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diff --git a/40504-0.txt b/40504-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f24a123 --- /dev/null +++ b/40504-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7441 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 40504 *** + + GINGER-SNAPS. + + BY + FANNY FERN, + AUTHOR OF + "FERN LEAVES,"--"FOLLY AS IT FLIES," &c. + + + NEW YORK: + _Carleton, Publisher, Madison Square._ + + LONDON: S. LOW, SON & CO. + + MDCCCLXX. + + + Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1870, by + GEORGE W. CARLETON, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court + of the United States for the Southern District of New York. + + + Stereotyped at the + WOMEN'S PRINTING HOUSE, + Corner Avenue A and Eighth Street, + New York. + + + + + CONTENTS. + + + Dinner-Parties + The Bride's New House + The Happy Lot of a Sexton + Literary Aspirants + What shall we do for the Little Children on Sunday? + My House in the Country + Why Wear Mourning? + "Delightful Men" + Choosing Presents + A Bid for an Editorship + A Sermon to Plymouth Pulpit + Female Clerks + Blue Monday + The Fly in the Ointment + Woman's Millennium + English Notions about Women + Rag-tag and Bob-tail Fashions + Some Hints to Editors + Help for the Helpful + Women on the Platform + Poverty and Independence + The History of the Late War + Two Kinds of Women + Sunday Morning + Justice for Clergymen + The Old Maid of the Period + The Nurse of the Period + A Look Backward + Varieties of Human Nature + "A Good Mistress always makes a Good Servant" + The Mother-Touch + Some Gossip about Myself + Hospitality + Woman and Her Watch + "My Doctor" + A Woman at a Lecture + Can't be Suited + Autograph-Hunters + The Etiquette of Hotel Piazzas + Old Stockbridge in Massachusetts + Sunday in the Village + Sick in the Village + Men and their Clothes + Notes from Plymouth Rock + No Beaux Anywhere + Daniel Webster's Home + A Trip to Richmond + The Coming Landlord + Out on the End of Cape Ann + Country Diet + From my Seat on the Rocks + Wishings and Longings + A Transition State + What Mary thought of John + Travel-Spoiled Americans + Life's Illusions + Jack Simpkins + Biding the Lord's Time + One Sort of Fool + The First Baby + + + + +PREFACE. + + +When I was a little girl, I used to play "make ginger-snaps;" and I +always tossed in all the ginger in the spice-box, be it more or less; +so if you find these rather biting, attribute it to the force of early +habits. Beside, they are not intended for a "square meal;" only to +nibble at, in the steamboat, or railroad-car, or under the trees in +the country; or when your dear, but tardy John, is keeping you +waiting, with your gloves buttoned, and your bonnet-strings tied; or, +best of all, when you are sitting in your rocking-chair, nursing that +dear little baby. I do not think the milk of human kindness is wanting +in these Ginger-Snaps, and I trust they are--_kneaded_. + + FANNY FERN. + + + + +GINGER-SNAPS. + + + + +_DINNER-PARTIES._ + + +To fasten as many drags as possible to the social machinery of to-day, +seems to be the first idea of hospitality, which, there is every +reason to fear, will gradually be smothered in the process. + +Perhaps the lady who gives the dinner-party would really prefer a +plain dinner with her friend Mrs. Jones, than all the elaborate +dinners she is in the habit of giving and attending; but her husband +likes wines and French cookery, and would consider anything else a +poor compliment to a guest; and so there's an end. + +And now, what are these fine dinners? Just this: a pleasant gleam of +silver and china; a lovely disposition of fruit and flowers; a great +deal of dress, or undress, on the part of the ladies; much +swallow-tail, and an exquisite bit of cravat and kid-glove, on the +part of the gentlemen. Brains--as the gods please; but always a +procession of dishes, marched on and marshalled off, for the requisite +number of tedious hours, during which you eat you know not what, +because you must be ready with your answer for your elbow neighbor, or +your _vis-a-vis_; during which, you taste much wine and nibble much +confectionery, and finish up with coffee; and under the combined +influence of all this you sink supinely into a soft chair or sofa, and +the "feed" is over. + +Everybody there feels just as you do. Everybody would like to creep +into some quiet corner, and be let alone, till the process of +digestion has had a chance. + +Instead--they throw a too transparent enthusiasm into the inquiry, +"How's your mother?" If the gods are kind, and there has been an +inroad of measles or fever, the narrator may possibly give you ten +minutes' reprieve from pumping up from beneath that dinner another +query about "the baby." But if he--or she, too--is laboring, like +yourself, with duck and quail, and paté and oyster, and wine and fruit +and bon-bons, then may a good Providence put it into the distracted +brain of the hostess to set some maiden a-foul of the piano! + +Oh, but that is blessed! no matter what she plays, how hard she +thumps, or how loud she screeches. Blessed--to lean back, and fold +your kid gloves over your belt, and never move them till you applaud +the performance, of which you know, nor care, any more than who struck +Billy Patterson. + +This over, you see a gentlemen coming towards you. You know by his +looks, he too is suffering the pangs of repletion. Good heavens! how +full of deceit is his smile, as he fastens on you, thinking _you_ +will talk! Mistaken man! you smile too, and both together agree that +"the weather has been fine of late." This done, you look helplessly, +with the untold pain of dumb animals, in each other's faces, and then +glance furtively about to see if that piano-young-woman really means +to leave your anguish unassuaged. She does. Hum!--you make an errand +across the room to pick up a suppositious glove you dropped--and get +rid of the parasite. + +At last!--relief--there is your husband. _How_ glad he is to see you! +It's really worth going to the dinner-party to witness that man's +affection for you at that moment. Now he can yawn behind his glove. +Now he takes a seat _so_ near, that no man or woman can interrupt his +lazy heaven. He even smiles at you from very gladness of heart, and in +thick utterance tells you, in order to keep you from going from his +side, that "he don't see but you look as well as any woman in the +room." You only needed that unwonted display of gallantry from the +hypocritical wretch, to rise immediately and leave him to his fate, +though you should, in doing it, rush madly on your own. + +And this is "a dinner-party." For this men and women empty their +purses, and fill their decanters and wardrobes, and merge their brains +in their stomachs, and--are in the fashion! + +Better is a leg of mutton and caper-sauce, and much lively talk, +whensoever and wheresoever a friend, with or without an invitation, +cares enough about you and yours with impromptu friendship to "drop +in." Best clothes, best dishes, best wine, best parlors!--what are +they, with rare exceptions, but extinguishers of wit and wisdom and +digestion and geniality. Who will inaugurate us a little common-sense? + +Queen Victoria--how glad I am she had such a good, loving husband, to +compensate her for the misery of being a queen--tried her best to +abolish the custom, prevalent in England at dinner, of the gentlemen +remaining to guzzle wine after the ladies left. I am aware that guzzle +is an unladylike word; but, as no other fits in there, I shall use it. +Well--she succeeded only in shortening the guzzling period--not in +abolishing it; so those consistent men remained, to drink toasts to +"lovely women," whose backs they were so delighted to see retreating +through the door. + +What of it? Why, simply this, that Queen Victoria did what she could +to civilize her own regal circle; and that she set a good precedent +for American women of to-day to follow. I fail to see why, when a +hostess has carefully watched the dishes and glasses come and go, at +her husband's dinner-party, to the obstruction of all rational +conversation, save by agonized spasms,--I fail to see why, when the +gentlemen guests have eaten to satiety, and conversation might be +supposed to be at last possible, why, at that precise, enjoyable +period, the lady of the house should be obliged to accompany the empty +plates to regions unknown and uncared for. This seems to me a +question well worthy of consideration in this year of our Lord, 1868. +It strikes me, rather an inglorious abdication for a woman of +intelligence, who may be supposed to understand and take an interest +in other things than the advance and retreat of salad, and ragouts, +oysters, and chicken. I call it a relic of barbarism, of which men of +intelligence should be ashamed. Then what advantage has the woman who +cultivates her mental powers, over the veriest fool? It is an insult +to her. But you say, all women are not thoughtful or intelligent. Very +true: and why should they be--save that they owe it to their own +self-respect--when gentlemen thus offer premiums for insipidity?--why +should they inform themselves upon any subjects but those of dressing +well and feeding well? + +It is a satisfaction to know that there are gentlemen, who endorse the +other side of the question. There was lately a dinner given in New +York to a literary gentleman of distinction. One of the gentlemen +invited to attend it, said to his wife: "It is a shame that ladies +should not attend this dinner. _You_ ought to be there, and many other +ladies who are authors." Acting upon this impulse, he suggested to the +committee that ladies should be invited. The answer was: First--"It +would be so awkward for the ladies. Secondly--there were very few +literary ladies compared to the number of literary gentlemen." Now as +to the question of "awkwardness," the boot, I think, was on the other +foot; and if the ladies were awkward,--which was not a complimentary +supposition,--why should the gentlemen be to blame for it? And if +there were "few lady authoresses," why not ask the wives of the +_editors_ who were to be present? + +No--this was not the reason. + +What was it? _Tobacco_--yes, sir, tobacco! I don't add wine--but I +might. In short, these men would be obliged to conduct themselves as +gentlemen were ladies present; and they wanted a margin left for the +reverse. They preferred a bar-room atmosphere to the refining presence +of "lovely woman," about whom they wished to hiccup at a safe +distance. + +Perhaps, in justice, I should add, that it was suggested that they +might perhaps see the animals feed from the "musicians' balcony," or +listen to the speeches "through the crack of a door," with the +servants, or in some such surreptitious and becoming and complimentary +manner, which a woman of spirit and intelligence would, of course, be +very likely to do. + +To conclude, I trust those gentlemen who are in the habit of bemoaning +"the frivolity of our women, and their sad addictedness to long +milliner's bills," will reckon up the cost of cigars and wine at these +dinners, from which ladies are excluded; and while they are on the +anxious seat, on the economy question, ask themselves whether, putting +other reasons out of the question, the presence of ladies, on these +occasions, would not contribute greatly to _reduce their dinner +expenses_? + +I lately read an article in a London paper, in which "the +woman-question" was treated in the following enlightened manner: The +writer avowed his dislike to the cultivation of woman's intellect; +since men had enough intellect, in their intercourse with each other; +and wanted only with woman that charming, childish prattle and +playfulness, which was so refreshing to the male creature, when he +needed relief and amusement! + +The author of these advanced ideas didn't state whether he considered +these _childish_, _prattling_ women fit to be mothers and heads of +families; probably that was too puerile a question to consider in the +same breath with the amusement they might afford men by the total +absence of intelligence. + + * * * * * + +It is a wonder that Christians of different denominations do not see, +that while they are spending the precious hours contending for the +non-essentials, which are but as the fringe to the "wedding-garment," +that souls are slipping past them into eternity, uncared-for and +unprepared. One is often painfully struck with this thought, in +reading, or hearing, the acrid disputes of mistaken, but well-meaning, +zealots. + + + + +_THE BRIDE'S NEW HOUSE._ + + +Spick and span, thorough and fresh, from attic to cellar. Pretty +carpets and pictures, and glass, and silver, and china, and +upholstery, and a pretty bride for the mistress! Receptions over, she +looks about her. Hark! what's that? A mutiny down stairs! She didn't +foresee so speedy a grapple with Intelligence offices, even if any at +all. She remembers, 'tis true, that the coachman came one day to +announce to mamma that "the cook was stiff drunk," and the dinner +consequently in a state of indefinite postponement; and she remembers +that a new cook soon took her place; and she has a misty recollection +of a chamber-maid who left suddenly because she was requested not to +use the cologne, and then fill up the bottle with water; and she knows +another chamber-maid arrived before night, who had so tender a +conscience that she couldn't say the ladies were "out," when they were +in the bath, or in bed, and yet would appropriate handkerchiefs and +ribbons and gloves without even winking. Still, she never thought of +being bothered in this way, when _she_ was married. It was all to be a +rosy dream of love and quiet and comfort, and immunity from vulgar +frets. "Well, she goes down into her kitchen, and inquires into the +mutiny, and finds that the chamber-maid has called the cook a 'nasty +thing;' and both are standing in the middle of the kitchen-floor like +two cats on top of a fence, neither of which will give way for the +other, snarling, spitting, and growling, and making the fur fly at +intervals. She tries to pacify them, but they out-scream each other, +till her head cracks, defending themselves. She goes up to George, +with both hands over her ears, and asks him 'if it isn't dreadful?'" +He says, with an executive wave of his conjugal hand, "Send them both +off, and go to an Intelligence-office, my dear, and get others." _He_ +thinks "going to an Intelligence-office," and breathing the +concentration of "marasmus" in a little den ten feet square, for an +hour, is to be the end of it. He don't take into account the +"character" that is to be hunted up at the last place Sally lived in, +up in Twenty-thousandth street, the mistress of which will keep his +little wife waiting an hour to dress, before she comes down; while +Sally is meantime airing her heels in the Intelligence-office, whither +the new bride is to return and report, affirmatively or the reverse. +If affirmatively, George supposes again that there's an end of it. Not +a bit. Now, Biddy is to be instructed an hour or two every day, where +to find spoons, forks, knives, towels, napkins, brooms, dusters, and +where and how to use them, and at the end of a week's education, she +will never once set a table without harrowing mistakes, even if, at +the end of that time, her opinion of some other servant in the house +does not necessitate her "finding another place;" or because, though +ignorant of all she professed thoroughly to understand when she came, +she objects to being "followed 'round". + +'Tis true the little bride might dodge the Intelligence(?) offices and +"advertise," thus holding a servant's levee for several days in her +parlors and hunting "characters" at immense distances afterwards; or, +she might take a list of advertisements, and scour the city in +disagreeable localities, up pairs of stairs innumerable, to find the +advertisers "just engaged," if she prefer that. Either way, _the +grapple_ is to be met, in the person of cook, chambermaid, or +waitress, or all three, every few weeks; and all this, though the +little bride may ask no questions of the speedy disappearance of the +household stores, or how many people unknown to her are fed at all +hours out of them. Although she may prefer not to see that her damask +table-napkins are used for dish-towels, or that the mattresses are +never turned over when the beds are made, or that the broom never +invades the corners of any apartment, but merely takes a _swish_ +through the centre. She may also be silent when she is told that a +closet has been cleaned and put in order, although to her certain +knowledge it has never been touched; for is not the virtuous and +indignant rejoinder always ready, "D'ye think I'd _lie_, mum?" + +Now, what comfort is her pretty silver, half cleaned, and bruised and +scratched in the process? What consolation her pretty dishes, with +the handles knocked off? What pleasure her china nicked at the edges? +Which way soever she turns, waste, ignorance, and obstinacy stare her +in the face. And is her life to be all this? Yes, except an interval +now and then, when she lies with a little one on her arm, with a +doctor and a nurse between her and the "grapple;" and the vision, as +she gets better, of hunting up a nurse-maid, who, horror of horrors! +will be "always under her nose." + +I do not say there are not exceptions to this gloomy picture, but they +are rare. Sometimes a godsend of an aunt, or housekeeper, stands +between the mistress of the house and all this "how not to do it." But +till Intelligence-offices have something besides the raw material to +offer on the one hand, or on the other, servants who insist upon +performing your work "as Mrs. Jones did," and who resent as an insult +the mildest intimation that you prefer your own way, and object +totally to your going over your house in every part once a day, to see +if things are right--while this state of things continues, the +mistress, be she young or old, must needs take refuge from this +grapple in hotel life, or spend her existence watching the arrival of +emigrant ships. + +No man has any call to speak or write on this subject, since they know +nothing about it. One of them recently explained the present +wastefulness of servants to be caused "by the extravagant way of +living indulged in by their mistresses." Waiving the truth or +falsehood of the charge, I rise to inquire, whether the dishonesty +and fast-living of clerks, be not attributable to the fashionable +vices and lavish expenditures of their business employers. Having +aired this little question, I proceed to say, that the dissatisfaction +with regard to servants is undoubtedly every day greatly on the +increase. In most instances, their utter disqualifications for the +high wages they demand, are patent to every observing housekeeper. If +the lady of the house wishes her work properly and systematically +done, she must, in addition to paying such wages, do half the work +herself; or, which amounts to the same thing, oversee these +incompetent servants; who, at the end of even two months' teaching, +either cannot, or will not, learn to do it faithfully. They who slight +their work the most, are of course most unwilling to have the +supervision. Indeed these very servants will often say, "that having +done chamber-work, or cooking, for such a number of years in New York, +they don't need _any_ lady to instruct them how!" So that the mistress +has to choose between a constant and irritating war of words, or a +mismanaged household. To preserve one's patience or serenity, under +such household friction, or to get time for anything else, is a very +difficult task indeed. Now every _right-minded_ mistress of a +household desires, not only to have it well ordered, but to feel an +interest in the welfare of those women who serve her: she would be +glad, if they have a sorrow, to lighten it; if they are sick, to nurse +them kindly; and in every way to help them to feel, that she does not +look upon them as "beasts of burden," but as human beings. + +I affirm that the present generation of servants neither care for nor +understand this. All they want is, to be "let severely alone." Not to +be "followed up," as they phrase it. If you hear the area-bell ringing +punctually every day when your meals are served, they expect the fact, +quite ignored by you, that some big nephew, or cousin, or lover, or +uncle, with a robust appetite, comes at those times for his bowl of +tea, or coffee, or a bit of meat, with some warm vegetables. They +will, if found out, lie about it, with an unblushing effrontery which +is perfectly astounding; or, if well up to New York area ways, will, +with arms akimbo, inquire, "Well, what's a cup of tay, or a sup of +coffee, or a bit of mate, now and thin, to rich folks?" and that +although this may and does happen every day, and two or three times a +day. As to cultivating any good understanding, or feeling, with such +unscrupulous servants, it is simply impossible. There is no foundation +in them for any such superstructure. Not long since, one such servant +was requested at a time of sickness in the family, "to step about the +house softly in the morning, as the patient had a sleepless night." +She stared defiantly at the person making this gentle request, and +inquired in a loud voice, "_if this wasn't a free country?_" Not long +after this she smashed a very pretty butter-dish; and when told that +it just cost five dollars, she loftily inquired, "_Well, what's five +dollars?_" + +Now what progress can even an intelligent, well-meaning, +kind-intentioned mistress make with such a savage element as this? + +One replies, "Oh, don't keep them, of course; get others." Very +well--you wear out a pair of boots "_getting_ others." To your horror, +you discover that the new cook is subject "to attacks" which confine +her to her bed, with--a gin bottle! till she feels like convalescing. +The last lady she lived with, in the "recommendation" with which she +got her own neck out of the noose, put yours into it by omitting to +mention this little fact; so that again you must start on your travels +"_Intelligence_"-ward. + +During these changes of programme, a house gets pretty well +demoralized; every servant who comes, expects to find nothing to do in +the way of putting it to rights; and often when her lazy dream in this +respect is realized, she will be very far, when _she_ leaves, from +putting her successor's mind, or bones either, at rest on this point. + +All this is sufficiently rasping and vexatious. One lady remarked to +me, "Oh! as for me, I neither know nor see, anything that they do. I +have to choose between this or a lunatic asylum. I can't fight all the +time; and if you change, there's only a new _kind_ of misery." + +"Your husband must have a long purse, my dear," I remarked. She +shrugged her shoulders, and asked me "where I bought my new bonnet?" + +Now, this state of things is deplorable enough. I can very well +understand, and sympathize with, the disgust many right-minded women +arrive at, after a panorama of such Sallys and Betseys have passed +through their pretty houses, intent only on high wages, waste, and +plunder. To fight it, only sours one's temper, and wastes one's life. +There's no right feeling about them; they have neither conscience nor +industry. "I have done my best," said a lady to me, "to teach and +civilize and humanize them, but I tell you there's nothing to work +upon; so, after giving my orders in the morning, I will neither hear +nor see anything more about it." + +Well, another lady will keep on her feet all day, trying to bring +things to a focus; trying the impossible task of putting brains where +there is nothing but a great void; trying to encourage--trying to +lighten burdens by shouldering half herself, or getting substitutes to +help; and thus by superhuman efforts she gets her husband's little +culinary comforts all attended to at the right time, and every +disagreeable thing put under lock and key before his return; but she +sits down opposite him at the table with no appetite, with not an idea +in her aching head; the well-ordered repast only representing +back-aches and vexation of spirit. + +Now this is rather a steep price to pay for housekeeping, and that is +why the cunning little lady above referred to dodged it, and saved +incipient wrinkles. + +In conclusion, I beg leave to suggest to ladies that they must stop +"recommending" dishonest or incapable servants, merely because "they +don't want a quarrel with them." In the next place, if it be true +that the keepers of intelligence-offices, for a stipulated sum, will +furnish "a character" for any kind of girl able to furnish the money, +is it not time something were done about this? + +Finally, in the name of all the New York ladies, _I_ know, or have +heard speak, in private, on the subject, let China, or Africa, or +Professor Blot with his travelling cook-shop, and all the laundry +establishments, come speedily to the rescue, and find us a way of +escape. If you ask, by way of postscript, if there are _no_ exceptions +to the kind of servants I have described above, I answer by asking +you, how often you find a four-leaved clover, or a black holly-hock, +or a green rose? + + * * * * * + +Let the poor wretch, smarting under the lash of the critic, remember +that indigestion has lent point and bitterness to many a sentence +which would else have been kindly. He can add to this, that critics +are subject, like others, to envy, ambition, and little +uncharitablenesses, which grow out of them. Also, that "mutual +admiration" societies are _not_ extinct. Also, that some critics look +through political, some through religious, and some through +atheistical spectacles; and if this don't assuage his anguish, let him +remember that a thousand years hence both the critic and himself will +have passed into happy oblivion. + + + + +_THE HAPPY LOT OF A SEXTON._ + + +Not a bad thing to be the sexton of a church. In the first place, he +gets a conspicuous start in life, by advertising on the outer wall of +the church, his perfect willingness to bury all the parish in which he +carries on his cheerful business,--a business which can never be dull +with him, because somebody is always dying, and somebody else is +always being born for the same end. Then Sunday comes regularly once a +week, so that his "shop" never closes, and consequently always wants +his broom of reform. Then the sexton has his little alleviations, when +he has had enough of the sermon: he can make an errand out in the +vestibule, after imaginary bad children, who might disturb the +minister, or to see that the outer door don't creak or bang +un-Sabbatically. When he gets tired of that, he can sit comfortably +down on his stool near the door, which he can tilt back on its hind +legs, out of view of all critical worshippers (except _me_), and then, +and there, he can draw out that omnipresent and national jack-knife, +which is his ever-present solace in every time of need. First--he can +clean his nails, and pare them, varying the performance by biting off +their refractory edges. Then he can commence scratching off any +little spots on his trousers or coat with the point of the same. When +this little exercise is concluded, and the sermon is _not_, he can +draw from another pocket a case-comb, and put those fine touches to +his hair which the early church-bell had interfered with. It is +tiresome on him then for a few minutes, unless some impertinent +sunbeam gilds the minister's sacerdotal nose, and gives him an excuse +for going up in the gallery to lower a curtain, in that dexterous +manner which only a professional can compass. By this time +"seventeenthly" having been concluded by the minister, the sexton +hurries to the church-door, doubling up with a dexterous twist any +aisle-chairs which have done duty _pro tem_. and tucking them in their +appropriate corner, and then takes his position in the porch, the most +important personage present save the minister himself. To the +questions, "Is it the clergymen of this church who has just preached?" +addressed him by some stranger, and "Is there to be an afternoon or an +evening service?" and "Can you tell me where is the clergyman's +residence?" and "Will you hand this note to the clergyman?" etc., +etc., he returns a prompt and proud answer. And, even when Miss +Belinda Jones steps to his elbow, and requests that he will pay a +little more attention to ventilating the church between the services, +and in fact during the week, in order that she may escape the +infliction of her usual Sunday headache; and when she expatiates +touchingly on the blessing and healthfulness and cheapness of fresh +air, and his Christian duty to apportion a sufficient quantity to +each individual to sustain life, and that meek and quiet spirit that +is enjoined; even then, he bows respectfully, nor mentions that, were +ventilation thus insured by open windows, and the life of the audience +prolonged, it might make him a little more trouble in dusting the +cushions, which he could by no means permit. The polite sexton does +not mention this, nor that he "hates fidgetty females" but he bows +politely and affirmatively, locks up the bad air in the church all the +same, and goes home to his roast-beef and his babies. + + * * * * * + +Upon his box the hackman sits and reads the newspaper, while his +blanketed horses wait for the coming customer. In the cars the +mechanic holds it, hastily running over its columns at this his only +time for reading. Even in the ferry-boat the clerk and school-girl +bend their heads, absorbed and well pleased. At places of amusement, +before the curtain rises, the audience beguile the time by conning its +pages; and even early comers to church improve the minutes by perusing +the Sunday-school papers before the services begin. With these facts +before us, who shall estimate the influence, for good or evil, of the +newspaper? Who shall question the dignity of an editor's position, or +measure his responsibilities? + + + + +_LITERARY ASPIRANTS._ + + +It is the most astonishing thing that persons who have not sufficient +education to spell correctly, to punctuate properly, to place capital +letters in the right places, should, when other means of support fail, +send MSS. for publication. Now before me lies just such a MS., +accompanying which is a letter requesting me to read it, give the +writer my opinion of it, and hand the same to some publisher. + +Now, here is my opinion. In the first place, every editor is crowded +with offered MSS. from all sources. Secondly, many of the writers +would not mind not receiving pay for the same, could they only see +that MS. in print in a certain journal that they have selected. In +fact, many times they would rather _pay for having it inserted_ than +to have it declined. This much for the glut in the market. + +Then, after this, an editor makes his own selections. It may be he has +already a sufficient corps of contributors, and does not care for, and +will not entertain, any fresh applications. But suppose this is not +the case. Suppose he looks over, or employs a person to look over, +these various MSS. What chance, I ask you, among the myriads, has a +MS., every other word of which is misspelt, and which is wrongly +punctuated, and without paragraphs or capitals, and illegibly written +beside, and, _crowning bother of all_, written on _both_ sides of the +page, over those which are just the reverse; which are no trouble to +read, which require no revision, and which contain _ideas_ as well as +words? + +Very well: after all that, an editor has to decide, among even these +_properly prepared_ MSS., which is best suited to _his_ individual +paper, about which he has, and very properly, his own notions and +ideas. Now an article may be well written, and yet not be the thing he +wishes for his paper, although it might be the very thing desired for +another. Well--he of course rejects it, as he has an undoubted right +to do. He could not carry on his paper or magazine successfully on any +other principle. You would not ask a grocer to buy a piece of calico +because you wanted money for that calico. He would immediately say, +"It is not in my line of business; I can make no use of it. I am sorry +you are in want of money; but business is business. I will make you a +_present_ of three or four dollars, as the case may be; but your +calico is of no use to me." + +Now you could see the force of _that_: why can't you be made to +understand that it is just so, only a _great deal more so_, with an +editor? + +Perhaps you say to me, "Ah, you forget the time when _you_ began." I +beg your pardon, but I do not. Many a weary tramp I had; much pride I +put in my pocket, and few pennies, even with the advantage of a good +education, and a properly prepared MS., and the initiation "of reading +proof"--for my father, who was an editor, when I was not more than +twelve years old--before I succeeded. + +It is _because_ I know; it is because I have been behind the scenes, +that I tell you plainly the preliminary steps to be taken before you +"send MSS. for publication," to any one. + +Then, don't you see, it is not agreeable to write thus to a person who +quite puts these preliminary steps out of sight, either through +ignorance or conceit: My Dear Sir, or my Dear Madam, this wont do! you +have neither education nor ideas. This appears to them unfeeling; but +it is not. It is doing such persons a much greater kindness than you +could do them by luring them on with the idea of reward, thus wasting +their time, which might be used _successfully_ in other directions, +only to end in mortification and disappointment. + +History and Biography show--perhaps you say to me--that many great men +and great writers are deficient in spelling and chirography. Yes, that +is true; but have you not admitted that they were "_great_ writers"? +An editor may be content to keep on sifting, if he is sure of finding +_wheat_; but when the result is _only_ chaff, life is too short for +it; and his necessity to live, equally with your own, too pressing. + +One specimen is as good as a thousand. My last was from a young +person, who tells me that she is tired of sewing for a living, and +wants to write; also, that she wants to write for a certain editor. +Also, that this editor would do much better, were he to take the large +sums he pays to his favorite contributors, who do _not_ need it, and +"assist struggling genius." Also, that "she wishes me to remember that +_I_ once struggled myself." Also, that she wishes me to inform her how +I went to work to get a publisher. + +Now, to begin with, this young woman misspelt every other word in her +letter, besides entirely ignoring capitals and punctuation. This of +course settled in the outset the question of her present literary +possibilities. Editors do not expect to find these things for their +correspondents; at least I know one who don't; and when he "pays large +sums of money to his favorite contributors" for supplying this very +lack, with ideas included, I presume he knows what he is about, and I +think he has the same right to prefer good spelling in his paper that +the writer of this letter has to prefer literary work to sewing. + +Now as to "how I got a publisher." _I didn't get him. He got me._ And +when this young woman produces anything a publisher wants, or thinks +he wants, she will probably have a call from one too. + +Next, I don't forget "that I once struggled myself." It adds zest to +my life every hour to remember it. I love the little cosey house I +live in, as I never else could do, because I earned the money to buy +it myself; and I thank God that, if I lost it to-day, and coupons and +banks also gave out, that I am hale and strong enough, and have the +will and the courage, even at this late day, to begin anew. So much +for that. But I do _not_ believe it to be kindness to advise this +uneducated young woman to throw up her present means of support, how +disagreeable soever it may be, for one, that in her present illiterate +state is utterly hopeless. + +Scores of such letters I get, so that I have sometimes thought I would +have a printed circular, embodying the above obvious difficulties in +the way of "literary aspirants," and mail it on receipt of their +epistles. To-day I concluded that I would, once for all, air my views +on the subject. After this, every letter from a "literary aspirant" +_which is misspelled_ goes into my waste-paper basket. + +Having said all this, I may, in justice to myself, own up to the fact, +that time and again I have given up my own most imperative writing to +correct, and _try_ to make presentable, MSS. for which I was requested +to "_find a publisher_," and which I knew had not the ghost of a +chance, and all because _I did not_, as this young woman advises me, +"forget that I once struggled myself." I never received one word of +thanks for it, but instead dissatisfaction that "_somehow_" I had not +insured success. I remember, in one instance, having spent nearly a +month over a book in MS., laying aside a book of my own, then in +process of preparation; often sitting up late at night, because I +could not else get time enough to devote to it; the writer of this +MS. repaying me only with abuse and defamation, as I afterwards +learned. + +So my conscience is quite clear on the subject of remembering, and in +the best way too, my own early struggles. I have tried, in this +article to express myself so as not to be misunderstood. Still I have +no doubt that some "literary aspirant," feeling himself or herself +aggrieved, will haste to set me down an unfeeling wretch. I can stand +it. + + * * * * * + +The man with good, firm health is rich. + +So is the man with a clear conscience. + +So is the parent of vigorous, happy children. + +So is the editor of a _good_ paper, with a big subscription list. + +So is the clergyman whose coat the little children of his parish +pluck, as he passes them on their play. + +So is that wife who has the whole heart of a good husband. + +So is the maiden whose horizon is not bounded by the "coming man," but +who has a purpose in life, whether she ever meet him or not. + +So is the young man who, laying his hand on his heart, can say, "I +have treated every woman I ever saw as I should wish my sister treated +by other men." + +So is the little child who goes to sleep with a kiss on its lips, and +for whose waking a blessing waits. + + + + +_WHAT SHALL WE DO FOR THE LITTLE CHILDREN ON SUNDAY?_ + + +"Take them to church, of course," says one. Now, I don't think it is +"of course," when I look about, and see little things of four and six +years old, and sometimes younger, fidgetting and squirming in their +out-door wrappings, in a hot, crowded, badly ventilated church, to +whom the services are a dead language, and who prevent those around +them from worship, through pity for their evident uncomfortableness. I +don't think it is "of course" when I see this. To be sure, there are +mothers whose pockets contain alleviations for this juvenile +restlessness, in the shape of sugar-plums, or picture-books; but all +the time they are being applied, the mother's eye must be on the child +instead of the clergymen, lest sticky fingers intrude upon silk or +velvet, or a too hasty rattling of leaves in reading the book drown +the sound of the preacher's voice. "They should be taught to behave," +gravely asserts some person, who, perhaps, has forgotten his own +childhood, or has never been a parent. That is true: we only differ as +to the question whether church is the place to pursue that education. +"Well, suppose you keep a child of that age at home?" asks another. +"Of course he ought not to play with his toys as on other days, and +he can't read all day, and no one can read or talk all day to him, and +what are you going to do then?" In the first place, I, for one, should +never "take away its toys" before I could enable it to pass Sunday +pleasantly without them; and, of course, I should not allow them +directly to interfere with other persons' enjoyment of quiet on +Sunday. It is a very difficult problem to solve, I know; but I am +sure, to make Sunday a tedium and disgust, is not the way; we have all +known too many sad instances of the terrible rebound of adult years +from this un-wisdom. We have all known instances where "going to +meeting" was _not_ prematurely forced upon the restless little limbs +of children, who have, when a little older, asked to accompany the +family to worship, and been pleased to go. Nor would I deprive a child +of its accustomed walk in the fresh air on that day; on the contrary, +I should be most anxious that it should as usual enjoy the out-door +brightness. I would also always have for that day some little pleasure +which belonged especially to it. It may be some plain little cakes or +nuts of which it was fond. I would always have on hand some stories to +read, or to tell it, on that day. If possible, I would have flowers on +Sunday placed at the child's plate; I would strive that Sunday should +be the _cheerfullest_ day of all the week to it--not a bugbear. I +believe all this might be done, without disturbing any Christian's +church-membership, or perilling any child's salvation. In the country +it is much easier to make Sunday pleasant for children than in the +city. You have only to let them stray into the garden or field, and be +happy in the best way a little unformed mind can he. Or, if the +weather interferes with this, the barn and the animals are a +never-failing source of pleasure to it. + +There are those who might think it "wicked" to do this. The +wickedness, to me, consists in making Sunday, which should be a +delight, such a tedium, that, in after years, whenever the word +strikes upon the ear, or the day returns, the first impulse is to shun +and evade it. Oh, let Sunday be what the memory of "mother's room" is +to us all--radiant with perfume of flowers and sunshine. The bright +spot to look back upon, when old age sits in the chimney-corner, with +the sweet psalm from voices hushed by death, or far removed, still +sounding in the ears; with the memory of happy faces over the Sunday +meal; the glad "Good-morning" and the soft "Good-night." + +Surely the God who opens the flowers on Sunday, and lets the birds +sing, did not mean that we should close our eyes to the one or our +ears to the other, or that we should throw a pall over the little +children. + + + + +_MY HOUSE IN THE COUNTRY._ + + +When I live in the country, the front door of my house shall be made +for use, and not for show; and the blinds and windows shall be thrown +wide open from sunrise until sunset; and I will issue invitations to +the bees and birds and butterflies to come in and out at their own +convenience, without fear of molestation from me, or of danger to my +furniture or belongings. If a few mosquitoes follow suit, I will +accept them as a necessary evil, and not to be compared, in the way of +annoyance, with that air of sepulchral gloom which, like a wet blanket +of mist, surrounds the exterior of most country dwellings, where the +men, women, and children skulk round like burglars to the _back_ of +the house to effect an entrance, and the closed door and blinds are +suggestive of a corpse awaiting burial. And yet I think I understand +how this bad custom came about. It was from many babies and much +darning and baking, and the dread of impending fly-specks on the gilt +frame encircling General Washington and the large looking-glass. But, +dear friends, put a mahogany frame round the General, and banish the +looking-glass, which will, in a few years, if you neglect all that +makes home cheerful, reflect only the imprint of life's cares, +instead of its pleasures and contents. "_They_ are so very few," you +say. Well, then the more necessity for letting in the sunshine. As I +walk about, I notice the careworn, pallid faces of the wives and +mothers about many of these country homes, and the careless untidiness +of dress which, in a woman, means that she has given the whole thing +up, either from overwork or lack of sympathy from the one person for +whom the shining hair was once neatly combed, and the strip of white +collar carefully pinned, although it might be late in the day before +time was found to do these things. When I see these women at +nightfall, in this neglectful dress, sitting alone upon the back +door-step, while the husband and father has strolled off to some +neighbor's, and lies flat on his stomach on the grass, with half a +dozen other husbands and fathers, browsing like so many cattle, +without a thought of those weary women, I fall to thinking how much +life would be worth to me reduced to this utilitarian standard of cow +and cabbage. Then I wonder if those women were to throw open the +blinds and doors and windows of the front of the house, and smooth +their hair a bit, and let one of the children pick some grasses and +wild flowers for the mantel, and then tell their respective Johns and +Toms to bring into the house the men they like to talk to at that +hour, so that all could be jolly together, whether it wouldn't change +things for the better. If that plan didn't work, do you know what I +would do? I would shoulder my baby, and trot down the road to the +nearest neighbor's, and let the old coffin of a house take care of +itself. I _wouldn't_ rust, anyhow. + +Now, it may be that these women wouldn't know how miserable they were, +if I didn't tell them of it. So much the worse, then. I only know that +if life were _all work_ to me, it should go hard but I would try to +catch a sunbeam now and then, if it were only that the children might +not be demoralized by growing up to look at me in the light of a +dray-horse; if it were only that my boys need not expect _their_ wives +to close their eyes and ears to the beauty and harmony which God had +scattered so lavishly about them. Because there are rocks, shall there +be no roses? Because there is dust, shall there be no dew? + +Do you do well, my sisters, to make your houses so gloomy that your +husbands would rather roost outside upon the stone fences, than stay +in them? Don't _have_ a "best carpet;" don't _have_ a "best sofa." Let +in the sun, and the birds, and the children, though it involve bare +floors and wooden chairs, and the total banishment of General +Washington and that best looking-glass. _Eat_ in your "best parlor," +and laugh in it; don't save it up to be laid out in! Try it now, and +see if life isn't a different thing to you all. As to your "work," a +great deal of it is unnecessary. John and the children would be much +better without pies, cakes, and doughnuts. Make it your religion to +give them wholesome bread and meat, and then stop and take a little +breath. Nobody will thank you for turning yourself into a machine. +When you drop in your tracks, they will just shovel the earth over +you, and get Jerusha Ann Somebody to step into your shoes. They wont +cry a bit. You never stopped to say a word to them except "_get out of +my way_." To be sure, you were working hard for them all the while, +but that wont be remembered. So you just take a little comfort +yourself as you go along, and look after "No 1." Laugh more and darn +less; they will like you twice as well. If there is more work than you +can consistently do, _don't do it_. Sometimes there is a little +blossom of a daughter in a family who makes everything bright with her +finger-tips; if there is none in yours, do _you_ be that blossom. +Don't, even for John, let your children remember home as a +charnel-house, and you as its female sexton. + + + + +_WHY WEAR MOURNING?_ + + +I wish that a few sensible, intelligent, _wealthy_ people would cease +draping and festooning themselves like engine-houses, when a death +occurs in the family. I use word "_wealthy_" advisedly; because it is +only that class who can really effect a reformation, for the reason +that _they_ will not be supposed unable "to pay a proper respect," as +the phrase runs, to the deceased. Proper respect! Do yards of crape +and bombazine never express the opposite emotion? Is real +heart-breaking grief to be gauged by the width of a hem, or the length +or thickness of a veil? Have not many a widow and orphan woke up, the +morning after a funeral, to find the little left by the deceased, +expended in funereal carriages, for people who would not lift a +helping finger if it would keep them out of the almshouse? We all know +that, or if we don't, we may wake up to the fact, some future day, +when the sunshine of prosperity is clouded over. That point disposed +of, it must also be remembered that a black dress now is hardly +"mourning;" since that color is so fashionable for street and home, +and even festive wear, that it is hard to distinguish the lady who +affects "all black," because "it is so stylish," from a bereaved +person. Another objection to "mourning" is, that it is the most +expensive dress that can be worn, because most easily spoiled by rain, +or dampness, or dust; and as "proper respect for the deceased" +requires such voluminous folds of it, and so often renewed to be +presentable, or else many changes of mourning to keep the "best suit" +up to the proper grief requirement, that the tax on a limited purse +may be easily calculated. + +Said a lady to me one day, "This heavy crape-vail, over my face and +down to my knees, keeps out the air, and gives me a constant +sick-headache."--"Why, then, wear it?" asked I.