Barnes. Pdf

 
Chapters 
47
Amanda did not reply, but the following week she returned to Dublin with one of her five siblings and this time visited the 
Rotunda. There she greatly admired Monsieur Jerricault's canvas, which though static contained for her much motion and 
lighting and, in its own way, music - indeed, in some fashion it 
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contained more of these things than did the vulgar Panorama. Upon her return she told her father as much. 
Colonel Fergusson nodded indulgently at such pertness and obstinacy, but held his peace. On the 5th of March, however, 
he jauntily indicated to his favourite daughter a fresh advertisement in Saunder's News-Letter announcing that Mr Bullock had 
reduced - had clearly been obliged to reduce, the Colonel interpreted - the price of admission into his immobile spectacle to a 
mere ten pence. At the end of that month Colonel Fergusson imparted the news that the Frenchy picture at the Rotunda had 
closed for lack of spectators, whereas Messrs Marshall's Peristrephic Panorama was still being shown three times a day to 
audiences rendered perfectly comfortable by patent stoves. 
`It is the way forward,' the Colonel repeated in June of that year, after attending by himself the farewell performance at the 
Pavilion. 
'Mere novelty is no proof of value,' his daughter had replied, sounding a little too smug for one so young. 
Tick, tick, tick, tick. Tock. Colonel Fergusson's faked sleep became more choleric. God damn it, he was thinking, this dying 
business is difficult. They just won't let you get on with it, not on your own terms, anyway. You have to die on other people's 
terms, and that's a bore, love them as you might. He opened his eyes and prepared to correct his daughter for the several 
hundredth occasion in their lives together. 
'It's love,' he said suddenly. `That's all it is.' Amanda's gaze was surprised from the ceiling, and she looked across with 
brimming eyes. `It's the love-call of xestobium rufo-villosum, for God's sake, girl. Simple as that. Put one of the little fellows in 
a box and tap on the table with a pencil and he behaves in exactly the same way. Thinks you're a female and butts his head 
against the box trying to get to you. Speaking of which, why didn't you marry that lieutenant when I told you to? Sheer damn 
insubordination.' He reached across and took her hand. 
But his daughter didn't reply, her eyes continued to overflow, the ticking carried on overhead, and Colonel Fergusson 
[p. 147] 
was duly buried before the year's end. On this prediction the doctor and the death-watch beetle had managed to agree. 
Amanda's grief for her father was compounded by anxiety over his ontological status. Did his obstinate refusal to 
acknowledge the divine plan - and his careless use of the Almighty's name even on his deathbed - mean that he was now 
consigned to outer darkness, to some chilly region unheated by patent stoves? Miss Fergusson knew the Lord to be just, yet 
merciful. Those who accepted his commandments were to be judged in punctilious accordance with the law, whereas the 
ignorant savage in the darkened jungle who could not possibly have known the light would be treated with gentleness and 
given a second chance. But did the category of ignorant savage extend to occupants of cold square houses outside Dublin? Was 
the pain which unbelievers bore all their lives at the prospect of oblivion to be extended into further pain inflicted for having 
denied the Lord? Miss Fergusson feared that it might be. 
How could her father have failed to recognize God, His eternal design, and its essential goodness? The proof of this plan 
and of this benevolence lay manifest in Nature; which was provided by God for Man's enjoyment. This did not mean, as some 
had assumed, that Man might recklessly pillage Nature for what he sought; indeed, Nature was deserving of the more respect 
because it was a divine creation. But God had created both Man and Nature, placing Man into that Nature as a hand is placed 
into a glove. Amanda frequently reflected upon the fruits of the field, how various they were, and yet how perfectly each was 
adapted for Man's enjoyment. For instance, trees bearing edible fruits were made easy to climb, being much lower than forest 
trees. Fruits which were soft when ripe, such as the apricot, the fig or the mulberry, which might be bruised by falling, 
presented themselves at a small distance from the ground; whereas hard fruit, which ran no risk of sustaining an injury by a 
fall, like the cocoa, the walnut or the chestnut, presented themselves at a considerable height. Some fruit - like the cherry and 
the plum - were moulded for the mouth; others - the apple and the pear - for the hand; others still, like the 
[p. 148]
melon, were made larger, so as to be divided among the family circle. Yet others, like the pumpkin, were made of a size to be 
shared amongst the whole neighbourhood, and many of these larger fruits were marked on their outer rind with vertical 
divisions, so as to make apportionment the easier. 
Where Amanda discovered in the world divine intent, benevolent order and rigorous justice, her father had seen only chaos, 
hazard and malice. Yet they were both examining the same world. In the course of their many arguments, Amanda once asked 
him to consider the domestic condition of the Fergusson family, who lived together with strong bonds of affection, and declare 
whether they too were the consequence of chaos, hazard and malice. Colonel Fergusson, who could not quite bear to inform his 
daughter that the human family sprang from the same impulse which animated a beetle striking its head against the walls of its 
box, replied that in his view the Fergussons were a happy accident. His daughter replied that there were too many happy 
accidents in the world for them to be accidental. 
In part, Amanda reflected, it was a matter of how you perceived things. Her father saw in a vulgar simulacrum of coloured 
lights and trilling music a true portrayal of a great maritime tragedy; whereas for her the reality was best conveyed by a simple, 
static canvas adorned with pigment. Mainly, however, it was a question of faith. A few weeks after their visit to the 
Peristrephic Panorama, her father was rowing her slowly across the serpentine lake on the neighbouring estate of Lord F––– . 
Some connection having been made in his mind, he began to rebuke her for a belief in the reality of Noah's Ark, which he 
referred to sarcastically as the Myth of the Deluge. Amanda was not discountenanced by the accusation. She replied by asking 

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J
ULIAN 
B
ARNES
: A History of the World in 10 ½