“I tell you, Kerr,” added she, “the effluvia from your shop is insupportable. It shocks my nerves continually—it is killing me altogether.”
“Truly, my dear,” rejoined he, “I am at a loss to understand ye. Really every other person you meet talks about their nerves, and being nervous, now-a-days. But since I can remember, there were no such words in use—that is, as they are now applied. For, when we spoke of anything being nervous, we meant something that was strong and powerful, such as a nervous sermon, or a nervous speech in the House of Commons; and if we spoke of a man of nerve, it was a strong-bodied or a strong-minded man that we meant. But now-a-days the meaning is quite reversed; and when a person is spoken of as being nervous, or very nervous, it is always in reference to some silly shaking body, that has no nerve at all. And it is my candid opinion, dear, that nobody in this country ever complained of being troubled with the nerves until spirit-drinking and hot tea-drinking came so much in vogue!”
“O you savage!—you barbarian!” screamed Mrs Kerr, who seemed to have been struggling with a hysteric which now came upon her. We have seen people who have a convenient habit of assuming this pride-produced malady, and Mrs Kerr was now trying the effect of the experiment upon her husband; and the violence of the pretended paroxysm increased as he manifested the more and more tenderness and anxiety to soothe her; and when she had caused him to believe that he had succeeded in restoring her to consciousness—“Kerr,” said she, “we must, if you do not intend to kill me, leave this horrid house.”
“Leave the house, dear!” said he in surprise—“where could we go?”
“Go!” she replied—“Why don’t you take or build a respectable house out of the town, where a person could receive their friends. You cannot expect any genteel person to call upon us here, to be suffocated with the fumes of your nasty shop and warehouse.”
Walter was once more tempted to speak of his poor Hannah, and was about to say, that the most genteel people in the town and neighbourhood had visited her, without once hinting that there was anything disagreeable to them arising from the proximity of the shop and warehouse, or from the mixed goods which they contained. But it is a common saying, and a good one, that “second thoughts are best;” and Walter Kerr thought twice, and when he did so, he perceived that to speak of his dear and buried Hannah again, to her who now was to him as she was, would only be throwing oil upon a flame. He forebore and was silent.
I think—and so perhaps many of my readers will think—that, though a shrewd man, he was of too complying a temper. He was ready to sacrifice too much for what is called ease and peace. But in so doing, he was only like many others, whom you will find ready to say—“Oh, we are willing to do anything for the sake of peace.” And no doubt this is a very good spirit; but it may be carried too far. It is quite as possible for a man to be in error by enduring too much as by allowing too little. There is a middle path in everything; and it is always the safest, and generally the best. Extremes are always bad—so bad, indeed, that they are like two wild bulls running to encounter each other, and meeting on a common path, they thrust their horns into the foreheads of each other, and thus forcibly and painfully become as one body, to the obstruction of the thoroughfare. But, that Walter Kerr was too fond of yielding, will be proved from the circumstances of his having purchased a few acres of ground, and commenced the building of a country-house, about three miles out of H——, within three months after the conversation which I have related between him and Mrs Kerr took place.
Well, the house was finished, and a very neat, and I may say elegant-looking house it was. They had a garden behind it. Immediately in front was a parterre, tastefully laid out in plots; and between the parterre and the highway was a shrubbery, which, from the number of poplar and other rapid-growing trees in it, was no doubt intended, in a few years, to have the designation of “a plantation” or “a wood.” But, after the villa was built, Mrs Kerr discovered that new furniture was necessary for their new house.
“In truth, Harriet, my dear,” said Mr Kerr, “I can in no way see that new furniture is necessary. Ye will consider it would be extremely expensive. All that we have is strong and durable; I can see no fault with it.”
He would have added, “It was all of my Hannah’s choosing;” but every day the power of Harriet, her fashionable successor, had increased; and, although Walter knew not whence that power came, he was but too conscious of its existence; and he spoke not what he wished to have said.