Anybody would have thought that this episode (Spink episode) would have
sickened Josiah Allen of launchin’ out into any more headwork, and
tryin’ to made money on a speck. But if you’ll believe it, Jonathan
Spink’ses folks hadn’t been gone three weeks—for Kitty come back the day
after Spink’ses folks left, and she only stayed with us two weeks that
time, havin’ promised to stay a spell to Thomas Jefferson’s, and it was
only a few days after she went—and then I knew by Josiah’s legs—the
black-and-blue spots hadn’t begun to wear off; they had just begun to
turn yaller—and then I knew by my head-dress, too—when that man come
home from Jonesville one night, cross as a bear.
I said I knew by my new head-dress. I well remember I had wore it that
afternoon for the first time, some expectin’ very genteel company, and
wantin’ to look well. But the company didn’t come, and Kellup Cobb did.
He come to bring home a cent he had borrowed the night before at the
missionary meetin’ to send for his annual gift to the heathens. And he
noticed my new cap in a minute. He looked witherin’ and overbearin’ at
it, and in a sort of a back-handed, underground way, that I can’t bear,
nor never could, he begun to throw hints at me about it. About married
women and members of meetin’-housen spendin’ their money in such
extravagance, when they might spend it in spreadin’ the Gospel in
benighted lands—and about how awful wicked it was to be so dressy—and et
cetery, et cetery.
My cap _wuz_ middlin’-foamin’ lookin’. I couldn’t deny it, and didn’t
try to. It wuzn’t what you might call over and above dressy, but it was
handsome, and _very_ nice. The ribbin on it cost me 18 pence per yard,
and the cap contained two yards and a half; it was _very_ nice. But none
too good for me, my Josiah said.
He is what you may call a close man at a bargain. (Tight, would perhaps
be a better word to express his situation.) But he loves dearly to see
me look beautiful. And he is very gay in his tastes; red is his favorite
color, and the more fiery shades of yellow; he would be glad to see me
dressed in these tints all the time. But I don’t encourage him in the
idee. Not that I think one color is wickeder than another, but they
don’t seem to be becomin’ to my style and age.
Now this new head dress, I had picked it out and selected it with my
pardner by my side, and he whispered to me loud, as I was a-selectin’ of
it: “If you have _got_ to have a new cap, Samantha, for mercy’s sake get
a red one.”
But I whispered to him that I should look like a fool with a red cap on,
and to keep still.
[Illustration: THE NEW HEAD-DRESS.]
And then he whispered agin, in a more anxious tone: “Wall then, for
pity’s sake do get yeller, or sunthin’ that has got a little color to
it. Black! black! the whole of the time; you look jest like a mourner.”
I had a black one on my hand at that time, admirin’ of it, and most
settled on it. But Josiah’s mean was such as I was a-settlin’, that I,
as a devoted pardner, and a woman of principle, compromised the matter
with Josiah and Duty, by purchasin’ one trimmed with a sort of a pinky,
lilock color. It was very becomin’ to me. But I won’t deny, as a woman
who is bred to tellin’ the truth, and not gin to deceit and coverin’
up,—I won’t deny that the first time I tried that head-dress on after I
got home, I had my curious feelin’s. I thought mebby it was wrong for me
to buy such costly ribbin, and so much of it. And then I worried about
the color, too. Thinkses I, mebby it is too young for me; too young for
a woman who owns a bald-headed pardner and a grandchild, and who has but
few teeth left in her head.
My conscience is a perfect old tyrent, and jest drives me round more’n
half the time. I am willin’ to be drove by her as fur as I ort to be.
But sometimes, I declare for’t, I get so tuckered out with her drivin’s,
that I get fairly puzzled, and wonderin’ whether she knows herself all
the time jest what she is about; whether she is certain that she is
always a drivin’ me in the right road; and how fur I ort to be drove by
her, and when, and where to; and whether I ort to let my intellect and
common sense lay holt and help her drive. As I say, she run me
considerable of a run on this head-dress. I had a awful time of it, and
won’t deny it, and I was on the very pint several times of carryin’ it
back. But when Kellup come right out, and gin such powerful hints about
it; about extravagance, and wickedness, and vanity; and about married
wimmen settin’ sinful patterns to them outside of meetin’-housen, and
that it didn’t look likely, and et cetery, et cetery, and so forth.
