The Bed-Book of Happiness Part 9

The old man rose up to meet me, and with a respectful cordiality would have me sit down at the table; my heart was set down the moment I entered the room; so I sat down at once, like a son of the family; and, to invest myself in the character as speedily as I could, I instantly borrowed the old man's knife, and, taking up the loaf, cut myself a hearty luncheon; and, as I did it, I saw a testimony in every eye, not only of an honest welcome, but of a welcome mixed with thanks that I had not seemed to doubt it.

Was it this? or tell me, Nature, what else it was that made this morsel so sweet; and to what magic I owe it, that the draught I took of their flagon was so delicious with it, that they remain upon my palate to this hour.

If the supper was to my taste, the grace which followed it was much more so.

THE GRACE [Sidenote: _Sterne_]

When supper was over the old man gave a knock upon the table with the haft of his knife, to bid them prepare for the dance. The moment the signal was given, the women and girls ran off together into a back apartment to tie up their hair, and the young men to the door to wash their faces and change their _sabots_; and in three minutes every soul was ready upon a little esplanade before the house to begin. The old man and his wife came out last, and, placing me betwixt them, sat down upon a sofa of turf by the door.

The old man had, some fifty years ago, been no mean performer upon the _vielle_; and at the age he was then of, touched it well enough for the purpose. His wife sang now and then a little to the tune, then intermitted and joined her old man again, as their children and grandchildren danced before them.

It was not till the middle of the second dance, when, for some pauses in the movements wherein they all seemed to look up, I fancied I could distinguish an elevation of spirit different from that which is the cause of the effect of simple jollity. In a word, I thought I beheld religion mixing in the dance; but, as I had never seen her so engaged, I should have looked upon it now as one of the illusions of an imagination which is eternally misleading me, had not the old man, as soon as the dance ended, said that this was their constant way; and that all his life long he had made it a rule, after supper was over, to call out his family to dance and rejoice; "believing," he said, "that a cheerful and contented mind was the best sort of thanks to Heaven that an illiterate peasant could pay"--

"Or a learned prelate either," said I.

HINTS FOR AN HISTORICAL PLAY; TO BE CALLED WILLIAM RUFUS; OR, THE RED ROVER [Sidenote: _Ingoldsby_]

_Act_ 1

Walter Tyrrel, the son of a Norman papa, Has, somehow or other, a Saxon mama: Though humble, yet far above mere vulgar loons, He's a sort of a sub in the Rufus dragoons; Has travelled, but comes home abruptly, the rather That some unknown rascal has murder'd his father; And scarce has he picked out, and stuck in his quiver, The arrow that pierced the old gentleman's liver, When he finds, as misfortunes come rarely alone, That his sweetheart has bolted--with whom is not known.

But, as murder will out, he at last finds the lady At court with her character grown rather shady: This gives him the "blues," and impairs the delight He'd have otherwise felt when they dub him a Knight For giving a runaway stallion a check, And preventing his breaking King Rufus's neck.

_Act 2_

Sir Walter has dress'd himself up like a Ghost, And frightens a soldier away from his post; Then, discarding his helmet, he pulls his cloak higher, Draws it over his ears and pretends he's a Friar.

This gains him access to his sweetheart, Miss Faucit; But, the King coming in, he hides up in her closet; Where, oddly enough, among some of her things, He discovers some arrows he's sure are the King's, Of the very same pattern with that which he found Sticking into his father when dead on the ground!

Forgetting his funk, he bursts open the door, Bounces into the drawing-room, stamps on the floor, With an oath on his tongue, and revenge in his eye, And blows up King William the Second sky-high; Swears, storms, shakes his fist, and exhibits such airs, That his Majesty bids his men kick him downstairs.

_Act 3_

King Rufus is cross when he comes to reflect, That, as King, he's been treated with gross disrespect; So he pens a short note to a holy physician, And gives him a rather unholy commission, Viz., to mix up some a.r.s.enic and ale in a cup, Which the chances are Tyrrel may find and drink up.

