The Litchfield County Post

From Blackwoods Magazine.

REVERSES.

A TALE OF THE PAST SEASON.

The evening of Tuesday, the 15 of February, 1827, was one of the most delightful I ever remember to have spent. I was alone; my heart beat lightly; my pulse was quickened by the exercise of the morning; my blood flowed freely through my veins, as meeting with no checks or impediments to its current, & my spirits were elated by a multitude of happy remembrances and of brilliant hopes. My apartments looked delightfully comfortable, and what signified to me the inclemency of weather without. The rain was pattering upon the sky-light of the stair case; the sharp east wind was moaning angrily in the chimney ; but as my eye glanced from the cheerful blaze of the fire to the ample folds of my closet window curtains--as the hearth rug yielded to the pressure of my foot, while beating time to my own music, I sung in rather a louder tone than usual, my favourite air of 'Judy O' Flannigan,'-the whistling of the wind, and the pattering of the rain, only served to enhance in my estimation the comforts of my home, and inspire a livelier sense of my good fortune which had delivered me from any evening engagements. It may be questioned whether there are any hours in this life, of such unmixed enjoyment as the few, the very few, which a young bachelor is allowed to rescue from the pressing invitations of those dear friends who want another talking man at the dinner table, or from those many and willy-devised engagements which are woven round him by the hands of inevitable mothers, and preserved entirely to himself. Talk of the pleasure of repose. What repose can possibly be so sweet, as that which is enjoyed on a disengaged day during the laborious dissipations of a London life ?-Talk of the delights of solitude! Spirit of Zermermon! What a solitude is the imagination capable of conceiving so entirely delightful as that which a young unmarried man possesses in his quiet lodging. with his easy chair and his dressing gown, his beefsteak and his whiskey and water. his nap over an old poem or a new novel, and the intervening despatch of a world of little neglected matters, which, from time to time, occur to recollection between the break of the stanzas or the incidents of the story? Men-married men--- may expatiate, if they will, in good polished sentences, on the delights of their firesides and the gay cheerfulness of their family circles, but I do not hesitate to affirm, that we, in our state of single blessedness, possess not only all the sweets of our condition, but derive more solid advantages from matrimony itself, than any of these solemn eulogists of their own happiness can dare to pretend to derive from it. We have their dinners without the expense of them; we have their parties, without the fatigue of those interminable domestic discussions which are inseparable to perform the preliminary arrangements; we share the gay and joyous summer of their homes, when they are illuminated or company, and escape the interesting winter of darkness and economy; we are welcomed with all the plate, the glittering dinner service and the wine that is produced, on rare occasions, from recondite bins, and are most mercifully delivered from the infliction of the ordinary Wedgwood dishes, and the familiar port and sherry ; we are presented to the lady when her smiles never fail to radiate, and are made acquainted with the children when adorned with the smooth hair and shining faces, in their embroidered frocks and their gentlest behaviour; and having, participated in the sunny calm, the halcyon hours of the establishment, we depart before the unreal and transitory delusion is dispersed, and leave the husband to contemplate the less brilliant changes of the lady's countenance and temper, and to maintain a single combat against the boisterous perversities of her offspring.

It is certainly a most desirable thing, that all those persons who are blest with large houses and good cooks, should marry; for I do not understand how they can otherwise hope to achieve any very good balls, or even any tolerable dinners. If houses are to be opened with effect, there must be a mistress; and it is therefore absolutely incumbent on all public spirited persons, who have the real good of society at heart, to provide their establishment with so important a member. But marriage is an act of generous self-devotion for the benefit of the circle among whom we move,--a sacrifice of personal advantage made to attain the power of being gracefully hospitable to our friends; for it is established beyond a doubt, that we single persons enjoy the cream and quintessence of matrimonial felicity, and that wives and husbands possess a painful monopoly of its tumults and its distractions. its anxieties and its restraints.-- Then again with regard to Home I don't believe that any individual in existence knows what a really comfortable home is-the quiet -the consideration-the uninterruptibility- the easy chair drawn parallel with the fire place--the undisputed right of sitting with a foot on either hob-the lamp arranged to suit the level of his own eye--the careless luxury resulting from an exclusive appropriation of all the conveniences of an apartment--No man can be really chez soi---can be in the full enjoyment of all the accommodation afforded by his own house, and fire side, and furniture, and presume to exercise the right of a master over them, unless he be independent of the fetters of wedlock.

In the other case if he attempted to put himself at his ease, his conscience upbraids him of selfishness he can't draw a footstool near him, without feeling his sensibility disturbed by the apprehension of interfering with the comforts of another. No man, I repeat it, can be in the entire enjoyment of life, unless he be a young unmarried man, with an attached elderly valet to wait upon him. I am so thoroughly persuaded of this fact. that nothing on earth but my love for you, Maria, could persuade me to relinquish "my unhoughed, free condition." Nothing but my adoration of such a union of various beauties, and almost incongruous mental accomplishments, could have induced me to abandon my present state of luxurious independence; but under my peculiar and most favoured circumstances, I only pass from a lower to a higher degree of happiness. True, the idle, the downy, the somewhat ignominious gratifications of celibacy are sacrificed; but they are exchanged for the pure and dignified enjoyment of laboring to secure an angel's happiness, beneath the cheering influence of her exhilarating smiles.

