FOOTNOTES:
[27] From a volume of Foreign Reminiscences, by Henry Richard Lord Holland, edited by his son, Henry Edward Lord Holland,—in the press of Messrs. Harper and Brothers, and soon to be published.
[28] Denon, Mechin, and others.
[29] Mechin.
[30] He was not so, however, either in deliberation or discussion, at least when the matter was invited by himself. He allowed his ministers to comment upon, and even to object to measures in contemplation (provided they acquiesced in them when adopted) in free and even strong terms, and he liked those he questioned on facts or opinions to answer without compliment or reserve.
[31] Some attributed this repugnance to conform, to his fear of the army, others to a secret and conscientious aversion to what he deemed in his heart a profanation.
A CRISIS IN THE AFFAIRS OF MR. JOHN BULL.
AS RELATED BY MRS. BULL TO THE CHILDREN
Mrs. Bull and her rising family were seated round the fire, one November evening at dusk, when all was mud, mist, and darkness, out of doors, and a good deal of fog had even got into the family parlor. To say the truth, the parlor was on no occasion fog-proof, and had, at divers notable times, been so misty as to cause the whole Bull family to grope about, in a most confused manner, and make the strangest mistakes. But, there was an excellent ventilator over the family fire-place (not one of Dr. Arnott's, though it was of the same class, being an excellent invention, called Common Sense), and hence, though the fog was apt to get into the parlor through a variety of chinks, it soon got out again, and left the Bulls at liberty to see what o'clock it was, by the solid, steady-going, family time-piece: which went remarkably well in the long run, though it was apt, at times, to be a trifle too slow.
Mr. Bull was dozing in his easy chair, with his pocket-handkerchief drawn over his head. Mrs. Bull, always industrious, was hard at work, knitting. The children were grouped in various attitudes around the blazing fire. Master C. J. London (called after his God-father), who had been rather late at his exercise, sat with his chin resting, in something of a thoughtful and penitential manner, on his slate resting on his knees. Young Jonathan—a cousin of the little Bulls, and a noisy, overgrown lad—was making a tremendous uproar across the yard, with a new plaything. Occasionally, when his noise reached the ears of Mr. Bull, the good gentleman moved impatiently in his chair, and muttered "Con—found that boy in the stripes, I wish he wouldn't make such a fool of himself!"
"He'll quarrel with his new toy soon, I know," observed the discreet Mrs. Bull, "and then he'll begin to knock it about. But we mustn't expect to find old heads on young shoulders."
"That can't be, ma," said Master C. J. London, who was a sleek, shining-faced boy.
"And why, then, did you expect to find an old head on Young England's shoulders?" retorted Mrs. Bull, turning quickly on him.
"I didn't expect to find an old head on Young England's shoulders!" cried Master C. J. London, putting his left-hand knuckles to his right eye.
"You didn't expect it, you naughty boy?" said Mrs. Bull.
"No!" whimpered Master C. J. London, "I am sure I never did. Oh, oh, oh!"
"Don't go on in that way, don't!" said Mrs. Bull, "but behave better in future. What did you mean by playing with Young England at all?"
"I didn't mean any harm!" cried Master C. J. London, applying, in his increased distress, the knuckles of his right hand to his right eye, and the knuckles of his left hand to his left eye.
"I dare say you didn't!" returned Mrs. Bull. "Hadn't you had warning enough, about playing with candles and candlesticks? How often had you been told that your poor father's house, long before you were born, was in danger of being reduced to ashes by candles and candlesticks? And when Young England and his companions began to put their shirts on, over their clothes, and to play all sorts of fantastic tricks in them, why didn't you come and tell your poor father and me, like a dutiful C. J. London?"
"Because the Rubric—" Master C. J. London was beginning, when Mrs. Bull took him up short.
"Don't talk to me about the Rubric, or you'll make it worse!" said Mrs. Bull, shaking her head at him. "Just exactly what the Rubric meant then, it means now; and just exactly what it didn't mean then, it don't mean now. You are taught to act, according to the spirit, not the letter; and you know what its spirit must be, or you wouldn't be. No, C. J. London!" said Mrs. Bull, emphatically. "If there were any candles or candlesticks in the spirit of your lesson-book, Master Wiseman would have been my boy, and not you!"
Here, Master C. J. London fell a-crying more grievously than before, sobbing, "Oh, ma! Master Wiseman with his red legs, your boy! Oh, oh, oh!"
"Will you be quiet," returned Mrs. Bull, "and let your poor father rest? I am ashamed of you. You to go and play with a parcel of sentimental girls, and dandy boys! Is that your bringing up?"
"I didn't know they were fond of Master Wiseman," protested Master C. J. London, still crying.
"You didn't know, sir!" retorted Mrs. Bull "Don't tell me! Then you ought to have known. Other people knew. You were told often enough, at the time, what it would come to. You didn't want a ghost, I suppose, to warn you that when they got to candlesticks, they'd get to candles; and that when they got to candles, they'd get to lighting 'em; and that when they began to put their shirts on outside, and to play at monks and friars, it was as natural that Master Wiseman should be encouraged to put on a pair of red-stockings, and a red hat, and to commit I don't know what other Tom-fooleries and make a perfect Guy Fawkes of himself in more ways than one. Is it because you are a Bull, that you are not to be roused till they shake scarlet close to your very eyes?" said Mrs. Bull indignantly.
Master C. J. London still repeating "Oh, oh, oh!" in a very plaintive manner, screwed his knuckles into his eyes until there appeared considerable danger of his screwing his eyes out of his head. But, little John (who though of a spare figure was a very spirited boy), started up from the little bench on which he sat; gave Master C. J. London a hearty pat on the back (accompanied, however, with a slight poke in the ribs); and told him that if Master Wiseman, or Young England, or any of those fellows, wanted any thing for himself, he (little John) was the boy to give it him. Hereupon, Mrs. Bull, who was always proud of the child, and always had been, since his measure was first taken for an entirely new suit of clothes to wear in Commons, could not refrain from catching him up on her knee and kissing him with great affection, while the whole family expressed their delight in various significant ways.
"You are a noble boy, little John," said Mrs. Bull, with a mother's pride, "and that's the fact, after every thing is said and done!"
"I don't know about that, ma;" quoth little John, whose blood was evidently up; "but if these chaps and their backers, the Bulls of Rome—"
Here Mr. Bull, who was only half asleep, kicked out in such an alarming manner, that for some seconds, his boots gyrated fitfully all over the family hearth, filling the whole circle with consternation. For, when Mr Bull did kick, his kick was tremendous. And he always kicked, when the Bulls of Rome were mentioned.
Mrs. Bull holding up her finger as an injunction to the children to keep quiet, sagely observed Mr. Bull from the opposite side of the fire-place, until he calmly dozed again, when she recalled the scattered family to their former positions, and spoke in a low tone.
"You must be very careful," said the worthy lady, "how you mention that name; for, your poor father has so many unpleasant experiences of those Bulls of Rome—Bless the man! he'll do somebody a mischief."
Mr. Bull, lashing out again more violently than before, upset the fender, knocked down the fire-irons, kicked over the brass footman, and, whisking his silk handkerchief off his head, chased the Pussy on the rug clean out of the room into the passage, and so out of the street-door into the night; the Pussy having (as was well known to the children in general), originally strayed from the Bulls of Rome into Mr. Bull's assembled family. After the achievement of this crowning feat, Mr. Bull came back, and in a highly excited state performed a sort of war-dance in his top-boots, all over the parlor. Finally, he sank into his arm-chair, and covered himself up again.
Master C. J. London, who was by no means sure that Mr. Bull in his heat would not come down upon him for the lateness of his exercise, took refuge behind his slate and behind little John, who was a perfect game-cock. But, Mr. Bull having concluded his war-dance without injury to any one, the boy crept out, with the rest of the family, to the knees of Mrs. Bull, who thus addressed them, taking little John into her lap before she began:
"The B.'s of R.," said Mrs. Bull, getting, by this prudent device, over the obnoxious words, "caused your poor father a world of trouble, before any one of you were born. They pretended to be related to us, and to have some influence in our family; but it can't be allowed for a single moment—nothing will ever induce your poor father to hear of it; let them disguise or constrain themselves now and then, as they will, they are, by nature, an insolent, audacious, oppressive, intolerable race."
Here little John doubled his fists, and began squaring at the Bulls of Rome, as he saw those pretenders with his mind's eye. Master C. J. London, after some considerable reflection, made a show of squaring, likewise.
"In the days of your great, great, great, great, grandfather," said Mrs. Bull, dropping her voice still lower, as she glanced at Mr. Bull in his repose, "the Bulls of Rome were not so utterly hateful to our family as they are at present. We didn't know them so well, and our family were very ignorant and low in the world. But, we have gone on advancing in every generation since then; and now we are taught, by all our family history and experience, and by the most limited exercise of our rational faculties, that our knowledge, liberty, progress, social welfare and happiness are wholly irreconcilable and inconsistent with them. That the Bulls of Rome are not only the enemies of our family, but of the whole human race. That wherever they go, they perpetuate misery, oppression, darkness, and ignorance. That they are easily made the tools of the worst of men for the worst of purposes; and that they can not be endured by your poor father, or by any man, woman, or child, of common sense, who has the least connection with us."
