Chapter V: Part 5

"Did he? Well, that's polite, any how--invite a gentleman to dine with him, and then meet him with such language as that. The infernal 'blue nose,' I'll pull it, I'll tweak it until he'll roar like a calf!" and off went "the gentleman," hot as No. 6.

"I belave he's not in, zur," says the same servant, answering another inquiry for John Thomas, or Thomas Johns, the carriage driver was not certain which.

"Oh, ho!" says the servant, "it's a ride ould John's going fur to take till himself, and didn't want any callers." Reaching John's door, he began his tattoo.

"Be hang'd to ye, what'r ye at now?" growls John, partly up and dressed.

"The carriage is here, zur."

"What carriage is that?" growls John, continuing his toilet.

"I don't know, zur; I'll go down and sae the _number_, if ye plaze."

"Thunder and tommy! What do I care for the number? Go tell the carriage----"

"To go to the divil, zur?" says the servant, in anticipation of the command.

"No, you bog-trotter, go tell the carriage to wait."

The servant went down, and John continued his toilet, muttering--

"Ah, some of their _haccommodations_, I expect; these American landlords, as they style 'em in these infernal wild woods 'ere, do manage to give a body tolerable sort of haccommodations; ha, but they'll take care to look hout for the dollars. I don't know, tho', these fellers 'ere appear tolerably clever; want me to ride hout, I suppose, and see some of their Yankee lions. Haw! haw! _Lions!_ I wonder what they'd say hif they saw Lun'un, and looked at St. Paul's once!"

Getting through his toilet--and it takes an Englishman as long to fix his stiff cravat and that _stiffer_ and stauncher shirt-collar, and rub his hat, than a Frenchman to rig out _tout ensemble_, to say nothing of the gallons of water and dozens of towels he uses up in the operation--John found the carriage waiting; he asked no questions, but jumped in.

"Isn't there some others beside yourself going out, sir?" says the driver, supposing he had the right man, or one of them.

"No; drive off--where are you going to drive me?"

"Mount Auburn, sir, the carriage was ordered for."

"Humph! Some of the _battle-grounds_, I suppose," John grunts to himself, falls into a fit of English doggedness, and the coach drives off.

Thomas Johns made little or no noise or confusion in the house, consequently he was not known to the servants, and very little known to the clerks. John Thomas was another person--he was all fuss and feathers. He kept his bell ringing, and the servants rushing for towels and water, water and towels, boots and beer, beer and boots, the English papers, maps of America, &c., without cessation. He was John Thomas and Thomas Johns, one and indivisible.

John got his ride, and returned to the hotel sulkier than ever; and by the time he got unrobed of his pea-jackets and huge shawls about his burly neck, he was telegraphed by a servant to come down; there was a gentleman below on business with him. John foreswore business, but the gentleman must see him, and up he came for that purpose. His unmistakable _mug_ told he was "an officer."

"I've a bill against you, sir, $368,20. Must be paid immediately!" said the presenter, peremptorily.

John was thunderstruck.

"Me, and be hanged to ye!" says John, getting his breath.

"Yes, sir, for goods packed at Smith & Brown's, for Nova Scotia. The bill was to be paid this morning, as you agreed, but you told the clerk to go to the d--l! Won't do, that sort of work, here. Pay the bill, or you must go with me!"

John, when he found himself in custody, swore it was some infernal Yankee scheme to gouge him, and he started for the clerk's office, below, to have some explanation. As John and the officer reached the rotunda, a gentleman steps up behind John, and gives his nose a first-rate _lug_. They clinched, the bystanders and servants interposed, and John and his assailant were parted, and by this time the nose puller discovered he had the wrong man by the nose!

"Is your name Thomas Johns?" says the nose puller.

"Blast you, no!"

"Who pays this bill for the carriage, if your name ain't Johns?" says a man with a bill for the carriage hire.

"I allers heard as ow you Yan-gees were inquisitive, and sharp after the dollars, and I'm 'anged if you ain't awful. My name's John Thomas, from Lun'un, bound back again in the next steamer. Now who's got any thing against _me_?"

Thomas Johns came in at this climax, an explanation ensued, John was relieved of his embarrassment, and all were finally satisfied, except John Thomas, who, venting a few bottles of his spleen on every body and all things--Americans especially--took to his bed and beer, and snorted for a week.

The Yankee in a Boarding School.

"Well, squire, as I wer' tellin' on ye, when I went around pedlin' notions, I met many queer folks; some on 'em so darn'd preoud and sassy, they wouldn't let a feller look at 'em; a-n-d 'd shut their doors and gates, _bang_ into a feller's face, jest as ef a Yankee pedler was a pizen sarpint! Then there waa-s t'other kind o' human critters, so pesky poor, or 'nation stingy, they'd pinch a fourpence till it'd squeal like a stuck pig. Ye-e-s, I do _swow_, I've met some critters so dog-ratted mean, that ef you had sot a steel trap onder their beds, a-n-d baited it with three cents, yeou'd a cotch ther con-feoun-ded souls afore mornin'!"

"Massy sakes!" responded the squire.

"Fact! by ginger!" echoed the ex-pedler.

"Well, go on, Ab," said the squire, giving his pipe another 'charge,' and lighting up for the yarn Absalom Slamm had promised the gals, soon as the quilt was out and refreshments were handed around.

"Go on, Ab--let's hear abeout that scrape yeou had with the school marm and her gals."

"Wall, I _will_, squire; gals, spread yeourselves areound and squat; take care o' yeour corset strings, and keep deth-ly still. Wall; neow, yeou all sot? Hain't none o' ye been in the pedlin' business, I guess; wall, no matter, tho' it's dread-ful pleasant sometimes: then again at others, 'taint."

"Go on, Ab, go on," said the squire.

