gazed into each other's eyes, and murmured, "Paris!" Alas! the serpent
in fairest guise had entered the primitive Eden of Frog-ville. The
sensible matrons looked now, through different spectacles, at their
alpacas and calicoes. How mean in comparison! Their trimmings, how
"dowdy"! The fit of their bodices, how awkward! Dinner-time came, with
added newness and added splendors. Cobweb tissues, with frost-work
trimmings, and train longer by two yards than the breakfast train. And
such ribbons! And such jewelry! How tasteless was the beef that day;
how disgusting the mutton; how prosaic their gingham-clad, rosy
children; how tame and humdrum was life generally. And then, this
dainty lady had "a maid." _They_ had no "maids." They had never felt
the need of a "maid" till now. How had they ever combed their tresses?
How had they ever fastened their own dresses? Pshaw! their _dresses_!
How unworthy the name--mere wrappers. Gracious! how miserable were
these heretofore happy women. Never till now did they know how
miserable they were. The dainty lady's husband, 'tis true, was not
with her. She had to do without him; while they had theirs with them.
_Her_ husband was in the hot, smoky city, earning more money for more
"Paris" dresses--that is, he was earning money during the day; what he
did with his solitary evenings or nights, the dainty wife did not
inquire. She was satisfied; she was brimming with content, that she
alone, amid all these wives and mothers, had "Paris" dresses.
"I really must have some clothes," said one of the hitherto sensible
matrons, "the next time I go into the country. I didn't know, till
Mrs. Fire-Fly came, how very shabby was my wardrobe."
"I would rather," said a friend at her elbow, "that you, the healthy
mother of six healthy daughters, should have said: 'I didn't know,
till Mrs. Fire-Fly came, how sensible and befitting the country was my
wardrobe; and how proper and right it was that my husband should be
taking his rest in the country with me, instead of divorcing himself
at the risk of our mutual peace, to furnish me with nine trunks full
of Paris dresses.'"
* * * * *
"I have done nothing to-day but keep things straight in the house,"
you say wearily at the close of it. Do you call that nothing? Nothing
that your children are healthy, and happy, and secured from evil
influence? Nothing that neatness, and thrift, and wholesome food
follow the touch of your finger-tips? Nothing that beauty in place of
ugliness meets the eye of the cheerful little ones, in the plants at
your window, in the picture on the wall? Nothing that _home_ to them
means _home_, and will always do so, to the end of life, what
vicissitudes soever that may involve? Oh, careworn mother! is all this
nothing? Is it nothing that over against your _sometime_-mistakes and
sometime-discouragement shall be written, "She hath done what she
could?"
_DANIEL WEBSTER'S HOME._
It was not as a mere relic-hunter, that I crossed the threshold of
Daniel Webster's home in Marshfield. As a Bostonian, long years ago, I
had been spell-bound by those wondrous eyes, and that irresistible
eloquence which so seldom failed to magnetize. As to the mistaken
words which, had he lived till now, I firmly believe he would have
grievingly wished unsaid, and which have palsied many hands that would
have been raised over that roof in blessing, I have nothing to say
now. As far as the East is from the West, so far do I differ with him
on that point. But all these thoughts vanished, and the old Boston
magnetism moved me, as I stood in that beautiful library, which, more
than any other room of that lovely home, _his_ presence seemed to fill
and pervade. The beautiful sunlight streamed in upon the favorite
books he loved so well, upon the favorite chair and table, upon the
thousand and one tributes of love and admiration from across the sea,
and from nearer home, which are still carefully treasured. _There_
only, after all these years, could I really "make him _dead_." My last
sight of him was on a public occasion in Boston, sitting in a
barouche, with that grand massive head uncovered, in recognition of
the applause about him. And I am not ashamed, at this distance, to say
that when he kissed the forehead of my little girl--now a woman
grown--as he took from her hand the flowers I sent him, that I looked
upon it as a sort of baptism.
Now, all about his home in Marshfield, are family pictures of the
little children he tenderly loved. And what beautiful children they
are! or _were_, for many of their names are now recorded on marble
beside his own. And above the picture of him--as if such a head as
_his_ could ever be faithfully reproduced!--were his hat and stick. I
stood looking at them, and wondering if, when he used to sit there he
ever thought of _that_--if when resting in that peaceful spot, with
bloom and brightness about him, weary with the ceaseless strife, and
with the din of life, shut out, for a time at least, he ever longed to
lay them aside for ever--thus!
