fault. Yes, but if they stay away, it is very certainly their great
gain. The elderly people are always neglected with us, and nothing
surprises intelligent strangers more than the tyrannical supremacy of
Young America. But we are not surprised at this neglect. How can we be,
if we have our eyes open? When Caroline Pettitoes retreats from the
floor to the sofa, and, instead of a "polker," figures at parties as a
matron, do you suppose that "tough old Joes" like ourselves are going to
desert the young Caroline upon the floor, for Madame Pettitoes upon the
sofa? If the pretty young Caroline, with youth, health, freshness, a
fine, budding form, and wreathed in a semi-transparent haze of flounced
and flowered gauze, is so vapid that we prefer to accost her with our
eyes alone, and not with our tongues, is the same Caroline married into
a Madame Pettitoes, and fanning herself upon a sofa--no longer
particularly fresh, nor young, nor pretty, and no longer budding, but
very fully blown--likely to be fascinating in conversation? We can not
wonder that the whole connection of Pettitoes, when advanced to the
matron state, is entirely neglected. Proper homage to age we can all pay
at home, to our parents and grandparents. Proper respect for some
persons is best preserved by avoiding their neighborhood.
And what, think you, is the influence of this extravagant expense and
senseless show upon these same young men and women? We can easily
discover. It saps their noble ambition, assails their health, lowers
their estimate of men, and their reverence for women, cherishes an eager
and aimless rivalry, weakens true feeling, wipes away the bloom of true
modesty, and induces an ennui, a satiety, and a kind of dilettante
misanthropy, which is only the more monstrous because it is undoubtedly
real. You shall hear young men of intelligence and cultivation, to whom
the unprecedented circumstances of this country offer opportunities of a
great and beneficent career, complaining that they were born within this
blighted circle; regretting that they were not bakers and
tallow-chandlers, and under no obligation to keep up appearances;
deliberately surrendering all the golden possibilities of that future
which this country, beyond all others, holds before them; sighing that
they are not rich enough to marry the girls they love, and bitterly
upbraiding fortune that they are not millionaires; suffering the vigor
of their years to exhale in idle wishes and pointless regrets;
disgracing their manhood by lying in wait behind their "so gentlemanly"
and "aristocratic" manners, until they can pounce upon a "fortune" and
ensnare an heiress into matrimony: and so, having dragged their
gifts--their horses of the sun--into a service which shames all their
native pride and power, they sink in the mire; and their peers and
emulators exclaim that they have "made a good thing of it."
Are these the processes by which a noble race is made and perpetuated?
At Mrs. Potiphar's we heard several Pendennises longing for a similar
luxury, and announcing their firm purpose never to have wives nor houses
until they could have them as splendid as jewelled Mrs. Potiphar, and
her palace, thirty feet front. Where were their heads, and their hearts,
and their arms? How looks this craven despondency, before the stern
virtues of the ages we call dark? When a man is so voluntarily imbecile
as to regret he is not rich, if that is what he wants, before he has
struck a blow for wealth; or so dastardly as to renounce the prospect of
love, because, sitting sighing, in velvet dressing-gown and slippers, he
does not see his way clear to ten thousand a year: when young women
coiffed _à merveille_, of unexceptionable "style," who, with or without
a prospective penny, secretly look down upon honest women who struggle
for a livelihood, like noble and Christian beings, and, as such, are
rewarded; in whose society a man must forget that he has ever read,
thought, or felt; who destroy in the mind the fair ideal of woman, which
the genius of art, and poetry, and love, their inspirer has created;
then, it seems to us, it is high time that the subject should be
regarded, not as a matter of breaking butterflies upon the wheel, but as
a sad and sober question, in whose solution, all fathers and mothers,
and the state itself, are interested. When keen observers, and men of
the world, from Europe, are amazed and appalled at the giddy whirl and
frenzied rush of our society--a society singular in history for the
exaggerated prominence it assigns to wealth, irrespective of the talents
that amassed it, they and their possessor being usually hustled out of
sight--is it not quite time to ponder a little upon the Court of Louis
XIV, and the "merrie days" of King Charles II? Is it not clear that, if
what our good wag, with caustic irony, called "best society," were
really such, every thoughtful man would read upon Mrs. Potiphar's
softly-tinted walls the terrible "mene, mene" of an imminent
destruction?
