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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78179 ***
+
+
+     “_Familiar in their Mouths as HOUSEHOLD WORDS._”—SHAKESPEARE.
+
+
+
+
+                            HOUSEHOLD WORDS.
+                           A WEEKLY JOURNAL.
+
+
+                     CONDUCTED BY CHARLES DICKENS.
+
+
+       N^{o.} 15.]      SATURDAY, JULY 6, 1850.      [PRICE 2_d._
+
+
+
+
+                  THE OLD LADY IN THREADNEEDLE STREET.
+
+
+Perhaps there is no Old Lady who has attained to such great distinction
+in the world, as this highly respectable female. Even the Old Lady who
+lived on a hill, and who, if she’s not gone, lives there still; or that
+other Old Lady who lived in a shoe, and had so many children she didn’t
+know what to do—are unknown to fame, compared with the Old Lady of
+Threadneedle Street. In all parts of the civilised earth the
+imaginations of men, women, and children figure this tremendous Old Lady
+of Threadneedle Street in some rich shape or other. Throughout the
+length and breadth of England, old ladies dote upon her; young ladies
+smile upon her; old gentlemen make much of her, young gentlemen woo her;
+everybody courts the smiles, and dreads the coldness, of the powerful
+Old Lady in Threadneedle Street. Even prelates have been said to be fond
+of her; and Ministers of State to have been unable to resist her
+attractions. She is next to omnipotent in the three great events of
+human life. In spite of the old saw, far fewer marriages are made in
+Heaven, than with an eye to Threadneedle Street. To be born in the good
+graces of the Old Lady of Threadneedle Street, is to be born to fortune:
+to die in her good books, is to leave a far better inheritance, as the
+world goes, than “the grinning honour that Sir Walter hath,” in
+Westminster Abbey. And there she is, for ever in Threadneedle Street,
+another name for wealth and thrift, threading her golden-eyed needle all
+the year round.
+
+This Old Lady, when she first set up, carried on business in Grocers’
+Hall, Poultry; but in 1732 she quarrelled with her landlords about a
+renewal of her lease, and built a mansion of her own in Threadneedle
+Street. She reared her new abode on the site of the house and garden of
+a former director of her affairs, Sir John Houblon. This was a modest
+structure, somewhat dignified by having a statue of William the Third
+placed before it; but not the more imposing from being at the end of an
+arched court, densely surrounded with habitations, and abutting on the
+churchyard of St. Christopher le Stocks.
+
+But now, behold her, a prosperous gentlewoman in the hundred and
+fifty-seventh year of her age; “the oldest inhabitant” of Threadneedle
+Street! There never was such an insatiable Old Lady for business. She
+has gradually enlarged her premises, until she has spread them over four
+acres; confiscating to her own use not only the parish church of St.
+Christopher, but the greater part of the parish itself.
+
+We count it among the great events of our young existence, that we had,
+some days since, the honour of visiting the Old Lady. It was not without
+an emotion of awe that we passed her Porter’s Lodge. The porter himself,
+blazoned in royal scarlet, and massively embellished with gold lace, is
+an adumbration of her dignity and wealth. His cocked hat advertises her
+stable antiquity as plainly as if she had written up, in imitation of
+some of her lesser neighbours, “established in 1694.” This foreshadowing
+became reality when we passed through the Hall—the tellers’ hall. A
+sensation of unbounded riches permeated every sense, except, alas! that
+of touch. The music of golden thousands clattered in the ear, as they
+jingled on counters until its last echoes were strangled in the puckers
+of tightened money-bags, or died under the clasps of purses. Wherever
+the eye turned, it rested on money; money of every possible variety;
+money in all shapes; money of all colours. There was yellow money, white
+money, brown money; gold money, silver money, copper money; paper money,
+pen and ink money. Money was wheeled about in trucks; money was carried
+about in bags; money was scavengered about with shovels. Thousands of
+sovereigns were jerked hither and thither from hand to hand—grave games
+of pitch and toss were played with staid solemnity; piles of bank
+notes—competent to buy whole German dukedoms and Italian
+principalities—hustled to and fro with as much indifference as if they
+were (as they had been) old rags.
+
+This Hall of the Old Lady’s overpowered us with a sense of wealth;
+oppressed us with a golden dream of Riches. From this vision an
+instinctive appeal to our own pockets, and a few miserable shillings,
+awakened us to Reality. When thus aroused we were in one of the Old
+Lady’s snug, elegant, waiting-rooms, which is luxuriously
+Turkey-carpeted and adorned with two excellent portraits of two ancient
+cashiers; regarding one of whom the public were warned:—
+
+                        “Sham Abraham you may,
+                        I’ve often heard say:
+                But you mustn’t sham ‘Abraham Newland.’”
+
+There are several conference-rooms for gentlemen who require a little
+private conversation with the Old Lady—perhaps on the subject of
+discounts.
+
+It is no light thing to send in one’s card to the Foster-Mother of
+British commerce; the Soul of the State; “the Sun,” according to Sir
+Francis Baring, around which the agriculture, trade, and finance of this
+country revolves; the mighty heart of active capital, through whose
+arteries and veins flows the entire circulating medium of this great
+country. It was not, therefore, without agitation that we were ushered
+from the waiting-room, into that celebrated private apartment of the Old
+Lady of Threadneedle Street—the Parlour—the Bank Parlour, the inmost
+mystery—the _cella_ of the great Temple of Riches.
+
+The ordinary associations called up by the notion of an old lady’s
+comfortable parlour, were not fulfilled by this visit. There is no
+domestic snugness, no easy chair, no cat, no parrot, no japanned
+bellows, no portrait of the Princess Charlotte and Prince Leopold in the
+Royal Box at Drury Lane Theatre; no kettle-holder, no worsted rug for
+the urn, no brass footman for the buttered toast, in the parlour in
+Threadneedle Street. On the contrary, the room is extensive—supported by
+pillars; is of grand and true proportions; and embellished with
+architectural ornaments in the best taste. It has a long table for the
+confidential managers of the Old Lady’s affairs (she calls these
+gentlemen her Directors) to sit at; and usually, a side table fittingly
+supplied with a ready-laid lunch.
+
+The Old Lady’s “Drawing” Room is as unlike—but then she is such a
+peculiar Old Lady!—any ordinary Drawing-room as need be. It has hardly
+any furniture, but desks, stools, and books. It is of immense
+proportions, and has no carpet. The vast amount of visitors the Old Lady
+receives between nine and four every day, would make lattice-work in one
+forenoon of the stoutest carpet ever manufactured. Everybody who comes
+into the Old Lady’s Drawing-room delivers his credentials to her
+gentlemen-ushers, who are quick in examining the same, and exact in the
+observance of all points of form. So highly-prized, however, is a
+presentation (on any grand scale) to the Old Lady’s Drawing-room,
+notwithstanding its plainness, that there is no instance of a
+Drawing-room at Court being more sought after. Indeed, it has become a
+kind of proverb that the way to Court often lies through the Old Lady’s
+apartments, and some suppose that the Court Sticks are of gold and
+silver in compliment to her.
+
+As to the individual appearance of the Old Lady herself, we are
+authorised to state that the portrait of a Lady (accompanied by eleven
+balls on a sprig, and a beehive) which appears in the upper left-hand
+corner of all the Bank of England Notes, is NOT the portrait of _the_
+Lady. She invariably wears a cap of silver paper, with her yellow hair
+gathered carefully underneath. When she carries any defensive or
+offensive weapon, it is not a lance, but a pen; and her modesty would on
+no account permit her to appear in such loose drapery as is worn by the
+party in question—who we understand is depicted as a warning to the
+youthful merchants of this country to avoid the fate of George Barnwell.
+
+In truth, like the Delphian mystery, SHE of Threadneedle Street is
+invisible, and delivers her oracles through her high priests: and, as
+Herodotus got his information from the priests in Egypt, so did we learn
+all we know about the Bank from the great officers of the Myth of
+Threadneedle Street. All of them are remarkable for great intelligence
+and good humour, particularly one MR. MATTHEW MARSHALL; for whom the Old
+Lady is supposed to have a sneaking kindness, as she is continually
+promising to pay him the most stupendous amounts of money. From what
+these gentlemen told us, we are prepared unhesitatingly to affirm in the
+teeth of the assertions of Plutarch, and Pliny, and Justin, that
+although Crœsus might have been well enough to do in the world in his
+day, he was but a pettifogger compared with the Great Lady of St.
+Christopher le Stocks. The Lydian king never employed nine hundred
+clerks, or accommodated eight hundred of them under one roof; and if he
+could have done either, he would have been utterly unable to muster one
+hundred and thirty thousand pounds a year to pay them. He never had
+bullion in his cellars, at any one time, to the value of sixteen
+millions and a half sterling, as our Old Lady has lately averaged; nor
+“other securities”—much more marketable than the precious stones Crœsus
+showed to Solon—to the amount of thirty millions. Besides, _all_ his
+capital was “dead weight;” that in Threadneedle Street is active, and is
+represented by an average paper currency of twenty millions per annum.
+
+After this statement of facts, we trust that modern poets when they want
+a hyperbole for wealth will cease to cite Crœsus, and draw their future
+inspirations from the shrine and cellars of the Temple opposite the
+Auction Mart; or, as the late Mr. George Robins designated it when
+professionally occupied, “The Great House over the way.”
+
+When we withdrew from the inmost fane of this Temple, we were ushered by
+the priest, who superintends the manufacture of the mysterious Deity’s
+oracles, into those recesses of her Temple in which these are made. Here
+we perceived, that, besides carrying on the ordinary operations of
+banking, the Old Lady is an extensive printer, engraver, bookbinder, and
+publisher. She maintains a steam-engine to drive letter-press and
+copper-plate printing machines, besides the other machinery which is
+employed in various operations, from making thousand pound notes to
+weighing single sovereigns. It is not until you see three steam-printing
+machines—such as we use for this publication—and hear that they are
+constantly revolving, to produce, at so many thousand sheets per hour,
+the printed forms necessary for the accurate account-keeping of this
+great Central Establishment and its twelve provincial branches, that you
+are fully impressed with the magnitude of the Old Lady’s transactions.
+In this one department no fewer than three hundred account-books are
+printed, ruled, bound, and used every week. During that short time they
+are filled with MS. by the eight hundred subordinates and their chiefs.
+By way of contrast we saw the single ledger which sufficed to post up
+the daily transactions of the Old Lady on her first establishment in
+business. It is no bigger than that of a small tradesman’s, and served
+to contain a record of the year’s accounts. Until within the last few
+years, visitors to the Bullion Office were shown the old box into which
+the books of the Bank were put every night for safety during the Old
+Lady’s early career. This receptacle is no bigger than a seaman’s chest.
+A spacious fire-proof room is now nightly filled with each day’s
+accounts, and they descend to it by means of a great hydraulic trap in
+the Drawing Office; the mountain of calculation when collected being too
+huge to be moved by human agency.
+
+These works are, of course, only produced for private reference; but the
+Old Lady’s publishing business is as extensive as it is profitable and
+peculiar. Although her works are the reverse of heavy or erudite—being
+“flimsy” to a proverb—yet the eagerness with which they are sought by
+the public, surpasses that displayed for the productions of the greatest
+geniuses who ever enlightened the world: she is, therefore, called upon
+to print enormous numbers of each edition,—generally one hundred
+thousand copies; and reprints of equally large impressions are demanded,
+six or seven times a year. She is protected by a stringent copyright; in
+virtue of which, piracy is felony, and was, until 1831, punished with
+death. The very paper is copyright, and to imitate even that entails
+transportation. Indeed its merits entitle it to every protection, for it
+is a very superior article. It is so thin that each sheet, before it is
+sized, weighs only eighteen grains; and so strong, that, when sized and
+doubled, a single sheet is capable of suspending a weight of fifty-six
+pounds.
+
+The literature of these popular prints is concise to terseness. A
+certain individual, duly accredited by the Old Lady, whose autograph
+appears in one corner, promises to pay to the before-mentioned Mr.
+Matthew Marshall, or bearer on demand, a certain sum, for the Governor
+and Company of the Bank of England. There is a date and a number; for
+the Old Lady’s sheets are published in Numbers; but, unlike other
+periodicals, no two copies of hers are alike. Each has a set of
+numerals, shown on no other.—It must not be supposed from the utter
+absence of rhetoric in this Great Woman’s literature, that it is devoid
+of ornament. On the contrary, it is illustrated by eminent artists: the
+illustrations consisting of the waves of a watermark made in the paper;
+a large black blot, with the statement in white letters of the sum which
+is promised to be paid; and the portrait referred to in a former part of
+this account of the Wonderful Old Lady.
+
+She makes it a practice to print thirty thousand copies of these works
+daily. Everything possible is done by machinery,—engraving, printing,
+numbering; but we refrain from entering into further details of this
+portion of the Old Lady’s Household here, as we are preparing a review
+of her valuable works, which shall shortly appear, in the form of a
+History of a Bank note. The publication department is so admirably
+conducted, that a record of each individual piece of paper launched on
+the ocean of public favour is kept, and its history traced till its
+return; for another peculiarity of the Old Lady’s establishment is, that
+every impression put forth comes back—with few exceptions—in process of
+time to her shelves; where it is kept for ten years, and then burnt.
+This great house is, therefore, a huge circulating library. The daily
+average number of notes brought back into the Old Lady’s lap—examined to
+detect forgeries; defaced; entered upon the record made when they were
+issued; and so stored away that they can be reproduced at any given
+half-hour for ten years to come,—is twenty-five thousands. On the day of
+our visit, there came in twenty-eight thousand and seventy-four of her
+picturesque pieces of paper, representing one million, one thousand, two
+hundred and seventy pounds sterling, to be dealt with as above,
+preparatory to their decennial slumber on her library shelves.
+
+The apartment in which the notes are kept _previous_ to issue, is the
+Old Lady’s Store-room. There is no jam, there are no pickles, no
+preserves, no gallipots, no stoneware jars, no spices, no anything of
+that sort, in the Store-room of the Wonderful Old Lady. You might die of
+hunger in it. Your sweet tooth would decay and tumble out, before it
+could find the least gratification in the Old Lady’s Store-room. There
+was a mouse found there once, but it was dead, and nothing but skin and
+bone. It is a grim room, fitted up all round with great iron-safes. They
+look as if they might be the Old Lady’s ovens, never heated. But they
+are very warm in the City sense; for when the Old Lady’s two
+store-keepers have, each with his own key, unlocked his own one of the
+double locks attached to each, and opened the door, Mr. Matthew Marshall
+gives you to hold a little bundle of paper, value two millions sterling;
+and, clutching it with a strange tingling, you feel disposed to knock
+Mr. Matthew Marshall down, and, like a patriotic Frenchman, to descend
+into the streets.
