D
DEAR SISTERS:—I told you in my last Report that there were three or four invitations that I had made up my mind to accept, for I have got so now, that it is my privilege to pick and choose who I will honor and who I will not.
Well, the person I distinguished this time was just one of the handsomest and nicest ladies that you ever sot eyes on. Everybodythat knows her says that. No bird pluming itself on an apple-tree limb full of blossoms was ever more graceful; no church member could be more kind-hearted. She is just a sumptuous young woman who worshipped a true-hearted, high-minded father with all her might and honored him in all her acts. It is a great pity she wasn't born in Vermont, but that cannot be helped now. I wish it could.
Of course I felt it a privilege to represent your Society before a lady like this; for it seems to me as if she were born to be an ornament to this great nation. I say this because I really think she is good as good can be. Miss Kate Chase, though she did marry a United States Senator, will always be best known to the country as Chief Justice Chase's daughter, and a compliment to her is a compliment to him, which I, as a distinguished wom—I beg pardon, young girl—could pay, and still preserve that reputation for correct deportment which, I am proud to say, follows me wherever I go.
Well, not wanting to keep Mrs. Sprague in suspense, and feeling that she might be pining for my autograph to lie uppermost in the great dish, all gold and stone pictures, which she keeps full of letters and cards and things, I wrote her a sweet little letter, in my finest hand, with a green and red "P. F." twisted together on the straw-colored envelope, saying that I would come.
After that I felt calm and content, knowing how much happiness I had given.
Cousin Dempster and E. E. had an invite too. I really hope they have sense enough to know the source from which all these attentions come, but sometimes I doubt it. Still, they do look up to me.
The night came, and found me ready. E. E. had told me that when Mrs. Sprague gave a party, her guests almost always came out in span-new dresses. Her entertainments weretheentertainments of the season. Nobody had yet been able to come up to her, let them try ever so much, and people dressed accordingly.
Of course I wasn't going to be behindhand on a fashionable occasion like that, where a certain person was sure to be an object of special admiration and envious criticism, so I went to work at once, and turned my pink silk wrong side out with my own hands.
Then I took an hour or so of solitary shopping, and had the things I bought carried straight into my own room, for I had given out that I had a sick headache, and wanted to sleep—a fib so delicate, that it seemed almost conscientious, besides being worth forgiving on account of its originality.
Well, I worked away like everything, determined to show the world, for my own private enjoyment, that genius wasn't limited to writing, but would sometimes break out in silks and laces and flowers, with astonishing effects. So my heart rose, and my fingers flew.
That headache of mine lasted three days, without intermission. During this season of affliction, my meals were brought up on a hotel tray, and I took care to order them myself—the toast and tea, which cousin sent up at first, not being quite satisfactory as a persistent diet.
At last my dress was ready. E. E. saidshehad ordered hers from Worth, ever so long ago, expecting that something super-elegant might turn up, like Mrs. Sprague's party. I didn't ask who Worth was, not thinking a masculine mantua-maker worth inquiring about; but I kept a close mouth about my own toilet—that word needs explaining, sisters. With us it means a half-moon table, curtained down, and ruffled over with spotted muslin, and set under a looking-glass. But here it means your whole dress-frock, boots, everything that you wear from top to toe. This is why the word "toilet" comes in so naturally in my Report. But understand, it doesnotmean a table—quite the contrary.
You should have seen me when I came out of my room that evening. Up to this I had been harmonious in my dress, but newness was the thing here, so I had studied the grandly poeticalharmony of contrasts. My aim had been something poetical and striking.
My pink silk had turned beautifully. It looked good as new, if not more so; the fresh lining hunched it out behind, till a good-sized baby could have sat on it, as such little fellows billow themselves among the clouds in an old picture. Contrast, I have told you, was my idea—novelty my object. Pink and white roses I had worn, black velvet, too, and natural geranium-leaves, which are given to wilting fearfully; so I cast these things all aside, and looped up my dress with pond lilies, of a rich orange color.
Sisters, the effect was wonderful. The broad green leaves on the pink ground, the yellow flowers clustering amongst them. The lilies of red gold entwining my head was a picture in itself—to say nothing of the tall and elegant young person who, as I may write, carried off the dress.
You should have seen Cousin E. E. when I swept into the room, where she stood ready, my pink silk rustling, my golden lilies on the high quiver, my hair crinkled in front, curled behind, and looped up with those yellow flowers. Sisters, her surprise was really a tribute.
I did not deign to ask her how she liked my dress. The look that followed her first surprise was clouded with the envy she did not dare to speak. I was seized with a desire to punish such malice, and swept up and down the room, looking back on my train, as a peacock spreads his tail-feathers in the sun.