"Ye-e-s; wall, as I was saying, 'beout tradin', none o' yeou ever been in the tradin' way? Wall, it deon't matter a cent; as I was agoin' to say, I had hard, hard luck one season--got clean busted all tew smash! O-o-o! it was _dre-a-a-dful times_; jest abeout the time Gineral Jackson clapped his _we-toe_ on the hull o' the banks, kersock. Wall, yeou see, I got broke all tew flinders. My ole hoss died, the sun and rain beat up my wagon, I sold eout my notions tew a feller that paid me all in ceounter-fit money, and then he dug eout, as Parson Dodge says, to undiskivered kedn'try.

"There was only one way abeout it; I was beound to dew somethin', instead o' goin' to set deown and blubber; and as I layed stretched eout in bed one Sunday morning, in Marm Smith's tavern, in the cockloft among the old stuff, I spies a darn'd ole consarn that took my fancy immazin'! As Deb Brown said, when she 'sperienced rele-gen, I felt my sperrets raisin' me clean eout o' bed, and eout I beounced, like a pea in a hot skillet. Deown I goes to Marm Smith; the ole lady was dressed up to death in her Sunday-go-to-meetin's, and jest as preoud and sassy as her darn'd ole skin ceould heould in.

"'Marm Smith,' sez I, 'yeou hain't got no ole stuff yeou deon't want tew sell nor nuthin', dew ye?'

"'_Ab Slamm_,' sez she, plantin' her thumbs on her hip joints, and as the milishey officer ses on trainin' day, comin' at me, 'right face,' she spread herself like a clapboard. 'Ab Slamm,' sez she, 'what on airth possesses yeou to talk o' tradin' on the Sabbath?'

"'Wall,' sez I, 'Marm Smith, yeou needn't take on so 'beout it; I guess a feller kin ax a question witheout tradin' or breakin' the Sabbath all tew smash, either! Neow,' says I, 'yeou got some ole plunder up ther in the cockloft, where yeou stuck me to sleep; 'tain't much use to yeou, and one article I see I want to trade fur.'

"Wall, we didn't trade _'zactly_. Marm Smith, yeou see, got dre-e-e-adful relejus 'beout that time--wouldn't let her gals draw ther breth scacely, and shot her roosters all up in the cellar every Sunday. Fact, by ginger! Wall, yeou see, Marm Smith were agin tradin' on Sunday, but she sed I might arrange it with Ben, her barkeeper, and so I got the instrument, _any heow_."

"What was it, Ab?" inquired the squire.

"Massy sakes, tell us!" says the gals.

"I sha'n't dew it, till I tell the hull abeout it," Ab replied, rather choosing, like Captain Cuttle, to break the gist of his information into small chunks, and so make it the more _telling_ and comparatively interesting.

"When I got the _instrument_, and paid Marm Smith my board bill, I wer in possession of a cash capital of jest three fo'pences. I took my jack-knife, and unjinted the instrument, cleaned it off, then wrapped the different sections up in a paper, put the hull in my little yaller trunk, and dug eout. When I got clean eout o' sight and hearin' of everybody I'd ever hear'n tell on, I stopped r-i-g-h-t in my track. My cash capital wer gone, my mortal remains were holler as a flute, and my old trunk had worn a hole clean through the shoulder o' my best Sunday coat. I put up, and sez I tew the landlord:

"'Squire, what sort o' place is this for a sheow?'

"'For a sh-e-ow?' sez he.

"'Ye-e-e-s,' sez I.

"'What a' yeou got to sh-e-o-w?' sez he.

"'The most wonderful instrument ever inwent-'d,' sez I.

"'What's 't fur?' sez he.

"'For the wimen,' sez I.

"'O! sez he, lookin' alfired peart and smeart, as tho' he'd seen a flock o' l'fants; 'quack doctor, I s'pose, eh?'

"'No, I ben't a quack doctor, nuther,' sez I, priming up at the insin-i-wa-tion.

"'Wall, what on airth hev yeou got, _any heow_?' sez he.

"When he 'poligized in that sort o' way, in course I up and told him the full perticklers 'beout a wonderful _instrument_ I had for the ladies and wimen folks. A-n-d heow I wanted to sheow it before some o' the female sim-i-nar-ries, and give a lectoor on't.

"'By bunker!' sez he, 'then yeou've cum jest teou the spot; three miles up the road is the great _Jargon Institoot_, 'spressly for young ladies, wher they teach 'em the 'rethmetic, French scollopin', and High-tall-ion curlycues; dancin', tight-lacin', hair-dressin', and so forth, with the use of curlin' irons, forty pinanners, and parfumeries chuck'd in.'

"'Yeou deon't _say_ so?' sez I.

"'Yes, I doos,' sez he; and then yeou had orter seen me make streaks fur the Jargon Institoot.

"I feound the place, knocked on the door, and a feller all starch'd up, lookin' cruel nice, kem and opened the door. I axed if the marm were in. Then he wanted tew kneow which of 'em I wanted tew see. 'The head marm of the Institoot,' sez I. 'Please to give me yeour keard,' sez he. 'You be darn'd,' sez I; 'I'd have yeou know, mister,' sez I, 'I don't deal in _keards_--never did, nuther!'

"The feller show'd a heap o' ivory, and brought deown the head marm. It weould a' dun Marm Smith's ole heart good to seen this dre-e-a-d-ful pius critter. She looked mighty nice, a-n-d she scolloped reound, and beow'd and cut an orful quantity o' capers, when I ondid my business to her. I went on and told her heow in course o' travel--

"'In furrin pearts?' sez she.

"'Yes,' sez I--'I kim across a great instrument,' sez I. 'It was well known to the wimen and ladies o' the past gin-i-rations,' sez I.

"'The an-shants?' sez she.