[Illustration: APPLE BLOSSOMS.]
Why, as he went on a hintin’ so powerful strong, and givin’ such burnin’
glances onto that head-dress, why, I sort o’ sprunted up, and begun to
see things on the other side plainer than I had seen ’em.
Then says I, as the eyes of my specks rested upon the apple-boughs that
filled the north kitchen winder with a glow of rosiness and sweetness:
“The Lord don’t seem to think as you do, Kellup. Jest see how He has
dressed up that old apple-tree.” Says I: “No fashionable belle in New
York or Paris village can ever hope to wear garments so daintily fine
and sweet. No queen nor empress ever wore or ever will wear for their
coronation robes such splendid and gorgeous raiment as the common spring
suit of that old apple-tree.”
[Illustration: HOW IT MIGHT HAVE BEEN.]
Says Kellup, holdin’ his head well up in the air, and drawin’ his lips
down with a very self-righteous drawin’, that I knew meant head-dress,
though he didn’t come right out and say it:
“I despise and detest the foolishness of display. There is more
important and serious business on earth than dressin’ up to look nice.”
“That is so,” says I, “that is jest as true as you live. Now that old
apple tree’s stiddy business and theme is to make sweet, juicy apples;
but at the same time that don’t hender her from dressin’ up, and lookin’
well. The Lord might have made the apples grow in rows right round the
trunk from top to bottom, with no ‘foolishness of display’ of the rosy
coloring and perfume—but He didn’t. He chose in His wisdom, which it is
not for you or me to doubt, to make it a glory and a delight to every
beholder. So beautiful that the birds sail and sing with very joy in and
out of the sweet branches, and the happy bees hum delightedly about the
honey-laden cells, and she whose name was once Smith, has been made
happy as a queen all day long, by jest lookin’ out of that window down
into the fragrant, rosy depths of sweetness and light.”
“Wall,” says Kellup, lookin’ keen at my head-dress, “I don’t consider it
likely, anyway, to spend so much time a dressin’ up—it is a shiftless
waste of time, anyway.”
“Why,” says I; for the more he scolded me, the plainer I see the other
side of things. So curious are human bein’s constituted and sot.
[Illustration: HARD AT IT.]
“Nater has always been considered likely—I never heard a word against
her character, and she is stiddy minded, too, and hard workin’. She
works hard, Nater does. She works almost beyond her strength sometimes.
She has sights of work on her hands all the hull time, and she has a
remarkable knack of turnin’ off tremendous day’s works. And I never in
my hull life heard her called shiftless or slack. But what a case she is
to orniment herself off; to rag out and show herself in so many
different colors. And if she feels better to be dressed up and fixed off
kinder pretty while she’s to work, I don’t know whose business it is. I
never was no case myself to dress up in white book muslin, or pink silk,
or bobonet lace, or anything of that kind, when I was a doin’ hard jobs,
such as makin’ soap, and runnin’ candles, and cleanin’ house, and
etcetery. And when I have got to be out in the rain when it is all
drabbly and muddy, why I jest wrap up and look like fury. But she don’t.
No! I have known her time and agin to tie the most gorgeous and shinin’
rainbow round her old waist and jest lay herself out to look foamin’ and
dressy, right there in the rain.
