For the glorious victory over the Americans at Breed"s Hill; for the peace in 1814, and the beautiful Chinese bridge in St. James"s Park; for the coronation of his Majesty, whom you recollect as Prince of Wales, Goody, don"t you? Yes; and you went in a procession of laundresses to pay your respects to his good lady, the injured Queen of England, at Brandenburg House; and you remember your mother told you how she was taken to see the Scotch lords executed at the Tower. And as for your grandmother, she was born five years after the battle of Malplaquet, she was; where her poor father was killed, fighting like a bold Briton for the Queen. With the help of a "Wade"s Chronology," I can make out ever so queer a history for you, my poor old body, and a pedigree as authentic as many in the peerage-books.
Peerage-books and pedigrees? What does she know about them? Battles and victories, treasons, kings, and beheadings, literary gentlemen, and the like, what have they ever been to her? Granny, did you ever hear of General Wolfe? Your mother may have seen him embark, and your father may have carried a musket under him. Your grandmother may have cried huzza for Marlborough but what is the Prince Duke to you, and did you ever, so much as hear tell of his name? How many hundred or thousand of years had that toad lived who was in the coal at the defunct Exhibition?--and yet he was not a bit better informed than toads seven or eight hundred years younger.
"Don"t talk to me your nonsense about Exhibitions, and Prince Dukes, and toads in coals, or coals in toads, or what is it?" says granny. "I know there was a good Queen Charlotte, for she left me snuff; and it comforts me of a night when I lie awake."
To me there is something very touching in the notion of that little pinch of comfort doled out to granny, and gratefully inhaled by her in the darkness. Don"t you remember what traditions there used to be of chests of plate, bulses of diamonds, laces of inestimable value, sent out of the country privately by the old Queen, to enrich certain relations in M-ckl-nb-rg Str-l-tz? Not all the treasure went. Non omnis moritur. A poor old palsied thing at midnight is made happy sometimes as she lifts her shaking old hand to her nose. Gliding noiselessly among the beds where lie the poor creatures huddled in their cheerless dormitory, I fancy an old ghost with a snuff-box that does not creak.
"There, Goody, take of my rappee. You will not sneeze, and I shall not say "G.o.d bless you." But you will think kindly of old Queen Charlotte, won"t you? Ah! I had a many troubles, a many troubles. I was a prisoner almost so much as you are. I had to eat boiled mutton every day: entre nous, I abominated it. But I never complained. I swallowed it. I made the best of a hard life. We have all our burdens to bear. But hark! I hear the c.o.c.k-crow, and snuff the morning air." And with this the royal ghost vanishes up the chimney--if there be a chimney in that dismal harem, where poor old Twoshoes and her companions pa.s.s their nights--their dreary nights, their restless nights, their cold long nights, shared in what glum companionship, illumined by what a feeble taper!
"Did I understand you, my good Twoshoes, to say that, your mother was seven-and-twenty years old when you were born, and that she married your esteemed father when she herself was twenty-five? 1745, then, was the date of your dear mother"s birth. I dare say her father was absent in the Low Countries, with his Royal Highness the Duke of c.u.mberland, under whom he had the honor of carrying a halberd at the famous engagement of Fontenoy--or if not there, he may have been at Preston Pans, under General Sir John Cope, when the wild highlanders broke through all the laws of discipline and the English lines; and, being on the spot, did he see the famous ghost which didn"t appear to Colonel Gardiner of the Dragoons? My good creature, is it possible you don"t remember that Doctor Swift, Sir Robert Walpole (my Lord Orford, as you justly say), old Sarah Marlborough, and little Mr. Pope, of Twitnam, died in the year of your birth? What a wretched memory you have! What? haven"t they a library, and the commonest books of reference at the old convent of Saint Lazarus, where you dwell?"
"Convent of Saint Lazarus, Prince William, Dr. Swift, Atossa, and Mr.
Pope, of Twitnam! What is the gentleman talking about?" says old Goody, with a "Ho! ho!" and a laugh like an old parrot--you know they live to be as old as Methuselah, parrots do, and a parrot of a hundred is comparatively young (ho! ho! ho!). Yes, and likewise carps live to an immense old age. Some which Frederick the Great fed at Sans Souci are there now, with great humps of blue mould on their old backs; and they could tell all sorts of queer stories, if they chose to speak--but they are very silent, carps are--of their nature peu communicatives. Oh! what has been thy long life, old Goody, but a dole of bread and water and a perch on a cage; a dreary swim round and round a Lethe of a pond? What are Rossbach or Jena to those mouldy ones, and do they know it is a grandchild of England who brings bread to feed them?
