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CAPER-SAUCE:
A VOLUME OF CHIT-CHAT ABOUT MEN, WOMEN, AND THINGS.
BY
FANNY FERN,
AUTHOR OF "FOLLY AS IT FLIES," "GINGER-SNAPS," "FERN LEAVES," ETC.
NEW YORK:
G. W. Carleton & Co., Publishers.
LONDON: S. LOW, SON & CO.
M.DCCC.LXXII.
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1872, by
G. W. CARLETON & CO.,
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.
Stereotyped at the
WOMEN'S PRINTING HOUSE,
56, 58 and 60 Park Street,
New York.
* * * * *
NEW BOOKS
BY
FANNY FERN.
I.--FOLLY AS IT FLIES Price $1.50
II.--GINGER-SNAPS $1.50
III.--CAPER-SAUCE $1.50
These volumes are all elegantly printed and bound in cloth: are sold
everywhere, and will be sent by mail free of postage, on receipt of
price,
BY
Carleton, Publisher,
New York.
PREFACE.
Excuse me. None this time. There have already been too many big porticos
before little buildings.
FANNY FERN.
NEW YORK, 1872.
CONTENTS
PAGE
Editors 9
My Notion of Music 16
"Budding Spring"--In the City 20
A Peep at Boston 23
Blackwell's Island 29
Shall we have Male or Female Clerks? 37
Unknown Acquaintances 40
Life and its Mysteries 44
Mrs. Washington's Eternal Knitting 47
The Woman Question 50
Two Kinds of Wives 55
Undertakers' Signs on Churches 58
A Voice from the Skating Pond 61
The Sin of being Sick 64
Are Ministers Serfs? 69
Blaming Providence for Our Own Faults 72
A Chapter on Nurses 74
Do American Women Love Nature? 78
Rainy-day Pleasures 82
Chit-Chat with Some of My Correspondents 84
My Liking for Pretty Things 92
Unsought Happiness 95
Dignity of Human Nature 100
All About Doctors 104
Letter to Henry Ward Beecher 108
The Amenities of the Table 111
Many Men of Many Minds 115
My Notion of a Walking Companion 118
Men Teachers in Girls' Schools 121
My Call on "Dexter" 125
The Poetry of Work 128
Can't Keep a Hotel 132
New Clothes 136
How I read the Morning Papers 139
Betty's Soliloquy 143
My Dreadful Bump of Order 146
"Every Family Should Have It" 153
Getting to Rights 157
Modern Martyrs 163
Writing "Compositions" 168
Nice Little Tea-Parties 173
A Sleepless Night 176
Women's Need of Recreation 180
The Good Old Hymns 185
A Stranger in Gotham 189
My Journey to Quebec and Back Again 191
Idle Hours at Our Own Emerald Isle, the Gem of the Sea 215
Some City Sights 223
Dog-days in the Mountains 229
Spring in the City 235
Waifs 238
Tact 240
The Infirmities of Genius 242
A Trip to the Caatskills 245
The Trip to Brompton 258
Lake George Revisited 264
Cookery and Tailoring 269
Up the Hudson 273
"Why Don't I Lecture" 278
In the Cars 281
Petting 284
My Grievance 287
Cemetery Musings 290
The Scrubbing-brush Mania 292
Sauce for the Gander 295
My First Convert 298
Country Housewives 300
First Morning in the Country 303
Conscience Killing 306
The Cry of a Victim 308
Stones for Bread 311
CAPER-SAUCE.
_EDITORS._
I am not disposed to pity Editors. On the whole, I think they have a
very good time. That national sugar-plum for American boys, "Maybe, my
son, you will be one day _President_," might be changed advantageously
for "My son, you may live some day to be an Editor." As for the
_present_ President, if he can sleep o' nights, he can live through
anything! I repeat it, Editors have a good time, no matter what they say
to the contrary. In the first place, I know that the position of an
editor, if honorably filled, is second to none in this country. He need
envy no one his influential power; would that in many cases it were more
conscientiously wielded. If an _Editor_ is an ignorant man, it is his
own fault, no matter from what small beginnings he may have risen.
Coming in contact, as he does, with information every instant, on all
the absorbing topics of the day, it is next to impossible he should not
be well informed. Read he must, whether he will or not. Think on what
he has read he must; tell his subscribers, in words, what he thinks
about it, and reflect and decide upon the submitted thoughts of others
for his columns, he must. Hence the mind of an Editor is, or may be, a
perfect Encyclopedia of information.
Of course he has his peculiar botherations; it would be a blessing if
his subscription list were large enough for him to say just what he
pleases right and left, without fear or favor. It would be a blessing if
his subscribers would always pay punctually, without dunning. It would
be a blessing, when he uses superhuman efforts to please them, if they
never would find fault or grumble, for the sake of grumbling. It would
be a blessing if they wouldn't stay so long when they come in to see him
"just a minute," and he is in a frenzied hurry to say do go, and can't.
It would be a blessing (to those who apply) if he could publish and pay
for, at the valuation of the writers, all the immortal trash that is
offered. It would be a blessing if other editors, "who can see nothing
in his paper," wouldn't steal his articles constantly--editorial and
contributed--without credit.