+
+No tyro need be told that these notes are representatives of weightier
+value, and were invented partly to supersede the necessity of carrying
+about ponderous parcels of precious metal. Hence—to treat of it
+soberly—four paper parcels taken out, and placed in our hands—consisting
+of four reams of Bank notes ready for issue, and not much more bulky
+than a thick octavo volume—though they represent gold of the weight of
+_two tons_, and of the value of two millions of pounds sterling, yet
+weigh not quite one pound avoirdupois each, or nearly four pounds
+together. The value in gold of what we could convey away in a couple of
+side pockets (if simply permitted by the dear Old Lady in Threadneedle
+Street, without proceeding to extremities upon the person of the Chief
+Cashier) would have required, but for her admirable publications, two of
+Barclay and Perkins’s strongest horses to draw.[1]
+
+Footnote 1:
+
+  One thousand sovereigns weigh twenty-one pounds, and five hundred and
+  twelve Bank-notes weigh exactly one pound.
+
+We have already made mention of the Old Lady’s Lodge, Hall, Parlour,
+Store-room, and Drawing-room. Her Cellars are not less curious. In these
+she keeps neither wine, nor beer, nor wood, nor coal. They are devoted
+solely to the reception of the precious metals. They are like the caves
+of Treasures in the Arabian Nights; the common Lamp that shows them
+becomes a Wonderful Lamp in Mr. Marshall’s hands, and Mr. Marshall
+becomes a Genie. Yet only by the power of association; for they are very
+respectable arched cellars that would make dry skittle-grounds, and have
+nothing rare about them but their glittering contents. One vault is full
+of what might be barrels of oysters—if it were not the Russian Loan.
+Another is rich here and there with piles of gold bars, set cross-wise,
+like sandwiches at supper, or rich biscuits in a confectioner’s shop.
+Another has a moonlight air from the presence of so much silver. Dusky
+avenues branch off, where gold and silver amicably bide their time in
+cool retreats, not looking at all mischievous here, or anxious to play
+the Devil with our souls. Oh for such cellars at home! “Look out for
+your young master half a dozen bars of the ten bin.” “Let me have a
+wedge of the old crusted.” “Another Million before we part—only one
+Million more, to finish with!” The Temperance Cause would make but slow
+way, as to such cellars, we have a shrewd suspicion!
+
+Beauty of colour is here associated with worth. One of these brilliant
+bars of gold weighs sixteen pounds troy, and its value is eight hundred
+pounds sterling. A pile of these, lying in a dark corner—like neglected
+cheese, or bars of yellow soap—and which might be contained in an
+ordinary tea-chest, is worth two hundred and ten thousand pounds.
+Fortune herself transmuted into metal seems to repose at our feet. Yet
+this is only an _eightieth_ part of the wealth contained in the Old
+Lady’s cellars.
+
+The future history of this metal is explained in three sentences; it is
+coined at the Mint, distributed to the public, worn by friction (or
+“sweated” by Jews) till it becomes light. What happens to it then we
+shall see.
+
+By a seldom failing law of monetary attraction nearly every species of
+cash, “hard” or soft, metallic or paper, finds its way some time or
+other back to the extraordinary Old Lady of Threadneedle Street. All the
+sovereigns returned from the banking-houses are consigned to a secluded
+cellar; and, when you enter it, you will possibly fancy yourself on the
+premises of a clock-maker who works by steam. Your attention is speedily
+concentrated to a small brass box not larger than an eight-day pendule,
+the works of which are impelled by steam. This is a self-acting weighing
+machine, which with unerring precision tells which sovereigns are of
+standard weight, and which are light, and of its own accord separates
+the one from the other. Imagine a long trough or spout—half a tube that
+has been split into two sections—of such a semi-circumference as holds
+sovereigns edgeways, and of sufficient length to allow of two hundred of
+them to rest in that position one against another. This trough thus
+charged is fixed slopingly upon the machine over a little table as big
+as that of an ordinary sovereigns-balance. The coin nearest to the
+Lilliputian platform drops upon it, being pushed forward by the weight
+of those behind. Its own weight presses the table down; but how far
+down? Upon that hangs the whole merit and discriminating power of the
+machine. At the back, and on each side of this small table, two little
+hammers move by steam backwards and forwards at different elevations. If
+the sovereign be full weight, down sinks the table too low for the
+higher hammer to hit it; but the lower one strikes the edge, and off the
+sovereign tumbles into a receiver to the left. The table pops up again,
+receives, perhaps, a light sovereign, and the higher hammer having
+always first strike, knocks it into a receiver to the right, time enough
+to escape its colleague, which, when it comes forward, has nothing to
+hit, and returns to allow the table to be elevated again. In this way
+the reputation of thirty-three sovereigns is established or destroyed
+every minute. The light weights are taken to a clipping machine, slit at
+the rate of two hundred a minute, weighed in a lump, the balance of
+deficiency charged to the banker from whom they were received, and sent
+to the Mint to be re-coined. Those which have passed muster are
+re-issued to the public. The inventor of this beautiful little detector
+was Mr. Cotton, a former governor. The comparatively few sovereigns
+brought in by the general public are weighed in ordinary scales by the
+tellers. The average loss upon each light coin, on an average of
+thirty-five thousands taken in 1843, was twopence three farthings.
+
+The business of the “Great House” is divided into two branches; the
+issue and the banking department. The latter has increased so rapidly of
+late years, that the last addition the Old Lady was constrained to make
+to her house was the immense Drawing-room aforesaid, for her customers
+and their payees to draw cash on checks and to make deposits. Under this
+noble apartment is the Strong Room, containing private property,
+supposed to be of enormous value. It is placed there for safety by the
+constituents of the Bank, and is concealed in tin boxes, on which the
+owners’ names are legibly painted. The descent into this stronghold—by
+means of the hydraulic trap we have spoken of—is so eminently
+theatrical, that we believe the Head of the Department, on going down
+with the books, is invariably required to strike an attitude, and to
+laugh in three sepulchral syllables; while the various clerks above
+express surprise and consternation.
+
+Besides private customers, everybody knows that our Old Lady does all
+the banking business for the British Government. She pays the interest
+to each Stock-holder in the National Debt, receives certain portions of
+the revenue, &c. A separate set of offices is necessary, to keep all
+such accounts, and these Stock Offices contain the most varied and
+extensive collection of autographs extant. Those whom Fortune entitles
+to dividends, must, by themselves or by their agents, sign the Stock
+books. The last signature of Handel, the composer, and that upon which
+Henry Fauntleroy was condemned and executed, are among the foremost of
+these lions. Here, standing in a great long building of divers stories,
+looking dimly upward through iron gratings, and dimly downward through
+iron gratings, and into musty chambers diverging into the walls on
+either hand, you may muse upon the National Debt. All the sheep that
+ever came out of Northamptonshire, seem to have yielded up their skins
+to furnish the registers in which its accounts are kept. Sweating and
+wasting in this vast silent library, like manuscripts in a mouldy old
+convent, are the records of the Dividends that are, and have been, and
+of the Dividends unclaimed. Some men would sell their fathers into
+slavery, to have the rummaging of these old volumes. Some, who would let
+the Tree of Knowledge wither while they lay contemptuously at its feet,
+would bestir themselves to pluck at these leaves, like shipwrecked
+mariners. These are the books to profit by. This is the place for X. Y.
+Z. to hear of something to his advantage in. This is the land of Mr.
+Joseph Ady’s dreams. This is the dusty fountain whence those wondrous
+paragraphs occasionally flow into the papers, disclosing how a labouring
+thatcher has come into a hundred thousand pounds—a long, long way to
+come—and gone out of his wits—not half so far to go. Oh, wonderful Old
+Lady! threading the needle with the golden eye all through the labyrinth
+of the National Debt, and hiding it in such dry hay-stacks as are
+rotting here!
+
+With all her wealth, and all her power, and all her business, and all
+her responsibilities, she is not a purse-proud Old Lady; but a dear,
+kind, liberal, benevolent Old Lady; so particularly considerate to her
+servants, that the meanest of them never speaks of her otherwise than
+with affection. Though her domestic rules are uncommonly strict; though
+she is very severe upon “mistakes,” be they ever so unintentional;
+though till lately she made her in-door servants keep good hours, and
+would not allow a lock to be turned or a bolt to be drawn after eleven
+at night, even to admit her dearly beloved Matthew Marshall himself—yet
+she exercises a truly tender and maternal care over her family of eight
+hundred strong. To benefit the junior branches, she has recently set
+aside a spacious room, and the sum of five hundred pounds, to form a
+library. With this handsome capital at starting, and eight shillings a
+year subscribed by the youngsters, an excellent collection of books will
+soon be formed. Here, from three till eight o’clock every lawful day,
+the subscribers can assemble for recreation or study; or, if they prefer
+it, they can take books to their homes. A member of the Committee of
+Management attends in turn during the specified hours—a self-imposed
+duty, in the highest degree creditable to, but no more than is to be
+expected from, the stewards of a Good Mistress; who, when any of her
+servants become superannuated, soothes declining age with a pension. The
+last published return states the number of pensioners at one hundred and
+ninety three; each of whom received on an average 161_l._, or an
+aggregate of upwards of 31,000_l._ per annum.
+
+Her kindness is not unrequited. Whenever anything ails her, the
+assiduous attention of her people is only equalled by her own bounty to
+them. When dangerously ill of the Panic in 1825, and the outflow of her
+circulating medium was so violent that she was in danger of bleeding to
+death, some of her upper servants never left her for a fortnight. At the
+crisis of her disorder, on a memorable Saturday night (December the
+seventeenth) her Deputy-Governor—who even then had not seen his own
+children for a week—reached Downing Street “reeling with fatigue,” and
+was just able to call out to the King’s Ministers—then anxiously
+deliberating on the dear Old Lady’s case—that she was out of danger!
+Another of her managing men lost his life in his anxiety for her safety,
+during the burning of the Royal Exchange, in January, 1838. When the
+fire broke out, the cold was intense; and although he had but just
+recovered from an attack of the gout, he rushed to the rescue of his
+beloved Old Mistress, saw everything done that could be done for her
+safety, and died from his exertions. Although the Old Lady is now more
+hale and hearty than ever, two of the Senior Clerks sit up in turn every
+night, to watch over her; in which duty they are assisted by a company
+of Foot Guards.
+
+The kind Old Lady of Threadneedle Street has, in short, managed to
+attach her dependants to her by the strongest of ties—that of love. So
+pleased are some with her service, that when even temporarily resting
+from it, they feel miserable. A late Chief Cashier never solicited but
+one holiday, and that for only a fortnight. In three days he returned
+expressing his extreme disgust with every sort of recreation but that
+afforded him by the Old Lady’s business. The last words of another old
+servant when on his death-bed, were, “Oh, that I could only die on the
+Bank steps!”
+
+
+
+
+                         THE SERF OF POBEREZE.
+
+
+The materials for the following tale were furnished to the writer while
+travelling last year near the spot on which the events it narrates took
+place. It is intended to convey a notion of some of the phases of
+Polish, or rather Russian serfdom (for, as truly explained by one of the
+characters in a succeeding page, it _is_ Russian), and of the
+catastrophes it has occasioned, not only in Catherine’s time, but
+occasionally at the present. The Polish nobles—themselves in
+slavery—earnestly desire the emancipation of their serfs, which Russian
+domination forbids.
+
+The small town of Pobereze stands at the foot of a stony mountain,
+watered by numerous springs in the district of Podolia, in Poland. It
+consists of a mass of miserable cabins, with a Catholic chapel and two
+Greek churches in the midst, the latter distinguished by their gilded
+towers. On one side of the marketplace stands the only inn, and on the
+opposite side are several shops, from whose doors and windows look out
+several dirtily dressed Jews. At a little distance, on a hill covered
+with vines and fruit-trees, stands the Palace, which does not, perhaps,
+exactly merit such an appellation, but who would dare to call otherwise
+the dwelling of the lord of the domain?
+
+On the morning when our tale opens, there had issued from this palace
+the common enough command to the superintendent of the estate, to
+furnish the master with a couple of strong boys, for service in the
+stables, and a young girl, to be employed in the wardrobe. Accordingly,
+a number of the best-looking young peasants of Olgogrod assembled in the
+broad avenue leading to the palace. Some were accompanied by their
+sorrowful and weeping parents, in all of whose hearts, however, rose the
+faint and whispered hope, “Perhaps it will not be _my_ child they will
+choose!”
+
+Being brought into the court-yard of the palace, the Count Roszynski,
+with the several members of his family, had come out to pass in review
+his growing subjects. He was a small and insignificant-looking man,
+about fifty years of age, with deep-set eyes and overhanging brows. His
+wife, who was nearly of the same age, was immensely stout, with a vulgar
+face and a loud disagreeable voice. She made herself ridiculous in
+endeavouring to imitate the manners and bearing of the aristocracy, into
+whose sphere she and her husband were determined to force themselves, in
+spite of the humbleness of their origin. The father of the “Right
+Honourable” Count Roszynski was a valet, who, having been a great
+favourite with his master, amassed sufficient money to enable his son,
+who inherited it, to purchase the extensive estate of Olgogrod, and with
+it the sole proprietorship of 1600 human beings. Over them he had
+complete control; and, when maddened by oppression, if they dared
+resent, woe unto them! They could be thrust into a noisome dungeon, and
+chained by one hand from the light of day for years, until their very
+existence was forgotten by all except the jailer who brought daily their
+pitcher of water and morsel of dry bread.
+
+Some of the old peasants say that Sava, father of the young peasant
+girl, who stands by the side of an old woman, at the head of her
+companions in the court-yard, is immured in one of these subterranean
+jails. Sava was always about the Count, who, it was said, had brought
+him from some distant land, with his little motherless child. Sava
+placed her under the care of an old man and woman, who had the charge of
+the bees in a forest near the palace, where he came occasionally to
+visit her. But once, six long months passed, and he did not come! In
+vain Anielka wept, in vain she cried, “Where is my father?”—No father
+appeared. At last it was said that Sava had been sent to a long distance
+with a large sum of money, and had been killed by robbers. In the ninth
+year of one’s life the most poignant grief is quickly effaced, and after
+six months Anielka ceased to grieve. The old people were very kind to
+her, and loved her as if she were their own child. That Anielka might be
+chosen to serve in the palace never entered their head, for who would be
+so barbarous as to take the child away from an old woman of seventy and
+her aged husband?
+
+To-day was the first time in her life that she had been so far from
+home. She looked curiously on all she saw,—particularly on a young lady
+about her own age, beautifully dressed, and a youth of eighteen, who had
+apparently just returned from a ride on horseback, as he held a whip in
+his hand, whilst walking up and down examining the boys who were placed
+in a row before him. He chose two amongst them, and the boys were led
+away to the stables.
+
+“And I choose this young girl,” said Constantia Roszynski, indicating
+Anielka; “she is the prettiest of them all. I do not like ugly faces
+about me.”
+
+When Constantia returned to the drawing-room, she gave orders for
+Anielka to be taken to her apartments, and placed under the tutelage of
+Mademoiselle Dufour, a French maid, recently arrived from the first
+milliner’s shop in Odessa. Poor girl! when they separated her from her
+adopted mother, and began leading her towards the palace, she rushed,
+with a shriek of agony, from them, and grasped her old protectress
+tightly in her arms! They were torn violently asunder, and the Count
+Roszynski quietly asked, “Is it her daughter, or her grand-daughter?”
