A CHILD'S STORY—THE THREE ROSES.
I WRITE to you to-day with a certain sort of sadness, and yet not mourning as one without hope.
I think one can become strongly attached to inanimate things, and, after associating with them for years, come to invest them with certain human attributes, and even to love them. They grow to be part of one's self, and reflect, in some degree, the individuality of the possessor. I have now sat for nearly three years at the old desk before me, in the same old corner, with the same blank prospect of brick walls and the little patch of blue sky no bigger than the lace handkerchief which swings from your finger, my dear Madame, and discoursed each week upon all sorts of pleasant topics in my careless way, always satisfied if here and there you might find a little flower worth laying away in your memory as a souvenir. Many of you who started on our journey through the World of Amusement are with me still, but some have left and gone up higher to the Beautiful Country; and one cruel summer which killed so many birds and blighted so many flowers, we all travelled with heavier hearts, thinking of the little ones whom the jealous angels enticed away, and some of us could hardly see the way for a time for the black shadow of the valley and the mists which were in our eyes.
I shall write to you no more from the old desk in the old corner, for, when next Saturday comes, I shall be at the new desk, in a new corner of the new building, and yet I cannot part from it without regret, for I have learned to love it, ink-begrimed, scratched and cut as it is. There are pleasant memories indelibly connected with it, and the next owner who possesses it will be richer than he knows, for he will buy some priceless associations. I frankly confess that I look forward to the new desk with some suspicions. It will be a better desk, a handsomer desk. The old, tried friend, whom you have grappled to yourself, as with hooks of steel, through storms and shine, it is hard to give up for the new comer, whom you have to learn before you can love, and who may deceive you, when it is all too late. And yet it is cheerful to know that when I say good-bye to the old desk next week, you will accompany me to the new desk, and that I shall continue to talk to you so long as it shall please you to listen. Aurelia, and the baby and husband, Celeste, Fitz-Herbert, Mignon and Blanche, and Old Blobbs and Mrs. Blobbs, will all go with me, and Old Blobbs has promised me that he will have something to say next Sunday from the new desk.
In this, my last letter from the old desk, I frankly state that I am going to say something to the children. You know that I thoroughly believe in children. I think they represent nearly all the love, and innocence, and purity there is in the world, and I want to tell them a story which may lead them to preserve that love, and innocence, and purity, until the end. I therefore warn all the grown up children, that this story is for the little ones, so that those desiring to leave, can go now, without disturbing us after we have commenced. Should any desire to remain, I hope they will keep as still as possible. Perhaps they will hear something which will benefit them. We will therefore wait a few minutes, after which the doors will be closed.
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The story is a simple one, but it has its lesson for you. Some of those older ones, who have just gone out, if they were here, would tell you, even with tears in their eyes, that it is true. It is the story of the Three Roses. One of them was a
WHITE ROSE.
This white rose grew in a large garden, where there were many other flowers: great, coarse, vulgar dahlias, always dressing in gaudy colors, without any regard to taste; delicate little anemones, who would drop their petals off in fright, if even a bee went buzzing by them; tulips, in whose breast the butterflies used to sleep; blue-bells, who rang the matins for the other flowers to wake, and the vespers for them to drop their little heads and fold up their petals in sleep; azaleas, who were very jealous of the fuschias, because the latter had a graceful way of hanging from their stalks, which the former could not get, although they tried until they were pink in the face; heliotropes, and their little cousins, the mignonettes, whom all the flowers loved for their sweetness, and never could see that it was because they were so humble that their lives were so full of perfume; passion-flowers, whose lives were full of pain; and those sensitive little flowers who were so nervous, that if you even pointed your finger at them, they would shiver all over, and draw themselves up in a heap. The White Rose was a very proud flower. She always dressed in pure white, with a beautiful gold ornament on her breast, and devoted most of her time to lazily swinging in the wind, admiring her beautiful garments. She never recognized other flowers in the garden. She never even condescended to notice the butterflies and the bees, who were great friends with the rest of the flowers. She would now and then nod to the green-and-gold humming-birds, who took good care, however, to keep out of her way, because they were afraid of her thorns. She had set her cap very high, and would marry nothing short of a prince, and thus she slighted some of her friends, and wounded others with her cruel thorns.
