see, nurse, if I don’t it will discourage me.”
So, perhaps the world is wise in promising us the circus. We believe her at first. But after a while, I fear, we grow discouraged.
ON THE EXCEPTIONAL MERIT ATTACHING TO THE THINGS WE MEANT TO DO
I can remember – but then I can remember a long time ago. You, gentle Reader, just entering upon the prime of life, that age by thoughtless youth called middle, I cannot, of course, expect to follow me – when there was in great demand a certain periodical ycleped The Amateur. Its aim was noble. It sought to teach the beautiful lesson of independence, to inculcate the fine doctrine of self-help. One chapter explained to a man how he might make flower-pots out of Australian meat cans; another how he might turn butter-tubs into music-stools; a third how he might utilize old bonnet boxes for Venetian blinds: that was the principle of the whole scheme, you made everything from something not intended for it, and as ill-suited to the purpose as possible.
Two pages, I distinctly recollect, were devoted to the encouragement of the manufacture of umbrella stands out of old gaspiping. Anything less adapted to the receipt of hats and umbrellas than gas-piping I cannot myself conceive: had there been, I feel sure the author would have thought of it, and would have recommended it.
Picture-frames you fashioned out of ginger-beer corks. You saved your ginger-beer corks, you found a picture – and the thing was complete. How much ginger-beer it would be necessary to drink, preparatory to the making of each frame; and the effect of it upon the frame-maker’s physical, mental and moral well-being, did not concern The Amateur. I calculate that for a fair-sized picture sixteen dozen bottles might suffice. Whether, after sixteen dozen of ginger-beer, a man would take any interest in framing a picture – whether he would retain any pride in the picture itself, is doubtful. But this, of course, was not the point.
One young gentleman of my acquaintance – the son of the gardener of my sister, as friend Ollendorff would have described him – did succeed in getting through sufficient ginger-beer to frame his grandfather, but the result was not encouraging. Indeed, the gardener’s wife herself was but ill satisfied.
“What’s all them corks round father?” was her first question.
“Can’t you see,” was the somewhat indignant reply, “that’s the frame.”
“Oh! but why corks?”
“Well, the book said corks.”
Still the old lady remained unimpressed.
“Somehow it don’t look like father now,” she sighed.
Her eldest born grew irritable: none of us appreciate criticism!
“What does it look like, then?” he growled.
“Well, I dunno. Seems to me to look like nothing but corks.”
The old lady’s view was correct. Certain schools of art possibly lend themselves to this method of framing. I myself have seen a funeral card improved by it; but, generally speaking, the consequence was a predominance of frame at the expense of the thing framed. The more honest and tasteful of the framemakers would admit as much themselves.
“Yes, it is ugly when you look at it,” said one to me, as we stood surveying it from the centre of the room. “But what one feels about it is that one has done it oneself.”
Which reflection, I have noticed, reconciles us to many other things beside cork frames.
Another young gentleman friend of mine – for I am bound to admit it was youth that profited most by the advice and counsel of The Amateur: I suppose as one grows older one grows less daring, less industrious – made a rocking-chair, according to the instructions of this book, out of a couple of beer barrels. From every practical point of view it was a bad rocking-chair. It rocked too much, and it rocked in too many directions at one and the same time. I take it, a man sitting on a rocking-chair does not want to be continually rocking. There comes a time when he says to himself – “Now I have rocked sufficiently for the present; now I will sit still for a while, lest a worse thing befall me.” But this was one of those headstrong rocking-chairs that are a danger to humanity, and a nuisance to themselves. Its notion was that it was made to rock, and that when it was not rocking, it was wasting its time. Once started nothing could stop it – nothing ever did stop it, until it found itself topsy turvy on its own occupant. That was the only thing that ever sobered it.
I had called, and had been shown into the empty drawing-room. The rocking-chair nodded invitingly at me. I never guessed it was an amateur rocking-chair. I was young in those days, with faith in human nature, and I imagined that, whatever else a man might attempt without knowledge or experience, no one would be fool enough to experiment upon a rocking-chair.
I threw myself into it lightly and carelessly. I immediately noticed the ceiling. I made an instinctive movement forward. The window and a momentary glimpse of the wooded hills beyond shot upwards and disappeared. The carpet flashed across my eyes, and I caught sight of my own boots vanishing beneath me at the rate of about two hundred miles an hour. I made a convulsive effort to recover them. I suppose I over-did it. I saw the whole of the room at once, the four walls, the ceiling, and the floor at the same moment. It was a sort of vision. I saw the cottage piano upside down, and I again saw my own boots flash past me, this time over my head, soles uppermost. Never before had I been in a position where my own boots had seemed so all-pervading. The next moment I lost my boots, and stopped the carpet with my head just as it was rushing past me. At the same instant something hit me violently in the small of the back. Reason, when recovered, suggested that my assailant must be the rocking-chair.
Investigation proved the surmise correct. Fortunately I was still alone, and in consequence was able, a few minutes later, to meet my hostess with calm and dignity. I said nothing about the rocking-chair. As a matter of fact, I was hoping to have the pleasure, before I went, of seeing some other guest arrive and sample it: I had purposely replaced it in the most prominent and convenient position. But though I felt capable of schooling myself to silence, I found myself unable to agree with my hostess when she called for my admiration of the thing. My recent experiences had too deeply embittered me.
“Willie made it himself,” explained the fond mother. “Don’t you think it was very clever of him?”
“Oh yes, it was clever,” I replied, “I am willing to admit that.”
“He made it out of some old beer barrels,” she continued; she seemed proud of it.
My resentment, though I tried to keep it under control, was mounting higher.
“Oh! did he?” I said; “I should have thought he might have found something better to do with them.”
“What?” she asked.
“Oh! well, many things,” I retorted. “He might have filled them again with beer.”
My hostess looked at me astonished. I felt some reason for my tone was expected.
“You see,” I explained, “it is not a well-made chair. These rockers are too short, and they are too curved, and one of them, if you notice, is higher than the other and of a smaller radius; the back is at too obtuse an angle. When it is occupied the centre of gravity becomes – ”
My hostess interrupted me.
“You have been sitting on it,” she said.
“Not for long,” I assured her.
Her
