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diff --git a/916-h/916-h.htm b/916-h/916-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..bd5b854 --- /dev/null +++ b/916-h/916-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,2580 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html + PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=US-ASCII" /> +<title>Sketches of Young Couples, by Charles Dickens</title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + P { margin-top: .75em; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + P.gutsumm { margin-left: 5%;} + P.poetry {margin-left: 3%; } + .GutSmall { font-size: 0.7em; } + H1, H2 { + text-align: center; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + } + H3, H4, H5 { + text-align: center; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; + } + BODY{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + table { border-collapse: collapse; } +table {margin-left:auto; margin-right:auto;} + td { vertical-align: top; border: 1px solid black;} + td p { margin: 0.2em; } + .blkquot {margin-left: 4em; margin-right: 4em;} /* block indent */ + + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + + .pagenum {position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: small; + text-align: right; + font-weight: normal; + color: gray; + } + img { border: none; } + img.dc { float: left; width: 50px; height: 50px; } + p.gutindent { margin-left: 2em; } + div.gapspace { height: 0.8em; } + div.gapline { height: 0.8em; width: 100%; border-top: 1px solid;} + div.gapmediumline { height: 0.3em; width: 40%; margin-left:30%; + border-top: 1px solid; } + div.gapmediumdoubleline { height: 0.3em; width: 40%; margin-left:30%; + border-top: 1px solid; border-bottom: 1px solid;} + div.gapshortdoubleline { height: 0.3em; width: 20%; + margin-left: 40%; border-top: 1px solid; + border-bottom: 1px solid; } + div.gapdoubleline { height: 0.3em; width: 50%; + margin-left: 25%; border-top: 1px solid; + border-bottom: 1px solid;} + div.gapshortline { height: 0.3em; width: 20%; margin-left:40%; + border-top: 1px solid; } + .citation {vertical-align: super; + font-size: .8em; + text-decoration: none;} + img.floatleft { float: left; + margin-right: 1em; + margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.5em; } + img.floatright { float: right; + margin-left: 1em; margin-top: 0.5em; + margin-bottom: 0.5em; } + img.clearcenter {display: block; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; margin-top: 0.5em; + margin-bottom: 0.5em} + --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> +</head> +<body> +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Sketches of Young Couples, by Charles Dickens + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most +other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions +whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of +the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at +www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have +to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. + + + + +Title: Sketches of Young Couples + + +Author: Charles Dickens + + + +Release Date: April 11, 2015 [eBook #916] +[This file was first posted on May 22, 1997] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SKETCHES OF YOUNG COUPLES*** +</pre> +<p>Transcribed from the 1903 Chapman and Hall <i>Sketches by +Boz</i> edition by David Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org</p> +<h1>SKETCHES OF YOUNG COUPLES</h1> +<h2>CONTENTS</h2> +<table> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span +class="GutSmall">PAGE</span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>An Urgent Remonstrance, &c.</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page447">447</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>The Young Couple</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page451">451</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>The Formal Couple</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page455">455</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>The Loving Couple</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page458">458</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>The Contradictory Couple</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page463">463</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>The Couple Who Dote Upon Their Children</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page466">466</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>The Cool Couple</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page471">471</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>The Plausible Couple</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page474">474</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>The Nice Little Couple</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page478">478</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>The Egotistical Couple</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page481">481</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>The Couple Who Coddle Themselves</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page485">485</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>The Old Couple</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page489">489</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Conclusion</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page493">493</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +</table> +<h2><a name="page447"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 447</span>An +Urgent Remonstrance, &c.</h2> +<p style="text-align: center">TO THE GENTLEMEN OF ENGLAND,<br /> +<span class="GutSmall">(BEING BACHELORS OR WIDOWERS,)</span></p> +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="GutSmall">THE +REMONSTRANCE OF THEIR FAITHFUL FELLOW-SUBJECT,</span></p> +<p><span class="smcap">Sheweth</span>,—</p> +<p><span class="smcap">That</span> Her Most Gracious Majesty, +Victoria, by the Grace of God of the United Kingdom of Great +Britain and Ireland Queen, Defender of the Faith, did, on the +23rd day of November last past, declare and pronounce to Her Most +Honourable Privy Council, Her Majesty’s Most Gracious +intention of entering into the bonds of wedlock.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">That</span> Her Most Gracious Majesty, in +so making known Her Most Gracious intention to Her Most +Honourable Privy Council as aforesaid, did use and employ the +words—‘It is my intention to ally myself in marriage +with Prince Albert of Saxe Coburg and Gotha.’</p> +<p><span class="smcap">That</span> the present is Bissextile, or +Leap Year, in which it is held and considered lawful for any lady +to offer and submit proposals of marriage to any gentleman, and +to enforce and insist upon acceptance of the same, under pain of +a certain fine or penalty; to wit, one silk or satin dress of the +first quality, to be chosen by the lady and paid (or owed) for, +by the gentleman.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">That</span> these and other the horrors +and dangers with which the said Bissextile, or Leap Year, +threatens the gentlemen of England on every occasion of its +periodical return, have been greatly aggravated and augmented by +the terms of Her Majesty’s said Most Gracious +communication, which have filled the heads of divers young ladies +in this Realm with certain new ideas destructive to the peace of +mankind, that never entered their imagination before.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">That</span> a case has occurred in +Camberwell, in which a young lady informed her Papa that +‘she intended to ally herself in marriage’ with Mr. +Smith of Stepney; and that another, and a very distressing case, +has occurred at Tottenham, in which a young lady not only stated +her intention of allying herself in marriage with her cousin +John, but, taking violent possession of her said cousin, actually +married him.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">That</span> similar outrages are of +constant occurrence, not only in the capital and its +neighbourhood, but throughout the kingdom, and that unless the +excited female populace be speedily checked and restrained in +their lawless proceedings, most deplorable results must ensue +therefrom; among which may be anticipated a most alarming +increase in the population of the country, with which no efforts +of the agricultural or manufacturing interest can possibly keep +pace.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">That</span> there is strong reason to +suspect the existence of a most extensive plot, conspiracy, or +design, secretly contrived by vast numbers of single ladies in +the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and now +extending its ramifications in every quarter of the land; the +object and intent of which plainly appears to be the holding and +solemnising of an enormous and unprecedented number of marriages, +on the day on which the nuptials of Her said Most Gracious +Majesty are performed.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">That</span> such plot, conspiracy, or +design, strongly savours of Popery, as tending to the +discomfiture of the Clergy of the Established Church, by +entailing upon them great mental and physical exhaustion; and +that such Popish plots are fomented and encouraged by Her +Majesty’s Ministers, which clearly appears—not only +from Her Majesty’s principal Secretary of State for Foreign +Affairs traitorously getting married while holding office under +the Crown; but from Mr. O’Connell having been heard to +declare and avow that, if he had a daughter to marry, she should +be married on the same day as Her said Most Gracious Majesty.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">That</span> such arch plots, conspiracies, +and designs, besides being fraught with danger to the Established +Church, and (consequently) to the State, cannot fail to bring +ruin and bankruptcy upon a large class of Her Majesty’s +subjects; as a great and sudden increase in the number of married +men occasioning the comparative desertion (for a time) of +Taverns, Hotels, Billiard-rooms, and Gaming-Houses, will deprive +the Proprietors of their accustomed profits and returns. +And in further proof of the depth and baseness of such designs, +it may be here observed, that all proprietors of Taverns, Hotels, +Billiard-rooms, and Gaming-Houses, are (especially the last) +solemnly devoted to the Protestant religion.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">For</span> all these reasons, and many +others of no less gravity and import, an urgent appeal is made to +the gentlemen of England (being bachelors or widowers) to take +immediate steps for convening a Public meeting; To consider of +the best and surest means of averting the dangers with which they +are threatened by the recurrence of Bissextile, or Leap Year, and +the additional sensation created among single ladies by the terms +of Her Majesty’s Most Gracious Declaration; To take +measures, without delay, for resisting the said single Ladies, +and counteracting their evil designs; And to pray Her Majesty to +dismiss her present Ministers, and to summon to her Councils +those distinguished Gentlemen in various Honourable Professions +who, by insulting on all occasions the only Lady in England who +can be insulted with safety, have given a sufficient guarantee to +Her Majesty’s Loving Subjects that they, at least, are +qualified to make war with women, and are already expert in the +use of those weapons which are common to the lowest and most +abandoned of the sex.</p> +<h2><a name="page451"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 451</span>THE +YOUNG COUPLE</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">There</span> is to be a wedding this +morning at the corner house in the terrace. The +pastry-cook’s people have been there half-a-dozen times +already; all day yesterday there was a great stir and bustle, and +they were up this morning as soon as it was light. Miss +Emma Fielding is going to be married to young Mr. Harvey.</p> +<p>Heaven alone can tell in what bright colours this marriage is +painted upon the mind of the little housemaid at number six, who +has hardly slept a wink all night with thinking of it, and now +stands on the unswept door-steps leaning upon her broom, and +looking wistfully towards the enchanted house. Nothing +short of omniscience can divine what visions of the baker, or the +green-grocer, or the smart and most insinuating butterman, are +flitting across her mind—what thoughts of how she would +dress on such an occasion, if she were a lady—of how she +would dress, if she were only a bride—of how cook would +dress, being bridesmaid, conjointly with her sister ‘in +place’ at Fulham, and how the clergyman, deeming them so +many ladies, would be quite humbled and respectful. What +day-dreams of hope and happiness—of life being one +perpetual holiday, with no master and no mistress to grant or +withhold it—of every Sunday being a Sunday out—of +pure freedom as to curls and ringlets, and no obligation to hide +fine heads of hair in caps—what pictures of happiness, vast +and immense to her, but utterly ridiculous to us, bewilder the +brain of the little housemaid at number six, all called into +existence by the wedding at the corner!</p> +<p>We smile at such things, and so we should, though perhaps for +a better reason than commonly presents itself. It should be +pleasant to us to know that there are notions of happiness so +moderate and limited, since upon those who entertain them, +happiness and lightness of heart are very easily bestowed.</p> +<p>But the little housemaid is awakened from her reverie, for +forth from the door of the magical corner house there runs +towards her, all fluttering in smart new dress and streaming +ribands, her friend Jane Adams, who comes all out of breath to +redeem a solemn promise of taking her in, under cover of the +confusion, to see the breakfast table spread forth in state, +and—sight of sights!—her young mistress ready dressed +for church.</p> +<p>And there, in good truth, when they have stolen up-stairs on +tip-toe and edged themselves in at the chamber-door—there +is Miss Emma ‘looking like the sweetest picter,’ in a +white chip bonnet and orange flowers, and all other elegancies +becoming a bride, (with the make, shape, and quality of every +article of which the girl is perfectly familiar in one moment, +and never forgets to her dying day)—and there is Miss +Emma’s mamma in tears, and Miss Emma’s papa +comforting her, and saying how that of course she has been long +looking forward to this, and how happy she ought to be—and +there too is Miss Emma’s sister with her arms round her +neck, and the other bridesmaid all smiles and tears, quieting the +children, who would cry more but that they are so finely dressed, +and yet sob for fear sister Emma should be taken away—and +it is all so affecting, that the two servant-girls cry more than +anybody; and Jane Adams, sitting down upon the stairs, when they +have crept away, declares that her legs tremble so that she +don’t know what to do, and that she will say for Miss Emma, +that she never had a hasty word from her, and that she does hope +and pray she may be happy.