Great or humble, Rage is sweet to all. Anger, not Love, is the universal emotion. The mildest and most even-tempered man I ever met, let out the secret of his fiery disposition the other day, and betrayed the violent passions that sometimes seize him. Complaining of the extreme smallness of his new library, in a figurative style, at once emphatic and elegant, he said, "It isn't large enough to swing a cat in," adding, (evidently with a reference to his habits when under the influence of passion) "which is very inconvenient!" Cats are useful animals in a house. Is it doubtful, when Sir Anthony Absolute had stormed at the Captain, and the Captain in consequence had raved at Fag, and Fag in due succession had pummelled the footboy, that the footboy went forthwith and kicked the cat? L. B.
OUR NEW COOKS!
"Too many cooks"—"the proverb's something musty."
We have just had another new Cook; but too sure I am that, like the whole tribe of Cooks that enter our family, she will never pass the boundaries of the cognomen "New Cook." All our Cooks have been new. The oldest one we have ever had, in my remembrance, was a prodigy of a month's service in our kitchen; and although it must be confessed that, even during that period, she was twice threatened or warned by my mother, her long stay was astonishing to us all. Compared with her predecessors she was quite a fixture in the house.
It would take up "too much room in the Omnibus," to detail one half of the discrepancies of our Cooks. The great Cook who circumnavigated the globe—who traversed seas remote, and explored lands unknown, found no such curiosities among the monsters of the great deep, or the uncivilized eccentrics on shore. One, as my maiden aunt delicately observes, becomes quite "inebriated"—off she goes; another has "followers"—off she goes; another increases her "kitchen stuff" at the expense of the fat of the meat, which she cuts off to a nicety (and my father is particularly fond of fat)—off she goes—another cannot cook a potato—off she goes; another forms a clandestine match with the butler after a week's intimacy—off she goes—he too falling a victim and losing his place.
When I say that my mother seldom looks over the first offence, I explain pretty clearly how it is that every week finds us with a new cook. On the day of their engagement my sanguine parent invariably tells us "she has found a treasure;" a cook with such a character—never drinks—no followers—so honest—can cook anything;—such a woman for making "made up" (sometimes called French) dishes, &c. In a few days this treasure of a cook turns out to be, without a single exception, the very worst we ever had to endure (for it rather singularly happens that each in succession is "the very worst").—"Oh, that dreadful woman!" is the cry. She boils what she should roast, and roasts what she should boil; she is a snuff-taker, and almost everything she cooks is supposed to savour of Lundyfoot or Prince's mixture. Off she goes before we find out a fair half of her intolerable propensities.