Part 16 (1/2)
[Sidenote: _Horace Walpole_]
You perceive that I have been presented. The Queen took great notice of me; none of the rest said a syllable. You are let into the King's bedchamber just as he has put on his s.h.i.+rt; he dresses and talks good-humouredly to a few, glares at strangers, goes to ma.s.s, to dinner, and a-hunting. The good old Queen, who is like Lady Primrose in the face, is at her dressing-table, attended by two or three old ladies, who are languis.h.i.+ng to be in Abraham's bosom, as the only man's bosom to whom they can hope for admittance.
[Sidenote: _Horace Walpole_]
Old age is no such uncomfortable thing, if one gives oneself up to it with a good grace, and don't drag it about
To midnight dances and the public show.
If one stays quietly in one's own house in the country, and cares for nothing but oneself, scolds one's servants, condemns everything that is new, and recollects how charming a thousand things were formerly that were very disagreeable, one gets over the winters very well, and the summers get over themselves.
[Sidenote: _Horace Walpole_]
As I was writing this, my servants called me away to see a balloon; I suppose Blanchard's, that was to be let off from Chelsea this morning. I saw it from the common field before the window of my round tower. It appeared about a third of the size of the moon, or less, when setting, something above the tops of the trees on the level horizon. It was then descending; and, after rising and declining a little, it sunk slowly behind the trees, I should think about or beyond Sunbury, at five minutes after one. But you know I am a very inexact guesser at measures and distances, and may be mistaken in many miles; and you know how little I have attended to these _airgonauts_: only t'other night I diverted myself with a sort of meditation on future _airgonation_, supposing that it will not only be perfected, but will depose navigation. I did not finish it, because I am not skilled, like the gentleman that used to write political s.h.i.+p-news, in that style which I wanted to perfect my essay; but in the prelude I observed how ignorant the ancients were in supposing Icarus melted the wax of his wings by too near access to the sun, whereas he would have been frozen to death before he made the first post on that road. Next, I discovered an alliance between Bishop Wilkin's art of flying and his plan of universal language; the latter of which he no doubt calculated to prevent the want of an interpreter when he should arrive at the moon.
But I chiefly amused myself with ideas of the change that would be made in the world by the subst.i.tution of balloons to s.h.i.+ps. I supposed our seaports to become _deserted villages_; and Salisbury Plain, Newmarket Heath (another canva.s.s for alteration of ideas), and all downs (but _the_ Downs) arising into dockyards for aerial vessels. Such a field would be ample in furnis.h.i.+ng new speculations. But to come to my s.h.i.+p-news:
”The good balloon Daedalus, Captain Wingate, will fly in a few days for China; he will stop at the top of the Monument to take in pa.s.sengers.
”Arrived on Brand-sands, the Vulture, Captain Nabob; the Tortoisesnow, from Lapland; the Pet-en-l'air, from Versailles; the Dreadnought, from Mount Etna, Sir W. Hamilton, commander; the Tympany, Montgolfier; and the Mine-A-in-a-bandbox, from the Cape of Good Hope. Foundered in a hurricane, the Bird of Paradise, from Mount Ararat. The Bubble, Sheldon, took fire, and was burnt to her gallery; and the Phoenix is to be cut down to a second-rate.”
In those days Old Sarum will again be a town and have houses in it.
There will be fights in the air with wind-guns and bows and arrows; and there will be prodigious increase of land for tillage, especially in France, by breaking up all public roads as useless.
[Sidenote: _Horace Walpole_]
One of the Duke of Marlborough's generals, dining with the Lord Mayor, an Alderman who sat next to him said, ”Sir, yours must be a very laborious profession.” ”No,” replied the general, ”we fight about four hours in the morning, and two or three after dinner, and then we have all the rest of the day to ourselves.”