</p> +<p>But Jane soon comes round again, and then surely there never +was anything like the breakfast table, glittering with plate and +china, and set out with flowers and sweets, and long-necked +bottles, in the most sumptuous and dazzling manner. In the +centre, too, is the mighty charm, the cake, glistening with +frosted sugar, and garnished beautifully. They agree that +there ought to be a little Cupid under one of the barley-sugar +temples, or at least two hearts and an arrow; but, with this +exception, there is nothing to wish for, and a table could not be +handsomer. As they arrive at this conclusion, who should +come in but Mr. John! to whom Jane says that its only Anne from +number six; and John says <i>he</i> knows, for he’s often +winked his eye down the area, which causes Anne to blush and look +confused. She is going away, indeed; when Mr. John will +have it that she must drink a glass of wine, and he says never +mind it’s being early in the morning, it won’t hurt +her: so they shut the door and pour out the wine; and Anne +drinking lane’s health, and adding, ‘and here’s +wishing you yours, Mr. John,’ drinks it in a great many +sips,—Mr. John all the time making jokes appropriate to the +occasion. At last Mr. John, who has waxed bolder by +degrees, pleads the usage at weddings, and claims the privilege +of a kiss, which he obtains after a great scuffle; and footsteps +being now heard on the stairs, they disperse suddenly.</p> +<p>By this time a carriage has driven up to convey the bride to +church, and Anne of number six prolonging the process of +‘cleaning her door,’ has the satisfaction of +beholding the bride and bridesmaids, and the papa and mamma, +hurry into the same and drive rapidly off. Nor is this all, +for soon other carriages begin to arrive with a posse of company +all beautifully dressed, at whom she could stand and gaze for +ever; but having something else to do, is compelled to take one +last long look and shut the street-door.</p> +<p>And now the company have gone down to breakfast, and tears +have given place to smiles, for all the corks are out of the +long-necked bottles, and their contents are disappearing +rapidly. Miss Emma’s papa is at the top of the table; +Miss Emma’s mamma at the bottom; and beside the latter are +Miss Emma herself and her husband,—admitted on all hands to +be the handsomest and most interesting young couple ever +known. All down both sides of the table, too, are various +young ladies, beautiful to see, and various young gentlemen who +seem to think so; and there, in a post of honour, is an unmarried +aunt of Miss Emma’s, reported to possess unheard-of riches, +and to have expressed vast testamentary intentions respecting her +favourite niece and new nephew. This lady has been very +liberal and generous already, as the jewels worn by the bride +abundantly testify, but that is nothing to what she means to do, +or even to what she has done, for she put herself in close +communication with the dressmaker three months ago, and prepared +a wardrobe (with some articles worked by her own hands) fit for a +Princess. People may call her an old maid, and so she may +be, but she is neither cross nor ugly for all that; on the +contrary, she is very cheerful and pleasant-looking, and very +kind and tender-hearted: which is no matter of surprise except to +those who yield to popular prejudices without thinking why, and +will never grow wiser and never know better.</p> +<p>Of all the company though, none are more pleasant to behold or +better pleased with themselves than two young children, who, in +honour of the day, have seats among the guests. Of these, +one is a little fellow of six or eight years old, brother to the +bride,—and the other a girl of the same age, or something +younger, whom he calls ‘his wife.’ The real +bride and bridegroom are not more devoted than they: he all love +and attention, and she all blushes and fondness, toying with a +little bouquet which he gave her this morning, and placing the +scattered rose-leaves in her bosom with nature’s own +coquettishness. They have dreamt of each other in their +quiet dreams, these children, and their little hearts have been +nearly broken when the absent one has been dispraised in +jest. When will there come in after-life a passion so +earnest, generous, and true as theirs; what, even in its gentlest +realities, can have the grace and charm that hover round such +fairy lovers!</p> +<p>By this time the merriment and happiness of the feast have +gained their height; certain ominous looks begin to be exchanged +between the bridesmaids, and somehow it gets whispered about that +the carriage which is to take the young couple into the country +has arrived. Such members of the party as are most disposed +to prolong its enjoyments, affect to consider this a false alarm, +but it turns out too true, being speedily confirmed, first by the +retirement of the bride and a select file of intimates who are to +prepare her for the journey, and secondly by the withdrawal of +the ladies generally. To this there ensues a particularly +awkward pause, in which everybody essays to be facetious, and +nobody succeeds; at length the bridegroom makes a mysterious +disappearance in obedience to some equally mysterious signal; and +the table is deserted.</p> +<p>Now, for at least six weeks last past it has been solemnly +devised and settled that the young couple should go away in +secret; but they no sooner appear without the door than the +drawing-room windows are blocked up with ladies waving their +handkerchiefs and kissing their hands, and the dining-room panes +with gentlemen’s faces beaming farewell in every queer +variety of its expression. The hall and steps are crowded +with servants in white favours, mixed up with particular friends +and relations who have darted out to say good-bye; and foremost +in the group are the tiny lovers arm in arm, thinking, with +fluttering hearts, what happiness it would be to dash away +together in that gallant coach, and never part again.</p> +<p>The bride has barely time for one hurried glance at her old +home, when the steps rattle, the door slams, the horses clatter +on the pavement, and they have left it far away.</p> +<p>A knot of women servants still remain clustered in the hall, +whispering among themselves, and there of course is Anne from +number six, who has made another escape on some plea or other, +and been an admiring witness of the departure. There are +two points on which Anne expatiates over and over again, without +the smallest appearance of fatigue or intending to leave off; one +is, that she ‘never see in all her life such a—oh +such a angel of a gentleman as Mr. Harvey’—and the +other, that she ‘can’t tell how it is, but it +don’t seem a bit like a work-a-day, or a Sunday +neither—it’s all so unsettled and +unregular.’</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/p454b.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Departure of the Young Couple" +title= +"Departure of the Young Couple" + src="images/p454s.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<h2><a name="page455"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 455</span>THE +FORMAL COUPLE</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">The</span> formal couple are the most +prim, cold, immovable, and unsatisfactory people on the face of +the earth. Their faces, voices, dress, house, furniture, +walk, and manner, are all the essence of formality, unrelieved by +one redeeming touch of frankness, heartiness, or nature.</p> +<p>Everything with the formal couple resolves itself into a +matter of form. They don’t call upon you on your +account, but their own; not to see how you are, but to show how +they are: it is not a ceremony to do honour to you, but to +themselves,—not due to your position, but to theirs. +If one of a friend’s children die, the formal couple are as +sure and punctual in sending to the house as the undertaker; if a +friend’s family be increased, the monthly nurse is not more +attentive than they. The formal couple, in fact, joyfully +seize all occasions of testifying their good-breeding and precise +observance of the little usages of society; and for you, who are +the means to this end, they care as much as a man does for the +tailor who has enabled him to cut a figure, or a woman for the +milliner who has assisted her to a conquest.</p> +<p>Having an extensive connexion among that kind of people who +make acquaintances and eschew friends, the formal gentleman +attends from time to time a great many funerals, to which he is +formally invited, and to which he formally goes, as returning a +call for the last time. Here his deportment is of the most +faultless description; he knows the exact pitch of voice it is +proper to assume, the sombre look he ought to wear, the +melancholy tread which should be his gait for the day. He +is perfectly acquainted with all the dreary courtesies to be +observed in a mourning-coach; knows when to sigh, and when to +hide his nose in the white handkerchief; and looks into the grave +and shakes his head when the ceremony is concluded, with the sad +formality of a mute.</p> +<p>‘What kind of funeral was it?’ says the formal +lady, when he returns home. ‘Oh!’ replies the +formal gentleman, ‘there never was such a gross and +disgusting impropriety; there were no feathers.’ +‘No feathers!’ cries the lady, as if on wings of +black feathers dead people fly to Heaven, and, lacking them, they +must of necessity go elsewhere. Her husband shakes his +head; and further adds, that they had seed-cake instead of +plum-cake, and that it was all white wine. ‘All white +wine!’ exclaims his wife. ‘Nothing but sherry +and madeira,’ says the husband. ‘What! no +port?’ ‘Not a drop.’ No port, no +plums, and no feathers! ‘You will recollect, my +dear,’ says the formal lady, in a voice of stately reproof, +‘that when we first met this poor man who is now dead and +gone, and he took that very strange course of addressing me at +dinner without being previously introduced, I ventured to express +my opinion that the family were quite ignorant of etiquette, and +very imperfectly acquainted with the decencies of life. You +have now had a good opportunity of judging for yourself, and all +I have to say is, that I trust you will never go to a funeral +<i>there</i> again.’ ‘My dear,’ replies +the formal gentleman, ‘I never will.’ So the +informal deceased is cut in his grave; and the formal couple, +when they tell the story of the funeral, shake their heads, and +wonder what some people’s feelings <i>are</i> made of, and +what their notions of propriety <i>can</i> be!</p> +<p>If the formal couple have a family (which they sometimes +have), they are not children, but little, pale, sour, sharp-nosed +men and women; and so exquisitely brought up, that they might be +very old dwarfs for anything that appeareth to the +contrary. Indeed, they are so acquainted with forms and +conventionalities, and conduct themselves with such strict +decorum, that to see the little girl break a looking-glass in +some wild outbreak, or the little boy kick his parents, would be +to any visitor an unspeakable relief and consolation.</p> +<p>The formal couple are always sticklers for what is rigidly +proper, and have a great readiness in detecting hidden +impropriety of speech or thought, which by less scrupulous people +would be wholly unsuspected. Thus, if they pay a visit to +the theatre, they sit all night in a perfect agony lest anything +improper or immoral should proceed from the stage; and if +anything should happen to be said which admits of a double +construction, they never fail to take it up directly, and to +express by their looks the great outrage which their feelings +have sustained. Perhaps this is their chief reason for +absenting themselves almost entirely from places of public +amusement. They go sometimes to the Exhibition of the Royal +Academy;—but that is often more shocking than the stage +itself, and the formal lady thinks that it really is high time +Mr. Etty was prosecuted and made a public example of.</p> +<p>We made one at a christening party not long since, where there +were amongst the guests a formal couple, who suffered the acutest +torture from certain jokes, incidental to such an occasion, +cut—and very likely dried also—by one of the +godfathers; a red-faced elderly gentleman, who, being highly +popular with the rest of the company, had it all his own way, and +was in great spirits. It was at supper-time that this +gentleman came out in full force. We—being of a grave +and quiet demeanour—had been chosen to escort the formal +lady down-stairs, and, sitting beside her, had a favourable +opportunity of observing her emotions.</p> +<p>We have a shrewd suspicion that, in the very beginning, and in +the first blush—literally the first blush—of the +matter, the formal lady had not felt quite certain whether the +being present at such a ceremony, and encouraging, as it were, +the public exhibition of a baby, was not an act involving some +degree of indelicacy and impropriety; but certain we are that +when that baby’s health was drunk, and allusions were made, +by a grey-headed gentleman proposing it, to the time when he had +dandled in his arms the young Christian’s +mother,—certain we are that then the formal lady took the +alarm, and recoiled from the old gentleman as from a hoary +profligate. Still she bore it; she fanned herself with an +indignant air, but still she bore it. A comic song was +sung, involving a confession from some imaginary gentleman that +he had kissed a female, and yet the formal lady bore it. +But when at last, the health of the godfather before-mentioned +being drunk, the godfather rose to return thanks, and in the +course of his observations darkly hinted at babies yet unborn, +and even contemplated the possibility of the subject of that +festival having brothers and sisters, the formal lady could +endure no more, but, bowing slightly round, and sweeping +haughtily past the offender, left the room in tears, under the +protection of the formal gentleman.</p> +<h2><a name="page458"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 458</span>THE +LOVING COUPLE</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">There</span> cannot be a better practical +illustration of the wise saw and ancient instance, that there may +be too much of a good thing, than is presented by a loving +couple. Undoubtedly it is meet and proper that two persons +joined together in holy matrimony should be loving, and +unquestionably it is pleasant to know and see that they are so; +but there is a time for all things, and the couple who happen to +be always in a loving state before company, are well-nigh +intolerable.