EARLY PAPERS SOME MEMORIES HENRY MORLEY, LL.D., EMERITUS PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE AT UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, LONDON LONDON GEORGE ROUTLEDGE AND SONS, Limited Broadway, Ludgate Hill GLASGOW, MANCHESTER, AND NEW YORK 189I CO'NTENTS, PAGE Some Memories . . . . .9 How TO MAKE Home Unhealthy (1850) . . 35 No. I. — Hints to Hang up in the Nursery . 37 No. II.— The Londoner's Garden . . 40 No. III. — Spending a very Pleasant Evening 44 No. IV.— The Light Nuisance . . 49 No. V. — Passing the Bottle . . -53 No. VL— Art against Appetite . . 58 No. VII. — The Water Party . . '63 No. VIII. — Filling the Grave . . 68 No. IX.— The Fire and the Dressing-room . 72 No. X.— Fresh Air . . . .78 No. XL— Exercise . . . .84 No. XII.— A Bedroom Paper . . .88 A Defence of Ignorance (185 i) . . -97 The Opening Address . . -98 Ignorance of the Middle Classes . . 104 Ignorance of the Poor . . .127 Ignorance at the Universities . . 147 The Ladies' Drawing-room . . .163 Papers from "Household Words" (1850-1857) : Ten Years Old . . . .183 Brother Mieth and his Brothers . . 193 Black Monday .... 207 Something that Shakespeare Lost . -215 L Contents. Lanna Tixel . 224 Apothecaries . 240 The Club Surgeon : . 260 Buying a Practice* . . 271 Pulling Through"^ . 280 School-Keeping . 296 APPENDIX. 1841— 1848. The Dream of the Lily-Bell . . -315 Our Lady's Miracle .... 324 Sunrise in Italy .... 330 Nemophil . . . . -345 A Tract upon Health for Cottage Circulation 360 A Tract upon Interrupted Health and Sick- room Duties .... 376 Added from All the Year Round, 1859, Laudamus veteres, nostris tamen utimur annis." (GOWER, Vox Clamantis.) SOME MEMORIES. In great and small there is a like instinct of self-preservation. Let me have leave, then, to be such a gosling as to obey instinct, when I seek to reunite the past and present of a life of work that has, by accident and course of time, been cut in two. Those earlier books and papers which it is proposed now to reissue in volumes uniform with English Writers were first published while I was putting off the work to which I then hoped, if time lasted, to give the riper part of life. It seemed right to defer formal use of a small measure of knowledge that could only be approached through years of study and experience, at least until the age at which man knows himself a fool. "At thirty man suspects himself a fool," or did so in the days of Dr. Edward Young ; — " knows it at forty, and reforms his plan." The writer of these Memories did, in fact, soon after the age of forty, form anew his plan of work. Since then, during the thirty years that men count as a generation, he has tried to spend his life on the one service for which, if for anything, it might be made a little fit. While so doing he has suffered lapse of time to separate his present from his past, for want of care over the work done when he lived among the grandfathers and fathers of the present generation, and found them kind. The " Memories" that go with this attempt to join again the severed parts of a life's work are only intended to recall such old relations of work to outward circumstances as lie in the life of every labourer ; haps and mishaps, however, I B to' ' ' ' ' ' '' ' ■ Sovie' Memories. that when told may even sometimes interpret action, and make the past of one touch helpfully the future of another. In the year 1848 I had been engaged during four years in the general practice of medicine in a mining district on the banks of the Severn. It was a year of revolution in Europe, full of interest for me ; and a year of revolution in my own life, big with fate. From earliest childhood it had been determined that I was to follow in my father's steps, and I never harboured in my own mind any thought what- ever of a change of calling until thought of change was forced upon me in that year of Revolution, 1848. The most loving pains were taken to bend the twig as it- was meant to grow. When I was taught, as a boy, drawing and painting, it was stipulated that skulls and bones painted by me from nature should have their turn among the charcoal heads and sunset cottages. At fourteen and fifteen I translated the whole of a stout German work upon Anatomy, Krause's. My father re- wrote the crude stuff I produced into good medical English ; Dr. John Forbes, who had suggested in the Medico- Chirurgical Review a trans- lation of the book, which then was new, with kind encourage- ment looked over the MS. prepared for press ; and a rash publisher had agreed to produce it as a speculation of his own. But the wheel of Fortune did not wait to let him add that to the other causes of his bankruptcy. When I went to a country town for schoolboy holidays, I was made free of the infirmary, and was allowed, as a young dog of the regiment, to look on at the practice of the surgeons and physicians. I sat by them regularly on out-patients' days, and still look back with interest to lessons learnt from them when nearly every experience was new. Nothing in this continuous endeavour to put the purposes of life into my training was in any way distasteful. I honoured the profession of medicine in itself, and loved it in the pure and true life of my father. IJut something that would grow Some Memories. 1 1 into a love of literature was, from the first, immeasurably stronger than all other intellectual desires. Not long passed out of pot-hooks and hangers into shaped letters, I wrote something I called a play; and even remember now the gleeful spouting to my father of a truly simple incantation in it, which shows that in the short course of that very little piece, which may or may not have been generally terrifying. Envy rose U}) from her home in hell. There was full supply of the old Fairy Tales, with the Arabian Nights, the Sevefi Champions of Christendom, and Tales of the Genii. Beyond these sources of constant delight, there was free pasturage among my father's books. Tonson's 1688 folio of Paradise Lost, the first illustrated edition, caught me very early by its pictures, and these caused me to lie on the floor spelling out their story from the text. As a child of eight at school I was appointed to tell stories to the dormitory. I scribbled con- stantly tales, rhymes, rhymes, rhymes ; and wrote in blank verse, at fifteen, two five-act plays, one on the Messenian hero, Aristonie?ies, the other, called The Feasant, an invented tale of feudal tyranny. Such memories are of nothing, and of less than nothing, except the existence from the first of a delight in literature that was the master-passion. It was never checked, because it never seemed to be opposed to the appointed way of life. I dreamed dreams also in those days, and saw waking visions, mere illusions of the sight, but I never dreamed, not even in 1848, that there was bread to be earned some day simply by doing that which I liked best to do. There was encouragement, and not complaint, at home. I worked my way by rote at mathematics, and climbed up into the regions of the Differential Calculus without any real knowledge of the ground, or any pleasure at all in the climbing. But languages were worked at with a very real enjoyment — for love, chiefly, of the poets who wrote in them. There may have been some faint foreshadowing of B 2 12 Sonte Memories. seventeen years spent afterwards in newspaper work when, in the fifth form of a Grammar School, I issued on Thursdays a miniature weekly paper, ruled in columns, and arranged as a burlesque of more important news sheets. School news was dished up in boyish caricature of the newspaper style, and there was a "Weather Table" which gave figurative detail of the daily course of change in the Head Master's temper. When a new number of this paper came out, it went the round of the fifth and sixth forms during school time. One week the Head Master pounced upon it. He was a gentle- man and a scholar, whom we all respected, notwithstanding variations of his temper under constant trial by us all. Finding that I was editor of this unlicensed sheet, he called me up and boxed my ears, but did not trouble himself to for- bid future issues. Few would have been so lenient ; but he was wise, for he put new strength into the loyalty with which I always had regarded him. Schoolboys, like other folk, can sometimes laugh at those they love. And I think I was not idle in schoolwork, though I found much time for work of my own choosing, and was then passing into the nominal sixth form, which contained only the four head-boys of the school, sharing in many things the studies of the fifth. About this time I wrote an article in the Foreig?i Quarterly Review^ at the request of its editor. Dr. Worthington, who had been in very early years one of my teachers. Thence his goodwill. The article was a mere digest of a new German book upon Greece, with some translated extracts. It was the first work of tlie pen for which I received payment. The payment was an order upon David Nutt, in the Strand, for ten pounds' worth of foreign books of my own choosing. That collection was the beginning of a little library that grew slowly and surely, and filled a room in 1848, when it was scattered in what seemed to be the wreck of all my fortunes. There was a novel written also in those days, and read as it Some Memories. 13 was written, chapter by chapter, to a home circle of the moit lenient critics in the world. All this is memory of nothing, and of less than nothing, except, as before said, of the existence of an unchecked bent of Nature that gained strength until it formed a barrier on the appointed pathway to success in hfe. The charter of the University of London was signed in November 1836. On leaving school, I passed, in 1838, one of the earliest of the matriculation examinations of that University, and became a student in King's College, London. The College was then only seven years old, for it had been first opened to students in October 1831. At King's College I worked for the next five years — from sixteen to twenty-one — in the two faculties of Arts and Medicine, continuing school studies for two years or more in the Faculty of Arts, while studying at first in a few and then in more and more classes of the Faculty of INIedicine. The foundation of the degree-giving University of London had suggested to my father that I should graduate in it as M.D., and take licence for general practice from the Society of Apothecaries, then already distinguishing itself as a pioneer in the reform of medical education. Ill-satisfied with the slower movements of the College of Surgeons, of which he was himself a member, my father wished that I should study surgery for its own sake, medicine as a profession. I was not to fill up in the usual way from year to year the schedule of attendances required from those who meant to pTss " the College". Frequent days of severe headache had caused my father to sell his practice on the Middlesex side of the Thames, and, retaining only those of his patients who lived on the Surrey side, he had removed from 100, Hatton Garden (a house since pulled down), to 2, Harleyford Place, Kenning- ton. From Kennington I walked every morning to King's College, and from King's College to Kennington every 14 Some Memories. evening, until hospital work made it necessary to be lodged in town. Reduced means brought no reduction in the liber- ality of a good father's help to make me what I never have become. I was supplied with perpetual tickets to many a course that was not set down in the required curriculum. I attended courses of John Phillips on Geology, of Rymer J ones on Comparative Anatomy, joined also all the herbarising expeditions that David Don took with those students of his Botany class who were willing to give alternate Saturdays to work in woods and fields. I walked regularly to the Botanic Gardens at Chelsea on the summer mornings when John Lindley gave his nine o'clock lecture there, and then walked on from Chelsea to the Strand. There was unstinted access to " parts" for dissection, and when a Chemical Laboratory was opened for the practical instruction of students, I joined it, and worked in it for two sessions. There was no distaste for any of this work, nor a moment's thought of any other calling in life than that for which I seemed to have been set apart from the beginning. But there went with this a good deal of hard work at what was, for a medical student, idleness ; all hours that could be given, and very many that could not honestly be given, were spent on that pursuit of Literature which seemed only to be a fruitless self- indulgence. There was a fellow-student, long since dead, Christopher Wharton Mann, whose translation of Schiller's Robbers I have used in my edition of Schiller's poems and plays as they have all been translated by different hands into English. AVe were alike devoted to the poets, and both scribbled verse. We came upon a student at St. Bartholomew's, Charles H. Hitchings, who shared our tastes. He, too, died early in life, after publishing a small volume of musical verse from which he would have advanced to work of higher aims if life h;id lasted. VV^e three medical students formed a small confederation of rh)mers for common enjoyment of the Some Memories. 15 poets, and for freest criticism of one another. We called ourselves the Owl Club ; one was Ulula, one was Aziola, and I was Screech. We were ready to admit more birds into the nest if we had found them. We met daily as friends, once a week as the club, when each read what he supposed to be the best piece of work done by him since the last meeting. Upon each Owl's work there was the frankest criticism from the other two. When any paper came up to the Owls' standard of excellence, it was stamped with the great seal of the club, that represented an owl flying, with the Athenian proverb for success, V\av^ I'TrraTui. In all this there is nothing but a feather flying with the wind. The first piece in a little volume of verse published by me in 1845, and named after it "The Dream of the Lilybell", was written in 1841 for the Owls, and it obtained their seal, though they said afterwards that my way of reading it had lulled them out of a right sense of its faults. Those faults are manifest enough, and may be found by any reader of the piece in the Appendix to this volume. Then we persuaded the good-natured William Houlston, whose bookseller's shop— Houlston and Hughes, 154, Strand — was a few doors from the College, and a place of resort for bookish students, that he should oblige us by taking on himself the risk and honour of publishing, in monthly num- bers, a Kiiigs College Magazine. So he did, and a number appeared monthly, from July 1841 until December 1842, when regard for final examinations due before the end of 1843 compelled me to give up that way of wasting time. The magazine, when completed, formed two volumes, to which I had contributed, as a continuous tale, my schoolboy novel, Ellerton Castle, with many verses under several sig- natures; also translations of Lessing's Emilia Galotti, and of the Hynuis to Night of Novalis. Mann wrote for it a verse translation of the Prometheus Bound, besides his version of The Robbers, and many verses of his own. Among the con- 1^ Some Memories. tributors we most valued was Edward Hayes Plumptre, the late Dean of Wells, who had then not long left King's Col- lege for Oxford. We had from him two good papers on Church Monuments. Another clever contributor was one of the most brilliant students in the medical department, who became known as a writer upon matters of curious learning when settled afterwards at Liverpool as a physician, Dr. Thomas Inman. But he and all the young contributors of those days are now dead, except myself and one other. While the King's College Magazine was appearing, I was also, alas, writing from month to month what purported to be a comic novel — The Life and Adventures of Fitzroy Pike — in successive numbers of the old Monthly Magazine. I had sent the first chapters of it to the magazine, not knowing who was editor. It proved to be John Anthony Heraud, a poet whose imperfect sense of fun qualified him admirably for the acceptance of my venture. The novel was not finished when Heraud gave up his interest in the old Monthly to Captain Basil Hall, and there was a good excuse for ending the life of Fitzroy Pike by asking payment for the months yet left of it. On the other side it was wisely decided, to my great satisfaction, that the story could be continued, but could not be paid for. And so that feather on the wind flew by. A thwarting bias thus caused thought and labour to run out of their appointed course. University examinations were deferred until changes at home had put them out of question. Dr. W. A. Guy, good friend of after years, spoke of me one day, in talking to students who came about him after a medical jurisprudence lecture, as one who might have done some good in medicine, but whose going after strange books would at last bring him to ruin. In the days when I lodged near the hospital, like many another student, I brought down frequently the cost of dinner to a penny loaf and glass of milk, that there might be money for books, and for the occasional hearing of good music or good plays. Some Mcniories. 17 It may be that the youth doomed to ruin gave as much time as an average student to professional studies ; but as he hked work, and was strong for it, he could have given more than twice as much, if the love towards strange books had not diverted him from duty. I may have worked fairly, for I came to be chosen as physician's assistant to Dr. George Budd, keeping his casebooks in the hospital and making \^q post inortevis^ and I was elected secretary by the Students' Medical Society, unworthy successor in that office to such men as William Allen Miller and William Bowman. I remember also that, although one paper read by me to the Society was of mere curiosity, on Spontaneous Combustion, another was strictly professional, and written with some care, upon Minute Diagnosis in Diseases of the Brain. Let it be said also that I had not lost the old regard for my profession, although it was overclouded by a stronger passion, the deepest interest being in science studies that brought home a sense of the great harmonies of nature, .and made one feel God as the Master Poet. There were times when the marvellous apti- tudes revealed within the little world of a man's body pro- duced as deep a reverence for God in the dissecting-room as in the church. What little was taught in the class of Com- parative Anatomy, which few attended because medical students were not required to take the subject, came to the young heart as a great poem of Creation. I was deeply im- pressed with the gradation that linked every form of life to those before and after it, and made of all our living uni- verse one "strain of music. The phenomenon of a student in this class — there were but four in it — who never missed a lecture, and was putting his whole heart into its work, caused a revival of the class prize, which had been abolished. I never went into any examination from which we were free to stay away, but felt bound on that occasion to take what was so kindly offered, by passing an examination in which there were no competitors. One other class ex- 1 8 Some Memories. am illation was made unavoidable in somewhat the same way. Visible interest in the class of Botany and unfailing attend- ance at the herbarising expeditions deluded Professor Don, one year, into the supposition that I was his best man. It was not possible without rudeness to stay away from the examination, but there was one unobtrusive student in the class who had worked harder and knew more than any of us. When we were in the examination-room, and were left now and then to ourselves with freedom for talk, that student re- ferred frankly to two questions on mosses and seaweeds for which he was not prepared, and said he could not answer them, I could, but did not; so the right man had the prize, and the favourite came in second. There w^as, of course, no sacrifice to duty when I was denying myself nothing, and was too indifferent to the ambitions of an honest student who has put, as he should put, his whole mind into the work laid out for him. As soon as the age of twenty-one was touched, examina- tion at " the Hall" was passed, and I became, by virtue also of seven years' apprenticeship to my father, a Member of the Society of Apothecaries, licensed to practise medicine. There had been changes at home. My father's headaches were only a little less frequent at Kennington than they had been in Hatton Garden. Inheritance of a little pro- perty had made it possible for him to retire into the country, and he was anxious to do so. His practice, he said, was not large enough to be worth transferring to me at the cost of another three years' work in London. Once qualified, I could go out in the usual way to get experience as an assistant, and in due time have a better practice of my own. My father removed at once, therefore, from London upon my passing the Hall. Settled in the home he had been preparing for himself at Midhurst, in Sussex, he lost his headaches, and lived a vigorous and happy life until the age of eighty-five. My mother had died on the 29th Some Memories. 19 of December, 1824, when I was little more than two years old. My father, left with two young boys, had married again, and owed mainly to his second wife the happiness of twenty-four years of retirement, until her death in 1867. In due time also the two boys had become rich in a sister. From 1843 to 1848, the year of Revolution, there were five years of medical practice. They began most happily. A year was to be spent in continuance of study, and seeing work as assistant to a medical practitioner. I was one of forty or fifty who answered an advertisement from Dunster, in Somersetshire. The advertiser — odd name now for a kind friend who brought much happiness into my life ! — replied, asking me to meet him halfway at a hotel in Bristol. We met, and the result was that I began work under easy conditions. "Can you ride?" had been one question. *' I rode once on a donkey and came off; once on a horse" (it was my father's gig horse) "and stuck on. I can try to stick on." There were some miles of a poor-law district to look after, up and down stony lanes upon hill-sides, as well as along good high-roads. My employer was a married man of independent means, who had the happiest of tempers. He paid me liberally ; I lodged next door. He and his wife had no children, and I was treated as if I had been their son. There was no picnic or dinner-party from which I was left out. The wicked old bent towards books of the poets seemed here to strengthen friendships and make life the happier. I did stick on the horses, oftener than not. My employer had seven in his stable, and had a theory that every gentleman ought to be able to break in his own horses. At first a groom was sent with me to show the way from place to place, and give some lessons in the art of riding. I went over a horse's head only four times in the ten months at Dunster. After the first three months of those ten, the parish work was given up. Then there was much leisure for a busy idleness. So came the temptation 20 Some Memories. to make a little volume, of which the first pages were printed in 1844, with a coloured illustration on its paper cover, as number one of The New Fhajitasus. Tieck's Pha?itasus was the old one then in mind. In 1845 those pages became part of the little volume opened with " The Dream of the Lilybell". The piece in the Appendix to this volume, called " Our Lady's Miracle", was written at Dunster. It w^as planned as the introduction to a series of incidents showing the force of gentleness ; but the frame- work was too fanciful, the first incident (not here reprinted) was a failure, and no more was wTitten. A very young man, especially when he is engaged — and in that respect I was happily bound by a love that makes my happiness at sixty-nine — such a very young man is usually in a very great hurry of unwisdom, to build up a home of his own. Often, through inexperience, he makes a false start, and loses ground that it costs much time to recover. 1 had money from a small legacy that, with the addition of some borrowed, would buy a partnership in country practice. Eager to begin, I made my own choice, and became partner with a grey-headed Archimago. Two papers in All the Year Rouiid^ for August and October 1859, called "Buying a Partnership " and "Pulling Through", contain some memories of that bygone ex- perience. In " Buying a Partnership" mishaps of some old fellow- students were joined to my own. I was Anceps, whom I brought, however, to the end he had escaped. The two papers from All the Year Roimd^ omitting from the second of them all but a few paragraphs of the fictitious setting, arc added in this volume to some papers that had been written in Jfousehold IVords from recollections of country practice. They are all true memories, in settings that disguised the personality. It was part of the plan of Jfousehold JFords to show experience of life in many forms. The i)apcrs just named indicate the kind of trouble that Some Memories. 21 was to be faced during the next four years. I thought sometimes then, and am sure now, that my partner was insane. A few years after the battle was over, when I was prospering as journahst in London, I saw my old tormentor in the dock of the Mansion House Police Court, charged with fraud as a trustee. The last I heard of him was that he had been convicted and sentenced. But a man cannot be sane who wastes abilities that, as in this case, would have made life easily and largely prosperous, in seeking feverish excitement from the failures or successes of in- genious strokes of fraud, and gambles constantly in litiga- tion. I was the second person within a year to whom that partnership had been sold. My predecessor had departed in despair. Nobody warned me. When the truth was learnt, — and there was overwhelming evidence of fraud, — though dissolution of the partnership could not be had, I separated from my partner, remained in the place, and practised on my own account. That suited Archimago also, for, as he wanted to get rid of the bones he had picked dry, what could now be easier than to drive me out of the place and sell the partnership again ? But as here also I was trying to stick on, before I left the place another rash one, a ship's surgeon, who came to me after he had paid the purchase-money for that partnership, found out his error and went back to sea. The difficulty to be faced was not a source only of trouble, for the spirit of a young man rises when he breasts a storm. Of patients there came plenty, who had pockets as empty as my own. There was a dispensary which gave "notes" to the sick poor for attendance by any medical man in the district to whom they chose to take them. We all received them, and were paid by the dispensary at the rate of five shillings a note, which covered the whole treatment of a case, unless it extended beyond six weeks, when a new note was required. My dispensary notes brought sixty 22 Some Memories. pounds a year, for a great deal of work that sat heavily upon the drug bill. There were sick-clubs, in which every member paid four shillings a year for free treatment of those who might fall ill. I assisted at the births of four hundred children, of whose parents only a dozen or two could pay more than the usual fee of half-a-guinea. There was a large surgery in the garden at the back of the house where thirty or forty poor people usually sat round the walls to be attended to before I had my breakfast. Work of this kind was so plentiful that at one time there was a current foible in the parish that I had not been to bed for a fortnight. Presently there were two apprentices to be taught, one of them, Frederick William Sayer, born to excel, the first of many pupils, and most dearly loved. He caught from me my love of literature, but it became only an intense delight to him in hours of recreation ; he was not diverted by it from fidelity to his profession. We studied medicine to- gether, and after he had affectionately held by me through several years of deep distress, he went, by my advice, into the medical school at University College, and there earned more gold medals and other class honours than any student, I believe, before or since. He had the divine gift of genius, and none but noble aims. Had he lived he would now have been among honoured chiefs of his profession, but towards the close of his training-time he went to serve under Professor Goodsir as Demonstrator of Anatomy in the Uni- versity of Edinburgh. There he nursed back into health a fellow-student who had been struck down by typhoid, caught the disease of him, and died. I think of him when I read Lycidas. He is as near to me now as in those first days when we worked together, near to me as his sister, who is my wife. He did not toil for human i)raise alone : he has his meed in heaven. In those four years of country practice few or no books Some Memories. 23 were bought but those needed for study of disease, and they were often worked at far into the night; for until 1848 there was no thought whatever of any change of profession. But there were the strange books side by side with Budd on the Liver and Solly on the Brain. They claimed their turn. The margins of a five-volume edition of Spenser were much blackened with notes; and of two or three little papers sent in the latter part of that time to the Atheiiceuin, and signed "H. M.", one gave a new and simple interpretation of Bk. 11, canto ix, st. 22, of the Faerie Queene, which is surely right. In actual practice nothing then pressed itself more strongly on attention than the unhealthy conditions of life, and the trouble that would be saved in many a poor home by a little knowledge of the laws of health. This caused me to write a "Tract upon Health for Cottage Circulation", fol- lowed by another upon " Interrupted Health and Sick- room Duties", and to recommend that other medical practitioners should produce tracts with a like aim, to be dis- tributed among the poor as freely as religious tracts. That was in 1847, '^^id he would have been a seer indeed who then could have divined how much of the whole after-course of life was determined by the printing of that pair of two- penny tracts. In 1847 questions of hygiene were beginning to obtain attention. In November of that year, Dr. Sutherland and Dr. Hector Gavin began editing a Joiirtial of Public Health and Monthly Record of Sanitary Im- provement, published under the sanction of the Metropolitan Health of Towns Association. The "Tracts upon Health" had been kindly received, and the writer of them was invited to contribute to the new Journal of Public Health. He did so, and, about a couple of years later, in 1849, ^vrote in that journal a paper or two, entitled " How to make Home Unhealthy", meant as the beginning of a series. But the series was begun just at the time when the Journal of 24 Some Llcmories. Public Health came to an end, and that little mishap went a long way towards the shaping of my future. But before cause and effect can be followed in that direction, there is the year 1848 to take account of. In that year 1848 there was new life astir. I was deeply interested in the course of current history, and perhaps was quickened by the movement of the time into bold thought about my own position. I earned enough to live upon, but not enough to meet the cost of heavy debt. More could be earned in time, but there would be many years before debts could be cleared. The work done was far out of proportion to the money earned. As much hard work, done under different conditions, should enable me to pay my debts much sooner, and start clear again. As I was still technically in the power of a partner who might demand his share of my earnings, family councils had decreed that it was not safe to give me any help. If I would consent to give up the battle and be made bankrupt, a well-pro- tected partnership was ready for me, in which I might expect to earn a modest income for the rest of life. But I would not be bankrupt. Youth has its own strength, and is not easily beaten. A bold change of front seemed to be necessary. Then for the first time came the thought that, if a change was to be made, it might be well to strike at once into a new path and cease from the practice of medicine. Its right practice lequires the sole and whole devotion of a life, nnd con- science told me this had not been given. Was there an alternative ? Up to that time and at that time, there was no thought of Literature as a profession. It was a source of intense private enjoyment, of pure recreation, though it set me working, as most people usually do work hard at pleasures. But there were two subjects. Public Health and Education, in which I took deep interest, and at which I could work zealously. Some Memories. 25 Sanitary science was beginning then to win some public recognition. There was a large new duty to be done by a new army of workers. Could they live by doing it ? If so, there would be transfer of services in the same army from one active regiment into another ; there would still be direct use for the past course of special training, and the change of work would be only from curative to preventive medicine. I took counsel with friendly pioneers who were then spending energies in London for the advance of sanitary reform. They agreed in telling me that movements needing Govern- ment support were being strangled with red-tape, and that there was little chance of any living to be earned by the most energetic work in that direction. There remained, though it meant quitting the profession for which I had been trained from a child, one other way of life into which I could put zealously all powers that I had, while in aid of it no kind of study could be useless. Why not endeavour to work out in real life my ideal of a teacher's calling, put entire trust in the truth of my convictions, and resolve to act on them as faithfully as faulty human nature would allow ? Those convictions had deep roots in the experiences of a child. First there had been child-life in preparatory school under the care of a gentle widow and her daughter, who re- mained through many after years among my nearest friends" until they died. Then I was sent, at seven years old, to a large boarding-school in the country, where the chief was a kindly old gentleman with silver hair, never seen angry, and he had a kindly wife. But he was weak, no doubt, in his kindliness, and must have been without administrative power, for the school he governed was a little hell. My brother was there with me, six years older than myself, a brother between whom and me, until his death, there never was so much as a child's quarrel, and no word or accent of unkindness ever passed. Boys managed boys upon the flogging system, and in this school the big boys used malignant ingenuity in I c \l 26 Some Memories. toituring the small. I was my brother's fag, and shielded ])y him from all hurt, suffering only from the sight of woe. One common way of tyranny was called '' bumping". Two boys would take another by his arms and legs and swing him to and fro, bumping his body heavily against the angle of a house-wall. Such a practice must sometimes have inflicted lasting injury. Recollections of that school are in this volume in the paper called " Black Monday". In that school I saw one of its masters, when idling by the stove in the school-room with a circle of boys round about, call a boy into the circle, and there flog him with a horse-whip, only for the sport he would make when he danced with pain. Foun- dations were laid early in such schools for cruel lives, or else for passionate resentment of all tyranny. From unfortunate experiences of another school I was brought home in three months to be laid up with typhoid fever. Then there was a school with many good features, in which I learnt much Latin. There was a boy in it who, for some reason, was hated as a sneak. His original offence I never heard, and probably few knew, but he suffered so much fOr it, that, out of school hours, he was put, for his protection, into a pad- dock by himself, a little paled garden between the house and play-ground, that all other boys were forbidden to enter, and he sle^^jt alone, poor fellow, in a garret. At nights, whenever the master and his wife went out for the evening, information was given to the boys in the dormitory, who swarmed up to their victim's room, and thrashed him with their braces. And he dared not tell. Then, after living a little while at home, my brother going to the Charterhouse, in Thackeray's time there, and I to be taught by I3r. ^^^orthington, I went to Neuwied, and felt the blessing of school life with the Moravians. Recollections of this will be found in two of the early papers here reprinted, " Ten Years Old" and " Brother Mieth and his Brothers". From all these experiences there sprang one of the deep Some Memories. 27 roots of that opinion as to the right way of teaching, which I now resolved to carry into practice, and to hve or die by. This was my own small Revolution of 1848. The move- ments of that year in Europe had also set me rhyming. Pius IX had begun his papacy with indications of a policy of liberal reform that raised hope in the hopeful, a hope soon to be destroyed. He had taken some bold steps towards the education of his people. For a year or two it seemed to many that a new sun rose for the Italians, bring- ing a new day. I wrote a vague outpouring of hopes, doctrines, aspirations, strung upon a very slender thread, called the screed " Sunrise in Italy", adding companion verse on the events in Paris, and the death of the arch- bishop at the barricades. It had the double fault of being written in a ballad measure, quite unfit for a didactic pur- pose, and that it also spoilt the ballad measure by experi- ment in using it after the manner of blank verse, with " the sense variously drawn out from one verse into another". Adding to this a few pieces of verse which had been writ- ten even in those days of country practice, the little book was published in 1848 as Sunrise in Italy, etc., Reveries. In the Appendix that volume is represented only by as much of "Sunrise in Italy" as shows the thread on which its reveries were strung, and also by one of the other pieces, "Nemophil'", that will serve to represent the spending of some hours in self-indulgence after long days of hard work. Of course^, when it was known that I was going, and a successor was being brought into the practice, I could go only by leaving behind me all I had except my clothes, and about twenty books from the lost roomful. My resolution was to go into a large town — not London, where one would be lost — but any other town with room in it for growth of success, and where there was a chance of getting the first necessary foothold. I had faith enough in my ideal to be sure of success if I could once show it, however imperfectly, c 2 28 Some Memories. in practice. Having made a choice upon that principle, I went to Manchester, although I knew nobody there. Two more debts, and two only, had to be incurred. I took a house, and found trust for the furnishing of one room in it, as the place to teach in. All other rooms were empty. There was no bed; I slept on the floor with a dictionary for a pillow. There were no regular successions of meals, but the occasional sale of one of the score of books, or of a personal trinket, found all food that was necessary. A paletot was my only coat, and there were reasons why I should be sorry to take it off in company. My faithful apprentice ran away from home to share my spacious bed and board — a most welcome companion ; his sister remained firm as a rock against all natural attempts to put an end to our engagement. Life with a storm to weather is enjoyable at six-and-twenty, if the health be strong. Wherever I went I was in high spirits. What I wished to do was made known, friends were soon found, none more cordial and helpful than Mr. and Mrs. Gaskell. Mrs. Gaskell had then just published Alory Barton. George Henry Lewes was then in Manchester, brought thither by the production of his play, The Noble Hearty and my acquaintance with him then began. The little book of verses. Sunrise in Italy, served in its way to win friends, and it put forth some of my notions about teaching. When idle, I lay on my back and scribbled five cantos of a mock-heroic in Spenserian stanzas on St. George of Cappadocia. In a month or two this trial was over. I was asked whether it mattered to me if my experiment were tried in Liverpool instead of Manchester. Then the clouds broke, the sun shone, and the tide that was at the lowest began flowing in. For want of money to spend upon railway fares, I walked from Manchester to Liverpool, fell among friends, and walked back from Liverpool to Manchester with my Sovie Memoi'ies. 29 best hope fulfilled. Walking was easier at six-and-twenty than it is at sixty-nine. Soon I was housed happily by the shore in Marine Terrace, Liscard, carrying out my plans with the children of a little band of parents who united to enable me to found my school, and among whom lifelong friendships were estabhshed. Here a new stream of love and kindness poured into my life that has not ceased to flow, but there are graves now by the side of it. The paper on "School- keeping" in this volume was founded upon recollections of that Liscard school, and a few notes from it will be found in the " Defence of Ignorance." Thus we reach 1849, the year in which a paper or two, designed as the beginning of a series called "How to make Home Unhealthy", had been sent to the Journal of Public Health just before that journal was discontinued. They had been much quoted by the newspapers. After some time it occurred to me to regret actively the stopping of those papers. Of The Examiner newspaper I knew only that I liked it and took it in. It also had copied the piece or two already written of " How to make Home Unhealthy". Why not write and ask whether the Editor would like to have the rest? I wrote, and had an answer from John Forster, the fortunate beginning of another friendship that was to be close and strong. John Forster said that he would gladly accept the series for The Examifter, if I would begin it afresh. No time was lost, a new No. i was written and sent by the same night's post, and the next Saturday's paper began to set foith "How to make Home Unhealthy" as here reprinted. The other papers followed week by week. Charles Dickens w^as then beginning Household Words, and looking out for writers. "How to make Home Un- healthy", in the newness of the sanitary movement, drew much attention. As each paper appeared it was reproduced so widely by the press, that, when I went into the Liverpool 30 Some Memories. news-room, some paper of the series was to be found in one journal and another upon all the tables. When only two or three of those papers had appeared, there came a letter, asking me to write for Household Words. Much oc- cupied with the school, I paid little heed to this invitation, but sent presently the "Adventures in Skitzland" (placed now among my Fairy Tales)^ which I had by me, for that paper had been written in the old days of student life at King's College. It was liked, and other pieces followed now and then. Meanwhile the series in the Examiner w^as finished, and I was invited still to go on from week to w^ek as a wTiter of leaders. After a few more weeks, William Henry Wills, another kind friend of the coming days, wrote, on the part of Charles Dickens, asking whether it would suit me to give up my school and come to London, for a salary then named, to assist, not always necessarily in the writing, but generally also in the bringing out of Household Words, I was bound by many strong ties of affection to the school, and was even then planning extension of its work. Two or three weeks were taken for reflection, but the result was that 1 came to London with fixed salary from Household Words for acting as a sort of deputy-lieutenant, writing papers of my own, revising or rewriting any paper found in the letter-box that contained matter useful to the public, but was ill-written or ill-arranged, and making myself generally useful. That connection with Household Words was continued with All the Year Round, and remained unbroken for some fifteen years. It came to an end not long after I had been appointed in 1865 to the Professorship of English Literature atUniversity College; but the old friendship remained, and when the last illness was disabling my dear friend W. H. Wills, I returned for a time to the Ail the Year Round office to act as his substitute, until, with heartiest goodwill, the duties passed into the able hands of Charles Dickens the younger. Side by side with Household JVords there was the growing Soine^^Meuiories. 3 ^ work of the Examiner. The Books and Papers were then being written, which it is proposed now to collect into a little set of volumes. One of my Liscard schoolboys came and lived with me in London. There are wide seas now between us, but we are as near as ever to each other. What is there more to say, except to end the story with a marriage? In 1852 we married, and the loyal wife, in lodgings first, then in a little house, helped steadily to fight the battle on until enough was saved to clear all to the last of the long list of debts. Since then I am afraid] to think how full of happiness our life has been. And wath my whole heart now I thank God for the storm that tossed me to so safe a shore. Carisbrooke, August 1 89 1. HOW TO MAKE HOME UNHEALTHY. (1850-) HOW TO MAKE HOME UNHEALTHY. Emperor Yao (very many years B.C.) established a certain custom which was followed, we are told, by his successors on the throne of China. The custom was this. Outside the hall-door of his palace he suspended a tablet and a gong; and if one among his subjects felt himself able to suggest a good idea to his ruler, or wished to admonish him of any error in his ways, the critic paid a visit to the palace, wrote what he had to say upon the tablet, battered at the gong, and ran away. The Emperor came out ; and then, unless it happened that some scapegrace of a school- boy had annoyed him by superadding a fly-away knock to a contemptuous hieroglyphic, he gravely profited by any hints the tablets might convey. Not unlike honest, patri- archal Yao is our British Public. It is summoned out to read inscriptions at its door, left there by all who have advice to give or faults to deprecate. The successors of Yao, finding upon their score so many conflicting tales, soon substituted for the gong five instruments of music. It was required then that the monitor should distinguish, by the instrument upon which he performed his summons, what particular department of imperial duties it might be to which he desired to call attention. Now not five but fifty voices summon our royal public. One man courts atten- tion with a dulcet strain, one brays, one harps upon a string, another drums. And anions those who hvive of late been I ^6 How to make Home UjiJiealtJiy. busiest in pointing errors out, and drumming at the public's door to have them rectified, are those who profess concern about the PubHc Health. For the writer who now proposes to address to you, O excellent public, a Series of Practical Hints as to How to make Home Unhealthy, we would not have you think that he means to be in any respect so troublesome as those Sanitary Instructors. The lion on your knocker gives him confidence ; he will leave no disconcerting messages ; he will seek to come into your parlour as a friend. A friend he is ; for, with a polite sincerity, he will maintain in all his arguments that what you do is what ought always to be done. He knows well that you are not foolish, and perceives, therefore, what end you have in view. He sees that you are impressed deeply with a con- viction of the vanity of life ; that you desire accordingly to prove your wisdom, by exhibiting contempt for that which philosopher after philosophei* forbids a thoughtful man to cherish. You would be proud to have Unhealthy Homes. Lusty carcases, they are for coarse folk and for the heathen; civilisation forbids us to promote animal development. How can a man look spiritual if he be not sickly ? How can a woman — Is not Paris the mode ? Go, weigh an elegant Parisienne against a peasant girl from Normandy. It is here proposed, therefore, to honour your discretion by demonstrating publicly how right you are. Some of the many methods by which one may succeed in making Home Unhealthy will be here detailed to you, in order that, as we go on, you may congratulate your- self on feeling how extremely clever you already are in your arrangements. Here is a plain purpose. If any citizen, listening to such lessons, think himself wise, and yet is one who, like good M. Jourdain in the comedy, n' applaudit qii'a contre-sefis-^io such a citizen it is enough to say, May much good come of his perversity. Hints to Hang up in the Nursery. 37 No. I. — Hints to Hang up in the Nursery. In laying a foundation of ill-health it is a great point to be able to begin at the beginning. You have the future man at excellent advantage when he is between your fingers as a baby. One of Hoffman's heroines, a clever house- wife, discarded and abhorred her lover from the moment of his cutting a yeast dumpling. There are some little enormities of that kind which really cannot be forgiven, and one such is, to miss the opportunity of physicking a baby. Now I will tell you how to treat the future pale-face at its first entrance into life. A little while before the birth of any child, have a little something ready in a spoon ; and, after birth, be ready at the first opportunity to thrust this down his throat. Let his first gift from his fellow-creatures be a dose of physic — honey and calomel, or something of that kind; but you had better ask the nurse for a prescription. Have ready also, before birth, an abundant stock of pins ; for it is a great point, in putting the first dress upon the little naked body, to contrive that it shall contain as many pins as possible. The prick of a sly pin is excellent for making children cry ; and since it may lead nurses, mothers, now and then even doctors, to administer physic for the cure of imaginary gripings in the bowels, it may be twice blessed. Sanitary enthusiasts are apt to say, that strings, not pins, are the right fastening for infants' clothes. Be not misled. Is not the pin-cushion an ancient institution ? What is to say, "Welcome, little stranger," if pins cease to do so? Resist this innovation. It is the small end of the wedge. The next thing that a child would do, if let alone, would be to sleep. I would not suffer that. The poor thing must want feeding ; therefore waken it and make it eat a sop, for that will be a pleasant joke at the expense of nature. I 38 How to make Home U^tJiealtJiy. It would be like wakening a gentleman after midnight to put into his mouth some pickled herring ; only the baby cannot thank you for your kindness as the gentleman might do. This is a golden rule concerning babies : to procure sickly growth, let the child always suckle. Attempt no regularity in nursing. It is true that if an infant be fed at the breast every four hours, it will fall into the habit of desiring food only so often, and will sleep very tranquilly during the interval. This may save trouble, but it is a device for rearing healthy children ; we discard it. Our infants shall be nursed in no new-fangled way. As for the child's crying, quiet costs eighteen-pence a bottle ; so that argument is very soon disposed of. Never be without a flask of Godfrey's Cordial, or Daffy, in the nursery ; but the fact is, that you ought to keep a medicine chest. A good deal of curious information may be obtained by watching the effects of various medicines upon your children. Never be guided by the child's teeth in weaning it. Wean before the first teeth cut, or after they have learned to bite. Wean all at once, with bitter aloes or some similar devices ; and change the diet suddenly. It is a foolish thing to ask a medical attendant how to regulate the food of children ; he is sure to be overrun with bookish prejudices ; but nurses are practical women, who under- stand thoroughly matters of this kind. Do not use a cot for infants, or presume beyond the time- honoured institution of the cradle. Active rocking sends a child to sleep by causing giddiness. Giddiness is a dis- turbance of the blood's usual way of circulation ; obviously therefore, it is a thing to aim at in our nurseries. For elder children swinging is an excellent amusement, if they become giddy on the swing. In your nursery, a maid and two or three children may pints to Hang iip in the Nursery. 39 conveniently be quartered for the night, by all means care- fully secured from draughts. Never omit to use at night a chimney board. The nursery window ought not to be much opened ; and the door should be kept always shut, in order that the clamour of the children may not annoy others in your house. When the children walk out for an airing, of course they are to be little ladies and gentlemen. They are not to scamper to and fro ; a little gentle amble with a hoop ought to be their severest exercise. In sending them to walk abroad it is a good thing to let their legs be bare. The gentleman papa, probably, would find bare legs rather cold walking in the streets of London ; but the gentleman son, of course, has quite another constitution. Besides, how can a boy, not pre-disposed that way, hope to grow up con- sumptive, if some pains are not taken with him in his child- hood ? It is said that of old time children in the Balearic Islands were not allowed to eat their dinner, until, by adroitness in the shooting of stones out of a sling, they had dislodged it from a rafter in the house. Children in the British Islands should be better treated. Let them not only have their meals unfailingly, but let them be at all other times tempted and bribed to eat. Cakes and sweetmeats of alluring shape and colour, fruits, and palatable messes, should without any regularity be added to the diet of a child. The stomach we know, requires three or four hours to digest a meal, expects a moderate routine of tasks, and between each task looks for a little period of rest. Now, as we hope to create a weak digestion, what is more obvious than that we must use artifice to circumvent the stomach ? In one hour we must come upon it unexpectedly with a dose of fruit and sugar ; then, if the regular dinner have been taken, astonish the digestion while at work upon it with the appearance of an extra lump of cake, and presently some gooseberries. 40 How to make Hoine Unhealthy: ^ In this way we soon triumph over Nature, who, to speak truth, does not permit to us an easy victory, and does try to accommodate her working to our whims. We triumph, and obtain our reward in children pale and polite, children with appetites already formed that will become our good allies against their health in after life. Prijicipiis obsta. Let us subdue mere nature at her first start, and make her civilised in her beginnings. Let us wipe the rose-tint out of the child's cheek, in good hope that the man will not be able to recover it. White, yellow, and purple, let us make them to be his future tricolour. March z^tli^ 1850. I No. IL — The Londoner's Garden. Brick walls do not secrete air. It comes in through your doors and windows, from the streets and alleys in your neighbourhood ; it comes in without scraping its feet, and goes down your throat, unwashed, with small respect for your gentihty. You must look abroad, therefore, for some elements of an unwholesome home ; and when, sitting at home, you do so, it is a good thing if you can see a burial- ground— one of " God's gardens," which our city cherishes. Now, do not look up with a dolorous face, saying, " Alas ! these gardens are to be taken from us !" Let agitators write and let Commissioners report, let Government nod its good- will, and although all the world may think that our London burial-grounds are about to be incontinently jacketed in asphalte, and that we ourselves, when dead, are to be steamed off to Erith, w^e are content : at present this is only gossip. On one of the lowest terraces of hell, says Dante, he found a Cordelier who had been dragged thither by a logical demon in defiance of the expostulations of St. Francis. The TJie Londoner's Ga7'dcn. 41 sin of that monk was a sentence of advice, for which absolution had been received before he gave it : " Promise much, and perform httle." In the hair of any Minister's head, and of every Commissioner's head, we know not what "black cherubim" may have entwined their claws. There is hope, while there is life, for the old cause. But if those Nrho have authority to do so really have determined to .abolish intramural burial, let us call upon them solemnly to reconsider their verdict. Let them ponder what follows. Two or three years ago, a book, promulging notions upon spiritual life, was published in London by the Chancellor of a certain place across the Channel. It was a clever book, and, among other matter, broached a theory. Our souls, the Rev. Chancellor informed us, consist of the essence, extract, or gas contained in the hunia?i body ; and, that he might not be vague, he had made special application to a chemist, who "added some important observations of his own respecting the corpse after death". But we must decorate a great speculation with the ornamental words of its propounder. "The gases into which the animal body is resolved by putrefaction are ammonia, carbonic acid, carbonic oxide, cyanogen, and sulphuretted, phosphuretted, and carburetted hydrogen. The first and the two last-named gases are most abundant." We omit here some details as to the time a body takes in rotting. " From which it appears, that these noble elements and rich essences of humanity are too subtle and volatile to continue long with the corpse ; but soon disengage themselves and escape from it. After which nothing remains but the foul refuse in the vat ; the mere caput mortuuni in the crucible ; the vile dust and ashes of the tomb. Nor does inhumation, however deep in the ground, nor drowning in the lowest depths and dasrket caverns of the fathomless abyss, prevent those subtle I D 42 How to make Home Unhealthy. essences, rare attenuate spirits, or gases, from escaping ; or chain down to dust those better, nobler elements of the human body. No bars can imprison them, no vessels detain them from their kindred element, confine them from their native home." We are all of us familiar with the more noticeable of these " essences" by smell, if not by name. Metaphysicians tell us that perceptions and ideas zvill follow in a train ; perhaps that may account for the sudden recollection of an old- fashioned story — may the moderns pardon it. A young Cambridge student, airing his wisdom at a dinner-party, w^as ingenious upon the Theory of Winds. He was mos eloquent concerning heat and cold ; radiation, rarefaction polar and equatorial currents ; he had brought his peroration to a close, when he turned round upon a grave Professor of his College, saying : " And what, sir, do you believe to be the cause of wind ?" The learned man replied, " Pea-soup, pea-soup !"' In the group of friends around a social soup- tureen, must we in future recognise " The feast of reason and — the flow of soul" ? How gladly shall we fight the fight of life, hoping that, after death, we shall all meet in a world of sulphuretted hydrogen and other gases ! And where do the Sanitary Reformers suppose that, after death, their gases will go — they who, in life, with asphalte and paving-stones, would have restrained the souls of their own fatheis tVcm ascending into upper air? Against us let there be no such reproach. Freely let us breathe into our bosoms some portion of the spirit of the dead. If we live near no churchyard, let us visit one — mesmerically, if you please. Now we are on the way. A\'e see narrow streets and many people ; most of the faces that we meet arc pale. Here is a walking funeral ; we follow TJie Londoners Garden. 43 with it to the churchyard. A corner is turned, and there is another funeral to be perceived at no great distance in advance. Our walkers trot. The other party, finding itself almost overtaken, sets off with a decent run. Our party runs. There is a race for prior attention when they reach the ground. We become interested. We perceive that one undertaker wears gaiters, and the other straps. We trot behind them, betting with each other, you on Gaiters, I on Straps. I win ; a £>cus ex inachina saves me, or I should have lost. An over-goaded ox rushes bewildered round a corner, charges and overthrows the foremost coffin ; it is broken, and the body is exposed — its white shroud flaps upon the mud. This has occurred once, I know ; and how much oftener I know not. So Gaiters pioneers his party to the nearest undertaker for repairs, and we follow the tri- umphant procession to the churchyard. The niinister there meets it, holding his white handkerchief most closely to his nose ; the mourners imitate him, sick and sorrowful. Your toe sticks in a bit of carrion as we pass near the grave, and seek the sexton. He is a pimpled man, who moralises much ; but his morality is maudlin. He is drunk. He is accustomed to antagonise the " spirits" of the dead with spirits from the Pig and Whistle. Here let the seance end. At home again, let us remark upon a striking fact. Those poor creatures whom we saw in sorrow by the grave, be- lieved that they were sowing flesh to immortality — and so they were. They did not know that they were also sowing coffee. By a trustworthy informant I am taught that of the old coffin-wood dug up out of the crowded churchyards, a large quantity that is not burned, is dried and ground ; and that ground coffee is therewith adulterated in a wholesale manner. It communicates to cheap coffee a good colour ; and puts Body into it, there can be no doubt of that. It will be a severe blow to the trade in British coffees if intra- D 2 44 How to viake Home UnJiealtJiy. mural interment be forbidden. We shall be driven to depend upon the distant planters for what now can be pro- duced in any quantity at home. Remember the largeness of the interests involved. Within the last thirty years, a million-and-a-half of corpses have been hidden under ground, in patches, here and there, among the streets of London. This pasturage we have enjoyed from our youth up, and it is threatened now to put us off our feed. I say no more, for better arguments than these cannot be urged on behalf of the maintenance of city graveyards. Possibly these may not prevail. Yet, never droop. Never- theless, without despairing, take a house in the vicinity of such a garden of the dead. If our lawgivers should fear the becoming neighbourly with Dante's Cordelier, and therefore absolutely interdict more burials in London, still you are safe. They shall not trample on the graves that are. We can agitate, and we will agitate, successfully against their asphalte. Let the city be mindful of its old renown, let vestries rally round Sir Peter Laurie, and there may be yet secured to you, for seven years to come, an atmosphere which shall assist in making home unhealthy. April Gfh, 1850. No. in. — Spending a very Pleasant Evening. By the consent of antiquity it is determined that Pain shall be doorkeeper to the house of Pleasure. In Europe Purgatory led to Paradise ; and had St. Symeon lived among us now, he would have earned heaven, if the police permitted, by praying for it, during thirty years, upon the summit of a lamp-post. In India the Fakir was beatified by standing on his head, under a hot sun, beset with roast- ing bonfires. In Greenland the soul expected to reach spending a very Pleasant Evening. 45 bliss by sliding for five days down a rugged rock, wound- ing itself, and shivering with cold. The American Indians sought happiness through castigation, and considered vomits the most expeditious mode of enforcing self-denial on the stomach. Some tribes of Africans believe that on the way to heaven every man's head is knocked against a wall. By consent of mankind, therefore, it is granted that we must pass pain on the way to pleasure. What pleasure is, when reached, none but the dogmatical can venture to determine. To Greenlanders, a spacious fish-kettle, for ever simmering, in which boiled seals for ever swim, is the delight of heaven. And remember that, in the opinion of M. Bailly, Adam and Eve gardened in Nova Zembla. You will not be surprised, therefore, if I call upon you to prepare for your domestic pleasures with a little suffering ; nor, when I tell you what such pleasures are, must you exclaim against them as absurd. Having the sanction of our forefathers they are what is fashionable noAv, and con- sequently they are \vhat is fit. I propose, then, that you should give, for the entertain- ment of your friends, an evening party ; and as this is a scene in which young ladies prominently figure, I will, if you please, on this occasion, pay particular attention to your daughter. O mystery of preparation ! — Pardon, sir. You err if you suppose me to insinuate that ladies are more careful over personal adornment than the gentlemen. When men made a display of manhood, wearing beards, it is recorded that they packed them, when they went to bed, in pasteboard cases, lest they might be tumbled in the night. Man at his grimmest is as vain as woman, even when he stalks about bearded and battle-axed. — This is the mystery of preparation m your daughter's case : How does she breathe ? You have prepared iier from childhood for the part she is 46 How to make Home UrihealtJiy. to play to-night, by training her form into the only shape which can be looked at with complacency in any ball-room. A machine called stays, introduced long since into England by the Normans, has had her in its grip from early girl- hood. She has become pale, and — only the least bit — liable to be blue about the nose and fingers. Stays are an excellent contrivance ; they give a material support to the old cause, Unhealthiness at Home. This is the secret of their excellence. A woman's ribs are narrow at the top, and as they approach the waist they widen, to allow room for the lungs to play within them. If you can prevent the ribs from widening, you can prevent the lungs from play- ing, which they have no right to do, and make them work. This you accomplish by the agency of stays. It fortunately happens that these lungs have work to do — the putting of the breath of life into the blood — which they are unable to do properly when cramped for space ; it becomes about as difficult to them as it would be to you to play the trom- bone in a china closet. By this compression of the chest ladies are made nervous, and become unfit for much exertion ; they do not, however, allow us to suppose that they have lost flesh. There is a fiction of attire which would induce in a speculative critic the belief that some internal flame had caused their waists to gutter, and that the ribs had all run down into a lump which protrudes behind under the waistband. This appearance is, I think, a fiction, and for my opinion I have newspaper authority. In the papers it was written one day last year that the hump alluded to was tested with a pin upon the person of a lady coming from the Isle of Man, and it was found not to be sensitive. Brandy exuded from the wound, for in that case the projection was a bladder in which the prudent housewife was smuggling comfort in a quiet way. The touch of a pin changed all into discomfort, when she found spending a very Pleasant Evefiing. 47 that she was converted into a peripatetic watering-can— brandying-can, I should have said. Your daughter comes down stairs dressed, with a bou- quet, at a time when the dull seeker of Health and Strength would have her to go upstairs with a bed-candlestick. Your guests arrive. Young ladies thinly clad and packed in carriages emerge half stifled, put a cold foot, protected by a filmy shoe, upon the pavement, and run, shivering, into your house. Well, sir, w^e'U warm them presently. But suffer me to leave you now while you receive your guests. I know a Phyllis, fresh from the country, who gets up at six and goes to bed at ten; who knows no perfume but a flower-garden, and has worn no bandage to her waist except a sash. She is now in London, and desires to do as others do. She is invited to your party, but is not yet come ; it may be wtII for me to call upon her. Why, in the name of New^gate, what is going on ? She is shrieking " Murder I" on the second floor. Up to the rescue ! A judicious maid directs me to the drawing-room : " It's only Miss a-trying on her stays." Here we are, sir; Phyllis and I. — You find the room oppressive — 'tis with perfume, Phyllis. With foul air ? ah, your nice country nose detects it ; yes, there is foul air — not nasty, of course, my dear, mixed as it here is with eau- de-Cologne and patchouli. Pills are not nasty, sugared. A grain or two of arsenic in each might be not quite exactly neutralised by sugar ; but there is nothing like faith in a good digestion.— Why do the gentlemen cuddle the ladies, and spin about the room with them like tee- totums. Oh, Phyllis ! Phyllis ! let me waltz with you. There, do you not see how it is ? Faint, are you— giddy — will you fall ? An ice will refresh you. Spasms next ! Phyllis, let me take you home. 48 Hoiv to make Home Ufihcalthy. Now, then, sir, Phyllis has been put to bed ; allow me to dance a polka with your daughter. Frail, elegant creature that she is ! A glass of wine — a macaroon ; l'^c c d. Sontag, yes ; and that dear novel. That was a delightful dance ; now let us promenade. The room is close ; a glass of wine, an ice, and let us get to the delicious draught in the conservatory, or by that door. Is it not beautiful ? The next quadrille — I look slily at my watch, and Auber's grim chorus rumbles within me, " Void ininuit ! Void ininuitr Another dance. How fond she seems to be of macaroons I Supper. My dear sir, I will take good care of your daughter. One sandwich. Champagne. Blancmange. Bonbon. Champagne. Sherry. Champagne. Tipsy- cake. Brandy cherries. Glass of wine. A macaroon. Trifle. Jelly. Champagne. Custard. Macaroon. The ladies are being taken care of — Yes, now in their absence we will drink their health, and wink at each other : their and our Bad Healths. This is the happiest moment of our lives ; at two in the morning, with a dose of indiges- tion in the stomachs, and three hours more to come before we get to bed. You, my dear sir, hope that on many occasions like the present you may see your friends around you, looking as glassy-eyed as you have made them to look now. We will rejoin the ladies. Nothing but champagne could have enabled us to keep up the evening so well. We were getting weary before supper — but we have had some wine, have dug the spur into our sides, and on we go again. At length even the bottle stimulates our worn-out company no more, and then we. separate. Good-night, dear sir; we have spent a Yery Pleasant Evening under your roof. To-morrow, when you depart from a late breakfast, having seen your daughter's face and her boiled-mackerel eye, knowing that your wife is bilious and that your son has just gone out for soda-water, you will feel yourself to be TJic Light Nuisance. 