"Within this hour it will be dinner-time;
I'll view the manners of the town,
Peruse the traders, gaze upon the buildings."
_Comedy of Errors_.
In the warm afternoons of the early summer, it is my pleasure to
stroll about Washington Square and along the Fifth Avenue, at the hour
when the diners-out are hurrying to the tables of the wealthy and
refined. I gaze with placid delight upon the cheerful expanse of white
waistcoat that illumes those streets at that hour, and mark the
variety of emotions that swell beneath all that purity. A man going
out to dine has a singular cheerfulness of aspect. Except for his
gloves, which fit so well, and which he has carefully buttoned, that
he may not make an awkward pause in the hall of his friend's house, I
am sure he would search his pocket for a cent to give the wan beggar
at the corner. It is impossible just now, my dear woman; but God bless
you!
It is pleasant to consider that simple suit of black. If my man be
young and only lately cognizant of the rigors of the social law, he is
a little nervous at being seen in his dress suit--body coat and black
trowsers--before sunset. For in the last days of May the light lingers
long over the freshly leaved trees in the Square, and lies warm along
the Avenue. All winter the sun has not been permitted to see
dress-coats. They come out only with the stars, and fade with ghosts,
before the dawn. Except, haply, they be brought homeward before
breakfast in an early twilight of hackney-coach. Now, in the budding
and bursting summer, the sun takes his revenge, and looks aslant over
the tree-tops and the chimneys upon the most unimpeachable garments. A
cat may look upon a king.
I know my man at a distance. If I am chatting with the nursery maids
around the fountain, I see him upon the broad walk of Washington
Square, and detect him by the freshness of his movement his springy
gait. Then the white waistcoat flashes in the sun.
"Go on, happy youth," I exclaim aloud, to the great alarm of the
nursery maids, who suppose me to be an innocent insane person suffered
to go at large, unattended,--"go on, and be happy with fellow
waistcoats over fragrant wines."
It is hard to describe the pleasure in this amiable spectacle of a man
going out to dine. I, who am a quiet family man, and take a quiet
family cut at four o'clock; or, when I am detained down town by a
false quantity in my figures, who run into Delmonico's and seek
comfort in a cutlet, am rarely invited to dinner and have few white
waistcoats. Indeed, my dear Prue tells me that I have but one in the
world, and I often want to confront my eager young friends as they
bound along, and ask abruptly, "What do you think of a man whom one
white waistcoat suffices?"
By the time I have eaten my modest repast, it is the hour for the
diners-out to appear. If the day is unusually soft and sunny, I hurry
my simple meal a little, that I may not lose any of my favorite
spectacle. Then I saunter out. If you met me you would see that I am
also clad in black. But black is my natural color, so that it begets
no false theories concerning my intentions. Nobody, meeting me in full
black, supposes that I am going to dine out. That sombre hue is
professional with me. It belongs to book-keepers as to clergymen,
physicians, and undertakers. We wear it because we follow solemn
callings. Saving men's bodies and souls, or keeping the machinery of
business well wound, are such sad professions that it is becoming to
drape dolefully those who adopt them.
I wear a white cravat, too, but nobody supposes that it is in any
danger of being stained by Lafitte. It is a limp cravat with a craven
tie. It has none of the dazzling dash of the white that my young
friends sport, or, I should say, sported; for the white cravat is now
abandoned to the sombre professions of which I spoke. My young friends
suspect that the flunkeys of the British nobleman wear such ties, and
they have, therefore, discarded them. I am sorry to remark, also, an
uneasiness, if not downright skepticism, about the white waistcoat.
Will it extend to shirts, I ask myself with sorrow.
