li ■ ■ "Ml^. K" 4THE C^gKETi^ OF Literary G^ms, CONTAINING ^ TALES AND SKETCHES-CHOICE SELECTIONS- ANECDOTES-WIT AND HUMOR. CHICAGO. i'^f---Up..j. A. CRAIG & CO., Publishers, ' >■■ " • ^-^0^/^ 1879. ' ' IL \ \ A ^ x^ "^ / <^v. \ ^ COPYRIGHT BY ADAM CRAIG, / 1879. / ,\ ''tyh. CONTENTS. TALES AND SKETCHES: PAGE. The Boarding House - - - Charles Dickejis, 9 Rab and His Friends - -John Brown, M. D., 53 The Gridiron . . . - Samuel Lover , 69 The Fairy Fleet - - - George Macdonald, 78 An Essay on an '' Old Subject" - Alexander Smith, 104 The Voyage of Life - - - Samuel JoJnison, 114 Dissection of a Beau's Head and a Coquette's Heart ----- - Joseph Addison, 119 "Life Endeared by Age," and "A City Night- Piece," Oliver Goldsmith, 125 Poor Relations - . - - Charles Lamb, 131 CHOICE SELECTIONS: Maxims ------ Quarks, 141 Miscellaneous Aphorisms - - Fuller and Bacon, 143 Moral Sentiments: Beneficence, 144; Calumny, Cen- sure,^ 145; Children, 145; Education, 145; Friend- ship, 146; General Observations, 146; The Good Man, 146: The Good Woman, 147; Youth, — Bichardson, 147 Moral Sentiments - - - - - Kempis, 148 INIemory - - - - - - Fuller, 148 Life Hath No " Unmeddled Joy" - Southwell, 149 Thoughts on Death and Immortality Browne, 150 The Death of a Father - - - - Steele, 152 All Can Do Good- . - - . -Talbot, 153 Rules of Improvement by Conversation - Watts, 153 First Love ------ Gibbon, 157 Delicacy of Taste ----- Hume, 159 Reply of Pitt to Walpole, on being Taunted on Account of Youth - - - - Lord Cliatham, 160 The Indian Chief to the White Settler - E. Everett, 162 Early Recollections - - - - John Sterling, 164 The Departure of William Penn for America, Sigourney, 168 \ CONTENTS. Extracts from the Works of Thomas Carlyle: Fro7n " Sartor Res art us: " page. Watch-Tower Utterances - - - - 173 Nothing Lost 176 Childhood - 177 Early Influences and Sports - - - 177 Sunset - - - - - - - -178 A Mother's Influence 178 Nature Alone is Antique - - - - 179 Love -------- 179 Anger ----- _ . _ 180 Joy and Sorrow 180 Conduct - - - - - - - 181 Light, the Beginning of all Creation - - 181 Communion of Souls ----- 182 Silence and Secrecy ----- 182 Two Men Alone Honorable - - - - 183 The Poor Man ------ 184 Fro?n " Past and Present: " Fair Day's Wages for Fair Day's Work - 185 A Brave Man ------ 186 Hell 186 Wretchedness 187 Miscellaneous Selections: Advice to a Young Man - - - * - 187 Music ------- ic)o The Song and the Singer - - - - 190 The Modern Opera 191 Food and Raiment ----- 192 Extracts from the Works of John Ruskin: Pride - 192 The Truth of Truths ----- 193 Simplicity- - 194 Making a Right Choice 195 The Harvest is Ripe 196 Recreation ------- 196 Flowers - - - 196 All Carving and No Meat - - - - 197 Loss --------- J97 Life Never a Jest 198 The Love of Flowers 198 z. CONTENTS. Extracts from the Works of John Ruskin: page. • The Memory of Unkindness - - - - 199 Cheerfulness ------- 200 Extracts from the Works of Thomas DeQuincey: Selection from the Essay " On Murder, Considered as a Fine Art " 200 Alone in London - - - ... - 205 ANECDOTES, BIOGRAPHICAL: Samuel Johnson^ LL.D,: Memory - - _ _ . . . 209 Melancholy _....- 209 Marriage - - - - - - 210 Value of Literary Labor - - - - 211 Poverty and Tribulation - - - - 211 Habits and Appearance - - - - 212 Death - 212 Felicity of Illustration - - - - 213 Credulity and Incredulity - - - - 213 Robert Burns: Childhood 214 Poverty -..-.-- 214 Death - 215 Address and Conversation - - - - 216 A Man's a Man for a' That - - - - 217 Discernment 217 Sir Walter Scott: Reverence for Religion - - - - 217 Recognition of Friends by Means of Horse Shoes, 218 Literary Labor 7 - - - - - 219 Incidents in Naples and Germany - - 220 Death - - - - - - - -221 Lord Byron: Fame and Wickedness 221 Unhappy Marriage - - - - - 222 Appearance and Habits 223 Death 224 Charles Lamb: Love for his Sister 225 Stammering -.-.-. 227 ■^^ -4^ Q ^ G) yt 6| \ / "F"*" ( 6 CONTENTS. > Edimmd Burke: PAGE. Eloquence - 229 Kindness 229 Thomas Carlyle: At Home - 230 Thomas Babington Macaulay: Precocity and Memory in Childhood - 233 Power of Assimilation . . _ . 237 Peculiarities ------ - 237 ANECDOTES, MISCELLANEOUS: Lincoln's Tenderness 238 A Mortifying Predicament - - - - - 239 Eccentricity ------- 240 Effect of Patrick Henry's Eloquence - - 240 Anecdote of George I. - 241 A Startling Declaration - - - - - 241 Cobbett's Courtship ----- 242 An Idiot's Shrewdness - - - - - 243 Power of Illustration 243 Too Late - 244 A Brief Sermon 245 Honesty Rewarded ----- - 245 A Mother's Influence 246 » Economy and Civility - - . . - 246 Noble Resolutions 246 Beau Brummell ----- - 247 Rufus Choate's Wit 248 Melancholy Actor ----- - 249 Bunyan's Sarcasm ------ 250 Frederick the Great and the Student - - 250 '' Do all the Good you Can " 250 WIT AND HUMOR: Legal Wit- ------ - 253 Josh Billings Wise and Humorous Sayings 261 Extracts from Artemas Ward's Popular Lecture - 263 Mark Twain's Story of the Bad Little Boy who Didn't Come to Grief - - . . 265 Queer and Instructive Sayings of Mrs. Partingt on, 269 Caudle's Wedding Day - - Douglas Jerrold, 272 1 Irish Wit and Humor - - - . - 275 Miscellaneous Wit and Humor 289 -304 ► J / \ lo ^ ^ (!> "• C) V^ ' /• K -^yjijmiM^' ■^^^}/UVinr^ f^IiE^i-qpvgKE'rCHEg. ■-i- ^ \ THE BOARDIKG-HOUSE. • BY CHARLES DICKENS. Chapter I. RS. TIBBS was, beyond all dispute, the most tidy, fidgety, thrifty little personage that ever inhaled the smoke of London; and the house of Mrs. Tibbs was, decidedly, the neatest in all Great Coram street. The area and the area-steps, and the street-door, and the street-door steps, and the brass handle, and the door-plate, and the knocker, and the fan-light, were all as clean and bright as indefatigable white-washing, and hearth-stoning, and scrubbing and rubbing, could make them. The wonder was, that the brass-door-plate, with the interesting inscrip- tion " Mrs. Tibbs," had never caught fire from constant friction, so perseveringly was it polished. There were meat- safe-looking blinds in the parlor-windows, blue and gold curtains in the drawing-room, and spring-roller bhnds, as Mrs. Tibbs was wont in the pride of her heart to boast, " all the way up." The bell-lamp in the passage looked as clear as a soap-bubble; you could see yourself in all the tables, and French-polish yourself on any one of the chairs. The bannisters were bees-waxed; and the very stair-wires made your eyes wink, they were so glittering. Mrs. Tibbs was somewhat short of stature, and Mr. Tibbs was by no means a large man. He had, moreover, very short legs, but, by way of indemnification, his face was peculiarly long. He was to his wife what the o is in 90 — he was of some importance wi^/i her — he was nothing without her. Mrs. Tibbs was always talking. Mr. Tibbs rarely [^ ^J ^* THE CASKET OF LITERARY GEMS. spoke; but, if it were at any time possible to put in a word, when he should have said nothing at all, he had that talent. ^Irs. Tibbs detested long stories, and Mr. Tibbs had one, the conclusion of which had never been heard by his most intimate friends. It always began " I recollect when I was in the volunteer corps, in eighteen hundred and six," — but, as he spoke very slowly and softly, and his better half very quickly and loudly, he rarely got beyond the introductory sentence. He was a melancholy specimen of the story- teller. He was the wandering Jew of Joe Millerism. ]Mr. Tibbs enjoyed a small independence from the pen- sion-list — about 43/. 15^-. lod. a-year. His father, mother, and five interesting scions from the same stock, drew a like sum from the revenue of a grateful country, though for what particular reason was never known. But, as this said independence was not quite sufficient to furnish two people with a/l the luxuries of this life, it had occurred to the busy little spouse of Tibbs, that the best thing she could do with a legacy of 700/., would be to take and furnish a tolerable house — somewhere in that partially-explored tract of country which lies between the British Museum, and a remote village called Somers'-town — for the reception of boarders. Great Coram street was the spot pitched upon. The house had been furnished accordingly; two female servants and a boy engaged; and an advertisement inserted in the morning papers, informing the public that " Six individuals would meet with all the comforts of a cheerful musical home in a select private family, residing within ten minutes' walk of" — everywhere. Answers out of number were received, with all sorts of initials; all the letters of the alphabet seemed to be seized with a sudden wish to go out boarding and lodging; voluminous was the correspondence between Mrs. Tibbs and the applicants; and most profound was the secresy observed. " E." didn't like this; "I." couldn't think of putting up with that; " I. O. U." didn't think the terms would suit him; and " G. R." had never slept in a French THE BOARDING-HOUSE. II bed. The result, however, was, that three gentlemen became inmates of Mrs. Tibb's house, on terms which were " agree- able to all parties." In went the advertisement again, and I a lady with her two daughters, proposed to increase — not their families, but Mrs. Tibb's. " Charming woman, that Mrs. Maplesone! " said Mrs. Tibbs, as she and her spouse were sitting by the fire after breakfast; the gentlemen having gone out on their several avocations. "Charming woman, indeed!" repeated little Mrs. Tibbs, more by way of soliloquy than anything else, for she never thought of consulting her husband. " And the two daughters are delightful. We must have some fish to- day; they'll join us at dinner for the first time." Mr. Tibbs placed the poker at right angles with the fire shovel, and essayed to speak, but recollected he had noth- ing to say. " The young ladies," continued Mrs. T., " have kindly volunteered to bring their own piano." Tibbs thought of the volunteer story, but did not venture it. A bright thought struck him — " It's very likely — " said he. " Pray don't lean your head against the paper," inter- rupted Mrs. Tibbs; " and don't put your feet on the steel fender; that's worse." Tibbs took his head from the paper, and his feet from the fender, and proceeded. " It's very likely one of the young ladies may set her cap at young Mr. Simpson, and you know a marriage " " A what! " shrieked Mrs. Tibbs. Tibbs modestly repeated his former suggestion. "I beg you won't mention such a thing," said Mrs. T. "A marriage, indeed! — to rob me of my boarders — no, not for the world." Tibbs thought in his own mind that the event was not at all unlikely, but, as he never argued with his wife, he put a stop to the dialogue, by observing it was " time to go to \ V THE CASKET OF LITERARY GEMS. business." He always went out at ten o'clock in the morn- ing, and returned at five- in the afterfioon, with an exceed- ingly dirty face, and smelling mouldy. Nobody knew what i he was, or where he went; but Mrs. Tibbs used to say with an air of great importance, that he was engaged in the city. The Miss Maplesones and their accomplished parent arrived in the course of the afternoon in a hackney-coach, and accompanied by a most astonishing number of pack- ages. Trunks, bonnet-boxes, muff-boxes and parasols, j guitar-cases, and parcels of all imaginable shapes, done up j in brown paper, and fastened with pins, filled tne passage. Then there was such a running up and dowm with the lug- gage, such scampering for warm water for the ladies to wash I in, and such a bustle, and confusion, and heating of servants, 1 and curling-irons, as had never been known in Great Coram ! street before. Litde ^Irs. Tibbs was quite in her element, ! bustling about, talking incessantly, and distributing towels and soap, like a head nurse in a hospital. The house was '■ not restored to its usual state of quiet repose, until the \ ladies were safely shut up in their respective bedrooms, ' engaged in the important occupation of dressing for dinner. " Are these gals 'andsome? " inquired Mr. Simpson of Mr. Septimus Hicks, another of the boarders, as they were amusing themselves in the drawing-room, before dinner, by lolling on sofas, and contemplating their pumps. " Don't know," replied Mr. Septimus Hicks, who was a tallish, white-faced young man, with spectacles, and a black ribbon round his neck instead of a neckerchief — a most ! interesting person; a poetical walker of the hospitals, and a I " very talented young man." He was fond of " lugging " into conversation all sorts of quotations from Don Juan, without fettering himself by the propriety of their applica- tion; in which particular he was remarkably iftdependent. The other, Mr. Simpson, was one of those young men, who , are in society what walking gentlemen are on the stage, j only infinitely worse skilled in his vocation than the most z v \ THE EOARDIXG-HOUSE. 1 3 indifferent artist. He was as empty-headed as the great bell of St. Paul's; always dressed according to the caricatures published in the monthly fashions; and spelt Character with a K. '■' I saw a devilish number of parcels in the passage when I came home," simpered Mr. Simpson. ••Materials for the toilet, no doubt," rejoined the Don Juan reader. . •' Much linen, lace, and several pair Of stockings, slippers, brushes, combs, complete ; With other articles of ladies fair. To keep them beautiful, or leave them neat. ' ' " Is that from Milton? " inquired Mr. Simpsorj. " No — from Byron," returned Mr. Hicks, with a look of contempt. He was quite sure of his author, because he had never read any other. •'■'Hush I Here come the gals," and they both commenced talking in a very loud key. " Mrs. Maplesone and the IMiss ]\laplesones, Mr. Hicks. Mr. Hicks — Mrs. Maplesone and the ]Miss Maplesones," said Mrs. Tibbs with a very red face, for she had been superintending the cooking operations below stairs, and looked Hke a wax doll on a sunny day. " Mr. Simpson, I beg your pardon — Mr. Simpson — Mrs. Maplesone and the Miss Maplesones " — and vice versa. The gentlemen imme- diately began to slide about with much politeness, and to look as if they wished their arms had been legs, so little did they know what to do with them. The ladies smiled, curt- seyed, and glided into chairs, and dived for dropped pocket- handkerchiefs: the gentlemen leant against tv\-o of the curtain-pegs; ^Irs. Tibbs went through an admirable bit of serious pantomime with a servant who had come up to ask some question about the fish-sauce; and then the two young ladies looked at each other: and everybody else appeared to discover something very attractive in the pattern of the fender. " Julia my love," said Mrs. Maplesone to her youngest \ \ 14 THE CASKET OF LITERARY GEMS. daughter, in a tone loud enough for the remainder of the company to hear — "JuHa." "Yes, Ma." "Don't stoop." This was said for the purpose of direct- ing general attention to Miss Julia's figure, which was undeniable. Everybody looked at her, accordingly, and there was another pause. " We had the most uncivil hackney-coachman to-day, you can imagine," said Mrs. Maplesone to Mrs. Tibbs, in a con- fidential tone. "Dear me!" replied the hostess, with an air of great commiseration. She couldn't say more, for the servant again appeared at the door, and commenced telegraphing most earnestly to her " Missis." " I think hackney-coachmen generally are uncivil," said Mr. Hicks in his most insinuating tone. " Positively I think they are," replied Mrs. Maplesone, as if the idea had never struck her before. " And cabmen, too," said Mr. Simpson. This remark was a failure, for no one intimated, by word or sign, the slightest knowledge of the manners and customs of cabmen. " Robinson, what do you want? " said Mrs. Tibbs to the servant, who, by way of making her presence known to her mistress, had been giving sundry hems and sniffs outside the door during the preceding five minutes. "Please, ma'am, master wants his clean things," replied the servant, taken off her guard. The two young men turned their faces to the window, and "went off" like a couple of bottles of ginger-beer; the ladies put their handkerchiefs to their mouths; and little Mrs. Tibbs bustled out of the room to give Tibbs his clean linen — and the servant warning. Mr. Calton, the remaining boarder, shortly afterwards made his appearance, and proved a surprising promoter of the conversation. Mr. Calton was a superannuated beau — an old boy. He used to say of himself that although his i features were not regularly handsome, they were striking. >> THE BOARDING-HOUSE. 15 They certainly were. It was impossible to look at his face without being reminded of a chubby street-door knocker, half-lion half-monkey; and the comparison might be extended to his whole character and conversation. He had stood still, while everything else had been moving. He never originated a conversation, or started an idea; but if any commonplace topic were broached, or, to pursue the com- parisons, if anybody lifted him up, he would hammer away with surprising rapidity. He had the tic-doloreux occasion- ally, and then he might be said to be muffled, because he did not make quite as much noise at other times, when he would go on prosing, rat-tat-tat the same thing over and over again. He had never been married; but he was still on the look-out for a wife with money. He had a life interest worth about 300/. a year — he was exceedingly vain, and inordin- ately selfish. He had acquired the reputation of being the very pink of politeness, and he walked round the park, and up Regent street, every day. This respectable personage had made up his mind to ren- der himself exceedingly agreeable to Mrs. Mapleson — indeed, the desire of being as amiable as possible extended itself to the whole party; Mrs. Tibbs having considered it an admir- able little bit of management to represent to the gentlemen that she had some reason to believe the ladies were fortunes, and to hint to the ladies, that all the gentlemen were " eligible." A little flirtation, she thought, might keep her house full, without leading to any other result. Mrs. Maplesone was an enterprising widow of about fifty: shrewd, scheming, and good-looking. She was amiably anxious on behalf of her daughters; in proof whereof she used to remark, that she would have no objection to marry again, if it would benefit her dear girls — she could have no other motive. The " dear girls " themselves were not at all insensible to the merits of " a good establishment." One of them was twenty-five; the other, three years younger. They had been at different watering-places for four seasons; \ THE CASKET OF LITERARY GEMS. they had gambled at Hbraries, read books in balconies, sold at fancy fairs, danced at assemblies, talked sentiment — in short, they had done all that industrious girls could do — but, as yet, to no purpose. "What a magnificent dresser Mr. Simpson is! " whispered Matilda Maplesone to her sister Julia. "Splendid!" returned the youngest. The magnificent individual alluded to wore a maroon -colored dress coat, with a velvet collar and cuffs of the same tint — very like that which usually invests the form of the distinguished un- known who condescends to play the " swell " in the panto- mime at " Richardson's show." "What whiskers! " said Miss Julia. . "Charming!" responded her sister;- " and what hair!" His hair was like a wig, and distinguished by that insinu- ating wave which graces the shining locks of those chef- d'auvres of art surmounting the waxen images in Bartellot's window in Regent street; his whiskers meeting beneath his chin, seemed strings wherewith to tfe it on, ere science had rendered them unnecessary by her patent invisible springs. " Dinner's on the table, ma'am if you please," said the boy, who now appeared for the first time, in a revived black coat of his master's, "Oh!" Mr. Calton, will you lead Mrs. Maplesone? " — Thank you." Mr. Simpson ofi"ered his arm to ]\Iiss Julia; Mr. Septimus Hicks escorted the lovely Matilda; and the procession proceeded to the dining-room. Mr. Tibbs was introduced, and Mr. Tibbs bobbed up and down to the three ladies like a figure in a Dutch clock, with a powerful spring in the middle of his body, and then dived rapidly into his seat at the bottom of the table, delighted to screen himself behind a soup-tureen, which he could just see over, and that was all. The boarders were seated, a lady and gentleman alternately, like the layers of bread and meat in a plate of sandwiches; and then Mrs. Tibbs directed James to take off the covers. Salmon, lobster-sauce, giblet-soup. \ N" THE BOARDING-HOUSE. I 7 and the usual accompaniments were ^/i"-covered: potatoes like petrifactions, and bits of toasted bread, the shape and size of blank dice. " Soup for Mrs. Maplesone, my dear," said tne bustling Mrs. Tibbs. She always called her husband "my dear" before company. Tibbs, who had been eating his bread, and calculating how long it would be before he should get any fish, helped the soup in a hurry, made a small island on the tablecloth, and put a glass on it to hide it from his wife. " Miss Julia, shall I help you to some fish? " "If you please — very little — oh! plenty, thank you" (a bit about the size of a walnut put upon the plate). "Julia is a very little eater," said Mrs. Maplesone to Mr. Calton. The knocker gave a single rap. He was busy eating the fish with his eyes: so he only ejaculated, "Ah! " " My dear," said Mrs. Tibbs to her spouse after every one else had been helped, "What do yon take?" The inquiry was accompanied with a look intimating that he mustn't say fish, because there was not much left. Tibbs thought the frown referred to the island on the tablecloth; he there- fore coolly replied, " Why — I'll take a little — fish, I think." " Did you say fish, my dear? " (another frown). "Yes, dear," replied the villian, with an expression of acute hunger depicted in his countenance. The tears almost started to Mrs. Tibb's eyes, as she helped her " wretch of a husband," as she inwardly called him, to the last eatable bit of salmon on the dish. "James, take this to your master, and take away your master's knife." This was deliberate revenge, as Tibbs never could eat fish without one. He was, however, con- strained to chase small particles of salmon round and round his plate with a piece of bread and a fork, the number of successful attempts being about one in seventeen. " Take away, James," said Mrs. Tibbs, as Tibbs swallowed the fourth mouthful — and away went the plates like lightning. -^J \ v 1 8 THE CASKET OF LITERARY GEMS. " I'll take a bit of bread, James," said the poor " master of the house," more hungry than ever. " Never mind your master now, James," said ^Mvs. Tibbs, " see about the meat." This was conveyed in the tone in which ladies usually give admonitions to servants in com- pany, that is to say, a low one; but which, like a stage whis- per, from its peculiar emphasis, is most distinctly heard by everybody present. A pause ensued, before the table was replenished — a sort of parenthesis in which Mr. Simpson, Mr. Calton, and Mr. Hicks, produced respectively a bottle of sauterne, bucellas, and sherry, and took wine with everybody — except Tibbs. No one ever thought of him. Between the fish and an intimated sirloin, there was a prolonged interval. Here was an opportunity for Mr. Hicks. He could not resist the singularly appropriate quotation — "But beef is rare within these oxless isles; Goat' s flesh there is, no doubt, and kid, and mutton, And when a holiday upon them smiles, A joint upon their barbarous spits they put on." "Very ungentlemanly behaviour," thought little Mrs. Tibbs, " to talk in that way." "Ah," said Mr. Calton, filling his glass. "Tom Moore is my poet." "And mine," said Mrs. Maplesone. "And mine," said Miss Julia. "And mine," added Mr. Simpson. " Look at his compositions," resumed the knocker. "To be sure," said Simpson, with confidence. " Look at Don Juan," rephed Mr. Septimus Hicks. " JuHa's letter," suggested Miss Matilda. " Can anything be grander than the Fire Worshippers? " inquired Miss Julia. "To be sure," said Simpson. " Or Paradise and the Peri," said the old beau. ^J ^^ \ THE BOARDING-HOUSE. 1 9 " Yes; or Paradise and the Peer," repeated Simpson, who thought he was getting through it capitally. " It's all very well," replied Mr. Septimus Hicks, who, as we have before hinted, never had read anything but Don Juan. " Where will you find anything finer than the descrip- tion of the siege, at the commencement of the seventh canto? " " Talking of a siege," said Tibbs, with a mouthful of bread — "when I was in the volunteer corps, in eighteen hundred and six, our commanding officer was Sir Charles Rampart; and one day, when we were exercising on the ground on which the London University now stands, he says, says he, Tibbs (calling me from the ranks) Tibbs — " " Tell your master, James," interrupted Mrs. Tibbs, in an awfully distinct tone, "tell your master if he wo7i't carve those fowls, to send them to me." The discomfited volun- teer instantly set to work, and carved the fowls almost as expeditiously as his wife operated on the haunch of mutton. Whether he ever finished the story is not known; but, if he did, nobody heard it. As the ice was now broken, and the new inmates more at home, every member of the company felt more at ease. Tibbs himself most certainly did, because he went to sleep immediately after dinner. Mr. Hicks and the ladies dis- coursed most eloquently about poetry, and the theatres, and Lord Chesterfield's Letters; and Mr. Calton followed up what everybody said, with continuous double knocks. Mrs. Tibbs highly approved of every observation that fell from Mrs. Maplesone; and as Mr. Simpson sat with a smile upon his face and said " Yes," or " Certainly," at intervals of about four minutes each, he received full credit for under- standing what was going forward. The gentlemen rejoined the ladies in the drawing-room very shortly after they had left the dining-parlor. Mrs. Maplesone and Mr. Calton played cribbage, and the " young people " amused them- selves with music and conversation. The Miss "Maplesones 20 THE CASKET OF LITERARY GEMS. sang the most fascinating duets, and accompanied them- selves on guitars, ornamented with bits of ethereal blue ribbon. Mr. Simpson put on a pink waistcoat, and said he was in raptures; and Mr. Hicks felt in the seventh heaven of poetry or the seventh canto of Don Juan — it was the same thing to him. Mrs. Tibbs was quite charmed with the new comers; and Mr. Tibbs spent the evening in his usual way — he went to sleep, and woke up, and went to sleep again, and woke at supper-time. ^ ;}i * * * * :}: We are not about to adopt the license of novel-writers, and to let " years roll on; " but we will take the liberty of requesting the reader to suppose that six months have elapsed, since the dinner we have described, and that Mrs. Tibbs's boarders have, during that period, sang, and danced, and gone to theatres and exhibitions, together, as ladies and gentlemen, wherever they board, often do. And we will beg them, the period we have mentioned having elapsed, to imagine farther, that Mr. Septimus Hicks received, in his own bedroom (a front attic), at an early hour one morning, a note from Mr. Calton, requesting the favor of seeing him, as soon as convenient to himself, in his (Calton's) dressing- room on the second floor back. " Tell Mr. Calton I'll come down directly," said Mr. Septimus to the boy. " Stop — is Mr. Calton unwell? " inquired this excited walker of hospitals, as he put on a bed-furniture-looking dressing-gown. " Not as I knows on, sir," replied the boy. " Please, sir, he looked rather rum, as it might be." " Ah, that's no proof of his being ill," returned Hicks, unconsciously. " Very well: I'll be down directly." Down stairs ran the boy with the message, and down went the excited Hicks himself, almost as soon as the message was delivered. " Tap, tap." " Come in." — Door opens, and discovers Mr. Calton sitting in an easy chair. Mutual shakes of the hand exchanged, and Mr. Septimus Hicks THE BOARDIXG-HOUSE. motioned to a seat. A short pause, ivlr. Hicks coughed, and Mr. Calton took a pinch of snuff. It was one of those interviews where neither party knows what to say. Mr. Septimus Hicks broke silence. "I received a note — " he said, very tremulously, in a voice like a Punch with a cold. "Yes," returned the other, "you did." " Exactly." " Yes." Now, although this dialogue must have been satisfactory, both gentlemen felt there was something more important to be said; therefore they did as most men in such a situation would have done — they looked at the table with a deter- mined aspect. The conversation had been opened, how- ever, and Mr. Calton had made up his mind to continue it with a regular double knock. He always spoke very pompously. " Hicks," said he, " I have sent for you, in consequence •of certain arrangements which are pending in this house, connected with a marriage." " With a marriage! " gasped Hicks, compared with whose expression of countenance, Hamlet's, when he sees his father's ghost, is pleasing and composed. " With a marriage," returned the knocker. " I hav5 sent for you to prove the great confidence I can repose in you." "And will you betray me? " eagerly inquired Hicks, who in his alarm had even forgotten to quote. " /betray j' father say?" Mr. Septimus Hicks looked at Mr. Calton. " Yes; but the best of it is," said the latter, giggling in his turn, " I haven't got a father — he! he! he! " " You haven't got a father. No; but he has," said Tibbs. " Who has? " inquired Septimus Hicks. " Why himr " Him, who? Do you know my secret? Do you mean me? " "You! No; you know who I mean," returned Tibbs with a knowing wink. \ 26 THE CASKET OF LITERARY GEMS. " For Heaven's sake, whom do you mean? " inquired Mr. Calton, who, like Septimus Hicks, was all but out of his senses at the strange confusion. " Why,Air. Simpson, of course," replied Tibbs; ''who else could I mean? " " I see it all," said the Byron-quoter; " Simpson marries Julia ^Nlaplesone to-morrow morning! " "Undoubtedly," replied Tibbs, thoroughly satisfied, "of course he does." It would require the pencil of Hogarth to illustrate — our feeble pen is inadequate to describe — the expression which the countenances of Mr. Calton and Mr. Septimus Hicks respectively assumed, at this unexpected announcement. Equally impossible is it to describe, although perhaps it is easier for our lady readers to imagine, what arts the three ladies could have us^d, so completely to entangle their separate partners. Whatever they were, however, they were successful. The mother was perfectly aware of the intended marriage of both daughters; and the young ladies were equally acquainted with the intention of their estimable parent. They agreed, however, that it would have a much better appearance if each feigned ignorance of the other's engagement; and it was equally desirable that all the mar- riages should take place on the same day, to prevent the discovery of one clandestine alliance, operating prejudicially on the others. Hence, the mystification of Mr. Calton and Mr. Septimus Hicks, and the pre-engagement of the unwary Tibbs. On the following morning, Mr. Septimus Hicks was united to Miss Matilda Maplesone. Mr. Simpson also entered into a " holy alliance " with Miss Julia; Tibbs act- ing as father, " his first appearance in that character." Mr. Calton, not being quite so eager as the two young men, was rather struck by the double discovery; and as he had found some difficulty in getting any one to give the lady away, it occurred to him that the best mode of obviating the incon- / ^ \ THE BOARDING-HOUSE. 27 venience would be not to take her at all. The lady, how- ever, " appealed," as her counsel said on the trial of the cause, Maplesone v. Calton, for a breach of promise, " with a broken heart, to the outraged laws of her country." She recovered damages to the amount of 1,000/., which the un- fortunate knocker was compelled to pay. Mr. Septimus Hicks having walked the hospitals, took it into his head to walk off altogether. His injured wife is at present residing with her mother at Boulogne. Mr. Simpson, having the mis- fortune to lose his wife six weeks after marriage (by her eloping with an officer during his temporary sojourn in the Fleet Prison, in consequence of his inability to discharge her little mantua-maker's bill), and being disinherited by his father, who died soon afterwards, was fortunate enough to obtain a permanent engagement at a fashionable haircutter's; hairdressing being a science to which he had frequently directed his attention. In this situation he had necessarily many opportunities of making himself acquainted with the habits, and style of thinking, of the exclusive portion of the nobility of this kingdom. To this fortunate circumstance are we indebted for the production of those brilliant efforts of genius, his fashionable novels, which so long as good taste, unsullied by exaggeration, cant, and quackery, con- tinues to exist, cannot fail to instruct and amuse the think- ing portion of the community. It only remains to add, that this complication of disorders completely deprived poor Mrs. Tibbs of all her inmates, except the one whom she could have best spared — her hus- band. That wretched little man returned home, on the day of the wedding, in a state of partial intoxication; and, under the influence of wine, excitement, and despair, actually dared to brave the anger of his wife. Since that ill-fated hour he has constantly taken his meals in the kitchen, to which apartment, it is understood, his witticisms will be in future confined: a turn-up bedstead having been conveyed there by Mrs. Tibb's order for his exclusive accommodation. V K- ^ 28 THE CASKET OF LITERARY GEMS. It is possible that he will be enabled to finish, in that seclu- sion, his story of the volunteers. The advertisement has again appeared in the morning papers. Results must be reserved for another chapter. Chapter II. "Well! *' said little Mrs. Tibbs to herself, as she sat in the front parlor of the Coram street mansion one morning, mending a piece of stair-carpet off the first-landing; — " Things have not turned out so badly, either, and if I only get a favorable answer to the advertisement, we shall be full again." Mrs. Tibbs resumed her occupation of making worsted lattice-work in the carpet, anxiously listening to the two- penny postman, who was hammering his way down the street, at the rate of a penny a knock. The house was as quiet as possible. There was only one low sound to be heard — it was the unhappy Tibbs cleaning the gentlemen's boots in the back kitchen, and accompanying himself with a buzzing noise, in wretched mockery of humming a tune. The postman drew near the house. He paused — so did Mrs. Tibbs. A knock — a bustle — a letter — post paid. " T. I. presents compt. to I. T. and T. I. begs To say that i see the advertisement And she will Do Herself the pleasure of calling On you at 12 o'clock to-morrow morning. " T. I. as To apologise to I. T. for the shortness Of the notice But i hope it will not unconvenience you. I remain yours Truly " Wednesday evening." Little Mrs. Tibbs perused the document, over and over again; and the more she read it, the more was she confused by the mixture of the first and third person: the substitu- tion of the " I " for the " T. I; " and the transition from the "I. T." to the "you." The writing looked like a skein of ^ K THE BOARDING-HOUSE. 29 thread in a tangle, and the note was ingeniously folded into a perfect square, with the direction squeezed up into the right-hand corner, as if it were ashamed of itself The back of the epistle was pleasingly ornamented with a large red wafer, which, with the addition of divers ink-stains, bore a marvellous resemblance to a black beetle trodden upon. One thing, however, was perfectly clear to the perplexed Mrs. Tibbs. Somebody was to call at twelve. The draw- ing-room was forthwith dusted for the third time that morn- ing; three or four chairs were pulled out of their places, and a corresponding number of books carefully upset, in order that there might be a due absence of formality. Down went the piece of stair-carpet before noticed, and up ran Mrs. Tibbs " to make herself tidy." The clock of New Saint Pancras Church struck twelve, and the Foundling, with laudable politeness, did the same ten minutes afterwards. Saint something else struck the quarter, and then there arrived a single lady with a double knock, in a pelisse the 'color of the interior of a damson pie; a bonnet of the same, with a regular conservatory of artificial flowers; a Avhite veil, and a green parasol, with a cobweb border. The visitor (who was very fat and red-faced) was shown into the drawing-room; Mrs. Tibbs presented herself, and the negotiation commenced. " I called in consequence of an advertisement," said the stranger, in a voice as if she had been playing a set of Pan's pipes for a fortnight without leaving off. "Yes! " said Mrs. Tibbs, rubbing her hands very slowly, and looking the applicant full in the face — two things she always did on such occasions. " Money isn't no object whatever to me," said the lady, " so much as living in a state of retirement and obtrusion." Mrs. Tibbs, as a matter of course, acquiesced in such an exceedingly natural desire. " I am constantly attended by a medical man," resumed / \ 30 THE CASKET OF LITERARY GEMS. the pelisse wearer; " I have been a shocking unitarian for some time — I, indeed, have had very little peace since the death of Mr. Bloss." Mrs. Tibbs looked at the relict of the departed Bloss, and thought he must have had very httle peace in his time. Of course she could not say so; so she looked very sympath- izing. " I shall be a good deal of trouble to you," said Mrs. Bloss; " but, for that trouble I am willing to pay. I am going through a course of treatment which renders attention necessary. I have one mutton chop in bed at half-past eight, and another at ten, ^very morning." Mrs. Tibbs, as in duty bound, expressed the pity she felt for anybody placed in such a distressing situation; and the carnivorous Mrs. Bloss proceeded to arrange the various preliminaries with wonderful despatch. " Now mind," said that lady, after terms were arranged; " I am to have the second-floor front, for my bedroom? " " Yes, ma'am." " And you'll find room for my little servant Agnes? " "Oh! certainly." " And I can have one of the cellars in the area for my bottled porter." " With the greatest pleasure; — James shall get it ready for you by Saturday." " And I'll join the company at the breakfast-table on Sun- dg.y morning," said Mrs. Bloss. "I shall get up on pur- pose." " Very well," returned Mrs. Tibbs, in her most amiable tone; for satisfactory references had "been given and required," and it was quite certain that the new comer had plenty of money. " It's rather singular," continued Mrs. Tibbs, with what was meant for a most bewitching smile, " that we have a gentleman now with us, who is in a very delicate state of health — a Mr. Gobler. His apartment is the back drawing-room." \ THE BOARDING-HOUSE. 3 1 " The next room? " inquired Mrs. Bloss. "The next room," repeated the hostess. " How very promiscuous! " ejaculated the widow. " He hardly ever gets up," said Mrs. Tibbs in a whisper. " Lor! " cried Mrs. Bloss, in an equally low tone. " And when he is up," said Mrs. Tibbs, " we never can persuade him to go to bed again." "Dear me! " said the astonished Mrs. Bloss, drawing her chair nearer Mrs. Tibbs. " What is his complaint? " " Why, the fact is," replied Mrs. Tibbs, with a most com- municative air, " he has no stomach whatever." " No what? " inquired Mrs. Bloss, with a look of the most indescribable alarm. " No stomach," repeated Mrs. Tibbs, with a shake of the head. "Lord bless us! what an extraording case! " gasped Mrs. Bloss, as if she understood the communication in its literal sense, and was astonished at a gentleman without a stomach finding it necessary to board anywhere. " When I say he has no stomach," explained the chatty little Mrs. Tibbs, " I mean that his digestion is so much impaired, and his interior so deranged, that his stomach is not of the least use to him; — in fact, it's an inconvenience." " Never heard such a case in my life? " exclaimed Mrs. Bloss. " Why, he's worse than I am." " Oh, yes! " replied Mrs. Tibbs;—" certainly." She said this with great confidence, for the damson pelisse suggested that Mrs. Bloss, at all events, was not suffering under Mr. Gobler's complaint. " You have quite incited my curiosity," said Mrs. Bloss, as she rose to depart. " How I long to see him! " " He generally comes down, once a week," repHed Mrs. Tibbs; " I dare say you'll see him on Sunday." With this consolatory promise Mrs. Bloss was obhged to be contented. She accordingly walked slowly down the stairs, detailing her complaints all the way; and Mrs. Tibbs followed her, uttering V ^ 32 THE CASKET OF LITERARY GEMS. an exclamation of compassion at every step. James (who looked very gritty, for he was cleaning the knives) fell up the kitchen-stairs, and opened the street-door; and, after mutual farewells, Mrs. Bloss slowly departed, down the shady side of the street. It is almost superfluous to say, that the lady whom we have just shown out at the street-door (and whom the two female servants are now inspecting from the second-floor windows) was exceedingly vulgar, ignorant, and selfish. Her deceased better-half had been an eminent cork-cutter, in which capacity he had amassed a decent fortune. He had no relative but his nephew, and no friend but his cook. The former had the insolence one morning to ask for the loan of fifteen pounds; and, by way of retaliation, he mar- ried the latter next day; he made a will immediately after- wards, containing a burst of honest indignation against his nephew (who supported himself and two sisters on 100/. a year), and a bequest of his whole property to his wife. He felt ill after breakfast, and died after dinner. There is a mantelpiece-looking tablet in a civic parish church, setting forth his virtues, and deploring his loss. He never dis- honored a bill, or gave away a halfpenny. The relict and sole executrix of this noble-minded man was an odd mixture of shrewdness and simplicity, liberality and meanness. Bred up as she had been, she knew no mode of living so agreeable as a boarding-house; and having noth- ing to do, and nothing to wish for, she naturally imagined she must be very ill — an impression which was most assidulously promoted by her medical attendant. Dr. Wosky, and her handmaid Agnes: both of whom, doubtless for good reasons, encouraged all her extravagant notions. Since the catastrophe recorded in the last chapter, Mrs. Tibbs had been very shy of young-lady boarders. Her present inmates were all lords of the creation, and she availed herself of the opportunity of their assemblage at the dinner-table, to announce the expected arrival of Mrs. / \ THE BOARDING-HOUSE. T,^ Bloss. The gentlemen received the communication with stoical indifference, and Mrs. Tibbs devoted all her energies to prepare for the reception of the valetudinarian. The second-floor front was scrubbed, and washed, and flannelled, till the wet went through to the drawing-room ceiling. Clean white counterpanes, and curtains, and napkins, water-bottles as clear as crystal, blue jugs, and mahogany furniture, added to the splendor, and increased the comfort of the apartment. The warming-pan was brought in constant requisition, and a fire lighted in the room every day. The chattels of Mrs. Bloss were forwarded by instalments. First, there came a large hamper of Gtiinness's stout, and an umbrella; then, a train of trunks; then, a pair of clogs and a bandbox; then, an easy chair with an air-cushion; then, a variety of sus- picious-looking packages; and — "though last not least " — Airs. Bloss and Agnes: the latter in a cherry-colored merino dress; open-w^ork stockings and shoes with sandals; like a disguised Columbine. The installation of the Duke of Wellington, as Chancel- lor of the University of Oxford, was nothing, in point of bustle and turmoil, to the installation of Mrs. Bloss in her new quarters. True, there was no bright doctor of civil law to deliver a classical address on the occasion; but there were several other old women present, who spoke quite as much to the purpose, and understood themselves equally well. The chop-eater was so fatigued with the process of removal that she declined leaving her room until the follow- ing morning; so a mutton-chop, pickle, a pill, a pint bottle of stout, and other medicines, were carried up stairs for her consumption. " Why; what do you think, ma'am? " inquired the inquisi- tive Agnes of her mistress, after they had been in the house some three hours; " what do you think, ma'am? the lady of the house is married." " Married! " said Mrs. Bloss, taking the pill and a draught of Guinness — " married! Unpossible! " N. \ ^ ^ 34 THE CASKET OF LITERARY GEMS. "She is indeed, ma'am," returned the Columbine; "and her husband, ma'am, lives — he — he — he — lives in the kit- chen, ma'am." "In the kitchen! " "Yes, ma'am: and he — he — he — the housemaid says, he never goes into the parlor except on Sundays; and that Mrs. Tibbs makes him clean the gentlemen's boots; and that he cleans the windows, too, sometimes; and that one morning early, when he was in the front balcony cleaning the draw- ing-room windows, he called out to a gentleman on the opposite side of the way, who used to live here — ' Ah! Mr. Calton, sir, how are you? ' " Here the attendant laughed till Mrs. Bloss was in serious apprehension of her chuck- ling herself into a fit. " Well, I never! " said Mrs. Bloss. " Yes. x\nd please, ma'am, the servants gives him gin- and-water sometimes; and then he cries, and says he hates his wife and the boarders, and wants to tickle them." "Tickle the boarders! " exclaimed Mrs. Bloss, seriously alarmed. " No, ma'am, not the boarders, the servants." " Oh, is that all! " said Mrs. Bloss, quite satisfied. " He wanted to kiss me as I came up the kitchen-stairs, just now," said Agnes, indignantly; " but I gave it him — a little wretch! " This intelligence was but too true. A long course of snubbing and neglect; his days spent in the kitchen, and his nights in the turn-up bedstead, had completely broken the litde spirit that the unfortunate volunteer had ever possessed. He had no one to whom he could detail his injuries but the servants, and they were almost of necessity his chosen con- fidants. It is no less strange than true, however, that the little weaknesses which he had incurred, most probably during his military career, seemi^d to increase as his com- forts diminished. He was actually a sort of journeyman Giovanni of the basement story. ~ 4 THE EOARDING-HOUSE.. 35 The next morning, being Sunday, breakfast was laid in the front parlor at ten o'clock. Nine was the usual time, but the family always breakfasted an hour later on Sabbath. Tibbs enrobed himself in his Sunday costume — a black coat, and exceedingly short, thin trousers; with a very large white waistcoat, white stockings and cravat, and Blucher boots — and mounted to the parlor aforesaid. Nobody had come down, -and he amused himself by drinking the contents of the milkpot with a teaspoon. A pair of slippers were heard descending the stairs. Tibbs flew to a chair; and a stern-looking man, of about fifty, with very little hair on his head, and a Sunday paper in his hand, entered the room. " Good morning, Mr. Evenson," said Tibbs, very hum- bly, with something between a nod and a bow. " How do you do, Mr. Tibbs? " replied he of the slippers, as he sat himself down, and began to read his paper without saying another word. " Is Mr. Wisbottle in town to-day, do you know, sir? " inquired Tibbs, just fol- the sake of saying something. " I should think he was," replied the stern gentleman. " He was whistling ' The Light Guitar,' in the next room to mine, at five o'clock this morning." " He's very fond of whistling," said Tibbs, with a slight smirk. " Yes — I ain't," was the laconic reply. Mr. John Evenson was in the receipt of an independent income, arising chiefly from various houses he owned in the difl"erent suburbs. He was very morose and discontented. He was a thorough radical, and used to attend a great variety of public meetings, for the express purpose of find- ing fault witii everything that was proposed. Mr. Wisbottle, on the other hand, was a high Tory. He was a clerk in the Woods and Forests Office, which he considered rather an aristocratic employment; he knew the peerage by heart and could tell you, off"-hand, where any illustrious personage / V \ A 36 THE CASKET OF LITERARY GEMS. lived. He had a good set of teeth, and a capital tailor. Mr. Evenson looked on all these qualifications, with profound contempt; and the consequence was that the two were always disputing, much to the edification of the rest of the house. It should be added, that, in addition to his partial- ity for whistling, ]\Ir. Wisbottle had a great idea of his sing- ing powers. There were two other boarders, besides the gentleman in the back drawing-room — ]\Ir. Alfred Tomkins and Mr. Frederick O'Bleary. Mr. Tomkins was a clerk in a wine-house; he was a connoisseur in paintings, and had a wonderful eye for the picturesque. Mr. O'Bleary was an Irishman, recently imported; he was in a perfectly wild state; and had come over to England to be an apothecary, a clerk in a government office, an actor, a reporter, or any- thing else that turned up — he was not particular. He was on familiar terms with two small Irish members, and got franks for everybody in the house. He felt convinced that his intrinsic merits must procure him a high destiny. He wore shepherd's-plaid inexpressibles, and used to look under all the ladies' bonnets as he walked along the streets. His manners and appearance reminded one of Orson. " Here comes Mr. Wisbottle," said Tibbs ; and Mr. Wis- bottle forthwith appeared in blue slippers, and a shawl dress- ing-gown, whistling '■'■ Di piacer. " " Good morning, sir," said Tibbs again. It was almost the only thing he ever said to anybody. " How are you, Tibbs? " condescendingly replied the amateur; and he walked to the window, and whistled louder than ever. " Pretty air, that! " said Evenson, with a snarl, and with- out taking his eyes off the paper. " Glad you like it," replied Wisbottle, highly gratified. " Don't you think it would sound better, if you whistled it a little louder? " inquired the mastiff. "No; I don't think it would," rejoined the unconscious Wisbottle. . M THE BOARDING-HOUSE. 37 " I'll tell you what, Wisbottle," said Evenson, who had been bottling up his anger for some hours — " the next time you feel disposed to whistle ' The Light Guitar ' at five o'clock in the morning, I'll trouble you to whistle it with your head out o' window. If you don't, I'll learn the triangle — I will, by — " The entrance of Mrs. Tibbs (with the keys in a little basket) interrupted the threat, and prevented its conclusion. Mrs. Tibbs apologised for being down rather late; the bell was rung; James brought up the urn, and received an unlimited order for dry toast and bacon. Tibbs sat down at the bottom of the table, and began eating water-cresses like a Nebuchadnezzar. Mr. O'Bleary appeared, and Mr. Alfred Tomkins. The compliments of the morning were exchanged, and the tea was made. " God bless me! " exclaimed Mr. Tomkins, who had been looking out at the window. " Here — Wisbottle — pray come here — make haste." Mr. Wisbottle started from the table, and every one looked up. " Do you see," said the connoisseur, placing Wisbottle in the right position — " a little more this way: there — do you see how splendidly the light falls upon the left side of that broken chimney-pot at No. 48? " " Dear me! I see," replied Wisbottle, in a tone of admira- tion. " I never saw an object stand out so beautifully against the clear sky in my life," ejaculated Alfred. Everybody (except John Evenson) echoed the sentiment; for Mr. Tomkins had a great character for finding out beauties which no one else could discover — he certainly de-served it. " I have frequently observed a chimney-pot in College- green, Dublin, which has a much better effect," said the patriotic O'Bleary, whenever allowed Ireland to be outdone on any point. The assertion was received with obvious incredulity, for K \ X ^8 THE CASKET OF LITERARY GEMS. Mr. Tomkins declared that no other chimney-pot in the United Kingdom, broken or unbroken, could be so beauti- ful as the one at No. 48. The room-door was suddenly thrown open, and Agnes appeared leading in Mrs. Bloss, who was dressed in a geranium-colored muslin gown, and displayed a gold watch of huge dimensions: a chain to match; and a splendid assortment of rings, with enormous stones. A general rush was made for a chair, and a regular introduction took place. Mr. John Evenson made a slight inclination of the head; Mr. Frederick O'Bleary, Mr. Alfred Tomkins, and Mr. Wis- bottle, bowed like the mandarins in a grocers' shop; Tibbs rubbed hands, and went round in circles. He was observed to close one eye, and to assume a clock-work sort of expres- sion with the other; this has been considered as a wink, and it has been reported that Agnes was its object. We repel the calumny, and challenge contradiction. Mrs. Tibbs inquired after Mrs. Bloss's health in a low tone. Mrs. Bloss, with a supreme contempt for the memory of Lindley Murray, answered the various questions in a most satisfactory manner ; and a pause ensued, during which the eatables disappeared with awful rapidity. "You must have been very much pleased with the appearance of the ladies going to the Drawing-room the other day, Mr. O'Bleary?" said Mrs. Tibbs, hoping to start a topic. " Yes," repHed Orson, with a mouthful of toast. " Never saw anything like it before, I suppose ? " sug- gested Wisbottle. " No — except the Lord Lieutenant's levees," replied O'Bleary. "Are they at all equal to our drawing-rooms ?" " Oh, infinitely superior ! " " Gad ! I don't know," said the aristocratic Wisbotde, " the Dowager Marchioness of Publiccash was most magnifi- cently dressed, and so was the Baron Slappenbachenhausen." ^* THE BOARDING-HOUSE. 39 " What was he presented on ? " inquired Evenson. " On his arrival in England." "I thought so," growled the radical; *^ you never hear of these fellows being presented on their going away again. They know better than that." "Unless somebody pervades them with an apintment," said Mrs. Bloss, joining in the conversation in a faint voice. " Well," said Wisbottle, evading the point, " it's a splendid sight." " And did it never occur to you," inquired the radical, who never would be quiet; " did it never occur to you, that you pay for these precious ornaments of society? " " It certainly has occurred to me," said Wisbottle, who thought this answer was a poser; " it has occurred to me, and I am willing to pay for them." "Well, and it has occurred to me too," replied John Evenson, " and I ain't willing to pay for 'em. Then why should I? — I say, why should I? " continued the politician, laying down the paper, and knocking his knuckles on the table. " There are two great principles — demand — " " A cup of tea if you please, dear," interrupted Tibbs. " And supply — " " May I trouble you to hand this tea to Mr. Tibbs? " said Mrs. Tibbs, interrupting the argument, and unconsciously illustrating it. The thread of the orator's discourse was broken. He drank his tea and resumed the paper. " If it's very fine," said Mr. Alfred Tomkins, addressing the company in general, " I shall ride down to Richmond to-day, and come back by the steamer. There are some splendid effects of light and shade on the Thames; the con- trast between the blueness of the sky and the yellow water is frequently exceedingly beautiful." Mr. Wisbottle hummed, " Flow on, thou shining river." " We have some splendid steam-vessels in Ireland," said O'Bleary. ^.