THE IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW. 

by Jerome K. Jerome

 TO

 THE VERY DEAR AND WELL-BELOVED

 FRIEND

 OF MY PROSPEROUS AND EVIL DAYS--

 TO THE FRIEND WHO, THOUGH IN THE EARLY STAGES OF OUR ACQUAINTANCESHIP DID OFTTIMES DISAGREE WITH ME, HAS SINCE BECOME TO BE MY VERY WARMEST COMRADE--

 TO THE FRIEND WHO, HOWEVER OFTEN I MAY PUT HIM OUT, NEVER (NOW) UPSETS ME IN REVENGE--

 TO THE FRIEND WHO, TREATED WITH MARKED COOLNESS BY ALL THE FEMALE MEMBERS OF MY HOUSEHOLD, AND REGARDED WITH SUSPICION BY MY VERY DOG, NEVERTHELESS SEEMS DAY BY DAY TO BE MORE DRAWN BY ME, AND IN RETURN TO MORE AND MORE IMPREGNATE ME WITH THE ODOR OF HIS FRIENDSHIP--

 TO THE FRIEND WHO NEVER TELLS ME OF MY FAULTS, NEVER WANTS TO BORROW MONEY, AND NEVER TALKS ABOUT HIMSELF--

 TO THE COMPANION OF MY IDLE HOURS, THE SOOTHER OF MY SORROWS, THE CONFIDANT OF MY JOYS AND HOPES--

 MY OLDEST AND STRONGEST

 PIPE, THIS LITTLE VOLUME

 IS

 GRATEFULLY AND AFFECTIONATELY

 DEDICATED. 

PREFACE

One or two friends to whom I showed these papers in MS. Having observedthat they were not half bad, and some of my relations having promised tobuy the book if it ever came out, I feel I have no right to longer delayits issue. But for this, as one may say, public demand, I perhaps shouldnot have ventured to offer these mere "idle thoughts" of mine as mentalfood for the English-speaking peoples of the earth. What readers asknowadays in a book is that it should improve, instruct, and elevate. This book wouldn't elevate a cow. I cannot conscientiously recommend itfor any useful purposes whatever. All I can suggest is that when you gettired of reading "the best hundred books, " you may take this up for halfan hour. It will be a change. 

CONTENTS. 

 IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW. 

 ON BEING IDLE ON BEING IN LOVE ON BEING IN THE BLUES ON BEING HARD UP ON VANITY AND VANITIES ON GETTING ON IN THE WORLD ON THE WEATHER ON CATS AND DOGS ON BEING SHY ON BABIES ON EATING AND DRINKING ON FURNISHED APARTMENTS ON DRESS AND DEPORTMENT ON MEMORY

THE IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW. 

ON BEING IDLE. 

Now, this is a subject on which I flatter myself I really am _au fait_. The gentleman who, when I was young, bathed me at wisdom's font for nineguineas a term--no extras--used to say he never knew a boy who coulddo less work in more time; and I remember my poor grandmother onceincidentally observing, in the course of an instruction upon the useof the Prayer-book, that it was highly improbable that I should ever domuch that I ought not to do, but that she felt convinced beyond a doubtthat I should leave undone pretty well everything that I ought to do. 

I am afraid I have somewhat belied half the dear old lady's prophecy. Heaven help me! I have done a good many things that I ought not to havedone, in spite of my laziness. But I have fully confirmed the accuracyof her judgment so far as neglecting much that I ought not to haveneglected is concerned. Idling always has been my strong point. I takeno credit to myself in the matter--it is a gift. Few possess it. Thereare plenty of lazy people and plenty of slow-coaches, but a genuineidler is a rarity. He is not a man who slouches about with his hands inhis pockets. On the contrary, his most startling characteristic is thathe is always intensely busy. 

It is impossible to enjoy idling thoroughly unless one has plenty ofwork to do. There is no fun in doing nothing when you have nothing todo. Wasting time is merely an occupation then, and a most exhaustingone. Idleness, like kisses, to be sweet must be stolen. 

Many years ago, when I was a young man, I was taken very ill--I nevercould see myself that much was the matter with me, except that I hada beastly cold. But I suppose it was something very serious, for thedoctor said that I ought to have come to him a month before, and thatif it (whatever it was) had gone on for another week he would not haveanswered for the consequences. It is an extraordinary thing, but Inever knew a doctor called into any case yet but what it transpiredthat another day's delay would have rendered cure hopeless. Our medicalguide, philosopher, and friend is like the hero in a melodrama--healways comes upon the scene just, and only just, in the nick of time. Itis Providence, that is what it is. 

Well, as I was saying, I was very ill and was ordered to Buxton for amonth, with strict injunctions to do nothing whatever all the whilethat I was there. "Rest is what you require, " said the doctor, "perfectrest. "

It seemed a delightful prospect. "This man evidently understands mycomplaint, " said I, and I pictured to myself a glorious time--a fourweeks' _dolce far niente_ with a dash of illness in it. Not too muchillness, but just illness enough--just sufficient to give it the flavorof suffering and make it poetical. I should get up late, sip chocolate, and have my breakfast in slippers and a dressing-gown. I should lie outin the garden in a hammock and read sentimental novels with a melancholyending, until the books should fall from my listless hand, and I shouldrecline there, dreamily gazing into the deep blue of the firmament, watching the fleecy clouds floating like white-sailed ships acrossits depths, and listening to the joyous song of the birds and the lowrustling of the trees. Or, on becoming too weak to go out of doors, I should sit propped up with pillows at the open window of theground-floor front, and look wasted and interesting, so that all thepretty girls would sigh as they passed by. 

And twice a day I should go down in a Bath chair to the Colonnade todrink the waters. Oh, those waters! I knew nothing about them then, and was rather taken with the idea. "Drinking the waters" soundedfashionable and Queen Anne-fied, and I thought I should like them. But, ugh! after the first three or four mornings! Sam Weller's description ofthem as "having a taste of warm flat-irons" conveys only a faint idea oftheir hideous nauseousness. If anything could make a sick man get wellquickly, it would be the knowledge that he must drink a glassful of themevery day until he was recovered. I drank them neat for six consecutivedays, and they nearly killed me; but after then I adopted the plan oftaking a stiff glass of brandy-and-water immediately on the top of them, and found much relief thereby. I have been informed since, by variouseminent medical gentlemen, that the alcohol must have entirelycounteracted the effects of the chalybeate properties contained in thewater. I am glad I was lucky enough to hit upon the right thing. 

But "drinking the waters" was only a small portion of the torture Iexperienced during that memorable month--a month which was, withoutexception, the most miserable I have ever spent. During the best part ofit I religiously followed the doctor's mandate and did nothing whatever, except moon about the house and garden and go out for two hours a day ina Bath chair. That did break the monotony to a certain extent. There ismore excitement about Bath-chairing--especially if you are not used tothe exhilarating exercise--than might appear to the casual observer. Asense of danger, such as a mere outsider might not understand, is everpresent to the mind of the occupant. He feels convinced every minutethat the whole concern is going over, a conviction which becomesespecially lively whenever a ditch or a stretch of newly macadamizedroad comes in sight. Every vehicle that passes he expects is going torun into him; and he never finds himself ascending or descending ahill without immediately beginning to speculate upon his chances, supposing--as seems extremely probable--that the weak-kneed controllerof his destiny should let go. 

But even this diversion failed to enliven after awhile, and the _ennui_became perfectly unbearable. I felt my mind giving way under it. It isnot a strong mind, and I thought it would be unwise to tax it too far. So somewhere about the twentieth morning I got up early, had a goodbreakfast, and walked straight off to Hayfield, at the foot of theKinder Scout--a pleasant, busy little town, reached through a lovelyvalley, and with two sweetly pretty women in it. At least they weresweetly pretty then; one passed me on the bridge and, I think, smiled;and the other was standing at an open door, making an unremunerativeinvestment of kisses upon a red-faced baby. But it is years ago, and Idare say they have both grown stout and snappish since that time. Coming back, I saw an old man breaking stones, and it roused such stronglonging in me to use my arms that I offered him a drink to let me takehis place. He was a kindly old man and he humored me. I went for thosestones with the accumulated energy of three weeks, and did more work inhalf an hour than he had done all day. But it did not make him jealous. 

Having taken the plunge, I went further and further into dissipation, going out for a long walk every morning and listening to the band inthe pavilion every evening. But the days still passed slowlynotwithstanding, and I was heartily glad when the last one came and Iwas being whirled away from gouty, consumptive Buxton to London with itsstern work and life. I looked out of the carriage as we rushed throughHendon in the evening. The lurid glare overhanging the mighty cityseemed to warm my heart, and when, later on, my cab rattled out of St. Pancras' station, the old familiar roar that came swelling up around mesounded the sweetest music I had heard for many a long day. 

I certainly did not enjoy that month's idling. I like idling when Iought not to be idling; not when it is the only thing I have to do. Thatis my pig-headed nature. The time when I like best to stand with myback to the fire, calculating how much I owe, is when my desk is heapedhighest with letters that must be answered by the next post. When I liketo dawdle longest over my dinner is when I have a heavy evening's workbefore me. And if, for some urgent reason, I ought to be up particularlyearly in the morning, it is then, more than at any other time, that Ilove to lie an extra half-hour in bed. 

Ah! how delicious it is to turn over and go to sleep again: "just forfive minutes. " Is there any human being, I wonder, besides the hero ofa Sunday-school "tale for boys, " who ever gets up willingly? Thereare some men to whom getting up at the proper time is an utterimpossibility. If eight o'clock happens to be the time that they shouldturn out, then they lie till half-past. If circumstances change andhalf-past eight becomes early enough for them, then it is nine beforethey can rise. They are like the statesman of whom it was said that hewas always punctually half an hour late. They try all manner of schemes. They buy alarm-clocks (artful contrivances that go off at the wrong timeand alarm the wrong people). They tell Sarah Jane to knock at the doorand call them, and Sarah Jane does knock at the door and does call them, and they grunt back "awri" and then go comfortably to sleep again. Iknew one man who would actually get out and have a cold bath; and eventhat was of no use, for afterward he would jump into bed again to warmhimself. 

I think myself that I could keep out of bed all right if I once gotout. It is the wrenching away of the head from the pillow that I find sohard, and no amount of over-night determination makes it easier. I sayto myself, after having wasted the whole evening, "Well, I won't doany more work to-night; I'll get up early to-morrow morning;" and I amthoroughly resolved to do so--then. In the morning, however, I feel lessenthusiastic about the idea, and reflect that it would have been muchbetter if I had stopped up last night. And then there is the trouble ofdressing, and the more one thinks about that the more one wants to putit off. 

It is a strange thing this bed, this mimic grave, where we stretch ourtired limbs and sink away so quietly into the silence and rest. "O bed, O bed, delicious bed, that heaven on earth to the weary head, " as sangpoor Hood, you are a kind old nurse to us fretful boys and girls. Cleverand foolish, naughty and good, you take us all in your motherly lap andhush our wayward crying. The strong man full of care--the sick manfull of pain--the little maiden sobbing for her faithless lover--likechildren we lay our aching heads on your white bosom, and you gentlysoothe us off to by-by. 

Our trouble is sore indeed when you turn away and will not comfort us. How long the dawn seems coming when we cannot sleep! Oh! those hideousnights when we toss and turn in fever and pain, when we lie, like livingmen among the dead, staring out into the dark hours that drift so slowlybetween us and the light. And oh! those still more hideous nights whenwe sit by another in pain, when the low fire startles us every now andthen with a falling cinder, and the tick of the clock seems a hammerbeating out the life that we are watching. 

But enough of beds and bedrooms. I have kept to them too long, even foran idle fellow. Let us come out and have a smoke. That wastes time justas well and does not look so bad. Tobacco has been a blessing to usidlers. What the civil-service clerk before Sir Walter's time foundto occupy their minds with it is hard to imagine. I attribute thequarrelsome nature of the Middle Ages young men entirely to the want ofthe soothing weed. They had no work to do and could not smoke, andthe consequence was they were forever fighting and rowing. If, by anyextraordinary chance, there was no war going, then they got up a deadlyfamily feud with the next-door neighbor, and if, in spite of this, theystill had a few spare moments on their hands, they occupied them withdiscussions as to whose sweetheart was the best looking, the argumentsemployed on both sides being battle-axes, clubs, etc. Questions of tastewere soon decided in those days. When a twelfth-century youth fell inlove he did not take three paces backward, gaze into her eyes, and tellher she was too beautiful to live. He said he would step outside and seeabout it. And if, when he got out, he met a man and broke his head--theother man's head, I mean--then that proved that his--the firstfellow's--girl was a pretty girl. But if the other fellow broke _his_head--not his own, you know, but the other fellow's--the other fellowto the second fellow, that is, because of course the other fellow wouldonly be the other fellow to him, not the first fellow who--well, if hebroke his head, then _his_ girl--not the other fellow's, but the fellowwho _was_ the--Look here, if A broke B's head, then A's girl was apretty girl; but if B broke A's head, then A's girl wasn't a prettygirl, but B's girl was. That was their method of conducting artcriticism. 

Nowadays we light a pipe and let the girls fight it out amongthemselves. 

They do it very well. They are getting to do all our work. They aredoctors, and barristers, and artists. They manage theaters, and promoteswindles, and edit newspapers. I am looking forward to the time when wemen shall have nothing to do but lie in bed till twelve, read two novelsa day, have nice little five-o'clock teas all to ourselves, and taxour brains with nothing more trying than discussions upon the latestpatterns in trousers and arguments as to what Mr. Jones' coat wasmade of and whether it fitted him. It is a glorious prospect--for idlefellows. 

ON BEING IN LOVE. 

You've been in love, of course! If not you've got it to come. Love islike the measles; we all have to go through it. Also like the measles, we take it only once. One never need be afraid of catching it a secondtime. The man who has had it can go into the most dangerous places andplay the most foolhardy tricks with perfect safety. He can picnic inshady woods, ramble through leafy aisles, and linger on mossy seats towatch the sunset. He fears a quiet country-house no more than he wouldhis own club. He can join a family party to go down the Rhine. He can, to see the last of a friend, venture into the very jaws of the marriageceremony itself. He can keep his head through the whirl of a ravishingwaltz, and rest afterward in a dark conservatory, catching nothing morelasting than a cold. He can brave a moonlight walk adown sweet-scentedlanes or a twilight pull among the somber rushes. He can get over astile without danger, scramble through a tangled hedge without beingcaught, come down a slippery path without falling. He can look intosunny eyes and not be dazzled. He listens to the siren voices, yet sailson with unveered helm. He clasps white hands in his, but no electric"Lulu"-like force holds him bound in their dainty pressure. 

No, we never sicken with love twice. Cupid spends no second arrow onthe same heart. Love's handmaids are our life-long friends. Respect, andadmiration, and affection, our doors may always be left open for, buttheir great celestial master, in his royal progress, pays but one visitand departs. We like, we cherish, we are very, very fond of--but wenever love again. A man's heart is a firework that once in its timeflashes heavenward. Meteor-like, it blazes for a moment and lightswith its glory the whole world beneath. Then the night of our sordidcommonplace life closes in around it, and the burned-out case, fallingback to earth, lies useless and uncared for, slowly smoldering intoashes. Once, breaking loose from our prison bonds, we dare, as mightyold Prometheus dared, to scale the Olympian mount and snatch fromPhoebus' chariot the fire of the gods. Happy those who, hastening downagain ere it dies out, can kindle their earthly altars at its flame. Love is too pure a light to burn long among the noisome gases that webreathe, but before it is choked out we may use it as a torch to ignitethe cozy fire of affection. 

And, after all, that warming glow is more suited to our cold little backparlor of a world than is the burning spirit love. Love should be thevestal fire of some mighty temple--some vast dim fane whose organ musicis the rolling of the spheres. Affection will burn cheerily when thewhite flame of love is flickered out. Affection is a fire that can befed from day to day and be piled up ever higher as the wintry years drawnigh. Old men and women can sit by it with their thin hands clasped, thelittle children can nestle down in front, the friend and neighbor hashis welcome corner by its side, and even shaggy Fido and sleek Titty cantoast their noses at the bars. 

Let us heap the coals of kindness upon that fire. Throw on your pleasantwords, your gentle pressures of the hand, your thoughtful and unselfishdeeds. Fan it with good-humor, patience, and forbearance. You can letthe wind blow and the rain fall unheeded then, for your hearth will bewarm and bright, and the faces round it will make sunshine in spite ofthe clouds without. 

I am afraid, dear Edwin and Angelina, you expect too much from love. You think there is enough of your little hearts to feed this fierce, devouring passion for all your long lives. Ah, young folk! don't relytoo much upon that unsteady flicker. It will dwindle and dwindle as themonths roll on, and there is no replenishing the fuel. You will watch itdie out in anger and disappointment. To each it will seem that it is theother who is growing colder. Edwin sees with bitterness that Angelina nolonger runs to the gate to meet him, all smiles and blushes; and when hehas a cough now she doesn't begin to cry and, putting her arms round hisneck, say that she cannot live without him. The most she will probablydo is to suggest a lozenge, and even that in a tone implying that it isthe noise more than anything else she is anxious to get rid of. 

Poor little Angelina, too, sheds silent tears, for Edwin has given upcarrying her old handkerchief in the inside pocket of his waistcoat. 

Both are astonished at the falling off in the other one, but neithersees their own change. If they did they would not suffer as they do. They would look for the cause in the right quarter--in the littlenessof poor human nature--join hands over their common failing, and startbuilding their house anew on a more earthly and enduring foundation. But we are so blind to our own shortcomings, so wide awake to thoseof others. Everything that happens to us is always the other person'sfault. Angelina would have gone on loving Edwin forever and ever andever if only Edwin had not grown so strange and different. Edwin wouldhave adored Angelina through eternity if Angelina had only remained thesame as when he first adored her. 

It is a cheerless hour for you both when the lamp of love has gone outand the fire of affection is not yet lit, and you have to grope aboutin the cold, raw dawn of life to kindle it. God grant it catches lightbefore the day is too far spent. Many sit shivering by the dead coalstill night come. 

But, there, of what use is it to preach? Who that feels the rush ofyoung love through his veins can think it will ever flow feeble andslow! To the boy of twenty it seems impossible that he will not love aswildly at sixty as he does then. He cannot call to mind any middle-agedor elderly gentleman of his acquaintance who is known to exhibitsymptoms of frantic attachment, but that does not interfere in hisbelief in himself. His love will never fall, whoever else's may. Nobodyever loved as he loves, and so, of course, the rest of the world'sexperience can be no guide in his case. Alas! alas! ere thirty he hasjoined the ranks of the sneerers. It is not his fault. Our passions, both the good and bad, cease with our blushes. We do not hate, norgrieve, nor joy, nor despair in our thirties like we did in our teens. Disappointment does not suggest suicide, and we quaff success withoutintoxication. 

We take all things in a minor key as we grow older. There are fewmajestic passages in the later acts of life's opera. Ambition takesa less ambitious aim. Honor becomes more reasonable and convenientlyadapts itself to circumstances. And love--love dies. "Irreverence forthe dreams of youth" soon creeps like a killing frost upon our hearts. The tender shoots and the expanding flowers are nipped and withered, andof a vine that yearned to stretch its tendrils round the world there isleft but a sapless stump. 

My fair friends will deem all this rank heresy, I know. So far from aman's not loving after he has passed boyhood, it is not till there is agood deal of gray in his hair that they think his protestations at allworthy of attention. Young ladies take their notions of our sex from thenovels written by their own, and compared with the monstrositiesthat masquerade for men in the pages of that nightmare literature, Pythagoras' plucked bird and Frankenstein's demon were fair averagespecimens of humanity. 

In these so-called books, the chief lover, or Greek god, as he isadmiringly referred to--by the way, they do not say which "Greek god"it is that the gentleman bears such a striking likeness to; it might behump-backed Vulcan, or double-faced Janus, or even driveling Silenus, the god of abstruse mysteries. He resembles the whole family of them, however, in being a blackguard, and perhaps this is what is meant. Toeven the little manliness his classical prototypes possessed, though, he can lay no claim whatever, being a listless effeminate noodle, onthe shady side of forty. But oh! the depth and strength of this elderlyparty's emotion for some bread-and-butter school-girl! Hide your heads, ye young Romeos and Leanders! this _blase_ old beau loves with anhysterical fervor that requires four adjectives to every noun toproperly describe. 

It is well, dear ladies, for us old sinners that you study only books. Did you read mankind, you would know that the lad's shy stammering tellsa truer tale than our bold eloquence. A boy's love comes from a fullheart; a man's is more often the result of a full stomach. Indeed, aman's sluggish current may not be called love, compared with the rushingfountain that wells up when a boy's heart is struck with the heavenlyrod. If you would taste love, drink of the pure stream that youth poursout at your feet. Do not wait till it has become a muddy river beforeyou stoop to catch its waves. 

Or is it that you like its bitter flavor--that the clear, limpid wateris insipid to your palate and that the pollution of its after-coursegives it a relish to your lips? Must we believe those who tell us that ahand foul with the filth of a shameful life is the only one a young girlcares to be caressed by?

That is the teaching that is bawled out day by day from between thoseyellow covers. Do they ever pause to think, I wonder, those devil'sladyhelps, what mischief they are doing crawling about God's garden, andtelling childish Eves and silly Adams that sin is sweet and that decencyis ridiculous and vulgar? How many an innocent girl do they not degradeinto an evil-minded woman? To how many a weak lad do they not point outthe dirty by-path as the shortest cut to a maiden's heart? It is not asif they wrote of life as it really is. Speak truth, and right will takecare of itself. But their pictures are coarse daubs painted from thesickly fancies of their own diseased imagination. 

We want to think of women not--as their own sex would show them--asLorleis luring us to destruction, but as good angels beckoning usupward. They have more power for good or evil than they dream of. It isjust at the very age when a man's character is forming that he tumblesinto love, and then the lass he loves has the making or marring of him. Unconsciously he molds himself to what she would have him, good or bad. I am sorry to have to be ungallant enough to say that I do not thinkthey always use their influence for the best. Too often the female worldis bounded hard and fast within the limits of the commonplace. Theirideal hero is a prince of littleness, and to become that many a powerfulmind, enchanted by love, is "lost to life and use and name and fame. "

And yet, women, you could make us so much better if you only would. Itrests with you, more than with all the preachers, to roll this world alittle nearer heaven. Chivalry is not dead: it only sleeps for wantof work to do. It is you who must wake it to noble deeds. You must beworthy of knightly worship. 

You must be higher than ourselves. It was for Una that the Red CrossKnight did war. For no painted, mincing court dame could the dragon havebeen slain. Oh, ladies fair, be fair in mind and soul as well as face, so that brave knights may win glory in your service! Oh, woman, throwoff your disguising cloaks of selfishness, effrontery, and affectation!Stand forth once more a queen in your royal robe of simple purity. Athousand swords, now rusting in ignoble sloth, shall leap from theirscabbards to do battle for your honor against wrong. A thousand SirRolands shall lay lance in rest, and Fear, Avarice, Pleasure, andAmbition shall go down in the dust before your colors. 

What noble deeds were we not ripe for in the days when we loved?What noble lives could we not have lived for her sake? Our love wasa religion we could have died for. It was no mere human creature likeourselves that we adored. It was a queen that we paid homage to, agoddess that we worshiped. 

