blush. “You say I am mixing up the transactions of my time on earth
with the story of my successors? It may be so. We take no count of a few
centuries more or less in our dwelling by the darkling Stygian river.
Of late, there came amongst us a good knight, Messire de Cambronne, who
fought against you English in the country of Flanders, being captain of
the guard of my Lord the King of France, in a famous battle where
you English would have been utterly routed but for the succor of the
Prussian heathen. This Messire de Cambronne, when bidden to yield by you
of England, answered this, 'The guard dies but never surrenders;' and
fought a long time afterwards, as became a good knight. In our wars with
you of England it may have pleased the Fates to give you the greater
success, but on our side, also, there has been no lack of brave deeds
performed by brave men.”
“King Edward may have been the victor, sir, as being the strongest, but
you are the hero of the siege of Calais!” cried Mr. Sterne. “Your
story is sacred, and your name has been blessed for five hundred years.
Wherever men speak of patriotism and sacrifice, Eustace of Saint Pierre
shall be beloved and remembered. I prostrate myself before the bare
feet which stood before King Edward. What collar of chivalry is to be
compared to that glorious order which you wear? Think, sir, how out of
the myriad millions of our race, you, and some few more, stand forth as
exemplars of duty and honor. Fortunati nimium!”
“Sir,” said the old gentleman, “I did but my duty at a painful moment;
and 'tis matter of wonder to me that men talk still, and glorify such
a trifling matter. By our Lady's grace, in the fair kingdom of France,
there are scores of thousands of men, gentle and simple, who would do as
I did. Does not every sentinel at his post, does not every archer in the
front of battle, brave it, and die where his captain bids him? Who am I
that I should be chosen out of all France to be an example of fortitude?
I braved no tortures, though these I trust I would have endured with a
good heart. I was subject to threats only. Who was the Roman knight of
whom the Latin clerk Horatius tells?”
“A Latin clerk? Faith, I forget my Latin,” says Mr. Brummell. “Ask the
parson, here.”
“Messire Regulus, I remember, was his name. Taken prisoner by the
Saracens, he gave his knightly word, and was permitted to go seek a
ransom among his own people. Being unable to raise the sum that was a
fitting ransom for such a knight, he returned to Afric, and cheerfully
submitted to the tortures which the Paynims inflicted. And 'tis said he
took leave of his friends as gayly as though he were going to a vilage
kermes, or riding to his garden house in the suburb of the city.”
“Great, good, glorious man!” cried Mr. Sterne, very much moved. “Let me
embrace that gallant hand, and bedew it with my tears! As long as honor
lasts thy name shall be remembered. See this dew-drop twinkling on my
check! 'Tis the sparkling tribute that Sensibility pays to Valor. Though
in my life and practice I may turn from Virtue, believe me, I never have
ceased to honor her! Ah, Virtue! Ah, Sensibility! Oh--”
Here Mr. Sterne was interrupted by a monk of the Order of St. Francis,
who stepped into the room, and begged us all to take a pinch of his
famous old rappee. I suppose the snuff was very pungent, for, with a
great start, I woke up; and now perceived that I must have been dreaming
altogether. “Dessein's” of now-a-days is not the “Dessein's” which Mr.
Sterne, and Mr. Brummell, and I recollect in the good old times. The
town of Calais has bought the old hotel, and “Dessein” has gone over to
“Quillacq's.” And I was there yesterday. And I remember old diligences,
and old postilions in pigtails and jack-boots, who were once as alive
as I am, and whose cracking whips I have heard in the midnight many and
many a time. Now, where are they? Behold they have been ferried over
Styx, and have passed away into limbo.
I wonder what time does my boat go? Ah! Here comes the waiter bringing
me my little bill.
ON SOME CARP AT SANS SOUCI.
We have lately made the acquaintance of an old lady of ninety, who
has passed the last twenty-five years of her old life in a great
metropolitan establishment, the workhouse, namely, of the parish of
Saint Lazarus. Stay--twenty-three or four years ago, she came out once,
and thought to earn a little money by hop-picking; but being overworked,
and having to lie out at night, she got a palsy which has incapacitated
her from all further labor, and has caused her poor old limbs to shake
ever since.
An illustration of that dismal proverb which tells us how poverty makes
us acquainted with strange bed-fellows, this poor old shaking body has
to lay herself down every night in her workhouse bed by the side of some
other old woman with whom she may or may not agree. She herself can't be
a very pleasant bed-fellow, poor thing! with her shaking old limbs and
cold feet. She lies awake a deal of the night, to be sure, not thinking
of happy old times, for hers never were happy; but sleepless with
aches, and agues, and rheumatism of old age. “The gentleman gave me
brandy-and-water,” she said, her old voice shaking with rapture at the
thought. I never had a great love for Queen Charlotte, but I like her
better now from what this old lady told me. The Queen, who loved snuff
herself, has left a legacy of snuff to certain poorhouses; and, in
her watchful nights, this old woman takes a pinch of Queen Charlotte's
snuff, “and it do comfort me, sir, that it do!” Pulveris exigui munus.
Here is a forlorn aged creature, shaking with palsy, with no soul among
the great struggling multitude of mankind to care for her, not quite
trampled out of life, but past and forgotten in the rush, made a little
happy, and soothed in her hours of unrest by this penny legacy. Let me
think as I write. (The next month's sermon, thank goodness! is safe to
press.) This discourse will appear at the season when I have read that
wassail-bowls make their appearance; at the season of pantomime, turkey
and sausages, plum-puddings, jollifications for schoolboys; Christmas
bills, and reminiscences more or less sad and sweet for elders. If we
oldsters are not merry, we shall be having a semblance of merriment. We
shall see the young folks laughing round the holly-bush. We shall pass
the bottle round cosily as we sit by the fire. That old thing will have
a sort of festival too. Beef, beer, and pudding will be served to
her for that day also. Christmas falls on a Thursday. Friday is the
workhouse day for coming out. Mary, remember that old Goody Twoshoes has
her invitation for Friday, 26th December! Ninety is she, poor old soul?
Ah! what a bonny face to catch under a mistletoe! “Yes, ninety, sir,”
she says, “and my mother was a hundred, and my grandmother was a hundred
and two.”
Herself ninety, her mother a hundred, her grandmother a hundred and two?
What a queer calculation!
Ninety! Very good, granny: you were born, then, in 1772.
Your mother, we will say, was twenty-seven when you were born, and was
born therefore in 1745.
Your grandmother was thirty when her daughter was born, and was born
therefore in 1715.
We will begin with the present granny first. My good old creature, you
can't of course remember, but that little gentleman for whom your mother
was laundress in the Temple was the ingenious Mr. Goldsmith, author of
a “History of England,” the “Vicar of Wakefield,” and many diverting
pieces. You were brought almost an infant to his chambers in Brick
Court, and he gave you some sugar-candy, for the doctor was always good
to children. That gentleman who wellnigh smothered you by sitting down
on you as you lay in a chair asleep was the learned Mr. S. Johnson,
whose history of “Rasselas” you have never read, my poor soul; and
whose tragedy of “Irene” I don't believe any man in these kingdoms ever
perused. That tipsy Scotch gentleman who used to come to the chambers
sometimes, and at whom everybody laughed, wrote a more amusing book
than any of the scholars, your Mr. Burke and your Mr. Johnson, and your
Doctor Goldsmith. Your father often took him home in a chair to his
lodgings; and has done as much for Parson Sterne in Bond Street, the
famous wit. Of course, my good creature, you remember the Gordon
Riots, and crying No Popery before Mr. Langdale's house, the Popish
distiller's, and, that bonny fire of my Lord Mansfield's books in
Bloomsbury Square? Bless us, what a heap of illuminations you have seen!
For the glorious victory over the Americans at Breed's Hill; for the
peace in 1814, and the beautiful Chinese bridge in St. James's Park; for
the coronation of his Majesty, whom you recollect as Prince of Wales,
Goody, don't you? Yes; and you went in a procession of laundresses to
pay your respects to his good lady, the injured Queen of England, at
Brandenburg House; and you remember your mother told you how she was
taken to see the Scotch lords executed at the Tower. And as for your
grandmother, she was born five years after the battle of Malplaquet, she
was; where her poor father was killed, fighting like a bold Briton for
the Queen. With the help of a “Wade's Chronology,” I can make out
ever so queer a history for you, my poor old body, and a pedigree as
authentic as many in the peerage-books.
Peerage-books and pedigrees? What does she know about them? Battles and
victories, treasons, kings, and beheadings, literary gentlemen, and
the like, what have they ever been to her? Granny, did you ever hear of
General Wolfe? Your mother may have seen him embark, and your father may
have carried a musket under him. Your grandmother may have cried huzza
for Marlborough but what is the Prince Duke to you, and did you ever, so
much as hear tell of his name? How many hundred or thousand of years had
that toad lived who was in the coal at the defunct Exhibition?--and yet
he was not a bit better informed than toads seven or eight hundred years
younger.
“Don't talk to me your nonsense about Exhibitions, and Prince Dukes, and
toads in coals, or coals in toads, or what is it?” says granny. “I know
there was a good Queen Charlotte, for she left me snuff; and it comforts
me of a night when I lie awake.”
To me there is something very touching in the notion of that little
pinch of comfort doled out to granny, and gratefully inhaled by her in
the darkness. Don't you remember what traditions there used to be of
chests of plate, bulses of diamonds, laces of inestimable value,
sent out of the country privately by the old Queen, to enrich certain
relations in M-ckl-nb-rg Str-l-tz? Not all the treasure went. Non omnis
moritur. A poor old palsied thing at midnight is made happy sometimes
as she lifts her shaking old hand to her nose. Gliding noiselessly
among the beds where lie the poor creatures huddled in their cheerless
dormitory, I fancy an old ghost with a snuff-box that does not creak.
“There, Goody, take of my rappee. You will not sneeze, and I shall not
say 'God bless you.' But you will think kindly of old Queen Charlotte,
won't you? Ah! I had a many troubles, a many troubles. I was a prisoner
almost so much as you are. I had to eat boiled mutton every day: entre
nous, I abominated it. But I never complained. I swallowed it. I made
the best of a hard life. We have all our burdens to bear. But hark! I
hear the cock-crow, and snuff the morning air.” And with this the royal
ghost vanishes up the chimney--if there be a chimney in that
dismal harem, where poor old Twoshoes and her companions pass their
nights--their dreary nights, their restless nights, their cold long
nights, shared in what glum companionship, illumined by what a feeble
taper!
“Did I understand you, my good Twoshoes, to say that, your mother was
seven-and-twenty years old when you were born, and that she married your
esteemed father when she herself was twenty-five? 1745, then, was the
date of your dear mother's birth. I dare say her father was absent in
the Low Countries, with his Royal Highness the Duke of Cumberland, under
whom he had the honor of carrying a halberd at the famous engagement
of Fontenoy--or if not there, he may have been at Preston Pans, under
General Sir John Cope, when the wild highlanders broke through all the
laws of discipline and the English lines; and, being on the spot, did
he see the famous ghost which didn't appear to Colonel Gardiner of
the Dragoons? My good creature, is it possible you don't remember that
Doctor Swift, Sir Robert Walpole (my Lord Orford, as you justly say),
old Sarah Marlborough, and little Mr. Pope, of Twitnam, died in the year
of your birth? What a wretched memory you have! What? haven't they a
library, and the commonest books of reference at the old convent of
Saint Lazarus, where you dwell?”