"'Yes, marm,' sez I. Then she axed me wether it wer a wind instrer-ment or a stringed instrer-ment. A-n-d I told her it wer a stringed instrer-ment, but went on the hurdy-gurdy pren-cipl', with a crank or treddle. But what I moost dwelt on, as the ox-ion-eer sez, were the great combinations of the instrer-ment, a-n-d I piled it up dre-e-e-adful! I told the marm I wanted to git the thing patented, and put before the people--the wimen and ladies in per-tick'ler--so that every gal in the univarsal world could play upon it--exercise her hands, strengthen her arms and chist, give her form a nater-al de-welop-ment, and so make the hull grist o' wimen critters useful, as well as or-namental, as my instrer-ment was a useful necessity; for while it lent grace and beauty to the female form, and gin forth fust rate music, it was par-fect-ly scriptooral; it ceould be made to clothe the naked and feed the hon-gry. My il-o-quince had the marm. She 'greed to buy one of my machines _straight_ fur use of her _Institoot_--each school-gal to 'put in' by next day, when I wer to bring the instrer-ment, get my $40, and deliver a lectoor on it. Next mornin', bright and early, I wer there; the _puss_ wer made up, and the gals nigh abeout bilin' over with curiosity to see my wonderful _hand-limberer, arm-strengthener, chist-expander, female-beautifier, and univarsal musical machine!_ When they all got assembled, I ondid the machine; they wer still as death! When I sot it up, they wer breathless with wonderment; when I started it, they gin a gineral screech of delight. Then I sot deown and played 'em _old hund'erd_, and every gal in the room vowed right eout she'd have one made _straight!_ O-o-o! yeou'd a died to seen the excitement that instrer-ment made in Jargon Institoot. The head marm wanted my ortergraff, and each o' the gals a lock o' my hair. But just then, a confeounded ole woolly-headed Virginny nigger wench, cook o' the Jargon Institoot, kem in, and the moment she clapped her ole eyes on my inwention, she roared reight eout, 'O! de _Lud_, ef dar ain't one de ole Virginny _spinnin' wheels!_' I kinder had bus'ness somewheres else 'beout that time! I took with a leaving!"

A Dreadful State of Excitement.

A retrospective view of some ten or fifteen years, brings up a wonderful "heap of notions," which at their birth made quite a different sensation from that which their "bare remembrance" would seem to sanction now. The statement made in a "morning paper" before us, of a fine horse being actually scared stone and instantaneously dead, by a roaring and hissing locomotive, brings to mind "a circumstance," which though it did not exactly _do our knitting_, it came precious near the climax!

Some years ago, upon what was then considered the "frontier" of Missouri, we chanced to be laid up with a "game leg," in consequence of a performance of a bullet-headed mule that we were endeavoring to coerce at the end of a corn stalk, for his "intervention" in a fodder stack to which he could lay no legitimate claim. About two miles from our "lodgings" was a store, a "grocery," shotecary pop, boots, hats, gridirons, whiskey, powder and shot, &c., &c., and the post office. About three times a week, we used to hobble down to this modern ark, to read the news, see what was going on down in the world, and--pass a few hours with the proprietor of the store, who chanced to be a man with whom we had had a former acquaintance "in other climes." Well, one day, we dropped down to the store, and found pretty much all the men folks--and they were not numerous around there, the houses or cabins being rather scattering--getting ready to go down the river (Missouri) some ten miles, to see a notorious desperado "stretch hemp." My friend Captain V----, the storekeeper, was about to go along too, and proposed that we should mount and accompany him, or--stay and tend store. We accepted the latter proposition, as we were in no travelling kelter, and had no taste for performances on the tight rope. Having officiated for Captain V---- on several former occasions, we had the run of his "grocery" and _postal_ arrangements quite fluent enough to take charge of all the trade likely to turn up that day; so the captain and his friends started, promising a return before sunset.

One individual, living some seven miles up the road, called for his newspaper, and got his jug filled, spent a couple of hours with us--put out, and was succeeded by two squalid Indians, with some skins to trade for corn juice and tobacco; they cleared out, and about two or three P. M., some _movers_ came along; we had a little dicker with them, and that closed up the business accounts of the day.

Having discussed all the availables, from the contents of the post office--seven newspapers and four letters per quarter!--to the crackers and cheese, and business being essentially stagnated, we ups and lies down upon the top of the counter, to take a nap. Captain V----'s store was a log building, about 15 by 30, and stood near the edge of the woods, and at least half a mile from any habitation, except the schoolhouse and blacksmith's shop, two small huts, and at that time--"in coventry." Captain V---- was a bachelor; he boarded--that is, he took his meals at the nearest house--half a mile back from the wood, and slept in his store. We soon fell into the soft soothing arms of Morpheus, and--slept. It was fine mild weather--September, and, of course, the door was wide open. How long we slept we were not at all conscious, but were aroused by a heavy hand that gave us a hearty shake by the shoulder, and in a rather sepulchral voice says--

"How are you?"

Gods! we were up quick, for our sleep had been visited by dreams of southwest tragedies, hanging scrapes, and other nightmare affairs, and as we opened our eyes and caught a glimpse of the double-fisted, cadaverous fellow standing over us, a strong inclination to go off into a cold sweat seized us! Lo! it was after sunset! Almost dark in the store, the stars had already began to twinkle in the sky.

Captain V---- did a considerable trade at his store, and at times had considerable sums of money laying around. Upon leaving in the morning, he notified us, in case we should require _change_, to look into the desk, where he kept a shot bag of silver coin, and--his pistols.

"How are you?" the words and manner and looks of the man gave us a cold chill.

"How do you do?" we managed to respond, at the same time sliding down behind the counter. The stranger had a heavy walking stick in his hand, and a knapsack looking bundle swung to his shoulder. He looked like the rough remnants of an ill-spent life; had evidently travelled somewhere where barbers, washer-women and such like civilian delicacies, were more matters of tradition than fact.

"Been asleep, eh?" he carelessly continued.

"It appears so," said we, feeling no better or more satisfactory in our mind, and no reason to, for night was now closing in, and we were going through our performances by the slight illumination of the stars, without any positive certainty as to where the Captain kept his tinder box and candle, that we might furnish some sort of light upon the lugubrious state of affairs.

