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Playlists
Where to Play presents the Market Opportunity Navigator­ a tool that will help you:
History

Topics
Discover promising market opportunities
Tutorials

Offers & Deals

Highlights

Evaluate their value

Settings

upport

Sign Out

Set your strategic focus smartly

To make sure you’re running in the right direction and remain agile, without losing
your focus!
History

Chapter 1
Topics

Tutorials

Overview
Offers & Deals

1.1 Are you running in the right direction?

Highlights

1.2 The Market Opportunity Navigator in a nutshell

Settings

1.1 ARE YOU RUNNING IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION?

upport

SignCommercialising
Out innovative ideas is a constant run.
It requires immense efforts, as you attempt to move forward and make progress on
your way … while facing one hurdle after the other. And it’s not just simply running …
in fact, entrepreneurs and innovators are trained to run fast. Time can be one of your
greatest enemies when new products or services are waiting to be adopted, and speed is
seen as critical to successful innovation.

Yet, running, and even running fast, may simply be useless if you are not running in the
right direction! If you are not pursuing a valuable market opportunity, or not playing in
the right field, you are wasting your time, energy and resources … and those of others,
too!

Finding the right direction, however, is not obvious at all. Your unique resources and
abilities can address different needs, for different sets of customers, thereby creating
several potential market opportunities for your venture – or a set of possible paths in
your entrepreneurial race!

So before you run fast, make sure you are running in the right
direction, because …
Different paths lead to different results
Different paths lead to different results
Market opportunities differ in their value creation potential and thus in your ability to
generate sales and become successful.

Your market choice imprints your venture

Your market choice will shape many aspects of your emerging venture. It will not be
easy to un­do, especially when significant investments are required.

Have you been asking yourself …

How can I identify blockbuster opportunities?

Did I miss out on any?

How do I know what’s the most valuable option if there is so much uncertainty out
there?

How can I let go of seemingly promising opportunities?

Should I pursue several opportunities in parallel?

The Market Opportunity Navigator will support your market choice and
help you to systematically uncover the most valuable market
opportunities.

In short: it will help you to make sure that you are running in the right
direction.

Are you locking yourself into one direction?

Once you have chosen your direction, you also need to make sure that you can remain
agile, without slowing your pace. Your efforts, your resources, your attention – they
should all be focused on advancing your chosen path, but at the same time you need to
develop your capabilities in a way that would allow you to redirect your route.

That is because unforeseeable things may happen: despite your best, diligent efforts in
choosing the most promising path, you may reach a startling dead­end and will need to
pivot; you may also uncover a new, more attractive opportunity and consider its
potential; or, down the road you may simply want to exploit your next growth options
in the most efficient and effective manner. In short: new junctions, which are currently
unforeseeable, may appear along your way, and you must make sure that you make the
most out of them.

So, what does it mean to remain agile while running in your chosen direction? It means
that you understand your options and keep some of them open now – so that you avoid
locking yourself out of other interesting directions in the future.

When you consciously keep selected options open, you can, for example, create a more
modularised technology, cast a wider intellectual property (IP) net or even pick a brand
name that would lend itself to redirection. In short, it would help you to develop your
resources and capabilities in a way that would allow for greater flexibility down the
road.

Especially for start­ups, being able to focus while remaining agile is crucial. If you are
not open to alternative paths while concentrating your available resources, and can’t
handle change or adaptation efficiently, you may simply lose the race …

The innovator’s challenge: focus and be agile.

Have you been asking yourself …

If market choice is so important how can I hedge my bets?

How can I focus sharply yet stay flexible at the same time?

What shall I do with new information that cracks my confidence in our chosen
 path?

How can I deal with the next junction in our road?

The Market Opportunity Navigator will help you to strategise your

opportunities and decide which options you should keep open as
backups or for additional growth, so that you can stay both focused and
agile at the same time.

Three steps to support your market opportunity choice

The book will take you through three steps that are necessary for designing your market
opportunity strategy and choosing where to play:

I. Search broadly
Which market opportunities exist for us?
It is important to understand your terrain and uncover potential paths
before you start running. Step 1 will guide you on how to search
systematically and broadly for market opportunities in order to create a
varied set of options.

II. Assess deeply

What are the most attractive market opportunities for us?
Next, it is essential to assess your options and understand their pros and
cons. Step 2 will guide you on how to evaluate opportunities, so that you
can estimate and compare their attractiveness in an unbiased manner.

III. Strategise smartly

What market opportunities should we focus on?
This is where choosing smartly comes in: it’s not only about focusing on
the most promising option, but also about remaining agile. Step 3 will
guide you on how to build your Agile Focus Strategy, so that you can
mitigate your risks and increase the value you can create – with minimum
effort!
Overall, this book will take you by the hand as you progress from:

Manage your commercialisation effort in the face of

uncertainty
The Agile Focus Strategy clearly defines the market opportunities that you will pursue
now, and the opportunities that you will keep open as Backup or Growth Options, so
that you can manage your start­up with foresight and agility, while facing uncertainty.

This smart portfolio will be essential for running in the right direction and for
remaining agile. Eventually, it will have significant implications on how you build and
design your firm.

So before you …
Develop your technology

File your patents

Recruit new employees

Engage your stakeholders

Nurture your company culture

Pick a brand name

Design your marketing materials

Make sure to apply the Market Opportunity

Navigator and design your Agile Focus Strategy!

Enhance your value creation potential

The three steps of the Market Opportunity Navigator will successfully …
 Support your decision making

Identify valuable opportunities and make an informed decision for

enhancing your value creation potential – one that is less vulnerable to
biases and that is not based mainly on intuition.

Establish a shared language

Communicate, share and debate with your team members and

stakeholders, to enhance your learning, to showcase your potential and
to reach agreements more easily.

Offer guidance over time

Trace back, track and update your decision over time, at any junction
along your path, or whenever new information puts your strategy in
doubt. Just like navigators that you know from other walks in life, this
will help you to re­calculate your route if necessary. It’s your learning
companion.

The Market Opportunity Navigator works for …

Start-ups
Faced with uncertainty, start­ups often struggle to find their path to success. They need
to make sure to focus on pursuing the most valuable opportunity on one hand, and
hedge their bets on the other – and all with limited resources. The Market Opportunity
Navigator will help entrepreneurs to identify and map their options as they progress
along their entrepreneurial journey, and to choose a path that can lead them to success.

Established organisations
Established firms often struggle in creating the most value from their existing assets
and in identifying opportunities for new growth. The Market Opportunity Navigator
will help established firms to identify the next BIG thing and to manage their
innovation funnel smartly, so that their entrepreneurial endeavours are better
positioned for success.

Technology Transfer Offices

Research institutes often struggle with how to commercialise or spin out innovative
technologies stemming from their laboratories. Finding potential applications and
customers for these inventions is challenging, yet of key importance for these offices. It
will support their decision to patent an innovation and can help them understand how
– and to whom – they shall license it.

Investors
Investors are constantly looking for promising businesses. While they do want to invest
in a specific market opportunity, they also greatly appreciate the value of agility. They
can use the Navigator as a screening tool – to evaluate the attractiveness of an
opportunity and, if it proves to be interesting, to encourage the development of a smart
portfolio around it.

Educators and accelerators

No matter if you are teaching entrepreneurship or technology commercialisation in
universities, or if you are accompanying budding entrepreneurs in an accelerator or an
incubator: this book provides a suite of important tools that clearly lays out all the
major considerations of this process, and all in an easy­to­apply form.

Use the Market Opportunity Navigator with other business

tools
The Market Opportunity Navigator is an easy­to­apply business tool that helps you in
systematically identifying and rigorously assessing potential opportunities as you
choose which options to focus on. It not only gives you the ability to deliberately plan
your strategy but also to reflect and adjust it as you progress through your learning
journey.

To make this learning process broad and complete, we recommend that you use the
Market Opportunity Navigator together with other key methods and business tools.
Specifically, the Navigator is designed to work seamlessly with the Business Model and
Value Proposition Canvases, created by Alexander Osterwalder and Yves Pigneur, and
with the Lean Start­up Methodology, created by Eric Ries and Steve Blank.

The Business Model Canvas and the Value Proposition Canvas offer valuable
frameworks that help you to plan your strategy in order to create value for your
customers and for your firm.
The Navigator – which provides the macro view of the landscape of opportunities –
adds an essential level of analysis to the micro­planning of the Business Model and the
Value Proposition Canvases. Together, these three tools reinforce each other to provide
the comprehensive planning that is required for finding the most fertile ground for your
endeavour.

The Lean Start­up Methodology offers an important validation process for

discovering and developing customers through rapid market testing and continuous
pivoting.

