Part 8

Did you ever read that remarkable paper of Lamb's, the Reminiscences of Juke Judkins, Esq., of Birmingham? It is a nice, microscopic, philosophic study and analysis of meanness,--as common, we dare say, in this world, as avarice,--and will make us wonder that ordinary gifts and traits can be so perverted and belittled by debasing uses. All that is good of humanity was once united with Divinity, and made the best character that ever existed on earth. Humiliating it would be, if not impious, to imagine how much worse might be the devil if he would adopt the bestial qualities and worse than Satanic traits that men are constantly exposing and cultivating in their relations with one another. "I was always," says Juke, "my father's favorite. He took a delight, to the very last, in recounting the little sagacious tricks and innocent artifices of my childhood. One manifestation thereof I never heard him repeat without tears of joy trickling down his cheeks. It seems that when I quitted the parental roof (August 27, 1788), being then six years and not quite a month old, to proceed to the Free School at Warwick, where my father was a sort of trustee, my mother--as mothers are usually provident on these occasions--had stuffed the pocket of the coach, which was to convey me and six more children of my own growth that were going to be entered along with me at the same seminary, with a prodigious quantity of gingerbread, which I remember my father said was more than was needed; and so indeed it was; for, if I had been to eat it all myself, it would have got stale and mouldy before it had been half spent. The consideration whereof set me upon my contrivances how I might secure to myself as much of the gingerbread as would keep good for the next two or three days, and yet none of the rest in manner be wasted. I had a little pair of pocket compasses, which I usually carried about me for the purpose of making draughts and measurements, at which I was always very ingenious, of the various engines and mechanical inventions in which such a town as Birmingham abounded. By the means of these, and a small penknife which my father had given me, I cut out the one half of the cake, calculating that the remainder would reasonably serve my turn; and subdividing it into many little slices, which were curious to see for the neatness and niceness of their proportion, I sold it out in so many pennyworths to my young companions as served us all the way to Warwick, which is a distance of some twenty miles from this town; and very merry, I assure you, we made ourselves with it, feasting all the way. By this honest stratagem, I put double the prime cost of the gingerbread into my purse, and secured as much as I thought would keep good and moist for my next two or three days' eating. When I told this to my parents on their first visit to me at Warwick, my father (good man) patted me on the cheek, and stroked my head, and seemed as if he could never make enough of me; but my mother unaccountably burst into tears, and said 'it was a very niggardly action,' or some such expression, and that 'she would rather it would please God to take me'--meaning, God help me, that I should die--'than that she should live to see me grow up a mean man;' which shows the difference of parent from parent, and how some mothers are more harsh and intolerant to their children than some fathers; when we might expect the contrary. My father, however, loaded me with presents from that time, which made me the envy of my school-fellows. As I felt this growing disposition in them, I naturally sought to avert it by all the means in my power; and from that time I used to eat my little packages of fruit, and other nice things, in a corner, so privately that I was never found out. Once, I remember, I had a huge apple sent me, of that sort which they call cats'-heads. I concealed this all day under my pillow; and at night, but not before I had ascertained that my bed-fellow was sound asleep,--which I did by pinching him rather smartly two or three times, which he seemed to perceive no more than a dead person, though once or twice he made a motion as he would turn, which frightened me,--I say, when I had made all sure, I fell to work upon my apple; and, though it was as big as an ordinary man's two fists, I made shift to get through before it was time to get up. And a more delicious feast I never made; thinking all night what a good parent I had (I mean my father), to send me so many nice things, when the poor lad that lay by me had no parent or friend in the world to send him anything nice; and, thinking of his desolate condition, I munched and munched as silently as I could, that I might not set him a longing if he overheard me. And yet, for all this considerateness and attention to other people's feelings, I was never much a favorite with my school-fellows; which I have often wondered at, seeing that I never defrauded any one of them of the value of a half-penny, or told stories of them to their master, as some little lying boys would do, but was ready to do any of them all the services in my power that were consistent with my own well-doing. I think nobody can be expected to go further than that." Juke, in the course of time, was engaged to be married to a maiden named Cleora. Hear him relate the circumstance that broke off the engagement: "I was never," he says, "much given to theatrical entertainments; that is, at no turn of my life was I ever what they call a regular play-goer; but on some occasion of a benefit-night, which was expected to be very productive, and indeed turned out so, Cleora expressing a desire to be present, I could do no less than offer, as I did very willingly, to squire her and her mother to the pit. At that time, it was not customary in our town for trades-folk, except some of the very topping ones, to sit, as they now do, in the boxes. At the time appointed, I waited upon the ladies, who had brought with them a young man, a distant relation, whom it seems they had invited to be of the party. This a little disconcerted me, as I had about me barely silver enough to pay for our three selves at the door, and did not at first know that their relation had proposed paying for himself. However, to do the young man justice, he not only paid for himself but for the old lady besides; leaving me only to pay for two, as it were. In our passage to the theatre, the notice of Cleora was attracted to some orange wenches that stood about the doors vending their commodities. She was leaning on my arm; and I could feel her every now and then giving me a nudge, as it is called, which I afterward discovered were hints that I should buy some oranges. It seems it is a custom at Birmingham, and perhaps in other places, when a gentleman treats ladies to the play,--especially when a full night is expected, and that the house will be inconveniently warm,--to provide them with this kind of fruit, oranges being esteemed for their cooling property. But how could I guess at that, never having treated ladies to a play before, and being, as I said, quite a novice in these kind of entertainments? At last, she spoke plain out, and begged that I would buy some of 'those oranges,' pointing to a particular barrow. But, when I came to examine the fruit, I did not think the quality of it was answerable to the price. In this way, I handled several baskets of them; but something in them all displeased me. Some had thin rinds, and some were plainly over-ripe, which is as great a fault as not being ripe enough; and I could not (what they call) make a bargain. While I stood haggling with the women secretly determining to put off my purchase till I should get within the theatre, where I expected we should have better choice, the young man, the cousin (who, it seems, had left us without my missing him), came running to us with his pockets stuffed out with oranges, inside and out, as they say. It seems, not liking the look of the barrow-fruit any more than myself, he had slipped away to an eminent fruiterer's, about three doors distant, which I never had the sense to think of, and had laid out a matter of two shillings in some of the best St. Michael's, I think, I ever tasted. What a little hinge, as I said before, the most important affairs in life may turn upon! The mere inadvertence to the fact that there was an eminent fruiterer's within three doors of us, though we had just passed it without the thought once occurring to me, which he had taken advantage of, lost me the affection of my Cleora. From that time she visibly cooled toward me, and her partiality was as visibly transferred to this cousin. I was long unable to account for this change in her behavior; when one day, accidentally discoursing of oranges to my mother, alone, she let drop a sort of reproach to me, as if I had offended Cleora by my nearness, as she called it, that evening. Even now, when Cleora has been wedded some years to that same officious relation, as I may call him, I can hardly be persuaded that such a trifle could have been the motive to her inconstancy; for could she suppose that I would sacrifice my dearest hopes in her to the paltry sum of two shillings, when I was going to treat her to the play, and her mother too (an expense of more than four times that amount), if the young man had not interfered to pay for the latter, as I mentioned? But the caprices of the sex are past finding out; and I begin to think my mother was in the right; for doubtless women know women better than we can pretend to know them."