+
+“Neither, my lord,—only an adopted child.”
+
+“But who will lead the old woman home, as she is blind?”
+
+“I will, my lord,” replied one of his servants, bowing to the ground; “I
+will let her walk by the side of my horse, and when she is in her cabin
+she will have her old husband,—they must take care of each other.”
+
+So saying, he moved away with the rest of the peasants and domestics.
+But the poor old woman had to be dragged along by two men; for in the
+midst of her shrieks and tears she had fallen to the ground, almost
+without life.
+
+And Anielka? They did not allow her to weep long. She had now to sit all
+day in the corner of a room to sew. She was expected to do everything
+well from the first; and if she did not, she was kept without food or
+cruelly punished. Morning and evening she had to help Mdlle. Dufour to
+dress and undress her mistress. But Constantia, although she looked with
+hauteur on everybody beneath her, and expected to be slavishly obeyed,
+was tolerably kind to the poor orphan. Her true torment began, when, on
+leaving her young lady’s room, she had to assist Mdlle. Dufour.
+Notwithstanding that she tried sincerely to do her best, she was never
+able to satisfy her, or to draw from her aught but harsh reproaches.
+
+Thus two months passed.
+
+One day Mdlle. Dufour went very early to confession, and Anielka was
+seized with an eager longing to gaze once more in peace and freedom on
+the beautiful blue sky and green trees, as she used to do when the first
+rays of the rising sun streamed in at the window of the little forest
+cabin. She ran into the garden. Enchanted by the sight of so many
+beautiful flowers, she went farther and farther along the smooth and
+winding walks, till she entered the forest. She who had been so long
+away from her beloved trees, roamed where they were thickest. Here she
+gazes boldly around. She sees no one! She is alone! A little farther on
+she meets with a rivulet which flows through the forest. Here she
+remembers that she has not yet prayed. She kneels down, and with hands
+clasped and eyes upturned she begins to sing in a sweet voice the Hymn
+to the Virgin.
+
+As she went on she sang louder and with increased fervour. Her breast
+heaved with emotion, her eyes shone with unusual brilliancy; but when
+the hymn was finished she lowered her head, tears began to fall over her
+cheeks, until at last she sobbed aloud. She might have remained long in
+this condition, had not some one come behind her, saying, “Do not cry,
+my poor girl; it is better to sing than to weep.” The intruder raised
+her head, wiped her eyes with his handkerchief, and kissed her on the
+forehead.
+
+It was the Count’s son, Leon!
+
+“You must not cry,” he continued; “be calm, and when the filipony
+(pedlars) come, buy yourself a pretty handkerchief.” He then gave her a
+rouble and walked away. Anielka, after concealing the coin in her
+corset, ran quickly back to the palace.
+
+Fortunately, Mdlle. Dufour had not yet returned, and Anielka seated
+herself in her accustomed corner. She often took out the rouble to gaze
+fondly upon it, and set to work to make a little purse, which, having
+fastened to a ribbon, she hung round her neck. She did not dream of
+spending it, for it would have deeply grieved her to part with the gift
+of the only person in the whole house who had looked kindly on her.
+
+From this time Anielka remained always in her young mistress’s room; she
+was better dressed, and Mdlle. Dufour ceased to persecute her. To what
+did she owe this sudden change? Perhaps to a remonstrance from Leon.
+Constantia ordered Anielka to sit beside her whilst taking her lessons
+from her music-masters, and on her going to the drawing-room, she was
+left in her apartments alone. Being thus more kindly treated, Anielka
+lost by degrees her timidity; and when her young mistress, whilst
+occupied over some embroidery, would tell her to sing, she did so boldly
+and with a steady voice. A greater favour awaited her. Constantia, when
+unoccupied, began teaching Anielka to read in Polish; and Mdlle. Dufour
+thought it politic to follow the example of her mistress, and began to
+teach her French.
+
+Meanwhile, a new kind of torment commenced. Having easily learnt the two
+languages, Anielka acquired an irresistible passion for reading. Books
+had for her the charm of the forbidden fruit, for she could only read by
+stealth at night, or when her mistress went visiting in the
+neighbourhood. The kindness hitherto shown her, for a time, began to
+relax. Leon had set off on a tour, accompanied by his old tutor, and a
+bosom friend as young, as gay, and as thoughtless as himself.
+
+So passed the two years of Leon’s absence. When he returned, Anielka was
+seventeen, and had become tall and handsome. No one who had not seen her
+during this time, would have recognised her. Of this number was Leon. In
+the midst of perpetual gaiety and change, it was not possible he could
+have remembered a poor peasant girl; but in Anielka’s memory he had
+remained as a superior being, as her benefactor, as the only one who had
+spoken kindly to her, when poor, neglected, forlorn! When in some French
+romance she met with a young man of twenty, of a noble character and
+handsome appearance, she bestowed on him the name of Leon. The
+recollection of the kiss he had given her ever brought a burning blush
+to her cheek, and made her sigh deeply.
+
+One day Leon came to his sister’s room. Anielka was there, seated in a
+corner at work. Leon himself had considerably changed; from a boy he had
+grown into a man. “I suppose Constantia,” he said, “you have been told
+what a good boy I am, and with what docility I shall submit myself to
+the matrimonial yoke, which the Count and Countess have provided for
+me?” and he began whistling, and danced some steps of the Mazurka.
+
+“Perhaps you will be refused,” said Constantia coldly.
+
+“Refused! Oh, no. The old Prince has already given his consent, and as
+for his daughter, she is desperately in love with me. Look at these
+moustachios, could anything be more irresistible?” and he glanced in the
+glass and twirled them round his fingers; then continuing in a graver
+tone, he said, “To tell the sober truth, I cannot say that I
+reciprocate. My intended is not at all to my taste. She is nearly
+thirty, and so thin that whenever I look at her, I am reminded of my old
+tutor’s anatomical sketches. But, thanks to her Parisian dress-maker,
+she makes up a tolerably good figure, and looks well in a Cachemere. Of
+all things, you know, I wished for a wife with an imposing appearance,
+and I don’t care about love. I find it’s not fashionable, and only
+exists in the exalted imagination of poets.”
+
+“Surely people are in love with one another sometimes,” said the sister.
+
+“Sometimes,” repeated Anielka, inaudibly. The dialogue had painfully
+affected her, and she knew not why. Her heart beat quickly, and her face
+was flushed, and made her look more lovely than ever.
+
+“Perhaps. Of course we profess to adore every pretty woman,” Leon added
+abruptly. “But, my dear sister, what a charming ladies’ maid you have!”
+He approached the corner where Anielka sat, and bent on her a coarse
+familiar smile. Anielka, although a serf, was displeased, and returned
+it with a glance full of dignity. But when her eyes rested on the
+youth’s handsome face, a feeling, which had been gradually and silently
+growing in her young and inexperienced heart, predominated over her
+pride and displeasure. She wished ardently to recal herself to Leon’s
+memory, and half unconsciously raised her hand to the little purse which
+always hung round her neck. She took from it the rouble he had given
+her.
+
+“See!” shouted Leon, “what a droll girl; how proud she is of her riches!
+Why, girl, you are a woman of fortune, mistress of a whole rouble!”
+
+“I hope she came by it honestly,” said the old Countess, who at this
+moment entered.
+
+At this insinuation, shame and indignation kept Anielka, for a time,
+silent. She replaced the money quickly in its purse, with the bitter
+thought that the few happy moments which had been so indelibly stamped
+upon her memory, had been utterly forgotten by Leon. To clear herself,
+she at last stammered out, seeing they all looked at her enquiringly,
+“Do you not remember, M. Leon, that you gave me this coin two years ago
+in the garden?”
+
+“How odd!” exclaimed Leon, laughing, “do you expect me to remember all
+the pretty girls to whom I have given money? But I suppose you are
+right, or you would not have treasured up this unfortunate rouble as if
+it were a holy relic. You should not be a miser, child; money is made to
+be spent.”
+
+“Pray, put an end to these jokes,” said Constantia impatiently; “I like
+this girl, and I will not have her teased. She understands my ways
+better than any one, and often puts me in good humour with her beautiful
+voice.”
+
+“Sing something for me, pretty damsel,” said Leon, “and I will give you
+another rouble, a new and shining one.”
+
+“Sing instantly,” said Constantia imperiously.
+
+At this command Anielka could no longer stifle her grief; she covered
+her face with her hands, and wept violently.
+
+“Why do you cry?” asked her mistress impatiently; “I cannot bear it; I
+desire you to do as you are bid.”
+
+It might have been from the constant habit of slavish obedience, or a
+strong feeling of pride, but Anielka instantly ceased weeping. There was
+a moment’s pause, during which the old Countess went grumbling out of
+the room. Anielka chose the Hymn to the Virgin she had warbled in the
+garden, and as she sung, she prayed fervently;—she prayed for peace, for
+deliverance from the acute emotions which had been aroused within her.
+Her earnestness gave an intensity of expression to the melody, which
+affected her listeners. They were silent for some moments after its
+conclusion. Leon walked up and down with his arms folded on his breast.
+Was it agitated with pity for the accomplished young slave? or by any
+other tender emotion? What followed will show.
+
+“My dear Constantia,” he said, suddenly stopping before his sister and
+kissing her hand, “will you do me a favour?”
+
+Constantia looked enquiringly in her brother’s face without speaking.
+
+“Give me this girl.”
+
+“Impossible!”
+
+“I am quite in earnest,” continued Leon, “I wish to offer her to my
+future wife. In the Prince her father’s private chapel they are much in
+want of a solo soprano.”
+
+“I shall not give her to you,” said Constantia.
+
+“Not as a free gift, but in exchange. I will give you instead a charming
+young negro—so black. The women in St. Petersburg and in Paris raved
+about him: but I was inexorable; I half-refused him to my princess.”
+
+“No, no,” replied Constantia; “I shall be lonely without this girl, I am
+so used to her.”
+
+“Nonsense! you can get peasant girls by the dozen; but a black page,
+with teeth whiter than ivory, and purer than pearls; a perfect original
+in his way; you surely cannot withstand. You will kill half the province
+with envy. A negro servant is the most fashionable thing going, and
+yours will be the first imported into the province.”
+
+This argument was irresistible. “Well,” replied Constantia, “when do you
+think of taking her?”
+
+“Immediately; to-day at five o’clock,” said Leon; and he went merrily
+out of the room. This then was the result of his cogitation—of Anielka’s
+Hymn to the Virgin. Constantia ordered Anielka to prepare herself for
+the journey, with as little emotion as if she had exchanged away a
+lap-dog, or parted with a parrot.
+
+She obeyed in silence. Her heart was full. She went into the garden that
+she might relieve herself by weeping unseen. With one hand supporting
+her burning head, and the other pressed tightly against her heart, to
+stifle her sobs, she wandered on mechanically till she found herself by
+the side of the river. She felt quickly for her purse, intending to
+throw the rouble into the water, but as quickly thrust it back again,
+for she could not bear to part with the treasure. She felt as if without
+it she would be still more an orphan. Weeping bitterly, she leaned
+against the tree which had once before witnessed her tears.
+
+By degrees the stormy passion within her gave place to calm reflection.
+This day she was to go away; she was to dwell beneath another roof, to
+serve another mistress. Humiliation! always humiliation! But at least it
+would be some change in her life. As she thought of this, she returned
+hastily to the palace that she might not, on the last day of her
+servitude, incur the anger of her young mistress.
+
+Scarcely was Anielka attired in her prettiest dress, when Constantia
+came to her with a little box, from which she took several gay-coloured
+ribbons, and decked her in them herself, that the serf might do her
+credit in the new family. And when Anielka, bending down to her feet,
+thanked her, Constantia, with marvellous condescension, kissed her on
+her forehead. Even Leon cast an admiring glance upon her. His servant
+soon after came to conduct her to the carriage, and showing her where to
+seat herself, they rolled off quickly towards Radapol.
+
+For the first time in her life Anielka rode in a carriage. Her head
+turned quite giddy, she could not look at the trees and fields as they
+flew past her; but by degrees she became more accustomed to it, and the
+fresh air enlivening her spirits, she performed the rest of the journey
+in a tolerably happy state of mind. At last they arrived in the spacious
+court-yard before the Palace of Radapol, the dwelling of a once rich and
+powerful Polish family, now partly in ruin. It was evident, even to
+Anielka, that the marriage was one for money on the one side, and for
+rank on the other.
+
+Among other renovations at the castle, occasioned by the approaching
+marriage, the owner of it, Prince Pelazia, had obtained singers for the
+chapel, and had engaged Signor Justiniani, an Italian, as chapel-master.
+Immediately on Leon’s arrival, Anielka was presented to him. He made her
+sing a scale, and pronounced her voice to be excellent.
+
+Anielka found that, in Radapol, she was treated with a little more
+consideration than at Olgogrod, although she had often to submit to the
+caprices of her new mistress, and she found less time to read. But to
+console herself, she gave all her attention to singing, which she
+practised several hours a day. Her naturally great capacity, under the
+guidance of the Italian, began to develope itself steadily. Besides
+sacred, he taught her operatic music. On one occasion Anielka sung an
+aria in so impassioned and masterly a style, that the enraptured
+Justiniani clapped his hands for joy, skipped about the room, and not
+finding words enough to praise her, exclaimed several times, “Prima
+Donna! Prima Donna!”
+
+But the lessons were interrupted. The Princess’s wedding-day was fixed
+upon, after which event she and Leon were to go to Florence, and Anielka
+was to accompany them. Alas! feelings which gave her poignant misery
+still clung to her. She despised herself for her weakness; but she loved
+Leon. The sentiment was too deeply implanted in her bosom to be
+eradicated; too strong to be resisted. It was the first love of a young
+and guileless heart, and had grown in silence and despair.
+
+Anielka was most anxious to know something of her adopted parents. Once,
+after the old prince had heard her singing, he asked her with great
+kindness about her home. She replied, that she was an orphan, and had
+been taken by force from those who had so kindly supplied the place of
+parents. Her apparent attachment to the old bee-keeper and his wife so
+pleased the prince, that he said, “You are a good child, Anielka, and
+to-morrow I will send you to visit them. You shall take them some
+presents.”
+
+Anielka, overpowered with gratitude, threw herself at the feet of the
+prince. She dreamed all night of the happiness that was in store for
+her, and the joy of the poor, forsaken, old people; and when the next
+morning she set off she could scarcely restrain her impatience. At last
+they approached the cabin; she saw the forest, with its tall trees, and
+the meadows covered with flowers. She leaped from the carriage, that she
+might be nearer these trees and flowers, every one of which she seemed
+to recognise. The weather was beautiful. She breathed with avidity the
+pure air which, in imagination, brought to her the kisses and caresses
+of her poor father! Her foster-father was, doubtless, occupied with his
+bees; but his wife?
+
+Anielka opened the door of the cabin; all was silent and deserted. The
+arm-chair on which the poor old woman used to sit, was overturned in a
+corner. Anielka was chilled by a fearful presentiment. She went with a
+slow step towards the bee-hives; there she saw a little boy tending the
+bees, whilst the old man was stretched on the ground beside him. The
+rays of the sun, falling on his pale and sickly face, showed that he was
+very ill. Anielka stooped down over him, and said, “It is I, it is
+Anielka, your own Anielka, who always loves you.”
