explicitness; "I want to go to bed, and so-o-o-o!" and Johnny makes up a
mouth as big as a teacup, and roars with good courage, and his mamma
asks him "if he ever saw pa do so," and tells him that "he is mamma's
dear, good little boy, and must not make a noise," with various
observations of the kind, which are so strikingly efficacious in such
cases. Meanwhile, the domestic concert in other quarters proceeds with
vigor. "Mamma, I'm tired!" bawls a child. "Where's the baby's night
gown?" calls a nurse. "Do take Peter up in your lap, and keep him
still." "Pray get out some biscuits to stop their mouths." Meanwhile,
sundry babies strike in "con spirito," as the music books have it, and
execute various flourishes; the disconsolate mothers sigh, and look as
if all was over with them; and the young ladies appear extremely
disgusted, and wonder "what business women have to be travelling round
with babies."
To these troubles succeeds the turning-out scene, when the whole caravan
is ejected into the gentlemen's cabin, that the beds may be made. The
red curtains are put down, and in solemn silence all, the last
mysterious preparations begin. At length it is announced that all is
ready. Forthwith the whole company rush back, and find the walls
embellished by a series of little shelves, about a foot wide, each
furnished with a mattress and bedding, and hooked to the ceiling by a
very suspiciously slender cord. Direful are the ruminations and
exclamations of inexperienced travellers, particularly young ones, as
they eye these very equivocal accommodations. "What, sleep up there! _I_
won't sleep on one of those top shelves, _I_ know. The cords will
certainly break." The chambermaid here takes up the conversation, and
solemnly assures them that such an accident is not to be thought of at
all; that it is a natural impossibility--a thing that could not happen
without an actual miracle; and since it becomes increasingly evident
that thirty ladies cannot all sleep on the lowest shelf, there is some
effort made to exercise faith in this doctrine; nevertheless, all look
on their neighbors with fear and trembling; and when the stout lady
talks of taking a shelf, she is most urgently pressed to change places
with her alarmed neighbor below. Points of location being after a while
adjusted, comes the last struggle. Every body wants to take off a
bonnet, or look for a shawl, to find a cloak, or get a carpet bag, and
all set about it with such zeal that nothing can be done. "Ma'am, you're
on my foot!" says one. "Will you please to move, ma'am?" says somebody,
who is gasping and struggling behind you. "Move!" you echo. "Indeed, I
should be very glad to, but I don't see much prospect of it."
"Chambermaid!" calls a lady, who is struggling among a heap of carpet
bags and children at one end of the cabin. "Ma'am!" echoes the poor
chambermaid, who is wedged fast, in a similar situation, at the other.
"Where's my cloak, chambermaid?" "I'd find it, ma'am, if I could move."
"Chambermaid, my basket!" "Chambermaid, my parasol!" "Chambermaid, my
carpet bag!" "Mamma, they push me so!" "Hush, child; crawl under there,
and lie still till I can undress you." At last, however, the various
distresses are over, the babies sink to sleep, and even that
much-enduring being, the chambermaid, seeks out some corner for repose.
Tired and drowsy, you are just sinking into a doze, when bang! goes the
boat against the sides of a lock; ropes scrape, men run and shout, and
up fly the heads of all the top shelfites, who are generally the more
juvenile and airy part of the company.
"What's that! what's that!" flies from mouth to mouth; and forthwith
they proceed to awaken their respective relations. "Mother! Aunt Hannah!
do wake up; what is this awful noise?" "O, only a lock!" "Pray be
still," groan out the sleepy members from below.
"A lock!" exclaim the vivacious creatures, ever on the alert for
information; "and what _is_ a lock, pray?"
"Don't you know what a lock is, you silly creatures? Do lie down and go
to sleep."