--"Because it wouldn't +be _decent_ to omit it," she replied. This remark, of course, requires +no comment. + +Then, again, the little children--death must be made as horrible as +possible to _them_ too, at the biding of custom! They must be swathed +in sackcloth although only two or three years of sunshine have put the +golden gleam in their hair. Is it not enough that papa or mamma, or +sister or brother, may never answer again when their bird-like voices +call them! Is it Christian or even humane, so to surround them with +gloom that "death" shall be a never-ceasing nightmare? I never see a +little creature so habited, that I do not long to hang a garland of +roses about its neck, and point to the blue heavens as an emblem of +that serene rest which has come to the sleeper. + +But you may ask, "Would you give _no_ sign, _no_ token that the +footprints of the Destroyer are over your threshold?" Yes, the same +that is used by military men when their chief has departed--a crape +upon the arm. This simple token--no more; since, as I say, multiplied +bombazine and crape do _not_ always express either grief or respect; +since they often represent the contrary, and mostly an expense which +can ill be borne by the survivors even when grief is sincere; and +since this already recognized military badge of bereavement answers +all the purpose--why not? + +The white ribbon tied upon the door-handle, with rosebuds attached, +when the baby's lids are forever closed--oh! that is beautiful. There +are, and must be, breaking hearts inside that door; but I know by +experience that the moment will surely come, after nature shall have +had its saving flow of tears, when, in the sense of perfect peace, and +safety for the little song-bird, now far above the clouds of earth, +they will forget themselves and remember only that. + +Then away with all these heathenish insignia; they certainly stand no +more for grief or respect than a flashing diamond on the neck or +finger, denotes wealth or social position, or even respectability. +Above all, away with this bugaboo nightmare of little children, who +will have enough, God knows, to contend with, as they grow older, +without prematurely draping with the blackness of darkness, the +entrance to a portal through which they are certainly destined to +pass, and which the light of faith in their maturer years may gild, as +the shining gate to the Celestial City. + + + + +"_DELIGHTFUL MEN._" + + +Isn't he a delightful man? This question was addressed to me by a lady +in company concerning a gentleman who had rendered himself during the +evening, peculiarly agreeable. Before I answer that question, I said, +I would like to see him at home. I would like to know if, when he jars +his wife's feelings, he says, "Beg pardon" as willingly and promptly +as when he stepped upon yonder lady's dress. I would like to know if, +when he comes home at night, he has some pleasant little things to +say, such as he has scattered about so lavishly since he entered this +room this evening; and whether if the badly cooked dish, which he +gallantly declared to the hostess at the table, "could not have been +improved," would have found a similar verdict on his own table, and to +his own wife. _That is the test._ I am sorry to say that some of the +most agreeable society-men, who could, by no possibility, be guilty of +a rudeness abroad, could never be suspected in their own homes of ever +doing anything else. The man who will invariably meet other ladies +with "How very well you are looking!" will often never, from one day +to another, take notice of his own wife's appearance, or, if so, only +to find fault. How bright that home would be to his wife with one +half the courtesy and toleration he invariably shows to strangers. +"Allow me to differ"--he blandly remarks to an opponent with whom he +argues in company. "Pshaw! what do _you_ know about it?" he says at +his own fireside and to his wife. Children are "angels" when they +belong to his neighbors; his own are sent out of the room whenever he +enters it, or receive so little recognition that they are glad to +leave. "Permit me," says the gallant male _vis-a-vis_ in the omnibus +or car, as he takes your fare; while _his_ wife often hands up her own +fare, even with her husband by her side. No wonder she is not "looking +well" when she sees politeness is for every place but for +home-consumption. + +"Oh, how men miss it in disregarding these little matters," said a +sad-eyed wife to me one day. And she said truly; for these little +kindnesses are like a breath of fresh air from an open window in a +stifled room; we lift our drooping heads and breathe again! "Little!" +did I say! _Can_ that be little which makes or mars the happiness of a +human being? A man says a rough, rude word, or neglects the golden +opportunity to say a kind one, and goes his selfish way and thinks it +of no account. Then he marvels when he comes back,--in sublime +forgetfulness of the past,--that the familiar eye does not brighten at +his coming, or the familiar tongue voice a welcome. Then, on inquiry, +if he is told of the rough word, he says: "O-o-h! _that's_ it--is it? +Now it isn't possible that you gave _that_ a second thought? Why, _I_ +forgot all about it!" as if this last were really a palliation and a +merit. + +It would be ludicrous, this masculine obtuseness, were it not for the +tragic consequences--were it not for the loving hearts that are +chilled--the homes that are darkened--the lives that are blighted--and +the dew and promise of the morning that are so needlessly turned into +sombre night. + +"Little things!" There _are_ no little things. "Little things," so +called, are the hinges of the universe. They are happiness, or misery; +they are poverty, or riches; they are prosperity or adversity; they +are life, or death. Not a human being of us all, can afford to despise +"the day of _small_ things." + +Yes, husbands, _be cheerful at home_. I daresay, sir, _your_ Bible may +belong to an expurgated edition; but this sentiment is in mine. I have +unfortunately loaned it to a neighbor, so that I cannot at this minute +point to the exact chapter, but that's neither here nor there. + +In every "Guide for Wives" I find "cheerfulness" the first article set +down in the creed; with no margin left for crying babies, or sleepless +nights, or incompetent "help," or any of the small miseries which men +wave off with their hands as "not worth minding, my dear!" So when the +time comes for John's return from the shop or office, they begin the +cheerful dodge, just as they are bid, by the _single_ men and women, +who usually write these "Guides for Wives." They hurry to wash the +children's faces, or to have them washed, and stagger round, though +they may not have had a breath of fresh air for a week, to make things +"cheerful" for John. John's beef and vegetables and dessert are all +right. He accepts them, and eats them. Then he lies down on the sofa +to digest them, which he does silently--cow-fashion. The children, one +by one, are sent to bed. Now, does it occur to John that he might try +_his_ hand at a little "cheerfulness"? Not a bit. He asks his wife, +coolly, if there's anything in the evening paper. + +She is so tired of the house and its cares, which have cobwebbed her +all over till she is half smothered, soul and body, that this question +seems the cruelest one that could be put, in her nervous condition. +She _ought_ to answer as he does, when she asks him what is in the +_morning_ paper, the while she is feeding Tommy--_his_ Tommy as well +as hers: "Read it, my dear; it is full of interest!" + +Instead, she takes up the evening paper wearily; and though the +tell-tale, exhausted tones of her voice as she reads, are sufficiently +suggestive of her inability for reading aloud, yet he graciously +listens well pleased, and goes to sleep just as she gets down to the +advertisements, which is a good place! + +Now that woman _ought_ just then, quietly to put on her bonnet and +shawl, and run into one of the neighbors', and stay till _she_ has got +a little "cheerfulness;" but the "Guide to Wives" insists that, +instead, she sit down and look at her John, so that no unlucky noise +may disturb his slumber; and half the wives do it too, and that's the +way they make, and perpetuate, these very Johns. + +The way men nurse up _their_ frail bodies is curious to witness, in +contrast with the little care they take of their wives. Now it never +occurs to most wives that being "tired," is an excuse for not doing +anything that, half dead, they are drummed up to do. Now there's just +where I blame them. If they wait for their Johns to _see_ it, or to +_say_ it, they may wait till the millennium. There's no need of a +fight about it either. _He_ wants to lie there and be read to. +Well--let him lie there; but don't you read to him, or talk to him +either, when you feel that way. If he is so stupid or indifferent, as +not to see that you can't begin another day of worry like that, +without a reprieve of some kind, bid him a pleasant good-evening, and +go to some pleasant neighbor's, as he would do, if he felt like it, +for the same reason--as he _did_ do the evening before, without +consulting your preference or tiredness. + +Now this may sound vixenish, but it is simply _justice_; and it is +time women learned that, as mothers of families, it is just as much +their duty to consult their physical needs, as it is for the fathers +of families to consult theirs, and more too, since the nervous +organization of women is more delicate, and the pettiness of their +household cares more exhaustive and wearing, than a man's can possibly +be; and this I will insist on, spite of Todd and Bushnell, and every +clerical pussy-cat who ever mewed "Let us have peace!" Peace, reverend +sirs, is of no sex. _We_ like it too; but too dear a price may be +paid even for "peace." + +Now I know there are instances, for I have seen them, in which the +husband is the only cheerful element in the house--when his step, his +countenance, like the sunrise, irradiates and warms every nook and +corner. But ah! how rare is this! I know too that cheerfulness is +greatly a thing of temperament; but I also know, that it is just as +much a man's duty to cultivate it by reading to his wife, and +conversing with his wife, as it is hers to amuse and cheer him when +the day's cares are over. And in this regard I must say that men, as a +general thing, are disgustingly selfish. Absorbing, but never giving +out--accepting, but seldom returning. It is for women to assert their +right to fresh air, to relaxation, to relief from care, whenever the +physical system breaks down, just as men always do; for the +Johns seldom wake up to it till a coffin is ordered--and +pocket-handkerchiefs are too late! + +And, speaking of that, nothing is more comical to me, in my +journeyings to and fro in the earth, than the blundering way in which +most men legislate their domestic affairs. Mr. Jones, for instance, is +attracted to a delicate, timid, nervous little lady, and moves heaven +and earth, and upsets several families who have a special objection to +her becoming Mrs. Jones, in order to bring about this desirable +result. After an immense besieging outlay, he gets her. We will leave +a margin for the honeymoon. Then commences life in earnest. The +little wife stands aghast to find that her husband's whole aim, is to +transform her into the direct opposite to that which he formerly +admired. In short, that to retain his love and respect, she must make +herself, by some process or other only known to herself, entirely +over. For instance, she is so constituted that the sight of blood has +always given her a deadly faintness, and she never was able to assist, +in any emergency or accident, where physicial pain was involved. Now +this is not an affectation with her--she _really can not_ do it. Now +Mr. Jones, with masculine acumen, immediately sets in motion a series +of little tyrannies, to force what a lifetime could never bring about, +no more than it could change his wife's hair from jet to flaxen color. +Does their child break a leg, or arm, he insists, although other aid +is at hand, that she shall not only be present, but assist in the +dressing and binding up of the same, by way of eradicating and +overcoming what he calls a "folly." To this end he uses sarcasm, +ridicule, threats, every thing which he thinks the "head of the +family" is justified in using, to force this child-woman's nature, +which once had such fragile attractions for him, into an up-hill +course, in which it is impossible for it ever to go, with all the +tyranny he can bring to bear upon it; and thus he keeps on +trying,--year after year,--with an amount of persistence which should +entitle him to a lunatic's cell, and which is gradually preparing his +wife for one, through mortification and wounded affection. + +Again--a man is attracted to a woman of marked individuality of +character. He admires her decision and self-poise, her energy and +self-reliance, and stamps them, with one hand on his heart, with the +conjugal seal. Directly upon possession, that which seemed to him so +admirable conflicts with his opinions, wounds his self-love, and even +though gradually and properly expressed, seems to breathe defiance. +Now _this_ woman he, too, strives to _make over_. He disputes her +positions and opinions with acidity, because they differ from his own, +and therefore must be wrong. Perhaps he looks at her, and at them, +more through the eyes of impertinent outsiders who have nothing to do +with it, than through his own spectacles. Many a man will perpetrate a +great injustice in his own household, rather than bear the slightest +meddling imputation that he is not its master. So, year after year, +this fruitless effort goes on, to transform a full-grown tree to a +little sapling, capable of being bent in any and every direction, +according to the moulder's capricious whim or fancy, with not the +ghost of a result, so far as success is concerned. + +I might cite many other instances to illustrate the absurd manner in +which men persist in marring their own happiness; committing those +flagrant injustices of which women either die, and make no sign, or +break into what is called "_unwomanly_" rebellion, when their sense of +justice is outraged, by the _love_ which has proved weaker than +_pride_. + +It is pitiful to think how frequent are these life-mistakes, and more +pitiful still to think, that women themselves are responsible in a +great measure for them. Let parents see to it, especially let +_mothers_ see to it, that the little boy is to yield equally with his +sisters in their games and plays. Let the maxim, "Give it to your +_sister_," issue as often from your lips as "Give it to your +_brother_." Let the father say as often to his son, "Prepare to become +the excellent husband of some good woman," as the mother to her +daughter, "Prepare to be the worthy wife of some good man." In other +words, begin at the fireside. Remember that you are training that +little boy to make or mar the happiness of some woman, according as +you teach him self-government--justice--and the contrary. This is an +idea which even abused wives seldom think of. It might be well for +them, and some now happy girl, who may lose through that boy, heart +and hope in the future, did they do so. + + + + +_CHOOSING PRESENTS._ + + +"Which would you prefer," asked a friend of me,--"a pretty useless +present, or an ugly useful one?" I had to stop and think before +replying. I knew it was a trap sprung for my halting; so, woman-like, +I dodged my weak side by saying, "There is no necessity, as I see, for +either extreme." + +One of our first biographers has remarked of me, that if he brings +home an _ugly-looking_ book, and lays it upon the table, I very soon +transfer it to a less conspicuous locality. This may or may not be +true; meantime I am not going to blink the fact that I adore pretty +things. Butter tastes better to me from a dainty little dish. So do +vegetables. Nor, to compass this, does one need the purse of +Fortunatus. Pretty shapes in vases, pitchers, plates, and the like, +have commended themselves to me, though not of silver. In fact, since +the burglars relieved me of my silver while in the country last +summer, I resolutely set my face against any further invitations to +them in that shape. This is to certify that henceforth only plated +ware, but very _pretty_ plated ware, shall cross my threshold. + +But, not to digress, what a "mess" people generally make of holiday +presents! Some houses contain only silver soup-ladles, others a +superabundance of butter-knives. Some babies, again, have silver cups +enough so furnish all their descendants, be they more or less. The +most harrowing present I know of is a "picture annual," all over gilt, +with wide margins inside, and with common-sense at a discount. It is a +type of a pretty mouth from whence issues only folly. Worsted cats and +dogs come next, in the shape of mats, chair-covers, etc. Now a dozen +of handkerchiefs or gloves, may be both pretty and sensible as a +present. So is a flower-stand, without which, in my opinion, no parlor +is furnished, how plentifully soever satin and gilt may abound. I am +frivolous enough to like rings, brooches, ear-rings, and bracelets, of +lovely, but above all, _odd_ forms and designs, if worn at the proper +time and place. But, dear! dear! I shouldn't make a good Quaker, for a +bit of scarlet somewhere in my room, is quite necessary to my peace of +mind. I look at that elaborate little bird-house for sparrows, +fronting the Quaker meeting-house, and I think I see a symptom of the +coming millennium for Quakers. I frankly own to exchanging a white +syrup-pitcher the other day, in favor of a white one with a scarlet +handle. I like these little touches of color to a degree, that, if +Heaven depended on their absence, might possibly peril my chances of +Paradise. + +Now I am not apologizing for this--not a bit! I am only sorry +for those of you who trudge along whether from choice or +necessity--through life's dusty highway, without stopping to notice, +or to cull, the flowers hidden in its hedge-rows, and place them as +you go, in your hair, or in your bosom. + +Pretty things are humanizing. I wish every work-room could have its +flowers and its pictures. _My_ God don't turn His back on either. Even +in the dull old yard of a tenement house, He sends up through the +chinks tiny blades of grass and dandelion, and chickweed blossoms. And +does not the pure white snow come sifting down over the garbage-heaps +and ash-barrels before the door of poverty which man, less merciful, +would doom to have all the year round before their disgusted vision? + +Meantime, let us hope that "the minister's" holiday present may be a +pair of boxing-gloves instead of a hymn-book, of which latter he has a +surfeit. As to his wife--for goodness' sake, send her the same thing +you would, were she the wife of a layman. And if you order her a cake, +don't surmount it with a cross, of which ministers' wives have already +too many in their parishioners. Give an editor a new subscriber and +you can't miss it. Send a lawyer no bones to pick, unless--well +covered with meat! And don't make a _pup_ of your husband by giving +him a velvet dressing-gown. And as to you, sir, don't pick out for +_your_ wife just what your friend Jenkins does for _his_; because, +though men are all alike, and cigars are always acceptable to them, +yet a man can never be certain whether his wife, on the receipt of a +present from her husband, will box his ears, or fall to kissing him; +and since Variety is the god of most men, I suppose this is all right. + +It must be owned, that of all perplexing things on earth, the greatest +is the perplexity of choosing a present. After you have considered, +first your purse; then the multifarious demands upon it; then the age, +desires, and taste of the recipient--comes the weary tramp in hot, +crowded stores for the desired article; comes the known incivility of +_most_ women bent on shopping errands, to their fellow-women; of +addressing the clerk, upon whom you, as first-comer, have a prior +claim, or even drawing from your and his fingers the very article you +have under distracted consideration. Of course I don't mean _you_, my +dear; didn't I say _most_ women? You will always find that I leave a +door of escape open, before I insinuate that my sex are not all +seraphs. Well--you make your purchase, and perspire in your furs, +while "cash" performs his gymnastics through feminine feet and hoops, +to get it _parcelled_ and return your change. But, alas! this is only +one present, and it has taken an entire morning to get it, and when +you get home Aunt Jemima whispers confidentially "that she overheard +John say that _he_ had bought that very article for the same person +for whom yours was intended;" and, what is worse, you can't transfer +it, because there is no other member of the family for whom it would +be suitable. You wonder if it wouldn't do to enclose so many dollars +to each member of the family, and let them make their own selection. +Sentiment would have to "go under," of course; but don't it when a +recipient wonders "how much you paid for your gift"? Time was, when a +present was acceptable, or on the contrary, according to the love +which prompted it, and not according to the value of the gift. Now, +young ladies expect diamonds, and pearls, and rubies, and quite turn +up their pretty noses at a book, or a work-box, or a writing-desk. +What with "golden weddings" and "silver weddings," and other bids for +gold and silver in various shapes, what with the bugbear word "mean" +in such connection, bankruptcy, or an inglorious exit, is the only +alternative to many. I have been some time coming to my moral, which +is this: that the "present" system is, to use a slang expression, "run +into the ground." I except the present a husband gives his wife, for +whom nothing of course is too good, or too tasteful, or too costly; +and who can, while receiving it, ask him to give her a hundred dollars +or so, to go out and _buy him one_! Also, in all heartiness, and +without joking, I except the little children, whose lovely dream of +Santa Claus vanishes with the flossy, golden-tipped curls of babyhood. +Pile up for them the dolls, and tops, and whistles, and wagons, and +kaleidoscopes, and velocipedes, that they may always when old age +seats them in the chimney-corner have this bright spot to look back +upon, over the graves of buried hopes and hearts, which could not else +bear thinking of. + + + + +_A BID FOR AN EDITORSHIP._ + + +I think I should like to be an editor, if somebody would do all the +disagreeable, hard work for me, and leave me only the fancy touches. I +don't know how profound my political articles would be, but they would +be _mine_. I think my book reviews would be pleasant reading, at least +to everybody but some of the authors. I should have a high railing +round my editorial desk, and "through the lattice" microscopically and +leisurely regard the row of expectant men waiting outside for a +hearing. I should not need a spittoon in my office. Nobody should +contribute to my paper who smoked, or chewed, or snuffed tobacco; that +would diminish my contributors' list about right. I should discard +Webster and Walker, and inaugurate a dictionary of my own. I should +allow anybody who felt inclined to send me samples of big strawberries +and peaches, and bunches of flowers; and I should get a fine library, +free gratis, out of the books sent me to review. As to grinding the +axes of the givers in return, why that, of course, should always be +left to the option of the editor. Before I commenced an editor's life, +I should secure money enough in some way to be able to snap my +fingers in the face of that grim ogre, "Stop my Paper!" I tell you I +_wouldn't_ stop it. It is a free country. I'd keep on sending it to +him. I'd always have something in every number about him, so that he +couldn't do without having it, how much soever he might want to. + +Then you should see my desk. It should be dusted once a year, to show +editors what a desk _might_ be. My editorial chair shouldn't pivot; +there should be no shadow of turning about that. Gibraltar should be a +circumstance to it. The windows of my editorial den should be scraped +with a sharp knife occasionally, to take off sufficient dirt to enable +me to write legibly. I should keep my best bonnet in a bandbox under +my desk, for any sudden dress emergency, as do editors their +go-to-meetin' hat. Like them, too, I should have a small looking-glass +for--visitors! also a bottle of--"medicine" for--visitors! I don't +think I should need a safe, as the principles upon which my paper +would be conducted would render it unnecessary. My object would be to +amuse _myself_, and say just what came uppermost, not by any means to +please or edify my species. Now, I have examined all the papers that +cross my threshold, and I am very sure that I have hit on quite an +original idea. + +If it stormed badly on publication day, I wouldn't send the poor +devils in my employ out with my paper, just because my subscribers +fancied they wanted it. Let 'em wait. The first fair day they'd have +it, of course. In the meantime, the printer's devil, and the +compositors, and the rest of 'em, could play chequers till the sky +cleared up. + +If anybody sued me for libel, I'd--I'd whine out, "Aint you +ashamed to annoy a female? Why don't you strike one of your +own size?" I should insist on being treated with the deference +due to a woman, though in all respects I should demand the +untrammeled-seven-leagued-boots-freedom of a man. My object would be +to hit everybody smack between the eyes, when I felt like it; and when +I saw brutal retribution coming, to throw my silk apron over my head +and whimper. + +I have not yet decided upon the title of my paper. Children are not +generally baptized until after they are born. Nor do I know who will +stand sponsor. All that is in the misty future. As to the price, I +should nail up a cash-box at the foot of the stairs, and people could +drop in whatever they liked. I should, by that means, not only show my +unshaken confidence in human nature, but also learn in what estimation +the general public held my services. There's nothing so dear to my +heart as spontaneity. + + + + +_A SERMON TO PLYMOUTH PULPIT._ + + +O Mr. Beecher! that you should recommend "candy," or "sugar plums," it +is all the same, for the youngsters. That _you_ should be quoted +through the length and breadth of the land as having done so, to the +delight of these youngsters, and the candy-merchants, and the +dentists, and the doctors generally! To be _candid_, I am ashamed of +you. + +Do you suppose that you are the only grandparent in the land? The only +loving, the only proud grandparent? I am a grandparent. I can love as +hard as you can. I can show just as bewildering a grandchild as you +can. It is just as hard for me to say No to that grandchild as it is +for you to say No to yours; but--excuse me--_I_ can do it. She is five +years old, but never touches candy. When she was three, a lady in an +omnibus gave her a red and white peppermint stick, and she turned to +me and asked "if it were not a pretty _toy_?" She knows now that candy +is to eat; but when it is given her, whether in my presence or not, +she says, "I am not allowed to eat candy." Meantime, she loves +beefsteak, she loves potatoes, she drinks milk and eats bread, with a +relish that candy-fed children never know. Either you are very right, +or I am very wrong. You see I am touchy on this subject, having worn +out several pens and distributed much ink in the crusade against it; +and here _you_, in the _Ledger_, right under my very nose, with one +frisk of your magic pen, cover me with indelible ignominy! + +"Mr. _Beecher_ says children should have candy;" and, what is more, he +thinks they should be _bought_ to be good by it! Oh, fie! + +Well, now, I reply: Mr. Beecher is a _man_. If his grandchild has the +stomach-ache, it is the _women_ of the family who will soothe it, and +bear its cries and its wakeful nights. If the little teeth prematurely +decay and ache, it is _the women_ who will accompany it to the +dentist's for the heart-rending wrench of cold iron. Mr. Beecher, in +short, decided this candy question from a _man's_ standpoint. He took +the popular side of the question with the children, who will always +shout hosanna to him for the same. But, my dear sir, the mothers who, +going home after shopping through Broadway, stop each day for the +poisonous parcel of sweets for Johnny and Susy, need restraint, not +encouragement, from you. They "can't imagine what ails Susy or Johnny, +to be so fretful" after eating it. Of course they never for a moment +suppose it to be candy. Didn't _they_ eat candy? And are they buried +yet? _I_ ask another question: What is the state of their teeth and +digestion to-day? What their powers of endurance as mothers? What, in +short, do they annually contribute to enable the fat family doctor to +ride in his carriage and live in Fifth Avenue? _That's_ what _I_ want +to know. + +O Mr. Beecher! well as I like you, I don't know what to say to you; +and what makes the case more aggravating, I know I shall keep on +liking you, whatever you say. That's the worst of it, and you know it. +And I am going to send this right off to the _Ledger_ office without a +second reading, lest I should qualify it, or trim it up, or make it +more respectful because you are "a minister." + +No, sir; I won't do it; I'll take example by a rampant female at a +public meeting the other night, who was scolding her husband for not +getting her a better seat. The distressed man laid his hand on her +arm, saying, "Hush! here's Fanny Fern; she will hear you." With +distended nostrils, that admirable woman replied, "I don't care for +six hundred Fanny Ferns!" + +My dear sir, your hand is too well accustomed to drawing a moral, for +me to presume to do it for you in this case! Adieu. + + + + +_FEMALE CLERKS._ + + +I have heard the objection made, by women, to female clerks in stores, +that they are less civil and attentive to their own sex than are male +clerks. I can only answer for myself, that I have never found any +reason to complain of them in this regard. In fact, I often wonder at +their patience and civility under very trying circumstances. I suppose +gallantry supplies the place of patience in male clerks. With so many +fresh, pretty, dimpled young faces to look at, a young man need not be +so very churlish, though he be not christened Job. + +Female clerks, it always seemed to me, must necessarily give out first +_in their feet_. That incessant standing, from morning to night, must +be more trying to them than to men. Many women, I know, can _walk_ +miles more easily than they could stand for half an hour. + +After making a purchase at a store quite late in the afternoon, I said +to the young girl who waited upon me,-- + +"How very tired you must get of us women, day after day!" + +"There is a great difference in them," she civilly replied. + +"But don't your feet ache sadly?" I asked. "That always seemed to me +the most trying part of it." + +She smiled as she pulled from under the seat, behind the counter, a +stool. + +"I thought that mitigation of weariness was against all regulations in +stores," I replied. + +"Not in _this_," was her answer. "Mr. ---- has always allowed his +female clerks to sit down when they were tired." + +Now, I was so pleased at this that I should like to give that +employer's name in full on this page. Here was a man who was wise +enough, and, above all, humane enough, to look on _their_ side of the +question. In doing so, of course, he did not overlook his own. In +doing so, he may also have known that there is a point when even a +woman's india-rubber patience, may be stretched too far. He may have +known that, when soul and body gave out, and a customer came in at +that trying moment, and the "last ounce" having been "laid on the +camel's back," the article inquired for _they_ "_did not keep_!" I say +he _might_ have been keen enough to have known this. _I_ prefer to +believe, that being a good, kind-hearted man, he tried to make service +for these young girls as light as he would wish it made for his own +young daughters, were they in that position. It is very certain that, +which way soever we look at it, it is an example which other employers +would do well to follow. + +It wont do the male clerks any harm to stand still; but I would be +very glad to have inaugurated this humane consideration for the young +women. I heard one of them tell a friend, the other day, that she had +to go directly to bed each evening on her return home, because her +feet and back ached so intolerably. + +Another suggestion: When employers have any occasion to reprove these +young women, if they would not mortify them by doing it in the +presence and in the hearing of customers, it would not only be more +pleasant for the latter, but would be more likely to have its proper +effect on the offender. I have sometimes heard such brutal things said +by employers to a blushing young girl, whose eyes filled with tears at +her helplessness to avert it, or to reply to it, that I never could +enter the store again, for fear of a repetition of the distressing +scene, although, so far as I personally was concerned, I had nothing +to complain of. + +The moral of all this is, that men in the family, and in the store +too, must look upon women in a different light from that to which they +are accustomed; before, to use a detestable phrase, but one which will +appeal most strongly to the majority, they "can get the most work out +of them." Physicians understand this. Every man is not a physician, +but he ought at least to know that backaches and headaches, and +heartaches too, are not confined to his own sex. + + + + +_BLUE MONDAY._ + + +"Blue Monday." By this name clergymen designate the day. Preaching as +they do, two sermons on the Sabbath, sometimes three--not to mention +Sunday-school exhortations, and possible funerals and marriages; of +course, I take no account of what may have happened, on Sunday, in +_their own_ families, no more than does the outside world. "The +minister" must, like a conductor of a railroad train, be "up to +time,"--hence "Blue Monday." Flesh and blood is flesh and blood, +although covered by a surplice or a cassock, and will get _tired_, +even in a good cause. Therefore the worn-out clergyman takes Monday +for a day of rest, for truly the Sabbath is none. He wanders about and +tries to give his brains a holiday--I say _tries_, because he often +misses it by wandering into the book-stores, or going to see a +publisher, instead of taking a drive, or a ramble in the fields, or +wooing nature, who never fails to lay a healing hand on her children. + +But Blue Monday does not belong exclusively to clergymen--oh, mother +of many children! as you can testify. True, you call it by another +name--"Washing-day,"--but it is all one, as far as exhaustion is its +characteristic. May the gods grant that on that day, when your +assistant in nursery-labor must often make up the deficiencies +involved in the terrible "family-wash," that no "plumber" or +"gas-fitter" send in his bill, to "rile" the good man of the house, to +exclaim against the "expenses of housekeeping," and send you into your +Babel of a nursery, with moist eyes and a heavy heart? It is poor +comfort, after you have cried it out, to try to pacify yourself by +saying, Well, he didn't _mean_ to say I'm sorry I ever was married, +yet it hurts me all the same; men are so thoughtless about such +things, and they go out after hurling such a poisoned arrow, and +forget, even if they ever knew it, that they have left it there to +rankle all day; and are quite astonished, and, perhaps, disgusted when +they come back that the good lady is not in excellent spirits, as they +are, and wonder what _she_, with a comfortable home, and nothing but +house matters to attend to, can find to worry her. Now, Mrs. Jones, +and Mrs. Jenkins, and Mrs. Smith, I'll lay a wager with each of you, +that your husbands have done that very thing, more times than you can +count, and on "Blue Monday" too. + +Ah! these "chance words," and the _thick_-skinned utterers of them. +Ah! the pity that the needle is no hindrance to the bitter thoughts +they bring; but that over the little torn apron or frock, the tears of +discouragement fall; the bitterest of all--that _he_ hasn't the least +idea "he has said anything," but is, very likely, inviting some fellow +that very minute to "take a drink" with him, or to smoke a dozen +cigars more or less, spite the "expense." My dears, wipe your eyes. If +you look for consistency in the male creature, you'll need a +microscope to find it. _Your_ expenses hurt him dreadfully; when I say +yours, I mean not only your _personal_ expenses, but the _house_ +expenses; for don't you see, had he staid a bachelor, he wouldn't have +had a plumber's bill to pay--and that's all your fault, because you +said "yes," when he got on his knees to implore you that he _might_ +have the felicity of paying your mutual plumber's bill. + +But _that_ was _then_, and _this_ is _now_! + +But isn't it perfectly delicious when those men come home, after +making some such blundering speech, the innocent way, after hanging up +their hats, that they'll walk into your presence, rubbing their hands, +and fetch up standing in the middle of the room with, "Why! _what's_ +the matter?" as they catch sight of their wives' lugubrious faces. I +tell you, Mr. Smith, and Mr. Jones, and Mr. Jenkins, whatsoever else +you do, _don't_ hold your _wives_ responsible for that which they are +no more to blame for than yourselves. Or if you will insist upon going +over their hearts with a cart-wheel, in this manner, have the +manliness when you come home, not to pooh-pooh the resentful tears you +have caused. + +The fact is, you are but blunderers as far as women are concerned. You +are elephants trying with your huge paws to pat humming-birds. Nine +out of every ten you demolish. Only physicians understand a woman; and +they don't always act up to the light they have. + +I would like to write a book on some kinds of legal murder; that is if +really _good_ people had not such moonshine notions about "delicacy." +This class are really the drags on the wheel of reform. I don't say +that sometimes it is not necessary, and even right, to drive +rough-shod right over them, if they will persist in walking in such a +narrow path; but one does it after all with regret, because they so +sincerely believe themselves to be in the "path of duty," as they call +it. Dear me! if there ever was a perverted phrase, this is one! It +makes me sick to hear it. + +What do I mean by "legal murders"? Well, if a woman is knocked on the +head with a flat-iron by her husband and killed, or if arsenic is +mixed with her food, or if a bullet is sent through her brain, the law +takes cognizance of it. But what of the cruel words that just as +surely kill, by constant repetition? What of the neglect? What of the +diseased children of a pure, healthy mother? What of the ten or +twelve, even healthy children, "who come," one after another, into the +weary arms of a really good woman, who yet never knows the meaning of +the word _rest_ till the coffin-lid shuts her in from all earthly care +and pain? Is the self-sacrifice and self-abnegation all to be on one +side? Is the "weaker" always to be the stronger in this regard? I +could write flaming words about "the inscrutable Providence which has +seen fit to remove our dear sister in her youth from the bosom of her +young family," as the funeral prayer phrases it. + +Providence did nothing of the sort. Poor Providence! It is astonishing +how busy people are making up bundles to lay on _His_ shoulders! I +imagine Providence meant that women, as well as men, should have a +right to their own lives. That they, equally with men, should rest +when they can go no further on the road without dying. That while the +father sits down to smoke the tobacco which "Providence" always seems +to furnish him with, although his family may not have bread to eat, +his wife should not stagger to her feet, and try to shoulder again her +family cares and expenses. + +Sometimes--nay, often--in view of all this, I rejoice in regarding the +serene Mrs. Calla-Lily. _She_ goes on just like a man. When she is +tired she lies down, and stays there till she is rested, and lets the +domestic world wag. If she don't feel like talking, she reads. If the +children are noisy, she sweetly and cunningly gets out of the way, on +that convenient male pretext, "putting a letter in the post-office." +She don't "smoke," but she has her little comforts all the same, and +at the right time, although the heavens should fall, and little +Tommy's shoes give out. She looks as sleek and smooth and fair as if +she were _really_ a lily; and everybody says, "What a delightful +person she is! and how bright and charming at all times!" + +Now this spectacle soothes me, after seeing the long procession of +bent, hollow-eyed, broken-spirited women who are _legally_ murdered. + +I exclaim, Good! and think of the old rhyme: + + "Look out for thyself, + And take care of thyself, + For nobody cares for thee." + +Of course this is very "unamiable" in me, but amiability is not the +only or the best quality in the world. I have seen people without a +particle of it, as the phrase is often understood, who were the +world's real saviours; and I have seen those human oysters, "amiable" +people, till sea-sickness was not a circumstance to the condition of +my mental and moral stomach. + +What a millennial world this would be, if every one were placed in the +niche for which he or she were best fitted. Now I know a capital +architect who was spoiled, when he became a minister. A dreadful mess +he makes of it working on the spiritual temple, as pastor of a country +church; whose worshippers each insist upon shaping every brick and +lath to their minds before he puts them together; and then they doubt +if his cement will do. Poor man!--I know of a merchant, helplessly +fastened to the yardstick, who should be an editor. I know of a +lawyer, who has _peace_ written all over him, and yet whose life is +one interminable fight. I know scores of bright, intelligent women, +alive to their finger-tips to everything progressive, good and noble, +whose lives, hedged in by custom and conservatism, remind me of that +suggestive picture in all our Broadway artist-windows, of the woman +with dripping hair and raiment, clinging to the fragment of rock +overhead, while the dark waters are surging round her feet. I know +little sensitive plants of children, who are no more understood by +those who are daily in their angel presence, than the Saviour was by +his crucifiers. Children who, mentally, morally, and physically, are +being tortured in their several Gethsemanes to the death; and I know +sweet and beautiful homes, where plenty, and intelligence, and +Christianity dwell, where no little child's laugh has ever been heard, +and no baby smile shall ever fill it with blessed sunshine. I know +coarse-natured men and women who curse the earth with their presence, +whose thoughts and lives are wholly base and ignoble, and yet who fill +high places; and I know heaven's own children--patient, toiling, +hopeful--sowing seeds which coarse, hurrying feet trample in the earth +as they go, little heeding the harvest which shall come after their +careless footsteps. + +_Life's discipline!_ That is all we can say of it. + +How any one with eyes to see all this, can doubt Immortality, and yet +bear their life from one day to another, I cannot tell. How persons +can say, in view of all these cross-purposes, I am satisfied with +_this_ life, and--had I my way--would never leave it, is indeed, a +mystery. It must be that the soul were left out of them. + +But this doleful talk wont do--will it? I should not dispel +illusions--should I? Now, that last is a question I can't settle: +whether it were better, if you see a friend crossing a lovely meadow, +rejoicing in the butterflies, and flowers, and lovely odors, to warn +him that there is a ditch between him and the road, into which he will +presently fall; or to let him enjoy himself while he can, and plump +into it, without anticipatory fears? What do you think? Anyhow, it is +no harm to _wish_ you all a happy summer. + + * * * * * + +Would it not be well for those who report the "dress" of ladies at a +public dinner to instruct themselves in advance as to _color_? One can +always tell whether a man or a woman is the reporter, by the blunders +of the former in mistaking blue for green, lilac for rose, and black +for pink. The world moves on, to be sure, in either case; but since +reporting must be done on such infinitesimal matters, it were better +it were well done. A lady who studiously avoids flashy apparel does +not care to read in the morning paper that "she appeared in a yellow +gown trimmed with pink." Perhaps the avoidance of the "flowing bowl" +by male reporters would conduce to greater correctness of millinery +statement. + + + + +_THE FLY IN THE OINTMENT._ + + +I do not know who writes the editorials on the "Woman Question" in its +various aspects, in our more prominent New York papers. I read them +from day to day, with real disappointment at their immaturity, their +flippancy, their total lack of manliness, and respect for, or +appreciation of, true womanhood. I say this in no spirit of +bitterness, but of real sorrow, that men stepping into the responsible +position they hold on those papers, have not better considered the +subjects of which they treat. That the writers are not known outside +the office, seems to me a very unmanly reason for their +misrepresentations. Every morning I ask, over my coffee, Have these +men mothers, sisters, wives, who so persistently misrepresent the +doings of self-respecting, self-supporting, intelligent women? Does +_Congress_ make no mistakes, that women should be expected, in their +pioneering, to have arrived at absolute perfection? Is there no heat, +in debate, on _its_ floor; no uncourteousness of language? Did not one +member, a short time since, call out there to have another member +"spanked"? Does the speaker's mallet never call to order, men selected +by their constituents, because supposed most intelligently to +represent the various local and other interests of the country? Does +the cut of a man's hair or coat injuriously or approbatively affect +his speech upon the floors? Does anybody care what color it is, or how +worn? I ask myself these questions when I read reports of +"strong-minded women's meetings," as they are sneeringly termed, which +consist mainly on the absence of a "long train" to their dresses, or +the presence of it; on the straightness of their hair, or the frizzing +of it; on the lack of ornamentation, or the redundance of it. This +mocking, Mephistopheles-dodging of the real questions at issue, behind +flimsy screens, seems to me not only most unworthy of these writers, +but most unworthy of, and prejudicial to, the prominent journals in +which they appear. + +If they think that women make such grave mistakes,--mistakes +prejudicial to the great interests they seek publicly to promote, the +great wrongs they seek to right,--would it not be kinder and more +manly, courteously to point them out, if so be that they themselves +know "a more excellent way"? Among all these women, are there _none_ +who are intelligent, intellectual, earnest, _and modest withal_? Have +the editors of these very papers in which these attacks appear, never +gladly employed just such, to lend grace, wit, and spirit to their own +columns, that they have only sneers and taunts for the cause they +espouse, and never a brave, kind, sympathetic recognition of their +philanthropic efforts? Is the cause so utterly Quixotic, espoused by +such women, who make their own homes bright with good cheer, +neatness, taste, and wholesome food, that they cannot gallantly extend +a manly hand after it and help them _over_ those bright thresholds, +and out into a world full of pain and misery, to lift the burden from +their less favored sisters? + +If they have the misfortune not to know such women among "the +strong-minded," would it not be well to seek them out, and better +inform themselves on the subjects upon which they daily write? + +The pioneer women who have bravely gone forward, and still keep +"marching on," undaunted in the face of this unmanly and ungenerous +dealing, have, doubtless, counted the cost, and will not be hindered +by it. I do not fear that; but I _do_ regret that any editor of a +prominent paper in New York should belittle it and himself, by +allowing any of his employés to keep up this boyish pop-gun firing +into the air. + +The other night, I attended a lecture, the proceeds of which were to +be devoted to a charitable institution for women. + +Now here was a man willing to do this for the particular women's +charity to be benefited by it, but he couldn't do it without stepping +out of his way to sneer at female suffrage and kindred movements which +are advocated and engineered by pure, intelligent, cultivated, earnest +women, or fixing his seal of approbation on this particular branch of +philanthropy, as the only remedy for all the ills that come of an +empty purse and a grieved heart. + +And just here is the fly in all these philanthropic ointments. Mix +your medicines in _my_ shop, or they will turn out poisons. That is +the spirit. Now I don't believe that one society, or one man or woman, +is the pivot on which this universe turns; and wishing well, as I do +every progressive, humanitarian movement, I deplore that its leaders +will not keep this fact in mind. I don't say that I wish _women_ would +keep it in mind, for I am a diligent reader of newspapers, and I see +men every day ignoring this broad foundation of civilization. I see +them making mouths at each other over a political bone or religious +fence; or I hear naughty names called, because one man grabbed a bit +of news for his paper, and scampered off with it to the dear public, +before his editorial neighbor got scent of it. Oh, women don't do all +the gossip and slander and back-biting in the world. They don't make +all the silly or stupid speeches either. Nor do they "rush into +print," any oftener than certain unquiet male spirits, "thirsting for +notoriety," as the phrase goes, who think they know when a colt is a +horse, and _vice versa_, better than any other man, because they +studied Greek at Oxford. Humbug is not always a female, but when +humbug _is_ a female, she generally hails from the top round of the +ladder! I am happy to say that, though I may be putting a stone into +the hands of mine adversary by the admission! + +Human nature might be improved, even in the year 1869. How glad the +pop-gun clergyman of a small parish is, when some clerical big-gun is +supposed to make a false move on the sacerdotal chequer-board! How he +rushes publicly to "deplore" that his "dear brother in Christ should +lay himself open to the world's censure in this manner"! His "dear +brother's" popularity and big salary were not the animus of _that_ +criticism--oh, no! Now I'm not one of those who believe that "a +minister" is certainly a saint, above his fellows; or that +Christianity is benefited by refusing to admit the shortcomings of +church-members. I once heard Rev. Dr. Hall preach a sermon on this +subject, every word of which was pure gold and ought to be printed in +pamphlet form and placed in the pews of all our churches. + +"Mix your medicines in my shop, or they will be poisons"! How sick I +am of it! There is so much elbow room in the world, why fight only for +one corner? But men, set us "weak women" such a terrible example, +fighting and squabbling about straws, and whining when they are +defeated. Now, if instead of wasting their time this way, or idling it +away as fashionable loungers,--I speak after the manner of the New +York--to women,--if instead of belonging to useless up-town clubs, +where with the heads of their canes in their mouths, they sit in the +day-time, measuring passing female ankles, or drinking and talking +male scandal, or betting;--if instead they would--each butter-fly son +of them--take some good, interesting book, and finding some tenement +house, sit down of an evening and amuse some laboring man, who would +else flee from the discomforts of such a place to the nearest +grog-shop, how noble would this male butterfly of Fifth Avenue then +appear! In fact, this particular form of benevolence commends itself +to me as the only one that could rescue him from the butterfly +existence of up-town clubs. + +A thought strikes me! As the "New York ----" remarks, when advising +women to teach sewing to poor girls, "but perhaps these female +butterflies of Fifth Avenue don't know themselves how to sew." Alas! +should these male butterflies of the Fifth Avenue club-houses not know +how to read, when they get to the tenement house of their poor +brother! + +Now, to conclude, I see nothing antagonistic to a sewing-machine in a +woman's vote, but the Editor of the New York ---- is always throwing a +blanket over a woman's head, for fear she will see a ballot-box. You +may make soup, my dear, graciously says he, for poor women; or flannel +shirts for very little paupers, if you'll promise not to burn your +fingers in politics. That never'll do, my dear! It is _not_ coarse for +you to scramble at a matinee for seats, and elbow and jostle, and push +men's hats awry--oh, no! that's legitimate--but to subject yourself to +this kind of thing at the ballot-box, would be to forfeit man's love, +and soil both your skirts and reputation. + + + + +_WOMAN'S MILLENNIUM._ + + +Hurrah for Massachusetts! Read this: + + "Chief Justice Bigelow, of Massachusetts, made short work with + a divorce case which came before him at Springfield a day or + two ago. It was an application of a wife for a divorce from her + husband, on the ground of extreme cruelty. It coming up in + testimony that the woman had been beaten and otherwise ill-used + by her husband, the Judge at once decided the case in her + favor, taking occasion to remark that in case of any violence + by a husband to the wife, he should not hear all the points + before deciding in favor of the latter. The woman might forgive + cruelty toward herself, but the court would not." + +Now _that's_ what I call a righteous decision. Let all the wives with +bruised shoulders, and arms, and backs, and eyes, (bruised _hearts_ +are too common to talk about!) emigrate forthwith to this enlightened +State. Here's a man who is _just_ to a woman. Think of the rarity of +the thing! Compliments, and flattery, and gifts we can all have, till +we get to be old women, and some of us afterwards; but _justice_, +Messieurs! ah! that's quite another thing. Female eyes have grown dim +looking for _that_, all through the ages. Men start up from their +tobacco-torpor nowadays and ask, angrily, what means this present +restlessness of American women? This wide and deep-spread discontent, +which heaves to and fro, developing itself in a thousand different +forms? _My_ grandmother was contented enough. _My_ aunt never looked +beyond her own family. Are you quite sure of the first, and does the +latter deserve praise or blame for the pin-measure view of the world +to which she, the God-appointed instructor and guide of future men and +women, chooses to limit herself? Has she a _right_ to launch them on +the turbulent ocean of life, with only one poor miserable broken oar +to paddle their way? Such women are not praiseworthy; no more than +they who, busying themselves in public affairs, leave their children +to "come up" as chance or accident dictates. Are you quite sure, too, +that because only lately this "wail of discontent" has reached your +ear, that it has not been stifled under thousands of tombstones? Ah, +well I remember when too young to know what life _meant for a woman_, +hearing one who I have since learned had suffered and forgiven much, +murmur to herself as she wearily laid her head upon her pillow, "God +be thanked for sleep and forgetfulness!" and yet not one who saw her +smiling face, or heard her cheerful voice, or was charmed with her +intelligent conversation, ever dreamed that she was not "a contented +wife," as the phrase runs. + +And just in this connection I would quote a remark which, for its +truth, should be inscribed on the _pipe_ (for there he would oftenest +meet it) of every man in the land. + +"Only so far as a man is happily _married to himself_ is he fit for +married life, and family life in general. Unless he has 'cleared +himself up,' as the Germans say, he can at best but enter into +ambiguous relations to another. When a man is discordant in himself, +he makes all that he comes in contact with discordant." + +Now, candidly I ask you, oughtn't that remark to be in the Holy +Scriptures? Perhaps you ask if the same is not true of women? I am not +such an idiot as to deny that, either; but what I marvel at is +this--that it should be such a perfectly natural and eminently +righteous thing for a _man_ to halloo to high heaven that _his_ mate +is not to his mind, after he has compassed heaven and earth to get +her, and such a crime for a woman to be "discontented and restless +under similar circumstances". + +Nevertheless, I think woman's millennium is to come out +of all this unquiet and chaos. Here's a remark made at a +royal-literary-fund-dinner in England,--as true as I live, in +_England_, and in London at that,--and by Charles Kingsley at +that,--in response to a toast: + +"As for imaginative literature," he said, "if the world continued to +go on as it was proceeding, _ladies_ must be called upon to fulfil +this duty. Where would they find among men such poets as Mrs. +Rossetti, Mrs. Jean Ingelow, or Miss A. Procter? Or who could write +such works of prose fiction as the authors of 'John Halifax' or +'Romola'? In former times _men_ only dealt with literature, but the +more delicate the weapon became, the more delicate were the hands +which wielded it. If he could give any advice to young men how they +might escape the trials and troubles that might beset their path in +the literary profession--how escape Whitecross Street prison and the +workhouse--it would be by marrying a literary lady, and setting +himself down to the humble and chivalrous duty of reviewing his wife's +books." + +The picture of that sublime bit of majesty, a _British husband_, +performing such a feat, is so impossible to contemplate, that I must +stop, that my readers and myself may take breath. + +I am inclined to believe that there are a great many kinds of women, +both in England and America. This idea seems to be lost sight of, by +the writers of both nations, who have lately undertaken to describe +the feminine element, under such titles as "the Girl of the Period," +or "The Woman of the Time;" presenting to our view monstrosities, +which no doubt exist, but which are no more to be taken specimens of +the whole, than is the Bearded Woman, or the Mammoth Fat Girl. + +New York, for instance, is not wholly given over to the feminine +devil. Angels walk our streets, discernible to eyes that _wish_ to +see. Noble, thoughtful, earnest women; sick of shams and pretence; +striving each so far as in her lies, to abate both, and to diminish +the amount of physical and moral suffering. Then, I never go into the +country for a few weeks' summer holiday, that I do not find +large-hearted, large-brained women, stowed away among the green +hills, in little cottages, which are glorified inside and outside by +their presence; women who, amid the press of house and garden work, +find time for mental culture; whose little book-shelves hold well-read +copies of our best authors. Women--sound physically, mentally, +morally; women, whom the _Man of the Period_, who most surely exists, +has never found. Now and then, some man, fit to be her mate, in his +rambles in the sweet summer time, is struck as I am by these gems +hidden amid the green hills, and appropriates them for his own. But +for the most part, the more sensible a man is, the bigger the fool he +marries. This is especially true of biographers! What a wrong, then, +to the great army of sensible, earnest women in either country to pick +out a butterfly as the national type. Because a few men in New York +and London and Paris wear corsets, and dye their whiskers and hair, +and pad out their hollow cheeks and shrunken calves, it does not +follow that Victor Hugo, and John Bright, and the great army of brave +men who won our late victory, are all popinjays. For every female fool +I will find you a male mate. So when the inventory of the former is +taken, the roll-call of the latter might as well be voiced. Are women +so "fond of gossip"? Pray, what is the staple of after-dinner +conversation when the wine comes on and the women go off? Do women +"lavish money on personal adornment"? How many men are there who would +be willing to tell on what, and on whom, their money was worse than +lavished? Do women "leave their nursery altogether to hirelings"? How +many corresponding men are there, whose own children under their own +roofs, are almost entire strangers to their club-frequenting fathers? +And yet what good, noble men are to be seen for the looking? Faithful +to their trusts, faithful to themselves, unmoved by the waves of folly +and sin that dash around them, as is the rock of Gibraltar. + +I claim that justice be done by these writers on both sides of the +water, to both sexes. Fools, like the poor, we shall have always with +us; but, thank God, the "just" man and the "just" woman "still live" +to redeem the race. Men worthy to be fathers, and large-brained women, +who do not even in this degenerate day, disdain to look well after +their own households. + + * * * * * + +It is but seldom that a child needs the rod, especially if taken from +the time it is able to understand language, and firmly yet kindly +treated, and given to know that No and Yes _mean_ No and Yes, without +any shadow of turning. It is a question, too, whether those who have +unfortunately _come up_, instead of being judiciously _brought up_, +are ever made better by harshness, under the name of discipline. + + + + +_ENGLISH NOTIONS ABOUT WOMEN._ + + +Our neighbors over the water, judging from an article in one of their +leading papers, seem to be greatly exercised at present on "The Woman +Question." The old model Englishwoman who sneezed exactly at the same +hour her great grandmother did, and sat down, and rose up, and went +out, and came in whenever her husband bade her,--and made no +objection, at the same time, to any irregularity either in his hours +or habits,--it seems, has disappeared. Instead, we have that +horror,--the English female-physician; the English female would-be +voter; in short, the English female who asserts her right to +individuality, in action and opinion, equally with her husband. + +John Bull sets down his mug of beer, and says that the thing is +monstrous. He says that he no longer can lounge off by himself, as in +bachelor days, although he is a married--and, therefore, a more +important--member of society. He says that he is not allowed, as +formerly, to spend every evening with his bachelor cronies,--Tom, +Dick, and Harry. He says that his wife positively expects him to act +as if he were married. He says that, when he tells her decidedly that +he wont do this, that she pays no more attention to this refusal than +as if he hadn't made it; but quietly returns to the same point of +disputation the next day, and every day, and every month, and all +through the year, with a terrible and feline pertinacity. He says that +it is like the slow dropping of water on some sensitive part of the +frame; he says he don't like it, and don't know what to do about it. +He says, besides, that marriage is not at all favorable to largeness +of mind, or breadth of view, which is very obvious, in his own case, +in the remarks above quoted! He says that all she says and does "has +the stamp of Lilliput;" and that should she even have the right of +suffrage, she would barter away her vote for a new gown. He says +justice is a quality unknown to woman; which is very true, and I want +him to understand that is just what she is contending for. He says, to +make a long matter short, that when he married he expected to live +just exactly the same life that he did before, and that he finds he +can't; and, moreover, he says, with a sweeping wave of his John Bull +hand, that no husband was ever made more large-hearted, or tolerant, +or in any way benefited by marriage. + +Now if a man will marry, with such absurd ideas of what marriage ought +to be, and if he will marry a _fool_, I advise him not to go whining +round the world about it: he deserves the consequences. But let him +not insist that _all_ women are fools, because he got on his knees to +obtain one. I will always maintain that there are twenty bad husbands +to one bad wife; and that, that one would seldom continue bad if her +husband were just and kind to her. As to marriage "narrowing a man's +mind," that which never had any breadth cannot be narrowed. And +history abundantly shows how wise in counsel, how judicious in +influence, how helpful in sympathy and co-operation have been many +such wives. + +Now it is often said that a wife, to a literary man, is only a +hindrance. Provided she is not a fool, it would pay him, in my +opinion, to give her a regular salary, if he could not obtain it +otherwise, to give him the _feminine side_ of every great question of +the day, as it comes up--which by the way, she does unconsciously, and +which has anything but a "narrowing" effect either on his mind or his +writings, whether he acknowledges it or not. + +It is no small thing to be able to toss her a book and say, "I want to +know what is in that book, but I haven't time to read it; run it over, +will you, and tell me what you think of it?"--or to get from her the +condensation of newspapers, magazines, and pamphlets, in the same way; +or translations; or to have her assistance in answering letters, +without prompting, when pressed for time; to ask her where such and +such a passage may be found in certain authors, which have escaped +_his_ memory. Is contact with such a woman narrowing? + +It is horrible for a man of sense to be yoked to a fool, and _vice +versa_. No one denies it. But the whole kernel of the woman matter is +just this: Men no longer are what they were. There _are_ no _young_ +men now. Before they have ceased to be young men, the majority of +them, by a total disregard of Nature's laws, have unfitted themselves +for contact with, and companionship and appreciation of, pure, _good_ +women. It is as if a baby should be fed from birth with highly-spiced +condiments; and then, at maturity, be expected to have a relish for +pure, wholesome food. The fault is _not_ in women, but in the men, who +bring to the healthful, simple, sweet pleasures of matrimony, diseased +minds and dilapidated bodies. + +It is perfectly amazing the quantity of insulting advice volunteered +in this day to women. Now here is an extract, I am happy to say, in +this instance, from an English journal; the land, _par excellence_, of +wife-beating, and kindred abominations in "high" and "low" life, in +which the wife is advised if she would "wind her husband around her +finger,"--though why that amusement is particularly desirable I fail +to see,--if she would do this, "she must carefully study the +cookery-book; so that his meals need not be monotonous." How many of +his children she must attend to, during this interesting perusal, and +while perfecting the results of such study, our writer does not state; +nor does he throw any light upon the question--whether, when this +delicate animal is gorged like the anaconda, he will, as does the +anaconda, go immediately into a state of stupor, and be comparatively +harmless until other re-enforcements are needed. + +Also he tells the wife that "opposition and contradiction always make +him furious; then he stamps and roars and becomes dangerous: she must +by all means avoid that." It is so strange, this Solomon says, "that +when a wife _knows_ that a certain line of conduct is sure to produce +this effect, she will do it, though victory is easy provided"--well, +in short, provided she allows him to stamp and roar and become +dangerous, like his son Tommy, when he can't have another stick of +candy, and whom he himself would severely punish, for imitating his +gentlemanly papa. + +Are there no lines of conduct a husband persistently pursues towards +his wife, though he "knows they are sure to wound and give offence?" +And would he think "stamping and roaring and being dangerous" any +excuse for a dislike of it? Is the man who sends his dear little child +for that which will intoxicate him, or takes that child to bar-rooms +and drinking-places to obtain it, never to be remonstrated with by the +mother, lest he should be "angry"? Is the man who allows his relatives +constantly to interfere with and slander his wife, who never write him +letters without containing sly insinuations, intended--howsoever they +may fail--to disturb conjugal and family harmony; who institute a +court of inquiry into family expenses, probable journeys, &c., +location of residence, and insist upon all these things being settled +according to _their_ means and standard, is this husband never to be +told that such interference is insufferable, "because he will be +angry"? + +Is there a husband living who would permit a wife's father or brother +to insist on managing his business affairs in such a clandestine, +down-cellar, surreptitious manner through the wife? If he preferred +going to spend the summer at one place rather than another, how would +he like that matter settled by a conclave of his wife's relatives, and +determined by _their_ probable locality? I do not say that the latter, +too, has not happened. In either case, it is a monstrous impertinence, +and to be resented. I might multiply other instances of abuse to +women, but these will suffice. + +_Let men, above all, ask themselves with regard to women--to +wives--this question--and answer it in a manly, honest manner, whether +it is condemnatory of their own "line of conduct" or the contrary: +Should I be willing to endure what I expect my wife to bear, were I a +woman and a wife?_ If not--is it just, or right, or manly, then, for +me to expect it of her? + +It is needless to say that this is the last question asked; and this +is the root of all the evil. This making by men a broad easy road of +license for themselves, while women are clogged, fettered, penned in, +worried, harassed and unjustly treated, till even they--"become +dangerous." And though the author above quoted seems to entertain no +such possibility, our lunatic asylums and tomb-stones, if they stated +the actual causes of insanity and death, might convince the most +skeptical. + + * * * * * + +There is a kind of sentimental preaching to which an audience is +sometimes treated, which is very repulsive to the hearty, sincere +worshipper. Preaching which is full of poetical quotations; preaching +where some of the words are clipped of their syllables, and others +_chewed_, so to speak, indefinitely. Egotistical, drawling preaching, +under which people go to sleep, or smile derisively, according to +their humor; but from which none come away with the good seed which +will spring up and bear fruit a hundred-fold. Essay preaching--walking +gingerly round duty, and flattering self-love; milk-and-water +preaching--colorless, flavorless, and thin. + + + + +_RAG-TAG AND BOB-TAIL FASHIONS._ + + +When I say that the street-dress of the majority of _respectable_ +women of New York today is disgusting, I but feebly express my +emotions. I say the _respectable_ women, and yet, save to those who +know them to be such, their appearance leaves a wide margin for doubt. +The clown at a circus wears not a more stunning or parti-colored +costume; in fact, his has the advantage of being sufficiently +"taut,"--to use a nautical phrase,--not to interfere with locomotion; +while theirs--what with disgusting humps upon their backs, and big +rosettes upon their sides and shoulders, and loops, and folds, and +buttons, and tassels, and clasps, and bows upon their skirts, and +striped satin petticoats, all too short to hide often clumsy +ankles,--and more colors and shades of colors heaped upon one poor +little fashion-ridden body than ever were gathered in one rainbow--and +all this worn without regard to temperature, or time, or place--I say +this presents a spectacle which is too disheartening even to be +comical. + +One cannot smile at the young girls who are, one day--Heaven help +them!--to be wives and mothers. _Wives and mothers!_ I say to myself, +as I see the throat and neck with only the protection of a gold +locket between itself and the cold autumnal winds. Wives and mothers! +I say, as I see them ruining their feet and throwing their ankles out +of shape, in the vain endeavor to walk on heels like corks, fastened +far into the middle of the soles of their boots; and those boots so +high upon the calf of the leg, and so tightly buttoned across it, that +circulation is stopped, and violent headaches follow. Wives and +mothers! I say, as I see the heating and burdensome panier tackled on +the most delicate portion of a woman's frame, to make still surer +confirmed invalidism. What fathers, husbands, brothers, lovers can be +thinking about, to be willing that the women they respect and love, +should appear in public, looking like women whom they despise, is a +marvel to me. Why they do not _say_ this to them, and _shame_ them +into a decent appearance--if their glasses cannot effect it--I do not +know. Oh, the relief it is to meet a _lady_, instead of a ballet-girl! +Oh, the relief it is to see a healthy, firm-stepping, rosy, +broad-chested, bright-eyed woman, clad simply and free from bunches +and tags! I turn to look at such an one with true respect, that she +has the good sense and courage and _good taste_ to appear on the +street in a dress befitting the street; leaving to those poor wretched +women whose business it is to advertise their persons, a free field +without competition. If I seem to speak harshly, it is because I feel +earnestly on this subject. I _had_ hoped that the women of 1868 would +have been worthy of the day in which they live. I had hoped that +_all_ their time would not have been spent in keeping up with the +chameleon changes of fashions too ugly, too absurd for toleration. It +is because I want them to _be_ something, to _do_ something higher and +nobler than a peacock might aim at, that I turn heart-sick away from +these infinitesimal fripperies that narrow the soul and purse, and +leave nothing in their wake but emptiness. Nor is it necessary, in +avoiding all this, that a woman should look "strong-minded," as the +bugbear-phrase goes. It is not necessary she should dress like her +grandmother, in order to look like a decent woman. It is not necessary +she should forswear ornamentation, because it were better and more +respectable to have it confined to festal and home occasions and less +to the public promenade. She is not driven to the alternative of +muffling herself like an omnibus driver in January, or catching +consumption with her throat protected only by a gold locket! + +Oh, how I wish that a bevy of young, handsome girls, of good social +position, would inaugurate a plain lady-like costume for street and +_church_ wear. I say young and handsome, because if an old woman does +this, the little chits toss their heads and say, "Oh! she has had +_her_ day, and don't care now--and we want ours." + +Now that's perfectly natural, and right too, that you should have your +youth; that you should, as girls say, "make the most of yourselves;" +but in doing so don't you think it would be well not to _lessen_ or +cheapen yourselves? and I submit, with all deference to your +dress-makers and mammas, that every one of you who appear in public in +the manner I have described, are doing this very thing--are defiling +womanhood, and are bringing it into derision and contempt, whether you +believe it or not. + + * * * * * + +Blessed be sleep! We are all young then; we are all happy. _Then_ our +dead are living. Then, the flowers bloom, though the snow may at that +moment be beating against our windows. Then, the ships that have been +wrecked are gaily sailing on the seas. Then houses are built and +furnished, and, above all, bills are paid. Then, editors have full +subscription lists and clergymen big salaries, and scribblers plenty +of ideas. Then, ladies have "something to wear," although they may not +have it on. Then, Sammy has his coveted velocipede, and Susy her big +doll, and Frank his boat, and Fanny a lover, and Grandpa has no +rheumatism, and Grandma has _not_ lost her spectacles. Blessed be +sleep! + + + + +_SOME HINTS TO EDITORS._ + + +What a pity when editors review a woman's book, that they so often +fall into the error of reviewing the _woman_ instead. For instance, +"she is young and attractive, and will probably before long find her +legitimate sphere in matrimony; or she is an old maid--what can she +know of life except through a distorted medium? Let her wait, if so +she be able, till some man is deluded into inviting her to change her +name. That appears to be her present need. Or she has the affectation +of writing over a _nom de plume_--and must, perforce, be a fool. Or +she _did_ write a preface to her book; or she _omitted_ writing a +preface to her book, as one might expect of a woman. Or we hear she is +a widow; and notoriety is probably her object in writing." + +I introduced this article by saying what a pity that editors in +reviewing a woman's book should so often only review the woman. +Perhaps I should have said, what a pity all editors are not +_gentlemen_. It is very easy to determine this question, if one keeps +the general run of editorial articles. Not that it does not sometimes +happen that, in the editor's necessary absence, some substitute may +get him into "hot water;" or, as a foreigner who once tried to use +this expression, called it "_dirty water_,"--but taking the general +tone of editorial articles, from one day or one week to another, the +want of courtesy and self-respect, or the lack of it, are patent to +the intelligent reader. + +It is a pity that an editor should not be a gentleman, _for his own +sake_, and because no position can be more honorable than his, if he +choose to make it so, nor more influential for good or evil. Think of +the multitude he addresses--the thinking men and women who pass his +columns under critical review. Surely, this is a career not to be +lightly esteemed, not to be slurred over bunglingly. Surely, this +messenger crossing the sacred threshold of home, might well step +carefully, reverentially, discreetly, and discuss fairly, justly, +all topics especially connected with home duties and home +responsibilities. Surely, his advertising list, if he have one, should +be a _clean_ one, such as any frank-browed, hitherto innocent young +boy, might read. Surely, the maiden, whose horizon is not bounded by a +strip of ribbon or silk, or even the marriage altar; should have the +great questions of the day, relating to the future of her sex, not +brushed aside with a contemptuous sniff, or treated with flippant +ridicule, because this is the shortest and easiest way of disposing of +that which requires thought and fair deliberation. + +It seems so strange to me, who hold in such exalted estimation an +editor's calling, that one should ever be found willing to belittle +it; it is also a great comfort to know that there are those who hold +this their position, for honor and interest second to none, and in +this light conscientiously conduct their paper, so far as their +strength and means allow. + +This would be a very stupid world, I grant, if individuality were not +allowed in the editorial chair as well as elsewhere; but leaving a +wide margin for this, is there not still room in many newspapers for +more justice, manliness, courtesy, and, above all, respectful mention +of woman, even though the exigencies of her life may compel her to +address the public. + +There is a practice of certain penny-a-liners which cannot be too +severely reprehended. We do not refer to their personal descriptions +of public persons, male and female, which are often wholly false--they +having mistaken some one else for the individual they wished to +describe; and if certain of the identity, generally "doing" the +description in the worst possible taste. All this is bad enough; but +we refer now to cases where a forgery or a murder is committed. Not +contented with working up these cases in all their harrowing and often +disgusting details, your barren penny-a-liner, catching at the least +straw of an idea to secure another penny for another line, states that +the criminal in question is son of the Hon. Samuel So-and-so, nephew +of Mr. So-and-so, a gentlemen well known in the fashionable world, and +brother of the beautiful Miss Smith who was so much admired in society +last winter. Now, to say that a man who would recklessly carry +distress to innocent persons, already sufficiently crushed by their +calamity, should be horse-whipped, is a mild way of putting it. No +dictionary could do such cold-blooded atrocity justice. Of course such +items help sell a paper; but, alas, how low must be that editor's +standard of journalism who permits his employés to pander to so +corrupt and ghoul-like a taste! I think, could he sometimes look in +upon the sorrowing family circle, which he has assisted to drag into +this kennel publicity, or if he could suffer in his own family that +which he so remorselessly deals out to another, he might realize the +deadly nature of these poisoned arrows which he aims at his neighbor's +heart. + +Again, because the victims so assailed have not the prefix of "Hon." +to their names, and have no "fashionable and beautiful sister," or +"prominent and wealthy uncle," shall we therefore excuse this cowardly +attack upon their poor hearths and homes? Let any one run over certain +police reports of the day, if he would see how misery and misfortune +are treated as a jest, by these small, brainless wits hard up for a +subject. One's blood boils, that the human being exists who could +regard such things from the standpoint of a circus clown. In fact, a +circus clown is respectable in comparison, since his jests are +legitimate and harmless. + +These gentry never did me any personal harm. + +True, black hair has often been awarded me, instead of light, by these +scribblers, "who were on very intimate terms with me," and I have +measured six feet in height, instead of four and a half; and I have +"a stylish carriage and footmen," which I fervently wish the +international copyright law would drive up to my door, bating the +usual vulgar livery; also, half the things which they have asserted I +"waste my earnings upon" would be agreeable to possess, and of course +I grieve to take them down a single peg on all these statements; but +lying did not die with the serpent in Eden, for his slimy trail is all +through newspaperdom, save and except the ---- now don't you wish you +knew? + +No humane or decent person, can read the police reports in some of the +papers in New York, without feeling unutterable loathing and contempt +for the writers. Is it not enough that these poor wretches, in their +downward course, have lost almost the faintest impress of immortality, +that one who at least bears the semblance of manhood, can stand over +them and manufacture coarse jibes by the yard, to be perused by young +people at the family hearth-stone? It is a disgrace to our +civilization, and to the paper in whose columns they appear. + +How would these writers like it, if the sister who once shared their +cradle--having, in some mad moment, thrown away all in life that is +pure and sweet to women--should she be brought up among that wretched +crowd for sentence, how would he like it, to have her spoken of in +this manner?-- + +"Miss Josephine Jones, a frail sister, with a bruised nose that once +had been prettier, and a bonnet that did _not_ originate in Paris, was +charged with getting drunk, and tearing the hair from Miss Alice +Carr's red head. The hair was produced in court, but for some +inexplicable reason the clerk of the court seemed disinclined to touch +it. Miss Josephine was found guilty, and gathering up the remnant of a +greasy silk gown in her fair hand, she walked gracefully forth, to be +provided with lodgings and grub, free of expense, on Blackwell's +Island, where so many of her sex rusticate for the pleasant winter +months." + +Or, suppose he had a young brother, who had recklessly thrown off home +influences, and, before reaching maturity, was brought into court as a +common drunkard, how would he relish, having him spoken of in this +manner?-- + +"An infant of twenty-one, named Harry Dexter, with blear eyes, and +torn hat slouched over his swollen mug, was next called up. His boots +and the blacking-brush seemed not to have had a very intimate +acquaintance of late, and the laundress had evidently, for some cause +or other, neglected his linen. His youthful hands also would have been +improved by a dexterous use of soap and water. Young Harry had no +occasion to inquire the way to his future boarding house, having often +ridden down on previous occasions in that accommodating omnibus called +the Black Maria, to take a sail at the city's expense to Pauper's +Island." + +We might multiply instances of this heartless and disgusting way of +speaking of the faults and vices of our fellow-creatures, but this +specimen will suffice to show the spirit in which they are penned. +Nor is it any excuse, that many of the friends of these wretched +beings can neither read or write, nor by any possibility ever be +wounded by these so-called _jocular_ allusions. I insist that the +effect on the young people of our community is demoralizing. God knows +that in the crowded city, with its whirling life, we have hard work +enough to avoid jostling aside the urgent claims of the erring and +unfortunate around us, without such help as this from the devil. It is +bad enough "to pass by on the other side" when Christian charity +challenges pity and help; but what must that man be made of, who would +stand over a crushed fellow-being, and, for a few dollars, make merry +with his misery? Surely, it seems to me, that the editors of the +papers where these disgraceful items appear, cannot be aware how +disgusting they have become, to those who would else gladly welcome +their daily issues in the family. + + * * * * * + +Burlesquing a drunkard! Why not burlesque a funeral? with the coffin +and the mourners, with their sobs and tears and grieving hearts? Do +those who get up such a painful exhibition ever think that there may +be amid their audience some persons who have had, day after day, their +lives saddened and imbittered by the dreadful reality? Is it a +legitimate theme for mirth or ridicule? We think not. + + + + +_HELP FOR THE HELPFUL._ + + +I have never, in any temperance discussion, written or spoken, heard +or seen any mention of this class of inebriates; and yet the drunkards +on tea are just as surely sapping the foundations of life, as the +devourers of whiskey or gin. That women only, or mostly, are the +victims, does not lessen the importance of my statement. I say mostly, +for I have in my recollection at least two literary men of note, who +primed themselves on strong green tea, without sugar or milk, for any +literary effort, when overtasked nature flagged. One of them became in +consequence subject to distressing fits, and has since deceased. + +But it is the women who practise this form of inebriation of whom I +would now speak. The working-girls, the sempstresses, the tenders in +shops, who, being able to pay but slender price for board, get +badly-cooked, poor food, and, in consequence, often three times a day, +call for the fatal "cup of tea," which, for the moment, "sets them +up," as they call it, and enables them to shoulder again the load they +have dropped, till another fit of exhaustion overtakes them, worse +than the preceding, to be followed by a repetition of the same +_pro-tem._ remedy. Then follow indigestion, headaches, sleepless +nights, and the usual long train of miseries, which any physician who +has ever been called upon to prescribe for these overworked, underfed +unfortunates, will immediately endorse. Tea to the working-girl, taken +in this way, is like the "corner-grocery-drink" to the working-man, +and just as deadly in its results as if it sent her reeling through +the streets, as rum does him; although she neither sees, knows, nor +would admit it, any more than he would. Sometimes, when you speak to +them about it, they reply, "But I must have something to keep me up; I +have no appetite for food; I am so tired all the time, and tea makes +me feel so good." + +The old plea of the drunkard the world over. Look at these weary +women, with dark circles about their eyes, nervous almost to insanity, +ready to "cry" at the slightest notice, the blue veins on their +temples looking as if they were painted _outside_ the skin. Look at +their long, thin, _sick_-looking fingers, and their slow, weary steps, +from which all the spring and elasticity of youth has long since +departed. See them swallowing "pills" by the dozen, and trying every +quack medicine afloat, instead of resisting the enemy which has done +all or two-thirds the mischief. + +Of course, the world over, _bad food_ is the sworn ally of drunkenness +in every shape, and these poor girls have much to contend against in +that shape. + +Then, again, I think few women can long preserve their self-respect +amid dirty surroundings. One often sees with a pained pleasure--if +this expression is not paradoxical--their faint attempts to make light +out of darkness, and beauty out of deformity, in the solitary plant, +struggling for life, and its one slant ray of sunshine, outside some +tenement-house window. Or, if you enter, a rude print upon the soiled +wall, of some saint, or child, or some scene in nature; upon which +latter the weary eyes often turn with a vain longing at realization. +These sights, to the humanitarian, who is trying to solve life's great +problem for the benefit of those on whom it bears so heavily, are +suggestive. It is clear, at least, that woman, from choice, would not +be amid dirt or noisome odors. What _man_ would become, without her +refining influence, and the touch of her reformatory fingers, and her +unpolluted sense of smell, of which tobacco has deprived him, it is +not my purpose now to consider, although I have very firmly rooted +ideas on this subject. But there is a class of women among those whom +adverse circumstances have thrown into such places, upon whom it bears +the more hardly, because they have been accustomed all their life to +the reverse of this. + +Hundreds so situated, sunk out of sight of former acquaintances by +cruel want, bear it bravely, heroically, while struggling hopefully +and one-handed, against discouraging odds, for better days. Some, +alas! go _down_, soul-sick, body-weary, under the unequal contest, as +we who live in this great, swarming city know. Benevolent ladies in +New York are awake to this; and the question arising, What can we do +for such? has been answered, by energetic and Christian ladies, by the +establishment of boarding-houses, in respectable and pleasant +neighborhoods; with board at prices but little higher than those which +they were obliged to pay in the disagreeable localities above +mentioned. Indeed, in some urgent and genuine cases, upon application, +the applicant has been received upon merely nominal board, in +recognition of the Bible fact that "bricks cannot be made without +straw." In one such institution, I lately spent a most profitable and +delightful morning. It is located on Washington square--one of the +most delightful as well as central spots in New York City--by ladies +of wealth and position in society, and, better still, ladies of +intelligence and piety,--executive ladies, who do something beside +_talk_, and know how, and when, and where to act for this great and +humane object. + +With such a good and solid foundation, they have moved on, as their +strength and means have permitted. I passed from one to another of the +pleasant rooms of the young ladies, who occupied apartments here, and +who were, at that hour in the forenoon, scattered far and wide over +the city; some as teachers in schools and in families, some as pupils +in the School of Design, or the ward schools, while many were occupied +as dress-makers, sempstresses, copyists, &c. I looked around me at the +clean white little beds, at the books, at the prints upon the walls, +at the climbing ivy and flowering plants, upon which the sun was +shining as if in blessing, at the innumerable little tokens of +personality, which are so suggestive to the stranger on entering an +unoccupied apartment; those _little_ things which say to you as you +read the title of a genuine and well-thumbed book, "Ah! here lives one +who _thinks_;" or you see by the thousand little refined touches, and +orderly and wise arrangement of clothing and furniture, the neat +thrift of woman expressed, and you feel thankful that they will not +come home, when the day's toil is over, to unholy sounds, and unclean +sights, and bad air, and loathsome food. You thank God that such women +can keep up heart for their exhaustive and unaccustomed toil, by the +_certainty_ of a safe and respectable shelter over their heads, when +night draws its curtain over the temptations and the wickedness of +this great city. You are thankful that their self-respect is not only +preserved in this most important way, but by intercourse and contact +with the ladies of worth and refinement who have the institution in +charge and at heart. + +If this is not a noble institution, what is? I do not call it a +charity. It were wrong so to designate it. From out that threshold +pass noble, _self-supporting_ girls, putting to shame the useless +lives of the idle, paniered ladies who remorselessly wear out the +souls of husbands, fathers, and brothers, in the vain struggle for +fashionable supremacy. No: this Institution is a _help_, not a +_charity_. Its object is to help those who wish to help themselves. + +Upon one of the walls of a little room there I saw a representation of +the "Grecian Bend." I looked on this picture, and on that, and my eyes +were moist with gratitude for one, and with womanly shame for the +other. + + * * * * * + +Do you ever think how much work a little child does in a day? How, +from sunrise to sunset, the dear little feet patter round--to us--so +aimlessly. Climbing up here, kneeling down there, running to another +place, but never still. Twisting and turning, rolling and reaching and +doubling, as if testing every bone and muscle for their future uses. +It is very curious to watch it. One who does so may well understand +the deep breathing of the rosy little sleeper, as, with one arm tossed +over its curly head, it prepares for the next day's gymnastics. A busy +creature is a little child. + + + + +_WOMEN ON THE PLATFORM._ + + + "Miss Marianna Thompson, now a student at the Theological + school, received, during her summer vacation two invitations to + settle with good societies, each of which offered her twelve + hundred dollars per year. Pretty good for a school-girl, I + think." + + Yes, that is very good; and we trust Miss Thompson will accept + one of these (or a better) and do great good to her hearers. + And, should some excellent young man ask her to "settle" with + him as wife, _at no salary at all_, we advise her to heed that + "call" as well.--_N. Y. Tribune._ + +Well, now, Mr. _Tribune_, I don't. I have seen too many women, quite +as capable as Miss Thompson of being self-supporting individuals, +exhausting the last remnant of their strength in the family, and +carefully saving every penny for a husband, who never doled out +twenty-five cents, without asking the purpose for which it was needed, +and reiterating the stale advice to spend it judiciously. I have seen +such women, too proud to complain or remonstrate, turn away with a +crimson cheek, and a moist eye, to dicker, and haggle, and contrive +for this end, when the husband who gave this advice, had effectually +blotted out the word self-denial from his own dictionary. + +No, Mr. _Tribune_, I differ from you entirely. I advise no woman to +refuse twelve hundred independent dollars a year for good, honest +labor, to become such a serf as this. + +And while we are on this subject, I would like to air the disgust with +which I am nauseated, at the idea of any decent, intelligent, +self-respecting, capable wife, ever being obliged _to ask_ for that +which she so laboriously earns, and which is just as much hers by +right, as the money that her husband receives from his customers is +_his_, instead of his next-door--dry-goods--neighbor's. + +No man should thus humiliate a woman; no woman should permit herself +to be thus humiliated. I am not now speaking of those foolish women, +to whom a ribbon, or a necklace, is dearer than their husband's +strength, life, or mercantile honor. I put such women entirely out of +the question; only remarking, that if a man marries a fool in the hope +of her being pliant, and easily ruled by him, he will find too late +that he is mistaken. But that's his affair. Men always have, and +always will keep on admiring their own perspicacity in reading female +character, when not one in ten knows any more what his wife is +spiritually made of, than what sheep furnished the coat for his own +back. + +Sary Gamp advised her comrade--nurse--to put the mutual bottle on the +shelf, and "_look the other way_!" + +That's just what I would advise the husbands of intelligent wives to +do with regard to the money which they "allow" them, and which one +would imagine was rightly theirs, by virtue of risking their lives +every Friday to become the mother of twins; by virtue of, when lying +faint and weak beside them, giving out orders for the comfort and +well-being of the family down-stairs before they are able to get +about; by virtue of _never_ being able for one moment, day or night, +sick or well, to drop, or to shake, off the responsibility which a +_good_ wife and mother must always feel, whether present or absent +from her family. + +Oh! treat such a woman generously. Make up your mind what in justice +she should receive in the money way, and don't above all things, wait +for her to _ask_ you for it, and never, never be mean enough to charge +a woman of this kind "to spend it carefully." + +I daresay you have done it, and _you_, and _you_; I daresay you are +real good fellows too, and _mean_ to do what is right. And I know you +"love" your wives--_i.e._, as _men_ love--thus--wounding a sensitive +spirit, without the least notion you are doing it; thus--charging the +tear that follows to a coming toothache or stomach-ache! Great +blundering creatures! I sometimes don't know whether to box your ears +or hug you. Because the very next minute you will say, or do, some +such perfectly lovely thing, that, woman fashion, I exclaim, +"Well--well;" but I wont tell you what I do say, because you'll hop +right off the stool of repentance, and go to your normal occupation of +crowing and bragging. + +But, seriously, I do wish you would consider a little this same money +question, and when the time comes for payment, don't, as I tell you, +open your pocket-book, heave a deep sigh, as you spread a bill on your +knee, and give it a despairing glance of love, as you dump it in your +wife's outstretched hand. No, sir! follow Sary Gamp's advice: "Put it +on the shelf, and look the other way, and don't trouble yourself to +tell her to '_make it go as far as she can_,'" because she will +naturally do that, and there's where you are a fool again. I should +think you'd know by this time, that it will go so far _you_ wont see +it again your natural lifetime. And why shouldn't it? Does she require +to know whether you pay fifteen cents apiece for your cigars; whether +you couldn't buy a cheaper kind, and how many a day you smoke? Come +now, be honest--would _you_ like that? + +As I have always declined all requests to lecture, or to speak in +public, I may be allowed to make a few remarks on the treatment of +those who do. + +Can anybody tell me why reporters, in making mention of lady speakers, +always consider it to be necessary to report, fully and _firstly_, the +dresses worn by them? When John Jones or Senator Rouser frees his mind +in public, we are left in painful ignorance of the color and fit of +his pants, coat, necktie and vest--and worse still, the shape of his +boots. This seems to me a great omission. How can we possibly judge of +his oratorical powers, of the strength or weakness of his logic, or +of his fitness in any way to mount the platform, when these important +points are left unsolved to our feeble feminine imaginations? For one, +I respectfully request reporters to ease my mind on these subjects--to +tell me decidedly whether a dress, or a frock-coat, or a bob-tailed +jacket was worn by these masculine orators; whether their pants had a +stripe down the side, and whether the dress lapels of their coats were +faced with silk, or disappointed the anxious and inquiring eye of the +public by presenting only a broadcloth surface. I have looked in vain +for any satisfaction on these points. + +I propose that the present staff of male reporters should be +remodelled, and that some enterprising journal should send to Paris +for the man-milliner Worth, in order that this necessary branch of +reportorial business be more minutely and correctly attended to. + +Speaking of reporters, I was present the other night at a +female-suffrage meeting, where many distinguished men made eloquent +speeches in favor thereof. At the reporters' table sat two young lady +reporters side by side with the brethren of the same craft. Truly, +remarked I to my companion, it is very well to plead for women's +rights, but more delicious to me is the sight of those two girls +_taking them_! But, rejoined my cautious male friend, you see, Fanny, +a woman couldn't go to report a rat-fight, or a prize-fight, or a +dog-fight. _But_, replied I, just let the women go "marching on" as +they have begun, and there will soon _be_ no rat-fights, dog-fights, +or prize-fights to report. It will appear from this, that I believe in +the woman _that is to be_. I do--although she has as yet had to +struggle with both hands tied, and then had her ears boxed for not +doing more execution. Cut the string, gentlemen, and see what you +shall see! "Pooh! you are afraid" to knock that chip off our shoulder. + +How strange it all seems to me, the more I ponder it, that men can't, +or don't, or wont see that woman's enlightenment is man's millennium. +"My wife don't understand so and so, and it's no use talking to +her."--"My wife will have just so many dresses, and don't care for +anything else."