In every house, the individuality of it is that which interests us
most. _These_ household gods all had their little story; all, too,
spoke of taste and refinement and culture, and love of the beautiful
in form, color, and arrangement. It almost seemed an impertinence to
move about from room to room, and gaze at them; and, I think, had it
not been that one of the family recognized and welcomed me as a
remembered Bostonian, I should have felt very much like an inexcusable
intruder there.
All honor to Daniel Webster for having had painted, and hung up in a
conspicuous place in his house, _the portrait of his black cook_. It
is the most unique object in it; and the feeling which prompted this
public recognition of faithful service was most honorable to him.
Alas! had he always been as true to his better instincts!
The simple majesty of Daniel Webster's tomb is very impressive. It is
fit that it should be _there_, at Marshfield, within sound of the
restless sea--restless as his spirit. For inscription--only the name
and date, and those memorable words of his on Immortality. There are
no mysteries to him _now_.
* * * * *
Some men--can anybody tell us why?--always gravitate _downward_ in
their male friendships. Their boon-companion is sure to be one
destitute of everything that would seem to constitute an equality. Now
what can be the reason of this? Is it because such persons need to
have their self-respect constantly bolstered up by the flattery of
parasites? Whatever the motive may be, the _result_ is certain
deterioration. Not, on the other hand, that it is not best to meet
with, and know all sorts of persons; but _invariably_ to choose
inferiority, for a bosom-friend, argues a flaw, and a serious one,
somewhere.
_A TRIP TO RICHMOND._
Beautiful Baltimore! I kiss my hand to beautiful Baltimore! Passing
through it only on my way to Washington in days gone by, I had only
flying, and muddy, and back-street reminiscences of it. _Now_ it seems
to me the most elegant of cities. Dear to my New England eyes, above
all, are its polished windows, immaculate and spacious front-door
steps, cleanly gutters, and sidewalks free from defilement of ashes
and garbage. The sweet, wholesome air of the place, with no taint to
offend the most fastidious nose, contrasted pleasantly with our large
New York residences; many of whose occupants, having begun life in
tenement houses, still retain their fondness for tenement-house odors
and dirty sidewalks. I passed through street after street, without
seeing an ash-barrel or box, or anything repulsive to neatness; and
that, not only where the wealthy reside, but where were houses of very
moderate rents and dimensions, yet all shining and clean, and sweet,
as a child's face when newly washed, and framed in its best Sunday
bonnet. Beautiful Baltimore! I came well-nigh forgetting, as I
strolled along, that _you_ ever stood on one side the political fence,
and _I_ on the other; but we wont rake up old grievances, or new ones
either. Instead, I will say that your new "Druid Hill Park" is a gem,
and a big one; and if you don't make the most of it, it will not be
because nature has not fashioned its undulating surface, and grown
giant trees there ready to your hand with a grace and a profusion
which leave you little to do in the way of art. Now, our "Central
Park" was fashioned in the face and teeth of every disadvantage; and
yet see what a joy and beauty and delight it is to us all. So, shame
to you, Baltimore, if you don't far outstrip us! Sure I am, that the
occupants of those tasteful and magnificent private dwellings can need
no hint from me to contribute liberally toward it.
Elegant stores, too, has Baltimore; and in them all the little last
new feminine dodges in the way of adornment, so that no Baltimore
husband need heed his wife's prayer to go to New York to see what is
the last new fashion in gloves, boots, silks, laces, bonnets,
or--hair. Baltimore wives may not thank me for this, but I am not
afraid; for I can truly say that their faces were so bright that sunny
day, as they nodded smilingly to one another, that I trembled for the
wide-spread fame of New York beauties. Little loves of children too, I
saw, with their sable nurses; oh! how I like the sable nurses. No
_French_ caps _shamming_ it over _Celtic_ faces; but instead, the
jolly African physiognomy, framed in its gay turban; and, best of
all--forgive me, fair Baltimore!--_receiving_ as well as _earning_ a
nurse's wages.
I always feel as if a coroner's inquest would be held over me, when I
cross a steamboat gangway, even though there may be blue sky overhead,
and sunshine about me.
Judge, then, of my consternation, as the Baltimore boat pushed off for
Norfolk, Va., and I discovered directly beneath my state-room window
about a dozen barrels of _kerosene_. In vain did the philosopher try
to bamboozle me into the belief that "it was lard." After fifteen
years conjugal acquaintance with my nose, it was a stupidity of which
only a man could be guilty.