One day the prince came by that way, and his name was Zephyr. He was a gay, careless young fellow, without any heart in him. He came from a far country, and in his travels had flirted with every one. He had ruined many flowers in other gardens. He had even dallied with the tender leaves in the tree tops, of an evening, until the stern old trees angrily kept him away. Troops of the ghosts of the dandelions and pink thistles and young gossamers, whom he had deceived, followed in his train, and even the blue-birds, and robins, and orioles, were enamored of him, and kept the air full of melody, singing to him. Prince Zephyr came gaily dancing over the garden, and all the little flowers nodded their heads to him. The White Rose looked her prettiest, and at once beckoned him to come to her, and hid all her thorns. The two were long together, even until the sun went down, and the blue-bell had rung her vespers. It would have been well for the White Rose to have gone to sleep too; but Prince Zephyr dallied with her, and whispered all sorts of pretty nothings to her, and the foolish flower listened to him, and believed all he said. He promised to be true to her, and to return in the morning; and when they kissed good night, he stole away her perfume, which was her life. When the morning came, however, Prince Zephyr did not return. Many mornings came, but Prince Zephyr was far away, whispering that same sweet story to other roses, in other gardens. And the White Rose waited in vain, and withered and died, and was buried by the larch-tree in the corner of the garden, the cypress, and rue, and rosemary being the mourners at the funeral, the birds singing the hymns, and the little many-legged bugs in the grass, making the orchestra, with the bee at the baton.
And the name of the White Rose was Pride, which must always have a fall, my dear children.
But there was another rose. It was the
RED ROSE.
The Red Rose grew by the side of a tiny little brook, which had nothing to do the livelong day but to dance over its pebbles, and sing pretty songs, and laugh in the sunshine. The Red Rose was very discontented with her lot, for there was no one around with whom she could associate, but white and red clovers, dandelions and butter-cups. The Brook, who was a garrulous little fellow, made her still more discontented, by telling her what fine things there were out in the world, and how she would enjoy them if she would go with him and see them. One day, tired of looking into the Brook and seeing only herself, she dropped into his arms, and he tenderly carried her along. She floated very lazily and pleasantly along for a time, for the heavens were all blue, and the sunshine was bright, and the Brook was smooth, and so they rode along merrily together. The wild laurels, and red Betties, and Jack-in-the-pulpit, and starry asters, crowded together on the marges of the Brook to see her pass, and nodded to her. The white lilies who grew in the Brook rippled the water with their mocking laughter, for they knew her fate. The sober ferns warned her, but she paid no heed to the warning, and sailed down the meadow as proudly as Cleopatra under her silken sails on the turbid Nile. By and bye she got out of the meadow and it was not so pleasant. The flowers disappeared, and she had hard work to avoid the flags and rushes, and old gnarled stumps, and the sun was hidden by the interlaced tree-tops, and there were all sorts of water-spiders and little glossy black bugs which she disliked. After a time, the frogs and the water-snakes terrified her, and one day she found herself in a little whirlpool which made her dizzy. When she recovered, she was in the foam of a water-fall, and the foam-bells dazzled her so with their sheen that she plunged about among the rocks very wildly and before she emerged from them, some of her petals were badly damaged. It was now too late to return. She had made the first fall and she must go on. She no longer recognized the little Brook in the brawling, muddy waters which carried her through the rank swamps, where she met all kinds of noxious, ill-favored flowers, the hemlock, and nightshade, and belladonna, and poisonous ivies, which mocked her. The Brook was now a river, and too wide for her to escape. On she must go, ever on, bruised and weary as she was, and presently the river swept her through a great city, rank with corruption and filth; swept her past the vessels at the wharves, loading and unloading, and noisy with the curses and cries of the sailors; under the wheels of steamboats; now sunk into the corrupt depths, and now rising to the surface again, but so changed that none of the flowers in the country, who nodded to her that bright morning, would ever have known her; under the arches of the bridges and close by slimy mouldering piers; and one evening, so close to the dead body of a woman, who had hurled herself out of the world and out of misery, that she almost got tangled in the streaming black hair which rose and fell in the turbid current; and so on, until one morning she found herself out of the river and into the mighty surges of the ocean, when it was all too late.
And the name of the Brook was Pleasure and the name of the Red Rose, Folly.
I have now to tell you of the third rose, the
WILD ROSE.
The Wild Rose grew in a forest, and was a simple modest flower, who was sheltered in the winter from the cruel winds by the mighty pines. In the spring and summer she was even more beautiful than the White Rose or the Red Rose, although she had a tiny little petal of white just suffused with a blush. Her leaves were very small but they were very fragrant. There were no other flowers in the forest for her to love, and so she loved a Star which she used to see every night through the branches of the trees. Sometimes when the dew fell in the night, the Star would come to her in the drops, and she could see and feel his radiance on her petals, although she could never go to the Star. And there was a little Child who, sometimes, used to roam through this forest, who loved the Rose, and used to stop and talk to it in her childish way, and the Star, which the Rose loved, was the Child's Star. For, even for each little child, shines a star which is its own—a star which always rains down blessed influences upon it—a star which will always guide the child if it will but follow. One day the Child did not come to the forest, for an Angel had come down out of the blue heavens—the Angel of Death—and forever closed the eyes of the little one and sealed its ears to the sweet sounds of earth, and hushed its merry prattle forever, and strangers went to the forest and plucked the Rose which the little Child had loved, and they placed it in the cold marble hands, and the Angel of Light, the sister of the Angel of Death, came and took the Child and the Rose and carried them to the Star, and the three were re-united and were happy.
