readers have long known, and as long admired and esteemed, in a familiar
gossip, (by favor of 'Uncle SAMUEL'S mail-bag,) with the Editor, gives us
the following 'running account' of his ruminations over an early-morning
quid of that 'flavorous weed' so well beloved of our friend Colonel STONE.
It is in some sort a defence of American ptyalism, and in the tendency of
its inculcations, reminds us of the arguments in favor of the cultivation
of a refined style of _murder_, which should constitute it one of the fine
arts, to which we gave a place many months back: 'After having in my
broken dreams perambulated every part and parcel of the universe, and then
tossed about for hours on an ocean of bodily discomforts, each a dagger to
repose, and mental disquietudes, of which any one was enough to wither all
the poppies of Somnus, I rose about four o' my watch, and commenced
chewing the narcotic weed of Virginia. For you must know that in childhood
almost, through a precocious mannishness and a desire of experimental
knowledge, I commenced the habit of tobacco-chewing, and the vice born of
a freak, has 'grown with my growth,' till now it holds me as in a 'vice'
screwed up and secured by a giant. (Please observe that there's a pun in
that last sentence.) Where the conventionalities of society compel me to
attidunize my appearance and customs into the stiffness of gentility, I
puff the Havana; but when the privacy of my own room or the solitude of
the roads and fields permit me to vulgarize to my liking, I thrust a ball
of 'Mrs. MILLER'S fine-cut,' or a fragment of the 'natural James' River
sweet,' between the sub-maxillary bone and its carnal casement, and then
masticate and expectorate 'à la Yankee.' or 'more Americano.' Pah! oh!
fie! for shame! and all other interjections indicative of horror, or
expressive of disgust. '_Quousque tandem?_' Beg your pardon, Mrs.
TROLLOPE. '_Quamdiu etiam?_' I implore your commiseration, Captain BASIL.
'_Oh, tempora! oh, mores!_' Have mercy, illustrious and
praise-bespattered, and almost Sir-Waltered BOZ. Do not, under the uneasy
weight of glory, and in the intoxicating consciousness of a right to the
oligarchic exclusiveness of the goose-quill 'haute volèe,' strike right
and left among your sturdy democratic adorers, because they choose to
convert their mandibles into quid-grinders, and their [Greek: chasmat'
odontôn] into ceaseless jet d'eaux of saliva. Reflect that the 'quid'
assists in a philosophic investigation of the 'quiddities' of things, and
that from this habit alone perhaps we have made such advances in casuistry
as to have discovered equity in repudiation, freedom in mobocracy, and the
sword of justice in the bowie-knife. Chewing is eminently democratic,
since all chewers are 'pro hâc _vice_' on a perfect equality, and a
'millionaire;' or, for that matter, a 'billionaire,' if we had him, would
not hesitate to take out of his mouth a moiety of his last 'chew' and give
it to an itinerant Lazarus. What can be more admirable than this 'de bon
air' plebeianism, and universal right-hand of fellowship? Does not he who
extends among the people the use of this democratizing weed, emphatically
give them a '_quid_ pro quo?' Are not slovenliness and filth the virtues
of republics, while neatness and elegance are vices of court-growth, and
expand into their most ramified and minute perfectness of polish only in
the palaces of kings? Furthermore, oh laurelled and triumphant PICKWICK!
