The Sun.
London, England, 1860-05-04 00:00:00

IIDERATURB.

Jottings from my Journal. By Eliza Cook.
Routledge.
Few of the readers of that popular periodical,
Eliza Cook's Journal, can hate forgotten than de-
lightful prose sketches bearing the name of the
gifted poetess, which occasionally enlivened its
pages. Written in an animated and brilliant style,
they were totally free from pretension, and though
containing plenty of sound sense mid sober counsel
for those who liked to appropriate it, they often hid
their graver meaning under playful jest or good-
natured satire. It is therefore with great satisfac-
tion that we see a selection of these sketches now
offered to the public in this cheap and convenient
form, and thus rendered accessible to a large circle
of readers. Ranging over a variety of subjects, they
are mostly on familiar topics, such as household
peculiarities, respectable prejudices, and pardon-
able eccentricities. We are instructed how
to " Make the Best of it" in the problems
and perplexities of life ; we aro reminded
of the lamentable results which sometimes fol-
low " Making a Day of it ;" we are shown the
miseries of " Best Rooms" and the comforts of
" Easy Chairs." We get a peep at " Flowers and
Trees," and "Our Cottage in the Country." We
have the iniquities of " People who de not like
Poetry" clearly manifested to us, we are introduced
to the attractive presence of our First and Second
Sweethearts. " Our First Sweetheart" is among
the most fresh and captivating papers in the
volume. The easy and truthful pictures it affords
are not drawn by an every-day pencil, as such
passages as the following will testify :
"One side of this Eden wilderness was bounded by a
rippling stream of lucid water, known as ' Miller's Brook,'
across which, close by the frogs' hermitage, were a couple
of rough planks, forming a bridge, leading on to a fresh,
grassy bank, where flags, and rushes, and forget-me-nots,
grew thick and odorous, under the shadow of poplars and
alders ; and beyond lay the Long Water Meadows,' with
Dives's farm in the distance. On the other side was an
ancient rambling sort of orchard, inclosed with old grey
paling, all covered with yellow lichens, and wifted with
wiry ivy, with an occasional azure periwinkle and red dog-
rose peeping out, reminding one of Infancy's blue eyes'and
ruddy cheeks playing with the wrinkled brow and silver
hair of a grandfather. Ay, that was an orchard where
bouncing cats-head apples shook their fists in the nigger-
faces of muscle-plums ; where greengages bursting with
sugary juice tumbled into the cool grass, and gipsy filberts
rattled down about our ears with very gentle assistance ;
then the mulberries and the `swans-egg' pears, and the
damsons and the cherries—oh, such cherries !—may-dukes
and bigaroons, and blackhearts and morellos, hanging like
coral and jasper wreaths from the drooping boughs, propped
up here and there by a broken rail. Ah, what mouths,
what pinafores, what hands, used to be seen in that old
orchard during the cherry season ; what morning gluttony,
what evening excesses, were carried on in defiance of all
paternal authority and serious prognostications of cholera
and sudden death. We taught the very sheep dog to mum-
ble the delicious fc.od, and old ' Watch' was often seen with
his grizzled muzzle deeply stained with the forbidden fruit
--to say nothing of the pony having real nonpareils handed
to him by dozens through a gap in the paling, and whole
capfuls of the finest Orleans,' or melting swans-eggs,'
being bestowed in munificent generosity on any ragged
wayfarer who looked with longing eyes on our depreda-
tions.
" This paradise of an orchard led through a gate into a
lrthgthy sort of a copse, the copse led into a cloverfield, and
' the cloverfield skirted a lane with luxuriant hedgerows,
where bees, butterflies, and grasshoppers made assignations
with the honeysuckle and sweet-woodruff; where the infant
stragglers half hid themselves among the wild briony and
tall foxgloves, and sat threadling `cheeses' from the mal-
low, or flinging ox-eyed daisies at each other by the hour
together. About a quarter of a mile down this lane, just at
the commencement of the vilfage, was The blacksmith's
rustic forge and thatched cottage, *here the ringing ham-
mer made cheerful music, and as happy a family dwelt as
one might meet in a day's march, and with whom we scraped
an enthusiastic and immediate acquaintance.
" Widow Hewitt was a dear, primitive old woman, with
only two faults in the world. The first, and by ar the
most terrible in our estimation, was an inveterate prejudice
in favour of camomile tea, and the strength of her prejudice
was only equalled by that of the decoction. Her preserves
were superb, and her apple-pies—her real ' apple-pies'—
were something to talk about, putting to the blush the
make-believe fashion of trumpery tarts, where an ounce of
