"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 "rampingest-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]. 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 anyone 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 an [Greek], 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.