Chapter XI: Part 11

It is surprising how much children tend to humanise and soften the stern scene of general life. The man who is so fortunate as to possess one or more children, finds it less easy to be wicked than if he had none; and, however evilly disposed any man may be, he will hardly give way to his wicked tendencies in the presence of his children. There is something holy in a child. Its innocence puts it in association with all gentle and devout feelings; and scarcely any parent will venture deliberately to contaminate the bright image of heavenly purity, which the Father of heaven has himself placed under his charge. Even the infidel can never form the wish that his child should be the same; he may dare many things, upon the peril of his own soul, but he cannot dare to hazard the soul of his child. His own mind may be torn by the demons of doubt and error, but he will keep his child steadfast if he can, melting nightly at the infantine prayer, which he cannot offer up himself. If a parent has been imprudent, and now suffers the bitter effects of his folly, in misfortunes which have exposed him to the contempt of mankind, here still is a resource. He can steal by night to the couch of his children, and, beside the unconscious babes, whose fate hangs all upon his, and who yet reprove not, in their silent innocence, the guilt which has exposed them to misery, weep himself into good resolutions, and into comfort.

One of the chief sources of a parent’s pleasure in contemplating children, lies in the prospects which it is impossible to avoid forming regarding their future lives. No parent ever contemplates an unhappy fate for his child: all the look-forward is sunny as its own sweet eyes—stainless as its uncorrupted heart. There is even hardly any parent who rests content with hoping that his children will be as fortunate and as happy as himself. They must be much more so: they must reach heights of distinction far above any he had ever presumed to expect for himself. To the parent who has occasion to lament his unhappy circumstances in life, what treasured consolation there is in these fond imaginings! The father, as he broods moodily over enterprises blighted, and a spirit confined for immediate bread to some narrow scene of action unworthy of its energies—one casual glance alights upon the fair brow of his child, the bitter present gives way to the glorious future, and all his own griefs are repaid by the prospective happiness of his offspring. The mother who looks back to the comforts of an early home, unhappily exchanged for a scene of care and woe, feels, as she bends over her unconscious infant, her former happiness arise in the prospects of that endeared being, and is for the time consoled. It is this habit of forming flattering anticipations respecting the fates of our children, that renders the loss of them in infancy so very severe a calamity. In reality, the life of a child is of little value: it has as yet cost little, either in care or expense; and, unless in particular circumstances, it holds but an unimportant place in society. Yet it is in this very want of all probation of its value that the poignancy of the loss chiefly lies. We lament it, not at all for what it was at the time of its death, but for what it might have been, if it had been spared. We often find that the loss of an infant is lamented with a more violent and unappeasable grief than that of an adult; and this is simply because, in the one case, the damage is ascertained, and forms but one distinct idea; while in the other it is arbitrary, vast, beyond imagination. A child is, in one sense, a dangerous possession: it is apt to warp itself into the vitals of our very soul; so that, when God rends it away, the whole mental fabric is shattered. It should always, then, be borne in mind, that life is the more uncertain the nearer its commencement, and that the beings we are disposed to appreciate most are just those whom we are most apt to lose.

The feelings of a parent, regarding a child in dangerous sickness, are beautifully expressed in the following poem, which will surprise many readers into tears:—[5]

“Send down thy winged angel, God!
Amidst this night so wild,
And bid him come, where now we watch,
And breathe upon our child.

She lies upon her pillow, pale,
And moans within her sleep,
Or wakeneth with a patient smile,
And striveth _not_ to weep!

How gentle and how good a child
She is, we know too well;
And dearer to her parents’ hearts
Than our weak words can tell.

We love—we watch throughout the night,
To aid, when need may be;
We hope—and have despair’d at times,
But _now_ we turn to Thee!

Send down thy sweet-soul’d angel, God!
Amidst the darkness wild,
And bid him soothe our souls to-night,
And heal our gentle child!”

When a scene like this is closed by death, what an extinction of hopes! No parent, it may be remarked, ever thinks he can _spare a child_. Whatever be the number of his family, he is almost sure to be afflicted to exactly a certain degree by the loss of any individual infant; for simply this reason, that every one has established its own claim to his affections, by some peculiar trait of its appearance or character. It is a lovely and admirable trait of human nature, that the parent is rather apt to appreciate the lost child above all the rest. The impossibility of a realization of his hopes regarding that infant, just makes all those hopes the brighter, so that the twilight of the child’s _dead existence_ is more splendid than the broad day of its living life. The surviving babes are all more or less connected with the common-place of this world—the homeliness of nature; but that fair-haired innocent, which went to its place in the blush and dawn of its faculties, what might it not have been? Then, the stirring grief of parting with that face that was our own—that more than friend, though but an infant—to break off all the delightful ties of prattling tenderness, that had bound us, even in a few months, to that gentle form for ever! A sorrow like this is long in being altogether quenched; it comes in soft gushes into the heart for many future years, and subdues us in the midst of stronger and sterner feelings. The image lives always before us in unchanging infancy, and beauty, and innocence; it ever seems to be walking in our eyes, as of yore, with its bright curling hair, and its lightsome carol; and we long for heaven, that we may enjoy that no small portion of its pleasures—a restoration to the company of that mortal angel which has been reft away.