Juke would have made a good tradesman under the rules laid down by De Foe: "A tradesman behind his counter must have no flesh and blood about him, no passions, no resentment; he must never be angry, no, not so much as seem to be so, if a customer tumbles him five hundred pounds' worth of goods, and scarce bids money for anything; nay, though they really come to his shop with no intent to buy, as many do, only to see what is to be sold, and though he knows they cannot be better pleased than they are at some other shop where they intend to buy, 't is all one; the tradesman must take it; he must place it to the account of his calling, that 't is his business to be ill-used and resent nothing. I could give you many examples, how and in what manner a shopkeeper is to behave himself in the way of business; what impertinences, what taunts, flouts, and ridiculous things he must bear in his trade; and must not show the least return, or the least signal of disgust; he must have no passions, no fire in his temper; he must be all soft and smooth; nay, if his real temper be naturally fiery and hot, he must show none of it in his shop; he must be a perfect, complete hypocrite, if he would be a complete tradesman. It is true, natural tempers are not to be always counterfeited: the man cannot easily be a lamb in his shop and a lion in himself; but, let it be easy or hard, it must be done, and is done. There are men who have by custom and usage brought themselves to it, that nothing could be meeker and milder than they when behind the counter, and yet nothing be more furious and raging in every other part of life; nay, the provocations they have met with in their shops have so irritated their rage, that they would go up-stairs from their shop, and fall into frenzies, and a kind of madness, and beat their heads against the wall, and perhaps mischief themselves, if not prevented, till the violence of it had gotten vent; and the passions abate and cool. I heard once of a shopkeeper that behaved himself thus to such an extreme that, when he was provoked by the impertinence of the customers beyond what his temper could bear, he would go up-stairs and beat his wife, kick his children about like dogs, and be as furious for two or three minutes as a man chained down in Bedlam; and again, when that heat was over, would sit down and cry faster than the children he had abused; and, after the fit, he would go down into the shop again, and be as humble, as courteous, and as calm, as any man whatever; so absolute a government of his passions had he in the shop, and so little out of it: in the shop, a soulless animal that would resent nothing; and in the family, a madman: in the shop, meek like a lamb; but in the family, outrageous, like a Libyan lion. The sum of the matter is, it is necessary for a tradesman to subject himself, by all the ways possible, to his business; his customers are to be his idols: so far as he may worship idols by allowance, he is to bow down to them, and worship them; at least, he is not in any way to displease them, or show any disgust or distaste, whatever they may say or do. The bottom of all is that he is intending to get money by them; and it is not for him that gets money to offer the least inconvenience to them by whom he gets it: he is to consider that, as Solomon says, 'the borrower is servant to the lender;' so the seller is servant to the buyer."

