Caper-Sauce: A Volume of Chit-Chat about Men, Women, and Things.
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Title: Caper-Sauce: A Volume of Chit-Chat about Men, Women, and Things.
Author: Fanny Fern
Release date: June 8, 2012 [eBook #39944]
Language: English
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CAPER-SAUCE:
A VOLUME OF CHIT-CHAT ABOUT MEN, WOMEN, AND THINGS.
BY
FANNY FERN,
AUTHOR OF "FOLLY AS IT FLIES," "GINGER-SNAPS," "FERN LEAVES," ETC.
NEW YORK:
G. W. Carleton & Co., Publishers.
LONDON: S. LOW, SON & CO.
M.DCCC.LXXII.
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1872, by
G. W. CARLETON & CO.,
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.
Stereotyped at the
WOMEN'S PRINTING HOUSE,
56, 58 and 60 Park Street,
New York.
* * * * *
NEW BOOKS
BY
FANNY FERN.
I.--FOLLY AS IT FLIES Price $1.50
II.--GINGER-SNAPS $1.50
III.--CAPER-SAUCE $1.50
These volumes are all elegantly printed and bound in cloth: are sold
everywhere, and will be sent by mail free of postage, on receipt of
price,
BY
Carleton, Publisher,
New York.
PREFACE.
Excuse me. None this time. There have already been too many big porticos
before little buildings.
FANNY FERN.
NEW YORK, 1872.
CONTENTS
PAGE
Editors 9
My Notion of Music 16
"Budding Spring"--In the City 20
A Peep at Boston 23
Blackwell's Island 29
Shall we have Male or Female Clerks? 37
Unknown Acquaintances 40
Life and its Mysteries 44
Mrs. Washington's Eternal Knitting 47
The Woman Question 50
Two Kinds of Wives 55
Undertakers' Signs on Churches 58
A Voice from the Skating Pond 61
The Sin of being Sick 64
Are Ministers Serfs? 69
Blaming Providence for Our Own Faults 72
A Chapter on Nurses 74
Do American Women Love Nature? 78
Rainy-day Pleasures 82
Chit-Chat with Some of My Correspondents 84
My Liking for Pretty Things 92
Unsought Happiness 95
Dignity of Human Nature 100
All About Doctors 104
Letter to Henry Ward Beecher 108
The Amenities of the Table 111
Many Men of Many Minds 115
My Notion of a Walking Companion 118
Men Teachers in Girls' Schools 121
My Call on "Dexter" 125
The Poetry of Work 128
Can't Keep a Hotel 132
New Clothes 136
How I read the Morning Papers 139
Betty's Soliloquy 143
My Dreadful Bump of Order 146
"Every Family Should Have It" 153
Getting to Rights 157
Modern Martyrs 163
Writing "Compositions" 168
Nice Little Tea-Parties 173
A Sleepless Night 176
Women's Need of Recreation 180
The Good Old Hymns 185
A Stranger in Gotham 189
My Journey to Quebec and Back Again 191
Idle Hours at Our Own Emerald Isle, the Gem of the Sea 215
Some City Sights 223
Dog-days in the Mountains 229
Spring in the City 235
Waifs 238
Tact 240
The Infirmities of Genius 242
A Trip to the Caatskills 245
The Trip to Brompton 258
Lake George Revisited 264
Cookery and Tailoring 269
Up the Hudson 273
"Why Don't I Lecture" 278
In the Cars 281
Petting 284
My Grievance 287
Cemetery Musings 290
The Scrubbing-brush Mania 292
Sauce for the Gander 295
My First Convert 298
Country Housewives 300
First Morning in the Country 303
Conscience Killing 306
The Cry of a Victim 308
Stones for Bread 311
CAPER-SAUCE.
_EDITORS._
I am not disposed to pity Editors. On the whole, I think they have a
very good time. That national sugar-plum for American boys, "Maybe, my
son, you will be one day _President_," might be changed advantageously
for "My son, you may live some day to be an Editor." As for the
_present_ President, if he can sleep o' nights, he can live through
anything! I repeat it, Editors have a good time, no matter what they say
to the contrary. In the first place, I know that the position of an
editor, if honorably filled, is second to none in this country. He need
envy no one his influential power; would that in many cases it were more
conscientiously wielded. If an _Editor_ is an ignorant man, it is his
own fault, no matter from what small beginnings he may have risen.
Coming in contact, as he does, with information every instant, on all
the absorbing topics of the day, it is next to impossible he should not
be well informed. Read he must, whether he will or not. Think on what
he has read he must; tell his subscribers, in words, what he thinks
about it, and reflect and decide upon the submitted thoughts of others
for his columns, he must. Hence the mind of an Editor is, or may be, a
perfect Encyclopedia of information.
Of course he has his peculiar botherations; it would be a blessing if
his subscription list were large enough for him to say just what he
pleases right and left, without fear or favor. It would be a blessing if
his subscribers would always pay punctually, without dunning. It would
be a blessing, when he uses superhuman efforts to please them, if they
never would find fault or grumble, for the sake of grumbling. It would
be a blessing if they wouldn't stay so long when they come in to see him
"just a minute," and he is in a frenzied hurry to say do go, and can't.
It would be a blessing (to those who apply) if he could publish and pay
for, at the valuation of the writers, all the immortal trash that is
offered. It would be a blessing if other editors, "who can see nothing
in his paper," wouldn't steal his articles constantly--editorial and
contributed--without credit.
But, on the contrary, how came that beautiful bouquet on his desk? Where
that fine engraving on his office wall? How came that beautiful picture
and convenient inkstand there? I'd have you to know that the donors have
not always an axe they wish to grind in that office. I dare say you will
try to make me believe that Editors are human. Now I deny that, for I
myself have, in past days, had evidence to the contrary. But never mind
that now. You may tell me that Editors are not above the weakness of
publicly and slyly slipping in a good word for a good friend, when he
needs it, and that they are not above giving a bad "friend" a good,
satisfying dig when he needs it, and so would you. If a man is to be
overhauled for that, there's got to be a monstrous overturning of
matters in other places beside Editors' offices. I confess I sometimes
covet the quantities of books he accumulates free gratis for his
library, and I should like to be allowed to review some of 'em after a
fashion of my own, if nobody knew who did it; and I should like
occasionally to dust their horrible desks for the poor creatures, and
open those hermetically sealed windows, and advise them not to make
themselves prematurely bald by wearing their hats in their offices, week
in and week out, as if it were necessary their ideas should be kept warm
like chickens in order to hatch.
Only that I am convinced that everybody must work in his own way, and
that if Editors had to work in a clean place, they couldn't work at all.
Now if they opened their office windows of a hot day, they might
possibly be cooler, and a cool Editor, in times like these, when all the
fire and fury we could master would not begin to express our national
emotions, you see for yourself the thing wouldn't be tolerated. Beside,
some of them ought to be getting used to a hot place, and they might as
well begin now.
I wonder are Editors aware of how much importance is their Poet's
corner! I wonder if they know that the most inveterate pursuer of brooms
and gridirons that ever kept a good man's house tidy, likes a bit of
sentiment, in that shape, in the family paper. I wonder do Editors know,
how, when the day's work is done, she likes to pull that paper out from
some old tea-caddy, or broken flower-pot--that long ago fell into
disuse, and seating herself with a long-drawn breath of relief in the
old-fashioned chair, where all her Tommys and Marys have been rocked,
give herself up to the quiet enjoyment of its pages. Presently, as she
reads, a tear gathers in her eye; she dashes it quickly away with an
"ah--me," and laying her head back upon the chair, and closing eyes that
were once much bluer than now, she is soon far, far away from the quiet
home where her treadmill round of everyday duties has been for many
years so faithfully performed, and, perhaps, alas! so thanklessly
accepted. The cat comes purring round her feet, and Tray comes
scratching at the door, but she does not move, till the sound of a heavy
and familiar footstep is heard in the entry or hall; then, starting up,
and taking her scissors from the long pocket at her side, she clips the
precious verses from the paper and hides them in her bosom. Perhaps
_you_ might turn up your critical nose at those verses; never mind, they
have touched _her_ heart; and many times, when she is alone, she will
read them over; and so long as they hold together, she will keep them in
a little needle-case in her work-box, to read when "things go wrong,"
and a good, safe cry will ease the heart.
Her good man picks up the mutilated paper, and she says, "It was only a
bit of poetry, John." Now, there are more Johns than one in the world,
but he don't think of _that_, as turning to some political article he
says, "Oh, you are quite welcome to all that sort of stuff;" nor does he
know how much that other John had to do with her crying over those
verses, which somebody certainly must have written, who, like herself,
had married the wrong John.
Now, gentlemen Editors, crowd what else you may out of your papers, but
_don't crowd out the poetry, or think it of small consequence_. Take the
affidavit of one who has seen the clipped verses from your papers hid
away in pocket-books, tucked away in needle-cases, speared upon
pin-cushions, pinned up on toilet glasses, and murmured over in the
mystic hour of twilight, just before _"John comes home to tea;"_ and
always have a bit of poetry in your columns for her who has so potent a
voice in the choice of a family paper. I publicly promulgate this bit of
wisdom, though I am very well aware that you will pass it off for your
own, and neither credit _me_ nor my book for it!
A word on a practice too common in some newspapers. I refer to the
flippant manner in which the misfortunes and misdemeanors of certain
classes, brought to the notice of our courts, are reported for the
amusement of the community at large. Surely, it is melancholy enough
that a drunken mother should be picked up in the gutter with her
unconscious babe; or a young girl, scarcely in her teens, be found
guilty of theft; or, that a husband and father should beat or murder her
whom he had sworn to cherish, without narrating it after this heartless
fashion. For instance:
John Flaherty, after beautifully painting a black and blue
rim round his wife's eyes, was brought into court this
morning to answer the question why he preferred that
particular color; and not being able to give a satisfactory
reason for the same, he was treated to a pleasant little
ride to a stone building, where he was accommodated with a
private room, board and lodging included.
Or thus:
Mary Honoria, scarlet-lipped, plump, and sweet sixteen,
being fond of jewelry on her pretty person, and having
stolen her mistress's watch, was waited upon by a gallant
policeman, who escorted her little ladyship into court, in
the presence of an admiring crowd, before whom her black
eyes sparkled with a rage that but added new beauty to their
lustre.
Now, I protest against this disgusting, demoralizing, and heartless
mention of the sins and follies of poor wretches, the temptations of
whose lot are as the sands of the sea-shore for multitude; who,
ill-paid, ill-fed, worse-lodged, disheartened, discouraged, fall victims
to the snares, in the shape of low groggeries, set for them by the very
men who laugh over _their_ well-spread breakfast tables, at this
pitiful and revolting recital of their success. _Oh, write over against
the poor wretch's name, as God does, why he or she fell!_ or at least
cease making it the subject for a jeer. Make it _your_ son, _your_
daughter, and then pen that flippant, heartless paragraph if you can.
And yet, it was somebody's son, or daughter, or sister, or husband,
unworthy it may be, (who is not?) but alas! often forgiven, and still
dearly loved, to whose home that paragraph may come like a poisoned
arrow, wounding the innocent, paralyzing the hand which was powerless
enough before to struggle with its hapless fate; for not on the guilty
does such blight fall heaviest. The young boy--the toiling, unprotected
daughter--the aged mother--ah! what if they were _yours_?
* * * * *
ABOUT DOCTORS.--We wish doctors could ever agree. One's head gets
muddled, reading their books on health, by antagonistic opinions on the
same subject, from eminent sources. Experience is an excellent doctor,
though he never had a diploma. What is good for you, you know is good
for _you_ although it may not be good for another. There is one point on
which doctors all agree, and that is, they very rarely give physic to
their own families. Why not? A friend suggests that it is from sheer
benevolence, in order that they may have more left for other people.
_MY NOTION OF MUSIC._
I've been defending myself from the charge of "not knowing what music
is." Perhaps I don't know. But when I go to a fashionable concert, and
the lady "_artiste_," I believe that is the regulation-word, comes out
in her best bib and tucker, with a gilt battle-axe in her back hair, and
a sun-flower in her bosom, led by the tips of her white gloves, by the
light of a gleaming bracelet, and stands there twiddling a sheet of
music, preparatory to the initiatory scream, I feel like screaming
myself. Now if she would just trot on, in her morning gown, darning a
pair of stockings, and sit naturally down in her old rocking-chair, and
give me "Auld Robin Gray," instead of running her voice up and down the
scales for an hour to show me how high and how low she can go without
dropping down in a fit, I'd like it. One trial of her voice that way, to
test its capacity, satisfies me. It is as good as a dozen, and a great
deal better. I don't want to listen to it a whole evening. I _will_
persist, that running up and down the scales that way isn't "_music_."
Then if you only knew the agony I'm in, when drawing near the end of one
of her musical gymnastics, she essays to wind up with one of those
swift, deafening _don't-stop-to-breathe finales_, you _would_ pity me. I
get hysterical. I wish she would split her throat at once, or stop. I
want to be let out. I want the roof lifted; I feel a cold perspiration
breaking out on my forehead. I know that presently she will catch up
that blue-gauze skirt and skim out that side-door, only to come and do
it all over again, in obedience to that dead-head encore. You see all
this machinery disenchants me. It takes away my appetite, like telling
me at dinner how much beef is a pound. I had rather the ropes and
pulleys of music would keep _behind_ the curtain.
Of course my "taste is not cultivated," and moreover, the longer I live
the less chance there is of it. On that point, I'm what country folks
call "sot." Sometimes, when passing one of these concert-rooms of an
evening, I _have_ caught a note that I took home with me. Caught it with
the help of the darkness and the glimmering stars, and the fresh wind on
my forehead, and a blessed ignorance of the distorted mouth and the
heaving millinery that sent it forth. But take me _in_, and you'll have
an hysterical maniac. The solemn regulation faces, _looking_ at that
"music," set me bewitched to laugh and outrage that fashion-drilled and
kidded audience. Bless you, _I_ can't help it. I had rather hear Dinah
sing "Old John Brown" over her wash-tub. I had rather go over to Mr.
Beecher's church some Sunday night and hear that vast congregation swell
forth Old Hundred, with each man and woman's _soul_ so in it, that
earthly cares and frets are no more remembered, than the old garments we
cast out of sight.
When the words of a favorite hymn are read from the pulpit, and I am
expecting the good old-fashioned tune, that has been wedded to it since
my earliest recollection, and instead, I am treated to a series of
quirks and quavers by a professional quartette, I can't help wishing
myself where the whole congregation sing with the heart and the
understanding, in the old-fashioned manner. I can have "opera" on
week-days, and scenery and fine dresses thrown in. Sunday I want Sunday,
not opera in _neglige_.
Of course it is high treason for me to make such an avowal; so, while I
am in for it, I may as well give another twist to the rope that is round
my neck. The other night I went to hear "The Messiah." The words are
lovely, and as familiar to my Puritan ears as the "Assembly's
Catechism;" but when they kept on repeating, "The Lord is in his
hol--the Lord is in--is in his hol--is in--the Lord is in his hol"--and
when the leader, slim, and clothed in inky black, kept his arms going
like a Jack in a box, I grew anything but devout. The ludicrous side of
it got the better of me; and when my companion, who pretends to be no
Christian at all, turned to me, who am reputed to be one, in a state of
exaltation, and said, "Isn't that grand, Fanny?" he could have wished
that the tears in my eyes were not hysterical, from long-suppressed
laughter. He says he never will take me there again, and I only hope he
will keep his word. All the "music" I got out of it was in one or two
lovely "solos."
Now what I want to know is, which has the most love for _genuine_
music--he or I?
The fact is, I like to find my music in unexpected, simple ways, where
the machinery is not visible, like the Galvanic gyrations of that
"leader," for instance. That kind of thing recalls too vividly my old
"fa-sol-la" singing-school, where the boys pulled my curls, and gave me
candy and misspelt notes.
There is evidently something wanting in my make-up, with regard to
"music," when I can _cry_ at the singing of the following simple verses,
by the whole congregation in church, and do the opposite at the
scientific performance of "The Messiah." Listen to the verses:
"Pass me not, O gentle Saviour,
Hear my humble cry;
While on others Thou art smiling,
Do not pass me by.
Saviour, Saviour,
Hear my humble cry.
"If I ask Him to receive me,
Will he say me Nay?
Not till earth and not till heaven
Shall have passed away."
_"BUDDING SPRING"--IN THE CITY._
We of the city do not appreciate the blessing of closed windows and
silence, until budding Spring comes. The terrific war-whoop of the
milkman inaugurates the new-born day long before we should otherwise
recognize it. Following him is the rag-man, with his handcart, to which
six huge jangling, terrific cow-bells are fastened, as an
accompaniment to the yet louder yell of "r-a-g-s." Then comes the
"S-t-r-a-w-b-e-r-r-y" man, with lungs of leather, splitting your head,
as you try to sip your coffee in peace. Close upon his heels, before he
has hardly turned the corner, comes the pine-apple man, who tries to
outscreech _him_. Then the fish-man, who blows a hideous tin trumpet,
loud enough to rouse the Seven Sleepers, and discordant enough to set
all your nerves jangling, if they had not already been taxed to the
utmost. You jump up in a frenzy to close the window, only to see that
the fish-man has stopped his abominable cart at the door of a neighbor,
who keeps a carriage and livery, and is therefore fond of cheap, stale
fish; where he is deliberately cleaning and splitting them, and throwing
the refuse matter in the street, as a bouquet for your nostrils during
the warm day. Then comes a procession of heavy carts, the drivers of
which are lashing their skeleton nags to fury, with loud cracks of their
whips, to see which shall win in the race, while every one of your
window-panes shakes as if an earthquake were in progress, as they rumble
over the stones. By this time comes a great mob of boys, with vigorous
lungs, tossing each other's caps in the air, and screeching with a power
perfectly inexplicable at only six, ten, or twelve years of practice.
Indeed, the smaller the boy the bigger is his war-whoop, as a general
rule. Then comes a wheezy organ-grinder, who, encouraged by the fatal
show of plants in your windows, imagines you to be romantically fond of
"The Morning Star," and immediately begins, in verse, to describe how he
"feels." Nothing short of fifty cents will purchase his absence, which
encouragement is followed by some miserable little rats of boys, anxious
to succeed him on the violin and harp.
By this time your hair stands on end, and beads of perspiration form
upon your nose. You fly for refuge to the back of the house. Alas! there
is a young thing of "sixteen summers" and no winters running up and down
the gamut on a tin-kettle piano. In the next house is a little dog
barking as if his last hour was coming; while upon the shed are two
cats, in the most inflamed state of bristle, glaring like fiends, and
"_maow_"-ing in the most hellish manner at each other's whiskers. You go
down into the parlor, and seat yourself there. Your neighbor, Tom
Snooks, is smoking at his window, and puffing it right through yours
over your lovely roses, the perfume of which he quite extinguishes with
his nasty odor.
Heavens! And this is "Spring!" "Budding Spring!" The poets make no
mention of these little things in their "Odes!"
Well--at least, you say to yourself, there will be peace and heavenly
quiet with the stars at midnight, by the open window. I will be patient
till then.
Is there?
What is that? A policeman's loud rap-rap on the pavement for assistance
to capture a burglar. Next a woman's scream; the brute who just accosted
the poor wretch has struck her a heavy blow upon the temple. And now
reels past a drunken man, zigzagging down the street, with a little
whimpering boy by one hand, old enough to know what a "Station-house"
means, and trembling lest "father" should be taken there.
You throw yourself upon your bed, weary and sick at heart. Even the
stars seem to glow with a red, unnatural light, as if they too were worn
with watching the wrongs and frets they nightly look down upon.
"Balmy night." What liars poets can be!
