Take in all the accessories of the above picture, reader, and you cannot fail to laugh as heartily at the discomfiture of the pious but 'cunning' elder, as we ourselves did on its first perusal. There is a fine touch of natural description, and not a little philosophy, in the following sketch of a dinner at an English gentleman's country residence:
'Folks are up to the notch here when dinner is in question, that's a fact; fat, gouty, broken-winded, and foundered as they be. It's rap! rap! rap! for twenty minutes at the door; and in they come, one arter the other, as fast as the sarvants can carry up their names. Cuss them sarvants! it takes seven or eight of 'em to carry a man's name up stairs, they are so awful lazy, and so shockin' full of porter. Well, you go in along with your name, walk up to old aunty, and make a scrape, and the same to old uncle, and then fall back. This is done as solemn as if a feller's name was called out to take his place in a funeral; that and the mistakes is the fun of it. * * * Company are all come, and now they have to be marshalled two and two, lock and lock, and go into the dinin'-room to feed. When I first came I was dreadful proud of that title, 'the Attaché;' now I am glad it's nothin' but 'only an Attaché,' and I'll tell you why. The great guns and big bugs have to take in each other's ladies, so these old ones have to herd together. Well, the nobodies go together too, and sit together; and I've observed that these nobodies are the pleasantest people at table, and they have the pleasantest places, because they sit down with each other, and are jist like yourself, plaguy glad to get some one to talk to. Somebody can only visit somebody, but nobody can go any where; and therefore nobody sees and knows twice as much as somebody does. Somebodies must be axed, if they are as stupid as a pump; but nobodies needn't, and never are, unless they are spicy sort o' folks; so you are sure of them, and they have all the fun and wit of the table at their eend, and no mistake. I wouldn't take a title if they would give it to me, for if I had one, I should have a fat old parblind dowager detailed on to me to take in to dinner; and what the plague is her jewels and laces, and silks and satins, and wigs to me? As it is, I have a chance to have a gal to take in that's a jewel herself; one that don't want no settin' off, and carries her diamonds in her eyes, and so on. I've told our minister not to introduce me as an Attaché no more, but as Mr. Nobody, from the state of Nothin', in America.'
Mr. Slick's ideas of what is facetiously termed 'music' is quite coincident with our own. No 'difficult execution' and 'intricate passages' for him:
'What's that? It's music. Well, that's artificial too; it's scientific, they say; it's done by rule. Jist look at that gal to the piany: first comes a little Garman thunder. Good airth and seas, what a crash! It seems as if she'd bang the instrument all to a thousand pieces. I guess she's vexed at some body and is a-peggn' it into the piany out of spite. Now comes the singin'; see what faces she makes; how she stretches her mouth open, like a barn-door, and turns up the white of her eyes, like a duck in a thunder-storm. She is in a musical ecstasy; she feels good all over; her soul is a-goin' out along with that 'ere music. Oh, it's divine; and she is an angel, ain't she? Yes, I guess she is; and when I'm an angel, I will fall in love with her: but as I'm a man, at least what's left of me, I'd jist as soon fall in love with one that was a leetle more of a woman, and a leetle less of an angel. But hello! what onder the sun is she about! Why, her voice is goin' down her own throat, to gain strength, and here it comes out ag'in as deep-toned as a man's; while that dandy feller alongside of her is a-singin' what they call falsetter. They've actilly changed voices! The gal sings like a man, and that screamer like a woman! This is science: this is taste: this is fashion: but hang me if it's natur'. I'm tired to death of it; but one good thing is, you needn't listen without you like, for every body is talking as loud as ever.'
We are compelled to close our extracts with the subjoined capital hit at the naked meeting-houses which 'obtain' in so many quarters of our goodly land, and the still more naked 'doctrines' that constitute the weekly attractions which many of them present to church-goers:
'The meetin'-houses our side of the water, no matter where, but away up in the back country, how teetotally different they be from 'em this side! A great big handsome wooden house, chock full of winders, painted so white as to put your eyes out, and so full of light within that inside seems all out-doors, and no tree nor bush, nor nothin' near it but the road fence, with a man to preach in it that is so strict and straight-laced he will do any thing of a week day, and nothin' of a Sunday. * * * Preacher there don't preach morals, because that's churchy, and he don't like neither the church nor it's morals; but he preaches doctrine, which doctrine is, there's no Christians but themselves. Well, the fences outside of the meetin'-house, for a quarter of a mile or so, each side of the house, and each side of the road, ain't to be seen for hosses and wagons, and gigs hitched there; poor devils of hosses that have ploughed, or hauled, or harrowed, or logged, or snaked, or somethin' or nother all the week, and rest on a Sunday by alterin' their gait, as a man rests on a journey by alterin' of his stirrup a hole higher or a hole lower.'
This episode is concluded with some remarks upon the 'clerical twang' which distinguishes some of the divines of our country: 'Good men always speak through the nose. It's what comes out of the mouth that defiles a man; but there is no mistake in the nose; it's the porch of the temple!' We are pleased to learn that another volume of 'The Attaché' will ere long be given to the public. We await its publication with impatient interest.
Gossip with Readers and Correspondents.—'What is the man driving at' who sends us the following? Does he intend a satire upon the peculiar style of Mr. Willis, who 'skims the superfices' of society with more ease and grace than any magazine-writer of this era? Or is our correspondent in love, and desirous of walking under a cloud while he reveals his passion? Let him answer: 'The top of the morning to you, my dear Editor; and as your sun goes up the meridian, may your shadow be longer! I can wish you nothing more improbable; but in wishes not to be granted, I will have the satisfaction of wishing to the outside of my desire. Coming home last evening, I called on a pretty woman, for a half-hour's oblivion of matter-of-fact. A few weeks since she had seen Willis and a very charming damsel at Saratoga Springs, and had noticed them occasionally at a delightful spot in the neighborhood, which I shall not indicate; a retreat such as a poet would choose in parting with his best thoughts, and far holier than the parting of mere lips would need; for I take it, this good-by, this farewell to the pets of the heart; this sense of lost identity gone to the public; the loosing of the dove that may no where find a spot to rest amid the waters; the spring of the falcon that will away; I say, Mr. Editor, these things are sometimes very solemn and affecting. Well, upon that spot was found a crumpled paper, scrawled over with the goose-tracks of genius, and signed 'N. P. Willis, Junior.' The product of Willis by his match should be something brilliant, to be sure; but the Junior is evidently still young in years. His opening phrase, (more applicable in these times to a bank-note than any other mistress,) and several other naïve spots, indicate the come-over-ativeness and allowable tenderness of a first passion. It is written in a kind of halting verse, that might easily be done into blank, I should say. It is crowned with stars, signifying I suppose that this world has nothing left worth looking at, and this beautiful motto, from Keats: