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    for bis acuteness in business ; and even that is a sympathy . Not his mother ; a kind , loving soul , who knows what affection is , and who sets about her duty towards her son with an active assiduity fer above resignation . Not his third sister — the only person in the house of whom he respects ; a great girl of nineteen , who looks like a gipsy foundling intruded into the family , and who seems feared by them all . But his other sisters have the sickly family affection which they ought ; and with his maiden cousin he is evidently a spoiled pet—an object of admiration for a sort of daring repute as a roue * and swashbuckler , representative of

    modern chivalry and adumbration of the Lovelace region of life , moving in which womanhood , neglected by a jog-trot world , is at least appreciated by the attentions of Tarquinism . To those fearful regions , divided from respectable life by the great brazen wall of Gog and Magog , the " gent . " is privileged to travel ; and neglected womanhood humbly wonders why the spirit of Lovelace needs go abroad to find its victims ; wonders modestly and in unasking secresy , and contents itself with ministering to the decorous repose of the traveller when he comes back again through those terrible brazen gates of Gog and Magog .

    " We are settling down into our ordinary ways , and I am growing familiar with the routine of an English middle-class home . It is not exactly the same with the one in which I passed my first Sunday . Johnson is not so rich , or rather , in English phrase , which reserves the word rich for great wealth , he is not so " well off" as Mr . Dowding , but he is still in very comfortable circumstances ; he is a tea-dealer and grocer . He lives over his own shop , which Dowding would not do , scarcely to save

    himself from ruin . The family rise early for London , and the breakfast - table is generally surrounded hy half-past eight o ' clock . The scrupulous cleanliness is one of the first things to strike the new comer . I am not sure how far it is superficial or not ; I have suspicions ; but Edwardes , who confesses that English cleanliness used to reside chiefly in clothes and furniture , and face and hands , avers that now it is much better ; and I can testify to the vigorous freshness of the third daughter , Margaret , who comes into the room almost wet from the bath ; but then she is regarded

    with alarm for her daring and energy , especially by her faded eldest sister and cousin . The tablecloth , the plates , the cutlery , the silver , the " teathings , " though plain , are resplendent . The bread cuts as white and smooth as crema di burro , so that one can scarcely fancy it to be wheat Margaret laughed at me for thinking it so ; but Johnson , who is sore on the subject of deception in trade , declared that he did not believe in the stories about adulteration ; and Mrs . Johnson frowned at me in a motherly way not to continue the subject . Johnson unfolds the wet Times j invariably offers it to me ; when I decline , asks me to excuse him ; and plunges into it , occasionally reading scraps out loud . He always looks to

    see what Kossuth is doing , and then glances at the police news . The English are very fond of the police department in their paper , and always profess not tg be so ; except a few , who bravely brave the smiles of others in declaring that they are fond of it . The adventures of the dissolute , the reckless , and the wretched , furnish spice for the day of the respectable . Soon after breakfast Mr . Johnson disappears , and the young ladies go to their avocations . They " practise" in turns , which means that they study playing the piano-forte ; an instrument you find in almost every house . What this is done for I cannot well learn . They scarcely ever become very proficient ; very few can master their natural or conventional shyness

    enough to show even what they have learned to do before others ; and most of them , so far as I can find out , drop music after marriage , with other " illusions . " However , the Miss Johnsons " practise " after breakfast ; the younger girls then undergo some kind of teaching from their eldest sister ; " For now that Sophy has grown up / ' says Mrs . Johnson , " we can do without a governess , though Sophy herself , and indeed Jane , liad the best of governesses . ' * To what effect , I cannot discover ; they learned French , but they never will say a word of the language , and I am too courteous to put them to the test of reading it . They cannot " play , " which in England always means sounding " the piano , " as they call it .

    They cannot sing ; one must avoid historical allusions if one would spare them moments of painful awkwardness . I do not ace that they know much more than the women of your own country , though the time spent in * ' education" is vast . Why ? you will ask . Because the English , coerced l > y custom , think much more of " the name of the thing" than of attaining the thing itself . To master historical knowledge , or to grasp the spirit of art , us little enters the mind of an Englishman for his daughters as killing a man enters the son ' s mind when he " learns to fence . " The one thing they do seem to learn to some extent is precisely that over which they spend least time , and that is dancing . But when the time for a ball or a dance comes—the English make a distinction between the two—they do not

    dance . At least , ho they tell me , for I have not yet seen any dancing . I hey all tell me that " no one dances now , it is vulgar ; they just walk throug h it . " Throughout the morning needlework fills up the interstices ; ll » d it seems to me that Miss Selby , the cousin , never does anything else , except " dress for dinner . " Mrs . Johnson is occasionally absorbed in a consultation with the cook , who announces " the butcher , " " the baker . " A he tray" breaks the morning with bread and butter and water , Johnson unlocking a little cupboard and taking a glass of wine for himself , always olleri ng one to me , and one to " my dear . " I only observed her take it once , umi then her eyes looked red . Red eyes are not an unfrcqutmt ornument of the ladies , especially those wore " in metfsa del cqmin ; " but

    it is the rule for others " to take no notice , and it passes off . " " A walk" before dinner is thought necessary , because it is wholesome . Then dinner , rather substantial , with beer for the drink ; a show of wine after it , all the young ladies excepted ; a hasty dose on Johnson ' s part ; a brief interval of indolence , tea , and then needlework , till " the tray" again makes its appearance , and then bed . Such appears to me to be "life" among the middle-class in England . I can hardly find put at what part any real life conies in . William promises to show me life when he is well again ; Miss Johnson assures me that in the winter they are " very gay , " promises to take me to " ¦ parties . " I try to learn more from Mrs . Johnson , whose weak eyes will not let her read or work after candles are brought in , and she is glad enough of a " quiet chat . "

