A TUR'BLE CHAP
[Sidenote: _Anon._]
If all t' kisses as Oi ha' tuke
Wuz zet down vair an' square inter buke,
Lard! Lard! 'twud make t' greaät volk say:
_"What a tur'ble chap is ole Joe Gay!"_
Vor it du zet ma brain a-swimmin'
Tu think o' all t' _hundered_ wimmin
As Oi ha' bussed 'hind hedge an' door
Zince vust Oi cuddled dree or vour.
Polly Potter, Trixie Trotter, Gertie Gillard, Zairy Zlee,
Zusan Zettle, Connie Kettle, Daisy Doble, La'ra Lee,
Hesther Holley, Jinny Jolly, Nelly Northam, Vanny Vail,
Ivery maid in Coompton Regis--dang it, whoy,
Oi've bussed 'em all!
When Oi vust went to Zunday skule,
Passen's darter, on greaät high stule,
Taakes me oop on 'ur lady knee,
An' kissed ov Oi, zo Oi kissed ov she!
An', arter skule, zure-ly, Oi vollers
T' little blushin' vemale scholars
All round t' orchards, an' under stacks,
Oi bussed t' lot, an' yew can ax--
Polly Potter, Trixie Trotter, Gertie Gillard, Zairy Zlee,
Zusan Zettle, Connie Kettle, Daisy Doble, La'ra Lee,
Hesther Holley, Jinny Jolly, Nelly Northam, Vanny Vall,
Ivery gal in Coompton Regis--ax the lot, Oi've kissed 'em all!
Thur's not a lane vur moiles around
But hassen heerd ma kisses zound,
Nor dru t' parish will 'ee vind
A door Oi hanna kissed behind;
An' now, wid crutch, an' back bent double,
T' rheumatiz doän't gie naw trouble,
Vor all t' ould grannies handy-boi
Iz mazed, vair mazed, on cuddlin' Oi!
Pore-house Potter, toothless Trotter, gouty Gillard, splea-foot Zlee,
Zilly Zettle, cock-eyed Kettle, deaf ould Doble, limpin' Lee,
Husky Holley, jaundy Jolly, Nanny Northam, vractious Vall,
All t' ould gals in Coompton Regis, bless their hearts, Oi love 'em all!
MR. BROOKFIELD IN HIS YOUTH
[Sidenote: _W.H. Brookfield_]
My Dear Venables,
Notwithstanding the proverbial irregularity of the English mails and the
infamous practice of Government in embezzling all private letters for
the King's private reading, yours of the 17th eluded observation at the
post office so as to reach me; and was as acceptable as, considering the
wearisome frequency of your communications lately, could possibly be
expected.
My last was a scrawl from Althorp--where we spent six weeks. That there
are 60,000 volumes you know. I read them all, excepting a pamphlet in a
_patois_ of the Sanscrit, written by a learned, but, I regret to add,
profane Hindoo Sectarian, the blasphemous drift of which was to prove
that Bramah's locks were not all patent.
We went to town to the fiddling[9] which it was the pill[10] of the day
to cry down. I was much gratified by the show and altogether. I sate by
the Duke of Wellington, who was good enough to go out to fetch me a pot
of porter. When "See the Conquering Hero comes" was sung in _Judas
Maccabeus_, all eyes were turned upon me. I rose and bowed--but did not
think the place was suited for any more marked acknowledgment. The King
sang the Coronation Anthem exceedingly well, and Princess Victoria
whistled the "Dead March" in _Saul_ with, perhaps, rather less than her
usual effect. But the _chef d'oeuvre_ was confessed by all to be
Macaulay in "The Praise of God and of the Second Day." I rose a wiser,
and, I think, a sadder man.
Bishop of Worcester spent two days here last week. He begged me with
tears in his eyes to be Bishop instead of him. I took a night to
consider of it and to examine into my fitness for such a charge--but in
the morning gave answer with the elaborateness which the occasion
demanded that I would see him ... first.
THE AUTHOR OF "ALICE"
[Sidenote: _Lewis Carroll_]
DEAR SENIOR CENSOR,--In a desultory conversation on a point connected
with the dinner at our high table, you incidentally remarked to me that
lobster-sauce, "though a necessary adjunct to turbot, was not entirely
wholesome."
It is entirely unwholesome. I never ask for it without reluctance; I
never take a second spoonful without a feeling of apprehension on the
subject of a possible nightmare. This naturally brings me to the subject
of Mathematics, and of the accommodation provided by the University for
carrying on the calculations necessary in that important branch of
Science.