No! Those Sans Souci carps may live to be a thousand years old and have nothing to tell but that one day is like another; and the history of friend Goody Twoshoes has not much more variety than theirs. Hard labor, hard fare, hard bed, numbing cold all night, and gnawing hunger most days. That is her lot. Is it lawful in my prayers to say, "Thank heaven, I am not as one of these?" If I were eighty, would I like to feel the hunger always gnawing, gnawing? to have to get up and make a bow when Mr. b.u.mble the beadle entered the common room? to have to listen to Miss Prim, who came to give me her ideas of the next world? If I were eighty, I own I should not like to have to sleep with another gentleman of my own age, gouty, a bad sleeper, kicking in his old dreams, and snoring; to march down my vale of years at word of command, accommodating my tottering old steps to those of the other prisoners in my dingy, hopeless old gang; to hold out a trembling hand for a sicky pittance of gruel, and say, "Thank you, ma"am," to Miss Prim, when she has done reading her sermon. John! when Goody Twoshoes comes next Friday, I desire she may not be disturbed by theological controversies. You have a very fair voice, and I heard you and the maids singing a hymn very sweetly the other night, and was thankful that our humble household should be in such harmony. Poor old Twoshoes is so old and toothless and quaky, that she can"t sing a bit; but don"t be giving yourself airs over her, because she can"t sing and you can. Make her comfortable at our kitchen hearth. Set that old kettle to sing by our hob. Warm her old stomach with nut-brown ale and a toast laid in the fire. Be kind to the poor old school-girl of ninety, who has had leave to come out for a day of Christmas holiday. Shall there be many more Christmases for thee?
Think of the ninety she has seen already; the four-score and ten cold, cheerless, nipping New Years!
If you were in her place, would you like to have a remembrance of better early days, when you were young, and happy, and loving, perhaps; or would you prefer to have no past on which your mind could rest? About the year 1788, Goody, were your cheeks rosy, and your eyes bright, and did some young fellow in powder and a pigtail look in them? We may grow old, but to us some stories never are old. On a sudden they rise up, not dead, but living--not forgotten, but freshly remembered. The eyes gleam on us as they used to do. The dear voice thrills in our hearts. The rapture of the meeting, the terrible, terrible parting, again and again the tragedy is acted over. Yesterday, in the street, I saw a pair of eyes so like two which used to brighten at my coming once, that the whole past came back as I walked lonely, in the rush of the Strand, and I was young again in the midst of joys and sorrows, alike sweet and sad, alike sacred and fondly remembered.
If I tell a tale out of school, will any harm come to my old school-girl? Once, a lady gave her a half-sovereign, which was a source of great pain and anxiety to Goody Twoshoes. She sewed it away in her old stays somewhere, thinking here at least was a safe investment--(vestis--a vest--an investment,--pardon me, thou poor old thing, but I cannot help the pleasantry). And what do you think? Another pensionnaire of the establishment cut the coin out of Goody"s stays--AN OLD WOMAN WHO WENT UPON TWO CRUTCHES! Faugh, the old witch! What!
Violence amongst these toothless, tottering, trembling, feeble ones?
Robbery amongst the penniless? Dogs coming and s.n.a.t.c.hing Lazarus"s crumbs out of his lap? Ah, how indignant Goody was as she told the story! To that pond at Potsdam where the carps live for hundreds of hundreds of years, with hunches of blue mould on their back, I dare say the little Prince and Princess of Preussen-Britannien come sometimes with crumbs and cakes to feed the mouldy ones. Those eyes may have goggled from beneath the weeds at Napoleon"s jack-boots: they have seen Frederick"s lean shanks reflected in their pool; and perhaps Monsieur de Voltaire has fed them--and now, for a crumb of biscuit they will fight, push, hustle, rob, squabble, gobble, relapsing into their tranquillity when the ign.o.ble struggle is over. Sans souci, indeed! It is mighty well writing "Sans souci" over the gate; but where is the gate through which Care has not slipped? She perches on the shoulders of the sentry in the sentry-box: she whispers the porter sleeping in his arm-chair: she glides up the staircase, and lies down between the king and queen in their bed-royal: this very night I dare say she will perch upon poor old Goody Twoshoes"s meagre bolster, and whisper, "Will the gentleman and those ladies ask me again? No, no; they will forget poor old Twoshoes."
