“STUDY MEN, NOT BOOKS.”

Oh, but books are such safe company! They keep your secrets well;

_they_ never boast that they made your eyes glisten, or your cheek

flush, or your heart throb. You may take up your favorite author, and

love him at a distance just as warmly as you like, for all the sweet

fancies and glowing thoughts that have winged your lonely hours so

fleetly and so sweetly. Then you may close the book, and lean your

cheek against the cover, as if it were the face of a dear friend; shut

your eyes and soliloquise to your heart’s content, without fear of

misconstruction, even though you should exclaim in the fullness of your

enthusiasm, “What an _adorable soul that man has_!” You may put the

volume under your pillow, and let your eye and the first ray of morning

light fall on it together, and no Argus eyes shall rob you of that

delicious pleasure, no carping old maid, or strait-laced Pharisee shall

cry out, “_it isn’t proper!_” You may have a thousand petty, provoking,

irritating annoyances through the day, and you shall come back again

to your dear old book, and forget them all in _dream land_. It shall

be a friend that shall be always at hand; that shall never try you by

caprice, or pain you by forgetfulness, or wound you by distrust.

“Study _men_!”

Well, try it! I don’t believe there’s any _neutral territory_ where

that interesting study can be pursued as it should be. Before you get

to the end of the first chapter, they’ll be making love to you from the

mere force of habit--and because silks, and calicoes, and delaines,

naturally suggest it. It’s just as natural to them as it is to sneeze

when a ray of sunshine flashes suddenly in their faces. “Study men!”

That’s a game, my dear, that _two_ can play at. Do you suppose they are

going to sit quietly down and let you dissect their hearts, without

returning the compliment? No, indeed! that’s _where they differ

slightly from “books!”--they always expect an equivalent_.

Men are a curious study! Sometimes it pays to read to “the end of the

volume,” and then again, it don’t--mostly the latter!

“MURDER OF THE INNOCENTS;”

OR, HOME THE PLACE FOR MARRIED FOLKS

Happy Mrs. Emily! Freed from the thraldom of house keeping, and duly

installed mistress of a fine suite of rooms at ---- Hotel. No more

refractory servants to oversee, no more silver or porcelain to guard,

no more cupboards, or closets, or canisters to explore; no more pickles

or preserves to make; no more bills of fare to invent,--and over and

above all, mistress of a bell-wire which was not “tabooed” on washing

and ironing days.

Time to lounge on the sofa, and devour “yellow-covered literature;”

time to embroider caps, and collars, and chemisettes; time to

contemplate the pretty face where housekeeping _might_ have planted

“crows feet,” had she not fortunately foreseen the symptoms, and turned

her back on dull Care and all his croaking crew.

Happy Mrs. Emily! No bird let loose from a cage was ever more joyous;

not even her own little children--for she had two of them, and pretty

creatures they were too, with their cherry lips, and dimpled limbs, and

flaxen ringlets; and very weary they grew, of their gloomy nursery,

with its one window, commanding a view of a dingy shed and a tall

spectral-looking distilhouse chimney, emitting clouds of smoke and

suffocating vapor. Nannie, the nurse, didn’t fancy it, either, so she

spent her time in the lobbies and entries, challenging compliments

from white-jacketed waiters, while the children peeped curiously into

the half-open doors, taking drafts of cold air on their bare necks and

shoulders. Sometimes they balanced themselves alarmingly on the spiral

ballustrade, gazing down into the dizzy Babel below, inhaling clouds

of cigar smoke, and listening, with round-eyed wonder, to strange

conversations, which memory’s cud should chew, for riper years to

digest.

“No children allowed at the _table d’hôte_”--so the “hotel

regulations” pompously set forth--the landlord’s tablecloths,

gentlemen’s broadcloth, and ladies’ silk dresses being sworn foes

to _little Paul Pry fingers_. Poor little exiles! they took their

sorrowful meals in the servants’ hall, with their respective nurses,

the bill of fare consisting of a rehash of yesterday’s French dishes,

(spiced for the digestion of an ostrich.) This was followed by a

dessert of stale pastry and ancient raisins, each nurse _at the outset_

propitiating her infant charge with a huge bunch, that she might regale

herself with the substantials!--mamma, meanwhile, blissfully ignoring

the whole affair, absorbed in the sublime occupation of making German

worsted dogs.

Papa, too, had _his_ male millennium. No more marketing to do; no

more coal, or wood, or kindling to buy; no cistern, or pump, or gaspipe

to keep in repair. Such a luxury as it was to have a free pass to the

“smoking room,” (alias _bar-room_,) where the atmosphere was so dense

that he couldn’t tell the latitude of his nose, and surrounded by

“hale fellows well met.” His eldest boy accompanied him, listening, on

his knee, to questionable jokes, which he repeated at bed-time to pert

Nannie, the nurse, who understood their significance much better than

his innocent little lordship.

Papa, to be sure, had _some_ drawbacks, but they were VERY

trifling;--for instance, his shirts were quite buttonless, his dickeys

stringless, and his stockings had ventilator toes;--but then, how

could mamma be seen patching and mending in such an aristocratic

atmosphere?--she might lose caste; and as to Nannie, _her_ hands were

full, what with babies and billet-doux.

You should have seen Mrs. Emily in the evening; with sparkling eyes

and bracelets, flounced robe and daintily-shod feet, twisting her

Chinese fan, listening to moustached idlers, and recollecting, with a

shudder, the long Caudle evenings, _formerly_ divided between _her_

husband, _his_ newspaper, and _her_ darning-needle.

Then the _petite soupers_ at ten o’clock in the evening, where the

ladies were enchanting, the gentlemen _quite entirely_ irresistible;

where wit and champagne corks flew with equal celerity; and headaches,

and dyspepsia, and nightmare, lay _perdu_ amid fried oysters, venison

steaks, chicken salad, and _India-rubber, anti-temperance jellies_.

Then followed the midnight reünion in the drawing-room, where

promiscuous polkaing and waltzing, (seen through champagne fumes,)

seemed not only proper, but delightful.

It was midnight. There was hurrying to and fro in the entry halls and

lobbies; a quick, sharp cry for medical help; the sobs and tears of

an agonized mother, and the low moan of a dying child; for nature had

rebelled at last, at impure air, unwholesome food, and alternate heats

and chills.

“No hope,” the doctor said; “no hope,” papa mechanically repeated;

“_no hope!_” echoed inexorable Death, as he laid his icy finger on the

quivering little lips.

It was a dearly bought lesson. The Lady Emily never forgot it. Over

her remaining bud of promise she tearfully bends, finding her quiet

happiness in the healthful, sacred and safe retreat of the _home

fireside_.

AMERICAN LADIES.

“The American ladies, when promenading, cross their arms in

front, and look like trussed turkeys.”

Well, you ought to pity us, for we have no such escape-valves for

our awkwardness as you have--no dickeys to pull up--no vests to pull

down--no breast pockets, side pockets, flap pockets to explore--no

cigars between our teeth--no switch canes in our hands--no beavers to

twitch, when we meet an acquaintance. Don’t you yourselves oblige us to

reef in our rigging, and hold it down tight with our little paws over

our belts, under penalty of being dragged half a mile by one of your

buttons, when you tear past us like so many comets.

Is it any joke to us to stand _vis-a-vis_, with a strange man,

before a crowd of grinning spectators, while you are disentangling the

“Gordian knot,” instead of whipping out your penknife and sacrificing

your offending button, as you ought to do?

Is it any joke to see papa scowl, when we ask him for the “needful,”

to restore the lace or fringe you tore off our shawl or mantilla?

Do you suppose we can stop to walk _gracefully_, when our minds have

to be in a prepared state to have our pretty little toes crushed,

or our bonnets knocked off, or our skirts torn from our belts, or

ourselves and our gaiter boots jostled into a mud-puddle?

Do you _ever_ “keep to the right, as the law directs?” Don’t you

always go with your heads hindside before, and then fetch up against us

as if we were made of cast-iron? Don’t you put your great lazy hands

in your pockets, and tramp along with a cane half a mile long sticking

out from under your armpits, to the imminent danger of our optics?

“_Trussed turkeys_” indeed! No wonder, when we are run a-_fowl_ of

every other minute.

THE STRAY SHEEP.

“He’s going the wrong way--straying from the true fold; going off

the track,” said old Deacon Green, shaking his head ominously, as he

saw young Neff enter a church to hear an infidel preacher. “Can’t

understand it; he was taught his catechism and ten commandments as soon

as he could speak; he knows the right way as well as our parson; I

can’t understand it.”

Harry Neff had never seen a day pass since his earliest childhood,

that was not ushered in and closed with a family prayer. He had not

partaken of a repast upon which the divine blessing was not invoked;

the whole atmosphere of the old homestead was decidedly orthodox.

Novels, plays and Byronic poetry were all vetoed. Operas, theatres

and the like most decidedly frowned upon; and no lighter literature

was allowed upon the table, than missionary reports and theological

treatises.

Most of his father’s guests being clergymen, Harry was early made

acquainted with every crook and turn of orthodoxy. He had laid up

many a clerical conversation, and pondered it in his heart, when they

imagined his thoughts on anything but the subject in debate. At his

father’s request, they had each and all taken him by the button, for

the purpose of long, private conversations--the old gentleman generally

prefacing his request by the remark that “his heart was as hard as a

flint.”

Harry listened to them all with respectful attention, manifesting no

sign of impatience, no nervous shrinking from the probing process, and

they left him, impressed with a sense of his mental superiority, but

totally unable to affect his feelings in the remotest degree.

Such a pity! they all said, that he should be so impenetrable; such

wonderful argumentative powers as he had; such felicity of expression;

such an engaging exterior. Such a pity! that on all these brilliant

natural gifts should not have been written, “Holiness to the Lord.”

Yes, dear reader, it _was_ a pity. Pity, when our pulpits are

so often filled with those, whose only recommendation for their

office is a good heart and a black coat. It was a pity that graceful

gesticulation, that rare felicity of expression, that keen perception

of the beautiful, that ready tact and adaptation to circumstances and

individuals, should not have been effective weapons in the _gospel

armory_. Pity, that voice of music should not have been employed, to

chain the worldling’s fastidious ear to listen to Calvary’s story.

Yet it was a pity that glorious intellect had been laid at an unholy

shrine; pity “he had strayed from the true fold.” How was it?

Ah! the solution is simple. “Line upon line, precept upon precept,”

is well--but _practice is better_! Religion _must not be all

lip-service_; the “fruits of love, meekness, gentleness, forbearance,

long-suffering” must follow. Harry was a keen observer. He had often

heard the harsh and angry word from lips upon which the Saviour’s name

had just lingered. He had felt the unjust, quick, passionate blow

from the hand which a moment before had been raised in supplication

to Heaven. He had seen the purse-strings relax at the bidding of

worldliness, and tighten at the call of charity. He had seen principle

sacrificed to policy, and duty to interest. He had himself been

misappreciated. The shrinking sensitiveness which drew a vail over his

most sacred feelings, had been harshly construed into hard-heartedness

and indifference. Every duty to which his attention was called, was

prefaced with the supposition that he was averse to its performance.

He was cut off from the gay pleasures which buoyant spirits and

fresh young life so eloquently plead for; and in their stead no

innocent enjoyment was substituted. He saw Heaven’s gate shut most

unceremoniously, upon all who did not subscribe to the parental creed,

outraging both his own good sense and the teachings of the Bible; and

so religion, (which should have been rendered so lovely,) put on to him

an ascetic form. Oh, what marvel that the flowers in the broad road

were so passing fair to see? that the forbidden fruit of the “tree of

knowledge” was so tempting to the youthful touch?

Oh, Christian parent! be consistent, be judicious, be _cheerful_. If

as historians inform us, “no smile ever played” on the lips of Jesus of

Nazareth, surely _no frown marred the beauty of that holy brow_.

Dear reader, _true_ religion is _not_ gloomy. “Her ways _are_ ways

of pleasantness, her paths _are_ peace.” No man, no woman, has chart or

compass, or guiding star, without it.

Religion is not a _fable_. Else why, when our household gods are

shivered, do our tearful eyes seek only Heaven?

Why, when disease lays its iron grasp on bounding life, does the

startled soul so earnestly, _so_ tearfully, _so_ imploringly, call on

its forgotten Saviour?

Ah! the house “built upon the sand” may do for sunny weather; but when

the billows roll, and tempests blow, and lightnings flash, and thunders

roar, _we need the_ “_Rock of Ages_.”

THE FASHIONABLE PREACHER.

