Thomas Tusser

“ Tutt's comfortable, dingy old library; of a fur coat suddenly clapped upon the rounded shoulders of old Scraggs, the antiquated scrivener in the accountant's cage in the outer office, whose alcoholic career, his employer alleged, was marked by a trail of empty rum kegs, each one flying the white flag of surrender.
And yet old Ephraim Tutt could on occasion be cold as chiseled steel, and as hard. Any appeal from a child, a woman or an outcast always met with his ready response; but for the rich, successful and those in power he seemed to entertain a deep and enduring grudge. ”

“ Tussmann cried out, in alarm--
"For God's sake, Herr Professor, where are you taking me? Not into town? not to my own lodgings? not (oh, heavens!) into society, amongst my fellow-men? Good heavens! I can't be seen. Wherever I go I give rise to unpleasantness--create a scandalum."
"Tussmann," said the Goldsmith, "I cannot understand that ridiculous shyness of yours. What do you mean by it? Don't be an ass. What you want is a drop of something pretty strong. I should say a tumbler of hot punch, else we shall be having you laid up with a feverish cold. Come on!" ”

“ And Tutt gloried in the glories of Mr. Tutt.
"That's it!" repeated Tutt as he lit his stogy, which flared up like a burning bush, the cub of a Willie having foraged successfully in the outer office for a match. "He's willing to be hanged or damned or anything else just for the sake of putting a bullet through the other fellow!"
"What was the name of the unfortunate deceased?"
"Tomasso Crocedoro—a barber."
"That is almost a defense in itself," mused Mr. Tutt. "Anyhow, if I've got to defend Angelo for shooting Tomasso you might as well give me a short scenario of the melodrama. ”

“ Paul's while Turswell was canon, is some presumption in Turswell's favour, but the ‘merry jests and delectable devises’ of which the fourth book consists are scarcely such as would be dedicated by a canon to his dean (cf. manuscript notes in British Museum copy of the 1583 edit.; Halkett and Laing, col. 2271) . The second work is possibly by Turswell, though Thomas Tymme [q. v.] , another of the numerous contemporary T. T.'s, is an equally probable candidate. The third is manifestly not by Turswell, because he died before the Martin Mar-Prelate controversy broke out. ”

“ It has been customary to contrast the shrewdness of Tusser's maxims with the apparent ill-success of his life; this idea is dwelt on in Peacham's ‘Minerva’ (1612) , in an epigram which also appeared in a terser form as follows:
Tusser, they tell me when thou wert alive
Thou, teaching thrift, thyself couldst never thrive;
So, like the whetstone, many men are wont
To sharpen others when themselves are blunt. ”

“ The great merit of Tusser's book, independent of the utility of its agricultural precepts, consists in the faithful picture which it delineates of the manners, customs, and domestic life of the English farmer, and in the morality, piety, and benevolent simplicity, which pervade the whole. In a poetical light its pretensions are not great. The part relative to Husbandry is divided into months, and written in quatrains, of eleven syllables in each line, which are frequently constructed with much terseness, and with a happy epigrammatic brevity. ”

“ Don't let the old man disturb you, dear Mr. Tussmann. You believe in the old times; you're fond of old Thomasius. I go a good deal further back. What I care about is the time to which, as you see, my dress partly belongs. Aye! my good friend, those were the days! It is to them that that little spell belongs which you saw me putting into practice to-night at the Town-house Tower."
"I don't quite understand you, Herr Professor,'' Tussmann said.
"Well," said the goldsmith, "there used to be splendid weddings in those old days in the Town-hall--very different affairs from the weddings nowadays. ”

“ There should be less practice than Tusser gives you, less art than the Georgics, but rather more of each than Hesiod finds occasion for. Though it is long since I read the Georgics, I seem to remember that the poem was overloaded with spicy merchandise. You might die of it in aromatic pain. As for Tusser, certainly he is the complete Elizabethan farmer; sooner than leave anything out he will say it twice; sooner than say it twice, he will say it three times. Nevertheless he was a good farmer; as poet, his itch to be quaint and anxiety to find a rhyme combine to make him difficult. ”

