What a vulgar subject?--By no means, my dear Madam! On the contrary, a
most delightful, free and easy, suggestive topic. When the old
philosopher enumerated the best old things to burn, drink, etc., he
should have specially mentioned old shoes to wear,--John, take away
these heavy boots, and bring me my slippers,--my old, loose, easy,
comfortable slippers.--There! They are not handsome, I grant you, Madam.
But beauty is only skin-deep, you know; and when we talk of tanned skin,
I assure you its beauty often conceals unloveliness beneath. They are
broad and large;--yes, this foot of mine, which is not particularly
handsome in any case, does not look attractive in the old slippers, I
acknowledge. Ball would never ask me to sit for a model, nor would Hunt
ever wish to paint my pedal proportions, should either see me thus.
But--think of the luxury!--My dear Madam, please to put out that elegant
little foot of yours,--only the foot,--just as it looks, when you take
your afternoon promenade, and all the world admires its beauty. Thank
you! What a bewitching little thing it is! How that snug little boot
fits it like a glove! Why do you shrink so? I scarcely touched it. Oh,
it pinches! I should never dream it; it looks faultless. Is it possible,
that, as you sail along with flowing skirts, the very object which the
world admires is the source of exquisite pain? When Frank used to greet
you with an elaborate bow, could it be that the charming smile you
returned was half grimace, as you leaned somewhat carelessly on that
narrow sole? I can't tell where it pinches; but were I permitted to see
the soft, tender flesh--You would never permit it? And so you go along,
gracefully holding up those snowy skirts, and showing to the world the
lovely outside, while you inwardly wince and groan over every pebble.
Don't you go home, Madam, and hasten to get off that instrument of
torture, and luxuriate in the freedom you obtain thereby? Now Ball and
Hunt, when they see those charming little booted beauties, would be
enraptured to reproduce them in marble and oils. Yet, after all, are not
my old splayfooted slippers much more desirable affairs?--No?--You are
willing to endure the pain, because of the looks. Thank your stars, my
dear Madam, that you have the choice, and that, when you get into that
nice little boudoir, you can exchange the suffering of show for the
comfort of privacy. Did Frank ever know how they pinched? Didn't he
think, that, when you unlaced them, there came out a tiny, comely foot,
as plump and fair as a baby's? Frank never knew--till after the
wedding--what a squeezing and pinching and doubling and twisting they
had undergone, when they were peeping out under the flounces for his
special eye. Do you ever wish that you had worn something which had
disgusted Frank at the outset? If so, my dear Madam, I wouldn't exchange
my old splay slippers for those No. Twos of yours.
Ah, we bear many sorts of coverings over the long and weary road of
life! I know of a pair of tiny shoes which you have got carefully
treasured up in secret. I know how you sometimes take them out and
wistfully gaze on the faded, worn, unlovely little things,--worthless to
everybody else, but, oh, so dear to you! I see the trembling tear which
you do not care to wipe away, as the image of the little darling who
wore them comes up in all its by-gone beauty before you. They will never
again be borne toddling to your side. The little feet, once encased
therein, will never tread the stony walks of men. They long ago rested
on their early march, never to be resumed.--Ah, how many of us would be
glad to have buckled on no other than the first sandals of infancy! How
many have fallen into the crevasses of the icy paths they trod! How
many have trusted to their bold footing, and fallen, when the step
seemed surest, down the treacherous steep!
There is Mademoiselle Joliejambe;--would one suppose that the pink
slippers, which terminate those silk-shod _mollets_, could be dangerous
_chaussures_? My dear Madam, they are worse than the torturing boots of
the old Spanish Inquisition. Better for her that she stood in a
postilion's jack-boots.--She could never dance in such things?--No! and
therefore were they the better; for no Swiss glacier is so slippery as
that gas-lighted stage. She is slipping, Madam, into a terrible abyss,
while you and I are gazing, delighted, at her entrechats and pirouettes.
She is gliding into a crevasse to which Mont Blanc can furnish none so
dread.--What do I mean?--Ah, my dear Madam, better, a thousand times,
that her young mother had stored away the soft little shoes of her
infancy to mourn over, as you do over your treasures, than have lived to
see her tie on those satin things, which have borne her into the gaze of
men for a brief, brilliant while, and are bearing her on into the
flower-brinked snare of ruin!
There is Vanitas over the way;--he once wore just such pigmy affairs.