Do you call _this_ a church? Well, I heard a prima-donna here a few

nights ago: and bright eyes sparkled, and waving ringlets kept time

to moving fans; and opera glasses and ogling, and fashion and folly

reigned for the nonce triumphant. _I_ can’t forget it; I can’t get

up any devotion _here_, under these latticed balconies, with their

fashionable freight. If it were a good old country church, with a

cracked bell and unhewn rafters, a pine pulpit, with the honest sun

staring in through the windows, a pitch-pipe in the gallery, and a few

hob-nailed rustics scattered round in the uncushioned seats, I should

feel all right; but my soul is in fetters here; it won’t soar--its

wings are earth-clipped. Things are all too fine! Nobody can come in at

that door, whose hat and coat and bonnet are not fashionably cut. The

poor man (minus a Sunday suit) might lean on his staff; in the porch,

a long while, before he’d dare venture in, to pick up _his_ crumb of

the Bread of Life. But, thank God, the unspoken prayer of penitence may

wing its way to the Eternal Throne, though our mocking church spires

point only with _aristocratic fingers_ to the _rich man’s heaven_.

--That hymn was beautifully read; there’s poetry in the preacher’s

soul. Now he takes his seat by the reading-desk; now he crosses the

platform, and offers his hymn-book to a female who has just entered.

What right has _he_ to know there is a woman in the house? ’Tisn’t

clerical! Let the bonnets find their own hymns.

Well, I take a listening attitude, and try to believe I am in church.

I hear a great many original, a great many _startling_ things said.

I see the gauntlet thrown at the dear old orthodox sentiments which

I nursed in with my mother’s milk, and which (please God) I’ll cling

to till I die. I see the polished blade of satire glittering in the

air, followed by curious, eager, youthful eyes, which gladly see the

searching “Sword of the Spirit” parried. Meaning glances, smothered

smiles and approving nods follow the witty clerical sally. The orator

pauses to mark the effect, and his face says, That stroke _tells_! and

so it did, for “the Athenians” are not all dead, who “love to see and

hear some new thing.” But he has another arrow in his quiver. Now his

features soften--his voice is low and thrilling, his imagery beautiful

and touching. He speaks of human love; he touches skilfully a chord to

which every heart vibrates; and stern manhood is struggling with his

tears, ere his smiles are chased away.

Oh, there’s intellect there--there’s poetry there--there’s genius

there; but I remember Gethsemane--I forget not Calvary! I know the

“rocks were rent,” and the “heavens darkened,” and “the stone rolled

away;” and a cold chill strikes to my heart when I hear “Jesus of

Nazareth” lightly mentioned.

Oh, what are intellect, and poetry, and genius, when with Jewish

voice they cry, “_Away with_ HIM!”

With “Mary,” let me “bathe his feet with my tears, and wipe them with

the hairs of my head.”

And so, I “went away sorrowful,” that this human preacher, with

such great intellectual possessions, should yet “lack the _one thing

needful_.”

“CASH.”[A]

Don’t think I’m going to perpetrate a monetary article. No fancy that

way! I ignore anything approaching to a _stock_! I refer now to that

omnipresent, omniscient, ubiquitous, express-train little victim, so

baptized in the dry-goods stores, who hears nothing but the everlasting

word cash dinned in his juvenile ears from matin to vespers; whose

dangerous duty it is to rush through a crowd of expectant and impatient

feminines, without suffering his jacket-buttons to become too

intimately acquainted with the fringes of their shawls, or the laces

of their mantillas! and to dodge so dexterously as not to knock down,

crush under foot, or otherwise damage the string of juveniles that said

women are bound to place as obstructions in said “Cash’s” way!

See him double, and turn, and twist, like a rabbit in a wood, while

that word of command flies from one clerk’s lip to another. Poor,

demented little Cash! Where _is_ your anxious maternal? Who finds you

in patience and shoe leather? Does your pillow ever suggest anything

to your weary brain but pillarless quarters, and crossed sixpences,

and faded bank bills? When do you find time, you poor little victim,

to comb your hair, digest your victuals, and say your catechise? Do

you ever look back with a sigh to the days of peppermints, peanuts

and pinafores? Or forward, in the dim distance, to a vision of a

long-tailed coat, a high-standing dickey, and no more “_Cash_,” save in

your pantaloons’ pocket? Don’t you ever catch yourself wishing that a

certain rib of Adam’s had never been subtracted from his paradisiacal

side?

Poor, miserable little Cash! you have my everlasting sympathy! I

should go shopping twenty times, where I now go once, didn’t it harrow

up my feelings to see you driven on so, like a locomotive! “Here’s

hoping” you may soon be made sensible of more than _one_ meaning to the

word CHANGE!

[A] The boy employed in stores to fetch and carry change.

ONLY A CHILD.

“Who is to be buried here?” said I to the sexton. “Only a child,

ma’am.”

_Only_ a child! Oh! had you ever been a mother--had you nightly

pillowed that little golden head--had you slept the sweeter for that

little velvet hand upon your breast--had you waited for the first

intelligent glance from those blue eyes--had you watched its cradle

slumbers, tracing the features of him who stole your girlish heart

away--had you wept a widow’s tears over its unconscious head--had your

desolate, timid heart gained courage from that little piping voice, to

wrestle with the jostling crowd for daily bread--had its loving smiles

and prattling words been sweet recompense for such sad exposure--had

the lonely future been brightened by the hope of that young arm to lean

upon, that bright eye for your guiding star--had you never framed a

plan, or known a hope or fear, of which that child was not a part;--if

there was naught else on earth left for you to love--if disease came,

and its eye grew dim; and food, and rest, and sleep were forgotten in

your anxious fears--if you paced the floor, hour by hour, with that

fragile burden, when your very touch seemed to give comfort and healing

to that little quivering frame--had the star of hope set at last--had

you hung over its dying pillow, when the strong breast you should

have wept on was in the grave, where your child was hastening--had

you caught _alone_ its last faint cry for the “_help_” you could

not give--had its last fluttering sigh been breathed out on _your_

breast--Oh! could you have said--“’Tis _only_ a child?”

MR. PIPKIN’S IDEAS OF FAMILY RETRENCHMENT.

Mrs. Pipkin, I am under the disagreeable necessity of informing you,

that our family expenses are getting to be enormous. I see that carpet

woman charged you a dollar for one day’s work. Why, that is positively

a man’s wages;--such presumption is intolerable. Pity you did not make

it yourself, Mrs. Pipkin; wives ought to lift their end of the yoke;

that’s my creed.

_Little Tom Pipkin._--Papa, may I have this bit of paper on the

floor? it is your tailor’s bill--says, “$400 for your last year’s

clothes.”

_Mr. Pipkin._--Tom, go to bed, and learn never to interrupt your

father when he is talking. Yes, as I was saying, Mrs. Pipkin, wives

should hold up their end of the yoke; and it is high time there was a

little retrenchment here; superfluities must be dispensed with.

_Bridget._--Please, sir, there are three baskets of champagne just

come for you, and four boxes of cigars.

_Mr. Pipkin._--Will you please lock that door, Mrs. Pipkin, till I

can get a chance to say what I have to say to you on this subject. I

was thinking to-day, that you might dispense with your nursery maid,

and take care of baby yourself. He don’t cry much, except nights;

and since I’ve slept alone up stairs, I don’t hear the little tempest

at all. It is really quite a relief--that child’s voice is a perfect

ear-splitter.

I think I shall get you, too, to take charge of the marketing and

providing, (on a stipulated allowance from me, of course,) it will give

me so much more time to----attend to _business_, Mrs. Pipkin. I shall

take my own dinners down town at the ---- House. I hear Stevens is an

excellent “caterer;” (though that’s nothing to me, of course, as my

only object in going is to meet business acquaintances from different

parts of the Union, to drive a bargain, &c., &c.)

Well--it will cost you and the children little or nothing for your

dinners. There’s nothing so disgusting to a man of refinement, like

myself, as to see a _woman_ fond of eating; and as to children, any

fool knows they ought not to be allowed to stuff their skins, like

little anacondas. Yes, our family expenses are enormous. My partner

sighed like a pair of bellows at that last baby you had, Mrs. Pipkin;

oh, it’s quite ruinous--but I can’t stop to talk now, I’m going to try

a splendid horse which is offered me at a bargain--(too frisky for you

to ride, my dear, but just the thing for me.)

You had better dismiss your nursery girl this afternoon; that will

begin to look like retrenchment. Good-bye; if I am not home till late,

don’t sit up for me, as I have ordered a supper at ---- House for my

old friend, Tom Hillar, of New Orleans. We’ll drink this toast, my

dear: “Here’s hoping the last little Pipkin may never have his nose put

out of joint.”

A CHAPTER FOR NICE OLD FARMERS.

Can anybody tell why country people so universally and pertinaciously

persist in living in the _rear of the house_? Can anybody tell why the

front door and windows are never opened, save on Fourth of July and at

Thanksgiving time? Why Zedekiah, and Timothy, and Jonathan, and the

old farmer himself, must go _round_ the house in order to get _into_

it? Why the whole family (oblivious of six empty rooms,) take their

“vapor bath,” and their meals, simultaneously, in the vicinity of a

red hot cooking range, in the dog-days? Why the village artist need

paint the roof, and spout, and window frames bright crimson, and the

doors the color of a mermaid’s tresses? Why the detestable sunflower

(which I can never forgive “Tom Moore” for noticing) must always flaunt

in the garden? Why the ungraceful prim poplar, fit emblem of a stiff

old bachelor, is preferred to the swaying elm, or drooping willow, or

majestic horse-chestnut.

I should like to pull down the green paper window-curtains, and hang

up some of snowy muslin. I should like to throw wide open the hall

door, and let the south wind play through. I should like to go out into

the woods, and collect fresh, sweet wild-flowers to arrange in a vase,

in place of those defunct dried grasses, and old-maid “everlastings.”

I should like to show Zedekiah how to nail together some bits of board,

for an embryo lounge; I should like to stuff it with cotton, and cover

it with a neat “patch.” I should like to cushion the chairs after the

same fashion. Then I should like, when the white-haired old farmer came

panting up the road at twelve o’clock, with his scythe hanging over

his arm, to usher him into that cool, comfortable room, set his bowl

of bread and milk before him, and after he had discussed it, coax him

(instead of tilting back on the hind legs of a hard chair,) to take a

ten-minutes nap on my “model” sofa, while I kept my eye on the clouds,

to see that no thunder shower played the mischief with his hay.

I should like to place a few common-sense, practical books on the

table, with some of our fine daily and weekly papers. You may smile;

but these inducements, and the comfortable and pleasant air of the

apartment, would bring the family oftener together after the day’s

toil, and by degrees they would lift the covers of the books, and turn

over the newspapers. Constant interchange of thought, feeling and

opinion, with discussions of the important and engrossing questions of

the day, would of course necessarily follow.

The village tavern-keeper would probably frown upon it; but I will

venture to predict for the inmates of the farm-house a growing love for

“home,” and an added air of intelligence and refinement, of which they

themselves might possibly be unconscious.

MADAME ROUILLON’S “MOURNING SALOON.”

“You needn’t make that dress ‘deep mourning,’ Hetty; the lady who

ordered it said it was only her sister for whom she was to ‘mourn.’ A

three-quarter’s length vail will answer; and I should introduce a few

jet bugles round the bonnet trimmings. And, by the way, Hetty, Mrs. La

Fague’s husband has been dead now nearly two months, so that new dress

of hers will admit of a little alleviation in the style of trimming--a

few knots of love-ribbon on the boddice will have a softening effect;

and you must hem a thin net vail for her bonnet;--it’s almost time for

her to be ‘out of mourning.’

--“And, Hetty, run down to Stewart’s, right away, and see if he has

any more of those grief-bordered pocket-handkerchiefs. Mr. Grey’s

servant said the border must be full an inch deep, as his master

wished it for his wife’s funeral, and it is the eighth time within

eight years that the poor afflicted man has suffered a similar

calamity. Remember, Hetty,--an inch deep, with a tomb-stone and a

weeping-willow embroidered on the corner, with this motto: ‘Hope never

dies;’--and, Hetty, be sure you ask him what is the latest style for

‘_half_-mourning’ for grandmothers, mothers-in-law, country cousins,

and poor relations. _Dépèchezvous_, Hetty, for you have six ‘weepers’

(weeds) to take off the six Mr. Smiths’ hats. Yes, I know you ‘only put

them on last week;’ but they are going to Philadelphia, where nobody

knows them, and, of course, it isn’t necessary to ‘mourn’ for their

mother there.

--“What are you staring at, child? You are as primitive as your

fore-mother Eve. This ‘mourning’ is probably an invention of Satan

to divert people’s minds from solemn subjects, but that’s nothing to

me, you know; so long as it fills my pocket, I’m in league with his

Majesty.”

FASHION IN FUNERALS.

