying all I would say, and will say before I have done, in token of my loyalty and fealty to your highness and your highness’s house. I must just moisten my lips, and I will then proceed with my observations. Cupbearer, fill.”
“Prince Seithenyn,” said Elphin, “I have visited you on a subject of deep moment. Reports have been brought to me, that the embankment, which has been so long entrusted to your care, is in a state of dangerous decay.”
“Decay,” said Seithenyn, “is one thing, and danger is another. Everything that is old must decay. That the embankment is old, I am free to confess; that it is somewhat rotten in parts, I will not altogether deny; that it is any the worse for that, I do most sturdily gainsay. It does its business well: it works well: it keeps out the water from the land, and it lets in the wine upon the High Commission of Embankment. Cupbearer, fill. Our ancestors were wiser than we: they built it in their wisdom; and if we should be so rash as to try to mend it, we should only mar it.”
“The stonework,” said Teithrin, “is sapped and mined; the piles are rotten, broken, and dislocated: the floodgates and sluices are leaky and creaky.”
“That is the beauty of it,” said Seithenyn. “Some parts of it are rotten, and some parts of it are sound.”
“It is well,” said Elphin, “that some parts are sound; it were better that all were so.”
“So I have heard some people say before,” said Seithenyn, “perverse people, blind to venerable antiquity; that very unamiable sort of people, who are in the habit of indulging their reason. But I say the parts that are rotten give elasticity to those that are sound: they give them elasticity, elasticity, elasticity. If all were sound, it would break by its own obstinate stiffness: the soundness is checked by the rottenness, and the stiffness is balanced by the elasticity. There is nothing so dangerous as innovation. See the waves in the equinoctial storms, dashing and clashing, roaring and pouring, spattering and battering, rattling and battling against it. I would not be so presumptuous as to say, I could build anything that would stand against them half-an-hour; and here this immortal old work, which God forbid the finger of modern mason should bring into jeopardy, this immortal work has stood for centuries, and will stand for centuries more, if we let it alone. It is well: it works well: let well alone. Cupbearer, fill. It was half rotten when I was born, and that is a conclusive reason why it should be three parts rotten when I die.”
The whole body of the High Commission roared approbation.
“And after all,” said Seithenyn, “the worst that could happen would be the overflow of a spring tide, for that was the worst that happened before the embankment was thought of; and if the high water should come in, as it did before, the low water would go out again, as it did before. We should be no deeper in it than our ancestors were, and we could mend as easily as they could make.”
“The level of the sea,” said Teithrin, “is materially altered.”
“The level of the sea!” exclaimed Seithenyn. “Who ever heard of such a thing as altering the level of the sea? Alter the level of that bowl of wine before you, in which, as I sit here, I see a very ugly reflection of your very good-looking face. Alter the level of that: drink up the reflection: let me see the face without the reflection, and leave the sea to level itself.”
“Not to level the embankment,” said Teithrin.
“Good, very good,” said Seithenyn. “I love a smart saying, though it hits at me. But whether yours is a smart saying or no, I do not very clearly see; and, whether it hits at me or no, I do not very sensibly feel. But all is one. Cupbearer, fill.”
“I think,” pursued Seithenyn, looking as intently as he could at Teithrin ap Tathral, “I have seen something very like you before. There was a fellow here the other day very like you: he stayed here some time: he would not talk: he did nothing but drink: he used to drink till he could not stand, and then he went walking about the embankment. I suppose he thought it wanted mending; but he did not say anything. If he had, I should have told him to embank his own throat, to keep the liquor out of that. That would have posed him: he could not have answered that: he would not have had a word to say for himself after that.”
“He must have been a miraculous person,” said Teithrin, “to walk when he could not stand.”
“All is one for that,” said Seithenyn. “Cupbearer, fill.
“Prince Seithenyn,” said Elphin, “if I was not aware that wine speaks in the silence of reason, I should be astonished at your strange vindication of your neglect of duty, which I take shame to myself for not having sooner known and remedied. The wise bard has well observed, ‘Nothing is done without the eye of the king.’”
“I am very sorry,” said Seithenyn, “that you see things in a wrong light; but we will not quarrel for three reasons: first, because you are the son of the king, and may do and say what you please without anyone having a right to be displeased; second, because I never quarrel with a guest, even if he grows riotous in his cups; third, because there is nothing to quarrel about; and perhaps that is the best reason of the three; or, rather, the first is the best, because you are the son of the king; and the third is the second, that is, the second best, because there is nothing to quarrel about; and the second is nothing to the purpose, because though guests will grow riotous in their cups, in spite of my good orderly example, God forbid I should say that is the case with you. And I completely agree in the truth of your remark, that reason speaks in the silence of wine.”