University of Virginia Library

COMFORT.

BY MRS. C. M. KIRKLAND.

Wordsworth.

“Comfort” is one of those significant and precious words
that are apt to be much abused. It is so comprehensive that
people try to make it mean every thing, just as “religion” has
been stretched to cover the burning of heretics, and “justice”
the gratification of vindictive feeling or the devices of envy.
It is so good a word, in its true character, that none but honest
and true people can use it with propriety. It is, by tacit
consent, banished from the vocabulary of Fashion, and if
Ambition should make a dictionary, Comfort would find no
place in it. The French, who are lovers of pleasure, have
been obliged to transplant our word comfort bodily into their
language, as they had before naturalized a correlative word—

home, atter they had adopted the idea. Strange that we,
proud as we are of our right to it, should ever misuse it!

But, as we were saying, it has, like some other good things,
been sometimes sadly misunderstood or perverted. The most
general as well as fatal mistake is that which supposes it to
dignify present gratification at all hazards. This is as if a
man whose fingers were cold should make a fire of his chairs
or split up his piano, for comfort. Or like a young lady who
should take so much comfort in reading a novel that when the
twilight grew too deep she could not resist setting the curtains
a-blaze rather than wait for candles. (We see people risking
ophthalmia in this cause every day.) Let none accuse us of
extravagance in our illustrations. What we have imagined
would be as much less foolish than some kinds of self-indulgence
but too common, as matter is less precious than mind,
body than soul; and it is only because the consequences or
such absurdities would be immediate and obvious, while those
of the more fatal sacrifices to present enjoyment are deferred
in proportion to the dignity of the powers they ruin, that we
do not recoil in horror from tempting pleasures which lead to
certain misery.

We are all more or less disposed to self-indulgence, and as
some amount of it is proper enough, it is not always easy to
determine where the right ends and the wrong begins. In
some very familiar and but too frequent cases this is peculiarly
difficult; and in the matter of intoxicating drinks experience
shows us how prone some natures are to self-delusion, as to
the limit of lawful indulgence. It is on this ground that moralists
recommend total abstinence as alone safe. “Abstinence,”
says Johnson, “is easy, it is temperance that is difficult,”
and the fact is well known. Is it not strange, then, that
a principle sanctioned by the highest authority should arouse

angry opposition? One would think it must command respect
at least, even from those who yet were not disposed to
adopt it practically. But whatever touches our private and
personal practice comes so near, and calls in question such
sensitive and delicate points, that it is perhaps to be expected
that self-love should make us unjust. We do not love people
who interfere with our “comfort.”

If it were possible, in all cases of intemperance, to go down
to the very roots of the habit, and ascertain and put one's
finger upon the very first motion towards evil, we should
doubtless be astonished to see how entirely among the things
innocent or indifferent the seeds of destruction appear, in their
undeveloped state. Nay—should we not find temptation lying
in wait even among the virtues? That of good housekeeping,
for instance, on which our present illustration turns. Can
there be any bounds to the attention which a woman ought to
pay to the comfort of her family?

There was our old acquaintance, Jacob Zieber, a German
farmer in—county, who used to sit soaking with cider,
or something stronger, for two hours every evening before he
went to bed. He had a prodigious European constitution, and
you might as well have talked to one of the great logs it was
his pride to take to the sawmill, as speak to him of the injuriousness
of the practice. It had never hurt him, he said!
He was of a cubical build, with a great jolter head of his own,
set right on his shoulders, dispensing with neck for the greater
firmness and security of carriage. His large light eyes had
little speculation in them, and all the good cider and other
good things he had faithfully imbibed had done little towards
imparting a genial tinge to his complexion. Flesh he had, in
abundance; his hands were like bunches of sausages, and
when he walked his feet planted themselves, like those of the

tramping statue in Don Giovanni. In strict accordance with
this bodily configuration, his life was one of the dullest routine,
diversified by going once every Sunday to church, when the
text always put him to sleep. Comfort, wherever you can get
it, was his creed.

