NObeaux! Absolutelynobeaux! 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?
NObeaux! Absolutelynobeaux! 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 itallinto 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, hewontcome! 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 yourmisfortune, notyour fault, because that necessitates a rich husband. And as there are very few richyounghusbands, 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 yourheartmust go hungry in life's spring-time because of them.
My dears,Inever lacked beaux at your age. But a walk in the woods, or in the city either, involved no expense tomybeaux. I could climb a fence, where there was no gate, or where therewaseither; I was not afraid of dew, or rain, because my dress was simple. My gifts were not diamonds, but flowers, or books.Mymother 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 anykind 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 settletheiraccounts! 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,somegossip,—which I have ascertained has no sex—some croquet-ing and crochetting, but nocoquetting, 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. Nobodyknew 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. Atlengthshe 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 andcalicoes. 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."Theyhad 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! theirdresses! 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.Herhusband 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 thathometo them meanshome, 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 yoursometime-mistakes and sometime-discouragement shall be written, "She hath done what she could?"
ITwas 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,hispresence 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.Thereonly, after all these years, could I really "make himdead." 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.
ITwas 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,hispresence 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.Thereonly, after all these years, could I really "make himdead." 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! orwere, for many of their names are now recorded on marble beside his own. And above the picture of him—as if such a head ashiscould 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 ofthat—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.Thesehousehold 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 mostunique 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 bethere, 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 himnow.
Some men—can anybody tell us why?—always gravitatedownwardin 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, theresultis certain deterioration. Not, on the other hand, that it is not best to meet with, and know all sorts of persons; butinvariablyto choose inferiority, for a bosom-friend, argues a flaw, and a serious one, somewhere.
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.Nowit 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, thatyouever stood on one side the political fence, andIon the other; but we wontrake 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.
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.Nowit 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, thatyouever stood on one side the political fence, andIon the other; but we wontrake 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. NoFrenchcapsshammingit overCelticfaces; but instead, the jolly African physiognomy, framed in its gay turban; and, best of all—forgive me, fair Baltimore!—receivingas well asearninga nurse's wages.
I always feel as if a coroner's inquest would beheld 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 ofkerosene. 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 Idon'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 excitementgoingthere, 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 byhelp of their corduroy pavements. It was tame, after living in New York, where there is always "a dreadfullassof 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, yououghtto—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, andgenuinecoffee, 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 roundad libitum; a horror of a spitoon in the middle of the floor; dirty window-curtains, and closets full of old papers; bureau drawers saturated withgrease; 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 havedone 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 withmyeyes, 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, forthe 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, andthereforeaccepted 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 outeven one handto 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 acountryclergyman 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 Isaw 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. Allwas"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 damesinside; 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 lobbyingmen, 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?
ITis 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.
ITis 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, veryuninfluentialmotives, 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, thefalling bright-hued leaves, the glory of sunshine and shadow on the mountain-tops, and the keen sense oflife at the fullwhich comes of wandering among them.
I thinkIshould 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 departingGrumble family were cooked neither too hard nor too soft. Also, I would haveone pane of glassin eachchamber-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 afemalemind 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,realcoffee, 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 onthatmorning 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.
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 choosesourstreet 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 seepaperagain. 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, 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 choosesourstreet 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 seepaperagain. 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 itbreaks; he will get no response from me. I don't care who didn't do what; or when it wasn't done. I'm forKaty-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—Ican'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 therightsort, 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, thedrawer-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—everysensible housekeeperknows their value. Long life to the like of 'em,Isay.
Good-by! If I am smashed on the railroad, weep over mypieces. 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 sixhundred ton of granite taken out of a quarry every week for the whole summer, you'dnot-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 patientlyrooston 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 godown-hilland 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. Thatbulk can be friskywas 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 knowthatcommodity is seldom furnishedoutof 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. Themen, 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 literallynoexcuse 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, whoought, in these lovely villages, to be a pauper, thrives on the disastrous consumption offriedeverything, 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 dyspepsiain the countryis adisgrace. 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 inhisocean, but there is no beauty there. How can there be withthatfiend 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 examinethatshirt-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 inyour eyes, contemplating a pair of "clean" stockings just taken from your drawer.
Thatstreak 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!) whileSmith'sare 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 besideMrs.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 dearlittle 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 whathewould 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 "marchingon" 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,notfor 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 contributeleastto 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 wonthaverough usage! Shewill be in a position to receive good treatment, frommotives 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 withauthority 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.