And how madly we did worship! And how sweet it was to worship! Ah, lad, cherish love's young dream while it lasts! You will know too soon howtruly little Tom Moore sang when he said that there was nothing half sosweet in life. Even when it brings misery it is a wild, romantic misery, all unlike the dull, worldly pain of after-sorrows. When you have losther--when the light is gone out from your life and the world stretchesbefore you a long, dark horror, even then a half-enchantment mingleswith your despair. 

And who would not risk its terrors to gain its raptures? Ah, whatraptures they were! The mere recollection thrills you. How deliciousit was to tell her that you loved her, that you lived for her, thatyou would die for her! How you did rave, to be sure, what floods ofextravagant nonsense you poured forth, and oh, how cruel it was ofher to pretend not to believe you! In what awe you stood of her! Howmiserable you were when you had offended her! And yet, how pleasant tobe bullied by her and to sue for pardon without having the slightestnotion of what your fault was! How dark the world was when she snubbedyou, as she often did, the little rogue, just to see you look wretched;how sunny when she smiled! How jealous you were of every one abouther! How you hated every man she shook hands with, every woman shekissed--the maid that did her hair, the boy that cleaned her shoes, thedog she nursed--though you had to be respectful to the last-named! Howyou looked forward to seeing her, how stupid you were when you did seeher, staring at her without saying a word! How impossible it was foryou to go out at any time of the day or night without finding yourselfeventually opposite her windows! You hadn't pluck enough to go in, butyou hung about the corner and gazed at the outside. Oh, if the house hadonly caught fire--it was insured, so it wouldn't have mattered--and youcould have rushed in and saved her at the risk of your life, and havebeen terribly burned and injured! Anything to serve her. Even in littlethings that was so sweet. How you would watch her, spaniel-like, toanticipate her slightest wish! How proud you were to do her bidding! Howdelightful it was to be ordered about by her! To devote your whole lifeto her and to never think of yourself seemed such a simple thing. Youwould go without a holiday to lay a humble offering at her shrine, andfelt more than repaid if she only deigned to accept it. How precious toyou was everything that she had hallowed by her touch--her little glove, the ribbon she had worn, the rose that had nestled in her hair and whosewithered leaves still mark the poems you never care to look at now. 

And oh, how beautiful she was, how wondrous beautiful! It was as someangel entering the room, and all else became plain and earthly. She wastoo sacred to be touched. It seemed almost presumption to gaze at her. You would as soon have thought of kissing her as of singing comic songsin a cathedral. It was desecration enough to kneel and timidly raise thegracious little hand to your lips. 

Ah, those foolish days, those foolish days when we were unselfish andpure-minded; those foolish days when our simple hearts were fullof truth, and faith, and reverence! Ah, those foolish days of noblelongings and of noble strivings! And oh, these wise, clever days when weknow that money is the only prize worth striving for, when we believe innothing else but meanness and lies, when we care for no living creaturebut ourselves!

ON BEING IN THE BLUES. 

I can enjoy feeling melancholy, and there is a good deal of satisfactionabout being thoroughly miserable; but nobody likes a fit of the blues. Nevertheless, everybody has them; notwithstanding which, nobody can tellwhy. There is no accounting for them. You are just as likely to have oneon the day after you have come into a large fortune as on the day afteryou have left your new silk umbrella in the train. Its effect upon youis somewhat similar to what would probably be produced by a combinedattack of toothache, indigestion, and cold in the head. You becomestupid, restless, and irritable; rude to strangers and dangerous towardyour friends; clumsy, maudlin, and quarrelsome; a nuisance to yourselfand everybody about you. 

While it is on you can do nothing and think of nothing, though feelingat the time bound to do something. You can't sit still so put on yourhat and go for a walk; but before you get to the corner of the streetyou wish you hadn't come out and you turn back. You open a book and tryto read, but you find Shakespeare trite and commonplace, Dickens is dulland prosy, Thackeray a bore, and Carlyle too sentimental. You throw thebook aside and call the author names. Then you "shoo" the cat out ofthe room and kick the door to after her. You think you will write yourletters, but after sticking at "Dearest Auntie: I find I have fiveminutes to spare, and so hasten to write to you, " for a quarter of anhour, without being able to think of another sentence, you tumble thepaper into the desk, fling the wet pen down upon the table-cloth, and start up with the resolution of going to see the Thompsons. Whilepulling on your gloves, however, it occurs to you that the Thompsons areidiots; that they never have supper; and that you will be expected tojump the baby. You curse the Thompsons and decide not to go. 

By this time you feel completely crushed. You bury your face in yourhands and think you would like to die and go to heaven. You picture toyourself your own sick-bed, with all your friends and relations standinground you weeping. You bless them all, especially the young and prettyones. They will value you when you are gone, so you say to yourself, and learn too late what they have lost; and you bitterly contrast theirpresumed regard for you then with their decided want of veneration now. 

These reflections make you feel a little more cheerful, but only for abrief period; for the next moment you think what a fool you must beto imagine for an instant that anybody would be sorry at anything thatmight happen to you. Who would care two straws (whatever precise amountof care two straws may represent) whether you are blown up, or hungup, or married, or drowned? Nobody cares for you. You never havebeen properly appreciated, never met with your due deserts in any oneparticular. You review the whole of your past life, and it is painfullyapparent that you have been ill-used from your cradle. 

Half an hour's indulgence in these considerations works you up intoa state of savage fury against everybody and everything, especiallyyourself, whom anatomical reasons alone prevent your kicking. Bed-timeat last comes, to save you from doing something rash, and you springupstairs, throw off your clothes, leaving them strewn all over the room, blow out the candle, and jump into bed as if you had backed yourselffor a heavy wager to do the whole thing against time. There you tossand tumble about for a couple of hours or so, varying the monotony byoccasionally jerking the clothes off and getting out and putting themon again. At length you drop into an uneasy and fitful slumber, have baddreams, and wake up late the next morning. 

At least, this is all we poor single men can do under the circumstances. Married men bully their wives, grumble at the dinner, and insist on thechildren's going to bed. All of which, creating, as it does, a good dealof disturbance in the house, must be a great relief to the feelings of aman in the blues, rows being the only form of amusement in which he cantake any interest. 

The symptoms of the infirmity are much the same in every case, but theaffliction itself is variously termed. The poet says that "a feelingof sadness comes o'er him. " 'Arry refers to the heavings of his waywardheart by confiding to Jimee that he has "got the blooming hump. " Yoursister doesn't know what is the matter with her to-night. She feels outof sorts altogether and hopes nothing is going to happen. The every-dayyoung man is "so awful glad to meet you, old fellow, " for he does "feelso jolly miserable this evening. " As for myself, I generally say that "Ihave a strange, unsettled feeling to-night" and "think I'll go out. "

By the way, it never does come except in the evening. In the sun-time, when the world is bounding forward full of life, we cannot stay to sighand sulk. The roar of the working day drowns the voices of the elfinsprites that are ever singing their low-toned _miserere_ in our ears. In the day we are angry, disappointed, or indignant, but never "in theblues" and never melancholy. When things go wrong at ten o'clock in themorning we--or rather you--swear and knock the furniture about; but ifthe misfortune comes at ten P. M. , we read poetry or sit in the dark andthink what a hollow world this is. 

But, as a rule, it is not trouble that makes us melancholy. Theactuality is too stern a thing for sentiment. We linger to weep overa picture, but from the original we should quickly turn our eyes away. There is no pathos in real misery: no luxury in real grief. We do nottoy with sharp swords nor hug a gnawing fox to our breast for choice. When a man or woman loves to brood over a sorrow and takes care to keepit green in their memory, you may be sure it is no longer a pain tothem. However they may have suffered from it at first, the recollectionhas become by then a pleasure. Many dear old ladies who daily look attiny shoes lying in lavender-scented drawers, and weep as they think ofthe tiny feet whose toddling march is done, and sweet-faced young oneswho place each night beneath their pillow some lock that once curled ona boyish head that the salt waves have kissed to death, will call mea nasty cynical brute and say I'm talking nonsense; but I believe, nevertheless, that if they will ask themselves truthfully whether theyfind it unpleasant to dwell thus on their sorrow, they will be compelledto answer "No. " Tears are as sweet as laughter to some natures. Theproverbial Englishman, we know from old chronicler Froissart, takes hispleasures sadly, and the Englishwoman goes a step further and takes herpleasures in sadness itself. 

I am not sneering. I would not for a moment sneer at anything thathelps to keep hearts tender in this hard old world. We men are cold andcommon-sensed enough for all; we would not have women the same. No, no, ladies dear, be always sentimental and soft-hearted, as you are--be thesoothing butter to our coarse dry bread. Besides, sentiment is to womenwhat fun is to us. They do not care for our humor, surely it would beunfair to deny them their grief. And who shall say that their mode ofenjoyment is not as sensible as ours? Why assume that a doubled-upbody, a contorted, purple face, and a gaping mouth emitting a seriesof ear-splitting shrieks point to a state of more intelligent happinessthan a pensive face reposing upon a little white hand, and a pair ofgentle tear-dimmed eyes looking back through Time's dark avenue upon afading past?

I am glad when I see Regret walked with as a friend--glad because I knowthe saltness has been washed from out the tears, and that the sting musthave been plucked from the beautiful face of Sorrow ere we dare pressher pale lips to ours. Time has laid his healing hand upon the woundwhen we can look back upon the pain we once fainted under and nobitterness or despair rises in our hearts. The burden is no longerheavy when we have for our past troubles only the same sweet mingling ofpleasure and pity that we feel when old knight-hearted Colonel Newcomeanswers "_adsum_" to the great roll-call, or when Tom and MaggieTulliver, clasping hands through the mists that have divided them, godown, locked in each other's arms, beneath the swollen waters of theFloss. 

Talking of poor Tom and Maggie Tulliver brings to my mind a saying ofGeorge Eliot's in connection with this subject of melancholy. Shespeaks somewhere of the "sadness of a summer's evening. " How wonderfullytrue--like everything that came from that wonderful pen--the observationis! Who has not felt the sorrowful enchantment of those lingeringsunsets? The world belongs to Melancholy then, a thoughtful deep-eyedmaiden who loves not the glare of day. It is not till "light thickensand the crow wings to the rocky wood" that she steals forth from hergroves. Her palace is in twilight land. It is there she meets us. At hershadowy gate she takes our hand in hers and walks beside us throughher mystic realm. We see no form, but seem to hear the rustling of herwings. 

Even in the toiling hum-drum city her spirit comes to us. There is asomber presence in each long, dull street; and the dark river creepsghostlike under the black arches, as if bearing some hidden secretbeneath its muddy waves. 

In the silent country, when the trees and hedges loom dim and blurredagainst the rising night, and the bat's wing flutters in our face, andthe land-rail's cry sounds drearily across the fields, the spell sinksdeeper still into our hearts. We seem in that hour to be standing bysome unseen death-bed, and in the swaying of the elms we hear the sighof the dying day. 

A solemn sadness reigns. A great peace is around us. In its lightour cares of the working day grow small and trivial, and bread andcheese--ay, and even kisses--do not seem the only things worth strivingfor. Thoughts we cannot speak but only listen to flood in upon us, andstanding in the stillness under earth's darkening dome, we feel that weare greater than our petty lives. Hung round with those dusky curtains, the world is no longer a mere dingy workshop, but a stately templewherein man may worship, and where at times in the dimness his gropinghands touch God's. 

ON BEING HARD UP. 

It is a most remarkable thing. I sat down with the full intention ofwriting something clever and original; but for the life of me I can'tthink of anything clever and original--at least, not at this moment. Theonly thing I can think about now is being hard up. I suppose having myhands in my pockets has made me think about this. I always do sit withmy hands in my pockets except when I am in the company of my sisters, my cousins, or my aunts; and they kick up such a shindy--I should sayexpostulate so eloquently upon the subject--that I have to give in andtake them out--my hands I mean. The chorus to their objections is thatit is not gentlemanly. I am hanged if I can see why. I could understandits not being considered gentlemanly to put your hands in other people'spockets (especially by the other people), but how, O ye sticklers forwhat looks this and what looks that, can putting his hands in his ownpockets make a man less gentle? Perhaps you are right, though. Now Icome to think of it, I have heard some people grumble most savagely whendoing it. But they were mostly old gentlemen. We young fellows, as arule, are never quite at ease unless we have our hands in our pockets. We are awkward and shifty. We are like what a music-hall Lion Comiquewould be without his opera-hat, if such a thing can be imagined. But letus put our hands in our trousers pockets, and let there be some smallchange in the right-hand one and a bunch of keys in the left, and wewill face a female post-office clerk. 

It is a little difficult to know what to do with your bands, even inyour pockets, when there is nothing else there. Years ago, when my wholecapital would occasionally come down to "what in town the people calla bob, " I would recklessly spend a penny of it, merely for the sake ofhaving the change, all in coppers, to jingle. You don't feel nearly sohard up with eleven pence in your pocket as you do with a shilling. HadI been "La-di-da, " that impecunious youth about whom we superior folkare so sarcastic, I would have changed my penny for two ha'pennies. 

I can speak with authority on the subject of being hard up. I have beena provincial actor. If further evidence be required, which I do notthink likely, I can add that I have been a "gentleman connected with thepress. " I have lived on 15 shilling a week. I have lived a week on 10, owing the other 5; and I have lived for a fortnight on a great-coat. 

It is wonderful what an insight into domestic economy being really hardup gives one. If you want to find out the value of money, live on15 shillings a week and see how much you can put by for clothes andrecreation. You will find out that it is worth while to wait for thefarthing change, that it is worth while to walk a mile to save apenny, that a glass of beer is a luxury to be indulged in only at rareintervals, and that a collar can be worn for four days. 

Try it just before you get married. It will be excellent practice. Letyour son and heir try it before sending him to college. He won't grumbleat a hundred a year pocket-money then. There are some people to whom itwould do a world of good. There is that delicate blossom who can't drinkany claret under ninety-four, and who would as soon think of diningoff cat's meat as off plain roast mutton. You do come across thesepoor wretches now and then, though, to the credit of humanity, they areprincipally confined to that fearful and wonderful society known onlyto lady novelists. I never hear of one of these creatures discussing a_menu_ card but I feel a mad desire to drag him off to the bar ofsome common east-end public-house and cram a sixpenny dinner down histhroat--beefsteak pudding, fourpence; potatoes, a penny; half a pint ofporter, a penny. The recollection of it (and the mingled fragrance ofbeer, tobacco, and roast pork generally leaves a vivid impression) mightinduce him to turn up his nose a little less frequently in the futureat everything that is put before him. Then there is that generous party, the cadger's delight, who is so free with his small change, but whonever thinks of paying his debts. It might teach even him a littlecommon sense. "I always give the waiter a shilling. One can't give thefellow less, you know, " explained a young government clerk with whom Iwas lunching the other day in Regent Street. I agreed with him as to theutter impossibility of making it elevenpence ha'penny; but at the sametime I resolved to one day decoy him to an eating-house I rememberednear Covent Garden, where the waiter, for the better discharge of hisduties, goes about in his shirt-sleeves--and very dirty sleeves theyare, too, when it gets near the end of the month. I know that waiter. If my friend gives him anything beyond a penny, the man will insist onshaking hands with him then and there as a mark of his esteem; of that Ifeel sure. 

There have been a good many funny things said and written abouthardupishness, but the reality is not funny, for all that. It is notfunny to have to haggle over pennies. It isn't funny to be thoughtmean and stingy. It isn't funny to be shabby and to be ashamed of youraddress. No, there is nothing at all funny in poverty--to the poor. Itis hell upon earth to a sensitive man; and many a brave gentleman whowould have faced the labors of Hercules has had his heart broken by itspetty miseries. 

It is not the actual discomforts themselves that are hard to bear. Who would mind roughing it a bit if that were all it meant? What caredRobinson Crusoe for a patch on his trousers? Did he wear trousers? Iforget; or did he go about as he does in the pantomimes? What did itmatter to him if his toes did stick out of his boots? and what ifhis umbrella was a cotton one, so long as it kept the rain off? Hisshabbiness did not trouble him; there was none of his friends roundabout to sneer him. 

Being poor is a mere trifle. It is being known to be poor that is thesting. It is not cold that makes a man without a great-coat hurry alongso quickly. It is not all shame at telling lies--which he knows willnot be believed--that makes him turn so red when he informs you thathe considers great-coats unhealthy and never carries an umbrella onprinciple. It is easy enough to say that poverty is no crime. No; ifit were men wouldn't be ashamed of it. It's a blunder, though, and ispunished as such. A poor man is despised the whole world over; despisedas much by a Christian as by a lord, as much by a demagogue as by afootman, and not all the copy-book maxims ever set for ink stained youthwill make him respected. Appearances are everything, so far as humanopinion goes, and the man who will walk down Piccadilly arm in arm withthe most notorious scamp in London, provided he is a well-dressed one, will slink up a back street to say a couple of words to a seedy-lookinggentleman. And the seedy-looking gentleman knows this--no onebetter--and will go a mile round to avoid meeting an acquaintance. Thosethat knew him in his prosperity need never trouble themselves to lookthe other way. He is a thousand times more anxious that they should notsee him than they can be; and as to their assistance, there is nothinghe dreads more than the offer of it. All he wants is to be forgotten;and in this respect he is generally fortunate enough to get what hewants. 

One becomes used to being hard up, as one becomes used to everythingelse, by the help of that wonderful old homeopathic doctor, Time. Youcan tell at a glance the difference between the old hand and the novice;between the case-hardened man who has been used to shift and strugglefor years and the poor devil of a beginner striving to hide his misery, and in a constant agony of fear lest he should be found out. Nothingshows this difference more clearly than the way in which each will pawnhis watch. As the poet says somewhere: "True ease in pawning comes fromart, not chance. " The one goes into his "uncle's" with as much composureas he would into his tailor's--very likely with more. The assistant iseven civil and attends to him at once, to the great indignation of thelady in the next box, who, however, sarcastically observes that shedon't mind being kept waiting "if it is a regular customer. " Why, fromthe pleasant and businesslike manner in which the transaction is carriedout, it might be a large purchase in the three per cents. Yet what apiece of work a man makes of his first "pop. " A boy popping his firstquestion is confidence itself compared with him. He hangs about outsidethe shop until he has succeeded in attracting the attention of all theloafers in the neighborhood and has aroused strong suspicions in themind of the policeman on the beat. At last, after a careful examinationof the contents of the windows, made for the purpose of impressing thebystanders with the notion that he is going in to purchase a diamondbracelet or some such trifle, he enters, trying to do so with a carelessswagger, and giving himself really the air of a member of the swell mob. When inside he speaks in so low a voice as to be perfectly inaudible, and has to say it all over again. When, in the course of his ramblingconversation about a "friend" of his, the word "lend" is reached, he ispromptly told to go up the court on the right and take the first doorround the corner. He comes out of the shop with a face that you couldeasily light a cigarette at, and firmly under the impression that thewhole population of the district is watching him. When he does getto the right place he has forgotten his name and address and is in ageneral condition of hopeless imbecility. Asked in a severe tone how hecame by "this, " he stammers and contradicts himself, and it is only amiracle if he does not confess to having stolen it that very day. He isthereupon informed that they don't want anything to do with his sort, and that he had better get out of this as quickly as possible, which hedoes, recollecting nothing more until he finds himself three miles off, without the slightest knowledge how he got there. 

By the way, how awkward it is, though, having to depend on public-housesand churches for the time. The former are generally too fast and thelatter too slow. Besides which, your efforts to get a glimpse ofthe public house clock from the outside are attended with greatdifficulties. If you gently push the swing-door ajar and peer in youdraw upon yourself the contemptuous looks of the barmaid, who at onceputs you down in the same category with area sneaks and cadgers. Youalso create a certain amount of agitation among the married portion ofthe customers. You don't see the clock because it is behind the door;and in trying to withdraw quietly you jam your head. The only othermethod is to jump up and down outside the window. After this latterproceeding, however, if you do not bring out a banjo and commence tosing, the youthful inhabitants of the neighborhood, who have gatheredround in expectation, become disappointed. 

I should like to know, too, by what mysterious law of nature it is thatbefore you have left your watch "to be repaired" half an hour, some oneis sure to stop you in the street and conspicuously ask you the time. Nobody even feels the slightest curiosity on the subject when you've gotit on. 

Dear old ladies and gentlemen who know nothing about being hard up--andmay they never, bless their gray old heads--look upon the pawn-shopas the last stage of degradation; but those who know it better (and myreaders have no doubt, noticed this themselves) are often surprised, like the little boy who dreamed he went to heaven, at meeting so manypeople there that they never expected to see. For my part, I think it amuch more independent course than borrowing from friends, and I alwaystry to impress this upon those of my acquaintance who incline toward"wanting a couple of pounds till the day after to-morrow. " But theywon't all see it. One of them once remarked that he objected to theprinciple of the thing. I fancy if he had said it was the interest thathe objected to he would have been nearer the truth: twenty-five percent. Certainly does come heavy. 

There are degrees in being hard up. We are all hard up, more orless--most of us more. Some are hard up for a thousand pounds; some fora shilling. Just at this moment I am hard up myself for a fiver. I onlywant it for a day or two. I should be certain of paying it back within aweek at the outside, and if any lady or gentleman among my readers wouldkindly lend it me, I should be very much obliged indeed. They could sendit to me under cover to Messrs. Field & Tuer, only, in such case, pleaselet the envelope be carefully sealed. I would give you my I. O. U. Assecurity. 

ON VANITY AND VANITIES. 

All is vanity and everybody's vain. Women are terribly vain. So aremen--more so, if possible. So are children, particularly children. Oneof them at this very moment is hammering upon my legs. She wants to knowwhat I think of her new shoes. Candidly I don't think much of them. They lack symmetry and curve and possess an indescribable appearance oflumpiness (I believe, too, they've put them on the wrong feet). But Idon't say this. It is not criticism, but flattery that she wants; and Igush over them with what I feel to myself to be degrading effusiveness. Nothing else would satisfy this self-opinionated cherub. I tried theconscientious-friend dodge with her on one occasion, but it was nota success. She had requested my judgment upon her general conduct andbehavior, the exact case submitted being, "Wot oo tink of me? Oo peasedwi' me?" and I had thought it a good opportunity to make a few salutaryremarks upon her late moral career, and said: "No, I am not pleased withyou. " I recalled to her mind the events of that very morning, and I putit to her how she, as a Christian child, could expect a wise and gooduncle to be satisfied with the carryings on of an infant who that veryday had roused the whole house at five AM. ; had upset a water-jug andtumbled downstairs after it at seven; had endeavored to put the cat inthe bath at eight; and sat on her own father's hat at nine thirty-five. 

What did she do? Was she grateful to me for my plain speaking? Did sheponder upon my words and determine to profit by them and to lead fromthat hour a better and nobler life?

No! she howled. 

That done, she became abusive. She said:

"Oo naughty--oo naughty, bad unkie--oo bad man--me tell MAR. "

And she did, too. 

Since then, when my views have been called for I have kept my realsentiments more to myself like, preferring to express unboundedadmiration of this young person's actions, irrespective of their actualmerits. And she nods her head approvingly and trots off to advertise myopinion to the rest of the household. She appears to employ it as a sortof testimonial for mercenary purposes, for I subsequently heardistant sounds of "Unkie says me dood dirl--me dot to have two bikkies[biscuits]. "

There she goes, now, gazing rapturously at her own toes and murmuring"pittie"--two-foot-ten of conceit and vanity, to say nothing of otherwickednesses. 

