LOVE OF HOME.

England is, above all other countries, favourable to individual industry, and that energy of character which, developed and well directed, succeeds in the world. Still, failure neither is nor ever has been rare; and private munificence and public benevolence have provided “many happy ports and havens” for those whose evening of life is clouded with storm. We have visited not a few of these sacred places—these palaces of philanthropy; we have gone about their buildings—their noble halls glowing with comfort, and their tables beaming with good cheer. We have for a brief hour enjoyed the quiet of these retreats, and thought how their decayed brethren, jaded with adversity and buffeted with misfortune, may find here that consolation and repose which the outside world has denied them. These may be found in the fellowship of the dining-hall, the social walk in the garden, and the assembling for worship in the chapel. All this, however, is but the bright side of this mode of life; and when the time arrives for the brethren to retire, each to his solitary chamber, then comes the pang of isolation from the world—even the ungrateful world! And, perchance, they look from the casement upon the larger foundation-buildings, and are by them still more forcibly reminded that this noble place is not their own—in short, that it presents not the joys nor the delights which are conveyed to the sensitive heart by that brief but touching word—Home!

It is scarcely possible to overrate the importance of this love of home in our scheme of earthly happiness. Southey has well observed: “Whatever strengthens our local attachments is favourable both to individual and national character. Our home, our birthplace, our native land; think, for a while, what the virtues are which rise out of the feelings connected with these words.”

Then, how is man, in the loneliness we have referred to, parted from the sweet solace he most needs in his hour of woe! Such consolation has been thus picturesquely bodied forth by one of our happiest writers on domestic life: “As the vine, which has long twined its graceful foliage about the oak, and been lifted by it into sunshine, will, when the hardy plant is rifted by the thunderbolt, cling round it with its caressing tendrils, and bind up its shattered boughs; so it is beautifully ordered by Providence, that woman, who is the mere dependent and ornament of man in his happier hours, should be his stay and solace when smitten with sudden calamity; winding herself into the rugged recesses of his nature, tenderly supporting the drooping head, and binding up the broken heart.”^[118]

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FAMILY PORTRAITS.

We remember reading a humorous sketch entitled, “The late Mr. Smith,” whose portrait after his death was removed by his widow to the lumber-room, lest it should be displeasing to her second husband: occasionally the children would bring out the portrait, and with a rusty foil run “the ugly old man” through the eyes.

Here we have one of the reasons why family portraits are so often thrust aside; but there are several others. The Rev. Mr. Eagles relates the following, in Blackwood’s Magazine: “I remember, when a boy, walking with an elderly gentleman, and passing a broker’s stall, there was the portrait of a fine florid gentleman in regimentals. He stopped to look at it—he might have bought it for a few shillings. After he had gone away—‘That,’ said he, ‘is the portrait of my wife’s great uncle—member for the county, and colonel of militia: you see how he is degraded to these steps.’ ‘Why do you not rescue him?’ said I. ‘Because he left me nothing,’ was the reply. A relative of mine, an old lady, hit upon a happy device; the example is worth following. Her husband was the last of his race, for she had no children. She took all the family portraits out of their frames, rolled up all the pictures, and put them in the coffin with the deceased.”

Sheridan has turned an incident of this class to admirable account, in his School for Scandal, in the reservation of Uncle Oliver’s portrait from sale.

Sometimes a good picture has unpleasant associations. “That is an excellent portrait of Ireland, the Shakspeare forger,” said a collector to a picture-dealer in Wardour-street; whose ready reply was, “Will you buy it, sir? it is but half a guinea.” “No,” answered the other; “it would seem either that I admired Ireland’s dishonest ingenuity, or that I had been his friend.”

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HOW TO KEEP FRIENDS.

When Goldsmith once talked to Johnson of the difficulty of living on very intimate terms with any one with whom you differed on an important topic, Johnson replied: “Why, sir, you must shun the subject as to which you disagree. For instance, I can live very well with Burke; I love his knowledge, his genius, his diffusion, and effulgence of conversation; but I would not talk to him of the Rockingham party.”