Goody! For shame of yourself! Do not be cynical. Do not mistrust your fellow-creatures. What? Has the Christmas morning dawned upon thee ninety times? For four-score and ten years has it been thy lot to totter on this earth, hungry and obscure? Peace and good-will to thee, let us say at this Christmas season. Come, drink, eat, rest awhile at our hearth, thou poor old pilgrim! And of the bread which G.o.d"s bounty gives us, I pray, brother reader, we may not forget to set aside a part for those n.o.ble and silent poor, from whose innocent hands war has torn the means of labor. Enough! As I hope for beef at Christmas, I vow a note shall be sent to Saint Lazarus Union House, in which Mr. Roundabout requests the honor of Mrs. Twoshoes"s company on Friday, 26th December.
AUTOUR DE MON CHAPEAU.
Never have I seen a more n.o.ble tragic face. In the centre of the forehead there was a great furrow of care, towards which the brows rose piteously. What a deep solemn grief in the eyes! They looked blankly at the object before them, but through it, as it were, and into the grief beyond. In moments of pain, have you not looked at some indifferent object so? It mingles dumbly with your grief, and remains afterwards connected with it in your mind. It may be some indifferent thing--a book which you were reading at the time when you received her farewell letter (how well you remember the paragraph afterwards--the shape of the words, and their position on the page); the words you were writing when your mother came in, and said it was all over--she was MARRIED--Emily married--to that insignificant little rival at whom you have laughed a hundred times in her company. Well, well; my friend and reader, whoe"er you be--old man or young, wife or maiden--you have had your grief-pang.
Boy, you have lain awake the first night at school, and thought of home. Worse still, man, you have parted from the dear ones with bursting heart: and, lonely boy, recall the bolstering an unfeeling comrade gave you; and, lonely man, just torn from your children--their little tokens of affection yet in your pocket--pacing the deck at evening in the midst of the roaring ocean, you can remember how you were told that supper was ready, and how you went down to the cabin and had brandy-and-water and biscuit. You remember the taste of them. Yes; for ever. You took them whilst you and your Grief were sitting together, and your Grief clutched you round the soul. Serpent, how you have writhed round me, and bitten me. Remorse, Remembrance, &c., come in the night season, and I feel you gnawing, gnawing! . . . I tell you that man"s face was like Laoc.o.o.n"s (which, by the way, I always think over-rated. The real head is at Brussels, at the Duke Daremberg"s, not at Rome).
That man! What man? That man of whom I said that his magnificent countenance exhibited the n.o.blest tragic woe. He was not of European blood, he was handsome, but not of European beauty. His face white--not of a Northern whiteness; his eyes protruding somewhat, and rolling in their grief. Those eyes had seen the Orient sun, and his beak was the eagle"s. His lips were full. The beard, curling round them, was unkempt and tawny. The locks were of a deep, deep coppery red. The hands, swart and powerful, accustomed to the rough grasp of the wares in which he dealt, seemed unused to the flimsy artifices of the bath. He came from the Wilderness, and its sands were on his robe, his cheek, his tattered sandal, and the hardy foot it covered.
And his grief--whence came his sorrow? I will tell you. He bore it in his hand. He had evidently just concluded the compact by which it became his. His business was that of a purchaser of domestic raiment. At early dawn nay, at what hour when the city is alive--do we not all hear the nasal cry of "Clo?" In Paris, Habits Galons, Marchand d"habits, is the tw.a.n.ging signal with which the wandering merchant makes his presence known. It was in Paris I saw this man. Where else have I not seen him?
In the Roman Ghetto--at the Gate of David, in his fathers" once imperial city. The man I mean was an itinerant vender and purchaser of wardrobes--what you call an . . . Enough! You know his name.