“It beats all how she does fix herself up. But it don’t hurt my feelin’s
at all. I never was a mite jealous of other females lookin’ better than
I did. The better they look, the better I enjoy lookin’ at ’em. And if
Nater can dress up better and look better while she is a doin’ her
spring work and all her other hard jobs than I can, good land! how
simple it would be in me to blame her. There is where I use such
cast-iron reason. You don’t ketch me a blamin’ other folks for their
little personal ways and habits that don’t do nobody no hurt. She is
well off, Nater is, and able to do as she is a mind to; she has got
plenty to do with; she don’t have to scrimp herself to buy flowers, and
tossels, and rainbows. If she did, I shouldn’t approve of it in her, not
at all. I despise folks goin’ beyond their means to look pretty. I think
it is wicked, and the height of dretfulness. But if them that are
abundantly able and willin’ want to look nice, I say, let ’em look.”
And I cast a conscious and sort of a modest glance up into the
lookin’-glass that hung over the table. I could jest ketch a glimpse of
my head-dress, and I see that its strings floated out noble, and I see
at the same glance that he was still lookin’ witherin’ at it. But I
didn’t care a mite for it. I was jest filled with my subject (that side
of it, for every subject has got more’n a dozen sides to it), and the
more he cast them witherin’ looks onto me the more I wuzn’t withered—but
soared up in mind, and grew eloquent.
And I went on fearfully eloquent about Nater, and the way she fixed
herself up perfectly beautiful—right when she was a workin’ the hardest.
“Why,” says I, “when she goes way down into the depths of the under
world to make iron, and coal, and salt, and things that has got to be
made, and she has got to make ’em—why, she can’t be contented way down
there in the dark, all alone by herself, without deckin’ herself off
with diamonds, and all sorts of precious gems, and holdin’ up wreaths of
shinin’ crystal, enameled fern fronds, and hangin’ clusters snowy white,
and those shinin’ with every dazzlin’ hue.
“And way down on the ocean floor, fifteen miles or so down below, where
she would naturally expect nobody would come a visatin’—why, way down
there, where she must know that there hain’t no company liable to drop
in on her onexpected, yet every minute of the time she is all ornimented
off with pearls, and opal-tinted shells, daintest green and crimson
seagrass, gem-like purple astreas, wonderful pink and white coral
wreaths—all strange and lovely blossoms of the sea.
“What tongue can tell the wonders of the beauty she arrays herself with
way down there in the dark alone. How every little bud of beauty is
wreathed around with other marvels of loveliness—how all about one tiny
little bit of a blossom will be twined other wonderful little flowerin’
vines, starred with crystal bells.
“No tongue can ever describe it—not mine, certainly, for I say but
little myself, and that little is far too small to express these wonders
of beauty.
[Illustration: NATURE’S OCEAN BOUDOIR.]
“And then right round here, when she is to work right here in our
fields, doin’ her common run of hard work—such as makin’ wheat, and
oats, and other grain. No matter how hot the weather is, or muggy; no
matter whether she is behindhand with her work, and in a awful hurry—she
always finds time to scatter along in the orderly ranks of the grain,
wild red poppies and blue-eyed asters. And I never in my life, and
Josiah never did, see her ever make a solid ear of corn without she hung
on top of it a long silk tossel. And I don’t believe she ever made a ton
of hay in the world, if she had her own way about it, but what she made
it perfectly gay with white daisies and butter-cups.
[Illustration: NATURE’S WORK.]
“And all the gardens of the world she glorifies, and all the roads, and
hedges, and lanes, and by-ways. No matter how long and crooked they are,
or how tejus, she scatters blossoms of brightness and beauty over them
all.
“And clear up on the highest mountains, under the shadow of the
everlastin’ snows, she will stop to lay a cluster of sweet mountain
anemones and Alpine roses on the old bosom—for she is a gettin’
considerable along in years, Nater is. Not that I say it in a runnin’
way at all, or spiteful, or mean. But I s’pose she is older than we have
any idee of—as old agin as folks call her. But she acts young, and looks
so. She holds her age remarkable, as has been often remarked about a
person whose name was once Smith.