■" ~7 40 THE CASKET OF LITERARY GEMS. " Certainly," said Mrs. Bloss, delighted to find a subject broached in which she could take part. " The accommodations are extraordinary," said O'Bleary. " Extraordinary indeed," returned Mrs. Bloss. " When Mr. Bloss was alive, he was promiscuously obligated to go to Ireland on business. I went with him, and raly the man- ner in which the ladies and gentlemen were accommodated with berths, is not creditable." Tibbs, who had been listening to the dialogue, looked aghast, and evinced a strong inclination to ask a question, but was checked by a look from his wife. T^lr. Wisbottle laughed, and said T.omkins had made a pun; and Tomkins laughed too, and said he had not. The remainder of the meal passed off as breakfasts usually do. Conversation flagged, and people played with their tea- spoons. The gentlemen looked out at the window; walked about the room; and, when they got near the door, dropped off one by one. Tibbs retired to the back parlor by his wife's orders, to check the greengrocer's weekly account; and ultimately Mrs. Tibbs and Mrs. Bloss were left alone together. ^' Oh dear! " said the latter, " I feel alarmingly faint; it's very singular." (It certainly was, for she had eaten four pounds of solids that morning.) " By-the-bye," said Mrs. Bloss, " I have not seen Mr. What's his name yet." " Mr. Gobler? " suggested Mrs. Tibbs. "Yes." " Oh! " said Mrs. Tibbs, " he is a most mysterious person. He has his meals regularly sent up stairs, and sometimes don't leave^ his room for weeks together." " I haven't seen or heard nothing of him," repeated Mrs. Bloss. " I dare say you'll hear him to-night," repHed Mrs. Tibbs; " he generally groans a good deal on Sunday evenings." " I never felt such an interest in any one in my life," ejaculated Mrs. Bloss. A Htde double-knock interrupted /: THE BOARDING-HOUSE. 4 1 the conversation; Dr. Wosky was announced, and duly shown in. He was a little man with a red face — dressed of course in black, with a stiff white neckerchief. He had a very good practice, and plenty of money, which he had amassed by invariably humoring the worst fancies of all the females of all the families he had ever been introduced into. Mrs. Tibbs offered to retire, but was entreated to stay. " Well, my dear ma'am, and how are we? " inquired Wosky, in a soothing tone. "Very ill, doctor — very ill," said Mrs. Bloss in a whisper. " Ah! we must take care of ourselves; — we must, indeed," said the obsequious Wosky, as he felt the pulse of his inter- esting patient. " How is our appetite? " Mrs. Bloss shook her head. " Our friend requires great care," said Wosky, appealing to Mrs. Tibbs, who of course assented. " I hope, however, with the blessing of Providence, that we shall be enabled to make her quite stout again." Mrs. Tibbs wondered in her own mind what the patient would be when she was made quite stout. " Dear man! " exclaimed Mrs. Bloss, as the doctor stepped into his carriage. " Charming creature indeed — quite a lady's man! " said Mrs. Tibbs, and Doctor Wosky rattled away to make fresh gulls of delicate females,' and pocket fresh fees. As we had occasion, in a former paper, to describe a din- ner at Mrs. Tibb's; and as one meal went off very like another on all ordinary occasions; we will not fatigue our readers by entering into any other detailed account of the domestic economy of the establishment. We will therefore proceed to events, merely premising that the mysterious tenant of the back drawing-room was a lazy, selfish hypo- chondriac; always complaining and never ill. As his char- acter in many respects closely assimilated to that of Mrs. \ \ y 42 THE CASKET OF LITERARY GEMS. Bloss, a very warm friendship soon sprung up between them. He was tall, thin, and pale; he always fancied he had a severe pain somewhere or other, and his face invariably wore a pinched, screwed-up expression; he looked, indeed, like a man who had got his feet in a tub of exceedingly hot water, against his will. For two or three months after Mrs. Bloss's first appear- ance in Coram street, John Evenson was observed to become, every day, more sarcastic and more ill-natured; and there was a degree of additional importance in his manner, which clearly showed that he fancied he had dis- covered something, which he only wanted a proper oppor- tunity of divulging. He found it at last. One evening, the different inmates of the house were assembled in the drawing-room engaged in their ordinary occupations. Mr. Gobler and Mrs. Bloss were sitting at a small card-table near the centre window, playing cribbage; Mr. Wisbottle was describing semicircles on the music-stool, turning over the leaves of a book on the piano, and hum- ming most melodiously; Alfred Tomkins was sitting at the round table, with his elbows duly squared, making a pencil sketch of a head considerably larger than his own; O'Bleary was reading Horace, and trying to look as if he understood it; and John Evenson had drawn his chair close to Mrs. Tibbs's work-table, and was talking to her very earnestly in a low tone. I can assure you, Mrs. Tibbs," said the radical, laying his forefinger on the muslin she was at work on; " I can assure you, Mrs. Tibbs, that nothing but the interest I take in your welfare would induce me to make this communica- tion. I repeat, I fear Wisbottle is endeavoring to gain the affections of that young woman, Agnes, and that he is in the habit of meeting her in the store-room on the first floor, over the leads. From my bedroom I distinctly heard voices there, last night. I opened my door immediately, and crept very softly on to the landing; there I saw Mr. Tibbs, who, it \ THE BOARDING-HOUSE. 43 seems, had been disturbed also. — Bless me, Mrs. Tibbs, you change color! " ''No, no — it's nothing," returned Mrs. T. in a hurried manner; " it's only the heat of the room." "A flush!" ejaculated Mrs. Bloss from the card-table; " that's good for four." " If I thought it was Mr. Wisbottle," said Mrs. Tibbs, after a pause, " he should leave this house instantly." " Go! " said Mrs. Bloss again. " And if I thought," continued the hostess with a most threatening air, " if I thought he was assisted by Mr. Tibbs"— " One for his nob! " said Gobler. *' Oh," said Evenson, in a most soothing tone — he liked to make mischief — " I should hope Mr. Tibbs was not in any way implicated. He always appeared to me very harmless." " I have generally found him so," sobbed poor little Mrs. Tibbs; crying like a watering-pot. "Hush! hush! pray — Mrs. Tibbs — consider — we shall be observed — pray, don't! " said John Evenson, fearing his whole plan would be interrupted. " We will set the matter at rest with the utmost care, and I shall be most happy to assist you in doing so." Mrs. Tibbs murmured her thanks. " When you think every one has retired to rest to-night," said Evenson very pompously, " if you'll meet me without a light, just outside my bedroom-door, by the staircase-window, I think we can ascertain who the parties really are, and you will afterwards be enabled to proceed as you think proper." Mrs. Tibbs was easily persuaded; her curiosity was ex- cited, her jealousy was roused, and the arrangement was forthwith made. She resumed her work, and John Even- son walked up and down the room with his hands in his pockets, looking as if nothing had happened. The game of cribbage was over, and conversation began again. " Well, Mr. O'Bleary," said the humming top, turning V 44 THE CASKET OF LITERARY GEMS. round on his pivot, and facing the company, " what did you think of Vauxhall the other night?" Oh, it's very fair," repUed Orson, who had been enthu- siastically delighted with the whole exhibition. Never saw anything like that Captain Ross's set-out — eh?" No," returned the patriot, with his usual reservation — " except in Dublin." " I saw the Count de Canky and Captain Fitzthompson in the Gardens," said Wisbottle: " they appeared much de- lighted." " Then it mi^s^ be beautiful," snarled Evenson. " I think the white bears is partickerlerly well done," sug- gested Airs. Bloss. " In their shaggy white coats, they look just like Polar bears — don't you think they do, Mr. Even- son? " I think they look a great deal more like omnibus cads on all fours," replied the discontented one. " Upon the whole, I should have liked our evening very well," gasped Gobler; " only I caught a desperate cold which increased my pain dreadfully! I was obliged to have several shower-baths, before I could leave my room." " Capital things those shower-baths! " ejaculated Wis- bottle. Excellent! " said Tomkins. " Delightful! " chimed in O'Bleary, (He had once seen one, outside a tinman's.) Disgusting machines! " rejoined Evenson, who extended his dislike to almost every created object, masculine, femin- ine, or neuter. Disgusting, Mr. Evenson? " said Gobler, in a tone of strong indignation — " Disgusting! Look at their utility — consider how many lives they have saved by promoting per- spiration." Promoting perspiration, indeed," growled John Even- son, stopping short in his walk across the large squares in THE BOARDING-HOUSE. 45 the pattern of the carpet — " I was ass enough to be persuaded some time ago to have one in my bedroom. 'Gad, I was in it once, and it effectually cured me, for the mere sight of it threw me into a profuse perspiration six months afterwards." A titter followed this announcement, and before it had subsided James brought up '^ the tray," containing the remains of a leg of lamb which had made its debut at dinner; bread; cheese; an atom of butter in a forest of parsley; one pickled walnut and the third of another; and so forth. The boy disappeared, and returned again with another tray, con- taining glasses and jugs of hot and cold water. The gentle- men brought in their spirit-bottles; the housemaid placed divers plated bedroom candlesticks under the card-table; and the servants retired for the night. Chairs were drawn round the table, and the conversation proceeded in the customary manner. John Evenson, Avho never ate supper, lolled on the sofa, and amused himself by contradicting everybody. O'Bleary ate as much as he could conveniently carry, and Mrs. Tibbs felt a due degree of indignation thereat: Mr. Gobler and Mrs. Bloss conversed most affectionately on the subject of pill-taking, and other innocent amusements; and Tomkins and Wisbottle " got into an argument; " that is to say, they both talked very loudly and vehemently, each flattering himself that he had got some advantage about something, and neither of them having more than a very indistinct idea of what they were talking about. An hour or two passed away; and the boarders and the brass candlesticks retired in pairs to their respective bedrooms. John Evenson pulled off his boots, locked his door, and determined to sit up until Mr. Gobler had retired. He always sat in the drawing-room an hour after everybody else had left it, taking medicine, and groan- ing. Great Coram street was hushed into a state of profound repose: it was nearly two o'clock. A hackney-coach now and then rumbled slowly by; and occasionally some stray \ K 7\ 46 THE CASKET OF LITERARY GEMS. lawyer's clerk, on his way home to Somer's-town, struck his iron heel on the top of the coal-cellar with a noise resem- bling the click of a smoke-jack. A low, monotonous, gush- ing sound was heard, which added considerably to the romantic dreariness of the scene. It was the water " coming in " at number eleven. " He must be asleep by this time," said John Evenson to himself, after waiting with exemplary patience for nearly an hour after Mr. Gobler had left the drawing-room. He listened for a few moments; the house was perfectly quiet; he extinguished his rushlight, and opened his bedroom-door. The staircase was so dark that it was impossible to see any- thing. . " S — s — s! " whispered the mischief-maker, making a nois^e like the first indication a catherine-wheel gives of the probability of its going off. " Hush! " whispered somebody else. " Is that you, Mrs. Tibbs? " " Yes, sir." " Where? " " Here; " and the misty outline of Mrs. Tibbs appeared at the staircase window, like the ghost of Queen Anne in the tent scene in Richard. "This way, Mrs. Tibbs," whispered the delighted busy- body: "give me your hand — there! Whoever these people are, they are in the store-room now, for I have been looking down from my window, and I could see that they accident- ally upset their candlestick, and are now in darkness. You have no shoes on, have you? " " No," said Httle Mrs. Tibbs, who could hardly speak for trembling. " Well; I have taken my boots off, so we can go down, close to the store-room door, and listen over the banis- ters;" and down stairs they both crept accordingly, every board creaking like a patent mangle on a Saturday after- noon. — - THE BOARDING-HOUSE. 47 "It's Wisbottle and somebody, I'll swear," exclaimed the radical in an energetic whisper, when they had listened for a few moments. " Hush — pray let's hear what they say! " exclaimed Mrs. Tibbs, the gratification of whose curiosity was now para- mount to every other consideration. "Ah! if I could but believe you," said a female voice coquettishly, " I'd be bound to settle my missis for life." " What does she say? " inquired Mr. Evenson, who v/as not quite so well situated as his companion. " She says she'll settle her missis's life," replied IMrs. Tibbs. " The wretch! they're plotting murder." " I know you want money," continued the voice, which belonged to Agnes; " and if you'd secure me the five hundred pound, I warrant she would take fire soon enough." " What's that? " inquired Evenson again. He could just hear enough to want to hear more. " I think she says she'll set the house on fire," replied the affrighted Mrs. Tibbs. " But thank God I'm insured in the Phoenix? " " The moment I have secured your mistress, my dear," said a man's voice in a strong Irish brogue, " you may depend on having the money." "Bless my soul, it's Mr. O'Bleary! " exclaimed Mrs. Tibbs, in a parenthesis. " The villain! " said the indignant Mr. Evenson. " The first thing to be done," continued the Hibernian, " is to poison Mr. Gobler's mind." " Oh, certainly," returned Agnes. "What's that? " inquired Evenson again, in an agony of curiosity and a whisper. " He says she's to mind and poison Mr. Gobler," replied Mrs. Tibbs, aghast at this sacrifice of human life. "And in regard of Mrs. Tibbs," continued O'Bleary. — Mrs. Tibbs shuddered. " Hush! " exclaimed Agnes, in a tone of the greatest vj \ 7 48 THE CASKET OF LITERARY GEMS. alarm, just as ^Irs. Tibbs was on the extreme verge of a faintingfit. "Hush!" " Hush! " exclaimed Evenson, at the same moment to Mrs. Tibbs. "There's somebody coming up stairs," said Agnes to O'Bleary. " There's somebody coming down stairs," whispered Even- son to Mrs. Tibbs. " Go into the parlor, sir," said Agnes to her companion. " You will get there, before whoever it is, gets to the top of the kitchen stairs." "The drawing-room, Mrs. Tibbs!" whispered the aston- ished Evenson to his equally astonished companion; and for the drawing-room they both made, plainly hearing the rustling of two persons, one coming down stairs, and one coming up. " What can it be? " exclaimed Mrs. Tibbs. " It's like a dream. I wouldn't be found in this situation for the world! " " Nor I," returned Evenson, who could never bear a joke at his own expense. " Hush! here they are at the door." " What fun " w.hispered one of the newcomers. — It was Wisbottle. "Glorious!" replied his companion, in an equally low tone. — This was Alfred Tomkins. " Who would have thought it? " " I told you so," said Wisbottle, in a most knowing whis- per. " Lord bless you, he has paid her most extraordinary attention for the last two months. I saw 'em when I was sitting at the piano to-night." " Well, do you know I didn't notice it? " interrupted Tomkins. " Not notice it! " continued Wisbottle. " Bless you; I saw him whispering to her, and she crying; and then I'll swear I heard him say something about to-night when we were all in bed." " They're talking of us! " exclaimed the agonized Mrs. ^^ THE BOARDING-HOUSE. 49 Tibbs, as the painful suspicion, and a sense of their situa- tion, flashed upon her mind. " I know it — I know it," rephed Evenson, with a melan- choly consciousness that there was no mode of escape. " What's to be done? we cannot both stop here! " ejacu- lated Mrs. Tibbs, in a state of partial derangement. " I'll get up the chimney," replied Evenson, who really meant what he said. " You can't," said Mrs. Tibbs, in despair. '^ You can't — it's a register stove." "Hush! " repeated John Evenson. " Hush — hush! " cried somebody down stairs. " What a d — d hushing! " said Alfred Tomkins, who began to get rather bewildered. " There they are! " exclaimed the sapient Wisbottle, as a rustling noise was heard in the store-room. " Hark! " whispered both the young men. " Hark! " repeated Mrs. Tibbs and Evenson. " Let me alone, sir," said a female voice in the store- room. " Oh, Hagnes! " cried another voice, which clearly be- longed to Tibbs, for nobody else ever owned one like it. " Oh, Hagnes — lovely creature.! " " Be quiet, sir! " (A bounce.) " Hag—" ^' Be quiet, sir — I am ashamed of you. Think of your wife, Mr. Tibbs. Be quiet, sir! " " My wife! " exclaimed the valorous Tibbs, who was clearly under the influence of gin-and-water, and a misplaced attachment; " I ate her! Oh, Hagnes! when I was in the volunteer corps, in eighteen hundred and — " '" I declare I'll scream, ^q quiet, sir, will you? " (Another bounce and a scuffle.) " What's that? " exclaimed Tibbs, with a start. " What's what? " said Agnes, stopping short. " Why, that! " \ 50 THE CASKET OF LITERARY GEMS. " All! you have done it nicely now, sir," sobbed the frightened Agnes, as a tapping was heard at Mrs. Tibbs's bedroom door, which would have beaten any dozen wood- peckers hollow. " Mrs. Tibbs! ^Irs. Tibbs! " called out Mrs. Bloss. " Mrs. Tibbs, pray get up." (Here the imitation of a woodpecker was resumed with tenfold violence.) " Oh, dear — dear! " exclaimed the wretched partner of the depraved Tibbs. " She's knocking at my door. We must be discovered! What will they think?" '* Mrs. Tibbs! Mrs. Tibbs! " screamed the woodpecker again. " What's the matter! " shouted Gobler, bursting out of the back drawing-room, like the dragon at Astley's. " Oh, Mr. Gobler! " cried Mrs. Bloss, with a proper approximation to hysterics; " I think the house is on fire, or else there's thieves in it. I have heard the most dreadful noises! " '•'The devil you have! " shouted Gobler again, bouncing back into his den, in happy imitation of the aforesaid dragon, and returning immediately with a lighted candle. "Why, what's this? Wisbottle! Tomkins! O'Bleary! Agnes! W^hat the deuce! all up and dressed? " " Astonishing! " said Mrs. Bloss, who had run down stairs, and taken Mr. Gobler's arm. " Call Mrs.' Tibbs directly, somebody," said Gobler, turn- ing into the front drawing-room. — " What! Mrs. Tibbs and Mr. Evenson!! " " Mrs. Tibbs and Mr. Evenson! " repeated everybody, as that unhappy pair were discovered: Mrs. Tibbs seated in an arm-chair by the fireplace, and Mr. Evenson standing by her side. We must leave the scene that ensued to the reader's imagination. We could tell, how Mrs. Tibbs forthwith fainted away, and how it required the united strength of Mr. Wisbottle and Mr. Alfred Tomkins to hold her in her chair: \ N" THE BOARDING-HOUSE. 5 I how Mr. Evenson explained, and how his explanation was evidently disbelieved; how Agnes repelled the accusations of Mrs. Tibbs by proving that she was negotiating with Mr. O'Bleary to influence her mistress's affections in his behalf; and how Mr. Gobler threw a damp counterpane on the hopes of Mr. O'Bleary by avowing that he (Gobler) had already proposed to, and been accepted by, Mrs. Bloss; how Agnes was discharged from that lady's service; how Mr. O'Bleary discharged himself from Mrs. Tibbs's house, with- out going through the form of previously discharging his bill; and how that disappointed young gentleman rails against England and the English, and vows there is no virtue or fine feeling extant, " except in Ireland." We repeat that we could tell all this, but we love to exercise our self-denial, and we therefore prefer leaving it to be imagined. The lady whom we have hitherto described as Mrs. Bloss, is no more. Mrs. Gobler exists: Mrs. Bloss has left us for ever. In a secluded retreat in Newington Butts, far, far removed from the noisy strife of that great boarding-house, the world, the enviable Gobler and his pleasing wife revel in retirement: happy in their complaints, their table, and their medicine; wafted through life by the grateful prayers of all the purveyors of animal food within three miles round. We would willingly stop here, but we have a painful duty imposed upon us, which we must discharge. Mr. and Mrs. Tibbs have separated by mutual consent, Mrs. Tibbs receiv- ing one moiety of 43/. 15^-. 10^/., which we before stated to be the amount of her husband's annual income, and Mr. Tibbs the other. He is spending the evening of his days in retirement; and he is spending also, annually, that small but honorable independence. He resides among the original settlers at Walworth; and it has been stated, on unquestion- able authority, that the conclusion of the volunteer story has been heard in a small tavern in that respectable neighbor- hood. N. 52 THE CASKET OF LITERARY GEMS. The unfortunate Mrs. Tibbs has determined to dispose of the whole of her furniture by pubUc auction, and to retire from a residence in which she has suffered so much. ]\Ir. Robins has been appHed to, to conduct the sale, and the transcendent abilities of the literary gentlemen connected with his establishment are now devoted to the task of draw- ing up the preliminary advertisement. It is to contain, among a variety of brilliant matter, seventy-eight words in large capitals, and six original quotations in inverted commas. *(?^^ ~- \ 7^ RAB AND HIS FRIENDS. BY JOHN EROWX, M. D. f ^^^2~0UR-AXD-THIRTY years ago, Bob Ainslie and J: 'd^^^ I were coming up Infirmary street from the %W^^ Edinburgh High School, our heads together, and our arms intertwisted, as only lovers and boys know how, or why. When we got to the top of the street, and turned north, we espied a crowd at the Tron Church. "A dog-fight!" shouted Bob, and was oft"; and so was I, both of us all but praying that it might not be over before we got up! And is not this boy-nature? and human nature too? and don't we all wish a house on fire not to be out before we see it? Dogs like fighting; old Isaac says they " delight " in it, and for the best of all reasons; and boys are not cruel because they like to see the fight. They see three of the great cardinal virtues of dog or man — courage, endurance, and skill — in intense action. This is very different from a love of making dogs fight, and enjoying, and aggravating, and making gain by their pluck. A boy, be he ever so fond himself of fighting, if he be a good boy, hates and despises all this, but he would have run off with Bob and me fast enough: it is a natural, and a not wicked interest, that all boys and men have in witnessing intense energy in action. Does any curious and finely ignorant woman wish to know how Bob's eye at a glance announced a dog-fight to his brain? He did not, he could not see the dogs fighting; it was a flash of an inference, a rapid induction. The crowd I z \i \ 54 THE CASKET OF LITERARY GEMS. round a couple of dogs fighting is a crowd masculine mainly, with an occasional active, compassionate woman, fluttering wildly round the outside, and using her tongue and her hands freely upon the men, as so many " brutes; " it is a crowd annular, compact, and mobile; a crowd centripetal, having its eyes and its heads all bent downwards and inwards, to one common focus. Well, Bob and I are up, and find it is not over: a small, thoroughbred, white bull-terrier is busy throttling a large shepherd's dog, unaccustomed to war, but not to be trifled* with. They are hard at it; the scientific little fellow doing his work in great style, his pastoral enemy fighting wildly, but with the sharpest of teeth and a great courage. Science and breeding, however, soon had their own; the Game Chicken, as the premature Bob called him, working his way up, took his final grip of poor Yarrow's throat — and he lay gasping and done for. His master, a brown, handsome, big young shepherd from Tweedsmuir, would have liked to have knocked down any man, would " drink up Esil, or eat a crocodile/' for that part, if he had a chance; it was no use kicking the little dog; that v/ould only make him hold the closer. IMany were the means shouted out in mouthfuls, of the best possible ways of ending it. " Water! " but there was none near, and many cried for it who might have got it from the well at Blackfriars Wynd. "Bite the tail!" and a large, vague, benevolent, middle-aged man, more desirous than wise, with some struggle got the bushy end of Yarrow's tail into his ample mouth, and bit it with all his might. This was more than enough for the much-enduring, much per- spiring shepherd, who, with a gleam of joy over his broad visage, delivered a terrific facer upon our large, vague, benevolent, middle-aged friend — who went down like a shot. Still the Chicken holds; death not far off". "Snuff! a pinch of snuff ! " observed a calm, highly-dressed young buck, with an eye-glass in his eye. " Snuff, indeed! " \ / RAB AND HIS FRIENDS. 55 growled the angry crowd, affronted and glaring. " Snuff ! a pinch of snuff! " again observes the buck, but with more urgency; whereon were produced several open boxes, and from a mull which may have been at Culloden, he took a pinch, knelt down, and presented it to the nose of the Chicken. The laws of physiology and of snuff take their course; the Chicken sneezes, and Yarrow is free! The young pastoraF giant stalks off with Yarrow in his arms, comforting him. But the Bull Terrier's blood is up, and his soul unsatis- fied; he grips the first dog he meets, and discovering she is not a dog, in Homeric phrase, he makes a brief sort of amejide, and is off. The boys, with Bob and me at their head, are after him: down Niddry street he goes, bent on mischief; up the Cowgate like an arrow — Bob and I, and our small men, panting behind. There, under the single arch of the South Bridge, is a huge mastiff, sauntering down the middle of the causeway, as if with his hands in his pockets: he is old, gray, brindled, as big as a little Highland bull, and has the Shakespearian dewlaps shaking as he goes. The Chicken makes straight at him, and fastens on his throat. To our astonishment, the great creature does noth- ing but stand still, hold himself up, and roar — yes, roar; a long, serious, remonstrative roar. How is this? Bob and I are up to them. He is muzzled! The bailies had pro- claimed a general muzzling, and his master, studying strength and economy mainly, had encompassed his huge jaws in a home-made apparatus, constructed out of the leather of some ancient breechin. His mouth was open as far as it could; his lips curled up in rage — a sort of terrible grin"; his'teeth gleaming, ready, from out the darkness; the stray across his mouth tense as a bowstring; his whole frame stiff with indignation and surprise; his roar asking us all round, '' Did you ever see the like of this? " He looked a statute of anger and astonishment, done in Aberdeen granite. ■^ 56 THE CASKET OF L1TER-\RY GEMS. We soon had a crowd: the Chicken held on. '-'A knife! " cried Bob; and a cobbler gave him his knife: you know the kind of knife, worn away obliquely to a point, and always keen. I put its edge to the tense leather; it ran before it; and then! — one sudden jerk of that enormous head, a sort of dirty mist about his mouth, no noise — and the bright and fierce httle fellow is dropped, limp and dead. A solemn pause: this was more than any of us had bargained for. I turned the little fellow over, and saw he was quite dead; the mastiff had taken him by the small of the back like a rat,, and broken it. He looked down at his victim appeased, ashamed, and amazed; snuffed him all over, stared at him, and taking a sudden thought, turned round and trotted off. Bob took the dead dog up, and said, ''John, we'll bury him after tea." " Yes," said I, and was off after the mastiff. He made up the Cowgate at a rapid swing; he had forgotten some engage- ment. He turned up the Candlemaker Row, and stopped at the Harrow Inn. There was a carrier's cart ready to start, and a keen, thin, impatient, black-a-vised little man, his hand at his gray horse's head, looking about angrily for something. " Rab, ye thief! " said he, aiming a kick at my great friend, who drew cringing up, and avoiding the heavy shoe with more agility than dignity, and watching his master's eye, slunk dismayed under the cart — his ears down, and as much as he had of tail down too. What a man this must be — thought I — to whom my tremendous hero turns tail! The carrier saw the muzzle hanging, cut and useless, from his neck, and I eagerly told him the story, which Bob and I always thought, and still think, Homer, or King David, or Sir Walter alone were worthy to rehearse. The severe little man was mitigated, and condescended to say, " Rab, my man, puir Rabbie " — whereupon the stump of a tail rose up, the ears were cocked, the eves filled, and were comforted: the tvvo friends were / — ^ ^ — gl^ RAB AND HIS FRIENDS. 57 I ^ , reconciled. " Hupp! " and a stroke of the whip were given to Jess: and off went the three. - i Bob and I buried the Game Chicken that night (we had I not much of a tea) in the back-green of his house in Mel- ville street, No. 17, with considerable gravity and silence; i and being at the time in the Iliad, and, like all boys, Trojans, we called him Hector, of course. Six years have passed — a long time for a boy and a dog: Bob Ainslie is off to the wars: I am a medical student, and clerk at Minto House Hospital. Rab I saw almost every week, on the Wednesday; and we had much pleasant intimacy. I found the way to his heart by frequent scratching of his huge head, and an occasional bone. When I did not notice him he would plant himself straight before me, and stand wagging that bud of a tail, and looking up, with his head a little to the one side. His master I occasionally saw; he used to call me " Maister John," but was laconic as any Spartan. One fine October afternoon, I was leaving the hospital, when I saw the large gate open, and in walked Rab, with that great and easy saunter of his. He looked as if taking general possession of the place: like the Duke of Wellington entering a subdued city, satiated with victory and peace. After him came Jess, now white from age, with her cart; and in it a woman, carefully wrapped up — the carrier leading the horse anxiously, and looking back. When he saw me, James (for his name was James Noble) made a curt and grotesque " boo," and said, " Maister John, this is the mis- tress; she's got trouble in her breest — some kind o' an income we're thinkin'." By this time I saw the woman's face; she was sitting on a sack filled wtth straw, her husband's plaid round her, and his big coat, with its large white metal buttons, over her feet. I never saw a more unforgetable face — pale, serious, 4 58 THE CASKET OF LITERARY GEMS. lonely,'^ delicate, sweet, without being at all what we call fine. She looked sixty, and had on a mutch, white as snow, with its black ribbon; her silvery, smooth hair setting off her dark-gray eyes — eyes such as one sees only twice or thrice in a lifetime, full of suffering, full also of the overcoming of it: her eyebrows black and delicate, and her mouth firm, patient, and contented, which few mouths ever are. As I have said, I never saw a more beautiful countenance, or one more subdued to settled quiet. " Ailie," said James, " this is Maister John, the young doctor; Rab's freend, ye ken. We often speak aboot you, doctor." She smiled, and made a movement, but said nothing; and prepared to come down, putting her plaid aside and rising. Had Solomon, in all his glory, been handing down the Queen of Sheba at his palace gate, he could not have done it more daintily, more tenderly, more Hke a gentleman, than did James the How- gate carrier, when he lifted down Ailie his wife. The con- trast of his small, swarthy, weather-beaten, keen, worldly face to hers — pale, subdued, and beautiful — was something wonderful. Rab looked on concerned and puzzled, but ready for anything that might turn up, — were it to strangle the nurse, the porter, or even me. Ailie and he seemed great friends. " As I was sayin', she's got a kind o' trouble in her breest, doctor; wuU ye tak' a look at it? " We walked into the con- sulting-room, all four; Rab grim and comic, willing to be happy and confidential if cause could be shown, willing also to be the reverse, on the same terms. Ailie sat down, undid her open gown and her lawn handkerchief round her neck, and without a word showed me her right breast. I looked at and examined it carefully — she and James watching me, and Rab eyeing all three. What could I say? there it was, that had once been so soft, so shapely, so white, so gracious and bountiful, so " full of all blessed conditions " — hard as * It is not easy giving this look by one word ; it was expressive of her being so much of her life alone. ■^ N 7] RAB AND HIS FRIENDS. 59 a Stone, a centre of horrid pain, making that pale face, with its gray, lucid, reasonable eyes, and its sweet, resolved mouth, express the full measure of suffering overcome. Why was that gentle, modest, sweet ^oman, clean and lovable, condemned by God to bear such a burden? I got her away to bed. " May Rab and me 'bide? " said James. " You may; and Rab, if he will behave himself." " I'se warrant he's do that, doctor; " and in slank the faith- ful beast. I wish you could have seen him. There are no such dogs now. He belonged to a lost tribe. As I have said, he was brindled and gray like Rubislaw granite; his hair short, hard, and close, like a lion's; his body thickset, hke a little bull — a sort of compressed Hercules of a dog. He must have been ninety pounds' weight, at the least; he had a large,blunt head; his muzzle black as night, his mouth blacker than any night, a tooth or two — being all he had — gleaming out of his jaws of darkness. His head was scarred with the records of old wounds, a sort of series of fields of battle all over it; one eye out, one ear cropped as close as was Archbishop Leighton's father's: the remaining eye had the power of two; and above it, and in constant communi- cation with it, was a tattered rag of an ear, which was for- ever unfurling itself like an old flag; and then that bud of a tail, about one inch long, if it could in any sense be said to be long, being as broad as long — the mobihty, the instan- taneousness of that bud were very funny and surprising, and its expressive twinklings and winkings, the intercommunica- tions between the eye, the ear, and it, were of the oddest and swiftest. Rab had the dignity and simplicity of great size; and having fought his way all along the road to absolute supremacy, he was as mighty in his own line as Juhus Caesar or the Duke of Wellington, and had the gravity* of all great fighters. * A Highland game-keeper, when asked why a certain terrier, of singular pluck, was so much more solemn than the other dogs, said, "O, sir, life's full o' sairiousness to him, — he just never can get enuft" o' fechtin'." V \ 60 THE CASKET OF LITERARY GE:^IS. You must have often observed the hkeness of certain men to certain animals, and of certain dogs to men. Now, I never looked at Rab without thinking of the great Baptist preacher, Andrew Fuller.* The same large, heavy, menacing, combative, sombre, honest counten- ance, the same deep inevitable eye, the same look — as of thunder asleep, but ready — neither a dog nor a man to be trifled with. Next day, my master, the surgeon, examined Ailie. There was no doubt it must kill her, and soon. It could be removed — it might never return — it would give her speedy relief — she should have it done. She courtesied, looked at James, and said, " When? " " To-morrow," said the kind surgeon — a man of few words. She and James and Rab and I retired. I noticed that he and she spoke little, but seemed to anticipate everything in each other. The follow- ing day, at noon, the students came in, hurrying up the great stair. At the first landing-place, on a small, well-known blackboard, was a bit of paper fastened by wafers, and many remains of old wafers beside it. On the paper were the words — ''An operation to-day. J. B. Clerks Up ran the youths, eager to secure good places: in they crowded, full of interest and talk. " What's the case? " " Which side is it? " Don't think them heartless; they are neither better nor worse than you or I; they get over their professional horrors, and into their proper work — and in them pity, as an einotio?i, * Fuller was, in early life, when a farmer lad at Soham, famous as a boxer; not quarrelsome, but not without "the stem delight" a man of strength and courage feels in their exercise. Dr. Charles Stewart, of Duneam, whose rare gifts and graces as a physician, a divine, a scholar, and a gentleman live only in the memory of those few who knew and sur- vive him, liked to tell how Mr. Fuller used to say, that when he was in the pulpit, and saw a buirdly man come along the passage, he would instinctively draw himself up, measure his imaginary antagonist, and fore- cast how he would deal with him, his hands meanwhile condensing into fists, and tending to "square." He must have been a hard hitter if he boxed as he preached — what "The Fancy" would call "an ugly cus- tomer." \J RAB AND HIS FRIENDS. ending in itself or at best in tears and a long-drawn breath, lessens, while pity as a motive is quickened, and gains power and purpose. It is well for poor human nature that it is so. The operating theatre is crowded; much talk and fun, and all the cordiality and stir of youth. The surgeon with his staff of assistants is there. In comes Ailie; one look at her quiets and abates the eager students. That beautiful old woman is too much for them; they sit down, and are dumb, and gaze at her. These rough boys feel the power of her presence. She walks in quickly, but without haste; dressed in her mutch, her neckerchief, her white dimity short-gown, her black bombazine petticoat, showing her white worsted stockings and her carpet-shoes. Behind her was James with Rab. Tames sat down in the distance, and took that huge and noble head between his knees. Rab looked perplexed and dangerous; forever cocking his ear and dropping it as fast. Ailie stepped up on a seat, and laid herself on the table, as her friend the surgeon told her; arranged herself, gave a rapid look at James, shut her eyes, rested herself on me, and took my hand. The operation was at once begun; it was necessarily slow; and chloroform — one of God's best gifts to his suffering children — was then unknown. The surgeon did his work. The pale face showed its pain, but was still and silent. Rab's soul was working within him; he saw that something strange was going on — blood flowing from his mistress, and she suffering; his ragged ear was up, and importunate; he growled, and gave now and then a sharp, impatient yelp; he would have liked to have done something to that man. But James had him firm, and gave him a glower from time to time, and an intimation of a pos- sible kick — all the better for James, it kept his eye and his mind off Ailie. It is over: she is dressed, steps gently and decently down from the table, looks for James; then turning to the surgeon Z \J ^ —-♦v \ THE CASKET OF LITERARY GEMS. and the students, she courtesies — and in a low, clear voice, begs their pardon if she has behaved ill. The students — all of us — wept like children; the surgeon happed her up care- fully — and, resting on James and me, Ailie v\^ent to her room, Rab following. We put her to bed. James took off his heavy shoes, rammed with tackets, heel-capt and toe- capt, and put them carefully under the . table, saying, " Maister John, I'm for nane o' yer strynge nurse bodies for Ailie. I'll be her nurse,, and I'll gang aboot on my stockin' soles as canny as pussy." And so he did; and handy and clever, and swift and tender as any woman, was that horny- handed, snell, peremptory little man. Everything she got he gave her: he seldom slept; and often I saw his small shrewd eyes out of the darkness, fixed on her. As before, they spoke little. Rab behaved well, never m.oving, showing us how meek and gentle he could be, and occasionally, in his sleep, letting us know that he was demolishing some adversary. He took a walk w4th me every day, generally to the Candlemaker Row; but he was sombre and mild; declined doing battle, though some fit cases offered, and indeed submitted to sun- dry indignities; and was always very ready to turn, and came faster back, and trotted up the stair with much light- ness, and went straight to that door. Jess, the mare, had been sent, with her weather-worn cart, to Howgate, and had doubtless her own dim and placid meditations and confusions, on the absence of her master and Rab, and her unnatural freedom from the road and her cart. For some days Ailie did well. The wound healed " by the first intention"; for, as James said, " Oor Ailie's skin's ower clean, to beil." The students came in quiet and anxious, and surrounded her bed. She said she liked to see their young, honest faces. The surgeon dressed her, and spoke to her in his own short, kind way, pitying her through his eyes, Rab and James outside the circle — Rab being now ^. _ __^ RAB AND HIS FRIENDS. 6;^ reconciled, and even cordial, and having made up his mind that as yet nobody required worrying, but, as you may sup- pose, semper par aiiis. So far well: but, four days after the operation, my patient had a sudden and long shivering, a " groosin','' as she called it. I saw her soon after; her eyes were too bright, her cheek colored; she was restless, and ashamed of being so; the balance was lost; mischief had begun. On looking at the wound, a blush of red told the secret: her pulse was rapid, her breathing anxious and quick — she wasn't herself, as she said, and was vexed at her restlessness. We tried what we could. James did everything, was everywhere; never in the way, never out of it; Rab subsided under the table into a dark place, and was motionless, all but his eye, which fol- lowed every one. Ailie got worse; began to wander in her mind, gently; was more demonstrative in her ways to James, rapid in her questions, and sharp at times. He was vexed, and said, " She was never that way afore; no, never." For a time she knew her head was wrong, and was always ask- ing our pardon — the dear, gentle old woman: then delirium set in strong, without pause. Her brain gave way, and then came that terrible spectacle — " The intellectual power, through words and things, Went sounding on its dim and perilous way ; " she sang bits of old songs and Psalms, stopping suddenly, mingling the Psalms of David and the diviner words of his Son and Lord with homely odds and ends and scraps of ballads. Nothing more touching, or in a sense more strangely beautiful, did I ever witness. Her tremulous, rapid, affec- tionate, eager Scotch voice — the swift, aimless, bewildered mind, the baffled utterance, the bright and perilous eye; some wild words, some household cares, something for James, the names of the dead, Rab called rapidly and in a " fremyt " voice, and he starting up surprised, and slinking r off as if he were to blame somehow, or had been dreaming \ x^ \ 71 64 THE CASKET OF LITERARY GEMS. he heard; many eager questions and beseechings which James and I could make nothing of, and on which she seemed to set her all, and then sink back not understood. It was very sad, but befter than many things that are not called sad. James hovered about, put out and miserable, but active and exact as ever; read to her, when there was a lull, short bits from the Psalms, prose and metre, chanting the latter in his own rude and serious way, showing great knowledge of the fit words, bearing up like a man, and doating over her as his ''ain Ailie." " Ailie, ma woman! " " Ma ain bonnie wee dawtie! " The end was drawing on: the golden bowl was breaking; the silver cord was fast being loosed — that anwiula blandula, vagula, hospes, coDiesque, was about to flee. The body and the soul — companions for sixty years — were being sundered, and taking leave. She was walking alone through the valley of that shadow into which one day we must all enter — and yet she was not alone, for we know whose rod and staff were comforting her. One night she had fallen quiet, and, as we hoped, asleep; her eyes were shut. We put down the gas, and sat watching her. Suddenly she sat up in bed, and taking a bedgown which was lying on it rolled up, she held it eagerly to her breast — to the right side. We could see her eyes bright with a surprising tenderness and joy, bending over this bundle of clothes. She held it as a woman holds her suck- ing child; opening out her nightgown impatiently, and hold- ing it close, and brooding over it, and murmuring foolish little words, as over one whom his mother comforteth, and who sucks and is satisfied. It was pitiful and strange to see her wasted, dying look, keen and yet vague — her immense love. " Preserve me! " groaned James, giving way. And then she rocked back and forward, as if to make it sleep, hush- ing it, and wasting on it her infinite fondness. " Wae's me, doctor; I declare she's thinkin' it's that bairn." "What N , 71 RAB AND HIS FRIENDS. 65 bairn? " " The only bairn we ever had; our wee Mysie, and she's in the Kingdom, forty years and mair." It was plainly true: the pain in the breast, telling its urgent story to a bewildered, ruined brain, was misread and mistaken; it suggested to her the uneasiness of a breast full of milk, and then the child; and so again once more they were together, and she had her ain wee Mysie in her bosom. This was the close. She sank rapidly: the delirium left her; but, as she whispered, she was " clean silly; " it was the lightening before the final darkness. After having for some time lain still, her eyes shut, she said, "James! " He came close to her, and lifting up her calm, clear, beautiful eyes, she gave him a long look, turned to me kindly but shortly, looked for Rab but could not see him, then turned to her husband again, as if she would never leave off look- ing, shut her eyes, and composed herself. She lay for some time breathing quick, and passed away so gently, that when we thought she was gone, James, in his old-fashioned way, held the mirror to her face. After a long pause, one small spot of dimness was breathed out; it vanished away, and never returned, leaving the blank clear darkness of the mirror without a stain. "What is our life ?" it is even a vapor, which appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away." Rab all this time had been full awake and motionless; he came forward beside us: Ailie's hand, which James had held, was hanging down; it was soaked with his tears; Rab licked it all over carefully, looked at her, and returned to his place under the table. James and I sat, I don't know how long, but for some time — saying nothing: he started up abruptly, and with some noise went to the table, and putting his right fore and middle fingers each into a shoe, pulled them out, and put them on, breaking one of the leather latchets, and muttering in anger, " I never did the like o' that afore! " I believe he never did; nor after either. " Rab! " he said I 66 THE CASKET OF LITERARY GEMS. roughl}', and pointing with his thumb to the bottom of the bed. Rab leapt up, and settled himself; his head and eye to the dead face. " ^slaister John, ye'll wait for me," said the carrier; and disappeared in the darkness, thundering down stairs in his heavy shoes. I ran to a front window; there he was, already round the house, and out at the gate, fleeing like a shadow. I was afraid about him, and yet not afraid; so I sat down beside Rab, and being wearied, fell asleep. I awoke from a sudden noise outside. It was November, and there had been a heavy fall of snow. Rab was in sfa^u quo; he heard the noise too, and plainly knew it, but never moved. I looked out; and there, at the gate, in the dim morning — for the sun was not up — was Jess and the cart — a cloud of steam rising from the old mare. I did not see James; he was already at the door, and came up the stairs, and met me. It was less than three hours since he left, and he must have posted out — who knows how? — to Howgate, full nine miles off, yoked Jess, and driven her astonished into town. He had an armful of blankets, and was streaming with per- spiration. He nodded to me, spread out on the floor two pairs of clean old blankets having at their corners, " A. G., 1794," in large letters in red worsted. These were the initials of Alison Grceme, and James may have looked in at her from without — himself unseen but not unthought of — when he was " wat, wat, and weary," and after having walked many a mile over the hills, may have seen her sitting, vrhile " a' the lave were sleepin'; " and by the firelight working her name on the blankets, for her ain James's bed. He miOtioned Rab down; and taking his wife in his arms, laid her in the blankets, and happed her carefully and firmly up, leaving the face uncovered; and then lifting her, he nodded again sharply to me, and with a resolved but utterly miserable face, strode along the passage, and down stairs, followed by Rab. I followed with a light; but he didn't need it. I went out, holding stupidly the candle in my — ^ •^' &\ \ V R.\B AND HIS FRIENDS. 67 hand in the calm frosty air; we were soon at the gate. I could have helped him, but I saw he was not to be meddled with, and he was strong, and did not need it. He laid her do\vn as tenderly, as safely, as he had lifted her out ten days before — as tenderly as when he had her first in his arms when she was only " A. G." — sorted her, leaving that beauti- ful sealed face open to the heavens; and then taking Jess by the head, he moved away. He did not notice me, neither did Rab, who presided behind the cart. I stood till they passed through the long shadow of the College, and turned up Nicolson street. I heard the solitary cart sound through the streets, and die away and come again; and I returned, thinking of that company going up Libberton Brae, then along Roslin ^luir, the morning light touching the Pent- lands and making them like on-iooking ghosts; then down the hill through Auchindinny woods, past " haunted Wood- houselee; " and as daybreak came sweeping up the bleak Lammermuirs, and fell on his o^\ti door, the company would stop, and James would take the key, and lift Alice up again, laying'her on her own bed, and, having put Jess up, would return with Rab and shut the door. James buried his wife, with his neighbors mourning, Rab inspecting the solemnity from a distance. It was snow, and that black ragged hole would look strange in the midst of the swelling spotless cushion of white. James looked after everything; then rather s^uddenly fell ill, and took to bed; was insensible when the doctor came, and soon died. A sort of low fever was prevailing in the village, and his want of sleep, his exhaustion, and his misery made him apt to take it. The grave was not difficult to reopen. A fresh fall of snow had again made all things white and smooth; Rab once more looked on, and slunk home to the stable. And what of Rab? I asked for him next week at the new carrier who got the good-will of James's business, and was now master of Jess and her cart. " How's Rab? " He put me off, and said rather rudely, " What's your business \ 6S THE CASKET OF LITERARY GEMS. wi' the dowg? " I was not to be so put off. " Where's Rab? " He, getting confused and red, and intermeddling with his hair, said, " 'Deed, sir, Rab's deid." " Dead! what did he die of?" " Weel, sir," said he, getting redder, "he didna exactly dee; he was killed. I had to brain him wi' a rack-pin; there was nae doin' wi' him. He lay in the treviss wi' the mear, and wadna come oot. I tempit him wi' kail and meat, but he wad tak naething, and keepit me frae feedin' the beast, and he was aye gur gurrin', and grup gruppin' me by the legs. I was laith to make awa wi' the auld dowg, his hke wasna atween this and Thornhill — but, 'deed, sir, I could do naething else." I beUeved him. Fit end for Rab, quick and complete. His teeth and his friends gone, why should he keep the peace, and be civil? k ^ \ THE GRIDIRON BY SAMUEL LOVER, f^-ferNt. ^^f CERTAIN old gentleman in the west of Ireland, ^Jjilf whose love of the ridiculous quite equalled his 3iIS^~^ taste for claret and fox-hunting, was wont, upon festive occasions, when opportunity offered, to amuse his friends by drawiiig out one of his servants, exceedingly fond of what he termed his " thravels," and in whom, a good deal of whim, some queer stories, and perhaps, more than all, long and faithful services, had established a right of loquacity. He was one of those few trusty and privileged domestics, who, if his master unheedingly uttered a rash thing in a fit of passion, would Venture to set him right. If the squire said, " I'll turn that rascal off," my friend Pat would say, " Troth you won't, sir; " and Pat was always right, for if any altercation arose upon the "subject-matter in hand," he was sure to throw in some good reason, either from former services — general good conduct — or the delinquent's ''wife and children," that always turned the scale. But I am digressing: on such merry meetings as I have alluded to, the master, after making certain " approaches," as a military man would say, as the preparatory steps in laying siege to some extravaganza of his servant, might, perchance, assail Pat thus : " By the by. Sir John (address- ing a distinguished guest), Pat has a very curious story, which something you told me to-day reminds me of. You remem- ber, Pat (turning to the man, evidently pleased at the notice \ 71 70 THE CASKET OF LITERARY GEMS. thus paid to himself), you remember that queer adventure you had in France ? " " Troth I do, sir," grins forth Pat. "What!" exclaims Sir John, in feigned surprise, "was Pat ever in France ? " " Indeed he was," cries mine host ; and Pat adds, " Ay, and farther, plaze your honor." " I assure you," Sir John, continues mine host, " Pat told me a story once that surprised me very much, respecting the ignorance of the French." "Indeed!" rejoined the baronet; "really, I always supposed the French to be a most accomplished people." " Troth, then, they're not, sir," interrupts Pat. " O, by no means," adds mine host, shaking his head emphatically. " I believe, Pat, 't was when you were crossing the Atlan- tic ? " says the master, turning to Pat with a seductive air, and leading into the " full and true account " — (for Pat had thought fit- to visit North Amerikay, for " a raison he had," in the autumn of the year ninety-eight). "Yes, sir," says Pat, "the broad Atlantic*^' — a favorite phrase of his, which he gave with a brogue as broad, almost, as the Atlantic itself. " It was the time I was lost in crassin' the broad Atlantic, a comin' home/' began Pat, decoyed into the recital; "whin the winds began to blow, and the sae to rowl, that you'd think the Collee7i Dhas (that was her name), would not have a mast left but ^vtiat would rowl out of her. " Well, sure enough, the masts went by the board, at last, and the pumps were choked (divil choke them for that same), and av coorse the water gained an us; and troth, to be filled with water is neither good for man or baste; and she was sinkin' fast, settlin' down, as the sailors call it; and faith I never was good at settlin' down in my life, and I liked it then less nor ever; accordingly we prepared for the worst and put out the boat and got a sack o' bishkits and a cask V* THE GRIDIRON. 