"Do you keep this store?"

"No, we do not," we answered, watching the man as he put his bundle down upon the counter.

"Who does?" was the next question.

"The gentleman who keeps it," we replied, "is away to-day."

"Ah, gone to see a poor human being put out of the world, eh?"

We said "yes," or something of the kind, and thought to ourself, no doubt you know all that's going on of that sort of business like a book, and a host of other ideas flashed across our mind, while all the evil deeds of note transacted in that region for the past ten years, seemed awakened in our mind's eye, working up our nervous system, until the coon skin cap upon our excited head stood upon about fifteen hairs, with the strange and overwhelming impression that our time had come! We would have given the State of Missouri--if it were in our possession, to have heard Captain V----'s voice, or even have had a fair chance to dash out at the door, and give the fellow before us a specimen of tall walking--lame as we were!

"Ain't you got a _light_? I'd think you'd be a little timid (a _little_ timid!) about laying around here, alone, in the dark, too?" said the fellow, sticking one hand into his coat pocket, and gazing sharply around the store. Mock heroically says we--

"Afraid? Afraid of what?" our valor, like Bob Acres', oozing out at our fingers.

"These outlaws you've got around here," said he. "They say the man they hanged to-day was a decent fellow to what some are, who prowl around in this country!"

We very modestly said, "that such fellows never bothered us."

"Do you sleep in this store--live here?"

"No, sir, we don't," was our answer.

"Where do you lodge and get your eating?"

"First house up the road."

"How far is it?" says he.

"Half a mile or less."

"Well, close up your shop, and come along with me!" says the fellow.

Now we were coming to the _tableaux!_ He wanted us to step outside in order that the business could be done for us, with more haste and certainty, and we really felt as good as assassinated and hid in the bushes! It was quite astonishing how our visual organs intensified! We could see every wrinkle and line in the fellow's face, could almost count the stitches in his coat, and the more we looked, and the keener and more searching became our observation, the more atrocious and subtle became the fellow and his purpose. With a firmness that astonished ourself, we said--

"_No, Sir_; if _you_ have business there or elsewhere, you had better _go!_" and with this determined speech, we walked up to the desk, and with the air of a "man of business" or the nonchalance of a hero, says we--

"What are you after--have you any business with _us_?"

"You're kind of crusty, Mister," says he. "I'm canvassing this State,--_wouldn't you like to subscribe for a first-rate map of Missouri_, OR A NEW EDITION OF JOSEPHUS?"

We felt too mean all over to "subscribe," but we found a light, and soon found in the stranger one of the best sort of fellows, a man of information and morality, and, though he had _looked_ dangerous, he turned out harmless as a lamb, and we got intimate as brothers before Captain V---- returned that night.

Ralph Waldo Emerson.

Of all the public lecturers of our time and place, none have attracted more attention from the press, and consequently the people, than RALPH WALDO EMERSON.

Lecturing has become quite a fashionable science--and now, instead of using the old style phrases for illustrating facts, we call travelling preachers perambulating showmen, and floating politicians, _lecturers_.

As a lecturer, Ralph Waldo Emerson is extensively known around these parts; but whether his lectures come under the head of law, logic, politics, Scripture, or the show business, is a matter of much speculation; for our own part, the more we read or hear of Ralph, the more we don't know what it's all about.

Somebody has said, that to his singularity of style or expression, Carlyle and his works owe their great notoriety or fame--and many compare Ralph Waldo to old Carlyle. They cannot trace exactly any great affinity between these two great geniuses of the flash literary school. Carlyle writes vigorously, quaintly enough, but almost always speaks when he says something; on the contrary, our flighty friend Ralph speaks vigorously, yet says nothing! Of all men that have ever stood and delivered in presence of "a reporter," none surely ever led these indefatigable knights of the pen such a wild-goose chase over the verdant and flowery pastures of King's English, as Ralph Waldo Emerson. In ordinary cases, a reporter well versed in his art, catches a sentence of a speaker, and goes on to fill it out upon the most correct impression of what was intended, or what is implied. But no such license follows the outpourings of Mr. Emerson; no thought can fathom his intentions, and quite as bottomless are even his finished sentences. We have known "old stagers," in the newspaporial line, veteran reporters, so dumbfounded and confounded by the first fire of Ralph, and his grand and lofty acrobating in elocution, that they up, seized their hat and paper, and sloped, horrified at the prospect of an attempt to "take down" Mr. Emerson.

If Roaring Ralph touches a homely mullen weed, on a donkey heath, straightway he makes it a full-blown rose, in the land of Ophir, shedding an odor balmy as the gales of Arabia; while with a facility the wonderful London auctioneer Robbins might envy, Ralph imparts to a lime-box, or pig-sty, a negro hovel, or an Irish shanty, all the romance, artistic elegance and finish of a first-class manor-house, or Swiss cottage, inlaid with alabaster and fresco, surrounded by elfin bowers, grand walks, bee hives, and honeysuckles.

