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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 ***
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+  </head>
+  <body>   
+<div style='text-align:center'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78179 ***</div>
+
+<div class='tnotes covernote'>
+
+<p class='c000'><strong>Transcriber’s Note:</strong></p>
+
+<p class='c000'>New original cover art included with this eBook is granted to the public domain.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class='double titlepage'>
+
+<div class='nf-center-c0'>
+<div class='nf-center c001'>
+    <div>“<i>Familiar in their Mouths as HOUSEHOLD WORDS.</i>”—<span class='sc'>Shakespeare.</span></div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<div>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_227'>227</span>
+  <h1 class='c002'>HOUSEHOLD WORDS.<br> <span class='xlarge'>A WEEKLY JOURNAL.</span></h1>
+</div>
+
+<div class='nf-center-c0'>
+<div class='nf-center c001'>
+    <div><span class='large'>CONDUCTED BY CHARLES DICKENS.</span></div>
+    <div class='c001'>N<sup>o.</sup> 15.]&#8196; &#8196; &#8196; SATURDAY, JULY 6, 1850.&#8196; &#8196; &#8196; [<span class='sc'>Price</span> 2<i>d.</i></div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <h2 class='c003'>THE OLD LADY IN THREADNEEDLE STREET.</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c004'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>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
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_228'>228</span>and adorned with two excellent portraits of
+two ancient cashiers; regarding one of whom
+the public were warned:—</p>
+
+<div class='lg-container-b c006'>
+  <div class='linegroup'>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line in8'>“Sham Abraham you may,</div>
+      <div class='line in8'>I’ve often heard say:</div>
+      <div class='line'>But you mustn’t sham ‘Abraham Newland.’”</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c005'>There are several conference-rooms for
+gentlemen who require a little private conversation
+with the Old Lady—perhaps on the
+subject of discounts.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>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
+<i>cella</i> of the great Temple of Riches.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>As to the individual appearance of the Old
+Lady herself, we are authorised to state that
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_229'>229</span>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 <span class='fss'>NOT</span> the portrait of <i>the</i>
+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.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>In truth, like the Delphian mystery, <span class='sc'>She</span> 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 <span class='sc'>Mr. Matthew
+Marshall</span>; 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, <i>all</i> his capital was “dead weight;”
+that in Threadneedle Street is active, and is
+represented by an average paper currency of
+twenty millions per annum.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>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
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_230'>230</span>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>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
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_231'>231</span>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>The apartment in which the notes are kept
+<i>previous</i> 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
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_232'>232</span>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>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 <i>two
+tons</i>, 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.<a id='r1'></a><a href='#f1' class='c007'><sup>[1]</sup></a></p>
+
+<div class='footnote' id='f1'>
+<p class='c005'><a href='#r1'>1</a>. One thousand sovereigns weigh twenty-one pounds, and
+five hundred and twelve Bank-notes weigh exactly one
+pound.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c005'>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!</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>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
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_233'>233</span>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 <i>eightieth</i> part of the wealth contained
+in the Old Lady’s cellars.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>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
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_234'>234</span>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>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, &#38;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
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_235'>235</span>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!</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>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<i>l.</i>, or an
+aggregate of upwards of 31,000<i>l.</i> per annum.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>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
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_236'>236</span>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>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!”</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <h2 class='c003'>THE SERF OF POBEREZE.</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c004'>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 <i>is</i> 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.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>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?</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>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 <i>my</i> child they will choose!”</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>Being brought into the court-yard of the
+palace, the Count Roszynski, with the several
+members of his family, had come out to pass
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_237'>237</span>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>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?</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c005'><span class='pageno' id='Page_238'>238</span>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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>“Neither, my lord,—only an adopted child.”</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>“But who will lead the old woman home,
+as she is blind?”</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>Thus two months passed.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>As she went on she sang louder and with
+increased fervour. Her breast heaved with
+emotion, her eyes shone with unusual brilliancy;
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_239'>239</span>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>It was the Count’s son, Leon!</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>“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.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>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,
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_240'>240</span>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>“Perhaps you will be refused,” said Constantia
+coldly.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>“Surely people are in love with one another
+sometimes,” said the sister.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>“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.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>“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.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>“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!”</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>“I hope she came by it honestly,” said
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_241'>241</span>the old Countess, who at this moment
+entered.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>“Sing something for me, pretty damsel,”
+said Leon, “and I will give you another