They are all alike. I remember sitting in a garden one sunny afternoonin the suburbs of London. Suddenly I heard a shrill treble voice callingfrom a top-story window to some unseen being, presumably in one of theother gardens, "Gamma, me dood boy, me wery good boy, gamma; me dot onBob's knickiebockies. "

Why, even animals are vain. I saw a great Newfoundland dog the otherday sitting in front of a mirror at the entrance to a shop in Regent'sCircus, and examining himself with an amount of smug satisfaction that Ihave never seen equaled elsewhere outside a vestry meeting. 

I was at a farm-house once when some high holiday was being celebrated. I don't remember what the occasion was, but it was something festive, a May Day or Quarter Day, or something of that sort, and they put agarland of flowers round the head of one of the cows. Well, that absurdquadruped went about all day as perky as a schoolgirl in a new frock;and when they took the wreath off she became quite sulky, and they hadto put it on again before she would stand still to be milked. This isnot a Percy anecdote. It is plain, sober truth. 

As for cats, they nearly equal human beings for vanity. I have knowna cat get up and walk out of the room on a remark derogatory to herspecies being made by a visitor, while a neatly turned compliment willset them purring for an hour. 

I do like cats. They are so unconsciously amusing. There is such a comicdignity about them, such a "How dare you!" "Go away, don't touch me"sort of air. Now, there is nothing haughty about a dog. They are "Hail, fellow, well met" with every Tom, Dick, or Harry that they comeacross. When I meet a dog of my acquaintance I slap his head, call himopprobrious epithets, and roll him over on his back; and there he lies, gaping at me, and doesn't mind it a bit. 

Fancy carrying on like that with a cat! Why, she would never speak toyou again as long as you lived. No, when you want to win the approbationof a cat you must mind what you are about and work your way carefully. If you don't know the cat, you had best begin by saying, "Poor pussy. "After which add "did 'ums" in a tone of soothing sympathy. You don'tknow what you mean any more than the cat does, but the sentimentseems to imply a proper spirit on your part, and generally touches herfeelings to such an extent that if you are of good manners and passableappearance she will stick her back up and rub her nose against you. Matters having reached this stage, you may venture to chuck her underthe chin and tickle the side of her head, and the intelligent creaturewill then stick her claws into your legs; and all is friendship andaffection, as so sweetly expressed in the beautiful lines--

 "I love little pussy, her coat is so warm, And if I don't tease her she'll do me no harm; So I'll stroke her, and pat her, and feed her with food, And pussy will love me because I am good. "

The last two lines of the stanza give us a pretty true insight intopussy's notions of human goodness. It is evident that in her opiniongoodness consists of stroking her, and patting her, and feeding her withfood. I fear this narrow-minded view of virtue, though, is not confinedto pussies. We are all inclined to adopt a similar standard of merit inour estimate of other people. A good man is a man who is good to us, anda bad man is a man who doesn't do what we want him to. The truth is, we each of us have an inborn conviction that the whole world, witheverybody and everything in it, was created as a sort of necessaryappendage to ourselves. Our fellow men and women were made to admire usand to minister to our various requirements. You and I, dear reader, areeach the center of the universe in our respective opinions. You, as Iunderstand it, were brought into being by a considerate Providence inorder that you might read and pay me for what I write; while I, in youropinion, am an article sent into the world to write something for youto read. The stars--as we term the myriad other worlds that are rushingdown beside us through the eternal silence--were put into the heavensto make the sky look interesting for us at night; and the moon with itsdark mysteries and ever-hidden face is an arrangement for us to flirtunder. 

I fear we are most of us like Mrs. Poyser's bantam cock, who fancied thesun got up every morning to hear him crow. "'Tis vanity that makes theworld go round. " I don't believe any man ever existed without vanity, and if he did he would be an extremely uncomfortable person to haveanything to do with. He would, of course, be a very good man, and weshould respect him very much. He would be a very admirable man--a manto be put under a glass case and shown round as a specimen--a man to bestuck upon a pedestal and copied, like a school exercise--a man to bereverenced, but not a man to be loved, not a human brother whose hand weshould care to grip. Angels may be very excellent sort of folk in theirway, but we, poor mortals, in our present state, would probably findthem precious slow company. Even mere good people are rather depressing. It is in our faults and failings, not in our virtues, that we touchone another and find sympathy. We differ widely enough in our noblerqualities. It is in our follies that we are at one. Some of us arepious, some of us are generous. Some few of us are honest, comparativelyspeaking; and some, fewer still, may possibly be truthful. But in vanityand kindred weaknesses we can all join hands. Vanity is one of thosetouches of nature that make the whole world kin. From the Indian hunter, proud of his belt of scalps, to the European general, swelling beneathhis row of stars and medals; from the Chinese, gleeful at the length ofhis pigtail, to the "professional beauty, " suffering tortures in orderthat her waist may resemble a peg-top; from draggle-tailed little PollyStiggins, strutting through Seven Dials with a tattered parasol over herhead, to the princess sweeping through a drawing-room with a train offour yards long; from 'Arry, winning by vulgar chaff the loud laughterof his pals, to the statesman whose ears are tickled by the cheersthat greet his high-sounding periods; from the dark-skinned African, bartering his rare oils and ivory for a few glass beads to hang abouthis neck, to the Christian maiden selling her white body for a score oftiny stones and an empty title to tack before her name--all march, andfight, and bleed, and die beneath its tawdry flag. 

Ay, ay, vanity is truly the motive-power that moves humanity, and itis flattery that greases the wheels. If you want to win affection andrespect in this world, you must flatter people. Flatter high and low, and rich and poor, and silly and wise. You will get on famously. Praisethis man's virtues and that man's vices. Compliment everybody uponeverything, and especially upon what they haven't got. Admire guys fortheir beauty, fools for their wit, and boors for their breeding. Yourdiscernment and intelligence will be extolled to the skies. 

Every one can be got over by flattery. The belted earl--"belted earl" isthe correct phrase, I believe. I don't know what it means, unless it bean earl that wears a belt instead of braces. Some men do. I don't likeit myself. You have to keep the thing so tight for it to be of any use, and that is uncomfortable. Anyhow, whatever particular kind of an earla belted earl may be, he is, I assert, get-overable by flattery; just asevery other human being is, from a duchess to a cat's-meat man, from aplow boy to a poet--and the poet far easier than the plowboy, for buttersinks better into wheaten bread than into oaten cakes. 

As for love, flattery is its very life-blood. Fill a person with lovefor themselves, and what runs over will be your share, says a certainwitty and truthful Frenchman whose name I can't for the life of meremember. (Confound it! I never can remember names when I want to. ) Tella girl she is an angel, only more angelic than an angel; that she isa goddess, only more graceful, queenly, and heavenly than the averagegoddess; that she is more fairy-like than Titania, more beautiful thanVenus, more enchanting than Parthenope; more adorable, lovely, andradiant, in short, than any other woman that ever did live, does live, or could live, and you will make a very favorable impression upon hertrusting little heart. Sweet innocent! she will believe every word yousay. It is so easy to deceive a woman--in this way. 

Dear little souls, they hate flattery, so they tell you; and when yousay, "Ah, darling, it isn't flattery in your case, it's plain, sobertruth; you really are, without exaggeration, the most beautiful, themost good, the most charming, the most divine, the most perfect humancreature that ever trod this earth, " they will smile a quiet, approvingsmile, and, leaning against your manly shoulder, murmur that you are adear good fellow after all. 

By Jove! fancy a man trying to make love on strictly truthfulprinciples, determining never to utter a word of mere compliment orhyperbole, but to scrupulously confine himself to exact fact! Fancy hisgazing rapturously into his mistress' eyes and whispering softly to herthat she wasn't, on the whole, bad-looking, as girls went! Fancy hisholding up her little hand and assuring her that it was of a light drabcolor shot with red; and telling her as he pressed her to his heart thather nose, for a turned-up one, seemed rather pretty; and that her eyesappeared to him, as far as he could judge, to be quite up to the averagestandard of such things!

A nice chance he would stand against the man who would tell her that herface was like a fresh blush rose, that her hair was a wandering sunbeamimprisoned by her smiles, and her eyes like two evening stars. 

There are various ways of flattering, and, of course, you must adaptyour style to your subject. Some people like it laid on with a trowel, and this requires very little art. With sensible persons, however, itneeds to be done very delicately, and more by suggestion than actualwords. A good many like it wrapped up in the form of an insult, as--"Oh, you are a perfect fool, you are. You would give your last sixpence tothe first hungry-looking beggar you met;" while others will swallow itonly when administered through the medium of a third person, so that ifC wishes to get at an A of this sort, he must confide to A's particularfriend B that he thinks A a splendid fellow, and beg him, B, not tomention it, especially to A. Be careful that B is a reliable man, though, otherwise he won't. 

Those fine, sturdy John Bulls who "hate flattery, sir, " "Never letanybody get over me by flattery, " etc. , etc. , are very simply managed. Flatter them enough upon their absence of vanity, and you can do whatyou like with them. 

After all, vanity is as much a virtue as a vice. It is easy to recitecopy-book maxims against its sinfulness, but it is a passion that canmove us to good as well as to evil. Ambition is only vanity ennobled. Wewant to win praise and admiration--or fame as we prefer to name it--andso we write great books, and paint grand pictures, and sing sweet songs;and toil with willing hands in study, loom, and laboratory. 

We wish to become rich men, not in order to enjoy ease and comfort--allthat any one man can taste of those may be purchased anywhere for 200pounds per annum--but that our houses may be bigger and more gaudilyfurnished than our neighbors'; that our horses and servants may bemore numerous; that we may dress our wives and daughters in absurdbut expensive clothes; and that we may give costly dinners of which weourselves individually do not eat a shilling's worth. And to do this weaid the world's work with clear and busy brain, spreading commerce amongits peoples, carrying civilization to its remotest corners. 

Do not let us abuse vanity, therefore. Rather let us use it. Honoritself is but the highest form of vanity. The instinct is not confinedsolely to Beau Brummels and Dolly Vardens. There is the vanity of thepeacock and the vanity of the eagle. Snobs are vain. But so, too, areheroes. Come, oh! my young brother bucks, let us be vain together. Letus join hands and help each other to increase our vanity. Let us bevain, not of our trousers and hair, but of brave hearts and workinghands, of truth, of purity, of nobility. Let us be too vain to stoopto aught that is mean or base, too vain for petty selfishness andlittle-minded envy, too vain to say an unkind word or do an unkind act. Let us be vain of being single-hearted, upright gentlemen in themidst of a world of knaves. Let us pride ourselves upon thinking highthoughts, achieving great deeds, living good lives. 

ON GETTING ON IN THE WORLD. 

Not exactly the sort of thing for an idle fellow to think about, is it?But outsiders, you know, often see most of the game; and sitting in myarbor by the wayside, smoking my hookah of contentment and eatingthe sweet lotus-leaves of indolence, I can look out musingly upon thewhirling throng that rolls and tumbles past me on the great high-road oflife. 

Never-ending is the wild procession. Day and night you can hear thequick tramp of the myriad feet--some running, some walking, somehalting and lame; but all hastening, all eager in the feverish race, allstraining life and limb and heart and soul to reach the ever-recedinghorizon of success. 

Mark them as they surge along--men and women, old and young, gentleand simple, fair and foul, rich and poor, merry and sad--all hurrying, bustling, scrambling. The strong pushing aside the weak, the cunningcreeping past the foolish; those behind elbowing those before; thosein front kicking, as they run, at those behind. Look close and see theflitting show. Here is an old man panting for breath, and there a timidmaiden driven by a hard and sharp-faced matron; here is a studiousyouth, reading "How to Get On in the World" and letting everybodypass him as he stumbles along with his eyes on his book; here is abored-looking man, with a fashionably dressed woman jogging his elbow;here a boy gazing wistfully back at the sunny village that henever again will see; here, with a firm and easy step, strides abroad-shouldered man; and here, with stealthy tread, a thin-faced, stooping fellow dodges and shuffles upon his way; here, with gaze fixedalways on the ground, an artful rogue carefully works his way from sideto side of the road and thinks he is going forward; and here a youthwith a noble face stands, hesitating as he looks from the distant goalto the mud beneath his feet. 

And now into sight comes a fair girl, with her dainty face growing morewrinkled at every step, and now a care-worn man, and now a hopeful lad. 

A motley throng--a motley throng! Prince and beggar, sinner and saint, butcher and baker and candlestick maker, tinkers and tailors, andplowboys and sailors--all jostling along together. Here the counselin his wig and gown, and here the old Jew clothes-man under his dingytiara; here the soldier in his scarlet, and here the undertaker's mutein streaming hat-band and worn cotton gloves; here the musty scholarfumbling his faded leaves, and here the scented actor dangling his showyseals. Here the glib politician crying his legislative panaceas, andhere the peripatetic Cheap-Jack holding aloft his quack cures for humanills. Here the sleek capitalist and there the sinewy laborer; herethe man of science and here the shoe-back; here the poet and herethe water-rate collector; here the cabinet minister and there theballet-dancer. Here a red-nosed publican shouting the praises of hisvats and there a temperance lecturer at 50 pounds a night; here a judgeand there a swindler; here a priest and there a gambler. Here a jeweledduchess, smiling and gracious; here a thin lodging-house keeper, irritable with cooking; and here a wabbling, strutting thing, tawdry inpaint and finery. 

Cheek by cheek they struggle onward. Screaming, cursing, and praying, laughing, singing, and moaning, they rush past side by side. Their speednever slackens, the race never ends. There is no wayside rest for them, no halt by cooling fountains, no pause beneath green shades. On, on, on--on through the heat and the crowd and the dust--on, or they willbe trampled down and lost--on, with throbbing brain and totteringlimbs--on, till the heart grows sick, and the eyes grow blurred, and agurgling groan tells those behind they may close up another space. 

And yet, in spite of the killing pace and the stony track, who butthe sluggard or the dolt can hold aloof from the course? Who--like thebelated traveler that stands watching fairy revels till he snatches anddrains the goblin cup and springs into the whirling circle--can view themad tumult and not be drawn into its midst? Not I, for one. I confess tothe wayside arbor, the pipe of contentment, and the lotus-leavesbeing altogether unsuitable metaphors. They sounded very nice andphilosophical, but I'm afraid I am not the sort of person to sit inarbors smoking pipes when there is any fun going on outside. I thinkI more resemble the Irishman who, seeing a crowd collecting, sent hislittle girl out to ask if there was going to be a row--"'Cos, if so, father would like to be in it. "

I love the fierce strife. I like to watch it. I like to hear of peoplegetting on in it--battling their way bravely and fairly--that is, notslipping through by luck or trickery. It stirs one's old Saxon fightingblood like the tales of "knights who fought 'gainst fearful odds" thatthrilled us in our school-boy days. 

And fighting the battle of life is fighting against fearful odds, too. There are giants and dragons in this nineteenth century, and the goldencasket that they guard is not so easy to win as it appears in thestory-books. There, Algernon takes one long, last look at the ancestralhall, dashes the tear-drop from his eye, and goes off--to return inthree years' time, rolling in riches. The authors do not tell us "howit's done, " which is a pity, for it would surely prove exciting. 

But then not one novelist in a thousand ever does tell us the real storyof their hero. They linger for a dozen pages over a tea-party, but sumup a life's history with "he had become one of our merchant princes, " or"he was now a great artist, with the world at his feet. " Why, thereis more real life in one of Gilbert's patter-songs than in half thebiographical novels ever written. He relates to us all the various stepsby which his office-boy rose to be the "ruler of the queen's navee, " andexplains to us how the briefless barrister managed to become a great andgood judge, "ready to try this breach of promise of marriage. " It isin the petty details, not in the great results, that the interest ofexistence lies. 

What we really want is a novel showing us all the hidden under-currentof an ambitious man's career--his struggles, and failures, and hopes, his disappointments and victories. It would be an immense success. I amsure the wooing of Fortune would prove quite as interesting a tale asthe wooing of any flesh-and-blood maiden, though, by the way, it wouldread extremely similar; for Fortune is, indeed, as the ancients paintedher, very like a woman--not quite so unreasonable and inconsistent, butnearly so--and the pursuit is much the same in one case as in the other. Ben Jonson's couplet--

 "Court a mistress, she denies you; Let her alone, she will court you"--

puts them both in a nutshell. A woman never thoroughly cares for herlover until he has ceased to care for her; and it is not until you havesnapped your fingers in Fortune's face and turned on your heel that shebegins to smile upon you. 

But by that time you do not much care whether she smiles or frowns. Whycould she not have smiled when her smiles would have filled you withecstasy? Everything comes too late in this world. 

Good people say that it is quite right and proper that it should be so, and that it proves ambition is wicked. 

Bosh! Good people are altogether wrong. (They always are, in my opinion. We never agree on any single point. ) What would the world do withoutambitious people, I should like to know? Why, it would be as flabby asa Norfolk dumpling. Ambitious people are the leaven which raises it intowholesome bread. Without ambitious people the world would never getup. They are busybodies who are about early in the morning, hammering, shouting, and rattling the fire-irons, and rendering it generallyimpossible for the rest of the house to remain in bed. 

Wrong to be ambitious, forsooth! The men wrong who, with bent back andsweating brow, cut the smooth road over which humanity marches forwardfrom generation to generation! Men wrong for using the talents thattheir Master has intrusted to them--for toiling while others play!

Of course they are seeking their reward. Man is not given that godlikeunselfishness that thinks only of others' good. But in working forthemselves they are working for us all. We are so bound together that noman can labor for himself alone. Each blow he strikes in his own behalfhelps to mold the universe. The stream in struggling onward turns themill-wheel; the coral insect, fashioning its tiny cell, joins continentsto one another; and the ambitious man, building a pedestal for himself, leaves a monument to posterity. Alexander and Caesar fought for theirown ends, but in doing so they put a belt of civilization half roundthe earth. Stephenson, to win a fortune, invented the steam-engine; andShakespeare wrote his plays in order to keep a comfortable home for Mrs. Shakespeare and the little Shakespeares. 

Contented, unambitious people are all very well in their way. They forma neat, useful background for great portraits to be painted against, andthey make a respectable, if not particularly intelligent, audience forthe active spirits of the age to play before. I have not a word to sayagainst contented people so long as they keep quiet. But do not, forgoodness' sake, let them go strutting about, as they are so fond ofdoing, crying out that they are the true models for the whole species. Why, they are the deadheads, the drones in the great hive, the streetcrowds that lounge about, gaping at those who are working. 

And let them not imagine, either--as they are also fond of doing--thatthey are very wise and philosophical and that it is a very artfulthing to be contented. It may be true that "a contented mind is happyanywhere, " but so is a Jerusalem pony, and the consequence is that bothare put anywhere and are treated anyhow. "Oh, you need not bother abouthim, " is what is said; "he is very contented as he is, and it would be apity to disturb him. " And so your contented party is passed over and thediscontented man gets his place. 

If you are foolish enough to be contented, don't show it, but grumblewith the rest; and if you can do with a little, ask for a great deal. Because if you don't you won't get any. In this world it is necessary toadopt the principle pursued by the plaintiff in an action for damages, and to demand ten times more than you are ready to accept. If you canfeel satisfied with a hundred, begin by insisting on a thousand; if youstart by suggesting a hundred you will only get ten. 

It was by not following this simple plan that poor Jean Jacques Rousseaucame to such grief. He fixed the summit of his earthly bliss at livingin an orchard with an amiable woman and a cow, and he never attainedeven that. He did get as far as the orchard, but the woman was notamiable, and she brought her mother with her, and there was no cow. Now, if he had made up his mind for a large country estate, a houseful ofangels, and a cattle-show, he might have lived to possess his kitchengarden and one head of live-stock, and even possibly have come acrossthat _rara-avis_--a really amiable woman. 

What a terribly dull affair, too, life must be for contented people!How heavy the time must hang upon their hands, and what on earth do theyoccupy their thoughts with, supposing that they have any? Reading thepaper and smoking seems to be the intellectual food of the majorityof them, to which the more energetic add playing the flute and talkingabout the affairs of the next-door neighbor. 

They never knew the excitement of expectation nor the stern delight ofaccomplished effort, such as stir the pulse of the man who has objects, and hopes, and plans. To the ambitious man life is a brilliant game--agame that calls forth all his tact and energy and nerve--a game to bewon, in the long run, by the quick eye and the steady hand, and yethaving sufficient chance about its working out to give it all theglorious zest of uncertainty. He exults in it as the strong swimmer inthe heaving billows, as the athlete in the wrestle, the soldier in thebattle. 

And if he be defeated he wins the grim joy of fighting; if he lose therace, he, at least, has had a run. Better to work and fail than to sleepone's life away. 

So, walk up, walk up, walk up. Walk up, ladies and gentlemen! walk up, boys and girls! Show your skill and try your strength; brave your luckand prove your pluck. Walk up! The show is never closed and the game isalways going. The only genuine sport in all the fair, gentlemen--highlyrespectable and strictly moral--patronized by the nobility, clergy, andgentry. Established in the year one, gentlemen, and been flourishingever since--walk up! Walk up, ladies and gentlemen, and take a hand. There are prizes for all and all can play. There is gold for the man andfame for the boy; rank for the maiden and pleasure for the fool. So walkup, ladies and gentlemen, walk up!--all prizes and no blanks; for somefew win, and as to the rest, why--

 "The rapture of pursuing Is the prize the vanquished gain. "

ON THE WEATHER. 

Things do go so contrary-like with me. I wanted to hit upon anespecially novel, out-of-the-way subject for one of these articles. "Iwill write one paper about something altogether new, " I said to myself;"something that nobody else has ever written or talked about before; andthen I can have it all my own way. " And I went about for days, trying tothink of something of this kind; and I couldn't. And Mrs. Cutting, ourcharwoman, came yesterday--I don't mind mentioning her name, because Iknow she will not see this book. She would not look at such a frivolouspublication. She never reads anything but the Bible and _Lloyd's WeeklyNews_. All other literature she considers unnecessary and sinful. 

She said: "Lor', sir, you do look worried. "

I said: "Mrs. Cutting, I am trying to think of a subject the discussionof which will come upon the world in the nature of a startler--somesubject upon which no previous human being has ever said a word--somesubject that will attract by its novelty, invigorate by its surprisingfreshness. "

She laughed and said I was a funny gentleman. 

That's my luck again. When I make serious observations people chuckle;when I attempt a joke nobody sees it. I had a beautiful one last week. I thought it so good, and I worked it up and brought it in artfully ata dinner-party. I forget how exactly, but we had been talking about theattitude of Shakespeare toward the Reformation, and I said something andimmediately added, "Ah, that reminds me; such a funny thing happened theother day in Whitechapel. " "Oh, " said they, "what was that?" "Oh, 'twasawfully funny, " I replied, beginning to giggle myself; "it will make youroar;" and I told it them. 

There was dead silence when I finished--it was one of those long jokes, too--and then, at last, somebody said: "And that was the joke?"

I assured them that it was, and they were very polite and took my wordfor it. All but one old gentleman at the other end of the table, whowanted to know which was the joke--what he said to her or what she saidto him; and we argued it out. 