Sure enough, on the very next morning, Sir Walter Perceives, in his walks, this same cup on the altar.

As he feels rather thirsty, he's just about drinking, When Miss Faucit, in tears, comes in running like winking; He pauses, of course, and, as she's thirsty too, Says, very politely, "Miss, I after you!"

The young lady curtsies, and, being so dry, Raises somehow her fair little finger so high, That there's not a drop left him to "wet t'other eye"; While the dose is so strong, to his grief and surprise, She merely says, "Thankee, Sir Walter," and dies.

At that moment the King, who is riding to cover, Pops in _en pa.s.sant_ on the desperate lover, Who has vow'd, not five minutes before, to transfix him-- So he does--he just pulls out his arrow and sticks him.

From the strength of his arm, and the force of his blows, The Red-bearded Rover falls flat on his nose; And Sir Walter, thus having concluded the quarrel, Walks down to the footlights, and draws this fine moral: "Ladies and gentlemen, lead sober lives: Don't meddle with other folks' sweethearts or wives!-- When you go out a-sporting take care of your gun, And--never shoot elderly people in fun!"

IN A VISITOR'S BOOK [Sidenote: _J.K. Stephen._]

Within the bounds of this Hotel, Which bears the name of Pen-y-Gwryd, A black and yellow hound doth dwell, By which my friend and I were worried.

Our object is not to imply That he a.s.saulted, bit, or tore us; In fact he never ventured nigh Except when food was set before us.

But when the scent of ham and eggs Announced the breakage of our fast, He came and twined about our legs, And interrupted our repast.

We drove him from us through the door; He reappeared; we tried the cas.e.m.e.nt; He seemed to rise out of the floor, And importuned us as before, To our unspeakable amazement.

But timely succour Fortune brought us; One word of Welsh we chanced to know, And that a fellow-guest had taught us; It meant "Unpleasant creature, go!"

Stranger! If you should chance to meet him, Oh do not pull, or kick, or push, Or execrate, or bribe, or beat him, But make a sound resembling "Cwsh"!

LETTERS OF FITZ [Sidenote: _Edward FitzGerald_]

Mazzinghi tells me that November weather breeds blue devils--so that there is a French proverb, "In October de Englishman shoot de pheasant; in November he shoot himself." This, I suppose, is the case with me: so away with November, as soon as may be....

Have you got in your "Christian Poet" a poem by Sir H. Wotton--"How happy is he born or taught, that serveth not another's will"? It is very beautiful, and fit for a Paradise of any kind. Here are some lines from old Lily, which your ear will put in the proper metre. It gives a fine description of a fellow walking in spring, and looking here and there, and p.r.i.c.king up his ears, as different birds sing: "What bird so sings, but doth so wail? Oh! 'tis the ravished nightingale: 'Jug, jug, jug, jug, terue,' she cries, and still her woes at midnight rise. Brave p.r.i.c.k-song! who is't now we hear? It is the lark so shrill and clear: against heaven's gate he claps his wings, the morn not waking till he sings. Hark, too, with what a pretty note poor Robin Redbreast tunes his throat: Hark, how the jolly cuckoos sing, 'Cuckoo' to welcome in the spring: 'Cuckoo' to welcome in the spring.'" This is very English, and pleasant, I think: and so I hope you will. I could have sent you many a more sentimental thing, but nothing better. I admit nothing into my Paradise, but such as breathe content, and virtue....

The Church, like the Ark of Noah, is worth saving: not for the sake of the unclean beasts that almost filled it, and probably made most noise and clamour in it, but for the little corner of rationality, that was as much distressed by the stink within as by the tempest without....