And the name of the Wild Rose was Wisdom.
These are the stories of the Three Roses, which I tell to you, my children, upon the old desk, before I leave it forever, and I pray Heaven for you all, blue eyes and black eyes, brown hair and gold hair, whether you live in hovel or in hall, whatever ways your little feet may wander, that they go not in the way of the White Rose which is that of disappointment leading to death; neither in the way of the Red Rose which is that of folly leading to ruin; but in the way of the Wild Rose, which is that of contentment and wisdom.
April 24, 1869.
THE OLD.
ON this May-Day, when Nature is putting on her new spring suit of green, and decking herself with new buds and flowers; when every blade of grass shooting up through the brown sod, and every quaint little package of leaf unrolling itself on the bough are new; when restless men and women, carting their Lares and Penates through the streets, are seeking new homes; when new breezes from the North come shiveringly down upon us, telling new stories they learned of the icebergs on their way; and when new asparagus and onions are coming into the market; on this new day, I am free to confess I like the old.
I like old books. I think there is more virtue, and wit, and sense, and solid stuff in the old tomes—brass-clasped and vellum-paged mayhap, made to last forever by the old worthies, over whose heads hundreds of springs have come and gone, and generations of birds have sung, and they none the wiser, for they left their souls in the tomes—than in the reams of gaudy modern trash, born in all sorts of ways, in all sorts of places, and of all sorts of parents, with lives as permanent as a tadpole's, and, like many a human being, carrying all the usefulness and beauty they possess in their covers. Gilt goes a great way with a book, as it does with a man. There are a great many gilded men and women it won't do to touch or examine too closely. The moment you handle them, the gilt rubs off and shows the pewter underneath. There are a great many books of the same description.
I like old wine. There is virtue in the mildewed, cobwebbed bottle, which one of your family, whose portrait hangs in the hall because he is a little old fashioned for the drawing room, placed in the cellar years ago. Break the neck of the bottle, and see how the imprisoned genii of the wine leap sparkling into the sunshine, clad in gold, and fragrant as a rose you stumble upon in the woods. No aquafortis, logwood, or burnt shavings here. This is the nectar which refreshed the giants of old time, which Horace sang, and Anacreon drank, with which Dante pledged Beatrice, and which runs through Beethoven's Scherzos, and inspired the Brindisis of the masters.
I like old songs into which the writers have poured their souls; songs as full of passion and pain as the West sometimes is full of thunder clouds; songs full of sadness which is not the boisterous wo of the hired mute, but as unobtrusive and gentle as the summer rain; songs full of the quaintness, and delicacy, and beauty which time has only mellowed, and which come down to us hallowed with associations which cluster around them like vines. Now and then you get a song which touches the heart at once, but a song, like a friend, must have been tested by experience before you can fully receive it. Who would not take Mendelssohn's "First Violet," and gladly give up all the flower-songs of to-day? Has the religion of to-day anything more delicately beautiful and graceful than Herrick, anything more massive and majestic than the "Ein Feste Berg"? Do our modern lovers sing such dainty serenades as Spenser and Sidney sang to their Phyllises?
I like old friends. A man can't afford to have too many friends. It is too expensive in the social economy, not in the matter of dollars and cents, but in the personal wear and tear they occasion one. A man with a thousand friends is worse off than the Wandering Jew. A man with five hundred friends is to be pitied. A man with a hundred friends is a victim. A man with fifty friends is happy in a quiet way. A man with twenty-five friends can find time to be a philosopher. A man with ten friends, one for each finger, each one of whom will stick to him like his fingers, is justified in crying "Eureka" over the discovery of perfect happiness. The result of my observations in a feminine direction, is, that women are so made that they will be inconsolable without a thousand dear friends, to whom they are bound by the tenderest ties until death, and ten thousand other friends entitled to the confidences which distract the female breast, without which relief, the female breast would be simply a pent up Vesuvius. If, therefore, you have ten friends, and they are old friends who have travelled all along the journey with you, through storm and through sunshine, with any one of whom you would exchange your personal identity, I congratulate you.
It is because I like old things that I paid a visit to the old Tribune Buildings. I have a passion for old buildings. The smell of antiquity about them is as refreshing in the modern combination of smells as the bouquet of good wine in a villainous beer cellar. I like to trace all the habits and peculiarities of the dead and gone men and women, which, in the process of time, have been ingrained into the building, and become part and parcel of it. I have no objection to a ghost or two—none of your mice in the wainscotting, or swaying beams in the attic, but the good old-fashioned ghost of some poor soul, with streaming black hair and pale face, who concealed her malady and carried her secret with her under the turf, and, discontented in Heaven, must come back to the old place where he used to be, and walk under the trees where they used to walk—the trees which know the secret as well as she, for they heard it; or the ghost of the boy who ran away and went to sea and never came home again, whose sad story most any wave crawling up the sand will tell you, if you will listen aright; or the ghost of that wrinkled old flint who hid his ingots under the tiles of the hearth, and comes back now and then to see if they are safe.