But, on the contrary, how came that beautiful bouquet on his desk? Where
that fine engraving on his office wall? How came that beautiful picture
and convenient inkstand there? I'd have you to know that the donors have
not always an axe they wish to grind in that office. I dare say you will
try to make me believe that Editors are human. Now I deny that, for I
myself have, in past days, had evidence to the contrary. But never mind
that now. You may tell me that Editors are not above the weakness of
publicly and slyly slipping in a good word for a good friend, when he
needs it, and that they are not above giving a bad "friend" a good,
satisfying dig when he needs it, and so would you. If a man is to be
overhauled for that, there's got to be a monstrous overturning of
matters in other places beside Editors' offices. I confess I sometimes
covet the quantities of books he accumulates free gratis for his
library, and I should like to be allowed to review some of 'em after a
fashion of my own, if nobody knew who did it; and I should like
occasionally to dust their horrible desks for the poor creatures, and
open those hermetically sealed windows, and advise them not to make
themselves prematurely bald by wearing their hats in their offices, week
in and week out, as if it were necessary their ideas should be kept warm
like chickens in order to hatch.
Only that I am convinced that everybody must work in his own way, and
that if Editors had to work in a clean place, they couldn't work at all.
Now if they opened their office windows of a hot day, they might
possibly be cooler, and a cool Editor, in times like these, when all the
fire and fury we could master would not begin to express our national
emotions, you see for yourself the thing wouldn't be tolerated. Beside,
some of them ought to be getting used to a hot place, and they might as
well begin now.
I wonder are Editors aware of how much importance is their Poet's
corner! I wonder if they know that the most inveterate pursuer of brooms
and gridirons that ever kept a good man's house tidy, likes a bit of
sentiment, in that shape, in the family paper. I wonder do Editors know,
how, when the day's work is done, she likes to pull that paper out from
some old tea-caddy, or broken flower-pot--that long ago fell into
disuse, and seating herself with a long-drawn breath of relief in the
old-fashioned chair, where all her Tommys and Marys have been rocked,
give herself up to the quiet enjoyment of its pages. Presently, as she
reads, a tear gathers in her eye; she dashes it quickly away with an
"ah--me," and laying her head back upon the chair, and closing eyes that
were once much bluer than now, she is soon far, far away from the quiet
home where her treadmill round of everyday duties has been for many
years so faithfully performed, and, perhaps, alas! so thanklessly
accepted. The cat comes purring round her feet, and Tray comes
scratching at the door, but she does not move, till the sound of a heavy
and familiar footstep is heard in the entry or hall; then, starting up,
and taking her scissors from the long pocket at her side, she clips the
precious verses from the paper and hides them in her bosom. Perhaps
_you_ might turn up your critical nose at those verses; never mind, they
have touched _her_ heart; and many times, when she is alone, she will
read them over; and so long as they hold together, she will keep them in
a little needle-case in her work-box, to read when "things go wrong,"
and a good, safe cry will ease the heart.
Her good man picks up the mutilated paper, and she says, "It was only a
bit of poetry, John." Now, there are more Johns than one in the world,
but he don't think of _that_, as turning to some political article he
says, "Oh, you are quite welcome to all that sort of stuff;" nor does he
know how much that other John had to do with her crying over those
verses, which somebody certainly must have written, who, like herself,
had married the wrong John.
Now, gentlemen Editors, crowd what else you may out of your papers, but
_don't crowd out the poetry, or think it of small consequence_. Take the
affidavit of one who has seen the clipped verses from your papers hid
away in pocket-books, tucked away in needle-cases, speared upon
pin-cushions, pinned up on toilet glasses, and murmured over in the
mystic hour of twilight, just before _"John comes home to tea;"_ and
always have a bit of poetry in your columns for her who has so potent a
voice in the choice of a family paper. I publicly promulgate this bit of
wisdom, though I am very well aware that you will pass it off for your
own, and neither credit _me_ nor my book for it!
A word on a practice too common in some newspapers. I refer to the
flippant manner in which the misfortunes and misdemeanors of certain
classes, brought to the notice of our courts, are reported for the
amusement of the community at large. Surely, it is melancholy enough
that a drunken mother should be picked up in the gutter with her
unconscious babe; or a young girl, scarcely in her teens, be found
guilty of theft; or, that a husband and father should beat or murder her
whom he had sworn to cherish, without narrating it after this heartless
fashion. For instance:
John Flaherty, after beautifully painting a black and blue
rim round his wife's eyes, was brought into court this
morning to answer the question why he preferred that
particular color; and not being able to give a satisfactory
reason for the same, he was treated to a pleasant little
ride to a stone building, where he was accommodated with a
private room, board and lodging included.
Or thus:
Mary Honoria, scarlet-lipped, plump, and sweet sixteen,
being fond of jewelry on her pretty person, and having
stolen her mistress's watch, was waited upon by a gallant
policeman, who escorted her little ladyship into court, in
the presence of an admiring crowd, before whom her black
eyes sparkled with a rage that but added new beauty to their
lustre.
Now, I protest against this disgusting, demoralizing, and heartless
mention of the sins and follies of poor wretches, the temptations of
whose lot are as the sands of the sea-shore for multitude; who,
ill-paid, ill-fed, worse-lodged, disheartened, discouraged, fall victims
to the snares, in the shape of low groggeries, set for them by the very
men who laugh over _their_ well-spread breakfast tables, at this
pitiful and revolting recital of their success. _Oh, write over against
the poor wretch's name, as God does, why he or she fell!_ or at least
cease making it the subject for a jeer. Make it _your_ son, _your_
daughter, and then pen that flippant, heartless paragraph if you can.