“Convent of Saint Lazarus, Prince William, Dr. Swift, Atossa, and Mr.
Pope, of Twitnam! What is the gentleman talking about?” says old Goody,
with a “Ho! ho!” and a laugh like an old parrot--you know they live
to be as old as Methuselah, parrots do, and a parrot of a hundred is
comparatively young (ho! ho! ho!). Yes, and likewise carps live to an
immense old age. Some which Frederick the Great fed at Sans Souci are
there now, with great humps of blue mould on their old backs; and they
could tell all sorts of queer stories, if they chose to speak--but they
are very silent, carps are--of their nature peu communicatives. Oh! what
has been thy long life, old Goody, but a dole of bread and water and a
perch on a cage; a dreary swim round and round a Lethe of a pond? What
are Rossbach or Jena to those mouldy ones, and do they know it is a
grandchild of England who brings bread to feed them?
No! Those Sans Souci carps may live to be a thousand years old and have
nothing to tell but that one day is like another; and the history of
friend Goody Twoshoes has not much more variety than theirs. Hard labor,
hard fare, hard bed, numbing cold all night, and gnawing hunger most
days. That is her lot. Is it lawful in my prayers to say, “Thank heaven,
I am not as one of these?” If I were eighty, would I like to feel the
hunger always gnawing, gnawing? to have to get up and make a bow when
Mr. Bumble the beadle entered the common room? to have to listen to Miss
Prim, who came to give me her ideas of the next world? If I were eighty,
I own I should not like to have to sleep with another gentleman of my
own age, gouty, a bad sleeper, kicking in his old dreams, and snoring;
to march down my vale of years at word of command, accommodating
my tottering old steps to those of the other prisoners in my dingy,
hopeless old gang; to hold out a trembling hand for a sicky pittance
of gruel, and say, “Thank you, ma'am,” to Miss Prim, when she has done
reading her sermon. John! when Goody Twoshoes comes next Friday, I
desire she may not be disturbed by theological controversies. You have
a very fair voice, and I heard you and the maids singing a hymn very
sweetly the other night, and was thankful that our humble household
should be in such harmony. Poor old Twoshoes is so old and toothless and
quaky, that she can't sing a bit; but don't be giving yourself airs over
her, because she can't sing and you can. Make her comfortable at our
kitchen hearth. Set that old kettle to sing by our hob. Warm her old
stomach with nut-brown ale and a toast laid in the fire. Be kind to the
poor old school-girl of ninety, who has had leave to come out for a day
of Christmas holiday. Shall there be many more Christmases for thee?
Think of the ninety she has seen already; the four-score and ten cold,
cheerless, nipping New Years!
If you were in her place, would you like to have a remembrance of better
early days, when you were young, and happy, and loving, perhaps; or
would you prefer to have no past on which your mind could rest? About
the year 1788, Goody, were your cheeks rosy, and your eyes bright, and
did some young fellow in powder and a pigtail look in them? We may grow
old, but to us some stories never are old. On a sudden they rise up, not
dead, but living--not forgotten, but freshly remembered. The eyes gleam
on us as they used to do. The dear voice thrills in our hearts. The
rapture of the meeting, the terrible, terrible parting, again and again
the tragedy is acted over. Yesterday, in the street, I saw a pair of
eyes so like two which used to brighten at my coming once, that the
whole past came back as I walked lonely, in the rush of the Strand, and
I was young again in the midst of joys and sorrows, alike sweet and sad,
alike sacred and fondly remembered.
If I tell a tale out of school, will any harm come to my old
school-girl? Once, a lady gave her a half-sovereign, which was a source
of great pain and anxiety to Goody Twoshoes. She sewed it away in
her old stays somewhere, thinking here at least was a safe
investment--(vestis--a vest--an investment,--pardon me, thou poor old
thing, but I cannot help the pleasantry). And what do you think? Another
pensionnaire of the establishment cut the coin out of Goody's stays--AN
OLD WOMAN WHO WENT UPON TWO CRUTCHES! Faugh, the old witch! What!
Violence amongst these toothless, tottering, trembling, feeble ones?
Robbery amongst the penniless? Dogs coming and snatching Lazarus's
crumbs out of his lap? Ah, how indignant Goody was as she told the
story! To that pond at Potsdam where the carps live for hundreds of
hundreds of years, with hunches of blue mould on their back, I dare say
the little Prince and Princess of Preussen-Britannien come sometimes
with crumbs and cakes to feed the mouldy ones. Those eyes may have
goggled from beneath the weeds at Napoleon's jack-boots: they have seen
Frederick's lean shanks reflected in their pool; and perhaps Monsieur de
Voltaire has fed them--and now, for a crumb of biscuit they will fight,
push, hustle, rob, squabble, gobble, relapsing into their tranquillity
when the ignoble struggle is over. Sans souci, indeed! It is mighty well
writing “Sans souci” over the gate; but where is the gate through which
Care has not slipped? She perches on the shoulders of the sentry in
the sentry-box: she whispers the porter sleeping in his arm-chair: she
glides up the staircase, and lies down between the king and queen in
their bed-royal: this very night I dare say she will perch upon poor old
Goody Twoshoes's meagre bolster, and whisper, “Will the gentleman and
those ladies ask me again? No, no; they will forget poor old Twoshoes.”
Goody! For shame of yourself! Do not be cynical. Do not mistrust your
fellow-creatures. What? Has the Christmas morning dawned upon thee
ninety times? For four-score and ten years has it been thy lot to totter
on this earth, hungry and obscure? Peace and good-will to thee, let
us say at this Christmas season. Come, drink, eat, rest awhile at our
hearth, thou poor old pilgrim! And of the bread which God's bounty gives
us, I pray, brother reader, we may not forget to set aside a part for
those noble and silent poor, from whose innocent hands war has torn the
means of labor. Enough! As I hope for beef at Christmas, I vow a note
shall be sent to Saint Lazarus Union House, in which Mr. Roundabout
requests the honor of Mrs. Twoshoes's company on Friday, 26th December.
AUTOUR DE MON CHAPEAU.
Never have I seen a more noble tragic face. In the centre of the
forehead there was a great furrow of care, towards which the brows rose
piteously. What a deep solemn grief in the eyes! They looked blankly at
the object before them, but through it, as it were, and into the grief
beyond. In moments of pain, have you not looked at some indifferent
object so? It mingles dumbly with your grief, and remains afterwards
connected with it in your mind. It may be some indifferent thing--a book
which you were reading at the time when you received her farewell letter
(how well you remember the paragraph afterwards--the shape of the words,
and their position on the page); the words you were writing when
your mother came in, and said it was all over--she was MARRIED--Emily
married--to that insignificant little rival at whom you have laughed a
hundred times in her company. Well, well; my friend and reader, whoe'er
you be--old man or young, wife or maiden--you have had your grief-pang.
Boy, you have lain awake the first night at school, and thought of
home. Worse still, man, you have parted from the dear ones with bursting
heart: and, lonely boy, recall the bolstering an unfeeling comrade gave
you; and, lonely man, just torn from your children--their little tokens
of affection yet in your pocket--pacing the deck at evening in the midst
of the roaring ocean, you can remember how you were told that supper was
ready, and how you went down to the cabin and had brandy-and-water and
biscuit. You remember the taste of them. Yes; for ever. You took them
whilst you and your Grief were sitting together, and your Grief clutched
you round the soul. Serpent, how you have writhed round me, and bitten
me. Remorse, Remembrance, &c., come in the night season, and I feel you
gnawing, gnawing! . . . I tell you that man's face was like Laocoon's
(which, by the way, I always think over-rated. The real head is at
Brussels, at the Duke Daremberg's, not at Rome).
That man! What man? That man of whom I said that his magnificent
countenance exhibited the noblest tragic woe. He was not of European
blood, he was handsome, but not of European beauty. His face white--not
of a Northern whiteness; his eyes protruding somewhat, and rolling in
their grief. Those eyes had seen the Orient sun, and his beak was the
eagle's. His lips were full. The beard, curling round them, was unkempt
and tawny. The locks were of a deep, deep coppery red. The hands, swart
and powerful, accustomed to the rough grasp of the wares in which he
dealt, seemed unused to the flimsy artifices of the bath. He came from
the Wilderness, and its sands were on his robe, his cheek, his tattered
sandal, and the hardy foot it covered.
And his grief--whence came his sorrow? I will tell you. He bore it in
his hand. He had evidently just concluded the compact by which it became
his. His business was that of a purchaser of domestic raiment. At early
dawn nay, at what hour when the city is alive--do we not all hear the
nasal cry of “Clo?” In Paris, Habits Galons, Marchand d'habits, is the
twanging signal with which the wandering merchant makes his presence
known. It was in Paris I saw this man. Where else have I not seen him?
In the Roman Ghetto--at the Gate of David, in his fathers' once
imperial city. The man I mean was an itinerant vender and purchaser of
wardrobes--what you call an . . . Enough! You know his name.
On his left shoulder hung his bag; and he held in that hand a white hat,
which I am sure he had just purchased, and which was the cause of the
grief which smote his noble features. Of course I cannot particularize
the sum, but he had given too much for that hat. He felt he might have
got the thing for less money. It was not the amount, I am sure; it was
the principle involved. He had given fourpence (let us say) for that
which threepence would have purchased. He had been done: and a manly
shame was upon him, that he, whose energy, acuteness, experience, point
of honor, should have made him the victor in any mercantile duel in
which he should engage, had been overcome by a porter's wife, who very
likely sold him the old hat, or by a student who was tired of it. I can
understand his grief. Do I seem to be speaking of it in a disrespectful
or flippant way? Then you mistake me. He had been outwitted. He had
desired, coaxed, schemed, haggled, got what he wanted, and now found he
had paid too much for his bargain. You don't suppose I would ask you to
laugh at that man's grief? It is you, clumsy cynic, who are disposed
to sneer, whilst it may be tears of genuine sympathy are trickling down
this nose of mine. What do you mean by laughing? If you saw a wounded
soldier on the field of battle, would you laugh? If you saw a ewe robbed
of her lamb, would you laugh, you brute? It is you who are the cynic,
and have no feeling: and you sneer because that grief is unintelligible
to you which touches my finer sensibility. The OLD-CLOTHES'-MAN had been
defeated in one of the daily battles of his most interesting, chequered,
adventurous life.