The combination of the Navigator with the Lean Start­up Methodology allows for a
powerful process of validating a winning strategy: the Navigator provides an on­going
tool for planning, reflecting and adjusting as you go through rapid Lean cycles of
learning and makes sure that you will always keep track of the broad picture in addition
to the path that you are currently testing.

This suite of business tools helps you in understanding fundamental questions in

entrepreneurship and innovation in a manner that none of the tools by itself would
allow you to. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Use this powerful
combination to set your strategy for success.
Turn to Chapter 3.3 for a more detailed explanation on how you can reap the greatest
benefit from this suite of business tools!

1.2 THE MARKET OPPORTUNITY NAVIGATOR IN A

NUTSHELL
The Market Opportunity Navigator is designed to help you master your market
opportunity strategy and find out where to play. It offers a structured and easy to apply
framework covering the three main questions that you need to consider for setting a
smart strategy: (I) Which market opportunities exist for us? (II) What are the most
attractive market opportunities for us? (III) What market opportunities should we
focus on?

The Navigator takes you through these questions, step by step. Dedicated worksheets
will help you to find the best answers, and to depict their outcome in a visual manner,
so that choice becomes more apparent. Corresponding to the three focal questions, the
Navigator is comprised of three parts: the Market Opportunity Set, the Attractiveness
Map and the Agile Focus Dartboard.

Market Opportunity Set

What is it?
The set of potential market opportunities that you can address with your core resources
and capabilities. These can be varied options, related to different types of needs for
different types of customers.

Why is it important?
Market opportunities can vastly differ in their attractiveness. A varied set of market
opportunities is an asset in and of itself, as it increases your chances of focusing on the
most promising option. It also provides the basis for a Plan B, if required, and for
unlocking new growth opportunities over time. ‘Look before you leap’ is therefore the
first step for setting a smart strategy.

How is it done?
To discover valuable market opportunities, assess the generic functionalities of your
core abilities, to understand what other applications you can create with them for
different types of customers.

Worksheet 1 will guide you through this process.

Attractiveness Map
Attractiveness Map

What is it?
Because market opportunities can vastly differ in their attractiveness, you need to
understand their value. The Attractiveness Map allows you to visually depict the
evaluation of your market opportunities, so you can better grasp their upsides and
downsides, and compare them with each other.

Why is it important?
This visualisation helps you in determining your most valuable options, at a given point
in time, so that you can make an informed decision about your Primary Market
Opportunity – one that relies less on intuition or suffers from the biases that we all
have.

How is it done?
The attractiveness of possible market opportunities is based on their value creation
potential and on the challenge encountered in capturing this value. The rating of each
option on both dimensions results in its location on the map.

Worksheet 2 will guide you through this process.

Agile Focus Dartboard

Agile Focus Dartboard

What is it?
The Dartboard depicts your Agile Focus Strategy. This strategy balances the tension
between focus and flexibility, by consciously keeping open other market options: those
that will allow you to mitigate your risk and increase your value with minimum effort.

Why is it important?
The Agile Focus Strategy enables you to hedge your risk and to leverage your
competences at the same time, thus allocating your resources more effectively and
avoiding a potentially fatal lock­in. The Agile Focus Strategy has significant
implications for how you build and design your venture.

How is it done?
After choosing your Primary Market Opportunity, analyse which other options are
suitable for backup or for growth, based on their attractiveness and their relatedness to
your primary market. This analysis can help you decide which options should be
pursued in parallel, kept open for later stages or put aside for now.

Worksheet 3 will guide you through this process.

Before you roll up your sleeves …

Before you roll up your sleeves …

1. It’s a process
Applying the Navigator is a process that requires attention and time. Dedicating this
time is often counterintuitive to the common ‘just do it’ tendency of entrepreneurs and
innovators. Getting products out there and iterating as they go seems like a better use
of time. However, thinking thoroughly through your business and unearthing
important variables beforehand can actually get you on the road to success quicker and
cheaper …

Appreciate the process, not just the outcome

Although the Market Opportunity Navigator is designed to help you set a smart
strategy, the learning process to get there is just as important! It helps you figure out
the strengths of your business, your competitive landscape, your customers and your
obstacles. You can use the Navigator’s process to clarify your assumptions about a
market opportunity and to gradually turn them into facts. So don’t try to make any
short cuts or skip some parts of the process. The knowledge you will gather is
indispensable!

Make it as iterative as possible

It may seem like a linear process – yet it is not. You will go back and forth between
steps, as more knowledge is accumulated and new market opportunities are discovered.

Make it a habit
The Market Opportunity Navigator will help you in navigating through the initial
market entry decision, but also beyond it! Things may constantly evolve and new
parameters may require additional attention. Make the Market Opportunity Navigator
a constant companion – you can capture your ongoing learning and updated situations.
If strategic changes are required, you will easily see them! The Navigator will help you
to see a better idea when it arrives, and to overcome the challenge of discarding your
old one.

2. Use the three steps according to your own needs

Although we portray the Navigator’s process in a structured and staged manner, it is
actually possible – and sometimes even more useful – to apply the Navigator in a
different order, or simply use individual parts according to your specific questions or
dilemmas.
It’s possible to start from different entry points
It’s possible to start from different entry points
You can start using the Market Opportunity Navigator at different stages, and use
different steps, depending on what you already know and what you have already
decided. For example, you may use it to compare potential market opportunities, but
not to generate alternatives, or to build a smart portfolio around a target market that
you already pursue.

Market pull
Some firms may start with the intention to address a specific market need. This
approach is typically called ‘market pull’. If your firm falls in this category, you will find
great value in the Market Opportunity Navigator as it allows you to evaluate your initial
target market. If it proves to be a worthwhile opportunity, you can then build an Agile
Focus Strategy around it. If it turns out to be a weak opportunity, the Market
Opportunity Navigator will assist you in discovering more valuable fields to play in!

Technology push
Some firms may start with a technological invention and search for potential uses for
their technology. They are typically called ‘technology push’ firms. If your firm falls in
this category, you will find great value in the Market Opportunity Navigator as it allows
you to discover possible market opportunities, stemming from your innovation, to
evaluate them and to develop your Agile Focus Strategy.

3. Work efficiently
Remember that the Navigator provides you with the cornerstone questions that need to
be addressed as you figure out where to play, but it does not provide the answers. Here
are some important tips to help you search for answers in a more effective manner:

Avoid ‘paralysis by analysis’

Paralysis by analysis is a well­known phenomenon. It refers to managers who are
reluctant to make important decisions before gathering all the information that they
could possibly get. While our framework urges you to collect comprehensive data before
setting your strategy, we also urge you to stop at some reasonable point. Uncertainty
can never really fade completely. Be prepared to base your decision on an ‘informed
and educated intuition’ rather than on a complete set of data. The fine line between
under­ and over­analysis is a bit illusive, so you should be aware of it.

Be aware of your biases

As human beings, we are never an empty table. We usually approach tasks with our
prior beliefs, tendencies, passions etc. This is normal. Yet, don’t use the Market
Opportunity Navigator to simply rationalise your intuition. Try to be as objective as
possible and to base your evaluation on proven knowledge instead of beliefs. Let the
Market Opportunity Navigator be a mirror in your face, rather than mirroring your own
subjective opinion!

Debate as much as you can

One main value of using the structure that the Market Opportunity Navigator provides
is to clearly put your thoughts and considerations on the table, and to debate them with
others. Use the framework and the language it provides to discuss your analysis with
peers and stakeholders. It will enrich your reasoning and will help you to avoid any
biases that may tilt your analysis in a wrong direction.

FAQS
The technology that we are developing is quite specific for the product that we
have in mind. Will the Market Opportunity Navigator be relevant for us?
Of course, some technologies or capabilities are more fungible than others. They can
more easily be applied to serve different applications and market domains. Yet, almost
any technology can be de­linked from its current product and be characterised ‘in its
own right’ to understand its generic functionalities. The Market Opportunity Navigator
will help you discover new market opportunities and will make sure that your firm will
not get locked in and lose its agility.

There are so many things to do in a start-up and so little time. Why should we
take the time to invest in this process?
Indeed, time is one of the scarcest resources for entrepreneurs. We know that.
However, because it is so rare, it should be spent wisely. Our natural tendency is to
invest our time in troubleshooting and short­term problems. Yet, this approach will
likely take us nowhere in the long term. Your choice of market opportunity is one of the
most important decisions you will ever make. Take the time to think widely and
comprehensively about your options before you commit to a specific path. Make sure
that the choice is smart, so that you will not regret it when it’s too late. You should also
keep in mind the ‘learning curve’ in applying the Navigator. A significant investment is
usually required when you begin working with the Navigator but, over time, you will be
able to use it and benefit from it with much less effort.