if expectoration be filthy, it must be because the 'thing expectorated' is
unclean; and if so, is it not more decent to become rid of the 'unclean
thing' by the readiest process, than to retain it, making the stomach a
receptacle of abominations? And are you, Sir Baronet of the realm
imaginary, subject to no gross corporeal needs and operations? And if, as
you will say, you perform those foul rites in a state of retiracy, are you
not adding the sin of hypocrisy to your preëxistent guilt? If it has
succeeded to you, as to few penny-a-liners, to have emerged by the sale of
your Attic-salt from the attics of Grub-street into the 'swept and
garnished chambers' of the Regent, and if after quaffing the ale of
Bow-street, procured by caricatures of Old Baily reports, you have sipped
your hockheimer, while standing, scarce yet unbewildered, in the gas-light
splendor reflected from the 'vis-á-vis' mirrors of Almack's, yet do not
exalt yourself above all that is fleshly. Reflect that you, so lately
unrivalled, can now see a EUGENE SUE whose brow is umbraged by laurels of
a more luxuriant and lovely green. Cease your expectorations of bile upon
a great people; admit that mastication of the 'odorous vegeble' is a
Spartan virtue; and we will again vote you an Anak in the kingdom of pen
and paper. Then again shall we be led to believe that your praises and
your vituperations are equally unpurchasable. Then once more shall we
think you would swallow no golden pill, nor suffer your throat to be
ulcerated by a silver quinsy.'
GOSSIP WITH READERS AND CORRESPONDENTS.--If any of our readers are
desirous of looking into the _rationale_ of irrationality, to employ a
highly 'unitive' phrase, let them take up, if they can command it, the
'_Annual Report of the Managers of the New York State Lunatic Asylum_,'
one of the clearest and most comprehensive documents in its kind that we
have ever perused. It proceeds from the capable pen of A. BRIGHAM, M. D.
the superintendent and physician of the institution, and is full upon the
definition, causes and classification of insanity; the size and shape of
the heads of the patients; the pulse; description of the building; daily
routine of business, diet, labor, amusements, religious worship, visitors,
suggestions to those who have friends whom they expect to commit to the
care of the asylum, etc., etc. The cause of insanity in _fifty_ out of two
hundred and seventy-six patients is attributed to religious anxiety,
produced by long attendance on protracted religious meetings, etc. Want of
sleep is decidedly the most frequent and immediate cause of insanity, and
one the most important to guard against. 'So rarely (says the
superintendent) do you see a recent case of insanity that is not preceded
by want of sleep, that we regard it as almost the sure precursor of mental
derangement.' As evidences of the difficulty of arranging the insane in
classes, founded on symptoms, Dr. BRIGHAM gives us the following synopsis
of individual peculiarities noticed among certain of the inmates of the
Asylum:
'In addition to emperors, queens, prophets and priests, we have
one that says he is nobody, a nonentity. One that was never born,
and one that was born of her grandmother, and another dropped by
the devil flying over the world. One has had the throat cut out
and put in wrong, so that what is swallowed passes into the head,
and another has his head cut off and replaced every night. One
thinks himself a child, and talks and acts like a child. Many
appear as if constantly intoxicated. One has the gift of tongues,
another deals in magic, several in animal magnetism. One thinks he
is a white polar bear. A number have hallucinations of sight,
others of hearing. One repeats whatever is said to him, another
repeats constantly words of the same sound, as door, floor. One is
pursued by the sheriff, many by the devil. One has invented the
perpetual motion and is soon to be rich; others have already
acquired vast fortunes: scraps of paper, buttons and chips are to
them, large amounts of money. Many pilfer continually and without
any apparent motive, while others secrete every thing they can
find, their own articles as well as those of others. A majority
are disposed to hoard up trifling and useless articles, as scraps
of tin, leather, strings, nails, buttons, etc., and are much
grieved to part with them. One will not eat unless alone, some
never wish to eat, while others are always starving. One with a
few sticks and straws fills his room with officers and soldiers,
ships and sailors, carriages and horses, the management of which
occupies all his time and thoughts. Some have good memory as
regards most things, and singularly defective as to others. One
does not recollect the names of his associates, which he hears
every hour, yet his memory is good in other respects. One says he
is THOMAS PAINE, author of the 'Age of Reason,' a work he has
never read; another calls himself General WASHINGTON; and one old
lady of diminutive size calls herself General SCOTT, and is never
so good-natured as when thus addressed. One is always in court
attending a trial, and wondering and asking when the court is to
rise. Another has to eat up the building, drink dry the canal, and
swallow the Little Falls village, and is continually telling of
the difficulty of the task.'
