200

FORSAKING THE WORLD.

flock, and aye some visible, peepin ever through the winter

snaws!

North. I fear, James, that a sort of silly superficial religion is diffusing itself very widely over Edinburgh.

Shepherd. Especially, which is a pity, over the young leddies, who are afraid to wear feathers on their heads, or pearlins on their bosoms-sae great is the sin o' adornin the flesh.

North. The self-dubbed evangelicals are not very consistent on that score, James-for saw ye ever one of the set to whom nature had given good ankles that did not wear rather shortish petticoat; or one gummy, that did not carefully conceal her clumsiness alike from eye of saint and sinner?

Shepherd. Puir things! natur will work within them-and even them that forsakes the warld, as they ca't, hae a gude stamach for some of the grossest o' its enjoyments, sic as eatin and drinkin, and lyin on sofas, or in bed a' day, in a sort o' sensual doze, which they pretend to think spiritual-forsakin the warld, indeed!

North. I never yet knew one instance of a truly pretty girl forsaking the world, except, perhaps, that her hair might have time to grow, after having been shaven in a fever—

or

Shepherd. Or a sudden change of fashion, when she couldna afford to buy new things, and therefore pretended to be unusually religious for a season-wearyin a' the time for the sicht o' some male cretur in her suburban retirement, were it only for the face o' the young baker wha brings the baps in the mornin wi' a hairy cap on-or o' some swarth Italian callant wi' a board o' images.

Tickler. Yes-religious ladies never recollect that eating for the sake of eating, and not for mere nourishment, is the grossest of all sensualities. It never occurs to them that in greedily and gluttonously cramming in fat things down their gratified gullets, they are at each mouthful virtually breaking all the ten commandments.

North. All washed over with ale and porter.

Shepherd. Into ane stamach like the Dead Sea. Maist

nauseous!

Tickler. Salmon, hodge-podge, pease and pork, goose and apple-sauce, plum-pudding, and toasted cheese, all floating in

a squash of malt in the stomach of an evangelical young lady, who has forsaken the world!

Shepherd. There's nae denying that maist o' them's gutsy. But the married evangelical leddies are waur than the young anes; for they egg on their husbands to be as great gluttons as themselves; and I've seen them noddin and winkin, and makin mouths to their men, that sic or sic a dish was nice and fine, wi' the gravy a' the while rinnin out o' the corners o' their mouths; or if no the gravy, just the natural juice o' their ain palates waterin at the thocht o' something savoury, just as the chops o' Bronte there water when he sits up on his hinder end, and gies a lang laigh yowl for the fat tail o' a roasted leg o' mutton.

North. In youngish evangelical married people, who have in a great measure forsaken the world, such behaviour makes me squeamish, and themselves excessively greasy over their whole face; so greasy, indeed, that it is next to a physical impossibility to wash it, the water running off it as off oilskin.

Tickler. Byron it was, I think, who did not like to see women eat. Certainly I am so far an Oriental, that I do not like to see a woman eat against her husband, as if it were for a wager. Her eyes, during feed, should not seem starting from their sockets; nor the veins in her forehead to swell in sympathy with her alimentary canal; nor the sound of her grinders to be high; nor loud mastication to be followed by louder swallow; nor ought she, when the "fames edendi” has been removed, to gather herself up like mine hostess of the Hen and Chickens, and giving herself a shake, then fold her red-ringed paws across her well-filled stomach, and give vent to her entire satisfaction in a long, deep, pious sigh, by way of grace after meat.

North. The essence of religion is its spirituality. It refines-purifies-elevates all our finer feelings, as far as flesh and blood will allow.

Shepherd. Oh! it's a desperate thing that flesh and blude! Can you, Mr North, form ony idea o' the virtue o' a disembodied, or rather o' an unembodied spirit—a spirit that never was thirsty, that never was hungry, that never was cauld, that never was sick, that never felt its heart loup to its mouth (how could it?) at the kiss o' the lips o' a young lassie sittin in the same plaid wi' you, on the hill-side, unmindfu' o' the

202 INFANT SCHOOLS.-EVANGELICAL MARRIAGES.

blashing sleet, and inhabiting, within thae worsted faulds, the very heart o' balmy paradise?

North. It must be something very different, at any rate, James, from the nature of an evangelical lady of middle age, and much rotundity, smiling greasily on her greasy husband, for another spoonful of stuffing out of the goose; and while engaged in devouring him, ogling a roasted pig with an orange in its mouth, the very image of a human squeaker of an age fit for Mr Wilderspin's infant school.

Tickler. Infant schools! There you see education driven to absurdity that must soon sicken any rational mind.

North. What can we know, Tickler, about infants? "He speaks to us who never had a child."