FOOTNOTES:

[5] This exquisite little hymn is extracted from a volume of excellent, but, we fear, neglected poetry, published under the title of “English Songs, and other Small Poems, by Barry Cornwall.” The real name of the author, we understand, is Proctor, and in him much of the old pure spirit of poetry has revived—the poetry of nature and of the affections.

TEA-DRINKING.

There is a certain class of people who take every opportunity of sneering at their neighbours for indulging in the “folly” of drinking tea, which they tell you is poisonous, and for the use of which the Chinese, as they say, make a point of laughing at us. I have generally remarked, that those who in this manner condemn the use of tea are themselves addicted to the drinking of intoxicating liquids of some kind or other, and that, in most instances, they are not a bit more healthful or more innocent than the unhappy tea-drinkers whom they affect to pity. In the way that tea is usually made, with a large mixture of sugar and cream, both which ingredients are highly nutritious, it is fully more salutary, and a great deal more refreshing, than any other light liquid that could be poured into the stomach. With all due deference to Cobbett, milk, even entirely divested of its creamy particles, is _heavy_; and though it may be used with advantage as a meal, when work is done in the open air, it can never suit the appetites of the great mass of the people, who are confined by sedentary employments. Milk is the food of men in a rude state, or in childhood; but tea or well-made coffee is their beverage in a state of civilisation. It would seem that the civilised human being must use a large quantity of liquid food. Perhaps solid meat is more nutritious; but there are cases in which a small degree of nutriment is quite sufficient. A lady or a gentleman of sedentary habits does not require to feed like a ploughman, or a fancy man training for a pedestrian excursion. They can subsist in a healthful state with a small quantity of solid food, but they do not do well unless with a large quantity of liquids, and these of a light quality. Good beer has been recommended as a substitute for tea; but beer is at the best a cold ungenial drink, except to robust people who have much exercise. Beer may certainly be made almost as light as water itself, but in that case it is filled with gaseous matter or confined air, and it cannot be drunk with comfort as a simple refreshment.

It will always be remembered that there are different kinds of tea, and that some are more salutary than others. Green tea ought by all means to be avoided by persons of weak nerves. Black tea is the preferable for general use, and, if properly made, will prove anti-spasmodic, and relieve pains or cramps in the bowels. In some instances tea does not suit the particular state of the stomach, and it should then be abandoned, the taste naturally pointing out when it should be taken. But no species of prepared fluid seems so suitable to the palates and the stomachs of the people of this country. No kind of drink is so refreshing after a journey or fatigue as tea. It restores the drooping spirits, and invigorates the frame for renewed exertion. No other kind of liquid with which we are acquainted has the same remarkable influence morally and physically. Fermented or distilled liquors, taken under the same circumstances, either induce intoxication or sleep. It is preposterous to say that tea is poisonous. As there is an astringency in its properties, I believe it would be most injurious were we to live upon nothing else, or drink it as a tincture. But who does either? As it happens to be prepared and used, it answers merely as a refreshing and pleasing drink, either to the solid bread and butter taken along with it, or after a recent dinner of substantial viands. How idle it is to say that this harmless beverage is ruining the constitutions of the people of this country! The very reverse can be demonstrated. The inhabitants of Britain use nearly twenty-seven millions of pounds weight of tea annually, which is about one pound nine ounces on an average for every individual. From thirty to forty years ago they used a great deal less than the half of this quantity, yet the average length of human life has been greatly extended since that period. The English and Scotch now use more tea than all the rest of Europe put together, and yet they are the healthiest nation on the face of the earth. The North Americans are also great tea-drinkers, and human life among them is of nearly an equal value. Who would for a moment compare the thin wretched wines of France and Germany, or the sour krout of Russia, to the “comfortable” tea of Great Britain, and who would lose time in calculating the different effects of these liquids on the constitution?

Tea has other excellent properties. At this present moment it is putting down the pernicious practice of dram-drinking, and evidently limiting the extent of after-dinner potations. It seems to be impossible that a regular drinker of tea can be a lover of ardent spirits; and it is generally observed, that, as a man (or woman either) slides into the vice of tippling, he simultaneously withdraws from the tea-table; so true it is that the brutalised feelings of the drunkard are incompatible with the refined sentiments produced by

“The cup which cheers, but not inebriates.”

