'Our house, which it was once my highest pleasure to keep in order, it would be now equally vain to attempt cleaning as the ark of Noah. The children's bed is supplied by an Indian canoe; and the poor little creatures sleep three of them in a hammock, slung up to the roof between a stuffed crocodile and the skeleton of a calf with two heads. Even the commodities of our shop have been turned out to make room for trash and vermin. Kites, owls, and bats are perched upon the top of our shelves; and it was but yesterday that, putting my hand into a glass jar that used to contain pickles, I laid hold of a large tarantula in place of a mangoe.
'In the bitterness of my soul, Mr. Mirror, I have been often tempted to revenge myself on the objects of my husband's phrenzy, by burning, smashing, and destroying them without mercy; but, besides that such violent procedure might have effects too dreadful upon a brain which, I fear, is already much unsettled, I could not take such a course without being guilty of a fraud to our creditors, several of whom will, I believe, sooner or later, find it their only means of reimbursement to take back each man his own monsters.'
The 'Mirror.'—Vol. I. No. 25.
The 'Mirror' prints a letter upon the grievances felt by the families of men of small fortunes when associated with those enjoying great ones.
'You will remember, sir, my account of a visit which my daughters paid to a great lady in our neighbourhood, and of the effects which that visit had upon them. I was beginning to hope that time, and the sobriety of manners which home exhibited, would restore them to their former situation, when, unfortunately, a circumstance happened still more fatal to me than their expedition to ——. This, sir, was the honour of a visit from the great lady in return.
'I was just returning from the superintendence of my ploughs, in a field I have lately enclosed, when I was met, on the green before my door, by a gentleman (for such I took him to be) mounted upon a very handsome gelding, who asked me, by the appellation of honest friend, if this was not Mr. Homespun's; and, in the same breath, whether the ladies were at home. I told him my name was Homespun, the house was mine, and my wife and daughters were, I believed, within. Upon this, the young man, pulling off his hat, and begging my pardon for calling me honest, said he was despatched by Lady ——, with her compliments, to Mrs. and Misses Homespun, and that, if convenient, she intended herself the honour of dining with them, on her return from B—— Park (the seat of another great and rich lady in our neighbourhood).
'I confess, Mr. Mirror, I was struck somewhat of a heap with the message; and it would not, in all probability, have received an immediate answer, had it not been overheard by my eldest daughter, who had come to the window on the appearance of a stranger.