Poetess Archive: Anna Barbauld's Prose Works
	"Dialogue Between Madame Cosmogunia and a Philosophical Inquirer of the Eighteenth Century" (1793)

Dialogue Between Madame Cosmogunia and a Philosophical Inquirer of the Eighteenth Century

1.         January 1, 1793.

2.          E. I rejoice, my good madam, to see you. You bear your years extremely well. You really look as fresh and blooming this morning as if you were but just out of your leading-strings; and yet you have -- I forget how many centuries upon your shoulders.

3.          C. Do not you know, son, that people of my standing are by no means fond of being too nicely questioned about their years? Besides, my age is a point by no means agreed upon.

4.          E. I thought it was set down in the church register?

5.          C. That is true; but every body does not go by your register. The people who live eastward of us, and have sold tea time out of mind, by the great wall, say I am older by a vast deal; and that long before the time when your people pretend I was born, I had near as much wisdom and learning as I have now.

6.          E. I do not know how that matter might be; one thing I am certain of, that you did not know your letters then; and every body knows that these tea-dealers, who are very vain, and want to go higher than any body else for the antiquity of their family, are noted for lying.

7.          C. On the other hand, old Isaac, the great chronicler, who was so famous for casting a figure, used to say that the register itself had been altered, that he could prove I was much younger than you have usually reckoned me to be. It may be so; -- for my part, I cannot be supposed to remember so far back. I could not write in my early youth, and it was a long time before I had a pocket-almanack to set down all occurrences in, and the ages of my children, as I do now.

8.          E. Well; your exact age is not so material; -- but there is one point which I confess I wish much to ascertain. I have often heard it asserted, that as you increase in years, you grow wiser and better; and that you are at this moment, more candid, more liberal, a better manager of your affairs, and, in short, more amiable in every respect, than ever you were in the whole course of your life; and others, -- you will excuse me, madam, -- pretend that you are almost in your dotage; that you grow more intolerable every year you live; and that whereas in your childhood you were a sprightly innocent young creature, that

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rose with the lark, lay down with the lamb, and thought or said no harm of any one; you are become suspicious, selfish, interested, fond of nothing but indulging your appetites, and continually setting your own children together by the ears for straws. Now I should like to know where the truth lies?

9.          C. As to that, I am, perhaps, too nearly concerned to answer you properly. I will, therefore, only observe, that I do not remember the time when I have not heard exactly the same contradictory assertions.

10.          E. I believe the best way to determine the question will be by facts. Pray be so good as to tell me how you have employed yourself in the different periods of your life; from the earliest time you can remember, for instance?

11.          C. I have a very confused remembrance of living in a pleasant garden full of fruit, and of being turned out because I had not minded the injunctions that were laid upon me. After that, I became so very naughty, that I got a severe ducking, and was in great danger of being drowned.

12.          E. A hopeful beginning, I must allow! Pray what was the first piece of work you recollect being engaged in?

13.          C. I remember setting myself to build a prodigious high house of cards, which I childishly

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thought I could raise up to the very skies. I piled them up very high, and at last left off in the middle, and had my tongue slit for being so self-conceited. Afterwards, I baked dirt in the sun, and resolved to make something very magnificent, I hardly knew what; so I built a great many mounds in the form of sugar-loaves, very broad at bottom and pointed at top: -- they took me a great many years to make, and were fit for no earthly purpose when they were done. They are still to be seen, if you choose to take the trouble of going so far. Travellers call them my folly.

14.          E. Pray what studies took your attention when you first began to learn?

15.          C. At first I amused myself, as all children do, with pictures; and drew, or rather attempted to draw, figures of lions and serpents, and men with the heads of animals, and women with fishes' tails; to all which I affixed a meaning, often whimsical enough. Many of these my first scratches are still to be seen upon old walls and stones, and have greatly exercised the ingenuity of the curious to find out what I could possibly mean by them. Afterwards, when I had learned to read, I was wonderfully entertained with stories of giants, griffins, and mermaids; and men and women turned into trees, and horses that spoke, and of an old man that used to eat up his children, till his

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wife deceived him by giving him a stone to eat instead of one of them; and of a conjurer that tied up the wind in bags, and ----

16.          E. Hold, hold, my good madam! you have given me a very sufficient proof of that propensity to the marvellous which I have always remarked in you. I suppose, however, you soon grew too old for such nursery stories as these.

17.          C. On the contrary, I amused myself with putting them into verse, and had them sung to me on holidays; and, at this very day, I make a point of teaching them to all my children in whose education I take any pains.

18.          E. I think I should rather whip them for employing their time so idly; I hope at least these pretty stories kept you out of mischief?

19.          C. I cannot say they did; I never was without a scratched face, or a bloody nose, at any period I can remember.

20.          E. Very promising dispositions, truly!

21.          C. My amusements were not all so mischievous. I was very fond of star-gazing, and telling fortunes, and trying a thousand tricks for good luck, many of which have made such an impression on my mind, that I remember them even to this day.

22.          E. I hope, however, your reading was not all of the kind you have mentioned?

23.          C. No. It was at some very famous races, which were held every four years for my diver-

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sion, and which I always made a point to be at, that a man once came upon the race-ground, and read a history-book aloud to the whole company: there were, to be sure, a number of stories in it not greatly better than those I have been telling you; however, from that time , I began to take to more serious learning, and likewise to reckon and date all my accounts by these races, which, as I told you, I was very fond of.

24.          E. I think you afterwards went to school, and learnt philosophy and mathematics?

25.          C. I did so. I had a great many famous masters.

26.          E. Were you a teachable scholar?

27.          C. One of my masters used always to weep when he saw me; another used always to burst into a fit of laughter. I leave you to guess what they thought of me.

