No Egyptian taskmaster ever devised a slavery like to that, our slavery.
No fractious operants ever turned out for half the tyranny which this necessity exercised upon us. Half a dozen jests in a day (bating Sundays too), why, it seems nothing! We make twice the number every day in our lives as a matter of course, and claim no Sabbatical exemptions. But then they come into our head. But when the head has to go out to them--when the mountain must go to Mahomet--
Reader, try it for once, only for one short twelvemonth.
It was not every week that a fashion of pink stockings came up; but mostly, instead of it, some rugged, untractable subject; some topic impossible to be contorted into the risible; some feature, upon which no smile could play; some flint, from which no process of ingenuity could procure a distillation. There they lay; there your appointed tale of brick-making was set before you, which you must finish, with or without straw, as it happened. The craving Dragon--_the Public_--like him in Bel"s temple--must be fed; it expected its daily rations; and Daniel, and ourselves, to do us justice, did the best we could on this side bursting him.
MISS PATE [Sidenote: _M.M. Betham_]
A Miss Pate (when he heard of her, he asked if she was any relation to Mr. John _Head_, of Ipswich) was at a party, and he said, on hearing her name, "Miss Pate I hate." "You are the first person who ever told me so, however," said she. "Oh! I mean nothing by it. If it had been Miss Dove, I should have said, Miss Dove I love, or Miss Pike I like." ... Another, who was very much marked with the small-pox, looked as if the devil had ridden roughshod over her face. I saw him talking to her afterwards with great apparent interest, and noticed it, saying, "I thought he had not liked her." His reply was, "I like her internals very well."
THE LOST ORNAMENT [Sidenote: _Washington Allston_]
Lamb was present when a naval officer was giving an account of an action which he had been in, and, to ill.u.s.trate the carelessness and disregard of life at such times, said that a sailor had both his legs shot off, and as his shipmates were carrying him below, another shot came and took off his arms; they, thinking he was pretty much used up, though life was still in him, threw him out of a port. "Shame, d----d shame," stuttered our Lamb, "he m-m-might have l-lived to have been an a-a-ornament to Society!"
YOUR HAT, SIR [Sidenote: _Crabb Robinson_]
I dined at Lamb"s, and then walked with him to Highgate, self-invited.
There we found a large party. Mr. and Mrs. Green, the Aderses, Irving, Collins, R.A., a Mr. Taylor, a young man of talents in the Colonial Office, Basil Montagu, a Mr. Chance, and one or two others. It was a _rich_ evening. Coleridge talked his best, and it appeared better because he and Irving supported the same doctrines. His superiority was striking. The idea dwelt on was the higher character of the internal evidence of Christianity, as addressed to our immediate consciousness of our own wants and the necessity of a religion and a revelation. In a style not to me clear or intelligible, Irving and Coleridge both declaimed. The _advocatus diaboli_ for the evening was Mr. Taylor, who, in a way very creditable to his manners as a gentleman, but with little more than verbal cleverness, and an ordinary logic, and the confidence of a young man who has no suspicion of his own deficiencies, affirmed that those evidences which the Christian thinks he finds in his internal convictions, the Mahometan also thinks he has; and he affirmed that Mahomet had improved the condition of mankind. Lamb asked him whether he came in a turban or a hat.
ELIA"S TAIL [Sidenote: _J.B._]
When I first knew Charles Lamb, I ventured, one evening, to say something that I intended should pa.s.s for wit. "Ha! very well; very well, indeed!" said he. "Ben Jonson has said worse things" (I brightened up, but he went stammering on to the end of the sentence)--"and--and--and _better_!" A pinch of snuff concluded this compliment, which put a stop to my wit for the evening. I related the thing to Hazlitt, afterwards, who laughed. "Aye," said he, "you are never sure of him till he gets to the end. His jokes would be the sharpest things in the world, but that they are blunted by his good-nature. He wants malice--which is a pity." "But," said I, "his words at first seemed so--" "Oh! as for that," replied Hazlitt, "his sayings are generally like women"s letters: all the pith is in the postscript."
