exquisite essay written to prove the sufficiency of thirty pounds
a-year for all a man's daily wants and comforts--allowing at least
five shillings a quarter for the conversion of the Jews--and in which
every outlay is so nicely calculated, that it must be wilful
eccentricity if the pauper gentleman, at the end of the year, either
owes a shilling or has one. To say the least of it, this is close
shaving; and, as I detest experimental philosophy, I'd rather not try
it. At the same time, in this age of general glut, when all
professions are overstocked--when you might pave the Strand with
parsons' skulls, and thatch your barn with the surplus of the college
of physicians; when there are neither waste lands to till and give us
ague and typhus, nor war to thin us--what are we to do? The
subdivision of labour in every walk in life has been carried to its
utmost limits: if it takes nine tailors to make a man, it takes nine
men to make a needle. Even in the learned professions, as they are
called, this system is carried out; and as you have a lawyer for
equity, another for the Common Pleas, a third for the Old Bailey, &c.,
so your doctor, now-a-days, has split up his art, and one man takes
charge of your teeth, another has the eye department, another the ear,
a fourth looks after your corns; so that, in fact, the complex
machinery of your structure strikes you as admirably adapted to give
employment to an ingenious and anxious population, who, until our
present civilization, never dreamed of morselling out mankind for
their benefit.
As to commerce, our late experiences have chiefly pointed to the
pleasure of trading with nations who will not pay their debts,--like
the Yankees. There is, then, little encouragement in that quarter.
What then remains I scarcely know. The United Services are pleasant,
but poor things by way of a provision for life. Coach-driving, that
admirable refuge for the destitute, has been smashed by the railroads;
and there is a kind of prejudice against a man of family sweeping the
crossings. For my own part, I lean to something dignified and
respectable--something that does not compromise "the cloth," and
which, without being absolutely a sinecure, never exacts any undue or
extraordinary exertion,--driving a hearse, for instance: even this,
however, is greatly run upon; and the cholera, at its departure, threw
very many out of employment. However, the question is, what can a man
of small means do with his son? Short whist is a very snug thing--if a
man have natural gifts,--that happy conformation of the fingers, that
ample range of vision, that takes in everything around. But I must
not suppose these by any means general--and I legislate for the mass.
The turf has also the same difficulties,--so has toad-eating; indeed
these three walks might be included among the learned professions.
As to railroads, I'm sick of hearing of them for the last three years.
Every family in the empire has at least one civil engineer within its
precincts; and I'm confident, if their sides were as hard as their
skulls, you could make sleepers for the whole Grand Junction by merely
decimating the unemployed.
Tax-collecting does, to be sure, offer some little prospect; but that
won't last. Indeed, the very working of the process will limit the
advantages of this opening,--gradually converting all the payers into
paupers. Now I have meditated long and anxiously on the subject,
conversing with others whose opportunities of knowing the world were
considerable, but never could I find that ingenuity opened any new
path, without its being so instantaneously overstocked that
competition alone denied every chance of success.
One man of original genius I did, indeed, come upon, and his career
had been eminently successful. He was a Belgian physician, who, having
in vain attempted all the ordinary modes of obtaining practice,
collected together the little residue of his fortune, and sailed for
Barbadoes, where he struck out for himself the following singularly
new and original plan:--He purchased all the disabled, sick, and
ailing negroes that he could find; every poor fellow whose case seemed
past hope, but yet to his critical eye was still curable, these he
bought up; they were, of course, dead bargains. The masters were
delighted to get rid of them--they were actually "eating their heads
off;" but the doctor knew, that though they looked somewhat "groggy,"
still there was a "go" in them yet.
By care, skill, and good management, they recovered under his hands,
and frequently were re-sold to the original proprietor, who was
totally unconscious that the sleek and shining nigger before him had
been the poor, decrepid, sickly creature of some weeks before.
The humanity of this proceeding is self-evident: a word need not be
said more on that subject. But it was no less profitable than
merciful. The originator of the plan retired from business with a
large fortune, amassed, too, in an inconceivably short space of time.
