Part 18

Before three in the afternoon, the whole of your furniture, broken and whole, has been thrust, higglety-pigglety, into your new house, where you find all things in the most chaotic state of confusion. Kitchen things repose in the dining-room; drawing-room chairs are deposited in the kitchen; and a huge chest of drawers stands in the vestibule, with a shoulder thrust so far out into the _fair way_ as to render it almost impossible to pass. The kitchen grate is only to be built in after six o’clock in the evening, when the masons are released from their day’s work; so there is no possibility of cooking any thing. A _provisional_ arrangement is therefore made on this point. You, and your wife, and your children, and all your assistants, bivouac in some shabby parlour, and regale yourselves (_absit elegantia_) with rolls and porter. Henry, your eldest son, who has wrought like a Turk all day, leads the feast with his coat off, and the scene can only be compared to a rough-and-tumbling in the back woods of America. No ceremony as to knives. Rolls, and even large loaves, are torn through the middle, and large mouthfuls dug out from the mass by the thumb or forefinger. The liquor goes round in some ordinary vessel, never before appropriated to such a purpose, and all feeling of discomfort being stolen away by the novelty and strong natural feeling of the occasion, the jest and laugh abound. Even in the midst of all the disarray, great hopes and expectations are expressed regarding the new mansion. Such capital high ceilings! Such a broad elegant lobby! So different from that dismal hole we have left! Or, if the ceilings are low, and the lobby narrow, while in the former house they were the reverse, the contrast is drawn in reference to some other points where superiority is indisputable, while the demerits of the new abode are cast discreetly into shade, only to be brought out and complained of at the approach of next Candlemas. You either have left a good view from the windows, or you are entering upon one. Suppose your former house, being in the centre of the town, had hardly any view, then your wife thus comments upon it:—“Such a dark confined place! Nothing to be seen from the windows, but the opposite houses, or else the chimney-stalks and _old wives_. Now, here we are quite in the country. The drawing-room commands Fife and North Berwick Law, and even from the bed-rooms we catch a great lump of the Dalmahoy hills. If we just step to the end of the house, we are into the fields; and then we’ll be so very quiet here, compared with what we were. Not a carriage or a cart passing from morning till night. We’ll get some rest at last; and truth to tell, my health is in great need of it. How truly delightful thus to get fairly out of that black, smoky, noisy town, to a place where we can enjoy all the pleasures of the country, and yet be within reach of every convenience of the city! And just consider how much benefit the walk must be to your own health. We formerly lived so near your place of business, that you got no exercise at all, seeing that I never could prevail upon you to take a walk on purpose. But here you _must_ walk, and the good it must do you will be visible in a week’s time,”—&c. &c. &c. If the case has been totally the reverse, you are addressed as follows:—“How delightful to get fairly away from that cold, out-of-the-world, dull place, and once more feel ourselves snug in the town! We’ve no prospects here from the windows; but, ’deed, when folk have prospects, I never see that they make much use of them. For my part, I never looked out of the drawing-room windows once in the month; for what are the Fife hills or North Berwick Law after one has once seen them? [What philosophy we have here!] And then, what good did we get from the garden? It was just a fash to keep right; and I’m sure, when we had paid the gardener, we did not make a penny off the vegetables. Now, here, although there be little prospect from any of the windows, we’re at least a great deal better protected from the wind. If we have not a garden of our own, have we not the green market almost at the door? And such a weary distance you had to walk every day! No more of that now. Here, when you want a walk, you can take one; and when you don’t like, you can let it alone. Walks are very well, perhaps, in good summer weather; but I’ve no idea of seeing you plash through a long dirty road twice every day through the whole winter. Whenever we want either a walk or a prospect, we’ll get it in the Queen Street gardens; for you know Mrs —— has told me that we may have her key whenever we like. In our old ill-contrived house, we had no place to put any thing off our hand; not so much as a cupboard in the whole house; but now, you see, we have as many presses as rooms, and a capital cellar for coals and lumber. And how near we are here to all the best shops! If it were for nothing but the convenience of getting tea-bread at a minute’s warning from Mr Littlejohn, the baker, whenever any person calls upon us in the evening, it would have been worth while to remove to this house. The lass likewise tells me that there is a very obliging woman, quite at hand, who keeps a mangle for the use of the neighbourhood, which will be a great convenience to the family; and that she will take in hand to supply us with milk or cream at any hour of the day,”—&c. &c. &c. Thus, it will be observed, neither the spirit of discontent nor the spirit of hope is ever without material for feeding its particular necessities.

