The Admirable Bashville

Act III

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LYDIA. O Past and Present, how ye do conflict

As here I sit writing my father's life!

The autumn woodland woos me from without

With whispering of leaves and dainty airs

To leave this fruitless haunting of the past.

My father was a very learn d man.

I sometimes think I shall oldmaided be

Ere I unlearn the things he taught to me.

POLICEMAN. Asking your ladyship to pardon me

For this intrusion, might I be so bold

As ask a question of your people here

Concerning the Queen's peace?

LYDIA. My people here

Are but a footman and a simple maid;

And both have craved a holiday to join

Some local festival. But, sir, your helmet

Proclaims the Metropolitan Police.

POLICEMAN. Madam, it does; and I may now inform you

That what you term a local festival

Is a most hideous outrage 'gainst the law,

Which we to quell from London have come down:

In short, a prizefight. My sole purpose here

Is to inquire whether your ladyship

Any bad characters this afternoon

Has noted in the neighborhood.

POLICEMAN. Fear nothing, madam:

The force protects the fair. My mission here

Is to wreak ultion for the broken law.

I wish your ladyship good afternoon.

LYDIA. Good afternoon. [ExitPoliceman.

A prizefight! O my heart!

Cashel: hast thou deceived me? Can it be

Thou hast backslidden to the hateful calling

I asked thee to eschew?

O wretched maid,

Why didst thou flee from London to this place

To write thy father's life, whenas in town

Thou might'st have kept a guardian eye on him-

What's that? A flying footstep-

CASHEL. Murder! I would I had. Yon cannibal

Hath forty thousand lives; and I have ta'en

But thousands thirty-nine. I tell thee, Lydia,

On the impenetrable sarcolobe

That holds his seedling brain these fists have pounded

By Shrewsb'ry clock an hour. This bruis d grass

And cak d mud adhering to my form

I have acquired in rolling on the sod

Clinched in his grip. This scanty reefer coat

For decency snatched up as fast I fled

When the police arrived, belongs to Mellish.

'Tis all too short; hence my display of rib

And forearm mother-naked. Be not wroth

Because I seem to wink at you: by Heaven,

'Twas Paradise that plugged me in the eye

Which I perforce keep closing. Pity me,

My training wasted and my blows unpaid,

Sans stakes, sans victory, sans everything

I had hoped to win. Oh, I could sit me down

And weep for bitterness.

LYDIA. I say begone. Oh, tiger's heart

Wrapped in a young man's hide, canst thou not live

In love with Nature and at peace with Man?

Must thou, although thy hands were never made

To blacken others' eyes, still batter at

The image of Divinity? I loathe thee.

Hence from my house and never see me more.

CASHEL. I go. The meanest lad on thy estate

Would not betray me thus. But 'tis no matter. [He opens the door.

Ha! the police. I'm lost. [He shuts the door again.

Now shalt thou see

My last fight fought. Exhausted as I am,

To capture me will cost the coppers dear.

Come one, come all!

LYDIA. Oh, hide thee, I implore:

I cannot see thee hunted down like this.

There is my room. Conceal thyself therein.

Quick, I command. [He goes into the room.

With horror I foresee,

Lydia, that never lied, must lie for thee.

POLICEMAN. Keep back your bruis d prisoner lest he shock

This wellbred lady's nerves. Your pardon, ma'am;

But have you seen by chance the other one?

In this direction he was seen to run.

MELLISH. Injurious copper, in thy teeth

I hurl the lie. I am no trainer, I.

My father, a respected missionary,

Apprenticed me at fourteen years of age

T' the poetry writing. To these woods I came

With Nature to commune. My revery

Was by a sound of blows rudely dispelled.

Mindful of what my sainted parent taught,

I rushed to play the peacemaker, when lo!

These minions of the law laid hands on me.

BASHVILLE. A lovely woman, with distracted cries,

In most resplendent fashionable frock,

Approaches like a wounded antelope.

ADELAIDE. A ribald peer,

Lord Worthington by name, this morning came

With honeyed words beseeching me to mount

His four-in-hand, and to the country hie

To see some English sport. Being by nature

Frank as a child, I fell into the snare,

But took so long to dress that the design

Failed of its full effect; for not until

The final round we reached the horrid scene.

Be silent all; for now I do approach

My tragedy's catastrophe. Know, then,

That Heaven did bless me with an only son,

A boy devoted to his doting mother--

ADELAIDE. Respect a broken-hearted mother's grief,

And do not interrupt me in my scene.

