"I dwell amid the city,
And hear the flow of souls;
I do not hear the several contraries,
I do not hear the separate tone that rolls
In art or speech.
"For pomp or trade, for merry-make or folly,
I hear the confidence and sum of each,
And what is melancholy.
Thy voice is a complaint, O crowded city,
The blue sky covering thee, like God's great pity."
"Heaven bless the freedom of the park," has exclaimed a child of song; and
he might also have invoked the same blessing upon "the freedom of the
street." The street is free to all; to high and low, young and old, rich
and poor. It recognizes no distinctions or castes; it is the very
expressiveness of democracy.
The child of fashion, arrayed in silks, ribbons, and furbelows; the child
of penury and want, in rags, filth, and semi-nakedness; the shaver of
notes and the shaver of faces; the college professor and the chiffonier,
all mingle in common on the street. Now walking side by side, now brushing
past each other, now stopping to look at the same cause of excitement, now
each jostled into the gutter. No distinction in wealth, birth, or
intellect is recognized; no one dare attempt to restrict the freedom of
the thoroughfare, and none dare say to another, "Stand aside, for I am
better than thou."
The little boy trundles his hoop against the shins of the thoughtful
student; the little girl knocks the spectacles from the nose of the man of
science with her rope, while the preacher runs against an awning-post to
make way for a red-faced nurse with a willow carriage; the antiquated
apple woman, and the child with its huge chunk of bread and butter, sit
on the curb; the painter digs the end of his ladder rather uncomfortably
into some pursy old gentleman's stomach; while the sweep, with the soot
trembling upon his eyelashes, strolls along as independently and leisurely
as the dandy in tights, and with the sweeter consciousness that he is
doing something for the public good.
[Illustration: THE FREEDOM OF THE PARK.]
The street is a world in miniature, a Vanity Fair in motion, a shifting
panorama of society, painted with the pencil of folly and fancy. It is the
only plane upon which society, "the field which men sow thick with
friendships," meets on a common level. It does not flaunt in aristocracy,
and never dares to be pretentious.
"KEEP YOUR EYES OPEN AND MOUTHS CLOSED."
There's true philosophy in the above saying of a wise _savant_. But there
is more wisdom in the latter clause than he even dreamed of in his
philosophy.
The Book informs us that God breathed the breath of life (air) into man's
_nostrils_. Nothing is more injurious, save continually breathing foul
air, than the habit of breathing through the mouth. Keep the mouth closed.
A great many diseases of the teeth, mouth, throat, head, and lungs may be
traced directly to the pernicious and general habit of breathing with the
mouth open--inhaling and exhaling cold air directly into the mouth and
throat, inflaming and chilling the mucous membrane and the blood. The
nostrils are the only proper passages for the air to the lungs. Here are
filterers to exclude particles of dust and foreign matter, and various
ramifications, whereby the air is properly warmed before reaching the
lining of the throat and lungs. In infected air you are less injured, and
less liable to contract contagious diseases, when inhaling only through
the natural channel, the nostrils.
I think it was Dr. Good, of London, who wrote a book on the subject,
which Carlyle pronounced "a sane voice in a world of chaos."
George Catlin says he learned the secret of keeping the mouth closed while
among the North American Indians. They would not allow themselves or their
children to sleep with the mouth open (though their reasoning is
questionable), because the evil spirit would creep in them at night. Hence
the parent went around after the pappooses were asleep, and closed their
mouths. Pulmonary diseases are seldom found in the "close-mouthed." Kant,
the philosopher, claims to have cured himself of consumption by this
discovery. Persons never snore except by breathing through the open mouth.
O, give us quiet, you snorers, by keeping your mouths shut, even at the
expense of "keeping your eyes open" to watch yourself, and thus deliver
the world from the disturbance of snoring.