_A PEEP AT BOSTON._
Boston is a lovely place to be baptized in, and to go back to. My old
love, "_Boston Common_"--that good, old-fashioned, unspoiled,
unmodernized name--looks more lovely this summer than I ever remember to
have seen it. New York may well take a lesson from its order and
neatness, with regard to our ill-kept _city_ parks. I sat there, under
those lovely trees which used to wave over my school-girl head; and had
it not been for the little bright-eyed grandchild beside me picking
buttercups, I might have fancied it was Saturday afternoon, and no
school, and that I was to be back to my mother's apronstrings "by
sundown, without fail." I know I could not have enjoyed even then the
birds' song, or the sparkling pond, or the big trees more than at that
moment. Out of my dream-land, whither they had led me, I was awakened by
a jump into my lap, and the question, "And did you _really_ play with
buttercups here, when you were a little girl?" It was a long bridge that
question led me over, so long that I forgot to answer till the question
was repeated. I had to stop, and outgrow buttercups, and hold again by
my matronly hand a little creature, the counterpart of my questioner,
who long since closed her eyes forever, in this world, upon us both! It
took time, you see, before I could say, "Yes, dear; it was just in this
very lovely spot that both your mother and I picked buttercups when
children, on the bright Saturday afternoons of long ago; and six years
and a half of your little life I have waited, to see _you_ run down
those sloping paths, and to show you the 'Frog-Pond,' and to tell you to
look up into the branches that nearly touch the sky; and now here we
are! But there were no 'deer' feeding on this Common when I was a little
girl, but instead _cows_ to whom I gave plenty of room to pass as I went
along; and instead of that gay little hat, with mimic grasses and
daisies, such as I have put upon your head, my mother tied under my chin
a little sun-bonnet. And she didn't run to me if I sneezed, as I do to
you, for I had a heap of brothers and sisters, and we had to take care
of our own sneezing; but I know I had twenty-five cents to spend on
Fourth of July; and I know that, if any little girl's belt in Boston was
ever tightened by roast turkey and pie more than mine was on
'Thanksgiving day,' I pity her! I wonder what has become of all the
little children I used to play with here? We used to go up to the
tip-top of that State House, I know; but I don't care to try it now. Not
that it would tire me--of course not; but I've seen all that can be seen
from that dome, and a little farther too."
Oh, the peace and loveliness of sweet "Mount Auburn!" The new graves
since I was there, and the old graves now moss-grown that I remember so
well! I, too, shall sleep sweetly there some day; but the hardest pang I
shall know, between now and then, will be letting go the little hand
that clasped mine to-day, as I walked about there. And yet there were
_little_ graves all around us. _He_ knows best!
In Boston I saw the remains of "The Jubilee." I was asked, "Did I hear
and see the Jubilee?" I was supposed, as coming from New York, to grieve
at the success of "The Jubilee;" and being an adopted New Yorker, to
feel like skulking round the back streets in Boston, covered with
confusion that Manhattan had no "Jubilee." Lord bless you! I love every
_bean_ that was ever baked in Boston; every cod-fish-ball ever fried;
and every brown-bread loaf ever baked there. I know too, as well as any
Bostonian, that--
"Zaccheus he
Did climb the tree,
His Lord and Master
For to see;"
and I made a courtesy to the ground, when I came in sight of
"Park-street" steeple, and "Faneuil Hall!" so don't be pitching into me.
Hit some other fellow who isn't "up" in the Assembly's catechism, and
"total depravity," and brown bread. "Jubilee" as much as you want to;
the world is a big place. "Holler" away!
New England, all hail to thy peerless thrift! Thou art cranky and
crotchety; thou art "sot," uncommon "sot," in thy ways, owing doubtless
to the amiable sediment of English blood in thy veins. Thou wilt not be
cheated in a bargain, even by thy best friend; but, in the meantime,
that enableth thy large heart to give handsomely when charity knocks at
thy door. Thy pronunciation may be peculiar, but, in the meantime, what
thou dost not know, and cannot do, is rarely worth knowing or doing.
Thou never hast marble, and silver, and plate glass, and statuary, in
thy show-parlors, and shabby belongings where the world does not
penetrate. Thou hast not stuccoed walls, with big cracks in them, or
anything in thy domiciles, hanging as it were by the eyelids. Every nail
is driven so that it will stay; every hinge hung so that it will work
thoroughly. Every bolt and key and lock perform their duty like a
martinet, so long as a piece of them endures. If thou hast a garden, be
it only a square foot, it is made the most of with its "long _saace_"
and "short _saace_" and "wimmin's notions," in the shape of flowers and
caraway seed, to chew on Sunday, when the minister gets as far as
"seventeenthly," and carnal nature will fondly recur to the waiting pot
of baked beans in the kitchen oven. O! New England, here could I shed
salt tears at the thought of thy baked beans, for Gotham knows them not.
Alluding to that edible, I am met with a pitying sneer, accompanied with
that dread word to snobs--"_provincial!_" It is ever thus, my peerless,
with the envy which cannot attain to the perfection it derides. For you
should see, my thrifty New England, the watery, white-livered,
tasteless, swimmy, sticky poultice which Gotham christens "baked beans."
My soul revolts at it. It is an unfeeling, wretched mockery of the rich,
brown, crispy, succulent contents of that "platter"--yes, _platter_--I
will say it!--which erst delighted my eyes in the days when I swallowed
the Catechism without a question as to its infallibility. The flavor of
the beans "haunts memory still;" but as to the Catechism, the world is
progressing, and I am not one to put a drag on its wheels, believing
that
Truth is sure
And will endure,
and it is best to let "natur" caper, especially as you can't help it;
and after the dust it has kicked up has cleared away, we shall see what
we shall see, be it wheat or chaff. Beside, the most conservative must
admit, that though Noah's Ark was excellent for the flood, the "Great
Eastern" is an improvement on it; and _'tisn't_ pretty, _so they say who
oftenest practise it!_ to stand with the Bible in your hand in 1862, and
clamor for a private latch-key to heaven.
But I have wandered from my baked beans. I want some. Some New England
baked beans. Some of "mother's beans." But, alas, mother's oven is fast
disappearing. Mother's oven, where the beans stayed in all night, with
the brown bread. Alas! it has given way to new-fangled "ranges," which
"don't know beans." Excuse the vulgarity of the expression, but in such
a cause I shan't stand for trifles. If you want rose-leaf
sentimental-refinement, together with creamy patriotism, you may look in
the columns of the Whip-Syllabub-Family-Visitor. This is a digression.
When I started for a New England tour, it was my intention to get some
of those beans; but the hotels there are getting so "genteel" with their
paper-pantalettes on the roast-chicken's legs, and their paper frills on
the roast-pigs'-tails, that I was convinced, that only at a genuine
unsophisticated farm-house, where I could light down unannounced on
Sarah-Jane--could this edible in its native and luscious beauty be
found.
Next summer, if "strategy" and the rebels don't chew us up, I start on a
tour for those beans; nor am I to be imposed upon by any "genteel"
substitutes or abortions under that name!
* * * * *
A HINT TO PARENTS.--When parents are considering the question of the
hours of study for growing children in our schools, let them do it
without any reference to the side question, how they can "bear those
noisy children, during the subtracted hours, at home." Perhaps they can
better bear this than to pay the doctor's bills. This is the way to look
at it, whether it be regarded in a selfish or a humanitarian point of
view.
_BLACKWELL'S ISLAND._
Prior to visiting Blackwell's Island, my ideas of that place were very
forlorn and small-pox-y. It makes very little difference, to be sure, to
a man, or a woman, shut up in a cell eight feet by four, how lovely are
the out-door surroundings; how blue the river that plashes against the
garden wall below, flecked with white sails, and alive with gay
pleasure-seekers, whose merry laugh has no monotone of sadness, that the
convict wears the badge of degradation; and yet, after all, one
involuntarily says to one's self, so instinctively do we turn to the
cheerful side, I am glad they are located on this lovely island. Do you
shrug your shoulders, Sir Cynic, and number over the crimes they have
committed? Are _your_ crimes against society less, that they are written
down only in God's book of remembrance? Are _you_ less guilty that you
have been politic enough to commit only those that a short-sighted,
unequal human law sanctions? Shall I pity these poor wrecks of humanity
less, because they are so recklessly self-wrecked? because they turn
away from my pity? Before I come to this, I must know, as their Maker
knows, what evil influences have encircled their cradles. How many
times, when their stomachs have been empty, some full-fed, whining
disciple, has presented them with a Bible or a Tract, saying, "Be ye
warmed and filled." I must know how often, when their feet have tried to
climb the narrow, up-hill path of right, the eyes that have watched,
have watched only for their halting; never noting, as God notes, the
steps that did _not_ slip--never holding out the strong right hand of
help when the devil with a full larder was tugging furiously at their
skirts to pull them backward; but only saying "I told you so," when he,
laughing at your pharisaical stupidity, succeeded.
I must go a great way back of those hard, defiant faces, where hate of
their kind seems indelibly burnt in; back--back--to the soft blue sky of
infancy, overclouded before the little one had strength to contend with
the flashing lightning and pealing thunder of misfortune and poverty
which stunned and blinded his moral perceptions. I cannot see that
mournful procession of men, filing off into those dark cells, none too
dark, none too narrow, alas! to admit troops of devils, without wishing
that some white-winged angel might enter too; and when their shining
eyeballs peer at my retreating figure through the gratings, my heart
shrieks out in its pain--oh! believe that there is pity here--only pity;
and I hate the bolts and bars, and I say this is _not_ the way to make
bad men good; or, at least if it be, these convicts should not, when
discharged, be thrust out loose into the world with empty pockets, and a
bad name, to earn a speedy "through-ticket" back again. I say, if this
_be_ the way, let humanity not stop here, but take one noble step
forward, and when she knocks off the convict's fetters, and lands him on
the opposite shore, let her not turn her back and leave him there as if
her duty were done; but let her _there_ erect a noble institution where
he can find a _kind_ welcome and _instant_ employment; before
temptation, joining hands with his necessities, plunge him again
headlong into the gulf of sin.
And here seems to me to be the loose screw in these institutions;
admirably managed as many of them are, according to the prevalent ideas
on the subject. You may tell me that I am a woman, and know nothing
about it; and I tell you that I _want_ to know. I tell you, that I don't
believe the way to restore a man's lost self-respect is to degrade him
before his fellow-creatures; to brand him, and chain him, and poke him
up to show his points, like a hyena in a menagerie. No wonder that he
growls at you, and grows vicious; no wonder that he eats the food you
thrust between the bars of his cage with gnashing teeth, and a vow to
take it out of the world somehow, when he gets out; no wonder that he
thinks the Bible you place in his cell a humbug, and God a myth. I would
have you startle up his self-respect by placing him in a position to
show that you trusted him; I would have you give him something to hold
in charge, for which he is in honor responsible; appeal to his _better_
feelings, or if they smoulder almost to extinction, fan them into a
flame for him out of that remnant of God's image which the vilest can
never wholly destroy. _Anything but shutting a man up with hell in his
heart to make him good._ The devils may well chuckle at it. And above
all, tear down that taunting inscription over the prison-hall door at
Blackwell's Island--"The way of transgressors is hard"--and place
instead of it, "Neither do I condemn thee; go and sin no more."
Now, you can step aside, Mrs. Grundy; what I am about to write is not
for your over-fastidious ear. _You_, who take by the hand the polished
_roue_, and welcome him with a sweet smile to the parlor where sit your
young, trusting daughters; you, who "have no business with his private
life, so long as his manners are gentlemanly;" you who, while saying
this, turn away with bitter, unwomanly words from his penitent, writhing
victim. I ask no leave of _you_ to speak of the wretched girls picked
out of the gutters of New York streets, to inhabit those cells at
Blackwell's Island. I speak not to _you_ of what was tugging at my
heart-strings as I saw them, that beautiful summer afternoon, file in,
two by two, to their meals, followed by a man carrying a cowhide in his
hand, by way of reminder; all this would not interest you; but when you
tell me that these women are not to be named to ears polite, that our
sons and our daughters should grow up ignorant of their existence, I
stop my ears. As if they could, or did! As if they can take a step in
the public streets without being jostled or addressed by them, or pained
by their passing ribaldry; as if they could return from a party or
concert at night, without meeting droves of them; as if they could, even
in broad daylight, sit down to an ice-cream without having one for a
_vis-a-vis_. As if they could ride in a car or omnibus, or cross in a
ferry-boat, or go to a watering-place, without being unmistakably
confronted by them. No, Mrs. Grundy; you know all this as well as I do.
You would push them "anywhere out of the world," as unfit to live, as
unfit to die; _they_, the weaker party, while their partners in sin, for
whom you claim greater mental superiority, and who, by your own finding,
should be much better able to learn and _to teach_ the lesson of
self-control--to them you extend perfect absolution. Most consistent
Mrs. Grundy, get out of my way while I say what I was going to, without
fear or favor of yours.
If I believed, as legislators, and others with whom I have talked on
this subject, pretend to believe, they best know why, that God ever made
one of those girls for the life they lead, for this in plain Saxon is
what their talk amounts to, I should curse Him. If I could temporize as
they do about it, as a "necessary evil," and "always has been, and
always will be," and (then add this beautiful tribute to manhood) "that
pure women would not be safe were it not so"--and all the other budget
of excuses which this sin makes to cover its deformity--I would forswear
my manhood.
You say their intellects are small, they are mere animals, naturally
coarse and grovelling, Answer me this--are they, or are they not
_immortal_? Decide the question whether _this_ life is to be _all_ to
them. Decide before you shoulder the responsibility of such a girl's
future. Granted she has only _this_ life. God knows how much misery may
be crowded into that. But you say, "Bless your soul, why do you talk to
_me_? I have nothing to do with it; I am as virtuous as St. Paul." St.
Paul was a bachelor, and of course is not my favorite apostle; but
waiving that, I answer, you _have_ something to do with it when you talk
thus, and throw your influence on the wrong side. No matter how
outwardly correct your past life may have been, if you _really believe_
what you say, I would not give a fig for your virtue if temptation and
opportunity favored; and if you talk so for talk's sake, and do not
believe it, you had better "tarry at Jericho till your beard be grown."
But you say to me, "Oh, you don't know anything about it; men are
differently constituted from women; woman's sphere is home." That don't
suspend the laws of her being. That don't make it that she don't need
sympathy and appreciation. That don't make it that she is never weary
and needs amusement to restore her. Fudge. I believe in no difference
that makes this distinction. Women lead, most of them, lives of unbroken
monotony; and have much more need of exhilarating influences than men,
whose life is out of doors in the breathing, active world. Don't tell me
of shoemakers at their lasts, and tailors at their needles. Do either
ever have to lay down their customers' coats and shoes fifty times a
day, and wonder when the day is over why their work is _not_ done,
though they have struggled through fire and water to finish it? Do not
both tailor and shoemaker have at least the variation of a walk to or
from the shop to their meals? Do not their customers talk their beloved
politics to them while they stitch, and do not their "confreres" run for
a bottle of ale and crack merry jokes with them as their work
progresses? Sirs! if monotony is to be avoided in man's life as
injurious, if "variety" and exhilaration must always be the spice to his
pursuits, how much more must it be necessary to a sensitively organized
woman? If home is not sufficient (and I will persist that any
_industrious, virtuous, unambitious_ man, may have a home if he
chooses); if home is not sufficient for him, why should it suffice for
her? whose work is never done--who can have literally _no_ such thing as
system (and here's where a mother's discouragement comes in), while her
babes are in their infancy; who often says to herself at night, though
she would not for worlds part with one of them, "I can't tell what I
have accomplished to-day, and yet I have not been idle a minute;" and
day after day passes on in this way, and perhaps for weeks she does not
pass the threshold for a breath of air, and yet men talk of "monotony!"
and being "differently constituted," and needing amusement and
exhilaration; and "business" is the broad mantle which it is not always
safe for a wife to lift. I have no faith in putting women in a pound,
that men may trample down the clover in a forty-acre lot. But enough for
that transparent excuse.
The great Law-giver made no distinction of sex, as far as I can find
out, when he promulgated the seventh commandment, nor should we. You
tell me "society makes a difference;" more shame to it--more shame to
the women who help to perpetuate it. You tell me that infidelity on the
wife's part involves an unjust claim upon the husband and provider; and
I ask you, on the other hand, if a good and virtuous wife has not a
right to expect _healthy_ children?
Let both be equally pure; let every man look upon every woman,
whatsoever her rank or condition, as a sister whom his manhood is bound
to protect, even, if need be, against herself, and let every woman turn
the cold shoulder to any man of her acquaintance, how polished soever he
may be, who would degrade her sex. Then this vexed question would be
settled; there would be no such libels upon womanhood as I saw at
Blackwell's Island, driven in droves to their cells. No more human
traffic in those gilded palaces, which our children must not hear
mentioned, forsooth! though their very fathers may help to support them,
and which our tender-hearted legislators "can't see their way clear
about." Then our beautiful rivers would no longer toss upon our island
shores the "dead bodies of unfortunate young females."
_SHALL WE HAVE MALE OR FEMALE CLERKS?_
The question whether male or female clerks in stores are preferred by
shopping ladies, has lately been agitated. I do not hesitate to say that
the majority of ladies would much prefer the former.
There are reasons for this, apart from the natural and obvious
preference which women entertain for a coat and vest, before a chignon
and panier. Male clerks, as a general thing, confine their attention to
business; in other words, "mind what they are about." Female clerks are
too often taking an inventory of the way you dress your hair; of the cut
and trimming, and probable cost of your sacque and dress. No lady who
shops much can be unaware of the coroner's inquest, favorable or
otherwise, thus held over the dry-goods on her back. When you add to
this the momentous computations, whether her jewelry is bogus or real,
and where she got that love of a bonnet, there is grave room for fear
lest by mistake she should roll you up two yards of ribbon instead of
three, involving a journey back, to the disgust of yourself and your
dress-maker; or, worse still, if the day be stormy, oblige you to coax
your _dear_ Charles to let you pin a sample on the lappel of his coat,
and beg him just to stop a minute--there's a dear fellow--as he comes up
town, and bring it to you. Of course, he gets talking with Tom Jones on
politics, and forgets all about it, and only ejaculates, "pshaw!" when
your horror-stricken dress-maker asks you for it.
That's how it is, although I get my ears boxed for saying it.
Mind you, I don't say that it is _always_ so, no more than it is true
that all male clerks attend strictly to the business in hand. Still it
is true: that is really the fly in the ointment. In the words of the
little hymn,
"It is their nature to."
Women _always_ dissect each other the moment they meet, and never leave
so much as a hair-pin unmeasured. So, as you can't change their nature,
and as the instances are rare in which man, or woman either, can do two
things correctly at the same moment, what are you going to do about it?
Having said this much, I am happy to add that I have favorite stores for
shopping, where I am served by _female_ clerks with a promptness, a
politeness, an exactness and a dispatch, not to be exceeded by the
best-trained _male_ clerk in existence.
As to the silly girls and women who go shopping "for fun," and to make
eyes, and chatter with clerks, there is no question how _their_
preferences go on this question. We don't count their votes.
For myself, as my time is always limited, I desire _despatch_, first and
foremost, with an exactness involving no _postscript_ to my shopping;
and I would also prefer female clerks, if I could include this. In fact
I am willing, _in any case_, to give my vote for the female clerks, so
much do I desire that my own sex should be helped to help themselves.
* * * * *
FASHIONABLE DISEASE.--The day when it was considered interesting and
lady-like to be always ailing has gone by. Good health, fortunately, is
the fashion. A rosy cheek is no longer considered "vulgar," and a fair,
shapely allowance of flesh on the bones is considered the "style."
Perhaps the great secret that good looks cannot exist without good
health, may have had something to do with the care now taken to obtain
it; whether this be so or not, future generations are the gainers all
the same. A languid eye and a waxy, bloodless complexion, may go begging
now for admiration. The "elegant stoop" in the shoulders, formerly
considered so aristocratic, has also miraculously disappeared. Women
walk more and ride less; they have rainy-day suits of apparel, too,
which superfluity never was known to exist aforetime, sunshine being the
only atmosphere in which the human butterfly was supposed to float. In
short, "the fragile women of America" will soon exist only in the acid
journal of some English traveller, who will, of course, stick to the
by-gone fact as a still present reality, with a dogged pertinacity known
only to that amiable nation.
_UNKNOWN ACQUAINTANCES._
You have none? Then I am sorry for you. Much of my pleasure in my daily
walks is due to them. Perhaps you go over the ground mechanically, with
only dinner or business in your eye when you shall reach your journey's
end. Perhaps you "don't see a soul," as you express it. Perhaps you have
no "soul" yourself; only a body, of which you are very conscious, and
whose claims upon you outweigh every other consideration. That is a
pity. I wouldn't go round that treadmill for all the mines of Golconda.
It always makes me think of that melancholy old horse one sees, pawing
rotatory wood, at the way stations, on the railroad tracks; and because
the sight makes every bone in me ache, my particular window-seat in the
car is always sure to command a view of him. Now, come what will, I'll
not be that horse. _You_ may if you like, and I will cling to my dreams.
I sha'n't live in this world forever, and I won't hurry over the ground
and never see a sweet face as it flits past me, or a grand one, or a
sorrowful one. I won't be deaf to the rippling laugh of a little child
or the musical voice of a refined woman. It may be only two words that
she shall speak, but they shall have a pleasant significance for me.
