[ECCENTRIC PEOPLE.]
Mr Timbs, in his book upon English Eccentrics and Eccentricities, introduces us to a collection of funny people, with whom it is good company to pass an hour. To get away from the dull routine of conventionality for a while is at all times a relief, more especially when we fill the interval by watching some of our eccentric fellow-creatures who are good enough to divert us by their antics. Some are serious in their folly; some are mad; some we admire, while others again awake our pity; but one and all they are gifted with a force of will that merits attention.
A collection of dead-and-gone eccentrics now pass before us, recalling a few living ones that we know of, whose collected vagaries, if published, may in turn probably amuse our grandchildren. First, let us look at Beckford, a name not much remembered now, although it belonged to a man who was a marvel in his day. Gifted with extraordinary powers of mind and will, he did everything by turns, and nothing long. He wrote a book that created a sensation. No great marvel that, to people of our day, when the difficulty is to find some one who has not written a book; but Beckford wrote as no other author. Vathek was written at one sitting! It took him three days and two nights of hard labour, during which time he never undressed. We know of one instance somewhat similar. A reigning lady novelist told us once that she was pledged to her publisher to send him a three-volume novel by a certain date. Two days previous to the expiration of her contract, her novel had only reached the opening chapter of the third volume. On the evening of the first day she went to a ball, danced all night, returning home at the small-hours of morning, when, after taking off her ball-dress, and drinking some strong tea, she sat down to finish her task. All that day she wrote and on into the next night, never leaving her desk until she had written finis; when with trembling hands she despatched her manuscript in time to fulfil her engagement.
There are some natures that need the pressure of necessity, or self-imposed necessity, to goad them into action; their resolution once formed, no obstacle is suffered to come between them and its fulfilment. Beckford was one of these. He determined to build a house—the abbey at Fonthill, where he resided for twenty years—and swore by his favourite St Anthony that his Christmas-dinner should be cooked in the abbey kitchen. Christmas approached, and the kitchen was in an unfinished condition. Every exertion that money could command was brought to the task, and Christmas morning saw the kitchen finished and the cooks installed. A splendid repast was prepared, and the dinner actually cooked, when lo! and behold, as the servants were carrying in the dishes through the long passages into the dining-room, a loud noise was heard, and the kitchen fell through with a crash! But what cared Beckford? He was rich; he could afford to build his kitchen over again; meantime he had humoured his whim and kept his vow to St Anthony; and we may add, made good his title to eccentricity, for which we applaud him, and pass on to watch some others.
What sorry figure is this that comes next? A poor neglected imbecile, living in squalid lodgings at Calais. It is scarcely possible to recognise in this unhappy being the once gay and elegant Beau Brummel, the glass of fashion and mould of form to the men and women of his generation, whom he ruled with the despotism of an autocrat. Yet this is the poor Beau and no other. He is holding a phantom reception. Having desired his attendant to arrange his apartment, set out the whist-tables, and light the candles—alas! only tallow—he is ready at eight o'clock to receive the guests, which the servant, previously instructed, now announces. First comes the Duchess of Devonshire. On hearing her name the Beau leaves his chair, and with the courtliest bow, the only reminiscence of his departed glory, he advances to the door and greets the phantom Duchess with all the honour that he would have given the beautiful Georgiana. He takes her hand and leads her to a seat, saying as he does so: 'Ah, my dear Duchess, how rejoiced I am to see you; so very amiable of you to come at this short notice. Pray bury yourself in this arm-chair. Do you know it was the gift to me of the Duchess of York, who was a very kind friend of mine; but poor thing, you know, she is no more!' At this point tears of idiotcy would fall from his eyes, and he would sink into the arm-chair himself, awaiting the arrival of other guests, who, being duly announced, were similarly greeted. With these ghosts of the past he would spend the evening until ten o'clock, when the servant telling each guest that his or her carriage was waiting, would carry his poor old master off to bed. We cannot wish him good-night without the payment of a sigh for the pantomime he has acted and the sad lesson it conveys.
And now we conjure up a droll figure, whose eccentricity borders on madness, the spendthrift squire of Halston, John Mytton. He is tormented with hiccup, and tries the novel cure of setting fire to himself in order to frighten it away. Applying a candle to his garment, being sparely clad at the time, he is soon in flames. His life is only saved by the active exertions of some people who chance to be in the way at the time. He invites some friends once, and when the company are assembled in the drawing-room, he startles them all by riding into the room on a bear! The guests are panic-stricken: one mounts on a table, another on a chair; they all strive to make their escape from the ungracious animal, and its still more savage master, who is enjoying the misery of his guests with the laugh of a madman. Let us too leave him.
Ladies have a great field for the display of eccentricity, in their mode of costume. We know of one lady who has never altered her style of dress since she was eighteen. The consequence is that every ten years or so the fashions come round to her, and for a brief period she is à la mode. Never having made any concessions to the abominations of crinoline or false hair, she is at the present time more orthodox than she appeared five years ago. Every time has had its eccentricities in this respect, and Mr Timbs shews us a certain Miss Banks, who died in 1818, and in plain terms looked a 'regular guy.' She was a lady of good position, being the sister of Sir Joseph Banks. Her costume consisted of a Barcelona quilted petticoat, which had a hole on each side, for the convenience of rummaging two immense pockets stuffed with books of all sizes, which did not add to the symmetry of her already large proportions. In this guise she went about, followed by a footman carrying a cane, as tall as his mistress, or her luggage when accompanying her on a journey. She was the originator of the words Hightum, Tightum, and Scrub, which so many ladies are fond of applying in the order of precedence to their wearing apparel. These words Miss Banks invented to distinguish three dresses she had made for herself at the same time, and all alike; the first for best, the second for occasional, and the third for daily wear.
While on feminine eccentricities we must record some that we have met with in our own day. So convinced is one elderly married lady of the peculating propensities of all lodging-house menials, that after each meal a curious scene takes place in her room. Every article, such as her tea-caddy, sugar-basin, jam-pot, &c., which she has had occasion to use during the meal, is placed on the table, on which stand a gum-bottle, a brush, and several long strips of paper. She then proceeds to gum up her property. A strip of paper is gummed round the opening to the tea-caddy; the pot of preserve is similarly secured, together with all else that is likely to attract that lawless fly the lodging-house servant! We know of another lady who for years has lived with only the light of gas or candle in her rooms. She imagines that air and daylight are injurious to her sight, and her rooms are little better than well-furnished tombs, into which no chink of light or breath of heaven is suffered to intrude.
Mr Timbs introduces us to a lady equally eccentric in her ideas about water. Lady Lewson of Clerkenwell objected totally to washing either her house or her person. She considered water to be the root of all malady, in the unnecessary way people expose themselves to the chills caught by frequent ablution! And as for health—was she not a living instance that a morning tub is all nonsense, for she was one hundred and sixteen years old when she died! For the greater part of her life she never dipped her face into water, using hog's-lard instead, to soften her skin. Although large and well furnished, her house, like her person, was never washed and but rarely swept.