+rouble, a new and shining one.”</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>“Sing instantly,” said Constantia imperiously.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>At this command Anielka could no longer
+stifle her grief; she covered her face with her
+hands, and wept violently.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>“Why do you cry?” asked her mistress
+impatiently; “I cannot bear it; I desire you
+to do as you are bid.”</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>“My dear Constantia,” he said, suddenly
+stopping before his sister and kissing her
+hand, “will you do me a favour?”</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>Constantia looked enquiringly in her
+brother’s face without speaking.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>“Give me this girl.”</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>“Impossible!”</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>“I shall not give her to you,” said Constantia.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>“Not as a free gift, but in exchange. I will
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_242'>242</span>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>“No, no,” replied Constantia; “I shall be
+lonely without this girl, I am so used to her.”</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>This argument was irresistible. “Well,”
+replied Constantia, “when do you think of
+taking her?”</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>“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.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>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
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_243'>243</span>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>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!”</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>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
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_244'>244</span>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?</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>The old man raised his head, gazed upon
+her with a ghastly smile, and took off his
+cap.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>“And my good old mother, where is she?”
+Anielka asked.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>“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!</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>“Why are you so unhappy?” said the
+Count Leon kindly to her, one day.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>To have explained the cause of her wretchedness
+would have been death indeed.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>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
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_245'>245</span>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 <i>she</i> 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.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>The Signora was astonished. “Where,”
+she asked, in wonder, “were you taught?”</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>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:—</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>“I think you are a very good girl, and you
+shall stay with me always.”</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>The girl was almost beside herself with joy.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>“We will never part. Do you consent,
+Anielka?”</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>“Do not call me Anielka. Give me instead
+some Italian name.”</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>“Well, then, be Giovanna. The dearest
+friend I ever had—but whom I have lost—was
+named Giovanna,” said the prima donna.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>“Then, I will be another Giovanna to you.”</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>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
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_246'>246</span>been obliged to serve herself. She acquired
+the Italian language rapidly, and soon passed
+for a native of the country.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>Anielka placed her hand on Teresina’s
+shoulder, and kissed her.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>“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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>Though Anielka’s ambition was fired, her
+heart was softened, and she wept violently.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>Five months had scarcely elapsed, when a
+<i>furore</i> 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: <i>that</i>,
+no change could alter, no temptation win.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>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
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_247'>247</span>in society, unless it was to meet her countrymen.
+If ever she sang, it was in Polish.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>Where was his wife? why did he never
+mention her? Giovanna continually asked
+herself these questions when they had departed.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>A few nights after, the Count Leon arrived
+sad and thoughtful. He prevailed on Giovanna
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_248'>248</span>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!”</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>She withdrew it from his grasp, remained
+silent for a few minutes, and then said slowly,
+distinctly, and ironically, “but I do not love
+<i>you</i>, Count Roszynski.”</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>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—”</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>Giovanna blushed like one detected; but
+speedily recovering herself, asked with calm
+pleasantry, “Surely you do not number <i>me</i>
+among your former friends?”</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>“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——”</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>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 <i>me</i>, Count Roszynski?”</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>Giovanna witnessed the Count’s emotion
+with sadness. “To have,” she said mournfully,
+“one’s first pure, ardent, passionate affection
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_249'>249</span>unrequited, scorned, made a jest of, is indeed
+a bitterness, almost equal to that of death.”</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>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. <i>Then</i> 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”—</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>And Giovanna rose, as she said this, to
+remove herself further from her admirer.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>“No, no!” he replied earnestly; “with a
+pure and holy passion.”</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>“Impossible!” returned Giovanna. “Are
+you not married?”</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>“You have lost no time,” said the cantatrice,
+endeavouring to conceal her feelings
+under an iron mask of reproach.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>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—<i>his slave</i>. 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,</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>“You have a right, my Lord Roszynski,
+to that poor Anielka who escaped from the
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_250'>250</span>service of your wife in Florence; you can
+force her back to your palace, to its meanest
+work; but”—</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>“Have mercy on me!” cried Leon.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>“But,” continued the serf of Pobereze,
+firmly, “you cannot force me to love you.”</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>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!”</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>Her tortures were unendurable. To relieve
+them she hastened to her desk, and wrote
+these words:—</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>“Dearest Leon, forgive me; let the past be
+for ever forgotten. Return to your Anielka.
