Diogenes of London (collection)/The Merry Company

E are met with a merry company at our elbows, and are bent upon putting Sorrow to shame. In this room shall be none but the gay and the glorious; God send the others to the pit! Thought pulls at his brows, Care weeps like a jade: let the unhandsome couple go match out of doors, out of sight, out of hearing. There is no favour we would require of Fortune but to commend us to the jocund, to withhold us from the sad. This sober melancholy is no divine contrivance but a manufacture of the Devil, wherewith he would have us mock our human composition. We make no terms with Sorrow at our board; he turns in a rout at our menace, and we fall to scoffing at his flight. Time has not seen this craven in our midst since man issued his primeval challenge. Whatever changes pass before us we have ever the trick of laughter. Without, though the street roar with noises or be silent with dread, silence nor uproar may trouble us here: our merriment is secure, our joy is immutable, we measure out delights with the measure of our lives. There be none here but have grinned through the feast since Time first set them at the board; grief is a breath that fleets ere the features take note of it, a cough, an itch, a blink that hath no place in time. Despair has no home here; from the roar and of this revelry trouble slinks away. To assume a melancholy visage were the surest discomfiture, for our clean wits fall upon it, white-hot, ere the expression be set; and the heavy lines turn for sheer shame into a gamesome smile. Nay, there is none here but the roysterer, the free of heart, the quick of head, the heedless, the all-merry. To be wise, we say, is to be the fool of circumstance; let the mind run only upon the latest chuckle of your neighbour. A dull dog, we say, is a rebuke unto his Maker. He hath bequeathed you a monstrously well-meaning gift, sirs; pray guard Him from the knowledge of His failures. Is there an error in the type? As you are gentlemen, pardon this faulty architecture. Two dispositions has He given you: the one unto mirth, the other unto morals. Are you mad that you halt between them? Life is to us all here a swift pageant of delights; one ensueth upon the other, grin upon grin, jape upon jape, laughter upon laughter, content upon contentment, continuously rounding infinitely to the end. Yet our feast hath no end, as it hath no beginning; for they that were are no longer; and when we shall be not, others shall have our places. Against this solid defiance Death is but a poor antagonist, this vain browbeater, this uncomely visitant. He hath grown mad at his figures, and hath the thought, poor zany, to lap up the eternal.

Upon us now and then in our rudest tempers breaks this Apparition. We hear the still small knock, and lo! the familiar spectre at the door, glancing with infinite quiet about the company. But he hath no terrors for us; for our goodly fellowship is immortal, and his presence is stale and intimate. He has endured upon us thus, this weak wreck of a mighty spirit, from the back of old Time; he has become a convivial fellow to us, so often do we see him in our cups. A veteran mild-mannered acquaintance, he can work no harm upon us, for he taketh one by one, and as each goes another enters; the place empties not: it fills and refills; more cry for entrance at the windows. He hath no impression upon us; his jaws drop at our numbers; he winces from our vivacity; he has set himself the maddest task. Yea, and we use him despitefully. If he enter, he too must be gay; we will have none in our presence but is a jester. He is our familiar, our seneschal, our janitor, our meagre-visaged keeper, the associate of hoary age. He must come in to us with smiles for us, or we flout him. 'To your work,' we say, 'old Satan!' This Death has come to wear a face of the most grotesque importance; he has taken his office seriously and with pride, and is grown most deadly solemn. He raps with hesitation, and stalks in with a religious air, forsooth, as on a mission from the preachers. 'Come in,' we shout, 'come in and take your choice of us. Have no fears, old wry-face; here is no squeamish but an impudent company.' And when his business is done we put him to the door. We have no patience with this grey and serious spectre, with his grin sedate, with his mien austere, with his gait sanctimonious and exemplary. 'Out with him,' we cry, 'if he will not gibe;' and with one for his fellow he issues forth, a blank and moody ghost. 'Is that old vulture-face gone out?' we call; 'here's to his body disparate from his soul!' The dropping goblets clank; the table roars. The hours slip by, slip by; we shall have him again shortly if we pause. Swift flies the newest humour round and round; the hot blood clamours in the veins; the spirit mounting from the fiery heart breaks out upon the tongue; the rafters echo—we are met at a feast, and old Death himself may not stay us. One leans to another and whispers; the jest flits lightly; Disdain is our only mother. There is no moment of awe at our board; there is never a hush, never an hour but has wings. Is any mute? Let Death take him for the next; he knows not the way of life. Quit, quit, an you have not the fashion of merriment; ancient, staid, respectable Death were your fitter companion. Hark! there is the uncertain step once more; and there is the hesitant knock. 'Enter! enter!' we cry; and lo, the grisly creature in our midst again, spelling upon his lean fingers, with his silent eyes. Nodding, drinking, laughing, winking—out we go.