University of Virginia Library

9. THE LORGNETTE.

AUGUST 31, 1850. NEW-YORK. SECOND SERIES—N. 9.

Wandering about the country a little, of late,
my dear Fritz,—snuffing the cool firstlings of the
autumn wind, I have come upon sundry odds and
ends, which seem worth covering with such broadnibbed
pen, as a country tavern can only supply.

You know that I am not without a certain easy
deftness in `clothing upon' me the country habit;
and that I fling off, as easily as a city maid flings
away her modesty, any of those trim city shoots or
suckers, which a six months warming between the

hot-bed bricks of the town, may have started either
from my head, or from my heels. In fact, I do
not believe but that the old rustic lining would
smack through my outer furnishings,—whether of
brain or of wardrobe,—whatever I might do to
cloak its russet color.

However this may be, I find my advantage, as
well as my pleasure, in doffing eye-glass and glove,
and in looking about me in the country villages,
with the naive innocence that suits my complexion
every whit as well as it suits the villager.

Of the pleasure of the thing, you, gnawing at
your `roasting ears,' and reckoning in what moon
you will `top your corn,' have little need for illustration.
Of the advantage it is to me, `to talk of
oxen, and to glory in the goad,'—a thing, by the
by, as easily reached, as the middle of this page,
with my short-nibbed pen,—you may judge, when
I tell you how I have met crowds of our town-livers,
playing off the prettiest of their daintiness
at snug country taverns; and how I have made
awkward vis-à-vis in the dance, or at table, to
those who would be intensely surprised to find me
behind Mr. Kernot's counter, or dating from John
Timon's sanctum.

I have fallen in with many a thriving widower,
whose sombre air upon the wrong side of Broadway

used to cheat me into a kind of mental mourning
myself,—forgetting himself in a country village,
to a most riotous series of flirtations. Young ladies
carefully cooped in the city, against any undue
exuberance, have surprised and delighted me with
such extraordinary gymnastic feats, as jumping
out of tavern windows, and have startled a whole
village population with a most intrepid array of
bare arms, bare bosoms, and bare brows.

Here and there, a town-artist has crossed my
track, who had taken up the role of troubadour,
and who, between album sketches, guitar, and
moustache, was doing an execution with his moon-light
poetry, that he might despair of effecting
with any of his moonlight pictures.

I have been mortified, not to say depressed, by a
hauteur and a dignity on the part of several traveling
families, who I had supposed, from a writer's
observation of their movements in the town, were
exceedingly democratic. But let me tell you, that
your bracing country air has often a wonderful effect
upon weak nerves; and you shall find a lady—
all smiles and nods in the town,—suddenly become
among the villagers, as starched and learned as a
malaprop. It is wonderful, moreover, what a
sharpener of memory are your village breezes;—
and how the city lady among the country people

will run over a galaxy of names—her acquaintances—which
are not so much as to be found in
her card basket of the town.

Such familiar chats as I have ventured on with
the old farmers of the neighborhood,—to say nothing
of occasional strolls over the rye-stubble, in the
hope of scaring up a dove or two for my dinner,—
have sadly hurt my character with many of the
traveling families. And I have been driven to all
sorts of shifts to make good my place among them
upon the porch;—scarce ever, it is true, falling
below the reputation of being an itinerant lecturer
on Phrenology, or strolling doctor; and at times
rising to that of school master, or musical performer.

Under shadow of this last character, I enjoyed a
very capital talk with a pursy old gentleman of
the city, who is a profound admirer of the Opera;
and who discoursed to me for a half hour together,
upon the magnificence of the last winter's entertainment;
and, in justice to so worthy a man, I
must say that he showed proper charity for my
humble attainments, and the limited range for my
observation. He assured me that I should be quite
taken off my feet with once listening to the performances
at the Astor Place; and stimulated by
my devout, and open-mouthed listening, he even

invited me (notwithstanding sundry prohibitory
shrugs and glances from his wife) to a seat in his
box, in case I should even find my way to the city.
He was one of those honest and bluff old gentlemen,
who are eternally proving a marplot in their
wife's designs upon `good society.' In the town
they are held, between mothers and daughters,
fairly in leash: but once let loose in the country,
there is no end to the embarrassments they create.
It would be hard to tell which I enjoyed most,—
the indiscretion of the old gentleman, or the mortification
and anxiety of his wife. I increased the
entertainment by a promise to come; and hinted
to the old lady, who could scarce keep herself on
her seat, though she must have weighed over two
hundred,—that if the traveling were good, I
should probably be down in a `horse and shay.'
The poor woman is, I fear, suffering intensely on
my account.

