tear of their brains and ears, it was one of the most instructive and
interestin’ places the world ever afforded to man or woman. Why, if
there hadn’t been another thing in the hull buildin’, that great
“Careless Enjun” alone, was enough to run anybody’s idees up into
majestic heights and run ’em round and round into lofty circles and
spears of thought, they hadn’t never thought of runnin’ into before. And
there was everything else under the sun to see, and we see it; and
everything under the sun to hear, and we heerd it. Though I can’t be
expected to describe upon it, for I had to keep such a eye onto myself
to keep myself collected together. Why, the noise of my sewin’ machine
will make my head ache so sometimes, that I can’t stand it; and then
think of takin’ the noise of seventy or eighty thunder-claps, and a span
of big earthquakes, and forty or fifty sewin’ societies (run by wimmen),
and all the threshin’ machines you can think of, and fifty or sixty big
droves of lions and hyena’s a roarin’, and the same number of strong,
healthy infants, under the influence of colic, and several hundred
political meetin’s and deestrick schools jest let out, and several
Niagara Falls; take the noise of all these put together and they don’t
give you any jest idee of the noise and distraction.
Why, there was such a awful buzz and clatter of machinery; big wheels a
turnin’ little wheels, and little wheels a turnin’ big ones, and all a
buzzin’; such a glitterin’ of glass and gildin’ and colors of all kinds,
and a swarmin’ of folks and chatterin’ of voices, and rustlin’ of
dresses, and thumpin’ of canes, stampin’ of shoes and runnin’ of
childern, and flutterin’ of ribbins, and wavin’ of hands, and bowin’ of
heads; that though beauty and instruction was on every side of me and I
knew it, yet I couldn’t take a realizin’ sense of it. I had to keep
askin’ myself every few moments:—“Josiah Allen’s wife, is it you? tell
me frankly, whether it is or not; or is it some of the relation on your
mother’s side? or be you Josiah? or who be you?”
Jest as I was a thinkin’ this, who should I meet face to face but Cousin
Bean, and says she: “Have you seen the mummy from Egypt, three thousand
years old?”
“Mummy who?” says I.
Says she,—“It is a Egyptian woman, a princess; she is dead,” says she.
Says I,—“I thought so, from her age.”
“She is embalmed,” says Cousin Bean.
“What kind of balm?” says I, coolly.
She said she nor nobody else knew exactly what kind of balm it was; she
said it had got lost thousands of years ago; covered up with the dust of
centuries.
I asked her if she knew whether she was any relation of Sphynx; comin’
from the same neighborhood, I didn’t know but she might be.
She said she believed she was.
“Well,” says I, “I’ll go and see her then, for old Sphynx is a woman I
have always respected;” says I in a noble tone, “_there_ is a woman who
has minded her own business, and kep’ her own secrets for thousands of
years. Some say that a woman can’t keep anything to herself for any
length of time, and if she has got a secret, has got to git some other
woman to help her keep it. But there _she_ has stood and seen the old
things become new, and the new, old; the sun of knowledge go down, and
the night of barbarism sweep its black shadders over her, and the sun
rise up on her again, each one takin’ thousands of years, and she a
mindin’ her own business, and keepin’ her affairs to herself through it
all; foolin’ the hull world, and not smilin’ at it; nations runnin’
crazy with new idees, and risin’ up and crashin’ down on each other
every few hundred years, and she lookin’ on with the calmness and
patience of eternity wrote down on her forward. It does me good to see
one of my own sect stand so firm.”
So we sot off to see it; Josiah sayin’ he would meet us at noon, down by
the Japan House.
My first thought on seein’ it was, “I don’t believe you was hung for
your beauty, or would be, if you had lived another three thousand
years,” but then my very next thought was, “folks may look sort o’
contemptuous at you, and, in the pride and glory of their butterfly
existence, pass you by in a hauty way; but if your still lips could open
once, they would shake the hull world with your knowledge of the
mysterious past and the still more mysterious future, whose secrets you
understand.” And then (unbeknown to me) I reveried a little: thinks’es
I, what scenes did them eyes look upon the last time they was opened in
this world? What was the last words she heerd,—the last face that bent
over her? And what strange and beautiful landscape is it that is spread
out before her now? What faces does she see? What voices does she hear?
I had quite a number of emotions while I stood there a reverin’—probable
as many as twenty or thirty.
But about this time Cousin Bean says she: “Did you see Queen Victoria’s
pictures, that she has lent?”
I turned right round and faced her, and says I, in agitated tones,—“You
don’t tell me, Miss Bean, that the Widder Albert has got some pictures
of her own, here, that she has lent to the Sentinal?”