</p> +<p>And in taking up this position we would have it distinctly +understood that we do not seek alone the sympathy of bachelors, +in whose objection to loving couples we recognise interested +motives and personal considerations. We grant that to that +unfortunate class of society there may be something very +irritating, tantalising, and provoking, in being compelled to +witness those gentle endearments and chaste interchanges which to +loving couples are quite the ordinary business of life. But +while we recognise the natural character of the prejudice to +which these unhappy men are subject, we can neither receive their +biassed evidence, nor address ourself to their inflamed and +angered minds. Dispassionate experience is our only guide; +and in these moral essays we seek no less to reform hymeneal +offenders than to hold out a timely warning to all rising +couples, and even to those who have not yet set forth upon their +pilgrimage towards the matrimonial market.</p> +<p>Let all couples, present or to come, therefore profit by the +example of Mr. and Mrs. Leaver, themselves a loving couple in the +first degree.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/p458b.jpg"> +<img alt= +"The Loving Couple" +title= +"The Loving Couple" + src="images/p458s.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>Mr. and Mrs. Leaver are pronounced by Mrs. Starling, a widow +lady who lost her husband when she was young, and lost herself +about the same-time—for by her own count she has never +since grown five years older—to be a perfect model of +wedded felicity. ‘You would suppose,’ says the +romantic lady, ‘that they were lovers only just now +engaged. Never was such happiness! They are so +tender, so affectionate, so attached to each other, so enamoured, +that positively nothing can be more charming!’</p> +<p>‘Augusta, my soul,’ says Mr. Leaver. +‘Augustus, my life,’ replies Mrs. Leaver. +‘Sing some little ballad, darling,’ quoth Mr. +Leaver. ‘I couldn’t, indeed, dearest,’ +returns Mrs. Leaver. ‘Do, my dove,’ says Mr. +Leaver. ‘I couldn’t possibly, my love,’ +replies Mrs. Leaver; ‘and it’s very naughty of you to +ask me.’ ‘Naughty, darling!’ cries Mr. +Leaver. ‘Yes, very naughty, and very cruel,’ +returns Mrs. Leaver, ‘for you know I have a sore throat, +and that to sing would give me great pain. You’re a +monster, and I hate you. Go away!’ Mrs. Leaver +has said ‘go away,’ because Mr. Leaver has tapped her +under the chin: Mr. Leaver not doing as he is bid, but on the +contrary, sitting down beside her, Mrs. Leaver slaps Mr. Leaver; +and Mr. Leaver in return slaps Mrs. Leaver, and it being now time +for all persons present to look the other way, they look the +other way, and hear a still small sound as of kissing, at which +Mrs. Starling is thoroughly enraptured, and whispers her +neighbour that if all married couples were like that, what a +heaven this earth would be!</p> +<p>The loving couple are at home when this occurs, and maybe only +three or four friends are present, but, unaccustomed to reserve +upon this interesting point, they are pretty much the same +abroad. Indeed upon some occasions, such as a pic-nic or a +water-party, their lovingness is even more developed, as we had +an opportunity last summer of observing in person.</p> +<p>There was a great water-party made up to go to Twickenham and +dine, and afterwards dance in an empty villa by the river-side, +hired expressly for the purpose. Mr. and Mrs. Leaver were +of the company; and it was our fortune to have a seat in the same +boat, which was an eight-oared galley, manned by amateurs, with a +blue striped awning of the same pattern as their Guernsey shirts, +and a dingy red flag of the same shade as the whiskers of the +stroke oar. A coxswain being appointed, and all other +matters adjusted, the eight gentlemen threw themselves into +strong paroxysms, and pulled up with the tide, stimulated by the +compassionate remarks of the ladies, who one and all exclaimed, +that it seemed an immense exertion—as indeed it did. +At first we raced the other boat, which came alongside in gallant +style; but this being found an unpleasant amusement, as giving +rise to a great quantity of splashing, and rendering the cold +pies and other viands very moist, it was unanimously voted down, +and we were suffered to shoot a-head, while the second boat +followed ingloriously in our wake.</p> +<p>It was at this time that we first recognised Mr. Leaver. +There were two firemen-watermen in the boat, lying by until +somebody was exhausted; and one of them, who had taken upon +himself the direction of affairs, was heard to cry in a gruff +voice, ‘Pull away, number two—give it her, number +two—take a longer reach, number two—now, number two, +sir, think you’re winning a boat.’ The greater +part of the company had no doubt begun to wonder which of the +striped Guernseys it might be that stood in need of such +encouragement, when a stifled shriek from Mrs. Leaver confirmed +the doubtful and informed the ignorant; and Mr. Leaver, still +further disguised in a straw hat and no neckcloth, was observed +to be in a fearful perspiration, and failing visibly. Nor +was the general consternation diminished at this instant by the +same gentleman (in the performance of an accidental aquatic feat, +termed ‘catching a crab’) plunging suddenly backward, +and displaying nothing of himself to the company, but two +violently struggling legs. Mrs. Leaver shrieked again +several times, and cried piteously—‘Is he dead? +Tell me the worst. Is he dead?’</p> +<p>Now, a moment’s reflection might have convinced the +loving wife, that unless her husband were endowed with some most +surprising powers of muscular action, he never could be dead +while he kicked so hard; but still Mrs. Leaver cried, ‘Is +he dead? is he dead?’ and still everybody else +cried—‘No, no, no,’ until such time as Mr. +Leaver was replaced in a sitting posture, and his oar (which had +been going through all kinds of wrong-headed performances on its +own account) was once more put in his hand, by the exertions of +the two firemen-watermen. Mr. Leaver then exclaimed, +‘Augustus, my child, come to me;’ and Mr. Leaver +said, ‘Augusta, my love, compose yourself, I am not +injured.’ But Mrs. Leaver cried again more piteously +than before, ‘Augustus, my child, come to me;’ and +now the company generally, who seemed to be apprehensive that if +Mr. Leaver remained where he was, he might contribute more than +his proper share towards the drowning of the party, +disinterestedly took part with Mrs. Leaver, and said he really +ought to go, and that he was not strong enough for such violent +exercise, and ought never to have undertaken it. +Reluctantly, Mr. Leaver went, and laid himself down at Mrs. +Leaver’s feet, and Mrs. Leaver stooping over him, said, +‘Oh Augustus, how could you terrify me so?’ and Mr. +Leaver said, ‘Augusta, my sweet, I never meant to terrify +you;’ and Mrs. Leaver said, ‘You are faint, my +dear;’ and Mr. Leaver said, ‘I am rather so, my +love;’ and they were very loving indeed under Mrs. +Leaver’s veil, until at length Mr. Leaver came forth again, +and pleasantly asked if he had not heard something said about +bottled stout and sandwiches.</p> +<p>Mrs. Starling, who was one of the party, was perfectly +delighted with this scene, and frequently murmured half-aside, +‘What a loving couple you are!’ or ‘How +delightful it is to see man and wife so happy +together!’ To us she was quite poetical, (for we are +a kind of cousins,) observing that hearts beating in unison like +that made life a paradise of sweets; and that when kindred +creatures were drawn together by sympathies so fine and delicate, +what more than mortal happiness did not our souls partake! +To all this we answered ‘Certainly,’ or ‘Very +true,’ or merely sighed, as the case might be. At +every new act of the loving couple, the widow’s admiration +broke out afresh; and when Mrs. Leaver would not permit Mr. +Leaver to keep his hat off, lest the sun should strike to his +head, and give him a brain fever, Mrs. Starling actually shed +tears, and said it reminded her of Adam and Eve.</p> +<p>The loving couple were thus loving all the way to Twickenham, +but when we arrived there (by which time the amateur crew looked +very thirsty and vicious) they were more playful than ever, for +Mrs. Leaver threw stones at Mr. Leaver, and Mr. Leaver ran after +Mrs. Leaver on the grass, in a most innocent and enchanting +manner. At dinner, too, Mr. Leaver <i>would</i> steal Mrs. +Leaver’s tongue, and Mrs. Leaver <i>would</i> retaliate +upon Mr. Leaver’s fowl; and when Mrs. Leaver was going to +take some lobster salad, Mr. Leaver wouldn’t let her have +any, saying that it made her ill, and she was always sorry for it +afterwards, which afforded Mrs. Leaver an opportunity of +pretending to be cross, and showing many other +prettinesses. But this was merely the smiling surface of +their loves, not the mighty depths of the stream, down to which +the company, to say the truth, dived rather unexpectedly, from +the following accident. It chanced that Mr. Leaver took +upon himself to propose the bachelors who had first originated +the notion of that entertainment, in doing which, he affected to +regret that he was no longer of their body himself, and pretended +grievously to lament his fallen state. This Mrs. +Leaver’s feelings could not brook, even in jest, and +consequently, exclaiming aloud, ‘He loves me not, he loves +me not!’ she fell in a very pitiable state into the arms of +Mrs. Starling, and, directly becoming insensible, was conveyed by +that lady and her husband into another room. Presently Mr. +Leaver came running back to know if there was a medical gentleman +in company, and as there was, (in what company is there not?) +both Mr. Leaver and the medical gentleman hurried away +together.</p> +<p>The medical gentleman was the first who returned, and among +his intimate friends he was observed to laugh and wink, and look +as unmedical as might be; but when Mr. Leaver came back he was +very solemn, and in answer to all inquiries, shook his head, and +remarked that Augusta was far too sensitive to be trifled +with—an opinion which the widow subsequently +confirmed. Finding that she was in no imminent peril, +however, the rest of the party betook themselves to dancing on +the green, and very merry and happy they were, and a vast +quantity of flirtation there was; the last circumstance being no +doubt attributable, partly to the fineness of the weather, and +partly to the locality, which is well known to be favourable to +all harmless recreations.</p> +<p>In the bustle of the scene, Mr. and Mrs. Leaver stole down to +the boat, and disposed themselves under the awning, Mrs. Leaver +reclining her head upon Mr. Leaver’s shoulder, and Mr. +Leaver grasping her hand with great fervour, and looking in her +face from time to time with a melancholy and sympathetic +aspect. The widow sat apart, feigning to be occupied with a +book, but stealthily observing them from behind her fan; and the +two firemen-watermen, smoking their pipes on the bank hard by, +nudged each other, and grinned in enjoyment of the joke. +Very few of the party missed the loving couple; and the few who +did, heartily congratulated each other on their +disappearance.</p> +<h2><a name="page463"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 463</span>THE +CONTRADICTORY COUPLE</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">One</span> would suppose that two people +who are to pass their whole lives together, and must necessarily +be very often alone with each other, could find little pleasure +in mutual contradiction; and yet what is more common than a +contradictory couple?</p> +<p>The contradictory couple agree in nothing but +contradiction. They return home from Mrs. +Bluebottle’s dinner-party, each in an opposite corner of +the coach, and do not exchange a syllable until they have been +seated for at least twenty minutes by the fireside at home, when +the gentleman, raising his eyes from the stove, all at once +breaks silence:</p> +<p>‘What a very extraordinary thing it is,’ says he, +‘that you <i>will</i> contradict, Charlotte!’ +‘<i>I</i> contradict!’ cries the lady, ‘but +that’s just like you.’ ‘What’s like +me?’ says the gentleman sharply. ‘Saying that I +contradict you,’ replies the lady. ‘Do you mean +to say that you do <i>not</i> contradict me?’ retorts the +gentleman; ‘do you mean to say that you have not been +contradicting me the whole of this day?’ ‘Do +you mean to tell me now, that you have not? I mean to tell +you nothing of the kind,’ replies the lady quietly; +‘when you are wrong, of course I shall contradict +you.’</p> +<p>During this dialogue the gentleman has been taking his +brandy-and-water on one side of the fire, and the lady, with her +dressing-case on the table, has been curling her hair on the +other. She now lets down her back hair, and proceeds to +brush it; preserving at the same time an air of conscious +rectitude and suffering virtue, which is intended to exasperate +the gentleman—and does so.</p> +<p>‘I do believe,’ he says, taking the spoon out of +his glass, and tossing it on the table, ‘that of all the +obstinate, positive, wrong-headed creatures that were ever born, +you are the most so, Charlotte.’ ‘Certainly, +certainly, have it your own way, pray. You see how much +<i>I</i> contradict you,’ rejoins the lady. ‘Of +course, you didn’t contradict me at dinner-time—oh +no, not you!’ says the gentleman. ‘Yes, I +did,’ says the lady. ‘Oh, you did,’ cries +the gentleman ‘you admit that?’ ‘If you +call that contradiction, I do,’ the lady answers; +‘and I say again, Edward, that when I know you are wrong, I +will contradict you. I am not your slave.’ +‘Not my slave!’ repeats the gentleman bitterly; +‘and you still mean to say that in the Blackburns’ +new house there are not more than fourteen doors, including the +door of the wine-cellar!’ ‘I mean to +say,’ retorts the lady, beating time with her hair-brush on +the palm of her hand, ‘that in that house there are +fourteen doors and no more.’ ‘Well +then—’ cries the gentleman, rising in despair, and +pacing the room with rapid strides. ‘By G-, this is +enough to destroy a man’s intellect, and drive him +mad!’</p> +<p>By and by the gentleman comes-to a little, and passing his +hand gloomily across his forehead, reseats himself in his former +chair. There is a long silence, and this time the lady +begins. ‘I appealed to Mr. Jenkins, who sat next to +me on the sofa in the drawing-room during tea—’ +‘Morgan, you mean,’ interrupts the gentleman. +‘I do not mean anything of the kind,’ answers the +lady. ‘Now, by all that is aggravating and impossible +to bear,’ cries the gentleman, clenching his hands and +looking upwards in agony, ‘she is going to insist upon it +that Morgan is Jenkins!’ ‘Do you take me for a +perfect fool?’ exclaims the lady; ‘do you suppose I +don’t know the one from the other? Do you suppose I +don’t know that the man in the blue coat was Mr. +Jenkins?’ ‘Jenkins in a blue coat!’ cries +the gentleman with a groan; ‘Jenkins in a blue coat! a man +who would suffer death rather than wear anything but +brown!’ ‘Do you dare to charge me with telling +an untruth?’ demands the lady, bursting into tears. +‘I charge you, ma’am,’ retorts the gentleman, +starting up, ‘with being a monster of contradiction, a +monster of aggravation, a—a—a—Jenkins in a blue +coat!—what have I done that I should be doomed to hear such +statements!’</p> +<p>Expressing himself with great scorn and anguish, the gentleman +takes up his candle and stalks off to bed, where feigning to be +fast asleep when the lady comes up-stairs drowned in tears, +murmuring lamentations over her hard fate and indistinct +intentions of consulting her brothers, he undergoes the secret +torture of hearing her exclaim between whiles, ‘I know +there are only fourteen doors in the house, I know it was Mr. +Jenkins, I know he had a blue coat on, and I would say it as +positively as I do now, if they were the last words I had to +speak!’</p> +<p>If the contradictory couple are blessed with children, they +are not the less contradictory on that account. Master +James and Miss Charlotte present themselves after dinner, and +being in perfect good humour, and finding their parents in the +same amiable state, augur from these appearances half a glass of +wine a-piece and other extraordinary indulgences. But +unfortunately Master James, growing talkative upon such +prospects, asks his mamma how tall Mrs. Parsons is, and whether +she is not six feet high; to which his mamma replies, ‘Yes, +she should think she was, for Mrs. Parsons is a very tall lady +indeed; quite a giantess.’ ‘For Heaven’s +sake, Charlotte,’ cries her husband, ‘do not tell the +child such preposterous nonsense. Six feet +high!’ ‘Well,’ replies the lady, +‘surely I may be permitted to have an opinion; my opinion +is, that she is six feet high—at least six +feet.’ ‘Now you know, Charlotte,’ retorts +the gentleman sternly, ‘that that is <i>not</i> your +opinion—that you have no such idea—and that you only +say this for the sake of contradiction.’ ‘You +are exceedingly polite,’ his wife replies; ‘to be +wrong about such a paltry question as anybody’s height, +would be no great crime; but I say again, that I believe Mrs. +Parsons to be six feet—more than six feet; nay, I believe +you know her to be full six feet, and only say she is not, +because I say she is.’ This taunt disposes the +gentleman to become violent, but he cheeks himself, and is +content to mutter, in a haughty tone, ‘Six feet—ha! +ha! Mrs. Parsons six feet!’ and the lady answers, +‘Yes, six feet. I am sure I am glad you are amused, +and I’ll say it again—six feet.’ Thus the +subject gradually drops off, and the contradiction begins to be +forgotten, when Master James, with some undefined notion of +making himself agreeable, and putting things to rights again, +unfortunately asks his mamma what the moon’s made of; which +gives her occasion to say that he had better not ask her, for she +is always wrong and never can be right; that he only exposes her +to contradiction by asking any question of her; and that he had +better ask his papa, who is infallible, and never can be +wrong. Papa, smarting under this attack, gives a terrible +pull at the bell, and says, that if the conversation is to +proceed in this way, the children had better be removed. +Removed they are, after a few tears and many struggles; and Pa +having looked at Ma sideways for a minute or two, with a baleful +eye, draws his pocket-handkerchief over his face, and composes +himself for his after-dinner nap.</p> +<p>The friends of the contradictory couple often deplore their +frequent disputes, though they rather make light of them at the +same time: observing, that there is no doubt they are very much +attached to each other, and that they never quarrel except about +trifles. But neither the friends of the contradictory +couple, nor the contradictory couple themselves, reflect, that as +the most stupendous objects in nature are but vast collections of +minute particles, so the slightest and least considered trifles +make up the sum of human happiness or misery.</p> +<h2><a name="page466"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 466</span>THE +COUPLE WHO DOTE UPON THEIR CHILDREN</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">The</span> couple who dote upon their +children have usually a great many of them: six or eight at +least. The children are either the healthiest in all the +world, or the most unfortunate in existence. In either +case, they are equally the theme of their doting parents, and +equally a source of mental anguish and irritation to their doting +parents’ friends.</p> +<p>The couple who dote upon their children recognise no dates but +those connected with their births, accidents, illnesses, or +remarkable deeds. They keep a mental almanack with a vast +number of Innocents’-days, all in red letters. They +recollect the last coronation, because on that day little Tom +fell down the kitchen stairs; the anniversary of the Gunpowder +Plot, because it was on the fifth of November that Ned asked +whether wooden legs were made in heaven and cocked hats grew in +gardens. Mrs. Whiffler will never cease to recollect the +last day of the old year as long as she lives, for it was on that +day that the baby had the four red spots on its nose which they +took for measles: nor Christmas-day, for twenty-one days after +Christmas-day the twins were born; nor Good Friday, for it was on +a Good Friday that she was frightened by the donkey-cart when she +was in the family way with Georgiana. The movable feasts +have no motion for Mr. and Mrs. Whiffler, but remain pinned down +tight and fast to the shoulders of some small child, from whom +they can never be separated any more. Time was made, +according to their creed, not for slaves but for girls and boys; +the restless sands in his glass are but little children at +play.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/p466b.jpg"> +<img alt= +"The Couple who Dote upon their Children" +title= +"The Couple who Dote upon their Children" + src="images/p466s.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>As we have already intimated, the children of this couple can +know no medium. They are either prodigies of good health or +prodigies of bad health; whatever they are, they must be +prodigies. Mr. Whiffler must have to describe at his office +such excruciating agonies constantly undergone by his eldest boy, +as nobody else’s eldest boy ever underwent; or he must be +able to declare that there never was a child endowed with such +amazing health, such an indomitable constitution, and such a +cast-iron frame, as his child. His children must be, in +some respect or other, above and beyond the children of all other +people. To such an extent is this feeling pushed, that we +were once slightly acquainted with a lady and gentleman who +carried their heads so high and became so proud after their +youngest child fell out of a two-pair-of-stairs window without +hurting himself much, that the greater part of their friends were +obliged to forego their acquaintance. But perhaps this may +be an extreme case, and one not justly entitled to be considered +as a precedent of general application.</p> +<p>If a friend happen to dine in a friendly way with one of these +couples who dote upon their children, it is nearly impossible for +him to divert the conversation from their favourite topic. +Everything reminds Mr. Whiffler of Ned, or Mrs. Whiffler of Mary +Anne, or of the time before Ned was born, or the time before Mary +Anne was thought of. The slightest remark, however harmless +in itself, will awaken slumbering recollections of the +twins. It is impossible to steer clear of them. They +will come uppermost, let the poor man do what he may. Ned +has been known to be lost sight of for half an hour, Dick has +been forgotten, the name of Mary Anne has not been mentioned, but +the twins will out. Nothing can keep down the twins.</p> +<p>‘It’s a very extraordinary thing, Saunders,’ +says Mr. Whiffler to the visitor, ‘but—you have seen +our little babies, the—the—twins?’ The +friend’s heart sinks within him as he answers, ‘Oh, +yes—often.’ ‘Your talking of the +Pyramids,’ says Mr. Whiffler, quite as a matter of course, +‘reminds me of the twins. It’s a very +extraordinary thing about those babies—what colour should +you say their eyes were?’ ‘Upon my word,’ +the friend stammers, ‘I hardly know how to +answer’—the fact being, that except as the friend +does not remember to have heard of any departure from the +ordinary course of nature in the instance of these twins, they +might have no eyes at all for aught he has observed to the +contrary. ‘You wouldn’t say they were red, I +suppose?’ says Mr. Whiffler. The friend hesitates, +and rather thinks they are; but inferring from the expression of +Mr. Whiffler’s face that red is not the colour, smiles with +some confidence, and says, ‘No, no! very different from +that.’ ‘What should you say to blue?’ +says Mr. Whiffler. The friend glances at him, and observing +a different expression in his face, ventures to say, ‘I +should say they <i>were</i> blue—a decided +blue.’ ‘To be sure!’ cries Mr. Whiffler, +triumphantly, ‘I knew you would! But what should you +say if I was to tell you that the boy’s eyes are blue and +the girl’s hazel, eh?’ +‘Impossible!’ exclaims the friend, not at all knowing +why it should be impossible. ‘A fact, +notwithstanding,’ cries Mr. Whiffler; ‘and let me +tell you, Saunders, <i>that’s</i> not a common thing in +twins, or a circumstance that’ll happen every +day.’</p> +<p>In this dialogue Mrs. Whiffler, as being deeply responsible +for the twins, their charms and singularities, has taken no +share; but she now relates, in broken English, a witticism of +little Dick’s bearing upon the subject just discussed, +which delights Mr. Whiffler beyond measure, and causes him to +declare that he would have sworn that was Dick’s if he had +heard it anywhere. Then he requests that Mrs. Whiffler will +tell Saunders what Tom said about mad bulls; and Mrs. Whiffler +relating the anecdote, a discussion ensues upon the different +character of Tom’s wit and Dick’s wit, from which it +appears that Dick’s humour is of a lively turn, while +Tom’s style is the dry and caustic. This discussion +being enlivened by various illustrations, lasts a long time, and +is only stopped by Mrs. Whiffler instructing the footman to ring +the nursery bell, as the children were promised that they should +come down and taste the pudding.</p> +<p>The friend turns pale when this order is given, and paler +still when it is followed up by a great pattering on the +staircase, (not unlike the sound of rain upon a skylight,) a +violent bursting open of the dining-room door, and the tumultuous +appearance of six small children, closely succeeded by a strong +nursery-maid with a twin in each arm. As the whole eight +are screaming, shouting, or kicking—some influenced by a +ravenous appetite, some by a horror of the stranger, and some by +a conflict of the two feelings—a pretty long space elapses +before all their heads can be ranged round the table and anything +like order restored; in bringing about which happy state of +things both the nurse and footman are severely scratched. +At length Mrs. Whiffler is heard to say, ‘Mr. Saunders, +shall I give you some pudding?’ A breathless silence +ensues, and sixteen small eyes are fixed upon the guest in +expectation of his reply. A wild shout of joy proclaims +that he has said ‘No, thank you.’ Spoons are +waved in the air, legs appear above the table-cloth in +uncontrollable ecstasy, and eighty short fingers dabble in damson +syrup.</p> +<p>While the pudding is being disposed of, Mr. and Mrs. Whiffler +look on with beaming countenances, and Mr. Whiffler nudging his +friend Saunders, begs him to take notice of Tom’s eyes, or +Dick’s chin, or Ned’s nose, or Mary Anne’s +hair, or Emily’s figure, or little Bob’s calves, or +Fanny’s mouth, or Carry’s head, as the case may +be. Whatever the attention of Mr. Saunders is called to, +Mr. Saunders admires of course; though he is rather confused +about the sex of the youngest branches and looks at the wrong +children, turning to a girl when Mr. Whiffler directs his +attention to a boy, and falling into raptures with a boy when he +ought to be enchanted with a girl. Then the dessert comes, +and there is a vast deal of scrambling after fruit, and sudden +spirting forth of juice out of tight oranges into infant eyes, +and much screeching and wailing in consequence. At length +it becomes time for Mrs. Whiffler to retire, and all the children +are by force of arms compelled to kiss and love Mr. Saunders +before going up-stairs, except Tom, who, lying on his back in the +hall, proclaims that Mr. Saunders ‘is a naughty +beast;’ and Dick, who having drunk his father’s wine +when he was looking another way, is found to be intoxicated and +is carried out, very limp and helpless.</p> +<p>Mr. Whiffler and his friend are left alone together, but Mr. +Whiffler’s thoughts are still with his family, if his +family are not with him. ‘Saunders,’ says he, +after a short silence, ‘if you please, we’ll drink +Mrs. Whiffler and the children.’ Mr. Saunders feels +this to be a reproach against himself for not proposing the same +sentiment, and drinks it in some confusion. +‘Ah!’ Mr. Whiffler sighs, ‘these children, +Saunders, make one quite an old man.’ Mr. Saunders +thinks that if they were his, they would make him a very old man; +but he says nothing. ‘And yet,’ pursues Mr. +Whiffler, ‘what can equal domestic happiness? what can +equal the engaging ways of children! Saunders, why +don’t you get married?’ Now, this is an +embarrassing question, because Mr. Saunders has been thinking +that if he had at any time entertained matrimonial designs, the +revelation of that day would surely have routed them for +ever. ‘I am glad, however,’ says Mr. Whiffler, +‘that you <i>are</i> a bachelor,—glad on one account, +Saunders; a selfish one, I admit. Will you do Mrs. Whiffler +and myself a favour?’ Mr. Saunders is +surprised—evidently surprised; but he replies, ‘with +the greatest pleasure.’ ‘Then, will you, +Saunders,’ says Mr. Whiffler, in an impressive manner, +‘will you cement and consolidate our friendship by coming +into the family (so to speak) as a godfather?’ +‘I shall be proud and delighted,’ replies Mr. +Saunders: ‘which of the children is it? really, I thought +they were all christened; or—’ +‘Saunders,’ Mr. Whiffler interposes, ‘they +<i>are</i> all christened; you are right. The fact is, that +Mrs. Whiffler is—in short, we expect another.’ +‘Not a ninth!’ cries the friend, all aghast at the +idea. ‘Yes, Saunders,’ rejoins Mr. Whiffler, +solemnly, ‘a ninth. Did we drink Mrs. +Whiffler’s health? Let us drink it again, Saunders, +and wish her well over it!’</p> +<p>Doctor Johnson used to tell a story of a man who had but one +idea, which was a wrong one. The couple who dote upon their +children are in the same predicament: at home or abroad, at all +times, and in all places, their thoughts are bound up in this one +subject, and have no sphere beyond. They relate the clever +things their offspring say or do, and weary every company with +their prolixity and absurdity. Mr. Whiffler takes a friend +by the button at a street corner on a windy day to tell him a +<i>bon mot</i> of his youngest boy’s; and Mrs. Whiffler, +calling to see a sick acquaintance, entertains her with a +cheerful account of all her own past sufferings and present +expectations. In such cases the sins of the fathers indeed +descend upon the children; for people soon come to regard them as +predestined little bores. The couple who dote upon their +children cannot be said to be actuated by a general love for +these engaging little people (which would be a great excuse); for +they are apt to underrate and entertain a jealousy of any +children but their own. If they examined their own hearts, +they would, perhaps, find at the bottom of all this, more +self-love and egotism than they think of. Self-love and +egotism are bad qualities, of which the unrestrained exhibition, +though it may be sometimes amusing, never fails to be wearisome +and unpleasant. Couples who dote upon their children, +therefore, are best avoided.</p> +<h2><a name="page471"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 471</span>THE +COOL COUPLE</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">There</span> is an old-fashioned +weather-glass representing a house with two doorways, in one of +which is the figure of a gentleman, in the other the figure of a +lady. When the weather is to be fine the lady comes out and +the gentleman goes in; when wet, the gentleman comes out and the +lady goes in. They never seek each other’s society, +are never elevated and depressed by the same cause, and have +nothing in common. They are the model of a cool couple, +except that there is something of politeness and consideration +about the behaviour of the gentleman in the weather-glass, in +which, neither of the cool couple can be said to participate.</p> +<p>The cool couple are seldom alone together, and when they are, +nothing can exceed their apathy and dulness: the gentleman being +for the most part drowsy, and the lady silent. If they +enter into conversation, it is usually of an ironical or +recriminatory nature. Thus, when the gentleman has indulged +in a very long yawn and settled himself more snugly in his +easy-chair, the lady will perhaps remark, ‘Well, I am sure, +Charles! I hope you’re comfortable.’ To +which the gentleman replies, ‘Oh yes, he’s quite +comfortable quite.’ ‘There are not many married +men, I hope,’ returns the lady, ‘who seek comfort in +such selfish gratifications as you do.’ ‘Nor +many wives who seek comfort in such selfish gratifications as +<i>you</i> do, I hope,’ retorts the gentleman. +‘Whose fault is that?’ demands the lady. The +gentleman becoming more sleepy, returns no answer. +‘Whose fault is that?’ the lady repeats. The +gentleman still returning no answer, she goes on to say that she +believes there never was in all this world anybody so attached to +her home, so thoroughly domestic, so unwilling to seek a +moment’s gratification or pleasure beyond her own fireside +as she. God knows that before she was married she never +thought or dreamt of such a thing; and she remembers that her +poor papa used to say again and again, almost every day of his +life, ‘Oh, my dear Louisa, if you only marry a man who +understands you, and takes the trouble to consider your happiness +and accommodate himself a very little to your disposition, what a +treasure he will find in you!’ She supposes her papa +knew what her disposition was—he had known her long +enough—he ought to have been acquainted with it, but what +can she do? If her home is always dull and lonely, and her +husband is always absent and finds no pleasure in her society, +she is naturally sometimes driven (seldom enough, she is sure) to +seek a little recreation elsewhere; she is not expected to pine +and mope to death, she hopes. ‘Then come, +Louisa,’ says the gentleman, waking up as suddenly as he +fell asleep, ‘stop at home this evening, and so will +I.’ ‘I should be sorry to suppose, Charles, +that you took a pleasure in aggravating me,’ replies the +lady; ‘but you know as well as I do that I am particularly +engaged to Mrs. Mortimer, and that it would be an act of the +grossest rudeness and ill-breeding, after accepting a seat in her +box and preventing her from inviting anybody else, not to +go.’ ‘Ah! there it is!’ says the +gentleman, shrugging his shoulders, ‘I knew that perfectly +well. I knew you couldn’t devote an evening to your +own home. Now all I have to say, Louisa, is +this—recollect that <i>I</i> was quite willing to stay at +home, and that it’s no fault of <i>mine</i> we are not +oftener together.’</p> +<p>With that the gentleman goes away to keep an old appointment +at his club, and the lady hurries off to dress for Mrs. +Mortimer’s; and neither thinks of the other until by some +odd chance they find themselves alone again.</p> +<p>But it must not be supposed that the cool couple are +habitually a quarrelsome one. Quite the contrary. +These differences are only occasions for a little +self-excuse,—nothing more. In general they are as +easy and careless, and dispute as seldom, as any common +acquaintances may; for it is neither worth their while to put +each other out of the way, nor to ruffle themselves.</p> +<p>When they meet in society, the cool couple are the best-bred +people in existence. The lady is seated in a corner among a +little knot of lady friends, one of whom exclaims, ‘Why, I +vow and declare there is your husband, my dear!’ +‘Whose?—mine?’ she says, carelessly. +‘Ay, yours, and coming this way too.’ +‘How very odd!’ says the lady, in a languid tone, +‘I thought he had been at Dover.’ The gentleman +coming up, and speaking to all the other ladies and nodding +slightly to his wife, it turns out that he has been at Dover, and +has just now returned. ‘What a strange creature you +are!’ cries his wife; ‘and what on earth brought you +here, I wonder?’ ‘I came to look after you, +<i>of course</i>,’ rejoins her husband. This is so +pleasant a jest that the lady is mightily amused, as are all the +other ladies similarly situated who are within hearing; and while +they are enjoying it to the full, the gentleman nods again, turns +upon his heel, and saunters away.</p> +<p>There are times, however, when his company is not so +agreeable, though equally unexpected; such as when the lady has +invited one or two particular friends to tea and scandal, and he +happens to come home in the very midst of their diversion. +It is a hundred chances to one that he remains in the house half +an hour, but the lady is rather disturbed by the intrusion, +notwithstanding, and reasons within herself,—‘I am +sure I never interfere with him, and why should he interfere with +me? It can scarcely be accidental; it never happens that I +have a particular reason for not wishing him to come home, but he +always comes. It’s very provoking and tiresome; and I +am sure when he leaves me so much alone for his own pleasure, the +least he could do would be to do as much for mine.’ +Observing what passes in her mind, the gentleman, who has come +home for his own accommodation, makes a merit of it with himself; +arrives at the conclusion that it is the very last place in which +he can hope to be comfortable; and determines, as he takes up his +hat and cane, never to be so virtuous again.</p> +<p>Thus a great many cool couples go on until they are cold +couples, and the grave has closed over their folly and +indifference. Loss of name, station, character, life +itself, has ensued from causes as slight as these, before now; +and when gossips tell such tales, and aggravate their +deformities, they elevate their hands and eyebrows, and call each +other to witness what a cool couple Mr. and Mrs. So-and-so always +were, even in the best of times.</p> +<h2><a name="page474"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 474</span>THE +PLAUSIBLE COUPLE</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">The</span> plausible couple have many +titles. They are ‘a delightful couple,’ an +‘affectionate couple,’ ‘a most agreeable +couple, ‘a good-hearted couple,’ and ‘the +best-natured couple in existence.’ The truth is, that +the plausible couple are people of the world; and either the way +of pleasing the world has grown much easier than it was in the +days of the old man and his ass, or the old man was but a bad +hand at it, and knew very little of the trade.</p> +<p>‘But is it really possible to please the world!’ +says some doubting reader. It is indeed. Nay, it is +not only very possible, but very easy. The ways are +crooked, and sometimes foul and low. What then? A man +need but crawl upon his hands and knees, know when to close his +eyes and when his ears, when to stoop and when to stand upright; +and if by the world is meant that atom of it in which he moves +himself, he shall please it, never fear.</p> +<p>Now, it will be readily seen, that if a plausible man or woman +have an easy means of pleasing the world by an adaptation of self +to all its twistings and twinings, a plausible man <i>and</i> +woman, or, in other words, a plausible couple, playing into each +other’s hands, and acting in concert, have a manifest +advantage. Hence it is that plausible couples scarcely ever +fail of success on a pretty large scale; and hence it is that if +the reader, laying down this unwieldy volume at the next full +stop, will have the goodness to review his or her circle of +acquaintance, and to search particularly for some man and wife +with a large connexion and a good name, not easily referable to +their abilities or their wealth, he or she (that is, the male or +female reader) will certainly find that gentleman or lady, on a +very short reflection, to be a plausible couple.</p> +<p>The plausible couple are the most ecstatic people living: the +most sensitive people—to merit—on the face of the +earth. Nothing clever or virtuous escapes them. They +have microscopic eyes for such endowments, and can find them +anywhere. The plausible couple never fawn—oh +no! They don’t even scruple to tell their friends of +their faults. One is too generous, another too candid; a +third has a tendency to think all people like himself, and to +regard mankind as a company of angels; a fourth is kind-hearted +to a fault. ‘We never flatter, my dear Mrs. +Jackson,’ say the plausible couple; ‘we speak our +minds. Neither you nor Mr. Jackson have faults +enough. It may sound strangely, but it is true. You +have not faults enough. You know our way,—we must +speak out, and always do. Quarrel with us for saying so, if +you will; but we repeat it,—you have not faults +enough!’</p> +<p>The plausible couple are no less plausible to each other than +to third parties. They are always loving and +harmonious. The plausible gentleman calls his wife +‘darling,’ and the plausible lady addresses him as +‘dearest.’ If it be Mr. and Mrs. Bobtail +Widger, Mrs. Widger is ‘Lavinia, darling,’ and Mr. +Widger is ‘Bobtail, dearest.’ Speaking of each +other, they observe the same tender form. Mrs. Widger +relates what ‘Bobtail’ said, and Mr. Widger recounts +what ‘darling’ thought and did.</p> +<p>If you sit next to the plausible lady at a dinner-table, she +takes the earliest opportunity of expressing her belief that you +are acquainted with the Clickits; she is sure she has heard the +Clickits speak of you—she must not tell you in what terms, +or you will take her for a flatterer. You admit a knowledge +of the Clickits; the plausible lady immediately launches out in +their praise. She quite loves the Clickits. Were +there ever such true-hearted, hospitable, excellent +people—such a gentle, interesting little woman as Mrs. +Clickit, or such a frank, unaffected creature as Mr. Clickit? +were there ever two people, in short, so little spoiled by the +world as they are? ‘As who, darling?’ cries Mr. +Widger, from the opposite side of the table. ‘The +Clickits, dearest,’ replies Mrs. Widger. +‘Indeed you are right, darling,’ Mr. Widger rejoins; +‘the Clickits are a very high-minded, worthy, estimable +couple.’ Mrs. Widger remarking that Bobtail always +grows quite eloquent upon this subject, Mr. Widger admits that he +feels very strongly whenever such people as the Clickits and some +other friends of his (here he glances at the host and hostess) +are mentioned; for they are an honour to human nature, and do one +good to think of. ‘<i>You</i> know the Clickits, Mrs. +Jackson?’ he says, addressing the lady of the house. +‘No, indeed; we have not that pleasure,’ she +replies. ‘You astonish me!’ exclaims Mr. +Widger: ‘not know the Clickits! why, you are the very +people of all others who ought to be their bosom friends. +You are kindred beings; you are one and the same thing:—not +know the Clickits! Now <i>will</i> you know the +Clickits? Will you make a point of knowing them? Will +you meet them in a friendly way at our house one evening, and be +acquainted with them?’ Mrs. Jackson will be quite +delighted; nothing would give her more pleasure. +‘Then, Lavinia, my darling,’ says Mr. Widger, +‘mind you don’t lose sight of that; now, pray take +care that Mr. and Mrs. Jackson know the Clickits without loss of +time. Such people ought not to be strangers to each +other.’ Mrs. Widger books both families as the centre +of attraction for her next party; and Mr. Widger, going on to +expatiate upon the virtues of the Clickits, adds to their other +moral qualities, that they keep one of the neatest phaetons in +town, and have two thousand a year.</p> +<p>As the plausible couple never laud the merits of any absent +person, without dexterously contriving that their praises shall +reflect upon somebody who is present, so they never depreciate +anything or anybody, without turning their depreciation to the +same account. Their friend, Mr. Slummery, say they, is +unquestionably a clever painter, and would no doubt be very +popular, and sell his pictures at a very high price, if that +cruel Mr. Fithers had not forestalled him in his department of +art, and made it thoroughly and completely his +own;—Fithers, it is to be observed, being present and +within hearing, and Slummery elsewhere. Is Mrs. Tabblewick +really as beautiful as people say? Why, there indeed you +ask them a very puzzling question, because there is no doubt that +she is a very charming woman, and they have long known her +intimately. She is no doubt beautiful, very beautiful; they +once thought her the most beautiful woman ever seen; still if you +press them for an honest answer, they are bound to say that this +was before they had ever seen our lovely friend on the sofa, (the +sofa is hard by, and our lovely friend can’t help hearing +the whispers in which this is said;) since that time, perhaps, +they have been hardly fair judges; Mrs. Tabblewick is no doubt +extremely handsome,—very like our friend, in fact, in the +form of the features,—but in point of expression, and soul, +and figure, and air altogether—oh dear!