Little John, who had gradually left off squaring, looked hard at his aunt, Miss Eringobragh, Mr. Bull's sister, who was groveling on the ground, with her head in the ashes. This unfortunate lady had been, for a length of time, in a horrible condition of mind and body, and presented a most lamentable spectacle of disease, dirt, rags, superstition, and degradation.
Mrs. Bull, observing the direction of the child's glance, smoothed little John's hair, and directed her next observations to him.
"Ah! You may well look at the poor thing, John!" said Mrs. Bull; "for the Bulls of Rome have had far too much to do with her present state. There have been many other causes at work to destroy the strength of her constitution, but the Bulls of Rome have been at the bottom of it; and, depend upon it, wherever you see a condition at all resembling hers, you will find, on inquiry, that the sufferer has allowed herself to be dealt with by the Bulls of Rome. The cases of squalor and ignorance, in all the world most like your aunt's, are to be found in their own household; on the steps of their doors; in the heart of their homes. In Switzerland, you may cross a line no broader than a bridge or a hedge, and know, in an instant, where the Bulls of Rome have been received, by the condition of the family. Wherever the Bulls of Rome have the most influence, the family is sure to be the most abject. Put your trust in those Bulls, John, and it's the inevitable order and sequence of things, that you must come to be something like your aunt, sooner or later."
"I thought the Bulls of Rome had got into difficulties and run away, ma?" said little John, looking up into his mother's face inquiringly.
"Why, so they did get into difficulties, to be sure, John," returned Mrs. Bull, "and so they did run away, but, even the Italians, who had got thoroughly used to them, found them out, and they were obliged to go and hide in a cupboard, where they still talked big through the key-hole, and presented one of the most contemptible and ridiculous exhibitions that ever were seen on earth. However, they were taken out of the cupboard by some friends of theirs—friends, indeed! who care as much about them as I do for the sea-serpent; but who happened, at the moment, to find it necessary to play at soldiers, to amuse their fretful children, who didn't know what they wanted, and, what was worse, would have it—and so the Bulls got back to Rome. And at Rome they are any thing but safe to stay, as you'll find, my dear, one of these odd mornings."
"Then, if they are so unsafe, and so found out, ma," said Master C. J. London, "how come they to interfere with us, now?"
"Oh, C. J. London!" returned Mrs. Bull, "what a sleepy child you must be to put such a question! Don't you know that the more they are found out, and the weaker they are, the more important it must be to them to impose upon the ignorant people near them, by pretending to be closely connected with a person so much looked up to as your poor father?"
"Why, of course!" cried little John to his brother. "Oh, you stupid!"
"And I am ashamed to have to repeat, C. J. London," said Mrs. Bull, "that, but for your friend, Young England, and the encouragement you gave to that mewling little Pussy, when it strayed here—don't say you didn't, you naughty boy, for you did!"
"You know you did!" said little John.
Master C. J. London began to cry again.
"Don't do that," said Mrs. Bull, sharply, "but be a better boy in future! I say, I am ashamed to have to repeat, that, but for that, the Bulls of Rome would never have had the audacity to call their connection, Master Wiseman, your poor father's child, and to appoint him, with his red hat and stockings, and his mummery and flummery, to a portion of your father's estates—though, for the matter of that, there is nothing to prevent their appointing him to the Moon, except the difficulty of getting him there! And so, your poor father's affairs have been brought to this crisis: that he has to deal with an insult which is perfectly absurd, and yet which he must, for the sake of his family in all time to come, decisively and seriously deal with, in order to detach himself, once and forever, from those Bulls of Rome; and show how impotent they are. There's difficulty and vexation, you have helped to bring upon your father, you bad child!"
"Oh, oh, oh!" cried Master C. J. London. "Oh, I never went to do it. Oh, oh, oh!"
"Hold your tongue!" said Mrs. Bull, "and do a good exercise! Now that your father has turned that Pussy out of doors, go on with your exercise, like a man; and let us have no more playing with any one connected with those Bulls of Rome; between whom and you there is a great gulf fixed, as you ought to have known in the beginning. Take your fingers out of your eyes, sir, and do your exercise!"
"Or I'll come and pinch you!" said little John.
"John," said Mrs. Bull, "you leave him alone. Keep your eye upon him, and, if you find him relapsing, tell your father."
"Oh, won't I neither!" cried little John.
"Don't be vulgar," said Mrs. Bull. "Now, John, I can trust you. Whatever you do, I know you won't wake your father unnecessarily. You are a bold, brave child, and I highly approve of your erecting yourself against Master Wiseman and all that bad set. But, be wary, John; and, as you have, and deserve to have, great influence with your father, I am sure you will be careful how you wake him. If he was to make a wild rush, and begin to dance about, on the Platform in the Hall, I don't know where he'd stop."
Little John, getting on his legs, began buttoning his jacket with great firmness and vigor, preparatory to action. Master C. J. London, with a dejected aspect and an occasional sob, went on with his exercise.
WAITING FOR THE POST.—INTERESTING ANECDOTES.
In the village in which we were at one time residing, there dwelt, in a small cottage commanded by our windows, a lieutenant in the navy on half-pay. We were a child at the time, and one of our amusements was to watch from our play-room the bees that worked in that cottage-garden, and the "old gentleman"—as we styled him, because his hair was gray—pace, with his quick, quarter-deck step the little path that divided the flower-beds. It was a neat though very small dwelling, almost shut from view by lilacs and evergreens; the garden was gay with sweet flowers, which might almost be called domestic in this age of new buds and blossoms; and it was carefully tended by a young girl—his only daughter—and an old female servant. We noticed every morning that the lieutenant, who was a tall figure, and would have been a handsome and commanding-looking man but for his very great paleness and his stooping, walked briskly to the gate, and holding himself a little more erect than usual, glanced first at the vane, noticing with a sailor's instinct the quarter in which the wind sat; and then turning, gazed anxiously up the village in the direction of the postman's approach, till that functionary appeared in sight. Then he would lay his hand nervously on the top of the little garden-gate, half open it, close it again, and finally, as the letter-carrier advanced, hail him with the inquiry, "Any letter for me to-day, Roger?" If the answer were a "No," and such was the ordinary reply, he would turn away with a sigh, and walk slowly back to the house, bending more than ever, and coughing painfully—he had a distressing cough at times; but his daughter would meet him at the door, and pass her arm through his, and lead him in, with a gentle affection in the action that was quite intelligible; and though we could not hear her words, we knew she was consoling him. We also were sorry for his disappointment. Sometimes a letter came, and he would take it eagerly, but look at it with a changed countenance, for most frequently it was only one of those large wafered epistles we have since learned to recognize as bills—even then we could be sure it was not the letter which he looked for.
And thus he watched daily for something that never came, all through the bright summer and autumn, and even when the snow lay thick upon the ground, and the cold morning and evening breeze must have been injurious to one in feeble health. At last we missed him from his usual post, and the arrival of the village doctor at the cottage confirmed our fears that he was ill. We never saw him again. A fire glimmered from an upper room, the chamber in which he slept; and at times his daughter's figure passed the window as she moved across it, in her gentle and noiseless task of nursing the dying officer. One morning we did not see the usual blaze from the casement: but the old woman came out and shut the shutters close, and drew down the blinds, and we saw as she re-entered the house that she was weeping. That very morning the postman, Roger, stopped at the little wicket, and rang the bell. He held in his hand a very large, long letter, with words printed outside. The woman-servant answered him, and took the letter, putting her apron to her eyes as he spoke. It was the long-hoped-for, long-expected letter from the Admiralty appointing the old officer to a ship. Alas, it came too late! He who had so long waited in restless anxiety—who had so sickened with disappointed hope—was gone to a world where the weary rest, and man's toil and worth are neither neglected nor forgotten. We heard afterward all his sad history, of which there are so many lamentable counterparts. He had gone to sea while yet a child, had toiled, suffered, and fought at the period when the very existence of his country depended on the valor of the navy; but then came the peace, and with many another brave man he had found himself on half-pay, alike unrewarded and forgotten. Mr. St. Quentin—our gentleman who waited for the post—was a widower with one only child, who was his idol. To educate and provide for her had been his great anxiety. How could this be done on his half-pay? It was impossible. True he read hard to become himself her teacher, but there was much he could not impart to her; and with heroic self-denial he placed her at an expensive school, and went himself almost without the common necessaries of life to keep her there. Still the heavy burden thus laid on his slender means obliged him to contract debts, and it was agony to his just and upright spirit when he found it impossible to defray them.
He had used great energy in his endeavors to get employed again, and just before we made his acquaintance, "waiting for the post," had received a promise that his services should be remembered. Both promise and fulfillment came too late! The one awoke hopes which, daily deferred, had preyed on the very springs of life, and taxed too sorely a constitution much tried by toil and suffering in youth; the other came when the heart it would have cheered had eased to feel the joy or sorrow of mortality. His orphan daughter, a pretty gentle creature of seventeen, was left totally destitute—almost friendless. If they had relatives, all communion with them had long ceased; and the utterly desolate and isolated situation of Mary St. Quentin was nearly unparalleled. My family, who were of her father's profession, were much affected by it, and took a warm interest in her fortunes. They procured for her the small pension accorded to the orphans of naval or military men, with contributions from several similar funds; and finally received her into our house, until she could hear of a situation as governess, for which her dearly-purchased education admirably fitted her.
