[Sidenote:Ben Johnson]
I remember the players have often mentioned it as an honour to Shakespeare, that in his writing (whatsoever he penned) he never blotted out a line. My answer hath been, "Would he had blotted out a thousand," which they thought a malevolent speech. I had not told posterity this but for their ignorance who chose that circumstance to commend their friend by wherein he most faulted; and to justify mine own candour, for I loved the man, and do honour his memory on this side idolatry as much as any. He was, indeed, honest, and of an open and free nature; had an excellent phantasy, brave notions, and gentle expressions, wherein he flowed with that facility that sometimes it was necessary he should be stopped. "Sufflaminandus erat," as Augustus said of Haterius. His wit was in his own power; would the rule of it had been so, too! Many times he fell into those things could not escape laughter, as when he said in the person of Caesar, one speaking to him, "Caesar, thou dost me wrong." He replied, "Caesar did never wrong but with just cause"; and such-like, which were ridiculous. But he redeemed his vices with his virtues. There was ever more in him to be praised than to be pardoned.
[Sidenote:Ben Johnson]
Wisdom without honesty is mere craft and cozenage. And therefore the reputation of honesty must first be gotten; which cannot be but by living well. A good life is a main argument.
MOTHERHOOD[Sidenote:Calverley]
She laid it where the sunbeams fallUnscann'd upon the broken wall,Without a tear, without a groan,She laid it near a mighty stoneWhich some rude swain had haply castThither in sport, long ages past,And Time with mosses had o'erlaid,And fenced with many a tall grass-blade,And all about bid roses bloomAnd violets shed their soft perfume.There, in its cool and quiet bed,She set her burden down and fled:Nor flung, all eager to escape,One glance upon the perfect shapeThat lay, still warm and fresh and fair,But motionless and soundless there.
No human eye had mark'd her passAcross the linden-shadow'd grassEre yet the minster clock chimed seven:Only the innocent birds of heaven—The magpie, and the rook whose nestSwings as the elm-tree waves his crest—And the lithe cricket, and the hoarAnd huge-limb'd hound that guards the door,Look'd on when, as a summer windThat, passing, leaves no trace behind,All unapparell'd, barefoot all,She ran to that old ruin'd wall,To leave upon the chill dank earth(For ah! she never knew its worth)'Mid hemlock rank, and fern, and ling,And dews of night, that precious thing!
And there it might have lain forlornFrom morn till eve, from eve to morn:But that, by some wild impulse led,The mother, ere she turn'd and fled,One moment stood erect and high;Then pour'd into the silent skyA cry so jubilant, so strange,That Alice—as she strove to rangeHer rebel ringlets at her glass—Sprang up and gazed across the grass;Shook back those curls so fair to see,Clapp'd her soft hands in childish glee;And shriek'd—her sweet face all aglow,Her very limbs with rapture shaking—"My hen has laid an egg, I know;And only hear the noise she's making!"
THE JUMPING FROG[Sidenote:Mark Twain]
In compliance with the request of a friend of mine, who wrote me from the East, I called on good-natured, garrulous old Simon Wheeler, and inquired after my friend's friend,Leonidas W. Smiley, as requested to do, and I hereunto append the result. I have a lurking suspicion thatLeonidas W. Smiley is a myth; that my friend never knew such a personage; and that he only conjectured that, if I asked old Wheeler about him, it would remind him of his infamousJimSmiley, and he would go to work and bore me nearly to death with some infernal reminiscence of him as long and tedious as it should be useless to me. If that was the design, it certainly succeeded.
I found Simon Wheeler dozing comfortably by the bar-room stove of the old, dilapidated tavern in the ancient mining camp of Angel's, and I noticed that he was fat, and bald-headed, and had an expression of winning gentleness and simplicity upon his tranquil countenance. He roused up and gave me good-day. I told him a friend of mine had commissioned me to make some inquiries about a cherished companion of his boyhood, namedLeonidas W. Smiley—Rev. Leonidas W. Smiley, a young minister of the gospel, who he had heard was at one time a resident of Angel's Camp. I added that, if Mr. Wheeler could tell me anything about this Rev. Leonidas W. Smiley, I would feel under many obligations to him.
Simon Wheeler backed me into a corner, and blockaded me there with his chair, and then sat me down and reeled off the monotonous narrative which follows this paragraph. He never smiled, he never frowned, he never changed his voice from the gentle-flowing key to which he tuned the initial sentence, he never betrayed the slightest suspicion of enthusiasm; but all through the interminable narrative there ran a vein of impressive earnestness and sincerity, which showed me plainly that, so far from his imagining that there was anything ridiculous or funny about his story, he regarded it as a really important matter, and admired its two heroes as men of transcendent genius infinesse. To me, the spectacle of a man drifting serenely along through such a queer yarn without ever smiling, was exquisitely absurd. As I said before, I asked him to tell me what he knew of Rev. Leonidas W. Smiley, and he replied as follows. I let him go on in his own way, and never interrupted him once:
There was a feller here once by the name ofJimSmiley in the winter of '49—or maybe it was the spring of '50—I don't recollect exactly, somehow, though what makes me think it was one or the other is because I remember the big flume wasn't finished when he first came to the camp; but, anyway, he was the curiosest man about, always betting on anything that turned up you ever see, if he could get anybody to bet on the other side; and if he couldn't, he'd change sides. Anyway that suited the other man would suit him—anyway, just so's he got a bet,hewas satisfied. But still he was lucky, uncommon lucky; he most always come out winner. He was always ready and laying for a chance; there couldn't be no solit'ry thing mentioned but that feller'd offer to bet on it, and take any side you please, as I was just telling you. If there was a horse-race, you'd find him flush, or you'd find him busted at the end of it. If there was a dog-fight, he'd bet on it; if there was a cat-fight, he'd bet on it; if there was a chicken-fight, he'd bet on it; why, if there was two birds sitting on a fence he would bet you which one would fly first; or if there was a camp-meeting, he would be there reg'lar to bet on Parson Walker, which he judged to be the best exhorter about here—and so he was, too, and a good man. If he even seen a straddle-bug start to go anywheres, he would bet you how long it would take to get wherever he was going to, and if you took him up, he would foller that straddle-bug to Mexico, but what he would find out where he was bound for and how long he was on the road. Lots of boys here has seen that Smiley, and can tell you about him. Why, it never made no difference tohim—he would bet onanything—the dangest feller. Parson Walker's wife laid very sick once, for a good while, and it seemed as if they warn't going to save her; but one morning he come in, and Smiley asked how she was, and he said she was considerable better—thank the Lord for his inf'nit mercy—and coming on so smart that, with the blessing of Prov'dence, she'd get well yet; and Smiley, before he thought, says, "Well, I'll risk two-and-a-half that she don't, anyway."
Thish-yer Smiley had a mare—the boys called her the fifteen-minute nag, but that was only in fun, you know, because, of course, she was faster than that—and he used to win money on that horse, for all she was so slow and always had the asthma, or the distemper, or the consumption, or something of that kind. They used to give her two or three hundred yards' start, and then pass her under way; but always at the fag-end of the race she'd get excited and desperate-like, and come cavorting and straddling up, and scattering her legs around limber, sometimes in the air, and sometimes out to one side amongst the fences, and kicking up m-o-r-e dust and raising m-o-r-e racket with her coughing and sneezing and blowing her nose—and always fetch up at the stand, just about a neck ahead, as near as you could cypher it down.