49 a Briton who has done his duty, a man who has paid some- thing on account of his great debt to civiHsed society. April 1 3//^, 1850. No. IV. — The Light Nuisance. Tieck tells us, in his History of the Schi/dluirger^ that the town council of that spirited community was very wise. It had been noticed that many worthy aldermen and common- councillors were in the habit of looking out of window when they ought to be attending to their duties. A vote was there- fore, on one occasion, passed by a large majority to this effect, namely — Whereas the windows of the Town-hall are a great impediment to the despatch of public business, it is ordered that before the next day of meeting they be all bricked up. When the next day of meeting came, the worthy representatives of Schildburg were surprised to find them- selves assembling in the dark. Presently, accepting the unlooked-for fact, they settled down into an edifying discus- sion of the question whether darkness was not more con- venient for their purposes than daylight. — Had you and I been there, my friend, our votes in the division would have been, like the vote in our own House of Commons a few days ago, for keeping out the Light Nuisance as much as possible. Darkness is better than daylight, certainly. Now, this admits of proof. For, let me ask, where do you find the best part of a lettuce? — not in the outside leaves. Which are the choice parts of celery ? — of course, the white shoots in the middle. Why, sir ? Because light has never come to them. They become white and luxurious by tying up, by earthing up, by any contrivance which has kept the sun at bay. It is the same with man : while we obstruct the light by putting brick and board where glass suggests itself, and mock the light by picturing impracticable windows 50 Hoiu to make Home U7ihealt}iy on our outside walls, —so that our houses stare about like blind men with glass eyes, — while this is done, we sit at home and blanch, we become in our dim apartments pale and delicate, we grow to look refined, as gentlemen and ladies ought to look. Let the sanitary doctor, at whose head we have thrown lettuces, go to the botanist and ask him. How is this ? Let him come back and tell us. Oh, gentlemen, in these vegetables the natural juices are not formed when you exclude the light. The natural juices in the lettuce or in celery are flavoured much more strongly than our tastes would relish, and therefore we induce in these plants an imperfect development in order to make them eatable. Very well. The natural juices in a man are stronger than good taste can tolerate. IMan requires horticulture to be fit to come to table. To rear the finer sorts of human kind one great operation necessary is to banish light as much as possible. Ladies know that. To keep their faces pale, they pull the blinds down in their drawing-rooms, they put a veil between their countenances and the sun when they go out, and carry, like good soldiers, a great shield on high, by name a Parasol, to ward his darts off. They know better than to let the old god kiss them into colour, as he does the peaches. They choose to remain green fruit : and we all know that to be a delicacy. Yet there are men among us daring to propose that there shall no longer be protection against light ; men who would tax a house by its capaciousness, and let the sun shine into it unhindered. The so-called sanitary people really seem to look upon their fellow-creatures as so many cucumbers. But we have not yet fallen so far back in our development. Disease is a privilege. Those only who know the tender touch of a wife's hand, the quiet kiss, the soothing whisper, can appreciate its worth. All who are not dead to the tende'rest emotions will lament the day when light is turned TJic Light Nuisance. 5^ on without limit in our houses. We have no wish to be blazed upon. Frequently pestilence itself avoids the sunny side of any street, and prefers walking in the shade. Nay, even in one building, as in the case of a great barrack at St. Petersburg, there will be three calls made by disease upon the shady side of the establishment for every one visit that it pays to the side brightened by the sun ; and this is known to happen, uniformly, for a series of years. Let us be w^arned, then. There must be no increase of windows in our houses; let us curtain those we have, and keep our blinds well down. Let morning sun or afternoon sun fire no volleys in upon us. Faded curtains, faded carpets, all ye blinds forbid! But faded faces are desirable. It is a cheering spectacle on summer afternoons to see the bright rays beating on a row of windows, all the way down a street, and failing to find entrance anywhere. Who wants more windows ? Is it not obvious that, when daylight really comes, every window we possess is counted one too many ? If we could send up a large balloon into the sky, with Mr. Braidwood and a fire- engine, to get the flames of the sun under, just a little bit, that would be something rational. More light, indeed ! More water next, no doubt ! As if it were not perfectly notorious that in the articles of light, water and air. Nature outran the constable. We have to keep out light with blinds and veils, and various machinery, as we would keep out cockroaches with wafers; we keep out air with pads and curtains ; and still there are impertinent reformers clamour- ing to increase our difficulty, by giving us more windows to protect against the inroads of those household nuisances. I call upon consistent Englishmen to make a stand against these innovators. There is need of all our vigour. In 1848 the repeal of the window-tax was scouted from the Commons by a sensible majority of ninety-four. Last week the good cause triumphed only by a precarious majority of three. The exertions of ridit-thinkins; men will not be w^anting, 52 Hoiv to make Home UnJicaltJiy. when the value and importance of a little energetic labour is once clearly perceived. What is it that the sanitary agitators want ? To tan and freckle all their countrywomen, and to make Britons apple faced ? The Persian hero, Rustum, when a baby, exhausted seven nurses, and was weaned upon seven sheep a day when he was of age for spoon-meat. Are English babies to be Rustums ? When Rustum's mother, Roubadah, from a high tower first saw and admired her future husband Zal, she let her ringlets fall, and they were long and reached unto the ground, and Zal climbed up by them, and knelt down at her feet and asked to marry her. Are British ladies to be strengthened into Roubadahs, with hair like a ship's cable up which husbands may clamber? In the present state of the mania for Public Health, it is quite time that every patriotic man should put these questions seriously to his conscience. One topic more. Let it be clearly understood that against artificial light we can make no objection. Between sun and candle there are more contrasts than the mere difference in brilliancy. The light which comes down from the sky not only eats no air out of our mouths, but it comes charged with mysterious and subtle principles which have a purifying, vivifying power. It is a powerful ally of health, and we make war against it. But artificial light contains no sanitary marvels. When the gas streams through half-a-dozen jets into your room, and burns there and gives light ; when candles become shorter and shorter until they are " burnt out" and seen no more ; you know what happens. Nothing in nature ceases to exist. Your camphinehas left the lamp, but it has not vanished out of being. Nor has it been con- verted into light. . Light is a visible action ; and candles are no more converted into light when they are burning, than breath is converted into speech when you are talking. The breath, having produced speech, mixes with the atmo- Passing the Bottle. 53 sphere ; gas, camphine, candles, having produced h'ght, do the same. If you saw fifty wax-h'ghts shrink to their sockets last week in an unventilated ball-room, yet, though invisible, they had not left you ; for their elements were in the room, and you were breathing them. Their light had been a sign that they were combining chemically with the air ; in so combining they were changed, but they became a poison. Every artificial light is of necessity a little work- shop for the conversion of gas, oil, spirit, or candle into respirable poison. Let no sanitary tongue persuade you that the more we have of such a process, the more need we have of ventilation. Ventilation is a catchword for the use of agitators, in which it does not become any person of refine- ment to exhibit interest. The following hint will be received thankfully by gentle- men who would be glad to merit spectacles. To make your eyes weak, use a fluctuating'jlight ; nothing can be better adapted for your purpose than what are called "mould'' candles. The joke of them consists in this : they begin with giving you sufficient light, but, as the wick grows, the radiance lessens, and your eye gradually accommodates itself to the decrease : suddenly they are snuffed, and your eye leaps back to its original adjustment, there begins another slide, and then leaps back again. Much practice of this kind serves very well as a familiar introduction to the use of glasses. April 20th, 1850. No. V. — Passing the Bottle. A brass button from the coat of St. Peter was at one time shown to visitors among the treasures of a certain church in Nassau ; possibly some traveller of more experience may have met with a false collar from the wardrobe of St. Paul. 54 tJow to make Home Unhealthy. The intellect displayed of old by holy saints and martyrs we may reasonably believe to have surpassed the measure of a bishop's understanding in the present day, for we have the authority of eyesight and tradition in asserting that the meanest of those ancient worthies possessed not fewer than three skulls, and that a great saint must have had so very many heads that it would have built the fortune of a man to be his hatter. Perhaps some of these relics are fictitious ; nevertheless they are the boast of their possessors, they are exhibited as genuine, and thoroughly believed to be so. Sir, did your stomach never suggest to you that doctored elder berry of a recent brew had been uncorked with veneration at some dinner-table as a bottle of old port ? Have you expe- rience of any festive friend who can commit himself to doubt about the age and genuineness of his wine ? The cellar is the social relic-chamber; every bin rejoices in a most veracious legend ; and whether it be over wine or over relics that we wonder, equal difficulties start up to obstruct our faith. Our prejudices, for example, run so much in favour of one-headed men, that we can scarcely entertain the notion of a saint who had six nightcaps to put on when he went to bed. and when he got up in the morning had six beards to shave. Knowing that the Russians by themselves drink more champagne than France exports, and that it must rain grapes at Hochheim before that place can yield all the wine we English label Hock, and haunted as we are by the same difficulty when we look to other kinds of foreign wine, we feel a justified suspicion that the same glass of "genuine old port" cannot be indulged in simultaneously by ten people. If only one man of the number drinks it, what is that eidolon which delights the other nine ? When George the Fourth was Regent he possessed a small store of the choicest wine, and never called for it. There were some gentlemen in his establishment acquainted with Passing the Bottle. 55 its merits; these took upon themselves to rescue it from undeserved neglect. Then the Prince talked about his treasure — when little remained thereof except the bottles ; and it was to be produced at a forthcoming dinner-party. The gentlemen who knew its flavour visited the vaults of an extensive wine-merchant, and there they vainly sought to look upon its like again. " In those dim solitudes and awful cells " they, groaning in spirit, made a confessor of the merchant, who, for a fee, engaged to save them from the wrath to come. As an artist in wine, having obtained a sample of the stuff required, this dealer undertook to furnish a successful imitation. So he did ; for, having filled those bottles with a wondrous compound, he sent them to the palace just before the fateful dinner-hour, exhorting the conspirators to take heed how they suffered any to be left. The compound would become a tell-tale after twelve hours' keeping. The Prince that evening enjoyed his wine. The ordinary manufacture of choice wine for people who are not princes requires the following ingredients : — For the original fluid, cider, or common cape, raisin, grape, parsnip, or elder wine ; a wine made of rhubarb (for cham- pagne) ; to these may be added water. A fit stock having been chosen, strength, colour, and flavour may be grafted on it. Use is made of these materials : — For colour, burnt sugar, logwood, cochineal, red sanders wood, or elder- berries. Plain spirit or brandy for strength. For nutty flavour, bitter almonds. For fruitiness, Dantzic spruce. For fulness or smoothness, honey. For port-wine flavour, tincture of the seeds of raisins. For bouquet, orris-root or ambergris. For roughness or dryness, alum, oak sawdust, rhatany, or kino. It is not necessary that an imitation should contain one drop of the wine whose name it bears ; but a skilful combination of the true and false is desirable, if price permit. Every pint of the pure wine thus added 56 How to make Home UiiJiealtJiy. to a mixture is, of course, so much abstracted from the stock of unadulterated juice. You will perceive, therefore, that a free use of wine, not highl)^ priced, is likely to assist us very much in our endea- vours to establish an unhealthy home. Fill your cellar with bargains ; be a genuine John Bull ; invite your friends, and pass the bottle. There is hope for us also in the recollection that if chance force upon us a small stock of wine that has not been, in England, under the doctor's hands, we know not what may have been done to it abroad. The botanist, Robert Fortune, was in China when the Americans deluged the Chinese market with their orders for Young Hyson tea. The Chinese very promptly met the whole demand ; and Fortune in his " Wanderings" has told us how. He found his way to a Young Hyson manufactory, where coarse old Congou leaves were being chopped and carefully manipulated by those ingenious merchants the Chinese. But it is in human nature for other folks than the Chinese to be ingenious in such matters. We may therefore make up our minds that, since the demand for wine from certain celebrated vineyards largely exceeds all possibility of genuine supply, since also every man who asks is satisfied, it is inevitable that the great majority of wine-drinkers are satisfied with a factitious article. The chances are against our very often meeting with a glass of port that has not taken physic. So, let us never drink dear wine, nor ask a chemist what is in our bottles. Enough that they contain for us delightful poison. That name for wine, " delightful poison," is not new. It is as old as the foundation of Persepolis. Jemsheed was fond of grapes, Ferdusi tells, and once, when grapes went out of season, stored up for himself some jars of grape-juice. After a while he went to seek for a refreshing draught ; then fermentation was in progress, and he found his juice abomi- nably nasty. A severe stomach-ache induced him to believe I Passing the Bottle. 57 that the liquor had acquired, in some way, dangerous quahties, and therefore, to avoid accidents, he labelled each jar, "Poison." More time elapsed, and then one of his wives, in trouble of soul, weary of life, resolved to put an end to her existence. Poison was handy ; but a draught transformed her trouble into joy ; more of it stupefied, but did not kill her. That woman kept a secret : she alone exhausted all the jars. Jemsheed then found them to be empty. Explanations followed. The experiment was tried once more, and wine, being so discovered, was thereafter entitled the delightful Poison. What Jemsheed would have said to a bottle of port out of our friend Hoggins's cellar But I tread on sacred ground. Of good wine Health requires none, though it will tolerate a little. Our prospect, therefore, when the bottle passes briskly, is encouraging. Is the wine good, we may expect some indigestion ; is it bad, who can tell what disorders we may not expect? Hoggins, I know, drinks more than a quart without disordering his stomach. He has long been a supporter of the cause we are now advocating, and therein finds one of his rewards. It is not safe to pinch a tiger's tail, — yet, when the animal is sick, perhaps he will not bite although you tread upon it heavily. Healthy men and healthy stomachs tolerate no oppression. London is full now ; elsewhere country folks come out of doors, invited by fine weather. Walk where you will, in country or in town, and look at all the faces that you meet. Traverse the Strand, and Regent Street, and Holborn, and Cheapside ; get into a boat at London Bridge, steam to Gravesend, and look at your fellow-passengers : examine where you will, the stamp of our civilisation, sickliness, is upon nine people in any ten. There are good reasons why this should be so, and so let it continue. We have excluded sanitary calculations from our social life ; wc have had hitherto unhealthy homes; and we will keep them. Bede I E 58 Hozu to make Ho Die UnJiealtJiy. tells of a Mercian noble on his deathbed, to whom a ghost exhibited a scrap of paper upon which were written his good deeds ; then the door opened, and an interminable file of ghosts brought in a mile or two of scroll whereon his mis- deeds were all registered, and made him read them. Our wars against brute health are glorious, and we rejoice to feel that of such sins we have no scanty catalogue ; we are content with our few items of mere sanitary virtue. As for sanitary reformers, they are a company of Danaids ; they may get some of us into their sieve, but we shall soon slip out again. When a traveller proposed, at Ghadames in the Sahara, to put up a lantern here and there of nights among the pitch-dark streets, the people said his notion might be good, but that, as such things never had been tried before, it would be presumptuous to make the trial of them now. The traveller, a Briton, must have felt quite at home when he heard that objection. Amen, then ; with the Ghadamese, we say. Let us have no New Lights. April 2']f/i, 1850. No. VL — Art against Appetite. The object of food is, so to support the body in its natural development that it may reach a reasonable age without becoming too robust. Civilisation can instruct us so to manage that a gentle dissolution tread upon the heels of growth, that — as ^Metastasio hath it — " dalle fasce, Si comincia a morir quando si nasce." ^ An infant's appetite is all for milk ; but art suggests a few additions to that lamentably simple diet. A lady not 1 " from swaddling-clothes, Dying begins at birth." Art against Appetite. 59 long since complacently informed her medical attendant -that, for the use of a baby then about eight months old, she had spent nine pounds in " infant's preservative". Of this, or of some like preparation, the advertisements tell us that it compels nature to be orderly, and that all infants take it with greediness. So we have even justice to the child. Pet drinks preservative ; papa drinks port. Then there is " farinaceous food". Here — for a purpose — we must interpolate a bit of science. There is a division of food into two great classes : nourishment and fuel. Nourishment is said to exist chiefly in animal flesh and blood, and in vegetable compounds which exactly cor- respond thereto, called vegetable fibrine, albumen, and caseine. Fuel exists in whatever contains much carbon : fat and starchy vegetables, potatoes, gum, sugar, alcoholic liquors. If a person take more nourishment than he wants, it is said to be wasted; if he take more fuel than he wants, part of it is wasted, and part of it the body stacks away as fat. These men of science furthermore assert that the correct diet of a healthy man must contain eight parts of fuel-food to one of nourishment. This preserves equi- librium, they say, — suits, therefore, an adult ; the child, which has to become bigger as it lives, has use for an excess of nourishment. And so one of the doctors. Dr. R. D. Thomson, gives this table ; it has been often copied. The proportion of nourishment to fuel is in Milk (food for a growing animal) . I to 2 Beans I » ^i Oatmeal ^ n 5 Barley I n 7 Wheat flour (food for an animal at rest) . I „ 8 Potatoes I » 9 Rice I „ 10 Turnips I „ ir Arrow-root, tapioca, sago I „ 26 Starch I „ 40 E 2 6o Hozv to make Home U7thealtJiy. Very well, gentlemen, we take your facts. As segritudr- nary men, we know what use to make of them. We will give infants farinaceous food — arrow-root, tapioca, and the like ; quite ready to be taught by you that so we give one particle of nourishment in twenty-six. Tell us. This diet is like putting leeches on a child. We are content. Leeches give a delicate whiteness that we are thankful to be able to obtain without the biting or the bloodshed. Sanitary people will allow a child, up to its seventh year, nothing beyond bread, milk, water, sugar, light meat broth, without fat, and fresh meat for its dinner — when it is old enough to bite it — with a little well-cooked vegetable. They confine a child, poor creature, to this miserable fare ; permitting, in due season, only a pittance of the ripest fruit. They would give children, while they are growing, oat- meal and milk for breakfast, made into a porridge. They would deny them beer. You know how strengthening that IS, and yet these people say there is not an ounce of meat in a whole bucketful. They would deny them comfits, cakes, wine, pastry, and grudge them nuts ; but our boys shall rebel against all this. We will teach them to regard cake as bliss, and wine as glory ; we will educate them to a love of tarts. Once let our art secure over the stomach its ascendency, and the civilised organ acquires new desires. Vitiated cravings, let the sanitary doctors call them ; let them say that children will eat garbage, as young women will eat chalk and coals, not because it is their nature so to do, but because it is a symptom of disordered function. We know nothing about function. Art against Appetite has won the day, and the pale face of civilisation is established. Plain sugar it is a good thing to forbid our children ; there is something healthy in their love of it. Suppose we tell them that it spoils the teeth. They know no better ; Art agaiyist Appetite. 6 1 we do. We know that the negroes, who in a great measure live upon sugar, are quite famous for their sound, white teeth; and Mr. Richardson tells us of tribes among the Arabs of Sahara, whose beautiful teeth he lauds, that they are in the habit of keeping about them a stick of sugar in a leathern case, which they bring out from time to time for a suck, as we bring out the snuff-box for a pinch. But we will tell our children that plain sugar spoils the teeth; sugar mixed with chalk or verdigris, or any other mess— that is to say, civilised sugar — they are welcome to. And for ourselves, we will eat anything. The more our cooks, with spice, with druggery and pastry, raise our wonder up, the more we will approve their handicraft. We will excite the stomach with a peppered soup ; we will make fish indigestible with melted butter, and correct the butter with cayenne. We will take sauces, we will drink wine, we will drink beer, we will eat pie-crust, we will eat indescribable productions, — we will take celery and cheese and ale,- -we will take liqueur, — we will take wine and olives and more wine, and oranges, and almonds, and any- thing else that may present itself; and we will call all that our dinner, and for such the stomach shall accept it. We will eat more than we need, but will compel an appetite Art against Appetite for ever. Sanitary people bear ill-will to pie-crust ; they teach that butter, after being baked therein, becomes a compound hateful to the stomach. We will eat pies, we will eat pastry, we will eat — we would eat M. Soyer himself in a tart, if it were possible. We will uphold London milk. Mr. Rugg says that it is apt to contain chalk, the brains of sheep, oxen, and cows, flour, starch, treacle, whiting, sugar of lead, arnotto, size, etc. Who cares for Mr. Rugg? London milk is better than country milk, for London cows are town cows. They live in a city, in close sheds, in our own dear alleys, — are 62 Hoiv to make Home UnJicaltJiy. consumptive, — they are delightful cows ; only their milk is too strong, it requires watering and doctoring, and then it is delicious milk. Tea we are not quite sure about. Some people say that because tea took so sudden a hold upon the human appe- tite, because it spread so widely in so short a time, that therefore it supplies a want : its use is natural. Liebig suggests that it supplies a constituent of bile. I think rather that its use has become general because it causes innocent intoxication. Few men are not glad to be made cheerful harmlessly. For this reason I think it is that the use of tea and coffee has become popular ; and since what- ever sustains cheerfulness advances health, — the body working with good will under a pleasant master, — tea does our service little good. In excess, no doubt, it can be rendered hurtful (so can bread and butter) ; but the best way of pressing it into employment, as an oegritudinary aid, is by the practice of taking it extremely hot. A few obser- vations upon the temperature at which food is refused by all the lower animals will soon convince you that in man — not as regards tea only, but in a great many respects — Art has established her own rule, and that the Appetite of Nature has been conquered. We have a great respect for alcoholic liquors. It has been seen that the excess of these makes fat : they, there- fore, v/ho have least need of fat, according to our rules, are those who have most need of wine and beer. Of ordinary meats there is not much to say. We have read of Dr. Beaumont's servant, who had an open musket- hole, leading into his stomach, through which the doctor made experiments. Many experiments were made ; and tables drawn, of no great value, on the digestibility of divers kinds of meat. Climate and habit are, on such points, paramount. Pig is pollution to the children of the sun, the Jew and Mussulman ; but children of winter, the Scan- TJie Water Party. 6'}^ dinavians, could not imagine Paradise complete without it. Schrimner, the sacred hog, cut up daily and eaten by the tenants of Walhalla, collected his fragments in the night ; and was in his sty again, ready for slaughter, the next morning. These things concern us little, for it is not with plain meat that we have here to do, but with the noble art of cookery. That art, which once obeyed and now com- mands our appetite, which is become the teacher where it was the taught, we duly reverence. When segritudinary science shall obtain its college, and when each unhealthy course shall have its eminent professor to teach theory and practice, — then we shall have a Court of Aldermen for patrons, a gravedigger for Principal, and a cook shall be Dean of the Faculty. May ^th, 1850. No. VII. — The Water Party. Water rains from heaven, and leaps up out of the earth : it rolls about the land in rivers, it accumulates in lakes ; three-fourths of the whole surface of the globe is water ; yet there are men unable to be clean. " God loveth the clean," said Mahomet. He was a sanitary reformer; he was a notorious impostor; and it is our duty to resist any insidious attempt to introduce his doctrines. There are in London districts of filth which speak to us — through the nose — in an emphatic manner. Their foul air is an atmosphere of charity; for we pass through it, pitying the poor. Burke said of a certain miser to whom an estate was left, "that now, it was to be hoped, he would set up a pocket-handkerchief." We hope, of the miserable, that when they come into their property they may be able to afford themselves a little lavender and musk. We might be willing to subscribe for the correction now and then, 64 Hoiv to make Home UjiJiealtJiy, with aromatic cachou, of the town's bad breath ; but water is a vulgar sort of thing, and of vulgarity the less we have the better. In truth, we have not much of it. We are told that in a great city water is maid-of-all-work ; has to assist our manufactures, to supply daily our saucepans and our tea- kettles ; has to cleanse our clothes, our persons, and our houses ; to provide baths, to wash our streets, and to flood away the daily refuse of the people, with their slaughter- houses, markets, hospitals, etc. Our dozen reservoirs in London yield a supply daily averaging thirty gallons to each head, — a quantity too small for sanitary folk, though it contents us thoroughly. Rome in her pride used once to supply water at the rate of more than three hundred gallons daily to each citizen. That was excess. In London half a million of people get no water at all into their houses ; but as those people live in the back settlements, and keep out of our sight, their dirt is no great matter of concern. We, for our own parts, have enough to cook with, have whereof to drink, wherewith to wash our feet sometimes, to wet our fingers and the corner of a towel, — we desire no mo:e. Drainage and all such topics involve details positively nasty, and we blush for any of our fellow-citizens who take delight in chattering about them. ^^'e are told to regard the habits of an infant world. London, the brain of a vast empire, is advised now to forget her civilisation, and to go back some thousand years. We are to look at Persian aqueducts, attributed to Noah's great- grandson — at Carthaginians, Etruscans, Mexicans, — at what Rome did. It frets us when we are thus driven to an obvious reply. Man in an unripe and half-civilised con- dition has not found out the vulgarity of water ; for his brutish instinct is not overcome. All savages believe that water is essential to their life, and desire it in unlimited abundance. Cultivation teaches us another life, in which The Water Party. 65 our animal existence neither gets nor merits much atten- tion. As for the Romans, so perpetually (luoted, it was a freak of theirs to do things massively. While they were yet almost barbarians, they built that Cloaca through which afterwards Agrippa sailed down to the Tiber in a boat. Who wishes to see his worship the Lord Mayor of London emerging in his state barge from a London sewer ? Now here is inconsistency. Thirty million gallons of corruption are added daily by our London sewers to the Thames ; that is one object of complaint, good in itself, because we drink Tliames water. But in the next breath it is complained that a good many million gallons more should be poured out ; that there are three hundred thousand cesspools more to be washed up ; that as much filth as would make a lake, six feet in depth, a mile long, and a thousand feet across, lies under London stagnant ; and they would wish this also to be swept into the river. I heard lately of a gentleman who is tormented with the constant fancy that he has a scorpion down his back. He asks every neighbour to put in his hand and fetch it out, but no amount of fetching out ever relieves him. That is a national delusion. Our enlightened public is much troubled with such scorpions. Sanitary writers are infested with them. They also say. That in one half of London people drink Thames water ; and in the other half, get water from the Chadwell spring and river Lea. That the river Lea, for twenty miles, flows through a densely-peopled district, and is, in its passage, drenched with refuse matter from the population on its banks. That there is added to Thames water the waste of two hundred and twenty cities, towns, and villages ; and that between Richmond and AWiterloo bridge more than two hundred sewers discharge into it their fetid matter. That the washing to and fro of tide secures the arrival of a large portion of filth from below Westminster, 66 Hozu to make Hovie UnJicalthy. at Hammersmith ; effects a perfect mixture, which is still further faciUtated by the splashing of the steamboats. Mr. Hassal has published engravings of the microscopic aspect of water taken from companies which suck the river up at Avidely-separated stages of its course through town ; — so tested, one drop differs little from another in the degree of its impurity. They tell us that two companies — the Lambeth and West Middlesex — supply Thames Mixture to subscribers as it comes to them ; but that others filter more or less. They say that filtering can expurge nothing but mechanical impurities, while the dissolved pollution which no filter can extract is that part which communicates disease. We know this ; well, and what then ? There are absurdities so lifted above ridicule, that Momus himself would spoil part of the fun if he attempted to transgress beyond a naked statement of them. What do the members of this Water Party w^ant ? I'll tell you what I verily believe they are insane enough to look for. Thames water they must have, but they would travel up the stream until they find out a place where it can be had comparatively wholesome. Below Reading, just after it has received the w^ater of the Kennet and the Loddon, at Henley, they would start ; from thence they would desire to bring an aqueduct to London. Li London they v\-ould totally abolish cisterns, and all intermittence of supply. "Water in London they would have to be, as at Nottingham, accessible in all rooms at all times. They would have water, at high pressure, climbing about every house in every court and alley. They would place water, so to speak, at every finger's end, limiting no household as to quantity. They would enable every man to bathe. They would flush every sewer ; and wash, every day, the day's impurity from underneath the town. They hint that all this might not even be expensive ; that the cost of disease and degradation is so much greater than the cost of health The Water Party. 67 and self-respect, as to pay back, possibly, our outlay, and then yield a profit to the nation. They say that, even if it were a money loss, it would be moral gain ; and they ask whether we have not spent millions, ere now, upon less harmless commodities than water? An ingenious fellow had a fiddle — all, he said, made out of his own head ; and wood enough was left to make another. He must have been a sanitary man ; his fiddle was a crotchet. Still further to illustrate their own capacity of fiddle-making, these good but misguided people have been rooting up some horrible statistics of the filth and wretchedness which our back-windows overlook, with strange facts anent fever, pestilence, and the communication of disease. All this I purposely suppress; it is peculiarly disagreeable. Delicate health we like, and will learn gladly how to obtain it ; but results we are content with, and can spare the details, when those details bring us into contact, even upon paper, with the squalid classes. If these outcries of the Water Party move the public to a thirst for change, it would be prudent for us cegritudinary men not rashly to swim against the current. Let us adopt a middle course, a patronising tone. It is in our favour that a large number of the facts which these our foes have to produce, are, by a great deal, too startling to get easy credit. A single "Pooh" ! has in it more semblance of reason than a page of facts, when revelations of neglected hygiene are on the carpet. If the case of the Sanitary Reformers had been only half as well made out, it would be twice as well supported. May wth^ 1850. 6S How to Diake Home UnhcaltJiy. No. VIII. — Filling the Grave. M. Boutigny has published an account of some experi- ments which go to prove that we may dip our fingers into liquid metal with impunity. Professor Pliicker of Bonn has amply confirmed Boutigny's results, and in his report hints a conclusion that henceforth " certain minor operations in surgery may be performed with least pain by placing the foot in a bath of red-hot iron." Would you not like to see Pro- fessor Pliicker, with his trousers duly tucked up, washing his feet in a pailful of this very soothing fluid? And would it not be a fit martyrdom for sanitary doctors if we could compel them also to sacrifice their legs in a cause, kin to their own, of theory and innovation. As Alderman Lawrence shrewdly remarked last week, from his place in the Guild- hall, the sanitary reform cry is "got up". That is the reason why, in his case, it does not go down. He, for his own part, did not disapprove the flavour of a churchyard, and appeared to see no reason why it should be cheated of its due. The sanitary partisans, he said, were paid for making certain statements. It would be well if we could cut off their supply of halfpence, and so silence them. Liwang, an ancient Emperor of China, fearing insurrection, forbade all conversation, even whispering, in his dominions. It would be well for us if Liwang lived now, as our Secretary for the Home Department. There is too much talking, is there not, Mr. Carlyle ? We want Liwang among us. However, as matters stand, it is bad enough for the sanitary reformers. They are beneath the contempt even of an ass. They are despised by Alderman Lawrence.* * The honest and uncompromising spirit in which these papers oppose the sanitary movement, has led some people to imagine that there is satire meant in them. The best way to answer this suspicion, is to print here so much as we can find Filling the Grave. 6g Let us uphold our city graveyards ; on that point we have aheady spoken out. Let us not cheat them of their pasturage ; if any man fall sick, when, so to speak, his grave is dug, let us not lift him out of it by misdirected care. That topic now engages our attention. There is a report among the hearsay stories of Herodotus, touching some tribe of Scythians, that when one of them gets out of health, or passes forty years of age, his friends proceed to slaughter him, lest he become diseased, tough, or unfit for table. Those people took their ancestors into their stomachs, we lake ours into our lungs, — and herein we adopt the better plan, because it is the more unwholesome. We are content, also, now and then to let our friends grow old, although we may repress the tendency to age as much space for of the speech of Alderman Lawrence, as reported in the Times last Saturday. It will be seen that the tone of his eloquence and that of ours differ but little ; and that the present writer resembles the learned Alderman (who has succeeded however, on a far larger scale) in his attempt iniscere stultitiajn consiliis brevein. The noble city lord remarked : " The fact was, that the sanitary schemes were got up ; talk Avas made about cholera, and people became alarmed. Now, it was said that burial-grounds were highly injurious to health, and a great cry had been raised against them. He did not know such to be the fact, that they were injurious to health. He did not believe one word about it. There were many persons who lived by raising up bugbears of this description in the present day, and those persons were always raising up some new crotchet or another." After giving his view of the new Interments Bill, he asked, " Was it likely that the public would put up with the idea even of thus having the remains of their friends carried about the country ? Was it likely that the Government would be permitted thus to spread perhaps pestilence and fever?" There ! If you want satire, could you have a finer touch than that last sentence ? There is a bone to pick, and marrow in it too. /O How to make Ho7)ie Unhealthy. as possible. We do not absolutely kill our neighbours when they sicken ; yet by judicious nursing we may fre- quently keep down a too great buoyancy of health, and check recovery. How to produce this last effect I will now tell you. Gentle mourners, do not chide me as irreverent, — " Auch ich war In Arkadien geboren/" — bear with me then, and let me give my hints concerning cegritudinary sick-room discipline. Of the professional nurse I will say nothing. You, of course, have put down Mrs. Gamp's address. A sick-room should, in the first place, be made dark. Light, I have said before, is in most cases curative. It is a direct swindling of the doctor when we allow blinds to be pulled up, and so admit into the patient's room medicine for which nobody (except the tax-gatherer) is paid. A sick-room should, in the next place, be made sad, obtrusively sad. A smile upon the landing must become a sigh when it has passed the patient's door. Our hope is to depress, to dispirit invalids. Cheerful words and gentle laughter, more especially when there is admitted sunshine also, are a moral food much too nutritious for the sick. The sick-room, in its furniture as well, must have an ominous appearance. The drawers or a table should be decked with physic bottles. Some have a way of thrusting all the medicines into a cupboard, out of sight, leaving a glass of gaily-coloured flowers for the wearied eyes to rest upon : this has arisen obviously from a sanitary crotchet, and is on no account to be adopted. Then we must have the sick-room to be hot, and keep it close. A scentless air, at summer temperature, sanitary people want ; a hot, close atmosphere is better suited to our view. Slops and all messes are to be left standing in the room — only put out of sight — and cleared away occa- sionally : they are not to be removed at once. The chamber Filling the Grave. 71 also is to be made tidy once a day, and once a week well cleaned ; it is not to be kept in order by incessant care, by hourly tidiness, permitting no dirt to collect. There is an absurd sanitary dictum which I will but name. It is, that a patient ought to have, if possible, two beds, one for the day, and one for night use ; or else two sets of sheets, that, each set being used one day and aired the next, the bed may be kept fresh and wholesome. Suppose our friend were to catch cold in consequence of all this freshness I No, we do better to avoid fresh air ; nor should we vex our patient with much washing. We will not learn to feed the sick, but send their food away when they are unable to understand our clumsiness. Yet, v.-hile we follow our own humour in this code of chamber practice, we will pay tithes of mint and cummin to the men of science. We will ask Monsieur Purgon how many grains of salt go to an egg; and if our patient require twelve turns up and down the room, we will inquire, with Argan, whether they are to be measured by its length, or breadth. When we have added to our course some doses of religious horror, we shall have done as much as conscience can demand of us towards Filling the Grave. I may append here the remark, that if ever we do resolve to eat our ancestors, there is the plan of a distinguished horticulturist apt for our purpose. Mr. Loudon I believe it was who proposed, some years ago, the conversion of the dead into rotation crops, — that our grandfathers and grand- mothers should be converted into corn and mangel-wurzel. His suggestion was, to combine burial with farming operations. A field was to be, during forty years, a place of interment ; then the field adjacent was to be taken for that purpose ; and so on with others in rotation. A due time bavins; been allowed for the manure in each field to 72 Holu to make Home UnJiealtJiy. rot, the dead were to be well worked up and gradually dis- interred in the form of wheat, or carrots, or potatoes. Nothing appears odd to which we are accustomed. We look abroad and wonder, but we look at home and are con- tent. The Esquimaux believe that men dying in windy weather are unfortunate, because their souls, as they escape, risk being blown away. Some Negroes do not bury in the rainy season, for they believe that then the gods, being all busy up above, cannot attend to any ceremonies. Dr. Hooker writes home from the Himalaya mountains, that about Lake Yaron the Lamas' bodies are exposed, and kites are summoned to devour them by the sound of gong and of a trumpet made out of a human thigh-bone. Such notions from abroad arrest our notice, but we see nothing when we look at home. We might see how we fill our sick- rooms with a fatal gloom, and keep our dead five or six days within our houses, to bury them, side by side and one over another, thousands together, in the middle of our cities. However, when we do succeed in getting at a view of our own life ab extra, it is a pleasant thing to find that sanitary heresies at any rate have not struck deep root in British soil. In an old Book of Emblems there is a picture of Cupid whipping a tortoise, to the motto that "Love hates Delay". If lovers of reform in sanitary matters hate delay, it is a pity ; for our good old tortoise has a famous shell, and is not stimulated easily. May i8//^, 1850. No. IX. — The Fire and the Dressing-Room. Against the weather all men are Protectionists, all men account it matter of offence. What say the people of the north ? A Highland preacher, one December Sunday, in the fourth hour of his sermon The Fire afid tJie Di'cssing-Room. 73 For be it known to Englishmen who nod at church, that in the Highlands, after four good hours of prayer and psalm, there follow four good hours of sermon. And, nota dene, may it not be that the shade of our King Henry I does penance among Highland chapels now, for having, in his lifetime, made one Roger a bishop because he was expert in scrambling through the services ? A Highland pastor saw his congregation shivering. " Ah !" he shouted, " maybe ye think this a cauld place ; but, let me tell ye, Hell's far caulder !" An English hearer after- wards reproached this minister for his perversion of the current faith. " Hout, man," said he, "ye dinna ken the Hielanders. If I were to tell them Hell was a hot place, they'd all be labouring to go there." And that was true philosophy. Mythologies invented in the north imagined their own climate into future torture. Above, in the north- ern lights, they saw a chase of miserable souls, half starved, and hunted to and fro by ravens; below", they imagined Nastrond with its frosts and serpents. Warmth is delight- ful, certainly. No doubt ; but sunburnt nations picture future punishment as fire. Yes, naturally, for it is in the middle region only that we are not wearied with extremes. What region shall we take? Our own? When is it not too hot, too cold, too dry, too wet, or too uncertain? Italy ? There the sun breeds idle maggots. As for the poet's paradise, Cashmere, botanists tell us that although, no doubt, fruits grow luxuriantly there, they are extremely flavourless. Then it is obvious that to abuse, antagonise, defy the weather, is one of the established rights of man. Upon our method of defying it, our health, in some measure, depends. How is our right to be maintained un- healthily ? Not by a blind obedience to Nature. We are correcting her, and must not let her guide us. Nature considers all men savages — and savages they would be, if they followed I F 74 How to inafce Home UnJiealthy. her. What is barbarism? Man in a state of nature. Nature, I say, treats us almost as if we were unable to light fires, or stitch for ourselves breeches. Nature places near the hand of man in each climate a certain food, and tyrannises over his stomach with a certain craving. Whales and seals delight the Esquimaux ; he eats his blubber, and defies the frost. So fed, the Esquimaux woman can stand out of doors, suckling her infant at an open breast, with the thermometer 40° below zero. As we go south, we pass the lands of bread and beef, to reach the sultry region wherein Nature provides dates, and so forth. Even in our own range of the seasons. Nature seeks to bind us to her own routine ; in winter gives an appetite for flesh and fat, in summer takes a part of it away. We are not puppets, and we will not be dictated to ; so we stimulate the stomach, and allow no brute instinct to tamper with our social diet- ary. We do here, on a small scale, what is done, on a large scale, by our friends in India, who pepper them- selves into appetite, that they may eat, and drink, and die. We drink exciting beverage in summer, because we are hot ; we drink it in winter, because we are cold. The fact is, we are driven to such practices ; for if we did not interfere to take the guidance of our diet out of Nature's hands, she would make food do a large portion of the service which civilisation asks of fire and clothing. We should walk about warm in the winter, cool in the summer, having the warmth and coolness in ourselves. Now, it is obvious that this would never do. We must be civilised, or we must not. Is Mr. Sangster to sell tomahawks instead of canes? Clearly, he is not. We must so manage our homes as to create unhealthy bodies. If we do not, society is ruined ; if we do — and in proportion as we do so — we become more and more unfit to meet vicissitudes of weather. Then we acquire a social craving after fires, and coats, and cloaks, and wrappers, and umbrellas, and cork soles, and muffetees. The Fire mid tJie Dressing-Roovi. 75 and patent hareskins, and all the blessings of this life, upon which our preservation must depend. These prove that we have stepped beyond the brute. You never saw a lion with cork soles and muffctees. The tiger never comes out, of nights, in a great-coat. The eagle never soars up from his nest with an umbrella. Man alone comprehends these luxuries ; and it is when he is least healthy that he loves them best. In winter, then, it is not diet and it is not exercise that shall excite in us a vital warmth. We will depend on arti- ficial means ; we will be warmed, not from within, but from without. We will set ourselves about a fire, like pies, and bake, heating the outside first. Where the Fire fails, we will depend upon the Dressing-room. If we have healthy chests, we will encase ourselves in flannel; but if we happen to have chest complaint, we will use nothing of the sort. When we go out, we will em- panoply our persons, so that we may warm ourselves by shutting in all exhalation from our bodies, and by husband- ing what little heat we permit Nature to provide for us. In summer we will eat rich dinners ar-d drink wine, will cast off three-fourths of the thickness of our winter clothing, and still be oppressed by heat. Seed-drinks shall take the place of fire. Civilised people cannot endure being much wetted. Con- tact of water, during exercise, will do no harm to healthy bodies, but will spoil good clothes. We will get damp only when we walk out in bad weather ; then, when we come home, we need no change. Evaporation from damp clothes — the act of drying — while the body cools down, resting, and perhaps fatigued, that is what damages the health ; against that we have no objection. Hem ! No doubt it is taking a great liberty with a Briton to look over his wardrobe. I will not trespass so far, but, my dear sir, your hat ! If we are to have a column on our F 2 76 Hozv to make Home Unhealthy. heads, let it be one in which we can feel pride — a miniature monument — and we might put a statue on the top. Hats as they are now worn would not fitly support more than a bust. Is not this mean ? On aegritudinary grounds we will uphold a hat. To keep the edifice from taking flight before a puff of wind, it must be fitted pretty tightly round the head, must press over the forehead and the occiput. How much it presses, a red ring upon our flesh will often testify. Heads are not made of putty; pressure implies impediment to certain processes within ; one of these pro- cesses is called the circulation of the blood. The brain lies underneath our hats. Well, that is as it should be. Ladies do not wear hats, and never will ; the bonnet is so artful a contrivance for encompassing the face with orna- ment — roses and lilies and daflidown-dillies, which would have sent Flora into fits and killed her long ago, had such a goddess ever been. I said that there was brain under the hat ; this is not always obvious, but there is generally hair. Once upon a time, not very long ago, hair was constructed with great labour into a huge tower upon every lady's head, pomatum being used by way of mortar, and this tower was repaired every three weeks. The British matron then looked like a " mop-headed Papuan". The two were much alike, except in this, that while our countrywoman triumphed in her art, the Papuan was discontented with his nature. The ladies here, whose hair was naturally made to fall around the shoulders, reared it up on end ; but in New Guinea, fashion- ables born with hair that grew of its own will into an upright bush preferred to cut it off, and re-arrange it in a wig directed downwards. Sometimes they do no more than crop it close ; and then, since it is characteristic of the hair in this race to grow, not in an expanse, but in tufts, the head is said by sailors to remind them of a worn-out shoe- brush. So, at the Antipodes as well as here. Art is an The Fire and the Dressing- Room. yy enemy to Nature. Hair upon the head was meant originally to preserve in all seasons an equable temperature above the brain. Emptying grease-pots into it, and matting it together, we convert it into an unwholesome skull-cap. The neck ? Here sanitary people say, How satisfactory it is that Englishmen keep their necks covered with a close cravat, and do not Byronise in opposition to the climate. That is very good ; but English women, who account them- selves more delicate, don't cover their necks — indeed, they do not at all times cover their shoulders. So, travelling from top to toe, if English men wear thick shoes to protect the feet, our English women scorn the weakness, and go, except a little fancy covering, barefooted. From this point I digress, to note of other garments that the English dress, as now established, does on the whole fair credit to society. To the good gentlemen who poetise concerning grace and the antique, who sigh for togas, stolas, , and paludaments, I say. Go to. The drapery you sigh for was the baby-linen of the human race. Now we are out of long-clothes. The present European dress is that which offers least impediment to action. It shows what a man is like, and that is more than any stranger from another world could have detected under the upholstery to which our sculptors cling. The merest hint of a man— shaped as God shaped him — is better than ten miles of folded blanket. Artists cry down our costume ; forgetting that if they have not folds of drapery to paint, that is because they have in each man every limb to which they may assign its posture. If they can put no mind into a statue by the mastery of attitude, all the sheets in Guy's Hospital will not twist into a fold that shall be worth their chiselling. With women it is different. They have both moral and esthetic right to drapery; and for the fashion of it, we must leave that to themselves. They are all licensed to deal in stuffs, colours, frippery, and flounce ; and to wear 78 How to make Home Unheal t J ly. rings in their ears. If ladies have good taste, they cannot vex us ; and that any of them can have bad taste, who shall hint ? Their stays they will abide by, as they love hysterics ; them I have mentioned. I have before also gone out of my way to speak of certain humps carried by women on their backs, which are not healthy or unhealthy — who shall say what they are? Are these humps allegorical? Our wives and daughters perhaps wish to hint that they resemble camels in their patience ; camels who bear their burden through a desert world, which we, poor folk, should find it quite impossible to travel through without them. May 25//^, 1850. No. X. — Fresh Air. Philosophers tell us that the breath of man is poisonous; that when collected in a jar it will kill mice, but when accumulated in a room it will kill men. Of this there are a thousand and one tales. I decline alluding to the Black Hole of Calcutta, but will take a specimen dug up by some sanitary gardener from Horace Walpole's letters. In 1742 a set of jolly Dogberries, virtuous in their cups, resolved that every woman out after dark ought to be locked up in the round-house. They captured twenty-six unfortunates, and shut them in with doors and windows fastened. The prisoners exhausted breath in screaming. One poor girl said she was worth eighteenpence, and cried that she would give it gladly for a cup of water. Dogberry was deaf. In the morning four were brought out dead, two dying, and twelve in a dangerous condition. This is an argument in favour of the new police. I don't believe in ventilation ; and will undertake here, in a few paragraphs, to prove it nonsense. F res J I Air. 79 At the very outset, let us take the ventilation-mongers on their own ground. People of this class are always referring us to Nature. Very well, we will be natural. Do you be- lieve, sir, that the words of that dear lady, when she said she loved you everlastingly, were poisonous air rendered sonorous by the action of a larynx, tongue, teeth, palate, and lips? No indeed; ladies at any rate, although they claim a double share of what the cherubs want — and pos- sibly these humps, now three times spoken of, are the concealed and missing portions of the cherubim torn from them by the fair sex in some ancient struggle There now, I am again shipwrecked on the wondrous mountains. I was about to say, that ladies, who in some things surpass the cherubs, equal them in others ; like them, are vocal with ethereal tones; their breath is "the sweet south that breathes upon a bank of violets", and that's not poisonous, I fancy. Well, I believe the chemists have as yet not detected any difference between a man's breath and a woman's; there- fore neither of them can be hurtful. But let us grant the whole position. Breath is poisonous, but Nature made it so. Nature intended it to be so. Nature made man a social animal, and therefore designed that many breaths should be commingled. Why do you, lovers of the natural, object to that arrangement ? Now let us glance at the means adopted to get rid of this our breath, this breath of which our words are made, libelled as poisonous. Ventilation is of two kinds, mechani- cal and physical. I will say something about each. Mechanical ventilation is that which machinery produces. One of the first recorded ventilators of this kind was not much more extravagant in its charges upon house-room than some of which we hear in 1850. In 1663, H. Schmitz published the scheme of a great fanner, which, descending through the ceiling, moved to and fro pendulum-wise, within a mighty slit. The movement of the fanner was esta- So Hoiv to make Home UnJiealthy. blished by a piece of clockwork more simple than compact ; it occupied a complete chamber overhead, and was set in noisy motion by a heavy weight. The weight ran slowly down, pulling its rope until it reached the parlour floor ; so that a gentleman incautiously falling asleep under it after his dinner, might awake to find himself a pancake. Since that time we have had no lack of ingenuity at work on forcing-pumps, and sucking-pumps, and screws. The screws are admirable on account of the unusually startling nature, now and then, of their results. Not long ago, a couple of fine screws were adapted to a public building ; one was to take air out, the other was to turn air in. The first screw, unexpectedly perverse, wheeled its air inwards ; so did the second, but instead of directing its draught upwards, it blew down with a great gust of contempt upon the horrified experimentalist. There is something of a screw principle in those queer little wheels fastened occasionally in our windows and on footmen's hats — query, are those the ventilating hats ? — the rooms are as much ventilated by these little tins as they would be by an air from Don Giovanni. I will say nothing about pumps ; nor indeed need we devote more space to mechanical contrivances, since it is from other modes of ventilation that our cause has most to fear. Only one quaint speculation may be mentioned. It is quite certain that in the heats of India, air is not cooled by fanning, nor is it cooled judiciously by damping it. Professov Piazzi Smyth last year suggested this idea : Compress air by a forcing-pump into a close vessel, by so doing you increase its heat : then suddenly allow it to escape into a room, it will expand so much as to be cold, and, mixing with the other air in the compartment, cool the whole mass. This is the last new theory, which has not yet, I think, been tried in practice. Now, physical ventilation — that which affects to imitate the processes of Nature — is a more dangerously specious Fresh Air. 8i business. Its chief agent is heat. In Nature, it is said, the Sun is Lord High Ventilator. He rarefies the air in one place by his heat, elsewhere permits cold and lets the air be dense ; the thin air rises, and the dense air rushes to supply its place, so we have endless winds and currents, Nature's ventilating works. It is incredible that sane men should have thought this system fit for imitation. It is a failure. Look at the hot department, where a traveller sometimes has to record that he lay gasping for two hours upon his back until some one could find some water for him somewhere. Let us call that Africa, and who can say that he enjoys the squalls of wind rushing towards the desert ? Let us think of the Persian and the Punic wars, when fleets which had not learned to play bo-peep with ventilating processes, strewed Mediter- ranean sands with wTCcks and corpses. Some day we shall have these mimics of Dame Nature content with nothing smaller than a drawing-room typhoon to carry off the foul air of an evening party ; dowagers' caps, young ladies' scarfs, cards, pocket-handkerchiefs, will whirl upon their blast, and then they will be happy. Now their demands are modest, but they mean hurricanes, rely upon it ; we must not let ourselves be lulled into a false security. A fire, they say, is in English houses necessary during a large partof the year, is constant during that season when we are most closely shut up in our rooms. The fire, they say, is our most handy and most efficacious ventilator. O yes, we know something about that : we know too well that the fire makes an ascending current, and that the cold air rushes from our doors and windows to the chimney, as from surrounding countries to the burning desert. We know that very well, because every such current is a draught ; one cuts into our legs, one gnaws about our necks, and all our backs are cold. We are in the con- dition of the pious man in Foxe's Martyrs, about whom I used to read with childish reverence, that after a great deal 82 Hoiv to make Home UnhealtJiy. of frying, during which he had not been turned by the Inquisilion-Soyer, he lifted up his voice in verse — " This side enough is toasted ; Then turn me, tyrant, and eat, And see whether raw or roasted I make thee better meat." We all of us, over our Christmas fires, present this choice of raw or roast, and we don't thank your principles of ventilation for it. Then say these pertinacious people that they also disapprove of draughts ; but they don't seem to mind boring holes in a gentleman's floor, or knocking through the sacred walls of home. This is their plan. They say that you should have, if possible, a pipe con- nected with the air without, passing behind the cheeks of your stove, and opening under your fire, about, on, or close before your hearth. They say that from this source the fire will be supplied so well, that it will no longer suck in draughts over your shoulders and between your legs from remote corners of the room. They say, moreover, that if this aperture be large enough, it will supply all the fresh air needed in your room, to replace that which has ascended and passed out, through a hole which you are to make in your chimney near the ceiling. They say that an up- draught will clear this air away so quietly, that you will not need even a valve; though you may have one fitted and made ornamental at a trifling cost. They would recommend you to make another hole in the wall opposite your chimney, near the ceiling also, to establish a more effectual current in the upper air. Then, they say, you will have fresh air, and no draughts. Fresh air, yes, at the expense of a hole in the floor and two holes in the wall. AVe might get fresh air, gentlemen, on a much larger scale by pulling the house down. They say, you should not mind the holes. Windows are not architectural beauties, Fresh Air. 83 yet we like them for admitting light ; and some day it may strike us that the want of ventilators is a neighbour folly to the want of windows. This they suggest as the best method of adapting our old houses to their new ideas. New houses they would have so built as to include this system of ventilation in their first construction, and so include it as to make it more effectual. But really, if people want to know how to build what are called well-ventilated houses, they must not expect me to tell them ; let them buy Mr. Hoskin's book on The Proper Regulation of Buildings in Toiv?is. Up to this date, as I am glad to know, few architects have heard of ventilation. Under church galleries we doze through the most lively sermons, in public meetings we pant after air, but we have architecture ; perhaps an airy style sometimes attempts to comfort us. These circum- stances are possibly unpleasant at the time, but they assist the cause of general unhealthiness. Long may our architects believe that human lungs are instruments of brass ; and let us hope that, when they get a ventilating fit, they will prefer strange machines, pumping, screwing, steaming apparatus. May they dispense, then, doctored air, in draughts and mixtures. Fresh air in certain favoured places — as in Smithfield, for example — is undoubtedly an object of desire. It is exceed- ingly to be regretted, if the rumours be correct, that the result of a Commission of Inquiry threatens, by removing Smithfield Market, to destroy the only sound lung this metropolis possesses. The wholesome nature of the smell of cows is notorious. Humboldt tells of a sailor who was dying of fever in the close hold of a ship. His end being in sight, some comrades brought him out to die. What Humboldt calls the " fresh air" fell upon him, and, instead of dying, he revived, eventually getting well. I have no doubt that there was a cow on board, and the man smelt 84 Hozv to make Home Unhealthy. her. Now, if so great an effect was produced by the proximity of one cow, how great must be the advantage to the sick in London of a central, crowded Cattle-market. June isf, 1850. No. XL — Exercise. There is a little tell-tale muscle in the inner corner of the eye, which, if you question it, will deliver a report in to your looking-glass touching the state of the whole muscular system which lies elsewhere hidden in your body. When it is pale it praises you. Muscular development is, by all means, to be kept down. Some means of holding it in check we have already dwelt upon. Muscular power, hke all other power, will increase with exercise. We desire to hold the flesh in strict subjection to the spirit. Bodily exercise, therefore, must be added to the number of those forces which, by strengthening the animal, do damage to the spiritual man. We must take great pains to choke the energy of children. Their active little limbs must be tied down by a well-woven system of politeness. They run, they jump, turn heels over head, they climb up trees, if they attempt stillness they are ever on the move, because Nature demands that while the body grows it shall be freely worked in all its parts, in order that it may develop into a frame-work vigorous and well proportioned. Nature really is more obstinate than usual on this point. So restless a delight in bodily exertion is implanted in the child, that our patience is considerably tried when we attempt to keep it still. Children, however, can be tamed and civilised. By sending theni unhealthy from the nursery, we can deliver many of them spiritless at school, there to be properly subdued. The most unwhole- some plan is to send boys to ouc school, girls to another ; Exercise. 85 both physically and morally, this method gives good hope of sickliness. Nature, who never is on our side, will allow children of each sex to be born into one family, to play together and be educated at one mother's knee. There ought to be — if Nature had the slightest sense of decency — girls only born in one house, boys only in another. How- ever, we can sort the children at an early age and send them off to school, girls east, boys west. A girl shall be allowed on no account to climb a tree, or be unladylike. She shall regard a boy as a strange, curious monster; be forced into flirtation ; and prefer the solace of a darling friend to anything that verges on a scamper. She shall learn English Grammar; that is to mean, Lindley Murray's notion of it; Geography, or the names of capital towns, rivers, and mountain ranges; French enough for a lady; Music, Ornamental Needlew^ork, and the Use of the Globes. By-the-bye, what a marvel it is that every lady has learned in her girlhood the Use of the Globes, and yet you never see a lady using them. K\\ these subjects she shall study from a female point of view. Her greatest bodily fatigue shall be the learning of a polka, or the Indian sceptre exercise. Now and then, she shall have an iron down her back, and put her feet in stocks. The young lady shall return from school, able to cover ottomans with worsted birds ; and to stitch a purse for the expected lover about whom she has been thinking for the last five years. She is quite aware that St. Petersburg is the capital of Ireland, and that a noun is a verb-substantive, which signi- fies to be, to do, to suffer. The boy children shall be sent to school, where they may sit during three hours consecutively, and during eight or nine hours in the day, forcing their bodies to be tranquil. They shall entertain their minds by stuttering the eloquence of Cicero, which would be dull work to them in English, and is not enlivened by the Latin. They shall get much 86 How to make Home UnJiealtJiy. into their mouths, of what they cannot comprehend; and httle or nothing into their hearts, out of the wide stores of information for which children really thirst. They shall be taught little or nothing of the world they live in, and shall know its Maker only as an answer to some question in a catechism. They shall talk of girls as beings of another nature ; and shall come home from their school-life pale, subdued, having unwholesome thoughts ; awkward in using limbs, which they have not been suffered freely to develop ; and shamefaced in the society from which, during their schoolboy life, they have been banished. The older girl shall ape the lady, and the older boy shall ape the gentleman ; so we may speak next of adults. No lady ought to walk when she can ride. The carriages of many kinds which throng our streets all prove us civilised ; prove us, and make us, weak. The lady should be tired after a four-mile walk ; her walk ought to be, in the utmost possible degree, weeded of energy. It should be slow ; and when her legs are moved, her arms must be restrained from that synchronous movement which perverse Nature calls upon them to perform. Ladies do well to walk out with their arms quite still, and with their hands folded before them. Thus they prevent their delicacy from being preyed upon by a too wholesome exercise, and, what is to us more pleasant, they betray their great humility. They dare only to walk among us lords of the creation with their arm? folded before them, that by such humble guise they may acknowledge the inferiority of their position. An Australian native, visiting London, might almost be tempted, in sheer pride of heart, to knock some of our ladies two or three times about the head with that small instrument which he employs for such correction of his women, that so he might derive the more enjoyment from their manifest submis- siveness. The well-bred gentleman ought to be weary after six miles Exercise. 