Roundabout Papers.—No. II.
ON TWO CHILDREN IN BLACK.
Montaigne and Howel's Letters are my bedside books. If I wake at night,
I have one or other of them to prattle me to sleep again. They talk about
themselves for ever, and don't weary me. I like to hear them tell their
old stories over and over again. I read them in the dozy hours, and only
half remember them. I am informed that both of them tell coarse stories.
I don't heed them. It was the custom of their time, as it is of Highlanders
and Hottentots, to dispense with a part of dress which we all wear
in cities. But people can't afford to be shocked either at Cape Town or at
Inverness every time they meet an individual who wears his national airy
raiment. I never knew the Arabian Nights was an improper book until
I happened once to read it in a "family edition." Well, qui s'excuse. . . .
Who, pray, has accused me as yet? Here am I smothering dear good old
Mrs. Grundy's objections, before she has opened her mouth. I love, I say,
and scarce ever tire of hearing, the artless prattle of those two dear old
friends, the Perigourdin gentleman and the priggish little Clerk of King
Charles's Council. Their egotism in nowise disgusts me. I hope I shall
always like to hear men, in reason, talk about themselves. What subject
does a man know better? If I stamp on a friend's corn, his outcry is
genuine,—he confounds my clumsiness in the accents of truth. He is
speaking about himself, and expressing his emotion of grief or pain in a
manner perfectly authentic and veracious. I have a story of my own, of
a wrong done to me by somebody, as far back as the year 1838: whenever
I think of it, and have had a couple glasses of wine, I cannot help
telling it. The toe is stamped upon: the pain is just as keen as ever: I
cry out, and perhaps utter imprecatory language. I told the story only
last Wednesday at dinner:—
"Mr. Roundabout," says a lady sitting by me, "how comes it that in your books there is a certain class (it may be of men, or it may be of women, but that is not the question in point)—how comes it, dear sir, there is a certain class of persons whom you always attack in your writings, and savagely rush at, goad, poke, toss up in the air, kick, and trample on?"
I couldn't help myself. I knew I ought not to do it. I told her the whole story, between the entrées and the roast. The wound began to bleed again. The horrid pang was there, as keen and as fresh as ever. If I live half as long as Tithonus, that crack across my heart can never be cured. There are wrongs and griefs that can't be mended. It is all very well of you, my dear Mrs. G., to say that this spirit is unchristian, and that we ought to forgive and forget, and so forth. How can I forget at will? How forgive? I can forgive the occasional waiter, who broke my beautiful old decanter at that very dinner. I am not going to do him any injury. But all the powers on earth can't make that claretjug whole.
