Jerrold

“ Because, don’t let me blame the postman,” said Basil.
“I did not answer it, young man,” cried Jericho with his best emphasis. “Where nothing is to be said, I take it, silence is the best reply. In a word, I will not advance a single farthing.”
“Not to assist your old friend Carraways?” cried Basil.
“He was never any friend of mine; a mere acquaintance,” said Jericho impatiently.
“To be sure; friendship in ill-luck turns to mere acquaintance. The wine of life—as I’ve heard it called—goes into vinegar; and folks that hugged the bottle, shirk the cruet.” ”

“ The first thing I have to remark, in treating of Jerrold the man, is the entire harmony between that figure and Jerrold the writer. He talked very much as he wrote, and he acted in life on the principles which he advocated in literature. He united, remarkably, simplicity of character with brilliancy of talk. For instance, with all his success, he never sought higher society than that which he found himself gradually and by a natural momentum borne into, as he advanced. ”

“ Inveterately satirical as Jerrold is, he is even "spoonily" tender at the same time; and it lay deep in his character; for this wit and bon-vivant, the merriest and wittiest man of the company, would cry like a child, as the night drew on, and the talk grew serious. No theory could be more false than that he was a cold-blooded satirist, sharp as steel is sharp, from being hard. ”

“ Jerrold entertains him a good deal."
"Which is returned with compound interest, I'll bet you. Mr. Jerrold simply makes a convenience of him. He won't make love to his sister, because the poor, rich, unsophisticated girl is as ugly as she is ubiquitous. ”

“ Any one might caution another with a reckless exposure to danger.
“I fancy the safest place is between the archer and the target when Mr. Jerrold shoots,” she said laughing.
Then again ensued the farce of Jerrold’s efforts, [256] the faltering shaft falling far short of the mark,—with such wide divergence, indeed, even from the line of aim, that Captain Howard’s disposition of the target in so remote a spot was amply justified. As once more the joyous laughter rang forth in which Jerrold, himself, readily bore a sonorous part, Mervyn suddenly joined the group. ”

“ He realized this even more definitely afterward when he made his acknowledgments to Jerrold, as he felt bound to do.
“I was under the impression that Captain Mervyn had the conduct of the emergency,” he said, in much embarrassment. “You managed it with excellent discretion.”
“The men responded with so much good will and alacrity, sir,” replied Jerrold, waiving the commendation with an appropriate grace. “We needed hearts and hands rather than a head. They deserve all the credit, for they worked with superhuman energy. ”

“ Jerrold was saying, "By Jove, I've gone and lost my pipe."
Vale was thinking, "My God! This woman and Hobbs—hard-bitten Hobbs."
Miss Pearsall went on: "I have no faith in doctors. Absolutely none. No doctor could ever cure one of my headaches. Only God can cure my headaches." Her eyes glistened in the moonlight.
Mr. Jerrold was saying: "They sent me some pretty poor stuff from the wholesale. One of those dolls, for instance, I had to throw away. The plaster was all broken off its foot and the wooden support stuck out for all the world like a ridiculous wooden leg." ”

“ Jerrold's and Eliot's and Colin's. And mine. I never dreamed of your not coming."
"Do you mean you really want me?"
"Of course I want you. So does Jerrold. It won't be the same thing at all without you. I want to see you enjoying yourself for once. You'd do it so well. I believe I want to see that more than Taormina and the Italian Lakes. Do say you'll come."
"Maisie—why are you such an angel to me?"
"I'm not. I want you to come because—oh because I want you. Because I like you. I'm happy when you're there. So's Jerrold. Don't go and say you care more for the land than Jerrold and me." ”

“ Jericho.
“My love,” said Jericho: “I have acted weakly—I own it. Condescending to the prejudices of society, in a rash moment, I consented to fight a duel.”
“The rumour, Solomon, had reached me; but I would not reproach you: no; I have struggled with my feelings, and been silent. You cared not to make me a widow,” said Mrs. Jericho, “but heaven knows I forgive you.”
“I received my adversary’s ball here,”—said Jericho, spreading his hand over his heart. “A poor man must have been killed, but there is a fate that watches over property. ”

“ Mark Lemon used to say, "Punch and I were made for each other." With far more reason could that notion of reciprocity be applied to Jerrold. No man ever gained so much from the paper in which he worked. He simply frolicked in its pages, that fitted his talent as accurately as his genius suited the times in which he lived. ”