7 1 o' pork, and a kag o' wather, and a thrifle o' rum aboord, and any other litde matthers we could think iv in the mortial hurry we wor in — and faith there was no time to be lost, for, my darlint, the Colleen Dims went dovrn like a lump o' lead, afore we wor many sthrokes o' the oar away from her. " Well, we dhrifted away all that night, and next mornin' we put up a blanket an the end av a pole as well as we could, and then we sailed iligant; for we darn't show a stitch o' canvas the night before, bekase it was blowin' like bloody murther, savin' your presence, and sure it's the w^ondher of the world we worn't swally'd alive by the ragin' sae. " Well, away we wint, for more nor a week, and nothin' before our two good-lookin' eyes but the canophy iv heaven, and the wide ocean — the broad Atlantic — not a thing was to be seen but the sae and the sky; and though the sae and the sky is mighty purty things in themselves, throth they're no great things when you've nothin' else to look at for a week together — and the barest rock in the world, so it was land, would be more welkim. And then, soon enough, throth, our provisions begun to run low, the bishkits, and the wather, and the rum — throth thai was gone first of all — God help uz — and oh! it was thin that starvation began to stare us in the face — ' O, murther, murther, Captain darlint,' says I, ' I wish we could land anywhere,' says I. " ' ]\Iore power to your elbow, Paddy, my boy,' says he, " for sitch a good wish, and throth it's myself wishes the same.' " ' Och,' says I, ' that it may plaze you, sweet queen iv heaven, supposing it was only a dissolute island,' says I, 'inhabited wid Turks, sure they wouldn't be such bad Christians as to refuse us a bit and a sup. '•'Whisht, whisht, Paddy,' says the captain, 'don't be talking bad of any one,' says he; ' you don't know how soon you may want a good word put in for yourself, if you should be called to quarthers in th' other world all of a suddint,' says he. yf- 72 THE CASKET OF LITERARY GEMS. " ' Thrue for you, Captain darlint/ says I — I called him darlint, and made free with*him, you see, bekase disthress makes us all equal — ' thrue for you, Captain jewel — God betune uz and harm, I owe no man any spite — and throth that was only thruth. Well, the last bishkit was sarved out, and by gor the wather itself wz-s all gone at last, and we passed the night mighty cowld: well, at the brake o' day the sun riz most beautifully out o' the waves, that was as bright as silver and as clear as chrystal. But it was only the more cruel upon us, for we* wor beginnin' to feel tej-rible hungry; when all at wanst I thought I spied the land — by gor, I thought I felt my heart up in my throat in a minit, and ' Thunder an' turf, Captain,' says I, ' look to leeward/ says I. " ' What for? ' says he. " ' I think I see the land,' says I. So he ups with his bring-'em-near (that's what the sailors call a spy-glass, sir), and looks out, and, sure enough, it was. "'Hurra!' says he, 'we're all right now; pull away, my boys,' says he. " ' Take care you're not mistaken,' says I; ' maybe it's only a fog-bank, Captain darlint,' says I. " ' O no,' says he, ' it's the land in airnest.' " ' O, then, whereabouts in the wide world are we. Cap- tain' says I; ' maybe it id be in Roosia, or Proosia, or the Garmant Oceant,' says I. " ' Tut, you fool,' says he, for he had that consaited way wid him — thinkin' himself cleverer nor any one else — ' tut, you fool,' says he, ' that's France,' says he. " ' Tare an ouns,' says I, ' do you tell me so? and how do you know it's France it is, Captain dear,' says I. " ' Bekase this is the Bay o' Bishky we're in now,' says he. " ' Throth, I was thinkin' so myself,' says I, ' by the rowl it has; for I often heerd av it in regard of that same; and throth the likes av it I never seen before nor since, and, with the help of God, never will.' " Well, with that my heart began to grow light; and when ~7 THE GRIDIRON. 73 I seen my life was safe, I began to grow twice hungrier nor ever — so, says I, ' Captain jewel, I wish we had a gridiron.' " ' Why, then/ says he, ' thunder and turf,' says he, ' what puts a gridiron into your head? ' " ' Bekase I'm starvin' vrith the hunger,' says I. " 'And sure, bad luck to you,' says he, ' you couldn't eat a gridiron,' says he, ' barrin' you were a pelican d" the wildher- 7iess,^ says he. " ' Ate a gridiron,' says I, ' och, in throth, I'm not such a gommoch all out as that, anyhow. But sure, if we had a gridiron, we could dress a beefstake,' says I. " ' Arrah! but where's the beefstake,' says he. " ' Sure, couldn't we cut a slice aff the pork,' says I. " ' Be gor, I never thought o' that,' says the captain. '■ You're a clever fellow, Paddy,' says he, laughin.' " ' O, there's many a thrue word said in joke,' says I. " ' Thrue for you, Paddy,' says he. " ' Well, then,' says I, ' if you put me ashore there beyant ' (for we were nearin' the land all the time), ' and sure I can ax them for to lind me the loan of a gridiron,' says I. " ' O, by gor, the butther's comin' out o' the stirabout in airnest now,' says he, ' you gommoch,' says he, ' sure I told you before that's France — and sure they're all furriners there,' says the captain. " ' Well,' says I, ' and how do you know but I'm as good a furriner myself as any o' thim? ' " ' What do you mane? ' says he. " '■ I mane,' says I, ' what I towld you, that I'm as good a furriner myself as any o' thim.' " ' Make me sinsible,' says he. " ' By dad, maybe that's more nor me, or greater nor me, could do,' says I — and we all began to laugh at him, for I thought I would pay him off for his bit o' consait about the Garmant Oceant. " ' Lave aff your humbuggin,' says he, ' I bid you, and tell me what it is you mane, at all at all.' Vj >> ^ 74 ■ THE CASKET OF LITERARY GEMS. " '• Parly voo frofigsay,' says I. " ' O, your humble sarvant,' says he; ' why, by gor, you're a scholar, Paddy.' " ' Throth, you may say that,' says I. " ' Why, you're a clever fellow, Paddy,' says the captain, jeerin' like. " ' You're not the first that said that,' says I, 'whether you joke or no.' " ' O, but Pm in airnest,' says the captain; ' and do you tell me, Paddy,' says he, ' that you spake Frinch? ' " ' Parly voo froftgsay,' says I. '^ ' By gor, that bangs Banagher, and all the world knows Banagher bangs the divil — I never met the likes o' you, Paddy,' says he — • pull away, boys, and put Paddy ashore, and maybe we vs-on't get a good bellyful before long.' " So, with that, it wos no sooner said nor done — they pulled away, and got close into shore in less than no time, and run the boat up in a little creek, and a beautiful creek it was, with a lovely white sthrand — an illegant place for ladies to bathe in the summer; and out I got — and it's stiff enough in the limbs I was, afther bein' cramped up in the boat, and perished with the cowld and hunger, but I con- thrived to scramble on, one way or t'other, tow'rds a little bit iv a wood that was close to the shore, and the smoke curlin' out iv it, quite timptin' like. " ' By the powdhers o' war, Pm all right,' says I, ' there's a house there ' — and sure enough there was, and a parcel of men, women, and childher, ating their dinner round a table, quite convanient. And so I wint up to the door, and I thought Pd be very civil to them, as I heerd the French was always mighty p'lite intirely — and I thought Pd show them I knew what good manners was. " So I took aff my hat, and, making a low bow, says I, ' God save all here,' says L " Well, to be sure, they all stapt eating at wanst, and began to stare at me, and faith they almost looked me out of / THE GRIDIRON. 75 countenance — and I thought to myself, it was not good manners at all, more betoken from furriners which they call so mighty p'lite; but I never minded that, in regard o' wantin' the gridiron; and so says I, ' I beg your pardon,' says I, ' for the liberty I take, but it's only bein' in disthress in regard of eating,' says I; ' that I made bowld to throuble yez, and if -you could lind me the loan of a gridiron,' says I, ' I'd be entirely obleeged to ye.' " By gor, they all stared at me twice worse nor before — — and with that, says I (knowing what was in their minds), ^ Indeed it's thrue for you,' says I, ' I'm tathered to pieces, and God knows I look quare enough — but it's by raison of the storm,' says I, ^ which dhruv us ashore here below, and we're all starvin',' says I. " So then they began to look at each other again; and myself, seeing at once dirty thoughts was in their heads, and that they tuk me for a poor beggar coming to crave charity — with that, says I, ' O, not at all,' says I, ' by no manes — we have plenty of mate ourselves there below, and we'll dhress it,' says I, ' if you would be plased to lind us the loan of a gridiron,' says I, makin' a low bow. " Well, sir, with that, throth, they stared at me twice worse nor ever, and faith I began to think that maybe the captain was wrong, and that it was not France at all, at all; and so says I, ' I beg pardon, sir,' says I, to a fine ould man, with a head of hair as white as silver — ' maybe I'm under a mis- take,' says I, 'but I thought I was in France, sir: aren't you furriners?' says I — 'Parly voo frongsay?^ " ' We, munseer,' says he. " ' Then would you lind me the loan of a gridiron,' says I, ' if you plase? ' " O, it was then that they stared at me as if I had seven heads; and, faith, myself began to feel flushed like and onaisy — and so, says I, makin' a bow and scrape agin, * I know it's a liberty I take, sir,' says I, ' but it's only in the regard of bein' cast away; and if you plase, sir,' says I, 'parly voo frongsay? ' \ 76 THE CASKET OF LITERARY GEMS. " ' We, munseer,' says he, mighty sharp. " ^ Then would you lind me the loan of a gridiron! ' says I, ' and you'll obleege me.' " Well, sir, the ould chap began to munseer me; but the devil a bit of a gridiron he'd gi' me; and so I began to think they wor all neygars, for all their fine manners; and throth my blood began to rise, and says I, ' By my sowl, if it was you was in distriss,' says I, ' and if it was to ould Ireland you kem, it's not only the gridiron they'd give you, if you axed it, but something to put an it, too, and the drop o' dhrink into the bargain, and cead mile failte.'' " Well, the word cead mile failte seemed to sthreck his heart, and the ould chap cocked his ear, and so I thought I'd give him another offer, and make him sensible at last: and so says I, wanst more, quite slow, that he might under- stand — ' Parly — voo^frongsay, munseer.' " * We, munseer,' says he. " ' Then lind me the loan of a gridiron,' says I, 'and bad scram to you.' " Well, bad win to the bit of it he'd gi' me, and the ould chap begins bowin' and scrapin', and said something or other about a long tongs.* " * Phoo ! — the divil swape yourself and your tongs,' says I, * I don't want a tongs at all, at all; but can't you listen to raison,' says I, — ^ Parly voo frongsay? ' " ' We, munseer.' " ' Then lind me the loan of a gridiron,' says I, ' and howld your prate.' " Well, what would you think, but he shook his old noddle as much as to say he wouldn't; and so, says I, ' Bad cess to the likes o' that I ever seen — throth if you wor in my counthry it's not that away they'd use you. The curse o' the crows an you, you owld sinner,' says I, ' the divil a longer I'll darken your door.' *Some mystification of Paddy's touching the French n entends. \ THE GRIDIRON. 77 ^ ~7\ " So he seen I was vexed, and I thought, as I was turnin' away, I seen him begin to reHnt, and that his conscience throubled him; and says I, turnin' back, ' Well, I'll give one chance more — you ould thief — are you a Chrishthan at all ? are you a furriner ! ' says I, ' that all the world calls so p'lite ? Bad luck to you, do you understand your own language ? — Parly voo frongsay? ' says I. '' ' We, munseer,' says he. " ' Then, thunder an' turf,' says I, ' will you lind me the loan of a gridiron ? ' " Well, sir, the devil resave the bit of it he'd gi' me — and so, with that, the ' curse o' the hungry an you, you ould negarly villain,' says I; '■ the back o' my hand and the sowl o' my foot to you, that you may want a gridiron your- self yit,' says I; and with that I left them there, sir, and kem away — and, in throth, it's often sense that I thought that it was reniarkable,^^ v^ \ V THE FAIRY FLEET. BY GEORGE MACDONALD. ^ fm HERE is no getting James to write anything him- self. When I urge him, he laughs, and says — because we like Mm the public is not therefore to be bored. He wouldn't mind lining a trunk, though, he says; for he remembers inside the lid of the first he ever had, certain pages of a novel, which having of course read, they swelled so in his head, that he dreamed over and over again he had found the rest of the sheets, after going through wonderful adventures in an old country house in search of them. To this day, however, not knowing the title of the book, he has never discovered what happened to Don Pedro after his horse stood up on his hind legs, nor how Lady Emmeline got on in the haunted chamber in which she was shut up by her cruel guardian. I expect, though, that he will one day rush into the house with three volumes, covered with wall-paper and backed with chintz, in his hands, and a eureka on his hps. — To business, though, now. One evening, lately, while we were all sitting as usual in Lizzie's room, James appeared at the door, covered with snow. " Just look out, Jane," he said. I lifted a corner of the blind; the snow was falling thick. It was so large-flaked and lovely that I was sorry it had to stop upon a miry street, instead of a forest or hill-side. " Oh, Lizzie," said Maria, " the old woman in the moon is plucking such great geese! " \, THE FAIRY FLEET. 79 " When I lived in Scotland," said my mother, " the little children used to say when it snowed, that the fairies were baking their bread." "Ah! James," said Lizzie, " do tell us a fairy tale. This is just the night for one." " It is not so easy to tell a fairy tale off-hand," returned James. " But I have had pieces of one floating about in my head the last day or two, and if Jane will just sit down and play Selmen und Fragen, I will fit them together." I lingered over the music, playing slowly. And by the time I had played it twice through, James was ready. So we all drew round the fire, taking care that Lizzie should see James and mamma and the fire. Then we put the candles out, and James began. "Once upon a time," he said, " there lived — let me see where — in a valley in Scotland, a boy about twelve years of age, the son of a shepherd. His mother was dead, and he had no sister or brother. His father was out all day on the hills with his sheep; but when he came home at night, he was as sure of finding the cottage neat and clean, the floor swept, a bright fire, and his supper waiting for him, as if he had had wife and daughter to look after his household, instead of only a boy. Therefore, although Cohn could only read and write, and knew nothing of figures, he was ten times wiser, and more capable of learning anything, than if he had been at school all his days. He was never at a loss when anything had to be done. Somehow, he always blundered into the straight road to his end, while another would be putting on his shoes to look for it. And yet all the time that he was busiest working, he was busiest build- ing castles in the air. I think the two ought always to go together. " And as Colin was never over-worked, but had plenty of time to himself, in winter he spent it in reading by the fireside, or carving pieces of wood with his pocket-knife; and in summer he always went out for a ramble. His great \. \ 80 THE CASKET OF LITERARY GEMS. delight was in a little stream which ran down the valley from the mountains above. Up this burn he would wander every afternoon, with his hands in his pockets. He never got far, however — he was so absorbed in watching its antics. Sometimes he would sit on a rock, staring at the water as it hurried through the stones, scolding, expostulating, muttering, and always having its own way. Sometimes he would stop by a deep pool, and watch the crimson-spotted trouts, darting about as if their thoughts and not their tails sent them where they wanted to go. And when he stopped at the little cascade, tumbling smooth and shining over a hollowed rock, he seldom got beyond it. " But there was one thing which always troubled him. It was, that when the stream came near the cottage, it could find no other way than through *he little yard where stood the cowhouse and the pigsty; and there, not finding a suit- able channel, spread abroad in a disconsolate manner, becoming rather a puddle than a brook, all defiled with the treading of the cloven feet of the cow and the pigs. In fact, it looked quite lost and ruined; so that even after it had, with much labor, got out of the yard again, it took a long time to gather itself together, and not quite succeeding, slipped away as if ashamed, with spent forces and poverty- stricken speed; till at length, meeting the friendly help of a rivulet coming straight from the hills, it gathered heart and bounded on afresh. " ' It can't be all that the cow drinks that makes the differ- ence,' said Colin to himself. '■ The pigs don't care about it. I do believe it's affronted at being dashed about. The cow isn't dirty, but she's rather stupid and inconsiderate. The pigs are dirty. Something must be done. Let me see.' " He reconnoitred the whole ground. Upon the other side of the house all was rock, through which he could not cut; and he was forced to the conclusion that the only other course for the stream to take lay right through the cottage. " To most engineers this would have appeared the one \ y- \ THE FAIRY FLEET. course to be avoided; but Colin's heart danced at the thought of having his dear bm'7i running right through the house. How cool it would be all the summer! How con- venient for cooking; and how handy at meals! And then the music of it! How it would tell him stories, and sing him to sleep at night! What a companion it would be when his father was away! And then he could bathe in it when he hked. In winter — ah! — to be sure! But winter was a long way off. " The very next day his father went to the fair. So Colin set to work at once. " It was not such a very difficult undertaking; for the walls of the cottage, and the floor as well, were of clay — the former nearly sun-dried into a brick, and the latter trampled hard; but still both assailable by pickaxe and spade. He cut through the walls, and dug a channel along the floor, letting in stones in the bottom and sides. After it got out of the cottage and through the small garden in front, it should find its own way to the channel below, for here the hill was very steep. " The same evening his father came home. " ' What have you been about, Colin ? ' he asked, in great surprise, when he saw the trench in the floor. '' ' Wait a minute, father,' said Colin, ' till I have got your supper, and then I'll tell you.' " So when his father was seated at the table, Colin darted out, and hurrying up to the stream, broke through the bank just in the place whence a natural hollow led straight to the cottage. The stream dashed out like a wild creature from a cage, faster than he could follow, and shot through the wall of the cottage. His father gave a shout; and when Colin went in, he found him sitting with his spoon half way to his mouth, and his eyes fixed on the muddy water which rushed foaming through his floor. " ' It will soon be clean, father,' said Colin, ' and then it will be so nice ! ' ^l i^ i\ THE CASKET OF LITERARY GE:\IS. " His father made no answer, but continued staring. Colin went on with a long list of the advantages of having a brook running through your house. At length his father smiled and said: — " ' You are a curious creature, Colin. But why shouldn't you have your fancies as well as older people ? We'll try it awhile, and then we'll see about it.' " The fact was, Colin's father had often thought what a lonely life the boy's was. And it seemed hard to take from him any pleasure he could have. So out rushed Colin at the front, to see how the brook would take the shortest way headlong down the hill to its old channel. And to see it go tumbling down that hill was a sight worth Hving for. " It is a mercy,' said Colin, ' it has no neck to break, or it would break twenty times in a minute. It flings itself from rock to rock right down, just as I should like to do, if it weren't for my neck.' " All that evening he was out and in without a moment's rest; now up to the beginning of the cut, now following the stream down to the cottage; then through the cottage, and out again at the front door to see it dart across the garden, and dash itself down the hill. " At length his father told him he must go to bed. He took one more peep at the water, which was running quite clear now, and obeyed. His father followed him presently. " The bed was about a couple of yards from the edge of the brook. And as Colin was always first up in the morn- ing, he slept at the front of the bed. So he" lay for some time gazing at the faint glimmer of the water in the dull red light from the sod-covered fire, and listening to its sweet music as it hurried through to the night again, till its mur- mur changed into a lullaby, and sung him fast asleep. " Soon he found that he was coming awake again. He was lying listening to the sound of the busy stream. But it had gathered more sounds since he went to sleep — amongst the rest one of boards knockiug together, and a tiny \ THE FAIRY FLEET. S;^ chattering and sweet laughter, like the tinkling of heather- bells. He opened his eyes. The moon was shining along the brook, lighting the smoky rafters above with its reflection from the water, which had been dammed back at its outlet from the cottage, so that it lay bank-full and level with the floor. But its surface was hardly to be seen, save by an occasional glimmer, for the crowded boats of a fairy fleet which had just arrived. The sailors were as busy as sailors could be, mooring along the banks, or running their boats high and dry on the shore. Some had little sails which glimmered white in the moonshine — half-lowered, or blow- ing out in the light breeze that crept down the course of the stream. Some were pulling about through the rest, oars flashing, tiny voices calling, tiny feet running, tiny hands hauling at ropes that ran through blocks of shining ivory. On the shore stood groups of fairy ladies in all colors of the rainbow, green predominating, waited upon by gentlemen all in green, but with red and yellow feathers in their caps. The queen had landed on the side next to Colin, and in a few minutes more twenty dances were going at once along the shores of the fairy river. And there lay great Colin 's face, just above the bed-clothes, g/owermg at them like an ogre. " At last, after a few dances, he heard a clear, sweet, ring- ing voice say — " ' I've had enough of this. I'm tired of doing hke the big people. Let's have a game of Hey Cockolorum Jig ! ' " That instant every group sprung asunder, and every fairy began a frolic on his own account. They scattered all over the cottage, and Colin lost sight of both of them. " While he lay watching the antics of two of those near him, who behaved more hke clowns at a fair than the gentle- men they had been a little while before, he heard a voice close to his ear; but though he looked everywhere al^out his pillow, he could see nothing. The voice stopped the mo- ment he began to look, but began again as soon as he gave it up. \ d v 84 ~7\ THE CASKET OF LITERARY GEMS. " ' You can't see me. I'm talking to you through a hole in the head of your bed.' •' Colin knew the knot-hole well enough. " ' Don't look,' said the voice. ' If the queen sees me I shall be pinched. Oh, please don't.' " The voice sounded as if its owner would cry presently. So Colin took good care not to look. It went on: " ' Please, I am a little girl, not a fairy. The queen stole me the minute I was born, seven years ago, and I can't get away. I don't like the fairies. They are so silly. And they never grow any wiser. I grow wiser every year. I want to get back to my own people. They won't let me. They make me play at being somebody else all night long, and sleep all day. That's what they do themselves. And I should so like to be myself. The queen says that's not the way to be happy at all; but I do want very much to be a little girl. Do take me.' " ' How am I to get you ? ' asked Colin in a whisper, which sounded, after the sweet voice of the changeling, like the wind in a field of dry beans. " ' The queen is so pleased with you that she is sure to offer you something. Choose me. Here she comes.' '' Immediately he heard another voice, shriller and stronger, in front of him; and, looking about, saw standing on the edge of the bed a lovely little creature, with a crown glittering with jewels, and a rush for a sceptre in her hand, the blossom of which shone like a bunch of garnets. " ' You great staring creature! ' she said. ' Your eyes are much too big to see with. What clumsy hobgoblins you thick folk are! ' " So saying she laid her wand across CoHn's eyes. " Now, then, stupid! ' she said; and that instant Colin saw the room like a huge barn, full of creatures about two feet high. The beams overhead were crowded with fairies, play- ing all imaginable tricks, scrambling everywhere, knocking each other over, throwing dust and soot in each other's ;~ dL THE FAIRY FLEET. 85 faces, grinning from behind corners, dropping on each other's necks, and tripping up each other's heels. Two had got hold of an empty egg-shell, and coming behind one sitting on the edge of the table, and laughing at some one on the floor, tumbled it right over him, so that he was lost in the cavernous hollow. But the lady-fairies mingled in none of these rough pranks. Their tricks were always graceful, and they had more to say than to do. " But the moment the queen had laid her wand across his eyes, she went on: " ' Know, son of a human mortal, that thou hast pleased a queen of the fairies. Lady as I am over the elements, I cannot have everything I desire. One thing thou hast given me. Years have I longed for a path down this rivulet to the ocean below. Your horrid farm-yard, ever since your great- grandfather built this cottage, was the one obstacle. For we fairies hate dirt, not only in houses, but in fields and woods as well, and above all in running streams. But I can't talk like this any longer. I tell you what, you are a dear good boy, and you shall have what you please. Ask me for any- thing you like.' " ' May it please your majesty,' said Colin, very deliber- ately, ' I want a little girl that you carried away some seven years ago the moment she was born. May it please your majesty, I want her.' " ' It does not please my majesty,' cried the queen, whose face had been growing very black. 'Ask for something else.' "'Then, whether it pleases your majesty or not,' said Colin, bravely, ' I hold your majesty to your word. I want that little girl, and that litde girl I wi// have, and nothing else.' " 'You dare to talk so to me, you thick! ' " ' Yes, your majesty.' " 'Then you sha'n't have her.' '"Then I'll turn the brook right through the dunghill,' \. •*v Q- 86 THE CASKET OF LITERARY GEMS. said Colin. ' Do you think I'll let you come into my cot- tage to play at high jinks when you please, if you behave to me like this? ' " And Colin sat up in bed, and looked the queen in the face. And as he did so he caught sight of the loveliest little creature peeping around the corner at the foot of the bed. And he knew she was the little girl, because she was quiet, and looked frightened, and was sucking her thumb. " Then the queen, seeing with whom she had to deal, and knowing that queens in Fairyland are bound by their word, began to try another plan with him. She put on her sweetest manner and looks; and as she did so the little face at the foot of the bed grew more troubled, and the little head shook itself, and the little thumb dropped out of the little mouth. " ' Dear Colin,' said the queen, ' you shall have the girl. But you must do something for me first.' " The little girl shook her head as fast as ever she could, but Colin was taken up with the queen. " ' To be sure I will. What is it? ' he said. " And so he was bound by a new bargain, and was in the queen's power. " ' You must fetch me a bottle of Carasoyn,' said she. "'What is that?' asked Colin. " ' A kind of wine that makes people happy.' " ' Why, are you not hapj^y already? ' " ' No, Colin,' answered the queen, with a sigh. " ' You have everything you want.' " ' Except the Carasoyn,' returned the queen. " ' You do whatever you like, and go wherever you please.' " ' That's just it. I want something that I neither like nor please — that I don't know anything about. I want a bottle of Carasoyn.' " And here she cried like a spoilt child, not like a sorrow- ful woman. " * But how am I to get it? ' ^.^ l^ THE FAIRY FLEET. 87 " ' I don't know. You must find out.' " ' Oh! that's not fair/ cried CoHn. " But the queen burst into a fit of laughter that sounded like the bells of a hundred frolicking sheep, and bounding away to the side of the river, jumped on board of her boat. And like a swarm of bees gathered the courtiers and sailors; two creeping out of the bellows, one at the nozzle and the other at the valve; three out of the basket-hilt of the broad- sword on the w^all; six all white out of the meal-tub; and so from all parts of the cottage to the river-side. And amongst them Colin spied the little girl creeping on board the queen's boat, with her pinafore to her eyes: and the queen was shaking her fist at her. In five minutes more they had all scrambled into the boats, and the whole fleet was in motion down the stream. In another moment the cottage was empty, and everything had returned to its usual size. " ' They'll be all dashed to pieces on the rocks,' cried Colin, jumping up, and running into the garden. When he reached the fall, there was nothing to be seen but the swift plunge and rush of the broken water in the moonlight. He thought he heard cries and shouts coming up from below, and fancied he could distinguish the sobs of the little maiden whom he had so foolishly lost. But the sounds might be only those of the water, for to the different voices of a running stream there is no end. He followed its course all the way to its old channel, but saw nothing to indicate any disaster. Then he crept back to his bed, where he lay thinking what a fool he had been, till he cried himself to sleep over the little girl who would never grow into a woman. " In the morning, however, his courage had returned; for the word Carasoyn was always saying itself in his brain. *' ' People in fairy stories,' he said, ' always find what they want. Why should not I find this Carasoyn? It does not seem hkely. But the world doesn't go round by likely. So I will try.' ^^— ' ^ \ THE CASKET OF LITERARY GEMS. " But how was he to begin? '' When Colin did not know what to do, he always did something. So as soon as his father was gone to the hill, he wandered up the stream down which the fairies had come. " ' But I needn't go on so/ he said, ' for if the Carasoyn grew in the fairies' country, the queen would know how to get it.' " All at once he remembered how he had lost himself on the moor when he was a little boy; and had gone into a hut and found there an old woman spinning. And she had told him such stories! and shown him the way home. So he thought she might be able to help him now; for he remem- bered that she was very old then, and must be older and still wiser now. And he resolved to go and look for the hut, and ask the old woman what he was to do. " So he left the stream, and climbed the hill, and soon came upon a desolate moor. The sun was clouded and the wind was cold, and everything looked dreary. And there was no sign of a hut anywhere. He wandered on, looking for it; and all at once found that he had forgotten the way back. At the same instant he saw the hut right before him. And then he remembered it was when he had lost himself that he saw it the former time. " * It seems the way to find some things is to lose your- self,' said he to himself. " He went up to the cottage, which was like a large bee- hive built of turf, and knocked at the door. " ' Come in, Colin,' said a voice; and he entered, stoop- ing low. " The old woman sat by a little fire, spinning, after the old fashion, with a distaff and spindle. She stopped the moment he went in. " ' Come and sit down by the fire,' she said, ' and tell me what you want.' " Then Colin saw that she had no eves. ^< ^ N" THE FAIRY FLEET. " ' I am very sorry you are blind,' he said. " ' Never you mind that, my dear. I see more than you do for all my blindness. Tell me what you want, and I shall see at least what I can do for you.' " ' How do you know I want anything? ' asked Colin. " ' Now that's what I don't like,' said the old woman. ' Why do you waste words? Words should not be wasted any more than crumbs.' " * I beg your pardon;' returned Colin. * I will tell you all about it.' " And so he told her the whole story. "'Oh those children! those children!' said the old woman. * They are always doing some mischief. They never know how to enjoy themselves without hurting some- body or other. I really must give that queen a bit of my mind. Well, my dear, I like you; and I will tell you what must be done. You shall carry the silly queen her bottle of Carasoyn. But she won't like it when she gets it, I can tell her. That's my business, however. — First of all, Colin, you must dream three days without sleeping. Next, you must work three days without dreaming. And last, you must work and dream three days together.' " ' How am I to do all that? ' " ' I will help you all I can, but a great deal will depend on yourself. In the meantime you must have something to eat' " So saying, she rose, and going to a corner behind her bed, returned with a large golden-colored egg in her hand. This she laid on the hearth, and covered over with hot ashes. She then chatted away to Colin about his father, and the sheep, and the cow, and the housework, and showed that she knew all about him. At length she drew the ashes off the egg, and put it on a plate. " ' It shines like silver now,' said Colin. " ' That is a sign it is quite done,' said she, and set it before him. \ 1\ 90 THE CASKET OF LITERARY GEMS. ^ 71 " Colin had never tasted anything half so nice. And he had never seen such a quantity of meat in an egg. Before he had finished it he had made a hearty meal. But, in the meantime, the old woman said — " ' Shall I tell you a story while yon have your dinner? ' "'Oh, yes, please do,' answered Colin. 'You told me such stories before? ' " ' Jenny,' said the old woman, ' my wool is all done. Get me some more.' " And from behind the bed out came a sober-colored, but large and beautifully-shaped hen. She walked sedately across the floor, putting down her feet daintily, like a prirm matron as she was, and stopping by the door, gave a {:/u<:^, cluck. " ' Oh, the door is shut, is it? ' said the old woman. " ' Let me open it,' said Colin. " ' Do, my dear.' " ' What are all those white things? ' he asked; for the cot- tage stood in the middle of a great bed of grass with white tops. " ' Those are my sheep,' said the old woman. ' You will see.' " Into the grass Jenny walked, and stretching up her neck, gathered the white woolly stuff in her beak. When she had as much as she could hold, she came back and dropped it on the floor; then picked the seeds out and swallowed them, and went back for more. The old woman took the wool, and fastening it on her distaff, began to spin, giving the spindle a twirl, and then dropping it and drawing out the thread from the distaff. But as soon as the spindle began to twirl, it began to sparkle all the colors of the rainbow, that it was a delight to see. And the hands of the woman, instead of being old and wrinkled, were young and long- fingered and fair, and they drew out the wool, and the spindle spun and flashed, and the hen kept going out and in, bringing wool and swallowing the seeds, and the old woman kept telling Colin one story after another, till he THE FAIRY FLEET. thought he could sit there all his life and listen. Sometimes it seemed the spindle that was flashing them, and some- times the long fingers that were spinning them, and some- times the hen that was gathering them off the heads of the long dry grass and bringing them in her beak and laying them down on the floor. " Ail at once the spindle grew slower, and gradually ceased turning; the fingers stopped drawing out the thread, the hen retreated behind the bed, and the voice of the blind woman was silent. " ' I suppose it is time for me to go,' said Colin. " ' Yes', it is/ answered his hostess. " ' Please tell me, then, how I am to dream three days without sleeping.' "'That's over,' said the old woman. 'You've just finished that part. I told you I would help you all I could.' " ' Hav«e I been here three days, then? ' asked Colin, in astonishment. ^ " ' And nights too. And I and Jenny and the spindle are quite tired and want to sleep. Jenny has got three eggs to lay besides. Make haste, my boy.' " ' Please, then, tell me what I am to do next.' '' ' Jenny will put you in the way. When you come where you are going, you will tell them that the old woman with the spindle desires them to lift Cumberbone Crag a yard higher, and to send a flue under Stonestarvit Moss. Jenny, show Colin the way.' " Jenny came out with a surly cluck, and led him a good way across the heath by a path only a hen could have found. But she turned suddenly and walked home again. " Colin could just perceive something suggestive of a track, which he followed till the sun went down. Then he saw a dim light before him, keeping his eye upon which, he came at last to a smithy, where, looking in at the open door, he saw a huge, humpbacked smith working a forehammer in each hand. N Q e_ \ 92 THE CASKET OF LITERARY GEMS. " He grinned out of the middle of his breast when he saw Colin, and said, ' Come in; come in; my youngsters will be glad of you.' " ' He was an awful looking creature, with a great hare lip, and a red ball for a nose. Whatever he did — speak, or laugh, or sneeze, he did not stop working one moment. As often as the sparks flew in his face, he snapped at them with his eyes (which were the color of a half-dead coal), now with this one, now with that; and the more sparks they got into them the brighter his eyes grew. The moment Colin entered, he took a huge bar of iron from the furnace, and began laying on it so with his two forehammers that he disappeared in a cloud of sparks, and Colin had to shut his eyes and be glad to escape with a few burns on his face and hands. When he had beaten the iron till it was nearly black, the smith put it in the fire again, and called out a hundred odd names: » " Here Gob, Shag, Latchit, Licker, Freestone, Grey- whackit, Mousetrap, Potato-pot, Blob, Blotch, Blunker ' "And ever as he called, one dwarf after another came tumbling out of the chimney in the corner of which the fire was roaring. They crowded about Colin and began to make hideous faces and spit fire at him. But he kept a bold countenance. At length one pinched him, and he could not stand that, but struck him hard on the head. He thought he had knocked his own hand to pieces, it gave him such a jar; and the head rung like an iron pot. " ' Come, come, young man! ' cried the smith; * you keep your hands off my children.' " ' Tell them to keep their hands off me, then,' said Colin. " And caUing to mind his message, just as they began to crowd about him again with yet more spiteful looks, he added: '* ' Here, you imps! I won't stand it longer. Get to your work directly. The old woman with the spindle says you're to lift Cumberbone Crag a yard higher, and to send a flue under Stonestarvit Moss.' / ^ \ THE FAIRY FLEET. 93 " In a moment they had vanished in the chimney. In a moment more the smithy rocked to its foundations. But the smith took no notice, only worked more furiously than ever. Then came a great crack and a shock that threw Colin on the floor. The smith reeled, but never lost hold of his hammers or missed a blow on the anvil. " ' Those boys will do themselves a mischief/ he said; then turning to Colin, ' Here, you sir, take that hammer. This is no safe place for idle people. If you don't work you'll be knocked to pieces in no time.' " The same moment there came a wind from the chimney that blew all the fire into the middle of the smithy. The smith dashed up upon the forge, and rushed out of sight. Presently he returned with one of the goblins under his arm kicking and screaming, laid his ugly head down on the anvil, where he held him by the neck, and hit him a great blow with his hammer above the ear. The hammer re- bounded, the gobiln gave a shriek, and the smith flung him into the chimney, saying — " ' That's the only way to serve htm. You'll be more careful for one while, I guess, Slobberkin.' " And thereupon he took up his other hammer and began to work again, saying to Colin, " ' Now, young man, as long as you get a blow with your hammer in for every one of mine, you'll be quite safe; but if you stop, or lose the beat, I won't be answerable to the old woman with the spindle for the consequences.' " Colin took up the hammer and did his best. But he soon found that he had never known what it was to work. The smith worked a hammer in each hand, and it was all Colin could do to work his little hammer with both his hands; so it was a terrible exertion to put in blow for blow with the smith. Once, when he lost the time, the smith's forehammer came down on the head of his, beat it flat on the anvil, and flung the handle to the other end of the smithy, where it struck the wall like the report of a cannon. ^1 / 94 THE CASKET OF LITERARY GEMS. " ' I told you,' said the smith. * There's another. Make haste, for the boys will be in want of you and me too before they get Cumberbone Crag half a foot higher.' " Presently in came the biggest-headed of the family, out of the chimney. " ' Six foot-wedges, and a three-yard crowbar! ' he said; ' or Cumberbone will cumber our bones presently.' " The smith rushed behind the bellows, brought out a bar of iron three inches thick or so, cut off three yards, put the end in the fire, blew with might and main, and brought it out as white as paper. He and Colin then laid upon it till the end was flattened to an edge, which the smith turned up a httle. He then handed the tool to the imp. " ' Here, Gob,' he said; ' run with it, and the wedges will be ready by the time you come back.' " Then to the wedges they set. And Colin worked like three. He never knew how he could work before. Not a moment's pause, except when the smith was at the forge for another glowing mass. And yet, to Colin's amazement, the more he worked, the stronger he seemed to grow. Instead of being worn out, the moment he had got his breath he wanted to be at it again; and he felt as if he had grown twice the size since he took the hammer in hand. And the goblins kept running in and out all the time, now for one thing, now for another. Colin thought if they made use of all the tools they fetched, they must be working very hard indeed. And the convulsions felt in the smithy bore witness to their exertions somewhere in the neighbor- hood. " And the longer they worked together, the more friendly grew the smith. At length he said — his words always adding energy to his blows — " ' What does the old woman want to improve Stonestarvit Moss for? ' " ' I didn't know she did want to improve it,' returned Colin. THE FAIRY FLEET. 95 " ' Why, anybody may see that. First, she wants Cumber- bone Crag a yard higher — just enough to send the north- east blast over the Moss without touching it. Then she wants a hot flue passed under it. Plain as a forehammer! — What did you ask her to do for you? She's always doing things for people and making my bones ache.' " ' You don't seem to mind it much, though, sir,' said Colin. " ' No more I do,' answered the smith, with a blow that drove the anvil half way into the earth, from which it took him some trouble to drag it out again. ' But I want to know what she is after now.' • " So Colin told him all he knew about it, which was merely his own story. " ' I see, I see,' said the smith. ' It's all moonshine; but we must do as she says notwithstanding. And now it is my turn to give you a lift, for you have worked well. — As soon as you leave the smithy, go straight to Stonestarvit Moss. Get on the highest part of it; make a circle three yards across, and dig a trench round it. I will give you a spade. At the end of the first day you will see a vine break the earth. By the end of the second, it will be creeping all over the circle. And by the end of the third day, the grapes will be ripe. Squeeze them one by one into a bottle — I will give you a bottle — till it is full. Cork it up tight, and by the time the queen comes for it, it will be Carasoyn.' " ' Oh, thank you, thank you,' cried Colin. ' When am I to go? ' " ' As soon as the boys have lifted Cumberbone Crag, and bored the flue under the Moss. It is of no use till then.' " '■ Well, I'll go on with my work,' said CoHn, and struck away at the anvil. " In a minute or two in came the same goblin whose head his father had hammered, and said, respectfully, " ' It's all right, sir. The boys are gathering their tools, and will be home to supper directly.' 96 THE CASKET OF LITERARY GEMS. " '■ Are you sure you have lifted the Crag a yard? ' said the smith, " ' Slumpkin says it's a half inch over the yard. Grungle says it's three-quarters. But that won't matter — will it? ' " ' No. I daresay not. But it is much better to be accurate. Is the flue done? ' " ' Yes, we managed that partly in lifting the crag.' " ' Very well. How's your head? ' " ' It rings a little.' " ' Let it ring you a lesson, then, Slobberkin, in future.' ^'^Yes, sir.' " ' Now, master you may go when you like,' said the smith to Colin. ' We've nothing here you can eat, I am sorry to say.' " ' Oh, I don't mind that. I'm not very hungry. But the old woman with the spindle said I was to work three days without dreaming.' " ' Well, you haven't been dreaming — have you? ' " And the smith looked quite furious as he put the ques- tion, lifting his forehammer as if he would serve Colin like Slobberkin. "'No, that I haven't,' answered Colin. 'You took good care of that, sir.' " The smith actually smiled. " ' Then go along,' he said. * It is all right.' " ' But I've only worked ' " ' Three whole days and nights,' interrupted the smith. ' Get along with you. The boys will bother you if you don't. Here's your spade and here's your bottle.' " Colin did not need a hint more, but was out of the smithy in a moment. He turned, however, to ask the way: there was nothing in sight but a great heap of peats which had been dug out of the moss, and was standing there to dry. Could he be on Stonestarvit Moss already? The sun was just setting. He would look out for the highest point at once. So he kept climbing, and at last reached a spot ^ X lOO THE CASKET OF LITER.\RY GEMS. run from Loch Lonely are mine, I can tell you — all the way to the sea.' " ' Except where they run through farmyards, your majesty.' " ' I'll rout you out of the country,' said the queen. " ' Meantime I'll put the bottle in the chest again,' returned Colin. " The queen bit her lips with vexation. *' ' Come here. Changeling,' she cried at length, in a flat- tering tone. " And the little girl came slowly up to hei;, and stood staring at Colin, with the tears in her eyes. " ' Give me your hand, Httle girl,' said he, holding out his. " She did so. It was cold as ice. " ' Let go her hand,' said the queen. " ' I won't,' said Colin. ' She's mine.' " ' Give me the bottle then,' said the queen. " ' Don't,' said the child. " But it was too late. The queen had it. " ' Keep your girl,' she cried, with an ugly laugh. " ' Yes, keep me,' cried the child. The cry ended in a hiss. " Colin felt something slimy wriggling in his grasp, and looking down, saw that instead of a little girl, he was hold- ing a great writhing worm. He had almost flung it from him, but recovering himself, he grasped it tighter. "'If it's a snake, I'll choke it,' he said. 'If it's a girl, I'll keep her.' " The same instant it changed to a Htde white rabbit, which looked him piteously in the face, and pulled to get its little fore foot out of his hand. But, though he tried not to hurt it, Colin would not let it go. Then the rabbit changed to a great black cat, with eyes that flashed green fire. She sputtered and spit and swelled her tail, but all to no purpose. Colin held fast. Then it was a wood ^ \ THE FAIRY FLEET. 10 1 pigeon, struggling and fluttering in terror to get its wing out of his hold. But Colin still held fast. " All this time the queen had been getting the cork out. The moment it yielded she gave a scream and dropped the bottle. The Carasoyn ran out, and a strange odor filled the cottage. The queen stood shivering and sobbing beside the bottle, and all her court came about her and shivered and sobbed too, and their faces grew ancient and wrinkled. Then the queen, bending and tottering hke an old woman, led the way to the boats, and her courtiers followed her, limping and creeping and distorted. Colin stared in amaze- ment. He-sav\' them all go aboard, and he heard the sound of them like a far-off company of men and women crying bitterly. And away they .floated down the stream, the rowers dipping no oar, but bending weeping over them, and letting the boats drift along the stream. They vanished from his sight, and the rush of the cataract came up on the night- wind louder than he had ever heard it before. — But alas! when he came to himself, he found his hand relaxed, and the dove flown. Once more there was nothing left but to cry himself asleep, as he vv^ell might. " In the morning he rose very wretched. But the moment he entered the cowhouse, there, beside the cow, on the milking stool, sat a lovely little girl, with just one white gar- ment on her, crying bitterly. " ' I am so cold! ' she said, sobbing. " He caught her up, ran with her into the house, put her into the bed, and ran back to the cow for a bowl of warm milk. This she drank eagerly, laid her head down, and fell fast asleep. Then Colin saw that though she must be eight years old by her own account, her face was scarcely older than that of a baby of as many months. " When his father came home you may be sure he stared to see the child in the bed. Colin told him what had hap- pened. But his father said he had met a troop of gipsies on the hill that morning. / ^ ^^ / 102 THE CASKET OF LITERARY GEMS. " ' And you were always a dreamer, Colin, even before you could speak.' " ' But don't you smell the Carasoyn still? ' said Colm. " ' I do smell something very pleasant, to be sure,' returned his father; ' but I think it is the wallflower on the top of the garden- wall. What a blossom there is of it this year! I am sure there is nothing sweeter in all Fairyland, Colin.' " Colin allowed that. " The little girl slept for three whole days. And for three days more she n»ever said another word than ' I am so cold! * But after that she began to revive a little, and to take notice of things about her. For three weeks she vrould taste noth- ing but milk warm from the cow, and would not move from the chimney-corner. By degrees, however, she began to help Colin a little with his house-work, and as she did so, her face gathered more and more Expression; and she made such progress, that by the end of three months she could do everything as well as Colin himself, and certainly more neatly. Whereupon he gave up his duties to her, and went out with his father to learn the calling of a shepherd. " Thus things went on for three years. And Fairy, as they called her, grew lovelier every day, and looked up to Colin more and more every day. " At the end of the three years, his father sent him to an old friend of his, a schoolmaster. Before he left, he made Fairy promise never to go near the brook after sundown. He had turned it into its old channel the very day she came to them. And he begged his father especially to look after her when the moon was high, for then she grew very rest- less and strange, and her eyes looked as if she saw things other people could not see. " When the end of the other three years had come, the schoolmaster would not let Colin go home, but insisted on sending him to college. And there he remained for three years more. " When he returned at the end of that time, he found ; -9 K" THE FAIRY FLEET. IO3 Fairy so beautiful and so wise, that he fell dreadfully in love with her. And Fairy found out that she had been in love with him since ever so long — she did not know how long. And Colin's father agreed that they should be married as soon as Colin should have a house to take" her to. So Colin went away to London, and worked very hard, till at last he managed to get a little cottage in Devonshire to live in. Then he went back to Scotland and married Fairy. And he was very glad to get her away from the neighborhood of a queen who was not to be depended upon. '' But, although Fairy had forgotten all about Fairyland, she was not out of danger yet, even after Colin had taken her away; for there are fairies in Devonshire as well as in Scotland, and they all know each other. " But," said James, " I will keep the story of Fairy's child for another time." " Do tell it now," begged Maria. " I don't know it yet," answered James. " I only want to keep the end of my yarn free that I may splice it afterwards if I like. I have talked enough of nonsense, and so Good- night r Without another word he went away. / AN ESSAY ON AN "OLD SUBJECT.' BY ALEXANDER SMITH. / HE discovery of a gray hair when you are brushing out your whiskers of a morning — first fallen flake of the coming snows of age — is a disagreeable thing. So is the intimation from your old friend and com- rade that his eldest daughter is about to be married. So are flying twinges of gout, shortness of breath on the hill-side, the fact that even the moderate use of your friend's wines at dinner upsets you. These things are disagreeable because they tell you that you are no longer young — that you have passed through youth, are now in middle age, and faring onward to the shadows in which, somewhere, a grave is hid. Thirty is the age of the gods — and the first gray hair informs you that you are at least ten or twelve years older than that. Apollo is never middle-aged, but you are. Olympus lies several years behind you. You have lived for more than half your natural term; and you know the road which lies before you is very different from that which lies behind. You have yourself changed. In the present man of forty-two you can barely recognize the boy of nineteen that once was. Hope sang on the sunny slope of life's hill as you ascended; she is busily singing the old song in the ears of a new generation — but you have passed out of the reach of her voice. You have tried your strength: you have learned precisely what you can do: you have thrown the hammer so often that you know to an inch how far you can throw it — at least you are a great fool if you do not. /_ y- AN ESSAY ON AN " OLD SUBJECT." 