necessary evil. No Rabbi could more utterly sniff down pork. Grease in
every form is tabooed; preserves and pastry sent to Coventry, or only
set before company, who have an undoubted right to kill themselves if
fashion requires it. The Joneses, when helping you at table, always
prefix the offered morsel with, Pray take it, it is so healthful; or, It
will assist your digestion; or, It is an excellent corrective; till the
association between potatoes and physic, meat and medicine, is so
intimate, that one ceases to regard these edibles in the light of food.
You are cautioned against veal because of necessity it must be _young_
meat; against fish, lest it may aggravate a possible scrofulous
tendency; against tea, because the leaves may have been dried on copper;
against milk, because you are unacquainted with the pedigree of the cow
from whence it came. Bread is microscopically inspected for imaginary
adulterations, and after all these precautions the timid Joneses,
restricted to the simplest forms of two or three permissible and
monotonous eatables, swallow even these nervously, and with an eye to
the undertaker; and if attacked by headache, submit to it meekly, as a
penance for some unknown infringement of nature's law.
Now the Adamses believe in _quantity_, not _quality_. An ounce of
paving-stones is as good as an ounce of mutton; in other words, you may
eat your grandmother with impunity, if you only confine yourself to a
small piece, and are jolly over it. Luckily for butchers, confectioners,
grocers, doctors, and sextons, each of these hobbies finds its
followers.
I believe in eating. The person who affects to despise it either
comforts himself with private bites, or is unfitted by disease to eat at
all. It does not disenchant me, as it does some, to see "a woman eat." I
know that the dear creatures cannot keep up their plumpness on saw-dust,
or the last "Lady's Book." I look at them as the future mothers of
healthy little children; and I say mentally, Eat, my dears, and be
satisfied; but be sure that you take a good walk after you have digested
your food. Still there may be limits to one's tolerance even in this
regard. The other morning, at a hotel breakfast, I had been
contemplating with great interest a fair creature, who took her seat
opposite to me, in all the freshness of a maiden's morning toilette.
Smooth hair, tranquil brow, blue eyes, and a little neat white collar
finishing off a very pretty morning-robe; and here you will permit me to
remark that, if women did but know it, but they don't, and never will, a
ball-room toilette is nothing to a neat breakfast dress. Well, my fairy
read the bill of fare, while I admired the long eyelashes that swept her
cheek. Straightway she raised her pretty head, and lisped this order to
the colored waiter at her elbow:
"John! Coffee, Fried Pigs' Feet, Fried Oysters, Omelette, Pork Steak."
_MANY MEN OF MANY MINDS._
It is very curious with what different eyes different people may look
upon the same object. Not long since a lady and gentleman in travelling
arrived at the hotel of one of our largest watering-places just at the
dinner-hour. The lady, preferring a warm meal to an elaborate toilette,
proposed going in "just as they were." Seating themselves in the places
designated by that important personage, the head waiter, they inspected
the tempting bill of fare, gave their orders, and bided their time,
longer or shorter, for their completion; the hotel being overcrowded, it
proved to be _longer_. The lady solaced herself by reviewing the guests.
Presently, touching her companion's arm, she exclaimed: "Look! did you
ever see a more beautiful woman? Look at her throat, and the poise of
her head, and her lovely profile. See! how she smiles! hasn't she a
lovely mouth?" "Pshaw!" replied the gentleman, "I dare say she's well
enough, but do you suppose that boiled mutton I ordered will ever
arrive?"
The other day a beautiful child came into an omnibus with its nurse. It
commenced smiling at all the passengers, pointing its tiny forefinger at
this one and that, by way of making acquaintance. One old gentleman in
the far comer responded by a series of signals with a red-silk pocket
handkerchief, to which the social little baby made ready response.
Another gentleman near, upon whose newspaper the smiling child laid its
hand with trusting fearlessness, looked over his spectacles at it with a
frown, gave an ugly grunt, and shortly turned his back, to prevent a
repetition of the familiarity.
"How did you like the Rev. Mr. ----'s sermon?" asked a gentleman of
another, as they were leaving the church. "Solid gold, every word of
it," replied he; "sound doctrine eloquently presented." "Strange!"
replied the querist; "for my own part, I was so disgusted, that I could
with difficulty keep my seat." "What! a minister raise a smile on the
faces of his audience in such a solemn place! I wonder what my old
pastor, Dr. Dry-Starch would have thought of such a proceeding! _He_
always taught us that this was a solemn world; and that the man who
laughed in it might very likely be laughing over the very spot where in
time he might be buried."