“It has become _unfashionable_ in New-York for ladies to attend

funerals to the grave. _Even the mother may not accompany the

little lifeless form of her beloved child beyond the threshold

without violating the dread laws of Fashion._”

Are there such mothers? Lives there one who, at Fashion’s bidding,

stands back, nor presses her lips to the little marble form that once

lay warm and quivering beneath her heart-strings?--who with undimmed

eye recalls the trusting clasp of that tiny hand, the loving glance

of that vailed eye, the music of that merry laugh--its low, pained

moan, or its last fluttering heart-quiver?--who would not (rather

than strange hands should touch the babe,) _herself_ robe its dainty

limbs for burial?--who shrinks not, starts not, when the careless,

business hand would remove the little darling from its cradle-bed,

where loving eyes so oft have watched its rosy slumbers, to its last,

cold, dreamless pillow?--who lingers not, _when all have gone_, and

vainly strives, with straining eye, to pierce _below_ that little

fresh laid mound?--who, when a merry group go dancing by, stops not,

with sudden thrill, to touch some sunny head, or gaze into some soft

blue eye, that has oped afresh the fount of her tears, and sent to

the troubled lips the murmuring heart-plaint, “Would to God I had

died for thee, my child--my child?”--who, when the wintry blast comes

eddying by, sleeps not, because she cannot fold to her warm breast

the little lonely sleeper in the cold churchyard? And oh! is there

one, who, with such “treasure laid up in Heaven,” clings not the less

to earth, strives not the more to keep her spirit undefiled, fears not

the less the dim, dark valley, cheered by a cherub voice, inaudible

save to the dying _mother_? Oh, stony-eyed, stony-hearted, relentless

Fashion! turn for us day into night, if thou wilt; deform our women;

half clothe, with flimsy fabric, our victim children; wring the last

penny from the sighing, overtasked, toiling husband; _banish to the

backwoods thy country cousin_, Comfort; reign supreme in the banquet

hall; revel undisputed at the dance;--but when that grim guest, whom

none invite--whom none dare deny--strides, with defiant front, across

our threshold, stand back, thou heartless harlequin, and leave us alone

with our dead: so shall we list the lessons those voiceless lips should

teach us--

“All is vanity.”

HOUSEHOLD TYRANTS.

“A HUSBAND may kill a wife gradually, and be no more

questioned than the grand seignor who drowns a slave at

midnight.”--_Thackeray, on Household Tyrants._

Oh! Mr. Thackeray! I ought to have known from experience, that

beauty and brains never travel in company--but I _was_ disenchanted

when I first saw your nose, and I _did_ say that you were too stout

to look intellectual. But I forgive you in consideration of the above

paragraph, which, for truth and candor, ought to be appended to the

four Gospels.

I’m on the marrow bones of my soul to you, Mr. Thackeray. I honor you

for “turning State’s evidence” against your own culprit-sex. If there’s

any little favor I can do for you, such as getting you naturalized,

(for you are a sight too cute and clever for an Englishman,) I’ll fly

round and get the documents made out for you to-morrow.

I tell you, Mr. Thackeray, the laws over here allow husbands to break

their wives’ _hearts_ as much as they like, so long as they don’t break

their _heads_. So the only way we can get along, is to allow them to

scratch our faces, and then run to the police court, and shew “his

Honor” that Mr. Caudle can “_make his mark_.”

Why--if we were not _cunning_, we should get circumvented all the

time by these domestic Napoleons. Yes, indeed; we sleep with one eye

open, and “get up early in the morning,” and keep our arms a-kimbo.

--By-the-way, Mr. Thackeray, what do you think of us, _as a

people_?--taking us “by and large,” as our honest farmers say.

P-r-e-t-t-y tall nation for a _growing_ one; don’t you think so?

Smart men--smarter women--good broad streets--no smoking or spitting

allowed in ’em--houses all built with an eye to architectural

beauty--newspapers don’t tell how many buttons you wear on your

waistcoat--Jonathan never stares at you, as if you were an imported

hyena, or stirs you up with the long pole of criticism, to see your

size and hear your roar. Our politicians never whip each other on the

floor of Congress, and grow black in the face because their _choler_

chokes them! No mushroom aristocracy over here--no “coats of arms”

or liveried servants: nothing of that sham sort, in our “great and

glorious country,” as you have probably noticed. If you are “round

takin’ notes,” I’ll jog your English elbow now and then. Ferns have

eyes--and they are not green, either.

WOMEN AND MONEY.

“A wife shouldn’t ask her husband for money at

meal-times.”--_Exchange._

By no manner of means; _nor at any other time_; because, it is to

be hoped, he will be gentlemanly enough to spare her that humiliating

necessity. Let him hand her his porte-monnaie every morning, with

_carte-blanche_ to help herself. The consequence would be, she would

lose all desire for the contents, and hand it back, half the time

without abstracting a single _sou_.

It’s astonishing men have no more diplomacy about such matters. _I_

should like to be a husband! There _are_ wives whom I verily believe

might be trusted to make way with a ten dollar bill without risk to

the connubial donor! I’m not speaking of those doll-baby libels upon

womanhood, whose chief ambition is to be walking advertisements for

the dressmaker; but a rational, refined, sensible woman, who knows how

to look like a lady upon small means; who would both love and respect

a man less for requiring an account of every copper; but who, at the

same time, would willingly wear a hat or garment that is “out of date,”

rather than involve a noble, generous-hearted husband in unnecessary

expenditures.

I repeat it--“It _isn’t every man who has a call to be a husband._”

Half the married men should have their “licenses” taken away, and the

same number of judicious bachelors put in their places. I think the

attention of the representatives should be called to this. They can’t

expect to come down to town and peep under all the ladies’ bonnets the

way they do, and have all the newspapers free gratis, and two dollars a

day besides, without “paying their way!”

It’s none of _my_ business, but I question whether their wives,

whom they left at home, stringing dried apples, know how spruce they

look in their new hats and coats, or how facetious they grow with

their landlady’s daughter; or how many of them pass themselves off for

bachelors, to verdant spinsters. Nothing truer than that little couplet

of _Shakspeare’s_--

“When the cat’s away

The mice _will_ play.”

THE SICK BACHELOR.

Here I am, a doomed man--booked for a fever, in this gloomy room, up

four flights of stairs; nothing to look at but one table, two chairs,

and a cobweb; pulse racing like a locomotive; head throbbing as if it

were hooped with iron; mouth as parched as Ishmael’s in the desert;

not a bell-rope within reach; sun pouring in through those uncurtained

windows, hot enough to singe off my eye-lashes; all my confidential

letters lying loose on the table, and I couldn’t get up to them if

you held one of Colt’s revolvers to my head. All my masculine friends

(?) are parading Broadway, I suppose; peeping under the pretty girls’

bonnets, or drinking “sherry cobblers.” A sherry cobbler! Bacchus! what

a luxury! I believe Satan suggested the thought to me.

Heigh-ho! I suppose the Doctor (whom they have sent for) will come

before long; some great, pompous Æsculapius, with an owl phiz, a

gold-headed cane, an oracular voice, and callous heart and hands;

who will first manipulate my wrist, and then take the latitude and

longitude of my tongue; then, he will punch me in my ribs, and torment

me with more questions than there are in the Assembly’s Catechism;

then, he’ll bother me for writing materials, to scratch off a

hieroglyphic humbug prescription, ordering five times as much medicine

as I need; then, I shall have to pay for it; then, ten to one, the

apothecary’s boy will put up poison, by mistake! Cæsar! how my head

spins round; Hippodrome racing is nothing to it.

Hist! there’s the Doctor. No! it is that little unregenerate cub, my

landlady’s pet boy, with a bran new drum (as I’m a sinner), upon which

he is beating a crucifying tattoo. If I only had a boot-jack to throw

at him. No! that won’t do: his mother wouldn’t make my gruel. I’ll

bribe him with a sixpence, to keep the peace. The little embryo Jew! he

says _he won’t do it under a quarter_! Twitted by a little pinafore!

_I_, Tom Haliday, six feet in my stockings! I shall go frantic.

“Doctor is coming!” Well, let him come. I’m as savage as if I’d just

dined off a cold missionary. I’ll pretend to be asleep, and let old

Pill-box experiment.

How gently he treads: how soft his hand is: how cool and delicious

his touch! How tenderly he parts my hair over my throbbing temples!

His magnetic touch thrills every drop of blood in my veins: it is

marvellous how soothing it is. I feel as happy as a humming-bird in a

lily cup, drowsy with honeydew. Now he’s moved away. I hear him writing

a prescription. I’ll just take a peep and see what he looks like. Cæsar

Aggripina! if it isn’t a _Female Physician_! dainty as a Peri--_and my

beard three days old_! What a bust! (Wonder how my hair looks?) What

a foot and ankle! What shoulders; what a little round waist. Fever?

I’ve got _twenty_ fevers, and the heart-complaint besides. What the

mischief sent that little witch here? She will either kill or cure me,

pretty quick.

Wonder if she has any more _masculine_ patients? Wonder if they

are handsome? Wonder if she lays that little dimpled hand on _their_

foreheads, as she did on mine? Now she has done writing, I’ll shut my

eyes and groan, and then, may be, she will _pet_ me some more; bless

her little soul!

She says, “poor fellow!” as she holds my wrist, “his pulse is too

quick.” In the name of Cupid, what does she _expect_? She says, as she

pats my forehead with her little plump fingers, “’Sh--’sh! Keep cool.”

Lava and brimstone! does she take me for an iceberg?

Oh, Cupid! of all your devices, this feminine doctoring for a

bachelor, is the _ne plus ultra_ of witchcraft. If I don’t have a

prolonged “run of fever,” my name isn’t Tom Haliday!

She’s gone! and--I’m gone, too!

A MOTHER’S INFLUENCE.

“And so you sail to-morrow, Will? I shall miss you.”

“Yes; I’m bound to see the world. I’ve been beating my wings in

desperation against the wires of my cage these three years. I know

every stick, and stone, and stump in this odious village by heart, as

well as I do those stereotyped sermons of Parson Grey’s. They say he

calls me ‘a scapegrace’--pity I should have the name without the game,”

said he, bitterly. “I haven’t room here to run the length of my chain.

I’ll show him what I can do in a wider field of action.”

“But how did you bring your father over?”

“Oh, he’s very glad to be rid of me; quite disgusted because I’ve no

fancy for seeing corn and oats grow. The truth is, every father knows

at once too much and too little about his own son; the old gentleman

never understood me; he soured my temper, which is originally none of

the best, roused all the worst feelings in my nature, and is constantly

driving me _from_ instead of _to_ the point he would have me reach.”

“And your mother?”

“Well, there you have me; that’s the only humanized portion of my

heart--the only soft spot in it. She came to my bed-side last night,

after she thought I was asleep, gently kissed my forehead, and then

knelt by my bed-side. Harry, I’ve been wandering round the fields all

the morning, to try to get rid of that prayer. Old Parson Grey might

preach at me till the millennium, and he wouldn’t move me any more than

that stone. It makes all the difference in the world when you know a

person _feels_ what they are praying about. I’m wild and reckless and

wicked, I suppose; but I shall never be an infidel while I can remember

my mother. You should see the way she bears my father’s impetuous

temper; that’s _grace_, not _nature_, Harry; but don’t let us talk

about it--I only wish my parting with her was well over. Good-bye;

God bless you, Harry; you’ll hear from me, if the fishes don’t make a

supper of me;” and Will left his friend and entered the cottage.

Will’s mother was moving nervously and restlessly about, tying up all

sorts of mysterious little parcels that only mothers think of, “in case

he should be sick,” or in case he should be this, that, or the other,

interrupted occasionally by exclamations like this from the old farmer:

“Fudge--stuff--great overgrown baby--making a fool of him--never be out

of leading strings;” and then turning short about and facing Will as he

entered, he said,

“Well, sir, look in your sea-chest, and you’ll find gingerbread and

physic, darning-needles and tracts, ‘bitters’ and Bibles, peppermint

and old linen rags, and opodeldoc. Pshaw! I was more of a man than you

are when I was nine years old. Your mother always made a fool of you,

and that was entirely unnecessary, too, for you were always short of

what is called _common sense_. You needn’t tell the captain you went to

sea because you didn’t know enough to be a landsman; or that you never

did any thing right in your life, except by accident. You are as like

that _ne’er do well_ Jack Halpine, as two peas. If there _is_ anything

in you, I hope the salt water will fetch it out. Come, your mother has

your supper ready, I see.”

Mrs. Low’s hand trembled as she passed her boy’s cup. It was his

last meal under that roof for many a long day. She did not trust

herself to speak--her heart was too full. She heard all his father so

injudiciously said to him, and she knew too well from former experience

the effect it would have upon his impetuous, fiery spirit. She had

only to oppose to it a mother’s prayers, and tears, and all-enduring

love. She never condemned in _Will’s hearing_, any of his father’s

philippics; always excusing him with the general remark that he didn’t

understand him. _Alone_, she mourned over it; and when with her

husband, tried to place matters on a better footing for both parties.