But there is something pleasanter to contemplate during these quiet
strolls of mine, than the men who are going to dine out, and that is,
the women. They roll in carriages to the happy houses which they shall
honor, and I strain my eyes in at the carriage window to see their
cheerful faces as they pass. I have already dined; upon beef and
cabbage, probably, if it is boiled day. I I am not expected at the
table to which Aurelia is hastening, yet no guest there shall enjoy
more than I enjoy,--nor so much, if he considers the meats the best
part of the dinner. The beauty of the beautiful Aurelia I see and
worship as she drives by. The vision of many beautiful Aurelias
driving to dinner, is the mirage of that pleasant journey of mine
along the avenue. I do not envy the Persian poets, on those
afternoons, nor long to be an Arabian traveller. For I can walk that
street, finer than any of which the Ispahan architects dreamed; and I
can see sultanas as splendid as the enthusiastic and exaggerating
Orientals describe.
But not only do I see and enjoy Aurelia's beauty I delight in her
exquisite attire. In these warm days she does not wear so much as the
lightest shawl. She is clad only in spring sunshine. It glitters in
the soft darkness of her hair. It touches the diamonds, the opals, the
pearls, that cling to her arms, and neck, and fingers. They flash back
again, and the gorgeous silks glisten, and the light laces flutter,
until the stately Aurelia seems to me, in tremulous radiance, swimming
by.
I doubt whether you who are to have the inexpressible pleasure of
dining with her, and even of sitting by her side, will enjoy more than
I. For my pleasure is inexpressible, also. And it is in this greater
than yours, that I see all the beautiful ones who are to dine at
various tables, while you only see your own circle, although that, I
will not deny, is the most desirable of all.
Beside, although my person is not present at your dinner, my fancy
is. I see Aurelia's carriage stop, and behold white-gloved servants
opening wide doors. There is a brief glimpse of magnificence for the
dull eyes of the loiterers outside; then the door closes. But my fancy
went in with Aurelia. With her, it looks at the vast mirror, and
surveys her form at length in the Psyche-glass. It gives the final
shake to the skirt, the last flirt to the embroidered handkerchief,
carefully held, and adjusts the bouquet, complete as a tropic nestling
in orange leaves. It descends with her, and marks the faint blush upon
her cheek at the thought of her exceeding beauty; the consciousness of
the most beautiful woman, that the most beautiful woman is entering
the room. There is the momentary hush, the subdued greeting, the quick
glance of the Aurelias who have arrived earlier, and who perceive in a
moment the hopeless perfection of that attire; the courtly gaze of
gentlemen, who feel the serenity of that beauty. All this my fancy
surveys; my fancy, Aurelia's invisible cavalier.
You approach with hat in hand and the thumb of your left hand in your
waistcoat pocket. You are polished and cool, and have an
irreproachable repose of manner. There are no improper wrinkles in
your cravat; your shirt-bosom does not bulge; the trowsers are
accurate about your admirable boot. But you look very stiff and
brittle. You are a little bullied by your unexceptionable
shirt-collar, which interdicts perfect freedom of movement in your
head. You are elegant, undoubtedly, but it seems as if you might break
and fall to pieces, like a porcelain vase, if you were roughly shaken.
Now, here, I have the advantage of you. My fancy quietly surveying the
scene, is subject to none of these embarrassments. My fancy will not
utter commonplaces. That will not say to the superb lady, who stands
with her flowers, incarnate May, "What a beautiful day, Miss Aurelia."
That will not feel constrained to say something, when it has nothing
to say; nor will it be obliged to smother all the pleasant things that
occur, because they would be too flattering to express. My fancy
perpetually murmurs in Aurelia's ear, "Those flowers would not be fair
in your hand, if you yourself were not fairer. That diamond necklace
would be gaudy, if your eyes were not brighter. That queenly movement
would be awkward, if your soul were not queenlier."
You could not say such things to Aurelia, although, if you are worthy
to dine at her side, they are the very things you are longing to
say. What insufferable stuff you are talking about the weather, and
the opera, and Alboni's delicious voice, and Newport, and Saratoga!