"How do you like Mr. Theophilus Tennant's new novel?" asked one lady of
another. "Well, if you want my honest opinion," replied the latter, "I
consider it a shallow, egotistical, inflated affair, whatever paid
critics may assert to the contrary." "Possible?" exclaimed the querist;
"why, I was so delighted with it that I had serious thoughts of
addressing a letter of thanks to the owner for the pleasure he had
afforded me, although I never saw or spoke to him."
"What a splendid specimen of a man!" exclaimed Miss Twenty to Mrs.
Thirty-five. "It makes one feel stronger and better to be in the same
room with him." "Heavens!" exclaimed the matron; "I can think of nothing
when I see him but a great, lumbering, overgrown, Newfoundland dog. A
man with so much surplus body to look after can't have much time for
anything else."
And so we might multiply instances _ad infinitum_ (which is about all
the Latin I know). For my own part I don't quarrel with that diversity
of taste which finds pretty wives for ugly husbands, fine, smart
husbands for silly women, full congregations for prosy ministers,
overflowing audiences for flat lecturers, and a reading parish,
notwithstanding her faults, for Fanny Fern.
_MY NOTION OF A WALKING COMPANION._
Of all small miseries, an uncongenial _walking companion_ is the most
annoying. Some people take a walk as they would study the multiplication
table. It is a necessary performance, to be got over as soon as
possible. I am not alluding to that class of human oyster, but to those
who, after close application, or the exhausting wear and fret of
everyday life, feel as though the four walls about them were gradually
contracting, and their chance for breath growing fainter and fainter; to
whom fresh air and the blue sky are as necessary as is dew and sunshine
to flowers; and like them, without which, they as certainly droop and
die;--such will understand what I mean by that misused term--_a walk_.
Not a dawdle, not a feminine "calling" tour; nor an errand of any sort,
for any purpose under heaven, that can be construed into business; but a
dreamy lounge, irrespective of anything but the cool feel of the air on
the heated temples, and the great, ceaseless, murmuring wave of life
beating against the shore of time, bearing you and others on its bosom
wheresoever God willeth. People pass you like moving shadows, you hear
the pleasant hum of their voices, but do not know in your
somnambulistic mood whether they are familiar faces or not. You only
thank God for unfettered limbs, and fresh air, and motion; beyond that,
for the time being, you desire to know nothing. Ah, _then_--to be
unexpectedly linked to some human fidget! Whose limbs jerk this way and
that, as if they were pulled by invisible wires; who goes first fast,
then slow; then pulls you up with a short jerk to look at something; who
bothers you with infinitesimal small talk; who ceaselessly interlards
inquiries which chain you remorselessly to the tug-boat of his or her
ideas, without leave of mental absence for one reprieving moment; and
all this very likely accompanied with the most friendly and amiable
intentions on the part of your entertainer (?). To say "No" and "Yes"
recklessly--and laugh in the wrong place, and go home a million times
more weary than when you started, beside feeling that you have
hopelessly excluded yourself from the list of sane human beings--that's
what I call misery.
But, ah! the ecstatic bliss of walking with one who thinks with you, as
he moves dreamily on without speech--to be free to utter or to be
silent, and no offence given or taken. To be allowed to wander leagues
off, without fear of being rudely jerked back to time, at any
unpropitious moment.
To turn this corner and that, by some mutual magnetic understanding,
that you smile at afterward, when you come to think of it, as strangely
funny and agreeable. To reach your own door-step as rested and
refreshed, and with as cool and tranquil a brow, as if your own mother
had sung you to sleep with the old-time nursery lullaby. To go back with
fresh heart and spirit, to take up your burden of duty where weary
nature had lain it hopelessly down. That's _my_ kind of "walk."
There are certain persons whom to meet is like opening the window of a
close apartment on a delicious June day. The first breath is an
inspiration. You throw back your locks from your heated forehead, and
your weary eyes, and ask nothing but to sit down and let this soother
minister to you. All your cares, and frets, one by one creep away, and a
new life and vigor seem infused into every nerve and muscle. You are not
the same creature that you were ten minutes before. You are ready after
all to do valiant battle with life, though you had supposed yourself
quite surrendered to its everyday, petty, and harassing tyrant
necessities. Exuberant animal strength must needs carry with it
hopefulness and courage; and they whose nerves have been strained and
weakened by past trouble, welcome the breezy, fresh influence of such,
like Heaven's own dew and sunshine. It is a tonic, the blessing of which
the unconscious giver knows not how to appreciate perhaps, but oh how
invaluable to the receiver! A soulful face, an exultant word--a light,
springing step! We raise our weary eyes first in wonder, then in
admiration; and the sympathetic chord thus struck--the brow clears, the
eyes brighten, and life seems--not the curse we morbidly thought it--but
the blessing God intended it.
