Eliza Cook's journal (Volume 4) online

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ELIZA COOK'S JOURNAL.



ELIZA COOKS



JOURNAL.



VOLUME IV.



APRIL, 1851.



LONDON:
PUBLISHED BY CHARLES COOK, 3, RAQUET COURT, FLEET STREET.




LONDON :
PRINTED BY 3. 0. CLARKE, 121, FLEET STREET.



INDEX.



MISCELLANEOUS ARTICLES.



Abbey Life in Old England
Adventure with Pirates
Advertisement, The
Alice Vaughan A Tale
Alton Locke
American Almanac

Art of Life

Associated Homes

Associated Homes for Poor Ladies . .

Associations of Workmen on the Land

Associations of French Workmen . .

Associative Efforts of Working Men

Auld Hansel Monday

Aunt Jessy



. . 106,



.."SB

. . 49
. . 282
122. 140
. . 21
. . 265
. . 103
..172
. . 109
.. 864
..245
. . 193
. . 161
84



Beware of Number Ten
Bronze Inkstand . .
Blind Man's Guide



361, 370, 390, 406

11. 27, 42, 58, 65

. 118



Carlisle, Earl of, his account of the United States . . . . 204

Child's Memory of the Sea . . . . . . . . 307

Christmas Memory . . . . . . . . . . 113

Clare, John . . . . . . . . . . . . 241

Cloribel A Story 297, 308, 331, 350

Cloud and the Sunbeam . . . . . . . . . . 201

Constantinople, A peep at. . . . . . . . 54

Desert Island .. ..270

Diamond Dust 16, 32, &c.

Doctor, The 51

English Village 356

Experiment of a Day . . . . . . . . 76

. . 14

. . 36

. . 190

. . 305

. . 116

. . 292

. 310



Fables from the Hebrew

Fancies and Fictions of the Early World

Fidgety People. .

Food-Grounds, Our

Footfall of Winter

Frank Arnold's Visit to Shaubally . .

Furs



Ghosts, A Mission to

Godfather Death

Great Event of the Year . .



Heiress, The A Tale
Honest Workman
How Mr. Watson got a Wile
Hunt, Leigh



Inner Life

Intemperance in Physic
Italian Organ Boy
Jauo Bernard .



63

321

822

337
99
17

257
134

287
243



Jasmin the Barber-Poet
Jerrold, Douglas . .



Page
. 314



222
76

397
302
377
163
378



Lessons for Little Ones-
Annie Clayton's Debt
Experiment of a Day
Old Man and his Dogs
Letters and Letter- Writers
Life Time, Our . .
Lights and Shades of Military Life
Links and Associations

Liszt the Pianist. . . . . . . . . . . . 77

Little Things . . . . . . . . . . . . 185

Living Fast .. .. .. .. .. ..369

Look to the Bright Side 875

Love Tale 181

Management . . . . . . . . . . . . 147

Man, Trip to the Isle of .. . . . . . . ' . . 86

Massey, Gerald 372

Master Awl 187

Mechanics' Institutions, What Working Men think of 38

Men and Women Education of the Sexes . . . . 96

Mendicant 46

Mina A Tale 401

Mission to Ghosts . . . . . . . . . . 389

Mr. C. sets up his Carriage 334

Natal 81

Neglected Vocation 3

Newstead Abbey 27*

Novel, A Modern 4

Old Associations 1

Old English Holly 129

Our Life-Time . . . . . . . . . . . . 377



Painter's Secret

Peat and its Products

Petsy-Wetsies

Physic, Intemperance in . .

Pilgrim of Love from Mecca

Pirates, Adventure with . .

Plainness

Plausibility



367



.. 134
93, 166
..49
.. 840
74



Possible, The 33

Preliminary Savings' Banks . . . . . . 90

Pride of Birth A Tale 213, 235

Prospectiveness . . . . . . . . . . . . 317

Prosperity . . . . . . . . . . . . 145



Rhine, A Walk up the . .
Ridiculous People

Savings' Banks, Preliminary
Shadow on the Curtain . .



