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 rediscovered, and valued as belonging to a neo-
rubbish age--containing, perhaps, traces of a still older paleo-
rubbish civilization. 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 16th, 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 anyone 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 may 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 she 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.