CONFESSIONS OF A GOOD-FOR-NOTHING. Ir distressed me the other day-for to think I could write; but I haven't I have my feelings to think of myself as a being quite useless to his fellowcreatures. This was a novel view of my case. It had been the same for ten or fifteen years, I suppose, but I'd never thought of it before. For that matter, I'd never thought of any thing ten minutes together. It is said we benefit some one by even our extravagance. The remark does not apply to me. I live in an attic, and this is the fifth year I've worn my only coat. Extravagance! They say, too, one's cheerful face and kindly glance do good. Perhaps, when they're seen. As for me, I sleep, or dream with my eyes open, most of the daytime, and try the air only at night, like a bat. Besides, were I to go out by daylight, I fancy people would not be particularly struck with my cheerfulness; and as for my glance, why, I never glance at any body. I have n't even looked at myself these three years. My glass was long ago shoved up a conduit so narrow I could n't follow it if I would. I have forgotten 'what manner of man' I was. Who cares? Then we're told we're a source of happiness to our friends and relations, who can't but think of us with pleasure. Very likely, if one has 'em. As to friends, show me one. Relations they've disowned me. No; you may depend, I've been the veriest Good-for-nothing in the world. I am now. On the whole, I'm a dismal failure, and should never have been born. I have said the discovery pained me. I may truthfully add I wished-for I'm not really selfish-I could (in some easy way) at last atone for such great indifference to my kind by doing it a service. I still indulge this amiable whim. But the question that bothers me is, What on earth can I do? I used Were it not that the thought of work dismays me, I would pursue the only feasible idea that has struck me, namely, giving some account of myself. It might afford a little amusement-perhaps a lesson. But it is not the work alone that staggers me. To tell the truth, I'm a trifle sensitive. Pshaw! how absurd! No; I'm only lazy. Well, I can stop when I like; so I'll begin, at any rate, and trust to my stars - whose friendship, however, as it strikes me, has been rather equivocal- for ways and means to wriggle through. I can think of nothing better to begin with-because it is true and characteristic-than the fact that I never take an interest in any thing. I never did. There is but one thing I would cross the street to see; and that is, the man (should he really exist) who surpasses me in indolence. He would be a sight. I don't see how he could surpass me, and live. I picked up a newspaper the other day-it was a daily, but I forget which—and went through a column or two. It was very dreary. Something mean about something else still meaner seemed to be the essence of it. I learned that one or two other journals were quite unreliable. A great man was censured. A small one was galvanized. There had been a skirmish somewhere. A great ram or something was building, or to be launched, or something. Some people had got blown up somewhere, and some houses blown down somewhere else. A great battle was imminent - but a great battle always is imminent. Some clergymen had been talking to the President. Glad I wasn't the President. Napoleon had some designs, as usual, etc., etc. It was curiously uninteresting. I lit my pipe with a piece of it. (A fortnight later.) Having at times been made exceedingly uncomfortable with thoughts of this enterprise, I suppose I must go on with it. I have promised myself a deal of rest so soon as the job shall be fairly off my hands. I'm in hopes it will be some time this year. How I ever brought myself to begin will henceforth be a perpetual marvel. But, once begun, autobiographic efforts are very apt to continue, as many a modest and lazy writer can attest. I feel I shall finish. Presently, it will be easier to go on than stop; and all may judge what is likely to result, in that Nothing. I only imagine things. I dream and ruminate. I sleep. A good part of the time I rub my eyes and seem to be getting awake. I yawn. Once in a while, when I feel vigorous, I stretch. I'm bothered a good deal with what they call obfuscations or something -a peculiarity of mental vision which enables one to see what does n't exist. This is all very well, provided one has a taste for it. I get strange notions, which spring up in my muddled brains, I sup (A few days later.) Like an old man, (I say, like an old man, for I'm but forty-five,) I can now and then remember things that happened a good while ago; and they're generally of no particular consequence, when I do remember 'em. Of course I would n't say this of my father, whom I chance to recollect exceeding well, for me; for the governor was 'werry good to me,' as little Bob or Bill – no, Joe — says in that capital story of Dickens's — whatd'ye-call-it? - Bleak House. Men who knew my father know where my character comes from. I don't remember all about him now, of course, but I know he was very slow, and he groaned a deal over his arduous duties. For years I was n't sure he had any, as he was around the house most of the time. I recollect he called his business some custom-house affair- collector, or inspector, or surveyor, or the like. For that matter, it may have been weighing, or gauging, or something of that sort. All I know is, if he weighed, he gauged his abilities so meanly they didn't half balance the labor; and if he gauged, why, he weighed too much (two hundred and over) to be happy at it. Out of curiosity - or rather, I think, friendship-I once went down and spent what he called a 'day' with him at his 'office.' We were almost half a