My pleasant task approaches to its pleasant close; for it is pleasant to
approach the close of _any_ task--even a pleasant one. The beautiful
Spring is almost forgotten in the anticipation of that which is to come.
The bright Summer is no more thought of, than is the glow of the morning
sunshine at night-fall. The rich Autumn only just lingers on the memory,
as the last red rays of its evenings do when they have but just quitted
the eye. And Winter is once more closing his cloud-canopy over all
things, and breathing forth that sleep-compelling breath which is to
wrap all in a temporary oblivion, no less essential to their healthful
existence than is the active vitality which it for a while supersedes.
Of the mere external appearances and operations of Nature I shall have
comparatively little to say in connexion with this month, because many
of the former have been anticipated in January, while the latter is for
the most part a negation throughout the whole realms of animate as well
as inanimate nature.
The Meadows are still green--almost as green as in the Spring, with the
late-sprouted grass that the last rains have called up, since it has
been fed off, and the Cattle called home to enjoy their winter fodder.
The Corn-fields, too, are bright with their delicate sprinkling of young
autumn-sown Wheat; the ground about the Hedge-rows, and in the young
Copses, is still pleasant to look upon, from the sobered green of the
hardy Primrose and Violet, whose clumps of unfading leaves brave the
utmost rigour of the season; and every here and there a bush of Holly
darts up its pyramid of shining leaves and brilliant berries, from
amidst the late wild and wandering, but now faded and forlorn company of
Woodbines and Eglantines, which have all the rest of the year been
exulting over and almost hiding it, with their quick-growing branches
and flaunting flowers. The Evergreens, too, that assist in forming the
home enclosures, have altogether lost that sombre hue which they have
until lately worn--sombre in comparison with the bright freshness of
Spring and the splendid variety of Autumn; and now, that not a leaf is
left around them, they look as gay by the contrast as they lately looked
grave.
Now, the high-piled Turnip cart is seen labouring along the narrow
lanes, or stands ready with its white load in the open field, waiting to
be borne to the expectant Cattle that are safely stalled and sheltered
for the season; while, for the few that are still permitted to remain at
the mercy of the inclement skies, and to make their unwholesome bed upon
the drenched earth, the moveable Hay-rack is daily filled with its
fragrant store, and the open shed but poorly supplies the place of the
warm and well-roofed stalls of the Straw-yard.
Now, too, some of the younger members of the herd (for the old ones know
by experience that it is not worth the trouble), seeing the tempting
green of the next field through the leafless Hedge-rows, break their way
through, and find the fare as bitter and as scanty as that which they
have left.
Now, the Hazels throw out their husky blossoms from their bare
branches,--looking, as they hang straight down, like a dark rain
arrested in its descent; and the Furze flings out its bright yellow
flowers upon the otherwise bare common, like little gleams of sunshine;
and the Moles ply their mischievous night-work in the dry meadows; and
the green Plover "whistles o'er the lea;" and the Snipes haunt the
marshy grounds; and the Wag-tails twinkle about near the spring-heads;
and the Larks get together in companies, and talk to each other, instead
of singing to themselves; and the Thrush occasionally puts forth a
plaintive note, as if half afraid of the sound of his own voice; and the
Hedge-sparrow and Titmouse try to sing; and the Robin does sing still,
even more delightfully than he has done during all the rest of the year,
because it now seems as if he sang for us rather than for himself--or
rather _to_ us, for it is still for his supper that he sings, and
therefore for himself.
There is no place so desolate as the Orchard this month; for none of the
fruit-trees have any beauty _as trees_, at their best; and now, they
have not a leaf left to cover their unsightly nakedness.