</p> +<p>But while the plausible couple depreciate, they are still +careful to preserve their character for amiability and kind +feeling; indeed the depreciation itself is often made to grow out +of their excessive sympathy and good will. The plausible +lady calls on a lady who dotes upon her children, and is sitting +with a little girl upon her knee, enraptured by her artless +replies, and protesting that there is nothing she delights in so +much as conversing with these fairies; when the other lady +inquires if she has seen young Mrs. Finching lately, and whether +the baby has turned out a finer one than it promised to be. +‘Oh dear!’ cries the plausible lady, ‘you +cannot think how often Bobtail and I have talked about poor Mrs. +Finching—she is such a dear soul, and was so anxious that +the baby should be a fine child—and very naturally, because +she was very much here at one time, and there is, you know, a +natural emulation among mothers—that it is impossible to +tell you how much we have felt for her.’ ‘Is it +weak or plain, or what?’ inquires the other. +‘Weak or plain, my love,’ returns the plausible lady, +‘it’s a fright—a perfect little fright; you +never saw such a miserable creature in all your days. +Positively you must not let her see one of these beautiful dears +again, or you’ll break her heart, you will +indeed.—Heaven bless this child, see how she is looking in +my face! can you conceive anything prettier than that? If +poor Mrs. Finching could only hope—but that’s +impossible—and the gifts of Providence, you know—What +<i>did</i> I do with my pocket-handkerchief!’</p> +<p>What prompts the mother, who dotes upon her children, to +comment to her lord that evening on the plausible lady’s +engaging qualities and feeling heart, and what is it that +procures Mr. and Mrs. Bobtail Widger an immediate invitation to +dinner?</p> +<h2><a name="page478"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 478</span>THE +NICE LITTLE COUPLE</h2> +<p>A <span class="smcap">custom</span> once prevailed in +old-fashioned circles, that when a lady or gentleman was unable +to sing a song, he or she should enliven the company with a +story. As we find ourself in the predicament of not being +able to describe (to our own satisfaction) nice little couples in +the abstract, we purpose telling in this place a little story +about a nice little couple of our acquaintance.</p> +<p>Mr. and Mrs. Chirrup are the nice little couple in +question. Mr. Chirrup has the smartness, and something of +the brisk, quick manner of a small bird. Mrs. Chirrup is +the prettiest of all little women, and has the prettiest little +figure conceivable. She has the neatest little foot, and +the softest little voice, and the pleasantest little smile, and +the tidiest little curls, and the brightest little eyes, and the +quietest little manner, and is, in short, altogether one of the +most engaging of all little women, dead or alive. She is a +condensation of all the domestic virtues,—a pocket edition +of the young man’s best companion,—a little woman at +a very high pressure, with an amazing quantity of goodness and +usefulness in an exceedingly small space. Little as she is, +Mrs. Chirrup might furnish forth matter for the moral equipment +of a score of housewives, six feet high in their +stockings—if, in the presence of ladies, we may be allowed +the expression—and of corresponding robustness.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/p478b.jpg"> +<img alt= +"The Nice Little Couple" +title= +"The Nice Little Couple" + src="images/p478s.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>Nobody knows all this better than Mr. Chirrup, though he +rather takes on that he don’t. Accordingly he is very +proud of his better-half, and evidently considers himself, as all +other people consider him, rather fortunate in having her to +wife. We say evidently, because Mr. Chirrup is a +warm-hearted little fellow; and if you catch his eye when he has +been slyly glancing at Mrs. Chirrup in company, there is a +certain complacent twinkle in it, accompanied, perhaps, by a +half-expressed toss of the head, which as clearly indicates what +has been passing in his mind as if he had put it into words, and +shouted it out through a speaking-trumpet. Moreover, Mr. +Chirrup has a particularly mild and bird-like manner of calling +Mrs. Chirrup ‘my dear;’ and—for he is of a +jocose turn—of cutting little witticisms upon her, and +making her the subject of various harmless pleasantries, which +nobody enjoys more thoroughly than Mrs. Chirrup herself. +Mr. Chirrup, too, now and then affects to deplore his +bachelor-days, and to bemoan (with a marvellously contented and +smirking face) the loss of his freedom, and the sorrow of his +heart at having been taken captive by Mrs. Chirrup—all of +which circumstances combine to show the secret triumph and +satisfaction of Mr. Chirrup’s soul.</p> +<p>We have already had occasion to observe that Mrs. Chirrup is +an incomparable housewife. In all the arts of domestic +arrangement and management, in all the mysteries of +confectionery-making, pickling, and preserving, never was such a +thorough adept as that nice little body. She is, besides, a +cunning worker in muslin and fine linen, and a special hand at +marketing to the very best advantage. But if there be one +branch of housekeeping in which she excels to an utterly +unparalleled and unprecedented extent, it is in the important one +of carving. A roast goose is universally allowed to be the +great stumbling-block in the way of young aspirants to perfection +in this department of science; many promising carvers, beginning +with legs of mutton, and preserving a good reputation through +fillets of veal, sirloins of beef, quarters of lamb, fowls, and +even ducks, have sunk before a roast goose, and lost caste and +character for ever. To Mrs. Chirrup the resolving a goose +into its smallest component parts is a pleasant pastime—a +practical joke—a thing to be done in a minute or so, +without the smallest interruption to the conversation of the +time. No handing the dish over to an unfortunate man upon +her right or left, no wild sharpening of the knife, no hacking +and sawing at an unruly joint, no noise, no splash, no heat, no +leaving off in despair; all is confidence and cheerfulness. +The dish is set upon the table, the cover is removed; for an +instant, and only an instant, you observe that Mrs. +Chirrup’s attention is distracted; she smiles, but heareth +not. You proceed with your story; meanwhile the glittering +knife is slowly upraised, both Mrs. Chirrup’s wrists are +slightly but not ungracefully agitated, she compresses her lips +for an instant, then breaks into a smile, and all is over. +The legs of the bird slide gently down into a pool of gravy, the +wings seem to melt from the body, the breast separates into a row +of juicy slices, the smaller and more complicated parts of his +anatomy are perfectly developed, a cavern of stuffing is +revealed, and the goose is gone!</p> +<p>To dine with Mr. and Mrs. Chirrup is one of the pleasantest +things in the world. Mr. Chirrup has a bachelor friend, who +lived with him in his own days of single blessedness, and to whom +he is mightily attached. Contrary to the usual custom, this +bachelor friend is no less a friend of Mrs. Chirrup’s, and, +consequently, whenever you dine with Mr. and Mrs. Chirrup, you +meet the bachelor friend. It would put any +reasonably-conditioned mortal into good-humour to observe the +entire unanimity which subsists between these three; but there is +a quiet welcome dimpling in Mrs. Chirrup’s face, a bustling +hospitality oozing as it were out of the waistcoat-pockets of Mr. +Chirrup, and a patronising enjoyment of their cordiality and +satisfaction on the part of the bachelor friend, which is quite +delightful. On these occasions Mr. Chirrup usually takes an +opportunity of rallying the friend on being single, and the +friend retorts on Mr. Chirrup for being married, at which moments +some single young ladies present are like to die of laughter; and +we have more than once observed them bestow looks upon the +friend, which convinces us that his position is by no means a +safe one, as, indeed, we hold no bachelor’s to be who +visits married friends and cracks jokes on wedlock, for certain +it is that such men walk among traps and nets and pitfalls +innumerable, and often find themselves down upon their knees at +the altar rails, taking M. or N. for their wedded wives, before +they know anything about the matter.</p> +<p>However, this is no business of Mr. Chirrup’s, who +talks, and laughs, and drinks his wine, and laughs again, and +talks more, until it is time to repair to the drawing-room, +where, coffee served and over, Mrs. Chirrup prepares for a round +game, by sorting the nicest possible little fish into the nicest +possible little pools, and calling Mr. Chirrup to assist her, +which Mr. Chirrup does. As they stand side by side, you +find that Mr. Chirrup is the least possible shadow of a shade +taller than Mrs. Chirrup, and that they are the neatest and +best-matched little couple that can be, which the chances are ten +to one against your observing with such effect at any other time, +unless you see them in the street arm-in-arm, or meet them some +rainy day trotting along under a very small umbrella. The +round game (at which Mr. Chirrup is the merriest of the party) +being done and over, in course of time a nice little tray +appears, on which is a nice little supper; and when that is +finished likewise, and you have said ‘Good night,’ +you find yourself repeating a dozen times, as you ride home, that +there never was such a nice little couple as Mr. and Mrs. +Chirrup.</p> +<p>Whether it is that pleasant qualities, being packed more +closely in small bodies than in large, come more readily to hand +than when they are diffused over a wider space, and have to be +gathered together for use, we don’t know, but as a general +rule,—strengthened like all other rules by its +exceptions,—we hold that little people are sprightly and +good-natured. The more sprightly and good-natured people we +have, the better; therefore, let us wish well to all nice little +couples, and hope that they may increase and multiply.</p> +<h2><a name="page481"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 481</span>THE +EGOTISTICAL COUPLE</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">Egotism</span> in couples is of two +kinds.—It is our purpose to show this by two examples.</p> +<p>The egotistical couple may be young, old, middle-aged, well to +do, or ill to do; they may have a small family, a large family, +or no family at all. There is no outward sign by which an +egotistical couple may be known and avoided. They come upon +you unawares; there is no guarding against them. No man can +of himself be forewarned or forearmed against an egotistical +couple.</p> +<p>The egotistical couple have undergone every calamity, and +experienced every pleasurable and painful sensation of which our +nature is susceptible. You cannot by possibility tell the +egotistical couple anything they don’t know, or describe to +them anything they have not felt. They have been everything +but dead. Sometimes we are tempted to wish they had been +even that, but only in our uncharitable moments, which are few +and far between.</p> +<p>We happened the other day, in the course of a morning call, to +encounter an egotistical couple, nor were we suffered to remain +long in ignorance of the fact, for our very first inquiry of the +lady of the house brought them into active and vigorous +operation. The inquiry was of course touching the +lady’s health, and the answer happened to be, that she had +not been very well. ‘Oh, my dear!’ said the +egotistical lady, ‘don’t talk of not being +well. We have been in <i>such</i> a state since we saw you +last!’—The lady of the house happening to remark that +her lord had not been well either, the egotistical gentleman +struck in: ‘Never let Briggs complain of not being +well—never let Briggs complain, my dear Mrs. Briggs, after +what I have undergone within these six weeks. He +doesn’t know what it is to be ill, he hasn’t the +least idea of it; not the faintest +conception.’—‘My dear,’ interposed his +wife smiling, ‘you talk as if it were almost a crime in Mr. +Briggs not to have been as ill as we have been, instead of +feeling thankful to Providence that both he and our dear Mrs. +Briggs are in such blissful ignorance of real +suffering.’—‘My love,’ returned the +egotistical gentleman, in a low and pious voice, ‘you +mistake me;—I feel grateful—very grateful. I +trust our friends may never purchase their experience as dearly +as we have bought ours; I hope they never may!’</p> +<p>Having put down Mrs. Briggs upon this theme, and settled the +question thus, the egotistical gentleman turned to us, and, after +a few preliminary remarks, all tending towards and leading up to +the point he had in his mind, inquired if we happened to be +acquainted with the Dowager Lady Snorflerer. On our +replying in the negative, he presumed we had often met Lord +Slang, or beyond all doubt, that we were on intimate terms with +Sir Chipkins Glogwog. Finding that we were equally unable +to lay claim to either of these distinctions, he expressed great +astonishment, and turning to his wife with a retrospective smile, +inquired who it was that had told that capital story about the +mashed potatoes. ‘Who, my dear?’ returned the +egotistical lady, ‘why Sir Chipkins, of course; how can you +ask! Don’t you remember his applying it to our cook, +and saying that you and I were so like the Prince and Princess, +that he could almost have sworn we were they?’ +‘To be sure, I remember that,’ said the egotistical +gentleman, ‘but are you quite certain that didn’t +apply to the other anecdote about the Emperor of Austria and the +pump?’ ‘Upon my word then, I think it +did,’ replied his wife. ‘To be sure it +did,’ said the egotistical gentleman, ‘it was +Slang’s story, I remember now, perfectly.’ +However, it turned out, a few seconds afterwards, that the +egotistical gentleman’s memory was rather treacherous, as +he began to have a misgiving that the story had been told by the +Dowager Lady Snorflerer the very last time they dined there; but +there appearing, on further consideration, strong circumstantial +evidence tending to show that this couldn’t be, inasmuch as +the Dowager Lady Snorflerer had been, on the occasion in +question, wholly engrossed by the egotistical lady, the +egotistical gentleman recanted this opinion; and after laying the +story at the doors of a great many great people, happily left it +at last with the Duke of Scuttlewig:—observing that it was +not extraordinary he had forgotten his Grace hitherto, as it +often happened that the names of those with whom we were upon the +most familiar footing were the very last to present themselves to +our thoughts.</p> +<p>It not only appeared that the egotistical couple knew +everybody, but that scarcely any event of importance or notoriety +had occurred for many years with which they had not been in some +way or other connected. Thus we learned that when the +well-known attempt upon the life of George the Third was made by +Hatfield in Drury Lane theatre, the egotistical gentleman’s +grandfather sat upon his right hand and was the first man who +collared him; and that the egotistical lady’s aunt, sitting +within a few boxes of the royal party, was the only person in the +audience who heard his Majesty exclaim, ‘Charlotte, +Charlotte, don’t be frightened, don’t be frightened; +they’re letting off squibs, they’re letting off +squibs.’ When the fire broke out, which ended in the +destruction of the two Houses of Parliament, the egotistical +couple, being at the time at a drawing-room window on Blackheath, +then and there simultaneously exclaimed, to the astonishment of a +whole party—‘It’s the House of +Lords!’ Nor was this a solitary instance of their +peculiar discernment, for chancing to be (as by a comparison of +dates and circumstances they afterwards found) in the same +omnibus with Mr. Greenacre, when he carried his victim’s +head about town in a blue bag, they both remarked a singular +twitching in the muscles of his countenance; and walking down +Fish Street Hill, a few weeks since, the egotistical gentleman +said to his lady—slightly casting up his eyes to the top of +the Monument—‘There’s a boy up there, my dear, +reading a Bible. It’s very strange. I +don’t like it.—In five seconds afterwards, +Sir,’ says the egotistical gentleman, bringing his hands +together with one violent clap—‘the lad was +over!’</p> +<p>Diversifying these topics by the introduction of many others +of the same kind, and entertaining us between whiles with a +minute account of what weather and diet agreed with them, and +what weather and diet disagreed with them, and at what time they +usually got up, and at what time went to bed, with many other +particulars of their domestic economy too numerous to mention; +the egotistical couple at length took their leave, and afforded +us an opportunity of doing the same.</p> +<p>Mr. and Mrs. Sliverstone are an egotistical couple of another +class, for all the lady’s egotism is about her husband, and +all the gentleman’s about his wife. For +example:—Mr. Sliverstone is a clerical gentleman, and +occasionally writes sermons, as clerical gentlemen do. If +you happen to obtain admission at the street-door while he is so +engaged, Mrs. Sliverstone appears on tip-toe, and speaking in a +solemn whisper, as if there were at least three or four +particular friends up-stairs, all upon the point of death, +implores you to be very silent, for Mr. Sliverstone is composing, +and she need not say how very important it is that he should not +be disturbed. Unwilling to interrupt anything so serious, +you hasten to withdraw, with many apologies; but this Mrs. +Sliverstone will by no means allow, observing, that she knows you +would like to see him, as it is very natural you should, and that +she is determined to make a trial for you, as you are a great +favourite. So you are led up-stairs—still on +tip-toe—to the door of a little back room, in which, as the +lady informs you in a whisper, Mr. Sliverstone always +writes. No answer being returned to a couple of soft taps, +the lady opens the door, and there, sure enough, is Mr. +Sliverstone, with dishevelled hair, powdering away with pen, ink, +and paper, at a rate which, if he has any power of sustaining it, +would settle the longest sermon in no time. At first he is +too much absorbed to be roused by this intrusion; but presently +looking up, says faintly, ‘Ah!’ and pointing to his +desk with a weary and languid smile, extends his hand, and hopes +you’ll forgive him. Then Mrs. Sliverstone sits down +beside him, and taking his hand in hers, tells you how that Mr. +Sliverstone has been shut up there ever since nine o’clock +in the morning, (it is by this time twelve at noon,) and how she +knows it cannot be good for his health, and is very uneasy about +it. Unto this Mr. Sliverstone replies firmly, that +‘It must be done;’ which agonizes Mrs. Sliverstone +still more, and she goes on to tell you that such were Mr. +Sliverstone’s labours last week—what with the +buryings, marryings, churchings, christenings, and all +together,—that when he was going up the pulpit stairs on +Sunday evening, he was obliged to hold on by the rails, or he +would certainly have fallen over into his own pew. Mr. +Sliverstone, who has been listening and smiling meekly, says, +‘Not quite so bad as that, not quite so bad!’ he +admits though, on cross-examination, that he <i>was</i> very near +falling upon the verger who was following him up to bolt the +door; but adds, that it was his duty as a Christian to fall upon +him, if need were, and that he, Mr. Sliverstone, and (possibly +the verger too) ought to glory in it.</p> +<p>This sentiment communicates new impulse to Mrs. Sliverstone, +who launches into new praises of Mr. Sliverstone’s worth +and excellence, to which he listens in the same meek silence, +save when he puts in a word of self-denial relative to some +question of fact, as—‘Not seventy-two christenings +that week, my dear. Only seventy-one, only +seventy-one.’ At length his lady has quite concluded, +and then he says, Why should he repine, why should he give way, +why should he suffer his heart to sink within him? Is it he +alone who toils and suffers? What has she gone through, he +should like to know? What does she go through every day for +him and for society?</p> +<p>With such an exordium Mr. Sliverstone launches out into +glowing praises of the conduct of Mrs. Sliverstone in the +production of eight young children, and the subsequent rearing +and fostering of the same; and thus the husband magnifies the +wife, and the wife the husband.</p> +<p>This would be well enough if Mr. and Mrs. Sliverstone kept it +to themselves, or even to themselves and a friend or two; but +they do not. The more hearers they have, the more +egotistical the couple become, and the more anxious they are to +make believers in their merits. Perhaps this is the worst +kind of egotism. It has not even the poor excuse of being +spontaneous, but is the result of a deliberate system and malice +aforethought. Mere empty-headed conceit excites our pity, +but ostentatious hypocrisy awakens our disgust.</p> +<h2><a name="page485"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 485</span>THE +COUPLE WHO CODDLE THEMSELVES</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Merrywinkle’s</span> maiden +name was Chopper. She was the only child of Mr. and Mrs. +Chopper. Her father died when she was, as the play-books +express it, ‘yet an infant;’ and so old Mrs. Chopper, +when her daughter married, made the house of her son-in-law her +home from that time henceforth, and set up her staff of rest with +Mr. and Mrs. Merrywinkle.</p> +<p>Mr. and Mrs. Merrywinkle are a couple who coddle themselves; +and the venerable Mrs. Chopper is an aider and abettor in the +same.</p> +<p>Mr. Merrywinkle is a rather lean and long-necked gentleman, +middle-aged and middle-sized, and usually troubled with a cold in +the head. Mrs. Merrywinkle is a delicate-looking lady, with +very light hair, and is exceedingly subject to the same +unpleasant disorder. The venerable Mrs. Chopper—who +is strictly entitled to the appellation, her daughter not being +very young, otherwise than by courtesy, at the time of her +marriage, which was some years ago—is a mysterious old lady +who lurks behind a pair of spectacles, and is afflicted with a +chronic disease, respecting which she has taken a vast deal of +medical advice, and referred to a vast number of medical books, +without meeting any definition of symptoms that at all suits her, +or enables her to say, ‘That’s my +complaint.’ Indeed, the absence of authentic +information upon the subject of this complaint would seem to be +Mrs. Chopper’s greatest ill, as in all other respects she +is an uncommonly hale and hearty gentlewoman.</p> +<p>Both Mr. and Mrs. Chopper wear an extraordinary quantity of +flannel, and have a habit of putting their feet in hot water to +an unnatural extent. They likewise indulge in chamomile tea +and such-like compounds, and rub themselves on the slightest +provocation with camphorated spirits and other lotions applicable +to mumps, sore-throat, rheumatism, or lumbago.</p> +<p>Mr. Merrywinkle’s leaving home to go to business on a +damp or wet morning is a very elaborate affair. He puts on +wash-leather socks over his stockings, and India-rubber shoes +above his boots, and wears under his waistcoat a cuirass of +hare-skin. Besides these precautions, he winds a thick +shawl round his throat, and blocks up his mouth with a large silk +handkerchief. Thus accoutred, and furnished besides with a +great-coat and umbrella, he braves the dangers of the streets; +travelling in severe weather at a gentle trot, the better to +preserve the circulation, and bringing his mouth to the surface +to take breath, but very seldom, and with the utmost +caution. His office-door opened, he shoots past his clerk +at the same pace, and diving into his own private room, closes +the door, examines the window-fastenings, and gradually unrobes +himself: hanging his pocket-handkerchief on the fender to air, +and determining to write to the newspapers about the fog, which, +he says, ‘has really got to that pitch that it is quite +unbearable.’</p> +<p>In this last opinion Mrs. Merrywinkle and her respected mother +fully concur; for though not present, their thoughts and tongues +are occupied with the same subject, which is their constant theme +all day. If anybody happens to call, Mrs. Merrywinkle +opines that they must assuredly be mad, and her first salutation +is, ‘Why, what in the name of goodness can bring you out in +such weather? You know you <i>must</i> catch your +death.’ This assurance is corroborated by Mrs. +Chopper, who adds, in further confirmation, a dismal legend +concerning an individual of her acquaintance who, making a call +under precisely parallel circumstances, and being then in the +best health and spirits, expired in forty-eight hours afterwards, +of a complication of inflammatory disorders. The visitor, +rendered not altogether comfortable perhaps by this and other +precedents, inquires very affectionately after Mr. Merrywinkle, +but by so doing brings about no change of the subject; for Mr. +Merrywinkle’s name is inseparably connected with his +complaints, and his complaints are inseparably connected with +Mrs. Merrywinkle’s; and when these are done with, Mrs. +Chopper, who has been biding her time, cuts in with the chronic +disorder—a subject upon which the amiable old lady never +leaves off speaking until she is left alone, and very often not +then.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/p486b.jpg"> +<img alt= +"The Couple who Coddle Themselves" +title= +"The Couple who Coddle Themselves" + src="images/p486s.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>But Mr. Merrywinkle comes home to dinner. He is received +by Mrs. Merrywinkle and Mrs. Chopper, who, on his remarking that +he thinks his feet are damp, turn pale as ashes and drag him +up-stairs, imploring him to have them rubbed directly with a dry +coarse towel. Rubbed they are, one by Mrs. Merrywinkle and +one by Mrs. Chopper, until the friction causes Mr. Merrywinkle to +make horrible faces, and look as if he had been smelling very +powerful onions; when they desist, and the patient, provided for +his better security with thick worsted stockings and list +slippers, is borne down-stairs to dinner. Now, the dinner +is always a good one, the appetites of the diners being delicate, +and requiring a little of what Mrs. Merrywinkle calls +‘tittivation;’ the secret of which is understood to +lie in good cookery and tasteful spices, and which process is so +successfully performed in the present instance, that both Mr. and +Mrs. Merrywinkle eat a remarkably good dinner, and even the +afflicted Mrs. Chopper wields her knife and fork with much of the +spirit and elasticity of youth. But Mr. Merrywinkle, in his +desire to gratify his appetite, is not unmindful of his health, +for he has a bottle of carbonate of soda with which to qualify +his porter, and a little pair of scales in which to weigh it +out. Neither in his anxiety to take care of his body is he +unmindful of the welfare of his immortal part, as he always prays +that for what he is going to receive he may be made truly +thankful; and in order that he may be as thankful as possible, +eats and drinks to the utmost.</p> +<p>Either from eating and drinking so much, or from being the +victim of this constitutional infirmity, among others, Mr. +Merrywinkle, after two or three glasses of wine, falls fast +asleep; and he has scarcely closed his eyes, when Mrs. +Merrywinkle and Mrs. Chopper fall asleep likewise. It is on +awakening at tea-time that their most alarming symptoms prevail; +for then Mr. Merrywinkle feels as if his temples were tightly +bound round with the chain of the street-door, and Mrs. +Merrywinkle as if she had made a hearty dinner of +half-hundredweights, and Mrs. Chopper as if cold water were +running down her back, and oyster-knives with sharp points were +plunging of their own accord into her ribs. Symptoms like +these are enough to make people peevish, and no wonder that they +remain so until supper-time, doing little more than doze and +complain, unless Mr. Merrywinkle calls out very loudly to a +servant ‘to keep that draught out,’ or rushes into +the passage to flourish his fist in the countenance of the +twopenny-postman, for daring to give such a knock as he had just +performed at the door of a private gentleman with nerves.</p> +<p>Supper, coming after dinner, should consist of some gentle +provocative; and therefore the tittivating art is again in +requisition, and again—done honour to by Mr. and Mrs. +Merrywinkle, still comforted and abetted by Mrs. Chopper. +After supper, it is ten to one but the last-named old lady +becomes worse, and is led off to bed with the chronic complaint +in full vigour. Mr. and Mrs. Merrywinkle, having +administered to her a warm cordial, which is something of the +strongest, then repair to their own room, where Mr. Merrywinkle, +with his legs and feet in hot water, superintends the mulling of +some wine which he is to drink at the very moment he plunges into +bed, while Mrs. Merrywinkle, in garments whose nature is unknown +to and unimagined by all but married men, takes four small pills +with a spasmodic look between each, and finally comes to +something hot and fragrant out of another little saucepan, which +serves as her composing-draught for the night.</p> +<p>There is another kind of couple who coddle themselves, and who +do so at a cheaper rate and on more spare diet, because they are +niggardly and parsimonious; for which reason they are kind enough +to coddle their visitors too. It is unnecessary to describe +them, for our readers may rest assured of the accuracy of these +general principles:—that all couples who coddle themselves +are selfish and slothful,—that they charge upon every wind +that blows, every rain that falls, and every vapour that hangs in +the air, the evils which arise from their own imprudence or the +gloom which is engendered in their own tempers,—and that +all men and women, in couples or otherwise, who fall into +exclusive habits of self-indulgence, and forget their natural +sympathy and close connexion with everybody and everything in the +world around them, not only neglect the first duty of life, but, +by a happy retributive justice, deprive themselves of its truest +and best enjoyment.</p> +<h2><a name="page489"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 489</span>THE +OLD COUPLE</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">They</span> are grandfather and +grandmother to a dozen grown people and have great-grandchildren +besides; their bodies are bent, their hair is grey, their step +tottering and infirm. Is this the lightsome pair whose +wedding was so merry, and have the young couple indeed grown old +so soon!</p> +<p>It seems but yesterday—and yet what a host of cares and +griefs are crowded into the intervening time which, reckoned by +them, lengthens out into a century! How many new +associations have wreathed themselves about their hearts since +then! The old time is gone, and a new time has come for +others—not for them. They are but the rusting link +that feebly joins the two, and is silently loosening its hold and +dropping asunder.</p> +<p>It seems but yesterday—and yet three of their children +have sunk into the grave, and the tree that shades it has grown +quite old. One was an infant—they wept for him; the +next a girl, a slight young thing too delicate for +earth—her loss was hard indeed to bear. The third, a +man. That was the worst of all, but even that grief is +softened now.</p> +<p>It seems but yesterday—and yet how the gay and laughing +faces of that bright morning have changed and vanished from above +ground! Faint likenesses of some remain about them yet, but +they are very faint and scarcely to be traced. The rest are +only seen in dreams, and even they are unlike what they were, in +eyes so old and dim.</p> +<p>One or two dresses from the bridal wardrobe are yet +preserved. They are of a quaint and antique fashion, and +seldom seen except in pictures. White has turned yellow, +and brighter hues have faded. Do you wonder, child? +The wrinkled face was once as smooth as yours, the eyes as +bright, the shrivelled skin as fair and delicate. It is the +work of hands that have been dust these many years.</p> +<p>Where are the fairy lovers of that happy day whose annual +return comes upon the old man and his wife, like the echo of some +village bell which has long been silent? Let yonder peevish +bachelor, racked by rheumatic pains, and quarrelling with the +world, let him answer to the question. He recollects +something of a favourite playmate; her name was Lucy—so +they tell him. He is not sure whether she was married, or +went abroad, or died. It is a long while ago, and he +don’t remember.</p> +<p>Is nothing as it used to be; does no one feel, or think, or +act, as in days of yore? Yes. There is an aged woman +who once lived servant with the old lady’s father, and is +sheltered in an alms-house not far off. She is still +attached to the family, and loves them all; she nursed the +children in her lap, and tended in their sickness those who are +no more. Her old mistress has still something of youth in +her eyes; the young ladies are like what she was but not quite so +handsome, nor are the gentlemen as stately as Mr. Harvey used to +be. She has seen a great deal of trouble; her husband and +her son died long ago; but she has got over that, and is happy +now—quite happy.</p> +<p>If ever her attachment to her old protectors were disturbed by +fresher cares and hopes, it has long since resumed its former +current. It has filled the void in the poor +creature’s heart, and replaced the love of kindred. +Death has not left her alone, and this, with a roof above her +head, and a warm hearth to sit by, makes her cheerful and +contented. Does she remember the marriage of +great-grandmamma? Ay, that she does, as well—as if it +was only yesterday. You wouldn’t think it to look at +her now, and perhaps she ought not to say so of herself, but she +was as smart a young girl then as you’d wish to see. +She recollects she took a friend of hers up-stairs to see Miss +Emma dressed for church; her name was—ah! she forgets the +name, but she remembers that she was a very pretty girl, and that +she married not long afterwards, and lived—it has quite +passed out of her mind where she lived, but she knows she had a +bad husband who used her ill, and that she died in Lambeth +work-house. Dear, dear, in Lambeth workhouse!</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/p490b.jpg"> +<img alt= +"The Old Couple" +title= +"The Old Couple" + src="images/p490s.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>And the old couple—have they no comfort or enjoyment of +existence? See them among their grandchildren and +great-grandchildren; how garrulous they are, how they compare one +with another, and insist on likenesses which no one else can see; +how gently the old lady lectures the girls on points of breeding +and decorum, and points the moral by anecdotes of herself in her +young days—how the old gentleman chuckles over boyish feats +and roguish tricks, and tells long stories of a +‘barring-out’ achieved at the school he went to: +which was very wrong, he tells the boys, and never to be imitated +of course, but which he cannot help letting them know was very +pleasant too—especially when he kissed the master’s +niece. This last, however, is a point on which the old lady +is very tender, for she considers it a shocking and indelicate +thing to talk about, and always says so whenever it is mentioned, +never failing to observe that he ought to be very penitent for +having been so sinful. So the old gentleman gets no +further, and what the schoolmaster’s niece said afterwards +(which he is always going to tell) is lost to posterity.</p> +<p>The old gentleman is eighty years old, +to-day—‘Eighty years old, Crofts, and never had a +headache,’ he tells the barber who shaves him (the barber +being a young fellow, and very subject to that complaint). +‘That’s a great age, Crofts,’ says the old +gentleman. ‘I don’t think it’s sich a +wery great age, Sir,’ replied the barber. +‘Crofts,’ rejoins the old gentleman, +‘you’re talking nonsense to me. Eighty not a +great age?’ ‘It’s a wery great age, Sir, +for a gentleman to be as healthy and active as you are,’ +returns the barber; ‘but my grandfather, Sir, he was +ninety-four.’ ‘You don’t mean that, +Crofts?’ says the old gentleman. ‘I do indeed, +Sir,’ retorts the barber, ‘and as wiggerous as Julius +Cæsar, my grandfather was.’ The old gentleman +muses a little time, and then says, ‘What did he die of, +Crofts?’ ‘He died accidentally, Sir,’ +returns the barber; ‘he didn’t mean to do it. +He always would go a running about the streets—walking +never satisfied <i>his</i> spirit—and he run against a post +and died of a hurt in his chest.’ The old gentleman +says no more until the shaving is concluded, and then he gives +Crofts half-a-crown to drink his health. He is a little +doubtful of the barber’s veracity afterwards, and telling +the anecdote to the old lady, affects to make very light of +it—though to be sure (he adds) there was old Parr, and in +some parts of England, ninety-five or so is a common age, quite a +common age.</p> +<p>This morning the old couple are cheerful but serious, +recalling old times as well as they can remember them, and +dwelling upon many passages in their past lives which the day +brings to mind. The old lady reads aloud, in a tremulous +voice, out of a great Bible, and the old gentleman with his hand +to his ear, listens with profound respect. When the book is +closed, they sit silent for a short space, and afterwards resume +their conversation, with a reference perhaps to their dead +children, as a subject not unsuited to that they have just +left. By degrees they are led to consider which of those +who survive are the most like those dearly-remembered objects, +and so they fall into a less solemn strain, and become cheerful +again.</p> +<p>How many people in all, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, +and one or two intimate friends of the family, dine together +to-day at the eldest son’s to congratulate the old couple, +and wish them many happy returns, is a calculation beyond our +powers; but this we know, that the old couple no sooner present +themselves, very sprucely and carefully attired, than there is a +violent shouting and rushing forward of the younger branches with +all manner of presents, such as pocket-books, pencil-cases, +pen-wipers, watch-papers, pin-cushions, sleeve-buckles, +worked-slippers, watch-guards, and even a nutmeg-grater: the +latter article being presented by a very chubby and very little +boy, who exhibits it in great triumph as an extraordinary +variety. The old couple’s emotion at these tokens of +remembrance occasions quite a pathetic scene, of which the chief +ingredients are a vast quantity of kissing and hugging, and +repeated wipings of small eyes and noses with small square +pocket-handkerchiefs, which don’t come at all easily out of +small pockets. Even the peevish bachelor is moved, and he +says, as he presents the old gentleman with a queer sort of +antique ring from his own finger, that he’ll be de’ed +if he doesn’t think he looks younger than he did ten years +ago.</p> +<p>But the great time is after dinner, when the dessert and wine +are on the table, which is pushed back to make plenty of room, +and they are all gathered in a large circle round the fire, for +it is then—the glasses being filled, and everybody ready to +drink the toast—that two great-grandchildren rush out at a +given signal, and presently return, dragging in old Jane Adams +leaning upon her crutched stick, and trembling with age and +pleasure. Who so popular as poor old Jane, nurse and +story-teller in ordinary to two generations; and who so happy as +she, striving to bend her stiff limbs into a curtsey, while tears +of pleasure steal down her withered cheeks!</p> +<p>The old couple sit side by side, and the old time seems like +yesterday indeed. Looking back upon the path they have +travelled, its dust and ashes disappear; the flowers that +withered long ago, show brightly again upon its borders, and they +grow young once more in the youth of those about them.</p> +<h2><a name="page493"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +493</span>CONCLUSION</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">We</span> have taken for the subjects of +the foregoing moral essays, twelve samples of married couples, +carefully selected from a large stock on hand, open to the +inspection of all comers. These samples are intended for +the benefit of the rising generation of both sexes, and, for +their more easy and pleasant information, have been separately +ticketed and labelled in the manner they have seen.</p> +<p>We have purposely excluded from consideration the couple in +which the lady reigns paramount and supreme, holding such cases +to be of a very unnatural kind, and like hideous births and other +monstrous deformities, only to be discreetly and sparingly +exhibited.</p> +<p>And here our self-imposed task would have ended, but that to +those young ladies and gentlemen who are yet revolving singly +round the church, awaiting the advent of that time when the +mysterious laws of attraction shall draw them towards it in +couples, we are desirous of addressing a few last words.</p> +<p>Before marriage and afterwards, let them learn to centre all +their hopes of real and lasting happiness in their own fireside; +let them cherish the faith that in home, and all the English +virtues which the love of home engenders, lies the only true +source of domestic felicity; let them believe that round the +household gods, contentment and tranquillity cluster in their +gentlest and most graceful forms; and that many weary hunters of +happiness through the noisy world, have learnt this truth too +late, and found a cheerful spirit and a quiet mind only at home +at last.</p> +<p>How much may depend on the education of daughters and the +conduct of mothers; how much of the brightest part of our old +national character may be perpetuated by their wisdom or +frittered away by their folly—how much of it may have been +lost already, and how much more in danger of vanishing every +day—are questions too weighty for discussion here, but well +deserving a little serious consideration from all young couples +nevertheless.</p> +<p>To that one young couple on whose bright destiny the thoughts +of nations are fixed, may the youth of England look, and not in +vain, for an example. From that one young couple, blessed +and favoured as they are, may they learn that even the glare and +glitter of a court, the splendour of a palace, and the pomp and +glory of a throne, yield in their power of conferring happiness, +to domestic worth and virtue. From that one young couple +may they learn that the crown of a great empire, costly and +jewelled though it be, gives place in the estimation of a Queen +to the plain gold ring that links her woman’s nature to +that of tens of thousands of her humble subjects, and guards in +her woman’s heart one secret store of tenderness, whose +proudest boast shall be that it knows no Royalty save +Nature’s own, and no pride of birth but being the child of +heaven!</p> +<p>So shall the highest young couple in the land for once hear +the truth, when men throw up their caps, and cry with loving +shouts—</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="smcap">God bless +them</span>.</p> +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SKETCHES OF YOUNG COUPLES***</p> +<pre> + + +***** This file should be named 916-h.htm or 916-h.zip****** + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/9/1/916 + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will +be renamed. + +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United +States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. 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