THE HOUSE OF FEASTING.
But in fact, with our happy married folks an anniversary of some sort is
perpetually recurring: wedding-days, birth-days, and all manner of
festival occasions, worthy (as the old Romans would have said) to be
noted up with chalk, happened in that family of love weekly--almost
daily. They cultivated well the grateful soil of Heart, by a thousand
little dressings and diggings; courting to it the warm sunshine of the
skies, the zephyrs of pleasant recollections, and the genial dews of
sympathy. And very wise were all those labours of delight; for their
sons and their daughters grew up as the polished corners in the temple;
moulded with delicate affections, their moral essence sharp, and clearly
edged with sensitive feelings, as if they had sprung fresh from the
hands of God, their sculptor, and the world had not rubbed off the
master-touches of His chisel. For, in this dull world, we cheat
ourselves and one another of innocent pleasures by the score, through
very carelessness and apathy: courted day after day by happy memories,
we rudely brush them off with this indiscriminating bosom, the stern
material present: invited to help in rendering joyful many a patient
heart, we neglect the little word that might have done it, and
continually defraud creation of its share of kindliness from us. The
child made merrier by your interest in his toy; the old domestic
flattered by your seeing him look so well; the poor, better helped by
your blessing than your penny (though give the penny too); the labourer,
cheered upon his toil by a timely word of praise; the humble friend
encouraged by your frankness; equals made to love you by the expression
of your love; and superiors gratified by attention and respect, and
looking out to benefit the kindly--how many pleasures here for any hand
to gather; how many blessings here for any heart to give! Instead of
these, what have we rife about the world? Frigid compliment--for warmth
is vulgar; reserve of tongue--for it is folly to be talkative;
composure, never at fault--for feelings are dangerous things;
gravity--for that looks wise; coldness--for other men are cold;
selfishness--for every one is struggling for his own. This is all false,
all bad; the slavery chain of custom riveted by the foolishness of
fashion; because there ever is a band of men and women, who have nothing
to recommend them but externals--their looks or their dresses, their
rank or their wealth--and in order to exalt the honour of these, they
agree to set a compact seal of silence on the heart and on the mind;
lest the flood of humbler men's affections, or of wiser men's
intelligence, should pale their tinsel-praise; and the warm and the wise
too softly acquiesce in this injury done to heartiness shamed by the
effrontery of cold calm fools, and the shallow dignity of an empty
presence. Turn the tables on them, ye truer gentry, truer nobility,
truer royalty of the heart and of the mind; speak freely, love warmly,
laugh cheerfully, explain frankly, exhort zealously, admire liberally,
advise earnestly--be not ashamed to show you have a heart: and if some
cold-blooded simpleton greet your social effort with a sneer, repay
him--for you can well afford a richer gift than his whole treasury
possesses--repay him with a kind good-humoured smile: it would have
shamed Jack Dillaway himself. If a man persists to be silent in a crowd
for vanity's sake, instead of sociable, as good company expects, count
him simply for a fool; you will not be far wrong; he remembers the
copy-book at school, no doubt, with its large-text aphorism, "Silence is
wisdom;" and thinking in an easy obedience to gain credit from mankind
by acting on that questionable sentence, the result is what you
perpetually see--a self-contained, self-satisfied, selfish, and reserved
young puppy. Hint to such an incommunicative comrade, that the fashion
now is coming about, to talk and show your wisdom; not to sit in shallow
silence, hiding hard your folly; soon shall you loosen the flood-gates
of his speech; and society will even thank you for it; for, bore as the
chatterer may oft-times be, still he does the frank companion's duty;
and at any rate is vastly preferable to the dull, unwarmed,
unsympathetic watcher at the festal board, who sits there to exhibit his
painted waistcoat instead of the heart that should be in it, and
patiently waits, with a snakish eye and a bitter tongue, to aid
conversation with a sarcasm.