Will noted his mother’s swollen eyelids; he saw his favorite little

tea-cakes that she had busied herself in preparing for him, and he ate

and drank what she gave him, without tasting a morsel he swallowed,

listening for the hundredth time to his father’s account of “what _he_

did when he was a young man.”

“Just half an hour, Will,” said his father, “before you start; run up

and see if you have forgotten any of your duds.”

It was the little room he had always called his own. How many nights

he had lain there listening to the rain pattering on the low roof; how

many mornings awakened by the chirp of the robin in the apple-tree

under the window. There was the little bed with its snowy covering,

and the thousand and one little comforts prepared by his mother’s hand.

He turned his head--she was at his side, her arms about his neck. “God

keep my boy!” was all she could utter. He knelt at her feet as in

the days of childhood, and from those wayward lips came this tearful

prayer, “Oh God, spare my mother, that I may look upon her face again

in this world!”

Oh, in after days, when that voice had died out from under the

parental roof, how sacred was that spot to her who gave him birth!

_There was hope for the boy! he had recognized his mother’s God._ By

that invisible silken cord she still held the wanderer, though broad

seas roll between.

Letters came to Moss Glen--at stated intervals, then more

irregularly, picturing only the bright spots in his sailor life (for

Will was proud, and they were to be scanned by his father’s eye.) The

usual temptations of a sailor’s life when in port were not unknown to

him. Of every cup the syren Pleasure held to his lips, he drank to the

dregs; but there were moments in his maddest revels, when that angel

whisper, “God keep my boy,” palsied his daring hand, and arrested the

half-uttered oath. Disgusted with himself, he would turn aside for an

instant, but only to drown again more recklessly “that still small

torturing voice.”

* * * * *

“You’re a stranger in these parts,” said a rough farmer to a

sun-burnt traveller. “Look as though you’d been in foreign parts.”

“Do I?” said Will, slouching his hat over his eyes. “Who lives in

that little cottage under the hill?”

“Old Farmer Low--and a tough customer he is, too; it’s a word and a

blow with him. The old lady has had a hard time of it, good as she is,

to put up with all his kinks and quirks. She bore it very well till the

lad went away; and then she began to droop like a willow in a storm,

and lose all heart, like. Doctor’s stuff didn’t do any good, as long as

she got no news of the boy. She’s to be buried this afternoon, sir.”

Poor Will staid to hear no more, but tottered in the direction of

the cottage. He asked no leave to enter, but passed over the threshold

into the little “best parlor,” and found himself alone with the dead.

It was too true! Dumb were the lips that should have welcomed him; and

the arms that should have enfolded him were crossed peacefully over the

heart that beat true to him till the last.

Conscience did its office. Long years of mad folly passed in swift

review before him; and over that insensible form a vow was made, and

registered in Heaven.

* * * * *

“Your mother should have lived to see this day, Will,” said a

gray-haired old man, as he leaned on the arm of the clergyman, and

passed into the village church.

“Bless God, my dear father, there is ‘_joy in Heaven_ over one sinner

that repenteth;’ and of all the angel band, there is one seraph hand

that sweeps _more rapturously_ its harp to-day for ‘the lost that is

found.’”

MR. PUNCH MISTAKEN.

“A man will own that he is in the wrong--a woman, never; she is

only _mistaken_.”--_Punch._

Mr. Punch, did you ever see an enraged American female? She is the

expressed essence of wild-cats. Perhaps you didn’t know it, when you

penned that incendiary paragraph; or, perhaps you thought that in

crossing the “big pond,” salt water might neutralize it; or, perhaps

you flattered yourself we should not see it, over here; but here it is,

in my clutches, in good strong English: I am not even “_mistaken_.”

Now, if you will bring me a live specimen of the genus homo, who was

ever known “to own that he was in the wrong,” I will draw in my horns

and claws, and sneak ingloriously back into my American shell. But you

can’t do it, Mr. Punch! You never saw that curiosity, either in John

Bull’s skin or Brother Jonathan’s. ’Tis an animal which has never yet

been discovered, much less captured.

A man own he was in the wrong! I guess so! You might tear him in

pieces with, red-hot pincers, and he would keep on singing out “I

didn’t do it; I didn’t do it.” No, Mr. Punch, a man never “owns up”

when he is in the wrong; especially if the matter in question be one

which he considers of no importance; for instance, the non-delivery of

a letter, which may have been entombed in his pocket for six weeks.

No sir; he just settles himself down behind his dickey, folds

his belligerent hands across his stubborn diaphragm, plants his

antagonistic feet down on terra-firma as if there were a stratum of

loadstone beneath him, and thunders out,

“Come one, come all; this rock shall fly

From its firm base, as soon as I.”

FERN MUSINGS.

I never was on an august school committee, but, if I _was_, I’d make

a _sine-qua-non_ that no school-marm should be inaugurated who had not

been a married mother; I don’t believe in old maids; they all know very

well that they haven’t fulfilled their female destiny, and I wouldn’t

have them wreaking their bilious vengeance on _my_ urchins, (if I had

any.) No woman gets the acid effectually out of her temper, till she

has taken matrimony “the natural way.”

No; I don’t believe in spinster educational teaching any more than

I do in putting dried up old bachelors on the school committee. What

bowels of mercies have either, I’d like to know, for the poor little

restless victims of narrow benches and short recesses? The children are

to “hold up their hands” (are they?) if they have a request to make?

What good does that do, if the teacher won’t take any notice of the

Free Mason sign? “They are not to enter complaints.” So some poor timid

little girl must be pinched black and blue by a little Napoleon in

jacket and trowsers, till she is forced to shriek out with pain, when

_she_ is punished by being kept half an hour after school for “making

a disturbance!” They are “not to eat in school,” are they? Perhaps

they have made an indifferent breakfast; (perhaps they are poor, and

have had none at all, and A, B, C, D, doesn’t digest well on an empty

stomach;) but the spinster teacher can hear them recite with a tempting

bunch of grapes in her hand, which she leisurely devours before their

longing eyes.

They “must not smile in school,” must they? Not when “Tom Hood” in a

pinafore, cuts up some sly prank that brings “down the house;” yes--and

the ferule too, on everybody’s hand but his own; (for he has a way of

drawing on his “deacon face,” to order.)

They may go out in recess, but they must speak in a whisper out

doors, as if they all had the bronchitis! No matter if Queen Victoria

should ride by, no little brimless hat must go up in the air till “the

committee had set on it!”

_Oh_ fudge! I should like to keep school myself. I’d make “rag

babies” for the little girls, and “soldier caps” for the boys; and I

_don’t think_ I would make a rule that they should not sneeze till

school was dismissed; and when their little cheeks began to flush, and

their little heads droop wearily on their plump shoulders, I’d hop

up and play, “hunt the slipper;” or, if we were in the country, we’d

race over the meadow, and catch butterflies, or frogs, or toads, or

_snakes_, or anything on earth except a “school committee.”

THE TIME TO CHOOSE.

“The best time to choose a wife is early in the morning. If a

young lady is at all inclined to sulks and slatternness, it is

just before breakfast. As a general thing, a woman don’t get on

her temper, till after 10 A. M.”--_Young Man’s Guide._

Men never look slovenly before breakfast; no, indeed. They never run

round in their stocking feet, vestless, with dressing-gown inside out;

soiled handkerchief hanging out of the pocket by one corner. Minus

dicky--minus neck-tie; pantaloon straps flying; suspenders streaming

from their waistband; chin shaved on one side, and lathered on the

other; hair like porcupine quills; face all in a snarl of wrinkles

because the fire wont kindle, and because it snows, and because the

office boy don’t come for the keys, and because the newspaper hasn’t

arrived, and because they lost a bet the night before, and because

there’s an omelet instead of a broiled chicken, for breakfast, and

because they are out of sorts and shaving soap, out of cigars and

credit, and because they can’t “get their temper on” till they get some

money and a mint julep.

Any time “before ten o’clock,” is the time to choose a

husband----_perhaps_!

SPRING IS COMING.

Tiny blades of grass are struggling between the city’s pavements.

Fathers, and husbands, sighing, look at the tempting shop windows,

dolefully counting the cost of a “spring outfit.” Muffs, and boas, and

tippets, are among the things that _were_; and shawls, and “Talmas,”

and mantles, and “_little loves of bonnets_,” reign supreme, though

maiden aunts, and sage mammas, still mutter--“East winds, east winds,”

and choose the sunnier sidewalk.

Housekeepers are making a horrible but necessary Babel, stripping

up carpets, and disembowelling old closets, chests, and cupboards.

Advertisements already appear in the newspapers, setting forth the

superior advantages of this or that dog-day retreat. Mrs. Jones

drives _Mr._ Jones distracted, at a regular hour every evening,

hammering about “change of scene, and air,” and the “health of the

dear children;” which, translated, means a quantity of new bonnets and

dresses, and a trip to Saratoga, for herself and intimate friend, Miss

Hob-Nob; while Jones takes his meals at a restaurant--sleeps in the

deserted house, sews on his missing buttons and dickey strings, and

spends his leisure time where _Mrs._ Jones don’t visit.

_Spring is coming!_

Handsome carriages roll past, freighted with lovely women,

(residents of other cities, for an afternoon ride.) Dash on, ladies!

You will scarcely find the environs of Boston surpassed, wherever you

may drive. A thousand pleasant surprises await you; lovely winding

paths and pretty cottages, and more ambitious houses with groups of

statuary hidden amid the foliage. But forget not to visit our sweet

Mount Auburn. Hush the light laugh and merry jest as the gray-haired

porter throws wide the gate for your prancing horses to tread the

hallowed ground. The dark old pines throw out their protecting arms

above you, and in their dense shade sleep eyes as bright, forms as

lovely, as your own--while “the mourners go about the streets.”

Rifle not, with sacrilegious hand, the flowers which bloom at the

headstone--tread lightly over the beloved dust! Each tenanted grave

entombs bleeding, _living_ hearts; each has its history, which eternity

alone shall reveal.

_Spring is coming!_

The city belle looks fresh as a new-blown rose--tossing her bright

curls in triumph, at her faultless costume and beautiful face. Her

lover’s name is Legion--for she hath also _golden charms_! Poor little

butterfly! bright, but ephemeral! You were made for something better.

Shake the dust from your earth-stained wings and--_soar_!

_Spring is coming!_

From the noisome lanes and alleys of the teeming city, swarm little

children, creeping forth like insects to bask in God’s sunshine--so

_free to all_. Squalid, forsaken, neglected; they are yet of those

to whom the Sinless said, “Suffer little children to come unto me.”

The disputed crust, the savage curse, the brutal blow, their only

patrimony! One’s heart _aches_ to call THIS _childhood_! No “spring!”

no summer, to them! Noisome sights, noisome sounds, noisome odors!

and the leprosy of sin following them like a curse! One longs to fold

to the warm heart those little forsaken ones; to smooth those matted

ringlets; to throw between them and sin the shield of virtue--to teach

their little lisping lips to say “_Our Father_!”

_Spring is coming!_

Yes, its blue skies are over us--its soft breezes shall fan us--the

fragrance of its myriad flowers be wafted to us. Its mossy carpet

shall be spread for our careless feet--our languid limbs shall be

laved at its cool fountains. Its luscious fruits shall send health

through our leaping veins--while from mountain top, and wooded hill,

and flower-wreathed valley, shall float one glad anthem of praise from

tiniest feathered throats!

_Dear_ reader! From that human heart of thine shall no burst

of grateful thanks arise to Him who _giveth all_? While nature

adores--shall _man be dumb_? God forbid!

STEAMBOAT SIGHTS AND REFLECTIONS.

I am looking, from the steamer’s deck, upon as fair a sunrise as ever

poet sang or painter sketched, or the earth ever saw. Oh, this broad,

blue, rushing river! sentineled by these grand old hills, amid which

the silvery mist wreaths playfully; half shrouding the little eyrie

homes, where love wings the uncounted hours; while looming up in the

hazy distance, is the Babel city, with glittering spires and burnished

panes--one vast illumination. My greedy eye with miserly eagerness

devours it all, and hangs it up in Memory’s cabinet, a fadeless

picture; upon which dame Fortune (the jilt) shall never have a mortgage.

Do you see yonder figure leaning over the railing of the boat, gazing

on all this outspread wealth of beauty? One longs to hear his lips

give utterance to the burning thoughts which cause his eye to kindle

and his face to glow. A wiry sister, (whose name should be “Martha,”

so careful, so troubled looks her spinstership,) breaks the charmed

spell by asking him, in a cracked treble, “if _them_ porters on the

pier can be safely trusted with her bandbox and umberil.” My stranger

eyes meet his, and we both laugh involuntarily--(pardon us, oh ye prim

ones)--_without an introduction_!

