Gryll Grange

GRYLL GRANGE

We confess thee, mighty one,

For the daughter of the Sun.

On thy form we gaze appalled.

CIRCE

Cryllus, loo, your summons called.

THE THREE

Hira of yore thy powerful spell

Doomed in swinish shape to dwell;

Vet such life he reckoned then

Happier than the life of men,

Now, when carefully he ponders

All our scientific wonders,

Steam-driven myriads, all in motion,

On the land and on the ocean,

Going, for the sake of going,

Wheresoever waves are flowing,

Wheresoever winds are blowing;

Converse through the sea transmitted,

Swift as ever thought has flitted;

All the glories of our time,

Past the praise of loftiest rhyme;

Will he, seeing these, indeed,

Still retain his ancient creed,

Ranking, in his mental plan,

Life of beast o'er life of man?

CIRCE

Speak, Gryllus.

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GRYLLUS

It is early yet to judge:

But all the novelties I yet have seen

Seem changes for the worse.

THE THREE

If we could show him

Our triumphs in succession, one by one, 'Twould surely change his judgment: and herein How might'st thou aid us, Circe!

CIRCE

I will do so:

And calling down, like Socrates, of yore,

The clouds to aid us, they shall shadow forth, In bright succession, all that they behold, From air, on earth and sea. I wave my wand:

And lo! they come, even as they came in Athens, Shining like virgins of ethereal life.

The Chorus of Clouds descended, and a dazzling array of female beauty was revealed by degrees through folds of misty gauze. They sang their first choral song:

CHORUS OF CLOUDS79

Clouds ever-flowing, conspicuously soaring,

From loud-rolling Ocean, whose stream80 gave us birth To heights, whence we look over torrents down-pouring To the deep quiet vales of the fruit-giving earth, –

As the broad eye of Æther, unwearied in brightness, Dissolves our mist-veil in glittering rays,

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GRYLL GRANGE

Our forms we reveal from its vapoury lightness, In semblance immortal, with far-seeing gaze.

Shower-bearing Virgins, we seek not the regions Whence Pallas, the Muses, and Bacchus have fled,

But the city, where Commerce embodies her legions, And Mammon exalts his omnipotent head.

All joys of thought, feeling, and taste are before us, Wherever the beams of his favour are warm:

Though transient full oft as the veil of our chorus, Now golden with glory, now passing in storm.

Reformers, scientific, moral, educational, political, passed in succession, each answering a question of Gryllus. Gryllus observed, that so far from everything being better than it had been, it seemed that everything was wrong and wanted mending. The chorus sang its second song.

Seven competitive examiners entered with another table, and sat down on the opposite side of the stage to the spiritrappers. They brought forward Hermogenes81 as a crammed fowl to argue with Gryllus. Gryllus had the best of the argument; but the examiners adjudged the victory to Hermogenes. The chorus sang its third song.

Circe, at the request of the spirit-rappers, whose power was limited to the production of sound, called up several visible spirits, all illustrious in their day, but all appearing as in the days of their early youth, 'before their renown was around them.' They were all subjected to competitive examination, and were severally pronounced disqualified for the pursuit in

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which they had shone. At last came one whom Circe recommended to the examiners as a particularly promising youth. He was a candidate for military life. Every question relative to his profession he answered to the purpose. To every question not so relevant he replied that he did not know and did not care. This drew on him a reprimand. He was pronounced disqualified, and ordered to join the rejected, who were ranged in a line along the back of the scene. A touch of Circe's wand changed them into their semblance of maturer years. Among them were Hannibal and Oliver Cromwell; and in the foreground was the last candidate, Richard Coeur-de-Lion. Richard flourished his battle-axe over the heads of the examiners, who jumped up in great trepidation, overturned their table, tumbled over one another, and escaped as best they might in haste and terror. The heroes vanished. The chorus sang its fourth song.

CHORUS

As before the pike will fly

Dace and roach and such small fry;

As the leaf before the gale,

As the chaff beneath the flail;

As before the wolf the flocks,

As before the hounds the fox;

As before the cat the mouse,

As the rat from falling house;

As the fiend before the spell

Of holy water, book, and bell;

As the ghost from dawning day, –

So has fled, in gaunt dismay,

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GRYLL GRANGE

This septemvirate of quacks

From the shadowy attacks

Of Coeur-de-Lion's battle-axe.

Could he in corporeal might,

Plain to feeling as to sight,

Rise again to solar light,

How his arm would put to flight

All the forms of Stygian night

That round us rise in grim array,

Darkening the meridian day:

Bigotry, whose chief employ

Is embittering earthly joy;

Chaos, throned in pedant state,

Teaching echo how to prate;

And 'Ignorance, with looks profound,'

Not 'with eye that loves the ground,'

But stalking wide, with lofty crest,

In science's pretentious vest.