Shepherd. But I have had mony, and I prophesy, that in three years there shall not be an infant school in all Scotland. Nae doubt, in great towns it might often be of great advantage to children and parents, that the bit infants should be better cared for and looked after than they are, when the parents are at work, or necessarily from home. But to hope to be able to do this permanently, on a regular system of infant schools, proves an utter ignorance of human feelings, and of the structure of human society. It is unnatural, and the attempt will soon fall out of the hands of weak enthusiasts, and expire.

North. It is amusing, James-is it not ?—to see how ready an evangelical young lady is to marry the first reprobate who asks her under the delusion of believing that she is rich.

Tickler. But she first converts him, you know.

Shepherd. Na, na. It's him that converts her-and it's no ill to do. If she really hae cash-say a thoosan' poun'-madam asks few questions-but catches at the captain. There is an end then o' her Sunday schools, and her catechysings, and her preachin o' the word. She flings aff the hypocrite, and is converted into the bauld randy-like wife o' a subaltern officer in the grenadier company o' an Eerish regiment; flauntin in a boyne-like bannet in the front-row o' a box in the theatre-unco like ane o' the hizzies up in the pigeon-holes, and no thinkin shame to lauch at dooble-entendres! o' them, again, mak up to weak young men o' a serious turn and good income; marryin some o' them by sly stratagem, and some by main force.

Ithers

North. But of them all alike, without one single exception, the aim-with various motives-is still the samemarriage.

Tickler. Come, come, Kit, not all-I know to the contrary. North. All the self-dubbed evangelicals. For love, or for money, they are all eager to marry at a week's notice,—and they are all of them ready to jump at an offer, on to a very advanced period of mortal existence. From about fifty on to sixty-five, they are still most susceptible of the tender passion -rather than not have a husband, they will marry

"Toothless bald decrepitude,"

as I have known in many instances-and absolutely pretend to get sick in company a month or two after the odious event -as if they were as "ladies wish to be who love their lords," and about, ere long, to increase the number of Mr Wilderspin's infant scholars! What a contrast does all this present to the character and conduct of the true and humble Christianmild, modest, unpretending.

Shepherd. And always, without exception, beautifu'; for the hameliest countenance becomes angelical when overspread for a constancy with the spirit of that religion that has "shown us how divine a thing a woman may be made !"

Tickler. I see her sitting-serene, but not silent-her smiles frequent, and now and then her sweet silvery laugh not unheard-in a dress simple as simple may be, in unison with a graceful elegance that Nature breathed over that lady of

her own."

66

North. I forget her name, my dear friend-you mean Lucy? Tickler. Whom else in heaven or on earth?

Shepherd. Ay-there are thousan's on thousan's o' Lucys, who walk in their innocence and their happiness beneath the light of Christianity, knowing not how good they are, and in the holy inspiration o' Nature doing their duty to God and man, almost without knowing it, so sublime a simplicity is theirs.

North. Of theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Shepherd. Nae backbiting-nae envy-nae uncharitableness-nae exaggeration o' trifles-nae fear o' the face o' the knave o' spades at an innocent game o' cards, played to please some auld leddy that in the doze o' decent dotage canna do

without some amusement or ither that requires little thocht, but waukens up some kindlins o' aimless feeling—nae fear, and but sma fondness for dancin, except when she's gotten a pleasant partner-a cretur that doesna start at shadows, because she walks in licht-that kens by thinkin on her ain heart what in this tryin life should be guarded against in tremblin, and what indulged in withouten reproach—a lassie that doesna eternally keep rinnin after new preachers, but sits in the same pew in the same kirk—an angel

Tickler. "Like heavenly Una with her milk-white lamb," in the light of whose beauty her father's house rejoiceth, and is breathed over by a shade of sadness only for a few weeks after she has been wafted away on the wings of love to bless the home of a husband, won more by the holy charm of her filial affection than even by the breath of the sighs that poured forth her speechless confession on his own bosom fast beating to the revelation of her virgin love.

Shepherd. That's no sae ill expressed, sir, for an auld bachelor; but the truth is, that in the course o' life a' the best capacities o' human feeling expand themselves out into full growth in the bosom o' a gude man, even under the impulses o' imagination, just the same as if he had had a real wife and weans o' his ain; and aiblins, his feelings are even mair divine from being free o' the doundraught o' realities; idealeezed as it were by love rejoicin in its escape from the thraldom o' necessity.

North. James, you always speak such poetry at our Noctes that I grieve you write it now so seldom or never.

Shepherd. Perhaps I hae written my best; and bad as that may be, my name will have a sort of existence through the future in the Forest. Won't it, sir?

North. No fear of that, James.

Shepherd. Then I am satisfied.

Tickler. I hardly understand the nature of the desire for posthumous fame.

Shepherd. Nor me neither. But the truth is, I understand naething. That I love to gaze on a rose and a rainbow, and a wallflower on a castle, and a wreath o' snaw, and a laverock in the lift, and a dewy starnie, and a bit bonny wee pink shell, and an inseck dancin like a diamond, and a glimmer o' the moon on water, be it a great wide Highland loch, or only