Editor's Drawer.
The following anecdote of a legal gentleman of Missouri, was compiled many years ago from a newspaper of that State. There is a racy freshness about it that is quite delightful:
Being once opposed to Mr. S——, then lately a member of Congress, he remarked as follows to the jury, upon some point of disagreement between them:
"Here my brother S—— and I differ materially. Now this, after all, is very natural. Men seldom see things in the same light; and they may disagree in opinion upon the simplest principles of the law, and that very honestly; while, at the same time, neither, perhaps, can perceive any earthly reason why they should. And this is merely because they look at different sides of the subject, and do not view it in all its bearings.
"Now, let us suppose, for the sake of illustration, that a man should come into this court-room, and boldly assert that my brother S——'s head" (here he laid his hand very familiarly upon the large "chuckle-head" of his opponent) "is a squash! I, on the other hand, should maintain, and perhaps with equal confidence, that it was a head. Now, here would be difference—doubtless an honest difference—of opinion. We might argue about it till doom's-day, and never agree. You often see men arguing upon subjects just as empty and trifling as this! But a third person coming in, and looking at the neck and shoulders that support it, would say at once that I had reason on my side; for if it was ot a head, it at least occupied the place of one: it stood where a head ought to be!"
All this was uttered in the gravest and most solemn manner imaginable, and the effect was irresistibly ludicrous.
Washington Irving, in one of his admirable sketches of Dutch character, describes an old worthy, with a long eel-skin queue, a sort of covering that was "a potent nourisher and strengthener of the hair." This was in "other times;" and here is a "Tail" of that remote period:
"A Tale I'll tell of "other times,"
Because I'm in the mind:
You may have seen the tale before,
I've seen it oft behind.
"There's no detraction in this tale,
or any vile attack,
Or slander when 'tis told, although
It goes behind one's back.
"Impartial auditors it had,
Who ne'er began to rail,
Because there always was an ear
For both sides of the tale.
"But oh, alas! I have forgot,
I am not in the queue;
The tale has just dropped from my head,
As it was wont to do!"
A clergyman in one of our New England villages once preached a sermon, which one of his auditors commended.
"Yes," said a gentleman to whom it was mentioned, "it was a good sermon, but he stole it!"
This was told to the preacher. He resented it, at once, and called upon his parishioner to retract what he had said.
"I am not," replied the aggressor, "very apt to retract any thing I may have said, for I usually weigh my words before I speak them. But in this instance I will retract. I said you had stolen the sermon. I find, however, that I was wrong; for on returning home, and referring to the book whence I thought it had been taken, I found it there, word for word!"
The angry clergyman "left the presence," with an apparent consciousness that he had made very little by his "motion."
We gave in a late "Drawer" some rather frightful statistics concerning snuff-takers and tobacco-chewers: we have now "the honor to present" some curious characteristics of the kinds of materiel which have regaled the nostrils of so many persons who were "up to snuff."
Lundy Foot, the celebrated snuff-manufacturer, originally kept a small tobacconist's shop at Limerick, Ireland. One night his house, which was uninsured, was burnt to the ground. As he contemplated the smoking ruins on the following morning, in a state bordering on despair, some of the poor neighbors, groping among the embers for what they could find, stumbled upon several canisters of unconsumed but half-baked snuff, which they tried, and found so grateful to their noses, that they loaded their waistcoat pockets with the spoil.
Lundy Foot, roused from his stupor, at length imitated their example, and took a pinch of his own property, when he was instantly struck by the superior pungency and flavor it had acquired from the great heat to which it had been exposed. Treasuring up this valuable hint, he took another house in a place called "Black-Yard," and, preparing a large oven for the purpose, set diligently about the manufacture of that high-dried commodity, which soon became widely known as "Black-Yard Snuff;" a term subsequently corrupted into the more familiar word, "Blackguard."
Lundy Foot, making his customers pay liberally through the nose for one of the most "distinguished" kinds of snuffs in the world, soon raised the price of his production, took a larger house in the city of Dublin, and was often heard to say,
"I made a very handsome fortune by being, as I supposed, utterly ruined!"
