of furniture. Why, such
a man's livery is a uniform of honor. The crest on his button is a badge
of bravery.

Do you see--I imagine I do myself--in these little instances, a tinge of
humor? Ellen's heart is breaking for handsome Jeames of Buckley Square,
whose great legs are kneeling, and who has given a lock of his precious
powdered head, to some other than Ellen. Henry is preparing the sauce
for his master's wild-ducks while the engines are squirting over his
own little nest and brood. Lift these figures up but a story from the
basement to the ground-floor, and the fun is gone. We may be en pleine
tragedie. Ellen may breathe her last sigh in blank verse, calling down
blessings upon James the profligate who deserts her. Henry is a hero,
and epaulettes are on his shoulders. Atqui sciebat, &c., whatever
tortures are in store for him, he will be at his post of duty.

You concede, however, that there is a touch of humor in the two
tragedies here mentioned. Why? Is it that the idea of persons at service
is somehow ludicrous? Perhaps it is made more so in this country by the
splendid appearance of the liveried domestics of great people. When you
think that we dress in black ourselves, and put our fellow-creatures in
green, pink, or canary-colored breeches; that we order them to plaster
their hair with flour, having brushed that nonsense out of our own heads
fifty years ago; that some of the most genteel and stately among us
cause the men who drive their carriages to put on little Albino wigs,
and sit behind great nosegays--I say I suppose it is this heaping of
gold lace, gaudy colors, blooming plushes, on honest John Trot, which
makes the man absurd in our eyes, who need be nothing but a simple
reputable citizen and in-door laborer. Suppose, my dear sir, that you
yourself were suddenly desired to put on a full dress, or even undress,
domestic uniform with our friend Jones's crest repeated in varied
combinations of button on your front and back? Suppose, madam, your
son were told, that he could not get out except in lower garments of
carnation or amber-colored plush--would you let him? . . . But as you
justly say, this is not the question, and besides it is a question
fraught with danger, sir; and radicalism, sir; and subversion of the
very foundations of the social fabric, sir. . . . Well, John, we
won't enter on your great domestic question. Don't let us disport with
Jeames's dangerous strength, and the edge-tools about h