The shrewdest proprietor of a fast coach never could throw a more
critical eye over a new wheeler or a broken-down leader, than did he
on the object of his professional skill; detecting at a glance the
extent of his ailments, and calculating, with a Babbage-like accuracy,
the cost of keep, physic, and attendance, and setting them off, in his
mind, against the probable price of the sound man. What consummate
skill was here! Not merely, like Brodie or Crampton, anticipating the
possible recovery of the patient, but estimating the extent of the
restoration--the time it would take--ay, the very number of basins of
chicken-broth and barley-gruel that he would devour, _ad interim_.
This was the cleverest physician I ever knew. The present altered
condition of West Indian property has, however, closed this opening to
fortune, in which, after all, nothing short of first-rate ability
could have ensured success.
I have just read over the preceding "nut" to my old friend, Mr.
Synnet, of Mulloglass, whose deep knowledge of the world makes him no
mean critic on such a subject. His words are these:--
"There is some truth in what you remark--the world is too full of us.
There is, however, a very nice walk in life much neglected."
"And what may that be?" said I, eagerly.
"The mortgagee," replied he, sententiously.
"I don't perfectly comprehend."
"Well, well! what I mean is this: suppose, now, you have only a couple
of thousand pounds to leave your son--maybe, you have not more than a
single thousand--now, my advice is, not to squander your fortune in
any such absurdity as a learned profession, a commission in the Line,
or any other miserable existence, but just look about you, in the west
of Ireland, for the fellow that has the best house, the best cellar,
the best cook, and the best stable. He is sure to want money, and will
be delighted to get a loan. Lend it to him: make hard terms, of
course. For this--as you are never to be paid--the obligation of your
forbearance will be the greater. Now, mark me, from the day the deed
is signed, you have snug quarters in Galway, not only in your friend's
house, but among all his relations--Blakes, Burkes, Bodkins, Kirwans,
&c., to no end; you have the run of the whole concern--the best of
living, great drink, and hunting in abundance. You must talk of the
loan now and then, just to jog their memory; but be always 'too much
the gentleman' to ask for your money; and it will even go hard, but
from sheer popularity, they will make you member for the county. This
is the only new thing, in the way of a career, I know of, and I have
great pleasure in throwing out the suggestion for the benefit of
younger sons."
A NUT FOR THE PENAL CODE.
It has often struck me that the monotony of occupation is a heavier
infliction than the monotony of reflection. The same dull round of
duty, which while it demands a certain amount of labour, excludes all
opportunity of thought, making man no better than the piston of a
steam-engine, is a very frightful and debasing process. Whereas,
however much there may be of suffering in solitude, our minds are not
imprisoned; our thoughts, unchained and unfettered, stroll far away to
pleasant pasturages; we cross the broad blue sea, and tread the ferny
mountain-side, and live once more the sunny hours of boyhood; or we
build up in imagination a peaceful and happy future.
That the power of fancy and the play of genius are not interrupted by
the still solitude of the prison, I need only quote Cervantes, whose
immortal work was accomplished during the tedious hours of a
captivity, unrelieved by one office of friendship, uncheered by one
solitary ray of hope.
Taking this view of the matter, it will be at once perceived how much
more severe a penalty solitary confinement must be, to the man of
narrow mind and limited resources of thought, than to him of
cultivated understanding and wider range of mental exercise. In the
one case, it is a punishment of the most terrific kind--and nothing
can equal that awful lethargy of the soul, that wraps a man as in a
garment, shrouding him from the bright world without, and leaving him
nought save the darkness of his gloomy nature to brood over. In the
other, there is something soothing amid all the melancholy of the
state, in the unbroken soaring of thought, that, lifting man above the
cares and collisions of daily life, bear him far away to the rich
paradise of his mind-made treasures--peopling space with images of
beauty--and leave him to dream away existence amid the scenes and
features he loved to gaze on.
Now, to turn for the moment from this picture, let us consider whether
our government is wise in this universal application of a punishment,
which, while it operates so severely in one case, may really be
regarded as a boon in the other.
The healthy peasant, who rises with the sun, and breathes the free air
of his native hills, may and will feel all the infliction of
confinement, which, while it chains his limbs, stagnates his
faculties. Not so the sedentary and solitary man of letters. Your cell
becomes _his_ study: the window may be somewhat narrower--the lattice,
that was wont to open to the climbing honeysuckle, may now be barred
with its iron stanchions; but he soon forgets this. "His mind to him a
palace is," wherein he dwells at peace. Now, to put them on something
of a par, I have a suggestion to make to the legislature, which I
shall condense as briefly as possible. Never sentence your man of
education, whatever his offence, to solitary confinement; but condemn
him to dine out, in Dublin, for seven or fourteen years--or, in murder
cases, for the term of his natural life. For slight offences, a week's
dinners, and a few evening parties might be sufficient--while old
offenders and bad cases, might be sent to the north side of the city.