His ordinary behavior was pretty good, considering the
cider and other stimulants which might have fired a less
phlegmatic temper into insufferableness. He never used to
beat his wife, who was a smart-spoken dame that held her own
in the family, though she had come late into it and brought
with her a son, the only one the house ever knew. She stood
on strong ground; and she knew it. Jacob Zieber was a
confirmed old bachelor when the tricksy Fates threw him into
the way of the widow Ferris, who established herself in his
good graces by her excellent knack at making apple-toddy at
a wedding where Jacob happened to be present. Then her
nephew returned from a voyage round the world, and could
think of no more appropriate present to his aunt than a carved
pipe-head, which the good lady at once transferred to her excellent
neighbor, Mr. Zieber, with some very choice tobacco,
which her nephew was able to furnish. “I know you know
what's good; Mr. Zieber,” said the widow, “and I like to see
every body taking comfort,”—and the cubical bachelor looked
kindly upon her as she softly enunciated his favorite word.
It is not to be wondered at that after this, whenever he sat
smoking by the fire, in that state of mental dissolution which
it is the peculiar province of tobacco to produce, the image of
the comfortable widow Ferris was associated with the gentle
fumes, until she came in time to be part and parcel of Mr.
Zieber's floating idea of the only true happiness.

When Mrs. Ferris became Mrs. Zieber, which she did in
due season, she was far from deserving the reproach of unfaithfulness

with regard to the “comfort” of her husband and
his household. Her difficulty lay rather in the other direction.
She made him too comfortable. From his coffee in the morning
to his apple-toddy or mulled cider at bed-time, there was
hardly an hour in the day that she was not baking or boiling,
stewing, brewing, or concocting somewhat for the consolation
of Jacob's mortal frame. She had an old receipt-book of her
mother's, yellow with age, worn almost to undecipherable
tatters by ceaseless consultation, and marked all over with
tastes or specimens of every article that had been made by its
instructions in fifty years. This was her vade-mecum—her
oracle—her almanac—we had almost said her Bible. She
was emphatically a woman of one book, and she spent the
more time over it because, although very bulky, it possessed
no table of contents; so that in order to find a rule for salting
down hams, one might be obliged to plough through plumcakes,
soar with puffs, wallow in washes, stick fast in plasters,
take the shade of dye-stuffs, and put up with all kind of sauces.
All the eye-waters in the book were not sufficient to make it
intelligible to any but the initiated. To Mrs. Zieber, however,
who had been brought up upon it, it had a beauty such as the
earliest folio Shakspeare had in the eyes of Charles Lamb—viz.,
the beauty of sentiment, or
a tender interest, in short, not to be argued about or meddled
with. We should like to have seen the individual bold enough
to offer in exchange for it the most elegant and voluminous
copy of Ude or Soyer. Its very idea was embalmed in butter,
sugar, eggs, and spice, to say nothing of medicaments, charms,
and lovelifying lotions. To read it always gave her an appetite,
sharpened ner ingenuity, and sent her at once to the
kitchen, and the result was that her husband and her son grew
to be as fastidious tasters and as great connoisseurs as herself

Nor did Mrs. Zieber confine her cares to the comforting of
the inner man. The condition, temperature, light, arrangement,
and availableness of the house were equally objects of
her solicitude. She was conscientious in stopping draughts,
regulating fires, stuffing cushions, placing chairs, so that no
possible inconvenience could occur, no possible advantage be
lost. All the rocking-chairs, and they were many, were made
to rock just right—not too suddenly, nor yet with difficulty,
as far from pitching backward as forward, and without a particle
of squeak in their motion, let that be as vehement as it
might. Not that vehement motion was much the habit of the
family; but the little boy, Tommy Ferris, preferred rocking to
any other mode of exercise, and his mother had a chair made
and quilted on purpose for him, which no one else was allowed
ever to occupy.

Not to dwell too long on particulars, Mrs. Zieber was what
is called an excellent wife, that being the term which is usually
applied to a woman who takes good care of the physical
comfort of her household. Further than this she never
aspired. No book was ever permitted in the parlor, except an
old family Bible, which was carefully placed on a stand in the
corner, and only removed once a week, on Sunday evening,
when Mr. Zieber read a chapter, in couse, with a good deal
of ceremony. What few school-books little Tommy Ferris
brought home were put out of sight as soon as possible, for
Mrs. Zieber would as soon have seen a toad on the table as a
book.