[Sidenote: _Edward FitzGerald_]

Some one from this house is going to London: and I will try and write you some lines now in half an hour before dinner. 'I am going out for the evening to my old lady, who teaches me the names of the stars, and other chaste information. You see, Master John Allen, that if I do not come to London (and I have no thought of going yet) and you will not write, there is likely to be an end of our communication: not, by the way, that I am never to go to London again; but not just yet. Here I live with tolerable content: perhaps with as much as most people arrive at, and what if one were properly grateful one would perhaps call perfect happiness. Here is a glorious sunshiny day: all the morning I read about Nero in Tacitus, lying at full length on a bench in the garden, a nightingale singing, and some red anemones eyeing the sun manfully not far off. A funny mixture all this, Nero, and the delicacy of spring, all very human however. Then at half-past one lunch on Cambridge cream cheese: then a ride over hill and dale: then spudding up some weeds from the gra.s.s: and then, coming in, I sit down to write to you, my sister winding red worsted from the back of a chair, and the most delightful little girl in the world chattering incessantly. So runs the world away. You think I live in Epicurean ease; but this happens to be a jolly day: one isn't always well, or tolerably good, the weather is not always clear, nor nightingales singing, nor Tacitus full of pleasant atrocity. But such as life is, I believe I have got hold of a good end of it....

Give my love to Thackeray from your upper window across the street.

... I am living (did I tell you this before?) at a little cottage close by the lawn gates, where I have my books, a barrel of beer, which I tap myself (can you tap a barrel of beer?), and an old woman to do for me. I have also just concocted two gallons of tar-water under the directions of Bishop Berkeley: it is to be bottled off this very day after a careful skimming, and then drunk by those who can and will. It is to be tried first on my old woman; if she survives, I am to begin; and it will then gradually spread into the parish, through England, Europe, etc., "as the small pebble stirs the peaceful lake."

... Does the thought ever strike you, when looking at pictures in a house, that you are to run and jump at one, and go right through it into some scene-behind-scene world on the other side, as harlequins do? A steady portrait especially invites one to do so: the quietude of it ironically tempts one to outrage it. One feels it would close again over the panel, like water, as if nothing had happened. That portrait of Spedding, for instance, which Laurence has given me: not swords, nor cannon, nor all the bulls of Bashan b.u.t.ting at it could, I feel sure, discompose that venerable forehead. No wonder that no hair can grow at such an alt.i.tude; no wonder his view of Bacon's virtue is so rarefied that the common consciences of men cannot endure it. Thackeray and I occasionally amuse ourselves with the idea of Spedding's forehead. We find it somehow or other in all things, just peering out of all things: you see it in a milestone, Thackeray says. He also draws the forehead rising with a sober light over Mont Blanc, and reflected in the Lake of Geneva. We have great laughing over this. The forehead is at present in Pembrokeshire, I believe; or Glamorganshire; or Monmouthshire: it is hard to say which. It has gone to spend its Christmas there....

[Sidenote: _Edward FitzGerald_]

I wish you would write me ten lines to say how you are. You are, I suppose, at Cambridge, and I am buried (with all my fine parts, what a shame!) here; so that I hear of n.o.body--except that Spedding and I abuse each other about Shakespeare occasionally, a subject on which you must know that he has lost his conscience, if he ever had any. For what did Dr. Allen ... say when he felt Spedding's head? Why, that all his b.u.mps were so tempered that there was no merit in his sobriety--then what would have been the use of a Conscience to him? Q.E.D.

Since I saw you, I have entered into a decidedly agricultural course of conduct: read books about composts, etc. I walk about in the fields also where the people are at work, and the more dirt acc.u.mulates on my shoes, the more I think I know. Is not this all funny? Gibbon might elegantly compare my retirement from the cares and splendours of the world to that of Diocletian. Have you read Thackeray's little book--"The Second Funeral of Napoleon"? If not, pray do; and buy it, and ask others to buy it, as each copy sold puts 7-1/2d. in T.'s pocket, which is very empty just now, I take it. I think this book is the best thing he has done.