“ Jericho.
“And therefore, madam,” cried Jericho with ferocity—“therefore, we will have no more of this trumpery to waste upon others. No: I will have the power—the power in my own hands. I will have my fighting millions of good gold pieces; and—though we live in a hovel, and all of us wear sackcloth, as we all shall”—
“To be sure, my dear,” said Mrs. Jericho, and—she could not help it—she thought of a strait-waistcoat.
“Why, even then, when folks point at me, crawling about in outside beggary—even then the world shall acknowledge me to be greater than Cæsar, with all his legions.” ”

“ Has not the money become the very life of many such? And so feeling, the reader goes pleasantly on,—just excited a little, and raised out of the ordinary temperature in which fiction is read, by the mystic atmosphere through which he sees things,—and ends, acknowledging that with much pleasure he has also gathered a good moral. For his mere amusement the best fireworks have been cracking round him on his journey. In short, I esteem this Jerrold's best book,—the one which contains most of his mind. ”

“ A prosy old gentleman, meeting him as he was passing at his usual quick pace along Regent Street, poised himself into an attitude, and began: "Well, Jerrold, my dear boy, what is going on?"—"I am," said the wit, instantly shooting off. 311
At a dinner of artists, a barrister present, having his health drunk in connexion with the law, began an embarrassed answer by saying he did not see how the law could be considered one of the arts, when Jerrold jerked in the word black, and threw the company into convulsions. ”

“ I like this,” cried Carraways. “Well, I do think that young folks never look so happy or so handsome as when they’re making hay. What say you, Mrs. Jericho?”
“I was ever of that sentiment,” said Mrs. Jericho, with one of her fullest smiles. “’Tis so pastoral—so innocent; so far away from the fastidious conventionalities of life.” And then Mrs. Jericho darkly frowned, and suddenly squeezing her daughter Monica by the arm, and whispering anxiously between her maternal teeth, cried—“That never can be your sister, Agatha!” ”

“ By the irony of fate Jerrold is chiefly remembered for his sledge-hammer retorts: the industrious and ingenious playwright is little more than a name; the brilliant publicist and reformer, the friend and associate of Chartists, the life-long [Pg 5] champion of the underdog is forgotten. Gilbert à Beckett and Henry Mayhew had both been at Westminster. Their people were well-to-do. Douglas Jerrold had known both poverty and privation, and his education was largely acquired in a printer's office. ”

“ Jericho. “They’re wearing him to a shadow. He’ll never be himself so long as he’s in that horrid Commons. He must retire into the Upper House. He’s losing all his substance in Acts of Parliament. And what—what indeed does anybody care? Except ourselves,” said Mrs. Jericho, with self-correction—“except ourselves. And, dear Sir Arthur, I know your friendship—I know your sympathy: that Mr. Jericho, in all his trials, in all his anxieties for the country, that he may always depend upon.” ”

“ My dear Jericho—ha! ha!—why, my good man, what is the matter with you? I thought you’d be delighted with my taste. Any other man would be proud of his wife, with such a choice. Eh, Mr. Candituft?”
“And so is Mr. Jericho. Only he’s a philosopher; he won’t show the rapture that swells his heart.” No winter-tortoise ever slept sounder in its shell, than did the heart of Jericho in his bosom.
“You know, my dear,”—said Mrs. Jericho, in her sweetest, most convincing voice—“you know ’twould be impossible to go to court without diamonds. ”

“ Jerrold could get on without him. As it is, they can't raise fodder enough off that great place to feed their own creatures, but have to come buyin' hay off us."
Newbigging looked up from where he knelt.
"The men say that so long as they keep the horses and traps in fine order, Mr. Jerrold don't care a tinker's dam about anything else."
"Ay," said Gunn, sitting on his heels, "and Miss Jerrold has the gairdeners off their work half the time, plantin' daffydils in the woods, the way they grow wild in Scotland." ”

“ Jerrold's fault, mamma," said Miss Renwick, with gentle reproach and a very becoming flush. "I'm going to stand up for him, because I think they all blame him for other men's poor work. He was not the only one on our team whose shooting was below former scores."
"They claim that none fell so far below their expectations as he, Alice. You know I am no judge of such matters, but Mr. Hoyt and Captain Gray both write the colonel that Mr. Jerrold had been taking no care of himself whatever and was entirely out of form." ”