It may be objected to this--that insanity, which so often occurs in
the one case, would supervene in the other; but I rather think not. My
own experience could show many elderly people of both sexes, long
inured to this state, who have only fallen into a sullen and apathetic
fatuity; but who, bating deafness and a look of dogged stupidity, are
still reasoning beings--what they once were, it is hard to say.
But I take the man who, for some infraction of the law, is suddenly
carried away from his home and friends--the man of mind, of reading,
and reflection. Imagine him, day after day, beholding the everlasting
saddle of mutton--the eternal three chickens, with the tongue in the
midst of them; the same travesty of French cookery that pervades the
side-dishes--the hot sherry, the sour Moselle: think of him, eating
out his days through these, unchanged, unchangeable--with the same
_cortege_ of lawyers and lawyers' wives--doctors, male and
female--surgeons, subalterns, and, mayhap, attorneys: think of the old
jokes he has been hearing from childhood still ringing in his ears,
accompanied by the same laugh which he has tracked from its burst in
boyhood to its last cackle in dotage: behold him, as he sits amid the
same young ladies, in pink and blue, and the same elderly ones, in
scarlet and purple; see him, as he watches every sign and pass-word
that have marked these dinners for the long term of his sentence, and
say if his punishment be not indeed severe.
Then think how edifying the very example of his suffering, as, with
pale cheek and lustreless eye--silent, sad, and lonely--he sits there!
How powerfully such a warning must speak to others, who, from accident
or misfortune, may be momentarily thrown in his society.
The suggestion, I own, will demand a much more ample detail, and
considerable modification. Among other precautions, for instance, more
than one convict should not be admitted to any table, lest they might
fraternize together, and become independent of the company in mutual
intercourse, &c.
These may all, however, be carefully considered hereafter: the
principle is the only thing I would insist on for the present, and now
leave the matter in the hands of our rulers.
A NUT FOR THE OLD.
Of all the virtues which grace and adorn the inhabitants of these
islands, I know of none which can in anywise be compared with the deep
and profound veneration we show to old age. Not content with paying it
that deference and respect so essentially its due, we go even further,
and by a courteous adulation would impose upon it the notion, that
years have not detracted from the gifts which were so conspicuous in
youth, and that the winter of life is as full of promise and
performance, as the most budding hours of spring-time.
Walk through the halls of Greenwich and Chelsea--or, if the excursion
be too far for you, as a Dubliner, stroll down to the Old Man's
Hospital, and cast your eyes on those venerable "fogies," as they are
sometimes irreverently called, and look with what a critical and
studious politeness the state has invested every detail of their daily
life. Not fed, housed, or clothed like the "debris" of humanity, to
whom the mere necessaries of existence were meted out, but actually a
species of flattering illusion is woven around them. They are dressed
in a uniform; wear a strange, quaint military costume; are officered
and inspected like soldiers; mount guard; answer roll-call, and mess
as of yore.
They are permitted, from time to time, to clean and burnish pieces of
ordnance, old, time-worn, and useless as themselves, and are marched
certain short and suitable distances to and from their dining-hall,
with all the "pride, pomp, and circumstance of glorious war." I like
all this. There is something of good and kindly feeling in
perpetuating the delusion that has lasted for so many years of life,
and making the very resting-place of their meritorious services recall
to them the details of those duties, for the performance of which they
have reaped their country's gratitude.
The same amiable feeling, the same grateful spirit of respect, would
seem, from time to time, to actuate the different governments that
wield our destinies, in their promotions to the upper house.
Some old, feeble, partizan of the ministry, who has worn himself to a
skeleton by late sittings; dried, like a potted herring, by committee
labour; hoarse with fifty years' cheering of his party, and deaf from
the cries of "divide" and "adjourn" that have been ringing in his ears
for the last cycle of his existence, is selected for promotion to the
peerage. He was eloquent in his day, too, perhaps; but that day is
gone by. His speech upon a great question was once a momentous event,
but now his vote is mumbled in tones scarce audible.--Gratefully
mindful of his "has been," his party provide him with an asylum,
where the residue of his days may be passed in peace and pleasantness.
