Transcriber's Note:
The original book contained decorative borders and illustrated
dropcaps. To view these, see the html version of the book.
Remaining transcriber's notes are at the end of the book.
* * * * *
LETTERS
OF
PEREGRINE PICKLE
BY
GEORGE P. UPTON.
"_This, That and the Other._"
CHICAGO:
THE WESTERN NEWS COMPANY,
121 and 123 State Street.
1869
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1869, by
THE WESTERN NEWS COMPANY,
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States,
for the Northern District of Illinois.
PRINTED BY J. WADDINGTON,
121 MADISON STREET, CHICAGO, ILL.
TO MY WIFE,
WHOSE
SYMPATHY AND ENCOURAGEMENT
HAVE CONSTANTLY WELCOMED AND FOLLOWED
THESE LETTERS,
This Volume
IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED.
_PREFACE._
The contents of this book originally appeared in the columns of
the CHICAGO TRIBUNE, in the form of weekly letters, over the _nom
de plume_ of "Peregrine Pickle," devoted to matters of gossip and
interest in the world of amusement. Necessarily, much of this matter
was of an ephemeral nature, which perished with publication. Many of
these letters, also, were devoted to topics of a purely local and
temporary character, which, at this present date, would possess no
interest. I have, therefore, taken care to preserve only such parts
of them as have a general bearing, and have arranged them under
appropriate heads, with dates at the end of each, as a matter of
convenience and reference.
These letters were commenced in the early part of the winter of
1866-'67, and have, therefore, reached the very respectable age of
nearly three years. Like other children, they are old enough to go
alone, and I therefore send them out into the world, richly endowed
with my blessings, which is all I have to give them. Should they
succeed in the world, I shall be profoundly astonished, as they were
born amidst the press and hurry of other editorial duties, and they
came into the world scarce half made up. Should they fail, I shall
at least have the gratification of showing that Lytton Bulwer was in
error in regard to the lexicon of youth.
The characters--Old Blobbs and Mrs. Blobbs, Aurelia, Celeste,
Mignon, Blanche, Boosey, Fitz-Herbert, and the Maiden Aunt--whom the
reader will find in these pages, may be real or not, as the reader
fancies. None of them are willing, however, to have me divulge
their real names, as that would destroy the little mystery which
envelopes our breakfast gatherings, and would put us ill at ease
when talking with the reader, as we hope to do for some time to
come, through the columns of the TRIBUNE. Meanwhile, if the reader
knows any large-hearted, large-handed man, who speaks very plainly
and hates shams, it is quite possible that man is Old Blobbs. Mrs.
Blobbs is a very good woman when she is severely let alone, and her
ideas of etiquette are not shocked. Aurelia is a plain, practical,
well-educated woman, who shed all her nonsense when her first baby
made her appearance. Celeste is a little flighty, and would be a
Girl of the Period, if that did not involve vulgarity. Mignon is
the pet of our set, keenly alive to whatever is beautiful, always
lively and always graceful, and Blanche is her companion--a quiet
and lovable girl. Boosey is a good-hearted, weak-kneed young fellow,
quite harmless and very self-opinionated, while Fitz-Herbert is an
incapable we cannot shake off. The Maiden Aunt is not with us now,
having gone to a better world than this. Perhaps the reader knows all
these people. They are not difficult to find.
These pages may prove to you, oh! reader, but a garden overrun with
weeds. Should you, however, find only one simple little flower worth
laying away as a souvenir, my purpose will have been answered.
G. P. U.
_Chicago, September 20, 1869._
_CONTENTS._
THE SEASON 1
SLEEPING IN CHURCH 3
THE ORGAN GRINDER 5
A RETROSPECT 7
WHITED SEPULCHRES 9
NOTHING AND BABIES 13
THE CIRCUS 18
BEFORE THE WEDDING 20
THE WEDDING 29
MUSCULAR CHRISTIANITY 37
THE BOSTON GIRL 41
THE DEAD 44
OUR THANKSGIVING 50
MRS. GRUNDY 55
BEHIND THE SCENES 57
A CHRISTMAS CAROL 68
THE NEW YEAR 74
OLE BULL 80
SMALL TALK 82
FLAT ON THE BACK 85
GETTING OUT OF BED 91
THE TEAPOT 96
A MASQUE 101
THE MIRACLE OF CREATION 104
FASHIONABLE WEDDINGS 107
APRIL 113
A SUMMER REVERIE 116
THE GERMANS AND MUSIC 119
THE OLD STORY 126
IN MEMORIAM 131
LAKE MICHIGAN 135
RIP VAN WINKLE 141
AN AUTUMN REVERIE 149
THE BEST WOMAN IN THE WORLD 151
THE SCHOOL HOUSE 153
A NEW LIFE 157
OLD BLOBBS--HIS SPEECH 160
DEATH OF THE MAIDEN AUNT 163
THE NEW YEAR 167
PUBLIC PARTIES 171
AURELIA'S BABY 176
THE QUARREL 182
A WOMAN NOT OF THE PERIOD 185
A TRIP TO HEAVEN 187
DAY DREAMS 193
LENT AND CHILDREN 196
BELLS 203
TENORS AND BASSOS 207
A CHILD'S STORY--THE THREE ROSES 213
THE OLD 222
OLD BLOBBS' OPINIONS 232
TYPES 237
WOMAN IN CHURCH 245
THE MOUNTAINS 249
THE JUBILEE 254
THE DOUBLE LIFE 291
LOVE AND THE BLUE FLOWER 298
MARRIAGE 307
OLD BLOBBS REDIVIVUS 322
A TRIP TO HELL 329
L'ENVOI 339
_THE SEASON._
The backbone of the winter is broken. The Carnival is about over. The
lights are going out and the curtain is about to be rung down. The
Spring will soon come slowly up this way, and then Lent. We shall
take off our masques, be good children, and moralize on the routs,
the follies and frivolities of December, January and February; and
moralizing, we shall pronounce the winter the gayest, wildest, most
dashing and smashing Chicago has ever known.