The common assumption among entrepreneurs and investors is that start-ups

must adopt a ‘laser-sharp focus’ approach, because their resources are scarce.
How does it fit your Agile Focus approach?
We have done comprehensive research, involving hundreds of firms, to understand this
question. Our studies clearly show that a laser­sharp focus on one narrow path doesn’t
pay off for most firms! On the contrary: firms that implemented a wider approach – by
consciously keeping related market options open – outperformed those who didn’t,
mainly because of their greater agility. Laser­sharp focus therefore comes at the price of
flexibility, while Agile Focus helps you manage the delicate balance between staying
focused and staying flexible!
History

Chapter 2
Topics

Tutorials

The Market Opportunity

Offers & Deals

Navigator: Three steps for

Highlights

discovering your most

Settings

valuable market opportunities

Support

2.1 Market Opportunity Set

Sign Out

2.2 Attractiveness Map

2.3 Agile Focus Dartboard

Working with the Market Opportunity Navigator

The Market Opportunity Navigator is carefully designed to turn a complex decision
making process into a clear and easy­to­manage task.

It contains one primary design board and three dedicated worksheets.

The Navigator’s main design board includes the three parts that are essential for setting
a smart market opportunity strategy:

Download the worksheets from our website, or copy the

blank sheets at the end of this book.
 Use sticky notes to represent each of the market opportunities that you are
considering. Place them on the Navigator to display: your Market
Opportunity Set, your Attractiveness Map and your Agile Focus Dartboard.

Three worksheets facilitate the achievement of these three key outcomes:

WORKSHEET 1
Generate your Market Opportunity Set

Discover how to describe your core abilities – independent of any (envisioned) product,
and how to identify different applications that can be developed with these abilities,
along with potential customers who may need these applications. The desired outcome
is your Market Opportunity Set.

https://avxhm.se/blogs/hill0
WORKSHEET 2
Evaluate Market Opportunity Attractiveness

Discover how to rate each option based on two main dimensions – the Potential of the
opportunity and the Challenge in capturing its value. The result of this scoring process
is depicted in the Attractiveness Map.

WORKSHEET 3
Design your Agile Focus Strategy

Discover how to assess possible Backup and Growth Options, once the Primary Market
Opportunity is chosen. By examining their value and relatedness, you are able to decide
which opportunities to pursue now, which will be kept open for later, and which will be
placed in storage. The resulting strategy (the ‘Agile Focus Strategy’) is depicted on the
Agile Focus Dartboard.

Once you have gone through the worksheets, you have reached the most important
milestone: the complete Market Opportunity Navigator for determining your most
promising path.

Remember that both the process and the outcome that the Navigator offers are valuable
and important. They will help you to reflect on your learning, communicate your
thoughts and determine your strategy.
You are now ready to dive into the inner workings of the Market
Opportunity Navigator. We will guide you step by step … Enjoy!

Yet, before we begin …

Meet Saar and Gal – Founders of Augury.

Saar and Gal are two good friends who always wanted to found a start­
up. One day back in 2011, Gal – a software engineer – was sent to India
by his employer to diagnose a machine that didn’t work properly. He
had to fly thousands of miles for that, but as he entered the room he
simply heard – with a clear sound – that the problem was not the
software, but rather a mechanical malfunction. It was at this moment
that an idea came into his mind: why can’t we develop something that
will simply listen to machines, to diagnose their problems?

A quick technological investigation revealed that developing this

technology would be difficult, yet doable. But as they started working on
this project, Saar and Gal quickly realised that machines are literally all
around us – all the way from complicated manufacturing lines to simple
home appliances. So how can they know what type of machines they
should ‘listen to’? And which market opportunities they should focus
on?

As we progress along the three steps of the Market Opportunity

Navigator, we will accompany Gal and Saar in their initial market
opportunity decision.
https://avxhm.se/blogs/hill0
2.1 MARKET OPPORTUNITY SET
Your resources and capabilities are typically fungible – this means, they can be used to
create products or services not just for customers in one market domain, but for
different customers across many market domains. They can be ‘leveraged’ to create
multiple market opportunities for you.

Market Opportunity
We define a market opportunity as the combination of an application
of your abilities for a specific set of customers.

Discovering multiple market opportunities is very important for you, because not all
market opportunities are alike. Some have greater growth potential, whereas others
face much less competition, and again others are just markets that one should avoid as
they are difficult and costly to enter. Hence, finding a great market opportunity to
exploit is a real advantage, as it can provide you with the fertile ground for growing
your business and for reaping the greatest value from your innovation! Don’t waste
your time with possibly inferior opportunities. Look before you leap!

Additionally, and just as important, once you have identified multiple opportunities,
you have a portfolio at hand that offers additional growth possibilities, or the ability to
pivot to another market should it become necessary. You can thus unleash the power of
multiple opportunities to enhance your agility and manoeuvrability.

A Market Opportunity Set is a true asset for your firm!

In this chapter, we show you how you can identify manifold market opportunities, some
closer to what you may have had already in mind, and some far afield. Worksheet 1 will
guide you through this process. The result will be your Market Opportunity Set that will
create much needed strategic choice on your path to commercial success.

Your main takeaways

Identifying potential market opportunities is not an easy task. It requires questioning,
observing, experimenting and networking, to understand different customer needs and
1
how you can address them. Worksheet 1 helps you to generate possible market
opportunities, as you adopt these four behaviours. It will help you to think about your
own resources and capabilities in a more fungible way, detached from the products that
you may have already envisioned, and regardless of whether you have already
developed these capabilities or just about to do so.

Ultimately, this structured thinking process opens your mind to different applications
that can address different needs of different customers. It actually enhances your
cognitive flexibility, so you can be more alert to other promising opportunities.

The result is just as important as the process. Having options at hand not only gives you
the power of choosing but also the power of staying agile. Remember that options are a
real asset for your venture, if you know how to leverage them smartly. Hence: one of the
main takeaways from this step is that you leave some long held assumptions (such as
‘this is already the perfect market for me’) behind, verify your beliefs, and explore what
else may be in store for you. You will not regret this later.

RESEARCH INSIGHTS

A research study of over 80 venture­capital backed technology start­ups

examined the contribution of having multiple market opportunities at
hand prior to the firm’s first market entry.

The results offered two valuable insights regarding this important early
stage in new firm creation:

First, they revealed that one key element that serial entrepreneurs have
learned through prior start­up experience is to generate a choice set of
market opportunities before deciding which market opportunity to pursue
initially.

Second, the analysis clearly showed that entrepreneurs can derive key
performance benefits from the identification of a choice set of market
2
opportunities.
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came in the ear-piercing cry, “Pay your debt!” Before the grave had
been closed, another and another bird of the same species drew
towards the spot, and each lifted up his voice to the same tune
—“Pay your debt”—“Pay your debt”—“Pay your debt”—till the whole
forest seemed possessed by one spirit, and the ghost of the sheriff’s
officer appeared to the distracted senses of the settlers to have
dispersed itself into a whole legion of harpies. The fact was, that the
birds were brought forth by the coolness of the evening, according
to their usual habits, and were now innocently amusing themselves
with their accustomed cry, without the least idea of any personality
towards the Poyaisians. The Chamberlain of the colonists, who had
learned from books of travels that many American birds uttered
something like a sentence of English as their habitual cry,
endeavoured to assuage the alarm of his companions; but,
nevertheless, a very general sense of terror remained.
“It may be all very true,” said Jock Colquhoun, “that the birds of
this country have each a particular word to say; but, od, it’s gayan
queer that the Poyais bird should have pitched upon a thing that
jags our consciences sae sair.”
The first night was spent in a very uncomfortable manner. To a
day of intense heat succeeded a cold dewy night, which struck the
limbs of the unprotected settlers with such severe cramps, that
hardly a man could stir next morning. Their sleep, moreover, was
broken occasionally by the cry of “Pay your debt!” which a few of
their feathered friends kept up at intervals all night. Next day,
instead of setting about the erection of their metropolis and sea-
port, as was intended, they had to attend each other’s sick-beds.
Before night several of the women and children had expired. Next
day, and the next again, the same sickness continued; and in less
than a week, half their number were under the earth. Jock, who had
fortunately escaped every mishap except a rheumatic shoulder, now
began to think how much more comfortable he would have been in
Luckie Wishart’s laigh shop in the Canongate of Edinburgh, than he
was on this inhospitable coast, where there was no prospect of
raising so much as a potato for a twelvemonth. “What a fool I was,”
said he, “not to make my quarters good there, as the honest woman
proposed! Oh, to be walking wi’ her down the King’s Park on a
Sunday nicht, even wi’ a’ the five bairns running after us! I’se
warrant the gardens at Restalrig hae nae birds about the bushes
that tell folk to pay their debt; naething o’ the kind there, unless it
be the boord, black letters on a white ground, that says, ‘Pay on
delivery.’”
Hardship had now dispelled from every mind the magnificent ideas
with which they had hitherto been inspired. If the vessel had yet
remained on the coast, the whole of the surviving company, prime
minister and all, would have willingly exchanged their brilliant
appointments under the Cazique for a snug berth on board. But it
had departed immediately after landing them; and there only
remained the chance that some other vessel would pass that way,
and take pity on their distress. This, fortunately, happened in the
course of a few days. A vessel bound to Belize came along the
shore, and, on a signal from the unfortunate Poyaisians, sent a boat
to inquire into their case. As only a few remained alive, it was soon
arranged that they should be carried to the port for which the vessel
was bound. With grateful and subdued hearts, and casting many a
mournful glance towards the graves of their friends, the small
remnant of the Poyais expedition betook themselves to the boat, and
sailed off to the vessel. As a sort of parting admonition, a bird came
up at the moment of their departure from the land, and,
pronouncing one shrill, clear “Pay your debt!” flew off into the
interior.
It were needless to relate the various hardships and adventures
which befel Jock Colquhoun before he regained his native shore. Be
it enough, that he immediately sought the cozy den of Luckie
Wishart, and paid his debt in the way originally desired by the lady,
who, under the name of Mrs Colquhoun, continued for many years,
with the assistance of her reformed husband, to regale the good
people of the Canongate.
 “A flichty chield,” she used to remark to her female friends, “was
whyles the better o’ finding the grund o’ his stamack.”