It is hence to be wished that tea, or some other equally simple prepared fluid, should be still more brought into use. Do not let it be urged as an objection, that tea is expensive; for even under its excessive dearth, compared with its original cost, it is the cheapest beverage in use. With respect to price, it should not be placed against water or milk. It comes in place of some other indulgence—intoxicating liquors for instance—respecting the price of which we never heard any complaints from the lower walks of life. Tea is thus not entirely a superfluity. The clamours as to its fostering habits of evil and light speaking, are so antiquated as hardly to deserve notice. Formerly, when tea was exclusively a luxury among women, the tea-table was perhaps the scene where scandal was chiefly discussed. But while I suspect that the same amount of scandal would have been discussed if there had been no tea-tables whatever, I must observe, that tea is now partaken of under greatly different circumstances. From being the favourite indulgence only of women, it is now an ordinary domestic meal, and there is no more disposition to draw forth the failings of our neighbours over tea than over roast beef or punch, at seven o’clock any more than at five. In the upper classes of society, what with late dinners, routs, and frivolities of every description, tea-drinking may be put aside as a vulgarism; but as being, in point of fact, a powerful agent in humanising the harsh feelings of our nature, and cultivating the domestic affections, I trust it will long hold a place in the dietetics of the respectable middle and lower classes of Great Britain.

HUSBANDS AND WIVES.

We meet with numerous rules for the conduct of young newly-married women of all ranks; and if the world is not filled with good wives, it certainly is not because there is any want of matronly counsel for their guidance. But though the happiness of the conjugal state depends at least as much upon the behaviour of the husband as on that of the wife, there has not, as far as we are aware, been hitherto promulgated any code of instructions for the use of the former. Our literature abounds with narrations which exhibit the dutifulness and affection of women to husbands unworthy of them, who repaid tenderness with brutality, nor relented till those whose every amiable feeling they ought to have cherished and rewarded with their love, either sank broken-hearted, or, grown desperate, became even more abandoned and profligate than themselves. The man is to blame in nine cases out of ten where an alliance proves unhappy. In the lower ranks, especially, it is too often a want of prudence on his part that renders so many families wretched. _Of the multitudes of those who have wasted character, health, and means, in intemperance, there is but a small proportion who might not have preserved respectability by listening to the admonitions of their wives._ Yet, with these numerous and undeniable facts before the world, no writer thinks of preventing such evils by pointing out and enforcing the duties of the party from whose misconduct they chiefly spring. A small portion of our columns, therefore, will not be unprofitably bestowed on a subject of so much importance.

In order to secure the felicity of the married state, a husband must, in the first place, endeavour to secure the perfect confidence of his wife. He must banish every thing repulsive from his manner towards her, and live with her on such easy and friendly terms that she may never be discouraged from communicating with and consulting him on every affair, whether it be in the lesser or the greater concerns of life. If a wife do not find at home sympathy with her afflictions, cares, and anxieties, she will seek it abroad—she will detail her griefs to some acquaintance, to whom she will go for advice in matters of difficulty, and, perhaps, in matters of delicacy, which cannot properly be appreciated by a stranger, and therefore ought not to be entrusted to the ear of one. The happiness of the family will thus be made to depend in a great measure on a person not a member of it, who, whatever be her prudence, is not intimately interested in the preservation of its peace, and who is more likely to take a side and encourage feelings of animosity than to inculcate the duty of mutual forbearance.

The husband’s duty must therefore be to establish in the mind of his partner an entire reliance on his affection, and a thorough persuasion that he is disposed to the full amount of his power to promote her comfort. Let him not think it beneath him to take an interest in her domestic arrangements: by showing that he does so, he will make her sensible that her efforts to render home pleasing are not unappreciated; her labour for that end will be redoubled, and yet prove more light to her. As he must be abroad the greater part of the day, let him not deprive her of his company in the hours of leisure that business leaves him. A man cannot altogether seclude himself from the world in the bosom of his family; neither can he always carry his wife along with him: but he must not for a light reason allow himself to be detained from her society. A woman’s hours are often lonely; and after she has bestowed her whole cares for a day to set her house in order, and anxiously awaits her husband’s return, in the hope of enjoying a few hours of mutually endearing converse by the cheerful hearth, if she have to watch every approaching footstep in vain, it is a cruel disappointment. One of the greatest sins which the husband can commit, is that of making a practice of staying out late at night, which, though not reckoned among the usual catalogue of crimes against social life, is one of those most worthy of reprobation. The mental anguish endured by many excellent wives from this infamous practice, no one can picture unless he have witnessed it. There, by the lonely hearth—the fire sunk to a cinder and a mass of ashes—the candle verging to its close in the socket—the dingy silent apartment strewed with the toys and furniture of the children, sent hours since to bed—there, in the midst of this domestic wilderness sits the drooping, desponding, almost broken-hearted wife, counting the hours, and conning over in her wearied mind the numbers of times she has been so deserted, and foreseeing the still greater misery which awaits her by such a course of profligacy in her husband. And for what, may we ask, has the master of the household thus deserted his home?—the company of hollow friends, idle acquaintances, perhaps drunkards or gamblers, whose witless jocularity forms the temptation to abandon a good name, fortune, worldly respectability, and self-esteem. None but the wife who has endured trials of this nature can properly understand the horrors resulting from such a life of folly and dissipation.

