Last night, between eleven and twelve o’clock, when the Old Year was
leaving her final footprints on the borders of Time’s empire, she found
herself in possession of a few spare moments, and sat down—of all
places in the world—on the steps of our new city-hall. The wintry
moonlight showed that she looked weary of body and sad of heart, like
many another wayfarer of earth. Her garments, having been exposed to
much foul weather and rough usage, were in very ill condition, and, as
the hurry of her journey had never before allowed her to take an
instant’s rest, her shoes were so worn as to be scarcely worth the
mending. But after trudging only a little distance farther this poor
Old Year was destined to enjoy a long, long sleep. I forgot to mention
that when she seated herself on the steps she deposited by her side a
very capacious bandbox in which, as is the custom among travellers of
her sex, she carried a great deal of valuable property. Besides this
luggage, there was a folio book under her arm very much resembling the
annual volume of a newspaper. Placing this volume across her knees and
resting her elbows upon it, with her forehead in her hands, the weary,
bedraggled, world-worn Old Year heaved a heavy sigh and appeared to be
taking no very pleasant retrospect of her past existence.
While she thus awaited the midnight knell that was to summon her to the
innumerable sisterhood of departed years, there came a young maiden
treading lightsomely on tip-toe along the street from the direction of
the railroad dépôt. She was evidently a stranger, and perhaps had come
to town by the evening train of cars. There was a smiling cheerfulness
in this fair maiden’s face which bespoke her fully confident of a kind
reception from the multitude of people with whom she was soon to form
acquaintance. Her dress was rather too airy for the season, and was
bedizened with fluttering ribbons and other vanities which were likely
soon to be rent away by the fierce storms or to fade in the hot
sunshine amid which she was to pursue her changeful course. But still
she was a wonderfully pleasant-looking figure, and had so much promise
and such an indescribable hopefulness in her aspect that hardly anybody
could meet her without anticipating some very desirable thing—the
consummation of some long-sought good—from her kind offices. A few
dismal characters there may be here and there about the world who have
so often been trifled with by young maidens as promising as she that
they have now ceased to pin any faith upon the skirts of the New Year.
But, for my own part, I have great faith in her, and, should I live to
see fifty more such, still from each of those successive sisters I
shall reckon upon receiving something that will be worth living for.
The New Year—for this young maiden was no less a personage—carried all
her goods and chattels in a basket of no great size or weight, which
hung upon her arm. She greeted the disconsolate Old Year with great
affection, and sat down beside her on the steps of the city-hall,
waiting for the signal to begin her rambles through the world. The two
were own sisters, being both granddaughters of Time, and, though one
looked so much older than the other, it was rather owing to hardships
and trouble than to age, since there was but a twelvemonth’s difference
between them.
“Well, my dear sister,” said the New Year, after the first salutations,
“you look almost tired to death. What have you been about during your
sojourn in this part of infinite space?”
“Oh, I have it all recorded here in my book of chronicles,” answered
the Old Year, in a heavy tone. “There is nothing that would amuse you,
and you will soon get sufficient knowledge of such matters from your
own personal experience. It is but tiresome reading.”
Nevertheless, she turned over the leaves of the folio and glanced at
them by the light of the moon, feeling an irresistible spell of
interest in her own biography, although its incidents were remembered
without pleasure. The volume, though she termed it her book of
chronicles, seemed to be neither more nor less than the Salem _Gazette_
for 1838; in the accuracy of which journal this sagacious Old Year had
so much confidence that she deemed it needless to record her history
with her own pen.
“What have you been doing in the political way?” asked the New Year.
“Why, my course here in the United States,” said the Old Year—“though
perhaps I ought to blush at the confession—my political course, I must
acknowledge, has been rather vacillatory, sometimes inclining toward
the Whigs, then causing the administration party to shout for triumph,
and now again uplifting what seemed the almost prostrate banner of the
opposition; so that historians will hardly know what to make of me in
this respect. But the Loco-Focos—”
“I do not like these party nicknames,” interrupted her sister, who
seemed remarkably touchy about some points. “Perhaps we shall part in
better humor if we avoid any political discussion.”