See him walking down the street, treading with a dignified stride, as
though he moved a foot above the vulgar pavement. See that poor,
tattered wretch approaching. Down goes his coarse heel, crunch, upon the
aristocratic toes of our friend; and observe how Vanitas writhes and
limps, as the sudden contact with the lower animal has crushed all his
pride and dignity out of him. How gladly would he exchange his costly
models of modern skill for the sabots of the meanest peasant! Doesn't he
carry those twinges around with him all day, and moralize--if Vanitas is
capable of moralizing--upon the danger of fashionable, private corns
being trodden on by low, vulgar cowhide? Now if Vanitas had not
cultivated those excrescent sensibilities by assiduous compression, if
he had thought more of big brains than little feet, his tattered,
cowhided friend might have trodden harmlessly on his pedal phalanges. My
dear Madam, see to it that Frank groweth not such poor grain. Cowhide is
a most useful material, and does much for the world. It treads in the
mire, that you and I may walk in cleanliness. It stands in the sodden
highway and builds up the dry pathway. It kicks aside the rolling stone,
that we may not strike our satined step thereon and fall thereby. Those
No. Twos of yours would present but a sorry sight, and the tender charms
they cover would be sadly torn and bruised, were it not for the path
that it treads out before them. While I sit comfortably in my old
slippers, and while you trip gracefully along in those laced beauties,
poor, vulgar, soiled cowhide is wearily plodding over the rough,
unbroken earth, and knows neither my rest nor your pleasure. I will
never look angrily, should I chance to feel its weight. And, Madam, do
you look kindly and smilingly--and that costs you nothing, I am sure,
_with_out you are a Vanitas in petticoats--on its plain and homely
worth.
Yes, we progressively advance through many pedal changes. Master
Tommy--with more fortunate parents than you, Madam, for he has worn out
many a pair of infantine soles (a bushel, I should think, by the
frequency with which Mrs. Asmodeus has insisted on the necessity of a
new pair, each one more costly)--now sports his first boots. Even as I
now write comes the noisy stamp of those pegged soles in the
passage-way, to which I have banished the over-proud urchin. It sounds
like a man, he says. Why, Grant, when he entered Vicksburg,--and I can
imagine no more glowing pride than that hero might have felt on that
occasion,--never felt so proud as that same Master Tommy does at this
moment, tramping up and down outside my door.--Mrs. A., do take off
those glories forthwith, or your first-born will fall before his time by
the same sin that the angels did in early days; and I know you think him
above all the angels of heaven. By-and-by Mercury will drop his
fluttering pinions, and, when bereft of their buoyant aid, his step
will be heavy and slow. Those winged messengers of delight will be
leaden weights on his weary way. When youth and hope, which have borne
him so lightly over the rugged earth, shall have lost their plumage, he
will stumble at every pebble, and welcome the decline of life's
hill-side, which assists his tardy steps.--Who is Mercury?--Dear Mrs.
A., 't is only a name for our Tommy, not bestowed by the clergyman who
officiated at his baptism.
You thought my subject a very vulgar one. Why, Madam, as it opens upon
me, I see all the hopes, dreams, fears, cares, and joys of life passing
before me. Do you remember those wedding-slippers of yours? They were
quite unlike these slip-shod things I have perched on the chair before
me. When you fitted them on so joyously, and prepared for the journey
for which they were put on,--so short, (from your chamber to your
parlor,) and yet so long, (from your blooming youth to your wrinkled
age,)--did you think they would last the distance through? They were
long ago thrown by. You may have them yet. Some people love to garner up
and cherish mementos of the dead; and dead enough are the tremulous
flutterings they then upbore. Long ago buried were the gay-tinted
visions of those first days of the journey. Bring them out now, and let
us look at them.--Is it possible that you ever thought those
old-fashioned things pretty? Can it be that those dingy, shapeless
affairs could have borne you up to the empyrean? My dear Madam, they
went with you to the upper circle of joy. Dante must have described just
such in some unpublished canto; and Milton has certainly some account of
them in "Paradise Lost." Frank thought them the loveliest things he ever
beheld, and would kiss them as religiously as ever ardent Catholic did
the Papal toe; and now!--Well, put them away. It doesn't do to examine
too closely the relics of departed joys. They have a sad, old-time,
faded, shrunken look. They belong to the past, when they had a reality
and meaning. Now they are strange and quaint, and the young folks laugh
at them. What do they know of the sweet faces, the warm hearts, the dear
eyes, that they have outlived, but of which they yet serve as tender
memorials? Put them away. Perhaps we have ourselves outlived the wild
emotions, the throbbing joys, the rosy dreams they served to cherish.
Perhaps they darken the gloom that has settled over the days since the
time when they had a part in the changing scene.--We are talking about
your wedding-shoes, among other things, Madam. Is it worth while to put
them back again?--Well, give them to Bridget. They have yet a value to
her; and I don't believe Frank will care.