Not so with the Kitchen Garden; _that_, if it has been duly attended to,
is full of interest this month,--especially by comparison with the
scenes of decay and barrenness by which it is surrounded. The Fruit
Trees on the walls are all nailed out with the most scrupulous
regularity; and by them, as much as by any thing else, may you now judge
of the skill and assiduity of your gardener. Indeed this is of all
others the month in which _his_ merits are put to the test, and in which
they often seem to vie with those of Nature herself. Anybody may have a
handsome garden from May to September; but only those who deserve one
can have it from September to May. Now, then, the walls are all covered
with their wide-spread fruit fans; the Celery beds stretch out their
unbroken lines of fresh-looking green; the late-planted Lettuces look
trim and erect upon the sheltered borders where they are to stand the
Winter, and be ready, not to open, but to shut up their young hearts at
the first warm breath of Spring; the green strings of autumn-sown Peas
scarcely lift their tender downward-turning stems above the dark soil;
the hardy Endives spread out their now full-grown heads of fantastically
curled leaves, or stand tied up from the sun and air, doing the penance
necessary to acquire for them that agreeable state of unhealthiness
without which (like modern fine ladies who contrive to blanch
themselves in a similar manner, and by similar means) our squeamish
appetites could not relish them; the Cauliflower, Brocoli, and Kale
plants, maintain their unbroken ranks; and, finally, even the Cabbages
themselves (Mr. Brummel being self-banished to Boulogne, and therefore
not within hearing, I may venture to say it), even the young Cabbages
themselves contrive to look genteel, in virtue of their as yet heartless
state; which is, in fact, the secret of all gentility, whether in a
Cabbage or a Countess.
As to the Flower-garden this month, it looks a picture either of
pleasantness or of poverty, according to the degree of care and skill
which has been bestowed upon it; for though Nature wills that we shall
enjoy her beauties during a certain period of the year, whether we use
any efforts towards the obtaining them or not, yet she lays it down as a
general principle, in regard to her gifts, that to seek them, is at once
to deserve, to have, and to enjoy them; and that without such seeking,
we shall only have just enough to make us sigh after more. Accordingly,
her sun shines with equal warmth upon the Gardens of the just and the
unjust; and her rains fertilise the Fields of all alike. In short, as it
is with the loveliest of her works, Woman, her favours are to be
obtained by assiduous seeking alone; her love is the reward, not of
riches, nor beauty, nor power, nor even of virtue, but of love alone. No
man ever gave a woman his entire love, and sought hers in return, that
he did not, to a certain extent, obtain it; and no man ever paid similar
court to Nature, and came away empty handed.
But we are wandering from the Garden; which should not be, even at this
least attractive of all its seasons; for though the honours which it
offers to the close of the year cannot vie with those which it scatters
so profusely about the footsteps of the Spring, we shall find them full
of interest and beauty, where we find them at all.
Now, then, if the frosts have not set in, the Garden contains, or ought
to contain, a numerous variety of the Chinese Chrysanthemums, which
resemble and take the place of the more glaring, but less delicately
constructed China-asters. The most beautiful of these is the Snow-white,
looking, with its radii of different lengths, like a lighted
catherine-wheel. To have these in any perfection, however, their growth
must have been a little retarded by art; for their natural time of
blowing is during the last month. But it must be remembered, that the
Winter Garden is an affair of Art assisted by Nature, rather than of
Nature assisted by Art. So that I doubt, after all, whether I shall not
be overstepping the path I had marked out for myself, in describing what
a Winter Garden _may be_. As this is what I would, above all things,
avoid, let me at once refrain from pointing out any thing but what
_must_ be found in my prototype, Nature, under ordinary circumstances;
for I would rather omit from my portraits much of what their originals
do contain, than introduce into them any thing that they do not. And,
even with this restriction, we shall find the Garden replete with
pleasant objects.
The Annuals, even the latest blowing, have all been rooted up, and their
straggling stems cleared away; all, except perhaps a few lingering
Marigolds, and some clumps of Mignonette, that will go on blowing till
the frost cuts them off. The Geraniums that were turned into the open
ground in the Autumn, to fill up the vacancies left by the falling off
of the early annuals, are still in flower, always provided there has not
yet been a night's sharp frost: if there has, they have all withered
beneath its (to them) baleful influence, as if by magic. The same may
be said of the Dahlias, with this difference,--that the destruction of
their luxuriant upper and visible growth is but the renewal of the
vigorous vitality that lies hid for a season in their self-generating
roots.
Now, the Monthly, or China Rose, begins to be again appreciated. It has
been flowering all the Summer long for its own peculiar satisfaction,
and almost unnoticed amidst the flush of fresher looking beauty that
surrounded it. But now, its pale blossoms, with their faint perfume, are
the favourites of the Garden; and a whole company of them, wreathing
about a low trellised porch, make a momentary Summer in the most wintry
of scenes.