Then there are strange faces I meet every day which I hope to keep on
meeting till I die. Who was such an idiot as to say that "no woman ever
sees beauty in another"? I meet every day a face that no man living
could admire more than myself; soulful as well as beautiful. Lovely
blue, pensive eyes; golden hair, waving over a pure white forehead;
cheeks like the heart of a "blush rose;" and a grieved little rosy
mouth, like that of a baby to whom for the first time you deny
something, fearing lest it grow too wilful. I think that day lost in
which I do not meet that sweet face, framed in its close mourning
bonnet. Were I a man it is to that face I should immediately "make
love."
_Make_ love? Alas! I did not think how terribly significant was this
modern term when I used it. Let no man _make_ love to that face. But if
there _is_ one who _can_ be in dead earnest, and _stay so_, I give my
consent, provided he will not attempt to change the expression of that
mouth.
I have another acquaintance. I don't care to ask "Who _is_ that man?" I
know that he has _lived_ his life and not slept it away. I know that it
has been a pure and a good one. It is written in his bright, clear,
unclouded eye; in his springing step; in the smile of content upon his
lip; in the lift of his shoulders; in the poise of his head; in the
free, glad look with which he breathes in his share of the warm
sunshine. Were he taken to the bedside of a sick man, it seems to me
the very sight of him were health.
I used to have many unknown acquaintances among the little children in
the parks; but what with French nurses and silk velvet coats, I have
learned to turn my feet elsewhere. It gives me the heart-ache to see a
child slapped for picking up a bright autumn leaf, though it _may_
chance to be "dirty;" or denied a smooth, round pebble, on account of a
dainty little glove that must be kept immaculate. I get out of temper,
and want to call on all their mothers and fight Quixotic battles for the
poor little things, as if it would do any good; as if mothers who dress
their children that way to play, cared for anything _but_ their looks.
Then I have some unknown acquaintances in the yard of a large house in
the upper part of Broadway. I never asked who lived in the house; but I
thank him for the rare birds of brilliant plumage who walk to and fro in
it, or perch upon the window-sills or steps, as proudly conscious of
their gay feathers as the belles who rustle past. I love to imagine the
beautiful countries they came from, and the flowers that blossomed
there, and the soft skies that arched over them. I love to see them pick
up their food so daintily, and, with head on one side, eye their many
admirers looking through the fence, as if to say--beat _that_ if you can
in America! Ah! my birdies, stop your crowing; just wait a bit and see
how the "_American Eagle_" is going to come out, and how each time they
who have tried to clip his wings have only found that it made them grow
broader and stronger. Soft skies and sweet flowers are very nice things,
birdies; but rough winds and freedom are better for the soul.
I have said nothing of unknown acquaintances among my favorite authors.
How many times--did I not so hate the sight of a pen when "school is let
out"--have I longed to express to them my love and gratitude. Nor,
judging by myself, could I ever say, "they do not need it;" since there
are, or should be, moments in the experience of all writers when they
regard with a dissatisfied eye what they have already given to the
world, when sympathetic, appreciative words, warm from the heart, are
hope and inspiration to the receiver.
* * * * *
A LINK BETWEEN HUSBANDS AND WIVES.--Blessed be the little children who
make up so unconsciously our life-disappointments. How many couples,
mutually unable to bear each other's faults, or to forbear the causes of
irritation, find solace for their pain in these golden links which still
continue to unite them. On that they are one. _There_ they can really
repose. Those fragile props keep them from quite sinking disheartened by
life's roadside. How often has a little hand drawn amicably together two
else-unwilling ones, and made them see how bright and blessed earth may
become in pronouncing that little word--"forgive."
_LIFE AND ITS MYSTERIES._
Was there ever a romance in that man or that woman's life? I _used_ to
ask myself, as I looked upon a hard face which stoicism seemed to have
frozen over, through the long years. Was there ever a moment when, for
that man, or woman, love transfigured everything, or the want of it
threw over the wide earth the pall of unrest? Have they ever wept, or
laughed, or sighed, or clasped hands in passionate joy or sorrow? _Had_
they any life? Or have they simply vegetated like animals? Did they see
any beauty in rock, mountain, sky, or river, or was this green earth a
browsing place, nothing more?
I never ask those questions now; for I know how much fire may be hidden
under a lava-crusted exterior. I know that though the treasure-chest
_may_ sometimes be locked when it is empty, oftener beneath the
fastening lies the wealth, which the right touch can at any moment set
free. There are divers masks worn in this harlequin world of ours. Years
ago I met, in travelling, a lady who seemed to me the very embodiment of
fun and frolic. Like a humming-bird, she never was still; alighting now
here, now there, wheresoever were sunshine, sweetness and perfume. One
day, as we were rambling in the woods, we sat down to rest under a tree,
after our frolicking. Some little word of mine, as I drew her head into
my lap, and smoothed the hair on her temples, transformed her. With a
sharp, quick cry of agony, she threw her arms about my neck, weeping as
I never saw a woman weep. When she was quiet came the sad story. The
trouble battled with, and bravely borne. The short, joyous years--then
the long days, and nights, and weeks, and months, so full of desolation
and bitterness, and life yet at its meridian. How should she meet the
long, slow-moving years? That was the question she asked me. "Tell me
how! you who know--tell me how!"
And this was the woman I thought frivolous and pleasure-seeking. Wearing
beneath that robe the penitential cross, reminding her at every moment
with its sharp twinge of pain, that try as she might, she could never
fly from herself.
How often, when I have been inclined to judge harshly, have I thought of
that Gethsemane cry. It is sorrowful how we misjudge each other in this
busy world. How very near we may be to a warm heart, and yet be frozen!
How carelessly we pass by the pool of Bethesda, with its waiting crowd,
without thinking that we might be the angel to trouble the waters? This
thought is often oppressive to me in the crowd of a city hurrying home
at nightfall. What burden does this man or that woman carry, known only
to their Maker? How many among them may be just at the dividing line
between hope and despair! And how some faces remind you of a dumb
animal, who bears its pain meekly and mournfully, yet cringing lest some
careless foot should, at any moment, render it unendurable; haunting you
as you go to your home as if you were verily guilty in ignoring it.
Have you never felt this? and, although you may have been cheated and
imposed upon seventy times seven, can you wholly stifle it? and _ought_
you to try, even though you know how well the devil can wear the livery
of heaven?
I think it is this that, to the reflecting and observing, makes soul and
body wear out so quickly in the city. These constantly recurring,
unsolvable problems, which cloud faith and make life terrible, instead
of peaceful and sweet; which lead us sometimes to look upon the little
child, so dear to us, with such cowardly fear, that it would be a relief
to lay it, then and there, in the arms of the Good Shepherd, lest _it_,
too, stray away from the fold.
* * * * *
SWEARERS AND SWEARING.--Profanity is such a _cheap_ accomplishment!
"Damme!" "Damn it!" The idea that "_gentlemen_," so called, should use
these expletives, in which the commonest laborer, who can scarcely "make
his mark" to a document, can excel him! As a matter of taste, setting
aside any question of morality, the practice of it by "cultivated
persons" is our daily wonder.
_MRS. WASHINGTON'S ETERNAL KNITTING._
There are many-sided men and women, and there are men and women that are
one-sided, both in brains and body. There are men of business who have
no surplus left after attending to their business. There are women who
have no surplus left after attending to their kettles and pans and their
mending basket. On the other hand, there are men whom business does not
wholly absorb; who are interested intelligently, and actively, too, in
every great question of the day and hour. There are women who order
their houses discreetly, tastefully, and economically, and can yet
converse elegantly and with knowledge with the most cultured persons of
both sexes.
This is a preface to some little remarks of mine on an article lately
written by a gentleman in one of our Magazines, on the wife of General
(Cherry-Tree) Washington.
This writer says that Mrs. Washington's "knitting was never out of her
hands; that when callers came, the click of her needles was always an
accompaniment to her conversation. That she deemed it a privilege to
attend to the details of housekeeping, and regarded the days when her
official position required her presence in the drawing-room as _lost_."
Now she is a specimen of what I should call a one-sided woman. I am glad
she was an accomplished housekeeper, and better still, was not above
attending to her duty there. It was splendid, in her high position, that
she should set so good an example in this regard. But it was _not_ good
to keep her needles clicking when callers came, as if to say, You are an
intruder, and I can ill endure your presence. This, I maintain, was
neither necessary nor polite. It was _not_ good that she could consider
her "drawing-room days" as lost, and not perceive that they might be
turned to account in elevating, as an intelligent woman can, the tone of
the society she moved in. That she took the contrary view of it shows,
to my thinking, that she was _not_ truly an intelligent woman. I believe
her duty, as the wife of an American President, lay there quite as much
as in looking over her household economies. But that was _Then_, and
this is _Now_! In those days one-sided men and women were plenty, and
many-sided men and women rare. We can point to-day to many glorious
examples of the latter, thank Heaven.
It was once considered a disgrace to a woman to know enough to spell
correctly; and if, in addition to committing this indiscretion, she
happened to disgrace herself by a knowledge of French or Latin, let her
never speak of it, lest it should "destroy her chances of marriage." The
idea is losing ground that a woman's mentality perils puddings and
shirt-buttons. There have been too many shining, tasteful houses and
well-ordered tables presided over by cultivated women, for any man
nowadays to drag up that old fogyism, without raising a laugh for
himself.
When I read this article about Mrs. Washington, who, I admit, was
excellent as far as she went, I called the writer to an account. He
replied, "Oh, I knew you'd pitch into me, Fanny;" and not liking to
disappoint him, I have.
* * * * *
RELIGIOUS TOLERANCE.--It would do no harm if Christians who are disposed
to judge harshly of each other, were to read occasionally the accounts
handed down to us of enormities committed some centuries ago, and even
in later years, in the name of religion, upon those of differing creeds;
the perpetrators sincerely believing at the time that they were doing
God service. When we are tempted to shut the gate of heaven in any
fellow-mortal's face, let us recall these things, at which humanity and
Christianity should alike shudder. Said a good old man, in dying, of a
son who had embraced another faith than that taught him, "Well, it
matters not by which road John gets to heaven, if he only reaches it at
last." It seems to us that this, taken rightly, is the true spirit.
_THE WOMAN QUESTION._
I have been sitting here, enjoying a quiet laugh all by myself, over a
pile of newspapers and magazines, in which the "Woman Question" was
aired according to the differing views of editors and writers. One
gentleman thinks that the reason the men take a nap on the sofa,
evenings at home, or else leave it to go to naughty places, is because
there are no Madame De Staels in our midst to make home attractive. He
was probably a bachelor, or he would understand that when a man who has
been perplexed and fretted all day, finally reaches home, the last
object he wishes to encounter is a wide awake woman of the Madame De
Stael pattern, propounding her theories on politics, theology, and
literature. The veriest idiot who should entertain him by the hour with
tragic accounts of broken tea-cups and saucepans, would be a blessing
compared to her; not that he would like that either; not that he would
know himself exactly what he _would_ like in such a case, except that it
should be something diametrically opposite to that which years ago he
got on his knees to solicit.
Another writer asserts that women's brains are too highly cultivated at
the present day; and that they have lost their interest in the increase
of the census; and that their husbands, not sharing their apathy, hence
the disastrous result. I might suggest in answer that this apathy may
have its foundation in the idea so fast gaining ground--thanks to
club-life, and that which answers to it in a less fashionable strata of
society--that it is an indignity to expect fathers of families to be at
home, save occasionally to sleep, or eat, or to change their apparel;
and that, under such circumstances, women naturally prefer to be the
mother of four children, or none, than to engineer seventeen or twenty
through the perils of childhood and youth without assistance,
co-operation, or sympathy.
Another writer thinks that women don't "smile" enough when their
husbands come into the house; and that many a man misses having his
shirt or drawers taken from the bureau and laid on a chair all ready to
jump into at some particular day or hour, as he was accustomed when he
lived with some pattern sister or immaculate aunt at home. This preys on
his manly intellect, and makes life the curse it is to him.
Another asserts that many women have some female friend who is very
objectionable to the husband, in exerting a pugilistic effect on her
mind, and that he flees his house in consequence of this unholy
influence; not that this very husband wouldn't bristle all over at the
idea of his wife's court-martialing a bachelor or benedict friend, for
the same reason; but then it makes a difference, you know, a man not
being a woman.
Another writer asserts that nobody yet knows what woman is capable of
doing. I have only to reply that the same assertion cannot be made with
regard to men, as the dwellers in great cities, at least, know that the
majority of them are capable of doing anything that the devil and
opportunity favor.
It has been a practice for years to father every stupid joke that
travels the newspaper-round on "_Paddy_"--poor "Paddy." In the same way
it seems to me that for every married man now, who proves untrue to his
better nature, _his wife_ is to be held responsible. It is the old
cowardly excuse that the first man alive set going, and which has been
travelling round this weary world ever since. "The woman thou gavest to
be with me"--_she_ did thus and so; and therefore all the Adams from
that time down have whimpered, torn their hair, and rushed forth to the
long-coveted perdition, over the bridge of this cowardly excuse.
One of the sapient advisers of women ridicules the idea of a woman's
voting till she has learned to be "moderate" in following the fashions;
moderate in her household expenses; moderate in her way of dressing her
hair; moderate in the length of her party-robes and in the shortness of
her walking costume. Till woman has attained this desirable moderation
he declares her totally unfit for the ballot.
Granted--for the sake of the argument, granted; but as it is a poor rule
that won't work both ways, suppose we determine a man's fitness for the
ballot by the same rule. Let not his short-tailed coats refuse to be
sat upon by the fat owner thereof. Let not his pantaloons be so tight
that he cannot stoop without danger. Let not his overcoat flap against
his heels, because a new-fangled custom demands an extra inch or two.
Let not the crown of his hat pierce the skies, or be so ridiculously
shallow as to convey the idea that it belongs to his little son. Let him
smoke "moderately." Let him drink "moderately." Let him drive
"moderately." Let him stock-gamble "moderately." Let him stay out at
night "moderately." Let him, in short, prepare himself by a severe
training in the virtue of "moderation" for the privilege of casting a
vote.
Why, there is not a man in the land who wouldn't sniff at the idea! and
yet I suppose it never occurred to the writer of this advice to women
that he was uttering impertinent nonsense, or that the rules he laid
down were quite as well suited to his own sex as to ours.
Every day I see gentlemen who are as much walking advertisements of
their tailor's last exaggerated fashion as any foolish woman could be of
her dress-maker's newly fledged insanity. If Bismarck be the rage, or
Metternich green, their neckties and gloves slavishly follow Fashion's
behest. Hats, coats, trousers are long-tail or short, tight or loose, as
she bids; and that whether legs are straight or crooked, whether the
outline is round or angular, whether the owner looks like an
interrogation-point, or a tub on two legs. At least he is in the
fashion--that manly thought consoles him.
If "moderation" in smoking were the test of fitness for the ballot-box,
how many men do you think would be able to vote?
Oh, pshaw! Advice to women will go in at one ear and out at the other,
while male advisers are such egregious fools. The silliest woman who
ever cleaned the streets with her silken robe, or exhibited thick ankles
in a short one, or froze her ears in January in a saucer of a bonnet,
knows that she can find a parallel for all her nonsense in the male side
of the question. Men inhabit too many glass-houses for them at present
to hurl missiles of that sort at their fair neighbors. Reform
_yourselves_, gentlemen. _You_ who are so much mightier and stronger and
more competent, _by your own showing_, show us, poor, weak, "grown-up
children" how to behave pretty!
* * * * *
A WORD FOR THE LITTLE ONES.--Have one rough suit for your little ones,
this summer, to tumble about the dirt in. The amount of happiness they
will get out of that rough suit, and their liberty in it, is not to be
computed by any parent's arithmetic. Only a child brought up to city
pavements and fine clothes can add up that sum. Will you do it, mothers?
Just for this one summer, if no more. Leave off for a time the sashes
and laces, and let the little ones get happily, and, what is better,
_healthily_ dirty.
_TWO KINDS OF WIVES._
Some writer remarks, "We blunder fearfully with our domesticity in
America. Our wives are only of two kinds: the family slave on one hand;
the frivolous woman of fashion on the other!"
"_Our_ wives!" As a _woman_ can't have a "wife," I may logically infer
that a man wrote the above paragraph, though without these two helping
words I should have come to the same conclusion. Now so far as my
limited knowledge goes, we generally find "in the market" that which is
oftenest called for. Put that down in your memorandum book, sir. Men are
but just beginning to find out that the two specimens of womankind
referred to are much more difficult to get along with, in the main, than
a woman of intelligence and mentality. I say they are just _beginning_
to understand it. Men are very fond of the results that the "family
slave" brings about, in the shape of good food and well-mended clothes,
but they dodge with a fox's cunning the creaking and jarring of the
machinery by which these results are obtained. They never want to be on
hand when any process of disentanglement is necessary that defies
temporarily the "family slave." Just then "business" is
imperative--very likely in the shape of a journey--till the household
machine runs smoothly again; nor does he care to hear how it is done, so
that he is not bothered about it. If the "family slave" gets thinner and
thinner, why, it is because "she takes everything _so hard_." She ought
not to take things hard! That's her fault! It is an unfortunate
nervousness which she ought to try to get rid of, because--it worries
_him_! She is "no companion" for him--not a bit! When he wants to be
amused, she is too tired to do it. In fact she don't see anything to be
amused at. That is another unfortunate peculiarity of hers, this looking
on the dark side of things. _He_ don't do so. Not he! He deplores it; he
sits down and writes just such a paragraph as I have just quoted above,
like the consistent man he is.
I once heard a man who was in excellent circumstances, and whose young
wife, just recovered from a severe illness, had taken her twelve-pound
baby in her weak arms, and gone into the country for a few days, remark,
as she left, "She _would_ take all my old trousers with her to mend--God
bless her!" adding, hallelujah-wise, "_There's a wife for you!_"
Now who made _that_ "family slave"? Because she was magnanimous and
self-forgetful, must he need be a brute? Women must take care of
themselves in these matters. They must husband their strength for future
demands, since their husbands won't husband it. That man was abundantly
able to pay a tailor or a seamstress to repair his clothes. Instead of
contenting himself with God-blessing this little meek wife, he should,
like a true man, have positively _forbidden_ her to work at all, in this
short reprieve from household care. When there is nothing left of her
but one front tooth, and a back, bent like the letter C, he will
contemplate some round, rosy woman, who has not yet met her doom, and
wonder how his wife came "to lose all her good looks so soon."
As to "fashionable women," were there no fashionable men, I don't
imagine that they would exist on this planet. "She is so dowdy!" "She is
so stylish!" Do you suppose the women who hear these masculine comments
forget them? And do you suppose when, to use an equine expression, you
have once given a wife "her head," by your admiration of "style" and
fashion, that you can rein her up short, whenever you take a notion?
Don't she hear you sneering at intelligent women, and don't she see you
flattering fashionable fools?
Of course she does. Now let every man ask himself, before he sits down
to write against the faults and follies of women, what he, individually,
has done to form and perpetuate them? And if ever, in his whole life,
when he saw a woman wronging her better self in _any_ way, he extended a
manly, brotherly hand to her, in the endeavor to lead her right? or, if
he did not, on the contrary, join her, and walk with her, _well
pleased_, in her own ill-selected path.
_UNDERTAKERS' SIGNS ON CHURCHES._
It may strike _you_ pleasantly, but when I am about to enter a church,
the conspicuous intelligence upon its outside walls, that the
"undertaker may be found at such a street," is anything but a pleasant
announcement. Now not being myself a theologian of that school which
compels a smiling countenance to be left at the _porch_ of the
"meetin'-house," I can, therefore, by no means indorse any gloomy
surroundings, outside or inside.
