Nature and Human Nature

by Thomas Chandler Haliburton

After having given vent to the foregoing lockrum, I took Jehosophat Bean’s illustrated “Biography of the Eleven Hundred and Seven Illustrious American Heroes,” and turned in to read a spell; but arter a while I lost sight of the heroes and their exploits, and I got into a wide spekilation on all sorts of subjects, and among the rest my mind wandered off to Jordan river, the Collingwood girls in particular, and Jessie and the doctor, and the Beaver-dam, and its inmates in general. I shall set down my musings as if I was thinking aloud.

I wonder, sais I to myself, whether Sophy and I shall be happy together, sposin’ always, that she is willing to put her head into the yoke, for that’s by no means sartain yet. I’ll know better when I can study her more at leisure. Still matrimony is always a risk, where you don’t know what sort of breaking a critter has had when young. Women in a general way don’t look like the same critters when they are spliced, that they do before; matrimony, like sugar and water, has a nateral affinity for and tendency to acidity. The clear, beautiful, bright sunshine of the wedding morning is too apt to cloud over at twelve o’clock, and the afternoon to be cold, raw, and uncomfortable, or else the heat generates storms that fairly make the house shake, and the happy pair tremble again. Everybody knows the real, solid grounds which can alone make married life perfect. I should only prose if I was to state them, but I have an idea as cheerfulness is a great ingredient, a good climate has a vast deal to do with it, for who can be chirp in a bad one? Wedlock was first instituted in Paradise. Well, there must have been a charming climate there. It could not have been too hot, for Eve never used a parasol, or even a “kiss-me-quick,” and Adam never complained, though he wore no clothes, that the sun blistered his skin. It couldn’t have been wet, or they would have coughed all the time, like consumptive sheep, and it would have spoiled their garden, let alone giving them the chilblains and the snuffles. They didn’t require umbrellas, uglies, fans, or India-rubber shoes. There was no such a thing as a stroke of the sun or a snow-drift there. The temperature must have been perfect, and connubial bliss, I allot, was rael jam up. The only thing that seemed wanting there, was for some one to drop in to tea now and then for Eve to have a good chat with, while Adam was a studyin’ astronomy, or tryin’ to invent a kettle that would stand fire; for women do like talking, that’s a fact, and there are many little things they have to say to each other that no man has any right to hear, and if he did, he couldn’t understand.

It’s like a dodge Sally and I had to blind mother. Sally was for everlastingly leaving the keys about, and every time there was an inquiry about them, or a hunt for them, the old lady would read her a proper lecture. So at last she altered the name, and said, “Sam, wo is shlizel?” instead of Where is the key, and she tried all she could to find it out, but she couldn’t for the life of her.

Yes, what can be expected of such a climate as Nova Scotia or England? Though the first can ripen Indian corn and the other can’t, and that is a great test, I can tell you. It is hard to tell which of them is wuss, for both are bad enough, gracious knows, and yet the fools that live in them brag that their own beats all natur. If it is the former, well then thunder don’t clear the weather as it does to the South, and the sun don’t come out bright again at wunst and all natur look clear and tranquil and refreshed; and the flowers and roses don’t hang their heads down coily for the breeze to brush the drops from their newly-painted leaves, and then hold up and look more lovely than ever; nor does the voice of song and merriment arise from every tree; nor fragrance and perfume fill the air, till you are tempted to say, Now did you ever see anything so charming as this? nor do you stroll out arm-in-arm (that is, sposin’ you ain’t in a nasty dirty horrid town), and feel pleased with the dear married gall and yourself, and all you see and hear, while you drink in pleasure with every sense—oh, it don’t do that. Thunder unsettles everything for most a week, there seems no end to the gloom during these three or four days. You shiver if you don’t make a fire, and if you do you are fairly roasted alive. It’s all grumblin’ and growlin’ within, and all mud, slush, and slop outside. You are bored to death everywhere. And if it’s English climate it is wuss still, because in Nova Scotia there is an end to all this at last, for the west wind blows towards the end of the week soft and cool and bracing, and sweeps away the clouds, and lays the dust and dries all up, and makes everything smile again. But if it is English it’s unsettled and uncertain all the time. You can’t depend on it for an hour. Now it rains, then it clears, after that the sun shines; but it rains too, both together, like hystericks, laughing and crying at the same time. The trees are loaded with water, and hold it like a sponge; touch a bough of one with your hat, and you are drowned in a shower-bath. There is no hope, for there is no end visible, and when there does seem a little glimpse of light, so as to make you think it is a going to relent, it wraps itself up in a foggy, drizzly mist, and sulks like anything.

