"Creation's heir--the world, the world is mine."--GOLDSMITH.
Philosophers, moralists, poets, in all ages, have never better pleased
themselves or satisfied their readers than when they have descanted upon,
deplored, and denounced the pernicious influence of money upon the heart
and the understanding. "Filthy lucre"--"so much trash as may be grasped
thus"--"yellow mischief," I know not, or choose not, to recount how many
justly injurious names have been applied to coin by those who knew, because
they had felt, its consequences. Wherefore, I say at once, it is better to
have none on't--to live without it. And yet, now I think better upon that
point, it is well not altogether to discourage its approach. On the
contrary, lay hold upon it, seize it, rescue it from hands which in all
probability would work ruin with it, and resolutely refuse, when it is once
got, to let it go out of your grasp. Let no absurd talk about quittance,
discharge, remuneration, payment, induce the holder to relax from his
inflexible purpose of palm. Pay, like party, is the madness of many for the
gain of a few.
Unhappily, vile gold, or its representation or equivalent, has been, during
many centuries, the sole medium through which the majority of mankind have
supplied their wants, or ministered to their luxuries. It is high time that
a sage should arise to expound how the discerning few--those who have the
wit and the will (both must concur to the great end) may live--LIVE--not
like him who buys and balances himself by the book of the groveller who
wrote "How to _Live_ upon Fifty Pounds a Year"--(O shame to manhood!)--but
live, I say--"be free and merry"--"laugh and grow fat"--exchange the
courtesies of life--be a pattern of the "minor morals"--and yet: all this
without a doit in bank, bureau, or breeches' pocket.
I am that sage. Let none deride. Haply, I shall only remind some, but I may
teach many. Those that come to scoff, may perchance go home to prey.
Let no gentleman of the old school (for whom, indeed, my brief treatise is
not designed) be startled when I advance this proposition: That more
discreditable methods are daily practised by those who live to get money,
than are resorted to by those who without money are nevertheless under the
necessity of living. If this proposition be assented to--as, in truth, I
know not how it can be gainsaid,--nothing need be urged in vindication of
my art of _free_ living. Proceed I then at once.
Here is a youth of promise--born, like Jaffier, with "elegant desires"--one
who does not agnize a prompt alacrity in carrying burdens--one, rather, who
recognizes a moral and physical unfitness for such, and indeed all other
dorsal and manual operations--one who has been born a Briton, and would
not, therefore, sell his birthright for a mess of pottage; but, on the
contrary, holds that his birthright entitles him to as many messes of
pottage as there may be days to his mortal span, though time's fingers
stretched beyond the distance allotted to extreme Parr or extremest
Jenkins. "Elegant desires" are gratified to the extent I purpose treating
of them, by handsome clothes--comfortable lodgings--good dinners.
1st. _Of Handsome Clothes._--Here, I confess, I find myself in some
difficulty. The man who knows not how to have his name entered in the
day-book of a tailor, is not one who could derive any benefit from
instruction of mine. He must be a born natural. Why, it comes by instinct.
2nd. _Of Comfortable Lodgings._--Easily obtained and secured. The easiest
thing in life. But the wit without money must possess very little more of
the former than of the latter, if he do not, even when snugly ensconced in
one splendid suite of apartments, have his eye upon many others; for
landladies are sometimes vexatiously impertinent, and novelty is desirable.
Besides, his departure may be (nay, often is) extremely sudden. When in
quest of apartments, I have found tarnished cards in the windows
preferable. They imply a length of vacancy of the floor, and a consequent
relaxation of those narrow, worldly (some call them prudent) scruples,
which landladies are apt to nourish. Hints of a regular income, payable
four times a year, have their weight; nay, often convert weekly into
quarterly lodgings. Be sure there are no children in your house. They are
vociferous when you would enjoy domestic retirement, and inquisitive when
you take the air. Once (_horresco referens!_) on returning from my
peripatetics, I was accosted with brutally open-mouthed clamour, by my
landlady, who, dragging me in a state of bewilderment into her room,
pointed to numerous specimens of granite, which her "young people" had, in
their unhallowed thirst for knowledge, discovered and drawn from my trunk,
which, by some strange mischance, had been left unlocked! In vain I mumbled
something touching my love of mineralogy, and that a lapidary had offered I
knew not what for my collection. I was compelled to "bundle," as the
idiomatic, but ignorant woman expressed herself. To resume.
Let not the nervous or sensitive wit imagine that, in a vast metropolis
like London, his chance of securing an appropriate lodging and a confiding
landlady is at all doubtful. He might lodge safe from the past, certain of
the future, till the crash of doom. I shall be met by Ferguson's case.
Ferguson I knew well, and I respected him. But he had a most unfortunate
countenance. It was a very solemn, but by no means a solvent face; and yet
he had a manner with him too, and his language was choice, if not
persuasive. That the matter of his speech was plausible, none ever presumed
to deny. "It is all very well, Mr. Ferguson,"--_that_ was always conceded.
I do not wish to speak ill of the dead; but Ferguson never entered a
lodging without being compelled to pay a fortnight in advance, and always
[Illustration: EXPECTED TO BE OUT SHORTLY.]
3rd. _Of Good Dinners._--Wits, like other men, are distinguished by a
variety of tastes and inclinations. Some prefer dining at taverns and
eating-houses; others, more discreet or less daring, love the quiet
security of the private house, with its hospitable inmates, courteous
guests, and no possibility of "bill transactions." I confess when I was
young and inexperienced, wanting that wisdom which I am now happy to
impart, I was a constant frequenter of taverns, eating-houses,
oyster-rooms, and similar places of entertainment. I am old now, and have
been persecuted by a brutal world, and am grown timid. But I was ever a
peaceable man--hated quarrels--never came to words if I could help it. _I
do not recommend the tavern, eating-house, oyster-room system._ These are
the words of wisdom. The waiters at these places are invariably sturdy,
fleet, abusive rascals, who cannot speak and will not listen to reason. To
eat one's dinner, drink a pint of sherry, and then, calling for the bill,
take out one's pocket-book, and post it in its rotation in a neat hand,
informing the waiter the while, that it is a simple debt, and so forth;
this really requires nerve. Great spirits only are equal to it. It is an
innovation upon old, established forms, however absurd--and innovators
bring down upon themselves much obloquy. To run from the score you have run
up--not to pay your shot, but to shoot from payment--this is not always
safe, and invariably spoils digestion. No; it is not more honourable--far
from it--but it is better; for you should strive to become, what is
commonly called--"A Diner Out"--that is to say, one who continues to sit
at the private tables of other men every day of his life, and by his so
potent art, succeeds in making them believe that they are very much
obliged to him.
How to be this thing--this "Diner Out"--I shall teach you, by a few short
rules next week. Till then--farewell!
* * * * *
Lord William Paget has applied to the Lord Chancellor, to inquire whether
the word "jackass" is not opprobrious and actionable. His lordship says,
"No, decidedly, in this case only synonymous."
* * * * *