And yet, it was somebody's son, or daughter, or sister, or husband,
unworthy it may be, (who is not?) but alas! often forgiven, and still
dearly loved, to whose home that paragraph may come like a poisoned
arrow, wounding the innocent, paralyzing the hand which was powerless
enough before to struggle with its hapless fate; for not on the guilty
does such blight fall heaviest. The young boy--the toiling, unprotected
daughter--the aged mother--ah! what if they were _yours_?
* * * * *
ABOUT DOCTORS.--We wish doctors could ever agree. One's head gets
muddled, reading their books on health, by antagonistic opinions on the
same subject, from eminent sources. Experience is an excellent doctor,
though he never had a diploma. What is good for you, you know is good
for _you_ although it may not be good for another. There is one point on
which doctors all agree, and that is, they very rarely give physic to
their own families. Why not? A friend suggests that it is from sheer
benevolence, in order that they may have more left for other people.
_MY NOTION OF MUSIC._
I've been defending myself from the charge of "not knowing what music
is." Perhaps I don't know. But when I go to a fashionable concert, and
the lady "_artiste_," I believe that is the regulation-word, comes out
in her best bib and tucker, with a gilt battle-axe in her back hair, and
a sun-flower in her bosom, led by the tips of her white gloves, by the
light of a gleaming bracelet, and stands there twiddling a sheet of
music, preparatory to the initiatory scream, I feel like screaming
myself. Now if she would just trot on, in her morning gown, darning a
pair of stockings, and sit naturally down in her old rocking-chair, and
give me "Auld Robin Gray," instead of running her voice up and down the
scales for an hour to show me how high and how low she can go without
dropping down in a fit, I'd like it. One trial of her voice that way, to
test its capacity, satisfies me. It is as good as a dozen, and a great
deal better. I don't want to listen to it a whole evening. I _will_
persist, that running up and down the scales that way isn't "_music_."
Then if you only knew the agony I'm in, when drawing near the end of one
of her musical gymnastics, she essays to wind up with one of those
swift, deafening _don't-stop-to-breathe finales_, you _would_ pity me. I
get hysterical. I wish she would split her throat at once, or stop. I
want to be let out. I want the roof lifted; I feel a cold perspiration
breaking out on my forehead. I know that presently she will catch up
that blue-gauze skirt and skim out that side-door, only to come and do
it all over again, in obedience to that dead-head encore. You see all
this machinery disenchants me. It takes away my appetite, like telling
me at dinner how much beef is a pound. I had rather the ropes and
pulleys of music would keep _behind_ the curtain.
Of course my "taste is not cultivated," and moreover, the longer I live
the less chance there is of it. On that point, I'm what country folks
call "sot." Sometimes, when passing one of these concert-rooms of an
evening, I _have_ caught a note that I took home with me. Caught it with
the help of the darkness and the glimmering stars, and the fresh wind on
my forehead, and a blessed ignorance of the distorted mouth and the
heaving millinery that sent it forth. But take me _in_, and you'll have
an hysterical maniac. The solemn regulation faces, _looking_ at that
"music," set me bewitched to laugh and outrage that fashion-drilled and
kidded audience. Bless you, _I_ can't help it. I had rather hear Dinah
sing "Old John Brown" over her wash-tub. I had rather go over to Mr.
Beecher's church some Sunday night and hear that vast congregation swell
forth Old Hundred, with each man and woman's _soul_ so in it, that
earthly cares and frets are no more remembered, than the old garments we
cast out of sight.
When the words of a favorite hymn are read from the pulpit, and I am
expecting the good old-fashioned tune, that has been wedded to it since
my earliest recollection, and instead, I am treated to a series of
quirks and quavers by a professional quartette, I can't help wishing
myself where the whole congregation sing with the heart and the
understanding, in the old-fashioned manner. I can have "opera" on
week-days, and scenery and fine dresses thrown in. Sunday I want Sunday,
not opera in _neglige_.
Of course it is high treason for me to make such an avowal; so, while I
am in for it, I may as well give another twist to the rope that is round
my neck. The other night I went to hear "The Messiah." The words are
lovely, and as familiar to my Puritan ears as the "Assembly's
Catechism;" but when they kept on repeating, "The Lord is in his
hol--the Lord is in--is in his hol--is in--the Lord is in his hol"--and
when the leader, slim, and clothed in inky black, kept his arms going
like a Jack in a box, I grew anything but devout. The ludicrous side of
it got the better of me; and when my companion, who pretends to be no
Christian at all, turned to me, who am reputed to be one, in a state of
exaltation, and said, "Isn't that grand, Fanny?" he could have wished
that the tears in my eyes were not hysterical, from long-suppressed
laughter. He says he never will take me there again, and I only hope he
will keep his word. All the "music" I got out of it was in one or two
lovely "solos."
Now what I want to know is, which has the most love for _genuine_
music--he or I?
The fact is, I like to find my music in unexpected, simple ways, where
the machinery is not visible, like the Galvanic gyrations of that
"leader," for instance. That kind of thing recalls too vividly my old
"fa-sol-la" singing-school, where the boys pulled my curls, and gave me
candy and misspelt notes.
There is evidently something wanting in my make-up, with regard to
"music," when I can _cry_ at the singing of the following simple verses,
by the whole congregation in church, and do the opposite at the
scientific performance of "The Messiah." Listen to the verses:
"Pass me not, O gentle Saviour,
Hear my humble cry;
While on others Thou art smiling,
Do not pass me by.
