SUNSHINE

SUNSHINECONDUCTED BY THE EDITOR IN CHIEF.

SUNSHINE

CONDUCTED BY THE EDITOR IN CHIEF.

Hope leads the builders of this magazine to believe that its explosion can be prevented by filling it with sugar instead of dynamite.

We propose to gather our cane mostly from Southern fields and run it through Southern cane mills and sweeten as much of the world as possible from Southern sugar barrels; but of course our doors are open to Northern bees, Eastern butterflies, and Western humming-birds, and suckers from everywhere.

We believe that sugar is better for the world than dynamite, and we propose to barrel it in bulk so that every boy and girl who loves to read a sweet story may dive into our columns with both hands and shout as the boy did when he got into the sure enough sugar hogshead, “O, for a thousand tongues!” so that every old literary bug who sighs for the sweeter side of life may gambol among our granulated tropes and pulverized similes and dream that he is the beautifulest ant in the sugar bowl.

The journalistic market is glutted with explosives, it is overstocked with poisoned arrows. We believe in the philosophy that “More flies are caught with sugar than with vinegar.”

But while this magazine shall be a colossal sugar lump, yet its management has a whole squadron of torpedo boats, and a huge quiver of arrows for all the enemies of the South and a stupendous tank of vinegar as large as all the tanks of the Standard Oil Company for the spiteful spiders and blue-bottle flies of sectional journalism. But these weapons shall never be used so long as sugar will melt in the mouths of men and persuade unrighteousness to bridle its tongue.

With these sweet sentiments upon our lips we stand on the tallest tower of our castle in the air and with our politest bow toss a large sugar lump of greeting to every one who is wise enough to subscribe forBob Taylor’s Magazine.

When downy-lipped youth first begins to peep through the knothole in the temple of knowledge, he is the happiest of all mortals because his vanity is unbridled and free.

He knows it all. When he “orates” on commencement day he robs the gardens of rhetoric and twines their choicest flowers about the beautiful, but hollow and flimsy columns of his speech. He misquotes the classic poets and taxes the old philosophers with things they never said. He twists the tail of history, strangles science, and spouts wisdom never dreamed of by Solomon. His impassioned sentences are chains of gold with blazing diamonds strung, and his tropes and similes cavort like flaming meteors athwart the intellectual heavens. But after he leaves the classic halls of college, and after a few hard bumps against the rock walls of reality, and a few hard falls on the ice pond of experience, his self-conceit springs a leak, his immense learning oozes out, and his dream of kinship with the gods vanishes into the limbo of the forever forgotten like a sweet scent before a high wind.

His vanity is un’ridled and free.

And so runs the endless story of callow youth—a comedy of errors reenacted by each successive generation, in whose quips and cranks and boyish antics we see ourselves repeated as in a mirror, and we only laugh and wish that youth might last forever—we laugh and enjoy its beautiful vanities.

But our laughter melts into sighs as we recall the Persian poet’s plaintive lines:

“Ah! that spring should vanish with the rose,That youth’s sweet scented manuscript should close!”

“Ah! that spring should vanish with the rose,

That youth’s sweet scented manuscript should close!”

Time but dissipates each rapturous dream, and the revelation of our ignorance comes with the experience of riper years. Only once are we the proud possessors of all knowledge and all wisdom, and this is in the dreamy days of life’s happy morning. And yet, we never lose our self-conceit as we advance in years; we only adjust our vanity to the knowledge we acquire. We learn how to dodge some of the jagged walls of trouble and to avoid some of the mud holes of calamity; but vanity still lures us on in myriad paths of folly. Its most dangerous form is that which conjures in men the delusion that they knoweverything, and that they can turn from one field of effort to another without disturbing their equilibrium and gather fruits and flowers with equal success from all alike. This is the snag upon which so many little kites get hung.

As no single honey-bee can rob all the flowers of the land, so no one mind can master all branches of knowledge. Nature has endowed humanity with different aptitudes for different lines of labor. Indeed, she seems to delight in infinite diversity. Ever true to this wonderful impulse of variation she confers on mankind intellectual gifts as multiform as her flowers—flinging them into the hovel as freely as into the palace.

A hard fall on the ice pond of experience.