I did not see any spirits in the old building; quite the contrary. There was a great deal of life there. It was night when I went there, but by the moonlight I saw some strange sights. Our late co-tenants, the rats, mice, cockroaches and spiders, were holding a general mass-meeting in the various rooms, discussing the changed aspect of affairs. An antique rat, of venerable appearance and gray whiskers, covered with the scars of many a hard-fought fight, and with a tail sadly mutilated by the numerous inkstands and paper-weights which had followed him into his hole many a time and oft, occupied the Managing Editor's old desk, the empty pigeon-holes of which brought him into admirable perspective. He acted as Chairman of the meeting, and presided with dignity, holding a dusty document in his hand for a gavel, which had been laid away fifteen years ago as of immense value, and never thought of since—just as you and I, you know, who think we are of so much value, will be laid away shortly in a pigeon-hole, and never thought of again. Several rows of rats, who had come down from a former generation, occupied an old table, sitting erect, and manifesting a proper appreciation of the spirit of the meeting. The younger rats were compelled to shift for themselves, and were sprinkled about the floor. The gas pipe running up the wall was festooned with mice who looked down upon the assembly with interested countenances, while the three blind mice of song notoriety could be distinguished by their tails, that is, as much of their tails as escaped the carving knife, which protruded from a hole in the wall. Being bereft of the blessing of sight, it was but natural that they should make the mistake of turning their backs upon the Chairman, but they could hear all that was said. The rat who lived in a well, and who, when he died, went to a warmer climate, you may not be aware returned from that place some time since. He was present as an invited guest from the Museum. The cockroaches looked out of the cracks in every direction, and balanced themselves dexterously on shreds of wall paper. The spiders occupied the centres of their webs, apparently asleep, but in reality wide awake, as one unfortunate blue-bottle fly found, who got caught, and was immediately served up and sent to the spiders of the Local-Room as a present. Besides these, there were a few score of old fogy mosquitoes, left over from last year, and a handsome representation of those quiet little brown bugs addicted to bedsteads, and pronounced odor, whom I do not like to mention by name. The Chairman was listening to the complaints of the multitude, for famine was staring them in the face, and some means must be adopted for self-preservation. A motion to serve out an injunction on the Tribune Company, and compel them to replace the goods they had carried away, was canvassed, but failed of rat-ification. One large, portly rat, with a very benevolent face, and getting gray, whom I at once recognized as an old friend I had seen on my old desk many a time, banqueting on paste, was complaining particularly of me. He characterized such conduct as despicable in the highest degree. It was a betrayal of friendship, a breach of confidence, and he would never again repose trust in a biped. All that he had found in my desk, during a visit that evening, was a dried up bouquet or two, rusty pens, one scissor blade, a photograph of a superannuated prima donna, a paper of pins, and a huge package of tickets to amateur concerts. There was a time when he was young and strong. In those days he could gnaw a file, and derive considerable culinary consolation from a paper-weight, but now he was obliged to conform his diet to a weakened digestion and disordered liver. He spoke more in sorrow than in anger, and regretted that Pickle should be fickle.
At this point, a young mouse, perched upon the top of the gas pipe, in a piping voice complained that he had just commenced going through Abbott's History of the War. It was slow work, but he had got through the covers, and part way through the introduction, and he didn't like to be interrupted in this manner. It was true he hadn't derived much sustenance from the thing, but it was a matter of principle when he commenced a piece of work, to keep at it if it killed him. Some fifteen or twenty old fossilized rats, with their wrinkled faces, scanty hairs and shrunk shanks, made the same complaint with reference to the Patent Office Reports and commercial statistics. To be sure they had not thriven well. One of them had devoured half the Georgian Bay Canal; another had swallowed two Board of Trade Reports, and had got as far as lard in the third, to which he was looking forward with great expectations, being then unprofitably engaged upon lumber; a third had almost exhausted himself with devouring a census table, and was just in sight of some quotations of cheese; a fourth had swallowed the Smithsonian Institution, and put the Covode Investigation on the top of it, and was just ready to attack the American Cyclopedia, in which he was sure to find something to agree with him and repay him for the time he had wasted. A sentimental little mouse complained that she had just got into Mrs. E. D. E. N. Alphabet Southworth's "How He Won Her," and was interrupted, at a critical moment, when "he" and "her" were about to say something nice. She was dying to know "how he won her," and she might go down to a premature grave without the knowledge of that interesting secret. A grave looking rat, with a streak of white fur around his neck, and troubled with a slight cough arising from an affection of the throat, announced that he had devoted several nights of hard labor, in getting through the back of a Biblical Cyclopedia, and had just reached the title page. All the world was before him. Vistas of Hebraic and other sorts of lore, opened before his longing eyes. He was about to enter, when the prize was snatched away. He consoled himself with the reflection that all earthly matters are illusions, but he could not help thinking now and then how pleasant that Cyclopedia would have been. There was one wretched old rat who had eaten up a volume of Swinburne, two duplicates of Walt Whitman, and was feasting upon a gorgeous picture of the spectacle of Undine. He had eaten up four blonde wigs, sixteen legs of ballet girls, and left eight coryphees with a leg apiece. He was very indignant over his disappointment, and even swore about it, for which he was called to account by the grave-looking rat with a slight cough. The wicked rodent growled out something in broken Rattish, and retired to his hole, out of which he shook his tail in defiance. Presently four or five good little mice, whom I had not observed before, with their faces very clean, and their fur smoothed down very sleekly, made their complaint in a weak kind of utterance. It was to the effect that they had discovered a little stock of Sunday School books in a paper box, which were very affecting, and narrated how "Little Freddie" and "Good Teddie" and others, committed forty feet of texts in one day, which disagreed with them so that they died very early, not being good enough for this world. They had just succeeded in getting into the box, and now the books were gone.