Saviour, Saviour,
Hear my humble cry.
"If I ask Him to receive me,
Will he say me Nay?
Not till earth and not till heaven
Shall have passed away."
_"BUDDING SPRING"--IN THE CITY._
We of the city do not appreciate the blessing of closed windows and
silence, until budding Spring comes. The terrific war-whoop of the
milkman inaugurates the new-born day long before we should otherwise
recognize it. Following him is the rag-man, with his handcart, to which
six huge jangling, terrific cow-bells are fastened, as an
accompaniment to the yet louder yell of "r-a-g-s." Then comes the
"S-t-r-a-w-b-e-r-r-y" man, with lungs of leather, splitting your head,
as you try to sip your coffee in peace. Close upon his heels, before he
has hardly turned the corner, comes the pine-apple man, who tries to
outscreech _him_. Then the fish-man, who blows a hideous tin trumpet,
loud enough to rouse the Seven Sleepers, and discordant enough to set
all your nerves jangling, if they had not already been taxed to the
utmost. You jump up in a frenzy to close the window, only to see that
the fish-man has stopped his abominable cart at the door of a neighbor,
who keeps a carriage and livery, and is therefore fond of cheap, stale
fish; where he is deliberately cleaning and splitting them, and throwing
the refuse matter in the street, as a bouquet for your nostrils during
the warm day. Then comes a procession of heavy carts, the drivers of
which are lashing their skeleton nags to fury, with loud cracks of their
whips, to see which shall win in the race, while every one of your
window-panes shakes as if an earthquake were in progress, as they rumble
over the stones. By this time comes a great mob of boys, with vigorous
lungs, tossing each other's caps in the air, and screeching with a power
perfectly inexplicable at only six, ten, or twelve years of practice.
Indeed, the smaller the boy the bigger is his war-whoop, as a general
rule. Then comes a wheezy organ-grinder, who, encouraged by the fatal
show of plants in your windows, imagines you to be romantically fond of
"The Morning Star," and immediately begins, in verse, to describe how he
"feels." Nothing short of fifty cents will purchase his absence, which
encouragement is followed by some miserable little rats of boys, anxious
to succeed him on the violin and harp.
By this time your hair stands on end, and beads of perspiration form
upon your nose. You fly for refuge to the back of the house. Alas! there
is a young thing of "sixteen summers" and no winters running up and down
the gamut on a tin-kettle piano. In the next house is a little dog
barking as if his last hour was coming; while upon the shed are two
cats, in the most inflamed state of bristle, glaring like fiends, and
"_maow_"-ing in the most hellish manner at each other's whiskers. You go
down into the parlor, and seat yourself there. Your neighbor, Tom
Snooks, is smoking at his window, and puffing it right through yours
over your lovely roses, the perfume of which he quite extinguishes with
his nasty odor.
Heavens! And this is "Spring!" "Budding Spring!" The poets make no
mention of these little things in their "Odes!"
Well--at least, you say to yourself, there will be peace and heavenly
quiet with the stars at midnight, by the open window. I will be patient
till then.
Is there?
What is that? A policeman's loud rap-rap on the pavement for assistance
to capture a burglar. Next a woman's scream; the brute who just accosted
the poor wretch has struck her a heavy blow upon the temple. And now
reels past a drunken man, zigzagging down the street, with a little
whimpering boy by one hand, old enough to know what a "Station-house"
means, and trembling lest "father" should be taken there.
You throw yourself upon your bed, weary and sick at heart. Even the
stars seem to glow with a red, unnatural light, as if they too were worn
with watching the wrongs and frets they nightly look down upon.
"Balmy night." What liars poets can be!
_A PEEP AT BOSTON._
Boston is a lovely place to be baptized in, and to go back to. My old
love, "_Boston Common_"--that good, old-fashioned, unspoiled,
unmodernized name--looks more lovely this summer than I ever remember to
have seen it. New York may well take a lesson from its order and
neatness, with regard to our ill-kept _city_ parks. I sat there, under
those lovely trees which used to wave over my school-girl head; and had
it not been for the little bright-eyed grandchild beside me picking
buttercups, I might have fancied it was Saturday afternoon, and no
school, and that I was to be back to my mother's apronstrings "by
sundown, without fail." I know I could not have enjoyed even then the
birds' song, or the sparkling pond, or the big trees more than at that
moment. Out of my dream-land, whither they had led me, I was awakened by
a jump into my lap, and the question, "And did you _really_ play with
buttercups here, when you were a little girl?" It was a long bridge that
question led me over, so long that I forgot to answer till the question
was repeated. I had to stop, and outgrow buttercups, and hold again by
my matronly hand a little creature, the counterpart of my questioner,
who long since closed her eyes forever, in this world, upon us both! It
took time, you see, before I could say, "Yes, dear; it was just in this
very lovely spot that both your mother and I picked buttercups when
children, on the bright Saturday afternoons of long ago; and six years
and a half of your little life I have waited, to see _you_ run down
those sloping paths, and to show you the 'Frog-Pond,' and to tell you to
look up into the branches that nearly touch the sky; and now here we
are! But there were no 'deer' feeding on this Common when I was a little
girl, but instead _cows_ to whom I gave plenty of room to pass as I went
along; and instead of that gay little hat, with mimic grasses and
daisies, such as I have put upon your head, my mother tied under my chin
a little sun-bonnet. And she didn't run to me if I sneezed, as I do to
you, for I had a heap of brothers and sisters, and we had to take care
of our own sneezing; but I know I had twenty-five cents to spend on
Fourth of July; and I know that, if any little girl's belt in Boston was
ever tightened by roast turkey and pie more than mine was on
'Thanksgiving day,' I pity her! I wonder what has become of all the
little children I used to play with here? We used to go up to the
tip-top of that State House, I know; but I don't care to try it now. Not
that it would tire me--of course not; but I've seen all that can be seen
from that dome, and a little farther too."