--"My wife wont look after my children, but leaves them +to nurses, she is so fond of pleasure." So it would seem that these +Adams and the "wife thou gavest to be with me," even now find their +respective and flowery Edens full of thorns, even _without_ that +serpent, female suffrage, whose slimy trail is so deprecated. + +Put _this_ in the crown of your hats, gentlemen! _A fool of either sex +is the hardest animal to drive that ever required a bit. Better one +who jumps a fence now and then, than your sulky, stupid donkey, whose +rhinoceros back feels neither pat or goad._ + + + + +_POVERTY AND INDEPENDENCE._ + + +"I don't like those sewing-girls," remarked a friend to me. "Why don't +they go into some respectable family as chamber-maids, or nurses, or +cooks? If they are too proud to to do this, I have no pity for them." +Now there is just where the speaker and myself differ. _I_ pity them, +_because_ they are too proud to do this. Besides, I do not think it is +altogether because the name or position of "servant" is so obnoxious +to them. It is the confinement of their position. It is the duration +of their hours of labor--extending into the evening, and often till +late in the evening, week after week, to which they object; whereas +the working-girl in most other departments of service is released at +nightfall, and is her own mistress till another day of toil begins. +Now, answer me: Were you, and you, similarly placed, would you not +desire, even in the face of the drawbacks attending it, your +_evenings_ to yourself? I think so. It is true, from "these evenings +to themselves," have dated the perdition of many of this class. Still, +_young_ eyes will never see with old spectacles. Young blood will +never course so sluggishly that all work, and no respite, will be +accepted without nature's strong protest. "_One_ evening out in a +week," that is the general holiday for a house servant: would not +_your_ youth have rebelled, madam, at this? even though your remainder +evenings were passed in the bright parlor, with loving eyes resting +upon you, instead of the underground kitchen, rebelliously watching +the bell-wire? You must look at this subject with their eyes, instead +of your own; through their privations, instead of through your +privileges, if you would be just. + +Said a merry matron, apologetically, to me, who had passed life's +meridian, "I never had any youth, and I am taking it now." That is +just it! _The heart demands its youth, and, some time or other, it +must and will have it._ God grant that to these poor girls, it may +come harmlessly,--innocently! But I, for one, can never wonder or +condemn, though I often deplore, that, driven at bay, like hunted +animals, and many of them with limited knowledge and intelligence, +they should snatch at the passing sunbeam, lest another should never +gild their lonesome path. + +We need a wider charity for these girls; for all those on whom life +bears so hardly. We who are well-fed, well-clothed, well-educated, how +illy do we, with all these helps to virtue and goodness, perform our +part. Let us remember this in our hasty judgment of them, in our +disgust that they do not choose for themselves more wisely. Let us not +in church, or elsewhere, ask to be forgiven _our_ shortcomings, with +all these helps, when, if one less enlightened stumbles and falls by +the way, we "do not pity them,"--nay, more, because they have done so, +we refuse to help them again to their feet. + +I have alluded, in a former article, to the cheap and comfortable +boarding-houses, as a refuge to the working-girl from the horrors of +their tenement-house home. I was descanting upon their advantages not +long since to one who has herself been through many of the most +distressing phases of the sewing-girl's life. She heard me silently, +and to my surprise, without enthusiasm, when I spoke of the wholesome +food, pure air, refreshing baths, free reading-room, and laundry. +"What?" asked I--"do you not consider this a blessed asylum for these +girls?" + +With an emphasis which I cannot convey on paper, she said, as her eye +kindled, "Give me rather my poor room, even in the tenement-house, +where, if I had a grief, I could cry it out, with no eye but that of +my Maker to witness it. I could never be happy to go to my bed at +night in company with a dozen others, in ever so clean or spacious an +apartment, where there was no privacy. I had rather work ever so hard, +and _earn_ all I had, than to feel that I was in any measure a +recipient of charity,--that I _was in an Institution_, and labelled as +an inmate when I passed in and out." + +Now there are those who, reading this, will only express disgust. I +confess, although it surprised me, that I have a strong sympathy with +the self-respect which prompted this frank avowal; and, excellent as +is the embryo Institution above alluded to, I yet hope that as its +means increase each inmate may have an apartment to herself, be it +ever so small, that the poor heart which "knoweth its own bitterness" +may not be "intermeddled with" by any stranger. + + * * * * * + +Never apply the word "tomboy" to a girl who is taking healthy and +innocent exercise. Are there not mincing misses enough about us, who +pervert girlhood by adult nonsense, till the whole head is sick, and +the whole heart is faint? Better, a thousandfold, be "tomboys" than +such _things_ as these. "Tomboys" have lungs and chests and rosy +cheeks, and grow up to be healthy mothers of healthy children. +_Doctors_ may not like them, but common-sense and husbands do; though, +truth to say, these terms are not always synonymous. + + + + +_THE HISTORY OF OUR LATE WAR._ + + +Many able works have already appeared on this subject, and many more +will doubtless follow. But _my_ History of the War is yet to be +written; not indeed _by_ me, but _for_ me. A history which shall +record, not the deeds of our Commanders and Generals, noble and great +as they were, because these will scarcely fail of historical record +and prominence; but _my_ history shall preserve for the descendants of +those who fought for our flag, the noble deeds of our _privates_, who +shared the danger but missed the glory. Scattered far and wide in our +remote villages--hidden away amid our mountains--struggling for daily +bread in our swarming cities, are these unrecognized heroes. +Travelling through our land, one meets them everywhere; but only as +accident, or chance, leads to conversation with them, does the plain +man by your side become transfigured in your eyes, till you feel like +uncovering your head in his presence, as when one stands upon holy +ground. Not only because they were brave upon the battle-field, but +for their sublime self-abnegation under circumstances when the best of +us might be forgiven our selfishness; in the tortures of the ambulance +and hospital--quivering through the laggard hours, that might or +might not bring peace and rest and health. Oh! what a book might be +written upon the noble unselfishness _there_ displayed; not only +towards those who fought _for_ our flag, but _against_ it. The coveted +drop of water, handed by one dying man to another, whose sufferings +seemed the greater. The simple request to the physician to pass _his_ +wounds by, till those of another, whose existence was unknown to him a +moment before, should have been alleviated. Who shall embalm us these? + +Last summer, when I was away in the country, I was accustomed to row +every evening at sunset on a lovely lake near by. The boatman who went +with me was a sunburnt, pleasant-faced young man, whose stroke at the +oar it was poetry to see. He made no conversation unless addressed, +save occasionally to little Bright-Eyes, who sometimes accompanied me. +One evening, as the sun set gloriously and the moon rose, and the +aurora borealis was sending up flashes of rose and silver, I said, +"Oh, this is too beautiful to leave. I _must_ cross the lake again." I +made some remark about the brilliance of the North Star, when he +remarked simply, "That star was a good friend to me in the war." "Were +you in the war?" asked I; "and all these evenings you have rowed a +loyal woman like me about this lake, and I knew nothing of it!" Then, +at my request, came the story of Andersonville, and its horrors, told +simply, and without a revengeful word; then the thrilling attempt at +escape, through a country absolutely unknown, and swarming with +danger, during which the North Star, of which I had just spoken, was +his only guide. Then came a dark night, when the friendly star, alas! +disappeared. But a watch, which he had saved his money to obtain, had +a compass on the back of it. Still of what use was that without a +light? Our boatman was a Yankee. He caught a glowworm and pinched it. +It flashed light sufficient for him to see that he was heading for one +of our camps, where, after many hours of travel, he at last found +safety, sinking down insensible from fatigue and hunger, as soon as he +reached it. So ravenously did he eat, when food was brought, that a +raging fever followed; and when he was carried, a mere skeleton, to +his home on the borders of the lovely lake where we were rowing, whose +peaceful flow had mocked him in dreams in that seething, noisome +prison pen, he did not even recognize it. For months his mother +watched his sick-bed, till reason and partial health returned--till by +degrees he became what he then was. + +When he had finished, I said, "Give me your hand--_both of 'em_--and +God bless you!"--and--then I _mentioned_ his jailers! Not a word of +bitterness passed his lips--only this: "I used to gasp in the foul air +at Andersonville, and think of this quiet, smooth lake, and our little +house with the trees near it, and long so to see them again, and row +my little boat here. But," he added, quietly, "_they_ thought they +were as right as we, and they _did_ fight well!" + +I swallowed a big lump in my throat--as our boat neared the shore, and +he handed me out--and said, penitently, "Well, if _you_ can forgive +them, I am sure I ought to; but it will be the hardest work I ever +did."--"Well, it is strange," said he: "I have often noticed it, since +my return, that you who stayed at home feel more bitter about it, than +we who came so near dying there of foul air and starvation." + + * * * * * + +A rich man, just stepping into the grave, burdened with more money +than he has known all his life what to do with, is extolled to the +skies for his legacies and bequests here and there--at home and +abroad. Now, why all this laudation? Is not the poor servant girl, who +can scarce keep herself comfortably clothed, and yet every Sunday puts +her pittance religiously into the contribution box, more deserving of +praise? And yet who ever takes this other than as a matter of course, +save Him who seeth even the widow's mite? + + + + +_TWO KINDS OF WOMEN._ + + +Mrs. Jones--do you know her? She looks well to the ways of her +household. She knows how every ounce of butter, and every spoonful of +tea and coffee are disposed of. She is posted as to the sugar, and +milk and potatoes, and calculates to a moment how long-lived must be a +joint of meat, or what is the weight of a loaf of bread. She +understands what should be the perpetuity of kindling wood, and knows +when it is diverted from its original purpose as an _auxiliary_, by a +dilatory cook, and used as a principal, to hurry up a late breakfast. +You can't cheat Mrs. Jones. Every pot, pan, basin, knife, fork, spoon, +in her establishment, serves its legitimate purpose, and no other; and +never loses its edge or polish, or disappears "unbeknownst" into the +ash-barrel. She scorns to buy preserves or pickles, how well soever +made, and though she may encounter no pecuniary loss in doing so; she +thinks it an excellent use of her time, although they are "well off," +to prepare them with her own deft hands. She is at home when her +husband leaves, and she is at home when her husband comes back. She +does much of the sewing and fitting of family garments, and all the +mending; and she often calls upon the minister to baptize a new baby. +She is cheerful and content in her snuggery of a house, and every +saucepan in it is surrounded with a halo. "Woman's Rights" simply sets +her giggling, when mentioned. Her own family tub sets firm on its +bottom--isn't that enough? Year after year passes. The freshness has +left her face, and the features have sharpened, as she whirls round +and round in this little maelstrom, with no desire to catch breath for +one single moment. Occasionally she goes outside of her own door, but +feels better inside, and hurries home as if she had committed a crime, +in letting up her martinet superintendence for one moment. + +As to books and newspapers, she never looks at either. "She says she +has no time." I don't know whether she ever thinks that her children +will some day grow up, and may ask questions which it were a pity +their mother should be too ignorant to answer. I don't know whether +she ever thinks her husband may weary at evening, of the history of +the family potato. Since it is cooked invariably to his liking, it may +be that is all he requires. But after he has eaten his dinner, and is +satisfied--such is man--that I wouldn't like to dismiss Mrs. Jones to +the nursery and put a bright woman in her place, unless "ma" lived +round the corner. + +Now Mrs. Smith lives opposite Mrs. Jones. The devil might fly away +with _her_ saucepans, and she wouldn't care. Why does she hire +servants, if she herself is to superintend saucepans? Is Mr. Smith +always home to dinner, that _she_ need be? Has a woman no rights? Is +it for her to be absorbed by the miserable family potato, when many +women have no potato at all? Her answer is on the public platform. +Smith indeed turns pale to think of it; but who or what is Smith? He's +only a man,--a tyrannical, overbearing man, possibly of the worst +type, who believes in "whipping females." Her "mission" is to reform +such men--peaceably, if she can; belligerently, if she must; but it +has got to "come off" somehow. Meantime the nurse rubs her children's +noses _up_ instead of down; fills their eyes with soap-suds, and then +boxes their ears for "whining about it;" eats _their_ lunch and tosses +them _hers_. She tells the youngest child of the "black man who +swallows little children whole" when she wants it to be still in bed, +so that she may converse with her "cousin" in the area; and then +wonders "what _can_ ail the little dear," when its progressive mother +returns from her public speech-making, to find it in a stiff fit. As +to Mr. Smith, he hates women's rights--he wants something to eat. + +Now here are two female extremists. I don't see the necessity of +either; but after saying this, I frankly declare that, had I to +choose, Mrs. Jones has my preference. _Her_ children have a home at +least. They have good wholesome food, and clothes suitable to the +weather. If they are sick, they have watchful care. And no mother, +unless she first secure all this to their helplessness, has any right, +in my opinion, on the public platform. This much Mrs. Jones hath +done. Possibly Jones, her husband, takes it, like sunshine, as a +matter of course, and needing no special thanks. Men are more stupid, +and ignorant, than ugly, on this and kindred points. _They_ don't +dream, unless in very exceptionable cases, how a wife longs sometimes +to have a husband testify his pleasure at her invariable good cheer in +some other way than by gobbling it up, till he is as torpid as an +anaconda, until next feeding time. _He_ never feels the need of such +recognition; and so, if his attention is called to it by a +half-smothered, weary sigh from some little wife who can't do without +it, why, he thinks it "babyish." _Such a man ought to marry a +man_--that's my verdict. Where's the sense of plucking a flower to put +your foot on it? Better take a stone post for better, or worse, and +have done with it. You can't dam--n up a woman's feelings as you would +a village stream. You can't choose her for her tender, womanly ways, +and then expect when you get her home that she will "heads up" with an +unwinking stare at you for further orders the rest of her life. If +that's the wife you wanted, why not take one of those figures outside +the store-doors in Broadway, with a dress pinned on, which, when +twirled round, stand stock still till they get another twirl? _They_ +are _headless_, to be sure, but they are _so_ docile! + + + + +_SUNDAY MORNING._ + + +How many pleasant breakfast-tables it looks down upon! No need to +hurry away to office, or store, or counting-room. Fathers come +leisurely down in dressing-gown and slippers, and sip their coffee +without danger of choking. They have time to look round and see how +tall the children are growing, and that nothing in this world is so +beautiful as a rosy baby fresh from slumber. Mother, too, has the old +girlish smile, that comes not often on a week-day, or if it does, +father has not time to notice it, and that, perhaps, after all, is the +reason it comes so seldom. It is pleasant, after eggs and coffee, to +sit comfortably down, the centre of a ring of happy faces, and hear +the church-bells chime. Time enough yet to go, for this is the first +bell. + +Church-bells are not, to my ear, an "impertinence." One is a free +agent. I am free to go, which I like to do; you are free to stay, if +you prefer; though I may think you make a mistake. I don't say that I +should go every Sunday to hear a man who was always binding doctrines +together like bundles of dry sticks, and thrusting them at his yawning +hearers. I want to hear a sermon that any poor soul who straggles +into church, from any by-lane or alley, can understand, and carry home +with him to his cellar or garret; not a sermon that comes on chariot +wheels, but afoot, and with a warm, life-like grasp for every honest, +aye, and _dis_honest, hand in the assembly, defaulter or Magdalen; for +who bade you slam heaven's gate in their faces? + +I want a _human_ sermon. I don't care what Melchisedek, or Zerubbabel, +or Kerenhappuk did, ages ago; I want to know what _I_ am to do, and I +want somebody besides a theological bookworm to tell me; somebody who +is sometimes tempted and tried, and is not too dignified to own it; +somebody like me, who is always sinning and repenting; somebody who is +glad and sorry, and cries and laughs, and eats and drinks, and _wants_ +to fight when they are trodden on, and _don't_! That's the minister +for me. I don't want a spiritual abstraction, with stony eyes and +petrified fingers, and no blood to battle with. What credit is it to +_him_ to be proper? How can he understand _me_? Were there only such +ministers in the pulpit, I wouldn't go to church either, because my +impatient feet would only beat a tattoo on the pew floor till service +was over: but, thank God! there are! and while they preach I shall go +to hear them, and come home better and happier for having done it. + +So I pray you don't abolish _my_ Sunday, whatever you may do with +yours. Don't take away my blessed Sunday breakfast, when we all have +time to love one another. Don't take away the Sabbath bells, which I +so love to hear. Don't take away my human minister, whose God is no +tyrant, and is better pleased to see us go smiling home from church, +than bowing our heads like a bulrush, and groaning back to our +dinners, till all you anti-Sabbatarians are mad to abolish +Sunday,--and no wonder. + +Our Catholic brethren have set us, at least one good example; their +churches are not silent as the tomb on week-days. Their worshippers do +not do up all their religion on Sunday. It may be only for a few +moments they step in through that open church-door, on a week-day, to +kneel and lay down burdens too heavy else to be borne. I like the +custom. I should rather say, I like the reminder, and the opportunity +thus afforded them; and I heartily wish that all our Protestant +churches could be thus opened. If rich Christians object to the +promiscuous use of their velvet cushions and gilded prayer-books, at +least let the aisles and altar be free for those who need God on the +week-days; for the poor, the tried, the tempted; for those who shrink, +in their shabby habiliments, from the Sunday exhibition of fine +toilettes and superfine Christianity. Were I a minister, and obliged +to preach to paniers and diamonds and satins, on Sunday, I think I +should _have_ to ease my heart in some such way as this, to make my +pastoral life endurable, else my office would seem to me the most +hollow of all mockeries. "The rich and the poor meet together, and +the Lord is the Maker of them all," should be inscribed outside my +church door, had I one. I could not preach to those paniers and their +owners. My tongue would be paralyzed at those kneeling distortions of +womanhood, bearing such a resemblance to organ-grinders' monkeys. I am +not sure that I should not grow hysterical over it, and laugh and cry +in the same breath, instead of preaching. I can never tell what vent +my disgust would take; but I am sure it must have some escape-valve. +You may say that such worshippers (Heaven save the mark!) _need_ +preaching to. I tell you that women, so given over to "the devil and +all his works," are past praying for; "having eyes, they see not; +having ears, they hear not." They are ossified, impervious; they are +Dead-Sea apples, full of ashes. There! now I feel better. + +Having alluded to our Roman Catholic friends, allow me to ask leave of +them to have the cross surmount all our _Protestant_ churches, unless +they have taken out a patent for the same. It is lovely to me, this +symbol, as I pass along our streets. It rests my heart to look at it, +amid the turmoil, and din, and hurry, and anxious faces, and sorrowful +faces, and, worse than all, empty faces, that I meet. I say to myself, +there is truth _there_; there is hope and comfort there, and this +tangle of life is _not_ the end. When I am a Protestant minister, the +dear cross shall be on my church, and nobody shall stay away from it +because they are ragged or poor, or because the cushions are too nice. +Oh, I like Catholicism for _that_. They are nearer heaven than +Protestants on this point. + +I am very glad for the Protestant noonday prayer-meetings, wheresoever +held. One may have a great spiritual need on other days than Sunday. +One may happen in here--if such things ever _happen_, which I +doubt--and _there_ learn that need, and the way to satisfy it. The +devil is cunningly and wisely busy _every day_ and every night in the +week. Why should good Christians think to circumvent this skilful +diplomatist in one?--on _Sunday_ only? The devil makes _easy_ all the +paths leading to perdition. Christians make hard and difficult the +road to heaven, with their fine churches, and fine worshippers, and +empty preaching once a week. And all around us pitiful hands are +outstretched, and hungry hearts are waiting for the loving Christian +word of help, temporal and spiritual; and men and women go down into +the maelstrom of despair, folly, and sin; and we open our churches and +let _well-dressed_ Christians in to pray for them on Sunday. Sunday! +the word has no meaning. Call it Monday or Tuesday, or Fourth of July, +or anything you will, but not "Sunday." _That_ once meant something. + +Let me give you a postscript to a sermon I once heard. "Middle age is +inevitable routine, but keep your _souls_ above it," I heard a +clergyman remark the other night. He "knew that it was difficult," he +said, "not to merge one's self at that crisis in the shop, in the +store, in the office; difficult _not_ to become a mere drudge and a +machine; but still, avoiding it was the only hope for this life." Oh, +how my heart echoed these words--not for men, but for my own sex, of +whose routine life the clergyman said nothing. I wanted to get up and +say to him, "My dear sir, your address is eloquent, and true, +scholarly, and sound, so far as it goes. It _is_ the only hope for +this life that these men of business should not become mere tools." +But I wanted to ask him if men, with their freedom of action--men who, +out in the world, inevitably come into collision with _stirring_, not +_stagnant_ life--find this difficult, what of their wives? With twenty +nerves where men have one to be jarred and agonized, with the pin and +needle fret, of every minute, which they may never hope to escape or +get away from; tied hand and foot, day and night, week after week, +with the ten thousand cords, invisible often to the dull eye of +husband and father, who accepts at evening the neat and pleasant +result, without a thought of how it was accomplished--without a +thought of the weariness of that inexorable grind of detail necessary +to it--without a thought that a change of scene is either necessary or +desirable for the wife and mother who is surely under its benumbing +influence, merging _her_ "soul" till she is a mere machine. + +I wanted to hear this clergyman say something about that. I wanted to +know of him whether these women were doing God and their husbands +service, by so sinking the spiritual part of them that one could +hardly tell that it had existence. I wanted to ask him whether, if +their husbands, through indifference or selfishness, or both, gave no +thought to this matter, if he--set in a high place to teach the +people--had no word of advice to such men, that they look as well to +the spiritual deterioration of the _mothers_ of their children as to +their own--the fathers. Nay, I insist that for the mother it is of +_more_ consequence, as having infinitely more to do with the forming +years of these children. And what time, pray, have many of these +"routine" mothers for "thought," properly so called? What time for +reading even the daily papers, to keep up intelligently with the great +issues of the day, of which it is a shame and disgrace for any +American wife and mother to be ignorant? How can they in this way be +fit companions for their children's future? How can they answer their +questions, on this subject and on that, while their vision is for ever +bounded by the horizon of the physical wants of the household? You may +preach "woman's duty" to me till you are hoarse; and I will preach to +you the lust and the selfishness, which is ever repeating the dilemma +of "the old woman in the shoe," till she has not an interval to think +whether she or her brood _have_ souls. "Routine life" of _men_! Men +can and do get out of it--"business takes them away from home on +journeys." "Business" takes him out pleasant evenings; on rainy ones, +he never has "business;" then he goes early to bed, to prepare for a +long evening of "business" when the sky clears. + +His wife--well, "she don't seem to need it; or if she does, she don't +say so;" and I might add, in the language of Dickens's nurse, Sary +Gamp, "it is little she needs, and that little she don't get," at +least from him. + +Routine men! Oh, bah! "Routine men" have a result to show for their +"routine." They have clerks--not from Intelligence-offices either--who +have to do as they bid them. They also lock up shop at dark. They also +walk or ride home in the fresh air, and talk with their male friends +while doing it. They also are not dependent on the whim or caprice of +any man to take them out for a breath of fresh air at night, after an +exhaustive day of indoor stifling detail. And so, though the sermon to +which I listened was excellent _from a man to men_, I made up my mind +to add this little Appendix to women, from a woman, on the +routine-woman's side of the question. You may talk of the selfishness +of women till your head is white; there never lived that selfish woman +so execrably selfish as a selfish man can be. I don't say _you_ are +so, sir: though at this distance, I venture to inquire whether, were +you in your wife's place, you wouldn't occasionally like to climb up +on the edge of the peck-measure in which she daily revolves, and look +about outside, even if it should tip over on the whole brood of young +ones in the process? + + + + +_JUSTICE FOR CLERGYMEN._ + + +Can anybody tell why clergymen should not receive fees for attending +funerals? They receive fees, and generous ones often, for performing +the marriage-ceremony, which is very unnecessary in comparison; a +wedding being a joyful, happy, inspiriting occasion, with its bright +faces, sweet flowers, and happy congratulations of friends; the +exceptions to which are so few as not to need enumerating; and it must +needs rest a man instead of wearying him, cobwebbed all over with +theological tangles as he is, to witness all this; for no matter what +vicissitudes fate and the future have in store for the two he has made +one, at least for _that_ hour they are supremely blessed, and he has +made them so. But a _funeral_! with all its present unnecessary and +dreadful accumulation of horrors; with its closed blinds, its piling +up of sable garments, its pale dead face, which needs no such +auxiliaries of gloom. Imagine a clergyman, already worn out, mentally +and physically, entering such a room, filled with mourning friends, to +whom even the Saviour's own sweet words would seem cold, who must each +for himself tread the wine-press _alone_, till such time as they can +find _Him_. Imagine this minister trying, by prayer and exhortation, +to lift that heavy load of sorrow which all who have grieved know, +that time and faith alone can lighten. Then he goes and looks into the +face of the dead--oh! how many dead faces has he looked at, through +the eyes of others, in the same way!--then he offers a friendly hand +to the widow, or the orphan, as the case may be, and then with this +immense draft on his sympathies, with those heart-rending sobs still +sounding in his ears, perhaps within that very hour, he is called to a +repetition of the sad scene. I am very sure that any clergymen of +experience and sensibility will say, that I have not overstated this +wear and tear of feeling in the delicate endeavor to say just the +right thing, to the differing faiths of the craving, sorrowing hearts +present. + +Now why, I ask, should clergymen, in addition to their other +exhaustive duties, be expected to go through this most exhaustive +service of all, without remuneration? More especially, when one +considers the often danger of contagious atmospheric influences, at +such times and places, upon his tired frame. + +I have often pondered, without yet being able to find a shadow of a +reason for this unjust demand upon clerical strength. If you say it is +the custom, I only say it is time that, with other bad customs, it +were reformed; and more--since clergymen themselves have their lips +delicately closed on this especial subject, while on others they might +be considered at liberty to speak. That's why _I_ have spoken for +them. + +I like ministers. I was brought up with them. My father's house was a +minister's tavern, lacking the sign swinging before the door. I was a +wild slip in those days; that's why they always "wanted a little +conversation with Sarah." It was philanthropic, but thrown away. I had +been told so often that I was "a child of wrath," that I had it at my +fingers' ends--I might have said, at my toes' ends, for it was they +who helped me out the nearest door after meals, lest I should hear the +stale announcement again. I persisted I "loved God," when I was asked. +Why shouldn't I? for no bugaboo of anybody's raising could have made +me believe I was born by him to be tormented. The flowers, the clouds, +the ocean, the sun, moon, and stars--what priceless gifts were they! +No "doctrine" or "creed" could rob me of them; and didn't _he_ make +them, and give me a soul to enjoy them? It was of no use telling me I +was a "child of wrath" under circumstances like these! One soft sweet +breath from my flower-garden knocked that idea "all to smithereens." + +Now I didn't hate those ministers for trying to darken what should +have been, and what _was_, in spite of them, youth's festival hour. I +knew they _thought_ they were right, and I believe them to be truly +good, though mistaken, men. They didn't know that, child as I was, if +_I_ ever went to Heaven, it would be taking hold of my Heavenly +Father's hand, not cowering before him through fear of "hell." So +they fired over my curls, when they got me in a corner, and talked to +me that way. They didn't make me hate "meetin'" either; though I was +driven there to hear so many "seventeenth-lies" at the point of the +bayonet; and when skewered up on the seat between rows of big folks, I +felt as if little ants were creeping out from under my finger-nails, +so fidgety did I get for the blessed outdoors. + +But I have not outgrown "meetin'" yet, and I count no Sunday a Sunday +when I don't go there some part of the day. Oh, had they only known +_how_ to talk to me, instead of driving me within myself, and making +me put my worst religious foot foremost. But clergymen have found a +better way since, thank God! Still I often smile at the bits of the +old leaven in the ministerial make up. How they will wonder at it all, +when eternity's light shines down on their life-path, and shows them +these mistakes. For I make no apology here for boldly asserting that a +minister can, and does, and always will, make an occasional mistake; +although I was once pounced down upon by an evangelical critic, who +talked to me about "wounding the Lord in the house of his friends," +when I said so. It is just such stuff as that, that drives everybody +_from_ the "Lord." Better face the music, and own up, that even +ministers are _human_. For my part, were I a minister, and fenced in, +and badgered about, and cross-questioned and interfered with, and +expected to be a sound, rounded, well-disposed human being, morally, +mentally, and physically, all the same as if a coroner's inquest +wasn't squatting on my free-agency every hour in the day, I'll warrant +you I should make a great many more mistakes than they do. Old Adam in +me, would soon see that they didn't want material for a verdict to +suit their narrowness. + +And now I hope I have shown you that I am a friend to ministers. So +that without getting a boxed ear, I must tell you here, what a laugh I +got out of a lot of them yesterday. You see, I was in an omnibus +alone, save one lady, when a meeting of some sort in one of our +churches "bust up,"--excuse the expression--"bust up." Five ministers +emerging from the church porch, hailed the omnibus and got in, and +decorously seated themselves. Now, some ministers look jolly, and as +if they were alive. These were thin, cavernous, and had the ten +commandments written all over them. They had heard of New York +Delilahs evidently, for they wouldn't see the _fare_ of the lady or +myself between our gloved fingers waiting for the driver--not a bit of +it! Catch them at it! They looked straight past us both, safely out +the window at an innocent brick wall. Oh, heavens! how I laughed! It +carried me back to the days I was a curly-headed little sinner, +rebelling at being called "a child of wrath." I wanted to say, +"Brethren, I too am a Christian"--and I will persist that I am; so +don't be afraid of my innocent female pennies, nor "cross" yourselves +because your foot accidentally touched the hem of my robe when you got +in; for though I believe in ministers, I _don't_ like to have the +devil laugh in his sleeve at their queer, poky, solemn ways, and say +to himself, "Aha! so would I have it." + +May clergymen sneeze? Well--not exactly that; but a question quite as +foolish, I saw gravely propounded and treated, the other day, in a +religious paper. The debate was upon this highly important point: +"Whether it was right for ministers to play croquet." Now I really +_had_ hoped that the day had gone by when the only amusement allowed +to ministers was counting the scores of little heads that surrounded +their table. I did hope that they might wash their faces on a towel, +though it had not a funereal urn embroidered in the corners. And that +they need not of necessity plant a cypress, or weeping willow, at +their front door, to designate their raven-like calling; or banish +every plant from their garden save the funereal rue and rosemary. It +seems I was mistaken; more's the pity. Now if there is anything the +devil likes, it is fine-spun, wire-drawn distinctions, on unimportant +questions like these. If there is anything he likes, it is this +ascetic rendering of religious things, to disgust the young, and throw +a pall over that which _should_ attract them by a wise recognition of +their human needs. When we place a young plant down cellar and shut +out light and sunshine, though it may put out shoots, we all know that +they are white, sickly, and destined early to perish; just so with +this misnamed "godliness" which the well-meaning but over-zealous +religionist would thrust upon us and persuade us was doing +God-service. I tell you it is _not_. I tell you that a minister, above +all others, needs innocent and proper recreation, like croquet. Every +summer, in my travels to and fro, I meet "ministers" enjoying their +brief respite of a summer-vacation; most of them bearing unmistakable +evidence in their pale faces and narrow chests, of their great +necessity for it. I have watched them, sympathetically, as they sat on +the piazzas of the hotels and boarding-houses where we were thrown +together. I have seen them commit this unpardonable sin of "playing +croquet" on a nice green lawn, while the fresh mountain air tinged +their pale cheeks, and their eyes grew brighter, and their tones grew +cheerful, and I blessed God for the sight. I said to myself, _that's_ +the way to foil the devil, when the young people found, day after day, +that even a "_minister_" could be cheerful himself and promote +cheerfulness; and that religion, after all, was not death to innocent +happiness. I have been with ministers to the ten-pin alley, in company +with their wives, children, and friends; I have climbed mountains with +them, when I had a better frolic than I ever had with any of the +laymen; and after a three-hours climb, and we all sat upon the top and +enjoyed the view of the surrounding country, and, seated upon the +grass, ate our luncheon, I never perceived that religion suffered by +it. I _have_ often, on the contrary, heard young people of the party +say, "Well, this is the first time I ever _really_ liked a minister. I +thought they were all stiff and solemn, and--to use a juvenile but +expressive epithet--'poky'"! Nor when the following Sunday, sweet as +Sunday always dawns on the hills and valleys, dawned on us, in some +such lovely spot, and these same clergymen were requested to preach, +sometimes in the parlor of the hotel, sometimes, which was better, in +a grove near the house, did _I_ for one perceive anything incongruous +in his doing so, though the audience was the very same merry party of +the day before. And when they have joined in the sweet hymn under the +trees, where he stood with uncovered head, as in God's best temple, I +confess to much more devotion than I am apt to feel, when surrounded +and hedged in, and, allow me to say, sometimes _stifled_ with all the +clerical city paraphernalia, whose husk often seems to me so to shut +in and compress the kernel, that one almost doubts if it has +existence. + +Ministers play croquet? I wish every minister had a violin and a brisk +saddle-horse. Away with this bogus sanctity. Take a lesson from our +Roman Catholic friends in the virtue of cheerfulness. Drive not _from_ +you, but draw soothingly, caressingly to you the lambs of the flock. +Terror never yet made a true Christian. Frigidity never yet glorified +God. The world is not a charnel-house. Else the blue sky would have +been as black as some of these ascetics fain would make it. No! It is +full of perfume and song and color, and you can never shut the eyes +of young people to it with your distorted views of life. Oh, be wiser, +lest the sad rebound of the atheist come, and they find only at the +end of a life misspent, that in their zeal to prove your detested +"religion" a sham, they had overlooked the fact that the counterfeit +presupposes the _true coin_. + + * * * * * + +How seldom, in judging of those who excite our anger or contempt, do +we judge them, as the Almighty does, by the extenuating circumstances +of birth and education, and the lack of spiritual light! "Nobody ever +told me;" "I did not know it was wrong;" "Nobody cared whether I was +good or bad." What pitiful words are these! The Saviour recognized +these facts when he said, "Neither do I condemn thee; go and sin no +more." + + + + +_THE OLD MAID OF THE PERIOD._ + + +She don't shuffle round in "skimpt" raiment, and awkward shoes, and +cotton gloves, with horn side-combs fastening six hairs to her +temples; nor has she a sharp nose, and angular jaw, and hollow cheeks, +and only two front teeth. She don't read "Law's Serious Call," or keep +a cat, or a snuff-box, or go to bed at dark, save on vestry-meeting +nights, nor scowl at little children, or gather catnip, or apply a +broomstick to astonished dogs. + +Not a bit of it. The modern "old maid" is round and jolly, and has her +full complement of hair and teeth, and two dimples in her cheek, and +has a laugh as musical as a bobolink's song. She wears pretty, nicely +fitting dresses too, and cunning little ornaments around her plump +throat, and becoming bits of color in her hair, and at her breast, in +the shape of little knots and bows; and her waist is shapely, and her +hands have sparkling rings, and no knuckles; and her foot is cunning, +and is prisoned in a bewildering boot; and she goes to concerts and +parties and suppers and lectures and matinees, and she don't go alone +either; and she lives in a nice house, earned by herself, and gives +jolly little teas in it. She don't care whether she is married or not, +nor need she. She can afford to wait, as men often do, till they have +"seen life," and when their bones are full of aches, and their blood +tamed down to water, and they have done going out, and want somebody +to swear at and to nurse them--then marry! + +Ah! the modern old maid has her eye-teeth cut. She takes care of +herself, instead of her sister's nine children, through mumps, and +measles, and croup, and chicken-pox, and lung fever and leprosy, and +what not. + +_She_ don't work that way for no wages and bare toleration, day and +night. No, sir! If she has no money, she teaches, or she lectures, or +she writes books or poems, or she is a book-keeper, or she sets types, +or she does anything but hang on to the skirts of somebody's else +husband, and she feels well and independent in consequence, and holds +up her head with the best, and asks no favors, and "_Woman's Rights_" +has done it! + +That awful bugbear, "Woman's Rights"! which small-souled men, and, I +am sorry to say, narrow _women_ too, burlesque and ridicule, and wont +believe in, till the Juggernaut of Progress knocks them down and rides +over them, because they will neither climb up on it, nor get out of +the way. + +The fact is, the _Modern_ Old Maid is as good as the Modern Young +Maid, and a great deal better, to those who have outgrown bread and +butter. She has sense as well as freshness, and conversation and +repartee as well as dimples and curves. + +She carries a dainty parasol, and a natty little umbrella, and wears +killing bonnets, and has live poets and sages and philosophers in her +train, and knows how to use her eyes, and don't care if she never sees +a cat, and couldn't tell a snuff-box from a patent reaper, and has a +bank-book and dividends: yes, sir! and her name is Phoebe or Alice; +and Woman's Rights has done it. + + * * * * * + +A newspaper lately announced that the fashion of blue coats and brass +buttons for gentlemen had received its death-blow. Now, listen, ye men +who are constantly preaching to us women, about our "slavery to +fashion." It was done by Prince Arthur, who _didn't_ wear it at a +recent great public ball. Deadly stab! We hope the gentlemen who did +appear in that costume will not commit suicide. But if we might give +them a little bit of advice, it would be, that they should keep on +wearing blue coats and brass buttons, just _because_ "the Prince" +didn't. Show yourself superior to fashion, gentlemen, as you so often +advise ladies to do. Try the boot on _that_ foot. Don't throw aside a +good coat for the puerile reason that it is out of fashion! Oh, no! + + + + +_THE NURSE OF THE PERIOD._ + + +All honor to Mr. Bergh for his remedial measures to prevent cruelty to +animals. Cats, they say, have nine lives; so, with this in their +favor, will the gentleman above mentioned let them wriggle a while, +and devote that portion of his time to an animal which has only one +life. I refer to the New York child--the _rich_ New York child. If he +will take a walk through any of our city parks with his eyes open, he +cannot fail to see suffering enough among this class to enlist his +warmest sympathies. I often stroll through the parks to hear the birds +sing, and to see the children. One day last week I saw a bright little +boy of four years amusing himself by picking up little twigs that had +fallen from the trees, while his nurse was engaged in interminable +gossip with one of her class. Turning her head suddenly, she perceived +him engaged in this harmless and natural amusement. Snatching them +from his hand, she took each little twig separately and struck him +with each across his happy little face; then, throwing them away out +of his reach, left him standing there, sobbing, with nothing to do, +while she continued her chapter of gossip. Walking on a little +farther, I saw a little girl who had strayed across the path to look +at a "dolly" which another child was drawing in a little wagon. It was +a wonderful "dolly;" with flaxen curls, and pink boots, and a muslin +dress; and its eyes were closed in slumber, after the fashion of the +doll of the period, while in a recumbent position. Oh! the sweet +little face, as it peered into the tiny wagon, and the precocious +_mother_ look of adoration at the "dolly"! Instantly came darting +after her the Gorgon nurse, and with a smart slap upon her head and a +shake of her little shoulders, till her bright hair flew quite over +the frightened little face, she tore her violently away, and seating +herself upon a bench, where she had been talking with a coarse-looking +man, set the sobbing child so hard upon her knee that I could +distinctly hear it catch its breath. I mention here only these two +instances of brutal treatment, which I could multiply by dozens. Why +do not mothers take pains to follow their nurses occasionally, to see +if all is right with their children when out of doors? And why could +not Mr. Bergh order some _backs_ placed to the torturing benches in +our parks where the little children sit? The Central Park benches are +a good model in this regard, as many a weary pedestrian can testify. +And while he is up there looking at them with a view to this, if he +will just pass under the damp bridges, and rout out those self-same +nurses, who sit there talking with their beaux, instead of taking +their little charges out into the sunshine, and among the flowers, as +they were told to do, _this_ also would be a humanitarian act. + +In fact, _the rich child of the period_ is at present an object for +_his_ especial consideration. Deserted apparently by its natural +protector, the mother, except so far as its dress is concerned, it is +peculiarly helpless and friendless, at least when out of doors. I +speak advisedly; for not a day passes that my blood does not boil at +the cruelty it endures; at the innocent little instincts, for the +gratification of which it is immediately slapped, as if they were +crimes; just as if we should stone a bird for warbling, or a bee for +humming, or a leaf for fluttering in the sweet south wind. + +Oh! the harsh Juggernaut wheel which crushes out all this sweetness +into the dust! + +And what of the _temper_ permanently spoiled and soured by such +roughness and injustice? What of the aching little head, which is +slapped and shaken? What of the tired little feet, while the nurse and +her comrades occupy the seat, and the little ones, forbidden to play, +lean wearily against the nurse's knee, and cry for "mamma"? Surely, +where is mamma? Good Mr. Bergh, do _you_ be the rich children's +"mamma," and let the cat with her "nine lives" look out for herself! + + + + +_A LOOK BACKWARD._ + + +Oh! to be a child again. My only treasures, bits of shell and stone +and glass. To love nothing but maple sugar. To fear nothing but a big +dog. To go to sleep without dreading the morrow. To wake up with a +shout. Not to have seen a dead face. Not to dread a living one. To be +able to _believe_. Does life give us anything, in after years, as +compensation for the lack of all this; I asked, as I watched the busy +little feet about me, never weary of chasing some butterfly of the +minute. But then when this thought overshadowed me it was a blue day. +Things had somehow got "contrary." My shoe might have pinched, or my +belt have been too tight; or I had been up too long without my coffee; +or I had forgotten the touch of my first baby's velvet cheek, or my +mother's praise of my first pie, or my exultation when I cut and +fitted down a carpet all myself, sewing on the thick seams till my +fingers were swollen and sore, because help was not to be had. I +remember, when it was finished, how intensely I admired myself and +that carpet. Then I have strutted round very proudly in dresses of my +own fitting, that "were fits." And once I roasted a piece of beef, and +seasoned it with saleratus, instead of salt; think of the triumph of +that moment! But that was owing to a too-fascinating novel under my +cooking-apron, in a day when novels were forbidden fruit. And once, at +the romantic age of twelve years, I gave a little blue-eyed boy one of +my long, yellow curls, and he threw it in the gutter, and said "he +hated girl's hair," but then another boy was standing by at the time, +and the world's jeer was too much for him; but I may mention in this +connection, that the next handful of "three-cornered nuts" he offered +me, when we were alone, followed that curl into the gutter! + +I have also dim recollections of "seating" a pair of trousers, to see +if I had any undeveloped talent in that line; but I have a lurking +suspicion that I must have interfered with their original shape, for +though my efforts received due commendation, I am confident those +breeches were never worn afterward. But I think my failure came of my +always running away, in my girlhood, whenever the family tailoress +came to reside with us for a period, to make innumerable vests, +jackets, etc., for my little brothers. In revenge she prophesied that, +when I was married, I should have always boys, and be very glad of her +presence. When she learned years after, that I had three _girls_, she +remarked, in a limp and crestfallen state, that "it beat all I should +have my own way _in such a matter as that_!" + +Oh, yes, I suppose there is something to be got out of the world +besides dolls and sugar-candy; but whether it is worth while to go +through all we do to secure it, remains yet the unsolved problem. + +Grown people, doubtless, have their crucifixions. Women, I know, "die +daily." But I am certain, from observation and reflection, that some +children, and very small ones too, suffer quite as much as it is +possible for adults to do. I shall never forget a punishment measured +out to me, when a fat little chub at school. I had committed the +heinous offence of "whispering to one of the boys." I don't recollect +what it was about. I only remember that Georgie smiled kindly at me on +that first terrible day when I took my seat on a narrow bench, without +any back, to "keep very still;" which was then, and is now, the most +fiendish torment that can be devised for me. + +Directly my name was called to "stand up in the middle of the floor." +_His_ name, "Georgie," was also called. With very red faces, out of +which all the smile had gone, we confronted each other. Miss Birch +then turned us back to back, and with a string of twine tied our +elbows together, saying to me as she did so, "Since you like boys, you +shall have enough of 'em." Now Georgie, true to the instincts of his +sex, no sooner felt himself "bound" to the little creature, whom he +the moment before adored, than he began to pull at the cruel string, +till it cut into my fat bare arm, with torturing sharpness; his jacket +sleeve protecting him from the pain he inflicted on me. There we +stood, "the boys" _laughing_ at Georgie. What little man could stand +being "hen-pecked," even at that tender age? For me, I would not have +shed a tear, had he cut my arm in two. I let him pull and tweak, and +bore it with Spartan endurance till our penance was over, and school +was "let out." + +"Did you care?" asked the girls of me, going home. "No," answered I, +huskily, with my chin in the air, twitching nervously at my white +pinafore. I said nothing about it when I got home, but went up garret +to cry it out. That Georgie should have hurt me _on purpose_, when I +was in disgrace! That he should not have walked home with me from +school, as before; or that he--a _boy_--should be "afraid," though a +thousand of "the boys" looked on, to speak to a girl--to speak to +_me_! _His_ reign was over from that moment, spite of his curly black +hair and glittering white teeth. I staid up garret till I had it all +out among the rafters, and then washed my face and went down to my +dinner. + +The next morning I took my satchel and went to school. When I got as +far as the corner of the street, Georgie was there waiting for me. I +didn't see him. I looked straight at the lamp-post. He said softly, +"Sarah!" I didn't hear. I planted my little boots firmly on the +sidewalk and trotted on. He had _not_ been my friend in my trouble. +Failing in _that_, he had failed in everything. This was my first +life-battle. I have had others since, with greater capacity for +suffering; but I thought then, nothing could be worse than little +Georgie's defection. + +One day I was walking, with my two little girls beside me, and met +"Georgie," to whom I had never spoken since our childish falling out. +He was a physician then, in good practice, and as handsome as a man, +as he had been as a child. + +We each laughed, and passed on. For one, I was glad that I was not +"tied" to him, save only for those few moments. + +I may add, however, by way of postscript, that if Miss Birch imagined +that she then and there cured me of "whispering to the boys," it was a +fallacy. + + * * * * * + +Have you a habit of "putting off till a better time"--through an +indolence inexplicable even to yourself--little matters that may seem +trifling, but which you should really consider as tests of character? +To such we say, _fight_ this inclination with a persistent strength +which will take no denial, if you ever wish to be or to accomplish +anything in this world; for rest assured, it is the little fox at the +foot of the vine, which will nibble away till every bud and blossom of +the future shall be covered with mildew and blight. + + + + +_VARIETIES OF HUMAN NATURE._ + + +Show me an "easy person," and I will show you a selfish one. +Good-natured he may be; why not? since the disastrous consequences of +his "easiness" are generally shouldered by other people. He always +"guesses it is all right," though he knows it is all wrong. None so +blind as they who don't wish to see. To right an abuse, is to tread on +somebody's corns, and then that Somebody might turn and tread on his. +For instance, some boys in the street are pelting a poor, drunken +woman. "Well--boys _will_ do such things." He takes a journey with his +family and stops at a hotel in the dog-days, and the hotel clerk +assigns him a room which is right over a fiery kitchen. He "guesses" +there was no other to give; if so, why didn't the clerk say so? That +might possibly do if the clerk didn't _always_ give him the room over +the hotel kitchen. He gets up from his seat in the car to step out +upon the platform; a very _odorous_ individual takes his seat, much to +the disgust of his family. When asked to eject him, he replies, that +he is not sure that the law in such cases is in his own favor; so he +takes another seat, and leaves to them the new and uncongenial +neighbor. The grocer sends him bad butter, instead of the good for +which he bargained; but he thinks it was the grocer's boy who did it, +and that _he_ didn't do it _purposely_, and that he wont do it again. +The milkman overcharges in his bill: well, very likely grass was +scarce, or there was some good reason for it; beside, he can give his +family a dollar or two less, the next time money is wanted,--and it is +always wanted,--and that will make it all square; thus proving the +adage, "that nobody can be generous without doing an injustice to +somebody." Mr. Easy orders a coat; and when it comes home the sleeves +are too short; but he don't like to send it back. He guesses the +cutter understood the order to be just so; besides it is paid for and +settled. Mr. Easy always pays for things before they come home;--he +thinks it looks like distrust of your fellow-creatures if you +don't;--and so he has perpetual short sleeves in his coats, and +perpetually his trousers come home too long in the leg; and his wife +has to keep on fibbing, and tell him they are just right, and it is +the latest fashion; for fear he will ask her, as she goes by the +tailor's store, just to step in and mention it, because _she_ is so +good at such things, you know, and don't mind speaking up; which +accomplishment, desirable as it is, he prefers her to exercise +_outside_ the house; _in_-doors it must be kept in pickle. + +The cook sends up the meat underdone. Mr. Easy remarks, +apologetically, that it was a larger piece than usual; as if just +there, the cook's judgment, if she had any, was not expected to come +in, by putting it on to roast a little earlier, else what is the use +of a cook? + +Now, _Mr._ Easy's wife believes in eternal justice--obedience or the +guillotine. _She_ thinks that the person who, through indolence, +offers a premium for carelessness or incompetency, commits a crime +against society. She believes that he has no right to shirk a +disagreeable duty because it is disagreeable; or because he is lazy, +or because it is pleasant to be popular, and to appear amiable to the +outside world. She believes that executive people are the hinges upon +which alone the world turns--creaking awfully sometimes, it is true, +but, thank God! _turning!