THE BASKET-MAKER.
DEDICATED TO THE ARISTOCRACY.
In the middle of the vast ocean commonly called the South
Sea, there is a large cluster of islands, little visited by Europeans,
though mhabited by a people nowise inferior to them
in knowledge and civilization. An ancestor of the prince
who now reigns over them, was so celebrated for the wisdom
of his government, that he was surnamed the Solomon of his
age, and the territories under his sway have ever since retained
the name of the Islands of Solomon.
A descendant of one of the great men of king Solomon's
time, became a gentleman to so improved a degree as to despise
the good qualities which originally ennobled his family.
He had a house on the sea-side, where he spent great part of
his time in hunting and fishing; but found himself impeded in
the pursuit of these important diversions by a long slip of
marsh land overgrown with high reeds, that lay between his
house and the sea. The owner of this slip was a poor but
honest basket-maker, who gained his livelihood by working up
the flags of these reeds in a manner peculiar to himself; and
he had resisted every effort to make him yield up possession.
His gentleman neighbor resolving at length that it became
not a man of his quality to submit to any restraint on his
pleasures for the ease and convenience of a vulgar mechanic,
took advantage of a very high wind, and commanded his servants
to burn down the barrier.
The basket-maker, who saw himself undone, complained of
the oppression, in terms more suited to his sense of the injury
than the respect due to the rank of the offender; and the
reward this imprudence procured him, was the additional injustice
of blows and reproaches, and all kinds of insult and
indignity.
There was but one way to obtain remedy, and he took it
for, going to the capital, with the marks of his hard usage
upon him, he threw himself at the feet of the king, and procured
a citation for the oppressor's appearance; who confessing
the charge, proceeded to justify his behavior, by the poor
man's unmindfulness of the submission due from the vulgar to
gentlemen of rank and distinction.
“But, pray,” replied the king, “what distinction of rank
had the grandfather of your father, when, being a cleaver of
wood in the palace of my ancestors, he was raised from among
those vulgar you speak of with so much contempt, in reward
of an instance he gave of his courage and loyalty in defence
of his master? Yet, his distinction was nobler than yours.
It was the distinction of soul, not of birth; the superiority of
worth, not of fortune! I am sorry I have a gentleman who
is base enough to be ignorant that ease and distinction of fortune
were bestowed on him but to this end, that being at rest
from all cares of providing for himself, he might apply his
heart, head, and hand for the public advantage of others.”
Here the king, discontinuing his speech, fixed an eye of indignation
on a sullen resentment of mien which he observed
in the haughty offender, who muttered out his dislike of the
encouragement this way of thinking must give the commonalty;
who, he said, were to be considered as persons of no
consequence, in comparison of men who were born to be
honored. “Where reflection is wanting,” replied the king,
with a smile of disdain, “men must find their defects in the
pain of their sufferings. Tanhumo,” added he, turning to a
captain of his galleys, “strip the injured and the injurer; convey
them to one of the most barbarous and remote of the
islands; set them on shore in the night, and leave them both
to their fortune.”
The place in which they were landed was a marsh, under
cover of whose flags the gentleman was in hopes to conceal
himself, and give the slip to a companion whom he considered
it a disgrace to be found with. But the lights in the galley
having given an alarm to the savages, a considerable body of
them came down, and discovered in the morning the two
strangers in their hiding-place. Setting up a dismal yell, they
surrounded them; and, advancing nearer and nearer with
their clubs, seemed determined to dispatch them without sense
of hospitality or mercy.
Here the gentleman began to discover that the superiority
of blood was imaginary, for between a consciousness of shame
and cold, under the nakedness he had never been used to, a fear
of the event from the fierceness of the savages, and the want
of an idea whereby to soften or divert their asperity, he fell
behind the poor sharer of his calamity, and with an unsinewed,
apprehensive, unmanly, sneakingness of mien, gave up the
post of honor, and made a leader of the very man whom he
had thought it a disgrace to consider as a companion.
The basket-maker, on the contrary, to whom the poverty
of his condition had made nakedness habitual; to whom a life
of pain and mortification represented death as not dreadful;
and whose remembrance of his skill and art, of which these
savages were ignorant, gave him hopes of procuring safety
from demonstrating that he could be useful, moved with bolder
and more open freedom, and, having plucked a handful of the
flags, sat down without emotion; and making signs that he
would show them something worthy of their attention, fell to
work with smiles and noddings; while the savages drew near
and gazed in expectation of the consequence.
It was not long before he had weaved a kind of coronet of
pretty workmanship, and, rising with respect and fearlessness,
approached the savage, who appeared the chief, and placed it
gently on his head. The figure of the sable warrior, under
this new ornament, so charmed and struck the followers, that
they threw down their clubs, and formed a dance of welcome
and congratulation round the author of so prized a favor.
There was not one but showed marks of impatience to be
made as fine as his captain; so the poor basket-maker had his
hands full of employment; and the savages observing the one
quite idle, while the other was busy in their service, took up
arms in behalf of natural justice, and began to lay on arguments
in favor of their purpose.
The basket-maker's pity now effaced the remembrance of
his sufferings; so he rose and rescued his oppressor by making
signs that he was ignorant of the art, but might, if they
thought fit, be usefully employed in waiting on the work, and
fetching flags for his supply as fast as he should want them.
This proposition luckily fell in with a desire the savages
expressed, to keep themselves at leisure, that they might
crowd round and mark the progress of a work they took such
pleasure in. They left the gentleman therefore to his duty in
the basket-maker's service; and considered him from that
time forward, as one who was, and ought to be treated as
inferior to their benefactor.
Men, wives, and children, from all corners of the island,
came in droves for coronets, and setting the uninstructed
gentleman to work to gather boughs and poles, made a fine
hut to lodge the basket-maker, and brought down daily from
the country such provisions as they lived upon themselves,
taking care to offer the imagined servant nothing till the master
was done eating.
Three months' reflection in this mortified condition, gave a
new and juster turn to our gentleman's improved ideas; insomuch
that, lying weeping, and awake, one night, he thus
confessed his sentiments in the ear of the basket-maker.
“I have been to blame, and wanted judgment to distinguish
between accident and excellence; when I should have measured
nature, I but looked to vanity. The preference which
fortune gives is empty and imaginary; and I perceive too late,
that only things of use are naturally honorable. I am ashamed
when I compare my malice, to remember your humanity: but
if the gods should please to call me to a repossession of my
rank and happiness, I will divide all with you, in atonement
of my justly punished arrogance.”
He promised and performed his promise; for the king soon
after sent the captain, who had landed them, with presents to
the savages, and ordered him to bring both back again. And
it continues a custom in the island, to degrade all gentlemen
who cannot give a better reason for their pride, than that they
were born to do nothing, and the word for this just punishment
“Send him to the basket maker's'