One individual has the gift of speech, another the gift of thought. One talks without thinking, another thinks without talking. One man sees, hears and notes everything; another sees and hears, but notes nothing. He cannot recall whether he has been alive for the past hour or not; and if his wife asks him what manner of gown Mrs. So-and-so wore last night at the reception, he could not tell for the life of him whether she wore any gown at all. One touches business and it turns to gold; another touches it, and it turns to rags. One touches the button of politics, and the doors of office fly open with a national hymn in their hinges; another presses it, and the doors fly open to his competitor. One youth whispers a magical word into the listening ear of a laughing girl and lo! her little head of auburn curls falls upon his shoulder; another youth whispers the same word to the same girl and lo! his head falls into the sawdust! One fair maiden sings as gloriously as a lark in June skies; another thinks she sings, but doesn’t—she only screams, and her trills are a cross between a fife and a cane-mill as she twists her neck and walls her eyes like a dying swan.

But there is scarcely a human being under the sun who is not blessed with some special gift of mind for the achievement of success in some special field of endeavor.

A good old farmer and his wife had four sons, and they believed that three of them possessed talent which would some day make them great. But when they came to poor John, the youngest of the flock, they agreed that he was a natural born fool. Finally a sudden light beamed in the old man’s face and with melody in his voice he said: “Nancy, I can say one thing for John; he’s the best whistler that ever twisted wind into music—by gum.” Here was nature’s compensation for lack of brains—for John was endowed with a talent which is esteemed, in these modern days, as one of the rarest among men—a talent which might some day make John a sort of Eolian Orpheus whose slightest breath would open to him the door of fame; for have we not recently read in the public prints of a whistling artist in the person of a charming young woman who has taken the music loving world by storm and whistled herself into the choir of a rich and fashionable church?

How the hearts of the young male worshipers must thrill and palpitate when she puckers her pouting lips to join in the sacred anthem. It must be like the nectared melody of the nightingale dripping and tinkling from the heart of a puckered rose.

Many a dull and sluggish youth, blinded by vanity, is to-day frittering away the golden hours in some law college or medical school, who is totally incapable by birth of ever grasping or assimilating the principles of law or medicine, while under the leaf-fat of his stupid brain some talent may lie sleeping, which, if aroused and called into full play, might elevate him to the pedestal of glory as the champion whistler of the world.

The man of one talent, if he develops and uses it intelligently, is always the highest example of success, even in the humblest sphere. The bootblack in the street, who, by his masterful touch, makes your shoes reflect the sun, is as much an artist in his sphere and entitled to as much credit as the man who made the shoes. The difficulty is that we often rebel against Nature’s purpose, which if followed always leads to success.

It is an old saying that “Fortune is fickle,” but there is not much truth in the proverb. The trouble lies in the fact that human nature is fickle and full of vanity; and we dream ourselves into the belief that we can win applause in roles of life for which we have neither talent nor adaptation. This is vanity, and the logical result is—limbs of the law all leafless and briefless and weeping alone; business ventures dodging the sheriff and sighing for a lodge in some vast wilderness; medical aspiration hopeless and patientless in the valley of dry bones; literary spirit with broken wings and tail feathers gone; and political ambition with black eye and broken nose, sighing and singing wherever he goes:

“I am nobody’s darling,Nobody cares for me.”

“I am nobody’s darling,

Nobody cares for me.”

When a young man comes to choose a vocation in life let him buck-and-gag vanity and enter the field for which he is best adapted. Let him analyze and synthesize himself and approximate as nearly as possible the capacity of his mental powers. Let him study his own talent as he would study a book and when he has determined upon his calling let him pursue it without the shadow of turning, and he will surely win.

A good woman is the embodiment of man’s dream of the beautiful; a mean one is a perpetual nightmare. They are the two extremes of melody and discord, of wine and vinegar, of violet and volcano in every station in life. All men stand with uncovered heads in the presence of a good woman. Her prudence and modesty, her gentleness and purity, are her shields from the low and vulgar; they are the heralds of her virtue and innocence; they charm in her voice, they beam in her eyes, they are eloquent in her actions and mingle and shine in the graces of her life. She is the governor of every happy home and her throne is built of human hearts.

A mean woman revels in strife and in the anguish of those around her. She delights in the abuse of others and in mysterious actions that breed suspicion. Treason lurks in her very eyes, the tracks of treachery are in her every smile and her bosom cloaks a dagger.

A good woman often weeps and her soul is sometimes tossed with righteous indignation; but she knows how to pity and to forgive. Sometimes she is compelled to combat a wicked and self-willed husband, and to suffer the stings of his tyranny and injustice; but when her virtues and goodness assert themselves and the governor stamps her foot and demands her rights she can always subdue him and lead him like a lamb.

But let a mean woman be installed as governor of the household, and on the slightest provocation her eyes will flame with fury, an ashy pallor will mantle her funnel face and she will roar like an approaching cyclone; forked lightnings will leap from her frenzied tongue and strike everybody and everything for miles and miles around; her shivering husband is usually the victim, whether guilty or innocent,

And there’s nothing left, when the heavens clear,But skin and hair in the atmosphere.