Poor George Dyer "commenced life, after a course of hard study, in the 'House of Pure Emanuel,' as usher to a knavish, fanatic school-master, at a salary of eight pounds per annum, with board and lodging. Of this poor stipend he never received above half in all the laborious years he served this man. He tells a pleasant anecdote, that when poverty, staring out at his ragged knees, sometimes compelled him, against the modesty of his nature, to hint at arrears, the school-master would take no immediate notice; but after supper, when the school was called together to even-song, he would never fail to introduce some instructive homily against riches, and the corruption of the heart occasioned through the desire of them, ending with, 'Lord, keep thy servants, above all things, from the heinous sin of avarice. Having food and raiment, let us therewithal be content. Give me Agur's wish,'--and the like,--which, to the little auditory, sounded like a doctrine full of Christian prudence and simplicity, but to poor Dyer was a receipt in full for that quarter's demands at least."

Southey wrote to Cottle from Lisbon: "The English here unite the spirit of commerce with the frivolous amusement of high life. One of them, who plays every night (Sundays are not excepted here), will tell you how closely he attends to profit. 'I never pay a porter for bringing a burden till the next day,' says he, 'for while the fellow feels his back ache with the weight, he charges high; but when he comes the next day the feeling is gone, and he asks only half the money.' And the author of this philosophical scheme is worth two hundred thousand dollars!"

"The late grand duke," said Goethe to Eckermann, "was very partial to Merck, so much so that he once became his security for a debt of four thousand dollars. Very soon Merck, to our surprise, gave him back his bond. As Merck's circumstances were not improved, we could not divine how he had been able to do this. When I saw him again, he explained the enigma thus: 'The duke,' said he, 'is an excellent, generous man, who trusts and helps men whenever he can. So I thought to myself, Now if you cozen him out of his money, that will prejudice a thousand others; for he will lose his precious trustfulness, and many unfortunate but worthy men will suffer, because one was worthless. So I made a speculation, and borrowed the money from a scoundrel, whom it will be no matter if I do cheat; but if I had not paid our good lord, the duke, it would have been a pity.'"

"The greatest pleasure I know," said Lamb, "is to do a good action by stealth, and to have it found out by accident."

IV.

STANDARDS.