As Members of Convocation are called upon (whether personally, or, as is
less exasperating, by letter) to consider the offer of the Clarendon
Trustees, as well as every other subject of human or inhuman, interest,
capable of consideration, it has occurred to me to suggest for your
consideration how desirable roofed buildings are for carrying on
mathematical calculations; in fact, the variable character of the
weather in Oxford renders it highly inexpedient to attempt much
occupation, of a sedentary nature, in the open air.
Again, it is often impossible for students to carry on accurate
mathematical calculations in close contiguity to one another, owing to
their mutual conversation; consequently these processes require
different rooms in which irrepressible conversationalists, who are found
to occur in every branch of Society, might be carefully and permanently
fixed.
It may be sufficient, for the present, to enumerate the following
requisites--others might be added as funds permit:
A. A very large room for calculating Greatest Common Measure. To this a
small one might be attached for Least Common Multiple: this, however,
might be dispensed with.
B. A piece of open ground for keeping Roots and practising their
extraction: it would be advisable to keep Square Roots by themselves, as
their corners are apt to damage others.
C. A room for reducing Fractions to their Lowest Terms. This should be
provided with a cellar for keeping the Lowest Terms when found, which
might also be available to the general body of Undergraduates, for the
purpose of "keeping Terms."
D. A large room which might be darkened, and fitted up with a
magic-lantern, for the purpose of exhibiting circulating Decimals in the
act of circulation. This might also contain cupboards, fitted with glass
doors, for keeping the various Scales of Notation.
E. A narrow strip of ground, railed off and carefully levelled for
investigating the properties of Asymptotes, and testing practically
whether Parallel Lines meet or not: for this purpose it should reach, to
use the expressive language of Euclid, "ever so far."
This last process of "continually producing the lines," may require
centuries or more; but such a period, though long in the life of an
individual, is as nothing in the life of the University.
As Photography is now very much employed in recording human expression,
and might possibly be adapted to Algebraical Expressions, a small
photographic room would be desirable, both for general use and for
representing the various phenomena of Gravity, Disturbance of
Equilibrium, Resolution, etc., which affect the features during severe
mathematical operations.
May I trust that you will give your immediate attention to this most
important subject?
Believe me,
Sincerely yours,
MATHEMATICUS....
[Sidenote: _Miss E.G. Thomson_]
It was at the end of December, 1878, that a letter, written in a
singularly legible and rather boyish-looking hand, came to me from
Christ Church, Oxford, signed "C.L. Dodgson." The writer said that he
had come across some fairy designs of mine, and he should like to see
some more of my work. By the same post came a letter from my London
publisher (who had supplied my address) telling me that the "Rev. C.L.
Dodgson" was "Lewis Carroll."
"Alice in Wonderland" had long been one of my pet books, and, as one
regards a favourite author as almost a personal friend, I felt less
restraint than one usually feels in writing to a stranger, though I
carefully concealed my knowledge of his identity, as he had not chosen
to reveal it.
This was the beginning of a frequent and delightful correspondence, and,
as I confessed to a great love for fairy lore of every description, he
asked me if I would accept a child's fairytale book he had written,
called "Alice in Wonderland." I replied that I knew it nearly all off by
heart, but that I should greatly prize a copy given to me by himself. By
return came "Alice," and "Through the Looking-glass," bound most
luxuriously in white calf and gold. And this is the grateful and kindly
note that came with them: "I am now sending you 'Alice,' and the
'Looking-glass' as well. There is an incompleteness about giving only
one, and besides, the one you bought was probably in red, and would not
match these. If you are at all in doubt as to what to do with the (now)
superfluous copy, let me suggest your giving it to some poor sick child.
I have been distributing copies to all the hospitals and convalescent
homes I can hear of, where there are sick children capable of reading
them, and though, of course, one takes some pleasure in the popularity
of the books elsewhere, it is not nearly so pleasant a thought to me as
that they may be a comfort and relief to children in hours of pain and
weariness. Still, no recipient _can_ be more appropriate than one who
seems to have been in fairyland herself, and to have seen, like the
'weary mariners' of old--
"Between the green brink and the running foam
White limbs unrobèd to a crystal air,
Sweet faces, rounded arms, and bosoms prest
To little harps of gold."
