The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 01, No. 05, March, 1858

"Penillionn Singing" was the next attraction. This was something like an old English madrigal done into Welsh, and, as a specimen of vocalization, pleasing enough,—as pleasing, that is, as Welsh singing can be to an English ear; but how different from the soft, liquid Italian trillings, the flexible English warblings, the melodious ballads of Scotland, or the rollicking songs of Ireland! There was only one of the many singers I heard at the Festival who at all charmed me, and that was a little vocalist of much repute in Southern Wales for her bird-like voice and brilliancy of execution. Her professional name was pretty enough,—Eos Vach Morganwg,—"The Little Nightingale of Glamorgan." Her renderings of some simple Welsh melodies were delicious; they as far excelled the outpourings of the other singers as the compositions of Mendelssohn or Bellini surpass a midnight feline concert. I have heard Chinese singing, and have come to the conclusion, that, next to it, Welsh prize-vocalism is the most ear-distracting thing imaginable.

So it went on; Welsh, Welsh, Welsh, nothing but Welsh, until I was heartily sick of it. Then, the singing part of the performance being concluded, the bardic portion of the business commenced. It was conducted in this manner:—

The names of several subjects were written on separate slips of paper, and these being placed in a box, each bard took one folded up and with but brief preparation was expected to extemporize a poem on the theme he had drawn. The contest speedily commenced, and to me this part of the proceedings was far and away the most entertaining. Of course, being, as I said, ignorant of the language, I could not understand the matter of the improvisations; but as for the manner, just imagine a mad North American Indian, a howling and dancing Dervise, an excited Shaker, a violent case of fever-and-ague, a New York auctioneer, and a pugilist of the Tom Hyer school, all fused together, and you may form some faint idea of a Welsh bard in the agony of inspiration. Such roaring, such eye-rolling, such thumping of fists and stamping of feet, such joint-dislocating action of the arms, such gyrations of the head, such spasmodic jerkings—out of the language of the ancient Britons, I never heard before, and fervently pray that I never may again. And, let it be remembered, the grotesque costume of the bard wonderfully heightened the effect. His long beard, made of tow, became matted with the saliva which ran down upon it from the corners of his mouth; his make-believe bald scalp was accidentally wiped to one side, as he mopped away the perspiration from his forehead with a red cotton handkerchief; and a nail in the gallery front catching his ancient robe, in a moment of frenzy, a fearful rending sound indicated a solution of continuity, and exposed a modern blue _un_bardic pair of breeches with bright brass buttons beneath,—an incident in keeping with the sham nature of all the proceedings. For a mortal half hour this exhibition lasted, and when the impassioned speaker sat down, panting and perspiring, the multitude stamped, clapped, and hallooed, and went into such paroxysms of frenzy, that Bedlam broke loose could alone be compared with it.

During the three days the Festival lasted, such scenes as I have described were repeated,—the only changes being in the persons of the singers and spouters. Glad enough was I when all was over, and my occupation as reporter gone, for that time at least. With the aid of a Welsh friend I managed to make a highly florid report of the proceedings, which occupied no less than eight columns of the "M– Beacon." As several of the speakers were only too glad to give me, sub rosâ, copies of their speeches in their native language, and as none knew of the fact but ourselves, I gained no little reputation as an accomplished Welsh scholar. The result of this was, that presents of Welsh Bibles, hymn-books, histories, topographies, and the like, by the score, were forwarded to me,—some out of respect for my talents as a great Welsh linguist, others for review in the newspaper. I was neither born to such greatness, nor did I ever achieve it; it was literally thrust on me; so also were sundry joints of the delicious Liliputian Welsh mutton, which latter I am not ashamed to say I thoroughly understood, appreciated, and digested. The ancient litter-ature, I am sorry to confess, I sold as waste paper, at so much per pound; but to show that some lingering regard for at least two of Cambria's institutions yet reigns in this – bosom, I am just about to begin upon a Welsh rabbit, and wash it down with a pitcher of cwrw dach.

CORNUCOPIA

 
  There's a lodger lives on the first floor,
    (My lodgings are up in the garret,)
  At night and at morn he taketh a horn
    And calleth his neighbors to share it,—
  A horn so long, and a horn so strong,
    I wonder how they can bear it.
 