Some people are too much the other way. I knew a fellow once whosenatural tendency to laugh at everything was so strong that if you wantedto talk seriously to him, you had to explain beforehand that what youwere going to say would not be amusing. Unless you got him to clearlyunderstand this, he would go off into fits of merriment over every wordyou uttered. I have known him on being asked the time stop short in themiddle of the road, slap his leg, and burst into a roar of laughter. One never dared say anything really funny to that man. A good joke wouldhave killed him on the spot. 

In the present instance I vehemently repudiated the accusation offrivolity, and pressed Mrs. Cutting for practical ideas. She then becamethoughtful and hazarded "samplers;" saying that she never heard themspoken much of now, but that they used to be all the rage when she was agirl. 

I declined samplers and begged her to think again. She pondered a longwhile, with a tea-tray in her hands, and at last suggested the weather, which she was sure had been most trying of late. 

And ever since that idiotic suggestion I have been unable to get theweather out of my thoughts or anything else in. 

It certainly is most wretched weather. At all events it is so now at thetime I am writing, and if it isn't particularly unpleasant when I cometo be read it soon will be. 

It always is wretched weather according to us. The weather is like thegovernment--always in the wrong. In summer-time we say it is stifling;in winter that it is killing; in spring and autumn we find fault with itfor being neither one thing nor the other and wish it would make up itsmind. If it is fine we say the country is being ruined for want of rain;if it does rain we pray for fine weather. If December passes withoutsnow, we indignantly demand to know what has become of our goodold-fashioned winters, and talk as if we had been cheated out ofsomething we had bought and paid for; and when it does snow, ourlanguage is a disgrace to a Christian nation. We shall never be contentuntil each man makes his own weather and keeps it to himself. 

If that cannot be arranged, we would rather do without it altogether. 

Yet I think it is only to us in cities that all weather is so unwelcome. In her own home, the country, Nature is sweet in all her moods. Whatcan be more beautiful than the snow, falling big with mystery in silentsoftness, decking the fields and trees with white as if for a fairywedding! And how delightful is a walk when the frozen ground ringsbeneath our swinging tread--when our blood tingles in the rare keen air, and the sheep-dogs' distant bark and children's laughter peals faintlyclear like Alpine bells across the open hills! And then skating!scudding with wings of steel across the swaying ice, making whirringmusic as we fly. And oh, how dainty is spring--Nature at sweet eighteen!

When the little hopeful leaves peep out so fresh and green, so pure andbright, like young lives pushing shyly out into the bustling world; whenthe fruit-tree blossoms, pink and white, like village maidens in theirSunday frocks, hide each whitewashed cottage in a cloud of fragilesplendor; and the cuckoo's note upon the breeze is wafted through thewoods! And summer, with its deep dark green and drowsy hum--when therain-drops whisper solemn secrets to the listening leaves and thetwilight lingers in the lanes! And autumn! ah, how sadly fair, with itsgolden glow and the dying grandeur of its tinted woods--its blood-redsunsets and its ghostly evening mists, with its busy murmur of reapers, and its laden orchards, and the calling of the gleaners, and thefestivals of praise!

The very rain, and sleet, and hail seem only Nature's useful servantswhen found doing their simple duties in the country; and the East Windhimself is nothing worse than a boisterous friend when we meet himbetween the hedge-rows. 

But in the city where the painted stucco blisters under the smoky sun, and the sooty rain brings slush and mud, and the snow lies piled indirty heaps, and the chill blasts whistle down dingy streets and shriekround flaring gas lit corners, no face of Nature charms us. Weather intowns is like a skylark in a counting-house--out of place and in theway. Towns ought to be covered in, warmed by hot-water pipes, andlighted by electricity. The weather is a country lass and does notappear to advantage in town. We liked well enough to flirt with her inthe hay-field, but she does not seem so fascinating when we meet herin Pall Mall. There is too much of her there. The frank, free laughand hearty voice that sounded so pleasant in the dairy jars against theartificiality of town-bred life, and her ways become exceedingly trying. 

Just lately she has been favoring us with almost incessant rain forabout three weeks; and I am a demned damp, moist, unpleasant body, asMr. Mantalini puts it. 

Our next-door neighbor comes out in the back garden every now and thenand says it's doing the country a world of good--not his coming out intothe back garden, but the weather. He doesn't understand anything aboutit, but ever since he started a cucumber-frame last summer he hasregarded himself in the light of an agriculturist, and talks in thisabsurd way with the idea of impressing the rest of the terrace with thenotion that he is a retired farmer. I can only hope that for this oncehe is correct, and that the weather really is doing good to something, because it is doing me a considerable amount of damage. It is spoilingboth my clothes and my temper. The latter I can afford, as I have a goodsupply of it, but it wounds me to the quick to see my dear old hats andtrousers sinking, prematurely worn and aged, beneath the cold world'sblasts and snows. 

There is my new spring suit, too. A beautiful suit it was, and now it ishanging up so bespattered with mud I can't bear to look at it. 

That was Jim's fault, that was. I should never have gone out in it thatnight if it had not been for him. I was just trying it on when he camein. He threw up his arms with a wild yell the moment he caught sight ofit, and exclaimed that he had "got 'em again!"

I said: "Does it fit all right behind?"

"Spiffin, old man, " he replied. And then he wanted to know if I wascoming out. 

I said "no" at first, but he overruled me. He said that a man with asuit like that had no right to stop indoors. "Every citizen, " said he, "owes a duty to the public. Each one should contribute to the generalhappiness as far as lies in his power. Come out and give the girls atreat. "

Jim is slangy. I don't know where he picks it up. It certainly is notfrom me. 

I said: "Do you think it will really please 'em?" He said it would belike a day in the country to them. 

That decided me. It was a lovely evening and I went. 

When I got home I undressed and rubbed myself down with whisky, putmy feet in hot water and a mustard-plaster on my chest, had a basin ofgruel and a glass of hot brandy-and-water, tallowed my nose, and went tobed. 

These prompt and vigorous measures, aided by a naturally strongconstitution, were the means of preserving my life; but as for the suit!Well, there, it isn't a suit; it's a splash-board. 

And I did fancy that suit, too. But that's just the way. I never do getparticularly fond of anything in this world but what something dreadfulhappens to it. I had a tame rat when I was a boy, and I loved thatanimal as only a boy would love an old water-rat; and one day it fellinto a large dish of gooseberry-fool that was standing to cool in thekitchen, and nobody knew what had become of the poor creature until thesecond helping. 

I do hate wet weather in town. At least, it is not so much the wetas the mud that I object to. Somehow or other I seem to possess anirresistible alluring power over mud. I have only to show myself in thestreet on a muddy day to be half-smothered by it. It all comes of beingso attractive, as the old lady said when she was struck by lightning. Other people can go out on dirty days and walk about for hours withoutgetting a speck upon themselves; while if I go across the road I comeback a perfect disgrace to be seen (as in my boyish days my poor dearmother tried often to tell me). If there were only one dab of mud to befound in the whole of London, I am convinced I should carry it off fromall competitors. 

I wish I could return the affection, but I fear I never shall be ableto. I have a horror of what they call the "London particular. " I feelmiserable and muggy all through a dirty day, and it is quite a reliefto pull one's clothes off and get into bed, out of the way of it all. Everything goes wrong in wet weather. I don't know how it is, but therealways seem to me to be more people, and dogs, and perambulators, andcabs, and carts about in wet weather than at any other time, and theyall get in your way more, and everybody is so disagreeable--exceptmyself--and it does make me so wild. And then, too, somehow I alwaysfind myself carrying more things in wet weather than in dry; and whenyou have a bag, and three parcels, and a newspaper, and it suddenlycomes on to rain, you can't open your umbrella. 

Which reminds me of another phase of the weather that I can't bear, andthat is April weather (so called because it always comes in May). Poets think it very nice. As it does not know its own mind five minutestogether, they liken it to a woman; and it is supposed to be verycharming on that account. I don't appreciate it, myself. Suchlightning-change business may be all very agreeable in a girl. It is nodoubt highly delightful to have to do with a person who grins one momentabout nothing at all, and snivels the next for precisely the same cause, and who then giggles, and then sulks, and who is rude, and affectionate, and bad-tempered, and jolly, and boisterous, and silent, and passionate, and cold, and stand-offish, and flopping, all in one minute (mind, I don't say this. It is those poets. And they are supposed tobe connoisseurs of this sort of thing); but in the weather thedisadvantages of the system are more apparent. A woman's tears do notmake one wet, but the rain does; and her coldness does not lay thefoundations of asthma and rheumatism, as the east wind is apt to. Ican prepare for and put up with a regularly bad day, but theseha'porth-of-all-sorts kind of days do not suit me. It aggravates me tosee a bright blue sky above me when I am walking along wet through, and there is something so exasperating about the way the sun comes outsmiling after a drenching shower, and seems to say: "Lord love you, youdon't mean to say you're wet? Well, I am surprised. Why, it was only myfun. "

They don't give you time to open or shut your umbrella in an EnglishApril, especially if it is an "automaton" one--the umbrella, I mean, notthe April. 

I bought an "automaton" once in April, and I did have a time with it! Iwanted an umbrella, and I went into a shop in the Strand and told themso, and they said:

"Yes, sir. What sort of an umbrella would you like?"

I said I should like one that would keep the rain off, and that wouldnot allow itself to be left behind in a railway carriage. 

"Try an 'automaton, '" said the shopman. 

"What's an 'automaton'?" said I. 

"Oh, it's a beautiful arrangement, " replied the man, with a touch ofenthusiasm. "It opens and shuts itself. "

I bought one and found that he was quite correct. It did open and shutitself. I had no control over it whatever. When it began to rain, whichit did that season every alternate five minutes, I used to try and getthe machine to open, but it would not budge; and then I used to standand struggle with the wretched thing, and shake it, and swear at it, while the rain poured down in torrents. Then the moment the rain ceasedthe absurd thing would go up suddenly with a jerk and would not comedown again; and I had to walk about under a bright blue sky, with anumbrella over my head, wishing that it would come on to rain again, sothat it might not seem that I was insane. 

When it did shut it did so unexpectedly and knocked one's hat off. 

I don't know why it should be so, but it is an undeniable fact thatthere is nothing makes a man look so supremely ridiculous as losinghis hat. The feeling of helpless misery that shoots down one's back onsuddenly becoming aware that one's head is bare is among the most bitterills that flesh is heir to. And then there is the wild chase after it, accompanied by an excitable small dog, who thinks it is a game, andin the course of which you are certain to upset three or four innocentchildren--to say nothing of their mothers--butt a fat old gentleman onto the top of a perambulator, and carom off a ladies' seminary into thearms of a wet sweep. 

After this, the idiotic hilarity of the spectators and the disreputableappearance of the hat when recovered appear but of minor importance. 

Altogether, what between March winds, April showers, and the entireabsence of May flowers, spring is not a success in cities. It is allvery well in the country, as I have said, but in towns whose populationis anything over ten thousand it most certainly ought to be abolished. In the world's grim workshops it is like the children--out of place. Neither shows to advantage amid the dust and din. It seems so sad to seethe little dirt-grimed brats try to play in the noisy courts and muddystreets. Poor little uncared-for, unwanted human atoms, they are notchildren. Children are bright-eyed, chubby, and shy. These are dingy, screeching elves, their tiny faces seared and withered, their babylaughter cracked and hoarse. 

The spring of life and the spring of the year were alike meant to becradled in the green lap of nature. To us in the town spring brings butits cold winds and drizzling rains. We must seek it among the leaflesswoods and the brambly lanes, on the heathy moors and the great stillhills, if we want to feel its joyous breath and hear its silent voices. There is a glorious freshness in the spring there. The scurrying clouds, the open bleakness, the rushing wind, and the clear bright air thrillone with vague energies and hopes. Life, like the landscape around us, seems bigger, and wider, and freer--a rainbow road leading to unknownends. Through the silvery rents that bar the sky we seem to catch aglimpse of the great hope and grandeur that lies around this littlethrobbing world, and a breath of its scent is wafted us on the wings ofthe wild March wind. 

Strange thoughts we do not understand are stirring in our hearts. Voicesare calling us to some great effort, to some mighty work. But we do notcomprehend their meaning yet, and the hidden echoes within us that wouldreply are struggling, inarticulate and dumb. 

We stretch our hands like children to the light, seeking to grasp weknow not what. Our thoughts, like the boys' thoughts in the Danish song, are very long, long thoughts, and very vague; we cannot see their end. 

It must be so. All thoughts that peer outside this narrow world cannotbe else than dim and shapeless. The thoughts that we can clearly graspare very little thoughts--that two and two make four-that when we arehungry it is pleasant to eat--that honesty is the best policy; allgreater thoughts are undefined and vast to our poor childish brains. Wesee but dimly through the mists that roll around our time-girt isle oflife, and only hear the distant surging of the great sea beyond. 

ON CATS AND DOGS. 

What I've suffered from them this morning no tongue can tell. Itbegan with Gustavus Adolphus. Gustavus Adolphus (they call him "Gusty"down-stairs for short) is a very good sort of dog when he is in themiddle of a large field or on a fairly extensive common, but I won'thave him indoors. He means well, but this house is not his size. Hestretches himself, and over go two chairs and a what-not. He wags histail, and the room looks as if a devastating army had marched throughit. He breathes, and it puts the fire out. 

At dinner-time he creeps in under the table, lies there for awhile, andthen gets up suddenly; the first intimation we have of his movementsbeing given by the table, which appears animated by a desire to turnsomersaults. We all clutch at it frantically and endeavor to maintainit in a horizontal position; whereupon his struggles, he being underthe impression that some wicked conspiracy is being hatched against him, become fearful, and the final picture presented is generally that ofan overturned table and a smashed-up dinner sandwiched between twosprawling layers of infuriated men and women. 

He came in this morning in his usual style, which he appears to havefounded on that of an American cyclone, and the first thing he did wasto sweep my coffee-cup off the table with his tail, sending the contentsfull into the middle of my waistcoat. 

I rose from my chair hurriedly and remarking "----, " approached him at arapid rate. He preceded me in the direction of the door. At the door hemet Eliza coming in with eggs. Eliza observed "Ugh!" and sat down on thefloor, the eggs took up different positions about the carpet, where theyspread themselves out, and Gustavus Adolphus left the room. I calledafter him, strongly advising him to go straight downstairs and not letme see him again for the next hour or so; and he seeming to agree withme, dodged the coal-scoop and went, while I returned, dried myself andfinished breakfast. I made sure that he had gone in to the yard, butwhen I looked into the passage ten minutes later he was sitting at thetop of the stairs. I ordered him down at once, but he only barked andjumped about, so I went to see what was the matter. 

It was Tittums. She was sitting on the top stair but one and wouldn'tlet him pass. 

Tittums is our kitten. She is about the size of a penny roll. Her backwas up and she was swearing like a medical student. 

She does swear fearfully. I do a little that way myself sometimes, butI am a mere amateur compared with her. To tell you the truth--mind, thisis strictly between ourselves, please; I shouldn't like your wifeto know I said it--the women folk don't understand these things; butbetween you and me, you know, I think it does a man good to swear. Swearing is the safety-valve through which the bad temper that mightotherwise do serious internal injury to his mental mechanism escapes inharmless vaporing. When a man has said: "Bless you, my dear, sweetsir. What the sun, moon, and stars made you so careless (if I may bepermitted the expression) as to allow your light and delicate foot todescend upon my corn with so much force? Is it that you are physicallyincapable of comprehending the direction in which you are proceeding?you nice, clever young man--you!" or words to that effect, he feelsbetter. Swearing has the same soothing effect upon our angry passionsthat smashing the furniture or slamming the doors is so well known toexercise; added to which it is much cheaper. Swearing clears a man outlike a pen'orth of gunpowder does the wash-house chimney. An occasionalexplosion is good for both. I rather distrust a man who never swears, or savagely kicks the foot-stool, or pokes the fire with unnecessaryviolence. Without some outlet, the anger caused by the ever-occurringtroubles of life is apt to rankle and fester within. The pettyannoyance, instead of being thrown from us, sits down beside us andbecomes a sorrow, and the little offense is brooded over till, inthe hot-bed of rumination, it grows into a great injury, under whosepoisonous shadow springs up hatred and revenge. 

Swearing relieves the feelings--that is what swearing does. I explainedthis to my aunt on one occasion, but it didn't answer with her. She saidI had no business to have such feelings. 

That is what I told Tittums. I told her she ought to be ashamed ofherself, brought up in at Christian family as she was, too. I don'tso much mind hearing an old cat swear, but I can't bear to see a merekitten give way to it. It seems sad in one so young. 

I put Tittums in my pocket and returned to my desk. I forgot her for themoment, and when I looked I found that she had squirmed out of my pocketon to the table and was trying to swallow the pen; then she put her leginto the ink-pot and upset it; then she licked her leg; then she sworeagain--at me this time. 

I put her down on the floor, and there Tim began rowing with her. I dowish Tim would mind his own business. It was no concern of his whatshe had been doing. Besides, he is not a saint himself. He is only atwo-year-old fox-terrier, and he interferes with everything and giveshimself the airs of a gray-headed Scotch collie. 

Tittums' mother has come in and Tim has got his nose scratched, forwhich I am remarkably glad. I have put them all three out in thepassage, where they are fighting at the present moment. I'm in a messwith the ink and in a thundering bad temper; and if anything more in thecat or dog line comes fooling about me this morning, it had better bringits own funeral contractor with it. 

Yet, in general, I like cats and dogs very much indeed. What jolly chapsthey are! They are much superior to human beings as companions. Theydo not quarrel or argue with you. They never talk about themselves butlisten to you while you talk about yourself, and keep up an appearanceof being interested in the conversation. They never make stupid remarks. They never observe to Miss Brown across a dinner-table that they alwaysunderstood she was very sweet on Mr. Jones (who has just married MissRobinson). They never mistake your wife's cousin for her husband andfancy that you are the father-in-law. And they never ask a young authorwith fourteen tragedies, sixteen comedies, seven farces, and a couple ofburlesques in his desk why he doesn't write a play. 

They never say unkind things. They never tell us of our faults, "merelyfor our own good. " They do not at inconvenient moments mildly remind usof our past follies and mistakes. They do not say, "Oh, yes, a lot ofuse you are if you are ever really wanted"--sarcastic like. They neverinform us, like our _inamoratas_ sometimes do, that we are not nearly sonice as we used to be. We are always the same to them. 

They are always glad to see us. They are with us in all our humors. Theyare merry when we are glad, sober when we feel solemn, and sad when weare sorrowful. 

"Halloo! happy and want a lark? Right you are; I'm your man. Here I am, frisking round you, leaping, barking, pirouetting, ready for any amountof fun and mischief. Look at my eyes if you doubt me. What shall it be?A romp in the drawing-room and never mind the furniture, or a scamperin the fresh, cool air, a scud across the fields and down the hill, and won't we let old Gaffer Goggles' geese know what time o' day it is, neither! Whoop! come along. "

Or you'd like to be quiet and think. Very well. Pussy can sit on the armof the chair and purr, and Montmorency will curl himself up on the rugand blink at the fire, yet keeping one eye on you the while, in case youare seized with any sudden desire in the direction of rats. 

And when we bury our face in our hands and wish we had never been born, they don't sit up very straight and observe that we have brought it allupon ourselves. They don't even hope it will be a warning to us. Butthey come up softly and shove their heads against us. If it is a cat shestands on your shoulder, rumples your hair, and says, "Lor, ' I am sorryfor you, old man, " as plain as words can speak; and if it is a dog helooks up at you with his big, true eyes and says with them, "Well you'vealways got me, you know. We'll go through the world together and alwaysstand by each other, won't we?"

He is very imprudent, a dog is. He never makes it his business toinquire whether you are in the right or in the wrong, never bothersas to whether you are going up or down upon life's ladder, never askswhether you are rich or poor, silly or wise, sinner or saint. You arehis pal. That is enough for him, and come luck or misfortune, goodrepute or bad, honor or shame, he is going to stick to you, tocomfort you, guard you, and give his life for you if need be--foolish, brainless, soulless dog!

Ah! old stanch friend, with your deep, clear eyes and bright, quickglances, that take in all one has to say before one has time to speakit, do you know you are only an animal and have no mind? Do you knowthat that dull-eyed, gin-sodden lout leaning against the post out thereis immeasurably your intellectual superior? Do you know that everylittle-minded, selfish scoundrel who lives by cheating and tricking, who never did a gentle deed or said a kind word, who never had a thoughtthat was not mean and low or a desire that was not base, whose everyaction is a fraud, whose every utterance is a lie--do you know thatthese crawling skulks (and there are millions of them in the world), doyou know they are all as much superior to you as the sun is superior torushlight you honorable, brave-hearted, unselfish brute? They are MEN, you know, and MEN are the greatest, and noblest, and wisest, and bestbeings in the whole vast eternal universe. Any man will tell you that. 

Yes, poor doggie, you are very stupid, very stupid indeed, compared withus clever men, who understand all about politics and philosophy, and whoknow everything, in short, except what we are and where we came from andwhither we are going, and what everything outside this tiny world andmost things in it are. 

Never mind, though, pussy and doggie, we like you both all the betterfor your being stupid. We all like stupid things. Men can't bear cleverwomen, and a woman's ideal man is some one she can call a "dear oldstupid. " It is so pleasant to come across people more stupid thanourselves. We love them at once for being so. The world must be rathera rough place for clever people. Ordinary folk dislike them, and as forthemselves, they hate each other most cordially. 

But there, the clever people are such a very insignificant minoritythat it really doesn't much matter if they are unhappy. So long as thefoolish people can be made comfortable the world, as a whole, will geton tolerably well. 

Cats have the credit of being more worldly wise than dogs--of lookingmore after their own interests and being less blindly devoted to thoseof their friends. And we men and women are naturally shocked at suchselfishness. Cats certainly do love a family that has a carpet in thekitchen more than a family that has not; and if there are many childrenabout, they prefer to spend their leisure time next door. But, takenaltogether, cats are libeled. Make a friend of one, and she will stickto you through thick and thin. All the cats that I have had have beenmost firm comrades. I had a cat once that used to follow me abouteverywhere, until it even got quite embarrassing, and I had to begher, as a personal favor, not to accompany me any further down the HighStreet. She used to sit up for me when I was late home and meet me inthe passage. It made me feel quite like a married man, except that shenever asked where I had been and then didn't believe me when I told her. 

Another cat I had used to get drunk regularly every day. She would hangabout for hours outside the cellar door for the purpose of sneakingin on the first opportunity and lapping up the drippings from thebeer-cask. I do not mention this habit of hers in praise of thespecies, but merely to show how almost human some of them are. If thetransmigration of souls is a fact, this animal was certainly qualifyingmost rapidly for a Christian, for her vanity was only second to her loveof drink. Whenever she caught a particularly big rat, she would bring itup into the room where we were all sitting, lay the corpse down in themidst of us, and wait to be praised. Lord! how the girls used to scream. 

Poor rats! They seem only to exist so that cats and dogs may gain creditfor killing them and chemists make a fortune by inventing specialtiesin poison for their destruction. And yet there is something fascinatingabout them. There is a weirdness and uncanniness attaching to them. Theyare so cunning and strong, so terrible in their numbers, so cruel, sosecret. They swarm in deserted houses, where the broken casements hangrotting to the crumbling walls and the doors swing creaking on theirrusty hinges. They know the sinking ship and leave her, no one knows howor whither. They whisper to each other in their hiding-places how adoom will fall upon the hall and the great name die forgotten. They dofearful deeds in ghastly charnel-houses. 

