Thames, although, I confess, it is not without a severe pang that any man of well-constituted mind can resolve to forego his two or three pilgrimages in the season to the Mecca of White-bait. I am well pleased that I broke through this resolution, as a little meeting there the other day was the means of securing the happiness of a very excellent young man, who before that pleasant little evening was suffering from the pangs of unrequited affection.
The tender passion had pervaded his soul. All his accustomed haunts and pursuits had grown distasteful to my young friend Septimus Cox, whose whole spirit had been drawn by one of those mysterious affinities which I suppose exist between the Anchovy and the Nightingale towards the spirit of pretty Fanny Almond. How he disdained us all! There was fat Jack Partridge—her cousin too—whose jokes were of so genial and sympathetic a kind, that they really might have elicited a broad grin from a milestone. Well, it was only about ten days ago that I was walking home to chambers, at about one o’clock a.m., with the enamoured Cox, and when we came to Covent Garden (it was on a Friday night, or rather early on a Saturday morning), he asked me if it would not be delightful to walk up and down in that celebrated locality, and see the early flowers brought to market. To humour him, I consented to take a few turns; and he then imparted to me, in strict confidence, his opinion that poor Jack was a coarse fellow; that his particular forms of pleasantry were very well in their way; but that a man who had anything better in him soon outlived all relish for them; and that the assiduous discharge of the duties of a laborious profession, coupled with the comforts of a home, and the charms of domestic life, &c., &c.
I had seen my young friends suffering from this kind of attack before, and knew well there was nothing for it but to let the disease run its course. Had he reason to suppose that the young lady appreciated the fervour of his devotion? Had he yet communicated with her upon the subject? No! He was so overwhelmed with the sense of his own unworthiness that he had not yet ventured on anything so audacious. Once, indeed, he had gone so far as to turn over the leaf of her music-book when she was warbling a delightful melody; but as he had rendered this assistance at a wrong moment, he had rather interrupted than aided the full tide of song.
Had he any reason to suppose that his suit would be ill received by this fair being? None in the world. Why, then, was he in such low spirits? Because he knew that he was so totally and absolutely unworthy of her, that he had not the remotest chance of winning her affections. There was nothing for it but despair and a premature grave. Perhaps, then, Fanny would one day know that one who had &c., &c., loved her, &c., &c., had passed away, &c., &c., and that after life’s fitful fever, &c., &c. It was also possible under those circumstances that she might not disdain to drop a tear upon his untimely tomb. This was all very well—very much in the usual course of things—but I confess I thought Septimus was a little hard upon our poor friend Jack Partridge, who was not bound to know that he was imparting his very best jokes to a despairing lover.
Suddenly a thought struck me. Could I induce our young friend to accompany me to Greenwich? I had frequently known the very best results produced by a white-bait dinner upon young men who were very far gone indeed in the tender passion. Kindly middle-aged men must have a large experience of this class of case, and how difficult it is to make the poor foolish boys believe that Dr. Cumming’s gloomiest anticipations are not on the point of being realised because Fanny would “take a turn” with Captain McPuma the other night, in place of devoting her whole attention to the administration of comfort and solace to an individual member of that gloomy but enraptured band. The chief difficulty is to get them down to Greenwich, for when once there I have considerable confidence in a method of treatment which from my own experience of its successful action in many critical cases I would recommend for general adoption. The water-zootje with, say, two flounders, and a delicate roll of brown bread-and-butter, should first be presented in a quiet, sympathetic, “Ah-poor-fellow!” sort of way. Do not at this point take much notice of your patient. His is, of course, a case of great and exceptional sorrow. No Fanny had ever ill-used and bedevilled any Septimus before that afternoon in June. For the rest of the company there are the usual interests of human life; for poor Septimus a little water-zootje and the savage grandeur of solitary despair. Leave Prometheus on his rock, and throw him a flounder or two just to keep him going whilst the vulture is as usual making himself happy with that eternal Strasburg pie which the mournful Titan is doomed to bear for ever upon his right side. When the water-zootje and a glass of Amontillado are fairly disposed of, next exhibit a whiting pudding. It is a good, stodgy, pasty sort of mixture, cloying and anti-sentimental. Now throw in another glass of sherry, or—as you are dealing with a despairing lover who takes no notice of what he is drinking—a little Bucellas, and inquire, “If he has seen the second edition?” Of course he has not. The only telegram Mr. Reuter could possibly forward to “The Times” which would possess the slightest interest for Septimus, would be to the effect that “At 4·30 a.m. Miss Fanny Almond took her usual walking exercise on the banks of the Serpentine, in a plain straw bonnet—her eyes were suffused with tears, and she was heard in front of the Royal Humane Society’s house to say ‘Septimus, Oh, cruel, cruel!’”—the cruelty referring to an ideal and somewhat voluminous letter in which Mr. S. C. had on the previous night embodied the history of his sorrows and his wrongs. No such telegram is of course forthcoming, and you have arrived at the lobster rissoles, where, in the majority of cases, a faint attempt may be made to entangle the Sep. in the meshes of a joke. With the salmon cutlets I have never known the experiment to fail; and by the time he has arrived at the white-bait and the cold punch, Romeo himself would think Mercutio a dull dog if he did not answer the whip in a sound convivial