E. E. looked ready to burst. She saw that her own dress was nowhere, and resented it in angry silence. So I kept on walking slowly up and down, in order to bring her into a reasonable state of mind, which Christian exertion, I am sorry to say, failed.
Dempster came in, and he, too, was struck dumb with admiring surprise. He looked at me, then at E. E., but said nothing. Still the comparison must have been humiliating to a man who really does take some pride in his wife.
D
DEAR SISTERS:—The carriage was full to overflowment; E. E. and I filled it with the sumptuosity of our garments. Dempster was nowhere. Now and then the carriage jolted his head into sight—that was all.
Mrs. Sprague lives in a great, square corner-house that looks rich and respectable—two things that do not always come together in these days, when people creep into society, and build themselves up there on the property that should belong to the Government. It has some wide, jutting windows, and plenty of room inside.
The hall-way was crowded full of ladies, and so was the stairs. Some were going up, and some were coming down. The first in shawls and cloaks, the others with their arms and necks uncovered, or with just a shadow of lace on them, nothing more.
The great square chamber that we went into was as full as a bee-hive. Silks swept and rustled against each other like oak-leaves when the wind shakes them. The great looking-glasses were full also—you saw a crowd of handsome faces coming and going in them all the time. Each glass was like a picture always changing.
The bed was covered over with cloaks and shawls, but you could see that the bedstead was beautifully carved, and the pillow-cases were ruffled all round and edged with lace. On a table near the door was a case of shiny black wood, curlicued with gold, and lined with velvet. In it was a lot of gold things, essence bottles, knives, scissors with gold handles, and glass cases with gold lids. It lay open, and anybody could use the things that wanted to; I didn't, but had a good look while E. E. was titivating in the crowd before the glass.
My dress must have carried out the grand idea in my mindwhen I made it, for all the ladies stopped, and gave me a good, long look before they went out, and I could see smiles of approbation dancing about their mouths. My triumph commenced, sisters, even in the dressing-room.
Dempster was waiting for us, and we followed him downstairs into the largest and handsomest room I've seen in Washington City.
It was just afire with lights. The great curving window was crowded full of flowers; every table in the room blazed out with them. Two folding-doors, like those we have in a Vermont meeting-house, opened into another great room, just as rainbowish with light, and smelling just as sweet with flowers—I never saw anything like it.
A crowd went in with us, and we had to wait till they let us go up to Judge Chase and Mrs. Sprague, who stood in the front room.
Goodness gracious, what a female woman that is! No willow tree was ever half so graceful, and, as for manners, the nicest woman I ever saw is nowhere to her. Her dress—well, I really cannot say that it didn't pull an even yoke with mine—at any rate the contrast between us was striking, nothing could have been more so. But I can say, without vanity, the crowd as it came in stopped to look at mine quite as much as it did at hers. Original taste, you know, sisters, is everything; then literary genius united with taste isn't easily matched. Still, Mrs. Sprague's dress was well worth noticing.
"What did she wear?" I hear you say.
Sisters, your wishes are laws to me.
This lady, for sheisa lady, every inch of her, as I have said, was a complete contrast to your missionary. Her dress had three colors; blue satin in front, wreathed across with a wreath of rosebuds and leaves over each flounce. Running up each side were other wreaths, fastening down the edges of a long train of white silk, that was fastened in a wide box-plait at the back of the neck, and swept away to the carpet, whereit fell and floated like a snow-drift scattered over with roses, for they were done in needle work all over the white robe, and seemed to grow there. The dress was cut square about the neck, and filled in with lace. She had half-sleeves, too, a thing I was glad to see, for some of the stuck-up persons who came there with no sleeves, and their dresses cut short about the neck, might have taken it for a rebuke. Thank goodness, I didn't.
Mrs. Sprague wore some jewelry. A wreath of blue stones with white ones that shone like rain-drops in the sunshine, was fastened in her hair, and hung quivering in her ears. She had gold bands, full of fiery stones, on her arms, and some gold thing fell down to her bosom, set with something that looked to me like half-ripe cherries. Pink coral, E. E. said it was.
There now, you have Mrs. Sprague's dress, and you have mine. I say nothing. Certainly hers was handsome. I am not the person to draw comparisons, but, from the notice given to mine, I had no reason to be dissatisfied.
Chief Justice Chase stood by his daughter, and shook hands with me in the most friendly manner—he was quite impressed, I can assure you. He was large and tall—in fact, grand in his appearance. His smile was enough to make any one long to know more of him. It reminded me a little of the great Grand Duke's, which made my heart beat a little sadly.
We moved into the crowd. There I saw a lot of those foreign ministers. One of them bowed to me. I gave him a dignified bend of the head. This messing-up of divinity and parties goes against my ideas of propriety.
A Vermont minister would be turned out of his pulpit if he ventured to show himself in a worldly gathering like that.
