fellow-creatures _wise_ until they have gone through the crucible of
"going abroad." So many who started with a fair average of
common-sense have returned from their European tours minus this
article, that I need not apologize for my views on this subject. No
one can be more reverent in their admiration of all that the slow,
busy ages have heaped together in the Old World of the beautiful, and
scientific, and curious, and rare. But having looked at and enjoyed
them,--having breathed the enervating air of luxury the appointed
time,--I think I should gasp again for a strong, crisp breath of that
_New_ World, which is my grand birthright. You may scare up hideous
abuses of to-day, and point to convulsions of all sorts that are
seemingly upheaving us, root and branch. I care not. The greatest of
all crimes, in my eyes, is stagnation. We are _moving_, thank God!
There may be rough roads, and ruts, and stones, and rocks in the way,
and some of us may be crushed, and maimed, and jolted off, and
scarcely know our latitude and longitude for the fogs, and false
guides, and dark clouds, and fierce storms of debate. But still we
_move_! We are thinking of something beside a new way of fricasseeing
frogs, or "rectifying frontiers." We are neither children or slaves.
More! we have a _future_ before us--grander to those who will see it
than has any nation on the face of the earth. For one, I glory in it
all. And when I see an American, male or female, returning to their
native land, sighing for the nice little dishes one gets in Paris,
dilating on its superior costuming, prating forever of "The
Tuileries," and such like, and finding America "so in the rough," I
want to place my arms a-kimbo, my nose within an inch of his, and my
eyes focussed--anywhere--so that it will make him feel uncomfortable,
and address him thus: My beloved Idiot--Did you, while abroad, ever
compare the condition of the "common people," if I may be allowed to
allude in your presence to so vulgar and disgusting a theme--did you
ever compare the condition of the common people there with those of
the same class in your own country? Did you see, in Italy, or France,
or England, any such homes for the working-classes as are to be seen,
for instance, in New England? Those thrifty kitchens, where neatness
proclaims itself from the symmetrical wood-pile in the "shed" to the
last shining pewter-plate and spoon on the well-polished dresser?
Where even the old dog wipes his paws on the mat before stepping on
the snowy floor; where every child can read and write, and "do chores"
instead of begging its bread one half the day and lying in the sun the
rest. Where the women churn, and bake, and brew, and sew, and have
babies, and read books, aye, and _write_ them too. My beloved Idiot,
did you ever think of all _this_? Did you ever think, also, of the
difference it would make in your views of "life _abroad_," if instead
of going there with a pocket full of money to _spend_, you went there
to _earn_ it?
Aha! wouldn't your chances be splendid in _that_ case?
But, Heaven bless us! what is the use of showing a mole the sun? I
wish it here distinctly understood that I pause at this period of my
discourse, that every discontented American, so unworthy of his
glorious birthright, may get his passport, pack his trunk, and go back
to his peppered frogs, and toasted horse-steak, and diseased geese
livers, and liveried flunkeys, and be ingloriously content, while he
makes room here for his betters.
_LIFE'S ILLUSIONS._
Did you ever stop short in the midst of the grind, and toil, and whirl
of life, at the thought. After all, what will this never ceasing fret
of body and soul amount to? Did you ever then begin to reckon upon
your fingers the unfulfilled promises of life within your knowledge,
as if you had but just heard of them? First, there is your
acquaintance, Mr. ----, who, since he came to years of maturity, has
had but this one object: to secure a pecuniary independence for
himself and his children. At fifty he has achieved it; and now he has
nothing to do but to enjoy himself. But _how_? That is the question
which racks his brain day and night. He has his library, to be sure;
that was part of the furnishing of his house; but, alas! he has no
taste for reading. He has fine pictures upon his walls; but he has no
eye for their beauty. He has daughters; but they are devoured with the
love of finery and fashion. He has sons; but they are emulating each
other in spending money, criminally and foolishly; and now he stands
aghast at the goal, to reach which he has sacrificed the better part
of himself and them; his sun is setting, and he has only the ashes of
the Dead Sea Apple of Victory between his fingers.
Then there is Mrs. ----, who has staked all on her beautiful young
daughter. She was educated at home, for fear of the contamination of
associates; she was never from under the watchful eye of her parents,
lest her manners should receive a flaw. She was drilled to speak,
step, look, smile, eat, and drink, according to prescribed rules. She
must perfect herself in music, in the languages, in drawing. Her eyes,
hands, teeth, nails, must undergo a careful supervision each day, lest
any attraction should be prematurely shorn of its glory. At last she
dawns into beautiful womanhood. The evening is fixed for her
triumphant entrance into society. Dress-makers, hair-dressers,
jewellers, and florists are called into requisition. The important
toilette is finished; when suddenly the house is thrown into
consternation by her violent indisposition; and before morning the
young girl sleeps in her shroud.