Every reader must be delighted with the beautiful excuse, which, among others, Sir Thomas More makes why he did not publish his Utopia sooner. It shows us how important that great man considered an attentive performance of the minor duties of life to be. “Seeing that almost the whole of the day is devoted to business abroad, and the remainder of my time to domestic duties, there is none left for myself—that is, for my studies. For, on returning home, I have to talk with my wife, prattle with my children, and converse with my servants: all which things I number among the duties of life; since, if a man would not be a stranger in his own house, he must, by every means in his power, strive to render himself agreeable to those companions of his life whom nature has provided, chance thrown in his way, or that he has himself chosen.”

The husband must not accustom himself to form resolutions, and, without previously consulting his wife, make a sudden declaration of his purposes, in the same way as he would casually mention to a neighbour a plan, the execution of which he is just on the point of commencing. Even although such resolutions may be come to in a spirit of wisdom, to determine upon any measure without her participation argues a want of confidence in her affection and judgment, and cannot fail greatly to distress and discourage her. Granting that there are some matters of which the husband is the most competent judge, and that his wife cannot aid or improve his schemes, still she ought to be made acquainted with them, and the reasons for them, as far as possible; for it is only proper that the wife should be admitted to the satisfaction of knowing what is expected to produce advantage to her husband. As to what some write, that women are not fit to be entrusted with great affairs, it may have been true in the cases which gave occasion to the remark, where the object involved a course of crooked policy, or where the ear to which the secret was committed was that of a female from whom fidelity was scarcely in any case to be expected. If a man’s designs be bad, the best way for success in them is to make the disclosure to nobody—least of all to women; to whom, if they be depraved, how can he trust? and if they be not thoroughly hardened in wickedness, how much less can he trust to them, seeing that, being of much tenderer consciences than men, they are always more ready to relent! But if he would make his way in the world by fair and honest practices, a husband can have no better counsellor than his wife: her stretch of understanding may not be so masculine as to embrace the subject in all its more important bearings, but, in the lesser details of management, her advice may prove invaluable.

Without a constant and unreserved interchange of sentiments, a constant and perfect cordiality cannot be maintained; and then, indeed, when things are communicated only by fits and starts, and perhaps never more than half explained, leaving an impression that her discretion is distrusted, the wife will be more apt to carry them abroad, to endeavour, by the help of other wits than her own, to penetrate what is concealed, and in the hope of finding, in the sympathy of others, consolation for the want of confidence with which she is treated at home. It is thus that a man becomes by degrees “a stranger in his own house.” His domestic behaviour is observed with the same distant caution with which his conduct in public is scrutinised; and as in all likelihood he does not take the same pains to produce a favourable impression, and is not equally on his guard to obviate misinterpretations of what he says and does, he must appear proportionably less amiable; and as the endearments of domestic life are in consequence withdrawn, the bad effects of his unsocial humour are at last felt in his own discomfort.

“Those that are curious observers of mankind,” says a Christian philosopher, who is not so generally known as might be expected from the excellence of his writings, “love to consider them in the most familiar lights. When men are abroad, they choose to appear (whatever they really are) to the best advantage; but at home, their minds, as well as their persons, are in a perfect undress and dishabille. The world is the great theatre on which they act a part; but, behind the scenes, they may be seen in their proper persons, without any studied appearances. Our domestic behaviour is, therefore, the main test of our virtue and good nature. In public, we may carry a fair outside; our love may be not without dissimulation nor our hatred without disguise; but at home, Nature, left to itself, shows its true and genuine face, with an unreserved openness, and all the soul stands forth to view, without any veil thrown over it. There we see men in all the little and minute circumstances of life, which, however they may be overlooked by common observers, yet give a man of discernment a truer opening into a man’s real character, than the more glaring and important transactions of it, because, as to these, they are more upon their guard—they act with more of caution and of art than of plain simple nature. In short, our good or ill breeding is chiefly seen abroad, our good or ill nature at home. It were to be wished that we had more family pieces preserved and transmitted down to us. The good public magistrate is of use to few only; but the prudent and affectionate father of a family is of a more general and extensive influence. For my part, I more admire Cornelius, the centurion, for that short sketch of his character, viz. that he was a devout man, and one that feared God, _with all his house_, than if he had been represented as the most victorious general that had enlarged the bounds of the Roman empire; for we learn from it this useful lesson—that the influence of a pious example, like the precious ointment from Aaron’s beard, descends downwards from the head of the family, diffuses itself over the main body, till it reaches the very skirts—the lowest members of it.”