_ not _rusting_. She believes in using the +dictionary, and plenty of it, when people need waking up to their +duty; and, this accomplished, she believes in laying it on the shelf +till again called for. A wrong _un_-righted pains _Mrs._ Easy; rouses +her fiery indignation. _Mr._ Easy is never quite sure it _is_ wrong; +and, till he is, it is not necessary, in his opinion, to clear the +deck for action. + +Now, I have no doubt that both styles of persons have their mission in +the world, else they wouldn't be here: I have known wasps and snails +each to have their admirers. Some day I'll write a book of fables for +you, to which Æsop's shall be no circumstance. + +I wonder is a man justified, to his own conscience or his Maker, in +allowing himself to be so absorbed by "business," beyond what is +necessary to the comfortable support of his family, that he is as much +a stranger to his own wife and children as if he were only a boarder +in the family,--bodily present indeed at two or three meals a day, but +totally ignorant of the ponderosity of the domestic machinery, or at +what cost of health, or mental and moral deterioration, to his wife, +this unrelieved strain is being carried out from day to day. + +Perhaps you will answer, Who is to decide what _is_ "a necessary and +comfortable support for a family"? I can only ask, if there is not a +great wrong unredressed, when a man knows nothing of the different +mental or moral characteristics of the children he has launched into a +world of temptation and trial, and is also quite content to remain +ignorant. I think all intelligent, thinking persons will agree on this +point. Also when a man, professional or other, seldom or never +addresses a word to his wife about anything but the family expenses, +or his favorite mode of cooking any pet article of food. Sure I am +that any wife who is not a hopeless idiot, will chafe under such +treatment, until, at last, her fate being too much for her, mental and +moral deterioration fairly set in, and she hopelessly revolves in her +narrow bounds without even a desire that the children, once so dear to +her, should ever peep over and beyond them. The friends whom she +_might_ and ought to have retained for herself and them, she has +gradually, one by one, lost sight of; her husband being never at home +to care whether they came or stayed away--his interests, and his +friends, being quite separate and apart. Meantime his house shines, +his meals are well prepared, and his "buttons" are in place. + +This picture is not overdrawn. I can produce you its counterparts any +hour in the twenty-four. By and by, the oldest boy outgrows pinafores +and jackets, and steps round in long-tails. No father has been at +hand, to point out the quicksands he should have avoided, or to +encourage him by his sympathy or love to do right. But the devil in +all his Protean shapes _has_ been at his elbow, delighted at that +father's indifference. Presently some wild oat sown, brings to that +home, as yet _publicly_ undisgraced, its full-grown harvest of shame. +_Now_ come storms of reproach, under which the loving mother weeps and +cowers, as if _she_, God help her! were guilty. Alas! and alas! were +such young wayward feet _ever_ turned right by such injudiciousness +and injustice? Does not that boy _know_ that it is the disgrace alone +that father feels, and not the shipwreck of his child's soul? Does +that father say, even to himself, "Oh, Absalom! my son! my son!" Not +at all: he feels only a blind rage, a vexatious thwarting and +hindering of his own affairs, which _his son_ has brought about. + +"_His_ son?" + +It is about the first time he ever regarded him in that relationship. + +There is another kind of father and husband, quite the antipodes of +this. _He_ devotes himself entirely to the domestic side of the +question. He has no "business" to occupy him, nor does he desire to +have. He loves his wife devotedly, and the more children he has the +better he is pleased. Their mother and themselves are enveloped in a +warm atmosphere of love. Never was a harsh, pettish, or fretful word +heard from his amiable lips. He plays with the children all day; he +fixes kites and balls without stint for them; he tends the baby; and +when a crisis comes, and the maid-of-all-work disappears, discouraged +at the eleventh baby, he washes the dishes, if need be, as serenely as +if he were born to it. Meantime these really bright children, loving +and loved, grow apace. The mother is growing old. Love is a good +thing, but there is a far-off questioning look in her gentle eyes, +vainly searching those children's future. _Her_ hands are now +helplessly tied, and she sees no _outward_ tendency toward business in +his. She "loves him"--how can she help it?--_thus far_; but the years +move on so quickly, and her children grow so tall! She remembers sadly +the advantages of education _she_ had, as she looks into the fair +faces of her girls. Ah! how long will she continue to "love" their +father? And how will those children, in after years, gauge that "love" +which placed such obstacles between them and their best advancement? +At what point in their young lives will they, chafing, let go the +irresolute hand, that could only lead them up and down that narrow +garden-path, when the broad highway of development lay in sight, and +untrodden? + +I am fully persuaded that if _even I_ had created human beings, I +couldn't have improved upon the original programme. I used to think +that I should like to sweep the whole pussy-cat tribe of my +fellow-creatures out of existence, with one wave of my wand. I am +convinced now, that as a means of grace, they had better remain. Their +sublime indifference as to the period in which the most momentous +questions are to be settled, is instructive to hurricane natures. The +fatalistic way in which they subside into their own comfortable +chimney-corner, while all the moral elements are in a wild tornado +outside, is calming to the spirit. The placidity with which they can +eat, and sleep, and drink, and be merry, side by side with the corpses +of dead hopes and abortive projects, over which humanity stands +weeping and wringing her hands, is as good as a dose of opium. We look +at them, and, wiping the cold perspiration from our brow, we ask, Is +it possible, then, that we have been lashing ourselves into all this +fury, when there is _really_ to be no shipwreck? _Are_ we really on +the high road to lunacy without knowing it, and in the near proximity +to such sublime self-poise and calmness? We slink into our corner to +reflect; and get that much breathing-time and wind to go at the demon +again. So you see they are of use, as I told you. + +Then there are your critical people, like John Randolph, who actually +stopped his dying, to correct the pronunciation of a friend who was +waiting to close his eyes. So they will stop you in the midst of a +ravishing bit of poetry, or the narration of a story, to dissect the +sentiment of it by some glaring Drummond light, that they keep +remorselessly on hand for such purposes, while you, poor wretch, +dropped suddenly from your sublime height, lose both your place and +your temper. + +Now you can't say this isn't educational. + +Then there is your human chameleon, who takes its color from the last +leaf it feeds on. You quote one of its yesterday-expressed opinions, +with full assurance of faith, as exactly coinciding with your own. Up +comes a third party, and demands how you can so misrepresent the +chameleon's views, because that very day it expressed a totally +different opinion to this third party. You ask the chameleon for an +explanation; when it coolly informs you that consistency is the vice +of little minds; and that to unsay to-day what you said yesterday, is +a proof of progress. You retire with a muttered wish that the +chameleon would furnish you with a pair of seven-league boots, with +which to overtake his "progress." + +Then there is that social wasp, "I told you so;" who, vulture-like, +hovers over the fallen, ready to insert his cruel beak at any sore +place one has made, tripping. The guillotine is nothing to the bits of +quivering flesh _he_ tears out. + +Then there is your routine person, who sneezes precisely at six, and +sits down precisely at seven, and rises precisely at eight, and looks +out of the window precisely at nine, and keeps this up month after +month, and year after year, without the shadow of turning, and in the +teeth of imperative exigencies, and with a stony stoicism, and +pettiness of purpose, which is exasperating enough to bring on a fit +of apoplexy in the beholder. + +Nobody can say that this is not equal to any authorized penance in the +church, to the sufferer, whose blood has not turned to milk and water. +In fact, I have often wondered why our Roman Catholic friends, who +have so many excellencies, need trouble themselves to suggest or +appoint anything of the kind, when life is so full of crosses and +discipline in the raw. When it is so teeming with cross-purposes, that +every person you meet seems obstinately bent either upon forming a +partnership which, like oil and water, will forever be opposed to +mingling, or throwing pebble after pebble into some ocean, expecting +that the little circle it makes, will reach to the farthest shore of +worldly fame or ambition. In fact, when I have visited lunatic +asylums, it has really seemed to me that mad as their inmates +undoubtedly are, there is little need to dissever them from their +comrades on the outside. + +You will perceive from this that I consider life a discipline. _I do._ +No response was ever heartier. When one bubble after another bursts, +this, you see, is a comforting reflection to settle down upon. There +was once a man who read the lists of deaths every day, hoping to see +that of some woman, the whole sisterhood of whom he hated. When he +came to one, he always exclaimed, "Thank God, there's another of 'em +gone!" My moral is obvious. + +Commend me to the person who can say No with a will, when it is +needed; who is not deterred from it for fear of being called +"disagreeable," or "being thought to be always in hot water." Any +water but lukewarm water for me! One of my favorite passages in the +Good Book is this: "I would that thou wert either cold or hot; but +because thou art neither cold nor hot, I will spew thee out of my +mouth." The joke comes in here: that your timid conservative is always +the first to raise the signal of distress on any emergency for the +speedy arrival of "that disagreeable person who is always in hot +water." He likes him marvellously as such crises of his existence? +Now, beyond dispute, everybody likes to travel on a smooth-beaten road +without jolting, if possible; but in order for this, somebody must +make a great turn-over generally, in clearing away the stones that +obstruct it. Now, I consider it a cowardly piece of business for +either man or woman, to travel miles around that road, rather than +take hold and do their fair share of the disagreeable work, either +from indolence, or from fear that they might offend one who might +possibly prefer that the road should remain in its normal condition. +Oh, how glad they are when somebody else has taken this troublesome +pioneership off their shoulders! How they rub their lazy hands, and +smirk, and say, "You see _you_ do these things _so_ well! I never was +constituted for it"! Which translated, means, that they prefer +sacrificing a principle to sacrificing their ease or popularity; as if +anybody liked to keep all the time fighting--as if other people didn't +love ease too! + + + + +"_A GOOD MISTRESS ALWAYS MAKES A GOOD SERVANT._" + + +Now I beg leave to place a very sizable interrogation-point just here; +at any rate, until I receive an intelligible definition of "a good +mistress." A servant's definition of one, in these days, is, "A lady +who never comes down-stairs, poking her nose into things;" one who +never is so "mean" as to calculate the time that elapses since the +last batch of tea, coffee, sugar, or flour was bought, and the +possibility, when these stores run short of their proper limit, that +they have not been applied wholly to the use of the family. "A good +mistress," to their idea, is one who is totally oblivious as to the +time the gas is turned off at night, in the lower part of the house, +or whether, indeed, it is turned off at all, or how many superfluous +burners are constantly swelling up the gas-bill, where one would +answer the purpose. "A good mistress," in servants' parlance, is one +who scorns to look after any amount of chicken, or turkey, or beef, +which may not be all eaten the first time it is set upon the table, +and who will cheerfully purchase steaks for breakfast instead. "A good +mistress," with many of them, is one who, beside paying good wages, +gives them half-worn clothes enough to enable them to spend their +money in other directions, and who yet is willing that these clothes +should be worn only when they go out visiting, while they are +constantly untidy at work. + +"A good mistress," with the master of the house, is one who is just +the reverse of all this. She is one who is constantly fighting waste +and unnecessary outlay, and stupidity, and ignorance, and obstinacy, +and impertinence, and unthrift. She is one who, with a constant +panorama of Bridgets, and Betseys, and Marys, and Sallys, through her +lower domains, at the expense of her own strength, and patience, and +temper, and brain, and with no prospect of an end to the same until +intelligence-offices contain more intelligence, is yet perfectly +seraphic at the idea of being at the head of a training-school for +servants, the remainder of her natural life; and smiles constantly at +the same time under reminders of the necessity of greater economy in +the household department. This is the husband's idea of "a good +mistress." + +Now I maintain that, with the present _average_ material, ever so good +a mistress, with the best intelligence and intentions, cannot "make a +good servant." _Passable_ they may be; but not "_good_." + +The truth is--_brain_ is wanted to make a good servant; and at present +there is only muscle. Hence our gas is half turned off. Hence our +water is wholly turned _on_, till a flood comes. Hence bits of stick +and string and dirt are thrown into pipes--for the benefit of the +plumber, and the depletion of our pockets. Hence the devil is to pay +generally, till the distracted good lady of the house considers it the +last drop in the bucket, when "her Sam" or John is unreasonable enough +to expect her, with such brainless material, to present him with +workmanlike results. + +In America, the word "servant" is hateful to them; they much prefer +the word "domestic" to express the same idea. Every servant in +America, with few exceptions, dresses to suit herself; and a very bad +thing she generally makes of it. Some few families insist on the +muslin cap for their "nurses," and the regulation black dress and +white apron. But this dress is obnoxious to the majority of servants; +nor do I, for one, blame them for it. A most excellent colored woman, +in a family of my acquaintance, whose Northern mistress had purchased +her freedom before the war, and who was beloved by every member of the +family, refused to wear the colored turban-handkerchief at request of +her mistress, who had a taste for the picturesque in costume, saying, +with much spirit, "I cannot do it, madam,--not even for you;--it is +hateful to me; it is the badge of the servitude I suffered so much +under." Of course, she was excused. + +Now I can understand why so few servants, in this country, white or +black, are willing to wear anything that bears the interpretation of +"a livery." At the same time, there is hardly a housekeeper or +mistress in the land who is not annoyed by the big hoop, and the long +dress, which knocks over articles, and catches in doors, and trips up +the unlucky wearer in doing her housework, or waiting on table. + +Of course, if she understood managing her crinoline as she moved +about, as does her "mistress," these things might not happen; but she +does not; and it is the biggest and stiffest that she can find that +she generally prefers and wears. This is unfortunate for another +reason; because it often exposes dilapidated and soiled underclothing, +and a very questionable state of shoe and stocking. That her mistress, +though cleanly, often dresses in questionable taste, both as regards +the adaptability of her dress to the state of her husband's purse, and +the artistic selection of colors, does not make these glaring mistakes +of her servants less palpable, or less injurious to the servant's +morality; for where the passion for show, joined to narrow means, +effaces that of decency and cleanliness, the downward road to ruin, +for a woman in any station, is already entered upon. It needs only a +very slight impetus to determine the final result. + +Alas! the showy bonnet and gay dress, which must be had by cook or +chamber-maid, although they have not a decent change of underclothing, +or a whole pair of stockings, a warm shawl, or a pair of +India-rubbers, or the least hint of flannel for cold weather! Now, +they "have a right," as they say, so to expend their wages, if they +choose. They have a right also to languish on a hospital bed, among +strangers, when sickness and poverty overtake them. _But is it wise?_ + +In England, the dress of servants has not hitherto, as I understand +it, been a matter of choice to them. I know of an English lady who, +not long since, forbade her nurse to wear a dress, which the latter +had purchased, because it was like that which one of her own children +wore. Servants, in England, have leaped over this form of restriction, +it would seem. Among the "reforms" now proposed, there is one +respecting domestic servants, whose extravagance in dress, whose +depravity of morals, and unreliability of conduct is, they say, +becoming "unendurable." A clergyman's wife has started a reform +movement, and calls upon the ladies of England to help her carry it +out. She proposes "that no servant, under pain of dismissal, shall +wear flowers, feathers, brooches, buckles, or clasps, ear-rings, +lockets, neck-ribbons, velvets, kid gloves, parasols, sashes, jackets, +or trimming of any kind, on dresses, and, above all, no _crinoline_. +No pads to be worn, or frizettes, or chignons, or hair ribbons. The +dress is to be gored, and made just to touch the ground, and the hair +to be drawn closely to the head, under a round, white cap, without +trimming of any kind. The same system of dress is recommended for +Sunday-school girls, school-mistresses, church-singers, and _the lower +orders generally_." I think "the Sunday-school girls, church-singers, +school-mistresses, _and lower orders," in America, generally_, would +have to undergo a most wonderful _peeling_, according to this +programme! I think an American "servant" would scarcely be content to +be deprived of her "parasol," of a hot Sunday, when she went to +church. + +No, no, ladies; that's not the way to do it; not even in England, +where flunkeys abound. The "lower orders" are waking up there, thank +God! and I hope, to their best interests. True, it is mournful to see +all a servant's wages on her head, in the shape of a gay dress-bonnet. +I hate it; but I hate it for her own sake, because she needs so many +comfortable things that the sum so expended would buy. And I hate, +just as much, to see her mistress in a velvet cloak, which represents +all her husband's earnings for one month, while there is a shabby +carpet on her front entry or chamber, and "nicked" cups and saucers on +her table. In fact, I think, that while the _parlor_ sets so bad an +example, the _kitchen_ will never be swept with a clean broom. + + + + +_THE MOTHER-TOUCH._ + + +How soon the house shows its absence! How little the lack of her +executive watchfulness is realized till, like her plants that droop +for want of water, everything about the house has somehow a wilted +look! For was it not "mother" who moved about, instinctively placing a +bright-colored vase just where the light would most effectually fall +on it, and raised a curtain, or drew it aside, from the same artistic +impulse?--who opened a window here or closed it there, just at the +right moment, to make the temperature of the house agreeable?--who, +passing into one room, straightened a cloth that was ever so little +awry upon the table, or put out of the way some carelessly placed +footstool, over which some stranger foot might have stumbled; or put +sofas and chairs in such neighborly and comfortable proximity, that it +was really quite wonderful how they could help carrying on a +conversation with each other? + +Was it not "mother," who, seating herself at the table, saw on the +instant if the proper geographical positions of the dishes were +respected? And did she not, how weary soever with her frittering life +of detail, see to it that the unities were harmoniously preserved, in +spite of Erin's unteachable proclivities to the contrary, and all with +a glance of her eye, or a whispered word, or a touch of her magic +finger-tips? + +And the children! The button is never missing at the throat of the +little garment, where insidious croup essays to creep in. The tiny +mittens are nicely mended, and no shoulder-strap is so tight as to +impede motion or cut the tender skin, till the justly irritated child +gets a boxed ear at school, which should by right have been +administered to the person who planned and put on its abominable +clothes--ruffled, mayhap, and embroidered, but ill-fitting, and +rasping as the hair-cloth shirt of the devotee. And who but "mother" +remembers whether "that poor child ate any breakfast this morning," or +needs the intervening and comforting bit of bread and butter, for lack +of which, again, its ears are unjustly boxed at school? And does she +not plan her "shopping" and "calling," so that when the little ones +come back from school or play, the house may not seem empty, who else +soever may be there, because "_mother_" is out? No little nose in +_her_ house is flattened on the window-pane, hour after hour, watching +for the presence, which alone fills the house with sunshine--settles +all grievances, or else kisses them away; and always for the tired +little feet substitutes soft slippers in lieu of the heavy boots. And +who, at night, bathes the heated forehead and flushed face, and cools +off the little hands before they are folded to say, "Now I lay me," +and leaves a kiss on lips that falter with sleep at the last unsaid +syllable, for it may be that in this world it will never be finished. +"Mother" thinks of that. + +And now, "_mother_" is "gone"! Oh, how much is in that little word? +There is a "body" down-stairs, but that soon will go too. For the +grown people it leaves behind, there may be solace, but, alas for the +little child, who cannot comprehend why, when mother is "down-stairs," +she can at the same time be "gone"!--who knows not how, from that +narrow grave, she can "get up" to the far heaven, where they say she +had flown. Alas for the little child who now is overloaded with +clothing when it is warm, and has on far too little when it is needed; +who goes hungry when food is imperative, and is overfed when digestion +clamors for a respite; who breathes all night an already exhausted +atmosphere, and sits perhaps in a deadly draught next morning! The +little child who touches "mother's" work-box, and "mother's" desk, and +"mother's" dresses, but never can find _her!_ who goes to sleep with a +sigh in place of a smile, and wakes up to a lonely house though filled +with voices! In all the wide world there is never so empty a spot as +that little heart. + +And what a void is left when it is the little one who goes! "Say +something to comfort you for the loss of your little one." This is +what you asked of me. Nothing I could say _now_, my friend, would +comfort you, because you are stunned, and must have time to lift your +head and look about you. _Then_ you will see myriads of little graves +beside your own darling's, and myriads of mothers who have passed +through the same Gethsemane, where you are now weeping tears of blood. +Each of those mothers has cried out like yourself, "What sorrow was +ever equal to my sorrow?" What is that to me? you ask. Listen. Many of +these mothers are now thanking God, every day of their lives, that +their little ones are safe from the fearful earthly storms that have +since come with desolating sweep over their hearthstones. Humbly they +say, "Ah! I little knew, though my Maker did, when he folded my baby +safely to His protecting breast, what was in the future." Well, some +day _you_ too will cease to weep--growing unselfish--and reaching +forth further each day your supplicating hands towards that heavenly +home where there shall be "no more death." Having your treasure there, +there will be your heart also. Said a sweet young mother to me, "Once +I used to cry always, at twilight, that I must some day die. Now that +my baby is gone, death has no terrors for me, for there I shall be +happy with her again--and _forever_." + +Let those who can, rob her of this her beautiful faith. When the sun +shines only on the graves wept over by _others_, they can stand erect +and say, "This world is good enough for me. I don't want any better." +But see, if with the first falling clod on some dear, cold, still +breast, "_My_ God!" will not come as involuntarily to their lips as +"Mother!" to the little child's, when pain overtakes it away from her +protecting side. + +The shining lock, the little shoe--my friend, it is long years since I +shed a tear over mine--I can take them out of their wrappings in my +hand, and smile to think that I am so far on my journey that I shall +soon see my little one face to face. _Whether she or I will be the +child_ when we meet again, God only knows; or, what heavenly mysteries +I shall learn, kneeling at my baby's feet, I cannot tell; but this I +know, by the kisses I have given many a little face since she died, +for _her_ dear sake, that a mother's love was meant to reach far +beyond the grave. + + * * * * * + +The bits of conversation one hears in the street, are often very +suggestive. Said a gentleman the other day: "It appears to me, that +the women of to-day are excellent in every department, but that of +_wives_." It occurred to us, that if this were true, what a comment it +was on the stupidity and bad management of the general husband. If in +every other relation of life, woman does excellently well, why should +she not do well in _this_? + + + + +_SOME GOSSIP ABOUT MYSELF._ + + +First--my unfortunate NOSE! I think life would be a different thing to +me had I no nose. When you consider that there are twenty disagreeable +odors to one sweet one, you will be at no loss to understand my +meaning; and yet, after all, when we come to definitions, your +_pleasant_ smell might be a very noisome one to me. Your tobacco, sir, +for instance; or your "patchoule," madam, or your musk. Then turnips, +or cabbage, in process of cooking, may not cause _you_ to throw +up--the window! Beefsteak smoke, or mutton-chop smoke, or +buckwheat-cake smoke, may render _you_ quite happy in prospect, while +I only sigh for that far-off millennium when cooking shall be +inodorous. Stay! I meant to except coffee. Hail coffee--_rain_ coffee, +if you will. Ah! I would keep a perpetual pot of coffee steaming on my +kitchen range. Tea smells nice and tastes well, I suppose, to its +lovers, for whom I have little respect. In truth, when I reflect how +my nose curtails my daily bill of fare, I am lost in wonder, and my +butcher no doubt also marvels at its monotony. The whole family of +_Frys_, for instance, except a gentleman I once knew of that name, +are odious to my olfactories. + +In the millennium I speak of, no cook will allow a bone to be singed +on the fire, or milk to boil over upon the stove; for let her know +that up three, four, yea, five pair of stairs, I shall immediately be +apprised of the same by this my watchful member. Let her not dream +that her cousin, or uncle, or male "follower" of any degree, can +smoke, or even light his pipe, in the kitchen, without giving me an +impulse toward the bell-wire. Let no grocer boy or ice-man fondly hope +to retain the celestial spark, while he briefly deposits his wares in +my kitchen; and if Terence O'Flaherty thinks he can shovel coal into +my cellar and smoke at the same time, although I may be knee-deep in +an "article" at the top of the house, Terence has reckoned without his +host-ess. + +I know you are sorry for me. I am sorry for myself, because it is +obvious that forty times a day I must suffer nasal crucifixion. I get +a comfortable seat in church, or concert-room, or lecture-hall. In +comes Apollo, and sits down at my elbow, in that close, unventilated +place, and finishes the process of strangulation, with dead tobacco +smoke in his clothes and hair. I am quite willing some other lady +should admire him. + +But there is a bright side to this nose question. I defy you, who +don't mind tobacco, or the odor of a cooking cabbage, which is much +the same thing, to revel in a rose, or violet, or lily, or a sprig of +heliotrope, or mignonette, as I shall. I defy you to go into a wood +after a rain, and detect, as I shall, every delicate and individual +odor; from the scores of little unseen flowers hiding away under roots +of trees, and in patches of moss, and in crevices of old gray rocks. +_There_--I have the better of you, for that too brief heaven. + +Alas! I am very unfortunate. There are my _ears_, too. The squeaking +of a door, the drumming of idle fingers on a table, or tapping of idle +feet on the floor, the scraping of a knife on a bad pencil-point, the +clipping of one's finger-nails with scissors, the continuous biting of +an apple in my presence, the humming of the same idle tune, the sharp +winding of a clock or watch--I fear you will cease to respect me when +I say that I have meditated murder in "the first degree" for the +perpetrators thereof. + +If it is any palliation of my crime that I am cold from head to foot +when I hear sweet music; or that the trill of a little bird sends a +tear to my eyes and a prayer to my lips, I confess also to this +weakness. I am quite willing, too, you should ask, as does Mr. Smith, +fifty times a week, "Fanny do you think there ever _was_ a woman born +into the world exactly like _you_?" whatever condemnation that +question may imply for me or--the rest of my sex. + +It is said that a certain great statesman, owed much of his popularity +to the fact, that he never forgot the _name_ of a person out of the +thousands who had been presented to him, and would always in shaking +hands say, "I recollect you perfectly; I saw you in such a year, at +such a place, on such an occasion." Of course, his constitutent, from +the village of Frogtown, was immensely flattered, and went home +satisfied that there must be something remarkable about him, which he +had never before found out, that he had made so indelible an +impression on so great a man, with such a press of public care and +business; and didn't this statesman get _his_ constitutent's votes and +good words after that? + +Now it is very certain _I_ never should do for a statesman, +notwithstanding my very palpable qualifications apart from this. +I--who persisted for months in calling Mr. Smith Mr. De Peyster +although little pieces of flesh were nipped out of my arms by dismayed +friends, and my toes were trodden on, till there was great danger I +should be crippled for life. + +But my last hope was shivered the other day, upon reading, in a public +print, that not only was a person unfit for society, who could not +remember the _names_ of those to whom he had been presented, but that +if he had failed to pronounce that name in the manner the happy owner +of it preferred, it was a mark of low-breeding. + +Well, if it has come to that, the question is what is to become of me? +I have done my best, when I am pulled and twitched, to bow and smile +in the direction indicated; but it is a miserable failure. I know it. +I _always_ look the wrong way; I frown at my best friends, and smile +idiotically--to order--on Shem, Ham, and Japheth. I hand a ten-dollar +bill to pay for twenty-five cents' worth of hair-pins, and go out +forgetting my change. I go into the next store, and make a purchase of +a stranger, and depart without alluding in any way to the +remuneration: and when he follows me to the door and meekly inquires +my name and address, I ask him with the dignity becoming a wife and +matron and a grandmother, what business that is of _his_? Last week it +rained, and I left my domicile with an umbrella in _each_ hand. +Yesterday I went out with only one India-rubber shoe on, and feeling +cold in the neglected foot, remarked to my companion that I thought +one of my India-rubbers must have a hole in it to let in the water so +badly. It is very trying to listen, at such a crisis, to the indignant +and oft-repeated query, "_Are_ you going mad?" but I have to endure +it, and, what is worse, I have the sorrowful consciousness of +deserving it. + +What troubles me most is, whether I am to pay six cents for car-fare +and ten cents for omnibus, or six cents for car and five for omnibus. +Also, what that gentleman thought of me who was polite enough to hand +up my fare, when, upon presenting me the change, I told him that I had +no occasion for charity. I think the driver was to blame there, in +allowing ten minutes to elapse before making change, during which I +sunk into my customary stupor. + +It is useless to enumerate the gloves I have worn in public places, +where the curious spectacle has been presented by the glare of +gas-light, of one _black_ hand and one _green_ one; and, more +marvellous still, when this aberration has been intensified by both +green and black for the _same_ hand. + +I have requested my "keepers," when my madness reaches indisputable +lunacy, to pad the walls of my room, and turn the key on me there, +instead of transferring me to a Lunatic Asylum; where my superior and +unapproachable idiocy would so excite the envy of the other inmates, +that my life might be the forfeit. In the meantime, any of my friends +who are shedding salt tears that I have not noticed them, or if any +who are _not_ friends are bristling with indignation because I _have_, +are requested, one and all, to pity my unhappy condition and pass me +by. + +The solution of all this is, that I have a new book in press. That the +_proofs_ of the same are sent to snarl me up late in the evening, just +before I go to sleep. That beside this, I am writing--well, you'll see +what, by and by. That I have had sickness in the house for six weeks. +That I am house-keeper. That I have scores of letters to read and +answer; and that I have a little duck of a grandchild, who every hour +or two wants me "to tell her a story that is _new_ and _true_." Am I +excused? + +Shall I relate my first theft? Well, I had bought a new muff; that is +nothing surprising in a city where women trim their dresses with +diamonds. But there is a story to that muff. With a wholesome horror +of _female_ shoplifters, I had attached to it a silk cord, which I +could pass over my neck; thus placing beyond their reach the +temptation to appropriate it, should I lay it down temporarily on some +counter, while shopping. Thus armed, I went forth. + +Well, as I say, thus armed, I went out to buy some little matters +needed in my household. After paying for them, I took a muff from the +counter before me, placed my hands in it, and pursued my journey. I +had not proceeded more than a block, before a bare-headed clerk came +rushing after me, jostling the crowd on either side, and placing his +hands as I thought very familiarly on my muff, took it from me, +remarking as he did so, "By your leave, madam," and disappeared with +it, instanter. I looked about me for a policeman, when just then my +hand became entangled in the string around my neck. Good heavens! I +had then taken some other lady's muff from the counter! I had walked +out with _two_ muffs. One about my neck, one in my hands. I did not +pursue my search for that policeman. I was also seized with such a +violent fit of laughter at the ludicrousness and novelty of my +position, that I was quite incapable of locomotion. + +Just then I met a lady friend, to whom I told the story, as well as my +frequent bursts of merriment permitted. She looked as solemn as a +hearse; she said sepulchrally, "How _can_ you laugh? I should have +died with mortification." And the more solemn she looked the more I +laughed, and I haven't done laughing yet, although it was three days +ago. I am at present looking for the finale--viz., my picture in the +Rogue's Gallery as an accomplished female shoplifter. I may have +stolen other things, but, upon my word, this is the first time I ever +stole a muff. It was so comical, that if a station-house had been my +portion I know I should have laughed all the same; besides, I always +wanted to see a station-house. I might possibly have preferred riding +there _in a carriage_, if the policeman in attendance had no +objection, or if the walking was bad, or it stormed! + +Finally, my brethren, a correspondent inquires how I look? Am I tall? +have I dark, or light complexion? and what color are my eyes? + +I should be very happy to answer these questions, did I know myself. I +proceed to explain why I cannot tell whether "I be I." + +First--one evening I was seated at the opera, waiting patiently for +the performances to begin. In two orchestra chairs, directly in front +of me, sat a lady and gentleman, both utter strangers to me. Said the +_gentleman_ to his companion, "Do you see the lady who has just +entered yonder box?" pointing, as he did so, to the gallery; +"well, that is FANNY FERN."--"You know her, then?" asked the +lady.--"Intimately," replied this strange gentleman--"_intimately_. +Observe how expensively she is dressed. See those diamonds, and that +lace! Well, I assure you, that every cent she has ever earned by her +writings goes straightway upon her back." Naturally desiring to know +how I did look, I used my opera-glass. The lady was tall, handsome, +graceful, and beautifully dressed. The gentleman who accompanied me +began to grow red in the face, at the statement of my "intimate" +acquaintance, and insisted on a word with him; but the fun was too +good to be spoiled, and the game too insignificant to hunt; so, in +hope of farther revelations, I laughingly observed my "double" during +the evening, who looked as I have just described, for your benefit. + +Again--in a list of pictures announced to be sold lately, was one +labelled "Fanny Fern." Having lost curiosity concerning that lady +myself, I did not go on a tour of inspection; but a gentleman friend +of mine who did, came back in high glee at the manner in which the +purchaser thereof, if any should be found, would be swindled--as "I +was _not_ I" in that case either. + +Some time ago "Fanny Fern" was peddled round California, or at least, +so I was informed by letter. In this instance they had given her, by +way of variety, black eyes and hair, and a brunette complexion. I +think she was also taken smiling. A friend, moreover, informed me that +he had seen me, with an angelic expression, seated upon a rosy cloud, +with wings at my back. This last fact touched me. Wings are what I +sigh for. It was too cruel a mockery. + +You will see from the above, how impossible it is, for such a +chameleon female, to describe herself, even to one "who likes my +writings." If it will throw any light on the subject, however, I will +inform you that a man who got into my parlor under cover of +"New-Year's calls," after breathlessly inspecting me, remarked, "Well, +now, I _am_ agreeably disappointed! I thought from the way you +_writ_, that you were a great six-footer of a woman, with snapping +black eyes and a big waist, and I _am_ pleased to find you looking so +soft and so femi_nine_!" + +I would have preferred, had I been consulted, that he should have +omitted the word "soft;" but after the experiences narrated above, +this was a trifle. + + * * * * * + +A gentleman requested me not long since "to rebuke those men who did +not rise, when ladies entered a car, and give them a seat." Now this +would come with a bad grace from me, for the reason that I never enter +a full car without having this politeness extended to me. But mind +this, ladies, I never yet forgot to thank the man, as prettily as my +knowledge of such things serves me, for such a gracious act, and +perhaps that is the explanation. At any rate, I have been so disgusted +with the reverse, that I more often wondered that men _do_ get up, +than that they _don't_. I think ladies, too, should not _exact_ such +courtesy by look, or word, or manner, as I have often seen them do. I +find American men most courteous, most obliging to our sex. Now and +then one meets a bear. To such, a woman must of course give a wide +berth, unless she has a muzzle in the shape of a "protector" handy. + + + + +_HOSPITALITY._ + + +If each person were asked to define this word, the answers would be +amusing. Emerson says "that we should not turn away wholly from the +routine of our daily life to make our guests welcome." He says "that +every one worthy to sit at our table knows that life has its necessary +duties; and that we should not burden our friends with the thought +that our business is suffering derangement and loss by their coming." + +This is common-sense; but if we measure the majority of people by it, +then few "_are_ worthy to sit at one's table." It may be because +insincerity is so much the order of the day, that each so distrusts +the other that a person cannot say frankly to a friend, without giving +offence, I would be glad to stay longer with you, or have you stay +longer, but I really cannot now. A lady said to me, not long since, "I +never dare say truthfully that I am 'engaged' when a caller comes, no +matter how impossible circumstances make it for me to go down. If I +do, it always offends. Therefore I am obliged to send word that I am +out; then the caller leaves without any wound to his self-love." Now +this ought not to be. A straightforward honesty is much better. But +there are so many inconsiderate people, who, provided they gain their +point to see you, care little at what sacrifice on your part of time, +or at what postponement of imperative duties. _They_ have time enough. +So much that they are even puzzled what to do with it; how can it be +that _you_ have none, or so little, at the service of friends? They +cannot comprehend that one's duty, or one's labor, may tread so +closely on the heels of the other, that your remaining vitality needs +the most careful nursing and division to keep your steps from _final_ +faltering. What is to be done with such rhinoceros-hided people as +these? You feel no unkindness toward them; but, like the beggar that +accosts you on the last of many curb-stones, you have simply parted +with all your pennies. Your pocket is empty. + +I recollect once a lady in the same house with me, to whom I +apologized as civilly as I knew how for being obliged to leave her to +write a promised article. She bowed coolly, and, on my leaving the +room, said to a friend of mine, "I suppose she did that to get rid of +me, don't you?" + +It is much easier to get along with men, because _they_ can understand +that life has its unpostponable duties, without any lifting of +eyebrows or incredulous shrugging of shoulders, or a cool salute the +next time you two meet. The intercourse of one man with another in +this regard has always elicited my admiration. They take up a +newspaper or a book, and read in each other's presence, with a tacit +understanding of its perfect propriety. If one has to leave, he often +says no more than "I'm off," or "Good-by, old fellow." Sometimes it is +only a touch of the hat, or a hand laid on the other's shoulder in +passing; and no black eyes follow, no locks of hair fly, nor do any +hard words or looks result in the future. + +If ladies smoked,--which the gods forbid!