Venice in her purple prime of luxury, when the famous law was passed
making all gondolas black, that the nobles should not squander fortunes
upon them, was not more luxurious than New York to-day. Our hotels have
a superficial splendor, derived from a profusion of gilt and paint, wood
and damask. Yet, in not one of them can the traveler be so quietly
comfortable as in an English inn, and nowhere in New York can the
stranger procure a dinner, at once so neat and elegant, and economical,
as at scores of cafés in Paris. The fever of display has consumed
comfort. A gondola plated with gold was no easier than a black wooden
one. We could well spare a little gilt upon the walls, for more
cleanliness upon the public table; nor is it worth while to cover the
walls with mirrors to reflect a want of comfort. One prefers a wooden
bench to a greasy velvet cushion, and a sanded floor to a soiled and
threadbare carpet. An insipid uniformity is the Procrustes-bed, upon
which "society" is stretched. Every new house is the counterpart of
every other, with the exception of more gilt, if the owner can afford
it. The interior arrangement, instead of being characteristic, instead
of revealing something of the tastes and feelings of the owner, is
rigorously conformed to every other interior. The same hollow and tame
complaisance rules in the intercourse of society. Who dares say
precisely what he thinks upon a great topic? What youth ventures to say
sharp things, of slavery, for instance, at a polite dinner-table? What
girl dares wear curls, when Martelle prescribes puffs or bandeaux? What
specimen of Young America dares have his trousers loose or wear straps
to them? We want individuality, heroism, and, if necessary, an
uncompromising persistence in difference.
This is the present state of parties. They are wildly extravagant, full
of senseless display; they are avoided by the pleasant and intelligent,
and swarm with reckless regiments of "Brown's men." The ends of the
earth contribute their choicest products to the supper, and there is
everything that wealth can purchase, and all the spacious splendor that
thirty feet front can afford. They are hot, and crowded, and glaring.
There is a little weak scandal, venomous, not witty, and a stream of
weary platitude, mortifying to every sensible person. Will any of our
Pendennis friends intermit their indignation for a moment, and consider
how many good things they have said or heard during the season? If Mr.
Potiphar's eyes should chance to fall here, will he reckon the amount of
satisfaction and enjoyment he derived from Mrs. Potiphar's ball, and
will that lady candidly confess what she gained from it beside weariness
and disgust? What eloquent sermons we remember to have heard in which
the sins and the sinners of Babylon, Jericho and Gomorrah were scathed
with holy indignation. The cloth is very hard upon Cain, and completely
routs the erring kings of Judah. The Spanish Inquisition, too, gets
frightful knocks, and there is much eloquent exhortation to preach the
gospel in the interior of Siam. Let it be preached there and God speed
the Word. But also let us have a text or two in Broadway and the Avenue.
The best sermon ever preached upon society, within our knowledge, is
_Vanity Fair_. Is the spirit of that story less true of New York than of
London? Probably we never see Amelia at our parties, nor Lieutenant
George Osborne, nor good gawky Dobbin, nor Mrs. Rebecca Sharp Crawley,
nor old Steyne. We are very much pained, of course, that any author
should take such dreary views of human nature. We, for our parts, all go
to Mrs. Potiphar's to refresh our faith in men and women. Generosity,
amiability, a catholic charity, simplicity, taste, sense, high
cultivation, and intelligence, distinguish our parties. The statesman
seeks their stimulating influence; the literary man, after the day's
labor, desires the repose of their elegant conversation; the
professional man and the merchant hurry up from down town to shuffle off
the coil of heavy duty, and forget the drudgery of life in the agreeable
picture of its amenities and graces presented by Mrs. Potiphar's ball.
Is this account of the matter, or _Vanity Fair_, the satire? What are
the prospects of any society of which that tale is the true history?
There is a picture in the Luxembourg gallery at Paris, _The Decadence of
the Romans_, which made the fame and fortune of Couture, the painter. It
represents an orgie in the court of a temple, during the last days of
Rome. A swarm of revellers occupy the middle of the picture, wreathed in
elaborate intricacy of luxurious posture, men and women intermingled;
their faces, in which the old Roman fire scarcely flickers, brutalized
with excess of every kind; their heads of dishevelled hair bound with
coronals of leaves, while, from goblets of an antique grace, they drain
the fiery torrent which is destroying them. Around the bacchanalian
feast stand, lofty upon pedestals, the statues of old Rome, looking,
with marble calmness and the severity of a rebuke beyond words, upon the
revellers. A youth of boyish grace, with a wreath woven in his tangled
hair, and with red and drowsy eyes, sits listless upon one pedestal,
while upon another stands a boy insane with drunkenness, and proffering
a dripping goblet to the marble mouth of the statue. In the corner of
the picture, as if just quitting the court--Rome finally departing--is a
group of Romans with care-worn brows, and hands raised to their faces in
melancholy meditation. In the foreground of the picture, which is
painted with all the sumptuous splendor of Venetian art, is a stately
vase, around which hangs a festoon of gorgeous flowers, its end dragging
upon the pavement. In the background, between the columns, smiles the
blue sky of Italy--the only thing Italian not deteriorated by time. The
careful student of this picture, if he have been long in Paris, is some
day startled by detecting, especially in the faces of the women
represented, a surprising likeness to the women of Paris, and perceives,
with a thrill of dismay, that the models for this picture of decadent
human nature are furnished by the very city in which he lives.
