Some Roundabout Papers Read online

  Some Roundabout Papers

  by Thackeray

  ON SOME CARP AT SANS SOUCI

  We have lately made the acquaintance of an old lady of ninety,

  who has passed the last twenty-five years of her old life in a

  great metropolitan establishment, the workhouse, namely, of the

  parish of Saint Lazarus. Stay -- twenty-three or four years ago,

  she came out once, and thought to earn a little money by hop-

  picking; but being overworked, and having to lie out at night,

  she got a palsy which has incapacitated her from all further

  labour, and has caused her poor old limbs to shake ever since.

  An illustration of that dismal proverb which tells us how poverty

  makes us acquainted with strange bed-fellows, this poor old

  shaking body has to lay herself down every night in her workhouse

  bed by the side of some other old woman with whom she may or may

  not agree. She herself can't be a very pleasant bed-fellow, poor

  thing! with her shaking old limbs and cold feet. She lies awake

  a deal of the night, to be sure, not thinking of happy old times,

  for hers never were happy; but sleepless with aches, and agues,

  and rheumatism of old age. "The gentleman gave me brandy-and-

  water," she said, her old voice shaking with rapture at the

  thought. I never had a great love for Queen Charlotte, but I

  like her better now from what this old lady told me. The Queen,

  who loved snuff herself, has left a legacy of snuff to certain

  poorhouses; and, in her watchful nights, this old woman takes a

  pinch of Queen Charlotte's snuff, "and it do comfort me, sir,

  that it do!" Pulveris exigui munus. Here is a forlorn aged

  creature, shaking with palsy, with no soul among the great

  struggling multitude of mankind to care for her, not quite

  trampled out of life, but past and forgotten in the rush, made a

  little happy, and soothed in her hours of unrest by this penny

  legacy. Let me think as I write. (The next month's sermon,

  thank goodness! is safe to press.) This discourse will appear at

  the season when I have read that wassail-bowls make their

  appearance; at the season of pantomime, turkey and sausages,

  plum-puddings, jollifications for schoolboys; Christmas bills,

  and reminiscences more or less sad and sweet for elders. If we

  oldsters are not merry, we shall be having a semblance of

  merriment. We shall see the young folks laughing round the

  holly-bush. We shall pass the bottle round cosily as we sit by

  the fire. That old thing will have a sort of festival too.

  Beef, beer, and pudding will be served to her for that day also.

  Christmas falls on a Thursday. Friday is the workhouse day for

  coming out. Mary, remember that old Goody Twoshoes has her

  invitation for Friday, 26th December! Ninety is she, poor old

  soul? Ah! what a bonny face to catch under a mistletoe! "Yes,

  ninety, sir," she says, "and my mother was a hundred, and my

  grandmother was a hundred and two."

  Herself ninety, her mother a hundred, her grandmother a hundred

  and two? What a queer calculation!

  Ninety! Very good, granny: you were born, then, in 1772.

  Your mother, we will say, was twenty-seven when you were born,

  and was born therefore in 1745.

  Your grandmother was thirty-five when her daughter was born, and

  was born therefore in 1710.

  We will begin with the present granny first. My good old

  creature, you can't of course remember, but that little gentleman

  for whom you mother was laundress in the Temple was the ingenious

  Mr Goldsmith, author of a "History of England," the "Vicar of

  Wakefield," and many diverting pieces. You were brought almost

  an infant to his chambers in Brick Court, and he gave you some

  sugar-candy, for the doctor was always good to children. That

  gentleman who well-nigh smothered you by sitting down on you as

  you lay in a chair asleep was the learned Mr S. Johnson, whose

  history of "Rasselas" you have never read, my pour soul; and

  whose tragedy of "Irene" I don't believe any man in these

  kingdoms ever perused. That tipsy Scotch gentleman who used to

  come to the chambers sometimes, and at whom everybody laughed,

  wrote a more amusing book than any of the scholars, your Mr Burke

  and your Mr Johnson, and your Dr Goldsmith. Your father often

  took him home in a chair to his lodgings; and has done as much

  for Parson Sterne in Bond Street, the famous wit. Of course, my

  good creature, you remember the Gordon Riots, and crying No

  Popery before Mr Langdale's house, the Popish distiller's, and

  that bonny fire of my Lord Mansfield's books in Bloomsbury

  Square? Bless us, what a heap of illuminations you have seen!