+
+The old man raised his head, gazed upon her with a ghastly smile, and
+took off his cap.
+
+“And my good old mother, where is she?” Anielka asked.
+
+“She is dead!” answered the old man, and falling back he began laughing
+idiotically. Anielka wept. She gazed earnestly on the worn frame, the
+pale and wrinkled cheeks, in which scarcely a sign of life could be
+perceived; it seemed to her that he had suddenly fallen asleep, and not
+wishing to disturb him, she went to the carriage for the presents. When
+she returned, she took his hand. It was cold. The poor old bee-keeper
+had breathed his last!
+
+Anielka was carried almost senseless back to the carriage, which quickly
+returned with her to the castle. There she revived a little; but the
+recollection that she was now quite alone in the world, almost drove her
+to despair.
+
+Her master’s wedding and the journey to Florence were a dream to her.
+Though the strange sights of a strange city slowly restored her
+perceptions, they did not her cheerfulness. She felt as if she could no
+longer endure the misery of her life; she prayed to die.
+
+“Why are you so unhappy?” said the Count Leon kindly to her, one day.
+
+To have explained the cause of her wretchedness would have been death
+indeed.
+
+“I am going to give you a treat,” continued Leon. “A celebrated singer
+is to appear to-night in the theatre. I will send you to hear her, and
+afterwards you shall sing to me what you remember of her performances.”
+
+Anielka went. It was a new era in her existence. Herself, by this time,
+an artist, she could forget her griefs, and enter with her whole soul
+into the beauties of the art she now heard practised in perfection for
+the first time. To music a chord responded in her breast which vibrated
+powerfully. During the performances she was at one moment pale and
+trembling, tears rushing into her eyes; at another, she was ready to
+throw herself at the feet of the cantatrice, in an ecstacy of
+admiration. “Prima donna,”—by that name the public called on her to
+receive their applause, and it was the same, thought Anielka, that
+Justiniani had bestowed upon her. Could _she_ also be a prima donna?
+What a glorious destiny! To be able to communicate one’s own emotions to
+masses of entranced listeners; to awaken in them, by the power of the
+voice, grief, love, terror.
+
+Strange thoughts continued to haunt her on her return home. She was
+unable to sleep. She formed desperate plans. At last she resolved to
+throw off the yoke of servitude, and the still more painful slavery of
+feelings which her pride disdained. Having learnt the address of the
+prima donna, she went early one morning to her house.
+
+On entering she said, in French, almost incoherently, so great was her
+agitation—“Madam, I am a poor serf belonging to a Polish family who have
+lately arrived in Florence. I have escaped from them; protect, shelter
+me. They say I can sing.”
+
+The Signora Teresina, a warm-hearted, passionate Italian, was interested
+by her artless earnestness. She said, “Poor child! you must have
+suffered much,”—she took Anielka’s hand in hers. “You say you can sing;
+let me hear you.” Anielka seated herself on an ottoman. She clasped her
+hands over her knees, and tears fell into her lap. With plaintive
+pathos, and perfect truth of intonation, she prayed in song. The Hymn to
+the Virgin seemed to Teresina to be offered up by inspiration.
+
+The Signora was astonished. “Where,” she asked, in wonder, “were you
+taught?”
+
+Anielka narrated her history, and when she had finished, the prima donna
+spoke so kindly to her that she felt as if she had known her for years.
+Anielka was Teresina’s guest that day and the next. After the Opera, on
+the third day, the prima donna made her sit beside her, and said:—
+
+“I think you are a very good girl, and you shall stay with me always.”
+
+The girl was almost beside herself with joy.
+
+“We will never part. Do you consent, Anielka?”
+
+“Do not call me Anielka. Give me instead some Italian name.”
+
+“Well, then, be Giovanna. The dearest friend I ever had—but whom I have
+lost—was named Giovanna,” said the prima donna.
+
+“Then, I will be another Giovanna to you.”
+
+Teresina then said, “I hesitated to receive you at first, for your sake
+as well as mine; but you are safe now. I learn that your master and
+mistress, after searching vainly for you, have returned to Poland.”
+
+From this time Anielka commenced an entirely new life. She took lessons
+in singing every day from the Signora, and got an engagement to appear
+in inferior characters at the theatre. She had now her own income, and
+her own servant—she, who had till then been obliged to serve herself.
+She acquired the Italian language rapidly, and soon passed for a native
+of the country.
+
+So passed three years. New and varied impressions failed, however, to
+blot out the old ones. Anielka arrived at great perfection in her
+singing, and even began to surpass the prima donna, who was losing her
+voice from weakness of the chest. This sad discovery changed the
+cheerful temper of Teresina. She ceased to sing in public; for she could
+not endure to excite pity, where she had formerly commanded admiration.
+
+She determined to retire. “You,” she said to Anielka, “shall now assert
+your claim to the first rank in the vocal art. You will maintain it. You
+surpass me. Often, on hearing you sing, I have scarcely been able to
+stifle a feeling of jealousy.”
+
+Anielka placed her hand on Teresina’s shoulder, and kissed her.
+
+“Yes,” continued Teresina, regardless of everything but the bright
+future she was shaping for her friend. “We will go to Vienna—there you
+will be understood and appreciated. You shall sing at the Italian Opera,
+and I will be by your side—unknown, no longer sought, worshipped—but
+will glory in your triumphs. They will be a repetition of my own; for
+have I not taught you? Will they not be the result of my work?”
+
+Though Anielka’s ambition was fired, her heart was softened, and she
+wept violently.
+
+Five months had scarcely elapsed, when a _furore_ was created in Vienna
+by the first appearance, at the Italian Opera, of the Signora Giovanna.
+Her enormous salary at once afforded her the means of even extravagant
+expenditure. Her haughty treatment of male admirers only attracted new
+ones; but in the midst of her triumphs she thought often of the time
+when the poor orphan of Pobereze was cared for by nobody. This
+remembrance made her receive the flatteries of the crowd with an
+ironical smile; their fine speeches fell coldly on her ear, their
+eloquent looks made no impression on her heart: _that_, no change could
+alter, no temptation win.
+
+In the flood of unexpected success a new misfortune overwhelmed her.
+Since their arrival at Vienna, Teresina’s health rapidly declined, and
+in the sixth months of Anielka’s operatic reign she expired, leaving all
+her wealth, which was considerable, to her friend.
+
+Once more Anielka was alone in the world. Despite all the honours and
+blandishments of her position, the old feeling of desolateness came upon
+her. The new shock destroyed her health. She was unable to appear on the
+stage. To sing was a painful effort; she grew indifferent to what passed
+around her. Her greatest consolation was in succouring the poor and
+friendless, and her generosity was most conspicuous to all young orphan
+girls without fortune. She had never ceased to love her native land, and
+seldom appeared in society, unless it was to meet her countrymen. If
+ever she sang, it was in Polish.
+
+A year had elapsed since the death of the Signora Teresina when the
+Count Selka, a rich noble of Volkynia, at that time in Vienna, solicited
+her presence at a party. It was impossible to refuse the Count and his
+lady, from whom she had received great kindness. She went. When in their
+saloons, filled with all the fashion and aristocracy in Vienna, the name
+of Giovanna was announced, a general murmur was heard. She entered, pale
+and languid, and proceeded between the two rows made for her by the
+admiring assembly, to the seat of honour beside the mistress of the
+house.
+
+Shortly after, the Count Selka led her to the piano. She sat down before
+it, and thinking what she should sing, glanced round upon the assembly.
+She could not help feeling that the admiration which beamed from the
+faces around her was the work of her own merit, for had she neglected
+the great gift of nature—her voice, she could not have excited it. With
+a blushing cheek, and eyes sparkling with honest pride, she struck the
+piano with a firm hand, and from her seemingly weak and delicate chest
+poured forth a touching Polish melody, with a voice pure, sonorous, and
+plaintive. Tears were in many eyes, and the beating of every heart was
+quickened.
+
+The song was finished, but the wondering silence was unbroken. Giovanna
+leaned exhausted on the arm of the chair, and cast down her eyes. On
+again raising them, she perceived a gentleman who gazed fixedly at her,
+as if he still listened to echoes which had not yet died within him. The
+master of the house, to dissipate his thoughtfulness, led him towards
+Giovanna. “Let me present to you, Signora,” he said, “a countryman, the
+Count Leon Roszynski.”
+
+The lady trembled; she silently bowed, fixed her eyes on the ground, and
+dared not raise them. Pleading indisposition, which was fully justified
+by her pallid features, she soon after withdrew.
+
+When on the following day Giovanna’s servant announced the Counts Selka
+and Roszynski, a peculiar smile played on her lips; and when they
+entered, she received the latter with the cold and formal politeness of
+a stranger. Controlling the feelings of her heart, she schooled her
+features to an expression of indifference. It was manifest from Leon’s
+manner, that without the remotest recognition, an indefinable
+presentiment regarding her possessed him. The Counts had called to know
+if Giovanna had recovered from her indisposition. Leon begged to be
+permitted to call again.
+
+Where was his wife? why did he never mention her? Giovanna continually
+asked herself these questions when they had departed.
+
+A few nights after, the Count Leon arrived sad and thoughtful. He
+prevailed on Giovanna to sing one of her Polish melodies; which she told
+him had been taught, when a child, by her muse. Roszynski, unable to
+restrain the expression of an intense admiration he had long felt,
+frantically seized her hand, and exclaimed, “I love you!”
+
+She withdrew it from his grasp, remained silent for a few minutes, and
+then said slowly, distinctly, and ironically, “but I do not love _you_,
+Count Roszynski.”
+
+Leon rose from his seat. He pressed his hands to his brow, and was
+silent. Giovanna remained calm and tranquil. “It is a penalty from
+Heaven,” continued Leon, as if speaking to himself, “for not having
+fulfilled my duty as a husband towards one whom I chose voluntarily, but
+without reflection. I wronged her, and am punished.”
+
+Giovanna turned her eyes upon him. Leon continued, “Young, and with a
+heart untouched, I married a princess about ten years older than myself,
+of eccentric habits and bad temper. She treated me as an inferior. She
+dissipated the fortune hoarded up with so much care by my parents, and
+yet was ashamed on account of my origin to be called by my name. Happily
+for me, she was fond of visiting and amusements. Otherwise, to escape
+from her, I might have become a gambler, or worse; but, to avoid meeting
+her, I remained at home—for there she seldom was. At first from ennui,
+but afterwards from real delight in the occupation, I gave myself up to
+study. Reading formed my mind and heart. I became a changed being. Some
+months ago my father died, my sister went to Lithuania, whilst my
+mother, in her old age, and with her ideas, was quite incapable of
+understanding my sorrow. So when my wife went to the baths for the
+benefit of her ruined health, I came here in the hope of meeting with
+some of my former friends—I saw you—”
+
+Giovanna blushed like one detected; but speedily recovering herself,
+asked with calm pleasantry, “Surely you do not number _me_ among your
+former friends?”
+
+“I know not. I have been bewildered. It is strange; but from the moment
+I saw you at Count Selka’s, a powerful instinct of love overcame me; not
+a new feeling; but as if some latent, long-hid, undeveloped sentiment
+had suddenly burst forth into an uncontrollable passion. I love, I adore
+you. I——”
+
+The Prima Donna interrupted him—not with speech, but with a look which
+awed, which chilled him. Pride, scorn, irony sat in her smile. Satire
+darted from her eyes. After a pause, she repeated slowly and pointedly,
+“Love _me_, Count Roszynski?”
+
+“Such is my destiny,” he replied. “Nor, despite your scorn, will I
+struggle against it. I feel it is my fate ever to love you; I fear it is
+my fate never to be loved by you. It is dreadful.”
+
+Giovanna witnessed the Count’s emotion with sadness. “To have,” she said
+mournfully, “one’s first pure, ardent, passionate affection unrequited,
+scorned, made a jest of, is indeed a bitterness, almost equal to that of
+death.”
+
+She made a strong effort to conceal her emotion. Indeed she controlled
+it so well as to speak the rest with a sort of gaiety.
+
+“You have at least been candid, Count Roszynski; I will imitate you by
+telling a little history that occurred in your country. There was a poor
+girl born and bred a serf to her wealthy lord and master. When scarcely
+fifteen years old, she was torn from a state of happy rustic freedom—the
+freedom of humility and content—to be one of the courtly slaves of the
+Palace. Those who did not laugh at her, scolded her. One kind word was
+vouchsafed to her, and that came from the lord’s son. She nursed it and
+treasured it; till, from long concealing and restraining her feelings,
+she at last found that gratitude had changed into a sincere affection.
+But what does a man of the world care for the love of a serf? It does
+not even flatter his vanity. The young nobleman did not understand the
+source of her tears and her grief, and he made a present of her, as he
+would have done of some animal to his betrothed.”
+
+Leon, agitated and somewhat enlightened, would have interrupted her; but
+Giovanna said, “Allow me to finish my tale. Providence did not abandon
+this poor orphan, but permitted her to rise to distinction by the talent
+with which she was endowed by nature. The wretched serf of Pobereze
+became a celebrated Italian cantatrice. _Then_ her former lord meeting
+her in society, and seeing her admired and courted by all the world,
+without knowing who she really was, was afflicted, as if by the dictates
+of Heaven, with a love for this same girl,—with a guilty love”—
+
+And Giovanna rose, as she said this, to remove herself further from her
+admirer.
+
+“No, no!” he replied earnestly; “with a pure and holy passion.”
+
+“Impossible!” returned Giovanna. “Are you not married?”
+
+Roszynski vehemently tore a letter from his vest, and handed it to
+Giovanna. It was sealed with black, for it announced the death of his
+wife at the baths. It had only arrived that morning.
+
+“You have lost no time,” said the cantatrice, endeavouring to conceal
+her feelings under an iron mask of reproach.
+
+There was a pause. Each dared not speak. The Count knew—but without
+actually and practically believing what seemed incredible—that Anielka
+and Giovanna were the same person—_his slave_. That terrible
+relationship checked him. Anielka, too, had played her part to the end
+of endurance. The long-cherished tenderness—the faithful love of her
+life could not longer be wholly mastered. Hitherto they had spoken in
+Italian. She now said in Polish,
+
+“You have a right, my Lord Roszynski, to that poor Anielka who escaped
+from the service of your wife in Florence; you can force her back to
+your palace, to its meanest work; but”—
+
+“Have mercy on me!” cried Leon.
+
+“But,” continued the serf of Pobereze, firmly, “you cannot force me to
+love you.”
+
+“Do not mock—do not torture me more; you are sufficiently revenged. I
+will not offend you by importunity. You must indeed hate me! But
+remember that we Poles wished to give freedom to our serfs; and for that
+very reason our country was invaded and dismembered by despotic powers.
+We must therefore continue to suffer slavery as it exists in Russia;
+but, soul and body, we are averse to it: and when our country once more
+becomes free, be assured no shadow of slavery will remain in the land.