Have you ever figured to yourself what such a life must be? The pursuit
and conquest of twopence must be the most eager and fascinating of
occupations. We might all engage in that business if we would. Do not
whist-players, for example, toil, and think, and lose their temper over
sixpenny points? They bring study, natural genius, long forethought,
memory, and careful historical experience to bear upon their favorite
labor. Don't tell me that it is the sixpenny points, and five shillings
the rub, which keeps them for hours over their painted pasteboard. It
is the desire to conquer. Hours pass by. Night glooms. Dawn, it may be,
rises unheeded; and they sit calling for fresh cards at the “Portland,”
or the “Union,” while waning candles splutter in the sockets, and
languid waiters snooze in the ante-room. Sol rises. Jones has lost four
pounds: Brown has won two; Robinson lurks away to his family house and
(mayhap indignant) Mrs. R. Hours of evening, night, morning, have passed
away whilst they have been waging this sixpenny battle. What is the loss
of four pounds to Jones, the gain of two to Brown? B. is, perhaps,
so rich that two pounds more or less are as naught to him; J. is
so hopelessly involved that to win four pounds cannot benefit his
creditors, or alter his condition; but they play for that stake: they
put forward their best energies: they ruff, finesse (what are the
technical words, and how do I know?) It is but a sixpenny game if you
like; but they want to win it. So as regards my friend yonder with the
hat. He stakes his money: he wishes to win the game, not the hat merely.
I am not prepared to say that he is not inspired by a noble ambition.
Caesar wished to be first in a village. If first of a hundred yokels,
why not first of two? And my friend the old-clothes'-man wishes to win
his game, as well as to turn his little sixpence.
Suppose in the game of life--and it is but a twopenny game after
all--you are equally eager of winning. Shall you be ashamed of your
ambition, or glory in it? There are games, too, which are becoming to
particular periods of life. I remember in the days of our youth, when
my friend Arthur Bowler was an eminent cricketer. Slim, swift, strong,
well-built, he presented a goodly appearance on the ground in his
flannel uniform. Militasti non sine gloria, Bowler my boy! Hush! We tell
no tales. Mum is the word. Yonder comes Chancy his son. Now Chancy his
son has taken the field and is famous among the eleven of his school.
Bowler senior, with his capacious waistcoat, &c., waddling after a ball,
would present an absurd object, whereas it does the eyes good to see
Bowler junior scouring the plain--a young exemplar of joyful health,
vigor, activity. The old boy wisely contents himself with amusements
more becoming his age and waist; takes his sober ride; visits his farm
soberly--busies himself about his pigs, his ploughing, his peaches,
or what not! Very small routinier amusements interest him; and (thank
goodness!) nature provides very kindly for kindly-disposed fogies. We
relish those things which we scorned in our lusty youth. I see the young
folks of an evening kindling and glowing over their delicious novels.
I look up and watch the eager eye flashing down the page, being, for
my part, perfectly contented with my twaddling old volume of “Howel's
Letters,” or the Gentleman's Magazine. I am actually arrived at such
a calm frame of mind that I like batter-pudding. I never should have
believed it possible; but it is so. Yet a little while, and I may relish
water-gruel. It will be the age of mon lait de poule et mon bonnet de
nuit. And then--the cotton extinguisher is pulled over the old noddle,
and the little flame of life is popped out.
Don't you know elderly people who make learned notes in Army Lists,
Peerages, and the like? This is the batter-pudding, water-gruel of
old age. The worn-out old digestion does not care for stronger food.
Formerly it could swallow twelve-hours' tough reading, and digest an
encyclopaedia.
If I had children to educate, I would, at ten or twelve years of age,
have a professor, or professoress, of whist for them, and cause them to
be well grounded in that great and useful game. You cannot learn it well
when you are old, any more than you can learn dancing or billiards. In
our house at home we youngsters did not play whist because we were dear
obedient children, and the elders said playing at cards was “a waste
of time.” A waste of time, my good people! Allons! What do elderly
home-keeping people do of a night after dinner? Darby gets his
newspaper; my dear Joan her Missionary Magazine or her volume of
Cumming's Sermons--and don't you know what ensues? Over the arm of
Darby's arm-chair the paper flutters to the ground unheeded, and he
performs the trumpet obligato que vous savez on his old nose. My dear
old Joan's head nods over her sermon (awakening though the doctrine may
be). Ding, ding, ding: can that be ten o'clock? It is time to send the
servants to bed, my dear--and to bed master and mistress go too. But
they have not wasted their time playing at cards. Oh, no! I belong to a
Club where there is whist of a night, and not a little amusing is it to
hear Brown speak of Thompson's play, and vice versa. But there is one
man--Greatorex let us call him--who is the acknowledged captain and
primus of all the whist-players. We all secretly admire him. I, for my
part, watch him in private life, hearken to what he says, note what he
orders for dinner, and have that feeling of awe for him that I used to
have as a boy for the cock of the school. Not play at whist? “Quelle
triste vieillesse vous vous preparez!” were the words of the great and
good Bishop of Autun. I can't. It is too late now. Too late! too late!
Ah! humiliating confession! That joy might have been clutched, but the
life-stream has swept us by it--the swift life-stream rushing to the
nearing sea. Too late! too late! Twentystone my boy! when you read in
the papers “Valse a deux temps,” and all the fashionable dances taught
to adults by “Miss Lightfoots,” don't you feel that you would like to
go in and learn? Ah, it is too late! You have passed the choreas, Master
Twentystone, and the young people are dancing without you.
I don't believe much of what my Lord Byron the poet says; but when he
wrote, “So for a good old gentlemanly vice, I think I shall put up with
avarice,” I think his lordship meant what he wrote, and if he practised
what he preached, shall not quarrel with him. As an occupation in
declining years, I declare I think saving is useful, amusing, and not
unbecoming. It must be a perpetual amusement. It is a game that can be
played by day, by night, at home and abroad, and at which you must win
in the long run. I am tired and want a cab. The fare to my house, say,
is two shillings. The cabman will naturally want half a crown. I pull
out my book. I show him the distance is exactly three miles and fifteen
hundred and ninety yards. I offer him my card--my winning card. As he
retires with the two shillings, blaspheming inwardly, every curse is a
compliment to my skill. I have played him and beat him; and a sixpence
is my spoil and just reward. This is a game, by the way, which women
play far more cleverly than we do. But what an interest it imparts to
life! During the whole drive home I know I shall have my game at the
journey's end; am sure of my hand, and shall beat my adversary. Or I
can play in another way. I won't have a cab at all, I will wait for the
omnibus: I will be one of the damp fourteen in that steaming vehicle. I
will wait about in the rain for an hour, and 'bus after 'bus shall pass,
but I will not be beat. I WILL have a place, and get it at length, with
my boots wet through, and an umbrella dripping between my legs. I have
a rheumatism, a cold, a sore throat, a sulky evening,--a doctor's bill
to-morrow perhaps? Yes, but I have won my game, and am gainer of a
shilling on this rubber.
If you play this game all through life it is wonderful what daily
interest it has, and amusing occupation. For instance, my wife goes to
sleep after dinner over her volume of sermons. As soon as the dear soul
is sound asleep, I advance softly and puff out her candle. Her pure
dreams will be all the happier without that light; and, say she sleeps
an hour, there is a penny gained.
As for clothes, parbleu! there is not much money to be saved in clothes,
for the fact is, as a man advances in life--as he becomes an Ancient
Briton (mark the pleasantry)--he goes without clothes. When my tailor
proposes something in the way of a change of raiment, I laugh in his
face. My blue coat and brass buttons will last these ten years. It is
seedy? What then? I don't want to charm anybody in particular. You say
that my clothes are shabby? What do I care? When I wished to look well
in somebody's eyes, the matter may have been different. But now, when I
receive my bill of 10L. (let us say) at the year's end, and contrast it
with old tailors' reckonings, I feel that I have played the game with
master tailor, and beat him; and my old clothes are a token of the
victory.
I do not like to give servants board-wages, though they are cheaper than
household bills: but I know they save out of board-wages, and so beat
me. This shows that it is not the money but the game which interests me.
So about wine. I have it good and dear. I will trouble you to tell me
where to get it good and cheap. You may as well give me the address of
a shop where I can buy meat for fourpence a pound, or sovereigns
for fifteen shillings apiece. At the game of auctions, docks, shy
wine-merchants, depend on it there is no winning; and I would as soon
think of buying jewellery at an auction in Fleet Street as of purchasing
wine from one of your dreadful needy wine-agents such as infest every
man's door. Grudge myself good wine? As soon grudge my horse corn.
Merci! that would be a very losing game indeed, and your humble servant
has no relish for such.
But in the very pursuit of saving there must be a hundred harmless
delights and pleasures which we who are careless necessarily forego.
What do you know about the natural history of your household? Upon your
honor and conscience, do you know the price of a pound of butter? Can
you say what sugar costs, and how much your family consumes and ought
to consume? How much lard do you use in your house? As I think on these
subjects I own I hang down the head of shame. I suppose for a moment
that you, who are reading this, are a middle-aged gentleman, and
paterfamilias. Can you answer the above questions? You know, sir, you
cannot. Now turn round, lay down the book, and suddenly ask Mrs. Jones
and your daughters if THEY can answer? They cannot. They look at one
another. They pretend they can answer. They can tell you the plot and
principal characters of the last novel. Some of them know something
about history, geology, and so forth. But of the natural history of
home--Nichts, and for shame on you all! Honnis soyez! For shame on you?
for shame on us!
In the early morning I hear a sort of call or jodel under my window: and
know 'tis the matutinal milkman leaving his can at my gate. O household
gods! have I lived all these years and don't know the price or the
quantity of the milk which is delivered in that can? Why don't I know?
As I live, if I live till to-morrow morning, as soon as I hear the call
of Lactantius, I will dash out upon him. How many cows? How much milk,
on an average, all the year round? What rent? What cost of food and
dairy servants? What loss of animals, and average cost of purchase? If
I interested myself properly about my pint (or hogshead, whatever it be)
of milk, all this knowledge would ensue; all this additional interest
in life. What is this talk of my friend, Mr. Lewes, about objects at
the seaside, and so forth?* Objects at the seaside? Objects at the
area-bell: objects before my nose: objects which the butcher brings me
in his tray: which the cook dresses and puts down before me, and over
which I say grace! My daily life is surrounded with objects which ought
to interest me. The pudding I eat (or refuse, that is neither here nor
there; and, between ourselves, what I have said about batter-pudding may
be taken cum grano--we are not come to that yet, except for the sake
of argument or illustration)--the pudding, I say, on my plate, the eggs
that made it, the fire that cooked it, the tablecloth on which it is
laid, and so forth--are each and all of these objects a knowledge of
which I may acquire--a knowledge of the cost and production of which I
might advantageously learn? To the man who DOES know these things, I say
the interest of life is prodigiously increased. The milkman becomes, a
study to him; the baker a being he curiously and tenderly examines. Go,
Lewes, and clap a hideous sea-anemone into a glass: I will put a cabman
under mine, and make a vivisection of a butcher. O Lares, Penates, and
gentle household gods, teach me to sympathize with all that comes within
my doors! Give me an interest in the butcher's book. Let me look forward
to the ensuing number of the grocer's account with eagerness. It seems
ungrateful to my kitchen-chimney not to know the cost of sweeping it;
and I trust that many a man who reads this, and muses on it, will feel,
like the writer, ashamed of himself, and hang down his head humbly.