The anguished woman groans out, "Ye have taken away my idol, and what
have I left?" and she feels that life for her has nothing left but a
dreary waiting for its close.
Then there are the great army of parents, whose heart-strings are
wrung with pity at the little eyes which may never see, the little
ears which may never hear, the little feet which may never skip or
run, and the mute tongues which may never syllable the sweet words,
"Father!" "Mother!" Then there are sons whose god is the wine-cup;
and living daughters whose own mothers had rather look upon their dead
faces. These heart-wrenchings and disappointments, are they not
legion? And yet, like children, whose toys, one after another, are
broken, or taken from them, we still reach out our hands for the
gilded bubble of hope, all the same as if it had never burst between
our fingers. When our dearly-loved children are taken from us, our
torn heart-strings hasten to twine about _their_ children; forgetting
the _little_ feet that have also trod "the dark valley." Surely, by
this love-yearning, which may never die in us, shall we find in
another world than this, its uninterrupted and perfect fruition.
_JACK SIMPKINS._
It is a miserable thing to be born a philanthropist. Jack Simpkins can
tell you that. He thinks that one ought not to be merry, while the
world is so much out of joint. When his sister Betty tells him that
cheerfulness conduces to longevity, and that it is useless to make
one's self miserable about inevitables, Jack lifts his eyebrows and
accuses her of triviality and want of feeling. Not long since this
pair went into a place which shall be nameless, for some refreshment,
after an evening's public entertainment. While they were waiting to be
served, Jack's eye fell on the clerk at the desk, who, pen behind his
ear, was taking money and making change. "Betty," said Jack, "look at
that poor devil; week in and week out, there he stands, seeing other
people eat and counting money. Now, I'll be sworn he has never a
holiday, and not even Sunday. Do you suppose he has, Betty?"--"I am
sure I don't know," Betty replied, looking over a tempting bill of
fare, with the accompaniment of an extended forefinger; "he is a
_man_, isn't he? and that implies every kind of liberty. Were he a
woman, and restricted to the choice of one or two occupations, and
not half paid at that, I might possibly make myself unhappy about it;
as it is, let us have some oysters, and be jolly."--"But," persisted
Jack, "just think of his confined position, and--"--"But I don't
_want_ to think about it," said Betty; "this is a free country; and if
he don't like his place, can't he leave it? Come, Jack, eat your
oysters." To do Jack justice, he _did_ eat with a will; for such a
wide-spread benevolence as his is never supported on an empty stomach.
The oysters eaten, Betty congratulated herself that Jack felt more
cheerful. Not a bit of it. While she stood, like a hen on one leg,
waiting for him to "settle" at the clerk's desk, he remarked to the
latter, in a melancholy, commiserating tone, "Your situation here must
be a very tiresome and confining one; don't you find it so?"--"Not at
all," replied the clerk, blandly; "quite the contrary."--"Do you ever
have a holiday; do you have Sundays?" asked Jack.--"Always when I
wish," replied the clerk; "but I don't care to be away much. I see the
best people in the city here, and I have a great deal of good
conversation." Betty smiled inwardly. It was not in human
nature--certainly not in female human nature--to refrain from crowing
a little over what she considered Jack's Quixotic philanthropy; and
when she laughed at his waste of pity, in this case, that infatuated
man replied, "Is it possible you can make merry over it, Betty? Why,
to _my_ mind, his not '_caring_ for holidays' was the most melancholy
feature of the whole thing; as showing how perfectly benumbed he must
be, by such heartless exaction on the part of his employer."--"But you
don't know anything about his employer," said Betty; "and it is
evident that he _could_ go out, any day he wished." Jack shrugged his
shoulders, and replied, "Ah, yes--I know what that '_could_' means,
when a man's nature is yielding; ah--yes," and he gave another deep
sigh. "Well," said Betty, getting a little irritated, "_I_ don't know
what _you_ may think, but if my fellow-creatures are perfectly
satisfied with their lot in life, I for one am not going to try to
make them miserable about it." Whereupon Jack preached her a long
lecture on the sin of selfishness, which quite stopped the process of
oyster digestion, and sent her to bed to enjoy the horrors of a
well-earned nightmare.
Once, when Betty and Jack were travelling, they stopped at a fine
hotel. Everything was as perfect as skill and system could make it.