Finally, now, every here and there, start up those stray gifts which
have "no business" to be seen at this season, but which, like fragments
of blue sky scattered among black overhanging clouds, remind us of the
beautiful whole to which they belong. I mean the little precocious
Primroses, Snowdrops, &c. that sometimes during this month find, or
rather lose, their way from their Winter homes, where they ought now to
be hiding, and peep up with their pale faces, as if in search of that
Spring which they will now never see.
* * * * *
If there is no denying that the Country is at its worst during this much
abused month, it must be conceded, in return, that London is at its
best: for at what other time is it so difficult and disagreeable to get
along the streets? and when are they so perfumed with the peculiar odour
of their own mud, and is their atmosphere so rich in the various "choice
compounds" with which it always abounds?
But even these are far from being the prime merits of the Metropolis, at
this season of its best Saturnalia. The little boys from school have
again taken undisputed possession of all its pleasant places; and the
loud laughter of unchecked joy once more explodes on spots from whence,
with these exceptions, it has long since been exploded. In short,
Christmas, which has been "coming" all the year (like a waiter at an
inn), is at last actually come; and "merry England" is, for a little
while, no longer a phrase of mockery and scorn.
The truth is, we English have fewer faults than any other people on
earth; and even among those which we have, our worst enemies will not
impute to us an idle and insane levity of deportment. We still for the
most part, as we did five hundred years ago, _nous amusons tristement,
sêlon l'usage de notre pays_. We do our pleasures, as we do our duties,
with grave faces and solemn airs, and disport ourselves in a manner
becoming our notions of the dignity of human nature. We feel at the
theatre as if it were a church, and consequently at church as if it were
a theatre. Our processions to a rout move at the same rate as those to a
funeral, and there are, in proportion, as many sincere mourners at the
former as the latter. We dance on the same principle as that on which
our soldiers do the manual exercise; and there is as much (and as
little) of impulse in the one as the other. And we fight on the same
principle as we dance; namely, because circumstances require it of us.
All this is true of us under ordinary circumstances. But the arrival of
Christmas-time is _not_ an ordinary circumstance; and therefore _now_ it
is none of it true. We are merry-makers once more, and feel that we can
now afford to play the fool for a week, since we have so religiously
persisted in playing the philosopher during all the rest of the year. Be
it expressly understood, however, by all those "surrounding nations" who
may happen to meet with this candid confession of our weakness in the
above particular, that we permit ourselves to fall into it in favour of
our children alone. They (poor things!) being as yet at so pitiable a
distance from "years of discretion," cannot be supposed to have achieved
the enviable discovery, that happiness is a thing utterly beneath the
attention of a reasoning and reasonable being. Accordingly, they know no
medium between happiness and misery; and when they are not enjoying the
one, they are suffering the other.
But that English parents, generally speaking, love their children better
than themselves, is another national merit which I must claim for them.
The consequence of this is natural and necessary, and brings us safely
round to the point from which we started: an English father and mother,
rather than their offspring should not be happy at Christmas-time, will
consent to be happy at that time themselves! It does not last long; and
surely a week or so spent in a state of foolish felicity may hope to be
expiated by a whole year of unimpeachable indifference! This, then, is
the secret of the Christmas holiday-making, among the "better sort" of
English families,--as they are pleased somewhat invidiously to call
themselves.
Now, then (to resume our details), "the raven down" of metropolitan
darkness is "smoothed" every midnight "till it smiles," by that pleasant
relic of past times, "the waits;" which wake us with their low wild
music mingling with the ceaseless sealike sound of the streets; or
(still better) lull us to sleep with the same; or (best of all) make us
dream of music all night long, without waking us at all.
Now, too, the Bellman plies his more profitable but less pleasant
parallel with the above; nightly urging his "masters and mistresses" to
the practice of every virtue under heaven, and in his own mind
prospectively including them all in the pious act of adding an extra
sixpence to his accustomed stipend.
