Roundabout Papers - Penn State University

Roundabout Papersoffices of duty and comfort of life; and we live togetherfor years, and don’t know each other. John’s voice tome is quite different from John’s voice when it addresseshis mates below. If I met Hannah in the street with abonnet on, I doubt whether I should know her. And allthese good people with whom I may live for years andyears, have cares, interests, dear friends and relatives,mayhap schemes, passions, longing hopes, tragedies oftheir own, from which a carpet and a few planks andbeams utterly separate me. When we were at the seaside,and poor Ellen used to look so pale, and run afterthe postman’s bell, and seize a letter in a great scrawlinghand, and read it, and cry in a corner, how shouldwe know that the poor little thing’s heart was breaking?She fetched the water, and she smoothed the ribbons,and she laid out the dresses, and brought theearly cup of tea in the morning, just as if she had hadno cares to keep her awake. Henry (who lived out of thehouse) was the servant of a friend of mine who lived inchambers. There was a dinner one day, and Harry waitedall through the dinner. The champagne was properlyiced, the dinner was excellently served; every guest wasattended to; the dinner disappeared; the dessert wasset; the claret was in perfect order, carefully decanted,and more ready. And then Henry said, “If you please,sir, may I go home?” He had received word that hishouse was on fire; and, having seen through his dinner,he wished to go and look after his children, and littlesticks of furniture. Why, such a man’s livery is a uniformof honor. The crest on his button is a badge ofbravery.Do you see—I imagine I do myself—in these littleinstances, a tinge of humor? Ellen’s heart is breakingfor handsome Jeames of Buckley Square, whose greatlegs are kneeling, and who has given a lock of his preciouspowdered head, to some other than Ellen. Henryis preparing the sauce for his master’s wild-ducks whilethe engines are squirting over his own little nest andbrood. Lift these figures up but a story from the basementto the ground-floor, and the fun is gone. We maybe en pleine tragedie. Ellen may breathe her last sigh inblank verse, calling down blessings upon James the prof-106