“Why, she acts fairly frisky and girlish sometimes. Way down in the
lowest valleys, down by the most hidden brook-side, she will sit down to
weave together the most lovely and coquetish bunches of fern and
grasses, and scarlet and golden wild flowers, and deck herself up in ’em
like a bride of 16. You never ketched her runnin’ in debt for a lot of
stuff though—her principles are too firm. But she goes on makin’ beauty
and gladness wherever she goes, and lookin’ handsome, and if it had been
wicked the Lord wouldn’t have let her go on in it. He could have stopped
her in a minute if He had wanted to. She does jest as He tells her to,
and always did.
“And,” says I, with considerable of a stern look onto Kellup, “if
Nater—if she who understands the unwritten language of God, that we
can’t speak yet—if she, whose ways seem to us to be a revelation of that
will of the Most High—if she can go on wreathing herself in beauty, I
don’t think we should be afraid of gettin’ holt of all we can of it—of
all lovely things. And I don’t think,” says I, givin’ a sort of a
careless glance up into the lookin’-glass, “that there should be such a
fuss made by the world at large about my head-dress.”
“But,” says Kellup, a groanin’ loud and violent, “it is the wickedness
of it I look at. To follow the vile example of the rich. And oh! how
wicked rich folks be. How hard-hearted, how unprincipled, and vile.” And
agin he groaned, deep.
Says I, “Don’t groan so, Kellup,” for it was truly skairful to hear him.
Says he, “I will groan!” Says he, “The carryin’s on and extravagance of
the rich is enough to make a dog groan.”
I see I couldn’t stop his groanin’, but I went on a talkin’ reasonable,
in hopes I could quell him down.
Says I, “There is two sides to most everything, Kellup, and some have
lots of sides. That is what makes the world such a confusin’ place to
live in. If things and idees didn’t have but one side to ’em, we could
grab holt of that side, hold it close, and be at rest.
“But they do. And you must look on both sides of things before you make
a move. You mustn’t confine yourself to lookin’ on jest one side of a
subject, for it hain’t reasonable.”
“I won’t try to look on both sides,” says he with a bitter look. “That
is what makes folks onsettled and onstabled in their views, and liberal.
But I won’t. I am firm and decided. I am satisfied to look on one side
of a subject—on the good old orthodox side. You won’t ketch me a
whifflin’ round and lookin’ on every side of a idee.”
“Wall,” says I, calmly, for to convince, and not to anger, is ever my
theme and purpose. And knowin’ that to the multitude truth is most often
palatable if presented in a parabolical form, and has been for centuries
often imbibed by them in that way, entirely unbeknown to them. And
knowin’ that the little scenes of daily life are as good to wrap round
morals and cause ’em to be swallowed down unbeknowin’, as peach
preserves are to roll round pills, I went on and says:
“If you won’t look on only one side of a subject, Kellup, you may find
yourself in as curious a place as Melvin Case was last fall. His wife
told it herself to Miss Gansey, and Miss Gansey told the editor of the
Augurs’es wife, and the editor of the Augurs’es wife told Miss Mooney,
and she told the woman’s first husband’s mother-in-law that told me. It
come straight.
“It was a very curious situation, and the way on’t was: Melvin Case, as
you know, married Clarinda Piller of Piller P’int, down on the Lake
Shore road. Wall, they had been married 23 years and never had no
childern, and last fall they had a nice little boy. He was a welcome
child, and weighed over 9 pounds.
“Wall, Malvin thought the world of his wife, and bein’ very tickled
about the boy, and feelin’ very affectionate towards his wife at the
time, he proposed at once that they should call him after her maiden
name—Piller. Of course she give her willin’ consent, and they was both
highly tickled. But you see, bein’ blinded by affection and happiness,
they didn’t look on only one side of the idee, and they never studied on
how the two names was a goin’ to look when they was put together, till
after he had wrote it down in the Bible; and then he paused, with his
pen in his hand, and looked up perfectly horrified at his wife, who was
holdin’ the baby in her arms and lookin’ over his shoulder, and she
looked perfectly dumbfoundered at him, for they see it looked
awful—Piller Case.
[Illustration: BABY PILLER CASE.]