87 of walking, and haughtily stare down the man who talks about sixteen. The saddle, the gig, the carriage, or the cab and omnibus, must protect at once his delicacy and his shoes. The student should confine himself to study, grudging time; believing nobody who tells him that the time he gives to wholesome exercise, he may receive back in the shape of increased value for his hours of thought — that even his life of study may be lengthened bj it. Let the tradesman be well rooted in his shop if he desire to flourish. Let the mechanic sit at labour on the week-days, and on Sundays let him sit at church, or else stop decently at home. Let us have no Sunday recreations. It is quite shocking to hear sanitary people lecture on this topic. Pro- fanely they profess to wonder why the weary, toiling family of Christians should not be carried from the town, and from that hum of society which is not to them very refreshing, on the day of rest. Why they should not go out and wander in the woods, and ask their hearts who taught the dragon- fly his dancing ; who made the blue-bells cluster lovingly together, looking so modest ; and ask from whose Opera the birds are singing their delicious music ? Why should not the rugged man's face soften, and the care-worn woman's face be melted into tenderness, and man and wife and children cluster as closely as the blue-bells in the peaceful wood ? What if they there become so very conscious of their mutual love, and of the love of God, as to feel glad that they are not in any other "place of worship", where they may hear Roman Catholics denounced, or Churchmen scorned, or the Dissenters pounded ? What if they then come home refreshed in mind and body, and begin the week with larger, gentler thoughts of God and man ? By such means may they not easily be led, if they were at any time unwilling, to give praise to God, and learn to join — not as a superstitious rite, but as a humble duty — in this public worship? So talk the sanitary men— here, as in all S8 How to make Home Unhealthy. their doctrines, showing themselves httle better than mate- riahsts. The negro notion of the Sabbath is, that nobody may fish ; our notion is, that nobody may stay away from church. In these remarks on Exercise among adults, I have con- fined myself .to the plain exercise of walking. It may be taken for granted that no grown-up person will be so childish as to leap, to row, to swim. A few Young Englanders may put on, now^ and then, their white kid gloves to patronise a cricket match ; but we can laugh at them. In a gentleman it is undignified to run ; and even walking, at the best, is vulgar. Indeed, there is an obvious vulgarity in the whole doctrine Avhich would call upon us to assist our brute development by the mere exercising of ourselves as animals. Such counsel offers to degrade us to the low position of the race-horse who is trotted to and fro, the poodle who is sent out for an airing. . As spiritual people we look down with much con- tempt upon the man who would in anything compare us Avith the lower animals. His mind is mean, and must be quite beneath our indignation. I will say no more. Why thrash a pickpocket with thunder ? June Sth, 1850. No. XII. — A BedroOiM Paper. If you wish to have a thoroughly unhealthy bedroom, these are the precautions you should take. Fasten a chimney-board against the fireplace, so as to prevent foul air from escaping in the night. You will, of course, have no hole through the wall into the chimney ; and no sane man, in the night season, would have a door or window open. Use no perforated zinc in panelling ; especially avoid it in small bedrooms. So you will get a room full of air. But in the same room there is bad, A Bedroom Paper. 89 worse, and worst : your object is to have the worst air possible. Suffocating machines are made by every uphol- sterer ; attach one to your bed ; it is an apparatus of poles, rings, and curtains. By drawing your curtains around you before you sleep, you ensure to yourself a condensed body of foul air over your person. This poison vapour-bath you will find to be most efficient when it is made of any thick material. There being transpiration through the skin, it would not be a bad idea to see whether this cannot be in some way hindered. The popular method will do very well : smother the flesh as much as possible in feathers. A wandering princess, in some fairy tale, came to a king's house. The king's wife, with the curiosity and acuteness proper to her sex, desired to know whether their guest was truly born a princess, and discovered how to solve the question. She put three peas on the young lady's palliasse, and over them a large feather bed, and then another, then another — in fact, fifteen feather beds. Next morning the princess looked pale, and, in answer to inquiries how she had passed the night, said that she had been unable to sleep at all, because the bed had lumps in it. The king's wife knew then that their guest showed her good breeding. Take this high-born lady for a model. The feathers retain all heat about your body, and stifle the skin so far effectually that you awake in the morning pervaded by a sense of languor, which must be very agreeable to a person who has it in his mind to be unhealthy. In order to keep a check upon exhalation about your head (which otherwise might have too much the way of Nature), put on a stout, closely-woven night-cap. People who are at the height of cleverness in this respect, sleep with their heads under the bedclothes. Take no rest on a hair mattress ; it is elastic and pleasant, certainly, but it does not encase the body ; and therefore you run a risk of not awaking languid. I G 90 Hoiv to make Home Unhealthy. Never wash when you go to bed ; you are not going to see anybody, and therefore there can be no use in washing. In the morning, wet no more skin than you absolutely must — that is to say, no more than your neighbours will see during the day, — the face and hands. So much you may do with a tolerably good will, since it is the other part of the surface of the body, more covered and more impeded in the full discharge of its functions, which has rather the more need of ablution ; it is therefore fortunate that you can leave that other part unwashed. Five minutes of sponging and rubbing over the whole body in the morning would tend to invigorate the system, and would send you with a cheerful glow to the day's business or pleasure. Avoid it by all means, if you desire to be unhealthy. Let me note here, that in speaking of the poor we should abstain from ceding to them an exclusive title, as " the great unwashed". Will you, Mr. N. or M., retire into your room and strip? Examine your body; is it clean, was it sponged this morning, is there no dirt upon it anywhere ? If it be not clean, if it was not sponged, if water would look rather black after you htid enjoyed a thorough scrub in it, then is it not obvious that you yourself take rank among the great unwashed? By way of preserving a distinction between them and us, I even think it would be no bad thing were we to advocate the washing of the poor. Do not forget that, although you must unfortunately apply water to your face, you can find warrant in custom to excuse you from annoying it with soap ; and for the water again, you are at liberty to take vengeance by obtaining compensation damages out of that part of your head which the hair covers. Never wash it ; soil it ; clog it with oil or lard — either of which will answer your purpose, as either will keep out air as well as water, and promote the growth of a thick morion of scurf. Lard in the bedroom is called bear's grease. In connection with its virtues in promoting A Bedroom Paper. 91 growth of hair, there is a tale which I beheve to i)e no fiction ; — not the old and profane jest of the man who rubbed a deal box with it overnight, and found a hair-trunk in the morning. It is said that the first adventurer who advertised bear's grease for sale, appended to the laudation of its efficacy a Nota Bene, that gentlemen, after applying it, should wash the palms of their hands, otherwise the hair would sprout thence also. I admire that speculator, grimly satiric at the expense both of himself and of his customers. He jested at his own pretensions ; and declared, by an oblique hint, that he did not look for friends among the scrupulously clean.* Tooth-powder is necessary in the bedroom. Healthy stomachs will make healthy teeth, and then a tooth-brush and a little water may suffice to keep them clean. But healthy stomachs also make coarse constitutions. It is vexatious that our teeth rot when we vitiate the fluid that surrounds them. As gentlemen and ladies, we desire good teeth ; they must be scoured and hearth-stoned. Of course, as you do not cleanse your body daily, so you will not show favour to your feet. Keep up a due dis- tinction between the upper and lower members. When a German prince was told confidently that he had dirty hands, he replied, with the liveliness of conscious triumph, " Ach, do you call dat dirty ? You should see my toes !" Some people wash them once in every month ; that will do very well ; or once a year, it matters little which. In what washing you find yourself unable to omit, use only the finest towels, those which inflict least friction on the skin. Having made these arrangements for yourself, take care * Daily use of the bath was very rare in 1850. This paper set many people tubbing, and the gain got from the practice caused its spread. (1891.) G 2 92 How to make Home Unhealthy, that they are adhered to, as far as may be convenient, throughout your household. Here and there put numerous sleepers into a single room ; this is a good thing for children, if you require to blanch them. By a little perseverance also in this way, when you have too large a family, you can reduce it easily. By all means let a baby have foul air, not only by the use of suffocative apparatus, but by causing it to sleep where there are four or five others in a well-closed room. So much is due to the maintenance of our orthodox rate of infant mortality. Let us admire, lastly, the economy of time in great men who have allowed themselves only four, five, or six hours for sleep. It may be true that they would have lived longer had they always paid themselves a fair night's quiet for a fair day's work ; they would have lived longer, but they would not have lived so fast. It is essential to hve fast in this busy world. Moreover, there is a superstitious rever- ence for early rising, as a virtue by itself, which we shall do well to acquire. Let sanitary men say, " Roost with the lark, if you propose to rise with her." Nonsense. No civilised man can go to bed much earlier than midnight ; but every man of business must be up betimes. Idle, happy people, on the other hand, they to whom life is useless, prudently remain for nine, ten, or a dozen hours in bed. Snug in their corner, they are in the way of nobody, except the housemaid. " Now wotte we nat, ne can nat sec, What manir ende that there shall be." Birth, sickness, burial. Eating, drinking, clothing, sleep- ing. Exercise and social pleasure. Air, water, and light. These are the topics upon which we have already touched. A finished painting of good aegritudinary discipline was not designed upon the present canvas : no man who knows the great extent and varied surface of the scene which such a A Bedroom Paper. 93 picture should embrace, will think that there is here even an outline finished. We might have recommended early marriages ; and marriages with first cousins. We might have urged all men with heritable maladies to shun celibacy. We might have praised tobacco, which, by acting on the mucous membrane of the mouth, acts on the same membrane in the stomach also (precisely as dis- order of the stomach will communicate disorder to the mouth), and so helps in establishing a civilised digestion and a pallid face. " But we w^oll stint of this matere For it is wondir long to here." It is inherent in man to be perverse. A drawing-room critic, in one of Gait's novels, takes up a picture of a cow, holds it inverted, and enjoys it as a castellated mansion with four corner tow^ers. And so, since " all that moveth doth mutation love", after a like fashion many people, it appears, have looked upon these papers. There is a story to the point in Lucian. Passus received commission from a connoisseur to draw a horse with his legs upwards. He drew it in the usual way. His customer came unannounced, saw what had been done, and grumbled fearfully. Passus, how^ever, turned his picture upside down, and then the connoisseur was satisfied. These papers have been treated like the horse of Passus. " Stimatissimo Signer Boswell" says, in his book on Corsica, that he rode out one day upon Paoli's charger, gay with gold and scarlet, and surrounded by the chief- tain's officers. For a while, he says, he thought he was a hero. Thus, like a goose on horseback, has our present writer visited some few of the chief segritudinary outposts. Why not so? They say there is no way impossible. Wherefore an old emblem-book has represented Cupid crossing a stream which parts him from an altar, seated at ease upon his quiver for a boat, and rowing with a pair of arrows. So has the writer floated over on a barrel of his 94 How to make Home U^ihealthy. folly, and possibly may touch, O reader, at the altar of your household gods. Here comment ends, and I quote Davenant, on my own account, to the most friendly reader : " Forgive me if I am not what I seem. But falsely have dissembled an excess Of all such virtues as you most esteem;" — assuming you, of course, to be a thorough Briton. The abundance of satire current in the world on superficial matters, bubble-follies, has begotten a belief in some judicious minds, that higher matters should meet only earnest treatment. For the strengthening of weak faith, which w^ould willingly have good authority wherewith to batter down this bit of error, I point to a whole armoury of tomahawks provided by our forefathers. All the best satires in the world treat of the highest matters ; some, the gayest, were enlisted in the direct service of religion. Our gravest poet is an eloquent defender of this method of writing against any heretic, and he accumulates authorities in its behalf: — "Thus Flaccus in his first satire and his tenth ' Jesting decides great things Stronglier and better oft than earnest can !' I could urge the same out of Cicero and Seneca, but he may content him with this." Again hear Milton: "A satire as it was born out of a Tragedy so ought to resemble his parentage, to strike high, and adventure dangerously at the most eminent vices." Suffer, therefore, good reader,, the writer of these pages to assert that though his blows be weak, they are not aimed improperly. He has not per- versely put on motley when he ought to have appeared in decent wig and gown. Satire may laugh while she is labouring, but she is neither child nor servant to the Comic Muse. June i^th^ 1850. I A DEFENCE OF IGNORANCE " Many who will not stand a direct Reproof, and cannot abide to be plainly- admonished of their Fault, will yet endure to be pleasantly rubb'd, and will patiently bear a jocund Wipe."— Barrow's Sermons against Evil Speaking. A DEFExNCE OF IGNORANCE. The Select Committee, which appointed itself to inquire into the State of Education in this country, and into any measures which may be required for the Defence of Ignor- ance, have talked over the matters to them referred, and have agreed to the following resolution : — Resolved. That it is the opinion of this Committee, That the Report of their proceedings may be now- read and approved. The Report follows. The Committee dined. The ladies having withdrawn, the Chairman said : — This meeting, gentlemen, is of a social nature, and to be considered strictly private. Before we commence, therefore, let us instruct our secretary con- cerning fictitious names to be affixed to any speeches that he may report. — A Member begged leave to suggest that the secretary might be empowered to disguise, in his ow^n way, the names of speakers ; at the same time, he thought that the Owl, a bird of Night and Wisdom, could be made godfather to all the company. The honourable secretary himself, who, as this committee's voice, would presently intrude upon the public ear, he begged permission to call Screech. Agreed.— The chairman, Ulula, then pouring out a glass of wine, requested silence, and began — 98 A Defence of Ignorance. The Opening Address. Gentlemen., — Bre meant a " mountain" in old Cornish. The Phoenicians, who got some of their tin from Cornwall, distinguished it as " Bre tin", from the same metal obtained elsewhere. Tin is a word that runs through many languages with trifling change; here tin, there zinn, and somewhere else etain. And so this country became known to the Phoenicians, and also through them to others, as the land of Bre tin — Britain. This interpretation is a wholesome one, which nourishes and very much plumps out a modern use of the word Tin. An affectionate and thoughtful people finds in its first article of commerce a familiar name for money. The Japanese do something of this kind. Their savage forefathers subsisted on a shell-fish called Awabi, so in their wealth they now serve up Awabi in their feasts, and add Awabi to their gifts. It is their salt-water forget- me-not. We get our sentiment from flowers, they get theirs from fish. You, if you please, may say molluscs ; I won't. I broke a tooth yesterday in talking botany, and must avoid zoology to-day. Our gold and silver, we rich folk might symbolise by rose and lily, but we don't. We think of our poor ancestors, and call the money Tin. Bretin or Britain, then, is a Tin Mountain, or Mass of Tin or Heap of Money. We have collared Etymology and got a fact. This country is prosperous down to the very roots. The chairman pausing, it was understood that he desired applause. The members of the committee helped them- selves to figs and filberts, and, w^hen silence was restored, our host resumed with animation : We have wealth. What does a man mean by wealth ? He means weal with a //', I fancy, or if he does not mean it, he says it ; and why does he say it : I must take for A Defence of Ignorance. 99 granted it is what he means. Weal signifies that which is well. And th after such a word ? In Dr. Latham's gram- mar, those who read such trumpery are told that it "supplies the force of an abstract idea". Wealth then is the abstract idea of that which is well. You cannot now stand up and tell me that it means a gross material or muck. You may do so, for you are capable of anything. But your con- science takes inevitably down its throat, as out of a physic- spoon, the conclusion that, in this country, all is well — all in ideal perfection — although some of us are not contented to let well alone. Biiho. Sir, you are merely firing peppercorns into the hostile body. Ulula. They may cause it, sir, to scratch. I am now loading with a piece of china. We have an intimate knowledge of the Chinese, from often meeting with them on our cups and saucers. They have no idea of us. At the beginning of our late glorious and high-minded war with China, the Centre of the Uni- verse informed his soldiers that their great object should be to make the English tumble down. If it were only by beating gongs, or by frightening them, so that they caused them to fall down, that would suffice ; for if the English fell they could be taken. The clothes of English soldiers, said the Brother of the Sun, are made so tight that those who are in them when they tumble down are quite unable, by any struggling, to get up again. And so the Chinese thought to ship off Englishmen at leisure, like the turtles, after they had once been thrown upon their backs. And yet these Chinese are an educated people. Civetta. What a warning to us ! Since that war we have learned something about them. They make soup of slugs ; eat lizards, toads; and if they had such things, I daresay they would stew a five-barred gate ; the catalogue is small, of things that are not eaten by a Chinaman. TOO A Defence of Ignorajue. Uiu/a. Now these ridiculous Chinese are Educationists. Ridiculous, I call them ; insignificant. Tell me that with- out China, Europe would not have been; that if the Chinese had not flung aside the Huns, the Huns would not have knocked against the Goths, the Goths would not have knocked down Rome, and so on ; I say, Pooh ! My wife's silk dress she would have bought at an alarming failure without Chinese intervention. As for tea, we were much better men when we had beer for breakfast. I laugh the Chinese to scorn, and I will not believe that they invented Punch. Pun-tse, the Son of an Inch, may beat his Chinese Judy. I believe that some Chinaman must have been in England about the time of the Saxon heptarchy, and have seen Punch performed. Or how do we know that the Phoenicians when importing tin from our shores did not import from the same place into Asia Punch's shows ? Nay more, are we certain that a fossil Punch will not be dis- covered in the Stonesfield slate, or in the London clay? At any rate the Chinese are ridiculous, and I will let you see down to the bed of their transparent folly. They are mighty educators. To every joss house they attach a school. So far, it is well that their schools are connected with their churches. But the absurdity of the Chinese takes all pleasure and excitement out of this arrangement, because they have not sense enough to make their joss houses like Christian churches, tents of warriors at bitter odds with one another. These Chinese day- schools are supported by the Government, and by parents, according to their ability. There is one master to twenty or thirty boys, and there he sits, with spectacles not much smaller than saucers on his nose, a pipe in his mouth, a teapot at his fingers' ends, and a great noise in his ears. For nearly all the boys are learning their lessons aloud, each at his own little table ; a mischievous young rascal is fingering his master's tail, to the infinite disturbance of a A Defence of Ignorance. loi dunce who is endeavouring to shriek his lesson down the master's ear. Boards are for slates, and brushes dipped in Indian ink serve for slate-pencil. Writing is practised by aid of transparent paper, and a big cane lashes the master's table now and then, making the saucers jump and little Chinese hearts jump with them. But the Chinese do worse than this. They have in each province a chancellor of learning, class all people in their educational degrees, and reserve posts of trust and honour and emolument, for whom ? The well-born man ? No, for the raw student ! In a great hall of education, sur- rounded by groves and gardens, sit dominies at certain periods in each large town, to inquire into the proficiency of candidates for the first degree of Sew Tsae or "flowering talent". Not to have entered this class is to want respec- tability in Chinese eyes. They who have been admitted are exempt from being whipped, except by order of the emperor or of his representatives. They who have thus redeemed their skins may at a future time present them- selves for a severer scrutiny, at a solemn triennial examina- tion. They who in this have satisfied the strict examiners, become Kern Jin, " promoted men", and are entitled — to wear boots ! A higher degree is offered every three years to those booted men who seek to win spurs at Pekin. Poverty excludes none from coming to present themselves. The emperor pays the expenses of poor victims. They who pass this third examination become " introduced scholars", Tsin Se ; and the three best at each examination are rewarded by the Brother of the Sun in his own person. For these there is finally reserved a short rope, if they seek a higher elevation. They who pass the examination of Han Lin, "ascended to the top of the tree", are all the servants of the emperor, and are in due time chosen to the highest offices of state. Education is the road to fame, and these are its four stages. 102 A Defence of Ignorance. Screech. The only thing that saves the Chinese from extravagance of ridicule is the fact that they do tie up education within Hmits, making it depend upon a more or less accurate knowledge of certain time-honoured books. Just as in Oxford we read Aristotle, so they read also their classics. Ulula. If the Chinese defined education in accordance with the crotchets of our English innovators, as a trained spirit of inquiry, the Flowery Land would long ere this have run to seed. However, as it is, the Chinese certainly have gone quite far enough to make themselves fit objects for our ridicule. When we wish to become laughing-stocks we may begin to build from their designs. Civetta. This cry for education is the neighing of a hobby- horse. What is there that a perverted enthusiasm will not hope to build ? I could name a clever builder, now dead, who believed the Millennium to be at hand ; he looked for- ward to the erection of the New Jerusalem, and studied Ezekiel professionally, made calculations, and completed all the plans, which he intended to send in at once, when tenders were demanded for the rebuilding of the Temple. So certain Education-mongers have drawn up some schemes, but they will not be called for. We may look over your projections, gentlemen, your elevations and ground plans, but your phantom schoolmasters we banish from this realm of fact : on snowy plains of paper let them wander up and down, the masters of their own Siberia. Screech. As for awakening a spirit of inquiry, that I am quite sure is what no sensible man would desire : it is a thing always absurd. A spirit of inquiry means a pertin- acity in putting foolish questions. There is none more foolish than the Education question. Our Royal Society wrote, once upon a time, to Sir Philiberto Vernatti, then residing in Batavia, to ask whether it was true, that in Java there were oysters " of that vast bigness as to weigh 3 cwt." A Defence of Ignorance. 103 These were your learned men. People Avhose mouths are agape for oysters of that size must be prepared to swallow anything. Knowledge is hungry and greedy ; Ignorance fasts and is content. Civetta. The tiresome greediness of Knowledge is por- trayed awfully in men who are attacked by the schoolmaster while in a state of nature. This was the case with the natives of the Navigator Islands, where the missionaries rang their bell and summoned all the natives into school. The consequence was, Mr. Walpole tells us — in his book, Four Years in the Pacific — that Europeans walking in the woods were pounced upon at any unexpected time by savages, who brandished not clubs but slates about their heads, and shouted, " Do my sum !" Frederic Walpole had his "walks made weariful with sums". "One fellow, with a noble head, used to bring him regular puzzlers." The victim, in revenge, set his tormenter some algebra to do, in the hope that this would keep him quiet ; but after a few days he came again, together with ten others, making a fierce hullabaloo ; they all brought slates, and came to get the problem solved; — "-You do it." Ulula. Can flesh and blood live to be told of absurdities and miseries like these bred out of foreign Education and not stir in the Defence of Ignorance at home ! With how deep contempt must we regard those baby savages in the wild forests of the tropics, when we contemplate the men of our own towns and fields? Half of us, thank Heaven, cannot make figures ; yet see how Great Britain has pros- pered. I wonder whether the savages feel our superiority; whether they know, that in the country out of which their teachers come, Eight Millions of the people cannot read and write. This is a triumphant fact : here I may say stop, you tell me. 104 ^ Defence of Ignorance. " Basth cosi ; t' intendo : Gia ti spiegasti a pieno ; E mi diresti meno, Se mi dicessi piu." Buho. Shame, sir ! Order, sir ! What jargon 's that ?" Ulula. 'Tis perfectly in order, Buho. You are fidgetty. The tongue they speak in Naples has a claim upon us. {Hear, hear ! with murmurs of Translate.) " Good ; you have said enough, you've explained yourself perfectly well now : And you would tell me less, were you to say any more." — That's the translation, gentlemen. Buho, a glass of wine with you ? Gentlemen, I have introduced the subject, and suggest that we discuss it now somewhat in detail. Let us take first, if you please, Egnarance of tlje -^mxz Ctosies. How does our account stand as regards that ? Gentle- men, you are perhaps aware that our friend on my right, whom I wall be so bold as to call Aziola — Screech. Our friend has views to state, I believe, of which he will suffer us to doubt the soundness. Aziola. Mr. Chairman, you refer to me sarcastically. You hint, I suspect, at Shelley's line about the Aziola : — "Fear not, 'tis nothing but a little downy owl." " Fear not," indeed ! I ridicule myself. I have no hope of ever seeing what I wish, and, being desperate, I join your party. So I take the name you give in all good humour. Screech. Spoken manfully ! But much I wish you had more cause for your despair. Ignorance does not seem to me to have a firm grasp of the Middle Class. As for Know- ledge, there can be no doubt that men do learn more' or Ignorance of tJic JMiddle Classes. 105 less during the course of life, according to their leisure. It pains me to know that a degraded press, degraded but pro- lific, allures too many of my neighbours with her wanton smile. They who have leisure enough amass, in this way, a great deal of desultory knowledge; and regret that no shelves have been put up in their heads whereon they might arrange their stock. By picking daily at the fruit of the forbidden tree, many folks come to possess a store of apples in their garret. I am shocked at this : but if they will err, on their own mature heads be the sin. Aziola. Few of them can say that, in their childhood, great pains ^vere not taken to deter them from such robbery. Screech. The children of the Middle Classes go to school. Aziola. Their school is, generally speaking, part of our Defence. In the Middle Ages, when above Europe it was night, these men stood high, and used the utmost light pro- curable. As civilisation dawned, they sank \ they are like Pteropods, that have a wide sea for their home, and sport at midnight on the surface, but sink lower in the water gradually, as the day advances, so that they preserve around themselves one exact shade of gloom. The teacher who would cure me of despair, must love the sun and sunny faces. He must droop before a mournful child. Like Jean Paul Richter, when he sees a child with gloomy features, he must think of it as of a butterfly with its wings plucked and obliged to crawl. He must not copy any plan of teaching out of books, although he may digest the thoughts of others ; for, can he not eat mutton without crying " Baa"? Biiho. Out with your heart, man. Picture anything that's hopeless, for between ourselves, dear sir, it will be a quaint joke to paint in detail grapes, for the annoyance of some hungry bird. Aziola. Of course, you teacher, you must understand the nature of a child. A fellow with a stick in his hands shouts io6 A Defence of Ignorance. out, " "\M"iy, so I do !" Look away, master, from the knuckles of that cringing, wincing boy ; look back into the past some centuries, and see the Master of us all with children in His arms, and at His feet, declaring that their angels see His Fathers face in heaven. With that wail in your ears, and that cane in your hand, dare you look back so far, and say you reverence a child? The teacher who is not allied to Ignorance, must love all children, heartily and unaffectedly ; must be a child, as well as man, himself. You see him in his school-room, where he treads on carpets or on matting, where the walls around him wear a cheerful paper, and neat tables and chairs await the childish students. The best room in his house — the room that lets in the most light and pleasure through the windows — is the room devoted to the occupation of his children. They are young, and they know little ; but the teacher's mmd is very full indeed if he has not felt the necessity of studying from day to day, to meet their daily various re- quirements. Here they come ; not a vast crowd of them, for though John Smith might undertake the care of fifty sheep, he cannot undertake in one day to supply the wants of fifty children all unlike each other. At the utmost, he can teach a score with a congenial assistant. They who confide in him know that, and, of course, will take care that his services are paid for properly, without a grudge. But here they come ; with chatter, laughter, and good- will, with not a particle of fear. The youngest is imme- diately crawling up the legs of his instructor; Smith is converted into a Laocoon, struggling good-humouredly with serpent children. Pretty discipline ! Do you not scowl with me ? You will find worse behind, for school had not begun. Now it begins. No cane, no desk, no high stool ! Uliila. "Without these, is instruction possible ? Here is the flesh of school, without the skeleton. It cannot stand. Aziola. The teacher sits where children sit, or walks Ignorance of the HJidd/e Classes. 107 among them. Study begins ; perhaps the morning and the fresh attention are devoted to those studies which, though not least needful, are the least inviting, and more pleasant subjects come as the day flags. Conversation, open utter- ance, is not forbidden. How can a preacher pretend to form a child's mind when he forbids it to be spoken ? In a silence broken only by words learned out of a book, how is it possible that the chief object of education can be obtained at all ? So says John Smith, and the work goes on. The children fidget, shift their places, and are suffered freely so to do : it is the instinct of their childhood. They openly make boats and chip at wood, and play with paper, when their hands are not employed. Allegiance to childhood is not insubordination. So they work cheerfully, and know themselves at school to be free agents, doing a duty. At the end of every hour's work, they scamper out to scream and play at leapfrog. Recalled, they scamper back as rapidly as if there were a cane for the last comer. Morning has been spent in languages, arithmetic, or algebra, and exercises wiiich demand labour of which the pleasant fruit is not immediately to be gathered. It has imposed upon the children mental toil. The afternoon is full of mental pleasure. The history of man's deeds and w^orks and the wonders of nature engage childish hearts more powerfully. Not as detailed in skeleton books.- A dinner of dry bones makes no man fat. The teacher pre- determines that he will occupy perhaps three years in a narration of the story of the world. He begins at the first dawn of history, studies for himself Nvith patient diligence upon each topic the most correct and elaborate records (for which purpose he requires aid of a town library), and pours all out in one continued stream from day to day, enlivened by a child-like style. The children comment as the story runs ; the teacher finds a hint sufficient at a time by way of moral, he is rather willing to be taught by the experience of H 2 .io satisfaction. Ignorance of the Poor is safe for many years. The next topic Screech. Is Mrs. Ulula receiving company ? Ulida. Five double-knocks in twenty minutes make one think so, and I certainly have heard silks rustling by the door. I told my wife that we might probably sit late, and that we would have coffee in the dining-room ; possibly she has asked some neighbours to take tea with herself and the other womankind. Gentlemen, our next topic, I suppose, will be Sgnorauce at tlje anitjersities. Of these, one will especially present itself as an agreeable subject of conversation. Civetta, Yes. It shall stand upon a pedestal in our imaginations. First, the works of Saint Surdus, then the folios of Father Ingannato, then the holy Bishop Tiburon of Gatada, with the Life of Saint Larronius, we pile them one upon the other, and then plant the genius of Oxford on the top. The name of University is given to the Oxford and Cam- bridge educational establishments on account of their deficiency in Universal Knowledge. Of the whole sphere of study they turn one side only, and always, to the gaze of man, just as the moon does with her sphere — or as La Merluche was ordered to do with his breeches, when he pleaded to the miser inability to wait at table : — " La Merluche. — Monsieur, vous savez bien, que j'ai mon haut-de-chausse tout troue par derriere, et qu'on me voit, reverence parler " Harpagoii.—Y?a^ 1 Rangez cela adroitement du cote de la muraille, et presentez toujours le devant au monde." So our Universities display a sound part when they can, and hold their raggedness du cote de hi muraille. Walls 148 A Defence of Igno ranee. unluckily have eyes as well as ears ; for, being of course wall-eyed, they are not stone-blind. It has become known, therefore, that the Universities not only do not show, but do not wear, an entire suit of education. Cambridge has been lately to the tailors, and exults in the notion of appearing more respectable by virtue of a patch ; but the truth is that, if education be their object, as I hope it is not, new clothes are required for each establishment. The Universities are set upas opponents to our Mistress; they are called the Seats of Learning ; ragged seats, I say. They are Nurseries of Arts. Well, sir, when I have married Mistress Ignorance, they are the nurseries in which I hope to keep my children. Oxford shall be the matron for us. All nurses are ignorant as well as prejudiced, and she is Head Nurse to the British Nation. Screech. I wonder what would really be the character of any great establishment which had no other object than to foster learning ? Ulula. What do you say, Aziola ? Aziola. It would strive to represent, by numerous and active teachers, every branch upon the tree of knowledge ; and, no doubt, the labour annuo lly spent on each depart- ment of its teaching would be carefully apportioned, and made more or less, according to its relative importance. There would be formed a grand picture, true in its perspec- tive and harmoniously coloured, of the intelligence to which man has attained ; and this would realise the knowledge- monger's notion of a University. But since it is impossible that any single intellect should grasp so wide a range of information, we may fancy children trained at school to contemplate the fields of human know- ledge in their due relative proportions, and as youth,.obliged to recognise all outlying boundaries, while they devote especial care to the elaboration of whatever study may best suit their prospects or their tastes. Thus each might culti- Inwrancc at the Universities. 149 ' we may pity without putting Ignorance in danger. " 'Tis folly to be wise," but it is worse than folly to be cruel. Uhila. About Cambridge I feel more uneasy. That University has yielded too readily. I do not like its ex- tended examinations. King's College, Cambridge, only last May-day, abandoned of its own accord a right to con- stitute its men B.A. without examination. Then, too, its fellowships have been more fairly the rewards of merit; and its great idea, mathematics, does unfortunately train men to advance the pride of knowledge in the present day. The expert mathematician goes into the world prepared to follow any rash adventurer into the unknown lands of science. He has the key to unlock many things which man is only too desirous to be fingering. Adams was not an Oxford man. I don't like this. I am piqued at Cam- bridge, and I will not suffer her to suckle one of mine. Civetta. Oxford 's the nurse for me. I scold her for pre- tending to be wise ; I am ashamed of her because she is not candid; I rebuke her, but she is my dear old nurse. Bless her soul, she didn't fail to send a petition to the Queen against the meddling of those rascally commissioners, from heads of houses. Aziola. Happy houses, that have got so little in their heads ! Bitlio. I'll write a line to F. M. the Duke of Wellington, and beg to be informed why he, as Chancellor, refused to present that petition, confound his impudence ! Civetta. One of the most original geniuses of the day is William Sewell, B.D. (of Oxford); his move in opposition to the Universities' Commission is one of the most dexterous of his achievements. I call it his move, but he is supposed to have contributed to the manifesto — for it is a manifesto — only his name. U/w. That is likely, for he was, at the time of its ap- pearance, engaged upon a translation of Horace — no easy 158 A Defence of Ignorance. task to a man who is at the distance of B.D. from his under- graduateship, and this most hkely occupied his whole atten- tion. It is published now, an excellent impalement of the poet. Civeita. Well, my dear sir, the notion of his manifesto is that no inquiry is necessary. Oxford is ready to establish branch colleges of her owai all over the country. — " Mrs. Oxford, if I may say so without rudeness, I don't like your pie." — " O Mr. Bull, don't mention it ; shall I assist you to a little more ? " Uh2i. The two Universities have to bestow about two hundred thousand pounds in fellowships, more than two hundred and fifty thousand pounds in Church preferment, which all goes to Fellow^s ; they have nearly forty thousand of revenue ; the rent of college rooms produces to them nearly thirty thousand ; thirty-three thousand pounds more goes to Fellows in the shape of college fees ; there are the salaries of about forty heads of colleges and halls, and about ninety Professors. There is all the money paid by students to Fellows for private teaching. Biilw. This money is the head and front of University offending. Those rascally burglars are excited to activity by this. Aziola. They want to scrape it all out of the mud in which we keep it safely buried, to deprive our Mistress Ignorance of every penny, and pour it out before their idol. Knowledge. They say. Here you have the means of forming Educational establishments upon a grand scale, thoroughly complete. Uliila. Yes, here wc have the means, and Enemies of Ignorance shall never move them from our keeping. What excites you, Buho ? Bulla. They are polking ! Glaux. Free grammar-schools, by-the-bye, are in a glorious condition ; following their founders' views as little Ignorance at tJic Universities. 159 as some colleges. I have facts upon that subject in my Notes on Education of the Poor. Why, sir, there are no less than two thousand four hundred endowed grammar- schools in this country, provided for the sons of artisans and other riff-raff; all in magnificent condition. Two thousand of them do not educate four hundred of such scum. The press — as pertinacious as a parish fire-engine when nothing is the matter — scjuirted its black venom at one of these some time ago ; a grammar-school which used to educate its eighty pupils and support three masters, but was then supporting one head-master, who sacrificed — for a handsome compensation — none but his own two sons to the manes of the founder. Screech. My dear Buho, who is polking ? You disturb me with your dumb-show ; besides, you attack my shins. Glaux. Another of these free schools, in the Fens, suffered from reform-fever about a year ago, when a charge very properly was levied upon pupils. Some busybody pro- posed to make this charge extremely small, but was out- voted, for there rose in the town council a good friend of Ignorance, saying, "No! if you do that, we shall be inun- dated with scholars ! " Civetta. Never may dear Old England see the day when school-houses shall fill, and the great inundation of scholars pour every morning through the streets of her fine town?, rushing and eddying through each open school-room door. Glaux. Sir, it was a great thing to dam out the poor from those endowed schools. The funds have grown enormous!}-. All the ragged imps in London could be taught out of the funds of Christ's Hospital alone. Grow, sir ! the funds may well grow ! Ulula. They have a harp, piano, and cornet-a-piston ! Glaux. Lawrence Sheriffe left the third part of a field of twenty-four acres in the parish of Holborn, to endow a grammar-school at Rugby. It produced then ;^8 ; it is now 1 Go A Defence of Ignorance. covered with buildings, and its rental is ^10,000 a year. True it is, that although we have wrested Rugby also from the patrimony of the poor, that place has, in its own way, done us mischief. Men like your Arnolds and your Attilas arise sometimes to play the part of scourge. We could not be safe against the force of many more than the one Dr. Arnold. Never mind ; his shoes are buried with him. When you think of the foundations absolutely rotted — rotten foundations, you observe the joke— no, you observe nothing : gentlemen, you are positively tedious. Ulula. I do not understand this. Screech. There, now you hear them laughing ; they are tuning for a waltz. Ulula. Will some one peep into ci)e iLaDies' DraUn'ng^iaoom. Do you smoke, Buho ? Ah ! you should ; you'd find tobacco soothing. A cigar, Screech ? I must indulge my- self, or I shall lose my temper. Mrs. U. might or might not have approved of this meeting ; but I had, at least, the civility to tell her what my plans were. I distinctly told her that we should not go upstairs. The Owlet {returning in a state of rapture). I drank in- toxication through the keyhole. They are frolicking and dancing ; and it is like a witches' Sabbath. Gentlemen, I dote on a waltz. Aziola. You may well be reminded of a witches' Sabbath ; for you, of course, know that we are indebted to the healthy imagination of the painters in the Middle Ages, who depicted such scenes, for the origin of waltzing. Their bold genius invented waltz-figures to heighten the Devil's fun upon the Brocken ; and a bolder genius transferred their graces to the drawing-room, and made that dance to be polite for ladies, which was drawn for fiends to make them look uncomely. The Ladies Dyaiviii(:-Room. l6l in Buho. I enjoy a waltz. Civetta. Certainly : • and above all things it is for ball- practice that ladies should be trained ; I do not say for balls alone, because their sphere of duty also should include shirt-buttons and pastry. There we stop, however. When the German emperor, Charles IV, married at Prague, the father of his bride brought to the festival a waggon-load of conjurers. Two, the most eminent of these, Zytho the Bohemian, and Gourin the Bavarian, were pitched against each other. Zytho then opening his mouth, it is said, from ear to ear, ate up his adversary till he came upon his shoes, and spat those out, because they were not clean. Now, we, Hke Zytho, can devour all the charms and graces of a woman till we come upon her understanding, and we spit that out. We do, I say, and represent the mouthpiece of a nation. Aziola. Russet apples half concealed beneath leaves from the autumn sun that beats upon an orchard, apples in store, or in a cider press, or glorified as penny pyramids upon the dry plain of a London stall, sink into insignificance before the fruit of a stage-banquet at the opera. The rosiest plate-full of country apples would look out of place in com- pany so brilliant. How brilliant is beauty at a ball ! How insignificant a pippin is the untrained girl who scarcely knows another chandelier than the sun, who cannot even drop a handkerchief with grace, sings "Where the Bee sucks'' if you ask her for a song • Buho. Sucks, indeed ! vulgar ! Aziola. And could not sing an air from Nabucadonosor, no, sir, not if you bribed her with the promise of a husband for it. The ball-room is the proper exhibition-room for female elegance and worth. For the ball-room our wives ought to be trained, and thither we must go, and, if we are wise, do go, to seek them out. Hymen is delicate and lights his torch at the wax candles oftener than at the homely composite or the camphine. 1 62 A Defence of Ignorance. Screech. Were any man to tell me that the brilliance of woman at a ball, delightful as it is, will not content us — that the enjoyment she affords there, like the banquet fur- nished for your Brocken witches, will amuse the senses with a ghostly supper and still let the hunger gnaw ; were any man, sir, to attempt, by such an argument, to hit me in the stomach, I would snatch up, in defence, a rolling-pin. Our wives and daughters are not only to be visions of delight, they are not only by their songs and dances, and by piquant words and gestures, to delight our ears and eyes, but they are by their pudding-crust to win the approbation, the devo- tion also, of our bellies. When any of my nieces marry they shall each receive from me as a bridal gift a little parcel of white satin shoes with shirt and brace-buttons in all their toes, and in the middle of the parcel, as its kernel, they shall find a rolling-pin. Civet fa. Francesca Romana was a good sort of saint, devoted to her husband's comfort. Of course it did not matter how she spent her time, so long as she did not let his chops burn or his pudding become sodden. Being a saint, she spent a large part of the day in devotion, but rose from her knees instantly if the pot boiled, or baby cried, or if her husband called out for a button. Once she WMS called away eleven times before she could reach the end of one verse in the Bible, and, at last, on her return, she found that verse lighted up supernaturally. Her prin- ciple was that " a wife and a mother must quit her God at the altar and find him in her household affairs". Biiho. Whether some of our well-trained wives would carry that principle to the extent of quitting their God at the looking-glass is doubtful. Screech. Well, if not, we have the beauty as a recompense, and many a grace acquired by patient study. It is study bestowed to a good purpose. Look at the ladies who have made themselves remarkable by other studies — say, Mrs. The Ladies' Dnxwiji^-Rooni. 1 63 Somerville, Miss Martineau. j\Iy young friend Captain Little dances with the' foot of a master, wears miniature boots and trousers absolutely faultless, he has the breeding of a gentleman — and received last week, in return for twenty- four postage stamps, a bottle of Crinilene from Miss Dean, who promises him whiskers in three weeks. Fancy the Captain waltzing with Miss Martineau, a lady who has been caricatured in a leading magazine with a large cat upon her shoulder. Aziola. Why, the silliest of men can laugh at her, for meddling with political economy, welfare of communities, and all such stuff. Her novels I have read, and one need only name Deerbrook ; let any man of sense compare that work with a true standard woman, and he will know the measure of Miss M.'s deficiency in qualities which give true lustre to her sex. There are young women perversely educated, who have read the book repeatedly, possessed with the delusion that it softens all the hard lumps in their hearts, and tends to make them what they ought to be — poor girls ! Buho. I know nothing about that ; but I won't hear Miss Martineau abused. She has proved mesmerism in the teeth of opposition. The case of her pet cow, that she brought forward last year Aziola. And this year her pet donkey Buho. Eh ! I haven't heard of that. Ubila. A fact, sir ; she has been seen seated in mesmeric state upon a most enormous donkey, that eats Bibles up instead of thistles. Buho. Bless me ! Doesn't it choke itself? Aziola. O no ! mesmeric animals have enormous width of swallow. Buho. Sir ! Now, I tell you what, you don't believe in mesmerism ? I do. But only fools discredit homoeopathy. For width of swallow, I should say the allopaths are extra- ordinary ! 164 A Defence of Ignorance. Uhda. Buho, it is not wholly beside our purpose to branch out into this subject. Perhaps you can produce some facts. BuJw. Myself, if you call me a fact. I wouldn't believe in this sort of thing if I didn't see with my own eyes, as it were ; for a man ought not to know or believe anything but what he sees. Now a plain statement decides the question. Sir, from a boy I always hated having my nails cut. It hurts me, it fidgets me. I couldn't cut- 'em myself, and always swore at anyone else who cut 'em for me. Uhda, Well! Buho. Well, I was advised to try homceopathy. What 's the result ? Now, when I find it necessary, sir, I take the billionth of a thought of steel going to bed, and find my nails cut in the morning. Aziola. Possibly your wife Buho. Sir, my wife, or your wife, or the candlestick's wife, is beside the purpose. Bless my soul, sir ! I tell you a fact out of my own experience, and you insult me grossly if you question it. . Uhda. It is conclusive. Gentlemen, if you please, we will return to our discussion of the ladies. We were talking of Miss Martineau and earnest women. Our clerical friend, Zumacaya, has, I see, a paper in his hand Buho. If there is any cant that I despise, it is the hack word "earnest". Tell me that anybody is an earnest person, tell me that she has the plague, it is all one, I keep my distance. I knew a young fellow who was famous for his dashing wit, a first-rate quiz, before he married, by some oversight, a girl just tinged, ever so litde tinged, with earnest- ness. There was no enthusiasm in her, sir; she never idolised a waistcoat or became enraptured at a joke, and after he was married his wit burned so dead, that he abso- lutely told me he had left off what he called sneering at his TJie Ladies' Drawing- Room. 165 fellow-men. " Fellow men" — how soon he picked up his cant words, poor devil ! Civetta. No, my dear sir, the man is rash who takes to wife an earnest woman, unless, indeed, he have the virtue of St. Sebald, who, for want of wood, could keep his fire aHve with icicles. Zuinacaya. Who are the men by whom we are antagon- ised ? Let Englishmen be on their guard against encroach- ments favoured by the Papist and the Unitarian. I appeal to the religious feehng of the country ; and although, so doing, I produce those Xo^/ovi aKcwOuocei'?, thorny arguments, which it is by no means pleasant to lay hold of; still, since they really are a furze-bush to the British Lion's tail, they ought to be appended. I say, then, that, apart from our own sense of what is right, we can perceive the necessity of ignorance in women when we find it argued down by Papists. What says Fenelon, an arch-deceiver, for was he not a Roman CathoHc archbishop ? " It is ignorance", he says, " which renders women frivolous." He describes in a highly disrespectful manner female education, and then goes on rudely : " Idleness and weakness being thus united to ignorance, there arises from this union a pernicious taste for amusements. Girls brought up in this idle way have an ill-regulated imagination. Their curiosity, not being directed to substantial things, is turned towards vain and dangerous objects. They read books which nourish their vanity, and become passionately fond of romances, comedies, and fanciful adventures. Their minds become visionary ; they accustom themselves to the extravagant language of the heroines of romance." Screech. Well, sir, and is everything to be mechanical — are all minds to go clothed in frieze, with a foot-rule sticking obtrusively out of the mind's pocket ? May not the pretty nonsense of our fairy damsels, their delightful enthusiasm, their emphatic little billets, in which every delicious^ heavenly^ 1 66 A Defence of Ignorance. or barbarous Nothing is ecstatically underlined, may they not give innocent delight ? Zumacaya. They may, sir, and they will : No Popery. While we are talking of this sort of people, it will be well to note how this benighted dignitary of the Romish Church supports another false and specious cry raised by our enemies. Just hear Fenelon's notions about education, and you may well hold up your hands and mutter, he was born two hundred years ago : " The greatest defect of common educa- tion is, that we are in the habit of putting pleasure all on one side, and weariness on the other ; all weariness in study, all pleasure in idleness. Let us try to change this association; let us render study agreeable ; let us present it under the aspect of liberty and pleasure ; let us sometimes permit study to be interrupted by httle sallies of gaiety. These interruptions are necessary to relax the mind." Again : "An austere and imperious air must be avoided, except in cases of extreme necessity, for children are generally timid and bashful. Make them love you ; let them be free with you ; let them not hide their thoughts from you. Be in- dulgent to those who conceal nothing from you. It is true that this treatment will enforce less the restraint of fear, but it will produce confidence. We must always commence with a conduct open, gay." Ulula. What next, I wonder, after a gay schoolmaster or schoolmistress ! Can we contrive a climax ? Ziunacaya. O yes, if we go among the Unitarians, we shall find folly quite as rife. This is how Channing talks, one of the lights of a sect certainly not Christian:- " Honour man from the beginning to the end of his earthly course. Honour the child. Welcome into being the infant, with a feeling of its mysterious grandeur, with the feeling that an immortal existence has begun, that a spirit has been kindled which is never to be quenched. Honour the child. On this principle all good education rests. Never shall we TJie Ladies' Draiving-Rooin. 167 learn to train up the child till we take it in our arms, as Jesus did, and feel distinctly that ' of such is the Kingdom ot Heaven'." In that short sentence is taught the spirit of the true system of education ; and for want of understanding it, little effectual aid, I fear, is yet Biiho. Fire and fury ! I have cut myself paring my thumb-nail. You, Screech, why did you dare me to do it? Screech. I will pull some nap out of your hat — ah ! you have court-plaster, and your hat, I daresay, is of silk. Aziola. I don't like hats, do you ? nobody does. Is it not odd that we have persevered in wearing hats until beavers — which, to the mere naturalist, are peculiarly in teresting — have almost become extinct— and this in defer- ence to habit, every man against his own conviction ? Well, sir, if custom be so powerful in ordering the furniture out- side our heads, in spite of us, it will prevail no less in maintaining those internal fittings to which men have been for centuries accustomed, and with which we are content. Screech. Mr. Chairman, the young gentleman at the bottom of the table has intimated to me that his father's house is next door to a ladies' school, and that he has observations to communicate. Uhila. Precisely what we want. The OivUt. The name of the school is • Ulula. To be disguised in your notes, Mr. Secretary. Screech. Certainly, sir ; I take great pains to avoid using other people's names. The Oivlet. Moira House Seminary, kept by three sisters, the Misses Mimminipimmin. Miss Clotho, the elder, is a good disciplinarian, who teaches what are called the usual branches of an English education. Miss Atropos is some- what good-tempered, and superintends the housekeeping department. Miss Lachesis, the youngest, differs from her sisters in not wearing a cap, and is the general instructor in 1 68 A Defence of Ignorance. things elegant. If you had been with me last night, when I peeped through the schoolroom window, which opens upon our yard, you would have seen the two remaining teachers. They were eating bread-and-butter, and drinking small-beer, by the light of a dip candle ; for last night the Misses M. had company. Six ladies in a fly drank tea with them, I know; and so the teachers, of course, had their supply sent to them downstairs. You would have been amused, had you been with me ! One, a comely maiden, has a sweetheart somewhere labouring to earn her for his wife, a fact at which Miss Lachesis especially is aggravated. And certainly that teacher, as Miss Lachesis has said to me, is quite unfit for her position. Her thoughts are evidently all abroad : she lets the children play, and has no nerve for discipline ; indeed, as Miss Clotho says, she is too young. Last night, she was eating her bread-and-butter with a good-tempered face, while Mademoiselle Mignon — she is but a sickly little thing — was choking over the small-beer. Mademoiselle is far away from home, and has no lover to hear her complaints. She did not know how much I overheard of them ; but the French are so ridiculously sensitive. The school, from what T^Iiss Clotho says, I know to be exceedingly well-regulated. Of course nothing male, except "approved good masters", can intrude upon the perfect femininity of that establishment. I strictly believe that they use female writing, female arithmetic Ulula. Which every husband knows to be beyond male comprehension The Oiulet. And female grammar — the existence of a masculine gender being denied, or suppressed, in every language. But I can only guess at these things. It is true, indeed, that I have sometimes endeavoured to peep through the window during school-time ; but the elevation of my head above the compo-horizon of the window-sill has caused The Ladies' Drawing- Room. 169 such instantaneous stir and titter among all the young ladies, as if indeed their eyes had all been most attentive to the window at the time of popping up my head, that I have been too glad to pop it down again before Miss Clotho saw me. I, too, feel some terror at Miss Clotho. After my last attempt at suc'i peep, while I was creeping off, I heard Miss Clotho's tongue busily punishing the English governess for suffering the children to make a commotion ; so I know that she can scold a full-grown person, and I do not wish to come under the stroke of her jawbone. Peeping about a ladies' school is very pleasant notwith- standing. Out of a garret window I can look down upon a corner of their garden, and- when the girls, in play-time, are not walking in procession through the country, I can see them there. It is an extraordinary fact, that all these girls seem sometimes to go mad. Whether it has anything to do with the moon I do not know. Civetta. It may be so. " Kirckringius knew a young gentlewoman" who was at new moon only skin and bone, and stirred not out of doors ; but as the moon grew she gathered flesh, until at the full of the moon she went abroad commanding of all men admiration for her plumpness and exceeding beauty. The Oivlet. Young gentlewomen being thus sensitive to lunar influence, it may be to the moon that I must look for the reason why there should come every now and then a day when the young ladies, commonly so tranquil, scamper up and down the walks, shriek, jump, yea climb upon the walls, while the French governess and the English governess struggle in vain against the fever ; and it seems as though all the Queen's Riot Acts and all the Queen's men couldn't restore quiet to those girls again. Twice, however, I have seen an instantaneous calm follow the tempest, and have each time observed in a few minutes that Miss Clotho I M 170 A Defence of I grievance. came into the garden dressed as from a walk. Commonly, however, all is tranquil. Civetta. As it should be in an academic grove. With graceful gestures little hoops are being launched from sticks ; or knots of girls with delicate complexions, shunning the spring sun, sit under the " Laburnums, dropping wells of fire", from which they do not apprehend a scorching. Others in pairs pace up and down with meditative steps, and, earnestly conversing, look extremely confidential. Arms interlaced bespeak in these "The tender friendships made^twixt heart and heart, When the dear friends have nothing to impart." Far from that ; — I would scorn it, sir ; — you are quite wrong ; I am not sneering at this tenderness. Brisk or steady, young or old, and whether in a state of natural simplicity, ignorant or sophisticated, there is something in every woman at which no true man can laugh. In the sweet honeyed flow of youth there is a charm, some part of which is not lost, although time and careless keeping should induce acetous fermenta- tion, as they often do. In the most vinegary woman there is still a flavour of the warm sun on the fruit. The man who blames our friends upstairs as frivolous, acknowledges that any one of them has that within her which can make her stronger than a strong man in the spirit of endurance and self-sacrifice. Ulula. And we who love the frivolous will own even of learned women, that if they be unfit for partners, they are very fit for friends. Civetta. A bit of pure air sticks about a woman, let her go where she may, and be she who she may ; the girl most deeply sunk in misery and vice retains it, and can rise by it when opportunity shall come. A little creature hves far out at sea upon the gulf-weed — Litiopa is its name ; often TJie Ladies' D valuing- Room. 171 there comes a wave that sweeps it from its hold and forces it into the deep. It carries down with it an air-bubble, and glues to this a thread which, as the bubble rises to the sur- face, it extends. The little bit of air, before it breaks out of its film, floats on the water, and is soon attracted by the gulf-weed, towards which it runs and fastens alongside ; up comes the Litiopa by her thread then, and regains the seat for which she was created. A bit of pure air sticks like this about all women ; from the Queen on her throne down to the world-abandoned creature on the pavement. Buho. Prosy, sir ! Screech. Not at all. Suffer me to observe that in greasing your hair you have allowed a drop to fall upon that elegant blue satin waistcoat. Considered in one point of view, it may be filthy for men or women to make their heads look like a sop in the pan, but I am not so narrow-minded that I cannot see a case like this in all its bearings. With you I defile my head on principle, to support a branch of female manufacture. Were our heads in a cleaner condition, there would be no need for those fancy cloths which ladies throw over our chairs and couches to protect them from defile- ment by themselves and us, anti-hog's larders or anti-macas- sars. Protection is required for our crochet-workers. The object at Moira House has been to educate young ladies in such elegant accomplishments as shall not hurt their brains. Our object is to put down learned women. Setting aside all other obvious objections, it is enough to say that we cannot afford to have our women's brains well filled. If they begin to stick pins into us at our own fireside, in the shape of all manner of familiar allusions to Godegisile, to Verazzani, or the Chickahominies, what will become of us^ what shall we do ? we can no longer presume upon wise hums and hahs. Well-informed silence may be practised out of doors, but at the family dinner we should be dragged daily at the tail of a wife's conversational chariot ; for what a M 2 1/2 A Defeitce of Ignorance. woman knows, and something more, she will inevitably talk about. Civetta. In such an event there would be no alternative left for us but to imitate the practice of the weak forts on the coast of Barbary, which, when a ship is entering their harbour, sent on board a request that she will be so good as to abstain from firing, because if the fortress be compelled to return any salute, it will be forced to do so at the risk of knocking its own walls to pieces. Screech. The object of instructing ladies in crochet, knitting, working upon cloth and velvet, is to enable them to occupy their vacant moments in a harmless manner. Hour after hour the fingers twist mechanically upon wool, when they might be dangerously occupied with pen or pencil, and the eyes bent upon Mrs. Warren's pictures of slippers and polka jackets, are prevented from discovering how many hours might be employed in musty book-work. The cover of a music-stool (result of a month's leisure) may be worth half-a-crown more than the materials employed in it ; but the gain of the working lady has not been the mere half- crown ; she has gained emancipation from all tedious occu- pation ; she has protected that innocence, that sweet siiti- plicity of brain, which makes the charm of female conver- sation, and causes us so frequently to feel, however little we may know, that we unbend when talking to a woman. Uliila. Other accomplishments there are which lead a few fair students, now and then, beyond our bounds ; but that is not their object, nor is it usually their result. Drawing, for example, is not taught, I hope, and judging from results, I think, with a desire to awaken, through the eye, the intellect to spiritual thoughts, though some misguided women make exceptions of themselves. Ladies learn draw- ing as they learn crochet, to give mechanical employment to their fingers which shall not engage their brains. If they sketch from nature it is very well ; for gentlemen can TJie Ladies' Drawi7tg-Roovi. 173 hold their pencils while they receive, without awkwardness, the flattery for which, of course, all women were created. Naked truth is to be looked at only by the coarser sex. It is not intended that the eye shall perceive more than the lines and colours to be imitated ; and the landscape is worked upon paper with different tools, indeed, but with the same feeling as if it were a watchpocket or kettle-holder. Paintings from nature, however, are in less request than large chalk heads and little album drawings, famous for the careful delicacy of the finger-work, and the complete absence of thought. Dear femininities ! of which the dearest are those gorgeous little birds perched upon pencil marks, whose only habitat appears to be the album, and which are hatched out of no eggs but those which Mr. Newman sells in nests of rosewood or mahogany. Screech. Then music is most wisely taught on the same principle. Music, as an intellectual pursuit, would be a bore in woman. A wife who strums Lieder ohne Worfe and looks down upon your taste for the " Drum Polka", will not do for you, my dear sir, at any price. Thanks to a judicious plan of education, such an affliction rarely falls to a man's share. The use of music, as of drawing, is, that it occupies only the fingers. It is better than drawing, because it is an art exercised in full dress ; a gentleman turns over the leaves instead of holding the pencils : so far they are much the same ; but the voice is audible in all parts of the room, and can be admired by more people at the same time than a drawing, which can be seen only by two or three together. The words of songs, being more- over for the most part asseverations of great tenderness of heart and capability of reciprocating an attachment, are convenient for the purpose of advertising to all gentlemen, in a sufficiently loud key. An eligible Heart to Let ; while the post of observation occupied upon the rnusic-stool invites all people to inspect the premises. Many a heart. 174. A Defe7ice of Ignorance. in fact, has been engaged upon the faith of such advertise- ments, and many happy marriages have followed upon such engagements. Aziola. Such triumphs, and the time got rid of in the finger-work of practising, are the great objects of music, as it is taught by the Mimminipimmins. That any of the young ladies sent out of their school care whether they hear Fidelio or Lucia di Lammermoor when they go to the Opera is doubtful; if they have a choice, I think they prefer Lucia, which is presented to them at the Haymarket year after year, while Fidelio has only just been raked out of a dusty corner in the operatic lumber-room. Donizetti cer- tainly is quite the ladies' man. Civetta. Languages,'too, are taught at Moira House, but as accomplishments, of course. Considered as acquirements, they are used by bookish, dusty men to widen the range of their reading in poetry, history, science, or whatsoever their hobby may be. But ladies are lost if they ride hobbies, and they have none, if a few ideas about the moon, in a drawer upstairs, and some enthusiasm about Byron, be not sufficient to convict them of a taste for poetry. Lan- guages to them, therefore, are not acquirements, but accom- plishments. They are ItaUan and French, Italian is used as subsidiary to piano performance ; it is the language of Donizetti, and it is the medium through which other nations ought to speak. It is the language in which Beethoven's " Adelaide" ought to be sung. And I daresay, " O mein lieber Augustin," it is the language in which you may figure as Mio caro Agosti-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-no.