"Lard!" I exclaimed; "it is kerosene! and a military company on board
too." Now I _don't_ "love the military." I had one fearful experience
with them, on board the ill-fated Lady Elgin, when, in the midst of a
howling tempest, with thunder and lightning thrown in, their tipsy
howls made a perfect pandemonium.
Military companies smoke too; and there is always fire where there is
smoke, says the old proverb; and sparks and kerosene are things better
divorced. So I didn't undress that night, and had plenty of time to
consider a question which for the first time I asked myself,--whether
a steamboat ought not, in a case like this, to forfeit its insurance.
That part of my education having been neglected at boarding-school, I
was unable to solve it; so I shudderingly recognized the fact, that
men on the upper deck were smoking pipes, and knocking ashes and
sparks from the railing with a verdant innocence and stupidity quite
astounding.
But the "angel aloft," wafted away the sparks from the kerosene; and a
friendly rain coming on, my perturbed spirit had a great calm. So we
got to Norfolk whole and alive--no thanks to that steamboat or its
owners. It was lucky I had my excitement _going_ there, for a more
stagnant, sleepy place--outside of the Dead Sea--never announced
itself. Still, there were peach-trees in blossom, and tulip-trees, and
the pretty blue periwinkle peeped from the hedges and gardens, and the
grass was green, and--so was everything else there! One day sufficed
me, although it was pleasant to sit with open windows. Our coachman
dragged us up and down through the narrow, dilapidated looking
streets, over pavements that forced to our lips the letter O oftener
than any other in the alphabet, while "showing us the city." As the
streets were all alike, we cut short his little fun by requesting to
be set down at our hotel, while one bone remained undislocated.
The grave-yard was, after all, the pleasantest spot through which we
drove in Norfolk. Whole graves there were covered with the blue
flowers of the running myrtle; they were even peeping up under the
little patches of snow. "Five dollars fine for picking a blossom." A
good rule; but I was always unruly, and that blue myrtle is my
favorite flower. Still I don't say I plucked one--of course not; how
could I, inside a carriage?
Norfolk should be named "Sleepy Hollow." I can't conceive of keeping
awake there, unless by help of their corduroy pavements. It was tame,
after living in New York, where there is always "a dreadful _lass_ of
life," as the newsboys express it, or something that is pleasant
happening.
Whoso essays to travel South, and having bade good-by to a certain
hotel in Philadelphia, which don't begin with A or B, and which, if
you have not, you _ought_ to--C, leaves hope and comfort behind;
having then left what, in my opinion, is the perfection of
hotel-keeping, in all its myriad departments. Farewell to clean rooms,
and _genuine_ coffee, and well-cooked meats, and prompt attendance;
and welcome drafts, and cooked poison, in every shape that the fiend
of the gridiron and frying-pan could devise. Having exhausted
Washington three or four different times from a luxurious standpoint,
it only remained on this flying transit through it, for Washington to
exhaust me, between the hours of eight in the evening and seven the
following morning. In one of the principal hotels of the place, I give
you, by way of curiosity, an inventory of the room into which we were
ushered. Imprimis--a bed, with sheets still warm with the print of the
last occupant; wash-bowls grimy with departed paws; dirty towels; and
a broken window pane, through which the snow was sifting; two immense
grease spots, each the size of a two-quart bowl, in the centre of the
dingy carpet; matches scattered round _ad libitum_; a horror of a
spitoon in the middle of the floor; dirty window-curtains, and closets
full of old papers; bureau drawers saturated with grease; bedstead
cracked across the foot-board, and so rickety, that it was suggestive
of a discordant music-box. Sofa dingy, and placed with singular
felicity immediately under the broken window; while the looking-glass
was fastened to the top of a bureau, so high, that one need mount a
stool to look in it, and located, as usual, in the darkest corner of
the apartment; a woollen cloth on the centre-table, approachable only
by a pair of tongs. Finally a chamber-maid was procured, and towels,
sheets, and a fire followed, while we were at tea. Afterward my
companion lay down to rest (?) on the music-box; while I, upon the
dingy sofa, front of the fire, listened, laughing, to the squeaks
produced on it, by his attempts to sleep.