In this manner, complaint after complaint was made, and the meeting adjourned to another evening without taking action. You should have seen the assembly after adjournment. The whole mass of rats and mice rushed pell-mell through the dusty heaps of papers on the floor. One set danced a polka on fragments of editorials touching the finances and internal revenue, taxation and other topics. In the local room a rather spare rat, with long reddish hair, mounted the City Editor's desk, and read off, to the edification of the crowd, several mutilated fragments of a "Horrible Murder," "Atrocious Villainy in Bridgeport," "Destructive Fire in Holstein," "Scandal Case on Michigan Avenue," "Religious Announcements," etc. In the Commercial Room several casualties occurred. One unfortunate mouse was nearly choked to death with a column of figures which he found on the floor, and attempted to swallow. Another, of a sentimental turn of mind, went insane trying to understand some commercial quotations he found in an antique looking scrap-book, and three incautious little mice, venturing too hastily into Colbert's Astronomy, fell into the Dipper and couldn't get out, until an old rat helped them with the North Pole and a line dropped from the plane of the ecliptic, through the parallax of the sun, whatever that is. In another room, the cockroaches had a carnival in the Night Editor's coffee-pot. It was one of the most touching sights in the world to see them enter in festive procession at the top and come out through the nose. On my own old desk, twenty-three assorted cockroaches, of a beautiful bronze color, each one of whom I have killed twenty-three times in twenty-three various ways, were dancing a can-can. A few of the odoriferous, small brown bugs stood round in various attitudes, like supernumeraries, while an old rat, against whom I once swore eternal war, as Hannibal swore against the Romans, beat time with his stump of a tail. I forgave the rat, but I shall never forget the scene. I shall miss those cockroaches in the coming days, surrounded by the inanimate splendors of the new desk, upon which I write you to-day, looking no more upon the brick walls, but sitting in a flood of roseate light, which pours through the new window from the dying day. I could not bear to interfere with the sports of those poor creatures, and I left them there in the moonlight, engaged in their wild revels. I cannot say with any degree of veracity that I loved them while living with them, but still I know that I shall miss them, and their innocent little ways.
To rat, and mouse, and cockroach, and odoriferous bug, and spider; to the old desk, and the withered bouquets; to the old rooms, which have seen so many come and go, and one of tempered judgment, and calm speech, of dignified presence and upright life, a fast friend and sure adviser, who left us one morning to rejoin her who had gone to Heaven a little while before him; to many pleasant associations and happy scenes; to the familiar stairs worn deeply with the yearly tread of feet as the water weareth away the rock; to all but memory, hail and farewell! And welcome the new!
May 1, 1869.
OLD BLOBBS' OPINIONS.
OLD Blobbs came up to see me the other day. He breathed very hard when he came into the room, was very red in the face, and wiped his forehead vigorously with his yellow bandanna, for the stairs troubled him somewhat. Blobbs is not what he was forty years ago—a broad-breasted, strong-legged, deep-lunged young fellow. The bucket creaks now in the well, and the grasshopper begins to be a burden. We all hope the pitcher may not be broken for a long time to come, but we see many signs that he is on the sun-down side of the hill, and in his melancholy moods he talks about the shadows down in the valley whither he is going. I think, however, that he will never cease his hatred of shams; that he will always delight to strip off all the fine clothes from human pretence; that he will never admit that respectability is whatever keeps a gig, and that, under all the rubbish of the world, he will contend there is something real, and that it is his duty to find it out. He believes, as I do, that this great world is a type of the Godlike; that the history of man from the days when Adam dwelt in Eden, down to this blessed May morning, so full of spring's odorous promise, is a gospel in itself; that the morning stars sing together now as of old; and that our souls are kept in subservience to our bodies, running of errands for them, or concealed beneath aprons doing the work of the waiter, these starry strangers who should only be allowed to fulfil their own missions.