+She always has been, ever will be, yours!”</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>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
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_251'>251</span>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. <i>Now</i>, Leon did not smile
+at it. He comprehended the sacredness of
+this little gift; and some tears of repentance
+fell upon Anielka’s hand.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>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!”</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>Anielka longed ardently to behold her native
+land. They left Vienna immediately after the
+wedding, although it was in the middle of
+January.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>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 <i>my</i> 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!”</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>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,
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_252'>252</span>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!</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>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!</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <h2 class='c003'>A STROLL BY STARLIGHT.</h2>
+</div>
+
+<div class='lg-container-b c008'>
+  <div class='linegroup'>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line in2'>We left the Village. On the beaten road</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>Our steps and voices were the only sound.</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>The lady Moon was not yet come abroad,—</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>Our coyly-veiled companion. We found</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>A footway through the corn; upon the ground</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>The crake among the holms was occupied;</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>Rapid of movement, from all points around</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>Came his rough note whose music is supplied</div>
+      <div class='line'>By iteration while all sounds are hushed beside.</div>
+    </div>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line in2'>The stars were out, the sky was full of them,</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>Dotted with worlds. The land was all asleep.</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>And, like its gentle breath, from stem to stem</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>Through the dry corn a murmur there would creep,</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>Murmur of music: as when in the deep</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>Of the sun-pierced Ægean, with turned ear,</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>The Nereids might have heard its waters leap</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>And kiss the dimpled islands, thus, less near,</div>
+      <div class='line'>Fainter, more like a thought, did to our hearts appear,</div>
+    </div>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line in2'>The midnight melody. Our way then led</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>Where myriad blades of grass were drinking dew;</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>Thirsty, to God they looked, by God were fed,</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>Whose cloudless heaven could their life renew.</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>A copse beside us on the starry blue</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>Cut its hard outline. Through the leaves a fire</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>Shone with enlarging brilliance; red of hue</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>The large moon rose,—did to a throne aspire</div>
+      <div class='line'>Of dizzy height, and paled in winning her desire.</div>
+    </div>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line in2'>A change of level, and another scene;</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>Life, light, and noise. The roaring furnace-blast,</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>Flame-pointed cones and fields of blighted green!</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>The vivid fires, dreaming they have surpassed</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>The stars in brightness, furiously cast</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>Upward their wild strength to possess the sky;</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>Break into evanescent stars at last,—</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>Glitter and fall as fountains. Thus men try,</div>
+      <div class='line'>And thus men try in vain, false gods to deify.</div>
+    </div>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line in2'>The roar and flame diminish. Busy light</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>Streams from the casting-house. The liquid ore</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>Through arch and lancet window, dazzling Night,</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>Flows in rich rills upon the sanded floor.</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>Steropes, Arges, Brontes, from the shore</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>Of Acheron returned, seem glowing here;</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>Such form the phantom of Hephæstus wore,</div>
+      <div class='line in2'><span class='pageno' id='Page_253'>253</span>Illumined by his forge. Each feature clear,</div>
+      <div class='line'>Men glorified by fire seem demon-births of fear.</div>
+    </div>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line in2'>But the ray reddens, and the light grows dim.</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>The cooling iron, counterpaned with sand</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>By those night servitors, no longer grim</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>In unaccustomed glow, from the green land</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>And yonder sky, now ceases to command</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>Our thoughts to wander. As we backward gaze,</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>The blast renews; with aspiration grand</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>The flames again soar upward: but we raise</div>
+      <div class='line'>Our glances to God’s Lamp, which overawes their blaze.</div>
