Auld Lang Syne

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Various. Auld Lang Syne

CRADLE

THE SOUND OF BELLS

MIRROR

SHADOWS

SHADOWS

ORGAN-BOYS. A LEGEND OF LONDON. By Thomas Ingoldsby, Minor

THE ORGAN-BOY

STUMBLING-BLOCKS

WITCHCRAFT

CHIVALRY

CHILDHOOD’S CASTLES IN THE AIR

AUTUMN LEAVES

SILENCE (OF A DEAF PERSON.)

LIGHTS AND SHADOWS

ECHOES

EXPEDIENCY

REST. 1

REST

REST

GOSSIP

CHIPS

CHIPS

TRANSFORMATION

TRANSFORMATION. LITTLE SEAL-SKIN

A SURPRISE

THE GLOAMING

SKETCHES

SKETCHES. A CONVERSATION. KATEY

SKETCHES

THINGS GONE BY

THINGS GONE BY

THINGS GONE BY

NO; OR, THE LITTLE GOOSE-GIRL.A Tale Of The First Of May, 2099

EXILE

EXILE

THE LITTLE FAIRY. Tradition. From Béranger

REGRET

REALITIES

REALITIES; A DRAMA IN FIVE ACTS

BARK

SMOKE. THE IRONWORKERS

WHEREFORE HORRIBLE SPRING? From Béranger

VOICES

THE RETURN OF THE SWALLOW. THREE VOICES

SWALLOWS

THE RETURN OF THE SWALLOWS

AULD LANG SYNE; OR, THE LAW IN 1874

AULD LANG SYNE, WHERE HOME WAS

RIVER. AN AUTUMN IDYL

RIVER

FOOTPATH. BETWEEN THE PATHWAY AND RIVER

THE FOOTPATH

FOOTPATH

THE FOOTPATH

THE FOOTPATH

A TURN OF THE TIDE

THE TURN OF THE TIDE

THE TURN OF THE TIDE

COMPROMISE

FAREWELL

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Chivalry, ho yes, I have heerd of such a thing, but I don’t mind owning – not allus having a Tomson’s Dixonary aside o’ me – as I never rightly unnerstood the full meanin’ o’ the word until this very day, when the subjick was suggested and my opinion arxed, which, why should I deny, I had supposed it strictly limited to the man in Brass ninth o’ November Lord Mayor’s Show, as they says it is to be abolished in future times, and a great loss I’m sure to the rising generation, though apt to be mostly all mud and squeeging and more pains than profit to grownups, and likewise in Christmas pantomines and bur-lesks at theayters I have seen Alls of Chivalry most georgius to beeold with young ladies in uncountless troops coming out o’ shells and flowers and bells and stars as made the rime of infancy seem quite reesnable, though why slugs and snails only for the other sect is more than I can explain, and I don’t blush to own free and frank as I believed the time for it in reel life was past and gone these ages, though efforts made many a year back at the Eglintown Turnamount rung through the country, and well I remember seeing picters of queens o’ beauty and gentlemen done up in harmer and a hossback as looked when once they was hup it was more than they could do to save their lives to get down again without most competent assistance, and far from comfortable or easy I should say them mettal dresses was, as it stands to reesin, man being of a active character, was never intended by nature to go about with a shell outside of him like snails, which is both slow and useless, I should say, unless making your palings slimy and nibbling at your cabbage sprouts is useful acts, which much I doubt, though how I’ve got from Chivalry to snails is most surpriging, only the workings of the huming mind is so surpriging as no one never need be surpriged at nothing of the sort, – where was I, ho at harmer which, if you arx my opinion, I do consider such a ill-conwenience as there ought to be a deal to make up for it, and if you can’t have Chivalry without harmer I must say I think we’re better as we are, fur what with crinnerlin the world’s ardly big enough as it is, and if these coats of male was to come in, made of steel likewise, you couldn’t walk in London, excep in Portland Place, praps, and in quiet distrix like Islington and Upper Baker Street, while as for omnibuses, my belief is they’re only kep going as it is by the lightness and tightness of manly figgers and costoom, and if they took to harmer there’d be an end of twelve inside, much less of thirteen out, and pit seats would have to be enlarged, as also pews in church, and especially pulpits, likewise the Houses of Parliament and the Corts of Lor, and everythink would be deranged together fur no particklar good that I can see, but Mrs. Jones she ses it’s not the harmer, it’s not the outside man as needs a haltering in this year age of ourn, it’s not the costoom she ses, it’s the manners, she ses, which in ancient times was so much superior to any think we know on in the presint day, she ses, fur in them distant days there was galliant knights which wore a