“Yes,” says she, “she has got three or four, in the English Department
of the Art Gallery.”
I turned right round and started for the Artemus Gallery, for I see I
had missed ’em the day before, and after I had got into the English
Department, a good woman pinted ’em all out to me, at my request.
The first one I looked at, thinks’es I,—how curious that the Widder
Albert should send a paintin’ here, picturin’ all out what I had thought
about ever sense I had thought at all. Thinks’es I, I most know she has
heerd how I always felt about it, and sent it over a purpose to
accommodate me. It was the “Death of Wolfe.” Oh! how often I had heerd
Josiah sing (or what he called singin’) about it; how
“Brave Wolfe drew up his men
In a line so pretty,
On the field of Abraham,
Before the city.”
That was when we was first married, and he wantin’ to treat me
first-rate would set and sing to me evenins, (or what he called singin’)
till he was hoarse as a owl, about “Lovely Sophronia Sleeps in Death,”
and “Lady Washington’s Lament,” and “Brave Wolfe.” And I, bein’ jest
married, and naturally feelin’ kind o’ sentimental and curious, would
set and cry onto my handkerchief till it was wet as sop.
Then there was the Widder Albert, herself, dressed up slicker than I
ever was, or ever shall be; but I was glad to see it. There haint a
envious hair in my head; if there was, I would pull it out by the roots,
if I had to take the pinchers to it. It wouldn’t have hurt my feelins if
she had been dressed in pure gold, from head to foot. Store clothes
can’t be made too good for that woman.
[Sidenote: THE MARQUIS OF LORNE]
But what was about as interestin’ to me, as any of ’em, was the weddin’
of the Widder Albert’s oldest boy, Albert Wales. It was a noble, large
picture. There they stood before the minister, as natteral as life; and
lots of the most elegant dressed folks of both sects, and officers
dressed in uniform, a standin’ all round ’em; and the Widder’s benign
face a lookin’ down on ’em like a benediction.
I see there was a man a standin’ by this picture, keepin’ his eye on it
all the time, and a woman in front of me said to another one:
“He stands there a watchin’ the Queen’s pictures all the time, don’t
he?”
“Yes,” says the other one, “so afraid they will git injured in some
way.”
Before I could say a word to ’em, they sailed off out of the room. But
it all come to me in a minute, who he was. It was the Widder Albert’s
son-in-law, Loeezy’s husband. I remembered readin’ that he was expected
to the Sentinal; and here he was, a watchin’ his mother-in-law’s
pictures. Thinks’es I, how awful clever that is in him; some men despise
their mother-in-laws. And I declare, my admirin’ feelins towards him,
for treatin’ his wife’s ma so well, and the feelins I felt for that
woman, so rousted me up, that I walked right up to him and held out my
right hand, and says I, in tones tremblin’ with emotion:
“How do you do, Mr. Lorne? Little did I think I should have this honor
and deep pleasure; little did I think I should see one of the Widder
Albert’s own family here to-day.”
He kinder glared at me, in a strange and almost shocked way, and says I,
in polite axents:
“You don’t know me, of course,” and then I made a handsome curchy as I
says, “but I am Josiah Allen’s wife. Do tell me, how is your
mother-in-law; how is the Widder Albert?” And then I wiped my heated
forward, and says I,—“I am a very warm friend of hern. It takes more
than the same blood to make folks related. Congenial spirits and kindred
souls, are the truest relationship, and she is dretful near to me. Is
the warm weather kinder wearin’ on her? It uses _me_ right up.” I have
sweat more prespiration to-day, than any day sense I was on my tower. I
have told my husband, Josiah, that if it kep’ on, I didn’t know but he
would have to carry me home in a pail, (or pails.)
He spoke out and says he,—“Madam, you are mistaken, I—”
He looked awful sort o’ surprised, and even angry. It probable surprised
him to see such polite manners in a Yankey. I was a actin’ well and
friendly, and I knew it, and I kep’ right on a appearin’. Says I:
“Josiah and I have worried about her, a sight. We read last spring, in
the _World_, that she was enjoyin’ real poor health, and we was afraid
that this weather would go hard with her; for there haint another woman
on the face of the earth, that I honor and admire, more than I do the
Widder Albert. She is jest about right, I think; handsome enough, and
not too handsome, so’s to be vain, and envied by other wimmen; smart
enough, and not too smart, so’s to be conceited and top-heavy; and sound
principles, sound as anything can be sound. Her heart is in the right
place, exactly, bounded on one side by sympathy and tenderness, and on
the other by reason and common sense. Why shouldn’t her husband have
been a happy man, settin’ in the centre of such a heart? Why shouldn’t
she have brought her childern up well? She is a woman that has had her
Rights, and has honored them and herself. And let any opposer and
scoffer of Woman’s Rights, take a telescope and look at the Widder
Albert, and then look at her 4 fathers; let ’em see whether England has
prospered best under her rain, or under their rain; let ’em see who has
been the most God-fearin’ and well-behaved; let ’em turn that telescope
onto her public actions, and then onto theirn; and then let ’em look
close and searchin’ onto the private life of them 4 old fathers, and
then onto hern, and see which looks the purest and prettiest.