"Do you ever come to London?" he asked in another letter; "if so, will
you allow me to call upon you?"
Early in the summer I came up to study, and I sent him word that I was
in town. One night, coming into my room after a long day spent at the
British Museum, in the half-light I saw a card lying on the table: "Rev.
C.L. Dodgson." Bitter, indeed, was my disappointment at having missed
him, but, just as I was laying it sadly down, I spied a small T.O. in
the corner. On the back I read that he couldn't get up to my rooms early
or late enough to find me, so would I arrange to meet him at some museum
or gallery the day but one following? I fixed the South Kensington
Museum, by the "Schliemann" collection, at twelve o'clock.
A little before twelve I was at the rendezvous, and then the humour of
the situation suddenly struck me, that I had not the ghost of an idea
what _he_ was like, nor would _he_ have any better chance of discovering
_me_! The room was fairly full of all sorts and conditions, as usual,
and I glanced at each masculine figure in turn, only to reject it as a
possibility of the one I sought. Just as the big clock had clanged out
twelve, I heard the high, vivacious voices and laughter of children
sounding down the corridor.
At that moment a gentleman entered, two little girls clinging to his
hands, and, as I caught sight of the tall, slim figure, with the
cleanshaven, delicate, refined face, I said to myself, "_That's_ Lewis
Carroll." He stood for a moment, head erect, glancing swiftly over the
room, then, bending down, whispered something to one of the children;
she, after a moment's pause, pointed straight at me.
Dropping their hands, he came forward, and, with that winning smile of
his that utterly banished the oppressive sense of the Oxford don, said
simply, "I am Mr. Dodgson; I was to meet you, I think?" To which I as
frankly smiled, and said, "How did you know me so soon?"
"My little friend found you. I told her I had come to meet a young lady
who knew fairies, and she fixed on you at once. But _I_ knew you before
she spoke."
_The Gentleman, January 29, 1898_.
AFTER MR. MASEFIELD
[Sidenote: _Anon._]
From '41 to '51
I was an almost model son.
From '51 to '62
I wished to, but I didn't do.
From '62 to '67
I took the shortest cut to heaven.
From '67 to '79
I only drank one glass of wine.
From '79 to '84
I felt that I could do with more.
From '84 to '96
I found how hard it is to mix.
From '96 to Nineteen-odd
Quod:
MISS STIPP OF PLOVER'S COURT
[Sidenote: _H.B._]
In a neighbourhood of narrow streets and tunnelling alleys, where there
are few lamps and the policemen go two and two, where all day long you
see fierce-eyed women hooded with shawls coming out of greasy
street-doors with jugs in their hands, and where all day long sullen men
stand at the dark entry to court and alley with pipes in their mouths
and their hands in their pockets, and where the little children "awfully
reverse our Saviour's words, and are not of the Kingdom of Heaven, but
of the Kingdom of Hell"--in this dark, dangerous riverside
neighbourhood, with its foul odours and its filthy gutters, lives one of
the most defenceless women who ever came into human existence.
I knock at a door in Plover's Court, and a half-dressed, half-starved,
and wholly dirty child, with no boots to her feet, opens to me; and when
this miserable heir of the ages, after she has stared at me like a
famished animal, learns that I wish to see Miss Stipp, she bids me "go
up." The narrow passage is hung with two lines of washing; and, pushing
through the avenue formed by these dank garments, I catch sight in the
stone-paved kitchen beyond of a big-headed, whitewashed-looking infant
sprawling on the floor collecting soap-suds, and a woman in the midst of
voluminous steam working her arms about in a dripping wash tub.
The stairs up which I make my difficult way are strung with washing as
far as the first bend. The dampness of the atmosphere has converted the
dust and grime on banisters, wall, and stairs into a muddy dew. The
little doll's-house of a place reeks with the suffocating odour of gas,
fried fish, onions, and steam. In one of the two rooms on the first
floor, the door of which stands open, I see--and myself am seen, not to
say scowled at, by a couple of pipe-smoking navvies, three or four
ragged children, and a little rabbit of a flat-chested woman whose
complexion and the colour of her garments bear a striking resemblance to
moleskin, and whose thin hair is twisted up in front and held
comfortably in its place by a single steel curling-pin which seems to
occupy the whole breadth of her forehead.