  For the glorious victory over the Americans at Breed's Hill; for

  the peace in 1814, and the beautiful Chinese bridge in St James's

  Park; for the coronation of his Majesty, whom you recollect as

  Prince of Wales, Goody, don't you? Yes; and you went in a

  procession of laundresses to pay your respects to his good lady,

  the injured Queen of England, at Brandenburg House; and you

  remember your mother told you how she was taken to see the Scotch

  lords executed at the Tower. And as for your grandmother, she

  was born five months after the battle of Malplaquet, she was;

  where her poor father was killed, fighting like a bold Briton for

  the Queen. With the help of a "Wade's Chronology," I can make

  out ever so queer a history for you, my poor old body, and a

  pedigree as authentic as many in the peerage-books.

  Peerage-books and pedigrees? What does she know about them?

  Battles and victories, treasons, kings, and beheadings, literary

  gentlemen, and the like, what have they ever been to her?

  Granny, did you ever hear of General Wolfe? Your mother may have

  seen him embark, and your father may have carried a musket under

  him. Your grandmother may have cried huzza for Marlborough; but

  what is the Prince Duke to you, and did you ever so much as hear

  tell of his name? How many hundred or thousand of years had that

  toad lived who was in the coal at the defunct exhibition? -- and

  yet he was not a bit better informed than toads seven or eight

  hundred years younger.

  "Don't talk to me your nonsense about Exhibitions, and Prince

  Dukes, and toads in coals, or coals in toads, or what is it?"

  says granny. "I know there was a good Queen Charlotte, for she

  left me snuff; and it comforts me of a night when I lie awake."

  To me there is something very touching in the notion of that

  little pinch of comfort doled out to granny, and gratefully

  inhaled by her in the darkness. Don't you remember what

  traditions there used to be of chests of plate, bulses of

  diamonds, laces of inestimable value, sent out of the country

  privately by the old Queen, to enric
h certain relatives in M-ckl-

  nb-rg Str-l-tz? Not all the treasure went. Non omnis moritur.

  A poor old palsied thing at midnight is made happy sometimes as

  she lifts her shaking old hand to her nose. Gliding noiselessly

  among the beds where lie the poor creatures huddled in their

  cheerless dormitory, I fancy an old ghost with a snuff-box that

  does not creak. "There, Goody, take of my rappee. You will not

  sneeze, and I shall not say 'God bless you.' But you will think

  kindly of old Queen Charlotte, won't you? Ah! I had a many

  troubles, a many troubles. I was a prisoner almost so much as

  you are. I had to eat boiled mutton every day: entre nous, I

  abominated it. But I never complained. I swallowed it. I made

  the best of a hard life. We have all our burdens to bear. But

  hark! I hear the cock-crow, and snuff the morning air." And

  with this the royal ghost vanishes up the chimney -- if there be

  a chimney in that dismal harem, where poor old Twoshoes and her

  companions pass their nights -- their dreary nights, their

  restless nights, their cold long nights, shared in what glum

  companionship, illumined by what a feeble taper!

  "Did I understand you, my good Twoshoes, to say that your mother

  was seven-and-twenty years old when you were born, and that she

  married your esteemed father when she herself was twenty-five?

  1745, then, was the date of your dear mother's birth. I daresay

  her father was absent in the Low Countries, with his Royal

  Highness the Duke of Cumberland, under whom he had the honour of

  carrying a halberd at the famous engagement of Fontenoy -- or if

  not there, he may have been at Preston Pans, under General Sir

  John Cope, when the wild Highlanders broke through all the laws

  of discipline and the English lines; and, being on the spot, did

  he see the famous ghost which didn't appear to Colonel Gardner of

  the Dragoons? My good creature, is it possible you don't

  remember that Doctor Swift, Sir Robert Walpole (my Lord Orford,

  as you justly say), old Sarah Marlborough, and little Mr Pope, of

  Twitnam, died in the year of your birth? What a wretched memory

  you have! What? haven't they a library, and the commonest books

  of reference at the old convent of Saint Lazarus, where you

  dwell?"