* “Seaside Studies.” By G. H. Lewes.
Now, if to this household game you could add a little money interest,
the amusement would be increased far beyond the mere money value, as a
game at cards for sixpence is better than a rubber for nothing. If you
can interest yourself about sixpence, all life is invested with a new
excitement. From sunrise to sleeping you can always be playing that
game--with butcher, baker, coal-merchant, cabman, omnibus man--nay,
diamond merchant and stockbroker. You can bargain for a guinea over
the price of a diamond necklace, or for a sixteenth per cent in a
transaction at the Stock Exchange. We all know men who have this
faculty who are not ungenerous with their money. They give it on great
occasions. They are more able to help than you and I who spend ours, and
say to poor Prodigal who comes to us out at elbow, “My dear fellow, I
should have been delighted: but I have already anticipated my quarter,
and am going to ask Screwby if he can do anything for me.”
In this delightful, wholesome, ever-novel twopenny game, there is a
danger of excess, as there is in every other pastime or occupation of
life. If you grow too eager for your twopence, the acquisition or the
loss of it may affect your peace of mind, and peace of mind is better
than any amount of twopences. My friend, the old-clothes'-man, whose
agonies over the hat have led to this rambling disquisition, has, I
very much fear, by a too eager pursuit of small profits, disturbed the
equanimity of a mind that ought to be easy and happy. “Had I stood out,”
he thinks, “I might have had the hat for threepence,” and he doubts
whether, having given fourpence for it, he will ever get back his money.
My good Shadrach, if you go through life passionately deploring
the irrevocable, and allow yesterday's transactions to embitter the
cheerfulness of to-day and to-morrow--as lief walk down to the Seine,
souse in, hats, body, clothes-bag and all, and put an end to your
sorrow and sordid cares. Before and since Mr. Franklin wrote his pretty
apologue of the Whistle have we not all made bargains of which we
repented, and coveted and acquired objects for which we have paid too
dearly! Who has not purchased his hat in some market or other? There
is General M'Clellan's cocked hat for example: I dare say he was eager
enough to wear it, and he has learned that it is by no means cheerful
wear. There were the military beavers of Messeigneurs of Orleans:* they
wore them gallantly in the face of battle; but I suspect they were glad
enough to pitch them into the James River and come home in mufti. Ah,
mes amis! A chacun son schakot! I was looking at a bishop the other day,
and thinking, “My right reverend lord, that broad-brim and rosette
must bind your great broad forehead very tightly, and give you many a
headache. A good easy wideawake were better for you, and I would like to
see that honest face with a cutty-pipe in the middle of it.” There is
my Lord Mayor. My once dear lord, my kind friend, when your two years'
reign was over, did not you jump for joy and fling your chapeau-bras out
of window: and hasn't that hat cost you a pretty bit of money? There, in
a splendid travelling chariot, in the sweetest bonnet, all trimmed with
orange-blossoms and Chantilly lace, sits my Lady Rosa, with old Lord
Snowden by her side. Ah, Rosa! what a price have you paid for that hat
which you wear; and is your ladyship's coronet not purchased too dear!
Enough of hats. Sir, or Madam, I take off mine, and salute you with
profound respect.
* Two cadets of the House of Orleans who served as Volunteers under
General M'Clellan in his campaign against Richmond.
ON ALEXANDRINES.*
A LETTER TO SOME COUNTRY COUSINS.
* This paper, it is almost needless to say, was written just
after the marriage of the Prince and Princess of Wales in
March, 1863.
DEAR COUSINS,--Be pleased to receive herewith a packet of Mayall's
photographs and copies of Illustrated News, Illustrated Times, London
Review, Queen, and Observer, each containing an account of the notable
festivities of the past week. If, besides these remembrances of home,
you have a mind to read a letter from an old friend, behold here it is.
When I was at school, having left my parents in India, a good-natured
captain or colonel would come sometimes and see us Indian boys, and talk
to us about papa and mamma, and give us coins of the realm, and write
to our parents, and say, “I drove over yesterday and saw Tommy at Dr.
Birch's. I took him to the 'George,' and gave him a dinner. His appetite
is fine. He states that he is reading 'Cornelius Nepos,' with which he
is much interested. His masters report,” &c. And though Dr. Birch wrote
by the same mail a longer, fuller, and official statement, I have
no doubt the distant parents preferred the friend's letter, with its
artless, possibly ungrammatical, account of their little darling.
I have seen the young heir of Britain. These eyes have beheld him and
his bride, on Saturday in Pall Mall, and on Tuesday in the nave of St.
George's Chapel at Windsor, when the young Princess Alexandra of Denmark
passed by with her blooming procession of bridesmaids; and half an
hour later, when the Princess of Wales came forth from the chapel, her
husband by her side robed in the purple mantle of the famous Order which
his forefather established here five hundred years ago. We were to see
her yet once again, when her open carriage passed out of the Castle
gate to the station of the near railway which was to convey her to
Southampton.
Since womankind existed, has any woman ever had such a greeting? At ten
hours' distance, there is a city far more magnificent than ours. With
every respect for Kensington turnpike, I own that the Arc de l'Etoile
at Paris is a much finer entrance to an imperial capital. In our black,
orderless, zigzag streets, we can show nothing to compare with the
magnificent array of the Rue de Rivoli, that enormous regiment of stone
stretching for five miles and presenting arms before the Tuileries.
Think of the late Fleet Prison and Waithman's Obelisk, and of the Place
de la Concorde and the Luxor Stone! “The finest site in Europe,” as
Trafalgar Square has been called by some obstinate British optimist,
is disfigured by trophies, fountains, columns, and statues so puerile,
disorderly, and hideous that a lover of the arts must hang the head of
shame as he passes, to see our dear old queen city arraying herself so
absurdly; but when all is said and done, we can show one or two of the
greatest sights in the world. I doubt if any Roman festival was as vast
or striking as the Derby day, or if any Imperial triumph could show
such a prodigious muster of faithful people as our young Princess saw on
Saturday, when the nation turned out to greet her. The calculators are
squabbling about the numbers of hundreds of thousands, of millions,
who came forth to see her and bid her welcome. Imagine beacons flaming,
rockets blazing, yards manned, ships and forts saluting with their
thunder, every steamer and vessel, every town and village from Ramsgate
to Gravesend, swarming with happy gratulation; young girls with flowers,
scattering roses before her; staid citizens and aldermen pushing and
squeezing and panting to make the speech, and bow the knee, and bid her
welcome! Who is this who is honored with such a prodigious triumph, and
received with a welcome so astonishing? A year ago we had never heard
of her. I think about her pedigree and family not a few of us are in the
dark still, and I own, for my part, to be much puzzled by the allusions
of newspaper genealogists and bards and skalds to Vikings, Berserkers,
and so forth. But it would be interesting to know how many hundreds of
thousands of photographs of the fair bright face have by this time made
it beloved and familiar in British homes. Think of all the quiet country
nooks from Land's End to Caithness, where kind eyes have glanced at it.
The farmer brings it home from market; the curate from his visit to
the Cathedral town; the rustic folk peer at it in the little village
shop-window; the squire's children gaze on it round the drawing-room
table: every eye that beholds it looks tenderly on its bright beauty and
sweet artless grace, and young and old pray God bless her. We have an
elderly friend, (a certain Goody Twoshoes,) who inhabits, with many
other old ladies, the Union House of the parish of St. Lazarus in Soho.
One of your cousins from this house went to see her, and found Goody and
her companion crones all in a flutter of excitement about the marriage.
The whitewashed walls of their bleak dormitory were ornamented with
prints out of the illustrated journals, and hung with festoons and
true-lovers' knots of tape and colored paper; and the old bodies had had
a good dinner, and the old tongues were chirping and clacking away,
all eager, interested, sympathizing; and one very elderly and rheumatic
Goody, who is obliged to keep her bed, (and has, I trust, an exaggerated
idea of the cares attending on royalty,) said, “Pore thing, pore thing!
I pity her.” Yes, even in that dim place there was a little brightness
and a quavering huzza, a contribution of a mite subscribed by those
dozen poor old widows to the treasure of loyalty with which the nation
endows the Prince's bride.
Three hundred years ago, when our dread Sovereign Lady Elizabeth came to
take possession of her realm and capital city, Holingshed, if you please
(whose pleasing history of course you carry about with you), relates in
his fourth volume folio, that--“At hir entring the citie, she was of
the people received maruellous intierlie, as appeared by the assemblies,
praiers, welcommings, cries, and all other signes which argued a
woonderfull earnest loue:” and at various halting-places on the royal
progress children habited like angels appeared out of allegoric edifices
and spoke verses to her--
“Welcome, O Queen, as much as heart can think,
Welcome again, as much as tongue can tell,
Welcome to joyous tongues and hearts that will not shrink.
God thee preserve, we pray, and wish thee ever well!
Our new Princess, you may be sure, has also had her Alexandrines, and
many minstrels have gone before her singing her praises. Mr. Tupper, who
begins in very great force and strength, and who proposes to give her no
less than eight hundred thousand welcomes in the first twenty lines of
his ode, is not satisfied with this most liberal amount of acclamation,
but proposes at the end of his poem a still more magnificent
subscription. Thus we begin, “A hundred thousand welcomes, a hundred
thousand welcomes.” (In my copy the figures are in the well-known Arabic
numerals, but let us have the numbers literally accurate:)--
“A hundred thousand welcomes!
A hundred thousand welcomes!
And a hundred thousand more!
O happy heart of England,
Shout aloud and sing, laud,
As no land sang before;
And let the paeans soar
And ring from shore to shore,
A hundred thousand welcomes,
And a hundred thousand more;
And let the cannons roar
The joy-stunned city o'er.
And let the steeples chime it
A hundred thousand welcomes
And a hundred thousand more;
And let the people rhyme it
From neighbor's door to door,
From every man's heart's core,
A hundred thousand welcomes
And a hundred thousand more.”
This contribution, in twenty not long lines, of 900,000 (say nine
hundred thousand) welcomes is handsome indeed; and shows that when our
bard is inclined to be liberal, he does not look to the cost. But what
is a sum of 900,000 to his further proposal?--
“O let all these declare it,
Let miles of shouting swear it,
In all the years of yore,
Unparalleled before!
And thou, most welcome Wand'rer
Across the Northern Water,
Our England's ALEXANDRA,
Our dear adopted daughter-- Lay to thine heart,
conned o'er and o'er,
In future years remembered well,
The magic fervor of this spell
That shakes the land from shore to shore,
And makes all hearts and eyes brim o'er;
Our hundred thousand welcomes,
Our fifty million welcomes,
And a hundred million more!”
Here we have, besides the most liberal previous subscription, a further
call on the public for no less than one hundred and fifty million one
hundred thousand welcomes for her Royal Highness. How much is this
per head for all of us in the three kingdoms? Not above five welcomes
apiece, and I am sure many of us have given more than five hurrahs to
the fair young Princess.
