SHINGLES FROM AN OLD ROOF.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 836, 26 August 1864, Page 5

SHINGLES FROM AN OLD ROOF.

By a Fkee and Easy Shingler,

SHINGLE THE SIXTEENTH —EASY CHAIHS. Wanted, an easy chair! Not a mere piece of -upholstery, carefully cushioned, and cunningly padded by the art of joinery; but a peace-giving chair, wherein not only shall the husk of man find repose, but the kernel also shall sit at ease. A chair, which shall be to the diseased mind what chloroform is to the diseased body— the happy source of temporary oblivion. A chair whence all unpleasant thoughts shall be abolished —all vain regrets exorcised. Is there such a chair in the world ? If so, who and what is the favored possessor ? Nay, there is none such, i Smile as you may, my good Sir, you know in your heart of hearts that 3 rou cannot reckon a truly easy chair amongst all your chattels. For -wealth will not purchase it; honour will not confer it; virtue itself will not secure it. I care not how elegantly your boudoir is furnished, my dear madam. Sofas and couches you may have in galore, and chairs of such ease as patent springs and horsehair can bestow. But can you place your lily-white hand on the corsage beneath which palpitates your fluttering little heart, and assure me that you have an easy chair in your house. I seek not to know the particular thorns in your cushion. 'Twere to inquire too curiously, my lady. But thorns there are, aye, and sharp ones too; and there are times when you sit uneasily in your softest arm chair, and endure pangs undreamt of by your dearest friends and sisters, though each of them undergoes similar torment on her own account. You may be a feminine Sybarite complaining of a crnmpled roseleaf, or an Amazonian Montezuma bearing direst torture with stoical heroism. If the first, you are merely entitled to the pity which cometh of contempt. Albeit your miseries will be none the less because they are fictitious. Indeed, self-created miseries are less endurable than the real penalties of life. And it is a remarkable illustration of the adjustment of the balance of good and evil, that they whose lot is the fairest, and whose path is the smoothest, are the most prone to afflict themselves with imaginary woes. But there are women who, with more than Spartan fortitude, wrap the rugged cloak of endurance closely around their bleeding bosoms, and smiie bravely on a thoughtless world, though the wolf of despair is ever gnawing fiercely at their vitals. And to dole out pitiful messes of commiseration to these would be to insult them. Rather let all good men and true render to them such, homage as trivial mortality might fitly offer to the saints. We all remember the terrible tale of naughty Mrs St. G-engulphus; how she stuffed the cushion of her easy chair with her murdered spouse's beard; and how the beard revenged itself and its master on that faithless woman, when she sat down upon it. How — " She shriek'd with pain, but all efforts were v.lin; In vain tk?y strained every smew and muscle, — The cushion stuck fast! from that hour to her lasf, She could never get rid of that comfortless '"Bustle."' In these latter days our ladies have learned how to fashion themselves afte^ the model of the Hottentot Venus, without? having recourse'to the ingenious article of attire, devised for that purpose by their respected mammas. There is, therefore, little fear of a repetition of the Gengulphian catastrophe/ In fact, I know, and have known :aiany docile husbands whose beards have been shaved by their wives with perfect impunity. But I venture to doubt whether the use of crinoline has increased the number of easy chairs. And if Mrs Grundy assures me to the contrary,! shall evermore regard hoops as sacred institutions, and their fair wearers as so many walking editions-of "Venus Preserved," elegantly bound in scarlet, with handsome portraits, and designs—on wood. It is one of the manifold delusions of our race to regard with envy such of their number as possess more of this world's goods than iall to the lot of the masses. And it is equally a delusion for the favored few to cant about the happiness of humble poverty. As if any station of life was exempt from its attendant tribulations. Uneasy lies the head that wear's a crown, cried the expiring monarch. Think you that the uneasiness was entirely limited to the region of the head ? Not at all. It was quite a gratuitous wish of Alcibiades that the great ones of old Athens might Sit and pant in their great chairs of state. Depend upon it they had never done otherwise. The Imperial Kaiser who commands the lives and fortunes of millions is every whit as wretched as the meanest serf •in his dominions. Mr Smiles tells us a hopeful story of a carpenter, who exerted unusual pains in planing a magisterial bench, on the ground that -he expected to sit on it some day, and wished therefore to make it as easy as possible. And it is said that he did afterwards occupy that very bench, but we are not told that he found the coveted seat easy. On the contrary, there is every reason for believing that he made a discovery which is so very patent to all, that one wonders why it is constantly overlooked :—namely that tne higher the social position, the more pointed are the thorns in the cushions. The only true philosopher is the man who is • . „ " Contented wi' little, and canty wi mair. and so far as my experience goes, there are but an infinitesimal number of such in the world. . » Gainsay it whoso may, the fact remains I that no man or woman on the earth hath a perfectly easy chair. And the worst of it is that whilst one half of us are busily engaged in destroying our own comfort, the other half are intent on aiding our efforts. By our follies, our weaknesses, our vices and our crimes, we gather together a goodly pile of mischief, wherewith to construct a very chevaux-de-frise of discomfort. And when we reap the just reward o£ our sinful industry, we relapse into the absurdities of babyhood, and AT THE ROOMS OF

blubber most wearily over our self-in-flicted woes. Bah ! Out of nine-tenths of the good folks who bestow their tediousness upon my unwilling ears, there is not one to whose lachrymose drivellings I could not honestly reply—"Thou did'stit; —thou,—none other !" Search the tablets of your brains, my whining brethren, and in your ' own misdeeds you shall trace the causes of those effects which you now so lustily deplore. But what shall we say to those ingenious individuals who employ their tongues and talents in rendering their fellow-mortals uneasy ? The last English mail brings us an account of a Mr Cyrus Travis who endeavored to get rid of his insane wife by administering to her a couple of puff-cakes, containing seven pins, bent in the shape of fish-hooks. I hold him to be no guiltier than the wretches who stuff their neighbors' easy-chairs with crooked pins of slander. The hint, the shrug, the inuendo, the depreciatory monosyllable, these are the more ordinary methods of offence. Woe be to these consumers of good names, these remorseless devourers of reputation! What is become of charity, which truly interpreted meaneth love ? Mu3t we indeed "sigh for its rarity?" Oh! my masters, are there not sufficient plagues in this Egypt of ours, but we must tax our ingenuity to invent others? If for no better reason, the fact that the boomerang of malice will recoil upon its thrower, should lt bid us pause" ere we launch forth the deadly missile. j Ah, you will all agree with me no doubt. You will exclaim "Very true!" and vent all'the common-places proper to be.used on the occasion; and you will go meekly away, and repeat your offences in the most agreeable manner. Before the echoes of my voice have died away in the chambers of the brain, our old friends Brown, Jones, and Robinson will have cheerfully stuck pins in no end of easy chairs. And the Smylars, and Alamodes, and Tippitywitchets of fashionable life will softly insinuate disparagement of each other; and the whole batch will probabb' abuse the Old Shingler; and he will be flattered by the unintentional testimony thereby accorded of the truthfulness of his picture.