FOOTNOTES:
[4] Alehouse of particular resort.
 CHILDREN.

I may begin with the question of Henry the Fourth of France, when
found by an ambassador at romps with his children, “Are you a
father?” If you are, we may go on with the game—if not, you must
pass to the next article. A curious thing it is, this same fact, that
children in general are only interesting in the eyes of those who are
parents, while brats in particular are held as pests by all but their
immediate father and mother. Some lightheaded author has
compared the rush of children which takes place at the conclusion of
family dinners, to the incursion of the Goths and Vandals. Perhaps it
is all true, that children out of place are not agreeable; but is any
thing agreeable that is out of place? Children, abstracted from the
homely details of their management, and the anxiety which they
always occasion, are a delightful study—a study, I maintain, fitted
alike to engage the speculations of the philosophic, and the
affections of the benevolent, mind. I cannot, I must say, form the
idea of a man of extended views and sympathies, who does not like
children.
Among the grown-up part of mankind, there is always abundance
of envy, hatred, and all uncharitableness. This fact I consider with
reference to the circumstances in which men are placed, and I
plainly conceive that where existence is only to be supported by an
unceasing struggle, and where self-love is so perpetually receiving
injury, it is needless to expect that men should be much better than
they are. In children, however, we see no possibility of any rivalship:
they are a harmless little people at this moment, and we run no
chance of being jostled by them in our course of life, for many years
to come. There is, therefore, no reason for envy, hatred, or
uncharitableness with them. On the contrary, in our intercourse with
children, our self-love is undergoing a perpetual compliment. The
appeal which they are constantly making from their own silently-
confessed weakness, to our tacitly-acknowledged strength, soothes
and delights us. A fellow-creature lies unconsciously abandoned to
our mercy—unconsciously unable to resist. It asks for nothing, for it
cannot; but it does not expect harm. There is the charm. It imputes
to us none of our original sins of envy, hatred, and uncharitableness,
but seems to take it for granted that we are blanch and stainless like
itself. It puts forth its little arms to us, with a perfect confidence in
our gentler and better nature, and we feel it impossible to be evil
when we are so sincerely understood to be good. We give, then, the
love and faith that are demanded, and press the offenceless type of
our original and perfect nature, with all the hues and all the odours
of paradise rife around it, to our heart of hearts.
The whole external deportment of a child is delightful. Its smile—
always so ready when there is no distress, and so soon recurring
when that distress has passed away—is like an opening of the sky,
showing heaven beyond. Tales are told of murderers, who, after
revelling in the blood of many adults, were at length arrested by the
smile of a child, and suddenly became innocent, because they were
supposed to be so. The grasp of its little hand around one of our
fingers—its mighty little crow when excited by the playfulness of its
nurse—its manful spring upon the little woolpack legs that refuse to
bear its weight—are all traits of more or less pleasantness. Then, the
eye of a child—who can look unmoved into that “well undefiled,” in
which heaven itself seems to be reflected? Whether the gem be of
sweet pellucid blue, or of the mysterious and unsearchable black,
what meanings unexpressed, unintelligible, reside within! the germ
of a whole life of feelings and ideas. Human nature is familiar in all
its bearings to most men; yet how novel does every symptom of it
appear, as first shown forth by a child! Every little imperfect function
—every step in the attainment of physical power—every new trait of
intelligence, as they one by one arise in the infantine intellect, like
the glory of night, starting star by star into the sky, is hailed with a
heart-burst of rapture and surprise, as if we had never known any
thing so clever or so captivating before. The point thus gained is
never lost. The darling child is reminded perpetually of the idea he
lately seemed to comprehend, or of the word he seemed nearly able
to pronounce, or of the little action he attempted to perform; and
thus the whole of his little stock of accomplishments is carefully kept
together, liable to a constant increase. Hosannas of affection
celebrate every step of his progress towards maturity, and fresh
blessings are showered upon his holy and harmless head, for every
manifestation of the presence of the godlike mind. Nor is this
interest in his advance confined to those whose daily joy it is to fold
him to the beatings of a kindred heart. Almost every one who has
occasion to observe the march of infant intellect feels an instinctive
satisfaction in the contemplation. It seems, indeed, to be part of the
grand and wise design, that all the mature of the human race should
be concerned respecting the progress of the young: it is the silent
working of nature towards the general good. Without a principle of
this kind constantly at work—and it is always at work, in the
attentions of the reflecting and grave, as well as in the apparently
senseless prattle of the nurse—the moral world would be in danger
of standing still.
The love of parents for their children—so far as it is not a
sentiment arising from the contemplation of beauty, or innocence, or
helplessness—is a kind of self-love. Yet no one ever thinks of
imputing to a parent, as a fault, that he has a high appreciation of
his children. The truth is, though in one sense self-love, it is, in
another, the most generous and self-abandoning feeling in nature.
The world is also aware instinctively, that the fondness of parents for
their children is necessary for their protection and education; and,
therefore, if there were no other palliation of the passion, it would at
least be convenient. In virtue of these excuses, a parent can indulge
in all the pleasures of the most intense, devoted, devouring, self-
appreciation, and yet have none of the usual reproach attending it.
He can admire himself in his children, to a greater extent than ever
did Narcissus in the fountain, and yet there is no chance that he
changes into a daffodil. He can call himself every pretty name in the
nurse’s vocabulary, and yet no one will ever accuse him of flattering
his own person. He may fondle and hug himself till his miniature
counterpart loses both breath and patience; he may expend upon
his little self a thousand compliments and praises; and yet it will
never be insinuated that Mr —— is on uncommonly good terms with
Mr ——. This, it must be remarked, is one of the compensations
allowed by Providence for the anxiety and pains attendant upon the
keeping of a child.
It is a very common impression among those who are practically
unacquainted with children, that there is an immense deal of trouble
incurred in their management. There is, no doubt, much trouble, but
there is also much to alleviate it. Women, to whom, as mothers or as
nurses, this trouble chiefly falls, are rarely heard to complain of it.
The labour is either kindly and agreeable in itself, or it is rewarded
by the generous pleasure of knowing that those are helped who
cannot help themselves. There are few duties, it may be said, by
which women appear to feel less oppressed, than the labour of
managing children. What is very strange, it seems equally lightsome
to the hired attendant as to the mother herself. There appears to be
a general feeling among women that the neglect of, or the least
cruelty, to a child, is the most monstrous offence in nature: it is the
high treason of the sex. In the more refined circles of society, where
it is convenient to employ deputies, this certain kindness of every
female heart towards a child is very fortunate: in the lower circles it
is still more so. There many mothers are compelled to depend much
upon the good-will of neighbours for the attentions necessary to
their families. The infant is, indeed, in some measure the protegé of
a little vicinity, rather than of any individual. It is handed about from
one hand to another, and kept for a little by each, so as to enable
the mother to attend to other duties that are still more indispensable
—such as the preparation of her family meals, or, perhaps, the work
necessary for obtaining them. There is in this no danger for the
child, and not much obligation for the parents. The poor are in the
constant practice of performing acts of kindness to each other: they
are their own best friends; and their condition would be quite
insupportable if it were otherwise. The attentions, therefore, which
one neighbour bestows upon another’s child, are felt as a very slight
burden by the particular party obliging, while the aggregate of many
such little favours forms an immense relief to the mother. Then,
every one knows that if the case were her own, as it perhaps may
be, the individual whom she now obliges would be ready and glad to
oblige her in turn. If the trouble of managing children had in it any
thing really disagreeable, this universal system of mutual
serviceableness could never obtain among the poor.
It is surprising how much children tend to humanise and soften
the stern scene of general life. The man who is so fortunate as to
possess one or more children, finds it less easy to be wicked than if
he had none; and, however evilly disposed any man may be, he will
hardly give way to his wicked tendencies in the presence of his
children. There is something holy in a child. Its innocence puts it in
association with all gentle and devout feelings; and scarcely any
parent will venture deliberately to contaminate the bright image of
heavenly purity, which the Father of heaven has himself placed
under his charge. Even the infidel can never form the wish that his
child should be the same; he may dare many things, upon the peril
of his own soul, but he cannot dare to hazard the soul of his child.
His own mind may be torn by the demons of doubt and error, but he
will keep his child steadfast if he can, melting nightly at the infantine
prayer, which he cannot offer up himself. If a parent has been
imprudent, and now suffers the bitter effects of his folly, in
misfortunes which have exposed him to the contempt of mankind,
here still is a resource. He can steal by night to the couch of his
children, and, beside the unconscious babes, whose fate hangs all
upon his, and who yet reprove not, in their silent innocence, the
guilt which has exposed them to misery, weep himself into good
resolutions, and into comfort.
One of the chief sources of a parent’s pleasure in contemplating
children, lies in the prospects which it is impossible to avoid forming
regarding their future lives. No parent ever contemplates an
unhappy fate for his child: all the look-forward is sunny as its own
sweet eyes—stainless as its uncorrupted heart. There is even hardly
any parent who rests content with hoping that his children will be as
fortunate and as happy as himself. They must be much more so:
they must reach heights of distinction far above any he had ever
presumed to expect for himself. To the parent who has occasion to
lament his unhappy circumstances in life, what treasured consolation
there is in these fond imaginings! The father, as he broods moodily
over enterprises blighted, and a spirit confined for immediate bread
to some narrow scene of action unworthy of its energies—one casual
glance alights upon the fair brow of his child, the bitter present gives
way to the glorious future, and all his own griefs are repaid by the
prospective happiness of his offspring. The mother who looks back
to the comforts of an early home, unhappily exchanged for a scene
of care and woe, feels, as she bends over her unconscious infant,
her former happiness arise in the prospects of that endeared being,
and is for the time consoled. It is this habit of forming flattering
anticipations respecting the fates of our children, that renders the
loss of them in infancy so very severe a calamity. In reality, the life
of a child is of little value: it has as yet cost little, either in care or
expense; and, unless in particular circumstances, it holds but an
unimportant place in society. Yet it is in this very want of all
probation of its value that the poignancy of the loss chiefly lies. We
lament it, not at all for what it was at the time of its death, but for
what it might have been, if it had been spared. We often find that
the loss of an infant is lamented with a more violent and
unappeasable grief than that of an adult; and this is simply because,
in the one case, the damage is ascertained, and forms but one
distinct idea; while in the other it is arbitrary, vast, beyond
imagination. A child is, in one sense, a dangerous possession: it is
apt to warp itself into the vitals of our very soul; so that, when God
rends it away, the whole mental fabric is shattered. It should always,
then, be borne in mind, that life is the more uncertain the nearer its
commencement, and that the beings we are disposed to appreciate
most are just those whom we are most apt to lose.
The feelings of a parent, regarding a child in dangerous sickness,
are beautifully expressed in the following poem, which will surprise
many readers into tears:—[5]
 “Send down thy winged angel, God!
Amidst this night so wild,
And bid him come, where now we watch,
And breathe upon our child.