scarve or a ribbing of the lady as they preferred, and went about the world with long spears a defying all the other knights to say as that there lady of theirs wasn’t the most beautifulest of all living ladies, and fight they would with them spears, and sometimes got ard nox too, in spite of their harmer, but got up again a hossback mostly, and went off to other parts a doing the same thing, which, if that’s chivalry, why I arx you what on erth is the good of such goings on as that, but ho Mrs. Jones ses, that’s not all, she ses, and torx at me fur hours on end, she does, a trying to show me what a deal more obliginger and politer was the manners of them there knights to the manners of these year days, and how they was always a helping of the helpless, and a succouring the distressed, and how they thought it a honner and no trouble to put theirselves to all sorts of inconvenience to oblige one of our sect which, especially the unprotected female, was their joy and pride, never you mind how many bangboxes she might have, nor how pouring of rain, outside of the omnibuses of the period them knights would go immediate, and only count it a ordinary part of what they called their devour to the fare, which I will own I have met with quite contrairy condick from well drest pussons, as doubtless calls theirselves gentlemen, and after standing hours, I may say, in Regint Circus or corner of Tottenham Court Road, have been pushed from getting of my place inside by the very harms that in other times Mrs. Jones ses would have been lifted to my haid, but lor! I ses to her, though this may appen occasional, I ses, what can you expeck in London in the midst of millions of snobs as thinks only of theirselves, and has never learned any better, poor deers, which I’m sorry fur ’em, fur sure I am as the feelins is much more comfortabler of a reel and right down gentle man, which the word explains itself, don’t it, and we don’t want no knights in harmer while there’s men left, and proud I am to say I know a many such, and have met with kindness from a many more as I don’t know the names on, which if they’d had harmer on twice over couldn’t be more ready to lend their strength to the weak, and their elp to the elpless, and chivalry can’t mean no more than that, so let alone the harmer, we can’t have too much of it, I ses, and Mrs. Jones she ses so too, and we ses it not as wimming only but as humane beings as likes to see their feller creeturs a growing in good arts and appiness, not forgetting as wimming likewise has our duties, which is seldom done as well as one could wish, and so has no manner of rite to preech, which much I fear I’ve been a running on most unconscionable, and took up a deal too much of your time, but umbly arx your parding and won’t intrude no further.

The subject of your meeting of to-morrow is so suggestive that I would gladly join you all, and write an essay on it, if I had health and time. I have neither, and, perhaps, better so. My essay, I candidly avow, would tend to prove that no essay ought to be written on the subject. It has no reality. A sort of intuitive instinct led you to couple “Ghosts and Rest” together.

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I entertain all possible respect for the members of your Club; but I venture to say that any contribution on Rest which will not exhibit at the top a definition of Life will wander sadly between wild arbitrary intellectual display and commonplaces.

Life is no sinecure, no “recherche du bonheur” to be secured, as the promulgators of the theory had it, by guillotine, or, as their less energetic followers have it, by railway shares, selfishness, or contemplation. Life is, as Schiller said, “a battle and a march;” a battle for Good against Evil, for Justice against arbitrary privileges, for Liberty against Oppression, for associated Love against Individualism; a march onwards to Self, through collective Perfecting, to the progressive realization of an Ideal, which is only dawning to our mind and soul. Shall the battle be finally won during life-time? Shall it on Earth? are we believing in a Millennium? Don’t we feel that the spiral curve through which we ascend had its beginning elsewhere, and has its end, if any, beyond this terrestrial world of ours? Where is then a possible foundation for your essays and sketches?

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