  "Convent of Saint Lazarus, Prince William, Dr Swift, Atossa, and

  Mr Pope, of Twitnam! What is the gentleman talking about?" says

  old goody, with a "Ho! ho!" and a laugh like a old parrot -- you

  know they live to be as old as Methuselah, parrots do, and a

  parrot of a hundred is comparatively young (ho! ho! ho!). Yes,

  and likewise carps live to an immense old age. Some which

  Frederick the Great fed at Sans Souci are there now, with great

  humps of blue mould on their old backs; and they could tell all

  sorts of queer stories, if they chose to speak -- but they are

  very silent, carps are -- of their nature peu communicatives.

  Oh! what has been thy long life, old goody, but a dole of bread

  and water and a perch on a cage; a dreary swim round and round a

  Lethe of a pond? What are Rossbach or Jena to those mouldy ones,

  and do they know it is a grandchild of England who brings bread

  to feed them?

  No! Those Sans Souci carps may live to be a thousand years old

  and have nothing to tell but that one day is like another; and

  the history of friend Goody Twoshoes has not much more variety

  than theirs. Hard labour, hard fare, hard bed, numbing cold all

  night, and gnawing hunger most days. That is her lot. Is it

  lawful in my prayers to say, "Thank heaven, I am not as one of

  these"? If I were eighty, would I like to feel the hunger always

  gnawing, gnawing? to have to get up and make a bow when Mr Bumble

  the beadle entered the common room? to have to listen to Miss

  Prim, who came to give me her ideas of the next world? If I were

  eighty, I own I should not like to have to sleep with another

  gentleman of my own age, gouty, a bad sleeper, kicking in his old

  dreams, and snoring; to march down my vale of years at word of

  command, accommodating my tottering old steps to those of the

  other prisoners in my dingy, hopeless old gang; to hold out a

  trembling hand for a sickly pittance of gruel, and say, "Thank

  you, ma'am," to Miss Prim, when she has done reading her sermon.

  John! when Goody Twoshoes comes next Friday, I desire she may not

  be disturbed by theological controversies. You have a fair

  voice, and I heard you and the maids singing a hymn very sweetly

  the other night, and was thankful that our humble household

  should be in such harmony. Poor old Twoshoes is so old and

  toothless and quaky, that she can't sing a bit; but don't be

  giving yourself airs over her, because she can't sing and you

  can. Make her comfortable at our kitchen hearth. Set that old

  kettle to sing by our hob. Warm her old stomach with nut-brown

  ale and a toast laid in the fire. Be kind to the poor old

  school-girl of ninety, who has had leave to come out for a day of

  Christmas holiday. Shall there be many more Christmases for

  thee? Think of the ninety she has seen already; the fourscore

  and ten cold, cheerless, nipping New Years!

  If you were in her place, would you like to have a remembrance of

  better early days, when you were young and happy, and loving,

  perhaps; or would you prefer to have no past on which your mind

  could rest? About the year 1788, Goody, were your cheeks rosy,

  and your eyes bright, and did some young fellow in powder and a

  pigtail look in them? We may grow old, but to us some stories

  never are old. On a sudden they rise up, not dead, but living --

  not forgotten, but freshly remembered. The eyes gleam on us as

  they used to do. The dear voice thrills in our hearts. The

  rapture of the meeting, the terrible, terrible parting, again and

  again the tragedy is acted over. Yesterday, in the street, I saw

  a pair of eyes so like two which used to brighten at my coming

  once, that the whole past came back as I walked lonely, in the

  rush of the Strand, and I was young again in the midst of joys

  and sorrows, alike sweet and sad, alike sacred and fondly

  remembered.

  If I tell a tale out of school, will any harm come to my old

  school-girl? Once, a lady gave her a half-sovereign, which was a

  source of great pain and anxiety to Goody Twoshoes. She sewed it

  away in her old stays somewhere, thinking here at least was a

  safe investment -- (vestis -- a vest -- an investment, -- pardon

  me, thou poor old thing, but I cannot help the pleasantry). And

  what do you think? Another pensionnaire of the establishment cut

  the coin out of Goody's stays -- an old woman who went upon two

  crutches! Faugh, the old witch! What? Violence amongst these

  toothless, tottering, trembling, feeble ones? Robbery amongst

  the penniless? Dogs coming and snatching Lazarus's crumbs out of

  his lap? Ah, how indignant Goody was as she told the story! To

  that pond at Potsdam where the carps live for hundreds of<
br />
  hundreds of years, with hunches of blue mould on their back, I

  daresay the little Prince and Princess of Preussen-Britannien

  come sometimes with crumbs and cakes to feed the mouldy ones.

  Those eyes may have goggled from beneath the weeds at Napoleon's

  jack-boots: they have seen Frederick's lean shanks reflected in

  their pool; and perhaps Monsieur de Voltaire has fed them, and

  now for a crumb of biscuit they will fight, push, hustle, rob,

  squabble, gobble, relapsing into their tranquillity when the

  ignoble struggle is over. Sans souci, indeed! It is mighty well

  writing "Sans souci" over the gate; but where is the gate

  through which Care has not slipped? She perches on the shoulders

  of the sentry in the sentry-box: she whispers the porter

  sleeping in his arm-chair: she glides up the staircase, and lies

  down between the king and queen in their bed-royal: this very

  night I daresay she will perch upon poor old Goody Twoshoes'

  meagre bolster, and whisper, "Will the gentleman and those ladies

  ask me again! No, no; they will forget poor old Twoshoes."

  Goody! For shame of yourself! Do not be cynical. Do not

  mistrust your fellow-creatures. What? Has the Christmas morning

  dawned upon thee ninety times? For four-score and ten years has

  it been thy lot to totter on this earth, hungry and obscure?

  Peace and goodwill to thee, let us say at this Christmas season.

  Come, drink, eat, rest awhile at our hearth, thou poor old

  pilgrim! And of the bread which God's bounty gives us, I pray,

  brother reader, we may not forget to set aside a part for those

  noble and silent poor, from whose innocent hands war has torn the

  means of labour. Enough! As I hope for beef at Christmas, I vow

  a note shall be sent to Saint Lazarus Union House, in which Mr

  Roundabout requests the honour of Mrs Twoshoes' company on

  Friday, 26th December.

  DE JUVENTUTE

  We who lived before railways, and survive out of the ancient

  world, are like Father Noah and his family out of the Ark. The

  children will gather round and say to us patriarchs, "Tell us,

  grandpapa, about the old world." And we shall mumble our old

  stories; and we shall drop off one by one; and there will be

  fewer and fewer of us, and these very old and feeble. There will

  be but ten prae-railroadites left: then three -- then two --

  then one -- then 0! If the hippopotamus had the least

  sensibility (of which I cannot trace any signs either in his hide

  or his face), I think he would go down to the bottom of his tank,

  and never come up again. Does he not see that he belongs to

  bygone ages, and that his great hulking barrel of a body is out

  of place in these times? What has he in common with the brisk

  young life surrounding him? In the watches of the night, when

  the keepers are asleep, when the birds are on one leg, when even

  the little armadillo is quiet, and the monkeys have ceased their

  chatter, he -- I mean the hippopotamus -- and the elephant, and

  the long-necked giraffe, perhaps may lay their heads together and

  have a colloquy about the great silent antediluvian world which

  they remember, where mighty monsters floundered through the ooze,

  crocodiles basked on the banks, and dragons darted out of the

  caves and waters before men were made to slay them. We who lived

  before railways are antediluvians -- we must pass away. We are

  growing scarcer every day; and old -- old -- very old relicts of

  the times when George was still fighting the Dragon.

  Not long since, a company of horseriders paid a visit to our

  watering-place. We went to see them, and I bethought me that

  young Walter Juvenis, who was in the place, might like also to

  witness the performance. A pantomime is not always amusing to

  persons who have attained a certain age; but a boy at a

  pantomime is always amused and amusing, and to see his pleasure

  is good for most hypochondriacs.

  We sent to Walter's mother, requesting that he might join us, and

  the kind lady replied that the boy had already been at the