 
  I don't mean to say that he drinks,
    For that were a joke or a scandal;
  But, every one knows it, he night and day blows it;—
    I wish he'd blow out like a candle!
  His horn is so long, and he blows it so strong,
    He would make Handel fly off the handle.
 
 
  By taking a horn I don't hint
    That he swigs either rum, gin, or whiskey;
  It's we who drink in his din worse than gin,
    His strains that attempt to be frisky,
  But are grievously sad.—A donkey, I add,
    Is as musical, braying in his key.
 
 
  It's a puzzle to know what he's at;
    I could pity him, if it were madness:
  I never yet knew him to play a tune through,
    And it gives me more anger than sadness
  To hear his horn stutter and stammer to utter
    Its various abortions of badness.
 
 
  At his wide open window he stands,
    Overlooking his bit of a garden;
  One can see the great ass at one end of his brass
    Blaring out, never asking your pardon:
  This terrible blurting he thinks is not hurting,
    As long as his own ear-drums harden.
 
 
  He thinks, I've no doubt, it is sweet,
    While thus Time and Tune he is flaying;
  The little house-sparrows feel all through their marrows
    The jar and the fuss of his playing,—
  The windows all shaking, the babies all waking,
    The very dogs howling and baying.
 
 
  One note out of twenty he hits,
    And, cheered, blows pianos like fortes.
  His time is his own. He goes sounding alone,
    (A sort of Columbus or Cortés,)
  On a perilous ocean, without any notion
    Whereabouts in the dim deep his port is.
 
 
  Like a man late from club, he has lost
    His key, and around stumbles moping,
  Touching this, trying that, now a sharp, now a flat,
    Till he strikes on the note he is hoping,
  And a terrible blare at the end of the air
    Shows he's got through at last with his groping.
 
 
  There,—he's finished,—at least, for a while;
    He is tired, or come to his senses;
  And out of his horn shakes the drops that were borne
    By the winds of his musical frenzies.
  There's a rest, thank our stars, of ninety-nine bars,
    Ere the tempest of sound recommences.
 
 
  When all the bad players are sent
    Where all their false notes are protested,
  I am sure that Old Nick will play him a trick,
    When his bad trump and he are arrested,
  And down in the regions of Discord's own legions
    His head with two French horns be crested.
 

* * * * *

MY JOURNAL TO MY COUSIN MARY

March, 1855.

Of all the letters of condolence I have received since my misfortune, yours has consoled me most. It surprises me, I confess, that a far-away cousin—of whom I only remember that she had the sweetest of earthly smiles—should know better how to reach the heart of my grief and soothe it into peace, than any nearest of kin or oldest of friends. But so it has been, and therefore I feel that your more intimate acquaintance would be something to interest me and keep my heart above despair.

My sister Catalina, my devoted nurse, says I must snatch at anything likely to do that, as a drowning man catches at straws, or I shall be overwhelmed by this calamity. But is it not too late? Am I not overwhelmed? I feel that life is a revolting subject of contemplation in my circumstances, a poor thing to look forward to. Death itself looks pleasanter.

Call up to your mind what I was, and what my circumstances were. I was healthy and strong. I could run, and wrestle, and breast strong winds, and cleave rough waters, and climb steep hills,—things I shall henceforth be able only to remember,—yes, and to sigh to do again.

I was thoroughly educated for my profession. I was panting to fulfil its duties and rise to its honors. I was beginning to make my way up. I had gained one cause,—my first and last,—and my friends thought me justified in entertaining the highest hopes.

It had always been an object of ambition with me to—well, I will confess—to be popular in society; and I know I was not the reverse.—So much, Mary, for what I was. Now see what I am.

I am, and shall forever be,—so the doctors tell me,—a miserable, sickly, helpless being, without hope of health or independence. My object in life can only be—to be comfortable, if possible, and not to be an intolerable trial to those about me! Worth living for,—isn't it?

An athlete, eager and glowing in the race of life, transformed by a thunder-bolt into a palsied and whining cripple for whom there is no Pool of Bethesda,—that is what has befallen me!

I suppose you read the shocking details of the collision in the papers. Catalina and I sat, of course, side by side in the cars. We had that day met in New York, after a separation of years. She had just returned from Europe. I went to meet and escort her home, and, as we whirled over the Jersey sands, I told her of all my plans and hopes. She listened at first with her usual lively interest; but as I went on, she looked me full in the face with an air of exasperated endurance, as if what I proposed to accomplish were beyond reason. I own that I was in a fool's paradise of buoyant expectation. At last she interrupted me.