Oh, the peace and loveliness of sweet "Mount Auburn!" The new graves
since I was there, and the old graves now moss-grown that I remember so
well! I, too, shall sleep sweetly there some day; but the hardest pang I
shall know, between now and then, will be letting go the little hand
that clasped mine to-day, as I walked about there. And yet there were
_little_ graves all around us. _He_ knows best!
In Boston I saw the remains of "The Jubilee." I was asked, "Did I hear
and see the Jubilee?" I was supposed, as coming from New York, to grieve
at the success of "The Jubilee;" and being an adopted New Yorker, to
feel like skulking round the back streets in Boston, covered with
confusion that Manhattan had no "Jubilee." Lord bless you! I love every
_bean_ that was ever baked in Boston; every cod-fish-ball ever fried;
and every brown-bread loaf ever baked there. I know too, as well as any
Bostonian, that--
"Zaccheus he
Did climb the tree,
His Lord and Master
For to see;"
and I made a courtesy to the ground, when I came in sight of
"Park-street" steeple, and "Faneuil Hall!" so don't be pitching into me.
Hit some other fellow who isn't "up" in the Assembly's catechism, and
"total depravity," and brown bread. "Jubilee" as much as you want to;
the world is a big place. "Holler" away!
New England, all hail to thy peerless thrift! Thou art cranky and
crotchety; thou art "sot," uncommon "sot," in thy ways, owing doubtless
to the amiable sediment of English blood in thy veins. Thou wilt not be
cheated in a bargain, even by thy best friend; but, in the meantime,
that enableth thy large heart to give handsomely when charity knocks at
thy door. Thy pronunciation may be peculiar, but, in the meantime, what
thou dost not know, and cannot do, is rarely worth knowing or doing.
Thou never hast marble, and silver, and plate glass, and statuary, in
thy show-parlors, and shabby belongings where the world does not
penetrate. Thou hast not stuccoed walls, with big cracks in them, or
anything in thy domiciles, hanging as it were by the eyelids. Every nail
is driven so that it will stay; every hinge hung so that it will work
thoroughly. Every bolt and key and lock perform their duty like a
martinet, so long as a piece of them endures. If thou hast a garden, be
it only a square foot, it is made the most of with its "long _saace_"
and "short _saace_" and "wimmin's notions," in the shape of flowers and
caraway seed, to chew on Sunday, when the minister gets as far as
"seventeenthly," and carnal nature will fondly recur to the waiting pot
of baked beans in the kitchen oven. O! New England, here could I shed
salt tears at the thought of thy baked beans, for Gotham knows them not.
Alluding to that edible, I am met with a pitying sneer, accompanied with
that dread word to snobs--"_provincial!_" It is ever thus, my peerless,
with the envy which cannot attain to the perfection it derides. For you
should see, my thrifty New England, the watery, white-livered,
tasteless, swimmy, sticky poultice which Gotham christens "baked beans."
My soul revolts at it. It is an unfeeling, wretched mockery of the rich,
brown, crispy, succulent contents of that "platter"--yes, _platter_--I
will say it!--which erst delighted my eyes in the days when I swallowed
the Catechism without a question as to its infallibility. The flavor of
the beans "haunts memory still;" but as to the Catechism, the world is
progressing, and I am not one to put a drag on its wheels, believing
that
Truth is sure
And will endure,
and it is best to let "natur" caper, especially as you can't help it;
and after the dust it has kicked up has cleared away, we shall see what
we shall see, be it wheat or chaff. Beside, the most conservative must
admit, that though Noah's Ark was excellent for the flood, the "Great
Eastern" is an improvement on it; and _'tisn't_ pretty, _so they say who
oftenest practise it!_ to stand with the Bible in your hand in 1862, and
clamor for a private latch-key to heaven.
But I have wandered from my baked beans. I want some. Some New England
baked beans. Some of "mother's beans." But, alas, mother's oven is fast
disappearing. Mother's oven, where the beans stayed in all night, with
the brown bread. Alas! it has given way to new-fangled "ranges," which
"don't know beans." Excuse the vulgarity of the expression, but in such
a cause I shan't stand for trifles. If you want rose-leaf
sentimental-refinement, together with creamy patriotism, you may look in
the columns of the Whip-Syllabub-Family-Visitor. This is a digression.
When I started for a New England tour, it was my intention to get some
of those beans; but the hotels there are getting so "genteel" with their
paper-pantalettes on the roast-chicken's legs, and their paper frills on
the roast-pigs'-tails, that I was convinced, that only at a genuine
unsophisticated farm-house, where I could light down unannounced on
Sarah-Jane--could this edible in its native and luscious beauty be
found.
Next summer, if "strategy" and the rebels don't chew us up, I start on a
tour for those beans; nor am I to be imposed upon by any "genteel"
substitutes or abortions under that name!
