Bram Stoker: The Complete Novels. A to Z Classics

Chapter 2 — To and Fro

      When all was made comfortable for the after sitting, the conversation grew lively. The position of persons at table tends to further cliquism, and to narrow conversation to a number of dialogues, and so the change was appreciated.

      The most didactic person of the company was Mr. Parnell, who was also the greatest philosopher; and the idea of general conversation seemed to have struck him. He began to comment on the change in the style of conversation.

      “Look what a community of feeling does for us. Half an hour ago, when we were doing justice to Mrs. O’Sullivan’s good things, all our ideas were scattered. There was, perhaps, enough of pleasant news amongst us to make some of us happy, and others of us rich, if we knew how to apply our information; but still no one got full benefit, or the opportunity of full benefit, from it.”

      Here Price whispered something in Jane’s ear, which made her blush and laugh, and tell him to “go along.”

      Parnell smiled and said gently —

      “Well, perhaps, Tom, some of the thoughts wouldn’t interest the whole of us.”

      Tom grinned bashfully, and Parnell reverted to his theme. He was a great man at meetings, and liked to talk, for he knew that he talked well.

      “Have any of you ever looked how some rivers end?”

      “What end?” asked Mr. Muldoon, and winked at Miss M’Anaspie.

      “The sea end. Look at the history of a river. It begins by a lot of little streams meeting together, and is but small at first. Then it grows wider and deeper, till big ships mayhap can sail in it, and then it goes down to the sea.”

      “Poor thing,” said Mr. Muldoon, again winking at Margaret.

      “Ay, but how does it reach the sea? It should go, we would fancy, by a broad open mouth that would send the ships out boldly on every side and gather them in from every point. But some do not do so — the water is drawn off through a hundred little channels, where the mud lies in shoals and the sedges grow, and where no craft can pass. The river of thought should be an open river — be its craft few or many — if it is to benefit mankind.”

      Miss M’Anaspie who had, whilst he was speaking, been whispering to Mr. Muldoon, said, with a pertness bordering on snappishness:

      “Then, I suppose, you would never let a person talk except in company. For my part, I think two is better company than a lot.”

      “Not at all, my dear. The river of thought can flow between two as well as amongst fifty; all I say is that all should benefit.”

      Here Mr. Muldoon struck in. He had all along felt it as a slight to himself that Parnell should have taken the conversational ball into his own hands. He was himself extremely dogmatic, and no more understood the difference between didacticism and dogmatism than he comprehended the meaning of that baphometic fire-baptism which set the critics of Mr. Carlyle’s younger days a-thinking.

      “For my part,” said he, “I consider it an impertinence for any man to think that what he says must be interesting to every one in a room.”

      This was felt by all to be a home thrust at Parnell, and no one spoke. Parnell would have answered, not in anger, but in good-humoured argument, only for an imploring look on Katey’s face, which seemed to say as plainly as words —

      “Do not answer. He will be angry, and there will only be a quarrel.”

      And so the subject dropped.

      The men mixed punch, all except Mr. Muldoon, who took his whisky cold, and Parnell, who took none. The former looked at the latter with a sort of semi-sneer, and said — “Do you mean to say you don’t take either punch or grog?”

      “Well,” said Parnell, “I didn’t mean to say it, but now that you ask me I do say it. I never touch any kind of spirit, and, please God, I never will.”

      “Don’t you think,” said Muldoon, “that that is setting yourself above the rest of us a good deal. We’re not too good for our liquor, but you are. That’s about the long and the short of it.”

      “No, no, my friend, I say nothing of the kind. Any man is too good for liquor.”

      Jerry thought the conversation was getting entirely too argumentative, so he cut in — “But a little liquor needn’t be bad for a chap if he doesn’t take too much?”

      “Ay, there it is,” said Parnell, “if he doesn’t take too much. But he does take too much, and the end is that it works his ruin, body and soul.”

      “Whose?”

      It was Miss M’Anaspie who asked the question, and it fell like a bombshell.

      Parnell, however, was equal to the emergency.

      “Whose?” he repeated. “Whose? Everyone’s who begins and doesn’t know where he may leave off.” Miss M’Anaspie felt that she was answered, and looked appealingly at Mr. Muldoon, who at once came to the rescue.

      “Everyone is a big word. Do you mean to tell me that every man that drinks a pint of beer or a glass of whisky, goes straight to the devil?”

      “No, no; indeed I do not. God forbid that I should say any such thing. But look how many men that mean only to take one glass, are persuaded to take two, and then the wits begin to go, and they take three or four, and five, ay, and more, sometimes. Why, men and women” — he rose from his chair as he spoke, with his face all aglow, with earnestness and belief in his words, “look around you and see the misery that everywhere throngs the streets. See the pale, drunken, wasted-looking men, with sunken eyes, and slouching gait. Men that were once as strong and hard-working, and upright as any here, ay, and could look you in the face as boldly as any here. Look at them now! Afraid to meet your eyes, trembling at every sound; mad with passion one moment and with despair the next.”

      The tide of his thought was pouring forth with such energy that no one spoke; even Mr. Muldoon was afraid at the time to interrupt him. He went on:

      “And the women, too, God help us all. Look at them and see what part drink plays in their wretched lives. Listen to the laughter and the cries that wake the echoes in the streets at night. You that have wives, and mothers and,” (this with a glance at Tom and Pat) “sweethearts, can you hear such laughter and cries and not shudder? If you can, then when next you hear it think of what it would be for you to hear some voice that you love raised like that.”

      Mr. Muldoon could not stand it any longer and spoke out:

      “But come now, I can’t see how all the misery and wretchedness of the world is to be laid on a simple glass of beer.”

      “Hear, hear,” said Miss M’Anaspie.

      Parnell’s reply was allegorical. “Do you see how the oak springs from the acorn — the bird from the egg? I tell you that if there were no spirits there would be less sin, and shame, and sorrow than there is.”

      “Oh, yes,” said Muldoon. “It would be a beautiful world entirely, and everybody would have everything, and nobody would want nothing, and we’d all be grand fellows. Eh, Miss Margaret, what do you think?”

      “Hear, hear,” said Miss M’Anaspie, more timidly than before, however, at the same time looking over at Mrs. O’Sullivan, who was looking not too well pleased at her.

      “Ah, sir,” said Parnell, sadly, “God knows that we, men and women, are not what we ought to be, and sin will be in the world, I suppose, till the time that is told. But this I say, that drink is the greatest enemy that man has on earth.”

      “Why, you’re quite an enthusiast,” said Mr. Muldoon; “one would think you were inspired.”

      “I would I were inspired. I wish my voice was of gold, and