The winter has been one perpetual ball and party. Private amusement
has usurped the place of public, and as a consequence, concerts and
operas have suffered. The poor Philharmonic has withered like a leaf
under this neglect, and Strakosch has lost money at a frightful rate.
Soiree, ball and party have succeeded each other with wonderful
rapidity, and the belles have been literally kept whirling until they
are worn out and pine for the grateful Lent, when they can rest and
get ready for the watering places.
The milliners, mantua-makers, dress-makers, hair-dressers, and
others who make such exquisite fits and tremendous bills, have been
in clover. The young ladies sometimes, after a season of only one
night, come home so smashed that there is little left of their light
fabrics and heavy waterfalls. Papa's purse has bled freely, while
mamma, who _will_ wear a train and try to eclipse her daughter, gets
trodden on and banged up and has to go into the toilet dry dock quite
often for repairs. This is the reason why the milliner _et al._
high-priced individuals have been happy and old Blobbs has staid away
from evening meetings and, growling at the fire-screen, made an Ursa
Major of himself.
So we go. Young Boosey and Aurelia care little for the tariff,
reconstruction, high church controversy, tax bills and legislative
stealings. They are optimists. They want the best, and they want
it now while the purse holds out. They have had a gay winter, will
dawdle along through the spring and leave us just in time to escape
the hot weather and the cholera, and we shall miss them as we miss
the butterflies, and hail their return as they come back in the fall
for another winter campaign. I do not know that they build many
houses, endow many colleges, teach many Sunday school classes or
consume much calico and cold water; but then the streets would be
very monotonous, and the counter-jumpers would grow rusty and life
would be tinted with ashes of roses without them.
February 16, 1867.
_SLEEPING IN CHURCH._
I am usually of a very philosophical temperament and preserve my
equilibrium with a wonderful degree of success. I can resist even
the blandishments of the tax-collector and never get up to boiling
point, as it requires too much effort; but I have at last failed
to retain my composure; and I have failed, because an unfortunate
Irishman wandered into a church in Rhode Island and went to sleep and
was sent to jail for ten days, not for going to church, but for going
to sleep. He was not drunk. He did not even snore. He simply went to
sleep like a good Christian. And this innovation upon the ancient
rights of pew-holders, and especially of strangers, was endured by
the parishioners without a murmur.
Now, if we are going to establish precedents about sleeping in
church, wouldn't it be well to reverse the order of things? For
instance, send every minister to jail for ten days who cannot keep
his hearers awake. Or, send every architect, who builds churches
without means of ventilation, to jail for the same length of time.
If I am to be deprived of my customary nap at the head of the family
pew, why, then I must go where preachers are less somnolent or stay
at home and take my nap, and thereby diminish the revenues of the
church. And if all the heads which nod assent so vigorously to the
preacher's premises, are to be deprived of their siestas, what will
become of the preachers? Does good old Deacon Jones, who always wakes
up in time to pass the contribution box, intend to encourage this
state of things? Does good sister Jones, who drowses just a trifle,
notwithstanding her smelling-bottle, vote in favor of it?
I never heard of but one man before, who was punished for sleeping in
church, and he was Eutychus, I believe, who was sitting in an open
window, and falling into a deep sleep, had a worse fall than that, by
falling out of the window. Now, Eutychus was a very foolish young man
to go to sleep in an open window, and deserved his punishment for his
stupidity, but there is little danger of any one suffering in that
manner now-a-days, for an open window in a church is as rare as a
church without a contribution box or a strawberry festival.
In another respect, this sleeping in church is a compliment to the
minister. It indicates that his congregation are satisfied with
the soundness of his doctrines and are willing to trust him alone.
Suppose Brother Ryder should preach eternal damnation, or Brother
Hatfield should announce universal salvation, or Brother Locke should
advocate the elevation of the Host, would their parishioners do much
sleeping?
Not much!
I feel for that unfortunate Milesian. I feel that in his punishment,
landmarks are swept away and that an old established usage,
sanctified by the experience of immemorial ages, is overturned.
March 2, 1867.
_THE ORGAN GRINDER._
He is the child of sunny Italy, and it is to be regretted that he is
not with his parents.
Likewise his monkey.
I was reminded this morning that Spring is slowly coming up this
way, by meeting him and his organ and his red-blanketted monkey; and
the air was full of the infernal jangle and din, ground out by that
remorseless man; and as I passed along I reflected.
Does the Italian take naturally to the hand-organ? Is he born with
the crank and the monkey in his mouth? What sin has he committed that
he should be compelled to tramp, making day and night hideous? What
becomes of him in winter? Where does he live? Does he go where the
flies go? Is he preserved in amber from Autumn to Spring? You see him
on one of the last days of Autumn. A biting wind the next day and the
birds are gone. If you ask me what becomes of him, I will answer, I
will tell you, when you tell me what becomes of all the hoop-skirts.
