Probably there is no choicer specimen of English literature than the
familiar stanza which we herewith reproduce:
"Little JACK HORNER sat in a corner,
Eating his Christmas-pie,
He put in his thumb, and pulled out a plum,
And said, 'What a good boy am I!'"
Although comprised in merely four lines, it contains more instructive
truths and rarer beauties than some volumes whose pages can be
enumerated by the hundred. The opening line is singularly beautiful:
"Little JACK HORNER sat in a corner."
Here we hare the subject gracefully introduced without unnecessary
palaver or reference to family antecedents--the simple name given
without a long rigmarole of dazzling titles or senseless adjectives. The
Muse is neither pathetically invoked nor anathematically abused, but the
author proceeds at once to describe his hero's present situation, which,
it strangely appears, is in "a corner." The indefiniteness of the
locality--_a_ corner--is not of the slightest moment; for it does not
concern the general reader to know in what corner little JACK was
stationed. Suffice it, as is apparent from the context, that it was not
a corner in Erie, nor in grain; but rather an angle formed by the
juxtaposition of two walls of an apartment or chamber.
Now, truly the subject of the poem must have been possessed either of an
extraordinary modicum of modesty or of a bitter misanthropy; or possibly
he had been guilty of a misdemeanor, and was cornered to expiate the
punishment justly due; yet conjecture is at once made certainty in the
second line, by which all doubts as to the reasons for his being in a
corner are immediately cleared up:
"Eating his Christmas-pie."
The occasion was indubitably the universal annual holiday, and his
object in going to the corner was manifestly to eat the pie. Perhaps the
object had an antecedent. Perhaps he _stole_ the pie, and therefore
wished to avoid observation; or, more possibly, supreme selfishness was
his ruling passion, and he wished to eat it all by himself. As to this,
however, we are left slightly in the fog.
In the third line, we are afforded an insight into the manner in which
he partook of the Christmas delicacy:
"He put in his thumb, and pulled out a plum."
Interesting scene! Here we have at least an inkling of the hero's powers
of discrimination, and his regard for the little niceties of life. We
have also a beautiful metaphorical allusion to the postulate that
"fingers were made before forks," an assertion respecting the truth of
which some antiquarians have expressed a doubt. We are not prepared to
decide as to the propriety of leaving the substantial of life and
employing sweets and frivolities to pamper the appetite--and there are
other questions that naturally arise from the interesting circumstance
noted above by the poet, but we will not dwell upon them here.
We proceed to the concluding verse.
The descriptive part of the narrative is ended, and we naturally expect
a catastrophe in the _denouement_. We may at least suppose that HORNER
made himself sick, if he did not actually choke to death from one of the
plums he was voraciously eating. By no means. We are spared so painful a
recital. All we know is, that he made a remark, evidently in soliloquy,
"And said, 'What a good boy am I!'"
This concluding line, pointless as it may appear, partially clears up
the mystery as to his being in a corner. He certainly was not there for
misdemeanor; for he was a "good boy," at least in his own estimation.
What a happy faculty it is, in this world, for a man to have a good
opinion of himself! It relieves life of much of its bitterness. We thus
perceive that, while JACK was tasting the sweets of a Christmas-pie, he
was also enjoying the sweets of self-contentment.
As we have seen, JACK HORNER is an historical personage; Christmas-pies
are historical; and dainties with plums are historical. JACK was an old
man, doubtless, when our great-grandmothers were very young--certainly
before the war. The world has had full opportunity to profit by his
virtuous example. Numberless little boys have been quieted to sleep by
the rhyme of JACK HORNER judiciously applied, and numberless little
ones, clamorous for more pudding and enlarged privileges at the
dinner-table, owe the success of their appeals to this same HORNER. The
moral, which runs all through the narrative, is one by which the world
may profit, and should. It la a good thing; but like a great many things
that are good, in the sense in which we use the word, not relished. We
much fear that the ancient, the historical JACK, is extinct. He was a
moderate JACK. He only put in his _thumb_, when he might as well have
put in his whole hand. The latter-day JACK is the representative of a
numerous class possessing larger capacity and a greater dynamic
capability. His pie is larger--has more and bigger plums. When we
contrast the present JACK with the past, we blush for the comparison.
When we encounter him in civic office or in the revenue service, we
tremble for the plums. He is grasping, remorseless, ambitious. The old
JACK was satisfied to sit in his corner and eat his pie; but this one
seeks a pie of dimensions so extravagant as to fill the remotest corners
of the globe; and, what is worse, he is--any thing but a Good Boy!
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