Mirror of the Months

by P. G. Patmore

It is the same with all other caterers for the public taste; even the literary ones. Mr. Elliston, “ever anxious to contribute to the amusement of his liberal patrons, the public,” is already busied in sowing the seeds of a New Tragedy, two Operatic Romances, three Grand Romantic Melodrames, and half a dozen Farces, in the fertile soil of those poets whom he employs in each of these departments respectively; while each of the London publishers is projecting a new “periodical,” to appear on the first of January next; that which he started on the first of last January having, of course, died of old age ere this!

As to the external appearance of London this month, the East End of it shows symptoms of reviving animation, after the two months’ trance which the absence of its citizens had cast over it; and Cheapside, though it cannot boast of being absolutely impassable, is sufficiently crowded to create hopes in its inhabitants that it soon will be.

But the West End is as melancholy as the want of that which ever makes it otherwise can render it: for the fashionables, though it is more than a month since they retired from the fatiguing activity of a London Winter in July, to the still more fatiguing repose of an October Summer in the Country, pertinaciously refuse themselves permission to return to the lesser evil of the two, till they have partaken of the greater to such a degree of repletion as to make them fancy, when the former is on the point of being restored to them, that it is none at all; thus making each re-act upon the other, until, to their enfeebled and diseased imaginations, “nothing is but what is not;” and being in London, they sigh for the Country; and in the Country, for London.

But has London no one positive merit in October, then? Yes; one it has, which half redeems all its delinquencies. In October, Fires have fairly gained possession of their places, and even greet us on coming down to breakfast in the morning. Of all the discomforts of that most comfortless period of the London year which is neither winter nor summer, the most unequivocal is that of its being too cold to be without a fire, and not cold enough to have one. At a season of this kind, to enter an English sitting-room, the very ideal of snugness and comfort in all other respects, but with a great gaping hiatus in one side of it, which makes it look like a pleasant face deprived of its best feature, is not to be thought of without feeling chilly. And as to filling up the deficiency by a set of polished fire-irons, standing sentry beside a pile of dead coals imprisoned behind a row of glittering bars,—this, instead of mending the matter, makes it worse; inasmuch as it is better to look into an empty coffin, than to see the dead face of a friend in it. At the season in question, especially in the evening, one feels in a perpetual perplexity, whether to go out or stay at home; sit down or walk about; read, write, cast accounts, or call for the candle and go to bed. But let the fire be lighted, and all uncertainty is at an end, and we (or even one) may do any or all of these with equal satisfaction. In short, light but the fire, and you bring the Winter in at once; and what are twenty Summers, with all their sunshine (when they are gone), to one Winter, with its indoor sunshine of a sea-coal fire?

Henceforth, then, be Winter my theme; and if I do not grow warm in its praise, it shall not be for want of inditing that praise beside as pleasant a fire as nubbly Wall’s Ends, a register-stove (not a Cobbett’s-Register one, I am sorry to say[4]), and a slim-pointed poker, can produce.

NOVEMBER.

Of the twin maxims, which bid us to “Welcome the coming, speed the going guest,” the latter is better appreciated than practised. The over refinements of modern life make people afraid of giving in to it, who yet feel it to be an excellent one. The truth is, that when a guest, of no matter how agreeable a presence, or how attractive an air, has made up his mind to go, the sooner he goes the better. Let him go at once, therefore. Do not press him to stay, or detain him at the door, but “speed” him on his way. It is best for both parties, if they like each other. When, indeed, an unpleasant intruder is about to depart, there is a kind of satisfaction in detaining him a little. We dally with the prospective pleasure of having him gone, till we forget that he is present. But when those we love are leaving us, the best way is, to wink, and part at once; for to be “going” is even worse than to be “gone.”

Thus let it be, then, with that delightful annual guest, the Summer (under the agreeable alias of Autumn), in whose presence we have lately been luxuriating. We might perhaps, by a little gentle violence, prevail upon her to stay with us for a brief space longer; or might at least prevail upon ourselves to believe that she is not quite gone. But we shall do better by speeding her on her way to other climes, and welcoming “the coming guest,” gray-haired Winter. So be it, then.