"Ah, yes! No doubt! You'll do those trifles, of course! And, perhaps, among your other plans and intentions is that of living forever? It is an easy thing to resolve upon;—better not stop short of it."

At this instant came the crash, and I knew nothing more until I heard people remonstrating with Kate for persisting in trying to revive a dead man, (myself,) while the blood was flowing profusely from her own wound. I heard her indignantly deny that I was dead, and, with her customary irritability, tell them that they ought to be ashamed of themselves for saying so. They still insisted that I was "a perfect jelly," and could not possibly survive, even if I came to consciousness. She contradicted them energetically. Yet they pardoned, and liked her. They knew that a fond heart keenly resents evil prophecies of its beloved ones. Besides, whatever she does or says, people always like Kate.

After a physician arrived, it was found that the jellying of my flesh was not the worst of it; for, in consequence of some injury to my spine, my lower limbs were paralyzed. My sister, thank Heaven, had received only a slight cut upon the forehead.

Of course I don't mean to bore you with a recital of all my sufferings through those winter months. I don't ask your compassion for such trifles as bodily pain; but for what I am, and must forever be in this life, my own heart aches for pity. Let yours sympathize with it.

I thought to be so active, so useful, perhaps so distinguished as a man, so blest as husband and father!—for you must know how from my boyhood up I have craved, what I have never had, a home.

Now that I have been thrust out of active life and forced to make up my mind to perfect passiveness, I have become a bugbear to myself. I cannot endure the thought of ever being the peevish egotist, the exacting tyrant, which men are apt to become when they are thrown upon woman's love and long-suffering, as I am.

My only safeguard is, I believe, to keep up interests out of myself, and I beg of you to help me. I believe implicitly in your expressed desire to be of some service to me, and I ask you to undertake the troublesome task of correspondence with a sick man, and almost a stranger. I will, however, try to make you acquainted with myself and my surroundings, so thoroughly that the latter difficulty will soon be obviated.

First, let me present my sister,—named Catalina,—called Kate, Catty, or Lina, according to the fancy of the moment, or the degree of sentimentality in the speaker. You have not seen her since she was a child, so that, of course, you cannot imagine her as she is now. But you know the circumstances in which our parents left us. You remember, that, after living all his life in careless luxury, my father died penniless. Our mother had secured her small fortune for Kate; and at her death, just before my father's, she gave me—an infant a few weeks old—into my sister's young arms, with full trust that I should be taken care of by her. You know of all my obligations to her in my babyhood and for my education, which she drudged at teaching for years to obtain for me. I could never repay her for such devotion, but I hoped to make her forget all her trials, and only retain the happy consciousness of having had the making of such a famous man! I expected to place her in affluence, at least.

And now what can I bring to her but grief and gray hairs? I am dependent upon her for my daily bread; I occupy all her time, either in nursing or sewing for me; I try her temper hourly with my sick-man's whims; and I doom her to a future of care and economy. Yet I believe in my soul that she blesses me every time she looks upon me!

Thackeray says women like to be martyrized. I hardly think it is the pursuit of pleasure which leads them to self-denial. Men, at any rate, do not often seek enjoyment in that form. If women do make choice of such a class of delights, even instinctively, they need advance no other claim to superiority over men. The higher the animal, the higher its propensities.

Kate the other day was asserting a wife's right to the control of her own property, and incidentally advocating the equality of the sexes,—a touchy point with her. I put in,—

"Tell me, then, Lina, why animals form stronger attachments to men than to women. Your dog, your parrot, even your cat, already prefers me to you. How can you account for it, unless by allowing that there is more in us to respect and love?"

"I account for it," said she, with her most decided nod, "by affinity. There is more affinity between you and brutes. It is the sons of God who find the daughters of men fair. We draw angels from the skies;—even your jealous, reluctant sex has borne witness to that."

"Pshaw! only those anomalous creatures, the poets. But please yourself with such fancies; they encourage a pretty pride that becomes your sex. Conscious forever of being your lords, we feel that the higher you raise yourselves, the higher you place us. You can't help owning that angelic woman-kind submits—and gladly—to us."

"Nonsense! conceited nonsense!"