105 The world, too, has been looking on and has made up her mind about you. She has appraised and valued you as an auctioneer appraises and values an estate or the furniture of a house. " Once you served Prince Florizel and wore three pile," but the brave days of campaigning are over. What to you are canzonets and love-songs? The mighty passion is vapid and second-hand. Cupid will never more flutter rosily over your head; at most he will only flutter in an uninspired fashion above the head of your daughter-in-law. You have sailed round the world, seen all its wonders, and come home again, and must adorn your dwelling as best you can with the rare things you have picked up on the way. At life's table you have tasted of every dish except the Covered One, and of that you will have your share by-and-by. The road over which you are fated to march is more than half accomplished, and at every onward stage the scenery is certain to become more sombre, and in due time the twilight will fall. To you, on your onward journey, there will be little to astonish, little to delight. The Interpreter's House is behind where you first read the poets: so is also the House Beautiful with the Three Damsels where you first learned to love. As you pass onward you are attended by your henchman Memory, who may be either the cheerfullest or gloomiest of companions. You have come up out of the sweet-smelling valley-flowers; you are now on the broken granite, seamed and wrinkled, with dried up water-courses; and before you, striking you full in the face," is the broad disk of the solitary setting sun. One does not like to be an old fogie, and still less perhaps does one like to own to being one. You may remember when you were the youngest person in every company into which you entered; and how it pleased you to think how precociously clever you were, and opulent in Time. You were introduced to the great Mr. Blank — at least twenty years older than yourself — and could not help thinking how much greater you would be than Mr. Blank by the time you X \ 7 1 06 THE CASKET OF LITERARY GEMS. reached his age. But pleasant as it is to be the youngest member of every company, that pleasure does not last for ever. As years pass on you do not quite develop into the genius you expected, and the new generation makes its appearance and pushes you from your stool. You make the disagreeable discovery that there is a younger man of promise in the world than even you; then the one younger man becomes a dozen younger men; then younger men come flowing in like waves, and before you know where you are, by this impertinent younger generation — fellows who were barely breeched when you won your first fame — you are shouldered into Old Fogiedom, and your staid ways are laughed at, perhaps, by the irreverent scoundrels into the bargain. There is nothing more wonderful in youth than this wealth in Time. It is only a Rothschild who can indulge in the amusement of tossing a sovereign to a beggar. It is only a young man who can dream and build castles in the air. What are twenty years to a young fellow of twenty? An ample air-built stage for his pomps and triumphal pro- cessions. What are twenty years to a middle-aged man of forty-five? The falling of the curtain, the covering up of the empty boxes, the screwing out of the gas, and the count- ing of the money taken at the doors, with the notion, per- haps, that the performance was rather a poor thing. It is with a feeling curiously compounded of pity and envy that one listens to young men talking of what they are going to do. They will light their torches at the sun! They will regenerate the world! They will abolish war and hand in the Millennium! What pictures they will paint! What poems they will write! One knows while one listens how it will end. But it is nature's way; she is always sending on her young generations full of hope. The Atlantic roller bursts in harmless foam among the shingle and drift-wood at your feet, but the next, nothing daunted by the fate of its prede- cessor, comes on with threatening crest, as if to carry every- thing before it. And so it will be for ever and ever. The R - . ^ _^ AN ESSAY ON AN "OLD SUBJECT." IO7 world could not go on else. My experience is of use only to myself. I cannot bequeath it to my son as I can my cash. Every human being must start untrammelled and work out the problem for himself. For a couple of thousand years now the preacher has been crying out Vaniias vanitahtm, but no young man takes him at his word. The blooming apple must grate in the young man's teeth before he owns that it is dust and ashes. Young people will take nothing on hearsay. I remember when a lad of Todd's Student's Ma?tual falling into my hands. I perused therein a solemn warning against novel-reading. Nor did the reverend com- piler speak without authority. He stated that he had read the works of Fielding, Smollett, Sir Walter Scott, American Cooper, James, and the rest, and he laid his hand on his heart and assured his young friends that in each of these works, even the best of them, were subtle snares and gilded baits for the soul. These books they were adjured to avoid as they would a pestilence, or a raging fire. It was this alarming passage in the transatlantic Divine's treatise that first made a novel-reader of me. I was not content to accept his experience. I must see for myself. Every one must begin at the beginning, and it is just as well. If a new generation were starting with the wisdom of its elders, what would be the consequence? Would there be any fine extravagance? Would there be any lending of money? Would there be any noble friendships such as that of Damon and Pythias, or of David and Jonathan, or even of our own Beaumont and Fletcher, who had purse, wardrobe, and genius in common? It is extremely doubtful. Vanitas vanitatum is a bad doctrine to begin life with. For the plant Experience to be of any worth a man must grow it for himself. The man of forty-five or thereby is compelled to own, if he sits down to think about it, that existence is very different from what it was twenty years previously. His life is more than half spent to begin with. He is like one who has I ^ \ 1 08 THE CASKET OF LITERARY GEMS. spent seven hundred and fifty pounds of his original patri- mony of a thousand. Then, from his life there has departed that " wild freshness of morning " which Tom Moore sang about. In his onward journey he is not likely to encounter anything absolutely new. He has already conjugated every tense of the verb To Be. He has been in love twice or thrice. He has been married — only once let us trust. In all pl-obability he is the father of a fine family of children. He has been ill and he has recovered; he has experienced triumph -and failure; he has known what it is to have money in his purse, and what it is to want money in his purse. Sometimes he has been a debtor, sometimes he has been a creditor. He has stood by the brink of half a dozen graves, and heard the clod falling on the coffin-lid. All this he has experienced; the only new thing before him is death, and even to that he has at various times approximated. Life has lost most of the unexpectedness, its zest, its novelty, and has become like a worn shoe or a thread-bare doublet. To him there is no new thing under the sun. But then this growing old is a gradual process: and zest, sparkle, and novelty are not essential to happiness. The man who has reached five-and-forty has learned what a pleasure there is in customariness and use and wont — in having everything around him familiar, tried, confidential. Life may have become humdrum, but his tastes have become humdrum too. Novelty annoys him, the intrusion of an unfamiliar object puts him out. A pair of newly embroidered shppers would be much more ornamental than the well-worn articles which lie warming for him before the library fire; but then he can- not get his feet into them so easily. He is contented with his old friends — a new friend would break the charm of the old familiar faces. He loves the hedge rows and the fields and the brook and the bridge which he sees every day, and he would not exchange them for Alps and glaciers. By the time a man has reached forty-five he lies as comfortably in his habits as the silk-worm in its cocoon. On the whole I z — — \i iL K AN ESSAY ON AN ''OLD SUBJECT." IO9 take it that middle age is a happier period than youth. In the entire circle of the year there are no days so delightful as those of a fine October, when the trees are bare to the mild heavens, and the red leaves bestrew the road, and you can feel the breath of winter morning and evening — no days so calm, so tenderly solemn, and with such a reverent meek- ness in the air. The lyrical up-burst of the lark at such a time would be incongruous. The only sounds suitable to the season are the rusty caw of the homeward-sliding rook — the creaking of the wain returning empty from the farm- yard. There is an '' unrest which men miscall delight," and of that " unrest " youth is for the most part composed. From that middle age is free. The setting suns of youth are crimson and gold; the setting suns of middle age Do take a sober coloring from an eye That hath kept watch o'er man's mortality. Youth is the slave of beautiful faces, and fine eyes, and silver-sweet voices — they distract, madden, alarm. To middle age they are but the gracefullest statues, the loveliest poems. They delight but hurt not. They awake no passion, they heighten no pulse. And the imaginative man of middle age possesses after a fashion all the passionate turbulence, all the keen delights, of his earlier days. They are not dead — they are dwelling in the antechamber of memory awaiting his call; and when they are called they wQar an ethereal something which is not their own. The Muses are the daughters of Memory: youth is the time to love, but middle age the period at which the best love-poetry is written. And middle age too — the early period of it, when a man is master of his instruments and knows what he can do — is the best season of intellectual activity. The playful capering flames of a newly-kindled fire is a pretty sight; but not nearly so effective — any housewife will tell you — as when the flames are gone and the . whole mass of fuel has become caked into a sober redness that emits a steady glow. There is nothing good in this world which time does not improve. N. \ no THE CASKET OF LITERARY GEMS. A silver wedding is better than the voice of the Epithalamium. And the most beautiful face that ever was is made yet more beautiful when there is laid upon it the reverence of silver hairs. There is a certain even-handed justice in Time; and for what he takes away he gives us spmething in return. He robs us of elasticity of limb and spirit, and in its place he brings tranquility and repose — the mild autumnal weather of the soul. He takes away Hope, but he gives us Memory. And the settled, unfluctuating atmosphere of middle age is no bad exchange for the stormful emotions, the passionate crises and suspenses, of the earlier day. The constitutional melancholy of the middle-aged man is a dim back-ground on which the pale flowers of life are brought out in the tenderest relief. Youth is the time for action, middle age for thought. In youth we hurriedly crop the herbage; in middle age, in a sheltered place, we chew the ruminative cud. In youth, red-handed, red-ankled, with songs and shoutings, we gather in the grapes; in middle age, under our own fig-tree, or in quiet gossip with a friend, we drink the wine free of all turbid lees. Youth is a lyrical poet, middle age a quiet essayist, fond of recounting experiences and of appending a moral to every incident. In youth the world is strange and unfamiliar, novel and exciting, everything wears the face and garb of a stranger; in middle age the w^orld is covered over with reminiscence as with a garment — it is made homely with usage, it is made sacred with graves. The middle-aged man can go nowhere without treading the mark of his own footsteps. And in middle age, too — pro- vided the man has been a good and an ordinarily happy one — along with his mental tranquility, there comes a corre- sponding sweetness of the moral atmosphere. He has seen the good and the evil that are in the world, the ups and the downs, the almost general desire of the men and the women therein to do the right thing if they could but see how — and he has learned to be uncensorious, humane; to attribute the y- AX ESSAY ON AX "OLD SUBJECT." Ill best motives to every action, and to be chary of imputing a sweeping and cruel blame. He has a quiet smile for the vain-glorious boastj a feeling of respect for shabby-genteel virtues; a pity for the thread-bare garments proudly worn, and for the napless hat glazed into more than pristine bril- liancy from frequent brushing after rain. He would not be satirical for the world. He has no finger of scorn to point at anything under the sun. He has a hearty " Amen " for every good wish, and in the worst cases he leans to a verdict of Not Proven. And along with this pleasant blandness and charity, a certain grave, serious humor, " a smile on the lip and a tear in the eye," is noticeable frequently in middle- aged persons — a phase of humor peculiar to that period of life, as the chrysanthemum to December. Pity lies at the bottom of it, just as pity lies, unsuspected, at the bottom of love. Perhaps this special quality of humor — with its sad- ness of tenderness, its mirth with the heart-ache, its gaiety growing out of deepest seriousness, like a crocus on a child's grave — never approaches more closely to perfection than in some passages of ^Nlr. Hawthorne's writings — who was a middle-aged man from earliest boyhood. And although middle-aged persons have lost the actual possession of youth, yet in virtue of this humor they can comprehend it, see all round it, enter imaginatively into every sweet and bitter of it. They wear the key ^lemory at their girdles, and they can open every door in the chamber of youth. And it is also in virtue of this peculiar humor that — Mr. Dickens's Little Nell to the contrary — it is only middle-aged persons who can, either as poets or artists, create for us a child. There is no more beautiful thing on earth than an old man's love for his granddaughter; more beautiful even — from the absence of all suspicion of direct personal bias or interest — than his love for his own daughter; and it is only the meditative, sad-hearted, middle-aged man who can creep into the heart of a child and interpret it, and show forth the new nature to us in the subtle cross lisrhts of contrast ,\ THE CASKET OF LITERARY GEMS. and suggestion. Imaginatively thus, the wrinkles of age become the dimples of infancy. Wordsworth was not a very young man when he held the colloquy with the little maid who insisted, in her childish logic, that she 'was one of seven. Mr. Hawthorne was not a young man when he painted " Pearl " by the side of the brook in the forest; and he was middle-aged and more when he drew " Pansie," the most exquisite child that lives in English words. And when speaking of middle age, of its peculiar tranquility and humor, why not tell of its peculiar beauty as well? Men and women make their o\\ti beauty or their own ugliness. Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton speaks in one of his novels of a man " who was uglier than he had any business to be; " and, if we could but read it, every human being carries his life in his face, and is good-looking or the reverse as that life has been good or evil. On our features the fine chisels of thought and emotion are eternally at work. Beauty is not the monopoly of blooming young men and of white and pink maids. There is a slow-growing beauty which only comes to perfection in old age. Grace belongs to no period of life, and goodness improves the longer it exists. I have seen sweeter smiles on a lip of seventy than I ever saw on a lip of seventeen. There is the beauty of youth, and there is also the beauty of holiness — a beauty much more seldom met; and more frequently found in the arm-chair by the fire, with grandchildren around its knee, than in the ball-room or the promenade. Husband and wife who have fought the world side by side, who have made common stock of joy and sorrow, and aged together, are not unfrequently found curiously alike in personal appearance and in pitch and tone of voice — just as twin pebbles on the beach, exposed to the same tidal influences, are each others alter ergo. He has gained a feminine something which brings his manhood into full relief. She has gained a masculine something which acts as a foil to her womanhood. Beautiful are they in life, these pale winter roses, and in death they will not be \ ^ \ i > ■AX ESSAY OX AX ''OLD SUBJECT." II3 divided. When Death comes, he will pluck not one, but both. And in any case, to the old man, when the world becomes trite, the triteness arises not so much from a cessation as from a transference of interest. What is taken from this world is given to the next. The glory is in the east in the morning, it is in the west in the afternoon, and when it is dark the splendor is irradiating the realm of the under-world. He. would only follow. V* THE VOYAGE OF LIFE. BY SAMUEL JOHNSON. ||R1!(CC0RDING to Seneca, " Life is a voyage, in the ^ S&iiK progress of which we are perpetually changing our ^\m^~^ scenes; we first leave childhood behind us, then youth, then the years of ripened manhood, then the better and more pleasing part of old age." The perusal of this passage having incited in me a train of reflections on the state of man, the incessant fluctuation of his wishes, the gradual change of his disposition to all external objects, and the thoughtlessness with which he floats along the stream of time, I sunk into a slumber amidst my meditations; and, on a sudden, found my ears filled with the tumult of labor, the shouts of alacrity, the shrieks of alarm, the whistle of winds, and the dash of waters. My astonishment for a time repressed my curiosity; but soon recovering myself so far as to inquire whither we were going, and what was the cause of such clamor and confusion, I was told that they were launching out into the ocea?i of life; that we had already passed the straits of infancy, in which multitudes had perished, some by the weakness and fragility of their vessels, and more by the folly, perverseness, or negUgence of those who undertook to steer them; and that we were now on the main sea, abandoned to the winds and billows, without any other means of security than the care of the pilot, whom it was always in our power to choose among great numbers that offered their direction and assistance. / \ tV — ■ ■ 7" THE VOYAGE OF LIFE. II5 I then looked round with anxious eagerness; and first turning my eyes behind me, saw a stream flowing through flowery islands, which every one that sailed along seemed to behold with pleasure; but no sooner touched, than the cur- rent, which, though not noisy or turbulent, was yet irresis- tible, bore him away. Beyond these islands all was dark- ness, nor could any of the passengers describe the shore at which he first embarked. Before me, and on each side, was an expanse of waters violently agitated, and covered with so thick a mist, that the most perspicacious eye could see but a little way. It appeared to be full of rocks and whirlpools, for many sunk unexpectedly while they were courting the gale with full sails, and insulting those whom they had left behind. So numerous, indeed, were the dangers, and so thick the dark- ness, that no caution could confer security. Yet there were many, who, by false intelligence, betrayed their followers into whirlpools, or by violence pushed those whom they found in their way against the rocks. The current was invariable and insurmountable; but though it was impossible to sail against it, or to return to the place that was once passed, yet it was not so violent as to allow no opportunities for dexterity or courage, since, though none couid retreat back from danger, yet they might often avoid it by oblique direction. It was, however, not very common to steer with much care or prudence; for by some universal infatuation, every man appeared to think himself safe, though he saw his con- sorts every moment sinking round him; and no sooner had the waves closed over them, than their fate and misconduct were forgotten; the voyage was pursued with the same jocund confidence; every man congratulated himself upon the sound- ness of his vessel, and believed himself able to stem the whirlpool in which his friend was swallowed, or glide over the rocks on which he was dashed: nor was it often observed that the sight of a wreck made any man change his course; \ Il6 THE CASKET OF LITERARY GEMS. • if he turned aside for a moment, he soon forgot the rudder, and left himself again to the disposal of chance. This negligence did not proceed from indifference, or from weariness of their present condition; for not one of those who thus rushed upon destruction, failed, when he was sink- ing, to call loudly upon his associates for that help which could not now be given him; and many spent their last moments in cautioning others against the Folly by which they were intercepted in the midst of their course. Their benevolence was sometimes praised, but their admonitions were unregarded. The vessels in which we had embarked, being confessedly unequal to the turbulence of the stream of life, were visibly impaired in the course of the voyage; so that every pas- senger was certain, that how long soever he might, by favor- able accidents, or by incessant vigilance, be preserved, he must sink at last. This necessity of perishing might have been expected to sadden the gay, and intimidate the daring, at least to keep the melancholy and timorous in perpetual torments, and hinder them from any enjoyment of the varieties and grati- fications which nature offered them as the solace of their labor; yet in effect none seemed less to expect destruction than those to whom it was most dreadful; they all had the art of concealing their dangers from themselves; and those who knew their inability to bear the sight of the terrors that embarrassed their way, took care never to look forward, but found some amusement for the present moment, and gener- ally entertained themselves by playing with Hope, who was the constant associate of the voyage of life. Yet all that Hope ventured to promise, even to those whom she favored most, was, not that they should escape, but that they should sink last; and with this promise every one was satisfied, though he laughed at the rest for seeming to believe it. Hope, indeed, apparently mocked the credu- lity of her companions; for in proportion as their vessels -v h ^ ly- _ — __ THE VOYAGE OF LIFE. II7 grew leaky, she redoubled her assurances of safety; and none were more busy in making provisions for a long voy- age, than they whom all but themselves saw likely to perish soon by irreparable decay. In the midst of the current of life was the gulf of Intemper- ance, a dreadful whirlpool, interspersed with rocks, of which the pointed crags were concealed under water, and the tops covered with herbage, on which Ease spread couches of repose, and with shades where Pleasure warbled the song of invitation. Within sight of these rocks all who sailed on the ocean of life must necessarily pass. Reason, indeed, was always at hand to steer the passengers through a narrow outlet by which they might escape; but very few could, by her entreaties or remonstrances, be induced to put the rudder into her hand, without stipulating that she should approach so near unto the rocks of Pleasure, that they might solace themselves with a short enjoyment of that delicious region, after which they always determined to pursue their course without any other deviation. Reason was too often prevailed upon so far by these promises, as to venture her charge within the eddy of the gulf of Intemperance, where, indeed, the circumvolution was weak, but yet interrupted the course of the vessel, and drew it, by insensible rotations, towards the centre. She then repented her temerity, and with all her force endeavored to retreat; but the draught of the gulf was generally too strong to be overcome; and the passenger, having danced in circles with a pleasing and giddy velocity, was at last overwhelmed and lost. Those few whom Reason was able to extricate, generally suffered so many shocks upon the points which shot out from the rocks of Pleasure, that they were unable to continue their course with the same strength and facility as before, but floated along timorously and feebly, endan- gered by every breeze, and shattered by every ruffle of the water, till they sunk, by slow degrees, after long struggles and innumerable expedients, always repining at their own N -t 126 THE CASKET OF LITERARY GE.MS. thus make greater efforts to preserve our existence at a period when it becomes scarcely worth the keeping? Is it that nature, attentive to the preservation of mankind, increases our wishes to live, while she lessens our enjoy- ments; and, as she robs the senses of every pleasure, equips imagination in the spoil? Life would be insupportable to an old man who, loaded with infirmities, feared death no more than when in the vigor of manhood; the numberless calamities of decaying nature, and the consciousness of sur- viving every pleasure, would at once induce him, with his own hand, to terminate the scene of misery; but happily the contempt of death forsakes him at a time when it could be only prejudicial, and life acquires an imaginary value in proportion as its real value is no more. Our attachment to every object around us increases, in general, from the length of our acquaintance with it. " I would not choose," says a French philosopher, " to see an old post pulled up with which I had been long acquainted." A mind long habituated to a certain set of objects insensibly becomes fond of seeing them; visits them from habit, and parts from them with reluctance. Hence proceeds the avarice of the old in every kind of possession; they love the world and all that it produces; they love life and all its advantages, not because it gives them pleasure, but because they have knowm it long. Chinvang the Chaste, ascending the throne of China, commanded that all who were unjustly detained in prison during the preceding reigns should be set free. Among the number who came to thank their deliverer on this occasion, there appeared a majestic old man, who, falling at the emperor's feet, addressed him as follows: " Great father of China, behold a wretch, now eighty-five years old, who was shut up in a dungeon at the age of twenty-two. I was imprisoned, though a stranger to crime, or without being even confronted by my accusers. I have now lived in solitude and in darkness for more than fifty years, and am /• LIFE ENDEARED BY AGE. 1 27 grown familiar with distress. As yet, dazzled with the splendor of that sun to which you have restored me, I have been wandering the streets to find some friend that would assist, or relieve, or remember me; but my friends, my family, and relations are all dead, and I am forgotten. Permit me, then, O Chinvang, to wear out the wTetched remains of hfe in my former prison; the walls of my dungeon are to me more pleasing than the most splendid palace; I have not long to live, and shall be unhappy except I spend the rest of my days where my youth was passed — in that prison from which you were pleased to release me." The old man's passion for confinement is similar to that we all have for life. We are habituated to the prison, we look round with discontent, are displeased with the abode, and yet the length of our captivity only increases our fond- ness for the cell. The trees we have planted, the houses we have built, or the posterity we have begotten, all serve to bind us closer to earth, and imbitter our parting. Life sues the young like a new acquaintance; the companion, as yet unexhausted, is at once instructive and amusing; its com- pany pleases, yet for all this it is but little regarded. To us, w^ho are declined in years, life appears like an old friend; its jests have been anticipated in former conversation; it has no new story to make us smile, no new improvement with which to surprise, yet still we love it; destitute of every enjoyment, still we love it; husband the wasting treasure with increased frugality, and feel all the poignancy of anguish in the fatal separation. Sir PhiHp Mordaunt was young, beautiful, sincere, brave — an Englishman. He had a complete fortune of his own, and the love of the king, his master, which was equivalent to riches. Life opened all her treasures before him, and promised a long succession of future happiness. He came, tasted of the entertainment, but was disgusted even in the beginning. He professed an aversion to living, was tired of walking round the same circle; had tried every enjoyment, ^ \ K" 128 THE CASKET OF LITERARY GEMS. and found them all grow weaker at every repetition. " If life be in youth so displeasing," cried he to himself, "what will it appear when age comes on? if it be at present indif- ferent, sure it will then be execrable." This thought imbit- tered every reflection; till at last, with all the serenity of perverted reason, he ended the debate with a pistol! Had this self-deluded man been apprized that existence grows more desirable to us the longer we exist, he would then have faced old age without shrinking; he would have boldly dared to live, and served that society by his future assiduity which he basely injured by his ^desertion. A City Night-Piece. The clock has just struck two; the expiring taper rises and sinks in the socket; the watchman forgets the hour in slum- ber; the laborious and the happy are at rest; and nothing wakes but meditation, guilt, revelry, and despair. The drunkard once more fills the destroying bowl; the robber walks his midnight round; and the suicide lifts his guilty arm against his own sacred person. Let me no longer waste the night over the page of antiquity, or the sallies of contemporary genius, but pursue the solitary walk where vanity, ever-changing, but a few hours past, walked before me — where she kept up the pageant, and now, like a froward child, seems hushed with her own importunities. What a gloom hangs all around! The dying lamp feebly emits a yellow gleam: no sound is heard but of the chiming clock or the distant watch-dog: all the bustle of human pride is forgotten. An hour like this may well display the emptiness of human vanity. There will come a time when this temporary solitude m^y be made continual, and the city itself, like its inhabitants, fade away, and leave a desert in its room. What cities, as great as this, have once triumphed in existence, had their victories as great, joy as just and as / y- \ A CITY NIGHT-PIECE. 1 29 unbounded, and, with short-sighted presumption, promised themselves immortaUty! Posterity can hardly trace the situation of some; the sorrowful traveller wanders over the awful ruins of others; and, as he beholds, he learns wisdom, and feels the transience of every sublunary possession. Here, he cries, stood their citadel, now grown over with weeds, there their senate-house, but now the "haunt of every noxious reptile. Temples and theatres stood here, now only an undistinguished heap of ruin. They are fallen, for luxury and avarice first made them feeble. The rewards of state were conferred on amusing, and not on useful members of society. Their riches and opulence invited the invaders, who, though at first repulsed, returned again, conquered by perseverance, and at last swept the defendants into undis- tinguished destruction. How few appear in those streets, which, but some few hours ago, were crowded! And those who appear now no longer wear their daily mask, nor attempt to hide their lewd- ness or their misery. But who are those who make the streets their couch, and find a short repose from wretchedness at the doors of the opulent? These are strangers, wanderers, and orphans, whose circumstances are too humble to expect redress, and whose distresses are too great even for pity. Their wretched- ness excites rather horror than pity. Some are without the covering even of rags, and others emaciated with disease. The world has disclaimed them: society turns its back upon their distress, and has given them up to nakedness and hunger. These poor shivering females have once seen happier days, and been flattered into beauty. Why, why was I born a man, and yet see the sufferings of wretches I cannot refieve? Poor houseless creatures! the world will give you reproaches, but will not give you relief. The slightest misfortunes of the great, the most imaginary uneasiness of the rich, are aggravated with all the power of eloquence, and held up to engage our attention and ^1 (s ^ a V A T.^O THE CASKET OF LITERARY GEMS. sympathetic sorrow. The poor weep unheeded, persecuted by every subordinate species of tyranny; and every law which gives others securit}^ becomes an enemy to them. . Why was this heart of mine formed with so much sensi- bihty? or why was not my fortune adapted to its impulse? Tenderness without a capacity of relieving, only makes the man who feels it more wretched than the object which sues for assistance. \ /• \ POOR RELATIONS BY CHARLES LAMB. 1 POOR relation is the most irrelevant thing in I nature — a piece of impertinent correspondency — L^^S)^^ " an odious approximation — a haunting conscience — a preposterous shadow, lengthening in the noontide of your prosperity — an unwelcome remembrancer — a perpetu- ally-recurring mortification — a drain on your purse — a more intolerable dun upon your pride — a drav/back upon success — a rebuke to your rising — a stain in your blood — a blot on your scutcheon — a rent in your garment — a death's head at your banquet — Agathocles' pot — a Mordecai in your gate — a Lazarus at your door — a lion in your path — a frog in your chamber — a fly in your ointment — a mote in your eye — a triumph to your enemy, an apology to your friends — the one thing not needful — the hail in harvest — the ounce of sour in a pound of sweet. He is known by his knock. Your heart telleth you " That is Mr. ." A rap, between familiarity and respect; that demands, and, at the same time, seems to despair of, enter- tainment. He entereth smiling, and — embarrassed. He holdeth out his hand to you to shake, and — draweth it back again. He casually looketh in about dinner-time — when the table is full. He offereth to go away, seeing you have com- pany — but is induced to stay. He filleth a chair, and your visitor's two children are accommodated at a side table. He never cometh upon open days, when your wife says with some complacency, " My dear, perhaps Mr. will drop z . \ i:'2 THE CASKET OF LITERARY GEMS. in to-day." He remembereth birthdays — and professeth he is fortunate to have stumbled upon one. He declareth against fish, the turbot being small — yet suffereth himself to be importuned into a slice against his first resolution. He sticketh by the port — yet will be prevailed upon to empty the remainder glass of claret, if a stranger press it upon him. He is a puzzle to the servants, who are fearful of being too obsequious, or not civil enough, to him. The guests think " they have seen him before." Every one speculateth upon his condition; and the most part take him to be — a tide waiter. He calleth you by your Christian name, to imply that his other is the same with your own. He is too familiar by half, yet you wish he had less difiidence. AVith half the famiharity he might pass for a casual depend- ant; with more boldness he would be in no danger of being taken for what he is. He is too humble for a friend, yet taketh on him more state than befits a client. He is a worse guest than a country tenant, inasmuch as he bringeth up no rent — yet 'tis odds, from his garb and demeanor, that your guests take him for one. He is asked to make one at the whist-table; refuseth on the score of poverty, and — resents being left out. When the company break up, he proffereth to go for a coach — and lets the servant go. He recollects your grandfather; and will thrust in some mean • and quite unimportant anecdote of — the family. He knew it when it was not quite so flourishing as " he is blest in seeing it now." He reviveth past situations, to institute what he calleth — favorable comparisons. With a reflecting sort of congratulation, he will inquire the price of your furniture; and insults you with a special commendation of your window-curtains. He is of opinion that the urn is the more elegant shape, but, after all, there was something more comfortable about the old teakettle — which you must remem- ber. He dare say you must find a great convenience in having a carriage of your own, and appealeth to your lady if it IS not so. Inquireth if you have had your arms done \ 7 POOR RELATIONS. 1 33 on vellum yet; and did not know, till lately, that such and such had been the crest of the family. His memory is unreasonable; his complim.ents perverse; his talk a trouble; his stay pertinacious; and when he goeth away, you dismiss his chair into a corner, as precipitately as possible, and feel fairly rid of two nuisances. There is a worse evil under the sun, and that is — a female poor relation. You may do something with the other; you may pass him off tolerably, well; but your indignant she- relative is hopeless. '' He is an old humorist," you may say, " and affects to go threadbare. His circumstances are better than folks would take them to be. You are fond of having a character at your table, and truly he is one." But in the indications of female poverty there can be no disguise. No woman dresses below herself from caprice. The truth must out without shuffling. " She is plainly related to the L s; or what does she at their house? " She is, in all probability, your wife's cousin. Nine times out of ten, at least, this is the case. Her garb is something between a gentlewoman and a beggar, yet the former evidently predominates. She is most provokingly humble, and ostentatiously sensible to her inferiority. He may require to be repressed sometimes — aliqiiando siifflajuinandus erat — but there is no raising her. You send her soup at dinner, and she begs to be helped — after the gentlemen. Mr. requests the honor of taking wine with her; she hesitates between Port and Madeira, and chooses the former — because he does. She calls the servant sir; and insists on not troubling him to hold her plate. The housekeeper patronises her. The children's governess takes upon her to correct her, when she has mistaken the piano for a harpsichord. Richard Amlet, Esq., in the play, is a notable instance of the disadvantages to which this chimerical notion of affinity consiiiiiti?ig a claim to acquaintaiice may subject the spirit of a gentleman. A little foolish blood is all that is between him and a lady with a great estate. His stars are perpetually \ 134 THE CASKET OF LITER-\RY GEMS. crossed by the malignant maternity of an old woman, who persists in calling him ^'her son Dick." But she has where- withal in the end to recompense his indignities, and float him again upon the brilliant surface, under which it Imd been her seeming business and pleasure all along to sink him. All men, besides, are not of Dick's temperament. I knew an Amlet in real life, who, wanting Dick's buoyancy, sank indeed. Poor W was of n:iy own standing at Christ's, a fine classic, and a youth of promise. If he had . a blemish, it was too much pride; but its quality was inoffensive; it was not of that sort which hardens the heart, and serves to keep inferiors at a distance; it only sought to ward off derogation from itself. It was the principle of self-respect carried as far as it could go, without infringing upon that respect, which he would have every one else equally maintain for himself. He would have you to think alike with him on this topic. Many a quarrel have I had with him, when we were rather older boys, and our tallness made us more obnoxious to observation in the blue clothes, because I would not thread the alleys and blind ways of the town with him to elude notice, when we have been out together on a holiday in the streets of this sneering and prying metropolis. W went, sore with these notions, to Oxford, where the dignity and sweetness of a scholar's life, meeting with the alloy of an humble introduction, wrought in him a passionate devotion to the place, with a profound aversion from the society. The servitor's gown (worse than his school array) clung to him ^vith Xessian venom. He thought himself ridiculous in a garb, under which Latimer must have walked erect: and in which Hooker, in his young days, possibly flaunted in a vein of no discommendable vanity. In the depth of college shades, or in his lonely chamber, the poor student shrunk from observation. He found shelter among books, which insult not; and studies, that ask no questions of a youth's finances. He was lord of his library, and seldom cared for looking out beyond his domains. The healing influence of Tf ^^ POOR RELATIONS. I35 Studious pursuits was upon him, to sooth and to abstract. He was almost a healthy man; when the waywardness of his fate broke out against him with a second and worse malignity. The father of W had hitherto exercised the humble pro- fession of house-painter at X , near Oxford. A supposed interest with some of the heads of colleges had now induced him to take up his abode in that city, with the hope of being employed upon some public works which were talked of. From that moment I read in the countenance of the young man the determination which at length tore him from academical pursuits for ever. To a person unacquainted with our universities, the distance between the gownsmen and townsmen, as they are called — the trading part of the latter especially — is carried to an excess that would appear harsh and incredible. The temperament of W 's father was diametrically the reverse of his own. Old W was a little, busy, cringing tradesman, who, with his son upon his arm, would stand bowing and scraping, cap in hand, to anything that wore the semblance of a gown — insensible to the winks and opener remonstrances of the youn^ man, to whose chamber-fellow, or equal in standing, perhaps, he was thus obsequiously and gratuitously ducking. Such a state of things could not last. W must change the air of Oxford or be suffocated. He chose the former; and let the sturdy moralist, who strains the point of the filial duties as high as they can bear, censure the dereliction; he cannot estimate • the struggle. I stood with W , the last afternoon I ever saw him, under the eaves of his paternal dwelling. It was in the fine lane leading from the High street to the back of * * * college, where W kept his rooms. He seemed thoughtful, and more reconciled. I ventured to rally him — finding him in a better mood — upon a representation of the artist evangelist, which the old man, whose affairs were beginning to flourish, had caused to be set up in a splendid sort of frame over his really handsome shop, either as a token of prosperity, or badge of gratitude to his saint. I ■4» ,\ 7 I 136 THE CASKET OF LITERARY GEMS. I I W looked up at the Luke, and, like Satan, " knew his mounted sign — and fled." A letter on his father's table the next morning announced that he had accepted a commission in a regiment about to embark for Portugal. He was among the first who perished before the walls of St. Sebastian. I do not know how, upon a subject which I began vnth treating half seriously, I should have fallen upon a recital so eminently painful; but this theme of poor relationship is replete with so much matter for tragic as well as comic asso- ciations, that it is difficult to keep the account distinct with- out blending. The earhest impressions which I received on this matter are certainly not attended with anything painful or very humihating in the recalling. At my father's table (no very splendid one) was to be found, every Saturday, the mysterious figure of an aged gentleman, clothed in neat black, of a sad yet comely appearance. His deportment was of the essence of gravity; his words few or none; and I was not to make a noise in his presence. I had little inclination to do so — for my cue was to admire in silence. A particu- lar elbow-chair was appropriated to him, which was in no case to be violated. A peculiar sort of sweet pudding, which appeared on no other occasion, distinguished the days of his coming. I used to think him a prodigiously rich man. All I could make out of him was, that he and my father had been schoolfellows a world ago at Lincoln, and that he came from the Mint. The Mint I knew to be a " place where all the money was coined — and I thought he was the owner of all that money. Awful ideas of the Tower twined themselves about his presence. He seemed above human infirmities and passions. A sort of Tnelancholy grandeur invested him. From some inexplicable doom I fancied him obliged to go about in an eternal suit of mourn- ing; a captive — a stately being, let out of the Tower on Saturdays. Often have I wondered at the temerity of my father, who, in spite of an habitual general respect which we POOR RELATIONS. I37 all in common manifested towards him, would ventnre now and then to stand up against him in some argument touch- ing their youthful days. The houses of the ancient city of Lincoln are divided (as most of my readers know) between the dwellers on the hill and in the valley. This marked distinction formed an obvious division between the boys who hved above (however brought together in a common school) and the boys whose paternal residence was on the plain; a sufficient cause of hostility in the code of these young Grotiuses. My father had been a leading moun- taineer; and would still maintain the general superiority, in skill and hardihood, of the Above Boys (his own faction) over the Below Boys (so were they called), of which party his contemporary had been a chieftain. Many and hot were the skirmishes on this topic — the only one upon which the old gentleman was ever brought out — and bad blood bred; even sometimes almost to the' recommencement (so I ex- pected) of actual hostilities. But my father, who scorned to insist upon advantages, generally contrived to turn the con- versation upon some adroit by-commendation of the old minster, in the general preference of which, before all other cathedrals in the island, the dweller on the hill and the plain- born could meet on a conciliating level, and lay down their less important differences. Once only I saw the old gentle- man really ruffled, and I remembered with anguish the thought that came over me: " Perhaps he will never come here again." He had been pressed to take another plate of the viand, which I have already mentioned as the indispen- sable concomitant of his visits. He had refused, with a resistance amounting to rigor — when my aunt, an old Lin- colnian, but who had something of this in common with my cousin Bridget, that she would sometimes press civility out of season — uttered the following memorable application — " Do take another slice, Mr. Billet, for you do not get pudding every day." The old gentleman said nothing at the time — but he took occasion in the course of the evening. I 138 THE CASKET OF LITERARY GEMS. I ^ when some argument had intervened between them, to utter, ; with an emphasis which chilled the company, and which i chills me now as I write it — " Woman, you are super- : annuated." John Billet did not survive long after the j digesting of this affrontj but he survived long enough to [ assure me that peace was actually restored! and, if I remem- ber aright, another pudding was discreetly substituted in the place of that which had occasioned the offence. He died at the Mint (anno 1781), where he had long held what he accounted a comfortable independence; and with five pounds fourteen shillings and a penny, which were found in his escrutoire after his decease, left the world, blessing God that he had enough to bury him, and that he had never been obliged to any man for a sixpence. This was — a poor relation. ^ •V -veiZj2i2;^5^^ '^i^^^i/Dirffy^ 4cpicEv3EiiMcirie]S[?.-f! -f -^ -^ ^\^ K / MAXIMS. ^^^^ """"^ '^ F thou be ambitious of honor, and yet fearful of the canker of honor, envy, so behave thyself, that opinion may be satisfied in this, that thou seekest merit, and not fame; and that thou attributest thy prefer- ment rather to Providence than thy own virtue. Honor is a due debt to the deserver; and who ever envied the payment of a debt? A just advancement is a providential act; and who ever envied the act of Providence? If evil men speak good, or good men evil, of thy conver- sation, examine all thy actions, and suspect thyself. But if evil men speak evil of thee, hold it as thy honor; and, by way of thankfulness, love them; but upon condition that they continue to hate thee. To tremble at the sight of thy sin, makes thy faith the less apt to tremble: the devils believe and tremble, because they tremble at what they believe; their belief brings trembling: thy trembling brings belief. If thou desire to be truly valiant, fear to do any injury: he that fears not to do evil, is always afraid to suffer evil; he that never fears, is desperate; and he that fears always, is a coward. Pie is the true valiant man, that dares nothing but what he may, and fears nothing but what he ought. If thou stand guilty of oppression, or wrongfully possest of another's right, see thou make restitution before thou givest an alms: if otherwise, what art thou but a thief, and makest God thy receiver? When thou prayest for spiritual graces, let thy prayer be absolute; when for temporal blessings, add a clause of God's pleasure: in both, with faith and humiliation: so shalt thou, \~ 7 142 THE CASKET OF LITERARY GEMS. undoubtedly, receive what thou desirest, or more, or better. Never prayer rightly made, was made unheard; or heard, ungranted. Not to give to the poor, is to take from him. Not to feed the hungry, if thou hast it, is to the utmost of thy power to kill him. That, therefore, thou mayst avoid both sacrilege and murder, be charitable. Hath any wTonged thee? Be bravely revenged: slight it, and the work's begun; forgive it, and 'tis finished: he is below himself that is not above an injury Gaze not on beauty too much, lest it blast thee; nor too long, lest it blind thee; nor too near, lest it burn thee: if thou hke it, it deceives thee; if thou love it, it disturbs thee; if thou lust after it, it destroys thee: if virtue accompany it, it IS the heart's paradise; if vice associate it, it is the soul's purgatory: it is the wise man's bonfire, and the fool's furnace. Use law and physic only for necessity; they that use them otherwise, abuse themselves into weak bodies and light purses; they are good remedies, bad businesses, and worse recreations. If what thou hast received from God thou sharest to the poor, thou hast gamed a blessing by the hand; if what thou hast taken from the poor, thou givest to God, thou hast pur- chased a curse into the bargain. He that puts to pious uses what he hath got by impious usury, robs the spittle* to make an hospital; and the cry of the one will out-plead the prayers of the other. Give not thy tongue too great a liberty, lest it take thee prisoner. A word unspoken is like the sword in the scab- bard, thine; if vented, thy sword is in another's hand. If thou desire to be held wise, be so wise as to hold thy tongue. Wisdom without innocency is knavery; innocency without wisdom is foolery; be, therefore, as wise as serpents, and * This term was originally applied to the lazar-house, or receptacle for persons affected with leprosy, but afterwards to an hospital of any kind. ^— f CHOICE SELECTIONS. I43 innocent as doves. The subtilty of the serpent instructs the innocency of the dove; the innocency of the dove corrects the subtilty of the serpent. What God hath joined together, let no man separate. — Quarks, MISCELLANEOUS APHORISMS. Know, next to religion, there is nothing accomplisheth a man more than learning. Learning in a lord is as a diamond in gold. He must rise early, ye*a, not at all go to bed, who will have every one's good word. He needs strong arms who is to swim against the stream. It is hard for one of base parentage to personate a king without overacting his part. The pope knows he can catch no fish if the waters are clear. The cardinals' eyes in the court of Rome were old and dim; and therefore the glass, wherein they see any thing, must be well silvered. Many wish that the tree may be felled, who hope to gather chips by the fall. The Holy Ghost came down, not in the shape of a vulture, but in the form of a dove. Gravity is the ballast of the soul. Learning hath gained most by those books by which the printers have lost. He shall be immortal who liveth till he be stoned by one without fault. It is the worst clandestine marriage when God is not invited to it= Deceive not thyself by over-expecting happiness in the married state. Look not therein for contentment greater than God will give, or a creature in this world can receive, namely, to be free from all inconveniences. Marriage is not k N — — ►- K 144 THE CASKET OF LITERARY GEMS. like the hill Olympus, wholly clear, without clouds. Remem- ber the nightingales, which sing only some months in the spring, but commonly are silent when they have hatched their eggs, as if their mirth were turned into care for their young ones. — Fuller. " Reading maketh a fidl man, conversation a ready man, writing an exact man. Therefore, if a man write little, he must needs have a great memory; if he confer little, he must needs have a great wit; and if he read little, he must needs have a great cunning, to seem to know that which he knoweth not." * " A good man upon the earth, is as the sun, passing through all pollutions, and remaining pure." " Some men seem as if they sought in knowledge a couch whereon to rest a searching and restless spirit; or a terrace for a variable and wandering mind to walk up and down upon, with a fair prospect; or a tower of state for a proud heart to disport itself upon; or a fort for strife and conten- tion; or a shop for profit and sale: not a rich storehouse for the glory of the Creator." " Pride maketh the teacher not to know his own weak- ness, and sloth keepeth the disciple from knowing his own strength." " After all our wanderings through the labyrinth of science, religion is the haven and Sabbath of man's contemplations." — Bacon, MORAL SENTIMENTS. BENEFICENCE. The power of doing good to worthy objects is the only enviable circumstance in the lives of people of fortune. What joy it is in the power of the wealthy to give them- selves, whenever they please, by comforting those who struggle with undeserved distress. /- K -A CHOICE SELECTIONS. 