Ralph don't group his metaphorical beauties, or dainties of Webster, Walker, &c., but rushes them out in torrents--rattles them down in cataracts and avalanches--bewildering, astounding, and incomprehensible. He hits you upon the left lug of your knowledge box with a metaphor so unwieldy and original, that your breath is soon gone--and before it is recovered, he gives you another _rhapsody_ on t'other side, and as you try to steady yourself, _bim_ comes another, heavier than the first two, while a fourth batch of this sort of elocution fetches you a bang over the eyes, giving you a vertigo in the ribs of your bewildered senses, and before you can say "God bless us!" down he has you--_cobim!_ with a deluge of high-heeled grammar and three-storied Anglo Saxon, settling your hash, and brings you to the ground by the run, as though you were struck by lightning, or in the way of a 36-pounder! Ralph Waldo is death and an entire _stud_ of pale horses on flowery expressions and japonica-domish flubdubs. He revels in all those knock-kneed, antique, or crooked and twisted words we used all of us to puzzle our brains over in the days of our youth, and grammar lessons and rhetoric exercises. He has a penchant as strong as cheap boarding-house butter, for mystification, and a free delivery of hard words, perfectly and unequivocally wonderful. We listened one long hour by the clock of Rumford Hall, one night, to an outpouring of _argumentum ad hominem_ of Mr. Emerson's--at what? A boy under an apple tree! If ten persons out of the five hundred present were put upon their oaths, they could no more have deciphered, or translated Mr. Ralph's argumentation, than they could the hieroglyphics upon the walls of Thebes, or the sarcophagus of old King Pharaoh! When Ralph Waldo opens, he may be as calm as a May morn--he may talk for five minutes, like a book--we mean a common-sensed, understandable book; but all of a sudden the fluid will strike him--up he goes--down he fetches them. He throws a double somerset backwards over Asia Minor--flip-flaps in Greece--wings Turkey--and _skeets_ over Iceland; here he slips up with a flower garden--a torrent of gilt-edged metaphors, that would last a country parson's moderate demand a long lifetime, are whirled with the fury and fleetness of Jove's thunderbolts. After exhausting his sweet-scented receiver of this floral elocution, he pauses four seconds; pointing to vacuum, over the heads of his audience, he asks, in an anxious tone, "Do you see that?" Of course the audience are not expected to be so unmannerly as to ask "What?" If they were, Ralph would not give them time to "go in," for after asking them if they see _that_, he continues--

"There! Mark! Note! It is a malaria prism! Now, then; here--there; see it! Note it! Watch it!"

During this time, half of the audience, especially the old women and the children, look around, fearful of the ceiling falling in, or big bugs lighting on them. But the pause is for a moment, and anxiety ceases when they learn it was only a false alarm, only--

"Egotism! The lame, the pestiferous exhalation or concrete malformation of society!"

You breathe freer, and Ralph goes in, gloves on.

"Egotism! A metaphysical, calcareous, oleraceous amentum of--society! The mental varioloid of this sublunary hemisphere! One of its worst feelings or features is, the craving of sympathy. It even loves sickness, because actual pain engenders signs of sympathy. All cultivated men are infected more or less with this dropsy. But they are still the leaders. The life of a few men is the life of every place. In Boston you hear and see a few, so in New York; then you may as well die. Life is very narrow. Bring a few men together, and under the spell of one calm genius, what frank, sad confessions will be made! Culture is the suggestion from a few best thoughts that a man should not be a charlatan, but temper and subdue life. Culture redresses his balance, and puts him among his equals. It is a poor compliment always to talk with a man upon his _specialty_, as if he were a cheese-mite, and was therefore strong on Cheshire and Stilton. Culture takes the grocer out of his molasses and makes him genial. We pay a heavy price for those fancy goods, Fine Arts and Philosophy. No performance is worth loss of geniality. That unhappy man called of genius, is an unfortunate man. Nature always carries her point despite the means!"

If that don't convince you of Ralph's high-heeled, knock-kneed logic, or _au fait_ dexterity in concocting flap-doodle mixtures, you're ahead of ordinary intellect as far as this famed lecturer is in advance of gin and bitters, or opium discourses on--delirium tremens!

In short, Ralph Waldo Emerson can wrap up a subject in more mystery and science of language than ever a defunct Egyptian received at the hands of the mummy manufacturers! In person, Mr. Ralph is rather a pleasing sort of man; in manners frank and agreeable; about forty years of age, and a native of Massachusetts. As a lawyer, he would have been the horror of jurors and judges; as a lecturer, he is, as near as possible, what we have described him.

Humbug.

There is no end to the humbug in life. About half we say, and more than half we do, is tinged with humbug. "My Dear Sir," we say, when we address a letter to a fellow we have never seen, and if seen, perhaps don't care a continental cent for him; _dear_ sir! what a humbug expression! "Good morning," (what a lie!) says one, as he meets another _one_, on a stormy and nasty day, "quite a disagreeable wet day!" What's the use of such a humbug expression as that? If it's a disagreeable and stormy day, every body finds it out, naturally. Full half of the people who appear solicitous about your _health_, display a gratuitous amount of humbug, for your pocket-book is more beloved than your health; and we have often wondered why matter-of-fact people don't out with it, when they meet, and say--"How's your pocket to-day? Sorry to hear you're out of _money!_" Or, instead of soft soap, when they meet, why not discard humbug, and say, "Sorry to see you--was blackguarding you all day!" instead of "Glad to see you--have been _thinking_ of you to-day!" or, "I'm glad to see you've been elected Mayor of the city!" when in fact they mean, "Curse you, I wish you had been defeated!" Compliments _pass_, they say, when _gentlemen_ meet, but, as there are so many counterfeit gentry around, now-a-days, you may bet high that half the _compliments_ that _pass_ are--_mere bogus!_

Hotel Keeping.

Fortunes are made--very readily, it is said, in our large cities, by Hotel keeping. It does look money-making business to a great many people, who stop in a large hotel a day or two, and perhaps, after eating about two meals out of six--walking in quietly and walking out quietly--no fuss, no feathers, find themselves _taxed_ four or five dollars!

We have had occasion to know something of travel and travellers, hotels, hotel-keepers and their bills, and it _has_ now and then entered our head that money was or could be made--in the hotel business. We _have_ stopped in houses where we honestly concluded--we got our money's worth, and we have again had reason to believe ourselves grossly shaved, in a "first-class" hotel, at two dollars a day--all hurry-scurry, poked up in the cock-loft, mid bugs, dirt, heat and effluvia, very little better than a Dutch tavern in fly time.