"What are you so dignified about, Cousin Phœmie?" says Dempster. "Didn't you see the minister bowing to us?"
"Yes," says I, "but I don't mean to encourage backsliding and worldly amusements in Christian leaders. They have no business here."
"But they are not particularly Christians," says he.
"I should think not," says I; "and the Churches that sent them here ought to know how they are going on."
"But the Churches did not send that gentleman. It was the Queen."
"Exactly," said I; "and isn't she the head of the Church. No, no, cousin, you can't make excuses for them."
"But their mission is political," says he.
"Of course," says I. Church and State—I understood."
A whole lot of candles, white as snow, were burning over the wide doors. That opened into another long room where a great picture, worked with a needle, years and years ago, hung on the wall, and crowds of people were moving about. Then came a storm of music, and I saw one of the ministers teetering off with a lady as if he were going to dance again.
"I declare I won't look on," says I to Dempster; "take me somewhere else."
He did take me into a little room full of books, and there—standing round a table on which a great giant of a china bowl stood, filled to the brim with punch, on which slices of lemon floated temptingly—we found some more of them ministers, each one with a full glass in his hand.
Sisters, I stood there like a monument, and saw them drink that punch with my own eyes—more than one glass apiece, too. Ministers, indeed!
While we stood watching them in one door, they went out by another, and then Dempster took us in.
E. E. sat down on a sofa; so did I. Dempster went up to the great bowl, and began to dip out the punch with a big silver ladle as if it had been soup. He filled two glasses. A slice of lemon floated on each one; they looked deliciously cool, and I was thirsty. Sisters, I took that glass, and I drank of the punch. After that I began to feel more charitable toward the foreign ministers. In fact, I rather think a sweeter and more benevolent feeling came over me in all respects, for a soft mistiness settled on the crowd, and the dancers were peculiarlymazy. I felt myself smiling blandly, and, in fact, glided into a state of dreamy enjoyment that was pleasant.
The music stopped; the dancers locked arms, and moved toward an open door through which a fresh flood of light was pouring. We followed into a great tent, hung all round with damask linen. Two long tables, loaded down with great vases full of fruit and flowers; steeples, and towers, and baskets, made out of candy, and running over with sugar things; peaches, and grapes, and all sorts of fruit, natural as life, but candy to the core—all delicious and gorgeous and—well, I haven't language to express it; but the whole thing was sumptuous.
All down and around these two long tables great wreaths of flowers and leaves, half buried in moss, made a border of bloom, and over them the light came pouring, while the music sounded nearer and nearer, and the crowd poured in.
Really, sisters, I can say no more. That whole scene was more than I can describe. It just sent me home dizzy with bewilderment.
D
DEAR SISTERS:—The Father of our Country was a great man—no doubt on that subject. He conducted a war on small means and with few men, which gave us a country that will be a crowning glory of all ages, if we don't melt down and go to nothing under the hot sunshine of our own prosperity. He was a great man and a good boy, not because he cut down the cherry-tree and wouldn't lie about it, for good boys and great men are not made out of one action, but a harmonious character which produces many good actions.
Then again, I am not so certain that the action was what it is cracked up to be, anyway. In the first place, good little boys don't cut down their father's fruit-trees. Generally, they like to climb them a great deal better, especially when the cherries are ripe. I know that—being a girl, who could have borrowed a hatchet and made myself immortal by chopping instead of climbing to pick half-green cherries, which I did, and tore my frock, besides getting a pain in the—well, heart, which two things betrayed me just as the little hatchet betrayed George.
Now, when my mother asked me what the mischief I'd been about, I didn't think of saying I couldn't lie, because I could, and longed to do it; but I knew that New England women would find me out and give me double "jessie" if I piled a whopper on top of the green cherries and torn frock, so I told her I didn't know, being conservative—took my whipping like a man and a trooper, scorning to cover up two sins under one pious truth.
I didn't follow George Washington's example, for two reasons. First, I had never heard of the hatchet; and again, the story don't wash to a degree that is expected of high-priced morality. When the youthful boy, Father of our Country, said hecouldn'tlie, he was a-doing it that very minute. What boy ever lived that couldn't lie? Lying is born in 'em, and they take to it as naturally as a kitten laps milk.
The fellow that wrote that story was a botch. Why didn't he make little George say, "Father, I won't tell a lie; so there—I cut down the cherry-tree with my little hatchet."
There would have been something heroic and above-board about that—a struggle against temptation foreshadowed, and a brave determination to stand up to the rack, fodder or no fodder, worthy of a boy that meant to be father of the man, who in his turn was the father of his country, thus doing up all his paternity in a wholesale way. But to say he couldn't was so sneakingly good that I don't believe it of him. In fact, I don't believe one word of the story.
Put that down on the records of your Society.
Of course, one never thinks of George Washington, that a nice boy, showing a hatchet, does not come in as the first picture.