I sometimes meet with an elegant young gentleman
of the city, who is dashing in a carriage, and
with a profusion of light kid gloves. He uniformly
creates a great stir in the neighborhood; the young
ladies of the first families (for I find these are of
country, as well as of city growth,) are, of course,
entranced with him; and the gossipping spinsters
shake their hands,—wonder very much, and end

with inviting him to tea. He is supposed to be a
gentleman of elegant leisure, and strongly favors
the supposition; although, in one or two instances,
it has come to my knowledge, that he was only
enjoying a month's vacation from some retailer of
nouveautés.

Do not, for a moment, think, Fritz, that I rank
him a whit the lower for this circumstance; or,
that I would sneer at any calling in life. In those
who have followed the plough-tail, so long as you
and I have done, it would be in very bad taste. I
only wish occasion to castigate anew that growing
American spirit—of living upon false pretences,—
of making display the measure of the man,—of
cheating humble worth of its influence, and of
debauching the popular mind by building a taste
for exaggeration and extravagance.

The beaux of the village are of course thrown
into the shade by any such aspiring adventurer;
and are obliged to adjourn their conquests, until he
shall have taken his departure. As it humors my
fancy to take sides with the weaker party, I throw
myself into the little groups of discomfited rivals
about the inn-doors, and drop hints about the city
people—not being so grand as they seem. In this
manner, I have wormed my way into a very large
share of their confidence; and am set down by

them as a kindly old gentleman, who has seen in
his day a great many of the ups and downs of life.

I have even been favored with invitations to one
or two of the village tea-drinkings, and delighted
all the old ladies with praise of their tea-cakes,
and crockery. On all such occasions, I am excessively
gratified by a study of the village spinsters;
who are the most inveterate talkers, that are, I
think, to be found, in the habitable world. They
possess a happy art of marrying everybody but
themselves; and this exception—as they are Christian
women,—is, without doubt, attributable to
their own charity. They are always unlimited
admirers of the clergyman, and extol the dear
good man, over their tea, with an enthusiasm
worthy of all success.

If of the “Established Church,” they absolutely
doat upon crosses, and Miss Sewall's novels, and
offend their best friends by contumaciously calling
all dissenting church buildings, meeting houses.
Should they be of the other branch, they look with
very evil eyes upon showily bound prayer books,
which they reckon no better than so many devices
of Satan; and they are especially earnest in their
devotion to poor unmarried Divinity students. They
are famous at all quiltings and other country gatherings;
and with all their charity, are the most arrant

scandal-mongers that can possibly be imagined.
They will be sure to know and report any little
excesses in a man's diet, and are curiously successful
in their inquiries about the lateness of hours, which
different families keep. As for any little domestic
broils, not so much as a hard word can pass between
man and wife, but they will hatch out of it a pestilent
brood of stories, that will set the whole village
agog.

Here and there a pair of them will set up for literary
ladies, which from the size of the town, and
the moderate attainments of most of the inhabitants,
is a position of very easy maintenance. They
will furnish opinions to the village in regard to
most of the new novels; and will be sure to make
the most of any errant knight of the quill who may
venture in their neighborhood; and they sigh over
Longfellow with an earnestness every way commendable.