“Now you are lookin’ at one side of the subject, but there is another
side to it, Kellup,—there is as sure as you live and breathe.
“God knows too much cannot be said or sung about the duty the rich owe
to the poor. They cannot study too correctly, and follow too closely the
pattern that He, the loving Elder Brother, set them. He who was so
tender in His compassion; so helpful and thoughtful to the claims of the
poor and humble. But charity is a big word, and it has more than one
side to it. It means charity to the poor, under whose lowly roofs He
once entered, a child of the poor, and so consecrated them honorable for
all time. Those who were His closest friends through His toilsome
earthly life; those whom He loved first, and loved last; cared for even
in that supreme moment of His most triumphant and glorious ignominy.
Shall not His followers forever love and bless those He hallowed by His
tender care in such a moment? Yes, charity to the poor first. But we
mustn’t stop there, Kellup. We may want to set right down in front of
that side of the word, and stay there. But we mustn’t. If we want to
view this heavenly word on every side we must walk round on the other
side of it, and see that it means, too, charity to the rich. A higher,
subtler quality of charity it calls for in us than the other.
“For I can tell you, Kellup, some folks say it is a tough job for one to
keep a sweet, charitable, loving spirit towards them that are richer,
more successful, and happier than they be. Hard for ’em to rejoice over
the good fortune of the great. Hard for ’em to keep from judgin’ them
severely—from feelin’ envious over the good fortune they cannot share.
[Illustration: FEELIN’ CHRISTIAN.]
“We are exhorted to feel sorry for the man who falls down and breaks his
leg. We are exhorted to feel christian toward that humble man. But
though there hain’t much said on the other side of the subject, I think
it is enough sight harder to feel christian towards that man when we are
a layin’ flat on the ice, or slippery sidewalk, and he is a standin’ up
straight.
“It is easy to deceive ourselves; easy to give very big, noble names to
very small emotions. And if we feel uncomfortable to see some one else
who has always stood on the same level with ourselves suddenly lifted
above us,—no matter how worthily he may have earned that more exalted
station,—we may call that uncomfortable feelin’ any name we please. We
may call it a holy horror of worldly-mindedness—a hauntin’ fear lest he
be jeopardizin’ his immortal soul, by settin’ up on that loftier spear.
And mebby it is. I hain’t a goin’ to come right out and say that it
hain’t. But I will say this, for there hain’t no harm in it, and it
can’t make no trouble. I will say that if we feel this uncomfortable
feelin’ we ort to keep a close watch of our symptoms. For though that
gripin’ pain in the left side may be a religious pain, yet there is a
possibility that it may be envy. And if it is, it requires fur different
treatment. And it may be a self-righteous, Pharasaical feelin’ that our
Lord seemed to hate worst of any feelin’ we could feel.
“I tell you it requires the very closest dognosing (to use a high learnt
medical phrase) to get the symptoms exactly right, and see exactly what
aches we are a achin’. For the heart that we imagine is a gripin’ and a
achin’ at sinful worldly-mindedness, may be a achin’ with the consumin’
fever of spite, and envy and revenge,—the heart-burnin’ desire and
determination to bring the loftier and the nobler down in some way on a
level with ourselves, if not by fair means, with the foul ones of malice
and slander and lies.
“I don’t say it is so; but I say, let us be careful, and let us be
charitable to all,—the rich and the poor,—for charity, Kellup, like the
new linen ulsters, covers a multitude of sinners.
“Now,” says I, metaforin’ a little, as I might have known I should
before I got through, “now if I was a woman, and should say that to wear
diamonds was wicked, or to live in a beautiful home full of books and
pictures, and all the means of ease and culture was an abomination to
me, and wicked, when I was hankerin’ in the very depths of my soul to be
wicked in jest that way, if I only had the wherewith to be wicked with,
why, that holy horror I professed would be vain in me; empty as soundin’
brass and tinglin’ symbols. Let us be honest and true first, and then
put on more ornamental christianity afterwards; there hain’t no danger
of our gettin’ any too much of it, that is, of the right kind. Envy and
hypocracy and cant look worse to me than diamonds; and I would wear the
diamonds as quick agin—if I got the chance.”
