So sang the dying poetess. The “eternal gates” have closed upon her. Those dark, soul-lit eyes beam upon us no more. “June” has come again, with its “sweet roses,” its birds, its zephyrs, its flowers and fragrance. It is such a day as her passionate heart would have reveled in—a day of Eden-like freshness and beauty. I will gather some fair, sweet flowers, and visit her grave.
“Show me Mrs. Fanny Osgood’s monument, please,” said I to the rough gardener, who was spading the turf in Mount Auburn.
“In Orange Avenue, Ma’am,” he replied, respectfully indicating, with a wave of the hand, the path I was to pursue.
Tears started to my eyes, as I trod reverently down the quiet path. The little birds she loved so well, were skimming confidingly and joyously along before me, and singing as merrily as if my heart echoed back their gleeful songs.
I approached the enclosure, as the gardener had directed me. There were five graves. In which slept the poetess? for there was not even a headstone! The flush of indignant feeling mounted to my temples; the warm tears started from my eyes. She was forgotten! Sweet, gifted Fanny! in her own family burial place she was forgotten! The stranger from a distance, who had worshiped her genius, might in vain make a pilgrimage to do her honor. I, who had personally known and loved her, had not even the poor consolation of decking the bosom of her grave with the flowers I had gathered; I could not kiss the turf beneath which she is reposing; I could not drop a tear on the sod, ’neath which her remains are mouldering back to their native dust. I could not tell, (though I so longed to know,) in which of the little graves—for there were several—slept her “dear May,” her “pure Ellen;” the little, timid, household doves, who folded their weary wings when the parent bird was stricken down, by the aim of the unerring Archer.
Though allied by no tie of blood to the gifted creature, who, somewhere, lay sleeping there, I felt the flush of shame mount to my temples, to turn away and leave her dust so unhonored. Oh, God! to be so soon forgotten by all the world!—How can even earth look so glad, when such a warm, passionate heart lies cold and pulseless? Poor, gifted, forgotten Fanny! She “still lives” in my heart; and, Reader, glance your eye over these touching lines, “written during her last illness,” and tell me, Shall she not also live in thine?
I have a horror of “best” things, come they in the shape of shoes, garments, bonnets or rooms. In such a harness my soul peers restlessly out, asking “if I be I.” I’m puzzled to find myself. I become stiff and formal and artificial as my surroundings.
But of all the best things, spare me the infliction of a “best room.” Out upon a carpet too fine to tread upon, books too dainty to handle, sofas that but mock your weary limbs, and curtains that dare not face a ray of sunlight!
Had I a house, there should be no “best room” in it. No upholsterer should exorcise comfort, or children, from my door-sill. The free, fresh air should be welcome to play through it; the bright, glad sunshine to lighten and warm it; while fresh mantel-flowers should woo us visits from humming-bird and drowsy bee.
For pictures, I’d look from out my windows, upon a landscape painted by the Great Master—ever fresh, ever varied, and never marred by envious “cross lights;” now, wreathed in morning’s silvery mist; now, basking in noon’s broad beam; now, flushed with sunset’s golden glow; now, sleeping in dreamy moonlight.
For statuary, fill my house with children—rosy, dimpled, laughing children; now, tossing their sunny ringlets from open brows; now, vailing their merry eyes in slumberous dreams, ’neath snow-white lids; now, sweetly grave, on bended knee, with clasped hands, and lisped words of holy prayer.
Did I say I’d have nothing “best?” Pardon me. Sunday should be the best day of all the seven—not ushered in with ascetic form, or lengthened face, or stiff and rigid manners. Sweetly upon the still Sabbath air should float the matin hymn of happy childhood; blending with early song of birds, and wafted upward, with flowers’ incense, to Him whose very name is Love. It should be no day for puzzling the half-developed brain of childhood with gloomy creeds, to shake the simple faith that prompts the innocent lips to say, “Our Father.” It should be no day to sit upright on stiff-backed chairs, till the golden sun should set. No; the birds should not be more welcome to warble, the flowers to drink in the air and sunlight, or the trees to toss their lithe limbs, free and fetterless.
“I’m so sorry that to-morrow is Sunday!” From whence does this sad lament issue? From under your roof, oh mistaken but well-meaning Christian parents—from the lips of your child, whom you compel to listen to two or three unintelligible sermons, sandwiched between Sunday schools, and finished off at nightfall by tedious repetitions of creeds and catechisms, till sleep releases your weary victim! No wonder your child shudders, when the minister tells him that “Heaven is one eternal Sabbath.”