On his left shoulder hung his bag; and he held in that hand a white hat, which I am sure he had just purchased, and which was the cause of the grief which smote his n.o.ble features. Of course I cannot particularize the sum, but he had given too much for that hat. He felt he might have got the thing for less money. It was not the amount, I am sure; it was the principle involved. He had given fourpence (let us say) for that which threepence would have purchased. He had been done: and a manly shame was upon him, that he, whose energy, acuteness, experience, point of honor, should have made him the victor in any mercantile duel in which he should engage, had been overcome by a porter"s wife, who very likely sold him the old hat, or by a student who was tired of it. I can understand his grief. Do I seem to be speaking of it in a disrespectful or flippant way? Then you mistake me. He had been outwitted. He had desired, coaxed, schemed, haggled, got what he wanted, and now found he had paid too much for his bargain. You don"t suppose I would ask you to laugh at that man"s grief? It is you, clumsy cynic, who are disposed to sneer, whilst it may be tears of genuine sympathy are trickling down this nose of mine. What do you mean by laughing? If you saw a wounded soldier on the field of battle, would you laugh? If you saw a ewe robbed of her lamb, would you laugh, you brute? It is you who are the cynic, and have no feeling: and you sneer because that grief is unintelligible to you which touches my finer sensibility. The OLD-CLOTHES"-MAN had been defeated in one of the daily battles of his most interesting, chequered, adventurous life.
Have you ever figured to yourself what such a life must be? The pursuit and conquest of twopence must be the most eager and fascinating of occupations. We might all engage in that business if we would. Do not whist-players, for example, toil, and think, and lose their temper over sixpenny points? They bring study, natural genius, long forethought, memory, and careful historical experience to bear upon their favorite labor. Don"t tell me that it is the sixpenny points, and five shillings the rub, which keeps them for hours over their painted pasteboard. It is the desire to conquer. Hours pa.s.s by. Night glooms. Dawn, it may be, rises unheeded; and they sit calling for fresh cards at the "Portland,"
or the "Union," while waning candles splutter in the sockets, and languid waiters snooze in the ante-room. Sol rises. Jones has lost four pounds: Brown has won two; Robinson lurks away to his family house and (mayhap indignant) Mrs. R. Hours of evening, night, morning, have pa.s.sed away whilst they have been waging this sixpenny battle. What is the loss of four pounds to Jones, the gain of two to Brown? B. is, perhaps, so rich that two pounds more or less are as naught to him; J. is so hopelessly involved that to win four pounds cannot benefit his creditors, or alter his condition; but they play for that stake: they put forward their best energies: they ruff, finesse (what are the technical words, and how do I know?) It is but a sixpenny game if you like; but they want to win it. So as regards my friend yonder with the hat. He stakes his money: he wishes to win the game, not the hat merely.
I am not prepared to say that he is not inspired by a n.o.ble ambition.
Caesar wished to be first in a village. If first of a hundred yokels, why not first of two? And my friend the old-clothes"-man wishes to win his game, as well as to turn his little sixpence.
Suppose in the game of life--and it is but a twopenny game after all--you are equally eager of winning. Shall you be ashamed of your ambition, or glory in it? There are games, too, which are becoming to particular periods of life. I remember in the days of our youth, when my friend Arthur Bowler was an eminent cricketer. Slim, swift, strong, well-built, he presented a goodly appearance on the ground in his flannel uniform. Militasti non sine gloria, Bowler my boy! Hush! We tell no tales. Mum is the word. Yonder comes Chancy his son. Now Chancy his son has taken the field and is famous among the eleven of his school.
Bowler senior, with his capacious waistcoat, &c., waddling after a ball, would present an absurd object, whereas it does the eyes good to see Bowler junior scouring the plain--a young exemplar of joyful health, vigor, activity. The old boy wisely contents himself with amus.e.m.e.nts more becoming his age and waist; takes his sober ride; visits his farm soberly--busies himself about his pigs, his ploughing, his peaches, or what not! Very small routinier amus.e.m.e.nts interest him; and (thank goodness!) nature provides very kindly for kindly-disposed fogies. We relish those things which we scorned in our l.u.s.ty youth. I see the young folks of an evening kindling and glowing over their delicious novels.
I look up and watch the eager eye flashing down the page, being, for my part, perfectly contented with my twaddling old volume of "Howel"s Letters," or the Gentleman"s Magazine. I am actually arrived at such a calm frame of mind that I like batter-pudding. I never should have believed it possible; but it is so. Yet a little while, and I may relish water-gruel. It will be the age of mon lait de poule et mon bonnet de nuit. And then--the cotton extinguisher is pulled over the old noddle, and the little flame of life is popped out.
Don"t you know elderly people who make learned notes in Army Lists, Peerages, and the like? This is the batter-pudding, water-gruel of old age. The worn-out old digestion does not care for stronger food.