My rap on the panel of the other door is soon answered by a shrill,
cracked voice like the sputtering of a cheap phonograph, and opening the
flimsy door I find myself in a tiny topsy-turvy chamber, with all its
furniture dragged out of place, a pail of water in the centre of the
floor, a piece of scrubbing-soap on the table, and an unwrung
house-flannel soaking on the seat of a wooden chair. There is a nice,
old-fashioned, round-fronted chest-of-drawers with brass handles in the
room, but the most striking detail of its equipment is a stumpy and
amazingly abrupt bedstead against the wall, which is just big enough for
a big doll. The bedclothes of this eerie little cot are thrown back,
and in the centre of the rumpled mattress, in the hollow made by my
heroine's recumbent form, curled up in a sublime indifference to the
puffing and blowing of its mistress on the hearth, lies a shabby,
emaciated, and disgusting cat.
At first I suppose Miss Stipp--Miss Emma Jane Stipp--who is polishing
the grate, to be _kneeling_ on the hearthstone; but when a bird-like
claw is stretched out to me, and the shrill, cracked voice says, "I'm
dirty, but hearty; sit down and enjoy yourself," I observe that the
little dwarf is actually _standing_ on the hearthstone, although her big
head does not come within several inches of the mantelpiece. Indeed,
with her twisted feet crossed over one another, so that the left foot
appears to be kicking and worrying the right foot, in order to take its
place, and the right foot, which turns upward, appears to be trying to
creep away from its enemy, as though it wanted to crawl up that enemy's
leg to laugh at it from the mocking vantage of its own knee--the little
old lady walks up and down on the hearthstone, her hand blacking and
polishing the grate as she goes, just as you may see another lady
walking up and down and taking the air on her doorstep.
* * * * *
The little dwarf is familiar to hundreds of Londoners. Always nursing
the wall, and using a miniature crooked stick exactly like a
question-mark, she hobbles through the streets like a half-human beetle,
until she reaches some such place as the approach to a railway station,
where she finds it profitable to stand as though in great pain, rolling
sheep's eyes at the hurrying crowd. And many of those tenderhearted
gentlemen and kind old ladies, and dear little overdressed children
returning from a visit to Old Drury or the Tower of London, who have
slipped a penny or a sixpenny-bit into the claw of the dwarf, must often
have asked themselves at the time what manner of woman she is, and
bothered themselves to imagine how on earth she lives. The old
creature--for she is over seventy--is counted in statistics among the
proud population of this Seat of Empire, and she is as much subject to
the cosmic laws and as much a member of the human family as the tallest
and most swaggering Lifeguards-man who ever had "Cook's Son!" shouted at
him by irreverent urchin.
How she views the universe from her altitude of a yard, or a yard and
three inches; what her attitude is to God and man, and how life goes
with the old veteran after seventy odd years of its buffeting--these
were some of the mysteries which I brought with me into her back room by
the riverside for their unveiling by Miss Emma Stipp herself.
* * * * *
"I'm late this mornin', I am," she says, in her shrill fashion, standing
right against the fire like a demon that no flame can consume, and
vigorously rubbing at the grate with her black-lead brush. "The cause is
_'im_," she continues, turning to point the brush at the cat sleeping
on her bed, after she has rubbed the red tip of her long nose with a
portion of her knuckles and a portion of the brush. "Oh, he's a villain,
a dreadful villain he is," she cries, with exasperation, returning to
her work; "he worries my life out, he do, the 'orrid varmint. Last night
he didn't come home, he didn't. I set up for him, but he didn't come.
'Oh,' I says, 'if you're keepin' low company again,' I says, 'you can
stop out all night,' I says, 'for I'll sit up for you no longer; so
there, my ugly beauty.' And then in the middle of the night I wake up, I
do, feeling that cold, and sneezin' and snuffin', and irritatin' I was
from top to toe; and blest if Master Tom hadn't got upon the
window-sill, bust open that there piece of brown paper I had pasted over
the broken pane, I had, and let hisself in Yankee-doodle fashion, and
left me to perish with the cold."
Her lined and wrinkled face, when she turns it to us, is not without the
vestiges of attraction. The head, with its grey hair parted down the
centre, is well-shaped; the forlorn-looking eyes are a pale-blue, like
faded forget-me-nots; the thin, flexible nose, which is always moist,
and the long, firm chin incline towards the formation known as the
nut-cracker. But for her abbreviated trunk, and those few pathetic
inches of twisted leg--chiefly feet--she might have passed for a
matronly-looking and rather handsome old harridan, half Scotch and half
Irish.