28.          E. Pray what did you do when you were in middle age? -- that is usually esteemed the most valuable part of life.

29.          C. I somehow got shut up in a dark cell, where I took a long nap.

30.          E. And after you waked --

31.          C. I fell a-disputing with all my might.

32.          E. What were the subjects that interested you so much?

33.          C. Several.

34.          E. Pray let us have a specimen?

35.          C. Whether the light of Tabor was created or uncreated; whether one be a number; whether men should cross themselves with two fingers or with three; whether the creation was finished in six days, because it is the most perfect number; or whether six is the most perfect number, because the creation was finished in six days; whether two and one make three, or only one.

36.          E. And pray what may be your opinion, of the last proposition, particularly?

37.          C. I have by no means made up my mind about it; in another century, perhaps, I may be able to decide upon the point.

38.          E. These debates of yours had one advantage, however; you could not possibly put yourself in a passion on such kind of subjects.

39.          C. There you are very much mistaken. I was constantly in a passion upon one or other of them; and if my opponent did not agree with me, my constant practice was to knock him down, even if it were in the church. I have the happiness of being able to interest myself in the most indifferent questions, as soon as I am contradicted upon it. I can make a very good dispute out of the question, Whether the preference be due to blue or green, in the colour of a jockey's cap; and would desire no better cause of a quarrel than whether a person's name should be spelt with C or with K.

40.          E. These constant disputes must have had a

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very bad effect on your younger children. How do you hope ever to have a quiet house?

41.          C. And yet, I do assure you, there is no one point that I have laboured more than that important one of family harmony.

42.          E. Indeed!

43.          C. Yes; for the sake of that order and unanimity, which has always been dear to me, I have constantly insisted that all my children should sneeze and blow their noses at the same time, and in the same manner.

44.          E. May I presume to ask the reason of this injunction?

45.          C. Is it possible you do not see the extreme danger, as well as indecorum, of suffering every one to blow his nose his own way? Could you trust any one with the keys of your offices, who sneezed to the right when other people sneezed to the left; or to the left when they sneezed to the right?

46.          E. I confess I am rather dull in discerning the inconvenience that would ensue: -- but pray have you been able to accomplish this desirable uniformity?

47.          C. I acknowledge I have not; and indeed I have met with so much obstinate resistance to this my wise regulation, that, to tell you the truth, I am almost on the point of giving it up. You would hardly believe the perverseness my chil-

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dren have shown on the occasion; blowing their noses, locked up in their rooms, or in dark corners about the house, in every possible way; so that, in short, on pretence of colds, tender noses, or want of pocket-handkerchiefs, or one plea or another, I have been obliged to tolerate the uncomplying, very much against my will. However, I contrived to show my disapprobation, at least, of such scandalous irregularities, by never saying God bless you, if a person sneezes in the family contrary to established rule.

48.          E. I am glad, at least, you are in this respect got a little nearer to common sense. As you seem to have been of so imperious a disposition, I hope you were not trusted with any mischievous weapons?

49.          C. At first I used to fight with clubs and stones; afterwards with other weapons; but at length I contrived to get at gunpowder, and then I did glorious mischief.

50.          E. Pray, had you never any body who taught you better?

51.          C. Yes; several wise men, from time to time, attempted to mend my manners, and reform me, as they called it.

52.          E. And how did you behave to them?

53.          C. Some I hunted about; some I poisoned; some I contrived to have thrown into prison; some I made bonfires of ; others I only laughed

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at. It was but the other day that one of them wanted to give me some hints for the better regulation of my family; upon which I pulled his house down: I was often, however, the better for the lesson, though the teacher had seldom the pleasure of seeing it.

54.          E. I have heard it said, you are very partial to your children; that you pamper some, and starve others. Pray who are your favourites?

55.          C. Generally, those who do the most mischief.

56.          E. Had you not once a great favourite called Louis, whom you used to style the immortal man?

57.          C. I had so. I was continually repeating his name: I set up a great number of statues to him, and ordered that every one should pull off his hat to them as he went by.

58.          E. And what is become of them now?

59.          C. The other day, in a fit of spleen, I kicked them all down again.

60.          E. I think I have read, that you were once much under the influence of an old man with a high-crowned hat, and a bunch of keys by his side?

61.          C. It is true. He used to frighten me by setting his arms a-kimbo, and swearing most terribly; besides which, he was always threatening to put me in a dark hole, if I did not do as he would have me. He has conjured many pence out of my pocket, I assure you; and he used to

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make me believe the strangest stories! But I have now pretty nearly done with him; he dares not speak so big as he used to do: hardly a shoe-black will pull off his hat to him now; it is even as much as he can do to keep his own tight upon his head; nay, I have been assured that the next high wind will certainly blow it off.

62.          E. You must doubtless have made great advances in the art of reasoning, from the various lights and experiments of modern times: pray what was the last philosophical study that engaged your attention?

63.          C. One of the last was a system of quackery, called Animal Magnetism.

64.          E. And what in theology?

65.          C. A system of quackery, called Swedenborgianism

66.          E. And pray what are you doing at this moment?

67.          C. I am going to turn over quite a new leaf. I am singing Ca Ira.

68.          E. I do not know whether you are going to turn over a new leaf or no; but I am sure, from this account, it is high time you should. All I can say is, that if I cannot mend you, I will endeavour to take care you do not spoil me; and one thing more, that I wish you would lay your commands on Miss Burney to write a new novel, and make you laugh.