Now, during the first week, the Theatres having begun to prepare "the
Grand Christmas Pantomime, which has been in active preparation all the
Summer," the Carpenter for the time being, among other ingenious changes
which he contemplates, looks forward with the most lively satisfaction
to that which is to metamorphose _him_ (in the play-bills at least) into
a "machinist;" while, pending the said preparations, even the "Stars" of
the Company are "shorn of their beams" (at least in making their transit
through that part of their hemisphere which is included behind the
scenes), and all things give way before the march of that monstrous
medley of "inexplicable dumb show and noise," which is to delight the
Galleries and Dress-circle, and horrify the more _genteel_ portion of
the audience, for the next nine weeks.
Finally, now occur, just before Christmas, those exhibitions which are
peculiar to England in the nineteenth century; I mean the Prize-Cattle
Shows. "Extremes meet;" and accordingly, one of the most unequivocal
evidences we have to offer, of the surpassing refinement of the age in
which we live, consists in these displays of the most surpassing
grossness. The alleged _beauty_ of these unhappy victims of their own
appetites acting with a view to ours, consists in their being unable to
perform a single function of their nature, or enjoy a single moment of
their lives; and the value of the meat that they make is in exact
proportion to the degree in which it is _un_fit to be eaten.
To describe the joys and jollifications attendant on Christmas, is what
my confined limits would counsel me not to attempt, even if they were
describable matters. But, in fact, there is nothing which affords such
truly "lenten entertainment" as a feast at secondhand: the Barmecide's
dishes were fattening by comparison with it. In conclusion, therefore,
let me say that I shall think it very hard, if the gentle readers of
these pen and ink sketches of the Months have not been persuaded, during
the perusal of each, that I have fulfilled my promise made at the
commencement, of proving each, in its turn, to be better than all the
rest. At any rate, if they are not so persuaded, they must, to be
consistent, henceforth abandon all pretended _admiration_,--which is an
affair of impulse, not of judgment,--and must proceed to _compute_ the
value of every thing that comes before them, according to its
comparative value in regard to some other thing. In short, they must at
once adopt Horace's hateful worldly-minded maxim of "nil admirari" &c.
as rendered still more hateful and worldly-minded by Bolingbroke and
Pope's version of it; and must "make up their minds," as the mechanical
phrase is, that not merely "not to _wonder_," (which is what Horace
meant, if he meant any thing) but
"Not to _admire_, is all the art _they_ know,
To make men happy, and to keep them so."
But, in truth, as it is only for the satisfaction of living friends and
lovers that people sit for their portraits; not to gratify the spleen of
cavilling critics, nor even to convey their effigies to a posterity that
will not care a penny about them; so it is only to please the friends
and lovers of Nature, that I have painted the merely natural portion of
these "pictures in little" of the Months.
As to the artificial portions,--being of no use to any one else, the
posterity of a twelve-month hence is welcome to them, as records of the
manners of the day, caught, not "_living_ as they _rise_," but dying as
they fall: for in the gardens of Fashion and Folly there are happily no
perennials; and though the plants which grow there for the most part
belong to that species which have winged seeds, and therefore disperse
themselves to wheresoever the winds of heaven blow, the same provision
causes them to escape from the spot where they sprang up, and make way
for those which the chances and changes of the season may have deposited
there. Thus each plant in turn has its day; and each parterre has an
annual opportunity of priding itself upon an exhibition of specimens,
which last year it would have laughed at, and which next year it will
despise. And "thus runs the world (of Fashion) away."
But not so with the world of Nature. Here, all as surely returns as it
passes away; and whatever is true in these papers in regard to that,
will be true of it while time shall last. Wishing my readers, therefore,
"many happy returns of the _present_ season" (meaning whichever it may
happen to be during which they are favouring these light leaves with a
perusal), let me conclude by counselling such of them (if any there be)
as have hitherto failed to appreciate and enjoy the good that is every
where scattered about them, not to waste themselves away in vain regrets
over what cannot be recalled, but hasten to atone to that Nature which
they have neglected, by making the Future repay them for the Past, until
their reckoning of happiness is even. Of this they may be assured, that
it is rarely if ever too late to do so, and that the human mind never
parts with the power of righting itself, so long as "the human heart by
which we live" is not wilfully closed against the counsel which comes to
it from all external things.