What an account there is of the Emperor Nicholas in Kemble's last Review! The last sentence of it (which can be by no other man in Europe but Jack himself) has been meat and drink to me for a fortnight. The electric eel at the Adelaide Gallery is nothing to it. Then Edgeworth fires away about the Odes of Pindar, and Donne is very aesthetic about Mr. Hallam's book. What is the meaning of "exegetical"? Till I know that, how can I understand the Review?

Pray remember me kindly to Blakesley, Heath, and such other potentates as I knew in the days before they "a.s.sumed the purple." I am reading Gibbon, and see nothing but this d----d colour before my eyes. It changes occasionally to bright yellow, which is (is it?) the Imperial colour in China, and also the ant.i.thesis to purple (_vide_ Coleridge and Eastlake's "Goethe")--even as the Eastern and Western Dynasties are ant.i.thetical, and yet, by the law of extremes, potentially the same (_vide_ Coleridge, etc.). Is this aesthetic? Is this exegetical? How glad I shall be if you can a.s.sure me that it is! But, nonsense apart and begged pardon for, pray write me a line to say how you are, directing to this pretty place. "The soil is in general a moist and retentive clay, with a subsoil or pan of an adhesive silicious brick formation; adapted to the growth of wheat, beans, and clover--requiring, however, a summer fallow (as is generally stipulated in the lease) every fourth year, etc." This is not an unpleasing style on agricultural subjects--nor an uncommon one....

You know my way of life so well that I need not describe it to you, as it has undergone no change since I saw you. I read of mornings--the same old books over and over again, having no command of new ones; walk with my great black dog of an afternoon, and at evening sit with open windows, up to which China-roses climb, with my pipe, while the blackbirds and thrushes begin to rustle bedwards in the garden, and the nightingale to have the neighbourhood to herself. We have had such a spring (bating the last ten days) as would have satisfied even you with warmth. And such verdure! white clouds moving over the new-fledged tops of oak-trees, and acres of gra.s.s striving with b.u.t.tercups. How old to tell of, how new to see! I believe that Leslie's "Life of Constable" (a very charming book) has given me a fresh love of spring. Constable loved it above all seasons: he hated autumn. When Sir G. Beaumont, who was of the old cla.s.sical taste, asked him if he did not find it difficult to place _his brown tree_ in his pictures, "Not at all," said C, "I never put one in at all." And when Sir George was crying up the tone of the old masters' landscapes, and quoting an _old violin_ as the proper tone of colour for a picture, Constable got up, took an old Cremona, and laid it down on the sunshiny gra.s.s. You would like the book. In defiance of all this, I have hung my room with pictures, like very old fiddles indeed; but I agree with Sir George and Constable both. I like pictures that are not like nature. I can have nature better than any picture by looking out of my window. Yet I respect the man who tries to paint up to the freshness of earth and sky. Constable did not wholly achieve what he tried at: and perhaps the old masters chose a soberer scale of things as more within the compa.s.s of lead paint. To paint dew with lead!...

It is now the 8th of December; it has blown a most desperate east wind, all razors; a wind like one of those knives one sees at shops in London, with 365 blades all drawn and pointed. The wheat is all sown; the fallows cannot be ploughed. What are all the poor folks to do during the winter? And they persist in having the same enormous families they used to do; a woman came to me two days ago who had seventeen children! What farmers are to employ all these? What landlord can find room for them?

The law of Generation must be repealed....

DEAR CARLYLE, [Sidenote: _Edward FitzGerald_]

I should sometimes write to you if I had anything worth telling, or worth putting you to the trouble of answering me. About twice in a year, however, I do not mind asking you one thing which is easily answered, how you and Mrs. Carlyle are? And yet, perhaps, it is not so easy for you to tell me so much about yourself: for your "well-being" comprises a good deal! That you are not carried off by the cholera I take for granted, since else I should have seen in the papers some controversy with Doctor Wordsworth as to whether you were to be buried in Westminster Abbey, by the side of Wilberforce perhaps! Besides, a short note from Thackeray a few weeks ago told me you had been to see him. I conclude also from this that you have not been a summer excursion of any distance.