THE TWO FARMERS
BY CAROLYN WELLS
Once on a Time there were Two Farmers who wished to Sell their Farms.
To One came a Buyer who offered a Fair Price, but the Farmer refused to
Sell, saying he had heard rumors of a Railroad which was to be Built in
his Vicinity, and he hoped The Corporation would buy his Farm at a Large
Figure.
The Buyer therefore went Away, and as the Railroad never Materialized,
the Farmer Sorely Regretted that he lost a Good Chance.
The Other Farmer Sold his Farm to the First Customer who came Along,
although he Received but a Small Price for it. Soon Afterward a Railroad
was Built right through the Same Farm, and The Railroad Company paid an
Enormous Sum for the Land.
MORALS:
This Fable teaches that a Bird In The Hand is worth Two In The Bush, and
The Patient Waiter Is No Loser.
SAMUEL BROWN
BY PHOEBE CARY
It was many and many a year ago,
In a dwelling down in town,
That a fellow there lived whom you may know,
By the name of Samuel Brown;
And this fellow he lived with no other thought
Than to our house to come down.
I was a child, and he was a child,
In that dwelling down in town,
But we loved with a love that was more than love,
I and my Samuel Brown,--
With a love that the ladies coveted,
Me and Samuel Brown.
And this was the reason that, long ago,
To that dwelling down in town,
A girl came out of her carriage, courting
My beautiful Samuel Brown;
So that her high-bred kinsmen came,
And bore away Samuel Brown,
And shut him up in a dwelling house,
In a street quite up in town.
The ladies, not half so happy up there,
Went envying me and Brown;
Yes! that was the reason (as all men know,
In this dwelling down in town),
That the girl came out of the carriage by night,
Coquetting and getting my Samuel Brown.
But our love is more artful by far than the love
If those who are older than we,--
Of many far wiser than we,--
And neither the girls that are living above,
Nor the girls that are down in town,
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul
Of the beautiful Samuel Brown.
For the morn never shines, without bringing me lines,
From my beautiful Samuel Brown;
And the night's never dark, but I sit in the park
With my beautiful Samuel Brown.
And often by day, I walk down in Broadway,
With my darling, my darling, my life and my stay,
To our dwelling down in town,
To our house in the street down town.
THE WAY IT WUZ
BY JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY
Las' July--an', I presume
'Bout as hot
As the ole Gran'-Jury room
Where they sot!--
Fight 'twixt Mike an' Dock McGriff--
'Pears to me jes' like as if
I'd a dremp' the whole blame thing--
Allus ha'nts me roun' the gizzard
When they're nightmares on the wing,
An' a feller's blood 's jes' friz!
Seed the row from a to izzard--
'Cause I wuz a-standin' as clost to 'em
As me an' you is!
Tell you the way it wuz--
An' I don't want to see,
Like _some_ fellers does,
When they're goern to be
Any kind o' fuss--
On'y makes a rumpus wuss
Fer to interfere
When their dander's riz--
But I wuz a-standin' as clost to 'em
As me an' you is!
I wuz kind o' strayin'
Past the blame saloon--
Heerd some fiddler playin'
That "ole hee-cup tune!"
Sort o' stopped, you know,
Fer a minit er so,
And wuz jes' about
Settin' down, when--_Jeemses whizz_!
Whole durn winder-sash fell out!
An' there laid Dock McGriff, and Mike
A-straddlin' him, all bloody-like,
An' both a-gittin' down to biz!--
An' I wuz a-standin' as clost to 'em
As me an' you is!
I wuz the on'y man aroun'--
(Durn old-fogy town!
'Peared more like, to me,
_Sund'y_ 'an _Saturd'y!_)
Dog come 'crost the road
An' tuck a smell
An' put right back;
Mishler driv by 'ith a load
O' cantalo'pes he couldn't sell--
Too mad, 'y jack!
To even ast
What wuz up, as he went past!
