THOUGH in one sense, our family was certainly a simple machine, as it
consisted of a few wheels; yet there was thus much to be said for it,
that these wheels were set in motion by so many different springs, and
acted one upon the other from such a variety of strange principles and
impulses——that though it was a simple machine, it had all the honour
and advantages of a complex one,——and a number of as odd movements
within it, as ever were beheld in the inside of a _Dutch_ silk-mill.
Amongst these there was one, I am going to speak of, in which, perhaps,
it was not altogether so singular, as in many others; and it was this,
that whatever motion, debate, harangue, dialogue, project, or
dissertation, was going forwards in the parlour, there was generally
another at the same time, and upon the same subject, running parallel
along with it in the kitchen.
Now to bring this about, whenever an extraordinary message, or letter,
was delivered in the parlour—or a discourse suspended till a servant
went out—or the lines of discontent were observed to hang upon the
brows of my father or mother—or, in short, when any thing was supposed
to be upon the tapis worth knowing or listening to, ’twas the rule to
leave the door, not absolutely shut, but somewhat a-jar—as it stands
just now,—which, under covert of the bad hinge, (and that possibly
might be one of the many reasons why it was never mended,) it was not
difficult to manage; by which means, in all these cases, a passage was
generally left, not indeed as wide as the _Dardanelles_, but wide
enough, for all that, to carry on as much of this windward trade, as
was sufficient to save my father the trouble of governing his house;—my
mother at this moment stands profiting by it.—_Obadiah_ did the same
thing, as soon as he had left the letter upon the table which brought
the news of my brother’s death, so that before my father had well got
over his surprise, and entered upon his harangue,—had _Trim_ got upon
his legs, to speak his sentiments upon the subject.
A curious observer of nature, had he been worth the inventory of all
_Job_’s stock—though by the bye, _your curious observers are seldom
worth a groat_—would have given the half of it, to have heard Corporal
_Trim_ and my father, two orators so contrasted by nature and
education, haranguing over the same bier.
My father—a man of deep reading—prompt memory—with _Cato_, and
_Seneca_, and _Epictetus_, at his fingers ends.—
The corporal—with nothing—to remember—of no deeper reading than his
muster-roll—or greater names at his fingers end, than the contents of
it.
The one proceeding from period to period, by metaphor and allusion, and
striking the fancy as he went along (as men of wit and fancy do) with
the entertainment and pleasantry of his pictures and images.
The other, without wit or antithesis, or point, or turn, this way or
that; but leaving the images on one side, and the picture on the other,
going straight forwards as nature could lead him, to the heart. O
_Trim!_ would to heaven thou had’st a better historian!—would!—thy
historian had a better pair of breeches!——O ye critics! will nothing
melt you?