Does the Organ-Grinder go to church? Does he pay taxes? Are there
a Mrs. Organ-Grinder and little Organ-Grinders bringing up little
monkeys to the business? Do they live in houses, or do they burrow
in the ground? Where do they go when they die? In fact, do they ever
die? Are they not like the wandering Jew, compelled to keep moving,
grinding as they go?
These questions are worthy of consideration. There is only one thing
certain about him. He is as resistless as fate. Give him a penny to
go away and he will come the next day for a similar favor. Threaten
to shoot him and he will laugh at you. Buttons and board-nails are
just as current with him as pennies. Tell him your family are at the
point of death, and he will grind out a soothing strain and come
the next day with several more of his tribe to play a dirge at the
funeral. I think I can eat a frugal meal with a Digger Indian; I am
even prepared to recognize the greasy Esquimaux and horse-eating
Gauls, but I cannot recognize a man and brother in the Organ-Grinder.
He is one of those mysterious dispensations like the cholera,
rinderpest and trichiniasis which only future ages may appreciate.
Undoubtedly he has his mission. Undoubtedly there are people who dote
on the Organ-Grinder and the organ and the monkey and are soothed
with the touching story of "Old Dog Tray." Undoubtedly there was an
old woman who kissed a cow; and there are people at the antipodes who
eat mice and other small deer.
Such patience, determination, humility and industry, if applied to
the Foreign Missions, would speedily clothe every Fiji sinner in a
flannel jacket and his right mind. Were such attachments as exist
between the Organ-Grinder and his monkey more common, we should
rapidly approach the Millenium. Tramp on, then, O! Organ-Grinder!
Tramp on, O! monkey! It is meet we should be taught patience.
April 13, 1867.
_A RETROSPECT._
The young ladies have commenced doing a very naughty thing, which is
nothing more nor less than inserting a looking-glass on the inner
side of the book of "Common Prayer." It is so handy you know, when
you are saying the responses, to pay your little devotions to the
mirror, for how can one say the responses aright if her strings
are fluttered or her chignon awry? And then you know you can get
reflections from Celeste over in the next slip and examine her
toilet and all the time be looking at your Prayer Book, like a good
child. For combining the altar and the toilet, there is nothing like
it. When the Rector intimates that Aurelia is a worm of the dust,
she will look at her chignon and think of the gregarines. When he
cautions her against pride, the sweet little Pharisee will glance at
Celeste's shadow and be thankful that she is not as proud as C. But
when she lisps the confession to her looking-glass, will she discover
that she has left undone the things she ought to have done, and be
miserable all through the service? And when the Rector says: "Keep
thy foot when thou goest into the house of God * * * and offer not
the sacrifice of fools," will she see a fool in the looking-glass?
Which reminds me to say that I shall go to the Old Folks' Concert
on Monday night; and I shall revive the recollection of those days
when Hepzibah, in a blue calico, sang treble and turned up her nose
at Prudence, in bombazine, who sang second and always went off the
key in the fugue; of those days when Zephaniah played bass viol with
an unctuous, solemn sound, and sister Brown thought it was about
time that Huldy Perkins published her banns if she was ever "a-goin
'ter"; when old Deacon Jones couldn't sleep well through the sermon,
the "tarnal" flies "pestered him so;" when my aunt, in a black silk
that would stand alone, and a white cap over those gray locks that
are now strangely twisted among the roots of the daisies, always made
the chorister mad when they sang Coronation because she couldn't get
through the quirl in the final "Lord," without running off the track
and wrecking half the congregation. There was a great deal of talk
about this failing of my aunt's at the sewing bees, and it occasioned
hard feelings between her and the chorister, but I have no doubt they
have settled it now, and sing a great deal better than they did when
they were in the flesh.
At least, I hope they do.
April 27, 1867.
_WHITED SEPULCHRES._
Although Aurelia has had a great deal on her mind during the past two
or three days in getting ready for the Opera, she did not fail to
remind me this morning, over her muffins, that I had agreed to say
something about male whited sepulchres.
She also did not fail to remind me that mite parties, sewing
societies, private musical soirees, young ladies' charitable
institutions, ladies' aid societies, and other mild forms of social
delirium on which the Women of America dote, had unanimously declared
I was "too bad" and that it was "a shame."
If by some happy coincidence, I shall secure a similar state
of feeling on the part of the Board of Trade, the Young Mens'
Debating Society, the Society for the Propagation of Knowledge in
Bridgeport, the Good Templars, the Masonic Lodges, the Turners,
the late Philharmonic Society, and other mild forms of masculine
gregariousness--on which the Men of America dote, I shall account
myself fortunate.
Thus I said to Aurelia, as she rose from her muffins to once more
endeavor to find the place in Swinburne's last poem, which she lost
some days ago. The Dear Creature thinks it a duty she owes society to
read Swinburne, but whenever she stops reading, she always loses her
place, so that her reading of Swinburne is likely to prove the latest
style of perpetual motion.
Persuading her to forego Swinburne for a few minutes, I took the Dear
Child into my den, the only part of the house which has thus far
escaped the innovations of Mrs. Grundy, and I said to her:
My Dear Child, you have hitherto formed your opinions of men from the
samples furnished you at one dollar and fifty cents each, selected
from the artificial articles concocted by Miss Muloch, Miss Bronte,
Miss Evans, Dumas _pere_, Henry Ward Beecher and others. You know
very little of the real article, for which reason I will catalogue a
few of the best specimens of masculine whited sepulchres.