CHARLES AND HIS SISTER [Sidenote: _Mrs. Balmanno_]
Miss Lamb, although many years older than her brother, by no means looked so, but presented the pleasant appearance of a mild, rather stout, and comely maiden lady of middle age. Dressed with quaker-like simplicity in dove-coloured silk, with a transparent kerchief of snow-white muslin folded across her bosom, she at once prepossessed the beholder in her favour by an aspect of serenity and peace. Her manners were very quiet and gentle, and her voice low. She smiled frequently, but seldom laughed, partaking of the courtesies and hospitalities of her merry host and hostess with all the cheerfulness and grace of a most mild and kindly nature.
Her behaviour to her brother was like that of an admiring disciple; her eyes seldom absent from his face. Even when apparently engrossed in conversation with others, she would, by supplying some word for which he was at a loss, even when talking in a distant part of the room, show how closely her mind waited upon his. Mr. Lamb was in high spirits, sauntering about the room, with his hands crossed behind his back, conversing by fits and starts with those most familiarly known to him, but evidently mentally acknowledging Miss Kelly to be the _rara avis_ of his thoughts, by the great attention he paid to every word she uttered.
Truly pleasant it must have been to her, even though accustomed to see people listen breathless with admiration while she spoke, to find her words have so much charm for such a man as Charles Lamb.
He appeared to enjoy himself greatly, much to the gratification of Mrs.
Hood, who often interchanged happy glances with Miss Lamb, who nodded approvingly. He spoke much--with emphasis and hurry of words, sorely impeded by the stammering utterance which in him was not unattractive.
Miss Kelly (charming, natural Miss Kelly, who has drawn from her audiences more heart-felt tears and smiles than perhaps any other English actress), with quiet good-humour listened and laughed at the witty sallies of her host and his gifted friend, seeming as little an actress as it is possible to conceive. Once, however, when some allusion was made to a comic scene in a new play then just brought out, wherein she had performed to the life the character of a low-bred lady"s-maid pa.s.sing herself off as her mistress, Miss Kelly arose, and with a kind of resistless ardour repeated a few sentences so inimitably that everybody laughed as much as if the real lady"s-maid, and not the actress, had been before them; while she who had so well personated the part quietly resumed her seat without the least sign of merriment, as grave as possible. Most striking had been the transition from the calm, lady-like person, to the gay, loquacious soubrette; and not less so the sudden extinction of vivacity and resumption of well-bred decorum. This little scene for a few moments charmed everybody out of themselves, and gave a new impetus to conversation....
Mr. Lamb oddly walked all round the table, looking closely at any dish that struck his fancy before he would decide where to sit, telling Mrs.
Hood that he should by that means know how to select some dish that was difficult to carve, and take the trouble off her hands; accordingly, having jested in this manner, he placed himself with great deliberation before a lobster-salad, observing _that_ was the thing. On her asking him to take some roast fowl, he a.s.sented. "What part shall I help you to, Mr. Lamb?" "Back," said he quickly; "I always prefer the back." My husband laid down his knife and fork, and, looking upwards, exclaimed: "By heavens! I could not have believed it, if anybody else had sworn it." "Believed what?" said kind Mrs. Hood, anxiously, colouring to the temples, and fancying there was something amiss in the piece he had been helped to. "Believe what? why, madam, that Charles Lamb was a backbiter?" Hood gave one of his short, quick laughs, gone almost ere it had come, whilst Lamb went off into a loud fit of mirth, exclaiming: "Now, that"s devilish good! I"ll sup with you to-morrow night." This eccentric flight made everybody very merry, and amidst a most amusing mixture of wit and humour, sense and nonsense, we feasted merrily, amidst jocose health-drinking, sentiments, speeches, and songs.
Mr. Hood, with inexpressible gravity in the upper part of his face and his mouth twitching with smiles, sang his own comic song, "If you go to France, be sure you learn the lingo," his pensive manner and feeble voice making it doubly ludicrous. Mr. Lamb, on being pressed to sing, excused himself in his own peculiar manner, but offered to p.r.o.nounce a Latin eulogium instead. This was accepted, and he accordingly stammered forth a string of Latin words; among which, as the name of Mrs. Hood frequently occurred, we ladies thought it was in praise of her. The delivery of his speech occupied about five minutes. On inquiring of a gentleman who sat next to me whether Mr. Lamb was praising Mrs. Hood, he informed me that it was by no means the case, the eulogium being on the lobster-salad!
