CHAPTER VII

------My young master in _London_ is dead! said _Obadiah_.--

------A green sattin night-gown of my mother’s which had been twice scoured, was the first idea which _Obadiah’s_ exclamation brought into _Susannah’s_ head. --Well might _Locke_ write a chapter upon the imperfection of words. --Then, quoth _Susannah_, we must all go into mourning. --But note a second time: the word _mourning_, notwithstanding _Susannah_ made use of it herself--failed also of doing its office; it excited not one single idea, tinged either with grey or black, --all was green. ----The green sattin night-gown hung there still.

--O! ’twill be the death of my poor mistress, cried _Susannah_. --My mother’s whole wardrobe followed. --What a procession! her red damask, --her orange tawney, --her white and yellow lutestrings, --her brown taffata, --her bone-laced caps, her bed-gowns, and comfortable under-petticoats. --Not a rag was left behind. --“_No, --she will never look up again_,” said _Susannah_.

We had a fat, foolish scullion--my father, I think, kept her for her simplicity; --she had been all autumn struggling with a dropsy. --He is dead, said _Obadiah_, --he is certainly dead! --So am not I, said the foolish scullion.

----Here is sad news, _Trim_, cried _Susannah_, wiping her eyes as _Trim_ stepp’d into the kitchen, --master _Bobby_ is dead and _buried_--the funeral was an interpolation of _Susannah’s_--we shall have all to go into mourning, said _Susannah_.

I hope not, said _Trim_. --You hope not! cried _Susannah_ earnestly. --The mourning ran not in _Trim’s_ head, whatever it did in _Susannah’s_. --I hope--said _Trim_, explaining himself, I hope in God the news is not true. --I heard the letter read with my own ears, answered _Obadiah_; and we shall have a terrible piece of work of it in stubbing the Ox-moor. --Oh! he’s dead, said _Susannah_. --As sure, said the scullion, as I’m alive.

I lament for him from my heart and my soul, said _Trim_, fetching a sigh. --Poor creature! --poor boy! --poor gentleman.

--He was alive last _Whitsontide!_ said the coachman. --_Whitsontide!_ alas! cried _Trim_, extending his right arm, and falling instantly into the same attitude in which he read the sermon, --what is _Whitsontide_, _Jonathan_ (for that was the coachman’s name), or _Shrovetide_, or any tide or time past, to this? Are we not here now, continued the corporal (striking the end of his stick perpendicularly upon the floor, so as to give an idea of health and stability)--and are we not--(dropping his hat upon the ground) gone! in a moment! --’Twas infinitely striking! _Susannah_ burst into a flood of tears. --We are not stocks and stones. --_Jonathan_, _Obadiah_, the cook-maid, all melted. --The foolish fat scullion herself, who was scouring a fish-kettle upon her knees, was rous’d with it. --The whole kitchen crowded about the corporal.

Now, as I perceive plainly, that the preservation of our constitution in church and state, --and possibly the preservation of the whole world--or what is the same thing, the distribution and balance of its property and power, may in time to come depend greatly upon the right understanding of this stroke of the corporal’s eloquence --I do demand your attention--your worships and reverences, for any ten pages together, take them where you will in any other part of the work, shall sleep for it at your ease.

I said, “we were not stocks and stones”--’tis very well. I should have added, nor are we angels, I wish we were, --but men clothed with bodies, and governed by our imaginations; --and what a junketing piece of work of it there is, betwixt these and our seven senses, especially some of them, for my own part, I own it, I am ashamed to confess. Let it suffice to affirm, that of all the senses, the eye (for I absolutely deny the touch, though most of your _Barbati_, I know, are for it) has the quickest commerce with the soul, --gives a smarter stroke, and leaves something more inexpressible upon the fancy, than words can either convey--or sometimes, get rid of.

--I’ve gone a little about--no matter, ’tis for health--let us only carry it back in our mind to the mortality of _Trim’s_ hat. --“Are we not here now, --and gone in a moment?” --There was nothing in the sentence--’twas one of your self-evident truths we have the advantage of hearing every day; and if _Trim_ had not trusted more to his hat than his head--he had made nothing at all of it.

------“Are we not here now;” continued the corporal, “and are we not”--(dropping his hat plump upon the ground--and pausing, before he pronounced the word)-- “gone! in a moment?” The descent of the hat was as if a heavy lump of clay had been kneeded into the crown of it. ----Nothing could have expressed the sentiment of mortality, of which it was the type and fore-runner, like it, --his hand seemed to vanish from under it, --it fell dead, --the corporal’s eye fixed upon it, as upon a corpse, --and _Susannah_ burst into a flood of tears.

Now --Ten thousand, and ten thousand times ten thousand (for matter and motion are infinite) are the ways by which a hat may be dropped upon the ground, without any effect. ----Had he flung it, or thrown it, or cast it, or skimmed it, or squirted it, or let it slip or fall in any possible direction under heaven, --or in the best direction that could be given to it, --had he dropped it like a goose--like a puppy--like an ass--or in doing it, or even after he had done, had he looked like a fool--like a ninny--like a nincompoop--it had fail’d, and the effect upon the heart had been lost.

Ye who govern this mighty world and its mighty concerns with the _engines_ of eloquence, --who heat it, and cool it, and melt it, and mollify it, ----and then harden it again to _your purpose_----

Ye who wind and turn the passions with this great windlass, and, having done it, lead the owners of them, whither ye think meet--

Ye, lastly, who drive----and why not, Ye also who are driven, like turkeys to market with a stick and a red clout--meditate--meditate, I beseech you, upon _Trim’s_ hat.

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