Each man sings according to his voice, and gives in proportion to his
means. The guns at Sheerness “from their adamantine lips” (which had
spoken in quarrelsome old times a very different language,) roared a
hundred thundering welcomes to the fair Dane. The maidens of England
strewed roses before her feet at Gravesend when she landed. Mr. Tupper,
with the million and odd welcomes, may be compared to the thundering
fleet; Mr. Chorley's song, to the flowerets scattered on her Royal
Highness's happy and carpeted path:--
“Blessings on that fair face!
Safe on the shore
Of her home-dwelling place,
Stranger no more.
Love, from her household shrine,
Keep sorrow far!
May for her hawthorn twine,
June bring sweet eglantine,
Autumn, the golden vine,
Dear Northern Star!”
Hawthorn for May, eglantine for June, and in autumn a little tass of
the golden vine for our Northern Star. I am sure no one will grudge the
Princess these simple enjoyments, and of the produce of the last-named
pleasing plant, I wonder how many bumpers were drunk to her health
on the happy day of her bridal? As for the Laureate's verses, I would
respectfully liken his Highness to a giant showing a beacon torch on
“a windy headland.” His flaring torch is a pine-tree, to be sure,
which nobody can wield but himself. He waves it: and four times in the
midnight he shouts mightily, “Alexandra!” and the Pontic pine is whirled
into the ocean and Enceladus goes home.
Whose muse, whose cornemuse, sounds with such plaintive sweetness from
Arthur's Seat, while Edinburgh and Musselburgh lie rapt in delight,
and the mermaids come flapping up to Leith shore to hear the exquisite
music? Sweeter piper Edina knows not than Aytoun, the Bard of the
Cavaliers, who has given in his frank adhesion to the reigning dynasty.
When a most beautiful, celebrated and unfortunate princess whose memory
the Professor loves--when Mary, wife of Francis the Second, King of
France, and by her own right proclaimed Queen of Scotland and England
(poor soul!), entered Paris with her young bridegroom, good Peter
Ronsard wrote of her--
“Toi qui as veu l'excellence de celle
Qui rend le ciel de l'Escosse envieux,
Dy hardiment, contentez vous mes yeux,
Vous ne verrez jamais chose plus belle.” *
* Quoted in Mignet's “Life of Mary.”
“Vous ne verrez jamais chose plus belle.” Here is an Alexandrine written
three hundred years ago, as simple as bon jour. Professor Aytoun is more
ornate. After elegantly complimenting the spring, and a description of
her Royal Highness's well-known ancestors the “Berserkers,” he bursts
forth--
“The Rose of Denmark comes, the Royal Bride!
O loveliest Rose! our paragon and pride--
Choice of the Prince whom England holds so dear--
What homage shall we pay
To one who has no peer?
What can the bard or wildered minstrel say
More than the peasant who on bended knee
Breathes from his heart an earnest prayer for thee?
Words are not fair, if that they would express
Is fairer still; so lovers in dismay
Stand all abashed before that loveliness
They worship most, but find no words to pray.
Too sweet for incense! (bravo!) Take our loves instead--
Most freely, truly, and devoutly given;
Our prayer for blessings on that gentle head,
For earthly happiness and rest in Heaven!
May never sorrow dim those dove-like eyes,
But peace as pure as reigned in Paradise,
Calm and untainted on creation's eve,
Attend thee still! May holy angels,” &c.
This is all very well, my dear country cousins. But will you say “Amen”
to this prayer? I won't. Assuredly our fair Princess will shed many
tears out of the “dovelike eyes,” or the heart will be little worth. Is
she to know no parting, no care, no anxious longing, no tender watches
by the sick, to deplore no friends and kindred, and feel no grief?
Heaven forbid! When a bard or wildered minstrel writes so, best accept
his own confession, that he is losing his head. On the day of her
entrance into London who looked more bright and happy than the Princess?
On the day of the marriage, the fair face wore its marks of care
already, and looked out quite grave, and frightened almost, under the
wreaths and lace and orange-flowers. Would you have had her feel no
tremor? A maiden on the bridegroom's threshold, a Princess led up to the
steps of a throne? I think her pallor and doubt became her as well as
her smiles. That, I can tell you, was OUR vote who sat in X compartment,
let us say, in the nave of St. George's Chapel at Windsor, and saw a
part of one of the brightest ceremonies ever performed there.
My dear cousin Mary, you have an account of the dresses; and I promise
you there were princesses besides the bride whom it did the eyes good
to behold. Around the bride sailed a bevy of young creatures so fair,
white, and graceful that I thought of those fairy-tale beauties who are
sometimes princesses, and sometimes white swans. The Royal Princesses
and the Royal Knights of the Garter swept by in prodigious robes and
trains of purple velvet, thirty shillings a yard, my dear, not of course
including the lining, which, I have no doubt, was of the richest satin,
or that costly “miniver” which we used to read about in poor Jerrold's
writings. The young princes were habited in kilts; and by the side of
the Princess Royal trotted such a little wee solemn Highlander! He is
the young heir and chief of the famous clan of Brandenburg. His eyrie
is amongst the Eagles, and I pray no harm may befall the dear little
chieftain.
The heralds in their tabards were marvellous to behold, and a nod from
Rouge Croix gave me the keenest gratification. I tried to catch Garter's
eye, but either I couldn't or he wouldn't. In his robes, he is like one
of the Three Kings in old missal illuminations. Goldstick in waiting is
even more splendid. With his gold rod and robes and trappings of many
colors, he looks like a royal enchanter, and as if he had raised up
all this scene of glamour by a wave of his glittering wand. The silver
trumpeters wear such quaint caps, as those I have humbly tried to
depict on the playful heads of children. Behind the trumpeters came a
drum-bearer, on whose back a gold-laced drummer drubbed his march.
When the silver clarions had blown, and under a clear chorus of
white-robed children chanting round the organ, the noble procession
passed into the chapel, and was hidden from our sight for a while, there
was silence, or from the inner chapel ever so faint a hum. Then hymns
arose, and in the lull we knew that prayers were being said, and the
sacred rite performed which joined Albert Edward to Alexandra his wife.
I am sure hearty prayers were offered outside the gate as well as within
for that princely young pair, and for their Mother and Queen. The peace,
the freedom, the happiness, the order which her rule guarantees, are
part of my birthright as an Englishman, and I bless God for my share.
Where else shall I find such liberty of action, thought, speech, or laws
which protect me so well? Her part of her compact with her people, what
sovereign ever better performed? If ours sits apart from the festivities
of the day, it is because she suffers from a grief so recent that the
loyal heart cannot master it as yet, and remains treu und fest to a
beloved memory. A part of the music which celebrates the day's service
was composed by the husband who is gone to the place where the just and
pure of life meet the reward promised by the Father of all of us to good
and faithful servants who have well done here below. As this one gives
in his account, surely we may remember how the Prince was the friend of
all peaceful arts and learning; how he was true and fast always to
duty, home, honor; how, through a life of complicated trials, he was
sagacious, righteous, active and self-denying. And as we trace in the
young faces of his many children the father's features and likeness,
what Englishman will not pray that, they may have inherited also some
of the great qualities which won for the Prince Consort the love and
respect of our country?
The papers tell us how, on the night of the marriage of the Prince of
Wales, all over England and Scotland illuminations were made, the poor
and children were feasted, and in village and city thousands of kindly
schemes were devised to mark the national happiness and sympathy. “The
bonfire on Coptpoint at Folkestone was seen in France,” the Telegraph
says, “more clearly than even the French marine lights could be seen
at Folkestone.” Long may the fire continue to burn! There are
European coasts (and inland places) where the liberty light has been
extinguished, or is so low that you can't see to read by it--there are
great Atlantic shores where it flickers and smokes very gloomily. Let us
be thankful to the honest guardians of ours, and for the kind sky under
which it burns bright and steady.
ON A MEDAL OF GEORGE THE FOURTH.
Before me lies a coin bearing the image and superscription of King
George IV., and of the nominal value of two-and-sixpence. But an
official friend at a neighboring turnpike says the piece is hopelessly
bad; and a chemist tested it, returning a like unfavorable opinion. A
cabman, who had brought me from a Club, left it with the Club porter,
appealing to the gent who gave it a pore cabby, at ever so much o'clock
of a rainy night, which he hoped he would give him another. I have taken
that cabman at his word. He has been provided with a sound coin. The bad
piece is on the table before me, and shall have a hole drilled through
it, as soon as this essay is written, by a loyal subject who does not
desire to deface the Sovereign's image, but to protest against the
rascal who has taken his name in vain. Fid. Def. indeed! Is this what
you call defending the faith? You dare to forge your Sovereign's name,
and pass your scoundrel pewter as his silver? I wonder who you are,
wretch and most consummate trickster? This forgery is so complete that
even now I am deceived by it--I can't see the difference between the
base and sterling metal. Perhaps this piece is a little lighter;--I
don't know. A little softer:--is it? I have not bitten it, not being a
connoisseur in the tasting of pewter or silver. I take the word of
three honest men, though it goes against me: and though I have given
two-and-sixpence worth of honest consideration for the counter, I shall
not attempt to implicate anybody else in my misfortune, or transfer my
ill-luck to a deluded neighbor.
I say the imitation is so curiously successful, the stamping, milling of
the edges, lettering, and so forth, are so neat, that even now, when
my eyes are open, I cannot see the cheat. How did those experts, the
cabman, and pikeman, and tradesman, come to find it out? How do they
happen to be more familiar with pewter and silver than I am? You see, I
put out of the question another point which I might argue without fear
of defeat, namely, the cabman's statement that I gave him this bad piece
of money. Suppose every cabman who took me a shilling fare were to drive
away and return presently with a bad coin and an assertion that I had
given it to him! This would be absurd and mischievous; an encouragement
of vice amongst men who already are subject to temptations. Being homo,
I think if I were a cabman myself, I might sometimes stretch a furlong
or two in my calculation of distance. But don't come TWICE, my man, and
tell me I have given you a bad half-crown. No, no! I have paid once like
a gentleman, and once is enough. For instance, during the Exhibition
time I was stopped by an old country-woman in black, with a huge
umbrella, who, bursting into tears, said to me, “Master, be this the
way to Harlow, in Essex?” “This the way to Harlow? This is the way to
Exeter, my good lady, and you will arrive there if you walk about 170
miles in your present direction,” I answered courteously, replying to
the old creature. Then she fell a-sobbing as though her old heart would
break. She had a daughter a-dying at Harlow. She had walked already
“vifty dree mile that day.” Tears stopped the rest of her discourse, so
artless, genuine, and abundant that--I own the truth--I gave her, in
I believe genuine silver, a piece of the exact size of that coin which
forms the subject of this essay. Well. About a month since, near to the
very spot where I had met my old woman, I was accosted by a person in
black, a person in a large draggled cap, a person with a huge umbrella,
who was beginning, “I say, Master, can you tell me if this be the way to
Har--” but here she stopped. Her eyes goggled wildly. She started from
me, as Macbeth turned from Macduff. She would not engage with me. It
was my old friend of Harlow, in Essex. I dare say she has informed many
other people of her daughter's illness, and her anxiety to be put upon
the right way to Harlow. Not long since a very gentleman-like man,
Major Delamere let us call him (I like the title of Major very much),
requested to see me, named a dead gentleman who he said had been our
mutual friend, and on the strength of this mutual acquaintance, begged
me to cash his cheque for five pounds!
