something very opprobrious and horrible, no doubt.”
“I dare say a philosopher like Signor Riccabocca,” said my uncle, “was not himself very tapetzon tine—what d’ ye call it?—and a good healthy English wife, that poor affectionate Jemima, was thrown away upon him.”
“Roland,” said my father, “you don’t like foreigners; a respectable prejudice, and quite natural in a man who has been trying his best to hew them in pieces and blow them up into splinters. But you don’t like philosophers either,—and for that dislike you have no equally good reason.”
“I only implied that they are not much addicted to soap and water,” said my uncle.
“A notable mistake. Many great philosophers have been very great beaux. Aristotle was a notorious fop. Buffon put on his best laced ruffles when he sat down to write, which implies that he washed his hands first. Pythagoras insists greatly on the holiness of frequent ablutions; and Horace—who, in his own way, was as good a philosopher as any the Romans produced—takes care to let us know what a neat, well-dressed, dapper little gentleman he was. But I don’t think you ever read the ‘Apology’ of Apuleius?”
“Not I; what is it about?” asked the captain.
“About a great many things. It is that Sage’s vindication from several malignant charges,—amongst others, and principally indeed, that of being much too refined and effeminate for a philosopher. Nothing can exceed the rhetorical skill with which he excuses himself for using—tooth-powder. ‘Ought a philosopher,’ he exclaims, ‘to allow anything unclean about him, especially in the mouth,—the mouth, which is the vestibule of the soul, the gate of discourse, the portico of thought! Ah, but AEmilianus [the accuser of Apuleius] never opens his mouth but for slander and calumny,—tooth-powder would indeed be unbecoming to him! Or, if he use any, it will not be my good Arabian tooth powder, but charcoal and cinders. Ay, his teeth should be as foul as his language! And yet even the crocodile likes to have his teeth cleaned; insects get into them, and, horrible reptile though he be, he opens his jaws inoffensively to a faithful dentistical bird, who volunteers his beak for a toothpick.’”
My father was now warm in the subject he had started, and soared miles away from Riccabocca and “My Novel.” “And observe,” he exclaimed,—“observe with what gravity this eminent Platonist pleads guilty to the charge of having a mirror. ‘Why, what,’ he exclaims, ‘more worthy of the regards of a human creature than his own image’ nihil respectabilius homini quam formam suam! Is not that one of our children the most dear to us who is called ‘the picture of his father’? But take what pains you will with a picture, it can never be so like you as the face in your mirror! Think it discreditable to look with proper attention on one’s self in the glass! Did not Socrates recommend such attention to his disciples,—did he not make a great moral agent of the speculum? The handsome, in admiring their beauty therein, were admonished that handsome is who handsome does; and the more the ugly stared at themselves, the more they became naturally anxious to hide the disgrace of their features in the loveliness of their merits. Was not Demosthenes always at his speculum? Did he not rehearse his causes before it as before a master in the art? He learned his eloquence from Plato, his dialectics from Eubulides; but as for his delivery—there, he came to the mirror!
“Therefore,” concluded Mr. Caxton, returning unexpectedly to the subject,—“therefore, it is no reason to suppose that Dr. Riccabocca is averse to cleanliness and decent care of the person because he is a philosopher; and, all things considered, he never showed himself more a philosopher than when he left off his spectacles and looked his best.”
“Well,” said my mother, kindly, “I only hope it may turn out happily. But I should have been better pleased if Pisistratus had not made Dr. Riccabocca so reluctant a wooer.”
“Very true,” said the captain; “the Italian does not shine as a lover. Throw a little more fire into him, Pisistratus,—something gallant and chivalrous.”
“Fire! gallantry! chivalry!” cried my father, who had taken Riccabocca under his special protection; “why, don’t you see that the man is described as a philosopher?—and I should like to know when a philosopher ever plunged into matrimony without considerable misgivings and cold shivers! Indeed, it seems that—perhaps before he was a philosopher—Riccabocca had tried the experiment, and knew what it was. Why, even that plain-speaking, sensible, practical man, Metellus Numidicus, who was not even a philosopher, but only a Roman censor, thus expressed himself in an exhortation to the people to perpetrate matrimony: ‘If, O Quirites, we could do without wives, we should all dispense with that subject of care ea molestia careremus; but since nature has so managed it that we cannot live with women comfortably, nor without them at all, let us rather provide for the human race than our own temporary felicity.’”
Here the ladies set up such a cry of indignation, that both Roland and myself endeavoured to appease their wrath by hasty assurances that we utterly repudiated the damnable doctrine of Metellus Numidicus.
My father, wholly unmoved, as soon as a sullen silence was established, recommenced. “Do not think, ladies,” said he, “that you were without advocates at that day: there were many Romans gallant enough to blame the censor for a mode of expressing himself which they held to be equally impolite and injudicious. ‘Surely,’ said they, with some plausibility, if Numidicus wished men to marry, he need not have referred so peremptorily to the disquietudes of the connection, and thus have made them more inclined to turn away from matrimony than give them a relish for it.’ But against these critics one honest man (whose name of Titus Castricius should not be forgotten by posterity) maintained that Metellus Numidicus could not have spoken more properly; ‘For remark,’ said he, ‘that Metellus was a censor, not a rhetorician. It becomes rhetoricians to adorn and disguise and make the best of things; but Metellus, sanctus vir,—a holy and blameless man, grave and sincere to wit, and addressing the Roman people in the solemn capacity of Censor,—was bound to speak the plain truth, especially as he was treating of a subject on which the observation of every day, and the experience of every life, could not leave the least doubt upon the mind of his audience.’ Still, Riccabocca, having decided to marry, has no doubt prepared himself to bear all the concomitant evils—as becomes a professed sage; and I own I admire the art with which Pisistratus has drawn the kind of woman most likely to suit a philosopher—”
Pisistratus bows, and looks round complacently; but recoils from two very peevish and discontented faces feminine.
MR. CAXTON (completing his sentence).—“Not only as regards mildness of temper and other household qualifications, but as regards the very person of the object of his choice. For you evidently remember, Pisistratus, the reply of Bias, when asked his opinion on marriage: [Long sentence in Greek]”
Pisistratus tries to look as if he had the opinion of Bias by heart, and nods acquiescingly.
MR. CAXTON.—“That is, my dears, ‘The woman you would marry is either handsome or ugly: if handsome, she is koine,—namely, you don’t have her to yourself; if ugly, she is poine,—that is, a fury.’ But, as it is observed in Aulus Gellius (whence I borrow this citation), there is a wide interval between handsome and ugly. And thus Ennius, in his tragedy of ‘Menalippus,’ uses an admirable expression to designate women of the proper degree of matrimonial comeliness, such as a philosopher would select. He calls this degree stata forma,—a rational, mediocre sort of beauty, which is not liable to be either koine or poine. And Favorinus, who was a remarkably sensible man, and came from Provence—the male inhabitants of which district have always valued themselves on their knowledge of love and ladies—calls this said stata forma the beauty of wives,—the uxorial beauty. Ennius says that women of a stata forma are almost always safe and modest. Now, Jemima, you observe, is described as possessing this stata forma; and it is