"But say, there ain't any _danger_ in a lock, is there?" respond the
querists. "Danger!" exclaims a deaf old lady, poking up her head;
"what's the matter? There hain't nothin' burst, has there?" "No, no,
no!" exclaim the provoked and despairing opposition party, who find that
there is no such thing as going to sleep till they have made the old
lady below and the young ladies above understand exactly the philosophy
of a lock. After a while the conversation again subsides; again all is
still; you hear only the trampling of horses and the rippling of the
rope in the water, and sleep again is stealing over you. You doze, you
dream, and all of a sudden you are started by a cry, "Chambermaid! wake
up the lady that wants to be set ashore." Up jumps chambermaid, and up
jump the lady and two children, and forthwith form a committee of
inquiry as to ways and means. "Where's my bonnet?" says the lady, half
awake, and fumbling among the various articles of that name. "I thought
I hung it up behind the door." "Can't you find it?" says poor
chambermaid, yawning and rubbing her eyes. "O, yes, here it is," says
the lady; and then the cloak, the shawl, the gloves, the shoes, receive
each a separate discussion. At last all seems ready, and they begin to
move off, when, lo! Peter's cap is missing. "Now, where can it be?"
soliloquizes the lady. "I put it right here by the table leg; maybe it
got into some of the berths." At this suggestion, the chambermaid takes
the candle, and goes round deliberately to every berth, poking the light
directly in the face of every sleeper. "Here it is," she exclaims,
pulling at something black under one pillow. "No, indeed, those are my
shoes," says the vexed sleeper. "Maybe it's here," she resumes, darting
upon something dark in another berth. "No, that's my bag," responds the
occupant. The chambermaid then proceeds to turn over all the children on
the floor, to see if it is not under them. In the course of which
process they are most agreeably waked up and enlivened; and when every
body is broad awake, and most uncharitably wishing the cap, and Peter
too, at the bottom of the canal, the good lady exclaims, "Well, if this
isn't lucky; here I had it safe in my basket all the time!" And she
departs amid the--what shall I say?--execrations?--of the whole company,
ladies though they be.
Well, after this follows a hushing up and wiping up among the juvenile
population, and a series of remarks commences from the various shelves,
of a very edifying and instructive tendency. One says that the woman did
not seem to know where any thing was; another says that she has waked
them all up; a third adds that she has waked up all the children, too;
and the elderly ladies make moral reflections on the importance of
putting your things where you can find them--being always ready; which
observations, being delivered in an exceedingly doleful and drowsy tone,
form a sort of sub-bass to the lively chattering of the upper shelfites,
who declare that they feel quite wide awake,--that they don't think they
shall go to sleep again to-night,--and discourse over every thing in
creation, until you heartily wish you were enough related to them to
give them a scolding.
At last, however, voice after voice drops off; you fall into a most
refreshing slumber; it seems to you that you sleep about a quarter of an
hour, when the chambermaid pulls you by the sleeve. "Will you please to
get up, ma'am? We want to make the beds." You start and stare. Sure
enough, the night is gone. So much for sleeping on board canal boats.
Let us not enumerate the manifold perplexities of the morning toilet in
a place where every lady realizes most forcibly the condition of the old
woman who lived under a broom: "All she wanted was elbow room." Let us
not tell how one glass is made to answer for thirty fair faces, one ewer
and vase for thirty lavations; and--tell it not in Gath!--one towel for
a company! Let us not intimate how ladies' shoes have, in a night,
clandestinely slid into the gentlemen's cabin, and gentlemen's boots
elbowed, or, rather, _toed_ their way among ladies' gear, nor recite the
exclamations after runaway property that are heard. "I can't find
nothin' of Johnny's shoe!" "Here's a shoe in the water pitcher--is this
it?" "My side combs are gone!" exclaims a nymph with dishevelled curls.
"Massy! do look at my bonnet!" exclaims an old lady, elevating an
article crushed into as many angles as there are pieces in a minced pie.
"I never did sleep _so much together_ in my life," echoes a poor little
French lady, whom despair has driven into talking English.
But our shortening paper warns us not to prolong our catalogue of
distresses beyond reasonable bounds, and therefore we will close with
advising all our friends, who intend to try this way of travelling for
_pleasure_, to take a good stock both of patience and clean towels with
them, for we think that they will find abundant need for both.
FEELING.
There is one way of studying human nature, which surveys mankind only as
a set of instruments for the accomplishment of personal plans. There is
another, which regards them simply as a gallery of pictures, to be
admired or laughed at as the caricature or the _beau ideal_
predominates. A third way regards them as human beings, having hearts
that can suffer and enjoy, that can be improved or be ruined; as those
who are linked to us by mysterious reciprocal influences, by the common
dangers of a present existence, and the uncertainties of a future one;
as presenting, wherever we meet them, claims on our sympathy and
assistance.
