FOLLY AS IT FLIES;
_HIT AT_
BY
FANNY FERN.
NEW YORK:
G. W. CARLETON & CO. PUBLISHERS.
LONDON: S. LOW, SON & CO.
MDCCCLXVIII.
Entered according to the Act of Congress, in the year 1868, by
G. W. CARLETON & CO.,
in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States,
for the Southern District of New York
LOVEJOY, SON & CO.,
ELECTROTYPERS & STEREOTYPERS,
15 Vandewater Street, N. Y.
To
MY FRIEND
Robert Bonner,
EDITOR OF THE NEW YORK LEDGER.
_For fourteen years, the team of Bonner and Fern, has trotted
over the road at 2.40 pace, without a snap
of the harness, or a hitch of the
wheels.--Plenty of oats, and
a skilful rein, the
secret._
PREFACE.
_Yours Truly_,
FANNY FERN.
CONTENTS.
PAGE
DISCOURSE UPON HUSBANDS 11
GRANDMOTHER'S CHAT ABOUT CHILDREN 33
WOMEN AND THEIR DISCONTENTS 50
WOMEN AND SOME OF THEIR MISTAKES 68
NOTES UPON PREACHERS AND PREACHING 88
BRIDGET AS SHE WAS, AND BRIDGET AS SHE IS 103
A CHAPTER ON TOBACCO 118
GIVE THE CONVICTS A CHANCE 127
A GLANCE AT WASHINGTON 133
GLIMPSES OF CAMP LIFE 142
UNWRITTEN HISTORY OF THE WAR 151
MY SUMMERS IN NEW ENGLAND 163
BOSTON AND NEW YORK 182
SOME THINGS IN NEW YORK 188
WORKING GIRLS OF NEW YORK 219
WASHING THE BABY 230
CHILDREN HAVE THEIR RIGHTS 232
MOURNING 240
TO YOUNG GIRLS 244
A LITTLE TALK WITH THE OTHER SEX 253
A CHAPTER ON MEN 269
LITERARY PEOPLE 274
SOME VARIETIES OF WOMEN 280
MISTAKES ABOUT OUR CHILDREN 295
THOUGHTS OF SOME EVERY DAY TOPICS 312
A TRIP TO THE NORTHERN LAKES 328
FOLLY AS IT FLIES.
_A DISCOURSE UPON HUSBANDS._
I wish every husband would copy into his memorandum book this
sentence, from a recently published work: "_Women must be constituted
very differently from men. A word said, a line written, and we are
happy; omitted, our hearts ache as if for a great misfortune. Men
cannot feel it, or guess at it; if they did, the most careless of them
would be slow to wound us so._"
The grave hides many a heart which has been stung to death, because
one who might, after all, have loved it after a certain careless
fashion, was deaf, dumb, and blind to the truth in the sentence we
have just quoted, or if not, was at least restive and impatient with
regard to it. Many men, marrying late in life, being accustomed only
to take care of _themselves_, and that in the most erratic, rambling,
exciting fashion, eating and drinking, sleeping and walking whenever
and wherever their fancy, or good cheer and amusement, questionable or
unquestionable, prompted; come at last, when they get tired of this,
with their selfish habits fixed as fate, to--matrimony. For a while it
is a novelty. Shortly, it is strange as irksome, this always being
obliged to consider the comfort and happiness of another. To have
something always hanging on the arm, which _used_ to swing free, or at
most, but twirl a cane. Then, they think their duty done if they
provide food and clothing, and refrain (possibly) from harsh words.
Ah--_is it_? Listen to that sigh as you close the door. Watch the
gradual fading of the eye, and paling of the cheek, not from age--she
should be yet young--but that gnawing pain at the heart, born of the
settled conviction that the great hungry craving of her soul, as far
as you are concerned, must go forever unsatisfied. God help such
wives, and keep them from attempting to slake their souls' thirst at
poisoned fountains.
_Think_, you, her husband, how little a kind word, a smile, a caress
to _you_, how much to _her_. If you call these things "childish" and
"beneath your notice," then you should never have married. There are
men who should remain forever single. You are one. You have no right
to require of a woman her health, strength, time and devotion, to mock
her with this shadowy, unsatisfying return. A new bonnet, a dress, a
shawl, a watch, anything, everything but what a _true_ woman's heart
most craves--sympathy, appreciation, love. She may be rich in
everything else; but if she be poor in these, and is a _good_ woman,
she had better die.
There are hard, unloving, cold monstrosities of women, (rare
exceptions,) who neither require love, nor know how to give it. We are
not speaking of these. That big-hearted, loving, noble men have
occasionally been thrown away upon such, does not disprove what we
have been saying. But even a man thus situated has greatly the
advantage of a woman in a similar position, because, over the needle a
woman may think herself into an Insane Asylum, while the active,
out-door turmoil of business life is at least a _sometime_ reprieve to
_him_.
Do you ask me, "Are there no happy wives?" God be praised, yes, and
glorious, lovable husbands, too, who know how to treat a woman, and
would have her neither fool nor drudge. Almost every wife would be a
good and happy wife, _were she only loved enough_. Let husbands,
present and prospective, think of this.