And he had a little small bull-pup, that to look at him you'd think he wan't worth a cent, but to set around and look ornery, and lay for a chance to steal something. But as soon as money was upon him, he was a different dog; his under-jaw'd begin to stick out like the fo'castle of a steamboat, and his teeth would uncover, and shine savage like the furnaces. And a dog might tackle him, and bully-rag him, and bite him, and throw him over his shoulder two or three times, and Andrew Jackson—which was the name of the pup—Andrew Jackson would never let on but whathewas satisfied, and hadn't expected nothing else—and the bets being doubled and doubled on the other side all the time, till the money was all up; and then all of a sudden he would grab that other dog jest by the j'int of his hind leg and freeze to it—not chaw, you understand, but only jest grip and hang on till they throwed up the sponge, if it was a year. Smiley always come out winner on that pup, till he harnessed a dog once that didn't have no hind legs, because they'd been saw'd off by a circular saw, and when the thing had gone along far enough, and the money was all up, and he come to make a snatch for his pet holt, he saw in a minute how he'd been imposed on, and how the other dog had him in the door, so to speak, and he 'peared surprised, and then he looked sorter discouraged-like, and didn't try no more to win the fight, and so he got shucked out bad. He gave Smiley a look, as much as to say his heart was broke, and it washisfault, for putting up a dog that hadn't no hind legs for him to take holt of, which was his main dependence in a fight, and then he limped off a piece and laid down and died. It was a good pup, was that Andrew Jackson, and would have made a name for hisself if he'd lived, for the stuff was in him, and he had genius—I know it, because he hadn't had no opportunities to speak of, and it don't stand to reason that a dog could make such a fight as he could under them circumstances, if he hadn't no talent. It always makes me feel sorry when I think of that last fight of his'n, and the way it turned out.
Well, thish-yer Smiley had rat-tarriers, and chicken-cocks, and tom-cats, and all them kind of things, till you couldn't rest, and you couldn't fetch nothing for him to bet on but he'd match you. He ketched a frog one day, and took him home, and said he cal'klated to edercate him; and so he never done nothing for three months but set in his back yard and learn that frog to jump. And you bet you hedidlearn him, too? He'd give him a little punch behind, and the next minute you'd see that frog whirling in the air like a doughnut—see him turn one summerset, or maybe a couple, if he got a good start, and came down flat-footed and all right, like a cat. He got him up so in the matter of catching flies, and kept him in practice so constant, that he'd nail a fly every time as far as he could see him. Smiley said all a frog wanted was education, and he could do most anything—and I believe him. Why, I've seen him set Dan'l Webster down here on this floor—Dan'l Webster was the name of the frog—and sing out, "Flies, Dan'l, flies!" and quicker'n you could wink, he'd spring straight up, and snake a fly off'n the counter there, and flop down on the floor again as solid as a gob of mud, and fall to scratching the side of his head with his hind foot as indifferent as if he hadn't no idea he'd been doin' any mor'n any frog might do. You never see a frog so modest and straightfor'ard as he was, for all he was so gifted. An' when it come to fair and square jumping on a dead level, he could get over more ground at one straddle than any animal of his breed you ever see. Jumping on a dead level was his strong suit, you understand; and when it come to that, Smiley would ante up money on him as long as he had a red. Smiley was monstrous proud of his frog, and well he might be, for fellers that had travelled and been everywhere, all said he laid over any frog that evertheysee.
Well, Smiley kept the beast in a little lattice box, and he used to fetch him down town sometimes and lay for a bet. One day a feller—a stranger in the camp, he was—come across him with his box, and says:
"What might it be that you've got in that box?"
And Smiley says, sorter indifferent-like, "It might be a parrot, or it might be a canary, maybe, but it ain't—it's only just a frog."
And the feller took it, and looked at it careful, and turned it round this way and that, and says, "H'm—so 'tis. Well, what'shegood for?"
"Well," Smiley says, easy and careless, "he's good enough foronething, I should judge—he can outjump any frog in Calaveras county."
The feller took the box again, and took another long, particular look, and gave it back to Smiley, and says, very deliberate, "Well, I don't see no p'ints about that frog that's any better'n any other frog."
"Maybe you don't," Smiley says. "Maybe you understand frogs, and maybe you don't understand 'em; maybe you've had experience, and maybe you ain't only a amateur, as it were. Anyways, I've gotmyopinion, and I'll risk forty dollars that he can outjump any frog in Calaveras county."
And the feller studies a minute, and then says, kinder sad like, "Well,I'm only a stranger here, and I ain't got no frog; but if I had a frog,I'd bet you."
And then Smiley says, "That's all right—that's all right—if you'll hold my box a minute, I'll go and get you a frog." And so the feller took the box and put up his forty dollars along with Smiley's, and set down to wait.
So he set there a good while thinking and thinking to hisself, and then he got the frog out and prized his mouth open and took a teaspoon and filled him full of quail shot—filled him pretty near up to the chin—and set him on the floor. Smiley he went to the swamp and slopped around in the mud for a long time, and finally he ketched a frog, and fetched him in, and gave him to this feller, and says:
"Now, if you're ready, set him alongside of Dan'l, with his forepaws just even with Dan'l, and I'll give the word." Then he says, "One—two—three—jump!" and him and the feller touched up the frogs from behind, and the new frog hopped off, but Dan'l give a heave, and hysted up his shoulders—so—like a Frenchman, but it wan't no use—he couldn't budge; he was planted as solid as an anvil, and he couldn't no more stir than if he was anchored out. Smiley was a good deal surprised, and he was disgusted too, but he didn't have no idea what the matter was, of course.
The feller took the money and started away; and when he was going out at the door, he sorter jerked his thumb over his shoulder—this way—at Dan'l, and says again, very deliberate, "Well,Idon't see no p'ints about that frog that's any better'n any other frog."
Smiley he stood scratching his head and looking down at Dan'l a long time, and at last he says, "I do wonder what in the nation that frog throwed off for—I wonder if there ain't something the matter with him—he 'pears to look mighty baggy, somehow." And he ketched Dan'l by the nap of his neck, and lifted him up and says, "Why, blame my cats, if he don't weigh five pounds!" and turned him upside down, and he belched out a double handful of shot. And then he see how it was and he was the maddest man—he set the frog down and took out after that feller, but he never ketched him. And—
(Here Simon Wheeler heard his name called from the front yard, and got up to see what was wanted.) And, turning to me as he moved away, he said: "Just set where you are, stranger, and rest easy—I ain't going to be gone a second."
But, by your leave, I did not think that a continuation of the history of the enterprising vagabondJimSmiley would be likely to afford me much information concerning theRev. Leonidas W.Smiley, and so I started away.
At the door I met the social Wheeler returning, and he buttonholed me and recommenced:
"Well, thish-yer Smiley had a yaller one-eyed cow that didn't have no tail, only just a short stump like a bannanner, and—"
"Oh! hang Smiley and his afflicted cow!" I muttered good-naturedly, and, bidding the old gentleman good-day, I departed.