+    </div>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line in2'>So forward through the stillness we proceed.</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>Winding around a hill, the white road leaves</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>Life, light, and noise behind. We, gladly freed</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>From human interruption, we, mute thieves,</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>Pass onward through Night’s treasure; each receives</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>From her rich store his bosom full of wealth,</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>For secret hoarding. Now an oak-wood weaves</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>A cloister way to sanctify the stealth</div>
+      <div class='line'>Practised in loving guise, and for the spirit’s health.</div>
+    </div>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line in2'>We climb into the moonlight once again.</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>A broken rail beside the way doth keep</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>Neglectful guard above the Vale’s domain.</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>The Vale is in the silence laid asleep,</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>Not far below. Among her beauties peep</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>The wakeful stars, and from above her bed</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>The grey night-veil, wherein to rest so deep</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>She sank, the Moon hath lifted; yet the thread</div>
+      <div class='line'>Of slumber holds, the dream hath from her face not fled.</div>
+    </div>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line in2'>Yon meadow track leads by the church; it saves</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>Ten minutes if we follow it. We laugh</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>To see our saving lost among the graves.</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>Deciphering a moonlit Epitaph</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>We linger, laugh and sigh. All mirth is half</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>Made up of melancholy. There is pure</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>Humour in woe. Man’s grief is oft the staff</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>On which his happy thoughts can lean secure;</div>
+      <div class='line'>And he who most enjoys, he too can most endure.</div>
+    </div>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line in2'>We leave the tombstones, death-like, white, and still,</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>Fixed in the dim light,—awful, unbeheld.</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>A squalid village, straggling up a hill</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>We pass. In passing, one among us yelled,</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>And from no gallinaceous throat expelled</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>A crow sonorous. From the near church tower,</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>Through the cold, voiceless air of night there knell’d</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>The passing bell of a departed hour:</div>
+      <div class='line'>What sign of budding day? How will the morning flower?</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <h2 class='c003'>CHIPS.</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c004'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>There is also a figure of speech, concerning
+a chip of the old block. The chips with which
+<i>our</i> old block (aged fifteen weeks) is overwhelmed
+every week, would make some five-and-twenty
+blocks of similar dimensions.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>There is a popular simile—an awkward
+one in this connexion—founded on the
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_254'>254</span>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.</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <h2 class='c003'>DESTRUCTION OF PARISH REGISTERS.</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c004'>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>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!”</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>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
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_255'>255</span>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>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?</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_256'>256</span>
+  <h2 class='c003'>FROM MR. T. OLDCASTLE CONCERNING THE COAL EXCHANGE.</h2>
+</div>
+
+<div class='nf-center-c0'>
+<div class='nf-center c001'>
+    <div>“<span class='sc'>Sir</span>,&#8196; &#8196; &#8196; Blue Dragon Arms, South Shields.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c005'>“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.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>“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.</p>
+
+<div class='lg-container-r'>
+  <div class='linegroup'>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'>“I remain, respected Sir,</div>
+      <div class='line in4'>“Yours to command,</div>
+      <div class='line in8'>“<span class='sc'>Thomas Oldcastle</span>.”</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c005'>“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?’”</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <h2 class='c003'>NEW SHOES.</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c004'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>Among all the workmen at Muller’s forge,
+near Istra, about ninety versts from Moscow,
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_257'>257</span>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>“Tell me,” said he, “how much you allow
+per pood for iron in bar, furnished by a
+master blacksmith.”</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>“Three copecks or an altin,” answered
+Muller.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>“Well, then,” said the Czar, “I have earned
+eighteen altins, and am come to be paid.”</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>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.</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_258'>258</span>
+  <h2 class='c003'>THE MODERN “OFFICER’S” PROGRESS.</h2>
+</div>
+<h3 class='c009'>III.—THE CATASTROPHE.</h3>
+
