‘P. S.—Whoop! hurrah! Light upon the world again! Where are you, my fine Editor? I say Sir, I was an ass—do you hear?—an ass, premature, wise before my time, a brute, a blockhead! Did I talk of dust and ashes? Oh! Sir, I lied multitudinously. Every nerve, every muscle that didn’t try to strangle me in that utterance, lied. No, Sir; let me tell you it’s a great world; glorious—magnificent; a world that can’t be beat! Talk of the stars and a better world, but don’t invite me there yet. Make my regrets, my apology to Death, but say that I can’t come; ‘positive engagement; happy some other time, but not now.’ Oh, no; this morning is quite too beautiful to leave; and beside, I would rather stay, if only to thank God a little longer for this glorious light, this pure air that can echo back my loudest hurrah. And then, my boy——But haven’t I told you? Why Sir, I’ve got a boy!—a boy—ha, ha! I shout it out to you—a Boy; fourteen pounds, and the mother a great deal better than could be expected! And I say, Mr. Editor, it’s mine! hurrah and hallelujah forever! Oh, Sir! such legs, and such arms, and such a head!—and Oh my God! he has his mother’s lips! I can kiss them forever! And then, Sir, look at his feet, his hands, his chin, his eyes, his every thing, in fact—so ‘perfectly O. K.!’ Give me joy, Sir; no you needn’t either. I am full now; I run over; and they say that I ran over a number of old women, half killed the mother, pulled the doctor by the nose, and upset a ’pothecary-shop in the corner; and then didn’t I ring the tea-bell? Didn’t I blow the horn? Didn’t I dance, shout, laugh, and cry altogether? The women say they had to tie me up. I don’t believe that; but who is going to shut his mouth when he has a live baby? You should have heard his lungs, Sir, at the first mouthful of fresh air—such a burst! A little tone in his voice, but not pain; excess of joy, Sir, from too great sensation. The air-bath was so sudden, you know. Think of all his beautiful machinery starting off at once in full motion; all his thousand outside feelers answering to the touch of the cool air; the flutter and crash at the ear; and that curious contrivance the eye, looking out wonderingly and bewildered upon the great world, so glorious and dazzling to his unworn perceptions; his net-work of nerves, his wheels and pulleys, his air-pumps and valves, his engines and reservoirs; and within all, that beautiful fountain, with its jets and running streams dashing and coursing through the whole length and breadth, without stint, or pause—making altogether, Sir, exactly fourteen pounds!
‘Did I ever talk brown to you, Sir, or blue, or any other of the devil’s colors? You say I have. Beg your pardon, Sir, but you—are mistaken in the individual. I am this day, Sir, multiplied by two. I am duplicate. I am number one of an indefinite series, and there’s my continuation. And you observe, it is not a block, nor a block-head, nor a painting, nor a bust, nor a fragment of any thing, however beautiful; but a combination of all the arts and sciences in one; painting, sculpture, music (hear him cry,) mineralogy, chemistry, mechanics (see him kick,) geography, and the use of the globes (see him nurse;) and withal, he is a perpetual motion—a time-piece that will never run down! And who wound it up? But words, Sir, are but a mouthing and a mockery. ••• When a man is nearly crushed under obligations, it is presumed that he is unable to speak; but he may bend over very carefully, for fear of falling, nod in a small way, and say nothing; and then, if he have sufficient presence of mind to lay a hand upon his heart, and look down at an angle of forty-five degrees, with a motion of the lips—unuttered poetry—showing the wish and inability, it will be (well done) very gracefully expressive. With my boy in his first integuments, I assume that position, make the small nod aforesaid, and leave you the poetry unuttered.’
‘Odd-zounds!’ thought we, on glancing at the subject of the ensuing piscatory epistle, ‘what can all this outcry mean?’ But that exclamatory query we shall permit Julian himself to answer, in his own peculiar way:
‘Gammon!’ said Harry. ‘Wait a moment,’ said I; ‘I shall throw sixes;’ and to be sure down came the sixes, striking him on the ‘seize’ point, and then rebounding to my own, swept every man from the table. The board was put up, and after a little closing chat with Mrs. H——, I was taking leave, when Harry called me back. ‘Julian,’ said he, ‘Come and breakfast to-morrow upon ‘Zounds and Sounds.’’ ‘Zounds and Sounds!’ said I, ‘I shall be delighted! What a charming dish! I remember of——’ ‘And Jule,’ said Harry, interrupting me, ‘perhaps Fanny would come?’ ‘Oh, impossible! you know she is delicate yet, and the mornings are quite chilly.’ ‘Well, good night; and don’t forget that we breakfast early.’ ‘My dear Sir,’ said I, ‘I could rise at cock-crow for Zounds and Sounds.’ ••• Now, I had never even heard the words before; but I pique myself on knowing strange and choice dishes; not the far-fetched things of the French, but things good per se, and without a sea of condiments; the delicate, the rare subtleties which our own women know so well to compound. Of course, I ought to know Zounds and Sounds, and of course, I should not hurry to disclaim that knowledge. Harry might have known, and then again he might not; but he remembered, as I have since ascertained, of having eaten something of the kind some thirty years since; something he had perhaps cloyed of, and so forgotten, but something very delectable; something that would perhaps touch his palate again like the maple-sugar and other dainties of his boyhood. Having found the article that day, he had secured a large quantity without asking what they were, and had them taken privately to his house, with a view of making up the dish himself. I came home, rolling the magic words ‘as a sweet morsel under my tongue,’ and immediately sought out a curious dictionary, in which various strange things are expounded; and failing in that, looked into Crabbe’s Synonymes, (by the rule of contraries, I suppose, for there certainly could be nothing like Zounds and Sounds,) but as Longfellow says, ‘All in vain!’ Fanny having retired, I got into my slippers and sat down by the fire to ruminate a little. ‘Zounds and Sounds!’ said I. ‘What an incomparable phrase! What a sweet suffusion of the z! What vibratory tingling upon the tympanum! How pleasantly percussive to the brain; and how even the teeth partake of the sensation! I declare! I must write a song upon Zounds and Sounds! I will. I will write an invitatory song to the Editor. Let me see. Zounds, rounds, bounds and hounds. Exactly! Now then:
Are you weary Sir, of the ups and downs
The fame, the fun, the blues the browns,
The heat, the haste, the sights the sounds
Of your never-ending monthly rounds?
Oh! come and dine on Zounds and Sounds!
Zounds and Sounds!