Weather most outrageous hot!--
Fairly hear it sizz
Roun' Dock an' Mike--till Dock he shot,
An' Mike he slacked that grip o' his
An' fell, all spraddled out. Dock riz
'Bout half up, a-spittin' red,
An' shuck his head--
An' I wuz a-standin' as clost to 'em
As me an' you is!
An' Dock he says,
A-whisperin'-like,--
"It hain't no use
A-tryin'!--Mike
He's jes' ripped my daylights loose!--
Git that blame-don fiddler to
Let up, an' come out here--You
Got some burryin' to do,--
Mike makes _one_, an' I expects
In ten seconds I'll make _two_!"
And he drapped back, where he riz,
'Crost Mike's body, black and blue,
Like a great big letter X!--
An' I wuz a-standin' as clost to 'em
As me an' you is!
SHE TALKED
BY SAM WALTER FOSS
She talked of Cosmos and of Cause,
And wove green elephants in gauze,
And while she frescoed earthen jugs,
Her tongue would never pause:
On sages wise and esoteric,
And bards from Wendell Holmes to Herrick:
Thro' time's proud Pantheon she walked,
And talked and talked and talked and talked!
And while she talked she would crochet,
And make all kinds of macrame,
Or paint green bobolinks upon
Her mother's earthen tray;
She'd decorate a smelling bottle
While she conversed on Aristotle;
While fame's proud favorites round her flocked,
She talked and talked and talked and talked!
She talked and made embroidered rugs,
She talked and painted 'lasses jugs,
And worked five sea-green turtle doves
On papa's shaving mugs;
With Emerson or Epictetus,
Plato or Kant, she used to greet us:
She talked until we all were shocked,
And talked and talked and talked and talked!
She had a lover, and he told
The story that is never old,
While she her father's bootjack worked
A lovely green and gold.
She switched off on Theocritus,
And talked about Democritus;
And his most ardent passion balked,
And talked and talked and talked and talked.
He begged her to become his own;
She talked of ether and ozone,
And painted yellow poodles on
Her brother's razor hone;
Then talked of Noah and Neb'chadnezzar,
And Timon and Tiglath-pileser--
While he at her heart portals knocked,
She talked and talked and talked and talked!
He bent in love's tempestuous gale,
She talked of strata and of shale,
And worked magenta poppies on
Her mother's water pail;
And while he talked of passion's power,
She amplified on Schopenhauer--
A pistol flashed: he's dead! Unshocked,
She talked and talked and talked and talked!
GRANDMA KEELER GETS GRANDPA READY FOR SUNDAY-SCHOOL
BY SARAH P. McLEAN GREENE
Sunday morning nothing arose in Wallencamp save the sun.
At least, that celestial orb had long forgotten all the roseate flaming
of his youth, in an honest, straightforward march through the heavens,
ere the first signs of smoke came curling lazily up from the Wallencamp
chimneys.
I had retired at night, very weary, with the delicious consciousness
that it wouldn't make any difference when I woke up the next morning, or
whether, indeed, I woke at all. So I opened my eyes leisurely and lay
half-dreaming, half-meditating on a variety of things.
I deciphered a few of the texts on the scriptural patchwork quilt which
covered my couch. There were--"Let not your heart be troubled,"
"Remember Lot's wife," and "Philander Keeler," traced in inky
hieroglyphics, all in close conjunction.
Finally I reached out for my watch, and, having ascertained the time of
day, I got up and proceeded to dress hastily enough, wondering to hear
no signs of life in the house.
I went noiselessly down the stairs. All was silent below, except for the
peaceful snoring of Mrs. Philander and the little Keelers, which was
responded to from some remote western corner of the Ark by the
triumphant snores of Grandma and Grandpa Keeler.
I attempted to kindle a fire in the stove, but it sizzled a little
while, spitefully, as much as to say, "What, Sunday morning? Not I!" and
went out. So I concluded to put on some wraps and go out and warm myself
in the sun.
I climbed the long hill back of the Ark, descended, and walked along the
bank of the river. It was a beautiful morning. The air was--everything
that could be desired in the way of air, but I felt a desperate need of
something more substantial.
Standing alone with nature, on the bank of the lovely river, I thought,
with tears in my eyes, of the delicious breakfast already recuperating
the exhausted energies of my far-away home friends.
When I got back to the house, Mrs. Philander, in simple and unaffected
attire, was bustling busily about the stove.
The snores from Grandma and Grandpa's quarter had ceased, signifying
that they, also, had advanced a stage in the grand processes of Sunday
morning.