166, 198, 233, 268, 301, 326, 358, 394
209

90

219



vi


INDEX.




Short Notes
Bi^otrv and Cunt
Blind Man's But!'
Coffee


..*&

.. 221
..155


Moral Soundness of London
Natural Freemasonry . . . .


Pago
..159

. . 255

. . 335 '


Colliery Accident'; . .


.. 220
. . 155




31


Dancing
Disregarded Honours
Fine Hands
Forgotten Discoveries
Free Public Libraries
Good Models
Growth of Frait
Handwriting
Hats
I . How to Fall Asleep
Intramural Burials
Lovett's Anatomy, &c.


.. 221
.92
.93
. 4J1
. Ji43
.410
. 343
. 1S6
.92
.154
.93
. 343
.221




79


Origin of Quarrels


. . 319
. 818


p ff? A . '


. . 191




. . 899


Pleasures of Retrospection
Poaching, Destructive
Poetry moi'e than Amusement


..64

. . 255
. . 255
. . 383


Poet's Description of Art
Polite Impertinences
Porter Thraldom . .


. . 335
. . 240
95 |
. . 239


Natural Compensation
Penny Banks
Plea for Education


. 342
. 92
. 412
. 411


Progress of Social Security
Prudence and Improvidence
Punch's Opinion of our Hats


. . 271
..271
. . 79
. . 224


Railway Passengers' Assura: :v
Shunting
Simultaneous Discoveries


. 154
. 410
. 92
. 343




95


Quin's Incoherent Story
Reality of Little Puck
Self-Excusing . . . .


..399
..111
. . 47


Working Tailors' Associatioi s
! Six Adventurers
Soldier's Ransom
Soldier's Recollections
Sommerville, Alexander
I Source of Inspiration
: Spanish and English
Spending a very Pleasant Evening .
Spendthrift Lords of Ireland
Sunsliine at Easter

Taciturnity


. 341
. 262
. 170
. 225
. 412
. 291
. 188
. 34
. 289
. 385

. 249


Sierra Leone, Life at
Steamboat Building in the United States . .
Style . . . . . . . . . .


. . 79
. . 319
. . 320


Sunday Recreations


. . 31
.. 368




15


; Tee and the Hogg Score . .


..110
. . 353


What we Love a Woman for
Wheatcn Bread


..143

95




. . 229


! Tim Bobbin


. . 211


POETRY.


. . 80


Title Worship


. . 273


Town Library
Trip to the Isle of Man
Two Unknown Poets
Two Volumes of Poetry

United States, Earl of Carlisle's Account of. .

l -


. . 252. 259, 278
.. 8(5
. . 329
. . 125

. . 204
. . 285




96


Childish Fancies . .




Child's Philosophy
Christmas


.. 83B


Walk to the Office
Walk up the Rhine See Rhine
Ward Cases


- it. .. 345
. .' 158


Contrast


. . ilti




. . 320


Watcher The


. . 174




804


Widow's Whim . ....


. . 267



Good we might do
Guardian Angels .


. . ' 64

238


Woman and Society
Yankee Trick on a Hoosier Landlord

PARAGRAPHS.

Aflfection of a Partridge
Anglo-Saxon Race

Bentham in Ford Ab'bey


. . 396
. . 228

. . 336
. . 351

. . 399
31


Home for the Holidays
Home of the Heart
Hymn of Love . . . . . . . .


. 128
..352
32




. . 272


Lay of the Thrush
Let us try to be Happy


, tt ".- 'n 208
. . 224
406


Contradictory Couple


. . 383
. . 224




. , 2'24


Man TMe


144


Cvnic


. . 319


Death


143


My Grave


.. 334


Never cast a Shadow


. 256
; . . . 160




. . 25t>


Every-dav Absurdities
Evils of Fault Finding

Fall of the Year .


. . 47

. . 31

95




16


Old Year


. 240


Poor Jane's Lament
Rhymes for Workers


.. 113

.. 176, 288,384
57




. . 319


Feeling and Speaking
Folly of Pride ..


. . 112
. . 223


If


..143


Importance of Understanding Tendencies


. . 223

239




64 80


Song to the Old and New Year


..144

.. 112


Irritability of Sickness
Key to Happiness

Labour and Recreation ..
I London and New York

March of Humanity
i Marks of the World's Progress


. . 63
. . 239
. . 415

Dl

. . 287
. . 883
. . 399




. 17Q




48




852




. .. 96




.. 48


Wandering Stars






95




isl


\ Modem Education . . . . . .

!


. . 399


Why did she leave him


.. ..



INDEX.



HE-ISSUE OF ELIZA COOK'S POEMS.



Page

8,24
40
40
40



Melaia

The Old Ann Chair

The World

The Englishman

A Love Song ... . . . . . . . . 41

Old Dobbin 41

Hallowed be thy Name . . . . . . . . 41

Old Pincher . . . . . . . . . . 50

A Home in the Heart . . . . . . . . 57

Cupid's AITOW . . . . . . . . . . . . 57

Buttercups and Daisies . . . . . . . . 57

Norah M'Shane

The Waters . . . . . . . . . . 53

The Old Farm Gate . . . . . . . . 72

Gratitude . . . . . . . . . . 72

The Idiot Born

Nae Star was glintin out aboon

The Mourners . . . . . . . . . . 73

The Welcome Back .. .. .. ..74

Song of Old Time

Prayer ..89

The Miser ..89

Stanzas ..89

England 90

Teddy O'Neale 104

Stanzas . . . . . . . . . . 104

Song of the Winter Tree . . . . . . . . . . 104

Our Sailors and our Ships . . . . . . . . . . 105

Song of the Sun ..105

To a Cricket 105

The Christmas Holly 120

While the Christmas log is burning. . . . . . . . 121

Winter is Here ' .. ..121

Christmas Tide . . . . . . . . . . 121



.Grey Haired December
Song of the Old Year
The Room of the Household
The Mother who has a Child at Sea
Stanzas for the Season
Here's merry Christmas come again
Oh ! Dear to memory are those hour*
Stanzas

The Land of my Birth
The Old Man's Marvel
Winter
Snow

Song of the Rushlight
The Gipsy's Tent
Sleep



136
136
137
137
152
152
153
153
153
168



184
184

1S4



Song of the Red Indian
Sailing Song



Page
. J85

. 135



Rover's Song

The Song of Marion

The Star of Gk-jigary

The Poet

Song of the Wind

The Gallant English Tar

Stanzas . .



217
213
213
231



Suiiiiiior's Farewell

I'.'atuic's Geui'eniiia . . . . . . . . . . i>o2

To a Favourite rv.iV .... . 2CJ



ABC

Sou* of the Carrion Crow ..

Stanzas

Song of the Modem Time

Oh : Never breathe a dtad one's name

The Young Mariners

The Sacrilegious Gamesters

Song of the Dying Old Man to his Young Wife

The Heart that's true

The Horse

Hot



.,pc



248
24i>

g*d

26 1
264
264
2S1
298
296
296
297
312
313
313
314

328
Winter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 329

The Old Barn . . . . . . . . . . . . 344

Sir Harold the Hunter . . . . . . . . . . 345

Stanzas.-. .. .. .. .. .. ..345

Song of the Spirit of Gold. . . . . . . . . . 360

The Free .. .. .. 'V. .. ..361

The English Ship by moonlight .. '. .. ..361

Oh come to the Ingle Side '.-. .";'. .. ..376

Spring .. .. .V 376

Water . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 377

The Quiet Eye 377

The Gipsy Child 377



He that is without Sin among you let him first cast a stone

Lines written at midnight

Thy Kingdom Come

He led her to the Altar

Song of the Hempsoed

Love



Trouble your Heads with your own affairs

The Sexton

Galla Brae

A Thanksgiving

Venetian Serenade

The Clouds



. . 393

. . 393

. . 394

. . 409

.. 40.1

. . 409

Truth . . 410




No. 79.]



SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 2, 1850.



[PRICE



OLD ASSOCIATIONS.

THERE is a subtile magic about old associations, which
we do not cave to attempt the difficult task of analyzing
and comprehending ; it is sufficient for us that it exists,
and th?.t we feel it exercising over us its witching attrac-
tion, and leading us back insensibly, and yet irresistibly,
from the harshly-outlined, sharply-defined present, to
the softened, mellowed image of the past.

Old associations form by far the brightest page in
memory, and the one that the heart is best satisfied to
dwell on. We are never tired of reading in it, and fol-
lowing the suggestions by which, unconsciously to our-
selves, we are tempted to trace the channels our lives
have worn in the great track of time, from some simple
incident to which ever and anon we, as by some mental
magnetism, revert to find the source of emotions often
hidden and latent, but which every now and then spring
to life, waking us up like a trumpet call from a sordid
dream, to live over again in the simple pleasures and
pure delights which years have taken from us, and re-
placed by denser and sterner realities.

Probably there is engraved in the breast of every
human being some circumstance of early life to which he
or she constantly looks as the starting point of their
conscious existence; and this will generally be found to
be an unimportant trivial thing, so little, so unworthy of
notice, that most of us hide it in our hearts as secretly
as though we feared or were ashamed to let the world
know from how small a spring the stream of thought
and action which constantly pours out of us had since
then flowed on. And we are the more tempted to hide
it, because it is more frequently something connected
with the heart and the feelings than with the intellect
something that appeals to sympathy rather than to sense
and while we scatter far and wide, and expose proudly
to the gaze of all the riches of the mind, we (and par-
ticularly the more sensitive natures among us) hoard up
to ourselves the treasures of the heart as strictly as a
miser secretes his gains, as though they were too sacred
for the eye of a cold, rough, hard-judging world; too
fragile, and delicate, and tender to bear the wear and tear
of practical life.

Perhaps, too, we often hide our sympathies, not so
much because we are ashamed of them, as because we
feel our own inability to give them an adequate expres-
sion because we feel our incompetence to clothe them
in that gorgeous mental splendour which their soft love-
liness and beauty seem to demand of us, and we have
not the courage or the hardihood to expose them to the
ridicule which might attend our mode of putting them
forth. And so the world seldom gets at the heart's che-
rished revealings, except when some gifted spirit bursts
out in a magnificent flood of poesy, and men then wor-



ship and love, for the garb in which they are clothed, the
sentiments which would have excited but the smile of
ridicule, or the laugh of disdain, had they been uttered
by less polished lips and in a ruder strain. There is,
indeed, a fount of poetry in every heart bubbling up
from the well-spring of old associations, which embody
the sentiment rather than the fact of the past, but which
seldom find open utterance because of our conscious want
of power so to clothe them as to attract the admiration
of that legion of humanity which recognises and bows to
splendour, but passes unheedingly by simple purity and
sneers at rough truth. These old associations are the
diamonds of the soul's mine of gems, but they lie there
hidden with all their intrinsic worth, because the skill of
the artist is wanted to polish and set them, and thus
endow them with adventitious attractions.

But the more we hide them the more we love them.
The more our own breast seems the only home old asso-
ciations have in the great world of ideas, the more are
they welcomed and cherished there. The more unable
we are to make the world receive them and love them
the more we love them ourselves, the more they seem to
become our own exclusive property, and to grow a part of
our very being. And yet, when we find these secret
thoughts greatly and grandly expressed in the pages of
some gifted writer, how gladly we recognise them, and
welcome them, and make the book our favourite ; feeling,
when we see the heart's loved idea invested by another
with new beauty, as though a fond friend had been clad
in angel's garb and become still dearer to us by the
change.

Old associations have a power peculiarly their own,
which appears to be in its fulness incommunicable and
untransmissible, and in its action upon ourselves unac-
countable and unlike any other influence. We look back
upon dangers braved, and difficulties successfully over-
come, with an exultation which all can understand ; they
tell of our own bravery, or firmness, or perseverance.
We are proud of riches fairly gained, for they tell of our
industry and self-denial. Our pulse beats fast with plea-
sure as we turn the eye inward upon a cultivated mind,
upon the stored knowledge it contains, upon the great
discoveries it has made, upon the high thoughts it has
produced, upon the electric sentences framed within its
recesses, which, when spoken by the melodious tongue,
have made men's eyes glisten, and their nerves thrill, and
their hearts swell high. Nay, we are proud of other and
meaner things than these ; of the beauty which attracts
the eye, of the superficial grace and seeming which makes
us agreeable. All this is understandable. Such things
exalt and glorify us to ourselves and to others. They
make us great, or what is almost as much coveted, they
make us appear great, or amiable, or attractive But
what is there in that old tree beneath which we used to
lie and peer through its leafy branches at the blue sky



ELIZA COOK'S JOURNAL.



beyond; or that old rhyme which used, long years ago, to
be our lullaby; or that wild legend which on wintry
nights the old nurse told us as we crouched in pleasant
fear by the blazing fire; or that quiet murmuring brook
fringed with the willows, each drooping to the bank, and
leaving beneath an arbour shade, where the quiet rippling
sounds of the waters has so often lulled us to a sleep rich
with fairy visions. There is nothing in all these to be
proud of; there are thousands of such trees where chil-
dren lie now and watch the sun, and plenty of such wil-
low-fringed brooks where youth sleeps and dreams, as
though the fairies had resumed their old dominion and
were gilding the lips of the sleeper with tales of wealth
and power, and love and pleasure ; and every old crone
tells the same ghost tales, and every nursery rings with
the same lullaby rhyme ; but yet they do not seem like
those which so delightfully haunt our minds, and in
which there must be something ; for from the realities of
pride and power the heart bounds back to their memory,
like a spring released from a restraining force, and we
cannot solve the mystery except by those two words
" Old Associations."

The power of old associations, indeed, over a favoured
few would, if we could trace back great things to their
small beginnings, be easily comprehended. Let us take
an example. There is a picture exhibition, and the walls
are hung with tinted canvas till they are a very rainbow
of hues. Here a shepherd is piping to his flock from
beneath the spreading boughs of the beech ; there a ruin
is tottering to destruction till it seems as though the next
moment the gilded frame would be rent asunder and
crushed beneath its fragments; here there is an old
cathedral interior, with the reflected light from the
painted windows tinting its ground, roof, and white robed
priests and kneeling worshippers, and we almost hear the
low murmurs of prayer and praise, and feel the vibrations
of the sonorous organ-peal which is making the carved
pillars thrill sympathetically to the sound ; here again is
a grotesque face of amazement or fear which brings the
ready smile to the lips, and we say how admirable ! how
beautiful ! how grand ! how natural ! and admire them
as great works of skill; but suddenly we come across a
small painting in a neglected corner, before which we say
nothing, but hold our breath in rapt feeling. It is but
a sketch and few notice it, but for us it is all in all. The
other canvases become blank and dark that is the ex-
hibition the living soul of the whole, instinct with a
poetic beauty which goes at once to the heart as though
sense and feeling were suddenly blended into one. What
is it ? There is the old tree in the foreground there on
the left the cricket green there the path leading to the
brook there the smoke curling over the tall tree-tops,
speaking of home. The scene itself is there, it is no
longer a painting ; forgetting the long intervening past
we live our former life again, and stand rapt before it
till the attendant touches us and says that the hour of
closing has come. Then we wake to feel the power of
old associations, and to understand how their poetry and
sentiment gives an artist dominion over the hearts of his
fellows.

Let us look again at another scene. Here is a spacious
library, plain and simple, yet elegant in its style, compact
and convenient, yet airy and healthful. The walls are
covered with the works of the best authors, and men sit
there gathering from the great minds of all times know-
ledge and goodness. It is such a place as we may hope
in future years to see freely opened to, and filled by, the
toiling millions of the land. Let us suppose that time
come, and picture to ourselves the place and its tenants ;
let us seat ourselves beside the sunburnt-labourer there,
whose hat is pulled low over his brow, and whose rough
hand is sometimes brushed across his eyes, sometimes
shades his face from sight, but not so completely that we
cannot see the workings of hope, and fear, and sympathy



in his weather-stained features. What is he reading?
We peep over his shoulder and we see. A fiction too
true to nature to be entirely false ; and as he bends over
its pages, a something springs up within him telling him
of the old nurse's tale. True, there are other characters
there, and the scenery glows upon him from the well-
constructed sentences, and the language is higher and
more noble than aught he has heard before ; but still the
old association strikes him amid all the imagery and orna-
ment and refinement, and touches the heart and opens it
to pure and childlike feelings, and he loves not only the
book but its author, whose effort was perhaps prompted
by the same feelings as those which are working, without
the power of finding utterance, in the heart of his humble
admirer. So, too, of that other man, whose book by its
measured lines shows that it is poetry ; poetry, too, which
it may be glides harmoniously along with the same half-
melancholy cadence as the lullaby of old possibly was
prompted by it. What think you, as he takes his eyes
from off the pages and rests his head upon his hand, and
looks upon the opposite wall as though he saw it not, he
is dreaming of? It is unconsciously of an old asso-
ciation. He sits again upon the low stool at his mother's
feet by the long deserted hearth his mother's footstool,
given to him as a special favour and hears that low song
with which she rocks her youngest born to rest, while he
waits patiently for the oft-repeated tale, the same tale as
the other man is now pondering on. Yes, the same in-
fluence of old association which prompted the fiction and
the poem, and made their authors the mind-lights of
thousands, would, could men see into each others' hearts,
link these two readers together by the chain of a common
sympathy; and if that may not be, it at least rubs out
for a time the hard selfishness of the world, and makes
them the more accessible to kindliness and goodness.
Around them are men reading history, or travels, or
science ; their faces are calm and composed ; the brow is
sometimes wrinkled with thought, or contracted in the
attempt to understand a problem, but it is impossible to
estimate, though old associations are not acting upon
them, how much they are indebted to those influences
for the knowledge which is spread around them. The
geologist might have received his bent of mind from
some sparkling pebble picked up on the sea-shore; the
traveller have dated his thirst for adventures from the
reading of some Robinson Crusoe-like tales; the astro-
nomer been directed to the heavens by a falling star seen
long years ago ; or the anatomist have had his youthful
curiosity excited by some mouldering bones as he bounded
over the tombs and graves of a country churchyard. In
fact, so great is the power of old associations that it is
hardly fanciful to attempt to trace to some one or
more the course of the lives of most men ; and probably,
if we ould dive into their hearts, we should find, too, that
the first sensations which set free the springs of their
after mental existence had in them less of self, of ambi-
tion, of cold calculation, and mof e of sympathy and purer
pleasure than ever followed the results of their more ma-
ture efforts ; and that idea may, perhaps, serve to explain
the after influence of the first thought, the first insight
into human action, the first idea taking the form of me-
lodious poetry ; in fact, the after influence of old asso-
ciations over the hearts of the philosopher, the novelist,
the poet, and their fellow-labourers in life.

It is needless to bid men to cherish old associations,
because they cannot help doing so. They grow upon
them and take a stronger hold every succeeding year,
and when old age comes creeping, on, and the pulse rises
slowly, and the life-blood runs colder from the heart,
and the limbs begin to fail ; when the visions of youth
and the hopes of early manhood, and the ambitions of
maturer years are obliterated and annihilated, when the
grave yawns grimly before, and the thin white hair
hardly covers the shrunken skull, when the winter of life



ELIZA COOK'S JOURNAL.



arrives, old associations are in their fullest force, and
seem to say that that winter is but the prelude to a new
spring. The old man, forgetting the events of yesterday,
sees plain and clear, as though he were a child again, the
old haunts and the old faces ; and his ears, deaf to the