Mirror of the Months

by P. G. Patmore

Now, on the evening of Twelfth-day, mischievous maid-servants pin elderly people together at the windows of pastry-cooks’ shops, thinking them “weeds that have no business there.”

Now, if a frosty day or two does happen to pay us a flying visit, on its way home to the North Pole, how the little boys make slides on the pathways, for lack of ponds, and, it may be, trip up an occasional housekeeper just as he steps out of his own door; who forthwith vows vengeance, in the shape of ashes, on all the slides in his neighbourhood; not, doubtless, out of vexation at his own mishap, and revenge against the petty perpetrators of it, but purely to avert the like from others!

Now, Bond Street begins to be conscious of carriages; two or three people are occasionally seen wandering through the Western Bazaar; and the Soho Ditto is so thronged, that Mr. Trotter begins to think of issuing another decree against the inroads of single gentlemen.

Now, linen drapers begin to “sell off” their stock at “fifty per cent. under prime cost,” and continue so doing all the rest of the year; every article of which will be found, on inspection, to be of “the last new pattern,” and to have been “only had in that morning!”

Now, oranges are eaten in the dress-circle of the great theatres, and inquiries are propounded there, whether “that gentleman in black” (meaning Hamlet) “is Harlequin?” And laughs, and “La! Mammas!” resound thence to the remotest corners of the house; and “the gods” make merry during the play, in order that they may be at leisure to listen to the pantomime; and Mr. Farley is consequently in his glory, and Mr. Grimaldi is a great man; as, indeed, when is he not?

Now, newspapers teem with twice-ten-times-told tales of haunted houses, and great sea-snakes, and mermaids; and a murder is worth a Jew’s eye to them; for “the House does not meet for the despatch of business till the fifth of February.” And great and grievous are the lamentations that are heard in the said newspapers, over the lateness of the London season, and its detrimental effects on the interests of the metropolis; but they forget to add—“erratum—for metropolis, read newspapers.”

Now, Moore’s Almanack holds “sole sovereign sway and mastery” among the readers of that class of literature; for there has not yet been time to nullify any of its predictions; not even that which says, “we may expect some frost and snow about this period.”

Finally, now periodical works put on their best attire; the old ones expressing their determination to become new, and the new ones to become old; and each makes a point of putting forth the first of some pleasant series of essays (such as this, for example!), which cannot fail to fix the most fugitive of readers, and make him her own for another twelve months at least.

Let us now repair to the country. “The country in January” has but a dreary sound, to those who go into “the country” only that they may not be seen “in town.” But to those who seek the country for the same reason that they seek London, namely, for the good that is to be found there, the one has at least as many attractions as the other, at any given period of the year. Let me add, however, that if there is a particular period when the country puts forth fewer of her attractions than at any other, it is this; probably to try who are her real lovers, and who are only false flatterers, and to treat them accordingly. And yet—

Now, the trees, denuded of their gay attire, spread forth their thousand branches against the gray sky, and present as endless a variety of form and feature for study and observation, as they did when dressed in all the flaunting fashions of midsummer. Now, too, their voices are silent, and their forms are motionless, even when the wind is among them; so that the low plaintive piping of the robin-redbreast can be heard, and his hiding-place detected by the sound of his slim feet alighting on the fallen leaves. Or now, grown bolder as the skies become more inclement, he flits before you from twig to twig silently, like a winged thought; or like the brown and crimson leaf of a cherry-tree, blown about by the wind; or perches himself by your side, and looks sidelong in your face, pertly, and yet imploringly,—as much as to say, “though I do need your aid just now, and would condescend to accept a crum from your hand, yet I’m still your betters, for I’m still a bird.”