Ten years ago my darling disappeared

(Ten dreary twelvemonths of continuous tears,

Tears that have left me prematurely aged;

For I am younger far than I appear).

Judge of my anguish when to-day I saw

Stripped to the waist, and fighting like a demon

With one who, whatsoe'er his humble virtues,

Was clearly not a gentleman, my son!

ADELAIDE. I thank you from the bottom of my heart

For the reception you have given my woe;

And now I ask, where is my wretched son?

He must at once come home with me, and quit

A course of life that cannot be allowed.

POLICEMAN. The lady hid him.

This is a regular plant. You cannot be

Up to that s*x. [ToCashel] You come along with me.

CASHEL. Never. I do embrace my doom with joy.

With Paradise in Pentonville or Portland

I shall feel safe: there are no mothers there.

CASHEL. There spake my fate:

I knew you would say that. Oh, mothers, mothers,

Would you but let your wretched sons alone

Life were worth living! Had I any choice

In this importunate relationship?

None. And until that high auspicious day

When the millennium on an orphaned world

Shall dawn, and man upon his fellow look,

Reckless of consanguinity, my mother

And I within the self-same hemisphere

Conjointly may not dwell.

ADELAIDE. Baseborn! Who dares say it?

Thou art the son and heir of Bingley Bumpkin

FitzAlgernon de Courcy Cashel Byron,

Sieur of Park Lane and Overlord of Dorset,

Who after three months' wedded happiness

Rashly fordid himself with prussic acid,

Leaving a tearstained note to testify

That having sweetly honeymooned with me,

He now could say, O Death, where is thy sting?

LUCIAN. Not so, policeman

I bear a message from The Throne itself

Of fullest amnesty for Byron's past.

Nay, more: of Dorset deputy lieutenant

He is proclaimed. Further, it is decreed,

In memory of his glorious victory

Over our country's foes at Islington,

The flag of England shall for ever bear

On azure field twelve swanlike spots of white;

And by an exercise of feudal right

Too long disused in this anarchic age

Our sovereign doth confer on him the hand

Of Miss Carew, Wiltstoken's wealthy heiress. [General acclamation.

LUCIAN. My former opposition, valiant champion,

Was based on the supposed discrepancy

Betwixt your rank and Lydia's. Here's my hand.

LYDIA. In taking, Bashville, this most tasteful course

You are but acting as a gentleman

In the like case would act. I fully grant

Your perfect right to make a declaration

Which flatters me and honors your ambition.

Prior attachment bids me firmly say

That whilst my Cashel lives, and polyandry

Rests foreign to the British social scheme,

Your love is hopeless; still, your services,

Made zealous by disinterested passion,

Would greatly add to my domestic comfort;

And if--

CASHEL. Excuse me. I have other views.

I've noted in this man such aptitude

For art and exercise in his defence

That I prognosticate for him a future

More glorious than my past. Henceforth I dub him

The Admirable Bashville, Byron's Novice;

And to the utmost of my mended fortunes

Will back him 'gainst the world at ten stone six.

CASHEL. 'Tis Fate's decree.

For know, rash youth, that in this star crost world

Fate drives us all to find our chiefest good

In what we can, and not in what we would.

LYDIA. Nay, 'tis a match

Of most auspicious promise. Dear Lord Worthington,

You tear from us our mother-in-law-

CASHEL [aside]. It wrings my heart to see my noble backer

Lay waste his future thus. The world's a chessboard,

And we the merest pawns in fist of Fate.

[Aloud.] And now, my friends, gentle and simple both,

Our scene draws to a close. In lawful course

As Dorset's deputy lieutenant I

Do pardon all concerned this afternoon

In the late gross and brutal exhibition

Of miscalled sport.

CASHEL. This is the face that burnt a thousand boats,

And ravished Cashel Byron from the ring.

But to conclude. Let William Paradise

Devote himself to science, and acquire,

By studying the player's speech in Hamlet,

A more refined address. You, Robert Mellish,

To the Blue Anchor hostelry attend him;

Assuage his hurts, and bid Bill Richardson

Limit his access to the fatal tap.

Now mount we on my backer's four-in-hand,

And to St. George's Church, whose portico

Hanover Square shuts off from Conduit Street,

Repair we all. Strike up the wedding march;

And, Mellish, let thy melodies trill forth

Broad o'er the wold as fast we bowl along.

Give me the post-horn. Loose the flowing rein;

And up to London drive with might and main. [Exeunt.

In the 1600s, Balthasar Gracian, a jesuit priest wrote 300 aphorisms on living life called "The Art of Worldly Wisdom." Join our newsletter below and read them all, one at a time.