ASSOCIATIONS FOR SALE.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIX, Issue 6697, 4 October 1882, Page 3

ASSOCIATIONS FOR SALE.

(The World.)

When Silas Wegg made his famous bargain as the “ literary man ” of the Golden Dustman, ha, insisted that his feelings should be taken into account. Droning prose and “ dropping into poetry” were so much, and uncle John, aunt Mary, and the other gentlefolks in the big house opposite his crossing, tfere so much more, ■ It is true that he had never spoken to any one of them, and that the names he knew them by were entirely of his own devising. But they were associations, and associations were properties to which a crossing-sweeper' had as much right as a dustman, 1 And of course Mr Boffin recognised the fact, -and paid for the abandoned properties of, his ‘‘literary man.” Now it seems to us that, Mr Dickens used Mr Wegg rather, hardly when he held him ,up to derision; as a grasping old knave, who imposed on his simple patron with his feelings, associations, and suchlike intangible entities. In reality Silas was only a tiifle ahead of his age. Every week Teutonic Croesuses give thousands for worm-eaten cabinets which, without association, might, be dearly appraised at the price of hpuse-roqhi; Marie Antoinette’s writing - table brings the salaries of four- cprates capitalised, simply because Mr Wertheimer is aware that associations are saleable, and run np, as time goes bn, at compound interest. Mr Quaritch draws astounding cheques for faded folios, solely because the garish* stamp on the cover tells that the volume was, ; once bn a time, handled by Cardinal! Richelieu, Madame t-du Barry,, Aurora von Konigsmark;-“--or some equally eminent patrori of virtue and polite letters. * Mr Rossetti’s admirers rush to bid thirty pounds for chintz curtains, for which- Wardour-street would have scorned to pay thirty shillings, simply because they were associate)!; with the house of the poet-painter in Oheynew.alk.. , Mr Tennyson’s walking-stick or pipe would any day bring a better price than the most gorgeous cane in thb Bur? lington Area le, or the latest triumph of the Pesth meerschaum-carver’s t art. Indeed, there are few people with anything in the shape of a heart or ah imagination who have not, at some time in their life, dipped deep in their pockets for the gratification of, some' association in the shape of chair, table, toddy-ladle, or dogeared book. To Mr Wegg, - therefore, must be accorded the honor of discovering that sentimentwas a marketable commodity, which can always * cothmand l its price when mere magnifioance will hang on the auctioneer’s bands, i , , It is the same with houses. • A tumbledown structure, tbit all the eloquence of George Robins could not sell, will jrun up to an absurd figure * if only a firstclass ghost, a presentable ’banshee, the merest tradition~o£;,’V Royal J visit, or of some notable" or; notorious personage having once , lived in it,. can be furbished up. ■; Then,the new rich feel that at last they are connected with the past, and that, if they have no jgrandfathers themselves, 1 they at least are surrounded with, the spectres of somebody else’a grandsires. "There is a mellowness, a smack * oF> ! ahtiqui‘y, a suspicion of knights requiqbant:,<m tombs in mouldy aisles, of sepulchral brasses and doleful saints, about a house with a history, even though the : o!d part is only a loayon’ to the newer .addenda.,lf pe.rchatice .the last purchaser .happen to be b£ - the same name as the former owner, then, ancestors, portraits, arms/ legends,, and all are easily transferred,! and alluded to withj ah air of such trusting verity that; in the course of a generation or so, the family spectre which appears on-the occasion of a death or a marriage, ! or the fruition of,a protested bill, is as : touchingly confided in as was the barbersurgeon of Edward the Oonfessorjby the banker branch 7 of the Newooma family. A priest’s-hiding-place, a closet ;with a spring lock, or a wainscoted room, in wfiioli a tipsy.' baron is' asserted to have prodded some other tipsier knight,’ a godsend, for then, the tale.;*can be easily polished up to. the proper dramatic form ; and it will go hard with the new nian who Has bought the oid'acres, if’ Nathrin.Moss cannot furnish him an' ancestral portrait of ah' individual grim enough, looking, to have committed half the criinW in the “ Newgate Calendar.” ,j <*■ ■■ But'thrice blessed is the apocrypha of a Royal visit! The King’sjcafriage-j-Jfim'es I. is always servicable—broke down bn his way from Whitehall to York ;• or, if the. house is old..enough, Henry Hi, tired' with hunting, sought shelter for the night. The King’t room,- the'King’s gift, and even the King’s'jest oah always be serviceable. There aire—ifbr-itKe gospel of Boatswain Chucks is...unhappily that of many, less humble, folks—cases in which the visit of : a' jovial monarch -has has been promptly utilised by the', inventor of idomioiliary. romances for the purpose of explaining certain Tudoresque or Stuartian tfeaturesvin i the modern, proprietors of particular mansions, though, allowing t)iat the, chaielaitie w as rill that fancy paints her,(the pedigree-weaver; has a difficulty about the rest of the; wicked story, '* j:-- " ■ The craze for anything.old, musty, and mouldering is carried to such an extent that ruinous;, cottages are bought, added to, and rebuilt, simply, to preserve: some more or less trustworthy association. Old places,- in which the owners have for years'-, had; a difficulty i in, ■ living, and could persuade nobody; elso to take/ Bo- long as vaults were on hire and rookeries were plentiful, are rushing into the market 1 with suspicious celerity. Five,, ten—certainly twenty—years , ago, those ■ sons of , Anaflins who deal in . “ desirable residences ” used to expatiate oh the “ noble elevation,” the splendid view from the drawing-room window, the ‘‘lofty dining-hall,” the spacious lawn', the Corinthian columns', the, “imposing' facade,” the: frieze .by . Inigo Jones, and possibly, if the . advertiser. , was of; a poetical temperament,, a , few hints might be thrown; -.out regarding. the litter of ..rose-leaves and the song of nightingales, which were the only drawr backs to such an earthly Paradise. They know their customers better nowadays. Down Place, for instance, is ; a very pretty residence. ; But nothing, is said about its physical beauty ; the auctioneer dwells on. the (act—which happens not to be a fact—of its being the quondam home of Jacob Tonson, and . the rendezvous of the Kit Kat Club/ Macartney House occupies a “ commanding position ” on Crooins Hill ; but “ Wolfe’s old home ” is the bait by which purchasers are . to. be caught. “ Anglers and Americans” in England* ate beseeched in an advertisement of this week not to lose the chance of*securing a site for a house in a particularly attractive,- situation. There is an “ancient Royal fishery,” beautiful views, fine boating, pike, carp, tench, rudd, roach, a few trout,; and an eel buck of a very superior quality. A “grant of Charles L exists; has belonged to several noble families, and up to 1718 to Henry Washington, said to have been George Washington’s ancestor.” We shall be 'surprised to learn that it hangs long on the market,