THEY.

Before saying a word upon the subject, I must make an apology similar to that presented by honest Andro Symson, episcopal minister of a Galloway parish before the Revolution, when, in singing the praises of Sir David Dunbar of Baldoon, he says, his muse

——’gainst Priscian avers,
_He_, HE ALONE, _were my parishioners_.

As good Andro’s congregation of one required to be spoken of in the plural, so do my friends THEY need to be mentioned in the singular number. The truth is, THEY is a collective ideality, a most potent plural unit, who does a great many remarkable things in the world, without ever being called to account for them, and without any body knowing very distinctly who or what he is. I venture to say, that hardly a subject of his Majesty does not, day by day, refer events and deeds to the agency of THEY, and yet never has presumed, to this blessed hour, to consider who this mysterious personage—this great unknown—this finer spirit than Ariel—can be. In very truth, he is a most impalpable being, and susceptible of a wonderful variety of shapes. There is no height of greatness, and no depth of degradation, which he may not arrive at. Sometimes one would suppose that he is the government itself—sometimes, only a town council. One of THEY’S employments is the disposal of criminals. “Are THEY going to hang this fellow?” one man will ask another. “Perhaps THEY will only banish him,” is the probable answer. If the culprit be not decently and humanely hanged, the people get dreadfully enraged at THEY, and look as if they would almost tear his eyes out. THEY also has a great deal to do in public works. “Why did THEY make the road so crooked?” “THEY have put up a very absurd set of street lamps, I see.” “What, in wonder’s name, do THEY mean by building a temple up there, like a boy’s peerie, or an hour-glass?” Then THEY is the author of all kinds of rumours and surmises. “They say—what say they—let them say!” is an inscription on a wall within Aberdeen Cathedral four hundred years old; and I do not doubt that THEY would have given currency to scandals regarding the mother of mankind herself, in Paradise, if there had been any other lady to tell them to—or if THEY had then existed. Old newspapers say, “THEY write from St Petersburg that the Empress Catharine is about to fit out an armament for the Caspian.” “THEY talk at Rome of a change of councils in the Vatican.” Modern quidnuncs are also filled to the brim with things which THEY has been circulating. “THEY are now making out Lord —— to be _non compos_.” “THEY will have a marriage to be on the tapis between SO-AND-SO and SO-AND-SO;” personages, by the way, who claim a sort of kindred with THEY, and certainly are of imagination all compact. THEY is sometimes admired for his power, sometimes blamed for his stinginess. “THEY used to write capital solid books long ago.” “THEY used Burns very ill when he was alive.” It certainly was bad of THEY to treat Burns so scurvily; but unfortunately the fellow is so utterly impersonal, that we blame without knowing what we are doing.

THEY has a great deal to do with the _naming_ of things. He may be called, in arithmetical language, the _Grand Denominator_. Indeed, I do not believe that Adam himself named more things than THEY. “What do THEY call this place?” one will ask a coachman, on nearing a town, village, or gentleman’s seat. “THEY call it Ashbourne,” or whatever else, is the reply. “What do THEY call ye?” is the ordinary question of a rustic boy to his unknown companion, and so forth. THEY is also the grand censor of all things which happen in the world. “I will not do this, for what would THEY say of me?” is a common expression, when a man hesitates upon some equivocal step. He may be convinced, from irrefragable data, of the propriety of what he contemplates: but then he could not convince THEY of it, and, of course, in these circumstances, he must let the scheme drop. THEY thus prevents many things that would be bad, many things that would be only strange, and many things that would certainly be good, if he could be convinced of it. A most uncompromising fellow is this THEY! He knows very well that he cannot enter into another man’s bosom, to see all the various reasons and tendencies which lead him towards the thing he aims at; but, nevertheless, presuming that he is quite omniscient, or at least fully as well acquainted with every other particular man’s business as his own, he never hesitates to give a decided contradiction to any proposal he is not, at first sight, pleased with. Many are the good original schemes which THEY has spoilt, from a hasty conclusion without premises.

THEY, also, amidst all his multitudinous and most Protean varieties of character, is a general scapegoat for all the mischief that is done in a household. “I see THEY have cracked that decanter.” “THEY have at last made an end of the globe in the lobby.” Or, as I once heard said by the lady of a house afflicted with a breaking woman-servant, “I declare THEY have broken the very kitchen poker!”—a compound fracture, too, it was. Such are a few of the doings of THEY in his household capacity; and it must be owned that in this light he is very great, and often comes above-board. The grandest aspect, however, in which THEY ever appears, is when he stands up as a representative of the government of the country. “THEY are going, I see, to bring us into a war with France.” “THEY intend, it seems, to resume cash payments at the Bank.” No matter whether the affair refers to privilege or prerogative; no matter for the claims of the particular officer under whose hands it ought to fall; King, Lords, Commons, Treasury, Admiralty, and Horse Guards—all melt, like mixed colours, into the single white light of THEY! Things may be different under the Reform Bill; but, heretofore, there has hardly been any precise government but THEY. THEY crowns the king—signs the orders of council—passes all bills through the legislature that _will_ go through—fits out armies, and rigs fleets—makes war, and concludes peace—is church and state—Swing and the Press. THEY is a being of past history, and of present existence—a tyrant, or the people. THEY is the great despot pronoun of the _world_!