IN A COACH [Sidenote: _Charles Lamb_]
The incidents of our journey were trifling, but you bade me tell them.
We had, then, in the coach a rather talkative gentleman, but very civil, all the way, and took up a servant-maid at Stamford, going to a sick mistress.... The _former_ engaged me in a discourse for full twenty miles on the probable advantages of Steam Carriages, which, being merely problematical, I bore my part in with some credit, in spite of my totally un-engineer-like faculties. But when, somewhere about Stanstead, he put an unfortunate question tome as to the "probability of its turning out a good turnip season," and when I, who am still less of an agriculturist than a steam-philosopher, not knowing a turnip from a potato-ground, innocently made answer that I believed it depended very much upon boiled legs of mutton, my unlucky reply set Miss Isola a-laughing to a degree that disturbed her tranquillity for the only moment in our journey. I am afraid my credit sank very low with my other fellow-traveller, who had thought he had met with a _well-informed pa.s.senger_, which is an accident so desirable in a stage coach. We were rather less communicative, but still friendly, the rest of the way.
KING DAVID AND THE GARDENER [Sidenote: _Anon._]
Vrom readin" Scripture well Oi knows Pzalmist "e had na rest vrom voes; Vor po-or ole Dave gre-at pits they"d delve, An" then, dam loons, vail in theirselve.
This iz ma readin" ov the Book, An" to ma self do mak" me look; Wi" dew respeck, Oi veel loike him, Tho" later born, and deal more slim.
Vor ev"ry day, wi" buzz an" hum, Into ma garden voes do come; The waspies starm ma gabled wall An" into t" trenches t" grub do crawl.
The blackbird, sparrer, t.i.t, an" thrush Do commandeer each curran" bush, While slugs off lettuce take their smack, And maggots turn the celery black.
Wi" greenfly zlimin" roun" ma roses, An" earwigs pokin" be-astly noses In dahlias vit vor virst at Show, Oi ha" ma troubles, as yew may know; But Dave did circ.u.mwent the Devil, An" wi" ma insecks Oi get level, Lard! wi" what piety Oi tend "em, An" wi" ma boot rejoicin" end "em!
Zo, maister gets his dish o" peas, An" mum her roses, if yew please, But, lawks, they little knaw, Oi "speck, What Oi"ve laid out in intelleck; But Dave got little praise vrom man, An" as Oi ta-ake ma wat"rin"-can, Oi zays, zays Oi, next world wull show Who wuz tip-tappers here below.
THE CALAIS NIGHT-BOAT [Sidenote: _Charles d.i.c.kens_]
It is an unsettled question with me whether I shall leave Calais something handsome in my will, or whether I shall leave it my malediction. I hate it so much, and yet I am always so very glad to see it, that I am in a state of constant indecision on this subject. When I first made acquaintance with Calais it was as a maundering young wretch in a clammy perspiration and dripping saline particles, who was conscious of no extremities but the one great extremity, sea-sickness--who was a mere bilious torso, with a mislaid headache somewhere in its stomach--who had been put into a horrible swing in Dover Harbour, and had tumbled giddily out of it on the French coast, or the Isle of Man, or anywhere. Times have changed, and now I enter Calais self-reliant and rational. I know where it is beforehand, I keep a look-out for it, I recognise its landmarks when I see any of them, I am acquainted with its ways, and I know--and I can bear--its worst behaviour.
Malignant Calais! Low-lying alligator, evading the eye-sight and discouraging hope! Dodging flat streak, now on this bow, now on that, now anywhere, now everywhere, now nowhere! In vain Cape Grinez, coming frankly forth into the sea, exhorts the failing to be stout of heart and stomach; sneaking Calais, p.r.o.ne behind its bar, invites emetically to despair. Even when it can no longer quite conceal itself in its muddy dock, it has an evil way of falling off, has Calais, which is more hopeless than its invisibility. The pier is all but on the bowsprit and you think you are there--roll, roar, wash!--Calais has retired miles inland, and Dover has burst out to look for it. It has a last dip and slide in its character, has Calais, to be specially commended to the infernal G.o.ds. Thrice accursed be that garrison-town, when it dives under the boat"s keel, and comes up a league or two to the right, with the packet shivering and spluttering and staring about for it!