We did not fail to observe at the same time, that cool impudence and clamor had a most mollifying effect upon landlord and his _attaches_, the tinsel and mere electrotypes passing for real bullion, galvanized _hums_ by their noise and pretensions faring fifty per cent. better for the same _price_--than the more republican, quiet and human wayfarer.

Under such auspices, it is not at all wonderful that ourself and scores of others, paying two dollars and a half per diem, got what we could catch, while Kossuth, and a score of his followers, fared and were favored like princes of a monarchical realm--"though all _dead heads!_"

Hotels now-a-days must be _showy_, abounding in tin foil, Dutch metal and gamboge, a thousand of the "modern improvements"--mere clap-trap, and as foreign to the solid comforts of solid people, as icebergs to Norwegians or "east winds" to the consumptive. Without the show, they would be quite deserted; men will pay for this _show_, must pay for it, and all this show costs money; Turkey carpets, life-size mirrors, ottomans and marble slabs, from dome to kitchen, _draw well_, and those who indulge in the dance, must pay the piper.

The fact is, most people understand these things about as well as we do, and it but remains for us to give a daguerreotype of a _few customers_ which landlords or their clerks and servants now and then meet. The conductor of one of our first-class houses, gives us such a truly piquant and matter-of-fact picture of _his_ experience, that we _up_ and copy it, believing, as we do, that the reader will see some information and amusement in the subject.

A fussy fellow takes it into his head that he will go on a little tour, he pockets a few dollars and a clean dickey or two, and--comes to town. He's no green horn--O! no, he ain't, he has been around some--he has, and knows a thing or two, and something over. He is dumped out of the cars with hundreds of others, in the great depots, and is assailed by vociferous _whips_ who, in quest of stray dimes, watch the incoming _trains_ and shout and bawl--

"Eh 'up! Tremont House!"

"Up--_a!_ American House--right away!"

"Ha! _up!_ Right off for the Revere!"

"Here's the coach--already for the United States!"

"Yee 'up! now we go, git in, best house in town, all ready for the Winthrop House!"

"Eh 'up, _ha!_ now we are off, for the Pavilion!"

"Exchange Coffee House--dollar a day, four meals, no extra charge--right along this way, sir!"

"Hoo-_ray_, this coach--take you right up, Exchange Hotel!"

"Jump in, tickets for your baggage, sir, take you up--right off, best house in town, hot supper waitin'--way for the Adams House!"

And so they yell and grab at you, and our fussy friend, having heard of the tall arrangements and great doings of the _American_, he hands himself over to the coachman, and with a load of others he is rolled over to that institution, in a jiffy. Our fussy friend is slightly "took down" at the idea of paying for the hauling up, having a notion that that was a part of the accommodation! However, he ain't a going to look small or verdant; so he pays the coachman, grabs his valise, and rushes into the long colonnaded office; and making his way to the _register_, slams down his baggage, and in a dignified, authoritative manner, says--

"A room!"

"Yes, sir," responds the Colonel, or some of the clerks--who may be officiating.

"Supper!" says Capt. Fussy, in the same tone of command.

"Certainly, sir--please register your name, sir!"

Captain Fussy off's gloves, seizes the pen, and down goes his autograph, Captain Fussy, Thumperstown, N. H.

"Now, I want a hot steak!" says he.

"You can have it, sir!" blandly replies the Colonel.

"Hot chocolate," continues Fussy.

"Certainly, sir!"

"Eggs, poached, and a--hot roll!"

"They'll be all ready, sir."

"How soon?"

"Five minutes, sir," says the Colonel, talking to a dozen at the same time.

"Ah, well--show me my room!" says Captain Fussy.

The bells are ringing--servants running to and fro, like witches in a whirlwind; fifty different calls--tastes--orders and fancies, are being served, but Capt. Fussy is attended to, a servant seizes his valise and a taper, and in the most winning way, cries--

"This way, sir, _right along!_" With a measured tread and the air of a man who knew what it was all about, the Captain follows the _garcon_ and mounts one flight of the broad stairs, and is about to ascend another, when it strikes him that he's not going up to the top of the house, nohow!

"Where are you going to take me to--up into the garret?"

"Oh! no, sir; your room's only 182; that's only on the third floor!"

"Third floor!" cries Capt. Fussy, "take _me_ up into the third story?"

"Plenty of gentlemen on the fifth and sixth floors, sir," says the servant, and he goes ahead, Capt. Fussy following, muttering--

"Pooty doin's this, taking a _gentleman_ up three of these cussed long stairs, to room 182! I'll see about this, I will; mus'n't come no gammon over me; I'm able to pay, and want the worth of my money!"

The third floor is reached, and after a brief meandering along the halls, 182 is arrived at, the door thrown open and Capt. Fussy is ushered in; his first effort is to find fault with the carpets, furniture, bedding or something, but as he had never probably seen such a general arrangement for ease, comfort and convenience--he caved in and merely gave a deep-toned--

"_Ah._ Got better rooms than this, ain't you?"

"There may be, sir, a few better rooms in the house, not many," said the servant.

"Well, you may go--but stop--how soon'll my supper be ready?"

"There'll be a supper set at eight, another at nine, sir."

"Ah, four minutes of eight," says Fussy, pulling out a "bull's eye" watch, with as much flourish as if it was a premium eighteen-_carat lever_. "Well, call me when you've got supper ready, do you hear?"

"Yes, sir; but you'll hear the gong."

"The gong--what's that? Ain't you got no bells?"

"The gong is used, sir, instead of bells," says the servant.

"_Ah_, well, clear out--but say, I want a fire in here."

"Yes, sir; I'll send up a fireman."

"A fireman? What do I want with _firemen_? Bring in some wood, and, stranger--start up--a hello! thunder and saw mills, what's all that racket about--house a-fire?"

"No, _sir!_" says the grinning servant--"the _gong_--supper's on the table!"

"_Ah_, very well; go ahead; where's the room?"