They are mightily observant of all strangers who
enter their church on a Sunday, and will sidle up
to the postmaster's or the tavern keeper's wife after
service, to find out who was the strange gentleman
in the middle aisle. This class of ladies—not all
of them spinsters—are, I observe, a sort of go-betweens
in all the factions which divide the village,
and use their best arts to keep all mischief at the

boiling point. These village feuds, by the bye, are
to be found in all the little towns where I have
lingered for ever so short a space; and I am very
sorry, for my gallantry's sake, to avow that they
are confined chiefly to the women.

What may be their origin, I cannot well determine,
but being set on foot, they serve to relieve
the monotony of a country village, and inspirit the
inhabitants into such rivalry of colors and green
blinds, as adds vastly to the life and animation of
the place. The head of each faction is very pertinacious
in claiming for herself the highest rank of
of gentility; and nothing can mortify her more
than to find her rival dashing in a more stylish hat,
or showing genteel strangers into her pew of a
Sunday. If one has her grounds laid out by an
English gardener, the other will presently set a
Dutchman and Englishman at work together; if
one gives a party to a new married couple, the
other will maintain her superiority, by giving one
twice as large; if one purchase an expensive pew
at the church, the other will purchase a couple. If
one trims her children in finery, you shall find the
rival children presently startling all the maiden ladies
of the village, with their sharp nursery tails,
their very short dresses, and their double ruffled
pantalets.

A stylish visitor from the city is a godsend to
either party; and it has been a source of gratulation
to me, Fritz, that my plainness of parts, and
unpretending mediocrity, have saved me from the
sin of fanning any such unchristian feuds; and of
being offered up as a holocaust to the village pride.
Yet I have no kind of doubt, (and you will spare
my blushes,) that if I had ventured upon the primrose
gloves, and a jaunty beaver,—made free use of
my eye glass, and talked of the gaieties of the winter,—brought
with me my ivory headed stick, my
pumps, and my striped hose, I could, notwithstanding
my years, have flirted with the belle of the village,
—have had ambling nags put at my disposal,—have
been reckoned passably young by the spinsters, and
read poetry with the Corinne of Main street.

But I forget that I am talking with a veteran, to
whom these things are as familiar as the chirp of
the katy-dids, or the cooings of the wood-cock, in
your low-lying cornfields. By your leave then,
Fritz, I will slip my cable—dropping a buoy to
mark the spot—and will drift out into deeper and
bluer waters.

COUNTRY CHURCHES AND PREACHERS.

I am not going to make any madrigal of summer
woods and Sunday quiet; I leave that for the
young poets; the days of my madrigals and milkmaids
are gone by, Fritz. Their memory may
serve to brighten our talk over a tankard of your
harvest cider, but will come poorly into my didactic
studies. Nor must it be understood that it is with
any unworthy, or irreverent motive, that I put a
seeming spice of pertness into my talk of churches.
Flippancy as little becomes the topic, as mawkish
verse; but there is a way of calling things by their
right names,—unfortunately too little known now-a-days,—which,
however roughly it may bear on
the attenuated sensibilities of my squeamish readers,—is
yet as far removed from impertinent gossip,
as it is from that deferential cant, which possesses
neither earnestness, nor vitality.

There has been heretofore very little poetry about
our two-story country churches; and I must say,
that with all their adopted richness of modern style,
they have only got hold of the measure of the verse,
without any of the soul that makes it buoyant.
They give us an infinitude of gables, and of carved

crosses, and colored windows,—very rich all of
them, in their way,—but not adding materially,
in their present stage of adaptation, either to ventilation,
comfort, or Christianity.

We have a fashion in churches, as we have a
fashion of Newport, and a fashion for wives; and
we have fashionable country gentlemen, who having
seen somewhat of cities, instruct the country-livers
as to how many windows will make a Christian
temple fashionable, how many angels will
make it Evangelical, and how much ultra-marine
will make it à la mode. The ladies accept it—on
paper; the deacons, or vestry men assent with a
shrug;—the architect complies with a leer; and
the builder leaves them—in debt.

I do not mean to quarrel at all with the new
spirit in this matter, which has latterly infected
the country. Nothing can be prettier, and more
appropriate than the adoption of the forms of those
old English country churches, which have become
classic by age, and interesting by association.
There seems a touching, and a holy propriety in
worshipping as our fathers worshipped: and there
seems to me something more than tasteful, in
stretching only a simple raftered roof between the
devout and heaven;—and I could heartily wish
that it were all the impediment that lay between.