Not but what I have my animosities towards Dover. I particularly detest Dover for the self-complacency with which it goes to bed. It always goes to bed (when I am going to Calais) with a more brilliant display of lamp and candle than any other town. Mr. and Mrs. Birmingham, host and hostess of the Lord Warden Hotel, are my much-esteemed friends, but they are too conceited about the comforts of that establishment when the Night Mail is starting. I know it is a good house to stay at, and I don"t want the fact insisted upon in all its warm bright windows at such an hour. I know the Warden is a stationary edifice that never rolls or pitches, and I object to its big outline seeming to insist upon that circ.u.mstance, and, as it were, to come over me with it, when I am reeling on the deck of the boat. Beshrew the Warden likewise for obstructing that corner, and making the wind so angry as it rushes round. Shall I not know that it blows quite soon enough, without the officious Warden"s interference?
As I wait here on board the night-packet, for the South-Eastern train to come down with the mail, Dover appears to me to be illuminated for some intensely aggravating festivity in my personal dishonour. All its noises smack of taunting praises of the land, and dispraises of the gloomy sea, and of me for going on it. The drums upon the heights have gone to bed, or I know they would rattle taunts against me for having my unsteady footing on this slippery deck. The many gas-eyes of the Marine Parade twinkle in an offensive manner, as if with derision. The distant dogs of Dover bark at me in my misshapen wrappers, as if I were Richard the Third.
A screech, a bell, and two red eyes come gliding down the Admiralty Pier with a smoothness of motion rendered more smooth by the heaving of the boat. The sea makes noises against the pier, as if several hippopotami were lapping at it, and were prevented by circ.u.mstances over which they have no control from drinking peaceably. We, the boat, become violently agitated--rumble, hum, scream, roar--and establish an immense family washing-day at each paddle-box. Bright patches break out in the train as the doors of the post-office vans are opened, and instantly stooping figures with sacks upon their backs begin to be beheld among the piles, descending as it would seem in ghostly procession to Davy Jones"s Locker. The pa.s.sengers come on board; a few shadowy Frenchmen, with hatboxes shaped like the stoppers of gigantic case-bottles; a few shadowy Germans in immense fur coats and boots; a few shadowy Englishmen prepared for the worst and pretending not to expect it. I cannot disguise from my uncommercial mind the miserable fact that we are a body of outcasts; that the attendants on us are as scant in number as may serve to get rid of us with the least possible delay; that there are no night-loungers interested in us; that the unwilling lamps shiver and shudder at us; that the sole object is to commit us to the deep and abandon us. Lo, the two red eyes glaring in increasing distance, and then the very train itself has gone to bed before we are off! What is the moral support derived by some sea-going amateurs from an umbrella?
Why do certain voyagers across the Channel always put up that article, and hold it up with a grim and fierce tenacity? A fellow-creature near me--whom I only know to be a fellow-creature because of his umbrella: without which he might be a dark bit of cliff, pier, or bulkhead--clutches that instrument with a desperate grasp that will not relax until he lands at Calais. Is there an a.n.a.logy, in certain const.i.tutions, between keeping an umbrella up and keeping the spirits up? A hawser thrown on board with a flop replies, "Stand by!" "Stand by, below!" "Half a turn ahead!" "Half a turn ahead!" "Half speed!" "Half speed!" "Port!" "Port!" "Steady!" "Steady!" "Go on!" "Go on!"
A stout wooden wedge driven in at my right temple and out at my left, a floating deposit of lukewarm oil in my throat, and a compression of the bridge of my nose in a blunt pair of pincers--these are the personal sensations by which I know we are off, and by which I shall continue to know it until I am on the soil of France. My symptoms have scarcely established themselves comfortably, when two or three skating shadows that have been trying to walk or stand, get flung together, and other two or three shadows in tarpaulin slide with them into corners and cover them up. Then the South Foreland lights begin to hiccup at us in a way that bodes no good.
It is at about this period that my detestation of Calais knows no bounds. Inwardly I resolve afresh that I never will forgive that hateful town. I have done so before, many times, but that is past. Let me register a vow. Implacable animosity to Calais everm--that was an awkward sea, and the funnel seems of my opinion, for it gives a complaining roar.
The wind blows stiffly from the nor"-east, the sea runs high, we ship a deal of water, the night is dark and cold, and the shapeless pa.s.sengers lie about in melancholy bundles, as if they were sorted out for the laundress; but, for my own uncommercial part, I cannot pretend that I am much inconvenienced by any of these things. A general howling, whistling, flopping, gurgling, and scooping, I am aware of, and a general knocking about of Nature; but the impressions I receive are very vague. In a sweet, faint temper, something like the smell of damaged oranges, I think I should feel languidly benevolent if I had time. I have not time, because I am under a curious compulsion to occupy myself with Irish melodies. "Rich and rare were the gems she wore," is the particular melody to which I find myself devoted. I sing it to myself in the most charming manner and with the greatest expression. Now and then I raise my head (I am sitting on the hardest of wet seats, in the most uncomfortable of wet att.i.tudes, but I don"t mind it) and notice that I am a whirling shuttle-c.o.c.k between a fiery battledore of a lighthouse on the French coast and a fiery battledore of a lighthouse on the English coast; but I don"t notice it particularly, except to feel envenomed in my hatred of Calais. Then I go on again, "Rich and rare were the ge-ems she-e-e-e wore, And a bright gold ring on her wa-and she bo-ore, But O her beauty was fa-a-a-r beyond"--I am particularly proud of my execution here, when I become aware of another awkward shock from the sea, and another protest from the funnel, and a fellow-creature at the paddle-box more audibly indisposed than I think he need be--"Her sparkling gems, or snow-white wand, But O her beauty was fa-a-a-a-a-r beyond"--another awkward one here, and the fellow creature with the umbrella down and picked up--"Her spa-a-arkling ge-ems, or her Port! port! steady! steady!
snow-white fellow-creature at the paddle-box very selfishly audible, b.u.mp roar wash white wand."
As my execution of the Irish melodies partakes of my imperfect perceptions of what is going on around me, so what is going on around me becomes something else than what it is. The stokers open the furnace-doors below, to feed the fires, and I am again on the box of the old Exeter Telegraph fast coach, and that is the light of the for-ever-extinguished coach-lamps, and the gleam on the hatches and paddle-boxes is _their_ gleam on cottages and haystacks, and the monotonous noise of the engines is the steady jingle of the splendid team. Anon, the intermittent funnel-roar of protest at every violent roll becomes the regular blast of the high-pressure engine, and I recognise the exceedingly explosive steamer in which I ascended the Mississippi when the American Civil War was not, and when only its causes were. A fragment of mast on which the light of a lantern falls, an end of rope, and a jerking block or so become suggestive of Franconi"s Circus in Paris, where I shall be this very night mayhap (for it must be morning now), and they dance to the selfsame time and tune as the trained steed, Black Raven. What may be the speciality of these waves as they come rushing on I cannot desert the pressing demands made upon me by the gems she wore, to inquire, but they are charged with something about Robinson Crusoe, and I think it was in Yarmouth Roads that he first went a-seafaring and near foundering (what a terrific sound that word had for me when I was a boy!) in his first gale of wind.
Still, through all this, I must ask her (who _was_ she, I wonder!) for the fiftieth time, and without ever stopping, Does she not fear to stray, so lone and lovely through this bleak way, And are Erin"s sons so good or so cold, As not to be tempted by more fellow-creatures at the paddle-box or gold? Sir Knight, I feel not the least alarm, No son of Erin will offer me harm, For though they love fellow creatures with umbrella down again and golden store, Sir Knight, they--what a tremendous one!--love honour and virtue more: For though they love stewards with a bull"s-eye bright, they"ll trouble you for your ticket, sir--rough pa.s.sage to-night!
I freely admit it to be a miserable piece of human weakness and inconsistency, but I no sooner become conscious of those last words from the steward than I begin to soften towards Calais. Whereas I have been vindictively wishing that those Calais burghers who came out of their town by a short cut into the History of England, with those fatal ropes round their necks by which they have since been towed into so many cartoons, had all been hanged on the spot, I now begin to regard them as highly respectable and virtuous tradesmen. Looking about me, I see the light of Cape Grinez well astern of the boat on the davits to leeward, and the light of Calais Harbour undeniably at its old tricks, but still ahead and shining. Sentiments of forgiveness of Calais, not to say of attachment to Calais, begin to expand my bosom. I have weak notions that I will stay there a day or two on my way back. A faded and rec.u.mbent stranger, pausing in a profound reverie over the rim of a basin, asked me what kind of place Calais is? I tell him (Heaven forgive me!) a very agreeable place indeed--rather hilly than otherwise.