Close at my elbow sits a rough countryman, with so much “free soil”

adhering to his brogans they might have been used for beet-beds, and a

beard rivaled only by Nebuchadnezzar’s when he experimented on a grass

diet. He has only one word to express his overpowering emotions at the

glowing panorama before us, and that is “_pooty_,”--houses, trees, sky,

rafts, railroad cars and river, all are “_pooty_;” and when, in the

fulness of a soul craving sympathy, he turned to his dairy-fed Eve to

endorse it, that matter-of-fact feminine shower-bath-ed his enthusiasm,

by snarling out “pooty enough, I’spose, but _where’s my breakfast_?”

Ah! here we are at the pier, at last. And now they emerge, our

night-travelers, from state-room and cabin into the fresh cool air of

the morning. Venus and Apollo! what a crew. Solemn as a hearse, surly

as an Englishman, blue as an indigo-bag! There’s a poor shivering babe,

twitched from a warm bed by an ignorant young mother, to encounter

the chill air of morning, with only a flimsy covering of lace and

embroidery;--there’s a languid southern belle, creeping out, _à la

tortoise_, and turning up her little aristocratic nose as if she

sniffed a pestilence;--there’s an Irish bride (green as Erin) in a

pearl-colored silk dress surmounted by a coarse blanket shawl;--there’s

a locomotive hour-glass, (alias a dandy,) a blue-eyed, cravat-choked,

pantaloon be-striped, vest-garnished, disgusting “institution!”

(give him and his quizzing glass plenty of sea-room);--and there’s

a clergyman, God bless his care-worn face, with a valise full of

salted-down sermons and the long-coveted “leave of absence;”--there’s

an editor, kicking a newsboy for bringing “coals to Newcastle” in the

shape of “extras;”--and there’s a good-natured, sunshiny “family man,”

carrying the baby, and the carpet-bag, and the traveling shawl, lest

his pretty little wife should get weary;--and there’s a poor bonnetless

emigrant, stunned by the Babel sounds, inquiring, despairingly, the

name of some person whom nobody knows or cares for;--and last, but not

least, there’s the wiry old maid “Martha,” asking “_thim_ porters on

the pier,” with tears in her faded green eyes, to be “keerful of her

bandbox and umberil.”

On they go. Oh, how much of joy--how much of sorrow, in each heart’s

unwritten history.

A GOTHAM REVERIE.

Babel, what a place!--what a dust--what a racket--what a whiz-buzz!

What a throng of human beings. “Jew and Gentile, bond and free;”

every nation the sun ever shone upon, here represented. What pampered

luxury--what squalid misery, on the same _pavé_. What unwritten

histories these myriad hearts might unfold. How much of joy, how much

of sorrow, how much of crime. Now, queenly beauty sweeps past, in sin’s

gay livery. Cursed he who first sent her forth, to walk the earth,

with her woman’s brow shame-branded. Fair mother--pure wife--frown

scornfully at her if you can; my heart aches for her. I see one who

once slept, sweet and fair, on a mother’s loving breast. I see one

whose bitterest tear may never wash her stain away. I see one on whom

mercy’s gate is forever shut, by her own unrelenting, unforgiving sex.

I see one who was young, beautiful, poor and friendless. They who make

long prayers, and wrap themselves up in self-righteousness, as with

a garment, turned a deaf ear, as she plead for the bread of honest

toil. Earth looked cold, and dark, and dreary; feeble feet stumbled

wearily on life’s rugged, thorny road. Oh, judge her not harshly,

pure but frigid censor; who shall say that with her desolation--her

temptation--your name too might not have been written “Magdalen.”

SICKNESS COMES TO YOU IN THE CITY.

How unmercifully the heavy cart wheels rattle over the stony

pavements; how unceasing the tramp of busy, restless feet; how loud

and shrill the cries of mirth and traffic. You turn heavily to your

heated pillow, murmuring, “Would God it were night!” The pulse of the

great city is stilled at last; and balmy sleep, so coveted, seems about

to bless you--when hark! a watchman’s rattle is sprung beneath your

window, evoking a score of stentorian voices, followed by a clanging

bell, and a rushing engine, announcing a conflagration. Again you turn

to your sleepless pillow; your quivering nerves and throbbing temples

sending to your pale lips this prayer, “Would to God it were morning!”

Death comes, and releases you. You are scarcely missed. Your

next-door neighbor, who has lived within three feet of you for three

years, may possibly recollect having seen the doctor’s chaise before

your door, for some weeks past; then, that the front blinds were

closed; then, that a coffin was carried in; and he remarks to his wife,

as he takes up the evening paper, over a comfortable dish of tea, that

“he shouldn’t wonder if neighbor Grey were dead,” and then they read

your name and age in the bill of mortality, and wonder “what disease

you died of;” and then the servant removes the tea-tray, and they

play a game of whist, and never think of you again, till they see the

auctioneer’s flag floating before your door.

The house is sold; and your neighbor sees your widow and little ones

pass out over the threshold in tears and sables (grim poverty keeping

them silent company); but what of that? The world is _full_ of widows

and orphans; one can’t always be thinking of a charnel-house; and so he

returns to his stocks and dividends, and counting-room, and ledger, in

a philosophical state of serenity.

Some time after, he is walking with a friend; and meets a lady in

rusty mourning, carrying a huge bundle, from which “slop work” is

seen protruding, (a little child accompanies her, with its feet out

at the toes.) She has a look of hopeless misery on her fine but sad

features. She is a _lady still_ (spite of her dilapidated wardrobe

and her bundle.) Your neighbor’s companion touches his arm, and says,

“Good God! isn’t that Grey’s widow?” He glances at her carelessly, and

answers, “Shouldn’t wonder;” and invites him home to dine on trout,

cooked in claret, and hot-house peaches, at half a dollar a-piece.

* * * * *

SICKNESS COMES TO YOU IN THE COUNTRY.

On the fragrant breeze, through your latticed window, come the

twitter of the happy swallow, the chirp of the robin, and the drowsy

hum of the bee. From your pillow you can watch the shadows come and go,

over the clover meadow, as the clouds go drifting by. Rustic neighbors

lean on their spades at sunset at your door, and with sympathising

voices “hope you are better.” The impatient hoof of the prancing horse

is checked by the hand of pity; and the merry shout of the sunburnt

child (musical though it be,) dies on the cherry lip, at the uplifted

finger of compassion. A shower of rose-leaves drifts in over your

pillow, on the soft sunset zephyr. Oh, earth _is_ passing fair; but

_Heaven is fairer_!

Its portals unclose to you! Kind, neighborly hands wipe the

death-damp from your brow; speak words of comfort to your weeping wife,

caress your unconscious children. Your fading eye takes it all in, but

your tongue is powerless to speak its thanks. They close your drooping

lids, they straighten your manly limbs, they lay your weary head on its

grassy pillow, they bedew it with sympathetic tears; they pray God,

that night, in their cottage homes, to send His kind angel down, to

whisper words of peace to the broken hearts you have left behind.

_They do something besides pray._ From unknown hands, the widow’s

“cruse of oil,” and “barrel of meal,” are oft replenished. On your

little orphans’ heads, many a rough palm is laid, with tearful

blessing. Many a dainty peach, or pear, or apple is tossed them, on

their way to school. Many a ride they get “to mill,” or “hay-field,”

or “village,” while their mother shades her moistened eyes in the

door-way, quite unable to speak. The old farmer sees it; and knowing

better how to bestow a kindness than to bear such expressive

thanks, cuts Dobbin in the flanks, then starting tragically at the

_premeditated rear_, asks her, with an hysterical laugh, “_if she ever

saw such an uneasy beast_!”

Wide open fly their cottage doors and hearts, at “Christmas”

and “Thanksgiving,” for your stricken household. There may be

little city etiquette at the feast, there may be ungrammatical

words and infelicitous expressions,--but, thank God, unchilled by

selfishness, unshrivelled by avarice, human hearts throb warmly

there--_loving_--_pitiful_--_Christ-like_!

HUNGRY HUSBANDS.

“The hand that can make a pie is a continual feast to the

husband that marries its owner.”

Well, it is a humiliating reflection, that the straightest road to a

man’s heart is through his palate. He is never so amiable as when he

has discussed a roast turkey. Then’s your time, “Esther,” for “half

his kingdom,” in the shape of a new bonnet, cap, shawl, or dress. He’s

too complacent to dispute the matter. Strike while the iron is hot;

petition for a trip to Niagara, Saratoga, the Mammoth Cave, the White

Mountains, or to London, Rome, or Paris. Should he demur about it,

the next day cook him another turkey, and pack your trunk while he is

eating it.

There’s nothing on earth so savage--except a bear robbed of her

cubs--as a hungry husband. It is as much as your life is worth to

sneeze, till dinner is on the table, and his knife and fork are in

vigorous play. Tommy will get his ears boxed, the ottoman will be

kicked into the corner, your work-box be turned bottom upwards, and the

poker and tongs will beat a tattoo on that grate that will be a caution

to dilatory cooks.

After the first six mouthfuls you may venture to say your soul is

your own; his eyes will lose their ferocity, his brow its furrows,

and he will very likely recollect to help you to a cold potato! Never

mind--_eat it_. You might have to swallow a worse pill--for instance,

should he offer to kiss you!

Well, learn a lesson from it--keep him well fed and languid--live

yourself on a low diet, and cultivate your thinking powers; and

you’ll be as spry as a cricket, and hop over all the objections and

remonstances that his dead-and-alive energies can muster. Yes, feed him

well, and he will stay contentedly in his cage, like a gorged anaconda.

If he were my husband, wouldn’t I make him heaps of _pison_ things!

Bless me! I’ve made a mistake in the spelling; it should have been

_pies and things_!

LIGHT AND SHADOW;

OR, WHO IS RESPONSIBLE?

It was a simple dress of snowy muslin, innocent of the magic touch

of a French _modiste_. There was not an inch of lace upon it, nor a

rosette, nor a flower; it was pure, and simple, and unpretending as its

destined wearer. A pair of white kid gloves, of fairy-like proportions,

lay beside it, also a tiny pair of satin slippers. There was no bridal

_trousseau_; no--Meta had no rich uncles, or aunts, or cousins,--no

_consistent_ god-parents who, promising at her baptism that she should

“renounce the pomp and vanities of the world,” redeemed their promise

by showering at her bridal feet, diamonds enough to brighten many a

starving fellow-creature’s pathway to the tomb.

Did I say there was no bridal _trousseau_? There was _one_ gift, a

little clasp Bible, with “Meta Grey” written on the flyleaf, in the

bridegroom’s bold, handsome hand. Perchance some gay beauty, who reads

this, may curl her rosy lip scornfully; but well Meta knew how to

value such a gift. Through long dreary years of orphanage “God’s Word”

had been to her what the star in the East was to Bethlehem’s watching

shepherds. Her lonely days of toil were over now. There was a true

heart, whose every pulsation was love for her--a brave arm to defend

her helplessness, and a quiet, sunny home where Peace, like a brooding

dove, should fold his wings, while the happy hours flew uncounted by.

Yes; Meta was looked for, every hour. She was to leave the group of

laughing hoidens, (before whom she had forbidden her lover to claim

her,) and thereafter confine her teachings to one pupil, whose “reward

of merit” should be the love-light in her soft, dark eyes. Still, it

was weary waiting for her; her last letter was taken, for the hundredth

time, from its hiding-place, and read and refolded, and read again,

although he could say it all, with his eyes shut, in the darkest corner

in Christendom. But you know all about it, dear reader, if you own a

heart, and if you don’t, the sooner you drop my story the better.

Well; he paced the room up and down, looked out the window, and

down the street: then he sat down in the little rocking-chair he had

provided for her, and tried to imagine it was tenanted by _two_;

then, delicious tears sprang to his eyes, that such a sweet fount of

happiness was opened to him--that the golden morn, and busy noon,

and hushed and starry night, should find them _ever_ side by side.

Care?--he didn’t know it! Trouble?--what trouble could _he_ have, when

all his heart craved on earth was bounded by his clasping arms? And

then, Meta was an orphan--he was scarcely sorry--there would be none

for her heart to go out to now but himself; he must be brother, sister,

father, mother--_all_ to her; and his heart gave a full and joyful

response to each and every claim.

--But what a little loiterer! He was half vexed; he paced the room

in his impatience, handled the little slippers affectionately, and

caressed the little gloves as if they were filled by the plump hand of

Meta, instead of his imagination. Why _didn’t_ she fly to him? Such an

angel should have wings--he was sure of that.

--Wings? God help you, widowed bridegroom! Who shall have the heart

to read you this sad paragraph?

“ONE OF THE NORWALK VICTIMS.--The body of a young lady, endowed

with extraordinary personal beauty, remains yet unrecognized. On

her countenance reposes an expression of pleasure, in striking and

painful contrast to the terrible scene amid which she breathed her

last. She was evidently about twenty years old, doubtless the glory

of some circle of admiring friends, who little dream where she is,

and of her shocking condition.”