I have a strong liking for the deep-stained glass,
throwing colors of `promise' (much needed) upon
the chancel, or the altar: nor have I any great
apprehension that a cross, whether of stone or of
wood, will gravitate very strongly downward; or
that the Devil has yet wrought that symbol—whatever
some Divines may think,—upon his saddle
cloth, or his game bag.

But after all, there is a kind of bodily comfort,
which it is inhuman to lose sight of: and to stew
honest country people, in a poorly ventilated chapel,
under an August sun,—whatever point it may give
to the Doctor's talk of perdition,—does seem to me
as unnecessary, as it is untasteful, and unchristian.
In this matter, as well as in sundry others of recent
importation, we are dealing with the crudities of
the mere form, before we have learned adaptation.
And I would respectfully recommend to vestrymen,
and building committees generally, to pay
some little attention to the laws of climate, to
habit, to the Christian Almanac, and to transpiration,
while they are stuffing their brains with
crotchets, and finials.

Because a window of Gloucester, although close-screened,
and closed, may serve the Gloucester
worthies for ventilation, it by no means follows that
the same will serve in such western city as Rochester;

and, if I might be believed, the worshipful
chapter of Cirencester can keep themselves cooler
on the damp pavements, and under the scraped
columns of their minster, than they ever could,
with all their British phelgm, upon the carpeted
floors of the mock minsters, which lie broiling on
the New England hill-sides. I would respectfully
entreat of the benevolent gentlemen—to whom I
render all honor—who are desirous of canonizing
themselves by church erections, to secure agreeable
recollections of such temporal saintship as they
may attain, by a regard for the comfort of the
worshippers. And I would assure them that it is
much better to gain the gratitude of sober content,
than the heated canonization of a Purgatoria.

Of the preachers, I would speak with a charity,
that is as much their due, as it is their need. Let
me not be understood either, in any degree to impugn
Christian motive: a high motive is worthy of
all regard, and its redeeming excellence will save
even mediocrity from condemnation. But as I
have already intimated to you, Fritz, I can see nothing
in the sacerdotal covering, from the white of
a Philpotts, to the black of a Princeton student,
that should forbid analysis or inquiry.

It may be a gratuitous regret, and one which
may be thrown back cavalierly on my hands—but

it is none the less sober—that our country pulpits
lack sadly force and mental calibre: and lacking
these, they lack adaptation, energy, width, influence,
everything in short that should adorn the
highest office that a man can take upon himself.
A little personal dignity, and a little punctilious
investiture, seem to be all that are demanded, to
establish the claims, and to stamp the capabilities
of our country divines.

Blackstone somewhere says that some kind of
special training, or peculiar mental qualities are
reckoned essential to almost every profession, except
that of legislator; but every man thinks himself
born a law-maker. I am afraid that there are
great numbers of Divinity students, who are laboring
under a kindred delusion, and obstinately think
themselves born—preachers. Even unfortunate
aspirants to the honor of good farming, or good
house-carpentery, are turned over, with a three
years skimming of Hebrew roots, and unproductive
polemics, to teach the world its duties. They may
make good witnesses for the heathen; but they
will make a sorry set of Pauls for the Athenians.

It is true that the demand upon a preacher's labor
is absurdly great; and an absurd demand weaklings
will best supply. None but a fool can write
two sermons a week. A strong man wants time to

digest his fullness, and to mature his thought: but
an empty man may talk forever, without any cognizance
of his crudities, or any sense of depletion.
We are a progressive people, and I have a fear that
we are leaving the talk of the pulpit behind us:
it is certain that very little of that kind of vigor
which sets our ships afloat, is electrifying country
church-goers. That vitality which makes itself
felt by the strong throbs of enthusiastic action, does
not seem to invest very richly our country clergy.
There is a forgetfulness that men are awake and
active; and that the days of cramming children
with Westminster catechisms, and `reasons annexed'
and of breaking their piety upon the pillory of
Saturday `sundown,' are gone by.