So strangely goes the time, and on the whole so quickly--though still I seem to have been on board a week--that I am b.u.mped, rolled, gurgled, washed, and pitched into Calais Harbour before her maiden smile has finally lighted her through the Green Isle. When blest for ever is she who relied On entering Calais at the top of the tide. For we have not to land to-night down among those slimy timbers--covered with green hair as if it were the mermaid"s favourite combing-place--where one crawls to the surface of the jetty, like a stranded shrimp; but we go steaming up the harbour to the Railway-station Quay. And, as we go, the sea washes in and out among the piles and planks with dead, heavy beats and in quite a furious manner (whereof we are proud), and the lamps shake in the wind, and the bells of Calais striking One seem to send their vibrations struggling against troubled air, as we have come struggling against troubled water. And now, in the sudden relief and wiping of faces, everybody on board seems to have had a prodigious double-tooth out, and to be this very instant free of the dentist"s hands. And now we all know for the first time how wet and cold we are, and how salt we are; and now I love Calais with my heart of hearts!
"Hotel Dessin!" (but in this one case it is not a vocal cry; it is but a bright l.u.s.tre in the eyes of the cheery representative of that best of inns). "Hotel Meurice!" "Hotel de France!" "Hotel de Calais!" "The Royal Hotel, sir, Anglaishe "ouse!" "You going to Parry, sir?" "Your baggage, registair free, sir?" Bless ye, my Touters; bless ye, my commissionaires; bless ye, my hungry-eyed mysteries in caps of military form, who are always here, day or night, fair weather or foul, seeking inscrutable jobs which I never see you get! Bless ye, my Custom-house officers in green and grey; permit me to grasp the welcome hands that descend into my travelling-bag, one on each side, and meet at the bottom to give my change of linen a peculiar shake-up, as if it were a measure of chaff or grain! I have nothing to declare, Monsieur le Douanier, except that, when I cease to breathe, Calais will be found written on my heart. No article liable to local duty have I with me, Monsieur l"Officier de l"Octroi, unless the overflowing of a breast devoted to your charming town should be in that wise chargeable. Ah! see at the gangway by the twinkling lantern my dearest brother and friend, he once of the Pa.s.sport Office, he who collects the names! May he be for ever changeless in his b.u.t.toned black boat-surtout, with his note-book in his hand, and his tall black hat surmounting his round, smiling, patient face! Let us embrace, my dearest brother. I am yours _a tout jamais_--for the whole of ever.
Calais up and doing at the railway-station, and Calais down and dreaming in its bed; Calais with something of "an ancient and fish-like smell"
about it, and Calais blown and sea-washed pure; Calais represented at the Buffet by savoury roast fowls, hot coffee, cognac, and Bordeaux; and Calais represented everywhere by flitting persons with a monomania for changing money--though I never shall be able to understand, in my present state of existence, how they live by it; but I suppose I should, if I understood the currency question; Calais _en gros_ and Calais _en detail_, forgive one who has deeply wronged you,--I was not fully aware of it on the other side, but I meant Dover.
Ding, ding! To the carriages, gentlemen the travellers. Ascend then, gentlemen the travellers, for Hazebroucke, Lille, Douai, Bruxelles, Arras, Amiens, and Paris! I, humble representative of the uncommercial interest, ascend with the rest. The train is light to-night, and I share my compartment with but two fellow-travellers; one, a compatriot in an obsolete cravat, who thinks it a quite unaccountable thing that they don"t keep "London time" on a French railway, and who is made angry by my modestly suggesting the possibility of Paris time being more in their way; the other, a young priest, with a very small bird in a very small cage, who feeds the small bird with a quill, and then puts him up in the network above his head, where he advances twittering to his front wires, and seems to address me in an electioneering manner. The compatriot (who crossed in the boat, and whom I judge to be some person of distinction, as he was shut up, like a stately species of rabbit, in a private hutch on deck) and the young priest (who joined us at Calais) are soon asleep, and then the bird and I have it all to ourselves....