* Italian is also ■■' For the other i's and hyphens we want space. Would they be acceptable in a companion volume 't Of such a publication, since no writer would expect anything for its composition, a very thick lump could be sold for a few shillings. Singers are ap- plauded, and paid also, when they issue flourishes in a consider- TJie Ladies' Drawing-Room. 175 important as the language, not of Dante or Ariosto, but of the ^opera hbretto. French is to ladies almost more im- portant than Italian, as it is the language of their common life. I do not mean that they speak French entirely; they have not been taught to do that, and it is not fit that they should. Nor indeed can their brains work it off in fragments through the medium of ordinary conversation ; in the hurry of speaking they remember very tiny bits of it, if we compare their spoken with their written language. Civetta. The written language of the women of England is a great subject, and will be treated in full by future anti- quaries in America when writing about ancient England. It is the finishing touch of delicate flattery that we not only are allowed the relaxation of considering ourselves clever when we talk to ladies ; but the dear creatures tumble help- lessly before us in their letters ; and confess themselves unable even to express their thoughts in any single tongue. Buho, my dear fellow, we are friends ; I never get three- cornered notes, but you do ; show me one. Ah, there 's a good fellow ! I will not betray your confidence ; you have one about you, I can see. No, I will not betray your con- fidence. Do, please ; the little pink one that just peeps out of your splendid waistcoat-pocket ; I know you are engaged to Miss G., and ought not to show her notes, but I daresay that one has nothing in it. Thank you; the argument, I thought, would be convincing. What a strong perfume musk is ! you might use the lady's notes to scent your clothes-drawer. Never thought of that? yes, to be sure; of course it 's a good idea. Ah, now, how prettily this lisps along ! able volume ; but the Printer, doubtful whether the same favour would extend to him, desires the guarantee of a subscription list. Parties desirous of purchasing a thick book devoted ex- clusively to flourish, are requested, therefore, to apply personally or by letter to the Devil, at the Printer's office. 176 A Defence of Ignorance. " Mon cher, Je fus -uexed que je was not at home ce soir. Callez demain, mon petit, at the same heure^ and I shall be heureuse. Addio. Votre. Marguerite Green." Ulula. Why, that was last night. Did you see her, and did she tell you nothing about coming hither? It is very odd ; she is sure to be upstairs." Buho. I propose that this meeting do adjourn. Uhda. But, gentlemen, I told my wife, distinctly, that we should remain here in the dining-room, because we had important business to discuss. Shall we permit our charac- ters to be stained with inconsistency? Moreover, I notice that they have not been dancmg for some time. All is quite still. BuJio. I propose that this meeting do adjourn. Screech. Impatient Buho ! Well, you show your sense at any rate in seeking a young wife, why should you not ? Besides, Miss Green acknowledges to thirty-one, and you are, I imagine, fifty-five ; so there is only a difference of ten years at the utmost; for it is another sweet acknowledg- ment of female ignorance, that ladies, like the savages, cannot count higher than twenty, and so, after twenty-two or three become confused about their ages. Dear creatures ! how much more to our purpose all this is, than that a girl should be kept at home and trained to know all about Titian, to tease us with classic music, to dance with gaiety as if it were a frolic, talk about Tasso, vSpenser, Calderon, Schiller, Moliere, as if they were her common gossiping acquaintance, and look cross at our soft nothings meant to flatter her ! How much better this is, than that girls and boys, till puberty, should study side by side, and after puberty the girls continue studying for years more, under what the cant of the day calls the guidance of an earnest man at home ! Aziola. No doubt the education-mongers think that it will matter little whether man or woman be the teacher. TJie Ladies' Drazving-Room. 177 Avhen there shall be what he would recognise as a supply of women competent to teach. Women there are about the country, and not few, who have been shameless enough to forget their sex, and transgress customary rules. There are women who have gained for themselves an infamous noto- riety as successful naturalists, students of fine art, or — to use another hack term — sterling writers ; and there are in private life a great many strong-minded women, who claim what they call a just position in society. • Civetta. There are many, sir, of these, no doubt ; but do not fear ; measured beside our population, they are few. For centuries they will be few, for our opponents cannot get at them wholesale. Dull books they very properly refuse to read, and your human progress publications are insufferably dull. Spoken to they cannot be, for any language except flattery would be insulting to a^ lady's ear. They might indeed be hooted out of some few habits by small boys, according to the device employed, Monstrelet tells us, by a friar, who paid little ragamuffins with pennies and pardons for running after any lady in a steeple head-dress. The friar had spent his eloquence in vain against the strength fashion, but the boys soon achieved their triumph, and the ladies brought their steeples to the church, where the priest made a bonfire of them. But, except upon a few external matters, in our case the small-boy-cautery is quite impossible. Arm in arm with the ladies we can look our rivals boldly in the face. Beauty's faith is plighted to us, and she will be true. Ulula. Buho, you are impatient for that arm in arm. For my own part, I disapprove of this abandonment of principle. Here is a deep trick of my wife's to tantalise us, when she knows that I distinctly said we should not go upstairs. Buho. I propose that this meeting do adjourn. The Owlet. I second. Screech. There can be no doubt, j\Ir. Chairman, that 178 A Defence of Ignorance. ■when you put this motion it will be unanimously carried. Nevertheless, my opinion is, that on appearing in the draw- ing-room we shall look very foolish. We have heard many arrivals, and a whole autumn of rustling Civetta. And the present stillness is portentous. We might be in the centre of a hurricane. Ulula, what do you say? Ulula. Since Buho presses his motion, and the public feeling is in favour of its being carried, I can only acquiesce. I would propose, however, that we be not too precipitate. Let us adjourn in the first place softly to the iirst-floor land- ing, where perhaps our young friend will again peep, and ascertain the reason of this stillness. Civetta. Very good, sir; and that having been ascertained, we constitute you Patamankowe. Ulula. What in the world is that ? Civetta. The Patamankowe is a chief of Boni in Celebes, whose actions all beholders are obliged to imitate. When he sits they sit, and when he stands they stand ; if he wipe his nose they wipe their noses. If he hunt and get a fall, all who ride hunting with him fall when he does ; when he bathes the whole court bathes, and any passer-by, who sees him bathing, must immediately plunge, clothes and all, into the water. When we see you plunge into the drawing-room, we are prepared to follow, sir. We regulate ourselves by you. Ulula. Well, follow softly, then. They seem to have no gentlemen, and they have been dancing only by fits. * * * Listen ! It is all perfectly still, yet certainly they are not gone. T/ie Owlet. Here is certainly some mystery. Plush ! don't cough ; I can see nothing through the keyhole. Ulula. Surely they are gone, yet how they went without our hearing them I cannot comprehend ! Hush ! Let me TJie Ladies' Drazviiig-Rooni. 1/9 open the door quietly and peep. I cannot hear a sound. Hush ! Draw my head back in a hurry ? I should think so. 'Tis as dangerous as peeping in upon Miss Clotho's schoolroom. Well, 1 think I was not seen. What this assembly means I cannot in the remotest way imagine. There is a large party of ladies all at one end of the room, sitting on chairs and ottomans and at each others feet, working on slippers, socks, watchpockets, and so forth ; my wife sits on a high chair among them like a president, at work on an enormous patchwork counterpane. Three musicians in a corner by themselves are the only men, and I suppose they are there that the ladies may dance now and then when they get tired. They are evidently bent upon some conspiracy, which is to be carried out by means of knitting-pins and needles. We had better go downstairs again. That is my wife's step. She saw me and thought I beckoned, no doubt. Hide in the back-room for one minute. She thinks I have some- thing to tell her. Farther off! she is at the door. You may come forward, my dear friends, we are forgiven — thanked. This is a first meeting of the Dove Associa- tion ; Margaret is there, and the ladies will permit you to be present, although gentlemen have been excluded by the rules. The good creatures thought they could have also their committee, and, desiring universal peace, have formed a Peace Association, called the Doves. These ladies will meet at stated times to work for the great cause. With the produce of their toil it is their plan to furnish a bazaar ; and whether they succeed or not, will you not kiss the little satin slippered feet, that wish to stamp the cannons into powder ? The Select Committee for the Defence of Ignorance co- operated during the remainder of the evening with the Dove 1 8o A Defence of Ignorance. Association, under the presidency of the three musicians. The Secretary, however, begs to state, that when called upon to produce a report, it was thought better, by the Dove Association, that the piece should not be loaded with a ball. The ladies, also, have forbidden him to state at what hour the proceedings terminated. They gain no end by this, for anyone can draw his own conclusion. PAPERS FROM " HOUSEHOLD WORDS' (1850-1857.) TEN YEARS OLD. In the triangular space left between the side of a steamer and a pair of barrels, many years ago, there was jammed a boy, myself, travelling from London to Rotterdam under care of the steward. It was, or I was, a pale boy with blue eyes and yellow hair, aged ten. I thought that I had chosen with remarkable skill an entrenched position, parted by the barrels from an impertinent world too ready with its vulgar consolations, and very handy to the mighty basin of the sea, for I was worse than qualm.ish. As for the steward, I disowned his patronage. I was a free boy on a free element. Accustomed up to that date to an income of chance shillings and half-crowns that never became warm in my pocket before they were torn out to feed an unknown monster bearing the hard name of Savingsbank, I knew that whatever adventures might befall, whether from whales or pirates, on the way to Rotterdam, the ogre Savingsbank could not stride through the ocean after me, though I had money in my jacket, money in my waistcoat, and gold sewn up in the waistband of my trousers. I belonged to the moneyed world, and paid my way. That the steward was a buccaneer in disguise, a very eminent sea robber, I soon found out. But was he not my most obedient, humble vassal ? "One service, steward, you may do me," I said, "now that we are at Rotterdam. Tell this Dutch porter, who shoulders so easily my little school portmanteau and leaves me to carry my umbrella — tell him that I want to go to the 1 84 Papers from ''Household Words'. house of Mynheer Van der Tabak, and that he must take me there." To that house I had been consigned, for Mynheer Van der Tabak was the agent in Rotterdam to a large school established at New Unkraut on the Rhine. New Unkraut is upon the Rhine, although you will not find the name on any map ; I went to school there, and I ought to know. My father, tied to London, could not, on my first departure thither, lead me in his hand to the school- door, but he saw me safely on my way over the worst part of the journey — London streets. From St. Katherine's Docks it was all plain sailing, and a boy of ten must be a dunce indeed if he could not find his own way up the Rhine. Besides, there was Van der Tabak ready to do everything. I had a letter to him, addressed generally " Rotterdam", in which town he was said to be so well known, that it had been considered impertinent and useless to include on the address the street celebrated as that on which his house abutted. I followed the porter, therefore, confidently. He stepped boldly out, up a street, down a street, over a bridge, down a canal, up a street, over a bridge, down a street, until he stopped at a small door, rang a bell, talked a great deal of Dutch with the genius of the bell, and then, turn- ing round to me as the door closed upon us, shook his head and trotted up the street again. He had made a mistake evidently, but he did not look chagrined. "Van der Tabak!" I cried in his ear, and, pulling the letter out of my jacket pocket, at the same time held before his eyes the superscription. He then paused, and by words and signs deliberately explained to me : " There are seventeen Van der Tabaks." The seventeen did not appear to constitute a loving clan, for they had all carefully established themselves in places very remote from one another. If I showed the address on my letter with an inquisitive look to a passer-by, he Ten Years Old. 185- either shook his head, or pointed off in some new direction, saying a few words to the porter, who then added a branch line to the main trunk along which we travelled. We com- menced our stradametrical survey of Rotterdam at about half-past one o'clock, and at about five o'clock — at which time, I judged, the porter might begin to want his tea — I was left with my little portmanteau at the proper house, dis- tant about a quarter-of-a-mile from the spot at which the boat had landed us. As I had no Dutch money, my friend the porter very kindly consented to receive his hire in English half-crowns, two of which satisfied him after much biting of their edges, and a growl or two. I thought I had been cheated. Probably the fact that I was a little tired and hungry will account for the uncharitable suspicion. How- ever, I had only paid five shillings for -a walk through all the streets of Rotterdam with a real Dutchman: after alt it was cheap. I felt for the hard lumps in my waistband, found them there, and mounted two flights of dark stairs to the chamber of Mynheer Van der Tabak, with the bold- ness of a true whelp of the British Lion. But Mynheer was out. Three women, wonderfully oily for their age, sat at work in a horribly close room, with their feet upon abominations that I then saw used for the first time — hot chaiiffe-pieds^ though it was a July afternoon, ^rethought, if these are ordinary Frows, I know how we come by the word frowsy. Clotho Van der Tabak held her hand out for my letter, looked at it, and put it into the big pocket at her side. Lachesis asked me eight or ten ques- tions in Dutch, and Atropos pointed to a wooden stool, at some distance in front of the dread sisters, upon which I was to sit. The distance pleased me. It was evident that I was to wait until their father, husband, or son, the Van der Tabak himself, should return; and I did wait for an hour, in silence. During that hour the sisters talked but little to each other, but sat stewing gently on their chauffe-pieds^ following their I N 1 86 Papers from ''Household Words'. work with their fingers, and watching me a little pitifully with their eyes. At last one of them, after a long search with her hand among the articles concealed within her pocket, brought to light a soft cake in a state of perspiration, which, with a word or two expressed in a kind tone, she offered to me. They mistook me for a child, those Dutch women. I declined the cake, upon which its owner, having first taken a bite out of it, returned it to her pocket. After another pause there was a short discussion among the women, and Clotho, stooping a little, drew from under her chair, where it lay hidden by her ample skirts, such a stone bottle as I should in England have supposed to contain seltzer-water. From the same handy cupboard she pro- duced a glass, having the mark of her own fair lips upon its rim, impressed in at least three places. Into this she poured for me some beer out of the stone bottle. I drank that, and thought it good. But very soon my head began to ache while I was wondering at what time Mynheer Van der Tabak would come home to tea. The Dutch women worked and the light waned. I stared at them through the twilight and the thick, hot atmosphere, while my mind ran in a melancholy way to the tune of " Mynheer Van Dunk". Was Van der Tabak like his country- man, given to sipping " brandy-and-water gaily"; and was there no tea to be hoped for ; but would he come in pre- sently and ask me to play at cards with him by the light of a flaring candle, getting my nose red, and my body stout, and my trousers wrinkled like his own ? Should we, in fact, go to work in the true Dutch way, as I had seen it repre- sented in old pictures. Was the unwholesome Lachesis to lean over my shoulder as I deliberated whether I would play the ace or ten of spades, and was I — longing for tea or, to speak honestly, even a draught of milk-and-water — to imitate my host who was accustomed to sip brandy-and- Ten Years Old, 187 water gaily, quenching his thirst with two quarts of the first and a pint of the latter daily? There was a creaking on the stairs. It was not Van der Tabak. Under the weight of a true Dutchman they would have groaned more heavily. A tall, spare, yellow man with a long hooked nose entered. The women in a few quiet guttural words acknowledged his presence and indicated mine. He read my letter, looked at me, and said, " Very goot, I will take you to a bed." We went downstairs; my little portmanteau was again placed on the shoulder of a porter, and I trotted out into the lamplighted streets beside the hospitable Zamiel to whom I had been consigned. " I will show you", he said, "a very goot hotel." I did not talk to him, and I was glad to get out of his close room into the summer twilight. As my guide stalked on, I fell into a reverie beside him, and forgot my hunger. I should be soon again an independent English traveller, able to call for what I liked. As we walked by a canal-side, the lamplight . and the water in the street, the quaint old houses and the people round about me, even the very pebbles under foot, were printed off on the white paper of my mind. We passed an old church porch, and a rich flow of organ music pouring over the fresh impressions as they were just then made within me, fixed them permanently into the only picture of the town of Rotterdam that time has been unable to efface, "You must take the boat to Cologne at two o'clock to- morrow," said Mynheer. "You carry English moneys, I suppose ?" I said " Yes." " Very goot. I will change it for you into Dutches and Germans. I will be with you when you get up to-morrow morning." So Mynheer con- siderately left me at one of the few hotels in which there happened to be not a waiter who spoke English. Ordered by him in my name, there was brought to me a supper of bread and milk. Then I was shown the way to bed. N 2 1 88 Papers from ''Household Words''. Alone that night upon a little bed, under clean dimity curtains, I cried myself to sleep, for the spirit of childhood came and set my tears a-flowing, But in the morning there came Mynheer Van der Tabak, with the question, " What is your moneys?" In exchange for a few sovereigns he gave me a complete numismatical collection of greasy copper and German-silver counters, having no recognisable image and superscription ; over them he mumbled, as if it were a benison, a very short and rapid account of their value. "You must have pieces of all kinds and pay exact, or else in giving change peoples will cheat you." I felt at the time as though I had bought a copper mine, and lost considerably by the venture. But as Van der Tabak said, "in giving change, peoples will cheat you," so I pocketed without any remark his dirty money'and his axiom. Mynheer departed, and I saw no more of him. In a big room I sat down before a fresh basin of bread and milk, not feeling my dignity offended, because I had a real affec- tion for good bread and milk, especially when I was master of the sugar-basin. After breakfast I set out to do what Mynheer should have done for me, and without much trouble found the starting-place of the Cologne steamer and the booking-office, there being plenty of English spoken by the water-side. I paid my way — half fare as being a child — on to Cologne ; made sure about the time of starting, and went back to the hotel, where I was to dine like an inde- pendent tourist at the table d'hote. The hostess, a clear- skinned, stout, genial woman, caused me to sit by her side, and I was not too proud to be glad that she assumed towards me, with a great deal of nice tact, motherly rela- tions. The dinner puzzled me. I did not understand the meaning of dessert and meat at once upon the table-cloth. There was so much oil in all the dishes that I felt a little sick at contemplation of the long perspective of them. I had some vermicelli soup, tasting of castor-oil. The fish Te7i Years Old. 189 fried in oil I could not put into my mouth. After that I nursed terrible suspicions on the subject of the made dishes. The waiters, hovering over us like harpies, pounced upon the larger lumps and joints of meat, and bore them away over our heads, to be sliced up at side-tables, and brought round. I could not dine at all until I saw plum- pudding. The good-hnmoured landlady was at last amused and gratified at seeing that I made a hearty dinner upon that. Then all was paid for, and my little portmanteau went upon a truck with other luggage to the boat. Fairly on board and started up the Rhine, I went down into the cabin, put my cap upon my knees, and emptied into it the coins out of my jacket-pocket. I desired to know what they all meant. I had already begun to use them, and in so doing had obtained data to go upon ; therefore I set to work upon the problem with the unsightly counters before me, as I had set to work at home over a dissected map or an ingenious labyrinth. A worthy Englishman accosted me. "Terrible work that, sir," he said, with a comic air; half humouring, half pitying my dignity of independence as a tourist. "Terrible work. Can I help you at all?" "Thank you," I said; "I should like really to know how much I have been cheated." Then I told him my suspicion about Mynheer Van der Tabak, and he sitting down by my side helped me to a correct knowledge of the number of shillings Mynheer had supposed to be contained in an English pound, and instilled into me at the same time a full knowledge of the mysteries of groschen, pfennige, and so on. Thereafter I had no fear. He was an English artist travelling with all his family, and taking sketches for a book upon Rhine scenery. I used to look over his shoulder, and marvel at the rapidity with which he pen- cilled scenes down as the steamer passed. He used to talk to me as though I were a man of fifty, and I attached igo Papers from ''Household Words". myself to him, though it by no means suited my humour to place myself in a formal way under his protection. We slept on board one night, during which the steamer ran aground, and jerked me off a table into a corner of the cabin, to my great delight, for I had always enjoyed sl.ip- wreck above all things. Unluckily, however, there was nothing visible on deck more terrible than fog, and I had seen fogs in London. We got off again after some hours' delay, to my regret, without any catastrophe. We were boarded somewhere for passports, but I was ready for all that. My passport had been many days in my possession ; a fond parent had, indeed, proposed before my departure into foreign parts, that a full-length black profile of me should be taken, in which I was to be represented with my passport in my hand. At Cologne, while the porters were at work upon the heap of boxes under which my portmanteau was buried, I got ashore and swang my legs in a high state of juvenile enjoyment on a wooden railing. At the same time I was enjoying thoroughly the sight of the distant mountains and the near cathedral towers, the Rhine and the bridge of boats. The artist and his family passed by upon their way into the town, and rather hurt my dignity by glancing at me and at each other with an interchange of some compassion- ate remarks. I daresay I was looking sentimental ; I was not too young to have read Childe Harold^ but I was as happy as a prince, and had got on so capitally by myself that I resented pity as injustice. The truth is, as I put it to myself, the capacities of boys are generally underrated. There are some men at fifty a great deal less fit to travel unprotected than the majority of boys at ten. The artist came to me in his poHte way, and said, " Perhaps, sir, as we are fellow-travellers, both going on to-morrow morning, we may do well to occupy the same hotel." I knew what he mean , and thanked him, took the name of the hotel Ten Years Old. 191 for which he was bound, and went on with my medita- tions. My httle nugget of leather having been extracted from the great mountain of luggage on the steamer, I went to the hotel indicated, found an English waiter there, met my friend the artist once in the corridor, who shook hands with me heartily, and made a joke or two, but did not in any way offer to invade my privacy. In the evening I went out for a ramble by the water-side, and coming home, followed out the idea by which I had been pleased in Rotterdam, and supped on bread and milk. So far, all went well ; but the next morning I was in sad distress, for the boat started at five A.M., and the English waiter did not get up. Soon after four in the morning I was crying out over the heavy staircase of the dark old inn to sleepy people who spoke no English, that, if they pleased, I should like to have some bread and milk for breakfast before I left. Nothing could be made of me, or done for me, and I went off in the raw morning to the steamer, in company with the artist and his family, the several members of which had been tumbling about the inn staircases, dressing in furious haste, and wanting hot water, a bill, a porter, and other matters, for the last ten minutes : while I, more virtuous, but not more happy for my virtue, had been up and dressed in time to devote half-an-hour to the vain search for a breakfast. That was the last stage of my journey. On the same morning, when the boat stopped on its way alongside the quiet town of New Unkraut, there stood upon the platform a placid man with a small cloth cap on his head, and his collar turned back from his neck, who smoked a pipe with beautiful tranquillity, and who had evidently singled me out from among the passengers. I saw that he was looking at me quietly while the great scrambling of ropes took place. I shook hands with my friends on board and stepped ashore ; the portmanteau was dropped out of the vessel after 192 Papers from ''HoiiseJiold Words'. me ; the uml?rella I carried in my own right hand. The quiet German instantly stepped forward, took from me the umbrella (which I never touched again until my return to England), and gave me, in the English language, a mild, friendly welcome to New Unkraut. I believed in him instantly ; and, taking his hand with all childish simplicity, walked by his side, chattering, to school. So ended my first taste of the responsibilities of life. I liked it, and it did me good. In that little attempt to fly alone, I obtained more practical knowledge than is usually got out of a half-year's grind at F7'opria quce Maribus ; and I have no doubt it went further to make a man of me than any amount of physical injury and moral contamination I could have suffered among what are sometimes called the wholesome hardships of a fag. BROTHER MIETH AND HIS BROTHERS. Why do I look lovingly back on the two years of child- hood passed in exile from all friends at home, among one or two hundred boys under the guidance of one or two dozen masters ? Why do I believe, as I do firmly, that I learned precious things in that German school which suffered me to forget my little Greek, and to dwindle down from a pre- cocious bolter of Virgil to a bad decliner of rex, regis ; which administered its Euclid in homoeopathic doses ; which taught me to write in mystic characters that had to be unlearnt at home \ and in which I cannot remember that I ever did a sum ? Why do I believe that I learned more than ever in the same time before or after, till I went as a man into the school of sorrow ? For the benefit of teachers, let me try to look at that school from the boy's point of view, and find out what the lessons were by which I profited. From several English boarding-schools through which I had been shifted with the vain hope of finding, at last, one that was a proper place of education, I went to Ncm Unkraut on the Rhine, a very little boy : experienced in the applications of the fag, familiar with the respective powers of fists, stones, nuts, whipcord in all its combinations, bumping against corners of wall, tommy and cane, and other means of torture. I had learned to be reckless about blows, to regard a big boy or a schoolmaster as a natural 194 Papers from '^Household Words." enemy, and to feel proud because there were few others so prompt to defy or insult the teacher, or to bite him while he plied the stick. I was familiar with filth and falsehood. I am ashamed to think of all that I, a very young child, had learned, and I wonder at the little incidents belonging to that time, which show how hard a struggle the good spirit that belongs to childhood had maintained, in self-defence, against such miserable influences. But the Seven Cham- pions of Christendom defended me from a great deal of harm. I should have been undone had not the genii and the white cat, whom I nursed secretly, been on my side, and given me good counsel. Brother Mieth it was who met me on the pier when I first landed at New Unkraut with my small portmanteau, and there welcomed me in broken English as no teacher had ever welcomed me before. He took me into a school containing about one hundred and fifty boys. These were associated as close comrades in groups of twenty, formed by herding together those most nearly alike in age. Each herd had its own rooms superin- tended by two brothers : one brother to take charge of the minds, the other of the bodies, of the children. The whole school dined and supped together in one hall ; we all slept together in one mighty dormitory : each in the little bed that he himself had made ; and we all met at chapel. In the classes that were changed from hour to hour, we were thrown together in sets, formed, of course, not according to our age, but our attainments. Out of doors, again, all were together often in the common playground, a large garden outside the town. Each, therefore, knew all. Of the play- garden, be it said that there was material provided there for plenty of rough sport, and there were temples in it adorned with tablets to the memory of dead teachers who had been much loved. For by incidents recurring almost daily, our imaginations were appealed to, and our hearts were touched. Brother MietJi and his Brothers. 195 That was the spirit of the school. Its power was inimense. The multitude of boys, living together as a sort of federal republic, was not only maintained in perfect discipline without an act of violence, but very few went away from among us whose minds had not been, to some degree, enriched, enlarged, ennobled. During the two years that I spent there, not a blow was struck, except the few^ that seasoned our own boyish quarrels. They were few enough. We were not milksops. We braved peril in many of our sports ; we were for true knights, not for recreants ; cowardice was abhorred among us ; we were chevaliers without fear ; but also, more than is usual among communities of boys, without reproach, A spirit of truthfulness, of gentleness, of cordiality between the teachers and the taught, pervaded our whole body ; punishments of the most nominal kinds sufficed for the scholastic discipline ; insubordination, there was none ; secret contempt of authority, there was none. New-comers brought vices with them very often, or began their new school-life in the wrong tune ; the good spirit soon infected them ; they fell into the right harmony within a week or a month. And what was the secret of the in- fluence exerted over us by these gentle Moravians ? They lived before us blameless lives ; they had, in themselves, a childlike simplicity of mind and purpose ; they were so truthful, that they did not seem able to understand deceit ; and, as I have said, they won our hearts by suffering the free play of our fancies. These Moravians are said sometimes to resemble Quakers, and there is not much fancy in a Quaker, perhaps. It may be said, for example, that the plan of burial used by the brotherhood is Quaker-like in its simphcity. There is a square churchyard with a broad walk down the middle. The first brother who dies is laid in one corner, and the first sister who dies is laid in the opposite corner ; the dead 196 Papers from '^Household Words''. who follow are set in rows, as beans are set in a field. The rows of brothers multiply on one side of the walk, the rows of sisters on the other, and no difference of rank is shown. There is but a single form for the flat stone that is laid over each grave as a lid. Formality this may be, but it did not seem formality to us. Our hearts were moved at the aspect of a graveyard that was so much like our own dormitory with its rows of beds — a place in which all rested as equals, until the time of the awakening. It stirred our fancies more than any fancies could be stirred by the colossal tea-caddies in stone, and the stone tea-urns w^ithout spouts, that indicate, in English cemeteries, where the respectable dead bodies have been placed. Concerning them, a child can only wonder why there are only urns and tea-caddies — why none of the tombs are decorated with a cup and saucer, or a spoon, or sugar-tongs, — where the well- executed toast-rack is. Of this Moravian churchyard I have more to say, for it was, in truth, part of our school. Not that we learnt any geography lessons among the tombs, but we did certainly learn lessons there. I am about to horrify some nervous parents. We boys used to see corpses and attend funerals. Gentle Brother Mieth was but a young man. At one time of his life he had been to the Greenland Mission ; but failing health had warned his companions to send him home to his own milder climate : so it chanced, therefore, that he ended his life as a teacher at New Unkraut. He taught, and he was prompt to learn, while holding friendly talk with boys from all parts of the world, assembled in the school. There were a great many of us English — all sad braggers about our country ; new-comers, too, who had not been sobered down, went so far as to invent matter for the glory of Old England in general, and of their own homes in particular. I myself had not been long added to the com- BrotJier MietJi and his BrotJicrs. 197 munity before I had executed a rude pen-and-ink sketch of a spacious turreted castle with four corner towers of such height as it would enter only into the mind of Mr. Barry to conceive, and had confidently displayed it to some young German and French friends, even to Brother Mieth anii few teachers, as a sketch from memory of my native halls in Gower Street, London. An English boy who had been my companion at home bore witness to the accuracy of the picture, and obtained from me, as his reward, the decision that his father's park must be about three times larger than th2 principality of Unkraut. Brother Mieth never doubted us, or never seemed to doubt. When, during a long walk on the allce bordered with apple-trees that led from New Unkraut to Schneiderdingen, I described to Brother Mieth a domestic ceremony that I had lately witnessed at home, taking the whole mass of my very startling details out of a tale in the Romance of Spa7iish History^ the good brother manifested not a trace of doubt. He had seen strange things in Greenland ; and in England things might possibly be stranger. Against this quiet trustfulness, no child's spirit of untruth could maintain itself I remember only one or two in our whole mass who did not become, under its influence, completely candid and trustworthy. I seem to have wandered from the subject of the dead bodies that we went to see, and yet have not wandered very far. Brother Mieth disappeared from his desk and joined the men and children tenanting a portion of our building called the sick-room. What pleasure we all thought it to be sick! A battered old soldier was the ministering nurse — no woman could be gentler in the office than he was ; and then what tales of battles and the deadly perilous breach he liked to tell ! W^e did not pity Brother Mieth for being in the sick-room, till the rumour grew among us that some best authority had said that he would die. We began then to pay him visits, and I do not think we were the worse for 198 Papers from ^^ Household Words''. the short texts lie used to show us in his unaffected way. We all kept albums, little boxes of loose coloured leaves on each of which a friend was to inscribe some syllables in token of his love. We went to Brother Mieth with blank leaves in our hands. It must have been solemn, yet not sad work for him, sitting at his little table in the sick-room, strewn with blank leaflets, pink, and blue, and white, and yellow, and crimson, to write upon each one his farewell to a child who loved him and whom he had loved. O brother Mieth, brother Mieth ! Glad am I that I have my leaflet still. Our friend died, and they took his body, as they took the body of every brother who died, to a little room in a garc!en, built against the chapel wall : a place to which we went between the garden flowers, by a trim walk, under trellised vines. In that building, on certain days, accord- ing to the custom of the school in such cases, we were per- mitted (not compelled) to go and be with our friend for the last time. And with what full hearts we passed the thres- hold of the little room, to find Brother Mieth placidly sleep- ing in a pretty bed, one of his hands lying on the counter- pane with roses in it ! We felt no horror at the stillness and whiteness of his face; our thoughts of death and heaven were allied too closely for that. Then came the funeral. Before we journeyed to the grave- yard, all met in the quiet chapel, where there was a short service, and a hymn : sung to stirring music of wind instru- ments, stringed instruments, and organ. The minister then opened a small paper, and read from it a brief memoir of our friend, through which we heard for the first time what had happened to him, and what work he had found time to do in all the years before his grave was ready. Know- ing then, better than ever, whom we followed, all the men of the brotherhood, and all the boys in the school, two by two, with no pomp but the pomp of numbers, followed the Brother MietJi and Jiis Brothers. 199 bearers of a simple coffin. Arrived at the churchyard, we there formed a great square that ah-nost corresponded to the square of its four edges. Brother Mieth was committed to the earth with blessings, and to this day I can tell by the thrill in my heart how we felt when, immediately afterwards, the trumpets were blown over his grave. Aided by that music, presently our funeral hymn rose from the voices of many men and boys, and spread through the silence of the country round about. Of course English teachers cannot bury one another for the edification of schoolboys. It is obvious that I am not here recommending any rule of practice for adoption ; I suggest only a principle. I had been used at English schools to strictness of rule with laxity of principle: at New Unkraut we had strictness of principle with laxity of rule. At New Unkraut the discipline was (in consequence) beyond comparison the most real and complete. I had been taught in England to stick by my slate and dictionary, to keep my collar clean on Sunday, and to learn the Collect. I was taught at New Unkraut to give free play to all my faculties ; the heart was stirred, the soul was roused, the affections were satisfied, no check was set upon the fancy, and we were abundantly provided with material for voluntary exercise of thought. What if we did learn little algebra and little Greek ! Every one of us was being humanised in the best way, and trained to become a thinker and a student for himself thereafter. Scarcely a boy was there who had not his case of butterflies and beetles, diligently chased over hill and dale, or the reward of much exploring upon trees, among herbs, and under sunny bits of rock, or in the pools under the mountains. Our fancy worked in all our play. We spent many a summer afternoon in a craggy dell, acting robber tales that we created for ourselves. Half-way up a rock, some of us found a little nook approached through thick bushes by an obscure path, which had been used 200 Papers from ''Household Words'. once by a hermit. We made a secret of it, and created it into a robbers' rendezvous : a band of gendarmes was formed, while others volunteered to play the part of travellers and wander through the wood, which was a very real wood. We had attacks, rescues, searches, captures, and stored up a great body of varied incident, until our career was stopped by the fall of a bold robber down a rock, which he had scaled to rescue a companion. The rock was then forbidden, and as it overhung the place of rendezvous, the game was spoiled. It was no great check on the play of our imaginations that the pious Moravians forbade novels and plays as read- ing, and restricted us to edifying stories about Easter eggs and other holy things. Shakspeare being a play writer, was taken away from any English boy by whom he was imported, and restored at his departure. We still found, however^ many fanciful books, and there was no reason why we should not contribute to each other all we knew concerning Schin- derhannes, Eulenspiegel, and such worthies. We were encouraged to tell tales of wonder to each other. I had not been long in the school before I committed what would have been in England the enormous offence of filling a copy-book given to me for school uses, with a story about a green huntsman, who went up a hill through a wood, and heard a mysterious shot, and of what followed. Brother Reuchling found the book and took it to his desk. Had he been a British schoolmaster of the same date — woe to my skin ! Brother Reuchling smoked a pipe over the crude, childish composi- tion, and in the next playtime offered to read to the room Damon's story. Straightway he began to deliver it from the book in German, either much embellished by translation, or to the most complaisant of audiences; and instead of a thrashing, Damon had for doing what was surely a fair self- imposed exercise, the reward of popular applause. Then James Damon had a Rudolph Pythias in a pale Brother Mieth mid his Brothers. 201 young German, called the Baron, because he always wore a fine black velvet frock. Damon and Pythias were insepar- able ; their desks were side by side, and they went far ahead or lagged far behind in the school walks, their usual occupation being the exchange of wonderful stories out of memory till memory was exhausted, and then out of recom- binations and invention. A stray companion attached him- self to us sometimes, and then another, until at last we lost our privacy, and came to be appointed joint story-tellers and poets laureate in the room to which we belonged, with a reputation that extended over the rooms next above and below us. We had to produce verses on birthdays and school feasts, and to tell stories to order. A committee would try its skill in setting us the hardest wonder-subjects. In one case, for example, an appointed hero was to escape from a tower with walls three hundred feet above the ground and three hundred feet below it, and without doors and windows ! he was to have his clothes stolen from his back in daytime, while he was awake, yet without being aware of the theft ; he was to swim through a river without being wet, and to do other such things. To Brother Reuchling, who fell in so pleasantly with all these humours, it must have been amusing enough to hear the decisions of the jury that accepted or refused as possible or impossible the solutions we worked out for all such problems. A child's notion of the possible and impossible in magic, of what is not fit and proper for the business of the marvel-monger, must furnish stuff for pleasant study to a thoughtful man. Then we had festivals that did us in a few days lexicon loads of good. We always went out in the warm spring weather at Whitsuntide, for a long — perhaps, week long — ramble from hill to hill and town to town : now mounted upon donkeys, now rumbling in country-carts, now floating down the river in flat-bottomed boats, but always proudest and best pleased when we were a-foot. How intense was I o 202 Papers from ''Household Words", our enjoyment of those walks ! We slept where we halted for the night : in barns, in kitchens, — once in an old ruin — commonly on straw — one night only, in a town hotel on feathers, which we hated. It vexed us to have to tell our friends, who had gone out in other directions, that we had been supping in a common hotel, like milksops, and sleep- ing through one of our nights on feather beds. Some amends were made to us on the succeeding night, when it appeared that a few of our party would be put to sleep in a huge oven. The glorious possibility of being forgotten, and of the housewife's coming in the morning, half sleepy, to set light to the straw, was a sublime thought to dismiss our- selves to sleep upon. We always preferred the halting- places where we got the blackest bread ; and we thought a farmhouse on a mountain, where the water was almost as expensive as the wine, incomparably a better hostelry than the "Blue Angel" at Wiesbaden. Among towns, we liked best the fortresses in which we had prisons to see, and in which there were men at work with iron balls chained to their legs ; next to the fortresses, we Hked the towns that had grand churches in them ; it delighted us to scramble to the organ-loft and get a grizzly and good-natured organist to play for us, and let us sound with our own finger the vox humana, most beloved of stops. There was one cathedral, I remember, in which there were by the altar twelve apostolic seats, like huge gilt ottomans ; we came away possessed with the idea that they were twelve huge masses of gold — for we knew nothing of the world's gold-leaf and veneer. The festival of festivals was Christmas. The joy of it extended over half the year ; three months were happily spent in preparation for it ; three in recollection of its glories. We prepared for this festival by writing lists of articles that we desired as presents, within reasonable bounds, of which we never felt the limit. The school gave Brother Mieth and Jtis Brothers. 203 to each of us at Christmas what his boyish heart desired. Such gifts, doubtless, were set down in the bill sent home ; but, inasmuch as that bill was a moderate one, such extras nobly filled the place of what we, in England, call accom- plishments on the usual terms. There, we were taught music and modern languages and all such matters as things of course. We had these gifts to expect, with stores of sweetmeat and wax tapers, and we had also our own Christ- mas decorations to prepare. No manager, engaged in mounting a grand opera or fairy- piece, can be busier than we were, or conceited ourselves to be, in preparation for the Christmas festival. Pocket- money was diverted from its usual channels; and, instead of milk, eggs, chocolate, and cider, we bought coloured wax- tapers, coloured cardboard, coloured paper, and coloured pictures. The pictures and paper were sold by the drawing- master. The world was then in a ferment on the subject of the gallant Poles, and we liked nothing so well for Christmas orna- ment as gay pictures of Polish lancers dashing down into the thick of battle. Such scenes, and the Siege of Antwerp, very rich in reds and yellows, and, next to these, pictures of horses, we conceived to be at the head of the Fine Arts, and sought accordingly ; for, during the Christmas week, our rooms were to be picture-galleries. That was not all. Every desk was to be illuminated with the greatest attain- able blaze of little tapers ! and there was a rivalry among us, each attempting to outshine his neighbours. That was not all. We devoted our leisure to constructive works, erected stables and mangers, cottages, palaces, and cathedrals of cardboard ; cut out elaborately ornamented windows, and filled them with bits of coloured paper oiled to represent stained glass. Into our stables, cottages, palaces, and cathe- drals we put tapers, and made the whole school a complete maze of tapers, pictures, and transparencies, combined with a tasteful and liberal display of sugar-ornaments, apples, o 2 204 Papers from ^^Hotisehold Words". walnuts, and presents generally, among which skates and butterfly-cases were the leading articles. The good people of the town, whom we saw only then and at our school oratorios, came round to wonder at our fairy-land ; a very fairy-land it was to us, whatever they in their wisdom may have thought about it. For weeks afterwards we played at marbles for our walnuts, and so great was the glut of them that one successful speculator, who was master of the bottom drawer of a chest, was commonly supposed to have filled that drawer with his winnings. When the year w^as on the point of departure, we sat up and went to chapel soon after eleven o'clock. Then, when the worthy preacher, on the stroke of midnight, was balancing a sentence on his two extended fingers, the clock would chime, and our dear friends the trumpets would dash in with a sudden crash, and smash the discourse in an instant without mercy ; down sat the preacher and up rose the people with a stirring hymn, accompanied by the pealing organ, and the flutes, and horns, and fiddles. So we began the year with a stir at our hearts and quick- ened fancy; so we carried it through. The faculties that made us happiest, and that were given for wise purposes in special strength to children, were called into full play. We kept all birthdays in a room. If there were twenty boys and two brothers, there were twenty-two birthdays a year to keep. Each boy received on his anniversary little love-tokens from his comrades, and contributed in return a scrap of pocket-money towards the establishment of a small feast on the next half-holiday: a feast of cakes and cider in a country orchard, when the season favoured: or, in cold weather, of chocolate and cakes at home. The birthday of either of the brothers would be kept more solemnly. Before he came down in the morning, a little table before his desk would be covered with a snowy napkin, and upon the napkin would be placed our offerings. Always, there was a pipe Brother Ilieth and Ids Brothers. 205 with cunningly-worked stem and splendid bowl. Every working brother possessed a cupboard full of such pipes, and was as glad to be so richly stocked as any English lady is when she is mistress of a wardrobe full of dresses. If it were not really so, we thought so, and were never inter- rupted in such thinking. To the pipe we added any other trifles that we imagined likely to give pleasure, and some articles contributed by individuals out of their own posses- sions. We put a mighty nosegay in the background, and tricked out with flowers all our sacrifice. Then, when the good brother came down, of course we said many a kind thing to him, and had many a kind thing said to us. And in the afternoon we were repaid with perhaps a sail down the broad river to some celestial inn among the mountains and the vines, where we had real Malaga wine instead of cider, and cakes only fit to be eaten with such nectar. Very puerile, perhaps, all this was, but therefore, as a dominie would say, most fit for piieri. I only know that under such discipline our hearts were softened; that we were, not in this instance only, but by the hundred and uniformly, tractable and loving, while the simple piety of the good brothers was so well recommended to us, that although they taught no other doctrine than the principles of Christian uprightness and charity, we learned as much of truth from them as could have been communicated even by any catechism I know — or don't know. I was a little rascal when I first went to New Unkraut, because my puerility had been, at other schools, discouraged and repressed ; the instincts with which I was created had been stupidly opposed, and I was diverted into a condition for which the Creator never destined me. The liberty of growth encouraged at New Unkraut may have been extreme. I think it was not, but I will not presume to decide upon the point. This only I have a right to testify, that from the hard work-days of the world whenever energies were 2o6 Papers from ''Household Words'. called for, troubles grew thick, or temper came to be tried, I have always looked back with a strong affection to New Unkraut as the place in which I had learned the lessons that would help me best. Yes, that those lessons have been my best helpers, I am, in my grateful manhood, sure. When blight was gathering about the budding faculties, those true-hearted Moravians blew the blight away: and wretched indeed might have been the blossom but for them. You pedagogues, who cut and trim your children into shape, you know well enough that if you mend a rosebud with your pen-knives, you destroy that upon which you cut your mark. Water the roots, let the wind blow, and the sun shine, and the rains fall ; remove all that is hurtful, enrich the soil by which the plant is fed, but let the laws of nature take their course. If you know well that you must act so by a rosebud which you wish to rear into a healthy blossom, why do you act with less care in your treatment of the budding mind and soul ? BLACK MONDAY. Outside the coach on one Black Monday morning, two hours before sunrise, I found Phipps and Buttons — a boy whose real name was Woodcock — Buttons in a thin old- fashioned great-coat and a worsted comforter, behind the coachman, and Phipps in a thick coat and heavy wrapper, with his mouth lost behind his ample folds of handkerchief, upon the box-seat. Phipps wore warm hair gloves ; Buttons old BerHns carefully mended. " Hollo, Tub !" they cried, as I scrambled up to them, "Hollo, Tub!" I was called " Tub" from my shape at that time. " Hollo, Buttons !" I answered, "Hollo, Phipps!" and then we all said "Here's a go !" We didn't say more just then, for Phipps' father and mine were there to see us off, and Buttons' mother — Buttons had no father. Buttons' mother — such a pale woman she was — had come out at that time in the morning to see Buttons off, and when the ladder was put up for some passengers to mount by, if she didn't clamber up and put her arms round him and kiss him! Buttons turned scarlet, and looked aside at Phipps. Phipps looked at me and laughed, but somehow I remembered my mother's coming to my bedside overnight, so that when Buttons made up a mouth and kissed his mother back two or three times in spite of us, I didn't sneer as Phipps did when the coach drove off, but got out my dinner and began to eat a sandwich. At Putney, Pullet was in waiting, and wanted to get up and make a third upon the box. "There's only room for 2o8 Papers from ''Household Words'. two, you know," said Phipps. " There 's room for three when two are boys, especially with a thin coachee," said Pullet. Coachee w^as fat, and liked the notion. " Besides," cried Pullet, "here's my pea-shooter, and I've got such a jolly pocketful of peas." "Up with you," we all cried, Phipps foremost. "Well," said the coachman, "you're a bold boy to carry a pea-shooter. Black Monday. But you mustn't do that, though." Pullet was firing into the flanks of the horses, and making the coach go awfully. Railroads have abohshed pea-shooters by this time, I suppose, but in my young days it was always considered part of our equipment when we went home on the coach-top — eight or ten together — for the holidays, to carry pea-shooters and blow split-peas at the passers-by, and into open windows, or against closed windows at which anyone w^as sitting, as we rattled over the stones of any country town. When we stopped to change horses we' attacked the ostlers, and the landlord of the inn, and the more irascible of the passengers who happened to get down to drink a glass of ale or stretch their legs. As for the coachman and guard, if they scolded now and then, we got up a hailstorm for their own exclusive service. On the way home that was very well ; but on Black Monday, on the way to school, when a word from a passenger as the coach stopped at Millstone Hall would subject our own flanks to savage peppering, a pea-shooter on Black jNIonday was indeed a bold conception. Nobody but Pullet would have thought of bringing one ; being brought, however, none of us thought for a moment of resisting its tempta- tions. When the sun was up and we had changed horses two or three times, under the bright blue sky, breathing the crisp morning air as the coach rolled up and down hill over the white snow, we were all mad with joy. Black Monday though it was. Buttons — who got terribly teased and knocked about at school because he was a queer fellow. Black Monday, 209 though we all liked him — Buttons had his turn at the pea- shooter, and after a successful combat with a gipsy woman, his shot telling well about her nose and pipe, nothing further offered itself. Suddenly Buttons looked mysterious, and bent over to us, whispering, " Let 's have at the insiders !" Glorious because dangerous game, we all rushed into ei^oy- ment of the bold suggestion. Buttons, at the end of the seat, had the coach window with a little twist of his body fairly within range; he charged heavily his wrath-producing tube, drew a good mouthful of breath, aimed at the opened window, and discharged his piece at random. The shot must have told with terrible effect. Instantly a head purple with wrath was thrust out of the window with so much abruptness that the hat fell out into the snow, and the coach was stopped that the guard might pick it up. There was a volley of words sent back for our volley of peas, among which came often repeated the significant question, " Coachman, what school are those boys going to?" The coach started again while the coachman made a sound as of answering, but the cold air soon caused the offended face to be drawn back. " He has pulled up the window," said Buttons, grinning. " Don't get us into trouble," said Phipps to the coachman. The coachman looked stern, but I saw that he meant kindness. "I tell you what," said Buttons, "when we change horses next I'll tell him I did it, and beg his pardon. I don't care if he cuffs me." We agreed that nothing could be fairer than that, and when the coach stopped at the "Robin Hood", and the old gentleman got out and looked up at us viciously. Buttons — who had thought twice about the cuffing — spoke an apology down to him from his seat on the coach-top. "Come down, then, you young rascal, and let me punish you," cried the gentleman. Buttons began immediately to get down in a very simple- minded way, but the old gentleman, when he got down, to the amazement of us all, gave him a shilling, and told him 2IO Papers from '^Household Words'. to get up again. Pullet cried halves over Buttons' shilling because the pea-shooter had made it, and the pea-shooter was his ; Buttons agreed readily to that reasoning, and paid Pullet a sixpence. When we got to the " Robin Hood" at Bigglesford, where there was always a coach-dinner ready in the parlour, we boys scrambled down, and were in the inn by the time the coachman had cried out, " Dine here, gentlemen." Buttons came with us, because we had teased him already out of his idea, that while we went in he would sit on the coach and eat his sandwiches ; that he liked his sandwiches better, because the bread in them was home made. Of course, we had argued, he could eat his sandwiches and dine into the bargain ; it was a pity to go hungry to Millstone Hall. So we all went in, and were at work like little old men about the table when the other passengers joined us. The old gentleman, who had gone into a passion, looked at us very good-humouredly, and, as we considered his behaviour to have been extremely handsome, we were all anxious to show him every attention in our power, and to help him to every- thing that we thought good. "Pea-soup, sir?" cried Phipps in a minute, for he had the ladle in his hand. *' Do take some pea-soup, sir," said Pullet very earnestly, when the old gentleman grinned and shook his head. Buttons' face turned black, and after a throe or two, two boiling geysers of soup burst out of the corners of his mouth. I don't know where the joke was, but it suddenly occurred to us that there was a great joke in asking the old gentleman to take pea-soup, and we began, all of us, to take secret oppor- tunities of exploding into laughter among ourselves, and now and then burst out, we couldn't help it, in the midst of speaking to the gentleman. We did our best to show our goodwill, however. Phipps tried to cut out the breast of a fowl for him as an especial tit-bit, and as he didn't eat it, and nobody took any, the fowl was left so sadly mangled Black Monday. 2 1 1 that the landlord compelled Phipps to pay an extra shilling for what he called a wilful destruction of his property. So Phipps had to pay three-and-sixpence, and we others half-a- crown apiece. We had our pocket-money with us, and were capitalists till we got to Millstone, when our purses would be given up to Mrs. Pestle, and our money given to us in weekly pence spread over the half-year. Phipps said, when we were off again, that if we had got a shilling by the old chap, we had lost a shilling, and he didn't see why he should lose it, so he proposed that Pullet and Buttons should set their gains against it. Buttons didn't mind, but Pullet did ; so Buttons paid to Phipps his second sixpence, and a fight was arranged between Phipps and Pullet for the next morning to adjust the difference about the other. Young Buttons I thought afterwards a greater fool than I had fancied at the time, for as his money yielded him through the half-year only a penny a week, he must have had little enough in his pocket after the dinner had been paid for. After another stage or two, the old gentleman inside restored the balance in his favour, by bringing out "to warm the boys" a glass of mulled port wine. We were still under the invigorating influence of this dose when the coach got within the familiar range of our school walks, and presently pulled up at the gate of Millstone Hall. The afternoon was bitterly cold, so there were only the French usher and servant-man in waiting. As v/e got down with heavy hearts, we were all frightened at the appearance of a lady's head which popped out of the coach-window, and addressed Monsieur Camille with a fierce denunciation of our conduct on the journey, and a request that we might all be flogged. Monsieur Camille, who only understood one word in ten, poUtely approached the coach-window, and listened with attention while our boxes were being let down from the coach-top. With great courtesy he extended his hand to 2 1 2 Papers from ''Household Words'. receive the small collection of parched peas that she had picked up and reserved as her witnesses against us. We did not like Monsieur Camille, and expected no good at his hands ; infinite, therefore, was our relief, when the coach rolled away, as we saw him throw the peas upon the ground gently with a sigh, and walk in with a hand laid upon my shoulder and Pullet's, as he pushed us pleasantly before him. Since that day I have had reason to find out more thoroughly what I was taught on that Black Monday of the difference between the quick wrath of a warm-hearted man, and a sullen, reserved, unforgiving temper. Our ignorance of that distinction caused us all to hate M. Camille. He could not win upon us much by words spoken in our own tongue ; he was oppressed by his fellow-teachers, worried by the boys as a Frenchman — we were very national, and talked enormously about roast-beef and frogs — worried in all ways by all kinds of sneers and tricks, into flashes of passion, that brought down a storm about our cheeks and backs. His weak health helped, I think, to make him irritable ; and though, on the whole, I won't confess that any^milksop system can be better than the old school plan by which boys were hardened properly, and fitted for their conflict with a selfish, wicked world, still I will own that I thought Mr. Pestle's school-system had hardened us a little too much, when, after Monsieur Camille had died in an inn chamber at Millstone, and been buried without a tombstone in our country churchyard, Mr. Pestle's elder boys found out his grave, and paid off their old grudges by kicking the fresh turf away from it, and stamping the little hill into disorder. That they did that is a painful fact ; but, of course, a fact perfectly exceptional in its character. It does not militate against my argument for a good hardening school, the day of return to which shall be distinguished as a genuine Black Monday. There can be no doubt that there is something naturally Black Monday. 213 rebellious in a child's heart ; we frolicked on the way to Millstone, I confess with shame, because there seemed to be a power within us that would shine out, and that not the Blackest Monday in the year could fairly darken. The fault was ours. But when we got within the walls of Mill- stone Hall, and went into the large boarded barn — the detached school-room — and saw the long rows of inky desks and the four seats of the four kings of terror, Mr. Pestle and the three masters under him and over us, all became black within us. The Latin master, a stout man whom I had seen once flogging four boys abreast with a postiUion's whip, and who was unmerciful in all his dealings, sat on a chair near the little stove. Far away from his chair and the little stove — made dangerous by his vicinity — cowered the dozen boys who had arrived already, whispering together, furtively showing alley marbles to each other, and sucking them to bring out the full richness of their colour. M. Camille came in coughing, after having helped to carry up our boxes to the dormitory, and sat on a form near us, willing, I thought, to talk to us, had he known how to win our confidence, but we were altogether cowed. Then the bell rang for tea. Happy were those who sat at tea-time so placed that their doings would escape the Latin master's eye. We had not yet seen Mr. Pestle. Our luxury, when we could secure enjoyment of it undetected, was to manufacture muffins out of bread-and-butter. We did it in this way : every boy had a large mugful of hot milk-and-water on the board before him, with two very thick slices of bread. One of these slices being turned butter downwards over the mug was pressed over the rim until a circle was cut out by it, and left fast as a tight lid over the milk and water, sucking in all the steam. When we had felt this circle to be warmed quite through, it required some ingenuity to get it out of the mouth of the mug without letting it fall into the sky-blue lake below, where it would become instantly mere sop. If 214 Papers from ''Household Words'. extricated carefully it came out thick, and round, and hot, and was, in fact, a muffin. Any boy detected in the act of making muffin of his bread-and-butter was reported to Mr. Pestle, and received due punishment. Monsieur Camille, however, we all knew, suffered muffin to be made under his very nose at that part of the table over which he watched. After tea we went back to the school-room, where we waited gloomily to be called in one by one to undergo the tortures of the small-tooth comb. I need not dwell upon these incidents, but we went early to bed, still without having seen Mr. Pestle himself, who had a party in his parlour. When left to ourselves for the night, our tongues were suddenly unloosed, and in ten minutes we had our bolsters up, and were dancing about the floor in the heat of a brisk engagement. Suddenly the door opened, and the jolly face of Mr. Pestle, with the pale fat face of the Latin master, were pre- sented to us. "All stand as you are!" cried a voice before which we shrank. " You will now, Mr. Wilkins, take down the name of every boy who is not in his bed, and give me the list to-morrow morning ; each boy upon that list will receive a caning." I was upon the list, for I was standing, like a Hercules in night-clothes, with my bolster uplifted over the prostrate Buttons, when we were all bidden not to move another inch. So that Black Monday ended. If Black Mondays in the present day are not maintained with the same strictness of discipline, the next generation of men, I fear, will not resemble those who were turned out into the world after being duly bruised under the Pestles of more Spartan times. The decay of virtue may in that case shortly be expected. SOMETHING THAT SHAKESPEARE LOST. BeinCx treasurer and secretary to a country book-club, I have imposed it as a duty upon myself to read the criticisms on new books in a variety of journals, and to collect from all some notion of the merits of the publications of the day, by which I may be enabled to suggest convenient pur- chases. My way is to give equal weight to every opinion, and then think for myself with the majority. The other evening — when I had been reading up the views taken in a great number of critical notices of the same eight or ten last-published works — I fell upon a consideration of the times in which we live, and of the great disadvantage under which among our forefathers both writers and readers lay, when the appeal made by every book was straight home from the writer to the reader, and there were no journals to advise a reader what to think about the works he read, or to instruct a writer, as he w^ent along, by pointing out to him his merits and his faults. Only let us think, for example, of what Shakespeare lost, in this way. Ben Jonson might review him favourably in the Oracle of Apollo; but such reviewing was mere after-supper talk. Had the Oracle of Apollo been a literary journal or a newspaper, opinions expressed in it might indeed have been of inestimable service. Let us shut our ears for a few minutes to rare Ben's notions of sweet Will, and suppose that, instead of being subject to mere play-house and pot-house comments, 2i6 Papers from ^^ Household Words'". Shakespeare's Hamlet^ — which, for argument's sake, we will suppose to be a first work — has been distributed with leaves uncut among the critics. The poet's housekeeper collects for him, while he is out of town, the reviews that appear during his absence ; and at the end of a few weeks, when he has come home, he takes them in his lap one evening after dinner, and, nestling snugly in his easy chair, is instructed. Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. A Tragedy. By William Shakespeare. Heart, Soul, and Co. It was the deliberate and characteristic opinion of the economist Malthus, that those early incursions into Britain of the " warlike Dane", whose piratical flag Charlemagne had Avept to behold upon the translucent waters of the Mediterranean, were to be ascribed to continued over- population; the rigidly enforced law of primogeniture offers, however, a more feasible solution of the interesting and im- portant problem. The country situated between the channel of the Skager-rack, the Elbe, the North Sea, and the Kattegat, though the breadth of the isthmus of Sleswig does not at one part materially exceed thirty miles, has always been peculiarly interesting to the inhabitants of Britain. Even more interesting to us is the land of wonders subject to the Dane upon which the pirate Naddod was cast a thousand years ago, w^iich the adventurous Gardar Swar- farson circumnavigated, and whither, as our readers are, of course, perfectly aware, Floki went with the intention of settling. We cannot help thinking that the author of this tragedy when he chose Denmark as a scene of action inter- esting to the reader in this country, might have succeeded better in his purpose had he looked to Iceland for a back- ground to his plot. Upon this point, however, we must allow him to be, perhaps, upon his own behalf the. better judge, and since the tragedy is to be called that of Hamlet^ SoineiJii7ig that S J takes p care Lost. 217 Prince of Denmark, we will make no further comment on this head. The plot of Mr. Shakespeare's tragedy, though, on the whole, well constructed, is exceedingly involved, and it is made more difficult to follow by the circumstance that two of the principal characters are mad, a third is fooHsh, and a fourth is a ghost. This is a most talkative ghost ; the ghost, indeed, of Hamlet's father, who is addressed by his son as a "truepenny", an "old mole", and "a perturbed spirit". The great compHcation of the plot seems, however, to arise out of the introduction of a King of Denmark, who is a fratricide; and, as Hamlet himself is made by the author most truly to say, "a king of shreds and patches". He is called also elsewhere, a "paddock", a "bat", and a "gib"l By the omission of this character of King Claudius the plot would be greatly simplified and the interest of the play would be more strictly centred upon Hamlet. If the work should ever be reprinted (and it certainly has merits which warrant a belief that it may deserve the honours of a second edition), we trust that Mr. Shakespeare will consider it worth while to effect this slight alteration. He would thus obtain space for exhibiting his hero from an interesting point of view, which he has in the most unaccountable manner wholly overlooked. His Hamlet is a German student. When the play opens he had come home for the long vacation from the University of Wittenberg, and is on the point of returning thither; but the king, having observed, in the somewhat affected language which our poet usually adopts when he is not vulgar, that — " For your intent In going back to school in Wittenberg, It is most retrograde to our desire," he stays in Denmark, and we lose the fine, ^esthetical development which, by a shifting of the action between I P 2 1 8 Papers from ''Household Words". Wittenberg and Elsinore, would bring us into contact with the German Universities of the year 500 a.d. It is that year which we find, from internal evidence, to be the period illustrated. We have taken some exception against Mr. Shakespeare's diction, and it is a point to which we must direct his close attention. He is a writer who, if not as a dramatist, yet in some other walk of art, may hope to achieve something, for he is not destitute of imagination ; but we predict for him certain failure if his language be not better chosen than we find it in the tragedy of Hamlet. There remains much to be learnt by an author in whose play a king, having buried a slain courtier in haste, and reflecting that he had been unwise in not having given him distinguished public obsequies, expresses this reflection in such words as these, solemnly uttered : — "We have done but greenly, In hugger-mugger to inter him." But it is now just that these friendly strictures should be balanced by some passages in which the poet shall commend himself to the attention of our readers. This, except two words which we italicise as illustrating the defect in Mr. Shakespeare's style, is extremely fine. Hamlet is speak- ing:— " Larded with many several sorts of reasons. Importing Denmark's health and England's too, With, ho ! such bugs and goblins in my life, — That, on the supervise, no leisure bated, — No, not to stay the grinding of the axe. My head should be struck off. Hor. Is't possible?" This, too — though somewhat obscure, and injured in effect by the accustomed fault of diction — is a noble thought: — 1 Something that Shakespeare Lost. 219 "A dull and muddy-pated rascal, peak, Like John a-dreams, unpregnant of my cause, And can say nothing; no, not for a king, Upon whose property and most dear life, A damn'd defeat was made." We lay this work down — immature as it is — not without expression of the pleasure we have had in its perusal. If we have appeared to dwell upon its faults, we have done so because we believe Mr. Shakespeare competent to under- stand them, and still, with a promising career before him, young enough to succeed in their correction. The tragedy is one that will repay perusal. The next paper is taken up, and the great Swan of Avon finds himself afloat upon a very sunny stream. Hamlet^ Prince of Denmark. A Tragedy. By William Shakespeare. Heart, Soul, and Co. The public will feel under obligation to the Messrs. Heart and Soul for the liberal form in which they have presented this delightful work. Hamlet is one of the most elegant and charming dramas published of late years, and establishes at once the credit of its young author. The plot is simply told. Claudius, King of Denmark, wears the crown of a brother whom he has poisoned, and has married also his brother's wife within a month or two of the murder. Hamlet, Prince of Denmark — son of the poisoned king, returned from the excellent school at which he had been placed by a wise father, at Wittenberg, to follow that beloved parent to the grave — is scandalised at his mother's promptly succeed- ing marriage with his uncle, and his dissatisfaction is heightened by a communication made to him by his father's ghost — strikingly depicted, and always vanisfiing at cock- crow — who informs him of the crime by which his dissolu- tion was effected. Unaccustomed to spirits, Hamlet becomes light-headed, and is still further troubled by the refusal of p 2 220 Papers from ^^HoiiseJiold Words'. Ophelia — whose character is nobly painted — to see him again ; her father Polonius — an able sketch — as well as her brother Laertes^a beautiful depiction — having told her that attentions from a young prince could only be improper. In this state of affairs Prince Hamlet, who leads his friend Horatio — a noble development — to believe that he is assuming the cloak of madness for a purpose, walks about the palace, talking in a most interesting and amusing way, and thus furnishing that comic element which is so essential to the popularity of a great and imposing play. Nothing will please Hamlet but that he must have a play acted in the palace, representing before the eyes of Claudius and his mother a forcible delineation (under the guise of an ingenious fable actually at the time in print, and relating to quite other persons) of the harm they have done to his dead father and his memory. Much agitation is the result, and in a magni- ficent scene Hamlet afterwards scolds his mother in her bedroom, and kills the father of his Ophelia, w^hom he mistakes for a rat, Ophelia goes mad upon this, and Hamlet is despatched in a ship to England, given in charge to two young men, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern — whose charac- ters are magnificently portrayed — with sealed orders for his decapitation by the British. Hamlet opening the seal privily, sees the orders and changes them to an order for the execution of the bearers, who, as the reader will perceive, are no other than Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, thus shift- ing, we will not say a burden, but the relief of a burden, from his own shoulders to theirs. Hamlet escapes among pirates, who attack the vessel, and returns to court, where he arrives in time to find that Ophelia has been drowned by accidental tumbling into a pond from an overhanging willow- tree, which she had swarmed for the purpose of suspending garlands on the top of it. Happening to enter the church- yard at the time of Ophelia's burial, Hamlet has an interest- ing scuffle with Laertes in her grave, which is portrayed by S 01 net J ling that Shakespeare Lost. 221 the poet in his most pathetic manner. King Claudius then bets that Hamlet cannot fight Laertes with foils, and having prevailed upon Laertes to fight with a poisoned foil, and having prepared also for Hamlet a cup of poison as refresh- ment during the heat of the exercise, a complication ensues which results in the poisoning of all the leading parties to the drama. Nothing can exceed the lightness of the touch with which this interesting tale is told ; and, thrilling as the pathos is, sublime as its terror is, imposing as its grandeur is, beautiful as are its love-passages, uproarious as is the mirth it now and then awakens, we believe that, great, in fine, as the whole tragedy is, it is but the beginning of its author's greatness. Now, only think how Shakespeare would have been rejoiced by liberal appreciation of that sort ! Better and better. The next paper laid by for Shake- speare by his housekeeper, blazons him as "the new poet", and claims to have discovered him as such. Its notice is long, and full of extracts. I suggest only a few portions of the criticism. " Observe again," it says, " the amazing subtlety of the first address of Horatio to Hamlet, when they for the first time meet after the night of the ghostly revelations. ' Hail to your lordship !' says Horatio. Heretofore you have been a prince fostered by sunny weather ; now your sky is clouded, and there shall fall upon you, not soft rain, but the pitiless and pelting hail; this shall come not to you, but to your lordship, for it is'as a prince, with vengeance to be done upon a king, that you shall feel the biting chill of your posi- tion. ' Hail to your lordship !' The storm must come. Horatio wishes it. The ghost wishes it. The Inevitable wishes it. In this line we have the key-note of the entire drama. Hamlet's Ich accepts his mission, but his Nicht Ich shudders at it. The play is a tragical development upon 222 Papers from ''HoiiseJiold Words'. a philosophical basis of the struggle always going on between the Ich and the NicJit Ich in the human soul. "Again, what is there in the whole range of literature finer than the reply of Hamlet to Ophelia's question as to the dumb-show preluding the mock-play : ' What means this, my lord ?' ' Marry,' he answers, ' Marry, it is miching mallecho/ He had before said to her, ' Go to a nunnery, go' ; but that was in an antecedent state of the development of his Life Drama : now he says ' Marry,' and the word ' because' is next understood — for here there is an aposiopesis — ' Marry (because) this is miching mallecho.' Here we are so much lost in admiration of the sentiment, that the perfection of the chain of reasoning in the first instance escapes ordi- nary observation : nevertheless, it is well worthy of careful study." But since by these songs of triumph the poet might be led to forget that he is fallible and human, it is well that there is here and there a critic ready to keep undue exalta- tion of the mind in check. I think it likely that in the next notice our bard would take up he might find himself sum- marily dismissed in this fashion : Hamlet. A Tragedy. By William Shakespeare. The author of this ill-written play is one of the many instances of young men, with good average parts, who have totally mistaken their vocation. Hamlet is a melodrama of the worst school. Let it suffice to say that of the dozen characters it contains, exclusive of the supernumeraries, eight are killed by sword, drowning, or poison, during the course of the piece ; and one appears as a ghost because he was killed before the play began ; killed, too, as it must needs be, so horribly that, as his ghost does not forget to describe — Something that Shakespeare Lost. 223 " A most instant tetter bark'd about, Most lazar-like, with vile and loathsome crust, All my smooth body." There remain only three persons alive, two of whom are insignificant courtiers, and the third has only been per- suaded to postpone an act of suicide that he may remain aUve for a time to act as a showman of the dead bodies of the other dramatis personce I " Give order," he says — " Give order that these bodies High on a stage be placed to the view ; And let me speak." Beat the drum, Mr. Merryman ! Walk up, ladies and gentlemen ! To ^r. Shakespeare's Hamlet we believe the public would not often be persuaded to walk up, even were it performed on the only stage for which it is in any degree fitted — that of a booth at Greenwich Fair. I have represented, and no doubt exaggerated, certain ways of criticism ; there are other ways, and much better ways, in use. The sort of reviewing I have illustrated, is the sort I like ; and what I feel that Shakespeare missed no Httle in losing. LANNA TIXEL. Under a stiff hollybush cut like a dragon, the chief glory in the garden of her father the Burgomaster, little Lanna Tixel lay with her face to the grass, sobbing and quivering. Ten minutes ago she had passed silently out of her father's sick-chamber with a white face and eyes large with terror ; she had fled through the great still house into the garden, and fallen down under the dragon to give way to an agony of something more than childish grief. Poor little Lanna ! Sheltered by the prickly wings of that old garden monster, she had wept many a time for the loss of a pale, blue-eyed mother, who had gone from her to be one of the stars ; but that was a grief full of love and tenderness, that led to yearnings heavenward. She lay then grieving with her tearful eyes fixed on the blue sky, watching the clouds or wondering which of the first stars of evening might be the bright soul of her saint. Now she had her face pressed down into the earth — her father was on his death-bed ; but there was something wilder in her agony than childish sorrow. In the twilight the green dragon seemed to hang like a real fiend over the plump little child that had been thrown to it, and that lay cowering within reach of its jaws. So perhaps thought the sallow-faced Hans Dank, the leanest man in the Low Countries, and yet no skeleton ', who, after a time, had followed the child down from the sick-chamber, and stood gravely by, lending his ear to her distress. Lie might have thought so, though he was by no means imaginative, for he had facts in his head that could Lauiia Tixcl. 225 have, by themselves, suggested such a notion. " Lanna !" said Steward Dank, as quietly as though he was but caUing her to dinner. "Lanna!" She heard nothing. "Your father asks for you." She rose at once, with a fierce shudder, and Mr. Dank led her indoors by the hand. Burgomaster Tixel was the richest and most friendless man in Amsterdam. He loved only two things, his money arid his daughter, and he loved both in a wretched, com- fortless, and miserably jealous way. He was ignorant and superstitious, as most people were in his time — two or three centuries ago. If he could live to-day, and act as he used to act, he would be very properly confined in Bedlam. He lay very near death in a large room, gloomy with the shadows of evening, and hung with heavy tapestries. Mr. Dank led Lanna to his side. "You will conquer your fear, darling," said the Burgomaster, with a rattle in his harsh voice. " If you have loved me I prepare for you a pleasure. If you have not loved me, if my memory is never to be dear to you — be punished." " O father !" " You are too young to think — but twelve years old — it is my place to think for you, and Dank will care for you when I am gone, because, dear, it is made his interest to do so. When you know the worth of your inheritance you will not speak as you have spoken. You are a child. What do you know ?" "She knows," said Mr. Dank, in a dry, matter-of-fact way, *'the value of a father's blessing." "True," said the Burgomaster, glaring at the child; the signal lights of the great rock of death on which he was fast breaking to pieces glittered in his eyes. "True, Lanna. Your obedience is the price of my last blessing." " I will obey you," she said, and he blessed her. Then the little girl fell in a great agony of fear, over his hand, crying, " O father, I should like to die with you !" 226 Papers from ^^ Household Words''. "That is well, darling,'" said the Burgomaster. "Those are tender words." He made her nestle on the bed beside him, and then put an arm about her : pressing her against his breast. " Now," said he, "let the priests come in!" and the last rites of the Church were celebrated over the Burgomaster, while his little daughter remained thus imprisoned. And the dead arm of the Burgomaster, when his miserly and miserable soul was fled, still pressed the little girl to his dead heart. Eight years after the death in Amsterdam of Burgomaster Tixel there was born at Bhckford, in Devonshire, the first and last child of Hodge Noddison, a tiller of the soil, with a large body, a hard hand, and a heart to match it. He was not naturally a bad fellow, but he was intensely stupid (as hand-labourers in those days usually were) for want of teaching ; and so through sheer stupidity he was made callous, obstinate, and cruel. He beat his wife every day more or less ; amused himself on holidays with brutal sports, and very much preferred strong drinks to the coarse bread then eaten by the poorer classes in this country. Noddison had been twelve years married, and had only recently been blessed with a child, solely in consequence of the aid of some scrapings from the tooth of a crocodile, mixed with a little hedgehog's fat, and eaten oft" a fig-leaf. One May evening Hodge Noddison was rolling home by the field-path from a rough drinking-party at the "Bull Inn" near Blickford, when the fat ribs of the fattest man in Devonshire came in his way, and he was not sober enough to see reason why he should not pummel them. To work he set with such drunken exasperation, that he belaboured his victim too frantically to find out that he was driving, as fast as he was able, the life out of the tyrannical Dutchman whom he called master ; the dreadful old Dank, upon whom, Lanna Tixcl. 227 at that time, himself, his wife, and his first-born were dependent for bread. The fat old foreigner roared, and screamed, and bellowed with pain to such an excess, that his cries flew over the blossoms of the blackthorn hedge from the ditch in which he was lying, and reached the ears of Mrs. Noddison. Out she flew, and found Dank, although not seriously hurt, lying insensible behind the hedge. Noddison's wife had time to discover what deed had been done, and to take counsel with herself before law and vengeance knocked at the door of their miserable shed. They lived in a sort of grotto made by a rude heap of stones piled together on the edge of a great moor. There was a piece of muddy water close by, known to the Blickford people as Nick's Pond, in which it was the custom of the place to drown all the black kittens that were born, and through which all the black cats of the parish had gone down to perdition years ago. Mrs. Noddison got her husband home with difficulty, and commenced maturing her plans. It was quite evident that he would not get any work again on the Dutch farm, and she did not mind that, for the estate was not in good repute among the neighbours ; it was also evident that he would be required to go to jail if he could not escape the con- stables. How should he do that, when he had his liquor to sleep off, and was already snoring at full length on the earthen floor ? Her good-man might be carted off to safety : but she had no cart, and he was much too heavy to be carried pick-a-back. There was no chimney up which he might be thrust ; there was, of course, no cupboard ; for indeed there was not so much as a second room in the fine old cottage where they dwelt, all of the olden time. There was the straw they slept upon ; but there was not enough of that to cover him. Besides, if there had been chimneys, cupboards, or whole waggon-loads of straw, how could they conceal a man who snored so mightily ? 228 Papers from ''Household Words''. Mistress Noddison, living in a lone place, had no near neighbours to whom she might run for counsel ; great was her joy, therefore, when Goody Fubs happened to come in, late as it was, with a bit of frog's bile, which she had promised and vowed as a godmother should be her present to the baby. A most precious remedy against all mundane ills. " Do you think. Goody, it would put my husband out o' harm ?" Mrs. Noddison added to her question an exceed- ingly long narrative. Mrs. Fubs responded with long maledictions on the Dutch; and wished to know what right foreign wenches had eating up the corn in Devon- shire. Mrs. Noddison didn't so much mind the wench; she was a bit mad, to be sure; but if, as folk said, the heretics were out in her own country, and the powers of evil were let loose, and there were burnings, and quarter- ings, and cannon roarings, perhaps she was no fool to have come to Devonshire for peace and quiet. For herself, too, she was free enough of money and pleasant enough. — *'When she is not possessed," said Goody Fubs. The gossips then proceeded to discuss how far the Evil One had power over Lanna Tixel, who had a queer stare betimes about the eyes, and wandered about unseemly and — Holy Mary ! what was that ? A white figure flitted, like a phantom, by the open door. The two women looked out together. It was she of whom they talked. It was Lanna. When the moon shone out from among the flying clouds they recognised her hurrying along like one pursued. They came in and shut the door, and fastened it, and shook their heads at one another. Goody Fubs presently, drawing a long breath, hoped the Dutch witch might not be off to meeting. She looked, said Mistress Noddison, as if she had a mighty way to travel before midnight. A loud knocking at the door aroused them, and its clumsy fasten- Lanna Tixcl. 229 ings were almost in the same instant Ijurst open. The women overlooked Hodge altogether ; justice had not. No lamentation hindering, he was at once bound wrist and ankle and dragged, grunting like a pig, to jail. On the same evening, but somewhat earlier, before the night-clouds had begun to flock into the sky, a young English soldier, captain of a regiment, had ridden from the stables of the manor-house, leaving the squire, his father, comfortably coiled under his own dinner-table, and had galloped down the lane, between the hedges full of May- blossom, to pay a visit to his neighbours of the Grange, known commonly as the Dutch Farm. He saw from his saddle over the hedge-top how Hodge Noddison was help- ing his unsteady homeward walk by steering with his cudgel. Moreover, he was not sorry presently to see the portly frame of Mr. Dank, surmounted by his very saturnine and ugly face, moving towards him, with his back turned to the Grange. The soldier greeted Dutch Dank with un- wonted cordiality as he rode by, whispering to himself, " Lanna will be alone." The Dutch Farm answered to its title ; Cuyp might have painted scenes out of it. The Grange itself had a trim, closely-shaven aspect ; and, on a wide smooth lawn that stretched before the windows of the house, there were yew and box trees cut into fantastic shapes of cocks and men, and even fishes : one tree, a large hollybush, was being clipped and trained into the form of a green dragon with expanded wings. There were no fragrant flower-beds or pleasant bowers ; there was nothing gayer than a clump of Guelder roses and laburnums near an open window. At the window Lanna sat and saw the soldier coming. She was a girl of twenty, lovely as a girl can be who has a colourless face. She had a great wealth of brown hair, and had also large, blue, wondering eyes. She knew that she 230 Papers from ''HouseJiold Words'". looked well in a white dress, and she, in some odd, boding way, expected Captain Arthur — the young soldier, in his father's neighbourhood, went by his Christian name — she was, therefore, dressed in white. " Dear lady, you have never before looked so pale," he said. The captain's horse was soon tied by its bridle to the holly-bush, and Lanna, hurrying out upon the lawn, ex- pressed her regret that Mr. Dank was absent. Yet, since she loved Captain Arthur — the first man who had taken pains to win her heart — with all the ardour of a young girl who is fatherless and motherless; who lives exposed to daily check and chill; in whom a flood of repressed feeling has for years been accumulating, she could not have regretted much the absence of the watchful steward. Captain x\rthur was no genius, as Lanna would have known had she been ten years older, but he was in a passion of what they call love, with Lanna. And he had persisted in it, notwithstand- ing much that he had heard. He did not care if it were true, as the old squire swore, indignantly, that she bewitched him with her glances. To say that of a young lady is now a very pretty album-phrase. Then it conveyed coarser im- putations than can decently be specified. Lanna, holy as an angel in her maiden's heart, guessed her friend's love, and wished to hear it spoken. Captain Arthur did not disappoint her wishes. He spoke boldly out. When he would have placed the trembling girl upon a bench erected close under the clump of Guelder roses, she looked at him, and said, with a quivering face that would not lend itself to an attempt at smiles, "Let us sit under the dragon." So they did sit under the dragon; and there the captain made an end of speaking, and left off so confident of her answer, that, while she remained fixed as the statue of a listener, he must needs turn from the main theme to ask her why her humour favoured that extremely LiDuia Tixel. 231 ugly hollybush, and why she must pronounce his sentence under such a canopy. Lanna broke out into a wild fit of sobbing; Captain Arthur comforted her clumsily; but suddenly she became calm. *'Here", she said, "is best; I shall talk to this dragon when you are gone. We had such a dragon that knew my secrets at home. If you would know my secrets, this is a good tree for you to be under. Here is your horse close by within reach. Should the wish suddenly seize you to leave me alone and forlorn, you have but to mount and fly." The captain moved restlessly; did she mean to confirm the worst suspicions of the parish before answering his question? "I have no right to say what I would say to you," he began, "but there is an odd question I would if I dared — " He stopped suddenly — the stars of evening were coming out, and Lanna looked up at them. "Help me, mother!" she cried; and Captain Arthur, running his thoughts on in the old groove, remarked that she demanded help of mother somebody, and (a suspicious fact) did not cry, "Help me, God!" "I cannot let my heart loose, or answer you any question that takes so much hesitation to ask," Lanna said, "until you know the terrible condition by which torment is pre- pared for any man who marries me." The captain shrank from her side, and looked up with a shudder at the wings of the green dragon under which they sat enshadowed. "There is a doom upon me," Lanna murmured; "and it is I, now, who am waiting to be sentenced." The captain had risen, and was stroking nervously his horse's mane. "Yet it is no great thing," Lanna continued, "that it should so much affright me. You are a man, and perhaps may laugh at it, and teach me to laugh at it with you." 232 Papers from ^PioiiseJiold Words'. Still she spoke in a reckless, hopeless way, and Captain Arthur was more shocked than he had been before." " Leave your horse but for one minute," Lanna said, "and come into the house." The captain wavered for a little while; but there was yet love — or his sort of love — manfully wrestling in his heart with superstition. He followed Lanna through the rambling passages of the great house, ht dimly by the twilight out of doors. With a key taken from her girdle she opened way for him into a room, over the floor of which he walked some steps and instantly turned back in affright, and meeting her on the threshold, with uplifted hands and an imploring face, he pushed her from him with a heavy hand, mounted his horse and galloped away. She reeled ; but the blow gave no pain to her flesh. It seemed to her that but an instant passed before she heard the rapid gallop of his horse. The first impulse she obeyed was absurd ; she followed him. If she had told her story more methodically it could never have affected him so much, although it would no doubt have ended in his quitting her. She must explain all, or what would he think? But Captain Arthur galloped as though he were pursued by somebody not quite so innocent as Lanna Tixel. A few minutes of running through cool evening air checked that first impulse. Then she sat dov.'n under the blossoms of a MayLliorn hedge, picking mdustriously at its leaves ; and so she sat in a long reverie, till the moon rose, and she heard groans of which she had not earlier been conscious. At the same time she saw, behind the opposite hedge, a face covered with blood, which she took to be a dead face. It was the living face of Mr. Dank, who had returned to sense after his thrashing. She could not go home to rest. Terrified and vexed in spirit, she fled, looking like a shrouded corpse herself, towards the moor, and then it was that she inter- rupted the gossips' learned conversation. Lajina Tixcl. 233 "And how does the frog's bile act?" asked Mrs. Nod- dison. "That," said Goody Fubs, "I quite forgot to ask; I had it from a gossip who is dead. No doubt it must be eaten." Mrs. Noddison was not at all comfortless over the departure of her husband. Free, he would earn nothing, after his last evening's work. He might as well therefore be fed in jail. Her skin, too, would be the sounder for a rest. The baby was just one of those puny squalid things that used to perish by thousands in the habitations of a fine old English peasantry, all of the olden time. Mrs. Noddison was full of mother's care about it. Goody Fubs was full of neighbourly advice, and very eloquent upon the subject of her nostrum, a black fetid mess containing nobody knows what. While the two gossips talked, the flying clouds let fall a flying shower. Lanna was still on the moor, and the sudden rain recalled her to a sense of her position. She was out, she recollected, at a strange hour. It must be at the earliest ten o'clock, an hour later than bed-time. Lanna turned homewards, though there was no place so terrible to her as home. "Well, then, if you will hold the child/' said Goody Fubs to Mistress Noddison, " Fll give it the remedy, and then it never shall know harm again in this world." "Amen, Goody, and thank you." When the child felt the frog's bile in its throat it began to scream mightily and choke, but the stuff nevertheless was swallowed. At that instant, as Goody stated afterwards, the rain suddenly ceased to patter on the shingles. The child screamed more and more. It went into convulsions. The hut door had been left open, and indeed almost broken to pieces by the constables. A white figure glided by. " Ave Maria !" groaned old Goody Fubs, not to be heard through the screaming of the child, "there's Lanna Tixel !" The child's face was black. The fierceness of the screaming caused Lanna to turn back, and I Q 234 Papers from ''Household Words''. stand irresolutely in the doorway, ready to enter and bring help if she were able. Goody Fubs made a great cross with her fingers over her own wrinkled forehead, and then flew at the delicate face of Lanna with her fists. Lanna fled again, followed by loud shrieks from Mrs. Noddison ; the child's voice was gone, it lay dumb in a death-struggle. "O the bile !" moaned Mrs. Noddison, "The witch !" groaned Goody Fubs. The two or three domestics living in the Grange were in attendance on the barber surgeon, busy, Lanna found, with Mr. Dank, who had been waylaid and beaten. She knew then that it was no ghost she had seen, and, pitying his con- dition, though he was no friend to her, she tended by the steward's bedside half the night through, after she had paid a visit to her secret chamber. His bruises were not serious, the cut upon his head had been bound up, he had been comfortably shaved, had been bled in the arm, and had received an emetic. His case therefore promised well, and towards morning the surgeon left him quietly asleep, and recommended Lanna to retire, at the same time suggesting that she should bathe her swollen nose with vinegar, and take a powder, for she seemed to have had a very ugly fall. Lanna slept heavily for a great many hours, and in the morning found that Mr. Dank, though very much weakened, was not confined to his bed : he was up and out, gone to encounter Noddison in a formal and judicial way before the Squire and his brother justices. Lanna, with aching heart and throbbing nose, and a wide border of black round one of her blue eyes, endeavoured to go through her usual routine of duties. In the course of the day they took her into Blickford. Two little boys at play in a ditch about a quarter of a mile out of the village leapt up when they saw her coming, Laujia Tixcl. 235 and scampered on before as fast as they were able, shouting her name aloud. They had been put there as scouts or look-out men, and had beguiled their time while on their post with pitch-and-toss. Lanna understood nothing of that, and could not at all tell what it meant, when a turn in the road brought her in sight of the first houses in Blickford, and she saw the whole village turning out with brooms to meet her. Goody Fubs advancing as the village champion, struck the poor orphan with her broom, and then throwing away the weapon, grappled with her. Men threw stones at her, women pressed round, grappled together and fought for the privilege of pinching her or pulling at the rich locks of brown hair that Goody their leader had set floating. "Nick's Pond!" was the cry. The young foreignwitch must be tried by water — innocent if she drowned, and guilty if she swam. In a wild and terrible procession of the whole population of the village, with the children screaming and dancing joyously about in the excitement of a witch- ducking, Lanna was dragged to the moor, where Mistress Noddison flew from her cottage as a tigress from her lair, and tore the flesh and garments of the witch, and showed her the dead child. Mounted constables were hurrying in the direction of the riot, but they only came in time to drag the wretched girl out of the pond into which she was thrust, and they came not to protect but to arrest her. There was fresh evidence, some of the men hinted to the villagers, and a most aggravated case against her. She was therefore carried to the round-house, and spent the next thirty hours, half suffocated, and locked up with very filthy people. Then she was brought out on one of the last and finest days of the merry month of JNIay, and taken into the pre- sence of the justices, with Squire Caufe at their head, who had long been of opinion that she had bewitched his son Q 2 236 Papers from ''Hojisehold Words". by wicked arts, and now was sure of it. The case was then gone into. It was shown that on a certain evening Hodge Noddison maltreated the companion of the accused, a foreigner named Hans Dank, who it was now ascertained had secretly made his escape out of the neighbourhood, and had gone no one could find out whither. It was presumed that she received instant information, from some imp, of the deed that Noddi- son had done, for she was out in the direction of Noddison's house before any human tidings could have reached her. It was proved that Noddison was cast into a deadly lethargy, during which the witch was seen flitting about upon the moor before his door, and that immediately after she had vanished Noddison was taken by the constables. It was proved that in further punishment of Noddison, the accused Lanna Tixel did by her arts throw his only child into violent convulsions, during which she again appeared at the door and gazed in upon the child with her large blue eyes, immediately after the infliction of which gaze it died. It was shown, also, that the rain ceased when she appeared, and that Goody Fubs lost a young porker, and suffered more than usually from her rheumatism on the day that she assisted at the ducking of the wicked woman. These revelations were not necessary to induce Captain Arthur to appear against the siren who had practised on him with her arts. He proved that when he had been drawn by her devices — especially, he thought, by her large eyes — to declare love towards her, she believing that she had him in her toils, confessed to him in plain words that she had a familiar in the shape of a dragon or a hollybush with which she often talked, and that it was acquainted with her secrets. The dragon on the lawn was, therefore, part of her enchant- ment, and it was natural to consider that the strange figures of cocks and fishes to be seen on the Dutch farm, though they looked like box, and yew, and holly trees, must be Lanna Tixd. 237 really and truly demons. The captain further proved, that being in some trouble and sobbing, the witch called for help upon a certain Mother Somebody — he did not catch the name — because she, the said witch, sobbed while she was Si^eaking. In answer to a question from the bench, he said that it was not "Mother of God". "She further", he said, "ven- tured so far as to tell me that I was to marry upon the condition of suffering eternal torment." (Here a thrill ran through the whole assembly.) "She told me that she her- self was doomed, but that was a light matter, and that we might laugh at it together." During this revelation Lanna fainted. She showed no traces of her former beauty, for no change of dress or means of cleanliness had been provided for her since she was taken from the filthy pond, and she appeared to have caught some kind of fever in the round-house. When she recovered she was compelled to stand up that her face might be seen during the rest of the examination. Her house had been searched. A white object was brought through a lane made in the shuddering crowd, and suddenly presented before Lanna. She was seized with violent hysterics. It was the waxen image of a corpse robed in its graveclothes : an exact effigy of the dead body of her father. "She took me to a room," said Captain Arthur, "in which lay this image. I thought it had been taken from the grave, and felt at once that she was one of the worst kind of witches. I see now that it is made of wax." While Lanna remained still insensible a learned priest stood forward, and gave evidence that the use of these waxen images by witches was well known. They were the figures of men to whom they wished evil. The witches moulded them and caused them to waste slowly, and as the wax wasted, so wasted the victim's flesh. They also pricked and stabbed them, and when they did so the true 238 Papers from ''Household Words''. flesh felt every hurt that was inflicted. This was un- doubtedly the image of some person whom the witch Tixel had killed by her enchantments. The learned justices then waited until Lanna was so far recovered that she could be made to speak; pains being taken to expedite her recollection of herself by means not altogether free from cruelty. She said, however, very little. There was no escape for her, she said, and she desired none. She had lived too long. But she wished Captain Arthur to reflect upon the words she had used, and hear now, if he would, the story she designed to tell him. She was ordered to address the court, and did so. Captain Arthur being present. "That image was the doom I spoke of. It is the image of my father as he lay dead when, if I might, I would have died with him. He was superstitious, as you all are who accuse me here to-day of witchcraft. He was jealous of my love, and wished to be remembered by me daily when I had his wealth. I would have rejected that, for his desire was horrible to me. But next, on the peril of losing his blessing, I was made to promise that, wherever I lived, I would preserve the effigy of my dead father, every day eat my dinner in its presence, and every night kiss it before I went to rest. I was a child then, and a terror seized me which I never have been able to shake off. I have not dared to disobey. Hans Dank was my father's steward, who was privy to it all, and who was made by will my guardian and inquisitor. Let him prove that I speak truth in this. There is one thing more which concerns me little now. My father thought that while the image of his body lasted, the body itself would remain whole in the tomb, awaiting mine that was to be placed beside it. Then our dust was to mingle. He was a super- stitious man, as you are superstitious men. I shall be burnt; you will defeat his wishes. That is the truth which I wish Captain Arthur now to hear. INIy mother died when I was Lanna Tixcl. 239 four years old. I am friendless; and there is no one but the man who offered me his love for whose sake I care whether or not I die disgraced." The squire was very wroth at these allusions to his son, and said, when she had made an end of speaking, "Witch, you know truly what will be your end. If your accomplice were indeed here, he could not save you, but you can have no support from him, because, knowing his guilt, he fled when he first heard that these proceedings would be taken. For your tale, by which you artfully endeavour to mislead my son, it cannot serve you. It touches in nothing what has been proved against you in the case of the Noddisons, your victims. With what mysterious designs you caused this dreadful image to be made, and kept it secretly within your house, we cannot tell, nor does it concern us very much to know. The meaning of the image we know well, and we know also," said the squire, with a malicious grin, "to what good use it can be put. Truly, it will be a fine thing to save faggots in the burning of a witch so worth- less." And the law took its course, and solemn trial led in due nme to solemn sentence, and Lanna Tixel, with the fatal waxen effigy bound in her arms, was made the core of a great holiday bonfire, which enlivened the inhabitants of Blickford. When the wax caught the blaze made even babies in their mothers' arms crow out and clap their hands with pleasure. A brilliant ending to this very pleasant story of the good old times ! They are quite gone, and never will come back again. And so, nothing is left for us to do but to regret their memory, we puny men, we miserable shams. APOTHECARIES About one hundred and fifty years ago, talking like an apothecary was a proverbial phrase for talking nonsense ; and our early dramatists, when they produced an apothe- cary on the stage, always presented him as a garrulous and foolish man. It was in what may be called the middle period of the history of the apothecary's calling in this country that it had thus fallen into grave contempt. At first it was honoured, and it is now, at last, honoured again. At first there were a few of the fraternity. Dr. Friend mentions a time when there was only one apothe- cary in all London. Now, there are in England and Wales about seven thousand gentlemen who, when tyros, took their freedom out to kill (or cure) where stands a structure on a rising hill, " Nigh where Fleet Ditch descends in sable streams, To wash his sooty Naiads in the Thames," namely, at the Hall of the Worshipful Society of Apothe- caries in Blackfriars. Of course apothecaries do not monopolise the licence to kill, or we never should have heard of that country in which it was a custom to confer upon the public executioner, after he had performed his office on a certain number of condemned people, the degree of doctor. Against doctors, surgeons, and apothecaries in this country, and at all times, many a sneer has been levelled. AMiat is said against doctors and surgeons is equally true or false here and elsewhere. The whole medical republic Apothecaries. 241 may assert itself. Much, however, that is said about apothecaries in this country seems to be true — and is not true, for in England the apothecary is a person differing in almost every respect but name from the apothecary of the Continent ; the word Apothecary means even in England what it does not mean in Scotland. We believe that we are usefully employed in showing what is really represented in this country by Apothecaries' Hall. Once upon a time, says Herodotus, in the land of the wise there were no doctors. In Egypt and Babylon the diseased were exposed in the most public streets, and passers-by were invited to look at them, in order that they who had suffered under similar complaints and had recovered, might tell what it was that cured them. Nobody, says Strabo, was allowed to go by without offering his gratuitous opinion and advice. Then, since it was found that this practical idea did not work to perfection, the Egyptian priests made themselves students of medicine, each man binding himself to the study of one sole disease. Nature, it is said, was studied, for it was reported that the ibis taught the use of injections, and that from the hippopotamus a lesson was got in phlebotomy. Pliny is the authority for this, who says that the hippopotamus, whenever he grows too plethoric and unwieldy, opens a vein in his leg with a sharp-pointed reed found on the banks of the Nile. The Greeks adopted and enlarged what they found taught elsewhere about the healing art, and had enough faith in the necessity of medi- cine to provide the gods with a professional attendant. Pluto, we are told upon the best authority — Homer's, of course — when wounded by the arrow of Hercules, applied to Pceon, the physician of the gods, for surgical assistance, and obtained relief. Paeon then was a general practitioner, accepting cases both in medicine and surgery. In this country there are, at this time, three classes of men following the healing art— physicians, surgeons, and 242 Papers from ^'Household Words". those who are best defined under the name of general prac- titioners. Elsewhere there are two classes only. Celsus and Galen both of them lay down the divisions of the profession distmctly. There were first the men who cured by study of the processes of nature in the human body, and by adapting to them regimen and diet : these were the original physicians, nature-students as their name pro- nounces them. Secondly, there were the chirurgeons or surgeons (hand-workers is the meaning of their name), who attended to the wounds and other ailments curable by hand. Thirdly, there were the pharmacists, who cured by drugs. Some of the first class of practitioners used drugs; but, by many, the use of them was repudiated. This triple division of the healing art was still acknowledged in the sixteenth century, when there were few great phy- sicians who wrote books and did not write on diet and the art of cookery. Thus the physicians were, at first, in close alliance with the cooks. Sometimes, indeed, the alliance was more close than wholesome. One of the earliest illustrations of the fact that in old times the pharmacist, as an apothecary in the strictest sense, was employed as an adviser of the sick occurs in a story told by Cicero of a man named Lucius Clodius, a travelling apothecary, who was accustomed to set up as a distributor of advice and medi- cine in the market-places of the towns through which he passed. This man happened to pass through Larinum at a time when the grandmother of Oppianicus Avas ill, and was employed by her son to attend her. Now this son was an infamous fellow, who kept a physician in his pay to destroy by his prescriptions everyone who was supposed to be an impediment upon his path. His mother was among those whom he desired to poison, but she, being on her guard, steadily refused both the attendance and the medicine of her son's favourite. Application was made therefore to the travelling pharmacopolist, v/hom she agreed to trust. Un- Apothecaries. 243 happily the apothecary was as bad as the physician, took his bribe, and killed his patient with the first dose he administered. We speak of the pharmacopolist who practised ; but it is to be understood that in those days the physician kept his own drugs in his house — the list of medicaments was smaller than it is at present — and compounded his own medicines. Galen attempts to show that Hippocrates, father of medicine, made up his own prescriptions ; Celsus and Galen, it is certain, both dispensed their medicines themselves, and knew nothing of the refinements of dignity that were to be introduced by their successors. If Hippo- crates did not dispense his own physic, it can only be said that he was not true to his principles ; for " a physician", he says, in one of his books, " ought to have his shop provided with plenty of all necessary things, as lint, rollers, splints ; let there be likewise in readiness at all times another small cabinet of such things as may serve for occasions of going far from home ; let him have also all sorts of plasters, potions, and purging medicines, so con- trived that they may keep some considerable time, and like- wise such as may be had and used while they are fresh." The ideal physician of Hippocrates is, in this country, the apothecary of the present day. Galen says that he had an apotheke in which his drugs were kept, and where his medicines were always made under his own eye, or by his hand. For one moment we pause on the word apotheke^ whence apothecary is derived. It meant, among the Greeks, a place where anything is put by and preserved — especially in the first instance, wine. The Romans had no wine- cellars, but kept their wine-jars upon upper floors, where they believed that the contents would ripen faster. The small floors were called /?/w^r/rt', the large ones apothecce. The apotheca being a dry, airy place, became, of course, the best possible store-room for drugs, and many apothecas 244 Papers from ''Household 1 Fords'. became drug-stores, with an apothecarius in charge. It is a misfortune, then — if it be one — attached to the name of apothecary that it has in it association with the shop. But, to say nothing of Podalirius and Machaon, Cullen and William Hunter dispensed their own medicines. So also did Dr. Peckey. who inserted in the Postman of the six- teenth of January, in the year seventeen hundred, when doctors and apothecaries were at hottest war together, this advertisement : — "At the 'Angel and Crown', in Basing Lane, near Bow Lane, lives J. Peckey, a graduate in the University of Oxford, and of many years' standing in the College of Physicians, London; where all sick people that come to him may have for sixpence a faithful account of their diseases, and plain directions for diet and other things they can prepare themselves : and such as have occasion for medicines may have them of him at reasonable rates, without paying anything for advice : and he will visit any sick person in London or the liberties thereof, in the daytime, for two shillings and sixpence, and anywhere else within the Bills of Mortality for five shillings." Doctor Peckey's charges are extremely modest, which has not been at all times the case among those of his brotherhood. The present practice among physicians of being paid only by voluntary fees seems to have arisen out of a law passed to prevent extortion. In Galen's time, respectable physicians would not undertake small cases, but they had acquired the habit of compounding secret nostrums, which continued in full force for generations, and was common also in the sixteenth century, when all classical customs were revived. Aetius complains much, in his writings, of the immense price asked for respectable nostrums. Nicostratus used to ask two talents for his isotheos, or antidote against the colic. At last Valentinian established in Eome fourteen salaried physicians to attend gratuitously on the poor, and obliged, by the same law, ApotJiccaries. 245 every other physician to accept the voluntary donation of every other patient when he had recovered from his disease, without making express charge, or taking advan- tage of any promises rashly made under suffering. Here we have not the fee system, but most probably the groundwork of it. This mode of after-payment remained for many centuries the custom of the empire, A physician of the fifteenth century, Ericus Cordus, complained much of the reluctance of his patients to reward him properly when they were well, for service done to them in sickness. In the eighth and ninth centuries surgery and pharmacy began to decline in reputation. "The apothecary", said a Latin couplet, "is the physician's right hand, the surgeon his left hand" ; but this meant that the physician was the head and body of the whole profession, with the hands entirely subject to his will. At the same time there grew up among these doctors paramount so strong a faith in astrology, in charms and magical medicaments, that it became necessary, as some thought, to warn them lest they gave advice destructive to the soul ; since it is better for us, as said Theodorus, to be always sick, than sound by the contempt of God. In an old historical account of the proceedmgs of the College of Physicians against empirics and unlicensed prac- titioners, written by Dr. Charles Goodall, a Fellow of the said college, we read, how in King James's reign one John Lambe, having acquired great fame by his cures, was examined at the College of Physicians by request of the Bishop of Durham, and among the examination questions put to him we find that — " Being asked in Astrology what house he looketh unto to know a disease, or the event of it : and how the lord ascendant should stand thereto ? " He answereth, he looks for the sixth house : which being disproved, he saith he understands nothing therein, 246 Papers from ''Household Words''. but what he hath out of Cahman : and being asked what books he hath read in that art, he saith he hath none but Cahman." It was long, in fact, before the traces of these false ideas of nature were removed from the prescriptions of the doctors. Doctor Merrett, in the year 1669, denounced the frauds of apothecaries who sell to their patients sheep's lungs for fox lungs, and the bone of an ox's heart for that of a stag's heart; and, about the same time, Culpepper, in translating the Pharmacopoeia, or official catalogue of medi- cinal remedies and preparations issued by the College of Physicians, ridicules some of the contents in a list like this, inserting his own comments by parenthesis — " The fat, grease, or suet of a duck, goose, eel, boar, heron, thymallos" (if you know where to get it), " dog, capon, beaver, wild cat, stork, hedgehog, hen, man, lion, hare, kite, or jack" (if they have any fat, I am persuaded 'tis worth twelve- pence the grain), " wolf, mouse of the mountain" (if you can catch them), "pardal, hog, serpent, badger, bear, fox, vulture" (if you can catch them), "east and west benzoar, viper's flesh, the brains of hares and sparrows, the rennet of a lamb, kid, hare, and a calf and a horse too" (quoth the college). [They should have put the rennet of an ass to make medi- cine for their addle-brains. J " The excrement of a goose, of a dog, of a goat, of swallows, of men, of women, of mice, of peacocks," etc., etc. Well might the founders in this country of the science of physic speak, even at a time later than this, with little reverence for the learning supposed to be proper to their craft. " It is very evident", wrote Sir Richard Blackmore in his treatise on the small-pox, "that a man of good sense, vivacity, and spirit may arrive at the highest rank of phy- sicians, without the assistance of great erudition and the knowledge of books ; and this was the case of Dr. Sydenham, Apothecaries. 247 who became an able and eminent physician, though he never designed to take up the profession till the civil wars were composed, and then, being a disbanded officer, he entered upon it for a maintenance, without any learning properly preparatory for the undertaking of it. And to show the reader what contempt he had for writings in physic, when one day I asked him to advise me what books I should read to qualify me for practice, he replied, ' Read Don Quixote — it is a very good book. I read it still.' So low an opinion had this celebrated man of the learning collected out of the authors, his predecessors. And a late celebrated physician, whose judgment was miiversally relied upon as almost in- fallible in his profession, used to say, as I am well informed, that when he died he would leave behind him the whole mystery of physic upon half a sheet of paper." He who said this was Doctor Radcliffe, physician to King William the Third, the most successful practitioner of his own day, and one of the honoured patriarchs of the London College of Physicians. It is requisite thus far to understand what the physician was during the years of which we now proceed to speak. Up to the time when Garth's Dispensary was published, there continued to be much general truth in the impression here conveyed. After that time, in the days of Mead, the erudite physician, and of Cheselden, the skilful surgeon, whom Pope linked with each other in a line — " I'll try what Mead and Cheselden advise," and who consulted together on the case of Sir Isaac Newton, there began with us another and a better epoch in the history of medicine. The first doctors in England were the Druids, who, by- the-bye, collected their own mistletoe. The second race of doctors was provided also by the religious orders ; they were the monks (whose practice the Pope afterwards forbade) ; and there came next a transition period, during which there 248 Papers from ''Household Words'. was much wavering between the two callings of physic and divinity. Thus, among other instances, we find that Richard, the son of Nigel, Bishop of Ely — who is called, not the Physician, but the Apothecary to King Henry the Second and the two succeeding monarchs — afterwards was created Bishop of London. There was no College of Physicians then existing, and this king's apothecary — the first man, we beheve, to whom the calling is ascribed upon our English records — evidently was no shopkeeper of small importance. No doubt he practised medicine. Certainly, in the year 1345, Coursus de Gangeland, called an apothecary of London, serving about the person of King Edward the Third, received a pension of sixpence a day as a reward for his attendance on the king during a serious illness which he had in Scodand. Henry the Eighth gave forty marks a year to John Soda, apothecary, as a medical attendant on the Princess Mary, who was a delicate, unhealthy young woman, so that we thus have the first indications of the position of an English apothecary, as one whose calling for two hundred years maintained itself, and continued to maintain itself till a few years after the establishment of the College of Physicians, as that of a man who might be engaged even by kmgs in practice of the healing art. But in the third year of Queen Mary's reign, thirty-seven years after the establish- ment of the College of Physicians, both surgeons and apothecaries were prohibited the practising of physic. In Henry the Eighth's time it had been settled, on the other hand, that surgery was an especial part of physic, and any of the company or fellowship of physicians were allowed to engage in it. Wq remain awhile with Henry the Eighth, whose reign is important in the history of the medical profession in this country, Li the third year of that king thc ^ I 8 4 6 6 8 3 8 2 4 I 8 4 6 2 4 6 3 4 3 6 6 5 3 6 6 6 2 54 Papers from ^'HojtseJiold Words". "The piercing caustics ply their spiteful pow'r, Emetics wrench, and keen cathartics scour. The deadly drugs in double doses fly ; And pestles peal a martial symphony." In the year 1694, the number of apothecaries had in- creased in England froin about a hundred to about a thou- sand; they had become an influential body, and their claim to prescribe for the less wealthy section of the public that could not afford to pay, first the physician for advice, then the apothecary for his medicine, excited a discus- sion that had reached its hottest point. Then it was that some of the physicians, out of motives half-benevolent, half-controversial, united in the establishment of dispen- saries, at which they would give their own advice to the poor, cheaply or gratuitously, and cause medicine to be sold nearly at prime cost. One of the dispensaries was in a room of the then College of Physicians (now a brazier's premi- ses*) in Warwick Lane; another was in St. Martin's Lane at Westminster; a third in St. Peter's Alley, Cornhill. They came into operation in the month of February 1697, and were soon resorted to by rich and poor, as druggists' shops at which the apothecaries were competed with and underbidden by the Faculty. A w^ar of tongues and pamphlets was, of course, excited by this measure, of which the only durable record — and that a record now almost lost out of sight— is the poem that has been once or twice quoted in this paper, The Dispensary : a Poem in Six Cantos, by Dr. Garth. Of course, the physicians very soon abandoned the trade part of the new system they had called into existence. As a final effort, the physicians then tested in a court of law the right of the apothecaries to advise as well as com- pound. John . Seal, a butcher, had been attended by Mr. William Rose, an apothecary, and there was obtained * Tyler's. ApotJieca ries. 255 from him this evidence: "May the 15th, 1704. These are to certify that I, John Seal, being sick and applying myself to this Mr. Rose the apothecary for his directions and medicines, in order for my cure, had his advice and medi- cines from him a year together; but was so far from being the better for them, that I was in a worse condition than when he undertook me; and after a very expensive bill of near fifty pounds, was forced to apply myself to the dis- pensary at the College of Physicians, where I received my cure in about six weeks' time, for under forty shillings charge in medicines. Witness my hand." Upon this case issue was raised, and after a special verdict followed by three arguments in the Court of Queen's Bench, it was decided that Rose had practised physic, and in so doing had contravened the law. Against this decision the Society of Apothecaries appealed to the House of Lords, and by that authority the judgment given in the Queen's Bench was reversed. Then it was finally decided that the duty of the apothecary consisted not only in prescribing and dispensing, but also in directing and ordering the remedies employed in the treatment of disease. The posi- tion of the apothecary thus became what it had been at the first, and so remained; but obviously what was assured was not sufficient for the due protection of the public. For a long tmie nothing was done. The Society of Apothecaries — which has never been a wealthy guild — established a liberal organisation among its members. It paid great heed to the botanic gardens at Chelsea, which it had begun to lease from Lord Cheyne, in 1673, when the dispute with the physicians was rapidly approaching its climax, and which not many years after the settlement of the dispute, in 1722, was made over to them in perpetuity for a five-pound rental by Sir Hans Sloane, who had bought the manor, on condition that it was to be maintained as a physic garden at the charge of the apothecaries, "for the 256 Papers from "Household Words''. manifestation of the power, wisdom, and glory of God in the works of the creation, and that their apprentices and others may better distinguish good and useful plants". The charge of the garden has accordingly been to this day main- tained, without grudging, at a cost of about six hundred a year, by the Society of Apothecaries. There had arisen also, in connection with the Apothecaries* Hall — by accident — a trade. In 1623, some members joined to form a dispensary, under inspection, for the sake of obtain- ing — for their own use only — pure and honest drugs. Half a century later, a subscription among'members of the Hall added a laboratory for the supply of chemicals used by them- selves in their own practices. The credit of their prepara- tions caused others to apply to these gentlemen for leave to purchase of them; and this leave, at first refused, was ultimately conceded, a few years before the date of the establishment of the dispensary at the Physicians' College. A drug-trade was thus commenced, not by the Society of Apothecaries, but by some of its members at its Hall, and their subscriptions and profits were their own private con- cern, paid to and taken from what they termed "general stock". In the early part of the reign of Queen Anne, much difficulty having been found in the procuring of pure drugs for the British navy, Prince George of Denmark, Lord High Admiral, persuaded the Society to undertake the supply. They then opened a separate commercial estabhsh- ment, under the title of the Navy Stock, in which it was optional with any member to take shares. After a time these two stocks were joined as a common interest, and became what it is now known as the United Stock of the Society of Apothecaries. It is a distinct commercial enter- prise, carried on, not by the Society, but by members of the Society, at its Hall and under its sanction. It has its own separate officers and committees, by whom, not by the master and wardens of the company, its accounts are Apothecaries. 257 audited and its affairs controlled. It is well managed, and yields high dividends to its proprietors, which were in- creased by one-third, in consequence of the demand for drugs during the recent war. It has been also an important agent in keeping bad drugs out of the market. Whoever pays a visit to the Hall in Blackfriars will be shown how it is composed of two distinct parts. From a steam-engine room he is taken to where great millstones powder rhubarb, rows of steam-pestles pound in iron mortars, steam-rollers mix hills of ointment, enormous stills silently do their work, calomel sublimes in closed ovens, magnesia is made and evaporated, crucibles are hot, and coppers all heated by steam are full of costly juices from all corners of the world. He will find in the cellar barrels fresh tapped of compound tincture of cardamoms, tincture of rhubarb, and such medicated brews ; he will find in a private laboratory the most delicate scientific tests and processes employed for purposes of trade by a skilful chemist ; he will find warehouses and packing-rooms, perhaps, Ifeaped up with boxes of drugs to be sent out by the next ship to India, and apparently designed to kill or cure all the inhabitants of Asia. These are the premises of the United Stock. From them he will be led into the Hall itself, the great room on the walls of which he reads who has been mindful of the widow — for sixteen widows of poor members the Society provides annuities — and round the tables of which he may, perhaps, see young medical students deep in the agonies of an examination to prove that they have been educated as becomes those who are to join a liberal profession. There is a separate examination-room in which those pass as licentiates who can ; it is hung with old pictures, and there is a small library hidden away in that ante-chamber, known irreverently as the funking- room by nervous candidates. This is the domain of the whole Society^ Here it does its appointed duty to the commonwealth. 258 Papers from ''Household Words''. For, as it has been said, the decision of the House of Lords that an apothecary might prescribe, did not provide all that belonged to the public want which has brought the English apothecary of the present day into the average position occupied by the physician of the Continent. If apothecaries might prescribe, skilful or unskilful, there was danger to be feared. Therefore, there arose at the be- ginning of this century an agitation among many of the apothecaries, to procure for themselves an examining board that should exclude incompetent men from the use of the privileges they enjoyed. There was an agitation for some years ; several bills were introduced in Parliament, opposed and abandoned; but at last, in 181 5, an Apothecaries' Act was passed, which gave to the Society of Apothecaries the appointment of a board of their own members for the licensing of all who wished to exercise their calling, and conferring privileges well known to the public. Before this Act passed such was the state of the profession that not more than about one person in nine of those who practised medicine had been educated for the work in which they were engaged. Not only has the operation of the Apothe- caries' Act changed altogether this condition of affairs, but it is due to the Society of Apothecaries to admit, that by a high-spirited discharge of its new function, and a constant careful raising of the standard of competence, it has com- pelled strictness in others, and is adding continually to the importance and efficiency of that body of medical advisers which it has been called upon to furnish. Its work, which never has flagged, had at the end of the first twenty years of trial proved itself so well, that to a Select Committee of the House of Commons Sir Henry Halford confessed — " I was one of those who were sorry that the power was ever given out of the hands of the physicians to license prac- titioners of that description ; but since they have had it, I must do the apothecaries the justice to say, that they have Apothecaries. 