+Curse then our enemies, and pity us that we stand in such a desperate
+position between Russian bayonets and Siberia, and the hatred of our
+serfs.”
+
+So saying, and without waiting for a reply, Leon rushed from the room.
+The door was closed. Giovanna listened to the sounds of his rapid
+footsteps till they died in the street. She would have followed, but
+dared not. She ran to the window. Roszynski’s carriage was rolling
+rapidly away, and she exclaimed vainly, “I love you, Leon; I loved you
+always!”
+
+Her tortures were unendurable. To relieve them she hastened to her desk,
+and wrote these words:—
+
+“Dearest Leon, forgive me; let the past be for ever forgotten. Return to
+your Anielka. She always has been, ever will be, yours!”
+
+She despatched the missive. Was it too late? or would it bring him back?
+In the latter hope she retired to her chamber, to execute a little
+project.
+
+Leon was in despair. He saw he had been premature in so soon declaring
+his passion after the news of his wife’s death, and vowed he would not
+see Anielka again for several months. To calm his agitation, he had
+ridden some miles into the country. When he returned to his hotel after
+some hours, he found her note. With the wild delight it had darted into
+his soul, he flew back to her.
+
+On regaining her saloon a new and terrible vicissitude seemed to sport
+with his passion:—she was nowhere to be seen. Had the Italian cantatrice
+fled? Again he was in despair; stupified with disappointment. As he
+stood uncertain how to act in the midst of the floor, he heard, as from
+a distance, an Ave Maria poured forth in tones he half-recognised. The
+sounds brought back to him a host of recollections; a weeping serf, the
+garden of his own palace. In a state of new rapture he followed the
+voice. He traced it to an inner chamber, and he there beheld the lovely
+singer kneeling, in the costume of a Polish serf. She rose, greeted Leon
+with a touching smile, and stepped forward with serious bashfulness.
+Leon extended his arms; she sank into them; and in that fond embrace all
+past wrongs and sorrows were forgotten! Anielka drew from her bosom a
+little purse, and took from it a piece of silver. It was the rouble.
+_Now_, Leon did not smile at it. He comprehended the sacredness of this
+little gift; and some tears of repentance fell upon Anielka’s hand.
+
+A few months after, Leon wrote to the steward of Olgogrod to prepare
+everything splendidly for the reception of his second wife. He concluded
+his letter with these words:—“I understand that in the dungeon beneath
+my palace there are some unfortunate men, who were imprisoned during my
+father’s lifetime. Let them be instantly liberated. This is my first act
+of gratitude to God, who has so infinitely blessed me!”
+
+Anielka longed ardently to behold her native land. They left Vienna
+immediately after the wedding, although it was in the middle of January.
+
+It was already quite dark when the carriage, with its four horses,
+stopped in front of the portico of the Palace of Olgogrod. Whilst the
+footman was opening the door on one side, a beggar soliciting alms
+appeared at the other, where Anielka was seated. Happy to perform a good
+action, as she crossed the threshold of her new home, she gave him some
+money; but the man, instead of thanking her, returned her bounty with a
+savage laugh, at the same time scowling at her in the fiercest manner
+from beneath his thick and shaggy brows. The strangeness of this
+circumstance sensibly affected Anielka, and clouded her happiness. Leon
+soothed and re-assured her. In the arms of her beloved husband, she
+forgot all but the happiness of being the idol of his affections.
+
+Fatigue and excitement made the night most welcome. All was dark and
+silent around the palace, and some hours of the night had passed, when
+suddenly flames burst forth from several parts of the building at once.
+The palace was enveloped in fire; it raged furiously. The flames mounted
+higher and higher; the windows cracked with a fearful sound, and the
+smoke penetrated into the most remote apartments.
+
+A single figure of a man was seen stealing over the snow, which lay like
+a winding-sheet on the solitary waste; his cautious steps were heard on
+the frozen snow as it crisped beneath his tread. It was the beggar who
+had accosted Anielka. On a rising ground, he turned to gaze on the
+terrible scene. “No more unfortunate wretches will now be doomed to pass
+their lives in your dungeons,” he exclaimed. “What was _my_ crime?
+Reminding my master of the lowness of his birth. For this they tore me
+from my only child—my darling little Anielka; they had no pity even for
+her orphan state; let them perish all!”
+
+Suddenly a young and beautiful creature rushes wildly to one of the
+principal windows: she makes a violent effort to escape. For a moment
+her lovely form, clothed in white, shines in terrible relief against the
+background of blazing curtains and walls of fire, and as instantly sinks
+back into the blazing element. Behind her is another figure, vainly
+endeavouring to aid her,—he perishes also; neither are ever seen again!
+
+This appalling tragedy horrified even the perpetrator of the crime. He
+rushed from the place; and as he heard the crash of the falling walls,
+he closed his ears with his hands, and darted on faster and faster.
+
+The next day some peasants discovered the body of a man frozen to death,
+lying on a heap of snow,—it was that of the wretched incendiary.
+Providence, mindful of his long, of his cruel imprisonment and
+sufferings, spared him the anguish of knowing that the mistress of the
+palace he had destroyed, and who perished in the flames, was his own
+beloved daughter—the Serf of Pobreze!
+
+
+
+
+                         A STROLL BY STARLIGHT.
+
+
+          We left the Village. On the beaten road
+          Our steps and voices were the only sound.
+          The lady Moon was not yet come abroad,—
+          Our coyly-veiled companion. We found
+          A footway through the corn; upon the ground
+          The crake among the holms was occupied;
+          Rapid of movement, from all points around
+          Came his rough note whose music is supplied
+        By iteration while all sounds are hushed beside.
+
+          The stars were out, the sky was full of them,
+          Dotted with worlds. The land was all asleep.
+          And, like its gentle breath, from stem to stem
+          Through the dry corn a murmur there would creep,
+          Murmur of music: as when in the deep
+          Of the sun-pierced Ægean, with turned ear,
+          The Nereids might have heard its waters leap
+          And kiss the dimpled islands, thus, less near,
+        Fainter, more like a thought, did to our hearts appear,
+
+          The midnight melody. Our way then led
+          Where myriad blades of grass were drinking dew;
+          Thirsty, to God they looked, by God were fed,
+          Whose cloudless heaven could their life renew.
+          A copse beside us on the starry blue
+          Cut its hard outline. Through the leaves a fire
+          Shone with enlarging brilliance; red of hue
+          The large moon rose,—did to a throne aspire
+        Of dizzy height, and paled in winning her desire.
+
+          A change of level, and another scene;
+          Life, light, and noise. The roaring furnace-blast,
+          Flame-pointed cones and fields of blighted green!
+          The vivid fires, dreaming they have surpassed
+          The stars in brightness, furiously cast
+          Upward their wild strength to possess the sky;
+          Break into evanescent stars at last,—
+          Glitter and fall as fountains. Thus men try,
+        And thus men try in vain, false gods to deify.
+
+          The roar and flame diminish. Busy light
+          Streams from the casting-house. The liquid ore
+          Through arch and lancet window, dazzling Night,
+          Flows in rich rills upon the sanded floor.
+          Steropes, Arges, Brontes, from the shore
+          Of Acheron returned, seem glowing here;
+          Such form the phantom of Hephæstus wore,
+          Illumined by his forge. Each feature clear,
+        Men glorified by fire seem demon-births of fear.
+
+          But the ray reddens, and the light grows dim.
+          The cooling iron, counterpaned with sand
+          By those night servitors, no longer grim
+          In unaccustomed glow, from the green land
+          And yonder sky, now ceases to command
+          Our thoughts to wander. As we backward gaze,
+          The blast renews; with aspiration grand
+          The flames again soar upward: but we raise
+        Our glances to God’s Lamp, which overawes their blaze.
+
+          So forward through the stillness we proceed.
+          Winding around a hill, the white road leaves
+          Life, light, and noise behind. We, gladly freed
+          From human interruption, we, mute thieves,
+          Pass onward through Night’s treasure; each receives
+          From her rich store his bosom full of wealth,
+          For secret hoarding. Now an oak-wood weaves
+          A cloister way to sanctify the stealth
+        Practised in loving guise, and for the spirit’s health.
+
+          We climb into the moonlight once again.
+          A broken rail beside the way doth keep
+          Neglectful guard above the Vale’s domain.
+          The Vale is in the silence laid asleep,
+          Not far below. Among her beauties peep
+          The wakeful stars, and from above her bed
+          The grey night-veil, wherein to rest so deep
+          She sank, the Moon hath lifted; yet the thread
+        Of slumber holds, the dream hath from her face not fled.
+
+          Yon meadow track leads by the church; it saves
+          Ten minutes if we follow it. We laugh
+          To see our saving lost among the graves.
+          Deciphering a moonlit Epitaph
+          We linger, laugh and sigh. All mirth is half
+          Made up of melancholy. There is pure
+          Humour in woe. Man’s grief is oft the staff
+          On which his happy thoughts can lean secure;
+        And he who most enjoys, he too can most endure.
+
+          We leave the tombstones, death-like, white, and still,
+          Fixed in the dim light,—awful, unbeheld.
+          A squalid village, straggling up a hill
+          We pass. In passing, one among us yelled,
+          And from no gallinaceous throat expelled
+          A crow sonorous. From the near church tower,
+          Through the cold, voiceless air of night there knell’d
+          The passing bell of a departed hour:
+        What sign of budding day? How will the morning flower?
+
+
+
+
+                                 CHIPS.
+
+
+There is a saying that a good workman is known by his chips. Such a
+prodigious accumulation of chips takes place in our Manufactory, that we
+infer we must have some first-rate workmen about us.
+
+There is also a figure of speech, concerning a chip of the old block.
+The chips with which _our_ old block (aged fifteen weeks) is overwhelmed
+every week, would make some five-and-twenty blocks of similar
+dimensions.
+
+There is a popular simile—an awkward one in this connexion—founded on
+the dryness of a chip. This has almost deterred us from our intention of
+bundling a few chips together now and then. But, reflection on the
+natural lightness of the article has re-assured us; and we here present
+a few to our readers,—and shall continue to do so from time to time.
+
+
+
+
+                    DESTRUCTION OF PARISH REGISTERS.
+
+
+As the poorest man cannot foresee to what inheritance he may succeed,
+through the instrumentality of Parochial Registers, so in their
+preservation every member of the community is more or less interested;
+but the Parish Register returns of 1833 show that a general feeling
+seemed to exist in favour of their destruction. Scarcely one of them
+pronounced the Registers in a satisfactory state. The following
+sentences abound in the Blue Book: “leaves cut out,” “torn out,”
+“injured by damp,” “mutilated,” “in fragments,” “destroyed by fire,”
+“much torn,” “illegible,” “tattered,” “imperfect,” “early registers
+lost.”
+
+Thanks to the General Registry Act of William the Fourth, all such
+records made since 1835 are now properly cared for; but those prior to
+that date are still in parochial keeping, to be torn, lost, burnt,
+interpolated, stolen, defaced, or rendered illegible at the good
+pleasure of every wilful or heedless individual of a destructive
+organisation. Some time ago Mr. Walbran, of Ripon, found part of a
+Parish Register among a quantity of wastepaper in a cheesemonger’s shop.
+The same gentleman has rescued the small but very interesting register
+of the chapelry of Denton, in the county of Durham, from the fate which
+once had nearly befallen it, by causing several literatim copies to be
+printed and deposited in public libraries. Among other instances of
+negligent custody, Mr. Downing Bruce, the barrister, relates, in a
+recently published pamphlet, that the Registers of South Otterington,
+containing several entries of the great families of Talbot, Herbert, and
+Fauconberg, were formerly kept in the cottage of the parish-clerk, who
+used all those preceding the eighteenth century for waste paper; a
+considerable portion having been taken to “singe a goose!”
+
+Abstraction, loss, and careless custody of registers is constantly going
+on. Mr. Bruce mentions, that in 1845 he made some copious extracts from
+the dilapidated books at Andover, “but on recently visiting that place
+for the purpose of a supplementary search,” he says, “I found that these
+books were no longer in existence, and that those which remained were
+kept in the rectory-house, in a damp place under the staircase, and in a
+shameful state of dilapidation.” The second case occurred at Kirkby
+Malzeard, near Ripon, where the earliest register mentioned in the
+parliamentary return was reported to be lost. “Having occasion to
+believe that the statement was not correct,” Mr. Bruce states, “I
+persevered in my inquiries, and at length fortunately discovered the
+book, in a tattered state, behind some old drawers in the curate’s back
+kitchen. Again, at Farlington, near Sheriff Hutton, the earliest
+registers were believed and represented to be lost, until I found their
+scattered leaves at the bottom of an old parish chest which I observed
+in the church.”
+
+Even as we write, an enquiry appears in the newspapers from the parish
+officers of St. Paul’s, Covent Garden, addressed to “collectors” and
+others, after their own Registers; two among the most historically
+important and interesting years of the seventeenth century are nowhere
+to be found.
+
+The avidity and dishonesty of many of these “collectors,” or
+archæological cockchafers, are shocking to think of. They seem to have
+passed for their own behoof a universal statute of limitations; and when
+a book, an autograph, or a record is a certain number of years old, they
+think it is no felony to steal it. Recently we were interested in
+searching the Register for the birth of Joseph Addison; and at the altar
+of the pretty little church of Milston, in Wilts, we were told that a
+deceased rector had cut out the leaf which contained it, to satisfy the
+earnest longings of a particular friend, “a collector”—a poet, too, who
+ought to have been ashamed to instigate the larceny. It is hoped that
+his executors—his name has been inserted in a burial register since—will
+think fit to restore it to its proper place at their early convenience.
+
+Mr. Bruce recommends that the whole of the Registers now deposited in
+parish churches, in rectors’ coal-cellars, churchwardens’ outhouses,
+curates’ back-kitchens, and goose-eating parish clerks’ cottages, should
+be collected into one central fire-proof building in London.
+
+Innocent Mr. Bruce! While the great historical records of this land are
+“preserved” over tons of gunpowder in the White Tower of the Tower in
+London; while the Chancery records are feeding a fine, fat, historical,
+and uncommonly numerous breed of rats in the cellars of the Rolls
+Chapel; while some of the most important muniments existing (including
+William the Conqueror’s Domesday Book) are being dried up in the
+Chapter-House of Westminster Abbey, by the united heats of a contiguous
+brew-house and an adjacent wash-house; and while heaps of monastic
+charters and their surrenders to Henry the Eighth, with piles of
+inestimable historical treasures, are huddled together upon scaffolds in
+the interior of the dilapidated Riding-School in Carlton Ride—can Mr.
+Bruce or any other man of common sense, suppose that any attention
+whatever will be paid by any person in power to his very modest
+suggestion?
+
+
+
+
+          FROM MR. T. OLDCASTLE CONCERNING THE COAL EXCHANGE.
+
+
+              “SIR,      Blue Dragon Arms, South Shields.
+
+“I have just read in your ‘Household Words’ a pleasant enough account of
+the ‘Coal Exchange of London,’ in which my name is mentioned. I suppose
+I ought—and therefore I do—consider it a great honour; and what Captain
+of a collier-brig would not? So, no more about that, except to thank
+you. Same time, mayhap, there may be a trifle or two in the paper to
+which I don’t quite subscribe; and, as I seem to be towed astern of the
+writer as he works his way on, it seems only fair that I should overhaul
+his log in such matters as I don’t agree to, whether so be in respect of
+his remarks or reckoning.