It is these things, my dear sir, which serve to make a man cynical. I do
conscientiously believe that had I cashed the Major's cheque there
would have been a difficulty about payment on the part of the respected
bankers on whom he drew. On your honor and conscience, do you think that
old widow who was walking from Tunbridge Wells to Harlow had a daughter
ill, and was an honest woman at all? The daughter couldn't always, you
see, be being ill, and her mother on her way to her dear child through
Hyde Park. In the same way some habitual sneerers may be inclined to
hint that the cabman's story was an invention--or at any rate, choose
to ride off (so to speak) on the doubt. No. My opinion, I own, is
unfavorable as regards the widow from Tunbridge Wells, and Major
Delamere; but, believing the cabman was honest, I am glad to think he
was not injured by the reader's most humble servant.
What a queer, exciting life this rogue's march must be: this attempt of
the bad half-crowns to get into circulation! Had my distinguished friend
the Major knocked at many doors that morning, before operating on mine?
The sport must be something akin to the pleasure of tiger or elephant
hunting. What ingenuity the sportsman must have in tracing his
prey--what daring and caution in coming upon him! What coolness in
facing the angry animal (for, after all, a man on whom you draw a cheque
a bout portant will be angry). What a delicious thrill of triumph, if
you can bring him down! If I have money at the banker's and draw for
a portion of it over the counter, that is mere prose--any dolt can do
that. But, having no balance, say I drive up in a cab, present a cheque
at Coutts's, and, receiving the amount, drive off? What a glorious
morning's sport that has been! How superior in excitement to the common
transactions of every-day life! . . . I must tell a story; it is against
myself, I know, but it WILL out, and perhaps my mind will be the easier.
More than twenty years ago, in an island remarkable for its verdure, I
met four or five times one of the most agreeable companions with whom
I have passed a night. I heard that evil times had come upon this
gentleman; and, overtaking him in a road near my own house one evening,
I asked him to come home to dinner, In two days, he was at my door
again. At breakfast-time was this second appearance. He was in a cab
(of course he was in a cab, they always are, these unfortunate, these
courageous men). To deny myself was absurd. My friend could see me over
the parlor blinds, surrounded by my family, and cheerfully partaking of
the morning meal. Might he have a word with me? and can you imagine its
purport? By the most provoking delay, his uncle the admiral not being
able to come to town till Friday--would I cash him a cheque? I need not
say it would be paid on Saturday without fail. I tell you that man went
away with money in his pocket, and I regret to add that his gallant
relative has not COME TO TOWN YET!
Laying down the pen, and sinking back in my chair, here, perhaps, I fall
into a five minutes' reverie, and think of one, two, three, half a dozen
cases in which I have been content to accept that sham promissory coin
in return for sterling money advanced. Not a reader, whatever his age,
but could tell a like story. I vow and believe there are men of fifty,
who will dine well today, who have not paid their school debts yet, and
who have not taken up their long-protested promises to pay. Tom, Dick,
Harry, my boys, I owe you no grudge, and rather relish that wince with
which you will read these meek lines and say, “He means me.” Poor Jack
in Hades! Do you remember a certain pecuniary transaction, and a little
sum of money you borrowed “until the meeting of Parliament?” Parliament
met often in your lifetime: Parliament has met since: but I think I
should scarce be more surprised if your ghost glided into the room now,
and laid down the amount of our little account, than I should have been
if you had paid me in your lifetime with the actual acceptances of the
Bank of England. You asked to borrow, but you never intended to pay. I
would as soon have believed that a promissory note of Sir John Falstaff
(accepted by Messrs. Bardolph and Nym, and payable in Aldgate,) would
be as sure to find payment, as that note of the departed--nay,
lamented--Jack Thriftless.
He who borrows, meaning to pay, is quite a different person from the
individual here described. Many--most, I hope--took Jack's promise for
what it was worth--and quite well knew that when he said, “Lend me,”
he meant “Give me” twenty pounds. “Give me change for this half-crown,”
said Jack; “I know it's a pewter piece;” and you gave him the change in
honest silver, and pocketed the counterfeit gravely.
What a queer consciousness that must be which accompanies such a man in
his sleeping, in his waking, in his walk through life, by his fireside
with his children round him! “For what we are going to receive,” &c.--he
says grace before his dinner. “My dears! Shall I help you to some
mutton? I robbed the butcher of the meat. I don't intend to pay him.
Johnson my boy, a glass of champagne? Very good, isn't it? Not too
sweet. Forty-six. I get it from So-and-so, whom I intend to cheat.” As
eagles go forth and bring home to their eaglets the lamb or the pavid
kid, I say there are men who live and victual their nests by plunder.
We all know highway robbers in white neck-cloths, domestic bandits,
marauders, passers of bad coin. What was yonder cheque which Major
Delamere proposed I should cash but a piece of bad money? What was Jack
Thriftless's promise to pay? Having got his booty, I fancy Jack or the
Major returning home, and wife and children gathering round about him.
Poor wife and children! They respect papa very likely. They don't know
he is false coin. Maybe the wife has a dreadful inkling of the truth,
and, sickening, tries to hide it from the daughters and sons. Maybe she
is an accomplice: herself a brazen forgery. If Turpin and Jack Sheppard
were married, very likely Mesdames Sheppard and Turpin did not know, at
first, what their husbands' real profession was, and fancied, when the
men left home in the morning, they only went away to follow some regular
and honorable business. Then a suspicion of the truth may have come:
then a dreadful revelation; and presently we have the guilty pair
robbing together, or passing forged money each on his own account. You
know Doctor Dodd? I wonder whether his wife knows that he is a forger,
and scoundrel? Has she had any of the plunder, think you, and were the
darling children's new dresses bought with it? The Doctor's sermon
last Sunday was certainly charming, and we all cried. Ah, my poor Dodd!
Whilst he is preaching most beautifully, pocket-handkerchief in hand, he
is peering over the pulpit cushions, looking out piteously for Messrs.
Peachum and Lockit from the police-office. By Doctor Dodd you understand
I would typify the rogue of respectable exterior, not committed to gaol
yet, but not undiscovered. We all know one or two such. This very sermon
perhaps will be read by some, or more likely--for, depend upon it, your
solemn hypocritic scoundrels don't care much for light literature--more
likely, I say, this discourse will be read by some of their wives, who
think, “Ah mercy! does that horrible cynical wretch know how my poor
husband blacked my eye, or abstracted mamma's silver teapot, or forced
me to write So-and-so's name on that piece of stamped paper, or what
not?” My good creature, I am not angry with YOU. If your husband has
broken your nose, you will vow that he had authority over your person,
and a right to demolish any part of it: if he has conveyed away your
mamma's teapot, you will say that she gave it to him at your marriage,
and it was very ugly, and what not? if he takes your aunt's watch,
and you love him, you will carry it ere long to the pawnbroker's, and
perjure yourself--oh, how you will perjure yourself--in the witness-box!
I know this is a degrading view of woman's noble nature, her exalted
mission, and so forth, and so forth. I know you will say this is bad
morality. Is it? Do you, or do you not, expect your womankind to stick
by you for better or for worse? Say I have committed a forgery, and the
officers come in search of me, is my wife, Mrs. Dodd, to show them into
the dining-room and say, “Pray step in, gentlemen! My husband has just
come home from church. That bill with my Lord Chesterfield's acceptance,
I am bound to own, was never written by his lordship, and the signature
is in the doctor's handwriting?” I say, would any man of sense or
honor, or fine feeling, praise his wife for telling the truth under such
circumstances? Suppose she made a fine grimace, and said, “Most painful
as my position is, most deeply as I feel for my William, yet truth must
prevail, and I deeply lament to state that the beloved partner of my
life DID commit the flagitious act with which he is charged, and is
at this present moment located in the two-pair back, up the chimney,
whither it is my duty to lead you.” Why, even Dodd himself, who was one
of the greatest humbugs who ever lived, would not have had the face to
say that he approved of his wife telling the truth in such a case. Would
you have had Flora Macdonald beckon the officers, saying, “This way,
gentlemen! You will find the young chevalier asleep in that cavern.” Or
don't you prefer her to be splendide mendax, and ready at all risks to
save him? If ever I lead a rebellion, and my women betray me, may I be
hanged but I will not forgive them: and if ever I steal a teapot, and MY
women don't stand up for me, pass the article under their shawls, whisk
down the street with it, outbluster the policeman, and utter any amount
of fibs before Mr. Beak, those beings are not what I take them to be,
and--for a fortune--I won't give them so much as a bad half-crown.
Is conscious guilt a source of unmixed pain to the bosom which harbors
it? Has not your criminal, on the contrary, an excitement, an enjoyment
within quite unknown to you and me who never did anything wrong in
our lives? The housebreaker must snatch a fearful joy as he walks
unchallenged by the policeman with his sack full of spoons and tankards.
Do not cracksmen, when assembled together, entertain themselves with
stories of glorious old burglaries which they or bygone heroes have
committed? But that my age is mature and my habits formed, I should
really just like to try a little criminality. Fancy passing a forged
bill to your banker; calling on a friend and sweeping his sideboard of
plate, his hall of umbrellas and coats; and then going home to dress for
dinner, say--and to meet a bishop, a judge, and a police magistrate or
so, and talk more morally than any man at table! How I should chuckle
(as my host's spoons clinked softly in my pocket) whilst I was uttering
some noble speech about virtue, duty, charity! I wonder do we meet
garroters in society? In an average tea-party, now, how many returned
convicts are there? Does John Footman, when he asks permission to go and
spend the evening with some friends, pass his time in thuggee; waylay
and strangle an old gentleman, or two; let himself into your house, with
the house-key of course, and appear as usual with the shaving-water
when you ring your bell in the morning? The very possibility of such
a suspicion invests John with a new and romantic interest in my mind.
Behind the grave politeness of his countenance I try and read the
lurking treason. Full of this pleasing subject, I have been talking
thief-stories with a neighbor. The neighbor tells me how some friends of
hers used to keep a jewel-box under a bed in their room; and, going into
the room, they thought they heard a noise under the bed. They had the
courage to look. The cook was under the bed--under the bed with the
jewel-box. Of course she said she had come for purposes connected with
her business; but this was absurd. A cook under a bed is not there for
professional purposes. A relation of mine had a box containing diamonds
under her bed, which diamonds she told me were to be mine. Mine! One
day, at dinner-time, between the entrees and the roast, a cab drove away
from my relative's house containing the box wherein lay the diamonds.
John laid the dessert, brought the coffee, waited all the evening--and
oh, how frightened he was when he came to learn that his mistress's box
had been conveyed out of her own room, and it contained diamonds--“Law
bless us, did it now?” I wonder whether John's subsequent career has
been prosperous? Perhaps the gentlemen from Bow Street were all in the
wrong when they agreed in suspecting John as the author of the robbery.
