A man may love his house, though he ride not on the ridge
Charles Spurgeon · John Ploughman's Pictures; or, More of His Plain Talk for Plain People
THOUGH HE RIDE NOT ON THE
RIDGE.
YOU can love your house and not ride
on the ridge ; there's a medium in
everything. You can be fond of your wife
(99)
loo JOHN PLOUGHMAN'S PICTURES.
without being her drudge, and you can love
your children dearly, and yet not give them
their own way in everything. Some men are
of so strange a kidney that they set no
bounds to their nonsense. If they are fond
of roast beef they must needs suck the spit;
they cannot rest with eating the pudding,
they must swallow the bag. If they dis-
like a thing, the very smell of it sets them
grumbling, and if they like it they must
have it everywhere and always, for nothing
else is half so sweet. When they do go in
for eating rabbits, they have
Rabbits young and rabbits old,
Rabbits hot and rabbits cold,
Rabbits tender, rabbits tough :
Never can they have enough.
Whatever they take up takes them up, and for
a season they cannot seize on anything else.
At election times the barber cannot trim his
customer's poll because of the polling, and
the draper cannot serve you with calico be-
cause he is canvassing. The nation would
go to the dogs altogether if the cat's-meat
man did not secure the election by sticking
his mark on the ballot paper. It is supposed
RIDE XOT YOUR HOBBY TOO HARD. loi
that the globe would leave off turning round
if our Joe Scroggs did not go down to the
"Dun Cow," and read the paper, and have
his say upon politics, in the presence of the
house of commons assembled in the tap-
room. I do not quite think so, but I know
this, that when the Whigs and the Tories
and the Radicals are about, Scroggs is good
for nothing all day long. What party he
belongs to I don't know, but I believe his
leading principle will be seen in the follow-
ing verse : —
If gentlemen propose a glass
He never says them nay;
For he always thinks it right to drink
While other people pay.
You can make a good thing become a
nuisance by harping on that one string from
dawn to dusk. A hen with one chick makes
no end of scratching and clucking, and so
does a fellow of one idea. He has a bee in
his bonnet, and he tries to put a wasp in
yours. He duns you, and if you do not
agree with him he counts you his enemy.
When you meet with him you are un-
fortunate, and when you leave him you will
better yourself go where you may : " there's
I02 JOHN PLOUGHMAN'S PICTURES.
small sorrow at our parting, " as the old mare
said to the broken cart. You may try to
humor him, but he will have all the more
humors if you do, for the man knows no
moderation, and if you let him ride on the
roof he will soon sit on the chimney-pot.
One man of my acquaintance used to take
Morrison's pills every day of his life, and
when I called to see him I had not been
there ten minutes before he wanted me to
take a dose, but I could not swallow what
he told me nor the pills either, so I told him
I dare say they were very good for him, but
they did not suit my constitution : however,
he kept on with his subject till I was fain to
be off. Another man never catches sight of
me but he talks about vaccination and goes
on against it till he froths at the mouth, and
I am half afraid he will inoculate me. My
master had a capital horse, worth a good
deal of money, only he always shied at a
stone-heap on the road, and if there were
fift}' of them he always bolted off the road
every time. He had got heaps on his brain,
poor creature, and though he was fit for a
nobleman's carriage he had to be put to
plough. Some men have got stone-heaps
RIDE NOT YOUR HOBBY TOO HARD. 103
in their poor noddles and this spoils them
for life and makes it dangerous for all who
have to deal with them. What queer fish
there are in our pond ! I am afraid that most
of us have a crack somewhere, but we don't
all show it quite so much as some. We
ought to have a good deal of patience, and
then we shall find amusement where else
we should be bothered to death. One of
my mates says the world is not round, and
so I always drop into his notion and tell
him this is a flat world and he is a flat
too.
What a trial it is to be shut up for an
hour with a man or a woman with a hobby ;
riding in a horsebox with a bear with a sore
head is nothing to it. The man is so fond
of bacon that he wants you to kiss his pig,
and all the while you hope you will never
again see either the man or his pork as long
as you live. No matter what the whole hog
may be, the man who goes it is terrible.
Rocking horse for boy,
Hobby horse for man ;
Each one rides his toy
Whenever he can.
104 JOHN PLOUGHMAN'S PICTURES.
The boy is right glad
Though he rideth alone ;
His father's own fad
By the world must be known.
Of the two hobby rides,
The boy's is the best ;
For the man often chides,
And gives you no rest.
It is a good thing for a man to be fond of
his own trade and his own place, but still
there is reason in everything, even in roast-
ing eggs. When a man thinks that his
place is below him he will pretty soon
be below his place, and therefore a good
opinion of your own calling is by no means
an evil ; yet nobody is everybody, and no
trade is to crow over the rest. The cobbler
has his awl but he is not all, and the hatter
wears a crown but he is not king. A man
may come to market without buying my
onions, and ploughing can be done with
other horses than mine, though Dapper and
Violet are something to brag of. The farm-
ing interest is no doubt first, and so is the
saddler's, and so is the tinker's, and so is
the grocer's, and so is the draper's, and so
is the parson's, and so is the parish beadle's,
RIDE NO T YO UR HOBB Y TOO HARD. 105
and so is every other interest according to
each man's talk.
Your trade, as a trade, is all very well.
But other good folk have their cheeses to sell ;
You must not expect all the world to bow down,
And give to one pedlar the sceptre and crown.
It is astonishing how much men will cry
up small matters. They are very busy, but
it is with catching flies. They talk about a
mushroom till you would think it was the
only thing at the Lord Mayor's dinner, and
the beef and the turkeys went for nothing.
They say nothing about the leg of mutton,
for they are so much in love with the trim-
mings. Tliey can't keep things in their places,
but make more of a horse's tail than they do
of his whole body. Like the cock on the
dunghill, they consider a poor barley-corn
to be worth more than a diamond. A thing
happens to suit their taste and so there is
nothing like it in the whole of England ; no,
nor in all America or Australia. A duck
will not always dabble in the same gutter,
but they will ; for, bless your heart, they
don't think it a gutter, but a river, if not an
ocean. They must ride the ridge of the
io6 JOHN PLOUGHMAN'S PICTURES,
roof, or else burn the house down. A good
many people love their dogs, but these folks
take them to bed with them. Other farmers
fat the calf, but they fall do^n and worship
it, and what is worse they quarrel with
everybody who does not think as much of
their idol as they do.
It will be a long while before all men be-
come wise, but it will help on the time if we
begin to be wise ourselves. Don't let us
make too much of this world and the things
of it. We are to use it but not to abuse it ; to
live in it but not for it; to love our house
but not to ride on the ridge. Our daily
bread and daily work are to be minded, and
yet we must not mind earthly things. We
must not let the body send the soul to grass,
rather must we make the limbs servants to
the soul. The world must not rule us, we
must reign as kings though we are only
ploughmen ; and stand upright even if the
world should be turned upside down.