“ On the death of his father in June 1857 Jerrold succeeded to the editorship of ‘Lloyd's Weekly London News,’ and worked hard on the paper until his death. In politics he was an ardent liberal, strenuously advocating the interests of the working classes. ”

“ Jericho to her emphatic first-born.
“Oh, mustn’t I, though?” cried Basil. “It’s as little as I can do. Ha! you don’t know the lot of people that’s asking me. Bless you! they ask a hundred times to my once. Well, will old Jericho tip the loyalty? Did you give him my sentiment, mother, eh? Money—money’s like the air you breathe; if you have it not you die. Have you brought me the beggarly allowance?—If I don’t blush a hole in my cheek to take it! It’s disgusting. A hundred a year! Not enough to keep a blind man in dogs.”
“My dear Basil, where do you imbibe such extraordinary parallels?” ”

“ Jericho. “Seizin!”
“Quite right, my dear madam. Seizin’s the word. You’ve no notion of the amount of law I know. In another fortnight I’m called, and then—upon my life when I think of some people, they fire me with ambition. They do. I’ll get upon the bench, if it’s only to hang ’em.”
“Not you, my dear sir,” said Candituft—“you don’t know your own heart. We do.”
“I haven’t your charity; I wish I had: only a little—you’ve too much. You waste it. ’Pon my life, you are so good, you’d pour rose-water over a toad,” and Basil leered at the Man-Tamer. ”

“ A season with me, my dear madam, that lasts all the year round, I can assure you,” and again Basil kissed the hand of his anxious parent.
“The truth is, Basil, I do believe that Mr. Jericho is very much pressed—very much. And you know he is indulgent to you; and so, you must not be hard upon him: indeed, my love, you must not. I am very much afraid,”—and Mrs. Jericho looked at the youth with new affection—“very much afraid that you’re an extravagant child.”
“’Pon my life, my dear madam, when I see what other young fellows do, I feel myself a mean man; sometimes despise myself. ”

“ Jericho; and Jericho smiles, but dimmer than before.
“Extraordinary animal, sir,” says Basil, thinking it best to return to the horse. “Only three hundred. I’m satisfied, and shall buy him. Only three hundred. Cheap, my honourable sir—cheap for a water-cart. Look at him, sir. None of your horses, put together with skewers for a day out, to tumble to the dogs as soon as they get home: shall, certainly, lay down the loyalty for him. Take care of yourself, my good sir; men like you can’t be spared. Good bye, we shall meet on the daisies.”
“Bye, bye,” says Agatha. “Don’t forget Bessy.” ”

“ Pennibacker”—and Candituft clasped his hands, “what has happened?”
“Ha! you’ve something like a heart, you have; so fresh, and so full now. Some people’s hearts are shrunk in them like dried nuts. ’Pon my life, you can hear ’em rattle as they walk.”
“Mr. Pennibacker!” said Jericho solemnly.
“Sir!” said Basil, folding his arms, and drawing himself up.
[Pg 92]
“You will keep these similes for your associates. There are ladies and gentlemen here,” said Jericho.
“Very good, sir; I’m easy of belief; wasn’t made for a martyr. No, sir,” said Basil, “warranted not to burn.” ”

“ Yes, and it's the right thing for you to do, youngster. That's one trait I despise in Jerrold. When we were up there at the stockade two winters ago, and Captain Gray's little girl was there, he hung around her from morning till night, and the poor little thing fairly beamed and blossomed with delight. Look at her now, man! He don't go near her. He hasn't had the decency to take her a walk, a drive, or anything, since we got here. He began, from the moment we came, with that gang in town. He was simply devoted to Miss Beaubien until Alice Renwick came ”

“ JERROLD, DOUGLAS WILLIAM (1803–1857) , English dramatist and man of letters, was born in London on the 3rd of January 1803. His father, Samuel Jerrold, actor, was at that time lessee of the little theatre of Wilsby near Cranbrook in Kent, but in 1807 he removed to Sheerness. There, among the bluejackets who swarmed in the port during the war with France, Douglas grew into boyhood. He occasionally took a child’s part on the stage, but his father’s profession had little attraction for the boy. ”