Such were the reflections that hastily passed along my mind, on the afternoon of Thursday the 15th of February, 1827, as I sat with a volume of the Tor-Hill in my hand, in the back drawing room of my lodgings in Conduit street. It was about three o'clock in the afternoon. My dinner was just removed. It had left me with that gay complacency of disposition, and irrepressible propensity to elocution,, which result from a satisfied appetite, and an undisturbed digestion. My sense of contentment became more and more vigorous and confirmed, as I cast my eyes around my apartment, and contemplated my well filled bookcase, and the many articles of convenience with which I had contrived to accommodate my nest, till at length, the emotions of satisfaction became too strong to be restrained within the bonds of silence, and announced themselves in the following soliloquy :

" What capital coals these are !--There's nothing in the world so cheering--so enlivening-as a good, hot, blazing sea coal fire."- I broke a large lump into fragments with the poker, as I spoke.- " It's all mighty fine," I continued, " for us travellers to harangue the ignorant on the beauty of foreign cities, on their buildings without dust, and their skies without a cloud; but for my own part, I like to see a dark, thick, heavy atmosphere, hanging over a town. It forewarns the traveller of his approach to the habitations, the business and the comforts of his civilized fellow creatures. It gives an air of grandeur, and importance, and mystery to the scene: It conciliates our respect : We know that there must be some fire where there is so much smoke; while, in those bright, shining. smokeless cities, when even the sun shines upon them, one's eyes are put out by the glare of the white walls; and when it does not shine!--why, in the winter, there's no resources left for a man but hopeless and shivering resignation.with their wide, windy chimneys, and their damp, crackling, hissing, sputtering. tantalizing faggots." I confirmed my argument in favor of our metropolitan obscurity by another stroke of the poker against the largest fragment of the broken coal; and then, letting fall my weapon, and turning my back to the fire, I exclaimed, " Certainly- there's no kind of fortune like books :-nothing else can afford one an equal air of comfort and habitability. Such a resource too! -A man never feels alone in a library. . He lives surrounded by companions, who stand ever obedient to his call, coinciding with every caprice of temper and harmonizing with every turn and disposition of the mind. Yes, I love my books : they are my friends--my counsellors-companions. Yes, I have a real personal attachment, a very tender regard for my books."