* * * * *
A HINT TO PARENTS.--When parents are considering the question of the
hours of study for growing children in our schools, let them do it
without any reference to the side question, how they can "bear those
noisy children, during the subtracted hours, at home." Perhaps they can
better bear this than to pay the doctor's bills. This is the way to look
at it, whether it be regarded in a selfish or a humanitarian point of
view.
_BLACKWELL'S ISLAND._
Prior to visiting Blackwell's Island, my ideas of that place were very
forlorn and small-pox-y. It makes very little difference, to be sure, to
a man, or a woman, shut up in a cell eight feet by four, how lovely are
the out-door surroundings; how blue the river that plashes against the
garden wall below, flecked with white sails, and alive with gay
pleasure-seekers, whose merry laugh has no monotone of sadness, that the
convict wears the badge of degradation; and yet, after all, one
involuntarily says to one's self, so instinctively do we turn to the
cheerful side, I am glad they are located on this lovely island. Do you
shrug your shoulders, Sir Cynic, and number over the crimes they have
committed? Are _your_ crimes against society less, that they are written
down only in God's book of remembrance? Are _you_ less guilty that you
have been politic enough to commit only those that a short-sighted,
unequal human law sanctions? Shall I pity these poor wrecks of humanity
less, because they are so recklessly self-wrecked? because they turn
away from my pity? Before I come to this, I must know, as their Maker
knows, what evil influences have encircled their cradles. How many
times, when their stomachs have been empty, some full-fed, whining
disciple, has presented them with a Bible or a Tract, saying, "Be ye
warmed and filled." I must know how often, when their feet have tried to
climb the narrow, up-hill path of right, the eyes that have watched,
have watched only for their halting; never noting, as God notes, the
steps that did _not_ slip--never holding out the strong right hand of
help when the devil with a full larder was tugging furiously at their
skirts to pull them backward; but only saying "I told you so," when he,
laughing at your pharisaical stupidity, succeeded.
I must go a great way back of those hard, defiant faces, where hate of
their kind seems indelibly burnt in; back--back--to the soft blue sky of
infancy, overclouded before the little one had strength to contend with
the flashing lightning and pealing thunder of misfortune and poverty
which stunned and blinded his moral perceptions. I cannot see that
mournful procession of men, filing off into those dark cells, none too
dark, none too narrow, alas! to admit troops of devils, without wishing
that some white-winged angel might enter too; and when their shining
eyeballs peer at my retreating figure through the gratings, my heart
shrieks out in its pain--oh! believe that there is pity here--only pity;
and I hate the bolts and bars, and I say this is _not_ the way to make
bad men good; or, at least if it be, these convicts should not, when
discharged, be thrust out loose into the world with empty pockets, and a
bad name, to earn a speedy "through-ticket" back again. I say, if this
_be_ the way, let humanity not stop here, but take one noble step
forward, and when she knocks off the convict's fetters, and lands him on
the opposite shore, let her not turn her back and leave him there as if
her duty were done; but let her _there_ erect a noble institution where
he can find a _kind_ welcome and _instant_ employment; before
temptation, joining hands with his necessities, plunge him again
headlong into the gulf of sin.
And here seems to me to be the loose screw in these institutions;
admirably managed as many of them are, according to the prevalent ideas
on the subject. You may tell me that I am a woman, and know nothing
about it; and I tell you that I _want_ to know. I tell you, that I don't
believe the way to restore a man's lost self-respect is to degrade him
before his fellow-creatures; to brand him, and chain him, and poke him
up to show his points, like a hyena in a menagerie. No wonder that he
growls at you, and grows vicious; no wonder that he eats the food you
thrust between the bars of his cage with gnashing teeth, and a vow to
take it out of the world somehow, when he gets out; no wonder that he
thinks the Bible you place in his cell a humbug, and God a myth. I would
have you startle up his self-respect by placing him in a position to
show that you trusted him; I would have you give him something to hold
in charge, for which he is in honor responsible; appeal to his _better_
feelings, or if they smoulder almost to extinction, fan them into a
flame for him out of that remnant of God's image which the vilest can
never wholly destroy. _Anything but shutting a man up with hell in his
heart to make him good._ The devils may well chuckle at it. And above
all, tear down that taunting inscription over the prison-hall door at
Blackwell's Island--"The way of transgressors is hard"--and place
instead of it, "Neither do I condemn thee; go and sin no more."
Now, you can step aside, Mrs. Grundy; what I am about to write is not
for your over-fastidious ear. _You_, who take by the hand the polished
_roue_, and welcome him with a sweet smile to the parlor where sit your
young, trusting daughters; you, who "have no business with his private
life, so long as his manners are gentlemanly;" you who, while saying
this, turn away with bitter, unwomanly words from his penitent, writhing
victim. I ask no leave of _you_ to speak of the wretched girls picked
out of the gutters of New York streets, to inhabit those cells at
Blackwell's Island. I speak not to _you_ of what was tugging at my
heart-strings as I saw them, that beautiful summer afternoon, file in,
two by two, to their meals, followed by a man carrying a cowhide in his
hand, by way of reminder; all this would not interest you; but when you
tell me that these women are not to be named to ears polite, that our
sons and our daughters should grow up ignorant of their existence, I
stop my ears. As if they could, or did! As if they can take a step in
the public streets without being jostled or addressed by them, or pained
by their passing ribaldry; as if they could return from a party or
concert at night, without meeting droves of them; as if they could, even
in broad daylight, sit down to an ice-cream without having one for a
_vis-a-vis_. As if they could ride in a car or omnibus, or cross in a
ferry-boat, or go to a watering-place, without being unmistakably
confronted by them. No, Mrs. Grundy; you know all this as well as I do.