And now, great masters of the realms of shade, To end the task which called us down from air, We shall present, in pictured show arrayed,

Of this your modern world the triumphs rare,

That Gryllus's benighted spirit

May wake to your transcendent merit, And, with profoundest admiration thrilled, He may with willing mind assume his place

In your steam-nursed, steam-borne, steam-killed, And gas-enlightened race.

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CIRCE

Speak, Gryllus, what you see,

I see the ocean,

And o'er its face ships passing wide and far; Some with expanded sails before the breeze, And some with neither sails nor oars, impelled By some invisible power against the wind, Scattering the spray before them, But of many One is on fire, and one has struck on rocks And melted in the waves like fallen snow. Two crash together in the middle sea,

And go to pieces on the instant, leaving No soul to tell the tale, and one is hurled In fragments to the sky, strewing the deep

With death and wreck. I had rather live with Circe Even as I was, than flit about the world

In those enchanted ships which some Alastor Must have devised as traps for mortal ruin.

Look yet again.

Now the whole scene is changed.

I see long chains of strange machines on wheels, With one in front of each, purring white smoke From a black hollow column. Fast and far

They speed, like yellow leaves before the gale, When autumn winds are strongest.

Through their windows

I judge them thronged with people; but distinctly Their speed forbids my seeing.

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GRYLL GRANGE

SPIRIT-RAPPER This is one

Of the great glories of our modern time,

* Men are become as birds,' and skim like swallows The surface of the world.

GRYLLUS

For what good end?

SPIRIT-RAPPER

The end is in itself – the end of skimming

The surface of the world.

GRYLLUS If that be all,

I had rather sit in peace in my old home:

But while I look, two of them meet and clash, And pile their way with ruin. One is rolled Down a steep bank; one through a broken bridge Is dashed into a flood. Dead, dying, wounded, Are there as in a battle-field. Are these

Your modern triumphs? Jove preserve me from them.

SPIRIT-RAPPER

These ills are rare. Millions are borne in safety Where ore incurs mischance. Look yet again.

GRYLLUS

I see a mass of light brighter than that

Which burned in Circe's palace, and beneath it A motley crew, dancing to joyous music.

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But from that light explosion comes, and flame; And forth the dancers rush in haste and fear From their wide-blazing hall.

SPIRIT-RAPPER

Oh, Circe! Circe!

Thou show'st him all the evil of our arts In more than just proportion to the good. Good without evil is not given to man. Jove, from his urns dispensing good and ill,

Gives all unmixed to some, and good and ill Mingled to many – good unmixed to none. Our arts are good. The inevitable ill

That mixes with them, as with all things human, Is as a drop of water in a goblet

Full of old wine.

GRYLLUS

More than one drop, I fear,

And those of bitter water.

CIRCE

There is yet

An ample field of scientific triumph:

What shall we show him next?

SFIRIT-RAPPER Pause we awhile,

He is not in the mood to feel conviction Of our superior greatness. He is all

For rural comfort and domestic ease,

But our impulsive days are all for moving:

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GRYLL GRANGE

Sometimes with some ulterior end, but still For moving, moving, always. There is nothing

Common between us in our points of judgment. He takes his stand upon tranquillity,

We ours upon excitement. There we place The being, end, and aim of mortal life, The many are with us: some few, perhaps, With him. We put the question to the vote By universal suffrage. Aid us, Circe I

On tajismanic wings youI spells can waft The question and reply* Are we not wiser, Happier, and better, than the men of old, Of Homer's days, of Athens, and of Rome?

VOICES WITHOUT

Ay. No. Ay, ay. No. Ay, ay, ay, ay, ay,

We are the wisest race the earth has known, The most advanced in all the arts of life,

In science and in morals.

SPIRIT-RAPPER The ays have it.

What is that wondrous sound, that seems like thunder Mixed with gigantic laughter?

CIRCE

It is Jupiter,

Who laughs at your presumption; half in anger, And half in mockery. Now, my worthy masters, You must in turn experience in yourselves

The mighty magic thus far tried on others.

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The table turned slowly, and by degrees went on spinning with accelerated speed. The legs assumed motion, and it danced off the stage. The arms of the chairs put forth hands, and pinched the spirit-rappers, who sprang up and ran off, pursued by their chairs. This piece of mechanical pantomime was a triumph of Lord Curryfin's art, and afforded him ample satisfaction for the failure of his resonant vases.

CIRCE

Now, Gryllus, we may seek our ancient home

In my enchanted isle.

GRYLLUS

Not yet, not yet.

Good signs are toward of a joyous supper.

Therein the modern world may have its glory,

And I, like an impartial judge, am ready

To do it ample justice. But, perhaps,

As all we hitherto have seen are shadows,

So too may be the supper.

CIRCE

Fear not, Gryllus.

That you will find a sound reality,

To which the land and air, seas, lakes, and rivers, Have sent their several tributes. Now, kind friends, Who with your smiles have graciously rewarded Our humble, but most earnest aims to please,

And with your presence at our festal board Will charm the winter midnight, Music gives The signal: Welcome and old wine await you.

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