I remember well the evening she first came among us. How sad and pale she looked in her solemn black dress, and how low and mournful her voice sounded! Poor girl! a rough world was before her; a fiercer and more terrible conflict for her timid nature than contending with the storms and battles in which her father had borne a part. We pitied her greatly, and strove to soothe and cheer her with all our little skill; though we certainly did not adopt the most likely means to achieve our object, when some days afterward we told her how we had watched her poor father as he waited for the post. Then for the first time since her coming among us we saw her weep; and she murmured, "If he could have seen the letter!"
After a time the exertions of her friends procured her a situation, and she left us. How anxiously we then watched for the letter that was to tell us that our dear new friend was safe, and well, and comfortable; and it did not tarry! Mary wrote gratefully, and even cheerfully. She had been kindly received; the home in which her lot was cast was a splendid chateau, in which all the comforts and luxuries of life abounded. Moreover, the family treated her as a gentlewoman, and her pupils were clever and well-trained. She was very thankful for the career of toil and seclusion to which circumstances condemned her—very willing to do her duty gladly in that state of life in which it had pleased God to place her. She remained with this family four or five years, passing her occasional holidays with us; and we learned to love her as a sister, and to look up to her for advice, which was ever as wise as it was gentle and affectionate. She was a very sweet creature—so quietly gay, so unselfish, so contented, and so modestly intelligent, that I can not remember that I have ever met with so perfect a woman. The last holiday she spent with us we saw a change in her, however; and it must have been a great mental change to be perceptible in one so self-possessed and patient. She had grown less attentive to our often exacting wishes; she had become absent and thoughtful—nay, at times a slight irritation was observable in her manner; but that which struck us most was the habit she really appeared to have inherited from her father—of watching for the postman. We remarked how eagerly she listened for his knock—how tremulously she asked for whom the letters were directed—and the painfully-repressed sigh and darkened countenance with which she turned away when there was none for her! As she had finally quitted the family with whom she had so long resided, and was waiting for a new engagement, we thought at first that it was an epistle from some of the quarters in which she had applied for one she was expecting; but that could not be the case, for when she had made a re-engagement, and it was fixed that she was to proceed to the south of France with her future pupils' family, her watching for the post became more evident and more anxious: nay, to us who observed it, absolutely painful. What letter could she expect so nervously? Why was she daily so sadly disappointed? The solution came at last. It was the very morning fixed for her departure for London, where she was to meet her future charge. Her boxes, corded and directed, were in the hall; she stood at the window, dressed for her journey, weeping bitterly—for she loved us all, and still timidly shrank from strangers—and we were holding each a cold, trembling hand, when the servant entered with the letters—"One for Miss St. Quentin."
She glanced at it, suppressed a faint exclamation, and taking it, her hand trembled so violently that she could scarcely break the seal. But when it was open, and her eye had glanced over the contents, what a sudden change took place in her countenance! She blushed deeply, her lip trembled, and then smiled, and breaking from among us, she sought our mother, and asked to speak to her alone. That letter had changed her destiny. It was a proposal of marriage from a man of good position and fortune, who had won her affections by a thousand acts of attention and tenderness, but had left her uncertain whether he intended to fulfill an only implied promise or not. True he had said something of writing to her, and therefore she had waited for the post with such anxiety, and for so long a time in vain: but there had been good and sufficient reasons for his prolonged silence, and the lady was only too ready to forgive it.
She went to town, accompanied by my father, arranged to remain in England (finding a substitute as governess for her disappointed employers), and two months afterward was married in our little village church to one who has made her as happy as it is possible to be in a world of trial and sorrow.
A very singular and painful waiting for the post occurred at Malta, some years since: it was related to us by a person concerned in the affair, and we offer the reader the tale as it was told to us:
It was St. John's day, a festival highly venerated by the Maltese, who claim the beloved disciple as their patron saint. The English troops quartered in the island were to be reviewed on it, and as is usual, in compliment to the faith of the islanders, the artillery was ordered to fire a salute in honor of the day. It was a yearly custom; but the two officers whose duty it was at this time to see it fulfilled thought it savored of idolatry, and in the presence of the general and his staff refused to order their men to fire. They were of course put under an arrest for disobedience; but, the circumstances of the case considered, the general in command hesitated how to proceed with them, and at his request the governor of the island wrote to the commander-in-chief at home for instructions in the matter, as it was a case of "tender conscience." Some delay of course necessarily occurred in getting a reply, and the anxiety with which the puzzled general and rebellious officers awaited it may be imagined. Day after day did the eyes of the former traverse the bright blue sea, across which must come the decision of England, and day after day he waited for the post in vain. Foul winds, bad weather, all sorts of causes, stayed the course of the packet—there was no steam conveyance in those days—and before she actually entered Valetta harbor he to whom the letter had been written, the noble governor, was dead. It was judged expedient that the general should, however, open the commander-in-chief's answer, to prevent further unpleasant delay. Alas, it had been intended for the eye of Lord H——only! The commander-in-chief blamed the general, "who ought," he said, "to have tried and broke the officers on the spot—nothing in a military man could excuse disobedience to orders;" adding with reference to the general (of course without intending that any one but Lord H—— should learn his private sentiments), "but I never had much opinion of that officer!"
Poor General P—— loved and reverenced his military chief, as all soldiers must. Those words so singularly presented to his eyes, wounded him deeply. He was at the time suffering from low fever; they completed its work, making an impression on his mind no arguments could remove. He obeyed the orders given; held a court-martial; tried the offenders; dismissed them from the service; and then, taking to his bed, sank rapidly, and died before the next post from England could reach the island. He never waited for another!
And now I approach another reminiscence of this common human anxiety, of which I can not think without deep emotion. We had a young cousin, a fine lad full of spirit and ardor, a midshipman in the royal navy, who was our especial pride and delight. We had no brother, but he supplied the want to us, being, as a child, our constant playmate—as a youth, our merriest and best-loved correspondent. How full of fun, quaint humor, and droll adventures were his letters, and how we used to long for them, especially for that which proclaimed his arrival in the English seas! The period for receiving such an announcement had arrived, for his ship had entered Plymouth harbor; and I can never forget how eagerly I used to wait for the postman, how restlessly I watched him at an opposite door, and how I hated the servant for delaying him by a tardy attention to his knock! No letter came, however; day after day, hour after hour passed, and disappointment became uneasiness, and alarm so terrible, that even the sad certainty was at last a relief.
He never wrote again. He had perished in Tampier Bay, and his death had been one of many instances of unrecorded but undoubted heroism. The weather was stormy, but it was necessary to send a boat on shore, and Charles had good-naturedly offered to take the duty of being its officer in the stead of a young and delicate messmate who had been ordered on the service. It upset in the surf: two men and our poor cousin clung to its keel for some minutes; at length it became apparent that one must let go his hold, or all would perish. Both the seamen were married men, and uttered their natural regret at leaving their children fatherless. The gallant youth (as they afterward reported when picked up) observed, "Then my life is less precious than yours. My poor mother, God bless you!" and, quitting his hold, perished in the ocean, which by a strange fatality has been the grave of nearly all his family.
Waiting for the post upon the mountains of Western India is recalled by this anecdote to my recollection. I well remember the last time I stood on the heights of Bella Vista, as our ghaut was called, watching the fleet approach of the tapaul, or postman. It was near sunset—a glorious hour in all lands, but especially so in the East. A gorgeous canopy of colored light was above us; beneath the "everlasting hills;" Their tops—for we looked down on the first ranges of ghauts—tipped with gold and crimson, and regal purple, or with blended colors, as if they had caught and detained a portion of the rainbow itself. Here and there, bits of jungle were perceptible, from one of which issued the running courier, whose speed was no bad commentary or explanation of Job's comparison—"My days are swift as a post." He was a tall, light figure, gayly dressed, and holding a lance with a little glittering flag at the top. He brought letters from the presidency; and some native correspondence was also transmitted through his means. These running posts are occasionally picked off by a tiger in their passage through the jungle; but the journey to our (then) abode was so frequently made, that the wild animals seldom appeared in the route, ceding it tacitly to the lords of creation, and permitting us to receive our letters safely. What joy it was to open one from England! it is really worth a journey to the East to feel this pleasure. The native letters destined for the official personages of the family are singular-looking affairs. They have for envelope a bag of king-cob cloth—a costly fabric of blended silk and gold thread; this is tied carefully with a gold cord, to which is appended a huge seal, as large and thick as a five-shilling piece. Once during our residence in India the homeward post was delayed by the loss of the steamer which bore our dispatches to England; they must have been vainly expected for two months, doubtless to the great alarm and anxiety of the public. Some of the mail boxes were, however, recovered from the sunken wreck by means of divers; and our epistles, after visiting the depths of the Red Sea, were safely conveyed to England. Once before, we were told, a similar catastrophe had occurred, but the boxes became so saturated with sea-water, that the addresses of the letters were illegible. It was judged expedient, therefore, to publish as much of their contents as was decipherable, in the Indian papers—under the idea that those to whom they were addressed would recognize their own missives from the context; and a most absurdly-mischievous experiment it proved. Never was such a breach of confidence. All sorts of disagreeable secrets were made out by the gentle public of the presidency. Intimate friends learned how they laughed at, or hated one another; matrimonial schemes were betrayed; the scandal, gossip, and confidential disclosures of the Indian letter-bag making as strange and unpleasant a confusion as if the peninsula had suddenly been converted into Madame de Genlis's "Palace of Truth." There was no little alarm when our steamer was lost, lest a similar disclosure should be made; but the world had grown wiser; and those epistles which were illegibly addressed were, we believe, destroyed, unless when relating to commercial interests, and other business.