"What with the cat," she says, and then, letting her voice run up to a
screech, she proceeds furiously, "and that devil of a woman downstairs!
Oh! she's a wicked woman, she is, a _wicked_ woman, a _very_ wicked
woman; she's got some of my things because I'm behind-hand in my rent,
and she says she won't give them up; but she _shall_. I'll see that she
do. Ah! I'll have the law on her--the nasty, swearing, beastly--Oh!
she's a _wicked_ woman."
* * * * *
Think of the majesty of the English law which enables this pathetic yard
of twisted womanhood to hold her own in a foul court against "a wicked
woman" with arms like a bluejacket! But Miss Stipps is used to fighting
her own battles. When children yell after her, "Old Goody Witch!" she
swings about and takes her stick to them, pouring out such a flow of
imprecation upon their young heads that they run away in a panic of
alarm. Moreover, I have it on reliable authority that when Miss Stipps
steps over the way with her jug for a pint of porter, she is in the
habit, after reaching up her arm to receive the jug back from the
barman, of telling the young man pretty sharply that she isn't buying
froth, and that she'll trouble him to do a blow at the jug and to give
another pull to his tap, which won't hurt him, it won't, as he ain't yet
the proprietor of the place, and not likely to be, neither, if he treats
poor ladies in sich a wulgar and Sheeny fashion.
I beg Miss Stipp to desist from her labour of dabbing the grate with
streaky spots of black-lead, and implore her to take a seat and indulge
herself for an easy hour in anecdotal reminiscences. Miss Stipp yields
to my blandishments--that is to say, she backs against a little
cobbler's stool, a stool which the Baby Bear in that immortal legend of
"The Three Bears" would have found several sizes too small for it, and
appears to slope half an inch to the rear. By the action of crossing her
hands in her lap, and by the society smile on her face as she turns her
dewy nose in my direction, I gather, though I should never have
discovered it for myself, that Miss Stipp is seated.
We are now in for a thoroughly comfortable and intimate conversation.
The cat is fast asleep. The spinster's mantelpiece, which is decorated
with pictorial advertisements of such highly inappropriate commodities
as baby's food and tobacco, wears an aspect which I am content to regard
as social. And the cupboard beside the fireplace, although the bottom
floor is used as a coal-cellar, suggests, with its crowded shelves of
dishes, egg-cups, plates, biscuit-boxes, and paper bags, that we are in
for a little friendly banquet, which, if not good enough for his Grace
of Canterbury, might yet have inspired him of Assisi to ask a blessing.
* * * * *
"Well, you must know," says Miss Stipp, looking at the fire, and nodding
her head as she speaks, "that I am one of ten, that I was born in
Blackfriars--born in Blackfriars, I was--and that all the boys died, and
that only me, who was born a cripple--born a cripple, I was--and my two
sisters ever grew up to be a comfort to my poor mother. What father was,
if ever he was anythin' at all, I _don't_ know; and if I ever did know I
think it was somethin' connected in some roundabout fashion, it was,
with drains. But he died early, and that was an end of _him_. My poor
mother, she was a laundress--a beautiful laundress she was, a very
beautiful laundress--and she used to do for a gentleman who was a
dissentin' minister--a dissentin' minister he was--and most particular
about his linen, and lived in the big square just by the church at the
corner, number five; and I've knowed my poor mother fret herself almost
to death, she would, if one of them little blisters ever come up on the
gentleman's shirt-fronts. And I used to help my poor mother, I did, by
carryin' the gentleman's linen to number five in the big square, and
that was the fust job I ever did for my poor mother, and proud she was,
and proud I was, too, that I could be sich a help to her.
"We was poorer than 'most anybody in Blackfriars, where we lived, and a
terribly poor neighbourhood it were--terribly poor; and so one of my
sisters got married, she did, and a wonderfully big family she had, but
most of 'em died sharp, so _that_ was all right, excep' that the
berryin' cost a tidy bit of money, it did. Then my other sister went out
to service in Brixton. I useter go there one day a week--Toosday it
was--to clean the silver and the soup tureens, and they give me a
shillin', they did, I useter help sister in the kitchen--not a cook I
wasn't, you must understand, but I useter help with the vegetables and
the dishin'-up, and they give me a shillin'. It was a very nice house; a
nice house, and no mistake about it. The lady had married a gardener--a
gentleman's gardener, he was; and there was a carpet all over the
dining-room floor--a nice carpet, a Brussels carpet, an ol' Brussels
carpet; and she kep' a parrot--oh, a nasty, spiteful parrot, it was--I
useter hate it, I did, the nasty, squawlin' beast; and it was more to
her than any baby; and I useter clean the silver and the soup tureens,
and do the vegetables and dish-up, Toosdays it was; and they give me a
shillin'.