They are all very pleasant subjects, but do you suppose Ixion talked
Thessalian politics when he was admitted to dine with Juno?
I almost begin to pity you, and to believe that a scarcity of white
waistcoats is true wisdom. For now dinner is announced, and you, O
rare felicity, are to hand down Aurelia. But you run the risk of
tumbling her expansive skirt, and you have to drop your hat upon a
chance chair, and wonder, _en passant_ who will wear it home,
which is annoying. My fancy runs no such risk; is not at all
solicitous about its hat, and glides by the side of Aurelia, stately
as she. There! you stumble on the stair, and are vexed at your own
awkwardness, and are sure you saw the ghost of a smile glimmer along
that superb face at your side. My fancy doesn't tumble down stairs,
and what kind of looks it sees upon Aurelia's face, are its own
secret.
Is it any better, now you are seated at table? Your companion eats
little because she wishes little. You eat little because you think it
is elegant to do so. It is a shabby, second-hand elegance, like your
brittle behavior. It is just as foolish for you to play with the
meats, when you ought to satisfy your healthy appetite generously, as
it is for you, in the drawing-room, to affect that cool indifference
when you have real and noble interests.
I grant you that fine manners, if you please, are a fine art. But is
not monotony the destruction of art? Your manners, O happy Ixion,
banqueting with Juno, are Egyptian. They have no perspective, no
variety. They have no color, no shading. They are all on a dead level;
they are flat. Now, for you are a man of sense, you are conscious that
those wonderful eyes of Aurelia see straight through all this net-work
of elegant manners in which you have entangled yourself, and that
consciousness is uncomfortable to you. It is another trick in the game
for me, because those eyes do not pry into my fancy. How can they,
since Aurelia does not know of my existence?
Unless, indeed, she should remember the first time I saw her. It was
only last year, in May. I had dined, somewhat hastily, in
consideration of the fine day, and of my confidence that many would be
wending dinnerwards that afternoon. I saw my Prue comfortably engaged
in seating the trowsers of Adoniram, our eldest boy--an economical
care to which my darling Prue is not unequal, even in these days and
in this town--and then hurried toward the avenue. It is never much
thronged at that hour. The moment is sacred to dinner. As I paused at
the corner of Twelfth Street, by the church, you remember, I saw an
apple-woman, from whose stores I determined to finish my dessert,
which had been imperfect at home. But, mindful of meritorious and
economical Prue, I was not the man to pay exorbitant prices for
apples, and while still haggling with the wrinkled Eve who had tempted
me, I became suddenly aware of a carriage approaching, and, indeed,
already close by. I raised my eyes, still munching an apple which I
held in one hand, while the other grasped my walking-stick (true to my
instincts of dinner guests, as young women to a passing wedding or old
ones to a funeral), and beheld Aurelia!
Old in this kind of observation as I am, there was something so
graciously alluring in the look that she cast upon me, as
unconsciously, indeed, as she would have cast it upon the church,
that, fumbling hastily for my spectacles to enjoy the boon more fully,
I thoughtlessly advanced upon the apple-stand, and, in some
indescribable manner, tripping, down we all fell into the street, old
woman, apples, baskets, stand, and I, in promiscuous confusion. As I
struggled there, somewhat bewildered, yet sufficiently self-possessed
to look after the carriage, I beheld that beautiful woman looking at
us through the back-window (you could not have done it; the integrity
of your shirt-collar would have interfered,) and smiling pleasantly,
so that her going around the corner was like a gentle sunset, so
seemed she to disappear in her own smiling; or--if you choose, in view
of the apple difficulties--like a rainbow after a storm.
If the beautiful Aurelia recalls that event, she may know of my
existence; not otherwise. And even then she knows me only as a funny
old gentleman, who, in his eagerness to look at her, tumbled over an
apple-woman.