Henry and Maria had many hearty friends to keep their many
anniversaries. They were well enough for wealth, as we may guess without
much trouble; for the knight had left three thousand a-year behind him,
and Maria, as sole heiress, had no difficulty in establishing her claim
to it; but it may be well to put mankind in memory how hospitably, how
charitably, how wisely, and how heartily they stewarded it. I need not
stop to tell of local charities assisted, good societies supported, and
of philanthropic good done by means of their money, both at home and
abroad: nor detail their many dinners, and other festal opportunities,
rivets in the lengthening chain of ordinary friendship: but I do wish to
make honourable mention of one happiest anniversary, which, while it
commemorated fine young Master Harry's birth, rejoiced the many poor of
Lower-Sack street, Islington.
The birth-day itself was kept at home with all the honours, in their old
house at Finsbury square; Maria would not leave that house, for old
acquaintance sake. Master Harry, a frank-faced, open-hearted,
curly-headed boy of ten (at least when I dined there, for he has
probably grown older since), was of course the happy hero of the feast,
ably supported by divers joyful brothers and sisters, who had all
contributed to their elder brother's triumph on that day, by the
contribution of their various presents--one a little scent bag, another
a rude drawing, another a book-marker, and so forth, all probably
worthless in the view of selfish calculation, but inestimable according
to the currency of Heart. Half-a-dozen choice old friends closed the
list of company; and a noisy rout of boys and girls were added in the
early evening, full of negus, and sponge-cake, snap-dragon, and
blindman's-buff, with merry music, and a golden-flood of dances and
delight.
We dined early; and, to be very confidential with you, I thought (until
I found out reasons why), that the bill-of-fare upon the table was
inordinately large, not to say vulgar; for the board was overloaded with
solid sweets and savouries: so, in my uncharitable mind, I set all that
down to the uncivilized hospitality asserted of a citizen's feast, and
(for aught I know) still rife in St. Mary Axe and Finsbury square.
Never mind how the dinner passed off, nor how jovially the children kept
it up till near eleven: for I learnt, in an incidental way, what was
regularly done upon the morrow; and I am sure it will gratify my readers
to learn it too, as a trait of considerate kindness which will gladden
man and woman's heart.
On the seventh of April in every year (Harry's birth-day was the sixth),
Henry and Maria used to go on an humble pilgrimage to Lower Sack street,
Islington. Not to shame the poor by fine clothes or their usual
equipage, they sedulously donned on that occasion the same now faded
suits they had worn in their adversity, and made their progress in a
hackney-coach. They would have walked for humility's sake and sympathy,
but that the coach in question was crammed full of eatables and
drinkables, nicely packed up in well-considered parcels, consisting of
the vast _débris_ of yesterday's overwhelming feast, with a sackful of
tea and sugar added. Their pockets also, as I took the liberty of
inquiring at Sack street afterwards, must have been well stored, for
their largess was munificent. Then would they go to that identical
lodgings of years gone by, where they had so struggled with adversity,
now in the happy contrast of wealth and peace and thankfulness to
Heaven, and of joy at doing good. That parlour was right liberally hired
for the day, and all the poor in Sack street were privileged to call,
where Mrs. Clements held her levee. They came in an orderly stream,
clean for the occasion, and full of gratitude and blessings; and, to be
just upon the poor, no impostor had ever been known to intrude upon the
privilege of Sack street. As for dear Maria, she regularly broke down
just as the proceedings commenced, and Henry's manlier hand had to give
away the spoil; whilst Maria sobbed beside him, as if her heart would
break. Then did the good old nurse come in for a cold round of beef,
with tea, sugar, and a sovereign; and the bed-ridden neighbour up-stairs
for jellied soup, and other condiments, with a similar royal climax; and
the cobbler over the way carried off ham and chickens, with apple-puffs
and a bottle of wine: and so some thirty or forty families were
gladdened for the hour, and made wealthy for a week. Altogether they
divided amongst them a coachful of comestibles, and a pocketful of coin.
It would be impertinent in us to intrude so far on privacy, as to record
how Henry and Maria passed much time in prayer and praise on that
interesting anniversary; it is unnecessary too, for in fact they did not
stop for anniversaries to do that sort of thing. Be sure that good
thoughts and good words are ever found preceding good and grateful
deeds. It is quite enough to know that they did God service in doing
good to man.