Real happiness is far from being an attribute of existence. It is, in fact, a moral impossibility that they should cöexist; and Reason never deceives herself so much, as when she deems it is within the pale of our enjoyment. Do we not know, by actual realization, that the jewel for which we have labored for years, loses its value with possession, and becomes scarce worth the purchasing? And though we may cast it aside, recognising in some other object the El Dorado of our hopes, does not that too, when obtained, like the fruit upon the shores of the Dead Sea, resolve to ashes in our grasp?
We may be partially contented, but never perfectly happy; and oh! if man but knew this, how much of sorrow and remorse would it not spare him, when the hand of Age is heavy upon him! How much alleviation would it not bring to the bed of sickness—how much of hope to the departing spirit!
Yet, although it is written in the book of destiny, that the principal aim of our lives shall be for ever perverted, it is not to be supposed that this disappointment will render us miserable. The evils of existence act differently upon mankind; and where you will find one who is made unhappy by the operation of some untoward circumstance, you will find a second whose equanimity would scarcely be disturbed by a much more aggravated misfortune.
Among those so happily constituted as to confront adversity with indifference, may be numbered the hero of this sketch; an individual whose age was probably three-and-twenty, and whose name was universally admitted to be John Thomas Tumbler, Jr., his sire bearing the like Christian appellatives.
Mr. Tumbler, Jr., was an individual whom those in a more elevated sphere would term a 'loafer.' Now why one body of the human family should classify another by so impolite a distinction, may be, to the uninitiated in the ways of the world, a matter of surprise. To us, however, it is perfectly explicable, since it serves to carry out one of the immutable principles of our nature, which is ——. But no matter; we will not animadvert; for as well might the wave that foams at the foot of Gibraltar, essay to destroy the mountain rock, as we to change, by censure or deprecation, that gigantic and inveterate evil.
John Thomas Tumbler, Jr. was not rich; on the contrary, he was very poor, and, indeed, but little versed in the knowledge of the coin of his country. But John Thomas had that opulence of feeling which supplies the place of wealth, and which wealth itself cannot at all times supply; that internal independence, which buoys up the spirit, and defies adversity. In his youth, he had been industrious, and no boy was more persevering and successful in researches for old copper, nails, bits of lead, and such little valuables; but as he verged into manhood, his ideas expanded, and those pursuits were abandoned, as vocations too insignificant for one who bore the image of the universal Creator. In fact, Mr. Tumbler, Jr. considered it undignified to labor at all, and so determined to lead a life of ease and relaxation.
When first our gentleman came to this resolve, he was tolerably well attired. His coat, though thread-bare, and somewhat greasy in the vicinity of the elbows, looked, nevertheless, partially genteel; and though many parts of it were preserved in a state of adhesion by divers pins, it was still without that symptom of poverty, a patch. His breast, at this interesting period of his life, was defended from the inclemencies of the weather, by a double-breasted velvet vest, which had been manufactured some twenty years before for the comfort of some corpulent citizen, and which now hung about Mr. Tumbler with the graceful foldings of a Roman toga. Of his pantaloons and hat, we shall say little, save that they were somewhat venerable; and of his shirt, we can have nothing to say, he having long since repudiated that garment, as an article of dress totally superfluous.
It was customary with Mr. Tumbler, Jr., in those halcyon days, to drop (or rather, as he expressed it, 'happen') in the coffee-houses, at about eleven o'clock, every day, that being the hour when the lunch was set out for customers. At such times, Mr. Tumbler was frequently known to make some very odd mistakes, such, for example, as drinking the liquor of some other individual, who might have been so negligent as to put his glass down for a moment, while he helped himself to a mouthful of the eatables. But these little errors are incident to an absent-minded man, and might have been passed over unnoticed, had not Mr. Tumbler, on a later occasion, been discovered in the act of abstracting a handkerchief from the coat-pocket of a gentleman who was standing at the bar; for which offence he was very unceremoniously ejected from the premises, with an invitation from the keeper to call, in future, 'once in a great while.'
Mr. Tumbler was, happily for his circumstances, not a particular man. He dwelt any where and every where, and might justly be termed a 'promiscuous' lodger. He had, it is true, a particular stall in the market-house, which he sometimes occupied at night; but Mr. Tumbler had serious objections to sleeping there. 'The flies' he said, 'made it inconwenient in the morning, and the benches was werry often left dirty, by the negligence of the butchers:' beside, he was 'roused out, o' market mornings, at early day-light, vich was uncommon uncomfortable!'