KIDD'S OWN JOURNAL. 



183 



THE WOBLD WE LIVE IN. 



A KNOWLEDGE OF THE WOULD is, ill some 



degree, indispensable to every man ; and 

 when it is found to exist in equal proportion 

 with other acquirements, it tends to form a 

 character at once influential and agreeable. 

 But when a man has bartered the esteem of 

 friends, his own self-respect, the promptings 

 of his better nature, and the incentives to 

 nobler aims, for the miserable recompense of 

 the mere worldling — he becomes an object of 

 alternate pity, suspicion, and dislike, to all 

 well-constituted minds. 



Yet, let us do the world justice — its lessons 

 are valuable, and, if we do not put our ex- 

 perience to a right use, let us acknowledge 

 the fault to be our own. Weighed in its 

 impartial scales, every man may find the 

 accurate estimate of his capabilities and de- 

 ficiencies. Left for awhile to battle with its 

 waves, we soon discover what stuff we are 

 made of. There the spoiled and wayward 

 child of fortune finds that little regard is 

 paid to his capricious humors, and being 

 made to feel their baneful effect on his com- 

 fort, he is taught — perhaps for the first time 

 in his life, to bring them under control. The 

 timid and the diffident there acquire that 

 confidence in their own powers, which they 

 never would have possessed in their ex- 

 clusion from its compulsory activity; and 

 the man who has hitherto been wrapped up 

 in his self-sufficiency, finds, to his surprise, 

 that he is not quite so independent of the 

 assistance of others as he flattered himself. 



Initiation, however, in the world's ways, 

 while it tends to make a man acquainted 

 with himself, reveals the character of his 

 fellow-man in a light that is very inimical to 

 the growth of those feelings which constitute 

 mental greatness or happiness of heart. 

 Constant constraint hangs with a dead weight 

 upon the intellectual efforts, and, like the 

 coils of the boa, cold and crushing, forbids 

 the struggling soul to rise above its conscious 

 degradation ; while supreme selfishness, like 

 a worm in the heart, feeds on the food which 

 should administer to its health and growth. 

 Where now, to such a man, is the spell 

 which dwelt in the many-toned voices of 

 Nature? Where are those emotions in whose 

 expanding warmth hope ripened into noble 

 ambition, and ambition grew to energy and 

 resolution ? They were fresh in his heart 

 at the commencement of his career, and 

 they were to be the cherished guardians of 

 his spirit through the scenes upon which he 

 was entering— so he promised himself ; but 

 he gradually admitted the world into his 

 heart, and its poisonous breath withered its 

 blossoms ; the fierce excitement of avaricious 

 pleasures destroyed the appreciation of 



purer delights, and now, if remembered at 

 all, it is with self-scorn, to think he was ever 

 influenced by feelings which he regards as 

 mere obstacles in his course. 



Nothing, perhaps, can afford a stronger 

 contrast than the different aspects presented 

 by the world to those who are entering, and 

 to those who are leaving it. To the first, it 

 is a garden of promise, every vista of which 

 sparkles with sunny visions of happiness and 

 joy. To the other, it is an arid desert, 

 marked here and there with the blackened 

 ruins of some hope-built edifice ; where the 

 traveller fondly said, " here will I rest." 

 The one looks forward (in youthful strength) 

 in eager anticipation of the race he is to run, 

 and difficulties melt like snow before his 

 ardent spirit ; the latter, weary of the de- 

 lusive chase that has exhausted hope and 

 energy, gladly receives his dismissal from 

 toils, whose only recompense has been the 

 conviction of their vanity. May the one be 

 " cheered by the sallies of youth ; " the 

 other, " learn from the wisdom of age ; " and 

 both commit to heart the truth inscribed on 

 all things — that this world is, at best, but a 

 wilderness ! 



THE FIVE FINGERS. 



We do not recollect to have seen anywhere 

 noticed the somewhat singular fact, that our 

 ancestors had distinct names for each of the five 

 fingers — the thumb being generally called a 

 finger in old works. Yet such was the case ; and 

 it may not displease our readers to have these 

 cognominations duly set forth in order, viz., 

 thumb, toucher, longman, lecheman, little-man. 

 We derive this information from a very curious 

 MS., quoted in Mr. Halli well's Dictionary of 

 Archaisms, p. 357 ; and the reasons for the names 

 are thus set forth: — The first finger was called 

 toucher, because "therewith men touch I wis;" 

 the second finger, longman, " for longest finger it 

 is " (this, we beg to say. is intended for rhyme). 

 The third finger was called leche-man, because a 

 leche or doctor tasted everything by means of it. 

 This is very curious; though we find elsewhere 

 another reason for this appellation, on account 

 of the pulsation in it, which was at one time 

 supposed to communicate directly with the 

 heart. (See Brand's Popular Antiquities, vol. i.) 

 The other was, of course, called little-man, be- 

 cause it was the least of all. It is rather curious 

 that some of these names should have survived 

 the wreck of time, and be still preserved in a 

 nursery-rhyme; yet such is the fact; for one 

 thus commences, the fingers being kept in corre- 

 sponding movements : — 



Dance thumbkin dance ; 

 Dance, ye merry men, every one : 

 Thumbkin he can dance alone, 

 Thumbkin he can dance alone. 



and so on for four more verses, taking each 

 finger in succession, and naming them foreman, 

 longman, ringman, and littleman. 