The reason I happened to think of it was an invitation to go in a Government steamboat down to Mount Vernon, Washington's old homestead, and see the tomb where he was buried.
Of course I wanted to go. When the President of these United States gets out a Government steamboat on purpose to carry a distinguished New England female down to the tomb of her country's forefathers, it's an honor she's bound to accept.
I did accept it with enthusiasm, and at once invited Cousin Dempster and E. E. to go with me, for it always gives me pleasure to act as a sun to their moon.
The Japanese were invited to join me on the boat, and as many as two hundred other people were allowed to go down, which I was rather glad of—they being amongst the best—and my nature being social, as you know.
Well, between nine and ten in the morning, we drove up to the Navy Yard—a place where the Government builds the ships that are always being altered, and mended, and made worse than they were before. It's like a village on the water, is this Navy Yard, with a high wall around it, and a gate big enough for our carriage to go through, which it did, taking us down to the water in fine style.
"Do you want to go on board the 'Tallapoosa'?" says a man on the wharf.
"The 'Tallapoosa'!" says I to Dempster. "What outlandish thing is that?"
"The steamboat," says he.
"Well, why don't they call it a steamboat?" says I; "such airs!"
With that, I jumped out of the carriage, taking a neat dancing step as I touched the ground, and spread my parasol.
Just then another carriage drove up, choke full of little dark men.
"It is the Japanese," says Dempster.
"The Japanese! How can you say so?" says I. "Where are their punch-bowl hats and stiff veils?"
"Oh," says Dempster, "they have given those things up, and dress just as we do now."
"Dear me!" says I, a-looking into the carriage from under a slope of my parasol. "How funny they look with stovepipe hats, and boots, too—oh my!"
The Japanese were getting out of their carriage, but they seemed as if afraid of straining too hard on their clothes, and stepped on the ground as if it was paved with eggs.
Bang!
"Oh, goodness gracious!"
It was I that screamed out these words, and I hopped up at least half a yard from the ground, for somewhere, close by, a great gun went off—roaring over the water, like thunder.
"What does that mean? Does anybody want to murder us?" says I, shaking like a poplar-leaf.
"No, no," says he, "they are only saluting us."
"Salutingme?" says I. "How dare they? Of course they knew I should jump and scream. So loud, too! No young girl would stand it."
With that, I lifted my parasol, and walked across the plank on to the deck of that steamboat, and sat down.
Them Japanese came after, and sat down close to me. Mr. Iwakura looked at me, and I looked at him. He smiled, and I smiled. This Japanee knows how to smile with his eyes, and that's more than a good many other men can do.
Then I felt it my duty to talk a little, as these Japanese had been invited on my account; so, thinking that he would expect something original from me, I said:
"I think we shall have a pleasant day, Mr. Iwakura."
"Yes," says he, in real cunning English, looking as if he appreciated my little speech.
"I really hope," says I, "that you and your friends will feel quite at home."
He said "Yes," again, and smiled.
That smile was catching.
"I wonder if Mr. I. left a wife behind to languish for that peculiar expression? If not—"
I checked these roving thoughts as incompatible with former ideas.
The steamboat was puffing and blowing, and giving a scream now and then. It began to tremble—it veered and made a slow plunge down the river. The decks were crowded with ladies and gentlemen—all smiling happy—that seeming to be overjoyed to have the pleasure of coming with me.
The Potomac River is just lovely. All the trees along its banks were budding and feathering out with greenness. We passed by a town. Then a great round heap of stone walls, that they called the Fort. The grass was green around it, and some soldiers came out on the walls to look at us as we swept by.
It was pleasant; I felt the occasion to be something like that on which that Egyptian woman went down the River Nile in a row boat; so I lowered my parasol as we passed the Fort.
At last the steamboat made a dead stop in the river. We were right opposite Mount Vernon. I looked at the sacred old place from the water. It was lovely in itself, standing there on a high knoll, carpeted with soft spring grass, and with tall trees a-bending over it. The sunshine lay on the water and the shore, but that old house was a good deal in shadow, and all the more pleasant for that.
Some smaller boats came up to the steamboat. We got into them and went ashore.
M
MOUNT VERNON had looked lonesome enough till now; but when we all landed it was like a picture. We wandered about; we broke up into little crowds, and the whole place was alive with happy people.
Mr. Iwakura and the rest of the Japanese walked slowly up the road. Dempster, E. E., and I went with them till we came to a tomb dug into the bank, with an iron fence before it.
Iwakura took off his stove-pipe hat and held it, just as if he had been at a funeral. The rest did the same, looking sad and touchingly solemn.
I dropped my parasol low, to hide the tears that came gushing up to my eyes, without warning. Cousin E. E. began to sob.
I turned away, longing to creep off into some dark corner, and have a good cry all by myself.