* * * * *
"Now, I am a clerk, with eight hundred dollars salary, and yet my wife
expects me to dress her in first-class style. What would you advise me
to do--leave her?"
These words I unintentionally overheard in a public conveyance. I went
home, pondering them over. "Leave her!" Were _you_ not to blame, sir,
in selecting a foolish, frivolous wife, and expecting her to confine
her desires, as a sensible woman ought, and would, within the limits
of your small salary? Have _you, yourself_, no "first-class" expenses,
in the way of rides, drinks and cigars, which it might be well for
you to consider while talking to her of retrenchment? Did it ever
occur to you, that under all that frivolity, which you admired in the
maid, but deplore and condemn in the wife, there may be, after all,
enough of the true woman, to appreciate and sympathize with a _kind,
loving_ statement of the case, in its parental as well as marital
relations? Did it ever occur to you, that if you require no more from
_her_, in the way of self-denial, than you are willing to endure
_yourself_--in short, if you were _just_ in this matter, as all
husbands are _not_--it might bring a pair of loving arms about your
neck, that would be a talisman amid future toil, and a pledge of
co-operation in it, that would give wings to effort? And should it not
be so immediately--should you encounter tears and frowns--would you
not do well to remember the hundreds of wives of drunken husbands,
who, through the length and breadth of the land, are thinking--_not_
of "_leaving_" them, but how, day by day, they shall more patiently
bear their burden, toiling with their own feeble hands, in a woman's
restricted sphere of effort, to make up their deficiencies, closing
their ears resolutely to any recital of a husband's failings, nor
asking advice of aught save their own faithful, wifely hearts, "_what
course they shall pursue_?"
And to all young men, whether "clerks" or otherwise, we would say, if
you marry a humming-bird, don't expect that marriage will instantly
convert it into an owl; and if you have caught it, and caged it,
without thought of consequences, don't, like a coward, shrink from
your self-assumed responsibility, and turn it loose in a dark wood, to
be devoured by the first vulture.
* * * * *
The other day I read in a paper, "Wanted--board for a young couple."
What a pity, I thought, that they should begin life in so unnatural
and artificial a manner! What a pity that in the sacredness of a home
of their own, they should not consecrate their life-long promise to
walk hand in hand, for joy or for sorrow! What a pity that the sweet
home-cares which sit so gracefully on the young wife and housekeeper,
should be waved aside for the stiff etiquette of a public table or
drawing-room! What a pity that the husband should not have a "_home_"
to return to when his day's toil is over, instead of a "room," as in
his lonely bachelor days!
* * * * *
"Oh, you little rascal" said a young father doubling up his fist at
his first baby, as it lay kicking its pink toes upon the bed; "oh, you
little rascal, precious little attention have I had from your mamma
since _you_ came to town. I don't know but I am very sorry you are
here."
Now, this is a subject upon which I have thought a great deal, and
often wished I had wisdom to write about. It is a very nice point for
a young wife to settle rightly--the respective claims of the helpless
little baby, and those of the young husband, who has hitherto been the
sole recipient of her caresses and care. The cry of that little baby
is painful to him. He has not yet adjusted himself to the position of
a father. It is a nice little creature, of course; but why need _she_
be so much in the nursery and so little in the parlor? Why can't she
delegate the washing, and dressing, and getting-to-sleep, to a nurse,
and go about with _him_, as she used before it came. It is very dull
to sit alone, waiting until all these processes have been gone
through; and, beside, it is plain to see that, when he does wait till
then, her vitality is so nearly exhausted that she has very little
left to entertain him, or to go abroad for entertainment; and if she
does the latter, she is so fearful that something may go wrong with
that experimental first baby in her absence, that her anxiety becomes
contagious, and _his_ pleasure is spoiled.
Now, to begin with: it takes two years for a young married couple to
adjust themselves to their new position. "_His_ mother never fussed
that way over _her_ babies, and is not _he_ a living example of the
virtue of neglect?" Now "_her_ mother preferred to do just as _she_ is
doing, and thought any other course heartless and unnatural, at least
while the baby is so very little." Now stop a bit, my dears, or you
never will get beyond that milestone on your journey. You have got,
both of you, to drop your respective mothers, as far as quoting their
practice is concerned. Never mention them to one another, if you can
possibly keep your mouths shut on their superior virtues, when you
wish to settle any such question; because it will always remain true,
to the end of time, that a husband's relations, like the king, can do
no wrong, though they may be in the constant practice of doing that in
their own families, which they consider highly improper in yours.
Now, do you and John--I suppose his name is John--two-thirds of the
men are named John, and the Johns are always great strapping
fellows--do you and John just paddle your own canoe, as they do. It is
yours, isn't it? Well, steer it, day by day, by the light you have, as
well as you know how. Mind that _you_ both pull together; shut down
outside interference, which is the cause of two-thirds of the
unhappiness of the newly married, and you will be certain to do well
enough, _at last_.
When a clergyman comes to a new congregation, or a school-teacher to
an untried school--when a new business partner enters a firm--nobody
expects things to go right immediately, without a hitch or two, till
matters adjust themselves. It is only in the cases of newly converted
persons, or the newly married, that people insist upon human nature
becoming immediately, and instantaneously, sublimated and fit for
heaven. Now in both cases, as I take it, time must be given, as in the
other relations, for assimilation.