We hope we have not wearied our gentle reader with this subject, for we have yet another little incident for his ear relative to it, which was told us as a fact by a French lady who knew the person concerned. Some friends of hers residing in the provinces had an only daughter, an heiress, and consequently a desirable match. Her hand was eagerly sought by many suitors, and was at last yielded by her parents to a gentleman of some property who had recently purchased a chateau in the neighborhood. His apparent wealth, his high connections, and very elegant manners, had won their favor; and in great delight at the excellent match her daughter was about to make, Madame L—— wrote to her friends and relatives to inform them of the approaching happy event. Among these was a lady residing at Marseilles, to whom she described, with all a Frenchwoman's vivacity, the person, manners, &c., of the bridegroom elect. Answers of congratulation and good wishes poured in of course; and Madame L——, who had a secret persuasion that she was an unknown and unhonored Madame de Sevigné, became so pleased with her increased correspondence, that she made a point of never leaving the house till after the delivery of the post. The Marseilles correspondent was the only one of the number with whom she had communicated who had not replied to her letter. This answer was therefore desired with great eagerness; and Madame L—— remembered afterward, though at the time it awoke no suspicion in her mind, that the lover always appeared uneasy when she expressed her anxiety on the subject, or her desire to hear from her friend.
The wedding-day arrived; and the bride groom, manifesting a most flattering impatience for the performance of the ceremony, came early to the house of his affianced, to accompany the family party to the magistrates, where the contract was to be drawn up. But even on that momentous day Madame L—— adhered to her custom of waiting for the post, to the evident rage and even agonized impatience of her destined son-in-law, who urged her with passionate eagerness to proceed at once to the magistrates. The delay proved most serviceable. The post came in due time, and brought a letter from Marseilles. The writer, struck by some slight personal peculiarities which her friend had described, had fancied it possible that the promesso sposo was no other than an escaped galley-slave, with whom, before his condemnation for a heinous crime, her family had been intimate. She had therefore, in some alarm, caused her husband to make inquiries into the matter, and a sufficient mass of evidence had been collected to justify her suspicion, and cause her to urge inquiry and delay on the part of M. and Madame L——. She suggested, moreover, that the truth might be easily discovered by a personal examination of the gentleman, who, if the same individual, had been branded on the right shoulder. The surprise, horror, and alarm of Madame L—— may be imagined. The contents of the letter were of course instantly communicated by her to her husband, and by him privately to the bridegroom, whom he requested to satisfy his wife's fears by showing him his right shoulder. The request was indignantly refused as an insult to his honor; and convinced of the fact by the agitation and dismay of the culprit, as well as by this refusal, the gentleman gave him at once into the hands of the police, who had no difficulty in finding the fatal mark of infamy. He was, indeed, an escaped convict, and the wealth with which he had dazzled the good provincials was the spoil of a recent robbery, undertaken by himself and some Parisian accomplices, and so cleverly managed as to have set at naught hitherto the best efforts of the police for its discovery.
We may be sure Madame L—— congratulated herself highly on having, as if by a providential instinct, "waited for the post."
CHEERFUL VIEWS OF HUMAN NATURE.
BY THE KING OF THE HEARTH.
"Do thee go on, Phil," said a miner, one of sixteen who sat about a tap-room fire, "Do thee go on, Phil Spruce; and, Mrs. Pittis, fetch us in some beer."
"And pipes," added a boy.
Mr. Spruce contemplated his young friend with a grim smile. "Well," said he, "it's a story profitable to be heard, and so—"
"Ay, so it be," said a lame man, who made himself a little more than quits with Nature, by working with his sound leg on the floor incessantly. "So it be," said Timothy Drum, "Phil's a philosopher."
"It always strucked me," said a dirty little man, "that Phil has had a sort of nater in him ever since that night we lost old Tony Barker."
"What happened then?" inquired the squire's new gamekeeper.
"Did ever you see down the shaft of a pit?" asked Phil.
"No; and I'd rather not."
"A deep, deep well. Whatever they may do in other parts, we sing hymns, when we are pulled up, and if so be any of our butties at such times says a wicked word, he gets cursed finely when we be safe up at the top. We gon up and down different ways. In some old pits they have ladders, one under another, which reminds me—"
"Always the way with Phil."
Mr. Spruce gazed sternly in the direction of the whisperer, and drank some beer. "Which reminds me that once—"
We must here announce the fact concerning Mr. Philip Spruce, that his method of telling a story ("Which reminds me," always meant a story with him) is very discursive. He may be said to resemble Jeremy Bentham, who, according to Hazlitt's criticism, fills his sentence with a row of pegs, and hangs a garment upon each of them. Let us omit some portion of his tediousness, and allow him to go on with his tale.
"It was in the year one thousand, eight, four, four; by token it was the same month, November, in which the block fell upon Tim Drum's leg, I was invited to a Christmas dinner by old Jabez Wilson. You are aware, gentlemen, that hereabouts there are a great number of deserted pits. The entrances to these are mostly covered with a board or two. There aren't many stiles in our pit-country, so we are drove to using these for firewood. The old pit mouths being left uncovered, and sometimes hidden in brushwood, it is a very common thing for sheep to tumble in, and if gentlemen go shooting thereabouts, they may chance to return home without a dog—your good health, Timothy. As I was saying, I love to ponder upon causes and compare effects. I pondered as I walked—"
"And the effect was, that you tumbled into a pit, Phil Spruce."
"The truth has been told, gentlemen, but it has been told too soon. And now I've forgotten where I was. Ay, pondering," here Phil hung up a long shred of philosophy on one of his pegs; and after the first ten minutes of his harangue, which was chiefly occupied in abusing human nature, a fierce-looking individual said,
"Go on, sir; you've brought things to that pass where they won't bear aggravation. The company expects you to fall down the pit directly."
"In the middle of my reflections—my natural Christmas thoughts," continued Phil, "I felt a severe bump on the back and a singular freedom about my legs, followed by a crash against the hinder part of my head—"
"To the bottom at once," said the fierce-looking man.
"I was at the bottom of a pit in two seconds. By what means my life was preserved I can not tell; certain it is that I sustained at that time no serious injury. Of course I was much stunned, and lay for a long time, I suppose, insensible. When I opened my eyes there was nothing to be seen more than a faint glimmer from the daylight far above, and a great many dancing stars which seemed like a swarm of gnats, ready to settle on my body. I now pondered how I should obtain rescue from my dangerous position, when an odd circumstance arrested my attention. I was evidently, unless my ears deceived me, not alone in my misfortune; for I heard, as distinctly as I now hear Mr. Drum's leg upon the fender, I heard a loud voice. It proceeded from a distant gallery. 'Who did you say?' inquired the voice in a hoarse tone; a softer voice replied, 'Phil Spruce, I think.' 'Very well,' answered the big sound; 'I'll come to him directly.'
"Here was a state of things. A gentleman resided here and was aware of my intrusion. Moreover, I was known. Was the acquaintance mutual? Well, gentlemen, that question was soon to be decided, for presently I heard a rustling and a crackling noise, like the approaching of a lady in a very stiff silk dress. But that gruff voice! I trembled. As the sound approached, a light gleamed over the dark, dirty walls, and glittered in the puddle upon which I was reposing. 'He or she has brought a candle, that is wise.' So I looked round. Mother of Miracles! He, she, or IT. What do you think approached? A mass of cinder, glowing hot, shaped into head, body, arms, and legs; black coal on the crown of its head, red glow on the cheeks, and all the rest white hot, with here and there a little eruption of black bubbles, spirting out lighted gas. It was the shape of a huge man, who walked up with a most friendly expression in his face, evidently intending to give me a warm reception.
"And so he did, as I will tell you presently. It needed not the aid of his natural qualities to throw me into a great and sudden heat; his supernatural appearance was enough for that. Then I was seized with a great fear lest, in his friendliness, he should expect me to shake hands. That was as if I should have thrust my fingers into this tap-room grate. Well, ma'am (your good health, Mrs. Pittis), the strange thing came up to me quite pleasant, with a beaming face, and said, in something of a voice like a hoarse blast pipe, 'Glad to see you, Mr. Spruce. How did you come here?' 'O,' said I, 'Sir,' not liking to be behind-hand in civility, 'I only just dropped in.' 'Cold, up above, Mr. Spruce? Will you walk in and take a little something warm?' A little something warm! What's that? thought I. 'O yes,' I said, 'with all my heart, sir.' 'Come along, then; you seem stiff in the bones, Mr. Spruce, allow me to help you up.' 'O Lord!' I cried, forgetting my manners. 'No, thank you, sir. Spruce is my name, and spruce my nature. I can get up quite nimble.' And so I did, with a leap; although it made my joints ache, I can tell you. The thing bowed and seemed to be quite glowing double with delight to see me. Take a little something warm, I thought again. O, but I won't though! However, I must not seem eager to get away just yet; the beast seems to think I came down on purpose to see him. 'After you, sir!' said I, bowing and pulling my forelock. 'If you will be so good as to lead, I'll follow.' 'This way, then, Philip.'