A MATRIMONIAL REVERIE.

“The love of a spirited woman is better worth having than that

of any other female individual you can start.”

I wish I had known that before! I’d have plucked up a little spirit,

and not gone trembling through creation, like a plucked chicken, afraid

of every animal I ran _a-fowl_ of. I have not dared to say my soul was

my own since the day I was married, and every time Mr. Jones comes into

the entry and sets down that great cane of his, with a thump, you might

hear my teeth chatter, down cellar! I always keep one eye on him, in

company, to see if I am saying the right thing; and the middle of a

sentence is the place for me to stop, (I can tell you,) if his black

eyes snap! It’s so aggravating to find out my mistake at this time

o’ day. I ought to have carried a stiff upper lip, long ago. Wonder

if little women can look dignified? Wonder how it would do to turn

straight about now? I’ll try it!

Harry will come home presently and thunder out, as usual, “Mary,

why the deuce isn’t dinner ready?” I’ll just set my teeth together,

put my arms akimbo, and look him right straight----oh, mercy! I

can’t! I should dissolve! Bless your soul, he’s a six-footer; such

whiskers--none of your sham settlements! Such eyes! and such a nice

mouth. Come to think of it, I really believe I love him! Guess I’ll go

along the old way!

WHAT LOVE WILL ACCOMPLISH.

“This will never do,” said little Mrs. Kitty; “how I came to be such

a simpleton as to get married before I knew how to keep house, is more

and more of an astonisher to me. I _can_ learn, and I _will_! There’s

Bridget told me yesterday there wasn’t time to make a pudding before

dinner. I had my private suspicions she was imposing upon me, though

I didn’t know enough about it to contradict her. The truth is, I’m no

more mistress of this house than I am of the Grand Seraglio. Bridget

knows it, too; and, there’s Harry (how hot it makes my cheeks to think

of it!) couldn’t find an eatable thing on the dinner table yesterday.

He loves me too well to say anything, but he had such an ugly frown on

his face when he lit his cigar and went off to his office. Oh, I see

how it is:

“‘One must eat in matrimony,

And love is neither bread nor honey,

And so, you understand.’”

* * * * *

“What on earth sent you over here in this dismal rain?” said Kitty’s

neighbor, Mrs. Green. “Just look at your gaiters.”

“Oh, never mind gaiters,” said Kitty, untying her “rigolette,” and

throwing herself on the sofa. “I don’t know any more about cooking than

a six-weeks’ kitten; Bridget walks over my head with the most perfect

Irish _nonchalance_; Harry looks as solemn as an ordained bishop; the

days grow short, the bills grow long, and I’m the most miserable little

Kitty that ever mewed. Do have pity on me, and initiate me into the

mysteries of broiling, baking, and roasting; take me into your kitchen

now, and let me go into it while the fit is on me. I feel as if I could

roast Chanticleer and all his hen-harem!”

“You don’t expect to take your degree in one forenoon?” said Mrs.

Green, laughing immoderately.

“Not a bit of it! I intend to come every morning, if the earth don’t

whirl off its axle. I’ve locked up my guitar and my French and Italian

books, and that irresistible ‘Festus,’ and nerved myself like a female

martyr, to look a gridiron in the face without flinching. Come, put

down that embroidery, there’s a good Samaritan, and descend with me

into the lower regions, before my enthusiasm gets a shower-bath,” and

she rolled up her sleeves from her round white arms, took off her

rings, and tucked her curls behind her ears.

Very patiently did Mrs. Kitty keep her resolution; each day added

a little to her store of culinary wisdom. What if she did flavor her

first custards with peppermint instead of lemon? What if she did

“baste” a turkey with saleratus instead of salt? What if she did season

the stuffing with ground cinnamon instead of pepper? Rome wasn’t built

in a day;--cooks can’t be manufactured in a minute.

* * * * *

Kitty’s husband had been gone just a month. He was expected home

that very day. All the morning the little wife had been getting up a

congratulatory dinner, in honor of the occasion. What with satifaction

and the kitchen fire, her cheeks glowed like a milkmaid’s. How her eyes

sparkled, and what a pretty little triumphant toss she gave her head,

when that big trunk was dumped down in the entry! It isn’t a bad thing,

sometimes, to have a secret even from one’s own husband.

“On my word, Kitty,” said Harry, holding her off at arm’s length,

“you look most provokingly ‘well-to-do’ for a widow ‘pro tem.’ I don’t

believe you have mourned for me the breath of a sigh. What have you

been about? who has been here? and what mine of fun is to be prophesied

from the merry twinkle in the corner of your eye? Anybody hid in the

closet or cupboard? Have you drawn a prize in the lottery?”

“Not since I married you,” said Mrs. Kitty; “and you are quite

welcome to that sugar-plum to sweeten your dinner.”

“How Bridget has improved,” said Harry, as he plied his knife and

fork industriously; “I never saw these woodcock outdone, even at our

bachelor club-rooms at ---- House. She shall have a present of a pewter

cross, as sure as her name is McFlanigan, besides absolution for all

the detestable messes she used to concoct with her Catholic fingers.”

“Let me out! let me out!” said a stifled voice from the closet; “you

can’t expect a woman to keep a secret forever.”

“What on earth do you mean, Mrs. Green?” said Harry, gaily shaking

her hand.

“Why, you see, ‘Bridget has improved;’ i. e. to say, little Mrs.

Kitty there received from my hands yesterday a diploma, certifying her

Mistress of Arts, Hearts and Drumsticks, having spent every morning of

your absence in perfecting herself as a housekeeper. There now, don’t

drop on your knees to her till I have gone. I know very well when three

is a crowd, or, to speak more fashionably, when I am ‘_de trop_,’ and

I’m only going to stop long enough to remind you that there are some

_wives_ left in the world, and that Kitty is one of ’em.”

And now, dear reader, if you doubt whether Mrs. Kitty was rewarded

for all her trouble, you’d better take a peep into that parlor,

and while you are looking, let me whisper a secret in your ear

confidentially. You may be as beautiful as Venus, and as talented as

Madame de Stael, but you never’ll reign supreme in your liege lord’s

affections, till you can roast a turkey.

MRS. GRUMBLE’S SOLILOQUY.

“There’s no calculating the difference between men and women

boarders. Here’s Mr. Jones, been in my house these six months, and no

more trouble to me than my gray kitten. If his bed is shook up once a

week, and his coats, cravats, love-letters, cigars and patent-leather

boots left undisturbed in the middle of the floor, he is as contented

as a pedagogue in vacation time.

“Take a woman to board, and (if it is perfectly convenient) she would

like drapery instead of drop-curtains; she’d like the windows altered

to open at the top, and a wardrobe for her flounced dresses, and a few

more nails and another shelf in her closet, and a cricket to put her

feet on, and a little rocking-chair, and a big looking-glass, and a

pea-green shade for her gas-burner.

“She would like breakfast about ten minutes later than your usual

hour; tea ten minutes earlier, and the gong, which shocks her nerves

_so_, altogether dispensed with.

“She can’t drink coffee, because it is exhilarating; broma is too

insipid, and chocolate too heavy. She don’t fancy cocoa. ‘English

breakfast tea’ is the only beverage which agrees with her delicate

spinster organization.

“She can’t digest a roast or a fried dish; she might _possibly_

peck at an egg, if it were boiled with one eye on the watch. Pastry

she never eats, unless she knows from what dairy the butter came,

which enters into its composition. Every article of food prepared with

butter, salt, pepper, mustard, vinegar or oil; or bread that is made

with yeast, soda, milk or saleratus, she decidedly rejects.

“She is constantly washing out little duds of laces, collars,

handkerchiefs, chemisettes and stockings, which she festoons up to the

front windows, to dry; giving passers-by the impression that your house

is occupied by a _blanchesseuse_;--then jerks the bell-wire for an hour

or more, for relays of hot smoothing irons, to put the finishing stroke

to her operations.

“She is often afflicted with interesting little colds and influenzas,

requiring the immediate consolation of a dose of hot lemonade or ginger

tea; choosing her time for these complaints when the kitchen fire has

gone out and the servants are on a furlough. Oh! nobody knows, but

those who’ve tried, how immensely troublesome women are! I’d rather

have a whole regiment of men boarders. All you have to do is, to

wind them up in the morning with a powerful cup of coffee, give them

_carte-blanche_ to smoke, and a night-key, and your work is done.”

HENRY WARD BEECHER.

What a warm Sunday! and what a large church! I wonder if it will be

half-filled! Empty pews are a sorry welcome to a pastor. Ah! no fear;

here comes the congregation in troops and families; now the capacious

galleries are filled; every pew is crowded, and seats are being placed

in the aisles.

The preacher rises. What a young “David!” Still, the “stone and

sling” will do their execution. How simple, how child-like that prayer;

and yet how eloquent, how fervent. How eagerly, as he names the text,

the eye of each is riveted upon the preacher, as if to secure his

individual portion of the heavenly manna.

Let us look around, upon the audience. Do you see yonder gray-haired

business man? Six days in the week, for many years, he has been

Mammon’s most devoted worshipper. According to time-honored custom, he

has slept comfortably in his own pew each Sunday, lulled by the soft

voice of the shepherd who “prophesieth smooth things.” One pleasant

Sabbath, chance, (I would rather say an overruling Providence,) led

him here. He settles himself in his accustomed Sunday attitude, but

sleep comes not at his bidding. He looks disturbed. The preacher is

dwelling upon the permitted but fraudulent tricks of business men,

and exposing plainly their turpitude in the sight of that God who

holds “evenly the scales of justice.” As he proceeds, Conscience

whispers to this aged listener, “Thou art the man!” He moves uneasily

on his seat; an angry flush mounts to his temples: What right has that

boy-preacher to question the integrity of men of such unblemished

mercantile standing in the community as himself? He is not accustomed

to such a spiritual probing knife. _His_ spiritual physician has always

“healed the hurt of his people slightly.” He don’t like such plain

talking, and sits the service out only from compulsion. But when he

passes the church porch, he does not leave the sermon there, as usual.

No. He goes home perplexed and thoughtful. Conscience sides with the

preacher; self-interest tries to stifle its voice with the sneering

whisper of “priest-craft.” Monday comes, and again he plunges into the

maelstrom of business, and tries to tell the permitted lie with his

usual _nonchalance_ to some ignorant customer, but his tongue falters

and performs its duty but awkwardly; a slight blush is perceptible upon

his countenance; and the remainder of the week chronicles similar and

repeated failures.

Again it is Sunday. He is not a church-member: he can stay at home,

therefore, without fear of a canonical committee of Paul Prys to

investigate the matter: he can look over his debt and credit list if

he likes, without excommunication: he certainly will not put himself

again in the way of that plain-spoken, stripling priest. The bell peals

out, in musical tones, seemingly this summons: “Come up with us, and

we will do you good.” By an irresistible impulse, he finds himself

again a listener. “Not that he _believes_ what that boy says:” Oh no:

but, somehow, he likes to listen to him, even though he attack that

impregnable pride in which he has wrapped himself up as in a garment.

Now, why is this? Why is this church filled with such wayside

listeners?

Why, but that all men--even the most worldly and unscrupulous--pay

involuntary homage to earnestness, sincerity, independence and

Christian boldness, in the “man of God?”

Why? Because they see that he stands in that sacred desk, not that

his lips may be tamed and held in, with a silver bit and silken bridle:

not because preaching is his “trade,” and his hearers must receive

their _quid pro quo_ once a week--no, they all see and feel that his

_heart_ is in the work--that he _loves_ it--that he comes to them fresh

from his closet, his face shining with the light of “the Mount,” as did

Moses’.

The preacher is remarkable for fertility of imagination, for rare

felicity of expression, for his keen perception of the complicated and

mysterious workings of the human heart, and for the uncompromising

boldness with which he utters his convictions. His earnestness of

manner, vehemence of gesture and rapidity of utterance, are, at times,

electrifying; impressing his hearers with the idea that language is too

poor and meager a medium for the rushing tide of his thoughts.

Upon the lavish beauty of earth, sea, and sky, he has evidently gazed

with the poet’s eye of rapture. He walks the green earth in no monk’s

cowl or cassock. The tiniest blade of grass with its “drap o’ dew,”

has thrilled him with strange delight. “God is love,” is written for

him in brilliant letters, on the arch of the rainbow. Beneath that

black coat, his heart leaps like a happy child’s to the song of the

birds and the tripping of the silver-footed stream, and goes up, in the

dim old woods, with the fragrance of their myriad flowers, in grateful

incense of praise, to Heaven.

God be thanked, that upon all these rich and rare natural gifts,

“Holiness to the Lord” has been written. Would that the number of

such gospel soldiers was “legion,” and that they might stand in

the forefront of the hottest battle, wielding thus skillfully and

unflinchingly the “Sword of the Spirit.”