This point being conceded,--and I am supposing, my dear reader, that
you are not quite a natural fool,--why should you or the young couple
consider the whole thing a failure, merely because this process
cannot be accomplished in a day and without a few mistakes, any more
than in the cases above cited?
But we have left that little experimental first baby kicking too long
on the bed--it is time we return to him. Now, I am very sorry that
John said what he did to that young mother, even "in joke." _She_ knew
well enough that he meant two-thirds of it. She is not quite strong
yet either, for the baby is but three months old; and it is very true
that it does cry a great deal; and though _she_ don't mind it, John
does; and really, she can't leave it much with a nurse, while it is so
very little. And yet, it _is_ dull for John to sit alone in the parlor
while she is soothing it; and what _shall_ she do? That's just
it,--what _shall_ she do? She really gets in quite a nervous tremble,
when it is time for him to come home--what with hoping baby will be on
its good behavior, and fearing that it may not. Not that, for one
instant, she has ever been sorry that she was a mother--oh no, no! You
may burn her flesh with a red-hot iron, and you can never make her say
that. God forbid!
Now, John, if your little wife loves her baby like that, is not it a
proof that you have chosen a wife wisely and well? and are you not
willing to face like a man--I _should_ say, like a woman,--the petty
disagreeables which are consequent upon the initiatory life of the
little creature in whose veins flows your own blood? Surely, you
cannot answer me no. When you married, you did not expect to live a
bachelor's life. If you did, then I have nothing more to say. I shall
pay that compliment to your manhood to suppose, that you did not so
deceive the young girl, who trusted her future in your hands, and that
you did not expect that _she alone_ was to practice the virtue of
self-abnegation.
Well, then, be patient with the wife who is so well worthy of your
sympathy and co-operation, in this, her conscientious attempt to bring
up rightly the first baby. When the next comes, and I know you will
have a next, or your name isn't John, she will not be so anxious. She
will not think it will die, every time it has the stomach-ache. But at
present it is cruel in you to say those things which distress her,
even "in joke," because, as I tell you, she is trying faithfully to
settle these important questions, which take time for each of you to
decide, so that you may not wrong the other. _Help_ her do it. Soothe
her when she is nervous and weary. _Love_ that little baby, though at
present it does not even smile at you. If you can't love it, _make
believe love it_, till the little thing knows enough to know you. Do
it for _her_ sake, who has earned your tenderest cherishing as the
mother of your child. _Begin_ right. Know that whatsoever people may
say, _that Love and Duty are all there is of life_. Out of these two
grow all the pleasure and happiness mortals can find this side of the
grave. So, John, don't wear out your boots trudging round elsewhere to
find them, for it will be a miserable failure.
* * * * *
I think every woman will agree with me, that it is perfectly
astonishing the "muss" (to use a New Yorkism) which a male pair of
hands can make in your room in the short space of five minutes. You
have put everything in that dainty order, without which you could not,
for the life of you, accomplish any work. There is not a particle of
dust on anything, in sight, or out of sight--which last is quite as
important. All your little pet things are in the right location;
pictures plumb on the wall, work-box and ink-stand tidy and within
hail. Mr. Smith comes in. He wants "a bit of string." Mr. Smith is
always wanting a bit of string. Mr. Smith says kindly (good fellow)
"don't get up, dear, I'll find it." That's just what you are afraid of,
but it won't do to say so; so you sit still and perspire, while Mr.
Smith looks for his "bit of string." First, he throws open the door of
the wrong closet, and knocks down all your dresses, which he catches up
with irreverent haste, and hangs in a heap on the first peg. Then he
says (innocently,) "Oh--h--I went to the wrong closet, didn't I?" Then
he proceeds to the right closet, and finds the "bit of string." In
taking it down he catches it on the neck of a phial. Down it comes
smash--with the contents on the floor. Mr. Smith says "D--estruction!"
in which remark you fully coincide. Then Mr. Smith wants a pair of
scissors to cut his "bit of string;" so he goes to your work-box, which
he upsets, scattering needles, literally at "sixes and sevens," all
over the floor, mixed with bodkins, spools, tape, and torment only
knows what. He gathers them up at one fell swoop, and ladles them back
into the box, in a manner peculiarly and eminently masculine; and asks
if--the--hinge--of--the--lid--of--that--box--was--broken--before, or if
"_he_ did it." As if the rascal didn't know! But of course you tell the
old fib, that it had been loose for some time, and that it was no
manner of consequence; all the while devoutly hoping that this might be
the last mischance. Not a bit of it. "He thinks he will take a little
brandy to set him right." So he uncorks the bottle on the spotless
white toilet-cover of your bureau, spills the brandy all over it,
powders the sugar on the covers of a nice book, and lays the sticky
spoon on a nice lace collar that has just been "done up." Then he
uncorks your cologne-bottle to anoint his smoky whiskers, and sets down
the bottle, leaving the cork out. Then he takes up your gold bracelet
and tries it on his wrist, "to see if it will fit." The "_fit_" need I
say, is _not_ in the bracelet--the fastening of which he breaks. Then
he throws up the window, "to see what sort of a day it is;" and over
goes a vase of flowers, which you have been arranging with all the
skill you were mistress of, to display the perfection of each blossom.
He looks at the vase, and says, "Miserable thing! it was always
ricketty; I must buy you a better one, dear," which you devoutly hope
he will do, though a long acquaintance with that gentleman's habits
does not authorize you in it. Then Mr. Smith goes to the glass and
takes a solemn survey of his beard. Did you ever notice the difference
between a man's and a woman's way of looking in the glass? It is
wonderfully characteristic! Woman perks her head on one side saucily
and well pleased like a bird; man strides in a lordly, dignified way up
to it as if it were a very _petty_ thing for him to do, but meantime
he'd like to catch that glass saying that he is not a fine-looking
fellow! Well--Mr. Smith takes a solemn survey of his beard, which he
fancies "needs clipping," and takes your sharpest and best pair of
scissors, for the wiry operation; the stray under-brush meanwhile
falling wheresoever it best pleases the laws of gravitation to send it.
Then Mr. Smith, says, "Really, dear, this is such a pleasant room, one
hates to leave it, but--alas! business--business."
"_Business!_" I should think so--business enough, to put that room to
rights, for the next three hours!
* * * * *
Did you ever hear an old maid talk about matrimony, or a girl who was
trembling on the brink of old-maidism, and feared to launch away? If
there is anything that effectually disgusts a married woman, it is
that. What can an old maid know about such things? As well might I
write an agricultural and horticultural description of a country by
looking on a map. What pitying compassion she has for married men,
every one of whom is victimized because he did not select _her_ to
make him "the happiest of men"--I believe that is the expression of a
lover when on his suppliant knees; if not, I stand ready to be
corrected--by anybody but an old maid. With what a languishing sigh
she marvels that Mrs. Jones could ever be so criminal, as to neglect
to sew on an ecstatic shirt-button for such a man as Jones; for whom
it would be glory enough to hold a shaving-box while he piled on the
soap-suds, which is her particular element. What a shame that Jones
cannot stifle his own baby, if he feels like it, by smoking in its
face, and leave his boots, and coat, and vest on the parlor floor, if
he takes a fancy to do it.
Ah--had Jones but a different wife! (And here imagine a sigh which,
for depth and pro-_fun_-dity, none but a sentimental old maid on the
anxious-seat can heave.) What pleasure to black his boots for him of a
morning; to get up in the middle of the night, and cook a tenderloin
beefsteak; to prove her devotion by standing on the front doorstep,
with chattering teeth, in a cold northeaster, waiting for the dear
coat to come home; to hang up his dear hat for him, to put away his
dear cane, to take him up gently with the sugar-tongs, and lay him on
the sofa till tea was ready, and then feed him like a sweet little
bird, bless his shirt-buttons!
How hot his toast should always be; how strong his tea and coffee; how
sweet his puddings; how mealy his potatoes; how punctually his clean
shirt should be taken out of his drawer for him to put on; how sweetly
his handkerchief should be cologn-ed with her own cologne, and his
cigar-case magnanimously placed by her own hands in his dear little
side-pocket, and how it should be the study of her life to find out
when he wanted to sneeze, and arrest a sunbeam for the purpose.
Do you know what I wish?
That all the die-away old maids, who go sighing through creation with
a rose-leaf to their noses, lecturing married women, and sniveling for
their little privileges, had but one neck, and that some muscular
coat-sleeve, equal to the occasion, would give them one satisfying
hug, and stop their nonsense.
* * * * *
I never witnessed an execution; but I saw a man the other day, married
he surely was, trying to select a lace collar from out a dainty cobweb
heap, sufficiently perplexing even to a practised female eye. The
clumsy way he poised the gauzy things on his forefinger, with his head
askew, trying to comprehend their respective merits! The long, weary
sigh he drew, as the shopman handed him new specimens. The look of
relief with which he heard _me_ inquire for lace collars, saying, as
plain as looks could say, "Ah! now, thank Heaven, I shall have a
woman's view of the subject!" The _disinterested_ manner in which,
with this view, he pushed a stool forward for me to sit down, to watch
upon which collar my eye fell complacently, all the while turning over
_his_ heap in the same idiotic way. Oh, it was funny! Of course, I
kept him on the anxious seat a little while, persistently holding my
tongue, the better to enjoy his dilemma. Didn't he fidget?
At length, fearful he might rush out for strychnine, I spake. I
descanted upon shape, and texture, and pattern, and upon the
probability of their "doing up" well, to all of which my rueful knight
listened like a criminal who scents a reprieve. Then I made my
selection; then he chose two exactly like mine, before you could wink,
and with a sublime gratitude, refused to let the shopman consider the
bill that was fluttering in his gloved fingers, "till he had made
change for the lady." We understood each other, for there are cases in
which words are superfluous. No doubt his wife thought his taste in
collars was excellent.
* * * * *
Men have _one_ virtue; for instance: How delicious is their blunt,
honest frankness toward each other, in their every-day intercourse,
(politicians excepted,) in contrast with the polite little subterfuges,
which form the basis of women-friendships. When one man goes to make a
man-call on another, he talks when he pleases, and puts up his heels,
and _don't_ talk when he don't please. He is free to take a nap, or to
take a book; and his host is as free, when he has had enough of him, or
has any call away, to put on his hat and go out to attend to it: nor
does the caller feel himself aggrieved. Now a woman's nose, under
similar circumstances, would be up in the air a month, with the
"slight" her female friend had put upon her. The more a woman _don't_
want her friend to stay, the more she is bound to urge her to do it;
and to ask her why she hadn't called before; and to wish that she might
never go away, and all that sort of thing. What she remarks to her
husband in private about it, afterward, is a thing you and I have
nothing to do with. When two men meet, after a long absence, ten to one
the first salutation is, "Old boy, how ugly you've grown." In the
female department we reverse this. "I never saw you look prettier,"
being the preface to the aside--(what a fright she has become).
Then--("blest be the tie that binds")--mark one man meet another in the
street--light his cigar at that other's nose, and pass on--without
knowing the important fact, whether he lives in "a brown-stone front"
or not. How instructive the free-and-easy-and-audacious-manner in
which, after this ceremony, they go their several ways to their
tombstones, without a spoken word. See them in the streets, my sisters,
exchanging passing remarks on any object of momentary street-interest,
looking over one another's shoulders at each other's "extras," all the
same as if they had been introduced in an orthodox Grundy fashion.
See them walk boldly up to a looking-glass, in a show window, and
honestly stare at their ridiculous solemn selves, whereas, you women,
pretend to be examining something else, when you are bent on a like
errand, intent on smoothing your ruffled feathers.
The other day, in an omnibus, a man took a seat near the door, and not
willing to step across the ladies' dresses, "nudged" a man above him
to hand up his fare. Now the nudged creature was out of sorts--wanted
his dinner or something--and so sat like an image, without responding;
another nudge--with no better success--not a muscle of the nudged
man's face moved. At last, with a heightened color, the new-comer
handed it up himself; but he _didn't_ talk to his next elbow-neighbor
about "_some_ people being _so_ disagreeable," or call him a "nasty
thing;" or try to look him into eternal annihilation, for what was
really an ungracious action. He only rubbed his left ear a little, and
put his mind on something else, and he looked very well while he was
doing it, too.
If one woman is visiting another at her house, and the latter goes up
stairs for anything, her female guest trots right after her, like a
little haunting dog. If she goes to the closet to get her gaiters, the
shadow follows; she must be present when they are laced on; and
discusses rights and lefts, and hosiery, etc. When her hostess goes to
the glass, to arrange her hair, or put on her bonnet, the shadow
follows, leaning both arms on the toilet-table to witness the
operation. Without this bandbox-freemason-confidence, you see at once
that female-friendship could not be that sacred intermingling of
congenial natures that it is. Your friend would weep, sirs, and ask
you "what she had done to be treated so."
A mouse and a woman! I know one of the latter, who always gets upon a
table if she sees either coming. Lady Mary Wortley Montagu said a very
witty thing once. I am afraid that not even her discovery of
inoculation will cancel the sin of it. It was this: "The only comfort
I ever had in being a woman is, that I can never marry one."
The moral of all this is, that women need reforming in their
intercourse with one another. There should be less kissing among them,
and more sincerity; less "palaver," and more reticence. But if you
think I am going to tell them this in person, you _must_ needs suppose
that I have already arranged my sublunary affairs in case of accident.
This not being the case, I decline the office, except so far as I can
fill it at a safe distance on paper.
* * * * *
But then again what poor creatures are men when sick.
One might smile, were it not so pitiful, to see the impatience with
which strong, active men succumb to the necessity of lying a few weeks
on a bed of sickness. The petulance which they in vain try to smother,
at pills and potions, in place of their favorite dish, or drink, or
cigar. The many orders they give, and countermand, in the same breath,
to the wife and mother, who calmly accepts all this as part of her
woman lot, and who dare not, for the life of her, smile at the fuss
this caged lion is making, because his rations are cut off for a few
days. This "being sick patiently," is a lesson we think man has yet to
learn; but it is a good thing that they are sometimes laid on the
shelf awhile, that they may better appreciate the cheerful endurance
with which the feeble wife-mother bears the household cares all the
same--on the pillow where lies with her the newly-born. Pain and
weakness never interrupt her constant, careful forethought for her
family. Husbands are too apt to take these every-day heroisms as
matters of course. Therefore we say again, it is well sometimes that
their attention should be awakened to it, when the doctor has vetoed
for them awhile the office and the counting-room, and they are
childishly frantic at gruel and closed blinds.
* * * * *
A woman's education is generally considered to be finished when she is
married, whereas she has only arrived at A B C. If husbands took half
the thought for, or interest in, their wives' _minds_, that wives are
obliged to take for their husbands' _bodies_, women would be more
intelligent. A missing button or string is often the cause of a bitter
outcry; but what of the little woman who sits twiddling her thumbs in
the presence of her husband's intelligent visitors, because she has
not the slightest idea what they are all talking about, and because,
if she wouldn't mortify her husband, she must forever keep speechless?
The _intelligent_ husband, who, from fear of jeopardizing his
puddings or his coffee, rests contented with this state of things, is
guilty of an injustice toward that little woman, of which he ought to
be heartily ashamed. True, when he married her this difference did not
exist, or if it did, the glamour of youth and beauty, like a soft
mist-veil over a landscape, hid, or clothed with loveliness, even
defects. Because her youth and beauty have been uncomplainingly
transmitted to his many children, whose little mouths must be fed, and
little feet tended, _not_ always by a hireling, through the long day;
and whose little garments must be often planned and made, when she
would gladly rest, while they sleep: should he, who is free to read
and think, he who, coming in contact with strong, reflecting minds,
has left her far behind, _never_ turn a loving glance back, and with
his own strong hand and encouraging smile, beg her not to sit down
discouraged by the wayside--_she_, who "hath done what she could?" It
is a _shame_ for such a man to put on his soul's festival-dress for
everybody _but_ her who should be his soul's queen. It is a shame for
a man to be willing so to degrade the mother and teacher of his
children. It is a shame for him, while she sits sewing by his side,
never to raise her drooping self-respect, by addressing an intelligent
word to her about the book he is reading, or the subject upon which he
is thinking, as he sits looking into the fire. I marvel and wonder at
the God-like patience of these _upper housekeepers_, or I _should_,
had I not seen them dropping tears over the faces of their sleeping
children, to cool their hearts.
I want to hear no nonsense about the mental "equality or inequality of
the sexes." I am sick of it; that is a question men always start when
women ask for _justice_, to dodge a fair answer. They may be equal or
unequal--that's not what I am talking about. Napoleon the Third gives
his dear French people diversions, fête days, and folly of all kinds,
if they will only let _him_ manage the politics. Our domestic
Napoleons, too many of them, give flattery, bonnets and bracelets to
women, and everything else _but_--justice; _that_ question is one for
_them_ to decide, and many a gravestone records how it is done.
An intelligent man sometimes satisfies his conscience by saying of his
wife, Oh, she's a good little woman, but there is one chamber in my
soul through whose window she is not tall enough to peep. Get her but
a footstool to stand on, Mr. Selfishness, and see how quick she will
leap over that window sill! In short, _show but the disposition_ to
help her, and some manly, loving interest in her progress, instead of
striding on alone, as you do, in your seven league mental boots,
without a thought of her, and take my word for it, if you are thus
_just_ to her, and if she loves you, which last, by the way, all wives
would do, if husbands were truly _just_, and you will find that though
she has but average intellect, you will soon be astonished at the
progress of your pupil.
I am not unaware that there are men whom the tailor makes, and women
who are manufactured by the dress-maker, and that they often marry
each other. Let such fulfill their august destiny--to dress. I know
that there are women much more intelligent than their husbands; let
such show their intelligence by appearing not to know it. Still, it
remains as I have said, that there exist the wives and mothers whose
cause I now plead, fulfilling each day, not hopelessly--God forbid!
but sometimes with a sad sinking of heart, the duties which no true
wife or mother will neglect, even under circumstances rendered so
disheartening by the husband and father, of whose praise, perhaps, the
world is full. Let the latter see to it, that while the momentous
question, "What _shall_ I get for dinner?" may never, though the
heavens should fall, evade her daily and earnest consideration, that
_he_ would sometimes, by his intelligent conversation, _when there is
no company_, recognize the existence of the _soul_ of this married
housekeeper.
_GRANDMOTHER'S CHAT ABOUT CHILDREN AND CHILDHOOD._
"What can fascinate you in that ugly beast?"
This question was addressed to me, while regarding intently a camel in
a collection of animals. "Ugly?" To me he was poetry itself. I was a
little girl again. I was kneeling down at my little chair at family
prayers. I didn't understand the prayers. "The Jews" were a sealed
book to me then. I didn't know why "a solemn awe" should fall upon me
either; or what _was_ a solemn awe, anyhow. For a long time, I know,
till I was quite a big girl, I thought it was one word--thus,
_solemnor_--owing to the rapid manner in which it was pronounced.
_Where_ the heathen were going to be "brought in," or what they were
coming for, I didn't understand; and as to "justification," and
"sanctification," and "election," it was no use trying. But the walls
of the pleasant room where family prayers were held, were papered with
"a Scripture paper." There were great feathery palm-trees. There were
stately females bearing pitchers on their heads. There were Isaac and
Rebecca at the well; and there were _camels_, humped, bearing heavy
burdens, with long flexile necks, resting under the curious, feathery
trees, with their turbaned attendants. I understood _that_. To be
sure, the blue was, as I now recollect it, sometimes on their noses as
well as on the sky; and the green was on their hair as well as on the
grass; but at the pinafore-age we are not hypercritical. To me it was
fairy-land; and often when "Amen" was said, I remained with my little
chin in my palms, staring at my beloved camels, unconscious of the
breakfast that was impending, for our morning prayers were said on an
empty stomach.
I hear, now, the soft rustle of my mother's dress, as she rose after
the "Amen." I see the roguish face of my baby brother, whose perfect
beauty was long since hid under the coffin lid. I see the servants,
disappearing through the door that led down to the kitchen, whence
came the fragrant odor of coming coffee. I see my mother's flowering
plants in the window, guiltless of dust or insect, blossoming like her
virtues and goodness, perennially. I see black curly heads, and flaxen
curly heads, of all sizes, but _all_ "curly," ranged round the
breakfast table; the names of many of their owners are on marble slabs
in Mount Auburn now.
So you understand why I "stood staring at that ugly beast," in the
collections of animals, and thinking of the changes, in all these long
years, that had passed so swiftly; for now I am fifty-four, if I am a
minute. And how wonderful it was, that after such a lapse of time, and
so thickly crowded with events, that this family-morning-prayer-hour
should come up with such astonishing vividness, at sight of that
camel. Oh! I shall always love a camel. He will never look "ugly" to
me. I am not sorry, nor ever have been, that I was brought up to
"family prayers," unintelligible though they _then_ were to me.
I hunted up those "Jews" after I got bigger, and many other things,
too, the names of which got wedged crosswise in my childish memory,
and stuck there. They never did me any harm, that ever I found out. I
have sent up many a prayer, both in joy and sorrow, since then, but
not always "on my knees," which was considered essential in those
days. As to the "solemn awe," I don't understand it now any better
than when I was a child. I can't feel it, in praying, any more than I
should when running to some dear, tried friend, with a burdened heart,
to sob my grief away there, till I grew peaceful again. And all this
came of a Camel.
* * * * *
And _now_ I am a grandmother! and here come the holidays again. As I
look into the crowded toyshops, I think, how lucky for their owners
that children will always keep on being born, and that every one of
them will have a grandmother. Uncles, and aunts, and cousins, are all
very well, and fathers and mothers are not to be despised; but a
_grandmother_, at holiday time, is worth them all. She might have
given her own children crooked-necked squashes, and cucumbers, for
dolls; with old towels pinned on by way of dresses, and trusted to
their imaginations to supply all deficiencies. But this
grandchild--ah! that's quite another affair. Is there anything good
enough or costly enough for her? What if she smash her little china
tea-set the minute she gets it? What if she break her wax doll? What
if she maim and mutilate all the animals in her Noah's Ark? What if
she perforate her big India-rubber ball with the points of the
scissors? What if she tear the leaves from out her costly picture
books? They have made the little dear happy, five minutes, at least;
and grandmother has lived long enough to know that five minutes of
genuine happiness, in this world, is not to be despised. And that,
after all, is the secret of a grandmother's indulgence. It isn't a
weakness, as your puckery, sour people pretend. Grandmother has
_lived_. She knows what life amounts to. She knows it is nothing but
_broken toys_ from the cradle to the grave. She knows that happy,
chirping, radiant little creature before her, has all this experience
to go through; and so, ere it comes, she watches with jealous care
that nothing shall defraud her of one sunbeam of childhood. Childhood!
She strains her gaze far beyond that, away into misty womanhood. She
would fain live to stand between her and her first inevitable woman's
heartache. From under her feet she would extract every thorn, remove
every pebble. The winds that should blow upon her should be soft and
perfumed. Every drop of blood in her body, every pulse of her heart,
cries out, Oh! let her be happy. Alas! with all her knowledge, and
notwithstanding all her chastening, she forgets, and ever will forget,
when looking at that child, that the crown comes _after_ the cross.
Broken Toys! As I picked them up under my feet this morning, where
they had been tossed by careless little fingers, I fell thinking--just
what I have told you.
* * * * *
I wish some philosopher would tell me at what age a child's
naughtiness _really_ begins. I am led to make this remark because I am
subject to the unceasing ridicule of certain persons, who shall be
nameless, who sarcastically advise me "to practice what I preach." As
if, to begin with, anybody ever did _that_, from Adam's time down. You
see before I punish, or cause to be punished, a little child, I want
to be sure that it hasn't got the stomach-ache; or is not cutting some
tooth; or has not, through the indiscretion, or carelessness or
ignorance of those intrusted with it, partaken of some indigestible
mess, to cause its "naughtiness," as it is called. Then--I want those
people who counsel me to such strict justice with a mere baby, to
reflect how many times a day, according to this rule, _they_
themselves ought to be punished for impatient, cross words;
proceeding, it may be, from teeth, or stomach, or head, or nerves; but
just as detrimental as to the results as if they came from meditated,
adult naughtiness.
Scruples of conscience, you see--that's it. However, yesterday I said:
Perhaps I _am_ a little soft in this matter; perhaps it _is_ time I
began. So I stiffened up to it.
"Tittikins," said I to the cherub in question, "don't throw your hat
on the floor; bring it to me, dear."
"I san't," replied Tittikins, who has not yet compassed the letter
_h_. "I san't,"--with the most trusting, bewitching little smile, as
if I were only getting up a new play for her amusement, and
immediately commenced singing to herself:
"Baby bye,
Here's a fly--
Let us watch him,
You and I;"
adding, "Didn't I sing that pretty?"
Now I ask you, was I to get up a fight with that dear little happy
thing, just to carry my point? I tell you my "government" on that
occasion was a miserable failure; I made up my mind, after deep
reflection, that if it was not quite patent that a child was really
malicious, it was best not to worry it with petty matters; I made up
my mind that I would concentrate my strength on the first _lie_ it
told, and be conveniently blind to lesser peccadilloes. This course is
just what I get abused for. But, I stood over a little coffin once,
with part of my name on the silver plate; and somehow it always comes
between me and this governing business. I think I know what you'll
reply to this; and in order that you may have full justification for
abusing me, I will own that the other day, when I said to Tittikins,
"Now, dear, if you put your hands inside your cup of milk again, I
must really punish you," that little three-year-older replied, in the
_chirp-est_ voice, "No, you won't! I know better." And one day, when I
_really_ shut my teeth together, and with a great throb of martyrdom,
spanked the back of that dear little hand, she fixed her great, soft,
brown, unwinking eyes on me, and said, "I'm brave--I don't mind it!"
