Chapter 12: A Man May Love His House, Though He Ride Not On The Ridge

Chapter 12.
A Man May Love His House, Though He Ride Not On the Ridge

You can love your house and not ride on the ridge; there's a medium in everything. You can be fond of your wife without being her drudge, and you can love your children dearly, and yet not give them their own way in everything. Some men are of so strange a kidney that they set no bounds to their nonsense. If they are fond of roast beef they must needs suck the spit; they cannot rest with eating the pudding, they must swallow the bag. If they dislike a thing, the very smell of it sets them grumbling, and if they like it they must have it everywhere and always, for nothing else is half so sweet. When they do go in for eating rabbits, they have

Rabbits young and rabbits old, Rabbits hot and rabbits cold, Rabbits tender, rabbits tough:

Never can they have enough.

Whatever they take up takes them up, and for a season they cannot seize on anything else. At election times the barber cannot trim his customer's poll because of the polling, and the draper cannot serve you with calico because he is canvassing. The nation would go to the dogs altogether if the cat's-meat man did not secure the election by sticking his mark on the ballot paper.

You can make a good thing become a nuisance by harping on that one string from dawn to dusk. A hen with one chick makes no end of scratching and clucking, and so does a fellow of one idea. He has a. bee in his bonnet, and he tries to put a wasp in yours. He duns you, and if you do not agree with him he counts you his enemy. When you meet with him you are unfortunate, and when you leave him you will better yourself, go where you may. "There's small sorrow at our parting," as the old mare said to the broken cart. You may try to humor him, but he will have all the more humors if you do, for the man knows no moderation, and if you let him ride on the roof he will soon sit on the chimney-pot.

One man of my acquaintance used to take Morrison's pills every day of his life. When I called in to see him I had not been there ten minutes before he wanted me to take a dose, but I could not swallow what he told me, nor the pills either, so I told him I dare say they were very good for him, but they did not suit my constitution: however, he kept on with his subject till I was fain to be off. Another man never catches sight of me but he talks about vaccination, and goes on against it till he froths at the mouth, and I am half afraid he will inoculate me. My master had a capital horse, worth a good deal of money, only he always shied at a stone-heap on the road, and if there were fifty of them he always bolted off the road every time. He had got heaps on his brain, poor creature, and though he was fit for a nobleman's carriage, he had to be put to plough. Some men have got stone-heaps in their poor noddles, and this spoils them for life and makes it dangerous for all who have to deal with them.

What queer fish there are in our pond! I am afraid that most of us have a crack somewhere, but we don't all show it quite so much as some. We ought to have a good deal of patience, and then we shall find amusement where else we should be bothered to death. One of my mates says the world is not round, and so I always drop into his notion and tell him this is a flat world and he is a flat too.

What a trial it is to be shut up for an hour with a man or a woman with a hobby; riding in a horsebox with a bear with a sore head is nothing to it. The man is so fond of bacon that he wants to kiss his pig, and all the while you hope you will never again see either the man or his pork as long as you live. No matter what the whole hog may be, the man who goes it is terrible

Rocking-horse for boy, Hobby-horse for man Each one rides his toy Whenever he can.

The boy is right glad Though he rideth alone; His father's own fad By the world must be known

Of the two hobby rides, The boy's is the best; For the man often chides, And gives you no rest.

It is a good thing for a man to be fond of his own trade and his own place, but still there is reason in everything, even in roasting eggs. When a man thinks that his place is below him he will pretty soon be below his place, and therefore a good opinion of your own calling is by no means an evil; yet nobody is everybody, and no trade is to crow over the rest. The cobbler has his awl, but he is not all, and the hatter wears a crown, but he is not king. A man may come to market without buying my onions, and ploughing can be done with other horses than mine, though Dapper and Violet are something to brag of. The farming interest is no doubt first, and so is the saddler's, and so is the tinker's, and so is the grocer's, and so is the parson's, and so si every other interest according to each man's talk.

Your trade, as a trade, is all very well, But other good folk have their cheeses to sell;

You must not expect all the world to bow down, And give to one peddler the sceptre and crown.

It is astonishing how much men will cry up small matters. They are very busy, but it is with catching flies. They talk about a mushroom till you would think it was the only thing at the Lord Mayor's dinner, and the beef and the turkeys went for nothing. They say nothing about the leg of mutton, for they are so much in love with the trimmings. They can't keep things in their places, but make more of a horse's tail than they do of his whole body. Like the cock on the dunghill, they consider a poor barley-corn to be worth more than a diamond. A thing happens to suit their taste, and so there is nothing like it in the whole of England, or America, or Australia. A duck will not always dabble in the same gutter, but they will; for bless your heart, they don't think it a gutter, but a river, if not an ocean. They must ride the ridge of the roof, or else burn the house down. A good many people love their dogs, but these folks take them to bed with them. Other farmers fat the calf, but they fall down and worship it; and what is worse, they quarrel with everybody who does not think as much of their idol as they do. It will be a long while before all men become wise, but it will help on the time if we begin to be wise ourselves.

Don't let us make too much of this world and the things of it. We are to use it, but not to abuse it; to live in it, but not for it; to love our house, but not to ride on the ridge. Our daily bread and daily work are to be minded, and yet we must not mind earthly things. We must not let the body send the soul to grass, rather must we make the limbs servants to the soul. The world must not rule us. We must reign as kings, though we are only ploughmen, and stand upright, even if the world should be turned upside down.