Somebody has described Laughter as "a faculty bestowed exclusively upon man," and one which there is, therefore, a sort of impiety in not exercising as frequently as we can. One may say, with Titus, that we have "lost a day," if it shall have passed without laughing, "An inch of laugh is worth an ell of moan in any state of the market," says one of the old English "Fathers." Pilgrims at the shrine of Mecca consider laughter so essential a part of their devotion that they call upon their prophet to preserve them from sad faces.
"Ah!" cried Rabelais, with an honest pride, as his friends were weeping around his sick bed; "if I were to die ten times over, I should never make you cry half so much as I have made you laugh!"
After all, if laughter be genuine, and consequently a means of innocent enjoyment, can it be inept?
Taylor, an English author, relates in his "Records," that having restored to sight a boy who had been born blind, the lad was perpetually amusing himself with a hand-glass, calling his own reflection his "little man," and inquiring why he could make it do every thing he did, except to shut its eyes. A French lover, making a present of a mirror to his mistress, sent with it the following lines:
"This mirror my object of love will unfold,
Whensoe'er your regard it allures;
Oh, would, when I'm gazing, that might behold
On its surface the object of yours!"
This is very delicate and pretty; but the following old epigram, on the same subject, is in even a much finer strain:
"When I revolve this evanescent state,
How fleeting is its form, how short its date;
My being and my stay dependent still
Not on my own, but on another's will:
I ask myself, as I my image view,
Which is the real shadow of the two?"
It is a little singular, but it is true, that scarcely any native writer has succeeded better in giving what is termed the true "Yankee dialect," than a foreigner, an Englishman, Judge Haliburton, of Nova Scotia, "Sam Slick." Hear him describe a pretty, heartless bar-maid, whom he met at the "Liner's Hotel, in Liverpool:"
"What a tall, well-made, handsome piece of furniture she is, ain't she, though? Look at her hair—ain't it neat? And her clothes fit so well, and her cap is so white, and her complexion so clear, and she looks so good-natured, and smiles so sweet, it does one good to look at her. She's a whole team and a horse to spare, that's a fact. I go and call for three or four more glasses than I want, every day, just for the sake of talking to her. She always says,
"'What will you be pleased to have, sir!'
"'Something,' says I, 'that I can't have,' looking at her pretty mouth—about the wickedest.
"Well, she laughs, for she knows well enough what I mean; and she says,
"'Pr'aps you'll have a glass of bitters, sir,' and off she goes to get it.
"Well, this goes on three or four times a day; every time the identical same tune, only with variations. It wasn't a great while afore I was there agin.
"'What will you be pleased to have, sir?' said she agin, laughin'.
"'Something I can't git,' says I, a-laughin' too, and lettin' off sparks from my eyes like a blacksmith's chimney.
"'You can't tell that till you try,' says she; 'but you can have your bitters at any rate;' and she goes agin and draws a glass, and gives it to me.
"Now she's seen you before, and knows you very well. Just you go to her and see how nicely she'll curtshy, how pretty she'll smile, and how lady-like she'll say,
"'How do you do, sir? I hope you are quite well, sir? Have you just arrived? Here, chamber-maid, show this gentleman up to Number Two Hundred. Sorry, sir, we are so full, but to-morrow we will move you into a better room. Thomas, take up this gentleman's luggage.' And then she'd curtshy agin, and smile so handsome!
"Don't that look well, now? Do you want any thing better than that? If you do, you are hard to please, that's all. But stop a little: don't be in such an almighty, everlastin' hurry. Think afore you speak. Go there, agin, see her a-smilin' once more, and look clust. It's only skin-deep; just on the surface, like a cat's-paw on the water; it's nothin' but a rimple like, and no more. Then look cluster still, and you'll discarn the color of it. You laugh at the 'color' of a smile, but do you watch, and you'll see it.
"Look, ow; don't you see the color of the shilling there? It's white, and cold, and silvery: it's a boughten smile, and a boughten smile, like an artificial flower, hain't got no sweetness into it. It's like whipt cream; open your mouth wide; take it all in, and shut your lips down tight, and it ain't nothin'. It's only a mouthful of moonshine, a'ter all."
Sam goes on to say that a smile can easily be counterfeited; but that the eye, rightly regarded, can not deceive.
"Square, the first railroad that was ever made, was made by Natur. It runs strait from the heart to the eye, and it goes so almighty fast it can't be compared to nothin' but 'iled lightning. The moment the heart opens its doors, out jumps an emotion, whips into the car, and offs, like wink, to the eye. That's the station-house and terminus for the passengers, and every passenger carries a lantern in his hand, as bright as an argand lamp; you can see him ever so far off.
"Look to the eye, Square: if there ain't no lamp there, no soul leaves the heart that hitch: there ain't no train runnin', and the station-house is empty. Smiles can be put on and off, like a wig; sweet expressions come and go like lights and shades in natur; the hands will squeeze like a fox-trap; the body bends most graceful; the ear will be most attentive; the manner will flatter, so you're enchanted; and the tongue will lie like the devil: but the eye never.
"But, Square, there's all sorts of eyes. There's an onmeanin' eye, and a cold eye; a true eye and a false eye; a sly eye, a kickin' eye, a passionate eye, a revengeful eye, a manœuvring eye, a joyous eye, and a sad eye; a squintin' eye, and the evil-eye; and more'n all, the dear little lovin' eye. They must all be studied to be larnt; but the two important ones to be known are the true eye and the false eye."
An American writer, somewhat more distinguished as a philosopher and psychologist than Mr. Slick, contends that the "practiced eye" may often deceive the most acute observer, but that there is something in the play of the lines about the mouth, the shades of emotion developed by the least change in the expression of the lips, that defies the strictest self-control. We leave both theories with the reader.
That was a pleasant story, told of an English wit, of very pleasant memory, who was no mean proficient in "turning the tables" upon an opponent, when he found himself losing. On one occasion he was rapidly losing ground in a literary discussion, when the opposite party exclaimed:
"My good friend, you are not such a rare scholar as you imagine; you are only an every-day man."
"Well, and you are a week one," replied the other; who instantly jumped upon the back of a horse-laugh, and rode victoriously over his prostrate conqueror.
We know not the author of the following lines, nor how, or at what time, they came to find a place in the "Drawer;" but there is no reader who will not pronounce them very touching and beautiful:
I am not old—I can not be old,
Though three-score years and ten
Have wasted away like a tale that is told,
The lives of other men
I am not old—though friends and foes
Alike have gone to their graves;
And left me alone to my joys or my woes,
As a rock in the midst of the waves
I am not old—I can not be old,
Though tottering, wrinkled, and gray;
Though my eyes are dim, and my marrow is cold,
Call me not old to-day!
For early memories round me throng,
Of times, and manners, and men;
As I look behind on my journey so long,
Of three-score miles and ten.
I look behind and am once more young,
Buoyant, and brave, and bold;
And my heart can sing, as of yore it sung,
Before they called me old.
I do not see her—the old wife there—
Shriveled, and haggard, and gray;
But I look on her blooming, soft, and fair,
As she was on her wedding-day.
I do not see you, daughters and sons,
In the likeness of women and men;
But I kiss you now as I kissed you once
My fond little children then.
And as my own grandson rides on my knee,
Or plays with his hoop or kite,
I can well recollect I was merry as he,
The bright-eyed little wight!
'Tis not long since—it can not be long,
My years so soon were spent,
Since I was a boy, both straight and strong.
But now I am feeble and bent.
A dream, a dream—it is all a dream!
A strange, sad dream, good sooth;
For old as I am, and old as I seem,
My heart is full of youth.
Eye hath not seen, tongue hath not told,
And ear hath not heard it sung,
How buoyant and bold, tho' it seem to grow old,
Is the heart forever young!
Forever young—though life's old age,
Hath every nerve unstrung;
The heart, the heart is a heritage,
That keeps the old man young!
That is a good story told of an empty coxcomb, who, after having engrossed the attention of the company for some time with himself and his petty ailments, observed to the celebrated caustic Dr. Parr, that he could never go out without catching cold in his head.
"No wonder," said the doctor, rather pettishly; "you always go out without any thing in it!"
We have heard somewhere of another of the same stamp, who imagined himself to be a poet, and who said to "Nat. Lee," whose insane verse was much in vogue at the time:
"It is not easy to write like a madman, as you do."