You would push them "anywhere out of the world," as unfit to live, as
unfit to die; _they_, the weaker party, while their partners in sin, for
whom you claim greater mental superiority, and who, by your own finding,
should be much better able to learn and _to teach_ the lesson of
self-control--to them you extend perfect absolution. Most consistent
Mrs. Grundy, get out of my way while I say what I was going to, without
fear or favor of yours.
If I believed, as legislators, and others with whom I have talked on
this subject, pretend to believe, they best know why, that God ever made
one of those girls for the life they lead, for this in plain Saxon is
what their talk amounts to, I should curse Him. If I could temporize as
they do about it, as a "necessary evil," and "always has been, and
always will be," and (then add this beautiful tribute to manhood) "that
pure women would not be safe were it not so"--and all the other budget
of excuses which this sin makes to cover its deformity--I would forswear
my manhood.
You say their intellects are small, they are mere animals, naturally
coarse and grovelling, Answer me this--are they, or are they not
_immortal_? Decide the question whether _this_ life is to be _all_ to
them. Decide before you shoulder the responsibility of such a girl's
future. Granted she has only _this_ life. God knows how much misery may
be crowded into that. But you say, "Bless your soul, why do you talk to
_me_? I have nothing to do with it; I am as virtuous as St. Paul." St.
Paul was a bachelor, and of course is not my favorite apostle; but
waiving that, I answer, you _have_ something to do with it when you talk
thus, and throw your influence on the wrong side. No matter how
outwardly correct your past life may have been, if you _really believe_
what you say, I would not give a fig for your virtue if temptation and
opportunity favored; and if you talk so for talk's sake, and do not
believe it, you had better "tarry at Jericho till your beard be grown."
But you say to me, "Oh, you don't know anything about it; men are
differently constituted from women; woman's sphere is home." That don't
suspend the laws of her being. That don't make it that she don't need
sympathy and appreciation. That don't make it that she is never weary
and needs amusement to restore her. Fudge. I believe in no difference
that makes this distinction. Women lead, most of them, lives of unbroken
monotony; and have much more need of exhilarating influences than men,
whose life is out of doors in the breathing, active world. Don't tell me
of shoemakers at their lasts, and tailors at their needles. Do either
ever have to lay down their customers' coats and shoes fifty times a
day, and wonder when the day is over why their work is _not_ done,
though they have struggled through fire and water to finish it? Do not
both tailor and shoemaker have at least the variation of a walk to or
from the shop to their meals? Do not their customers talk their beloved
politics to them while they stitch, and do not their "confreres" run for
a bottle of ale and crack merry jokes with them as their work
progresses? Sirs! if monotony is to be avoided in man's life as
injurious, if "variety" and exhilaration must always be the spice to his
pursuits, how much more must it be necessary to a sensitively organized
woman? If home is not sufficient (and I will persist that any
_industrious, virtuous, unambitious_ man, may have a home if he
chooses); if home is not sufficient for him, why should it suffice for
her? whose work is never done--who can have literally _no_ such thing as
system (and here's where a mother's discouragement comes in), while her
babes are in their infancy; who often says to herself at night, though
she would not for worlds part with one of them, "I can't tell what I
have accomplished to-day, and yet I have not been idle a minute;" and
day after day passes on in this way, and perhaps for weeks she does not
pass the threshold for a breath of air, and yet men talk of "monotony!"
and being "differently constituted," and needing amusement and
exhilaration; and "business" is the broad mantle which it is not always
safe for a wife to lift. I have no faith in putting women in a pound,
that men may trample down the clover in a forty-acre lot. But enough for
that transparent excuse.
The great Law-giver made no distinction of sex, as far as I can find
out, when he promulgated the seventh commandment, nor should we. You
tell me "society makes a difference;" more shame to it--more shame to
the women who help to perpetuate it. You tell me that infidelity on the
wife's part involves an unjust claim upon the husband and provider; and
I ask you, on the other hand, if a good and virtuous wife has not a
right to expect _healthy_ children?
Let both be equally pure; let every man look upon every woman,
whatsoever her rank or condition, as a sister whom his manhood is bound
to protect, even, if need be, against herself, and let every woman turn
the cold shoulder to any man of her acquaintance, how polished soever he
may be, who would degrade her sex. Then this vexed question would be
settled; there would be no such libels upon womanhood as I saw at
Blackwell's Island, driven in droves to their cells. No more human
traffic in those gilded palaces, which our children must not hear
mentioned, forsooth! though their very fathers may help to support them,
and which our tender-hearted legislators "can't see their way clear
about." Then our beautiful rivers would no longer toss upon our island
shores the "dead bodies of unfortunate young females."
_SHALL WE HAVE MALE OR FEMALE CLERKS?_
The question whether male or female clerks in stores are preferred by
shopping ladies, has lately been agitated. I do not hesitate to say that
the majority of ladies would much prefer the former.
