My Desk.
My Desk.
For the Table Book.
Every one will agree with me, that this is the favourite article of furniture. Every one is fond of it as of an old friend—a faithful and trustworthy one—to whom has been confided both joys and sorrows. It is most likely the gift of some cherished, perhaps departed being, reminding us by its good qualities of the beloved giver. We have no scruple in committing our dearest secrets to its faithful bosom—they are never divulged. The tenderest billet-doux, the kindest acknowledgments, the sweetest confessions of a mistress—the cruellest expressions and bitterest reproaches of a friend lost to us for ever through the false and malignant representations of an enemy—or perhaps the youthful effusions of our own brain, which we occasionally draw forth from the recesses of the most secretly contrived pigeon-hole, and read over à la dérobée, with a half blush (at our self-love) and a smile partly painful from revived recollections of days gone, never to return—all these we may unhesitatingly deposit in this personification of deskretion.
The very posture assumed at a desk bespeaks confidence and security. The head inclined over it, and the bosom leaning in gentle trustingness against this kind and patient friend.
By this description I would present to the “mind’s eye” of the reader a plain unostentatious piece of furniture, of too simple an exterior to be admitted any where than in the study—square in shape, mahogany, bound with brass at the corners, a plate of the same metal on the top, of just a sufficient size to contain one’s own initials and those of the giver. I detest those finicking machines one finds wrapped up in an oilskin case in a drawing-room; made of rosewood, inlaid with silver, or mother-of-pearl, and lined with blue velvet. It seems like an insult to the friendly character of a desk, to dress him smartly, seat him in a fine apartment, and refuse to avail yourself of the amicable services he tenders you.—The contents of these coxcombical acquaintances are seldom better than its fair owner’s private journal, (which no one thinks worthy of perusal—herself of course excepted,) her album, and scrap-book, the honourable Mr. Somebody’s poetical effusions, and the sentimental correspondence of some equally silly young lady, her dearest friend.
Then there is the clerk’s desk in a counting-house—there are no pleasant associations connected with that mercantile scaffolding, with its miniature balustrades at the top, partly intersected with accounts, bills, and papers of all sorts, (referring to business,) and surrounded by files clinging by their one hook. Above all this is seen the semicircular scalp of a brown wig, which, as it is raised to reply to your question, gradually discovers two eyes scowling at you from beneath a pair of glaring spectacles, a little querulous turned-up nose, and a mouth whose lines have become rigid with ill-humour, partly occasioned by a too sedentary life.
Again, there is the pulpit desk, with its arrogant crimson cushion—telling a tale of clerical presumption.
Lastly, there is the old bachelor’s desk. (Nay, do not curl up the corners of your pretty mouths at me, sweet ladies—it may be worth while to take a peep at it—at least, I cannot prevail upon myself to omit it in this notice of desks.) It is of the plain and quiet description formerly mentioned, and very neatly and orderly arranged, both inside and out. The latter is kept bright and shining by the indefatigable hands of Sally the housemaid; who, while she breathes upon the plate to give it a polish, at the same time breathes a wish (to herself) that her breath possessed the magic power of unfastening locks, and so enabling her to see “what the old gentleman keeps in this here box to make him so fond on it.” The interior he takes infinite care to keep in complete and exact order himself. Each particular compartment has its appropriate contents consigned to it. The fold-down nearest to him, as he sits at it, contains a small miniature within a red morocco case, of a placid and gentle-faced girl, whose original sleeps for ever in the bosom of the cold earth—a little box, containing a ring set with brilliants, and enclosing a lock of her hair—all her letters carefully tied up with green ribbon—a miniature edition of Shakspeare, and Milton, with his name written in them in her hand-writing. In the opposite fold, near the receptacle for the pens, wafers, ink, &c. are his own little writings, (for we are to suppose him fond of his pen, and as having occasionally indulged that fondness,) of all of which he preserves neat copies, some private memoranda, and an old pocket-book, given to him by his old friend and school-fellow, admiral ——, when he left England that year as a midshipman.
In the drawer are different letters from his friends; and, perhaps, at the very back of it, a little hoard of gold pieces, bright and new from the mint.
As I now lean upon my old friend and companion—my desk—I render it my grateful acknowledgments for the many pleasant hours I have spent over it; and also for its having been the means of my passing an agreeable quarter of an hour with my gentle reader, of whom I now take a courteous leave.
July, 1827. M. H.