"All by meself I useter go, there and back, and one night"--she lifts
her claws and gurgles at the memory, with a slow smile creepin'
gradually through all the wrinkles on her face--"Oh, didn't I give my
poor mother a fright, and no mistake about it! It was one of them nasty,
stinkin' cold, freezin' nights; the streets like ice, they was, and the
'bus horses couldn't get along nohow, for all they was roughed; and it
was past eleven o'clock, it was--yes, past eleven o'clock, it
was--before ever I got home; and there was my poor mother standing at
the door of the alms-house where we was livin' in Blackfriars--my poor
mother and me--and cryin' and wringin' her hands and makin' a to-do, she
was, thinking as how she had lost me altogether.
* * * * *
"Then my poor mother died," says Miss Stipp sadly, drawing her hand
across the end of her nose. "I forgit the year, but it was the fust year
that ever there come a August Bank Holiday. And she died on that day, my
poor mother did. Yuss, she died on that day. She didn't seem like dyin'
at all that there mornin,' she didn't. She eat a beautiful dinner, a bit
of boiled meat--I forgit whether it was beef or mutton--mutton, I think
it was, but anyway boiled meat; and she eat a beautiful dinner, my poor
mother did--boiled meat, greens, and pertaters; and she eat a nice
tea--well, nothin' partickler in the way of a tea, but a _comfortable_
tea; and when I came home, 'Oh Emma Jane,' she says, 'I wish I hadn't
never let you go to church this day; for this here,' she says, 'is my
very last day on earth,' she says, 'and I'm goin',' she says, 'to your
father in heaven, to take care of _him_, and I shall have to leave _you_
all alone,' she says, 'to look after yourself; and I'm most afeard,' my
poor mother said, 'what'll become of you,' she says; 'and don't forgit,'
she says, 'to say your prayers, and go reggeler to the Communion, and
always be good and obedient, and don't git doin' no vile sin, and please
God we'll all meet in heaven,' she says, 'and be more happy,' she says,
'nor what we have ever been here in Blackfriars.' And it was August Bank
Holiday, the first August Bank Holiday that ever was; and it was a
beautiful day, lovely weather it was, and my poor mother had a fit, and
never was quite the same; and she died."
Miss Stipp fetches a sigh, and shakes her head at the fire. She has been
living in the past, watching with the mind's eye her poor mother fade
slowly into eternity on that beautiful August day--the little almshouse
bedroom flooded, let us hope, with golden light, for all it was in
Blackfriars. She comes to herself with a little jerk, turns her head
slowly round to us, and smiles one of her poor, pathetic,
half-entreating smiles which make her seem like another Maggie.
And, strange to relate, Miss Stipp was confirmed in St. George's Church,
on whose muddied steps Little Dorrit, Little Mother, sat in far-off days
with the big head of poor Maggie on her lap. "It was beautiful,
beautiful it was, that there Confirmation," says Miss Stipp. "The
bishop, he put his hands on my head, just there he did, put 'em on, and
I was kneelin' at his feet, and he said the words, whatever they was,
and I felt his hands pressin' on my hair; of course, I had done it werry
nice for the occasion; and I was quite a public character; yuss! and
many's the time I've been up to St. George's Church since those days and
fancied to myself that I was actin' the part again."
* * * * *
Upon the death of her mother the orphan went to live with her married
sister, whose large family was always reducing itself by the most
surprising feats in infant mortality. She helped in the house. She
earned her keep by doing little things for the dying babies, and
interviewing the undertaker and bargaining for special terms, seeing
what a good customer her sister was, when those poor babies were dead.
But that great source of crisis in the households of the poor--the
mother-in-law--came to live in the Herodian household, and Emma Jane had
such a warm time of it with this old Tartar of a woman that she
determined to "get out of it" as soon as possible.
"So I had a letter wrote," she says, getting up to scrub the
hearthstone, a feat she performs without kneeling, for the merest
forward tilt of her body brings her hands upon the floor. "Yuss, I had a
letter wrote, for I'm not much of a writer myself, I ain't--a letter
wrote to my other sister what was out in service in the country, down
Brockley way, and then I went to live with her."