You shall hear prudent preachers, as the world
goes, wearying a mortal hour with a very strategic
assault upon some old bugbear of infidelity, that
is as dead as the sermon that combats it. Poor
Voltaire is brought ghostly from the tomb, to be
made the martyr of some clumsy spike of a quill;
and Hume is resuscitated, that some tyro theologic
sportsman, fresh from his rhetoric, may shoot down
the dead man.

I do not mean to express my sympathy with the
absurdities of philosophers: but I mean to say,
gentlemen—(and if any man ought to be a gentleman,

it is the clergyman)—that your labor is lost.
The rational world is perfectly certain that the
pop-guns of Chubb and Tindal could not batter
down the bulwark of Christian faith: the booksellers
of London and New York have long ago, with
the brief of their trade-lists, closed the case:—and
judgment has been heard. Your antagonists are
damned. Christianity is believed. The weapons
are in your hand, clear and bright: there is work
enough for them on new foes, without any showy
butchery of old ones; and if you cannot make
them felt, it must needs be credited to a little weakness
of the elbows.

There is something in the language of the country
pulpits, which it seems to me could bear the
electrifying touch of vitality. I know no reason in
the nature of things, why the sleepy catechism-y
strain, should not give place to a little of the strong
breath of nervous and eloquent language. Language
in these days of type, is as strong as a leviathan,
and as quick as light. Its force and richness
are on the growth; and its stores are at the command
of whoever will make his study earnest, and
his resolution intense.

What possible sense can there be in pouring from
the pulpit the old short-ranging, six pound balls of
cant terms, and dogmatic expressions, when the

Paixhan gun fairly mounted, will throw such terrific
shot as the modern vocabulary supplies? There
is not a science or a pursuit, which is not adding
honor and grace to its exhibitions, by that wealth
of allusion which new inquiries in every department
of knowledge have afforded: and yet our
Divine, too nice for the wholesome homeliness of
Taylor, and not even with the spirit of the time,
guards his cant, and exercises his ingenuity in
speculations about the infusoria that float in the
muddy waters of his scholastic lore. But it may
be signified to me, that the Doctrine is old, and
unchangeable; be it so—unchangeable as the hills,
and beautiful as the morning. But therein lies no
reason for not showing forth that permanence, by
those thousand aids of adornment and illustration,
which would give to what is old, the attractions of
what is new. The Doctors need have no fear that
their eloquence of life, or language, can mar or obscure
the integrity of the tidings they bear. There
is much that is akin to genius—if it be not the
thing itself—in so wrapping old truth in the garment
of language, that men shall rush toward it,
as toward a new friend to be greeted, or a new hero
to honor. A man may indeed blunder to the truth
through a slough of words; but build for him a
good bridge of well-jointed periods, and as truly as
he loves ease, he will be quicker in his approach.

In all this, I yield no iota in veneration, to the
staunchest of the doctors. It would surely be a sad
reproach upon the Deity, to believe that he had
given soul, with such curious capacity for developement
and growth, and yet given it with no
purpose toward the fuller and richer illustration
of His Providence. Christian truth, it seems to
me, is no dried up mummy, to be eternally
swathed in the musty linen bandages of the ancients;
but it is a live creature, to be clothed over
with the richest dressings of humanity, and to be
crowned—if crowned it can be—with the most
glorious accomplishments of learning.

These periods, and this train of thought, have
chased me, Fritz, into the small hours `ayont the
twal:' a day-light revision might take off a little
frill from the dressing; but, upon my conscience,
the color would not change.

ADVICE TO A SON.

I HAVE in my hand a letter purporting to be from

a lady of standing and respectability, addressed to
her son at Newport; the means by which it has
reached me, do, I must confess, throw a little
doubt upon its authenticity; but its spirit is so
prompt and ingenuous, that I have no doubt that a
great many elegant mothers will be tempted to endorse
it over to their sons, even though it should
prove to be a pleasant fabrication of my friend
Tophanes.