fruit is spread over any quantity or quality of crust, with
prison bars laid across, as if to protect the beggarly thing
from invasion ; her cake was equal to her pie, and berhome-
mad e wines were equal to her cake. Somehow,we soon got on
such terms with the old lady that we had the run of a certain
corner cupbeard, and revelled in raspberry-jam, greengage
marmalade, and sparkling gooseberry ; but, alas I there was
a bubbly. jock' to our gastric felicity in the form of that
horrid camomile tea, which the dear old lady insisted on
administering, in the full dose of half a pint, to every luck •
less being within reach of her prescription. No matter
what was the ailment—fever, sprained ankle, or neuralgia,
—it could only be cured by camomile tea. Camomile tea
was her ' life-preserver ;' it was necessary to existence, in
her opinion, as the air we breath ; and, as old Gimble the
wheelwright said, ' It wur a merciful providence she didn't
take to quack pison-stuff on the same scale.' She bribed The
Sunday-school children into its bitterness once a month;
she persuaded the landlord of 'The Chequers' that it would
remove his grog-blossoms; she made the dressmaker be-
lieve that it would clear her complexion;' and it was as-
serted that she had attempted to dose thd "old foxhound,
Music, when he came to them a puppy with the distemper.
Certain it is that old Music always displayed active signs of
disapprobation whenever he caught sight of the brown
pitcher that held the elixir, and it is also certain that he
scratched up the camomile flowers on the common with a
force that savoured more of revenge than mischief. Dame
Hewitt's other fault was in thinking that her son, who
managed the business, was the only son in the world worthy
of a mother. Certainly, Ben was a fine-hearted, hand-
some young raan ; he was seldom seen at The Chequers,'
and played the fiddle at church every Sunday; he knew
a good deal of Shakspere and Goldsmith ; always had a
flower in his jacket button-hole; managed to shoe the most
vicious horses without difficulty, and had a knack of quiet-
ing obstreperous babies in a magical manner. Ben's eyes
and whispers were enough to disturb the peace of all the
Phillises and Daphnes in the neighbourhood ; and when
his mother declared that the baronet's son was not to be
compared to him, there is little doubt that her opinion was
fully concurred in by more young ladies than one."
We are assured in these pages that even luggage
has its philosophy, a fact that will scarcely be dis-
puted by any one who reads and recognises the
versimilitude of the following sketch :
" That there is philosophy in luggage, we are convinced ;
we have known people who travelled with unnumbered boxes
and bags, and yet were without essential comforts, and we
have held pleasant company with these who had extremely
compact arrangements, yet needed nothing. Some persons
are as diffuse and unmeaning in their packing as in their
conversation. We have seen a bit of top-string put round a
chest of two hundredweight ; we have seen an address left
on a valise indicating that it was to be sent to Bristol, when
the owner fully intended it at the present time to go to Cam-
bridge ; we have seen hampers burst at the most awkward
moment, and parcels come undone' when it was impossible
to do them up again, whereat the lords of creation' generally
got in a way,' and make speeches as sharp as their razors.
Somehow, men seldom put up heroically with trifling an-
noyances. They can look a bankruptcy in the face with
the courage of a lion, and often bear the death of a wife,
who brought them ten thousand pounds, with Spartan re-
signation; but give them an ill-cooked dinner, ask them to
wait for you five minutes, or let a parcel, as wo have stated
above, run restive in their hands, and one might think a
linchpin was coming out of the world's axle by the fuss and
fume they make. Poor things I they are but human, after
all. Certainly, it is very provoking to find ourselves at a
railway station, as the reputed proprietors of divers ad-
juncts, nobody knowing exactly what or where—trunks
uncorded, bags unfastened, brown paper bundles in most
equivocal security, cloaks here, rugs there, and umbrellas
out yonder. One gets into a heated bewilderment, that
leaves us in our corner seat, with our ' back to the horses,'
in a state something between scarlet fever and nettle-rash.
" Be assured that philosophy and luggage have an affi-
nity that yields great personal comfort, an we advise all
who pack up' for general travelling excursions, to do with
as few packages as they can, and keep those packages as
concentrated as possible. Strap all loose wrappers together,
and tie up all parasols, sticks, and the like, closely and
firmly, yet so arranged that they are easily available in
case of requisition, and put plain addresses on every
package.

