ignorance of all I don’t know! How does that little old song go, which, under pretence of being cheerful, is by far the most lugubrious I ever heard in my life?
‘Away with melancholy, Nor doleful changes ring On life and human folly, But merrily merrily sing Fal la!’
Don’t let us sing Fal la, my dear Mortimer (which is comparatively unmeaning), but let us sing that we give up guessing the riddle altogether.”
“Are you in communication with this girl, Eugene, and is what these people say true?”
“I concede both admissions to my honourable and learned friend.”
“Then what is to come of it? What are you doing? Where are you going?”
“My dear Mortimer, one would think the schoolmaster had left behind him a catechizing infection. You are ruffled by the want of another cigar. Take one of these, I entreat. Light it at mine, which is in perfect order. So! Now do me the justice to observe that I am doing all I can towards self-improvement, and that you have a light thrown on those household implements which, when you only saw them as in a glass darkly, you were hastily—I must say hastily—inclined to depreciate. Sensible of my deficiencies, I have surrounded myself with moral influences expressly meant to promote the formation of the domestic virtues. To those influences, and to the improving society of my friend from boyhood, commend me with your best wishes.”
“Ah, Eugene!” said Lightwood, affectionately, now standing near him, so that they both stood in one little cloud of smoke; “I would that you answered my three questions! What is to come of it? What are you doing? Where are you going?”