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EIGHTEEN HUNDRED AND THIRTY-THREE.
And earth has buried all her flowers;
No more the lark—the linnet sings—
But silence sits in faded bowers.”
Spring has ripened into summer, summer has
mellowed into autumn, autumn has withered into
winter, and now that old vagabond, eighteen hundred
and thirty-two (who took away Sir Walter
Scott, and spared the emperor Nicholas) has but a
few more hours to linger before father Time ejects
him out of existence, and hands him over to oblivion
for peaceable interment. Well, let him go. The
hearty, vigorous eighteen hundred and thirty-three
will soon be of age, and come into possession of his
estate, this snug, cozy little earth, on which we get
our dínners, and perform other pleasurable functions,
but at which some people of bad tastes and superfine
imaginations pretend to turn up their ungrateful
the truth, it is time the property changed hands.
There can be no doubt that of late months it has
somewhat deteriorated; for, though the old gentleman,
who is shortly about to mingle with the shadows
of the past, introduced some salutary reforms
into certain small portions of his estate, causing divers
peculating and unrighteous stewards to resign
their trusts; yet a malignant imp, named Cholera,
gave him such a fright in the early part of his career,
that he never did good afterwards; his nerves tumbled
to pieces, he became light-headed, and committed
the oddest vagaries imaginable, so that all things
went to wreck and ruin; his land remained untilled,
his ships lay rotting in his harbors, and none of his
tenants prospered excepting doctors, sextons, gravediggers,
apothecaries, and undertakers. It is to be
hoped that the young heir will bestir himself vigorously,
and put things to rights; that he will drown
the cholera in the Pacific, “deeper than did ever
plummet sound;” chain up the ferocious and insatiable
northern bear in his own appropriate regions
of darkness and desolation; allow those pugnacious
animals, the Dutch and Belgians, to knock their
heads together until they find out what they are
quarrelling about; or else hand their rulers Homer's
and take strong measures generally, to
prevent his larger tenants from eternally falling out
amongst themselves, and pulling to pieces and destroying
each other.
The weather is appropriate. Old eighteen hundred
and thirty-two, thou hast lived amid a peck of
troubles, and art about to expire in storm and tempest.
The stern north wind—child of the pole—
has rushed from his “regions of thick-ribbed ice,”
and is roaring and yelling around my domicile, like
some infuriated demon: as the “spirit of the storm”
occasionally loosens a tile from the roof, or a slate
from the chimney, and precipitates it with inconsiderate
violence into the street, the important truth
is forcibly impressed upon my mind for future guidance,
that, “on such a night as this,” the middle
of the pavement is indubitably to be preferred to the
otherwise more eligible footwalk, by such as are in
favor of prolonged vitality. Ever and anon, too,
the blusterer sinks from his high tone into a low,
lengthened wail, and then sweeping suddenly round
some abrupt angle, rises in a succession of whirling
eddies, emitting a scream as of one in pain, which
is not only highly poetical, but strikingly dramatic
—only it makes the chimney smoke, and causes
of uncomfortable density.
It is newyear eve! a season that I, for one,
always felt an especial delight in. There is about
it a mixture of mirth and sadness, of joyous anticipation
and melancholy regret, that suits one of
my temperament. It is a fitting time, too, for cogitation,
and the birth of important and solemn
thoughts. A great change is taking place. One
year more from our slender stock is on the point of
rolling away, to “join the past eternity.” Time is
about to close another volume of his works, in which
our good and bad deeds are registered, and to lay it
quietly by amid the records of what has been, until
it is wanted for final inspection. It is “iron-clasped
and iron-bound,” and can no more be opened by us.
What is written there can never be erased—the
slurs and blotches must all go—and that word never
ought to make us pause before we stain with foul
thoughts, or unmeet actions, the fair clear page of
the daybook, which to-morrow will be laid before
us.