"So we went, along a gallery, and came to a vault which was lighted by the bodies of a great number of imps, all made of brisk live coal, like my conductor. 'I dare say you find the room close,' said the king—for I found afterward he was a real king, though he was so familiar. 'What will you take to drink?' I calculated there was nothing weaker than vitriol in his cellar, so I begged to be excused. 'It is not my habit, sir, to drink early mornings; and indeed I must not let my wife wait dinner. We will have a little gossip, if you please, and then you will let one of your servants light me out, perhaps. I merely dropped in, as you are aware, my dear sir.' 'Quite aware of that, my dear Phil. And very glad I am to get your company. Of course you are anxious to be up above in good time; and if you can stop here an hour, I shall be happy to accompany you.' Indeed, thought I to myself, Polly will stare. 'Most happy,' I replied. 'I fear you will take harm from that nasty puddle at my door,' observed the king. 'Wouldn't you wish to lie down and rest a bit, before we start out together.' I thought that a safe way of getting through the time. 'You are very good,' said I. 'Get a bed ready, Coffin and Purse!' Two bright little imps darted away, and the Thing turning round to me with a sulphurous yawn, said, 'I don't mind, Phil, if I lie down with you.' Surely he's roasting me, I thought.
"True as sorrow, Mr. Timothy, Coffin and Purse came back in no time to say the bed was ready; and I followed the king with as good courage as a Smithfield martyr. But I did not, I did not expect what followed. We went into a small vault, of which half the floor was covered by a blazing fire: all the coals had been raked level, and that was Coffin and Purse's bed-making. 'Well, I'll get in at once,' said the king; 'you see we've a nice light mattress.' 'Light, sir! why it's in vivid blazes. You don't suppose I can lie down on that.' 'Why not, Phil? You see I do. Here I am, snug and comfortable.' 'Yes, my dear sir, but you forget the difference there is between us?' 'And yes again, Mr. Spruce; but please to remember this is Christmas Day, a day on which all differences should be ended.'
"'And now,' said the monster, sitting up suddenly upon a corner of the bed, 'and now, Phil, I will urge you to nothing. You are a reasoning man, and count for a philosopher. Let's argue a bit, Mr. Spruce.' 'I'm favorable to free discussion.' I replied; 'but I decide on principles of common sense.' 'Let common sense decide,' replied the king, crossing his knees and looking conversational. 'The point at issue is, whether with your views it would be better for you to remain a man or to become a cinder. What were your thoughts this morning, Philip Spruce?' 'This morning I was thinking about human nature, sir.' 'And how did you decide upon it, Philip?' 'Humbly asking pardon, sir, and meaning no offense, may I inquire whether in present company it is permitted to speak disrespectfully of the Devil?'
"I wouldn't have said that, Phil, to a man of his appearance."
"Lord bless you, Tim Drum, he looked so mild disposed, and 'No offense,' he says; 'speak out without reserve.' 'Then, sir,' said I, 'this is what I think of human nature. I believe that it was full of every sort of goodness, and that men were naturally well disposed to one another, till the Devil got that great idea of his. Men are born to worship their Creator, and to supply the wants of their neighbors, but then comes in the deceiving fiery monster, with a pocketful of money, and says, quite disinterested, 'Gentlemen and Ladies, it's of no use asking you to venerate me; you don't do it, and you oughtn't to; but the most convenient and proper thing is for every individual to worship only just his self. You see the result of this,' says the old sinner; 'by paying sacrifice to your own images, you just change things from the right-hand pocket to the left, or if you go abroad, as you must do, in search of offerings, all the fish comes to your own net, and all the fat into your own belly. You smoke your own incense, and if you chance to be remiss in your devotions, you may make peace and atonement any way you please. Then,' says the great brimstone beast—I beg your pardon, sir, excuse my liberty of speech—'if any body remark you are my servants, you can laugh, and tell them you are no such fools. As for any formulary of religion, follow in that the fashion of your country—'
"The cinder gentleman, Mrs. Pittis, my dear, rolled about in the fire, quite at his ease, and said, 'Very good, Phil. And what else have you to say of human nature?' by which you will see that he had discrimination enough to perceive the value of my observations. 'The result is, sir,' I says to him then, 'that the whole human race is a-dancing and a-trumpeting in corners, every man singing hymns in honor of his self. And the old enemy capers up and down the country and the town, rejoicing at the outcry which he hears from every lip in his honor. A friend is rarer than a phœnix; for no man can serve two images, and each sticks firmly by his own.'
"'Have you no charity yourself this Christmas, Mr. Spruce?' inquired the king, after he had called to his two imps that they should put fresh coals upon the bed, and rake it up. 'When I was a young man, sir,' said I, 'no one could have started in the world with a stronger faith in human goodness. But I've seen my error. All the ways of human nature are humbug, sir; as for my fellow-creatures, I've been very much deceived in 'em. That's all I know in answer to your question.'
"'I understand you, Phil,' the king said, lounging back upon the bed, and kindling the new coals into a blaze around him by the mere contact of his body. 'You are a philosopher out at elbows, and therefore a little out of temper with the world. You would like best to make your observations upon human nature without being jostled. You'd rather see the play from a snug little box, than be an actor in it, kicked about and worried.' 'Ah, sir,' said I, 'and where is such a seat provided?' 'Philip, I can answer that question,' said the king; 'and what is more, I can give you free admission to a snug private box.' 'How so, sir?' said I, quite eagerly. 'The coal-box, Phil,' replied the king. 'I'm puzzled, sir,' said I. 'In what way is my condition to be improved by the act of sitting in a coal-box?' 'That, my dear Phil, I will make as clear to you as a fire on a frosty night. Know, then, that I am King among the Coals.' I bowed, and was upon the point of kissing his extended hand, but drew back my nose suddenly. 'The cinder which I now have on I wear—because it is large and easy—in the manner of a dressing-gown, when here at home. I am, however, a spirit, and ruler over many other spirits similarly formed. Now, Phil, the business and amusement of myself and subjects is to transfer ourselves at will into the tenancy of any coal we please. The scuttles of the whole kingdom are our meeting-houses. Every coal cast upon the fire, Phil, is, by our means, animated with a living spirit. It is our amusement, then, to have a merry sport among ourselves; and it is our privilege to watch the scenes enacted round the hearths which we enliven. When the cinder becomes cold, the spirit is again set free, and flies, whither it pleases, to a new abode.'"
"Isn't that the doctrine of metamicosis?" asked the boy (a national scholar) tapping the ashes from his pipe-bowl.
"It's a thing I never heard on," said the gamekeeper. Mr. Spruce went on:
"'Did you never,' continued his majesty, 'when gazing into the fire, see a grotesque face glow before you? That face, Phil, has been mine. You have, then, seen the King among the Coals. If you become a cinder, Mr. Spruce, you may consider yourself made a judge.'
"'Well, sir,' says I, 'your reverence, it's firstly requisite to judge whether I will or won't sit down upon the fire. It's my opinion I won't. I'd like a little more discussion.' 'Talk away, Phil,' said the king. 'Well, sir,' says I, 'since you're always a-looking—leastways in winter—through the bars of grates, it's possible you've seen a bit yourself of human nature. Don't it fidget you?' 'Why,' says he, 'Phil,' a-stretching out his arms for a great yawn so suddenly as very nigh to set my coat on fire with his red fingers, 'I have been tolerably patient, haven't I?' 'If it's sarcasm you mean,' says I, a little nettled, 'I must say, it's a figure of speech I don't approve of.'
"'I beg your pardon, sir,' he says, 'and here's an answer to your question. It's my opinion, Mr. Spruce, that as a cinder you will be agreeably surprised. I do see people sitting around me, now and then, whom I can't altogether get my coals to blaze for cheerfully. They sit and talk disparagement about all manner of folks their neighbors; they have a cupboard in their hearts for hoarding up the grievances they spend their lives in searching for; they hate the world, and could make scandal out of millstones, but if one hints that they are erring, they are up in arms, and don't approve of sarcasm.' 'Sir,' says I, 'you are personal.' 'By no means, Mr. Spruce; you, and a number like you, are good people in the main, and deeply to be pitied for your foolish blunder. You're a philosopher, Phil,' he says, 'and did you never hear that your "I" is the only thing certainly existent, and that the world without may be a shadow or mere part of you, or, if external, of no certain form or tint, having the color of the medium through which you view it—your own nature.' Here I saw occasion for a joke. 'Sir,' I says, 'if my own "I" is the only thing certainly existing, then the external world is all my eye, which proves what I propounded.' His flames went dead all of a sudden, and he looked black from top to toe. 'I am sure I beg your pardon, sir,' says I, 'excuse my liberty.'