No tale of horror is complete without the rats. In stories of ghostsand murderers they scamper through the echoing rooms, and the gnawing oftheir teeth is heard behind the wainscot, and their gleaming eyes peerthrough the holes in the worm-eaten tapestry, and they scream in shrill, unearthly notes in the dead of night, while the moaning wind sweeps, sobbing, round the ruined turret towers, and passes wailing like a womanthrough the chambers bare and tenantless. 

And dying prisoners, in their loathsome dungeons, see through thehorrid gloom their small red eyes, like glittering coals, hear inthe death-like silence the rush of their claw-like feet, and start upshrieking in the darkness and watch through the awful night. 

I love to read tales about rats. They make my flesh creep so. I likethat tale of Bishop Hatto and the rats. The wicked bishop, you know, hadever so much corn stored in his granaries and would not let the starvingpeople touch it, but when they prayed to him for food gathered themtogether in his barn, and then shutting the doors on them, set fireto the place and burned them all to death. But next day there camethousands upon thousands of rats, sent to do judgment on him. ThenBishop Hatto fled to his strong tower that stood in the middle of theRhine, and barred himself in and fancied he was safe. But the rats! theyswam the river, they gnawed their way through the thick stone walls, andate him alive where he sat. 

 "They have whetted their teeth against the stones, And now they pick the bishop's bones; They gnawed the flesh from every limb, For they were sent to do judgment on him. "

Oh, it's a lovely tale. 

Then there is the story of the Pied Piper of Hamelin, how first he pipedthe rats away, and afterward, when the mayor broke faith with him, drew all the children along with him and went into the mountain. Whata curious old legend that is! I wonder what it means, or has it anymeaning at all? There seems something strange and deep lying hid beneaththe rippling rhyme. It haunts me, that picture of the quaint, mysteriousold piper piping through Hamelin's narrow streets, and the childrenfollowing with dancing feet and thoughtful, eager faces. The old folkstry to stay them, but the children pay no heed. They hear the weird, witched music and must follow. The games are left unfinished and theplaythings drop from their careless hands. They know not whither theyare hastening. The mystic music calls to them, and they follow, heedlessand unasking where. It stirs and vibrates in their hearts and othersounds grow faint. So they wander through Pied Piper Street away fromHamelin town. 

I get thinking sometimes if the Pied Piper is really dead, or if he maynot still be roaming up and down our streets and lanes, but playing nowso softly that only the children hear him. Why do the little faces lookso grave and solemn when they pause awhile from romping, and stand, deepwrapt, with straining eyes? They only shake their curly heads and dartback laughing to their playmates when we question them. But I fancymyself they have been listening to the magic music of the old PiedPiper, and perhaps with those bright eyes of theirs have even seen hisodd, fantastic figure gliding unnoticed through the whirl and throng. 

Even we grown-up children hear his piping now and then. But the yearningnotes are very far away, and the noisy, blustering world is alwaysbellowing so loud it drowns the dreamlike melody. One day the sweet, sadstrains will sound out full and clear, and then we too shall, like thelittle children, throw our playthings all aside and follow. The lovinghands will be stretched out to stay us, and the voices we have learnedto listen for will cry to us to stop. But we shall push the fond armsgently back and pass out through the sorrowing house and through theopen door. For the wild, strange music will be ringing in our hearts, and we shall know the meaning of its song by then. 

I wish people could love animals without getting maudlin over them, asso many do. Women are the most hardened offenders in such respects, buteven our intellectual sex often degrade pets into nuisances by absurdidolatry. There are the gushing young ladies who, having read "DavidCopperfield, " have thereupon sought out a small, longhaired dog ofnondescript breed, possessed of an irritating habit of criticisinga man's trousers, and of finally commenting upon the same by a sniffindicative of contempt and disgust. They talk sweet girlish prattle tothis animal (when there is any one near enough to overhear them), andthey kiss its nose, and put its unwashed head up against their cheek ina most touching manner; though I have noticed that these caresses areprincipally performed when there are young men hanging about. 

Then there are the old ladies who worship a fat poodle, scant of breathand full of fleas. I knew a couple of elderly spinsters once who hada sort of German sausage on legs which they called a dog between them. They used to wash its face with warm water every morning. It had amutton cutlet regularly for breakfast; and on Sundays, when one of theladies went to church, the other always stopped at home to keep the dogcompany. 

There are many families where the whole interest of life is centeredupon the dog. Cats, by the way, rarely suffer from excess of adulation. A cat possesses a very fair sense of the ridiculous, and will puther paw down kindly but firmly upon any nonsense of this kind. Dogs, however, seem to like it. They encourage their owners in the tomfoolery, and the consequence is that in the circles I am speaking of what "dearFido" has done, does do, will do, won't do, can do, can't do, was doing, is doing, is going to do, shall do, shan't do, and is about to be goingto have done is the continual theme of discussion from morning tillnight. 

All the conversation, consisting, as it does, of the very dregs ofimbecility, is addressed to this confounded animal. The family sit ina row all day long, watching him, commenting upon his actions, tellingeach other anecdotes about him, recalling his virtues, and rememberingwith tears how one day they lost him for two whole hours, on whichoccasion he was brought home in a most brutal manner by the butcher-boy, who had been met carrying him by the scruff of his neck with one hand, while soundly cuffing his head with the other. 

After recovering from these bitter recollections, they vie with eachother in bursts of admiration for the brute, until some more thanusually enthusiastic member, unable any longer to control his feelings, swoops down upon the unhappy quadruped in a frenzy of affection, clutches it to his heart, and slobbers over it. Whereupon the others, mad with envy, rise up, and seizing as much of the dog as the greed ofthe first one has left to them, murmur praise and devotion. 

Among these people everything is done through the dog. If you want tomake love to the eldest daughter, or get the old man to lend youthe garden roller, or the mother to subscribe to the Society for theSuppression of Solo-Cornet Players in Theatrical Orchestras (it's a pitythere isn't one, anyhow), you have to begin with the dog. You mustgain its approbation before they will even listen to you, and if, as ishighly probable, the animal, whose frank, doggy nature has been warpedby the unnatural treatment he has received, responds to your overturesof friendship by viciously snapping at you, your cause is lost forever. 

"If Fido won't take to any one, " the father has thoughtfully remarkedbeforehand, "I say that man is not to be trusted. You know, Maria, howoften I have said that. Ah! he knows, bless him. "

Drat him!

And to think that the surly brute was once an innocent puppy, all legsand head, full of fun and play, and burning with ambition to become abig, good dog and bark like mother. 

Ah me! life sadly changes us all. The world seems a vast horriblegrinding machine, into which what is fresh and bright and pure is pushedat one end, to come out old and crabbed and wrinkled at the other. 

Look even at Pussy Sobersides, with her dull, sleepy glance, her grave, slow walk, and dignified, prudish airs; who could ever think that onceshe was the blue-eyed, whirling, scampering, head-over-heels, mad littlefirework that we call a kitten?

What marvelous vitality a kitten has. It is really something verybeautiful the way life bubbles over in the little creatures. They rushabout, and mew, and spring; dance on their hind legs, embrace everythingwith their front ones, roll over and over, lie on their backs and kick. They don't know what to do with themselves, they are so full of life. 

Can you remember, reader, when you and I felt something of the samesort of thing? Can you remember those glorious days of fresh youngmanhood--how, when coming home along the moonlit road, we felt too fullof life for sober walking, and had to spring and skip, and wave ourarms, and shout till belated farmers' wives thought--and with goodreason, too--that we were mad, and kept close to the hedge, while westood and laughed aloud to see them scuttle off so fast and made theirblood run cold with a wild parting whoop, and the tears came, we knewnot why? Oh, that magnificent young LIFE! that crowned us kings of theearth; that rushed through every tingling vein till we seemed to walk onair; that thrilled through our throbbing brains and told us to go forthand conquer the whole world; that welled up in our young hearts till welonged to stretch out our arms and gather all the toiling men and womenand the little children to our breast and love them all--all. Ah! theywere grand days, those deep, full days, when our coming life, like anunseen organ, pealed strange, yearnful music in our ears, and our youngblood cried out like a war-horse for the battle. Ah, our pulse beatsslow and steady now, and our old joints are rheumatic, and we love oureasy-chair and pipe and sneer at boys' enthusiasm. But oh for one briefmoment of that god-like life again!

ON BEING SHY. 

All great literary men are shy. I am myself, though I am told it ishardly noticeable. 

I am glad it is not. It used to be extremely prominent at one time, andwas the cause of much misery to myself and discomfort to every one aboutme--my lady friends especially complained most bitterly about it. 

A shy man's lot is not a happy one. The men dislike him, the womendespise him, and he dislikes and despises himself. Use brings him norelief, and there is no cure for him except time; though I once cameacross a delicious recipe for overcoming the misfortune. It appearedamong the "answers to correspondents" in a small weekly journal andran as follows--I have never forgotten it: "Adopt an easy and pleasingmanner, especially toward ladies. "

Poor wretch! I can imagine the grin with which he must have read thatadvice. "Adopt an easy and pleasing manner, especially toward ladies, "forsooth! Don't you adopt anything of the kind, my dear young shyfriend. Your attempt to put on any other disposition than your own willinfallibly result in your becoming ridiculously gushing and offensivelyfamiliar. Be your own natural self, and then you will only be thought tobe surly and stupid. 

The shy man does have some slight revenge upon society for the tortureit inflicts upon him. He is able, to a certain extent, to communicatehis misery. He frightens other people as much as they frighten him. He acts like a damper upon the whole room, and the most jovial spiritsbecome in his presence depressed and nervous. 

This is a good deal brought about by misunderstanding. Many peoplemistake the shy man's timidity for overbearing arrogance and areawed and insulted by it. His awkwardness is resented as insolentcarelessness, and when, terror-stricken at the first word addressed tohim, the blood rushes to his head and the power of speech completelyfails him, he is regarded as an awful example of the evil effects ofgiving way to passion. 

But, indeed, to be misunderstood is the shy man's fate on everyoccasion; and whatever impression he endeavors to create, he is sureto convey its opposite. When he makes a joke, it is looked upon as apretended relation of fact and his want of veracity much condemned. His sarcasm is accepted as his literal opinion and gains for him thereputation of being an ass, while if, on the other hand, wishing toingratiate himself, he ventures upon a little bit of flattery, it istaken for satire and he is hated ever afterward. 

These and the rest of a shy man's troubles are always very amusing toother people, and have afforded material for comic writing from timeimmemorial. But if we look a little deeper we shall find there is apathetic, one might almost say a tragic, side to the picture. A shyman means a lonely man--a man cut off from all companionship, allsociability. He moves about the world, but does not mix with it. Betweenhim and his fellow-men there runs ever an impassable barrier--a strong, invisible wall that, trying in vain to scale, he but bruises himselfagainst. He sees the pleasant faces and hears the pleasant voices on theother side, but he cannot stretch his hand across to grasp another hand. He stands watching the merry groups, and he longs to speak and to claimkindred with them. But they pass him by, chatting gayly to one another, and he cannot stay them. He tries to reach them, but his prison wallsmove with him and hem him in on every side. In the busy street, in thecrowded room, in the grind of work, in the whirl of pleasure, amid themany or amid the few--wherever men congregate together, wherever themusic of human speech is heard and human thought is flashed from humaneyes, there, shunned and solitary, the shy man, like a leper, standsapart. His soul is full of love and longing, but the world knows it not. The iron mask of shyness is riveted before his face, and the man beneathis never seen. Genial words and hearty greetings are ever rising to hislips, but they die away in unheard whispers behind the steel clamps. Hisheart aches for the weary brother, but his sympathy is dumb. Contemptand indignation against wrong choke up his throat, and finding nosafety-valve whence in passionate utterance they may burst forth, theyonly turn in again and harm him. All the hate and scorn and love of adeep nature such as the shy man is ever cursed by fester and corruptwithin, instead of spending themselves abroad, and sour him into amisanthrope and cynic. 

Yes, shy men, like ugly women, have a bad time of it in this world, togo through which with any comfort needs the hide of a rhinoceros. Thickskin is, indeed, our moral clothes, and without it we are not fit to beseen about in civilized society. A poor gasping, blushing creature, withtrembling knees and twitching hands, is a painful sight to every one, and if it cannot cure itself, the sooner it goes and hangs itself thebetter. 

The disease can be cured. For the comfort of the shy, I can assure themof that from personal experience. I do not like speaking about myself, as may have been noticed, but in the cause of humanity I on thisoccasion will do so, and will confess that at one time I was, as theyoung man in the Bab Ballad says, "the shyest of the shy, " and "wheneverI was introduced to any pretty maid, my knees they knocked together justas if I was afraid. " Now, I would--nay, have--on this very daybefore yesterday I did the deed. Alone and entirely by myself (as theschool-boy said in translating the "Bellum Gallicum") did I beard arailway refreshment-room young lady in her own lair. I rebuked her interms of mingled bitterness and sorrow for her callousness and want ofcondescension. I insisted, courteously but firmly, on being accordedthat deference and attention that was the right of the traveling Briton, and at the end I looked her full in the face. Need I say more?

True, immediately after doing so I left the room with what maypossibly have appeared to be precipitation and without waiting for anyrefreshment. But that was because I had changed my mind, not because Iwas frightened, you understand. 

One consolation that shy folk can take unto themselves is that shynessis certainly no sign of stupidity. It is easy enough for bull-headedclowns to sneer at nerves, but the highest natures are not necessarilythose containing the greatest amount of moral brass. The horse is not aninferior animal to the cock-sparrow, nor the deer of the forest to thepig. Shyness simply means extreme sensibility, and has nothing whateverto do with self-consciousness or with conceit, though its relationshipto both is continually insisted upon by the poll-parrot school ofphilosophy. 

Conceit, indeed, is the quickest cure for it. When it once begins todawn upon you that you are a good deal cleverer than any one else inthis world, bashfulness becomes shocked and leaves you. When you canlook round a roomful of people and think that each one is a mere childin intellect compared with yourself you feel no more shy of them thanyou would of a select company of magpies or orang-outangs. 

Conceit is the finest armor that a man can wear. Upon its smooth, impenetrable surface the puny dagger-thrusts of spite and envy glanceharmlessly aside. Without that breast-plate the sword of talent cannotforce its way through the battle of life, for blows have to be borne aswell as dealt. I do not, of course, speak of the conceit that displaysitself in an elevated nose and a falsetto voice. That is not realconceit--that is only playing at being conceited; like children playat being kings and queens and go strutting about with feathers andlong trains. Genuine conceit does not make a man objectionable. On thecontrary, it tends to make him genial, kind-hearted, and simple. Hehas no need of affectation--he is far too well satisfied with his owncharacter; and his pride is too deep-seated to appear at all onthe outside. Careless alike of praise or blame, he can afford to betruthful. Too far, in fancy, above the rest of mankind to troubleabout their petty distinctions, he is equally at home with duke orcostermonger. And valuing no one's standard but his own, he is nevertempted to practice that miserable pretense that less self-reliantpeople offer up as an hourly sacrifice to the god of their neighbor'sopinion. 

The shy man, on the other hand, is humble--modest of his own judgmentand over-anxious concerning that of others. But this in the case ofa young man is surely right enough. His character is unformed. It isslowly evolving itself out of a chaos of doubt and disbelief. Beforethe growing insight and experience the diffidence recedes. A man rarelycarries his shyness past the hobbledehoy period. Even if his own inwardstrength does not throw it off, the rubbings of the world generallysmooth it down. You scarcely ever meet a really shy man--exceptin novels or on the stage, where, by the bye, he is much admired, especially by the women. 

There, in that supernatural land, he appears as a fair-haired andsaintlike young man--fair hair and goodness always go together on thestage. No respectable audience would believe in one without the other. I knew an actor who mislaid his wig once and had to rush on to play thehero in his own hair, which was jet-black, and the gallery howled atall his noble sentiments under the impression that he was the villain. He--the shy young man--loves the heroine, oh so devotedly (but onlyin asides, for he dare not tell her of it), and he is so noble andunselfish, and speaks in such a low voice, and is so good to his mother;and the bad people in the play, they laugh at him and jeer at him, buthe takes it all so gently, and in the end it transpires that he is sucha clever man, though nobody knew it, and then the heroine tells him sheloves him, and he is so surprised, and oh, so happy! and everybody loveshim and asks him to forgive them, which he does in a few well-chosen andsarcastic words, and blesses them; and he seems to have generally sucha good time of it that all the young fellows who are not shy long to beshy. But the really shy man knows better. He knows that it is not quiteso pleasant in reality. He is not quite so interesting there as in thefiction. He is a little more clumsy and stupid and a little less devotedand gentle, and his hair is much darker, which, taken altogether, considerably alters the aspect of the case. 

The point where he does resemble his ideal is in his faithfulness. I amfully prepared to allow the shy young man that virtue: he is constant inhis love. But the reason is not far to seek. The fact is it exhaustsall his stock of courage to look one woman in the face, and it wouldbe simply impossible for him to go through the ordeal with a second. He stands in far too much dread of the whole female sex to want to gogadding about with many of them. One is quite enough for him. 

Now, it is different with the young man who is not shy. He hastemptations which his bashful brother never encounters. He looks aroundand everywhere sees roguish eyes and laughing lips. What more naturalthan that amid so many roguish ayes and laughing lips he should becomeconfused and, forgetting for the moment which particular pair of roguishayes and laughing lips it is that he belongs to, go off making loveto the wrong set. The shy man, who never looks at anything but his ownboots, sees not and is not tempted. Happy shy man!

Not but what the shy man himself would much rather not be happy in thatway. He longs to "go it" with the others, and curses himself every dayfor not being able to. He will now and again, screwing up his courageby a tremendous effort, plunge into roguishness. But it is always aterrible _fiasco_, and after one or two feeble flounders he crawls outagain, limp and pitiable. 

I say "pitiable, " though I am afraid he never is pitied. There arecertain misfortunes which, while inflicting a vast amount of sufferingupon their victims, gain for them no sympathy. Losing an umbrella, falling in love, toothache, black eyes, and having your hat sat upon maybe mentioned as a few examples, but the chief of them all is shyness. The shy man is regarded as an animate joke. His tortures are the sportof the drawing-room arena and are pointed out and discussed with muchgusto. 

"Look, " cry his tittering audience to each other; "he's blushing!"

"Just watch his legs, " says one. 

"Do you notice how he is sitting?" adds another: "right on the edge ofthe chair. "

"Seems to have plenty of color, " sneers a military-looking gentleman. 

"Pity he's got so many hands, " murmurs an elderly lady, with her owncalmly folded on her lap. "They quite confuse him. "

"A yard or two off his feet wouldn't be a disadvantage, " chimes in thecomic man, "especially as he seems so anxious to hide them. "

And then another suggests that with such a voice he ought to have beena sea-captain. Some draw attention to the desperate way in which he isgrasping his hat. Some comment upon his limited powers of conversation. Others remark upon the troublesome nature of his cough. And so on, untilhis peculiarities and the company are both thoroughly exhausted. 

His friends and relations make matters still more unpleasant for thepoor boy (friends and relations are privileged to be more disagreeablethan other people). Not content with making fun of him among themselves, they insist on his seeing the joke. They mimic and caricature him forhis own edification. One, pretending to imitate him, goes outsideand comes in again in a ludicrously nervous manner, explaining to himafterward that that is the way he--meaning the shy fellow--walks intoa room; or, turning to him with "This is the way you shake hands, "proceeds to go through a comic pantomime with the rest of the room, taking hold of every one's hand as if it were a hot plate and flabbilydropping it again. And then they ask him why he blushes, and why hestammers, and why he always speaks in an almost inaudible tone, as ifthey thought he did it on purpose. Then one of them, sticking out hischest and strutting about the room like a pouter-pigeon, suggests quiteseriously that that is the style he should adopt. The old man slaps himon the back and says: "Be bold, my boy. Don't be afraid of any one. " Themother says, "Never do anything that you need be ashamed of, Algernon, and then you never need be ashamed of anything you do, " and, beamingmildly at him, seems surprised at the clearness of her own logic. Theboys tell him that he's "worse than a girl, " and the girls repudiate theimplied slur upon their sex by indignantly exclaiming that they are sureno girl would be half as bad. 

They are quite right; no girl would be. There is no such thing as a shywoman, or, at all events, I have never come across one, and until I do Ishall not believe in them. I know that the generally accepted beliefis quite the reverse. All women are supposed to be like timid, startledfawns, blushing and casting down their gentle eyes when looked at andrunning away when spoken to; while we man are supposed to be a bold androllicky lot, and the poor dear little women admire us for it, but areterribly afraid of us. It is a pretty theory, but, like most generallyaccepted theories, mere nonsense. The girl of twelve is self-containedand as cool as the proverbial cucumber, while her brother of twentystammers and stutters by her side. A woman will enter a concert-roomlate, interrupt the performance, and disturb the whole audiencewithout moving a hair, while her husband follows her, a crushed heap ofapologizing misery. 

The superior nerve of women in all matters connected with love, from thecasting of the first sheep's-eye down to the end of the honeymoon, istoo well acknowledged to need comment. Nor is the example a fair one tocite in the present instance, the positions not being equally balanced. Love is woman's business, and in "business" we all lay aside our naturalweaknesses--the shyest man I ever knew was a photographic tout. 

ON BABIES. 

Oh, yes, I do--I know a lot about 'em. I was one myself once, though notlong--not so long as my clothes. They were very long, I recollect, andalways in my way when I wanted to kick. Why do babies have such yards ofunnecessary clothing? It is not a riddle. I really want to know. I nevercould understand it. Is it that the parents are ashamed of the size ofthe child and wish to make believe that it is longer than it actuallyis? I asked a nurse once why it was. She said:

"Lor', sir, they always have long clothes, bless their little hearts. "

And when I explained that her answer, although doing credit to herfeelings, hardly disposed of my difficulty, she replied:

"Lor', sir, you wouldn't have 'em in short clothes, poor little dears?"And she said it in a tone that seemed to imply I had suggested someunmanly outrage. 

Since than I have felt shy at making inquiries on the subject, andthe reason--if reason there be--is still a mystery to me. But indeed, putting them in any clothes at all seems absurd to my mind. Goodnessknows there is enough of dressing and undressing to be gone throughin life without beginning it before we need; and one would think thatpeople who live in bed might at all events be spared the torture. Whywake the poor little wretches up in the morning to take one lot ofclothes off, fix another lot on, and put them to bed again, and thenat night haul them out once more, merely to change everything back?And when all is done, what difference is there, I should like to know, between a baby's night-shirt and the thing it wears in the day-time?

Very likely, however, I am only making myself ridiculous--I often do, so I am informed--and I will therefore say no more upon this matterof clothes, except only that it would be of great convenience if somefashion were adopted enabling you to tell a boy from a girl. 

At present it is most awkward. Neither hair, dress, nor conversationaffords the slightest clew, and you are left to guess. By somemysterious law of nature you invariably guess wrong, and are thereuponregarded by all the relatives and friends as a mixture of fool andknave, the enormity of alluding to a male babe as "she" being onlyequaled by the atrocity of referring to a female infant as "he". Whichever sex the particular child in question happens not to belong tois considered as beneath contempt, and any mention of it is taken as apersonal insult to the family. 

