Text: Fake, “The Spectacles” (fake), dated 1842

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Mr. Editor,

Sir, — There is one epithet which seems made expressly to describe my aunt. She was a very romantic old lady. Had the word “romantic” never existed before, it must have been invented expressly on her account. At nineteen she refused a baronet with ten thousand a year, and married on love and nothing. I never understood how she and her husband lived, the twelvemonth before he was killed in Spain. An ensign's pay, now-a-days, will scarcely find him in epaulettes. But live they did, for at the end of this said year he was shot, leading a forlorn hope, and leaving a widow and child, as his monument stated “inconsolable.” Mrs. Loraine never forced the marble to lie — under a mistake. She wore black, and white pocket handkerchiefs, to the last. The death of a distant relation made her quite independent; and she forthwith established herself in the prettiest cottage that Richmond, the modern Arcady of pretty cottages, ever invented. A willow on the lawn dropped the rain of its green leaves into the Thames, roses looked in at the windows, and geraniums out at the doors. Some people said it was damp; but, as my aunt justly observed “Some people have no soul.”’ [[sic]] Here she devoted herself to the education of Lucy, her [page 2:] pretty little fairy of a daughter: — that is to say, she always curled Lucy's long fair hair herself; and instead of the usual recitation of “Pity the Sorrows of a Poor Old Man,” and “Oh Hear a Pensive Prisoner's Prayer!” the little creature repeated, “If you would view fair Melrose aright” and Childe Harold's “Good Night.” Certainly her system was not “conducted on the most approved principles:” — there was no bread and water, no -ographies, and her botany only distinguished a rose from a lily, and developed itself in a taste for violets. Still is succeeded, for at seventeen Lucy was the nearest approach to an Angel that I, at least, ever saw. How well I remember the summer parlour, into which daylight never entered! My aunt had a lingering weakness in favour of a still fine complexion. Nature and art alike lent their aid; there were French blinds, and a Virginian creeper in great profusion; a harp stood in one window, where I generally stood too; while a stand of myrtles and roses occupied the other. My aunt's armchair was drawn a little aside towards a small work-table, on which usually lay an open volume of some favorite poet; near was a stool for her feet, and her daughter, for there Lucy delighted to sit, reading aloud page after page, and expecting every one [page 3:] to sympathize in her admiration. Rousseau states that Telemaque was the first love of his Sophie. Lucy had a series of such ideal passions; — like most very gentle and timid people. she had a taste for the desperate. “Lord Cranstoun,” goblin page and all, was not equal to “Rhoderick Dhu,” — and I am afraid that she had an innocent weakness in favour of “Marmion.” The “Corsair” was her grand passion, all; especially when she identified him with after Lara.