His noble nature was hurt at the suspicion. You conceive he would not
like to remain in a family where they were mean enough to suspect him
of stealing a jewel-box out of a bedroom--and the injured man and my
relatives soon parted. But, inclining (with my usual cynicism) to think
that he did steal the valuables, think of his life for the month or two
whilst he still remains in the service! He shows the officers over the
house, agrees with them that the coup must have been made by persons
familiar with it; gives them every assistance; pities his master and
mistress with a manly compassion; points out what a cruel misfortune it
is to himself as an honest man, with his living to get and his family
to provide for, that this suspicion should fall on him. Finally he takes
leave of his place, with a deep, though natural melancholy that ever
he had accepted it. What's a thousand pounds to gentle-folks! A loss,
certainly, but they will live as well without the diamonds as with them.
But to John his Hhhonor was worth more than diamonds, his Hhonor was.
Whohever is to give him back his character? Who is to prevent hany one
from saying, “Ho yes. This is the footman which was in the family where
the diamonds was stole?” &c.
I wonder has John prospered in life subsequently? If he is innocent
he does not interest me in the least. The interest of the case lies in
John's behavior supposing him to be guilty. Imagine the smiling face,
the daily service, the orderly performance of duty, whilst within John
is suffering pangs lest discovery should overtake him. Every bell of
the door which he is obliged to open may bring a police officer. The
accomplices may peach. What an exciting life John's must have been for a
while. And now, years and years after, when pursuit has long ceased, and
detection is impossible, does he ever revert to the little transaction?
Is it possible those diamonds cost a thousand pounds? What a rogue
the fence must have been who only gave him so and so! And I pleasingly
picture to myself an old ex-footman and an ancient receiver of stolen
goods meeting and talking over this matter, which dates from times so
early that her present Majesty's fair image could only just have begun
to be coined or forged.
I choose to take John at the time when his little peccadillo is
suspected, perhaps, but when there is no specific charge of robbery
against him. He is not yet convicted: he is not even on his trial; how
then can we venture to say he is guilty? Now think what scores of men
and women walk the world in a like predicament; and what false coin
passes current! Pinchbeck strives to pass off his history as sound
coin. He knows it is only base metal, washed over with a thin varnish of
learning. Poluphloisbos puts his sermons in circulation: sounding brass,
lacquered over with white metal, and marked with the stamp and image of
piety. What say you to Drawcansir's reputation as a military commander?
to Tibbs's pretensions to be a fine gentleman? to Sapphira's claims as a
poetess, or Rodoessa's as a beauty? His bravery, his piety, high birth,
genius, beauty--each of these deceivers would palm his falsehood on us,
and have us accept his forgeries as sterling coin. And we talk here,
please to observe, of weaknesses rather than crimes. Some of us have
more serious things to hide than a yellow cheek behind a raddle of
rouge, or a white poll under a wig of jetty curls. You know, neighbor,
there are not only false teeth in this world, but false tongues: and
some make up a bust and an appearance of strength with padding, cotton,
and what not? while another kind of artist tries to take you in by
wearing under his waistcoat, and perpetually thumping, an immense sham
heart. Dear sir, may yours and mine be found, at the right time, of the
proper size and in the right place.
And what has this to do with half-crowns, good or bad? Ah, friend! may
our coin, battered, and clipped, and defaced though it be, be proved to
be Sterling Silver on the day of the Great Assay!
“STRANGE TO SAY, ON CLUB PAPER.”
Before the Duke of York's column, and between the “Athenaeum” and
“United Service” Clubs, I have seen more than once, on the esplanade,
a preacher holding forth to a little congregation of badauds and
street-boys, whom he entertains with a discourse on the crimes of a
rapacious aristocracy, or warns of the imminent peril of their own
souls. Sometimes this orator is made to “move on” by brutal policemen.
Sometimes, on a Sunday, he points to a white head or two visible in
the windows of the Clubs to the right and left of him, and volunteers a
statement that those quiet and elderly Sabbath-breakers will very soon
be called from this world to another, where their lot will by no means
be so comfortable as that which the reprobates enjoy here, in their
arm-chairs by their snug fires.
At the end of last month, had I been a Pall Mall preacher, I would have
liked to send a whip round to all the Clubs in St. James's, and convoke
the few members remaining in London to hear a discourse sub Dio on a
text from the Observer newspaper. I would have taken post under the
statue of Fame, say, where she stands distributing wreaths to the three
Crimean Guardsmen. (The crossing-sweeper does not obstruct the path, and
I suppose is away at his villa on Sundays.) And, when the congregation
was pretty quiet, I would have begun:--
In the Observer of the 27th September, 1863, in the fifth page and the
fourth column, it is thus written:--
“The codicil appended to the will of the late Lord Clyde, executed at
Chatham, and bearing the signature of Clyde, F. M., is written, strange
to say, on a sheet of paper BEARING THE 'ATHENAEUM CLUB' MARK.”
What the codicil is, my dear brethren, it is not our business to
inquire. It conveys a benefaction to a faithful and attached friend of
the good Field-Marshal. The gift may be a lakh of rupees, or it may be a
house and its contents--furniture, plate, and wine-cellar. My friends, I
know the wine-merchant, and, for the sake of the legatee, hope heartily
that the stock is large.
Am I wrong, dear brethren, in supposing that you expect a preacher to
say a seasonable word on death here? If you don't, I fear you are but
little familiar with the habits of preachers, and are but lax hearers
of sermons. We might contrast the vault where the warrior's remains lie
shrouded and coffined, with that in which his worldly provision of
wine is stowed away. Spain and Portugal and France--all the lands
which supplied his store--as hardy and obedient subaltern, as resolute
captain, as colonel daring but prudent--he has visited the fields of
all. In India and China he marches always unconquered; or at the head of
his dauntless Highland brigade he treads the Crimean snow; or he rides
from conquest to conquest in India once more; succoring his countrymen
in the hour of their utmost need; smiting down the scared mutiny, and
trampling out the embers of rebellion; at the head of an heroic army,
a consummate chief. And now his glorious old sword is sheathed, and his
honors are won: and he has bought him a house, and stored it with modest
cheer for his friends (the good old man put water in his own wine, and
a glass or two sufficed him)--behold the end comes, and his legatee
inherits these modest possessions by virtue of a codicil to his
lordship's will, written, “strange to say, upon a sheet of paper,
bearing the 'Athenaeum Club' mark.”
It is to this part of the text, my brethren, that I propose to address
myself particularly, and if the remarks I make are offensive to any of
you, you know the doors of our meeting-house are open, and you can
walk out when you will. Around us are magnificent halls and palaces
frequented by such a multitude of men as not even the Roman Forum
assembled together. Yonder are the Martium and the Palladium. Next to
the Palladium is the elegant Viatorium, which Barry gracefully stole
from Rome. By its side is the massive Reformatorium: and the--the
Ultratorium rears its granite columns beyond. Extending down the street
palace after palace rises magnificent, and under their lofty roofs
warriors and lawyers, merchants and nobles, scholars and seamen, the
wealthy, the poor, the busy, the idle assemble. Into the halls built
down this little street and its neighborhood the principal men of all
London come to hear or impart the news; and the affairs of the state
or of private individuals, the quarrels of empires or of authors,
the movements of the court, or the splendid vagaries of fashion, the
intrigues of statesmen or of persons of another sex yet more wily, the
last news of battles in the great occidental continents, nay, the
latest betting for the horse-races, or the advent of a dancer at the
theatre--all that men do is discussed in these Pall Mall agorae, where
we of London daily assemble.
Now among so many talkers, consider how many false reports must fly
about: in such multitudes imagine how many disappointed men there must
be; how many chatterboxes; how many feeble and credulous (whereof I mark
some specimens in my congregation); how many mean, rancorous, prone
to believe ill of their betters, eager to find fault; and then, my
brethren, fancy how the words of my text must have been read and
received in Pall Mall! (I perceive several of the congregation looking
most uncomfortable. One old boy with a dyed moustache turns purple in
the face, and struts back to the Martium: another, with a shrug of the
shoulder and a murmur of “Rubbish,” slinks away in the direction of the
Togatorium, and the preacher continues.) The will of Field-Marshal Lord
Clyde--signed AT CHATHAM, mind, where his lordship died--is written,
STRANGE TO SAY, on a sheet of paper bearing the “Athenaeum Club” mark!
The inference is obvious. A man cannot get Athenaeum paper except at the
“Athenaeum.” Such paper is not sold at Chatham, where the last codicil
to his lordship's will is dated. And so the painful belief is forced
upon us, that a Peer, a Field-Marshal, wealthy, respected, illustrious,
could pocket paper at his Club, and carry it away with him to the
country. One fancies the hall-porter conscious of the old lord's
iniquity, and holding down his head as the Marshal passes the door.
What is that roll which his lordship carries? Is it his Marshal's baton
gloriously won? No; it is a roll of foolscap conveyed from the Club.
What has he on his breast, under his greatcoat? Is it his Star of India?
No; it is a bundle of envelopes, bearing the head of Minerva, some
sealing-wax, and a half-score of pens.
Let us imagine how in the hall of one or other of these Clubs this
strange anecdote will be discussed.
“Notorious screw,” says Sneer. “The poor old fellow's avarice has long
been known.”
“Suppose he wishes to imitate the Duke of Marlborough,” says Simper.
“Habit of looting contracted in India, you know; ain't so easy to get
over, you know,” says Snigger.
“When officers dined with him in India,” remarks Solemn, “it was
notorious that the spoons were all of a different pattern.”
“Perhaps it isn't true. Suppose he wrote his paper at the Club?”
interposes Jones.
“It is dated at Chatham, my good man,” says Brown. “A man if he is in
London says he is in London. A man if he is in Rochester says he is in
Rochester. This man happens to forget that he is using the Club paper;
and he happens to be found out: many men DON'T happen to be found out.
I've seen literary fellows at Clubs writing their rubbishing articles;
I have no doubt they take away reams of paper. They crib thoughts: why
shouldn't they crib stationery? One of your literary vagabonds who
is capable of stabbing a reputation, who is capable of telling any
monstrous falsehood to support his party, is surely capable of stealing
a ream of paper.”
“Well, well, we have all our weaknesses,” sighs Robinson. “Seen that
article, Thompson, in the Observer about Lord Clyde and the Club paper?
You'll find it up stairs. In the third column of the fifth page towards
the bottom of the page. I suppose he was so poor he couldn't afford to
buy a quire of paper. Hadn't fourpence in the world. Oh, no!”
“And they want to get up a testimonial to this man's memory--a statue or
something!” cries Jawkins. “A man who wallows in wealth and takes paper
away from his Club! I don't say he is not brave. Brutal courage most men
have. I don't say he was not a good officer: a man with such experience
MUST have been a good officer unless he was a born fool. But to think
of this man loaded with honors--though of a low origin--so lost to
self-respect as actually to take away the 'Athenaeum' paper! These
parvenus, sir, betray their origin--betray their origin. I said to my
wife this very morning, 'Mrs. Jawkins,' I said, 'there is talk of a
testimonial to this man. I will not give one shilling. I have no idea
of raising statues to fellows who take away Club paper. No, by George, I
have not. Why, they will be raising statues to men who take Club spoons
next! Not one penny of MY money shall they have!'”