Mr. Helps, in his admirable work, Friends in Council, well observes: “A rule for living happily with others is to avoid having stock subjects of disputation. It mostly happens, when people live much together, that they come to have certain set topics, around which, from frequent dispute, there is such a growth of angry words, mortified vanity, and the like, that the original difference becomes a standing subject for quarrel; and there is a tendency in all minor disputes to drift down to it. Again: if people wish to live well together, they must not hold too much to logic, and supposing every thing is to be settled by sufficient reason. Dr. Johnson saw this clearly with regard to married people when he said, ‘Wretched would be the pair, above all names of wretchedness, who should be doomed to adjust by reason every morning all the minute detail of a domestic day.’ But the application should be much more general than he made it. There is no time for such reasonings, and nothing that is worth them. And when we recollect how two lawyers, or two politicians, can go on contending, and that there is no end of one-sided reasoning on any subject, we shall not be sure that such contention is the best mode for arriving at truth. But certainly it is not the way to arrive at good temper.”

The most gifted men are least addicted to depreciate either friends or foes. Dr. Johnson, Mr. Burke, and Mr. Fox were always more inclined to overrate them; your shrewd, sly, evil-speaking fellow is generally a shallow person; and frequently he is as venomous, as false when he flatters as when he reviles. He seldom praises John but to vex Thomas.

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SMALL COURTESIES.

How much politeness and winning of the affections exist in small courtesies, is well exemplified in the following anecdote related by a lady of a gentleman who had been the politest man of his generation. On returning once from school for the holidays, she had been put under his charge for the journey. They stopped for the night at a Cornish inn. Supper was ordered, and soon there appeared a dainty dish of woodcocks. Her cavalier led her to the board with the air of a Grandison, and then proceeded to place all the legs of the birds on her plate. At first, with her school-girl prejudices in favour of wings and in disfavour of legs and drumsticks, she felt rather angered at having these (as she supposed) uninviting and least delicate parts imposed upon her; but in after years, when gastronomic light had beamed on her, and the experience of many suppers brought true appreciation, she did full justice to the memory of the man who could sacrifice such morceaux as woodcocks’ thighs to the crude appetite of a girl, and who could thus show his innate deference for womanhood even in such budding form.

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LASTING FRIENDSHIPS.

The man who ill-naturedly said that the church would not hold his acquaintance, but the pulpit would contain his friends, cannot be congratulated upon the disproportion.

“Who is your friend?” is an every-day question, probably never better answered than in the following forcible and eloquent rebuke by a modern writer:

Concerning the man you call your friend, tell me, will he weep with you in the hour of distress? Will he faithfully reprove to your face, for actions which others are ridiculing or censuring behind your back? Will he dare to stand forth in your defence, when detraction is secretly aiming its deadly weapons at your reputation? Will he acknowledge you with the same cordiality, and behave to you with the same friendly attention, in the company of your superiors in rank and fortune, as when the claims of pride or vanity do not interfere with those of friendship? If misfortune and losses should oblige you to retire into a walk of life in which you cannot appear with the same distinction, or entertain your friends with the same liberality as formerly, will he still think himself happy in your society, and, instead of withdrawing himself from an unprofitable connexion, take pleasure in professing himself your friend, and cheerfully assist you to support the burden of your afflictions? When sickness shall call you to retire from the gay and busy scenes of the world, will he follow you into your gloomy retreat, listen with attention to your “tale of symptoms,” and minister the balm of consolation to your fainting spirits? And lastly, when death shall burst asunder every earthly tie, will he shed a tear upon your grave, and lodge the dear remembrance of your mutual friendship in his heart, as a treasure never to be resigned? The man who will not do all this may be your companion,—your flatterer,—but, depend upon it, he is not your friend.

Southey has left this charming picture of Friendship which ceases but with existence:

It may safely be affirmed that generous minds, when they have once known each other, never can be alienated as long as both retain the characteristics which brought them into union. No distance of place or lapse of time can lessen the friendship of those who are thoroughly persuaded of each other’s worth. There are even some broken attachments in friendship, as well as in love, which nothing can destroy, and it sometimes happens that we are not conscious of their strength till after the disruption. There are a few persons known to me in years long past, but with whom I lived in no particular intimacy then, and have held no correspondence since, whom I could not now meet without an emotion of pleasure deep enough to partake of pain, and who, I doubt not, entertain for me feelings of the same kind and degree—whose eyes sparkle when they hear, and glisten sometimes when they speak of me, and who think of me, as I do of them, with an affection that increases as we advance in years. This is because our moral and intellectual sympathies have strengthened, and because, though far asunder, we know that we are travelling the same road towards our resting-place in heaven. “There is such a pleasure as this,” says Cowper, “which would want explanation to some folks, being perhaps a mystery to those whose hearts are a mere muscle, and serve only for the purpose of an even circulation.”^[119]

And Professor Wilson has written these words of sweet consolation for the loss of friends:

Friends are lost to us by removal—for then even the dearest are often utterly forgotten. But let something that once was theirs suddenly meet our eyes, and in a moment, returning from the region of the rising or the setting sun, the friend of our youth seems at our side, unchanged his voice and his smile; or dearer to our eyes than ever, because of some affecting change wrought on face and figure by climate and by years. Let it be but his name written with his own hand on the title-page of a book; or a few syllables on the margin of a favourite passage which long ago we may have read together, “when life itself was new,” and poetry overflowed the whole world; or a lock of her hair in whose eyes we first knew the meaning of the word “depth.” And if death hath stretched out the absence into the dim arms of eternity, and removed the distance away into that bourne from which no traveller returns—the absence and the distance of her on whose forehead once hung the relic we adore—what heart may abide the beauty of the ghost that doth sometimes at midnight appear at our sleepless bed, and with pale uplifted arms waft over us at once a blessing and a farewell!

It rarely happens that broken friendships can be repaired or renewed. Mrs. Richard Trench, in her Journal, relates this remarkable instance of a failure:

At last, after an interval of twenty-four years, which succeeded a tolerably intimate acquaintance of seven weeks, I saw Count MÜnster of Hanover again. We met like two ghosts that ought to have been laid long since. I witnessed the whole process of the difficulty of persuading him that I was I; and I thought him as much changed in his degree as he could have found me. When we conversed, all the persons we referred to were dead and gone; and our interview added another link in my mind to the chain of proofs that, after a very, very long interval, neither friends nor acquaintance ought to meet in this world. He was kindly anxious to renew our acquaintance, and visited me next day; but still it seemed as if seeing me had renewed some painful associations.

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TRUE TONE OF POLITE WRITING.

Sir James Mackintosh, who has sometimes been unfairly characterised as a writer of drawing-room essays, has left the following able view of what may be termed “the True Tone of Polite Writing,”—a rare accomplishment even in these days of assumed facility and literary pretension:

When a woman of feeling, fancy, and accomplishment has learned to converse with ease and grace, from long intercourse with the most polished society, and when she writes as she speaks, she must write letters as they ought to be written, if she has acquired just as much habitual correctness as is reconcilable with the air of negligence. A moment of enthusiasm, a burst of feeling, a flash of eloquence, may be allowed; but the intercourse of society, either in conversation or in letters, allows no more. Though interdicted from the long-continued use of elevated language, they are not without a resource. There is a part of language which is disdained by the pedant or the declaimer, and which both, if they knew its difficulty, would approach with dread; it is formed of the most familiar phrases and turns in daily use by the generality of men, and is full of energy and vivacity, bearing upon it the marks of those keen feelings and strong passions from which it springs. It is the employment of such phrases which produces what may be called colloquial eloquence. Conversation and letters may be thus raised to any degree of animation, without departing from their character. Any thing may be said, if it be spoken in the tone of society. The highest guests are welcome if they come in the easy undress of the club: the strongest metaphor appears without violence, if it is familiarly expressed; and we the more easily catch the warmest feeling, if we perceive that it is intentionally lowered in expression, out of condescension to our calmer temper. It is thus that harangues and declamations, the last proof of bad taste and bad manners in conversation, are avoided, while the fancy and the heart find the means of pouring forth all their stores. To meet this despised part of language in a polished dress, and producing all the effects of wit and eloquence, is a constant source of agreeable surprise. This is increased, when a few bolder and higher words are happily wrought into the texture of this familiar eloquence. To find what seems so unlike author-craft in a book raises the pleasing astonishment to its highest degree. I once thought of illustrating my notions by numerous examples from “La SevignÉ.” And I must, some day or other, do so; though I think it the resource of a bungler who is not enough master of language to convey his conceptions into the minds of others. The style of Madame de SevignÉ is evidently copied, not only by her worshiper, Walpole, but even by Gray; who, notwithstanding the extraordinary merits of his matter, has the double stiffness of an imitator and of a college recluse.

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PRIDE AND MEANNESS.

