the word home, said to be peculiar to the english.—propriety of the assertion questioned.—comfort.—curious conveniences.—pocket-fender.—hunting-razors.
there are two words in their language on which these people pride themselves, and which they say cannot be translated. home is the one, by which an englishman means his house. as the meaning is precisely the same whether it be expressed by one word or by two, and the feeling associated therewith is the same also, the advantage seems wholly imaginary; for assuredly this meaning can be conveyed in any language without any possible ambiguity. in general, when a remark of this kind is made to me, if i do not perceive 181its truth, i rather attribute it to my own imperfect conception than to any fallacy in the assertion; but when this was said to me, i recollected the exquisite lines of catullus, and asked if they were improved in the english translation:
o quid solutis est beatius curis,
cum mens onus reponit, ac peregrino
labore fessi, venimus larem ad nostrum
desideratoque acquiescimus lecto?
we may with truth say that our word solar[14] is untranslatable, for the english have not merely no equivalent term, but no feeling correspondent to it. that reverence for the seat of our ancestors, which with us is almost a religion, is wholly unknown here. but how can it be otherwise in a land where there is no pride of blood, and where men who would be puzzled to trace the 182place of their grandfather’s birth, are not unfrequently elevated to a level with the grandees!
14. solar is the floor of a house. hidalgo de solar conocido, is the phrase used for a man of old family.—tr.
the other word is comfort; it means all the enjoyments and privileges of home, or which, when abroad, makes us feel no want of home; and here i must confess that these proud islanders have reason for their pride. in their social intercourse and their modes of life they have enjoyments which we never dream of. saints and philosophers teach us that they who have the fewest wants are the wisest and the happiest; but neither philosophers nor saints are in fashion in england. it is recorded of some old eastern tyrant, that he offered a reward for the discovery of a new pleasure;—in like manner this nation offers a perpetual reward to those who will discover new wants for them, in the readiness wherewith they purchase any thing, if the seller will but assure them that it is exceedingly convenient. for instance, in 183the common act of drawing a cork, a common screw was thought perfectly sufficient for the purpose from the time when bottles were invented, till within the last twenty years. it was then found somewhat inconvenient to exert the arm, that the wine was spoilt by shaking, and that the neck of the bottle might come off: to prevent these evils and this danger, some ingenious fellow adapted the mechanical screw, and the cork was extracted by the simple operation of turning a lever. well, this lasted for a generation, till another artificer discovered, with equal ingenuity, that it was exceedingly unpleasant to dirt the fingers by taking off the cork; a compound concave screw was therefore invented, first to draw the cork and then to discharge it, and the profits of this useful invention are secured to the inventor by a patent.—the royal arms are affixed to this patent compound concave corkscrew; and the inventor, in defiance to all future corkscrew-makers, has stamped upon it ne plus ultra, signifying 184that the art of making corkscrews can be carried no further.—the tallow candles which they burn here frequently require snuffing; but the common implement for this purpose had served time out of mind, till within the present reign, the great epoch of the rise of manufactures, and the decline of every thing else; a machine was then invented to prevent the snuff from falling out upon the table; another inventor supplanted this by using a revolving tube or cylinder, which could never be so filled as to strain the spring; and now a still more ingenious mechanic proposes to make snuffers which shall, by their own act, snuff the candle whenever it is required, and to save all trouble whatever.—one sort of knife is used for fish, another for butter, a third for cheese. penknives and scissars are not sufficient here; they have an instrument to make pens, and an instrument to clip the nails. they have a machine for slicing cucumbers; one instrument to pull on the shoe, 185another to pull on the boot, another to button the knees of the breeches. pocket-toasting-forks have been invented, as if it were possible to want a toasting-fork in the pocket; and even this has been exceeded by the fertile genius of a celebrated projector, who ordered a pocket-fender for his own use, which was to cost 200l. the article was made, but as it did not please, payment was refused; an action was in consequence brought, and the workman said upon the trial that he was very sorry to disoblige so good a customer, and would willingly have taken the thing back, if there could be any chance of selling it, but that really nobody except the gentleman in question ever would want a pocket-fender. this same gentleman has contrived to have the whole set of fire-irons made hollow instead of solid; to be sure, the cost is more than twenty-fold, but what is that to the convenience of holding a few ounces in the hand, when you stir the fire, instead of a few pounds? this curious projector 186is said to have taken out above seventy patents for inventions equally ingenious, and equally useful; but a more extraordinary invention than any of his threescore and ten, is that of the hunting-razor, with which you may shave yourself while riding full gallop.
there is no end of these oddities; but the number of real conveniences which have been created by this indiscriminate demand for novelty is truly astonishing. these are the refinements of late years, the devices of a people made wanton by prosperity. it is not for such superfluities that the english are to be envied; it is for their domestic habits, and for that unrestrained intercourse of the sexes, which, instead of producing the consequences we should expect, gives birth not only to their greatest enjoyments, but also to their best virtues.
