they would prove obliging enough, and sometimes they would look grudgingly
upon us?but we had cheerful looks still for one another, and would eat our
plain food savorily, scarcely grudging Piscator4 his Trout Hall? Now?when
we go out a day's pleasuring, which is seldom, moreover, we ride part of the
way?and go into a fine inn, and order the best of dinners, never debating the
expense-?which, after all, never has half the relish of those chance country
snaps,5 when we were at the mercy of uncertain usage and a precarious
welcome. 'You are too proud to see a play anywhere now but in the pit. Do you
remember where it was we used to sit, when we saw the Battle of Hexham,
and the Surrender of Calais,6 and Bannister and Mrs. Bland in the Children
in the Wood'?when we squeezed out our shillings apiece to sit three or four
times in a season in the one-shilling gallery?where you felt all the time that
you ought not to have brought me-?and more strongly I felt obligation to you
for having brought me?and the pleasure was the better for a little shame?
and when the curtain drew up, what cared we for our place in the house, or
what mattered it where we were sitting, when our thoughts were with Rosalind
in Arden, or with Viola at the Court of Ilyria.8 You used to say that the gallery
was the best place of all for enjoying a play socially?that the relish of such
exhibitions must be in proportion to the infrequency of going?that the com
pany we met there, not being in general readers of plays, were obliged to attend
the more, and did attend, to what was going on, on the stage?because a word
lost would have been a chasm, which it was impossible for them to fill up.
With such reflections we consoled our pride then?and I appeal to you
whether, as a woman, I met generally with less attention and accommodation
than I have done since in more expensive situations in the house? The getting
in indeed, and the crowding up those inconvenient staircases, was bad
enough?but there was still a law of civility to woman recognized to quite as
great an extent as we ever found in the other passages?and how a little dif
ficulty overcome heightened the snug seat and the play, afterwards! Now we
can only pay our money and walk in. You cannot see, you say, in the galleries
now. 1 am sure we saw, and heard too, well enough then?but sight, and all,
I think, is gone with our poverty. 'There was pleasure in eating strawberries, before they became quite
common?in the first dish of peas, while they were yet dear?to have them
for a nice supper, a treat. What treat can we have now? If we were to treat
ourselves now?that is, to have dainties a little above our means, it would be
selfish and wicked. It is the very little more that we allow ourselves beyond
what the actual poor can get at that makes what I call a treat?when two
people living together, as we have done, now and then indulge themselves in
a cheap luxury, which both like; while each apologizes, and is willing to take
4. The fisherman in Izaak Walton's Complete 7. By Thomas Morton (1764-1838). Angler (1653). 8. Rosalind in Shakespeare's As You Like It and 5. Snacks. Viola in his Twelfth Night. 6. Comedies by George Colman (1762?1836).
.
OLD CHINA / 513
both halves of the blame to his single share. I see no harm in people making
much of themselves, in that sense of the word. It may give them a hint how
to make much of others. But now?what I mean by the word?we never do
make much of ourselves. None but the poor can do it. I do not mean the
veriest poor of all, but persons as we were, just above poverty. 'I know what you were going to say, that it is mighty pleasant at the end of
the year to make all meet?and much ado we used to have every Thirty-first
