"DEAR MISS ---, i hope you are both quite well in health & your Leg
much better i am happy to say i am getting quite well again i hope
Amandy has reached you safe by this time i sent a small parcle by
Amandy, there was half a dozen Pats of butter & the Cakes was very
homely and not so light as i could wish i hope by this time Sarah Ann
has promised she will stay untill next monday as i think a few daies
longer will not make much diferance and as her young man has been very
considerate to wait so long as he has i think he would for a few days
Longer dear Miss --- I wash for William and i have not got his clothes
yet as it has been delayed by the carrier & i cannot possiblely get it
done before Sunday and i do not Like traviling on a Sunday but to
oblige you i would come but to come sooner i cannot possiblely but i
hope Sarah Ann will be prevailed on once more as She has so many times
i feel sure if she tells her young man he will have patient for he is
a very kind young man
"i remain your sincerely
"ELIZABETH NEWTON."
The last letter in my collection seems written almost within measurable
distance of the Christmas-card era. The sheet is headed by a beautifully
embossed device of some holly in red and green, wishing the recipient of
the letter a merry Xmas and a happy new year, while the border is crimped
and edged with blue. I know not what it is, but there is something in
the writer's highly finished style that reminds me of Mendelssohn. It
would almost do for the words of one of his celebrated "Lieder ohne
Worte":
"DEAR MISS MARIA,--I hasten to acknowledge the receipt of your kind
note with the inclosure for which I return my best thanks. I need
scarcely say how glad I was to know that the volumes secured your
approval, and that the announcement of the improvement in the
condition of your Sister's legs afforded me infinite pleasure. The
gratifying news encouraged me in the hope that now the nature of the
disorder is comprehended her legs will--notwithstanding the process
may be gradual--ultimately get quite well. The pretty Robin Redbreast
which lay ensconced in your epistle, conveyed to me, in terms more
eloquent than words, how much you desired me those Compliments which
the little missive he bore in his bill expressed; the emblem is
sweetly pretty, and now that we are again allowed to felicitate each
other on another recurrence of the season of the Christian's
rejoicing, permit me to tender to yourself, and by you to your Sister,
mine and my Wife's heartfelt congratulations and warmest wishes with
respect to the coming year. It is a common belief that if we take a
retrospective view of each departing year, as it behoves us annually
to do, we shall find the blessings which we have received to
immeasurably outnumber our causes of sorrow. Speaking for myself I
can fully subscribe to that sentiment, and doubtless neither Miss ---
nor yourself are exceptions. Miss ---'s illness and consequent
confinement to the house has been a severe trial, but in that trouble
an opportunity was afforded you to prove a Sister's devotion and she
has been enabled to realise a larger (if possible) display of sisterly
affection.
"A happy Christmas to you both, and may the new year prove a
Cornucopia from which still greater blessings than even those we have
hitherto received, shall issue, to benefit us all by contributing to
our temporal happiness and, what is of higher importance, conducing to
our felicity hereafter.
"I was sorry to hear that you were so annoyed with mice and rats, and
if I should have an opportunity to obtain a nice cat I will do so and
send my boy to your house with it.
"I remain,
"Yours truly."
How little what is commonly called education can do after all towards the
formation of a good style, and what a delightful volume might not be
entitled "Half Hours with the Worst Authors." Why, the finest word I
know of in the English language was coined, not by my poor old
grandfather, whose education had left little to desire, nor by any of the
admirable scholars whom he in his turn educated, but by an old matron who
presided over one of the halls, or houses of his school.
This good lady, whose name by the way was Bromfield, had a fine high
temper of her own, or thought it politic to affect one. One night when
the boys were particularly noisy she burst like a hurricane into the
hall, collared a youngster, and told him he was "the
ramp-ingest-scampingest-rackety-tackety-tow-row-roaringest boy in the
whole school." Would Mrs. Newton have been able to set the aunt and the
dog before us so vividly if she had been more highly educated? Would
Mrs. Bromfield have been able to forge and hurl her thunderbolt of a word
if she had been taught how to do so, or indeed been at much pains to
create it at all? It came. It was her [Greek text]. She did not
probably know that she had done what the greatest scholar would have had
to rack his brains over for many an hour before he could even approach.
Tradition says that having brought down her boy she looked round the hall
in triumph, and then after a moment's lull said, "Young gentlemen,
prayers are excused," and left them.
I have sometimes thought that, after all, the main use of a classical
education consists in the check it gives to originality, and the way in
which it prevents an inconvenient number of people from using their own
eyes. That we will not be at the trouble of looking at things for
ourselves if we can get any one to tell us what we ought to see goes
without saying, and it is the business of schools and universities to
assist us in this respect. The theory of evolution teaches that any
power not worked at pretty high pressure will deteriorate: originality
and freedom from affectation are all very well in their way, but we can
easily have too much of them, and it is better that none should be either
original or free from cant but those who insist on being so, no matter
what hindrances obstruct, nor what incentives are offered them to see
things through the regulation medium.
To insist on seeing things for oneself is to be in [Greek text], or in
plain English, an idiot; nor do I see any safer check against general
vigour and clearness of thought, with consequent terseness of expression,
than that provided by the curricula of our universities and schools of
public instruction. If a young man, in spite of every effort to fit him
with blinkers, will insist on getting rid of them, he must do so at his
own risk. He will not be long in finding out his mistake. Our public
schools and universities play the beneficent part in our social scheme
that cattle do in forests: they browse the seedlings down and prevent the
growth of all but the luckiest and sturdiest. Of course, if there are
too many either cattle or schools, they browse so effectually that they
find no more food, and starve till equilibrium is restored; but it seems
to be a provision of nature that there should always be these alternate
periods, during which either the cattle or the trees are getting the best
of it; and, indeed, without such provision we should have neither the one
nor the other. At this moment the cattle, doubtless, are in the
ascendant, and if university extension proceeds much farther, we shall
assuredly have no more Mrs. Newtons and Mrs. Bromfields; but whatever is
is best, and, on the whole, I should propose to let things find pretty
much their own level.
However this may be, who can question that the treasures hidden in many a
country house contain sleeping beauties even fairer than those that I
have endeavoured to waken from long sleep in the foregoing article? How
many Mrs. Quicklys are there not living in London at this present moment?
For that Mrs. Quickly was an invention of Shakespeare's I will not
believe. The old woman from whom he drew said every word that he put
into Mrs. Quickly's mouth, and a great deal more which he did not and
perhaps could not make use of. This question, however, would again lead
me far from my subject, which I should mar were I to dwell upon it
longer, and therefore leave with the hope that it may give my readers
absolutely no food whatever for reflection.