_MEN TEACHERS IN GIRLS' SCHOOLS._
I am inclined to think, with all due deference to the powers that be,
that _male_ teachers are not best for young girls. It takes a woman, who
understands all the witcheries of the sex, and off whom they glance
harmless, like water off a turtle's back, to deal with these young
kittens; they have more fun than geography can absorb, and are not to be
feruled like a great cub of a boy, whose whole future life will be
license after jacketdom, as decreed by society and the laws; while a
severe woman-discipline surely awaits the most frolicsome girl,
beginning from the moment when she first learns what her heart is made
of, till death stills its yearnings.
And yet I pity a male teacher of girls, whose studied dignity is in a
second dethroned by a single pantomimic gesture of some bright-eyed
young flirt, who _feels_ her power without yet being old enough to
understand it, and with an instinctive coquetry gets on his blind side,
turning all his foreordained frowns into ill-suppressed smiles. How can
he box those little round ears? How can he disfigure those soft, white
palms? How can he--sending all the other pupils home--trust himself,
after school, alone with those bright eyes, to put them through a
subduing tear process? Ten to one the "subduing" is on the other side!
Said I to a little girl, not many mornings since, who was getting ready
for school, "Why do you put on that bright new dress to go, when your
old brown one would do as well?" "Oh," was her reply, "I haven't got my
lesson to-day, and of course I must look pretty." There's
fourteen-year-old female knowledge of human nature for you! Imagine a
boy putting on his best jacket for such a purpose.
There must be discipline, that's certain; but, in my opinion, a man's
head must be gray, not brown or black, if he would enforce it; his blood
must be cold and sluggish, and his ear deaf to the charmer, charm she
never so cunningly, or, certes, his magisterial chair will be set at
naught. Don't I know! Answer me, thou now "Reverend" gentleman, who once
kept me after school for a reprimand, and spent the precious moments
rolling my curls over your fingers, while my comrade was bursting off
her hooks and eyes as she peeped through the key-hole. Not that I uphold
it, but every animal naturally fights with the weapons a good Providence
has given it--and somehow or other I had found that out; though whether
France was bounded south by Rhode Island or not was still a mystery that
I was not in a hurry to solve.
Still, for all that, I pity a male teacher who is set to the impossible
task of making girls "behave." I _should_ pity them more, did I not
know that they keep them in school about four or five hours longer than
they ought. Did I not know what they know, but will persist practically
in ignoring, that the fun has got to come out somehow, or turn to poison
in the blood, and that if teachers won't give it whizzing time _out_ of
school, they must needs have it fly in their faces _in_ school. I should
pity them more, did I not, every day, see their pupils staggering home
under a pile of stupidly written school-books, fit only to kindle the
kitchen fire--thank goodness their little beaux sometimes save their
arms from dislocation, by gallantly carrying them home for them. Do I
approve of boy-beaux? Why not? Don't every rosebud draw its
humming-bird? Did not God make them both for this harmless, innocent
delight? You had _your_ boy-beaux, madam; I had mine, by the score. Only
teach your daughter to love you well enough to conceal nothing, however
minute, from you; only show her that you have a heart, and don't want
her to pluck out her's, and my word for it, no harm will come of her
"boy-beaux." It is your repression that does the mischief--your ignoring
your own youth and hers. The child who has leave to pluck the apple
often leaves it untouched, _undesired_, on the tree.
Meantime our male teacher stands there, with his hands in his pockets,
waiting to see what is to be done with _him_. Well, his pockets are the
best place for his hands when he is keeping a girls' school; and with
this advice I leave him, until he is sixty or so, when, if he chooses
to open a girls' school, I promise him at least, that he will not go to
sleep during the services.
Now let no conservative accuse me of upholding school rebellion. It is
because I do _not_ do this that I express my preference for women
teachers, both principals and assistants, for girls; having an
understanding of, and impervious to, girl witcheries, whom the little
rogues know, having been girls themselves, can see through them, and for
whom pretty looks or dresses will never answer instead of well-digested
lessons.
