MDDM Ch. 31 "Something's askew."

[jbor]

There's a marked shift in the tone of the conversation between Cha. and
Jere. at the end of this chapter. Mason is becoming quite emotional as he
rants about the way that the Scottish troops had come into the counties as
peacekeepers in the aftermath of the 1745 Jacobite Rebellion, and connects
this insurgence to the rise of exploitative mill-owners and the
mechanisation of the clothing industry. (I'm not sure how accurate this
critique is, by the way.)

Then, suddenly, the narrator throws in a note of doubt, questioning whether
Dixon detected "an incompletely suppress'd Lilt of Insincerity" in Mason's
voice. So, perhaps Cha. wasn't being totally straight with Jere., and
perhaps Jere. had noticed (and perhaps Cha. had noticed that Jere. had
noticed.)

Anyhow, quite unaccountably Mason starts insulting Dixon, sarcastically
calling him "Optimism" and taunting him for his "boobyish Casuistry". Dixon
is understandably non-plussed by this attack, and after a couple of
double-takes, reverts to a sneering tone himself. No longer cautious about
or respectfully sensitive to Mason's melancholy temperament he deliberately
overturns their usual conversational roles, and dares Mason to finish the
thread of his maudlin and paranoid fatalism with the snide command of "Amuse
me."

Bedlamite.  a madman, a fool, an inmate of Bedlam.

Bedlam (form of bethlem, contraction of Bethlehem). Originally, a lunatic
asylum or madhouse, and hence a place of hubbub and confusion. The priory of
St Mary of Bethlehem outside Bishopsgate, London, was founded in 1247 and
began to receive lunatics in 1377. It was given to the city of London as a
hospital for lunatics by Henry VIII in 1547. In 1675 it was transferred to
Moorfields and became one of the sights of London, where for a few pence,
anyone might gaze at the poor wretches and bait them. It was a place for
assignations and one of the disgraces of 17th Century London. In 1800 it
moved to Lambeth and in 1930 to Aldington, Surrey. The present Bethlehem
Royal Hospital is at Beckenham, Kent. [Brewer's]

best

> on 28/1/02 12:44 PM, jbor at jbor at bigpond.com wrote:
> 
>> The conversation between the two ends on a distinctly bitter note.