Conducted to the dining-room, Capt. Fussy's eyes stretch at the wholesale display of table-cloths, arm-chairs, "crockery" and cutlery, mirrors and white-aproned waiters. A seat is offered him, he dumps himself down, amazed but determined to look and act like one used to these affairs, from the hour of his birth!

"I ordered hot steak, poached eggs--hain't you got 'em?"

"Certainly, sir!" says the waiter, and the steak and eggs are at hand.

"Coffee or tea, sir?" another servant inquires.

"Coffee and tea! Humph, I ordered chocolate--hain't you got chocolate?"

"Oh, yes, sir; there it is."

"_Ah_, umph!" and Fussy gazes around and turns his nose slightly up, at the whole concern, waiters, guests, table, steak, eggs, chocolate, and--even the tempting hot rolls--before him.

Fussy calls for a glass of water, wants to know if there's fried oysters on the table; he finds there is not, and Fussy frowns and asks for a lobster salad, which the waiter informs him is never used at supper, in that hotel.

Eventually, Capt. Fussy being _crammed_, after an hour's diligent feeding, fuss and feathers, retires, asks all sorts of questions about people and places, at the _office_; what time trains start and steamers come, omnibuses here and stages there, all of which he is politely answered, of course, and he finally goes to his room, rings his bell every ten minutes, for an hour, and then--goes to bed; next day puts the servants and clerks over another course, and on the third day--calls for his bill, finds but few extras charged, hands over a _five_, puts on his gloves, seizes his valise, looks savagely dignified and stalks out, big as two military officers in regimentals!

"_Ah_," says Fussy, as he reaches the street, "_I_ put 'em through--_I guess I got the worth of my money!_"

We calculate he did!

"According to Gunter."

Old Gunter was going home t'other night with a very heavy "turkey on"--about a forty-four pounder. Gunter accused the pavements of being icy, and down he came--_kerchug!_ A "young lady" coming along, fidgetting and finiking, she made a very sudden and opposite _ricochet_, on seeing Gunter feeling the ground, and making abortive attempts to "riz." Gunter's gallantry was "up;" he knew his own weakness, and saw the difficulty with the "young lady;" so making a very determinate effort to get on his pins, Gunter elevated his head and then his voice, and says he: "My de-dea-dear ma'm, do-do-don't pu-pu-put yourself out of th-th-the way, on my account!" Tableaux--"young lady" quick-step, and Gunter playing all-fours in the _mud!_

Quartering upon Friends.

City-bred people have a pious horror of the country in winter, and no great regard for country visitors at any time, however much they may "let on" to the contrary.

In rushing hot weather, when the bricks and mortar, the stagnated, oven-like air of the crowded city threatens to bake, parboil, or give the "citizens" the yellow fever, then we are very apt to think of plain Aunt Polly, rough-hewed Uncle John, and the bullet-headed, uncombed, smock-frocked cousins, nephews, and nieces, at their rural homes, amid the fragrant meadows and umbrageous woods; the cool, silver streams and murmuring brooks of the glorious country. Then, the poetic sunbeams and moonshine of fancy bring to the eye and heart all or a part of the glories and beauties, uses and purposes in which God has invested the ruraldom.

Now, our country friends are mostly desirous, candidly so, to have their city friends come and see them--not merely pop visits, but bring your whole family, and stay a month! This they may do, and will do, and can afford it, as it is more convenient to one's pocket-book, on a farm, to _quarter_ a platoon of your friends than to perform the same operation in the city, where it is apt to give your purse the tick-dollar-owe in no time.

It was not long since, during the prevalence of a hot summer, that Mrs. Triangle one morning said to her stewing husband, who was in no wise troubled with a surplus of the circulating medium--

"Triangle, it's on-possible for us to keep the children well and quiet through this dreadful hot weather. We must go into the country. The Joneses and Pigwigginses and Macwackinses, and--and--everybody has gone out into the country, and we must go, too; why can't we?"

"Why can't we?" mechanically echoed Triangle, who just then was deeply absorbed in a problem as to whether or not, considering the prices of coal, potatoes, house-rents, leather, and "dry goods," he would fetch up in prison or the poor-house first! It was a momentous question, and to his wife's proposal of a fresh detail of domestic expense, Triangle responded--

"Why can't we?"

"Yes, that's what I'd like to know--why can't _we_?"

"We _can't_, Mrs. Triangle," decidedly answered her lord and master.

Now Mrs. T., being but a woman, very naturally went on to give Mr. T. a Caudle lecture half an hour long, winding up with one of those time-honored perquisites of the female sex--a good cry.

Poor Triangle put on his hat and marched down to his bake-oven of an "office," to plan business and smoke his cigar. Triangle came home to tea, and saw at a glance that something must be done. Mrs. Triangle was to be "compromised," or far hotter than even the hot, hot weather would be his domicile for the balance of the season. Triangle thought it over, as he nibbled his toast and sipped his hot Souchong.

"My dear," said he, pushing aside his cup, and tilting himself upon the "hind legs" of his chair--"business is very dull, the weather is intolerable, I know you and the children would be much benefitted by a trip into the country--why can't we go?"

"Why can't we?--that's what I'd like to know!" was the ready response of Mrs. T.

"Well, we can go. My friend Jingo has as fine a place in the country as ever was, anywhere; he has asked me again and again to come down in the summer, and bring all the family. Now we'll go; Jingo will be delighted to see us; and we'll have a good, pleasant time, I'll warrant."

Mrs. Triangle was delighted; soon all the clouds of her temper were dispersed, and like people "cut out for each other," Triangle and his wife sat and planned the details of the tour to Jingo Hill Farm. Frederic Antonio Gustavus was to be rigged out in new boots, hat, and breeches. Maria Evangeline Roxana Matilda was to be fitted out in Polka boots, gipsey bonnet, and Bloomer pantalettes, with an entire invoice of handkerchiefs, scarfs, ribbons, gloves, and hosiery for "mother," little Georgiana Victorine Rosa Adelaide, and _the baby_, Henry Rinaldo Mercutio. After three days' onslaught upon poor Triangle's pockets, with any quantity of "fuss and feathers," Mrs. Triangle pronounced the caravan ready to move. But just as all was ready, Bridget Durfy, the maid-of-all-work, who was to accompany them on the expedition as supervisor of the children, threw up her engagement.