Jack paid the bill, and Betty launched out in praise of the
establishment. "Yes," said Jack, his face lengthening; "but I am
afraid that landlord feeds his guests much better than he can afford.
I don't think he charged as much as he ought in that bill of ours. I
really feel as if he had cheated himself." Now, Betty's experience in
this regard was entirely antagonistic to Jack's, so she replied, with
an ironical and not very amiable expression, "that if the gift of a
ten-dollar bill to the landlord would lighten her brother's
conscience, she would be willing to engage that the former would by
no means take offence at it."
Betty says that selfishness is not _her_ besetting sin any more than
it is Jack's; and, if you doubt it, you can ask him to transfer his
glass of ale to you when he cannot get another, or you can read his
daily paper before he does in the morning, and see what will come of
it. She thinks it is not so much philanthropy in Jack, as that the
off-side of a question has such an unconquerable attraction for him;
in other words, that argument is his very breath; and, therefore,
without vexing her spirit any more because he never will agree with
her, she has instead made up her mind, that what side soever of a
question a person takes when conversing with Jack, it is morally
certain that no power in this world or the other will ever prevent
_him_ from going to the opposite.
"_BIDING THE LORD'S TIME._"
If there is one piece of advice more bandied about by irresolution,
imbecility, and moral cowardice than this, I should be glad to know
it. As _I_ take it, the Lord's time is the first chance you get. At
any rate, those who act on this principle have, as a general thing,
done the Lord more service than they who have folded their hands and
sat down upon the stool of conservatism to "bide His time," as they
call it. All the great reformers who have blessed mankind have had
pioneers, who looked upon "the Lord" as a helper, not a hindrance. The
stumbling-blocks which for centuries had impeded progress they
vigorously set about clearing away, without stopping to cross
themselves for doing that which indolent or timid bystanders excused
themselves from, as an irreverence.
This stealing of heaven's livery to serve the devil in, is of all
thefts the most disgusting. This "fearing to offend a weaker brother"
is a plea which self-interest should know by this time is getting to
be transparent. If the weaker brother can't stand on his own
vacillating legs, the rest of the world can't afford to spend their
whole existence in propping him. Let him lie down till he can; or
till the Juggernaut wheels of progress roll sufficiently near to
_force_ him to spring to his feet. I don't believe in weak brothers.
They had better get out of the ranks and join the sisters. It may be
the choice between the frying-pan and the fire; for, after all, the
silliest woman who ever cried for a ribbon knows enough to dislike the
male creature who is neither fish, flesh, nor fowl. But the most
trying time, when the platitude we are considering is thrust into the
face by moral parrots, is when they would not lift a finger to ease
the burden of a fellow-creature who is staggering and fainting before
their very eyes; or when some heart-wrench is being agonized through,
and your stoical consoler, who is himself impervious to every
suffering save that which is purely physical, iterates in your
sensitive ear, a string of such time-worn phrases, because he lacks
heart to say, Poor soul--no wonder you writhe; how I wish I could
comfort you! "_The Lord_"--and I say it not irreverently--is the first
compassionate human arm which is thrown round the quivering sufferer
when he needs it most. "_The Lord_" is the first outstretched human
hand which grasps the moral suicide as the last strand of hope is
parting. "_The Lord_" is the pitying human heart which draws to itself
the poor outcast, and without unrolling his transgressions to the face
of the broad day, stands firmly by his side, till he has won the
self-respect to stand alone.
"Talk _out_!" exclaimed a little puzzled child to a foolish adult who
was speaking to it in a way which it could not possibly comprehend.
Talk _out_! say I, and call things by their right names. Now "_the
Lord_," to my way of thinking, don't murder little babies. If a
careless mother locks one up, with a cotton pinafore and a blazing
fire, and goes away, I should not say over its coffin that it died by
a visitation of Divine Providence. Nor when a drunken husband sends a
wooden chair, and a tea-kettle, and a small table through his wife's
skull, should I say that "the Lord" had seen fit in his inscrutable
will to remove Mrs. Smith from this sublunary sphere. Still--I may be
hypercritical--and after all, of course, I defer to your better
theological judgment--but I will say _this_ much, that _my_ "Lord"
don't do one half the things He is charged with, every day in the
year.