145 Nothing in human nature is so God-like as the disposition to do good to our fellow-creatures. Such is the blessing of a benevolent heart, that, let the world frown as it will, it cannot possibly bereave it of all happiness; since it can rejoice in the prosperity of others. CALUMNY, CENSURE. No one is exempt from calumny. Words said, the occa- sion of saying them not known, however justly reported, may bear a very different construction from what they would have done had the occasion been told. Were evil actions to pass uncensured, good ones would lose their reward; and vice, by being put on a foot with virtue in this life, would meet with general countenance. A good person will rather choose to be censured for doing his duty than for a defect in it. CHILDREN. • There is such a natural connection and progression between the infantile and more adult state of children's minds, that those who would know how to account for their inclinations, should not be wholly inattentive to them in the former state. At two or three years old, or before the buds of children's minds will begin to open, a watchful parent will then be employed, like a skilful gardener, in defending the flower from blights, and assisting it through its several stages to perfection. EDUCATION. Tutors should treat their pupils, with regard to such of their faulty habits as cannot easily be eradicated, as prudent physicians do their patients in chronical cases; rather with gentle palliatives than harsh extirpatives; which, by means of the resistance given to them by the habit, may create such ferments as may utterly defeat their intention. A generous mind will choose to win youth to its duty by mildness and good usage, rather than by severity. i_. \ / 146 THE CASKET OF LITERARY GE3IS. Neither a learned nor a fine education is of any other value than as it tends to improve the morals of men, and to make them wise and good. The Almighty, by rewards and punishments, makes it our interest, as well as our duty, to obey Him; and can we pro- pose to ourselves, for the government of our chi'ldren, a better example. FRIENDSHIP. The more durable ties of friendship are those which result from a union of minds formed upon religious principles. An open and generous heart will not permit a cloud to hang long upon the brow of a friend, without inquiring into the reason of it in hopes to be able to dispel it. Freely to give reproof, and thankfully to receive it, is an indispensable condition of true friendship. One day, profligate men will be convinced that what they call friendship is chaff and stubble, and that nothing is worthy of that sacred name that has not virtue for its base. GENERAL OBSERVATIONS. The man or woman who will obstinately vindicate a faulty step in another, seems to indicate that, in like circumstances, he or she would have been guilty of the same fault. All our pursuits, from childhood to manhood, are only trifles of different sorts and sizes, proportioned to our years and views. We must not expect that our roses will grow without thorns; but then they are useful and instructive thorns, which, by pricking the fingers of the too hasty plucker, teach future caution. THE GOOD MAN. A good man lives to his own heart. He thinks it not good manners to slight the world's opinion; though he will regard it only in the second place. A good man will look upon every accession of power to do good as a new trial to the integrity of his heart. k \ ■4- CHOICE SELECTIONS. 147 A good man, though he will value his own countrymen, yet will think as highly of the worthy men of every nation under the sun. A good man is a prince of the Almighty's creation. A good man will not engage even in a national cause, without examining the justice of it. How much more glorious a character is that of the friend of mankind, than that of the conqueror of nations? The heart of a worthy man is ever on his lips; he will be pained when he cannot speak all that is in it. 'An impartial spirit will admire goodness or greatness wherever he meets it, and whether it makes for or against him. THE GOOD WOMAN. A good woman is one of the greatest glories of the creation. How do the duties of a good wife, a good mother, and a worthy matron, well performed, dignify a woman! A good woman reflects honor on all those who had any hand in her education, and on the company she has kept. A woman of virtue and of good understanding, skilled in, and delighting to perform the duties of domestic life, needs not fortune to recommend her to the choice of the greatest and richest man, who wishes his own happiness. YOUTH. It is a great virtue in good-natured youth to be able to say NO. Those who respect age deserve to live to be old, and to be respected themselves. v Young people set out with false notions of happiness; with gay, fairy-land imaginations. It is a most improving exercise, as well with regard to style as to morals, to accustom ourselves early to write down every thing of moment that befalls us. There is a docile season, a learning-time in youth, ■I \ 7 148 THE CASKET OF LITERARY GEMS. which, suffered to elapse, and no foundation laid, seldom returns. Young folks are sometimes very cunning in finding out contrivances to cheat themselves. — Richardsoii. "'Too often do we lose humility, m contentions iox faith, and forfeit hope, by forgetting charity.'' " Better is the humble peasant who serveth God, than the proud philosopher who can describe the course of the planets, but is destitute of the knowledge of himself ^^ " Wherever thou art, .turn everything to an occasion of improvement; if thou beholdest good examples let them kindle a desire of imitation; if thou seest aught wrong, beware of doing it thyself." " To maintain peace with the churlish and perverse, the irregular and impatient, and those that most contradict and oppose our opinions and desires, is a heroic and glorious attainment." " Endeavor to' be always patient with the faults and im- perfections of others. Hast thou not many faults and imperfections of thine own, that require a reciprocation of forbearance? And if thou art not able to make thyself thsit which thou wishest to be, how canst thou expect to mould afiothe?' into conformity with thine own will? " — Keinpis. MEMORY. It is the treasure-house of the mind, wherein the monu- ments thereof are kept and preserved. Plato makes it the mother of the Muses. Aristotle sets it in one degree further, making experience the mother of arts, memory the parent of experience. Philosophers place it in the rear of the head; and it seems the mine of memory lies there, because there men naturally dig for it, scratching it when they are at a loss. This again is two-fold, one, the simple retention of things; the other, a regaining them when forgotten. CHOICE SELECTIONS. I49 First, soundly infix in thy mind what thou desirest to remember. What wonder is it if agitation of business jog that out of thy head which was there rather tacked than fastened? It is best knocking in the nail over night, and clinching it the next morning. Overburden not thy memory to make so faithful a servant a slave. Remember, Atlas was weary. Have as much reason as a camel, to rise when thou hast thy full load. Memory, like a purse, if it be over full that it cannot shut, all will drop out of it; take heed of a gluttonous curiosity to feed on many things, lest the greediness of the appetite of thy memory spoil the digestion thereof. Marshal thy notions into a handsome method. One will carry twice more weight trussed and packed up in bundles, than when it lies untoward, flapping and hanging about his shoulders. Things orderly fardled up under heads are most p ortable. — Fuller. LIFE HATH NO *' UNMEDDLED " JOY. There is in this world continual interchange of pleasing and greeting accidence, still keeping their succession of times, and overtaking each other in their several courses; no picture can be all drawn of the brightest colors, nor a narmony consorted only of trebles; shadows are needful in expressing of proportions, and the bass is a principal part in perfect music; the condition here alloweth no unmeddled joy; our whole life is temperate between sweet and sour, and we must all look for a mixture of both: the wise so wish: better that they still think of worse, accepting the one if it come with Hking, and bearing the other without impatience, being so much masters of each other's fortunes, that neither shall work them to excess. The dwarf groweth not on the highest hill, nor the tall man loseth not his height in the lowest valley; and as a base mind, though most at ease, will be dejected, so a resolute virtue in the deepest distress is I most impregnable — Southwell. V X i?: 150 THE CASKET OF LITERARY GEMS. THOUGHTS ON DEATH AND IMMORTALITY. In a field of Old Walsingham, not many months past, were digged up between forty and fifty urns, deposited in a dry and sandy soil, not a yard deep, not far from one another: not all strictly of one figure, but most answering these described; some containing two pounds of bones, dis- tinguishable in skulls, ribs, jaws, thigh-bones, and teeth, with fresh impressions of their combustion; besides, the extrane- ous substances, like pieces of small boxes, or combs hand- somely wrought, handles of small brass instruments, brazen nippers, and in one some kind of opal. That these were the urns of Romans, from the common custom and place where they were found, is no obscure con- jecture; not far from a Roman garrison, and but five miles from Brancaster, set down by ancient record under the name of Brannodunum; and where the adjoining town, containing seven parishes, in no very different sound, but Saxon term- ination, still retains the name of Burnham; which being an early station, it is not improbable the neighbor parts were filled with habitations, either of Romans themselves, or Britons Romanised, which observed the Roman customs. * :}: ^ ^ :}: ^ ^ What song the sirens sang, or what name Achilles assumed when he hid himself among women, though puzzling ques- tions, are not beyond all conjecture. What time the persons of these ossuaries entered the famous nations of the dead, and slept with princes and counsellors, might admit a wide solution. But who were the proprietaries of these bones, or what bodies these ashes made up, were a question above antiquarianism: not to be resolved by man, not easily per- haps by spirits, except we consult the provincial guardians, or tutelary observators. Had they made as good provision for their names, as they have done for their relics, they had not so grossly erred in the art of perpetuation. But to sub- sist in bones, and be but pyramidally extant, is a fallacy in duration. * * * :r= hj * Z N, CHOICE SELECTIONS. But the iniquity of oblivion blindly scattereth her poppy and deals with the memory of men without distinction to merit of perpetuity. Who can but pity the founder of the pyramids ? Herostratus lives, that burnt the temple of Diana! he is almost lost that built it. Time hath spared the epitaph of Adrian's horse, confounded that of himself. In vain we compute our felicities by the advantage of our good names, since bad have equal durations; and Thersites is like to live as long as Agamemnon, without the favor of the ever- lasting register. Who knows wdiether the best of men be known, or whether there be not more remarkable persons forgot, than any that stand remembered in the known account of time? The first man had been as unknown as the last, and Methuselah's long life had been his only chronicle. There is nothing strictly immortal, but immortality. What- ever hath no beginning, may be confident of no end. All others have a dependent being, and within the reach of destruction, which is the peculiar of that necessary essence that cannot destroy itself, and the highest strain of omnipo- tency, to be so powerfully constituted, as not to suffer even from the power of itself. But the sufficiency of Christian immortality frustrates all earthly glory, and the quality of either state after death makes a folly of posthumous memory. Man is a noble animal, splendid in ashes, and pompous in the grave; solemnizing nativities and deaths with equal lustre. To subsist in lasting monuments, to live in their produc- tions, to exist in their names, and predicament of chimeras, was large satisfaction unto old expectations, and made one part of their Elysiums. But all this is nothing in the meta- physics of true belief. To live indeed is to be again our- selves, which being not only a hope, but an evidence in noble believers, it is all one to lie in St. Innocent's church- yard, as in the sands of Egypt; ready to be anything in the ecstacy of being ever, and as content with six foot as the moles of Adrianus. — Browne. \ 152 THE CASKET OF LITERARY GEMS. THE DEATH OF A FATHER. The first sense of sorrow I ever knew was upon the death of my father, at which time I was not quite five years of age; but was rather amazed at what all the house meant, than possessed with a real understanding why nobody was willing to play with me. I remember I went into the room where his body lay^ and my mother sat weeping alone by it. I had my battle- dore in my hand, and fell a beating the coffin, and call- ing papa; for, I know not how, I had some slight idea that he was locked up there. My mother catched me in her arms, and, transported beyond all patience of the silent grief she was before in, she almost smothered me in her embraces; and told me in a flood of tears, " Papa could not hear me, and would play with me no more, for they were going to put him under ground, whence he could never come to us again." She was a very beautiful woman, of a noble spirit, and there was a dignity in her grief amidst all the wildness of her transport; which, methought, struck me with an instinct of sorrow, that before I was sensible of what it was to grieve, seized my very soul, and has made pity the weakness of my heart ever since. The mind in infancy is, methinks, like the body in embryo; and receives impressions so forcible, that they are as hard to be removed by reason, as any mark, with which a child is born, is to be taken away by any future application. Hence it is, that good nature in me is no merit; but having been so frequently overwhelmed w^h her tears before I knew the cause of my affliction, or could draw defences from my own judgment, I imbibed commiseration, remorse, and an unmanly gentle- ness of mind, which has since ensnared me into ten thousand calamities; from whence I can reap no advantage, except it be, that, in such a humor as I am now in, I can the better indulge myself in the softness of humanity, and enjoy that sweet anxiety which arises from the memory of past afflic- tions. — Steele. \. CHOICE SELECTIONS. 153 ALL CAN DO GOOD. Every one of us may in something or other assist or instruct some of his fellow-creatures: for the best of human race is poor and needy, and all have a mutual dependence on one another: there is nobody that cannot do some good: and everybody is bound to do diligently all the good they can. It is by no means enough to be rightly disposed, to be^ serious, and religious in our closets: we must be useful too, and take care, that as we all reap numberless benefits from society, society may be the better for every one of us. It is a false, a faulty, and an indolent humility, that makes people sit still and do nothing, because they will not believe that they are capable of doing much: for everybody can do something. Everybody can set a good example, be it to many or to few. Everybody can in some degree encourage virtue and religion, and discountenance vice and folly. Everybody has some one or other whom they can advise, or instruct, or in some way help to guide through life. Those who are too poor to give alms, can yet give their time, their trouble, their assistance in preparing or forwarding the gifts of others; in considering and representing distressed cases to those who can relieve them; in visiting and comforting the sick and afflicted. Everybody can offer up their prayers for those who need them: which, if they do reverently and sincerely, they will never be wanting in giving them every other assistance that it should please" God to put in their power. — Talbot. RULES OF IMPROVEMENT BY CONVERSATION. I. If we would improve our minds by conversation, it is a great happiness to be acquainted with persons wiser than ourselves. It is a piece of useful advice, therefore, to get the favor of their conversation frequently, as far as circum- stances will allow: and if they happen to be a little reserved, V- 154 THE CASKET OF LITERARY GEMS. use all obliging methods to draw out of them what may increase your own knowledge. 2. If you happen to be in company with a merchant or a sailor, a farmer or a mechanic, a milkmaid or a spinster, lead them into a discourse of the matters of their own peculiar province or profession; for every one knows, or should know, his own business best. In this sense a common mechanic is wiser than a philosopher. By this means you may gain some improvement in knowledge from every one you meet. 3. Confine not yourself akuays to one sort of company, ox to persons of the same party or opinion, either in matters of learning, religion, or the civil life, lest if you should happen to be nursed up or educated in early mistake, you should be confirmed and established in the same mistake, by convers- ing only with persons ot the same sentiments. A free and general conversation with men of very various countries and of different parties, opinions and practices (so far as it may be done safely), is of excellent use to undeceive us in many wrong judgments which we may have framed, and to lead us into juster thoughts. 4. In mixed company, among acquaintaftce and strangers endeavor to learn something from all. Be swift to hear, but be cautious of your tongue, lest you betray your ignorance, and perhaps offend some of those who are present too. 5 . Believe that it is possible to learn so7?iething fro7n per- sons much below yourself. We are all short-sighted crea- tures; our views are also narrow and limited; we often see but one side of a matter, and do not extend our sight far and wide enough to reach everything that has a connection with the thing we talk of: we see but in part, and know but in part, therefore it is no wonder we form not right conclu- sions, because we do not survey the whole of any subject or argument. 6. To make conversation more valuable and useful, whether it be in a designed or accidental visit, among / M .1 CHOICE SELECTIONS. OO persons of the same or of different sexes, after the necessary- salutations are finished, and the stream of common talk begins to hesitate, or runs flat and low, let some one person take a book which may be agreeable to the whole company, and by common consent let him read in it ten lines, or a paragraph.or two, or a few pages, till some word or sentence gives an occasion for any of the company to offer a thought or tT\-o relating to that subject. Interruption of the reader should be no blame, for conversation is the business; whether it be to confirm what the author says, or to improve it; to enlarge upon or to correct it; to object against it, or to ask any question that is akin to it; and let every one that pleases add his opinion and promote the conversation. When the discourse sinks again, or diverts to trifles, let him that reads pursue the page, and read on further paragraphs or pages, till some occasion is given by a word or sentence for a new discourse to be started, and that with the utmost ease and freedom. Such a method as this would prevent the hours of a visit from running all to waste; and by this means, even among scholars, they will seldom find occasion for that too just and bitter reflection, I have lost viy time in the company of the iearfied. By such practice as this, young ladies may very honorably and agreeably improve' their hours: while one applies herself to reading, the others employ their attention, even among the various artifices of the needle; but let all of them make their occasional remarks or inquiries. This will guard a great deal of that precious time from modish trifling imper- tinence or scandal, which might otherwise afford matter for painful repentance. Observe this rule in general; whensoever it lies in your power to lead the conversation, let it be directed to some pro- fitable poiyit of hwwledge or practice, so far as may be done with decency; and let not the discourse and the hours be suff'ered to run loose without aim. or design: and when a subject is started, pass not hastily to another, before you / / " ±. 156 THE CASKET OF LITERARY GEMS. have brought the present theme or discourse to some toler- able issue, or a joint consent to drop it. 7. Attend with sincere diligence while any one of the com- pany is declaring his sense of the question proposed; hear the argument with patience, though it differ ever so much from your sentiments, for you yourself are very desirous to be heard with patience by others who differ from you. Let not your thoughts be active and busy all the while to find out something to contradict, and by what means to oppose the speaker, especially in matters which are not brought to an issue. This is a frequent and unhappy temper and practice. You should rather be intent and solicitous to take up the mind and meaning of the speaker, zealous to seize and approve all that is true in his discourse; nor yet should you want courage to oppose where it is necessary; but let- your modesty and patience, and a friendly temper, be as con- spicuous as your zeal. 8. As you should carry about with you a constant and sincere sense of your own ignorance, so you should not be afraid nor ashamed to confess this ignorance, by taking all proper opportunities to ask and inquire for farther informa- tion; whether it be the meaning of a word, the nature of a thing, the reason of a proposition, or the custom of a nation. Never remain in ignorance for want of asking. 9. Be not too forward, especially in the younger part of life, to determine any question in company with an infallible and peremptory sentence, nor speak with assuming airs, and with a decisive tone of voice. A young man in the pres- ence of his elders should rather hear and attend, and weigh the arguments which are brought for the proof or refuta- tion of any doubtful proposition; and when it is your turn to speak, propose your thoughts rather in way of inquiry. 10. As you may sometimes raise inquiries for your own instruction and improvement, and draw out the learning, wisdom, and fine sentiments of your friends, who perhaps ^J ^ N CHOICE SELECTIONS. 157 may be too reserved or modest; so at other times, if you perceive a person unskilful in the matter of debate, you may, by questions aptly proposed in the Socratic method, lead him into a clearer knowledge of the subject: then you become his instructor, in such a manner as may not appear to make yourself his superior. 1 1 . Take heed of affecting always to shine in company above the rest, and to display the riches of your own understand- ing or your oratory, as though you would render yourself admirable to all that are present. This is seldom well taken in polite company; much less should you use such forms of speech as would insinuate the ignorance or dullness of those with whom you converse. 12. Banish utterly out of all conversation, and especially out of all learned a7id intellectual conference, every thing that tends to provoke passion, or raise a fire i7i the blood. Let no sharp language, no noisy exclamation, no sarcasms or biting jests be heard among you; no perverse or invidious conse- quences be drawn from each other's opinions, and imputed to the person. All these things are enemies to friendship, and the ruin of free conversation. The impartial search of truth requires all calmness and serenity, all temper and candor; mutual instruction can never be attained in the midst of passion, pride, and clamor, unless we suppose, in the midst of such a scene, there is a loud and penetrating lecture read by both sides on the folly and shameful infirm- ities of human nature. — Watts. FIRST LOVE. I hesitate, from the apprehension of ridicule, when I approach the delicate subject of my early love. By this word I do not mean the polite attention, the gallantry, with- out hope or design, which has originated in the spirit of chivalry, and is interwoven with the texture of French i^ u i;S THE CASKET OF LITERARY GEMS. manners. I understand by this passion the union of desire, friendship, and tenderness, which is inflamed by a single female, which prefers her to the rest of her sex, and which seeks her possession as the supreme or the sole happiness of our being. I need not blush at recollecting the object of my choice; and though my love was disappointed of success, I am rather proud that I was once capable of feeling such a pure and exalted sentiment. The personal attractions of Mademoiselle Susan Curchod were embellished by the virtues and talents of the mind. Her fortune was humble, but her family was respectable. Her mother, a native of France, had preferred her religion to her country. The profession of her father did not extinguish the moderation and philosophy of his temper, and he lived content, with a small salary and laborious duty, in the obscure lot of minis- ter of Grassy, in the mountains that separate the Pays de Vaud from the county of Burgundy. In the solitude of a sequestered village he bestowed a liberal and even learned education on his only daughter. She surpassed his hopes by her proficiency in the sciences and languages; and in her short visits to some relations at Lausanne, the wit, the beauty, and erudition of Mademoiselle Curchod were the theme of universal applause. The report of such a prodigy awakened my curiosity; I saw and loved. I found her learned without pedantry, lively in conversation, pure in sentiment, and elegant in manners; and the first sudden emotion was fortified by the habits and knowledge of a more familiar acquaintance. She permitted me to make her two or three visits at her father's house. I passed some happy days there, in the mountains of Burgundy, and her parents honorably encouraged the connection. In a calm retire- ment the gay vanity of youth no longer fluttered in her bosom; she listened to the voice of truth and passion; and I might presume to hope that I had made some impression on a virtuous heart. At Grassy and Lausanne I indulged my dream of felicity: but on my return to England, I soon \ CHOICE SELECTIONS. 159 discovered that my father would not hear of this strange alliance, and that without his consent I was myself destitute and helpless. x\fter a painful struggle, I yielded to my fate: I sighed as a lover, I obeyed as a son; my wound was insensibly healed by time, absence, and the habits of a new life. My cure was accelerated by a faithful report of the tranquility and cheerfulness of the lady herself; and my love subsided in friendship and esteem. The minister of Grassy soon afterwards died; his stipend died with him; his daughter retired to Geneva, where, by teaching young ladies, she earned a hard subsistence for herself and her mother; but in her lowest distress she maintained a spotless reputa- tion and a dignified behavior. A rich banker of Paris, a citizen of Geneva, had the good fortune and good sense to discover and possess this inestimable treasure; and in the capital of taste and luxury she resisted the temptations of wealth, as she had sustained the hardships of indigence. The genius of her husband has exalted him to the most conspicuous station in Europe. In every change of pros- perity and disgrace he has reclined on the bosom of a faith- ful friend; and Mademoiselle Curchod is now the wife of M. Necker, the minister, and perhaps the legislator, of the French monarchy. — Gibbon. DELICACY OF TASTE. Nothing is so improving jto the temper as the study of the beauties either of poetry, eloquence, music, or painting. They give a certain elegance of sentiment to which the rest of mankind are strangers. The emotions which they excite are soft and tender. They draw off the mind from the hurry of business and interest; cherish reflection; dispose to tran- quility; and produce an agreeable melancholy, which, of all dispositions of the mind, is the best suited to love and friendship. •V(^ 1 60 THE CASKET OF LITERARY GEMS. In the second place, a delicacy of taste is favorable to love and friendship, by confining our choice to few people, and making us indifferent to the company and conversation of the greater part of men. You will seldom find that mere men of the world, whatever strong sense they may be endowed with, are very nice in distinguishing characters, or in marking those insensible differences and gradations which make one man preferable to another. Any one that has competent sense is sufficient for their entertainment: they talk to him of their pleasure and affairs with the same frank- ness that they would to another; and finding many who are fit to supply his place, they never feel any vacancy or want in his absence. But, to make use of the allusion of a celebrated French author, the judgment may be compared to a clock or watch where the most ordinary machine is sufficient to tell the hours, but the most elaborate alone can point out the minutes and seconds, and distinguish the smallest differences of time. One that has well digested his knowledge, both of books and men, has little enjoyment but in the company of a few select companions. He feels too sensibly how much all the rest of mankind fall short of the notions which he has entertained; and his affections being thus confined within a narrow circle, no wonder he carries them further than if they were more general and undis- tinguished. The gayety and frolic of a bottle companion improves with him into a solid friendship; and the ardors of a youthful appetite become an elegant passion. — Hitme. REPLY OF PITT TO WALPOLE, ON BEING TAUNTED ON ACCOUNT OF YOUTH. Sir, — The atrocious crime of being a young man, which the honorable gentleman has, with such spirit and decency, charged upon me, I shall neither attempt to palliate nor deny; but content myself with wishing that I may be one of \ \ CHOICE SELECTIONS. i6i .^ those whose follies may cease with their youth, and not of that number who are ignorant in spite of experience. Whether youth can be imputed to any man as a reproach, I will not, sir, assume the province of determining; but surely age may become justly contemptible, if the opportunities which it bring have passed away without improvement, and vice appears to prevail when the passions have subsided. The wretch who, after having seen the consequences of a thousand errors, continues still to blunder, and whose age has only added obstinacy to stupidity, is surely the object either of abhorrence or contempt, and deserves not that his gray hairs should secure him from insult. ^luch more, sir, is he to be abhorred, who as he has advanced in age, has receded from virtue, and become more wicked with less temptation; who prostitutes himself for money which he can- not enjoy, and spends the remains of his life in the ruin of his country. But youth, sir, is not my only crime; I have been accused of acting a theatrical part. A theatrical part may either imply some peculiarities of gesture, or a dissimulation of my real sentiments, and an adoption of the opinions and langu- age of another man. In the first sense, sir, the charge is too trifling to be con- futed, and deserves only to be mentioned, that it may be despised. I am at liberty, like every other man, to use my own language; and though, perhaps, I may have some ambition to please this gentleman, I shall not lay myself under any restraint, nor very solicitously copy his diction or his mien, however matured by age, or modelled by experi- ence. But if any man shall, by charging me with theatrical behavior imply that I utter any sentiments but my own, I shall treat him as a calumniator and a villain; nor shall any protection shelter him from the treatment he deserves. I shall, on such an occasion, without scruple, trample upon all those forms with which wealth and dignity intrench i6: THE CASKET OF LITERARY GEMS. ~7- themselves; nor shall anything but age restrain my resent- ment — age, which always brings one privilege, that of being insolent and supercilious, ^^'ithout punishment. But with regard, sir, to those whom I have offended, I am of opinion that if I had acted a borrowed part, I should have avoided their censure; the heat that offended them is the ardor of conviction, and that zeal for the service of my country which neither hope nor fear shall influence me to suppress. I will not sit unconcerned while my liberty is invaded, nor look in silence upon public robbery. I will exert my endeavors, at whatever hazard, to repel the aggres- sor, and drag the thief to justice, whoever may protect him in his villainy, and whoever may partake of his plunder. — Lord Chatham. THE INDIAN CHIEF TO THE WHITE SETTLER. Think of the country for which the Indians fought 1 Who can blame them? As Philip looked down from his seat on ]\Iount Hope, that glorious eminence, that " throne of royal state, which far Outshone the wealth of Ormus and of Ind, Or where the gorgeous East, with richest hand, Showers on her kings barbaric pearl and gold," — as he looked down, and beheld the lovely scene which spread beneath, at a summer sunset, the distant hill-tops glittering as with fire, the slanting beams streaming across the waters, the broad plains, the island groups, the majestic forest — could he be blamed, if his heart burned within him, as he beheld it all passing, by no tardy process, from beneath his control, into the hands of the stranger? As the river chieftains — the lords of the waterfalls and the mountains — ranged this lovely valley, can it be wondered at, if they beheld with bitterness the forest disappearing beneath the settler's axe — the fishing-place disturbed by his saw- mills? Can we not fancy the feelings with which some strong-minded savage, the chief of the Pocomtuck Indians, ^. y- K" CHOICE SELECTIONS. 1 63 who should have ascended the summit of the Sugar-loaf Mountain (rising as it does before us, at this moment, in all its loveliness and grandeur) — in company with a friendly set- tler — contemplating the progress already made by the white man, and marking the gigantic strides with which he was ad- vancing into the wilderness, should fold his arms and say, " White man, there is eternal war between me and thee! I quit not the land of my fathers, but with my hfe. In those woods, where I bent my youthful bow, I will still hunt the deer; over yonder waters I will still glide, unrestrained, in my bark canoe. By those dashing waterfalls I will still lay up my winter's store of food; on these fertile meadows I will still plant my corn. "Stranger, the land is mine! I understand not these paper rights. I gave not my consent, when, as thou sayest, these broad regions were purchased, for a few baubles, of my fathers. They could sell what was theirs, they could sell no more. How could my father sell that which the Great Spirit sent me into the world to live upon? They knew not what they did. " The stranger came, a timid suppliant — few and feeble, and asked to lie down on the red man's bear-skin, and warm himself at the red man's fire, and have a little piece of land to raise corn for his women and children; and now he is become strong, and mighty, and bold, and spreads out his parchments over the whole, and says, ' It is mine.' " Stranger! there is not room for us both. The Great Spirit has not made us to live together. There is poison in the white man's cup; the white man's dog barks at the red man's heels. If I should leave the land of my fathers, whither shall I fly? Shall I go to the south, and dwell among the graves of the Pequots? Shall I wander to the west, the fierce Mohawk — the man-eater — is my foe. Shall I fly to the east, the great water is before me. No, stranger; here I have lived, and here will I die; and if here thou abidest, there is eternal war between me and thee. V.V K 164 THE CASKET OF LITERARY GEMS. "Thou hast taught me thy art of destruction; for that alone I thank- thee. And now take heed to thy steps; the red man is thy foe. When thou goest forth by day, my bullet shall whistle past thee; when thou liest down by night, my knife is at thy throat. The noonday sun shall not dis- cover thy enemy, and the darkness of midnight shall not protect thy rest. Thou shalt plant in terror, and I will reap in blood; thou shalt sow the earth with corn, and I will strew it with ashes; thou shalt go forth with the sickle, and I will follow after with the scalping-knife; thou shalt build, and I will burn — till the white man or the Indian perish from the land. Go thy way for this time in safety — but remember, stranger, there is eterfial war between me and thee'' — Edward Everett. EARLY RECOLLECTIONS. The fields on which I first looked, and the sands which were marked by my earliest footsteps, are completely lost to my memory; and of those ancient walls among which I began to breathe, I retain no recollection more clear than the outhnes of a cloud in a moonless sky. But of L , the village where I afterwards lived, I persuade myself that every line and hue is more deeply and accurately fixed than those of any spot I have since beheld, even though borne-in upon the heart by the association of the strongest feelings. My home was built upon the slope of a hill, with a little orchard stretching down before it, and a garden rising behind. At a considerable distance beyond and beneath the orchard, a rivulet flowed through meadows and turned a mill; while, above the garden, the summit of the hill was crowned by a few gray rocks, from which a yew-tree grew, solitary and bare. Extending at each side of the orchard, toward the brook, tvvo scattered patches of cottages lay nestled among their gardens; and beyond this streamlet and the little mill and bridge, another slight eminence arose, divided into green / \ y- N A CHOICE SELECTIONS. 165 fields, tufted and bordered with copsewood, and crested by a ruined castle, contemporary, as was said,* with the Con- quest. I know not whether these things in truth made-up a prospect of much beauty. Since I was eight years old, I have never seen them; but I well know that no landscape I have since beheld, no picture of Claude or Salvator, gave me half the impression of living, heartfelt, perfect beauty which fills my mind when I think of that green valley, that sparkling rivulet, that broken fortress of dark antiquity, and that hill with its aged yew and breezy summit, from which I have so often looked over the broad stretch of verdure beneath it, and the country-town, and church-tower, silent and white beyond. In that little town there was, and I believe is, a school where the elements of human knowledge were communicated to me, for some hours of every day, during a considerable time. The path to it lay across the rivulet and past the mill; from which point we could either journey through the fields below the old castle, and the wood which surrounded it, or along a road at the other side of the ruin, close to the gateway of which it passed. The former track led through two or three beautiful fields, the sylvan domain of the keep on one hand, and the brook on the other; while an oak or two, like giant warders advanced from the wood, broke the sunshine of the green with a soft and graceful shadow. How often, on my way to school, have I stopped beneath the tree to collect the fallen acorns; how often run down to the stream to pluck a branch of the hawthorn which hung over the water! The road which passed the castle joined, beyond these fields, "the path which traversed them. It took, I well remember, a certain solemn and mysterious interest from the ruin. The shadow of the archway, the discolorisations of time on all the walls, the dimness of the little thicket which encircled it, the traditions of its immeasurable age, made St. Quen tin's Castle a wonderful and awful fabric in the imagination of a child; and long after I last saw its — ^ ^ 1 66 THE CASKET OF LITERARY GEMS. mouldering roughness^ I never read of fortresses, or heights, or spectres, or banditti, without connecting them with the one ruin of my childhood. It was close to ihis spot that one of the few adventures occurred which marked, in my mind, my boyish days with importance. When loitering beyond the castle, on the way to school, with a brother somewhat older than myself, who was uniformly my champion and protector, we espied a round sole high up in the hedge-row. We determined to obtain it; and I do not remember whether both of us, or only my brother, climbed the tree. However, when the prize was ail-but reached — and no alchymist ever looked more eagerly for the moment of projection which was to give him immortality and omnipotence — a gruff voice startled us with an oath, and an order to desist; and I well recollect looking back, for long after, with terror to the vision of an old and ill-tempered farmer, armed with a bill-hook, and vowing our decapitation; nor did I subsequently remember without triumph the eloquence whereby alone, in my firm belief, my brother and myself had been rescued from instant death. At the entrance of the little town stood an old gateway, with a pointed arch and decaying battlements. It gave admittance to the street which contained the church, and which terminated in another street, the principal one in the town of C . In this was situated the school to which I daily wended. I cannot now recall to mind the face of its good conductor, nor of any of his scholars: but I have before me a strong general image of the interior of his establishment. I remember the reverence with which I was wont to carry to his seat a well-thumbed duodecimo, the History of Greece by Oliver Goldsmith. I remember the mental agonies I endured in attempting to master the art and mystery of penmanship; a craft in which, alas, I remained too short a time under Mr. R to become as great a proficient as he made his other scholars, and which / \ >f- CHOICE SELECTIONS. 167 my awkwardness has prevented me from attaining in any considerable perfection under my various subsequent peda- gogues. But that which has left behind it a brilliant trail of light was the exhibition of what are called " Christmas pieces; " things unknown in aristocratic seminaries, but con- stantly used at the comparatively humble academy which supplied the best knowledge of reading, writing, and arith- metic to be attained in that remote neighborhood. The long desks covered from end to end with those painted masterpieces, the Life of Robinson Crusoe, the Hunting of Chevy-Chase, the History of Jack the Giant- Killer, and all the little eager faces and trembling hands bent over these, and filling them up with some choice quota- tion, sacred or profane; — no, the galleries of art, the theatrical exhibitions, the reviews and processions — which are only not childish because they are practised and ad- mired by men instead of children — all the' pomps and vanities of great cities, have shown me no revelation of glory such as did that crowded school-room the week before the Christmas holidays. But these were the splendors of life. The truest and the strongest feelings do not con- nect themselves with any scenes of gorgeous and gaudy magnificence; they are bound-up in the remembrances of home. The narrow orchard, with its grove of old apple-trees, against one of which I used to lean, and while I brandished a beanstalk, roar out with Fitzjames, " Come one, come all ; this rock shall fly From its firm base as.soon as I " — while I was ready to squall at the sight of a cur, and run valorously away from a casually approaching cow; the field close beside it, where I rolled about in summer among the hay; the brook in which, despite of maid and mother, I waded by the hour; the garden where I sowed flower-seeds, and then turned up the ground again and planted potatoes, and then rooted-out the potatoes to insert acorns and -7 1 68 THE CASKET OF LITERARY GEMS. apple-pips, and at last, as may be supposed, reaped neither roses, nor potatoes, nor oak-trees, nor apples; the grass- plots on which I played among those with whom I never can play nor work again: all these are places and employments — and, alas, playmates — such as, if it were worth while to weep at all, it would be worth weeping that I enjoy no longer. I remember the house where I first grew familiar with pea- cocks; and the mill-stream into which I once fell; and the rehgious awe wherewith I heard, in the warm twilight, the psalm-singing around the house of the Methodist miller; and the door-post against which I discharged my brazen artillery; I remember the window by which I sat while my mother taught me French; and the patch of garden which I dug for But her name is best left blank; it was indeed writ in water. The recollections are to me like the wealth of a departed friend, a mournful treasure. But the public has heard enough of them; to it they are worthless: they are a coin which only circulates as its true value between the different periods of an individual's existence, and good for nothing but to keep-up a commerce between boyhood and manhood. I have for years looked forward to the possibility of visiting L ; but I am told that it is a changed village; and not only has man been at work, but the old yew on the hill has fallen, and scarcely a low stump remains of the tree which I delighted in childhood to think might have furnished bows for the Norman archers. — John Sterling. THE DEPARTURE OF WILLIAM PENN FOR AMERICA. It was on the morning of the ist of September, 1682, that WiUiam Penn stood upon the deck of the " Welcome," as she was about to weigh anchor at Deal. She was a ship of three hundred tons, bearing one hundred emigrants. As the forms of loved ones on the shore receded, and Dover l_ ^ CHOICE SELECTIONS. 1 69 Castle and the last white cliffs of Albion were wrapped in the haze of distance, the cloud of parting sadness lifted itself from the brow of the young leader of the expedition. For young he was, to have achieved so much, and to have stood in such trying and contradictory positions. The pos- sessor of varied learning, acquired by profound study, yet skilled in the details and expert in the transaction of busi- ness; a favorite at court and with foreign princes, yet the preacher of a creed that contemned their pride and refused homage to their state; a writer of eminence, an eloquent legal advocate, yet repeatedly a prisoner in bonds; the father of a lovely family, the owner, legislator, and future governor of a province larger in extent than his own native England, he was not yet thirty-eight years old. But the character which had been already ripened by adversity was to be further disciplined by perils on the sea. During their storm-tossed voyage of two months, the small- pox broke out among them, and aggravated by their crowded condition, raged with terrific violence. The heavy plunge of the corpse beneath the sullen surge, was heard day after day. William Penn, with tireless sympathy, and the serenity of a tutelary spirit, attended the sick, watched, nursed, gave medicine, and administered the consolation of religion to the departing soul. Thirty of his friends, men, women, and children, were laid to rest on a watery pillow, until the sea shall give up their dead. The horrors of that passage were never forgotten by those who shared it; and like men struggling with a mortal foe, they hailed the first glimpse of the shores of the New World. Fully did the "Welcome," justify her name, both by those whom she brought to the green banks of the Delaware, and those who there rapturously received them. The speech of the new governor was enthusiastically applauded. With that joy which those can best understand, who after long dangers on the ocean, once more set their feet upon the earth, yet chastened by the gravity of one who feels solemn A •s> mysteriously does a holy of holies build itself into visibility in the mysterious deeps; and reverence, the divinest in man, springs forth undying from its mean envelopment of fear. Would'st thou rather be a peasant's son that knew, were it never so rudely, there was a God in heaven and in man; or a duke's son that only knew there were two-and-thirty quarters on the family coach? Nature Alone Is Antique. It struck me much, as I sat by the Kubach, one silent noontide, and watched it flowing, gurgling, to think how this same streamlet had flowed and gurgled, through all changes of weather and of fortune, from beyond the earliest date of history. Yes, probably on the morning when Joshua forded Jordan; even as at the midday when Ccesar, doubtless with difficulty, swam the Nile, yet kept his Commentaries dry — this little Kuhbach, assiduous as Tiber, Eurotas or Siloa, was murmuring on across the wilderness, as yet unnamed, unseen: here, too, as in the Euphrates and the Ganges, is a vein or veinlet of the grand world-circulation of waters, which, with its atmospheric arteries, has lasted and lasts simply with the world. Thou fool! Nature alone is antique, and the oldest art a mushroom; that idle crag thou sittest on is six thousand years of age. Love. If in youth, the universe is majestically unveiling, and everywhere heaven revealing itself on earth, nowhere to the young man does this heaven on earth so immediately reveal itself as in the young maiden. Strangely enough, in this strange life of ours, it has been so appointed. On the whole, as I have often said, a person (^Perso7ilichkeif) is ever holy to us; a certain orthodox Anthropomorphism connects my me with all thees in bonds of love: but* it is in this approximation of the like and unlike, that such heavenly attraction, as between negative and positive, first burns out ^ ;^: ^ $ \ 1 80 THE CASKET OF LITERARY GEMS. into a flame. Is the pitifullest mortal person, think you, indifferent to us? Is it not rather our heartfelt wish to be made one with him; to unite him to us, by gratitude, by admiration, even by fear; or failing all these, unite ourselves to him? But how much more, in this case of the like- unlike! Here is conceded us the higher mystic possibility of such a union, the highest in our earth; thus, in the con- ducting medium of fantasy, flames-forth that y^r^f-develop- ment of the universal spiritual electricity, which, as unfolded between man and woman, we first emphatically denominate Love. In every well-conditioned stripling, as I conjecture, there already blooms a certain prospective Paradise, cheered by some fairest Eve; nor, in the stately vistas, and flowerage and foliage of that garden, is a tree of knowledge, beautiful and awful in the midst thereof, wanting. Perhaps too the whole is but the lovelier, if cherubim and a flaming sword divide it from all footsteps of men; and grant him, the imaginative stripling, only the view, not the entrance. Happy season of virtuous youth, when shame is still an impassable celestial barrier; and the sacred air-cities of hope have not shrunk into the mean clay-hamlets of reality; and man, by his nature, is yet infinite and free! Anger. To consume your own choler, as some chimneys consume their own smoke; to keep a whole satanic school spouting, if it must spout, inaudibly, is a negative yet no slight virtue, nor one of the commonest in these times. Joy and Sorrow. A peculiar feeling it is that will rise in the traveler, when turning some hill-range in his desert road, he descries lying far below, embosomed among its groves and green natural bulwarks, and all diminished to a toybox, the fair town, where so many souls, as it were seen and yet unseen, are z. y- \ CHOICE SELECTIONS. 16 I driving their multifarious traffic. Its white steeple is then truly a starward-pointing finger; the canopy of blue smoke seems like a sort of life-breath: for always, of its own unity, the soul gives unity to whatsoever it looks on with love ;• thus does the little dwelling-place of men, in itself a congeries of houses and huts, become for us an individual, almost a per- son. But what thousand other thoughts unite thereto, if the place has to ourselves been the arena of joyous or mournful experiences; if perhaps the cradle we were rocked in still stands there, if our loving ones still dwell there, if our buried ones there slumber! Conduct. But indeed conviction, were it never so excellent, is worth- less till it convert itself into conduct. Nay, properly, con- viction is not possible till then; inasmuch as all speculation is by nature endless, formless, a vortex amid vortices: only by a felt indubitable certainty of experience does it find any centre to revolve round, and so fashion itself into a system. Most true is it, as a wise man teaches us, that " Doubt of any sort cannot be removed except by action." On which ground, too, let him who gropes painfully in darkness or uncertain light, and prays vehemently that the dawn may ripen into day, lay this other precept well to heart, which to me was of invaluable service: " Do the duty which lies nearest thee,'' which thou knowest to be a duty! Thy second duty will already have become clearer. Light, the Beginning of all Creation. But it is with man's soul as it was with nature: the begin- ning of creation is — light. Till the eye have vision, the whole members are in bonds. Divine moment, when over the tempest-tost soul, as once over the wild-weltering chaos, it is spoken: Let there be light! Ever to the greatest that has felt such moment, is it not miraculous and God-announc- ing; even as, under simpler figures, to the simplest and ^ J- ~7\ 182 THE CASKET OF LITERARY GEMS. least. The mad primeval discord is hushed; the rudely- jumbled conflicting elements bind themselves into separate firmaments: deep silent rock-foundations are built beneath; and the skyey vault with its everlasting luminaries above: instead of a dark wasteful chaos, we have a blooming, fertile, heaven-encompassed world. COMxMUNION OF SoULS. Mystical, more than magical, is that communing of soul with soul, both looking heavenward: here properly soul first speaks with soul; for only in looking heavenward, take it in what sease you may, not in looking earthward, does what we can call union, mutual love, society, begin to be possible. How true is that of Novalis: " It is certain, my belief gains quite infinitely the moment I can convince another mind thereof! " Gaze thou in the face of thy brother, in those eyes where plays the lambent fire of kindness, or in those where rages the lurid conflagration of anger; feel how thy •own so quiet soul is straightway involuntarily kindled with the like, and ye blaze and reverberate on each other, till it is all one limitless confluent flame (of embracing love, or of deadly-grappling hate); and then say what miraculous virtue goes out of man into man. But if so, through all the thick- plied hulls of our earthly life; how much more when it is of the divine life we speak, and inmost nie is, as it were, brought into contact with inmost me\ Silence and Secrecy. Silence and secrecy! Altars might still be raised to them (were this an altar-building time) for universal worship. Silence is the element in which great things fashion them- selves together; that at length they may enierge, full-formed and majestic, into the daylight of life, which they are thence- forth to rule. Not William the Silent only, but all the con- siderable men I have known, and the most undiplomatic and unstrategic of these, forbore to babble of what they ^ \ >^ CHOICE SELECTIONS. 