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-The Project Gutenberg EBook of Coaches and Coaching, by Leigh Hunt
-
-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
-almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
-re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
-with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
-
-
-Title: Coaches and Coaching
-
-Author: Leigh Hunt
-
-Illustrator: Paul Hardy
-
-Release Date: June 15, 2013 [EBook #42948]
-
-Language: English
-
-Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
-
-*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK COACHES AND COACHING ***
-
-
-
-
-Produced by Chris Curnow, Emmy and the Online Distributed
-Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
-produced from images generously made available by The
-Internet Archive)
-
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-
-
-COACHES AND COACHING
-
-
-
-
-      BOOK love, my friends, is your pass to the greatest,
-      the purest, and the most perfect pleasure that God has
-      prepared for His creatures. It lasts when all other
-      pleasures fade. It will support you when all other
-      recreations are gone. It will last you until your
-      death. It will make your hours pleasant to you as long
-      as you live.
-
-                                         ANTHONY TROLLOPE.
-
-[Illustration: A MAIL-COACH PAUL HARDY]
-
-
-
-
-[Illustration:
-
-_Leigh Hunt_
-
-COACHES
-
-AND
-
-COACHING
-
-    Embellished
-    with pictures by
-    PAUL HARDY
-
-
-    H. M. CALDWELL CO.
-    BOSTON]
-
-
-
-
-[Illustration: COACHES AND COACHING]
-
-
-ACCORDING to the opinion commonly entertained respecting an author's
-want of riches, it may be allowed us to say that we retain from
-childhood a considerable notion of "a ride in a coach." Nor do we
-hesitate to confess, that by coach we especially mean a hired one; from
-the equivocal dignity of the post-chaise, down to that despised old
-castaway, the hackney.
-
-It is true that the carriage, as it is indifferently called (as if
-nothing less genteel could carry any one), is a more decided thing than
-the chaise; it may be swifter even than the mail, leaves the stage at a
-still greater distance in every respect, and (forgetting what it may
-come to itself) darts by the poor old lumbering hackney with
-immeasureable contempt.
-
-It rolls with a prouder ease than any other vehicle. It is full of
-cushions and comfort; elegantly coloured inside and out; rich, yet neat;
-light and rapid, yet substantial. The horses seem proud to draw it. The
-fat and fair-wigged coachman "lends his sounding lash," his arm only in
-action and that but little, his body well set with its own weight.
-
-The footman, in the pride of his nonchalance, holding by the straps
-behind, and glancing down sideways betwixt his cocked-hat and neckcloth,
-stands swinging from east to west upon his springy toes.
-
-The horses rush along amidst their glancing harness. Spotted dogs leap
-about them, barking with a princely superfluity of noise. The
-hammer-cloth trembles through all its fringe. The paint flashes in the
-sun.
-
-We, contemptuous of everything less convenient, bow backwards and
-forwards with a certain indifferent air of gentility, infinitely
-predominant.
-
-Suddenly, with a happy mixture of turbulence and truth, the carriage
-dashes up by the curb-stone to the very point desired, and stops with a
-lordly wilfulness of decision. The coachman looks as if nothing had
-happened. The footman is down in an instant; the knocker reverberates
-into the farthest corner of the house; doors, both carriage and house,
-are open;--we descend, casting a matter-of-course eye at the bystanders;
-and the moment we touch the pavement, the vehicle, as if conscious of
-what it has carried, and relieved from the weight of our importance,
-recovers from its sidelong inclination with a jerk, tossing and panting,
-as it were, for very breath, like the proud heads of the horses.
-
-All this, it must be owned, is very pretty; but it is also gouty and
-superfluous. It is too convenient,--too exacting,--too exclusive. We
-must get too much for it, and lose too much by it. Its plenty, as Ovid
-says, makes us poor. We neither have it in the republic of letters, nor
-would desire it in any less jacobinical state. Horses, as many as you
-please, provided men have enough to eat; hired coaches, a reasonable
-number:--but health and good-humour at all events.
-
-Gigs and curricles are things less objectionable, because they cannot be
-so relied upon as substitutes for exercise. Our taste in them, we must
-confess, is not genuine. How shall we own it? We like to be driven,
-instead of drive;--to read or look about us, instead of keeping watch on
-a horse's head. We have no relish even for vehicles of this description
-that are not safe. Danger is a good thing for giving a fillip to a man's
-ideas; but even danger, to us, must come recommended by something
-useful. We have no ambition to have TANDEM written on our tombstone.
-
-The prettiest of these vehicles is the curricle, which is also the
-safest. There is something worth looking at in the pair of horses, with
-that sparkling pole of steel laid across them. It is like a bar of
-music, comprising their harmonious course.
-
-But to us, even gigs are but a sort of unsuccessful run at gentility.
-The driver, to all intents and purposes, had better be on the horse.
-Horseback is the noblest way of being carried in the world. It is
-cheaper than any other mode of riding; it is common to all ranks; and it
-is manly, graceful, and healthy. The handsomest mixture of danger with
-dignity, in the shape of a carriage, was the tall phaeton with its
-yellow wings. We remember looking up to it with respect in our
-childhood, partly for its loftiness, partly for its name, and partly for
-the show it makes in the prints to novels of that period. The most
-gallant figure which modern driving ever cut was in the person of a late
-Duke of Hamilton; of whom we have read or heard somewhere, that he used
-to dash round the streets of Rome, with his horses panting, and his
-hounds barking about his phaeton, to the equal fright and admiration of
-the Masters of the World, who were accustomed to witness nothing higher
-than a lumbering old coach, or a cardinal on a mule.
-
-A post-chaise involves the idea of travelling, which in the company of
-those we love is home in motion. The smooth running along the road, the
-fresh air, the variety of scene, the leafy roads, the bursting
-prospects, the clatter through a town, the gaping gaze of a village, the
-hearty appetite, the leisure (your chaise waiting only upon your own
-movements), even the little contradictions to home-comfort, and the
-expedients upon which they set us, all put the animal spirits at work,
-and throw a novelty over the road of life.
-
-If anything could grind us young again, it would be the wheels of a
-post-chaise. The only monotonous sight is the perpetual up-and-down
-movement of the postillion, who, we wish exceedingly, could take a
-chair. His occasional retreat to the bar which occupies the place of a
-box, and his affecting to sit upon it, only remind us of its exquisite
-want of accommodation. But some have given the bar, lately, a
-surreptitious squeeze in the middle, and flattened it a little into
-something obliquely resembling an inconvenient seat.