"But don't they?"

"Some do; but I do not."

"Why, all my life you have been to me a most devoted, obedient servant, Kate."

"Yes, I have my pets," she answered, "and I care for them. I am housemaid to my bird; my cat makes her bed of my lap and my best silk dress; I am purveyor to my dog, head-scratcher to my parrot, and so forth. It is my pleasure to be kind. Higher natures always are so,—yes, Charlie, even minutely solicitous for the welfare of the objects of their care; for are not the very hairs of our head all numbered by the Most Beneficent?"

She began in playful insolence, but ended with tearful eyes, and a grateful, humble glow upon her face. Its like I had never seen before in her rather imperious countenance. I gazed at her with interest. She saw me, and was irritated to be caught with moistened eyes. She scorns crying, like a man.

"Come, come!" said she, childishly and snappishly, "what are you looking at?"

Of course you cannot have any idea of her personal appearance from memory, and I will try to give you one by description.

Though over thirty, she is generally considered very handsome, and is in the very prime of her beauty; for it is not of the fragile, delicate order. She has jet-black, very abundant hair, hazel eyes, and a complexion that is very fair, without being blonde. A bright, healthy color in cheek and lip makes her look as fresh as a rose. Her nose is the doubtful feature. It is—hum!—Roman, and some fastidious folks think a trifle too large. But I think it suits well her keen eyes and slightly haughty mouth. She has fine hands, a tall figure, and an independent "grand action," that is not wanting in grace, but is more significant of prompt energy.

The study of woman is a new one to me. I often see Kate's friends and gossips,—for I occupy the parlor as sick-room,—and I lie philosophizing upon them by the hour, puzzling myself to solve the problem of their idiosyncrasies. Lady Mary Wortley Montague said, that, in all her travels, she had met with but two kinds of people,—men and women. I begin to think that one sex will never be thoroughly comprehended by the other, notwithstanding the desperate efforts the novelists are making now-a-days. They all go upon the same plan. They take some favorite woman, watch her habits keenly, dissect her, analyze her very blood and marrow,—then patch her up again, and set her in motion by galvanism. She stalks through three volumes and—drops dead. I have seen Kate laugh herself almost into convulsions over the knowing remarks upon the sex in Thackeray, Reade, and others. And I must confess that the women I know resemble those of no writer but Shakspeare.

We take our revenge for this irritating incapacity by saying that neither can women create ideal men at all resembling reality. But halte là! Was it not said at first that Rochester must be a man's man? Is not the little Professor Paul Emanuel an actual masculine creature? Heathcliff was a fiend,—but a male fiend.

But where am I wandering? To come back to my sister. She is a fair specimen of the quick, impulsive, frank class of women. She says she belongs to the genus irritabile. She is easily excited to every good emotion, and also to the nobler failings of anger, indignation, and pride. But she is so far above any meanness or littleness, that she don't know them when she sees them. They pass with her for what they are not, and she is spared the humiliation of knowing what her species is capable of. Kate's nature is very charming, but there is a gentler, calmer order of beings in the sex. I once was greatly attracted by one of them; and you, I think, belong to that order. However, I should not class you with her,—for Kate says she was a "deceitful thing." She may have been so, for aught I know; but I hold it as my creed, that there are some women all softness, all gentleness, all purity, all loveableness, and yet all strength of principle. Kate says, if there are men all courage, all chivalry, all ardor, and all virtue, I may be right.

The Germans say, "Give the Devil a hair, and he will get your whole head." Luckily it is the same with the good angels. I have seen a hundred examples to prove it true. I will give the one nearest my heart.

Lina's generous aspiration at the birth of her baby brother was the hair. Since then, the angel of generosity has drawn her on from one self-denying deed to another, until he has possessed her utterly. Her self-sacrifice was completed some weeks ago. I will tell you how,—for her light shall not be hidden under a bushel.

When I arrived at this, her little cottage home, after the accident, it was found impossible to get me up stairs. So I have since occupied the parlor as my sick-room,—having converted a large airy china-closet into a recess for a bed, and banished the dishes to the kitchen dresser. During the day I occupy a soft hair-cloth-covered couch, and from it I can command, not a view, but a hearing, of the two porches, the hall, and the garden.