"'He took no verbal notice of what I had said, but gave a tremendous shiver, and his flames began to play again. 'I'm of a warm and cheerful turn of mind,' says he, 'and I must say, that whenever I look out upon the men and women in the world, I see them warm and cheerful.' 'That's nothing wonderful,' said I; 'it's just because you see them sitting round your blaze.' 'Well,' says he, 'Mr. Spruce, I'm very glad you own so much; for my opinion is, that if you had shone out cheerfully when you were in the world, and warmed the folks that came within your influence—if you had put a little kindly glow into your countenance, you would have been surrounded always as I generally am.' 'You're young, says I, 'and you have had no experience; leastways, your experience has not been human. You get stirred when you're low, and people tend you for their own sakes—you ain't preyed upon by disappointments.'
"'Young!' said he; 'disappointments!' And, to my horror, he stood bolt upright, to be impressive. 'Look you, Mr. Spruce, the youngest is the wisest; the child remembers throughout years a happy day, and can forget his tears as fast as they evaporate. He grows up, and his budding youth imagines love. Two or three fancies commonly precede his love. As each of these decays, he, in his inexperience, is eloquent about his blighted hopes, his dead first love, and so on. In the first blossom of his manhood, winds are keen to him—at his first plunge into the stream of active life, he finds the water cold. Who shall condemn his shiver? But if he is to be a healthy man, he will strike out right soon, and glow with cheerful exercise in buffeting the stream. Youth, Mr. Spruce, may be allowed to call the water of the world too cold, but so long only as its plunge is recent. It is a libel on maturity and age to say that we live longer to love less. Preyed upon by disappointments—'
"'Yes,' says I, 'preyed upon.'
"'Say, rather, blessed with trial. Who'd care to swim in a cork jacket! Trouble is a privilege, believe me, friend, to those who know from whose hand, for what purpose, it is sent. I do not mean the trouble people cut out for themselves by curdling all the milk of kindness in their neighbors. But when a man will be a man, will labor with Truth, Charity, and Self-Reliance—always frank and open in his dealings—always giving credit to his neighbors for their good deeds, and humbly abstaining from a judgment of what looks like evil in their conduct—when he knows, under God, no helper but his own brave heart, and his own untiring hand—there is no disappointment in repulse. He learns the lesson Heaven teaches him, his Faith, and Hope, and Charity, by constant active effort became strong—gloriously strong—just as the blacksmith's right arm becomes mighty by the constant wielding of his hammer. Disappointment—let the coward pluck up courage—disappointment is a sheet-and-pumpkin phantom to the bold. Let him who has battled side by side with Trouble, say whether it was not an angel sent to be his help. Find a true-hearted man whose energies have brought him safe through years of difficulty; ask him whether he found the crowd to be base-natured through which he was called upon to force his way? Believe me, he will tell you "No." Having said this, his majesty broke out into a blaze, and lay down in his bed again. 'Well,' he said, 'Philip, will you come to bed with me?'
"'Why, sir,' said I, 'to say the best of it, you're under a misconception; but if it's in the nature of a coal to take such cheerful views of things as you appear to do, I'd rather be a coal than what I am. It's cold work living in the flesh, such as I find it—you seem jolly as a hot cinder, and for the matter of that, what am I now but dust and ashes? Coke is preferable.'
"'Coffin and Purse, you're wanted,' cried the king. And, indeed, Mrs. Pittis, and, indeed, gentlemen, I must turn aside one minute to remark the singularity of this king's body-guard, Coffin and Purse. 'Cash and Mortality,' said the king to me, 'make up, according to your theory, the aim and end of man. So with a couple of cinders you can twit him with his degradation. Sometimes Coffin, sometimes Purse, leaps out into his lap when he is cogitating.' 'Yes,' said I 'that will be extremely humorous. But, so please your majesty, I still have one objection to joining your honorable body.' 'What is that, Phil?' 'I suppose, if I sits down in them there flames, they'll burn me.' 'To be sure,' said the king, kicking up his heels, and scraping a furnace load of live coal over his body, just as you might pull up the blanket when you're in bed to-night, Mrs. Pittis. 'Well, your highness,' said I, 'how about the pain?' 'Pah!' says the king, 'where's your philosophy? Did you never see a fly jump into a lamp-flame?' 'Yes, sure,' I answered. 'And what happened then? A moment's crackle, and an end of it. You've no time to feel pain.' 'Well, then,' said I, 'if your majesty will make a hole for me as near the middle as is convenient to yourself, I will jump into the bed straightway.' The king made a great spatter among the coals, and in I jumped. You know, ma'am, that a great part of our bodies is composed of water.'
"'I don't know that of any gentleman in this room,' replied the landlady. 'But I do believe that you are two parts built out of strong beer.'
"There was a burst—a flash, gentlemen; the liquid part of me went off in instantaneous steam. I cried out with a sharp burn in my foot. The pot was boiling over furiously that contained our bit of dinner; and as I sat close in to the fire, I got considerably scalded. How I got back in the steam to my own fireside, I never rightly comprehended. Fill the can now, Mrs. Pittis."
"'Yes,' said the landlady, 'but let me tell you, Mr. Spruce, that king of the hearth is a gentleman, and if you really had gone with the coals and got acquainted with fire-sides, it would have done you a great deal of good. You'd have owned then that there is a mighty deal more love than hatred in the world. You'd have heard round almost any hearth you chose to play eavesdropper to, household words, any thing but hard or bitter. Some people do not pay their scores with me, but, on the whole, I live. Some of our human natures may run termagant; but, on the whole, we men and women love. Among the worst are those who won't bear quietly their share of work, who can't learn self-reliance, but run to and fro, squealing for help, and talking sentiment against their neighbors, who won't carry their burdens for them. It's all very well for a musty, discontented old bachelor to say there's no love in the world, but it's a falsehood. I know better.'
"'My pipe's out,' said the boy. 'Be smart there with the 'baccy.'"
[From Dickens's Household Words.]
THE MYSTERIES OF A TEA-KETTLE.
At one of Mr. Bagges's small scientific tea-parties, Mr. Harry Wilkinson delivered to the worthy gentleman a lecture, based principally on reminiscences of the Royal Institution, and of a series of lectures delivered there by Professor Faraday, addressed to children and young people. For it is not the least of the merits of that famous chemist and great man, Professor Faraday, that he delights to make the mightiest subject clear to the simplest capacity, and that he shows his mastery of Nature in nothing more than in being thoroughly imbued with the spirit of her goodness and simplicity.
This particular lecture was on Natural Philosophy in its bearings on a kettle. The entertainment of a "Night with Mr. Bagges" was usually extemporaneous. It was so on this occasion. The footman brought in the tea-kettle. "Does it boil?" demanded Mr. Bagges.
"It have biled, sir," answered the domestic.
"Have biled, sir!" repeated Mr. Bagges. "Have biled! And what if it has 'biled,' or boiled, as I desire you will say in future? What is that to the purpose? Water may be frozen, you simpleton, notwithstanding it has boiled. Was it boiling, sir, eh? when you took it off the fire? That is the question, sir."
"Yes, sir, that was what I mean to say, sir," replied Thomas.
"Mean to say, sir! Then why didn't you say it, sir? Eh? There—no, don't put it on, sir; hold it still. Harry, reach me the thermometer," said Mr. Bagges, putting on his spectacles. "Let me see. The boiling point of water is two hundred and—what?"
"Two hundred and twelve, Fahrenheit," answered Master Wilkinson, "if commonly pure, and boiled in a metallic vessel, and under a pressure of the atmosphere amounting to fifteen pounds on every square inch of surface, or when the barometer stands at thirty inches."
"Gracious, what a memory that boy has!" exclaimed his uncle. "Well; now this water in the kettle—eh?—why, this is not above one hundred and fifty degrees. There, sir, now set it on the fire, and don't bring me up cold water to make tea with again; or else," added Mr. Bagges, making a vague attempt at a joke, "or else—eh?—you will get yourself into hot water."
Mr. Thomas was seized with a convulsion in the chest, which he checked by suddenly applying his open hand to his mouth, the effort distending his cheeks, and causing his eyes to protrude in a very ridiculous manner, while Mr. Bagges disguised his enjoyment of the effects of his wit in a cough.
"Now let me see," said the old gentleman, musingly contemplating the vessel simmering on the fire; "how is it, eh, Harry, you said the other day that a kettle boils?"
"La!" interrupted Mrs. Wilkinson, who was of the party, "why, of course, by the heat of the coals, and by blowing the fire, if it is not hot enough."
"Aha!" cried her brother, "that's not the way we account for things, Harry, my boy, eh? Now, convince your mother; explain the boiling of a kettle to her: come."
"A kettle boils," said Harry, "by means of the action of currents."
"What are you talking about? Boiling a plum-pudding in a tea-kettle!" exclaimed the mystified mamma.
"Currents of heated particles—of particles of hot water," Harry explained. "Suppose you put your fire on your kettle—on the lid of it—instead of your kettle on your fire—- what then?"
"You would be a goose," said his mother.
"Exactly so—or a gosling"—rejoined her son; "the kettle would not boil. Water is a bad conductor of heat. Heat passes through the substance of water with very great difficulty. Therefore, it would have a hard matter to get from the top of a kettle of water to the bottom. Then how does it so easily get from the bottom to the top?"
"Ah!" sighed Mr. Bagges. "In my young days we should have said, because the heat rises, but that won't do now. What is all that about the—eh—what—law of ex—what?—pansion —eh?"