A good many of the people had gone up to the old homestead which is spread out low on the ground, and has a stoop with pillars running all along the front. From this stoop you can see the bend of the river and the blue of its water through the trees. There was a well near by that put me in mind of home; a lot of girls were drinking from the bucket, and chirruping together like birds around a spring.
I didn't like the sound just then, and went into the hall-way of the old homestead. There was nothing worth while in it but a great, big, heavy key, covered with rust, and big enough to knock a man down with.
"This," says a gentleman, a-standing close by me, "is the key of the Bastille."
I jumped back.
"What!" says I—"that old prison in Paris, where men were buried alive, without trial?"
"The same," says he. "Lafayette gave it to General Washington."
I felt myself shuddering, but said nothing. The subject struck me dumb. We went upstairs into the chamber where Washington died. It was not over large, and low in the joints; but the windows looked out on the trees and the river, which took away some of its gloominess. Nothing but a bedstead, with high, spindling posts, was there.
"Did he die on that?" says I to a gentleman near me.
"No," says he, "but on a bedstead just like it."
I turned away. What business had a sham bedstead in that room? The idea of it riled up something besides sympathy in my bosom. I had rather see bare walls than a bedsteadlikethe one he died on. Why don't they take it down?
We went into the parlor. It isn't over-large, and looks cheery. An old, coffin-shaped piano was there, with broken wires; some old china plates and dishes were piled together. That was about all.
I couldn't stand it. The tomb had sunshine about it, and wasn't half so gloomy. The hall-door was open, and I went out. A little way from the house was Washington's flower-garden, where a few jonquills and crocuses were spotting the earth with yellow. Near that was a large brick house, long and low, crowded full of plants which had flowers on them.
This wasn't Washington's greenhouse, but a brand new one, which looked like a spring bonnet worn with a ten-year old dress. This riled me too. It seemed to me that the old homestead should be kept just as Washington left it. Newfangled improvements are an aggravation.
Before I came away from Washington there was a good deal of talk about the lady who lives here and takes charge, but I couldn't for the life of me find out anything that seemed extravagant or wrong about her. The truth is, the ladies of this country have spent years collecting money to buy Mount Vernon, and make it a place sacred to the nation, but they failed in obtaining a fund large enough to maintain it with honor.
The society give this lady no remunerative salary, and nothing but a pure missionary spirit could keep her in that dull and mournful place. If she raises money enough to keep the homestead in repair, it is all any one ought to ask, and all the nation wants. But for my part, I scorn this quiddling way of making money. There is a meanness about it that disgraces the nation.
The thing that should be done is this: put the whole concern into the hands of Congress. It ought to belong to the nation. Washington was not the saviour of a lot of women only, but of the whole country. Let the country have possession of his old home, and appropriate all the money needed to keep it in perfect order, as Washington left it. If the women of America raised money enough to buy the estate for no better purpose than to peddle out a sight of Washington's tomb for twenty-five cents a sight, and keep flowers to sell, they have sent their patriotism to a mighty small retail market.
Well, in the afternoon we all went on board the steamboat again, and had a good time running up and down the river, which is just one of the things I should like to do every day; for the day was bright enough to keep one out-doors forever, if it would only have lasted so long.
When we had got out of sight of Mount Vernon, a band of music came on deck, and played like anything, while we went down into the cabin, one party at a time, and ate dinner, which tasted delicious, I can tell you—to say nothing of the bottled cider, and such like, that kept the corks a-flying about like bullets.
It is wonderful what smartness that cider gives to a person. It sparkles through one like the first spring sap in a maple-tree.
When I went on deck again, my limbs felt springy as a steel trap, and I couldn't help dancing along, for a band of fiddlers and toot-horns was a-pouring out music, that, joined to the cider, was enough to make one want to dance with her own grandfather.
They did dance, sisters—I own it, with shame and contrition. I joined in with the other young girls, and flatter myself they know by this time what a genuine Virginia reel is.
Forgive me, I know it wasn't just the thing for a church member to do, especially while returning from that tomb; but bottled cider and fiddlers must be a stronger power in the hands of the Evil One than anything I have tried yet; and more church members, and ever so much older persons than me, just made that deck shake with their dancing, half the way up that beautiful river.
Still, my head aches this morning, and I have a sort of backsliding feeling. The truth is, Tombs and Virginia reels don't seem to gibe in together.
D
DEAR SISTERS:—What do you think of the dear old Mountain State now? Have you reason to be proud of her, or have you not? Do you understand what she has done lately in the way of literature—in the female line, I mean—and now, only think of it, the next President of the United States is expected from that sacred and hilly soil.
I know that Vermont will be almost tickled to death about this. It will be a crown of glory to her mountains, and a song of rejoicing in her valleys. The sap in her maple-trees will start earlier, run brighter, and sugar off more gloriously than it has ever done before. Up to this time, Vermont has never had her share of honors at the national Capitol, but now her time has come.