You have now got fairly into your new house, bag and baggage. It is after the manner, however, of a certain pound of comfits which a carrier once brought from a city confectioner to a country customer. The paper bag having proved insufficient in the journey, the contents had dispersed themselves throughout all the other packages in the cart. Every parcel, and bag, and box, had to be shaken clear of the lurking carvy, till, the whole of the bulky articles having been discharged and laid off, the little white particles were found at the bottom mingled with straws, fragments of rope, and paper, and all other kinds of trash. The whole having been swept out, however, the honest old carrier brought them to the owner in a large platter, saying, with the air of a man who has relieved his conscience of some uncommon weight, “Here they are, mistress; ye hae them a’ for me.” Just like the comfits are all your goods and chattels—your ox, and your ass, and your children, and your every thing else—the whole are there; but in such a state! Perhaps, to add to your distresses, you have to delay putting the principal rooms to rights till the painters have to be with you. This, of course, adjourns the termination of your agonies _sine die_. Perhaps, about three months after, when you have battled the rascals out of one room into another, much after the manner of the siege of St Sebastian, you get at last into the enviable attitude “as you were,” resolving of course never again to remove as long as you live, but still as ready before next 2d of February to take that step as ever.

FOOTNOTES:

[3] A ceremony in the law of Scotland, by which a man becomes invested with a piece of land or house property.

FALLACIES OF THE YOUNG.

“DEBTORS AND CREDITORS.”

The common feeling respecting debtors and creditors is very erroneous, and, as is common with popular fallacies, it imposes with double force upon the young and inexperienced. Debtors are represented in all works of fiction, and in the ordinary language of a large portion of society, as a set of amiable, unfortunate, and most interesting persons: Creditors, on the other hand, as an unmingled generation of execrable wretches, with a hardness of heart that would not disgrace an executioner, and indeed only one remove from another stony class of men, the much misrepresented jailers. Now, the person who writes this article has known many debtors and creditors, and he can say that, in by far the most of cases, the latter were the better class of men. He alludes, of course, not to commercial men at large, who are in their own persons, in general, as much of the one thing as the other, but to cases where the creditor is a tradesman, and the debtor a customer; that is, where the debt is not incurred in the intercourse of business, but for the personal use and benefit of the debtor. In these cases, so far from the creditor being an unfeeling and relentless tyrant, as he is generally represented, he is only the indignant victim of the imprudence or guilt of the debtor. The latter may be an amiable and interesting person, for we often find these characteristics united to consummate folly and disregard of the rights of others. But the young must beware how they set down debtors, in a class, as purely estimable and entitled to sympathy, while they at the same time look upon creditors as only ruthless persecutors, worthy of the bitterest execration. They may depend upon it, that no notion could be more erroneous, no error more apt to be fatal to them in their course through life. They must be informed that to incur debt for their own gratifications, without the ability to discharge it, is just another thing for selling themselves as slaves to their creditors. After doing so, they are no longer entirely free: part of themselves becomes the property of another, and thus they lose the respect of the world, which cannot see one man indulge in enjoyments at the expense of his fellow, without thinking of him very meanly. The incurring of debt for personal gratification is odious, for many reasons. In the first place, it violates that rule of nature which appoints every man to work for himself, and only enjoy as he works. It also tends to occasion the ruin of innocent persons. Creditors are not invariably rich, as one would suppose them to be, from reading novels. They are more frequently poor, industrious persons, who, in losing money by their debtors, are apt to be made debtors themselves, and thereby ruined. In fact, the case stands generally thus: An idle or extravagant person procures support for his bad appetites, and is enabled to show himself off as a very fine fellow, at the expense of a humble-minded honest trader, who confines himself constantly to his business, and forbids himself almost every indulgence, in order that he may be able to pay every one to whom _he_ is indebted, and discharge all the other duties of a good citizen. Now, if young people will bring their naturally generous feelings to bear upon this point, they will see that the debtor, and not the creditor, is alone worthy of execration. And they may be assured, that, where creditors show a severity to their debtors, it is generally either merited by the latter, or is dictated by a justifiable consideration of the danger into which they are thrown by the non-payment of the money which is their due, and which they may be owing in their turn to some other person.