She lies upon her pillow, pale,

And moans within her sleep,
Or wakeneth with a patient smile,
And striveth not to weep!

How gentle and how good a child

She is, we know too well;
And dearer to her parents’ hearts
Than our weak words can tell.

We love—we watch throughout the night,

To aid, when need may be;
We hope—and have despair’d at times,
But now we turn to Thee!

Send down thy sweet-soul’d angel, God!

Amidst the darkness wild,
And bid him soothe our souls to-night,
And heal our gentle child!”

When a scene like this is closed by death, what an extinction of

hopes! No parent, it may be remarked, ever thinks he can spare a
child. Whatever be the number of his family, he is almost sure to be
afflicted to exactly a certain degree by the loss of any individual
infant; for simply this reason, that every one has established its own
claim to his affections, by some peculiar trait of its appearance or
character. It is a lovely and admirable trait of human nature, that the
parent is rather apt to appreciate the lost child above all the rest.
The impossibility of a realization of his hopes regarding that infant,
just makes all those hopes the brighter, so that the twilight of the
child’s dead existence is more splendid than the broad day of its
living life. The surviving babes are all more or less connected with
the common-place of this world—the homeliness of nature; but that
fair-haired innocent, which went to its place in the blush and dawn
of its faculties, what might it not have been? Then, the stirring grief
of parting with that face that was our own—that more than friend,
though but an infant—to break off all the delightful ties of prattling
tenderness, that had bound us, even in a few months, to that gentle
form for ever! A sorrow like this is long in being altogether
quenched; it comes in soft gushes into the heart for many future
years, and subdues us in the midst of stronger and sterner feelings.
The image lives always before us in unchanging infancy, and beauty,
and innocence; it ever seems to be walking in our eyes, as of yore,
with its bright curling hair, and its lightsome carol; and we long for
heaven, that we may enjoy that no small portion of its pleasures—a
restoration to the company of that mortal angel which has been reft
away.

FOOTNOTES:
[5] This exquisite little hymn is extracted from a volume of
excellent, but, we fear, neglected poetry, published under the title
of “English Songs, and other Small Poems, by Barry Cornwall.”
The real name of the author, we understand, is Proctor, and in
him much of the old pure spirit of poetry has revived—the poetry
of nature and of the affections.
 TEA-DRINKING.

There is a certain class of people who take every opportunity of

sneering at their neighbours for indulging in the “folly” of drinking
tea, which they tell you is poisonous, and for the use of which the
Chinese, as they say, make a point of laughing at us. I have
generally remarked, that those who in this manner condemn the use
of tea are themselves addicted to the drinking of intoxicating liquids
of some kind or other, and that, in most instances, they are not a bit
more healthful or more innocent than the unhappy tea-drinkers
whom they affect to pity. In the way that tea is usually made, with a
large mixture of sugar and cream, both which ingredients are highly
nutritious, it is fully more salutary, and a great deal more refreshing,
than any other light liquid that could be poured into the stomach.
With all due deference to Cobbett, milk, even entirely divested of its
creamy particles, is heavy; and though it may be used with
advantage as a meal, when work is done in the open air, it can never
suit the appetites of the great mass of the people, who are confined
by sedentary employments. Milk is the food of men in a rude state,
or in childhood; but tea or well-made coffee is their beverage in a
state of civilisation. It would seem that the civilised human being
must use a large quantity of liquid food. Perhaps solid meat is more
nutritious; but there are cases in which a small degree of nutriment
is quite sufficient. A lady or a gentleman of sedentary habits does
not require to feed like a ploughman, or a fancy man training for a
pedestrian excursion. They can subsist in a healthful state with a
small quantity of solid food, but they do not do well unless with a
large quantity of liquids, and these of a light quality. Good beer has
been recommended as a substitute for tea; but beer is at the best a
cold ungenial drink, except to robust people who have much
exercise. Beer may certainly be made almost as light as water itself,
but in that case it is filled with gaseous matter or confined air, and it
cannot be drunk with comfort as a simple refreshment.
 It will always be remembered that there are different kinds of tea,
and that some are more salutary than others. Green tea ought by all
means to be avoided by persons of weak nerves. Black tea is the
preferable for general use, and, if properly made, will prove anti-
spasmodic, and relieve pains or cramps in the bowels. In some
instances tea does not suit the particular state of the stomach, and it
should then be abandoned, the taste naturally pointing out when it
should be taken. But no species of prepared fluid seems so suitable
to the palates and the stomachs of the people of this country. No
kind of drink is so refreshing after a journey or fatigue as tea. It
restores the drooping spirits, and invigorates the frame for renewed
exertion. No other kind of liquid with which we are acquainted has
the same remarkable influence morally and physically. Fermented or
distilled liquors, taken under the same circumstances, either induce
intoxication or sleep. It is preposterous to say that tea is poisonous.
As there is an astringency in its properties, I believe it would be
most injurious were we to live upon nothing else, or drink it as a
tincture. But who does either? As it happens to be prepared and
used, it answers merely as a refreshing and pleasing drink, either to
the solid bread and butter taken along with it, or after a recent
dinner of substantial viands. How idle it is to say that this harmless
beverage is ruining the constitutions of the people of this country!
The very reverse can be demonstrated. The inhabitants of Britain
use nearly twenty-seven millions of pounds weight of tea annually,
which is about one pound nine ounces on an average for every
individual. From thirty to forty years ago they used a great deal less
than the half of this quantity, yet the average length of human life
has been greatly extended since that period. The English and Scotch
now use more tea than all the rest of Europe put together, and yet
they are the healthiest nation on the face of the earth. The North
Americans are also great tea-drinkers, and human life among them
is of nearly an equal value. Who would for a moment compare the
thin wretched wines of France and Germany, or the sour krout of
Russia, to the “comfortable” tea of Great Britain, and who would lose
time in calculating the different effects of these liquids on the
constitution?
 Tea has other excellent properties. At this present moment it is
putting down the pernicious practice of dram-drinking, and evidently
limiting the extent of after-dinner potations. It seems to be
impossible that a regular drinker of tea can be a lover of ardent
spirits; and it is generally observed, that, as a man (or woman
either) slides into the vice of tippling, he simultaneously withdraws
from the tea-table; so true it is that the brutalised feelings of the
drunkard are incompatible with the refined sentiments produced by

