But Knobs of Chairs and Pump-Handles was the exception. Bread-and-Cheese and Kisses was the rule. And to this day Bread-and-Cheese and Kisses bears for me in its simple utterance a sacred and beautiful meaning. It means contentment; it means cheerfulness; it means the exercise of sweet words and gentle thought; it means Home!
Dear and sacred word! Let us get away from the garish light that distorts it. Let you and I, this Christmas, retire for a while, and think of it and muse upon it. Let us resolve to cherish it always, and let us unite in the hope that its influence for inconceivable good may not be lost in the turmoil of the Great March, to the thunderous steps of which the world's heart is wildly beating. Home! It is earth's heaven! The flowers that grow within garret walls prove it; the wondering ecstasy that fills the mother's breast as she looks upon the face of her first-born, the quiet ministering to those we love, the unselfishness, the devotion, the tender word, the act of charity, the self-sacrifice that finds creation there, prove it; the prayers that are said as we kneel by the bedside before committing our bodies to sleep, the little hands folded in worship, the lisping words of praise and of thanks to God that come from children's lips, the teaching of those words by the happy mother so that her child may grow up good, prove it. No lot in life is too lowly for this earth's heaven. No lot in life is too lowly for the pure enjoyment of Bread-and-Cheese and Kisses.
I wish you, dear readers and friends, no better lot than this. May Bread-and-Cheese and Kisses often be your fare, and may it leave as sweet a taste in your mouth as it has left in mine!
[PART I.]
[COME AND SHOW YOUR FACE, LIKE A MAN!]
If I were asked to point to a space of ground which, of all other spaces in the world, most truly represents the good and bad, the high and low, of humanity, I should unhesitatingly describe a circle of a mile around Westminster Abbey. Within that space is contained all that ennobles life, and all that debases it; and within that space, at the same moment, the lofty aspiration of the statesman pulses in the great Senate House in unison with the degraded desires of the inhabitant of Old Pye-street. There St. Giles and St. James elbow each other. There may be seen, in one swift comprehensive glance, all the beauty and ugliness of life, all its hope and hopelessness, all its vanity and modesty, all its knowledge and ignorance, all its piety and profanity, all its fragrance and foulness. The wisdom of ages, the nobility that sprung from fortunate circumstance or from brave endeavour, the sublime lessons that lie in faith and heroism, sanctify the solemn aisles of the grand old Abbey. Within its sacred cloisters rest the ashes of the great: outside its walls, brushing them with his ragged garments, skulks the thief--and worse.
But not with these contrasts, nor with any lesson that they may teach, have you and I to deal now. Our attention is fixed upon the striking of eight o'clock by the sonorous tongue of Westminster. And not our attention alone--for many of the friends with whom we shall presently shake hands are listening also; so that we find ourselves suddenly plunged into very various company. Ben Sparrow, the old grocer, who, just as One tolls, is weighing out a quarter of a pound of brown sugar for a young urchin without a cap, inclines his head and listens, for all the world as if he were a sparrow, so birdlike is the movement: Bessie Sparrow, his granddaughter, who, having put Tottie to bed, is coming downstairs in the dark (she has left the candle in the washhand-basin in Tottie's room, for Tottie cannot go to sleep without a light), stops and counts from One to Eight, and thinks the while, with eyes that have tears in them, of Somebody who at the same moment is thinking of her: Tottie, with one acid-drop very nearly at the point of dissolution in her mouth, and with another perspiring in her hand, lies in bed and listens and forgets to suck until the sound dies quite away: a patient-looking woman, pausing in the contemplation of a great crisis in her life, seeks to find in the tolling of the bell some assurance of a happy result: James Million, Member of Parliament, whose name, as he is a very rich man, may be said to be multitudinous, listens also as he rolls by in his cab; and as his cab passes the end of the street in which Mrs. Naldret resides, that worthy woman, who is standing on a chair before an open cupboard, follows the sound, with the tablecloth in her hand, and mutely counts One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven, Eight, the last number being accompanied by a resigned sigh, as if Eight were the end of all things.
The room in which Mrs. Naldret is standing is poor and comfortable; a cheerful fire is burning, and the kettle is making up its mind to begin to sing. An old black cat is lazily blinking her eyes at the little jets of gas that thrust their forked tongues from between the bars of the stove. This cat is lying on a faded hearthrug, in which once upon a time a rampant lion reigned in brilliant colours; and she is not at all disturbed by the thought that a cat lying full-length upon a lion, with his tongue hanging out, is an anomaly in nature and a parody in art. There is certainly some excuse for her in the circumstance that the lion is very old, and is almost entirely rubbed out.
Mrs. Naldret steps from the chair with the tablecloth in her hand, and in one clever shake, and with as nimble a movement as any wizard could have made, shakes it open. As it forms a balloon over the table, she assists it to expel the wind, and to settle down comfortably--being herself of a comfortable turn of mind--and smoothes the creases with her palms, until the cloth fits the table like wax. Then she sets the tea-things, scalds the teapot, and begins to cut the bread and to butter it. She cuts the bread very thick, and butters it very thin. Butter is like fine gold to poor people.