"In the house where she was a servant?" I inquire.
"Yuss. That was it. I went to live with her. I was like a little
servant. Blacked the boots, peeled the pertaters, washed the dishes,
cleaned the grates, scrubbed the door-step, polished here, polished
there, helped to dish up, and they give me two shillin's a week. I was
like a little servant."
I remind her of her promise to forgo work and to be a little social,
and, after another rub or two, she wrings out the sopping cloth, lets it
drop on the hearthstone, and then, backing once more to the stool, leans
back and smiles at me, with her wet hands folded in her lap.
* * * * *
"The fam'ly where my sister lived in the country," she says, taking up
her tale, "was a large family--five or six sons there was--sich nice
fellers they were! But--ain't it strange?--I never see any think on 'em
now though they come reggeler to London Bridge every day of their lives,
they do. They was Roman Cawtholic--boys and girls alike; but, for all
that, they was good-livin' people, and they was religious in their own
way. And one day a week comes the priest, and that day me and my sister
wasn't allowed to enter the dinin'-room all the mornin', where the
breakfast things was and where the priest was what he useter call
confessin' the young ladies of their sins and givin' 'em what he called
absolution, summat like that, for all they'd been doin' wrong since last
time. Oh my! You never knew such goings on, not in England, you didn't.
But mind, they was good-livin' people. They was Cawtholics, and they
give me two shillin's a week; and I was like a little servant. Kind,
good, religious people they was; and the beetles and the crickets in the
house was somethink beastly. Oh, I do hate they nasty stinkin' things;
_hate_ 'em I do! And they had a garden, a beautiful garden, and it was
full of flowers it was, but I don't remember the names of them, excep'
that I know it was full of flowers--all the colours you can think
of--and that garden was a god to them poor Cawtholics, it really was.
The boys worked in it before they went to the City, and the young ladies
messed about with it all day; and then they all went chipping and
choppin' in it of a evenin', and me and my sister wasn't hardly allowed
to look at the flowers, we wasn't, for it was like a god to them."
Her sister's health began to fail. The housework of the large family
became too much for her, and the brave maid-of-all-work, accompanied by
Emma Jane, was obliged to return to London. They sought the advice of
that dissenting minister whose shirt-fronts, if ever they showed a
blister, had been so frightful a terror to Emma Jane's poor mother. By
the great kindness of this good man--his wisdom is not my concern--- the
invalid maid-of-all-work and the indefatigable dwarf who had been like a
little servant, and who has already confessed to us that she is not much
of a writer herself--were established in Blackfriars as
schoolmistresses!
"We hired a little room--in Green-street, it was--me and my sister, and
we had a few little scholars--oh, yuss, and a tidy lot of good-sized
boys and girls, besides the little 'uns--and they paid us 6d., 4d., and
2d. a week, or whatever they liked; and we done werry well with that
school, and always taught religion and the catechism; and I might have
been continuin' of it now if that nasty, pokin', competitionin' Board
School hadn't come along, which it finished our little lot--pretty sharp
it did--and left us starvin'."
The sister, shortly after this terrific crisis in their affairs, was
carried into the hospital, and, after three months of terrible pain,
which she bore like a martyr, went to join in heavenly places the "poor
mother" and the father who had been in some elusive fashion connected
with sublunary drains.
"And after that," says Miss Stipp, getting up and resting her hands on
the pail of dirty water, and looking down into it as if she saw the
faces of her poor mother, her sister, and all the dead babies of the
other sister shining up at her from the muddy bottom, "I came on the
parish, and I've been on it ever since, and nice kind gentlemen they
are, and I couldn't be treated better."
"People are kind to you?" I inquire.
"Very kind to me they are," she answers. "I often get a shillin' given
to me in the street, and the other evenin' a lady in the Boro'--nicely
dressed, she was, in black--asked me if I wouldn't like a New Testament,
and I said, 'Yuss, I would,' and she give me one; and I told her that I
was converted, not when I was born, but when I was confirmed in St.
George's Church; and the bishop gave us a beautiful address he did, and
I felt werry much better when he laid his hands on my head, and after
he give us the blessin'. If my hands wasn't so black, I'd show you the
cards and things. I've kep 'em ever since--yuss. I've still got 'The Vow
Performed,' or whatever it is called. The wicked woman downstairs, she
hasn't taken _that_. Oh, a wicked woman she is, a _very_ wicked woman;
but I'll have the law on her. Ah!"