+
+“In the first place, the writer says the Coal Exchange is painted as
+bright as a coffee-garden or dancing-place on the continent. Well—belike
+it is. And what o’ that? Did he wish it to be painted in coal-tar? as if
+we didn’t see enough of this at home—whether collier-men or
+coal-merchants! I make no doubt he wanted to see all the inside just of
+the same colour as your London buildings are on th’ outside—walls, and
+towers, and spires, like so many great smoke-jacks. Then as to his taste
+in female beauty, he seems more disposed to the pale faces of
+novel-writers’ young ladies than such sort of brown and ruddy skins as
+some of us think more mettlesome. I confess I do; and so he may rig me
+out on this matter as he pleases. Howsomever, I must say that I believe
+most people will prefer both the bright ladies, and the bright adornment
+of the building, to any mixture of soot and blacking, which has,
+hitherto, characterised the taste of my old friends the Londoners. And
+it is my advice to the artist, Mr. Sang, just to snap his fingers at the
+opposite taste of your writer, which is exactly what I do myself, for
+his comparing my ‘hard weather-beaten face’ to the wooden figure of a
+ship’s head.
+
+                                             “I remain, respected Sir,
+                                                 “Yours to command,
+                                                     “THOMAS OLDCASTLE.”
+
+“P.S. What the writer of these coal-papers says I told him about Buddle
+of Wallsend, is all true enough; but why did he tell me, in return, that
+his name was ‘Gulliver?’”
+
+
+
+
+                               NEW SHOES.
+
+
+The following “Chip” is from the chisel of a blacksmith—a certain Peter
+Muller of Istra, son of the person to whom it refers. It was gathered
+from his forge by M. Stæhlin, who inserted it in his original anecdotes
+of Peter the Great, collected from the conversation of several persons
+of distinction at St. Petersburg and Moscow.
+
+Among all the workmen at Muller’s forge, near Istra, about ninety versts
+from Moscow, there was one who had examined everything connected with
+the work with the most minute attention, and who worked harder than the
+rest. He was at his post every day, and appeared quite indifferent to
+the severity of the labour. The last day on which he was employed, he
+forged eighteen poods of iron—the pood is equal to forty pounds—but
+though he was so good a workman, he had other matters to mind besides
+the forging of iron; for he had the affairs of the State to attend to,
+and all who have heard of Peter the Great, know that those were not
+neglected.
+
+It happened that he spent a month in the neighbourhood of Istra, for the
+benefit of the chalybeate waters; and wherever he was, he always made
+himself thoroughly acquainted with whatever works were carried on. He
+determined not only to inspect Muller’s forge accurately, but to become
+a good blacksmith. He made the noblemen who were in attendance on him
+accompany him every morning, and take part in the labour. Some he
+appointed to blow the bellows, and others to carry coals, and perform
+all the offices of journeymen blacksmiths. A few days after his return
+to Moscow, he called on Muller, and told him that he had been to see his
+establishment, with which he had been much gratified.
+
+“Tell me,” said he, “how much you allow per pood for iron in bar,
+furnished by a master blacksmith.”
+
+“Three copecks or an altin,” answered Muller.
+
+“Well, then,” said the Czar, “I have earned eighteen altins, and am come
+to be paid.”
+
+Muller went to his bureau, and took from it eighteen ducats, which he
+reckoned before the Emperor. “I would not think of offering less to a
+royal workman, please your Majesty.”
+
+“Put up your ducats again,” interrupted the Czar, “I will not take more
+than I have earned, and that you would pay to any other blacksmith. Give
+me my due. It will be sufficient to pay for a pair of shoes, of which
+you may see,” added he, as he raised his foot, and displayed a shoe
+somewhat the worse for the wear, “I am very much in need.”
+
+Muller reckoned out the eighteen altins, with which the Czar hurried off
+to a shop, and purchased a pair of shoes. He put them on with the
+greatest delight; he thought he never had worn such a pair of shoes; he
+showed them with a triumphant air to those about him, and said, “See
+them; look how well they fit; I have earned them well—by the sweat of my
+brow, with hammer and anvil.”
+
+One of these bars of iron, forged by Peter the Great, and bearing his
+mark, was kept as a precious relic in the forge at Istra, and exhibited
+with no little pride to all who entered. Another bar which was forged by
+his hand is shown in the Cabinet of the Academy of Sciences at
+Petersburg.
+
+
+
+
+                    THE MODERN “OFFICER’S” PROGRESS.
+
+
+                         III.—THE CATASTROPHE.
+
+What the Psalmist said in sorrow, those who witnessed the career of the
+Honourable Ensign Spoonbill and his companions might have said, not in
+sorrow only but in anger: “One day told another, and one night certified
+another.”
+
+When duty was to be performed—(for even under the command of such an
+officer as Colonel Tulip the routine of duty existed)—it was slurred
+over as hastily as possible, or got through as it best might be. When,
+on the other hand, pleasure was the order of the day,—and this was
+sought hourly,—no resource was left untried, no expedient unattempted;
+and strange things, in the shape of pleasure, were often the result.
+
+The nominal duties were multifarious, and, had they been properly
+observed, would have left but a comparatively narrow margin for
+recreation,—for there was much in the old forms which took up time,
+without conveying any great amount of real military instruction.
+
+The orderly officer for the day—we speak of the subaltern—was supposed
+to go through a great deal. His duty it was to assist at inspections,
+superintend drills, examine the soldiers’ provisions, see their
+breakfasts and dinners served, and attend to any complaints, visit the
+regimental guards by day and night, be present at all parades and
+musters, and, finally, deliver in a written report of the proceedings of
+the four-and-twenty hours.
+
+To go through this routine, required—as it received in some regiments—a
+few days’ training; but in the Hundredth there was none at all. Every
+officer in that distinguished corps was supposed to be “a Heaven-born
+genius,” and acquired his military education as pigeons pick up peas.
+The Hon. Ensign Spoonbill looked at his men after a fashion; could swear
+at them if they were excessively dirty, and perhaps awe them into
+silence by a portentous scowl, or an exaggerated loudness of voice; but
+with regard to the real purpose of inspection, he knew as little, and
+cared as much, as the valet who aired his noble father’s morning
+newspaper. His eye wandered over the men’s kits as they were exposed to
+his view; but to his mind they only conveyed the idea of a kaleidoscopic
+rag-fair, not that of an assortment of necessaries for the comfort and
+well-being of the soldier. He saw large masses of beef, exhibited in a
+raw state by the quartermaster, as the daily allowance for the men; but
+if any one had asked him if the meat was good, and of proper weight, how
+could he have answered, whose head was turned away in disgust, with his
+face buried in a scented cambric handkerchief, and his delicate nature
+loathing the whole scene? In the same spirit he saw the men’s breakfasts
+and dinners served; fortifying his opinion, at the first, that coffee
+could only be made in France, and wondering, at the second, what sort of
+_potage_ it could be that contrived to smell so disagreeably. These
+things might be special affectations in the Hon. Ensign, and depended,
+probably, on his own peculiar organisation; but if the rest of the
+officers of the Hundredth did not manifest as intense a dislike to this
+part of their duties, they were members of much too “crack” a regiment
+to give themselves any trouble about the matter. The drums beat, the
+messes were served, there was a hasty gallop through the barrack-rooms,
+scarcely looking right or left, and the orderly officer was only too
+happy to make his escape without being stopped by any impertinent
+complaint.
+
+The “turning out” of the barrack guard was a thing to make an impression
+on a bystander. A loud shout, a sharp clatter of arms, a scurry of
+figures, a hasty formation, a brief enquiry if all was right, and a
+terse rejoinder that all _was_ remarkably so, constituted the details of
+a visit to the body of men on whom devolved the task of extreme
+watchfulness, and the preservation of order. If the serjeant had replied
+“All wrong,” it would have equally enlightened Ensign Spoonbill, who
+went towards the guardhouse because his instructions told him to do so;
+but why he went there, and for what purpose he turned out the guard,
+never entered into his comprehension. Not even did a sense of
+responsibility awaken in him when, with much difficulty, he penned the
+report which gave, in a narrative form, the summary of the duties he had
+performed in so exemplary a manner. Performed, do we say? Yes, once or
+twice wholly, but for the most part with many gaps in the schedule.
+Sometimes the dinners were forgotten, now and then the taptoo, generally
+the afternoon parade, and not unfrequently the whole affair. For the
+latter omission, there was occasionally a nominal “wigging”
+administered, not by the commanding officer himself, but through the
+adjutant; and as that functionary was only looked upon by the youngsters
+in the light of a bore, without the slightest reverence for his office,
+his words—like those of Cassius—passed like the idle wind which none
+regarded. When Ensign Spoonbill “mounted guard” himself, his vigilance
+on his new post equalled the assiduity we have seen him exhibit in
+barracks. After the formality of trooping, marching down, and relieving,
+was over, the Honourable Ensign generally amused himself by a lounge in
+the vicinity of the guardhouse, until the field-officer’s “rounds” had
+been made; and that visitation at an end for the day, a neighbouring
+billiard-room, with Captain Cushion for his antagonist or “a jolly pool”
+occupied him until dinner-time. It was the custom in the garrison where
+the Hundredth were quartered, as it was, indeed, in many others, for the
+officers on guard to dine with their mess, a couple of hours or so being
+granted for this indulgence. This relaxation was made up for, by their
+keeping close for the rest of the evening; but as there were generally
+two or three off duty sufficiently at leisure to find cigars and
+brandy-and-water attractive, even when consumed in a guard-room, the
+hardship of Ensign Spoonbill’s official imprisonment was not very great.
+With these friends, and these creature-comforts to solace, the time wore
+easily away till night fell, when the field-officer, if he was “a good
+fellow,” came early, and Ensign Spoonbill, having given his friends
+their _congé_, was at liberty to “turn in” for the night, the onerous
+duty of visiting sentries and inspecting the reliefs every two hours,
+devolving upon the serjeant.
+
+It may be inferred from these two examples of Ensign Spoonbill’s ideas
+of discipline and the service, what was the course he generally adopted
+when _on_ duty, without our being under the necessity of going into
+further details. What he did when _off_ duty helped him on still more
+effectually.
+
+Lord Pelican’s outfit having “mounted” the young gentleman, and the
+credit he obtained on the strength of being Lord Pelican’s son, keeping
+his stud in order, he was enabled to vie with the crackest of the crack
+Hundredth; subject, however, to all the accidents which horseflesh is
+heir to—especially when allied to a judgment of which green was the
+prevailing colour. A “swap” to a disadvantage; an indiscreet purchase; a
+mistake as to the soundness of an animal; and such other errors of
+opinion, entailed certain losses, which might, after all, have been
+borne, without rendering the applications for money at home, more
+frequent than agreeable; but when under the influence of a natural
+obstinacy, or the advice of some very “knowing ones,” Ensign Spoonbill
+proceeded to back his opinion in private matches, handicaps, and
+steeple-chases, the privy purse of Lady Pelican collapsed in a most
+unmistakeable manner. Nor was this description of amusement the only
+rock-a-head in the course of the Honourable Ensign. The art or science
+of betting embraces the widest field, and the odds, given or taken, are
+equally fatal, whether the subject that elicits them be a match at
+billiards or a horse-race. Nor are the stakes at blind-hookey or
+unlimited loo less harmless, when you hav’n’t got luck and _have_ such
+opponents as Captain Cushion.
+
+In spite of the belief in his own powers, which Ensign Spoonbill
+encouraged, he could not shut his eyes to the fact that he was every day
+a loser; but wiser gamblers than he—if any there be—place reliance on a
+“turn of luck,” and all he wanted to enable him to take advantage of it,
+was a command of cash; for even one’s best friends prefer the coin of
+the realm to the most unimpeachable I. O. U.
+
+The want of money is a common dilemma,—not the less disagreeable,
+however, because it _is_ common—but in certain situations this want is
+more apparent than real. The Hon. Ensign Spoonbill was in the
+predicament of impecuniosity; but there were—as a celebrated statesman
+is in the habit of saying—three courses open to him. He might leave off
+play, and do without the money; he might “throw himself” on Lord
+Pelican’s paternal feelings; or he might _somehow_ contrive to raise a
+supply on his own account. To leave off just at the moment when he was
+sure to win back all he had lost, would have been ridiculous; besides,
+every man of spirit in the regiment would have cut him. To throw himself
+upon the generosity of his sire, was a good poetical idea; but,
+practically, it would have been of no value: for, in the first place,
+Lord Pelican had no money to give—in the next, there was an elder
+brother, whose wants were more imperative than his own; and lastly, he
+had already tried the experiment, and failed in the most signal manner.
+There remained, therefore, only the last expedient; and being advised,
+moreover, to have recourse to it, he went into the project _tête
+baissée_. The “advice” was tendered in this form.
+
+“Well, Spooney, my boy, how are you, this morning?” kindly enquired
+Captain Cushion, one day on his return from parade, from which the
+Honourable Ensign had been absent on the plea of indisposition.
+
+“Deuced queer,” was the reply; “that Roman punch always gives me the
+splittingest headaches!”
+
+“Ah! you’re not used to it. I’m as fresh as a four-year old. Well, what
+did you do last night, Spooney?”
+
+“Do! why, I lost, of course; _you_ ought to know that.”
+
+“I—my dear fellow! Give you my honour I got up a loser!”
+
+“Not to me, though,” grumbled the Ensign.
+
+“Can’t say as to that,” replied the Captain; “all I know is, that I am
+devilishly minus.”
+
+“Who won, then?” enquired Spoonbill.
+
+“Oh!” returned the Captain, after a slight pause, “I suspect—Chowser—he
+has somebody’s luck and his own too!”
+
+“I think he must have mine,” said the Ensign, with a faint smile, as the
+alternations of the last night’s Blind Hookey came more vividly to his
+remembrance. “What did I lose to you, Cushion?” he continued, in the
+hope that his memory had deceived him.
+
+The Captain’s pocket-book was out in an instant.
+
+“Sixty-five, my dear fellow; that was all. By-the-bye, Spooney, I’m
+regularly hard up; can you let me have the tin? I wouldn’t trouble you,
+upon my soul, if I could possibly do without it, but I’ve got a heavy
+bill coming due to-morrow, and I can’t renew.”
+
+The Honourable Ensign sank back on his pillow, and groaned impotently.
+Rallying, however, from this momentary weakness, he raised his head,
+and, after apostrophising the spirit of darkness as his best friend,
+exclaimed, “I’ll tell you what it is, Cushion, I’m thoroughly cleaned
+out. I haven’t got a dump!”
+
+“Then you must fly a kite,” observed the Captain, coolly. “No difficulty
+about that.”
+
+This was merely the repetition of counsel of the same friendly nature
+previously urged. The shock was not greater, therefore, than the young
+man’s nerves could bear.
+
+“How is it to be done?” asked the neophyte.