Those who adopt the last method are interested in human beings, not so
much by _present_ attractions as by their capabilities as intelligent,
immortal beings; by a high belief of what every mind may attain in an
immortal existence; by anxieties for its temptations and dangers, and
often by the perception of errors and faults which threaten its ruin.
The first two modes are adopted by the great mass of society; the last
is the office of those few scattered stars in the sky of life, who look
down on its dark selfishness to remind us that there is a world of light
and love.
To this class did _He_ belong, whose rising and setting on earth were
for "the healing of the nations;" and to this class has belonged many a
pure and devoted spirit, like him shining to cheer, like him fading away
into the heavens. To this class many a one _wishes_ to belong, who has
an eye to distinguish the divinity of virtue, without the resolution to
attain it; who, while they sweep along with the selfish current of
society, still regret that society is not different--that they
themselves are not different. If this train of thought has no very
particular application to what follows, it was nevertheless suggested by
it, and of its relevancy others must judge.
Look into this school room. It is a warm, sleepy afternoon in July;
there is scarcely air enough to stir the leaves of the tall buttonwood
tree before the door, or to lift the loose leaves of the copy book in
the window; the sun has been diligently shining into those curtainless
west windows ever since three o'clock, upon those blotted and mangled
desks, and those decrepit and tottering benches, and that great arm
chair, the high place of authority.
You can faintly hear, about the door, the "craw, craw," of some
neighboring chickens, which have stepped around to consider the dinner
baskets, and pick up the crumbs of the noon's repast. For a marvel, the
busy school is still, because, in truth, it is too warm to stir. You
will find nothing to disturb your meditation on character, for you
cannot hear the beat of those little hearts, nor the bustle of all those
busy thoughts.
Now look around. Who of these is the most interesting? Is it that tall,
slender, hazel-eyed boy, with a glance like a falcon, whose elbows rest
on his book as he gazes out on the great buttonwood tree, and is
calculating how he shall fix his squirrel trap when school is out? Or is
it that curly-headed little rogue, who is shaking with repressed
laughter at seeing a chicken roll over in a dinner basket? Or is it that
arch boy with black eyelashes, and deep, mischievous dimple in his
cheeks, who is slyly fixing a fish hook to the skirts of the master's
coat, yet looking as abstracted as Archimedes whenever the good man
turns his head that way? No; these are intelligent, bright, beautiful,
but it is not these.
Perhaps, then, it is that sleepy little girl, with golden curls, and a
mouth like a half-blown rosebud. See, the small brass thimble has fallen
to the floor, her patchwork drops from her lap, her blue eyes close like
two sleepy violets, her little head is nodding, and she sinks on her
sister's shoulder: surely it is she. No, it is not.
But look in that corner. Do you see that boy with such a gloomy
countenance--so vacant, yet so ill natured? He is doing nothing, and he
very seldom does any thing. He is surly and gloomy in his looks and
actions. He never showed any more aptitude for saying or doing a pretty
thing than his straight white hair does for curling. He is regularly
blamed and punished every day, and the more he is blamed and punished,
the worse he grows. None of the boys and girls in school will play with
him; or, if they do, they will be sorry for it. And every day the master
assures him that "he does not know what to do with him," and that he
"makes him more trouble than any boy in school," with similar judicious
information, that has a striking tendency to promote improvement. That
is the boy to whom I apply the title of "the most interesting one."
He is interesting because he is _not_ pleasing; because he has bad
habits; because he does wrong; because, under present influences, he is
always likely to do wrong. He is interesting because he has become what
he is now by means of the very temperament which often makes the noblest
virtue. It is feeling, acuteness of feeling, which has given that
countenance its expression, that character its moroseness.
He has no father, and that long-suffering friend, his mother, is gone
too. Yet he has relations, and kind ones too; and, in the compassionate
language of worldly charity, it may be said of him, "He would have
nothing of which to complain, if he would only behave himself."