“With all my heart,” replied the Old Year, who had already been
tormented half to death with squabbles of this kind. “I care not if the
name of Whig or Tory, with their interminable brawls about banks and
the sub-treasury, abolition, Texas, the Florida war, and a million of
other topics which you will learn soon enough for your own comfort,—I
care not, I say, if no whisper of these matters ever reaches my ears
again. Yet they have occupied so large a share of my attention that I
scarcely know what else to tell you. There has, indeed been a curious
sort of war on the Canada border, where blood has streamed in the names
of liberty and patriotism; but it must remain for some future, perhaps
far-distant, year to tell whether or no those holy names have been
rightfully invoked. Nothing so much depresses me in my view of mortal
affairs as to see high energies wasted and human life and happiness
thrown away for ends that appear oftentimes unwise, and still oftener
remain unaccomplished. But the wisest people and the best keep a
steadfast faith that the progress of mankind is onward and upward, and
that the toil and anguish of the path serve to wear away the
imperfections of the immortal pilgrim, and will be felt no more when
they have done their office.”
“Perhaps,” cried the hopeful New Year—“perhaps I shall see that happy
day.”
“I doubt whether it be so close at hand,” answered the Old Year,
gravely smiling. “You will soon grow weary of looking for that blessed
consummation, and will turn for amusement—as has frequently been my own
practice—to the affairs of some sober little city like this of Salem.
Here we sit on the steps of the new city-hall which has been completed
under my administration, and it would make you laugh to see how the
game of politics of which the Capitol at Washington is the great
chess-board is here played in miniature. Burning Ambition finds its
fuel here; here patriotism speaks boldly in the people’s behalf and
virtuous economy demands retrenchment in the emoluments of a
lamplighter; here the aldermen range their senatorial dignity around
the mayor’s chair of state and the common council feel that they have
liberty in charge. In short, human weakness and strength, passion and
policy, man’s tendencies, his aims and modes of pursuing them, his
individual character and his character in the mass, may be studied
almost as well here as on the theatre of nations, and with this great
advantage—that, be the lesson ever so disastrous, its Liliputian scope
still makes the beholder smile.”
“Have you done much for the improvement of the city?” asked the New
Year. “Judging from what little I have seen, it appears to be ancient
and time-worn.”
“I have opened the railroad,” said the elder Year, “and half a dozen
times a day you will hear the bell which once summoned the monks of a
Spanish convent to their devotions announcing the arrival or departure
of the cars. Old Salem now wears a much livelier expression than when I
first beheld her. Strangers rumble down from Boston by hundreds at a
time. New faces throng in Essex street. Railroad-hacks and omnibuses
rattle over the pavements. There is a perceptible increase of
oyster-shops and other establishments for the accommodation of a
transitory diurnal multitude. But a more important change awaits the
venerable town. An immense accumulation of musty prejudices will be
carried off by the free circulation of society. A peculiarity of
character of which the inhabitants themselves are hardly sensible will
be rubbed down and worn away by the attrition of foreign substances.
Much of the result will be good; there will likewise be a few things
not so good. Whether for better or worse, there will be a probable
diminution of the moral influence of wealth, and the sway of an
aristocratic class which from an era far beyond my memory has held
firmer dominion here than in any other New England town.”
The Old Year, having talked away nearly all of her little remaining
breath, now closed her book of chronicles, and was about to take her
departure, but her sister detained her a while longer by inquiring the
contents of the huge bandbox which she was so painfully lugging along
with her.
“These are merely a few trifles,” replied the Old Year, “which I have
picked up in my rambles and am going to deposit in the receptacle of
things past and forgotten. We sisterhood of years never carry anything
really valuable out of the world with us. Here are patterns of most of
the fashions which I brought into vogue, and which have already lived
out their allotted term; you will supply their place with others
equally ephemeral. Here, put up in little china pots, like rouge, is a
considerable lot of beautiful women’s bloom which the disconsolate fair
ones owe me a bitter grudge for stealing. I have likewise a quantity of
men’s dark hair, instead of which I have left gray locks or none at
all. The tears of widows and other afflicted mortals who have received
comfort during the last twelve months are preserved in some dozens of
essence-bottles well corked and sealed. I have several bundles of
love-letters eloquently breathing an eternity of burning passion which
grew cold and perished almost before the ink was dry. Moreover, here is
an assortment of many thousand broken promises and other broken ware,
all very light and packed into little space. The heaviest articles in
my possession are a large parcel of disappointed hopes which a little
while ago were buoyant enough to have inflated Mr. Lauriat’s balloon.”