It begins;—I am about to give you some advice
Tommy, concerning your course at Newport;
which, I am sure, if faithfully followed out, will
be of great service to you. You must not suppose
that our watering places are to be used, or enjoyed,
merely as places of amusement, or for the pursuit
of health. These are indeed the vulgar opinions
on the subject; but the education I have given
you Tommy, will, I hope, make you aware, that a
high position in fashionable society is one of the
choicest objects which a youth of parts and respectability
can set before him; and believe me,
Tommy, when I say, that proper discretion at our
watering places is one of the readiest means of attaining
this object.

Your marriage, my dear boy, your position, your
happiness, and the admiration of your too fond
mother, all depend very much upon a proper regimen

at the place, where you now find yourself for
the first time. You will be careful in the beginning
about your associates. Evil communications
as the poet says, corrupt good manners. (Do not
forget to read your Shakspeare). And as for good
manners, my son—lud! without good manners,
what is a man worth?

The Shrimps, I see by the papers, are at Newport;
and you would do well to cultivate them;
the daughters are not pretty, but let me assure you
that the mamma is of the very first set; and, as I
am told, very easily approachable by young gentlemen
of address. She is, I am told, particularly
vain of her figure; I beg, my dear son, you will
bear this in mind. The daughters not being elegant,
or belles precisely, you will of course win by
a little considerate (but no special) attention. And
let me caution you here, my dear boy, against undue
civilities to such beautiful girls, as may possibly
tempt you, but who are of quite vulgar, or second-rate
families. Your name in that case will
inevitably become associated with them, which
may do you incalculable harm on your return to
the city. Be assured, my dear boy, that the temporary
and evanescent pleasure of dancing or flirting
with a belle, will poorly atone for even the
smallest degree of degradation from our set.

Whenever you wish to elevate your mind above
such things, Tommy,—think of your mother.

I know gentlemen enjoy greater liberty in these
intimacies than ladies; at the same time, a young
man whose position is not fully established, has
need to be very cautious. The families of wealth
whom I have taught you how to distinguish by the
character, rather than the amount of their display,
it would be well to treat with great, but cold,
respect, since, however vulgar they may be, it is
impossible to say how soon they may fill positions
of excellent odor.

The distinguished visitors you will use your best
efforts to find out, and never fail of any opportunity
to make their acquaintance. If they be from
distant States, or are people whom you will never
be likely to meet again, pray study their manner
as much as possible, and this study will enable you
to profess an acquaintance in town, although you
should fail of all opportunity for an introduction
Mr. Clay, although since the City Hall kisses he
has become somewhat vulgar, I would still commend
to your observation, and enough acquaintance
to pass a flippant word or two with him in
the ball room, will not be undesirable.

But, above all things, my dear son, cultivate intimacy
with the ladies of note; your own sagacity

will teach you their weak points, and then it wil
be your own fault if you do not succeed. Of conversation
I have already told you at home; do not
be afraid of making errors, or rather of being detected;
fearlessness is a great deal better than too
much honesty,[1] and nothing will so mortify your
hopes with women of the world as that foolish
naturalness which falters at a compliment, or which
shows a quick sense of burdensome stupidity.
`Learn to labor, and to wait.'

For your dress I need not now give you rules;
you know already, my dear boy, its great advantage.
A light undress of a morning, of plain
colors, and loose fit, is not only recherché, but has
a very aristocratic air. You will attentively observe
the English mode in this particular, and will
recal what I have told you of the Duke of Devonshire's
toilette, on the occasion of my meeting him
at Brighton. Nor should you by any means overdress
at dinner, it bespeaks a new man; you must
seek to give the impression that your position
makes you able to afford simpler tactics. Champagne,
my dear son, is vulgar, and I do hope you

will study to overcome that perverse taste; if you
think, from your position at table, that it would be
polite to make a little show of extravagance, you
can order Chambertin, or Lafitte, which are both
expensive and genteel.