RELATIONS.

Owing to the different merits of the different members of a family, and in some measure, also, to the various chances which are vouchsafed to them of bettering their circumstances, we generally see that, though they all begin alike, some go _up_ and some go _down_ in life, so that in the long-run the family, or at least its second generation, is scattered over nearly the whole surface of society, from its top to its bottom. The case may seem startling; but it is our belief that there is hardly any person, be his own situation ever so exalted, who has not relations, and near relations too, in the very lowest walks of life—not only in the condition of servants, perhaps, for that is decent, and, in its way, respectable, but in the most degraded state to which human nature can well be reduced.

In the same way, almost all of us have kinsfolk a little higher in the scale than ourselves, or whom we think so—it is all one. Now, it is quite amazing how accurate our genealogical knowledge becomes respecting one of these individuals, compared with its equally surprising ignorance regarding those who have not been so fortunate. When a cousin or half grand-uncle rises above our level, he rises into a blaze of light, which enables us to trace our connection with him as plainly as we run our eye along the string of a boy’s kite. But when a poor nephew or grand-nephew descends into poverty and contempt, he seems like a plummet submersed in the ocean, where, though we may occasionally feel him tugging at the bottom of the line, we are totally unable to trace the line itself. We are always most laudably ready to exchange the civilities of life and the affections of kindred with the cousin who has, in the first place, convinced us of his merit by thatching himself well over with bank-notes. It is pleasant to go and dine at a kinsman’s house, where we know that our entertainment can be furnished without any distress to our worthy host. But really it is a totally different case to intrude upon a scene where our poor friend is doing his best, with the tears in his eyes, to satisfy the cravings of his family with, perhaps, a very homely meal. Humanity in that case demands that we should rather stay away, for we know he does not like to be seen in his poor state. And then, too, how easily we can put up with the eccentricities of a wealthy relation, even though they may sometimes gall our pride a little: how strangely liable, on the other hand, are we to fall out with the poor unfortunates below us! On the day after having been regaled to the uttermost excess by our wealthy friend, we will quarrel with the poor one for having drunk a single glass of some plebeian fluid. With the former, nothing—with the latter, every thing, is a fault. The imperfections of the poor are yawning and palpable as their own rags: those of the rich are as smooth as broad-cloth can make them. The truth is, our senses can tolerate almost any odious or improper thing that is found in a scene above our usual grade in the world. We never know enough of it to be able to measure its real odiousness, or it is disguised by the cordial appliances which we always have ready for the sores of the great. But the vices, nay, the smallest foibles of the lowly, come before our senses so bare, so beggarly, so unanealed, and, moreover, they are so immediately followed by that additional wretchedness which wealthy error escapes, that we have no excuse for them. Hence we generally find, that we have shaken off the most of our poor relations on account of some trivial cause of offence, which we find it necessary, however, to be always nursing in our minds, in order to sustain us in the conviction that the breach of treaty—the _casus fœderis_—was sufficient.

There is one very obvious mark of the individual who despises poor relations—a perpetual reference to rich ones. Some people are constantly bringing in allusions to “my cousin Mr This,” and “my uncle Mr That,” and even to more remote relations, such as “my great-grandmother the Countess of Somewhere.” A few are so very silly as to tell, in the newspaper announcement of their marriage, that their bride, besides being daughter to this or that plain esquire, is “grand-niece to General So-and-So,” or “cousin to Mr Such-a-Thing, secretary of state.” These announcements are an impertinence fit for the interference of the legislature—or the police. If people have exalted relations, let them enjoy them as much as they can within themselves, but do not let them be perpetually presenting this odious little piece of vanity before others, who not only are not interested in it, but are perhaps reminded by it that they have no fine relations themselves. To be always thus singling out a relation from all the rest, and holding him up in connection with ourselves, is a direct injury to him, in so far as we are thus trying to exalt ourselves at his expense—an indirect insult to our kindred in general, whom we leave out of view, and a nuisance to all before whom we thus exhibit our own poverty of soul. It is a _cultivation_ of the most odious character, and necessarily suggests to every thinking person, that in exact proportion to our homage to the great persons of our family must be our haughtiness and severity to the humble. The people addicted to this vice of conversation are evidently satisfied in their own minds that they are talking very fine, and exciting no feeling in their hearers but admiration and respect; but in reality they are always scouted and ridiculed, even to the degree of being honoured with a nickname, carved, perhaps, out of the favourite phrase.