-
-If we are to believe the merry Columbus of Down-Hall, calashes, now
-almost obsolete for any purpose, used to be hired for travelling
-occasions a hundred years back; but he preferred a chariot; and neither
-was good. Yet see how pleasantly good humour rides over its
-inconveniences.
-
-    Then answer'd 'Squire Morley, "Pray get a calash,
-    That in summer may burn, and in winter may splash;
-    I love dirt and dust; and 'tis always my pleasure
-    To take with me much of the soil that I measure."
-
-    But Matthew thought better; for Matthew thought right,
-    And hired a chariot so trim and so tight,
-    That extremes both of winter and summer might pass;
-    For one window was canvas, the other was glass.
-
-    "Draw up," quoth friend Matthew; "Pull down," quoth friend John;
-    "We shall be both hotter and colder anon."
-    Thus, talking and scolding, they forward did speed;
-    And Ralpho paced by under Newman the Swede.
-
-    Into an old inn did this equipage roll,
-    At a town they call Hodson, the sign of the Bull;
-    Near a nymph with an urn that divides the highway,
-    And into a puddle throws mother of tea.
-
-    "Come here, my sweet landlady, pray how d'ye do?
-    Where is Cicely so cleanly, and Prudence, and Sue?
-    And where is the widow that dwelt here below?
-    And the hostler that sung about eight years ago?
-
-    And where is your sister, so mild and so dear,
-    Whose voice to her maids like a trumpet was clear?"
-    "By my troth," she replies, "you grow younger, I think:
-    And pray, sir, what wine does the gentleman drink?
-
-    "Why now let me die, sir, or live upon trust,
-    If I know to which question to answer you first:
-    Why, things, since I saw you, most strangely have varied;
-    The hostler is hang'd, and the widow is married.
-
-    "And Prue left a child for the parish to nurse,
-    And Cicely went off with a gentleman's purse;
-    And as to my sister, so mild and so dear,
-    She has lain in the churchyard full many a year."
-
-    "Well; peace to her ashes! What signifies grief?
-    She roasted red veal, and she powder'd lean beef:
-    Full nicely she knew to cook up a fine dish;
-    For tough were her pullets, and tender her fish."
-                                       PRIOR.
-
-This quotation reminds us of a little poem by the same author, entitled
-the _Secretary_, which, as it is short, and runs upon chaise-wheels, and
-seems to have slipped the notice it deserves, we will do ourselves the
-pleasure of adding. It was written when he was Secretary of Embassy at
-the Hague, where he seems to have edified the Dutch with his insisting
-upon enjoying himself. The astonishment with which the good Hollander
-and his wife look up to him as he rides, and the touch of yawning
-dialect at the end, are extremely pleasant.
-
-    "While with labour assiduous due pleasure I mix,
-     And in one day atone for the business of six,
-     In a little Dutch chaise on a Saturday night,
-     On my left hand my Horace, a nymph on my right:
-     No Memoirs to compose, and no Post-boy to move,
-     That on Sunday may hinder the softness of love;
-     For her, neither visits, nor parties at tea,
-     Nor the long-winded cant of a dull Refugee:
-     This night and the next shall be hers, shall be mine,--
-     To good or ill-fortune the third we resign:
-     Thus scorning the world and superior to fate,
-     I drive on my car in processional state.
-     So with Phia through Athens Pisistratus rode;
-     Men thought her Minerva, and him a new god.
-     But why should I stories of Athens rehearse,
-     Where people knew love, and were partial to verse?
-     Since none can with justice my pleasures oppose,
-     In Holland half drowned in interest and prose?
-     By Greece and past ages what need I be tried,
-     When the Hague and the present are both on my side?
-     And is it enough for the joys of the day,
-     To think what Anacreon or Sappho would say?
-     When good Vandergoes, and his provident _vrow_,
-     As they gaze on my triumph, do freely allow,
-     That, search all the province, you'll find no man _dàr_ is
-     So blest as the _Englishen Heer Secre ar'_ is."
-
-If Prior had been living now he would have found the greatest want of
-travelling accommodation in a country for whose more serious wants we
-have to answer, without having her wit to help us to an excuse. There is
-a story told of an Irish post-chaise, the occupier of which, without
-quitting it, had to take to his heels. It was going down hill as fast as
-wind and the impossibility of stopping could make it, when the foot
-passengers observed a couple of legs underneath, emulating, with all
-their might, the rapidity of the wheels. The bottom had come out; and
-the gentleman was obliged to run for his life.
-
-We must relate another anecdote of an Irish post-chaise, merely to show
-the natural tendencies of the people to be lawless in self-defence. A
-friend of ours, who was travelling among them, used to have this
-proposition put to him by the postillion whenever he approached a
-turnpike--"Plase your honour, will I drive at the pike?" The pike hung
-loosely across the road. Luckily, the rider happened to be of as lawless
-a turn for justice as the driver, so the answer was always a cordial
-one--"Oh yes--drive at the pike." The pike made way accordingly; and in
-a minute or two the gate people were heard and seen, screaming in vain
-after the illegal charioteers.
-
-    "Fertur equis auriga, neque audit currus."
-                                VIRGIL.
-
-    "The driver's borne beyond their swearing,
-     And the post-chaise is hard of hearing."
-
-As to following them, nobody in Ireland thinks of moving too much, legal
-or illegal.
-
-The pleasure to be had in a mail-coach is not so much at one's command
-as that in a post-chaise. There is generally too little room in it, and
-too much hurry out of it. The company must not lounge over their
-breakfast, even if they are all agreed. It is an understood thing that
-they are to be uncomfortably punctual. They must get in at seven
-o'clock, though they are all going upon business they do not like or
-care about, or will have to wait till nine before they can do anything.
-Some persons know how to manage this haste, and breakfast and dine in
-the cracking of a whip. They stick with their fork, they joint, they
-sliver, they bolt. Legs and wings vanish before them like a dragon's
-before a knight-errant. But if one is not a clergyman or a regular jolly
-fellow, one has no chance this way. To be diffident or polite is fatal.
-It is a merit eagerly acknowledged, and as quickly set aside. At last
-you begin upon a leg, and are called off.
-
-A very troublesome degree of science is necessary for being well settled
-in the coach. We remember travelling in our youth, upon the north road,
-with an orthodox elderly gentleman of venerable peruke, who talked much
-with a grave-looking young man about universities, and won our
-inexperienced heart with a notion that he was deep in Horace and Virgil.
-He was deeper in his wig.
-
-Towards evening, as he seemed restless, we asked with much diffidence
-whether a change, even for the worse, might not relieve him; for we were
-riding backwards, and thought that all elderly people disliked that way.
-He insinuated the very objection; so we recoiled from asking him again.
-
-In a minute or two, however, he insisted that we were uneasy ourselves,
-and that he must relieve us for our own sake. We protested as filially
-as possible against this; but at last, out of mere shame of disputing
-the point with so benevolent an elder, we changed seats with him.
-
-[Illustration: The Post-Chaise]
-
-After an interval of bland meditation, we found the evening sun full in
-our face. His new comfort set him dozing; and every now and then he
-jerked his wig in our eyes, till we had the pleasure of seeing him take
-out a nightcap and look very ghastly. The same person, and his
-serious young companion, tricked us out of a good bed we happened to get
-at the inn.
-
-The greatest peculiarity attending a mail-coach arises from its
-travelling at night. The gradual decline of talk, the incipient snore,
-the rustling and shifting of legs and nightcaps, the cessation of other
-noises on the road--the sound of the wind or rain, of the moist circuit
-of the wheels, and of the time-beating tread of the horses--all dispose
-the traveller, who cannot sleep, to a double sense of the little that is
-left him to observe.
-
-The coach stops, the door opens, a rush of cold air announces the
-demands and merits of the guard, who is taking his leave, and is anxious
-to remember us. The door is clapped to again; the sound of everything
-outside becomes dim; and voices are heard knocking up the people of the
-inn, and answered by issuing yawns and excuses. Wooden shoes clog
-heavily about. The horses' mouths are heard, swilling the water out of
-tubs. All is still again, and some one in the coach takes a long
-breath. The driver mounts, and we resume our way.
-
-It happens that we can sleep anywhere except in a mail-coach; so that we
-hate to see a prudent, warm, old fellow, who has been eating our fowls
-and intercepting our toast, put on his night-cap in order to settle
-himself till morning. We rejoice in the digs that his neighbour's elbow
-gives him, and hail the long-legged traveller that sits opposite.
-
-A passenger of our wakeful description must try to content himself with
-listening to the sounds above mentioned; or thinking of his friends; or
-turning verses, as Sir Richard Blackmore did, "to the rumbling of his
-coach's wheels."
-
-The stage-coach is a great and unpretending accommodation. It is a cheap
-substitute, notwithstanding all its eighteen-penny and two-and-sixpenny
-temptations, for keeping a carriage or a horse; and we really think, in
-spite of its gossiping, is no mean help to village liberality; for its
-passengers are so mixed, so often varied, so little yet so much
-together, so compelled to accommodate, so willing to pass a short time
-pleasantly, and so liable to the criticism of strangers, that it is hard
-if they do not get a habit of speaking, or even thinking more kindly of
-one another than if they mingled less often, or under other
-circumstances.
-
-The old and infirm are treated with reverence; the ailing sympathised
-with; the healthy congratulated; the rich not distinguished; the poor
-well met; the young, with their faces conscious of ride, patronised, and
-allowed to be extra.
-
-Even the fiery, nay the fat, learn to bear with each other; and if some
-high-thoughted persons will talk now and then of their great
-acquaintances, or their preference of a carriage, there is an instinct
-which tells the rest that they would not make such appeals to their good
-opinion if they valued it so little as might be supposed. Stoppings and
-dust are not pleasant, but the latter may be had on grander occasions;
-and if anyone is so unlucky as never to keep another stopping himself,
-he must be content with the superiority of his virtue.
-
-The mail or stage-coachman, upon the whole, is no inhuman mass of
-great-coat, gruffness, civility, and old boots. The latter is the
-politer, from the smaller range of acquaintance, and his necessity for
-preserving them.
-
-His face is red, and his voice rough, by the same process of drink and
-catarrh. He has a silver watch with a steel-chain, and plenty of loose
-silver in his pocket, mixed with half-pence. He serves the houses he
-goes by for a clock. He takes a glass at every alehouse; for thirst,
-when it is dry, and for warmth when it is wet.
-
-He likes to show the judicious reach of his whip, by twigging a dog or a
-goose on the road, or children that get in the way. His tenderness to
-descending old ladies is particular. He touches his hat to Mr. Smith. He
-gives "the young woman" a ride, and lends her his box-coat in the rain.
-His liberality in imparting his knowledge to any one that has the good
-fortune to ride on the box with him is a happy mixture of deference,
-conscious possession, and familiarity. His information chiefly lies in
-the occupancy of houses on the road, prize-fighters, Bow Street runners,
-and accidents.
-
-He concludes that you know Dick Sams, or Old Joey, and proceeds to
-relate some of the stories that relish his pot and tobacco in the
-evening. If any of the four-in-hand gentry go by, he shakes his head,
-and thinks they might find something better to do. His contempt for them
-is founded on modesty.
-
-He tells you that his off-hand horse is as pretty a goer as ever was,
-but that Kitty--"Yeah, now there, Kitty, can't you be still? Kitty's a
-devil, sir, for all you wouldn't think it." He knows that the boys on
-the road admire him, and gives the horses an indifferent lash with his
-whip as they go by. If you wish to know what rain and dust can do, you
-should look at his old hat. There is an indescribably placid and
-paternal look in the position of his corduroy knees and old top-boots on
-the foot-board, with their pointed toes and never-cleaned soles. His
-_beau-idéal_ of appearance is a frock-coat, with mother-o'-pearl
-buttons, a striped yellow waistcoat, and a flower in his mouth.
-
-    "But all our praises why for Charles and Robert?
-     Rise, honest Mews, and sing the classic Bobart."
-
-Is the quadrijugal virtue of that learned person still extant? That
-Olympic and Baccalaureated charioteer?--That best educated and most
-erudite of coachmen, of whom Dominie Sampson is alone worthy to speak?
-That singular punning and driving commentary on the _Sunt quos curriculo
-collegisse_? In short, the worthy and agreeable Mr. Bobart, Bachelor of
-Arts, who drove the Oxford stage some years ago, capped verses and the
-front of his hat with equal dexterity, and read Horace over his
-brandy-and-water of an evening.
-
-We had once the pleasure of being beaten by him in that capital art, he
-having brought up against us an unusual number of those cross-armed
-letters, as puzzling to verse-cappers as iron-cats unto cavalry, ycleped
-X's; which said warfare he was pleased to call to mind in after times,
-unto divers of our comrades.
-
-The modest and natural greatness with which he used to say "Yait" to his
-horses, and then turn round with his rosy gills, and an eye like a fish,
-and give out the required verse, can never pass away from us, as long as
-verses or horses run.
-
-Of the hackney-coach we cannot make as short work as many persons like
-to make of it in reality. Perhaps it is partly a sense of the contempt
-it undergoes, which induces us to endeavour to make the best of it. But
-it has its merits, as we shall show presently. In the account of its
-demerits we have been anticipated by a new, and we are sorry to say a
-very good, poetess, of the name of Lucy V---- L----, who has favoured us
-with a sight of a manuscript poem, in which they are related with great
-nicety and sensitiveness.
-
-_Reader._ What, sir, sorry to say that a lady is a good poetess?
-
-_Indicator._ Only inasmuch, madam, as the lady gives such authority to
-the anti-social view of this subject, and will not agree with us as to
-the beatitude of the hackney-coach.--But hold:--upon turning to the
-manuscript again, we find that the objections are put into the mouth of
-a dandy courtier. This makes a great difference. The hackney resumes all
-which it had lost in the good graces of the fair authoress. The only
-wonder is, how the courtier could talk so well. Here is the passage:--
-
-    "Eban, untempted by the Pastry-cooks
-     (Of Pastry he got store within the Palace),
-     With hasty steps, wrapp'd cloak, and solemn looks,
-     Incognito upon his errand sallies;
-     His smelling-bottle ready for the alleys;
-     He pass'd the Hurdy-gurdies with disdain,
-     Vowing he'd have them sent on board the galleys:
-      Just as he made his vow, it 'gan to rain,
-    Therefore he call'd a coach, and bade it drive amain.
-
-      'I'll pull the string,' said he, and further said,
-      'Polluted Jarvey! Ah, thou filthy hack!
-      Whose strings of life are all dried up and dead,
-      Whose linsey-wolsey lining hangs all slack,
-      Whose rug is straw, whose wholeness is a crack;
-      And evermore thy steps go clatter-clitter;
-      Whose glass once up can never be got back,
-      Who prov'st, with jolting arguments and bitter,
-    That 'tis of vile no-use to travel in a litter.
-
-      'Thou inconvenience! thou hungry crop
-      For all corn! thou snail creeper to and fro,
-      Who while thou goest ever seem'st to stop,
-      And fiddle-faddle standest while you go;
-      I' the morning, freighted with a weight of woe,
-      Unto some Lazar-house thou journiest,
-      And in the evening tak'st a double row
-      Of dowdies, for some dance or party drest,
-    Besides the goods meanwhile thou movest east and west.
-
-      'By thy ungallant bearing and sad mien,
-      An inch appears the utmost thou couldst budge;
-      Yet at the slightest nod, or hint, or sign,
-      Round to the curb-stone patient dost thou trudge,
-      School'd in a beckon, learned in a nudge;
-      A dull-eyed Argus watching for a fare;
-      Quiet and plodding, thou dost bear no grudge
-      To whisking Tilburies or Phaetons rare,
-    Curricles, or Mail-coaches, swift beyond compare.'
-
-      Philosophising thus, he pull'd the check,
-      And bade the coachman wheel to such a street;
-      Who turning much his body, more his neck,
-      Louted full low, and hoarsely did him greet."
-
-The tact here is so nice of the infirmities which are but too likely to
-beset our poor old friend, that we should only spoil it to say more. To
-pass then to the merits.
-
-One of the greatest helps to a sense or merit in other things is a
-consciousness of one's own wants. Do you despise a hackney-coach? Get
-tired; get old; get young again. Lay down your carriage, or make it less
-uneasily too easy. Have to stand up half-an-hour, out of a storm, under
-a gateway. Be ill, and wish to visit a friend who is worse. Fall in
-love, and want to sit next your mistress. Or if all this will not do,
-fall in a cellar.
-
-Ben Jonson, in a fit of indignation at the niggardliness of James the
-First, exclaimed, "He despises me, I suppose, because I live in an
-alley:--tell him his soul lives in an alley." We think we see a
-hackney-coach moving out of its ordinary patience, and hear it say, "You
-there, who sit looking so scornfully at me out of your carriage, are
-yourself the thing you take me for. Your understanding is a
-hackney-coach. It is lumbering, rickety, and at a stand. When it moves
-it is drawn by things like itself. It is at once the most stationary and
-the most servile of commonplaces. And when a good thing is put into it,
-it does not know it."
-
-But it is difficult to imagine a hackney-coach under so irritable an
-aspect. Hogarth has drawn a set of hats or wigs with countenances of
-their own. We have noticed the same thing in the faces of houses; and it
-sometimes gets in one's way in a landscape-painting, with the outlines
-of the rocks and trees.
-
-A friend tells us that the hackney-coach has its countenance, with
-gesticulation besides: and now he has pointed it out, we can easily
-fancy it. Some of them look chucked under the chin, some nodding, some
-coming at you sideways. We shall never find it easy, however, to fancy
-the irritable aspect above-mentioned.
-
-A hackney-coach always appeared to us the most quiescent of movables.
-Its horses and it, slumbering on a stand, are an emblem of all patience
-in creation, animate and inanimate.
-
-The submission with which the coach takes every variety of the weather,
-dust, rain, and wind, never moving but when some eddying blast makes its
-old body shiver, is only surpassed by the vital patience of the horses.
-
-Can anything better illustrate the poet's line about
-
-    "--Years that bring the philosophic mind,"
-
-than the still-hung head, the dim indifferent eye, the dragged and
-blunt-cornered mouth, and the gaunt imbecility of body dropping its
-weight on three tired legs in order to give repose to the lame one? When
-it has blinkers on, they seem to be shutting up its eyes for death, like
-the windows of a house. Fatigue and the habit of suffering have become
-as natural to the creature as the bit to its mouth.
-
-Once in half-an-hour it moves the position of its leg, or shakes its
-drooping ears. The whip makes it go, more from habit than from pain. Its
-coat has become almost callous to minor stings. The blind and staggering
-fly in autumn might come to die against its cheek.
-
-Of a pair of hackney-coach horses, one so much resembles the other that
-it seems unnecessary for them to compare notes. They have that within
-them which is beyond the comparative. They no longer bend their heads
-towards each other as they go. They stand together as if unconscious of
-one another's company. But they are not.
-
-An old horse misses his companion, like an old man. The presence of an
-associate, who has gone through pain and suffering with us, need not
-say anything. It is talk, and memory, and everything. Something of this
-it may be to our old friends in harness. What are they thinking of while
-they stand motionless in the rain? Do they remember? Do they dream? Do
-they still, unperplexed as their old blood is by too many foods, receive
-a pleasure from the elements; a dull refreshment from the air and sun?
-Have they yet a palate for the hay which they pull so feebly? or for the
-rarer grain which induces them to perform their only voluntary gesture
-of any vivacity, and toss up the bags that are fastened on their mouths,
-to get at its shallow feast?
-
-If the old horse were gifted with memory (and who shall say he is not,
-in one thing as well as another?), it might be at once the most
-melancholy and pleasantest faculty he has; for the commonest hack has
-probably been a hunter or racer; has had his days of lustre and
-enjoyment; has darted along the course, and scoured the pasture; has
-carried his master proudly, or his lady gently; has pranced, has
-galloped, has neighed aloud, has dared, has forded, has spurned at
-mastery, has graced it and made it proud, has rejoiced the eye, has been
-crowded to as an actor, has been all instinct with life and quickness,
-has had his very fear admired as courage, and been sat upon by valour as
-its chosen seat.
-
-    "His ears up-prick'd; his braided hanging mane
-     Upon his compass'd crest now stands on end;
-     His nostrils drink the air; and forth again,
-     As from a furnace, vapours doth he send;
-       His eye, which scornfully glistens like fire,
-       Shows his hot courage and his high desire.
-
-     Sometimes he trots as if he told the steps,
-     With gentle majesty, and modest pride;
-     Anon he rears upright, curvets and leaps,
-     As who would say, lo! thus my strength is tried,
-       And thus I do to captivate the eye
-       Of the fair breeder that is standing by.
-
-     What recketh he his rider's angry stir,
-     His flattering holla, or his _Stand, I say_?
-     What cares he now for curb, or pricking spur?
-     For rich caparisons, or trappings gay?
-       He sees his love, and nothing else he sees,
-       For nothing else with his proud sight agrees.
-
-     Look, when a painter would surpass the life,
-     In limning out a well-proportion'd steed,
-     His art with nature's workmanship at strife,
-     As if the dead the living should exceed;
-       So did this horse excel a common one,
-       In shape, in courage, colour, pace, and bone.
-
-     Round-hoof'd, short-jointed, fetlock shag and long,
-     Broad breast, full eyes, small head, and nostril wide;
-     High crest, short ears, straight legs, and passing strong;
-     Thin mane, thick tail, broad buttock, tender hide;
-       Look, what a horse should have, he did not lack,
-       Save a proud rider on so proud a back."
-
-Alas! his only riders now are the rain and a sordid harness. The least
-utterance of the wretchedest voice makes him stop and become a fixture.
-His loves were in existence at the time the old sign, fifty miles hence,
-was painted. His nostrils drink nothing but what they cannot help--the
-water out of an old tub. Not all the hounds in the world could make his
-ears attain any eminence. His mane is scratchy and lax. The same great
-poet who wrote the triumphal verses for him and his loves, has written
-their living epitaph:--
-
-                          "The poor jades
-    Lob down their heads, dropping the hide and hips,
-    The gum down roping from their pale dead eyes;
-    And in their pale dull mouths the gimmal bit
-    Lies foul with chew'd grass, still and motionless."
-                                          _K. Henry V, Act 1._
-
-There is a song called the "High-mettled Racer," describing the progress
-of a favourite horse's life, from its time of vigour and glory, down to
-its furnishing food for the dogs. It is not as good as Shakespeare; but
-it will do to those who are half as kind as he.
-
-We defy anybody to read that song, or be in the habit of singing it or
-hearing it sung, and treat horses as they are sometimes treated. So much
-good may an author do, who is in earnest, and does not go in a pedantic
-way to work.
-
-We will not say that Plutarch's good-natured observation about taking
-care of one's old horse did more for that class of retired servants than
-all the graver lessons of philosophy. For it is philosophy which first
-sets people thinking; and then some of them put it in a more popular
-shape. But we will venture to say that Plutarch's observation saved many
-a steed of antiquity a superfluous thump; and in this respect the author
-of the "High-mettled Racer" (Mr. Dibdin we believe, no mean man in his
-way) may stand by the side of the old illustrious biographer.
-
-Next to ancient causes, to the inevitable progress of events, and to the
-practical part of Christianity (which persons, the most accused of
-irreligion, have preserved like a glorious infant, through ages of blood
-and fire) the kindliness of modern philosophy is more immediately owing
-to the great national writers of Europe, in whose schools we have all
-been children:--to Voltaire in France, and Shakespeare in England.
-Shakespeare, in his time, obliquely pleaded the cause of the Jew, and
-got him set on a common level with humanity. The Jew has since been not
-only allowed to be human, but some have undertaken to show him as the
-"best good Christian though he knows it not."
-
-We shall not dispute the title with him, nor with the other worshippers
-of Mammon, who force him to the same shrine. We allow, as things go in
-that quarter, that the Jew is as great a Christian as his neighbour, and
-his neighbour as great a Jew as he. There is neither love nor money lost
-between them.
-
-But, at all events, the Jew is a man; and with Shakespeare's assistance
-the time has arrived when we can afford to acknowledge the horse for a
-fellow-creature, and treat him as one. We may say for him, upon the same
-grounds and to the same purpose, as Shakespeare said for the Israelite,
-"Hath not a horse organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? hurt
-with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same
-means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer, as a Christian
-is?" Oh--but some are always at hand to cry out--it would be effeminate
-to think too much of these things!--Alas! we have no notion of asking
-the gentlemen to think too much of anything. If they will think at all,
-it will be a great gain.
-
-As to effeminacy (if we must use that ungallant and partial word, for
-want of a better) it is cruelty that is effeminate. It is selfishness
-that is effeminate. Anything is effeminate which would get an
-excitement, or save a proper and manly trouble, at the undue expense of
-another. How does the case stand then between those who ill-treat their
-horses and those who spare them?
-
-[Illustration: THE STAGE-COACH DRIVER]
-
-To return to the coach. Imagine a fine coach and pair, which are
-standing at the door of a house, in all the pride of their strength and
-beauty, converted into what they may both become, a hackney, and its old
-shamblers. Such is one of the meditations of the philosophic
-eighteen-penny rider. A hackney-coach has often the arms of nobility
-on it. As we are going to get into it we catch a glimpse of the faded
-lustre of an earl's or marquis's coronet, and think how many light and
-proud hearts have ascended those now rickety steps.