"No," was the reply; "but it is very easy to write like a fool, as you do!"
There was some "method" in the "madness" that dictated that cutting rejoinder, at any rate.
"I was once a sea-faring man," said an old New York ship-master one day, to a friend in "The Swamp," "and my first voyage was to the East Indies. To keep me from mischief, the mate used to set me picking oakum, or ripping up an old sail for 'parceling,' as it was called. While engaged one day at this last employment, it occurred to me that a small piece of the sail would answer an admirable purpose in mending my duck over-trowsers, as they were beginning to be rather tender in certain places, owing, perhaps, to my sitting down so much. I soon appropriated a small piece, but was detected by the mate while 'stowing it away.'
"He took it from me, and while he was lecturing me, the captain, a noble fellow, with a human heart in his bosom, came on deck, when the whole matter was laid before him.
"'A——,' said he, 'always ask for what you want; if it is denied to you, then steal it, if you think proper.'
"I remembered his advice; and in a short time afterward had another piece of canvas snugly 'stowed away.' I carried it forward, and gave it to my 'chummy,' an old 'salt,' who had the charge of my wardrobe (which consisted of six pairs of duck-trowsers, the same number of red-flannel shirts, a Scotch woolen cap, and a fine-tooth comb), and performed my mending.
"The next day I went on deck with a clean pair of trowsers on, neatly patched. As I was going forward the captain hailed me:
"'You took that piece of canvas, sir!'
"'Yes, captain,' I replied, 'I did. You yourself told me to ask, and if I was refused, to do the other thing. I was refused, and did do the 'other thing.'
"'Well,' rejoined the captain, 'I have no great objection to your having the canvas, but let me tell you that you will never make a sailor if you carry your flying-jib over the stern!'
"My 'chummy,' sewing from the inside, had 'seated' my trowsers with a piece of canvas marked 'F. Jib!"'
There used to be quite popular, many years ago, a species of letter-writing in poetry, in accomplishing which much ingenuity was tasked and much labor expended. The ensuing lines are a good example of this kind of composition by comic writers who have not sufficiently advanced in joking to get "out of their letters." The lines were addressed to Miss Emma Vee, who had a pet jay, of which she was very fond:
"Your jay is fond, which well I know,
He does S A to prove;
And he can talk, I grant, but O!
He can not talk of love.
"Believe me, M A, when I say,
I dote to that X S,
I N V even that pet J,
Which U sometimes caress.
"Though many other girls I know,
And they are fair, I C,
Yet U X L them all, and so
I love but M A V.
"M A, my love can ne'er D K,
Except when I shall die;
And if your heart must say me nay,
Just write and tell me Y!"
The following "Welsh Card of Invitation" is a very amusing example of the avoidance of pronouns:
"Mr. Walter Morton, and Mrs. Walter Morton, and Miss Sandys's compliments to Mr. Charles Morgan, Mrs. Charles Morgan, Miss Charles Morgan, and the Governess (whose name Mr. Walter Morton, Mrs. Walter Morton, and Miss Sandys do not recollect), and Mr. Walter Morton, Mrs. Walter Morton, and Miss Sandys request the favor of the company of Mr. Charles Morgan, Mrs. Charles Morgan, Miss Charles Morgan, and the Governess (whose name Mr. Walter Morton, Mrs. Walter Morton, and Miss Sandys do not recollect), to dinner on Monday next.
"Mr. Walter Morton, Mrs. Walter Morton, and Miss Sandys, beg to inform Mr. Charles Morgan, Mrs. Charles Morgan, Miss Charles Morgan, and the Governess (whose name Mr. Walter Morton, Mrs. Walter Morton, and Miss Sandys do not recollect), that Mr. Walter Morton, Mrs. Walter Morton, and Miss Sandys can accommodate Mr. Charles Morgan, Mrs. Charles Morgan, Miss Charles Morgan, and the Governess (whose name Mr. Walter Morton, Mrs. Walter Morton, and Miss Sandys do not recollect), with beds, if remaining through the night is agreeable to Mr. Charles Morgan, Mrs. Charles Morgan, Miss Charles Morgan, and the Governess (whose name Mr. Walter Morton, Mrs. Walter Morton, and Miss Sandys do not recollect!)"
