Page:Satire in the Victorian novel (IA satireinvictoria00russrich).pdf/184

 A little later in the same story is a bit of "eloquent and consoling philosophy" on a happy juxtaposition of the meat and the eaters.

"A thing has come to pass which we feel to be right! The machinery of the world, then, is not entirely dislocated: there is harmony, on one point, among the mysterious powers who have to do with us."

Another deeply meditative young man is Algernon Blancove. On the very point of turning over a new leaf, he has the misfortune to lose a wager of a thousand pounds,—which he did not have in the first place.

"A rage of emotions drowned every emotion in his head, and when he got one clear from the mass, it took the form of a bitter sneer at Providence, for cutting off his last chance of reforming his conduct and becoming good. What would he not have accomplished, that was brilliant, and beautiful, and soothing, but for this dead set against him!"

With a gentler touch Clotilde is pictured, on hearing of the disaster to Alvin, as venting the "laugh of the tragic comedian."

"She laughed. The world is upside down—a world without light, or pointing finger, or affection for special favorites, and therefore bereft of all mysterious and attractive wisdom, a crazy world, a corpse of a world—if this be true!"

One more angle has Meredith from which to view this subject, and this shows up the absurdity of the opposite type,—the superior philosopher who disdains to apply the