Formerly it could swallow twelve-hours" tough reading, and digest an encyclopaedia.
If I had children to educate, I would, at ten or twelve years of age, have a professor, or professoress, of whist for them, and cause them to be well grounded in that great and useful game. You cannot learn it well when you are old, any more than you can learn dancing or billiards. In our house at home we youngsters did not play whist because we were dear obedient children, and the elders said playing at cards was "a waste of time." A waste of time, my good people! Allons! What do elderly home-keeping people do of a night after dinner? Darby gets his newspaper; my dear Joan her Missionary Magazine or her volume of c.u.mming"s Sermons--and don"t you know what ensues? Over the arm of Darby"s arm-chair the paper flutters to the ground unheeded, and he performs the trumpet obligato que vous savez on his old nose. My dear old Joan"s head nods over her sermon (awakening though the doctrine may be). Ding, ding, ding: can that be ten o"clock? It is time to send the servants to bed, my dear--and to bed master and mistress go too. But they have not wasted their time playing at cards. Oh, no! I belong to a Club where there is whist of a night, and not a little amusing is it to hear Brown speak of Thompson"s play, and vice versa. But there is one man--Greatorex let us call him--who is the acknowledged captain and primus of all the whist-players. We all secretly admire him. I, for my part, watch him in private life, hearken to what he says, note what he orders for dinner, and have that feeling of awe for him that I used to have as a boy for the c.o.c.k of the school. Not play at whist? "Quelle triste vieillesse vous vous preparez!" were the words of the great and good Bishop of Autun. I can"t. It is too late now. Too late! too late!
Ah! humiliating confession! That joy might have been clutched, but the life-stream has swept us by it--the swift life-stream rushing to the nearing sea. Too late! too late! Twentystone my boy! when you read in the papers "Valse a deux temps," and all the fashionable dances taught to adults by "Miss Lightfoots," don"t you feel that you would like to go in and learn? Ah, it is too late! You have pa.s.sed the ch.o.r.eas, Master Twentystone, and the young people are dancing without you.
I don"t believe much of what my Lord Byron the poet says; but when he wrote, "So for a good old gentlemanly vice, I think I shall put up with avarice," I think his lordship meant what he wrote, and if he practised what he preached, shall not quarrel with him. As an occupation in declining years, I declare I think saving is useful, amusing, and not unbecoming. It must be a perpetual amus.e.m.e.nt. It is a game that can be played by day, by night, at home and abroad, and at which you must win in the long run. I am tired and want a cab. The fare to my house, say, is two shillings. The cabman will naturally want half a crown. I pull out my book. I show him the distance is exactly three miles and fifteen hundred and ninety yards. I offer him my card--my winning card. As he retires with the two shillings, blaspheming inwardly, every curse is a compliment to my skill. I have played him and beat him; and a sixpence is my spoil and just reward. This is a game, by the way, which women play far more cleverly than we do. But what an interest it imparts to life! During the whole drive home I know I shall have my game at the journey"s end; am sure of my hand, and shall beat my adversary. Or I can play in another way. I won"t have a cab at all, I will wait for the omnibus: I will be one of the damp fourteen in that steaming vehicle. I will wait about in the rain for an hour, and "bus after "bus shall pa.s.s, but I will not be beat. I WILL have a place, and get it at length, with my boots wet through, and an umbrella dripping between my legs. I have a rheumatism, a cold, a sore throat, a sulky evening,--a doctor"s bill to-morrow perhaps? Yes, but I have won my game, and am gainer of a shilling on this rubber.
If you play this game all through life it is wonderful what daily interest it has, and amusing occupation. For instance, my wife goes to sleep after dinner over her volume of sermons. As soon as the dear soul is sound asleep, I advance softly and puff out her candle. Her pure dreams will be all the happier without that light; and, say she sleeps an hour, there is a penny gained.
As for clothes, parbleu! there is not much money to be saved in clothes, for the fact is, as a man advances in life--as he becomes an Ancient Briton (mark the pleasantry)--he goes without clothes. When my tailor proposes something in the way of a change of raiment, I laugh in his face. My blue coat and bra.s.s b.u.t.tons will last these ten years. It is seedy? What then? I don"t want to charm anybody in particular. You say that my clothes are shabby? What do I care? When I wished to look well in somebody"s eyes, the matter may have been different. But now, when I receive my bill of 10L. (let us say) at the year"s end, and contrast it with old tailors" reckonings, I feel that I have played the game with master tailor, and beat him; and my old clothes are a token of the victory.