Tommy grew up under these auspices, and imbibed, to his
heart's core, the family notion of “comfort.” He never did
any thing he didn't want to; never learned a lesson when he

preferred flying his kite, or went to school when he chose to
have a headache and go fishing. He had a sip or a bit of
every thing nice that came from his mother's skilful hands,
and would have felt much injured if he had not shared Mr.
Zieber's bed-time beverage, be it what it might. That worthy
person grew more and more quiet as his years increased, till
at last he did not rise out of the great chair which he filled so
well, except to exchange it for the “comfortable” feather-bed,
which was duly visited by the warming-pan when the thermometer
stood below 60°. There he sat and smoked, or dozed,
or sipped some potent comforter, or lingered lovingly over
some dainty placed before him on a little stand, which had
gradually become consecrated to that use. Tommy's comings
and goings became less and less the object of his care, and
that ingenious youth tried many youthful follies, which his
mother took care should never reach her husband's ears. She
said she thought boys must have a little comfort, as well as
grown people!

By-and-by Mr. Zieber died rather suddenly, although he had
been ailing for some time. He had several troublesome diseases,
but would not allow a physician to be called because of
the miserable ideas of diet which that class of persons are
supposed to entertain. Mr. Zieber was “determined not to
be starved to death, at any rate.” On his last morning, his
wife had prepared an egg, beaten up with a spoonful of brandy,
which she gave him before he rose, to strengthen him. He
then ate a tolerable breakfast of sausages, muffins, buckwheat
cakes, and coffee, finishing off with a small glass of old, hard
cider, that made even his eyes water, that being, as he declared,
an excellent thing for the stomach. Feeling rather
faint at lunch-time, he had a veal cutlet and a little brandy
and water. When dinner-time came, he complained of feeble

appetite, so Mrs. Zieber kindly procured some venison-steaks,
which she served up with a sauce of her own, redolent of
wine and piquant with spices. This Mr. Zieber pronounced
excellent, and having dispatched an apple-dumpling or two,
he took his siesta with unusual satisfaction. Tea was never,
with him, much of a meal, but he managed two or three cups
of good green tea, with plenty of cream and sugar, and as
many rounds of buttered toast, made as nobody but Mrs.
Zieber could make it, as he often triumphantly declared.
After this he felt, he said, uncommon comfortable, and dozed
most of the evening, only once asking for a drink of cider,
which he imbibed after putting in a little brandy to correct
the acid.

Tommy had been out all day, and came home late and rather
cross, upon which his tender mother thought she would get him
something good to eat to make him feel comfortable. This
occupied some time, and detained her in the kitchen, where,
when all was ready, Tommy sat down to his supper, with a
returning gleam of good humor at sight of the variety of
dainties which his mother had brought together for his refreshment.
He had hardly tasted any thing, however, when he
was startled by a loud scream in the adjoining room. Mrs.
Zieber, on attempting to raise her husband to ask what he
would have for supper, had found him quite dead. This occasioned
such a shock and commotion in the family, that
Tommy did not get back to his supper till it was cold, at
which he grumbled a good deal, for he loved comfort dearly.

The coroner said nothing of murder or suicide, but concluded
Mr. Zieber to have died “by the visitation of God,”
and everybody praised Mrs. Zieber for the excellent care she
had taken of her husband. So she continued to take equally
good care of her son, and he grew up a connoisseur in good

living, and an infallible judge of cigars, and indeed of tobacco
in every form. He tried various kinds of business, but found
some fault with each, and his mother, thinking his objections
very natural and reasonable, remarked that it was a comfort,
after all, that Tommy was not obliged to do any thing, if he
didn't choose. He made pretty good use of his gun and his
fishing-rod, and occasionally brought in some contribution to
the dinner, which again, as his mother observed, was a great
comfort.

But unhappily comforts of this description did not always
satisfy the youth who had so long been accustomed to exercise
his ingenuity principally upon the means of personal enjoyment.
He wearied of his mother's watchful and solicitous
eye, and, in the ingratitude of a heart hardened by too much
mistaken kindness, learned to despise her for the sacrifices she
made to his unreasonable whims. As for her, poor woman!
she had so narrowed her mind to one poor, mean set of ideas,
that it was incapable of receiving new ones; and when her
darling son contemned her dainty dishes, or any of the various
devices for his gratification that were always revolving in her
brain, she was at her wit's end, and would go away and weep
in sad foreboding of coming ills, she knew not what. Time
showed the justice of her presentiments, for Tommy was
hardly one-and-twenty, when he had formed some very unhappy
connections with dissolute young men of the neighborhood,
who, for their own bad ends, flattered his weak pride
by an outward show of deference which he felt to be a homage
to his wealth. Unmistakable marks of the evil tendency of
a self-indulgent life very soon began to appear upon the once
good-looking youth, and his poor mother, always mistaken in
her modes of attempting to do good, worried at him incessantly
on the subject until he declared his home intolerable, and justified

his own misconduct by the assertion that he could have
no “comfort” anywhere but at the tavern.