One of the principal articles of _my_ creed is, that Sunday should be
the pleasantest day of all the week. When I open my eyes to its dawn, I
always rejoice, if instead of a gray, cloudy sky, it be a lovely blue,
and the sun be shining brightly; I think upon the thousands to whom this
day is the only leisure day of all the seven; the thousands who, without
this blessed rest, would scarcely have time to look upon the faces of
wife or children; scarcely time to receive the regenerating caresses of
little twining arms, or hear the recital of little griefs and joys which
it is so blessed to share with one who never wearies in the hearing, and
to whose fatherly ear nothing a little child can say is "trifling." It
is blessed to me to think of the thousand humble homes where the
Sabbath sun shines upon just such a scene as this; preaching _through
the family_ this simple gospel: that the humblest have those for whom
they must strive to leave the legacy of a good and honest name. Now when
a working-man, with his heart full of love and happiness, walks forth on
a Sunday morning, do you think it wise when he approaches a church to
shake a coffin in his face? Had I my way, I would tear these
undertaker-placards all down to-morrow, and instead, I would write this,
"Strangers furnished with free seats here every Sunday." Were I a
clergyman, an undertaker should no more use my church walls to advertise
his business, than the upholsterer who furnished the pew-cushions, or
the bookseller who provided the hymn-books, or the man who found the
gas-fixtures. Ah! but you say it is very convenient to know where the
sexton lives. Very well, so it is; but let him advertise in the papers,
as other people do, who have no convenient church walls to save their
advertising fees. The truth is, that the whole undertaker business, as
at present managed, is monstrously mis-managed. The other day, in one of
our streets, I saw an oyster shop with heaps of bivalves curiously
arranged in the window, over which was written: "_Live and let live._"
Next door, being an undertaker, he had piled ostentatiously _his_ wares,
consisting of heaps of "fancy coffins," in his show-window. If he had
only copied his bivalve-neighbor, so far as to write over the window,
_Die and let die_, the farce would have been complete.
They who please may sniff at Sunday. To us it is a blessed reprieve from
care and business, and worry of every sort. The very putting on of the
fresh, clean, "best" raiment, is suggestive of best thoughts and best
feelings for all whom we meet, and more than all, for the dear ones at
home, whose happiness it is ours to make or to mar. Then the sweet,
soothing hymn and the pleading prayer; and the sermon, in which it were
hard, as a rule, to find nothing that we could not take home with us for
our improvement and self-help. Then the pleasant family group at table,
where the children _should_ be. Ah! _we_ are glad for this blessed
Sunday, let him who will, decry or pervert it.
* * * * *
A PITIABLE SIGHT.--There is no more pitiable sight than that of a
husband and father reeling home at the end of the week, having left the
greater part of his week's wages at some drinking saloon. We think of
the patient, toiling wife and hungry children, and the miserable Sunday,
and the coming week in store for them, and the utter hopelessness of
their future lot, and can find no words of denunciation strong enough
for the man who grows rich by tempting a brother's weakness, knowing,
when he does so, that for his victim there is in this world no
redemption.
_A VOICE FROM THE SKATING POND._
Coats and trousers have the best of it _everywhere_, I exclaimed, for
the thousandth time, as I looked at the delightful spectacle of the male
and female skaters at the Central Park. Away went coat and trousers,
like a feather before the wind; free, and untrammelled by dry-goods, and
independent of any chance somerset; while the poor, skirt-hampered women
glided circumspectly after their much-needed health and robustness, with
that awful omnipresent sense of _the proprieties_, (and--horror of
horrors--a tumble!) which sends more of the dress-fettered sex to their
graves every year than any disease _I_ wot of. That a few women whom I
saw there had had the perseverance to become tolerable skaters, with all
that mass of dry-goods strung round their waists, is infinitely to their
credit. How much _longer_ and better they could have skated,
disembarrassed, as men are, of these swaddling robes, common sense will
tell anybody. I should like to see how long a _man's_ patience would
hold out, floundering round in them, while _he_ learned to skate! And
yet were a lady to adopt any other costume, how decent soever, or how
eminently soever befitting the occasion, what a rolling of eyes and
pursing of mouths should we see from the strainers at gnats and
swallowers of camels. All these thoughts passed through my mind as I
mixed in with the merry crowd on that bracing winter day, whose keen
breath was like rare old wine, so did it stir and warm the blood; and I
wondered, as I gazed at those dress-fettered women, whether those
heathen nations who strangled their female babies at birth were as
naughty as we had been told they were!
"Why don't _you_ get up a skating costume, Fanny, and set them an
example?" whispers a voice at my elbow. _Me_? why don't _I_? Because,
sir, custom has made me a poor, miserable coward in these matters, like
the rest of my sex, and because, moreover, sir, you would have no more
courage to walk by my side in such a costume, than I should have to wear
it. No, no: a crowd of curious men in my wake would be no more agreeable
in reality than it is in perspective. It is brave _talking_, I know, but
the time has not yet come when men, by refraining from rude remarks on a
female pioneer in such a cause, would remove one of the chief obstacles
to its advancement. They "like healthy women"--oh, of course they do!
but then, unfortunately, they like dainty prettiness of attire much
better. Else, why don't they encourage women when they try to do a
sensible thing? Why do they grin, and stroke their beards, and shrug
their shoulders, and raise their eyebrows, and go home to Jane Maria,
and say, "Let me catch _you_ out in such a costume"? Till all that is
done away with, we must be content to see puny, waxy-looking children,
and read in "Notes on America" the usual number of stereotyped pages on
"the fragility of our women." Now, let me say in closing that I don't
wish to be misunderstood on this matter. I approve of no costume which a
delicate-minded, self-respecting, dignified woman might not wear in
public. But I will insist that nothing _can_ be done in the way of
reform, while husbands and fathers and brothers _sniff_ the whole
subject "under the table" as soon as it is mentioned. May every one of
them have a yearly doctor's bill to pay as long as the moral law!
* * * * *
BEARING TROUBLE.--There are persons who emerge from every affliction and
trouble and vexation, purified like fine gold from out the furnace.
There are others, and they are the more numerous, who are imbittered and
soured, and made despondent and apathetic. We think the latter belong to
the class who _try to stand alone_ during these storms of life, instead
of looking above for aid. When one can truly say, "He doeth all things
well," the sting is taken out of affliction, the tears are dried, and
the courage given to bear what the future has in store. This, we think,
makes the great difference between these two classes.
_THE SIN OF BEING SICK._
I wish women could be made to understand the importance of flannel
under-clothing, and warm outer-clothing, and common-sense generally in
food and exercise, when they talk about longing to have a "profession"
or a "career." Not that good health should not always be a sort of
religion with them; but they should remember that what failings soever
men may have, as a general thing they are not such fools as to shiver in
insufficient clothing when other may be had, or to go with wet or cold
feet, because thick stockings "fill up the boot," or reject thick-soled
boots because they make the feet look a size or two larger. They do not,
either, think it attractive to bare their throats and necks to a biting
wind in the street, thus inviting a blue nose and the pitying contempt
of every beholder. Woman's great foe, "headache," is surely invited and
perpetuated by these follies, even if no worse punishment follows. "I am
so shivery all over!" you will hear these silly creatures exclaim, and
the red and white located in the wrong spots in their faces attest the
truth of it. One would think that, as a matter upon which their
much-valued good looks depend, they would "consider their ways, and be
wise;" but no. After this they come in and call for some "hot, strong
tea." Tea! _that woman's dram!_ morning, noon, and night. It makes her
"feel like another being," she says. I'm sure it makes her _act_ like
one. This lasts an hour, perhaps; then she has such a "gnawing at her
stomach." Then follows depression after the exhilaration. Then she eats
nothing, because she has "no appetite." Then--another cup of tea, to
"set her up," as she calls it.
I should like to see such a woman having any "career," except fitting
herself speedily for a lunatic asylum. Such a course is reprehensible
and suicidal enough, when good food is at hand and enough of it, and the
women who practise it have money enough to pay a doctor to come and see
them, and tell them lies, and give them nice messes to make believe cure
them. But unfortunately our working girls and women, who have only a
hospital bed to look forward to when sick, go on after the same crazy
fashion. There is some shadow of excuse with them for their intemperate
use of _tea_; the horrible fare of their boarding-places being so
unpalatable and disgusting, and their long hours of labor so exhaustive
and discouraging that this stimulant has become _seemingly_ necessary to
their existence--the one bit of comfort and luxury that they look
forward to with eagerness in the interval of work. "I can't do without
it," said a young shop-girl to me, when I remonstrated with her on its
use, morning, noon, and night. "I couldn't do my work without it." And
how did she spend the wages received for "her work"? In a flimsy, showy
dress; in a gay hat; in a fashionable pair of boots with high heels.
Meantime she had no flannel; she had no _thick_ boots; she had no warm
outer garments; she had nothing to insure either health or comfort, and
she was in the same alternatives of exhilaration and depression as her
richer sisters of whom I have spoken. I don't know why, either, that I
should call them "richer," except that _they_ could have a rosewood
coffin with silver nails, and be buried in a fashionable cemetery, while
the working-girl would have a pine one, and sleep her long sleep in the
Potter's Field. Oh, dear! I see all these abuses, and I exclaim, Oh, the
rare and priceless blessings of good health and common-sense! How I wish
that every clergyman in our land--only that I know that in many cases
they are as great sinners themselves in the matter of health--would
preach on the _sin of being sick_.
Now _there's_ a topic for those of them who have the face to speak of
it, and a clear conscience to bear them out in it. For those of them who
don't sit in their libraries smoking till you can't see across it, when
they should be knocking about in the open air, cultivating a breezy,
sunny, healthful state of mind and body--just the same as if they were
laymen, instead of "ministers," whom the devil desires, of all things,
to see solemn and dyspeptic.
I lately read an article in one of our papers headed, "_Have we a
Healthy Woman among us?_" I fully indorse what the writer says as to
the marvellous amount of invalidism among our girls and women, and I
deplore it as sincerely as he does. But let us have fair play on this
subject. If there are few of them who ever ought to be wives and
mothers, I ask, how much better qualified--physiologically speaking--are
the young _men_ of the present day to be husbands and fathers? Go to any
physician of large practice and experience, and if he answers you
frankly and truthfully, you will learn that it is six of one and half a
dozen of the other. When boys of eight and twelve go to school with a
satchel in one hand and a cigar in the other, I wouldn't give much for
their future vitality, even without leaving a margin for other
violations of the laws of health. It would be well, while publicly
deploring "tight lacing" and "tight shoes" for girls, privately to
inquire about the practice of smoking for boys in short-jackets. To be
sure, I cannot see with what face a father, who is himself a bond-slave
to this habit, can ask his boy to refrain from doing that which he, as a
man, has not had self-control enough to accomplish. But don't let him
then write or speak dolefully about the miserable ill-health of our
girls and women, not, at least, till he moves out of his own
"glass-house." If the _truthful_ inscriptions were placed upon the
myriad little graves in our cemeteries, it would be _fathers_, not
_mothers_, in many cases, who could not read them without pangs of
remorse.
The day will, I hope, come, when the marriage question will cease to be
decided by Cupid or cupidity; when parents, and lovers, themselves, will
consider a sound, healthy body to be of primary importance. Oh! the
weary years of watching and dosing and misery for two, consequent upon
the neglect of this precaution! Oh! the army of puny and idiotic
children, doomed, if they live to adult years, to be a blight in
themselves and to all around them! And how distressing is it to see a
wife, made gloriously as a woman should be, with a broad chest, a free,
firm, graceful step and a beaming face, married to a man whose only
claim to be a living being is, that he has not yet ceased to breathe!
And still as mournful is it, to look at a kingly man, whose very
presence is so full of life that it is like stepping from a close room
into the glad, free, balmy sunshine even to come where he is, married to
a little pink-eyed, feeble dwarf of a creature, with little paws like a
bird's, and not life enough left even to chirp to him.
"Well, what are you going to do about it?" as the pre-Raphaelite friend
asked of a disconsolate widow who kept on crying for her dead husband.
That's just the point where I want to bring _you_, my reader. I want you
individually to look first for good health in the chosen wife who is to
be the mother of your children. And you, young girl, look first for that
rarity, a _clean bill of health_, with your future husband. A
brown-stone house and a carriage and livery are nothing to it. Take my
advice. Don't take copper for gold on the health question, and _don't
give it_.
_ARE MINISTERS SERFS?_
We hear a great outcry occasionally about "ministers who work outside of
their profession," as it is called--that is, in the lecture field, or in
writing newspaper or magazine articles for pay, or in editing
newspapers; and this although the ministers thus censured are faithful
to their pastoral duties, and bring forth every Sunday, and during the
week, fresh, vigorous thoughts for the profit and pleasure of these
complainers.
Now in our view this is a great impertinence.
Suppose a clergyman has a decrepit mother or sister, whose only
pecuniary reliance is himself? Suppose he is not willing, from delicacy
toward them, to turn his family affairs inside out, and explain _why_ he
does this "outside work," which may enable him to meet this or some
similar outside demand? _Is it_ properly anybody's business? If he do
not defraud his parish, have they any right to hold a coroner's inquest
over his "outside" earnings and their possible appropriation? How would
his deacons or church-members stand such a scrutiny over their own
private affairs? We think that the "old Adam" in them would soon rear
and plunge at it. Well, ministers are men too, though you sometimes
seem to forget it; and _they_ don't like it either. The parish has not
purchased their _souls_, as I understand it, no more than have husbands
those of their wives. Let us hope, in this enlightened age, that neither
are serfs. Let us hope that all ministers, and all wives too, all over
the land, may honestly and innocently earn money, and keep it in a
private purse too, without accounting to either the parish or their
husbands for the expenditure of the same; or without, in either case,
causing unfounded suspicion or breach of the peace, or officious
meddling, no more, in my opinion, to be justified, than as if the "boot
was on the other foot," where Mrs. Grundy would consider it a great
wrong to place it, or to insist upon its being worn, regardless of the
limping or contortions of the wearers.
Before either parishes or husbands complain of outside _honest_
earnings, let them inquire if the salaries they give are just and ample.
Let them both inquire whether the objection they have to outside earning
in both cases, does not mainly arise from the fear that the curious
public will imagine that they are not.
Of course, in saying all this, I am referring to those clergymen and
those married women who are sensible and judicious, as well as blessed
with ability, and it is my opinion that Mrs. Grundy has meddled long
enough with the proper independence and self-respect of both.
One thing I've forgotten, namely, parishes are not to suppose that an
increase of a clergyman's salary is to padlock his lips afterward, if
he is requested, or if he feels inclined, to deliver his sentiments,
even "for pay," on the platform, as well as in the pulpit they have
called him to fill. Nor after that, are they to handcuff him either,
lest he should write a line "for pay" in a paper or magazine? In short,
do try to be willing that your "minister" should stand up straight like
any other man, and not go cringing round the world a bought serf, with
his "white choker" for a badge of the same. I'm sick of seeing it. If I
were a minister, it would take all the religion I could muster to keep
me from saying wicked words about it.
"Our minister was away six weeks this summer," said a person
complainingly, the other day. Well, are not ministers human? Must they
not eat, drink, rest, sleep, sorrow and grieve, like other mortals? Have
they not, in addition to all this, a constant and exhaustive demand upon
their sympathies for the griefs of other people? And must they not
constantly be racking their brains, in and out of the pulpit, to have
all their words set fitly, like "apples of gold in pictures of silver"?
And is it not better that a minister should rest "six weeks" than be
laid useless upon the shelf for six months, or that his voice should be
silenced forever because of the exactions of the unthinking portion of
his hearers? And would it not be well if the persons thus complaining
spent the time instead in looking to it that they had profited by what
they had _already_ heard?
Whatever else you grudge, never grudge a good, faithful minister a
breathing spell.
_BLAMING PROVIDENCE FOR OUR OWN FAULTS._
Napoleon is said to have lost a battle on account of an underdone leg of
mutton. Now, there are many who, shaking their heads, would say, it was
"an overruling Providence." I have to smile sometimes at poor
"Providence"--that convenient scapegoat for all the human stupidity
extant;--who kills little babies, and puts a tombstone over young girls
who should have lived to be the healthy mothers of healthy sons and
daughters. This "All-wise Providence," who, as some would have us
believe, is malignantly and perpetually employed in tripping up the
heels of human beings for the benefit of the undertaker--what a
convenient theology for bad cooks, for unwise school-teachers, for
selfish, careless, ignorant parents!
Now "Providence" does no such things. Providence approves of live, fat,
rollicking babies; of deep-chested women; of round, healthy girls; of
muscular men; and sound physical specimens of every kind. Bless
you--_he_ don't bend spines, nor make drunkards, nor thieves, nor write
a shameful history on the pure brow of any woman who ever has or ever
shall live; _he_ don't ordain perpendicular ghosts of ministers, to
defile sepulchrally through creation, and scare people into heaven. _He_
don't smile on those suicidal mothers, who run breathlessly round and
round the nursery treadmill, thinking they are doing God service, till
they drop dead in the harness, and leave eight or nine children
motherless, at an age when they most need maternal guidance. _He_ don't
manufacture scrofulous constitutions out of unwholesome food, and bad
ventilation, and dissipated habits. It is _not_ one of the ten
commandments that babies should be taught Greek and Latin before they
have cut their teeth, that they may become idiots before maturity; or
that school-boys should smoke pipes and cigars; or that school-girls
should drink strong coffee for breakfast, and eat rich pastry and
pickles for luncheon. It is high time that people shouldered their own
sins, and called things by their right names, and told the truth at
funerals, and on tombstones, if they _must_ say anything there. In my
opinion, an "All-wise and inscrutable Providence" has borne quite
blasphemy enough in this way.
_A CHAPTER ON NURSES._
Can anybody tell why nurses are fat? Is there anything in the atmosphere
of a sick room, or in the sight of phials, pills, leeches, potions,
blisters, and plasters to give one an appetite? I solemnly affirm that I
never saw a bony nurse--never. There's a horrid mystery about it which I
have in vain tried to solve. With what a lazy waddle they roll round the
apartment, and how your flesh creeps as they fix their unsympathizing
eyes upon you; you are so sure that they had just as lief bring you your
shroud as a clean nightcap; that it is quite immaterial to them whether
the next thing that comes through the door is a bowl of gruel or your
coffin; in fact, that they would be immensely gratified if you'd hurry
up your dying, and let them off to the pleasurable excitement of a new
subject.
And then that professional sniffle when a visitor asks, "How is your
patient, nurse?" It is a poor satisfaction, to make faces at her under
the sheet, as she answers; but I have done it; I shouldn't be surprised
now, if you thought that was unamiable. Ah! you never had her twitch
down the curtain over a lovely sunset, that was soothing you like a
cool hand on your forehead, and light a little, nasty "nurse-lamp,"
merely because she knew you hadn't strength enough to say, "Please
don't." A nurse-lamp! that you have contemplated night after night in
the silent, dreary watches, till it seemed like an evil eye, glimmering
and glowing, fascinating you in spite of yourself, till the perspiration
stood in cold drops on your forehead, while the watch went "tick,"
"tick," and the fat, old nurse snored away, and each nerve in your body
seemed a separate and more perfect engine of torture. No wonder you hate
to see her unnecessarily shorten the daylight and repeat the horror. But
she'll do it; of course she'll do it. If you had not wanted her to, you
should have told her that of all sublunary things, you fancied a
night-lamp. Now I leave it to you, if, after that and kindred
crucifixions of momentary occurrence, you could stand that pious sniffle
with which she answers the question, "How is your patient, nurse?"
And then, if she wouldn't be so excruciatingly officious at such a time,
one might swallow one's disgust. If, when a visitor comes in, she
wouldn't twitch your pillow from under your head, just as you are
knowing your first comfortable moment, and giving it a shake and a pat,
thrust it under your head again, forcing your chin down into your
breastbone, and half dislocating your neck, just to show them how
attentive she is; if she wouldn't strip down the blanket, or pile on a
dozen quilts, when you are just the right temperature, for the same
reason, I think it would be more jolly. Then if, after all that, she
wouldn't stand, and _keep_ standing, so near the corner of your mouth,
that you couldn't call her some "rantankerous" name by way of relief;
though, at another time, when you were dying for a glass of water, she'd
leave you all alone and take half an hour to get it; if she wouldn't do
all these things; but she will. _She grows fat on thwarting her
patients: I know it._ Of course, if your strength equalled your disgust,
you wouldn't _be_ thwarted; you'd obstinately persist in admiring
everything she did, though she should comb your hair with a red-hot
poker, but being sick and babyish, one can only whimper; and there is
where they have us.
"Ill-natured article." Well, suppose it is an ill-natured article? Am I
to be the only saint in the world? Am I to pussy-cat round a subject,
and never show my claws, or stick up my back, when I catch sight of the
enemy! I cry you mercy; in that case I should have been devoured long
ago. Beside, wasn't the handle broken off a lovely little porcelain
"gift cup" this morning? and isn't it raining cats and dogs, though I
_must_ go out? and are not these as good reasons for making somebody
uncomfortable as _you_ had, Sir, or _you_, Madam, for that little thing
you did or said this morning to some poor soul in your power, who
couldn't resent it? Please get out of your own glass-house before you
throw stones at mine.