Kellup didn’t look a mite convinced. But I kep’ right on, for though I
am a woman that says but little, yet when I begin to convince anybody I
always want to finish up the job in a handsome, thorough way, and then I
felt real eloquent; and I tell you it is hard, even for a close-mouthed
woman, it is hard for ’em when they feel as eloquent as I did then to
keep from swingin’ right out and talkin’, and I didn’t try to stop
myself; I kep’ right on, and says I:
“It is a mistake in you and in me if we think that every rich person is
necessarily a hard-hearted one; if we think a tender heart cannot beat
jest as warmly and truly aginst a ermine robe, as a shabby overcoat;
aginst a rich boddist waist, as a calico bask. There are little, stingy,
narrow, contracted souls in every station-house of life, high ones and
low ones; and there are loving, generous ones, visey versey, and the
same. And God bless those tender hearts where-ever they are; those who
in lofty places organize the great charities whose benefactions bless
the nations in famine, in war, and in the calamity of national sickness
and distress. And Heaven bless the lowly toilers of life, whose humble
gifts out of their scanty means are in God’s sight equally as great.
“The little blue potato-blossom laid upon the pillow of the sick by the
child of poverty—we think the perfume of that little odorless flower
will rise to Heaven as sweet as the most royal blossom given by the
children of kings. The blossoms of true charity are all sweet in
Heaven’s sight.”
[Illustration: “BLESSINGS ON THEM ALL!”]
And says I, lookin’ up to the ceilin’ in a almost rapped eloquence of
mean, and a lofty fervency and earnestness of axent:
“Heaven bless all the generous, loving hearts that beat under any and
every colored robe; under the shabby garb of poverty; the somber hue of
some consecrated sisterhood of compassion; under the quaint Quaker garb,
or the bright silks of the Widder Albert’s generous daughters; those who
conscientiously wear sober clothing, and those who jest as innocently
wear brighter apparel. Heaven bless them all; the gray-robed sisterhood
of Mercy, God’s dove-colored angels, who lean over the beds of the sick
and the sorrowing, and whose shadows falling by the beds of pain the
sad-eyed soldiers kiss; Catholic or Protestant, whatever their creed,
they have the divinest gift of the three—the divine gift of Charity. God
made them all—the rose and the gray; the blue sky, the rainbow, and the
soft shadow of the twilight clouds. He made the earth for His beloved;
nothing is too good for them, or too beautiful. And why should one color
boast over another, as being purer-minded, and less wicked?”
[Illustration: A HEAVENLY MESSENGER.]
I had been very eloquent, and felt considerable eloquent still, but
happenin’ to let the eye of my speck fall for a minute on Kellup, I see
by the awful unbelievin’ look on his face that I had got to simplify it
down to his comprehension. I see that he did not understand my soarin’
ideas as I would wish ’em to be understood.
Not that I blamed him for it. Good land! a tow string hain’t to blame
for not bein’ made a iron spike. But at the same time it is bad and
wearisome business for the one who attempts to use that tow string for a
spike—tries to drive it into the solid wall of argument and clinch a
fact with it. I had said a good deal about beauty, but it seemed as if I
wanted to say sunthin’ more, and I went on and said it:
“Some folks seem to be afraid of beauty; as ’fraid of it as if it was a
bear. They seem to be more afraid of lettin’ a little beauty into their
lives than they be of lettin’ the same amount of wickedness in. You
would think a man was awful simple who would spend his hull strength in
puttin’ up coverin’s to his windows to keep out the sunshine and fresh
air, and not pay any attention to the obnoxious creeters, wild-cats,
burglars, and etcetery that was comin’ right into the open front-door.