His little sister is always bright, always pleasant and cheerful; and
his friends say, "Why should not he be so too? He is in exactly the same
circumstances." No, he is not. In one circumstance they differ. He has a
mind to feel and remember every thing that can pain; she can feel and
remember but little. If you blame him, he is exasperated, gloomy, and
cannot forget it. If you blame her, she can say she has done wrong in a
moment, and all is forgotten. Her mind can no more be wounded than the
little brook where she loves to play. The bright waters close again, and
smile and prattle as merry as before.
Which is the most desirable temperament? It would be hard to say. The
power of feeling is necessary for all that is noble in man, and yet it
involves the greatest risks. They who catch at happiness on the bright
surface of things, secure a portion, such as it is, with more certainty;
those who dive for it in the waters of deeper feeling, if they succeed,
will bring up pearls and diamonds, but if they sink they are lost
forever!
But now comes Saturday, and school is just out. Can any one of my
readers remember the rapturous prospect of a long, bright Saturday
afternoon? "Where are you going?" "Will you come and see me?" "We are
going a fishing!" "Let us go a strawberrying!" may be heard rising from
the happy group. But no one comes near the ill-humored James, and the
little party going to visit his sister "wish James was out of the way."
He sees every motion, hears every whisper, knows, suspects, feels it
all, and turns to go home more sullen and ill tempered than common. The
world looks dark--nobody loves him--and he is told that it is "all his
own fault," and that makes the matter still worse.
When the little party arrive, he is suspicious and irritable, and, of
course, soon excommunicated. Then, as he stands in disconsolate anger,
looking over the garden fence at the gay group making dandelion chains,
and playing baby house under the trees, he wonders why he is not like
other children. He wishes he were different, and yet he does not know
what to do. He looks around, and every thing is blooming and bright. His
little bed of flowers is even brighter and sweeter than ever before, and
a new rose is just opening on his rosebush.
There goes pussy, too, racing and scampering, with little Ellen after
her, in among the alleys and flowers; and the birds are singing in the
trees; and the soft winds brush the blossoms of the sweet pea against
his cheek; and yet, though all nature looks on him so kindly, he is
wretched.
Let us now change the scene. Why is that crowded assembly so
attentive--so silent? Who is speaking? It is our old friend, the little
disconsolate schoolboy. But his eyes are flashing with intellect, his
face fervent with emotion, his voice breathes like music, and every mind
is enchained.
Again, it is a splendid sunset, and yonder enthusiast meets it face to
face, as a friend. He is silent--rapt--happy. He feels the poetry which
God has written; he is touched by it, as God meant that the feeling
spirit should be touched.
Again, he is watching by the bed of sickness, and it is blessed to have
such a watcher! anticipating every want; relieving, not in a cold,
uninterested way, but with the quick perceptions, the tenderness, the
gentleness of an angel.
Follow him into the circle of friendship, and why is he so loved and
trusted? Why can you so easily tell to him what you can say to no one
else besides? Why is it that all around him feel that he can understand,
appreciate, be touched by all that touches them?
And when heaven uncloses its doors of light, when all its knowledge, its
purity, its bliss, rises on the eye and passes into the soul, who then
will be looked on as the one who might be envied--he who _can_, or he
who _cannot feel_?
THE SEAMSTRESS.
"Few, save the poor, feel for the poor;
The rich know not how hard
It is to be of needful food
And needful rest debarred.
Their paths are paths of plenteousness;
They sleep on silk and down;
They never think how wearily
The weary head lies down.
They never by the window sit,
And see the gay pass by,
Yet take their weary work again,
And with a mournful eye."
L. E. L.
However fine and elevated, in a sentimental point of view, may have been
the poetry of this gifted writer, we think we have never seen any thing
from this source that _ought_ to give a better opinion of her than the
little ballad from which the above verses are taken.
They show that the accomplished authoress possessed, not merely a
knowledge of the dreamy ideal wants of human beings, but the more
pressing and homely ones, which the fastidious and poetical are often
the last to appreciate. The sufferings of poverty are not confined to
those of the common, squalid, every day inured to hardships, and ready,
with open hand, to receive charity, let it come to them as it will.
There is another class on whom it presses with still heavier power--the
generous, the decent, the self-respecting, who have struggled with their
lot in silence, "bearing all things, hoping all things," and willing to
endure all things, rather than breathe a word of complaint, or to
acknowledge, even to themselves, that their own efforts will not be
sufficient for their own necessities.