At a glance, it would appear that, as a rule, all men think all men imperfect but themselves. It follows, therefore, that all would reform all but themselves. But if every man's standard of excellence could be accounted for, what a melancholy history of human frailties and follies might be had. What sad curiosities, perhaps, would be our pet virtues--offspring, alas, too often, of sated appetites, spent passions, hair-breadth escapes, and disappointed hopes. Knowing all, with what wondrous pity must God hear our poor prayers. To seek perfect virtue or contentment "is as hopeless as to try to recover a lost limb. Those only have it who never have thought about it. The moment we feel that we wish for it, we may be certain that it is gone forever." "To know how cherries and strawberries taste, you must ask the children and the birds."

"All things," says Emerson, "work exactly according to their quality, and according to their quantity; attempt nothing they cannot do, except man." He ventures "to say that what is bad is bad," and finds himself "at war with all the world." "Do not be so vain of your one objection. Do you think there is only one? Alas, my good friend, there is no part of society or of life better than any other part. All our things are right and wrong together. The wave of evil washes all alike." "Probably there never was," says De Quincey, "one thought, from the foundation of the earth, that has passed through the mind of man, which did not offer some blemish, some sorrowful shadow of pollution, when it came up for review before a heavenly tribunal; that is, supposing it a thought entangled at all with human interests or human passions." "All the progress which we have really made," says a writer in Blackwood, "and all the additional and fictitious progress which exists in our imagination, prompts us to the false idea that there is a remedy for everything, and that no pain is inevitable. But there are pains which are inevitable in spite of philosophy, and conflicting claims to which Solomon himself could do no justice. We are not complete syllogisms, to be kept in balance by intellectual regulations, we human creatures. We are of all things and creatures in the world the most incomplete; and there are conditions of our warfare, for the redress of which, in spite of all the expedients of social economy, every man and woman, thrown by whatever accident out of the course of nature, must be content to wait perhaps for years, perhaps for a life long, perhaps till the consummation of all things." "All the speculations and schemes of the sanguine projectors of all ages," says John Foster, "have left the world still a prey to infinite legions of vices and miseries, an immortal band, which has trampled in scorn on the monuments and the dust of the self-idolizing men who dreamed, each in his day, that they were born to chase these evils out of the earth. If these vain demi-gods of an hour, who trusted to change the world, and who perhaps wished to change it only to make it a temple to their fame, could be awaked from the unmarked graves into which they sunk, to look a little while round on the world for some traces of the success of their projects, would they not be eager to retire again into the chambers of death, to hide the shame of their remembered presumption?" "It is not given to reason," said Vauvenargues, "to cure all the vices of nature." "For a reasonable, voluntary being," says Sterling, "learning as he only can learn by experience, there will always be errors behind to mourn over, and a vista of unattainable good before, which inevitably lengthens as we advance." If we only could "grieve without affectation or imbecility, and journey on without turning aside or stopping."

Leslie says, in his Recollections: "I remember seeing at Howard Payne's lodgings, at a breakfast which he gave to a large party, the then celebrated Robert Owen, who was at that time filling the papers with his scheme for remodeling society on a plan that was to transcend Utopia. I remember Payne telling me that when Wilberforce, on being urged to bring this plan before Parliament, replied that it was too late in the season, Owen exclaimed, "What, sir! put off the happiness of mankind till another session of Parliament!""

"I overheard Jove one day," said Silenus, "talking of destroying the earth; he said it had failed; they were all rogues and vixens, who went from bad to worse, as fast as the days succeeded each other. Minerva said she hoped not; they were only ridiculous little creatures, with this odd circumstance, that they had a blur, or indeterminate aspect, seen far or near; if you called them bad, they would appear so; and there was no one person or action among them which would not puzzle her owl, much more all Olympus, to know whether it was fundamentally bad or good."

"It is the conviction of the purest men, that the net amount of man and man does not much vary. Each is incomparably superior to his companion in some faculty. Each seems to have some compensation yielded to him by his infirmity, and every hinderance operates as a concentration of his force." "Everything we do has its results. But the right and prudent does not always lead to good, or contrary measures to bad; frequently the reverse takes place. Some time since," said Goethe, "I made a mistake in one of these transactions with booksellers, and was disturbed that I had done so. But, as circumstances turned out, it would have been very unfortunate if I had not made that very mistake. Such instances occur frequently in life, and it is the observation of them which enables men of the world to go to work with such freedom and boldness."