_ONE SORT OF FOOL._
Now I like a fool--a genuine fool, who is obliviously unconscious of
the fact! Life is too dull at best; a fool has his mission, and
where's the harm of laughing, invulnerable as he is in his panoply of
self-conceit? The fool I am thinking of this moment, however, is of
the feminine gender--one who loomed upon my astounded vision in the
cabin of a ferry-boat, gorgeous as a shivered rainbow, or a bed of
variegated tulips, or a garden of staring sunflowers, which challenge
notice, flauntingly forbidding quiet passers-by to go abstractedly on
the winding way of their various duties and avocations. Thus
challenged, I of course surveyed my challenger. Heavens! what an array
of millinery and mantua-making was spread over that human lay-figure.
What a vapid, inane face that gay bonnet framed; what big feet those
cream-colored gaiters betrayed! What a sweep of flounce, and ruffle,
and ribbon and lace. What an all-over consciousness of "go-to-meetin'"
fixins, in every lineament and limb! What a _haven't I done it now?_
in every defying glance? It was astounding. I was mentally knocked
over and stultified. And as if this were not enough, the woman
actually had the sacrilegious presumption to perpetuate herself in a
child which she led by the hand, a little four-year-older, bedizened
in orange and black, and green and blue, and pink and purple,
effectually stifling all the graces of childhood, if such a mother had
bequeathed any. A little tottling bunch of brilliant dry-goods,
happily putting an end to its existence, however, with double handfuls
of sugar-candy, which the mamma was supplying without stint or limit.
Disgusted steady-going business-men gazed and sighed like a pair of
bellows, as they inwardly said to themselves, in the language of that
eminent philosopher, Pop Weasel, "That's the way the money goes."
Young men tittered, and old matrons wondered how her kitchen closets
and cupboards, her pickle and preserve jars, looked at home. Meanwhile
the child, unobserved, strayed from the maternal side to take a survey
of the cabin, looking curiously round, much as you have seen an organ
grinder's monkey. "George Washington!" We all started patriotically at
the sound of this honored name, shouted from lungs that would not have
disgraced an omnibus-driver; only to collapse again, smothering with
laughter, as George Washington's mamma seized him by the belt,
splitting her pea-green glove in the operation, and deposited him
right end up with care upon the seat by her side, well pleased with
her maternal prowess, and putting only a favorable construction upon
the grinning faces around her.
There's a great deal of human nature in ferryboats; but be advised by
me, and don't, if you can help it, get into one early, when the
inveterate expectorators are abroad, and before the ladies, "God bless
'em!" (as the men say when they shut them out after dinner), have done
us the favor to clean the cabin floors with their sweeping silks and
brocades. Don't get into one early in the morning, when fingers are
performing the office of combs, and quill toothpicks are rife. One is
apt to be dainty at the belt at sunrise.
* * * * *
I suppose you have met some smooth-faced, plausible wretches, bowing
and smirking you into the hottest purgatory. Now an honest
enemy I know how to meet; but your malicious, mealy-mouthed,
Watts'-Psalms-and-Hymns wretch, who takes your hand with his velvety
palm only to tell you that your pulse is wrong, and that your father
died at your age--I wonder if there _is_ salvation for such?
_THE FIRST BABY._
Heaven help that poor little victim of experiments, the first baby in
a family. Upon whom every new and old nostrum is tried; who is
overloaded with fine clothes, and feeding; who is constantly kept in a
state of excitement by _cluck_ings, and _chuck_ings, and tossings, and
ticklings, till he frets from sheer nervousness; and then--is
blanketed, and physicked, and steamed, till he is as limp as a thread
paper. Who is kept in a gaspingly close apartment six weeks, at the
instigation of one grandmother, and driven out-doors, without regard
to wind or weather, the next six, at the recommendation of the other.
Who is so overburdened with toys, that he would prefer at any time a
chance stick or twig of his own picking from the carpet or sidewalk,
and who takes to fisticuffs from sheer weariness of being fondled.
What a moral millennium to such is the advent of a second, third, and
fourth baby. When young master may sneeze, and the whole neighborhood
not be called to witness the phenomenon. When, if he fall, he may
sprawl there at least two whole minutes without a spoiling condolence,
and make the wholesome discovery that he can pick himself up whenever
he gets ready. When the playthings, over which he has been sole
monarch, are ruthlessly snatched by the new baby's fingers, and he is
taught, what he would never else have learned,--that this world was
not made for _one_. When, fifty times a day, he must wait his turn to
be served, instead of bringing all the household operations to a
standstill, till his real or imaginary wants are satisfied. When an
over busy mother at last clips the boy's long curls, which, pretty as
they were, should have been laid on the altar of common-sense long
ago. No longer do his little playmates call the tears to his eyes, by
shouting after him "_girl-boy_." _Now_ he is one of "the fellows."