I thrust my hands into the pockets of my dressing gown, which by the by, is far the handsomest of old brocade I have ever seen -a large running pattern of gold holly-hocks, with silver stalks and leaves, upon a rich deep Pompadour colored ground--and walking slowly backward and forwards in my room. I continued " There never can have been, so
happy a fellow as myself! What on earth have I to wish for more? Maria adores me--adore Maria. To be sure she's detained at Brighton; but I hear from her regularly every morning by the post, and we are to be united for life in a fortnight. Who was ever so blest in his love? Then again, John Frasier, my old schoolfellow? I don't believe there's any thing in the world he would not do for me. I'm sure there's no living thing that he loves so much as myself, except perhaps his old uncle Simon and his black mare. I had by this time returned to the fire-place and, reseated myself, began to apostrophize my magnificent black Newfoundland, who, having partaken of my dinner, was following the advice and example of Abernethy, and sleeping on the rug as it digested: 'And you, too, my old Neptune, an't you the best and handsomest dog in the universe!' Neptune finding himself addressed, awoke leisurely from his slumbers, and fixed his eyes on mine with an affirmative expression. 'Aye, to be sure you are--and a capital swimmer too?' Neptune raised his head from the rug, and beat the ground with his tail, first to the right hand and then to the left. 'And is he not a fine faithful fellow? And does he not love his master.' Neptune rubbed his head against my hand, and concluded the conversation by sinking into repose. That dog's a philosopher,' I said: 'He never says a word more than is necessary:--Then, again, not only blest in love and friendship, and my dog; but what luck it was to sell, and in these times too, that old lumbering house of my father's with its bleak, bare, hilly acres of chalk and stone, for eighty thousand pounds, and to have the money paid down, on the very day the bargain was concluded. By the bye, though, I had forgot: I may as well write to Messrs. Drax & Drayton about that money, and order them to pay it immediately into Coutts's---mighty honest people, and all that; but faith no solicitors should be trusted or tempted too far. It's a foolish way, at any time, to leave money in other people's hands-in any body's hands--and I'll write about it at once.' As I said, so I did. I wrote my commands to Messrs. Drax & Drayton, to pay my eighty thousand pounds into Coutts's; after desiring that my note might be forwarded to them the first thing in the morning, I took my candle, and accompanied by Neptune, who always keeps watch by night, by my chamber door, proceeded to bed, as the watchman was calling 'past 12 o'clock, beneath my window.' It is indisputably very beneficial for a man to retire to bed thus early; it secures him such pleasant dreams.--The visions that filled my imagination during sleep were not of a less animating nature than those of my waking lucubrations. I dreamt that it was day break on my wedding morning; that I was dressed in white satin and silver lace, to go and be married; that Maria, seated in a richly painted and gilt sedan chair, was conveyed to the church by the parson and clerk, who wore white favours in their wigs, and large nosegays in the breast of their canonicals; that hands were joined by Hymen in person, who shook his torch over our heads at the altar, & danced a Pas de deux with the bride down the middle of Regent street, as we returned in procession from St. James's; that I walked by the side of Neptune, who was in some unaccountable manner, identified with my friend John Frazer, and acted as father of the bride, and alarmed me in the midst of the ceremony by whispering in my ear, that he had forgotten to order any breakfast for the party; that on returning to my house, which appeared to be the pavilion at Brighton, I found a quantity of money bags, full of sovereigns, each marked 80,000l. ranged in rows on the marble table; that I was beginning to empty them at the feet of the bride with an appropriate compliment, when my dream was suddenly interrupted by the hasty entrance of my valet, who stood pale and trembling by my bed-side and informed me, that he had carried my note, as ordered to the office of Messrs. Drax & Drayton, the first thing in the morning, and had seen Mr. Drax; but that Mr. Drayton had decamped during the night, taking away with him my 80,000l. and 500l. of his partner's! I was horror-struck!---I was ruined!--What was to be done! The clock had not yet struck ten, but early as it was, I was determined to rise immediately, and see Mr. Drax myself upon the subject. In an instant--in less than an hour-I was dressed, and on my way to Lincoln's. Twenty minutes after, I stood in the presence of Mr. Drax. He appeared before me among the last of the pig-tails, with his powdered head, his smooth black silk stockings, and his polished shoes, the very same immutable Mr. Drax whom I had remembered as a quiz from the earliest days of my childhood. There he stood, in the same attitude, in the same dress, the same man of respectability, calculation and arrangement, that my father had always represented to me as the model of an attorney, but with a look of bewildering paleness, as placed suddenly in a situation where his respectability became doubtful, his calculations defeated, all his arrangements discomposed. 'Oh, Mr. Luttrell!' he exclaimed, 'I beg pardon, Mr. Lionel Luttrell, you've received intimation, then, of this most extraordinary occurrence;--what will the world think? what will they say?-the house of Drax & Drayton!-Such a long establishment, such a respectable house!-and one of the partners-Mr. Dayton, I mean-to abscond! Ay, Mr. Drax, but think of my eighty thousand pounds!' 'Sir, when they told me that Mr. Drayton was gone, I could not believe it to be a fact, it seemed a circumstance that no evidence could establish. Sir, he always opened that door, precisely at ten o'clock every day, Sundays excepted, for these last five-and twenty years; and I felt satisfied that when ten o'clock came, he would certainly arrive.' 'Very probable, sir; but your expectations were deceived: and what am I to do, to recover my money?' 'If you'll believe me, as a man of business Mr Lionel Luttrell, I could not persuade myself to give him up as lost, till the Lincoln's Inn clock had struck the quarter--But, Mr Drax, my eighty thousand pounds? -if they are not regained, I'm ruined forev-
Went away, sir, without leaving the slightest instruction where he might be met with, or where his letters might be sent after him! A most extraordinary proceeding!' 'You'll drive me mad, Mr Drax. Let me implore you to inform me what is to be done about my money!' 'Your money, Mr Lionel Luttrell-here has the same party taken off 500l. of the common property of the house ;-all the loose cash we had in the banker's hands-drew a draft for the whole amount, appropriated it to himself, and never took the ordinary measure of leaving me a memorandum of the transaction!-Why, sir, I might have drawn a bill this morning-many things less probable occur-and might have had my draft refused acceptance!' 'Oh, Mr. Drax, this torture will be the death of me.-Sir,-sir,--I'm ruin'd, and am going to be married!' 'A most unfortunate event. But Mr Luttrell, you gay young men at the west end, cannot possibly enter into the feelings of a man of business 'Your's! O sir, my eighty thousand pounds -my whole fortune!-Think what my condition is.' 'Here am I left entirely alone, unsupported in the very middle of term time, and with an accumulation of business on my hands, as it is quite perplexing to think of. Why, Mr. Lioneh, there's more to be got through, than any two ordinary men could accomplish: and how it is possible that I should work my way through it by myself. So inconsiderate of Mr Drayton!' Tortured beyond bearing: incapable of listening any longer to the lamentations of Mr. Drax, and perceiving that he was too much engrossed by the perplexities of his own affairs, to yield any attention to my distresses. I seized my hat, and hastily departed, to seek elsewhere for the advice and consolation I required. 'I'll go to John Fraser,' I exclaimed, he's always sensible, always right, always kind. He'll feel for me, at all events: he'll suggest what steps are best to be taken in this most painful emergency.' (To be continued.)