"But there are good, kind nurses." Well, I am glad to hear it. Upon my
soul, I believe it. Since you say so, and I have had my growl out, I
think I remember two or three. They'll go to heaven, of course. What
more do you want?
* * * * *
A REASONABLE BEING.--If there's anything I hate, it is "a reasonable
being." Says the lazy mother to her restless child whom she has
imprisoned within doors and whose active mind seeks solutions of passing
remarks, "Don't bother, Tommy; do be _reasonable_, and not tease with
your questions." Says the husband to his sick or overtasked wife, when
she cries from mere mental or physical exhaustion, "How I hate tears; do
be a reasonable being." Says the conservative father to his son, whom he
would force into some profession or employment for which nature has
utterly disqualified him, "Are you wiser than your father? do be a
reasonable being." Says the mother to sweet sixteen, whom she would
marry to a sixty-five-year old money-bag, "Think what a thing it is to
have a fine establishment; do be a reasonable being."
As near as I can get at it, to be a reasonable being, is to laugh when
your heart aches; it is to give confidence and receive none; it is
faithfully to keep your own promises, and never mind such a trifle as
having promises broken to you. It is never to have or to promulgate a
dissenting opinion. It is either to be born a fool, or in lack of that
to become a hypocrite, trying to become a "reasonable being."
_DO AMERICAN WOMEN LOVE NATURE?_
I read an article in _The Nation_ the other day, in which the writer
deplores "that American women are not lovers of Nature." Now, sins
enough both of omission and commission are laid to their charge, without
adding to the list those that are baseless. "American women not lovers
of Nature!" Where does the writer keep his eyes, that he does not see,
even here in the city, in mid-winter, the parlor-windows of almost every
house he passes, decorated by the American ladies who preside over it,
with hanging baskets of flowering plants, with ivies and geraniums
tastefully arranged, besides bouquets of fresh-cut flowers always upon
the mantel? Even the humblest house will have its cracked pitcher filled
with green moss; as if unwilling to do without that little suggestion of
Nature, although the fingers which tend it are coarse with washing, or
sewing on shirts at six cents apiece. Did the writer never notice the
"American women" going up and down Broadway? How impossible it is for
them to resist stopping at the street corners to invest a few pennies in
the little fragrant bunch of pansies or tuberoses, for private
delectation, and the adornment of their own pretty rooms at home! Then,
too, I am a great haunter of green-houses and florists' shops generally;
whom, by the way, I consider in the light of missionaries in this
work-a-day world, to educate and stimulate our artistic propensities, by
the various and beautiful arrangements of form and color, in their
floral offerings; and I find there plenty of "American women"
enthusiastic in their praises and lavish in their expenditures in this
direction. Many of them are flowers themselves, bright, beautiful,
lovely, beyond all the buds and sprays and tinted leaves they hover
over, like so many humming-birds.
Then, again, when I go into the country each summer, I find "American
ladies" rambling in the woods, with a keen appreciation of Nature in all
its varied forms, from a lovely sunrise to the last faint chirp of the
sleepiest little bird who is safely nestled for the night in his leafy
little home. I meet them too in the odorous warm autumn noons, with
branches and garlands of gay-tinted leaves, so embarrassed with their
wealth of richness that they cannot carry more, and yet unwilling to
leave so many "_real beauties_" still trembling, unplucked, on the
boughs above them. I see them taking infinite pains to press these
bright leaves in books prepared for the purpose, that they may beautify
their homes for the cold winter days. Sometimes the result of this
painstaking is seen in the form of an ingenious lamp-shade, far more
beautiful than one could purchase for any amount of money. Then, again,
it will be in the leafy frame for a favorite picture; then again in a
vase, the grouping of branches and tints in such perfect taste, that the
most trained artistic eye could find no flaw or blemish.
Now, with all due deference to _The Nation_, in which this article
appeared, I beg leave most emphatically to express a difference in
opinion; the more so as this increasing interest in floral decorations,
particularly those of the parlor windows, has been a matter of great
congratulation with me; since the latter gives pleasure to many a
passer-by who has neither the means nor time to spend in aught save the
bare necessities of life. How many times I have seen some ragged little
shivering child stand, spell-bound, before some sunlit window, gay with
blossoming plants, and forgetting for the time the dirt and chill and
squalor of her own wretched home! How many times the weary seamstress,
resting her bundle upon the fence outside, while her eyes drank in their
freshness! How many times the laboring man, with his little child beside
him, have I seen, as he raised him upon his shoulder to "see the pretty
flowers." And _this_ is principally why I rejoice that American women
_do_ love Nature. Those people who stop to look from the outside, are
being educated the while to the beautiful, quite unknown to themselves;
and these ladies are providing them this pleasure without cost.
I was very much struck, while in Newport last summer, with the educating
effect of the superb floral decorations about the villas of the wealthy
in that place; for no house there, how humble soever, but had its
little emulative patch of bright flowers, or its climbing vines, or its
window bouquet. No, no; _The Nation_ must have been taking a Rip Van
Winkle nap, I think, when it made this unfounded charge against
"American Women."
* * * * *
GOOD-NIGHT.--How commonplace is this expression, and yet what volumes it
may speak for all future time! We never listen to it, in passing, that
this thought does not force itself upon us, be the tones in which it is
uttered ever so gay. The lapse of a few fatal hours or minutes may so
surround and hedge it in with horror, that of all the millions of words
which a lifetime has recorded, these two little words alone shall seem
to be remembered.
Good-night!
The little child has lisped it, as it passed, smiling, to a brighter
morn than ours; the lover, with his gay dreams of the nuptial morrow;
the wife and mother, with all the tangled threads of household care
still in her fingers; the father, with the appealing eye of childhood
all unanswered.
Good-night!
That seal upon days passed, and days to come. What hand so rash as to
rend aside the veil that covers its morrow?
_RAINY-DAY PLEASURES._
I like a rainy day. None of your drizzling, half-and-half affairs, but
an uncompromising, driving, wholesale, gusty whirlwind of water, that
comes rattling, pell-mell, against the windows, that floods sidewalks,
and swells gutters, and turns umbrellas inside out, and gives the trees
a good shaking. I am sure on that day of slippers and a morning dress
till bedtime. I am sure of time to look over the piles of magazines and
newspapers that have been accumulating. I can answer some of those
haunting letters, or write autographs; I can loll and think; I can put
that wretched-looking desk to rights; I can polish up that time-worn
gold pen; I can empty and refill my inkstand. I can do a thousand
necessary things which a bright, sunshiny day would veto. Of course I
don't want it to keep on raining a month. I shall want to wake some day
and find a bright sky and clean pavements; but meanwhile I delight in
these rattling windows, which make the bright coal-fire look so
pleasant, and secure to me an uninterrupted morning; for whoso robs me
of my morning, robs me of that which does not enrich him, and leaves me
poor indeed. After midday, "come one, come all," etc. But how to make
anybody save a writer understand this, is the question. Why you can't
write at another portion of the day just as well; why you can't make an
exception in their particular case; why an interruption of half an hour
or an hour more or less in the morning should matter--this is
incomprehensible to persons who, at the same time, would think you quite
an idiot, should you undertake to explain to them why uncorked champagne
should be after a while flat and stale. "But I can't come at any other
time," once urged a person, with more frankness than consideration, who
came on her own personal business. Now it is very disagreeable to be
obliged to say "no" more than once to the same person; and yet when
one's necessary and imperative arrangements of time are disregarded, it
is manifestly pardonable. It is a curious fact, however, that authors
themselves, who better than anybody else should understand the
necessities of the case, are often culpable in this regard; they who,
more than anybody else, revel in rainy mornings, or any morning which
secures to them uninterrupted time and thought. I am not sure, after all
my preaching, of not doing the same thing myself. If I should, I trust
nobody will have any scruples about turning me out.
_CHIT-CHAT WITH SOME OF MY CORRESPONDENTS._
The epistles which public persons receive, if published, would not be
credible. Begging letters are a matter of course; often in the
highwayman style of, "hand over and deliver." I had one recently from a
perfect stranger, who wished a cool hundred or so, and mapped out the
circuitous way in which it was to be sent, so that "his folks needn't
know it," with a belief in my spooniness, which an acquaintance with me
would scarcely have warranted. Following close on the heels of this,
came another from a woman, whose ideas of my spare time and common-sense
were about equally balanced. This stranger of the female persuasion,
being hard-up for amusement, wished "a long, racy letter from me, such
as I alone could write, with no religion in it, because she got enough
of that from the minister's wife." It is unnecessary to add that both
these missives found a home in my waste-paper basket. Autograph letters
I do not object to, as they keep me in postage stamps, and my little
"Bright Eyes" in cards to draw dogs and horses upon.
A friend of mine has been delivered from manuscripts sent for perusal,
with the modest accompanying request to find a publisher for the same,
by stating her price to be $200. She has received no request of the kind
since this announcement.
These are some of the annoyances of authors; but, verily, they have
their rewards too. Here comes a letter from my native State, Maine, with
a box of wood mosses and berries to place round the roots of my
house-plants; and as an expression of affection from a stranger who
knows from my writings how well I love such things. She says, in
closing, that she hopes that myself and Mr. Beecher will continue to
write so long as she lives to read. Mr. Beecher may step up and take his
half of this sugar-plum, since he has announced himself a champion of
"candy."
Then before me on my desk is a smiling baby face sent by its parents,
who are strangers to me, if those can be strangers whose hearts warm
toward each other; sent me, they add, "not for a silver cup, but because
some chance words of mine touched their hearts, and so this little one
was named Fanny Fern."
She smiles down upon me whether my sky be cloudy or clear, and in the
light of that smile I will try to write worthily; for "their angels do
always behold the face of my Father."
Here lie two letters on my desk from strangers regarding an article of
mine. One warmly indorses the sentiments therein expressed, and calls
upon "God to bless me" for their expression. The other dissents
entirely, and commends me to the notice of a _far different Power_, for
disseminating such wrong-headed notions. Thank you both! I am used to
both styles of epistles. There's nothing I contend for more than
individuality of opinion; this would be a stupid world enough if we all
thought, felt, and acted after one universal programme; everybody must
see things from their own standpoint and through their own spectacles;
and, provided they use civil language, should "have the floor" in turn
to air their ideas. It might be well to suggest that, in commenting on a
newspaper article, care should be taken that it be first thoroughly
read, that the writer's meaning be not misinterpreted; if this were done
in many cases, the foundation for an adverse opinion would be quite
knocked from under. Authors must expect the penalties as well as the
rewards of their labors; but one of the most trying is to be accused of
sentiments and feelings which they hold in utter abhorrence. Still, he
would make small progress on a journey, who should stop to hurl a stone
at every barking creature at his heels; therefore, in such cases, let
patience have her perfect work, and let the victim keep steadily moving
on, with an eye fixed upon the goal in the distance. But when you have
unintentionally wounded a gentle spirit, which grieves all the more
because it conscientiously believes that you have done harm, ah! then,
none would be sorrier than the present writer; none would go farther to
soothe the hurt; none would try harder to agree in opinion, consistently
with self-respect. But if every writer stopped to consider whether his
readers would be pleased, or the contrary, with his sentiments, instead
of busying himself with the subject on hand for the moment, it would be
like the clouding in of the sun on a clear morning. Everything would be
reduced to one colorless level. The bright tints taken away, made
brighter by the sometime shadows, could give a landscape tame enough,
spiritless enough, to engender hypochondria. Surely the world of to-day
is more liberal than this. Surely it is learning "to agree to differ."
Surely it knows by this time that a good life is of more importance than
creeds or beliefs. Surely in this year of our Lord, 1867, the days of
the Inquisition are past both for editors and writers, and the watchword
of to-day--and, thank God, for to-morrow, and the day after--is
progress, not paralysis.
Having said this, I consider that I have cleared the deck for action, as
far as my own ship is concerned. A stray shot won't frighten or
discourage me; on the contrary, it only makes me step round the
livelier, to see that my guns are in working order. Then, again, any one
who wishes to hail me, and haul alongside in a friendly manner, shall be
always certain of a kind salute from me.
A lady whose life, like that of many others, has not run smoothly
through a bed of flowers, writes me "to tell her the secret of courage,
which she is sure I know."
I do not profess to speak for others, but the secret of all the courage
I ever had is a firm belief in immortality, and in its satisfactory
unriddling of this life of _seeming_ cross-purposes. Without this I can
never tell how either man or woman can learn to look their dead in the
face, or what is oftener much harder to do, to look their living in the
face. I can never tell how they can lay their distracted heads upon
their pillows at night, without praying that they may never wake to
another sunrise, or how they can stagger to their feet seventy times
seven, after prostrations of body and spirit, which come one after
another, like the blows of some avenging fiend. I cannot tell else how
they can see the good crushed and defeated and apparently extinguished,
and the unscrupulous and bad receiving all homage, and sitting
triumphant in high places. I cannot tell else how the wretched mother
can take, lovingly and patiently, to her heart _another_ little one,
when her failing strength is already tasked to the utmost to care for
little brothers and sisters, who, having a father, are yet fatherless.
It must be only because _her_ eyes can see clearly "Our Father who art
in heaven." I look with sorrowing wonder upon those who, passing in and
out of their pleasant, and as yet unbroken, homes, refuse to see the
marks of blood upon their door-post, betokening the death of the
first-born. I marvel that these steppers upon flowers childishly make no
provision for the pitfalls concealed beneath them. I wonder at those
who, laying their treasure all up in _one_ place, never think, in this
world of change, of the day of bankruptcy.
I do _not_ wonder, when their household gods are shivered, that such
exclaim, "Ye have taken away my idols, and _what have I left_?" or that
suicide or lunacy are often the results.
It is only they who, in such crises, believe in "Him who doeth all
things well," that have anything "left." It is only such who have
courage for what sorrow soever is yet in store for them, in a life which
for the moment seems robbed of all its sunshine. It is only they who
have learned to live out of themselves, and who can yield--tearfully it
may be, but unrepiningly--their earthly hopes and treasures up.
This is all the "courage" I know which will help us to look upon the
dear dead face with patient resignation, or take up again the next
morning the weary, vexed burden of life, until we are summoned to lay it
down.
LUCIA:--I am sorry that in your innocence you should have placed any
dependence upon the statements of "a New York Correspondent." It is a
pity to pull down any of the fine air-castles they are in the habit of
building; still it is my duty to inform you that these gentry often
describe, with the greatest minuteness, authors and authoresses whom
they have never seen, manufacturing at the same time little personal
histories concerning these celebrities, valuable only as ingenious
specimen "bricks, made without straw." It matters little to the writers
whether nature has furnished the authoress about whom they romance with
black eyes or blue, brown hair or flaxen; whether nature made her a
six-foot grenadier, or a symmetrical pocket edition of womanhood; the
description answers all the same for the provincial paper for which it
was intended, and these Ananias and Sapphira gentry find that a spicy
lie pays as well as the truth--at least till they are found out. No,
madam; notwithstanding the statements of your valuable "New York
Correspondent" for the ----, I have no "daughters married;" I never
"wear a black stocking on one foot and a white one on the other, at the
same time, to attract attention;" I never "rode on the top of an
omnibus;" I don't "smoke cigarettes or chew opium;" I have no personal
knowledge concerning the "mud-scow," "handcart," "cooking stove," and
"hotel," that you have his authority for saying have been severally
"named for me." I am not "married to Mr. Bonner," who has a most
estimable wife of his own. I "never delivered an address in public;" and
with regard to "the amount I have made by my pen," you and the special
"New York Correspondent" are quite at liberty to speculate about it,
without any assistance from me. As to my "religious creed," the first
article in it is, "Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy
neighbor."
A gentleman writes me to know "if it is true that I boldly, and
unwinkingly, and unblushingly stated, over my own signature, and
contrary to the usual custom of my sex, that I was fifty-eight years
old."
Well, sir, I did. Why not? I feel prouder of that fact, and of my being
the grandmother of the handsomest and smartest grandchild in this or any
other country, than of any other two facts I have knowledge of. I can't
conceive why men, or women either--for this squeamishness about one's
age, I find, is not at all a thing of sex--should care one penny about
it. I say again, I _am_ "fifty-eight," and I am glad of it. I have had
my day, and I am quite willing that every other woman should have hers.
* * * * *
WILL PARENTS TAKE HEED?--On all hands complaints are made of the
increasing ill-health of our school-children. Now who is to take this
matter in hand? Who is to say there shall be absolutely _no_ lessons
learned out of school, unless the present duration of school hours shall
be shortened? It needs, we think, only that the parents shall themselves
_insist_ upon this to effect it. Why wait till brain-fever has set in?
Why wait till little spines are irretrievably crooked? And of what
mortal use is it to keep on pouring anything into a vessel when it is
incapable of holding any more, and is only wasted upon the ground?
_MY LIKING FOR PRETTY THINGS._
"Oh, you luxurious puss!" That remark was addressed to me, because I
said I would like to be lulled to sleep each night, and awoke each
morning by strains of sweet music. There's no harm in imagining things,
I hope, provided one goes quietly and ploddingly on in what the
ministers call "the path of duty." Now, for instance, sometimes I amuse
myself planning beautiful forms for dishes, and cups, and plates, and
glasses; beautiful patterns for carpets and wallpapers; beautiful and
odd frames for pictures; beautiful loopings and draperies for
window-curtains; and beautiful shapes for chairs and tables. Sometimes I
eat an imaginary breakfast in a room with long windows, opening out into
a lovely garden full of sweet flowers; like lilies of the valley and
roses and mignonette and heliotrope and violets--oh, yes! violets
_everywhere_. Then those lovely "pond lilies" should grow in the water,
at the bottom of the garden, and some of them should be brought in,
fresh, dewy, and cool, and placed on the breakfast-table; and little
birds should hop in, over the threshold of the breakfast-room, for
crumbs, and sing me a song of thanks; and a great, monstrous dog should
lie prone upon the piazza; and vines should wreathe themselves round the
pillars thereof; clematis and sweet pea, and honeysuckles, white and
red, and the gorgeous trumpet-flower; and nobody should be able to find
the chimneys at all, for the lovely blooming Wisteria that should
clamber over the roof. _Such_ trees and such velvet grass as I'd have
around the house! Giant horse-chestnuts and elms and oaks and maples;
and here and there a lovely statue peeping out in some unexpected place.
And then I'd invite you, and you, and you; not because I would like to
make a show-thing of it, but because I would like to see you enjoy it as
much as myself.
Wouldn't it be nice? I _do_ hate _ugly_ things--there's no use in
denying it. Sometimes Mr. Librario brings in one of his profound books,
and lays it, _pro tem._, on my parlor-table; he looks for it shortly,
and finds it not. "I knew it would be banished when I put it there," he
says, "because the binding was so homely."
He pretends, too, that water tastes just as cool poured out from an
ugly-shaped pitcher as out of my pet china one, with the graceful lip,
and vine-wreathed sides and handle; and when I send for "a
headache-cup-of-tea," and add, "Now be sure you bring it in my lovely
blue-tinted cup-and-saucer," he laughs, and asks, "if _that_ will make
my head any better?" Why, of course it will. Now, you see, if I, like a
coward, dodged work and bother, and the disagreeables of life, when they
had to be met, that would be one thing; but I don't; I just take 'em
vigorously by the horns till I get through with them; and so I maintain
that I have a right to my luxurious dreams and my _pretties_, if they do
me any good. Now haven't I? And speaking of that, as I was looking round
the other day, I saw such a dreadful waste of ingenuity that my heart
bled for the misapplied talent of the inventor. It was a straw-colored
butter-dish in the shape of a _man's hat_, ribbon and all complete. The
rim thereof did duty as a saucer, while the divorcible crown was clapped
over the butter. Horrible! Then I saw an egg dish, with an executive
_sitting_ hen, awfully natural, doing duty as a cover. I left the
locality abruptly, fearing I might see a meat-dish cover, in the form of
a pig--snout, tail, bristles and all.
Why, I ask in this connection, am I daily tortured with the sight of
lamps supported by bronze cherubs, appealing piteously to my wide-awake
maternal instincts? And why are my evenings at public places of
amusement spoiled by the sight of galleries of heartless people held up
whole evenings by wretchedly carved female figures, in every stage of
contorted legs, knees, heads, and arms.
"Didn't I tell you that it would be better if you hadn't quite so much
imagination," triumphantly retorts Mr. Cynic.
Very true, you did; but still I don't agree with you; because looking at
_some_ people through that glorified medium, I have been able to
discover virtues--which--otherwise----Yes, sir!