And now, if you please, we will tell the real story which has furnished
this scandal to a newspaper, this tattle to Club gossips and loungers.
The Field-Marshal, wishing to make a further provision for a friend,
informed his lawyer what he desired to do. The lawyer, a member of the
“Athenaeum Club,” there wrote the draft of such a codicil as he would
advise, and sent the paper by the post to Lord Clyde at Chatham. Lord
Clyde finding the paper perfectly satisfactory, signed it and sent it
back: and hence we have the story of “the codicil bearing the signature
of Clyde, F. M., and written, strange to say, upon paper bearing the
'Athenaeum Club' mark.”
Here I have been imagining a dialogue between a half-dozen gossips such
as congregate round a Club fireplace of an afternoon. I wonder how many
people besides--whether any chance reader of this very page has read
and believed this story about the good old lord? Have the country papers
copied the anecdote, and our “own correspondents” made their remarks on
it? If, my good sir, or madam, you have read it and credited it, don't
you own to a little feeling of shame and sorrow, now that the trumpery
little mystery is cleared? To “the new inhabitant of light,” passed away
and out of reach of our censure, misrepresentation, scandal, dulness,
malice, a silly falsehood matters nothing. Censure and praise are alike
to him--
“The music warbling to the deafened ear,
The incense wasted on the funeral bier,”
the pompous eulogy pronounced over the gravestone, or the lie that
slander spits on it. Faithfully though this brave old chief did his
duty, honest and upright though his life was, glorious his renown--you
see he could write at Chatham on London paper; you see men can be found
to point out how “strange” his behavior was.
And about ourselves? My good people, do you by chance know any man or
woman who has formed unjust conclusions regarding his neighbor? Have you
ever found yourself willing, nay, eager to believe evil of some man
whom you hate? Whom you hate because he is successful, and you are not:
because he is rich, and you are poor: because he dines with great men
who don't invite you: because he wears a silk gown, and yours is still
stuff: because he has been called in to perform the operation though you
lived close by: because his pictures have been bought and yours returned
home unsold: because he fills his church, and you are preaching to empty
pews? If your rival prospers have you ever felt a twinge of anger? If
his wife's carriage passes you and Mrs. Tomkins, who are in a cab,
don't you feel that those people are giving themselves absurd airs of
importance? If he lives with great people, are you not sure he is a
sneak? And if you ever felt envy towards another, and if your heart has
ever been black towards your brother, if you have been peevish at his
success, pleased to hear his merit depreciated, and eager to believe all
that is said in his disfavor--my good sir, as you yourself contritely
own that you are unjust, jealous, uncharitable, so, you may be sure,
some men are uncharitable, jealous, and unjust regarding YOU.
The proofs and manuscript of this little sermon have just come from
the printer's, and as I look at the writing, I perceive, not without a
smile, that one or two of the pages bear, “strange to say,” the mark of
a Club of which I have the honor to be a member. Those lines quoted in
a foregoing page are from some noble verses written by one of Mr.
Addison's men, Mr. Tickell, on the death of Cadogan, who was amongst the
most prominent “of Marlborough's captains and Eugenio's friends.” If
you are acquainted with the history of those times, you have read how
Cadogan had his feuds and hatreds too, as Tickell's patron had his, as
Cadogan's great chief had his. “The Duke of Marlborough's character has
been so variously drawn” (writes a famous contemporary of the duke's),
“that it is hard to pronounce on either side without the suspicion
of flattery or detraction. I shall say nothing of his military
accomplishments, which the opposite reports of his friends and enemies
among the soldiers have rendered problematical. Those maligners who deny
him personal valor, seem not to consider that this accusation is charged
at a venture, since the person of a general is too seldom exposed, and
that fear which is said sometimes to have disconcerted him before action
might probably be more for his army than himself.” If Swift could hint
a doubt of Marlborough's courage, what wonder that a nameless scribe of
our day should question the honor of Clyde?
THE LAST SKETCH.
Not many days since I went to visit a house where in former years I
had received many a friendly welcome. We went into the owner's--an
artist's--studio. Prints, pictures, and sketches hung on the walls as I
had last seen and remembered them. The implements of the painter's
art were there. The light which had shone upon so many, many hours of
patient and cheerful toil, poured through the northern window upon print
and bust, lay figure and sketch, and upon the easel before which the
good, the gentle, the beloved Leslie labored. In this room the busy
brain had devised, and the skilful hand executed, I know not how many
of the noble works which have delighted the world with their beauty and
charming humor. Here the poet called up into pictorial presence, and
informed with life, grace, beauty, infinite friendly mirth and wondrous
naturalness of expression, the people of whom his dear books told him
the stories,--his Shakspeare, his Cervantes, his Moliere, his Le Sage.
There was his last work on the easel--a beautiful fresh smiling shape
of Titania, such as his sweet guileless fancy imagined the Midsummer
Night's queen to be. Gracious, and pure, and bright, the sweet smiling
image glimmers on the canvas. Fairy elves, no doubt, were to have been
grouped around their mistress in laughing clusters. Honest Bottom's
grotesque head and form are indicated as reposing by the side of the
consummate beauty. The darkling forest would have grown around them,
with the stars glittering from the midsummer sky: the flowers at the
queen's feet, and the boughs and foliage about her, would have been
peopled with gambolling sprites and fays. They were dwelling in the
artist's mind no doubt, and would have been developed by that patient,
faithful, admirable genius: but the busy brain stopped working, the
skilful hand fell lifeless, the loving, honest heart ceased to beat.
What was she to have been--that fair Titania--when perfected by the
patient skill of the poet, who in imagination saw the sweet innocent
figure, and with tender courtesy and caresses, as it were, posed and
shaped and traced the fair form? Is there record kept anywhere of
fancies conceived, beautiful, unborn? Some day will they assume form in
some yet undeveloped light? If our bad unspoken thoughts are registered
against us, and are written in the awful account, will not the good
thoughts unspoken, the love and tenderness, the pity, beauty, charity,
which pass through the breast, and cause the heart to throb with
silent good, find a remembrance too? A few weeks more, and this lovely
offspring of the poet's conception would have been complete--to charm
the world with its beautiful mirth. May there not be some sphere unknown
to us where it may have an existence? They say our words, once out of
our lips, go travelling in omne oevum, reverberating for ever and ever.
If our words, why not our thoughts? If the Has Been, why not the Might
Have Been?
Some day our spirits may be permitted to walk in galleries of fancies
more wondrous and beautiful than any achieved works which at present we
see, and our minds to behold and delight in masterpieces which poets'
and artists' minds have fathered and conceived only.
With a feeling much akin to that with which I looked upon the
friend's--the admirable artist's--unfinished work, I can fancy many
readers turning to the last pages which were traced by Charlotte
Bronte's hand. Of the multitude that have read her books, who has not
known and deplored the tragedy of her family, her own most sad and
untimely fate? Which of her readers has not become her friend? Who that
has known her books has not admired the artist's noble English, the
burning love of truth, the bravery, the simplicity, the indignation at
wrong, the eager sympathy, the pious love and reverence, the passionate
honor, so to speak, of the woman? What a story is that of that family
of poets in their solitude yonder on the gloomy northern moors! At nine
o'clock at night, Mrs. Gaskell tells, after evening prayers, when their
guardian and relative had gone to bed, the three poetesses--the three
maidens, Charlotte, and Emily, and Anne--Charlotte being the “motherly
friend and guardian to the other two”--“began, like restless wild
animals, to pace up and down their parlor, 'making out' their wonderful
stories, talking over plans and projects, and thoughts of what was to be
their future life.”
One evening, at the close of 1854, as Charlotte Nicholls sat with her
husband by the fire, listening to the howling of the wind about the
house, she suddenly said to her husband, “If you had not been with me,
I must have been writing now.” She then ran up stairs, and brought down,
and read aloud, the beginning of a new tale. When she had finished,
her husband remarked, “The critics will accuse you of repetition.” She
replied, “Oh! I shall alter that. I always begin two or three times
before I can please myself.” But it was not to be. The trembling
little hand was to write no more. The heart newly awakened to love and
happiness, and throbbing with maternal hope, was soon to cease to beat;
that intrepid outspeaker and champion of truth, that eager, impetuous
redresser of wrong, was to be called out of the world's fight and
struggle, to lay down the shining arms, and to be removed to a sphere
where even a noble indignation cor ulterius nequit lacerare, and where
truth complete, and right triumphant, no longer need to wage war.
I can only say of this lady, vidi tantum. I saw her first just as I rose
out of an illness from which I had never thought to recover. I remember
the trembling little frame, the little hand, the great honest eyes.
An impetuous honesty seemed to me to characterize the woman. Twice
I recollect she took me to task for what she held to be errors in
doctrine. Once about Fielding we had a disputation. She spoke her mind
out. She jumped too rapidly to conclusions. (I have smiled at one or
two passages in the “Biography,” in which my own disposition or behavior
forms the subject of talk.) She formed conclusions that might be wrong,
and built up whole theories of character upon them. New to the London
world, she entered it with an independent, indomitable spirit of her
own; and judged of contemporaries, and especially spied out arrogance or
affectation, with extraordinary keenness of vision. She was angry with
her favorites if their conduct or conversation fell below her ideal.
Often she seemed to me to be judging the London folk prematurely: but
perhaps the city is rather angry at being judged. I fancied an austere
little Joan of Arc marching in upon us, and rebuking our easy lives, our
easy morals. She gave me the impression of being a very pure, and lofty,
and high-minded person. A great and holy reverence of right and truth
seemed to be with her always. Such, in our brief interview, she appeared
to me. As one thinks of that life so noble, so lonely--of that passion
for truth--of those nights and nights of eager study, swarming fancies,
invention, depression, elation, prayer; as one reads the necessarily
incomplete, though most touching and admirable history of the heart that
throbbed in this one little frame--of this one amongst the myriads
of souls that have lived and died on this great earth--this great
earth?--this little speck in the infinite universe of God,--with what
wonder do we think of to-day, with what awe await to-morrow, when that
which is now but darkly seen shall be clear! As I read this little
fragmentary sketch, I think of the rest. Is it? And where is it? Will
not the leaf be turned some day, and the story be told? Shall the
deviser of the tale somewhere perfect the history of little EMMA'S
griefs and troubles? Shall TITANIA come forth complete with her sportive
court, with the flowers at her feet, the forest around her, and all the
stars of summer glittering overhead?
How well I remember the delight, and wonder, and pleasure with which I
read “Jane Eyre,” sent to me by an author whose name and sex were then
alike unknown to me; the strange fascinations of the book; and how with
my own work pressing upon me, I could not, having taken the volumes up,
lay them down until they were read through! Hundreds of those who, like
myself, recognized and admired that master-work of a great genius, will
look with a mournful interest and regard and curiosity upon the last
fragmentary sketch from the noble hand which wrote “Jane Eyre.”
End of Project Gutenberg's Roundabout Papers, by William Makepeace Thackeray