Study Edition · Essay 19
A Meditation Upon a Broom-Stick
Source: Written c. 1703, printed 1710. Text from A Century of English Essays (Everyman, 1913), Project Gutenberg #32267. Archaic verb forms modernized; vocabulary kept and glossed.
A parody. The scientist Robert Boyle wrote pious “Occasional Reflections” that drew solemn morals from everyday objects. Swift, so the story goes, slipped this mock meditation into Boyle's book while reading aloud to Lady Berkeley, who listened gravely until she realised the joke. Beneath the fun is a sharp picture of human vanity: a man, like a broom, starts green and ends as a worn-out stump.
7 sentences: 1 simple, 2 moderate, 4 complex. Hover a number for its paraphrase; click it for the full note.
Key Vocabulary
- ingloriouslywithout honour; in a shameful or humble way
- sapthe fluid that carries food through a plant; vigour
- pretend (to)to claim or try (old sense, not “to fake”)
- vie (with)to compete with
- saplessdried up; without life or energy
- wencha young servant woman (old, now offensive)
- drudgeryhard, dull, tiring work
- capriciousunpredictable; changing on a whim
- lustyhealthy and strong; full of vigour
- intemperancelack of self-control, especially in drinking
- periwiga long wig worn by gentlemen around 1700
- birchenmade of birch twigs
- partialbiased; favouring one side
- emblema symbol; a picture that stands for an idea
- topsy-turvyupside down; in confusion
- grovellingcrawling on the ground; behaving in a low, humble way
- slut's cornera dirty corner a lazy housemaid has missed
- besoma broom made of twigs tied to a handle
The Essay
This single stick, which you now behold ingloriously lying in that neglected corner, I once knew in a flourishing state in a forest; it was full of sap, full of leaves, and full of boughs; but now in vain does the busy art of man pretend to vie with nature, by tying that withered bundle of twigs to its sapless trunk; it is now at best but the reverse of what it was, a tree turned upside down, the branches on the earth, and the root in the air; it is now handled by every dirty wench, condemned to do her drudgery, and, by a capricious kind of fate, destined to make her things clean, and be nasty itself; at length, worn out to the stumps in the service of the maids, it is either thrown out of doors, or condemned to the last use of kindling a fire.1 When I beheld this, I sighed, and said within myself: Surely mortal man is a broomstick!2 Nature sent him into the world strong and lusty, in a thriving condition, wearing his own hair on his head, the proper branches of this reasoning vegetable, until the axe of intemperance has lopped off his green boughs, and left him a withered trunk; he then flies to art, and puts on a periwig, valuing himself upon an unnatural bundle of hairs, all covered with powder, that never grew on his head; but now should this our broomstick pretend to enter the scene, proud of those birchen spoils it never bore, and all covered with dust, though the sweepings of the finest lady's chamber, we should be apt to ridicule and despise its vanity.3 Partial judges that we are of our own excellences, and other men's defaults!4
But a broomstick, perhaps you will say, is an emblem of a tree standing on its head: and pray, what is man but a topsy-turvy creature, his animal faculties perpetually mounted on his rational, his head where his heels should be—grovelling on the earth!5 And yet, with all his faults, he sets up to be a universal reformer and corrector of abuses, a remover of grievances; rakes into every slut's corner of nature, bringing hidden corruptions to the light, and raises a mighty dust where there was none before, sharing deeply all the while in the very same pollutions he pretends to sweep away.6 His last days are spent in slavery to women, and generally the least deserving; till, worn to the stumps, like his brother-besom, he is either kicked out of doors, or made use of to kindle flames for others to warm themselves by.7
Sentence Notes
In plain English: This stick lying in the corner was once a healthy young tree in a forest, full of sap, leaves and branches. Now people try, without success, to improve on nature by tying a bundle of dead twigs to it. It has become a tree turned upside down, branches on the floor and root in the air. Every grubby servant girl uses it for her chores, and by an odd twist of fate it makes everything else clean while getting filthy itself. When it is worn down to a stump it is thrown out or burned to light a fire.
Why this phrase is worth keeping: Two vivid paradoxes: a tree standing on its head, and a tool that cleans by getting dirty. Both are set up here so that Swift can apply them to man.
Reference & context: The opening imitates the solemn style of Robert Boyle's Occasional Reflections upon Several Subjects (1665), in which Boyle drew moral lessons from such things as a candle or a dog. Note the single, enormous sentence held together by semicolons, which mimics Boyle's breathless piety.
In plain English: When I saw this, I sighed and said to myself: man really is just a broomstick!
Why this phrase is worth keeping: The comic climax: an absurdly grand conclusion drawn from a humble object, delivered with mock solemnity.
In plain English: Nature sends a man into the world strong and healthy, with his own hair, which is the natural ‘foliage’ of this thinking plant. Then heavy living strips him bare, like an axe lopping off green branches. So he turns to artifice and wears a wig, proud of a powdered bundle of hair that never grew on him. Yet if a broomstick strutted about proud of borrowed birch twigs and covered in dust, even dust from a fine lady's bedroom, we would laugh at its vanity.
Reference & context: Fashionable men around 1700 shaved their heads and wore large powdered periwigs, often made of other people's hair. Swift mocks the wig as borrowed foliage. “Reasoning vegetable” plays on the old idea that man shares a ‘vegetable’ (growing) soul with plants.
In plain English: How biased we are when we judge our own good points against other people's faults!
Why this phrase is worth keeping: The moral in one exclamation: we laugh at the broom's vanity but never see our own. Compare Matthew 7:3, the mote and the beam.
In plain English: You might object that a broomstick is a picture of a tree upside down. Well, what is man but an upside-down creature? His animal appetites are always riding on top of his reason, and his head is where his heels ought to be, down in the dirt.
Why this phrase is worth keeping: Swift turns the joke into a serious satire on human nature: we are animals that pretend to be ruled by reason.
Reference & context: Renaissance thinkers held that reason should rule the body's passions. Swift turns that ladder over: in real life the appetites sit on top. He developed the same idea at length in Gulliver's Travels (1726), with the rational horses and the beastly Yahoos.
In plain English: And yet, faults and all, man appoints himself the reformer of everything, correcting abuses and removing complaints. He pokes into every dirty corner of the world, dragging hidden corruption into the light, and stirs up a great cloud of dust where there was none before, all the while being just as dirty as the filth he claims to be cleaning up.
Why this phrase is worth keeping: The broom image works perfectly for the busybody who makes more mess than he cleans. “Kick up a dust” is still a phrase for making a fuss.
Reference & context: Swift is mocking self-righteous reformers and controversialists of his own time, and perhaps himself: he was a famously combative pamphleteer.
In plain English: He spends his old age as the slave of women, usually the least worthy ones; until, worn down to a stump like his brother the broom, he is thrown out, or used as kindling so that other people can warm themselves.
Why this phrase is worth keeping: A bleak, comic last line: the man ends, like the broom, as fuel for someone else's comfort.
Reference & context: A dig at old men who marry young women or are ruled by mistresses. The final image recalls the broom's fate in the first paragraph, closing the parody's circle.
Fun Fact
According to Thomas Sheridan, Swift visited Lord and Lady Berkeley in 1703 and had to read aloud from Boyle's Meditations, which bored him. He wrote this parody, slipped it into the book, and read it out with a straight face. Lady Berkeley praised its piety until she checked the volume and cried, “What a vile trick has that rogue played me!”