AN OLD MAID’S DECISION.

“I can bear misfortune and poverty, and all the other ills of

life, but to be an _old maid_--to droop and wither, and wilt and

die, like a single pink--I can’t _endure_ it; and _what’s more, I

won’t_!”

Now there’s an appeal that ought to touch some bachelor’s heart.

There she is, a poor, lone spinster, in a nicely furnished room--sofa

big enough for _two_; _two_ arm chairs, _two_ bureaus, _two_

looking-glasses--everything hunting in couples except herself! I

don’t wonder she’s frantic! She read in her childhood that “matches

were made in Heaven,” and although she’s well aware there are some

_Lucifer matches_, yet she has never had a chance to try either

sort. She has heard that there “never was a soul created, but its

twin was made somewhere,” and she’s a melancholy proof that ’tis a

mocking lie. She gets tired sewing--she can’t knit forever on that

eternal stocking--(besides, _that_ has a _fellow_ to it, and is only

an aggravation to her feelings.) She has read till her eyes are half

blind,--there’s nobody to agree with her if she likes the book, or

argue the point with her if she don’t. If she goes out to walk, every

woman she meets has her husband’s arm. To be sure, they are half of

them ready to scratch each other’s eyes out; but that’s a little

business matter between themselves. Suppose she feels devotional, and

goes to evening lectures, some ruffianly coward is sure to scare her to

death on the way. If she takes a journey, she gets hustled and boxed

round among cab-drivers, and porters, and baggage-masters; her bandbox

gets knocked in, her trunk gets knocked off, and she’s landed at the

wrong stopping place. If she wants a load of wood, she has to pay twice

as much as a man would, and then she gets cheated by the man that saws

and splits it. She has to put her own money into the bank and get it

out, hire her own pew, and wait upon herself into it. People tell her

“husbands are often great plagues,” but she knows there are times when

they are indispensable. She is very good looking, black hair and eyes,

fine figure, sings and plays beautifully, but she “can’t be an old

maid, and _what’s more_--SHE WON’T.”

A PUNCH AT “PUNCH.”

“What is the height of a woman’s ambition? Diamonds.”--_Punch._

Sagacious Punch! Do you know the reason? It is because the more

“diamonds” a woman owns, the more _precious_ she becomes in the eyes

of your discriminating sex. What pair of male eyes ever saw a “crow’s

foot,” grey hair, or wrinkle, in company with a _genuine diamond_?

Don’t you go down on your marrow-bones, and vow that the owner is a

Venus, a Hebe, a Juno, a sylph, a fairy, an angel? Would you stop to

look (_connubially_) at the most bewitching woman on earth, whose only

diamonds were “_in her eye_?” Well, it is no great marvel, Mr. Punch.

The race of _men_ is about extinct. Now and then you will meet with a

specimen; but I’m sorry to inform you that the most of them are nothing

but coat tails, walking behind a moustache, destitute of sufficient

energy to earn their own cigars and “Macassar,” preferring to dangle at

the heels of a _diamond_ wife, and meekly receive their allowance, as

her mamma’s prudence and her own inclinations may suggest.

FATHER TAYLOR, THE SAILOR’S PREACHER.

You have never heard FATHER TAYLOR, the Boston Seaman’s preacher?

Well--you should go down to his church some Sunday. It is not at the

court-end of the town. The urchins in the neighborhood are guiltless

of shoes or bonnets. You will see quite a sprinkling of “Police” at

the corners. Green Erin, too, is well represented: with a dash of

Africa--checked off with “dough faces.”

Let us go into the church: there are no stained-glass windows--no

richly draperied pulpit--no luxurious seats to suggest a nap to your

sleepy conscience. No odor of patchouli, or _nonpareil_, or _bouqet

de violet_ will be wafted across your patrician nose. Your satin

and broadcloth will fail to procure you the highest seat in the

synagogue,--they being properly reserved for the “old salts.”

Here they come! one after another, with horny palms and bronzed

faces. It stirs my blood, like the sound of a trumpet, to see them. The

seas they have crossed! the surging billows they have breasted! the

lonely, dismal, weary nights they have kept watch!--the harpies in port

who have assailed their generous sympathies! the sullen plash of the

sheeted dead, in its vast ocean sepulchre!--what stirring thoughts and

emotions do their weather-beaten faces call into play! God bless the

sailor!--Here they come; sure of a welcome--conscious that they are no

intruders on aristocratic landsmen’s soil--sure that each added face

will send a thrill of pleasure to the heart of the good old man, who

folds them all, as one family, to his patriarchal bosom.

There he is! How reverently he drops on his knee, and utters that

silent prayer. Now he is on his feet. With a quick motion he adjusts

his spectacles, and says to the tardy tar doubtful of a berth, “Room

here, brother!” pointing to a seat _in the pulpit_. Jack don’t know

about _that_! He can climb the rigging when Boreas whistles his

fiercest blast; he can swing into the long boat with a stout heart,

when creaking timbers are parting beneath him: but to mount the

_pulpit_!--Jack doubts his qualifications, and blushes through his mask

of bronze. “Room enough, brother!” again reässures him; and, with a

litle extra fumbling at his tarpaulin, and hitching at his waistband,

he is soon as much at home as though he were on his vessel’s deck.

The hymn is read with a _heart-tone_. There is no mistaking either

the poet’s meaning or the reader’s devotion. And now, if you have a

“scientific musical ear,” (which, thank heaven, I have not,) you may

criticise the singing, while I am not ashamed of the tears that steal

down my face, as I mark the effect of good _Old Hundred_ (minus trills

and flourishes) on Neptune’s honest, hearty, whole-souled sons.

--The text is announced. There follows no arrangement of dickys, or

bracelets, or eye-glasses. You forget your ledger and the fashions,

the last prima donna, and that your neighbor is not one of the “upper

ten,” as you fix your eye on that good old man, and are swept away

from worldly moorings by the flowing tide of his simple, earnest

eloquence. You marvel that these uttered truths of his, never struck

your thoughtless mind before. My pen fails to convey to you the play of

expression on that earnest face--those emphatic gestures--the starting

tear or the thrilling voice;--but they all _tell_ on “Jack.”

And now an infant is presented for baptism. The pastor takes it on

one arm. O, surely he is himself a father, else it would not be poised

so gently. Now he holds it up, that all may view its dimpled beauty,

and says: “Is there one here who doubts, should this child die to-day,

its right among the blessed?” One murmured, spontaneous _No!_ bursts

from Jacks’ lips, as the baptismal drops lave its sinless temples.

Lovingly the little lamb is folded, with a kiss and a blessing, to the

heart of the earthly shepherd, ere the maternal arms receive it.

Jack looks on and weeps! And how can he help weeping? _He_ was

once as pure as that blessed innocent! His _mother_--the sod now

covers her--often invoked heaven’s blessing on _her_ son; and well he

remembers the touch of her gentle hand and the sound of her loving

voice, as she murmured the imploring prayer for him: and how has her

sailor boy redeemed his youthful promise? He dashes away his scalding

tears, with his horny palm; but, please God, that Sabbath--that

scene--shall be a talisman upon which memory shall ineffaceably

inscribe,

“Go, and sin no more.”

SIGNS OF THE TIMES.

E-Q-U-I--equi, D-O-M-E--dome, “Equidome.” Betty, hand me my

dictionary.

Well, now, who would have believed that I, Fanny Fern, would have

tripped over a “stable?” That all comes of being “raised” where people

persist in calling things by their right names. I’m very certain that

it is useless for me to try to circumnavigate the globe on stilts.

There’s the “Hippodrome!” I had but just digested that humbug: my

tongue kinked all up trying to pronounce it; and then I couldn’t find

out the meaning of it; for Webster didn’t inform me that it was a place

where vicious horses broke the necks of vicious young girls for the

amusement of vicious spectators.

--“Jim Brown!” What a relief. I can understand that. I never saw Jim,

but I’m positively certain that he’s a monosyllable on legs--crisp as a

cucumber. Ah! here are some more suggestive signs.

“Robert Link--Bird Fancier.” I suggest that it be changed to

Bob-o’Link; in which opinion I shall probably be backed up by all

musical people.

Here we are in Broadway junior, alias the “Bowery.” I don’t see but

the silks, and satins, and dry goods generally, are quite equal to

those in Broadway; but, of course, Fashion turns her back upon them,

for they are only half the price.

What have we here, in this shop window? What are all those silks, and

delaines, and calicoes, ticketed up that way for?--“Superb,” “Tasty,”

“Beautiful,” “Desirable,” “Cheap for 1_s._,” “Modest,” “Unique,”

“Genteel,” “Grand,” “Gay!” It is very evident that Mr. Yardstick takes

all women for fools, or else he has had a narrow escape from being one

himself.

There’s a poor, distracted gentleman in a milliner’s shop, trying

to select a bonnet for his spouse. What a _non compos_! See him poise

the airy nothings on his great clumsy hands! He is about as good a

judge of bonnets as I am of patent ploughs. See him turn, in despairing

bewilderment, from blue to pink, from pink to green, from green to

crimson, from crimson to yellow. The little witch of a milliner sees

his indecision, and resolves to make a _coup d’état_; so, perching one

of the bonnets (blue as her eyes) on her rosy little face, she walks

up sufficiently near to give him a magnetic shiver, and holding the

strings coquettishly under her pretty little chin, says:

“Now, I’m sure, you can’t say _that_ isn’t pretty!”

Of course he can’t!

So, the bonnet is bought and band-boxed, and Jonathan (who is sold

with the bonnet) takes it home to his wife, whose black face looks in

it like an overcharged thunder-cloud set in a silver lining.

Saturday evening is a busy time in the Bowery. So many little things

wanted at the close of the week. A pair of new shoes for Robert, a

tippet for Sally, a pair of gloves for Johnny, and a stick of candy

to bribe the baby to keep the peace while mamma goes to “meetin” on

Sunday. What a heap of people! What a job it must be to take the census

in New York. Servant girls and their beaux, country folks and city

folks, big boys and little boys, ladies and women, puppies and men!

There’s a poor laboring man with his market basket on one arm, and his

wife on the other. He knows that he can get his Sunday dinner cheaper

by purchasing it late on Saturday night, when the butchers are not

quite sure that their stock will “keep” till Monday. And then it is

quite a treat for his wife, when little Johnny is asleep, to get out

to catch a bit of fresh air, and a sight of the pretty things in the

shop windows, even if she cannot have them; but the little feminine

diplomatist knows that husbands always feel clever of a Saturday night,

and that then’s the time “_just to stop and look_” at a new ribbon or

collar.

See that party of country folks, going to the “National” to see

“Uncle Tom.” Those pests, the bouquet sellers, are offering them their

stereotyped, cabbage-looking bunches of flowers with,

“Please buy one for your lady, sir.”

Jonathan don’t understand dodging such appeals; beside, he would

scorn to begrudge a “quarter” for _his lady_! So he buys the nuisance,

and scraping out his hind foot, presents it, with a bow, to Araminta,

who “walks on thrones” the remainder of the evening.

There’s a hand organ, and a poor, tired little girl, sleepily playing

the tambourine. All the little ragged urchins in the neighborhood are

grouped on that door step, listening. The connoisseur might criticise

the performance, but no Cathedral _Te Deum_ could be grander to that

unsophisticated little audience. There is one little girl, who spite of

her rags, is beautiful enough for a seraph. _Poor and beautiful!_ God

help her.

WHOM DOES IT CONCERN?

“Stitch--stitch--stitch! Will this _never_ end?” said a young girl,

leaning her head wearily against the casement, and dropping her small

hands hopelessly in her lap. “Stitch--stitch--stitch! from dawn till

dark, and yet I scarce keep soul and body together;” and she drew her

thin shawl more closely over her shivering shoulders.

Her eye fell upon the great house opposite. There was comfort there,

and luxury, too; for the rich, satin curtains were looped gracefully

away from the large windows; a black servant opens the hall door: see,

there are statues and vases and pictures there: now, two young girls

trip lightly out upon the pavement, their lustrous silks, and nodding

plumes, and jeweled bracelets glistening, and quivering, and sparkling

in the bright sunlight. Now poising their silver-netted purses upon

the daintily gloved fingers, they leap lightly into the carriage in

waiting, and are whirled rapidly away.

That little seamstress is as fair as they: her eyes are as soft and

blue; her limbs as lithe and graceful; her rich, brown hair folds

as softly away over as fair a brow; her heart leaps, like theirs,

to all that is bright and joyous; it craves love and sympathy, and

companionship as much, and yet she must stitch--stitch--stitch--and

droop under summer’s heat, and shiver under winter’s cold, and

walk the earth with the skeleton starvation ever at her side, that

costly pictures, and velvet carpets, and massive chandeliers, and

gay tapestry, and gold and silver vessels may fill the house of her

employer--that _his_ flaunting equipage may roll admired along the

highway, and India’s fairest fabrics deck his purse-proud wife and

daughters.