The superintendent prefers a classification founded upon the faculties of
the mind that appear to be disordered; and he thinks he could place all
his patients in one of the three following classes: _Intellectual
Insanity_, or disorder of the intellect without noticeable disturbance of
the feelings and propensities; _Moral Insanity_ or derangement of the
feelings, affections, and passions, without any remarkable disorder of the
intellect; and _General Insanity_, in which both the intellectual
faculties and the feelings and affections are disordered. The State Asylum
is a fine imposing edifice, delightfully situated near the pleasant
village of Utica, in Oneida county, and is becoming greatly distinguished
for success in the treatment and cure of insanity. · · · WE heard a little
anecdote at a _bal costumé_ the other evening, (whether from the dignified
and stately HELEN MACGREGOR or the beautiful MEDORA, we 'cannot well make
out,') which is worth repeating. A retired green-grocer, rejoicing in the
euphonious name of TIBBS, living at Hackney, near London, sorely against
his will, and after warm remonstrance, finally yielded to his wife's
entreaty that he would go in character to a masquerade-ball, given to the
'middling interest' by one of his old neighbors. He went accoutred as a
knight, wearing his visor down. What was his surprise on entering the
room, to find first one and then another member of the motley company
slapping him familiarly on the back, with: 'Halloa! TIBBS! who thought to
see _you_ here! What's the news at Hackney?' In dismay that his ridiculous
secret was out, he hurried from the scene, and hastened home in a state of
great excitement from the mortification to which he had been subjected. 'I
_told_ you I should be known,' said he to his wife; 'I _knew_ I should!'
'No wonder!' she replied; 'you've got your name and residence on your
steel cap: 'Mr. TIBBS, Hackney!'' He had forgotten to remove the address
which the London costumer had affixed to it as a direction! · · · HOW many
thousand times, in thinking of the onward career of our glorious and
thrice-blessed country, have we felt the emotions to which our esteemed
friend and contributor, POLYGON, gives forceful expression in the closing
lines of a beautiful poem of his, which we have encountered to-day for the
first time:
'Oh! long through coming ages, born
When _we_ shall slumber cold and still,
The sultry summer will adorn
The verdant vale and hazy hill;
And Autumn walking even and morn
Through bearded wheat and rustling corn,
See Plenty from her streaming horn
His largest wishes fill.
'Europe's rich realms will then admire
And emulate our matchless fame,
And Asia burn with fierce desire
To burst her galling bonds of shame!
Greece will resume th' Aonian lyre,
And Rome again to heaven aspire,
And vestal Freedom's quenchless fire
From the pyramids shall flame!'
* * * * *
There is a sort of pathetic humor in the following parody by PUNCH upon
the prize exhibitions of cattle in England. A more forcible exposition of
the different condition of the human and brute animal in that country
could not well be conceived. It must be premised that a large hall is
fitted up with pens on either side, and over the head of the occupant
paste-board tickets are appended by the Poor Law Commissioners, detailing
their names, weights, ages, the regimen to which they have been subjected,
and other particulars; as thus: 'PETER SMALL. Aged forty. Weight at period
of admission twelve stone. Confined three months. Present weight nine
stone. Fed principally on water-gruel. Has been separated from his wife
and children in the work-house, and occasionally placed in solitary
confinement for complaining of hunger. Employment, breaking stones.' 'JANE
WELLS. Aged seventy. Weight five stone; lost two stone since her
admission, one month ago. Gruel diet; tea without sugar; potatoes and
salt. Has been set to picking opium.' 'JOHN TOMPKINS. Aged eighty-five.
Has seen better days. On admission, weighed eleven stone, which has been
reduced to eight and three-quarters. Diet, weak soup, with turnips and
carrots; dry bread and cheese-parings; a few ounces of meat occasionally,
when faint. Came to the work-house with his wife, who is five years
younger than himself. Has not been allowed to see her for a month; during
which period has lost in weight two ounces on an average per day. Employed
in carrying coals.' Faithful portraits, no doubt, of thousands who crowd
the thick-clustering pauper-houses of England, who have
'No blessed leisure for love nor hope,
But only time for grief!'