+<p class='c010'>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>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
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_259'>259</span>coffee could only be made in France, and wondering,
+at the second, what sort of <i>potage</i> 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.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>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 <i>was</i> 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
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_260'>260</span>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 <i><span lang="fr">congé</span></i>, 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.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>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 <i>on</i> duty, without our being
+under the necessity of going into further
+details. What he did when <i>off</i> duty helped
+him on still more effectually.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>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 <i>have</i> such opponents
+as Captain Cushion.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>The want of money is a common dilemma,—not
+the less disagreeable, however, because
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_261'>261</span>it <i>is</i> 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 <i>somehow</i> 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 <i><span lang="fr">tête
+baissée</span></i>. The “advice” was tendered in this
+form.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>“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.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>“Deuced queer,” was the reply; “that
+Roman punch always gives me the splittingest
+headaches!”</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>“Ah! you’re not used to it. I’m as fresh
+as a four-year old. Well, what did you do
+last night, Spooney?”</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>“Do! why, I lost, of course; <i>you</i> ought to
+know that.”</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>“I—my dear fellow! Give you my honour
+I got up a loser!”</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>“Not to me, though,” grumbled the Ensign.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>“Can’t say as to that,” replied the Captain;
+“all I know is, that I am devilishly minus.”</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>“Who won, then?” enquired Spoonbill.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>“Oh!” returned the Captain, after a slight
+pause, “I suspect—Chowser—he has somebody’s
+luck and his own too!”</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>“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.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>The Captain’s pocket-book was out in an
+instant.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>“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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>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
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_262'>262</span>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!”</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>“Then you must fly a kite,” observed the
+Captain, coolly. “No difficulty about that.”</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>“How is it to be done?” asked the
+neophyte.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>“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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>“Draw!” said the Ensign, in a state of
+some bewilderment. “I don’t understand
+these things—couldn’t you do it?”</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>“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 <i>would</i> 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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>“But I thought you said you had a bill of
+your own coming due to-morrow,” observed
+the astute Spoonbill.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>“So I did,” said the Captain, taken rather
+aback in the midst of his protestations, “but
+then it isn’t—exactly—a thing of <i>this</i> 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?”</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>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
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_263'>263</span>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 <i>was</i> 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.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>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
+<i>refrain</i> of which ran as follows:—</p>
+
+<div class='lg-container-b c006'>
+  <div class='linegroup'>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'>“When creditors clamour, and cash fails the till,</div>
+      <div class='line'>There is nothing so easy as giving a bill.”</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c005'>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
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_264'>264</span>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
+<i><span lang="fr">attaché</span></i> 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.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>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 <i>practical military
+education, while on service</i>, 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.</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <h2 class='c003'>HOW TO SPEND A SUMMER HOLIDAY.</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c004'>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,”
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_265'>265</span>“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.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>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. <i>The</i> 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 <i>its</i> 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
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_266'>266</span>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>Once on a Rhine steamer, and Switzerland
+is within easy reach.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>On our table, as we write, lies the second
+edition of a volume<a id='r2'></a><a href='#f2' class='c007'><sup>[2]</sup></a> 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.</p>
+
+<div class='footnote' id='f2'>
+<p class='c005'><a href='#r2'>2</a>. “The Physician’s Holiday.”</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c005'>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.