I do not like to give servants board-wages, though they are cheaper than household bills: but I know they save out of board-wages, and so beat me. This shows that it is not the money but the game which interests me.
So about wine. I have it good and dear. I will trouble you to tell me where to get it good and cheap. You may as well give me the address of a shop where I can buy meat for fourpence a pound, or sovereigns for fifteen shillings apiece. At the game of auctions, docks, shy wine-merchants, depend on it there is no winning; and I would as soon think of buying jewellery at an auction in Fleet Street as of purchasing wine from one of your dreadful needy wine-agents such as infest every man"s door. Grudge myself good wine? As soon grudge my horse corn.
Merci! that would be a very losing game indeed, and your humble servant has no relish for such.
But in the very pursuit of saving there must be a hundred harmless delights and pleasures which we who are careless necessarily forego.
What do you know about the natural history of your household? Upon your honor and conscience, do you know the price of a pound of b.u.t.ter? Can you say what sugar costs, and how much your family consumes and ought to consume? How much lard do you use in your house? As I think on these subjects I own I hang down the head of shame. I suppose for a moment that you, who are reading this, are a middle-aged gentleman, and paterfamilias. Can you answer the above questions? You know, sir, you cannot. Now turn round, lay down the book, and suddenly ask Mrs. Jones and your daughters if THEY can answer? They cannot. They look at one another. They pretend they can answer. They can tell you the plot and princ.i.p.al characters of the last novel. Some of them know something about history, geology, and so forth. But of the natural history of home--Nichts, and for shame on you all! Honnis soyez! For shame on you?
for shame on us!
In the early morning I hear a sort of call or jodel under my window: and know "tis the matutinal milkman leaving his can at my gate. O household G.o.ds! have I lived all these years and don"t know the price or the quant.i.ty of the milk which is delivered in that can? Why don"t I know?
As I live, if I live till to-morrow morning, as soon as I hear the call of Lactantius, I will dash out upon him. How many cows? How much milk, on an average, all the year round? What rent? What cost of food and dairy servants? What loss of animals, and average cost of purchase? If I interested myself properly about my pint (or hogshead, whatever it be) of milk, all this knowledge would ensue; all this additional interest in life. What is this talk of my friend, Mr. Lewes, about objects at the seaside, and so forth?* Objects at the seaside? Objects at the area-bell: objects before my nose: objects which the butcher brings me in his tray: which the cook dresses and puts down before me, and over which I say grace! My daily life is surrounded with objects which ought to interest me. The pudding I eat (or refuse, that is neither here nor there; and, between ourselves, what I have said about batter-pudding may be taken c.u.m grano--we are not come to that yet, except for the sake of argument or ill.u.s.tration)--the pudding, I say, on my plate, the eggs that made it, the fire that cooked it, the tablecloth on which it is laid, and so forth--are each and all of these objects a knowledge of which I may acquire--a knowledge of the cost and production of which I might advantageously learn? To the man who DOES know these things, I say the interest of life is prodigiously increased. The milkman becomes, a study to him; the baker a being he curiously and tenderly examines. Go, Lewes, and clap a hideous sea-anemone into a gla.s.s: I will put a cabman under mine, and make a vivisection of a butcher. O Lares, Penates, and gentle household G.o.ds, teach me to sympathize with all that comes within my doors! Give me an interest in the butcher"s book. Let me look forward to the ensuing number of the grocer"s account with eagerness. It seems ungrateful to my kitchen-chimney not to know the cost of sweeping it; and I trust that many a man who reads this, and muses on it, will feel, like the writer, ashamed of himself, and hang down his head humbly.
* "Seaside Studies." By G. H. Lewes.
Now, if to this household game you could add a little money interest, the amus.e.m.e.nt would be increased far beyond the mere money value, as a game at cards for sixpence is better than a rubber for nothing. If you can interest yourself about sixpence, all life is invested with a new excitement. From sunrise to sleeping you can always be playing that game--with butcher, baker, coal-merchant, cabman, omnibus man--nay, diamond merchant and stockbroker. You can bargain for a guinea over the price of a diamond necklace, or for a sixteenth per cent in a transaction at the Stock Exchange. We all know men who have this faculty who are not ungenerous with their money. They give it on great occasions. They are more able to help than you and I who spend ours, and say to poor Prodigal who comes to us out at elbow, "My dear fellow, I should have been delighted: but I have already antic.i.p.ated my quarter, and am going to ask Screwby if he can do anything for me."