And there’s nothing left, when the heavens clear,

But skin and hair in the atmosphere.

The chasm of calamity into which many an unwary lover falls in the leap of matrimony is his ignorance of the woman who takes this leap with him. She conjures him into the belief that she is an angel of light and worthy to govern the world, when in reality she is a ferocious feline from away back, a pussy of despair from the night’s Plutonian shore.

Forked lightnings leap from her frenzied tongue.

Many a good woman, on the other hand, is deceived and cajoled by her suitor into the faith that he is a saint on earth, a sweet spirit of prayer, and fit only for the companionship of the seraphim and cherubim, when, in fact, he is a carrion crow from far away, a beautiful buzzard from Paradise Bay.

Happiness follows in the footsteps of a good woman as the flowers follow in the footsteps of June; and laughter hand in hand with tears greets her every day. All the pure and beautiful ideals of the heart, all the chaste and tender emotions of the soul are her priceless jewels. Her life is a willing sacrifice, and she passes from the morning to the evening with blessings upon her lips and the light of peace and joy in her shining train. She is the star that eclipses every sun and dispels the darkness of every cloud. But it is hard to foretell results in the Monte Carlo of love. He who ventures there is playing a hazardous game and should not bet too high, for it is surely a game of chance. Sometimes hearts are trumps, alas, sometimes clubs! Infatuation often stacks the cards, the intoxication of overweening confidence sometimes dims the player’s eyes, and even what seems to be a winning hand may quickly lose the game. But blessed is the gambler in the perilous game of marriage who wins a good woman for she is the richest stake ever won by man in this world. She is the handmaid of the Lord, establishing his kingdom in the home and linking earth to heaven every day.

Without her, nations would fall and civilizations crumble; without her, all the suns and moons of love would darken and all the stars of hope forget to shine; without her, charity would lose its sweetness, mercy its tenderness and sentiment its very life; without her, the genius of Phidias and Praxiteles never would have glorified the marble; Raphael and Angelo never would have dreamed in immortal colors; Burns never would have written his sweetest lyrics of love, and the dreams of Shakespeare never would have blossomed into song; without her, home, happiness and family ties would be but mockeries and the Christian religion itself would perish among its worshipers.

The brightest stars in the crown of civilization are its pure and virtuous homes. They reflect the wealth, the power and the glory of the state and the nation. They are the culmination of man’s highest ideals of peace and love and perfect happiness beneath the stars that shine above him.

Within the hallowed walls of every home where children dwell, there is a commonwealth of prattling science and toddling art and mewling music in its mother’s arms. Dimpled genius, with heaven in his eyes, is playing around many a hearthstone to-day; and under many an humble roof love is rocking the cradle of a poet or an orator; heroes of the future are fighting cob battles in the barn yard and statesmen of the years to come are ruling republics and empires on the play ground of the public school or in the society hall of the university.

In every well regulated home the governor of each commonwealth wears dresses and the lieutenant governor wears pantaloons. The wife reigns supreme. Her scepter is her slipper, under whose swing and sway juvenile civilization often worms and squirms, firmly held across her lap face downward; and one shake of the scepter thoroughly subdues the lieutenant governor. ’Tis well! for what right has he to butt into policies of home rule and to stick his nose into the prerogatives of petticoat government?

A good husband’s dominion lies beyond the boundary line of the home. He is supreme in the office, the shop or at the plow handles. His province is to provide revenue and to fill the flour barrel. He must receive his reward in the golden coin of kisses and in the exercise of the high privilege of paying all bills, obeying all commands, and acknowledging his eternal loyalty and devotion to the flounced and powdered governor. It is only in her absence from home that he becomes great and seizes the opportunity to exercise his veto power. Instantly all dusting and sweeping cease until he leaves the house for a stroll; all romping and frolicking and sliding down the banisters come to a standstill; all practicing on the piano is suspended; and the changing of sheets and pillowslips and putting rooms in order except once a week, are abolished as nuisances. The acting governor reforms everything but his appetite. He taps the exchequer and every meal must be a banquet at the peril of the cook’s tenure of office. His reign is brief but glorious, and business is dispatched in a hurry with the view of the early return of the slippered and skirted governor. His old cronies flock into his touseled and disordered bedroom every night to share his limitless liberty and his boundless bonhomie. And often the jubilant uproar is punctuated with the popping of corks and the clinking of glasses, while the ceaseless rattle of poker chips emphasizes the ancient proverb that

“When the cat’s away,The mice will play.”

“When the cat’s away,

The mice will play.”

