"Did I not tell you that old age was beautiful?" exclaimed Gertrude, to
Rose, as they sought the privacy of their own apartments. "The world
talks of 'great deeds' (ambition-nurtured though they be), yet who
chronicles these beautiful unobtrusive acts of feminine heroism beneath
hundreds of roof-trees in our land? too common to be noted, save by the
recording angel! Now I understand the meaning of Solomon's words,
'Blessed is the man who hath a virtuous wife, for the number of his days
shall be doubled.'
"Confess you are better, _ma petite_," and Gertrude kissed Rose's pale
forehead; "nothing better helps us to bear our own troubles than to
learn the struggles of other suffering hearts, and how many unwritten
tragedies are locked up in memory's cabinet, pride only yielding up the
keys to inexorable death!
"Sometimes, Rose, when I am mercilessly at war with human nature, I
appease myself by jotting down the _good_ deeds of every day's
observation; and it has been a tonic to my fainting hopes to have seen
the poor beggar divide his last crust with a still poorer one who had
none; to see the sinewy arm of youth opportunely offered in the crowded
streets to timorous, feeble, and _obscure_ old age; to see the hurried
man of business stop in the precious forenoon hours, to hunt up the
whereabouts of some stray little weeping child; or to see the poor
servant-girl bestow half her weekly earnings in charity. These things
restore my faith in my kind, and keep the balance even, till some
horribly selfish wretch comes along and again kicks the scales!
"And now Charley must needs be waking up there--see him! looking just as
seraphic as if _he_ never meant to be a little sinner! The tinting of a
sea-shell could not be more delicate than that cheek; see the faultless
outline of his profile against the pillow; look at his dimpled arms and
fat little calves; and that little plump cushion of a foot. Was there
ever any thing so seducing? I wish that child belonged to me.
"See here, Rose, look at those ladies pacing up and down the long hall,
armed for conquest to the teeth. What an insatiable appetite for
admiration they must needs have, to make such an elaborate toilet in the
dog-days! Nothing astonishes me like the patient endurance of these
fashionists at the watering-places; prisoning themselves within doors
lest the damp air should uncurl a ringlet; wearing gloves with the
thermometer at ninety in the shade; soliciting wasp-waists in the very
face of consumption. They are what I call 'the working people;' for
your mechanic has the liberty of cooling himself in his shirt-sleeves,
and your sempstress, though Nature may have furnished her no hips, does
not perspire in interminable piles of skirts. Rose, imagine the old age
of such women--no resource but the looking-glass, and that at last
casting melancholy _reflections_ in their faces. Not that vanity is
confined to the female sex--(Come in, John, you are just in time). I am
about to give you an exemplification of the remark I have just hazarded,
in the history of Theodore Vanilla.
"River House was full of summer boarders when I first saw him there;
nursery-maids and children _ad infinitum_; ladies in profusion, whose
husbands and brothers went and returned morning and evening to their
business in the city.
"Of course the ladies were left to themselves in the middle of the day,
and some of the most mischievous verified the truth of the old
primer-adage; that 'Satan finds some mischief still for idle hands to
do.' Theodore was their unconscious butt, and they made the most of him.
"Every evening they assembled on the piazza when the cars came in, and
'hoped,' with anxious faces, 'that Mr. Vanilla had not concluded to
remain over night in the city.' The self-satisfied smile with which he
would step up on the piazza rub his hands, and his
"'Now really, ladies,'
"As he turned delightedly from one to the other, were a picture for
Hogarth.
"Then after tea there was a preconcerted dispute among them, which
should monopolize him 'for their evening walk;' and the innocence with
which he would reply to all this fore-ordained wrangling,
"'Now ladies _don't_ quarrel, and I'll engage to take turns with you,'
"Was too much for mortal risibles. One lady would affect the sulks that
'he did not sit next her at table;' another, that 'he did not, like a
true knight, wear her colors in the hue of his cravat.' Enveloped in his
panoply of self-conceit, he was tossed back and forth on this female
hornet's-nest, an agonized, but delighted victim.
"On one occasion a gentleman, jealous for his sex's honor, whispered to
one of the lady ringleaders--
"'You are too relentless; I really think this is wrong.'
"'Do you!' answered the pretty tyrant, with an arch smile; 'I will
engage one could throw just such a dust in the eyes of any gentleman you
might select in this house (including yourself), even with this example
before your and their eyes.'"
"Gertrude," said John, reprovingly, "do you remember what Solomon says--
"'A _wise_ woman have I not found?'"
"John," mimicked Gertrude, "do you know the reason of Solomon's failure?
It was because he met with a _pretty_ woman, and forgot to look for a
_wise_ one!"