A really good and philosophical spirit will neither plume himself upon his more fortunate, nor despise his less fortunate, relations. He will modestly rejoice in the success of the former, and take care, by avoiding the appearance of intrusiveness on the one hand, and splenetic and pettish jealousy on the other, to afford no reason for the fortunate individual to feel incommoded by the connection, and, consequently, to endeavour to shake it off. To those who are less fortunate than himself, he will be as encouraging and kind as his circumstances render prudent or decent, neither manifesting that vulgar pride which tries needlessly to make a kind of virtue out of a low origin, nor that still more pitiable vanity which denies all inferior kindred, and seeks, at the expense of real dignity, the eclat of a few “great friends.” We allow there is a general difficulty in the case. Friends in different worldly circumstances are like positive and negative clouds in electricity: there is a constant tendency in the poor to an equalization, which is not relished by the parties whose pockets are charged positively. But human nature should be always contending with its weaknesses, and, though full confiding friendship is not perhaps to be expected, there may still be a sufficient interchange of kindness to lighten, in no small degree, the general burden of life.

THE STRANGERS’ NOOK.

In country churchyards in Scotland, and perhaps in other countries also, there is always a corner near the gateway, which is devoted to the reception of strangers, and is distinguished from the rest of the area by its total want of monuments. When you inquire of the passing peasant respecting this part of the burial-ground, he tells you that it is the corner for strangers, but never, of course, thinks that there is or can be any sentiment in the matter. To me, I must confess, this spot is always more interesting than any other, on account of the more extended scope which it gives to those feelings with which one surveys a churchyard. As you wander over the rest of the ground, you see humble memorials of humbler worth, mixed perhaps with the monuments of rank and wealth. But these tell always a definite tale. It is either the lord or the tenant of some of the neighbouring fields, or a trading burgher, or perhaps a clergyman; and there is an end of it. These men performed their parts on earth, like the generality of their fellows, and, after figuring for a space on the limited arena of the parish or the district, were here gathered to their fathers. But the graves of the strangers! what tales are told by every undistinguished heap—what eloquence in this utter absence of epitaphs!

There can be no doubt that the individuals who rest in this nook belonged, with hardly the possibility of an exception, to the humbler orders of the community. But who will say that the final sufferings and death of any individual whatsoever are without their pathos? To me, who have never been able to despise any fellow-creature upon general considerations, the silent expressive stories related by these little heaps, possess an interest above all real eloquence. Here, we may suppose, rests the weary old man, to whom, after many bitter shifts, all bitterly disappointed, wandering and mendicancy had become a last trade. His snow-white head, which had suffered the inclemency of many winters, was here at last laid low for ever. Here also the homeless youth, who had trusted himself to the wide world in search of fortune, was arrested in his wanderings; and, whether his heart was as light and buoyant as his purse, or weighed down with many privations and disappointments, the end was the same—only in the one case a blight, in the other a bliss. The prodigal, who had wandered far, and fared still worse and worse, at length returning, was here cut short in his better purpose, far from those friends to whom he looked forward as a consolation for all his wretchedness. Perhaps, when stretched in mortal sickness in a homely lodging in the neighbouring village, where, though kindness was rendered, it was still the kindness of strangers, his mind wandered in repentant fondness to that mother whom he had parted with in scorn, but for whose hand to present his cup, and whose eye to melt him with its tenderness, he would now gladly give the miserable remains of his life. Perhaps he thought of a brother, also parted with in rage and distrust, but who, in their early years, had played with him, a fond and innocent child, over the summer leas, and to whom that recollection forgave every thing. No one of these friends to soothe the last moments of his wayward and unhappy life—scarcely even to hear of his death when it had taken place. Far from every remembered scene, every remembered face, he was doomed here to take his place amidst the noteless dead, and be as if he had never been. Perhaps one of these graves contains the shipwrecked mariner, hither transferred from the neighbouring beach. A cry was heard by night through the storm which dashed the waves upon the rocky coast; deliverance was impossible; and next morning, the only memorial of what had taken place was the lifeless body of a sailor stretched on the sand. No trace of name or kin, not even the name of the vessel, was learned; but, no doubt, as the villagers would remark in conveying him to the Strangers’ Nook, he left _some_ heart to pine for his absence, _some_ eyes to mourn for him, if his loss should ever be ascertained. There are few so desolate on earth as not to have one friend or associate. There must either be a wife to be widowed, or a child to be made an orphan, or a mother to suffer her own not less grievous bereavement. Perhaps the sole beloved object of some humble domestic circle, whose incomings and outgoings were ever pleasant, is here laid low, while neither can the bereaved learn aught of the fate and final resting-place of their favourite, nor can those who kindly, but without mourning, performed his last offices, reach their ears with the intelligence, grateful even in its pain, of what had been done to his remains; here the energies which had battled with the waves in their hour of night, and the despair whose expression had been wasted upon the black tempest, are all stilled into rest, and forgotten. The storm is done; its work has been accomplished; and here lies the strange mariner, where no storms shall ever again trouble him.