For Heaven's sake, Mrs. A., what is the matter? I will not be disturbed
by such outcries, even from your first-born angel.--His boots hurt
him?--Come here, little Tommy, and show me the wound that the naughty
peg has made. Ah, my dear boy, have you found out so soon that every new
delight hides somewhere a new pain? Where is the peg?--There! I have
smoothed it away. The parental hand can, as yet, remove from your steps
the sharp points which would tear your tender flesh. By-and-by it will
be powerless for your protection, and the pegs that prick and tear must
be crushed out by your own unaided exertions. See to it, my boy, that
you do not drive them in yourself, so firmly, so rootedly, that all your
efforts to dull them, to break them, to destroy them, are in vain. Do
you think that the cobbler alone puts trenchant points in your sole? Ah,
my boy, we oftener plant ourselves the thorns we tread upon! He can
readily remove the pain he has carelessly caused; but rasp and file can
never dull those self-driven points which rankle in our tortured flesh,
each onward step forcing them deeper and deeper in. There are roses in
our path,--sweet, blushing roses,--and we stride over them, intoxicated
with their beauty and odor; we crush out their fragrance with our
heedless tread; we drink in the exciting aroma that rises around our
bewildered senses; and when we have passed on, and awaken from the
inebriation, we find that their thorns have pierced through and through,
and we limp along on our journey, which permits of no tarrying nor rest.
Who has not some peg pricking in his sole? How many times has Crispin
rubbed and rasped over it, and yet there it is, as sharp as though it
were just driven in! Confound the cursed thing! Bring me another pair;
and now I will step off manfully and free. Hang the fellow, what does he
mean? Here it is again, in the same place, and sharp as ever. Ah,
Crispin's hammer will never flatten out! Crispin's hand never drove it
there. Satin and velvet you may wear, and line with softest down; yet
every step you tread will be on that remorseless point; and the
lacerated nerves must quiver to the last.--You don't know what I am
talking about, Tommy?--Pray God, my darling, that you may ever wonder
what your father meant, when you were pricked with the peg in your first
boots!
My dear Madam, did you ever see Blondin disport himself on a tight-rope?
I once saw him poised over the Niagara rapids; and I wondered how he
could stand there, with the boiling abyss below him, as safe as I stood
on the Suspension-Bridge. Well, it was chalk, Madam. Before he commenced
his perilous journey, he chalked well his pliant sole. I can assure you
that many a fall may be saved us in this world, if we look to it that
our soles be well chalked. I should not, of course, allude to any sudden
slips that you or I may have made on our treacherous road; we have, of
course, recovered our equilibrium. But some soles are very apt to give
way. They used to scratch them, in my infancy, to insure uprightness in
the wearer. But the maternal scissor-points are not always at hand. The
basket has long been put religiously by, and the busy fingers that once
used it have ceased to be plied for our comfort and convenience. Still
we must cross the dangerous way, and with untried steps. What is
Blondin's rope to the narrow, uncertain bridge which ever and anon
appears before us in the road of life? What are the yeasty waters of
that green river to the deep and dark tide which awaits our fall from
the single strand that spans it? The audience of the world is looking on
at our passage, and few among them care for our danger or are interested
in our success. Yet there are some. Some hearts are beating high; some
tearful eyes are strained to watch our progress; some breaths come
quickly as we move on; and some fervent prayers are passionately offered
up for our safety. We cannot broaden the bridge; it hangs poised by the
hand of Destiny from shore to shore; alone and unsupported must we
cross, and the shades of night gather around before we reach the
friendly foothold beyond. We dare not look back, we cannot turn back; we
must go on, and never tarry an instant. Let us chalk our soles well,
then, Madam, and show to others more timid, more thoughtless, that the
frail pathway may be securely trod. Nay, more, let us hew out the pure,
white, friendly rock we know of, and make surer the unworn, unfamiliar,
unexperienced soles of our brethren with it, that they may travel on,
erect and fearless. Let us throw the old shoe after them, that good luck
may attend their way.
Ah, we are multifariously shod for the journey of life! The soft step on
the nursery-floor, the joyous bound of the youth's play-ground, the
proud step of self-supporting manhood, the careful tread of timid
age,--all have their fitting support. Some glide with slippered
lightness through the boudoirs of beauty; while others press the spurred
boot in furious battle. Some saunter along the flowery walks of rural
ease; while others climb, with iron-shod foot, the bold, bare, icy
precipice. Some tread, forever, the beaten paths of home; while others
print their feet upon the untrodden wilds of distant lands.
What a journey my old slippers have taken me; though they have never
been off their perch on the chair before me! Ah, Madam, let us hope,
that, when we have left them, with all our earthly garb, behind, and
they lie in corners, never to be worn by us again, we may soar above the
dark, devious ways of mortal life, may sweep on angel-wings through the
sun-lit ether, roam stainless and free through the eternal halls of
light, and tread with unclad feet the purple clouds of heaven!