Oh, mistaken parent! relax the over-strained bow—prevent the fearful rebound, and make the Sabbath what God designed it, not a weariness, but the “best” and happiest day of all the seven.
The clock had just struck seven. The sharp-nosed old sexton of the Steeple-Street Church had arranged the lights to his mind, determined the proper latitude and longitude of Bibles and hymn-books, peeped curiously into the little black stove in the corner, and was now admonishing every person who passed in, of the propriety of depositing the “free soil” on his boots upon the entry door-mat.
In they crept, one after another—pale-faced seamstresses, glad of a reprieve; servant girls, who had turned their backs upon unwashed dishes; mothers, whose “crying babies” were astounding the neighbors; old maids, who had nowhere to spend their long evenings; widowers, who felt an especial solicitude lest any of the sisters should be left to return home unprotected; girls and boys, who came because they were bid, and who had no very clear idea of the performances; and last, though not least, Ma’am Spy, who thought it her duty to see that none of the church-members were missing, and to inquire every Tuesday night, of her friend Miss Prim, if she didn’t consider Mrs. Violet a proper subject for church discipline, because she always had money enough to pay her board bills, although her husband had deserted her.
Then there were the four Misses Nipper, who crawled in as if the vestry floor were paved with live kittens, and who had never been known, for four years, to vary one minute in their attendance, or to keep awake from the first prayer to the doxology.
Then, there was Mrs. John Emmons, who sang the loudest, and prayed the longest, and wore the most expensive bonnets, of any female member in the church—whose name was on every committee, who instituted the select praying circle for the more aristocratic portion of the parish, and whose pertinacious determination to sit next to her husband at the Tuesday night meeting, was regarded by the uninitiated as a beautiful proof of conjugal devotion; but which, after patient investigation, (between you and me, dear reader,) was found to be for the purpose of arresting his coat-flaps when he popped up to make mental shipwreck of himself by making a speech.
Then, there was Mr. Nobbs, whose remarks were a re-hash of the different religious periodicals of the day, diversified with misapplied texts of Scripture, and delivered with an intonation and gesticulation that would have given Demosthenes fits.
Then, there was Zebedee Falstaff, who accomplished more for the amelioration of the human race (according to his own account) than any man of his aldermanic proportions in the nation, and who delivered (on a hearty supper) a sleepy exhortation on the duties of self-denial and charity, much to the edification of one of his needy relatives, to whose tearful story he had that very day turned a deaf ear.
Then, there was Brother Higgins, who was always “just going” to make a speech, “if brother Thomas hadn’t so exactly anticipated his sentiments a minute before.”
Then, there was Mr. Addison Theophilus Shakspeare Milton, full of poetical and religious inspiration, who soared so high in the realms of fancy, that his hearers lost sight of him.
Then, there was little Dr. Pillbox, who gave us every proof in his weekly exhortations of his knowledge of “drugs,” not to mention young Smith, who chased an idea round till he lost it, and then took shelter behind a bronchial difficulty which compelled him, “unwillingly (?) to come to a close.”
Then, there were some sincere, good-hearted Christians—respectable citizens—worthy heads of families; but whose lips had never been “touched with a live coal from off the altar.”
Where was the pastor? Oh, he was there—a slight, fragile, scholar-like looking man, with a fine intellectual face, exquisitely refined tastes and sensibilities, and the meek spirit of “the Master.” Had those slender shoulders no cross to bear? When chance sent some fastidious worldling through that vestry door, did it cost him nothing to watch the smile of contempt curl the stranger’s lip, as some uneducated, but well-meaning layman, presented with stammering tongue, in ungrammatical phrase, distorted, one-sided, bigoted views of great truths which his eloquent tongue might have made as clear as the noon-day, and as cheering and welcome as heaven’s own blessed light, to the yearning, dissatisfied spirit? Oh, is there nothing in religion, when it can so subdue the pride of intellect as to enable its professor to disregard the stammering tongue, and sit meekly at the feet of the ignorant disciple because he is a disciple?
Forty dollars for a pocket-handkerchief! My dear woman! you need a straight-jacket, even though you may be the fortunate owner of a dropsical purse.
I won’t allude to the legitimate use of a pocket-handkerchief; I won’t speak of the sad hearts that “forty dollars,” in the hands of some philanthropist, might lighten; I won’t speak of the “crows’ feet” that will be penciled on your fair face, when your laundress carelessly sticks the point of her remorseless smoothing iron through the flimsy fabric, or the constant espionage you must keep over your treasure, in omnibuses, or when promenading; but I will ask you how many of the lords of creation, for whose especial benefit you array yourself, will know whether that cobweb rag fluttering in your hand cost forty dollars, or forty cents?