day getting there, for I would pit my father against the next man for walking slow. We had to go up one or two pairs of stairs. On the first landing, he stopped, out of breath; and waiting for me to come up --- for I was always behind my lay down on the bench, on my back, father said, with much pathos, 'These and went to sleep. When I awoke, stairs will be the death of me yet!' they were all smoking and reading still; Time eventually carried out his predic- and presently the governor looked at the tion; and I remember it gave six men a clock and said it was time to go home. job to carry him out. The 'office' was So we went, and found that labor gives an uncommonly nice place-what I one a good appetite for dinner. could see of it through a haze of tobacco-smoke; it had a ceiling so low my father could have touched it with his hand, and was not much bigger than a bed-room. A rusty old stove, well-lacquered with tobacco-juice, stood in the midst, the floor around it being strewn with saw-dust, 'old soldiers,' and exhausted quids, while several well-whittled chairs and desks completed the imposing ensemble. The above is about the only picture that 'memory's walls' can boast, at this date. 'Mornin', Ned; mornin', Bill,' said my father to a couple of co-worthies who sat with their feet on the stove, smoking clay pipes and reading news papers. 'Mornin', chum,' said both together. 'Any thing laid out for this mornin'?' inquired my father. 'No,' answered they, and went on reading. Upon which, the governor went to a desk and unlocked it. There was nothing in it, that I could see, but a pack of cards and a checker-board with some leathern men on it, the cards and the men looking rather greasy. He took out a pipe-which showed that the desk was better furnished than I had supposed and also a paper of tobacco, (odd I should remember these things!) from which he loaded his pipe, and got to smoking directly. Then he borrowed a paper from Ned, and drawing up a chair, elevated his feet to a level with those of his compeers, and went to reading with great deliberation, apparently quite forgetting the loneliness of his descendant. I sauntered to the window, which was so dirty I could scarcely recognize familiar objects through it, saw some ships, got my hands into some grease, which I wiped off on my hair, and presently, becoming quite fatigued, I don't suppose my father got more than ten or fifteen hundred dollars a year for these services. Certainly he was ill paid. He complained a deal of hard work and those stairs, and finally died of them, as I before remarked. I think of him now as a custom-house martyr. I was but a lad when my widowed mother one of the best and tallest women that ever lived-gathered together me and the household effects → no great job and went straight to my uncle's, in Massachusetts. This gentleman, much to my concern, was unpleasantly blue in his religious tenets, and mightily methodical in practice. Every thing was done by rule, on his premises; and there were so very many things to do, the same day after day, a fellow who naturally hated monotony ran much risk of getting disgusted. It is my opinion that had my uncle ever chanced — after reaching the age of twenty or thereabouts to feel the throbbings of a spontaneous emotion, he would then and there incontinently have died of self-abomination. Never was so tired in my life. (Tuesday of the following week.) I am now, I think, completely rested from the fatigue of my last effort. I have become so filled with pride, surveying my novel achievement, that complacency has gradually warmed into ambition, and I am resolved to go a great way towards the conclusion of my sketch, this very day. 1 My exemplary uncle was hardly prepared, I should think, for the figure I cut on the farm. Getting up with the lark was a new letter in my alphabet. However, it was one of the branches taught in his institute, and I had to learn it. And I did not get up for the maxims. purpose of being idle all day - trust a number of ingeniously worded hygienic my uncle for that! So I slaved along, regular on compulsion, and active under a kind of unconscious protest; until the old martinet, growing older and more indulgent or perhaps I should say, blinder and more feeble-rather relaxed the bonds of his discipline, and I, true to my original nature, followed up the lessening pressure like a patient but alert steel spring, that does n't wait to be told. I felt it was wrong to yield to this vis inertia, so persistently opposed to laudable effort; and but for one thing, perhaps I should now be accounted a moderately decent, respectable man, with money in the bank. I allude to the very general custom of lying abed of a Sunday morning. To this I think I may justly ascribe my ruin. For after all, custom so overlies and represses nature, that had the hour for rising been exactly the same for all the days of the week, summer and winter, one might at last be thought to have established a habit strong enough to withstand the encroachments of the most perverse tendencies. But what could have more satisfactorily proved the universal disposition of the race, and thus borne me out in the indulgence of my own, than this habit, which was a regular sneer at regularity, and a flattering concession to the errant pretensions of genuine nature? It made me grateful to the community, though it lessened my respect, to find myself so handsomely indorsed. And I availed myself, as may be supposed, to the utmost, of my inestimable privilege. The longer I lay, of a Sunday morning, the longer I wished to lie. From rising barely in time for breakfast, I at length retrograded, unreproved, to the point of sitting down at a deserted table; thence, to