Old Gunnybags, who sits at the head of his pew every Sunday morning,
pretending to listen to the preacher, but in reality thinking of the
invoice of sugar to arrive Monday morning; who contributes certain
sums for the conversion of the Siamese, but kicks the beggar from his
door; who wreathes his face with smiles when he sees old Tea Chest
in the next slip and in reality hates him because T. C. holds his
I. O. U.; who reads the Confession very unctuously and pronounces
the Amen very sonorously, at the same time inwardly cursing his
next brown-stone-front neighbor, who got ahead of him in a bargain,
on Saturday; who is all things to all men and a grindstone to the
individual--he is a whited sepulchre and the sepulchre is full of
hypocrisy.
Mr. Cutaswell, who orders his claret at fifty dollars a dozen and
superfluous lace for his wife at as many dollars a yard; who drives
the fastest bays on the avenue; who takes an opera box for the
season; who imports pictures from Germany and cooks from France;
who goes to Saratoga every summer and gives stunning soirees every
winter; who does all these things when he ought to be paying his
"calls"--he is a whited sepulchre, and the sepulchre is full of
swindling.
Old Muslin D. Laine, who smiles and smirks and bows to and fawns upon
his customers, and grinds his clerks into the dust; who hands My Lady
to her carriage with gracious, grinning suavity, and grinds the noses
of his employees; who irritates, goads and worries his clerks with
regulations as petty as they are tyrannical; who exacts constant,
unremitting toil to the uttermost second, alike in rain and sunshine,
in a store full of customers and a store empty; who pays a man well
for doing woman's work, and pays a woman a pittance for doing the
same; who plays the petty tyrant over the slaves of his counter--he
is a whited sepulchre, and his sepulchre is full of those who will
confront him at the Great Assize.
Rev. Augustus Fitz-Herbert, who pays more attention to his linen
than to his text; who parts his hair with more care than he writes
his discourses; who is sweet at a wedding and ravenish at a funeral;
who toadies to his wealthy parishioners; who consigns the poor devil
to eternal torment and glosses over the failings of Croesus; who
takes to the young ladies' aid societies and neglects the maternal
meetings; who, in the capacity of a shepherd, prefers a tender young
ewe to a faithful old sheep; who feeds fat on the good things of
earth and forgets those in the highways and byways; who can tell
you the last new ritualistic fashion of robe, but knows little of
the spiritual fashion of the great congregation--he is a whited
sepulchre, and his sepulchre is full of deceit.
Young Boosey, who is the product of the tailor and the bootmaker,
and never saw either of their autographs; who wears immaculate
mutton-chops and swallow-tails; who varies with each changing wind
of fashion; who simpers and lolls in your opera-box, my Dear Child,
talks very softly in your ear, and is vulgar and profane away from
you; whose highest ambition reaches his neck-tie and whose idea of
Paradise is a place where all the good fellows go, to dress and show
themselves to the female cherubs and angels--he is a whited sepulchre
and his sepulchre is full of nothing.
There are other whited sepulchres, my dear Aurelia, whom you may
detect by slight observation. They cannot conceal the fact that they
are whited. Their exteriors are not even plausible, so dense is the
growth of noxious weeds about them. You can easily test your true
gentleman. He carries his colors in his face, in his walk, in his
clothes, in his manners. You will not do well to accept every St.
Elmo who comes along under the impression that he will turn out to
be a parson. The St. Elmos who start off as scoundrels always remain
so, Miss Evans notwithstanding. Cain was not the only man who had his
forehead branded. And, if you look carefully, my dear, at the whited
sepulchres, which are full of vice, you will discover the sign on the
front door.
Aurelia, during the latter part of my homily, was a little fidgetty.
She explained the cause of it to me. She had accepted young Boosey's
invitation to Trovatore on Monday night. I consoled her by reminding
her that his whited sepulchre was perfectly harmless. She might pick
off all the roses and honeysuckles without detriment.
May 18, 1867.
_NOTHING AND BABIES._
To write about Something is no extraordinary feat; to write about
Nothing is a feat not so easily performed.
I propose to write about Nothing, as I have Nothing to write.
Any one can be Something in the world. It requires genius to be
Nothing.
There are a very few people who have succeeded in being Nothing. In
order to be Nothing it is not necessary to know Nothing. In fact, it
requires a great deal of knowledge to be Nothing. By assiduous effort
for the past quarter of a century, more or less, I have thoroughly
succeeded in being Nothing, and I am now quietly enjoying the _otium
cum dignitate_ which appertains to that blessed condition, and can
quietly philosophize on nullity under my fig-tree, lying flat on my
back gazing at Nothing. You restless people who are Something can
have no idea of the absolute ecstasy--an ecstasy more intoxicating
than Hasheesh or Cannabis Indica, and not so brutal and vulgar as
Opium--which results from being Nothing--with Nothing on your mind,
Nothing in your pockets, Nothing to think of, Nothing to do.
But I fancy old Scroggs, who has been doing Something all his life,
and thereby has been a nuisance all his life, and Mrs. Scroggs, who
is Chairwoman of the Society for the Regeneration of Fourth Avenue,
and is more of a nuisance than old Scroggs--I fancy them saying that
I am of no use in the world.
Am I not?
Suppose I think Nothing, then at least I think no evil of any one.
Suppose I say Nothing good of any one, I say Nothing bad. If I have
Nothing, I have no taxes to pay; no interest to collect; no houses
to burn; nobody to gouge or harass, and nobody to gouge or harass
me. Which is cheerful. If I am Nothing, no one cares for me, and
equally I care for no one, so that no one and I are on good terms.
Thus, you see, being Nothing, although I may accomplish no good in
the world, I accomplish no evil. Every evil, every misery, every war,
every misfortune, all the high taxes, all the poor operas, all the
tough beefsteaks, all the sour Green Seal, all the fires, murders,
explosions, and other such cheerful casualties, are the direct result
of the efforts of these people who are Something.
Then, from a theological point of view, remember that if we were
all Nothings, the Devil would have Nothing to do, and would have to
let his fires go down and hang up his pitchforks, which would be a
blessed thing for some of these people who are Somethings.
Nullity is the primal state of man. The Rev. Dr. Homilectics tries
to impress upon me, each Sunday, the importance of going back to the
days when Adam and Eve, in the latest cut of fig-leaves, played Romeo
and Juliet under the apple-trees in Eden. He never stops to think
that their innocence was the immediate result of being Nothing and
doing Nothing, and that just as soon as they set out to be Something,
they entailed the curse of work upon all mankind.
But I go further back than Adam and Eve. In the good old days of
chaos, Nothing was in all its glory. It existed everywhere. No sight,
no sound, no smell, no taste, No-thing. This was the normal condition.
And of what use was it? says Mrs. Increase, who is bringing up a
large family of children, to be used hereafter as grindstones for
other people's noses.
Why, my dear woman of facts and figures and spheres of usefulness,
God Almighty took it and made this great world out of it, with all
its mountains and rocks and rivers, its sunsets and rainbows and
stars, its panorama of beauty by day and night, and you yourself,
although you are, probably, but a very small and a very ugly part
of this creation. Yes, madame, you and I came from this Nothing. I
have retained this Nothing with great success. You, on the other
hand, have been striving to change your normal condition by being
Something. It is not for me to say whether you have succeeded. A
great many people who think they are Something are really Nothing,
and a poor kind of Nothing at that.
If I have said Nothing in writing on this subject, it was because I
had Nothing to say. When one is writing about Nothing, you know, he
is not expected to say anything.
Which reminds me of a baby. If you ask me how it reminds me, I
cannot tell you. I only know that it reminds me of those little but
important animals.
It is cheerful news for the future census-takers that babies have
become fashionable in Paris. The "idea" will, of course, come
immediately into fashion here. I do not mean French babies, but
babies in the abstract. A baby is a good thing, a blessed thing.
I cannot conceive what I should have done if I hadn't, once upon
a time, been a baby. A baby is a well-spring, and the quantity of
lacteal fluid, lumps of sugar, soothing syrups, paregoric, squills,
squalls, walking the floor in your long-tailed night shirts,
mother's loves, lovey-doveys, and square spanking that one of those
well-springs will absorb is astonishing to one who has not had a
baby. I have had several; at least, I own stock in several.
Would I sell my experience, past, present or future, in babies?
Not much.
Therefore, I am glad babies are going to come into fashion. Just
think of the new topics of conversation, when Mrs. Brown takes her
little three-months up to see Mrs. Jones and her two-months, and the
two Dear Creatures compare colics. The little cherubs will mollify
conversation, and sympathy will take the place of severity. Instead
of gossiping on poor Mrs. Cauliflower's unfortunate but innocent
_faux pas_, the Dear Creatures will soothingly compare notes on
the baby question and discuss the merits of quieting syrups and
puff-boxes. And then there will be the baby reunions, when the great
parlor will be filled with baby chairs, and in each chair will be
a baby in blue ribbon and white muslin, and in each little rosebud
of a mouth will be thrust a dimpled fist. How pleasant it will be
to listen to the artless conversation. When Mrs. Jones' baby says
"goo," Mrs. Brown's baby will answer "goo, goo," and Mrs. Thompson's
baby, whose mother is very talkative, will "goo" a steady stream for
five minutes; and then, when one of the cherubs is affected to tears
by the point of a pin, or an unusually sharp stroke of the colic,
which by so many confiding young mothers has been taken for an angel
talking to the little one, how will they all be affected to tears and
the room resound with the dear little trebles.
But I must draw a veil over the picture. In the universal rush
which will ensue for babies and the competitive result which will
inevitably follow between ward and ward and street and street, there
must be discrimination used. When Mrs. Thompson and Mrs. Johnson sign
articles of agreement as to an _x_ number of babies in _x_ time,
Miss Aurelia and Miss Celeste must remember that, by the rules of
the B. R., they are counted out. I would not advise all to adopt the
fashion, but there are many, and there will be more, unless they
adopt Swedenborg's notion of affinities, who can safely take up the
new fashion.
And I recommend all such to adopt it immediately. As I said before, I
don't know what I should have done if I hadn't been a baby.
June 8, 1867.
_THE CIRCUS._
It is safe to say that nine men out of ten--and the tenth man is
to be sincerely pitied--looking back, find their starting point in
a circus. Next to the maternal shoe, which hung _in terrorem_ over
the Lares and Penates, and which will never fade from the memory,
my most distant recollection is beneath the canvass. Was there ever
such a funny man as the clown? I hung upon his stale wit as Hamlet
hung upon Yorick. Were there ever such angels as those ethereal,
beautiful, gauzy, smiling women who rode round the ring--now, alas,
bandy-legged, lath-armed, tinseled, painted, disconsolate looking
creatures, whose whole world is within the narrow limits of the ring?