You can see for yourself that this practical application of the story
of the Spartan boy and the fox, which I had told her the day before,
was rather unexpected.
Tittikins has no idea of "the rule that won't work both ways." Not
long since, she wanted my pen and ink, which, for obvious reasons, I
declined giving. She acquiesced, apparently, and went on with her
play. Shortly after, I said, "Tittikins, bring me that newspaper, will
you?" "No," she replied, with Lilliputian dignity. "If you can't
please me, I can't please you." The other day she was making an
ear-splitting racket with some brass buttons, in a tin box, when I
said, "Can't you play with something else, dear, till I have done
writing?" "But I like this best," she replied. "It makes my head ache,
though," I said. "You poor dear, you," said Tittikins, patronizingly,
as she threw the obnoxious plaything down, and rushed across the room
to put her arms around my neck--"you _poor_ dear, you, of tourse I
won't do it, then."
I have given it up; with shame and confusion of face, I own that child
_governs me_. I know her _heart_ is all right; I know there's not a
grain of _badness_ in her; I know she would die to-day, if she hadn't
those few flaws to keep her alive. In short, she's _my grandchild_.
Isn't that enough?
But all this does not prevent my giving sensible advise to others. Now
I am perfectly well aware, that there comes a time in the life of
every little child, how beautiful, winning and pleasant soever it may
be, when it hoists with its tiny hand the rebel flag of defiance to
authority. You may walk round another way, and choose not to see it,
and fancy you will have no farther trouble. You may hug to your heart
all its sweet cunning ways, and say--after all, what does it matter?
it is but a child; it knows no better; it will outgrow all that; it is
best not to notice it; I can't bear to be harsh with it; it will be a
great deal of trouble to fight it out, should the child happen to be
persistent: it is a matter of no consequence; and such like
sophistries. I say you may try in this way to dodge a question that
has got some time or other to be met fair and square in the face; and
you may persuade yourself, all the while, that you are thus loving
your own ease, that you are loving your child; but both it and you,
will at some future day see the terrible mistake.
"Oh, why did my father, or my mother, _let_ me do thus and so?" has
been the anguished cry of many a shame-stricken man and woman whose
parents reasoned after this manner.
Now, the point at issue between the child and yourself may seem
trifling. It may be very early in its life that it is made. Perhaps
scarcely past the baby age, it may insist, when well and healthy,
upon being sung or rocked in the arms to sleep, and that by some one
particular person. Now, you are perfectly sure this is unnecessary,
and that it would be much better for the child, apart from the
inconvenience of the practice, to be laid quietly in its bed, with
only some trustful person to watch it. But you reason, it has always
been used to this, and I may have to hear it cry every night for a
week before I can teach it. Well--and what then? The child, to be good
for anything, must be taught some time or other that it cannot gain
its point by crying. Why not now? Of course it should not be placed in
bed till it is sufficiently weary; nor should it be frightened at
being left in a dark room alone, or left alone at all, while the trial
is being made. This attended to, if it cry--let it cry. It will be a
struggle of two or three nights and no more; perhaps not that; and the
moral lesson is learned; after that obedience comes easy.
It is a mistake to suppose, you who are so greedy of a child's love,
that it is more attached to that person who indulges its every whim,
than to the one who can firmly pronounce the monosyllable no, when
necessary. The most brutal word I ever heard spoken, was from a grown
man to a widowed mother, who belonged to that soul-destroying class of
parents who "could never deny a child anything" and whose whole life
had been one slavish endeavor to gratify his every whim without regard
to her own preferences or inclination; and whenever you see such a
man, you may know he had just such a mother; or, having one wiser,
that her attempts at government had been neutralized by one of the
don't-cry-dear-and-you-shall-have-it fathers. It is so strange that
parents who crave to be so fondly remembered by their children in
after years, should be thus short-sighted. It is so strange, that when
they desire next to this, that everybody else should consider their
children supremely lovely and winning, that they should take so direct
a method to render them perfectly disagreeable. Strange that they
should never reflect that some poor wife, in the future, will rue the
day she ever married that selfish, domineering tyrant, now in embryo
in that little boy. Strange that the mother of that blue-eyed little
girl never thinks that the latter may curse her own daughter with that
same passionate temper, which never knew paternal restraint. Stranger
still, that parents launching these little voyagers on the wide ocean
of time, without chart, rudder, or compass, should, when in after days
they suffer total shipwreck, close the doors of their hearts, and
homes, in their shamed and sorrowful faces.
* * * * *
I think there is nothing on earth so lovely as the first waking of a
little child in the morning. The gleeful, chirping voice. The bright
eye. The lovely rose-tint of the cheek. The perfect happiness--the
perfect faith in all future to-morrows!