I am so glad I went to Mr. Greeley's birthday party, and I haven't a doubt that a great many other persons feel prettymuch as I do about it. When I shook hands with him there, and saw him standing in the midst of his friends, with his kind face looking smooth and enticing as a sweet baked apple, I little thought it might be the next President of these United States that was enjoying himself over a birthday. But things do get tangled and untangled dreadfully in this world of ours—don't they? and the most uncertain thing on this side of sundown is any man's destiny. The most certain thing is the popularity of success. It seems to me now as if I think considerable more of this great Vermonter than I did last week, but what has he done to make me?—that's what I should like to know. He's just the same man; has just as many faults—no great new supply of virtues. In fact, what has he done this week more than he did last, that I should feel a sort of honor and glory in being his friend?
I have been putting these questions to myself, and the answer makes me feel a little meachen. I am the missionary of one of the most august bodies that can be found in this or any other country. I represent a body of blameless, heroic ladies, whose glory it is to be above prejudice, and capable of self-judgment—ladies that are ladies, and wish to set an example of Christian womanliness to their own sex and the rest of mankind, feeling that "the eyes of all Vermont are upon them."
I am all this, yet I feel the humiliation of thinking all the better of a man because a great hullabaloo of other men have declared before the world that they want him for President of these United States. This is weak, but natural—natural, but awfully weak. Why should we let crowds of men we never saw judge for us? But then, how are we to judge for ourselves?
After all, this self-government is a difficult thing to carry out. What man really does govern himself?—either through his brain, or heart, some one else governs him. He gives himself up by the wholesale to a crowd, or by retail to his own family.
In the parlor of our hotel last night there was nothing but confusion and commotion. I went down there with Cousin E. E., for we all felt the glory that had settled down on us in a reflected way, and longed to enjoy it before folks. So down we went, trying to look as if nothing was the matter, but feeling the smiles quivering and playing about our lips like lady-bugs about an open rose.
The parlors were full. Everybody had something to say. Some were smiling, some looked ready to cry, and others looked grim as gunlocks; but most of the faces we saw were beaming like a harvest moon.
As for me, I felt—yes, as the poet says, "I felt—I felt like a morning star."
"Well, Miss Frost, how do you like it?" says a little mite of a woman, with pink ribbons spreading out on her bosom. "What do you think of the nomination?"
"Think?" says I. "Why, this is what I think—the sun will rise and set on the top of the Green Mountains like a crown of glory, after this."
"Will Vermont go for him?" says another, cutting in.
"Will the mountains stand on their old rocky base?" says I. "What a question!"
"Then you think it will?"
"Think! I know it will. When did that glorious old State neglect one of her own sons?"
"But it's so strange!" snivelled the little woman.
"Strange!" says I; "what is strange?"
"Why, that Mr. Greeley should be nominated."
"Well," says I, with cutting irony, "do you think it strange that the people of this country should choose an honest man once in a while? ain't we always ready to reward merit? Haven't we done it in the military way with General Grant? Haven't we a right to go into a new field? First the sword, now the pen."
"Oh! not that; but—but—"
"Well, but what?"
"He's so—so peculiar."
"Yes, he is," says I, "if integrity, simple good faith, and sound sense is peculiar—and I begin to think it is."
"Do you know him, Miss Frost?"
I drew myself up, and that feeling I have spoken of came over me. It was a temptation, and—well, I and Mrs. Eve are a little alike in our feminine weaknesses; I'm glad I have Bible support in the disposition to fib a little that comes over me.
"Do I know him?" said I. "Yes, intimately."
"Ah!" says she.
"You can judge how intimately," says I, smitten with compunction, and craw-fishing down into a deceiving truth, "when I tell you that I was an honored guest at his birthday party."
"You don't say so!" says she.
I didn't feel bound to remind her that I had said so, and only drew myself up a trifle, and waved my fan back and forth with a dignified movement.
"And you really think well of him? But, then, he is an editor, and authors always have a sort of affinity for gentlemen of the press," says a pert young creature, twisting her head on one side, and coming up to me.
"I think well of him," says I, "because he is a man that has worked his way up in the world by the hardest; studied wisdom from the type he was setting, when he had no time for books; worked like a Trojan to support himself days, then sat up half the night to improve his mind. Mr. Greeley is in all respects a self-made man. This nomination is but the proper and natural crown of a busy life like his, of integrity like his, and of wisdom like his."
"You talk earnestly," says a gentleman, coming up into the little crowd that grew thick around me.
"Because I feel earnestly," says I, a-doubling up my fan, and laying down the law with it. "I don't pretend to know a great deal about politics, but I do know something about thehistory of my country, and it has never been better governed than when self-made men have ruled over it; but here is something more—the editor of a great daily journal is gathering up knowledge and wisdom every day of his life. He has opportunities for watching events and judging of actions that prepare his own mind for the exercise of power when it comes. "Why," says I, warming up, "the greatest statesmen that you have are editors and self-made men. The fact is, men who have worked their own way in the world, haven't time to be rogues, and very seldom are even grasping. It is your lazy fellow, who lives by the cunning that he calls wits, who is not to be trusted. For my part, as two candidates have to be in the field to have a good run, I am glad that those Cincinnati folks had the sense to take a man right out of the bosom of the people to govern the people. Brought up so close to the public heart, he'll know how it beats. Having been a working man, he'll know how to feel for toilers like himself, just as General Grant now feels for the soldiers."
"You talk like a book," says the young lady, a-twisting her head the other way.
"I didn't know till you told me, miss, that books did talk," says I, opening my fan again.
"Oh, yes, they do," says she, giggling.
"Bound to talk, I suppose," says I, a-smiling in my usual bland way.
They all laughed at this, but the girl looked around as if she wondered what it was all about.
I just made a little inclination of the head, and went on:
"We were speaking of self-made men, I think," says I; "such men have drifted away from New England, like shooting stars. Wherever they may shine, New England is proud of them, and claims them as her own; for this reason; and because I love my country, I am glad Horace Greeley is on the highway to be its next President. With him and Grant running neck to neck, I shan't care much which beats."
D
DEAR SISTERS:—I wish you could have seen that stuck-up thing, with all the color taken out of her hair, perking herself up for an argument with me. All the people in the room had crowded round us, which set her all in a flutter.
"Oh, pray excuse me," says she, a-shaking her curls, "we are broaching into politics, and I assure you," says she, a-primming herself up, "I know nothing about such subjects."
"Why," says I, "you speak as if ignorance were something to be proud of."
"I—I do not pretend to know anything of politics, at any rate," says she, a-coloring up with inward madness.
"Indeed, what is politics," says I. "The history of the present? Why should the most refined lady on earth be ignorant of one period of history more than another?"
"Politics are things going on at the present time, and no real lady is expected to take interest in them," says she.
"What is the present time? The breath we are drawing—nothing more. That very breath has now gone into the past, which is history. All the rest is guess-work and prophecy," says I.
"Dear me, how strong-minded you are," says she, giving her curls a toss; "I suppose you would be splendidly eloquent on Woman's Rights too."
"No," said I, "all my life I have had more rights than I have known how to use, so I leave that question to persons who have no better field of ambition. Mine happens to be of a different kind. I want to make women wise, good, generous, faithful to duties that come down to them from their mothers. I want to improve women, miss, not turn them into contemptible men."
"By talking politics?" says she, as saucy as a sour apple; "what is the good of that if you don't go in for voting?"
"What is the good of any knowledge which may be turned into blessings by woman's influence?" says I, blandly.
"Then you believe that women ought to have influence in politics," says she.
"I think that women should have influence everywhere," said I, "but only as women. We are governed through the heart, and those finer portions of the intellect that people call taste. Men plant the grain and timber of every-day life with their strong hands, which God made for that very purpose. We women fill in the hollows and crevices and swelling banks with flowers and ferns and delicate shade-trees, which make the vigorous work of their strong hands beautiful."
Sisters, I said this to that stuck-up girl because I wanted to express an opinion on this subject—first, because it was my opinion, and again, because I know that it is yours, going as you do for it in a spirit of feminine spontaneosity. I don't want the nature of our Society misunderstood. We are not Woman's Righters, nor Woman's Wrongers, but straight out women, wanting nothing better on this earth than to be just as God made us, with a full, free, and generous development of all the femininities that belong to the sex.
For my part, I don't want to be a man; his work is too rough and hard for me. His thoughts have too heavy and coarse a grain. His clothes wouldn't fit me any better than his thoughts and duties.
We being women, according to a beneficent God's intention, have got enough to occupy a whole life in the same path that our good old New England mothers trod. We don't want to get out of that path into any other, and we don't mean to entice the children that are growing up amongst us into an idea that pure-thinking, hard-working womanliness isn't the highest and best destiny that God has yet given to his creatures.
I have no patience with women who scorn their own sex so much that they would rather turn into weak, meddlesomemen than work, study, bring up children, and live as high-souled, loving women should. As for voting and all that, it's just turning gold into brass, and getting nothing but the baser metal for change.
Why, influence is a thousand times sweeter and more certain than legal power, and that is given to every woman who loves and is beloved.
As for my part, I should be ashamed if I couldn't persuade ever so many men to do any right thing I wanted. Shouldn't I be a fool to swap off that influence for the rights that only one man owns for himself?