Newyear eve! It is a season for calm, melancholy
retrospection—for nearly all retrospection is
melancholy—the mind naturally reverts to the past,
and images of things that have almost faded away
and become forgotten dreams, amid the bustle and
of life crowd vividly back upon the memory.
Now dimm'd and gone,”
years, though even with a kinder and mellower
lustre than of old; and the good hearts and true,
that the cold green grass grows silently over, are
again beside us. They, the dead, welcomed in
many a newyear with us once, were glad and joyous,
and passed the bottle and the jest, and they are
gone! The songs they used to sing, and the tones
and inflections of their voice, all their little whims
and peculiarities, become again clear and distinct.
Yet they to whom those things appertained, fine,
hearty pieces of flesh and blood, with whom we
were hand and glove, and from whom we could
not live apart, are really gone—dead and gone!
and, alas! for human nature that it should be so,
unless at seasons like the present, when a gush of
better feeling calls them back, almost forgotten!
Among the genial and good old customs prevalent
about this time, one, of friends gathering together
on a newyear eve, to take their farewell of
the departing and welcome the coming year, it is
to be hoped will not speedily pass out of fashion.
There is more refinement about the conviviality on
and recollections of the changes and mutations that
have taken place since last they met to chant old
ditties to “the year that is gone and awa',” have the
effect of softening down the otherwise too boisterous
hilarity prevalent at festive meetings. And what
an expansion of the heart, what an influx of kindly
feelings takes place; what old and delightful reminiscences
are awakened! With what joyous warmth
one good fellow pledges another, and with what a
depth of feeling is the common toast, “to absent
friends,” given, as each man yearningly thinks, as
he slowly raises the glass to his lips, of the dear
and distant. Such a scene may not, indeed, be
exactly to the taste of the stern and unflinching
moralist, the retailer of terse aphorisms and sage
prudential saws and maxims,
Nor form nor feeling, great or small;
A reasoning, self-sufficient thing,
An intellectual all-in-all.”
not frown, and where virtue and cheerfulness might
with great propriety take a glass together.
The newyear day itself. Who will say that
happiness is not good for man; and who will say
that there is not a greater quantity to be had at a
cheaper rate on this day than on almost any other?
essence. Men smile instinctively as they pass
along the streets; and if the ice thereon happens
to play them a slippery trick, and they tumble, they
complacently gather themselves together again, and
go on their way rejoicing; it is newyear-day, and
they are not to be put out of humor. Fires blaze
brighter in the parlor—so do ladies' eyes; and
kitchens emit odors to which those of “Araby the
blest,” are faint and powerless; inasmuch as they
are not only delicious in themselves, but furnish
hints of a higher state of felicity, which “the coming
on of time,” (dinner-time,) will probably perfect.
I know not any place where this day is more liberally,
pleasantly, and judiciously “kept up,” than in
New-York. I admire, in an especial degree, the
custom of the fair damosels of Manahatta arraying
themselves in their most inviting habiliments, and
staying at home to dispense unto their several male
acquaintances, as they call, generous, exhilarating
cordials, or coffee and other sobrieties, as may suit
their respective inclinations. It is, however, a trying
day for the gentlemen, who have to effuse all
the good things they can invent, borrow, or steal,
in order to keep up their character for sprightliness,
so that there is often a much greater expenditure of
wit, than many of the parties can prudently afford.
And yet, despite all this, I am afraid that new-year-day,
and other old-fashioned celebrations of
the sort, are rather getting into disrepute. They
are regarded by many as fragments of ancient barbarism—musty
relics—remnants of the absurdities
of the dark ages, which ought and must, (to quote
the slang of the day,) give way before the rapidly
increasing spread of intelligence and civilization.