“And after they have done, let ’em lay that telescope down, and say that
wimmen don’t know enough, and haint sound-minded enough to vote; jest
let ’em say it if they dare! And wimmen, too; why! her example ort to
stand up in life, before some vain, frivolous wimmen I could
mention—wimmen that don’t believe in havin’ a right—jest as plain as if
it was worked on a canvas sampler, with a cross stitch, and hung up in
their kitchens. A young woman, crowned with all the glory and honor the
world could give, devotin’ her life first to God, and then to the good
of her people; carryin’ her Right jest as stiddy and level as a Right
ever was carried; faithful to all her duties, public and private; her
brightest crown, the crown of true motherhood; no more truly the mother
of princes, than mother of England. Why, the farm she had left to her by
her uncle George, is so big that the sun don’t never go down on it;
larger in dimensions than we can hardly think on with our naked minds;
and all over that enormous farm of hern, the flowers turn no more
constant to that sun, and that sun is no more consolin’ and inspirin’ to
them flowers, than is the thought of this kind, gracious lady to them
that work her farm on shares. Why! her memory, the memory of a woman—who
had a Right—will go down to future ages as one to be revered, and almost
worshiped.”
But if you’ll believe it, after all my outlay of politeness, and good
manners, that feller acted mad. What under the sun ailed him I don’t
know to this day, unless it was he couldn’t git over it—my praising up
his mother-in-law so. Some men are at such sword’s pints with their
mother-in-laws that they can’t bear a word in their favor. But I wasn’t
goin’ to encourage no such feelins in him, and I was determined to be
polite myself, to the last, so I says in conclusion: “Good-bye, Mr.
Lorne, give my best respects to your mother-in-law.”
He give me a look witherin’ enough to wither me, if I had been easy
withered, which I wasn’t. And that was the last words I said to him.
Jest that minute Josiah come in, and I told him that I hadn’t no idee
the Marquis of Lorne was such a feller.
Says Josiah, “I don’t believe it was Mark, it was some tyke or other;
mebby it was the Widder’s hired man.”
I wouldn’t contend with him, but I knew what I did know. I went to
lookin’ at some of the other pictures. There was faces that was glad and
happy, and some that had desolation wrote out on ’em. There was one
picture, “War Times” that made me feel very sad feelins; an old man
leanin’ on a rough stun fence, lookin’ over the lonely winter fields,
and thinkin’ of his boys away on the field of death—the boys that made
the old farm jubilant with their happy voices and gay young faces. You
can see it all in the old man’s face—the memory, the dread, and the
heartache. And then there was another one “La Rota,” by name that worked
on my feelins dretfully. A mother standin’ before a foundlin’ hospital,
jest about puttin’ her baby into the little turnin’ box in the winder
that would turn him forever from his mother’s arms into the arms of
charity, which are colder. After that one kiss on the baby face, she
would never see him, never know of his fate; he would be as lost to her
as if she had lost him in the crowd of heavenly childern; though in that
case she would know where he was: safe forever from sin and misery, and
here—how could she tell what would be the baby’s fate. Oh, how bad La
Rota was a feelin’; how I did pity her.
And then there was “The Prodigal,” a comin’ back in rags, and misery,
and remorse, to the home he left in his pride and strength; and to see
that old father a waitin’ to welcome him, and the feeble old mother
bein’ helped out by her sons and daughters—a forgivin’ of him. Oh, what
a idee that did give of the long sufferin’ and patience of love.
Finally, my eyes fell onto a picture that affected me more than any I
had seen as yet. The name on’t was: “The Lord gave, the Lord hath taken
away, Blessed be the name of the Lord.” They had gathered round the
table for the first time since death had been there, and the minister
was askin’ a blessin’. A woman sat at the head of the table with her
hands clasped close, as if to crush back her agony; her face white and
thin from watchin’ and sorrow—jest as a certain person’s would be if it
was Josiah,—her eyes bent down, jest as if she _could not_ look at that
vacant chair. On one side of her with his face bent down in grief, was a
young feller about the age of Thomas Jefferson; on the other side, a
girl about the age of Tirzah Ann, was kneelin’ right down by the table a
sobbin’ as if her heart would break. And as I looked at it the thought
would come up, though I ordered it back, “What! what if it was Josiah?”