This is an exact copy of an authentic note of invitation to a dinner-party. In point of roundaboutativeness, it is on a par with the long legal papers which used to be served upon pecuniary delinquents.
If you would enjoy a bit of most natural and felicitous description, read the following by that classical and witty writer—no longer, with sorrow be it spoken, of this world—the author of "The American in Paris." The passage has been in the "Drawer" for many years:
"There is a variety of little trades and industries which derive their chief means of life from the wants and luxuries of the street; I mean trades that are unknown in any other country than Paris. You will see an individual moving about at all hours of the night, silent and active, and seizing the smallest bit of paper in the dark, where you can see nothing; and with a hook in the end of a stick, picking it up, and pitching it with amazing dexterity into a basket tied to his left shoulder; with a cat-like walk, being every where and nowhere at the same time, stirring up the rubbish of every nook and gutter of the street, under your very nose. This is the 'Chiffonier.' He is a very important individual. He is in matter what Pythagoras was in mind; and his transformations are scarcely less curious than those of the Samian sage. The beau, by his pains, peruses once again his worn-out dicky or cravat, of a morning, in the 'Magazin des Modes;' while the politician has his linen breeches reproduced in the 'Journal des Debats;' and many a fine lady pours out her soul upon a billet-doux that was once a dish-cloth. The 'chiffonier' stands at the head of the little trades, and is looked up to with envy by the others. He has two coats, and on holidays wears a chain and quizzing-glass. He rises, too, like the Paris gentry, when the chickens roost, and when the lark cheers the morning, goes to bed.
"All the city is divided into districts, and let out to these 'chiffoniers' by the hour; to one from ten to eleven, and from eleven to twelve to another, and so on through the night; so that several get a living and consideration from the same district. This individual does justice to the literary compositions of the day. He crams into his bag indiscriminately the last vaudeville, the last sermon of the Archbishop, and the last essay of the Academy.
"Just below the 'chiffonier' is the 'Gratteur.' This artist scratches the livelong day between the stones of the pavement for old nails from horses' shoes, and other bits of iron; always in hope of a bit of silver, and even perhaps a bit of gold; more happy in his hope than a hundred others in the possession. He has a store, or 'magazin,' in the Faubourgs, where he deposits his ferruginous treasure. His wife keeps this store, and is a 'Marchande de Fer.' He maintains a family, like another man; one or two of his sons he brings up to scratch for a living, and the other he sends to college; and he has a lot 'in perpetuity' in Père la Chaise. His rank, however, is inferior to that of the 'chiffonier,' who will not give him his daughter in marriage, and he don't ask him to his soirées."
A sad and "harrowing" event (after the manner of "the horrid" poetical school), is recorded in the subjoined wild "Fragment:"
"His eye was stern and wild; his cheek
Was pale and cold as clay;
Upon his tightened lip a smile
Of fearful meaning lay:
"He mused awhile, but not in doubt;
o trace of doubt was there;
It was the steady, solemn pause
Of resolute despair!
"Once more he looked upon the scroll,
Once more its words he read;
Then calmly, with unflinching hand,
Its folds before him spread.
"I saw him bare his throat, and seize
The blue, cold-gleaming steel,
And grimly try the temper'd edge
He was so soon to feel!
"A sickness crept upon my heart,
And dizzy swam my head:
I could not stir, I could not cry,
I felt benumbed and dead!
"Black icy horrors struck me dumb,
And froze my senses o'er:
I closed my eyes in utter fear,
And strove to think no more!
·······
"Again I looked: a fearful change
Across his face had passed;
He seemed to rave:—on cheek and lip
A flaky foam was cast.
"He raised on high the glittering blade;
Then first I found a tongue:
'Hold! madman! stay the frantic deed!
I cried, and forth I sprung:
"He heard me, but he heeded not:
One glance around he gave:
And ere I could arrest his hand,
He had—BEGUN TO SHAVE!"
We can recall some half-dozen specimens of this style of writing; one, at least, of which, from an erratic American poet, must be familiar to the general reader.