"The law of expansion of fluids and gases by heat. This makes the currents that I spoke of just now, mamma; and I should have spelt the word to explain to you that I didn't mean plums. You know what a draught is?"
"I am sorry to say I do," Mr. Bagges declared with much seriousness, instinctively carrying his hand to the region of the human body from the Latin for which is derived the term, Lumbago.
"Well," pursued Harry, "a draught is a current of air. Such currents are now passing up the chimney, and simply owing to that trifling circumstance, we are able to sit here now without being stifled and poisoned."
"Goodness!" ejaculated Mrs. Wilkinson.
"To be sure. The fire, in burning, turns into gases, which are rank poison—carbonic acid, for one; sulphurous acid, for another. Hold your nose over a shovelful of hot cinders if you doubt the fact. The gases produced by the fire expand; they increase in bulk without getting heavier, so much so that they become lighter in proportion than the air, and then they rise, and this rising of hot air is what is meant by heat going upward. The currents of hot air that go up the chimney in this way have currents of cold air rushing after them, to supply their place. When you heat water, currents are formed just as when you heat gas or air. The heated portion of water rises, and some colder water comes down in its place; and these movements of the water keep going on till the whole bulk of it is equally hot throughout."
"Well, now," interrupted Mr. Bagges, "I dare say this is all very true, but how do you prove it?"
"Prove that water is heated by the rising and falling of hot currents? Get a long, slender glass jar. Put a little water, colored with indigo, or any thing you like, into the bottom of it. Pour clear water upon the colored, gently, so as not to mix the two, and yet nearly to fill the jar. Float a little spirit of wine on the top of the water, and set fire to it. Let it blaze away as long as you like; the colored water will remain steady at the bottom of the jar. But hold the flame of a spirit-lamp under the jar, and the colored water will rise and mix with the clear, in very little time longer than it would take you to say Harry Wilkinson."
"Ah! So the water gets colored throughout for the same reason that it gets heated throughout," Mr. Bagges observed, "and when it gets thoroughly hot—what then?"
"Then it boils. And what is boiling?"
"Bubbling," suggested the young philosopher's mamma.
"Yes; but ginger-beer bubbles," said Harry, "but you wouldn't exactly call that boiling. Boiling is the escaping of steam. That causes the bubbling; so the bubbling of water over the fire is only the sign that the water boils. But what occasions the escape of the steam?"
"The heat, of course—the—what is the right word?—the caloric," answered Mr. Bagges.
"True; but what heat? Why, the excess of heat over two hundred and twelve degrees—taking that as the average boiling point of water. You can heat water up to that point, and it remains water; but every degree of heat you cause to pass into it above that, turns a quantity of the water into steam; and flies off in the steam, unless the steam is hindered from escaping by extraordinary pressure. Blow the fire under that kettle as much as you will, and you will make the water boil faster, but you won't make it a bit hotter than two hundred and twelve degrees."
"Well, to be sure!" Mrs. Wilkinson exclaimed.
"If water," continued Harry, "could keep on getting hotter and hotter above the boiling point, why, we might have our potatoes charred in the pot, or our mutton boiled to a cinder. When water is confined in a strong vessel—and strong it must be to prevent a tremendous blow-up—confined, I say, so that no steam can escape, it may be heated almost red-hot; and there is a vessel made for heating water under pressure, called Papin's Digestor, which will digest almost any thing."
"What an enviable apparatus!" exclaimed Mr. Bagges.
"Well," resumed Harry; "so the boiling point of water depends on the degree of force which the air, or what-not, is pressing on its surface with. The higher the spot on which you boil your water, the lower the point it boils at. Therefore, water boiling at the top of a mountain is not so hot as water boiling at the mountain's base. The boiling point of water on the summit of Mont Blanc, is as low as one hundred and eighty-four degrees. So, if water must be at two hundred and twelve degrees, to make good tea, don't choose too high a hill to build a temperance hall on. The heavier, also, the air is, from the quantity of moisture in it, the hotter water becomes before it boils. If the atmosphere were carbonic acid gas, water would get much hotter without boiling than it can under—"
"Present arrangements," interposed Mr. Badges.
"Consisting of a mixture of nitrogen and oxygen," continued Harry. "Water requires only a very low heat to make it boil in an exhausted receiver, out of which the air has been pumped, so as to leave none to press upon its surface. Owing to boiling depending upon pressure, you can actually make water boil by means of cold."
"What next?" sighed Mrs. Wilkinson.
"You can, indeed. Put a little boiling water in a salad-oil flask; so that the flask may be a quarter full, say. Cork the flask tightly. The boiling stops; and the upper three-fourths of the flask are full of vapor. Squirt a jet of ice-cold water upon the flask, above where the water is, and the water below will instantly begin to boil. The reason why, is this. The vapor in the flask presses on the surface of the hot water. The cold condenses the vapor—turns it back to water. That takes off the pressure for the time; and then the hot water directly flies into vapor, and boils, and so on, till it cools down too low to boil any longer. What reduces the boiling point of water on a hill or a mountain is, that the pressure of the atmosphere decreases as you ascend. A rise of five hundred and thirty feet in height above the level of the sea, makes a difference of one degree; so, give me a kettle of water and a thermometer, and I'll tell you exactly how near the moon we are."
"I shouldn't think one could make good hot mixed punch up in a balloon, now," observed Mr. Bagges, reflectively.
"Then," Harry proceeded, "it requires more heat to make water boil in a glass vessel than it does in a metal one. A metal vessel's inner surface is made up of very small points and dents. Scratching the inside of the glass so as to give it a roughness something like what the metal has, makes the boiling point lower; and a few iron filings thrown into water boiling in glass at two hundred and fourteen degrees, will bring it down to two hundred and twelve. The filings, and the roughness of the glass, are so many more points for the heat to pass into the water from, and form steam, and the water does not cling to them so hard as it clings to a smooth surface. Throw a lot of hay into a pan of hot water, and it makes a quantity of steam rise directly; and I have heard a doctor say that some poor people are in the habit of giving themselves cheap steam-baths by this means."
"A very good thing for rheumatic pains, I should think; certainly a much more rational remedy than patent medicines or Government poison," Mr. Bagges remarked.
"There are some salts," continued Harry, "which, if dissolved in water, will prevent it from boiling till it is heated to two hundred and sixty-four degrees, as if they held the water back from flying into steam. So, then, the boiling of water may be hindered, more or less, by pressure from without, and attraction from within. The boiling point of water depends on another important fact which the kettle always mentions before it boils, although we don't all of us understand the kettle's language. The singing of the kettle tells us—"
"That the water is going to boil," interrupted mamma.
"Yes, and that water contains air. The singing of the kettle is the noise made by the escape of the air, which is driven off by the heat. The air sticks and hangs in the water, till the heat expands it and makes it rise. Put a glass of water under the receiver of an air-pump, and exhaust the receiver. As you pump, the water begins to bubble, as if it were boiling; but the bubbles are the air contained in the water, being pumped out. The air-bubbles act like wedges between the little invisible drops that make up the whole water. If it were not for them, the water would be a mass which would hold together so hard that it would not go into steam, or boil, till it was heated to two hundred and seventy degrees, as may be proved by boiling some water quite deprived of air. And not only that, but when it did boil, it would boil all at once, and blow up with a tremendous explosion; which would be a still greater inconvenience in boiling a kettle."
"A pretty kettle of fish, indeed!" Mr. Bagges observed.
"So," said Harry, "strictly pure water would not be quite so great a blessing to us as you might think. Of course, you know, uncle, I don't mean to say that there is any advantage in the impurity of such water as the Thames, except when used for the purpose of fertilizing the earth. I am speaking of water so pure as to contain no air. Water of such severe purity would be very unmanageable stuff. No fishes could live in it, for one thing. I have already given you one good reason why it would be unsuitable to our kettle; and another is, that it would not be good to drink. Then water, as we find it in the world, has a very useful and accommodating disposition to find its own level. Pump all the air out of water, however, and it loses this obliging character in a great measure. Suppose I take a bent glass-tube, and fill one arm of it with airless water. Then I turn the tube mouth upward, and if the water were common water, it would instantly run from one arm into the other, and stand at the same level in both. But if the water has been exhausted of its air, it remains, most of it, in the one arm, and won't run till I give the table a smart rap, and shake it. So, but for the air contained in water, we could not make the water run up and down hill as we do. If water were deprived of air, London would be almost deprived of water."
"And water," observed Mr. Bagges, "would be robbed of a very valuable property."
"Good again, uncle. Now, if we could see through the kettle, we should be able to observe the water boiling in it which is a curious sight when looked into. To examine water boiling, we must boil the water in a glass vessel—a long tube is the best—heated with a spirit lamp. Then first you see the water in motion, and the air-bubbles being driven off by the heat. As the water gets hotter, other bubbles appear, rising from the bottom of the tube. They go up for a little way, and then they shrink, and by the time they get to the top of the water, you can hardly distinguish them. These are bubbles of steam, and they get smaller as they rise, because at first the water is colder above than below, in proportion to the distance from the flame, and the cold gradually condenses the bubbles. But when the water gets thoroughly hot, the bubbles grow larger and rise quicker, and go of the same size right up to the top of the water, and there escape—if you choose to let them. And steam was allowed to escape so for many, many ages, wasn't it, uncle, before it was set to work to spin cotton for the world, and take us to America within a fortnight, and whirl us over the ground as the crow flies, and almost at a crow's pace?"