259 executed that Act extremely well, and that the character of that branch of the profession has been amazingly raised since they have had that authority." That is still the universal testimony. If we have told our story clearly, we have shown that the apothecaries simply have become what — considering the position taken by physicians in this country — they could not help becoming ; and that since the Apothecaries' licence does not qualify for surgery,* while at the same time the Surgeons' diploma does not qualify for medicine, the class of surgeon-apothecary was quite as inevitably called for. That all this history is only an illustration of the stern law of supply and demand a few figures will tell at once. There are in England and Wales at this time only four hundred physicians with an English licence, including as such Doctors and Bachelors of Oxford, Cambridge, and London, Fellows, Members, Licentiates, and Extra-Licentiates of the Physicians' Col- lege; but there are 5,580 persons engaged in general practice, with the two qualifications provided by the English apothecaries and the surgeons; 1,880 more practising with the single diploma of the English College of Surgeons, 1,200 with no more than the English Apothecaries' licence. Eight thousand five hundred is now the number of the class that the physicians once thought themselves able to crush, and the country finds that it can manage with no more than four hundred physicians. * Since this paper was written there has been further advance by the Society of Apothecaries in the right direction. Its system of examination has more than kept pace with the advanced re- quirements of the time ; full attention is paid to surgery ; and the Apothecaries' licence now gives legal rights that cover the whole duties of an English general practitioner in surgery and medicine. THE CLUB SURGEON. Pall Mall, your London street of palaces, does not contain my Club. I have incurred no risk of being pilled at the Carlton Club. I have never dozed at the Reform Club. My Club is in the provinces. No doubt it is a very poor affair ; and I was a great blockhead to look forward, as I once did, to the day when I should be balloted for by its members. I am surgeon to my Club. I receive from it half-yearly pence, and pay to it daily labour. Everyone may have heard of the Army and Navy Club, the University Club, the Travellers' Club ; but there are many, I daresay, who know nothing of the Country Surgeons' Club. Most surgeons and apothecaries in the country know of it, however, well enough. It is one of a strong suit of clubs held by the provincial medical world ; held very good-humouredly, although not trumps, by men who arc ever ready to put forth their skill, and play — indeed I must spoil the parallel to say here — to work, and to work hard ; for love as often as for money. No idlers at a window in St. James's can lounge better than the members of my Club do on a Monday. The members of my Club smoke often, and dine occasionally at their club-house. They ballot for new members, they are particular about their rules, and enforce them by means of a committee. ]\Iost of the members dress strictly according to the fashion of the place in which they live, wearing over their other clothes a kind of flannel petti- coat. We have a majority and a minority among the TJie Club SiiJ'^con. 26 1 members of that particular specimen of the Country Sur- geons' Club with which I am connected. The majority consists of colliers smutted with black who work every day (except Monday), the minority, of potters who work all day smutted white. But in the Club all members fra- ternise: the black man and the white are brothers. Brothers all of us in a peculiar sense, and having brethren in all parts of England able to identify us by the mystic nature of our grasp ; or, if more be necessary, by a few cabalistic words and signs, which we have sworn not to reveal to strangers; for my Club is a stout branch from the stem of the Ancient Order of Woodmen, tracing our genealogy very far back through Robin Hood. Clubs of this kind are established, it is well known, as Friendly Societies ; and the member, in consideration of regular payments during health, is entitled to a weekly allowance during sickness, to gratuitous medical assistance, to a fixed allowance for funeral expenses, and to other advantages. Some of the largest clubs are connected with societies bound, by a system of freemasonry, in fellowship with other bodies scattered through the country; — such as the Odd Fellows and Foresters, while others are purely local Benefit Societies. Until the calculations upon which these bodies founded their schemes were put under the control of a Government actuary, they often caused, in spite of the best intentions, a great waste of the money of the poor. Attempting too much, they became bankrupt just when their solvency was most essential ; — when the young and healthy men who had joined them, having become old and infirm, required to draw relief out of the fund to which they had been contributing their savings, during perhaps twenty or thirty years. It is not my purpose here to discuss the principle of clubs of this kind, and of Benefit Societies. I am looking at my Club purely from the medical point of view. 262 Papers from ^^ Household Words'. I was only beginning to get on in my district, doing the reasonable work of two men for seventy pounds a year, as parish surgeon, and filling up what leisure time I could make with odds and ends of private practice and the work supplied by a few unimportant clubs. The parish work required the help of an assistant ; but, as the said assistant must be qualified, and as a qualified surgeon could not be lodged, fed, and salaried at a much smaller cost than seventy pounds, it was quite evident that I must ride, walk, sit up of nights, make pills, spread blisters for my slice or two of bread-and-butter, hoping that by good deeds among the multitude of men who could not pay me, I might earn the confidence of some who could pay me. The name of a small tradesman likely to run up, and able to pay, a ten- pound bill in the twelve months was, at that time, one of the best glories of my day-book and ledger. To get the Woodmen's Club was then my nearest hope. There was a chance for me : being the last new-comer I was very popular among the poor ; and the miraculous recovery of a patient whom I had left to nature, and to whom I had administered water tinged with a little compound tincture of cardamoms, had created for me an enormous reputation in the immediate neighbourhood of some of the most influen- tial of the Ancient Woodmen. Beerley — who was surgeon to the club — had very often been re-elected in spite of a repeated half-yearly notice of dismissal, on account of various shortcomings ; but it appeared at length to be quite obsti- nately settled that his last half-year of office had arrived. It was then clear to all the parish that the choice of a new surgeon would lie between me and my neighbour Parkinson. To compare the teaching and the training which is of a kind to make the thoroughly well-educated medical man a genuine philosopher, with all the petty details of the life he has to lead in many thousand cases as a general practitioner, would be a very edifying task, Parkinson and I had terrible TJie Club Surgeon. 263 heartburnings about that Club, the appointment to which involved attendance on a hundred and fifty men for the payment of four shillings a year from each. But then we reasoned : These men are in receipt of good pay ; among the colliers are some charter-masters, and whoever pleases them attends, perhaps, their families who are not members of the Club, and against whom he may add up a bill. Besides, it is all — that indefinable mystery — connection. Therefore, I quarrelled with Parkinson because he can- vassed among the Ancient Woodmen, insinuated himself into the hearts of colliers w^ho had votes, and even courted some of them at the "Thistle" itself, which is the house at which my Club assembles, and there won the goodwill of the host — always an influential person — by joviality and an affected love of beer. I thought this unprofessional, and I cut Parkinson ; for I was myself a very Coriolanus in the way of canvassing. Nevertheless I was elected. The secretary of our branch of the Ancient Order of Woodmen, accompanied by a member or two, came to announce to me, in a dignified way, the cheering fact. I accepted office wnth none the less dignity, because I knew the messenger to have been one of my opponents. Parkinson attended the secretary's family, and if I were to behave too cordially towards the head of that family, it might be inferred that I desired to take away some part of Parkinson's practice. I desired very much that it should come to me, but had no right or wish to take it ; therefore I w^as in constant dread lest some good- humoured word or bit of cheerful gossip might, by some possibility, be interpreted into an atttempt at theft. Since it is necessary that the surgeon to the Woodmen should himself be initiated as a member of that ancient Order, my first duty to my Club was to become a Woodman on the next evening of meeting. On that evening I went down for the first time to my club-house, the " Thistle'', a 264 Papers from ^^ Household Words''. picturesque inn at the bottom of a hill-road, overlooking a swift river. The evening turned out to be a black January night ; and, as I sat by a dim light in the host's parlour, awaiting the moment of formal introduction to the assembled Woodmen upstairs ; getting an occasional sight of the unfriendly face of the host, whose ale I was now, as in duty bound, for the first time tasting ; and listening to the rush of the river outside, and the discordant blowing of Wood- men's horns upstairs, every now and then, at certain stages of the ceremony ; I thought myself the loneliest of poor young country doctors. At length a functionary with a woodman's club in his hand came for me, and ushered me upstairs to a door, before which stood another club-bearer, who beat upon it in a mystic way, who received answer mystically from within, and so procured admittance. Then I beheld my Club in its supreme glory. Its big horns, its mace, its badges, and its officers and members, looking powerfully grave, as I was set upon a wooden stool. The President then rose and read to me as well as he could a very long sermon indeed, out of a little book, concerning woodmen, from Adam and Eve down- wards, and the duties and kind feelings by which woodmen are bound together. I thought there was more than a spark of wholesome, human goodness at the bottom of it ; but the absurd solemnity of the assembly, the pantomime pro- perties represented by the colossal horns, and the amazing way in which the President pronounced all the hard words he came to, made it extremely difficult for me to fill the interesting situation in which I was placed without a displa)^, before the court, of unbecoming levity. I repeated certain forms, was instructed in certain childish mysteries, and, kneeling on the footstool, repeated the formal vow not to reveal them to the uninitiate. Having done that, I paid a guinea, as the contribution of an honorary member. The social business of the evening then commenced ; the The Club Surgeon. 265 grave court resolved itself into an assembly of colliers and potters, who smoked pipes and drank beer in a spirit of good fellowship, and abounded in courtesy and politeness towards their newly-elected doctor. The great majority of working-men are from iheir hearts truly courteous and polite. I wish to say something about this. I began prac- tice as assistant in a purely agricultural district, employed by a practitioner of ample independent means. From the first day that I went there, very young and utterly unknown, every cottager touched his hat to me. Strangers who came on a visit to the place, if they wore good clothes, were greeted invariably with touched hats, bows, and curtseys. That is not courtesy, it is a mark of a degraded state of feeling. When I first went among the colliers I got no signs of recognition until I had earned them. Better wages and a little more to think about have made our workmen in the north more independent than the southern agricul- turist ; but it is precisely because they are less servile that they are able to be more really courteous. Now that I have made my way here and am prosperous, many hat-touchings do indeed greet me — when, for example, walking against the stream, I meet our congregation coming out of church ; but these greetings express a genuine respect. I have joined broken bones for the greeters, I have watched by their sick children, I have brought health to their wives, often receiv- ing, and I may venture to say contented by, these kind looks for my main remuneration. The courtesy I get among these colliers is genuine; and, although they and their wives gossip like their betters, and make now and then a little cruel mischief, I have seen and know that simple kindly thoughts and impulses of the most genuine politeness prevail largely among them. Yet, they are perhaps the roughest and the least enlightened of the working-men, except those who are employed in agriculture. My Woodmen discoursed, therefore, in a courteous spirit ; I s 266 Papers from ''Household Words''. their officers discussed the few details upon which it con- cerned me to be informed, gave me the names of those who were then sick, together with a list of members of the Club, by which I might know what men were entitled to demand my services, in consideration of the four shillings apiece, paid yearly on their account. So, after drinking a little beer in token of good fellowship, I travelled home through a wet night, with thirty pounds a year added to my income, and the care of the health of a hundred and fifty men added to my work. Not long afterwards I found myself in charge of a very large number of patients, for whom medical aid was procured through a dispensary which paid to me three shillings for the whole attendance upon each case, including medicine. In this respect I was better off than many of my brethren who strive hard to obtain appointments to dispensaries that pay them nothing but the cheap accidental advantage of putting their names a little more before the local public. Other clubs subjected themselves to my lancet, among them a large church club established by the rector in antagonism to the societies which led men into the way of waste by meeting at public-houses. Nevertheless the number of my private patients increased slowly. At that time, after receiving patients in the surgery, and visiting in busy seasons as many as ninety sick people at their own homes, very often there were only three or four doubtfully profitable private entries for the day-book in the evening, and my poor heart rejoiced at any midnight knocking that might bid me give up my night's rest for a half-guinea fee. Very often indeed, however, the night-call was to a club patient, or parish or dispensary case. At that time, being unable to afford assistance, I was out, on an average, not less than three nights in a week ; and, as the average was very unequally distributed, sometimes the act of going to bed continued for a fortnight together to be a useless ceremony TJic Chib Surgeon. 267 tliat could result only in pure aggravation. I would not record these experiences if they were matters purely per- sonal, but there are thousands of my fellow-labourers who are, and have been, in the same predicament. If a stray club patient whose case fell properly to the care of my neighbour Parkinson disturbed my broken rest, I sent him on to the right door and went asleep again ; if Parkinson were out, and he came back to tell me so, I went with him ; but, if ever in such a case harm came of delay, the heartless apathy of the doctor, who did not care for the lives of club or parish patients, was noised as the cause of all. If two urgent calls were simultaneous — as they would be some- times — there was a certainty of getting heartily abused by somebody, and a chance perhaps of having one's professional and moral character be-argued in a court of law. Every month I see some surgeon in the newspapers thus ill-rewarded for the hard life he has led. There is nobody to blame for all this, and there is nothing wanting but a litde more discrimination on the part of the public, a little generosity in recognition of the work that country surgeons do. While families unable to bear the extra cost of sickness form a large part of the popula- tion, either one half of the people of this country must find their way to the grave without a doctor, or else the doctor must consent to spend a large part of his skijl in labour that produces little or no money return. He does so spend it, as he thinks, in the fulfilment of a noble duty. Though among ignorant patients many things occur to vex him, he bears with them patiently, and if he comes with a sound heart to his work he acquires faith in the poor. " Love has he found in huts, where poor men lie ;" they become warm friends to him, and become lusty trum- peters to sprtad abroad the fame of skill that he has been glad to exercise among them. Our ill-paid work is done s 2 268 Papers from ^^ Household Words'. ungrudgingly, but after it is done we are a little galled when we are censured thoughtlessly for the neglects which are inseparable from the performance of so huge a mass of urgent duty. It annoys us when we have patients able to pay becomingly for our assistance, who regard us rather as tradesmen than as gentlemen, require bills that contain long lists of pills and mixtures to be filed together with the joints of meat and groceries consumed by the establishment, and pay us with a secret feeling, half-expressed, that we have taken care to be well paid. Why then do we overload ourselves with work ? Why, for example, did I consent to take the Woodman's Club? Because I wanted thirty pounds a year; because I wanted and liked work too, feeling pleasure — as only the dullest surgeons do not — in the active exercise of my profession, and because I hoped thereby to increase my knowledge^ my power, and my connection. When I had a dispensary and other clubs added to the parish why did I endeavour to do all that work single-handed? Because I had not at that time so much private practice as enabled me to pay the cost of an assistant. It is not pure labour that the country apothecary spends upon his parish and his clubs. They oblige him to run up a heavy drug-bill, to buy expensive instruments, and to keep a horse. The drug-bill of a young country surgeon who has parish work and clubs, with very little private practice, easily reaches fifty pounds a year; and if he has no friend from whom to borrow instruments, the cost of them is serious. He must be prepared to meet every emergency and to per- form any operation. He cannot send, as he would in London, for assistance from the hospitals; and though he may send for any surgeon in his neighbourhood by way of consultation, to advise with him, or take part in the respon- sibility of any obviously active measure, yet the performance of the active measure must be by himself. When he trans- The Club Surgeon. 269 fers the duty to a rival he confesses his inferior ability, and transfers to the prompter man his patient's confidence. The country surgeon, if he would act for himself, and incur no risk of figuring unpleasantly at inquests, must have at hand every instrument which, like the stomach-pump, may be demanded suddenly, and must purchase others as they are called into request. If he has much poor practice, and nobody to borrow from during his first years, while he can least afford any expense, the call for one instrument after another will be tolerably brisk. In the first quarter of my attendance on the Ancient Woodmen I spent all the quarter's money profit on an instrument required for the performance on a Club member of an operation not likely to be called for half-a-dozen times in a long course of prac- tice. I had a broken leg two or three miles away in one direction, and a fever case requiring for some time daily attention two or three miles off in another. In addition to the cases of average slightness furnished by my Club I was summoned to some dozen members who had nothing par- ticularly the matter with them, and who only sent for their doctor on some trivial errand, because they had nothing to pay for his attendance. All this time the followers of Parkinson were on the watch to register against me cases of neglect. Of course they would and did occur ; but as like cases were common to every surgeon in the parish, they were easily attributed to the general carelessness of medical men in their attendance upon the poor. They did me no harm, but as Midsummer and the great annual Club day and Club dinner drew near, I was warned that a hostile motion was on foot, that Beerleyites and Parkinsonites were forming a coalition, and that my-ownites could not maintain me in my place if I did not wipe a certain stain out of my character. That stain was pride; inasmuch as the opposing faction, led by 270 Papas from ''HotiscJiold Words". mine host of the "Thistle", averred that it was very ungracious in me never to have come down to the monthly meetings to take my glass of beer with the assembled brethren. I was too proud to associate with working-men. I was indeed spending my life among them and upon them, but the main point was the glaiis of beer. Besides, my pride was well enough known, for I had missed the annual dinner at another of my clubs, and had put upon it the indignity of sending an apprentice, a mere boy, who could not carve a sausage. I was warned, therefore, by friendly Woodmen, that whatever I might think about the best employment of my time, if I did not go to the Woodman's dinner, I should in all probability get notice of dismissal from the Wood- man's Club. I revoked therefore my tacit intention to pay for the dinner and abstain from eating it. True it is that the eating and smelling of a quantity of hot meat, and the breathing of tobacco smoke, in the middle of a hot working- day in July, can be considered only as a serious infliction; but I dared not trifle with my character. Already the growth of private practice had been seriously retarded by my unprofessional conduct in not wearing a beaver hat. Subject to much physical fatigue, and liable to headache, I had found beavers a source of torment, and wore therefore, in spite of much scandal, a light fur cap in winter, and in summer a straw hat, using Leghorn in deference to public notions of respectability. The want of a black hat re- tarded the growth of my private practice very seriously. A very lady-like individual, wife of a small grocer, Mrs. Evans, frequently declared that "she had heard me to be clevsr, and would have sent for me in her late illness, but she could not think of having a doctor come to her house in a cap, it was so very unusual." As I really could not give in on the hat question, it was a lucky day for me when I afterwards bethought myself of making up for the loose The Club Surgeon. 271 style of dress upon my head, by being very stiff about the neck. I took to the wearing of white neckcloths with the happiest effect. Everybody thought of the Church: I looked so good and correct in a clean white neckcloth, that I drew a tooth from Mrs. Evans in the second week of it. My practice rose steadily from that date, and in popu- larity I became a rival even to the rector. What I should have done, if I had effected a crisis by repenting of my fur and straw, and resolving to wear a good hat for the re- mainder of my days, and be at peace with all men, I don't know. Hats I continue to abominate. But as I had not then thought of the white neckcloth, it was necessary that I should appease my Club public, at any rate, by dining jovially in their company. I therefore not only took a ticket for their feast, but replied to the dubious inquiries of the stewards by a hearty promise that I would be there, unless most urgent matters hindered me. There was a grand procession in the morning through our little town, when Club-day came. The Ancient Wood- men walked with banner, badge, and bugle under the hot sky, until one would suppose that they must have walked themselves out of all appetite for anything but liquid food. More urgent matters did not hinder me, and duly at half- past one I saw the food they came to ; soHd enough. My place was at the head of the table before a quarter of lamb : down the table there were joints of meat and dishes of ducks, a great many dishes of peas and a few dishes of potatoes. There was no bread used except by half-a-dozen of the hundred-and-twenty diners; the general sentiment being that the Ancient Woodmen could eat bread at home ; that they had paid a certain number of shillings for their tickets, and were bound to eat the value of their money, which they could not comfortably take in bread. The same opinion operated against potatoes. The colliers beat the potters hollow in the point of appe- 2/2 Papers from ''Household Words''. tite. I have dined with City Companies, but even an alderman cannot handle a knife and fork in competition with a collier who is eating out the vali e of his dinner- ticket, and endeavouring to secure a balance in his own favour, if possible. The actual manipulation of the knife may be more dexterous in aldermen ; the colliers were sufficiently ungainly in the way of getting through their work, but the amount of work they did, it was a grand spectacle to see. Ducks were the favourite meat; they were carved, invariably, and eaten, after a plan that would have surprised nobody had they been partridges : each duck was cut by main force into two equal parts, being regarded only as sufficient to supply two plates. As for my quarter of lamb — I am remembering, and not imagining — when I had cut off the shoulder-joint and held it lifted on the carving-fork in the vain expectation that somebody would produce a dish in which to put it, a worthy collier regarding that joint as a tender slice which he should be sorry to see given to another, pushed up his plate, and paralysed me for a moment with the hungry exclama- tion — " I'll take that, if you please, sir." So we began our dinner : how w^e went on, drank ale, and smoked, and sang, and how I had a speech to make and made it, how the Ancient Woodmen voted me a trump, how I retained and still retain the confidence of my Club, I need not go on to relate. It was my wish to make a little knowledge public that will help harsh critics of the country surgeon to more kindly and more just conclusions than they sometimes draw from awkward premises. In a vague way men are ready to confess that we give much of our toil very generously for little or no pay, but they have only a dim notion of the small annoyances we bear, of the unjust complaints that vex us most when we endea- vour most to do our best. BUYING A PRACTICE. How to begin Practice? is a mighty question to young medical men who have advanced no farther than to the diploma, the first baiting-place upon the highway of ambi- tion. If the world be as it used to be, there are brave hearts among those young men, covering noble aspirations under careless chatter ; cherishing sacred dreams of future homes under an affectation of a worldliness that satisfies their comrades and strikes awe into their juniors. If the world be not changed, these young men, simple and warm- hearted, are the chosen worms of certain hard-beaked birds, who generously offer them a place in their own nests, who snap them up and convey them to those nests on terms of advantageous partnership. The worms are introduced for a consideration. I myself was once a worm in a rook's nest ; we were Mr. Rook and Mr. Worm, surgeons, many years ago. But in my case the worm was lucky — wriggled out, had a bad fall, and a complete recovery. If I am not quite an obsolete croaker, and if the world should have still a pinch of the old leaven in it, give me liberty to speak. There is a dear, kind-hearted, blundering old public on the one hand ; there is, on the other hand, a battalion of brave young aspirants. As a friend to the one and to the other party, let me try to bring them fairly face to face. Since rogues are to be mentioned, let me set out by declaring an assured belief that there are a thousand reason- ably honest men to set against every rascal in the universe. 2/4 Papers from ''All the Year Round''. Every man is indeed some sort of cheat ; but the great majority of men err only by falUng into pits and over snares. Those are the few, who dig and spread them. We shall discuss medical rogues, and, therefore, let me for my- self remember to how many of the men I honour and love most in the world, and have most reason to love and honour, physic is meat and drink. What noble toil, what sacred aspiration, what self-denial, what divine soul of charity, have I seen animating men of the prescription and the pestle ! Well I know by the old doctors what the young doctors — a still better educated race — will be. But if the world be not changed, the race of rooks is active in its search for worms. The recruit marching to join an army has to press through a rascal crowd of camp-followers before he reaches its main body, and will guard his pocket in their company. There are underground workers in every profession. Those of the medical faculty work in two mines — public credulity and private innocence : the innocence of the young men who wander up and down, eager to learn how to begin practice. These young men may be worked most profitably. They are small capitalists, eager to find other men's pockets in which to place their money : happy to pay bank-notes for flourishes on paper. They are beset, therefore, with accommodating offers. What shall they believe? How shall they protect them- selves, and avoid buying sorrow for the bright young partners of their hope with whom they exchange con- fidential details and suggestions through the country post — good little girls, who shall be doctors' wives some day ? Be shrewd, now, for your own sake, little girl, and lend the help of your bright eyes for the discovery of Doctor Corvus whenever he is at hand. He is your lover's demon, as you are his angel, and the tempter comes in many shapes. That true-hearted young fellow, whose diploma you have read with reverence, is quite a Faust for learning, Btiying a Practice. 275 and no Mephistopheles would make him wish for any other prize of beauty than yourself. But there is a Mephis- topheles who finds him eager for a nest to take you to, ambitious and self-confident as youth should be. He it is who may fly away with the young man into a crow's-nest. Be a wise maiden, and keep watch. I knew a clever youth — knew him because a day of sorrow opened to my sight for a few hours the depths of his warm heart — and when he had laboured much and suffered something, he was looking for his place in life. When should he, Biceps, begin practice ? There was the usual little woman down in the country, writing the usual number of little notes ; there was the lump of parental capital — an honest tradesman's entire earnings — to set him up in a pro- fession for which he was competent. To Biceps, tenderly trained in a religious home, the tempter came, confessing that he was a scoffer. "There's only a thousand a year at Cheatenhall, expenses paid ; but it 's a large place where there are thousands to be humbugged. If you join me, we shall soon double the practice. Medical men take a great deal of solemn credit to themselves ; but all these pills and draughts and mixtures really are for the most part humbug, and patients demand to be laboriously trifled with. Be- tween ourselves, we are all of us humbugs. I profess only to be a man of the world, give people what they choose to pay for, and receive the benefit. I'm something of a betting man, I am ashamed to say, and have neglected a practice rather to my hurt. Besides, I don't get the pro- fessedly religious people, who are a large body in Cheat- enhall. If you stick to the work and go to church, you'll soon double the bulk of the day-book. Half of a thousand a year is not enough to live upon : but you know very well, as a man of the world, that two horses can pull a bigger load than one. However, I would advise you to take your time, if you think 276 Papers fro7n ''All the Year Rotmd". anything of our putting our horses together. Come down for a few months as an assistant, see what the work is, and look at leisure through the books. It is easier to tie a knot, you know, than to unpick it." Biceps went to see for himself, and walked up and down Cheatenhall for weeks in spectacles provided for him by the tempter, who was always at his side. There was practice, there was money, there was unlimited room for expansion. Corvus did truly repel the religious world ; while all his talk was preter- naturally laden with that selfish wisdom which young men — especially when they are themselves generous and trustful — often erroneously suppose to be the atmosphere of com- merce : " I want this man", thought Biceps, " to help me to make money. Surely he is the right sort of man to be safe with in a pounds-shillings-and-pence relation." So the bond was signed, and the rash student became the slave of his familiar. Corvus, of course, intercepted and retained part- nership money ; disappointing facts came out ; Biceps toiled and hoped. Corvus dipped into a private and personal bankruptcy of his own, and having already sucked up his partner's capital, tested in the next place his borrowing power, by involving him in fresh expense and risk. Years have run by, and Biceps lights alone a weary battle, still living on hope, with a sister for his housekeeper. The pale little woman in the country still comforts him with little letters ; sometimes he can escape to her for a chance day. And the years are flying, and the five hundred a year, on which one cannot live, is longed for as a dream of com- petence which two may yet survive to share together. Be true to your hearts, men and maids ! Defy whatever tempts you with a sneer, and make no compact with avowed dishonesty. It is not getting support from without in the sort of worldliness you fancy to be wanting in your- selves. The temper of each age is its own proper worldli- ness. Joy is the worldliness of childhood, hope of youth, Buying a Practice. 277 prudence of age ; each does its own work in its own time, when it hves faithfully in natural communion with the other two. Anceps wrote sentimental poetry and physicked another man's paupers in the west, before he went north to expend his capital in partnership with a philanthropist. Dr. Corvus, of Smashley, what an honest man was he ! Substantial was his build, his hair was crisp and grey, he abjured fermented drinks, making amends to his system with butter and potatoes ; his house was his own freehold, and the best house in the place; his tongue was (if Anceps had but known that soon enough) his whole estate. He was a temperance orator, a benefactor of A., B.'s trusted adviser, C.'s forlorn hope, and the friend in need of D. He could talk jauntily to young Anceps about Avicenna, create an impression of much hidden knowledge in himself while syringing the ears of the young dreamer with oil of flattery. " My practice", he said to the youth, "has been falling off for years. I have been established forty years in Smashley, and have done w^ell ; but a foolish desire to do what good I can in unprofessional ways causes me to attend meetings and to be summoned frequently to London. I have with- drawn so much time from my practice that I shall be losing it unless I take a partner \yho will see that nothing is neglected. I am not wholly dependent on my profession, and I could not tie myself to anyone who could not sym- pathise with my desires and be an intellectual friend. I do much hope that we shall come together. I liked you the first moment I saw you." So Anceps yielded up his blood. The young fellow went to Smashley and began life as a working partner, while the benevolent familiar was in London, strewing blessings on his race, as he suggested. He was in reality spending the patrimony of Anceps in riotous enjoyment of the law- courts, upon which he had already wasted his own sub- 278 Papers from ''All the Year Round'\ stance. For, among writs, subpoenas, attorneys' costs, bailiffs, mortgages, and executions, this particular form of Corvus was at home. In his medical ledger there were many names ; these had been all the wealthy and the honest people in the town, and there were still most of the rogues and paupers. There was only by the rarest chance ever a patient who paid money without compulsion, or was asked to pay less than four times an honest charge when finally by due process of law compelled. The weak point of the philanthropist was litigation. Some men love neighbours who will sit down with them to a rubber at whist : this sort of Corvus loved neighbours who would sit down with him — no matter for what stakes — to an action at law. A law- court was his gambling-house. He often won, and he had ruined many — ruined others even when he was himself a loser. When Anceps fell under his tempting, there were hidden behind the mask of the philanthropist the haggard lines of the long-ruined gamester. House and land were mortgaged, show of practice was a fraud ; nobody warned the deluded youth, lest warning might be actionable. A little damsel, far away, doubted and hoped. The long- haired young doctor, if Nature had not made a fool of him, had made one of himself ; but alas ! not for himself alone ; also for the loving little heart that pined and sorrowed far away. Anceps became familiar with law procedure. He is grey, and lean, and broken — and the little girl is dead. Forceps had money enough to buy " opening" after open- ing till all was spent. He had for his money three visits from Corvus, of whom he purchased : i. A snug practice, with an open shop, which ceased to comfort him when he had eaten all the ginger lozenges that formed part of the stock-in-trade. 2. Partnership with a religious physician, who embezzled more than his share of the profits on the prospect of which Forceps married. 3. A nucleus, as it is called (a nothing which is paid for in the hope that it may Buying a Practice. 279 grow to something), in a seaport town. He has ten children, and is medical adviser to the lighthouse. That was the nucleus, and the lighthouse has diffused none of its rays yet into his future. But Forceps is also surgeon to his parish, and receives the cost of the horse he rides and of the drugs he gives in labour for the poor, with nothing for himself. His pains are his own, and he is left with them. Forceps, I am sorry to say, found Corvus behind the mask of a high professional reputation. He and another youth joined capitals to pay the heavy price required for introduction to an eminent position. They never doubted that where fame was, there was honour also. A legal evasion made it possible for the distinguished Corvus to re- tain the cake that he had sold. The two young men were ruined utterly. Forceps died long since of a broken heart. His friend lives under a blue hght in a little by-street of the London suburbs. The trim little lady of old who was to have graced his drawing-room is to be seen at eleven o'clock any morning in a dirty gown, with a lean first-born clinging to it ; excusing, perhaps, her neglect of payment to the butcher at the door, or uttering complaint to the baker on the price of bread. Deinceps had suspicion, but was eager. Promise was very good in Corvus ; but, would he perform } Then said the tempter, "Another presses me; agree now, or the open- ing IS lost to you." He agreed, and this good opening in life was lost to him indeed. Broken fortune can be mended ; but, only with time, and patience, and minute attention. It takes long labour rightly to cement together all the pieces of a vessel that was shattered in an instant by a single fall. Broken fortune may be replaced with different and better fortune, by many who have capital enough of energy within themselves. There is no ruin for the strong of heart ; but all hearts are not strong. — All the Year Rounds AugMSt 1859. PULLING THROUGH. Mrs. Pawley, having made my punch, has left me by the fire, and is in bed. Bokes, the apprentice, having sent out all medicines, made all his infusions for to-morrow, and rolled a gallipot full of our house-pills, has earned and eaten an enormous supper, learnt the lower jawbone, read ten pages of Tennyson's In Me?noriajn, written a letter to his sweetheart, sharpened his penknife, operated upon his own finger-nails, and is in bed. Eleven Pawleys junior retired to bed at different times during the evening. All the house is asleep, I hope, and everything alive in it pulsating as calmly as the study-clock on yonder chest of drawers. This is my hour for reading what my brother doctors are about, and picking up new crumbs of knowledge helpful to me in my practice from our weekly journals, quarterly reviews, and half-yearly retrospect of medicine and surgery. Sometimes, in spite of all precaution, it will happen that the crumbs of science lie untasted, while Thomas Pawley enjoys an hour's wool-gathering, his thoughts helped back now and then into the past by a stray reference to the contents of all those drawers on which the representative of friendly Time now sits triumphant. It was a work of time, Deborah Tims, but we pulled through. What pious resignations of all hope of marriage, and what vows to be a faithful single woman until death, true to the unfortunate Tom Pawley, that old clock is chuckling over, with its long hand just about to strike, and pointed upstairs towards the nursery over my head. One, two, three, eleven ! Pulling Through. 281 There lies, ready to be posted, Bokes's letter to " Miss Comfort, the Misses Dummie and Stiff, Chlorosis House, near Godsacre". He is not yet of age to doubt about his pulling through, and he will have to pull through his exami- nation to get into practice, and pull through many a shallow before Jane Comfort, now a governess pupil, presently to be a governess, shall have pulled through the troubles of her single state. Bokes's father failed last year ; and he has no rich friend. But, wherever that young gentleman sleeps, there sleeps the brave. No misgiving about the future hurts his appetite or breaks his rest. Indeed, he looks down from a mental elevation of his own upon my country practice, profitable as it is, with all its toil and the disgraceful rows of gallipots and bottles in the surgery. He means to be a consulting or an operating surgeon, or a physician with a place of business in Savile Row, and an estate at Windsor. Let him unlearn his day-dreams, but remain determined in his hope ; and, with the help of time, he will pull through. Five-and-thirty years ago, my best friend in this village, and my sole companion in this house, was a dog. The old post-woman ought to have been held a better friend, punc- tually as she toddled to the back-door twice a week with a bit of the love-tale of Deborah Tims in her basket. But then, also, she toddled to the back-door daily with wafered - letters of demand from creditors and lawyers, with notes of contemptuous pity or expostulation from friends, refusal of small requests, portentous missives of advice, anonymous letters, meant to sting (though these counted but as the gain of so much wastepaper), with everything that could premise shipwreck of T. Pawley's life. In those days the sight of the post-woman's red cloak gave me a thrill of pain. We have a dapper postman now (for Beetleborough has enlarged its borders), and the post-office is a fountain of delight to all our household — now that it is thirty years since I I T 282 Papers from ''All the Year Roiind'\ pulled through. The story of that pull may be of use to some young Bokes ; so here it is, and much good may it do him. Desperately anxious to begin the world, I qualified myself for practice at the age of twenty-one, and went into the country as assistant to a busy surgeon, only that I might be as free as I could make myself, while looking out for a fair opening in life. I watched advertisements, and put myself upon the books of medical agents, hoping for something that would satisfy my longing, and pass m.uster with my friends. It must be something very tempting that would justify me, to them, in rushing at the unripe age of twenty- one or twenty-two into the full responsibilities of independ- ent practice. To much noble promise I was deaf, until within a twelve- month I had made a great discovery, and was put by a medical agent into communication with Ezekiel Hawley, Esq., M.D., of Beetleborough, who desired, on reasonable terms, to share evenly with me a practice of One Thousand Pounds a year. Doctor Hawley had a frank way of correspondence, wel- come to ingenuous youth, and his almost fatherly manner when we met inspired me with respect and confidence. It was the benevolence of a father — he was thirty years my senior — blended with the respect due from an equal. I had taken his fancy, as he found some way of saying ; there was so much harmony of taste between us, and he had long felt the want in Beetleborough of a friend with literary tastes and enlarged sympathies with whom he could exchange, at the end of his day's work, a thought, a feeling, or a fancy. Beetleborough was in a wild pit-country, and its gentry was composed chiefly of single ladies, while the great mass of its population was unformed. A partner, in such a district, was a pure misfortune if he could not be a friend, and he did hope, therefore, that we might come to terms. He had Pulling Through. 283 practised in the place for four-and-tvventy years, but of late it had begun so rapidly to increase that his work grew upon his hands, when he was wishing for a little rest. He had earned enough for himself and his wife, with their two daughters, but he had no wish to sink into absolute in- activity. Therefore, and because it was manifest that with help from a younger man's energy the practice could in a few years be doubled, he had thought of a partner. Pur- chase-money for the practice w^as no great consideration with him. His lawyer had fixed it at eight hundred and fifty pounds. He had himself no notion whatever of the sum that should be asked ; he did not care how it was paid, and knew no more about law matters than he did of Avicenna's . Here he named a work that I had never heard of, and gave an impression of great knowledge in professing ignorance. I went down to Beetleborough from a sunny western village that defiled the air with nothing coarser than a few wreaths of wood smoke. I left there a benighted population, in which every man, woman, and child not wearing broadcloth or silk made formal reverence before those textures. What I found was the place where I now live, a rich scene blackened and burnt, air thickened by day with smoke of a hundred coke-heaps. It is so ablaze by night with the reflexion from blast- furnaces, that friends from London who come down to visit us in these our quiet days, for the first night or two cannot convince themselves that there are not houses on fire in every direc- tion. Not a soul then gave to my broadcloth more than a rough stare. When, however. Dr. Hawley drove me in his gig to see " one or two of his poor pensioners", we had an insulting body-guard of little boys behind us all the way up a hill. " These are the free ways of the North," said the good doctor. Tidier people looked at us with marked curiosity and T 2 284 Papers from ''All tJie Year Round". interest, but I was glad to miss all the servile obeisances to which I had been of late accustomed. Now that I have pulled through, it seems that all this happened for the best. I think it did. Nevertheless, for years and years I felt that if, instead of offering to any one of those small boys or of those wayfarers whom we met, a penny for his thoughts, I had offered and paid even five hundred pounds for the contents of the very emptiest head of them all, they would have been cheap to me at such a price. The juniors hooted and the elders stared ; but not a creature said a word to save me from the ruin to which all thought I was doomed. In the doctor's house I could see ledger and day-book. There was no lack of prescriptions and of patients' names, with heavy accounts registered as paid. I could ask my father to come down and see things for himself. Doctor Hawley entertained him blandly, left all to him as a man of the world, admired T. Pawley, but privately contrived to suggest that as T. P. was young and somewhat romantic, the alliance with a quiet old practitioner, who had experience of life, would be the very thing to keep him out of danger. Finally, the vicar came one evening, with one or two of the more serious supports of Beetleborough, and they supped with us at Doctor Hawley's, when a goose was cooked. Hereupon my father was so far satisfied, that, after the guests were gone, he came into my bedroom, gave me friendly counsel, promised to lend whatever of purchase- money was required beyond my own three hundred pounds, and consented to the partnership. To a raw youth the first load of responsibility is rather welcome than unwelcome. It gives a sense of dignity by the demand it makes upon his power. The cares of man- hood are as welcome to bold two-and-twenty as the coats of manhood to bold seventeen. My first act of prudence was to ensure the safe possession of my partnership by at once P tilling ThrougJi. 285 paying the rest of the purchase-money. While remaining in my hands, bank-notes might under some pressure change to gold, and gold to silver. To some fifteen pounds of dis- count for immediate payment, I observed timidly to Dr. Hawley that I was entitled. He assured me that he had DO present want of the money, that he understood nothing about investments, for he held nothing but house-property. If I paid him the money now, it would only lie idle at his banker's, and so if I knew how to make fifteen pounds of it by keeping it until the appointed day of payment, I had better keep it. Then, of course, I paid all to him on the spot without deducting discount, and again observed, but not with suspicion, the swaft clutch into w^hich it was re- ceived. Up to this time, Dr. Hawley had been my constant companion in Beetleborough ; indeed, we were inseparable. He now left me a little to myself. There was at Beetleborough a poor, broken-down surgeon — a Mr. Watts — upon the point of abandoning his work and going to another place to die. He had a wife and half- a-dozen sickly children, but no practice that he was clever enough to sell. While planning to take off his hands his house and furniture, with possibly some incidental scraps of practice that might stick to the house-walls, I pitied Watts with all my heart. But Doctor Hawley was so active in his behalf that he had undertaken the whole management of his affairs. Whether Watts, weakened by illness, could be influenced in spite of knowledge, or w^hether it was that he knew Hawley's power over me and looked to him as the best agent through whom to effect an advantageous transfer of his little properties, I cannot tell. Certainly Doctor Hawley was allowed to assume the character of Watts's sympathising friend. Deborah's father had lent me a hundred pounds for purchase of furniture, an act of weak- ness on his part, he said. He could ill spare it, and I was to repay him in a year. Out of this I gave Watts forty 286 Papers from '^All the Year Round''. pounds through Doctor Hawley's hands, and by the Doctor's private counsel, for a horse which I was forced to sell again for five pounds within half a year. I had only my partner's acknowledgment for that money, and dis- covered some months later that but twenty pounds of it were paid to the object of so much officious sympathy. It was already little less than a defrauding of the widow and the orphans ; Watts was in his grave within a twelvemonth. He anticipated the approaching end by suicide. Doctor Hawley went with me to Beetleborough, and then excused, on account of his sympathy with so much deep distress, an immediate return to London upon business re- lating to poor Watts's affairs. He hoped that he might yet find means to secure for his family some little opportunity of livelihood. It was not a busy time for practice, and he had lost ground, doubtless, by so many absences, but in a few days he would be back for good, and then we would both put our shoulders to the wheel. And so he vanished, not for days, but weeks. In the meantime, only a few paupers came to me. I stuck close by the surgery, had leisure to wonder at the very small quantity of drugs dispensed, though there was an imposing array of empty jars and bottles, and perceived the curious monotony of the prescriptions in the day-book, which appeared to recognise one tolerably harmless com- pound as the universal medicine. My paupers were reserved in manner : those whom I visited appeared to be afraid of me ; but all declared that Doctor Hawley was a wonderfully clever man. The doctor occupied the handsomest house in the village. It was built by himself, and stood in large, neglected grounds. Who would not put faith in such a house as that, and the grey head that it roofed ? The furniture was scanty, and the dinner-table was supplied more freely with water and potatoes than with other sorts Pulling TJirougJi. 287 of food. In later days, when every man's business was forced on my knowledge, I knew from the butcher that the meat-bill of that mansion had not averaged five shillings a week. But there was a very gentle lady in it— Mrs. Hawley — by whom there was given me for my Deborah a shilling copy, not a new one either, of Bogatzky's Golden Treasury, She was a pious, simple-hearted, trusting woman, and alas, alas ! the faithful, penniless wife of a swindler. She had been married for her fortune, and the big house had been built out of it. The doctor, whose degree was one of the pretences upon which he lived, had spent every shilling she possessed. He had deluded her, as he deluded hundreds of people wiser in this world than she or I professed to be ; but her only, for eighteen years, he kept in her delusion. His bland manner was practised on her constantly. When he had become— as he had when he picked me up— the terror of the neighbourhood, and all honest men shunned him ; when there were for years none whom she dared to visit, none who dared visit her ; and when for months, in every year, her husband was away, following his own devices ; she sat patiently at home, true to her faith in Heaven and the man whom she had married. From her simple defence of him, when sometimes we were together in his absence, and before I knew how much defence he needed, I caught almost the first shadow of my doubt. Everyone, she said, was jealous of his talents. Envy made people his enemies : besides, unhappily (that was indeed some grief to her), he had been misconstrued because he did not go to church. But his heart was so warm, he was so generous, she said, as she ate, shivering with frost by a few flickering coals, her scanty, solitary meal. Could there be need for so much parsimony, when I had just paid my friend eight hundred and fifty pounds ? I had only twenty-five sovereigns left, outside whatever might arise 288 Papers from ''All the Year Roimd'\ as earnings from the practice, and I could not see the use of Hving upon water and potatoes. One evening, there sat by the small basket of embers in our surgery an old man angered by the toothache. He planted himself on a stool. Dr. Hawley was expected home that night. Nobody should pull out his tooth but Doctor Hawley. He was a clever man, whatever he was. He meant to wait for him, so he sat down and grunted for a long time, till I ventured on a word of sympathy. "You may just keep your sympathy for yourself, young man." " Why ? What do you mean ? " " Doctor Hawley 's a deal cleverer than Master Pawley knows. But you'll not be the first to find it out." I had already fallen into the first stage of heartache, and gave weight to the man's words. But I paid no outward heed to them, and did not answer him. After another ten minutes the toothache suddenly abated, and the sense of relief from pain touched the old fellow's mind, I suppose, for he suddenly broke out with — " Hang it, I can't abide seeing you sit there by that glum candle, looking so young and so pale, without telling you right forward you're done for. There ! " " You may tell me what you please. Perhaps you mean well." "I mean that the sooner you be gone the better. I've known this house eighteen years, and never have seen aught in it but misery. Ask any man, woman, or child in Beetleborough. Doctor Hawley's most amazing clever, but if there's a wickeder creature on the earth or under the earth " " Then why do you come to him ? Why do you wait for him ? Why have you anything to do with him ? " " Because he's the best doctor in the county. None of the gentlefolks or tradesfolks come to him. I'm one of his Pulling Through. 289 patients. He'll do me good, and then I know he'll squeeze me. But I want to be done good to now — I'll take my chance about the squeezing. Many a poor man he 's charged ten pounds for a week's illness, and had him to the Court of Requests, and at last clapped him into prison." The man's tongue once loose, wagged for an hour, pouring incident on incident of fraud and cruelty. " I do not believe all this scandal. Doctor Hawley is in London even now for a kind purpose." " He 's in London now about two law-suits, that 's where he is. And that 's where all the money goes that ever he has got. He 's never out of law-suits, and he'll soon be having one with you. Nobody put you on your guard, I suppose, when you first came here. Lots of us were sorry, but there wasn't one dared speak. It 's actionable to speak truth of such a man." " What if I tell him all you have been saying ?" " Keep it to yourself, young man, and turn it over. Look about, ask questions, and then go back home." The doctor did not return that night, nor for another fortnight. To my written complaint that there was no prac- tice at all, he replied that patients no doubt waited until he returned. He was ashamed to be so much absorbed over poor Watts, and so forth. When he did return it was but for three days, during which his behaviour strengthened every suspicion. Then he went back again to London. In the meantime, I was practising among the poor, and giving to my housekeeper, one after the other, the twenty- five sovereigns which were all that I had to live upon. When they were all gone, the domestic assured me, with a bright face, that ready money did not matter, for I had the best of credit ; and, since food was necessary, I began to live on credit and run into debt. No money whatever came to me from the practice. Nobody called upon me. But I lived quietly, made humble friends, saw that a fierce 290 Papers from ''All the Year Round''. battle was before me, and made strong resolve, helpless as I might seem to be, that I would not succumb. During my partner's second absence I procured distinct and legal evidence of the gross fraud that had been prac- tised on me. I did not learn till afterwards how it was that the vicar's countenance had been obtained for the delusion of my father. Dr. Hawley, when our correspond- ence began, suddenly frequented the church services, and made, in the eyes of an evangelical preacher, so much ostentation of conversion through his ministry, that the good vicar, believing himself to be in a fair way to save a soul, would not risk disappointment in so great a work by staying away from a supper. It was the first and the last time of his supping in that house, for he soon saw what use had been made of him. It may not seem to be an easy thing for a boy of twenty- two, who has been fooled out of all his substance, and a great deal more, to tell a grey-haired gentleman, in a cool, courteous, and determined way, that he has found him out to be a rascal. I had that to do. Doctor Hawley did not appear surprised at the intelli- gence. With a wonderful ingenuity, indeed, he assumed the tone of an insulted, injured man ; and turned upon me the character of a designing villain. But there was in his hypocrisy an under-current of brutal defiance, and a bitter- ness of insult obviously designed to drive me to extremes. My temperate offer was that he should at once consent to a legal cancelling of the bond of partnership, setting me free, and keeping all the money I had paid. I would then retire to the house I was occupying, and do what I could alone in Beetl*eborough ; but I would not leave the place. I had paid my footing, and would make my footing sure : on that I was resolved. To any settlement of our affairs so plain as this, Doctor Hezekiah would, on no account, con- sent. He held me to the bond, meaning thereby to force Pulling Through. 291 me into flight, and leave him free to effect another sale of the desirable position I had paid for. " Very well, sir," said poor Tom, " since we are to be partners, be it so. I will be your partner, but not your associate ; will make a practice here in spite of you, and let you spend upon your lawyers half of what I earn. There is an end to seven years. Do what you may, I will pull through." The doctor said in his heart thatl should not, and spent all his ingenuity in making an untenable position look as hopeless and as wretched as might be. Still I was shunned and (what was hardly better) pitied by the Beetleborough people. But when they saw that, although Doctor Hawley's partner, I knew my position, and was not his friend, and that, pale and meek as I was, I ventured upon actual defiance of the parish ogre, pity disappeared. A curious visitor or two dropped in upon this little study into which I had crammed my books, and in which on many a lonely evening, after the day's calm endurance, I had sobbed over poor Deborah's desponding letters. Then my one friend the dog, in tribulation over my distress, would seize my arm between his paws, and leap up, with a distressed whine, to lick his master's hidden face. No matter. I had set every nerve for the contest. In the eyes of Beetleborough I was light of heart and light of step ; to some I may have seemed but as a cork floating about upon the surface of the storm. Of course I could have fought and won my battle at the cost of certain life-long ruin in the Court of Chancery, to which all quarrels of partners are referred. Poverty and common-sense preserved me from that folly. I was content to possess evidence that made me reasonably safe against attack by law on the next ground I ventured upon taking. A gross act of my partner's involved me innocently, as a witness in an assize case, of which all the details were dis- 292 Papers from ''All the Year Round'\ graceful. It was evident that the position I had chosen really was untenable. Therefore at last I said to my partner, " Do as you please. I have clear evidence of the fraud by which I was induced to sign the deed of partnership be- tween us. From this day forward I shall act as if it were waste-paper. I shall practise by myself and for myself. Hinder me if you can." When my friends heard what Young Pawley was about, horror and indignation seized them. They all gave him up as mad. A gaol would be the end of him. If I would leave Beetleborough and try fortune somewhere else (having no penny of means to do so), they could then believe in my discretion, but to face ruin, to defy the law, where were my senses ? And yet at Beetleborough tea-tables young Mr. Pawley was declared to be a braver fellow than he looked. In the village street he had many a warm gripe of the hand from men who had been bitten — as there were few who had not been bitten — by the ogre, and who liked him well for what they called his pluck. During his five-and-twenty years among these people, Doctor Hawley had contrived to make, abuse, and forfeit everyone's friendship. His manners were insinuating — he knew how, being in truth very ig- norant — to suggest high opinions of his own professional ability. He might, therefore, when I met with him, have been the wealthiest and the most popular medical man in the county, instead of the restless, penniless adventurer that he had become through a diseased love of stray gains made in the lump by a dishonest cleverness. For his litigious character, even more than for the wrong he had done often to the weak and helpless, he was everywhere as much feared as he was hated. Nevertheless, there was a wretched little tribe of village vagabonds attached to him, by whose agency he could dis- tribute scandals through a very ignorant and scandal-loving Pulling Through. 293 population. For one week it was village talk that I had been seen drunk ; next week there was a deceased patient of mine whom I had poisoned with an overdose of laudanum. Anonymous letters were sent to me, or addressed to those who showed themselves to have some care about me. Va- grants were sent to sing insolent ballads, tallying with the last libel — that might wound the fame, perhaps, of others with my own — beneath my window. Scandal so foul as some of that which spread can hardly be conceived by those who have not lived where ignorance and immorality abound. I knew the fountain of it all. Nothing on earth except my dog saw that I ever suffered. Whatever scandal came to me I put aside with the invariable answ^er to the questioner about it, " You know whence the report came, it is for you to believe it or not, as you please.' I meant to pull through, and knew that I could not work like a horse — for as I had been obliged to sell my horse, and could not buy another, I did really perform a horse's rounds every day on foot — I could not do that, and dispute into the bargain. So I shut my eyes on Doctor Hawley ; never took part in any talk about him ; never abused him, nor complained of him. One day's rumour indeed set forth that Pawley and Hawley had been fighting with each other in the street, and it is most true that I never passed my partner and received the sneer which he took care to thrust at me from a malicious face, without a vigorous desire to lay my stick upon his back. Oh, how I could have beaten him ! But I did nothing, and said nothing, and looked nothing. I simply did my work; quarrelled with nobody, bent before nobody; but, sturdily and determinately facing the w^hole battery of persecution, looked neither to the right hand nor to the left, kept a firm grasp upon my plough, and went on with the furrow. Care w^as of course taken to assure all my creditors that I was penniless, discarded by my family, already heavily in 294 Papers from ''All the Year Round'\ debt. Duns were thus raised about me. Lawyers were set to bait me for small debts. I had to give up my watch, every luxury of furniture, my books, and even yonder clock. As the blood rises when the tempest beats upon the face, and all the limbs grow vigorous when buffeting the wind, so flute-playing Tom Pawley was made, earlier than happens to beginners in all cases, something of a man through trouble. He saw no way out of his wood, but a quick marching steadily in one direction. He went into no by- path of false pretences ; never denied access to a dun, nor cheated a creditor with more than fair expression of hopes, not in all seasons to be fulfilled. He found that the \vorld was composed mainly of good fellows, glad enough to be generous and trustful with beginners who do not fear work, and who are open in their dealings. Then it happened that, one evening when I was at tea, a middle-aged gentleman knocked at my door, I rang im- mediately for another cup and saucer when I knew his errand. " I am told, sir," he said, " that you were Doctor Hawley's partner." " I was so", I replied, "by a deed that is not acted on." " I have been advised to come and speak to you. I have just bought a partnership with Doctor Hawley. Some doubt has arisen in my mind. Things have been said to me " This gentleman had been a ship-surgeon ; he had earned money enough in Australia to buy a practice in England, where there was a sweetheart he longed to marry. Hawley had found him. All his money was in Hawley's pocket. " Can 1 make a practice here ?'' he asked. "That", I said, "is what I now am doing." " Hawley told me you were a young simpleton ; an interloper in the place, starving upon a hundred pounds a year." Pulling Tluvngh. 295 " I earn three hundred, but starve upon that. Through Doctor Hawley I am much oppressed with debt, and lose much that I earn in lawyers' costs, forced on me by impatient creditors. I shall succeed in the end. There may be room for both of us." "Ah no!' my friend sighed ; "I must go to sea again. The long hope of my life is at an end." He went away from Beetleborough. He gave his last kiss to his sweetheart, and departed. After this, I had no more obstruction from my partner ; who, within another year, was himself taken from us all, to our great joy. In London he had turned up a few wealthy simpletons, one of whom was at last clever enough to put him in the dock of the Old Bailey. He was sent to gaol ; but I believe in my heart that he ought to have been sent forty years sooner to a lunatic asylum. — All the Year Roinid^ October 1859. SCHOOL-KEEPING. Prizes are now being offered to the pupils at training- schools in several English counties for the purpose of pro- moting a knowledge of the art of conveying sound instruction in common things to the children of the work- ing-classes. In the movement that has thus been set on foot by Lord Ashburton, the whole English public claims to participate ; the need of much more sense in school teaching, and even (with reverence be it said) in university systems, is so very obvious, that Lord Ashburton's sugges- tion has gone off like a gun in a rookery and has set many a quill flying. Doctor Quemaribus declares to all friends and parents in his private circle that his school is exempt from the pre- vailing attack. Public opinion seizes upon schools, now, like an epidemic, and, as is the way with epidemics, fastens with most severity on those that happen to be in a bad condition. Dr. Q. pronounces his own school to be intact, for does he not give object-lessons to the junior boys, does he not provide lectures on chemistry for all the boys, does he not teach the elders botany ? I, for my own part, do not agree with Dr. Quemaribus in his opinion of the state of his own kingdom at Verbumpersonale College. I have the highest respect for that distinguished LL.D. I know, too, that he is a good, earnest man, and that the boys he turns out do him credit. They possess much knowledge though they are not well educated — for to know much and to be well educated are two perfectly distinct things — and they School- Keeping. 297 are gentlemen. They leave school with a respect for their teacher, and they grow up excellent people. When the hairs of Dr. Quemaribus shall have become white, and when his voice of power shall have become weak and thin, there shall collect tog.'ther stalwart men, tradesmen and merchants, quick lawyers and slow divines, and shall dine in his honour, and acknowledge him their friend, present plate to him, and comfort him with words of generous and loving recognition. He will deserve all they may say of him or do for him. There is a legion of quack educators in the land, but the principal of Verbumpersonale College is not one of them. There are thousands of fine-hearted and full-headed Quemaribuses in all ranks of the scholastic profession. I believe, in my heart, that as there is not a happier or nobler occupation in the world than that of developing the minds that are to work in the next generation, so, there are in this country very many good men now occupied in teaching children conscientiously and with exceeding care. Yet, upon this subject of teaching I have long had crotchets of my own, of which Dr. Quemaribus and many other clever men used to declare to J me that they were purely theoretical, that they were quite impossible of execu- tion. Every practical man would tell me so. Every practical man did tell me so. "My dear fellow," said Quemaribus, " it is a very pretty amusement to plan model school systems, but you don't know the difficulties with which we have to contend. There is not time for all yoa would have done, and you set [out with a wrong notion of the nature of a boy. Your method never could be worked." "Doctor,"! said, " I'll try." " Then," said the doctor, " if you mean that, seriously, you are mad. Every man will say so when he sees you lay your bread and butter down to make a harlequin's leap out of one profession into another — out of a business you I u 298 Papc7's from ''Household Words''. understand into one of which, permit me to say, you know nothing whatever. And how will you try ? Where will you go ? " " I will go into some tow^n w^here there are a great many people, and say plainly: Thus I desire to teach. There may be a dozen who will answer, fanciful as you think me, Thus I desire my children to be taught." I carried out that scheme and met with the result that I expected. After two years of school-keeping, during which I put my crotchets to a full and severe test, I left in a town which I had entered as a stranger some of the best friends I have ever made or ever shall make. I left there, also, children whom I shall never forget, by whom too I hope never to be forgotten. Moreover, I did not lose money by the venture; in a commercial sense, the experiment succeeded to my perfect satisfaction. When it is possible to add a demonstration to a theory, it ought to be done, and it would certainly be unjust towards the little crotchets that I here wish to set forth if I did not (as in truth I can) make evident that they are something more to me than idle fantasies. At the same time, let nobody interpret anything here said as a puff composed during the Christmas holidays for the replenishing of any- body's forms ; the writer's occupation as a schoolmaster is over, he has now no school and takes no pupils, nor can he name any school in this country that is carried on accord- ing to his plan. Furthermore let it be said that if he did know of such a school, it is quite possible that he might entertain a low opinion of it, for a reason that will be made evident by the crotchet next and first to be detailed. Crotchet the First. Concerning plans of teaching. No- body has any right to impose his plan of teaching on his neighbour. There is no method that may call itself the method of education. There is only one set of right prin- ciples, but there may be ten thousand plans. Every teacher School- Keeping. 