--do you suppose one lady +would allow another to stop her in the street and light a cigar from +her lips, when she _never was introduced_? When she didn't even know +who her dress-maker was, or where she bought her bonnets? Good +heavens! + +Did you ever notice, if anything unexpected occurs in the mutual path +of men through the same street, how naturally and frankly they accost +each other, though perfect strangers, and converse about it, and go +their several ways, to their tombstones, after it. Not so sweet woman! +Catch _her_ speaking to "that nasty thing"! How does _she_ know who or +what she is? + +Children are so delicious about these matters. I saw two little girls +the other day trying to crack a nut upon the sidewalk, by pressing in +turn their tiny little shoes upon it. Despairing of success, they said +to a gentleman passing, "Man, man, crack this nut for us, will you?" +His handsome face was luminous with fun, as he pressed his polished +boot down upon it, to the delight of the youngsters and myself. Now +these little girls wouldn't have thought of asking a lady to do that, +or if they had, do you think she would have stopped to do it? + + + + +_WOMAN AND HER WATCH._ + + +This unnatural partnership is well understood, both by watchmakers and +husbands. Who among the latter has not had occasion to mourn, seventy +times seven, that he was ever such an idiot as to present his wife +with a watch? Of what use was it, when fastening it to her belt, in +its pristine glitter and correctness, that he remarked, with uplifted +finger, "Here, my dear, be sure and remember to wind this up regularly +every night when you take it off." Of what use was it that she +bristled up, and retorted, "As if I shouldn't remember that, John, you +goose!" + +Didn't John himself, after she crept into bed, that very night, ask +her had she done it; and didn't she guiltily reply, dodging the +question, "Don't bother me, John, just as I am getting sleepy!" And +didn't it run down? And didn't he face her up, the next day, with the +face of that watch behind time, at the same moment showing her +reproachfully the immaculate time-piece in his vest-pocket, which +never erred, or varied from the path of strict duty, no more than one +of his relatives! And wasn't she glad, when a pickpocket in a +street-car, shortly after, relieved her husband of this finger-post to +her transgressions! Besides, suppose her watch were a little before +or behind time, or suppose it stopped altogether, for the matter of +that; wasn't it _her_ watch, I'd like to know; and didn't his +jurisdiction over it stop when it became such? And didn't she, at +last, get so mad at his asking her every night, when they got into +bed, if it was wound up, that she let it alone from sheer perversity, +and never pretended to prevaricate on the subject, but "riz" right up +in bed, when he asked her the question, and answered boldly, "No, it +isn't!" + +And how impertinent it was of the watchmaker, when, after frequent +aberrations from duty, she carried secretly this little trinket to get +it repaired, to ask what she had been doing to it; or to laugh, with +_his_ necessary knowledge of watches and women, when she replied, "I +only dropped it on the hearth." But watchmakers are often +husbands--and when you've seen one husband, you've seen the whole +tribe--always asking you what you've done, and then scolding you for +doing it; thus offering you a premium for lying the next time they +propose such a meddling question. + +Do they tell "what they have been doing"? I rather think there'd be +pulling of hair if they did. Then what right have they to catechize +us? + +Now I ask any candid person if a lady's watch don't _look_ just as +prettily in her belt, whether it "goes" or not? And can't she always +ask her husband what time it is? And isn't he a brute and a bear, if +he growls at telling her, even supposing he has given her a watch to +obviate that necessity? I'm sure nothing could be plainer; and I hope +nobody will say, after this, that a woman can't reason. Besides, what +right has a lazy animal like man to expect anything perpetually to +"go"? Don't _he_ lay off, on every convenient chance? Isn't he always +prefacing and winding up everything with "Be quiet"? Of course he is. +Every wife from Maine to Florida knows that. I tell you they expect +too much from women and their watches, and it's high "time" they knew +it, and got used to having both run like fury one minute, and stand +still the next. + + * * * * * + +Will people who attend lectures and concerts cease drumming with their +fingers on the back of seats, or with canes or feet on the floor, till +the services begin? One cannot help remarking, in such vicinity, how +few persons are really well-bred. Dress certainly is no indication of +it, judged by this rule. If a tattoo must be performed, why not go out +in the lobby or vestibule, and have the war-dance out? This thing has +come to be such an intolerable nuisance, that the paradoxical +regulation, "No _gentlemen_ are allowed to smoke in the ladies' +cabin," may as well be imitated by--"No _gentleman_, in a concert or +lecture-room, is allowed to drum on the back of a lady's chair before, +or after, or during the entertainment." + + + + +"_MY DOCTOR._" + + +You have one, of course; and of course he never opens his mouth +without dropping pearls. (I hope the printer will not print this last +word _pills_.) _Your_ doctor believes in flannel next the skin, all +the year round. Mrs. Jones' doctor, who "knows much more than your +doctor," thinks that a person of discretion may occasionally, in the +dog-days, lay flannel on the shelf and no coffin be imminent. _Your_ +doctor says that young children's necks and shoulders should always be +covered, even in warm weather. Mrs. Smith's doctor, who, she says, +"stands at the head of his profession" says that is all nonsense, and +that children should go through a toughening process, which will +render changes of temperature harmless. _Your_ doctor advises you +never to cross the street, or go down-stairs, unless accompanied by +quinine. Mrs. Smith's doctor tells her if she wants poison she had +better get ratsbane, and then she will know what she is swallowing. + +Now each of you believe that "_my_ doctor" is infallible; that is a +great comfort to you, and very satisfactory to them, especially +pocket-wise. "My doctor" hasn't dealt with women so long, and failed +to see their blind side. He knows what "brutes" husbands are, and how +like flints they will oppose the sea-shore, merely because their wives +want to go there. What is the use of "my doctor," unless he comforts +you under this affliction, and declares that to be the only place +where you can regain your lost appetite? No wonder you like him; no +wonder life is a blank to you when his carriage is not before your +door. There is healing in the very sight of his beard and moustache; +and how much handsomer they are than the "brute's." Ah! had you met +"my doctor" years ago, you say; not stopping to reflect, that in that +case he would have been attending women who paid fees, and left you, +his wife, to some medical friend for pills and consolation. It is +better as it is, you see. Well, it _is_ comforting "that he +understands you better than anybody else, and seems to know just what +you want." And then he shows such an absorbing interest in your +symptoms, that you almost feel cured by his sympathy alone, before you +swallow a single powder; and, since my ears are out of your reach, I +will remark, that well you may, when, half the time, nothing in the +world ails you but the want of some absorbing occupation or interest. +Colored water and bread pills are safe prescriptions for that +complaint; meantime it wont hurt the "brute" to pay for the wear and +tear of the doctor's carriage in coming and going. If "my doctor" +laughs in his sleeve, occasionally, when he thinks what funny +creatures women are, you are none the wiser or the angrier for it. He +don't dislike, after all, their little cuddlesome, trusting, confiding +ways; possibly not so much as his wife does, whose acquaintance you +had better not make. As I before remarked, his medical friends can +take care of her; it is no business of yours, her disgusting ails and +aches. + +But what a thing it is when "my doctor" was also "_ma's doctor_"! If +he don't know all the ins and outs, then "may the divel fly away +wid--him!" + +The moral of all this is, that "my doctor's" life is not without its +consolations, and the most astonishing part of it is, that husbands +are so blear-eyed to this subject. It wont harm them to hint that in +sympathy and courteousness they had better not present too sharp a +contrast to "my doctor." + + + + +_A WOMAN AT A LECTURE._ + + +If you want to see a woman act more like a goose than she need, watch +her when she enters a place of public performance, where the seats are +at the mercy of first-comers. Notice her profound survey of the +situation, as she stands, preceding her John, who is supposed to know +nothing about such things, poised on one foot, while she measures +distances, drafts, and acoustics with the eye of a connoisseur. Now +she decides! At last she swoops down on _the_ seat in all the house +which she prefers. John follows, with the shawl and family umbrella. +He faintly suggests the possible obstruction of a pillar between the +seat she has chosen and the speaker, but he follows. Directly she is +seated, and the shawl and umbrella located without inconvenience to +themselves, or infringement of the comfort of their neighbors, when +she coolly remarks, "John, 'tis true, that pillar _is_ right between +me and the speaker." John's ears redden; but he is in public, so he +don't say, "Didn't I tell you so?" but rises with shawl and umbrella, +the former catching by the fringe on every seat as he passes, and the +latter slipping to the floor while he tries to disentangle the shawl. +Meantime my lady is on her triumphal march for that "best seat." + +Now she alights! It wont do. There's a tall man in front of her; she +is always fated to sit behind a tall man. She tries another; there's +the phantom pillar again. Yet another; that's the end seat, and every +horrid man that comes along will be treading on her dress and knocking +her bonnet over her eyes all the evening. Meantime John gets redder in +the face; he can't even ease himself with a customary growl. Ah! now +she has got the seat at last, and stands beckoning to John to follow. +Her friend Miss Frizzle is beside her, and she is happy. There is only +one seat, to be sure, but "John can find one somewhere else, or +perhaps he would like to take a walk outside and call for her when +lecture is over--only he must be sure to be back in time." So down she +sits, while John wanders off for a possible stray seat. Now she draws +off the glove that hides her one diamond ring, and settles the +bracelet on the wrist of that hand. Then she tumbles up her front +hair, lest it might have got smooth coming. Then she picks out the +bows of the natty little ribbon under her dimpled chin. It was that +chin that victimized John! Then she draws from her pocket her scented +pocket-handkerchief and gives it a little incense-waft into the air, +magnetizing a young man in front, who turns round to find the owner of +that delicious gale from Araby the blest. Then she takes out her +opera-glass and peeps about, not so much that her sight is defective, +but that her diamond-ring and gold bracelets gleam prettily in the +operation. John, meantime, has found a seat in a draft, and is +sitting with bent brows and a turned-up coat-collar--which last is +sufficient to make a ruffian of a man without any woman's help--in the +back part of the house. Confidences, millinery, mantua-makery, and +matinée-y are meanwhile exchanged between his wife and dear Miss +Frizzle, who is an acknowledged man-killer, and keeps a private +grave-yard of her own for deceased lovers. + +Now the lecturer rises. "Pooh! he's an ugly man. Well, they need't +look at him; and perhaps he'll be funny--who knows?" He isn't funny. +He is talking about Plato and Epictetus; who the goodness are they? +But there's an end to all things, and so there is to the lecture. Now, +John is wanted, and, to tell the truth, for the first time thought of! +Ah, there he is! but how sulky, and how ugly he looks with his +coat-collar turned up! He might have some regard to appearances when +he goes with _her_. People will think she has such a horrid taste in +husbands. + +"Why don't you talk?" says the little woman, when they get outside. +"It was too bad you couldn't sit by me, John; I missed you so! but, +you see, there was but one seat."--"Not just in that locality, I +suppose," muttered John. But the street-lamp just then shone on that +cunning little dimpled chin, and its owner said, coaxingly, "O-o-h, +now, John! don't be cross with its little wife!" and it's my private +opinion he wasn't. Would you have been, sir? + + + + +_CAN'T BE SUITED._ + + +Look at those long-faced Christians coming home from church, says +Find-Fault; "it is enough to make one sick--gloomy, morose-looking +beings. I wonder do they think there is any religion in that? The fact +is, religion is played out." Now, Find-Fault _wants_ religion to be +played out, so he looks at it always through that pair of spectacles. +If he sees a mistake in that direction, he never thinks, as in other +cases, of making reasonable allowance for it. He can understand how +really good men may have narrow views of business, or of politics, or +of any such secular matters; but if they blunder through narrowness of +view on the _religious_ question, he immediately sets them down as +hypocrites and pretenders. Now I believe that there is many a "Worthy +the Lamb" being sung heartily in heaven to-day, by those mistaken +Christians who thought it right to groan and sigh all the time they +were on earth. It is a pity, to be sure, especially in view of such +people as Find-Fault, that they had not occasionally given us a +cheerful chirp before they went, but "religion" still lives all the +same. + +Then Find-Fault is not very consistent, even on his own showing. + +"_There's_ a pretty minister for you," he says, as he comes out of the +Rev. Mr. Spring-morning's church; "there's a pretty minister for +you--making his congregation smile during the services! A clergyman +shouldn't let himself down that way. It is undignified." You tell him +that the clergyman in question believes in a cheerful religion, and +wishes to do away with the long-faced Christianity which brings +religion into disrepute with just such people as himself. Finding +himself in a corner, he only gives you his stereotyped answer, that +"religion is played out, anyhow." + +Find-Fault isn't a bad man: it only pleases him to be thought so. The +other day, in speaking of a man who made great efforts to overcome +intemperate habits, and failed, he said, "Poor fellow! somebody ought +to take hold and help him to help himself." But, mind you, he never +thinks of applying the same rule to a church-member for whom Satan, in +a moment of weakness, is too strong; no matter how sincere his +repentance, he only says, "_there's your religion again!_" + +Not long since, when a man of very bad character was requested by +church-members and clergymen to give up his disreputable way of +living, Find-Fault said, "Now just see those Christians taking the +bread out of that poor devil's mouth, and expecting him to sustain +nature on praying and singing." + +Afterward, when a purse was made up for just such a person, that he +might be able to defy want, and the better to struggle for honesty, +Find-Fault remarked, sneeringly, "Reform, indeed! what fellow like +that _wouldn't_ reform, even fifty times a year, if the bait of a +well-filled purse were put under his nose." + +Now what is the use of talking to a man who applies common sense to +every subject but that of religion?--who has no doubt that genuine +money is in circulation although he has a counterfeit dollar in his +pocket, but still persists in denying the existence of true religion +because he sometimes meets a hypocrite. Oh, pshaw! None so blind as +they who _wont_ see. None so hard to convince as they who are +predetermined _not_ to be convinced, come what will. + + * * * * * + +Would it not be well for the sextons of our churches, to take the +_creak_ out of their Sunday shoes, by wearing them once or twice on a +week-day? Some of the most important points in a clergyman's discourse +are often lost through the music of the sexton's shoes. A pair of soft +slippers, or easy boots, might be raised on subscription and presented +to this functionary. Also, if he would not go out in the vestibule to +smoke, during service, it would be a relief to many lovers of pure +air. Both these suggestions apply equally well to some of the +parishioners. + + + + +_AUTOGRAPH-HUNTERS._ + + +If there is an intolerable nuisance, it is your persistent +autograph-hunter--your man or woman who keeps a stereotyped formula of +compliment on hand, "their collection not complete without your +distinguished name," &c.; sending it all over the country, to eminent +and _notorious_ individuals alike, to swell their precious +"collection," as they call it. Now, in the outset, I wish to except +requests for this purpose from personal friends, to whom it is always +a pleasure to say Yes; but to those who torment you from mercenary +motives or from mere curiosity, as they would bottle up an odd insect +for their shelf, to amuse an idle hour, I confess to little sympathy. +Nay more, I am unprincipled enough, having long been a martyr, always +to pocket the stamp they send, and throw the request in the +waste-paper basket. I can conceive that invalids, or very young +school-boys or girls, might amuse themselves in this manner; but how a +sane adult, in the rush and hurry and turmoil of the maelstrom-life of +1868, can find a moment for such nonsense, or can expect _you_ to find +a moment for it, is beyond my comprehension. Now, a lock of hair has +some significance--at least, I hope that man thought so, who received +from me a curl clipped from a poodle-dog, which at this moment may be +labelled with my name. It will be all the same a hundred years hence, +as I remarked when I forwarded it to him. + +Your autograph-hunter has a funny way of acknowledging "the +intrusion," and then going on to pile up the agony by asking, beside +your own autograph, that you would "favor him with any from +distinguished individuals that you may happen to have in your +possession, for which he--or she--will be much obliged," etc.; and I +have no doubt they will when I send them! + +Now, I know this sounds unamiable; but there is a point when endurance +comes to an end, and that is where persistent impertinence begins. Why +don't they go to my friend Jack Smith? _He_ is eminent. He will write +autographs all day and all night for anybody who wants one, because he +considers it a compliment, which I don't, as autographs go; and +because Henry Clay never refused--and that would be the very reason I +should; and because Jack has the chronic weakness of always saying +Yes, when he should say No, and _vice versa_. I am afraid I shall have +to buy my postage-stamps after this onslaught, instead of having them +found by autograph-hunters, as I have had for some time; but I shall +get off cheaply at that, and save temper, time, and ink beside. The +mischief of expressing one's opinion on this and kindred subjects, in +print, is this: that the rhinoceros-fellows you mean to hit always +dodge it, in favor of some kind-hearted, sensitive soul whose feelings +you wouldn't wound for a bushel of autographs, though you should have +to sit up all night to write them. I didn't mean _you_ at all, my dear +sir or madam, because I know _you_ really like me, good-for-nothing as +I am; and, after all, it may be that I am only "riled" by that +"furniture-polish man," who looked so much like a clergyman that Betty +mistook him for one, and thought I really must go down if I were busy, +and whose nose I should like to have anointed with his miserable +"polish," for wasting one good hour of the morning, trying it on my +furniture. + + + + +_THE ETIQUETTE OF HOTEL PIAZZAS._ + + +I am not aware that any one has treated this momentous subject. This +being the case, permit me to inquire what are the rights of persons +occupying rooms on the ground-floors of hotels, or boarding-houses, +with windows opening upon the piazzas of the same. Or, in other words, +_have_ they any exclusive right to that part of the piazza directly +fronting their own windows? May they remonstrate if, while sitting at +their window reading or writing, a person draws a chair in front and +commences singing "Pop goes the Weasel," with variations; or whistles +"Yankee Doodle," for an hour; or _reads aloud_ to a companion some +blood-and-thunder novel? Or worse, when a gentleman(?) draws a chair +in front of the window, and with his heels on the pillar of the +piazza, and his head close to your window, lights an odious pipe, and +commences filling your room with its vileness, compelling your +immediate retreat, because he prefers the spot opposite to your window +to the smoker's end of the piazza: in such case, is it in order for +one to request his speedy exit? Is it piazza-etiquette for strangers, +who have ascertained "that that is _her_ room" to lean close to the +window-sill, the better to observe the habits of the animal inside? +May one, in such circumstances, in self-defence, close a blind, or +drop a curtain, without forfeiting the good opinion of inquiring +minds? + +Would it be proper, in those who engage piazza-rooms, first to inquire +of the landlord if he himself is a smoker, the better to calculate +one's chances of sympathy in case of tobacco intruders? + +There are alleviations, I am not unaware, to the occupants of +piazza-rooms. For instance, when one's blinds are closed upon the +unwary, it is interesting to hear a narrative of oneself from the +stranger within the gates. Many facts in your history, of which you +were before entirely ignorant, are thus brought to your notice, +without subscribing to any paper. It is also edifying to learn that +your friend, "Mrs. Jones, gives her husband fits;" that "Mr. Smith is +a horrible brute, in his own room, to his wife, although always ready +to pick up gracefully the handkerchief of any other lady, and return +it with the most complimentary little speeches." It is also amusing to +know that Mrs. Jenkins' hair is or is not her own; likewise, her +complexion. Edifying, also, are statistics about family expenses, and +the manner of expending holiday money so as to get the most fun out of +it. But when one young man reposes love-confidences in another, +beneath your lattice, _then_, my sisters, hold your breath and your +sides!--for then shall you know a depth of stupidity in measuring +feminine tactics which should richly entitle its owner to a free pass +into any Lunatic Asylum in the land. + +As this is a many-sided subject, let me inquire, were you, the +occupant of a piazza-room, ever awakened at the gray dawn, from lovely +slumber, by the dragging of chairs and stools across it, and the +scratching of mops and brooms? Or were you ever forced to lie in a +perspiration of agony, at twelve o'clock at night, while some +enterprising individual, in the parlor opposite your door, played with +one hand, the inspiring tune of "Lanigan's Ball," or rattled +discordantly through "I love but Thee"? + +Lest you should forget it, let me repeat the question with which I +started. Have occupants of piazza-rooms any exclusive rights in the +piece of piazza directly fronting their own windows? If Congress has +not adjourned, perhaps it will stop pulling noses to answer. + + + + +_OLD STOCKBRIDGE IN MASSACHUSETTS._ + + +Massachusetts forever! _and thrift, of course_. Doors that will shut. +Blinds that will fasten. Windows that do not dislocate your wrists to +open. Good bread and beef steak. Mountains with cool sloping sides, +and distracting shadows. A river that has coquetted with the meadows, +till one never knows where it will turn up, or disappear. Perfect +roads, even for our precious "Ledger-horses." Trees whose tops pierce +the clouds, with trunks as rugged and gnarled as the theology of the +oldest divine in the place. "Stockbridge!" The name might have been +prettier--the place _couldn't_ be. From my window I can watch the cool +spray of a fountain, as the wind tosses it about, or the sun makes a +rainbow out of it. Or I can look at a little toy of an Episcopal +Church, half hidden in vines, and trees, and roses, through whose open +windows floats faintly to my ear the sweet Sabbath chaunt, to which +the little birds give cheerful response. Bars of sunlight lie across +the wide grassy road, and every door is a picture, with the silver +hair of age serenely biding its time; or the golden locks of +childhood, shading sinless brows, spite of the "hell" which President +Edwards would insist was their inherited portion. In _this_ place, +too, of all other places, where heavenly peace is written in the air, +and so faint is the intimation of life's turmoil, that one might well +doubt whether this were _not_ heaven. I look at the house where this +good, but _I_ think mistaken, man thought and wrote these things, and +wonder that he could not see _my_ God instead of _his--the Avenger_. + +I walk under these cathedral trees, and like a dream comes to me the +memory of a bright summer day, when a romping school-girl in +Pittsfield, near by, I came to this very "Stockbridge," to a house a +few rods from my present abode, where a sister's welcome awaited me. +And to-day _her_ trees, _her_ vines, _her_ flowers, give out perfume, +and shade, and bloom, all the same as if she were gliding in and out +beneath them, instead of sleeping, deaf, dumb, and blind, forever to +all their beauty. + +_You_, too, must have known those whom you "could not _make_ dead!" +Joyous, beaming creatures, with steps of air, floating _over_--not +walking _on_--the earth; touching everything with brightness, like the +bright-winged birds, which send forth a trill that takes your soul +along with it, as they dart, like a gleam of sunshine, through the +air. _You_, too, have stood over their coffin; but you only remember +the sunny _living_ face. You have touched the cold hand; but you feel +only, through long years of separation, the warm life clasp. And so my +sister was still there, amid her flowers and trees; and when the +present kindly proprietor showed me about the house and grounds, it +was _she_ to whom I listened; it was _she_, not him, whom I followed, +through the well-remembered paths. + +And now tread softly, lest you invade the sanctity of yonder Indian +burying-ground, where rest the bones of countless chiefs, whose +descendants make annual pilgrimage to the spot, unmarked, save by the +wild flowers and waving grass. These Indians went by the name of "The +Stockbridge Indians;" and when any of their tribe settled afterward in +any other place, they always insisted on naming it "Stockbridge." +Jonathan Edwards, who was driven from his church in Northampton on a +point of doctrine, was the minister employed by the Government to +Christianize them; and, from all accounts, a hard job he found it. +"The poor Indian" must have passed into his "hunting-ground," for I +meet him nowhere in my twilight walks through his earthly haunts; nor +does the ghost of a single chief cause my hair to stand on end as I +pass, by moonlight, their lonely burying-ground. + +MORNING IN THE VILLAGE.--Softly, slowly, the white mist-veil is drawn +back from the cool, green mountains. Now a little bird, raising its +bright head from its nest, sends forth such a welcome to the fragrant +new-born day, that prayer of mine seems superfluous and tame beside +it. Follows another, like a well-trained voice in a choir, till at +last the swelling chorus is complete, and nature's matins have fairly +begun. + +How the dew sparkles and trembles on the nodding blades of grass! How +lazily the cows loiter on their shady path to the cool pastures! How +fair look the white daisies and red clover, fresh from their dewy +baths! How still hang the leaves on the trees, as if to enjoy the too +evanescent coolness! Now some little child's sweet voice is heard, +rivaling the birds. There she stands in the doorway, prettier with her +uncombed locks and bare little pink feet peeping from beneath her +loose, white night-dress, than any touch of art could make her. And +now her father, brown and strong, with hoe and rake in hand, goes +forth to his day's work, stopping as he goes to rest his toil-hardened +hand lightly on that little head as he passes it. And whether the hot +noonday sun or the swift lightning-stroke shall paralyze it, that soft +touch, through the slow-coming years, shall be her talisman. And now +the village is fairly astir. None are left in their beds--none are +idle, save the old or the sick. The smoke of the rushing cars curls +out from yonder willows that fringe the river's brink, then +disappears, as, with a parting screech and puff, the train rushes +forth on its errand of life or--death! Now groups gather round the +"store" and "post-office." Ladies who have travelled thither, _with +the city on their backs_, are sauntering under the trees, so occupied +with taking care of their dry-goods that they have neither eyes nor +ears for the beauty and harmony around them. What right have such +women to perpetuate themselves? How _dare_ they be mothers? I don't +know. + +NOON IN THE VILLAGE.--How white and hot lies the sun on the dusty +road! The slow, patient oxen are scarce discernible through the cloud +they raise with their huge feet. Their driver has pushed his coarse +straw hat aside, and is mopping his brown face zealously as he +mercifully gives them breath under the shadow of that grand oak-tree. +The voices of the children and the birds are hushed this garish noon. +Each have taken refuge in their nests, to doze the laggard hours away. +The fine city ladies are in loose dresses, deciding whether brown, or +green, or blue shall make us tear each other's eyes out with envy at +dinner. Their husbands lie under the trees in white raiment, insulting +high Heaven with pipes and segars. _Africa_ is flying around in the +dining-hall, regardless of the thermometer, counting spoons, knives, +and noses. Babies afflicted with last night's mosquito-bites howl at +their nurses with distorted faces, while their bigger brothers and +sisters screech for "a drink of _wutter_." Mammas ejaculate "Merciful +heavens!" and keep on surveying their back-hair with the aid of two +looking-glasses. Wonderful beings are women; but don't fear I shall +turn state's-evidence! Not till I can turn female Robinson Crusoe, +with my "man-Friday," to back me in case of onslaught from the +savages. + +EVENING IN THE VILLAGE.--Little Bobby stands on the piazza, dressed in +his _fifth_ white robe and sash, since the amorous sun kissed the +tears from nature's face, this blessed morning. Poor Bobby! His +temper isn't improved by it; and as to his nurse, were it not for her +"wages," she would like to fricassee Bobby. Poor wretch! but just wait +till Bobby and his mamma are safe in bed. Wont _she_ enjoy her freedom +in a pink neck-ribbon, flirting by moonlight with Tom--the +head-waiter? So would _you_. I don't blame her. You and I haven't the +monopoly of moonlight; although, 'tis true, they might phrase their +vows more grammatically; and if they _could_ make up their minds not +to kiss so loud under my window, I should sleep better of nights. As +the sun declines, how lovely lie the purple shadows on the grateful +coolness. Ladies are driving past, smiling, and prodigal of sweet +words to the husbands of--_their friends! Their_ husbands are +similarly occupied. "Fair exchange is no robbery," saith the proverb. +Smith used to like black hair, when he married his Belinda; but since +he saw Jones' wife with her blonde locks tied with a blue ribbon he is +a penitent man. Belinda don't care--Mrs. Jones' husband has "such a +way with him!" On they dash!--it's none of my business, as Mischief +remarks, when she has winked and blinked a reputation down. I don't +pretend to be more charitable than my betters. Now those of us who +believe that hoofs should not always be a substitute for human feet, +stroll forth for our evening walk. We are not afraid of dew or dust, +and we get miles away before we remember that we have to return. We +sit on the fences, and dangle our boots, and watch the mountain +shadows and the soft white mist creeping over the valleys, and we +listen to the whip-poor-will. Or we boldly walk up the avenue, under +the dense shade of the trees, to the lovely lawn in front of that big +house, and admire the gardener's skill as displayed in the vivid +patches of bloom nestled in the grass. Or we cross the meadow--to the +tell-tale willows, behind which the river hides, and listen to its +peaceful flow; and say for the thousandth time, that we _will_ own "a +place" in the country; but, nevertheless, it is ten to one, that next +summer will find us staring at the "place" of somebody else, and +allowing him the privilege of keeping it in order for us, and settling +the bills for the same. Alas! that the tools with which scribblers +work can be sharpened and kept from rusting only on that +grindstone--_the city_. + + + + +_SUNDAY IN THE VILLAGE._ + + +I am New England born. I want a hymn and a prayer on Sunday. Not that +I do not like both, on other days; but I am always homesick without +them on Sunday. I want them _in church_, too. I said I wanted a hymn +and a prayer. I want a sermon, too; but, alas! I am so often +disappointed _there_, and I so dread being disappointed, that I +generally take a seat near the door, where I can leave at the precise +point when I feel happy, and the sermon begins. + +This is naughty, I know, but as I have gone into the confessional, I +will make a clean "_shrive_" of it. I want _what_ I want so much, and +the lack of it spoils my Sunday. I want to know _how to live_; and the +Rev. ---- only tells me that I've "got to die." I want to know how to +manage with _to-day_; and the Rev. ---- only speculates about what may +or what may not be in eternity. I want to be soothed, and helped, and +propped, and comforted; and the Rev. ---- tries to scare me with an +"angry God," and a "sure damnation." I want earnestness in the pulpit; +and instead, I find the Rev. ---- drawling lazily, "And the LUD GED +said unto Adam." I want to know what the Rev. ---- is talking about; +instead--half of the time, I am convinced--he don't even know that +himself. + +Perhaps these reasons may be some excuse for my dodging the "sermon" +occasionally; if not, I plead guilty, and only ask you to acquit me of +intentional irreverence. It still remains that who else soever can do +without their Sunday, it is not I--Fanny. + +But that's not what I meant to speak about, only that you will insist +on the "prelude" in church. I _meant_ to tell you that the Sunday +before I left New York, I had a genuine Sunday--one of _my_ Sundays; +when, on entering the church of the Rev. Dr. Hall, I did not exchange +the sweet song of birds, the vivid green of the trees, or the blue of +the fair skies, for sulphureous terrors. Since I heard Dr. Payson, of +Portland, when he reached out pleading hands to win wayward feet into +the path of life, I have never been so entirely satisfied with the +delivery of the Master's message. Dr. Hall has the same dignity; the +same pleading earnestness; the same deep, rich voice; the same +appreciative way of reading the hymns; the same _heart_-tone in every +syllable. With him it is no performance. No person present could fail +to feel that he had come there that morning as a fond parent would go +forth, full of tender love, and yearning for the child who had strayed +from home. There was no narrowness, no bigotry, no uncharitable +denunciation; and, at the same time, no blinking of the truth--and the +_whole_ truth. It was the lovely spirit of the Crucified: "Father, +forgive them: they know not what they do." + +_I_ had a full meal; and if you could have gone away unsatisfied, I am +sorry for you. It must be that you never had a heart-wrench; that you +never reached out imploring hands in the darkness, only to grasp the +empty air. It must be that the earth never opened at your feet, and +swallowed up your dear ones. It must be that you never--with a sincere +desire to do right, by yourself, and by others--found yourself choking +with distressful tears, that each day's sun should go down with so +poor a record. Oh, you never could have felt thus, or you could not +have gone away from the sound of Dr. Hall's voice, and said, there was +nothing there for me. At least I think you would have admired, as I +did, his noble frankness in telling "church-members" that he did not +blame outsiders for doubting their Christianity, when they were so +swift to pronounce judgment on those who differed from them in +opinion. "This is bigotry," said he; "this is fanaticism--it is not +Christianity. Man's conscience was not given him for this--it was +given him to scrutinize his own shortcomings." This pleased me, in +contrast with the opinion held by many "Christians," that the faults +of such should never be spoken of, "for the possible harm to the +cause." + +Now, in conclusion, I would say to Dr. Hall's church, that to allow a +clergyman like him to preach in a place so badly ventilated as was +that church the morning I was present, is a crime. Let them show +their regard for him, while thronging there to hear him, by not +killing him by inches; he is too tall a man to die in that way. + + * * * * * + +WHAT DIFFERENCE CAN IT MAKE WHAT I DO OR SAY?--Now, there is not a man +or woman living, nor ever has been, to whom it "makes no difference." +If you have neither father, mother, brother, sister, child, husband, +or wife, in the wide world, still there is some neighbor, some +companion, whose eye, fixed upon you, is moved, perhaps unknown to +themselves, for good or for evil. You slip an arm through theirs, in +the crowded thoroughfare, or lay a friendly hand on their shoulder, +and, in a leisure moment, saunter along together. _Where?_ It was +_you_ who decided _where_. It is on you that the responsibility falls, +perhaps, of that friend's _first_ downward step. Never say, it "makes +no difference what I do." It makes a difference to _yourself_, even +were it true that it did to no one else. + +They who have passed many milestones on the journey of life, with +their faces toward the Celestial City, do not stop to ask those who +pass them on the road, of their creeds or nationalities. They see only +the brother, or sister, to whom the helping hand and sympathizing word +in time may be life or death for this world and the next. This is the +true Christ-spirit. + + + + +_SICK IN THE VILLAGE._ + + +I have been sick; safe under the coverlet for seven or eight days at +least. I mention what may be to you but a very ordinary experience, +because I am really quite humiliated: first, that such an unusual +thing should have occurred to me; and secondly, that it should have +been the undeserved penalty of great amiability on my part. It +happened lately that, on a certain public occasion, a seat was +politely assigned me near the orator of the hour, and, unfortunately, +also near an open window, through which came directly upon my throat a +blast of chill air. I felt it clutch me, but I said to myself, I wont +make a disturbance leaving. Hence the necessity of a doctor, and a +total cessation of speech, and a big bunch, the size of an egg, on a +throat which were better without it. The next time I am polite, you +may tell me of it! I am out now, to be sure, under the trees again, +but I can't walk with any spring or unction. I can't eat with any +appetite. I can't ride without being sensible of every inequality in +the road. I hate a bed so that I can scarce bring my mind to get into +one at night, and yet I am, as the expression goes, "_dead tired_" all +the time. I tell you all this, particularly now, however, because I +have received a stack of letters, during this period, which I must +take a little time to answer, and which correspondents might otherwise +suppose were never received, or had been slighted. But, oh! how +beautiful look the green fields to me, now, and how welcome the fresh +air! Still, don't come to Stockbridge _to be sick_. It is heaven for +well people, and kind friends who dwell here are heavenly in kind +deeds, at such and all other times. + +This is what ails Stockbridge. It is occupied, mainly, by rich people, +who come here only for their summer sojourn. Most of the houses here +are quite closed in winter; therefore, you see that they are all +consumers: _producers_ are the exceptions. If you have fruit or +squashes in your own garden, thank the sun and the Lord for the same. +If you don't own a garden, and don't want to tire out the generosity +of your friends; in short, if you are a sick pilgrim at a hotel, then +more's the pity. _Then_ you'll lie on your pillow and dream of big +peaches, and luscious pears, and plums, in your native hunting-ground, +the New York markets. You'll think of the stores in Broadway, where +huge bunches of grapes, in purple bloom, lie clustering. Maybe at the +butcher's, near your very door in New York, is the "sweet-bread," +which, if cooked at the right moment, and in the right way, might +tempt your flagging appetite. Heaven's blessings on the good +Samaritans who brought _me_ nice tit-bits; but one don't want to be a +pauper too long, lest the patience of benevolence might give out. + +While I lay sick, I must say a peach-tree seemed more desirable than +the grandest elm; and a pear-tree preferable to ever so magnificent a +maple or chestnut. Grape-vines, also, I thought finer than woodbine, +ivy, or clematis; in short--were my state of invalidism to continue, I +am confident I should become a confirmed utilitarian. + +If this bit of experience of mine is any comfort to the forced +sojourner in the hot city, let him hug it to heart. I have had sunsets +here like the glory of "the New Jerusalem." I've wandered under these +trees and been driven over these lovely roads, till my eyes were moist +with happiness I could not voice. I have heard such kindly tones, and +seen such loving faces, and been so hospitably entreated here, that it +would take more physic than was involved in those bed-ridden days of +pain and unrest to give me a grudge against lovely, mountain-girdled +Stockbridge. + + + + +_MEN AND THEIR CLOTHES._ + + +The female fashions of to-day are absurd enough; but if anything more +absurd than a man's "stove-pipe hat" was ever invented, I would like +to see it. Mark its victims, when they remove it from their +heads--which they seldom do, the gods know why, unless they are +getting into bed; see the red rim across their foreheads, produced by +its unwieldy weight, and unnecessary inches up in the air; see them +occasionally in the street, giving it a cock backwards, when nobody +but apple-women are looking, to observe how quickly a gentleman, by +that action, may be made into a rowdy; then see them apply their +handkerchiefs to their foreheads, to cool off the heat and the pain, +and then with a stoicism worthy of one of Fox's martyrs, replace it, +and bear the long agony till they get home. Then what garment that +ever woman wore, is more ridiculous than a man's shirt, whether +buttoning before or buttoning behind, or disfigured with puerile +"studs;" whether the stiff collar stands up like a picket on guard, or +lays over, with a necktie to tie it suffocatingly over the jugular +vein. + +Then mark that abomination--a swallow-tailed coat. Heavens! how ugly +the handsomest man may look in it! and woe for the plain men, when +they intensify their plainness with it! + +Then see the knock-kneed and the crooked-legged advertising their +deformity in tight pantaloons; and short, fat, barrel men wearing +little boys' cloth caps on their heads! Ah, for every female goose +that Fashion makes, I will find you a male mate, even to the wearing +of tight corsets! + +But, my friends, on one point there's a difference. "When a +fashionable lady engages a female servant, she stipulates that she +shall wear a cap on her head, and calico on her back, to mark the +difference between herself and that servant--without which, I suppose, +it would not often be recognizable." When her _husband_ gives a dinner, +the male waiters are dressed exactly like himself--in festal white +neckties, white gloves, and hideous swallow-tailed coats. + +How is this? It must be that the male creature is very secure of his +position, socially, mentally, morally, and physically, to permit such +presumption--nay, to demand it. Can any philosopher explain to me this +mystery? I was "struck 'midships" with the idea at a festal gathering +not long since; and turning to my male guide, philosopher, and friend, +asked what it meant. His irritating answer to this most proper and +natural question was, "Fanny, don't be silly." + +I reiterate my remark that men's dress is to the full as absurd in its +way as women's, and I am only reconciled to the idea that a man was +intended for a human being when I see an athlete of a gymnast, of +glorious chest and calves, and splendid muscular arms, skimming the +air as gracefully as a bird, and as poetically; then I know how +civilization has ruined him! I know, that man if he jumped, and ran, +and wrestled, and walked, instead of sitting stupidly in a chair in +the house, or creeping into an omnibus when out of it, and smoking and +going to sleep in the intervals, would not be obliged to creep into +these ugly tailor's padded fashions to hide his deficiencies, but +could wear what he chose, knowing that the beautiful outlines of his +form would glorify any decent vestment. + +I walked several blocks out of my way behind a man, the other day, who +positively "stepped off." What a chest he had! what a splendid poise +of the head! what a free, jubilant swing of the arm! I hope he will +come to New York again some day, for I'm sure he was a stranger to it, +for he neither stopped anywhere to take a drink, buy a cigar, nor did +he hail an omnibus! + +Magnificent giant! I wonder what was his name, and had he a mother. If +not--well, it was a pity he shouldn't have. + +I wonder what _are_ "good manners"? The question occurred to me the +other evening in a place of public amusement. I was one of a dozen or +so of ladies, wedged in a row of the usual narrow seats. At every +pause in the performance, three _gentlemen_ stepped over the laps of +the ladies in that seat, carrying off in their exit, or knocking upon +the floor, opera-glasses, fans, scarfs, handkerchiefs, and, almost, +the ladies themselves; returning each time wiping their lips, and +introducing with them a strong odious smell of tobacco. I respectfully +submit to any _real_ gentleman who reads this article, if that is +"good manners." + +Of course, I know it would be better if all seats at such places could +be so arranged that _gentlemen_ need not clean their boots on ladies' +laps in order to pass out. But also it would be well if gentlemen took +all the sustenance in the way of wine which they needed before +starting from home; and if they _could_ also bring their godlike +minds, to defer smoking till they could annoy only the one lady, whom +they have a legal right to annoy, it would add to the general comfort, +as well as their _public_ reputation for gallantry and politeness. Men +generally object to going out evenings, "because they are so tired." +Why, then, they never embrace the opportunity to sit still when they +get there, is an inconsistency which we must place unsolved, on the +shelf already so well labelled with them. I might suggest also, that +if they will persist in cleaning their boots on our laps, in order to +get out these narrow sets of seats, and if they will carry off in +their exit our gloves and fans and opera-glasses, and if they will +keep on repeating this little pastime all the evening, to say nothing +of occasionally crushing our feet out of all shape, I would venture to +suggest that they should mitigate the suffering by saying, +occasionally, "I beg pardon," or, "Pray excuse me," or by some such +little deference acknowledge the infinite bore of their presence. + +Failing in this, I propose that each _gentleman_, on his return, +should bring in his hand a peace-offering to the ladies in the seat, +of a glass of lemonade and a bit of cake. Why shouldn't _we_ be +thirsty too? Mr. Beecher says a woman has a right to--no, I believe he +_didn't_ say that, but he ought to have done so; and if he didn't, +"fair play is a jewel." + +Mr. Smith exclaims, on reading this, "Horrible woman!" because, though +a handsome man, he sees himself looking selfish and ugly in the glass +I hold up to him. Now, Mr. Smith wouldn't say that, if he should sit +down beside me and let me talk to him five minutes. Not he! You see I +have him at a great disadvantage, away off at the other end of the +city or over to Brooklyn. I could say the very same things to him I +have just said on paper, sitting here on my sofa beside me, and that +man would go on lying, as men will, to other men's wives' faces, and +be _so_ polite and smiling, that his own wife never would know him, if +she happened in; and he'd tell me that "what I said was all true, and +that men _were_ selfish animals," meaning Tom Jones and Sam Jenkins, +and every other man but just himself. Don't I know them? + + + + +_NOTES FROM PLYMOUTH ROCK._ + + +How I ever lived so many years in Boston without coming to see +Plymouth, is one of the sins of omission for which I am at this +present finding doing my best to atone. I trust all of you who are +equally guilty, will come as soon as may be to breathe the fine +Newport air of the place, and take time to visit its interesting +coast, its numerous ponds, its lovely drives through odorous woods, +and all the hallowed spots which ought to be dear to the heart of +every true American. Don't go to Paris or London till you have been to +Plymouth. It were well to "see Niagara" first; but it were better to +have gone with me to the "Record Office" this morning, and seen the +yellow manuscripts, covered thickly with the small German text-looking +handwriting of our Pilgrim Fathers; setting forth, for instance, "the +shares they severally held in a cow," in the simple, honest, +straightforward manner of the time--one signed by "Myles Standish," +who, it seems, having the primitive ambition to own an _entire_ cow, +kept buying up the shares of the rest as speedily as his means +allowed. I thought of Mr. Bonner's stables, and the thousands of +dollars his horses represented, and wondered how he dared to say his +catechism! Then I saw their veritable "Charter," kept in a dark +cupboard, with a silken curtain drawn across the precious signatures, +lest the unscrupulous sunlight, invading this "Holy of Holies," should +snatch them from posterity. And then and there was exploded for me the +theory that handwriting is indicative of character. Certainly those +effeminate, small, beautiful letters gave no sign or token of the +moral strength, the rugged persistence of purpose, of the Pilgrim +Fathers. Not one modern young lady in a hundred could write so minute +and beautiful a hand. They must have had good eyesight in those days, +when gas and furnaces were not. Sharp men they were; disguising the +very graves of the first little Mayflower band, lest the Indians +should take advantage of the reduction of their numbers. The very +house I am in bears the name of the first Indian who visited +them,--"Samoset." Whether the fair and tender-hearted Rose Standish +quailed before the savage owner of this most musical name, I have not +learned. I do not hesitate to say, that _I_ should have made for the +bushes on his first appearance. It is curious, in walking the streets +of Plymouth, to hear the little children calling to each other, in +their play, and using the old familiar Mayflower names of hundreds of +years ago. + +But Pilgrim ancestry does not insure saintliness in all its +descendants, as I found upon visiting the county prison. Within its +walls was pointed out to me a woman who had poisoned her husband, +when sick and helpless on her hands. For thirteen long weary years +she had never been outside those walls; and latterly had declined even +walking in the little paved yard allowed the prisoners. She was a +large, powerfully built woman, with a skin like the parchments I had +been looking at in the Record Office drawn tightly over her high +cheek-bones. She sat sewing at her grated window as we entered; and +when asked "if she were not warm," as the day was very hot, answered +petulantly, "No--I am most always cold; there can't be circulation +where there's no exercise." Outside was bloom and sunlight, and song +of birds, and merry voices, and blue skies, and pleasant hum of labor, +and the faint dirge of the sea. She merited her fate, but I turned +away from her sick at heart, and thought, were it my case, how +questionable were the mercy that abolished hanging for such +slow-dropping torture as this. + +In the same room with her were three hard-featured women, placed there +for violation of the liquor laws. Each in that room had a babe in her +arms, or at her knee--poor little innocent victims of maternal +misdoing. One baby was moaning with the teething process, so hard to +endure and survive, even with all the appliances of out-door air and +wholesome surroundings. Its little waxen face showed signs of severe +suffering, and for _three months_ more, if the little life were spun +out that long, it must remain there--its only amusement rocking the +rude box which was allowed for a cradle. The mother answered me +roughly enough when I inquired the age of her baby, but God knows I +forgive her any bitterness she might feel at the difference that +bright day in our respective lots; but could she have read my heart, +and seen how I longed to carry her little one out on the grass, and +among the flowers, and see it smile, she would have known me for its +friend. + +I never saw a prison more clean, and neat, and well-ordered; and yet I +could not help thinking there should be a nursery there, that the +little children of these erring mothers need not be punished with +them; but, in the graphic language of the Superintendent, "Its +original intention was _not_ a fancy boarding-house." + +I wish here to place on record that Plymouth can make good bread. I +had begun to fear, so long had I been fed on Cape Ann saleratus, that +I might lose the taste of wholesome yeast and flour, just as the +"marasmus" denizens of the Five Points learn to dislike pure air. A +brief heaven of good city bread in blessed old Boston quite set me up; +and its unexpected appearance in Plymouth was more than I dared to +hope. + +I presume to this I may attribute the number of hale-looking, cheerful +old people in Plymouth. I have no doubt it has had its effect also on +the religious liberality so prevalent here, as I find that nobody +_makes mouths_ at you for being a Unitarian, or an Episcopalian, or of +any other denomination that happens to suit your complaint. Rev. Mr. +Robinson, the minister of the church in Holland from which "the +Mayflower" Christians came, inculcated upon his flock this bit of pure +gospel, in his parting sermon to them, that, "there was a great deal +of truth coming out ahead that they had not even dreamed of as yet;" +and particularly warned them against that spiritual conceit which +should close their eyes to the perception of it. Now that's what I +call liberal Christianity. Ministers, deacons, and the religious world +generally will please take notice. + +Since I came here, Plymouth has distinguished itself by a storm of +rain and wind, the like of which I never saw before. I began to think +over my transgressions; but really there were so many of them, and the +house rocked so, and the trees swirled round at such a furious rate, +that I had no clear idea then, nor have I since, of their number or +enormity. And the very next morning the sun shone out so brightly on +uprooted trees and unroofed barns and tumble-down chimneys, and the +flowers that from their lowliness had escaped the avenger, that I took +heart of grace, and classed myself among the latter! + + + + +_NO BEAUX ANYWHERE._ + + +No beaux! Absolutely _no_ beaux! Well, young ladies, stop and +consider, if, after all, you yourselves have not pronounced the +sentence of banishment. + +We?