* * * * *
Our umqwhile New-Haven friend, who commented upon our 'light gossip' a few
months since, will pardon us for quoting, in corroboration of the
exculpatory 'position' which we assumed in alluding to his animadversions,
the following remarks by the author of the 'Charcoal Sketches,' JOSEPH C.
NEAL, Esq.: 'Gossip, goodly gossip, though sometimes sneered at, is after
all the best of our entertainments. We must fall back upon the light web
of conversation, upon chit-chat, as our main-stay, our chief reliance; as
that _corps de reserve_ on which our scattered and wearied forces are to
rally. What is there which will bear comparison as a recreating means,
with the free and unstudied interchange of thought, of knowledge, of
impression about men and things, and all that varied medley of fact,
criticism and conclusion so continually fermenting in the active brain? Be
fearful of those who love it not, and banish such as would imbibe its
delights yet bring no contribution to the common stock. There are men who
seek the reputation of wisdom by dint of never affording a glimpse of
their capabilities, and impose upon the world by silent gravity; negative
philosophers, who never commit themselves beyond the utterance of a
self-evident proposition, or hazard their position by a feat of greater
boldness than is to be found in the avowal of the safe truth which has
been granted for a thousand years. There is a deception here, which should
never be submitted to. Sagacity may be manifest in the nod of Burleigh's
head; but it does not follow that all who nod are Burleighs. He who
habitually says nothing, must be content if he be regarded as having
nothing to say, and it is only a lack of grace on his part which precludes
the confession. In this broad 'Vienna' of human effort, the mere
'looker-on' cannot be tolerated. It is part of our duty to be nonsensical
and ridiculous at times, for the entertainment of the rest of the world.
If we are never to open our mouths until the unsealing of the aperture is
to give evidence of a present Solomon, and to add something to the Book of
Proverbs, we must for the most part, stand like the statue of Harpocrates,
with 'Still your finger on your lips, I pray.' If we do speak, under such
restrictions, it cannot well be, as the world is constituted, more than
once or twice in the course of an existence, the rest of the sojourn upon
earth being devoted to a sublimation of our thought. But always wise,
sensible, sagacious, rational; always in wig and spectacles; always
algebraic and mathematical; doctrinal and didactic; ever to sit like
FRANKLIN'S portrait, with the index fixed upon 'causality;' one might as
well be a petrified 'professor,' or a WILLIAM PENN bronzed upon a
pedestal. There is nothing so good, either in itself or in its effects, as
good nonsense.' Upon reading the foregoing, we laid Mr. YELLOWPLUSH'S
'flattering function' to our soul, that after all, we need not greatly
distrust the reception of our monthly salmagundi, since one good producer
and critic may be held as in some sort an epitome of the public; and
especially, since any one subsection of our hurried Gossip, should it
chance to be dull, or void of interest, may be soon exhausted, or easily
skipped. · · · WE observed lately, in the pages of a monthly contemporary,
an elaborate notice of the poems of ALFRED TENNYSON, who has written many
somewhat affected and several very heartful and exquisite verses; and were
not a little surprised to find no reference to two of the most beautiful
poems in his collection; namely, the 'New-Year's Eve,' and its
'Conclusion.' The first embodies the reflections of a young maiden,
sinking gradually under that fell destroyer, CONSUMPTION. It is new-year's
eve, and she implores her mother to 'call her early,' that she may see the
sun rise upon the glad new year, the last that she shall ever see. How
touchingly the associations of nature are depicted in these stanzas:
To-night I saw the sun set: he set and left behind
The good old year, the dear old time, and all my peace of mind;
And the New-year's coming up, mother, but I shall never see
The blossom on the black thorn, the leaf upon the tree.
There's not a flower on all the hills: the frost is on the pane:
I only wish to live till the snow-drops come again:
I wish the snow would melt, and the sun come out on high;
I long to see a flower so before the day I die.