299 must work for himself as every man of the world works for himself. There is for all men in society only one set of right principles, yet you shall see a thousand men in one town all obeying them, although all in conduct absolutely differ from one another. They will present among them- selves the widest contrasts, and yet every one may be prospering and making friends. Thompson talks little, avoids company, sticks to a few good friends, and does his work in a snug corner. Wilson speaks freely and cheerily, delights in associating with his fellows, and works with a throng of helping hands about him. Jackson is nervous, fidgety, and constitutionally irritable ; he does his duty, though, and gains his end. Robson, on the contrary, is of an easy temper, lets a worry rest, and never touches it when he comes near ; he does his duty, too, and gains his end. But, let the shy Thompson undertake to make his way in the world by being like Wilson, sociable and jolly ; and he will make himself contemptible by clumsy efforts, and the end of them will be a dismal failure. In the school, as in the world, a man must be himself if he would have more than a spurious success : he must be modelled upon nobody. The schoolmaster should read books of educa- tion, and he may study hard to reason out for himself by their aid, if he can, what are the right principles to go upon. A principle that he approves, he must adopt ; but, another man's plan that he approves, he must assimilate to the nature of his own mind and of his own school before he can adopt it. Even his school he must so manage that it shall admit a great variety of plan within itself and suffer him so to work in it as to appeal in the most effective way to the mind of each one of the scholars. The practical suggestion that arises from this crotchet is, that each teacher should take pains not to make an abstrac- tion of himself; but to throw the whole of his individuality into his work ; to think out for himself a system that shall u 2 300 Papers from ^^ Household Words''. be himself; that shall be animated by his heart and brain, naturally and in every part ; that shall beat as it were with his own pulse, breathe his own breath, and, in short, be alive. Crotchet the Second. Upon the qualifications of the teacher. He may be mild or sharp, phlegmatic or passion- ate, gentle or severe, he may thrash or not thrash — but I would rather he did not thrash. As men differ and must differ, so must teachers, so must schools. But no man can be a good teacher who is a cut-and-dried man without any particular character : his individuality must be strongly marked. He should be, of course, a man of unimpeach- able integrity, detesting what is base or mean, and beyond everything hating a lie. He should have pleasure in his work, be fond of children, and not think of looking down upon them, but put faith — and that is a main point which many teachers will refuse to uphold — put faith in the good spirit of childhood. He must honour a child or he cannot educate it, though he may cram many facts into its head. It is essential also to the constitution of a good teacher that, whatever his character may be, he shall not be slow. Children are not so constituted as to be able to endure slowness patiently. He must also not be destitute of imagination, for he will have quick imaginations to develop and to satisfy. Furthermore, it is essential that he should deeply feel the importance of his office, and utterly disdain to cringe to any parent, or to haggle for the price of services that no money can fairly measure. In all that I here say, I speak with direct reference to schools for the children of those people who are well-to-do in the world, and can afford to support the kind of teacher they desire. Schools of that kind ought to be in the hands of men trained long and carefully in many studies. Assistant teachers should be men qualified to aid, by undertaking each a single branch >!" study in School- Keeping. 301 which they have obtained perfection ; but the head of a school should carry its brains and be, as nearly as he may be, versed in all its business. It is not for him to teach a speciality, but to command respect by the breadth of his attainments, to link all parts of his plan together, and unite them in the boys' minds into one great whole. He should add to his classical knowledge an acquaintance with, at the very least, two modern languages ; he should know how to account for, and to make comprehensible to boys, the reasonings of mathematics ; he should have studied, and be able to teach, the history of the world as a whole; he should be well read in books of travel, and have a full ele- mentary knowledge of the entire circle of the sciences. He should be well read in the literature of several countries and of his own day; he should study the political and social movements that are going on about him, and employ even the news of the day in his teaching, by applying it to school knowledge and school knowledge to it. He should be able to bring every study into visible subservience to the best and commonest aims of life, showing the children at once how to think and how to make all acquired knowledge available and helpful in their daily work. All this will be too much for one man ; but it is not too much for one man and a library. The proper breadth of cultivation given, depth must be maintained by constant and habitual study. The most learned teacher ought incessantly to read and think, so that he may be on each topic as full-minded as he should be when he proposes to give lessons to a child. The good teacher must be devoted to his work; if he want pleasure and excitement he must find them in the school- room and the study. For it is only when his teaching gives great pleasure to himself that it can give any pleasure what- ever to his pupils. The parent must not grudge to a worthy teacher the most liberal reward that lies within his means. It is not to be supposed that any large body of men can be 302 Papers from ''Household Words'\ induced to devote themselves heart and soul to an ill-paid profession, which demands peculiar talents and expensive training, with a toil both in preparation and in action that can never be remitted. Crotchet the Third. Of the child taught. There is no fault of character in boy or girl that cannot be destroyed or rendered harmless, if right treatment be applied to it in time ; that is to say, within the first twelve years. We inherit tempers and tendencies which sometimes, when they are neglected, bring us to harm. The bent of character is settled before birth. Anything cannot be made of any boy or girl, but something can be made of every child, which shall be satisfactory, and good, and useful. The tendency that would, under a course of neglect or bad management, produce out of a cross infant a self-willed and dogged man, may be so managed as to develop into firm- ness tempered with right judgment. Mismanagement at home hinders good management at school, and, for a generation or two, that difficulty will hurt the operation of the best school systems. There belong, however, to the spirit of childhood and youth, qualities through which a true-hearted appeal is sure of a true-hearted reception. Children are good, and they are so created by Divine Wisdom as to be wonderfully teachable. They are, how- ever, also so created as to require free action and movement, to be incapable of sustaining long-continued mental exer- tion, to be restless. It is not in the constitution of a child to sit day after day, for three or five consecutive hours, upon a form. If the schoolmaster subject children to unnatural conditions, and Nature assert herself in any boy or girl more visibly than discipline admires, the teacher, not the child, is then in fault, and it is he or she — if anyone — who should stand in the corner, do an imposition, or be whipped. It is only possible to teach a child well, while accommodating one's ways humbly to the ways of Nature. School- Keeping. 303 Crotchet the Fourth. On the constitution of a school. Since there is no such thing as a plan universal for all teachers ; since each school should maintain its own indi- viduality ; since a school of which the plan is an abstraction is a dead school, I can only express my notions on this subject by explaining what sort of a crotchet my own notion of school-keeping was, and how it answered. Let me be at the same time careful to reiterate that I do not propose it as a nostrum, but that, on the contrary, I should hold cheaply the wit of anyone who copied it exactly in practice. I only want my principles adopted — nothing more. One notion of mine was, that if children could be interested really in their studies— as they can be— so long as they were treated frankly and led by their affections, the work of education could be carried on entirely without punishment. I had been, as a boy, to many schools, and knew how dread begot deception, and we were all made, more or less, liars by the cane. Even our magnanimity consisted frequently in lying for each other, and obtaining for ourselves the floggings that impended over friends. I knew how deceits rotted the whole school intercourse to which I had myself been subject; how teachers, made distrustful, showered about accusations of falsehood ; how we cribbed our lessons, and were led to become sly and mean. I do not mean to lay it down as a principle that schools should be conducted without punishment. I can conceive a dozen kinds of men who would know how to do good with a few floggings judiciously administered. But I was not one of the dozen — I should certainly have done harm. Corporal punish- ments being abolished, there remained few others For, I uphold it as a principle, that punishments which consist in the transformation of the schoolroom to a prison, or in treating studies and schoolbooks as if they were racks and thumbscrews — instruments of torture to be applied against misdoers, in the shape of something to write or something 304 Papers from ^'■Household Words''. to learn — to learn, forsooth ! — defeat the purposes of educa- tion, heap up and aggravate the disgust which it should be the business of a good teacher carefully to remove as it arises. I set out, therefore, with the belief that I could dispense wholly with punishment, if I could establish a perfect open- ness of speech and conduct in the school. Accordingly, a little ceremony of signing a book w^as established on the entry of each pupil, whereby the signer formally promised in all dealings with his teacher or his companions " to act openly and speak the truth". All motive to deception being as much as possible withdrawn, the strongest motive penalty could give was put in the other scale ; for it was established as a fundamental law that a first falsehood would be forgiven, but that after a second the offender would be required to leave the school. This law was taken, as it was made, in sober earnest. There was only one transgressor, a youth of fifteen, blunted in feeling by a long course of mismanagement. He did not remain with us three months. Systems, and very good systems too, according with the individuality of other teachers, would provide for cases of that kind ; mine did not. It was so far faulty. It would suit forty-nine children out of fifty, but the fiftieth would need another kind of discipline. A little pains being taken to keep up the feeling, perfect open- ness was secured, and no tale-telling was possible, for every- one told frankly his own offence. And that, too, was the case, although it was found in practice not quite possible to go on wholly without pains and penalties. At first, when there were half-a-dozen pupils, all went went well ; but when the number had increased, though all continued to go well, and the best spirit was shown by the children, it was not possible for them, gathered in groups, to exercise so much self-control as they might themselves wish, and as was necessary for a reasonable School-Keeping, 305 discipline. The joyousness and restlessness of youth, not being chilled in any way, would now and then break out at inconvenient times, and every idler was a cause of inter- ruption to his neighbours. Penalties were therefore established. They were of the lightest kind, and repre- sented nothing but the gain or loss of credit. They would have been ridiculous, except in as far as they were applied to children anxious to prove their resolution to do right. Rewards were established with the penalties, and it is necessary to explain their nature first. I think it may be laid down as a principle that the practice of urging school- boys, or even young men, into fierce competition for a book, a medal, or a sum of money, hurts, more than it helps, the work of earnest education. The true teacher ought not to give prominence to an unworthy motive for exertion ; only a false teacher does that, to escape, in an artificial way, some of the consequences which result from the false prin- ciples on which he goes to work. It was my crotchet to give nobody a book for being more quick-witted than his neighbour, but, as much as possible, to set each working for his own sake, and to fix a common standard : not of intellect, but of application and attention, which each was to endeavour singly to attain. It was possible that, at the end of a half-year, every pupil might receive a first prize. It was certain that, as prize or present, everyone would receive a book, and that, although there were first, second, and third prizes, the difference between them was not to consist in money value. This was our system of penalties, by which alone the little state of children was held in sufficient check : — Who- ever during work-time was a cause of interruption, had an interruption marked against him. If he interrupted three times, it was said that he lost half-a-day ; if six times, he lost the day, and, for the day, had nothing more to lose. If he chose — as he never did choose — it was to be supposed 3o6 Papers from ''Household Words''. that, having got so far, he might make as much noise as he pleased thereafter. Gay spirits now and then indulged themselves in the luxury of two offences against order, stopping at the third. Every offence against discipline went by the name of interruption ; and we called a day, a ticket. At the end of the half-year each pupil's lost days were counted, and, according to their number, was the number of his prize. Within the cover of his book was pasted a small printed form, which being filled up, carried abroad the exact intelligence that its owner had been present and attentive at school a certain number of days, absent or in- attentive another certain number of days, and had received that book as a first, second, or third prize. The success of this plan was greater than a man putting no faith in children might suppose. Stout boys who could pull at an oar with a strong arm were not too big to cry, sometimes, over a lost half-day. The ages of the pupils ranged between eight and fifteen. Now and then it happened that some great event outside, such as the freezing of a pond, produced an irrepressible excitement. Common restraints would not check talking and inattention. The punishment then introduced is horrible to tell : — There was no teaching. All lessons were put aside. Instead of extra lessons for a punishment, no lessons appeared to me the best mark of supreme displeasure. Lessons were not to be regarded as their pain, but as their privilege ; when they became too un- manageable the privilege was for a time withdrawn. What- ever you may choose to call a punishment, becomes one to an honest and well-meaning child. Stoppage of lessons checked all turbulence at once, and the school looked like a dismal wax-work exhibition until the prohibition was with- drawn. Children are very teachable, and it is just as easy to excite in them, and to lead them by, a sense of honour and self- respect, as to spur them on, by promoting among them ScJiool-Keeping. 307 rivalries and jealousies, and to try to drive them out of mis- chief with a cane. Having explained our criminal code, let me describe next our ordinary constitution, which was from beginning to end one shock to the feelings of Quemaribus, when I detailed it to him. Children are not fond of gloom or ugliness, and it is not wonderful if they have little admiration for the cus- tomary schoolroom and its furniture. My crotchet on that subject was, that the best room in the teacher's house should be the schoolroom, and that he should do all he in reason could to give it a cheerful and even elegant appear- ance. The school of which I speak was established by the seashore, and there was a very fine view^ from our school- room window. It must be confessed that there was plenty to look at, and sometimes certainly a ship or a donkey would appear at inconvenient seasons ; but, as we did not shut the world out from our teaching, there was no good reason why it should be shut out from our eyes. There w^as a back- room used for supplementary purposes, but the front-room was the main work-place. I was the first tenant of the house, and papered it. For that schoolroom, in defiance of all prejudice, and in the mad pursuance of my crotchet, I chose the most elegant light paper I could find — a glazed paper with a pure white ground, under a pattern that inter- fered little with the whiteness and delicacy of the whole effect. After two years of school-work in that room, it being always full, the paper was left almost without a soil. There had been a few inkspots that could be readily scratched out with a knife, and one mishap with an inkstand, of which the traces were sufficiently obliterated with the help of a basin of cold water. Upon the mantelpiece were vases, which the children themselves kept supplied with flowers. The room was car- peted, and it must be granted that the carpet soon wore out. There were neat little cane chairs instead of forms, cheerful- 3o8 Papers from ^^ Household Words''. looking tables instead of school desks. The aspect of the room was as cheerful as I could contrive to make it, and was a great shock to the prejudices of Dr. Quemaribus. It did contain, however, a black-board, a pair of little globes, and a large map of the world : — to which our references were so incessant, and I believe often so pleasant, that I think we all were glad to be familiar with its features. Dr. Q. called on us one Monday morning before his own Christmas holidays were over — ours being short — and he made a grimace when he found us very snugly seated about the room, one stirring the fire, and all talking about the news of the day. I was insane enough to devote every Monday morning to that sort of study, and the Doctor candidly con- fessed before he left that it was not altogether folly. Boys accustomed to discussions upon history, looked at contem- porary events from points of view that appeared quaint to him, and not entirely useless. They bewildered him by their minute acquaintance with the recent discoveries at the North Pole, which they had acquired while their hearts were full of sympathy for Sir John Franklin. There was a new scientific discovery of which they were endeavouring to understand as much as possible, and they were criticising social movements in a startling way. The Doctor observed, too, how the tempers and the humours of the children were displayed in this free talk, and how easy it became, without effort or ostentation, to repress in anyone an evil tendency — the tendency, perhaps, to pass summary and contempt- uous opinions — and to educate the intellects of all. A great deal may be done when all seem to be doing nothing. When news was scarce, and time was plentiful, we filled that morning with a lesson upon what we entitled "common knowledge". That topic recurred two or three times a week, and was concerned with reasonings and explanations on the commonest of everyday words and things. We divided the day into two very distinct parts. Half School- Keeping. 309 was spent upon book-study, as of languages, arithmetic, and mathematics ; the other half upon history and science. I began to struggle through the history of man — fully enough to occupy over the task five or six hours a week, and get to the end in about three years. In the same time, we were to get through the story of the world about us, and complete the circle of the sciences. Geography we learnt insensibly with history and science, filling up our knowledge of it with the reading of good books of travel. In these studies, the interest taken by the children was complete ; but partly be- cause I felt that there was insecurity in oral teaching by itself, partly because I wished to see how we were getting on, a practice was established of mutual examination in all things taught verbally to the whole school together. All were parted into two sides, matched pretty evenly, whose work it was to puzzle one another. The sides were often shifted, for the eagerness of competition became sometimes greater than was wholesome : though it was a pure game of the wits, in which there was no tangible reward held out to the victor. Very proud I felt at the first trial, when I heard questions asked and answered upon facts in history or natural history, or explanations of familiar things taught ver- bally, in some cases, twelve months ago. It was felt to be of no use to ask anything told within a month or two, be- cause that probably would not have been forgotten. I got a book and entered every question that was asked, wording it in my own way, but altering or prompting nothing ; and the book now lies before me, an emphatic proof of the degree and kind of interest that children, taught without compulsion and allowed to remark freely upon all that they are doing, can take in the acquisition of hard knowledge. They began curiously with thoughts rather than things, and with thoughts, too, that had not been discussed among us for a twelvemonth. "Why does China stand still in her civilisation ?" was asked first ; that being answered, the other 310 Papers from ^'HouscJiold Words''. side returned fire with the same kind of shot, " Why did our civiHsation begin on the shores of the Mediterranean?" That was remembered, and there was a return question ready, " Upon what does the advance of civihsation depend chiefly ?" That, too, was known, and there was a shot more in the locker, " Why is England so particularly prosperous — why not some other island ?" Then, there was a change of theme ; a demand for the habits of the sexton-beetle was returned again in kind by a demand for ditto of the ant-lion, and upon the white ants there was a retort made with the gad-fly and the Bosphorus. Then, one side grew nautical, and wanted a description of all the parts of an ancient ship of war. They were remembered — for the topic was but a few months old — and the retort was, " Describe the spy-boats of the ancient Britons." That day's engagement ended with the question, " Why is it close and warm in cloudy weather?" to which the return inquiry was, "Why is it colder as you rise into the air, though you get nearer to the sun ?" Every question asked that day was fairly answered. On the next day of battle I find one side asking to be shown the course of the chief ocean currents, and the other demanding to be told what causes ebb and flow of tide, spring and neap tides, and to be shown the course of the tide wave. I find questions in the same day on the wars of Hannibal, the twinkling of the stars, the theory of coral reefs, the construction of the barometer and thermometer, the tide in the Mediterranean, and how one branch of a fruit-tree can be made to bear more than the rest. Farther on, I find such questions asked as the difference between ale and porter, between treacle and molasses, how a rope is made, how spines are formed on shells, when linen was first used in Europe, and what is the use of eye-brows and eye- lashes. After this system of mutual examination was established, a new phase of our school-life displayed itself. The oral School-Keeping. 3 1 1 teaching, which had evidently not been thrown away, was cultivated with new care ; a great system of note-taking arose ; all kinds of spontaneous efforts were made to retain things in the memory ; and the result was, that, as I read before I taught, and could not remain always so full of in- formation on a topic as I was while teaching it, the children over and over again remembered more than I did. I soon needed all my wits not to be nonplussed myself, when they were labouring to nonplus one another. Now if work of this kind can be done merrily, stopping at the end of every hour for five minutes of play, and throughout without any employment of a harsh restraint ; if over work of this kind faults of character or temper can be easily and perfectly corrected — as with us in two or three instances they were — a spirit of inquiry can be begotten. That done, a boy can be made to feel the use and enjoy the exercise of education, and in the end will turn out eager to go on acquiring knowledge for himself. Surely, if this be so, there must be something rotten in existing school sys- tems, planned upon the models set up in the Middle Ages ! Truly, I think there is great room for a Luther among schoolmasters ; and I do marvel greatly at the pertinacity with which society adheres, in these days, to scholastic usages whereof familiarity breeds in it no contempt. APPENDIX. (1841-1848.) APPENDIX. THE DREAM OF THE LILY-BELL. Yet blushes Earth : for yet the last sweet kiss Of her hot sun-love lingers on her lip, — The parting kiss, ere he, and with him day And light and gladness, left her. Fastly fades The blush that is not shame. In close-drawn folds, Wrapping her dusky garb across her breast, Earth slumbers. Ever present Love quits not. Quits never, its once consecrated Temple ; Earth slumbers : yet still in a tender dream Will she behold her Sun. O ye are holy, happy dreams of Love, That free the spirit from its daily thrall ; When none may fear to meet Love's honest pledge ; And the chaste lip that whilome called the tint Of shame, unworthy shame, to meet its touch That else had been unhallowed, dares to dwell In sacred fondness on a brow as pure As it is changeless in its purity. So lovely earth, made crimson by the breath Of her dear sun-love, turns aside and shrouds In gloomy cowl her face of happiness : Yet many a kiss, the long dream through imprints Her love's dear image that she chastely meets, Therein most beauteous, though she blushes not. O ye are holy, happy dreams of love ! Ye are most holy, for ye gaze on heaven ! X 2 3i6 Appendix. What, then, were man's whole life of love a Dream? Within himself the night that hides the world, His reason torn from intercourse with sin. His love all purity and gentleness. Earth blushes yet; yet o'er the forest trees Last glances of the sun in radiance stream ; Yet the green foliage, sparkling in the breeze, Mingles its lustre with each golden beam. And through the forest walks of green and gold The shadows of the Night with stealthy pace Close to the rough sward creep, or there more bold Where foot of man not yet hath broken way, In the dense thicket and the tangled copse Throng unaffrighted. All without is bright ; Sunshine and smiles ; within they canopy the night. So, like a forest is the human heart, With all its hidden paths and tangled ways ; Its open spots to let the sunshine in On moss-flowers, and on fragrant violets, Its pleasant shades that guard the lily-bell. Its thickets wild, and barren growths of fern, And rank luxuriant wastes, where poison plants. The ghastly agaric and gaudy foxglove grow. And belladonna with false painted fruits. Alluring to destroy. So like a forest is the human heart ; And oft without that wood seems dark and lone, While sunbeams sport with the wild birds within That carol to their glittering playfellows. Or it may shine, perchance, a realm of heaven. And court, in robe of gold, the distant sight. Yet not one bird within its depths shall sing. Yet not one flower in its dark paths shall bloom. Yet scarce one little ray of truant light Shall bring disturbance to its settled gloom. The Dream of the Lily -Bell. 317 Within the wood there is a quiet break, An open spot whereon the sunlight plays ; Around it clustering the noblest trees, Great Nature's priests, their arms in blessing raise, While ministering branches interlace To lift a golden canopy above, Meet shadow for the spirit of that place. The fairy queen, who there holds reign of love. And all the ground that is not shadowed thus, Is carpeted alike with gold and green. Alike the gift of that gay prodigal, The laughing sun, who looks so long on men That, worldly wise, he learns to court his flowers From the east and from the west with scattered golden showers. It is the spring-time, and the trees around. Some budding, others half burst into leaf. Are fresh in beauty that no bitter wind As yet hath breathed on ; others gay in tints Of varied foliage, gem with brighter green Of fresh-sprung shoots, luxuriant in youth. The mellowed verdure of maturer boughs. The very sky is green with the rich stream Where floods of gold its azure wavelets meet ; While fleecy clouds that float across them seem, Stained by the ruddy waves, like some fair fleet Of angel ships sailing on heaven's sea. Full of bright hosts that have come forth to gaze On the pure beauty of earth's evening. The grass grows long within that wilderness, Save where its growth is stayed by violets That cluster upon little banks of moss Around the trees, among their winding roots That break with solid knots the yielding turf ; There many a bank is gemmed with primroses, There valley-lilies, like new-fallen snow. Whiten the ground with their sweet weeping bloom, And modest daisies there, and the wild thyme ; 31 8 Appendix. Beauty and fragrance all ! The fairies sure, Weaving this garden from the forest flowers, Wept that earth's blossoms not more beauteous were, Till, watered with such pure and holy dew. The grateful flowers full soon to heavenly beauty grew. But ah ! the flower never yet hath grown That bore not with it traces of decay ; Ah, never yet a summer sun hath shone So fair that winter feared to break its sway ! Over these freshest blossoms of the vale The withered leaves of the last autumn dance ; Now their grey skeletons ride the odorous gale. Now sport in the clear sunlight, or, perchance, Light on a budding branch, and there they cling To some fresh leaf in mockery, some leaflet of the spring. The massive oak, the noblest of the wood. That once o'ershadowed yonder flowery rise, For ages had it Winter's wrath withstood — Why did the Summer its stern faith despise? It stood the lord of all the forest round. Ripe acorns clustering in its rich brown leaves ; In forest cave no cooler shade was found Than its wide branches spread upon the ground. The Summer, swollen with her own hot fires. Came, a proud beauty, rioting in love. And shot down lightnings on her favourite. So now one half that noble tree is dead, Its riven heart is open to the sun ; One palsied arm still pointing to the skies, Reproachfully it stands. Full many a tear Hath Summer rained upon that broken heart, And many a sad day long hath fondly kissed That blighted form, but what her pride hath killed Her love shall never wake to life again. Yet still beneath the black and shattered tree, Mocking with scanty leaves, or a few boughs Of wonted verdure, its own barrenness. There, on the grassy slope it shaded once I ( The Dream of the Lily -Bell. 319 The fairest flowers of all the forest grow. There, on those beds of moss and violets, Linger the sunset's last and loveliest hues, And there above the greenwood's choristers Their sweetest lays attune. Pale primroses There ever earliest bloom, and never flower Opened its heart upon that bank and died That sowed not sevenfold new beauties there. A rude cross, formed out of the forest wood. Even from the withered branches of that oak Which yields it scanty shelter, hath the hand Of some sad mourner raised :— one who is dead Hath rest beneath these flowers. The lily-bells Cluster around that rugged cross's foot. And a fresh woodbine half the height hath climbed With fondling touch upon its mossy stem. Ye are all fair, ye flowers that there bloom Upon the grave of beauty ; ye are fair. Ye drooping lilies that so sweetly mourn Loves' hapless fate, ye starry primroses That in your tender fleeting shadow forth The beauty of young death, ye violets That pour your incense o'er the holy grave, Ye are all fair ; yet primrose, violet. Nor tender lily were like that bright flower Whose stem here broken lies. The lightning stroke That with its fury shattered the stern oak Snapped a white lily too :— they died together. Lo, weeping by the cross, a mourner kneels. The soft breeze playing with his long black hair ; One arm around the symbol of his hope Clings tight, the other fallen listlessly. While an unconscious hand is wandering Among the fresh-culled flowers that scattered lie, A fairy crowd, beside him. He will deck The cross, the grave, with these. The mourner's lip Is quivering, and the teardrop in his eye 320 Appendix. Scarcely can dim the wild unearthly light That glitters there. O, she was dear to him ! She was most dear ! and she is dead — she dead 1 How coldly sing the birds ! — The evening wind, How carelessly it stirs the leaves of grass That grows above her grave ! The mourner's face, Though sorrow clouds it now, how brightly once It could beam love, and joy, and tenderness Those features tell ; and tenderness and love Are in it yet ; all that was joy is gone. There sat enthroned the pride of intellect, But one sharp pang, and that hath fallen too ! One lightning flash ; the proud oak buds no more : One lightning flash ; the lily's stem is snapped : One flash ; the tower of a mind hath fallen ; The palaces of reason into dust Have crumbled, and its pavements are o'ergrown With mourning wild-flowers, flowers of weeping love. Though all else perish, sorrow cannot kill. Storm cannot shatter, the sweet flower of love ; Yet their fierce rain may fill its tender cup With tears, with heavy tears that bow it down To the cold earth beneath their weight. Alone, In wrack of all things else within his mind, The flower of love to Erdelmot remains, — And that is bowed, alas, how heavily ! He hath one thought, — to dwell beside her grave ; He hath one care, — to deck her cross with flowers, And pluck out weeds should they grow near her rest ; But never yet hath weed that spot o'ergrown, That holy grave of sleeping loveliness. See, from the cross removing now his hand, He shades his eyes to gaze upon the sun That glows, half set, behind the forest trees. Its gleam is over him. He drops his hand, And bitterly he sighs, and hides his face \ The Dream of the Lily-Bell. 321 Amid the lilies of the grave, there bathes His hot brow in the heavenly dews they weep, And weeps with them ; nor are his tears less holy. And now above his head the nightingale, Whom sympathy of sadness thither draws At each day's fading, over that sad grave To pour her sweet complaint, awakens him To conscious grief once more ; so, lifting up His wet face from the dewy flowers, he kneels, Clinging again around the mossy cross. And listens to the song. At length a smile, Like sunlight in a ruin, lighteth up The windows of his soul : a moment more And it hath faded into gloom again. And sighing, now he bends his mournful gaze On the plucked flowers that beside him lie ; Trembling, he kisses them ; his broken voice Bursts then to melody, that thrills at first Subdued with awe, then swelling, as it flows, Rolls floating onward in its stream the sighs And tears that rise to check it : — Rosabel I Rosabel ! List to him who loved thee well ! Leave thy seraph haunts above ; Bear awhile with earthly love ; Be thou near me while I tell My simple tale, bright Rosabel ! I have wandered seeking flowers By the garden's nested bowers ; I have told my tale of sadness Amid merriment and gladness ; And the gayest heart would swell, And laughter weep for Rosabel. Rosabel ! Rosabel ! List to him who loved thee well ! Leave thy seraph haunts above ; Bear awhile with earthly love ; I 322 Appendix. Be thou near me while I tell My simple tale, bright Rosabel ! Seated calmly by her bower, Smiled a merry wedded maid : First of her I begged a flower ; She the willing tribute paid ; And she gave this lily-bell For my spotless Rosabel. She of old had known thee, dearest, And she mourned thy hapless fate ; Happier hers ! For thou wert nearest Death, with joy when most elate. From her lids a teardrop fell To thy memory, Rosabel. Rosabel ! Rosabel ! Come to him who loved thee well ! Leave thy seraph haunts above ; Bear awhile with earthly love ; Be thou near me while I tell My simple tale, bright Rosabel ! Next I met a husband, cheerful, Rosy children by his side ; Me he saw approaching, tearful, Whom such bliss had been denied, Often he had heard me tell How I loved thee, Rosabel ! And he gave this flower, sighing. While the children pressed around, Innocently, kindly, vieing To heap high the sweets they found ; For they've heard their father tell The story of lost Rosabel ! They have heard, with childish sorrow, They have wept, my sweet, for thee ; Hither haste they all to-morrow Fresher flowers to bring to me, The Dream of the Lily- Bell. 323 And to sit while I shall tell Of the dear — dead — Rosabel ! Rosabel ! Rosabel ! Come to him who loved thee well ! Leave thy seraph haunts above ; Bear awhile with earthly love ; Be thou near me while I tell My simple tale, bright Rosabel ! Through the last faint gleam of the setting sun There shies an purer light. The earth is hushed. The singer's face looks upward towards heaven, As seeking Rosabel. In the still air A radiance floats across his melody — An earthly shape of angel loveliness — And bendeth over him. A spirit's kiss is on a mortal brow ; The mourner smiles, — it is a smile of love, — And sinks among his flowers. 1841. OUR LADY'S MIRACLE. Half bosomed in the tinted hedge, with shady boughs above, There stands a wayside monument, a holy rustic fane, A little niche of mossy stone, by pious Christian's love In ages past devoted to Our Lady of the Plain. Dark ivy crowns its pointed roof, and each decaying stone, As aged heart with holy thoughts, with bloom is overgrown, And o'er each tiny parasite that round the ruin clings The glory of its place of birth a robe of grandeur flings, So beautiful, although as frail, and of as little span, Shines grafted on the house of God the faithful heart of man. Upon a bank of softest moss is built the rural shrine. Behind it is the forest, and before the distant line — That line we ne'er attain to here, though ever in our sight, Yet ever far — where earth and heaven to mortal eyes unite : That sacred niche from yonder line, as from the mercy-seat, Is parted by an even plain that stretches at its feet. A little fountain bubbles from the chapel's polished floor, And leaping down from step to step, it scatters all its store ; Its store upon a crystal pool is cast in pearly spray. And from the pool around the wood a brooklet winds its way. To pious men this holy spot hath ne'er appealed in vain, None ever passed that paused not with Our Lady of the Plain. Worn they came and wasted, and with weary travel faint, Beside the spring they slaked their thirst, and knelt before the saint. Our Lady's Miracle. 325 And poured with strengthened spirits many a long and earnest prayer To God, the good and merciful, who, as He blessed them there, So ever on the road of life, in providence had placed At intervals such spots of bliss, such temples in the waste. I know not whether true it be that living spirits dwell In every little flow'ret, as the mystic sages tell ; I know not whether need there be with aught of earth's philosophy To cumber a great miracle whose witnesses remain : 'Twas wrought within this Chapel, by Our Lady of the Plain. It v/as an April day, and Heaven was smiling through the tears Of Earth awakened from a dream of dark and icy fears, The setting sun had thrown its arch across a whispering shower, Swung raindrops light on every leaf, and slept in every flower. The chapel's roof they circled with a rosary of glass, Bead on bead fell glistening, and broke upon the grass ; ■ Bead on bead the flowers caught which maiden fingers twine And wreathe around the portal of the Holy Mother's shrine. The breeze of evening scatters beads within upon the stone. Or on the spring that murmuring within the chapel flows ; One flies to rest upon the breast, so delicate and lone. Of a tender, milk-white Violet that near the Virgin grows. I know not whether true it be that living spirits dwell In every little flow'ret, as the mystic sages tell ; I know not whether need there be with aught of earth's philosophy To cumber a great miracle whose witnesses remain ; 'Twas wrought upon this Violet by Our Lady of the Plain. 326 Appendix, Star by star is breaking into light, One by one the cloudlets die away ; Clouds that dared uphold against the night Still the failing colours of the day. Now the night-wind sweeps across the fields, Waves the grass or whispers in the trees ; If some bough too pliant to it yields. Birds awaking cry unto the breeze. At midnight from the fountain that beside the Virgin springs A silver mist ariseth, and around the chapel clings : The risen moon is shining on the forest and the plain, In wondrous mist the shrine alone encompassed doth remain. And so may beam in every breast, as on the lighted land, Each smile and shade to view confessed, yet ever there will stand In every breast one sacred spot, like yonder shrine, concealed, One mystery to eye profane that must not be revealed. And some relate that in the shrine were angel voices heard, And by the breath of angel wings the silver cloud was stirred ; And strange unearthly melodies the night- wind bore along : A nursling bade the mother list, there was an angel song ; An angel song was passing by ; — and to the mother's side It nestled as it listened ; and that night a maiden cried Amid her sleep, soft, unknown words : and fragments of a strain Another uttered ; holy dreams were scattered o'er the plain. One died that night, and by the dead an aged mourner wept, Distinct beside the mourner's ear those angel voices swept. I know not whether true it be that living spirits dwell In every little flow'ret, as the mystic sages tell ; I know not whether need there be with aught of earth's philosophy To cumber a great miracle whose witnesses remain : 'Twas wrought before the Angels by Our Lady of the Plain. Our Ladys Miracle. 327 The wreathing mist hath passed away, and melted into Hght ; The subtle light hath vanished ; yet its momentary gleam One vision hath disclosed amid the pictures of the night Like to the life revealed within a saint's ecstatic dream. From yonder wonder-spot, enshrined with a maiden's heart, The Spirit of the Violet hath mission to depart ; The new-created form beneath the chapel shadow lies, While soul-less at the Virgin's feet the parent flower dies. The new-created Viola now sleeps within the shrine ; Around her are the flower-wreaths that maiden fingers twine To deck the holy portal, and upon her whiter breast A snowy little lily-bell has laid itself to rest. That flower hath sought favour of the breeze who passed them by That he would gently bow her on her sister's heart to lie, There rising now and falling as the kindred bosom heaves, She nestles all regardless of the murmurs of the leaves. And emulous of the lily, who is cradled thus in bliss, A blushing rose bends down and strives the maidens lip to kiss. Who fails, yet half accomplishes her fond and loving sin, And as the sleeper breathes she drinks the rose's fragrance in. That lip is as the ruddy gate unfolded by the dawn ; Her cheek is as the twilight cloud that lingers in the west ; Her brow is as the stainless robe by perfect spirits worn When free from sin they wander in the mansions of the blest. A wand is laid beside her, for a pilgrim she shall be. To love — to soothe — to serve — to teach mankind humility; And all who love meek Viola them will the Virgin bless. And pity them who pity all her trial and distress. Now, like the tender hope of man, the doubtful morning breaks, Scarce daring yet to shed a beam upon the sullen flakes 328 Appendix. That stretch across the east, as though they gathered there to bar The passage of the coursers of the sun's triumphal car. The ruddy streaks of morning float above the silent plain, And from the trees their early dew descendeth as a rain ; A ray escapes to play across the fountain in the shrine. And on the Virgin's imaged face a smile appears to shine. Perchance it was the shadow of a flower waving there, Perchance in that uncertain light her vision was beguiled, — But Viola was kneeling at Our Lady's feet in prayer, And suddenly it seemed to her the blessed Virgin smiled. The failing soul of Viola was strengthened by the sign. Yet, failing still, with timid step she parted from the shrine ; And thrice she faltered back again, and thrice again she fell, As many times the Virgin smiled, her doubting to dispel. At length her heart is boldened, and upon the mossy rise Before the holy portal without trembling she can stand. Till, gazing on the plain below, a love-dew veils her eyes. Those eyes that beamed so tenderly upon the waking land. To love — to serve — to soothe : and is there sorrow to allay ? Beneath this heaven's gladness can the heart of man be dark? Doth love not pour as surely thence to meet the light of day As fragrance from us flowers, or as music from the lark ? "Alas, and if the light of God cannot relieve their pain. What can a lonely maiden" — then upon her covered breast Her snowy arms are crossed, and her meek head is bowed again To pray the Virgin's pardon for the murmur so repressed. Living dewdrops glitter on the lawn. Ride on leaves or cling upon the spray ; Each, an angel, smiles upon the dawn. Laughing hails the advent of the day. Our Lady's Miracle. 329 Man, else unprotected, to defend From the accursM legions of the deep These the guardian angels that descend When the world is sinking into sleep. But when fleets the shadow of the night, When each baffled demon with it flies — Summoned by the kisses of the light, Homeward floats that army to the skies. The dew strews gems before her feet, upon her blushing face The April sunlight plays and shines, and glitters in her dress, As through the plain from yonder shrine, with music in her pace. Sweet Viola now wanders forth the bleeding heart to bless. A robe she wears of virgin white, and purple is her zone ; Her eyes are of the deepest blue that e'er in heaven shone ; A wand she carries with her, for a pilgrim she must be, To love — to soothe— to serve — to teach mankind humility. 1844. SUNRISE IN ITALY. I. *' With diligence, dear Grandfather, your praises I have earned ; Two hundred and two score and ten Pope's histories Tve learned ; And had you not been kind enough of many to explain That things continued much the same as in a former reign, '" I should have been well puzzled ; but the task is now com- plete : The Popes have done their best to make Battista grow discreet." So said a boy, with ruddy cheek upon an old man's shoulder. '" What wisdom I have learned, I hope to prove when I am older." '^' You speak too lightly, wayward child. — Look, whither points my hand ? Hourlong beneath yon castle walls I see my pupil stand, And think there comes a voice from them which his young spirit hears. That then Battista meditates upon his mother's tears." *' I hear a voice," the youth replied. " My father's prison tells Its dismal, dream-like secrets : and the light is in its cells, Like conscience in a mocking heart, whenever the gaudy shoM Of fire plays, at the Carnival, above Sant Angelo. *'A mother's tears: — the burning sun, and all that God hath made. The song-birds of the forest, and the flowers of the glade. All things teach me to meditate upon my mother's grief" ^' And with their sad monition, do they bring thee, child, relief?" Sunrise in Italy. 331 " Yes. To the purest sunbeam do not men deny access ? And from their homes and from their cheeks ward off its warm caress ? The song-bird, for its singing, to a prison is exiled, From nest and mate is parted, as my father from his child. "The flower for the beauty of its blossom is destroyed. Is plucked before the seed-time, with a short half-life enjoyed ; They do not heed how rapidly from day to day it dies Of pining for its sister-buds, its native earth and skies. " My father, for the music and the manhood of his voice, Is prisoned like the bird whom God created to rejoice ; My father, for the glory of a blush upon his brow. Is fading, like a gathered rose, in cold Sant Angelo. " My father, for the light of truth which on his firm lip plays. Is shut out from the eyes of men who, darkling, fear to gaze. They dare not meet his countenance, and therefore, tutor dear, My mother weeps a widow, and I stand an orphan here." " You stand, my child," saith Alban. " It were better did you kneel. The power of authority, go forth, Battist, and feel ! The son will never conquer where the father fought in vain. Shall the widow wander childless, will you rend her heart again ? " " May a thousand generations dedicate to God their breath. Though the mantle of the prophet be the solemn robe of death, It is still a prophet's mantle ; still is worthy to descend The holy mission, ' Seek ye good, and dare to meet your end ! ' " " It is not good," saith Alban, "to resist the powers that be. And all too weakly have I taught their high authority. We read and listen — not behold — as men upon a brook Learn moonlight by reflection, and, as downward still the look, Y 2 332 Appendix. " The glory that is distant seems no more to be sublime ; Made near, 'tis but a spectacle, a sport in summer time, To look upon, to pelt with stones in idle summer play And watch the silver rings they make, the glitter of the spray. " So seems a prince in history. Not so upon the throne. At him it is no idle thing to cast thy little stone. Men's swords are his protection, and God's Word is his support ; God saith, ' Obey' : to disobey, Battist, is fearful sport." " God saith, ' Obey,' dear Grandfather ; obedience then be mine To give ; kings' words shall even be authority divine. Not more — you would not more?" — "My child, more power cannot be," Saith Alban. — " Then the King of kings, what power claimeth He? " God made us to His will, and yet He leaves us to our own ; And what our hearts conceive. He gives us language to make known. He bids us to seek good, and yet He, Source of good for ever, Prompts not one human syllable, compels not one endeavour. " He watches all, and punishes the evil that is done. Love through free-will our God demands from all beneath the sun. No king is king of heaven to unsettle God's decree : No prince hath power to bind the soul : it must, it will, be free ! ' Against a wan and furrowed check, a crimson cheek is pressed ; A bended neck by brawny arms is tenderly caressed ; Ripe lips of youth with fondling kiss delight the lips of age ; Battista, with a glance of hope, can Alban's fear assuage. The black locks of the boy across the old man's bosom fall ; The darker heart, whose hope is dead, they cover like a pall. Shine seventeen warm summers through the IdoUI Battista's ej-e. While rustle eighty autumns through the timid Alban's sigh. Sunrise in Italy. 333 " Now hear you not my mother's step ? — Oh, do not turn away ! Her footfall soundeth weary. We are supperless to-day. Oh, let not thy grief grieve her, let us feed her with our love ; Her heart is in Sant Angelo, her hope in God above. " How pale she is ! — Dear mother " but Battista speaks no more. With strangely solemn tenderness upon the boarded floor Of her mean home the woman kneels — not with a face of care, Though tremblingly her pallid lips are shaken by a prayer. To God the prayei, but her eyes, her clasped, extended hands. Her heaving bosom turn to where her husband's prison stands. And still her bosom swelleth when her prayer is at end, There dawning hope and twilight awe for mastery contend. " Look at the robe of sunset on Saint Peter's ruddy dome, Look steadily ; and let there be deep silence in the room : For God will speak." — Upon her son the trembhng mother leans, The old man ponders anxiously what this wild bidding means. They hear each other breathing. Young Battista's breath is soft, His mother's cometh quickly now, now stops, suspended oft ; Old Alban sigheth heavily... Hark l...hark !. ..Saint Peter's bell. A mighty death-toll. — " Kneel with me ; — ^join prayers with yonder knell ! " Pray thou, Battist : — a mighty foe is gone*; Go thou to God for aid, forsake all other I" — " Teach me, O Lord, to lean on Thee alone, To judge myself, and not to judge my brother. " Happy the man whose heart condemns him not. Whose heart I see not, let not me condemn. To every age its path Thou dost allot ; The tide of Progress, error cannot stem. * Gregory XVI. 334 Appendix. " Teach me to hate injustice, and to love And pity all them who unjustly deal ; As Thou, All-Righteous, stooping from above. Towards us sinners dost all mercy feel. " Teach me to struggle ever for that Right Which may be wrong, yet shall to me right seem, But never taunt with mockery and spite That which another shall more worthy deem. " The Pope, whose soul is fleeting unto Thee, Strove in the flesh to worship Thee aright ; And if his actions would dishonour me, .From him they were true dealings in Thy sight. " Acts we can read, but actors are impelled By motives ill-revealed to mortal sight. Foul deeds must be in foul abhorrence held : Man may do foully from a sense of right. " Therefore to Thee, O Father God, to Thee, From all intolerance, all stubborn grudge, Teach me to yield my heart for ever free ; To Thee and Jesus, the beloved Judge !" How beautiful is prayer ! Let the soul be desolate. And grant that human fancy man's Creator does create, How noble yet the glance that seeks to penetrate the sky, The spirit, upon Earth so meek, that yet would climb so high. How glorious the myriad of upward-looking eyes From every race throughout the world all tending to the skies I Has man no God — so mighty is this universal prayer ; Has man no home beyond the stars, it can create one there. Yet God there is, and God is friend and father to us all. On each eye that looketh upward shall the light of Heaven fall. Sunrise in Italy. 335; In cathedral, church, or chapel, in the cl(i6Ct or the field. Heart to God that hath been opened, ever hath by God been healed. Never was true prayer fruitless, God will answer who will call. On each eye that looketh upward shall the light of Heaven fall. In the prayer of Battista fondly bore his mother part. With the movement of his lips there moved in unison her heart. And when'lhe paused she kissed him ; but no word of love she said. Old Alban laid a trembling hand upon Battista's head: — " Thine is an easy doctrine, child, but narrower the way Whereby the children of the night may reach the realms of day. There is one only path to bliss, whereon so lately trod The holy father of our Church — the orphaned Church — of God.. " Giovanna, daughter, hast thou not a prayer for the dead ?" " No prayer for the infallible, all prayer's fountain-head. Yet my forgiveness follows him, and in his prison-cell My husband kneels, forgiving, as he hears the solemn knell. " Pope Gregory sought God, as God to him had been re- vealed ; Blind, not self-blinding ; cold, but not by cruel nature steeled Against the world without, he held to that which he received. And what tradition taught him he too fervently believed, " An earnest student in the lore of many an Eastern land. His movement in the world was like a Avave's upon the sand ; He mo\ed not like a river, onward, forward to the last. But limited to narrow bounds an idle life he passed. " To him the labours of mankind were labours of the pen ; .He studied books, not hearts ; the words, and not the deeds of men. 336 Appendix. Hearts struggling onward broke beneath the curbing of his will : He held the chariot-reins, held firm, no more availed his skill. " The chariot was motionless, the coursers shook the ground Impatient. Now the hand is gone that held them so long bound. Husband, I feel thy prayer :— Now, O now a worthy guide ! Rest to the dead — and rescue to the living God provide !" II. A temple, built to Jupiter when Rome and earth were young', The cross surmounts, and hymns therein to Jesus now are sung. Yet graven still on many a stone the memories remain Of worship that within its walls can never wreathe again. Maturer years bring higher love. Passionate first, half-blind, Faith lifts the loved one to the sky, gladly enslaves the mind To homage questionless ; yields all, asks nothing in return. Be the beloved wise or weak ; love will as hotly burn. A temple, built to Jupiter when Rome and earth were young, The cross surmounts, and hymns therein to Jesus now are sung. White vestments, incense, choristers, priests among holy shrines Of saints are there ; and equally through truth and error twines One golden band, a love divine, through flower, bud, and leaves. New ways are open to the heart ; one will our God perceives In all who kneel before Him in the spirit and in truth ; He loves us in our childhood, and He loves us in our youth. This is thy heart, O changing Rome ; this is thy heart, O Man I This temple built for prayer that reveals the mighty plan Siuirisc in Italy. 337 Of growth eternal. Yet thine age of manhood is to come, When Love shall wander fetterless, and Earth be one wide Home. Thought shall be free and worship one, equal and uncompelled. Those antique traces, these rich shrines, as memories still held, Shall deck a temple for mankind which not a foot will shun, When all shall worship by one Love, as all see by one sun. Then is the time of labour ; then this strong world shall fulfil Its master's bidding, with glad hope and one according will. Thereafter death ; when, like a figure kneeling on the shore Of a wide ocean, starlit, man shall bend and be no more. White vestments, incense, choristers, priests among holy shrines Of saints ; vast aisles, athwart whose gloom the ray of sunset shines Through windows many-hued with dreams, winged angels, martyr woes ; So shines the mighty gospel-light through patterns men compose. Huge marble columns, capitals ornate with rich design ; Sculptors' apostles before which submissive groups incline ; The Virgin mother, lovely birth, won by much happy pain And willing labour, in old times, from the warm painter's brain. Lamps in the temple numberless, for night will be ere those Who linger last shall leave the church and its wide gates shall close ; Incense fills all, and melody ; thine is the strain, Mozart, Delight in adoration, praise that sings out of the heart. Gloom is between the columns where a little household kneels : Old Alban sought a spot retired, for darkness now conceals His tearful prayer ; young Battist is at his mother's side ; Giovanna, praying restlessly, wills not to be descried. Not upward to the shrine she looks, nor downward to the floor; Her back is to the altar, and her face to the church-door : 33S Appendix, Now, sharing in the sacred chant, a loud exulting praise Her lips pour forth, then suddenly the flood of song she stays To listen ; and Battista, nestling near his mother's breast, Feels tear-drops quickly falling, while his head is fondly pressed. " Our peace is come," she whispered him. " Stay by my father here, A step I know treads in the porch ; a face, than thine more dear, Will smile out Widow from my heart, Battista. Kneel thou still 1 " Softly she rose. How much of bliss a human form can fill Which yet shall move to outward sight with quiet step along ! How much of joy the soul can speak through an adoring song ! So quietly Giovanna moved, so joined to the choir Her carol. Now the eyes are full ; the heart hath its desire. A hand that trembles not she yields unto her husband's holding, One look of welcome, one proud glance her w^oman's love unfolding. A silent, happy wife, her face shines with a holy care. She touches her Antonio. Across the mist of light To the high altar they advance, and meekly kneeling there Bend, pressing closely side by side. — Now from the depth of night, Without the porch, another comes, and others, haggard men. Household embraces meet them, children cling to them, and then Love irrepressible with cries of joy the temple fills, Delicious tumult ; till some change the loud emotion stills. A new Pope on the Gospel builds his power ; letteth fall The chains that Christ commanded not ; proclaiming unto all, The true or false, an Amnesty ; to all who for the cause Of Liberty lie captive. — Why does now the tumult pause ? Stmrise in Italy. 339 The quelling pause, when suddenly the solemn organ's tone Dies into stillness, over these no thrilling spell has thrown. Redoubled praise, in measures changed— Beethoven's mystic sea Of music, deep and swelling as the soul of man set free, Drenches the temple. In rare hours can pure emotion rise More fitly winged to God than thus. No eagle to the skies Soareth more grandly upward than the mighty master's strain ; A cloud with sunbeams purple, dropping beauty like a rain. Huge marble columns, capitals ornate with rich design, White vestments, incense, choristers, men, from before each shrine Arising, on the temple floor assemble, where above Hang lamps, like bright star-clusters, glittering o'er the scene of love. Forth issuing from the church, with one consent this night to preach Unto the world that Hope wherewith all Italy grows warm, These haggard men, with wives and friends collecting around each, By priests and boys with censers joined, a strange procession form. From the radiance and the music, out into the silent street, Dark until the torches light it, as the crowding Romans meet. Meet, and gather round, and join them, men and wives and children go ; From all sides to travel with them troops in noisy torrents flow. From the churches, from the houses, from the river and the square. From their idling, and their labour, and their quickly finished prayer. Thousands upon thousands throng with torches, join the growing band, Not with murder-singing trumpet, with no blazonry made grand, 340 Appendix. Not with gold in corpse-light lustrous, trappings gay of ghastly death, Moves this troop. The priest is leader, and its music is the breath Of a spirit that the fetters of its slavery hath burst ; War of Love alone it wageth, where the gentlest rank the first. Now from all Rome pours forth at length that ever-rising word Wherein a waking nation makes its loud emotion heard. So long repressed — O Italy, hope Freedom I — And the cry Is "Viva Pio !" this like fire is spreading and swells high. There, sobbing, walk, as many sob, with happy terror blessed — Alban, Battist, Antonio, Giovanna, closely pressed. So dense the concourse. Walls and windows glare around all red Through ruddy smoke of torches that the crowd waves o\er- head. The lofty Quirinal reflects the torchlight in the square. To that assembled city there comes forth into the glare Pope Pius, idol of a land by him aroused to see Living the form of Hope it loved in dreams. All bow the knee. A sick man tossing on his bed, whose window looketh down On those assembled thousands, might have fretted to a frown At some lone moth attempting to fly through the glass, and might Have hated it for living in the stillness of the night. While forty thousand men of Rome in breathless love were bent. Receiving benediction. They arose, and each man went Silently homeward. But, before they parted, full of Hope, With one great shout of rapture shook the palace of their Pope. Stuirise m Italy. 341 III. " How still the noon is ! " said a mason, as he laid his hammer down. "Ambrose, I will cease my chipping. Turn your face towards the town. When the clocks chime in Netuno, you will hear them very well : Bring the basket ; and their music, son, shall be our dinner-bell. " What, you thief, the fruit is eaten ! When you should have been asleep. While I worked, you were devouring. Well, the basket still is deep. You shall go and gather shell-fish— go and paddle down the shore. Or go up into the wood there. Do not vex me any more. — * Wait. Who walks now in the village ? Look you, Ambrose, who is he ? Like a priest — yes — you are right, boy. Father Bernard it must be. Others stir not in the noonday. He has been with that sick child, So long sick, in yonder cottage, where the garden has run wild. " When the good man passes by us, if he stop and say a word, Ambrose, you must stay and listen ; for your brains can ill afford To dispense with such instruction as may come into your way. Never walked the priest so slowly. He must curse the sun to-day." In the centre of a village works Francesco ; and, around His scene of toil, a ragged wall, half raised above the ground, Includes an ample space. Close by, beside the market pool, More workmen rest, and eat, and talk about the future school; 342 Appendix. And why the Pope bids schools be buih ? And whether he will find Their own school, when the roof is on, built wholly to his mind ? They think the Pope and Emperor of Austria should fight, If swords are turned to spelling-books, and all the men of might Are trained to use a grammar in the place of pike or gun, — Where's Solomon ? For here is something new under the sun. But since the Pope decrees, Build schools, and teach throughout the land, The Pope is right. And they are poor ; too poor to understand The meaning of their betters. But they know the Pope does well, And the aim of all his actions, were they wiser, they could tell. Talking thus in listless humour, lounging by the market pool, Sit the builders, idly looking at their work, the Village School. The white road and the houses glare beneath an autumn sky ; Across the blue there flits no cloud, and not a bird will fly ; The sea, a waving desert strewn with diamonds for sand ; The wood, unwaved, distinct, seems hewn out of the crystal land. " He will pass us looking downward !" — " Walks as if beside a bier 1" " Now, God bless thee. Father Bernard. See, we are not idle here ! Look, the School is growing I" — " Hither, Father, turn thine eyes ! Some unwonted light is in them." — " Has he seen a spirit rise I'"" After gentle benediction grows the Father's forehead clear, And unto those idle builders by the pool he draweth near, Saying, " Son, you guess not wrongly." All regard him with surprise. " Even near us, in the Village, I have seen a spirit rise. " You remember little Laurence, when he last played on the shore, And faltered honieward, not again to pass his chamber door." Sunrise in Italy. 343 "And is he out to-day ?"—" To-day his soul is gone abroad, Next Sabbath eve his body will be borne the Sabbath road. "A Sabbath road unto the grave it is ;— a bridal bed The coffin ; — a triumphal stone the grave-mark overhead. Gladly, O Lord, I seek Thy will with all this watchful breath : Then welcome spirit-peopled night, star-crowded night of Death 1" The priest a moment pauses ; and his words half understood Breed second ignorance. His face is shrouded in his hood. But as pearls thrown upon water are the sorrows of the wise, They sink into the depths ; are still. — " That I have seen a spirit rise, " I told you," saith the Father, as he joins the gossip throng : " The soul of little Laurence. Yes, you wonder. It was long Before the hand of sickness wiped the stain of earth away ; For two long months was Laurence ill before he learned to pray. " Prayers to repeat, learned when he lisped, he used, yet never prayed. He stretched his arms to God, not loving ; bent before Him not afraid. He did not hate, he knew not God ; could neither dread nor dare; And, knowing neither hope nor fear, was free from human care. " A barren mind, a thoughtless faith, I found, and for the praise Of God alone I laboured his unlifted soul to raise. By scanty lore of earth made ripe for commune in the skies, My little child, to-day I saw thy happy spirit rise ! " Pray for his soul ! Yet little needs that spirit intercession. Already of his heritage our Laurence hath possession. Build on. His blessing sanctifies your labour ; for to-day Almost his latest action was for this our School to pray. " The Holy Father of our Church to-day I love the more. Since I have heard a dying child God's mighty grace implore 344 Appendix. On him who biddeth Schools be built."—" And so 'twas no real ghost, Good Father Bernard," said Francesco ; " and my little son has lost " A sermon by not sitting here to listen. — Ambrose, come— You shall feel that I am angry when I have you safe at home ! He will not leave that butterfly. Young Laurence was his friend And playfellow. How wondrously things very often end !" The white road and the houses glare beneath an autumn sky ; Across the blue there flits no cloud, and not a bird will fly. The sea, a waving desert strewn with diamonds for sand ; The wood, unwaved, distinct, seems hewn out of the crystal land. The sunlight glitters in the pool ; the workmen idle sit. And scant attention to the priest their laggard brains admit. Regarding Ambrose mournfully, the pious Father stands. While Ambrose hunts the butterfly, a rough stone in his hands, Filched from the builder's heap. "Child, do you hear of Laurence dead ? From him to you, his little playmate," Father Bernard said, " There is a love-gift leftt his morning. — God of Mercy, pardon thee !" The stone has crushed the butterfly ; and Ambrose dances mad with glee. 1848. I NEMOPHIL. " Bene h verace Amor quel che m' ha p-eso E ben mi stringe forte ; Quand 'io farei quel ch' io dico, per lui." — Dante. " This superstition is an old one concerning fairy rings. If any pure maid shall so trespass as to sleep, on certain nights, within one of these circles on the grass, she is likely to be removed by its proprietors. And, if her friends behold her no more for twelve months and a day, then she is said to be adopted by the fairies, and supposed to become a perpetual denizen of their mysterious land." PART I. » Straight as the shaft of spear, a silver line Grows on the vessel's track. An eagle held One instant trammelled in the fowler's net, Darts not more swiftly from its prisonment Than did yon bark when, on grey wing outspread, First fluttering in the river's islet thread. She floated forth upon the lake's blue waters. Straight as the shaft of spear, a silver line Traces her passage towards Erwin Tree. Venator comes. The vessel strikes the sand, And lashing waves reproach the rule they bear. Alone Venator comes. He leaps to land : A single maiden waits to meet him there. Prayerful and silent, by the moonlit sea The fond lone stood ; awaiting one Who came not. When her gentle eye perceived Venator unaccompanied — her prayer Unanswered, yet still undespairing — tears I 2 346 Appendix. Gathering upon her reddened cheek did stand Like dew upon the rose-leaves. Faithful maid ! She like a woodbine twined once around Her idol-temple, absent Nemophil. " She is not lost, Venator"; — tenderly lone speaks : — "yet there remains one span Ere the moon reach mid-heaven. Though, year long, Thy love hath sought, ours waited — yet an hour Remains, last hour of hope, and knowest thou That hope and music still most deeply sink. And sweetest are, when dying ? Doubt thou not. Stretch the warm hand of love up into heaven. Her palm shall meet it. Thou shalt draw her back Into thy bosom. — Fairies cannot will One sorrow to the soul of Nemophil. Fear thou no ill from the chaste elfin throng : Do thou but love, they cannot do love wrong. Yet doubt thou not, yet be thou not faint-hearted. Love as she loveth, ye will not be parted." Nature and thought are one. The waking day Scatters its first faint smiles on the dark world. They shed no general light ; but where the snow Lies whitest, where the waters are most clear. Into the dewdrop and the diamond The first ray sinks. So ever on pure hearts Pure things first dawn. Venator heard no sound When ceased lone's voice. He heard no sound Above the flowing music on the sand : The sighing of the wood-imprisoned Lake : Why did lone listen ? " Hark, they come ! The fairies come !" she cried. Across the moon A film of summer mist there seemed to pass, Borrowing radiance ; brighter this became, And brighter, floating o'er the star-built SKy And brightest as it sank towards the Lake A sister light in Heaven, bent to kiss The silent Lenimar. Ncmophil. 