ON A HUNDRED YEARS HENCE.
Where have I just read of a game played at a country house? The party assembles round a table with pens, ink, and paper.Some one narrates a tale containing more or less incidents and personages.
Each person of the company then writes down, to the best of his memory and ability, the anecdote just narrated, and finally the papers are to be read out.I do not say I should like to play often at this game, which might possibly be a tedious and lengthy pastime, not by any means so amusing as smoking a cigar in the conservatory;or even listening to the young ladies playing their piano-pieces; or to Hobbs and Nobbs lingering round the bottle and talking over the morning's run with the hounds but surely it is a moral and ingenious sport.They say the variety of narratives is often very odd and amusing.The original story becomes so changed and distorted that at the end of all the statements you are puzzled to know where the truth is at all.As time is of small importance to the cheerful persons engaged in this sport, perhaps a good way of playing it would be to spread it over a couple of years.Let the people who played the game in '60 all meet and play it once more in '61, and each write his story over again.Then bring out your original and compare notes.Not only will the stories differ from each other, but the writers will probably differ from themselves.In the course of the year the incidents will grow or will dwindle strangely.The least authentic of the statements will be so lively or so malicious, or so neatly put, that it will appear most like the truth.I like these tales and sportive exercises.I had begun a little print collection once.I had Addison in his nightgown in bed at Holland House, requesting young Lord Warwick to remark how a Christian should die.I had Cambronne clutching his cocked hat and uttering the immortal la Garde meurt et ne se rend pas.I had the "Vengeur"going down, and all the crew hurraying like madmen.I had Alfred toasting the muffin; Curtius (Haydon) jumping into the gulf; with extracts from Napoleon's bulletins, and a fine authentic portrait of Baron Munchausen.
What man who has been before the public at all has not heard similar wonderful anecdotes regarding himself and his own history? In these humble essaykins I have taken leave to egotize.I cry out about the shoes which pinch me, and, as I fancy, more naturally and pathetically than if my neighbor's corns were trodden under foot.Iprattle about the dish which I love, the wine which I like, the talk I heard yesterday--about Brown's absurd airs--Jones's ridiculous elation when he thinks he has caught me in a blunder (a part of the fun, you see, is that Jones will read this, and will perfectly well know that I mean him, and that we shall meet and grin at each other with entire politeness.) This is not the highest kind of speculation, I confess, but it is a gossip which amuses some folks.
A brisk and honest small-beer will refresh those who do not care for the frothy outpourings of heavier taps.A two of clubs may be a good, handy little card sometimes, and able to tackle a king of diamonds, if it is a little trump.Some philosophers get their wisdom with deep thought and out of ponderous libraries; I pick up my small crumbs of cogitation at a dinner-table; or from Mrs.Mary and Miss Louisa, as they are prattling over their five-o'clock tea.
Well, yesterday at dinner Jucundus was good enough to tell me a story about myself, which he had heard from a lady of his acquaintance, to whom I send my best compliments.The tale is this.
At nine o'clock on the evening of the 31st of November last, just before sunset, I was seen leaving No.96, Abbey Road, St.John's Wood, leading two little children by the hand, one of them in a nankeen pelisse, and the other having a mole on the third finger of his left hand (she thinks it was the third finger, but is quite sure it was the left hand).Thence I walked with them to Charles Boroughbridge's, pork and sausage man, No.29, Upper Theresa Road.
Here, whilst I left the little girl innocently eating a polony in the front shop, I and Boroughbridge retired with the boy into the back parlor, where Mrs.Boroughbridge was playing cribbage.She put up the cards and boxes, took out a chopper and a napkin, and we cut the little boy's little throat (which he bore with great pluck and resolution), and made him into sausage-meat by the aid of Purkis's excellent sausage-machine.The little girl at first could not understand her brother's absence, but, under the pretence of taking her to see Mr.Fechter in Hamlet, I led her down to the New River at Sadler's Wells, where a body of a child in a nankeen pelisse was subsequently found, and has never been recognized to the present day.And this Mrs.Lynx can aver, because she saw the whole transaction with her own eyes, as she told Mr.Jucundus.
I have altered the little details of the anecdote somewhat.But this story is, I vow and declare, as true as Mrs Lynx's.Gracious goodness! how do lies begin? What are the averages of lying? Is the same amount of lies told about every man, and do we pretty much all tell the same amount of lies? Is the average greater in Ireland than in Scotland, or vice versa--among women than among men? Is this a lie I am telling now? If I am talking about you, the odds are, perhaps, that it is.I look back at some which have been told about me, and speculate on them with thanks and wonder.Dear friends have told them of me, have told them to me of myself.Have they not to and of you, dear friend? A friend of mine was dining at a large dinner of clergymen, and a story, as true as the sausage story above given, was told regarding me, by one of those reverend divines, in whose frock sits some anile chatter-boxes, as any man who knows this world knows.They take the privilege of their gown.