Did Arabia produce such fiery steeds, brave in gaily caparisoned
trappings--now, poor old hacks, full of the spirit of the
tread-mill--not all the yells of rider, clown and ringmaster, not
all the brutal lashings of whip and thong, can force beyond their
customary gait?
Were there ever such candies and cakes and pop corn as that boy
peddled whom I used to envy?
Name the sum I would not have given to have been the bugle man who
blew "Silver Moon" so gorgeously!
And then I passed from one sphere of Elysium to another when, after
the circus, I went to the side-show and saw the fat woman, and the
skeleton man, and the calf with three legs, and the dog with two
heads, the man who swallowed the sword and the man who took the
snake's head in his mouth. And I went home and dreamed that I was
ring-master, gorgeous in silver lace, with a long whip which I
snapped at the clown, and, rapture of raptures, did I not help the
angels to mount their horses? Talk not of the realities of life by
the side of that circus, which was an enchanted land!
As I look back to that circus, I see my first original sin or
concatenation of sins.
Am I not he who informed my parents that I was going to see another
little boy?
Am I not he who stole a watermelon from our neighbor's patch?
Am I not he who took it to old Bliffkins, who lived under the hill,
and sold it to him for a shilling?
Am I not he who with the shilling walked two miles, and then found it
cost a quarter to get into the circus? Was there ever such a monster
as the man at the door, who wouldn't let me in?
I have never known such griefs as my grief that day. I hung round the
outside of that tent as sinners are supposed to hang round the walls
of Heaven. I heard the music and the hip-hips and the cheers and the
snaps of the whips, and in my desperation I tried to look under the
canvass, but was detected in the act by the monster at the door, and
obliged to fly for my life. I have never known a grief so poignant as
that.
I pity the man who has not sinned in his boyhood, all for a circus.
He has missed one of the luxuries of life which can hardly find
compensation in an æon of virtue.
June 15, 1867.
_BEFORE THE WEDDING._
I have already intimated in these columns that Aurelia is about to be
married. Young Peplum, who is so well known as the gentlemanly clerk
at ----'s dry goods store, and who is heir apparent to a snug hundred
thousand, when his uncle dies, is the fortunate man who will have
the pleasure of supplying her with millinery hereafter, and of being
known as the husband of Mrs. Aurelia ----.
Aurelia, at present, is in a frightful crisis of dry goods, and is
driving to the very verge of distraction a score of dress-makers,
milliners and cloak-makers, who are sitting around the house like so
many Patiences on monuments. Fractions of bridal dresses, traveling
dresses, morning wrappers, cloaks, basques and basquines, immaculate
and mysterious white garments with the most _spirituel_ ruffles and
frills foaming over them, cobwebby handkerchiefs and articles in the
_sanctum sanctorum_ of the toilet, the meaning of which I suspect
but dare not mention--are all over the house from the garret to the
cellarage; on chairs, on tables, on beds, on the piano, on lounges,
on everything. I had rather undertake to walk through an acre of
eggs, without breaking one of them, than to go through the house
without setting my No. 11 boot heel into some frail gossamer of a
dress, and rending its gauzy fabric and Aurelia's heart at the same
time.
All the expectations, the hopes, the responsibilities, the aims and
ambitions of Aurelia's life, if not of all human lives, now depend on
the difference of shade in two ribbons or the relative reflections in
two different silks, on both of which she has set her heart.
They are sweet pretty--but O dear!
She has wept bitter tears over the total depravity of a bias and the
literally infernal unreliability of a sewing machine, which will
skip stitches in crises of awful importance. Three long nights she
lay awake, haunted with the dreadful suspicion that her shoemaker
was an impostor, and that he had not given her the latest style of
slipper-tie.
How could she assume the grave responsibilities of married life, if
her slipper-tie were not the very latest?
Of course she couldn't.
She is thoroughly convinced that if anything should go wrong in the
preparations for the ceremony, or in the ceremony itself, the world
would cease its diurnal revolutions; there would be no further use
for its axis; seed time and harvest would be alike immaterial to the
farmer; ships and ledgers to the merchant; the anvil and loom to the
mechanic; there would be nothing more worth living for; her career
might as well be ended, the curtain come down, the lights go out, and
the audience go home, without stopping for the close of the play.
I pitied the Dear Child, and so, yesterday, after she had consulted
the marriage column of the TRIBUNE, to see if any other person in
the city had undergone her tribulations, I invited her to my den,
that I might administer some consolation to her, wading in such deep
waters. She gave the Patiences some parting injunctions, and each of
them, from their respective monuments, looked down with weary eyes
and nodded acquiescence.