_UNSOUGHT HAPPINESS._
Old stagers know that the way to be happy is to give up all attempts to
be so. In other words, the cream of enjoyment in this life is always
impromptu. The _chance_ walk; the unexpected visit; the unpremeditated
journey; the unsought conversation or acquaintance.
Everybody feels more or less conscious in their "Sunday clothes." Who
does not know the blessing of comfortable everyday apparel, every fold
of which has made intimate acquaintance with the motions and postures of
the owner; and which can be worn without fear of being spoiled, or
rendering the wearer conspicuous. The bonnet which sets lightly on the
head and defies rain; the boots which do not constantly remind the foot
that a chair would be the greatest of all earthly blessings; in short,
that freedom which will let you forget _you_ yourself, is like laying
down a huge bundle which has fettered you weary miles on a dusty, sunny
road, and sitting down, unencumbered, in a shady spot to dream and rest
in a delicious, care-free coolness. It is just so with the mind. The
best things written or spoken have _not_ been written or spoken "to
order." They "_whistled themselves_," as the terror-stricken urchin
remarked to his irate school-ma'am. They came unbidden, in easy, flowing
raiment; not starched and stately, rustling, prim, and conscious. They
came without thought of "what people would say." They stepped out
because the time had come when they _couldn't stay in_. In a word, they
were _natural_ as little children are, and consequently delicious and
fresh.
I solemnly aver that, the moment anybody _tries_ to do or say a good
thing, that moment he shall never be delivered of it, but shall only
experience throes of mortal pain trying. If you build yourself a
beautiful house, and make it a marvel of taste and convenience, in one
of its lovely chambers shall your dead be laid; and you shall wander
heart-sick away from it, to rid yourself of a phantom that will always
follow you, till you turn boldly and face it, and with a strong heart
accept its company.
This incessant _striving_ to be happy! Never, never shall mortals be so
till they have learned to give it over. Happiness _comes_. It will not
be challenged. It glides in only when you have closed the door and
turned your back upon it, and forgot it. It lays a soft hand on your
face when you thought to be alone, and brings a joyful flush of surprise
to your cheek, and a soft light to your weary eye, and ineffable peace
to your soul.
It is a great thing when all that can possibly happen to a person, save
one's death, _has_ happened. It is a great thing to have been poor, and
friendless, and nameless, and to have been rich, and famous, and
flattered. It is a great thing to have been young and to have been old.
It is a great thing to have perforated the bubble, Fame, and seen it
collapse before a hungry heart. It is a great thing to have had dear
ones, who moulded every thought and action, from the rising to the
setting sun, and then to have seen them suddenly vanish like stars from
the sky, and to have folded one's paralyzed hands in the darkness
because there was no earthly future left. It is a great thing to have
suffered and agonized in your own Gethsemane on account of it, till that
very suffering brings you to be glad and contented that _they_ are in a
world where all tears are wiped from all eyes. It is a great thing to
rise slowly and take up the burden of life again and plod mechanically
on. It is a great thing to be calm and unmoved when brutal pens, to
point a coarse paragraph, unearth one's sacred dead. It is a great thing
to lock up chambers in one's soul, and sit down by the closed doors,
lest some apathetic or unkind ear should hear the pained cries you only
want time to smother. It is a great thing to have encountered all of
malice, and envy, and uncharitableness, that the world has to offer, so
that its repetition can only be to the ear a dull, unmeaning sound. It
is a great thing so to have weighed human judgment that its Aye or No is
a matter of indifference in the light of--_to come_.
True; before the sensitive and tender-hearted can reach that point,
rivers of tears must have been shed and millions of sighs heaved. Scores
of suns must have set on days of torturing length, and scores of
mornings _too many_ must have dawned. Uncounted hours must have been
spent reaching out in the darkness for that which the soul has never
found, or, finding, has lost; and thousands of times must the weary
hands have fallen to the side in utter helplessness.
But this churchyard of the soul passed through, where every step is upon
some buried hope, what is the petty noise and dust of the highway about
which others fume and complain? What is it to the unconscious if rudely
jostled in passing? What is it if a malicious whipster spatter mud? What
is it if a rude voice accost, or the right of the road be clamorously
contended? when all voices, all roads are alike; when delay or speed
matters not; when a choice about _anything_ seems utterly ridiculous,
and all one's faculties are lost in astonishment at the worry and fret
and perturbation of those who have not undergone the same ossifying
process as yourself.
After all, some great sorrow is surely essential to the humanizing of
every soul. Never till then can it offer anything but lip sympathy to
those who have gasped through the sea of trouble. How can he who has
known only days of comparative prosperity interpret the despairing sigh
of the friendless? How can he who has never dropped tears into the open
grave of _his own dead_ measure the agony of that last, lingering look,
as they are hidden forever from human sight? Till a vacant chair stands
by his own hearth, how can he ever understand why one should still keep
on grieving for that which can never be recalled? Till his heart turns
sickening away from some festive anniversary in which a missing voice
once made music, how can he see why one need be doleful on such a day as
that? Till he has closed his ears to some familiar strain which evoked
associations too painful to bear, how can he tell "Why you cannot forget
all that, since it makes you so miserable"? To answer such, is to talk
to the blind of colors, to the deaf of sounds, to the dead of life and
motion. Never, till his own house is darkened, till the badge of
desolation flutters from his own door, till sunshiny days return
merciless in their brightness, and stormy ones send his thoughts
shuddering to a shelterless grave; never till he has tried changing the
place, but still _always_ only to keep the old pain, can he understand
the desperation with which at last one sits helplessly down, to face
that which it can neither look upon nor flee from.
_DIGNITY OF HUMAN NATURE._
The philosopher is fond of talking to me about what he calls "the
dignity of human nature." The pains he takes to bolster himself up in
this shaky belief of his, would do credit to a better cause. Obstinacy
of course is at the bottom of it, for he no more believes in it than I
do. How can he, and he living and breathing in this sublunary sphere
_himself_? That's just what I said to him this morning; for, thank
Providence, I can generally speak my mind on most points. What did he
say? That's my affair; suffice it to say, he sticks to it. I made him
sit down; then I sat down on his knee, to make sure of a listener. Then
I took in my hand the morning papers. In the first place, there was a
man of sixty who had been coaxed in where he shouldn't go, and robbed
while there. Secondly, there was a justice of the peace sentenced to the
Penitentiary for robbery. Thirdly, there was a clergyman convicted of
bigamy. Fourthly, there was a husband, who had been trying, with an iron
shovel, to find out whether his wife had any brains. Fifthly, there was
another who had decided an argument by biting off a portion of his
antagonist's nose. Sixthly, there were two lads, of the respective ages
of eight and thirteen, who had been murderously perforating each other's
intestines with sharp penknives. Seventhly, there was a man in
Massachusetts who had lately numbered his twenty-fifth child. Eighthly,
there was a "gentleman" found, in the small hours, sitting on the cold
sidewalk in ---- street, hiccupping for a waiter "to bring him another
bottle of champagne."
"Well," says the philosopher, when I stopped to take breath, "these are
only the exceptions that prove the rule." Exceptions, quotha! when I
hadn't yet dug into the nauseous kennel of the advertising list!
_Exceptions_? but what's the use of talking? Does not every morning's
new issue furnish similar "exceptions"? Certainly. Besides, didn't I put
_this_ catechism to him? How came ---- to give the wife of an official
high in power that splendid grand piano? There's a _dignified_ way to
secure, through a wheedling female tongue, a fat office. Not to mention
a carriage and horses unexpectedly placed at the disposal of Senator
----'s wife. Last, but not least, look at "Jeff.," first and last, from
his attempted flight to his boyish refusal to eat his prison fare,
bestowing it gratuitously in the faces of his guards; and then kicking
and swearing, while his naughty little hands and feet were being
fastened together therefor. Dignity? when I look at human beings, and
think of what they daily and hourly do, I am seized with convulsions of
laughter at the idea. Sometimes the devil possesses me, in the presence
of some solemn "hark from the tombs" kind of an individual, to picture
it, till I am tied up with cramps trying to keep from laughing. Nobody
will ever know what I've suffered in this way. Dignity? You should see
it with its boots up on the window-sill of some hotel lounging-room
facing Broadway, with its mouth wide open, thus--O; its hat rakishly set
on one temple, and its eyes somnolently closed to the charms of the lady
pedestrians, who wouldn't miss the picture for sixpence. Dignity?
Yesterday I saw a man nearly cut in two with corsets. Another trying to
hop round hilariously in a pair of corn-murdering boots. Another roaring
out in an omnibus like a mad bull because the cold-fingered driver gave
him a "soiled stamp."
Dignity of human nature? Where is it when a man is in the dentist's
chair? Where, when a waiter spills coffee on his shirt-bosom or hot soup
on his trousers? One might as well not stiffen himself up against facts
like these, said I to the philosopher. We don't stop being children,
this side the grave, that ever I could find out. The toys we mostly
scramble for, like those that dangle from the Christmas-tree, suit but
the present hour, and, with all their gilding and glittering lights,
will one day be but broken rubbish on our hands. When a man is dead he
looks dignified; but while he is alive, with a pipe stereotyped to his
lips, or alternately dipping his _soup_-erfluous mustache in a plate of
soup and sopping it with a napkin; or, as the country-woman said of her
pet minister, "sitting down, spitting round socionable," I really can't
entertain the idea of "Dignity." The more I try the more I laugh.
Frivolous, I grant; but what were woman without frivolity? Not a man
would speak to us.
* * * * *
WHAT MINISTERS NEED.--We have often thought that ministers need their
congregations as much, if not more, than congregations need their
ministers. Parishioners are not apt to look at it in this way. The
matter of salary nowadays, thank God, is, as a general thing, properly
considered; but the matter of "holding up his hands" spiritually, is
not. Remember, he is a man like yourselves, subject to discouragement,
and needs--oh, more often than you know who only look on his face once a
week--that affectionate relationship which you delight in between your
own children and yourself. You wish their respect, but would you be
satisfied with only that? Do you not delight in the beaming eye and
constant, kindly, heartfelt recognition of your presence? Just so your
minister feels toward you, else he were no minister. Then do not treat
him as you would a Fourth-of-July orator, or a stray lecturer, to be
paid and dismissed, and forgotten when his message is delivered,
careless after that whether he be crushed or shipwrecked on his way
home. Remember the phrase, "holding up his hands." It has a world of
significance, looked at in this light.
_ALL ABOUT DOCTORS._
There be many kinds of Doctors; allopathic--homoepathic--and mongrel.
Luckily every family swears by its own, and believes in no salvation
beyond _his_ dictum. There is your fashionable Doctor who lives in a
fine house; rides to his "cases" with a servant in livery; utterly
eschews all gutter localities, and never troubles himself to go out when
his head aches, or in bad weather. His manner of drawing off his gloves
is pompous and impressive. Nurse in the corner sinks down into her
slippers, utterly quenched by it. While he warms his hands silently at
the fire, he is impressing all present with an idea of his immense
profundity. This done, he fixes his eyes on the ceiling, and counts his
patient's pulse; then comes the tongue examination; after which he
relapses into another profound contemplation of the ceiling; during
which time every tick of the clock seems solemn as fate. Then follows
the cabalistic writing; a dead letter to everybody but this Grand Mogul
and the apothecary. The gloves are then drawn on, and bowing to the thin
air, our elegant Doctor delivers himself again into the care of his
liveried servant.
Then there is your old-fashioned Doctor; whose patients "will have him,"
though he has wanted gradually to leave off practice for several years,
in favor of new aspirants. The cut of his coat is a matter that don't
affect his practice. He smiles blandly as the other Doctor, with the
liveried servant, drives past, while he trudges independently on foot,
and mentally shakes his head at "new fashions." _He_ is civil without
regard to externals. A baby is a baby to him, whether it comes into the
world with a nice wardrobe ready for its back, or the contrary. He is
perfectly willing to tell a man who places his stomach in his hands what
he is going to put into it, and what he expects it to do to him. He is
interested philanthropically, as well as scientifically, in the most
minute symptom of the most ordinary patient, who is encouraged by the
sympathetic magnetism of his voice and eye to "tell him just how he
feels." He scribbles no unnecessary recipes for his own benefit, or the
apothecaries'; and speaks so cheerfully when he leaves, that the sick
man half doubts, after all, if anything is the matter with him.
Then there is your young, new-fledged Doctor, who gives physic as a
little boy touches off a firecracker, rather uncertain whether it will
blow him, or his neighbor, or both, sky-high.
Then there is your Ladies' Doctor, "the handsome creature," who lifts
his eyes with well-acted astonishment that these dear beings can endure
a pain, or an ache, and still live; who says just what they want him
to, in the way of prescribing "little journeys" and savory messes; and
coaxes all their little troubles over their lips till they are more
astonished at themselves than the Doctor is at them.
Then there is your blunt pop-gun Doctor, who has no time nor inclination
for nonsense, and jerks out his opinion as he would a mouthful of
tobacco; and they who don't like it, are welcome to move out of the way.
Who feels your pulse, and pronounces you a prospective dead man, or
woman, as coolly as if the intelligence concerned you no more than
himself.
Then there is the eccentric Doctor, who advertises himself by some
peculiarity of costume, like knee-breeches, or cocked hat, or long,
flowing hair, and is never better pleased than when everybody is saying:
"Who _can_ that be?"
Then there is your celebrated Surgeon, who has long since bade good-by
to his own nerves, and who looks at every man, woman, and child with a
view to their "cutting up." When about to commence an operation before a
class of gaping students, mark the gleaming, circling flourish of his
pet-knife in the air, before descending upon his chloroform-bound
victim! The operation properly and deftly performed, _his_ part is done.
The Almighty is responsible for the rest.
Finally, and lastly, it is all very nice to laugh at Doctors when one is
sound and well; but let a good smart pain come, and none so ready, as
those who do so, to send a telegraphic summons for their speedy
appearance. With this substantial proof of their power, let them snap
their fingers at criticism and be jolly.
* * * * *
HOW TO PUT THE CHILDREN TO BED.--_Not_ with a reproof for any of that
day's sins of omission or commission. Take any other time _but_ bedtime
for that. If you ever heard a little creature sighing or sobbing in its
sleep, you could never do this. Seal their closing eyelids with a kiss
and a blessing. The time will come, all too soon, when they will lay
their heads upon their pillows lacking both. Let them then at least have
this sweet memory of a happy childhood, of which no future sorrow or
trouble can rob them. Give them their rosy _youth_. Nor need this
involve wild license. The judicious parent will not so mistake my
meaning. If you have ever met the man or the woman whose eyes have
suddenly filled when a little child has crept trustingly to its mother's
breast, you may have seen one in whose childhood's home "Dignity" and
"Severity" stood where Love and Pity should have been. Too much
indulgence has ruined thousands of children; too much _Love_ not one.
_LETTER TO HENRY WARD BEECHER._
"There has been a very jolly set of children in my house
since the box [of mixed candies] came. I have made a
scientific analysis with such means as I had at hand--my
tongue and palate--and am of opinion that it is pure, and am
sure that it is _good_ (I know that Fanny Fern is sorry that
she ever wrote a word against candy, and stands pouting, to
think that I have all the sweets on my side)."--_Mr. Beecher
in N. Y. Ledger._
Pouting? Not a bit of it. After I make up my mind a thing is past being
helped, I always turn my giant mind to something else.
Now, "your riverence," your love for "sweets" is not a thing of
yesterday. I mind me of a young man, of your name, who once came to a
boarding-school, where I, at sixteen, was placed for algebra and
safe-keeping, both of which I hated, and who invited me to take several
surreptitious rides with him, which I did; and which will probably first
come to the knowledge of his sister, my teacher, through this number of
the New York _Ledger_. What Plymouth church has escaped, in the way of
an infliction, by that young man's going to college about that time, and
my return to the "bosom of my family," to learn the "Lost Arts,"
bread-making and button-hole stitching, Plymouth church may now for the
first time learn.
And now, having paid you off for your little public dig at me, I proceed
magnanimously to admit, that I believe a bit of _pure_ candy, given to a
child as dessert after a wholesome meal, is perfectly harmless. But not
even the gifted pastor of Plymouth church, whose sermons, to me, are
like a spring of water in the desert, can ever make me believe that an
indiscriminate nibble of even _pure_ candy between meals is good for any
child.
Now, Mr. Beecher, we are both grandfathers--I mean, _you_ are a
grandfather, and I am a grandmother. I now propose to pit my grandchild
against yours on the candy question, and see which, in the future,
brings us the heaviest dentist and doctor's bills. We won't scratch each
other's eyes out now, both on account of "auld lang syne," and on
account of the dignity of our position--I mean the dignity of _yours_.
I have one thing against you besides candy, and that is, that I can
never get a seat at your church. As everybody is giving you advice, of
which, by the way, I too have plenty, I advise you to remove to New
York, that I may be able, without getting up in the middle of the night
in order to cross the ferry, to get a seat in one of your pews. You have
been in Brooklyn now for a long time, and if the people over there
haven't yet become angels, it is high time you tried your hand on the
other kind in New York.
I propose the site of the present Bible House, as being a nice walk from
my residence, which is the main thing to be considered. I will agree to
find your pulpit in flowers--(not of oratory; that is for you!)
Hoping that you will be able to turn from your beloved box of candy to
an early consideration of this question, I am--leaving out candy--
Your faithful adherent, FANNY FERN.
* * * * *
ONE KIND OF FOOL.--It is very instructive sometimes, at a place of
country resort, to watch the woman who has come only to exhibit her
changes of wardrobe. For a day or two, possibly longer, she goes through
her solitary dress-rehearsals. Finding at last that the rest of the
boarders wear rubbers and water-proofs, and live out of doors in all
weathers, the woman who came to dress, gets weary of waiting for
admirers, and reluctantly joins the sensible majority, rather than be
left alone; but generally with an apologetic, "How odd it seems, not to
dress for dinner as one does in the city," by way of letting herself
gently down from her snobbish pedestal. We are happy to add, however,
that the number of women who go into the country to dress is becoming
fewer every year; folly in this regard having reached its ultimatum of
loathsomeness.
_THE AMENITIES OF THE TABLE._
Fastidiousness, in any regard, is a misfortune, as two-thirds of mankind
have no such word in their dictionary. But in matters of the table we
claim for every human being a large margin of license as to
peculiarities of taste. Now _helping at table_ is a science. To tact and
skill your helper must needs add benevolence. He or she must be capable
of comprehending that too large a slice, or too brimming a spoonful, may
save the trouble of helping twice, in more ways than one, as it may
effectually destroy the appetite. Your helper must not suppose that
safely to land a piece of meat on the plate, instead of the table-cloth,
his or her duty is done; on the contrary, the boundary line between
squash and spinach, cranberry sauce and cauliflower, may be distinctly
defined with advantage to many stomachs and palates. Nor must your
helper close his or her eyes to the fact that some specified joint, or
bone, or slice, may be disagreeable, through some unexplainable though
very decided antipathy. Nor must he or she disdain to be informed, if
ignorant of the fact, that a bit of butter has a better relish if it be
not flattened down on your plate, after the manner of an apothecary
spreading a plaster. Then gravy is undoubtedly a meritorious liquid when
one has a confidential physician, and money enough to fee him; but as
this is not always the case, one may be pardoned for not wishing to have
it taken for granted that it is to be soused over his food, without
permission. _Once_ I saw a philanthropic carver. His patience and
assiduity were beyond all praise; but in an evil day, in a philosophical
mood, inspecting him too closely with admiring eyes, I discovered the
fatal spring of his amiability. It was only a blind for the secretion of
his favorite titbits till, his labors over, the delicious process of
mastication should commence for _him_! That's what comes of looking too
closely into things. It has happened to me before.
The Smiths believe that edibles were made to eat; and that digestion is
a humbug invented by the doctors; and that milk and cider, and pastry
and vinegar, and candy and raisins, and flapjacks and pickles, and
jellies, can be eaten in successive strata at any hour in the
twenty-four, and in any condition of body or mind, and repose quietly
together like "the Happy Family." The Smiths believe in getting up in
the middle of the night to eat and then going to bed upon it; they
believe in taking a bath alike on a full or an empty stomach, and they
utterly despise exercise. If they are sick, it is never on account of
any of _these_ barbaric heresies.
Now, the Joneses, having studied physiology, look upon food as a
necessary evil. No Rabbi could more utterly sniff down pork. Grease in
every form is tabooed; preserves and pastry sent to Coventry, or only
set before company, who have an undoubted right to kill themselves if
fashion requires it. The Joneses, when helping you at table, always
prefix the offered morsel with, Pray take it, it is so healthful; or, It
will assist your digestion; or, It is an excellent corrective; till the
association between potatoes and physic, meat and medicine, is so
intimate, that one ceases to regard these edibles in the light of food.