In this delightful, wholesome, ever-novel twopenny game, there is a danger of excess, as there is in every other pastime or occupation of life. If you grow too eager for your twopence, the acquisition or the loss of it may affect your peace of mind, and peace of mind is better than any amount of twopences. My friend, the old-clothes"-man, whose agonies over the hat have led to this rambling disquisition, has, I very much fear, by a too eager pursuit of small profits, disturbed the equanimity of a mind that ought to be easy and happy. "Had I stood out,"
he thinks, "I might have had the hat for threepence," and he doubts whether, having given fourpence for it, he will ever get back his money.
My good Shadrach, if you go through life pa.s.sionately deploring the irrevocable, and allow yesterday"s transactions to embitter the cheerfulness of to-day and to-morrow--as lief walk down to the Seine, souse in, hats, body, clothes-bag and all, and put an end to your sorrow and sordid cares. Before and since Mr. Franklin wrote his pretty apologue of the Whistle have we not all made bargains of which we repented, and coveted and acquired objects for which we have paid too dearly! Who has not purchased his hat in some market or other? There is General M"Clellan"s c.o.c.ked hat for example: I dare say he was eager enough to wear it, and he has learned that it is by no means cheerful wear. There were the military beavers of Messeigneurs of Orleans:* they wore them gallantly in the face of battle; but I suspect they were glad enough to pitch them into the James River and come home in mufti. Ah, mes amis! A chacun son schakot! I was looking at a bishop the other day, and thinking, "My right reverend lord, that broad-brim and rosette must bind your great broad forehead very tightly, and give you many a headache. A good easy wideawake were better for you, and I would like to see that honest face with a cutty-pipe in the middle of it." There is my Lord Mayor. My once dear lord, my kind friend, when your two years"
reign was over, did not you jump for joy and fling your chapeau-bras out of window: and hasn"t that hat cost you a pretty bit of money? There, in a splendid travelling chariot, in the sweetest bonnet, all trimmed with orange-blossoms and Chantilly lace, sits my Lady Rosa, with old Lord Snowden by her side. Ah, Rosa! what a price have you paid for that hat which you wear; and is your ladyship"s coronet not purchased too dear!
Enough of hats. Sir, or Madam, I take off mine, and salute you with profound respect.
* Two cadets of the House of Orleans who served as Volunteers under General M"Clellan in his campaign against Richmond.
ON ALEXANDRINES.*
A LETTER TO SOME COUNTRY COUSINS.
* This paper, it is almost needless to say, was written just after the marriage of the Prince and Princess of Wales in March, 1863.
DEAR COUSINS,--Be pleased to receive herewith a packet of Mayall"s photographs and copies of Ill.u.s.trated News, Ill.u.s.trated Times, London Review, Queen, and Observer, each containing an account of the notable festivities of the past week. If, besides these remembrances of home, you have a mind to read a letter from an old friend, behold here it is.
When I was at school, having left my parents in India, a good-natured captain or colonel would come sometimes and see us Indian boys, and talk to us about papa and mamma, and give us coins of the realm, and write to our parents, and say, "I drove over yesterday and saw Tommy at Dr.
Birch"s. I took him to the "George," and gave him a dinner. His appet.i.te is fine. He states that he is reading "Cornelius Nepos," with which he is much interested. His masters report," &c. And though Dr. Birch wrote by the same mail a longer, fuller, and official statement, I have no doubt the distant parents preferred the friend"s letter, with its artless, possibly ungrammatical, account of their little darling.
I have seen the young heir of Britain. These eyes have beheld him and his bride, on Sat.u.r.day in Pall Mall, and on Tuesday in the nave of St.
George"s Chapel at Windsor, when the young Princess Alexandra of Denmark pa.s.sed by with her blooming procession of bridesmaids; and half an hour later, when the Princess of Wales came forth from the chapel, her husband by her side robed in the purple mantle of the famous Order which his forefather established here five hundred years ago. We were to see her yet once again, when her open carriage pa.s.sed out of the Castle gate to the station of the near railway which was to convey her to Southampton.