Go to the window, if you are troubled in spirit; if the wind is the wrong way; if you have been jilted or hen-pecked—no matter which—or if you find yourself growing poorer every hour, and all your wisest plans, and best-considered projects for getting rich in a hurry turned topsy-turvy by a change in the market-value of bubbles warranted never to burst; or if you have a note to pay for a man you never saw but once in your life, and hope never to see again—to the window with you! and lean back in your chair with a disposition to be pleased, and watch the different systems of progression—or, in plain English, the walk of the people going by. A single quarter of an hour so spent will put you in spirits for the day, and furnish you with materials for thought, which, well-husbanded, may last you for a twelvemonth; yea, abide with you for life, like that wisdom which is better than fine gold, and more precious than rubies.
Well, you have taken my advice; you are at the window. Now catch up your pen and describe what you see, as you see it; or take your pencil if you are good for any thing in that way, and let us see what you can do. A free, bold, happy and faithful sketch of that which in itself would be worthless, or even loathsome, shall make your fortune. Morland's pigs and pig-styes, on paper or canvas, were always worth half a hundred of the originals. One of Tenier's inside-out pictures of a village feast, with drunken boors—not worth a groat apiece when alive—would now fetch its weight in gold three times over.
Look you now. There goes a man with a large bundle under his arm, tied up in a yellow bandanna handkerchief, faded and weather-worn, and looking as if ready to burst—the bundle I mean. What would you give to know the history of that bundle and what there is in it? Observe the man's eye, the swing of his right arm—the carriage of his body—the dip of his hat. You would swear, or might if your conscience, or your habits as a gentleman, would let you, that he was a proud and a happy fellow, though you never saw his face before in all your life. The tread of his foot is enough—the very swing of his coat-tail as he clears the corner. It is Saturday night, and he is carrying the bundle home to his own house—of that you may be sure. And you may be equally sure that whatever else there may be in it, there is nothing for him to be ashamed of, and therefore nothing for the man himself. My notion is, that he has bought a ready-made cloak for his wife, without her knowledge, or got a friend to choose the cloth and be measured for it, who will be found at his fire-side when he gets home, holding forth upon the comfort of such an outside garment in our dreadful winters, with a perseverance which leads the good woman of the house to suspect her neighbor of being better off than herself, in one particular at least, for the coming Sabbath. But just now the door opens—the gossiping neighbor springs up with a laugh—the bundle is untied—the children scream, and the wife jumps about her husband's neck as if he had been absent a twelvemonth.
Where!—where!
Can't you see them for yourself! Can't you see the fire-light flash over the newly-papered walls! can't you hear the children laugh as mother swings round with her new cloak—scattering the ashes, and almost puffing out their only lamp, which she has set upon the floor to see how the garment hangs! and now she drops into a chair. Take my word for it, sir, that is a very worthy woman—and the man himself is a Washingtonian.
What man?
What man! Why the man that just turned the corner, with a great yellow bundle under his arm.
Indeed! you know him then?
Never saw his face in all my life. But stay—what have we here? Get your paper ready! Here comes a thick-set fellow, in a blue round-about, with his hat pulled over his eyes, and one hand in his trowsers' pocket—poor fellow! There he goes! But why one hand? He had his reasons for it, I'll warrant ye, if the truth were known. He walked by with bent knees, you observed, and with a most unpromising stoop. He was feeling for his last four-pence; and found a hole in his pocket. Can't you read the whole story in the man's gait?—in the slow, sullen footfall—in the clutch of his fingers—in the stiffened elbow, and the bent knees?
Another Washingtonian, perhaps?