* * * * *

[Illustration: “Tut, tut, young woman! don’t quarrel with your bread

and butter!”]

It was a busy scene, the ware-room of Simon Skinflint & Co. Garments

of every hue, size and pattern, were there exposed for sale. Piles

of coarse clothing lay upon the counter, ready to be given out to

the destitute, brow-beaten applicant who would make them for the

smallest possible remuneration; piles of garments lay there, which such

victims had already toiled into the long night to finish, ticketed to

bring enormous profits into the pocket of their employer: groups of

dapper clerks stood behind the counter, discussing, in a whisper, the

pedestals of the last new _danseuse_--ogling the half-starved young

girls who were crowding in for employment, and raising a blush on the

cheek of humble innocence by the coarse joke and free, libidinous gaze;

while their master, Mr. Simon Skinflint, sat, rosy and rotund, before a

bright Lehigh fire, rubbing his fat hands, building imaginary houses,

and felicitating himself generally, on his far-reaching financial

foresight.

“If you could but allow me a trifle more for my labor,” murmured a

low voice at his side; “I have toiled hard all the week, and yet--”

“Young woman,” said Mr. Skinflint, pushing his chair several feet

back, elevating his spectacles to his forehead, and drawing his satin

vest down over his aldermanic proportions--“young woman, do you observe

that crowd of persons besieging my door for employment? Perhaps you

are not aware that we turn away scores of them every day; perhaps you

don’t know that the farmers’ daughters, who are at a loss what to do

long winter evenings, and want to earn a little dowry, will do our work

for less than we pay you? But you feminine operatives don’t seem to

have the least idea of trade. Competition is the soul of business, you

see,” said Mr. Skinflint, rubbing his hands in a congratulatory manner.

“Tut--tut--young woman! don’t quarrel with your bread and butter;

however, it is a thing that don’t concern me at all; if you _won’t_

work, there are plenty who _will_,”--and Mr. Skinflint drew out his

gold repeater, and glanced at the door.

A look of hopeless misery settled over the young girl’s face, as she

turned slowly away in the direction of home. _Home_ did I say? The word

was a bitter mockery to poor Mary. She had a home once, where she and

the little birds sang the live-long day: where flowers blossomed, and

tall trees waved, and merry voices floated out on the fragrant air, and

the golden sun went gorgeously down behind the far-off hills; where

a mother’s loving breast was her pillow, and a father’s good-night

blessing wooed her rosy slumbers. It was past now. They were all

gone--father, mother, brother, sister. Some with the blue sea for a

shifting monument; some sleeping dreamlessly in the little church-yard,

where her infant footsteps strayed. Rank grass had o’ergrown the

cottage gravel walks; weeds choked the flowers which dust-crumbled

hands had planted; the brown moss had thatched over the cottage eaves,

and still the little birds sang on as blithely as if Mary’s household

gods had not been shivered.

Poor Mary! The world was dark and weary to her: the very stars, with

their serene beauty, seemed to mock her misery. She reached her little

room. Its narrow walls seemed to close about her like a tomb. She

leaned her head wearily against the little window, and looked again

at the great house opposite. How brightly, how cheerfully the lights

glanced from the windows! How like fairies glided the young girls

over the softly carpeted floors! How swiftly the carriages whirled

to the door, with their gay visitors? Life was such a rosy dream to

_them_--such a brooding nightmare to _her_! Despair laid its icy hand

on her heart. Must she _always_ drink, unmixed, the cup of sorrow? Must

she weep and sigh her youth away, while griping Avarice trampled on her

heart-strings? She could not weep--nay, worse--she could not pray. Dark

shadows came between her soul and heaven.

* * * * *

The little room is empty now. Mary toils there no longer. You will

find her in the great house opposite: her dainty limbs clad in flowing

silk; her slender fingers and dimpled arms glittering with gems:

and among all that merry group, Mary’s laugh rings out the merriest.

Surely--surely, this is better than to toil, weeping, through the long

weary days in the little darkened room.

Is it, Mary?

* * * * *

There is a ring at the door of the great house. A woman glides

modestly in; by her dress, she is a widow. She has opened a small

school in the neighborhood, and in the search for scholars has wandered

in here. She looks about her. Her quick, womanly instinct sounds the

alarm. She is not among the good and pure of her sex. But she does

not scorn them. No; she looks upon their blighted beauty, with a

Christ-like pity; she says to herself, haply some word of mine may

touch their hearts. So, she says, gently, “Pardon me, ladies, but I had

hoped to find scholars here; you will forgive the intrusion, I know;

for though you are not mothers, you have all _had_ mothers.”

Why is Mary’s lip so ashen white? Why does she tremble from head to

foot, as if smitten by the hand of God? Why do the hot tears stream

through her jeweled fingers? Ah! Mary. That little dark room, with its

toil, its gloom, its _innocence_, were Heaven’s own brightness now, to

your tortured spirit.

* * * * *

Pitilessly the slant rain rattled against the window panes awnings

creaked and flapped, and the street lamps flickered in the strong

blast: full-freighted omnibuses rolled over the muddy pavements: stray

pedestrians turned up their coat-collars, grasped their umbrellas

more tightly, and made for the nearest port. A woman, half-blinded by

the long hair which the fury of the wind had driven across her face,

drenched to the skin with the pouring rain--shoeless, bonnetless,

_homeless_, leans unsteadily against a lamp-post, and in the maudlin

accents of intoxication curses the passers-by. A policeman’s strong

grasp is laid upon her arm, and she is hurried, struggling, through the

dripping streets, and pushed into the nearest “station house.” Morning

dawns upon the wretched, forsaken outcast. She sees it not. Upon those

weary eyes only the resurrection morn shall dawn.

No more shall the stony-hearted shut, in her imploring face, the door

of hope; no more shall gilded sin, with Judas smile, say, “Eat, drink,

and be merry;” no more shall the professed followers of Him who said,

“Neither do I condemn thee,” say to the guilt-stricken one, “Stand

aside--for I am holier than thou.” No, none may tempt, none may scorn,

none may taunt her more. A pauper’s grave shall hide poor Mary and her

shame.

God speed the day when the Juggernaut wheels of Avarice shall no

longer roll over woman’s dearest hopes; when thousands of doors, now

closed, shall be opened for starving Virtue to earn her honest bread;

when he who would coin her tears and groans to rear his palaces, shall

become a hissing and a by-word, wherever the sacred name of Mother

shall be honored.

“WHO LOVES A RAINY DAY?”

The bored editor; who, for one millennial day, in slippered feet,

controls his arm chair, exchanges, stove, and inkstand; who has time

to hunt up delinquent subscribers; time to decipher hieroglyphical

manuscripts; time to make a bonfire of bad poetry; time to kick out

lozenge boys and image venders; time to settle the long-standing

quarrel between Nancy, the type-setter, and Bill, the foreman, and time

to write complimentary letters to himself for publication in his own

paper, and to get up a new humbug prospectus for the dear, confiding

public.

Who loves a rainy day?

The little child of active limb, reprieved from bench, and book, and

ferule; between whom and the wire-drawn phiz of grim propriety, those

friendly drops have drawn a misty vail; who is now free to laugh, and

jump, and shout, and ask the puzzling question--free to bask in the

sunny smile of her, to whom no sorrow can be trivial that brings a

cloud over that sunny face, or dims the brightness of that merry eye.

Who loves a rainy day?

The crazed clergyman, who can face a sheet of paper, uninterrupted by

dyspeptic Deacon Jones, or fault-finding brother Grimes; or cautious

Mr. Smith; or the afflicted Miss Zelia Zephyr, who, for several long

years, has been “unable to find out the path of duty;” or the zealous

old lady Bunce, who hopes her pastor will throw light on the precise

locality fixed upon in the future state for idiots, and those heathen

who have never seen a missionary.

Who loves a rainy day?

The disgusted clerk, who, lost in the pages of some care-beguiling

volume, forgets the petticoat destiny which relentlessly forces him to

unfurl endless yards of tinsel lace and ribbon, for lounging dames,

with empty brains and purses, whose “chief end” it seems to be to put

him through an endless catechism.

Who loves a rainy day?

The tidy little housewife, who, in neat little breakfast-cap and

dressing-gown, overlooks the short-comings of careless cook and

house-maid; explores cupboards, cellars, pantries, and closets;

disembowels old bags, old boxes, old barrels, old kegs, old firkins;

who, with her own dainty hand, prepares the favorite morsel for the

dear, absent, toiling husband, or, by the cheerful nursery fire, sews

on the missing string or button, or sings to soothing slumbers a pair

of violet eyes, whose witching counterpart once stole her girlish heart

away.

Who loves a rainy day?

_I do!_ Let the rain fall; let the wind moan; let the leafless trees

reach out their long attenuated fingers and tap against my casement:

pile on the coal; wheel up the arm-chair; all hail loose ringlets and

loose dressing-robe. Not a blessed son or daughter of Adam can get here

to-day! Unlock the old writing desk; overlook the old letters. There

is a bunch tied with a ribbon blue as the eyes of the writer. Matrimony

quenched their brightness long time ago.

Irish _help_ (?) and crying babies,

I grieve to say, are ’mong the may-be’s!

And here is a package written by a despairing Cœlebs--once intensely

interested in the price of hemp and prussic acid; now the rotund and

jolly owner of a princely house, a queenly wife, and six rollicksome

responsibilities. Query: whether the faculty ever dissected a _man_ who

had died of a “broken heart?”

Here is another package. Let the fire purify them; never say you

_know_ your friend till his tombstone is over him.

What Solomon says “handwriting is an index of character?” Give him

the cap and bells, and show him those bold pen-marks. They were traced

by no Di Vernon! Let me sketch the writer:--A blushing, smiling, timid,

loving little fairy, as ever nestled near a true heart; with a step

like the fall of a snowflake, and a voice like the murmur of a brook

in June. Poor little Katie! she lays her cheek now to a little cradle

sleeper’s, and starts at the distant footstep, and trembles at the

muttered curse, and reels under the brutal blow, and, woman-like--loves

on!

And what have we here? A sixpence with a ribbon in it! Oh, those

Saturday and Wednesday afternoons, with their hoarded store of nuts and

candy--the broad, green meadow, with its fine old trees--the crazy old

swing, and the fragrant tumble in the grass--the wreath of oak leaves,

the bunch of wild violets, the fairy story book, the little blue

jacket, the snowy shirt-collar, the curly, black head, with its soft,

blue eyes. Oh, first love, sugar-candy, torn aprons, and kisses! where

have ye flown?

What is this? only a pressed flower; but it tells me of a shadowy

wood--of a rippling brook--of a bird’s song--of a mossy seat--of

whispered leaf-music--of dark, soul-lit eyes--of a voice sweet, and

low, and thrilling--of a vow never broken till death chilled the lips

that made it. Little need to look at the pictured face that lies beside

me. It haunts me sleeping or waking. I shall see it again--life’s

trials passed.

A CONSCIENTIOUS YOUNG MAN.

“There is no object in nature so beautiful as a conscientious

young man.”-- _Exchange._

Well; I’ve seen the “Sea-Dog,” and Thackeray; and Tom Thumb and

Kossuth; the “Bearded Lady” and Father Matthew; the whistling Canary,

and Camille Urso; the “white negro,” and Mrs. Stowe; “Chang and Eng,”

and Jenny Lind; and Miss Bremer, and Madame Sontag. I have been to

the top of the State House, made the tour of the “Public Garden,” and

crossed the “Frog Pond.” I’ve seen Theodore Parker, and a locomotive.

I’ve ridden in an omnibus, heard a Fourth-of-July oration, and I once

saw the sun rise; but I never, _never_ never saw “a conscientious young

man.”

If there is such an “organization” on the periphery of this globe, I

should like to see him. If he _is_, _where is_ he? Who owns him? Where

did they raise him? What does he feed on? For whom does he vote? On

what political platform do his conscientious toes rest? Does he know

the difference between a Whig and a Democrat? between a “Hunker” and

a “Barnburner?” between a “hard-shell” and a “soft-shell?” between a

“uniform national currency” and a “sound constitutional currency?”

Does he have chills, or a fever, when he sees a bonnet! Does he look

at it out of the sides of his eyes, like a bashful, barn-yard bantam,

or dare he not look at all? Does he show the “white feather,” or crow

defiance? Does he “go to roost” at sun-down? and does he rest on an

aristocratic perch? I’m all alive to see the specimen. My opera-glass

is poised. Will he be at the World’s Fair? Might I be permitted to

shake hands with, and congratulate him! I pause for a reply.

CITY SCENES AND CITY LIFE

NUMBER ONE.