“ He got out a bottle of whiskey and took a stiff drink—neat. It made him feel much better, but he kept his coat on, and foraging for a cigarette in the top drawer of Bonnie Doon’s desk, lit it and sat down in the sag bottomed easy-chair in Tutt’s office.
He could look straight through the open door to where Mr. Tutt always sat at his rickety old desk. Although he had worked there half his life he had never been down at such an hour. The place seemed alive with spirits, not of the departed, but of those who spent their days there. ”

“ Sorg.
A simple-minded little man was Tutt, for all his professional shrewdness and ingenuity. Like many a hero of the battlefield and of the bar, once inside the palings of his own fence he became modest, gentle, even timorous. For Abigail, his wife, had no illusions about him and did not affect to have any. To her neither Tutt nor Mr. Tutt was any such great shakes. Had Tutt dared to let her know of many of the schemes which he devised for the profit or safety of his clients she would have thought less of him still; in fact, she might have parted with him forever. ”

“ Tutt took a turn up and down his office, then he amputated another stogy, lit the remains, leaned back in his swivel chair, crossed his congress boots upon his desk and folded his hands behind his head.
“Simply because that’s the artistic way to do it,” said he. “Don’t you remember the Blodgett case? Blodgett was ninety-one and dead at the top; he’d had senile dementia for fifteen years. A woman got hold of him—only that time it was a young one—and induced him to make a will in her favor. ”

“ As an ox which snags his hock upon a point of flint and placidly grazes while he bleeds to death, so might Tusk have slept into eternity, were it not for that mysterious spark of something which the most crass of men possess to mark them human. ”

“ He believes in being liberal with servants.”
“So I see!” observed Mr. Tutt. “And with the medical profession as well!”
“Oh. he’s very fond of both Doctor Woodman and Doctor Aspinall!” she assured him. “They have been lifelong friends!”
“Anything more?”
“Only his legacy to me—two hundred and fifty thousand—and, of course, I’m also to be the residuary legatee,” said Mrs. Baldwin, folding up her notes. “You’ll continue as executor. How soon can you have the codicil ready?” ”

“ In 1812 appeared Mavor's standard edition; in 1834 the ‘Hundred Points’ were again reprinted from the private press of Charles Clark of Great Totham, Essex; in 1848 a selection was printed at Oxford; in 1878 appeared the English Dialect Society's edition, edited by W. Payne and S. J. Herrtage. This consists of a reprint of the ‘Five Hundred Points’ from the issue of 1580 and of the ‘Hundred Points’ from that of 1557. Tusser's works also appear in Southey's ‘Select Works of the British Poets, from Chaucer to Johnson,’ 1831, pp. 143–199. ”

“ Tutt's summation was the greatest that ever they heard. For the shrewd old lawyer had an artist's hand with which he played upon the keyboard of the jury and knew just when to pull out the stops of the vox humana of pathos and the grand diapason of indignation and defiance. So he began by tickling their sense of humor with an ironic description of afternoon tea at Mr. Hepplewhite's, with Bibby and Stocking as chief actors, until all twelve shook with suppressed laughter and the judge was forced to hide his face behind the Law Journal ”

“ Tutt in stifled tones from the top of the stepladder inside the closet that served as a safe-deposit vault for the firm’s papers, “Mrs. Grover’s will has got to be found! Understand? It’s here somewhere! Our reputation depends upon it. I remember putting it away perfectly. If necessary, I want you to go over every paper in the office!” ”

“ But the stranger whom Tussmann had come across was still more remarkable of aspect.
A tall, meagre man, powerfully formed as to his limbs and muscles, seemingly about fifty years of age. His face might once have passed for handsome, and the great eyes still flashed out from under the black bushy eyebrows with youthful fire and vigour. ”

“ II “Mr. Tutt,” remarked Tutt as the senior partner of the firm paused at the door of his office and skilfully decorated the hat-tree with his stovepipe from a distance of seven feet, “I have news for thee.”
The office force of Tutt & Tutt could always tell the altitude of Mr. Ephraim Tutt’s psychological barometer by his ability to stand on the threshold of his room, send his tall hat spinning through the air and hang it on the top of the mahogany tree. ”

