SUPERPARADISE (n.): a false utopia, presented as if possible, but known by both speaker and listener to be unachievable

Superparadise Canon

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The Scarlet Pimpernel

“Your leader, Monsieur?” said the Comtesse, eagerly. “Ah! of course, you must have a leader. And I did not think of that before! But tell me where is he? I must go to him at once, and I and my children must throw ourselves at his feet, and thank him for all that he has done for us.”

“Alas, Madame!” said Lord Antony, “that is impossible.”

“Impossible?—Why?”

“Because the Scarlet Pimpernel works in the dark, and his identity is only known under a solemn oath of secrecy to his immediate followers.”

“The Scarlet Pimpernel?” said Suzanne, with a merry laugh. “Why! what a droll name! What is the Scarlet Pimpernel, Monsieur?”

She looked at Sir Andrew with eager curiosity. The young man’s face had become almost transfigured. His eyes shone with enthusiasm; hero-worship, love, admiration for his leader seemed literally to glow upon his face.

“The Scarlet Pimpernel, Mademoiselle,” he said at last, “is the name of a humble English wayside flower; but it is also the name chosen to hide the identity of the best and bravest man in all the world, so that he may better succeed in accomplishing the noble task he has set himself to do.”

“Ah, yes,” here interposed the young Vicomte, “I have heard speak of this Scarlet Pimpernel. A little flower—red?—yes! They say in Paris that every time a royalist escapes to England that devil, Foucquier-Tinville, the Public Prosecutor, receives a paper with that little flower dessinated in red upon it. . . . Yes?”

“Yes, that is so,” assented Lord Antony.

“Then he will have received one such paper to-day?”

“Undoubtedly.”

“Oh! I wonder what he will say!” said Suzanne, merrily. “I have heard that the picture of that little red flower is the only thing that frightens him.”