* * * * *
I ask her if--what with the cat and the woman downstairs, and all her
relatives in heaven--she does not sometimes sigh for the next world.
"I'll be ready when my time comes," she replies confidently, and with
rather a sly grin, "but I'm werry well content to stay where I am till
I'm called, I am. I don't complain of nothink, I don't, excep' this
beastly winder-pane which lets the draught in somethink cruel, it does,
enough it is to blow me out of bed; and that awful devil of a woman
downstairs; and the crossin' at the Elephant and Castle, which tries my
nerves dreadful it does, and oughter be put a stop to, for it ain't safe
for nobody, let alone a cripple. Then there's the children," she cries
fiercely. "Oh, they are dreadful! You never heard sich language.
Foul-mouthed!--oh, it's awful; I never did in all my life hear sich
disgustin' language. And they tease me dreadful, they do, and call after
me, and follow me into shops, and throw muck at me, the dirty little
blasphemin' devils."
She tells me, in conclusion, of a milliner's shop where she goes for
oddments, and where the young ladies sometimes give her a bit of
trimming for her bonnet. Her last action is to drop the scrubbing-brush
into the pail of water, to reach out an arm, and grab with one of her
claws a piece of dirty black ribbon, sticking like an old book-marker
from under a pile of rubbish beside the hearth, and then to pull at the
string till presently there drops upon the floor a small and battered
black bonnet with another string trailing behind it in the heap of
rubbish.
"There!" says Miss Stipp, holding up the fusty old bonnet, "with a bit
of black velvet," she continues, studying the flat bonnet with critical
eyes, "and a nob of jet, and a orstrich feather stuck into it somewhere
about there, or there perhaps, it will last me many a long day yet, and
always look nice and fashionable when I go for my walks about London
Bridge of a evenin'."
She is still holding the bonnet when I stoop down to take my leave. The
beautiful address of the bishop who confirmed her so many years ago in
Little Dorrit's church is not, my life for it, half so urgent and
absorbing a matter for Miss Stipp as the latest fashion.
MUSIC
[Sidenote: _Samuel Johnson_]
"Upon hearing a celebrated performer go through a hard composition, and
hearing it remarked that it was very difficult, Dr. Johnson said, 'I
would it had been impossible.'"
NEATNESS IN EXCESS
[Sidenote: _Samuel Johnson_]
"I asked Mr. Johnson if he ever disputed with his wife. 'Perpetually,'
said he; 'my wife had a particular reverence for cleanliness, and
desired the praise of neatness in her dress and furniture, as many
ladies do, till they become troublesome to their best friends, slaves to
their own besoms, and only sigh for the hour of sweeping their husbands
out of the house as dirt and useless lumber. A clean floor is so
comfortable, she would say sometimes by way of twitting; till at last I
told her that I thought we had had talk enough about the floor, we would
now have a touch at the ceiling.' I asked him if he ever huffed his wife
about his dinner. 'So often,' replied he, 'that at last she called to me
and said, "Nay, hold, Mr. Johnson, and do not make a farce of thanking
God for a dinner which in a few minutes you will protest not eatable."'"
A YOUNG LADY'S "NEEDS"
[Sidenote: _Samuel Johnson_]
"During a visit of Miss Brown's to Streatham, Dr. Johnson was inquiring
of her several things that she could not answer; and, as he held her so
cheap in regard to books, he began to question her concerning domestic
affairs,--puddings, pies, plain work, and so forth. Miss Brown, not at
all more able to give a good account of herself in these articles than
in the others, began all her answers with 'Why, sir, one need not be
obliged to do so,--or so,' whatever was the thing in question. When he
had finished his interrogatories, and she had finished her 'need nots,'
he ended the discourse with saying, 'As to your needs, my dear, they are
so very many that you would be frightened yourself if you knew half of
them.'"
"IRENE"
[Sidenote: _Samuel Johnson_]
"I was told," wrote Sir Walter Scott, "that a gentleman called Pot, or
some such name, was introduced to Johnson as a particular admirer of
his. The doctor growled and took no further notice. "He admires in
especial your _Irene_ as the finest tragedy of modern times;" to which
the Doctor replied: "If Pot says so, Pot Lies!" and relapsed into his
reverie.
ODE TO PEACE
[Sidenote: _Hood_]