Pause with me a while at the door of yonder room, whose small window
overlooks a little court below. It is inhabited by a widow and her
daughter, dependent entirely on the labors of the needle, and those
other slight and precarious resources, which are all that remain to
woman when left to struggle her way through the world alone. It contains
all their small earthly store, and there is scarce an article of its
little stock of furniture that has not been thought of, and toiled for,
and its price calculated over and over again, before every thing could
be made right for its purchase. Every article is arranged with the
utmost neatness and care; nor is the most costly furniture of a
fashionable parlor more sedulously guarded from a scratch or a rub, than
is that brightly-varnished bureau, and that neat cherry tea table and
bedstead. The floor, too, boasted once a carpet; but old Time has been
busy with it, picking a hole here, and making a thin place there; and
though the old fellow has been followed up by the most indefatigable
zeal in darning, the marks of his mischievous fingers are too plain to
be mistaken. It is true, a kindly neighbor has given a bit of faded
baize, which has been neatly clipped and bound, and spread down over an
entirely unmanageable hole in front of the fireplace; and other places
have been repaired with pieces of different colors; and yet, after all,
it is evident that the poor carpet is not long for this world.
But the best face is put upon every thing. The little cupboard in the
corner, that contains a few china cups, and one or two antiquated silver
spoons, relics of better days, is arranged with jealous neatness, and
the white muslin window curtain, albeit the muslin be old, has been
carefully whitened and starched, and smoothly ironed, and put up with
exact precision; and on the bureau, covered by a snowy cloth, are
arranged a few books and other memorials of former times, and a faded
miniature, which, though it have little about it to interest a stranger,
is more precious to the poor widow than every thing besides.
Mrs. Ames is seated in her rocking chair, supported by a pillow, and
busy cutting out work, while her daughter, a slender, sickly-looking
girl, is sitting by the window, intent on some fine stitching.
Mrs. Ames, in former days, was the wife of a respectable merchant, and
the mother of an affectionate family. But evil fortune had followed her
with a steadiness that seemed like the stern decree of some adverse fate
rather than the ordinary dealings of a merciful Providence. First came a
heavy run of losses in business; then long and expensive sickness in the
family, and the death of children. Then there was the selling of the
large house and elegant furniture, to retire to a humbler style of
living; and finally, the sale of all the property, with the view of
quitting the shores of a native land, and commencing life again in a new
one. But scarcely had the exiled family found themselves in the port of
a foreign land, when the father was suddenly smitten down by the hand of
death, and his lonely grave made in a land of strangers. The widow,
broken-hearted and discouraged, had still a wearisome journey before her
ere she could reach any whom she could consider as her friends. With her
two daughters, entirely unattended, and with her finances impoverished
by detention and sickness, she performed the tedious journey.
Arrived at the place of her destination, she found herself not only
without immediate resources, but considerably in debt to one who had
advanced money for her travelling expenses. With silent endurance she
met the necessities of her situation. Her daughters, delicately reared,
and hitherto carefully educated, were placed out to service, and Mrs.
Ames sought for employment as a nurse. The younger child fell sick, and
the hard earnings of the mother were all exhausted in the care of her;
and though she recovered in part, she was declared by her physician to
be the victim of a disease which would never leave her till it
terminated her life.
As soon, however, as her daughter was so far restored as not to need her
immediate care, Mrs. Ames resumed her laborious employment. Scarcely had
she been able, in this way, to discharge the debts for her journey and
to furnish the small room we have described, when the hand of disease
was laid heavily on herself. Too resolute and persevering to give way to
the first attacks of pain and weakness, she still continued her
fatiguing employment till her system was entirely prostrated. Thus all
possibility of pursuing her business was cut off, and nothing remained
but what could be accomplished by her own and her daughter's dexterity
at the needle. It is at this time we ask you to look in upon the mother
and daughter.
Mrs. Ames is sitting up, the first time for a week, and even to-day she
is scarcely fit to do so; but she remembers that the month is coming
round, and her rent will soon be due; and in her feebleness she will
stretch every nerve to meet her engagements with punctilious exactness.