finding the meal colder and colder; so that it was not many months ere I began to fail of finding it at all, spite of several friendly warnings and remonstrances, and the ventilating The ledge of breakfast passed, I sank to so profound a deep of Sabbath degradation that even my habit of going to meeting seemed to be threatened. At thoughts of discontinuing this elegant diversion, I own I had at first some weak misgivings; for the custom was, I may say, universal, and was deemed the corner-stone of respectability. To be given up by one's friends, and sorrowfully handed over to the Devil- of whom the various ministers I had sat under had helped me to form no very favorable opinion - was certainly a fate to which I had no mind. Ah! had it been a question between me and Morpheus only, I do not doubt that, lazy as I was, I should have conquered. So far from it, lying awake was what I found so fascinating. Not yet disturbed by the bustle of rising, and having my spiritual part at its best estate, now that breakfast no more thrust its material obstruction into the current, I naturally and willingly became the captive of that too gentle mistress, Reverie. I maintain I also did, at first, some decent thinking, in those matutinal idlings, and now and then lit upon ideas and fancies that ought to have gone into books. I confess, however, I spent much time in a profitless way, as business goes lying, with eyes half closed, and wandering in fancy in that limitless land which stretches between light and darkness - holding intimate relations with things immaterial, and surveying such shapes and scenes as these material eyes must despair of utterly. Then, perhaps, some sudden sound would bring me from those foreign parts, the glow of whose beauties would for a moment gild the commoner things of earth, and then steal away to, its own bright realm, as though it shrank from their touch or was afraid. Why, really! I am getting eloquent. No wonder I look back fondly to that period. It deserves all I can say of it speaking by contrast. All happiness, they say, is comparative. Mine, on those serene and heavenly Sunday mornings, seemed superlative. Simply to be let alone, while I petted those sweet fancies and gave my soul the airing it had pined for through the week, was bliss enough. What wonder that the time should have come when even the voice of the 'churchgoing bell' fell far behind the music of my dreams! I had a trifle of taste, but no piety to speak of; the former made me wretched over the dulness of the preacher and the stupidity of the choir, while the lamentable lack of the latter deprived my case of any hopeful features. Just as it had been with breakfast- - first I went in a little late; then a little later; then, pricked forward by conscience, I appeared bright and early; then, having done so admirably, I felt encouraged to lie in bed till twelve, and let the returning family find me in an easy-chair, (we had one, originally designed for an invalid, since deceased,) reverently perusing the BIBLE, and also complaining of rheumatism. The rheumatism was in my will, but I said it was in my legs. This complaint hung around me a good while, proving conveniently periodical, and readily simulated, to the conviction of the most suspicious. And when my really honest nature at length impelled me to come out in my true colors, people had grown so used to the idea of missing me from meeting, (and I had never 'joined' and become a 'professor,') I heard very little on the subject of 'backsliding,' though 'laziness' was a theme I began to observe was rather more frequently discussed in my presence than formerly. Will any one be surprised that the sins of Sunday should at length have been visited on the head of Monday poor punctual offspring of a wretched parent? Believe me when I say I was long in yielding to the charmer; you may then (if you can) exult in my final overthrow. Yes, I was a hero many weeks a hero laurelless, but still of the true stuff. But I grew steadily weaker, my enemy at the same rate more dreadfully powerful. I saw not the glory of my achievements. The old Sunday morning programme began to repeat itself-stealthily, insinuatingly-and the black looks, and more significant warnings, reproofs, lectures,. threatenings, these too came in their turn, each temporarily efficacious, but all failing of real permanent virtue. Well, let the truth come out. It would tell itself, were you to look at me. I went down at that fatal rate, Respectability and Decency soon looked like the sun and moon, far above me and unattainable. I fairly earned the title I have given myself at the head of my sketch. All seemed to think I had a right to it, if any body. I was My mother worried, of course. sorry on her account, (she being a tolerably proud item of mortality,) and dare say I should have been infinitely worse, but for remembering her. An incident of that period has just recalled itself. One winter's morning, a day or two after a fall of snow, I was awakened by the sound of innumerable sleigh-bells, which made me think the whole town mad with the opportunity of a genuine frolic. A pang that instant went to my heart, for my habits and I were thrown into high relief by the phenomenon, which spoke so pointedly of enjoyment, health, and spirits. Presently I made the soothing discovery that what I had heard was after all but the vociferous prattling of a teakettle, whose ante-breakfast music came up to me from below through a 'stovepipe hole' in the floor with an effect marvellously like that of sleigh-bells in the distance. A commoner youth of my order would only have smiled at this, and turned over for a new nap; as for me, I rose, dressed myself, and thrust my appari |