As you do not ride remarkably well, I would
caution you against engaging yourself in that way;
if unavoidable, pray arrange it for an hour when
you will be least subject to observation. I think
your polking very creditable; but remember that
you had much better endure the clumsy step of a
lady well placed, than to enjoy the grace of a
second-rate girl. You will not, of course, be
tempted to sing; but I would advise that you hum
to yourself, in strolling about the galleries, some
snatches from the newest opera; any inadvertencies
will escape notice, and you will get the reputation
of having an appreciative taste.

You would do well, I think, my son, to read
some work on fishing and shooting, and to wear
your shooting jacket on occasions. These pursuits
are gentlemanly, but they will hurt your complexion,
and if ventured upon, will expose your
ignorance. There is not the same objection to the
shooting gallery, and I would advise occcasional
practice; beside that it may sometime stand you
in need,—not, my dear son, that I would ever have

you fight a duel,—but with the name of a good
shot, you may escape with less imputation on your
bravery.

As for the degree of your intimacy with ladies,
particularly married ladies, I scarcely know how to
advise you. To become the subject of some talk,
and even scandal, is certainly sometimes effective.
But, my dear boy, you must remember that religion
and morality are, after all, highly respectable,
and though not brilliant, are yet worthy of consideration.
I must say that conjugal infidelity,
striking as it is, has always seemed to me quite
questionable, particularly when discovered. So
that, my dear boy, in this matter of liaisons, (which
are certainly sometimes very effective,) you must
yield to a mother's modesty, and be guided—as I
hope you always are—by your own discretion, and
your mother's suggestions. But be sure, my dear
Tommy, that if you err, you err upon the safe side;
believe me that nothing is more odious than association
of one's name with a nursery maid, or a
grocer's wife.

I hope you will go to church; it has a respectable
appearance, and I am told that the Newport
clergymen are generally genteel people, and a trifling
acquaintance with them would not, I think,
much hurt your position. You will be cautious,

however, of lawyers; they are working men, and
are of very little assistance to a young man who is
building up a brilliant reputation.

Newspaper correspondents, and literary men
generally, you must always treat kindly; but do
not, I beg of you, be too familiar. They are, for
the most part, poor scamps, who will be easily won
over by a dinner, and a bottle of wine; farther
than this, you should not suffer your attentions to
run. You may be assured that however much
they talk about gentility in their papers, they know
very little about it in earnest, and are the sorriest
set of mountebanks that are to be found. A popular
author, however, who has any chance of becoming
a lion, you will at once perceive the necessity
of humoring; and, for my sake, Tommy, you will
excuse his vulgarities for the use you can make of
his acquaintance.

Should you attend the fancy ball, Tommy, consult
scrupulously your complexion, and figure in
your choice of dress. I think the debardeur would
suit your style. If Miss Shrimp, as I hear, plays
the Sultana, do you, my dear boy, play the Sultan;
it will become you, and I do assure you that they
are the very pink of gentility.

I hear of a very pretty young lady who has this
year made her first appearance at the Springs.

My dear boy, I do hope you will do yourself the
credit of a measurable flirtation with her. At her
age, she will be easily flattered; but remember,
don't lose your self-possession. All depends on
your own nerve and resolution, and I have too
much confidence in you, Tommy, to think you
would be so indiscreet as to fall in love with a mere
girl.

Do, dear Tommy, pay heed to my counsels, and
rejoice the heart of your fond mother. Adelia.

I have nothing to add, Fritz.

If we had been blessed with such mothers, what
gay fellows we might have been in our day! Instead
of wearying out our life in the tame pursuits
of industry, and reclining, as we do now, in the
autumn of our days, a pair of humble Benedicks,
smoking out quietly the remnant of existence, and
quaffing up the simple waters of content, we might
have had a life-range of gentility, and grown old—
notorious.

As it is, we shall drop off by and by, silently,—
with only so little knowledge of the great whirl of
gaiety, as our chance glimpses have afforded. Poor
outsiders,— from first to last! — and may God
grant that, in the making up of the twin divisions
of the dead, we may be outsiders still! Timon.