In every rule there are exceptions; but it is necessary to guard against the breaking down of _great rules_ by allowing for _trifling exceptions_. Because good men sometimes incur debt, and become insolvent, through no fault of theirs, we must not infringe upon the majesty of the great maxim, that debt ought to be paid, and that its non-payment is an evil. Young people, if they wish to prosper in the world, will do well not to excuse all contraction of debt for the sake of the few who contract it innocently. They must have it impressed forcibly upon their minds, that every pleasure in which they indulge themselves, without the reasonable prospect of paying for it, though it be but to the amount of one penny, is a step in error, and apt to be the beginning of their destruction. They must have it impressed upon their minds, that no man of good feelings can enjoy the least comfort, if he be not conscious of working for, or being honestly come into the possession of, fully as much as he spends. To persist in living beyond our incomes, is to live a life of dishonesty; and to subsist on the industry of relatives, as is sometimes the case with the idle and the dissolute, is worse still, for it involves an excessive meanness of spirit, ingratitude, and hard-heartedness—thus adding depth to the crime, and will be sure to be visited some day with feelings of anguish and remorse.

A predominating error among the junior classes of society, is a disinclination to wait for a short time till they be enabled to compete in the enjoyment of luxuries with others they see around them, and who, it is more than probable, have toiled long and painfully before they arrived at their present apparently prosperous condition. This impatience of reaching a certain height in the ladder of fortune, without taking deliberation to mount a number of preliminary and difficult steps, cannot, indeed, be sufficiently reprehended, where it occurs, as it leads to that fatal resource of incurring debts never to be paid, and that supposed harshness of creditors, which a disordered process of reasoning brings into view. I would here tenderly admonish the youthful part of the community to refrain from indulgences they cannot honestly command. Let them believe one who has had some experience, when he tells them that there is not the least chance of the world running away from them; that the present generation of grown men will not consume _all_ earthly enjoyments, but will leave a boundless variety of everything which can please the senses, or gratify an honourable ambition. They need, therefore, be in no hurry whatever, and take time to build their fortune on a firm and secure basis. The rising generation cannot lay these things sufficiently to heart. They cannot be sufficiently taught, that suffering under the consequences of imprudently-incurred debts does not necessarily make them heroes—is not entitled to unmingled sympathy, no more than a robber at the gallows is a martyr; but that, while pity is perhaps due to them, as to all who err in this frail world, the larger share of sympathy ought to be bestowed on their unfortunate victims, the creditors, whose families may be suffering from their criminal follies, and who are apt to be by far the better and honester men.

GENERAL INVITATIONS.

“Pray, do call in an easy way some evening, you and Mrs Balderstone; we are sure to be at home, and shall be most happy to see you.” Such is the kind of invitation one is apt to get from considerably intimate acquaintances, who, equally resolved against the formality and the expense of a particular entertainment on your account, hope to avoid both evils by making your visit a matter of accident. If you be a man of some experience, you will know that all such attempts to make bread and cheese do that which is more properly the business of a pair of fowls, end in disappointment; and you will, therefore, take care to wait till the general invitation becomes a particular one. But there are inexperienced people in this world who think every thing is as it seems, and are apt to be greatly deceived regarding this accidental mode of visiting. For the sake of these last, I shall relate the following adventure:—

I had been remarkably busy one summer, and, consequently, obliged to refuse all kinds of invitations, general and particular. The kind wishes of my friends had accumulated upon me somewhat after the manner of the tunes frozen up in Baron Munchausen’s French horn; and it seemed as if a whole month would have been necessary to thaw out and discharge the whole of these obligations. A beginning, however, is always something; and, accordingly, one rather splashy evening in November, I can’t tell how it was, but a desire came simultaneously over myself and Mrs Balderstone—it seemed to be by sympathy—of stepping out to see Mr and Mrs Currie, a married pair, who had been considerably more pressing in their general invitations than any other of our friends. We both knew that there was a cold duck in the house, besides a bit of cheese just sent home by Nicholson, and understood to be more than excellent. But, as the old Scots song says, the _tid_ had come over us, and forth we must go. No sooner said than done. Five minutes more saw us leaving our comfortable home, my wife carrying a cap pinned under her cloak, while to my pocket was consigned her umbrageous comb. As we paced along, we speculated only on the pleasure which we should give to our kind friends by thus at last paying them a visit, when perhaps all hope of our ever doing so was dead within them. Nor was it possible altogether to omit reflecting, like the dog invited by his friend to sup, upon the entertainment which lay before us; for certainly on such an occasion the fatted calf could hardly expect to be spared.