This state of things came on gradually, but not so gradually
that the unhappy mother was not conscious of each step in the
downward path which the successive changes in her son's domestic
habits served sufficiently to mark. When at length he
was absent from home the greater part of the time, and would
sit smoking in moody silence while he was there, either deaf
to his mother's remonstrances and complaints, or roused to
fierce and defiant replies when she pushed them too vehemently;
the desperation of the case drove Mrs. Zieber to a
special effort for his recall before it should be forever too late.
In this case, as ever, she was unconscious of her own selfishness,
and considered herself as acting “all for the best,” though
no sacrifice to Moloch was ever more cruel. She bethought
her of an orphan niece of hers, a gentle and pretty girl, who
was living in an uncle's family at some distance; and her
bright thought was to send for this young woman, in the hope
that so agreeable an inmate would prove at least some counterbalance
to the attractions of the tavern. What was to become
of the decoy-duck in this case, concerned her no more
than if Mary Turner had been made of wood: Tommy was
to be saved—saved, that is, from disgracing himself, wasting
his money, and annoying his mother, and in order to this, any
thing was lawful; and Mrs. Zieber, in her heart, thought herself
an excellent mother, as indeed so she was, as far as certain
qualities of a good mother went. Want of knowledge is
sometimes as fatal as want of virtue.

Mary Turner came, and the good effects of her presence
were very soon evident at Mrs. Zieber's. Her cousin's dress
began to improve; his hair and whiskers assumed a tamer aspect,
and the general rowdyism of costume which had marked

him for some time past, gradually softened into something approaching
gentlemanliness. The visits to the public house,
too, were shorter and less frequent. his manner to his mother
kinder, and his treatment of pretty Mary Turner almost gallant.
She, on her part, bore herself with native modesty; assisted
her aunt in household affairs, cultivated some acquaintance
with the young people of the neighborhood, and treated
her dissipated cousin in that simple and familiar way which
puts farthest off the idea of particular attention. This did not,
however, prevent his falling or fancying himself in love with
her, and, in the devotion of time and thoughts which ensued,
evil habits and companions were put off, and the desired
reformation seemed complete. The young man spent his evenings
at home or attended his fair cousin to village merry-makings;
treated his mother with abundant respect, restrained,
as far as possible, his natural and customary selfishness,
and seemed for the first time in his life to find “comfort”
in pleasing other people. Whether he was in reality less
selfish than usual, we shall see.

Mary Turner was by no means insensible to the agreeable
change in her aunt's family, or indifferent to the effect of her
charms upon the wayward heart of the spoiled child. She
was young and easily fascinated, and soon yielded up her
whole wealth of innocent affection in return, nothing doubting.
Ferris declared himself and was accepted, and nothing now
remained but to obtain his mother's consent. This, to his
great surprise, was not so readily granted as he expected.
Mrs. Zieber loved her son, but she loved money too, and now
that she considered Tom as entirely reclaimed from bad
courses, she had no idea of letting him marry a girl without
a shilling. She was even ready to accuse Mary of having
artfully enticed her cousin into offering himself, and said such

unkind and unbecoming things on this point, that the poor
girl insisted on leaving the house and returning home at once.
To this Mrs. Zieber gladly consented, thinking that absence
would soon cure her son's sudden folly, and bring him once
more under her own exclusive influence. But in this she was
quite mistaken. Her knowledge of human nature was not
very great, and of Tom's particular share of it, wonderfully
small. The habits of self-indulgence in which she had herself
trained him, were all against her. He had, as he said, found
more “comfort” in Mary's society than anywhere else, and
the thought of relinquishing it never entered his thoughts for
a moment. So he very soon followed her to her uncle's, and
now his mother saw even less of him than before his reformation.
Many unpleasant scenes of altercation and recrimination
occurred when they did meet, and the poor woman had
bitter proof the hardening effect of making present gratification
the first object of pursuit. Her passionate remonstrances
fell on Tom's ear like cold water on the flinty rock; they did
not even make him waver. He was of age, and chose to
marry his cousin; his mind would hold no ideas but these.
Opposition had aroused his temper, and made that a passion
which might otherwise have proved but a passing fancy. If
he had been let alone, he would very likely have changed his
mind, but now a marriage with Mary Turner became the
settled purpose of his soul.