BOSSUET[Sidenote:Sainte-Beuve]
As for the happiness itself, of which he would give us a just idea, the purely spiritual and internal happiness of the soul in the other life, he sums it up in an expression which concludes a happy development of the subject, and he defines it:Reason always attentive and always contented. Take reason in its liveliest and most luminous sense, the pure flame disengaged from the senses.
ROUSSEAU[Sidenote:Sainte-Beuve]
It is from him that the sentiment of nature is reckoned among us, in the eighteenth century. It is from him also that is dated, in our literature,the sentiment of domestic life; of that homely, poor, quiet, hidden life, in which are accumulated so many treasures of virtue and affection. Amid certain details, in bad taste, in which he speaks of robbery and of eatables, how one pardons him on account of that old song of childhood, of which he knows only the air and some words stitched together, but which he always wished to recover, and which he never recalls, old as he is, without a soothing charm!
JOUBERT[Sidenote:Sainte-Beuve]
Taste, for him, is the literary conscience of the soul….
M. Joubert was, in his day, the most delicate and the most original type of that class of honest people which the old society alone produced,—spectators, listeners who had neither ambition nor envy, who were curious, at leisure, attentive, and disinterested, who took an interest in everything, the true amateurs of beautiful things. "To converse and to know—it was in this, above all things, that consisted, according to Plato, the happiness of private life." This class of connoisseurs and of amateurs, so fitted to enlighten and to restrain talent, has almost disappeared in France since every one there has followed a profession. "We should always," said M. Joubert, "have a corner of the head open and free, that we may have a place for the opinions of our friends, where we may lodge them provisionally. It is really insupportable to converse with men who have, in their brains, only compartments which are wholly occupied, and into which nothing external can enter. Let us havehospitable hearts and minds."
* * * * *
Life is a duty; we must make a pleasure of it, so far as we can, as of all other duties. If the care of cherishing it is the only one with which it pleases Heaven to charge us, we must acquit ourselves gaily and with the best possible grace, and poke that sacred fire, while warming ourselves by it all we can, till the word comes to us: That will do.
MME D'HOUDETOT[Sidenote:Sainte-Beuve]
In the years to which we refer—that is, the years immediately preceding 1800—there were gathered in the salon of this charming old lady the remnants both of fashionable and philosophical society—never, indeed, entirely exiled thence. It may be said of Mme d'Houdetot that her ideal existence was always bounded by that Montmorency valley where the ardent devotion of Jean Jacques has engraved her memory, as it were, in immortal characters. There, again and again, her idyllic spring-time renewed its bloom, and the freshness of her impressions continued unimpaired until her dying day. She even remained in the country during the Reign of Terror, her retreat being respected, and her relatives flocking about her; and "I can readily believe," writes Mme de Rémusat, in a charming portrait of her venerable friend, "that she retains, of those frightful days, merely the memory of the increased tenderness and consideration which they procured for her."
MME DE RÉMUSAT[Sidenote:Sainte-Beuve]
O mothers, gather your children about you early. Dare to say, when they come into the world, that your youth is passing into theirs. O mothers, be mothers, and you will be wise and happy!
DIDEROT[Sidenote:Sainte-Beuve]
If theEncyclopediawas in Diderot's time considered his principal social work, his principal glory in the eyes of the men of to-day consists in his having been the first to create the emotional and eloquent style of criticism. It is through this that he has become immortal, through this that he will be for ever dear to us journalists of every sort and condition. Let us bow down to him as our father, and as the founder of this style of criticism.
Before Diderot's time, the French style of criticism had been, firstly, as offered by Bayle, of a precise, inquiring, and subtle tone. Fénelon represented criticism as an elegant and delicate art, while Rollin exhibited its most useful and honest side. From a due sense of decency, I refrain from mentioning the names of Fréron and Des Fontaines. But nowhere yet had criticism acquired anything like vividness, fertility, and penetration; it had not yet found its soul. Diderot was the first to find it. Naturally inclined to look over defects, and to admire good qualities, "I am more affected," he remarked, "by the charms of virtue than the deformity of vice; I quietly turn away from the wicked andfly forward to meet the good. If there happens to be a beautiful spot in a book, a character, a picture, or a statue, it is there that I let my eyes rest; I can only see this beautiful spot, I can only remember it, while the rest I nearly forget. What do I become when everything is beautiful!" This inclination to welcome everything with enthusiasm—this sort of universal admiration—undoubtedly had its danger. It is said of him that he was singularly happy "in never having encountered a wicked man nor a bad book." For, even if the book were bad, he would unconsciously impute to the author some of his own ideas. Like the alchemist, he found gold in the melting-pot, from the fact he had placed it there himself. However, it is to him that all honour is due for having introduced among us the fertile criticism ofbeauties, which he substituted for that ofdefects. Châteaubriand himself, in that portion of theGenius of Christianityin which he eloquently discourses on literary criticism, only follows the path opened by Diderot….
"A pleasure that I enjoy alone affects me but slightly, and is of short duration. It is for my friends as well as myself that I read, that I reflect, that I write, that I meditate, that I listen, that I look, that I feel. In their absence I am still devoted to them; I am continually thinking of their happiness. If I am struck with a beautiful line, they must know it. If I meet with a fine passage, I promise myself to impart it to them. If I have before my eyes some enchanting spectacle, I unconsciously plan a description of it for their benefit. I have consecrated to them the use of all my senses and faculties; and it is perhaps for this reason that everything becomes somewhat enriched in my imagination and exaggerated in my discourse. Nevertheless, the ungrateful creatures sometimes reproach me."
LA BRUYÈRE[Sidenote:Sainte-Beuve]
That philosopher, always accessible, even in the deepest studies, who tells you to come in, for you bring him something more precious than gold or silver,if it is the opportunity of obliging you.
SABBATH BELLS[Sidenote:Anon.]
Ding—ding-a-ding! Ding—ding-a-ding!The church bells they du ring,Ding—ding-a-ding! Ding—ding-a-ding!An' seems they bells du zing:"O merry be! O merry be!The work it all be done,Zee, peas and brocoli du grawTremenjus in the zun;An' hot it is, an' calm it is,Bees buzz an' cattle doze;Zo, laze about, an' talk about,All in your Zunday clo's."Ding—ding-a-ding! Ding—ding-a-ding_!
Ding—ding-a-ding! Ding—ding-a-ding!The church bells merry ring,Ding—ding-a-ding! Ding—ding-a-ding!An,' dang it! doan't they zing?—"O rest awhile! O rest awhile!Vor 'tis amazin' sweetTo watch the white-heart cabbagesAll bustin' in the heat;Zo, zit about, an' stand about,Beside ov Early Rose,An' puff a pipe, an' think ov things,All in your Zunday clo's."Ding—ding-a-ding! Ding—ding-a-ding_!
Dong! Dong! Dong!There's a shadow on the marn,Dong! Dong! Dong!The one larst bell du warn:"O fulish mun! O fulish mun!Life be no more than grass,It glitters in the shinin' zun—Until the Reaper pass!An', hark! I call 'ee up to prayer,Wi' passen, clerk, an' schule,Come up along, an' take thee seatThou ole pig-headed fule!"
Dong!Dong!Dong!