+
+“Oh, I think I can manage that for you. Yes,” pursued the Captain,
+musing, “Lazarus would let you have as much as you want, I dare say. His
+terms are rather high, to be sure; but then the cash is the thing. He’ll
+take your acceptance at once. Who will you get to draw the bill?”
+
+“Draw!” said the Ensign, in a state of some bewilderment. “I don’t
+understand these things—couldn’t you do it?”
+
+“Why,” replied the Captain, with an air of intense sincerity, “I’d do it
+for you with pleasure—nothing would delight me more; but I promised my
+grandmother, when first I entered the service, that I never _would_ draw
+a bill as long as I lived; and as a man of honour, you know, and a
+soldier, I can’t break my word.”
+
+“But I thought you said you had a bill of your own coming due
+to-morrow,” observed the astute Spoonbill.
+
+“So I did,” said the Captain, taken rather aback in the midst of his
+protestations, “but then it isn’t—exactly—a thing of _this_ sort; it’s a
+kind of a—bond—as it were—old family matters—the estate down in
+Lincolnshire—that I’m clearing off. Besides,” he added, hurriedly,
+“there are plenty of fellows who’ll do it for you. There’s young
+Brittles—the Manchester man, who joined just after you. I never saw
+anybody screw into baulk better than he does, except yourself—he’s the
+one. Lazarus, I know, always prefers a young customer to an old one;
+knowing chaps, these Jews, arn’t they?”
+
+Captain Cushion’s last remark was, no doubt, a just one—but he might
+have applied the term to himself with little dread of disparagement; and
+the end of the conversation was, that it was agreed a bill should be
+drawn as proposed, “say for three hundred pounds,” the Captain
+undertaking to get the affair arranged, and relieving Spoonbill of all
+trouble, save that of “merely” writing his name across a bit of stamped
+paper. These points being settled, the Captain left him, and the
+unprotected subaltern called for brandy and soda-water, by the aid of
+which stimulus he was enabled to rise and perform his toilette.
+
+Messrs. Lazarus and Sons were merchants who perfectly understood their
+business, and, though they started difficulties, were only too happy to
+get fresh birds into their net. They knew to a certainty that the sum
+they were asked to advance would not be repaid at the end of the
+prescribed three months: it would scarcely have been worth their while
+to enter into the matter if it had; the profit on the hundred pounds’
+worth of jewellery, which Ensign Spoonbill was required to take as part
+of the amount, would not have remunerated them sufficiently. Guessing
+pretty accurately which way the money would go, they foresaw renewed
+applications, and a long perspective of accumulating acceptances. Lord
+Pelican might be a needy nobleman; but he _was_ Lord Pelican, and the
+Honourable George Spoonbill was his son; and if the latter did not
+succeed to the title and family estates, which was by no means
+improbable, there was Lady Pelican’s settlement for division amongst the
+younger children. So they advanced the money; that is to say, they
+produced a hundred and eighty pounds in cash, twenty they took for the
+accommodation (half of which found its way into the pocket of—never
+mind, we won’t say anything about Captain Cushion’s private affairs),
+and the value of the remaining hundred was made up with a series of pins
+and rings of the most stunning magnificence.
+
+This was the Honourable Ensign Spoonbill’s first bill-transaction, but,
+the ice once broken, the second and third soon followed. He found it the
+pleasantest way in the world of raising money, and in a short time his
+affairs took a turn so decidedly commercial, that he applied the system
+to all his mercantile transactions. He paid his tailors after this
+fashion, satisfied Messrs. Mildew and his upholsterers with negotiable
+paper, and did “bits of stiff” with Galloper, the horse-dealer, to a
+very considerable figure. He even became facetious, not to say inspired,
+by this great discovery; for, amongst his papers, when they were
+afterwards overhauled by the official assignee—or some such fiscal
+dignitary,—a bacchanalian song in manuscript was found, supposed to have
+been written about this period, the _refrain_ of which ran as follows:—
+
+           “When creditors clamour, and cash fails the till,
+           There is nothing so easy as giving a bill.”
+
+It needs no ghost to rise from the grave to prophesy the sequel to this
+mode of “raising the wind.” It is recorded twenty times a month in the
+daily papers,—now in the Bankruptcy Court, now in that for the Relief of
+Insolvent Debtors. Ensign Spoonbill’s career lasted about eighteen
+months, at the end of which period—not having prospered by means of
+gaming to the extent he anticipated—he found himself under the necessity
+of selling out and retiring to a continental residence, leaving behind
+him debts, which were eventually paid, to the tune of seven thousand,
+two hundred and fourteen pounds, seventeen shillings, and tenpence three
+farthings, the vulgar fractions having their origin in the
+hair-splitting occasioned by reduplication of interest. He chose for his
+abode the pleasant town of Boulogne-sur-Mer, where he cultivated his
+moustaches, acquired a smattering of French, and an insight into the
+mystery of pigeon-shooting. For one or other of these qualifications—we
+cannot exactly say which—he was subsequently appointed _attaché_ to a
+foreign embassy, and at the present moment, we believe, is considered
+one of those promising young men whose diplomatic skill will probably
+declare itself one of these days, by some stroke of finesse, which shall
+set all Europe by the ears.
+
+With respect to Colonel Tulip’s “crack” regiment, it went, as the saying
+is, “to the Devil.” The exposure caused by the affair of Ensign
+Spoonbill—the smash of Ensign Brittles, which shortly followed—the duel
+between Lieutenant Wadding and Captain Cushion, the result of which was
+a ball (neither “spot” nor “plain,” but a bullet) through the head of
+the last-named gentleman, and a few other trifles of a similar
+description, at length attracted the “serious notice” of his Grace the
+Commander-in-Chief. It was significantly hinted to Colonel Tulip that it
+would be for the benefit of the service in general, and that of the
+Hundredth in particular, if he exchanged to half-pay, as the regiment
+required re-modelling. A smart Lieutenant-Colonel who had learnt
+something, not only of drill, but of discipline, under the hero of
+“Young Egypt,” in which country he had shared that general’s laurels,
+was sent down from the Horse Guards. “Weeding” to a considerable extent
+took place; the Majors and the Adjutant were replaced by more efficient
+men, and, to sum up all, the Duke’s “Circular” came out, laying down a
+principle of _practical military education, while on service_, which, if
+acted up to,—and there seems every reason to hope it will now be,—bids
+fair to make good officers of those who heretofore were merely idlers.
+It will also diminish the opportunities for gambling, drinking, and
+bill-discounting, and substitute, for the written words on the Queen’s
+Commission, the real character of a soldier and a gentleman.
+
+
+
+
+                     HOW TO SPEND A SUMMER HOLIDAY.
+
+
+If the walls of London—the bill-stickers’ chosen haunt—could suddenly
+find a voice to tell their own history, we might have a few curious
+illustrations of the manners and customs—the fashions, fancies, and
+popular idols—of the English during the last half century,—from the days
+when a three feet blue bill was thought large enough to tell where
+Bonaparte’s victories might be read about, to the advent acres of
+flaring paper and print which announce a Bal Masque or a new Haymarket
+Comedy. One of the most startling contrasts of such a confession would
+refer to the announcements about means of locomotion. It is not very
+long ago that “The Highflyer,” “The Tally-ho,” the Brighton “Age,” and
+the Shrewsbury “Wonder” boasted, in all the glory of red letters, their
+wonder-feat speed of ten miles an hour,—“York in one day;” “Manchester
+in twenty-four hours;” and so on. The same wall now tells the passer-by
+a different tale, for we have Excursion Trains to all sorts of pleasant
+places at all sorts of low fares. “Twelve Hours to Paris” is the burden
+of one placard, whilst another shows how “Cologne on the Rhine” may be
+reached in twenty-four.
+
+Nor is this marvellous change in speed—this real economy of life—the
+only variation from old modes; for the cost in money of a journey has
+diminished with its cost of time. The cash which a few years ago was
+required to go to York, will now take the tourist to Cologne. The
+Minster of the one city is now, therefore, rivalled as a point for
+sight-seers by the Dom-Kirche of the other. When the South Eastern
+Railway Company offers to take the traveller, who will pay them about
+three pounds at London Bridge one night, and place him by the next
+evening on the banks of the Rhine,—the excellent tendency is, that the
+summer holiday folks will extend their notions of an excursion beyond
+the Channel.
+
+Steam, that makes the trip from London to Cologne so rapid and so cheap,
+does not stop there, but is ready now to bear the traveller by railway
+to Brunswick, Hanover, Berlin, Dresden, Vienna,—nay, with one short gap,
+he may go all the way to Trieste, on the Adriatic, by the iron road.
+Steam is ready also on the Rhine to carry him at small charge up that
+stream towards Switzerland. Indeed, afloat by steamer and ashore by
+railway, the tourist who leaves London Bridge on a Monday night may well
+reach Basle by Thursday or Friday, seeing many things on his way,
+including the best scenery of the Rhine. The beautiful portion of the
+banks of that river forms but a small part of its entire length; indeed,
+on reaching Cologne, the traveller is disappointed to find so little
+that is remarkable in what he beholds on the banks of the famous stream.
+It is not till he ascends many miles higher that he feels repaid for his
+journey. _The_ scenery lies between Coblenz and Bingen, and in extent
+bears some such proportion to the whole length of the river as would the
+banks of the Thames from Chelsea to Richmond to the entire course of our
+great river, from its rise in Gloucestershire to its junction with the
+sea. In addition to the part just named, there are some few other points
+where the Rhine is worth seeing,—such as the fall at Schaffhausen,—but
+Switzerland may claim this as one of _its_ attractions. It is a fine
+river from Basle, even down through the Dutch rushes and flats to the
+sea; but, with all its reputation, there is only a morsel of the Rhine
+worth going to look at, and that lies, as we have just said, between its
+junction with the picturesque Moselle at Coblenz and the small town of
+Bingen. Between those points it passes through hills and near mountains,
+whose sides and summits boast the castles and ruins so often painted and
+often sung; and these spots are now within the reach of the three pounds
+first-class railway ticket, now-a-days announced by placard on the walls
+and hoardings of London.
+
+Once on a Rhine steamer, and Switzerland is within easy reach.
+
+On our table, as we write, lies the second edition of a volume[2]
+written by the physician to the Queen’s Household, Dr. Forbes, showing
+how a month may be employed in Switzerland. He adopted the South Eastern
+Railway plan, and, starting by a mail train at half-past eight in the
+evening of the 3rd of August, found himself and companions on the next
+evening looking from the window of an hotel on the Rhine. Steam and a
+week placed him in Switzerland. Here railways must be no longer reckoned
+on, and the tourist, if he be in search of health, may try what
+pedestrian exercise will do for him. This the Doctor strongly
+recommends; and, following his own prescription, we find him—though a
+sexagenarian—making capital way; now as a pedestrian, anon on horseback,
+and then again on foot, only adopting a carriage when there was good
+reason for such assistance. He describes the country, as all do who have
+been through it, as a land of large and good inns, well stored with
+luxurious edibles and drinkables. Against a too free use of them, he
+doctor-like gives a medical hint or two, and goes somewhat out of his
+way, perhaps, to show how much better the waters of the mountains may be
+than the wine. Indeed the butter, the honey, the milk, the cheese, and
+the melted snows of Switzerland win his warmest praises. The bread is
+less fortunate; but its inferiority, and many other small discomforts,
+are overlooked and almost forgotten in his enjoying admiration of what
+he found good on his way amidst the mountain valleys and breezy passes
+of his route. The bracing air, the brilliant sky, the animating scenes,
+the society of emulous and cheerful companions, and, above all, the
+increased corporeal exercise soon produce a change in the mind and the
+body, in the spirits and the stomach of the tourist.
+
+Footnote 2:
+
+  “The Physician’s Holiday.”
+
+What a marvellous change it is for a smoke-dried man who for months,
+perhaps years, has been “in populous cities pent,” to escape from his
+thraldom, and find himself far away from his drudgeries and routines up
+amongst the mountains and the lakes, and surrounded by the most
+magnificent scenes in nature; where he sees in all its glory that which
+a townsman seldom gets a glimpse of—a sunrise in its greatest beauty;
+and where sunsets throw a light over the earth, which makes its beauties
+emulate those of the heavens! Day by day, during summer in Switzerland,
+such enjoyments are at hand. One traveller may choose one route, and
+another another; for there are many and admirable changes to be rung
+upon the roads to be taken. Dr. Forbes, for instance, went from Basle to
+Schaffhausen, thence to Zurich, and, steaming over a part of the lake,
+made for Zug, and thence to the Rigi. He returned to the Zurich-See, and
+then went to Wallenstadt, Chur, and the Via Mala. Had he to shorten his
+trip without great loss of the notable scenes, he might, having first
+reached Lucerne, have left that place for Meyringen, and then pursued
+his subsequent way by the line of the lakes, visiting the various
+glorious points in their neighbourhood that challenged his
+attention—Grindelwald, Schreckhorn, Lauterbrunnen, Unterseen, and so on
+to Thun; then by the pass of the Gemmi to Leuk, and, from there, to what
+is described by our author as the gem of his whole Swiss experience—the
+Riffelberg, and the view at Monte Rosa:—
+
+“Sitting there, up in mid-heaven, as it were, on the smooth, warm ledge
+of our rock; in one of the sunniest noons of a summer day; amid air
+cooled by the elevation and the perfect exposure to the most delicious
+temperature; under a sky of the richest blue, and either cloudless, or
+only here and there gemmed with those aerial and sun-bright cloudlets
+which but enhance its depth; with the old field of vision, from the
+valley at our feet to the horizon, filled with majestic shapes of every
+variety of form, and of a purity and brilliancy of whiteness which left
+all common whiteness dull;—we seemed to feel as if there could be no
+other mental mood but that of an exquisite yet cheerful serenity—a sort
+of delicious abstraction, or absorption of our powers, in one grand,
+vague, yet most luxurious perception of Beauty and Loveliness.
+
+“At another time—it would almost seem at the same time, so rapid was the
+alternation from mood to mood—the immeasurable vastness and majesty of
+the scene, the gigantic bulk of the individual mountains, the peaks
+towering so far beyond the level of our daily earth, as to seem more
+belonging to the sky than to it, our own elevated and isolated station
+hemmed in on every side by untrodden wastes and impassable walls of
+snow, and, above all, the utter silence, and the absence of every
+indication of life and living things—suggesting the thought that the
+foot of man had never trodden, and never would tread there: these and
+other analogous ideas would excite a tone of mind entirely
+different—solemn, awful, melancholy....
+
+“I said at the time, and I still feel disposed to believe, that the
+whole earth has but few scenes that can excel it in grandeur, in beauty,
+and in wonderfulness of every kind. I thought then, and I here repeat my
+opinion in cool blood, that had I been brought hither blindfolded from
+London, had had my eyes opened but for a single hour on this astonishing
+panorama, and had been led back in darkness as I came, I should have
+considered the journey, with all its privations, well repaid by what I
+saw.”