The children came teasing me to dress them, so I fastened for them a
variety of small articles which I flattered myself on having combined in
a very ingenious and artistic manner, though I believe those infant
Keelers went weeping to Grandma afterward, and were remodeled by her
all-comforting hand with much skill and patience.
In the midst of her preparations for breakfast, Madeline abruptly
assumed her hat and shawl, and was seen from the window, walking
leisurely across the fields in the direction of the woods. She returned
in due time, bearing an armful of fresh evergreens, which she twisted
around the family register.
When the ancient couple made their appearance, I remarked silently, in
regard to Grandma Keeler's hair, what proved afterward to be its usual
holiday morning arrangement. It was confined in six infinitesimal braids
which appeared to be sprouting out, perpendicularly, in all directions
from her head. The effect of redundancy and expansiveness thus
heightened and increased on Grandma's features was striking in the
extreme.
While we were eating breakfast, that good soul observed to Grandpa
Keeler: "Wall, pa, I suppose you'll be all ready when the time comes to
take teacher and me over to West Wallen to Sunday-school, won't ye?"
Grandpa coughed, and coughed again, and raised his eyes helplessly to
the window.
"Looks some like showers," said he. "A-hem! a-hem! Looks mightily to me
like showers, over yonder."
"Thar', r'aly, husband! I must say I feel mortified for ye," said
Grandma. "Seein' as you're a perfessor, too, and thar' ain't been a
single Sunday mornin' since I've lived with ye, pa, summer or winter,
but what you've seen showers, and it r'aly seems to me it's dreadful
inconsistent when thar' ain't no cloud in the sky, and don't look no
more like rain than I do." And Grandma's face, in spite of her
reproachful tones, was, above all, blandly sunlike and expressive of
anything rather than deluge and watery disaster.
Grandpa was silent a little while, then coughed again. I had never seen
Grandpa in worse straits.
"A-hem! a-hem! 'Fanny' seems to be a little lame, this mornin'," said
he. "I shouldn't wonder. She's been goin' pretty stiddy this week."
"It does beat all, pa," continued Grandma Keeler, "how 't all the horses
you've ever had since I've known ye have always been took lame Sunday
mornin'. Thar' was 'Happy Jack,' he could go anywhers through the week,
and never limp a step, as nobody could see, and Sunday mornin' he was
always took lame! And thar' was 'Tantrum'--"
"Tantrum" was the horse that had run away with Grandma when she was
thrown from the wagon, and generally smashed to pieces. And now, Grandma
branched off into the thrilling reminiscences connected with this
incident of her life, which was the third time during the week that the
horrible tale had been repeated for my delectation.
When she had finished, Grandpa shook his head with painful earnestness,
reverting to the former subject of discussion.
"It's a long jaunt!" said he; "a long jaunt!"
"Thar's a long hill to climb before we reach Zion's mount," said Grandma
Keeler, impressively.
"Wall, there's a darned sight harder one on the road to West Wallen!"
burst out the old sea-captain desperately; "say nothin' about the
devilish stones!"
"Thar' now," said Grandma, with calm though awful reproof; "I think
we've gone fur enough for one day; we've broke the Sabbath, and took the
name of the Lord in vain, and that ought to be enough for perfessors."
Grandpa replied at length in a greatly subdued tone: "Wall, if you and
the teacher want to go over to Sunday-school to-day, I suppose we can go
if we get ready," a long submissive sigh--"I suppose we can."
"They have preachin' service in the mornin', I suppose," said Grandma.
"But we don't generally git along to that. It makes such an early start.
We generally try to get around, when we go, in time for Sunday-school.
They have singin' and all. It's just about as interestin', I think, as
preachin'. The old man r'aly likes it," she observed aside to me; "when
he once gets started, but he kind o' dreads the gittin' started."
When I beheld the ordeal through which Grandpa Keeler was called to
pass, at the hands of his faithful consort, before he was considered in
a fit condition of mind and body to embark for the sanctuary, I marveled
not at the old man's reluctance, nor that he had indeed seen clouds and
tempest fringing the horizon.
Immediately after breakfast, he set out for the barn, ostensibly to "see
to the chores;" really, I believe, to obtain a few moments' respite,
before worse evil should come upon him.
Pretty soon Grandma was at the back door calling in firm though
persuasive tones:
"Husband! husband! come in, now, and get ready."
No answer. Then it was in another key, weighty, yet expressive of no
weak irritation, that Grandma called "Come, pa! pa-a! pa-a-a!" Still no
answer.
Then that voice of Grandma's sung out like a trumpet, terrible with
meaning--"Bijonah Keeler!"