* * * * *
A SAFE AMUSEMENT.--All children are fond of animal pets, but it is so
difficult to manage such pets in a city that no family can indulge its
children's tastes in that respect to any great extent. No one can have
watched the children in the Central Park, as they gaze at and linger
over the bears and tigers and strange birds, without wishing that the
little zoologists had a wider field and better opportunities for
pursuing the study of natural history. There ought to be a permanent
collection of animals and birds in New York, in some good situation,
where children and young people could have ample opportunity, under
proper restrictions, to indulge their natural taste for natural history.
Every hour thus employed would be a safeguard against the myriad
temptations to vice and idleness which pervade the city.
_MY CALL ON "DEXTER."_
The other evening I went up to Fifty-sixth street to see the new stable.
Mr. BONNER was out, but his horses were not. Now I didn't go to see them
do their 2.40's, but to gaze at them artistically; and, of course, I
wanted them to stand long enough for me to do it, which I believe is
_not_ their normal condition. I had a fancy, too, for inspecting them
through the bars of their respective doors; for, you see, my nerves had
been thrown a little out of gear by a huge blood-hound, that made for me
as I was entering the stable-yard, but who, in consideration of my being
a _Ledger_ contributor, let me off easy in my boots.
Well, the first thing that struck my New England bred eyes was the
perfect neatness and polish and beauty, of every inch of floor and
ceiling in that stable. A place for everything, and everything in its
place, and Mrs. BONNER nothing to do with it either! Shining harness,
shining vehicles, big wheels and small seats, and nothing to hold on
to--but the natty reins; a perfectly awful reflection to me, but then
Mr. BONNER'S arm _is_ an arm! On the wall was something the size of a
full moon; _red_, with a fanciful oak frame. It looked like a huge
pincushion, and sure enough it was. Stuck full of wooden pins, to fasten
the blankets of those horses round their wicked, strong necks. If it
hadn't been for that blood-hound, which I heard sniffing round after me
from the outside, I should have inspected it more carefully; but it was
fastened to the wall near the door, and--well, I thought I'd pass on to
see _Dexter_. My dear! your new seal-skin sack isn't softer, browner,
nor more lovely than that creature's skin. And as to his tail, your
latest "switch" is nothing to it! Mr. BONNER not being present to
Rarey-fy him, he kicked out his hind leg at me in a very suggestive
manner; so, with an Oh, gracious! I requested to have his door closed,
for there was a glitter in his eye which was not at all Scriptural.
Besides, I once flew through Harlem Lane behind him, and didn't get the
color back into my lips for a week after. To compose myself I passed on
to _Lantern_, the Grandpa of the stable, though I _have_ known
Grandparents rather frisky in my day. He was reposing on his laurels,
and turned round his head to me as if to ask, Why don't you? Alas! I
have yet to earn them, and unlike him, I have to pin on my own blanket,
and comb my own hair, and buy my own shoes; that's why I don't, old
_Lantern_.
Then I went to see _Startle_, as if I needed startling any more, when I
had been muttering paternosters ever since I saw that horrid
blood-hound. Well, _Startle_ is a beauty, and he knew it too. Just like
a piece of satin, with his tail sweeping the floor. After I had looked
at the whole ten, I said to myself, if ever a man earned _the right_ to
all these beautiful creatures, ROBERT BONNER has, from the time he first
began to set types in a printing office, down, or rather _up_, to the
present day. Every proud moment that he enjoys them, in or out of that
handsome stable, he is fairly entitled to; and he is entitled to that
blood-hound, and I wouldn't rob him of that for the wide world!
* * * * *
LADIES "WITHOUT AN OBJECT."--Ladies often give as a reason why they do
not take exercise, "Oh, I don't like to go out without an object." Now
nothing could prove more clearly their deplorable physical condition
than this remark; since, to a well-organized frame, motion and fresh air
are positive daily necessities; irrespective of any "object," save the
cool play of the wind on the temples, and the healthful glow which
follows a brisk walk. Medicine is a joke to it. No doctor, be his
diploma ever so pretentious, could effect with simple means a more
magical result. Considered only as "a beautifier," we marvel that the
female portion of the community neglect it. A little chilliness in the
air? A little sprinkling of rain? A high wind? An inability to display a
fine dress? What puerile reasons for growing sallow, irritable, and
sick.