My fancy from that moment followed her. How grateful I was to the
wrinkled Eve's extortion, and to the untoward tumble, since it
procured me the sight of that smile. I took my sweet revenge from
that. For I knew that the beautiful Aurelia entered the house of her
host with beaming eyes, and my fancy heard her sparkling story. You
consider yourself happy because you are sitting by her and helping her
to a lady-finger, or a macaroon, for which she smiles. But I was her
theme for ten mortal minutes. She was my bard, my blithe historian.
She was the Homer of my luckless Trojan fall. She set my mishap to
music, in telling it. Think what it is to have inspired Urania; to
have called a brighter beam into the eyes of Miranda, and do not think
so much of passing Aurelia the mottoes, my dear young friend.
There was the advantage of not going to that dinner. Had I been
invited, as you were, I should have pestered Prue about the buttons on
my white waistcoat, instead of leaving her placidly piecing adolescent
trowsers. She would have been flustered, fearful of being too late, of
tumbling the garment, of soiling it, fearful of offending me in some
way, (admirable woman!) I, in my natural impatience, might have let
drop a thoughtless word, which would have been a pang in her heart and
a tear in her eye, for weeks afterward.
As I walked nervously up the avenue (for I am unaccustomed to prandial
recreations), I should not have had that solacing image of quiet Prue,
and the trowsers, as the back-ground in the pictures of the gay
figures I passed, making each, by contrast, fairer. I should have been
wondering what to say and do at the dinner. I should surely have been
very warm, and yet not have enjoyed the rich, waning sunlight. Need I
tell you that I should not have stopped for apples, but instead of
economically tumbling into the street with apples and apple-women,
whereby I merely rent my trowsers across the knee, in a manner that
Prue can readily, and at little cost, repair. I should, beyond
peradventure, have split a new dollar-pair of gloves in the effort of
straining my large hands into them, which would, also, have caused me
additional redness in the face, and renewed fluttering.
Above all, I should not have seen Aurelia passing in her carriage, nor
would she have smiled at me, nor charmed my memory with her radiance,
nor the circle at dinner with the sparkling Iliad of my woes. Then at
the table, I should not have sat by her. You would have had that
pleasure; I should have led out the maiden aunt from the country, and
have talked poultry, when I talked at all. Aurelia would not have
remarked me. Afterward, in describing the dinner to her virtuous
parents, she would have concluded, "and one old gentleman, whom I
didn't know."
No, my polished friend, whose elegant repose of manner I yet greatly
commend, I am content, if you are. How much better it was that I was
not invited to that dinner, but was permitted, by a kind fate, to
furnish a subject for Aurelia's wit.
There is one other advantage in sending your fancy to dinner, instead
of going yourself. It is, that then the occasion remains wholly fair
in your memory. You, who devote yourself to dining out, and who are to
be daily seen affably sitting down to such feasts, as I know mainly by
hearsay--by the report of waiters, guests, and others who were
present--you cannot escape the little things that spoil the picture,
and which the fancy does not see.
For instance, in handing you the _potage à la Bisque_, at the
very commencement of this dinner to-day, John, the waiter, who never
did such a thing before, did this time suffer the plate to tip, so
that a little of that rare soup dripped into your lap--just enough to
spoil those trowsers, which is nothing to you, because you can buy a
great many more trowsers, but which little event is inharmonious with
the fine porcelain dinner service, with the fragrant wines, the
glittering glass, the beautiful guests, and the mood of mind suggested
by all of these. There is, in fact, if you will pardon a free use of
the vernacular, there is a grease-spot upon your remembrance of this
dinner.
Or, in the same way, and with the same kind of mental result, you can
easily imagine the meats a little tough; a suspicion of smoke
somewhere in the sauces; too much pepper, perhaps, or too little salt;
or there might be the graver dissonance of claret not properly
attempered, or a choice Rhenish below the average mark, or the
spilling of some of that Arethusa Madeira, marvellous for its
innumerable circumnavigations of the globe, and for being as dry as
the conversation of the host. These things are not up to the high
level of the dinner; for wherever Aurelia dines, all accessories
should be as perfect in their kind as she, the principal, is in hers.