Just at this period I departed for the Continent and certainly a pair of very blue eyes “shed frequent sunshine o’er my path.” I saw them amid the snows of Mount Blanc — and in the “palpable obscure” of La Scala, at Milan. I came home, and heard that Lucy was going to be married to George Fanshawe — George Fanshawe, the dullest, the meanest, the ugliest of mortals. I heard all about it — one always hears what is disagreeable. Mrs. Loraine and her daughter were driving out one evening: a cloud came over the moon, and a dizziness over the postilion, and the pony-phaeton was all but overturned. Fortunately — I used the word, because it is the established ore on such occasions, though I differ from the received opinion — fortunately a gentleman was riding past — he of course rescued the ladies, [page 4:] and equally of course was ever after called their preserver. By-the-bye I hate the word, it puts me so in mind of a flannel waistcoat. The next day he called to make inquiries; the day after he called to make more; — and so he went on inquiring through the summer. Poor Mrs. Loraine was greatly surprised when on the first of September, he brought down a brace of partridges, and his proposals for her daughter; still more astonished was she to learn that the said proposals had received as much consent as Lucy could give without her mother's. Mrs. Loraine would have expected her daughter to go into a consumption, had she thrown the slightest obstacle in the way of her happiness; but the happiness itself greatly surprised her. George Fanshawe was, in her eyes, the very antipodes of what a lover ought to be. He laughed loud, and was given to laughing. He had never read Lord Byron, and listened with all possible inattention. Moreover, like all handsome women, who have married very handsome men, she thought much of personal appearance, and there was only one word that could explain Mr. George Fanshawe's appearance [[—]] he was ugly; decidedly ugly; not “plain but intelligent,” not “sallow out so interesting;” no, ugly was the only adjective that could stand before his substantive. [page 5:] I have only one excuse to make for Lucy: he was her first lover, and as Mdle. de Launay says, “our first and last conquests are those we truely [[truly]] value.” The love-making went on, and Mrs. Loraine had then an additional misery; it was how much the style of dress had changed since her young days: she herself was married in a white chip gypsy hat tied under the chin with a pink silk handkerchief. This gypsy hat is an infallible index in my mind to the knowledge of two circumstances, — first the gentlemen who dwells upon their charm with a “pastoral melancholy” is about forty, they have been in fashion some twenty years since: and secondly, that he was in love with some pretty face under them about that time. She would so liked her daughter to have married in the same dress she had worn just eighteen years before, — white lawn, pink ribbons, and a Brussel lace veil. However, her ideas on the moralty [[morality]] of dress, which means fashion, were too fixed to allow of her offering any opposition to the established custom of white satin and blonde.

Mr. G. Fanshawe was a clock-worker lover. he was wound up to call at one particular hour, and from that he rarely deviated. Two o’clock saw him seated in Mrs. Loraine's shadowy parlour, and, it is a remarkable fact, [page 6:] he was never five minutes before his time. One morning, however, he was summoned on a trial of some poachers. Riding past the cottage, he thought it would save sending a servent [[servant]], if he called to say he might be detained all day. He dismounted, entered, and walked up the gravel walk: the sound of Lucy's harp came from the window; he approached near where he saw my sweet cousin seated. I do not think that I have mentioned before that she was my cousin. The blind was drawn up, and the room was full of sunshine. Lucy started from her harp in extreme confusion; this, however, Mr. George Fanshawe was too polite to allow, and he handed the lady most unwillingly back to her place in the window, she stammered, she blushed, she hesitated much more than he thought there was any occasion for: still he proceeded to state the cause of his early visit, and to beg her to give his compliments to Mrs. Loraine. As he was going, he said “Lucy, what do you wear spectacles for?” She made him no answer, but rushed up stairs to her mother's dressing room. “I have seen him, I have seen him,” exclaimed she, throwing herself into her mother's arms. “Seen whom?” asked Mrs. Loraine, whose imagination was divided between thieves and lovers. “I have seen Mr. [page 7:] Fanshawe!” “And is that all?” replied mamma, quite disappointed. “Oh, but I never saw him before; he came in while I was practising, so I saw him: and I never can marry him, now that I have seen him.”

The fact was, that Lucy, like all young ladies of the present day, was very short-sighted, and, to conquer the difficulties of Mozart and Rossini, she always practiced in spectacles. Now, a heroine (and that was my cousin's natural vocation) could not be supposed to wear spectacles — and these spectacles are kept as mystery as a murder or a ghost. Lucy went about the world seeing half and imagining the rest. Her declaration was quite a relief to my aunt, though she thought it decent to remonstrate a little; but Lucy began to cry, and then advise took the shape of caresses. Well, Mr. George Fanshawe was dismissed, with three useful additions to his stock of general knowledge — first not to call on his lady-love before breakfast, secondly to ascertain whether she wears spectacles, thirdly to request in the first instance that she will look at him through them. They say, though, that such a proceeding will make others unnecessary. Your obedient servant,

CHARLES LORAINE.

Postscript. — I have been to see Lucy, who looks very lovely, and Mrs. Loraine calls her “The Victim of an Illusion.” —

Postscript 2. I was married to Lucy this morning, and she has seen me through her spectacles.

THE END.