+
+Having seen this crowning glory of mountain scenery, the tourist intent
+only upon a short trip might adopt one of many variations for his return
+to Basle. If on going out he had missed any bright spot, he should see
+it on his way back. He must remember:
+
+Interlachen, one of the sweetest spots in all Switzerland, which, though
+only about four miles in extent, affords a perfect specimen of a Swiss
+valley in its best form.
+
+The Lake of Thun, inferior to that of Wallenstadt in grandeur, and to
+that of Lucerne in beauty, but superior to the Lake of Zurich in both;
+and in respect to the view from it, beyond all these; none of them
+having any near or distant prospect comparable to that looking back,
+where the snowy giants of the Oberland, with the Jungfrau, and her
+silver horns, are seen over the tops of the nearer mountains.
+
+The “show glacier” of the Rosenlaui, which is so easy of access.
+
+The view from the Hotel of the Jungfrau on the Wengern Alp.
+
+The lake scenery near Alpnach.
+
+All these points should be made either out or home. They are not likely
+to be forgotten by the tourist when once seen. On the pilgrimage to
+these wonders of nature, the other peculiarities of the country and its
+people will be observed, and amongst them the frequency of showers and
+the popularity of umbrellas; the great division of landed property; the
+greater number of beggars in the Romanist as compared with the
+Protestant Cantons, and the better cultivation of the latter; the
+numerous spots of historical interest, as Morgarten, Sempach, Naefels;
+where the Swiss have fought for the liberty they enjoy (to say nothing
+of the dramatic William Tell, and his defeat of the cruel Gesler); the
+fruitfulness and number of Swiss orchards (which give us our grocers’
+“French plums”), the excellent flavor of Alpine strawberries and cream;
+the scarcity of birds; and the characteristic sounds of the Swiss horn,
+the Ranz des Vaches, and the night chaunts of the watchmen.
+
+On the map attached to Dr. Forbes’s volume are the dates, jotted down,
+when our traveller entered Switzerland, at Basle, and when he left it on
+his return to smoke and duty in London. He reached the land of mountains
+and lakes on the 11th of August; he quitted it on the 12th of September;
+four days afterwards he was being bothered at the Custom-House at
+Blackwall. The last words of his book are these:—“In accordance with a
+principle kept constantly in view while writing out the particulars of
+the Holiday now concluded, viz. to give to those who may follow the same
+or a similar track, such economical and financial details as may be
+useful to them, I may here state that the total expenses of the
+tour—from the moment of departure to that of return—was, as near as may
+be, _One Guinea per diem_ to each of the travellers.”
+
+The thousands of young gentlemen with some leisure and small means, who
+are in the habit of getting rid of both in unhealthy amusements, need
+hardly be told that a winter’s abstinence from certain modes and places
+of entertainment would be more than rewarded by a single summer holiday
+spent after the manner of Dr. Forbes and his younger companions. No very
+heroic self-denial is necessary; and the compensation—in health, higher
+and more intense enjoyment, and the best sort of mental improvement—is
+incalculable.
+
+What we have here described is an expensive proceeding compared with the
+cheap contract trips which are constantly diverging from the Metropolis,
+to every part of England, Ireland, Scotland, and to all attainable
+places on the Continent. These, so far as we are able to learn, have
+hitherto been well conducted; and although the charges for every
+possible want—from the platform of the London Terminus back again to the
+same spot, are marvellously moderate—the speculations, from their
+frequent repetition, appear to have been remunerative to the projectors.
+
+
+
+
+           CHRISTOPHER SHRIMBLE ON THE “DECLINE OF ENGLAND.”
+
+
+                         _To Mr. Ledru Rollin._
+
+ Sir,
+
+I generally believe everything that is going to happen; and as it is a
+remarkable fact that everything that is going to happen is of a
+depressing nature, I undergo a good deal of anxiety. I am very careful
+of myself (taking a variety of patent medicines, and paying particular
+attention to the weather), but I am not strong. I think my weakness is
+principally on my nerves, which have been a good deal shaken in the
+course of my profession as a practising attorney; in which I have met
+with a good deal to shock them; but from which, I beg leave most
+cheerfully to acquaint you, I have retired.
+
+Sir, I am certain you are a very remarkable public gentleman, though you
+have the misfortune to be French. I am convinced you know what is going
+to happen, because you describe it in your book on “The Decline of
+England,” in such an alarming manner. I have read your book and, Sir, I
+am sincerely obliged to you for what you have made me suffer; I am very
+miserable and very grateful.
+
+You have not only opened up a particularly dismal future, but you have
+shown me in what a miserable condition we, here, (I mean in Tooting, my
+place of abode, and the surrounding portion of the British Empire) are
+at this present time; though really I was not aware of it.
+
+I suppose that your chapter on the law of this land is the result of a
+profound study of the statutes at large and the “Reports of Cases
+argued,” &c.; for students of your nation do not take long for that sort
+of thing, and you have been amongst us at least three months. In the
+course of your “reading up” you must doubtless have perused the
+posthumous reports of J. Miller, Q. C. (Queen’s Comedian). There you
+doubtless found the cause of Hammer _v._ Tongs, which was an action of
+_tort_ tried before Gogg, C. J. Flamfacer (Serjeant)—according to the
+immortal reporter of good things—stated his case on behalf of the
+plaintiff so powerfully, that before he could get to the peroration,
+said plaintiff’s hair stood on end, tears rolled down his cheeks in
+horror and pity at his own wrongs, and he exclaimed, while wringing his
+pocket-handkerchief, “Good gracious! That villain Tongs! What a terrific
+box on my ear it must have been! To think that a man may be almost
+murdered without knowing it!”
+
+I am Hammer, and you, Mr. Rollin, are Tongs. Your book made my ears to
+tingle quite as sharply as if you had actually boxed them. I must,
+however, in justice to the little hair that Time has left me, positively
+state that, even while I was perusing your most powerful passages, it
+showed no propensity for the perpendicular. I felt very nervous for all
+that; for still—although I could hardly believe that a French gentleman
+residing for a few months in the neighbourhood of Leicester Square,
+London, could possibly obtain a thorough knowledge, either from study or
+personal observation, of the political, legislative, agricultural,
+agrarian, prelatical, judicial, colonial, commercial, manufacturing,
+social, and educational systems and condition of this empire—yet, from
+the unqualified manner in which you deliver yourself upon all these
+branches, I cannot choose but think that your pages must, like certain
+fictions, be at least founded on _some_ fact; that to have concocted
+your volume—of smoke—there must be some fire somewhere. Or is it only
+the smell of it?
+
+For, Sir, even an alarm of fire is unpleasant; and, to an elderly
+gentleman with a very small stake in the country (prudently inserted in
+the three per cent. consols), reading of the dreadful things which you
+say are to happen to one’s own native land is exceedingly uncomfortable,
+especially at night; when “in silence and in gloom” one broods over
+one’s miseries, personal and national; when, in fact, your or any one
+else’s _bête noire_ is apt to get polished off with a few extra touches
+of blacking. Bless me! when I put my candle out the other night, and
+thought of your portrait of Britannia, I quite shook; and when I lay
+down I could almost fancy her shadow on the wall. Even now I see her
+looking uncommonly sickly, in spite of the invigorating properties of
+the waves she so constantly “rules;” the trident and shield—her
+“supporters” for ages—can hardly keep her up. Grief, and forebodings of
+the famine which you promise, has made her dwindle down from Great to
+Little Britain. The British Lion at her feet is in the last stage of
+consumption; in such a shocking state of collapse, that he will soon be
+in a condition to jump out of his skin; but you do not point out the Ass
+who is to jump into it.
+
+Fortunately for my peace I found, on reading a little further, that this
+is not Britannia as she is, but Britannia seen by you, “as in a glass
+darkly”—as she is to be—when some more of her blood has been sucked by a
+phlebotomising Oligarchy and State-pensionary; by an ogreish Cotton
+lordocracy; by a sanguinary East India Company, whose “atrocious
+greediness caused ten millions of Indians to perish in a month;” by the
+servile Parsonocracy, who “read their sermons, in order that the priest
+may be able to place his discourse before the magistrate, if he should
+be suspected of having preached anything contrary to law;” by the
+Landlords, whose oppressions cause labourers to kill one another “to get
+a premium upon death;” and by a variety of other national leeches, which
+your imagination presents to our view with the distinctness of the
+monsters in a drop of Thames water seen through a solar microscope.
+
+But, Sir, as Mr. Hammer said, “to think that a man may be almost
+murdered without knowing it!” and so, _I_ say, (one trial of your book
+will prove the fact) may a whole parish—such as Tooting—or an entire
+country—such as England. If it had not been for your book I should not
+have had the remotest notion that “English society is about to fall with
+a fearful crash.” Society at large, so far as I can observe it (at
+Tooting, and elsewhere), seems to be quite innocent of its impending
+fate; and if one may judge from appearances (but then you say, we may
+not),—we are rather better off than usual just now: indeed, when you
+paint Britannia as she is at the present writing, she makes a rather fat
+and jolly portrait than otherwise. In your “Exposition” (for 1850) you
+say: “The problem is not to discover whether England is great, but
+whether her greatness can endure.” In admitting, in the handsomest
+manner possible, that England _is_ great, you go on to say, that “Great
+Britain, which is only two hundred leagues long, and whose soil is far
+from equal to that of Aragon or Lombardy, draws every year from its
+agriculture, by a skilful cultivation and the breeding of animals, a
+revenue which amounts to more than three billions six hundred millions
+francs, and this revenue of the mother-country is almost doubled by the
+value of similar produce in its colonies and dependencies. Her industry,
+her commerce, and her manufactures, create a property superior to the
+primal land-productions, and all owing to her inexhaustible mines, her
+natural wealth, and her admirable system of circulation by fourscore and
+six canals, and seventy lines of railway. The total revenue of England
+then amounts to upwards of twelve billion francs. Her power amongst the
+nations is manifest by the number and greatness of her fleets and of her
+domains. In Europe she possesses, besides her neighbour-islets,
+Heligoland, Gibraltar, Malta, and the Ionian Islands; in Asia, she holds
+British Hindostan with its tributaries, Ceylon, and her compulsory
+allies of the Punjab and of Scinde—that is to say, almost a world; in
+Africa she claims Sierra Leone with its dependencies, the Isle of
+France, Seychelles, Fernandez Po, the Cape of Good Hope and Saint
+Helena; in America, she possesses Upper and Lower Canada, Cape Breton,
+the Lesser Antilles, the Bermudas, Newfoundland, Lucays, Jamaica,
+Dominica, Guiana, the Bay of Honduras, and Prince Edward’s Island;
+lastly, in Oceania, she has Van Dieman’s Land, Norfolk Island, Nova
+Scotia, Southern Australia; and these hundred nations make up for her
+more that one hundred and fifty millions of subjects, including the
+twenty-seven to twenty-eight millions of the three mother kingdoms. As
+to her mercantile marine, two details will suffice to make it known; she
+has about thirty thousand sailing-vessels and steamers, without counting
+her eight thousand colonial ships; and in one year she exports six or
+seven hundred millions of cotton stuffs, which makes for a single detail
+an account beyond the sum total of all the manufacturing exportation of
+France.”
+
+But now for the plague spot! All this territory, and power, and
+commercial activity is, you say, our ruin; all this wealth is precisely
+our pauperism; all this happiness is our misery. What Montesquieu says,
+and you Mr. Ledru Rollin indorse with your unerring imprimatur, _must_
+be true:—“The fortune of maritime empires cannot be long, for they only
+reign by the oppression of the nations, and while they extend themselves
+abroad, they are undermining themselves within.”
+
+Upon my word, Mr. Rollin, this looks very likely: and when you see your
+neighbours gaily promenading Regent Street; when you hear of the “Lion
+of Waterloo” (at whom you are so obliging as to say in your Preface, you
+have no wish “to fire a spent ball”) giving his usual anniversary dinner
+to the usual number of guests, and with his usual activity stepping off
+afterwards to a ball; when you are told that a hundred thousand
+Londoners can afford to enjoy themselves at Epsom Races; and that
+throughout the country there is just now more enjoyment and less
+grumbling than there has been for years, I can quite understand that
+your horror at the innocent disregard thus evinced at the tremendous
+“blow up” that is coming, must be infinitely more real than that of
+Serjeant Flamfacer. “Alas!” you exclaim with that “profound emotion”
+with which your countrymen are so often afflicted; “Government returns
+inform me that during the past year English pauperism has decreased
+eleven per cent., and that the present demand for labour in the
+manufacturing districts nearly equals the supply? The culminating point
+is reached; destruction must follow!”
+
+Heavens! Mr. Rollin, I tremble with you. The plethora of prosperity
+increases, and will burst the sooner! We, eating, drinking, contented,
+trafficking, stupid, revolution-hating, spiritless, English people, “are
+undermining ourselves within.” We are gorging ourselves with National
+prosperity to bring on a National dyspepsia, and will soon fall asleep
+under the influence of a national nightmare! Horrible! the more so
+because
+
+                      “Alas! unconscious of their fate,
+                The little victims play.”
+
+Now, Sir, I wish to ask you calmly and candidly, if there _is_ any fire
+at the bottom of your volumes of smoke? or have you read our records,
+and seen our country through a flaming pair of Red Spectacles, that has
+converted everything within their range into Raw-Head-and-Bloody-Bones?
+
+Indeed I hope it is so; for though I am very much obliged to you for
+putting us on our guard, you have made me very miserable. This is the
+worst shock of all. With my belief in “what is going to happen,” I have
+led but a dog-life of it, ever since I retired from that cat-and-dog
+life, the Law. First, the Reform Bill was to ruin us out of hand; then,
+the farmers threatened us with what was going to happen in consequence
+of Free Trade; and that was bad enough, for it was starvation—no less.
+What was going to happen if the Navigation Laws were repealed, I dare
+not recall. Now we are to be swept off the face of the earth if we allow
+letters to be sorted on a Sunday. But these are comparative trifles to
+what you, Mr. R., assert is going to happen, whatever we do or don’t do.
+However, I am resolved on one thing—_I_ won’t be in at the death, or
+rather _with_ the death. I shall pull up my little stake in Capel Court,
+and retire to some quiet corner of the world, such as the Faubourg St.
+Antoine, the foot of Mount Vesuvius, or Chinese Tartary.
+
+                                                       Yours truly,
+                                                   CHRISTOPHER SHRIMBLE.
+
+ Paradise Row, Tooting.
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+                Monthly Supplement of ‘HOUSEHOLD WORDS,’
+                      Conducted by CHARLES DICKENS.
+
+                        _Price 2d., Stamped 3d._,
+
+                         THE HOUSEHOLD NARRATIVE
+
+                                   OF
+
+                             CURRENT EVENTS.
+
+  _The Number, containing a history of the past month, was issued with
+                             the Magazines._
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+    Published at the Office, No 16, Wellington Street North, Strand.
+            Printed by BRADBURY & EVANS, Whitefriars, London.
+
+------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+
+
+
+                          TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
+
+
+ ● Fixed typos; non-standard spelling and dialect retained.
+ ● Renumbered footnotes.
+ ● Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.
+ ● The caret (^) is used to indicate superscript, whether applied to a
+     single character (as in 2^d) or to an entire expression (as in
+     1^{st}).
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78179 ***