That reminds me of a possible dissonance worse than all. Suppose that
soup had trickled down the unimaginable _berthe_ of Aurelia's
dress (since it might have done so), instead of wasting itself upon
your trowsers! Could even the irreproachable elegance of your manners
have contemplated, unmoved, a grease-spot upon your remembrance of the
peerless Aurelia?
You smile, of course, and remind me that that lady's manners are so
perfect that, if she drank poison, she would wipe her mouth after it
as gracefully as ever. How much more then, you say, in the case of
such a slight _contretemps_ as spotting her dress, would she
appear totally unmoved.
So she would, undoubtedly. She would be, and look, as pure as ever;
but, my young friend, her dress would not. Once, I dropped a pickled
oyster in the lap of my Prue, who wore, on the occasion, her sea-green
silk gown. I did not love my Prue the less; but there certainly was a
very unhandsome spot upon her dress. And although I know my Prue to be
spotless, yet, whenever I recall that day, I see her in a spotted
gown, and I would prefer never to have been obliged to think of her in
such a garment.
Can you not make the application to the case, very likely to happen,
of some disfigurement of that exquisite toilette of Aurelia's? In
going down stairs, for instance, why should not heavy old Mr
Carbuncle, who is coming close behind with Mrs. Peony, both very
eager for dinner, tread upon the hem of that garment which my lips
would grow pale to kiss? The august Aurelia, yielding to natural laws,
would be drawn suddenly backward--a very undignified movement--and the
dress would be dilapidated. There would be apologies, and smiles, and
forgiveness, and pinning up the pieces, nor would there be the
faintest feeling of awkwardness or vexation in Aurelia's mind. But to
you, looking on, and, beneath all that pure show of waistcoat, cursing
old Carbuncle's carelessness, this tearing of dresses and repair of
the toilette is by no means a poetic and cheerful spectacle. Nay, the
very impatience that it produces in your mind jars upon the harmony of
the moment.
You will respond, with proper scorn, that you are not so absurdly
fastidious as to heed the little necessary drawbacks of social
meetings, and that you have not much regard for "the harmony of the
occasion" (which phrase I fear you will repeat in a sneering
tone). You will do very right in saying this; and it is a remark to
which I shall give all the hospitality of my mind, and I do so because
I heartily coincide in it. I hold a man to be very foolish who will
not eat a good dinner because the table-cloth is not clean, or who
cavils at the spots upon the sun. But still a man who does not apply
his eye to a telescope or some kind of prepared medium, does not see
those spots, while he has just as much light and heat as he who does.
So it is with me. I walk in the avenue, and eat all the delightful
dinners without seeing the spots upon the table-cloth, and behold all
the beautiful Aurelias without swearing at old Carbuncle. I am the
guest who, for the small price of invisibility, drinks only the best
wines, and talks only to the most agreeable people. That is something,
I can tell you, for you might be asked to lead out old Mrs. Peony. My
fancy slips in between you and Aurelia, sit you never so closely
together. It not only hears what she says, but it perceives what she
thinks and feels. It lies like a bee in her flowery thoughts, sucking
all their honey. If there are unhandsome or unfeeling guests at table,
it will not see them. It knows only the good and fair. As I stroll in
the fading light and observe the stately houses, my fancy believes the
host equal to his house, and the courtesy of his wife more agreeable
than her conservatory. It will not believe that the pictures on the
wall and the statues in the corners shame the guests. It will not
allow that they are less than noble. It hears them speak gently of
error, and warmly of worth. It knows that they commend heroism and
devotion, and reprobate insincerity. My fancy is convinced that the
guests are not only feasted upon the choicest fruits of every land and
season, but are refreshed by a consciousness of greater loveliness and
grace in human character. Now you, who actually go to the dinner, may
not entirely agree with the view my fancy takes of that
entertainment. Is it not, therefore, rather your loss? Or, to put it
in another way, ought I to envy you the discovery that the guests
_are_ shamed by the statues and pictures;--yes, and by the spoons
and forks also, if they should chance neither to be so genuine nor so
useful as those instruments? And, worse than this, when your fancy
wishes to enjoy the picture which mine forms of that feast, it cannot
do so, because you have foolishly interpolated the fact between the
dinner and your fancy.