It may seem strange that one who could pursue his own
inclinations with so little regard to any body else, should have
shown even such an amount of deference for his mother's
wishes as was implied in delay. But Tom's dutifulness was
exactly in proportion to the amount of property in his
mother's power; and although he felt little fear as to her ultimate
disposal of it, still, in so important a matter, he did not

like to run any risk. So at last he fairly worried her into a
consent, or the form of it, and in a short time after this Mary
Turner was married and brought home as Mrs. Thomas
Ferris.

Oh how amiable was the devotee of “comfort” in those
days! Mrs. Zieber was a trifle sullen at first, but the real
sweetness of Mary's disposition was too much for her prejudices;
and the magic power of love diffused such a glory
through the house, that old things were forgotten, or remembered
only as heighteners of present satisfaction. With
mother and Mary both devoted to his comfort, Ferris felt himself
at the pinnacle of human felicity, and he would not have
changed places even with that Hottentot sovereign whose two
esquires of the mouth found their sole employment in cramming
him with delicacies on the right hand and on the left.

And here, according to the practice of the modern novel,
our story ought to conclude, leaving our characters in the
condition described by the severe poet, as “cursed with every
granted prayer,”—but truth forbids, and the world's history
would contradict ours if we should represent a happiness
founded mainly upon the senses, as proving any more permanent
than it is exalted. Ennui is usually the first enemy in
such cases,—that negative torment, whose very vagueness
makes it unendurable. Satiety is the most hopeless of mortal
ills.

The next stage is ill health—the revenge of insulted nature;
stealthy, but sure and terrible. Ferris had naturally a robust
constitution, and it was slow in confessing the sapping and
mining process that had been going on ever since he was
born, so that he had had many of what he called “singular
attacks” before he felt permanently the worse for them. In
due time, however, they began to tell upon his whole being,
and then that other avenger, ill-temper, took the field. Seasons
of terrible irritation alternated with the usual indulgences,
and Mary's voice, once so potent in charming down the evil
spirit, lost its magic. And now the old habit of wild and
reckless companionship resumed its reign. Wife and children
were as nothing, or only tedious and importunate clogs upon
pleasure. Their expenditures seemed unreasonable because
so much was drawn off in unlawful directions. Disputes
about money, between Mrs. Zieber and the son she had so
idolized and ruined, were fierce and frequent; Mary was appealed
to as umpire, and thus often incurred the wrath of
both. She did what she could to stem the tide of evil, but its
sources were far beyond her reach. She had been educated
in economy and self-denial, and would fain have brought up
her children in the same way, but every perceptible effort in
that direction was felt as a personal affront by Mrs. Zieber,
who was never tired of sneering at “people who think themselves
so much wiser than their neighbors!” She, poor old
lady, was very infirm, and had a terribly red nose, for which
she was continually trying various lotions and potions from
her mother's receipt-book, but with very little success, though
she sometimes took the skin off the offending feature by mistaken
or too heroic practice, which did not at all tend to the
mollification of her temper. Her dutiful son, whose excesses
had not yet centralized the over-heated blood so as to give a
volcanic aspect to his countenance, made his mother's misfortune

the subject of many a jibe, which she resented with
a degree of acrimony that highly amused him, producing in
this way scenes from which Mary was used to draw off her
children on any or no pretence, lest all respect for both father
and grandmother should be utterly destroyed.

