The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table | Page 9

velvet cap and flowered robe, with a
globe by him, to show the range of his commercial transactions, and letters with large red
seals lying round, one directed conspicuously to The Honourable etc. etc.
Great-grandmother, by the same artist; brown satin, lace very fine, hands superlative;
grand old lady, stiffish, but imposing. Her mother, artist unknown; flat, angular, hanging
sleeves; parrot on fist. A pair of Stuarts, viz., 1. A superb full-blown, mediaeval
gentleman, with a fiery dash of Tory blood in his veins, tempered down with that of a
fine old rebel grandmother, and warmed up with the best of old India Madeira; his face is
one flame of ruddy sunshine; his ruffled shirt rushes out of his bosom with an impetuous
generosity, as if it would drag his heart after it; and his smile is good for twenty thousand
dollars to the Hospital, besides ample bequests to all relatives and dependants. 2. Lady of
the same; remarkable cap; high waist, as in time of Empire; bust a la Josephine; wisps of
curls, like celery-tips, at sides of forehead; complexion clear and warm, like rose-cordial.
As for the miniatures by Malbone, we don't count them in the gallery.
Books, too, with the names of old college-students in them,--family names;--you will find
them at the head of their respective classes in the days when students took rank on the
catalogue from their parents' condition. Elzevirs, with the Latinized appellations of
youthful progenitors, and Hic liber est meus on the title-page. A set of Hogarth's original
plates. Pope, original edition, 15 volumes, London, 1717. Barrow on the lower shelves, in
folio. Tillotson on the upper, in a little dark platoon of octo-decimos.

Some family silver; a string of wedding and funeral rings; the arms of the family
curiously blazoned; the same in worsted, by a maiden aunt.
If the man of family has an old place to keep these things in, furnished with claw-footed
chairs and black mahogany tables, and tall bevel-edged mirrors, and stately upright
cabinets, his outfit is complete.
No, my friends, I go (always, other things being equal) for the man who inherits family
traditions and the cumulative humanities of at least four or five generations. Above all
things, as a child, he should have tumbled about in a library. All men are afraid of books,
who have not handled them from infancy. Do you suppose our dear didascalos over there
ever read Poli Synopsis, or consulted Castelli Lexicon, while he was growing up to their
stature? Not he; but virtue passed through the hem of their parchment and leather
garments whenever he touched them, as the precious drugs sweated through the bat's
handle in the Arabian story. I tell you he is at home wherever he smells the invigorating
fragrance of Russia leather. No self-made man feels so. One may, it is true, have all the
antecedents I have spoken of, and yet be a boor or a shabby fellow. One may have none
of them, and yet be fit for councils and courts. Then let them change places. Our social
arrangement has this great beauty, that its strata shift up and down as they change specific
gravity, without being clogged by layers of prescription. But I still insist on my
democratic liberty of choice, and I go for the man with the gallery of family portraits
against the one with the twenty-five-cent daguerreotype, unless I find out that the last is
the better of the two.
- I should have felt more nervous about the late comet, if I had thought the world was ripe.
But it is very green yet, if I am not mistaken; and besides, there is a great deal of coal to
use up, which I cannot bring myself to think was made for nothing. If certain things,
which seem to me essential to a millennium, had come to pass, I should have been
frightened; but they haven't. Perhaps you would like to hear my
LATTER-DAY WARNINGS.
When legislators keep the law, When banks dispense with bolts and locks, When berries,
whortle--rasp--and straw - Grow bigger DOWNWARDS through the box, -
When he that selleth house or land Shows leak in roof or flaw in right, - When
haberdashers choose the stand Whose window hath the broadest light, -
When preachers tell us all they think, And party leaders all they mean, - When what we
pay for, that we drink, From real grape and coffee-bean, -
When lawyers take what they would give, And doctors give what they would take, -
When city fathers eat to live, Save when they fast for conscience' sake, -
When one that hath a horse on sale Shall bring his merit to the proof, Without a lie for
every nail That holds the iron on the