UNCLE TOBY AND THE FLY[Sidenote:Sterne]
My uncleTobywas a man patient of injuries;—not from want of courage,—I have told you in a former chapter, "that he was a man of courage":—And will add here, that where just occasions presented, or called it forth,—know no man under whose arm I would have sooner taken shelter;—nor did this arise from any insensibility or obtuseness of his intellectual parts;—for he felt this insult of my father's as feelingly as a man could do;—but he was of a peaceful, placid nature,—no jarring element in it,—all was mixed up so kindly within him; my uncleTobyhad scarce a heart to retaliate upon a fly.
—Go—says he, one day at dinner, to an over-grown one which had buzzed about his nose, and tormented him cruelly all dinner-time,—and which, after infinite attempts, he had caught at last, as it flew by him;—I'll not hurt thee, says my uncleToby, rising from his chair, and going across the room, with the fly in his hand,—I'll not hurt a hair of thy head;—Go, says he, lifting up the sash, and opening his hand as he spoke, to let it escape;—go, poor devil, get thee gone, why should I hurt thee?—This world surely is wide enough to hold both thee and me.
I was but ten years old when this happened: but whether it was, that the action itself was more in unison to my nerves at that age of pity, which instantly set my whole frame into one vibration of most pleasurable sensation;—or how far the manner and expression of it might go towards it;—or, in what degree, or by what secret magick,—a tone of voice and harmony of movement, attuned by mercy, might find a passage to my heart, I know not;—this I know, that the lesson of universal good-will then taught and imprinted by my uncleTobyhas never since been worn out of my mind: And tho' I would not depreciate what the study of theLiteræ humaniores,at the University, have done for me in that respect, or discredit the other helps of an expensive education bestowed upon me, both at home and abroad since;—yet I often think that I owe one half of my philanthropy to that one accidental expression.
HOBSON'S CHOICE[Sidenote:William Hazlitt]
One of the pleasantest things in the world is going a journey; but I like to go by myself. I can enjoy society in a room; but, out of doors, nature is company enough for me. I am then never less alone than when alone.
The fields his study, nature was his book.
I cannot see the wit of walking and talking at the same time. When I am in the country I wish to vegetate like the country. I am not for criticising hedge-rows and black cattle. I go out of town in order to forget the town and all that is in it. There are those who for this purpose go to watering-places, and carry the metropolis with them. I like more elbow-room and fewer encumbrances. I like solitude, when I give myself up to it, for the sake of solitude; nor do I ask for
A friend in my retreat,Whom I may whisper, Solitude is sweet.
The soul of a journey is liberty, perfect liberty to think, feel, do, just as one pleases. We go a journey chiefly to be free of all impediments and of all inconveniences; to leave ourselves behind much more to get rid of others. It is because I want a little breathing-space to muse on indifferent matters, where Contemplation—
May plume her feathers and let grow her wings,That in the various bustle of resortWere all too ruffled, and sometimes impair'd—
that I absent myself from the town for a while, without feeling at a loss the moment I am left by myself. Instead of a friend in a postchaise or in a Tilbury, to exchange good things with, and vary the same stale topics over again, for once let me have a truce with impertinence. Give me the clear blue sky over my head and the green turf beneath my feet, a winding road[8] before me and a three hours' march to dinner—and then to thinking! It is hard if I cannot start some game on these lone heaths. I laugh, I run, I leap, I sing for joy. From the point of yonder rolling cloud I plunge into my past being, and revel there, as the sun-burnt Indian plunges headlong into the wave that wafts him to his native shore. Then long-forgotten things, like "sunken wrack and sumless treasuries," burst upon my eager sight, and I begin to feel, think, and be myself again. Instead of an awkward silence, broken by attempts at wit or dull commonplaces, mine is that undisturbed silence of the heart which alone is perfect eloquence. No one likes puns, alliterations, antitheses, argument, and analysis better than I do; but I sometimes had rather be without them. "Leave, oh, leave me to my repose!" I have just now other business in hand, which would seem idle to you, but is with me "very stuff o' the conscience." Is not this wild rose sweet without a comment? Does not this daisy leap to my heart set in its coat of emerald? Yet if I were to explain to you the circumstance that has so endeared it to me, you would only smile. Had I not better, then, keep it to myself, and let it serve me to brood over, from here to yonder craggy point, and from thence onward to the far-distant horizon? I should be but bad company all that way, and therefore prefer being alone. I have heard it said that you may, when the moody fit comes on, walk or ride on by yourself and indulge your reveries. But this looks like a breach of manners, a neglect of others, and you are thinking all the time that you ought to rejoin your party. "Out upon such half-faced fellowship," say I. I like to be either entirely to myself, or entirely at the disposal of others; to talk or be silent, to walk or sit still, to be sociable or solitary. I was pleased with an observation of Mr. Cobbett's that he thought it a bad French custom to drink our wine with our meals, and that an Englishman ought to do only one thing at a time. So I cannot talk and think, or indulge in melancholy musing and lively conversation by fits and starts. "Let me have a companion of my way," says Sterne, "were it but to remark how the shadows lengthen as the sun declines." It is beautifully said; but, in my opinion, this continual comparing of notes interferes with the involuntary impression of things upon the mind, and hurts the sentiment. If you only hint what you feel in a kind of dumb-show, it is insipid: if you have to explain it, it is making a toil of a pleasure. You cannot read the book of nature without being perpetually put to the trouble of translating it for the benefit of others. I am for this synthetical method on a journey in preference to the analytical. I am content to lay in a stock of ideas then, and to examine and anatomise them afterwards. I want to see my vague notions float like the down of the thistle before the breeze, and not to have them entangled in the briars and thorns of controversy. For once, I like to have it all my own way; and this is impossible unless you are alone, or in such company as I do not covet. I have no objection to argue a point with any one for twenty miles of measured road, but not for pleasure. If you remark the scent of a bean-field crossing the road, perhaps your fellow-traveller has no smell. If you point to a distant object, perhaps he is short-sighted, and has to take out his glass to look at it. There is a feeling in the air, a tone in the colour of a cloud, which hits your fancy, but the effect of which you are unable to account for. There is then no sympathy, but an uneasy craving after it, and a dissatisfaction which pursues you on the way, and in the end probably produces ill-humour. Now I never quarrel with myself, and take all my own conclusions for granted till I find it necessary to defend them against objections. It is not merely that you may not be of accord on the objects and circumstances that present themselves before you—these may recall a number of objects, and lead to associations too delicate and refined to be possibly communicated to others. Yet these I love to cherish, and sometimes still fondly clutch them, when I can escape from the throng to do so. To give way to our feelings before company seems extravagance or affectation; and, on the other hand, to have to unravel this mystery of our being at every turn, and to make others take an equal interest in it (otherwise the end is not answered), is a task to which few are competent. We must "give it an understanding, but no tongue." My old friend Coleridge, however, could do both. He could go on in the most delightful explanatory way over hill and dale a summer's day, and convert a landscape into a didactic poem or a Pindaric ode. "He talked far above singing." If I could so clothe my ideas in sounding and flowing words, I might perhaps wish to have some one with me to admire the swelling theme; or I could be more content, were it possible for me still to hear his echoing voice in the woods of All-Foxden. They had "that fine madness in them which our first poets had"; and, if they could have been caught by some rare instrument, would have breathed such strains as the following:
Here be woods as greenAs any, air likewise as fresh and sweetAs when smooth Zephyrus plays on the fleetFace of the curled streams, with flowers as manyAs the young spring gives, and as choice as any;Here be all new delights, cool streams and wells,Arbours o'ergrown with woodbines, caves and dells;Choose where thou wilt, whilst I sit by and sing,Or gather rushes to make many a ringFor thy long fingers; tell thee tales of love,How the pale Phoebe, hunting in a grove,First saw the boy Endymion, from whose eyeShe took eternal fire that never dies;How she convey'd him softly in a sleep,His temples bound with poppy, to the steepHead of old Latmos, where she stoops each night,Gilding the mountains with her brother's light,To kiss her sweetest.