If women want power, let them be sweet, good, and persuasive, wise enough to have their opinions command respect, and bright enough to enforce them pleasantly. That is the way to move nations, if the mind of woman ever can do it. At any rate, it is the way to govern families and make them respectable in the next generation; and out of families nations are made.
"Have you ever noticed one thing?" says I to the people about me. "Whenever women get dissatisfied with themselves and hanker after the rights of men, the very foundations of life seem to be breaking up all around us. Marriage ties fall into ashes like fire in hatcheled flax, morals are burned up, families torn to pieces, and society falls into revolt against law and religion. When women begin to hanker after votes, they hanker after divorces too, and, while they want unlimited power with men, throw away the noblest of all power over men—that of honest respect and a sacred consciousness of protecting."
If women will break through all the delicate safeguards and childlike purity which keeps them so much above men, that they are aspired after and worshipped, let them take the consequences. To be hustled in conventions, hissed off from platforms, and received with hidden sneers by three-fourths of mankind, doesn't seem to me half so pleasant and respectable as the friendship of one's neighbors, and the love of one's own family; but, if they like it better, I haven't the least mite of an objection.Only such things force an honest woman into awful bad company once in a while, and it sometimes happens that ambition leads them to shake hands with persons that sweet charity itself could never persuade the best of them to touch with a ten-foot pole.
"Don't think," says I, "that I go against female progress, or would stop its infinite capabilities—far from it. There are questions mixed up with this subject that ought to have our warmest sympathy and most ardent help. Female labor is one of them, and in that lies the greatest moral question of these times.
"When a woman finds herself doing the work nature carved out for her, with a man crowding her out, doing no more, yet getting double pay, only because he happens to be a man, it is a burning shame and disgrace to both sexes. If that injustice can't be swept away by fair means, I go in for trying any that a female woman can handle without bringing herself down to a level with the males who seem to be as sick of being men as some of our sex are of being women.
"Still, it seems to me that the best way of doing this is by such appeals for justice as have brought the women of New York State more freedom than they know what to do with. At this day there is no legal slavery for any woman in the great Empire State. The fact is, the women there have got their feet on the necks of the men. But this don't satisfy them, and they are all the time crying out for more, as the Scripture says, like the leeches—which is a passage of Scripture that I never have quite understood, because leeches in our day suck yourbloodwithout asking, and I never yet heard of one who went farther than a bite in the way of crying out.
"Excuse me," says I, drawing breath, "if I sometimes digress, and turn down a Scripture path in search of scientific truth or illustration. I was saying that a woman in New York State is to all intents and purposes master of herself—herself and husband too. If she has money when a poor fellow marries her, it is all her own to do with as she has a mind to,just as much as if she had never been married at all. But he has to support her, anyway, keep up the house, pay all the bills, settle her debts, if she is mean enough to make them, and she can be hoarding up her own money all the time, while he has no more right to touch a cent of it than the man in the moon.
"More than this; when he dies, she comes in for a full third of his real estate for life, and has half his personal property, to sell, give away, or do with as she pleases. Ifshedies, he cannot touch a red cent. Then, again, she can sell all the real estate that belongs to her, without so much as asking his advice, but he cannot sell an acre or a wood-shed, and give a clear title, without her written name to the deed. Then, again, if he earns money, the law makes him support her; if she earns money, he has no right to a cent of it.
"Poor, downtrodden creatures are these women of New York State—don't you think so," says I. "Is it a wonder they get dissatisfied with their hardships, and hanker after more power, more freedom, and less work? When marriage is so profitable, is it strange that some of them want a great deal of it, and go through the divorce courts three or four times with a rush, picking up scraps of alimony and leaving scraps of reputation along the way.
"If it wasn't that I mean to stand by my own sex through thick and thin, I should say that the laws lean a trifle over on the woman's side in York State; but, being a woman, I keep a lively thinking, while the other poor, downtrodden souls rush to the women's rights meetings, and wring their hands in desperation over the wrongs I have just explained."
"But what has this to do with your Society?" says Cousin E. E.
"Everything. We are in for Infinite Progress. We want women to be all that God intended them to be—the full companions and helpmates of men. We want them to cultivate all the Christian and kindly virtues, not only because they make women lovely and beloved, but because men are humanized,softened, and made better by such help and such companionship. When men seek peace, rest, the inspirations of prayer, they turn at once to us for tender guidance and sympathy. Would they do that if we elbowed them at the polls, or held knock-down arguments at the primary elections? No, no! If we can soften human misery, strengthen weakness, make women wiser and men better, it is all that the best woman among us can ask."
Sisters, I had got too much in earnest. I felt the blood come like a dash of wine into my face. It seemed to me as if I were on a platform, lecturing, and the thought covered me with confusion, like a crimson garment. I bent my head slightly, and went away dreadfully ashamed of myself.