In this country they have a warm summer, a magnificent autumn, a clear, cold, healthy winter, but no sort of spring at all. In England they have no summer and no winter.¹ Now, in my opinion, that makes the difference in temper between the two races. The clear sky and bracing air here, when they do come, give the folks good spirits; but the extremes of heat and cold limit the time, and decrease the inclination for exercise. Still the people are good-natured, merry fellows. In England, the perpetual gloom of the sky affects the disposition of the men. America knows no such temper as exists in Britain. People here can’t even form an idea of it. Folks often cut off their children there in their wills for half nothing, won’t be reconciled to them on any terms, if they once displease them, and both they and their sons die game, and when death sends cards of invitation for the last assemblage of a family, they write declensions. There can’t be much real love where there is no tenderness. A gloomy sky, stately houses, and a cold, formal people, make Cupid, like a bird of passage, spread his wings, and take flight to a more congenial climate.

¹ I wonder what Mr Slick would say now, in 1855?

Castles have show-apartments, and the vulgar gaze with stupid wonder, and envy the owners. But there are rooms in them all, not exhibited. In them the imprisoned bird may occasionally be seen, as in the olden time, to flutter against the casement and pine in the gloom of its noble cage. There are chambers too in which grief, anger, jealousy, wounded pride, and disappointed ambition, pour out their sighs, their groans, and imprecations, unseen and unheard. The halls resound with mirth and revelry, and the eye grows dim with its glittering splendour; but amid all this ostentatious brilliancy, poor human nature refuses to be comforted with diamonds and pearls, or to acknowledge that happiness consists in gilded galleries, gay equipages, or fashionable parties. They are cold and artificial. The heart longs to discard this joyless pageantry, to surround itself with human affections, and only asks to love and be loved.

Still England is not wholly composed of castles and cottages, and there are very many happy homes in it, and thousands upon thousands of happy people in them, in spite of the melancholy climate, the destitution of the poor, and the luxury of the rich. God is good. He is not only merciful, but a just judge. He equalizes the condition of all. The industrious poor man is content, for he relies on Providence and his own exertions for his daily bread. He earns his food, and his labour gives him a zest for it. Ambition craves, and is never satisfied, one is poor amid his prodigal wealth, the other rich in his frugal poverty. No man is rich whose expenditure exceeds his means; and no one is poor whose incomings exceeds his outgoings. Barring such things as climate, over which we have no control, happiness, in my idea, consists in the mind, and not in the purse. These are plain common truths, and everybody will tell you there is nothing new in them, just as if there was anything new under the sun but my wooden clocks, and yet they only say so because they can’t deny them, for who acts as if he ever heard of them before. Now, if they do know them, why the plague don’t they regulate their timepieces by them? If they did, matrimony wouldn’t make such an everlastin’ transmogrification of folks as it does, would it?

The way cupidists scratch their head and open their eyes and stare after they are married, reminds me of Felix Culpepper. He was a judge at Saint Lewis, on the Mississippi, and the lawyers used to talk gibberish to him, yougerry, eyegerry, iggery, ogerry, and tell him it was Littleton’s Norman French and Law Latin. It fairly onfakilised him. Wedlock works just such changes on folks sometimes. It makes me laugh, and then it fairly scares me.

Sophy, dear, how will you and I get on, eh? The Lord only knows, but you are an uncommon sensible gall, and people tell me till I begin to believe it myself, that I have some common sense, so we must try to learn the chart of life, so as to avoid those sunk rocks so many people make shipwreck on. I have often asked myself the reason of all this onsartainty. Let us jist see how folks talk and think, and decide on this subject. First and foremost they have got a great many cant terms, and you can judge a good deal from them. There is the honeymoon, now, was there ever such a silly word as that? Minister said the Dutch at New Amsterdam, as they used to call New York, brought out the word to America, for all the friends of the new married couple, in Holland, did nothing for a whole month but smoke, drink metheglin (a tipple made of honey and gin), and they called that bender the honeymoon; since then the word has remained, though metheglin is forgot for something better.