“The cup which cheers, but not inebriates.”

It is hence to be wished that tea, or some other equally simple

prepared fluid, should be still more brought into use. Do not let it be
urged as an objection, that tea is expensive; for even under its
excessive dearth, compared with its original cost, it is the cheapest
beverage in use. With respect to price, it should not be placed
against water or milk. It comes in place of some other indulgence—
intoxicating liquors for instance—respecting the price of which we
never heard any complaints from the lower walks of life. Tea is thus
not entirely a superfluity. The clamours as to its fostering habits of
evil and light speaking, are so antiquated as hardly to deserve
notice. Formerly, when tea was exclusively a luxury among women,
the tea-table was perhaps the scene where scandal was chiefly
discussed. But while I suspect that the same amount of scandal
would have been discussed if there had been no tea-tables
whatever, I must observe, that tea is now partaken of under greatly
different circumstances. From being the favourite indulgence only of
women, it is now an ordinary domestic meal, and there is no more
disposition to draw forth the failings of our neighbours over tea than
over roast beef or punch, at seven o’clock any more than at five. In
the upper classes of society, what with late dinners, routs, and
frivolities of every description, tea-drinking may be put aside as a
vulgarism; but as being, in point of fact, a powerful agent in
humanising the harsh feelings of our nature, and cultivating the
domestic affections, I trust it will long hold a place in the dietetics of
the respectable middle and lower classes of Great Britain.
 HUSBANDS AND WIVES.

We meet with numerous rules for the conduct of young newly-

married women of all ranks; and if the world is not filled with good
wives, it certainly is not because there is any want of matronly
counsel for their guidance. But though the happiness of the conjugal
state depends at least as much upon the behaviour of the husband
as on that of the wife, there has not, as far as we are aware, been
hitherto promulgated any code of instructions for the use of the
former. Our literature abounds with narrations which exhibit the
dutifulness and affection of women to husbands unworthy of them,
who repaid tenderness with brutality, nor relented till those whose
every amiable feeling they ought to have cherished and rewarded
with their love, either sank broken-hearted, or, grown desperate,
became even more abandoned and profligate than themselves. The
man is to blame in nine cases out of ten where an alliance proves
unhappy. In the lower ranks, especially, it is too often a want of
prudence on his part that renders so many families wretched. Of the
multitudes of those who have wasted character, health, and means,
in intemperance, there is but a small proportion who might not have
preserved respectability by listening to the admonitions of their
wives. Yet, with these numerous and undeniable facts before the
world, no writer thinks of preventing such evils by pointing out and
enforcing the duties of the party from whose misconduct they chiefly
spring. A small portion of our columns, therefore, will not be
unprofitably bestowed on a subject of so much importance.
In order to secure the felicity of the married state, a husband
must, in the first place, endeavour to secure the perfect confidence
of his wife. He must banish every thing repulsive from his manner
towards her, and live with her on such easy and friendly terms that
she may never be discouraged from communicating with and
consulting him on every affair, whether it be in the lesser or the
greater concerns of life. If a wife do not find at home sympathy with
her afflictions, cares, and anxieties, she will seek it abroad—she will
detail her griefs to some acquaintance, to whom she will go for
advice in matters of difficulty, and, perhaps, in matters of delicacy,
which cannot properly be appreciated by a stranger, and therefore
ought not to be entrusted to the ear of one. The happiness of the
family will thus be made to depend in a great measure on a person
not a member of it, who, whatever be her prudence, is not
intimately interested in the preservation of its peace, and who is
more likely to take a side and encourage feelings of animosity than
to inculcate the duty of mutual forbearance.
The husband’s duty must therefore be to establish in the mind of
his partner an entire reliance on his affection, and a thorough
persuasion that he is disposed to the full amount of his power to
promote her comfort. Let him not think it beneath him to take an
interest in her domestic arrangements: by showing that he does so,
he will make her sensible that her efforts to render home pleasing
are not unappreciated; her labour for that end will be redoubled,
and yet prove more light to her. As he must be abroad the greater
part of the day, let him not deprive her of his company in the hours
of leisure that business leaves him. A man cannot altogether seclude
himself from the world in the bosom of his family; neither can he
always carry his wife along with him: but he must not for a light
reason allow himself to be detained from her society. A woman’s
hours are often lonely; and after she has bestowed her whole cares
for a day to set her house in order, and anxiously awaits her
husband’s return, in the hope of enjoying a few hours of mutually
endearing converse by the cheerful hearth, if she have to watch
every approaching footstep in vain, it is a cruel disappointment. One
of the greatest sins which the husband can commit, is that of
making a practice of staying out late at night, which, though not
reckoned among the usual catalogue of crimes against social life, is
one of those most worthy of reprobation. The mental anguish
endured by many excellent wives from this infamous practice, no
one can picture unless he have witnessed it. There, by the lonely
hearth—the fire sunk to a cinder and a mass of ashes—the candle
verging to its close in the socket—the dingy silent apartment
strewed with the toys and furniture of the children, sent hours since
to bed—there, in the midst of this domestic wilderness sits the
drooping, desponding, almost broken-hearted wife, counting the
hours, and conning over in her wearied mind the numbers of times
she has been so deserted, and foreseeing the still greater misery
which awaits her by such a course of profligacy in her husband. And
for what, may we ask, has the master of the household thus
deserted his home?—the company of hollow friends, idle
acquaintances, perhaps drunkards or gamblers, whose witless
jocularity forms the temptation to abandon a good name, fortune,
worldly respectability, and self-esteem. None but the wife who has
endured trials of this nature can properly understand the horrors
resulting from such a life of folly and dissipation.
Every reader must be delighted with the beautiful excuse, which,
among others, Sir Thomas More makes why he did not publish his
Utopia sooner. It shows us how important that great man considered
an attentive performance of the minor duties of life to be. “Seeing
that almost the whole of the day is devoted to business abroad, and
the remainder of my time to domestic duties, there is none left for
myself—that is, for my studies. For, on returning home, I have to
talk with my wife, prattle with my children, and converse with my
servants: all which things I number among the duties of life; since, if
a man would not be a stranger in his own house, he must, by every
means in his power, strive to render himself agreeable to those
companions of his life whom nature has provided, chance thrown in
his way, or that he has himself chosen.”
The husband must not accustom himself to form resolutions, and,
without previously consulting his wife, make a sudden declaration of
his purposes, in the same way as he would casually mention to a
neighbour a plan, the execution of which he is just on the point of
commencing. Even although such resolutions may be come to in a
spirit of wisdom, to determine upon any measure without her
participation argues a want of confidence in her affection and
judgment, and cannot fail greatly to distress and discourage her.
Granting that there are some matters of which the husband is the
most competent judge, and that his wife cannot aid or improve his
schemes, still she ought to be made acquainted with them, and the
reasons for them, as far as possible; for it is only proper that the
wife should be admitted to the satisfaction of knowing what is
expected to produce advantage to her husband. As to what some
write, that women are not fit to be entrusted with great affairs, it
may have been true in the cases which gave occasion to the remark,
where the object involved a course of crooked policy, or where the
ear to which the secret was committed was that of a female from
whom fidelity was scarcely in any case to be expected. If a man’s
designs be bad, the best way for success in them is to make the
disclosure to nobody—least of all to women; to whom, if they be
depraved, how can he trust? and if they be not thoroughly hardened
in wickedness, how much less can he trust to them, seeing that,
being of much tenderer consciences than men, they are always more
ready to relent! But if he would make his way in the world by fair
and honest practices, a husband can have no better counsellor than
his wife: her stretch of understanding may not be so masculine as to
embrace the subject in all its more important bearings, but, in the
lesser details of management, her advice may prove invaluable.
Without a constant and unreserved interchange of sentiments, a
constant and perfect cordiality cannot be maintained; and then,
indeed, when things are communicated only by fits and starts, and
perhaps never more than half explained, leaving an impression that
her discretion is distrusted, the wife will be more apt to carry them
abroad, to endeavour, by the help of other wits than her own, to
penetrate what is concealed, and in the hope of finding, in the
sympathy of others, consolation for the want of confidence with
which she is treated at home. It is thus that a man becomes by
degrees “a stranger in his own house.” His domestic behaviour is
observed with the same distant caution with which his conduct in
public is scrutinised; and as in all likelihood he does not take the
same pains to produce a favourable impression, and is not equally
on his guard to obviate misinterpretations of what he says and does,
he must appear proportionably less amiable; and as the
endearments of domestic life are in consequence withdrawn, the bad
effects of his unsocial humour are at last felt in his own discomfort.
“Those that are curious observers of mankind,” says a Christian
philosopher, who is not so generally known as might be expected
from the excellence of his writings, “love to consider them in the
most familiar lights. When men are abroad, they choose to appear
(whatever they really are) to the best advantage; but at home, their
minds, as well as their persons, are in a perfect undress and
dishabille. The world is the great theatre on which they act a part;
but, behind the scenes, they may be seen in their proper persons,
without any studied appearances. Our domestic behaviour is,
therefore, the main test of our virtue and good nature. In public, we
may carry a fair outside; our love may be not without dissimulation
nor our hatred without disguise; but at home, Nature, left to itself,
shows its true and genuine face, with an unreserved openness, and
all the soul stands forth to view, without any veil thrown over it.
There we see men in all the little and minute circumstances of life,
which, however they may be overlooked by common observers, yet
give a man of discernment a truer opening into a man’s real
character, than the more glaring and important transactions of it,
because, as to these, they are more upon their guard—they act with
more of caution and of art than of plain simple nature. In short, our
good or ill breeding is chiefly seen abroad, our good or ill nature at
home. It were to be wished that we had more family pieces
preserved and transmitted down to us. The good public magistrate is
of use to few only; but the prudent and affectionate father of a
family is of a more general and extensive influence. For my part, I
more admire Cornelius, the centurion, for that short sketch of his
character, viz. that he was a devout man, and one that feared God,
with all his house, than if he had been represented as the most
victorious general that had enlarged the bounds of the Roman
empire; for we learn from it this useful lesson—that the influence of
a pious example, like the precious ointment from Aaron’s beard,
descends downwards from the head of the family, diffuses itself over
the main body, till it reaches the very skirts—the lowest members of
it.”
 THEY.

