In a Bird's-Eye View
by Charles Dickens (uncredited).
Originally published in Household Words (Bradbury & Evans) vol.1 #2 (06 Apr 1850).
I am the Raven in the Happy Family—and nobody knows what a life of misery I lead!
The dog informs me (he was a puppy about town before he joined us; which was lately) that there is more than one Happy Family on view in London. Mine, I beg to say, may be known by being the Family which contains a splendid Raven.
I want to know why I am to be called upon to accommodate myself to a cat, a mouse, a pigeon, a ringdove, an owl (who is the greatest ass I have ever known), a guinea-pig, a sparrow, and a variety of other creatures with whom I have no opinion in common. Is this national education? Because, if it is, I object to it. Is our cage what they call neutral ground, on which all parties may agree? If so, war to the beak I consider preferable.
What right has any man to require me to look complacently at a cat on a shelf all day? It may be all very well for the owl. My opinion of him is that he blinks and stares himself into a state of such dense stupidity that he has no idea what company he is in. I have seen him, with my own eyes, blink himself, for hours, into the conviction that he was alone in a belfry. But I am not the owl. It would have been better for me, if I had been born in that station of life.
I am a Raven. I am, by nature, a sort of collector, or antiquarian. If I contributed, in my natural state, to any Periodical, it would be The Gentleman's Magazine. I have a passion for amassing things that are of no use to me, and burying them. Supposing such a thing—I don't wish it to be known to our proprietor that I put this case, but I say, supposing such a thing—as that I took out one of the Guinea-Pig s eyes; how could I bury it here? The floor of the cage is not an inch thick. To be sure, I could dig through it with my bill (if I dared), but what would be the comfort of dropping a Guinea-Pig's eye into Regent Street?
What I want, is privacy. I want to make a collection. I desire to get a little property together. How can I do it here? Mr. Hudson couldn't have done it, under corresponding circumstances.
I want to live by my own abilities, instead of being provided for in this way. I am stuck in a cage with these incongruous companions, and called a member of the Happy Family; but suppose you took a Queen's Counsel out of Westminster Hall, and settled him board and lodging free, in Utopia, where there would be no excuse for 'his quiddits, his quillets, his cases, his tenures, and his tricks,' how do you think he'd like it? Not at all. Then why do you expect me to like it, and add insult to injury by calling me a 'Happy' Raven!
This is what I say: I want to see men do it. I should like to get up a Happy Family of men, and show 'em. I should like to put the Rajah Brooke, the Peace Society, Captain Aaron Smith, several Malay Pirates, Doctor Wiseman, the Reverend Hugh Stowell, Mr. Fox of Oldham, the Board of Health, all the London undertakers, some of the Common (very common I think) Council, and all the vested interests in the filth and misery of the poor, into a good-sized cage, and see how they'd get on. I should like to look in at 'em through the bars, after they had undergone the training I have undergone. You wouldn't find Sir Peter Laurie 'putting down' Sanitary Reform then, or getting up in that vestry, and pledging his word and honour to the non-existence of Saint Paul's Cathedral, I expect! And very happy he'd be, would n't he, when he couldn't do that sort of thing?
I have no idea of you lords of the creation coming staring at me in this false position. Why don't you look at home? If you think I'm fond of the dove, you're very much mistaken. If you imagine there is the least good will between me and the pigeon, you never were more deceived in your lives. If you suppose I would n't demolish the whole Family (myself excepted), and the cage too, if I had my own way, you don't know what a real Raven is. But if you do know this, why am I to be picked out as a curiosity? Why don't you go and stare at the Bishop of Exeter? 'Ecod, he's one of our breed, if any body is!
Do you make me lead this public life because I seem to be what I ain't I Why, I don't make half the pretences that are common among you men! You never heard me call the sparrow my noble friend. When did I ever tell the Guinea Pig that he was my Christian brother? Name the occasion of my making myself a party to the 'sham', (my friend Mr. Carlyle will lend me his favourite word for the occasion) that the cat hadn't really her eye upon the mouse! Can you say as much? What about the last Court Ball, the next Debate in the Lords, the last great Ecclesiastical Suit, the next long assembly in the Court Circular? I wonder you are not ashamed to look me in the eye! I am an independent Member—of the Happy Family; and I ought to be let out.
I have only one consolation in my inability to damage anything, and that is that I hope I am instrumental in propagating a delusion as to the character of Ravens. I have a strong impression that the sparrows on our beat are beginning to think they may trust a Raven. Let 'em try! There's an uncle of mine, in a stable-yard down in Yorkshire, who will very soon undeceive any small bird that may favour him with a call.
The dogs too. Ha ha! As they go by, they look at me and this dog, in quite a friendly way. They never suspect how I should hold on to the tip of his tail, if I consulted my own feelings instead of our proprietor's. It's almost worth being here, to think of some confiding dog who has seen me, going too near a friend of mine who lives at a hackney-coach stand in Oxford Street. You wouldn't stop his squeaking in a hurry, if my friend got a chance at him.
It's the same with the children. There's a young gentleman with a hat and feathers, resident in Portland Place, who brings a penny to our proprietor, twice a week. He wears very short white drawers, and has mottled legs above his socks. He hasn't the least idea what I should do to his legs, if I consulted my own inclinations. He never imagines what I am thinking of, when we look at one another. May he only take those legs, in their present juicy state, close to the cage of my brother-in-law of the Zoological Gardens, Regent's Park!
Call yourselves rational beings, and talk about our being reclaimed? Why, there isn't one of us who wouldn't astonish you, if we could only get out! Let me out, and see whether I should be meek or not. But this is the way you always go on in—you know you do. Up at Pentonville, the sparrow says—and he ought to know, for he was born in a stack of chimneys in that prison—you are spending I am afraid to say how much every year out of the rates, to keep men in solitude, where they CAN'T do any harm (that you know of), and then you sing all sorts of choruses about their being good. So am I what you call good—here. Why? Because I can't help it. Try me outside!
You ought to be ashamed of yourselves, the Magpie says; and I agree with him. If you are determined to pet only those who take things and hide them, why don't you pet the Magpie and me? We are interesting enough for you, ain't we? The Mouse says you are not half so particular about the honest people. He is not a bad authority. He was almost starved when he lived in a workhouse, wasn't he? He didn't get much fatter, I suppose, when he moved to a labourer's cottage? He was thin enough when he came from that place, here—I know that. And what does the Mouse (whose word is his bond) declare? He declares that you don't take half the care you ought; of your own young, and don't teach 'em half enough. Why don't you then? You might give our proprietor something to do, I should think, in twisting miserable boys and girls into their proper nature, instead of twisting us out of ours. You are a nice set of fellows, certainly, to come and look at Happy Families, as if you had nothing else to look after!
I take the opportunity of our proprietor's pen and ink in the evening, to write this. I shall put it away in a corner—quite sure, as it 's intended for the Post Office, of Mr. Rowland Hill's getting hold of it somehow, and sending it to somebody. I understand he can do anything with a letter. Though the Owl says (but I don't believe him), that the present prevalence of measles and chicken-pox among infants in all parts of this country, has been caused by Mr. Rowland Hill. I hope I needn't add that we Ravens are all good scholars, but that we keep our secret (as the Indians believe the Monkeys do, according to a Parrot of my acquaintance) lest our abilities should be imposed upon. As nothing worse than my present degradation as a member of the Happy Family can happen to me, however, I desert the General Freemasons' Lodge of Ravens, and express my disgust in writing.