第41章
ON A CHALK-MARK ON THE DOOR.
On the doorpost of the house of a friend of mine, a few inches above the lock, is a little chalk-mark which some sportive boy in passing has probably scratched on the pillar.The door-steps, the lock, handle, and so forth, are kept decently enough; but this chalk-mark, I suppose some three inches out of the housemaid's beat, has already been on the door for more than a fortnight, and I wonder whether it will be there whilst this paper is being written, whilst it is at the printer's, and, in fine, until the month passes over? I wonder whether the servants in that house will read these remarks about the chalkmark? That the Cornhill Magazine is taken in in that house Iknow.In fact I have seen it there.In fact I have read it there.
In fact I have written it there.In a word, the house to which Iallude is mine--the "editor's private residence," to which, in spite of prayers, entreaties, commands, and threats, authors, and ladies especially, WILL send their communications, although they won't understand that they injure their own interests by so doing; for how is a man who has his own work to do, his own exquisite inventions to form and perfect--Maria to rescue from the unprincipled Earl--the atrocious General to confound in his own machinations--the angelic Dean to promote to a bishopric, and so forth--how is a man to do all this, under a hundred interruptions, and keep his nerves and temper in that just and equable state in which they ought to be when he comes to assume the critical office? As you will send here, ladies, I must tell you you have a much worse chance than if you forward your valuable articles to Cornhill.Here your papers arrive, at dinner-time, we will say.Do you suppose that is a pleasant period, and that we are to criticise you between the ovum and malum, between the soup and the dessert? I have touched, I think, on this subject before.I say again, if you want real justice shown you, don't send your papers to the private residence.At home, for instance, yesterday, having given strict orders that I was to receive nobody, "except on business," do you suppose a smiling young Scottish gentleman, who forced himself into my study, and there announced himself as agent of a Cattle-food Company, was received with pleasure? There, as I sat in my arm-chair, suppose he had proposed to draw a couple of my teeth, would I have been pleased? I could have throttled that agent.I dare say the whole of that day's work will be found tinged with a ferocious misanthropy, occasioned by my clever young friend's intrusion.Cattle-food, indeed! As if beans, oats, warm mashes, and a ball, are to be pushed down a man's throat just as he is meditating on the great social problem, or (for Ithink it was my epic I was going to touch up) just as he was about to soar to the height of the empyrean!
Having got my cattle-agent out of the door, I resume my consideration of that little mark on the doorpost, which is scored up as the text of the present little sermon; and which I hope will relate, not to chalk, nor to any of its special uses or abuses (such as milk, neck-powder, and the like), but to servants.Surely ours might remove that unseemly little mark.Suppose it were on my coat, might I not request its removal? I remember, when I was at school, a little careless boy, upon whose forehead an ink-mark remained, and was perfectly recognizable for three weeks after its first appearance.May I take any notice of this chalk-stain on the forehead of my house? Whose business is it to wash that forehead?
and ought I to fetch a brush and a little hot water, and wash it off myself?