I can't say just how many walks she (the schoolmistress) and I had
taken together before this one. I found the effect of going out every
morning was decidedly favorable on her health. Two pleasing dimples,
the places for which were just marked when she came, played, shadowy,
in her freshening cheeks when she smiled and nodded good-morning to me
from the schoolhouse steps.
[Footnote 14: From Part XI of "The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table."
Published by Houghton, Mifflin Company.]
I am afraid I did the greater part of the talking. At any rate, if I
should try to report all that I said during the first half-dozen walks
we took together, I fear that I might receive a gentle hint from my
friends the publishers that a separate volume, at my own risk and
expense, would be the proper method of bringing them before the
public.
I would have a woman as true as death. At the first real lie which
works from the heart outward she should be tenderly chloroformed into
a better world, where she can have an angel for a governess, and feed
on strange fruits which will make her all over again, even to her
bones and marrow. Whether gifted with the accident of beauty or not,
she should have been molded in the rose-red clay of love before the
breath of life made a moving mortal of her. Love capacity is a
congenital endowment; and I think, after a while, one gets to know the
warm-hued natures it belongs to from the pretty pipe-clay counterfeits
of it. Proud she may be, in the sense of respecting herself; but
pride, in the sense of contemning others less gifted than herself,
deserves the two lowest circles of a vulgar woman's Inferno, where the
punishments are smallpox and bankruptcy. She who nips off the end of a
brittle courtesy, as one breaks the tip of an icicle, to bestow upon
those whom she ought cordially and kindly to recognize, proclaims the
fact that she comes not merely of low blood, but of bad blood.
Consciousness of unquestioned position makes people gracious in proper
measure to all; but if a woman puts on airs with her real equals, she
has something about herself or her family she is ashamed of, or ought
to be. Middle, and more than middle-aged people, who know family
histories, generally see through it. An official of standing was rude
to me once. "Oh, that is the maternal grandfather," said a wise old
friend to me, "he was a boor." Better too few words, from the woman we
love, than too many: while she is silent, Nature is working for her;
while she talks, she is working for herself. Love is sparingly soluble
in the words of men; therefore they speak much of it; but one
syllable of woman's speech can dissolve more of it than a man's heart
can hold.
Whether I said any or all of these things to the schoolmistress or
not--whether I stole them put of Lord Bacon--whether I cribbed them
from Balzac--whether I dipt them from the ocean of Tupperian
wisdom--or whether I have just found them in my head (laid there by
that solemn fowl, Experience, who, according to my observation,
cackles oftener than she drops real, live eggs), I can not say. Wise
men have said more foolish things--and foolish men, I don't doubt,
have said as wise things. Anyhow, the schoolmistress and I had
pleasant walks and long talks, all of which I do not feel bound to
report.
You are a stranger to me, Ma'am.--I don't doubt you would like to know
all I said to the schoolmistress.--I shan't do it; I had rather get
the publishers to return the money you have invested in this. Besides,
I have forgotten a good deal of it. I shall tell only what I like of
what I remember.