When Blobbs had recovered his breath, he signified his desire to say a few words from the new desk, and I left him in possession. When I returned, I found the following, written in a large, bold hand, and underscored to give emphasis, I suppose. I give you the document just as he wrote it, underscorings and all:
"The Sin of the American nation, sir, is a holiday. The unpardonable folly is a LAUGH. Sport is unworthy a man born on American soil. Recreation is an exploded idea, sir, which has come down to us from a former generation, and if there is anything which an American looks upon with utter contempt, it is a former generation. There is no retrospect or prospect between the Atlantic and the Pacific. It is now and always a simple spect. Every man has a likeness of Mammon set up on his mantel, and to spare one day from the worship of that small god, is to expose himself to the danger of not being an old man at thirty, and comfortably into his grave before fifty. Some unfortunate individuals manage to get beyond fifty, but they are like old parchments, faded, yellow, and wrinkled, with all the characters upon them effaced. American babies are begotten of fret on one side, and hurry on the other, and these two forces are forever propelling them toward a six-by-two patch of ground with a stone at each end, one of which is Ananias and the other Sapphira. American babies are never children, sir. They make one step from bibs to breeches, and from pinafores to paniers. An American man of fourteen has squeezed the orange of life dry, and an American woman of twelve is ready to receive proposals of marriage, and sink her identity in kettles and pans. There is no law against it, sir. Nature has kindly preordained that there shall be no bar in the intimate relations of humanity and asininity. If a man wants to go through life like a locomotive, I suppose there is nothing to prevent it, but I don't want him to ask me to ride on his train. I know the rails are laid on every kindly feeling and elegant grace, and that the smallest flower can't grow between them. I know that there are all sorts of obstructions on the track, bankruptcies, suicides, diseases, etc., which will prevent him from getting into the three score and ten station which God Almighty intended for him. People come into the world in a great hurry, and immediately commence their preparations to get out of it. They pile up a heap of treasures, and by the time they get it piled up, under the sod they go, where there is not room for a five cent shin-plaster.
"What made me think of all these things, sir, was the official announcement of the city authorities that when the grandest achievement of this or any other age is celebrated next week, business will be suspended for one hour![2] Actually for one hour, sir. Sixty minutes, sir!! And the wretched man who doesn't recommence his work and put on steam exactly when the hand reaches the sixty-first minute, is unworthy the inestimable privileges of an American citizen, sir. If I had been the Common Council of the city of Chicago, I would have passed a law that the merchant who did not hang out the banners on the outer wall from sunrise to sunset, who did not double the wages of his clerks for that day, and order them to celebrate, who did not eat double his usual amount, who did not execute a can-can on the top of a flour barrel, who did not make Mrs. Merchant eternally his joyful debtor, by the item of a new hat, and allow the little Merchants to ruin at least one suit of clothes in a mud pie bakery, and who did not retire to bed at night feeling that he was all right at heart, however he might be in his head, should be liable to fine and imprisonment. Business will be suspended for one hour! Bah!
"I tell you, sir, when Gabriel blows his horn, and summons us to square up our accounts, it will be extremely doubtful whether Chicago will suspend business more than one hour to accommodate him; and, as I am positive that it will take over an hour to settle up the accounts of this city, it seems to me there is going to be some confusion. It may be possible that Chicago will not be recognized at all on that occasion. If she is, I hope some arrangements may be made by which she can spare a day or two for Gabriel's business.
"I tell you, sir, we travel too fast. We don't take enough time for recreation. If we would only halt occasionally in this everlasting chase after the Almighty Dollar, there would be less occasion for hospitals, insane asylums, and penitentiaries. There would be fewer suicides, and general smash-ups and break-downs. There is no good reason why a man shouldn't be just as fresh at forty as at twenty, but, as we go now, there isn't one man in a thousand who is fit for anything but a calculating machine at forty. Physically, he isn't worth a pinch of snuff. Mentally and morally, he is dried up; and the women, sir, are just as bad as the men. It pains me, sir, to see our women fade so quickly. This fast pace is killing to them. Brought up in hothouses, and forced beyond nature in their growth, they mature when they should be in bud, and wither when they should be in maturity, and are not of much further use, except for running sewing-circles, and drinking weak tea. It pains me, sir, to see the young girls on our streets, with that callous sort of countenance, and knowing expression, which show that they have got out of illusion into reality, and to see so many pale, careworn, bent and faded women, out of whom all buoyant life has departed long since, and who can no more keep time than a watch with a broken spring.
"In the mean time, business will be suspended for one hour. Bah! Boy's play sir; all boy's play!!