Rousseau has well described this association of Pride and Stinginess, which is very common: “We take from nature, from real pleasures, nay, from the stock of necessaries, what we lavish upon opinion. One man adorns his palace at the expense of his kitchen; another prefers a fine service of plate to a good dinner; a third makes a sumptuous entertainment, and starves himself the rest of the year. When I see a sideboard richly decorated, I expect the wine to be very indifferent. How often in the country, when we breathe the fresh morning air, are we not tempted by the prospect of a fine garden! We rise early, and by walking gain a keen appetite, which makes us wish for breakfast. Perhaps the domestic is out of the way, or provisions are wanting, or the lady has not given her orders, and you are tired to death with waiting. Sometimes people prevent your desires, or make you a very pompous offer of every thing, upon condition that you accept of nothing. You must fast till three o’clock, or breakfast with the tulips. I remember to have walked in a very beautiful park, which belonged to a lady who, though extremely fond of coffee, never drank any but when at a very low price; yet she liberally allowed her gardener a salary of a thousand crowns. For my part, I should choose to have tulips less finely variegated, and to drink coffee whenever my appetite called for it.”

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HOME THOUGHTS.

There is much to be learned from domestic annals. Southey has well observed: “The history of any private family, however humble, could it be fairly related for five or six generations, would illustrate the state and progress of society better than could be done by the most elaborate historian.”

Cheerfulness and a festival spirit fills the soul full of harmony; it composes music for churches and hearts; it makes and publishes glorifications of God; it produces thankfulness, and serves the ends of charity; and when the oil of gladness runs over, it makes bright and tall emissions of holy fires, reaching up to a cloud, and making joy round about: and therefore, since it is so innocent, and may be so pious, and full of holy advantage, whatever can minister to this holy joy does set forward the work of religion and charity.^[120]

In how delightful a strain has the same writer said: “There is some virtue or other to be exercised, whatever happens, either patience or thanksgiving, love or fear, moderation or humility, charity or contentedness; and they are, every one of them, equally in order to his great end and immortal felicity: and beauty is not made by white or red, by black eyes and a round face, by a straight body and a smooth skin, but by a proportion to the fancy. Whatever we talk, things are as they are; not as we grant, dispute, or hope, depending on neither our affirmative nor negative; but upon the rate and value which God sets upon things.”

Lord Macaulay, too, has left us this touching picture:

Children, look in those eyes, listen to that dear voice, notice the feeling of even a single touch that is bestowed upon you by that gentle hand! Make much of it while yet you have that most precious of all good gifts—a loving mother. Read the unfathomable love of those eyes; the kind anxiety of that tone and look, however slight your pain. In after-life you may have friends—fond, dear, kind friends—but never will you have again the inexpressible love and gentleness lavished upon you which none but a mother bestows. Often do I sigh in my struggles with the hard, uncaring world, for the sweet, deep security I felt when, of an evening, nestling to her bosom, I listened to some quiet tale, suitable to my age, read in her tender and untiring voice. Never can I forget her sweet glances cast upon me when I appeared asleep; never her kiss of peace at night. Years have passed away since we laid her beside my father in the old churchyard; yet still her voice whispers from the grave, and her eye watches over me as I visit spots long since hallowed to the memory of my mother.

We pass from these traits of sweet simplicity to a lesson for riper age, by a living writer of sterling humour:

It is better for you to pass an evening once or twice a week in a lady’s drawing-room, even though the conversation is slow, and you know the girl’s song by heart, than in a club, tavern, or the pit of a theatre. All amusements of youth to which virtuous women are not admitted, rely on it, are deleterious to their nature. All men who avoid female society have dull perceptions and are stupid, or have gross tastes and revolt against what is pure. Your club-swaggerers, who are sucking the butts of billiard-cues all night, call female society insipid. Poetry is uninspiring to a yokel; beauty has no charms for a blind man; music does not please a poor beast who does not know one tune from another; but as a true epicure is hardly ever tired of water, sancey, and brown bread and butter, I protest I can sit for a whole night talking to a well-regulated, kindly woman about her girl Fanny or her boy Frank, and like the evening’s entertainment. One of the great benefits a man may derive from woman’s society is, that he is bound to be respectful to her. The habit is of great good to your moral men, depend upon it. Our education makes of use the most eminently selfish men in the world. We fight for ourselves, we push for ourselves, we yawn for ourselves, we light our pipes and say we won’t go out, we prefer ourselves and our ease; and the greatest that comes to a man from a woman’s society is, that he has to think of somebody to whom he is bound to be constantly attentive and respectful.—Thackeray.

Every virtue enjoined by Christianity as a virtue, is recommended by politeness as an accomplishment. Gentleness, humility, deference, affability, and a readiness to assist and serve on all occasions, are as necessary in the composition of a true Christian as in that of a well-bred man. Passion, moroseness, peevishness, and supercilious self-sufficiency, are equally repugnant to the characters of both, who differ in this only, that the true Christian really is what the well-bred man pretends to be, and would still be better bred if he was.—Soame Jenyns.

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