And this thought rousted up such feelins that I couldn’t control ’em,
and I turned round instinctively and locked arms with him, and we went
into another room.
Presently, or about that time we found ourselves in the French
Department. I laid out to pay a good deal of attention to France,
whether they showed off in the Main Buildin’ or Art Gallery, or
anywhere; because, wherever I stood before their doins,—above all the
beauty and grandeur of their display, I see with my mind’s eye, that
gallant form that left glory and happiness behind him to come with army
and treasure to help a strugglin’ land to freedom. I see that noble
face—not middle-aged and brass-mounted as he looks on his monument, but
young and eager eyed—a standin’ on the vessel’s keel, (or keeler) a
goin’ at Liberty’s call, into a New World, and the perils and hardships
of a camp; and wavin’ back a good bye to the gay pleasures of his youth,
to rank, and all he loved best—his sweetheart and his native land.
I feel most skairt to say it, and don’t know as I ort to, but somehow I
feel a little different about Layfayette from what I do about our own
glorious Washington. For G. W. was a fightin’ for his own land, and
there was most likely a little mite of selfishness mixed up with his
noble emotions, (probable not more than one part in two or three
hundred) but in this noble young feller these wasn’t a mite. He give
all, and dared all, from pure love of Liberty, and sympathy for the
oppressed. And so France’s hull doins would have looked good to me
anyway for his sake. But if they had stood up on their own merits alone
they would have stood firm and solid as a hemlock post newly sot. They
done well, clear from the ceilin’ down. There was one picture, there was
a great crowd before, and amongst the rest I see the “Creation
Searchers” a standin’ in a row, a gazin up at it with a dissatisfied
though nearly wooden expression of countenance. The picture was “Rizpah
Defendin’ the bodies of Saul’s childern from the Eagles;” it affected me
terribly—I thought of Thomas Jefferson. The wild desolation of the spot,
the great beams a risin’ out of the rocks with the seven dead bodies a
hangin’ up in the air—left there to die of hunger and agony,—with the
slow death of agonizin’ horrer wrote out on their dead faces and their
stiffened forms. And beneath them standin’ with her yeller dress and
blue drapery a floatin’ back from her, is Rizpah, fightin’ back a huge
vulture that with terrible open mouth and claws is contendin’ with her
for the bodies of her sons. They were slain to avert the famine, and
there is in her face the strength of the martyr, and the energy of
despair. How that woman, so strong, so heroic by nature must have loved
her two boys! It was a horrible, scareful picture but fearfully
impressive. When I look at anything very beautiful, or very grand and
impressive, my emotions lift me clear up above speech. I s’pose the
higher we go up the less talkin’ there is done. Why if anybody could
feel sociable and talkative when they first look at that picture, I
believe they could swear, they wouldn’t be none too good for it. But
jest at that minute when I was feelin’ so awful horrified, and lifted
up, and curious, and sublime and everything, I heerd a voice sayin’ in a
pert lively tone, but very scorfin’,
“That haint true to nater at all.”
“No,” says Solomon Cypher in a complainin’, fault-findin’ way, “there’s
nothin’ natteral about it at all. Why!” says he strikin’ himself a
eloquent blow in the pit of his stomach—“why didn’t they hang the
scarecrows nearer to the cornfield?”
“And I never,” says Cornelius Cork, a holdin’ his glasses on with both
hands—for his nose bein’ but small, they would fall off—“I never see a
crow that looked like that; it haint shaped right for a crow.”
“The perspective of the picture haint the right size,” says Shakespeare
Bobbet.
“The tone is too low down,” says Solomon Cypher; “the cheerful obscure
is too big and takes up too much room.”
“Cheerful obscure,” says I in witherin’ tones, as I looked round at ’em.
“Don’t you think we know what we are a talkin’ about Josiah Allen’s
wife?” says Solomon Cypher.
“I wont say that you don’t,” says I “for it wouldn’t be good manners.” I
wouldn’t stay another minute where they was, and I hurried Josiah out
tellin’ him Miss Bean would be a waitin’ for us at the Japan house. I
told Josiah on our way that them “Creation Searchers” fairly sickened
me, a runnin’ things down, and pretendin’ not to admire ’em, and lookin’
wooden, and findin’ fault.
[Sidenote: THE SPIRITUALIST]
“Well,” says Josiah, “they say they have got a reputation for wisdom to
keep up, and they will do it.”