*********
"These are my opinions, sir, and it is quite immaterial to me who knows them. And, sir, if your new desk will give them any extra weight, I shall be glad of it. I do not know that Mrs. Blobbs will agree with all that I have written to you, but that also is quite immaterial. She is a remarkable woman sir, and principally remarkable for not thinking as I do.
"Allow me to subscribe myself, sir.
"Your very obedient servant,
"John Blobbs."
May 8, 1869.
TYPES.
AT the breakfast table this morning, time hung rather heavily on our hands, for the breakfast was not altogether a success. Old Blobbs was a little sulky, as Mrs. Blobbs had not rested well during the night. When Mrs. Blobbs does not rest well, she either gets up and wanders about the house, in an aimless sort of way, or else she talks to Old Blobbs, which is just the last thing in the world Old Blobbs wants her to do, when he is trying to sleep. Aurelia's baby was troublesome also, and was at last sent away in disgrace, when it had emptied a brimming cup of milk into Mrs. Blobbs' lap, and down the folds of the black silk. Mignon was in a pet about something or other, and was moodily tearing a geranium leaf to pieces, which she had pulled out of the breakfast bouquet. Celeste was in a towering rage with Fitz-Herbert, and shot lightnings out of her pretty eyes at him, because he had spoken slightingly of her coiffure. F. H., however, was as impervious to lightning as a glass non-conductor, and in a chaotic sort of way caressed the promise of a side whisker just beginning to dawn on his cheek.
I was, as usual, serene and philosophical; and to dispel these little spring clouds which every moment threatened to rain torrents upon the breakfast table, told them I had something to say.
The announcement was magical, and had the same effect upon the company, that oil has when poured upon the troubled waters, or the show window of a millinery store on opening day upon the ruffled breast of lovely woman.
And what I said was this:
I think there is a direct line of ascent from the atom, the grain of sand upon the sea shore, for instance, up to God, and that the great principle of life, which emanates from God, finds its way down to the atom, although we cannot perceive it with our finite sight.
Let us commence, if you please, with the dust, which is not to be despised, my dears, because you are made out of it, the sand, the drops of water, or any other of the very lowest forms of creation. We pass up from these elements, and find them crystalized into minerals, and wrought into flowers, and obtain our first ideas of beauty. Looking up through the grades of flowers, we happen upon the sensitive plants, which shrink from you, and shiver when you point your finger at them like guilty souls, and the winged orchids, which you must touch to convince yourself they are not butterflies; and in these you begin to get foreshadowings of life. From this point you find organisms which may be vegetable, or may be animal. Our skill is insufficient to decide which they are. Presently you reach the sponges and the corals, in which animal life is very apparent; and if you will do yourself the pleasure to look into that glass of water with a microscope, my dear Celeste, you will be thoroughly convinced of life, and also that you are daily drinking millions of very unpleasant looking animals. A step higher up, you reach the insects and the ephemera, who live their little day of breezy life in the sunshine, and in their buzzing you find music commences. All these little fellows, with wings and feelers, play very pretty tunes, if your ear is only good enough to catch them, when they praise God by beating their gauzy wings together. As you pass from the insects to the birds, life is more pronounced, and the music of which I have spoken develops in construction and increases in beauty. Now, we are reaching the grade of animals, where intelligence commences; and as we come up to the dog, ox, horse or elephant, affection is added to intelligence. The animals begin to assume the qualities of man, and before we are aware of it, some of the animals are walking on two legs instead of four, and assuming the form and features of men, as, for instance, the monkeys, the apes, and the orang-utans. You pass from the monkey to the Digger Indian or Hottentot, and with the single unimportant exception of length of tail, it is well nigh impossible to tell them apart. Man is a short-tailed monkey, or, vice versa, monkey is a long-tailed man. Even in the highest order of man, it is sometimes difficult to tell a man from a monkey. Turn a child out into the woods, and let it grow up for thirty or forty years, subsisting upon roots, herbs and nuts, like an animal, and what does it become at last but a hairy, chattering ape, climbing trees, burrowing in the ground, and living like an animal? Thus we rise through various grades of men, each new type more perfect than the other, but still possessing some characteristic of the animal, until we reach woman, who is a step higher; then up through the various types of women, until we reach the angels; through the various types of angels until we reach the archangels, and then through the shining hierarchy of Heaven, until we stop at God, the centre of all life and the sun of all perfection, beyond Whom is nullity.
Thus do I believe that man is linked with all animal and vegetable forms below him, and that in each change the higher type takes something from the lower and preserves some characteristics of it, and that man loves God best when he loves all the types below him—the beast, the bird, the insect, the flower, and even the atom. The line from God to the atom, and from the atom to God, seems to me clear and uninterrupted; and thus the whole of this great universe is bound together by clear, though sometimes unseen relations, and radiates from God, its centre. And who knows but that in other planets there are intelligences superior to us, forming more links in this grand chain? When man dies, he goes back to the dust whence he sprang. He mingles with the brook; he blossoms in the flowers of the field; he is crystalized into the mineral; and thus part after part is absorbed, until only the original atom is left, which is the foundation upon which God has built up all this marvelous superstructure. Purified of all the bad qualities of animal and vegetable, and other material organisms, the soul, or what the philosophers call the Ego, only is left, and is only fitted to be in the presence of the Originator of this complex mechanism.
