I know that it is a hazardous experiment to address myself again to a
public which in days long past has given me a generous welcome. But my
readers have been, and are, a very faithful constituency. I think there
are many among them who would rather listen to an old voice they are
used to than to a new one of better quality, even if the “childish
treble” should betray itself now and then in the tones of the overtired
organ. But there must be others,--I am afraid many others,--who will
exclaim: “He has had his day, and why can't he be content? We don't
want literary revenants, superfluous veterans, writers who have worn out
their welcome and still insist on being attended to. Give us something
fresh, something that belongs to our day and generation. Your morning
draught was well enough, but we don't care for your evening slip-slop.
You are not in relation with us, with our time, our ideas, our aims, our
aspirations.”
Alas, alas! my friend,--my young friend, for your hair is not yet
whitened,--I am afraid you are too nearly right. No doubt,--no doubt.
Teacups are not coffee-cups. They do not hold so much. Their pallid
infusion is but a feeble stimulant compared with the black decoction
served at the morning board. And so, perhaps, if wisdom like yours
were compatible with years like mine, I should drop my pen and make no
further attempts upon your patience.
But suppose that a writer who has reached and passed the natural limit
of serviceable years feels that he has some things which he would
like to say, and which may have an interest for a limited class of
readers,--is he not right in trying his powers and calmly taking the
risk of failure? Does it not seem rather lazy and cowardly, because he
cannot “beat his record,” or even come up to the level of what he has
done in his prime, to shrink from exerting his talent, such as it is,
now that he has outlived the period of his greatest vigor? A singer who
is no longer equal to the trials of opera on the stage may yet please at
a chamber concert or in the drawing-room. There is one gratification
an old author can afford a certain class of critics: that, namely, of
comparing him as he is with what he was. It is a pleasure to mediocrity
to have its superiors brought within range, so to speak; and if the
ablest of them will only live long enough, and keep on writing, there is
no pop-gun that cannot reach him. But I fear that this is an unamiable
reflection, and I am at this time in a very amiable mood.
I confess that there is something agreeable to me in renewing my
relations with the reading public. Were it but a single appearance,
it would give me a pleasant glimpse of the time when I was known as a
frequent literary visitor. Many of my readers--if I can lure any from
the pages of younger writers will prove to be the children, or the
grandchildren, of those whose acquaintance I made something more than
a whole generation ago. I could depend on a kind welcome from my
contemporaries,--my coevals. But where are those contemporaries? Ay de
mi! as Carlyle used to exclaim,--Ah, dear me! as our old women say,--I
look round for them, and see only their vacant places. The old vine
cannot unwind its tendrils. The branch falls with the decay of its
support, and must cling to the new growths around it, if it would not
lie helpless in the dust. This paper is a new tendril, feeling its way,
as it best may, to whatever it can wind around. The thought of finding
here and there an old friend, and making, it may be, once in a while a
new one, is very grateful to me. The chief drawback to the pleasure is
the feeling that I am submitting to that inevitable exposure which is
the penalty of authorship in every form. A writer must make up his mind
to the possible rough treatment of the critics, who swarm like bacteria
whenever there is any literary material on which they can feed. I have
had as little to complain of as most writers, yet I think it is always
with reluctance that one encounters the promiscuous handling which
the products of the mind have to put up with, as much as the fruit and
provisions in the market-stalls. I had rather be criticised, however,
than criticise; that is, express my opinions in the public prints of
other writers' work, if they are living, and can suffer, as I should
often have to make them. There are enough, thank Heaven, without me.
We are literary cannibals, and our writers live on each other and each
other's productions to a fearful extent. What the mulberry leaf is
to the silk-worm, the author's book, treatise, essay, poem, is to the
critical larva; that feed upon it. It furnishes them with food and
clothing. The process may not be agreeable to the mulberry leaf or to
the printed page; but without it the leaf would not have become the silk
that covers the empress's shoulders, and but for the critic the author's
book might never have reached the scholar's table. Scribblers will feed
on each other, and if we insist on being scribblers we must consent to
be fed on. We must try to endure philosophically what we cannot help,
and ought not, I suppose, to wish to help.
It is the custom at our table to vary the usual talk, by the reading of
short papers, in prose or verse, by one or more of The Teacups, as we
are in the habit of calling those who make up our company. Thirty
years ago, one of our present circle--“Teacup Number Two,” The
Professor,--read a paper on Old Age, at a certain Breakfast-table, where
he was in the habit of appearing. That paper was published at the time,
and has since seen the light in other forms. He did not know so much
about old age then as he does now, and would doubtless write somewhat
differently if he took the subject up again. But I found that it was the
general wish that another of our company should let us hear what he had
to say about it. I received a polite note, requesting me to discourse
about old age, inasmuch as I was particularly well qualified by my
experience to write in an authoritative way concerning it. The fact is
that I,--for it is myself who am speaking,--have recently arrived at the
age of threescore years and twenty,--fourscore years we may otherwise
call it. In the arrangement of our table, I am Teacup Number One, and
I may as well say that I am often spoken of as The Dictator. There is
nothing invidious in this, as I am the oldest of the company, and no
claim is less likely to excite jealousy than that of priority of birth.
I received congratulations on reaching my eightieth birthday, not only
from our circle of Teacups, but from friends, near and distant, in large
numbers. I tried to acknowledge these kindly missives with the aid of a
most intelligent secretary; but I fear that there were gifts not
thanked for, and tokens of good-will not recognized. Let any neglected
correspondent be assured that it was not intentionally that he or she
was slighted. I was grateful for every such mark of esteem; even for
the telegram from an unknown friend in a distant land, for which I
cheerfully paid the considerable charge which the sender doubtless knew
it would give me pleasure to disburse for such an expression of friendly
feeling.