And as you value your fair name do not attempt to get out of thedifficulty by talking of "it. "

There are various methods by which you may achieve ignominy and shame. By murdering a large and respected family in cold blood and afterwarddepositing their bodies in the water companies' reservoir, you will gainmuch unpopularity in the neighborhood of your crime, and even robbing achurch will get you cordially disliked, especially by the vicar. Butif you desire to drain to the dregs the fullest cup of scorn and hatredthat a fellow human creature can pour out for you, let a young motherhear you call dear baby "it. "

Your best plan is to address the article as "little angel. " The noun"angel" being of common gender suits the case admirably, and the epithetis sure of being favorably received. "Pet" or "beauty" are useful forvariety's sake, but "angel" is the term that brings you the greatestcredit for sense and good-feeling. The word should be preceded by ashort giggle and accompanied by as much smile as possible. And whateveryou do, don't forget to say that the child has got its father's nose. This "fetches" the parents (if I may be allowed a vulgarism) more thananything. They will pretend to laugh at the idea at first and will say, "Oh, nonsense!" You must then get excited and insist that it is a fact. You need have no conscientious scruples on the subject, because thething's nose really does resemble its father's--at all events quite asmuch as it does anything else in nature--being, as it is, a mere smudge. 

Do not despise these hints, my friends. There may come a time when, with mamma on one side and grand mamma on the other, a group of admiringyoung ladies (not admiring you, though) behind, and a bald-headed dab ofhumanity in front, you will be extremely thankful for some idea ofwhat to say. A man--an unmarried man, that is--is never seen to suchdisadvantage as when undergoing the ordeal of "seeing baby. " A coldshudder runs down his back at the bare proposal, and the sickly smilewith which he says how delighted he shall be ought surely to move evena mother's heart, unless, as I am inclined to believe, the wholeproceeding is a mere device adopted by wives to discourage the visits ofbachelor friends. 

It is a cruel trick, though, whatever its excuse may be. The bell isrung and somebody sent to tell nurse to bring baby down. This is thesignal for all the females present to commence talking "baby, " duringwhich time you are left to your own sad thoughts and the speculationsupon the practicability of suddenly recollecting an importantengagement, and the likelihood of your being believed if you do. Just when you have concocted an absurdly implausible tale about aman outside, the door opens, and a tall, severe-looking woman enters, carrying what at first sight appears to be a particularly skinnybolster, with the feathers all at one end. Instinct, however, tellsyou that this is the baby, and you rise with a miserable attempt atappearing eager. When the first gush of feminine enthusiasm with whichthe object in question is received has died out, and the number ofladies talking at once has been reduced to the ordinary four or five, the circle of fluttering petticoats divides, and room is made for youto step forward. This you do with much the same air that you would walkinto the dock at Bow Street, and then, feeling unutterably miserable, you stand solemnly staring at the child. There is dead silence, and youknow that every one is waiting for you to speak. You try to thinkof something to say, but find, to your horror, that your reasoningfaculties have left you. It is a moment of despair, and your evilgenius, seizing the opportunity, suggests to you some of the mostidiotic remarks that it is possible for a human being to perpetrate. Glancing round with an imbecile smile, you sniggeringly observe that "ithasn't got much hair has it?" Nobody answers you for a minute, but atlast the stately nurse says with much gravity:

"It is not customary for children five weeks old to have long hair. "Another silence follows this, and you feel you are being given a secondchance, which you avail yourself of by inquiring if it can walk yet, orwhat they feed it on. 

By this time you have got to be regarded as not quite right in yourhead, and pity is the only thing felt for you. The nurse, however, isdetermined that, insane or not, there shall be no shirking and that youshall go through your task to the end. In the tones of a high priestessdirecting some religious mystery she says, holding the bundle towardyou:

"Take her in your arms, sir. " You are too crushed to offer anyresistance and so meekly accept the burden. "Put your arm more down hermiddle, sir, " says the high-priestess, and then all step back and watchyou intently as though you were going to do a trick with it. 

What to do you know no more than you did what to say. It is certainsomething must be done, and the only thing that occurs to you isto heave the unhappy infant up and down to the accompaniment of"oopsee-daisy, " or some remark of equal intelligence. "I wouldn't jigher, sir, if I were you, " says the nurse; "a very little upsets her. "You promptly decide not to jig her and sincerely hope that you have notgone too far already. 

At this point the child itself, who has hitherto been regarding you withan expression of mingled horror and disgust, puts an end to the nonsenseby beginning to yell at the top of its voice, at which the priestessrushes forward and snatches it from you with "There! there! there!What did ums do to ums?" "How very extraordinary!" you say pleasantly. "Whatever made it go off like that?" "Oh, why, you must have donesomething to her!" says the mother indignantly; "the child wouldn'tscream like that for nothing. " It is evident they think you have beenrunning pins into it. 

The brat is calmed at last, and would no doubt remain quiet enough, onlysome mischievous busybody points you out again with "Who's this, baby?"and the intelligent child, recognizing you, howls louder than ever. 

Whereupon some fat old lady remarks that "it's strange how children takea dislike to any one. " "Oh, they know, " replies another mysteriously. "It's a wonderful thing, " adds a third; and then everybody lookssideways at you, convinced you are a scoundrel of the blackest dye; andthey glory in the beautiful idea that your true character, unguessedby your fellow-men, has been discovered by the untaught instinct of alittle child. 

Babies, though, with all their crimes and errors, are not without theiruse--not without use, surely, when they fill an empty heart; not withoutuse when, at their call, sunbeams of love break through care-cloudedfaces; not without use when their little fingers press wrinkles intosmiles. 

Odd little people! They are the unconscious comedians of the world'sgreat stage. They supply the humor in life's all-too-heavy drama. Each one, a small but determined opposition to the order of things ingeneral, is forever doing the wrong thing at the wrong time, in thewrong place and in the wrong way. The nurse-girl who sent Jenny tosee what Tommy and Totty were doing and "tell 'em they mustn't" knewinfantile nature. Give an average baby a fair chance, and if it doesn'tdo something it oughtn't to a doctor should be called in at once. 

They have a genius for doing the most ridiculous things, and they dothem in a grave, stoical manner that is irresistible. The business-likeair with which two of them will join hands and proceed due east at abreak-neck toddle, while an excitable big sister is roaring for them tofollow her in a westerly direction, is most amusing--except, perhaps, for the big sister. They walk round a soldier, staring at his legs withthe greatest curiosity, and poke him to see if he is real. They stoutlymaintain, against all argument and much to the discomfort of the victim, that the bashful young man at the end of the 'bus is "dadda. " A crowdedstreet-corner suggests itself to their minds as a favorable spot for thediscussion of family affairs at a shrill treble. When in the middle ofcrossing the road they are seized with a sudden impulse to dance, andthe doorstep of a busy shop is the place they always select for sittingdown and taking off their shoes. 

When at home they find the biggest walking-stick in the house or anumbrella--open preferred-of much assistance in getting upstairs. They discover that they love Mary Ann at the precise moment when thatfaithful domestic is blackleading the stove, and nothing will relievetheir feelings but to embrace her then and there. With regard to food, their favorite dishes are coke and cat's meat. They nurse pussy upsidedown, and they show their affection for the dog by pulling his tail. 

They are a deal of trouble, and they make a place untidy and they costa lot of money to keep; but still you would not have the house withoutthem. It would not be home without their noisy tongues and theirmischief-making hands. Would not the rooms seem silent without theirpattering feet, and might not you stray apart if no prattling voicescalled you together?

It should be so, and yet I have sometimes thought the tiny hand seemedas a wedge, dividing. It is a bearish task to quarrel with that purestof all human affections--that perfecting touch to a woman's life--amother's love. It is a holy love, that we coarser-fibered men can hardlyunderstand, and I would not be deemed to lack reverence for it when Isay that surely it need not swallow up all other affection. The babyneed not take your whole heart, like the rich man who walled up thedesert well. Is there not another thirsty traveler standing by?

In your desire to be a good mother, do not forget to be a good wife. Noneed for all the thought and care to be only for one. Do not, wheneverpoor Edwin wants you to come out, answer indignantly, "What, and leavebaby!" Do not spend all your evenings upstairs, and do not confine yourconversation exclusively to whooping-cough and measles. My dear littlewoman, the child is not going to die every time it sneezes, the house isnot bound to get burned down and the nurse run away with a soldier everytime you go outside the front door; nor the cat sure to come and sit onthe precious child's chest the moment you leave the bedside. You worryyourself a good deal too much about that solitary chick, and you worryeverybody else too. Try and think of your other duties, and your prettyface will not be always puckered into wrinkles, and there will becheerfulness in the parlor as well as in the nursery. Think of your bigbaby a little. Dance him about a bit; call him pretty names; laugh athim now and then. It is only the first baby that takes up the whole ofa woman's time. Five or six do not require nearly so much attention asone. But before then the mischief has been done. A house where thereseems no room for him and a wife too busy to think of him have losttheir hold on that so unreasonable husband of yours, and he has learnedto look elsewhere for comfort and companionship. 

But there, there, there! I shall get myself the character of ababy-hater if I talk any more in this strain. And Heaven knows I am notone. Who could be, to look into the little innocent faces clusteredin timid helplessness round those great gates that open down into theworld?

The world--the small round world! what a vast mysterious place it mustseem to baby eyes! What a trackless continent the back garden appears!What marvelous explorations they make in the cellar under the stairs!With what awe they gaze down the long street, wondering, like us biggerbabies when we gaze up at the stars, where it all ends!

And down that longest street of all--that long, dim street of life thatstretches out before them--what grave, old-fashioned looks they seemto cast! What pitiful, frightened looks sometimes! I saw a little mitesitting on a doorstep in a Soho slum one night, and I shall never forgetthe look that the gas-lamp showed me on its wizen face--a look of dulldespair, as if from the squalid court the vista of its own squalid lifehad risen, ghostlike, and struck its heart dead with horror. 

Poor little feet, just commencing the stony journey! We old travelers, far down the road, can only pause to wave a hand to you. You come out ofthe dark mist, and we, looking back, see you, so tiny in the distance, standing on the brow of the hill, your arms stretched out toward us. God speed you! We would stay and take your little hands in ours, but themurmur of the great sea is in our ears and we may not linger. We musthasten down, for the shadowy ships are waiting to spread their sablesails. 

ON EATING AND DRINKING. 

I always was fond of eating and drinking, even as a child--especiallyeating, in those early days. I had an appetite then, also a digestion. Iremember a dull-eyed, livid-complexioned gentleman coming to dine atour house once. He watched me eating for about five minutes, quitefascinated seemingly, and then he turned to my father with--

"Does your boy ever suffer from dyspepsia?"

"I never heard him complain of anything of that kind, " replied myfather. "Do you ever suffer from dyspepsia, Colly wobbles?" (They calledme Colly wobbles, but it was not my real name. )

"No, pa, " I answered. After which I added:

"What is dyspepsia, pa?"

My livid-complexioned friend regarded me with a look of mingledamazement and envy. Then in a tone of infinite pity he slowly said:

"You will know--some day. "

My poor, dear mother used to say she liked to see me eat, and it hasalways been a pleasant reflection to me since that I must have givenher much gratification in that direction. A growing, healthy lad, takingplenty of exercise and careful to restrain himself from indulging intoo much study, can generally satisfy the most exacting expectations asregards his feeding powers. 

It is amusing to see boys eat when you have not got to pay for it. Theiridea of a square meal is a pound and a half of roast beef with fiveor six good-sized potatoes (soapy ones preferred as being moresubstantial), plenty of greens, and four thick slices of Yorkshirepudding, followed by a couple of currant dumplings, a few green apples, a pen'orth of nuts, half a dozen jumbles, and a bottle of ginger-beer. After that they play at horses. 

How they must despise us men, who require to sit quiet for a coupleof hours after dining off a spoonful of clear soup and the wing of achicken!

But the boys have not all the advantages on their side. A boy neverenjoys the luxury of being satisfied. A boy never feels full. He cannever stretch out his legs, put his hands behind his head, and, closinghis eyes, sink into the ethereal blissfulness that encompasses thewell-dined man. A dinner makes no difference whatever to a boy. To aman it is as a good fairy's potion, and after it the world appearsa brighter and a better place. A man who has dined satisfactorilyexperiences a yearning love toward all his fellow-creatures. He strokesthe cat quite gently and calls it "poor pussy, " in tones full of thetenderest emotion. He sympathizes with the members of the German bandoutside and wonders if they are cold; and for the moment he does noteven hate his wife's relations. 

A good dinner brings out all the softer side of a man. Under its genialinfluence the gloomy and morose become jovial and chatty. Sour, starchyindividuals, who all the rest of the day go about looking as if theylived on vinegar and Epsom salts, break out into wreathed smiles afterdinner, and exhibit a tendency to pat small children on the head andto talk to them--vaguely--about sixpences. Serious men thaw and becomemildly cheerful, and snobbish young men of the heavy-mustache typeforget to make themselves objectionable. 

I always feel sentimental myself after dinner. It is the only time whenI can properly appreciate love-stories. Then, when the hero clasps "her"to his heart in one last wild embrace and stifles a sob, I feel as sadas though I had dealt at whist and turned up only a deuce; and when theheroine dies in the end I weep. If I read the same tale early in themorning I should sneer at it. Digestion, or rather indigestion, hasa marvelous effect upon the heart. If I want to write any thing verypathetic--I mean, if I want to try to write anything very pathetic--Ieat a large plateful of hot buttered muffins about an hour beforehand, and then by the time I sit down to my work a feeling of unutterablemelancholy has come over me. I picture heartbroken lovers partingforever at lonely wayside stiles, while the sad twilight deepensaround them, and only the tinkling of a distant sheep-bell breaks thesorrow-laden silence. Old men sit and gaze at withered flowers tilltheir sight is dimmed by the mist of tears. Little dainty maidens waitand watch at open casements; but "he cometh not, " and the heavy yearsroll by and the sunny gold tresses wear white and thin. The babies thatthey dandled have become grown men and women with podgy torments oftheir own, and the playmates that they laughed with are lying verysilent under the waving grass. But still they wait and watch, till thedark shadows of the unknown night steal up and gather round them and theworld with its childish troubles fades from their aching eyes. 

I see pale corpses tossed on white-foamed waves, and death-beds stainedwith bitter tears, and graves in trackless deserts. I hear the wildwailing of women, the low moaning of little children, the dry sobbing ofstrong men. It's all the muffins. I could not conjure up one melancholyfancy upon a mutton chop and a glass of champagne. 

A full stomach is a great aid to poetry, and indeed no sentiment of anykind can stand upon an empty one. We have not time or inclinationto indulge in fanciful troubles until we have got rid of our realmisfortunes. We do not sigh over dead dicky-birds with the bailiffin the house, and when we do not know where on earth to get our nextshilling from, we do not worry as to whether our mistress' smiles arecold, or hot, or lukewarm, or anything else about them. 

Foolish people--when I say "foolish people" in this contemptuous way Imean people who entertain different opinions to mine. If there is oneperson I do despise more than another, it is the man who does not thinkexactly the same on all topics as I do--foolish people, I say, then, who have never experienced much of either, will tell you that mentaldistress is far more agonizing than bodily. Romantic and touchingtheory! so comforting to the love-sick young sprig who looks downpatronizingly at some poor devil with a white starved face and thinks tohimself, "Ah, how happy you are compared with me!"--so soothing to fatold gentlemen who cackle about the superiority of poverty over riches. But it is all nonsense--all cant. An aching head soon makes one forgetan aching heart. A broken finger will drive away all recollections ofan empty chair. And when a man feels really hungry he does not feelanything else. 

We sleek, well-fed folk can hardly realize what feeling hungry is like. We know what it is to have no appetite and not to care for the daintyvictuals placed before us, but we do not understand what it means tosicken for food--to die for bread while others waste it--to gaze withfamished eyes upon coarse fare steaming behind dingy windows, longingfor a pen'orth of pea pudding and not having the penny to buy it--tofeel that a crust would be delicious and that a bone would be a banquet. 

Hunger is a luxury to us, a piquant, flavor-giving sauce. It is wellworth while to get hungry and thirsty merely to discover how muchgratification can be obtained from eating and drinking. If you wishto thoroughly enjoy your dinner, take a thirty-mile country walk afterbreakfast and don't touch anything till you get back. How your eyes willglisten at sight of the white table-cloth and steaming dishes then! Withwhat a sigh of content you will put down the empty beer tankard and takeup your knife and fork! And how comfortable you feel afterward as youpush back your chair, light a cigar, and beam round upon everybody. 

Make sure, however, when adopting this plan, that the good dinner isreally to be had at the end, or the disappointment is trying. I rememberonce a friend and I--dear old Joe, it was. Ah! how we lose one anotherin life's mist. It must be eight years since I last saw Joseph Taboys. How pleasant it would be to meet his jovial face again, to clasp hisstrong hand, and to hear his cheery laugh once more! He owes me 14shillings, too. Well, we were on a holiday together, and one morningwe had breakfast early and started for a tremendous long walk. We hadordered a duck for dinner over night. We said, "Get a big one, becausewe shall come home awfully hungry;" and as we were going out ourlandlady came up in great spirits. She said, "I have got you gentlemen aduck, if you like. If you get through that you'll do well;" and she heldup a bird about the size of a door-mat. We chuckled at the sight andsaid we would try. We said it with self-conscious pride, like men whoknow their own power. Then we started. 

We lost our way, of course. I always do in the country, and it does makeme so wild, because it is no use asking direction of any of the peopleyou meet. One might as well inquire of a lodging-house slavey the wayto make beds as expect a country bumpkin to know the road to the nextvillage. You have to shout the question about three times before thesound of your voice penetrates his skull. At the third time he slowlyraises his head and stares blankly at you. You yell it at him then fora fourth time, and he repeats it after you. He ponders while you counta couple of hundred, after which, speaking at the rate of three words aminute, he fancies you "couldn't do better than--" Here he catchessight of another idiot coming down the road and bawls out to him theparticulars, requesting his advice. The two then argue the case fora quarter of an hour or so, and finally agree that you had better gostraight down the lane, round to the right and cross by the third stile, and keep to the left by old Jimmy Milcher's cow-shed, and across theseven-acre field, and through the gate by Squire Grubbin's hay-stack, keeping the bridle-path for awhile till you come opposite the hill wherethe windmill used to be--but it's gone now--and round to the right, leaving Stiggin's plantation behind you; and you say "Thank you" and goaway with a splitting headache, but without the faintest notion of yourway, the only clear idea you have on the subject being that somewhereor other there is a stile which has to be got over; and at the next turnyou come upon four stiles, all leading in different directions!

We had undergone this ordeal two or three times. We had tramped overfields. We had waded through brooks and scrambled over hedges and walls. We had had a row as to whose fault it was that we had first lost ourway. We had got thoroughly disagreeable, footsore, and weary. Butthroughout it all the hope of that duck kept us up. A fairy-like vision, it floated before our tired eyes and drew us onward. The thought of itwas as a trumpet-call to the fainting. We talked of it and cheered eachother with our recollections of it. "Come along, " we said; "the duckwill be spoiled. "

We felt a strong temptation, at one point, to turn into a village innas we passed and have a cheese and a few loaves between us, but weheroically restrained ourselves: we should enjoy the duck all the betterfor being famished. 

We fancied we smelled it when we go into the town and did the lastquarter of a mile in three minutes. We rushed upstairs, and washedourselves, and changed our clothes, and came down, and pulled our chairsup to the table, and sat and rubbed our hands while the landlady removedthe covers, when I seized the knife and fork and started to carve. 

It seemed to want a lot of carving. I struggled with it for about fiveminutes without making the slightest impression, and then Joe, who hadbeen eating potatoes, wanted to know if it wouldn't be better for someone to do the job that understood carving. I took no notice of hisfoolish remark, but attacked the bird again; and so vigorously this timethat the animal left the dish and took refuge in the fender. 

We soon had it out of that, though, and I was prepared to make anothereffort. But Joe was getting unpleasant. He said that if he had thoughtwe were to have a game of blind hockey with the dinner he would have gota bit of bread and cheese outside. 

I was too exhausted to argue. I laid down the knife and fork withdignity and took a side seat and Joe went for the wretched creature. Heworked away in silence for awhile, and then he muttered "Damn the duck"and took his coat off. 

We did break the thing up at length with the aid of a chisel, but itwas perfectly impossible to eat it, and we had to make a dinner off thevegetables and an apple tart. We tried a mouthful of the duck, but itwas like eating India-rubber. 

It was a wicked sin to kill that drake. But there! there's no respectfor old institutions in this country. 

I started this paper with the idea of writing about eating and drinking, but I seem to have confined my remarks entirely to eating as yet. Well, you see, drinking is one of those subjects with which it is inadvisableto appear too well acquainted. The days are gone by when it wasconsidered manly to go to bed intoxicated every night, and a clear headand a firm hand no longer draw down upon their owner the reproachof effeminacy. On the contrary, in these sadly degenerate days anevil-smelling breath, a blotchy face, a reeling gait, and a husky voiceare regarded as the hall marks of the cad rather than or the gentleman. 

Even nowadays, though, the thirstiness of mankind is somethingsupernatural. We are forever drinking on one excuse or another. A mannever feels comfortable unless he has a glass before him. We drinkbefore meals, and with meals, and after meals. We drink when we meet afriend, also when we part from a friend. We drink when we are talking, when we are reading, and when we are thinking. We drink one another'shealths and spoil our own. We drink the queen, and the army, and theladies, and everybody else that is drinkable; and I believe if thesupply ran short we should drink our mothers-in-law. 

By the way, we never eat anybody's health, always drink it. Why shouldwe not stand up now and then and eat a tart to somebody's success?

To me, I confess the constant necessity of drinking under which themajority of men labor is quite unaccountable. I can understand peopledrinking to drown care or to drive away maddening thoughts well enough. I can understand the ignorant masses loving to soak themselves indrink--oh, yes, it's very shocking that they should, of course--veryshocking to us who live in cozy homes, with all the graces and pleasuresof life around us, that the dwellers in damp cellars and windy atticsshould creep from their dens of misery into the warmth and glare of thepublic-house bar, and seek to float for a brief space away from theirdull world upon a Lethe stream of gin. 

But think, before you hold up your hands in horror at their ill-living, what "life" for these wretched creatures really means. Picture thesqualid misery of their brutish existence, dragged on from year to yearin the narrow, noisome room where, huddled like vermin in sewers, theywelter, and sicken, and sleep; where dirt-grimed children scream andfight and sluttish, shrill-voiced women cuff, and curse, and nag; wherethe street outside teems with roaring filth and the house around is abedlam of riot and stench. 

Think what a sapless stick this fair flower of life must be to them, devoid of mind and soul. The horse in his stall scents the sweet hay andmunches the ripe corn contentedly. The watch-dog in his kennel blinks atthe grateful sun, dreams of a glorious chase over the dewy fields, and wakes with a yelp of gladness to greet a caressing hand. But theclod-like life of these human logs never knows one ray of light. Fromthe hour when they crawl from their comfortless bed to the hour whenthey lounge back into it again they never live one moment of real life. Recreation, amusement, companionship, they know not the meaning of. Joy, sorrow, laughter, tears, love, friendship, longing, despair, are idlewords to them. From the day when their baby eyes first look out upontheir sordid world to the day when, with an oath, they close themforever and their bones are shoveled out of sight, they never warm toone touch of human sympathy, never thrill to a single thought, neverstart to a single hope. In the name of the God of mercy; let them pourthe maddening liquor down their throats and feel for one brief momentthat they live!

