intricate speculations on domestic economy, and at last each lady went
home to put her children to bed.
A fortnight after, the two ladies were again in conclave at Mrs. B.'s
tea table, which was graced by some unusually nice gingerbread.
"I thought you had given up making gingerbread," said Mrs. A.; "you told
me so a fortnight ago at my house."
"So I had," said Mrs. A.; "but since that conversation I have been
making it again."
"Why so?"
"O, I thought that since you thought it economical enough, certainly I
might; and that if you thought it necessary to keep some sort of cake in
the closet, perhaps it was best I should."
Mrs. A. laughed.
"Well, now," said she, "I have _not_ made any gingerbread, or cake of
any kind, since that same conversation."
"Indeed?"
"No. I said to myself, If Mrs. B. thinks it will do to go without cake
in the house, I suppose I might, as she says it _is_ some additional
expense and trouble; and so I gave it up."
Both ladies laughed, and you laugh, too, my dear lady reader; but have
you never done the same thing? Have you never altered your dress, or
your arrangements, or your housekeeping because somebody else was of a
different way of thinking or managing--and may not that very somebody at
the same time have been moved to make some change through a similar
observation on you?
A large party is to be given by the young lads of N. to the young
lassies of the same place; they are to drive out together to a picnic in
the woods, and to come home by moonlight; the weather is damp and
uncertain, the ground chill, and young people, as in all ages before the
flood and since, not famous for the grace of prudence; for all which
reasons, almost every mamma hesitates about her daughters' going--thinks
it a very great pity the thing has been started.
"I really don't like this thing," says Mrs. G.; "it's not a kind of
thing that I approve of, and if Mrs. X. was not going to let her
daughters go, I should set myself against it. How Mrs. X., who is so
very nice in her notions, can sanction such a thing, I cannot see. I am
really surprised at Mrs. X."
All this time, poor unconscious Mrs. X. is in a similar tribulation.
"This is a very disagreeable affair to me," she says. "I really have
almost a mind to say that my girls shall not go; but Mrs. G.'s daughters
are going, and Mrs. C.'s, and Mrs. W.'s, and of course it would be idle
for me to oppose it. I should not like to cast any reflections on a
course sanctioned by ladies of such prudence and discretion."
In the same manner Mrs. A., B., and C., and the good matrons through the
alphabet generally, with doleful lamentations, each one consents to the
thing that she allows not, and the affair proceeds swimmingly to the
great satisfaction of the juveniles.
Now and then, it is true, some individual sort of body, who might be
designated by the angular and decided letters K or L, says to her son or
daughter, "No. I don't approve of the thing," and is deaf to the
oft-urged, "Mrs. A., B., and C. do so."
"I have nothing to do with Mrs. A., B., and C.'s arrangements," says
this impracticable Mrs. K. or L. "I only know what is best for my
children, and they shall not go."
Again: Mrs. G. is going to give a party; and, now, shall she give wine,
or not? Mrs. G. has heard an abundance of temperance speeches and
appeals, heard the duties of ladies in the matter of sanctioning
temperance movements aptly set forth, but "none of these things move her
half so much as another consideration." She has heard that Mrs. D.
introduced wine into her last _soiree_. Mrs. D's husband has been a
leading orator of the temperance society, and Mrs. D. is no less a
leading member in the circles of fashion. Now, Mrs. G.'s soul is in
great perplexity. If she only could be sure that the report about Mrs.
D. is authentic, why, then, of course the thing is settled; regret it as
much as she may, she cannot get through her party without the wine; and
so at last come the party and the wine. Mrs. D., who was incorrectly
stated to have had the article at her last _soiree_, has it at her next
one, and quotes discreet Mrs. G. as her precedent. Mrs. P. is greatly
scandalized at this, because Mrs. G. is a member of the church, and Mr.
D. a leading temperance orator; but since _they will do it_, it is not
for her to be nice, and so she follows the fashion.
Mrs. N. comes home from church on Sunday, rolling up her eyes with
various appearances of horror and surprise.
"Well! I am going to give up trying to restrain my girls from dressing
extravagantly; it's of no use trying!--no use in the world."
"Why, mother, what's the matter?" exclaimed the girls aforesaid,
delighted to hear such encouraging declarations.
"Why, didn't you see Mrs. K.'s daughters sitting in the pew before us
with _feathers_ in their bonnets? If Mrs. K. is coming out in this way,
_I_ shall give up. I shan't try any longer. I am going to get just what
I want, and dress as much as I've a mind to. Girls, you may get those
visites that you were looking at at Mr. B.'s store last week!"
The next Sunday, Mrs. K.'s girls in turn begin:--
"There, mamma, you are always lecturing us about economy, and all that,
and wanting us to wear our old mantillas another winter, and there are
Mrs. N.'s girls shining out in new visites."
Mamma looks sensible and judicious, and tells the girls they ought not
to see what people are wearing in church on Sundays; but it becomes
evident, before the week is through, that she has not forgotten the
observation. She is anxiously pricing visites, and looking thoughtful as
one on the eve of an important determination; and the next Sunday the
girls appear in full splendor, with new visites, to the increasing
horror of Mrs. N.
So goes the shuttlecock back and forward, kept up on both sides by most
judicious hands.
In like manner, at a modern party, a circle of matrons sit in edifying
conclave, and lament the degeneracy of the age.
"These parties that begin at nine o'clock and end at two or three in the
morning are shameful things," says fat Mrs. Q., complacently fanning
herself. (N. B. Mrs. Q. is plotting to have one the very next week, and
has come just to see the fashions.)
"O, dreadful, dreadful!" exclaim, in one chorus, meek Mrs. M., and tall
Mrs. F., and stiff Mrs. J.
"They are very unhealthy," says Mrs. F.
"They disturb all family order," says Mrs. J.
"They make one so sleepy the next day," says Mrs. M.
"They are very laborious to get up, and entirely useless," says Mrs. Q.;
at the same time counting across the room the people that she shall
invite next week.
Mrs. M. and Mrs. F. diverge into a most edifying strain of moral
reflections on the improvement of time, the necessity of sobriety and
moderation, the evils of conformity to the world, till one is tempted to
feel that the tract society ought to have their remarks for general
circulation, were one not damped by the certain knowledge that before
the winter is out each of these ladies will give exactly such another
party.
And, now, are all these respectable ladies hypocritical or insincere? By
no means--they believe every word they say; but a sort of necessity is
laid upon them--a spell; and before the breath of the multitude their
individual resolution melts away as the frosty tracery melts from the
window panes of a crowded room.
A great many do this habitually, resignedly, as a matter of course. Ask
them what they think to be right and proper, and they will tell you
sensibly, coherently, and quite to the point in one direction; ask them
what they are going to do. Ah! that is quite another matter.
They are going to do what is generally done--what Mrs. A., B., and C.
do. They have long since made over their conscience to the keeping of
the public,--that is to say, of good society,--and are thus rid of a
troublesome burden of responsibility.
Again, there are others who mean in general to have an opinion and will
of their own; but, imperceptibly, as one and another take a course
opposed to their own sense of right and propriety, their resolution
quietly melts, and melts, till every individual outline of it is gone,
and they do as others do.
Yet is this influence of one human being over another--in some sense,
God-appointed--a necessary result of the human constitution. There is
scarcely a human being that is not varied and swerved by it, as the
trembling needle is swerved by the approaching magnet. Oppose conflict
with it, as one may at a distance, yet when it breathes on us through
the breath, and shines on us through the eye of an associate, it
possesses an invisible magnetic power. He who is not at all conscious of
such impressibility can scarce be amiable or human. Nevertheless, one of
the most important habits for the acquisition of a generous and noble
character, is to learn to act _individually_, unswerved by the feelings
and opinions of others. It may help us to do this, to reflect that the
very person whose opinion we fear may be in equal dread of ours, and
that the person to whom we are looking for a precedent may, at that very
time, be looking to us.
In short, Mrs. A., if you think that you could spend your money more
like a Christian than in laying it out on a fashionable party, go
forward and do it, and twenty others, whose supposed opinion you fear,
will be glad of your example for a precedent. And, Mrs. B., if you do
think it would be better for your children to observe early hours, and
form simple habits, than to dress and dance, and give and go to juvenile
balls, carry out your opinion in practice, and many an anxious mother,
who is of the same opinion, will quote your example as her shield and
defence.
And for you, young ladies, let us pray you to reflect--_individuality of
character_, maintained with womanly sweetness, is an irresistible grace
and adornment. Have some principles of taste for yourself, and do not
adopt every fashion of dress that is in vogue, whether it suits you or
not--whether it is becoming or not--but, without a startling variation
from general form, let your dress show something of your own taste and
opinions. Have some principles of right and wrong for yourself, and do
not do every thing that every one else does, _because_ every one else
does it.
Nothing is more tedious than a circle of young ladies who have got by
rote a certain set of phrases and opinions--all admiring in the same
terms the same things, and detesting in like terms certain others--with
anxious solicitude each dressing, thinking, and acting, one as much like
another as is possible. A genuine original opinion, even though it were
so heretical as to assert that Jenny Lind is a little lower than the
angels, or that Shakspeare is rather dull reading, would be better than
such a universal Dead Sea of acquiescence.
These remarks have borne reference to the female sex principally,
because they are the dependent, the acquiescent sex--from nature, and
habit, and position, most exposed to be swayed by opinion--and yet, too,
in a certain very wide department they are the lawgivers and
custom-makers of society. If, amid the multiplied schools, whose
advertisements now throng our papers, purporting to teach girls every
thing, both ancient and modern, high and low, from playing on the harp
and working pincushions, up to civil engineering, surveying, and
navigation, there were any which could teach them to be women--to have
thoughts, opinions, and modes of action of their own--such a school
would be worth having. If one half of the good purposes which are in the
hearts of the ladies of our nation were only acted out without fear of
any body's opinion, we should certainly be a step nearer the millennium.
CHRISTMAS; OR, THE GOOD FAIRY.
"O, dear! Christmas is coming in a fortnight, and I have got to think up
presents for every body!" said young Ellen Stuart, as she leaned
languidly back in her chair. "Dear me, it's so tedious! Every body has
got every thing that can be thought of."
"O, no," said her confidential adviser, Miss Lester, in a soothing tone.
"You have means of buying every thing you can fancy; and when every shop
and store is glittering with all manner of splendors, you cannot surely
be at a loss."
"Well, now, just listen. To begin with, there's mamma. What can I get
for her? I have thought of ever so many things. She has three card
cases, four gold thimbles, two or three gold chains, two writing desks
of different patterns; and then as to rings, brooches, boxes, and all
other things, I should think she might be sick of the sight of them. I
am sure I am," said she, languidly gazing on her white and jewelled
fingers.
This view of the case seemed rather puzzling to the adviser, and there
was silence for a few moments, when Ellen, yawning, resumed:--
"And then there's Cousins Jane and Mary; I suppose they will be coming
down on me with a whole load of presents; and Mrs. B. will send me
something--she did last year; and then there's Cousins William and
Tom--I must get them something; and I would like to do it well enough,
if I only knew what to get."
"Well," said Eleanor's aunt, who had been sitting quietly rattling her
knitting needles during this speech, "it's a pity that you had not such
a subject to practise on as I was when I was a girl. Presents did not
fly about in those days as they do now. I remember, when I was ten years
old, my father gave me a most marvellously ugly sugar dog for a
Christmas gift, and I was perfectly delighted with it, the very idea of
a present was so new to us."
"Dear aunt, how delighted I should be if I had any such fresh,
unsophisticated body to get presents for! But to get and get for people
that have more than they know what to do with now; to add pictures,
books, and gilding when the centre tables are loaded with them now, and
rings and jewels when they are a perfect drug! I wish myself that I were
not sick, and sated, and tired with having every thing in the world
given me."
"Well, Eleanor," said her aunt, "if you really do want unsophisticated
subjects to practise on, I can put you in the way of it. I can show you
more than one family to whom you might seem to be a very good fairy, and
where such gifts as you could give with all ease would seem like a magic
dream."
"Why, that would really be worth while, aunt."
"Look over in that back alley," said her aunt. "You see those
buildings?"
"That miserable row of shanties? Yes."
"Well, I have several acquaintances there who have never been tired of
Christmas gifts, or gifts of any other kind. I assure you, you could
make quite a sensation over there."
"Well, who is there? Let us know."
"Do you remember Owen, that used to make your shoes?"
"Yes, I remember something about him."
"Well, he has fallen into a consumption, and cannot work any more; and
he, and his wife, and three little children live in one of the rooms."
"How do they get along?"
"His wife takes in sewing sometimes, and sometimes goes out washing.
Poor Owen! I was over there yesterday; he looks thin and wasted, and his
wife was saying that he was parched with constant fever, and had very
little appetite. She had, with great self-denial, and by restricting
herself almost of necessary food, got him two or three oranges; and the
poor fellow seemed so eager after them!"
"Poor fellow!" said Eleanor, involuntarily.
"Now," said her aunt, "suppose Owen's wife should get up on Christmas
morning and find at the door a couple of dozen of oranges, and some of
those nice white grapes, such as you had at your party last week; don't
you think it would make a sensation?"
"Why, yes, I think very likely it might; but who else, aunt? You spoke
of a great many."
"Well, on the lower floor there is a neat little room, that is always
kept perfectly trim and tidy; it belongs to a young couple who have
nothing beyond the husband's day wages to live on. They are,
nevertheless, as cheerful and chipper as a couple of wrens; and she is
up and down half a dozen times a day, to help poor Mrs. Owen. She has a
baby of her own, about five months old, and of course does all the
cooking, washing, and ironing for herself and husband; and yet, when
Mrs. Owen goes out to wash, she takes her baby, and keeps it whole days
for her."
"I'm sure she deserves that the good fairies should smile on her," said
Eleanor; "one baby exhausts my stock of virtues very rapidly."
"But you ought to see her baby," said Aunt E.; "so plump, so rosy, and
good-natured, and always clean as a lily. This baby is a sort of
household shrine; nothing is too sacred or too good for it; and I
believe the little thrifty woman feels only one temptation to be
extravagant, and that is to get some ornaments to adorn this little
divinity."
"Why, did she ever tell you so?"
"No; but one day, when I was coming down stairs, the door of their room
was partly open, and I saw a pedler there with open box. John, the
husband, was standing with a little purple cap on his hand, which he was
regarding with mystified, admiring air, as if he didn't quite comprehend
it, and trim little Mary gazing at it with longing eyes.
"'I think we might get it,' said John.
"'O, no,' said she, regretfully; 'yet I wish we could, it's _so
pretty_!'"
"Say no more, aunt. I see the good fairy must pop a cap into the window
on Christmas morning. Indeed, it shall be done. How they will wonder
where it came from, and talk about it for months to come!"
"Well, then," continued her aunt, "in the next street to ours there is a
miserable building, that looks as if it were just going to topple over;
and away up in the third story, in a little room just under the eaves,
live two poor, lonely old women. They are both nearly on to ninety. I
was in there day before yesterday. One of them is constantly confined to
her bed with rheumatism; the other, weak and feeble, with failing sight
and trembling hands, totters about, her only helper; and they are
entirely dependent on charity."
"Can't they do any thing? Can't they knit?" said Eleanor.
"You are young and strong, Eleanor, and have quick eyes and nimble
fingers; how long would it take you to knit a pair of stockings?"
"I?" said Eleanor. "What an idea! I never tried, but I think I could get
a pair done in a week, perhaps."
"And if somebody gave you twenty-five cents for them, and out of this
you had to get food, and pay room rent, and buy coal for your fire, and
oil for your lamp----"
"Stop, aunt, for pity's sake!"
"Well, I will stop; but they can't: they must pay so much every month
for that miserable shell they live in, or be turned into the street. The
meal and flour that some kind person sends goes off for them just as it
does for others, and they must get more or starve; and coal is now
scarce and high priced."
"O aunt, I'm quite convinced, I'm sure; don't run me down and annihilate
me with all these terrible realities. What shall I do to play good fairy
to these poor old women?"
"If you will give me full power, Eleanor, I will put up a basket to be
sent to them that will give them something to remember all winter."
"O, certainly I will. Let me see if I can't think of something myself."
"Well, Eleanor, suppose, then, some fifty or sixty years hence, _if_ you
were old, and your father, and mother, and aunts, and uncles, now so
thick around you, lay cold and silent in so many graves--you have
somehow got away off to a strange city, where you were never known--you
live in a miserable garret, where snow blows at night through the
cracks, and the fire is very apt to go out in the old cracked stove--you
sit crouching over the dying embers the evening before Christmas--nobody
to speak to you, nobody to care for you, except another poor old soul
who lies moaning in the bed. Now, what would you like to have sent you?"
"O aunt, what a dismal picture!"
"And yet, Ella, all poor, forsaken old women are made of young girls,
who expected it in their youth as little as you do, perhaps."
"Say no more, aunt. I'll buy--let me see--a comfortable warm shawl for
each of these poor women; and I'll send them--let me see--O, some
tea--nothing goes down with old women like tea; and I'll make John wheel
some coal over to them; and, aunt, it would not be a very bad thought to
send them a new stove. I remember, the other day, when mamma was pricing
stoves, I saw some such nice ones for two or three dollars."
"For a new hand, Ella, you work up the idea very well," said her aunt.
"But how much ought I to give, for any one case, to these women, say?"
"How much did you give last year for any single Christmas present?"
"Why, six or seven dollars for some; those elegant souvenirs were seven
dollars; that ring I gave Mrs. B. was twenty."
"And do you suppose Mrs. B. was any happier for it?"
"No, really, I don't think she cared much about it; but I had to give
her something, because she had sent me something the year before, and I
did not want to send a paltry present to one in her circumstances."
"Then, Ella, give the same to any poor, distressed, suffering creature
who really needs it, and see in how many forms of good such a sum will
appear. That one hard, cold, glittering ring, that now cheers nobody,
and means nothing, that you give because you must, and she takes because
she must, might, if broken up into smaller sums, send real warm and
heartfelt gladness through many a cold and cheerless dwelling, through
many an aching heart."
"You are getting to be an orator, aunt; but don't you approve of
Christmas presents, among friends and equals?"
"Yes, indeed," said her aunt, fondly stroking her head. "I have had some
Christmas presents that did me a world of good--a little book mark, for
instance, that a certain niece of mine worked for me, with wonderful
secrecy, three years ago, when she was not a young lady with a purse
full of money--that book mark was a true Christmas present; and my young
couple across the way are plotting a profound surprise to each other on
Christmas morning. John has contrived, by an hour of extra work every
night, to lay by enough to get Mary a new calico dress; and she, poor
soul, has bargained away the only thing in the jewelry line she ever
possessed, to be laid out on a new hat for him.
"I know, too, a washerwoman who has a poor, lame boy--a patient, gentle
little fellow--who has lain quietly for weeks and months in his little
crib, and his mother is going to give him a splendid Christmas present."
"What is it, pray?"
"A whole orange! Don't laugh. She will pay ten whole cents for it; for
it shall be none of your common oranges, but a picked one of the very
best going! She has put by the money, a cent at a time, for a whole
month; and nobody knows which will be happiest in it, Willie or his
mother. These are such Christmas presents as I like to think of--gifts
coming from love, and tending to produce love; these are the appropriate
gifts of the day."
"But don't you think that it's right for those who _have_ money to give
expensive presents, supposing always, as you say, they are given from
real affection?"
"Sometimes, undoubtedly. The Savior did not condemn her who broke an
alabaster box of ointment--_very precious_--simply as a proof of love,
even although the suggestion was made, 'This might have been sold for
three hundred pence, and given to the poor.' I have thought he would
regard with sympathy the fond efforts which human love sometimes makes
to express itself by gifts, the rarest and most costly. How I rejoiced
with all my heart, when Charles Elton gave his poor mother that splendid
Chinese shawl and gold watch! because I knew they came from the very
fulness of his heart to a mother that he could not do too much for--a
mother that has done and suffered every thing for him. In some such
cases, when resources are ample, a costly gift seems to have a graceful
appropriateness; but I cannot approve of it if it exhausts all the means
of doing for the poor; it is better, then, to give a simple offering,
and to do something for those who really need it."
Eleanor looked thoughtful; her aunt laid down her knitting, and said, in
a tone of gentle seriousness, "Whose birth does Christmas commemorate,
Ella?"
"Our Savior's, certainly, aunt."