1 83 were creating and projecting. Nay, in thy own mean per- plexities, do thou thyself but hold thy tongue for one day: on the morrow, how much clearer are thy purposes and duties; what wreck and rubbish have those mute workmen within thee swept away, when intrusive noises were shut out! Speech is too often not, as the Frenchman defined it, the art of concealing thought; but of quite stifling and suspend- ing thought, so that there is none to conceal. Speech too is great, but not the greatest. As the Swiss inscription says: Sprechen ist silbern, schmeigen ist golden (speech is silvern, silence is golden); or as I might rather express it: Speech is of time, silence is of eternity. Bees will not work except in darkness; thought will not work except in silence: neither will virtue work except in secrecy. Let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth! Neither shalt thou prate even to thy own heart of " those secrets known to all." Is not shame {schaani) the soil of all virtue, of all good manners and good morals? Like other plants, virtue will not grow unless its root be hidden, buried from the eye of the sun. Let the sun shine on it, nay do but look at it privily thyself, the root withers, and no flower will glad thee. O my friends, w^hen we view the fair clustering flowers that overwreathe, for example, the marriage-bower, and encircle man's life with the fragrance, and hues of heaven, what hand will not smite the foul plun- derer that grubs them up by the roots, and with grinning, grunting satisfaction, shows us the dung they flourish in! Two Men Alone Honorable. Two men I honor, and no third. First, the toilworn craftsman that with earth-made implement laboriously con- quers the earth, and makes her man's. Venerable to me is the hard hand; crooked, coarse; wherein, notwithstanding, lies a cunning virtue, indefeasibly royal, as of the sceptre of this planet. Venerable too is the rugged face, all weather- tanned, besoiled, with its rude intelligence; for it is. the face V K 184 THE CASKET OF LITERARY GEMS. J- of a man living manlike. O, but the more venerable for thy rudeness, and even because we must pity as well as love thee! Hardly-entreated brother! For us was thy back so bent, for us were thy straight limbs and fingers so deformed: thou wert our conscript, on whom the lot fell, and fighting our battles wert so marred. For in thee too lay a god-created form, but it was not to be unfolded; encrusted must it stand with the thick adhesions and defacements of labor: and thy body, like thy soul, was not to knov,- freedom. Yet toil on, toil on: //lou art in thy duty, be .out of it who may; thou toilest for the altogether indispensable, for daily bread. A second man I honor, and still more highly: him who is seen toiling for the spiritually indispensable: not daily bread, but the bread of life. Is not he too in his duty; endeavor- ing towards inward harmony; revealing this, by act or by word, through all his outward endeavors, be they high or low? Highest of all, when his outward and his inward endeavor are one: when we can name him artist; not earthly craftsman only, but inspired thinker, who with heaven-made implement conquers heaven for us! If the poor and humble toil that we have food, must not the high and glorious toil for him in return, that we have light, have guidance, freedom, immortality? — These two, in all their degrees, I honor, all else is chaff and dust, which let the wind blow whither it listeth. Unspeakably touching is it, however, when I find both dignities united; and he that must toil outwardly for the lowest of man's wants, is also toiling inwardly for the highest. Sublimer in this world know I nothing than a Peasant Saint, could such now anywhere be met with. Such a one will take thee back to Nazareth itself; thou wilt see the splendor of heaven spring forth from the humblest depths of earth, like a light shining in great darkness. The Poor Man. It is not because of his toils that I lament for the poor: we must all toil or steal (howsoever we name our stealing). \ CHOICE SELECTIONS. 1 85 which is worse; no faithful workman finds his task a pastime. The poor is hungry and athirst; but for him also there is food and drink: he is heavy-laden and weary; but for him also the heavens send sleep, and of the deepest; in his smoky cribs, a clear dewy heaven of rest envelops him, and fitful glitterings of cloud-skirted dreams. But what I do mourn over is, that the lamp of his soul should go out; that no ray of heavenly, or even of earthly knowledge, should visit him; but only, in the haggard darkness, like two spectres, fear and indignation bear him company. Alas, while the body stands so broad and brawny, must the soul lie blinded, dwarfed, stupefied, almost annihilated! Alas, was this too a breath of God; bestowed in heaven, but on earth never to be unfolded! — That there should one man die ignorant who had capacity for knowledge, this I call a tragedy, were it to happen more than twenty times in the minute, as by some computations it does. The miserable fraction of science which our united mankind, in a wide universe of nescience, has acquired, why is not this, with all diligence, imparted to all? {From ^^ Past and Present. ^^^ Fair Day's Wages for Fair Day's Work. F^ir day's wages for fair day's work! exclaims a sarcastic man: Alas, in what corner of this planet, since Adam first awoke on it, was that ever realised? The day's wages of John Milton's day's work, named Paradise Lost and Milto7i's Works, were ten pounds paid by installments, and a rather close escape from death on the gallows. Consider that: it is no rhetorical flourish; it is an authentic, altogether quiet fact — emblematic, quietly documentary of a whole world of such, ever since human history began. Oliver Cromwell quitted his farming; undertook a Hercules' labor and life- long wrestle with that Lernean hydra-coil, wide as England, v" \ V 1 86 THE CASKET OF LITERARY GEMS. hissing heaven-high through its thousand crowned, coroneted, shovel-hatted quack-heads; and he did wrestle with it, the truest and terriblest wrestle I have heard of; and he wrestled it, and mowed and cut it down a good many stages, so that its hissing is ever since pitiful in comparison, and one can walk abroad in comparative peace from it; — and his wages, as I understand, were burial under the gallows-tree near Tyburn turnpike, with his head on the gable of Westminster Hall, and two centuries now of mixed cursing and ridicule from all manner of men. His dust lies under the Edgware road, near Tyburn turnpike, at this hour; and his memory is — Nay what matters what his memory is? His memory, at bottom, is or yet shall be as that of a god: a terror and hor- ror to all quacks and cowards and insincere persons; an everlasting encouragement, new memento, battleword, and pledge of victory to all the brave. It is the natural course and history of the God-like, in every place, in every time. A Brave Man. A brave man, strenuously fighting, fails not of a little triumph now and then, to keep him in heart. Everywhere we try at least, to give the adversary as good as he brings; and, with swift force or slow watchful manoeuvre, extinguish this and the other solecism, leave one solecism less in God's creation; and so proceed with our battle, not slacken or surrender in it! Hell. " The word hell," says Sauerteig, " is still frequently in use among the English people: but I could not without diffi- culty ascertain what they meant by it. Hell generally signifies the infinite terror, the thing a man is infinitely afraid of, and shudders and shrinks from, struggling with his whole soul to escape from it. There is a hell therefore, if you will consider, which accompanies man, in all stages of his history, and religious or other development: but the hells of K- CHOICE SELECTIONS. 187 men and peoples differ notably. With Christians it is the infinite terror of being found guilty before the Just Judge. With old Romans, I conjecture, it was the terror not of Pluto, for whom probably they cared little, but of doing unworthily, doing unvirtuously, which was their word for un;;/^>^fully. And now what is it, if you pierce through his cants, his oft-repeated hearsays, what he calls his worships and so forth — what is it that the modern English soul does, in very truth, dread infinitely, and contemplate with entire despair? What is his hell, after all these reputable, oft- repeated hearsays, what is it? With hesitation, with aston- ishment, I pronounce it to be: The terror of ' Not succeed- ing; ' of not making money, fame, or some other figure in the world — chiefly of not making money! Is not that a somewhat singular hell? " Wretchedness. It is not to die, or even to die of hunger, that makes a man wretched; many men have died; all men must die — the last exit of us all is in the fire-chariot of pain. But it is to live miserable we know not why; to work sore and yet gain nothing; to be heart-worn, weary, yet isolated, unrelated, girt-in with a cold universal Laissez-faire: it is to die slowly all our life long, imprisoned in a deaf, dead, infinite injustice, as in the accursed iron belly of a Phalaris' Bull! This is and remains forever intolerable to all men whom God has made. {Miscellaneous Selections^ Advice to a Young Man. The following admirable letter, addresssed by Mr. Carlyle in 1843 to a young man who had written to him desiring his advice as to a proper choice of reading, and, it would appear also, as to his conduct in general, is taken from its hiding 1^* 1 88 THE CASKET OF LITERARY GEMS. place in an old Scottish newspaper of a quarter of a century ago: '' Dear Sir, — Some time ago your letter was delivered me; I take literally the first free half-hour I have had since to write you a word of answer. " It would give me true satisfaction could any advice of mine continue to forward you in your honorable course of self-improvement, but a long experience has taught me that advice can profit but little; that there is a good reason why advice is so seldom followed; this reason namely, that it so seldom, and can almost never be, rightly given. No man knows the state of another; it is always to some more or less imaginary man that the wisest and most honest adviser is speaking. '^ As to the books which you — whom I know so little of — should read, there is hardly anything definite that can be said. For one thing, you may be strenuously advised to keep reading. Any good book, any book that is wiser than yourself, will teach you something — a great many things, indirectly and directly, if your mind be open to learn. This old counsel of Johnson's is also good, and universally applicable: — ^ Read the book you do honestly feel a wish and curiosity to read.' The very wish and curiosity indi- cates that you, then and there, are the person likely to get good of it. ' Our wishes are presentiments of our capabili- ties; ' that is a noble saying, of deep encouragement to all true men; applicable to our wishes and efforts in regard to reading as to other things. Among all the objects that look wonderful or beautiful to you, follow with fresh hope the one which looks wonderfullest, beautifullest. You will gradually find, by various trials (which trials see that you make honest, manful ones, not silly, short, fitful ones), what is for you the wonderfullest, beautifullest— what is your true element and province, and be able to profit by that. True desire, the monition of nature, is much to be attended to. But here, also, you are to discria^inate carefully between "Z K" CHOICE SELECTIONS. 71 ti'ue desire and false. The medical men tell us we should eat what we tj-idy have an appetite for; but what we only falsely have an appetite for we should resolutely avoid. It is very true; and flimsy, desultory readers, who fly from foolishbook to foolish book, and get good of none, and mis- chief of all — are not these as foolish, unhealthy eaters, who mistake their superficial false desire after spiceries and con- fectionaries for their real appetite, of which even they are not destitute, though it lies far deeper, after solid nutritive food? With these illustrations, I will recommend Johnson's advice to you. " Another thing, and only one other, I will say. All books are properly the record of the history of past men — what actions past men did: the summary of all bopks whatsoever lies there. It is on this ground that the class of books specifically named History can be safely recommended as the basis of all study of books — the preliminary to all right and full understanding of anything we can expect to find in books. Past history, arid especially the past history of one's own native country, everybody may be advised to begin with that. Let him study that faithfully; innumerable inquiries will branch out from it; he has a broad-beaten highway, from which all the country is more or less visible: there travelling, let him choose where he will dwell. '' Neither let mistakes and wrong directions — of which every man, in his studies and elsewhere, falls into many — discourage you. There is precious instruction to be got by finding that we are wrong. Let a man try faithfully, man- fully, to be right, he will grow daily more and more right. It is, at bottom, the condition which all men have to culti- vate themselves. Our very walking is an incessant faUing — a falling and a catching of ourselves before we come actually to the pavement! — it is emblematic of all things a man does. " In conclusion, I will remind you that it is not books alone, or by books chiefly, that a man becomes in all points N ^- / 190 THE CASKET OF LITERARY GEZ^S. a man. Study to do faithfully whatsoever thing in your actual situation, there and now, you find either expressly or tacitly laid to your charge; that is your post; stand in it like a true soldier. Silently devour the many chagrins of it, as all human situations have many; and see you aim not to quit it without doing all that it, at least, required of you. A man perfects himself by work much more than by reading. They are a growing kind of men that can wisely combine the two things — wisely, valiantly, can do what is laid to their hand in their present sphere, and prepare themselves withal for doing other wider things, if such lie before them. " With many good wishes and encouragements, I remain, yours sincerely, " Thomas Carlyle. " Chelsea, 13th March, 1843." Music. Music is well said to be the speech of angels; in fact, nothing among the utterances allowed to man is felt to be so divine. It brings us near to the Infinite; we look for mo- ments, across the cloudy elements, into the eternal sea of light, when song leads and inspires us. Serious nations, all nations that can still listen to the mandate of nature, have prized song and music as the highest; as a vehicle for wor- ship, for prophecy, and for whatsoever in them was divine. Their singer was a vates, admitted to the council of the universe, friend of the gods, and choicest benefactor to man. The Song and the Singer. To " sing the praise of God," that, you will find, if you can interpret old words, and see what new things they mean, was always, and will always be, the business of the singer. He who forsakes that business, and, wasting our divinest gifts, sings the praise of chaos, what shall we say of him! David, king of Judah, a soul inspired by divine music and much other heroism, was wont to pour himself in song; he, \/ ^\ ^ CHOICE SELECTIONS. I9I with seer's eye and heart, discerned the Godlike amid the human; struck tones that were an echo of the sphere- harmonies, and are still felt to be such. Reader, art thou one of a thousand, able still to read a Psalm of David, and catch some echo of it through the old dim centuries; feeling far off, in thy own heart, what it once was to other hearts made as thine? To sing it attempt not, for it is impossible in this late time; only know that it once was sung. Then go to the opera, and hear, with unspeakable reflections, what things men now sing! The Modern Opera. Good sirs, surely I by no means expect the opera will abolish itself this year or the next. But if you ask me, Why heroes are not born now, why heroisms are not done now? I will answer you: It is a world all calculated for strangling of heroisms. At every ingress into life, the genius of the world lies in wait for heroisms, and by seduction or compulsion unweariedly does its utmost to pervert them or extinguish them. Yes ; to its hells of sweating tailors, distressed needlewomen and the like, this opera of yours is the appro- priate heaven! Of a truth, if you will read a psalm of Asaph till you understand it, and then come hither and hear the Rossini-and-Coletti psalm, you will find the ages have altered a good deal. * * * ^ Nor do I wish all men to become psalmist x\saphs and fanatic Hebrews. Far other is my wish; far other, and wider, is now my notion of this universe. Populations of stern faces, stern as any Hebrew, but capable withal of bursting into inextinguishable laughter on occasion — do you understand that new and better form of character? Laughter also, if it come from the heart, is a heavenly thing. But, at least and lowest, I would have you a population abhor- ring phantasms — abhorring unveraciiy in all things; and in your " amusements," which are voluntarily and not com- pulsory things, abhorring it most impatiently of all. :^ \ 192 the casket of literary gems. Food and Raiment. Man is born to expend every particle of strength that God Ah-nighty has given him, in doing the work he finds he is fit for — to stand it out to the last breath of life, and do his best. We are called upon to do that; and the reward we all get — which we are perfectly sure of if we have merited it — is that we have got the work done, or, at least, that we have tried to do the workj for that is a great blessing in itself; and I should say there is not very much more reward than that going in this world. If the man gets meat and clothes, what matters it whether he have 10,000/., or 10,000,000/., or 70/. a year. He can get meat and clothes for that; and he will find very little difference intrinsically, if he is a wise man. I warmly second the advice of the wisest of men — " Don't be ambitious; don't be at all too desirous to succeed; be loyal and modest." Cut down the proud towering thoughts that you get into you, or see they be pure as well as high. There is a nobler ambition than the gaining of all California would be, or the getting of all the suffrages that are on the planet just now. EXTRACTS FROM THE WORKS OF JOHN RUSKIN. Pride. Pride is base from the necessary foolishness of it, because at its best, that is when grounded on a just estimation of our own elevation or superiority above certain others, it cannot but imply that our eyes look downward only, and have never been raised above our own measure, for there is not the man so lofty in his standing nor capacity but he must be humble in thinking of the cloud habitation and far sight of the angehc intelligences above him, and in perceiving what infinity there is of things he cannot know nor even reach unto, as it stands compared with that little body of things he can reach, and of which nevertheless he can altogether under- \ -♦- CHOICE SELECTIONS. I93 stand not one: not to speak of that wicked and fond attri- buting of such excellency as he may have to himself, and thinking of it as his own getting, which is the real essence and criminahty of pride, nor of those viler forms of it, founded on false estimation of things beneath us and irra- tional contemning of them: but taken at its best, it is still base to that degree that there is no grandeur of feature which it cannot destroy and make despicable. The Truth of Truths. Truth is to be discovered, and pardon to be won for every man by himself. This is evident from innumerable texts of Scripture, but chiefly from those which exhort every man to seek after truth, and which connect knowing with doing. We are to seek after knowledge as silver, and search for her as for hid treasures; therefore, from every man she must be naturally hid, and the discovery of her is to be the reward only of personal search. The kingdom of God is as treasure hid in a fieldj and of those who profess to help us to seek for it, we are not to put confidence in those who say — Here is the treasure, we have found it, and have it, and will give you some of it; but to those who say — We think that is a good place to dig, and you will dig most easily in such and such a way. Farther, it has been promised that if such earnest search be made, truth shall be discovered: as much truth, that is, as is necessary for the person seeking. These, therefore, I hold, for two fundamental principles of religion — that, without seeking, truth cannot be known at all; and that, by seeking, it may be discovered by the simplest. I say, without seek- ing it cannot be known at all. It can neither be declared from pulpits, nor set down in articles, nor in any wise '' pre- pared and sold " in packages, ready for use. Truth must be ground for every man by himself out of its husk, with such help as he can get, indeed, but not without stern labor of his own. In what science is knowledge to be had cheap? or F ^ 1 194 THE CASKET OF LITERARY GEMS. truth to be told over a velvet cushion, in half an hour's talk every seventh day? Can you learn chemistry so? — zoology? — anatomy? and do you expect to penetrate the secret of all secrets, and to know that whose price is above rubies; and of which the depth saith — It is not in me, in so easy fashion? There are doubts in this matter which evil spirits darken with their wings, and that is true of all such doubts which we were told long ago — they can "be ended by action alone." As surely as we live, this truth of truths can only so be discerned: to those who act on what they know, more shall be revealed; and thus, if any man will do His will, he shall know the doctrine whether it be of God. Any man: — not the man who has most means of knowing, who has the subtlest brains, or sits under the most orthodox preacher, or has his library fullest of most orthodox books — but the man who strives to know, who takes God at His word, and sets himself to dig up the heavenly mystery, roots and all, before sunset, and the night come, when no man can work. Beside such a man, God stands in more and more visible presence as he toils, and teaches him that which no preacher can teach — no earthly authority gainsay. By such a man, the preacher must himself be judged. Simplicity. It is far more difficult to be simple than to be complicated; far more difficult to sacrifice skill and cease exertion in the proper place, than to expend both indiscriminately. We shall find, in the course of our investigation, that beauty and difficulty go together; and that they are only mean and paltry difficulties which it is wrong or contemptible to wrestle with. Be it remembered then — Power is never wasted. Whatever power has been employed, produces excellence in proportion to its own dignity and exertion: and the faculty of perceiving this exertion, and appreciating this dignity, is the faculty of perceiving excellence. ^ CHOICE SELECTIONS. 1 95 Making a Right Choice. A single knot of quartz occurring in a flake of slate at the crest of the ridge may alter the entire destinies of the moun- tain form. It may turn the little rivulet of water to the right or left, and that little turn will be to the future direction of the gathering stream what the touch of a finger on the barrel of a rifle would be to the direction of a bullet. Each succeeding year increases the importance of every deter- mined form, and arranges in masses yet more and more har- monious, the promontories shaped by the sweeping of the eternal waterfalls. The importance of the results thus obtained by the shght- est change of direction in the infant streamlets, furnishes an interesting type of the formation of human characters by habit. Every one of those notable ravines and crags is the expression, not of any sudden violence done to the moun- tain, but of its little habits, persisted in continually. It was created with one ruling instinct; but its destiny depended nevertheless, for effective result, on the direction of the small and all but invisible tricklings of water, in which the first shower of rain found its way down its sides. The feeblest, most insensible oozings of the drops of dew among its dust were in reality arbiters of its eternal form; commissioned, with a touch more tender than that of a child's finger — as silent and slight as the fall of a half-checked tear on a maiden's cheek — to fix for ever the forms of peak and preci- pice, and hew those leagues of lifted granite into the shapes that were to divide the earth and its kingdoms. Once the Httle stone evaded — once the dim furrow traced — and the peak was for ever invested with its majesty, the ravine for ever doomed to its degradation. Thenceforward, day by day, the subtle habit gained in power; the evaded stone was left with wider basement; the chosen furrow deepened with swifter-sliding wave; repentance and arrest were alike impos- sible, and hour after hour saw written in larger and rockier characters upon the sky, the history of the choice that had \/ ___. \ 196 THE CASKET OF LITERARY GEMS. been directed by a drop of rain, and of the balance that had been turned by a grain of sand. The Harvest is Ripe. "Put ye in the sickle. for the harvest is ripe." The word is spoken in our ears continually to other reapers than the angels — to the busy skeletons that never tire for stooping. When the measure of iniquity is full, and it seems that another day might bring repentance and redemption — " Put ye in the sickle." When the young life has been wasted all away, and the eyes are just opening upon the tracks of ruin, and faint resolution rising in the heart for nobler things — " Put ye in the sickle." When the roughest blows of fortune have been borne long and bravely, and the hand is just stretched to grasp its gaol — " Put ye in the sickle." And when there are but a few in the midst of a nation, to save it, or to teach, or to cherish; and all its life is bound up in those few golden ears — " Put ye in the sickle, pale reapers, and pour hemlock for your feast of harvest home." ■71 Recreation. It is one thing to indulge in playful rest, and another to be devoted to the pursuit of pleasure: and gaiety of heart dur- ing the reaction after hard labor, and quickened by satisfac- tion in the accomplished duty or perfected result, is altogether compatible with, nay, even in some sort arises naturally out of a deep internal seriousness of disposition. Flowers. Flowers seem intended for the solace of ordinary human- ity; children love them; quiet, tender, contented, ordinary people love them as they grow; luxurious and disorderly people rejoice in them gathered: They are the cottager's treasure; and in the crowded town, mark, as with a litde broken fragment of rainbow, the windows of the workers in whose heart rests the covenant of peace. Passionate or V \ CHOICE SELECTIONS. 197 religious minds contemplate them with fond, feverish inten- sity; the affection is seen severely calm in the works of many old religious painters, and mixed with more open and true country sentiment in those of our own pre-RaphaeHtes. To the child and the girl, the peasant and the manufacturing operative, to the grisette and the nun, the lover and monk, they are precious always. But to the men of supreme power and thoughtfulness, precious only at times; symbolically and pathetically often to the poets, but rarely for their own sake. They fall forgotten from the great workmen's and soldiers' hands. Such men will take, in thankfulness, crowns of leaves, or crowns of thorns — not crowns of flowers. All Carving and no Meat. The divisions of a church are much like the divisions of a sermon; they are always right so long as they are necessary to edification, and always wrong when they are thrust upon the attention as divisions only. There may be neatness in carving when there is richness in feasting; but I have heard many a discourse, and seen many a church wall, in which it was all carving and no meat. Loss. There is no subject of thought more melancholy, more wonderful, than the way in which God permits so often His best gifts to be trodden under foot of men. His richest treasures to be wasted by the moth, and the mightiest influences of His Spirit, given but once in the world's his- tory, to be quenched and shortened by miseries of chance and guilt. I do not wonder at what men suffer, but I wonder often at what they lose. We may see how good rises out of pain and evil; but the dead, naked, eyeless loss, what good comes of that? The fruit struck to the earth before its ripe- ness; the glowing life and goodly purpose dissolved away in sudden death; the words, half spoken, choked upon the lips with clay for ever; or, stranger than all, the whole majesty \^ THE CASKET OF LITERARY GEMS. of humanity raised to its fulness, and every gift and power necessary for a given purpose, at a given moment, centred in one man, and all this perfected blessing permitted to be refused, perverted, crushed, cast aside by those who need it most — the city which is not set on a hill, the candle that giveth light to none that are in the house: — these are the heaviest mysteries of this strange world, and, it seems to me, those which mark its curse the most. Life Never a Jest. The playful fancy of a moment may innocently be expressed by the passing word; but he can hardly have learned the preciousness of life, who passes days in the elaboration of a jest. And, as to what regards the delineation of human character, the nature of all noble art is to epitomize and embrace so much at once, that its subject can never be alto- gether ludicrous; it must possess all the solemnities of the whole, not the brightness- of the partial, truth. For all truth that makes us smile is partial. The novelist amuses us by his relation of a particular incident; but the painter cannot set any one of his characters before us without giving some glimpse of its whole career. That of which the historian informs us in successive pages, it is the task of the painter to inform us of a once, writing upon the countenance not merely the expression of the moment, but the history of the life: and the history of a life can never be a jest. The Love of Flowers. Perhaps it may be thought, if we understood flowers better, we might love them less. We do not love them much, as it is. Few people care about flowers. Many, indeed, are fond of finding a new shape of blossom, caring for it as a child cares about a kaleidoscope. Many, also, like a fair service of flowers in the greenhouse, as a fair service of plate on the table. Many are scientifically interested in them, though even these \ i. / CHOICE SELECTIONS. 1 99 in the nomenclature rather than the flowers. And a few enjoy their gardens; but I have never heard of a piece of land, which would let well on a building lease, remaining unlet because it was a flowery piece. I have never heard of parks being kept for wild hyacinths, though often of their being kept for wild beasts. And the blossoming time of the year being principally spring, I perceive it to be the mind of most people, during that period, to stay in towns. A year or two ago, a keen-sighted and eccentrically minded friend of mine, having taken it into his head to violate this national custom, and go to the Tyrol in spring, was passing through a valley near Landech, with several similarly head- strong companions. A strange mountain appeared in the distance, belted about its breast with a zone of blue, like oar English Queen. Was it a blue cloud? A blue horizontal bar of the air that Titian breathed in youth, seen now far away, which mortal might never breathe again? Was it a mirage — a meteor? Would it stay to be approached? (ten miles of winding road yet between them and the foot of its mountain). Such questioning had they concerning it. My keen-sighted friend alone maintained it to be substantial; whatever it might be, it was not air, and would not vanish. The ten miles of road were overpassed, the carriage left, the mountain climbed. It stayed patiently, expanding still into richer breadth and heavenlier glow — a belt of gentians. Such things may verily be seen among the Alps in spring, and in spring only. Which being so, I observe most people prefer going in autumn. The Memory of Unkindness. He who has once stood beside the grave, to look back upon the companionship which has been forever closed, feeling how impotent there are the wild love, or the keen sorrow, to give one instant's pleasure to the pulseless heart, or atone in the lowest measure to the departed spirit for the hour of unkindness, will scarcely for the future incur ^. •vjg \ 200 THE CASKET OF LITERARY GEMS. that debt to the heart, which can only be discharged to the dust. Cheerfulness. Cheerfulness is just as natural to the heart of a man in strong health as color to his cheek; and wherever there is habitual gloom, there must be either bad air, unwholesome food, improperly severe labor, or erring habits of life. EXTRACT FROM THOMAS DE QUINCEY'S ESSAY *'0N MURDER, CONSIDERED AS A FINE ART." As to murder, I never committed one in my life. It's a well-known thing amongst all my friends. I can get a paper to certify as much, signed by lots of people. Indeed, if you come to that, I doubt whether many people could produce as strong a certificate. Mine would be as big as a breakfast tablecloth. There is indeed one member of the club, who pretends to say he caught me once making too free with his throat on a club night, after everybody else had retired. But, observe, he shuffles in his story according to his state of civilization. When not far gone he contents himself with saying that he caught me ogling his throat; and that I was melancholy for some weeks after, and that my voice sounded in a way expressing, to the nice ear of a connoisseur, the sense of opportimities lost; but the club all know that he is a disappointed man himself, and that he speaks querulously at times about the fatal neglect of a man's coming abroad with- out his tools. Besides, all this is an affair between two amateurs, and everybody makes allowances for little asper- ities and fibs in such a case. " But," say you, " if no murderer, you may have encouraged, or even have bespoken a mur- der." No, upon my honor — no. And that was the very point I wished to argue for your satisfaction. The truth is, CHOICE SELECTIONS. 201 I am a very particular man in everything relating to murder; and perhaps I carry my delicacy too far A golden mean is certainly what every man should aim at. But it is easier talking than doing; and, my infirmity being notoriously too much milkiness of heart, I find it difiicult to maintain that steady equatorial line between the two poles of too much murder on the one hand, and too little on the other. I am too soft — and people get excused through me — nay, go through life without an attempt made upon them, that ought not to be excused. I believe, if I had the manage- ment of things, there would hardly be a murder from year's end to year's end. In fact, I'm for peace, and quietness, and fawningness, and what may be styled knocking-underness. A man came to me as a candidate for the place of my servant, just then vacant. He had the reputation of having dabbled a little in our art; some said, not without merit. What startled me, however, was, that he supposed this art to be part of his regular duties in my service, and talked of having it considered in his wages. Now, that was a thing I would not allow; so I said at once, " Richard (or James, as the case might be), you misunderstand my character. If a man will and must practice this difficult (and allow me to add, dangerous) branch of art — if he has an overruling genius for it, why, in that case, all I say is, that he might as well pursue his studies whilst living in my service as in another's. And also, I may observe, that it can do no harm either to himself or to the subject on whom he operates, that he should be guided by men of more taste than himself. Genius may do much, but long study of the art must always entitle a man to offer advice. So far I will go — general principles I will suggest. But as to any particular case, once for all I will have nothing to do with it. Never tell me of any special work of art you are meditating — I set my face against it in toto. For, if once a man indulges himself in murder, very soon he comes to think little of robbing; and from robbing he comes next to drinking and Sabbath-breaking, and from THE CASKET OF LITERARY GEMS. that to incivility and procrastination. Once begin upon this downward path, you never know where you are to stop. Many a man has dated his ruin from some murder or other that perhaps he thought little of at the time. Principiis obsta — that's my rule." Fie on these dealers in poison, say I: can they not keep to the old honest way of cutting throats, without introducing such abominable innovations from Italy? I consider all these poisoning cases, compared with the legitimate style, as no better than waxwork by the side of sculpture, or a litho- graphic print by the side of a fine Volpato. But, dismissing these, there remain many excellent works of art in a pure style, such as nobody need be ashamed to own; and this every candid connoisseur will admit. Candid, observe, I say; for great allowances must be made in these cases; no artist can ever be sure of carrying through his o^^Tl fine pre- conception. Awkward disturbances will arise; people will not submit to have their throats cut quietly; they will run, they will kick, they will bite; and whilst the portrait painter often has to complain of too much torpor in his subject, the artist in our line is generally embarrassed by too much animation. At the same time, however disagreeable to the artist, this tendency in murder to excite and irritate the sub- ject is certainly one of its advantages to the world in general, which we ought not to overlook, since it favors the develop- ment of latent talent. Jeremy Taylor notices with admira- tion the extraordinary leaps which people will take under the influence of fear. Talents also of the most brilliant descrip- tion for thumping, and, indeed, for all the gymnastic exer- cises, have sometimes been developed by the panic which accompanies our artists; talents else buried and hid under a bushel, to the possessors as much as to their friends. I remember an interesting illustration of this fact, in a case which I Teamed in Germany. Riding one day in the neighborhood of ]Munich, I overtook / \. CHOICE SELECTIONS. 203 a distinguished amateur of our society, whose name, for obvious reasons, I shall conceal. This gentleman informed me that, finding himself wearied with the frigid pleasures (such he esteemed them) of mere amateurship, he had quit- ted England for the continent — meaning to practice a little professionally. For this purpose he resorted to Germany, conceiving the police in that part of Europe to be more heavy and drowsy than elsewhere. His debut as a practi- tioner took place at Mannheim; and, knowing me to be a brother amateur, he freely communicated the whole of his maiden adventure. " Opposite to* my lodging," said he, "lived a baker; he was somewhat of a miser, and Hved quite alone. Whether it were his great expanse of chalky face, or what else, I know not, but the fact was, I '■ fancied ' him, and resolved to commence business upon his throat, which, by the way, he always carried bare — a fashion which is very irritating to my desires. Precisely at eight o'clock in the evening, I observed that he regularly shut up his win- dows. One night I watched him when thus engaged — bolted in after him — locked the door — and, addressing him with great suavity, acquainted him with the nature of my errand; at the same time advising him to make no resistance, which • would be mutually unpleasant. So saying, I drew out my tools; and was proceeding to operate. But at this spectacle the baker, who seemed to have been struck by catalepsy at my first announcement, awoke into tremendous agitation. ' I will not be murdered! ' he shrieked aloud; ' what for will I ' (meaning shall I) '■ lose my precious throat? ' ' What for? ' said I; 'if for no other reason, for this — that you put alum into your bread. But no matter, alum or no alum ' (for I was resolved to forestall any argument on that point), ' know that I am a virtuoso in the art of murder — am desir- ous of improving myself in its details — and am enamored of your vast surface of throat, to which I am determined to be a customer.' 'Is it so?' said he, 'but I'll find you a customer in another line; ' and so saying, he threw himself \^ ^^ \ 204 THE CASKET OF LITERARY GEMS. into a boxing attitude. The very idea of his boxing struck me as ludicrous. It is true, a London baker had disting- uished himself in the ring, and became known to fame under the title of the iMaster of the Rolls; but he was young and unspoiled; whereas, this man was a monstrous feather-bed in person, fifty years old, and totally out of condition. Spite of all this, however, and contending against me, who am a master in the art, he made so desperate a defence, that many times I feared he might turn the tables upon me; and that I, an amateur, might be murdered by a rascally baker. What a situation! Minds of sensibihty will sympathize with my anxiety. How severe it was, you may understand by this, that for the first thirteen rounds the baker positively had the advantage. Round the 14th, I received a blow on the right eye, which closed it up; in the end, I believe, this was my salvation; for the anger it roused in me was so great, that, in the next, and every one of the three fallowing rounds, I floored the baker. " Round 19th. The baker came up piping, and mani- festly the worse for wear. His geometrical exploits in the four last rounds had done him no good. However, he showed some skill in stopping a message which I was send- ing to his cadaverous mug; in delivering which, my foot* slipped, and I went down. '' Round 20th. Surveying the baker, I became ashamed of having been so much bothered by a shapeless mass of dough; and I went in fiercely, and administered some severe punishment. A rally took place — both went down — baker undermost — ten to three on amateur. "Round 2ist. The baker jumped up with surprising agility; indeed, he managed his pins capitally, and fought wonderfully, considering that he was drenched in perspira- tion; but the shine was now taken out of him, and his game was the mere effect of panic. It was now clear that he could not last much longer. In the course of this round we tried the weaving system, in which I had greatly the / T \ CHOICE SELECTIONS. 205 advantage, and hit him repeatedly on the conk. My reason for this was, that his conk was covered with carbuncles; and I thought I should vex him by taking such liberdes with his conk, which in fact I did. " The three next rounds, the master of the rolls staggered about like a cow on the ice. Seeing how matters stood, in round 24th I whispered something into his ear, which sent him down like a shot. It was nothing more than my private opinion of the value of his throat at an annuity office. This little confidential whisper aff'ected him greatly; the very perspiration was frozen on his face, and for the next two rounds I had it all my own way. And when I called time for the 27th round, he lay like a log on the floor." "After which," said I to the amateur, ''It may be presumed that you accomplished your purpose." "You are right," said he mildly, " I did; and a great satisfaction, you know, it was to my mind, for by this means I killed two birds with one stone; " meaning that he had both thumped tbe baker and murdered him. Now, for the life of me, I could not see that; for, on the contrary, to my mind it appeared that he had taken two stones to kill one bird, having been obliged to take the conceit out of him first with his fist, and then with his tools. But no matter for his logic. The moral of his story was good, for it showed what an astonishing stimulus to latent talent is contained in any reasonable pros- pect of being murdered. A pursy, unwieldly, half cataleptic baker of Mannheim had absolutely fought seven-and-twenty rounds with an accomplished English boxer, merely upon this inspiration; so great was natural genius exalted and sub- limed by the genial presence of his murderer. ALONE IN LONDON. No man ever was left to himself for the first time in the streets, as yet unknown, of London, but he must have been saddened and mortified, perhaps terrified, by the sense of desertion and utter loneliness which belong to his situation. \ 206 THE CASKET OF LITERARY GEMS. i No loneliness can be like that which weighs upon the heart in the centre of faces never ending, ^^'ithout voice or utter- ance for him; eyes innumerable, that have " no speculation " in their orbs which he can understand; and hurrying figures of men and women weaving to and fro, with no apparent purposes intelligible to a stranger, seeming like a mask of maniacs, or, oftentimes, like a pageant of phantoms. The great length of the streets in many quarters of London; the continual opening of transient glimpses into other vistas equally far stretching, going oft at right angles to the one which you are traversing; and the murky atmosphere which, settling upon the rem.oter end of every long avenue, wraps its termination in gloom and uncertainty — all these are cir- cumstances aiding that sense of vastness and illimitable proportions which forever brood over the aspect of London in its interior All that I remember is one monotonous awe and blind sense of mysterious grandeur and Babylonian confusion, which seemed to pursue and to invest the w^hole equipage of human life, as we moved for nearly tw^o hours through streets, sometimes brought to anchor for ten minutes or more by what is technically called a " lock," that is, a line of carriages of every description inextricably massed, and obstructing each other, far as the eye could stretch: and then, as if under an enchanter's rod, the " lock " seemed to thaw; motion spread with the fluent race of light or sound through the whole ice-bound mass, until the subtle influence reached us also, who were again absorbed into the great rush of flying carriages; or, at times, we turned ofl" into some less tumultuous street, but of the same mile-long character, and, finally, drawing up about noon, we alighted at some place, which is as little within my distinct remembrance as the route by which we reached it. — De Quincey. / \ t> / •^yJiJUlOft^^'**^ .>4/^N®/OTT>V^ ;n *^^i ^ingrap^itnl anh p^isieHanEOus^ \ %. % •v<^ ^ N" BIOGRAPHICAL ANECDOTES OF FAMOUS MEN. SAMUEL JOHNSON, LL.D. Memory. I: T is said that Johnson's wonderful memory displayed itself early in life. When he was a child in petti- coats, and had but just learnt to read, his mother one morning put the common prayer-book into his hand, pointed to the collect for the day, and said, " Sam, you must get this by heart." She went up stairs, leaving him to study it; but by the time she had reached the second floor, she heard him following her. " What's the matter? " said she. " I can say it," he replied, and repeated it distinctly, though he could not have read it more than twice. Melancholy. During one of his college vacations he was affected with such terrible gloom, as to drive him almost to despair. It continued for a considerable period, and finding no relief, he wrote a statement of his case in Latin, and gave it to a physician, his godfather, asking his professional advice. The doctor was greatly amazed at the beauty of the com- position, as well as the acuteness of the statement. From his malady, however, the sufferer only obtained partial relief. Yet it seems that at college he was a general favorite; and while his own heart was secretly torn with a sense of his poverty; while difficulties and troubles clouded :k ^ 2IO THE CASKET OF LITERARY GEMS. the future as well as the present — and the shadowy horrors suggested by a hypochondriac fancy hung over him — he was esteemed a gay, hearty, and cheerful fellow by his mates! When Johnson was told of this afterwards, he explained it by saying, "Ah! sir, I was mad, and violent; it was bitter- ness which they mistook for frolic. I was miserably poor, and thought to fight my way by my wit and my literature. So I disregarded all power afnd all authority." Marriage. While Johnson was living in Birmingham, he became intimate in the family of a silk dealer, by the name of Porter. This man soon died, and Johnson became enamored of his widow, though she was above fifty, and he but twenty- seven years of age. At this period Johnson was a most ungainly figure — lean and lank, seeming to be only a huge skeleton of bones, moving about in the most awkward and ungainly manner. However, the widow accepted Johnson's addresses, and he went to his mother to get her consent to the match. She pointed out to her son the disparity of years, and the apparent folly of such a union, but yet offered no positive opposition. It was agreed that the couple should be married at Derby, a distance of nearly forty miles, and they set out on horse- back for that purpose. It was a singular journey, according to Johnson's own account. " Sir," said he, speaking of the occasion to Boswell, "my wife had read the old romances, and had got into her head the fantastical notion that a woman of spirit should treat her lover like a dog; so at first she told me that I rode too fast, and she could not keep up with me — and when I rode a little slower, she passed me, and complained that I lagged behind. I was not to be made the slave of caprice, and I resolved to begin, as I meant to end. I therefore passed on briskly, till I was fairly out of her sight. The road lay between two hedges, so I was sure she could not go amiss; and I contrived that she should / ANECDOTES. 211 soon come up with me. When she did, I observed her to be in tears." Notwithstanding this beginning, Johnson and his wife lived happily together. His affection for her seems, indeed, to have been deep and lasting. She had property to the amount of eight hundred pounds, which may have been one inducement to the match, but he was, nevertheless, a most fond and indulgent husband.. After she had been dead nearly twenty years, his diary shows that he still remembered her with the most lively and fond attachment. " I have less pleasure," says he, "in any good that befalls me, because she does not partake of it. On many occasions I think what she would have said or done. When I saw the sea at Brigthelmstone, I wished for her to have seen it with me." Value of Literary Labor. In 1778, his poem of London, an imitation of one oi the satires of Juvenal, appeared, and did much to give him reputation. It is but one instance in a thousand to show the difficulty of deciding upon the merit of a literary perform- ance, from an unknown author — that Johnson offered this work to several booksellers, before he could get a publisher; and, at last, obtained for it only ten guineas. It is a curious fact, that he was so timid in respect to it, that he first offered it as the production of another, and humbly proposed to alter any touch of satire that Cave, the bookseller, might not approve. Po\T:R'n' AXD Tribulation. In 1 75 2, he lost his wife, whom he most sincerely mourned; the event so far affected his spirits, that he relinquished the Ra?nbler. The Dictionary, instead of being finished in three years, extended to eight. Johnson's labors were unceasing, yet he was continually haunted with poverty. All he received for this stupendous work was expended in its progress. In 1756, he was arrested for a debt of five pounds, and only \ ^ -^ V] THE CASKET OF LITERARY GEMS. escaped prison by borrowing the money of a friend. In 1759, his aged mother died, and he went down to Lichfield to superintend her funeral. But not having the means to pay the expenses, while his parent lay unburied, he set to work to procure the means of her interment. In a single week he accomplished the task, and the inimitable tale of '' Rasselas " was the result. Who can contemplate the scene without emotion — Johnson, with the unconscious body of his mother at his side, toihng to procure the few shillings required to consign her to the grave! What must have been the feelings of his ardent and affectionate bosom during these sad and solemn hours! Habits and Appearance. The Edinburgh Review, in speaking of Boswell's life of Johnson, and in illustration of its completeness, and the per- fect picture it draws of its subject, says: " Everything about him — his coat, his wig, his figure, his face, his scrofula, his St. Vitus's dance, his rolling walk, his blinking eye, the out- ward signs which too clearly marked the approbation of his dinner, his insatiable appetite for fish-sauce and veal pie with plums, his inextinguishable thirst for tea, his trick of touching the posts as he walked, his mysterious practice of treasuring up scraps of orange peel, his morning slumbers, his midnight disputations, his contortions, his mutterings, his gruntings, his puffings; his vigorous, acute and hearty eloquence; his sarcastic wit, his vehemence, his insolence, his fits of tempestuous rage, his queer inmates, old Mr. Levett, and blind Mrs. Williams, the cat Hodge, and the negro Frank; all are as familiar to us, as the objects by which we have been surrounded from childhood." Death. In 1783, he was attacked with paralysis, and soon after was swollen with dropsy. His constitutional melancholy, which had haunted him through life, pursued him to his \ " 71 ANECDOTES. 213 death-bed. His first approach to the grave was with terror. From this, however, he recovered, and as he came nearer his departure, his mind was tranquilized by religious contem- plations. On the day of his death, he pierced his legs first with a lancet, and then with scissors, in order to let off the water which had accumulated; but he bled profusely, soon fell into a doze, and expired. This event occurred on the 13th of December, 1784. A short time before he died, he said to his attendant, Mrs. Sasters, ^^ Jam moriturus,^^ " I am about to die." His last words were uttered to a young friend. Miss Morris — " God bless you, my dear! " Felicity of Illustration. Of his felicity of illustration, the following are specimens. Speaking of 'scepticism, he said, " The eyes of the mind are like the eyes of the body, they see only at such a distance; but because they cannot see beyond this point, is there nothing beyond it? " Of memory he said, " In general, a person can remember one thing as well as another; other- wise it would be like a person complaining that he could hold silver in his hand, but could not hold copper." Again, " People are not born with a particular genius for particular employments or studies, for it would be saying that a man could see a great way east, but not west." Credulity and Incredulity. Dr. Johnson's character presents a singular mixture of good and evil. He was so credulous as to believe firmly in ghosts — yet his incredulity in some things was a sort of disease. He said himself that he did not believe in the great earthquake of Lisbon, in 1755, for six months after the hews was received and its authority established. He was harsh, sneering and merciless with his tongue; yet he was all tenderness to his cat; he gave protection in his own house for years to bhnd Mrs. Williams; and when he saw poor children lying asleep on the pavement for a bed. ~ ^ 7f 214 THE CASKET OF LITERARY GEMS. he put pennies in their hands to cheer them when they awoke. ROBERT BURNS. Childhood. ' "At seven years of age, I was," says he, "by no means a favorite with anybody. I was a good deal noted for a reten- tive memory, a stubborn, sturdy something in my disposition, and an enthusiastic idiot piety. I say idiot piety, because I was then but a child. Though it cost the schoolmaster some thrashings, I made an excellent English scholar; and by the time I was ten or eleven years of age, I was a critic in sub- stantive, verbs, and participles. The earliest composition that I recollect taking pleasure in reading, was the ' Vision of Mirza,' and a hymn of Addison's, beginning, ' How are thy servants blest, O Lord! ' I particularly remember one half- stanza which was music to my ear: ' For though on dreadful whirls we hung, High on the broken wave.' I met with these in '■ Mason's English Collection,' one of my school-books. The two first books I ever read in pri- vate, and which gave me more pleasure than any two I have read since, were the ' Life of Hannibal,' and the '■ History of the Acts and Deeds of Sir William Wallace.' Hannibal gave my young ideas such a turn, that I used to strut in raptures up and down after the recruiting drum and bagpipe, and wish myself tall enough to be a soldier; while the story of Wallace poured a Scottish prejudice into my veins, which will boil along there till the floodgates of life shut in eternal rest." Poverty. On the 1 2th day of July, 1794, Thompson, the pubHsher, ANECDOTES. 215 received from him a letter, in which he says, " after all my boasted independence, stern necessity compels me to implore you for five pounds; a cruel haberdasher, to whom I owe an account, taking it into his head that I am dying, has commenced a process, and will infallibly put me in gaol. Do, for God's sake, send me that sum, and that by return of post. Forgive me this earnestness; but the horrors of a gaol have made me half distracted. I do not ask all this gratuitously, for upon returning health, I hereby promise and engage to furnish you with five pounds' worth of the neatest song-genius you have seen." Of course, Burns received the money he desired, but no health returned to enable the high-spirited man to keep this voluntary pledge. He repaired to the Solway, where sea bathing relieved for a time the pains in the limbs, but his appetite failed, and melancholy preyed on his spirits. He grew feverish on the 14th of July, 1796, and desired to be conducted home. He returned on the i8th, and the news soon spread through the town that he was dying. " Who do you think will be our poet now? " inquired, with much simplicity, one of the numerous persons congregated in knots about the street. \His wit and good humor broke out in some of his last recorded sayings. To Gibson, a brother volunteer, who sat by the bedside in tears, he said, smiling, '' John, don't let the awkward squad fire over me." Death. It was on the fourth day after his return from the Solway, that his attendant held a cordial to his lips: the poet swal- lowed it eagerly, instantly rose almost upright in the bed, extending his hands, sprang forward his whole length, and died! He was but in his thirty-seventh year. He was buried on the 25th, with the military honors he had depre- cated; Mrs. Burns giving birth, almost at the same hour, to a son, who lived but a short time. The old kirkyard of Dumfries was the poet's burial place. On the 5th of June, ;v 2l6 THE CASKET OE LITER.\RY GEMS. 1815, the grave was opened to remove the body to a more commodious place. The coffin was partly destroyed, but the dark and curly locks looked as fresh and glossy as ever. A show}^ mausoleum, with a Latin inscription, now marks out to the pilgrims who daily visit the place, the spot where the poet lies buried. Thus lived and died Robert Burns, the first of Scottish poets. " He seems to have been created " — says Allan Cunningham — " to show how little classic lore is required for the happiest flights of the muse — how dangerous to domestic peace are burning passions and touchy sensibilities; and how divinely a man may be inspired, without gaining bread, or acquiring importance, in the land his genius adorns." Address and Conversation. "'I think Bums," said Robertson, the historian, '' was one of the most extraordinary men I ever met with. His poetry surprised me very much; his prose surprised me still more; and his conversation surprised me more than both his poetry and prose." ''His address," says Robert Riddle, "was pleasing; he was neither forward nor embarrassed in his manner; his spirits were generally high; and his conversa- tion animated. His language was fluent, frequently fine; his enunciation always rapid; his ideas clear and vigorous, and he had the rare power of modulating his peculiarly fine voice, so as to harmonize with whatever subject he touched upon. I have heard him talk with astonishing rapidity, nor I miss the articulation of a single syllable; elevate and depress I his voice as the topic seemed to require; and sometimes, I when the subject was pathetic, he would prolong the words in the most impressive and affecting manner, indicative of the deep sensibility which inspired him. He often lamented to me that fortune had not placed him at the bar, or the senate; he had great ambition, and the feeling that he could not gratify it, preyed on him severely." / ANECDOTES. 21 J A Man's a Man for a' That. Burns paid little deference to the artificial distinctions of society. On his way to Leith one morning, he met a man in hoddin-gray,' a west country farmer ; he shook him earnestly by the hand, and conversed with him some minutes. All this was seen by a young Edinburgh blood, who took the poet roundly to task for this defect of taste. " Why, you fantastic gomeral," said Burns, " it was not the gray coat, the scone bonnet, and the Fanquhar boot-hose I spoke to, but the man that was in them; and the man, sir, for true worth, would weigh you and me, and ten more such, down any day." Discernment. His discernment was great. When Scott was quite a lad, he caught the notice of the poet by naming the author of some verses describing a soldier lying dead in the snow. Burns regarded the future minstrel with sparkling eyes, and said, " Young man, you have begun to consider these things early." He paused on seeing Scott's flushed face, shook him by the hand, saying, in a de'ep tone, " This boy will be heard of yet! " S/J^ WALTER SCOTT. Reverence for Religion. Scott would never indulge in an oath, and was very strict in saying his prayers at the stated times. Often his brother Thomas, who went to school with him, and was required to be his guardian, would hurry Walter, and when the latter was longer at his prayers than Thomas' patience could bear, the latter would go to his door and say, " 'Deed Wattie, canna ye come awa? " " I canna come till I hae said my prayers," replied Walter. " Why can ye no pray when ye come hame to breakfast, man? " was the answer. y- ~7^ THE CASKET OF LITERARY GEMS. Recognition of Friends by Means of Horse Shoes. Scott had himself a knack of recognizing horse-shoes, and he had learned to know, at sight, the track of every horse in the neighborhood, by the size and shape of the impres- sion his shoe made in the path. This art he had also taught Mrs. Lockhart. On one occasion, Southey, the poet, had come to pay Sir Walter a visit at Abbotsford. The two were walking at a distance of some three or four miles from Abbotsford, when coming to a bridle path, Scott saw the track of a horse that he knew. Saying nothing of his observation or his art, he stopped, and assuming a mysterious air, said to Southey — " We Scotch pretend to second sight. I foresee that we shall have a friend to dinner; and I think his name will 'be Scott: " " It is some invited guest, I suppose," said Southey. *'' I assure you, not," said Sir Walter: '• the man himself shall tell you that I could not know of his visit before this moment." The two passed on, and when they arrived at Abbotsford — behold, there was one waiting — a remote kinsman of Sir Walter, who had come to pay him a \4sitl On inquiry, he stated that this was accidental, and that Sir Walter knew nothing of his intention. Mr. Southey's wonder was greatly excited, but it was finally appeased by Sir Walter's telling him that he had been able to prognosticate the arrival of the stranger, by recognizing the foot-prints of his horse, leading in the direction of Abbotsford. When Mrs. Lockhart had finished the anecdote. Sir Walter, who had heard it, stated that he found his kinsman Scott in his library, when he returned with Mr. Southey. The old man was engaged in poring over a volume of Johnson's quarto dictionary. " I am afraid," said Sir Walter, " that you are reading a very dry book." " Na, na! " said he, " they be bra' stories — but unco' shorti " j ANECDOTES. 2I9 LiTER-\RY Labor. Scott's fame increased, attended by an uninterrupted tide of prosperity; he appeared to be a most happy man. His life proceeded with the splendor and brilliancy of a gorgeous dream. It has seldom fallen to the lot of man to hold a position so enviable, and yet be so much beloved. Beneath this fair seeming, however, the elements of trouble were gathering for the tempest. His expenditures had been enormous; all he received for his works was lavishly ex^: ended upon Abboisford — in the construction of the vast edince, and in filling it with wonderful collections of curios- ities and antiquities of every kind — in its furniture — its library — its entertainments. But this was not all. In 1826, the Ballantynes and Constable went down in a crash of bankruptcy, bearing Sir Walter with them; and he, as a partner, was left to pay debts to the amount of seven hun- dred thousand dollars I It cannot be denied that Scott had incurred these tremen- dous responsibilities somewhat presumptuous!}-. He had not speculated merely upon his popularity, but he had even put at hazard all his possessions, as well as health and life itself But to his honor be it spoken, he shrunk not from the fear- ful crisis. " Give me time," said he to his creditors, '• and I shall be able to pay you every farthing." Having relinquished his property to his creditors, he said to a friend, in a deep, thoughtful tone, " It is very hard thus to lose all the labors of a lifetime, and be a poor man at last. But if God grant me life and strength a few years longer, I have no doubt I shall be able to pay it all." He set to work in good earnest; and, during the three years that followed the events we have just detailed, he per- formed an amount of literary labor, and reaped an amount of profits, probably altogether unparalleled. In three years, that is, from 1827 to 1830, he produced about thirty original volumes; making more than ten a year. Nor is this all. During this period, he was editing an edition of his novels. \ r \ 2 20 THE CASKET OF LITERARY GEMS. to which he added copious notes: and such was the demand for these works, that one thonsand persons — one hundredth part of the population of Edinburgh — were occupied in their mere manufacture. Nineteen of these volumes were edited and published in a single year! The profits resulting from Scott's labors, during these three years, amounted to about two hundred and fifty thousand dollars! It was now evident that Scott would accompUsh the for- midable task he h'ad undertaken, unless some fatality should intervene; and such was his devotion to his object, that he seemed to be under the influence of a mania. He resigned his oflEice of clerk, and spent ten, twelve and sometimes four- teen hours a day, in writing. But his powerful constitution at last gave way under this dreadful pressure. His speech began to be affected; his contracted right foot became pain- ful, and there were signs of a general paralysis. The best medical advice was called in; but such was the fever of thought into which Sir Walter had wrought himself, that it was almost impossible for him to stop. Dr. Abercrombie, of Edinburgh, one day besought him to moderate his efforts; when the invahd replied,, '• I tell you what it is, doctor; when Molly puts the kettle on, she might as well say don't boill " Inxidents IX Naples and Germany. At Naples, Scott was invited to the court levee, where, by a queer whim, he appeared in the dress of the Scotch archers. The courtiers took this for a field marshal's uni- form, and wondered in what battles Sir Walter had won his military rank! Wherever he went he was noticed as one of the great lights of the age. Proceeding to Germany, he called at a bookstore in Frankfort, to purchase pictures of some of the interesting objects he had seen in his route. After showing views of abbeys and castles of various countries, the bookseller, not knowing the name of his customer, selected and held up, as if it must strike every kl ^ K ANECDOTES. one with interest — a view of Abbotsford! Scott, smiling sadly, remarked, " I have a faithful picture of that " — mean- ing in his heart — and walked away! D E ATH. Just before his death, Scott recognized no one, till his old friend and factor, Laidlaw, appeared at his bedside. He shook him warmly by the hand, and said, " 1 k?io2v I am at Abbotsford'' In a short time he revived a little. He had himself borne into his garden, and afterwards into his library. Here he requested paper and pens to be set before him, and then asked to be alone; he attempted to take up the pen, but the palsied fingers refused their office. He sat back in his chair, with a look of the utmost melancholy. Laidlaw, who saw him, said, " I hope you are happy now, sir." '^ No; " said he; " there is no more happiness for Sir Walter! " His powerful frame struggled with death for some days; but at last it yielded, and on the 21st September, 1832, Sir Walter Scott expired. His age was exactly sixty-one years, one month, and six days. LORD byron: Fame and Wickedness. In March, 18 12, Byron published the two first cantos of " Childe Harold's Pilgrimage." Though the measure was totally different from that of the current poetry of the time, and the tone of the poem at once sceptical and misanthropic, such were its wonderful beauties, that it bore the author, at one bound, to the pinnacle of fame. He said of himself, at this time, " I went to bed a common man, and when I got up in the morning, I found myself famous." He was imme- diately ranked among the wonderful men of the day; letters of gratulation poured in from all sides; the great, the rich, the powerful — lords and ladies — the flush and the fair — all N 7? THE CASKET OF LITERARY GEMS. crowded upon "him their attentions and flatteries. It was hardly in human nature to resist the seductions of such adulation — it surely was not in B}Ton's: and, completely intoxicated, he yielded to the delicious current upon which he was launched. Down he glided, gi^'ing himself up to every species of indulgence, dissipation and debaucher)'. There vras at this time, in London, a person of talent and literary pretensions, but not of very good reputation, by the name of Lady Caroline Lamb. She was, however, a woman of rank and fashion, and her house was the rendezvous of the choice spirits of London. She was captivated by the fame of Byron, and, it would seem, fascinated also by his person. For a time, the poet appears to have been pleased with her notice, and was often seen at her parties. She also visited Byron in the guise of a page, fancifully and beauti- fully attired. This intoxication soon passed away on the part of Byron, and the lady took revenge by writing a novel, in which the hero, under the name of Glenar\"on, a monster of vice and crime, is intended to stand as the representative of her ungrateful lover. She speaks of him as possessing •'•' an imagination of flame, playing round a heart of ice " — and, perhaps, thus fairly draws the outline of B}Ton's real character. Unhappy ^L\RRIAGE. During his fits of gloom, B}Ton frequently shut himself up at Xewstead. By his profligacy, he had incurred heavy debts, which, though his income was large, weighed hea\-ily upon his spirits. He appears to have had false shame at the idea of earning money, and so gave away the proceeds of his poems. He now cast about for extrication from his embarrassments, by marriage; and accordingly offered his hand to Miss Millbank, a great heiress in prospect, but of no ready money. Though twice refused, he was at last accepted, and was married October, 1814. He rather increased than mitigated his difficulties by this / ANECDOTES. 223 Step; his door was beset by duns, and in the first year of his marriage, he had nine executions in his house. He became irritable and unreasonable; and his wife, being a person of cold heart and manners, did httle to soften him. She bore him a child, afterwards named Ada, and now Lady King; but this could not unite the hearts of the parents. Diffi- culties grew up between them, and in January, 1816, she, with her child, left her husband's house, and he saw them no more. Out of humor with himself, the world, and especially his own country — which had offered him rank and wealth and showered down upon him a flood of honors — he took his leave, with the determination never to return to England — a resolution which he sternly kept. Appearance and Habits. In person. Lord Byron was of middling stature; his head was so remarkably small, that not one man in ten could wear his hat. It was, however, finely formed, with a lofty fore- head. His lips were large and full, his eye deep, his hair thin, brown and curling. When excited, his countenance bore a remarkable expression of soft, yet melancholy senti- ment. Though crippled in one of his feet, the defect was scarcely observed in his gait, and it did not prevent his being a vigorous swimmer. When in Greece, he swam across the Hellespont, from Sestos to Abydos, a distance of four miles. He was abstemious in eating, often making his dinner of biscuit and water. He was vain of his skill in boxing and pistol shooting, and more proud of his descent than his talents. While writhing under the reprobation which his vices called down upon his head, he affected to despise the world. While he professed to be a sceptic and lived as if there were no God, he yielded to superstitious impressions. Having all the means of happiness, he was still wretched; with powers to do infinite good, it is certain that if, on the whole, his existence prove not a curse to mankind, it will V^ ?T \ 224 THE CASKET OF LITERARY GEMS. arise from no good intentions of his own. His talents were indeed great, but his moral character was detestable. Though he had generous impulses, they flowed from no principle, and were rooted in no virtue. There is enough in his story to reconcile us all to a humble lot in life, and to a sincere utterance of Agur's prayer, " Give me neither poverty nor riches; " applying it as well to intellectual as pecuniary wealth. Death. In 1823, Byron received flattering overtures from the Greek committee in London, if he would go to Greece, and lend his name and fame to aid that oppressed country in its struggle for freedom. He yielded to these offers, and set out for Greece. He reached Missolonghi in January, 1824, and devoted himself with great energy to the cause he came to serve. He gave his money liberally, and was prodigal of his personal exertions. In all this, he not only showed devotion and sincerity, but he surprised every one by the good sense and practical wisdom which he displayed. In the beginning of February he got wet through, on the evening of the 15th he was seized with a dreadful convulsive fit, and was for some time speechless and senseless. Soon after the paroxysm, while stretched on his bed, faint with bleeding, a crowd of mutinous Suliotes, whom he had engaged to fight for their country, burst into his apartment, brandishing their arms, and furiously demanding their pay. Sick and nerve-shaken as he was, Byron is said to have displayed great calmness and courage on this trying occa- sion; and his manner soon inspired the mutineers with respect and awe. On the 9th of April, he again got wet, and a fever set in, at a time when he was dispirited at see- ing that his efl"orts were unavailing to inspire, a feeling of harmony among the wrangling leaders of Greece. His danger was seen by his physician, and bleeding was advised; but Byron obstinately refused to allow it. His mind at last \ •vk \ ANECDOTES. 225 CHARLES LAMB /■ wandered. His last words had reference to his wife, his child, and his sister. He was evidently aware of his approaching death. He ordered his ser^^ant to bring him pen, ink and paper, and appeared to suffer great agony that he could not collect his mind for the purpose of communi- cating his last wishes and directions. In a state of partial delirium, he threatened Fletcher, his servant, with torment in a future world, if he did not take down his instructions accurately. • His words now became unintelligible, and what he intended to communicate is left to conjecture. He fell into a state of lethargy, and died twenty-four hours after, on the 19th of April, 1824, aged thirty-six years. His death produced a great sensation throughout the civilized world. This arose not from his literary reputation only; his position in Greece, aiding the cause of an oppressed people in a struggle for liberty, contributed to heighten the interest which was felt in the event. The authorities of Missolonghi honored his memory with a pub- lic funeral: the grief of those who had been his familiar friends, including his servants, knew no bounds. The press throughout Europe paid a united tribute to his memory, in which all but his talents was forgotten. Sir Walter Scott, in a splendid eulogy, penned immediately after hearing of his death, compared his departure to the '' withdrawal of the sun from the heavens, at the moment when every telescope throughout the world was levelled to discover either its brightness or its spots." Love for his Sister. The year 1795 was a year of change and fearful calam- ity for Charles Lamb. On that year revolved the wheels of his after-life. During the three years succeeding to his V l^^ 226 THE CASKET OF LITERARY GEMS. school days, he had held a clerkship in the South Sea House. In 1795, he was transferred to the India House. As a junior clerk, he could not receive more than a slender salary; but even this was important to the support of his parents and sister. They lived together in lodgings near Holborn; and in the spring of 1796, Miss Lamb (having previously shown signs of lunacy at intervals), in a sudden paroxysm of her disease, seized a knife from the dinner table, and stabbed her mother, who died upon the spot. A coroner's inquest easily ascertained the nature of a case which was transparent in all its circumstances, and never for a moment indecisive as regarded the medical symptoms. The poor young lady was transferred to the establishment for lunatics at Hoxton. She soon recovered, we believe; but her relapses were as sudden as her recoveries, and she continued through life to revisit, for periods of uncertain seclusion, this house of woe. This calamity of his fireside, followed soon after by the death of his father, who had for some time been in a state of imbecility, determined the future destiny of Lamb. Apprehending, with the perfect grief of perfect love, that his sister's fate was sealed for life — viewing her as his own greatest benefactress, which she really had been through her advantage by ten years of age — yielding with impassioned readiness to the depth of his fraternal affection, what at any rate he would have yielded to the sanctities of duty as inter- preted by his own conscience — he resolved for ever to resign all thoughts of marriage with a young lady whom he loved, for ever to abandon all ambitious prospects that might have tempted him into uncertainties, humbly to con- tent himself with the certainties of his Indian clerkship, to dedicate himself for the future to the care of his desolate and prostrate sister, and to leave the rest to God. These sacrifices he made in no hurry or tumult, but deliberately, and in religious tranquility. These sacrifices were accepted in heaven — and even on this earth they had their reward. She, for whom he gave up all, in turn gave up all for him. k: _ 7- ANECDOTES. 227 I She devoted herself to his comfort. ]Many times she returned to the lunatic establishment, but many times she I was restored to illuminate the household for him; and of I the happiness which for forty years and more he had, no ! hour seemed true that was not derived from her. Hence- forward, therefore, until he was emancipated by the noble generosity of the East India Directors, Lamb's time for nine-and-twenty years was given to the India House. > Stammering. In miscellaneous gatherings, Lamb said little except when an opening arose for a pun. And how effectual that sort of small shot was from him, I need not say to anybody who remembers his infirmity of stammering, and his dexterous management of it for purposes of light and shade. He was often able to train the roll of stammers in settling upon the words immediately preceding the effective one; by which means the key-note of the jest or sarcasm, benefiting by the sudden liberation of his embargoed voice, was delivered with the force of a pistol shot. That stammer was worth an annuity to him as an ally of his wit. Firing under cover of that advantage, he did triple execution; for, in the first place, the distressing sympathy of the hearers with his distress of utterance won for him unavoidably the silence of deep attention; and then, whilst he had us all hoaxed into this attitude of mute suspense by an appearance of distress that he perhaps did not really feel, do^vn came a plunging shot into the very thick of us, with ten times the effect it would else have had. If his stammering, however, often did him true *' yeoman's service," sometimes it led him into scrapes. Coleridge told me of a ludicrous embarrassment which it caused him at Hastings. Lamb had been medically advised to a course of sea-bathing; and accordingly at the door of his bathing machine, whilst he stood shivering with cold, two stout fellows laid hold of him, one at each N. ~7\ 228 THE CASKET OF LITERARY GEMS. shoulder, like heraldic supporters; they waited for the word of command from their principal, who began the following oration to them: ^' Hear me, men! Take notice of this — I am to be dipped." AVhat more he would have said is unknown to land or sea or bathing machines ; for having reached the word dipped, he commenced such a rolling fire of Di — di — di — di, that when at length he descended a plomb upon the full word dipped, the two men, rather tired of the long suspense, be- came satisfied that they had reached what lawyers call the " operative clause " of the sentence; and both exclaiming at once, " Oh yes, sir, we're quite aware of that,'' down they plunged him into the sea. On emerging, Lamb sobbed so much from the cold, that he found no voice suitable to his indignation; from necessity he seemed tranquil; and again addressing the men, who stood respectfully listening, he began thus: " Men! is it possible to obtain your attention?" " Oh surely, sir, by all means." "Then listen: once more I tell you, I am to be di — di — di — " — and then, with a burst of indignation, " dipped, I tell you " " Oh, decidedly, sir," rejoined the men, '' decidedly," and down the stammerer went for the second time. Petrified with cold and wrath, once more Lamb made a feeble attempt at explanation — " Grant me pa — pa — patience; is it mum — um — murder you me — me — mean? Again and a — ga — ga — gain, I tell you, I'm to be di — di — dipped," now speaking furiously, with the voice of an injured man. " Oh yes, sir," the men replied, " we know that, we fully understood it," and for the third time down went Lamb into the sea. "Oh, limbs of Satan!" he said, on coming up for the third time, " it's now too late; I tell you that I am — no, that I was — to be di — di — di — dipped only once'' — DeQuincey. -f jL ANECDOTES. 229 EDMUND BURKE. Eloquence. In 1786, Burke commenced a Herculean task, in the pro- secution of Warren Hastings, governor-general of India, for malversation in office, the charges of which fill two printed octavo volumes! The impeachment was tried before the House of Lords, and began in February, 1788. The scene was very imposing. The king, with the prelates and peers of parliament, sat on the judgment seat. The Commons stood at the bar, with Burke at their head, whom they had chosen to guide the prosecution. All the great functionaries of government were present, in their insignia of office. The accused had been governor of sixty millions of people, and of a territory as large as Europe. All the preliminary proceedings having been gone through, Burke arose, and said — '' I stand forth at the command of the Commons of Great Britain, as the accuser of Warren Hastings." He then paused about a minute, during which the feeling of suspense was almost sublime. At last he pro- ceeded, and by a flood of the most thrilling and electrifying eloquence, seemed to sweep everything before him. In describing the atrocities perpetrated by Debi Sing, said to be an agent of Hastings, he drew such a picture as wrought up the audience to a point bordering on frenzy. Several ladies shrieked, and others fainted, from irrepressible excitement, and among the latter was the celebrated Mrs. Siddons. Hastings himself, in speaking of it afterwards, said that he was so overborne by the power of the orator, as to feel that he was the most guilty of men. As a relief to all parties, the prince of Wales, afterwards George IV., moved an adjournment. Kindness. In private life, Burke was exceedingly amiable; his char- ities were numerous, and many of his acts display the most \ ^ ~A 230 THE CASKET OF LITERARY GEMS. kind and generous feelings. His treatment of Crabbe, the poet, is a brilliant chapter in his life. This excellent poet, having borrowed five pounds of a friend, had come to Lon- don as a literary adventurer. His stock of money being expended, he was reduced to a state of great distress. He applied for help to Lord North, Lord Shelburne, and Lord Thurlow; but in vain. At last, having been threatened with arrest, he applied to Burke, in a letter written with great simplicity, dignity and pathos. " The night after I delivered my letter at his door," said he to Mr. Lockhart some years after, " I was in such a state of agitation, that I walked Westminster bridge, backward and forward, till daylight." AVith true Irish heartiness Burke received the poet, looked over his compositions, and induced Dodsley to publish them. He also assisted him with money, gave him a room at Beaconsfield, introduced him to Fox, Reynolds, and others, and effectually aided him in obtaining advancement in the church. How few great men, and especially those who have been addicted to politics, have exhibited either the humanity or sagacity displayed by Burke in this instance. THOMAS CARLYLE, At Home. Retired as is Carlyle's life, his gaunt figure, attired in a brown coat, and dark horn buttons, and with a large, slouched felt hat, is familiar enough to Chelsea people. Nor will the denizens of that historico-literary locality let him pass quite so unnoticed as he would desire. Already a sort of pre- posthumous fame has gathered about him; and the gentle- men who wrote the life of Turner, and collected so much about that immortal genius from Chelsea folks, would find Chelsea no less fruitful of anecdote about Carlyle. There they tell how the great author of " Hero Worship " one day 7[ ANECDOTES. 23 1 found himself without three-pence to pay a fare, and how an irreverent omnibus conductor, having evidently strong doubts of his character, deputed a sharp newspaper boy to accom- pany him to the address he had given, and see " all was right; " and how the boy was interrogated by the philoso- pher with "Weel, cawn ye read?" and so forth; and fou-nd him " a very nice man," and hastened to the omnibus con- ductor to communicate the fact, that the supposed cheat was " a gentleman, and really did live in Great Cheyne Row, as he had solemnly alleged." Carlyle always walks at night, carrying an enormous stick, and generally with his eyes on the ground. When he is in London any one may be sure of meeting him in some of the dark streets of that locality about midnight, taking his con- stitutional walk before retiring to bed — a custom which* he continued all through the "garrotting" panic, in spite of warnings of friends that the history of Frederick the Great might one day be brought to an untimely and premature conclusion. Probably the philosopher was quite willing to trust to his knotted stick, although walking alone, as is his invariable custom. Occasionally he may be seen on horse- back; and the good Chelsea folks, whom the philosopher will doubtless pardon for a little excess of that form of " hero-worship " which delights in accumulating details about " living celebrities," tell how he grooms his own horse, keeping it in a stable on an odd piece of waste ground, among donkeys, cows, and geese, who have also their abodes there, and from the crazy gateway of which he issues forth, always unattended, sitting erect in the saddle, like a skeleton guardsman. His solitary habits, however, are not altogether unbroken. Though it is rare indeed that he is ever seen to stop and speak to a grown person in the street — probably because he knows but one or two personally in his own neighborhood — he is always ready to recognize little children. The keeper of a small confectioner's shop, near the river- side, tells with delight how he will call upon her for \ 232 THE CASKET OF LITERARY GEMS. extravagant quantities of cheap sweetmeats, with which he will sometimes stop and load the laps of a little group of poor children in some of the purlieux of Lawrence street — that locality once hallowed by the presence of Smollett, Toland, and Budgell — but now, alas! sadly fallen from its old gentility. Some popular anecdotes of him, however, are not, it must be confessed, of so genial a character. j\Ir. Babbage him- self is not more sensitive to street noises, for which reason — this was before the days of Mr. Bass's bill — our philoso- pher would often be seen to rush out without his hat to offer the proprietor of a dreadful organ a bribe; failing which he would seize fhe outlandish offender by the coat collar and foi^ibly deposit him, instrument and all, at the door of a neighboring literary man, who had rendered himself con- spicuous by defending the organ-grinding nuisance in the public press. Equally famous in that locality is his hatred of fowls and their noise; a neighbor's fowls having, as he once complained, succeeded in banishing him to an upper garret, because, as he said in his peculiar broad Doric, " they would neither hatch in peace nor let him." Gener- ally, however, the philosopher and historian's friends may be glad to know that he enjoys a degree of retirement and seclusion not easily to be found in the suburbs of the metro- polis. The street in which he resides is silent, deserted, and antique. A large garden, fit for philosophic meditation, and enclosed in fine old red brick walls — strangely neglected, by the way, and exhibiting all the " rank luxuriance " of the jungle — lies at the back of the house, where " rumors of the outward world" rarely reach him; and where, we hope, we may be pardoned for this brief, but not irreverent glance at the far-famed philosopher of Chelsea. — Jolm Ca??ide?i Hotte?i. The following anecdotes of Carlyle are told by Mr. Lewes in his " Life of Goethe " : " I heard a capital story of Carlyle at a dinner party in \ ^ N 7\ ANECDOTES. 233 Berlin, silencing the cant about Goethe's want of religion, by one of his characteristic sarcasms. For some time he sat quiet, but not patient, while certain pietists were throw- ing up their eyes, and regretting that so great a genius! so godlike a genius! should not have more purely devoted him- self to the service of Christian truth! and should have had so little, etc., etc. Carlyle sat grim, ominously silent, his hands impatiently twisting his napkin, until at last he broke silence, and in his slow, emphatic way said, '<^Ieine Herren, did you never hear the story of that man who vilified the sun because it would not light his cigar? ' This bombshell completely silenced the enemy's fire." " I remember once, as we were walking along Piccadilly, talking about the infamous Biichlein von Goethe, Carlyle stopped suddenly, and with his peculiar look and emphasis, said, '■ Yes, it is the wild cry of amazement on the part of all spooneys that the Titan was not a spooney too! Here is a godlike intellect, and yet you see he is not an idiot! Not in the least a spooney! ' " THOMAS BABINGTON MA CAUL AY, Precocity and Memory in Childhood. When a child, standing up at the nursery window by his father's side, looking at a cloud of black smoke pouring out of a tall chimney, he asked if that was hell: an inquiry that was received with a grave displeasure which at the time he could not understand. The kindly father must have been pained almost against his own will at finding what feature of his stern creed it was that had embodied itself in so very material a shape before his litde son's imagination. When in after days INIrs. Macaulay was questioned as to how soon she began to detect in the child a promise of the future, she used to say that his sensibilities and affections were \ 234 THE CASKET OF LITERARY GEMS. remarkably developed at an age which to her hearers appeared next to incredible. He would cry for joy on seeing her after a few hours' absence, and (till her husband put a stop to it) her power of exciting his feelings was often made an exhibi- tion to her friends. She did not regard this precocity as a proof of cleverness, but, like a foolish young mother, only thought that so tender a nature was marked for early death. ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ From the time that he was three years old he read inces- santly, for th'^ most part lying on the rug before the fire, with his book on the ground, and a piece of bread and butter in his hand. A very clever woman who then lived in the house as parlor-maid, told hovr he used to sit in his nankeen frock, perched on the table by her as she was clean- ing the plate, and expounding to her out of a volume as big as himself. He did not care for toys, but was very fond of taking his walk, when he would hold forth to his companion, whether nurse or mother, telling interminable stories out of his own head, or repeating what he had been reading in language far above his years. His memory retained without effort the phraseology of the book which he had been last engaged on, and he talked, as the maid said, " quite printed words," which produced an effect that appeared formal, and often, no doubt, exceedingly droll. Mrs. Hannah More was fond of relating how she called at Mr. Macaulay's, and was met by a fair, pretty, slight child, with abundance of light hair, about four years of age, who came to the front door to receive her, and tell her that his parents were out, but that if she would be good enough to come in he would bring her a glass of old spirits; a proposition which greatly startled the good lady, who had never aspired beyond cowslip wine. When questioned as to what he knew about old spirits, he could only say that Robinson Crusoe often had some. About this period his father took him on a visit to Lady Waldegrave at Strawberry Hill, and was much pleased to exhibit to his old friend the fair, bright boy, dressed in a \. y- K ANECDOTES. 235 green coat with red collar and cuffs, a frill at the throat, and white trousers. After some time had been spent among the wonders of the Orford Collection, of which he ever after carried a catalogue in his head, a servant who was waiting upon the company in the great gallery spilt some hot coffee over his legs. The hostess was all kindness and compassion, and when, after a while, she asked how he was feeling, the little fellow looked up in her face and replied: "■ Thank you, madam, the agony is abated." But it must not be supposed that his quaint manners pro- ceeded from affectation or conceit: for all testimony declares that a more simple and natural child never lived, or a more lively and merry one. He had at his command the resources of the Common: to this day the most unchanged spot within ten miles of St. Paul's, and which to all appearance will ere long hold that pleasant pre-eminence within ten leagues. That delightful wilderness of gorse bushes, and poplar groves, and gravel-pits, and ponds great and small, was to little Tom Macaulay a region of inexhaustible romance and mystery. He explored its recesses; he composed, and almost believed, its legends; he invented for its different features a nomen- clature which has been faithfully preserved by two genera- tions of children. A slight ridge, intersected by deep ditches towards the west of the Common, the very existence of which no one above eight years old would notice, was digni- fied with the title of the Alps; while the elevated island, covered with shrubs, that gives a name to the Mount pond, was regarded with infinite awe as being the nearest approach within the circuit of his observation to a conception of the majesty of Sinai. Indeed, at this period his infant fancy was much exercised with the threats and terrors of the law. He had a little plot of ground at the back of the house, marked out as his own by a row of oyster-shells, which a maid one day threw away as rubbish. He went straight to the drawing-room, where his mother was entertaining some visitors, walked into the circle, and said very solemnly: V THE CASKET OF LITERARY GEMS. Z- " Cursed be Sally: for it is written, Cursed is he that removeth his neighbor's land-mark." The secret of his immense acquirements lay in two invalu- able gifts of nature — an unerring memory, and the capacity for taking in at a glance the contents of a printed page. During the first part of his life he remembered whatever caught his fancy without going through the process of con- sciously getting it by heart. As a child, during one of the numerous seasons when the social duties devolved upon ]\Ir. Macaulay, he accompanied his father on an afternoon call, and found on a table the " Lay of the Last ^Minstrel," which he had never before met with. He kept himself quiet with his prize while the elders were talking, and on his return home sat down upon his mother's bed, and repeated to her as many cantos as she had the patience or the strength to listen to. At one period of his life he was known to say that, if by some miracle of Vandalism all copies oi Paradise Lost and the Filgri?n's Progress were destroyed off the face of the earth, he would undertake to reproduce them both from recollections whenever a revival of learning came. In 1813, while waiting in a Cambridge coffee-room for a post- chaise which was to take him to his school, he picked up a county newspaper containing two such specimens of provin- cial poetical talent as in those days might be read in the corner of any weekly journal. One piece was headed " Reflec- tions of an Exile," while the other was a trumpery parody on the Welsh ballad " Ar hyd y nos," referring to some local anecdote of an ostler whose nose had been bitten off by a filly. He looked them once through, and never gave them a thought for forty years, at the end of which time he repeated them both without missing, or, as far as he knew, changing a single word. As he grew older, this wonderful power became impaired so far that getting by rote the compositions of others was no longer an involuntary process. He has noted in his Lucan W^ ~7\ AN^C^'OTES. 237 the several occasions on which he committed to memory his favorite passages of an author whom he regarded as unrivalled among rhetoricians, and the dates refer to the year 1836, when he had just turned the middle point of life. During his last years, at his dressing-table in the morning, he would learn by heart one of the little idylls in which Martial expatiates on the enjoyments of a Spanish country- house or a \illa-farm in the en\-irons of Rome — those delicious morsels of verse which (considering the sense that modern ideas attach to the name) is an injustice to class under the head of epigTams. Power of Assimilation. Macaulay's extraordinary faculty of assimilating printed matter at first sight remained the same through life. To the end he read books faster than other people skimmed them, and skimmed them as fast as anyone else could turn the leaves. "' He seemed to read through the skin," said one who had often watched the operation. And this speed was not in his case obtained at the expense of accuracy. Any- thing which had once appeared in t}'pe, from the highest effort of genius dov>Ti to the most detestable trash that ever consumed ink and paper manufactured for better things, had in his eyes an authority which led him to look upon mis- quotation as a species of minor sacrilege. Peculiarities. He dressed badly, but not cheaply. His clothes, though ill put on, were good, and his wardrobe was always enor- mously overstocked. Later in life he indulged himself in an apparently inexhaustible succession of handsome eijibroid- ered waistcoats, which he used to regard with much com- placency. He was unhandy to a degree quite unexampled in the experience of all who knew him. When in the open air he wore perfectly new dark kid gloves, into the fingers of which he never succeeded in inserting his own more than / \ >> \ 238 THE CASKET OF LITERARY GEMS. half way. After he had sailed for India there were found in his chambers between fifty and sixty strops, hacked into strips and splinters, and razors without beginning or end. About the sanae period he hurt his hand, and was reduced to send for a barber. After the operation, he asked what was to pay. " Oh, sir," said the man, " whatever you usually give the person who shaves you." " In that case," said Macaulay, " I should give you a great gash on each cheek." MISCELLANEOUS ANECDOTES. Lincoln's Tenderness. A striking incident in Mr. Lincoln's life is related by Judge Bromwell, of Denver, who visited the White House, in March, 1865. Mr. Seward and several other gentlemen were present, and the President gradually came to talk on decisions of life and death. All other matters submitted to him, he declared, were nothing compared with these, and he added: "I reckon there never was a man raised in the country on a farm, where they are always butchering cattle and hogs, and think nothing of it, that ever grew up with such aversion to bloodshed as I have, and yet I've had more questions of life and death to settle in four years, than all the men who have ever sat in this chair put together. But I've managed to get along and do my duty, I believe, and still save some of them; and there is no man who knows the distress of my mind. But there have been some of them I couldn't save — there are some cases where the law must be executed. There was that man , who was sentenced for piracy and slave trading on the high seas. That was a case where there must be an example, and you know how they followed and pressed to get him pardoned, or his sentence commuted; but there was no use of talking. It had to be done. I couldn't help him. And then there was /L ^1 ^_ :;;=^k ' T\ ANECDOTES. 239 that , who was caught spying and recruiting within Pope's hues at Missouri. That was another case. They besieged me day and night, but I couldn't give way. We had come to a point where something must be done that would put a stop to such work. And then there was this case of Beal, on the lakes. That was a case where there must be an example. They tried me every way. They wouldn't give up; but I had to stand firm on that, and I even had to turn away his poor sister when she came and begged for his life, and let him be executed, and I can't get the dis- tress out of my mind yet." As the kindly man uttered these words, the tears ran down his cheeks, and the eyes of the men surrounding him moistened in sympathy. There was a profound silence, in which they all rose to depart. Three weeks after the President was killed. A Mortifying Predicament. Madame De Campan mentions, as an amusing incident in her early life, though terrific at the time, and overwhelming to her sense of shame, that not long after her establishment at Versailles, in the service of some one amongst the daughters of Louis XV., having as yet never seen the king, she was one day suddenly introduced to his particular notice, under the following circumstances: The time was morning; the young lady was not fifteen; her spirits were as the spirits of a fawn in May; her tour of duty for the day was either not come, or was gone; and, finding herself alone in a spacious room, what more reasonable thing could she do than amuse herself with making cheeses? that is, whirling round, accord- ing tD a fashion practiced by young ladies both in France and England, and pirouetting until the petticoat is inflated like a balloon, and then sinking into a courtesy. Madem- oiselle was very solemnly rising from one of these courtesies, in the centre of her collapsing petticoats, when a slight noise alarmed her. Jealous of intruding eyes, yet not dreading more than a servant at worst, she turned, and, O 240 THE CASKET OF LITERARY GEMS. heavens! whom should she behold but his most Christian majesty advancing upon her, with a brilliant suite of gentle- men, young and old, equipped for the chase, who had been all silent spectators of her performances? From the king to the last of the train, all bowed to her, and all laughed without restraint, as they passed the abashed amateur of cheese making. But she, to speak Homerically, wished in that hour that the earth might gape and cover her confusion. Eccentricity, The late Henry Wilberforce, the son of the philanthropist, and the brother-in-law of Cardinal Mannering, was, while a very clever man, the most slovenly, untidy, and unpractical of mortals. He once engaged to spend a vacation at the country house of a well-known nobleman. The coach was to start at twelve, and at five minutes to twelve he had made no preparations whatever. A friend whom he was detaining with his talk, told him he would certainly miss the coach. He at once spread a large blue cloak on the floor, took out all the drawers from a chest, turned out the contents on the cloak one after another, boots, brushes, etc., on the top of them, knotted together the opposite corners of the cloak, ran off and caught the coach, though what my lord's butler, or groom of the chambers said, it never was known. Effect of Patrick Henry's Eloquence. When Patrick Henry pleaded the tobacco case " against the parsons" in 1758, it is said that the people might have been seen in every part of the house, on the benches, in the aisles, and in the windows, hushed in death-like stillness, and bending eagerly forward to catch the magic tones of the speaker. The jury were so bewildered as to lose sight of the legislative enactments on which the plaintiffs relied; the court lost the equipoise of its judgment, and refused a new trial; and the people, who could scarcely keep their hands off their champion after he had closed his harangue, no ANECDOTES. 24I sooner saw that he was victorious, than they seized him at the bar, and, in spite of his own efforts, and the con- tinued cry of " Order! " from the sheriff and the court, bore him out of the court-house, and, raising him on their shoulders, carried him about the yard in a kind of electioneering triumph. When the same great orator con- cluded his well-known speech in INIarch, 1775, in behalf of American independence, " no murmur of applause followed," says his biographer; " the effect was too deep. After the trance of a moment, several members of the Assembly started from their seats. The cry. To arms! seemed to quiver on every lip and glance from every eye." — " Oratory and Orators,'' William Mathews, LL.D. Anecdote of George I. George I., on a journey to Hanover, stopped at a village in Holland, and while horses were getting ready for him, he asked for two or three eggs, which were brought him, and charged a hundred florins. " How is this? " said the king, "eggs must be very scarce here." "Pardon me," said the host, " eggs are plentiful enough, but kings are scarce." A Startling , Declaration. A young lady had been engaged for some time to a Scottish nobleman, the Earl of Morton. The day was at length fixed for the marriage; and about a fortnight before that day arrived, some particular dress or ornament was brought to Porters, in which it was designed that the bride should appear at the altar. The fashion as to this point has often varied; but at that time, I believe the custom was for bridal parties to be in full dress. The lady, when the dress arrived, was, to all appearance, in good health; but, by one of those unaccountable misgivings which are on record in so many well-attested cases, she said, after gazing for a minute or two at the beautiful dress, firmly and pointedly, " So, then, that is my wedding dress; and it is expected that I f A 242 THE CASKET OF LITERARY GEMS. shall wear it on the 17th; but I shall 7iot; I shall never wear it. On Thursday, the 17th, I shall be dressed in a shroud! " All present were shocked at such a declaration, which the solemnity of the lady's manner made it impossible to receive as a jest. The countess, her mother, even reproved her with some severity for the words, as an expression of dis- trust in the goodness of God. The bride elect made no answer but by sighing heavily. Within a fortnight, all happened, to the letter, as she had predicted. She was taken suddenly ill; she died about three days before the marriage day, and was finally dressed in her shroud according to the natural course of the funeral arrangements, on the morning that was to have been the wedding festival. — DeQui7icey. Cobbett's Courtship It is recorded in Chambers's " Book of Days," that while in New Brunswick, Cobbett met the girl who became his wife. He first saw her in company for about an hour one evening. Shortly afterwards, in the dead of winter, when the snow lay several feet thick on the ground, he chanced, in his walk at break of day, to pass the house of her parents. It was hardly light, but there was she out in the cold, scrubbing a washing-tub. That action made her mis- tress of Cobbett's heart for ever. No sooner was he out of hearing than he exclaimed, "That's the girl for me! " She was the daughter of a sergeant of artillery, and then only thirteen. To his intense chagrin, the artillery was ordered to England, and she had to go with her father. Cobbett, by this time, had managed to save 150 guineas as a foot-soldier — the produce of extra work. Considering that Woolwich, to which his sweetheart was bound, was a gay place, and that she there might find many suitors, who, moved by her beauty, might tempt her by their wealth; and, unwilling that she should hurt herself with hard work, he sent her all his precious guineas, and prayed that she would use them freely, for he could get plenty more — to buy good clothes, and live ^^ ANECDOTES. 243 in pleasant lodgings, and be as happy as she could until he was able to join her. Four long years elapsed before they met: Cobbett, when he reached England, found her a maid- of-all-work, at 5/. a year. On their meeting, without saying a word about it, she placed in his hands his parcel of 150 guineas unbroken. He obtained his discharge from the army, and married the brave and thrifty woman. She made him an admirable wife — never was he tired of speaking her praises; and whatever comfort and success he afterwards enjoyed, it was his delight to ascribe to her care and to her inspiration. An Idiot's Shrewdness.' Dean Ramsay, in his " Reminiscences," relates the follow- ing anecdote. A clergyman in the north of Scotland, on coming into church one Sunday, found the pulpit occupied by the parish idiot. The authorities had been unable to remove him without more violence than was seemly, and therefore waited for the minister to dispossess Tam of the place he had assumed. " Come down, sir, immediately," .was the peremptory and indignant call; and on Tam being unmoved, it was repeated with still greater energy. Tam, however, very confidentially replied, looking down from his elevation, " Na, na, minister! just ye come up wi' me. This is a perverse generation, and faith they need us baith." Power of Illustration. Probably not one of our public speakers was ever more conscientious, not to say finical, in his preparation for the rostrum, than Edward Everett. Nothing with him is left to chance or improvisation; all his oratorical flights, as well as the less ambitious parts of his discourse, are made with " malice prepense and aforethought." Not a word but has been fitted into its place with the precision of each stone in a mosaic; not an epithet but has been weighed in the hair- balance of the most fastidious taste; not a period but has f s. \ 7 244 THE CASKET OF LITERARY GEMS. been polished and repolished, and modulated with the nicest art, till it is totics teres atque rotimdus, and musical as the tones of a flute. Even his attitudes and gestures have all been carefully practiced in his study, and their precise effect calculated with a critical eye. One of his tricks of delivery was to provide himself beforehand with certain physical objects to which he designed to refer, and hold them at the proper moment to the eyes of his audience. Thus, in delivering the magnificent passage upon Webster, as Everett pealed out the words, "his broad pennant streaming at the main," he caught up from the table, as» if uncon- sciously, an elegant flag of the Union, and waved it to and fro amid the shouts of his ravished and enthusiastic hearers. At another time, in an agricultural address, having dwelt in glowing terms upon a New England product which he declared was brighter and better than California gold, he produced and brandished before the eyes of the people, at the moment when curiosity was on tiptoe, a golden ear of corn. Again, to illustrate a remark, he, on another occa- sion, put his finger in a tumbler of water, and let a drop 'trickle off; and, yet again, in an academic address, having spoken of the electric wire which was destined to travel the deep-soundings of the ocean, among the bones of the lost Armadas, he " realized " the description by displaying an actual piece of the Submarine Atlantic Cable. Proceeding to compare the wire, murmuring the thought of America through leagues of ocean, to the printed page, which, he declared, t^^as a yet greater marvel, since it murmured to us the thought of Homer through centuries — he held up to view a small copy of the " Iliad " and " Odyssey." — " Oratory and Orators,^' William Mathews, LL.D. Too Late. Henry Merritt, the late English author, critic, and picture- restorer — husband of the American artist, Anna Lea — suffered much in early life from poverty; and when he grew to have /L ^. — -- ^ , " ^ . K — X ANECDOTES. 245 a good income, he generously spent so much on other people, that he rarely had any money for himself. His method of keeping his money was curiously simple; he put all the bank notes he received between the leaves of books, which were then put up in their accustomed places on his book shelves. His life, though a noble, was not a very happy one. There is something strangely pathetic in what he said not long before his death: " Everything in my life has come too late. I could not buy food and clothing until my health was ruined. Now I have the dearest wife, I cannot live to enjoy happiness." A Brief Sermon. Dean Swift once preached a charity sermon at St. Patrick's, Dublin, the length of which disgusted many of his auditors; which coming to his knowledge, and it falling to his lot soon after to preach another sermon of the like kind in the same place, he took special care to avoid falling into the former error. His text on the second occasion was, " He that hath pity upon the poor lendeth unto the Lord, and that which he Imth given will he pay him again." The Dean, after repeat- ing his text in a more than commonly emphatical ton^e, added, " Now, my beloved brethren, you hear the terms of this loan; if you like the security, down with your dust." Honesty Rewarded. The great critic and grammarian, Thiersch, said that his mother did not teach him Greek, but out of her Lutheran hymn-book she taught him songs about the Saviour and His dying love. She also taught him kindness to the poor — a lesson which all through life he practised liberally. On one occasion, whilst a small boy, his mother left him at home with the door locked and the window open. A beggar woman came. There was a French crown on the table, which little Fritz at once handed out to her, bidding her tenderly " Come soon back again." She was so honest as 1^ \ 246 THE CASKET OF LITERARY GEMS. not to go away till the lady returned, and for restoring the crown was rewarded with cakes and eight good groschen. ~7\ A Mother's Influence. Kirby, long the patriarch of English entomology, said, " That to his mother, and to her alone, he did not hesitate to affirm that he was indebted for his taste for natural his- tory." While still a little child she gave him, as his most precious playthings, shells from an old' family cabinet. He was exceedingly attracted by their different shapes and colors, and soon learned to know them every one, and ask for them by their right names; and when a veteran of eighty- four he still showed his friends a little herbarium which with the help of his dear mother he had compiled at nine years of age. Economy and Civility. " Gather up the fragments that nothing be lost " made the fortune of Lafitte the banker. " Well, old fellow, how did you get together all this tin? " said a brusque youth to the wealthy Quaker. " By one article alone, in which thou ajso mayest deal if thou pleasest — civility," was the reply. Noble Resolutions. Writing to a young friend, says Amos Lawrence: " At the commencement of your journey, take this for your motto, that the difference of going jus^ right or a little wrong will be the difference of finding yourself in good quarters or in a miserable bog or slough at the end of it. Of the whole number educated in the Groton stores for some years before and after myself, no one else, to my knowledge, escaped the bog or slough; and my escape I trace to the simple fact of my having put a restraint upon my appetite. We five boys were in the habit, every forenoon, of making a drink com- pounded of rum, raisins, etc., with biscuit — all palatable to eat and drink. After being in the store four weeks I found 4r- >> \ ANECDOTES. 247 myself admonished by my appetite of the approach of the hour for indulgence. Thinking the habit might make trouble if allowed to grow stronger, without further apology to my seniors I declined partaking with them. My first resolution was to abstain for a week, and when the week was out, for a month, and then for a year. Finally, I resolved to abstain for the rest of my apprenticeship, which was for five years longer. During that whole period I never drank a spoonful, though I mixed gallons daily for my old master and his customers. I decided not to be a slave to tobacco in any form, though I loved the odor of it then, and even now have in my drawer a superior Havana cigar, given me not long since by a friend, but only to smell at. I have never in my life smoked a cigar; never chewed but one quid, and that was before I was fifteen; and never took an ounce of snuff, though the scented rappee of forty years ago had great charms for me. Now, I say, to this simple fact of starting just right am I indebted, with God's blessing on my labors, for my present position as well as that of the numerous con- nections sprung up around me." Beau Brummell. In the days of the Regency this celebrated man was much envied, and in the ranks of fashion his influence was paramount. It was not that he was a statesman or a hero, a thinker or a speaker; but, as far as an outside can make it, he was a gentleman. His bow, his gait, his dress, were per- fection: the Regent took lessons at his toilette; when peeresses brought out their daughters they awaited with anxiety his verdict, and no party was distinguished from which he withheld his presence. Very poor padding within, heartless and soulless, the usual sawdust which does for a dandy, by infinite painstaking and equal impudence he scrambled into his much-envied ascendancy, the arbiter of taste, the dictator of the drawing-room, the leader of the great army of beaux and butterflies. Then came a cloud. V. N. A THE CASKET OF LITERARY GE-MS. The prince withdrew his favor, and, of course, the prince's friends. His mysterious wealth suddenly took wing, and means which he took to recover it sent him into life-long exile at Calais and Caen. His god was the sunshine — court- favor, the smiles of the great and the gay. The instant these were withdrawn the poor Apollo butterfly came flutter- ing down, down into the dust, and never soared again. It was all in vain that old acquaintances tried to keep him out of debt and discredit. With no gratitude, and with little conscience, and with only'*that amount of pride which makes the misanthrope, he begged and borrowed on all sides, at the table d'hote glad to get a bottle of wine from some casual tourist by telHng stories of old times, and unable to cross the threshold when his only suit of clothes was in process of repair. The broken-down exquisite began to be in want, and, when borrowing a biscuit from a grocer, or a cup of coff'ee from a kindly hostess, he may have remembered the days when he lavished thousands on folly, the days when he was the favorite guest at the palace. Truly, it was a mighty famine, but it did not bring him to himself. It only alienated from mankind a heart which had all along been estranged from the living God, and gave frightful force to his cynicism. " Madame de St. Ursain," he said to his landlady, " were I to see a man and a dog drowning together in the same pond, and no one was looking on, I would prefer saving the dog." RuFus Choate's Wit. When a counsel in a patent case said to him, " There's nothing original in your patent; your client did not come at it naturally,''' Choate replied, with a half-mirthful, half-scorn- ful look: " What does my brother mean by naturally? Naturally! We don't do anything naturally. Why, naturally a man would walk down Washington street with his panta- loons ofl"!" One day he was interrupted in an argument by a United X ANECDOTES. 249 States judge, and told that he must not assume that a certain person was in a large business, and had made many enemies — that he was a physician, and not in business. " Well, then," replied Choate, instantly, with a merry twinkle of the eye, *' he's a physician, and the friends of the people he's killed by his practice are his enemies." Of one of his female clients he said: '' She is a sinner — no, not a sinner, for she is our client; but she is a very dis- agreeable saint." In a railroad case the person injured by the collision of the cars with his wagon, was declared by a witness to have been intoxicated at the time he was driving. \Vhen cross- examined, the witness said he knew it, because he leaned over him, and found by his breath that " he had been drink- ing gin and brandy." Commenting on this testimony, Choate said: '• The witness swears he stood by the dying man in his last moments. What was he there for? " he thundered out. — " Was it to administer those assiduities which are ordin- arily proffered at the bedside of dying men? Was it to extend to him the consolations of that religion which for eighteen hundred years has comforted khe world? Xo, gentlemen, no! He leans over the departing sufferer; he bends his face nearer and nearer to him — and what does he do? " — (raising his voice to a yet higher key) — " What does he do? Smells gin and brandy! " Of the bankruptcy of a dry-goods merchant, he said: "So have I heard that the vast possessions of Alexander the Conqueror crumbled away in dying dynasties, in the unequal hands of his weak heirs." — " Oratory and Orators,'' William Mathews, LL.D. IMelanxholy Actor. Carlini was the first comic actor on the stage at Padua; a single glance of his eye would diffuse a smile over the most rigid countenance. A gentleman one morning waited on the first physician in that city, and requested that he would N< A 250 THE CASKET OF LITERARY GEMS. prescribe for a disease, to which he was not merely subject, but a victim — melancholy. " Melancholy! " repeated the physician, "you must go to the theatre: Carlini will soon dissipate your gloom, and enliven your spirits." " Dear sir," said his patient, seizing the doctor by the hand, " excuse me, I am Carlini himself; at the moment I convulse the audience with laughter, I am a prey of the disease which I came to consult you on." Bunyan's Sarcasm. A Quaker called upon Bunyan in gaol one day, with what he professed to be a message from the Lord. " After search- ing for thee," said he, " in half the gaols of England, I am glad to have found thee at last." " If the Lord sent thee," said Bunyan, sarcastically, " you would not have needed to take so much trouble to find me out, for He knows that I have been in Bedford gaol these seven years past." Frederick the Great and the Student. Frederick the Great of Prussia, once met a student of theology in the street, and asked him where he came from. " I am a Berliner," was the reply. " Psha," said the king, " the Berliners are good for nothing." " I know two Berlin boys who are exceptions to that rule," said the student. " Whom? " " Your majesty and myself." The king desired him to attend at the palace. " Do ALL the Good you Can." Dr. N. Murray, the famous " Kirwan " of America, men- tions that in his youth he met an old disciple, ninety-one years of age, and in taking leave the venerable pilgrim left with his young friend a charge which he had never forgotten: " Do all the good you can — to all the people you can — in all the ways you can — and as long as you can." VL ^^ •*x v\4i2j2jl2/©^^ ¥ •V^/^nS/OTTJX^ ^icwiTv^ND-Knj!ieR;iH- -r ^^^ LEGAL WIT. HE best club men have been lawyers; and the clubs of London have become famous for the wit and wisdom which they have, in times past, brought together under one roof. Even that exclusive old clique which called itself " The Sublime Society of Beef-steaks," with its " gridiron of 1735 standing out in proud relief from the ceiling of the refectory," and its funnily conceited motto of " Beef and Liberty " — even this, the most snobbish and conservative of clubs, which had no less a man than a drunken and half-paralytic duke for its honored president, gathered its brightest members from the bar. Wilkes, Sergeant Prime (not witty himself, but the cause of wit in others), " Frog " Morgan — so called because he was in the habit of quoting constantly in his arguments in court " Croke Elizabeth, Croke James, Croke Charles," said Croke being a reporter who lived in those three reigns — Home Tooke, and many others more or less famous, were among its members. Cobb was a lawyer, better known in his time as a playwright, and the author, among others, of an Indian drama called Ramah Drug, and an English opera, the Haunted Tower. " What a misnomer it was," said Arnold, a fellow " steak," to him, '' to call your opera the Haunted Tower! Why, there was no spirit in it from beginning to end." " The drama was better named Ramah Drug,'' exclaimed another, " for it was literally ramming a drug down the pub- lic throat." " True," rejoined Cobb, *' but it was a drug that evinced considerable power, for it operated on the public twenty nights in succession." V- / 254 THE CASKET OF LITERARY GEMS. " My good friend," said Arnold, " that was a proof of its weakness, if it took so long in working." " You are right," retorted Cobb, " in that respect; your play (Arnold had brought out a play which did not survive the first night) had the advantage of mine, for it was so powerful a drug that it was thrown up as soon as it was taken." The raillery of the Sublime Society was merciless. One Bradshaw was fond of boasting of his descent from the regicide of that name. To whom Churchill, the poet, said, " Ah, Bradshaw, don't crow; the Stuarts have been amply revenged for the loss of Charles's head, for you have not had a head in your whole family since." Sheridan was a Beef-steak, and introduced his brother-in- law, Linley, whose peculiarity was a fondness for telling jokes of which he always forgot th.Q point. He published a biography of his friend Leftly^ which, coming up before the society for review, was found to open with the following Johnsonian passage respecting his hero's birth: " His father was a tailor and his mother a seamstress; a union which, "if not first suggested, was probably accelerated by the mutual sympathies of a congenial occupation." This, and another passage, excited general applause. The second was a sober truism, stated with admirable seriousness: " It is a well- known fact that novelty itself, by frequent repetition, loses much of its attraction." The study of the law does not seem favorable to purity or elegance of style, or exactness of expression. Poor Linley was not alone in his grandiloquence. Mr. Marryatt, a brother of the novelist, once, addressing a jury, and speak- ing of a chimney on fire, exclaimed, " Gentlemen, the chim- ney took fire — it poured out volumes of smoke — volumes did I say? — whole encyclopedias! " " When I can not talk sense I talk metaphor," said Curran; and many of his brethren imitate him. Mr. (afterward Sir R.) Dallas exclaimed in one of his speeches, " Now we are advancing from the starlight ^^ \ WIT AND HUMOR. 255 of circumstantial evidence to \.\ie. daylight of discovery; the Sim of certainty has melted the darkness, and we have arrived at the facts admitted by both parties; " and Kenyon once addressed the Bench: " Your lordships perceive that we stand here as our grandmother's administrators de bonis non; and really, my lords, it does strike me that it would be a monstrous thing to say that a party can now come in, in the very teeth of an act of Parliament, and actually turn us round, under color oi hanging us upon i\\t foot of a contract made behind our backs/ " Mr. Sergeant Hill was very absent-minded, and this made him the target of many a practical joke on his circuit. He argued a point of law for some time at nisi prius; and intend- ing to hand his papers to the judge, gravely drew forth a plated candlestick from his bag and presented it to the bench. Some one, it appeared, had substituted a " traveler's " bag for the Sergeant's own. Hill was much delighted when, as not unfrequently occurred, he got the better of his perse- cutors. So pleased was he on one such occasion, at a party given by the Sheriff of Northamptonshire, that, on retiring, he by mistake gave a shilling to his excellent host, and, to the amazement of his friends, shook hands in the most friendly way with the servant at the door. Chief among the wits wasjekyll, a man who had a retort ready for all comers. At a pubUc dinner the bottle had passed freely, and Jekyll, who was shghtly elevated, having just emptied his, called to the servant, "Here, away with this marine^ A General of the Marines, sitting near the lawyer, felt his dignity touched, and said, " I don't understand what you mean, sir, by likening an empty bottle to a marine? " " My dear General," repHed Jekyll, '' I mean a good fellow who has done his duty, and who is ready to do it again." To a Welsh judge, famous as well for his neglect of per- sonal cleanliness as for his insatiable desire for place, he said, " My dear sir, as you have asked the Ministry for every thing else, why have you never asked them for a piece 4v iL 256 THE CASKET OF LITERARY GEMS. of soap and a nail-brush? " Kenyon, before mentioned, was somewhat noted for parsimony. Some one told Jekyll that he had been down in Lord Kenyon's kitchen, and saw his spits shining as bright as if they had never been used. " Why do you mention his spit? " retorted the humorist; " you must know that.nothing turns upon that." A rascally little attorney named Else addressed him: " Sir, I hear that you have called me a pettifogging scoundrel. Have you done so? " " Sir," was the reply, with a look of contempt, " I never said you were a pettifogger or a scoundrel; but I said that you were /////t. V WIT AND HUMOR. 265 far away.' They then said, ' Wilt not marry us? ' — * Oh, no! it cannot was.' Again they asked me to marry them, and again I declined. Then they cried, 'O cruel man! this is too much — oh! too much! ' I told them it was on account of the muchness that I declined. " Mr. Heber C. Kimball is the first Vice-President of the Mormon Church; and would, consequently, succeed to the full presidency on Brigham Young's death. Brother Kimball is a gay and festive fellow of some seventy summers, or some- ers there about. He has one thousand head of cattle and a hundred head of wives. He says they are awful eaters. " Mr. Kimball had a son — a lovely young man — who was married to ten interesting wives. But one day, while he was absent from home, they went out walking with a handsome young man; which so enraged Mr. Kimball's son, which made him so jealous, that he shot himself with a horse- pistol. The doctor who attended him, a very scientific man, informed me that the bullet entered the inner parallelogram of his diaphragmatic thorax, superinducing membraneous hemorrhage in the outer cuticle of his bouliconthomaturgist. It killed him. I should have thought it would. *' The last picture I have to show you represents Mr. Brig- ham Young in the bosom of his family. His family is large, and the olive-branches around his table are in a very tangled condition. He is more a father than any man I know. When at home, as you see him in the picture, he ought to be very happy, with sixty wives to minister to his comforts, and twice sixty children to soothe his distracted mind. Ah! my friends, what is home without a family? " MARK TWAIN'S STORY OF THE BAD LITTLE BOY WHO DIDN'T COME TO GRIEF. Once there was a bad little boy whose name was Jim; though, if you will notice, you will find that bad little boys are nearly always called James, in your Sunday-school ^ >> \ 266 THE CASKET OF LITERARY GEMS. books. It was very strange, but still it was true, that this one was called Jim. He didn't have any sick mother, either — a sick mother who was pious, and had the consumption, and would be glad to lie down in the grave, and be at rest, but for the strong love she bore her boy, and the anxiety she felt that the world would be harsh and cold towards him when she was gone. Most bad boys in the Sunday-school books are named James, and have sick mothers who teach them to say, " Now I lay me down," etc., and sing them to sleep with sweet, plaintive voices, and then kiss them good-night, and kneel down by the bedside and weep. But it was different with this fellow. He was named Jim; and there wasn't any thing the matter with his mother — no consumption, or any thing of that kind. She was rather stout than otherwise; and she was not pious: moreover, she was not anxious on Jim's account. She said if he were to break his neck, it wouldn't be much loss. She always spanked Jim to sleep; and she never kissed him good- night: on the contrary, she boxed his ears when she was ready to leave him. Once this bad little boy stole the key of the pantry, and slipped in there, and helped himself to some jam, and filled up the vessel with tar, so that his mother would never know the difference; but all at once a terrible feeHng didn't come over him, and something didn't seem to whisper to him, " Is it right to disobey my mother? Isn't it sinful to do this? Where do bad little boys go who gobble up their good, kind mother's jam? " and then he didn't kneel down all alone and promise never to be wicked any more, and rise up with a light, happy heart, and go and tell his mother all about it, and beg her forgiveness, and be blessed by her with tears of pride and thankfulness in her eyes. No; that is the way with all other bad boys in the books; but it happened otherwise with this Jim, strangely enough. He ate that jam, and said it was bully, in his sinful, vulgar way; and he put in the tar, and said that was bully also, and laughed, and observed that \ l_ WIT AND HUxMOR. 267 " the old woman would get up and snort " when she found it out; and when she did find it out, he denied knowing any- thing about it; and she whipped him severely; and he did the crying himself. Everything about this boy was curious: everything turned out differently with him from the way it does to the bad Jameses in the books. Once he climbed up in Farmer Acorn's apple-tree to steal apples; and the limb didn't break; and he didn't fall and break his arm, and get torn by the farmer's great dog, and then languish on a sick-bed for weeks, and repent and become good. Oh, no! he stole as many apples as he wanted, and came down all right; and he was all ready for the dog, too, and knocked him endways with a rock when he came to tear him. It was very strange: nothing like it ever happened in those mild little books with marbled backs, and with pictures in them of men with swallow-tailed coats, and bell-crowned hats, and pantaloons that are short in the legs; and women with the waists of their dresses under their arms, and no hoops on — nothing like it in any of the Sunday-school books. Once he stole the teacher's penknife: and when he was afraid it would be found out, and he would get whipped, he slipped it into George Wilson's cap — poor widow Wilson's son, the moral boy, the good little boy of the village, who always obeyed his mother, and never told an untruth, ^nd was fond of his lessons and infatuated with Sunday-school. And when the knife dropped from the cap, and poor George hung his head and blushed as if in conscious guilt, and the grieved teacher charged the theft upon him, and was just in the very act of bringing the switch down upon his trembling shoulders, a white-haired improbable justice of the peace did not suddenly appear in their midst, and strike an attitude, and say, "Spare this noble boy: there stands the cowering culprit. I was passing the school-door at recess, and, unseen myself, I saw the theft committed." And then Jim didn't get whaled; and the venerable justice didn't read the 268 THE CASKET OF LITERARY GEMS. tearful school a homily, and take George by the hand, and say such a boy deserved to be exalted, and then tell him to come and make his home with him, and sweep out the office, and make fires, and run errands, and chop wood, and study law, and help his wife to do household labors, and have all the balance of the time to play, and get forty cents a month, and t>e happy. No: it would have happened that way in the books; but it didn't happen that way to Jim. No meddling old clam of a justice dropped in to make trouble, and so the model boy George got thrashed; and Jim was glad of it, because, you know, Jim hated moral boys. Jim said he was "down on them milksops." Such was the coarse language of this bad, neglected boy. But the strangest things that ever happened to Jim was the time he went boating on Sunday and didn't get drowned, and that other time that he got caught out in the storm when he was fishing on Sunday, and didn't get struck by lightning. Why, you might look and look and look through the Sunday- school books from now till next Christmas, and you would never come across anything like this. Oh, no! ^ you would find that all the bad boys who go boating on Sunday invari- ably get drowned; and all the bad boys who get caught out in storms when they are fishing on Sunday infallibly get struck by lightning. Boats with bad boys in them always upset on Sunday; and it always storms when bad boys go fishing on the Sabbath. How this Jim ever escaped is a mystery to me. This Jim bore a charmed life: that must have been the way of it. Nothing could hurt him. He even gave the elephant in the menagerie a plug of tobacco; and the elephant didn't knock the top of his head off with his trunk. He browsed around the cupboard after essence of peppermint, and didn't make a mistake and drink aqua-fortis. He stole his father's gun, and went hunting on the Sabbath, and didn't shoot three or four of his fingers off. He struck his little sister on the temple with his fist when he was angry; WIT AND HUMOR. 269 and she didn't linger in pain through long summer days, and die with sweet words of forgiveness upon her lips that redoubled the anguish of his breaking heart. No: she got over it. He ran off and went to sea at last, and didn't come back and find himself sad and alone in the world, his loved ones sleeping in the quiet churchyard, and the vine-embow- ered home of his boyhood tumbled down and gone to decay. Ah, no! he came home drunk as a piper, and got into the station-house the first thing. And he grew up, and married, and raised a large family, and brained them all with an axe one night, and got wealthy by all manner of cheating and rascality; an^ now he is the infernalest wickedest scoundrel in his native village, and is universally respected, and belongs to the legislature. So you see there never was a bad James in the Sunday- school books that had such a streak of luck as this sinful Jim with the charmed life. THE QUEER AND INSTRUCTIVE SAYINGS OF MRS. PARTINGTON. It was with strong emotion of wonder that Mrs. Partington read in the papers that a new wing was to be added to the Cambridge Observatory. " What upon airth can that be for, I wonder? I dare say they are putting the new wing on to take more flights arter comics and such things; or to look at the new ring of the planet Satan — another link added to his chain, perhaps; and, gracious knows, he seems to go farther than he ever did before." She stopped to listen, as the sounds of revelry and drunkenness arose upon the night-air; and she glanced from her chamber, over the way, where a red illuminated lantern denoted " Clam-Chowder." Why should she look there just at that moment of her allusion to Satan? What connection could there be, in her mind, between Satan and clam-chowder? Nobody was present but Ike, and Isaac slumbered. ^ y- K 270 THE CASKET OF LITERARY GEMS. Mrs. Partington was in the country one August; and, for a whole month, not one drop of rain had fallen. One day she was slowly walking along the road, with her umbrella over her head, when an old man, who was mending up a little gap of wall, accosted her, at the same time depositing a large stone upon the top of the pile. " Mrs. Partington, what do you think can help this 'ere drought? " The old lady looked at him through her spectacles, at the same time smelling a fern-leaf. " I think," said she in a tone of oracular wisdom — "I think a little rain would help it as much as anything." It was a great thought. The old gentleman took off his straw hat, and wiped his head with his cotton handkerchief, at the same time saying that he thought so too. " Diseases is various," said Mrs. Partington as she returned from a street-door conversation with Dr. Bolus. " The doctor tells me that Mrs. Haze has got two buckles on her lungs. It is dreadful to think of, I declare! The disease is so various! One way, we hear of people's dying of hermit- age of the lungs; another way, of the brown creatures: here they tell us of the elementary canal being out of order, and there about tonsors of the throat; here we hear of neurology in the head, there of an embargo; one side of us we hear of men being killed by getting a pound of tough beef in the cacrofagus, and there another kills himself by discovering the jocular vein. Things change so, that I declare I don't know how to subscribe for my diseases now-a-days. New names and new nostrils takes the place of the old, and I might as well throw my old herb-bag away." Fifteen minutes after- wards, Isaac had that herb-bag for a target, and broke three squares of glass in the cellar-window in trying to hit it, before the old lady knew what he was about. She didn't mean exactly what she said. " Does Isaac manifest any taste for poetry, Mrs. Parting- ton? " asked the schoolmaster's wife while conversing on the merits of the youthful Partington. The old lady was basting ^^ K WIT AND HUMOR. 27 1 a chicken which her friends had sent her from the country. "Oh, yes! " said the old lady, smiling: "he is very partially fond of poultry, and it always seems as if he can't get enough of it." The old spit turned by the fire-place in response to her answer, while the basting was going on. " I mean," said the lady, " does he show any of the divine afflatus? " The old lady thought a moment. " As for the divine flatness, I don't know about it. He's had all the complaints of children; and, when he was a baby, he fell, and broke the cartridge of his nose: but I hardly think he's had this that you speak of." The roasting chicken hissed and sputtered, and Mrs. Partington basted it again. " People may say what they will about country air being so good for 'em," said Mrs. Partington, " and how they fat upon it: for my part, I shall always think it is owin' to the vittles. Air may do for cammamiler and other reptiles that live on it; but I know that men must have something sub- stantialer." The old lady was resolute in this opinion, con- flict as it might with general notions. She is set in her opinions, very; and, in their expression, nowise backward. " It may be as Solomon says," said she; " but I lived at the pasturage in a country town all one summer, and I never heerd a turtle singing in the branches. I say I never heerd it: but it may be so too; for I have seen 'em in brooks under the tree, where they, perhaps, dropped off. I wish some of our great naturalists would look into it." With this wish for light, the old lady lighted her candle, and went to bed. "I think," said Mrs. Partington, getting up from the breakfast-table, " I will take a tower, or go upon a discur- sion. The bill says, if I collect rightly, that a party is to go to a very plural spot, and to mistake of a cold collec- tion. I hope it won't be so cold as ours was for the poor last Sunday: why, there wasn't efficient to buy a feet of wood for a restitute widder." And the old lady put on her calash. % — ^ ' -^ — ^v- 272 THE CASKET OF LITERARY GEMS. CAUDLE'S WEDDING-DAY. Caudle, love, do you know what next Sunday is? No? You don't! Well, was there ever such a strange man! Can't you guess, darling? Next Sunday, dear? Think, love, a minute — ^just think. What! and you don't know now? Ha! If I hadn't a better memory than you I don't know how we should ever get on. W^ell then, pet — shall I tell you, dear, what next Sunday is? Why, then, it's our wedding-day. What are you groaning at, Mr. Caudle? I don't see anything to groan at. If anybody should groan, I'm sure it isn't you. No; I rather think it's I who ought to groan! Oh, dear! That's fourteen years ago. You were a very different man then, Mr. Caudle. What do you say? — And 1 was a very different womah? Not at all — just the same. Oh, you needn't roll your head about on the pillow in that way: I say, just the same. Well, then, if I'm altered, whose fault is it? Not mine, I'm sure — certainly not. Don't tell me that I couldn't talk at all then — I could talk just as well then as I can now; only then I hadn't the same cause. It's you have made me talk. What do you say? Yotc're very sorry for it? Caudle you do nothing but insult me. Ha! You were a good-tempered, nice creature fourteen years ago, and would have done anything for me. Yes, yes, if a woman would be always cared for she should never marry. There's quite an end of the charm when she goes to church! We're all angals while you're courting us: but once married, how soon you pull our wings off! No, Mr. Caudle, I'm not talking nonsense; but the truth is, you like to hear nobody talk but yourself. Nobody ever tells me that I talk nonsense but you. Now, it's no use your turning and turning about in that way; it's not a bit of — What do you say? You'll get up? No, you won't Caudle; you'll not serve me that trick again, for I've locked the door and hid the key. There's nO getting hold of you in day-time — but here, you can't leave me. You needn't groan, Mr. Caudle. Now, Caudle, dear, do let us talk comfortably. After all. '.VIT AND HUMOR. 273 love, there's a" good many folks who, I dare say, don't get on half so well as we've done. We've both our little tempers, perhaps, but you are aggravating, you must own that. Caudle. Well, never mind; we Avon't talk of it; I won't scold you now. We'll talk of next Sunday, love. We never have kept our wedding-day, and I think it would be a nice day to have our friends. What do you say? They'd think it hypocrisy? No hypocrisy at all. I'm sure I try to be comfortable; and if ever a man was happy, you ought to be. No, Caudle, no; it isn't nonserfSe to keep wedding-days; it isn't a deception on the world; and if it is, how many people do it? I'm sure it's only a proper compliment that a man owes to his wife. Look at the Winkles — don't they give a dinner every year? Well, I know, and if they do fight a little in the course of the twelvemonth, that's nothing to do with it. They keep their wedding-day, and their acquaintance have nothing to do with anything else. As I say Caudle, it's only a proper compliment a man owes to his wife to keep his wedding-day. It is as much as to say to the whole world, " There, if I had to marry again, my blessed wife's the only woman I'd choose! " Well, I see nothing to groan at, Mr. Caudle — no, nor to sigh at either; but I know what you mean; I'm sure, what would have become of you if you hadn't married as you have done — why, you'd have been a lost creature! I knovN^ it; I know your habits, Caudle; and — I don't like to say it — but you'd have been little better than a ragamuffin. Nice scrapes you'd have got into, I know, if you hadn't had me for a wife. The trouble I've had to keep you respectable — and what's my thanks? Ha! I only wish you'd had some women! But we won't quarrel. Caudle. No; you don't mean any thing, I know. We'll have this little dinner, eh? Just a few friends? Now don't say you don't care — that isn't the way to speak to a wife; and especially the w^ife I've been to you, Caudle. Well, you agree to the dinner, eh? Now don't grunt, Islx. Caudle, but speak out. You'll keep your wedding / \ A 274 THE CASKET OF LITERARY GEMS. day? What? If Til let you go to sleep? Ha, that's unmanly, Caudle; can't you say, "Yes," -without any thing else? I say — can't you say " Yes? " There bless you! I knew you would. And now, Caudle, what shall we have for dinner? No — we won't talk of it to-morrow; we'll talk of it now, and then it will be off my mind. I should like something par- ticular — something out of the way — ^just to show that we thought the day something. I should like — Mr. Caudle, you're not asleep? What do I want? Why, you know I want to ^settle about the dinner. Have what I like? No, as it is your fancy to keep the day, it's only right that I should try to please you. We never had one, Caudle; so what do you think of a haunch of venison? What do you say? Mutton will do? Ha! that shows what you think of your wife: I dare say if it was with any of your club friends — any of your pot-house companions — you'd have no objection to venison? I say if — What do you mutter? Let it be veni- son? Very well. And now about the fish? What do you think of a nice turbot? No, Mr. Caudle, brill won't do — it shall be turbot, or there shan't be any fish at all. Oh! what a mean man you are. Caudle! Shall it be turbot? It shall f And now about — the soup — now Caudle, don't swear at the soup in that manner; you know there must be soup. Well, once in a way, and just to show our friends how happy we've been, we'll have some real turtle. No you luon't; you'll have nothing but mock? Then, Islx. Caudle, you may sit at the table by yourself. Mock-turtle on a weddiiig-day! Was there ever such an insult? What do you say? Let it be real then, for once? Ha, Caudle! as I say, you were a very dif- ferent person fourteen years ago. And, Caudle, you look after the venison! There's a place I know, somewhere in the city, where you'll get it beautiful. You'll look at it? You will? Very well. And now who shall we invite? WJio I like? Now you know. Caudle, that's nonsense; because I only like whom / \ WIT AND HUMOR. 275 you like. I suppose the Prettymans must come. But under- stand, Caudle, I don't have Miss Prettyman: I am not going to have my peace of mind destroyed under my own roof: if she comes, I don't appear at the table. What do you say? Ve7'y well? Very well be it, then. And now Caudle, you'll not forget the venison? In the city, my dear! You'll not forget the venison? A haunch, you know: a nice haunch. And you'll not forget the veni- son? {A loud snore?) Bless me, if he ain't asleep! Oh, the unfeeling men! IRISH WIT AND HUMOR. An Irish Debt. The late Sir Walter Scott, meeting an Irish beggar in the street, who importuned for sixpence, the then Great Unknown not having one, gave him a shilling, adding with a laugh, " Now, remember, you owe me sixpence." " Och, sure enough," said the beggar, '' and God grant you may live till I pay you." Mike's Opinion of the Army Physician. '' Arrah, Mister Charles! don't mind the docther: he's a poor crayther entirely; little does he know." " Why, what do you mean, Mike? He's physician to the forces." " Dear me! and so he may be," said Mike with a toss of his head: " those army docthers isn't worth their salt. It's thruth I'm telling you. Sure, didn't he come to see me when I was sick in the hould? ' How do you feel? ' says he. ' Terribly dhry in the mouth,' says I. ' But your bones,' says he: Miow's them?' — 'As if cripples was kicking me,' says I. Well, with that he went away, and brought back two powders. ' Take them,' says he, * and ye'll be cured in no time.' — 'What's them?' says I. ' They are emetics,' says Z \ ^ 276 THE CASKET OF LITERARY GEMS. he. 'Blood and ages!' says I, 'are they?' — 'It's thrue what I tell ye,' says he: 'take them immediately.' I tuk them; and would you believe me, ^Mister Charles — it's thruth I'm telling ye — not one o' them would stay on my stomach. So you see what a docther he is. Sure he isn't worth his salt." The following colloquy at cross purposes once took place between an agent and an Irish voter on the eve of an election: You are a Roman Catholic? " Am I? " said the fellow. Are you not? " demanded the agent. "You say I am," was the answer. " Come sir, answer — what's your religion? " The true religion." What religion is that? " •' My religion." " And what's your religion? " " My mother's religion." And what was your mother's religion?" She tuk whisky in her tay." " Come, I'll have you now, as cunning as you are," said the agent, piqued into an encounter of wit with this fellow, whose baffling of every question pleased the crowd. " You bless yourself, don't you? " When I'm done with you I think I ought." " What place of worship do you go to? " " The most convanyant." " But of what joersuasion are you? " My persuasion is that you won't find it out." "What is your behef?" " My belief is that you're puzzled." " Do you confess? " Not to you." " Come, now I have you. Who would you send for if you were likely to die? " z \i ^ WIT AND HUiMOR. 277 Dr. G- " Not for the priest? " " I must first get a messenger." " Confound your quibbling! — tell me, then, what your opinions are — your conscientious opinions, I mean? " " They are the same as my landlord's." " And what are your landlord's opinions? " " Faix, his opinion is, that I won't pay him the last year's rint; and I am of the same opinion myself." A roar of laughter followed this answer; but the angry agent at last declared that he must have a direct reply. " I insist, sir, on your answering at once; are you a Roman Catholic? " '' I am," said the fellow. "And could you not say so at once?" " You never axed me," returned the other, '' I did," said the agent. " Indeed, you didn't. You said I was a great many things, but you never axed me — you were drivin' eras words and cruked questions at me, and I gev answers to match them; for sure I thowt it was manners to cut out my behavor on your own patthern." " My dear Murphy," said an Irishman to his friend, " why did you betray the secret I told you? " " Is it betraying, you call it? Sure, when I found I wasn't able to keep it myself, didn't I do well to tell it to somebody in whose ability I had more confidence than in my own ? " An Irishman, reduced by sickness, occasionally stopped breathing for a short time. When awake, his attendant asked him, " An' how'U we know. Jemmy, when you're dead? You're afther wakin' up ivery time." " Bring me a glass of grog, an' say to me, '■ Here's till ye. Jemmy! ' an', if I don't rise up and dhrink, then bury me." \^ \ 278 THE CASKET OF LITERARY GEMS. "I once dreamed," said Pat, "that I called upon the Pope; and he axed me wud I drink. I tould him I didn't care if I tuk a drop of punch. ' Could, or hot? ' axed the Pope. ' Zr^ Q »_ ~7\ THE CASKET OF LITERARY GEMS. Several men were boasting the other night at an up-town club, of the distinguished persons they had been mistaken for while traveling in Europe. One said he had been thought to be Don Carlos; another had been spoken to as Bismarck; a third had been pointed out as the Czar of Russia travehng incognito. " Pshaw! " remarked one of the company; " that's nothing — I have been mistaken for a greater man than any of those. I had hardly arrived at the Grand Hotel, in Paris, when a man clapped me on the shoulder, and roared out, ' God Almighty, is this you? ' " A wag, overtaking an old minister whose nag was much fatigued, quizzed him thus: "A nice horse yours, doctor; very valuable beast that you are riding; but what makes him wag his tail so, doctor? " " The same that causes your tongue to wag so — a sort of natural weakness," was the old gentleman's reply. " How," said a county-court judge to a witness, " how do you know the plaintiff was intoxicated on the evening refer- red to? " " Because I saw him, a few minutes before supper, trying to pull off his trousers with a boot-jack." Verdict for the defendant. At an evening party a lady was called upon for a song, and began, " PU strike again my tuneful lyre." Her husband was observed to dodge suddenly and start hurriedly from the room, remarking, " Not if I know it, she won't." " I have a great ear, a wonderful ear," said a conceited musician, in the course of conversation. " So has a jackass," replied a bystander. " Pete," said his mother, " are you into them sweetmeats again? " — " No, mem. Them sweetmeats is into me." ^= - — ^. (5 ^ ^^ c) > \ / WIT AND HUxMOR. 299 A learned clergyman of Maine was accosted^n the follow- ing manner by an illiterate preacher, who despised education: '' Sir, you have been to college, I suppose." " Yes, sir," was the reply. " I am thankful," repHed the former, " that the Lord has opened my mouth without any learning." " A similar event," replied the latter, " took place in Balaam's time; but such things are of rare occurrence at the present day." " Are you an Odd Fellow? " " No, sir: I've been married for a week." " I mean, do you belong to the order of Odd Fellows? " " No, no: I belong to the order of married men." " Mercy! how dumb! Are you a Mason? " " No: I'm a carpenter by trade." " Worse and worse. Are you a Son of Temperance? " ", Bother you! no: I'm a son of Mr. John Gosling." The querist went away. A darkey returning from church was asked to give an account of the sermon: " Well, sah, de sermon was upon de miracle ob de loaves and de fishes. De minister said how der was seven thousand loaves and five thousand fishes divided between de twelve apostles." " Well, what miracle was there about that? " " Why, sah, de miracle was dat dey didn't bust! Dat's my perception ob de circumstance." " I am astonished at your sentiments, my dear young lady; you make me start ." "Well, I've wanted you to start this last hour." " John, how is your sweetheart getting along? " " Pretty well, I guess: she says I needn't call any more." ^ ^ N. A . 300 THE CASKET OF LITERARY GEMS. The motl^r of two sons, twins, met one of the brothers in a field one morning. " Which of you two boys am I speaking to? " asked the mother, " is it you or your brother? " " Why do you ask? " inquired the lad prudently. " Because if it is your brother, I will box his ears." " It is not my brother, it is I." " Then your brother is wearing your coat, for yours had a hole in it." " No, mother, I am wearing my own coat." " Good heavens," cried the mother, looking at him intently, " you are your brother after all." A Dutchman, the other day, reading an account of a meeting in London, came to the words, " The meeting then dissolved." He could not define the meaning of the latter, so he referred to his dictionary, and felt satisfied. In a few minutes a friend came in, when Mynheer said, " Dey must have very hot wedder dere in London. I ret an agount of a meeting vere all de people had melted away." A traveler at a Pennsylvanian hotel got out of his bed one night to see what sort of weather it was, but instead of look- ing out upon the sky, thrust his head through the glass window of a cupboard. "■ Landlord," shouted the guest, " what sort of weather do you call this, the night is as dark as Egypt, and smells of cheesed A coxcomb once said to a barber's boy, " Did you ever shave a monkey? " " Why, no sir," replied the boy, " never; but if you will please to sit down, I will try." Irritable Schoolmaster: " Now, then, stupid, what's the next word? What comes after cheese? " Dull Boy: "A mouse, sir." K" ^* WIT AND HUMOR. 3OI '' You keep vests, mine friend," said a Dutchman, enter- ing a Fulton clothing store the other day. The clerk promptly averred that the store was crammed with them. " I vant a vest," said the Teuton, " vat don't rise up on his hint legs mit the neck. I bought one in Syracuse not long ago mit a two dollar bill, and by shimminy I don't notice dot myself, but everywhere I go the boys gry out mit der streets: ' Yacub, vy in der name of der board of drusdees don't you pull down your vest down? ' and, py dam, I have pulled dot vest mor'n dree dousand dimes, till I wore all the pindings off mit der puttons! " The clerk explained the joke and sold him a vest, and the old man went out with the exclamation: " Py shimminy, I don't hear somedings about dot in Shermany before." " Doctor, I is anxious to understand de nature ob my health." " Why! 'tis berry lucky you hab come to me in time. You see, you hab got de inflammation of de bronchial tubes, dat acts on de flaxon longus digitous pedis; and dis has ended in de confirmed delirium tremens, for sartin. Ise de only doctor what can cure you." " Shades ob natur! am it possible? " A clergyman in the north of Scotland, very homely in his address, chose for his text a passage in the Psalms, " I said in my haste all men are liars." "Ay," premised the minis- ter by way of introduction, " ye said it in your haste, David, did ye? — gin ye had been here, ye micht hae said it at your leisure, my man." " Now then, Thomas, what are you burning from my writing table? " said an author to his servant. " Only the paper that's written all over; I haven't touched the clean," was the reply. \ 302 THE CASKET OF LITERARY GEMS. An illiterate negro preacher once said to his congregation: " My bredrin, when de fust man, Adam, was created, he was made ob wet clay, and set up agin de palins to dry." •' Do you say," said one of the congregation, rising to his feet, '' dat Adam was made ob wet clay, an' set up agin the palins to dry? " " Yes, sar, I do." '^ Den who made de palins? " " Set down, sar," said the preacher, sternly; " sich ques- tions as dat would upset any system ob theology." Two gentlemen, but slightly acquainted with each other, were sitting in the orchestra of a theatre, when, seeing two ladies come into a box opposite to them, one said to the other, '' Do you know who that ugly old woman is with the straw bonnet on, that has just entered that box? " " That lady, sir," was the reply, " is my sister." " O dear," said the other, greatly confused, '^ you mistake me. I mean the shabby-looking old hag with her." " That, sir," was the reply, " that is my wife." A stupid young man, supposed to be cracked-brained, who was slighted by the girls, very modestly asked a young lady, " if she would let him spend the evening with her? " " No," she angrily replied, " that's what I won't." " Why," replied he, " you needn't be so funny; I didn't mean this evening, but some stormy one when I can't go anywhere else." A poet wrote, "See the pale martyr in a sheet of fire! " The printer made him say, " See the pale martyr with his shirt oil fir e\ " A Western editor speaks of his rival as " mean enough to steal the swill from a blind hog! " The rival retorts by saying: " He knows he lies; I never stole his swill." ^ ^ ■fW WIT AND HUMOR. 303 " I say, Cap'n? " cried a little keen-eyed man, as he landed from a steamer at Natchez, "I say, Cap'n, these here aren't all. I have left somethin' on board, that's a fact." " Them's all the plunder you brought on board, anyhow," answered the captain. " Wal, I see now; I grant it's O.K. accordin' to list; four boxes, three chests, two band-boxes, and portmanty; two hams, one part-cut, three ropes of inyens, and a tea-kettle. But see, Cap'n, I'm dubersome; I feel there's somethin' short, tho' I've counted um nine times over, and never took my eyes off um while on board; there's somethin' not right, somehow." "Wal, stranger, time's up; them's all I knows on; so just fetch your wife and five children out of the cabin, cos I'm off." "Them's um! Darn it, them's um! I know'd I'd forgot somethin'! " A Southbridge, Mass., man, " tightly slight," came in con- tact with a tree. As quick as thought he raised his hat, begged pardon, and passed on. Three other 'trees having met him in this unceremonious manner, he doffed his chapeau, and placing it under his an;n, backed up against the fence in apparent meditation. A friend passing at the time, inquired what he was doing. He replied, suaviter m modo, " I am waiting for the procession to pass." Little girl to her mother: " Ma, do the men want to get married as much as the women do? " " Pshaw! what makes you ask?" " Why, 'ma, the ladies who come here are always talking about getting married; but the men don't." It is said there are people in the mountain district of Kentucky so green, that they followed a wagon, which hap- pened to pass that way, twenty miles, " just to see whether the hind wheels would overtake the fore ones." 304 THE CASKET OF LITERARY GEMS. A young Parisian, noted for his grace and readiness as a second in many duels, was asked by a friend to accompany him to the mayor's office to affix his signature as a witness to the matrimonial registry. He consented, but when the scene was reached forgot himself. Just as the mayor was ready for the last formalities, he broke out, " Gentlemen, cannot this aff'air be arranged? Is there no way of prevent- ing this sad occurrence? " Just as a traveler was writing his name on the register of a Leavenworth hotel, a bed-bug appeared and took its way across the page. The man paused and remarked: " I've been bled by St. Joe fleas, bitten by Kansas City spiders, and interviewed by Fort Scott graybacks; but I'll be darned if I was ever in a place before where the bed-bugs looked over the hotel register to find out where your room was! " A German looked up at the sky and remarked: " I guess a leedle it vill rain somedime pooty queek." " Yees do, eh?" replied an Irishman: "What business have yees to purtend to know about Ameriken weather, ye furrin galoot? " " Papa," asked a boy, "what is meant by Paradise?" " Paradise, my son," replied the father, " is the latter part of the summer, when your mother goes on a visit to your grandfather." Observe a young father trying to appease a bawling baby, and you will witness ingenuity enough in ten minutes to make you think that the man ought to be an inventor." " Py Schiminy, how dot boy studies de languages! " is what a delighted elderly German said when his four-year old son called him a blear-eyed son of a saw-horse. \yl N. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS lllli " " 013 718 008 A