“I have a fine lot of hopes here in my basket,” remarked the New Year.
“They are a sweet-smelling flower—a species of rose.”
“They soon lose their perfume,” replied the sombre Old Year. “What else
have you brought to insure a welcome from the discontented race of
mortals?”
“Why, to say the truth, little or nothing else,” said her sister, with
a smile, “save a few new _Annuals_ and almanacs, and some New Year’s
gifts for the children. But I heartily wish well to poor mortals, and
mean to do all I can for their improvement and happiness.”
“It is a good resolution,” rejoined the Old Year. “And, by the way, I
have a plentiful assortment of good resolutions which have now grown so
stale and musty that I am ashamed to carry them any farther. Only for
fear that the city authorities would send Constable Mansfield with a
warrant after me, I should toss them into the street at once. Many
other matters go to make up the contents of my bandbox, but the whole
lot would not fetch a single bid even at an auction of worn-out
furniture; and as they are worth nothing either to you or anybody else,
I need not trouble you with a longer catalogue.”
“And must I also pick up such worthless luggage in my travels?” asked
the New Year.
“Most certainly, and well if you have no heavier load to bear,” replied
the other. “And now, my dear sister, I must bid you farewell, earnestly
advising and exhorting you to expect no gratitude nor good-will from
this peevish, unreasonable, inconsiderate, ill-intending and
worse-behaving world. However warmly its inhabitants may seem to
welcome you, yet, do what you may and lavish on them what means of
happiness you please, they will still be complaining, still craving
what it is not in your power to give, still looking forward to some
other year for the accomplishment of projects which ought never to have
been formed, and which, if successful, would only provide new occasions
of discontent. If these ridiculous people ever see anything tolerable
in you, it will be after you are gone for ever.”
“But I,” cried the fresh-hearted New Year—“I shall try to leave men
wiser than I find them. I will offer them freely whatever good gifts
Providence permits me to distribute, and will tell them to be thankful
for what they have and humbly hopeful for more; and surely, if they are
not absolute fools, they will condescend to be happy, and will allow me
to be a happy year. For my happiness must depend on them.”
“Alas for you, then, my poor sister!” said the Old Year, sighing, as
she uplifted her burden. “We grandchildren of Time are born to trouble.
Happiness, they say, dwells in the mansions of eternity, but we can
only lead mortals thither step by step with reluctant murmurings, and
ourselves must perish on the threshold. But hark! my task is done.”
The clock in the tall steeple of Dr. Emerson’s church struck twelve;
there was a response from Dr. Flint’s, in the opposite quarter of the
city; and while the strokes were yet dropping into the air the Old Year
either flitted or faded away, and not the wisdom and might of angels,
to say nothing of the remorseful yearnings of the millions who had used
her ill, could have prevailed with that departed year to return one
step. But she, in the company of Time and all her kindred, must
hereafter hold a reckoning with mankind. So shall it be, likewise, with
the maidenly New Year, who, as the clock ceased to strike, arose from
the steps of the city-hall and set out rather timorously on her earthly
course.
“A happy New Year!” cried a watchman, eying her figure very
questionably, but without the least suspicion that he was addressing
the New Year in person.
“Thank you kindly,” said the New Year; and she gave the watchman one of
the roses of hope from her basket. “May this flower keep a sweet smell
long after I have bidden you good-bye!”
Then she stepped on more briskly through the silent streets, and such
as were awake at the moment heard her footfall and said, “The New Year
is come!” Wherever there was a knot of midnight roisterers, they
quaffed her health. She sighed, however, to perceive that the air was
tainted—as the atmosphere of this world must continually be—with the
dying breaths of mortals who had lingered just long enough for her to
bury them. But there were millions left alive to rejoice at her coming,
and so she pursued her way with confidence, strewing emblematic flowers
on the doorstep of almost every dwelling, which some persons will
gather up and wear in their bosoms, and others will trample under foot.
The carrier-boy can only say further that early this morning she filled
his basket with New Year’s addresses, assuring him that the whole city,
with our new mayor and the aldermen and common council at its head,
would make a general rush to secure copies. Kind patrons, will not you
redeem the pledge of the New Year?