HIS MARRIAGE [Sidenote: _William Cobbett_]
When I first saw my wife she was _thirteen years old_.[5] I was within a month of _twenty-one_.[6] She was the daughter of a sergeant of artillery, and I was the sergeant-major of a regiment of foot, both stationed in forts near the city of St. John, in the province of New Brunswick. I sat in the same room with her for about an hour, in the company of others, and I made up my mind that she was the very girl for me. That I thought her beautiful is certain, for that, I had always said, should be an indispensable qualification; but I saw in her what I deemed marks of that sobriety of _conduct_ ... which has been by far the greatest blessing of my life. It was now dead of winter, and, of course, the snow several feet deep on the ground, and the weather piercing cold.
It was my habit, when I had done my morning's writing, to go out at break of day to take a walk on a hill at the foot of which our barracks lay. In about three mornings after I had first seen her, I had, by an invitation to breakfast with me, got up two young men to join me in my walk; and our road lay by the house of her father and mother. It was hardly light, but she was out on the snow scrubbing out a was.h.i.+ng-tub.
”That's the girl for me,” said I, when we had got out of hearing.
One of these young men came to England soon afterwards; and he, who keeps an inn in Yorks.h.i.+re, came over to Preston at the time of the election (in 1826) to verify whether I were the same man. When he found that I was he appeared surprised; but what was his surprise when I told him that those tall young men whom he saw around me were the _sons_ of that pretty little girl that he and I saw scrubbing out the was.h.i.+ng-tub on the snow in New Brunswick at day-break in the morning!
From the day that I first spoke to her I never had a thought of her ever being the wife of any other man, more than I had a thought of her being transformed into a chest of drawers; and I formed my resolution at once, to marry her as soon as we could get permission, and to get out of the army as soon as I could. So that this matter was at once settled as firmly as if written in the book of fate. At the end of about six months my regiment, and I along with it, were removed to Fredericton, a distance of _a hundred miles_ up the river of St. John; and, which was worse, the artillery was expected to go off to England a year or two before our regiment! The artillery went, and she along with them; and now it was that I acted a part becoming a real and sensible lover. I was aware that, when she got to that gay place Woolwich, the house of her father and mother, necessarily visited by numerous people, not the most select, might become unpleasant to her, and I did not like, besides, that she should continue to _work hard_. I had saved _a hundred and fifty_ guineas, the earnings of my early hours, in writing for the paymaster, the quartermaster, and others, in addition to the savings of my own pay. _I sent her all my money_ before she sailed, and wrote to her to beg of her, if she found her home uncomfortable, to hire a lodging with respectable people, and, at any rate, not to spare the money by any means, but to buy herself good clothes, and to live without hard work, until I arrived in England; and I, in order to induce her to lay out the money, told her that I should get plenty more before I came home.
As the malignity of the devil would have it, we were kept abroad _two years longer_ than our time, Mr. Pitt (England not being so tame then as she is now[7]) having knocked up a dust with Spain about Nootka Sound.
Oh, how I cursed Nootka Sound, and poor bawling Pitt too, I am afraid!
At the end of _four years_, however, home I came, landed at Portsmouth, and got my discharge from the army by the great kindness of poor Lord Edward FitzGerald, who was then the major of my regiment. I found my little girl _a servant of all work_ (and hard work it was) _at five pounds a year_, in the house of a Captain Brisac; and, without hardly saying a word about the matter, she put into my hands the whole of my hundred and fifty guineas unbroken!
LIFE AT BOTLEY [Sidenote: _William Cobbett_]
But, to do the things I did, you must love _home_ yourself. To rear up children, in this manner, you must _live with them_; you must make them, too, _feel_ by your conduct, that you _prefer_ this to any other mode of pa.s.sing your time. All men cannot lead this sort of life, but many may; and all much more than many do. My occupation, to be sure, was chiefly carried on _at home_; but I had always enough to do. I never spent an idle week, or even day, in my whole life. Yet I found time to talk with them, to walk, or ride, about _with them_; and, when forced to go from home, always took one or more with me. You must be good-tempered, too, with them; they must like _your_ company better than any other person's; they must not wish you away, not fear your coming back, not look upon your departure as a _holiday_....