The day after my return was a soft, warm day; and though it was in February, the windows were all open. I heard a light carriage drive up to the front door, and supposing it to be the doctor, I awaited his entrance with impatience. After some time I discovered that he was with Kate in the garden, and I could hear their voices. I listened with all my ears, that I might steal his true opinion of myself; for I concluded that Kate was having a private consultation, and arranging plans by which I was to be bolstered up with prepared accounts, and not told the plain facts of the case. I had before suspected that they did not tell me the worst. I could just catch my name now and then, but no more; and I wished heartily that they were a little nearer the windows. They must be, I thought, quite at the bottom of the garden. Suddenly I perceived that the voice addressing my sister was one of impassioned persuasion, and I heard the words, "Be calm and reasonable,"—"Not forever." Then Kate said, with a burst of sobs, "Only in heaven."

"It is all over with me, then," I thought, aghast. But having settled it, after a struggle, to be the best thing both for me and Kate, I began to listen again. They were quite silent for some moments. Then I heard sounds which surprised me,—low, loving tones,—and I desperately wrenched myself upon my elbows to look out. The agony of such effort was more tolerable than the agony of suspense. They were not far off, as I supposed, but close under the window, standing in the little box-tree arbor, screened from all eyes but mine; and no doubt Kate believed herself safe enough from these, as I had never been capable of such exertion since the accident. Their low tones had deceived me as to their distance.

I was mistaken in another respect. It was not the doctor with Kate, but a fine-looking man, whose emotion declared him her lover. His arm held her, and hers rested upon his shoulder, as she looked up at him and spoke earnestly. His face expressed the greatest alarm and grief. I do not know where she found the resolution, while looking upon it, to do what she did; for, Mary,—I can hardly bear to write it,—I heard her forever renounce her love and happiness for my sake.

I might then have cried out against this self-sacrifice; but there is something sacred in such an interview, and I could not thrust myself upon it. I wish now that I had done so. But then I listened in silence—grief-struck—to the rejection of him she loved,—to the farewells. I saw the long-clasped hands severed with an effort and a shudder; I saw my proud sister offer and give a kiss far more fervent than that which she received in return;—for she felt that this was a final parting, and her heart was full of love and sorrow; while in his there lingered both hope and anger,—hope that I would recover, and release her,—resentment because she could sacrifice him to me.

And yet, after the parting, Kate had but just turned from him, when a change came over his countenance, at first of enthusiastic admiration, then of a yet more burning pain. He walked quickly after her, caught her in his arms, and dashing away tears, that they might not fall upon her face, he kissed her passionately, and said, "It is hard that I must say it, but you are right, Lina! Oh, my God! must I lose such a woman?"

Kate, trembling, panting, stamped her foot and cried, "Go, go!—I cannot stand it!—go!" Ah, Mary! that poor, pale face! He went. Kate made one quick, terrified, instantly restrained motion of recall, which he did not see; but I did, and I fainted with the pang it gave me.

When I recovered consciousness, I found my sister bending over me, blaming herself for neglecting me for so long a time, and calling herself a cruel, faithless nurse, with acute self-reproach!—There's woman for you!

I told her what I had overheard, and protested against what she had done. She said I must not talk now,—I was too ill; she would listen to me to-morrow. The next day I broached the subject again, as she sat by my side, reading the evening paper. She put her finger on a paragraph and handed it to me. I read that one of the steamships had sailed at twelve o'clock that day. "He is in it," Kate said, and left the room.—He is in Europe by this time.

Helpless wretch that I am!

Are not Kate's whole head and heart, and all, under the dominion of Heaven's best angels?

II

March, 1855.

And now, dear Mary, I intend to let you into our household affairs. This illness has brought me one blessing,—a home. It has plunged me into the bosom of domestic life, and I find things there exceedingly amusing. Things commonplace to others are very novel and interesting to me, from my long residence in hotels, and perfect ignorance of how the pot was kept boiling from which my dinners came.

But before you enter the house, take a look at the outside, and let me localize myself in your imagination. Bosky Dell is a compact little place of ten acres, covered mostly with a dense grove, and cut into two unequal parts by a brawling, rocky stream. The house—a little cottage, draped with vines, and porched—sits on a slope, with an orchard on one side, a tiny lawn bordered with flowers on another, the shade of the grove darkening the windows of a third, and on the fourth a kitchen-garden with strawberry-beds and grape-trellises. It is a pretty little place, and full of cosy corners. My favorite one I must describe.

