My Unknown Chum: "Aguecheek". Fairbanks Charles Bullard

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СКАЧАТЬ cannot resist the inclination to give in this connection a passage from the personal experience of a friend in London, which, had I read it in any book or newspaper, I should have hesitated to believe. One evening, as he was passing along Pall Mall, he was addressed by a young woman, who, when she saw that he was going to pass on and take no notice of her, ran before him, and said in a tone of the most pathetic earnestness, —

      "Well, if you'll not go with me, for God's sake, sir, give me a trifle to buy bread!"

      Thus appealed to, and somewhat shaken by the voice and manner, he stopped under a gaslight, and looked at the speaker. Vice had not impressed its distinctive seal so strongly upon her as upon most of the unfortunate creatures one meets in London's streets; indeed, there was a shade of melancholy on her face which harmonized well with her voice and manner. So my friend resolved to have a few words more with her, and buttoning up his coat, to protect his watch and purse, he told her that he feared she wanted money to buy gin rather than bread. She assured him that it was not so, but that she wished to buy food for her little child, a girl of two or three years. Then he asked how she could lead such a life, if she had a child growing up, upon whom her example would have such an influence; and she said that she would gladly take up with an honest occupation, if she could find one, – indeed, she did try to earn enough for the daily wants of herself and child with her needle, but it was impossible, – and her only choice was between starvation and the street. At that time she said that she was learning the trade of a dressmaker, and she hoped that before long she should be able to keep herself above absolute necessity. Encouraged by a kind word from my friend, she went on in a simple, womanly manner, and told him of her whole career. It was the old story of plighted troth, betrayed affection, and flight from her village home, to escape the shame and reproach she would there be visited with. She arrived in London without money, without friends, without employment, – without any thing save that natural womanly self-respect which had received such a severe blow: – necessity stared her in the face, and she sank before it. My friend was impressed by the recital of her misfortunes, and thinking that she must be sincere, he took a sovereign from his purse and gave it to her. She looked from the gift to the giver, and thanked him again and again. He continued his walk, but had not gone more than three or four rods, when she came running after him, and reiterated her expressions of thankfulness with a trembling voice. He then walked on, and crossed over to the front of the Church of St. Martin, (that glorious soldier who with his sword divided his cloak with the beggar,) when she came after him yet again, and seizing hold of his hand, she looked up at him with streaming eyes, and said, holding the sovereign in her hand, —

      "God bless you, sir, again and again for your kindness to me! Pray pardon me, sir, for troubling you so much – but – but – perhaps you meant to give me a shilling, sir, – perhaps you don't know that you gave me a sovereign."

      How many models of propriety and respectability in every rank of life, – how many persons who have the technical language of religion constantly on their lips, – how many of those who, nurtured amid the influences of a good home, have never really known what temptation is, – how many such persons are there who might learn a startling lesson from this fallen woman, whom they seem to consider themselves religiously bound to despise and neglect! I have a great dread of these severely virtuous people, who are so superior to all human frailty that they cannot afford a kind word to those who have not the good fortune to be impeccable. But we all of us, I fear, need to be reminded of Burns's lines —

      "What's done we partly may compute,

      But know not what's resisted."

      If we thought of this, keeping our own weaknesses in view, which of us would not shrink from judging uncharitably, or casting the first stone at an erring fellow-creature? Which of us would dare to condemn the poor girl who preserved so much of the spirit of honesty in her degradation, and to commend the negative virtues which make up so many of what the world calls good lives?

      ANTWERP AND BRUSSELS

      It is a very pleasant thing to get one's passport viséd (even though a pretty good fee is demanded for it,) and to make preparations for leaving London, at almost any time; but it is particularly so when the weather has been doing its worst for a fortnight, and the atmosphere is so "thick and slab" that to compare it to pea-soup would be doing that excellent compound a great injustice. It is very pleasant to think of getting out from under that blanket of smoke and fog, and escaping to a land where the sun shines occasionally, and where the manners of the people make a perpetual sunshine which renders you independent of the weather. If there ever was a day to which that expressive old Saxon epithet nasty might be justly applied, it was the one on which I left the greasy pavements of London, and (after a contest with a cabman, which ended, as such things generally do, in a compromise) found myself on board one of the fast-sailing packets of the General Steam Navigation Company, at St. Catharine's Wharf, just below the esplanade of the Tower. The beautiful banks of the river below the city, the fine pile of buildings, and the rich foliage of the park at Greenwich, seemed to have laid aside their charms, and shrouded themselves in mourning for the death of sunshine. The steamer was larger than most of those which ply in the Channel; but the crowded cabins and diminutive state-rooms made me think with envy of the passengers from New York to Fall River that afternoon. And there was a want of attention to those details which would have improved the appearance of the boat greatly – which made me wish that her commander might have served his apprenticeship on Long Island Sound or on the Hudson.

      The company was composed of about the usual admixture of English and foreign beauty and manliness; and the English, French, Dutch, and German languages were confounded in such a manner as to bring to mind the doings of the committee on the construction of public works recorded in Genesis. Among the crowd of young Cockneys in jockeyish-looking caps, with travelling pouches strapped to their sides, there was a rather tall gentleman in a clerical suit, with his throat covered with the usual white bandages. His highly respectable look, and the eminently "evangelical" expression of the corners of his mouth, made me feel quite sure that I had found a character. He had three little boys with him; and as far as appearance went, he might have been Dickens's model for Dr. Blimber, (the principal of that celebrated academy where they had mental green peas and intellectual asparagus all the year round,) for he had the eye of a pedagogue "to threaten and command," and his fixed look was the one which my old schoolmaster's face wore when he turned up his wristbands, and, taking his ruler, said, "I am very sorry, Andrew; but you know that it is for your good." His conversation savoured so strongly of the dictionary, that, even if I had been blind, I should have said that the speaker had spent years in correcting the compositions of ingenuous youth. I shall not forget his look of wonder when he asked one of the engineers what was the matter with a dog that was yelping about the deck, and received for a reply that he tumbled off the quarter deck, and was strained in the garret. However, I enjoyed two or three hours' conversation with him very much – if it could be called conversation when he did all the talking.

      Towards evening, when we found ourselves in the open sea, the south-westerly swell rolled up finely from the Goodwin Sands, and produced a scene to remind a disinterested spectator of Punch's touching pictorial representation of the commencement of the continental tour of Messrs. Brown, Jones, and Robinson. I soon perceived that a conspicuous collection of white bowls, which adorned the main saloon, was not a mere matter of ornament. The amount of medicine for the prevention or cure of seasickness, which was taken by my fellow-voyagers from flat bottles covered with wicker-work, would have astonished the most ardent upholder of the old allopathic practice. But all the pitching and rolling of the steamer, and the varied occupations of the passengers, did not interfere with my repose. I slept as soundly in my narrow accommodations as if I had been within hearing of the rattling of the omnibuses of my native city.

      The next morning I was out in good season; and though I do not consider myself either "remote," "unfriended," "melancholy," or "slow," I found myself upon the "lazy Scheldt," with Antwerp's heaven-kissing spire climbing up the hazy perspective. The banks of the Scheldt are not very picturesque; indeed, a person of СКАЧАТЬ