Of course, by this time it is late twilight, and the spectacle I
enjoyed is almost over. But not quite, for as I return slowly along
the streets, the windows are open, and only a thin haze of lace or
muslin separates me from the Paradise within.
I see the graceful cluster of girls hovering over the piano, and the
quiet groups of the elders in easy chairs, around little tables. I
cannot hear what is said, nor plainly see the faces. But some hoyden
evening wind, more daring than I, abruptly parts the cloud to look in,
and out comes a gush of light, music, and fragrance, so that I shrink
away into the dark, that I may not seem, even by chance, to have
invaded that privacy.
Suddenly there is singing. It is Aurelia, who does not cope with the
Italian Prima Donna, nor sing indifferently to-night, what was sung,
superbly last evening at the opera. She has a strange, low, sweet
voice, as if she only sang in the twilight. It is the ballad of "Allan
Percy" that she sings. There is no dainty applause of kid gloves,
when it is ended, but silence follows the singing, like a tear.
Then you, my young friend, ascend into the drawing-room, and, after a
little graceful gossip, retire; or you wait, possibly, to hand Aurelia
into her carriage, and to arrange a waltz for to-morrow evening. She
smiles, you bow, and it is over. But it is not yet over with me. My
fancy still follows her, and, like a prophetic dream, rehearses her
destiny. For, as the carriage rolls away into the darkness and I
return homewards, how can my fancy help rolling away also, into the
dim future, watching her go down the years?
Upon my way home I see her in a thousand new situations. My fancy says
to me, "The beauty of this beautiful woman is heaven's stamp upon
virtue. She will be equal to every chance that shall befall her, and
she is so radiant and charming in the circle of prosperity, only
because she has that irresistible simplicity and fidelity of
character, which can also pluck the sting from adversity. Do you not
see, you wan old book-keeper in faded cravat, that in a poor man's
house this superb Aurelia would be more stately than sculpture, more
beautiful than painting, and more graceful than the famous
vases. Would her husband regret the opera if she sang 'Allan Percy' to
him in the twilight? Would he not feel richer than the Poets, when his
eyes rose from their jewelled pages, to fall again dazzled by the
splendor of his wife's beauty?"
At this point in my reflections I sometimes run, rather violently,
against a lamp-post, and then proceed along the street more sedately.
It is yet early when I reach home, where my Prue awaits me. The
children are asleep, and the trowsers mended. The admirable woman is
patient of my idiosyncrasies, and asks me if I have had a pleasant
walk, and if there were many fine dinners to-day, as if I had been
expected at a dozen tables. She even asks me if I have seen the
beautiful Aurelia (for there is always some Aurelia,) and inquires
what dress she wore. I respond, and dilate upon what I have seen. Prue
listens, as the children listen to her fairy tales. We discuss the
little stories that penetrate our retirement, of the great people who
actually dine out. Prue, with fine womanly instinct, declares it is a
shame that Aurelia should smile for a moment upon ----, yes, even upon
you, my friend of the irreproachable manners!
"I know him," says my simple Prue; "I have watched his cold courtesy,
his insincere devotion. I have seen him acting in the boxes at the
opera, much more adroitly than the singers upon the stage. I have
read his determination to marry Aurelia; and I shall not be
surprised," concludes my tender wife, sadly, "if he wins her at last,
by tiring her out, or, by secluding her by his constant devotion from
the homage of other men, convinces her that she had better marry him,
since it is so dismal to live on unmarried."