My reflections were various. I didn't wonder that Congressmen lodging
thus, should call naughty names, and tear each other's eyes out at the
Capitol. And what disgraceful, broken-down saloon surroundings are
about the Capitol building! I never look at its beautiful proportions
without incendiary desires to make a clean sweep of the old shanties
about it, and in their place introduce cleanliness and beauty. Who
knows the Christianizing effect it might have on men and measures? I
should like to see it tried.
Well, I went "on to Richmond;" and my first reflection upon getting
into it was, Lord! what a place for two big armies to fight about! A
cold, piercing, rasping wind blew through the dismal streets from the
river--a wind that would have done credit to old Boston at its
fiercest. As to hotels, the deterioration begins at Baltimore, and
"after that the deluge." As the horror-struck man said, when the
tail-board of his cart came out going up hill, and distributed his
potatoes right and left, "No swearing could do justice to it!" Amid
remains of former splendor, dilapidation and stagnation reign.
Two visits I shall never forget. The first was to Libby prison. I
looked through its grated, cobwebbed windows, not with _my_ eyes, but
with the hopeless eyes of hundreds whose last earthly glimpse of the
sunlight was through them. The walls having been whitewashed, we
discovered no marks or writings. Only upon the wooden floor, as the
dirt was cleared away for us, we saw a place chipped out, upon which
the prisoners had played checkers. Not far off was Belle Isle, where,
in just such a biting wind from the river, as excoriated our faces
that day, brave men, without shelter, froze and starved to death!
Yes, I passed through Washington, and I didn't want office either. Had
I, I think my patience would soon have oozed out, in the stifling
atmosphere of that room in the White House, where clamorous lobbyists
sat with distended eyes, watching the chance of their possible
entrance to the President's presence--sat there, too, for weary hours,
a spectacle to gods and men; of human beings willing to sacrifice
self-respect and time, and what little money they had left in their
purses, for the gambler's chance. Anything, everything, but the open
and above-board, and sure and independent, and old-fashioned way of
getting a living!
So I thought as the living stream poured in, and I went out, thankful
that I desired nothing in the gift of the President of the United
States of America. How any man living can wish to be President passes
my solving, I said, as I stepped out into the clear, fresh, bracing
air, and shook my shoulders, as if I had really dropped a burden of my
own under that much-coveted roof. I can very well conceive that a pure
patriot might wish the office, because he sincerely believed himself
able to serve his country in it, and _therefore_ accepted its crown of
thorns; but lacking this motive, that a man in the meridian of life,
or descending its down-hill path, and consequently with the full
knowledge of this life's emptiness, should stretch out _even one hand_
to grasp such a distracting position, I can never understand. The good
dame "who went to sleep with six gallons of milk on her mind" every
night, was a fool to do it. A step-mother's life under the harrow were
paradise to it; only the life of a _country_ clergyman who writes
three sermons a week, and attends weddings at sixpence a piece, and
hoes his own potatoes, and feeds the pigs, and is on hand for church
and vestry meetings during the week, and keeps the run of all the
new-born babies and their middle names, and is always, in a highly
devotional frame of mind, is a parallel case.
I should like to have taken all those lobbyists I saw in the White
House with me the afternoon of that day to "Arlington Heights," and
bade them look there at the thousands of head-stones, gleaming white
like the billows of the sea in the sunlight, far as the eye could
reach, labelled "unknown," "unknown," telling the simple tragic story
of our national struggle more effectually than any sculptured monument
could have done. I would like to have shown them this, to see if for
one moment it had power to paralyze those eager hands outstretched for
bubbles.
"Unknown?" Not to him, in whose book every one of those names are
written in letters of light! Not to him, in whose army of the faithful
unto death, there are no "privates"!
My eyes were blind with tears, as I signed my name in the visitor's
book at the desk of the Freedman's Bureau there, once General Lee's
residence. All _was_ "quiet on the Potomac," as its blue waters
glittered in the sunlight before us. Yet the very air was thick with
utterances. The place on which I stood is now indeed holy ground. And
far off rose the white dome of the Capitol, crowded with men, some of
them, thank God, not forgetting these white head-stones, in their
efforts to keep inviolate what these brave fellows died for; and some,
alas! willing to sell their glorious birthright for a "mess of
pottage."