She sat down by my Minerva, paying little heed, however, to those
wise, solemn eyes which looked out from the marble with a sort of
pity at her. I lighted my meerschaum, just commencing to be flecked
with delicate amber streaks, and I said to her, as she listlessly
pulled a bouquet to pieces, scattering the petals upon the floor, as
if they were the ghosts of little dead hopes:
My Dear Aurelia, I need not tell you that you are about to enter upon
a very important phase of your life, which hitherto has been of about
as much importance as your canary's; that you are about to assume
the responsibility of knowing a porter-house from a tenderloin, peas
from beans, and the mysteries of soup and salad; that you are about
entering the arcana of the washboard, the mangle, and the sideboard;
and that you are to fit yourself for the companionship of the young
ladies who will stand to you in the relation of domestics: for all of
which you will find a recompense and sweet solace in your husband's
pocket-book. In view of these solemn responsibilities of the present,
and small anxieties which may accrue in the hereafter, it is
eminently proper that you should approach the altar with a certain
degree of reverence--
(At this point Minerva distinctly winked her left eye at Aurelia,
but Aurelia did not notice it, whereupon the Goddess resumed her wise
look, and I continued):
I am only afraid, my Dear Child, that in making all these
preparations, you are rather making them for Mrs. Grundy than for
yourself, against which mistake I would caution you for several
reasons.
It is not probable that the great world will care much for your
marriage.
(Aurelia astonished, and Minerva winking both eyes.)
I presume to say that horse races, billiard and base-ball matches
will take place just as they always have; that Napoleon will quarrel
with Bismarck after your marriage as he did before; that the Eastern
Question will continue to trouble political philosophers, and that
your neighbors will go on eating, drinking, driving, gossiping and
pouring out the small beer of their lives much the same as they have
always done, and that the world will continue to turn round, and
that you and your husband and your rainbows, orange flowers, Cupids
and moonbeams will go round with it, just as if you had never been
married.
My Dear Child, this world is nothing but an ant-hill, and we are
quite insignificant ants, each toiling along with his or her little
burden, and when one ant gets another to help carry the load, the
other ants don't mind it much, but push on with their burdens. Some
day we go out of sight into the alluvium of the hill, burden and all,
and forget to come out again, but even then, strange to say, the
other ants don't miss us or stop to look after us, but keep pushing
on, this way and that, and running over each other, and quarrelling
about burdens. Therefore, my dear, I would advise you to let Mrs.
Grundy carry her burden and pay no attention to her. Take your meals
regularly and your usual allowance of sleep. It will be better for
your peace and your digestion.
And again, my dear Aurelia, I am afraid you are going to make a
splurge. A splurge is a good thing if you can keep splurging. If,
when you set off like a rocket, you can keep going like a rocket,
brilliant and beautiful, it will be a very good thing to do. But if
you start like a rocket, and come down like a poor, miserable stick,
with a wad of burned pasteboard on the end of you, you had better
never have been touched off, because everybody will say they knew
it would be so, and you yourself will sit in ashes all your life,
clothing yourself with sackcloth, and lamenting your silliness in
trying to make a splurge.
Now your future husband is making a comfortable living, and by
the practice of ordinary economy you and he may get along very
comfortably. In regard to your legacy there is no certainty. Your
uncle's lungs and liver are much better than your husband's, and even
if your husband should outlive him, there may be nothing left to
give you, so that after spreading your choice dishes for your guests
you may have to come down to potsherds yourself. Do not splurge,
therefore, unless you are ready to keep up your splurge. Beware of
going into the large end of the horn and coming out of the little
end, for you will be very thin when you come out, and Mrs. Grundy
will laugh at you. I think it is better, if there is any uncertainty
about your prospects, to go in at the little end, and then when
you come out at the large end, you can come out in style and with
plenty of room. But, under any and all circumstances, splurging is
dangerous, and in nine cases out of ten will land you, heels upwards,
kicking at space. You, yourself, my dear, will remember that on one
occasion, when you were a little late at church and had on that new
hat, you tried to splurge up the aisle and sat down suddenly upon the
floor, with the whole congregation looking at you. Just so will it be
all through life. If you have a weak point about you--and, my Dear
Child, you have many (here Minerva actually nodded assent)--a splurge
will be sure to discover that point to the spectator. Therefore I
would advise you and your husband to launch your craft very quietly.
You will then have the right, when you can afford it, to do and be
something in the world, and when your husband goes into the ant-hill
out of sight, some other ant will tell in the papers, for the other
ants to read, how he commenced poor but honest, and worked his way
up, and some little ants with very large burdens will take courage
thereat and ply their legs more vigorously than ever.
In another respect it is well not to make a splurge. If you make a
public wedding and issue a large number of invitations, astonishing
as the event may seem to you, it will be quite a common affair to
most of us. The young people will criticise you most unmercifully.
If there is an orange flower awry upon your veil, if there is a bit
of ribbon or lace out of gear, if your hair is not exactly _a la
mode_, they will find it out. Your looks and responses also, my dear,
will be canvassed by charming young creatures, and as they weep such
pearly tears of sorrow over your misfortunes, and are dying of envy
that they haven't an opportunity of looking interesting, because
they could do it so much prettier than you, they will mentally take
a catalogue of all your adornments and discuss them for many days
to come. The old married people who come, I assure you, will do the
operation much as they do their dinners. Bless you, they have seen
weddings before, many a time, and if they have one interested thought
about this ceremony, which you suppose all the world is looking at,
it is that they did this sort of thing better in their day. Then in
your list of invitations, when you make it general, there will always
be the old lady who goes to funerals and weddings because she likes
to, and thinks it her duty. She is equally solemn on both occasions,
refers frequently to this vale of tears, and can weep with a fluency
only equalled by a water-spout. You will do well to keep on her good
side, which you can do by feeding her well; for in spite of the fact
which she so frequently announces, that this is a vale of tears, she
can eat a square meal with a success only equalled by young Boosey,
whom you will have to invite, and who will come only to gormandize
on your cake and wine and grow eloquent over your Russe. It would
be better for you, therefore, to avoid a large gathering, and still
better to make your party a family one.
Again, I would urge upon you, my Dear Child, not to attempt to look
interesting. By all means avoid this rock upon which young brides
are apt to split. I have seen scores of brides go off the stocks and
I have never seen one yet who tried to look interesting, who didn't
resemble a wax figure in a hair store or a goose in a paddock. You
had better look like yourself. Remember that you are a woman. Listen
to the minister and answer his questions sensibly and not go off in a
paroxysm of smiles, quirks, simpers and pianissimo lisping, as if you
were the ghost of a rose leaf, which you are not, my dear.
Also, have a perfect understanding with your husband-to-be. You have
been living on moonbeams long enough. Sink your romance sufficiently
to get at realities, and it will save you heartburns, headaches and
red eyes hereafter. Your husband, who has a stomach like other men,
will get sick of living on moonshine in an incredibly short space of
time. He accomplished the purpose of moonshine, my Dear Child, when
he got you, and he will immediately return to the more substantial
things of the earth. And you yourself will be astonished how quickly
the realities of married life will take the romantic starch out of
you, and at the suddenness with which you will tumble, (like the man
who came down too soon to inquire the way to Norwich,) from your
enchanted world to the commonplaces of beefsteak, baby-baskets and
washboards. It will be best, therefore, for you to exactly understand
each other, because one of you cannot live in the moon and the other
on the earth.
Lastly. I would solemnly caution you against making the mistake that
you are the only woman in the world who ever got married. My dear
Aurelia, singular as it may seem to you, thousands and millions have
been married before you, and thousands and millions will be married
after you, and thousands and millions will care as little for your
marriage as you do for your grandmother's. (Minerva at this point
nodded assent so vigorously that she lost her balance and fell at
the feet of my Venus di Medici, and was exceedingly shocked at the
latter.)
I was about to conclude my morning talk with an impressive peroration
on the duties, trials and pleasures of wedded life, and rose to
relight my pipe, when I found that Aurelia was fast asleep.
I was saddened at the discovery, but I quietly slipped out and told
the Patiences on the monuments of it, and they one and all rested,
and this explains the reason why the work got behind-hand, and
Aurelia had to postpone the wedding one day.
June 22, 1867.
_THE WEDDING._
The great event of the week has not been the Fourth of July, as is
vulgarly supposed, but the marriage of Aurelia to young Peplum,
the gentlemanly clerk at ----'s dry goods store, heir apparent to
$100,000, etc.
I regret to say that Aurelia paid no regard to the advice I gave
her two weeks ago. In spite of all my efforts to persuade her to
the contrary, she persisted in the hallucination that she was the
first woman who had ever been torn away from distracted parents and
led, a garlanded victim, to the matrimonial altar. I think she was
disappointed that the heavens were not hung with white favors, and
that deputations were not present from the various races of the
globe, and that business was not suspended. The number of invitations
was only limited by the capacity of the house. Everyone of the young
ladies invited was a very dear friend, not to have invited whom would
have given mortal offence, and sundered friendships, in many cases
of several weeks' existence, without which life would have been a
blank--Sahara without an oasis--Heaven without a star.
M. Arsene Houssaye, rash man, says that woman is the fourth theologic
virtue and the eighth mortal sin. Upon this standard it is safe to
say there was present a frightful amount of theologic virtue and
mortal sin. I am sure of the latter fact.
The hour for the ceremony had been appointed at 6 P.M. Deeply
impressed as was Aurelia with the idea that Columbus, discovering the
New World; Galileo, fixing the motion of the earth round the sun;
Newton, discovering the laws of gravitation, and Harvey, finding the
circulation of the blood--were but every-day common-places compared
with this event,--she had, nevertheless, found it impossible to
convince the Directors of the Michigan Central Railroad of that fact.
The result was that trains ran at the usual hour, and would not wait,
even one little minute, and it was vulgarly necessary, therefore, to
have the wedding promptly at six.
After the wedding was over, I invited old Blobbs up to my den to
smoke, and we compared notes on this occasion, and mutually arrived
at this result: That the good old-fashioned custom of a large family
wedding, celebrated in hospitable style, followed up with wit,
sociality, games, and a dance, the guests departing at a seasonable
time, well lined with capon and punch, trusting to Providence and
instinct that the young couple would find their way through the
night, somehow, to the breakfast table the next morning, the bride
dressed in the rosiest of blushes, and the groom very plucky and
defiant, each commencing the race in life from the starting point of
home, was much more sensible than this modern custom of gathering
together all their dear friends, hurrying through the ceremony,
and then running off a thousand miles, as if the couple had done
something they were ashamed of.
And then we compared the comfort of home with a sleeping car:
your own snugly furnished and beautifully adorned room, cosy,
quiet, dreamy and mysterious, with the vulgar, rattling, smoking,
baby-crying, enjoyed-in-common, dirty-counterpaned, cindery,
head-smashing, waked-up-every-hour bunks of the sleeping car; the
breakfast of cream and honey and strawberries, fragrant Mocha and
snowy rolls, with the dirt, dust, cinders, smoke, tough beefsteaks
and mahogany coffee of a sleeping car.
"_De gustibus non est disputandum_," said I.
"Ditto," said Blobbs.