Full of the satisfaction which we were to give and receive, we were fully into the house before we thought it necessary to inquire if any body was at home. The servant girl, surprised by the forward confidence of our entrée, evidently forgot her duty, and acknowledged, when she should have denied, the presence of her master and mistress in the house. We were shown into a dining-room as clean, cold, and stately as an alabaster cave, and which had the appearance of being but rarely lighted by the blaze of hospitality. My first impulse was to relieve my pocket, before sitting down, of the comb, which I thought was now about being put to its proper use; but the chill of the room stayed my hand. I observed, at the same time, that my wife, like the man under the influence of Eolus in the fable, manifested no symptom of parting with her cloak. Ere we could communicate our mutual sensations of incipient disappointment, Mrs Currie entered with a flurried, surprised air, and made a prodigious effort to give us welcome. But, alas! poor Mr Currie; he had been seized in the afternoon with a strange vertigo and sickness, and was now endeavouring, by the advice of Dr Boak, to get some repose. “It will be _such_ a disappointment to him when he learns that you were here, for he would have been so happy to see you. We must just entertain the hope, however, to see you some other night.” Although the primary idea in our minds at this moment was unquestionably the _desperatio cibi_—the utter hopelessness of supper in this quarter—we betrayed, of course, no feeling but sympathy in the illness of our unfortunate friend, and a regret for having called at so inauspicious a moment. Had any unconcerned person witnessed our protestations, he could have formed no suspicion that we ever contemplated supper, or were now in the least disappointed. We felt anxious about nothing but to relieve Mrs Currie, as soon as possible, of the inconvenience of our visit, more especially as the chill of the room was now piercing us to the bone. We therefore retired, under a shower of mutual compliments and condolences, and “hopes,” and “sorries,” and “have the pleasures;” the door at last slamming after us with a noise which seemed to say, “How very glad I am to get quit of you!”

When we got to the street, we certainly did not feel quite so mortified as the dog already alluded to, seeing that we had not, like him, been tossed over the window. But, still the reverse of prospect was so very bitter, that for some time we could hardly believe that the adventure was real. By this time we had expected to be seated snug at supper, side by side with two friends, who, we anticipated, would almost expire with pleasure at seeing us. But here, on the contrary, we were turned out upon the cold inhospitable street, without a friend’s face to cheer us. We still recollected that the cold duck remained as a fortress to fall back upon; but, being now fairly agog in the adventure, the idea of returning home, _re infecta_, was not to be thought of. Supper we must have in some other house than our own, let it cost what it may. “Well,” said Mrs Balderstone, “there are the Jacksons! They live not far from this—suppose we drop in upon them. I’m sure we have had enough of invitations to their house. The very last time I met Mrs Jackson on the street, she told me she was never going to ask us again—we had refused so long—she was going, she said, just to let us come _if_ we liked, and _when_ we liked.” Off we went, therefore, to try the Jacksons.

On applying at the door of this house, it flew open, as it were, by enchantment, and the servant girl, so far from hesitating like the other, seemed to expect no question to be asked on entrée. We moved into the lobby, and inquired if Mr and Mrs Jackson were at home, which was answered by the girl with a surprised affirmative. We now perceived, from the pile of hats and cloaks in the lobby, as well as a humming noise from one of the rooms, that the Jacksons had a large company, and that we were understood by the servant to be part of it. The Jacksons, thought we (I know my wife thought so, although I never asked), give _some_ people particular invitations. Her object was now to make an honourable retreat, for, although my dress was not entirely a walking one, and my wife’s cap was brought with the prospect of making an appearance of dress, we were by no means fit to match with those who had dressed on purpose for the party, even although we were asked to join them. Just at this moment, Mrs Jackson happened to cross the lobby, on hospitable thoughts intent, and saw us, than whom, perhaps, she would rather have seen a basilisk. “Oh, Mrs Balderstone, how do you do? How are you, Mr Balderstone? I’m so delighted that you have come in this easy way at last. A few of the neighbours have just dropped in upon us, and it will be so delightful if you will join them. Come into this room and take off your bonnet; and you, Mr Balderstone, just you be so good as step up to the drawing-room. You’ll find numbers there that you know. And Mr Jackson will be so happy to see you,”—&c. All this, however, would not do. Mrs Balderstone and I not only felt a little hurt at the want of speciality in our invitations to this house, but could not endure the idea of mingling in a crowd better dressed and more regularly invited than ourselves. We therefore begged Mrs Jackson to excuse us for this night. We had just called in an easy way in passing, and, indeed, we never attended ceremonious parties at any time. We would see her some other evening, when she was less engaged—that is to say, “we would rather see you and Mr Jackson at Jericho than darken your doors again.” And so off we came, with the blandest and most complimentary language upon our tongues, and the most piqued and scornful feelings in our hearts.

Again upon the street—yea, once again. What was to be done now? Why, said Mrs Balderstone, there is excellent old Mrs Smiles, who lives in the next street. I have not seen her or the Misses Smiles for six months; but the last time they were so pressing for us to return their visit (you remember they supped with us in spring), that I think we cannot do better than take this opportunity of clearing scores.