-
-In this coach perhaps an elderly lady once rode to her wedding, a
-blooming and blushing girl. Her mother and sister were on each side of
-her; the bridegroom opposite in a blossom-coloured coat. They talk of
-everything in the world of which they are not thinking. The sister was
-never prouder of her. The mother with difficulty represses her own pride
-and tears. The bride, thinking he is looking at her, casts down her
-eyes, pensive in her joy.
-
-The bridegroom is at once the proudest, and the humblest, and the
-happiest man in the world. For our parts, we sit in a corner, and are in
-love with the sister. We dream she is going to speak to us in answer to
-some indifferent question, when a hoarse voice comes in at the front
-window and says, "Whereabouts, sir?"
-
-And grief has consecrated thee, thou reverend dilapidation, as well as
-joy! Thou hast carried unwilling as well as willing hearts; hearts that
-have thought the slowest of thy paces too fast; faces that have sat back
-in a corner of thee, to hide their tears from the very thought of being
-seen.
-
-In thee the destitute have been taken to the poor-house, and the wounded
-and sick to the hospital; and many an arm has been round many an
-insensible waist. Into thee the friend or the lover has hurried, in a
-passion of tears, to lament his loss.
-
-In thee he has hastened to condole the dying or the wretched. In thee
-the father, or mother, or the older kinswoman, more patient in her
-years, has taken the little child to the grave, the human jewel that
-must be parted with.
-
-But joy appears in thee again, like the look-in of the sunshine. If the
-lover has gone in thee unwillingly, he has also gone willingly. How many
-friends hast thou not carried to merry-meetings! How many young parties
-to the play! How many children, whose faces thou hast turned in an
-instant from the extremity of lachrymose weariness to that of staring
-delight.
-
-Thou hast contained as many different passions in thee as a human heart;
-and for the sake of the human heart, old body, thou art venerable. Thou
-shalt be as respectable as a reduced old gentleman, whose very
-slovenliness is pathetic. Thou shalt be made gay, as he is over a
-younger and richer table, and thou shalt be still more touching for the
-gaiety.
-
-We wish the hackney-coachman were as interesting a machine as either his
-coach or horses; but it must be owned, that of all the driving species
-he is the least agreeable specimen. This is partly to be attributed to
-the life which has most probably put him into his situation; partly to
-his want of outside passengers to cultivate his gentility; and partly to
-the disputable nature of his fare, which always leads him to be lying
-and cheating. The waterman of the stand, who beats him in sordidness of
-appearance, is more respectable. He is less of a vagabond, and cannot
-cheat you.
-
-Nor is the hackney-coachman only disagreeable in himself, but, like
-Falstaff reversed, the cause of disagreeableness in others; for he sets
-people upon disputing with him in pettiness and ill-temper. He induces
-the mercenary to be violent, and the violent to seem mercenary. A man
-whom you took for a pleasant, laughing fellow, shall all of a sudden put
-on an irritable look of calculation, and vow that he will be charged
-with a constable rather than pay the sixpence.
-
-Even fair woman shall waive her all-conquering softness, and sound a
-shrill trumpet in reprobation of the extortionate charioteer, whom, if
-she were a man, she says, she would expose. Being a woman, then, let her
-not expose herself. Oh, but it is intolerable to be so imposed upon! Let
-the lady, then, get a pocket-book, if she must, with the hackney-coach
-fares in it; or a pain in the legs, rather than the temper; or, above
-all, let her get wiser, and have an understanding that can dispense with
-the good opinion of the hackney-coachman. Does she think that her rosy
-lips were made to grow pale about two-and-sixpence; or that the
-expression of them will ever be like her cousin Fanny's if she goes on?
-
-The stage-coachman likes the boys on the road, because he knows they
-admire him. The hackney-coachman knows that they cannot admire him, and
-that they can get up behind his coach, which makes him very savage.
-
-The cry of "Cut behind!" from the malicious urchins on the pavement
-wounds at once his self-love and his interest. He would not mind
-overloading his master's horses for another sixpence, but to do it for
-nothing is what shocks his humanity. He hates the boy for imposing upon
-him, and the boys for reminding him that he has been imposed upon; and
-he would willingly twinge the cheeks of all nine. The cut of his whip
-over the coach is malignant.
-
-He has a constant eye to the road behind him. He has also an eye to what
-may be left in the coach. He will undertake to search the straw for you,
-and miss the half-crown on purpose. He speculates on what he may get
-above his fare, according to your manners or company; and knows how much
-to ask for driving faster or slower than usual.
-
-He does not like wet weather so much as people suppose; for he says it
-rots both his horses and harness, and he takes parties out of town when
-the weather is fine, which produces good payments in a lump.
-
-Lovers, late supper-eaters, and girls going home from boarding-school,
-are his best pay. He has a rascally air of remonstrance when you dispute
-half the overcharge, and according to the temper he is in, begs you to
-consider his bread, hopes you will not make such a fuss about a trifle;
-or tells you, you may take his number or sit in the coach all night.
-
-A great number of ridiculous adventures must have taken place in which
-hackney-coaches were concerned. The story of the celebrated harlequin
-Lunn, who secretly pitched himself out of one into a tavern window, and
-when the coachman was about to submit to the loss of his fare,
-astonished him by calling out again from the inside, is too well known
-for repetition.
-
-There is one of Swift, not perhaps so common. He was going, one dark
-evening, to dine with some great man, and was accompanied by some other
-clergymen, to whom he gave their cue. They were all in their canonicals.
-When they arrive at the house, the coachman opens the door, and lets
-down the steps. Down steps the Dean, very reverend in his black robes;
-after him comes another personage, equally black and dignified; then
-another; then a fourth. The coachman, who recollects taking up no
-greater number, is about to put up the steps, when another clergyman
-descends. After giving way to this other, he proceeds with great
-confidence to toss them up, when lo! another comes. Well, there cannot,
-he thinks, be more than six. He is mistaken. Down comes a seventh, then
-an eighth; then a ninth; all with decent intervals; the coach, in the
-meantime, rocking as if it were giving birth to so many demons. The
-coachman can conclude no less. He cries out, "The devil! the devil!" and
-is preparing to run away, when they all burst into laughter. They had
-gone round as they descended, and got in at the other door.
