Now to bring this about, whenever an extraordinary message, or letter, was delivered in the parlour--or a discourse suspended till a servant went out--or the lines of discontent were observed to hang upon the brows of my father or mother--or, in short, when anything was supposed to be upon the tapis worth knowing or listening to, ’twas the rule to leave the door, not absolutely shut, but somewhat a-jar--as it stands just now, --which, under covert of the bad hinge (and that possibly might be one of the many reasons why it was never mended), it was not difficult to manage; by which means, in all these cases, a passage was generally left, not indeed as wide as the _Dardanelles_, but wide enough, for all that, to carry on as much of this wind-ward trade, as was sufficient to save my father the trouble of governing his house; --my mother at this moment stands profiting by it. --_Obadiah_ did the same thing, as soon as he had left the letter upon the table which brought the news of my brother’s death, so that before my father had well got over his surprise, and entered upon this harangue, --had _Trim_ got upon his legs, to speak his sentiments upon the subject. A curious observer of nature, had he been worth the inventory of all Job’s stock--though by the by, _your curious observers are seldom worth a groat_--would have given the half of it, to have heard Corporal _Trim_ and my father, two orators so contrasted by nature and education, haranguing over the same bier. My father--a man of deep reading--prompt memory--with _Cato_, and _Seneca_, and _Epictetus_, at his fingers ends.-- The corporal--with nothing--to remember--of no deeper reading than his muster-roll--or greater names at his fingers end, than the contents of it. The one proceeding from period to period, by metaphor and allusion, and striking the fancy as he went along (as men of wit and fancy do) with the entertainment and pleasantry of his pictures and images. The other, without wit or antithesis, or point, or turn, this way or that; but leaving the images on one side, and the picture on the other, going straight forwards as nature could lead him, to the heart. O _Trim!_ would to heaven thou had’st a better historian! --would thy historian had a better pair of breeches! ----O ye critics! will nothing melt you? CHAPTER VII ------My young master in _London_ is dead! said _Obadiah_.-- ------A green sattin night-gown of my mother’s which had been twice scoured, was the first idea which _Obadiah’s_ exclamation brought into _Susannah’s_ head. --Well might _Locke_ write a chapter upon the imperfection of words. --Then, quoth _Susannah_, we must all go into mourning. --But note a second time: the word _mourning_, notwithstanding _Susannah_ made use of it herself--failed also of doing its office; it excited not one single idea, tinged either with grey or black, --all was green. ----The green sattin night-gown hung there still.