Ah! we may talk sentiment as much as we like, but the stomach is thereal seat of happiness in this world. The kitchen is the chief templewherein we worship, its roaring fire is our vestal flame, and the cookis our great high-priest. He is a mighty magician and a kindly one. Hesoothes away all sorrow and care. He drives forth all enmity, gladdensall love. Our God is great and the cook is his prophet. Let us eat, drink, and be merry. 

ON FURNISHED APARTMENTS. 

"Oh, you have some rooms to let. "

"Mother!"

"Well, what is it?"

"'Ere's a gentleman about the rooms. "

"Ask 'im in. I'll be up in a minute. "

"Will yer step inside, sir? Mother'll be up in a minute. "

So you step inside and after a minute "mother" comes slowly up thekitchen stairs, untying her apron as she comes and calling downinstructions to some one below about the potatoes. 

"Good-morning, sir, " says "mother, " with a washed-out smile. "Will youstep this way, please?"

"Oh, it's hardly worth while my coming up, " you say. "What sort of roomsare they, and how much?"

"Well, " says the landlady, "if you'll step upstairs I'll show them toyou. "

So with a protesting murmur, meant to imply that any waste of timecomplained of hereafter must not be laid to your charge, you follow"mother" upstairs. 

At the first landing you run up against a pail and a broom, whereupon"mother" expatiates upon the unreliability of servant-girls, and bawlsover the balusters for Sarah to come and take them away at once. Whenyou get outside the rooms she pauses, with her hand upon the door, toexplain to you that they are rather untidy just at present, as thelast lodger left only yesterday; and she also adds that this is theircleaning-day--it always is. With this understanding you enter, and bothstand solemnly feasting your eyes upon the scene before you. The roomscannot be said to appear inviting. Even "mother's" face betrays noadmiration. Untenanted "furnished apartments" viewed in the morningsunlight do not inspire cheery sensations. There is a lifeless air aboutthem. It is a very different thing when you have settled down and areliving in them. With your old familiar household gods to greet your gazewhenever you glance up, and all your little knick-knacks spread aroundyou--with the photos of all the girls that you have loved and lostranged upon the mantel-piece, and half a dozen disreputable-lookingpipes scattered about in painfully prominent positions--with one carpetslipper peeping from beneath the coal-box and the other perched on thetop of the piano--with the well-known pictures to hide the dingy walls, and these dear old friends, your books, higgledy-piggledy all over theplace--with the bits of old blue china that your mother prized, and thescreen she worked in those far by-gone days, when the sweet old face waslaughing and young, and the white soft hair tumbled in gold-brown curlsfrom under the coal-scuttle bonnet--

Ah, old screen, what a gorgeous personage you must have been in youryoung days, when the tulips and roses and lilies (all growing from onestem) were fresh in their glistening sheen! Many a summer and winterhave come and gone since then, my friend, and you have played with thedancing firelight until you have grown sad and gray. Your brilliantcolors are fast fading now, and the envious moths have gnawed yoursilken threads. You are withering away like the dead hands that woveyou. Do you ever think of those dead hands? You seem so grave andthoughtful sometimes that I almost think you do. Come, you and I andthe deep-glowing embers, let us talk together. Tell me in your silentlanguage what you remember of those young days, when you lay on mylittle mother's lap and her girlish fingers played with your rainbowtresses. Was there never a lad near sometimes--never a lad who wouldseize one of those little hands to smother it with kisses, and who wouldpersist in holding it, thereby sadly interfering with the progress ofyour making? Was not your frail existence often put in jeopardy by thissame clumsy, headstrong lad, who would toss you disrespectfully asidethat he--not satisfied with one--might hold both hands and gaze upinto the loved eyes? I can see that lad now through the haze of theflickering twilight. He is an eager bright-eyed boy, with pinching, dandy shoes and tight-fitting smalls, snowy shirt frill and stock, and--oh! such curly hair. A wild, light-hearted boy! Can he be thegreat, grave gentleman upon whose stick I used to ride crosslegged, thecare-worn man into whose thoughtful face I used to gaze with childishreverence and whom I used to call "father?" You say "yes, " old screen;but are you quite sure? It is a serious charge you are bringing. Canit be possible? Did he have to kneel down in those wonderful smalls andpick you up and rearrange you before he was forgiven and his curly headsmoothed by my mother's little hand? Ah! old screen, and did the ladsand the lassies go making love fifty years ago just as they do now? Aremen and women so unchanged? Did little maidens' hearts beat the sameunder pearl-embroidered bodices as they do under Mother Hubbard cloaks?Have steel casques and chimney-pot hats made no difference to the brainsthat work beneath them? Oh, Time! great Chronos! and is this your power?Have you dried up seas and leveled mountains and left the tiny humanheart-strings to defy you? Ah, yes! they were spun by a Mightier thanthou, and they stretch beyond your narrow ken, for their ends are madefast in eternity. Ay, you may mow down the leaves and the blossoms, butthe roots of life lie too deep for your sickle to sever. You refashionNature's garments, but you cannot vary by a jot the throbbings of herpulse. The world rolls round obedient to your laws, but the heart of manis not of your kingdom, for in its birthplace "a thousand years are butas yesterday. "

I am getting away, though, I fear, from my "furnished apartments, " andI hardly know how to get back. But I have some excuse for my meanderingsthis time. It is a piece of old furniture that has led me astray, andfancies gather, somehow, round old furniture, like moss around oldstones. One's chairs and tables get to be almost part of one's life andto seem like quiet friends. What strange tales the wooden-headed oldfellows could tell did they but choose to speak! At what unsuspectedcomedies and tragedies have they not assisted! What bitter tears havebeen sobbed into that old sofa cushion! What passionate whisperings thesettee must have overheard!

New furniture has no charms for me compared with old. It is the oldthings that we love--the old faces, the old books, the old jokes. Newfurniture can make a palace, but it takes old furniture to make a home. Not merely old in itself--lodging-house furniture generally is that--butit must be old to us, old in associations and recollections. Thefurniture of furnished apartments, however ancient it may be in reality, is new to our eyes, and we feel as though we could never get on with it. As, too, in the case of all fresh acquaintances, whether wooden or human(and there is very little difference between the two species sometimes), everything impresses you with its worst aspect. The knobby wood-work andshiny horse-hair covering of the easy-chair suggest anything but ease. The mirror is smoky. The curtains want washing. The carpet is frayed. The table looks as if it would go over the instant anything was restedon it. The grate is cheerless, the wall-paper hideous. The ceilingappears to have had coffee spilt all over it, and the ornaments--well, they are worse than the wallpaper. 

There must surely be some special and secret manufactory for theproduction of lodging-house ornaments. Precisely the same articles areto be found at every lodging-house all over the kingdom, and they arenever seen anywhere else. There are the two--what do you call them? theystand one at each end of the mantel-piece, where they are never safe, and they are hung round with long triangular slips of glass that clankagainst one another and make you nervous. In the commoner class of roomsthese works of art are supplemented by a couple of pieces of china whichmight each be meant to represent a cow sitting upon its hind legs, or amodel of the temple of Diana at Ephesus, or a dog, or anything elseyou like to fancy. Somewhere about the room you come across abilious-looking object, which at first you take to be a lump of doughleft about by one of the children, but which on scrutiny seems toresemble an underdone cupid. This thing the landlady calls a statue. Then there is a "sampler" worked by some idiot related to the family, apicture of the "Huguenots, " two or three Scripture texts, and a highlyframed and glazed certificate to the effect that the father has beenvaccinated, or is an Odd Fellow, or something of that sort. 

You examine these various attractions and then dismally ask what therent is. 

"That's rather a good deal, " you say on hearing the figure. 

"Well, to tell you the truth, " answers the landlady with a sudden burstof candor, "I've always had" (mentioning a sum a good deal in excessof the first-named amount), "and before that I used to have" (a stillhigher figure). 

What the rent of apartments must have been twenty years ago makes oneshudder to think of. Every landlady makes you feel thoroughly ashamed ofyourself by informing you, whenever the subject crops up, that she usedto get twice as much for her rooms as you are paying. Young men lodgersof the last generation must have been of a wealthier class than they arenow, or they must have ruined themselves. I should have had to live inan attic. 

Curious, that in lodgings the rule of life is reversed. The higher youget up in the world the lower you come down in your lodgings. Onthe lodging-house ladder the poor man is at the top, the rich manunderneath. You start in the attic and work your way down to the firstfloor. 

A good many great men have lived in attics and some have died there. Attics, says the dictionary, are "places where lumber is stored, " andthe world has used them to store a good deal of its lumber in at onetime or another. Its preachers and painters and poets, its deep-browedmen who will find out things, its fire-eyed men who will tell truthsthat no one wants to hear--these are the lumber that the world hidesaway in its attics. Haydn grew up in an attic and Chatterton starved inone. Addison and Goldsmith wrote in garrets. Faraday and De Quincey knewthem well. Dr. Johnson camped cheerfully in them, sleeping soundly--toosoundly sometimes--upon their trundle-beds, like the sturdy old soldierof fortune that he was, inured to hardship and all careless of himself. Dickens spent his youth among them, Morland his old age--alas! adrunken, premature old age. Hans Andersen, the fairy king, dreamed hissweet fancies beneath their sloping roofs. Poor, wayward-hearted Collinsleaned his head upon their crazy tables; priggish Benjamin Franklin;Savage, the wrong-headed, much troubled when he could afford any softerbed than a doorstep; young Bloomfield, "Bobby" Burns, Hogarth, Watts theengineer--the roll is endless. Ever since the habitations of men werereared two stories high has the garret been the nursery of genius. 

No one who honors the aristocracy of mind can feel ashamed ofacquaintanceship with them. Their damp-stained walls are sacred tothe memory of noble names. If all the wisdom of the world and all itsart--all the spoils that it has won from nature, all the fire that ithas snatched from heaven--were gathered together and divided into heaps, and we could point and say, for instance, these mighty truths wereflashed forth in the brilliant _salon_ amid the ripple of light laughterand the sparkle of bright eyes; and this deep knowledge was dug up inthe quiet study, where the bust of Pallas looks serenely down on theleather-scented shelves; and this heap belongs to the crowded street;and that to the daisied field--the heap that would tower up high abovethe rest as a mountain above hills would be the one at which we shouldlook up and say: this noblest pile of all--these glorious paintings andthis wondrous music, these trumpet words, these solemn thoughts, thesedaring deeds, they were forged and fashioned amid misery and pain in thesordid squalor of the city garret. There, from their eyries, while theworld heaved and throbbed below, the kings of men sent forth theireagle thoughts to wing their flight through the ages. There, where thesunlight streaming through the broken panes fell on rotting boards andcrumbling walls; there, from their lofty thrones, those rag-clothedJoves have hurled their thunderbolts and shaken, before now, the earthto its foundations. 

Huddle them up in your lumber-rooms, oh, world! Shut them fast in andturn the key of poverty upon them. Weld close the bars, and let themfret their hero lives away within the narrow cage. Leave them there tostarve, and rot, and die. Laugh at the frenzied beatings of their handsagainst the door. Roll onward in your dust and noise and pass them by, forgotten. 

But take care lest they turn and sting you. All do not, like the fabledphoenix, warble sweet melodies in their agony; sometimes they spitvenom--venom you must breathe whether you will or no, for you cannotseal their mouths, though you may fetter their limbs. You can lock thedoor upon them, but they burst open their shaky lattices and callout over the house-tops so that men cannot but hear. You hounded wildRousseau into the meanest garret of the Rue St. Jacques and jeered athis angry shrieks. But the thin, piping tones swelled a hundred yearslater into the sullen roar of the French Revolution, and civilization tothis day is quivering to the reverberations of his voice. 

As for myself, however, I like an attic. Not to live in: as residencesthey are inconvenient. There is too much getting up and down stairsconnected with them to please me. It puts one unpleasantly in mind ofthe tread-mill. The form of the ceiling offers too many facilities forbumping your head and too few for shaving. And the note of the tomcatas he sings to his love in the stilly night outside on the tiles becomespositively distasteful when heard so near. 

No, for living in give me a suit of rooms on the first floor of aPiccadilly mansion (I wish somebody would!); but for thinking in letme have an attic up ten flights of stairs in the densest quarter of thecity. I have all Herr Teufelsdrockh's affection for attics. There is asublimity about their loftiness. I love to "sit at ease and look downupon the wasps' nest beneath;" to listen to the dull murmur of the humantide ebbing and flowing ceaselessly through the narrow streets andlanes below. How small men seem, how like a swarm of ants sweltering inendless confusion on their tiny hill! How petty seems the work on whichthey are hurrying and skurrying! How childishly they jostle againstone another and turn to snarl and scratch! They jabber and screech andcurse, but their puny voices do not reach up here. They fret, and fume, and rage, and pant, and die; "but I, mein Werther, sit above it all; Iam alone with the stars. "

The most extraordinary attic I ever came across was one a friend and Ionce shared many years ago. Of all eccentrically planned things, fromBradshaw to the maze at Hampton Court, that room was the most eccentric. The architect who designed it must have been a genius, though I cannothelp thinking that his talents would have been better employed incontriving puzzles than in shaping human habitations. No figure inEuclid could give any idea of that apartment. It contained sevencorners, two of the walls sloped to a point, and the window was justover the fireplace. The only possible position for the bedstead wasbetween the door and the cupboard. To get anything out of the cupboardwe had to scramble over the bed, and a large percentage of the variouscommodities thus obtained was absorbed by the bedclothes. Indeed, somany things were spilled and dropped upon the bed that toward night-timeit had become a sort of small cooperative store. Coal was what it alwayshad most in stock. We used to keep our coal in the bottom part of thecupboard, and when any was wanted we had to climb over the bed, filla shovelful, and then crawl back. It was an exciting moment when wereached the middle of the bed. We would hold our breath, fix our eyesupon the shovel, and poise ourselves for the last move. The next instantwe, and the coals, and the shovel, and the bed would be all mixed uptogether. 

I've heard of the people going into raptures over beds of coal. We sleptin one every night and were not in the least stuck up about it. 

But our attic, unique though it was, had by no means exhausted thearchitect's sense of humor. The arrangement of the whole house was amarvel of originality. All the doors opened outward, so that if anyone wanted to leave a room at the same moment that you were comingdownstairs it was unpleasant for you. There was no ground-floor--itsground-floor belonged to a house in the next court, and the frontdoor opened direct upon a flight of stairs leading down to the cellar. Visitors on entering the house would suddenly shoot past the person whohad answered the door to them and disappear down these stairs. Those ofa nervous temperament used to imagine that it was a trap laid for them, and would shout murder as they lay on their backs at the bottom tillsomebody came and picked them up. 

It is a long time ago now that I last saw the inside of an attic. I havetried various floors since but I have not found that they have made muchdifference to me. Life tastes much the same, whether we quaff it from agolden goblet or drink it out of a stone mug. The hours come laden withthe same mixture of joy and sorrow, no matter where we wait for them. Awaistcoat of broadcloth or of fustian is alike to an aching heart, andwe laugh no merrier on velvet cushions than we did on wooden chairs. Often have I sighed in those low-ceilinged rooms, yet disappointmentshave come neither less nor lighter since I quitted them. Life works upona compensating balance, and the happiness we gain in one direction welose in another. As our means increase, so do our desires; and we everstand midway between the two. When we reside in an attic we enjoy asupper of fried fish and stout. When we occupy the first floor it takesan elaborate dinner at the Continental to give us the same amount ofsatisfaction. 

ON DRESS AND DEPORTMENT. 

They say--people who ought to be ashamed of themselves do--that theconsciousness of being well dressed imparts a blissfulness to the humanheart that religion is powerless to bestow. I am afraid these cynicalpersons are sometimes correct. I know that when I was a very young man(many, many years ago, as the story-books say) and wanted cheering up, I used to go and dress myself in all my best clothes. If I had beenannoyed in any manner--if my washerwoman had discharged me, forinstance; or my blank-verse poem had been returned for the tenth time, with the editor's compliments "and regrets that owing to want of spacehe is unable to avail himself of kind offer;" or I had been snubbed bythe woman I loved as man never loved before--by the way, it's reallyextraordinary what a variety of ways of loving there must be. We all doit as it was never done before. I don't know how our great-grandchildrenwill manage. They will have to do it on their heads by their time ifthey persist in not clashing with any previous method. 

Well, as I was saying, when these unpleasant sort of things happened andI felt crushed, I put on all my best clothes and went out. It broughtback my vanishing self-esteem. In a glossy new hat and a pair oftrousers with a fold down the front (carefully preserved by keeping themunder the bed--I don't mean on the floor, you know, but between thebed and the mattress), I felt I was somebody and that there were otherwasherwomen: ay, and even other girls to love, and who would perhapsappreciate a clever, good-looking young fellow. I didn't care; thatwas my reckless way. I would make love to other maidens. I felt that inthose clothes I could do it. 

They have a wonderful deal to do with courting, clothes have. It is halfthe battle. At all events, the young man thinks so, and it generallytakes him a couple of hours to get himself up for the occasion. Hisfirst half-hour is occupied in trying to decide whether to wear hislight suit with a cane and drab billycock, or his black tails with achimney-pot hat and his new umbrella. He is sure to be unfortunate ineither decision. If he wears his light suit and takes the stick it comeson to rain, and he reaches the house in a damp and muddy condition andspends the evening trying to hide his boots. If, on the other hand, hedecides in favor of the top hat and umbrella--nobody would ever dreamof going out in a top hat without an umbrella; it would be like lettingbaby (bless it!) toddle out without its nurse. How I do hate a tophat! One lasts me a very long while, I can tell you. I only wear itwhen--well, never mind when I wear it. It lasts me a very long while. I've had my present one five years. It was rather old-fashioned lastsummer, but the shape has come round again now and I look quite stylish. 

But to return to our young man and his courting. If he starts off withthe top hat and umbrella the afternoon turns out fearfully hot, and theperspiration takes all the soap out of his mustache and converts thebeautifully arranged curl over his forehead into a limp wisp resemblinga lump of seaweed. The Fates are never favorable to the poor wretch. Ifhe does by any chance reach the door in proper condition, she has goneout with her cousin and won't be back till late. 

How a young lover made ridiculous by the gawkiness of modern costumemust envy the picturesque gallants of seventy years ago! Look at them(on the Christmas cards), with their curly hair and natty hats, theirwell-shaped legs incased in smalls, their dainty Hessian boots, theirruffling frills, their canes and dangling seals. No wonder the littlemaiden in the big poke-bonnet and the light-blue sash casts down hereyes and is completely won. Men could win hearts in clothes like that. But what can you expect from baggy trousers and a monkeyjacket?

Clothes have more effect upon us than we imagine. Our deportment dependsupon our dress. Make a man get into seedy, worn-out rags, and he willskulk along with his head hanging down, like a man going out to fetchhis own supper beer. But deck out the same article in gorgeous raimentand fine linen, and he will strut down the main thoroughfare, swinginghis cane and looking at the girls as perky as a bantam cock. 

Clothes alter our very nature. A man could not help being fierce anddaring with a plume in his bonnet, a dagger in his belt, and a lot ofpuffy white things all down his sleeves. But in an ulster he wants toget behind a lamp-post and call police. 

I am quite ready to admit that you can find sterling merit, honest worth, deep affection, and all such like virtues of theroast-beef-and-plum-pudding school as much, and perhaps more, underbroadcloth and tweed as ever existed beneath silk and velvet; but thespirit of that knightly chivalry that "rode a tilt for lady's love" and"fought for lady's smiles" needs the clatter of steel and the rustle ofplumes to summon it from its grave between the dusty folds of tapestryand underneath the musty leaves of moldering chronicles. 

The world must be getting old, I think; it dresses so very soberly now. We have been through the infant period of humanity, when we used to runabout with nothing on but a long, loose robe, and liked to have our feetbare. And then came the rough, barbaric age, the boyhood of our race. Wedidn't care what we wore then, but thought it nice to tattoo ourselvesall over, and we never did our hair. And after that the world grew intoa young man and became foppish. It decked itself in flowing curls andscarlet doublets, and went courting, and bragging, and bouncing--makinga brave show. 

But all those merry, foolish days of youth are gone, and we are verysober, very solemn--and very stupid, some say--now. The world is agrave, middle-aged gentleman in this nineteenth century, and would beshocked to see itself with a bit of finery on. So it dresses in blackcoats and trousers, and black hats, and black boots, and, dear me, itis such a very respectable gentleman--to think it could ever have gonegadding about as a troubadour or a knight-errant, dressed in all thosefancy colors! Ah, well! we are more sensible in this age. 

Or at least we think ourselves so. It is a general theory nowadays thatsense and dullness go together. 

Goodness is another quality that always goes with blackness. Very goodpeople indeed, you will notice, dress altogether in black, even togloves and neckties, and they will probably take to black shirts beforelong. Medium goods indulge in light trousers on week-days, and someof them even go so far as to wear fancy waistcoats. On the other hand, people who care nothing for a future state go about in light suits; andthere have been known wretches so abandoned as to wear a white hat. Suchpeople, however, are never spoken of in genteel society, and perhaps Iought not to have referred to them here. 

By the way, talking of light suits, have you ever noticed how peoplestare at you the first time you go out in a new light suit They donot notice it so much afterward. The population of London have gotaccustomed to it by the third time you wear it. I say "you, " because Iam not speaking from my own experience. I do not wear such things at allmyself. As I said, only sinful people do so. 

I wish, though, it were not so, and that one could be good, andrespectable, and sensible without making one's self a guy. I look inthe glass sometimes at my two long, cylindrical bags (so picturesquelyrugged about the knees), my stand-up collar and billycock hat, andwonder what right I have to go about making God's world hideous. Thenwild and wicked thoughts come into my heart. I don't want to be good andrespectable. (I never can be sensible, I'm told; so that don't matter. )I want to put on lavender-colored tights, with red velvet breeches and agreen doublet slashed with yellow; to have a light-blue silk cloak on myshoulder, and a black eagle's plume waving from my hat, and a big sword, and a falcon, and a lance, and a prancing horse, so that I might goabout and gladden the eyes of the people. Why should we all try to looklike ants crawling over a dust-heap? Why shouldn't we dress a littlegayly? I am sure if we did we should be happier. True, it is a littlething, but we are a little race, and what is the use of our pretendingotherwise and spoiling fun? Let philosophers get themselves up like oldcrows if they like. But let me be a butterfly. 

Women, at all events, ought to dress prettily. It is their duty. Theyare the flowers of the earth and were meant to show it up. We abuse thema good deal, we men; but, goodness knows, the old world would be dullenough without their dresses and fair faces. How they brighten upevery place they come into! What a sunny commotion they--relations, of course---make in our dingy bachelor chambers! and what a delightfullitter their ribbons and laces, and gloves and hats, and parasols and'kerchiefs make! It is as if a wandering rainbow had dropped in to payus a visit. 

It is one of the chief charms of the summer, to my mind, the way ourlittle maids come out in pretty colors. I like to see the pink and blueand white glancing between the trees, dotting the green fields, andflashing back the sunlight. You can see the bright colors such a longway off. There are four white dresses climbing a hill in front of mywindow now. I can see them distinctly, though it is three miles away. Ithought at first they were mile-stones out for a lark. It's so nice tobe able to see the darlings a long way off. Especially if they happen tobe your wife and your mother-in-law. 

Talking of fields and mile-stones reminds me that I want to say, in allseriousness, a few words about women's boots. The women of these islandsall wear boots too big for them. They can never get a boot to fit. Thebootmakers do not keep sizes small enough. 