-
-We remember in our boyhood an edifying comment on the proverb of "all is
-not gold that glistens." The spectacle made such an impression upon us,
-that we recollect the very spot, which was at the corner of a road in
-the way from Westminster to Kennington, near a stonemason's. It was a
-severe winter, and we were out on a holiday, thinking, perhaps, of the
-gallant hardships to which the ancient soldiers accustomed themselves,
-when we suddenly beheld a group of hackney-coachmen, not, as Spenser
-says of his witch,
-
-    "Busy, as _seemed_, about some wicked gin,"
-
-but pledging each other in what appeared to us to be little glasses of
-cold water. What temperance, thought we! What extraordinary and noble
-content! What more than Roman simplicity! Here are a set of poor
-Englishmen, of the homeliest order, in the very depth of winter,
-quenching their patient and honourable thirst with modicums of cold
-water! O true virtue and courage! O sight worthy of the Timoleons and
-Epaminondases! We know not how long we remained in this error; but the
-first time we recognised the white devil for what it was--the first time
-we saw through the crystal purity of its appearance--was a great blow to
-us.
-
-We did not then know what the drinkers went through; and this reminds
-us that we have omitted one great redemption of the hackney-coachman's
-character--his being at the mercy of all chances and weathers.
-
-Other drivers have their settled hours and pay. He only is at the mercy
-of every call and every casualty; he only is dragged, without notice,
-like the damned in Milton, into the extremities of wet and cold, from
-his alehouse fire to the freezing rain; he only must go anywhere, at
-what hour and to whatever place you choose, his old rheumatic limbs
-shaking under his weight of rags, and the snow and sleet beating into
-his puckered face, through streets which the wind scours like a
-channel.
-
-
-
-
-NIGHT WATCHMEN
-
-
-THE readers of these our lucubrations need not be informed that we keep
-no carriage. The consequence is, that being visitors of the theatre, and
-having some inconsiderate friends who grow pleasanter and pleasanter
-till one in the morning, we are great walkers home by night; and this
-has made us great acquaintances of watchmen, moonlight, _mud_-light, and
-other accompaniments of that interesting hour. Luckily we are fond of a
-walk by night. It does not always do us good; but that is not the fault
-of the hour, but our own, who ought to be stouter; and therefore we
-extract what good we can out of our necessity, with becoming temper. It
-is a remarkable thing in nature, and one of the good-naturedest things
-we know of her, that the mere fact of looking about us, and being
-conscious of what is going on, is its own reward, if we do but notice it
-in good-humour. Nature is a great painter (and art and society are among
-her works), to whose minutest touches the mere fact of becoming alive is
-to enrich the stock of our enjoyments.
-
-We confess there are points liable to cavil in a walk home by night in
-February. Old umbrellas have their weak sides; and the quantity of mud
-and rain may surmount the picturesque. Mistaking a soft piece of mud for
-hard, and so filling your shoe with it, especially at setting out, must
-be acknowledged to be "aggravating." But then you ought to have boots.
-There are sights, indeed, in the streets of London, which can be
-rendered pleasant by no philosophy; things too grave to be talked about
-in our present paper; but we must premise, that our walk leads us out of
-town, and through streets and suburbs of by no means the worst
-description. Even there we may be grieved if we will. The farther the
-walk into the country, the more tiresome we may choose to find it; and
-when we take it purely to oblige others, we must allow, as in the case
-of a friend of ours, that generosity itself on two sick legs may find
-limits to the notion of virtue being its own reward, and reasonably
-"curse those comfortable people" who, by the lights in their windows,
-are getting into their warm beds, and saying to one another, "Bad thing
-to be out of doors to-night."
-
-Supposing, then, that we are in a reasonable state of health and comfort
-in other respects, we say that a walk home at night has its merits, if
-you choose to meet with them. The worst part of it is the setting out;
-the closing of the door upon the kind faces that part with you. But
-their words and looks, on the other hand, may set you well off. We have
-known a word last us all the way home, and a look make a dream of it. To
-a lover, for instance, no walk can be bad. He sees but one face in the
-rain and darkness; the same that he saw by the light in the warm room.
-This ever accompanies him, looking in his eyes; and if the most pitiable
-and spoilt face in the world should come between them, startling him
-with the saddest mockery of love, he would treat it kindly for her sake.
-But this is a begging of the question. A lover does not walk. He is
-sensible neither to the pleasures nor pains of walking. He treads on
-air; and in the thick of all that seems inclement has an avenue of light
-and velvet spread for him, like a sovereign prince.
-
-[Illustration: The HACKNEY COACH]
-
-To resume, then, like men of this world. The advantage of a late hour
-is, that everything is silent and the people fast in their beds. This
-gives the whole world a tranquil appearance. Inanimate objects are no
-calmer than passions and cares now seem to be, all laid asleep. The
-human being is motionless as the house or the tree; sorrow is suspended;
-and you endeavour to think that love only is awake. Let not readers of
-true delicacy be alarmed, for we mean to touch profanely upon nothing
-that ought to be sacred; and as we are for thinking the best on these
-occasions, it is of the best love we think; love of no heartless order,
-and such only as ought to be awake with the stars.
-
-As to cares and curtain-lectures, and such-like abuses of the
-tranquillity of night, we call to mind, for their sakes, all the sayings
-of the poets and others about "balmy sleep," and the soothing of hurt
-minds, and the weariness of sorrow, which drops into forgetfulness. The
-great majority are certainly "fast as a church" by the time we speak of;
-and for the rest, we are among the workers who have been sleepless for
-their advantage; so we take out our licence to forget them for the time
-being. The only thing that shall remind us of them is the red lamp,
-shining afar over the apothecary's door; which, while it does so,
-reminds us also that there is help for them to be had. I see him now,
-the pale blinker suppressing the conscious injustice of his anger at
-being roused by the apprentice, and fumbling himself out of the house,
-in hoarseness and great-coat, resolved to make the sweetness of the
-Christmas bill indemnify him for the bitterness of the moment.
-
-But we shall be getting too much into the interior of the houses. By
-this time the hackney-coaches have all left the stands--a good symptom
-of their having got their day's money. Crickets are heard, here and
-there, amidst the embers of some kitchen. A dog follows us. Will nothing
-make him "go along"? We dodge him in vain; we run; we stand and "hish!"