--we "banish" them? Good gracious! Is it not for them we have +devised all this elaboration of adornment? We, indeed! Were we not, +for weeks, before we came to these odious mountains, where men are as +scarce as French hair-dressers, closeted with our dress-makers and +milliners to produce these bewitching "suits," long and short, for +morning and evening, out-door and indoor wear? Have we not cool +dresses and warm dresses; dresses for rain, dresses for sunshine, +dresses for neutral weather, with ribbons, gloves, sashes, parasols, +hats and fans to "match," to the minutest shade? For whom should we +take all that trouble but for the beaux? And how are we responsible +for their disgusting absence? + +Listen, my dears, for in that which you have just said lies your +offence. Can damsels thus arrayed walk in the woods, climb the +mountains (except in poetry)? Can they take even an ordinary, mild +walk, without mortal terror of perilling their millinery? Must they +not, therefore, "ride," morning, afternoon, and evening, everywhere, +to the delectation of stable-keepers, and the consequent pecuniary +depletion of the "beaux"? These beaux, whose fathers may be rich, but +whose sons have yet to fill their individual coffers; these beaux, who +have just so much to expend when they get away for a summer holiday, +and who do not desire to pour it _all_ into the pockets of the +stable-keepers; these beaux, who can get vastly more fun out of their +purses, and make them last longer, with a party of "the +fellows,"--this is the reason that, with rare exceptions, you have to +throw away these ravishing toilettes on your own sex, when you play +croquet, or sit on the piazza, dreaming of the "coming man." + +My dears, he _wont_ come! He knows too much. He has seen his sister's +milliner and mantua-maker bills, and heard the family discussions +thereon; and though he acknowledges your fascinations even through all +the absurd toggery you are doomed by fashion's slavery to have and to +wear, he has yet to make the fortune to enable him to foot his angel's +bills. So he runs away from you, discreetly; runs off fishing, or +gunning, with "the fellows," and, wiser than you, comes home brown, +hale, and hearty for the winter months, instead of perspiring at your +side in tight boots and yellow kids. + +Do you begin to understand? Now, my dears, if you have been ushered +into the world in a coach and six, till your feet and hands have +become paralyzed for want of use, that's your _misfortune_, not your +fault, because that necessitates a rich husband. And as there are very +few rich _young_ husbands, you will have to bid good-by to your +girlish ideal, and marry the bald-headed, gouty Mr. Smith, who was +born at the same time as your own father. This, my dears, you will +have to do, or face your nightmare, _single blessedness_. + +I have looked at you playing croquet, without a coat-tail among you; I +have seen you driving yourselves out in your pretty little phaetons; +and though you put a brave face on it, I know very well what is going +on under that gay little sash of yours; and I think it is a pity that +you should have been brought up to so many artificial wants, that your +_heart_ must go hungry in life's spring-time because of them. + +My dears, _I_ never lacked beaux at your age. But a walk in the woods, +or in the city either, involved no expense to _my_ beaux. I could +climb a fence, where there was no gate, or where there _was_ either; I +was not afraid of dew, or rain, because my dress was simple. My gifts +were not diamonds, but flowers, or books. _My_ mother would not have +allowed me to ride with gentlemen, had they asked me. When they came +to spend an evening, our tray of refreshments did not involve a +"French cook." So you see, my dears, though I had no silk dresses, I +had plenty of beaux, and a gay heart; and I enjoyed a sail with an old +sun-bonnet over my curls, or a moonlight ramble, with a merry party, +much better than you do "the German;" and half an hour was sufficient +warning for me "to dress" for any kind of a party--indoors or +out--because, unlike you, I was not bothered to choose from twenty +dresses which to wear; and I will give you leave to ask any of my +beaux, who are now grandfathers, if I was not able at that time to +settle _their_ accounts! And it is because I had such a good time that +I feel vexed that your youth and prettiness should so often go +a-begging--through no fault of yours; and you may show this to your +mothers and tell them I say so. + +In the country, too, matrons, we have full trunks and absent husbands. + +It was a quiet little village; just such a place as you, madam, with +your six children, sensibly clad in calico, would like to have enjoyed +the sweet summer days in. There was no "dress;" there were no "hops," +in hot halls, by gas-light; there were no masquerade balls. Everybody +was in bed by ten o'clock, save a few smokers, who profaned the sweet, +odorous quiet with their vile tobacco fumes. There was plenty of +driving through the bewitching roads, plenty of walking, _some_ +gossip,--_which I have ascertained has no sex_--some croquet-ing and +crochetting, but no _coquetting_, because there was a great vacuum +where beaux should be. Altogether, the city residents of Frog-ville +were a sensible set. + +But, alas! one unlucky day the shrieking cars landed at the door of +the principal boarding-house a woman. That was not an event of itself, +but this woman was accompanied by many trunks. Nobody knew whence she +came, but conjecture was rife as to the contents of the trunks. +Breakfast, next morning, solved the mystery. Mrs. Fire-Fly--for she +was a Mrs.--none the less dangerous for that--on the contrary!--swept +into the dining-hall in a train about six yards long. The train was +white and spotless; the floor was not. The lady carried her coffee to +her lips, with diamond girdled fingers, _steadily_, with an eye to her +delicate ribbons. Scipio, who handed her beefsteak over her shoulder, +had no time to consider such trifles. Little puddles of milk lay in +wait on the floor for that spotless train, dexteriously coiled, by its +owner, like an anaconda under the table. Pools of milk, tea-drippings, +and bits of omelette, dislodged from their moorings, by hot haste in +serving, were dotted, here and there, in the path she would soon be +called upon to mop on her exit. At _length_ she rose! Her train +followed at a respectful distance. The eyes of the dozen or two +sensible women, clad in sensible raiment, followed that train. Its +dainty owner, with a disdain of economy, born of many trunks, and +their ample contents, did not so much as lift it with one of her +jeweled fingers. On she swept, through the coffee-pools--through the +gravy-drippings--through the milk-puddles, out into the hall. + +The sensible women present looked after her spell-bound. Then they +gazed into each other's eyes, and murmured, "Paris!" Alas! the serpent +in fairest guise had entered the primitive Eden of Frog-ville. The +sensible matrons looked now, through different spectacles, at their +alpacas and calicoes. How mean in comparison! Their trimmings, how +"dowdy"! The fit of their bodices, how awkward! Dinner-time came, with +added newness and added splendors. Cobweb tissues, with frost-work +trimmings, and train longer by two yards than the breakfast train. And +such ribbons! And such jewelry! How tasteless was the beef that day; +how disgusting the mutton; how prosaic their gingham-clad, rosy +children; how tame and humdrum was life generally. And then, this +dainty lady had "a maid." _They_ had no "maids." They had never felt +the need of a "maid" till now. How had they ever combed their tresses? +How had they ever fastened their own dresses? Pshaw! their _dresses_! +How unworthy the name--mere wrappers. Gracious! how miserable were +these heretofore happy women. Never till now did they know how +miserable they were. The dainty lady's husband, 'tis true, was not +with her. She had to do without him; while they had theirs with them. +_Her_ husband was in the hot, smoky city, earning more money for more +"Paris" dresses--that is, he was earning money during the day; what he +did with his solitary evenings or nights, the dainty wife did not +inquire. She was satisfied; she was brimming with content, that she +alone, amid all these wives and mothers, had "Paris" dresses. + +"I really must have some clothes," said one of the hitherto sensible +matrons, "the next time I go into the country. I didn't know, till +Mrs. Fire-Fly came, how very shabby was my wardrobe." + +"I would rather," said a friend at her elbow, "that you, the healthy +mother of six healthy daughters, should have said: 'I didn't know, +till Mrs. Fire-Fly came, how sensible and befitting the country was my +wardrobe; and how proper and right it was that my husband should be +taking his rest in the country with me, instead of divorcing himself +at the risk of our mutual peace, to furnish me with nine trunks full +of Paris dresses.'" + + * * * * * + +"I have done nothing to-day but keep things straight in the house," +you say wearily at the close of it. Do you call that nothing? Nothing +that your children are healthy, and happy, and secured from evil +influence? Nothing that neatness, and thrift, and wholesome food +follow the touch of your finger-tips? Nothing that beauty in place of +ugliness meets the eye of the cheerful little ones, in the plants at +your window, in the picture on the wall? Nothing that _home_ to them +means _home_, and will always do so, to the end of life, what +vicissitudes soever that may involve? Oh, careworn mother! is all this +nothing? Is it nothing that over against your _sometime_-mistakes and +sometime-discouragement shall be written, "She hath done what she +could?" + + + + +_DANIEL WEBSTER'S HOME._ + + +It was not as a mere relic-hunter, that I crossed the threshold of +Daniel Webster's home in Marshfield. As a Bostonian, long years ago, I +had been spell-bound by those wondrous eyes, and that irresistible +eloquence which so seldom failed to magnetize. As to the mistaken +words which, had he lived till now, I firmly believe he would have +grievingly wished unsaid, and which have palsied many hands that would +have been raised over that roof in blessing, I have nothing to say +now. As far as the East is from the West, so far do I differ with him +on that point. But all these thoughts vanished, and the old Boston +magnetism moved me, as I stood in that beautiful library, which, more +than any other room of that lovely home, _his_ presence seemed to fill +and pervade. The beautiful sunlight streamed in upon the favorite +books he loved so well, upon the favorite chair and table, upon the +thousand and one tributes of love and admiration from across the sea, +and from nearer home, which are still carefully treasured. _There_ +only, after all these years, could I really "make him _dead_." My last +sight of him was on a public occasion in Boston, sitting in a +barouche, with that grand massive head uncovered, in recognition of +the applause about him. And I am not ashamed, at this distance, to say +that when he kissed the forehead of my little girl--now a woman +grown--as he took from her hand the flowers I sent him, that I looked +upon it as a sort of baptism. + +Now, all about his home in Marshfield, are family pictures of the +little children he tenderly loved. And what beautiful children they +are! or _were_, for many of their names are now recorded on marble +beside his own. And above the picture of him--as if such a head as +_his_ could ever be faithfully reproduced!--were his hat and stick. I +stood looking at them, and wondering if, when he used to sit there he +ever thought of _that_--if when resting in that peaceful spot, with +bloom and brightness about him, weary with the ceaseless strife, and +with the din of life, shut out, for a time at least, he ever longed to +lay them aside for ever--thus! + +In every house, the individuality of it is that which interests us +most. _These_ household gods all had their little story; all, too, +spoke of taste and refinement and culture, and love of the beautiful +in form, color, and arrangement. It almost seemed an impertinence to +move about from room to room, and gaze at them; and, I think, had it +not been that one of the family recognized and welcomed me as a +remembered Bostonian, I should have felt very much like an inexcusable +intruder there. + +All honor to Daniel Webster for having had painted, and hung up in a +conspicuous place in his house, _the portrait of his black cook_. It +is the most unique object in it; and the feeling which prompted this +public recognition of faithful service was most honorable to him. +Alas! had he always been as true to his better instincts! + +The simple majesty of Daniel Webster's tomb is very impressive. It is +fit that it should be _there_, at Marshfield, within sound of the +restless sea--restless as his spirit. For inscription--only the name +and date, and those memorable words of his on Immortality. There are +no mysteries to him _now_. + + * * * * * + +Some men--can anybody tell us why?--always gravitate _downward_ in +their male friendships. Their boon-companion is sure to be one +destitute of everything that would seem to constitute an equality. Now +what can be the reason of this? Is it because such persons need to +have their self-respect constantly bolstered up by the flattery of +parasites? Whatever the motive may be, the _result_ is certain +deterioration. Not, on the other hand, that it is not best to meet +with, and know all sorts of persons; but _invariably_ to choose +inferiority, for a bosom-friend, argues a flaw, and a serious one, +somewhere. + + + + +_A TRIP TO RICHMOND._ + + +Beautiful Baltimore! I kiss my hand to beautiful Baltimore! Passing +through it only on my way to Washington in days gone by, I had only +flying, and muddy, and back-street reminiscences of it. _Now_ it seems +to me the most elegant of cities. Dear to my New England eyes, above +all, are its polished windows, immaculate and spacious front-door +steps, cleanly gutters, and sidewalks free from defilement of ashes +and garbage. The sweet, wholesome air of the place, with no taint to +offend the most fastidious nose, contrasted pleasantly with our large +New York residences; many of whose occupants, having begun life in +tenement houses, still retain their fondness for tenement-house odors +and dirty sidewalks. I passed through street after street, without +seeing an ash-barrel or box, or anything repulsive to neatness; and +that, not only where the wealthy reside, but where were houses of very +moderate rents and dimensions, yet all shining and clean, and sweet, +as a child's face when newly washed, and framed in its best Sunday +bonnet. Beautiful Baltimore! I came well-nigh forgetting, as I +strolled along, that _you_ ever stood on one side the political fence, +and _I_ on the other; but we wont rake up old grievances, or new ones +either. Instead, I will say that your new "Druid Hill Park" is a gem, +and a big one; and if you don't make the most of it, it will not be +because nature has not fashioned its undulating surface, and grown +giant trees there ready to your hand with a grace and a profusion +which leave you little to do in the way of art. Now, our "Central +Park" was fashioned in the face and teeth of every disadvantage; and +yet see what a joy and beauty and delight it is to us all. So, shame +to you, Baltimore, if you don't far outstrip us! Sure I am, that the +occupants of those tasteful and magnificent private dwellings can need +no hint from me to contribute liberally toward it. + +Elegant stores, too, has Baltimore; and in them all the little last +new feminine dodges in the way of adornment, so that no Baltimore +husband need heed his wife's prayer to go to New York to see what is +the last new fashion in gloves, boots, silks, laces, bonnets, +or--hair. Baltimore wives may not thank me for this, but I am not +afraid; for I can truly say that their faces were so bright that sunny +day, as they nodded smilingly to one another, that I trembled for the +wide-spread fame of New York beauties. Little loves of children too, I +saw, with their sable nurses; oh! how I like the sable nurses. No +_French_ caps _shamming_ it over _Celtic_ faces; but instead, the +jolly African physiognomy, framed in its gay turban; and, best of +all--forgive me, fair Baltimore!--_receiving_ as well as _earning_ a +nurse's wages. + +I always feel as if a coroner's inquest would be held over me, when I +cross a steamboat gangway, even though there may be blue sky overhead, +and sunshine about me. + +Judge, then, of my consternation, as the Baltimore boat pushed off for +Norfolk, Va., and I discovered directly beneath my state-room window +about a dozen barrels of _kerosene_. In vain did the philosopher try +to bamboozle me into the belief that "it was lard." After fifteen +years conjugal acquaintance with my nose, it was a stupidity of which +only a man could be guilty. + +"Lard!" I exclaimed; "it is kerosene! and a military company on board +too." Now I _don't_ "love the military." I had one fearful experience +with them, on board the ill-fated Lady Elgin, when, in the midst of a +howling tempest, with thunder and lightning thrown in, their tipsy +howls made a perfect pandemonium. + +Military companies smoke too; and there is always fire where there is +smoke, says the old proverb; and sparks and kerosene are things better +divorced. So I didn't undress that night, and had plenty of time to +consider a question which for the first time I asked myself,--whether +a steamboat ought not, in a case like this, to forfeit its insurance. +That part of my education having been neglected at boarding-school, I +was unable to solve it; so I shudderingly recognized the fact, that +men on the upper deck were smoking pipes, and knocking ashes and +sparks from the railing with a verdant innocence and stupidity quite +astounding. + +But the "angel aloft," wafted away the sparks from the kerosene; and a +friendly rain coming on, my perturbed spirit had a great calm. So we +got to Norfolk whole and alive--no thanks to that steamboat or its +owners. It was lucky I had my excitement _going_ there, for a more +stagnant, sleepy place--outside of the Dead Sea--never announced +itself. Still, there were peach-trees in blossom, and tulip-trees, and +the pretty blue periwinkle peeped from the hedges and gardens, and the +grass was green, and--so was everything else there! One day sufficed +me, although it was pleasant to sit with open windows. Our coachman +dragged us up and down through the narrow, dilapidated looking +streets, over pavements that forced to our lips the letter O oftener +than any other in the alphabet, while "showing us the city." As the +streets were all alike, we cut short his little fun by requesting to +be set down at our hotel, while one bone remained undislocated. + +The grave-yard was, after all, the pleasantest spot through which we +drove in Norfolk. Whole graves there were covered with the blue +flowers of the running myrtle; they were even peeping up under the +little patches of snow. "Five dollars fine for picking a blossom." A +good rule; but I was always unruly, and that blue myrtle is my +favorite flower. Still I don't say I plucked one--of course not; how +could I, inside a carriage? + +Norfolk should be named "Sleepy Hollow." I can't conceive of keeping +awake there, unless by help of their corduroy pavements. It was tame, +after living in New York, where there is always "a dreadful _lass_ of +life," as the newsboys express it, or something that is pleasant +happening. + +Whoso essays to travel South, and having bade good-by to a certain +hotel in Philadelphia, which don't begin with A or B, and which, if +you have not, you _ought_ to--C, leaves hope and comfort behind; +having then left what, in my opinion, is the perfection of +hotel-keeping, in all its myriad departments. Farewell to clean rooms, +and _genuine_ coffee, and well-cooked meats, and prompt attendance; +and welcome drafts, and cooked poison, in every shape that the fiend +of the gridiron and frying-pan could devise. Having exhausted +Washington three or four different times from a luxurious standpoint, +it only remained on this flying transit through it, for Washington to +exhaust me, between the hours of eight in the evening and seven the +following morning. In one of the principal hotels of the place, I give +you, by way of curiosity, an inventory of the room into which we were +ushered. Imprimis--a bed, with sheets still warm with the print of the +last occupant; wash-bowls grimy with departed paws; dirty towels; and +a broken window pane, through which the snow was sifting; two immense +grease spots, each the size of a two-quart bowl, in the centre of the +dingy carpet; matches scattered round _ad libitum_; a horror of a +spitoon in the middle of the floor; dirty window-curtains, and closets +full of old papers; bureau drawers saturated with grease; bedstead +cracked across the foot-board, and so rickety, that it was suggestive +of a discordant music-box. Sofa dingy, and placed with singular +felicity immediately under the broken window; while the looking-glass +was fastened to the top of a bureau, so high, that one need mount a +stool to look in it, and located, as usual, in the darkest corner of +the apartment; a woollen cloth on the centre-table, approachable only +by a pair of tongs. Finally a chamber-maid was procured, and towels, +sheets, and a fire followed, while we were at tea. Afterward my +companion lay down to rest (?) on the music-box; while I, upon the +dingy sofa, front of the fire, listened, laughing, to the squeaks +produced on it, by his attempts to sleep. + +My reflections were various. I didn't wonder that Congressmen lodging +thus, should call naughty names, and tear each other's eyes out at the +Capitol. And what disgraceful, broken-down saloon surroundings are +about the Capitol building! I never look at its beautiful proportions +without incendiary desires to make a clean sweep of the old shanties +about it, and in their place introduce cleanliness and beauty. Who +knows the Christianizing effect it might have on men and measures? I +should like to see it tried. + +Well, I went "on to Richmond;" and my first reflection upon getting +into it was, Lord! what a place for two big armies to fight about! A +cold, piercing, rasping wind blew through the dismal streets from the +river--a wind that would have done credit to old Boston at its +fiercest. As to hotels, the deterioration begins at Baltimore, and +"after that the deluge." As the horror-struck man said, when the +tail-board of his cart came out going up hill, and distributed his +potatoes right and left, "No swearing could do justice to it!" Amid +remains of former splendor, dilapidation and stagnation reign. + +Two visits I shall never forget. The first was to Libby prison. I +looked through its grated, cobwebbed windows, not with _my_ eyes, but +with the hopeless eyes of hundreds whose last earthly glimpse of the +sunlight was through them. The walls having been whitewashed, we +discovered no marks or writings. Only upon the wooden floor, as the +dirt was cleared away for us, we saw a place chipped out, upon which +the prisoners had played checkers. Not far off was Belle Isle, where, +in just such a biting wind from the river, as excoriated our faces +that day, brave men, without shelter, froze and starved to death! + +Yes, I passed through Washington, and I didn't want office either. Had +I, I think my patience would soon have oozed out, in the stifling +atmosphere of that room in the White House, where clamorous lobbyists +sat with distended eyes, watching the chance of their possible +entrance to the President's presence--sat there, too, for weary hours, +a spectacle to gods and men; of human beings willing to sacrifice +self-respect and time, and what little money they had left in their +purses, for the gambler's chance. Anything, everything, but the open +and above-board, and sure and independent, and old-fashioned way of +getting a living! + +So I thought as the living stream poured in, and I went out, thankful +that I desired nothing in the gift of the President of the United +States of America. How any man living can wish to be President passes +my solving, I said, as I stepped out into the clear, fresh, bracing +air, and shook my shoulders, as if I had really dropped a burden of my +own under that much-coveted roof. I can very well conceive that a pure +patriot might wish the office, because he sincerely believed himself +able to serve his country in it, and _therefore_ accepted its crown of +thorns; but lacking this motive, that a man in the meridian of life, +or descending its down-hill path, and consequently with the full +knowledge of this life's emptiness, should stretch out _even one hand_ +to grasp such a distracting position, I can never understand. The good +dame "who went to sleep with six gallons of milk on her mind" every +night, was a fool to do it. A step-mother's life under the harrow were +paradise to it; only the life of a _country_ clergyman who writes +three sermons a week, and attends weddings at sixpence a piece, and +hoes his own potatoes, and feeds the pigs, and is on hand for church +and vestry meetings during the week, and keeps the run of all the +new-born babies and their middle names, and is always, in a highly +devotional frame of mind, is a parallel case. + +I should like to have taken all those lobbyists I saw in the White +House with me the afternoon of that day to "Arlington Heights," and +bade them look there at the thousands of head-stones, gleaming white +like the billows of the sea in the sunlight, far as the eye could +reach, labelled "unknown," "unknown," telling the simple tragic story +of our national struggle more effectually than any sculptured monument +could have done. I would like to have shown them this, to see if for +one moment it had power to paralyze those eager hands outstretched for +bubbles. + +"Unknown?" Not to him, in whose book every one of those names are +written in letters of light! Not to him, in whose army of the faithful +unto death, there are no "privates"! + +My eyes were blind with tears, as I signed my name in the visitor's +book at the desk of the Freedman's Bureau there, once General Lee's +residence. All _was_ "quiet on the Potomac," as its blue waters +glittered in the sunlight before us. Yet the very air was thick with +utterances. The place on which I stood is now indeed holy ground. And +far off rose the white dome of the Capitol, crowded with men, some of +them, thank God, not forgetting these white head-stones, in their +efforts to keep inviolate what these brave fellows died for; and some, +alas! willing to sell their glorious birthright for a "mess of +pottage." + +The sharp contrast of luxury and squalor, in Washington, even +exceeding New York,--the carriages and their liveries, and the +sumptuous dames inside; the pigs which run rooting round the streets; +the tumble-down, shambling, rickety carts, with their bob-tailed, +worn-out donkeys, so expressive of lazy unthrift,--must be regarded +with the eye of a New Englander, trained to thoroughness and +"faculty," to be properly appreciated. I avow myself, cursed or +blessed, as you will, with the New England "bringing up," to which +anything that "hangs by the eyelids" is simple crucifixion, whether it +be in a cart or a statute-book, unhinged door, or a two or a +four-legged dawdle. + +"Oh, you'd come into it, and be as lazy as anybody," said my +companion, "if you lived here a while." + +Shade of the Pilgrim Fathers!--Assembly's Catechism!--baked +beans--fish-balls--"riz" brown bread! Never! + +I didn't see Vinnie Ream's statue of Lincoln. It was boxed for Italy, +Congress having made the necessary appropriation. But I saw Vinnie. +She has dimples. Senators like dimples. And in case the statue is not +meritorious, why--I would like to ask, amid the crowd of lobbying +_men_, whose paws are in the national basket, after the loaves and +fishes--should not this little woman's cunning white hand have slily +drawn some out? + + + + +_THE COMING LANDLORD._ + + +It is a marvel to me that country landlords do not better arrange +their houses, with a view to keeping their guests later in the lovely +autumnal days. The absence of gas, and the omnipresence of +bad-smelling kerosene, are great drawbacks to enjoyment in the chilly +evenings which follow these golden days. Fires which get low at the +very moment they are most needed in the sitting-rooms, and a cold +dining-hall, filled with kitchen-smoke, are not incentives to a +prolonged stay; add to this, the utter impossibility of finding one's +way of an evening through a village guiltless of lights and shrouded +in trees, and it is no marvel that city people begin to think of cosey +evenings by their own firesides where are both warmth and light, +without which Paradise itself were a desert. + +I think landlords who have an eye to business should take what may +seem to them, perhaps, very _uninfluential_ motives, under serious +consideration. I am very sure that if their own houses were made +comfortable for the autumn, enough lovers of the season would remain +to reward them pecuniarily for any such foresight. Let the fashionists +go--there are plenty left to rejoice in the crisp air, the falling +bright-hued leaves, the glory of sunshine and shadow on the +mountain-tops, and the keen sense of _life at the full_ which comes of +wandering among them. + +I think _I_ should understand engineering an hotel! I know just where +the shoe pinches, at least, which is half the battle. In the first +place, I wouldn't smoke a pipe, and then I should not be tempted to +put those halcyon moments before the comfort and convenience of my +guests, how imperative soever the occasion. Then my temper would be +angelic, and I could understand how every lady in the house could +"have her room cleared up" at one and the same moment, though the +lady-guests numbered a full hundred! Then--I should see my way clear +to let every little child on the premises dig deep holes in the gravel +walk which leads to the front door, and fill them with water, for +infantile amusement, and to further the laudable ambition of the +nurses, in reading fourth-rate pamphlet novels. Then I should better +understand my duty in riding ten miles to get a watermelon for one +lady, eleven miles to get a quart of peaches for another, and six +miles for grapes for a third; and, at the same time, be on the piazza, +to be a walking Time-Table for strangers and others who wish +information at short notice on railroad subjects. Were I a non-smoker, +I should be consolable under the necessity of remaining out of my bed +till the latest midnight reveller had gone to his, and up in the +morning before daylight, to be sure that the eggs for the departing +Grumble family were cooked neither too hard nor too soft. Also, I +would have _one pane of glass_ in each _chamber_-window in the house a +looking-glass, immovably inserted, for the benefit of those ladies who +prefer some light while combing their hair. Those who dreaded the +light on that occasion might fall back upon the time-honored +looking-glass which landlords are sure to locate in the darkest corner +of the room. Then I could see my way clear to take files of all the +city papers for the children in the house to make kites of, or for +ladies to wrap parcels or curl their hair in. Also, I should provide +compact and portable lanterns, with an accompanying servant, for the +use of those ladies who fancy evening rambles through a dark village +street. + +You will see by this how inexhaustible is this subject, and how much +remains to be done, which only a _female_ mind could foresee, or +suggest. I generously give these hints to unenlightened landlords, +free of charge, and doubt not that my next summer's travels will +attest not only their practicability, but their execution; meantime we +are going home; to coffee, _real_ coffee, praised be Allah for that! +It is bad to leave the mountains, but chiccory is not palatable +either. + +It is hard to break up a pleasant summer party, at the close of the +season, for we never can take it up again where we leave off. For some +there will be weddings, for some there will be funerals--good-by, said +so gaily, will surely be final to some of us who utter it. We shall +take up the paper some day, and a well-known name will catch the eye +in that dark list of bereavement. We shall recall its owner on _that_ +morning of the party to the "mountain," or the "lake," and the bright +eye, and the flowing hair, and the voice of music--and then the world +will close round us, and all will go on as before, till our turn +comes, too, to be forgotten. + + * * * * * + +We never quite realize how dear any particular face is to us until we +meet it in a crowd of strangers' faces. It is only then that we begin +to know that we do not love it simply for its beauty; that there is +something more in it to us than pure outline and sweet color, or +whatever its particular charm may be. We have been hurrying on perhaps +up Broadway--a stream of unknown people on the left, and another on +the right. We have thought "how beautiful" of some, "how ugly" of +others. Suddenly we think, "It is ----." We do not compare, we do not +criticize. We may vaguely recognize the fact that it is the plainest +or the prettiest face we have met; but that has nothing to do with it. +There comes our friend, blotting out the strangers as though they were +not. Even if we pass and do not speak, our hearts meet and soften; and +we are happier throughout the whole long day, for having met a +friend's face in a crowd. + + + + +_OUT ON THE END OF CAPE ANN._ + + +Good-by, City! I'm off! Now that wretched ragman may jingle the six +great cow-bells attached to his miserable hand-cart, to his heart's +content. They have driven me to the verge of distraction with their +monotonous clang--clang--clang, ever since the weather was warm enough +to sit with open windows. How many times I have resolved to call the +attention of the policeman on our "beat" to this illegal disturbance +of the peace; particularly as he chooses _our_ street to meander up +and down in, merely because I am a scribbler, and it drives me +mad--why else does he do it? For Heaven knows, I never did, or would +bestow a "rag" upon him, though I never was to see _paper_ again. +Good-by to the unfeeling wretch; I bequeath him to the unfortunates I +leave behind; who like myself are too lazy to chase up a policeman for +his summary ejection. + +Good-by, I say again. I am going out to grass. I shall shortly find a +clover-field where I intend to bury my disgusted nose until October. +So anybody who chooses may leave their odorous dirt-barrels on the +sidewalk till sundown to regale neighborly olfactories. The postman +may pull my bell-wire till it breaks; he will get no response from +me. I don't care who didn't do what; or when it wasn't done. I'm for +_Katy-dids_! + +I've done with shopping, thank Heaven! If my clothes or shoes give +out, let 'em. I've done with grocer-boys, and ice-men, and bakers, and +brewers. I'm going back to milk and nature; and I'm going to be +weighed before I go, to see what will come of it. + +Perhaps I shall meet you there; and you--and you. If I should, for +Heaven's sake don't talk "shop" to me. Speak of "caows" and +"medder-land," and welcome--but don't mention books, not even my last +new one, "Folly as it Flies," which any of you who can, are welcome to +read--_I_ can't. And don't pump me as you always do, to know "what +sort of a man is Mr. Bonner?" I tell you, once for all, that he is the +_right_ sort, and you couldn't improve on that. + +And if you see me coming in to dinner, and think it worth while to +announce the fact, in a place where there is a dearth of news, just do +it quietly, so that I shan't feel like throwing a biscuit at your +head, and don't think, because I am a literary woman, that I live on +violets and dew--I don't. I wear awful thick shoes, and go out in the +mud, and like to get stuck there; and I am horrid old--fifty-six--and +ugly besides; and I shall speak when I feel like it, and when I don't, +I shan't, because it is too much to be on my good behavior all the +year round, and this is my vacation. + +Now we have settled all that, I hope, and there's nothing left but to +toss my traps into my trunk, and lock it. I don't care much whether +there is anything inside of it or not, for I'm desperate. These few +last hot days have finished me. I'm almost afraid to trust myself to +"write a character" for my departing chamber-maid, I feel so savage. +You can take her, though; the only crime she will have to "carry to +confession" is, that when she puts my room "to rights," she invariably +turns the table which has a drawer in it, the _drawer-side next the +wall_. To a person of my feeble intellect, this is distracting, +especially in the dark; and I have so many distractions, and am so +much in the dark, that really, Father Malooney, or some other nice +priest, ought to jog her elbow on this point. They who will may abuse +Roman Catholic priests--every _sensible housekeeper_ knows their +value. Long life to the like of 'em, _I_ say. + +Good-by! If I am smashed on the railroad, weep over my _pieces_. I +think you told me you had already done that--on less provocation. + +Geography never could find a lodgement in my head; but this I will +assert, without fear of being sent to "the foot of the class," that +granite, fish, and sand, are the principal products of Cape Ann. When +you go down Broadway and see those square stone blocks in process of +being pounded down for our mutual benefit, know that I am up here, a +self-constituted superintendent of the work. Said a Cape-Ann-der the +other day, "When you see six hundred ton of granite taken out of a +quarry every week for the whole summer, you'd _not_-erally think that +'twould leave a hole there, but it don't." I mention this remark to +you as a proof of the fertility of the soil. + +Needle and thread are not to be despised any more than the deft +fingers which ply them; but you should sit on a big stone at one of +the quarries, and watch four or five of these stalwart fellows, each +muscular hand grasping the hammer, coming down rhythmically, surely, +powerfully, at the same instant, hour after hour, on the same huge +granite block, till it is shaped for its purpose. It was a grand and +suggestive sight to me. The men who did it were heroes; shaping--who +can tell what?--monuments for history--public buildings--that will +stand long after you and I are forgotten. And the other side of these +exhaustless stone caverns rolled the broad ocean, waiting to float off +on its mighty bosom these huge masses of granite to any desired port. +And close by were woods, so filled with song, and perfume, and deep, +cool shadows, and soft hum of insect life, and ancient trees, +moss-coated, where the swell of the ocean and the sound of all this +labor came with muffled breath, as if fearful to bring jarring discord +to all that harmony. This granite, thought I, may stand for our +pilgrim fathers; these woods, with their song and perfume, for their +wives and daughters, who brought to this "rock-bound coast" the +softening influence of their sweet, holy presence. + +Away from all this, over the hill, down in the village, are the +stores, and, more important to me, the post-office. I don't know what +our pilgrim fathers did, but I know that to-day their descendants +close them when they go to tea or dinner, while expectant customers +patiently _roost_ on the neighboring fences till their places reopen. +But I am happy to state that the Cape-Ann-ders make up for this +placidity when they get hold not only of granite, but of horse-flesh. +It is their stereotyped rule to race up-hill, at break-neck speed. It +is therefore needless to state how they go _down-hill_ and how +perfectly immaterial to them it is whether the horse fetches up in a +stone-quarry or in the ocean. I ought to know, for I have danced often +enough into the wet grass and dust, and over stone walls, in order to +save my neck, to know. You see the Cape-Ann-ders, being born with oars +in their hands, have not studied horse-flesh like Mr. Bonner. The +ocean is their hunting-ground. One can't excel in all the virtues; but +such fish as they coax out of it, and such chowder as they make of it, +would go far to make one forget their equestrianism. I've seen about +every kind of fish on the table except whales, of which I had my first +astonished view yesterday. That _bulk can be frisky_ was the first +lesson they taught me. As to their spouting, a political meeting is +nothing to it! When they came up out of water to breathe, you might +have heard them in New York--that is, if the rag-man, with his six +infernal jangling cow-bells, hadn't been going through your street. + +There is nothing I have sighed for in those streets since I left them, +except some digestible bread. I suppose you know _that_ commodity is +seldom furnished _out_ of the city. If you don't, you may read it in +the faces of nearly every woman, and child too, after a certain age, +in the country. The _men_, by virtue of working in the open air, worry +through with it better. _Saleratus_, _soda_, _shortening_, _grease_, +and sugar! these are as infallibly married to pills, and castor-oil, +and rhubarb, and bitters, as are the sexes to each other. All over New +England, in these lovely leafy homes, with the blessing of sweet, +pure, untainted air, with literally _no_ excuse for sickness, vile +bread vitiates and neutralizes God's best gifts. + +The cupboards and closets of these naturally healthy homes are stuffed +full of "physic;" and the country doctor, who _ought_, in these lovely +villages, to be a pauper, thrives on the disastrous consumption of +FRIED _everything_, and clammy bread. Meantime my excellent country +friends put up pounds and quarts of "_jell_" every fall. Now, let them +know that half, or a quarter of the time spent in making these +indigestible sugary concoctions, if spent in learning to make good +bread, would obliterate all traces of dyspepsia both under their belts +and in their faces. If I seem to speak unkindly, I do not feel so; +only it seems to me such a useless waste of material, and what is +infinitely worse, such a criminal waste of health, that I cannot help +entering my earnest protest against it. + +I boldly assert that dyspepsia _in the country_ is a disgrace. The +birds' song is not heard by a dyspeptic. The flowers by the road-side +throw out no incense for him. There may be fish in _his_ ocean, but +there is no beauty there. How can there be with _that_ fiend plucking +at his suspenders? + +And oh, the country washerwoman! Can anybody tell why she, having +tried her fists only on red flannel, calico, and sheets, should +announce herself as a professional laundress, and up to the mysteries +of bluing, rinsing, clear-starching, and ironing? Trustingly you place +your linen in her hands, and she departs to some spot where sun, fresh +air, clover-blossoms, and plenty of water are all in her favor. In +process of time she returns your clothes. The next morning your +husband reproachfully requests you to examine _that_ shirt-bosom, with +its streaks of bluing, its little globules of starch, and its scorched +spots, presenting a zebra front rivalled only in a menagerie. Now, +perhaps shirt-bosoms are the only part of your husband's apparel in +which he takes any interest; your educatory efforts in behalf of his +gloves, boots, &c., having failed utterly; for that reason you weep, +that this single germ of neatness, thus untimely nipped in the bud, +should cause him to backslide into that normal slovenliness from which +woman alone delivers him. + +Well--he struggles into that shirt-bosom, and, with a man's inability +to face disagreeable things, goes off without consulting his +looking-glass; and you sit on the side of the bed, with your hair in +your eyes, contemplating a pair of "clean" stockings just taken from +your drawer. + +_That_ streak of dirt, carefully preserved, was got last week down on +the rocks, from contact with seaweed; and that in the meadows, where +you went for ferns and wild flowers; and that, when you slipped one +leg down a deep and treacherous dirt-hole, trying to get a big +blackberry. You can identify every one. You go to your closet for a +gingham dress. When you put it in the wash it was gray, now it is a +sickly green. You get a "clean" collar and cuffs--they are both +saffron color. You are rather particular about the mixing of tints, +and so have to give up the idea of a bow at your neck that will "go" +with this rainbow apparel, and fall back, instead, on a safe jet pin, +as emblematic also of your feelings. + +I don't mention in this connection a little habit the country +washerwoman has of returning Mrs. Smith's husband's flannel drawers, +instead of the conjugal pair which generally delight my eyes, well +mended and with buttons on the waistband, (hem!) while _Smith's_ are +in a state of non-repair, disgusting even to "a literary woman." I +don't speak of my cambric under-waist, irretrievably torn down the +back, or Smith's night-gown, about half the length of mine, which last +is probably at that moment quietly reposing beside _Mrs._ Smith; but I +pause to ask you to survey--yes, _survey_, for that is the proper +word--this great table-cloth of a pocket-handkerchief of Smith's +instead of my own dear little hem-stitched one, with a tiny fern-leaf +in the corner. As to Smith's socks, they make it their home in my +room, without any permit from the priest. I'm getting sick of Smith. + +Again, my sisters, can you tell me why the country washerwoman +invariably appears with her bundle of "clean" clothes just as you are +starting for a ride, or going down to breakfast? Can one enjoy lovely +scenery, or relish one's coffee and eggs, while this intermarriage of +strange stockings and nightgowns is going on in one's room, and the +fruitless hunt for ten cents to make "even change" is looming up in +the horizon? I am constrained to say that in what light soever I view +the country washerwoman, she is ----. Yes, ma'am! + +P.S.--A Cape Ann editor gave me a box on the ear the other day for +some remark I made on country washing. Now be it known that I am so +accustomed to a boxed ear in a good cause, that I have learned to +stiffen up to it, and I can endure it now without even winking. + +But to business. This Cape Ann editor inquires, "why, if I do not like +the Cape Ann washing, I do not get out the wash-tub, and wash my +clothes myself." I smile serenely, while I answer, that while Mr. +Bonner pays me enough for my articles to buy out this editor's +printing-office, I prefer to do precisely what _he_ would do, were he +in my place--turn my back on the wash-tub and face the inkstand. Is he +answered? I am sorry also to inform him that all womanhood seems to be +"marching on" to the same or similar results, and that by and by men +will have to choose their words in addressing "women folks;" not, I +hope, for fear of being "knocked down," but because woman, be she +married or single, being able to earn her own living independent of +marriage,--that often hardest and most non-paying and most thankless +road to it,--she will no longer have to face the alternative of +serfdom or starvation, but will marry, when she does marry, for love +and companionship, and for co-operation in all high and noble aims and +purposes, _not_ for bread and meat and clothes; and the men who sneer +at this picture are always sure to be men with souls narrow as a +railroad track, who never look or desire to look beyond the curve and +out into the wide world of progress. + +_Then_, if a woman's husband dies, she will not stay to hear his or +her relatives disputing over his dead body which shall contribute +_least_ to her support. No: she will rub the tears out of her eyes, +and taking her children by the hand, pocket the well-earned wages of a +book-keeper; or she will be an architect; or she will write books, or +open a store; or she may even rise to the dignity of editor of a "Cape +Ann" paper--who knows?--or through any one of the open doors through +which the light of woman's millennium is shining, she will pass +serenely to collect her dividends. No more hysterics, sirs! no more +fainting! no more trudging miles to match a ribbon! no more eating her +heart out, trying to bear rough usage! She wont _have_ rough usage! +She will be in a position to receive good treatment, from _motives of +policy_, from those natures which are incapable of better and higher. +She will, in short, stand on her own blessed independent feet, so far +as "getting a living" is concerned, as I do to-day, and able to make +mouths even at Cape Ann, which--blessed be its rocks and +"cunner"!--has not yet found the philosopher's stone, or made, even +out of its vile bread, a "dyspeptic" of me, as its editor asserts. + +Me "a dyspeptic"?--me! who could eat a block of its granite for +dinner, and ask for another for dessert?--me! who, at fifty-eight, can +tramp ten miles, every day, over its horrid rocky roads, and come back +red as a peony and fresh as a lark!--me a dyspeptic? I am sorry to +inform "Cape Ann" that I am as "live" as one of its whales, and none +of its harpoons will ever finish me. And that my mission, wheresoever +I sojourn in summer, is to preach down bad country washing, and bad +bread, and country dyspepsia; and Cape Ann might as well, first as +last, burn down its churches, for sal-eratus and sal-vation will never +wed; for the victims of the former will walk this bright earth, so +full of sparkle and sunshine and fragrance and bloom, with bowed +heads, contracted chests, and pallid faces, nursing the dyspeptic's +cherished vision of an "_angry God_"! That's where bad bread lands +them! + +As to "washing," bless you! there was a time when I did all my own +washing, and did it well too. That's the way I came to know how to +speak with authority on the starch and flat-iron question; and +besides, as I said before, if Mr. Bonner will insist on paying my +washing bills, whose business is it, save his and mine? He is quite +welcome. + + * * * * * + +There are people who get up in the morning for the express purpose of +making somebody uncomfortable before the day is out. They generally +pitch upon some sunny-faced, happy, singing human lark carolling high +above the ditches and marshes of life, soaring in the blue ether of +his happiness, nearer God and the angels than he himself knows +anything about, and, taking practised aim at some vulnerable point, +bring him plump down, with maimed wing, to flutter in the dust. Now +what is good enough for such a miscreant? The more you flutter the +better he likes it; every writhe of your agonized spirit is delicious +music to this vulture; there is one other person in the world as +uncomfortable as himself. What right had _you_ to be happy when _his_ +liver was out of order? It was clearly a piece of impertinent +presumption, and so there you lie moaning and turning, the sunshine +all gone, the chill mist of despondence gathering thick about you, and +your persecutor standing by, turning you over now and then with his +foot, to see if there is life enough left for a fresh attack. + + + + +_COUNTRY DIET._ + + +Foreign missions and missionaries. These have their place and their +work. What _I_ want to see is a Home Mission and Home Missionaries, +having for an object the extermination of the unhealthy and _immoral_ +bread of New England. When matters have got to that pass that a +perfectly sound, healthy person cannot decline eating this poison +without being supposed to have an imperfect digestion, the climax of +stupidity and ignorance is reached by its makers and defenders. "_The +heathen?