Though my readers, by this time, will scarcely be disposed to believe
it, I really can keep accounts, if I set myself to do so: and even
greatly enjoy keeping them, when I do them the first thing after my
Exodus or Plato every morning; and keep them to the uttermost farthing.
I have examples of such in past diaries; one, in particular, great in
its exhibition of the prices of jargonel and Queen Louise pears at
Abbeville. And my days always go best when they are thus begun, as far
as pleasant feeling and general prosperity of work are concerned. But
there is a great deal of work, and especially such as I am now set on,
which does not admit of accounts in the morning; but imperatively
requires the fastening down forthwith of what first comes into one’s
mind after waking. Then the accounts get put off; tangle their
thread—(so the Fates always instantly then ordain)—in some eightpenny
matter, and without Œdipus to help on the right hand and Ariadne on the
left, there’s no bringing them right again. With due invocation to
both, I think I have got my own accounts, for the past year, stated
clearly below.
Receipts. | Expenditure. | Balance.
-------------|---------------|--------------
£ s. d. | £ s. d. | £ s. d.
February 1344 17 9 | 817 0 0 | 527 17 9
March 67 10 0 | 370 2 3 | 225 5 6
April 1522 12 4 | 276 10 0 | 1471 7 10
May 484 18 3 | 444 16 3 | 1511 9 10
June 179 0 0 | 464 11 0 | 1225 18 10
July 0 0 0 | 460 0 0 | 765 18 10
August 180 11 8 | 328 19 6 | 617 11 0
September 0 0 0 | 427 5 0 | 190 6 0
October 1279 8 0 | 655 0 0 | 814 14 0
November 0 0 0 | 495 0 0 | 784 8 0
December 592 15 4 | 242 0 0 | 1135 3 4
In the first column are the receipts for each month; in the second, the
expenditure; in the third, the balance, which is to be tested by adding
the previous balance to the receipts in the first column, and deducting
the expenditure from the sum.
The months named are those in which the number of Fors was published in
which the reader will find the detailed statements: a grotesque double
mistake, in March, first in the addition and then in the subtraction,
concludes in a total error of threepence; the real balance being £225
5s. 6d. instead of £225 5s. 9d. I find no error in the following
accounts beyond the inheritance of this excessive threepence: (in
October, p. 334, the entry under September 1 is misprinted 10 for 15;
but the sum is right,) until the confusion caused by my having given
the banker’s balance in September, which includes several receipts and
disbursements not in my own accounts, but to be printed in the find
yearly estimate in Fors of next February. My own estimate, happily less
than theirs, brings my balance for last month to £784 8s.; taking up
which result, the present month’s accounts are as follows:—
RECEIPTS. £ s. d. £ s. d.
Oct. 15. Balance 784 8 0
Dividend on £6,500 Stock 292 10 0
Rents, Marylebone 90 15 4
Rents, Herne Hill 30 0 0
Oxford, Half-year’s Salary 179 10 0
————————— 1377 3 4
EXPENDITURE.
Oct. 15 to Nov. 15. Self at Venice 150 0 0
Oct. 24. Burgess 42 0 0
Nov. 1. Raffaelle 15 0 0
” 7. Downs 25 0 0
” 11. Crawley 10 0 0
—————— 242 0 0
-----------
Balance, Nov. 15 £1135 3 4
III. I have lost the reference to a number of the ‘Monetary Gazette,’
of three or four weeks back, containing an excellent article on the
Bishop of Peterborough’s declaration, referred to in the text, that the
disputes between masters and men respecting wages were a question of
Political Economy, in which the clergy must remain ‘strictly neutral.’
Of the Bishop’s Christian spirit, in the adoption of his Master’s “Who
made me a divider?” rather than of the earthly wisdom of John the
Baptist, “Exact no more than that which is appointed you,” the exacting
public will not doubt. I must find out, however, accurately what the
Bishop did say; and then we will ask Little Bear’s opinion on the
matter. For indeed, in the years to come, I think it will be well that
nothing should be done without counsel of Ursula.
IV. The following is, I hope, the true translation of Job xxii. 24, 25.
I greatly thank my correspondent for it.
“Cast the brass to the dust, and the gold of Ophir to the rocks of the
brooks.
“So, will the Almighty be thy gold and thy shining silver. [114]
“Yes, then wilt thou rejoice in the Almighty and raise thy countenance
to God.”
V. The following letter from a Companion may fitly close the
correspondence for this year. I print it without suppression of any
part, believing it may encourage many of my helpers, as it does
myself:—
“My dear Master,—I have learnt a few facts about Humber keels. You know
you were interested in my little keel scholars, because their vessels
were so fine, and because they themselves were once simple bodies,
almost guiltless of reading and writing. And it seems as if even the
mud gives testimony to your words. So if you don’t mind the bother of
one of my tiresome letters, I’ll tell you all I know about them.
“The Humber keels are, in nearly all cases, the property of the men who
go in them. They are house and home to the keel family, who never live
on shore like other sailors. It is very easy work navigating the
rivers. There’s only the worry of loading and unloading,—and then their
voyages are full of leisure.
“Keelmen are rural sailors, passing for days and days between
cornfields and poppy banks, meadows and orchards, through low moist
lands, where skies are grand at sunrise and sunset.
“Now all this evidently makes a happy joyous life, and the smart
colours and decoration of the boats are signs of it. Shouldn’t you say
so? Well, then, independence, home, leisure and nature are right
conditions of life—and that’s a bit of St. George’s doctrine I’ve
verified nearly all by myself; and there are things I know about keel
folks besides, which quite warrant my conclusions. But to see these
very lowly craft stranded low on the mud at low tide, or squeezed in
among other ships—big and grimy things—in the docks, you would think
they were too low in the scale of shipping to have any pride or
pleasure in life; yet I really think they are little arks, dressed in
rainbows. Remember, please, Humber keels are quite different things to
barges of any kind. And now keels are off my mind—except that if I can
ever get anybody to paint me a gorgeous one, I shall send it to you.
“My dear Master, I have thought so often of the things you said about
yourself, in relation to St. George’s work; and I feel sure that you
are disheartened, and too anxious about it—that you have some sort of
feeling about not being sufficient for all of it. Forgive me, but it is
so painful to think that the Master is anxious about things which do
not need consideration. You said, I think, the good of you was, that
you collected teaching and laws for us. But is that just right? Think
of your first impulse and purpose. Was not that your commission? Be
true to it. To me it seems that the good of you (as you say it) is that
you have a heart to feel the sorrows of the world—that you have courage
and power to speak against injustice and falsehood, and more than all,
that you act out what you say. Everybody else seems asleep or
dead—wrapped up in their own comfort or satisfaction,—and utterly deaf
to any appeal. Do not think your work is less than it is, and let all
unworthy anxieties go. The work is God’s, if ever any work was, and He
will look after its success. Fitness or unfitness is no question, for
you are chosen. Mistakes do not matter. Much work does not matter. It
only really matters that the Master stays with us, true to first
appointment; that his hand guides all first beginnings of things, sets
the patterns for us,—and that we are loyal.
“Your affectionate servant.”