A poor relation is the most irrelevant thing in nature, a piece of
impertinent correspondency, an odious approximation, a haunting
conscience, a preposterous shadow, lengthening in the noontide of your
prosperity, an unwelcome remembrancer, a perpetually recurring
mortification, a drain on your purse, a more intolerable dun upon your
pride, a drawback upon success, a rebuke to your rising, a stain in
your blood, a blot on your scutcheon, a rent in your garment, a
death's-head at your banquet, Agathocles' pot, a Mordecai in your
gate, a Lazarus at your door, a lion in your path, a frog in your
chamber, a fly in your ointment, a mote in your eye, a triumph to your
enemy, an apology to your friends, the one thing not needful, the hail
in harvest, the ounce of sour in a pound of sweet.
He is known by his knock. Your heart telleth you, "That is Mr. ----."
A rap between familiarity and respect, that demands, and at the same
time seems to despair of entertainment. He entereth smiling and
embarrassed. He holdeth out his hand to you to shake, and draweth it
back again. He casually looketh in about dinnertime, when the table is
full. He offereth to go away, seeing you have company, but is induced
to stay. He filleth a chair, and your visitor's two children are
accommodated at a side-table.
He never cometh upon open days, when your wife says with some
complacency: "My dear, perhaps Mr. ---- will drop in to-day." He
remembereth birthdays, and professeth he is fortunate to have stumbled
upon one. He declareth against fish, the turbot being small, yet
suffereth himself to be importuned into a slice against his first
resolution. He sticketh by the port, yet will be prevailed up to empty
the remainder glass of claret, if a stranger press it upon him. He is
a puzzle to the servants, who are fearful of being too obsequious, or
not civil enough to him. The guests think "they have seen him before."
Every one speculateth upon his condition; and the most part take him
to be a tide-waiter. He calleth you by your Christian name, to imply
that his other is the same with your own. He is too familiar by half,
yet you wish he had less diffidence. With half the familiarity, he
might pass for a casual dependent; with more boldness, he would be in
no danger of being taken for what he is. He is too humble for a
friend, yet taketh on him more state than befits a client. He is a
worse guest than a country tenant, inasmuch as he bringeth up no rent;
yet 'tis odds, from his garb and demeanor, that your guests take him
for one. He is asked to make one at the whist-table; refuseth on the
score of poverty, and resents being left out. When the company break
up, he proferreth to go for a coach, and lets the servant go. He
recollects your grandfather; and will thrust in some mean and quite
unimportant anecdote of the family. He knew it when it was not quite
so flourishing as "he is blest in seeing it now." He reviveth past
situations, to institute what he calleth favorable comparisons. With
a reflecting sort of congratulation he will inquire the price of your
furniture; and insult you with a special commendation of your
window-curtains. He is of opinion that the urn is the more elegant
shape; but, after all, there was something more comfortable about the
old tea-kettle, which you must remember. He dare say you must find a
great convenience in having a carriage of your own, and appealeth to
your lady if it is not so. Inquireth if you have had your arms done on
vellum yet; and did not know till lately that such and such had been
the crest of the family. His memory is unseasonable, his compliments
perverse, his talk a trouble, his stay pertinacious; and when he goeth
away, you dismiss his chair into a corner as precipitately as
possible, and feel fairly rid of two nuisances.
There is a worse evil under the sun, and that is a female poor
relation. You may do something with the other; you may pass him off
tolerably well; but your indigent she-relative is hopeless. "He is an
old humorist," you may say, "and affects to go threadbare. His
circumstances are better than folks would take them to be. You are
fond of having a character at your table, and truly he is one." But in
the indications of female poverty there can be no disguise. No woman
dresses below herself from caprice. The truth must out without
shuffling. "She is plainly related to the L----s, or what does she at
their house?" She is, in all probability, your wife's cousin. Nine
times out of ten, at least, this is the case. Her garb is something
between a gentlewoman and a beggar, yet the former evidently
predominates. She is most provokingly humble, and ostentatiously
sensible to her inferiority. He may require to be represt
sometimes--_aliquando sufflaminandus erat_--but there is no raising
her. You send her soup at dinner, and she begs to be helped after the
gentlemen. Mr. ---- requests the honor of taking wine with her; she
hesitates between port and Madeira, and chooses the former because he
does. She calls the servant _sir_, and insists on not troubling him to
hold her plate. The housekeeper patronizes her. The children's
governess takes upon her to correct her when she has mistaken the
piano for a harpsichord.