The building rook will caw from the windy tall elm-tree,
And the tufted plover pipe along the fallow lea,
And the swallow will come back again with summer o'er the wave.
But I shall lie alone, mother, within the mouldering grave.
Upon the chancel-casement, and upon that grave of mine,
In the early, early morning the summer sun will shine;
Before the red cock crows from the farm upon the hill,
When you are warm asleep, mother, and all the world is still.
When the flowers shall come again, mother, beneath the waning light,
You'll never see me more in the long gray fields at night:
When from the dry dark wold the summer airs blow cool,
On the oat-grass and the sword-grass, and the bulrush in the pool.
You'll bury me, my mother, just beneath the hawthorn shade,
And you'll come sometimes and see me, where I am lowly laid.
I shall not forget you, mother, I shall hear you when you pass,
With your feet above my head in the long and pleasant grass.
I have been wild and wayward, but you'll forgive me now;
You'll kiss me, my own mother, upon my cheek and brow;
Nay, nay, you must not weep, nor let your grief be wild,
You should not fret for me, mother, you have another child.
If I can I'll come again, mother, from out my resting-place;
Though you'll not see me, mother, I shall look upon your face;
Though I cannot speak a word, I shall hearken what you say,
And be often, often with you, when you think I'm far away.
Good-night, good-night! when I have said good-night for evermore,
And you see me carried out from the threshold of the door,
Don't let Effie come to see me till my grave be growing green:
She'll be a better child to you than ever I have been.
She'll find my garden-tools upon the granary floor:
Let her take 'em: they are hers: I shall never garden more:
But tell her, when I'm gone, to train the rose-bush that I set
About the parlour-window and the box of mignonette.
The poor girl's prayer to 'live to see the snow-drop,' in the spring-time,
is answered. The violets have come forth, and in the fields around she
hears the bleating of the young lambs. She is now ready to die, and knows
that the time of her departure is at hand, for she has had a 'warning from
heaven.' The reader should have sat by the bed-side of one slowly fading
away by consumption, and have heard the wild March wind wail amidst the
boughs of leafless trees without, rightly to appreciate the faithfulness
of these lines:
'I did not hear the dog howl, mother, nor hear the death-watch beat,
There came a sweeter token when the night and morning meet:
But sit beside my bed, mother, and put your hand in mine,
And Effie on the other side, and I will tell the sign.
All in the wild March-morning I heard the angels call;
It was when the moon was setting, and the dark was over all;
The trees began to whisper, and the wind began to roll,
And in the wild March-morning I heard them call my soul.
For lying broad awake I thought of you and Effie dear;
I saw you sitting in the house, and I no longer here;
With all my strength I pray'd for both, and so I felt resign'd,
And up the valley came a swell of music on the wind.
I thought that it was fancy, and I listen'd in my bed,
And then did something speak to me--I know not what was said;
For great delight and shuddering took hold of all my mind,
And up the valley came again the music on the wind.
But you were sleeping; and I said, 'It's not for them: it's mine.'
And if it comes three times, I thought, I take it for a sign.
And once again it came, and close beside the window-bars,
Then seem'd to go right up to Heaven and die among the stars.'
'This blessed music,' she says, 'went that way my soul will have to go.'
She is reconciled to her inevitable fate; yet still she casts a 'longing,
lingering look behind,' to the beautiful world she is leaving forever. Her
reflections are imbued with a deep pathos; the second line of the first
stanza, especially, 'teems with sensation:'
'O look! the sun begins to rise, the heavens are in a glow;
He shines upon a hundred fields, and all of them I know:
And there I move no longer now, and there his light may shine,
Wild flowers are in the valley for other hands than mine!
O sweet and strange it seems to me, that ere this day is done
The voice, that now is speaking, may be beyond the sun;
For ever and for ever with those just souls and true:
And what is life, that we should moan? why make we such ado?
For ever and for ever, all in a blessed home,
And there to wait a little while till you and Effie come;
To lie within the light of God, as I lie upon your breast,
Where the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest.
* * * * *