" Eschew all the impeding animalcula of locomotion—
such as indescribable baskets filled with overything that is
never wanted, bunches of flowers that are dead long before
they reach the hands they were intended for ; ibags of bis-
cuits which you never eat, or if you do, only remind you of
the possibility of getting bread from sawdust. Carry no
more books and papers than you can put in your pocket,
and above all, as the highest practical point of the philo-
sophy of luggage,' renounce band-boxes."

Who has not experienced the uncomfortable con-
dition so pathetically described in the following
passage, when visiting a household which are slaves

to their " Best roon':—
" Very trying things are these best rooms,' especially
where the lady proprietor is excessively particular,' and
walks round with her laced cambric, which she insinuates
into every crevice, to ascertain if the unhappy housemaid
has done her duty efficiently. Heaven preserve us from a
hostess who is devoted to a best room !'
"The children, if there happened to be such humanising
things in the establishment, look upon the walls with a sort
of religious awe. They never play' in the best room ;'
they never dream of clutching at the splendid bell-rope ;
they never have the most remote idea of making Lord
Mayor's coaches of the embroidered footstools ; they never
think of playing at ' 80-peep' behind the richly-fringed
damask drapery ; they never dare to speculate as to whether,
with a stout pin, they could pick out the eyes of the queer
little man on the Indian card-box; mirth and mischief are
thoroughly mesmerised, and the little darlings sit or stand
as though their life-tide had been suddenly manufactured
into the best starch.'

"And let ns confess, that we experience no inconsider-
able sense of misery ourselves in such a situation. It may
be that a trace of the gipsy blood is in our veins, or that
some natural disqualification for ' gentility,' equally
ignoble, marks us, but we certainly are never quite
comfortable in a room that is only occupied on 'grand
occasions.'

" We remember being once put into a ' best room,' in
order that our devotions te Apollo might be undisturbed.
It was, doubtless, a considerate and gracious condescension
on the part of our entertainers; but never shalkwe forget
the shudder that cause over us as the door closed, and we
stood alone amid all the 'pumps and vanities' of a domestic
Iceland. The room was large enough for all needed com-
fort and agreeable ' elbow space,' but perfectly apoplectic
with upholstered repletion. Every article of furniture wa s
mathematically placed; every chair sad ottoman was as
prim and proper as a row of young ladies during the first
hour of an evening party. The chandeliers and candelabras
were done up in sombre-looking garments, and the curtains
and sweeping draperies assumed the same sullen frigidity.
Not a tint of the carpet could be seen, scarce a ray of light
was admitted through the closely-blinded windows, at d we
stood transfixed between a gorgeous console' in book-mus-
lin, and a grand divan' in a brown Holland Taglioni,'
with our inspiration oozing out rapidly."
Music and musical people occupy a prominent part
of the sketches—the " Musical Corner " of the
-journal having been one of its most attractive fea-
tures. The folly of parents insisting on their

daughters possessing the "Universal Accomplish
ment," and expending large annual sums t
acquire an art for which the requisite taste and
talent eati never be instilled by professors, is for-
cibly exhibited. let *As hope the obvious good sense
of these remarks will con-Vinae some heads of families
of their mistake on this point. Arts are not like
hafidirafts that require nothing but practice and
application to secure proficiency ; yet hay often
do we see girls who confess they dislike ramie,
chained to the piano for three or four hours a-day's,
at a great cost of money to the parent, pa-
tience to the teacher, and discomfort and vexa-
tion to the young pupil. In others of the sketches
we find some good advice to those who sing and
play with tolerable skill, and if some of these hint*
are taken we shall soon have a considerable im-
provement in our amateur musical parties. Young
ladies are shown that words and meanings may be
perfectly distinct in sentimental ballads, and are re-
commended to select songs whose words will be
worthy of a clear and distinct enunciation—a rare
quality in singers. An excellent paper on danee
music should be read by all who wish to enable
their friends to enjoy a quadrille or a polka even at
some sacrifice of musical dignity. " Giving up
Music" is another of the harmonious subjects, and
very sensible advice it contains, certainly
not unneeded, since most of us can recall the names
of ladies who were accomplished musicians in their
single days, but who, when they took the cares of
a household upon them, forthwith " gave up,
music." One of the most attractive of these musi-
cal articles is that on " Old Tunes," from which we
quote the conclusion :

"We believe we could dance with the gout to ' St.
Patrick's Day,' and sing with the toothache if ' See the
Rosy Morn appearing' were chorused around us. As for
' Roy's Wife,' despite of her celebrity for jilting, we are
ever ready to be off with her on her slightest whisper ; and
' We're a' Noddin ' has kept us out of our bed many an
extra ten minutes, when some little' or big ' warbler'
has volunteered it just as the chamber candles were lighted.
"When have we tripped so joyously through the fes-
tive maze,' as in the free-and-easy time of Christmas
jollity,' after supper, when young and old, grave and gay,
are enlisted, nolens volens,' into hands across, down the
middle. and up again,' while Money in both Pockets,'
The Young May Moon,' or Rory O'More,' was inspir-
ing our ecstatic antics ; and then, shall we reveal our foolish
emotions of plaintive sympathy awakened by the ' Robin's
Petition,' or Savourneen Dheelish,' when a dreamy dim-
ness has gathered before our eyes, until the very blaze of
the cheerful fire has lost its distinctive form, and we have
seen nothing but the poor, starving little bird shivering in
the snow-storm, and the exiled wanderer in his mournful
solitude. Oh, we do love these old tunes and ditties, and
hope we ever shall love them ! And how many more are
there in this hard-grinding world, who snatch glimpses of
happiness from these antiquated sources. How the children
of the poor will cluster round some ragged servitor of Apollo
who scrapes away at some of these vulgar tunes,' and how
they involuntarily assume attitudes and steps of most ani-
mated, though grotesque arrangement. These steps al-
ways appear to us the identical ones mentioned so often by
philosophers, as being between the sublime and the ridicu-
lous, yet we scarcely dare to smile at the approach of Igno-
rance to the altar of Spiritual Beauty, uncouth as the ad-
vance may be. Let them shuffle and twist, and slide and
jump, in their own uncivilised way ; they have ' music in
their souls,' and it is an opportunity for their getting nigher
to God., through the medium of an' old tune.
" And what would the mother do without these old
tunes,' to hush her infant to teat, or arouse it into chuck-
ling joy Who ever heard a mother or nurse attempt to
soothe her young one with a scientific bravura, or a ballad
from the latest opera ? 'Why, the thing is not to be ima-
gined No, it is the old tunes '—the quaint and ancient
morsels of common melody—that are naturally uppermost
on the nursery tongue, and pass from generation to genera-
tion, with undiminished charms.
" There are few hearts but what have a grey stone or
two erected in them to the memory of some departed loved
ones. These consecrated tablets are mercifulty shadowed
by time into a soft oblivion, and we are spared the pang of
continually tracing their mournful inscription, until a ray
of light is thrown by some thought-star, and we con over
the sad words with renewed devotion. All poets and philo,e
sophers have discovered how slight a touch will bring back
our warmest recollections, and, perhaps, among the
strongest links which hold us to the dead, there is none
stronger than the old tune' which they liked to listen to,
or used to sing. 'What a gush of gentle sorrow will spring
in the father's breast, when by chance he hears the self-
same air that his fair girl learnt, years ago, to please
him. The child is missing in his home—her place is
vacant—she is gone from his warm hearth-stone to the
cold sepulchre ; but the ' old tune' lives on, and
has the power to thrust the world and its allurements from
his mind—to take him back to scenes of bygone happiness,
and lead him onward to the future in hope and faith. The
son never forgets the melody that his mother used to sing
to him in his early years. Simply and imperfectly as it
might be rendered by her, yet he was gladdened and ex-
cited by it, and he will recognise it when his own hair is
white, and his limbs tottering, with a tender respect, as the
old tune' which he loved when he was a boy. Oh, old
tunes' are blessed things 1 and, come where and when they
may, the one who is akin to heaven as well as earth, will
bow to their influence. Never let us be ashamed of finding
ourselves laid hold of by Tom Bowling' or Black-eyed
Susan.' Let us not deem it a weakness to detect our feet in
an incipient vertigo, at the bidding of ' Mrs. M'Leod' or
Paddy Carey ;' for we have little reverence for the man or
woman who is never to be warped from the frigid proprieties
of artificial existence, and betray the music in their souls,'
at the vulgar interference of old tunes.' "

Here is a homely portrait that looks as if it had
stepped out of the old-fashioned frame over some
household chimneypiece :--
"'The old lady of the old school' generally has an espe-
cial and peculiar arrangement of working tools, in the
shape of scissors, pins, needles, tapes, threads, and so
forth, with which none dare to interfere, under penalty of
her severe displeasure and very active resistance. She
will graciously lend or giv c from her stores, but the articles
must be asked for, not taken ; end a vulgar snatch at a
piece of bobbin, or an unceremonious appropriation of her
best scissors, may be productive of considerable mental
excitement. She is ever obstinately bent on threading her
needle herself, particularly by candlelight; and when she
by chance does allow another to perform the task forler, it
is only on the strength of her firm conviction, that the
eyes of the needles in our days are made very differently
from what they used to be.'
"She is a little given to etiquette, and meets strangers
with a visible evidence of having studied the 'Minuet de Is
Cour ;' but if you can once get her to dilate on the acting
of Mrs. Siddons, or get her back to the palmy time of
Vauxhall, her formality dissolves wonderfully, under the
recital of a crush she endured when she went to see Isa-
bella,' when she never enjoyed herself so much in her
life, far she cried the whole time,' and the delight she felt
in listening to Mrs. Bland's ditties, while it poured with
rain one summer night.
" She cannot be induced to admire railways, and strenu-
ously declares that people never know when to stop with
their inventions and science. She thinks it very strange
that the world cannot go fast enough with respectable stage-
coaches and eight 'horse waggons, as it used to do ; and on
her son's proposing to take her to Brighton by express
train,' she indignantly and seriously begs him not to talk
nonsense.'
" The old lady of the old school' frequently appears as
the patroness of a venerable spaniel, or antiquated, ringed
tabby, whom she protects from the violent clutches of her
youngest grandson, with uniform benevolence. The domes-
tics may occasionally neglect herself, and she pardons the
delinquents unconcernedly; but if they venture to forget
Fop's dinner, or Tibby's milk, a very decided reminder is
volunteered. On inquiry, the dog or cat will often be found
to have been the favourite, or eift, of her late husband, and
the old lady's love for the dumb thing is a tender and natural
compliment to the memory of the departed.
"In literature, she prefers Shakspeare and Goldsmith.
She honestly declares she cannot understand much of the
poetry put forth in our time, but that she can perfectly
comprehend Othello' and the Deserted Village;' but
then,' as she observes, those writers were simple.' She
also has a predilection for Whittington and his Cat' and
' Little Red Riding Hood.' All the juvenile possessions in
this department are the gifts of grandmamma, and it is
shrewdly suspected she sometimes has a peep into them en-
tirely on her own account, without even the excuse of little
Tom's wanting to know what that pretty yellow book is
all about. _ _

"As regards dancing, she cannot bring herself to un-
derstand the ' Cellarius' ' or appn;ve of the Gallopade.
The Schottische and Mazurka aro invidiously compared
with the minuets and gavottes of her young days ; while
the Polka and Valse a deux Temps' are denounced as
highly indecorous.' She has no nodal; of women swing-
ing and twirling round, like so many bra:6,ln teetotums.
E yen the ' Lancers' and First Set' are not in full favour.
but she evinces undying affection and admiration for a coun-
try dance, and when the opening bars of ' The Triumph' or
The Recovery' are heard, and preparations for ' down the
middle and up again' are making, then do we see the old
lady nodding time with her head, and betraying certain
fidgetting symptoms with her feet ; and if it should happen
to be Christmas-eve, do nit be astonished if she suffer some
favourite and audacious young friend to pull her into the
rank, where we find her jigging away in a fashion that causes
one to doubt whether her frequent complaints of rheunn-
tism are justified. At cards she is very serious, and sits
down to a rubber with imperturbable gravity and precision.
Even the darling grandson stands a fair chance of being
snubbed' if be dare to address her while the odd trick'
_ _

is pending ; and, though she be of a most amiable and for-
giving disposition, she has been known to bear violent
animosity for three months towards the most amiable of old
gentlemen, because he trumped her best card."

The sketch entitled " Come out of That" furnishes
a pleasant sample of the author's ready skill in
combining jest and earnest, humour and pathos. It
commences with a tragi-comic narrative of her
troubles with a juvenile nephew of whom she
had rashly taken charge. Having reluctantly
consented to take him to the Crystal Palace,
she arrayed him in velvet tunic and kid
gloves, but imprudently leaving him alone for
a few minutes she discovered him deep in a cucum-
ber frame, rake in hand : " Come out of that,"
shrieked his justly incensed relative and mentor,
but in vain. Before she could reach him he was
prostrate in the dirtiest corner, to the utter destruc-
tion of Genoa robe and light kid. This domestic
melodrama gives rise to a few uflections on analo-
gous cases among older, if not wiser, folks than the
unlucky little culprit of the story, which are written
in the author's most vigorous and graphic style. If
we turn to lighter subjects, few can help smiling
over the quiet fun of " Stirring the Fire," in which
we are assured that each mortal considers the right
to perform this simple domestic act as his own ex-
clusive prerogative. After its humorous pictures
of the family rivalry existing on the matter, we
come to the following animated and amusing com-
parisons

" Our comparison' is rather large, and we occasionally
rove and range into the strangest of fancies under its va-
garies. We have often thought the sea coal pile very like
the calorical of political government, originally intended
to promote healthy warmth, but which, under bad ma-
nagement, often presents very little heat, and a great deal
of smoke, the carboniferous grossness of which, at last,
chokes up the chimney of the people, until the chimney
becomes ou fire, and a revolutionary reform notion, in some
she or other, gives it a temporary clear out and most