Had I words and images at command like these, I would attempt to wake the thoughts that lie slumbering on golden ridges in the evening clouds: but at the sight of nature my fancy, poor as it is, droops and closes up its leaves, like flowers at sunset. I can make nothing out on the spot: I must have time to collect myself.
In general, a good thing spoils out-of-door prospects: it should be reserved for table-talk. Lamb is for this reason, I take it, the worst company in the world out of doors; because he is the best within. I grant there is one subject on which it is pleasant to talk on a journey, and that is, what one shall have for supper when we get to our inn at night. The open air improves this sort of conversation or friendly altercation, by setting a keener edge on appetite. Every mile of the road heightens the flavour of the viands we expect at the end of it. How fine it is to enter some old town, walled and turreted, just at approach of night-fall, or to come to some straggling village, with the lights streaming through the surrounding gloom; and then, after inquiring for the best entertainment that the place affords, to "take one's ease at one's inn"! These eventful moments in our lives' history are too precious, too full of solid, heartfelt happiness to be frittered and dribbled away in imperfect sympathy. I would have them all to myself, and drain them to the last drop: they will do to talk of or to write about afterwards. What a delicate speculation it is, after drinking whole goblets of tea—
The cups that cheer, but not inebriate—
and letting the fumes ascend into the brain, to sit considering what we shall have for supper—eggs and a rasher, a rabbit smothered in onions, or an excellent veal cutlet! Sancho in such a situation once fixed on cow-heel; and his choice, though he could not help it, is not to be disparaged. Then, in the intervals of pictured scenery and Shandean contemplation, to catch the preparation and the stir in the kitchen (getting ready for the gentlemen in the parlour).Procul, O procul este profani!These hours are sacred to silence and to musing, to be treasured up in the memory, and to feed the source of smiling thoughts hereafter.
A GARDEN IDYLL[Sidenote:Austin Dobson]
Sir Poet, ere you crossed the lawn(If it was wrong to watch you, pardon),Behind this weeping birch withdrawn,I watched you saunter round the garden.I saw you bend beside the phlox,Pluck, as you passed, a sprig of myrtle,Review my well-ranged hollyhocksSmile at the fountain's slender spurtle;
You paused beneath the cherry-tree,Where my marauder thrush was singing,Peered at the bee-hives curiously,And narrowly escaped a stinging;And then—you see, I watched—you passedDown the espalier walk that reachesOut to the western wall, and last,Dropped on the seat before the peaches.
What was your thought? You waited long.Sublime or graceful,—grave,—satiric?A Morris Greek-and-Gothic song?A tender Tennysonian lyric?Tell me. That garden-seat shall be,So long as speech renown disperses,Illustrious as the spot where he—The gifted Blank—composed his verses.
THE POET[Sidenote:Austin Dobson]
Madam,—whose uncensorious eyeGrows gracious over certain pages,Wherein the Jester's maxims lie,It may be, thicker than the Sage's—I hear but to obey, and couldMere wish of mine the pleasure do you,Some verse as whimsical as Hood,—As gay as Praed,—should answer to you.
But, though the common voice proclaimsOur only serious vocationConfined to giving nothings namesAnd dreams a "local habitation";Believe me, there are tuneless days,When neither marble, brass, nor vellum,Would profit much by any laysThat haunt the poet's cerebellum.
More empty things, I fear, than rhymes,More idle things than songs, absorb it;The "finely frenzied" eye, at times,Reposes mildly in its orbit;And—painful truth—at times, to him,Whose jog-trot thought is nowise restive,"A primrose by a river's brim"Is absolutely unsuggestive.
The fickle Muse! As ladies will,She sometimes wearies of her wooer;A goddess, yet a woman still,She flies the more that we pursue her;In short, with worst as well as best,Five months in six, your hapless poetIs just as prosy as the rest,But cannot comfortably show it.
You thought, no doubt, the garden scentBrings back some brief-winged bright sensationOf love that came and love that went,—Some fragrance of a lost flirtation,Born when the cuckoo changes song,Dead ere the apple's red is on it,That should have been an epic long,Yet scarcely served to fill a sonnet.
Or else you thought,—the murmuring noonHe turns it to a lyric sweeter,With birds that gossip in the tune,And windy bough-swing in the metre;Or else the zigzag fruit-tree armsRecall some dream of harp-prest bosoms,Round singing mouths, and chanted charms,And mediaeval orchard blossoms,—
Quiteà la mode. Alas for prose!—My vagrant fancies only rambledBack to the red-walled Rectory close,Where first my graceless boyhood gambolled,Climbed on the dial, teased the fish,And chased the kitten round the beeches,Till widening instincts made me wishFor certain slowly ripening peaches.
Three peaches. Not the Graces threeHad more equality of beauty:I would not look, yet went to see;I wrestled with Desire and Duty;I felt the pangs of those who feelThe laws of Property beset them;The conflict made my reason reel,And, half-abstractedly, I ate them;—
Or two of them. Forthwith Despair—More keen that one of these was rotten—Moved me to seek some forest lairWhere I might hide and dwell forgotten,Attired in skins, by berries stained,Absolved from brushes and ablution;—But, ere my sylvan haunt was gained,Fate gave me up to execution.
I saw it all but now. The grinThat gnarled old Gardener Sandy's features;My father, scholar-like and thin,Unroused, the tenderest of creatures;I saw—ah me !—I saw againMy dear and deprecating mother;And then, remembering the cane,Regretted—thatI'd left the other.
MACAULAY'S WIT[Sidenote:Macaulay]
I have not the Chancellor's encyclopedic mind. He is indeed a kind of semi-Solomon. Hehalfknows everything, from the cedar to the hyssop.
The conformation of his mind was such that whatever was little seemed to him great, and whatever was great seemed to him little.
There were gentlemen and there were seamen in the navy of Charles II.But the seamen were not gentlemen, and the gentlemen were not seamen.
His imagination resembled the wings of an ostrich. It enabled him to run, though not to soar.
… Lady Millar, who kept a vase wherein fools were wont to put bad verses, and Jerningham, who wrote verses fit to be put into the vase of Lady Millar.
From the poetry of Lord Byron they drew a system of ethics compounded of misanthropy and voluptuousness, a system in which the two great commandments were to hate your neighbour and to love your neighbour's wife.