You are cautioned against veal because of necessity it must be _young_
meat; against fish, lest it may aggravate a possible scrofulous
tendency; against tea, because the leaves may have been dried on copper;
against milk, because you are unacquainted with the pedigree of the cow
from whence it came. Bread is microscopically inspected for imaginary
adulterations, and after all these precautions the timid Joneses,
restricted to the simplest forms of two or three permissible and
monotonous eatables, swallow even these nervously, and with an eye to
the undertaker; and if attacked by headache, submit to it meekly, as a
penance for some unknown infringement of nature's law.
Now the Adamses believe in _quantity_, not _quality_. An ounce of
paving-stones is as good as an ounce of mutton; in other words, you may
eat your grandmother with impunity, if you only confine yourself to a
small piece, and are jolly over it. Luckily for butchers, confectioners,
grocers, doctors, and sextons, each of these hobbies finds its
followers.
I believe in eating. The person who affects to despise it either
comforts himself with private bites, or is unfitted by disease to eat at
all. It does not disenchant me, as it does some, to see "a woman eat." I
know that the dear creatures cannot keep up their plumpness on saw-dust,
or the last "Lady's Book." I look at them as the future mothers of
healthy little children; and I say mentally, Eat, my dears, and be
satisfied; but be sure that you take a good walk after you have digested
your food. Still there may be limits to one's tolerance even in this
regard. The other morning, at a hotel breakfast, I had been
contemplating with great interest a fair creature, who took her seat
opposite to me, in all the freshness of a maiden's morning toilette.
Smooth hair, tranquil brow, blue eyes, and a little neat white collar
finishing off a very pretty morning-robe; and here you will permit me to
remark that, if women did but know it, but they don't, and never will, a
ball-room toilette is nothing to a neat breakfast dress. Well, my fairy
read the bill of fare, while I admired the long eyelashes that swept her
cheek. Straightway she raised her pretty head, and lisped this order to
the colored waiter at her elbow:
"John! Coffee, Fried Pigs' Feet, Fried Oysters, Omelette, Pork Steak."
_MANY MEN OF MANY MINDS._
It is very curious with what different eyes different people may look
upon the same object. Not long since a lady and gentleman in travelling
arrived at the hotel of one of our largest watering-places just at the
dinner-hour. The lady, preferring a warm meal to an elaborate toilette,
proposed going in "just as they were." Seating themselves in the places
designated by that important personage, the head waiter, they inspected
the tempting bill of fare, gave their orders, and bided their time,
longer or shorter, for their completion; the hotel being overcrowded, it
proved to be _longer_. The lady solaced herself by reviewing the guests.
Presently, touching her companion's arm, she exclaimed: "Look! did you
ever see a more beautiful woman? Look at her throat, and the poise of
her head, and her lovely profile. See! how she smiles! hasn't she a
lovely mouth?" "Pshaw!" replied the gentleman, "I dare say she's well
enough, but do you suppose that boiled mutton I ordered will ever
arrive?"
The other day a beautiful child came into an omnibus with its nurse. It
commenced smiling at all the passengers, pointing its tiny forefinger at
this one and that, by way of making acquaintance. One old gentleman in
the far comer responded by a series of signals with a red-silk pocket
handkerchief, to which the social little baby made ready response.
Another gentleman near, upon whose newspaper the smiling child laid its
hand with trusting fearlessness, looked over his spectacles at it with a
frown, gave an ugly grunt, and shortly turned his back, to prevent a
repetition of the familiarity.
"How did you like the Rev. Mr. ----'s sermon?" asked a gentleman of
another, as they were leaving the church. "Solid gold, every word of
it," replied he; "sound doctrine eloquently presented." "Strange!"
replied the querist; "for my own part, I was so disgusted, that I could
with difficulty keep my seat." "What! a minister raise a smile on the
faces of his audience in such a solemn place! I wonder what my old
pastor, Dr. Dry-Starch would have thought of such a proceeding! _He_
always taught us that this was a solemn world; and that the man who
laughed in it might very likely be laughing over the very spot where in
time he might be buried."
"How do you like Mr. Theophilus Tennant's new novel?" asked one lady of
another. "Well, if you want my honest opinion," replied the latter, "I
consider it a shallow, egotistical, inflated affair, whatever paid
critics may assert to the contrary." "Possible?" exclaimed the querist;
"why, I was so delighted with it that I had serious thoughts of
addressing a letter of thanks to the owner for the pleasure he had
afforded me, although I never saw or spoke to him."
"What a splendid specimen of a man!" exclaimed Miss Twenty to Mrs.
Thirty-five. "It makes one feel stronger and better to be in the same
room with him." "Heavens!" exclaimed the matron; "I can think of nothing
when I see him but a great, lumbering, overgrown, Newfoundland dog. A
man with so much surplus body to look after can't have much time for
anything else."
And so we might multiply instances _ad infinitum_ (which is about all
the Latin I know). For my own part I don't quarrel with that diversity
of taste which finds pretty wives for ugly husbands, fine, smart
husbands for silly women, full congregations for prosy ministers,
overflowing audiences for flat lecturers, and a reading parish,
notwithstanding her faults, for Fanny Fern.
_MY NOTION OF A WALKING COMPANION._
Of all small miseries, an uncongenial _walking companion_ is the most
annoying. Some people take a walk as they would study the multiplication
table. It is a necessary performance, to be got over as soon as
possible. I am not alluding to that class of human oyster, but to those
who, after close application, or the exhausting wear and fret of
everyday life, feel as though the four walls about them were gradually
contracting, and their chance for breath growing fainter and fainter; to
whom fresh air and the blue sky are as necessary as is dew and sunshine
to flowers; and like them, without which, they as certainly droop and
die;--such will understand what I mean by that misused term--_a walk_.
Not a dawdle, not a feminine "calling" tour; nor an errand of any sort,
for any purpose under heaven, that can be construed into business; but a
dreamy lounge, irrespective of anything but the cool feel of the air on
the heated temples, and the great, ceaseless, murmuring wave of life
beating against the shore of time, bearing you and others on its bosom
wheresoever God willeth. People pass you like moving shadows, you hear
the pleasant hum of their voices, but do not know in your
somnambulistic mood whether they are familiar faces or not. You only
thank God for unfettered limbs, and fresh air, and motion; beyond that,
for the time being, you desire to know nothing. Ah, _then_--to be
unexpectedly linked to some human fidget! Whose limbs jerk this way and
that, as if they were pulled by invisible wires; who goes first fast,
then slow; then pulls you up with a short jerk to look at something; who
bothers you with infinitesimal small talk; who ceaselessly interlards
inquiries which chain you remorselessly to the tug-boat of his or her
ideas, without leave of mental absence for one reprieving moment; and
all this very likely accompanied with the most friendly and amiable
intentions on the part of your entertainer (?). To say "No" and "Yes"
recklessly--and laugh in the wrong place, and go home a million times
more weary than when you started, beside feeling that you have
hopelessly excluded yourself from the list of sane human beings--that's
what I call misery.
But, ah! the ecstatic bliss of walking with one who thinks with you, as
he moves dreamily on without speech--to be free to utter or to be
silent, and no offence given or taken. To be allowed to wander leagues
off, without fear of being rudely jerked back to time, at any
unpropitious moment.
To turn this corner and that, by some mutual magnetic understanding,
that you smile at afterward, when you come to think of it, as strangely
funny and agreeable. To reach your own door-step as rested and
refreshed, and with as cool and tranquil a brow, as if your own mother
had sung you to sleep with the old-time nursery lullaby. To go back with
fresh heart and spirit, to take up your burden of duty where weary
nature had lain it hopelessly down. That's _my_ kind of "walk."
There are certain persons whom to meet is like opening the window of a
close apartment on a delicious June day. The first breath is an
inspiration. You throw back your locks from your heated forehead, and
your weary eyes, and ask nothing but to sit down and let this soother
minister to you. All your cares, and frets, one by one creep away, and a
new life and vigor seem infused into every nerve and muscle. You are not
the same creature that you were ten minutes before. You are ready after
all to do valiant battle with life, though you had supposed yourself
quite surrendered to its everyday, petty, and harassing tyrant
necessities. Exuberant animal strength must needs carry with it
hopefulness and courage; and they whose nerves have been strained and
weakened by past trouble, welcome the breezy, fresh influence of such,
like Heaven's own dew and sunshine. It is a tonic, the blessing of which
the unconscious giver knows not how to appreciate perhaps, but oh how
invaluable to the receiver! A soulful face, an exultant word--a light,
springing step! We raise our weary eyes first in wonder, then in
admiration; and the sympathetic chord thus struck--the brow clears, the
eyes brighten, and life seems--not the curse we morbidly thought it--but
the blessing God intended it.
_MEN TEACHERS IN GIRLS' SCHOOLS._
I am inclined to think, with all due deference to the powers that be,
that _male_ teachers are not best for young girls. It takes a woman, who
understands all the witcheries of the sex, and off whom they glance
harmless, like water off a turtle's back, to deal with these young
kittens; they have more fun than geography can absorb, and are not to be
feruled like a great cub of a boy, whose whole future life will be
license after jacketdom, as decreed by society and the laws; while a
severe woman-discipline surely awaits the most frolicsome girl,
beginning from the moment when she first learns what her heart is made
of, till death stills its yearnings.
And yet I pity a male teacher of girls, whose studied dignity is in a
second dethroned by a single pantomimic gesture of some bright-eyed
young flirt, who _feels_ her power without yet being old enough to
understand it, and with an instinctive coquetry gets on his blind side,
turning all his foreordained frowns into ill-suppressed smiles. How can
he box those little round ears? How can he disfigure those soft, white
palms? How can he--sending all the other pupils home--trust himself,
after school, alone with those bright eyes, to put them through a
subduing tear process? Ten to one the "subduing" is on the other side!
Said I to a little girl, not many mornings since, who was getting ready
for school, "Why do you put on that bright new dress to go, when your
old brown one would do as well?" "Oh," was her reply, "I haven't got my
lesson to-day, and of course I must look pretty." There's
fourteen-year-old female knowledge of human nature for you! Imagine a
boy putting on his best jacket for such a purpose.
There must be discipline, that's certain; but, in my opinion, a man's
head must be gray, not brown or black, if he would enforce it; his blood
must be cold and sluggish, and his ear deaf to the charmer, charm she
never so cunningly, or, certes, his magisterial chair will be set at
naught. Don't I know! Answer me, thou now "Reverend" gentleman, who once
kept me after school for a reprimand, and spent the precious moments
rolling my curls over your fingers, while my comrade was bursting off
her hooks and eyes as she peeped through the key-hole. Not that I uphold
it, but every animal naturally fights with the weapons a good Providence
has given it--and somehow or other I had found that out; though whether
France was bounded south by Rhode Island or not was still a mystery that
I was not in a hurry to solve.
Still, for all that, I pity a male teacher who is set to the impossible
task of making girls "behave." I _should_ pity them more, did I not
know that they keep them in school about four or five hours longer than
they ought. Did I not know what they know, but will persist practically
in ignoring, that the fun has got to come out somehow, or turn to poison
in the blood, and that if teachers won't give it whizzing time _out_ of
school, they must needs have it fly in their faces _in_ school. I should
pity them more, did I not, every day, see their pupils staggering home
under a pile of stupidly written school-books, fit only to kindle the
kitchen fire--thank goodness their little beaux sometimes save their
arms from dislocation, by gallantly carrying them home for them. Do I
approve of boy-beaux? Why not? Don't every rosebud draw its
humming-bird? Did not God make them both for this harmless, innocent
delight? You had _your_ boy-beaux, madam; I had mine, by the score. Only
teach your daughter to love you well enough to conceal nothing, however
minute, from you; only show her that you have a heart, and don't want
her to pluck out her's, and my word for it, no harm will come of her
"boy-beaux." It is your repression that does the mischief--your ignoring
your own youth and hers. The child who has leave to pluck the apple
often leaves it untouched, _undesired_, on the tree.
Meantime our male teacher stands there, with his hands in his pockets,
waiting to see what is to be done with _him_. Well, his pockets are the
best place for his hands when he is keeping a girls' school; and with
this advice I leave him, until he is sixty or so, when, if he chooses
to open a girls' school, I promise him at least, that he will not go to
sleep during the services.
Now let no conservative accuse me of upholding school rebellion. It is
because I do _not_ do this that I express my preference for women
teachers, both principals and assistants, for girls; having an
understanding of, and impervious to, girl witcheries, whom the little
rogues know, having been girls themselves, can see through them, and for
whom pretty looks or dresses will never answer instead of well-digested
lessons.
* * * * *
A SAFE AMUSEMENT.--All children are fond of animal pets, but it is so
difficult to manage such pets in a city that no family can indulge its
children's tastes in that respect to any great extent. No one can have
watched the children in the Central Park, as they gaze at and linger
over the bears and tigers and strange birds, without wishing that the
little zoologists had a wider field and better opportunities for
pursuing the study of natural history. There ought to be a permanent
collection of animals and birds in New York, in some good situation,
where children and young people could have ample opportunity, under
proper restrictions, to indulge their natural taste for natural history.
Every hour thus employed would be a safeguard against the myriad
temptations to vice and idleness which pervade the city.
_MY CALL ON "DEXTER."_
The other evening I went up to Fifty-sixth street to see the new stable.
Mr. BONNER was out, but his horses were not. Now I didn't go to see them
do their 2.40's, but to gaze at them artistically; and, of course, I
wanted them to stand long enough for me to do it, which I believe is
_not_ their normal condition. I had a fancy, too, for inspecting them
through the bars of their respective doors; for, you see, my nerves had
been thrown a little out of gear by a huge blood-hound, that made for me
as I was entering the stable-yard, but who, in consideration of my being
a _Ledger_ contributor, let me off easy in my boots.
Well, the first thing that struck my New England bred eyes was the
perfect neatness and polish and beauty, of every inch of floor and
ceiling in that stable. A place for everything, and everything in its
place, and Mrs. BONNER nothing to do with it either! Shining harness,
shining vehicles, big wheels and small seats, and nothing to hold on
to--but the natty reins; a perfectly awful reflection to me, but then
Mr. BONNER'S arm _is_ an arm! On the wall was something the size of a
full moon; _red_, with a fanciful oak frame. It looked like a huge
pincushion, and sure enough it was. Stuck full of wooden pins, to fasten
the blankets of those horses round their wicked, strong necks. If it
hadn't been for that blood-hound, which I heard sniffing round after me
from the outside, I should have inspected it more carefully; but it was
fastened to the wall near the door, and--well, I thought I'd pass on to
see _Dexter_. My dear! your new seal-skin sack isn't softer, browner,
nor more lovely than that creature's skin. And as to his tail, your
latest "switch" is nothing to it! Mr. BONNER not being present to
Rarey-fy him, he kicked out his hind leg at me in a very suggestive
manner; so, with an Oh, gracious! I requested to have his door closed,
for there was a glitter in his eye which was not at all Scriptural.
Besides, I once flew through Harlem Lane behind him, and didn't get the
color back into my lips for a week after. To compose myself I passed on
to _Lantern_, the Grandpa of the stable, though I _have_ known
Grandparents rather frisky in my day. He was reposing on his laurels,
and turned round his head to me as if to ask, Why don't you? Alas! I
have yet to earn them, and unlike him, I have to pin on my own blanket,
and comb my own hair, and buy my own shoes; that's why I don't, old
_Lantern_.
Then I went to see _Startle_, as if I needed startling any more, when I
had been muttering paternosters ever since I saw that horrid
blood-hound. Well, _Startle_ is a beauty, and he knew it too. Just like
a piece of satin, with his tail sweeping the floor. After I had looked
at the whole ten, I said to myself, if ever a man earned _the right_ to
all these beautiful creatures, ROBERT BONNER has, from the time he first
began to set types in a printing office, down, or rather _up_, to the
present day. Every proud moment that he enjoys them, in or out of that
handsome stable, he is fairly entitled to; and he is entitled to that
blood-hound, and I wouldn't rob him of that for the wide world!
* * * * *
LADIES "WITHOUT AN OBJECT."--Ladies often give as a reason why they do
not take exercise, "Oh, I don't like to go out without an object." Now
nothing could prove more clearly their deplorable physical condition
than this remark; since, to a well-organized frame, motion and fresh air
are positive daily necessities; irrespective of any "object," save the
cool play of the wind on the temples, and the healthful glow which
follows a brisk walk. Medicine is a joke to it. No doctor, be his
diploma ever so pretentious, could effect with simple means a more
magical result. Considered only as "a beautifier," we marvel that the
female portion of the community neglect it. A little chilliness in the
air? A little sprinkling of rain? A high wind? An inability to display a
fine dress? What puerile reasons for growing sallow, irritable, and
sick.
_THE POETRY OF WORK._
Executive people have generally the reputation, from their opposites, of
being ill-tempered people. Self-trained to the observance of the
admirable old maxim, that "whatever is worth doing at all, is worth
doing well," they are naturally disgusted with dawdling inefficiency and
sloth in any shape. Chary of the precious flying moments, the most
intolerable of vexations to them is to have their time trespassed upon,
and wasted, in a million petty and unnecessary ways, by the stupidity or
culpable thoughtlessness of those about them. Now what is called "an
easy person," _i.e._, a person who is not self-contained, on whose hands
time hangs heavily, cannot be made to understand why a person of an
opposite description need make a fuss about a few minutes. Why, "what is
a few minutes?" they ask. Much, much in the course of a lifetime to
those who carefully husband them. Those "few minutes" may make all the
difference between an educated and an uneducated person; between a man
independent in his circumstances, and a man always under the grinding
heel of want; all the difference between intelligence, thrift, and
system on one hand, and ignorance, discomfort, and disaster on the
other. Those "few minutes," carefully improved as they occur, have
filled libraries with profound and choice volumes; those "few minutes,"
saved for mental cultivation, have enabled men, and women too, to shed
over a life of toil a brightness which made even monotonous duty a
delight. Such can ill afford to be robbed of them by those unable to
appreciate their value. Like the infinitesimal gold scrapings of the
mint, they may not be purloined, or carelessly brushed away by idle
fingers; but conscientiously gathered up and accounted for; to be molten
and stamped with thought, then distributed to bless mankind.
What a pleasure it is _to see anything perfectly done_. I never go
"shopping" that I do not look on with admiration while the storekeeper
so deftly does up my parcels. I believe no _woman_ who has not acquired
the professional shopkeeping touch, can do this decently. I like, too,
to watch a group of men painting a house, provided the platform upon
which they stand is so strong that my blood does not curdle lest their
merry song should never be finished. With what a dexterous, careful,
delicate touch they brighten up the unsightly wall; there is fascination
to the looker-on in their skilful progress. Carpentering, too, I like;
what pretty, silky, curled shavings they plane off; how many times, when
a child, I placed them on my head for ringlets, have I mentally resolved
to be a carpenter's wife, that I might always have plenty. How sure the
stroke of their hammer upon the nail which a woman would bend, or break
in pieces, beside jamming her fingers to a jelly. Mark the sturdy
porter, too, as he tosses a huge "Saratoga trunk" lightly as a feather
upon his back, and poising it, marches up uncounted stairs without
tripping or bumping.
I like to see a strong man holding a fiery horse by a slight rein and a
strong will. I like to see the oarsman in his red-shirt sleeves, pulling
away over the sparkling water; I like to see the rough, red-faced
omnibus driver making change, halting, gesticulating, hallooing to
passers-by, all in the same breath. I like anything that is wide-awake
and efficient, and if it be beautiful at the same time, so much the
better. I like to see the cook toss eggs into a foam so nicely, with
head turned the other way, watching pots, skillets, and frying-pans, and
at the same time giving orders to half a dozen subordinates. I like to
see a milliner twist a ribbon into a thousand fanciful shapes while
talking, or selecting a rose from one box, a green spray from another,
then a spear of wheat, a daisy and a poppy, twine them together with an
artist's taste and touch. I like to see the dressmaker fit the glossy
silk to the curve of limbs as soft as the silky fabric. I like to see
the flushed pressman sliding the damp newspapers from the "form" without
a flaw or a wrinkle. I like to see a mother strip her little, tender
babe, and bathe its fragile limbs with that wonderful delicacy of touch
which mothers only know, singing, caressing, patting, and soothing, till
the lovely task is done. I like to see those little imps of newsboys
running indiscriminately between the legs of man and beast, yelling out
their precocious wisdom about "accidents and arrivals;" dodging under
carts, and coming out safe in wind and limb; thriving, in spite of dirt
and rags, to turn up some day, ten to one, in a big marble store up
town, as bookseller or publisher.