Careful not to break the spell that has bound him to life, they
surround him with some semblance of his former state, suited in all
respects to his age, his decrepitude, and his debility; they pour
water upon the leaves of his politics, and give him a weak and
pleasant beverage, that can never irritate his nerves, nor destroy his
slumbers. Some insignificant bills--some unimportant appeals--some
stray fragments that fall from the tables of sturdier politicians, are
his daily diet; and he dozes away the remainder of life, happy and
contented in the simple and beautiful delusion that he is legislating
and ruling--just as warrantable the while, as his compeer of Chelsea,
in deeming his mock parades the forced marches of the Peninsula, and
his Sunday guards the dispositions for a Toulouse or a Waterloo.
A NUT FOR THE ART UNION.
The battle between the "big and little-endians" in Gulliver, was
nothing to the fight between the Destructives and Conservatives of the
Irish Art Union. A few months since the former party deciding that the
engraved plate of Mr. Burton's picture should be broken up; the latter
protesting against the Vandalism of destroying a first-rate work of
art, and preventing the full triumph of the artist's genius, in the
circulation of a print so creditable to himself and to his country.
The great argument of the Destructives was this:--We are the devoted
friends of art--we love it--we glory in it--we cherish it: yea, we
even give a guinea a-year a-piece for the encouragement of a society
established for its protection and promotion;--this society pledging
themselves that we shall have in return--what think ye?--the immortal
honour of raising a school of painting in our native country?--the
conscientious sense of a high-souled patriotism?--the prospect of
future estimation at the hands of a posterity who are to benefit by
our labours? Not at all: nothing of all this. We are far too great
materialists for such shadowy pleasures; we are to receive a plate,
whose value is in the direct ratio of its rarity, "which shall
certainly be of more than the amount of our subscription," and, maybe,
of five times that sum. The fewer the copies issued, the rarer (_i.
e._, the dearer) each impression. We are the friends of
art--therefore, we say, smash the copper-plate, destroy every vestige
of the graver's art, we are supplied, and heaven knows to what price
these engravings may not subsequently rise!
[Illustration: "This is a Rembrandt."]
Now, I like these people. There is something bold, something masterly,
something decided, in their coming forward and fighting the battle on
its true grounds. There is no absurd affectation about the circulation
of a clever picture disseminating in remote and scarce-visited
districts the knowledge of a great man and a great work; there is no
prosy nonsense about encouraging the genius of our own country, and
showing with pride to her prouder sister, that we are not unworthy to
contend in the race with her. Nothing of this.--They resolve
themselves, by an open and candid admission, into a committee of
printsellers, and they cry with one voice--"No free trade in 'The
Blind Girl'--no sliding scale--no fixed duty--nothing save absolute,
actual prohibition!" It is with pride I confess myself of this party:
perish art! down with painting! to the ground with every effort of
native genius! but keep up the price of our engraving, which, with the
rapid development of Mr. Burton's talent, may yet reach ten, nay,
twenty guineas for an impression. But in the midst of my enthusiasm, a
still small voice of fear is whispering ever:--Mayhap this gifted man
may live to eclipse the triumphs of his youthful genius: it may be,
that, as he advances in life, his talents, matured by study and
cultivation, may ascend to still higher flights, and this, his early
work, be merely the beacon-light that attracted men in the outset of
his career, and only be esteemed as the first throes of his intellect.
What is to be done in this case? It is true we have suppressed "The
Blind Girl;" we have smashed _that_ plate; but how shall we prevent
him from prosecuting those studies that already are leading him to the
first rank of his profession? Disgust at our treatment may do much;
but yet, his mission may suggest higher thoughts than are assailable
by us and our measures. I fear, now, that but one course is open; and
it is with sorrow I confess, that, however indisposed to the shedding
of blood, however unsuited by my nature and habits to murderous deeds,
I see nothing for us but--to smash Mr. Burton.
