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FOR THE COMMERCIAL ADVERTISER

THE SCRIBBLER.—No. IV.

Methinks I blush to mention what is just
now the subject of my thoughts. Even to
trust it to paper, when the name of the wri-
ter is invisible, as mine shall always be, is
somewhat difficult. Whence does this reluct-
ance to acknowledge our poverty arise?

But this is a phantastic impulse and there-
fore I will fight with it. I am poor, indeed,
but through no fault of mine. I am not want-
ing in industry, and this enables me, in con-
junction with my sister's labor, to live.

Yes, we are able to live. I have never
gone without a meal, merely for want of mo-
ney to procure it. We have eaten and drunk
at the usual times, and our meal has never
been so scanty that we were obliged to de-
sist before the appetite was fully satisfied.

True it is, that our hunger obtains no edge
from the delicacy of our viands or luxuriance
of our cookery. Our feast is coarse enough,
God knows, but then it is wholesome, and
habit has somewhat reconciled us to it. Once
our palates were fastidious. No breakfast
would serve our turn but the choicest pro-
ducts of the east and west. Coffee, trans-
parent as air, with fragments from the snow-
white loaf and the richest of the cow's yield-
ing, were necessary to our comfort.

Now the case is altered, but what lesson so
hard that necessity will not make easy? In-
dian meal sprinkled in boiling water, in a
wooden dish and a couple of pewter spoons,
make but a sorry shew, but sorry or not, what
says our hard fate? Take this or go without.

How strange it is! This is a bitter morsel
to me, but I never loathe it on my own ac-
count; only on Jane's. When I see the
spoon lifted to her lips, something rises in
my throat, I cannot swallow. For a minute
I am obliged to restore the morsel to the
plate.

Jane was not born to this. No more was
I, and it goes hard enough with me; harder
by much than with Jane; and yet it is only
when I think upon my sister thus reduced,
that my heart is wrung with true anguish.
Methinks these ills would be light, if she did
not share them with me, yet that is a foolish
thought, for without her I should long ago
have done some cowardly and desperate act.

Now I want a hat. I have worn this
eighteen months or more, and with all my
care and dressing it has grown disreputably
shabby; but I can't afford to buy a new one.
If I could, if I had six dollars to spare, I would
not bestow them on myself. Jane should
have them, and, in truth, she needs them
most. She will not allow that she does, but
I am sure of it, and have them she should.

I once loved to see her dressed. When
fortune smiled, she did not scruple to adorn
that lovely form with the best skill of the mil-
liner. Now she is unadorned. What then
was lavished upon ornament, must now be
husbanded for necessary purposes. And is
not that right? With what conscience can
we spend in mere luxury what would cloathe
another's nakedness and feed another's hun-
ger?

How frivolous too are these regrets! The
graces that nature and that virtue gave her
she cannot loose. Does this sorry garb les-
sen her in my eyes? No. Of what then do
I complain? I am more anxious for her gay and
opulent appearance in the eyes of others.
And is there any thing but folly in that?
Those who value her the less for the plainness
of her garb, are of no value themselves. The
reverence of such is ignominy. So says rea-
son, but, alas! my heart at this moment de-
nies the truth of the saying.

But how shall I supply my want in this res-
pect? Shall I beg? Can't do that: no, no.
That will never do—Yet there are many ways
of begging; some less ignominious and disa-
greeable than others.

How many good men in this city, should
they become, by any means, acquainted with
my condition, would hasten to supply my
need? And this they would do in a manner
the most delicate; the least offensive to my
pride. A new hat, perhaps, would be left
at my lodgings, by the servant of such a man-
ufacturer. I go to him, and ask him where-
fore he send his hat to me? He answers that
a gentleman, unknown to him, called an hour
before, paid for the hat and directed it to be
sent to such a number, in C—— Street, nam-
ing the number of my lodgings.

I could not accept the boon, yet how should
I elude it in the case that I have mention-
ed? Obliged perhaps to acquiesce, for the
purchaser is no where to be found, and the
hatter therefore knows no one to whom he
may send the hat or repay the money. I
should, by no means, confide the true state of
the case to the hatter. I should try to detect
the generous buyer, and have the hat left,
without a message, at his house. Yet should
I not act like this imaginary benefactor in
a like case? Certainly I should. What
then but a weak and culpable pride would
hinder me from accepting the gift? Yet my
scruples are confined to myself. For myself
I cannot condescend to ask an alms, but for
my Jane, methinks I could importunately beg
from door to door—and all day long.