And so each little domestic commonwealth has its lights and shadows, its ups and downs, and its seasons of mal-administration. But when the real governor again assumes the reins of power, a good husband, if he has been guilty of high crimes and misdemeanors in office during her absence, repents in sackcloth and ashes, and a good wife, after a curtain lecture and a cry, always exercises the pardoning power and restores the lieutenant governor to his former prestige and favor with the powers that be, and again “all goes merry as a marriage bell.”

Wandering in strange and unknown pastures of romance.

A good husband has his faults and foibles, and sometimes falls from grace; but he is the salt of the earth when properly managed.

A mean husband is either a Nero or a zero; he either dethrones his wife in the home and stabs his helpless and innocent little ones with curses and cruelty, or starves them with cold neglect. He rules with sneers instead of smiles—with blows instead of blessings, or strangles laughter and love in his home with drunkenness and debauchery. How many wives walk the floor every night waiting for footsteps they dread to hear! How many children shiver in their rags and watch for brutal and improvident fathers. God pity the home of the man who staggers out of the path of righteousness.

A good man goes out into the world and bears the burdens of life with a willing heart. If virtue sanctifies his home and peace and contentment laugh and sing around his hearthstone, there is no anguish he will not endure for the happiness of his children, there is no agony he will not suffer for the sake of his wife, no sin of hers he will not condone save one, and that is disloyalty.

Many a fortune has been lost in the lottery of love by drawing the wrong ticket. Many a sweet home has been broken up and many a guiltless man has been butted to death by the billy goat of Ananias as a penalty for unwittingly wandering in strange and unknown pastures of Romance.

Commercial travelers are the Eden builders of the world; they are the evangels of human happiness; they carry heavens of pure delight in their sample cases.

There are heavens of music in the rustle of their silks, heavens of the beautiful in their laces and lawns, heavens of rapture in their spring bonnets and jewels.

They are the tidal waves of commerce, the rolling billows of progress, the trade winds of civilization. They touch all shores and never cease to blow.

Many a castle builder presses their fragrant havanas to his lips and his dreams turn to curling castles in the air. Many a dreamer sips their mellow wines and lo! a thousand fairies with jeweled wings flutter in his veins and flit among the flowers in the garden of his dreams.

Wherever the commercial travelers swarm there is honey in the gum and the flowers of prosperity are in bloom. They carry the pollen-dust of business on their wings and the honey of wealth in their grips. And whenever they cease to hum about a town it is a sure sign that prosperity is a withered blossom there and that there are weevils in the gum.

The garden spider weaves her web among the honeysuckles and spins as she weaves without distaff or loom. She stretches her radial warp of silvery filaments and then lays on her woof. From the center outward she glides in one continuous spiral, and as she crosses each radius of the warp she touches it deftly with her foot as if to weld the viscid fiber.

And thus her shining net grows until it hangs suspended in the air, half visible, half vanishing, like some phantom wheel of moonbeams.

The commercial travelers are the spiders of enterprise, spinning and weaving without distaff or loom, swinging from town to town, from city to city, from continent to continent; and they are weaving the golden web of commerce around the world, drawing the nations closer together in the warp and woof of universal love and the universal brotherhood of man.

BY ROBERT LOVEMAN.

At the end of the lane of joy and pain,We come to the little gate,The king and the clown, and the court go down,Through its portals soon or late;The peasant, the peer, the sage and the seer,Depart when the hour comes round,With a kiss and a sigh, and a last good-bye,Through the little lone gate in the ground.’Tis fixed by fate, we must pass through the gate,The dear little gate in the ground,At the end of our ways of nights and days,It is marked by a grassy mound;We bend o’er the bier, with a sob and a tear,From the still lips comes no sound,—We never can know, where God’s gardens grow,’Till we pass through the gate in the ground.

At the end of the lane of joy and pain,

We come to the little gate,

The king and the clown, and the court go down,

Through its portals soon or late;

The peasant, the peer, the sage and the seer,

Depart when the hour comes round,

With a kiss and a sigh, and a last good-bye,

Through the little lone gate in the ground.

’Tis fixed by fate, we must pass through the gate,The dear little gate in the ground,At the end of our ways of nights and days,It is marked by a grassy mound;We bend o’er the bier, with a sob and a tear,From the still lips comes no sound,—We never can know, where God’s gardens grow,’Till we pass through the gate in the ground.

’Tis fixed by fate, we must pass through the gate,

The dear little gate in the ground,

At the end of our ways of nights and days,

It is marked by a grassy mound;

We bend o’er the bier, with a sob and a tear,

From the still lips comes no sound,—

We never can know, where God’s gardens grow,

’Till we pass through the gate in the ground.

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