"Plaze the pigs," said Biddy; "it's mesilf as niver likes the counthry, at all; an' I'll jist be afther not goin', ma'm, wid yez!"

Here was a go--or rather a "no go!" Triangle had bought tickets for all, and ordered the carriage at four; it was now three P. M., of a hot, roasting day. It would be "on-possible," as Mrs. T. said, to go without a girl; so poor, sweltering Triangle rushed down to the "Intelligence Office," where, from the sweating mass of female humanity awaiting a market for their time and labor, Triangle selected a stout, hearty Irish _blonde_, warranted perfect, capable, kind, honest, and the Lord only knows how many virtues the keeper of an "Intelligence Office" will not swear belong to one of their stock in trade.

Away went Triangle, sweating and swearing; the Irish maiden, swinging a bundle in one hand and a flaring _bandanna_ in the other, following after her patron with a duck-waddle; and finally the carriage came; all got in but Triangle, who started on foot to the depot, carrying his double-barrelled gun and leading an ugly dog, which he rejoiced in believing was a full-blooded _setter_, though the best posted dog-fanciers assured him it was a cross between a tan-yard cur and a sheep-stealer! But, after a world of motion and commotion--on the part of Triangle, about the dog, tickets and baggage, and Mrs. Triangle, about the children, satchels, her new gown, and the sleepy Irish girl--they found themselves whisked over the rails, and after some three hours' carriage, they were dumped down in the vicinity of Jingo Hall, where they found the "private conveyance" of the proprietor of Jingo Hill Farm waiting to carry them, bandbox and bundle, rag-tag and bobtail, to Jingo Hall.

The carriage being overfull, Triangle concluded to walk up, stretch his legs, try his dog and gun, and have a pop at the game. But, alas, for the villanous dog; no sooner had he got loose and scampered off up the road, than he sees a flock of sheep some distance across the fields, and away he pitched. The sheep ran, he after the sheep; and poor Triangle after his dog.

"Hay! you Ponto--here--hay--Ponto-o-o! Hey, boy, come here, you dog--hi! hi!--do you hear-r-r?"

But Ponto was off, and after a run of half a mile, he came up with a lamb, and before Triangle could come to the rescue, Ponto had opened the campaign by killing sheep! Triangle was so put out about it that in wrath he up with his gun and was about to terminate the existence of the dog, but compromised the matter by hitting him a whack across the back with the barrels of his shooting-iron; in doing so, he broke off the stock, clean as a whistle! It is useless to deny that Triangle _was_ mad; that he swore equal to an Erie Canal boatman; and that his fury so alarmed the dog that he took to his heels and went--as Triangle hoped--anywhere, head foremost.

With a face as long as a boot-jack, quite tuckered out and disgusted with things as far as he had got, Triangle reached Jingo Hall, where he met the warm welcome of his friend, Major Jingo, and soon recuperated his good humor and physical activity by the contents of the Major's "well-stocked" _wine-cellar_. Ashamed of the facts of the case, Triangle trumped up a cock-and-bull story about the dog and gun.

After a season, the Triangles got settled away, and the first day or two passed without anything extraordinary turning up, if we may except the upturning of several flower-pots and hen's nests by the children. But the third day opened ominously. Triangle's dog was found with one of the Major's dead lambs under convoy, and the Irish hostler had caught him, tied him up in the stable, and given him such a dressing that Ponto's soul-case was nearly beaten out of him!

The next item was a yowl in the garden! Everybody rushed out--Mrs. Triangle in her excitement, lest something had happened to "baby," and Nora, the girl, struck the centre-table, upset the "Astral," and not only demolished that ancient piece of furniture, but spilled enough thick oil over the gilt-edged literature, table-cloth, and carpet, to make a barrel of soft soap.

The Irish girl came bounding, screeching forth! She had been sauntering through the garden, and ran against the bee-hives, when a bee up and at her. With a presence of mind truly unparalleled, she laid down "baby" upon the grass, and made fight with "the spiteful craturs;" and of course she got her hands full, was beset by tens and hundreds, and was stung in as many places by the pugnacious "divils." Nora was done for. She went to bed; "baby" was found all right, laughing "fit to break its yitty hearty party, at naughty Nora Dory," as Mrs. Triangle very naturally expressed it.

These two tableaux had hardly reached their climax, when in rushed Frederic Antonio Gustavus, with his capacious apron full of "birds he killed in the yard, down by the barns." Poor Jingo! and we may add, poor Mrs. Jingo! for a favorite brood of the finest fowls in the country had been exterminated by the chivalrous young Triangle, and in the bloom of his heroic act he dropped the dead game at the feet of his horror-stricken mother, and astonished father, and the Jingos.

That night the effect of stuffing with green fruit to utter suffocation manifested itself in a general and alarming cholera-morbus among the junior Triangles, and the whole house was up in arms.

In the midst of this, a fresh clamor broke out in Nora's chamber. A huge bat had got into her room, and so alarmed her, that she yelled worse, louder, and longer than seven evil ones.

It was a night of horror to the whole family--to everybody in and about Jingo Hall. The dogs set up a howl; the children bawled, cried, and took on; the Irish girl screeched; gin and laudanum, peppermint and "lollypops," the de'il to pay and no pitch hot.

Triangle felt relieved when daylight came, and had it not been Sunday, he would have packed up and put back for the prosy office and stagnated quietude of the city. But it was Sunday, and after the children, Irish girl, and dogs had been partially quieted, down the carriage came to the door, and as many as could get into it of the Jingos and Triangles, rolled off to meeting.