When a thing is old, broken, and useless we throw it on the dust-heap,
but when it is sufficiently old, sufficiently broken, and sufficiently
useless we give money for it, put it into a museum, and read papers over
it which people come long distances to hear. By-and-by, when the
whirligig of time has brought on another revenge, the museum itself
becomes a dust-heap, and remains so till after long ages it is
re-discovered, and valued as belonging to a neo-rubbish age--containing,
perhaps, traces of a still older paleo-rubbish civilisation. So when
people are old, indigent, and in all respects incapable, we hold them in
greater and greater contempt as their poverty and impotence increase,
till they reach the pitch when they are actually at the point to die,
whereon they become sublime. Then we place every resource our hospitals
can command at their disposal, and show no stint in our consideration for
them.
It is the same with all our interests. We care most about extremes of
importance and of unimportance; but extremes of importance are tainted
with fear, and a very imperfect fear casteth out love. Extremes of
unimportance cannot hurt us, therefore we are well disposed towards them;
the means may come to do so, therefore we do not love them. Hence we
pick a fly out of a milk-jug and watch with pleasure over its recovery,
for we are confident that under no conceivable circumstances will it want
to borrow money from us; but we feel less sure about a mouse, so we show
it no quarter. The compilers of our almanacs well know this tendency of
our natures, so they tell us, not when Noah went into the ark, nor when
the temple of Jerusalem was dedicated, but that Lindley Murray,
grammarian, died January 16, 1826. This is not because they could not
find so many as three hundred and sixty-five events of considerable
interest since the creation of the world, but because they well know we
would rather hear of something less interesting. We care most about what
concerns us either very closely, or so little that practically we have
nothing whatever to do with it.
I once asked a young Italian, who professed to have a considerable
knowledge of English literature, which of all our poems pleased him best.
He replied without a moment's hesitation:--
"Hey diddle diddle, the cat and the fiddle,
The cow jumped over the moon;
The little dog laughed to see such sport,
And the dish ran away with the spoon."
He said this was better than anything in Italian. They had Dante and
Tasso, and ever so many more great poets, but they had nothing comparable
to "Hey diddle diddle," nor had he been able to conceive how any one
could have written it. Did I know the author's name, and had we given
him a statue? On this I told him of the young lady of Harrow who would
go to church in a barrow, and plied him with whatever rhyming nonsense I
could call to mind, but it was no use; all of these things had an element
of reality that robbed them of half their charm, whereas "Hey diddle
diddle" had nothing in it that could conceivably concern him.
So again it is with the things that gall us most. What is it that rises
up against us at odd times and smites us in the face again and again for
years after it has happened? That we spent all the best years of our
life in learning what we have found to be a swindle, and to have been
known to be a swindle by those who took money for misleading us? That
those on whom we most leaned most betrayed us? That we have only come to
feel our strength when there is little strength left of any kind to feel?
These things will hardly much disturb a man of ordinary good temper. But
that he should have said this or that little unkind and wanton saying;
that he should have gone away from this or that hotel and given a
shilling too little to the waiter; that his clothes were shabby at such
or such a garden-party--these things gall us as a corn will sometimes do,
though the loss of a limb way not be seriously felt.
I have been reminded lately of these considerations with more than common
force by reading the very voluminous correspondence left by my
grandfather, Dr. Butler, of Shrewsbury, whose memoirs I am engaged in
writing. I have found a large number of interesting letters on subjects
of serious import, but must confess that it is to the hardly less
numerous lighter letters that I have been most attracted, nor do I feel
sure that my eminent namesake did not share my predilection. Among other
letters in my possession I have one bundle that has been kept apart, and
has evidently no connection with Dr. Butler's own life. I cannot use
these letters, therefore, for my book, but over and above the charm of
their inspired spelling, I find them of such an extremely trivial nature
that I incline to hope the reader may derive as much amusement from them
as I have done myself, and venture to give them the publicity here which
I must refuse them in my book. The dates and signatures have, with the
exception of Mrs. Newton's, been carefully erased, but I have collected
that they were written by the two servants of a single lady who resided
at no great distance from London, to two nieces of the said lady who
lived in London itself. The aunt never writes, but always gets one of
the servants to do so for her. She appears either as "your aunt" or as
"She"; her name is not given, but she is evidently looked upon with a
good deal of awe by all who had to do with her.
The letters almost all of them relate to visits either of the aunt to
London, or of the nieces to the aunt's home, which, from occasional
allusions to hopping, I gather to have been in Kent, Sussex, or Surrey. I
have arranged them to the best of my power, and take the following to be
the earliest. It has no signature, but is not in the handwriting of the
servant who styles herself Elizabeth, or Mrs. Newton. It runs:--
"MADAM,--Your Aunt Wishes me to inform you she will be glad if you
will let hir know if you think of coming To hir House thiss month or
Next as she cannot have you in September on a kount of the Hoping If
you ar coming she thinkes she had batter Go to London on the Day you
com to hir House the says you shall have everry Thing raddy for you at
hir House and Mrs. Newton to meet you and stay with you till She
returnes a gann.
"if you arnot Coming thiss Summer She will be in London before thiss
Month is out and will Sleep on the Sofy As She willnot be in London
more thann two nits. and She Says she willnot truble you on anny a
kount as She Will returne the Same Day before She will plage you anny
more. but She thanks you for asking hir to London. but She says She
cannot leve the house at prassant She sayhir Survants ar to do for you
as she cannot lodge yours nor she willnot have thim in at the house
anny more to brake and destroy hir thinks and beslive hir and make up
Lies by hir and Skandel as your too did She says she mens to pay fore
2 Nits and one day, She says the Pepelwill let hir have it if you ask
thim to let hir: you Will be so good as to let hir know sun: wish She
is to do, as She says She dos not care anny thing a bout it. which way
tiss she is batter than She was and desirs hir Love to bouth bouth.
"Your aunt wises to know how the silk Clocks ar madup [how the silk
cloaks are made up] with a Cape or a wood as she is a goin to have one
madeup to rideout in in hir littel shas [chaise].
"Charles is a butty and so good.
"Mr & Mrs Newton ar quite wall & desires to be remembered to you."
I can throw no light on the meaning of the verb to "beslive." Each
letter in the MS. is so admirably formed that there can be no question
about the word being as I have given it. Nor have I been able to
discover what is referred to by the words "Charles is a butty and so
good." We shall presently meet with a Charles who "flies in the Fier,"
but that Charles appears to have been in London, whereas this one is
evidently in Kent, or wherever the aunt lived.