There is no danger now of his being called into the parlor to be shown
off to mamma's visitors, and flattered into precocious impertinence,
for there is no knowing what rents are in elbows and knees, or how
many coats of dirt are on his face. But meanwhile, thank heaven, he is
not being spoiled, and the important process of self-education, i.e.,
poking his nose into everything, that he may find out the whys and
wherefores, is going on. This blessed let-alone system, which, with
proper limitations, is so necessary to a child at an age when its
whole business should be to sleep, eat, and grow well, and which every
successive birth in the family helps him to enjoy unmolested.
How surprising is the discovery to papa and mamma, and the whole troop
of adulators, that the second, third and fourth baby, says, "pa-pa,"
"mamma," as well, and as early as that wonderful of a _first_!
How levelling and disgusting the knowledge that everybody's baby in
the United States, without distinction of brown-stone-front houses,
has done just that! And what fond idiots they must have appeared to
lookers on, who had grown old rearing families. With what wonderment
mamma now handles the first baby's robes, where she very nearly
stitched in her life, in the anxiety to have all the absurd frills and
embroidery that a tyrannical precedent has enumerated in such cases.
_And now look at those of Johnny_--the last! Judging by his robes, he
might have been _anybody's_ baby! Well, well, his eyes are as bright,
and his limbs as dimpled, and his cheeks as rosy, as if his clothes
were _not_ sensible and plain. In short, what a thing is experience.
"Let us be careful, dear," says mamma, sagely, "to teach _our_ girls
to do better than _we_ have." As if every young couple must not go
through all these mistakes for themselves, and ten to one kill one
baby, before they learn how to take care of the rest.
There never was a greater mistake made than when childhood is called
the happiest portion of life. I have seen a little child's breast
swell with an anguish as great as would ever agitate it though it
should live to four-score. Call it "a trifle" if you will, that a
playmate jeered before a laughing crowd of boy judges; no verdict of
after-life would be harder to bear; and when, sure of sympathy, he
tells the story to some one whom he fancies will sympathize, and that
man or woman or child listens with indifference, or pooh-poohs it
away--do you suppose that child will ever drink a bitterer drop? I
tell you _nay_, and if the rough grinding heel of the busy, insatiate
world, were not on us all the time, we should know and feel it. Nor is
the suffering _momentary_, as many suppose. How can it be, when some
such juvenile experience often colors a whole life? I say _children
suffer immensely more than is believed_. Take a child's first day at
school; thrust into a crowd of uproarious mischievous little savages,
shrinking, cowering, trembling away from their rude contact, with
heaving chest, and tear-laden eyes, choking down the misery made so
intolerable by suppression, do you tell me that is "a trifle"? Take
the child who sits intensely listening to some story related between
grown-up people, when suddenly his presence is recollected and the
peremptory summons "to bed," is promulgated without a thought of the
_wise clemency_ of a reprieved ten minutes. I well remember in my days
of pinafore and pantalettedom, an old maid who used to say "_that_
child," in a tone that made all my curls stand on end. For years I
agitated my mind with the question whether old maids went to heaven;
because, strong as were my predilections for that blissful state, I
was in no wise content to share them with _her_. Nor, shall I soon
forget the _transition age_, when too tall for short dresses and too
short for tall ones; called "nothing but a child," when I was anxious
to do the stately young lady; and begged to recollect that "I was no
longer a child," when a fit of obstreperous romping overtook me with a
vigor I could not resist; called a goose for blushing if a man spoke
to me, and "did I think he could notice such a child as me?" and
begged to remember "my manners" when I bounced off next time without
noticing the young man. Driven to the verge of desperation by my
inability to define my place in the world, and disgusted enough with
this terrestrial ball to kick it as I would any other. A few more
inches to my stature, however, settled all that. _Then was my time!_
While I am on this subject, I would like to ask, why should not a
child's fancy in the way of food--I refer to their intense dislike of
certain things--be regarded, as much as the repugnance of an adult. I
consider it a great piece of cruelty to force a child to eat things
that are repulsive to it, because somebody once wrote a wise saw to
the effect, "that children should eat whatever is set before them." I
have often seen the poor little victims shudder and choke at sight of
a bit of fat meat, or a little scum of cream on boiled milk; toothsome
enough to those who like them, but in _their_ case a purgatorial
infliction. Whenever there is this decided antipathy, nature should be
respected, _even in the person of the smallest child_; and he who
would act otherwise is himself _smaller_ than the child over whom he
would so unjustifiably tyrannize.