And so, my friend, at the moment when the bouquet you ordered is
arriving at Aurelia's house, and she is sitting before the glass while
her maid arranges the last flower in her hair, my darling Prue, whom
you will never hear of, is shedding warm tears over your probable
union, and I am sitting by, adjusting my cravat and incontinently
clearing my throat.
It is rather a ridiculous business, I allow; yet you will smile at it
tenderly, rather than scornfully, if you remember that it shows how
closely linked we human creatures are, without knowing it, and that
more hearts than we dream of enjoy our happiness and share our sorrow.
Thus, I dine at great tables uninvited, and, unknown, converse with
the famous beauties. If Aurelia is at last engaged, (but who is
worthy?) she will, with even greater care, arrange that wondrous
toilette, will teach that lace a fall more alluring, those gems a
sweeter light. But even then, as she rolls to dinner in her carriage,
glad that she is fair, not for her own sake nor for the world's, but
for that of a single youth (who, I hope, has not been smoking at the
club all the morning), I, sauntering upon the sidewalk, see her pass,
I pay homage to her beauty, and her lover can do no more; and if,
perchance, my garments--which must seem quaint to her, with their
shining knees and carefully brushed elbows; my white cravat, careless,
yet prim; my meditative movement, as I put my stick under my arm to
pare an apple, and not, I hope, this time to fall into the
street,--should remind her, in her spring of youth, and beauty, and
love, that there are age, and care, and poverty, also; then, perhaps,
the good fortune of the meeting is not wholly mine.
For, O beautiful Aurelia, two of these things, at least, must come
even to you. There will be a time when you will no longer go out to
dinner, or only very quietly, in the family. I shall be gone then: but
other old book-keepers in white cravats will inherit my tastes, and
saunter, on summer afternoons, to see what I loved to see.
They will not pause, I fear, in buying apples, to look at the old lady
in venerable cap, who is rolling by in the carriage. They will worship
another Aurelia. You will not wear diamonds or opals any more, only
one pearl upon your blue-veined finger--your engagement ring. Grave
clergymen and antiquated beaux will hand you down to dinner, and the
group of polished youth, who gather around the yet unborn Aurelia of
that day, will look at you, sitting quietly upon the sofa, and say,
softly, "She must have been very handsome in her time."
All this must be: for consider how few years since it was your
grandmother who was the belle, by whose side the handsome, young men
longed to sit and pass expressive mottoes. Your grandmother was the
Aurelia of a half-century ago, although you cannot fancy her
young. She is indissolubly associated in your mind with caps and dark
dresses. You can believe Mary Queen of Scots, or Nell Gwyn or
Cleopatra, to have been young and blooming, although they belong to
old and dead centuries, but not your grandmother. Think of those who
shall believe the same of you--you, who to-day are the very flower of
youth.
Might I plead with you, Aurelia--I, who would be too happy to receive
one of those graciously beaming bows that I see you bestow upon young
men, in passing,--I would ask you to bear that thought with you,
always, not to sadden your sunny smile, but to give it a more subtle
grace. Wear in your summer garland this little leaf of rue. It will
not be the skull at the feast, it will rather be the tender
thoughtfulness in the face of the young Madonna.
For the years pass like summer clouds, Aurelia, and the children of
yesterday are the wives and mothers of to-day. Even I do sometimes
discover the mild eyes of my Prue fixed pensively upon my face, as if
searching for the bloom which she remembers there in the days, long
ago, when we were young. She will never see it there again, any more
than the flowers she held in her hand, in our old spring rambles. Yet
the tear that slowly gathers as she gazes, is not grief that the bloom
has faded from my cheek, but the sweet consciousness that it can never
fade from my heart; and as her eyes fall upon her work again, or the
children climb her lap to hear the old fairy tales they already know
by heart, my wife Prue is dearer to me than the sweetheart of those
days long ago.