It is a porch on the south side of the house, between two projections. Consequently both ends of it are closed; one, by the parlor wall, in which there is a window,—and the other, by the kitchen window and wall. It is quite shut in from winds, and the sun beams pleasantly upon it, these chilly March days. There is just room enough for my couch, Kate's rocking-chair, and a little table. Here we sit all the morning,—Kate sewing, I reading, or watching the sailing clouds, the swelling tree-buds in the grove, and the crocus-sprinkled grass, which is growing greener every day.

Thus, while busy with me, Kate can still have an eye to her kitchen, and we both enjoy the queer doings and sayings of our "culled help," Saide. She became Kate's servant under an inducement which I will give in her own words.

"Massy! Miss Catline, when I does a pusson a good turn, seems like I wants to keep on doin' 'em good turns. I didn't do so dreffle much for you, but I jes got one chance to help you a bit, and seems like I couldn't be satisfactioned to let you alone no more."—A novel reason to hear given, but a true one in philosophy.

This "chance" was when my sister was attacked with cholera once, in the first panic caused by it, of late years. All her friends had fled to the country, and she was quite alone in a boarding-house. I was at college. She would have been left to die alone, so great was the fear of the disease, if Saide, who was cook in the establishment, had not boiled over with indignation, and addressed her selfish mistress in this fashion:—

"That ar' young lady's not to have no care, nohow, took of her, a'n't she? She's to be lef' there a-sufferin' all alone that-a-way, is she? I guess so too! Hnh! Now I'se gwine to nuss her, and I don't keer if you don't know nothin' about culining, you must get yer own dinnas and breakwusses and suppas. That's the plain English of it,—leastways till she's well ag'in."

She devoted herself night and day to Kate for several weeks, and then accompanied her to this house, as a matter of course. She is a privileged personage. She often pops her head out of the kitchen window to favor us with her remarks. As they always make us laugh, she won't take reproofs upon that subject. Kate says her impertinence is intolerable, but suffers it rather than resort to severity with her old benefactress. I enjoy it.

She manages to turn her humor to account in various ways. I heard her exclaim,—

"Laws-a-me! Dere goes de best French-chayny gold-edged tureen all to smash! Pieces not big enough to save! Laws now, do let me study how to tell de folks, so's to set 'em larfin'. Dere's great 'casion to find suthin' as 'll do it, 'cause dey thinks a heap o' dis yere ole chayny. Mr. Charley now,—he's easy set off; but Miss Catline,—she takes suthin' purty 'cute! Laws, I has to fly roun' to git dat studied out!"

Kate overheard this;—how could she scold?

Saide can never think unless she is "flyin' roun'"; and whenever there is a great tumult in the kitchen, pans kicked about, tongs falling, dishes rattling, and table shoved over the floor, something pretty good, in the shape either of a bonne-bouche or a bon-mot, is sure to turn up.

This morning there was a furious hubbub, that threatened to drown my voice. Saide was evidently "flyin' roun'," and Kate, who could not hear half that I read, got out of patience.

"What is the matter?" she asked, raising the sash of the window.

"I on'y wants the currender, (colander,) Miss Catline,—dat's all, Miss."

"Well, does it take a whirlwind to produce it?"

"Oh, laws, Miss Catline! Don't be dat funny now, don't!—yegh! yegh!—I'se find it presentry. I'se on'y a little frustrated, (flustered,) Miss, with de 'fusion, and I'se jes a-studyin'. Never mind me, Miss,—dat's all, indeed it is,—and you'll have a fuss-rate minch-pie for dinner. I guess so, too!—yegh! yegh!"—And so we had.

Kate's domestics stand in much awe of her, but feel at least equal love. So that hers is a household kept in good order, with very little of the vexation, annoyance, and care, I hear so many of her married friends groaning about.

April.

For a month nearly, Kate has forbidden my writing, and the first part of this letter was not sent; so I will finish it now. My sister thought the effort of holding a pen, in my recumbent position, was too wearying to me; but now I am stronger, and can sit up supported by pillows. I hasten to tell you of another most important addition to my comfort, which has been made since I wrote last. I am so eager with the news, that I can hardly hold a steady pen. Isn't this a fine state for a promising young lawyer to be reduced to? He is wild with excitement, because some one has given him a new go-cart!