Before saying a word upon the subject, I must make an apology

similar to that presented by honest Andro Symson, episcopal
minister of a Galloway parish before the Revolution, when, in singing
the praises of Sir David Dunbar of Baldoon, he says, his muse

——’gainst Priscian avers,

He, he alone, were my parishioners.

As good Andro’s congregation of one required to be spoken of in the

plural, so do my friends they need to be mentioned in the singular
number. The truth is, they is a collective ideality, a most potent plural
unit, who does a great many remarkable things in the world, without
ever being called to account for them, and without any body
knowing very distinctly who or what he is. I venture to say, that
hardly a subject of his Majesty does not, day by day, refer events
and deeds to the agency of they, and yet never has presumed, to
this blessed hour, to consider who this mysterious personage—this
great unknown—this finer spirit than Ariel—can be. In very truth, he
is a most impalpable being, and susceptible of a wonderful variety of
shapes. There is no height of greatness, and no depth of
degradation, which he may not arrive at. Sometimes one would
suppose that he is the government itself—sometimes, only a town
council. One of they’s employments is the disposal of criminals. “Are
they going to hang this fellow?” one man will ask another. “Perhaps
they will only banish him,” is the probable answer. If the culprit be
not decently and humanely hanged, the people get dreadfully
enraged at they, and look as if they would almost tear his eyes out.
They also has a great deal to do in public works. “Why did they make
the road so crooked?” “They have put up a very absurd set of street
lamps, I see.” “What, in wonder’s name, do they mean by building a
temple up there, like a boy’s peerie, or an hour-glass?” Then they is
the author of all kinds of rumours and surmises. “They say—what
say they—let them say!” is an inscription on a wall within Aberdeen
Cathedral four hundred years old; and I do not doubt that they would
have given currency to scandals regarding the mother of mankind
herself, in Paradise, if there had been any other lady to tell them to
—or if they had then existed. Old newspapers say, “They write from
St Petersburg that the Empress Catharine is about to fit out an
armament for the Caspian.” “They talk at Rome of a change of
councils in the Vatican.” Modern quidnuncs are also filled to the brim
with things which they has been circulating. “They are now making
out Lord —— to be non compos.” “They will have a marriage to be on
the tapis between So-and-So and So-and-So;” personages, by the
way, who claim a sort of kindred with they, and certainly are of
imagination all compact. They is sometimes admired for his power,
sometimes blamed for his stinginess. “They used to write capital solid
books long ago.” “They used Burns very ill when he was alive.” It
certainly was bad of they to treat Burns so scurvily; but unfortunately
the fellow is so utterly impersonal, that we blame without knowing
what we are doing.
They has a great deal to do with the naming of things. He may be
called, in arithmetical language, the Grand Denominator. Indeed, I
do not believe that Adam himself named more things than they.
“What do they call this place?” one will ask a coachman, on nearing a
town, village, or gentleman’s seat. “They call it Ashbourne,” or
whatever else, is the reply. “What do they call ye?” is the ordinary
question of a rustic boy to his unknown companion, and so forth.
They is also the grand censor of all things which happen in the world.
“I will not do this, for what would they say of me?” is a common
expression, when a man hesitates upon some equivocal step. He
may be convinced, from irrefragable data, of the propriety of what
he contemplates: but then he could not convince they of it, and, of
course, in these circumstances, he must let the scheme drop. They
thus prevents many things that would be bad, many things that
would be only strange, and many things that would certainly be
good, if he could be convinced of it. A most uncompromising fellow
is this they! He knows very well that he cannot enter into another
man’s bosom, to see all the various reasons and tendencies which
lead him towards the thing he aims at; but, nevertheless, presuming
that he is quite omniscient, or at least fully as well acquainted with
every other particular man’s business as his own, he never hesitates
to give a decided contradiction to any proposal he is not, at first
sight, pleased with. Many are the good original schemes which they
has spoilt, from a hasty conclusion without premises.
They, also, amidst all his multitudinous and most Protean varieties
of character, is a general scapegoat for all the mischief that is done
in a household. “I see they have cracked that decanter.” “They have
at last made an end of the globe in the lobby.” Or, as I once heard
said by the lady of a house afflicted with a breaking woman-servant,
“I declare they have broken the very kitchen poker!”—a compound
fracture, too, it was. Such are a few of the doings of they in his
household capacity; and it must be owned that in this light he is very
great, and often comes above-board. The grandest aspect, however,
in which they ever appears, is when he stands up as a representative
of the government of the country. “They are going, I see, to bring us
into a war with France.” “They intend, it seems, to resume cash
payments at the Bank.” No matter whether the affair refers to
privilege or prerogative; no matter for the claims of the particular
officer under whose hands it ought to fall; King, Lords, Commons,
Treasury, Admiralty, and Horse Guards—all melt, like mixed colours,
into the single white light of they! Things may be different under the
Reform Bill; but, heretofore, there has hardly been any precise
government but they. They crowns the king—signs the orders of
council—passes all bills through the legislature that will go through—
fits out armies, and rigs fleets—makes war, and concludes peace—is
church and state—Swing and the Press. They is a being of past
history, and of present existence—a tyrant, or the people. They is the
great despot pronoun of the world!
 RELATIONS.