CRANFORD[Sidenote:Mrs. Gaskell]
In the first place, Cranford is in possession of the Amazons; all the holders of houses, above a certain rent, are women. If a married couple come to settle in the town, somehow the gentleman disappears; he is either fairly frightened to death by being the only man in the Cranford evening parties, or he is accounted for by being with his regiment, his ship, or closely engaged in business all the week in the great neighbouring commercial town of Drumble, distant only twenty miles on a railroad. In short, whatever does become of the gentlemen, they are not at Cranford. What could they do if they were there? The surgeon has his round of thirty miles, and sleeps at Cranford; but every man cannot be a surgeon. For keeping the trim gardens full of choice flowers without a weed to speck them; for frightening away little boys who look wistfully at the said flowers through the railings; for rushing at the geese that occasionally venture into the gardens if the gates are left open; for deciding all questions of literature and politics without troubling themselves with unnecessary reasons or arguments; for obtaining clear and correct knowledge of everybody's affairs in the parish; for keeping their neat maid-servants in admirable order; for kindness (somewhat dictatorial) to the poor, and real tender good offices to each other whenever they are in distress, the ladies of Cranford are quite sufficient. "A man," as one of them observed to me once, "issoin the way in the house!" Although the ladies of Cranford know all each other's proceedings, they are exceedingly indifferent to each other's opinions. Indeed, as each has her own individuality, not to say eccentricity, pretty strongly developed, nothing is so easy as verbal retaliation; but, somehow, good-will reigns among them to a considerable degree.
The Cranford ladies have only an occasional little quarrel, spirted out in a few peppery words and angry jerks of the head; just enough to prevent the even tenor of their lives from becoming too flat. Their dress is very independent of fashion; as they observe, "What does it signify how we dress here at Cranford, where everybody knows us?" And if they go from home, their reason is equally cogent, "What does it signify how we dress here, where nobody knows us?" The materials of their clothes are, in general, good and plain, and most of them are nearly as scrupulous as Miss Tyler, of cleanly memory; but I will answer for it, the last gigot, the last tight and scanty petticoat in wear in England, was seen at Cranford—and seen without a smile.
I can testify to a magnificent family red silk umbrella, under which a gentle little spinster, left alone of many brothers and sisters, used to patter to church on rainy days. Have you any red silk umbrellas in London? We had a tradition of the first that had ever been seen in Cranford; and the little boys mobbed it, and called it "a stick in petticoats." It might have been the very red silk one I have described, held by a strong father over a troop of little ones; the poor little lady—the survivor of all—could scarcely carry it.
Then there were rules and regulations for visiting and calls; and they were announced to any young people who might be staying in the town with all the solemnity with which the old Manx laws were read once a year on the Tinwald Mount:
"Our friends have sent to inquire how you are after your journey to-night, my dear" (fifteen miles, in a gentleman's carriage); "they will give you some rest to-morrow, but the next day, I have no doubt, they will call; so be at liberty after twelve—from twelve to three are our calling-hours."
Then, after they had called:
"It is the third day; I dare say your mamma has told you, my dear, never to let more than three days elapse between receiving a call and returning it; and also, that you are never to stay longer than a quarter of an hour."
"But am I to look at my watch? How am I to find out when a quarter of an hour has passed?"
"You must keep thinking about the time, my dear, and not allow yourself to forget it in conversation."
As everybody had this rule in their minds, whether they received or paid a call, of course no absorbing subject was ever spoken about. We kept ourselves to short sentences of small talk, and were punctual to our time.
I imagine that a few of the gentlefolk of Cranford were poor, and had some difficulty in making both ends meet; but they were like the Spartans, and concealed their smart under a smiling face. We none of us spoke of money, because that subject savoured of commerce and trade, and though some might be poor, we were all aristocratic. The Cranfordians had that kindlyesprit de corpswhich made them overlook all deficiencies in success when some among them tried to conceal their poverty. When Mrs. Forester, for instance, gave a party in her baby-house of a dwelling, and the little maiden disturbed the ladies on the sofa by a request that she might get the tea-tray out from underneath, every one took this novel proceeding as the most natural thing in the world, and talked on about household forms and ceremonies as if we all believed that our hostess had a regular servants' hall, second table, with housekeeper and steward, instead of the once little charity-school maiden, whose short ruddy arms could never have been strong enough to carry the tray upstairs if she had not been assisted in private by her mistress, who now sat in state pretending not to know what cakes were sent up, though she knew, and we knew, and she knew that we knew, and we knew that she knew that we knew, she had been busy all the morning making tea-bread and sponge-cakes.
There were one or two consequences arising from this general but unacknowledged poverty, and this very much acknowledged gentility, which were not amiss, and which might be introduced into many circles of society to their great improvement. For instance, the inhabitants of Cranford kept early hours, and clattered home in their pattens, under the guidance of a lantern-bearer, about nine o'clock at night; and the whole town was abed and asleep by half-past ten. Moreover, it was considered "vulgar" (a tremendous word in Cranford) to give anything expensive, in the way of eatable or drinkable, at the evening entertainments. Wafer bread-and-butter and sponge-biscuits were all that the Honourable Mrs. Jamieson gave; and she was sister-in-law to the late Earl of Glenmire, although she did practise such "elegant economy."
"Elegant economy!" How naturally one falls back into the phraseology of Cranford! There, economy was always "elegant," and money-spending always "vulgar and ostentatious"; a sort of sour-grapeism which made us very peaceful and satisfied. I never shall forget the dismay felt when a certain Captain Brown came to live at Cranford and openly spoke about his being poor—not in a whisper to an intimate friend, the doors and windows being previously closed, but in the public street! in a loud military voice! alleging his poverty as a reason for not taking a particular house. The ladies of Cranford were already rather moaning over the invasion of their territories by a man and a gentleman. He was a half-pay captain, and had obtained some situation on a neighbouring railroad, which had been vehemently petitioned against by the little town; and if, in addition to his masculine gender, and his connection with the obnoxious railroad, he was so brazen as to talk of being poor—why then, indeed, he must be sent to Coventry…. We had tacitly agreed to ignore that any with whom we associated on terms of visiting equality could ever be prevented by poverty from doing anything that they wished. If we walked to or from a party, it was because the night was so fine, or the air so refreshing, not because sedan-chairs were expensive. If we wore prints instead of summer silks, it was because we preferred a washing material; and so on, till we blinded ourselves to the vulgar fact that we were, all of us, people of very moderate means. Of course, then, we did not know what to make of a man who could speak of poverty as if it was not a disgrace. Yet, somehow, Captain Brown made himself respected in Cranford, and was called upon, in spite of all resolutions to the contrary. I was surprised to hear his opinions quoted as authority at a visit which I paid to Cranford about a year after he had settled in the town. My old friends had been among the bitterest opponents of any proposal to visit the captain and his daughters, only twelve months before; and now he was even admitted in the tabooed hours before twelve. True, it was to discover the cause of a smoking chimney, before the fire was lighted; but still Captain Brown walked upstairs, nothing daunted, spoke in a voice too large for the room, and joked quite in the way of a tame man about the house. He had been blind to all the small slights, and omissions of trivial ceremonies, with which he had been received. He had been friendly, though the Cranford ladies had been cool; he had answered small sarcastic compliments in good faith; and, with his manly frankness, had overpowered all the shrinking which met him as a man who was not ashamed to be poor. And, at last, his excellent masculine common sense and his facility in devising expedients to overcome domestic dilemmas had gained him an extraordinary place as authority among the Cranford ladies. He himself went on in his course as unaware of his popularity as he had been of the reverse; and I am sure he was startled one day when he found his advice so highly esteemed as to make some counsel which he had given in jest to be taken in sober, serious earnest.