And really, the world is getting so very wise, and
polished, and polite, that in a little time there will
be no such thing as fun or feeling left in it. It
may be proper enough that such things should be
expunged from our well-behaved and scientific
planet, but I doubt it mightily; and I would just
hint, that there is a species of civilization prevalent
which affects manners rather than morals—forms
rather than feelings, which might, by some, be termed
superficial; a civilization totally independent of
true refinement, but which so smooths and polishes
its disciples, that they counterfeit taste, knowledge,
and feeling, and pass muster in society very tolerably,
excepting when some little trait—some trivial
action—some heedless phrase or expression, lays
bare the barrenness of their thoughts, and the
primeval meanness of their souls. Such folks are
incapable of any thing but decorum and commonplace.
Newyear-day is nothing to them—they
idea, that it displays a kind of magnanimous
and out-of-the-way elevation of mind, to sneer at
and decry whatever gives pleasure to the many.
But, worse than this, besides being rated as a
piece of foolish antiquity, it is made a serious charge
against poor newyear day, that, as celebrated at
present, it is a vehicle for drunkenness and dissipation,
and ought, therefore, to be abolished. I object
to such a conclusion, drawn from such premises. Is
it any good and sufficient reason, that the sound
and well-ordered portion of the community should
be deprived of the cheerful pleasures and innocent
gaieties, which the recurrence of this and similar
days invariably produces, because certain inconsiderate
portions of the population, think proper to
swallow an indiscreet quantity of anti-rational compounds?
Am I to experience a painful degree of
aridity, because others choose to swamp themselves
with manifold abominations? But it does not signify
talking;—man and beast, and all other animals,
will follow their natural bent. Asses would
still eat thistles, even though grapes grew on every
bush—swine would leave the verdant turf, bespangled
with the pale primrose and the spring violet,
to roll and wallow in congenial mire; and the brutal
in mind and coarse in taste have ever made, and will
routine of life a pretext for indulging in their rank
and filthy propensities. But what is that to plain,
well-meaning people like myself, who do not pretend
to know any thing about that most abstract of all
the virtues—universal philanthropy?—nothing.
And are those who advocate the abolition of new-year-day
on the ground of immorality, prepared,
at the same time, to insist upon the utility of all
festivities and celebrations whatever, sharing a similar
fate? If they are not, for consistency's sake
they ought to be, for all have one tendency—the
encouragement of a greater degree of relaxation
and latitude than is ordinarily permitted. Alas!
the world is already too mechanical; but were such
people to succeed, it would, indeed, be one huge
workshop, in which we would toil and moil unceasingly,
until death hinted to us that we had been
long enough employed. We are already a plodding,
mercenary generation; but then we would be regular
mill-horses, treading, evermore, the same unvarying
round, and all for grist, grist, still grist, until we
were in reality as blind and stupid as that most
monotonous of quadrupeds. There might be more
decorum under such a system—perchance less vice,
but assuredly less virtue; and what there was,
would be of the most insipid kind. For my own
festivities and holidays of our ancestors, which were
ever and anon recurring to diversify the dullness of
existence, by an occasional glimpse of the picturesque.
They added to the enjoyment of all classes,
particularly of that which stands most in need of
added enjoyments. They invigorated the heart,
refreshed the feelings, and formed a little episode in
the poor man's year, that was looked forward to
with gladness, and remembered with satisfaction;
besides forwarding the great purpose of creation, by
bringing the juvenile of both sexes together in a
pleasurable mood, thereby laying a train for an innumerable
quantity of matrimonial experiments.
But one by one they have withered away before
the steady advance of business, and a higher state
of civilization—real and counterfeit. Easter and
Whitsuntide are now little more than names; and
that most delightful of ruralities, dancing round the
maypole, and choosing the “queen of May” from
the prettiest lass of the village, has become nearly
obsolete. Let us, therefore, hold fast by the bright
days left us, which periodically encourage innocent
gaiety and lightness of heart. Let us still preserve
a few green, shady lanes, branching off from the
great macadamized turnpike of human life, down
which we may stroll for a brief season, and refresh
for flowers, and the eternal jangling and bartering
of business, for the melody of birds and the
murmuring of brooks; even though we lose what
the worldly and would-be-wise tell us can never be
regained—time and money.
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