The sharp contrast of luxury and squalor, in Washington, even
exceeding New York,--the carriages and their liveries, and the
sumptuous dames inside; the pigs which run rooting round the streets;
the tumble-down, shambling, rickety carts, with their bob-tailed,
worn-out donkeys, so expressive of lazy unthrift,--must be regarded
with the eye of a New Englander, trained to thoroughness and
"faculty," to be properly appreciated. I avow myself, cursed or
blessed, as you will, with the New England "bringing up," to which
anything that "hangs by the eyelids" is simple crucifixion, whether it
be in a cart or a statute-book, unhinged door, or a two or a
four-legged dawdle.
"Oh, you'd come into it, and be as lazy as anybody," said my
companion, "if you lived here a while."
Shade of the Pilgrim Fathers!--Assembly's Catechism!--baked
beans--fish-balls--"riz" brown bread! Never!
I didn't see Vinnie Ream's statue of Lincoln. It was boxed for Italy,
Congress having made the necessary appropriation. But I saw Vinnie.
She has dimples. Senators like dimples. And in case the statue is not
meritorious, why--I would like to ask, amid the crowd of lobbying
_men_, whose paws are in the national basket, after the loaves and
fishes--should not this little woman's cunning white hand have slily
drawn some out?
_THE COMING LANDLORD._
It is a marvel to me that country landlords do not better arrange
their houses, with a view to keeping their guests later in the lovely
autumnal days. The absence of gas, and the omnipresence of
bad-smelling kerosene, are great drawbacks to enjoyment in the chilly
evenings which follow these golden days. Fires which get low at the
very moment they are most needed in the sitting-rooms, and a cold
dining-hall, filled with kitchen-smoke, are not incentives to a
prolonged stay; add to this, the utter impossibility of finding one's
way of an evening through a village guiltless of lights and shrouded
in trees, and it is no marvel that city people begin to think of cosey
evenings by their own firesides where are both warmth and light,
without which Paradise itself were a desert.
I think landlords who have an eye to business should take what may
seem to them, perhaps, very _uninfluential_ motives, under serious
consideration. I am very sure that if their own houses were made
comfortable for the autumn, enough lovers of the season would remain
to reward them pecuniarily for any such foresight. Let the fashionists
go--there are plenty left to rejoice in the crisp air, the falling
bright-hued leaves, the glory of sunshine and shadow on the
mountain-tops, and the keen sense of _life at the full_ which comes of
wandering among them.
I think _I_ should understand engineering an hotel! I know just where
the shoe pinches, at least, which is half the battle. In the first
place, I wouldn't smoke a pipe, and then I should not be tempted to
put those halcyon moments before the comfort and convenience of my
guests, how imperative soever the occasion. Then my temper would be
angelic, and I could understand how every lady in the house could
"have her room cleared up" at one and the same moment, though the
lady-guests numbered a full hundred! Then--I should see my way clear
to let every little child on the premises dig deep holes in the gravel
walk which leads to the front door, and fill them with water, for
infantile amusement, and to further the laudable ambition of the
nurses, in reading fourth-rate pamphlet novels. Then I should better
understand my duty in riding ten miles to get a watermelon for one
lady, eleven miles to get a quart of peaches for another, and six
miles for grapes for a third; and, at the same time, be on the piazza,
to be a walking Time-Table for strangers and others who wish
information at short notice on railroad subjects. Were I a non-smoker,
I should be consolable under the necessity of remaining out of my bed
till the latest midnight reveller had gone to his, and up in the
morning before daylight, to be sure that the eggs for the departing
Grumble family were cooked neither too hard nor too soft. Also, I
would have _one pane of glass_ in each _chamber_-window in the house a
looking-glass, immovably inserted, for the benefit of those ladies who
prefer some light while combing their hair. Those who dreaded the
light on that occasion might fall back upon the time-honored
looking-glass which landlords are sure to locate in the darkest corner
of the room. Then I could see my way clear to take files of all the
city papers for the children in the house to make kites of, or for
ladies to wrap parcels or curl their hair in. Also, I should provide
compact and portable lanterns, with an accompanying servant, for the
use of those ladies who fancy evening rambles through a dark village
street.
You will see by this how inexhaustible is this subject, and how much
remains to be done, which only a _female_ mind could foresee, or
suggest. I generously give these hints to unenlightened landlords,
free of charge, and doubt not that my next summer's travels will
attest not only their practicability, but their execution; meantime we
are going home; to coffee, _real_ coffee, praised be Allah for that!
It is bad to leave the mountains, but chiccory is not palatable
either.