By accepting this suggestion, not only will the engravings, but the
picture itself, attain an increased value. If dead men are not
novelists, neither are they painters; and Mr. Burton, it is expected,
will prove no exception to the rule. Get rid of him, then, at once,
and by all means. Let this resolution be brought forward at the next
general meeting, by any leader of the Destructive party, and I pledge
myself to second and defend it, by every argument, used with such
force and eloquence for the destruction of the copper-plate. I am sure
the talented gentleman himself will, when he is put in possession of
our motives, offer no opposition to so natural a desire on our part,
but will afford every facility in his power for being, as the war-cry
of the party has it, "broken up and destroyed."
[Illustration]
A NUT FOR THE KINGSTOWN RAILWAY.
If the wise Calif who studied mankind by sitting on the bridge at
Bagdad, had lived in our country, and in our times, he doubtless would
have become a subscriber to the Kingstown railway. There, for the
moderate sum of some ten or twelve pounds per annum, he might have
indulged his peculiar vein, while wafted pleasantly through the air,
and obtained a greater insight into character and individuality,
inasmuch as the objects of his investigation would be all sitting
shots, at least for half an hour. Segur's "Quatre Ages de la Vie"
never marked out mankind like the half-hour trains. To the uninitiated
and careless observer, the company would appear a mixed and
heterogeneous mass of old and young, of both sexes--some sickly, some
sulky, some solemn, and some shy. Classification of them would be
deemed impossible. Not so, however; for, as to the ignorant the
section of a mountain would only present some confused heap of stone
and gravel, clay and marl; to the geologist, strata of divers kinds,
layers of various ages, would appear, all indicative of features, and
teeming with interests, of which the other knew nothing: so, to the
studious observer, this seeming commixture of men, this tangled web of
humanity, unravels itself before him, and he reads them with pleasure
and with profit.
So thoroughly distinctive are the classes, as marked out by the hour
of the day, that very little experience would enable the student to
pronounce upon the travellers--while so striking are the features of
each class, that "given one second-class traveller, to find out the
contents of a train," would be the simplest problem in algebra. As for
myself, I never work the equation: the same instinct that enabled
Cuvier, when looking at a broken molar tooth, to pronounce upon the
habits, the size, the mode of life and private opinions of some
antediluvian mammoth, enables me at a glance to say--"This is the
apothecaries' train--here we are with the Sandycoves."
You are an early riser--some pleasant proverb about getting a worm for
breakfast, instilled into you in childhood, doubtless inciting you:
and you hasten down to the station, just in time to be too late for
the eight o'clock train to Dublin. This is provoking; inasmuch as no
scrutiny has ever enabled any traveller to pry into the habits and
peculiarities of the early voyager. Well, you lounge about till the
half-after, and then the _conveniency_ snorts by, whisks round at the
end, takes a breathing canter alone for a few hundred yards, and comes
back with a grunt, to resume its old drudgery. A general scramble for
places ensues--doors bang--windows are shut and opened--a bell
rings--and, snort! snort! ugh, ugh, away you go. Now--would you
believe it?--every man about you, whatever be his age, his size, his
features, or complexion, has a little dirty blue bag upon his knees,
filled with something. They all know each other--grin, smile, smirk,
but don't shake hands--a polite reciprocity--as they are none of the
cleanest: cut little dry jokes about places and people unknown, and
mix strange phrases here and there through the dialogue, about
"_demurrers_ and _declarations_, traversing _in prox_ and _quo
warranto_." You perceive it at once--it is very dreadful; but they are
all attorneys. The ways of Providence are, however, inscrutable; and
you arrive in safety in Dublin.
Now, I am not about to take you back; for at this hour of the morning
you have nothing to reward your curiosity. But, with your leave, we'll
start from Kingstown again at nine. Here comes a fresh, jovial-looking
set of fellows. They have bushy whiskers, and geraniums in the
button-hole of their coats. They are traders of various sorts--men of
sugar, soap, and sassafras--Macintoshes, molasses, mouse-traps--train-oil
and tabinets. They have, however, half an acre of agricultural
absurdity, divided into meadow and tillage, near the harbour, and they
talk bucolic all the way. Blindfold them all, and set them loose, and
you will catch them groping their way down Dame-street in half an
hour.
91/2.--The housekeepers' train. Fat, middle-aged women, with cotton
umbrellas--black stockings with blue _fuz_ on them; meek-looking men,
officiating as husbands, and an occasional small child, in plaid and
the small-pox.