_" Great Cesar! who _are_ heathen, if the makers of this bread +are not? I know of a factory where pie, whose principal ingredient is +"lard," is the staple article of food placed before the operatives. +And so imperfectly is it baked, that the lard is not really melted in +the process. This for _breakfast_! with muddy coffee and sour bread! +This for supper, with sour bread. This "pie" taken to the factory for +lunch or dinner also. Imagine a hundred or so of young women feeding +on such poison as that. Future wives, possibly, of hard-working +mechanics, expected to do the family washing, and bear and rear +children, on the results of such an atrocious diet. It were enough to +expect them even to bear themselves, robbed of the vitality and +spring of their youth by these fiendish providers. The man who sets +fire to a house at night, and smothers all the inmates, is a saviour +in comparison. _They_ die at once. _These_ linger weary years, +fighting disease, fighting gloomy thoughts, as truly needing +compassion and sympathy as any victim of delirium-tremens. Now take a +girl, fresh from the old country, her cheeks red with the rich, pure +blood manufactured from sweet-milk, potatoes, and oatmeal, and place +her in one of these factories on this fare. It needs no seer to tell +how long, even with such a stock of health as she brings, that she can +stand this exterminating process; how long before those sound white +teeth will begin to ache and blacken, and the bright clear eyes dim, +and the cheek wear yellow instead of red roses, and the flesh become +flabby, and the whole creature become demoralized. Now, I ask, Is +nobody guilty for all this waste and wreck? Is it any more trouble to +make sweet, wholesome bread, than to manufacture and multiply bad +pies? As a matter of policy, wouldn't these operatives work better on +a piece of beefsteak and a slice of sweet bread, than on pie and +pickles? As a matter of _morality_, ought not such caterers to be held +to strict account? Can _virtue_ even flourish where the whole head is +sick, and the whole heart faint; when morbidness takes the place of +hope, and faith is merged in despair? What wonder that of dyspepsia +should come the suicide's rope? + +And as to the usual country boarding-house or hotel fare, for which +the keepers of these places coolly pocket their fees, I propose some +deduction be made by them for the doctor's bills consequent the +ensuing winter; some reduction for the sour milk that the children +have drunk, because the cans in which it was kept were not properly +washed and aired, or the ice-house kept in good order; some reduction +for the state of the stomach caused by taking refuge from bad bread in +poor crackers; some reduction for generating such a disgust of meat, +from the sight of it in its various stages of raw, burnt, and +grease-soaked, that weeks or months even of wholesome food can +scarcely tempt one trial of the article; some reduction for aching +limbs produced by bunchy beds an entire "season;" some reduction for +boarders performing the part of "waiters," through the season, in the +total absence of bell-wires in the establishment; some reduction for +inhaling the noxious gases of refuse kitchen matter, carelessly thrown +around the house, or the nuisance of beating about the country in +search of a washerwoman. Before the bill is finally settled, and the +trunks packed, I would like to see these questions considered by the +country landlord. + +But you say, "It is all ignorance; _they don't know any better_." As +if that was not just where the agony came in! As if an "_ignorant_" +person had any right to take such a position, or any right to expect +anything like the same pay as a competent, intelligent one receives. + +Now I have made up my mind to "speak in meetin'". I don't care how +many country editors jump on the fence and say, "Silence!" I wont _be_ +silent. I intend to fight a crusade against this crying sin of New +England, so long as I can make a pen wag; and anybody whose rustic +feathers get ruffled in the process may take his own time to oil them +down. I persist that I have never yet "boarded" anywhere in the +country that I found wholesome bread there, or meat cooked other than +_fried_, unless it has been through line upon line and precept upon +precept of my own; and that in these awful experiences of mine, Cape +Ann bears off the palm. There! I am going to-morrow to the city to get +some decent bread--the only place where it is to be found--and get +some fish; for if you want fish, never go where they swim. Put that in +your note-book too. + +And now, in conclusion, I will add, that in a place where, through +sour bread and sour theology, the element of cheerfulness is +especially needed to keep the young folks from turning into premature +vinegar cruets, it is a very great pity that at a picnic their only +outlet for conviviality--dancing, by the youngsters--should be +considered a sin. "It would break up the whole thing--it would never +do!" was the reply to a philanthropic suggestion of the kind. Heavens! +I wonder they don't fetter the legs of their lambs and calves; and +insist upon all their birds singing, "Hark! from the tombs a dreadful +sound!" Do you know what young people so brought up will do?--that is, +if they don't commit suicide first. They'll just go to the city, and +break every one of the ten commandments smack through, the first day +they get there. Alas! when will "good people" learn that the devil is +never better pleased than when they try to make "religion" a gloomy +thing. + + * * * * * + +Said a little child to her mother, "Shall you live as long as I +do?"--"Perhaps not--but I cannot tell," was the reply; "I have lived a +long while, you know."--"Well," said the little one, skipping about +the room and singing, "I guess there'll be somebody to take care of +me." Oh, ye who are "careful and troubled,"--groping like the mole in +the earth, blind to the brightness overhead, look up! like this little +trusting child, look up! When you have made provision for to-day, as +intelligently as you know how, do not be anxiously forecasting the +morrow. + + + + +_FROM MY SEAT ON THE ROCKS._ + + +"Dog-fish, cat-fish, cod-fish, cunner." These are the animals that my +friends paddle round for long hours--happy whether they are rewarded +with the sight of five or fifty. Meantime I sit on the rocks, watching +the pretty picture they make as they go sailing into the sunset, and +am content. _My_ feet are _dry_; so are my skirts. We have only one +thing in common: when they shout, "I have a bite!" I respond, +Amen!--with this difference, that mine is from a mosquito instead of a +fish. The ocean is nice to look at: freaky--therefore I think it must +be a _she_; sometimes dark and lowering, sometimes brightly sparkling; +now smooth as deceit, anon lashing itself like a caged creature to get +out of bounds. Don't you believe I enjoy it more than those damp +people that are always vexing it with rod and line? As I said, they +look well as a part of the picture. Those deluded women, now, with +broad hats tied down with bright bits of ribbon--and didn't they +calculate the picturesqueness of the same when they bought yards of it +a thousand miles away? Certainly. And why do they ruin their best +boots treading on rocks covered with treacherous seaweed? And why is +that scarlet shawl disposed just where it will be effective? Answer me +that. Can it be that they are fishers of men instead of cod? Ah! +"worms" are not the only "bait" in that boat. I wonder do men know how +much more attractive they look in slouched hats and easy jackets? Kid +gloves, shiny hat, and tight boots are nothing to it. A man looks +manly then; and that, I take it, is the first requisite in a man. See +how they dress for _their_ work, my sisters. Sleeves up to the elbow, +not for the purpose of showing a round white arm either; trousers +turned up at the heel; while you--! Wont the laundress rub the skin +off her knuckles when she tries to get the fish-bait off _your_ +ruffled skirt, my dear? You can't be made to believe that those +gentlemen would like you just as well in a dress suitable for "worms." +But, all things being equal, I really think they would; or, if they +didn't, their opinion would be a matter of small consequence. + +I wish I could understand the difference between a brig, a sloop, a +dory, a schooner, and a yacht. I have had them explained so many times +at the seaside, but it has never yet lodged in my head a minute. I +think the reason is, that before my expounders get half through +telling, my eyes are so enchained by the gliding beauty of a boat's +motion, that I have no ears for technicalities. That's it--and I'm not +such a fool after all! I wish my belt were a little more to be +depended on, for I'd like to drift over to the Isle of Shoals, or to +Newburyport, or some of those places at which the sea-fog plays hide +and seek so temptingly from these rocks. Of course I "can go by land;" +but did _you_ never get possessed to do or to have what the Fates +denied? Well, I'm human too. You may catch those wriggling fish if you +fancy--I don't wonder they make such horrid mouths at you before they +die--if only I could drift dreamily away into that golden sunset? +"Gates of amethyst and pearl!" I'm glad my Bible has "Revelations" in +it. I don't know any poet who comes better to my assistance than +Revelations. Keren Happuch, and Obed, and Jael--and "them" I am apt to +skip; also who "begat Shem;" but the grand old "Psalms" and +Revelations, I tell you, Tennyson, or any other "Son," may in vain +crack their harp-strings trying to rival. Then imagine that watery +dilution of a "Tupper" after reading a chapter in "Proverbs"! Put this +in your note-book--that about all the good things you clap your hands +at were stolen from the Bible. Brush the dust from off yours now, and +see if it is not so; and have the grace to own up, when you do see it. + +My heart is torn trying to decide whether my allegiance finally be +given to the mountains or the ocean. I can see with my mind's eye +lovely Brattleboro' and its enchanting mountains, the mist rolling +slowly off their sides at sunrise, crowning their tops with many-hued +wreaths; or I can see one gorgeous cloud at sunset resting lightly on +their summit, and gradually fading away before the growing lustre of +the bright evening star. All these pictures are framed in my memory, +and never a tint has faded out through the busy years. But this later +love of mine--the ocean--whom I perforce must admire at a respectful +distance, sinuous, cold, treacherous, glittering, repelling, yet +fascinating me as does the serpent the bird, I know not how to resist. +Only last night this ocean drew a mist-veil softly over its face, and +by help of a huge black cloud above it, jaggedly notched in and out at +the upper edge, cunningly wooed me, in this mountain shape, to believe +that whatsoever form I liked, that form _it_ could assume to win me. +Surely such devotion should have its reward. + + + + +_WISHINGS AND LONGINGS._ + + +Did you never _wish_ you had it? Of course you have, a thousand times. +You never would be miserable any more if it could only be so. You are +sure of that. It may be a fine house, a fine store, a fine carriage. +No matter what; the desire for it has taken the spice and flavor out +of every blessing you possess. I used to play with a little girl once, +who told me in confidence, and in pantalettes, "that she should never +be happy till she had a real _true_ gold watch; and that she meant to +be married, as soon as ever she could, to a rich man who would give +her one." For myself, I had much rather at that time have had a bunch +of flowers, and I didn't suppose she really meant what she said, as +she stood there tying on her doll's bonnet. But she was in dead +earnest, though I _didn't_ know it. Sure enough, she got her rich +husband, and her gold watch; and was sick enough of both, as I have +since found out, before the honeymoon was well over. + +One day I heard a boy say to his younger brother, who was crying +lustily, "Now, Tom, I know you don't want anything, but what do you +_think_ you want?" That boy was a philosopher, and went to the root of +the matter. It is not what we really want, but what we _think_ we +want, that frets most of us. Perhaps you tell me that you suffer just +as much as if your longing were a reasonable or a sensible one. That's +true too; but if you only could snatch _to-day's_ legitimate +happiness, instead of wondering if you could not get a great deal +more, for that to-morrow which may never come to you, wouldn't it be +wiser? The other day I went off into the woods, with a dear little +girl, who is much more of a poetess than a philosopher. Not a patch of +soft green moss, not the tiniest bud of a wild flower, or flitting +butterfly, or bird, or tree-shadow on the smooth clear lake, escaped +her bright, glad eyes. The _first_ flower she found enraptured her, +and she climbed quite a steep rock with her mites of feet for the +second, and so on till her tiny hands were full. Just then she found +quite a bunch of bright pink blossoms; and I was so glad for her; when +suddenly she burst into such a grieved, piteous cry, "Oh dear! oh +dear! what _shall_ I do? _I can't hold them all._" + +If we'd only think of that! That "we can't hold them all." That in +order to grasp that which is the moment's wish, we must let something +else drop that we prize. Something that we can never retrace our +steps, in life's devious paths, to reclaim. It may be health, or +character, or life itself, for that which is so perishable, so +unsatisfying, so harmful, that we can never cease wondering how the +"glamour" of it could have so dazzled our mental and moral vision. The +little child I speak of, who clambered up the rock to secure that +_one_ flower, was happier in its possession than with the myriads +that she afterwards found lying at her very feet. She had _earned_ +that one! She had encountered a fierce briar-bush; she had got her +hands scratched in the conflict; she had tickled her little nose with +a defiant twig; she had tangled her curls; she had scraped her little +fat knee till it was red--and _got it_! All herself, too! I couldn't +elaborate a better moral, if I preached an hour. We don't value +happiness in heaps. It is the one little sweet blossom, that comes +unexpectedly in our way, that we love best after all. Isn't it so? + + * * * * * + +How cheap is advice! Advice is like a doctor's pills; how easily he +_gives_ them! how reluctantly he takes them when _his_ turn comes! +Meantime, it is well to keep one's eyes and ears open; but, after +that, to decide for one's self. He who cannot do this is a human +windmill, always beating the air--a weathercock, veering each minute +to a new point. His life is a succession of experiments, all of which +are predestined to be failures. He has no faith in himself, and people +accept him at his own valuation. + + + + +_A TRANSITION STATE._ + + +We seem to be in a transition state all round. Politics, religion, +woman's rights, men's wrongs, all seething in the caldron together; +and everybody's finger is being thrust into the boiling mess, and +pulled scalded out of it--some howling with the experiment, others +closing their pioneer teeth upon the pain, and bearing it for the good +of the cause. + +This seems to me to be the situation. For one, I am quite willing to +do humble duty by bringing fagots and kindling to keep the fire going, +no matter who "hollers." Anything is better than letting it go out; at +least so far as the woman question is one of the ingredients in the +caldron. The men having the top round of the ladder at present, may +sit there till we climb up and oust them, which wont be long; or +rather, bless their jackets, till we climb up and oblige them to make +room for us to sit down beside them, which, after all, is what we +really want. I, for one, make no secret of liking the brethren, but I +like them near--intellectually and socially. Not looking down at us +from a dizzy height, careless how we stumble by the road-side, or cut +our weary feet, or bruise our hearts, and stuffing their fingers in +their ears, and then making believe they don't hear our cries; but +helping us along generously after them, like good fellows, with a word +of cheer, and a full hearty belief in our good intentions and desire +to do _all_ our duty. Isn't that reasonable? To be sure it is; and the +only reason they don't always say so is, because, with their natural +impatience, they never can sit still long enough to hear us through, +when we talk common-sense. I believe the last question "up" was +woman's right to wait upon herself to concerts, lectures, theatres, +and the like, when she had no male escort. Now that is a subject that +has been pretty well ploughed over in my mind for years. I have known +so many bright, intelligent women obliged to stay at home when they +needed these relaxations from care and toil and bother, because custom +did not permit their attendance, unless they could lasso a coat and +hat to bear them company. It has seemed to me cruel in the extreme, +that this law should not be changed. As I understand it, in Paris a +respectable woman can do this, without discomfort or molestation, with +a _female_ attendant; and though it may be the deathblow to my +reputation to own that I never saw Paris, it is true, and I cannot +therefore judge how much more safe a woman would be in waiting upon +herself home in Paris, at the hour when public amusements are +generally over, than in New York. This, I presume, is the hitch in the +question. If so, women must wait till the majority of men are more +chivalric and spiritual, and that wont be to-day, nor to-morrow. Now, +a woman, by taking a big basket in her hand, and leaving her hoop at +home, and pinning an old shawl over her head, and tying a calico apron +round her waist, may walk unmolested. I know, because I have tried it +when I felt like having a "prowl" all alone, and a good "think," +without any puppy saying, at every step, "A pleasant evening, Miss." +But this costume isn't exactly festive for the concert or lecture +room. However, with other ingredients, this topic may be tossed into +the caldron above mentioned, and perhaps, after much boiling, may +deposit some substantial sediment of benefit to women. I see so many +men nowadays who ought to be women, that I am positively ashamed of +usurping the place of one. I am quite willing to abdicate, whenever +any one can be found to take a woman's place; but the joke begins +here, that the silliest man who ever lived has always known enough, +when he says his prayers, to thank God that he wasn't born a woman. So +you see how hopeless the case is. + + + + +_WHAT MARY THOUGHT OF JOHN._ + + +There's John, reading his newspapers. You might drive nails into his +temples, and he wouldn't know it. Look at him! Legs up. Head thrown +back. The inevitable and omnipresent pipe in his mouth; the very +picture of absorbed enjoyment. Three papers he has there. He will read +every one, criss-cross, cornerwise, upside down, and inside out, till +he has gleaned every particle of news. One good hour he has been at +it. Now if I say to him, "John, what is the news this morning?" that +man will reply, "Oh, none--nothing in particular; there they are; take +'em, if you would like." + +Now nobody in his senses believes that John has been employed one good +hour reading "nothing." He is only too lazy to tell what he has read; +that's the amount of it. Now I had much rather read those papers than +mend this coat of his. It is really too bad in John: he might have +given me something to think about, while I was doing it. An idea! +Suppose I try this lazy system on _him_! Now if there's anything men +like, when their wives come home with a budget of news, it is to have +them sit down and entertain them with it. Not about troubles of +servants and broken crockery, of course; but spicy little bits of +gossip; about their friend Jones' wife, and what the witty Mrs. ---- +said on such an occasion, and how the pretty and saucy Miss said if +_she_ were Smith's wife she would ----. How they like to hear all about +it! and how they like to question them as to how women think and feel +on such and such subjects, which information they can only obtain by +their wives turning state's-evidence! Of course they do; and when a +bright little woman has chattered to them an hour or more, and told +them more funny and amusing things than you could count, and they have +laughed and enjoyed it, what return do they make? Why they just +stretch their length on the sofa and go to sleep. Now I for one have +borne this state of things long enough! It is all owing to that vile +lethargic tobacco. Before long women will be expected to cut up their +food and feed them; they will be too lazy even to eat. Now I'll tell +you what I mean to do. I am going to stop giving out, and cut off +supplies, till I get something back. I'll just try the monosyllabic +system on John. He will say to-night, "Well, Mary, where have you been +to-day? and what have you seen?" And I'll answer, bending over my +work, "Oh, I went round a little, and I didn't see anything in +particular." Then John will take a scrutinizing look at me, and ask if +I have the headache; and I shall answer sweetly, "No, dear." Then John +will try again: "Well, Mary, did you go shopping?"--"I? no--oh, no, +dear. I didn't go shopping today." Another look at me, and another +period of reflection. "Have you heard any bad news, Mary?"--"No, +John, I hope not."--"Well--what the mischief makes you so silent? You +generally have so much to tell me, and you sometimes get off a very +bright thing, if you did but know it. _Something_ is the matter with +you; what is it?" and John will come round and peep into my face. "Oh! +pshaw--_I_ know; you are paying me off for not talking," he will say, +half-vexed, half-repentant. + +Then I shall get up on a chair, in the middle of the room, and preach +after this course: "Yes, John, that's just it. You haven't an idea how +stupid you've grown. I hate that lethargic tobacco! It is going to +revolutionize society; women are squirrel-like creatures and can't +stand it. No wonder all these spicy trials fill the papers. You +needn't laugh. It takes _two_ to make home bright. Don't you suppose +that a woman is as much perplexed and worried and sick of the +practical, at the end of the day, as a man can be? Do you suppose she +always feels like giving out the last remnant of her vitality to amuse +a statue? she wants a response; and she would have it, too, if a man's +soul and body were not so tobacco-steeped, that every sense and +feeling is merged in the one drowsy desire to let the world and +everything in it, including its wives, go to the dogs. _And they are +going, John!_ Now, lastly and finally, I tell you and all other Johns +who may read this, that it is the worst possible policy on your part, +as you would see if you ever read the papers with an eye to your own +firesides, which you don't. You can wonder how Smith's wife, or how +Jones' wife, could ever have done thus and so; but it never enters +your slow heads to ask, if the homes of these wives were silent and +cheerless, and if their husbands took all their attempts to enliven +them as matters of course, and gave no echo back; and that being the +case, whether the bright sunbeams outside, might not glitter too +temptingly for their weariness." And here I shall jump down from the +chair, and, looking at John, shall see--that he is _fast asleep_! + +Sometimes I sit and laugh, all by myself, over the newspapers and +magazines in which the "Woman Question" is aired according to the +differing views of editors and writers. For instance, 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 teacups, 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 court-martialling 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. + + + + +_TRAVEL-SPOILED AMERICANS._ + + +This is one of my character tests,--to pronounce none of my +fellow-creatures _wise_ until they have gone through the crucible of +"going abroad." So many who started with a fair average of +common-sense have returned from their European tours minus this +article, that I need not apologize for my views on this subject. No +one can be more reverent in their admiration of all that the slow, +busy ages have heaped together in the Old World of the beautiful, and +scientific, and curious, and rare. But having looked at and enjoyed +them,--having breathed the enervating air of luxury the appointed +time,--I think I should gasp again for a strong, crisp breath of that +_New_ World, which is my grand birthright. You may scare up hideous +abuses of to-day, and point to convulsions of all sorts that are +seemingly upheaving us, root and branch. I care not. The greatest of +all crimes, in my eyes, is stagnation. We are _moving_, thank God! +There may be rough roads, and ruts, and stones, and rocks in the way, +and some of us may be crushed, and maimed, and jolted off, and +scarcely know our latitude and longitude for the fogs, and false +guides, and dark clouds, and fierce storms of debate. But still we +_move_! We are thinking of something beside a new way of fricasseeing +frogs, or "rectifying frontiers." We are neither children or slaves. +More! we have a _future_ before us--grander to those who will see it +than has any nation on the face of the earth. For one, I glory in it +all. And when I see an American, male or female, returning to their +native land, sighing for the nice little dishes one gets in Paris, +dilating on its superior costuming, prating forever of "The +Tuileries," and such like, and finding America "so in the rough," I +want to place my arms a-kimbo, my nose within an inch of his, and my +eyes focussed--anywhere--so that it will make him feel uncomfortable, +and address him thus: My beloved Idiot--Did you, while abroad, ever +compare the condition of the "common people," if I may be allowed to +allude in your presence to so vulgar and disgusting a theme--did you +ever compare the condition of the common people there with those of +the same class in your own country? Did you see, in Italy, or France, +or England, any such homes for the working-classes as are to be seen, +for instance, in New England? Those thrifty kitchens, where neatness +proclaims itself from the symmetrical wood-pile in the "shed" to the +last shining pewter-plate and spoon on the well-polished dresser? +Where even the old dog wipes his paws on the mat before stepping on +the snowy floor; where every child can read and write, and "do chores" +instead of begging its bread one half the day and lying in the sun the +rest. Where the women churn, and bake, and brew, and sew, and have +babies, and read books, aye, and _write_ them too. My beloved Idiot, +did you ever think of all _this_? Did you ever think, also, of the +difference it would make in your views of "life _abroad_," if instead +of going there with a pocket full of money to _spend_, you went there +to _earn_ it? + +Aha! wouldn't your chances be splendid in _that_ case? + +But, Heaven bless us! what is the use of showing a mole the sun? I +wish it here distinctly understood that I pause at this period of my +discourse, that every discontented American, so unworthy of his +glorious birthright, may get his passport, pack his trunk, and go back +to his peppered frogs, and toasted horse-steak, and diseased geese +livers, and liveried flunkeys, and be ingloriously content, while he +makes room here for his betters. + + + + +_LIFE'S ILLUSIONS._ + + +Did you ever stop short in the midst of the grind, and toil, and whirl +of life, at the thought. After all, what will this never ceasing fret +of body and soul amount to? Did you ever then begin to reckon upon +your fingers the unfulfilled promises of life within your knowledge, +as if you had but just heard of them? First, there is your +acquaintance, Mr. ----, who, since he came to years of maturity, has +had but this one object: to secure a pecuniary independence for +himself and his children. At fifty he has achieved it; and now he has +nothing to do but to enjoy himself. But _how_? That is the question +which racks his brain day and night. He has his library, to be sure; +that was part of the furnishing of his house; but, alas! he has no +taste for reading. He has fine pictures upon his walls; but he has no +eye for their beauty. He has daughters; but they are devoured with the +love of finery and fashion. He has sons; but they are emulating each +other in spending money, criminally and foolishly; and now he stands +aghast at the goal, to reach which he has sacrificed the better part +of himself and them; his sun is setting, and he has only the ashes of +the Dead Sea Apple of Victory between his fingers. + +Then there is Mrs. ----, who has staked all on her beautiful young +daughter. She was educated at home, for fear of the contamination of +associates; she was never from under the watchful eye of her parents, +lest her manners should receive a flaw. She was drilled to speak, +step, look, smile, eat, and drink, according to prescribed rules. She +must perfect herself in music, in the languages, in drawing. Her eyes, +hands, teeth, nails, must undergo a careful supervision each day, lest +any attraction should be prematurely shorn of its glory. At last she +dawns into beautiful womanhood. The evening is fixed for her +triumphant entrance into society. Dress-makers, hair-dressers, +jewellers, and florists are called into requisition. The important +toilette is finished; when suddenly the house is thrown into +consternation by her violent indisposition; and before morning the +young girl sleeps in her shroud. + +The anguished woman groans out, "Ye have taken away my idol, and what +have I left?" and she feels that life for her has nothing left but a +dreary waiting for its close. + +Then there are the great army of parents, whose heart-strings are +wrung with pity at the little eyes which may never see, the little +ears which may never hear, the little feet which may never skip or +run, and the mute tongues which may never syllable the sweet words, +"Father!" "Mother!" Then there are sons whose god is the wine-cup; +and living daughters whose own mothers had rather look upon their dead +faces. These heart-wrenchings and disappointments, are they not +legion? And yet, like children, whose toys, one after another, are +broken, or taken from them, we still reach out our hands for the +gilded bubble of hope, all the same as if it had never burst between +our fingers. When our dearly-loved children are taken from us, our +torn heart-strings hasten to twine about _their_ children; forgetting +the _little_ feet that have also trod "the dark valley." Surely, by +this love-yearning, which may never die in us, shall we find in +another world than this, its uninterrupted and perfect fruition. + + + + +_JACK SIMPKINS._ + + +It is a miserable thing to be born a philanthropist. Jack Simpkins can +tell you that. He thinks that one ought not to be merry, while the +world is so much out of joint. When his sister Betty tells him that +cheerfulness conduces to longevity, and that it is useless to make +one's self miserable about inevitables, Jack lifts his eyebrows and +accuses her of triviality and want of feeling. Not long since this +pair went into a place which shall be nameless, for some refreshment, +after an evening's public entertainment. While they were waiting to be +served, Jack's eye fell on the clerk at the desk, who, pen behind his +ear, was taking money and making change. "Betty," said Jack, "look at +that poor devil; week in and week out, there he stands, seeing other +people eat and counting money. Now, I'll be sworn he has never a +holiday, and not even Sunday. Do you suppose he has, Betty?"--"I am +sure I don't know," Betty replied, looking over a tempting bill of +fare, with the accompaniment of an extended forefinger; "he is a +_man_, isn't he? and that implies every kind of liberty. Were he a +woman, and restricted to the choice of one or two occupations, and +not half paid at that, I might possibly make myself unhappy about it; +as it is, let us have some oysters, and be jolly."--"But," persisted +Jack, "just think of his confined position, and--"--"But I don't +_want_ to think about it," said Betty; "this is a free country; and if +he don't like his place, can't he leave it? Come, Jack, eat your +oysters." To do Jack justice, he _did_ eat with a will; for such a +wide-spread benevolence as his is never supported on an empty stomach. + +The oysters eaten, Betty congratulated herself that Jack felt more +cheerful. Not a bit of it. While she stood, like a hen on one leg, +waiting for him to "settle" at the clerk's desk, he remarked to the +latter, in a melancholy, commiserating tone, "Your situation here must +be a very tiresome and confining one; don't you find it so?"--"Not at +all," replied the clerk, blandly; "quite the contrary."--"Do you ever +have a holiday; do you have Sundays?" asked Jack.--"Always when I +wish," replied the clerk; "but I don't care to be away much. I see the +best people in the city here, and I have a great deal of good +conversation." Betty smiled inwardly. It was not in human +nature--certainly not in female human nature--to refrain from crowing +a little over what she considered Jack's Quixotic philanthropy; and +when she laughed at his waste of pity, in this case, that infatuated +man replied, "Is it possible you can make merry over it, Betty? Why, +to _my_ mind, his not '_caring_ for holidays' was the most melancholy +feature of the whole thing; as showing how perfectly benumbed he must +be, by such heartless exaction on the part of his employer."--"But you +don't know anything about his employer," said Betty; "and it is +evident that he _could_ go out, any day he wished." Jack shrugged his +shoulders, and replied, "Ah, yes--I know what that '_could_' means, +when a man's nature is yielding; ah--yes," and he gave another deep +sigh. "Well," said Betty, getting a little irritated, "_I_ don't know +what _you_ may think, but if my fellow-creatures are perfectly +satisfied with their lot in life, I for one am not going to try to +make them miserable about it." Whereupon Jack preached her a long +lecture on the sin of selfishness, which quite stopped the process of +oyster digestion, and sent her to bed to enjoy the horrors of a +well-earned nightmare. + +Once, when Betty and Jack were travelling, they stopped at a fine +hotel. Everything was as perfect as skill and system could make it. +Jack paid the bill, and Betty launched out in praise of the +establishment. "Yes," said Jack, his face lengthening; "but I am +afraid that landlord feeds his guests much better than he can afford. +I don't think he charged as much as he ought in that bill of ours. I +really feel as if he had cheated himself." Now, Betty's experience in +this regard was entirely antagonistic to Jack's, so she replied, with +an ironical and not very amiable expression, "that if the gift of a +ten-dollar bill to the landlord would lighten her brother's +conscience, she would be willing to engage that the former would by +no means take offence at it." + +Betty says that selfishness is not _her_ besetting sin any more than +it is Jack's; and, if you doubt it, you can ask him to transfer his +glass of ale to you when he cannot get another, or you can read his +daily paper before he does in the morning, and see what will come of +it. She thinks it is not so much philanthropy in Jack, as that the +off-side of a question has such an unconquerable attraction for him; +in other words, that argument is his very breath; and, therefore, +without vexing her spirit any more because he never will agree with +her, she has instead made up her mind, that what side soever of a +question a person takes when conversing with Jack, it is morally +certain that no power in this world or the other will ever prevent +_him_ from going to the opposite. + + + + +"_BIDING THE LORD'S TIME._" + + +If there is one piece of advice more bandied about by irresolution, +imbecility, and moral cowardice than this, I should be glad to know +it. As _I_ take it, the Lord's time is the first chance you get. At +any rate, those who act on this principle have, as a general thing, +done the Lord more service than they who have folded their hands and +sat down upon the stool of conservatism to "bide His time," as they +call it. All the great reformers who have blessed mankind have had +pioneers, who looked upon "the Lord" as a helper, not a hindrance. The +stumbling-blocks which for centuries had impeded progress they +vigorously set about clearing away, without stopping to cross +themselves for doing that which indolent or timid bystanders excused +themselves from, as an irreverence. + +This stealing of heaven's livery to serve the devil in, is of all +thefts the most disgusting. This "fearing to offend a weaker brother" +is a plea which self-interest should know by this time is getting to +be transparent. If the weaker brother can't stand on his own +vacillating legs, the rest of the world can't afford to spend their +whole existence in propping him. Let him lie down till he can; or +till the Juggernaut wheels of progress roll sufficiently near to +_force_ him to spring to his feet. I don't believe in weak brothers. +They had better get out of the ranks and join the sisters. It may be +the choice between the frying-pan and the fire; for, after all, the +silliest woman who ever cried for a ribbon knows enough to dislike the +male creature who is neither fish, flesh, nor fowl. But the most +trying time, when the platitude we are considering is thrust into the +face by moral parrots, is when they would not lift a finger to ease +the burden of a fellow-creature who is staggering and fainting before +their very eyes; or when some heart-wrench is being agonized through, +and your stoical consoler, who is himself impervious to every +suffering save that which is purely physical, iterates in your +sensitive ear, a string of such time-worn phrases, because he lacks +heart to say, Poor soul--no wonder you writhe; how I wish I could +comfort you! "_The Lord_"--and I say it not irreverently--is the first +compassionate human arm which is thrown round the quivering sufferer +when he needs it most. "_The Lord_" is the first outstretched human +hand which grasps the moral suicide as the last strand of hope is +parting. "_The Lord_" is the pitying human heart which draws to itself +the poor outcast, and without unrolling his transgressions to the face +of the broad day, stands firmly by his side, till he has won the +self-respect to stand alone. + +"Talk _out_!" exclaimed a little puzzled child to a foolish adult who +was speaking to it in a way which it could not possibly comprehend. +Talk _out_! say I, and call things by their right names. Now "_the +Lord_," to my way of thinking, don't murder little babies. If a +careless mother locks one up, with a cotton pinafore and a blazing +fire, and goes away, I should not say over its coffin that it died by +a visitation of Divine Providence. Nor when a drunken husband sends a +wooden chair, and a tea-kettle, and a small table through his wife's +skull, should I say that "the Lord" had seen fit in his inscrutable +will to remove Mrs. Smith from this sublunary sphere. Still--I may be +hypercritical--and after all, of course, I defer to your better +theological judgment--but I will say _this_ much, that _my_ "Lord" +don't do one half the things He is charged with, every day in the +year. + + + + +_ONE SORT OF FOOL._ + + +Now I like a fool--a genuine fool, who is obliviously unconscious of +the fact! Life is too dull at best; a fool has his mission, and +where's the harm of laughing, invulnerable as he is in his panoply of +self-conceit? The fool I am thinking of this moment, however, is of +the feminine gender--one who loomed upon my astounded vision in the +cabin of a ferry-boat, gorgeous as a shivered rainbow, or a bed of +variegated tulips, or a garden of staring sunflowers, which challenge +notice, flauntingly forbidding quiet passers-by to go abstractedly on +the winding way of their various duties and avocations. Thus +challenged, I of course surveyed my challenger. Heavens! what an array +of millinery and mantua-making was spread over that human lay-figure. +What a vapid, inane face that gay bonnet framed; what big feet those +cream-colored gaiters betrayed! What a sweep of flounce, and ruffle, +and ribbon and lace. What an all-over consciousness of "go-to-meetin'" +fixins, in every lineament and limb! What a _haven't I done it now?_ +in every defying glance? It was astounding. I was mentally knocked +over and stultified. And as if this were not enough, the woman +actually had the sacrilegious presumption to perpetuate herself in a +child which she led by the hand, a little four-year-older, bedizened +in orange and black, and green and blue, and pink and purple, +effectually stifling all the graces of childhood, if such a mother had +bequeathed any. A little tottling bunch of brilliant dry-goods, +happily putting an end to its existence, however, with double handfuls +of sugar-candy, which the mamma was supplying without stint or limit. +Disgusted steady-going business-men gazed and sighed like a pair of +bellows, as they inwardly said to themselves, in the language of that +eminent philosopher, Pop Weasel, "That's the way the money goes." +Young men tittered, and old matrons wondered how her kitchen closets +and cupboards, her pickle and preserve jars, looked at home. Meanwhile +the child, unobserved, strayed from the maternal side to take a survey +of the cabin, looking curiously round, much as you have seen an organ +grinder's monkey. "George Washington!" We all started patriotically at +the sound of this honored name, shouted from lungs that would not have +disgraced an omnibus-driver; only to collapse again, smothering with +laughter, as George Washington's mamma seized him by the belt, +splitting her pea-green glove in the operation, and deposited him +right end up with care upon the seat by her side, well pleased with +her maternal prowess, and putting only a favorable construction upon +the grinning faces around her. + +There's a great deal of human nature in ferryboats; but be advised by +me, and don't, if you can help it, get into one early, when the +inveterate expectorators are abroad, and before the ladies, "God bless +'em!" (as the men say when they shut them out after dinner), have done +us the favor to clean the cabin floors with their sweeping silks and +brocades. Don't get into one early in the morning, when fingers are +performing the office of combs, and quill toothpicks are rife. One is +apt to be dainty at the belt at sunrise. + + * * * * * + +I suppose you have met some smooth-faced, plausible wretches, bowing +and smirking you into the hottest purgatory. Now an honest +enemy I know how to meet; but your malicious, mealy-mouthed, +Watts'-Psalms-and-Hymns wretch, who takes your hand with his velvety +palm only to tell you that your pulse is wrong, and that your father +died at your age--I wonder if there _is_ salvation for such? + + + + +_THE FIRST BABY._ + + +Heaven help that poor little victim of experiments, the first baby in +a family. Upon whom every new and old nostrum is tried; who is +overloaded with fine clothes, and feeding; who is constantly kept in a +state of excitement by _cluck_ings, and _chuck_ings, and tossings, and +ticklings, till he frets from sheer nervousness; and then--is +blanketed, and physicked, and steamed, till he is as limp as a thread +paper. Who is kept in a gaspingly close apartment six weeks, at the +instigation of one grandmother, and driven out-doors, without regard +to wind or weather, the next six, at the recommendation of the other. +Who is so overburdened with toys, that he would prefer at any time a +chance stick or twig of his own picking from the carpet or sidewalk, +and who takes to fisticuffs from sheer weariness of being fondled. + +What a moral millennium to such is the advent of a second, third, and +fourth baby. When young master may sneeze, and the whole neighborhood +not be called to witness the phenomenon. When, if he fall, he may +sprawl there at least two whole minutes without a spoiling condolence, +and make the wholesome discovery that he can pick himself up whenever +he gets ready. When the playthings, over which he has been sole +monarch, are ruthlessly snatched by the new baby's fingers, and he is +taught, what he would never else have learned,--that this world was +not made for _one_. When, fifty times a day, he must wait his turn to +be served, instead of bringing all the household operations to a +standstill, till his real or imaginary wants are satisfied. When an +over busy mother at last clips the boy's long curls, which, pretty as +they were, should have been laid on the altar of common-sense long +ago. No longer do his little playmates call the tears to his eyes, by +shouting after him "_girl-boy_." _Now_ he is one of "the fellows." +There is no danger now of his being called into the parlor to be shown +off to mamma's visitors, and flattered into precocious impertinence, +for there is no knowing what rents are in elbows and knees, or how +many coats of dirt are on his face. But meanwhile, thank heaven, he is +not being spoiled, and the important process of self-education, i.e., +poking his nose into everything, that he may find out the whys and +wherefores, is going on. This blessed let-alone system, which, with +proper limitations, is so necessary to a child at an age when its +whole business should be to sleep, eat, and grow well, and which every +successive birth in the family helps him to enjoy unmolested. + +How surprising is the discovery to papa and mamma, and the whole troop +of adulators, that the second, third and fourth baby, says, "pa-pa," +"mamma," as well, and as early as that wonderful of a _first_! + +How levelling and disgusting the knowledge that everybody's baby in +the United States, without distinction of brown-stone-front houses, +has done just that! And what fond idiots they must have appeared to +lookers on, who had grown old rearing families. With what wonderment +mamma now handles the first baby's robes, where she very nearly +stitched in her life, in the anxiety to have all the absurd frills and +embroidery that a tyrannical precedent has enumerated in such cases. +_And now look at those of Johnny_--the last! Judging by his robes, he +might have been _anybody's_ baby! Well, well, his eyes are as bright, +and his limbs as dimpled, and his cheeks as rosy, as if his clothes +were _not_ sensible and plain. In short, what a thing is experience. +"Let us be careful, dear," says mamma, sagely, "to teach _our_ girls +to do better than _we_ have." As if every young couple must not go +through all these mistakes for themselves, and ten to one kill one +baby, before they learn how to take care of the rest. + +There never was a greater mistake made than when childhood is called +the happiest portion of life. I have seen a little child's breast +swell with an anguish as great as would ever agitate it though it +should live to four-score. Call it "a trifle" if you will, that a +playmate jeered before a laughing crowd of boy judges; no verdict of +after-life would be harder to bear; and when, sure of sympathy, he +tells the story to some one whom he fancies will sympathize, and that +man or woman or child listens with indifference, or pooh-poohs it +away--do you suppose that child will ever drink a bitterer drop? I +tell you _nay_, and if the rough grinding heel of the busy, insatiate +world, were not on us all the time, we should know and feel it. Nor is +the suffering _momentary_, as many suppose. How can it be, when some +such juvenile experience often colors a whole life? I say _children +suffer immensely more than is believed_. Take a child's first day at +school; thrust into a crowd of uproarious mischievous little savages, +shrinking, cowering, trembling away from their rude contact, with +heaving chest, and tear-laden eyes, choking down the misery made so +intolerable by suppression, do you tell me that is "a trifle"? Take +the child who sits intensely listening to some story related between +grown-up people, when suddenly his presence is recollected and the +peremptory summons "to bed," is promulgated without a thought of the +_wise clemency_ of a reprieved ten minutes. I well remember in my days +of pinafore and pantalettedom, an old maid who used to say "_that_ +child," in a tone that made all my curls stand on end. For years I +agitated my mind with the question whether old maids went to heaven; +because, strong as were my predilections for that blissful state, I +was in no wise content to share them with _her_. Nor, shall I soon +forget the _transition age_, when too tall for short dresses and too +short for tall ones; called "nothing but a child," when I was anxious +to do the stately young lady; and begged to recollect that "I was no +longer a child," when a fit of obstreperous romping overtook me with a +vigor I could not resist; called a goose for blushing if a man spoke +to me, and "did I think he could notice such a child as me?" and +begged to remember "my manners" when I bounced off next time without +noticing the young man. Driven to the verge of desperation by my +inability to define my place in the world, and disgusted enough with +this terrestrial ball to kick it as I would any other. A few more +inches to my stature, however, settled all that. _Then was my time!_ + +While I am on this subject, I would like to ask, why should not a +child's fancy in the way of food--I refer to their intense dislike of +certain things--be regarded, as much as the repugnance of an adult. I +consider it a great piece of cruelty to force a child to eat things +that are repulsive to it, because somebody once wrote a wise saw to +the effect, "that children should eat whatever is set before them." I +have often seen the poor little victims shudder and choke at sight of +a bit of fat meat, or a little scum of cream on boiled milk; toothsome +enough to those who like them, but in _their_ case a purgatorial +infliction. Whenever there is this decided antipathy, nature should be +respected, _even in the person of the smallest child_; and he who +would act otherwise is himself _smaller_ than the child over whom he +would so unjustifiably tyrannize. + +There are people who, having no children of their own, resolve to +adopt one. This is often well, and often ill, too. Ill--when the +self-constituted parent only wants a child as he would a pet dog, and +puts it through no higher course of training; when he feeds it from +his own plate with choice bits, till it becomes too dainty for the +chance wayside bone, and then, getting weary of the pastime, opens the +door and thrusts it out to forage again in gutters and ash-heaps and +street corners. Such things have been. Let none assume this sacred +relation _who are not prepared for its sacrifices as well as its +pleasures_--who have not counted in days of sickness, and hours of +childish waywardness, and possible hereditary moral weeds to be rooted +out; for these little stray waifs of humanity suffer much from these +causes, physically and morally. Let no one, we say, open wide his arms +and doors to it, unless God's patience be in his soul, God's +all-suffering, all-forgiving love, in his heart, to weave a chord from +that child's heart to his own, over which no vibration shall pass +unheeded, no more than if it were bone of his bone and flesh of his +flesh. + + * * * * * + +The phrase, "Vulgar Saints," occurs in a late work of great repute, in +which the author's aristocratic tendencies stick out through some of +the otherwise finest passages ever penned. "Vulgar Saints!" The term +itself is a contradiction: there never was, or will be, a vulgar +saint; true religion is sublimating, etherealizing. "Breeding" has +nothing to do with it; there are vulgar hypocrites, but never a vulgar +saint. We might carry you to old houses that never knew a carpet or +piano, and leading you up the rickety stairs, into a rough chamber, +show you the mother on her knees, pleading with an eloquence no +college could ever teach, for her absent sailor-boy; or show you the +wrinkled grandmother, who never saw a grammar, singing some old hymn +which brings the tears to your eyes, and all your long-forgotten +follies to daylight. _True_ religion banishes vulgarity. It is +calm-eyed, soft-voiced, all-pervading, like the warm sunshine. There +never was a "Vulgar Saint." We don't care what are his antecedents, or +where he lives, or what he eats, or what clothes he wears, or how +rough are his toil-worn hands, he has that in him which lifts him far +beyond turreted libraries, stained-glass windows, and softly carpeted +floors, and allies him with the angels; although through the broken +roof above his head, the stars may nightly look in upon his peaceful +slumbers. + + + THE END. + + + + +Transcriber's Note: + + +Archaic and inconsistent spelling and punctuation retained. + + + * * * * * + + NEW BOOKS + + BY + + FANNY FERN. + + + I.--FOLLY AS IT FLIES PRICE $1.50 + II.--GINGER-SNAPS $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. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Ginger-Snaps, by Fanny Fern + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 40504 *** |