"For all which," remarked Mr. Bagges, "we have principally to thank what's his name."
"Watt was his name, I believe, uncle. Well; heat turns water into steam, and I dare say I need not tell you that a quantity of water becoming steam, fills an immense deal more space than it did as mere water. Cold turns the steam back into water, and the water fills the same space as it did before. Water, in swelling into steam and shrinking back into water again, moves, of course, twice, and mighty motions these are, and mighty uses are made of them, I should rather think."
"I believe you, my boy," said Mr. Bagges.
"And now," asked Harry, "have you any idea of what a deal of heat there is in steam?"
"It is hot enough to scald you," answered his mamma; "I know that."
"Yes; and hot enough, too, to cook potatoes. But there is much more heat in it than that comes to. Take a kettle of cold water. See at what degree the thermometer stands in the water. Put the kettle on the fire, and observe how long it takes to boil. It will boil at two hundred and twelve degrees; and therefore, during the time it has taken to boil, there has gone into it the difference of heat between two hundred and twelve degrees and the degree it stood at when first put on the fire. Keep up the same strength of fire, so that the heat may continue to go into the water at the same rate. Let the water boil quite away, and note how long it is in doing so. You can then calculate how much heat has gone into the water while the water has been boiling away. You will find that quantity of heat great enough to have made the water red-hot, if all the water, and all the heat, had remained in the kettle. But the water in your kettle will have continued at two hundred and twelve degrees to the last drop, and all the steam that it has turned into will not have been hotter—according to the thermometer—than two hundred and twelve degrees; whereas a red heat is one thousand degrees. The difference between two hundred and twelve degrees and one thousand degrees, is seven hundred and eighty-eight degrees; and what has become of all this heat? Why, it is entirely contained in the steam, though it does not make the steam hotter. It lies hid in the steam, and therefore it is called latent heat. When the steam is condensed, all that latent heat comes out of it, and can be felt, and the quantity of it can be measured by a thermometer. The warmth that issues from steam-pipes used to warm a house, is the latent heat of the steam that escapes as the steam turns back to water."
"Latent, heat! latent heat!" repeated Mr Bagges, scratching his head. "Eh? Now, that latent heat always puzzles me. Latent, lying hid. But how can you hide heat? When the zany in the pantomime hides the red-hot poker in his pocket, he cauterizes his person. How—eh?—how can heat be latent?"
"Why, the word heat has two meanings, uncle. In the first place, it means hotness. Hotness can not be latent, as the clown finds when he pockets the poker. In the second place, heat means a something the nature of which we don't know, which is the cause of hotness, and also the cause of another effect. While it is causing that other effect, it does not cause hotness. That other effect which heat causes in the instance of steam, is keeping water in the form of steam. The heat that there is in steam, over and above two hundred and twelve degrees, is employed in this way. It is wholly occupied in preserving the water in an expanded state, and can't cause the mercury in the thermometer to expand and rise as well. For the same reason, it could give you no feeling of hotness above what boiling water would—if you had the nerve to test it. While it is making steam continue to be steam, it is latent. When the steam becomes water again, it has no longer that work to do, and is set free. Free heat is what is commonly understood by heat. This is the heat which cooks our victuals, the heat we feel, the heat that singes Mr. Merriman. Latent heat is heat that doesn't warm, singe, or cook, because it is otherwise engaged. If you press gas suddenly into a fluid, the latent heat of the gas is set free. You seem to squeeze it out. Indeed, the same thing happens, if you violently force any substance into a closer form all at once. Every thing appears to have more or less latent heat in it, between its little particles, keeping them at certain distances from each other. Compress the particles within a smaller compass, and a part of the latent heat escapes, as if it were no longer wanted. When a substance in a compressed state expands on a sudden, it draws in heat, on the other hand. When a lady bathes her forehead with eau-de-Cologne to cure a headache, the heat of the head enters the eau-de-Cologne, and becomes latent in it while it evaporates. If you make steam under high pressure, you can heat it much above two hundred and twelve degrees. Suppose you let off steam, so compressed and heated, by a wide hole, from the boiler, and put your hand into it as it rushes out—"
"What? Why, you'd scald your hand off!" cried Mr. Bagges.
"No, you wouldn't. The steam rushes out tremendously hot, but it expands instantly so very much, that the heat in it directly becomes latent in a great measure; which cools it down sufficiently to allow you to hold your hand in it without its hurting you. But then you would have to mind where you held your hand; because where the steam began to condense again, it would be boiling hot."
"I had rather take your word for the experiment than try it, young gentleman," Mr. Bagges observed.
"Another very curious thing," proceeded Harry, "in regard to boiling, has been discovered lately. A kettle might be too hot to boil water in. Take a little bar of silver, heated very highly; dip it into water. At first, you have no boiling, and you don't have any at all till the silver has cooled some degrees. Put a drop of water into a platinum dish, heated in the same way, and it will run about without boiling till the heat diminishes; and then it bursts into steam. M. Boutigny, the French chemist, made this discovery. Vapor forms between the drop of water and the red-hot metal, and, being a bad conductor of heat, keeps the heat of the metal for some time from flowing into the water. Owing to this, water, and mercury even, may be frozen in a red-hot vessel if the experiment is managed cleverly. A little more than a couple of centuries ago, this would have been thought witchcraft."
"And the philosopher," added Mr. Bagges, "would have been fried instead of his water-drop. Let me see—eh? what do they call this singular state of water?"
"The spheroidal state," answered Harry. "However, that is a state that water does not get into in a kettle, because kettles are not allowed to become red hot, except when they are put carelessly on the fire with no water in them, or suffered to remain there after the water has boiled quite away!"
"Which is ruination to kettles," Mrs. Wilkinson observed.
"Of course it is, mamma, because at a red heat iron begins to unite with oxygen, or to rust. Another thing that injures kettles is the fur that collects in them. All water in common use contains more or less of earthy and other salts. In boiling, these things separate from the water, and gradually form a fur or crust inside the kettle or boiler."
"And a nice job it is to get rid of it," said his mamma.
"Well, chemistry has lessened that difficulty," replied Harry. "The fur is mostly carbonate of lime. In that case, all you have to do is to boil some sal-ammoniac—otherwise muriate, or more properly hydrochlorate of ammonia—in the furred vessel. The hydrochloric acid unites with the lime, and the carbonic acid goes to the ammonia. Both the compounds formed in this way dissolve and wash away; and so you may clean the foulest boiler or kettle. This is a rather important discovery; for the effect of fur in a kettle is to oppose the passage of heat, and therefore to occasion the more fuel to be required to boil water in it, which is a serious waste and expense when you have a large steam-boiler to deal with. Dr. Faraday mentions the case of a Government steamer that went to Trieste, and during the voyage had so much fur formed in her boiler as to oblige all her coal to be consumed, and then the engineers were forced to burn spars, rigging, bulkheads, and even chopped cables, and to use up every shaving of spare timber in the ship. Soot underneath the kettle, as well as fur inside it, is a hindrance to boiling, as it is a bad conductor; and that is the reason why one can bear to hold a kettle of hot water, which is very sooty on its under surface, on the flat of the hand. So a black kettle doesn't give out its heat readily to what touches it, and so far it is good to keep water hot; but it gets rid of heat in another way; as I dare say you know, uncle."
"Eh?" said Mr. Bagges, "why, what?—no—I did know something about it the other day—but I've such a memory!—and—eh?—no—I've quite forgotten it."
"By radiation, you know. All warm bodies are constantly giving off rays of heat, as shining ones are giving off rays of light, although the heat-rays are invisible."
"How do we know that?" asked Mr. Bagges.
"Get a couple of concave mirrors—a sort of copper basins, polished inside. Stand them face to face, some yards apart. Put a hot iron ball—not red hot—in the focus of one mirror. Put a bit of phosphorus in the focus of the other. The phosphorus will take fire; though without the mirrors you might place it much nearer the hot iron, and yet it would not burn. So we know that there are rays of heat, because we can reflect them as we can rays of light. Some things radiate better than others. Those that have bright metal surfaces radiate worst, though such are what are used for reflectors. If their surfaces are blackened or roughened, they radiate better. A bright kettle gives off fewer rays of heat than a black one, and so far, is better to keep water hot in. But then, on the other hand, it yields more heat to the air, or the hob or hearth that it stands upon—if colder than itself. The bright kettle gives off heat in one way and the black in another. I don't know at what comparative rate exactly."
"Six of one, and half-a-dozen of the other," Mr. Bagges suggested.
"Now look at the wonderful relations of the kettle, uncle!"
"Relations?—Eh?—what the pot and the saucepan?" said Mr. Bagges.
"Oh, oh, uncle! No; its relations to the pressure of the atmosphere and every cause that affects it—to the conveyance, and conduction, and radiation of heat—to latent heat or caloric, to the properties of water, to chemical decomposition—and to steam and its astonishing marvels, present and to come!"
"Well," said Mr. Bagges, "it is wonderful; and the kettle certainly is very respectably connected. Eh? And I hope to profit by the subject of our conversation; and so, I say, pour me out a cup of tea."
MY NOVEL; OR, VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE.
(Continued from page 97.)