Letters of Peregrine Pickle

by George P. Upton

And again, I might draw a strong draft on the tears of tender readers by recalling recollections of the Old year and casting the horoscope of the New.

And think of the magnificent material I might have to use in doing all this: the dark shores of Eternity, the waves of Styx, old Charon, all the cheerful paraphernalia of the undertaker, and the appliances of the accoucheur, which would form the piece de resistance, not to speak of the garnitures of regrets, tears, sighs, resolutions, prophesies, flowers, cherubs, broken harp-strings and other properties which might be mixed in indiscriminately, and with a sort of blue-fire effect, which would be telling.

And as there is nothing else to write about, it shows that I have a good deal of moral courage when I solemnly assert that I am not going to say a word about them.

For, cui bono?

The world will continue to turn on its axis every twenty-four hours. Old Midas will continue to crust his soul over with $ marks, until he gets them on so thickly that he won't be able to give an account of himself on the Day of Judgment, without referring to his ledger or sending for his confidential clerk. Mrs. Midas will go on saying ungracious things about her next-door neighbor, who can "see" her bonnet and go ten dollars better every time. Celeste will continue to distract her pretty little empty head in solving the problem of a new bias. Aurelia and Mr. Peplum will continue to have their little differences over the muffins, which will begin to abate with the soup, and disappear in a torrent of regrets over the mediatory Souchong. Railroads will continue to cook people alive without a pang of remorse. Men and women will continue to air their dirty linen and haul each other through the mud of the divorce courts, under the insane idea that other people will be interested in their small vices, just as if other people hadn't any of their own which were just as interesting.

The coming year will be very like the going year, and thus the world will keep going round the sun for us, until the Great Manager sends the call-boy to summon us up for the last act. We shall then make our parting bow—pray God, all of us like gentlemen, and the curtain will come down.

But because our little stage grows suddenly dark, it does not follow that the great audience in front of the curtain will break up and go home, or that other actors will not play their parts on the same grand stage of life.

And a hundred years hence it is not altogether improbable that our little ant-hill, over which we have made such a fuss, and up and down which we have paraded so often, and on which we have expended so much effort to make it larger than the next hill, will be utterly forgotten; and that, in those far-off days, we may be blowing down Clark street on some fine, breezy, spring day, or sold in the form of cabbage from some itinerant Teuton's cart; or, if we have been good children, that we may be blossoming in a daisy, or looking out of the blue eyes of a violet at the great, white, lying slab close by, in a maze of wonder at the saints we were a hundred years ago.

You see all these things are to be considered in deciding whether to say anything about New Year's. And as I have before stated that I am not going to say anything about it, this relieves me from alluding to New Year's calls.

Because if I were to say anything about them I should have to hurt the feelings of the Dear Creatures. It would be unkind, for instance, to go to work deliberately and catalogue Aurelia's callers; Old Gunnybags, who carries into effect his business regulations, atoning on that day, by wholesale, his little retail visiting sins of the year; the bashful young man who remarks that it is a very fine day to-day, that it was remarkable weather yesterday, and that he shouldn't be surprised at pleasant weather to-morrow; and who, having fired off his little speech, falls back in good order to the refreshments; the mental leisure which Titmouse enjoys, who does a smashing day's business on a small capital by establishing a reputation for wit in three hundred families, upon whom he has palmed off the same brilliant remarks, the same carefully drawn out repartee and the same conundrum; the young man of florid complexion and rather heavy build, who makes the duration of his call conditional upon the character of refreshments, and who will not fail to mention your sins of omission to Mrs. Brown, next door, who has spread herself on London sherry and boned turkey; the bore who never calls but once a year, and then tries to become a permanent boarder; the nuisance whom you never saw before and never want to see again; old Deacon Glum, who tenderly inquires after your soul, in a business sort of way remarks on the brevity of time, and throws in a lot of those pretty metaphors which I threw out at the commencement of this letter; young FitzHenry, who has a wine supper for six wagered that he will do his four hundred calls before six o'clock, and is now on his last heat; that fellow Boodle, with the long nose and little eyes, who is making up a collection of small gossip which he will dish up for the next six months. It would be unfair to catalogue all these nice people, and I will spare Aurelia's feelings by refusing to do it.