There are reasons for this, apart from the natural and obvious
preference which women entertain for a coat and vest, before a chignon
and panier. Male clerks, as a general thing, confine their attention to
business; in other words, "mind what they are about." Female clerks are
too often taking an inventory of the way you dress your hair; of the cut
and trimming, and probable cost of your sacque and dress. No lady who
shops much can be unaware of the coroner's inquest, favorable or
otherwise, thus held over the dry-goods on her back. When you add to
this the momentous computations, whether her jewelry is bogus or real,
and where she got that love of a bonnet, there is grave room for fear
lest by mistake she should roll you up two yards of ribbon instead of
three, involving a journey back, to the disgust of yourself and your
dress-maker; or, worse still, if the day be stormy, oblige you to coax
your _dear_ Charles to let you pin a sample on the lappel of his coat,
and beg him just to stop a minute--there's a dear fellow--as he comes up
town, and bring it to you. Of course, he gets talking with Tom Jones on
politics, and forgets all about it, and only ejaculates, "pshaw!" when
your horror-stricken dress-maker asks you for it.
That's how it is, although I get my ears boxed for saying it.
Mind you, I don't say that it is _always_ so, no more than it is true
that all male clerks attend strictly to the business in hand. Still it
is true: that is really the fly in the ointment. In the words of the
little hymn,
"It is their nature to."
Women _always_ dissect each other the moment they meet, and never leave
so much as a hair-pin unmeasured. So, as you can't change their nature,
and as the instances are rare in which man, or woman either, can do two
things correctly at the same moment, what are you going to do about it?
Having said this much, I am happy to add that I have favorite stores for
shopping, where I am served by _female_ clerks with a promptness, a
politeness, an exactness and a dispatch, not to be exceeded by the
best-trained _male_ clerk in existence.
As to the silly girls and women who go shopping "for fun," and to make
eyes, and chatter with clerks, there is no question how _their_
preferences go on this question. We don't count their votes.
For myself, as my time is always limited, I desire _despatch_, first and
foremost, with an exactness involving no _postscript_ to my shopping;
and I would also prefer female clerks, if I could include this. In fact
I am willing, _in any case_, to give my vote for the female clerks, so
much do I desire that my own sex should be helped to help themselves.
* * * * *
FASHIONABLE DISEASE.--The day when it was considered interesting and
lady-like to be always ailing has gone by. Good health, fortunately, is
the fashion. A rosy cheek is no longer considered "vulgar," and a fair,
shapely allowance of flesh on the bones is considered the "style."
Perhaps the great secret that good looks cannot exist without good
health, may have had something to do with the care now taken to obtain
it; whether this be so or not, future generations are the gainers all
the same. A languid eye and a waxy, bloodless complexion, may go begging
now for admiration. The "elegant stoop" in the shoulders, formerly
considered so aristocratic, has also miraculously disappeared. Women
walk more and ride less; they have rainy-day suits of apparel, too,
which superfluity never was known to exist aforetime, sunshine being the
only atmosphere in which the human butterfly was supposed to float. In
short, "the fragile women of America" will soon exist only in the acid
journal of some English traveller, who will, of course, stick to the
by-gone fact as a still present reality, with a dogged pertinacity known
only to that amiable nation.
_UNKNOWN ACQUAINTANCES._
You have none? Then I am sorry for you. Much of my pleasure in my daily
walks is due to them. Perhaps you go over the ground mechanically, with
only dinner or business in your eye when you shall reach your journey's
end. Perhaps you "don't see a soul," as you express it. Perhaps you have
no "soul" yourself; only a body, of which you are very conscious, and
whose claims upon you outweigh every other consideration. That is a
pity. I wouldn't go round that treadmill for all the mines of Golconda.
It always makes me think of that melancholy old horse one sees, pawing
rotatory wood, at the way stations, on the railroad tracks; and because
the sight makes every bone in me ache, my particular window-seat in the
car is always sure to command a view of him. Now, come what will, I'll
not be that horse. _You_ may if you like, and I will cling to my dreams.
I sha'n't live in this world forever, and I won't hurry over the ground
and never see a sweet face as it flits past me, or a grand one, or a
sorrowful one. I won't be deaf to the rippling laugh of a little child
or the musical voice of a refined woman. It may be only two words that
she shall speak, but they shall have a pleasant significance for me.
Then there are strange faces I meet every day which I hope to keep on
meeting till I die. Who was such an idiot as to say that "no woman ever
sees beauty in another"? I meet every day a face that no man living
could admire more than myself; soulful as well as beautiful. Lovely
blue, pensive eyes; golden hair, waving over a pure white forehead;
cheeks like the heart of a "blush rose;" and a grieved little rosy
mouth, like that of a baby to whom for the first time you deny
something, fearing lest it grow too wilful. I think that day lost in
which I do not meet that sweet face, framed in its close mourning
bonnet. Were I a man it is to that face I should immediately "make
love."
_Make_ love? Alas! I did not think how terribly significant was this
modern term when I used it. Let no man _make_ love to that face. But if
there _is_ one who _can_ be in dead earnest, and _stay so_, I give my
consent, provided he will not attempt to change the expression of that
mouth.
I have another acquaintance. I don't care to ask "Who _is_ that man?" I
know that he has _lived_ his life and not slept it away. I know that it
has been a pure and a good one. It is written in his bright, clear,
unclouded eye; in his springing step; in the smile of content upon his
lip; in the lift of his shoulders; in the poise of his head; in the
free, glad look with which he breathes in his share of the warm
sunshine. Were he taken to the bedside of a sick man, it seems to me
the very sight of him were health.