“They are keepin’ up the reputation of natteral fools,” says I warmly.
“Well,” says Josiah with that same triumphant look to his mean he always
wore when we talked on this subject, “if there haint anything in it
Samantha, why does so many do it?”
He had got the better of me for once, and he knew it. I knew well there
was hundreds of folks that got up on big reputation in jest that way, so
I wouldn’t multiply another word with him, for I couldn’t.
[Sidenote: THE WIMMEN’S PAVILION]
Josiah said he wanted to look at a mowin’ machine, and as I hadn’t been
to the Woman’s Pavilion only to take a cursory view of it, I thought now
was my time, and so I went through it with a proud and happy heart. Yes,
I can truly say without lyin’ that my emotions as I went through that
buildin’ was larger in size and heftier in weight than any emotions I
had enjoyed sense I had been to the Sentinal. Feelin’ such feelins for
my sect as I felt, holdin’ their honor and prosperity, and success
nearer to my heart, than to any earthly object, (exceptin’ Josiah) I
suppose if anybody could have looked inside of my mind as I wandered
through them rooms, they would have seen a sight they never would have
forgot the longest day they ever lived; I s’pose it would have skairt
’em most to death if they wasn’t used to seein’ emotions performin’. Oh!
such proud and lofty feelins as I did enjoy a seein’ the work of my sect
from all over the length and breadth of the world. The wonderful, useful
inventions of the sect, showin’ the power and solid heft of her brains;
the beautiful works of art showin’ her creative artist soul, and provin’
plain the healthy and vigorous state of her imagination. The wonderful
wood carvin’, and dainty fancy needle work, and embroideries of all
kinds you can imagine, showin’ the stiddy, patient, persistent powers of
her hands and fingers; and what was fur more interestin’ to me of all,
was the silent exhibit at the south entrance, showin’ what sort of a
heart she has within her, a record of eight hundred and twenty-two large
noble sized charities, organized and carried on by the sect which a
certain person once Smith, is proud to say she belongs to.
Oh! I can truly say that I felt perfectly beautiful, a goin’ through
them noble halls, a seein’ everything and more too, (as it were) from
doll’s shoes, and pictures of poseys, and squirrels, and five little
pigs, up to the Vision of St. Christopher, and a big statute of Eve
standin’ with her arm over her face, hidin’ the shame in it. There was
Injun basket work, perfectly beautiful, and settin’ by the side of it
weavin’ her baskets sot as dignified and good appearin’ a woman, (though
dark complexioned) as any nation of the world sent to the Sentinal. I
bought a little basket of her right there on the spot, for I liked her
looks, and she handed me out her card:
Margaret Kesiah, Obkine Injun of Canada.
And there was napkins, the linen of which was wove by my friend, the
Widder Albert; and as I looked at ’em, I thought gently to myself: how
many wimmen who haint got a Right, and don’t want one, could spin linen
equal to this? And then amongst every other way to honor and glorify my
sect that could be thought of, there was a female woman all carved out
of butter. I had thought in my proud spirited hautiness of soul that I
could make as handsome butter balls, and flower ’em off as nobby as any
other woman of the age. But as I looked at that beautiful roll of butter
all flattened out into such a lovely face, I said to myself in firm
axents, though mild: “Samantha, you have boasted your last boast over
butter balls.”
There was some bright happy pictures, and some that wasn’t. One was of a
sick child and its mother out in the desert alone with the empty water
jug standin’ by ’em. The mother holdin’ the feeble little hands, and
weepin’ over him. Her heart was a desert, and she was in a desert, which
made it hard for her, and hard for me too, and I was jest puttin’ my
hand into my pocket after my white cotton handkerchief, when somebody
kinder hunched me in the side, and lookin’ round, there was that very
female lecturer I see at New York village. Says she: “Come out where it
is more quiet, Josiah Allen’s wife; I want to have a little talk with
you.”
[Sidenote: THE FEMALE LECTURER]
She looked perfectly full of talk, but says I: “I haint only jest
commenced lookin’ round at the splendid doins in this buildin’;” says I,
“I don’t want to stir out of this house for 13 or 14 hours.”
Says she, “You can come again, but I _must_ have a talk with you.”
Says I, “Feelin’ as I do, wont you excuse me mom?”
But she wouldn’t excuse me, and seein’ she was fairly sufferin’ to talk,
I led the way to a rendezvoo where I promised Josiah to be, not knowin’
how long she would talk when she got at it, for—though I am very close
mouthed myself—I know well the failins of my sect in that respect. The
very moment we sot down on the pleasant and secluded bench I took her
to, she begun: