百度搜索 伊利亚随笔续集 天涯 或 伊利亚随笔续集 天涯在线书库 即可找到本书最新章节.
Homes there are, we are sure, that are no homes: the home of the very poor man, and another which we shall speak to presently. Crowded places of cheap eai, and the benches of ale-houses, if they could speak, might bear mournful testimony to the first. To them the very poor mas for an image of the home, which he ot find at home. For a starved grate, and a sty firing, that is not enough to keep alive the natural heat in the fingers of so many shivering children with their mother, he finds in the depth of winter always a blazih, and a hob to warm his pittance of beer by. Instead of the clamours of a wife, made gaunt by famishing, he meets with a cheerful attendance beyond the merits of the trifle which he afford to spend. He has panions which his home denies him, for the very poor man has no visitors. He look into the goings on of the world,<mark>..</mark> and speak a little to politics. At home there are no politics stirring, but the domestic. All is, real or imaginary, all topics that should expand the mind of man, and ect him to a sympathy with general existence, are crushed in the abs sideration of food to be obtained for the family. Beyond the price of bread, news is senseless and imperti. At home there is no larder. Here there is at least a show of plenty; and while he cooks his lean scrap of butchers meat before the on bars, or munches his humbler cold viands, his relishing bread and cheese with an onion, in a er, where no one reflects upon his poverty, he has sight of the substantial joint providing for the landlord and his family. He takes an i in the dressing of it; and while he assists in removing the trivet from the fire, he feels that there is such a thing as beef and cabbage, which he was beginning tet at home. All this while he deserts his wife and children. But what wife, and what children? Prosperous men, who object to this desertion, image to themselves some tented family like that which [p 264] they go home to. But look at the tenance of the poor wives who folloersecute their good man to the door of the public-house, which he is about to enter, when something like shame would restrain him, if stronger misery did not induce him to pass the threshold. That face, ground by want, in which every cheerful, every versable li has been long effaced by misery, is that a face to stay at home with is it more a woman, or a wild cat? alas! it is the face of the wife of his youth, that once smiled upon him. It smile no longer. What forts it share? what burthens it lighten? Oh, `tis a fihing to talk of the humble meal shared together! But what if there be no bread in the cupboard? The i prattle of his children takes out the sting of a mans poverty. But the children of the very poor do not prattle. It is none of the least frightful features in that dition, that there is no childishness in its dwellings. Poor people, said a sensible old o us once, do n up their children; they drag them up. The little careless darling of the wealthier nursery, in their hovel is transformed betimes into a premature refleg person. No one has time to da, no ohinks it worth while to coax it, to soothe it, to toss it up and down, to humour it. There is o kiss away its tears. If it cries, it only be beaten. It has beeily said that "a babe is fed with milk and praise." But the aliment of this poor babe was thin, unnourishing; the return to its little baby-tricks, and efforts to eention, bitter ceaseless ation. It never had a toy, or knew what a coral meant. It grew up without the lullaby of nurses, it was a strao the patient fohe hushing caress, the attrag y, the costlier plaything, or the cheaper offhand trivao divert the child; the prattled nonsense (best seo it), the wise impertihe wholesome lies, the apt story interposed, that puts a stop to present sufferings, and awakens the passion of young wonder. It was never sung to -- no one ever told to it a tale of the nursery. It was dragged up, to live or to die as it happened. It had no young dreams. It broke at oo the iroies of life. A child exists not for the very poor as an object of dallia is only another mouth to be fed, a pair of little hands to be betimes io labour. It is the rival, till it be the co-operator, for food with the parent. It is never his mirth, his diversion, his solace; it never makes him young again, with recalling his young times. The children of the very poor have no young times. It makes the very heart to bleed to overhear the casual street-talk between a poor woman and her little girl, a woman of the better sort of poor, in a dition rather above the squalid beings which we have been plating. It is not of toys, of nursery books, of summer [p 265] holidays (fitting that age); of the promised sight, or play; of praised sufficy at school. It is of mangling and clear-starg, of the price of coals, or of potatoes. The questions of the child, that should he the very outps of curiosity in idleness, are marked with forecast and melancholy provide has e to he a woman, before it was a child. It has learo go to market; it chaffers, it haggles, it envies, it murmurs; it is knowing, acute, sharpened; it never prattles. Had we not reason to say, that the home of the very poor is no home?There is yet another home, which we are straio deny to be o has a larder, which the home of the poor man wants; its fireside veniences, of which the poor dream not. But with all this, it is no home. It is -- the house of the man that is ied with many visitors. May we he branded for the veriest churl, if we deny our heart to the many noble-hearted friends that at times exge their dwelling for our poor roof! It is not of guests that we plain, but of endless, purposeless visitants; droppers in, as they are called. We sometimes wonder from what sky the fall. It is the very error of the position of our lodging; its horoscopy was ill calculated, being just situate in a medium -- a plaguy suburban mid-space -- fitted to catch idlers from town or try. We are older than we were, and age is easily put out of its way. We have fewer sands in lass to re upon, and we ot brook to see them drop in endlessly succeeding impertinences. At our time of life, to be alone sometimes is as needful as sleep. It is the refreshing sleep of the day. The growing infirmities of age mahemselves in nothing more strongly, than in an ie dislike of interruption. The thing which we are doing, we wish to be permitted to do. We have her muowledge nor devices; but there are fewer in the place to which we hasten. We are not willingly put out of our way, even at a game of nine-pins. While youth was, we had vast reversions in time future; we are reduced to a present pittance, and obliged to<q></q> eise in that article. We bleed away our moments now as hardly as our ducats. We ot bear to have our thin wardrobe eaten and fretted into by moths. We are willing to barter ood time with a friend, who gives us in exge his own. Herein is the distin between the genuine guest and the visitant. This latter takes yood time, and gives you his bad in exge. The guest is domestic to you as yood cat, or household bird ; the visitant is your fly, that flaps in at our window, and out again, leaving nothing but a sense of disturband victuals spoiled. The inferior funs of life begin to move heavily. We ot coct our food with interruptions. Our chief meal, to be nutritive, must be solitary. With difficulty [p 266] we eat before a guest; and never uood what the relish of public feasti. Meats have no sapor, nestion fair play, in a crowd. The ued ing in of a visitant stops the mae. There is a punctual geion who time their calls to the precise e of your dining-hour -- not to eat -- but to see you eat. Our knife and fork drop instinctively, and we feel that we have swallowed our latest morsel. ain show their genius, as we have said, in knog the moment you have just sat down to a book. They have a peculiar passionating sneer, with which they "hope that they do not interrupt your studies." Though they flutter off the moment, to carry their impertio the student that they call t<big></big>heir friend, the tone of the book is spoiled; we shut the leaves, and, with Dantes lovers, read no more that day. It were well if the effect of intrusion were simply co-exteh its presence; but it mars all the good hours afterwards. These scratches in appearance leave an orifice that closes not hastily. "It is a prostitution of the bravery of friendship," says worthy Bishop Taylor, "to spend it upon imperti people, who are, it may be, loads to their families, but ever ease my loads." This is the secret of their gaddings, their visits, and m calls. They too have homes, which are -- no homes.
百度搜索 伊利亚随笔续集 天涯 或 伊利亚随笔续集 天涯在线书库 即可找到本书最新章节.