Over and over again have I known women sit down on the top rail of astile and declare they could not go a step further because their bootshurt them so; and it has always been the same complaint--too big. 

It is time this state of things was altered. In the name of the husbandsand fathers of England, I call upon the bootmakers to reform. Our wives, our daughters, and our cousins are not to be lamed and tortured withimpunity. Why cannot "narrow twos" be kept more in stock? That is thesize I find most women take. 

The waist-band is another item of feminine apparel that is always toobig. The dressmakers make these things so loose that the hooks and eyesby which they are fastened burst off, every now and then, with a reportlike thunder. 

Why women suffer these wrongs--why they do not insist in having theirclothes made small enough for them I cannot conceive. It can hardly bethat they are disinclined to trouble themselves about matters of meredress, for dress is the one subject that they really do think about. Itis the only topic they ever get thoroughly interested in, and they talkabout it all day long. If you see two women together, you may bet yourbottom dollar they are discussing their own or their friends' clothes. You notice a couple of child-like beings conversing by a window, and youwonder what sweet, helpful words are falling from their sainted lips. Soyou move nearer and then you hear one say:

"So I took in the waist-band and let out a seam, and it fits beautifullynow. "

"Well, " says the other, "I shall wear my plum-colored body to theJones', with a yellow plastron; and they've got some lovely gloves atPuttick's, only one and eleven pence. "

I went for a drive through a part of Derbyshire once with a couple ofladies. It was a beautiful bit of country, and they enjoyed themselvesimmensely. They talked dressmaking the whole time. 

"Pretty view, that, " I would say, waving my umbrella round. "Look atthose blue distant hills! That little white speck, nestling in thewoods, is Chatsworth, and over there--"

"Yes, very pretty indeed, " one would reply. "Well, why not get a yard ofsarsenet?"

"What, and leave the skirt exactly as it is?"

"Certainly. What place d'ye call this?"

Then I would draw their attention to the fresh beauties that keptsweeping into view, and they would glance round and say "charming, ""sweetly pretty, " and immediately go off into raptures over each other'spocket-handkerchiefs, and mourn with one another over the decadence ofcambric frilling. 

I believe if two women were cast together upon a desert island, theywould spend each day arguing the respective merits of sea-shells andbirds' eggs considered as trimmings, and would have a new fashion infig-leaves every month. 

Very young men think a good deal about clothes, but they don't talkabout them to each other. They would not find much encouragement. A fopis not a favorite with his own sex. Indeed, he gets a good deal moreabuse from them than is necessary. His is a harmless failing and itsoon wears out. Besides, a man who has no foppery at twenty will bea slatternly, dirty-collar, unbrushed-coat man at forty. A littlefoppishness in a young man is good; it is human. I like to see a youngcock ruffle his feathers, stretch his neck, and crow as if the wholeworld belonged to him. I don't like a modest, retiring man. Nobodydoes--not really, however much they may prate about modest worth andother things they do not understand. 

A meek deportment is a great mistake in the world. Uriah Heap's fatherwas a very poor judge of human nature, or he would not have told hisson, as he did, that people liked humbleness. There is nothing annoysthem more, as a rule. Rows are half the fun of life, and you can't haverows with humble, meek-answering individuals. They turn away our wrath, and that is just what we do not want. We want to let it out. We haveworked ourselves up into a state of exhilarating fury, and then just aswe are anticipating the enjoyment of a vigorous set-to, they spoil allour plans with their exasperating humility. 

Xantippe's life must have been one long misery, tied to that calmlyirritating man, Socrates. Fancy a married woman doomed to live on fromday to day without one single quarrel with her husband! A man ought tohumor his wife in these things. 

Heaven knows their lives are dull enough, poor girls. They have none ofthe enjoyments we have. They go to no political meetings; they may noteven belong to the local amateur parliament; they are excluded fromsmoking-carriages on the Metropolitan Railway, and they never see acomic paper--or if they do, they do not know it is comic: nobody tellsthem. 

Surely, with existence such a dreary blank for them as this, we mightprovide a little row for their amusement now and then, even if we donot feel inclined for it ourselves. A really sensible man does so and isloved accordingly, for it is little acts of kindness such as thisthat go straight to a woman's heart. It is such like proofs of lovingself-sacrifice that make her tell her female friends what a good husbandhe was--after he is dead. 

Yes, poor Xantippe must have had a hard time of it. The bucket episodewas particularly sad for her. Poor woman! she did think she would rousehim up a bit with that. She had taken the trouble to fill the bucket, perhaps been a long way to get specially dirty water. And she waited forhim. And then to be met in such a way, after all! Most likely she satdown and had a good cry afterward. It must have seemed all so hopelessto the poor child; and for all we know she had no mother to whom shecould go and abuse him. 

What was it to her that her husband was a great philosopher? Greatphilosophy don't count in married life. 

There was a very good little boy once who wanted to go to sea. Andthe captain asked him what he could do. He said he could do themultiplication-table backward and paste sea-weed in a book; that he knewhow many times the word "begat" occurred in the Old Testament; and couldrecite "The Boy Stood on the Burning Deck" and Wordsworth's "We AreSeven. "

"Werry good--werry good, indeed, " said the man of the sea, "and ken yekerry coals?"

It is just the same when you want to marry. Great ability is notrequired so much as little usefulness. Brains are at a discount in themarried state. There is no demand for them, no appreciation even. Our wives sum us up according to a standard of their own, in whichbrilliancy of intellect obtains no marks. Your lady and mistress is notat all impressed by your cleverness and talent, my dear reader--notin the slightest. Give her a man who can do an errand neatly, withoutattempting to use his own judgment over it or any nonsense of that kind;and who can be trusted to hold a child the right way up, and not makehimself objectionable whenever there is lukewarm mutton for dinner. That is the sort of a husband a sensible woman likes; not one of yourscientific or literary nuisances, who go upsetting the whole house andputting everybody out with their foolishness. 

ON MEMORY. 

 "I remember, I remember, In the days of chill November, How the blackbird on the--"

I forget the rest. It is the beginning of the first piece of poetry Iever learned; for

 "Hey, diddle diddle, The cat and the fiddle, "

I take no note of, it being of a frivolous character and lacking in thequalities of true poetry. I collected fourpence by the recital of "Iremember, I remember. " I knew it was fourpence, because they told methat if I kept it until I got twopence more I should have sixpence, which argument, albeit undeniable, moved me not, and the money wassquandered, to the best of my recollection, on the very next morning, although upon what memory is a blank. 

That is just the way with Memory; nothing that she brings to us iscomplete. She is a willful child; all her toys are broken. I remembertumbling into a huge dust-hole when a very small boy, but I have not thefaintest recollection of ever getting out again; and if memory were allwe had to trust to, I should be compelled to believe I was there still. 

At another time--some years later--I was assisting at an exceedinglyinteresting love scene; but the only thing about it I can call to minddistinctly is that at the most critical moment somebody suddenly openedthe door and said, "Emily, you're wanted, " in a sepulchral tone thatgave one the idea the police had come for her. All the tender wordsshe said to me and all the beautiful things I said to her are utterlyforgotten. 

Life altogether is but a crumbling ruin when we turn to look behind: ashattered column here, where a massive portal stood; the broken shaftof a window to mark my lady's bower; and a moldering heap of blackenedstones where the glowing flames once leaped, and over all the tintedlichen and the ivy clinging green. 

For everything looms pleasant through the softening haze of time. Eventhe sadness that is past seems sweet. Our boyish days look very merry tous now, all nutting, hoop, and gingerbread. The snubbings and toothachesand the Latin verbs are all forgotten--the Latin verbs especially. Andwe fancy we were very happy when we were hobbledehoys and loved; and wewish that we could love again. We never think of the heartaches, or thesleepless nights, or the hot dryness of our throats, when she said shecould never be anything to us but a sister--as if any man wanted moresisters!

Yes, it is the brightness, not the darkness, that we see when we lookback. The sunshine casts no shadows on the past. The road that we havetraversed stretches very fair behind us. We see not the sharp stones. Wedwell but on the roses by the wayside, and the strong briers that stungus are, to our distant eyes, but gentle tendrils waving in the wind. Godbe thanked that it is so--that the ever-lengthening chain of memory hasonly pleasant links, and that the bitterness and sorrow of to-day aresmiled at on the morrow. 

It seems as though the brightest side of everything were also itshighest and best, so that as our little lives sink back behind us intothe dark sea of forgetfulness, all that which is the lightest and themost gladsome is the last to sink, and stands above the waters, long insight, when the angry thoughts and smarting pain are buried deep belowthe waves and trouble us no more. 

It is this glamour of the past, I suppose, that makes old folk talk somuch nonsense about the days when they were young. The world appears tohave been a very superior sort of place then, and things were morelike what they ought to be. Boys were boys then, and girls were verydifferent. Also winters were something like winters, and summers notat all the wretched-things we get put off with nowadays. As for thewonderful deeds people did in those times and the extraordinary eventsthat happened, it takes three strong men to believe half of them. 

I like to hear one of the old boys telling all about it to a partyof youngsters who he knows cannot contradict him. It is odd if, afterawhile, he doesn't swear that the moon shone every night when he was aboy, and that tossing mad bulls in a blanket was the favorite sport athis school. 

It always has been and always will be the same. The old folk of ourgrandfathers' young days sang a song bearing exactly the same burden;and the young folk of to-day will drone out precisely similar nonsensefor the aggravation of the next generation. "Oh, give me back thegood old days of fifty years ago, " has been the cry ever since Adam'sfifty-first birthday. Take up the literature of 1835, and you will findthe poets and novelists asking for the same impossible gift as did theGerman Minnesingers long before them and the old Norse Saga writers longbefore that. And for the same thing sighed the early prophets and thephilosophers of ancient Greece. From all accounts, the world has beengetting worse and worse ever since it was created. All I can say is thatit must have been a remarkably delightful place when it was first openedto the public, for it is very pleasant even now if you only keep as muchas possible in the sunshine and take the rain good-temperedly. 

Yet there is no gainsaying but that it must have been somewhat sweeterin that dewy morning of creation, when it was young and fresh, when thefeet of the tramping millions had not trodden its grass to dust, nor thedin of the myriad cities chased the silence forever away. Life must havebeen noble and solemn to those free-footed, loose-robed fathers of thehuman race, walking hand in hand with God under the great sky. Theylived in sunkissed tents amid the lowing herds. They took their simplewants from the loving hand of Nature. They toiled and talked andthought; and the great earth rolled around in stillness, not yet ladenwith trouble and wrong. 

Those days are past now. The quiet childhood of Humanity, spent in thefar-off forest glades and by the murmuring rivers, is gone forever; andhuman life is deepening down to manhood amid tumult, doubt, and hope. Its age of restful peace is past. It has its work to finish and musthasten on. What that work may be--what this world's share is in thegreat design--we know not, though our unconscious hands are helping toaccomplish it. Like the tiny coral insect working deep under the darkwaters, we strive and struggle each for our own little ends, nor dreamof the vast fabric we are building up for God. 

Let us have done with vain regrets and longings for the days thatnever will be ours again. Our work lies in front, not behind us; and"Forward!" is our motto. Let us not sit with folded hands, gazing uponthe past as if it were the building; it is but the foundation. Let usnot waste heart and life thinking of what might have been and forgettingthe may be that lies before us. Opportunities flit by while we sitregretting the chances we have lost, and the happiness that comes to uswe heed not, because of the happiness that is gone. 

Years ago, when I used to wander of an evening from the fireside tothe pleasant land of fairy-tales, I met a doughty knight and true. Manydangers had he overcome, in many lands had been; and all men knew himfor a brave and well-tried knight, and one that knew not fear; except, maybe, upon such seasons when even a brave man might feel afraid and yetnot be ashamed. Now, as this knight one day was pricking wearily along atoilsome road, his heart misgave him and was sore within him because ofthe trouble of the way. Rocks, dark and of a monstrous size, hung highabove his head, and like enough it seemed unto the knight that theyshould fall and he lie low beneath them. Chasms there were on eitherside, and darksome caves wherein fierce robbers lived, and dragons, very terrible, whose jaws dripped blood. And upon the road there hung adarkness as of night. So it came over that good knight that he would nomore press forward, but seek another road, less grievously beset withdifficulty unto his gentle steed. But when in haste he turned and lookedbehind, much marveled our brave knight, for lo! of all the way that hehad ridden there was naught for eye to see; but at his horse's heelsthere yawned a mighty gulf, whereof no man might ever spy the bottom, so deep was that same gulf. Then when Sir Ghelent saw that of going backthere was none, he prayed to good Saint Cuthbert, and setting spurs intohis steed rode forward bravely and most joyously. And naught harmed him. 

There is no returning on the road of life. The frail bridge of time onwhich we tread sinks back into eternity at every step we take. The pastis gone from us forever. It is gathered in and garnered. It belongsto us no more. No single word can ever be unspoken; no single stepretraced. Therefore it beseems us as true knights to prick on bravely, not idly weep because we cannot now recall. 

A new life begins for us with every second. Let us go forward joyouslyto meet it. We must press on whether we will or no, and we shall walkbetter with our eyes before us than with them ever cast behind. 

A friend came to me the other day and urged me very eloquently to learnsome wonderful system by which you never forgot anything. I don't knowwhy he was so eager on the subject, unless it be that I occasionallyborrow an umbrella and have a knack of coming out, in the middle of agame of whist, with a mild "Lor! I've been thinking all along thatclubs were trumps. " I declined the suggestion, however, in spite ofthe advantages he so attractively set forth. I have no wish to remembereverything. There are many things in most men's lives that had better beforgotten. There is that time, many years ago, when we did not act quiteas honorably, quite as uprightly, as we perhaps should have done--thatunfortunate deviation from the path of strict probity we once committed, and in which, more unfortunate still, we were found out--that act offolly, of meanness, of wrong. Ah, well! we paid the penalty, sufferedthe maddening hours of vain remorse, the hot agony of shame, the scorn, perhaps, of those we loved. Let us forget. Oh, Father Time, lift withyour kindly hands those bitter memories from off our overburdenedhearts, for griefs are ever coming to us with the coming hours, and ourlittle strength is only as the day. 

Not that the past should be buried. The music of life would be muteif the chords of memory were snapped asunder. It is but the poisonousweeds, not the flowers, that we should root out from the garden ofMnemosyne. Do you remember Dickens' "Haunted Man"--how he prayed forforgetfulness, and how, when his prayer was answered, he prayed formemory once more? We do not want all the ghosts laid. It is only thehaggard, cruel-eyed specters that we flee from. Let the gentle, kindlyphantoms haunt us as they will; we are not afraid of them. 

Ah me! the world grows very full of ghosts as we grow older. We neednot seek in dismal church-yards nor sleep in moated granges to see theshadowy faces and hear the rustling of their garments in the night. Every house, every room, every creaking chair has its own particularghost. They haunt the empty chambers of our lives, they throng around uslike dead leaves whirled in the autumn wind. Some are living, some aredead. We know not. We clasped their hands once, loved them, quarreledwith them, laughed with them, told them our thoughts and hopes and aims, as they told us theirs, till it seemed our very hearts had joined in agrip that would defy the puny power of Death. They are gone now; lost tous forever. Their eyes will never look into ours again and their voiceswe shall never hear. Only their ghosts come to us and talk with us. Wesee them, dim and shadowy, through our tears. We stretch our yearninghands to them, but they are air. 

Ghosts! They are with us night and day. They walk beside us in the busystreet under the glare of the sun. They sit by us in the twilight athome. We see their little faces looking from the windows of the oldschool-house. We meet them in the woods and lanes where we shouted andplayed as boys. Hark! cannot you hear their low laughter from behind theblackberry-bushes and their distant whoops along the grassy glades?Down here, through the quiet fields and by the wood, where the eveningshadows are lurking, winds the path where we used to watch for her atsunset. Look, she is there now, in the dainty white frock we knew sowell, with the big bonnet dangling from her little hands and the sunnybrown hair all tangled. Five thousand miles away! Dead for all we know!What of that? She is beside us now, and we can look into her laughingeyes and hear her voice. She will vanish at the stile by the wood and weshall be alone; and the shadows will creep out across the fields and thenight wind will sweep past moaning. Ghosts! they are always with us andalways will be while the sad old world keeps echoing to the sob of longgood-bys, while the cruel ships sail away across the great seas, and thecold green earth lies heavy on the hearts of those we loved. 

But, oh, ghosts, the world would be sadder still without you. Come tous and speak to us, oh you ghosts of our old loves! Ghosts of playmates, and of sweethearts, and old friends, of all you laughing boys and girls, oh, come to us and be with us, for the world is very lonely, and newfriends and faces are not like the old, and we cannot love them, nay, nor laugh with them as we have loved and laughed with you. And when wewalked together, oh, ghosts of our youth, the world was very gay andbright; but now it has grown old and we are growing weary, and only youcan bring the brightness and the freshness back to us. 

Memory is a rare ghost-raiser. Like a haunted house, its walls areever echoing to unseen feet. Through the broken casements we watch theflitting shadows of the dead, and the saddest shadows of them all arethe shadows of our own dead selves. 

Oh, those young bright faces, so full of truth and honor, of pure, goodthoughts, of noble longings, how reproachfully they look upon us withtheir deep, clear eyes!

I fear they have good cause for their sorrow, poor lads. Lies andcunning and disbelief have crept into our hearts since those preshavingdays--and we meant to be so great and good. 

It is well we cannot see into the future. There are few boys of fourteenwho would not feel ashamed of themselves at forty. 

I like to sit and have a talk sometimes with that odd little chap thatwas myself long ago. I think he likes it too, for he comes so often ofan evening when I am alone with my pipe, listening to the whisperingof the flames. I see his solemn little face looking at me through thescented smoke as it floats upward, and I smile at him; and he smilesback at me, but his is such a grave, old-fashioned smile. We chat aboutold times; and now and then he takes me by the hand, and then we slipthrough the black bars of the grate and down the dusky glowing cavesto the land that lies behind the firelight. There we find the days thatused to be, and we wander along them together. He tells me as we walkall he thinks and feels. I laugh at him now and then, but the nextmoment I wish I had not, for he looks so grave I am ashamed of beingfrivolous. Besides, it is not showing proper respect to one so mucholder than myself--to one who was myself so very long before I becamemyself. 

We don't talk much at first, but look at one another; I down at hiscurly hair and little blue bow, he up sideways at me as he trots. Andsome-how I fancy the shy, round eyes do not altogether approve of me, and he heaves a little sigh, as though he were disappointed. But afterawhile his bashfulness wears off and he begins to chat. He tells mehis favorite fairy-tales, he can do up to six times, and he has aguinea-pig, and pa says fairy-tales ain't true; and isn't it a pity?'cos he would so like to be a knight and fight a dragon and marry abeautiful princess. But he takes a more practical view of life when hereaches seven, and would prefer to grow up be a bargee, and earn a lotof money. Maybe this is the consequence of falling in love, which hedoes about this time with the young lady at the milk shop aet. Six. (Godbless her little ever-dancing feet, whatever size they may be now!)He must be very fond of her, for he gives her one day his chiefesttreasure, to wit, a huge pocket-knife with four rusty blades and acorkscrew, which latter has a knack of working itself out in somemysterious manner and sticking into its owner's leg. She is anaffectionate little thing, and she throws her arms round his neck andkisses him for it, then and there, outside the shop. But the stupidworld (in the person of the boy at the cigar emporium next door) jeersat such tokens of love. Whereupon my young friend very properly preparesto punch the head of the boy at the cigar emporium next door; but failsin the attempt, the boy at the cigar emporium next door punching hisinstead. 

And then comes school life, with its bitter little sorrows and itsjoyous shoutings, its jolly larks, and its hot tears falling on beastlyLatin grammars and silly old copy-books. It is at school that he injureshimself for life--as I firmly believe--trying to pronounce German;and it is there, too, that he learns of the importance attached by theFrench nation to pens, ink, and paper. "Have you pens, ink, and paper?"is the first question asked by one Frenchman of another on theirmeeting. The other fellow has not any of them, as a rule, but saysthat the uncle of his brother has got them all three. The first fellowdoesn't appear to care a hang about the uncle of the other fellow'sbrother; what he wants to know now is, has the neighbor of the otherfellow's mother got 'em? "The neighbor of my mother has no pens, no ink, and no paper, " replies the other man, beginning to get wild. "Has thechild of thy female gardener some pens, some ink, or some paper?" He hashim there. After worrying enough about these wretched inks, pens, andpaper to make everybody miserable, it turns out that the child of hisown female gardener hasn't any. Such a discovery would shut up any onebut a French exercise man. It has no effect at all, though, on thisshameless creature. He never thinks of apologizing, but says his aunthas some mustard. 

So in the acquisition of more or less useless knowledge, soon happily tobe forgotten, boyhood passes away. The red-brick school-house fades fromview, and we turn down into the world's high-road. My little friend isno longer little now. The short jacket has sprouted tails. The batteredcap, so useful as a combination of pocket-handkerchief, drinking-cup, and weapon of attack, has grown high and glossy; and instead of aslate-pencil in his mouth there is a cigarette, the smoke of whichtroubles him, for it will get up his nose. He tries a cigar a littlelater on as being more stylish--a big black Havanna. It doesn't seemaltogether to agree with him, for I find him sitting over a bucket inthe back kitchen afterward, solemnly swearing never to smoke again. 

And now his mustache begins to be almost visible to the naked eye, whereupon he immediately takes to brandy-and-sodas and fancies himselfa man. He talks about "two to one against the favorite, " refers toactresses as "Little Emmy" and "Kate" and "Baby, " and murmurs about his"losses at cards the other night" in a style implying that thousandshave been squandered, though, to do him justice, the actual amount ismost probably one-and-twopence. Also, if I see aright--for it is alwaystwilight in this land of memories--he sticks an eyeglass in his eye andstumbles over everything. 

His female relations, much troubled at these things, pray for him (blesstheir gentle hearts!) and see visions of Old Bailey trials and haltersas the only possible outcome of such reckless dissipation; and theprediction of his first school-master, that he would come to a bad end, assumes the proportions of inspired prophecy. 

He has a lordly contempt at this age for the other sex, a blatantly goodopinion of himself, and a sociably patronizing manner toward all theelderly male friends of the family. Altogether, it must be confessed, heis somewhat of a nuisance about this time. 

It does not last long, though. He falls in love in a little while, andthat soon takes the bounce out of him. I notice his boots are much toosmall for him now, and his hair is fearfully and wonderfully arranged. He reads poetry more than he used, and he keeps a rhyming dictionary inhis bedroom. Every morning Emily Jane finds scraps of torn-up paper onthe floor and reads thereon of "cruel hearts and love's deep darts, " of"beauteous eyes and lovers' sighs, " and much more of the old, old songthat lads so love to sing and lassies love to listen to while givingtheir dainty heads a toss and pretending never to hear. 

The course of love, however, seems not to have run smoothly, for lateron he takes more walking exercise and less sleep, poor boy, than is goodfor him; and his face is suggestive of anything but wedding-bells andhappiness ever after. 

And here he seems to vanish. The little, boyish self that has grown upbeside me as we walked is gone. 

I am alone and the road is very dark. I stumble on, I know not how norcare, for the way seems leading nowhere, and there is no light to guide. 

But at last the morning comes, and I find that I have grown into myself. 

THE END.