    From what she tells me , the Johnsons are quite a model family of their class : they have brought up their children , on the whole , very respectably —for William is beginning to grow steady , and Henry is all his parents could desire , if he could only show a little more interest in business . Sophy , it is true , is still upon their hands ; but she might have had some very good offers ; and at all events she will know , like Sarah ( the cousin ) how to make herself contented with her lot in life . And a married life is not one so much more happv , as single persons suppose ; that illusion soon

    goes off , and very proper that it should . It is all very well for girls to talk of love , and to enjoy the happiness of youth and hope while they may , but when a woman marries , and has a family , she must come down to the realities of life ; and Sophy has been spared those trials . Fanny ( this is a daughter I have not seen ) is very happily married to a worthy man , and they are still very fond of each other ! Jane is engaged , and both the others are young . Margaret gives her parents some uneasiness , on account of her impetuous disposition ; but with care she will no doubt do as well as the rest .

    I wish I could show you the countenance of grave resignation with which good Mrs . Johnson uttered that hopeful phrase , " As well as the rest . " Although desiring to hear rather than talk , I could not help asking whether that was all that the girls had to expect in life ? Mrs . Johnson first looked at me without answering , as if she did not understand the meaning of my question ; and then , after a pause , so long that I thought she had forgotten , she said that , although no doubt I had seen much of the world , I was still comparatively young . Her eyes glanced uneasily at her daughters , as if she feared that they mig ht hear my dangerous questions ; and indeed I feel sure that Sophy was listening . " You do not know , " said Mrs . Johnson , deprecatingly , " what it is to be a mother . " That unquestionable truth silenced me .

    Conversation flagged , and I invited the girls to music After a fit of shyness , I discovered that they were all willing enough , only no one would begin . Then no one " could play that "—the thing proposed , whatever it was ; so I was fain to put my own rough hands to the * work . I found some feeling and taste in most of them , lurking under a mass of incompetency , moral and educational . It turned out that they never intended to sing " professionally "—that is , completely . But gradually they warmed into praiseworthy attempts , and in Margaret I discovered a voice full and dark as the purple grape under the vine leaf .

    It seems to be thus all round—universal abnegation . I confess to you , my dear Giorgio , that I was wrong in describing the English as a moneymaking nation : I do not find them so , or they are so no longer . They are not avaricious , at least , not generally . They attend to business , because it is the only work before them ; as a rat begins to eat the wood of his cage tp make his waj ' . They are a most abstemious nation , except in eating and drinking ; and in that , after all , they are the reverse of luxurious . Cold damp mutton seems to be , as often as not , the one solace of the Englishman s clay , with half a pint of dark porter . They have energies and feelings , but they consent to waive them ; as for music , they have voice ? , which they consent to waive ; and as the nation has power , which it consents to waive . Life , with them , is one tedious waiver . The political philosophers of the day have constructed doctrines to show that tins state of existence is necessary . They aver that it is a success ; although , as

    they confess , " there is a skeleton in every house . " Avoidance—to avoid exposure of that skeleton , to avoid discredit , to avoid danger of every kind , to avoid all that is " disagreeable , "—is the leading object of the Englishman , especially in the middle class . And as a compromise , he attains that avoidance by waiving any positive form of existence . To the man , a youth of " life , " such as William Johnson has tasted , and a maturity of business —art , nature , life foregone . To the women , an alternative chance—seldom a choice—between the disappointed matronly " reality" of Mrs . Johnson , or the faded , faint unlived life of Miss Sclby . flut 1 suspect there is more than one skeleton in poor Johnson ' s house ; and more than one anxious to disclose itself .

    Last night I desired to return to Edwardcs ' s , but they were all anxious to keep me a few days longer ; and I yielded . But I went to see the Edwordcscs , for I began to ftd the want of their society . As I rosw to go , the third daughter , Margaret , started from her chair , and cried , " Oh ! may ; I go with you ? X ) o take me too . " " My dear / " exclaimed her mother , with every element of rcprobatioiu flung into the tone ; but Margaret pleaded with an impetuosity IJaat ovurwhclmcd ^ he mothjer ' s passive resistance ; and with au apology to me fenv her daughter ' s wildness , Mrs . Johnson tacitly consented . Margaret hurried awav in dread of u revocation ; and iusued from . tHor

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    AuetrsT 28 , 1852 . ] T H £ LEADER . 8 SS

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Aug. 28, 1852, page 833, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1949/page/21/