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_267'>267</span>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:—</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>“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.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>“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....</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>“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
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_268'>268</span>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>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:</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>The “show glacier” of the Rosenlaui, which
+is so easy of access.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>The view from the Hotel of the Jungfrau
+on the Wengern Alp.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>The lake scenery near Alpnach.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>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
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_269'>269</span>state that the total expenses of the tour—from
+the moment of departure to that of return—was,
+as near as may be, <i>One Guinea per diem</i>
+to each of the travellers.”</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>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.</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <h2 class='c003'>CHRISTOPHER SHRIMBLE ON THE “DECLINE OF ENGLAND.”</h2>
+</div>
+
+<div class='nf-center-c0'>
+<div class='nf-center c001'>
+    <div><i>To Mr. Ledru Rollin.</i></div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<div class='lg-container-l'>
+  <div class='linegroup'>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'>Sir,</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c005'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'><span class='pageno' id='Page_270'>270</span>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,” &#38;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 <i>v.</i> Tongs, which
+was an action of <i>tort</i> 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!”</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>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 <i>some</i> fact; that to have concocted your
+volume—of smoke—there must be some fire
+somewhere. Or is it only the smell of it?</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>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 <i><span lang="fr">bête noire</span></i> 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
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_271'>271</span>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>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.</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>But, Sir, as Mr. Hammer said, “to think
+that a man may be almost murdered without
+knowing it!” and so, <i>I</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 <i>is</i> 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,
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_272'>272</span>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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>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, <i>must</i> 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.”</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>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
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_273'>273</span>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!”</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>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</p>
+
+<div class='lg-container-b c006'>
+  <div class='linegroup'>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line in6'>“Alas! unconscious of their fate,</div>
+      <div class='line'>The little victims play.”</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c005'>Now, Sir, I wish to ask you calmly and
+candidly, if there <i>is</i> 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?</p>
+
+<p class='c005'>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>I</i> won’t be in at the death, or rather
+<i>with</i> 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.</p>
+
+<div class='lg-container-r'>
+  <div class='linegroup'>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line in4'>Yours truly,</div>
+      <div class='line'><span class='sc'>Christopher Shrimble</span>.</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<div class='lg-container-l'>
+  <div class='linegroup'>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'>Paradise Row, Tooting.</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<hr class='c011'>
+
+<div class='nf-center-c0'>
+  <div class='nf-center'>
+    <div>Monthly Supplement of ‘HOUSEHOLD WORDS,’</div>
+    <div>Conducted by <span class='sc'>Charles Dickens</span>.</div>
+    <div class='c012'><i>Price 2d., Stamped 3d.</i>,</div>
+    <div class='c012'><span class='large'>THE HOUSEHOLD NARRATIVE</span></div>
+    <div class='c012'>OF</div>
+    <div class='c012'>CURRENT EVENTS.</div>
+    <div class='c012'><span class='small'><i>The Number, containing a history of the past month, was issued with the Magazines.</i></span></div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<hr class='c011'>
+
+<div class='nf-center-c0'>
+  <div class='nf-center'>
+    <div><span class='pageno' id='Page_274'>274</span><span class='small'>Published at the Office, No 16, Wellington Street North, Strand. Printed by <span class='sc'>Bradbury &#38; Evans</span>, Whitefriars, London.</span></div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<div class='pbb'>
+ <hr class='pb c012'>
+</div>
+<div class='tnotes x-ebookmaker'>
+
+<div class='chapter ph2'>
+
+<div class='nf-center-c0'>
+<div class='nf-center c013'>
+    <div>TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+</div>
+
+ <ul class='ul_1 c001'>
+    <li>Fixed typos; non-standard spelling and dialect retained.
+
+    </li>
+    <li>Renumbered footnotes.
+    </li>
+  </ul>
+
+</div>
+
+<div style='text-align:center'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78179 ***</div>
+  </body>
+  <!-- created with ppgen.py 3.57i (with regex) on 2026-03-11 11:15:49 GMT -->
+</html>
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+
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+
+No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in
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+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for eBook #78179
+(https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/78179)