It was on this subject: An old lady had an Alderney cow, which she looked upon as a daughter. You could not pay the short quarter of an hour call without being told of the wonderful milk or wonderful intelligence of this animal. The whole town knew and kindly regarded Miss Betsy Barker's Alderney; therefore great was the sympathy and regret when, in an unguarded moment, the poor cow tumbled into a lime-pit. She moaned so loudly that she was soon heard and rescued; but meanwhile the poor beast had lost most of her hair and came out looking naked, cold, and miserable, in a bare skin. Everybody pitied the animal, though a few could not restrain their smiles at her droll appearance. Miss Betsy Barker absolutely cried with sorrow and dismay; and it was said she thought of trying a bath of oil. This remedy, perhaps, was recommended by some one of the number whose advice she asked; but the proposal, if ever it was made, was knocked on the head by Captain Brown's decided "Get her a flannel waistcoat and flannel drawers, ma'am, if you wish to keep her alive. But my advice is, kill the poor creature at once."
Miss Betsy Barker dried her eyes, and thanked the captain heartily. She set to work, and by and by all the town turned out to see the Alderney meekly going to her pasture, clad in dark grey flannel. I have watched her myself many a time. Do you ever see cows dressed in grey flannel in London?
Captain Brown had taken a small house on the outskirts of the town, where he had lived with his two daughters. He must have been upwards of sixty at the time of the first visit I paid to Cranford after I had left it as a residence. But he had a wiry, well-trained, elastic figure, a stiff military throw-back of his head, and a springing step, which made him appear much younger than he was. His eldest daughter looked almost as old as himself, and betrayed the fact that his real was more than his apparent age. Miss Brown must have been forty; she had a sickly, pained, careworn expression on her face, and looked as if the gaiety of youth had long faded out of sight. Even when young she must have been plain and hard-featured. Miss Jessie Brown was ten years younger than her sister, and twenty shades prettier. Her face was round and dimpled. Miss Jenkyns once said, in a passion against Captain Brown (the cause of which I will tell you presently), that "she thought it was time for Miss Jessie to leave off her dimples, and not always to be trying to look like a child." It was true there was something childlike in her face; and there will be, I think, till she dies, though she should live to a hundred. Her eyes were large, blue, wondering eyes, looking straight at you; her nose was unformed and snub, and her lips were red and dewy; she wore her hair, too, in little rows of curls, which heightened this appearance. I do not know whether she was pretty or not; but I liked her face, and so did everybody, and I do not think she could help her dimples. She had something of her father's jauntiness of gait and manner; and any female observer might detect a slight difference in the attire of the two sisters—that of Miss Jessie being about two pounds per annum more expensive than Miss Brown's. Two pounds was a large sum in Captain Brown's annual disbursements.
Such was the impression made upon me by the Brown family when I first saw them all together in Cranford Church. The captain I had met before—on the occasion of the smoky chimney, which he had cured by some simple alteration in the flue. In church, he held his double eye-glass to his eyes during the Morning Hymn, and then lifted up his head erect and sang out loud and joyfully. He made the responses louder than the clerk—an old man with a piping, feeble voice, who, I think, felt aggrieved at the captain's sonorous bass, and quavered higher and higher in consequence.
On coming out of church the brisk captain paid the most gallant attention to his two daughters. He nodded and smiled to his acquaintances; but he shook hands with none until he had helped Miss Brown to unfurl her umbrella, had relieved her of her prayer-book, and had waited patiently till she, with trembling, nervous hands, had taken up her gown to walk through the wet roads.
I wondered what the Cranford ladies did with Captain Brown at their parties. We had often rejoiced, in former days, that there was no gentleman to be attended to, and to find conversation for, at the card-parties. We had congratulated ourselves upon the snugness of the evenings; and, in our love for gentility, and distaste of mankind, we had almost persuaded ourselves that to be a man was to be "vulgar"; so that when I found my friend and hostess, Miss Jenkyns, was going to have a party in my honour, and that Captain and the Miss Browns were invited, I wondered much what could be the course of the evening. Card-tables, with green-baize tops were set out by daylight, just as usual; it was the third week in November, so the evening closed in about four. Candles, and clean packs of cards were arranged in each table. The fire was made up; the neat maid-servant had received her last directions; and there we stood, dressed in our best, each with a candle-lighter in our hands, ready to dart at the candles as soon as the first knock came. Parties in Cranford were solemn festivities, making the ladies feel gravely elated as they sat together in their best dresses. As soon as three had arrived, we sat down to "Preference," I being the unlucky fourth. The next four comers were put down immediately to another table; and presently the tea-trays, which I had seen set out in the storeroom as I passed in the morning, were placed each on the middle of a card-table. The china was delicate eggshell; the old-fashioned silver glittered with polishing; but the eatables were of the slightest description. While the trays were yet on the tables, Captain and the Miss Browns came in; and I could see that, somehow or other, the captain was a favourite with all the ladies present. Ruffled brows were smoothed, sharp voices lowered at his approach. Miss Brown looked ill, and depressed almost to gloom. Miss Jessie smiled as usual, and seemed nearly as popular as her father. He immediately and quietly assumed the man's place in the room; attended to every one's wants, lessened the pretty maid-servant's labour by waiting on empty cups and bread-and-butterless ladies; and yet did it all in so dignified a manner, and so much as if it were a matter of course for the strong to attend to the weak, that he was a true man throughout. He played for threepenny points with as grave an interest as if they had been pounds; and yet, in all his attention to strangers, he had an eye on his suffering daughter—for suffering I was sure she was, though to many eyes she might only appear to be irritable. Miss Jessie could not play cards; but she talked to the sitters-out, who, before her coming, had been rather inclined to be cross. She sang, too, to an old cracked piano, which I think had been a spinet in its youth. Miss Jessie sang "Jock of Hazeldean" a little out of tune; but we were none of us musical, though Miss Jenkyns beat time, out of time, by way of appearing to be so.
It was very good of Miss Jenkyns to do this; for I had seen that, a little before, she had been a good deal annoyed by Miss Jessie Brown's unguarded admission (apropos of Shetland wool) that she had an uncle, her mother's brother, who was a shopkeeper in Edinburgh. Miss Jenkyns tried to drown this confession by a terrible cough—for the Honourable Mrs. Jamieson was sitting at the card-table nearest Miss Jessie, and what would she say or think if she found out she was in the same room with a shopkeeper's niece! But Miss Jessie Brown (who had no tact, as we all agreed the next morning)wouldrepeat the information, and assure Miss Pole she could easily get her identical Shetland wool required, "through my uncle, who has the best assortment of Shetland goods of any one in Edinboro'." It was to take the taste of this out of our mouths, and the sound of this out of our ears, that Miss Jenkyns proposed music; so I say again, it was very good of her to beat time to the song.
When the trays reappeared with biscuits and wine, punctually at a quarter to nine, there was conversation, comparing of cards, talking over tricks; but by and by Captain Brown sported a bit of literature.