The “noble families” and Washington associations will “fetch” the Bonanza men from Nevada, and the petroleum millionnairesof Pit-hole City. Associations are indeed so saleable that we wonder why they are not more liberally manufactured. Pedigrees can always be furnished to order ; “ancestors” are going absurdly cheap, and county historians are not more immaculate than the wearers of literary plush can afford to be. When the pill people and the fruit salt patentees can command the pages of travel books, surely the owners of a grimy old barn ought to be able to order an association to suit? At worst, it is always possible to get a notability to live rent free in a house for a few years, and then to let or sell it on the springtide of thia_ temporary notoriety. Cetewayo’s lodgings—after the charwoman has been in—ought to be about as attractive to, the associationhunter as Czar Peter’s house at Deptford. Old taverns frequented by Dr. Johnson or Mr Tennyson are sure of the Americans’ custom, though a sadder imposture than the publichouse, with a few traditions and a monotony of leathern chops, does not exist. Scotland lives by the associations which Scott invented for her. Dickens has made the fortunes of endless ramshackle old places; and a thatched cottage on Denmark Hill actually insists on raising its head—and its rent—on the ground of Mr William Black having given it the immortality of Mudie’s Library, in one of his very readable books on British topography. Could not the •lady novelist be utilised to manufacture associations for unlettable houses ? This would, at least, be finding some use for a class whose existence in a world where nothing is created in vain sorely tries our confidence in an all-wise Providence !

(Vor continuation of News set J&h. page.)