And it hain’t a mite more simple than it is for them, for they take so
much pains a puttin’ up iron bars (as it were) across the windows of
their souls to keep beauty and brightness and innocent recreation out of
it, that they have no time to see how uncharitableness and envy and
malice and hatred and a hull regiment of just such ugly creeters are
troopin’ right into the front-door unbeknown to them.
[Illustration: The wreathed Spear]
“They seem to take a pride in despisin’ beauty, as if it was a merit in
them to look down upon, and feel hauty and contemptuous toward the
divinest and loveliest thing God ever made. I don’t feel so, Kellup. I
don’t think it is wicked for me to lay holt of all the beauty and
happiness that I can, consistently with my duty to humanity and Josiah.
“There are some things that must be done first of all. We must hold the
spear firm and upright. We must carry our principles stiddy and firm.
But we have a perfect right and privilege to wreath that spear and them
principles with all the blossoms of brightness and innocent happiness we
can possibly lay holt of. Them is my opinions. Howsomever, everybody to
their own mind.”
“Beauty the divinest thing God ever made!” says Kellup in a hauty,
ironical tone. “How dare you be so wicked, Josiah Allen’s wife? I call
it awful wicked to talk so.”
Says I, “I don’t believe anything is wicked that lifts us right up
nearer to Heaven. I don’t mean to be wicked.”
“Wall, you be,” says he, speakin’ up sharp. “Worshipin’ beauty,
worshipin’ the creature instead of the creator.”
Says I, “Can you tell me, Kellup, what that spirit of beauty is, that
you are so sot aginst?” Says I, feelin’ more and more eloquent as I dove
further and further into the depths of the subject than I had doven—and
the more I went on about it the more carried away I wuz and lost, till
before I had gone on 2 minutes I was entirely by the side of myself, and
carried completely out of Kellup Cobb’s presence, out of Josiah Allen’s
kitchen, out into the mighty waste of mystery that floats all round
Jonesville and the world:
“What is this spirit of beauty—there is something, some hidden spirit,
some soul of inspiration, in all beautiful things, pictures, poetry,
melody—a spirit that forever eludes us, flies before us, and yet smiles
down into our souls forever with haunting, glorious eyes. What is this
wonderful spirit, this insperation that thrills us so in all sweetest
and saddest melodies, in lovely landscapes, in the soft song of the
summer wind, and the mournful refrain of ocean waves, in sunset, and the
weird stillness of a starry midnight? That thrills us so in all
glorified legends of heroism—and in that divinest poem of a noble
life.—That haunts us, and so fills our souls with longing that sometimes
we imagine we can catch a glimpse of it in the clear look of some
inspired eye; but almost e’er we behold it, it is gone. Some fleetin’
echo of whose voice we fancy we have caught in the lofty refrain of some
heavenly melody—but, e’er our soul could hardly listen, the sweet strain
was drowned in the discord of human voices. Ah! sometimes the veil has
seemed but thin between us, as we stood for brief, blissful moments on
the mountain tops of our best and noblest emotions, so transparent, and
glowing with inner brightness, that we could almost behold the face of
an angel behind the shining barriers. But the mists swept coldly up, and
the sweet face was lost in the cloudy, earthly vapors.
“If we could reach it, if we could once reach out our longing arms, and
touch that wonderful, illusive soul of beauty, if we could hold it with
our weak, mortal grasp, and look upon it face to face—can you tell me,
Kellup, what it would be? Can you tell me how pure, and holy, and divine
a shape it would be? The Ideal of Beauty that forever rises before
us—this longing for perfection implanted in our souls? We cannot believe
by bad spirits, but by the Ever Good. This ideal that every poet and
artist soul has longed for, prayed for, but never reached—this ideal of
purity which we strive to mould in clay; poor, crumblin’, imperfect
clay, that will not, however earnestly we toil, take the clear shape of
our dreams. Can you tell me, Kellup, that it is not the longing of the
mortal for the immortal, the deathless cry of the human for the divine?
“To me, it is the surest proof of immortality. For we know that our God
is not cruel, and we cannot think He would hold out to us a lovely gift
only to mock us with glimpses of its glory, and then withdraw it from us
forever.