-at him, accompanying the prohibition with dehortatory gestures, and an
-imaginary picking up of a stone. We turn again, and there he is vexing
-our skirts. He even forces us into an angry doubt whether he will not
-starve, if we do not let him go home with us. Now if we could but lame
-him without being cruel; or if we were only an overseer, or a beadle, or
-a dealer in dog-skin; or a political economist, to think dogs
-unnecessary. Oh! come, he has turned a corner, he has gone: we think we
-see him trotting off at a distance, thin and muddy, and our heart
-misgives us. But it was not our fault; we were not "hishing" at the
-time. His departure was lucky, for he had got our enjoyments into a
-dilemma; our "article" would not have known what to do with him. These
-are the perplexities to which your sympathisers are liable. We resume
-our way, independent and alone; for we have no companion this time,
-except our never-to-be-forgotten and ethereal companion, the reader. A
-real arm within another's puts us out of the pale of walking that is to
-be made good. It is good already. A fellow-pedestrian is company--is the
-party you have left; you talk and laugh, and there is no longer anything
-to be contended with. But alone, and in bad weather, and with a long way
-to go, here is something for the temper and spirits to grapple with and
-turn to account; and accordingly we are booted and buttoned up, an
-umbrella over our heads, the rain pelting upon it, and the lamp-light
-shining in the gutters; "mudshine," as an artist of our acquaintance
-used to call it, with a gusto of reprobation. Now, walk cannot well be
-worse; and yet it shall be nothing if you meet it heartily. There is a
-pleasure in overcoming obstacles; mere action is something; imagination
-is more; and the spinning of the blood, and vivacity of the mental
-endeavour, act well upon one another, and gradually put you in a state
-of robust consciousness and triumph. Every time you set down your leg
-you have a respect for it. The umbrella is held in the hand like a
-roaring trophy.
-
-We are now reaching the country: the fog and rain are over; and we meet
-our old friends the watchmen, staid, heavy, indifferent, more coat than
-man, pondering, yet not pondering, old but not reverend, immensely
-useless. No; useless they are not; for the inmates of the houses think
-them otherwise, and in that imagination they do good. We do not pity
-the watchmen as we used. Old age often cares little for regular sleep.
-They could not be sleeping perhaps if they were in their beds; and
-certainly they would not be earning. What sleep they get is perhaps
-sweeter in the watch-box,--a forbidden sweet; and they have a sense of
-importance, and a claim on the persons in-doors, which, together with
-the amplitude of their coating, and the possession of the box itself,
-make them feel themselves, not without reason, to be "somebody." They
-are peculiar and official. Tomkins is a cobbler as well as they; but
-then he is no watchman. He cannot speak to "things of night;" nor bid
-"any man stand in the king's name." He does not get fees and gratitude
-from the old, the infirm, and the drunken; nor "let gentlemen go;" nor
-is he "a parish-man." The churchwardens don't speak to him. If he put
-himself ever so much in the way of "the great plumber," he would not
-say, "How do you find yourself, Tomkins?"--"An ancient and quiet
-watchman." Such he was in the time of Shakespeare, and such he is now.
-Ancient, because he cannot help it; and quiet, because he will not help
-it, if possible; his object being to procure quiet on all sides, his own
-included. For this reason he does not make too much noise in crying the
-hour, nor is offensively particular in his articulation. No man shall
-sleep the worse for him, out of a horrid sense of the word "three." The
-sound shall be three, four, or one, as suits their mutual convenience.
-
-Yet characters are to be found even among watchmen. They are not all
-mere coat, and lump, and indifference. By-the-way, what do they think of
-in general? How do they vary the monotony of their ruminations from one
-to two, and from two to three, and so on? Are they comparing themselves
-with the unofficial cobbler; thinking of what they shall have for dinner
-to-morrow; or what they were about six years ago; or that their lot is
-the hardest in the world, as insipid old people are apt to think, for
-the pleasure of grumbling; or that it has some advantages nevertheless,
-besides fees; and that if they are not in bed, their wife is?
-
-Of characters, or rather varieties among watchmen, we remember several.
-One was a Dandy Watchman, who used to ply at the top of Oxford Street,
-next the park. We called him the dandy, on account of his utterance. He
-had a mincing way with it, pronouncing the _a_ in the word "past" as it
-is in _hat_, making a little preparatory hem before he spoke, and then
-bringing out his "past ten" in a style of genteel indifference; as if,
-upon the whole, he was of that opinion.
-
-Another was the Metallic Watchman, who paced the same street towards
-Hanover Square, and had a clang in his voice like a trumpet. He was a
-voice and nothing else; but any difference is something in a watchman.
-
-A third, who cried the hour in Bedford Square, was remarkable in his
-calling for being abrupt and loud. There was a fashion among his tribe
-just come up at that time, of omitting the words "past" and "o'clock,"
-and crying only the number of the hour. I know not whether a
-recollection I have of his performance one night is entire matter of
-fact, or whether any subsequent fancies of what might have taken place
-are mixed up with it; but my impression is, that as I was turning the
-corner into the square with a friend, and was in the midst of a
-discussion in which numbers were concerned, we were suddenly startled,
-as if in solution of it, by a brief and tremendous outcry of--ONE. This
-paragraph ought to have been at the bottom of the page, and the word
-printed abruptly round the corner.
-
-A fourth watchman was a very singular phenomenon, a _Reading_ Watchman.
-He had a book, which he read by the light of his lantern; and instead of
-a pleasant, gave you a very uncomfortable idea of him. It seemed cruel
-to pitch amidst so many discomforts and privations one who had
-imagination enough to wish to be relieved from them. Nothing but a
-sluggish vacuity befits a watchman.
-
-But the oddest of all was the _Sliding_ Watchman. Think of walking up a
-street in the depth of a frosty winter, with long ice in the gutters,
-and sleet over head, and then figure to yourself a sort of bale of a man
-in white coming sliding towards you with a lantern in one hand, and an
-umbrella over his head. It was the oddest mixture of luxury and
-hardship, of juvenility and old age! But this looked agreeable. Animal
-spirits carry everything before them; and our invincible friend seemed a
-watchman for Rabelais. Time was run at and butted by him like a goat.
-The slide seemed to bear him half through the night at once; he slipped
-from out of his box and his commonplaces at one rush of a merry thought,
-and seemed to say "Everything's in imagination--here goes the whole
-weight of my office."
-
-But we approach our home. How still the trees! How deliciously asleep
-the country! How beautifully grim and nocturnal this wooded avenue of
-ascent against the cold white sky! The watchmen and patrols, which the
-careful citizens have planted in abundance within a mile of their doors,
-salute us with their "Good mornings"--not so welcome as we pretend; for
-we ought not to be out so late; and it is one of the assumptions of
-these fatherly old fellows to remind us of it. Some fowls, who have made
-a strange roost in a tree, flutter as we pass them--another pull up the
-hill, unyielding; a few strides on a level; and _there_ is the light in
-the window, the eye of the warm soul of the house--one's home. How
-particular, and yet how universal, is that word; and how surely does it
-deposit every one for himself in his own nest!
-
-
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