_THE POETRY OF WORK._
Executive people have generally the reputation, from their opposites, of
being ill-tempered people. Self-trained to the observance of the
admirable old maxim, that "whatever is worth doing at all, is worth
doing well," they are naturally disgusted with dawdling inefficiency and
sloth in any shape. Chary of the precious flying moments, the most
intolerable of vexations to them is to have their time trespassed upon,
and wasted, in a million petty and unnecessary ways, by the stupidity or
culpable thoughtlessness of those about them. Now what is called "an
easy person," _i.e._, a person who is not self-contained, on whose hands
time hangs heavily, cannot be made to understand why a person of an
opposite description need make a fuss about a few minutes. Why, "what is
a few minutes?" they ask. Much, much in the course of a lifetime to
those who carefully husband them. Those "few minutes" may make all the
difference between an educated and an uneducated person; between a man
independent in his circumstances, and a man always under the grinding
heel of want; all the difference between intelligence, thrift, and
system on one hand, and ignorance, discomfort, and disaster on the
other. Those "few minutes," carefully improved as they occur, have
filled libraries with profound and choice volumes; those "few minutes,"
saved for mental cultivation, have enabled men, and women too, to shed
over a life of toil a brightness which made even monotonous duty a
delight. Such can ill afford to be robbed of them by those unable to
appreciate their value. Like the infinitesimal gold scrapings of the
mint, they may not be purloined, or carelessly brushed away by idle
fingers; but conscientiously gathered up and accounted for; to be molten
and stamped with thought, then distributed to bless mankind.
What a pleasure it is _to see anything perfectly done_. I never go
"shopping" that I do not look on with admiration while the storekeeper
so deftly does up my parcels. I believe no _woman_ who has not acquired
the professional shopkeeping touch, can do this decently. I like, too,
to watch a group of men painting a house, provided the platform upon
which they stand is so strong that my blood does not curdle lest their
merry song should never be finished. With what a dexterous, careful,
delicate touch they brighten up the unsightly wall; there is fascination
to the looker-on in their skilful progress. Carpentering, too, I like;
what pretty, silky, curled shavings they plane off; how many times, when
a child, I placed them on my head for ringlets, have I mentally resolved
to be a carpenter's wife, that I might always have plenty. How sure the
stroke of their hammer upon the nail which a woman would bend, or break
in pieces, beside jamming her fingers to a jelly. Mark the sturdy
porter, too, as he tosses a huge "Saratoga trunk" lightly as a feather
upon his back, and poising it, marches up uncounted stairs without
tripping or bumping.
I like to see a strong man holding a fiery horse by a slight rein and a
strong will. I like to see the oarsman in his red-shirt sleeves, pulling
away over the sparkling water; I like to see the rough, red-faced
omnibus driver making change, halting, gesticulating, hallooing to
passers-by, all in the same breath. I like anything that is wide-awake
and efficient, and if it be beautiful at the same time, so much the
better. I like to see the cook toss eggs into a foam so nicely, with
head turned the other way, watching pots, skillets, and frying-pans, and
at the same time giving orders to half a dozen subordinates. I like to
see a milliner twist a ribbon into a thousand fanciful shapes while
talking, or selecting a rose from one box, a green spray from another,
then a spear of wheat, a daisy and a poppy, twine them together with an
artist's taste and touch. I like to see the dressmaker fit the glossy
silk to the curve of limbs as soft as the silky fabric. I like to see
the flushed pressman sliding the damp newspapers from the "form" without
a flaw or a wrinkle. I like to see a mother strip her little, tender
babe, and bathe its fragile limbs with that wonderful delicacy of touch
which mothers only know, singing, caressing, patting, and soothing, till
the lovely task is done. I like to see those little imps of newsboys
running indiscriminately between the legs of man and beast, yelling out
their precocious wisdom about "accidents and arrivals;" dodging under
carts, and coming out safe in wind and limb; thriving, in spite of dirt
and rags, to turn up some day, ten to one, in a big marble store up
town, as bookseller or publisher.
I am not at all sure, now that blessed chloroform is discovered by which
my faith in the predicted millennium has had a most vigorous quickening
(why _don't_ they build a statue to the discoverer?) that I could not
look on admiringly while the surgeon's knife wound amid veins and
arteries with almost omnipotent skill, his patient lying calm as a
sleeping infant the while.