Exactly where the soul comes in, in tracing the changes from type to type, I confess, is a difficult matter to solve. The physical peculiarities are easily defined, but the spiritual developments are very subtle. I am free to confess to you that I don't believe man has a monopoly of all the soul there is in the world. I am prepared to admit that some men don't have souls at all, but only instincts. The common saying, "This man hasn't the soul of a louse," I think may be literally true. Some animals, I solemnly believe, have larger, better and truer souls than some men. All the learned arguments in the world would never convince me that the faithful horse, who is diligent in business, who understands what is said to him, and who stands there weeping big tears out of his eyes, and uttering a mournful cry under the lash of the brute who is driving him, has not a soul, and more than that, a better and bigger soul than his driver. The mental acumen of all the schools would never convince me that the faithful dog who loses his master, searches for him day and night, only to find his grave, and, lying upon that grave, refuses food and drink, and, moaning piteously, dies upon his master's sleeping place, has not a soul. Did you ever look directly into the eyes of the ox, and not see the soul of the animal looking out at you in those soft and expressive orbs? To my mind, blind old Homer never said a finer thing than when he called the mother of the gods, "Ox-eyed Juno," although I think it was an injustice to the animal, because Juno was a scallawag, and deserved just such an old rake of a husband as the Cloud-Bearer.
In these various types we do not always find perfection. There are breaks in the ascent. I will illustrate this to you. Among the insects, there are fleas, mosquitos, cockroaches, and other species, which have not advanced a particle in decency or intelligence above the hideous horned animalisms in the drop of water. Among the birds, there are some types of no more consequence than the insects. In the higher grades of the animals, there are the same unfortunate breaks. In the dog family, for instance, the yellow dog is really far below the plane on which he stands. He belongs to the same category as the skunk. He is of no earthly use to the types above or below him. The only thing he can do is to bark; and as he barks at everything, from the moon to a mud-puddle, even his barking has no significance. When you get up to men, there is no exception to the rule. Some men have not fully changed from one type to another, but have the characteristics of the lower type in a crude form, like pollywogs and water-newts.
Now, you see, assuming my doctrine to be correct, you can explain a great many peculiarities of men, and the animal characteristics they carry about with them. It explains why some men look like animals; why some men act like a dog; why some are slow as a snail; why some are secretive as a clam; why some absorb all you have got, like a sponge; why some are as dirty as a hog; why some are as sly as a fox; why some are as scaly as a fish; and so on ad infinitum. You can find the features of almost every animal in the human face—the ass and the monkey being specially prominent. The number of men, who, in the change of types, have preserved the family semblance to these animals is somewhat remarkable. In fact, the ass was a very hard animal to get by in the ascent. Almost every man now and then makes an ass of himself, and returns to the lower type—the only shade of difference being in the length of the ear. Were it not that a superior power continually holds him in check, man would gravitate downward, as his whole tendency is to retrograde to these lower types. Some men, who are not obstructed by this superior power, manage to get back to the brute and stay there. He must have certain conventional surroundings, also, in addition to this superior power, which is that of education, to keep his elevated position.
I think that the women mainly come from the flowers and the birds. You will find the analogies of nearly all women in the vegetable kingdom. Some women, tender, delicate, fragile, and spiritual, have all the attributes of the violet, and though they may blossom in some out of the way corner, they make everything around them joyous with their beauty and fragrance. Then there are others who flaunt their heads with a pretty disdain, and dazzle you with the beauty of their faces, but the moment you touch them, they fall to pieces like the seeds of the dandelion. They won't bear handling. Then there are women with strong natures, whose bodies are in harness, and souls in curb, who resemble the tough azalea, with a stalk like iron, and flowers we never care to gather, owing to their glutinous consistency. There are other women whom you can't take hold of at all. They repel you from every side like a porcupine. They resemble the fruit of the Durion tree, which is excellent eating provided you have courage enough to get through its hard spikes.
I was reading the other day that the birds of Paradise, when they are in their most gorgeous plumage, select some tree, or other eligible spot, go through with a regular dance for the edification of the other birds, and, during the dance, display their lustrous feathers by spreading them out as much as possible, and chatter together, in an insanely garrulous manner.
I was about to make an application of this custom to women, when I caught the eye of Mrs. Blobbs looking at me in a significant manner. I confess to you I am a little afraid of that majestic woman when she puts on her war-paint, and I immediately refrained, and we arose from the table.
May 15, 1869.