Sab. That's reasonably enough said, but they regard themselves only in all they act for the deceased, and the poor dead are delivered to my custody, to be embalmed, slashed, cut, and dragged about, not to do them honour, but to satisfy the vanity or interest of their survivors.
Cam. This fellow's every way an undertaker! How well and luckily he talks! His prating so aptly has methinks something more ridiculous in it than if he were absurd. [Aside to Cabinet.
Cab. But, as Mr. Campley says, how could you dream of making a fortune from so chimerical a foundation as the provision of things wholly needless and insignificant?
Sab. Alas, gentlemen, the value of all things under the sun is merely fantastic. We run, we strive, and purchase things with our blood and money, quite foreign to our intrinsic real happiness, and which have a being in imagination only, as you may see by the pudder[17] that is made about precedence, titles, court favour, maidenheads, and china-ware.
Cam. Ay, Mr. Sable, but all those are objects that promote our joy, are bright to the eye, or stamp upon our minds pleasure and self-satisfaction.
Sab. You are extremely mistaken, sir; for one would wonder to consider that after all our outcries against self-interested men, there are few, very few, in the whole world that live to themselves, but sacrifice their bosom-bliss to enjoy a vain show, and appearance of prosperity in the eyes of others; and there is often nothing more inwardly distressed than a young bride in her glittering retinue, or deeply joyful than a young widow in her weeds and black train; of both which, the lady of this house may be an instance, for she has been the one, and is, I'll be sworn, the other.
Cab. You talk, Mr. Sable, most learnedly!
Sab. I have the deepest learning, sir, experience. Remember your widow cousin that married last month.
Cab. Ay! But how could you imagine she was in all that grief an hypocrite? Could all those shrieks, those swoonings, that rising, falling bosom be constrained? You're uncharitable, Sable, to believe it——What colour, what reason had you for it?
Sab. First, sir, her carriage in her concerns with me, for I never yet could meet with a sorrowful relict, but was herself enough to make an hard bargain with me.[18]—Yet I must confess they have frequent interruptions of grief and sorrow when they read my bill—but as for her, nothing, she resolved, that looked bright or joyous should after her love's death approach her. All her servants that were not coal black must turn out; a fair complexion made her eyes and heart ache, she'd none but downright jet, and to exceed all example she hired my mourning furniture by the year, and in case of my mortality tied my son to the same article; so in six weeks' time ran away with a young fellow——Prithee push on briskly, Mr. Cabinet, now is your time to have this widow, for Tattleaid tells me she always said she'd never marry——