347 A sense there came Of melody ; — Not music ; yet there might have been a sound ; Both felt it : an emotion of delight Without its sensual cause. Upon each soul It crept. I one's lip was closed with awe. Then shapes of beauty played within the cloud, Like motes in sunlight, of whose radiant forms The eye grasps all in one, but not one singly. lone kneels. Venator, prompted, lifts His outstretched arm. With that act, suddenly. There floats a flood of flame across the sky. The vision is no more. Black mountain-clouds Roll o'er the spot in heaven which it filled. They spread ; the sky is veiled. The water's breast Heaves with a strange emotion. Thunders peal ; The trumpet of a judgment angel sounds. The powers of Light and Darkness are at war, And, as they cast each vivid mass of Light From those black caves, the forces of the Night With boastful roar pursue the fugitive. Now do these spell-bound giants live, and yearn To join the dreadful combat. Every tree Doth groan and struggle. Now they seek to loose The binding earth from their vast roots, when thus Each sturdy trunk is shaken. — The loud wind Dashes the frothing waters of the lake Across lone. Silent, motionless. Without a fear, the trusting maiden kneels. Venator trembles. A tall branch is hurled Upon the beach before them. Kneeling still lone lifts her folded palms to God And feareth not. Wildly Venator clings Around the Tree for aid. From falling huts To the less fragile shelter of the boughs. While their homes crash the perilled tenants fly. These giants live. The legend of the wood, z 2 348 Appendix. In such a night as this, dares none deny. Thus tell the foresters : A fairy Queen Was Lenimar, whom Erwin deigned to love (Erwin, the chieftain of a giant tribe), But loved not worthily. Her eye was light, His darkness ; and no fellowship had they ; Then Erwin, shrinking from the fairy's sight, Came back to war against her gentle sway — Rude war of strength against a world of grace ! He came. With legions of his giant race Encompassed her. Sunk, conquered, at his feet, Breathless, yet stainless, must the Virgin lie. Breathe, Lenimar, one only spell ! Defeat The coward purpose ! — Yes, thou hast a sigh ; One long, sad sigh.^ — Sweet fairy queen, farewell ! Heavy upon thy bosom rests the hand Of Erwin In that sigh was her last spell. Above a fountain see the giant stand. Behold, in fear, the ponderous host retreat ; The flowing waters follow still their feet : Transforming" limbs more painfully they move ; Then halt, for ever fixed : one mighty forest grove. These giants live. To-night, with brutal force. Again they labour to escape the charm. Great Erwin Tree alone, above the Lake, L'nmoved his mighty tread, bends proudly calm, While lightnings lick each far-extended palm. Therefore around the base of Erwin Tree Crouches a trembling throng. Closer in dread Than ever yet in timid love's embrace Cling lovers there, heart singing unto heart. Closer in fear than yet in infant faith The babe creeps to its home between the breasts. Shrouding his household, the gaunt woodman spreads His cloak against each ghastly blaze of light. But the old nian looks — timeworn, isolate — Up to that angry heaven with filmy eye, NemophiL 349 And in the bursting of each thunderclap Hears, doubting, the dark message : " Thou shalt die ! ' MoonHght upon the shore, upon the wave, MoonHght upon the leafy capital Of each eternal column. Broken rays. Through the wet foliage, shine among the group Of tremblers. And across I one's face A mild ray falls. The Lake now smiles again Men trust thy story, gazing thus on thee, Pale Lenimar, dear wood-encircled sea. As queenly now and fair to look upon As when, ere yet within thine elfin court Unwonted loves were told, the fairy troop Paid to thee willing homage. Homage still The fairies bring. Each summer breeze which goes Whispering, at twilight, through that forest hoar Plucks the ripe leaves from every day-kissed rose, And strews its burden on thy tranquil shore. The summer night looks with a thousand eyes Upon the flood ; the pirit of each star Leaving its wondrous nome in ether, lies Upon thy pulseless breast, pale Lenimar. As many petals as the breezes bring ; As many stars as mingle with thy sheen : So many fairies still around thee sing ; So many, subjects still, surround thee still their Queen Intently through the starry firmament lone gazes. Her calm prayer hath ceased, The very breath which wafted it to heaven Seems lingering in heaven with the prayer. Her bosom is all still. Strange harmonies The woodmen hear, above, around, they seem, Following softly where a ray hath trod. Like moonbeam music, hymns which light may sing, WJmdering from heaven through the worlds of God. 350 Appendix. A sudden cry breaks through the melody, Re-echoes through the cloisters of the grove ; A cry of joy, and from Tone's lips, A cry of love, the name of " Nemophil ! " Once and again the name of Nemophil Thrills through her ancient dwelling in the wood. Why should Venator mutter that dear name ? I one's brow is crimsoned with delight, I one's arms outspread, in haste to claim The love which must be ransomed to-night, Or lost to earth for ever, — There are sobs Which float above the Lake ; and fairy shapes, Playing an instant on the sight, dissolve. These all are sad. lone heedeth none. Trust in her heart, and ignorance of ill, Her lips pour forth the name of Nemophil. Now the lake ripples round an elfin boat. The light breeze flutters in its snowy sail : She comes. I one's foot is on the wave. She comes. Venator's lip is ashen pale. Upon the prow a fairy figure stands Of noble manhood, 'tis the fairy king : His face averse he covers with his hands. While weeping strains unseen attendants sing. Kneeling, half fondly, by the spirit's side A blue-robed maid, the forest Nemophil, Is gazing down upon the silver tide While on her ear those warning accents thrill. " Thou floatest, beloved, From rills of light, To the silent land Of the dreary night. " The cold, cold world- All cold, like Death- Shall moan in thy heart With its icy breath. Neinophil. 351 " Thy heart is so tender, Martyr of Love, O hnger with us In this heaven above '. " An angel-suitor By thee doth serve Spiritus loveth, And doth deserve. Spiritus loveth ; yet not from his lip Cometh the plaintive suit. He doth deserve. Heaven only saw the tears of Nemophil Heaven, and Lenimar upon whose flood The light drops fell. Then suddenly she turned, And tenderly removing one thin hand From that bright spirit's face, into his eyes Looked up ; so spoke with him. One gentle kiss She printed then upon the fairy's brow. Fond Spiritus, the first kiss and the last From lips of thy beloved Nemophil. Then calmly bent the fairy over her, And from her flowing golden locks removed The twining chaplet ; yet — was it design Or chance ? — one little flow'ret lingered still Among those locks imprisoned. Spiritus Is gone. The boat hath vanished on the shore. And Nemophil within lone's arms Is clasped exultingly. Go forth, my Voice, and, with the worldling wroth. To him whose love is lucre-fed declare How Nemophil, true to a broken Troth, Came back from heaven to this land of care. 352 Appendix. PART 11. " Forgive me, Nemophil 1" It is a God, It is a God within a mortal breast, This heaven-created Love. It clothes the world With blossom, showers music all around, Pure, everlasting, all-compassionate ; Sinned against daily, grief destroys it not : — Nothing receiving, still it gives ; forgives The sinner ; spirit-like, unnourished lives. O lift your hearts, ye maidens and ye youths,. Lift up your hearts, and love like Nemophil ! Never one thought of worldly profiting Must curdle like a poison in the cup Of lovers' bliss ; — there is a curse on gain, Happy are they who give the most in love. Never one word, one little word of strife Must soil the lips for kissing, or the kiss Beareth no blessing in it. Lovers' strife Exists not, or, if it exist, it wears Another than the fabled character. It is not the light April storm which passes, Leaving the sky serene, the air more pure ; Each cruel word will cut a separate wound^ A wound that may remain, and if it heal A lasting scar is its memorial. * There is no fear in Love, for perfect Love Casteth out fear,' — thus sang a voice from God, The voice of Love's Apostle. Jealousy Delusive minstrels have with love entwined ; No part, no part ! As the gorged Dragon sleeps. Entwined around the spotless shivering Nymph, Its victim cruelly reprieved, so link Pure stainless Love and Jealousy together. Trust not the Poet's tale of bitter-sweet. Heaven hath no bitter in 't, and Love is Heaven. Last and most godlike, crowning work of Love, NeniopJiit. 353 Self must be sacrificed. Another's joy Another's wealth, another's heavenward steps Are love's best care. Is Self upon the throne Of thine unconquered heart, thou lovest not. By sacrifice, and sacrifice alone, Is pure Love worshipped. Happy is your lot. Children of peace, who love like Nemophil ! " Forgive me, Nemophil !" there whispereth A voice into her ear. Sweet whispering Like that of summer winds whose lullaby The nested birds among the foliage At twilight hear, such welcome murmurers Were once Venator's words to Nemophil. But many days are in a mortal year. And many thoughts make up a mortal day. And many thoughts within Venator's heart Had come and gone since earth lost Nemophil. Frail is the clay we tenant ; earth to earth Attracted strains ; a minute's accident O'erturns the balanced strength, or time impairs The little moulded mass, and into dust It crumbles. Frailer yet is worldly love, Disturbed and drawn aside by every lure Of the world's ever-changing scenery, Injured by every thrust within a crowd Where all are thrusting, jostling with each other ; Dependent on a hundred careless censors. Declaring well to-day, and ill to-morrow ; Running aside for gold, and back for jewels ; Dazzled by dancing lights, believing all And moving as if blindfold, worldly love Gropes on its painful way. There is no hope. No faith, no peace, in earth-love. All alone It fights forlorn against unnumbered foes ; It dies ; and finds in death no charity. Thus loved Venator. Nemophil forgives Yields all ;— and still loves on. — 354 Appendix, Upon a moss-grown rock near to the sea, The heaven-deserting Nemophil recHnes ; A sunbeam, captive in her golden hair, Like a bright cloud about her forehead shines. Her azure raiment has joined half its tints With the soft radiance of surrounding air : And still she seems ethereal, still the sign Of fairy life plays through the fond blue eye Which rests upon Venator standing by. " Forgive me, Nemophil !"— " I all forgive, And yet I know not wherein thou hast erred.' Sweet Nemophil, love in thy heart doth live ; To fault forgiveness is thine echo-word. There is a spectacle upon the lake ; Boat after boat, in flaunting bravery. Through yonder gilded islets gaily float. Long pennons wave, and joyous minstrelsy Times the glad rower's oar. " A bridal song ; And mine the bride. Forgive me, Nemophil. Dearest, I did not will to do thee wrong ; Though mine, and not for thee the marriage-strain, I did not think to hear thy voice again. Forgive me, Nemophil !" — " I all forgive." — " I will renounce my second destiny. I will remain with thee !" — " Ah no, ah no. — She loves thee ; leave her not." — " Thou lovest me, Venator murmurs ; then his voice is still. He hears the panting heart of Nemophil. A spirit speaks with her ; — for, being pained By this first grief, out of her golden hair Had fallen the one flow'ret that remained Of the bright crown that fairy-mortals wear ; And in the minute's sense of agony Nemophil. 355 She kissed the rehc— Even love oppressed Must speak, and fond deeds are the voice of love. Torn from its natural embrace, it clings To flower, bird, or tree ; it cannot hang Its listless arms, but it must fondle still, And commune fondly with some gentle thing. — Lo, at the kiss upon that fairy rose Impressed, the mournful music of the night Loudly, more loudly to her sad ear flows. And fairy realms re-open to her sight. Loud in each accent of the bridal hymn She hears the burden of their elfin song : " Martyr of Love !"— Now she beholdeth him, Pure Spiritus, among the sinless throng. Most perfect of a perfect race is he, And his an undefiled destiny. He kneels before the mortal. " I have loved.'' So to his gaze the tearful Nemophil Yields answer. "Tempt me not, but leave me." Then, As doubtful of herself, with eager hands Those eyes like blue and sunny firmaments She covers close. — And Spiritus is gone. — Venator saw not the maid's elfin suitor. " I have loved. Leave me 1 " these the words he heard, " I have loved. Leave me I " and the bridal song Approaches and the bridal train invites His tardy step. — She looks not up at him. Still with her fingers o'er each eyelid pressed. Silent and calmly breathing she has rest. Hark to the music, see the laughing crew. One kiss, and so — from the old love to the new. First by a fond and passionate embrace. By words of love with fury strangely mixed, Is Nemophil awakened. At her side — Venator gone — the dear lone kneels. Bosom to bosom she can press. " Arise, Beloved, — see, the Lake avenges thee 1 — Rage, Lenimar ! Strike their accursed fleet ! " 356 Appendix. Her dark eyes flashing, one slight arm outstretched, With action menacing, she bends above The mossy rock now beaten by the sea. " His sail is broken. Aid me, Lenimar, One blow of righteous vengeance on the bark 1 " But Nemophil with tranquil smile will kiss The fairy rose again, and she will dare On Spiritus to call : " Sweet Spiritus, For my love and for thine, assist my prayer." The flower is gone. The fairy lake is still. In morning light o'er an untroubled sea The fleet is passing by, while Nemophil Kneels, gazing, on the rock. Pure as the light Around her is the maiden's whispered prayer. The fondest blessings on thy bridal night, Venator, Nemophil is sobbing there ! Go forth, my voice, and, with the worldling wroth, Who loving one weds more, and thinks no ill ; Tell how pure Nemophil interprets troth. How love forsaken, mourneth loving still. III. Noon o'er the lake. The sleepy sands are warm Save where the cool tide laves them, and the birds Roost idly sheltered in the foliage Of that vast wood. Light streams among the trees ; In their close paths beneath they have obscured All-covering heaven from view, yet the glad ray Will enter : so the world hath shut out God, Yet to the closest corner penetrates Diffused, the sunshine of His tender care. Long years have fled, still faithful doth remain The fond lone to her early friend ; And still shall Nemophil's firm heart sustain Its noble grief, its love without an end. NemopJiil. 357 These two together share a single cot Beside the lake ; there nightly as they pass The fairies dance around the hallowed spot, And leave their mystic circle on the grass. Secured from evil hap by fairy power, The dwelling stands. By fairy guards concealed, Unseen, save some time in the twilight hour By a chance feeling to the sense revealed. By fairy guards is each unholy tread Averted from that consecrated ground ; By fairy servitors the board is spread ; By fairy hands the gayest blossoms found To plant the garden, or to twine its bowers, To strew its paths, and arch them overhead ; Nightly fresh moss and petals of strange flowers, Breathing new odours, build the sisters' bed. Soft s the couch, arranged by fairy hands. Whereon like doves they nestle side by side ; And, mingling in their dreams, fond elfin bands With blossom veils each mournful image hide. Or doth a dreamer wake to weeping, then There murmurs at her ear a fairy strain. Or floats upon the breeze o'er lake and glen, Lulling her back to peaceful rest again. Oft, while those elfin voices are all still. Bends Spiritus above the tender pair. Then clasps lone tranquil Nemophil, Sleeping, yet sobbing with a blind despair. But never once before their waking eyes Appeared the fairy king. His love is pure. No selfish hope into his heart can rise. He loves ; she loveth : both loves must endure. 358 Appendix. From him all fairy honour freely flows, And never shall his liberal bounty cease ; He seeks no recompense, save her repose : To see her smile, to think she is at peace. To know that he hath brought to her a joy, These the rewards to Spiritus most dear ; And Nemophil, by no false lust made coy. Receives his gifts and service without fear. Whispering at times : " I bless thee, Spiritus ! "— Her whisper falls not upon listless air ; And, if she prays amid her solitude. An unseen angel joins in all her prayer. The holy symbols which in fruit and flower Express Divinity ; the water's voice ; The writing on the sky's unfolded page Which spreads at night before the spirit world That infinite and never-weary tale Of God's eternal glory, and His works. All writ in light, and every point of light A glory world ; of these, and of the truth And love which human hearts to human kind, As rendered unto God, should ever bear : The teaching of her own untainted soul. Brightened with knowledge from the fairy world : Daily of these to guileless auditors Is Nemophil's discourse. — Surrounded now By baskets flower-wreathed, and sunny fruits The constant payment of their constant toil, lone, Nemophil, beneath the grove Within a group of eager children move. There every heart pours its unsullied love Upon the sainted pair ; for through the wood With kindling awe these sisters are revered. They heal the sick, they visit them that mourn ; Strange comfort to the good, and strange rebuke To evil soul in their mild voices dwell ; And eagerly the little infants press Nemophil. 359 To feel their fondling touch, beHeve,and rear Into a creed of Love, each word they hear. Nemophil now doth clasp lone's form — Too slender span ! — It may be, this thin form Which like the pale-leaved poplar quivereth, This wasted image of the black-eyed girl Of olden time, wanting that firm support, Would stand erect no more. A vivid light Shines from beneath the drooping lids which veil Her altered glance ; all tremulous and white The sunken features, and around them flow Her fallen tresses, like a cloud of night, Fearful horizon to the moonlit snow. The children flock around them, and like birds Press to receive the precious grain that falls. Nemophil teaches ; and lone's voice Aids ever with one lesson, learned at will : She prints a kiss upon some upturned face : — " I thank thee, child,— thou lovest Nemophil 1" " lone — dearest — lift this fallen head — I shudder — God — upon my bosom dead I" Nemophil weeps — alone. Go forth, my Voice, and, with the worldling wroth, To him whose love is lucre-fed declare How Nemophil, true to a broken Troth, Bore her dark portion in this land of care. 1847- A TRACT UPON HEALTH FOR COTTAGE CIRCULATION. Under Providence, it is in every man's power to increase or to diminish the heahh (consequently the enjoyment) and duration of life in those immediately around him. Dirt, carelessness, and unwise diet produce effects which no man, however ignorant, can fail to contrast with the results of cleanliness, prudence, and regularity of living. The accurate results of modern science have made it possible to define with great certainty the road upon which health usually travels ; and it is in order to substi- tute in the mind of the cottager this road, for the intricate and contradictory by-paths which the old sign-posts of prejudice, still unremoved, point out, that this little guide-paper has been written. The reader will, perhaps, be glad to consider how far it is in his power to pursue the way of health : — (ist) In the Management of his House ; (2nd) In Management of the Person ; (3rd) In Management of Food and Diet ; and (4th) In Management of Time. MANAGEMENT OF THE HOUSE. I. If it be in your power to select a cottage of your own, do not be guided only by its distance from your place of work. When it is possible be particular in this, that as you stand and look out from its threshold you may breathe fresh air. Remem- ber, it is on this threshold that your children play ; if you can avoid it, do not let their young breath be tainted with the odours of a pig-sty, a drain, or a dunghill. If you keep a pig, the sty is better at a distance, and you must keep it scrupulously clean. If a drain be out of order near you, do not let your landlord rest until he has repaired it ; one of your children may at any time fall sick, and it very easily may happen that the poison of that \cry drain shall cause the sickness to be fatal. If A Tract upon IlcaltJi for Cottage Circulatio}i. 361 you have control over an adjacent dunghill, bear in mind that every scent which rises from it is so much loss to its owner; it is the fertilising- part which flies away. A dunghill carefully covered in, until it be wanted, with a layer of stifi" clay, or mud, is equal in value to another of twice the size which has been constantly left open to the weather. 2. The next rules for selecting a dwelling-place are not all of the same importance. A. — Many cottages ha\-e a back and front door in the same room on opposite walls. If you live in a cottage of this description you will be often reminded that one half of your room is spoiled by a great draught. There is one tirne also when such a draught is particularly dangerous. It is luhen you are fatigued, cither by toil or sickness. To be hot alone, while you are strong and continue in exercise is no great cause of hazard ; the risk occurs when you or any of your family happen to be hot and tired ; or to be tired, whether hot or no. A back door like that just mentioned it is as well to doctor by nailing a strip of list or flannel round its edges, so that there shall be no crevice after it is closed. B. — A bedroom in which only one pane of glass opens to admit fresh air is not good ; but a bedroom with a good fireplace and chimney is better than a room with an opening window, where chinmey there is none. C. — When you have chosen a house do not go into it until it has had all the w^alls freshly whitewashed, and all the floors and painted woodwork cleaned. If there be any corner which your landlord will not assist you in purifying, because it looks already fit for tenancy, whitewash or scrub it for yourself ; you will not lose by the precaution. 3. If you already possess a home, and it is not in all respects like that which I would have you choose, there is no need to be dissatisfied. You must endeavour to bring it to the healthy standard. The nearer the pig-sty is to your door, the more care- fully you must clean it. Dunghills can be moved ; and, if not, they can do no harm when managed properly. Faulty drains can be mended, and I earnestly impress it upon you to be careful in that matter ; represent the case respectfully to those from whom your remedy should come ; and, if you are put off, as I think you would not be, never give up the point ;. petition together with your neighbours and you are not likely to be I A A 362 Appendix. refused. Then indoors, a draught can be cured, and, if not, you have only to avoid its neighbourhood ; and if your bedroom be ill-ventilated, sleep with its door left open. 4. Truth lies at the bottom of a well, and health is in a whitewash pail. Do not let the walls of your house ever be dirty. Paper, if you have any, should be renewed at least every three years ; coloured walls should be freshly coloured every two years ; and those which are whitewashed should have a new coat every spring. In this arrangement health is very materially concerned, and you should on no account neglect it. If you have a garden, you will, of course, keep it in neat order ; and teach your children to assist in so doing. Let them, if you can, have a small slip for flowers of their own, and induce them to find pleasure in its orderly appearance, remembering that the way to keep them out of bad thoughts, bad company, mischief, and danger, is to find them wholesome, harmless occupation. 5. Upon all other matters which concern the arrangement of the house, I address its mistress. It is your wish that your husband should be as happy as possible in the society of your- self and of his children, that he should not spend any of his earnings in the parlour of a beer-shop. Then you will remove out of sight everything which can make home look wretched. Perhaps your whole time is spent in the arrangement of your household ; it ought then to be perfectly well managed. If not, you can at least contrive an hour or two in each day which you might spend in keeping home in order. Your floor and your furniture, if the latter be but a joint stool and a table, must be not rubbed, swept, or wiped, but scrubbed : and whatever can be washed should be well washed in plenty of clean water on Saturday in every week. You should not let this duty be un- finished when your husband comes back from his work. Your home should be quiet, and in its cleanest state by six o'clock in the evening ; for it is possible that a weary man may need more than common inducement to avoid the more than common temptations offered out of doors on Saturday night. If it be possible, it may be better to make your week's purchases before the evening ; if you cannot do this, you can at least avoid un- necessary delay and gossip over them. If you leave him, and A Tract upon Health for Cottage Circulation. 363 talk scandal at the store-shop, your husband is naturally driven to find Ins solace at the public-house. Twice every day the room in which you live should be swept, cleaned, and set in order. If you do not let dirt accumulate, it will be no toil to get rid of its presence. The first cleansing- should be, of course, on rising in the morning ; the second, before " the good man" returns from work, when he must find c\crything in neat and pleasant order. 6. A pure atmosphere in the bedroom is essential to health. Lea\e open door and window during the day, and rest assured that there is a want, which you must remove, either of air or cleanliness, wherever you can perceive in a sleeping-room which you are about to enter for the night the faintest odour. Your night arrangements are of vast importance. Each sleeper draws into his chest, about fifteen times in every minute, a certain quantity of the surrounding air, and returns it, after a change within the body, mixed with a poison. A hundred and fifty grains by weight of this poisonous ingredient are added to the air of your bedroom in one hour, by a single sleeper ; more than one thousand during the night. Unless there be a suffi- cient quantity of air around you to dilute the mixture well, or unless ventilation provide a sufficient quantity of fresh air — fresh food for life— your health will be undermined, your life,, perhaps, endangered. A cottage bedroom of the usual size, when it is quite shut up, contains not more than enough air for a single occupant. It almost always, however, has two or three, sometimes four, five, or six. If you have such a bedroom and it has an open chimney, it is well. That is a famous ventilator. It carries off the spoiled air, and makes space for a fresh and wholesome supply which finds it way into the room. I am sorry to have observed that from some mistaken prejudice this most healthful opening is generally blocked up with a soot-bag, or a chimney-board ; some very energetic people e\en employ bricks and mortar. This is a dangerous mistake. If there be no chimney in your room, or if with a chimney the number of sleepers be still disproportionately great, then you should bear in mind the above cautions, and, in order to admit sufficient air for all, leave the door of your chamber open. Do not, however, carry your care too far. I knew a family of philosophic ladies 364 Appendix. who once became enthusiastic o\'er books on \entilation. The consequence was that every night before retiring to bed, when others make close their shutters, they threw wide open every window on the upper stories of a large London house. If phrenology had not interfered soon, and turned their learned investigations into another channel, probably not one of these ladies would have now been living. Avoid opening the window, and do not allow anyone to sleep in any part of a room where a stream of air can be distinctly felt upon the bed. This is im- prudent even in the warmest nights of summer. 7. Let us sum up all in this — through every corner of your house, the strictest cleanliness must be preserved. It must be free from smell of every sort, except that which in cooking, washing, etc., may be unavoidable ; and all trace even of these must be removed as soon after their, cause as possible. Do not believe in " wholesome smells". No smell, not even the delicious fragrance of the rose, is more, at its best, than a fit source of occasional pleasure. The air we breathe, which surrounds all the world, is scentless, and only in the scent- lessness of our houses have we a safe assurance that the atmosphere is pure within. I have now said as much as is necessary to give you the power of managing your house in such a manner as shall provide you with the best possible security, in that respect, of uninterrupted health. Much of the sickness which we see around us in its most dangerous and painful forms has proceeded either from ignorance of the above rules, or from the want of will or power to obserxe them. Ignorant wow yoic are not. If you have the power, will alone is wanting. If you have not the power now, it is a matter of ten chances to one that still the w ill can ])rocure it for }ou. Try. management of the person. I. The body also has been called "The house we live in"; and, like the house just spoken of, requires to be kept very clean ; dirt is dangerous. When we are hot and perspire, the water which we see upon the skin is only a visible, because increased, quantity of that which is passing as a vapour from e\ery inch of our bodies every moment that we live. It has been calculated that as much as a quart of water, and often A Tract upon HcaltJi for Cotla^^-e Circulation. 365 more, passes daily in this manner through the skin of a healthy person. It passes through minute openings which cover the whole surface, and if these be plugged up by dirt or any other obstruction, it cannot pass at all. In that case it is compelled to seek a passage through the kidneys, and gives rise to internal disease. The recommendation to cleanliness of person is, therefore, not a matter only to please the eye or the fancy ; it is a duty of the first importance. If you live in any place where bathing is possible and safe, it will very greatly promote health if you are able to make use of that advantage once a week. If not, whenever it is possible an opportunity should be taken to wash the entire body. Upon you who are the heads of a family there is a responsibility beyond that which you owe to yourselves. You must set an example of cleanliness and neatness to your children. At no time allow dirt to remain upon any part of your body, or of their bodies, while you have at hand the means which will enable you to remove it. The best time for a full and perfect wash is immediately before you retire to bed ; even if your health be already very good, you will find it improved by adopting such a practice. In this evening wash, thoroughly performed, it will be well habitually to include your feet ; if then you add the precautions necessary to secure a well-ventilated bedroom, you obtain for yourself during that period which constitutes in all a third part of your lives, the best assurance of health and the most complete refreshment. Then, also, you do not run the risk of danger from a hurried morning ablution, while the time may press you to return to work.- The second wash immediately upon rising is very neces- sary to remove the perspiration of the night, and to act as a refreshing stimulus in overcoming that stupefying effect which will generally follow from the long breathing of an air which is, even in the best ventilated rooms, more or less poisoned. The best time for cleaning the teeth is at bed-time, to remove those impurities which adhere during the day's meals, and which would otherwise remain during the night to exercise their injurious action. But this cleansing is obviously necessary in the morning also. Every man, woman, and child should go forth in the morning perfectly clean, and— to repeat the old test —perfectly free from smell of any description, to the work of 366 Appendix. every day. Finally, on returning from labour, if there be an interval of e\ening rest — a few hours in which to enjoy home — I need not say that the husband should find wife and children clean and ready to receive him, and that his first act should be to eftace the dirt, and with it the reminder of his past day's toil, before he sits down to the perfect enjoyment of those hours w hich ought to be the pleasantest in all the day. 2. All children running alone ought to be washed three times daily. The mother of a large family cannot perform this task ; but if the family be large, then it must include elder children, and to one of these — or to two or three in turn — the duty of keeping the young household clean should be entrusted. A child's hair should be brushed morning and evening, and the head washed every week. If the head be thus kept clean, there will be no need to scrape it with the small-tooth comb, which is an injurious custom. Let a child's face and hands be washed whenever they are dirty ; and let whomsoever you have en- trusted with the towel, be also instructed that it is neither necessary nor wise to accompany the process of ablution with slaps upon the back, poking of soap in the eyes, or the infliction of peevish remarks upon the understanding, from which practices has sprung a great distaste for purification among the little commonwealth. When children do not like to be washed, it is because they arc accustomed to the hands of those who do not like to wash them. Cleanliness, howe^•er, though less frequent, is even more essential to the child than to the adult. It is scarcely too much to say that one-half of the ailments among children of the poor would never occur at all, if they were never suffered to be dirty. 3. Not only does the skin act in the manner previously described, passing a constant vapour outwards from within ; but it is also capable of absorbing — sucking inwards — matter placed upon its surface. It is plain, therefore, that the health will be lessened if you place over the greater part of the surface of your body that foul plaster which is formed by dirty clothes. Bear ever in mind the certain truth that cleanliness is only next in importance to food and sleep, as a requisite to health, and you will not find it difficult to adopt a regulation suffi- ciently strict for every useful purpose. Let that part of clothing A Tract upon Ilcaltli for Coftd'^c Circulation. 367 M-hich is worn next to the skin l)c the part most carefully attended to ; let it be put on clean twice every week throughout ^•our famih'. If you arc accustomed to wear flannel on the body, do not leave it off carelessly or without medical advice ; neither in any case recommend or adopt this use of flannel where clean linen should be, unless directly advised to do so. by your medical attendant. The practice is not only unwholesome, but in most cases has originated in a prejudice useless, absurd, and full of danger. It must, however, once adopted, at no time be suddenly left off; in the whole arrangement of your remaining dress, observe, above everything, so far as your occupation will permit, the comprehensive rule " Be Clean". When possible use clothes made of a material which will admit of being washed, and do not allow dirt to accumulate upon them. In your best attire, if you can afford to be not only clean but ornamental, that is as you please, but ornamental clothes and dirty linen only excite contempt. The commonest and oldest garment, if its tatters be thriftily mended, and if it be the clean covering of a clean body, will be always a sure passport to general goodwill. 4. As far as your means permit, adapt the warmth of your clothing to the season. Do not wilfully adopt any foolish system of neglect or exposure, with a view to hardening your children. Some people point to the hardships endured by the robust children of the Indian savage, and pretend that, by like exposure of our youth, we also should rear up a hardy race. Yes, we should, and in the same manner ; by killing all the more delicate children under a system which the robust only can survive. Avoid equally the extreme of carelessness. Within the bounds of common prudence leave the long list of precautionary measures to a healthy instinct. To a healthy person, naturally trained, great-coats and umbrellas will be- come undoubtedly a nuisance, but those who are accustomed to them cannot, perhaps, dispense with their protection. The rule applies here which has already furnished us a hint or two. While he is in active motion wet cannot hurt a healthy man ; but to sit or walk slowly in a state of fatigue, whilst our clothes are wet or (what is equally bad if not worse) whilst they are damp, it is therein that the danger lies. Every unhealthy 36S Appe7tdix\ influence acts most powerfully on the body while it is in a state of fatigue, and has least influence while it is in a state of vigorous and steady action ; thus it is most proper to bathe in the morning, while the energies are fresh, the body calm and active ; but if yoii less wisely arrive at the water-side in a heated and excited state, it is better to leap in at once, and after you have come out, immediately continue your former exercise, than to sit down languidly and wait till you are cool, as the custom is, in which case you wait until bathing has become imprudent. A little reflection upon these last scattered hints will probably guide you in forming a tolerably correct judgment of your own in most cases which concern the Management of the Person. MANAGEMENT OF THE FOOD. I. To begin at the beginning. The food provided for an infant immediately after its birth into the world contains prin- ciples, admirably proportioned, for the purposes of nourish- ment and growth. We are not to "assist nature" with sugar and butter, castor oil, or calomel. Milk and sleep are the two requisites of infant life. Both should be provided with punctual regularity. During the first five or six months of a baby's life it should be suckled night and day, at regular in- tervals of four hours. It should not sleep with the nipple at its mouth : accustom it to the breast whenever it cries, and it will be always crying. From the first, confine it to these regular intervals of food and sleep ; the child will then seldom require more, and will generally wake up at feeding time with perfect punctuality. — At about the seventh or eighth month the teeth first show themselves, and nature gives a hint that she is preparing for a change of diet. Then begin to wean. Lengthen gradually the intervals between the periods of suckling in the night ; but during the hours proper for sleep never give the child any artificial food. During the day diminish gradually the number of suckling periods, substituting for each, at the proper time, a proper artificial diet. At first this should be soft bread steeped in hot water, with a little sugar and fresh milk added ; cow's milk alone is too rich for thc stomach of an infant ; with water and sugar it forms an A Tract upon Health for Cottage Circulation. 369 imitation of the child's first natural provision. Afterwards once during the day the food may consist of some light broth free from fat or vegetable. The child should not be laid upon its back and crammed, but held erect and its actions watched, that the feeding may stop the moment it is satisfied. — During nursing the mother should preserve her own healthy digestion, by adhering to her usual diet, according to the requirements of a probably increased appetite. She is not benefited by porter unless it form part of her usual meals, nor is she the better for any other unaccustomed mode of feeding. Anger and evil passions in the mother during nursing injure the diet of the child. — For some time after weaning, the spoon-meat, with one meal of light broth as before mentioned, should continue to be the infant's food. Four hours form the best interval between meals. Sleep is better than food during the night ; for if the child be fed within that time the disturbance of the stomach from a state of rest interferes with the healthy repose of the whole body. Bread, milk, water, with light meat broth, free from fat, and, as more teeth appear, fresh meat with a little well- cooked vegetable for its dinner, are all the articles which should form the diet of a healthy child up to its seventh year. It should be fed at strictly regular intervals, and then only* 2. After the formation of the second teeth, from about seven years old, the child may be admitted to a wider range of diet. The rest of his life divides itself into two natural and distinct periods : the time of growth, and the time of equilibrium, that is to say, the time after which growth is ended. Here we find it necessary to apply ourselves to the question, What is food ? The human body throughout life is in a state of perpetual decay. By the air we breathe and other influences there is produced an incessant waste, every instant it is going on. The loss on this account our food supplies. Renewal, thus follows decay, so surely and so completely, that of the body which you now possess, scarcely a particle was yours seven years ago ; it is one great repair constructed gradually and imperceptibly of the food which you have eaten in the interval. Obviously the body * The above outline of Infant Management is adopted from the ad- mirable Treatise on the Diseases of Children, by Drs. Maunsell and Evanson, of Dublin. :)/" Appendix. cannot add to itself that which it does not receive, and it follows, therefore, as a matter of necessity that the food should contain exactly the same materials as those of which the body is com- posed, and these too in a correct proportion. For all this God has so wonderfully provided, that I regret the impossibility of entering at any length into so beautiful a subject. The most obvious manner of attaining a food w hich will make flesh, is the adoption of a meat-diet only. This will not do — and for what reason would it not ? Modern science has divided food into two classes : i. That which adds itself to the body, that which nourishes ; and of this meat may be called a type ; and 2. A class which will not nourish, and the purpose of which is to make heat ; to support respiration and keep up that warmth in the body, without w^hich the processes of life cannot go on. The chief element in this second class is called carbon ; it is the same which we burn in our grates under the form of coal, which we eat in sugar, in potatoes, and which we drink in wane and beer, and it burns by a chemical action within our bodies exactly as it does within the fire by w^hich we sit, only so much more slowly that we do not feel its violence, and light and flame are not evolved. Thus, for our diet to be useful, we must not only eat nourishme7it-food (so to speak), but we must eat with it fuel-food m order that it may be prepared for change into a living part of our own living body. The body requires these two elements in a fixed proportion. A healthy m.an to one part of nourishment requires eight parts of fuel ; flesh itself contains fuel in a much less proportion, and a person who confines him- self to that diet must eat to waste — must, in fact, take nourish- ment which he cannot use, for the sake of the accompanying fuel. Starch contains, on the contrary, little nourishment, but much of the heat-producing element. Thus it has been cal- culated that if you were to provide a man with one animal and an equal weight of starch, and he could live a certain number of days in health and strength, another man without the starch would rec[uire to consume five such animals in order to support life for an equal length of time. Vegetables contain more or less of certain compounds exactly corresponding in their elements to animal flesh and blood — animal flesh and blood, therefore, with these compounds, which A Tract upon Health for Cottai^c Circulation. 371 are called vegetable tibiine, albumen, and caseinc, form the 7wurishment of man ; the fuel exists chiefly in fat, potatoes, and starchy vegetables, gum, sugar, wine, beer, and spirits. This, then, is an outline of the nature and use of food ; but we referred just now to two periods of life, a time of growth and a time of equilibrium. In the adult man or woman there is con- stant decay, and renewal in exact proportion. It is consistent with perfect nourishment that there should be neither the gain nor loss of even an ounce in weight, gain and loss are exactly balanced ; that, then, is the time of equilibrium. In the child every process of life is more rapid ; not only is the comparative waste far greater, and therefore a greaterproportion of nourishment would be needed to sustain a balance only, but more than balance is required, in- crease must exceed loss — there must be an excess of nourishment — the child \TiViS\. grow. At every age there is daily variation, the waste is greater in an active man than in one who sits at home, the constant labourer requires more nourishment, the idler less, than the moderately active man. Now, therefore, you will be able partly to understand from the following table how, in the milk, nature has so wisely provided for the infant's wants : the proportion of nourishment being one to every two of fuel ; while one in eight is the adult standard. I copy this table from the most recent work of authority, on the Philosophy of Diet."^ The proportion of nourishment-food to fuel -food is in — Milk (food for a growing animpM . . i to 2 Beans i ,, 2^ Oatmeal • . i ,, 5 Barley i .. 7 Wheat flour (food for an animal at rest) . i ,, 8 Potatoes I ,, 9 Rice I ,, lo Turnips . . . . .i,,ii Arrow-root, Tapioca, Sag j . . i ,, 26 Starch i ,, 40 Meat has been spoken of. The food for an animal in Nouth and during exercise should range therefore between milk and wheat flour. * Experimental Researches on the Food of Animals and Man, by R. D. Thomson. 1^2 Appendix. Milk, adds Dr. Thomson, may therefore be used with a certain amount of farinaceous matter, such as the class of flour and meal, with probable advantage ; but the dilution should not exceed the prescribed limits. We learn that as nature has pro- vided milk as the true food for the support of children, their diet should be always regulated in accordance with this type. The use of arrow-root, tapioca, and preparations sold as " farinaceous food" is wholly opposed to the principles unfolded in this table. The proportion of nourishment in these is one to twenty-six, instead of one to two, the quantity required. Arrow-root may be compared to flour deprived as much as possible of its nutri- tive matter, and is fit only in inflammatory diseases when it is advisable to withdraw nourishment from the child, and at the same time it is requisite to keep up the animal heat. Dr. Thomson ascribes a large proportion of the complaints of the nursery, irregularity of the bowels, etc., to a mistaken faith in the preparations above condemned. The use of " farinaceous food" is, in fact, ec^uivalent to bleeding. It appears also from the above table that the health of an adult cannot be supported firmly upon vegetable diet, unless it should include a liberal quantity of bread, which is rightly called the " staff" of life", since it contains the exact elements necessary to maintain the body in a healthy balance. Those Irish who live upon potatoes consume eight pounds for the daily average allowance of each individual ; this does not support vigorous life, and a much larger weight of food is taken than might be necessary if the elements were otherwise proportioned. Four pounds out of every five in the weight of the human body is made up of its water only. We include water in our bread and in all other forms of food, but it is necessary, in order to supply the loss from constant evaporation and excretion, that we add to our diet a considerable quantity also in the liquid form. We flavour, drug, and disguise it as wine, beer, tea, etc. ; in all these the pure water alone is that which is essential. It is probable that we should best consult health if we confined ourselves at all times to pure water as a drink. Alcoholic lic[uors supply fuel, as we have before said, in a very concen- trated form ; but it must be confessed that in ordinary diet the fuel can be ol^taincd in a less exceptional)le manner. That A Tract upon Health for Cottage Circulation. 373 spirit, wine, or beer contains no particle of nourislinient is now universally known. Some of them produce fat, but that is explicable on simple grounds, as it is, in fact, a production of disease. Some forms have a slight tonic property, and all are more or less stimulant — used very moderately, they relieve fatigue and promote cheerfulness of mind. You will consult your discretion in employing or abstaining from this form of diet ; but if you drink beer, you had better brew at home. Hard porter was formerly made out of new by the addition of sulphuric acid ; and old beer is made mild by carbonate of lime soda, or potash. Cocculus-indicus, a virulent poison, which produces giddiness and convulsions, is quietly recommended in at least two treatises " on brewing", by Childe and Maurice — 3 lbs. to ten quarters of malt — the giddiness it produces passes for strength of liquor, and, says Maurice, " it prevents a second fermentation in bottled beer." There is now a penalty of ^^200 on the use, and ^^500 on the sale of this drug ; but brewers' druggists often evade the law with a watery extract which is sold as " black extract" or " hard multum". Quassia and colocynth are used as bitters, colocynth acting as a violent purge, (irains of paradise and cayenne give pungency. Coriander, carraway, etc., give flavour. Liquorice, treacle, and honey give colour and consistence to porter ; and finally, the fine frothy or cauliflower head is often made by a mixture called beer-heading, composed of green vitriol, alum, and common salt. If you take beer it should be only with your meals ; the practice of drinking it at various times in the day, even in moderate quantities, is most pernicious. Employers who give beer as a donation, or in place of bread, meat, or money, as a part of wages, are either unwisely liberal or wickedly unjust. The liberal would gladly turn their generosity into a more useful channel, upon being simply asked to do so. The unjust should be withstood and made to abolish the practice, which prevails in too many districts, of " Beer wages". I think on the whole that you will find it cheaper and healthier to transfer your patronage from the publican to the butcher and the baker. My certain w^aining, however, extends no further than to this : if you would preserve health you must drink beer only with your meals, and it must be beer upon the genuineness of which you can depend, 374 Appendix. home-brewed if possible. Whether you cannot dispense with it entirely, and to domestic advantage, is a question worth inquiry — and worth perhaps a month's experiment. Much strong tea is also objectionable, and the stomach is not strengthened by being filled twice daily with very hot water. Cocoa (if it be cocoa) contains nutriment, and is a wholesome breakfast drink, but it will not agree with all stomachs ; much that is sold consists of the husks only ground to powder, or of damaged nuts from which the oil has been pressed out, mixed with potato-flour, mutton-suet, etc. Bread and milk form perhaps the most wholesome breakfast, and from the other drinks now in ordinary use you have now knowledge enough to make your own selection. The bloom on tea is given with sulphate of lime and prussian-blue or indigo, but the adultera- tion is harmless. Coffee cannot be poisoned by any number of beans, and it is also (very slightly) nutritive. MANAGEMENT OF TIME. I. The Periods of Sleep. — An infant sleeps continuously, awaking only to be fed at proper intervals. Up to the third year, in addition to its nightly rest, a child will require to sleep for about two hours in the middle of each day. Afterwards and in all cases the youth requires more rest than the adult, but the exact proportion varies in individuals according to constitution or the influence of external causes. There is an adage attri- buted to King George IV upon this subject, which, as we might expect from such a source, is of no earthly value. He allowed " six hours for a man, seven for a woman, and eight for a fool". I would advise you if possible to endeavour to make yourself a fool. Early rising is in itself only beneficial to those who retire to bed proportionately soon. " Rise with the lark'' is a good recommendation, if you will also roost with her. The lark sleeps for eight hours at least ; few animals take shorter rest, and in winter all of them require more ; we may take warning, therefore, from the animated world around us, and be guided also by our own personal experience. Those whose circumstances enable them to retire to bed at nine and rise at five are, perhaps, most fortunate in such a period of sleep, and A Tract upon Health for Cottage Circulation. 375 are in that respect placed in circumstances most advantag^cous to good health. Nature by a longer night warns us that in winter the period of rest should be increased. 2. The Period of Meals. — Of the intervals most proper for a child we have before spoken. Concerning the number of meals proper for general use, and the best times of taking them, scientific opinions are most contradictory. It is certain only that a second meal of solid food should not be taken until the first has been digested, and the stomach has had a short rest, that is, there should be, at any rate, a four hours' interval. Some maintain that two full meals daily, with a free interval of seven or eight hours, will be all that is sufficient, and will serve best to maintain good health. The truth probably is, that within the above restriction all such arrangements are entirely immaterial. So long as the accustomed hours be perfectly adhered to, the form of diet be of the same general character, and the amount of food taken in each meal be sufficient, not excessive, and tolerably uniform from day to day, nature will accede perfectly to any arrangement which your household finds convenient. A full supper, however, is not advisable shortly before the time of sleep. 3. Your hours of labour probably are fixed ; upon your hours of leisure it would be impertinent in me to dictate anything. I speak only of that which bears a direct influence upon health, and the following remarks are all which now remain. As far as possible in everything you do let there be a system — let every recurring task or pleasure have a fixed period in which to return. By every departure from a wise punctuality of conduct, nature is offended and health threatened. That evil passions destroy the soul, you hear in church and chapel ; it is my business only to tell you that they prey upon the body also. Sin and lust not only shut out heaven, but they tend, by the diseases in their train, also to embitter and to shorten the few days of your residence on earth. The code of the Christian is the code as well of bodily as of spiritual health. 1847. A TRACT UPON INTERRUPTED HEALTH AND SICK-ROOM DUTIES. " But none shall attain herein to perfection except they who are Patient ; neither shall any attain thereto, except he who is endued with a great Happiness of Temper."— The Koran. \_Fro?n this iract^ published in 1847, only a fciv passages are here reprinted?)^ 1. When we live, breathe, and act with perfect ease ; feel in our bodies no pain, no impediment ; when the machinery of our perishable frames performs its work so smoothly that we are never reminded to consider whether it be well with us or not, then we say that Ave have Health. We do not know that we then have it. Death comes to us sometimes as a taste- less poison, which kills before it has destroyed the pleasure of the cup with which it had been mixed. So long as we feel no ill, we say that we are well ; and all deviation from the con- ditions by which Health has just now been defined, we call Disease or Sickness. 2. Four things are requisite to Life and Health : Air, Water, Warmth, and Food. These are provided in the world around us. To the influence of some deficiency in one of these re- spects may commonly be traced the interrupted health of childhood, youth, and adult age. Death in these periods of life — while Providence disposes all — we may be able, by an exercise of reason, to account for ; and against like danger, if God will, we may by remedies protect ourselves. But the decay of the old man is the true Natural Death. It is the result of an inscrutable decree. Philosophy, having the Bible shut, cannot explain why we live. Life being granted — the four requisites of life being given — one of the first philosophers Interrupted Health and Siek-ronni Ditties. 377 of our own age confesses that he cannot solve the problem, Why we die. Man is born, — he attains strength, — produces new men to supply his place when he shall be no more, — his strength fails, — and he crumbles into dust. In a former Tract, our subject was the way of Health ; and now we come to speak of Sick-room Duties. But, as you would not build for yourself a cottage over the ruins of a shed, but would assuredly remove the shed and then begin to build : so neither can I speak to you of right management in case of interrupted Health, until I have endeavoured in the first place to remove those obstacles of prejudice with which the ground we need is uselessly (nay, dangerously) bestrewn. Before you learn what plans you should adopt, learn what YOU SHOULD ABANDON. % -x- -it -Jf # \_T/ie learnings were aj^>-ainst PJiysie at Birt/i., Domestic Medi- cine^ the Infanfs Opiate., the Qiiaek., ineliiding the " experienced frie?id^\ and misuse of the Druggist.'] Domestic Medicine. — At no time give or take medicine of any description without good ad\icc. Medicine cannot make well better ; but it cannot fail to make well worse. It can cure sickness, sometimes, but it can never increase health. Be warned by the old epitaph : " I was well — I would be better — and here I am." Every drug acts by creating a disease. Its usual object is to excite a morbid action which shall neutralise (so to speak) the powers of another action al- ready set up in the body. In every recovery you require time for nature to repair the injuries occasioned by the medicine, as well as those which yet remain from the disease against which it was provided as a remedy. To use a plain example. You know well, because it is evident to your eyes, that the surgeon with his scalpel "wounds to heal". If he removes the smallest tumour he must still leave a knife-wound in its place ; and for the cure of this, he depends trustfully on nature. It is exactly so with the physician and his remedies. Medicine is the knife which works in parts unseen. And if you would not with your own hand thrust a lancet into your child's skin, so neither should you thrust a drug into its body. ^ -it * -x- * I B B 2,/S Appendix. Can I show you by example the absurdity of the pretence on which the sale of patent medicines is often founded ? Take for example a statement, commonly employed, that at the source of all diseases is an impure state of the blood ; that therefore, to purify the blood cures all diseases, that Pikpokket's Pills purify the blood ; and that, therefore, Pikpokket's Pills cure all diseases. This is true Cjuack-logic, in which every statement in the chain of reasoning is an untruth. But now what would you say to a watchmaker who asserted that at the foundation of all correct clock-work is a smooth movement of the wheels ; that for this purpose oil only was needful ; that Oldrogue's oil caused a most perfect smoothness and accuracy of movement ; and, therefore, that Oldrogue's oil would correct every error in a clock or watch, cracked glasses, broken springs, bent hands, loss of pendulum, etc., enumerating every accident to which a time-piece is exposed. You laugh at Oldrogue's oil, because you know something of the constitution of a clock ; and if you do not laugh at Pikpokket's Pills, it is because )'ou know no- thing of that machine of infinitely greater delicacy, and more intricate adaptation, of the constitution of your own living- body. * * -sf * -X- The Druggist is a useful auxiliary to health, when he per- forms only his legal duties. His duties are to sell good drugs, using precaution that he does not let any which are dangerous pass into unsafe hands ; and he is to compound from authorised prescriptions. Generally the country druggist is a bit of a doctor, and sometimes performs as much work as a bit of a pestilence in the way of destroying health and life. Knowing nothing of the human body, and of the action of drugs only a " dangerous little", he can, by one wave of his hand before a shelf have at his fingers' ends a score of deadly poisons. This is enough to make one timid. But then, again, if the druggist knows little of remedies, that little is called not too often into use. He is re- Cjuired to treat patients whom he has not seen, upon a statement of symptoms which would puzzle the most acute physician. " Something for a staking at the stomach," as an instance, is a demand which would produce an answering compound of very doubtful efficacy. '' Something for the child's cough," too, is a hiterriiptcd Health atid Sick-rooui Duties. 379 request tolerably vague, considering that a cough is no more than an effect which may depend on very many causes, and that very commonly too it is itself a remedy, an effort made by Nature to get rid of some obstruction. Such an effort parents and druggists combine with determination to put down. The child is at length perhaps threatened with suffocation, and a more trustworthy adviser sent for. The Chinese have a remedy for the plague. They make a hole in the ground, fill it with water, and stir well with a stick. The resulting liquid they drink as plague-medicine, under the title of Earth Soup. If you must attempt some cure (Tf sickness before you call in skilled assistance, let me advise you, in preference to your own guesses — quack deceptions, or the better-intentioned guesses of the druggist — try Earth Soup. Do not laugh at the Chinese. If you will take drugs blindl)', )our treatment is a great deal more unwise than theirs. Their way is innocent, but your way bristles with dan^rer. Dr. Cheyne (I think) has said of his brethren, that " he cures most, in whom most put their trust". Daily experience proves this. The originator of a new plan works wonders with it — but it is not his plan, but his enthusiasm, which affects the sick. They catch his tone of confidence, and get well quickly. These facts point out to you your proper duty to the patient over whom you watch. Let no meddling lips destroy his confidence in those remedies to which he looks for aid. He is attended by one surgeon, you prefer another. Do not draw invidious com- parisons. Hope, Patience, Cheerfulness, these are your main duties to the sufferer. As a nurse, bring to him his medicine with regularity (Nature responds to Ptaictuality, but is distressed greatly by its absence), and let each dose be accompanied with hopeful words ; — spoken, too, in a hopeful tone, a tone of settled confidence in good results. Pain you must soothe with cheerful kindness, but with no doleful pity. Fatigue you must bear, but never talk about. Provocation of patience you must endure with an unaltered voice and countenance. If any sudden danger threaten, repress all sign of hurry and alarm. Sav not a word of dangler, relate or suffer the relation of no 38 J Appendix. dismal stories in the hearing of the sick ; neither permit levity. From the sick-room every disturbing passion ought to be ex- cluded ; no person who is out of temper ought to enter it. Every privilege of health should be allowed to the sick man (man, woman, or child, I mean, of course, throughout), every privilege of health which he is able to retain with safety. Paraphernalia of sickness are not to be obtruded upon his notice. Take pains to select topics of conversation which will interest and please his mind. If he will dwell upon dismal thoughts, you must not chide him, it is a sign that you have much to do : — patiently persevere in cheerful answering, and seek, by quiet tact, to lead his mind into a happier current. Let him be led daily to religious musing — to the consolations of religion, not its terrors. If ever a man needs terrors to drive him to God, it is assuredly not upon the sick-bed. Let a short time daily be devoted to the reading of the Scriptures, and let the reader be that member of the household whose voice will be most pleasant in the sick man's ear. Select always passages which speak of love and mercy, and thus rob death of its alarms. If any pray with him, in addition to the minister, let it be only those whom he respects and loves. Exclude those well-meaning volunteers who " exercise themselves" by ghostly — and more than ghost-like — performances among the sick. I remember a patient seriously ill, whose life was unquestionably shortened by the effects of her complaisance in this respect ; she was told that there " could not be too much of a good thing", and dared not refuse admission to anyone who came to pray beside her. The result was a succession throughout the day of saints, and fancied saints, of every creed and character. Some brought terrors and some weariness ; none peace. Some raised their voices that the edification might extend to the sick woman's neighbours, and the people in the street ; while some were more disposed for confidential groaning. When 1 expostulated with the most assiduous, their answer was, " You may be right, but the soul is to be considered before the bod)-, and the Gospel teaches us to ' Pray without ceasing'. " Now I am not disposed to quarrel with a strictly literal interpretation of that text, because I believe that a dependence upon God is so comj)letely intcrwoxcn with the tcm})cr of the Christian, that Iiiicrniptcd Health and Sick-room Futics. 381 he does actually, in every act or word, pray without ceasing. Not by groan or exclamation. It is with the heart that prayer is made to God, and only to man on the lips. Do you think that a sick person ought perpetually to hear the prayers of others ? Has he no themes for secret contemplation .' Do you think that, with the Bible on his bed, and the voice of a beloved one ready, when he desires it should be read ; with the prayers of his life's companions around him ; with his own minister at hand to guide him, comfort him, and solve his doubts if any should occur; with the events of a past life in his memory, and a Great Future in his hope : do you think that, as he lies quietly upon his bed, so provided, so surrounded, that his heart cannot ascend to God in one incessant sacrifice of prayer ? Perhaps he is a dying man and his hours few^ ; is there an intruder so vain of his own piety as never to feel doubt whether, in such a case, he may not be a great obstruction ? If he feel no such doubt, then is he far worse than the Pharisee in the Temple. It is as if, had he been a Pharisee, he would ha\e looked down with patronising glances on the Publican, and said, " Poor mortal I see, he cannot pray" ; and have approached, interrupting his devotions, to perform some oratory for him. Far be it from me to question the Christian sincerity of every stranger who brings unasked prayers to a sick-room ; only to you, who act as nurse to a sick friend, I repeat the caution ; let those who pray with him be only those to whom he is linked by natural affection ; those out of his own circle, who as charitable friends, as district visitors, or coming in any other form, have obtained a real hold upon his esteem, and finally, the minister from whom he has been accustomed to receive public instruction. Against all other comers, resolutely shut the sick-room door. When death has in any case become inevitable, sometimes the fact is con- cealed from the sufferer. That is unnecessary. He can, without any excitement, be prepared for a fatal issue to the utmost ex- 'tcnt that the most timid conscience could desire. The right way is to dwell seriously upon death as possible ; that being done, revert to the old hopeful strain. This duty is in the province of the surgeon, and requires some little tact. When properly performed, it carries with it no delusion, and it retains hope to the last ; for as the earthly Hope breaks bit by bit 382 Appendix. away, a better Hope ebbs in upon the soul, and the most glorious time of Hope at which a man arrives is in the very moment of his dying. You think that I have demanded for the sick man's nurse no trit^ing qualifications. I ask what few indeed can bring, but all can strive towards. The sick man requires Faith and Hope ; the nurse must have Faith, Hope, and Charity. True charity it must be too, suffering long, and kind. With a speech free from envy and boasting. Beha\ing not unseemly. Free from selfishness and malice. Not easily pro^•oked. Bearing all things. Believing all things. Hoping all things. Never failing. Thus you perceive that while we have already found that Christianity does most to make a healthy man, so do we now discover that it is of all things best adapted even to the temporal requirements of the sick ; and that there is no better method of performing Sick-room Duties than by perfomiance of the first great duties of a Christian. \_0n the last leaf of this Tract upon ''Interrupted Health'' iv hat follows^ Interrupted HealtJi and Sick-room Duties. 38 PSALM XCI. SEARCH AFTER HEALTH, Under the shadow of Thy throne, O Lord, The man abides who dwelleth near to Thee ; To him whose trust is in Thy steadfast word A refuge and a fortress Thou wilt be. Him, Thou wilt loosen from the fowler's snare, And rescue from the noisome pestilence ; For him shall night no shroud of terror wear. By day from danger Thou art his defence. Him shalt Thou cover with Thy feathered wing, To him thine inmost Love is all revealed ; Him to Thy brooding bosom Thou shalt bring ; Thy truth shall be his buckler and his shield. Through midnight gloom the Pestilence shall stride At noon Destruction walk, and make a void Around thee ; thee no evil shall betide : The child of God remaineth undestroyed. A thousand men shall perish at thy side, And tens of thousands fall at thy right hand ; Thou with thine eyes shalt see their answered pride They all are scattered ; thou shalt ever stand. No evil shall befall thee. No Plague stalk Within thy dwelling. For the Lord most High Shall give his angels charge with thee to walk. And keep thee on thy way, and strength supply. 384 Appendix. Thou, if tliy foot should dash against a stone, Shalt be supported, by their hands up-borne ; From the dank adder's mouth its sting is gone Where thou dost tread ; and thou shalt pass untorn Among the lions. Thou the dragon's nest And the young lion's lair shalt trample down Unhurt, because thy love on God doth rest, And thou hast made the House of God thine own. Therefore the Lord God will deliver thee — Thou that hc:st learned to know His holy Name :— To Him in days of trial thou shalt flee ; To Him from whom the days of trial came. Honoured by Him, thou shalt be lifted up ; Rescued by Him, on whom thou hast relied; God shall with His Salvation fill thy cup: And with long life shalt thou be satisfied. : WHlTINtJ AND CO., ZO ANIi 32, SARDINIA STKHKT, 14 DAY USE RETURN TO DESK FROM WHICH BORROWED LOAN DEPT. This book is due on the last date stamped below, or on the date to which renewed. Renewed books are subject to immediate recall. INTER .^^^- LIBHARY LCAii \j u , b Wl Ui^iV. OF CALIF.. BERK. NOV 111986 15 IN S T ACKS OCT 28 1966 -M^ '^i-v ^n^ m^ \j> MAR g 972 ID 8£C*DLD MAR 9':^^-lQflr^ V:^ APR 2 7 1981 APR 2 6 m ««i.CI8. KOI/ 3 '82 LD 21A-60m-10,'65 (F7763sl0)476B General Library University of California Berkeley ■-40»n-3,'GU(aJi59.s4).lj