"Have you seen any numbers ofThe Pickwick Papers?" said he. (They were then publishing in parts.) "Capital thing!"
Now Miss Jenkyns was daughter of a deceased rector of Cranford; and, on the strength of a number of manuscript sermons and a pretty good library of divinity, considered herself literary, and looked upon any conversation about books as a challenge to her. So she answered and said, "Yes, she had seen them; indeed, she might say she had read them."
"And what do you think of them?" exclaimed Captain Brown. "Aren't they famously good?"
So urged, Miss Jenkyns could not but speak.
"I must say, I don't think they are by any means equal to Dr. Johnson. Still, perhaps, the author is young. Let him persevere, and who knows what he may become if he will take the great Doctor for his model." This was evidently too much for Captain Brown to take placidly; and I saw the words on the tip of his tongue before Miss Jenkyns had finished her sentence.
"It is quite a different sort of thing, my dear madam," he began.
"I am quite aware of that," returned she. "And I make allowances,Captain Brown."
"Just allow me to read you a scene out of this month's number," pleaded he. "I had it only this morning, and I don't think the company can have read it yet."
"As you please," said she, settling herself with an air of resignation. He read the account of the "swarry" which Sam Weller gave at Bath. Some of us laughed heartily. I did not dare, because I was staying in the house. Miss Jenkyns sat in patient gravity. When it was ended, she turned to me, and said, with mild dignity:
"Fetch meRasselas, my dear, out of the book-room."
When I brought it to her, she turned to Captain Brown—
"Now allowmeto read you a scene, and then the present company can judge between your favourite, Mr. Boz, and Dr. Johnson."
She read one of the conversations between Rasselas and Imlac, in a high-pitched, majestic voice; and when she had ended, she said, "I imagine I am now justified in my preference of Dr. Johnson as a writer of fiction." The captain screwed his lips out, and drummed on the table, but he did not speak. She thought she would give a finishing blow or two.
"I consider it vulgar, and below the dignity of literature, to publish in numbers."
"How was theRamblerpublished, ma'am?" asked Captain Brown, in a low voice, which I think Miss Jenkyns could not have heard.
"Dr. Johnson's style is a model for young beginners. My father recommended it to me when I began to write letters—I have formed my own style upon it; I recommend it to your favourite."
"I should be very sorry for him to exchange his style for any such pompous writing," said Captain Brown.
Miss Jenkyns felt this as a personal affront, in a way of which the Captain had not dreamed. Epistolary writing she and her friends considered as herforte. Many a copy of many a letter have I seen written and corrected on the slate, before she "seized the half-hour just previous to post-time to assure" her friends of this or of that; and Dr. Johnson was, as she said, her model in these compositions. She drew herself up with dignity, and only replied to Captain Brown's last remark by saying, with marked emphasis on every syllable, "I prefer Dr. Johnson to Mr. Boz."
It is said—I won't vouch for the fact—that Captain Brown was heard to say,sotto voce,"D——n Dr. Johnson!" If he did, he was penitent afterwards, as he showed by going to stand near Miss Jenkyns's arm-chair, and endeavouring to beguile her into conversation on some more pleasing subject. But she was inexorable. The next day she made the remark I have mentioned about Miss Jessie's dimples.
SALLY SIMPKIN'S LAMENT; OR JOHN JONES'S KIT-CAT-ASTROPHE[Sidenote:Hood]
"Oh! what is that comes gliding in,And quite in middling haste?It is the picture of my Jones,And painted to the waist.
"It is not painted to the life,For where's the trousers blue?Oh, Jones, my dear!—Oh dear! my Jones,What is become of you?"
"Oh! Sally dear, it is too true,—The half that you remarkIs come to say my other halfIs bit off by a shark!
"Oh! Sally, sharks do things by halves,Yet most completely do!A bite in one place seems enough,But I've been bit in two.
"You know I once was all your own,But now a shark must share!But let that pass—for now to youI'm neither here nor there.
"Alas! death has a strange divorceEffected in the sea,It has divided me from you,And even me from me.
"Don't fear my ghost will walk o' nights,To haunt, as people say;My ghostcan'twalk, for oh! my legsAre many leagues away!
"Lord! think, when I am swimming round,And looking where the boat is,A shark just snaps away a halfWithout a quarter's notice.
"One half is here, the other halfIs near Columbia placed:Oh! Sally, I have got the wholeAtlantic for my waist.
"But now adieu—a long adieu!I've solved death's awful riddle,And would say more, but I am doomedTo break off in the middle."
TABLE-TALK OF JOHN SELDEN[Sidenote:John Selden]
Old friends are best. King James used to call for his old shoes; they were easiest for his feet.
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'Tis sometimes unreasonable to look after respect and reverence, either from a man's own servant, or other inferiors. A great lord and a gentleman talking together, there came a boy by, leading a calf with both his hands: says the lord to the gentleman, "You shall see me make the boy let go his calf"; with that he came towards him, thinking the boy would have put off his hat, but the boy took no notice of him. The lord seeing that, "Sirrah," says he, "do you not know me, that you use no reverence?" "Yes," says the boy, "if your Lordship will hold my calf, I will put off my hat."
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King James said to the fly, "Have I three kingdoms, and thou must needs fly into my eye?"
HOW MARK WAS SOLD[Sidenote:Mark Twain]
It is seldom pleasant to tell on one's self, but sometimes it is a sort of relief to a man to make a sad confession. I wish to unburden my mind now, and yet I almost believe that I am moved to do it more because I long to bring censure upon another man than because I desire to pour balm upon my wounded heart. (I don't know what balm is, but I believe it is the correct expression to use in this connection—never having seen any balm.) You may remember that I lectured in Newark lately for the young gentlemen of the Clayonian Society? I did, at any rate. During the afternoon of that day I was talking with one of the young gentlemen just referred to, and he said he had an uncle who, from some cause or other, seemed to have grown permanently bereft of all emotion. And, with tears in his eyes, this young man said, "Oh, if I could only see him laugh once more! Oh, if I could only see him weep!" I was touched. I could never withstand distress.
I said: "Bring him to my lecture. I'll start him for you."
"Oh, if you could but do it! If you could but do it, all our family would bless you for ever more, for he is so very dear to us. Oh my benefactor, can you make him laugh? can you bring soothing tears to those parched orbs?"
I was profoundly moved. I said: "My son, bring the old party round. I have got some jokes in that lecture that will make him laugh if there is any laugh in him; and, if they miss fire, I have got some others that will make him cry or kill him, one or the other." Then the young man blessed me, and wept on my neck, and went after his uncle. He placed him in full view, in the second row of benches that night, and I began on him. I tried him with mild jokes, then with severe ones; I dosed him with bad jokes, and riddled him with good ones; I fired old, stale jokes into him, and peppered him fore and aft with red-hot new ones; I warmed up to my work, and assaulted him on the right and left, in front and behind; I fumed and sweated and charged and ranted till I was hoarse and sick, and frantic and furious; but I never moved him once—I never started a smile or a tear! Never a ghost of a smile, and never a suspicion of moisture! I was astounded. I closed the lecture at last with one despairing shriek—with one wild burst of humour, and hurled a joke of supernatural atrocity full at him!