“ Men who have been fortunate enough to kill an elephant, and rich enough to be able to use part of the tusks for their own purposes, generally cut off a foot or so from the base of each tusk for the purpose of making armlets, at once trophies of their valor and proofs of their wealth. The reader is perhaps aware that the tusk of an elephant, though hard and solid at the point, is soft at the base, and has only a mere shell of hard ivory, the interior being filled with the soft vascular substance by which the tusk is continually lengthened and enlarged. ”

“ Tutt seemed to have become distended somehow and to have spread over the entire wall surface of his office like the genie which the fisherman innocently permitted to escape from the bottle.
"There isn't one reorganization scheme in a hundred that isn't crooked somewhere."
"According to that, if a business is unsuccessful it ought to be allowed to go to pot for fear that somebody might make a profit in putting it on its feet," she countered. "I think you're a violent, irascible, prejudiced old man!" ”

“ He rang for Scraggs, Miss Wiggin, and Miss Sondheim and explained what had occurred, vainly seeking from them some clew to the missing document. None of them had seen it since its execution. Neither had Tutt—who shortly after arrived, and likewise ferreted through the will box without any result. Then both of them ransacked Mr. Tutt’s old mahogany desk from top to bottom, rummaged through Tutt’s desk, and finally emptied out all the drawers in the office—until the floors looked as if there had been a moderate-sized blizzard. No will! ”

“ Should we not praise, rather than condemn, the young enthusiast who is willing to sacrifice his virtue, his ideals, his very soul in order that some ruffian may hang? Should we not pay tribute to one who is willing to be damned for the glory of God?
Judge Watkins looked searchingly around the court room until his eye came to rest in a far corner.
“I will assign Mr. Ephraim Tutt to the case,” said he, and at the summons the old lawyer arose from his seat and, stovepipe hat in hand, approached the bar. ”

“ The Tuscan character is drawn to the life, without exaggeration, and even in its more evanescent, as well as normal traits; its urbanity, gossip, thrift, geniality, self-indulgence, and latent courage are admirably delineated; its superior refinement, sobriety, love of show, and class peculiarities are truly given; the old feudal manners that linger in modern civilization are accounted for and illustrated, especially in the relation of dependants "occupying every shade of gradation between a common servant and a bosom friend." ”

“ Some of the trustees in New York City and Boston came to his assistance and with this and contributions from a few other friends, he was able to get through that first year. Although it was a struggle, he found in it some pleasure. To know that you are doing the work that the world needs and must have done is a pleasure, even under trying circumstances. It is doubtful if any school started as a result of Tuskegee’s teaching ever accomplished more in the same length of time, during its first year of existence than was true of the Utica Normal and Industrial Institute. ”

“ Tutt was just rising into fame as a police-court lawyer. Tutt had only recently been admitted to the bar, having abandoned his native city of Bangor, Maine, for the metropolis.
"And may I ask why you should come to me?" Mr. Tutt had demanded severely from behind the stogy, which even at that early date had been as much a part of his facial anatomy as his long ruminative nose. "Why the devil should you come to me? I am nobody, sir—nobody! In this great city certainly there are thousands far more qualified than I to further your professional and financial advancement." ”

“ Tutt encouragingly as he felt beneath the chair for his stovepipe hat. “Your mother and the children are going right on living in the apartment, and there is a woman who comes in every day to do the cooking and take care of them.”
“But who pays her?” asked the man in the frame hoarsely. “I had practically nothing in the bank.”
“Oh, that’s all right!” Mr. Tutt assured him. “The money is being advanced against the fifty thousand dollars which T. Otis Crabb will eventually pay you.” ”

“ In Shropshire the last man of the whole band was termed the lag-man. Often three or four reapers would each take a ridge and compete with one another as to who should finish first. This was called kemping (Sc. Irel. n.Cy.) . The largess was a gift of money demanded by the reapers, either during the harvest or at its conclusion. After receiving it, the custom was to cry out three times: Halloo largess! This was the ceremony of crying a largess to which Tusser alludes in the verse quoted above. It continued to be practised in parts of East Anglia till the latter half of last century. ”