Punch (7.1844)

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

119

PUNCH'S COMPLETE LETTER-WRITER.

LETTER XXI.

FROM A POOR RELATION.

odd in the pound. But the worst of it is, I am not able from this
accident to meet two or three matters which are fast pressing upon
me ; and therefore in my difficulty must beg your assistance. I
would not do so, were 1 not certain that it would even annoy you if
I were to apply to anybody else. I know your heart so well that you
would never forgive me for hesitating. It would—I am sure you
would feel it so—be an affront to you as a friend and a kinsman.

How delightful then is it, on a stroke of ill-fortune like the present,
to know that we have a relative—a flourishing, cordial soul—who
looks upon himself as the steward of Providence ; who is too happy
to show his gratitude for prosperity, by shaking some few crumbs from
his sumptuous, loaded board to his poor relations: who acknowledges
the solemn claims of blood, not alone with lip-acknowledgment,
but with a sympathy that elevates "him that gives and him that
takes."

I will by the next post send you all particulars.

Your affectionate Cousin,

Edward Robixs.

My Dear Cousin

LETTER XXII.
THE ANSWER.

Dear Cousin,

You are quite right. Although so many years have gone
by since you have written, you, nevertheless, only pay me my due.
Although so many years have passed I when you believe that I am by no means forgetful of my father's
since we last met—nay, since we last corres- relations. As for the sarcasms and ill-words of people, I have too
ponded—I feel that I should do much wrong to i much faith in my own motives to attend to them. You will always
the goodness of your heart, to the truth and 'find idle—too often, disreputable—persons who make the high and
dignity of our early friendship, did I fail to write to you in my pre- ! the wealthy their licensed game. It is enough to be rich, to be
sent strait. Did 1 listen to the sarcasms of the worldly and unge- abused by them. Philosophy, however, and my bank-book, have
nerous, I should suffer in silence—but my soul revolts from their taught me to despise them. Not that I am a jot altered from the
harsh, cold creed, that confounds prosperity with selfishness, and time when we were intimate ; certainly not—nevertheless, the
makes a golden barrier between kin and kin. I fear it may be too prejudices of the world require a certain dignity of appearance that
true that a profitable commerce with the world is apt to change the vulgar mistake for pride and ostentation.

some men—but there are others whose lustre of soul nothing can ; I am pleased to find that, though we have not corresponded, yon
dim. Let them possess the diamonds of Golconda, and their minds have, nevertheless, not forgotten me. I assure you, many a time,

would remain to them priceless and unchangeable.

Though there has been silence between us, it has often delighted
me to learn in this obscure nook that you were still increasing in
worldly goods and in the respect of all men. I have sent you no line,
yet have I spiritually' again and again congratulated you on the
happiness that a wise enjoyment of wealth bestows—on the enviable
power of doing good to all around you. For I remembered the
candour and generosity of your soul, and knew that riches would be
only acceptable to you as bestowing a power to assist your fellow-
creatures ; that you would consider gold, not as the familiar of avarice,
'nut as the beneficent charm of a fairy, by which you might profit and
delight your species.

There are foolish, gossiping folks, whose pleasure it seems to be to
set friends against friends : people, whose happiness (at least it would
almost appear so) is to find or make a flaw in the best of hearts.
Had I listened to them, I should have believed that you were desirous
of forgetting all your poorer kindred ; that you looked upon your good
fortune as giving you the best right to deny your own blood ; that,
in a word, being rich, you were no longer of the family—that you had,
in fact, been altogether new made by Plutus and had no relation-
ship whatever with the Robinses. But how base, how wicked would
it have been in me to believe in such a scandal !

" He has never written to any of you," these people would say—
" depend upon it, he looks upon you all as a disgrace—as blots upon
his finer fortune." But I knew too well that every moment of your
time was occupied—that you had so many demands upon your hours
that folks living in the quiet of the country have no thought of.
"Again," I've said, " if cousin doesn't write to us, you must remember
we never write to him." To this they've answered, "that was a
different matter ; for as you were the rich party, you ought to write
first.'' A sort of argument, I must say7, I never could see the reason
of ; for suppose you a thousand times richer than you are, what
difference should that make ? Lord bless us ! as if your poor father
and my dear mother—fond brother and sister as they were—would
ever have thought about their children standing on any ceremony
with one another !

You will, I know, be sorry to hear that I have had a great loss—
ror me, a very great one. The House of Flimsy and Straw stopped
payment last week, and the consequence is, that I am at the present
moment without a penny. Nevertheless, it isn't so bad as it seems ;
W they do aiy that the estate will pay some day ten shillings and

worried and oppressed by the toil of a commercial life, I have, in
thought, visited your beautiful little house—(ha ! my dear friend, if
we only knew it, in such humility is true happiness !)—and have-
wished that I could change all the glitter and ceremony of life for
the simple, yet substantial happiness of that homestead. You are
quite right in believing that I consider wealth as only an agent for
the ease and felicity of those about me—that is, if I really had the
wealth which the world, out of its ignorance or waywardness, is
pleased to credit me.

Forget my poorer kindred ? Impossible ! No man, who, by the
superiority of his talents and the energy of his character made an
advance in the world, was ever yet permitted to forget them. Thep
take too good care of that. It is true, my dear friend, that you
and I have not corresponded ; but you little know, how frequently,
and how very peculiarly, I have been made to remember the exist-
ence of the Kobinses. As for being new-made by Plutus, I am
sure they have believed in such a re-creation, for they have again
and again addressed me as one lump of gold—again and again would1
have been happy to change me among them.

They who have maligned me by urging that I considered the
poverty of my relations as a disgrace, know little of my true judg-
ment. I have, it is true, been compelled to look upon it as a great
misfortune, inasmuch, as I have too frequently felt its influence.
Your allusion to my father and your mother touches me—takes me
back again to the days of my youth—when I thought the world was
all that we read of in fairy books. Ha ! my dear cousin, that was,
indeed, a time ! Pity is it that so sweet a dream should give way
to so hard and cold a reality.

Your news about Flimsy and Straw affects me deeply. I would
have wished to keep the ill-tidings from you, but the truth is, I fear
that I shall be seriously compromised by their failure. Very seriously,
indeed. I have been engaged in a mining speculation, in which—■
but I will not distress you with what I fear may be the result. Not
that I have to dread anything fatal—certainly not; nevertheless, I
fear—indeed, I am sure, that I shall be so driven into a corner that
my heart will not be allowed to act as it could wish ; and therefore
—but you must take courage, my dear friend, and not suffer yourself
to be dismayed by what may end in, comparatively, a trifle.

I know you think me rich—very rich. Well, I am not ungrateful.
Notwithstanding^ man may be Cross us himself,yetnot have a shilling
in his pocket. This may appear strange to you ; but nevertheless, met.