I am not at all sure, now that blessed chloroform is discovered by which
my faith in the predicted millennium has had a most vigorous quickening
(why _don't_ they build a statue to the discoverer?) that I could not
look on admiringly while the surgeon's knife wound amid veins and
arteries with almost omnipotent skill, his patient lying calm as a
sleeping infant the while.
And now the thought comes over me with overwhelming force, how strange
that we, who so adore strength, power, beauty, and perfection, should be
content with its circumscribed _human_ progress; never look for it,
never worship it, where it is limitless, unchangeable, unfettered by
selfishness, caprice, or injustice. Alas! till we learn this, we shall,
vine-like, throw out our tendrils to the mercy of every passing breeze,
with nothing sure to twine around or cling to.
_CAN'T KEEP A HOTEL._
A man who has no call to keep a hotel had better not try it, unless he
can be certain that the horizon of his guests has always been bounded by
the village hay-scales. Noble scenery is a fine thing; but mountain, nor
lake, nor river, was ever enjoyable in company with an empty stomach, or
one which is in the talons of the fiend, _indigestion_. To come to one's
meal with loathing, and eat because we must, or starve, and then hurry
from grease and saleratus as soon as possible, is not the best receipt a
landlord can use to insure a good class of customers for another season.
He may think it of no consequence that his garden, if he have one, be as
full of nettles as of flowers; that the walks have more pig-weed than
gravel in them; that his out-buildings are more conspicuous than any
other object both to the eye and nose; and that the grass-plats about
the house are strewn with perpetual rags, paper, and old boots, which a
fervid August sun is not generally inclined to mitigate.
He may "take things easy" when his guests, having engaged the
hotel-carriage and horses for a ride are still standing on the piazza
waiting half an hour past the time; and when, on its dilatory
appearance, the harness is found giving out at the last minute, having
been patched and repatched in a slovenly manner on uncounted previous
rides; while the golden sunset, on which his guests had reckoned, is
spent in a fruitless search for _that_ hammer and _those_ nails, which
elude all pursuit. He may think it good policy to keep his _regular_
boarders waiting for their meals an hour past the appointed time, while
hungry children fret for sustenance, because new-comers will _then_
appear, and this stratagem will save the trouble of preparing _two_
meals. He may do all that if he will; but he must remember that every
disgusted guest who leaves his establishment will prevent many from
coming to it; and that with such a short-sighted policy he will soon
find "his occupation gone."
Keeping a hotel is a _gift_, as much as poetry, or sculpture, or
painting. I might name men whose hotels have attained perfection under
their wise, cleanly, and systematic ordering; but perfect as they are,
I, for one, am not employed to advertise them over the length and
breadth of the land in the New York _Ledger_. Suffice it to say, that I
have slept on their lovely beds, and had four towels a day to wash my
hands on. That I had a roomy wardrobe for such of my clothes as I
desired to set free from my trunk. That the looking glass was _not_
located in the _darkest_ corner of the room, or placed so high that I
had to stand on tip-toe, or so low that I had to get on my knees to
myself. That the coffee was not made of split peas. That the fried
potatoes even an angel like me might eat. That the meats were cooked in
a Christian manner, and the bread guiltless of any abominable
"Sal"--anything. That the pastry, which I never touch, _looked_ good for
those who like it; and that the ale--oh! the ale was "divine." That in
the spots where cleanliness might not be looked for, there it reigned.
That no chambermaid came with scraping broom against my door, at
daylight, to rouse me from my slumbers, and shuffle and flirt with the
boot-and-shoe collectors at the different doors. That no "pictures" of
ambitious artists upon the walls gave me the nightmare. And, oh!
more--far more than this, that the well-mannered landlord never made a
menagerie--show--of any "lion," or lioness, in his house, by labelling
the same, on the instant of their appearance, in dining-hall or parlor,
for the unwinking stare of the curious.
Of course, such a house needs money as well as an artist-master to carry
it on. Of course, guests who register their names there, must foot the
cost of all this outlay on their bills.
One can buy a bonnet at a pawn-shop, if one is satisfied only with
cheapness; but the dainty, artistic fingers, which blend colors and
fabrics with the lightness and brightness of inspiration, cannot be
expected to sell so much talent at a pawnbroker's price.
Your physician, who stays in your house only five minutes, charges you,
perhaps, fifteen dollars. You stare wildly at the amount; but you do not
take into account the human bodies he has overhauled, and the libraries
and lectures he has mastered to arrive at the knowledge which he has
concentrated for your benefit in that brief five minutes. In homely
phrase, "you pays your money and you takes your choice." Or, "he is a
good-natured man, but he can't keep a hotel," nor will people stay with
him long, though Paradise lies out-doors.
* * * * *
WOMEN LOVERS.--Perhaps you don't know it, but there are women that fall
in love with each other. Woe be to the unfortunate she who _does the
courting_! All the cussedness of ingenuity peculiar to the sex is
employed by "the other party" in tormenting her. She will flirt with
women by the score who are brighter and handsomer than her victim. She
will call on them oftener. She will praise their best bonnet, and go
into ecstasies over their dresses. She will write them more pink notes,
and wear their "tin types;" and when despair has culminated, and
sore-hearted Araminta takes to her bed in consequence, then only will
this conquering she, step off her pedestal to pick up her dead and
wounded. But then women must keep their hand in. Practice makes
perfect.
_NEW CLOTHES._
It is curious with what different eyes human beings look upon new
clothes, at different stages of existence. Youth, which least needs
these auxiliaries, is generally the most clamorous for incessant change.
No discomfort in the way of perpetual guardianship over their freshness;
no uncomfortable sense of their weight or pressure on the limbs, is
heeded, so that the craving for them is satisfied. Nor is there any sex
to this foible. Young men are quite as apt to be caught tripping in this
regard as their sisters. The new coat may squeeze; the new collar may
strangle; the new boots may pinch; the new hat may leave its red mark on
the throbbing forehead, but perish the thought of not wearing either!
The self-immolation which is undergone in this way finds no mention in
"Fox's Book of Martyrs;" but its silent, tearless, uncomplaining heroism
exists none the less for all that. From the days when our foremothers
had their heads built up in turrets by the hurried hair-dresser, the
night previous to some great festive occasion, and sat bolstered upright
in bed all night, for fear of tumbling them--down to the present day of
ladies' "hair-crimpers," human nature has held its own in this respect.
Middle age, with few exceptions, looks upon new clothes with abated
interest. Old clothes, like old customs, fit easy. _Comfort_, anyhow,
says middle age--appearances as the gods please; so new shoes lie on the
shelf unworn for weeks, for fear of stiff heels or squeaky soles; and
new clothes look and feel so spick-and-span and glossy, that middle age
can no more say or do a natural thing in them, than the boy could spell
right "before he had got the hang of the new school-house;" middle age
resents this petty, fretting intrusion on its much-loved quiet. It is
irritable, till new clothes begin to _feel_ easy, which is not generally
the case till some seam grows threadbare, or some treacherous gap
horrifies the easy wearer with renewed visions of innovating fashions
and fabrics.
Now this is very natural and very well, too, to a certain extent; but
middle age sometimes forgets that something is due to affectionate young
eyes, which take a proper pride in seeing "father" or "mother" neatly
and becomingly dressed, according to their age and station in life.
Roses and snow, of course, nobody looks for; but the trim evergreen
shows well, even beside a snow-bank; and nature herself hangs glistening
pendants of icicles from the glossy leaves of the ivy.
It is a harrowing reflection how much money is "sunk" every day in new
clothes, in which the blissfully unconscious wearers look none the
better, but rather the worse. Still, if everybody had good taste in this
matter, there would be no foil to the well-dressed; and I am afraid the
heartless dry-goods merchants care little whether blondes dress in
orange color, or brunettes in sky-blue, so that their bills are paid.
But new clothes for the "baby." Ah! that is something worth while. I ask
you, did love ever find fabric soft enough, or nice enough, or pretty
enough, for "_the baby_"? Fathers and mothers may make as virtuously
economical resolutions as they please; but why, if they mean to carry
them out, do they linger at the shop-window where that dainty little
satin bonnet stares them innocently in the face, with that pert little
rosette, cocked upon one side, that "would look so cunning on baby." Why
do they contemplate the rows of bright little red-prunella boots, or the
embroidered little sacques and frocks? Why don't they cross right over
and travel home out of the way of temptation? Surely, no pink could
rival the rose of baby's cheek; no crimson the coral of its lips; no
blue the sapphire of its eyes. For all that, out comes the purse and
home goes the bonnet, or cloak, or frock. Just as if shopkeepers didn't
know that babies will keep on being born, and born pretty; and that
fathers and mothers are, and will be, their happy slaves all the world
over to the end of time!
_HOW I READ THE MORNING PAPERS._
If there is a time when I sigh for the "Cave of Adullam," whatever that
may be, it is when, my coffee swallowed, my fingers clutch my precious,
morning papers, for a blessed, quiet read.
I just begin an editorial, which requires a little thinking, when up
comes Biddy with "Ma'am, there's a hole in the _biler_." The "biler"
settled, I go back to the place indicated by my forefinger, where the
Editor was saying "that Congress--" when somebody upsets the coffee-pot
in an attempt to burlesque last night's public performance. The
coffee-pot set right end up, and the coffee pond drained off the
table-cloth, I return again to my beloved editorial;--when Biddy again
appears with "Ma'am, the man has come to mend the door-handle as is
broke." That nuisance disposed of, I take my paper and retreat in
self-defence to the top of the house, and commence to read again, "that
Congress--" when I am interrupted with loud shouts of "Where's mother?
Mother? where are you?" I disdain to answer. "Mother?" In despair, I
cry, in tragic tones, "Well, what _is_ it?" "A poor soldier is at the
door with pictures at thirty cents apiece, and he has but one arm."
"Well, I have but one life--but for mercy's sake take his pictures, and
don't let in anything else, man, woman, or child, till I read my paper
through." I begin again: "If Congress--" when Biddy, who is making the
bed in the next room, begins howling "Swate Ireland is the land for me."
I get up and very mildly request--in view of a possible visit to an
Intelligence Office--that she will oblige me by deferring her concert
till I get through my morning paper. Then I begin again: "If Congress--"
when up comes paterfamilias to know if it is to be beef, or chicken, or
veal, that he is to order at market for that day's dinner. "Possum, if
you like," I mutter, with both fingers on my ears, as I commence again,
"If Congress--" Paterfamilias laughs and retreats, exclaiming,
"Shadrachs! vot a womansh!" and I finish "Congress," and begin on the
book reviews. A knock on the door. "Six letters, ma'am." I open them.
Three for an "autograph," with the privilege of finding my own envelope
and stamp, and mailing it afterward. One with a request for me to
furnish a speedy "composition" to save a school-boy at a dead-lock of
ideas from impending suicide. One from a man who has made a new kind of
polish for the legs of tables and chairs, and wants me to write an
article about it in the _Ledger_, and send him an early copy of the
same. One from a girl "who never in her life owned a dress bonnet," and
would like, with my assistance, to experience that refreshing and novel
sensation.
I begin again my postponed list of "book reviews;" when in comes
paterfamilias to know "if I haven't yet done with that paper." That's
the last ounce on the camel's back! Mind you, _he_ has just read _his_
morning paper through, and it contains a different stripe of politics
from mine, I can tell you that. Read it in _peace_, too--with his legs
on the mantel, smoking his beloved pipe. Read it up and down; backwards
and forwards; inside out, and upside down; and disembowelled every shade
of meaning from live and dead subjects; and then coolly inquires of
me--me, with my hair on end in the vain effort to retain any ideas
through all these interruptions--"if I haven't _yet_ done with that
paper?" Oh, it's _too_ much! I sit down opposite him. I explain how I
never get a chance to finish anything except himself. I tell him my life
is all fragments. I ask him, with moist eyes, if he knows how the price
of board ranges at the different Lunatic Asylums. What is his unfeeling
answer? "Hadn't I better take some other hour in the day to read the
papers?"
Isn't that just like a man?
Has not bother and worry "all seasons for its own," as far as women are
concerned? Would it make any difference what "hour in the day" I took to
read the papers? _Can_ women _ever_ have any system about anything,
while a Biddy or a male creature exists on the face of the earth to
tangle up things? Have I not all my life been striving and struggling
for that "order" which my copy-book told me in my youth "was Heaven's
first law"? And is it my fault if "chaos," which I hate, is my
"unwilling portion"? I just propounded to paterfamilias these vital
questions. With eyes far off on distant, and untried, and possible
fields of literature, he absently replies: "Well, as you say, Fanny, I
shouldn't wonder if it _does_ rain to-day." Great Heavens!
* * * * *
SMOKING BABIES.--It would not be amiss to call the attention of parents
and school-teachers to the fact that every morning, lads from seven
years old to twelve may be seen, satchel in hand, _smoking_ on their way
to school. Surely, between the parents and the teachers, some remedy
should immediately be devised to prevent this enormous tax upon the
vitality of youth. A great deal has very properly been written and
spoken upon the mismanagement of young girls who have not yet reached
their teens. Why not extend this philanthropic solicitude to their
brothers? Is it because smoking fathers, being themselves slaves to this
vile habit, have not the face to ask their sons to practise a
self-denial, of which their own manhood is incapable?
_BETTY'S SOLILOQUY._
Hard to live out? Well, that's just as you choose to take it. Some folks
have no faculty at getting along in this world. My name is Easy, and my
nature is ditto. When I go to a place I always say "yes" to everything
they ask me. I never make an objection to doing anything; of course, my
mistress likes that; as to really doing all I promise to do, leave me
alone to manage that, with as innocent a face as the baby I take care
of. Now, for instance, suppose she sends me up into the nursery to get
the child asleep. It is tiresome work; there's a great deal of coaxing,
and twisting, and wriggling, and rocking, and singing to be done, before
that can be brought about; and it tires me, and I don't like it. But of
course I reply, "Certainly, ma'am," when she bids me, and I take the
child upstairs. Then I sit down with it; and just hold it in some
uncomfortable position so that it will cry loud enough to fret its
mamma. Then she bears it awhile, thinking baby will stop by and by; but
baby somehow _don't_ stop. Then she comes up and says to me, "Betty what
do you think _can_ ail baby!" And I kiss it and hold it up to my face,
and say, "Poor little dear, I am afraid it has a bad stomach ache; it
won't be easy--anyhow I try;" and then she says, "Well, I'll take it
awhile, Betty, and see if I can't soothe it asleep;" and I say, "Oh no,
ma'am, it is a pity you should tire yourself with the child;" and she
seeing me so willing, just takes it--don't you see? _That's_ the way to
do. There's no use in _fighting_ one's way through the world, when a
little cunning answers just as well. Well, then my mistress likes baby
to go out of doors a great deal. Now, as a general thing, I never engage
to live with a lady who don't keep her own carriage, on that account.
It's very nice to be sent out in a carriage with the baby, for an
airing, with John, the coachman, particularly when John is agreeable,
which is sometimes the case. It makes a body feel like somebody to say,
"John, you may drive here, or, John, you may drive there." But of course
one cannot always get a place to one's mind; and so when my mistress
uses her feet instead of a carriage, she needn't think that I shall do
it any more than I can possibly help. So when she tells me to take baby
out, I say, "Yes'em," as I always do, respectfully, I hope--and out I
go, and make for the first kitchen where I have a pleasant acquaintance,
and baby can wait till we get through our gossip, which is not very
soon. Of course, I never take a little tell-tale of an older child with
me on such occasions. I tell mistress I'm so afraid of its getting run
over, or something, while I'm minding baby. Then as to my "privileges,"
I hope I know enough to have one of my friends sick or dead if I want an
evening out. There can't anything be said against that, you know, if
one is only judicious enough not to have it happen _too_ often.
Sometimes I come across a mistress who is too keen for me. Now I never
like to live with a lady who has gray eyes; in that case we have a
mutual inclination to part, of course; but as a general thing, I find my
way of managing "_fust-rate_," because I give no "impudence," you see,
which is what most ladies are so touchy about. As to "conscience,"
humph! where are _their_ "consciences," I'd like to know? It is a poor
rule that won't work both ways. I should be worn to a skeleton if I kept
a conscience.
* * * * *
BRIDAL PRESENTS.--If brides could only hear the conversations that are
held over the "bridal presents" by the givers! Their weary yawns while
pondering how much _must_ be expended, and how little _may_; and wishing
heartily the whole system were exploded, in favor of their pockets. If
brides could hear this, they would quietly and with dignity announce,
"No presents received," even without any reservations as to
relationship. It is of no use talking of the "good old days," we
suppose; as well might one ask a confirmed epicure to adjure his
Cayenne, and highly spiced diet for plain, wholesome, nutritious food;
so, with a passing sigh for the days when sentiment, modesty, and
economy had not yet gone out of fashion, we give it up.
_MY DREADFUL BUMP OF ORDER._
I have just been reading a "sweet" article, headed "Coming Home After
the Summer Vacation," in which the writer looks through his "glory
spectacles" upon the delights of plenty of elbow-room in the dear old
house; good fare, and one's little personal hourly comforts generally.
_All very well._ But what of the carpets to be shaken and steamed, or
the new ones to be made? What of the painting and whitewashing, and
cleaning out of cellars and closets? What of the new kitchen-range, and
the new oilcloth for the floor? What of the plumbing and roof painting?
What of the winter's coal to get in, which _paterfamilias_ always
"forgets" to order till the fall house-cleaning is done? What of
upholsterers and painters and plumbers, who begin a job, and finish it
whenever the gods will? What of crisp, sunny, lovely autumn mornings
spent in the delightful atmosphere of an "Intelligence Office" six feet
by eight, while _answering_ the following questions: "Any children in
the family? Have you an English basement? Have you a servant's parlor?
Do you put out your washing? Does your cook wash the dishes? Do you use
such and such a kitchen-range?" All of which questions, answered in the
affirmative, giving you the inestimable boon of a poor cook, at sixteen,
eighteen, or twenty dollars a month, with liberty to have her "cousins"
visit her at will. After that comes your waitress, and if you want to
preserve your senses you had better end there, without encumbering
yourself with more "help."
There is nothing said about all _this_ in the "sweet" article alluded
to, called "Coming Home After the Summer Vacation." I didn't see
anything in it either about the children's dilapidated wardrobe, to be
then replenished, with dress-makers knee-deep in engagements, and
"Furnishing Stores for Children's Outfits," containing only lace and
ruffles, to wear to school. As to your own wardrobe, if you are
possessed of a black silk, or alpaca, or Cashmere walking-suit, blessed
are you among women--for then you at least are always presentable in
public.
Well, after all this, there is a chance that the new cook, not admiring
the new waitress, whom _you_ happen to like, may conclude to quarrel her
off, in order to fill the vacancy with a raw "cousin" just from
shipboard: and directly, when you think the family machine is at last
oiled, and in motion for the winter, and you are taking breath upon that
idea, in comes the irate waitress, and you are "to choose, ma'am, if you
please, between me and the cook, for indeed the house will not hold both
of us," and so on, and so forth.
Here most lady housekeepers come to the end of their calamities. But
suppose you help to earn the family bread and butter as a writer? Then
may the gods send you patience, or a new set of nerves and muscles and
brains! May the gods preserve you from reading yourself the crudities
you give to the public for base lucre! May the gods sustain you under
the torturing reflection, how much better literary work you know
yourself to be capable of, had you only a fair chance at your freshest
moments, and could you inaugurate that "system" in your household to
which Intelligence Offices are an insurmountable obstacle; which you,
New England born and bred, adore and understand, but yet can never bring
about with any "increase of wages," or even personal supervision; not,
at least, while the demand for household servants is always greater than
the supply, and they can make their own terms, and exhaust your vitality
much faster than they can their own vocabulary of abuse.
Knowing thoroughly _this_ side of "Coming Home After the Summer
Vacation," I perused the article with this heading, with the corners of
my mouth slightly drawn down, and the end of my nose slightly turned up.
And if any lady remarks, in reply, that _she_ "admires housekeeping in
all its details," I can only say, that I have observed that slack
housekeepers generally do, as their topsy-turvy cupboards bear witness.
And I also unhesitatingly affirm that no thorough housekeeper, in the
present day o
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