Such are the imaginings which may arise in contemplating that neglected nook in our churchyards which is devoted to the reception of strangers. The other dead have all been laid down in their final beds by long trains of sorrowing friends. They rest in death in the midst of those beloved scenes which their infancy knew, and which were associated with every happiness, every triumph, every sorrow, which befel them. The burns in which they had “paidlet” when they were children, run still in their shining beauty all around and about their last resting-place; the braes over which they wandered hand in hand, “to pu’ the gowans fine,” still look down in all their summer pride upon the fold into which they have at last been gathered for eternity. But the homeless strangers! _they_ died far from every endeared scene. The rills were not here like those which _they_ had known; the hills were different too. Instead of the circle of friends, whose anticipated grief tends so much to smooth the last bed of suffering man, the pillow of the homeless was arranged by strangers: they were carried to the burial-ground, not by a train of real mourners, anxious to express their respect and affection for the departed, but by a few individuals, who, in so doing, complimented human nature in general, but not the individual. To the other graves there was also some one to resort afterwards, to lament the departure of those who lay below. The spot was always cherished and marked by at least one generation of kind ones; and, whether distinguished by a monument or not, it was always a greater or less space of time before the memory of the deceased entirely perished from its place. Still, as each holy day came round, and the living flocked to the house of prayer, there was always some one to send a kind eye aside towards that little mound, and be for a moment moved with a pensive feeling, as the heart recalled a departed parent, or child, or friend. But the graves of the strangers! all regard was shut out from them as soon as they were closed. The decent few who had affected mourning over them had no sooner turned away than they were at once forgotten. That ceremony over, their kind had done with them for ever. And so, there they lie, distinguished from the rest only by the melancholy mark that they are themselves undistinguished from each other; no eye to weep over them now or hereafter, and no regard whatsoever to be paid to them till they stand forth, with their fellow-men, at the Great and Final Day.

NOBODY TO BE DESPISED—

Except on particular grounds of demerit. This is a maxim which it would be well if the world would pay more attention to.

There are many people—very good people, too—who have a habit of speaking contemptuously or lightly of almost every body but themselves. There are still more who do not seem to consider it necessary to treat the absent with the least respect, but, to use the words of a modern writer, are remarkably candid in owning and showing up the faults of their neighbours.

These, I think, are detestable practices of human nature—the issue of its weakness rather than its strength.

When I think of a great and good character, I cannot conceive that he has a habit of depreciating the respect due to his absent friends, or of treating any of his fellow-creatures with scorn, unless for some specific delinquency. Such a person will be already too secure of his own reputation to seek to raise it at the expense of others. He will be able to take an enlarged view of human society, and, seeing that the condition of all men is in a great measure accidental, or at least moulded greatly by circumstances, will not despise any man on account of his mere place in the general system, but, on the contrary, give him respect in proportion to his good conduct in that place, whatever it may be. Such a man, also, will have too much respect for himself, to use language at any time which he would be ashamed to own at another time. He would not indulge in a tone of levity or rancour respecting any man, on whose entrance accidentally into the room he would have to alter his style, and hypocritically offer him the usual courtesies of society.

It happens, however, that all men are more or less remote from the greatness and goodness of this ideal character. We are, as yet, only in a state of comparative approximation to those qualities; hence we find that nearly all are alike given to speak slightingly of each other. There are two grand causes at the bottom of this—Selfishness and Thoughtlessness. The former gives us such an intense appreciation of ourselves, and of the rank we hold in society, that we speak and think as if every man and every class beneath us were too mean to be entitled to the least respect; we look upon the whole as a degraded caste, whose very existence must only be acknowledged indirectly, as a thing we have become acquainted with by seeing it at a distance, not by having ever come in contact with it. In this view of society our ordinary literature is very apt to confirm us. The key-note is there struck always in _alt._ The whole strain of the work, its characters, its philosophy, its manners, are presumed to be something above the common level; for literary men are still, after all, very much the slaves of the great which they used to be. If the writer describes humble life at all, he describes it as seen by a bird’s-eye view from some lofty station—not as seen by a person who mingles in it, and partakes of its sympathies. Even the middle ranks of the community, who in this country form the great mass of readers, and from which, moreover, almost all literary men arise, have no literature of their own: they have to read a literature which has been calculated for the sphere above them, and in which, of course, their sympathies must be of an imperfect character. And thus, after all that has been done, it still appears a desideratum that there should be both a literature and a philosophy _for the human race_.