It was on her return, after one of these short absences, that
she found her husband, who had been drinking a good deal,
still storming at his mother and all the world, while the old
lady, for a wonder, sat mute, not offering to interrupt him by
one of those well-put observations with which human or dia-bolic
ingenuity is wont to add fuel to the unhallowed fire already
too hot. A second glance at Mrs. Zieber showed her
the reason of this passiveness. A shocking change had taken
place in her face, which was all awry, and though her eyes still
showed consciousness, she was evidently deprived of the power
of speech and motion—smitten with palsy. Her son, sobered at
least in part by Mary's exclamation of horror, rushed to her
side and tried to recall her fading senses by his expressions of
grief and contrition, but in vain. The doctor came, remedies
such as his skill suggested were anxiously applied, but Mrs.
Zieber never spoke again. Repeated shocks confirmed the
first, and in three days she breathed her last.

Tom was some thousands of dollars richer for his mother's
demise, but there was in his secret soul a thought which effectually
prevented the enjoyment of this accession to his
property. He believed himself, whether justly or not, to be
the cause of his mother's death. Conscience told him he had
wantonly provoked and irritated her, and her dying look was
always before his eyes, giving him a new excuse to himself for
flying to temporary madness or oblivion for relief. A life on
this principle led of course to various kinds of misery, including
at length the disorder of affairs. A man who lives on
stimulants makes foolish bargains, as a matter of course; and

a man who is known to be in the habit of making foolish bargains,
will soon be a mark for sharpers. Hardly a month
passed that some of Tom's tavern friends had not some fascinating
scheme to propose which only wanted a small capital
at the beginning to insure the most incredible profits. If this
larger trap did not take, there was a fine horse to be had at a
bargain, or a famous trotter to bet upon. Mortgages became
necessary, and these ate like cormorants; so that Tom Ferris
was not very far from absolute and irretrievable ruin when,
happily for all concerned, he came to a sudden end, by means
of a wonderful horse just purchased of his dearest friend,
which he happened to ride on a very dark night, after a tavern
supper. He was brought home insensible, and scarcely spoke
or noticed his family afterwards, but bled inwardly for twenty-four
hours, and so died, leaving wife and children in a poor
condition enough.

But Mary had been learning deep lessons all this time. She
was young when she came into the family, and naturally
pleased with the change from poverty and neglect to abundance
and affection. But she soon began to see the errors of
her mother-in-law's system, and to deplore their effect upon
the character of her husband. She saw how powerless is even
affection to combat a habit of self-indulgence, for it was not
very long before occasional harshness and disregard of her
feelings alternated with Ferris's demonstrations of attachment.
As years wore on, he had grown more and more exacting,
and, between his requisitions and those of Mrs. Zieber,
Mary had become a sort of drudge, outwardly, while her moral
nature had much ripened, as is often the case, where we are
wise enough to accept in the best spirit evils evidently unavoidable.
She had a kind and gentle nature, and a goodly
habit in respect to the soft answer that turneth away wrath, and
the opportune silence that gives time for unreason to recollect

and be ashamed of itself. Her habits of self-derial, too, had
grown with the occasion for their exercise, and in proportion
to the wretchedness produced by the want of it in others. She
had the consolation of feeling always that she was an element
of blessing in the house, and that her husband and his mother,
even in their most unhappy and perverse moments, did her
justice in their hearts. Her children looked up to her with
peculiar respect, from the instinctive reverence for the right
which the young always feel when they see it contrasted with
the wrong. Public esteem was hers, too, and when her affairs
were to be settled, some of the best men in the neighborhood
took care that the widow had her rights, and that every thing
was disposed to the best advantage, so as to leave what might
with prudence and economy serve to educate the children and
keep the family in decent comfort. It is to the honor of the
community that the family of the unhappy devotee of dissipation
always attract an extra amount of tender regard, if they
preserve their virtue and self-respect under all the disadvantages
of ill-example and depressing circumstances.

Let none think that we have drawn on imagination for a
tragic conclusion to our life-sketch. The necessity is on the
other side; the consummation of such careers is generally
such as to oblige the narrator rather to soften than to exaggerate
the truth. And perhaps the most tragic of all are those
whose climax is never disclosed to the world, but concealed
amid agonies of pride.

Strange secrets are let out by Death! and the revelations
which occur when the affairs of the profligate and the inebriate
are necessarily laid open to the world, give us some faint
idea of the sufferings of those concerned, while the mask is
still worn. If warnings were all that is needed, real life affords
such almost daily. Fiction can, in this as in other cases, only
follow in the footsteps of Truth.