“And this ideal of perfection that we have so striven and prayed to
realize—perhaps these longings and strivings are perfecting that image
in our lives, unbeknown to us; and when the clay that wraps it round
drops off, shall we behold it in glad wonder in the land of the King?
Shall we see that the dull stroke of care and the keen blow of suffering
helped most to mould it into beauty? Surely, surely, He will one day
give the desire of our souls. Surely there is a land of immortal purity,
immortal beauty, where to the souls of all who truly aspire the dim
shadow light of our hope will be lost in the bright glory of
fulfillment.”
Says Kellup, castin’ the witherin’est look onto my head-dress that he
had cast onto it, and clingin’ close to his old idee, as close as a idee
ever was clung to, says he, comin’ out plain:
“That head-dress is a shame, and a disgrace. You wouldn’t ketch me in no
such extravagance. The money had better have been took and distributed
round amongst the poorer classes in the country.”
I don’t s’pose I ort to, and I don’t know exactly how it happened that I
did, but I won’t deny it, that comin’ down so awful sudden off of the
height of eloquence I had been a soarin’ on, bein’ brought down so awful
short and sort o’ onexpected, it did, and I won’t deny it, it did, for
as much as a minute and a half, make me mad. It sort o’ jarred me all
over, and I spoke up sharp, and says I:
“There are exceptions to every ruler, as scholars have always said. But
as a general thing, the people who deny themselves all the beauty and
brightness of life, are the very ones who deny it to others. Those who
talk the most about others’ extravagance, and what great things they
would do if they was in other folks’es places, are the very ones who, if
they wuz there, wouldn’t do nothin’. It is the tight ones of earth who
talk the most about looseness: how awful loose they would be under
certain circumstances. But I believe, and Josiah duz, that they wouldn’t
under the very loosest circumstances ever be loose, but would always be
tight. And them who says the least often does the most. Them who scold
the least about other folks’es duty, often do their own duty the best.
Curious. But so it is.
[Illustration: A Guiding Hand]
“And those who love to put beauty into their own lives, are often the
ones who love to bless other lives—are the ones whose hearts ache at the
pleading of a sorrowful eye—whose hearts thrill clear to their center at
the voice of a hungry child.
“And if the heart is thrilled in the right way, that thrill always
trembles right down into the portmoney, and trembles it open, and jars
the money right out of it. The money that will make that hungry cry
change into a thankful one, and that wistful look change into a
rejoicin’ one.
“Why,” says I in a earnest, lofty tone, wantin’ to convince him, “look
at that female I have been a talkin’ about; look at Nater. See what she
duz. You have had to give up that no other female ever loved the
beautiful as she duz. And you have got to give up that no other female
was ever so great-hearted, so compassionate and generous.”
And havin’ by this time got all over my little temporary madness, I went
on agin about her, beautiful. Somehow I always do talk eloquent about
Nater. I guess it is because I think so much of her.
Says I: “No tenderer care does she give to the monarch on his throne
than she gives to the little bare-foot peasant child, or the little
foolish sparrer. She takes no greater thought to guide the great ship
freighted with noble lives, and help her plow her way through the
billows, than she takes to guide the way of the sea-bird over the wild
waters, or the flight of the frightened northern birds fleeing southward
through the trackless sky before the snows.
“Good to all, generous, helpful to all, patient to all. And at the last
she just opens her loving arms and gives rest to all, simple and gentle,
serf and monarch; to the prosperous and happy, and to all the
heavy-hearted, all the broken-hearted, all the worn, the defeated, the
despairin’ souls; the saint and the sinner alike, without rebuking or
questioning; she jest reaches out her arms to them all, and gives them
rest.”
Says Kellup: “I guess I’ll go out and look at Josiah’s new stun-bolt. I
don’t know but what I shall want to borry it bimeby to draw some stuns.”
And he started off—and I was glad he did.
[Illustration]