GETTING UP ON COLD MORNINGS. An Italian author,-Giulio Cordara, a Jesuit, has written a poem, upon Insects, which he begins by insisting, that those troublesome and abominable little animals were created for our annoyance, and that they were certainly not inhabitants of Paradise. We of the North may dispute this piece of theology; but on the other hand, it is as clear as the snow on the house-tops, that Adam was not under the necessity of shaving; and that when Eve walked out of her delicious bower, she did not step upon ice three inches thick. 1 Some people say it is a very easy thing to get up of a cold morning. You have only, they tell you, to take the resolution; and the thing is done. This may be very true; just as a boy at school has only to take a flogging, and the thing is over. But we have not at all made up our minds upon it; and we find it a very pleasant exercise to discuss the matter, candidly, before we get up. This at least is not idling, though it may be lying. It affords an excellent answer to those, who ask how lying in bed can be indulged in by a reasoning being,-a rational. creature. How? Why with the argument calmly at work in one's head, and the clothes over one's shoulder. Oh it is a fine way of spending a sensible, impartial half-hour. If these people would be more charitable, they would get on with their argument better. But they are apt to reason so ill, and to assert so dogmatically, that one could wish to have them stand round one's bed of a bitter morning, and lie before their faces. They ought to hear both sides of the bed, the inside and out. If they cannot entertain themselves with their own thoughts for half an hour or so, it is not the fault of those who can. If their will is never pulled aside by the enticing arms of imagination, so much the luckier for the stage-coachman, 1 Candid enquirers into one's decumbency, besides the greater or less privileges to be allowed a man in proportion to his ability of keeping early hours, the work given his faculties, &c. will at least concede their due merits to such representations as the following. In the first place, says the injured but calm appealer, I have been warm all night, and find my system in a state perfectly suitable to a warm-blooded animal To get out of this state into the cold, besides the inharmonious and uncritical abruptness of the transition, is so unnatural to such a creature, that the poets, refining upon the tortures of the damned, make one of their greatest agonies consist in being suddenly transported from heat to cold, from fire to ice. They are haled" out of their beds says Milton, by "harpy-footed furies,"-fellows who come to call them. On my first movement towards the anticipation of getting up, I find that such parts of the sheets and bolster, as are exposed to the air of the room, are stone cold. On opening my eyes, the first thing that meets them is my own breath rolling forth, as if in the open air, like smoke out of a cottage-chimney. Think of this symptom. Then I turn my eyes sideways and see the window all frozen over. Think 66 of that. Then the servant comes in."It is very cold this morning, is it not?"" Very cold, Sir."-" Very cold indeed, isn't it?"" Very cold indeed, Sir." More than usually so, isn't it, even for this weather?" (Here the servant's wit and good nature are put to a considerable test, and the enquirer lies on thorns for the answer.) Why, Sir -- I think it is." (Good creature! There is not a better, more truth-telling servant going.) I must rise however Get me some warm water."Here comes a fine interval between the departure of the servant and the arrival of the hot water, during which, of course, it is of no use?" to get up. The hot water comes. Is it quite hot?"-"Yes, Sir."" Perhaps too hot for shaving: I must wait a little?"-"No, Sir; it will just do." (There is an over-hice propriety sometimes, an officious zeal of virtue, a little troublesome.) "Oh the shirt-you must air my clean shirt:-linen gets very damp this weather." "Yes, Sir." Here another delicious five minutes. A knock' at the door." Oh, the shirt very well. My stockings-I think the stockings had better be aired too.""Very well, Sir."— Here another1 interval. At length every thing is ready, except myself. I now, con! tinues our incumbent (a happy word, by the bye, for a country vicar)! I now cannot help thinking a good deal who can ?-upon the un necessary and villainous custom of shaving: it is a thing so unmanly (here I nestle closer)-so effeminate (here I recoil from an unlucky step into the colder part of the bed.)-No wonder, that the Queen' of France took part with the rebels against that degenerate King, her husband, who first affronted her smooth visage with a face like her own. The Emperor Julian never showed the luxuriancy of his genius to better advantage than in reviving the flowing beard. Look at Cardinal Bembo's picture-at Michael Angelo's at Titian's at Shakspeare's at Fletcher's at Spenser's at Chaucer'sat Alfred's at Plato's. -I could name a great man for every tick of my watch.→→ Look at the Turks, a grave and otiose people. Think of Haroun Al Raschide and Bed-ridden Hassan-Think of Wortley Montague, the worthy son of his mother, above the prejudice of his time-Look at the Persian gen tlemen, whom one is ashamed of meeting about the suburbs, their dress and appearance are so much finer than our own Lastly, think of the razor itself how totally opposed to every sensation of bed-how cold, how edgy, how-hard! how utterly different from any thing like the warm and cirling amplitude, which. 9 on o () Sweetly recommends itself 91 qrida lesbio ko ono odnu doUnto our gentle senses. Add to this, benumbed fingers, which may help you to cut yourself, a quivering body, a frozen towel, and an ewer full of ice; and he that says there is nothing to oppose in all this, only shews, at any rate, that he has no merit in opposing it. 1577 Thomson the poet, who exclaims in his Seasonsby (ouɛ ted? bait I Leteor sdi lo ri Falsely luxurious! Will not man awake? used to lie in bed till noon, because he said he had no motive inget! ting up. He could imagine the good of rising; but then he could also imagine the good of lying still; and his exclamation, it must be allowed, was made upon summer-time, not winter. We must proportion the argument to the individual character. A money-getter may be drawn out of his bed by three and four-pence; but this will not suffice for a student. A proud man may say," What shall I think of myself, if I don't get up?" but the more humble one will be content to waive this prodigious notion of himself, out of respect to his kindly bed. The me chanical man shall get up without any ado at all; and so shall the barometer. An ingenious lier in bed will find hard matter of discussion i even on the score of health and. longevity. He will ask us for our proofs and precedents of the ill effects of lying later in cold weather;/ and sophisticate much on the advantages of an even temperature of body; of the natural propensity (pretty universal) to have one's way; and of the animals that roll themselves up, and sleep all the winter. As to longevity, he will ask whether the longest is of necessity the best and whether Holborn is the handsomest street in London. We only know of one confounding, not to say confounded argument, fit to overturn the huge luxury, the "enormous bliss" of the vice in question. A lier in bed may be allowed to profess a disinterested indifference for his health or longevity; but while he is shewing the reasonableness of consulting his own, or one person's comfort, he must admit the proportionate claim of more than one; and the best way to deal with him is this, especially for a lady, for we earnestly recommend the use of that sex on such occasions, if not somewhat over-persuasive; since extremes have an awkward knack of meeting. First then, admit all the ingeniousness of what he says, telling him that the bar has been deprived of an excellent lawyer. Then look at him in the most goodnatured manner in the world, with a mixture of assent and appeal in your countenance, and tell him that you are waiting breakfast for him; that you never like to breakfast without him; that you really want it too; that the servants want theirs; that you shall not know how to get the house into order, unless he rises; and that you are sure he would do things twenty times worse, even than getting out of his warm bed, to put them all into good humour and a state of comfort. Then, after having said this, throw in the comparatively indifferent matter, to him, about his health; but tell him that it is no indifferent matter to you; that the sight of his illness makes more people suffer than one; but that if nevertheless, he really does feel so very sleepy and so very much refreshed by-Yet stay; we hardly know whether the frailty of a Yes, yes; say that too, especially if you say it with sincerity; for if the weakness of human nature on the one hand, and the vis inertia on the other, should lead him to take advantage of it once or twice, goodhumour and sincerity form an irresistible junction at last; and are still better and warmer things than pillows and blankets: 0 Other little helps of appeal may be thrown in, as occasion requires. You may tell a lover for instance, that lying in bed makes people corpulent; a father, that you wish him to complete the fine manly example he sets his children; a lady, that she will injure her bloom or her shape, which M. or W. admires so much; and a student or artist, that he is always so glad to have done a good day's work, in his best Reader! And pray, Mr. Indicator, how do you behave yourself in this respect? Indic Oh, Madam, perfectly, of course; like all advisers. Reader. Nay, I allow that your mode of argument does not look quite sol suspicious as the old way of sermonizing and severity, but I have my doubts, especially from that laugh of yours. If I should look in to-morrow morning Indic. Ah, Madam, the look in of a face like does yours any thing with me. It shall fetch me up at nine, if you please six, I meant to say. It does not enter within the plan, or perhaps we should rather say, the understood promises, of this little weekly publication, to relieve the Editor with much correspondence; but he is glad when he can indulge himself, in proportion; and he inserts with pleasure the following piece of poetry, which is very much to his heathenish taste. VOX ET PRÆTEREA NIHIL. Oh! what a voice is silent. It was soft As mountain-echoes, when the winds aloft 965 in Shane Or when in sheltered places the white waves Dimples and stems the current: or as trees They sang harmonious pray'rs; or sounds that come Out of the grass, from which mysterious birth Like the low voice of Syrinx, when she ran Into the forests from Arcadian Pan; Or sad Enone's, when she pined away As Helen's whisper when she came to Troy, Or like the dim strain which along the deep 97 XXX. Orders received by the Booksellers, by the Newsmen, and by the Publisher, THE INDICATOR. There he arriving round about doth flie, No. XVI.-WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 26th, 1820. EXTREMES MEET; OR ALL LONDON AND NO LONDON. A TALE. In a village not far from the metropolis, lives a hearty old fellow, who is the comfort of all his neighbours with his vivacity and his pleasant stories. He goodnaturedly laughs when any one calls him old; and says he looks upon himself as a youth, who has white instead of brown hair, and that he took leave of his old age in the fortieth year of his life. Happening to stroll as far as this village, one afternoon last summer, I fell into conversation with him, in consequence of putting my head into his cottage to ask my way to some remains of antiquity. He was sitting after dinner, with his spectacles on, reading a book, and getting up with a lively and willing face, said he would shew me the way if I pleased. I was glad to accept his offer, and chat with him, for besides loving chearfulness for itself, a chearful old man gives one's own life a pleasant prospect. It seems a kind of baulk given to the gloomy aspect and pretensions of Death. I asked him what book he was reading. Why, Sir," said he, half laughing, taking off his spectacles, nodding at the same time his head, and giving a little tremulous jerk of his knee," you may think it an odd book for an old man to read, (it was the history of Philip Quarll) but I always tell my neighbours that they and the parish-register are mistaken, and that having returned to my native village, after a death of fifteen years in the city of London, I took up my life where I left it, at thirty, and so though they take me for seventy-five, am not more than fifty-five at most." You may imagine I was highly delighted with this notion of a metropolitan non-existence; I told him as much; and while he was reaching his hat down from a peg, took an opportunity of looking at his other books and his pictures about the room. Among the latter, were the Four Seasons, prodigiously red-lipped and smiling; and among the former, Robinson Crusoe, Robin Hood's Garland, The Gardener's Calendar, an odd volume of Shakspeare, and De Foe's History of the Plague of London. 2nd Edition. |