Owing to the different merits of the different members of a family,

and in some measure, also, to the various chances which are
vouchsafed to them of bettering their circumstances, we generally
see that, though they all begin alike, some go up and some go down
in life, so that in the long-run the family, or at least its second
generation, is scattered over nearly the whole surface of society,
from its top to its bottom. The case may seem startling; but it is our
belief that there is hardly any person, be his own situation ever so
exalted, who has not relations, and near relations too, in the very
lowest walks of life—not only in the condition of servants, perhaps,
for that is decent, and, in its way, respectable, but in the most
degraded state to which human nature can well be reduced.
In the same way, almost all of us have kinsfolk a little higher in
the scale than ourselves, or whom we think so—it is all one. Now, it
is quite amazing how accurate our genealogical knowledge becomes
respecting one of these individuals, compared with its equally
surprising ignorance regarding those who have not been so
fortunate. When a cousin or half grand-uncle rises above our level,
he rises into a blaze of light, which enables us to trace our
connection with him as plainly as we run our eye along the string of
a boy’s kite. But when a poor nephew or grand-nephew descends
into poverty and contempt, he seems like a plummet submersed in
the ocean, where, though we may occasionally feel him tugging at
the bottom of the line, we are totally unable to trace the line itself.
We are always most laudably ready to exchange the civilities of life
and the affections of kindred with the cousin who has, in the first
place, convinced us of his merit by thatching himself well over with
bank-notes. It is pleasant to go and dine at a kinsman’s house,
where we know that our entertainment can be furnished without any
distress to our worthy host. But really it is a totally different case to
intrude upon a scene where our poor friend is doing his best, with
the tears in his eyes, to satisfy the cravings of his family with,
perhaps, a very homely meal. Humanity in that case demands that
we should rather stay away, for we know he does not like to be seen
in his poor state. And then, too, how easily we can put up with the
eccentricities of a wealthy relation, even though they may
sometimes gall our pride a little: how strangely liable, on the other
hand, are we to fall out with the poor unfortunates below us! On the
day after having been regaled to the uttermost excess by our
wealthy friend, we will quarrel with the poor one for having drunk a
single glass of some plebeian fluid. With the former, nothing—with
the latter, every thing, is a fault. The imperfections of the poor are
yawning and palpable as their own rags: those of the rich are as
smooth as broad-cloth can make them. The truth is, our senses can
tolerate almost any odious or improper thing that is found in a scene
above our usual grade in the world. We never know enough of it to
be able to measure its real odiousness, or it is disguised by the
cordial appliances which we always have ready for the sores of the
great. But the vices, nay, the smallest foibles of the lowly, come
before our senses so bare, so beggarly, so unanealed, and,
moreover, they are so immediately followed by that additional
wretchedness which wealthy error escapes, that we have no excuse
for them. Hence we generally find, that we have shaken off the most
of our poor relations on account of some trivial cause of offence,
which we find it necessary, however, to be always nursing in our
minds, in order to sustain us in the conviction that the breach of
treaty—the casus fœderis—was sufficient.
There is one very obvious mark of the individual who despises
poor relations—a perpetual reference to rich ones. Some people are
constantly bringing in allusions to “my cousin Mr This,” and “my
uncle Mr That,” and even to more remote relations, such as “my
great-grandmother the Countess of Somewhere.” A few are so very
silly as to tell, in the newspaper announcement of their marriage,
that their bride, besides being daughter to this or that plain esquire,
is “grand-niece to General So-and-So,” or “cousin to Mr Such-a-
Thing, secretary of state.” These announcements are an
impertinence fit for the interference of the legislature—or the police.
If people have exalted relations, let them enjoy them as much as
they can within themselves, but do not let them be perpetually
presenting this odious little piece of vanity before others, who not
only are not interested in it, but are perhaps reminded by it that
they have no fine relations themselves. To be always thus singling
out a relation from all the rest, and holding him up in connection
with ourselves, is a direct injury to him, in so far as we are thus
trying to exalt ourselves at his expense—an indirect insult to our
kindred in general, whom we leave out of view, and a nuisance to all
before whom we thus exhibit our own poverty of soul. It is a
cultivation of the most odious character, and necessarily suggests to
every thinking person, that in exact proportion to our homage to the
great persons of our family must be our haughtiness and severity to
the humble. The people addicted to this vice of conversation are
evidently satisfied in their own minds that they are talking very fine,
and exciting no feeling in their hearers but admiration and respect;
but in reality they are always scouted and ridiculed, even to the
degree of being honoured with a nickname, carved, perhaps, out of
the favourite phrase.
A really good and philosophical spirit will neither plume himself
upon his more fortunate, nor despise his less fortunate, relations. He
will modestly rejoice in the success of the former, and take care, by
avoiding the appearance of intrusiveness on the one hand, and
splenetic and pettish jealousy on the other, to afford no reason for
the fortunate individual to feel incommoded by the connection, and,
consequently, to endeavour to shake it off. To those who are less
fortunate than himself, he will be as encouraging and kind as his
circumstances render prudent or decent, neither manifesting that
vulgar pride which tries needlessly to make a kind of virtue out of a
low origin, nor that still more pitiable vanity which denies all inferior
kindred, and seeks, at the expense of real dignity, the eclat of a few
“great friends.” We allow there is a general difficulty in the case.
Friends in different worldly circumstances are like positive and
negative clouds in electricity: there is a constant tendency in the
poor to an equalization, which is not relished by the parties whose
pockets are charged positively. But human nature should be always
contending with its weaknesses, and, though full confiding friendship
is not perhaps to be expected, there may still be a sufficient
interchange of kindness to lighten, in no small degree, the general
burden of life.
 THE STRANGERS’ NOOK.

In country churchyards in Scotland, and perhaps in other countries

also, there is always a corner near the gateway, which is devoted to
the reception of strangers, and is distinguished from the rest of the
area by its total want of monuments. When you inquire of the
passing peasant respecting this part of the burial-ground, he tells
you that it is the corner for strangers, but never, of course, thinks
that there is or can be any sentiment in the matter. To me, I must
confess, this spot is always more interesting than any other, on
account of the more extended scope which it gives to those feelings
with which one surveys a churchyard. As you wander over the rest
of the ground, you see humble memorials of humbler worth, mixed
perhaps with the monuments of rank and wealth. But these tell
always a definite tale. It is either the lord or the tenant of some of
the neighbouring fields, or a trading burgher, or perhaps a
clergyman; and there is an end of it. These men performed their
parts on earth, like the generality of their fellows, and, after figuring
for a space on the limited arena of the parish or the district, were
here gathered to their fathers. But the graves of the strangers! what
tales are told by every undistinguished heap—what eloquence in this
utter absence of epitaphs!
There can be no doubt that the individuals who rest in this nook
belonged, with hardly the possibility of an exception, to the humbler
orders of the community. But who will say that the final sufferings
and death of any individual whatsoever are without their pathos? To
me, who have never been able to despise any fellow-creature upon
general considerations, the silent expressive stories related by these
little heaps, possess an interest above all real eloquence. Here, we
may suppose, rests the weary old man, to whom, after many bitter
shifts, all bitterly disappointed, wandering and mendicancy had
become a last trade. His snow-white head, which had suffered the
inclemency of many winters, was here at last laid low for ever. Here
also the homeless youth, who had trusted himself to the wide world
in search of fortune, was arrested in his wanderings; and, whether
his heart was as light and buoyant as his purse, or weighed down
with many privations and disappointments, the end was the same—
only in the one case a blight, in the other a bliss. The prodigal, who
had wandered far, and fared still worse and worse, at length
returning, was here cut short in his better purpose, far from those
friends to whom he looked forward as a consolation for all his
wretchedness. Perhaps, when stretched in mortal sickness in a
homely lodging in the neighbouring village, where, though kindness
was rendered, it was still the kindness of strangers, his mind
wandered in repentant fondness to that mother whom he had parted
with in scorn, but for whose hand to present his cup, and whose eye
to melt him with its tenderness, he would now gladly give the
miserable remains of his life. Perhaps he thought of a brother, also
parted with in rage and distrust, but who, in their early years, had
played with him, a fond and innocent child, over the summer leas,
and to whom that recollection forgave every thing. No one of these
friends to soothe the last moments of his wayward and unhappy life
—scarcely even to hear of his death when it had taken place. Far
from every remembered scene, every remembered face, he was
doomed here to take his place amidst the noteless dead, and be as if
he had never been. Perhaps one of these graves contains the
shipwrecked mariner, hither transferred from the neighbouring
beach. A cry was heard by night through the storm which dashed
the waves upon the rocky coast; deliverance was impossible; and
next morning, the only memorial of what had taken place was the
lifeless body of a sailor stretched on the sand. No trace of name or
kin, not even the name of the vessel, was learned; but, no doubt, as
the villagers would remark in conveying him to the Strangers’ Nook,
he left some heart to pine for his absence, some eyes to mourn for
him, if his loss should ever be ascertained. There are few so
desolate on earth as not to have one friend or associate. There must
either be a wife to be widowed, or a child to be made an orphan, or
a mother to suffer her own not less grievous bereavement. Perhaps