Pout if you like, and toss your head, and say that you “don’t dress to please the gentlemen.” I don’t hesitate to tell you (at this distance from your finger nails) that is a downright——mistake! and that the enormous sums most women expend for articles, the cost of which few, save shop-keepers and butterfly feminines, know, is both astounding and ridiculous.
True, you have the sublime gratification of flourishing your forty-dollar handkerchief of sporting your twenty-dollar “Honiton collar,” or of flaunting your thousand-dollar shawl, before the envious and admiring eyes of some weak sister, who has made the possible possession of the article in question a profound and lifetime study; you may pass, too, along the crowded pavé, laboring under the hallucination, that every passer-by appreciates your dry-goods value. Not a bit of it! Yonder is a group of gentlemen. You pass them in your promenade; they glance carelessly at your tout-ensemble, but their eyes rest admiringly on a figure close behind you. It will chagrin you to learn that this locomotive loadstone has on a seventy-five cent hat, of simple straw—a dress of lawn, one shilling per yard—a twenty-five cent collar, and a shawl of the most unpretending price and fabric.
All these items you take in at a glance, as you turn upon her your aristocratic eye of feminine criticism to extract, if possible, the talismanic secret of her magnetism. What is it? Let me tell you. Nature, willful dame, has an aristocracy of her own, and in one of her independent freaks has so daintily fashioned your rival’s limbs, that the meanest garb could not mar a grace, nor the costliest fabric add one. Compassionating her slender purse, nature has also added an artistic eye, which accepts or rejects fabrics and colors with unerring taste; hence her apparel is always well chosen and harmonious, producing the effect of a rich toilet at the cost of “a mere song;” and as she sweeps majestically past, one understands why Dr. Johnson pronounced a woman to be “perfectly dressed when one could never remember what she wore.”
Now, I grant you, it is very provoking to be eclipsed by a star without a name—moving out of the sphere of “upper-ten”-dom—a woman who never wore a “camel’s hair shawl,” or owned a diamond in her life; after the expense you have incurred, too, and the fees you have paid to Madame Pompadour and Stewart for the first choice of their Parisian fooleries. It is harrowing to the sensibilities. I appreciate the awkwardness of your position; still, my compassion jogs my invention vainly for a remedy—unless, indeed, you consent to crush such democratic presumption, by labelling the astounding price of the dry-goods upon your aristocratic back.
Look into yonder window! What do you see? Nothing new, surely; nothing but what the angels have looked smilingly down upon since the morning stars first sang together; nothing but a loving mother hushing upon her faithful breast a wailing babe, whose little life hangs by a slender thread. Mortal lips have said, “The boy must die!”
A mother’s hope never dies. She clasps him closer to her breast, and gazes upward;—food and sleep and rest are forgotten, so that that little flickering taper die not out. Gently upon her soft, warm breast she wooes for it baby slumbers; long, weary nights, up and down the cottage floor she paces, soothing its restless moaning. Suns rise and set—stars pale—seasons come and go;—she heeds them not, so that those languid eyes but beam brightness. Down the meadow—by the brook—on the hill-side—she seeks with him the health-restoring breeze.
God be praised!—health comes at last! What joy to see the rosy flush mantle on the pallid cheek!—what joy to see the shrunken limbs grow round with health!—what joy to see the damp, thin locks grow crisp and glossy!
What matter though the knitting lie neglected, or the spinning-wheel be dumb, so that the soaring kite or bouncing ball but please his boyish fancy, and prompt the gleeful shout? What matter that the coarser fare be hers, so that the daintier morsel pass his rosy lip? What matter that her robe be threadbare, so that his graceful limbs be clad in Joseph’s rainbow coat? What matter that her couch be hard, so that his sunny head rest nightly on a downy pillow? What matter that her slender purse be empty, so that his childish heart may never know denial?
Years roll on. That loving mother’s eye grows dim; her glossy locks are silvered; her limbs are sharp and shrunken; her footsteps slow and tottering. And the boy?—the cherished Joseph?—he of the bold, bright eye, and sinewy limb, and bounding step? Surely, from his kind hand shall flowers be strewn on the dim, downward path to the dark valley; surely will her son’s strong arm be hers to lean on; his voice of music sweeter to her dull ear than seraphs’ singing.
No, no!—the hum of busy life has struck upon his ear, drowning the voice of love. He has become a man! refined, fastidious!—and to his forgetful, unfilial heart, (God forgive him,) the mother who bore him is only—“the old woman!”
“Jane,” (suddenly exclaims Mrs. Dibdin,) “do you know it is nearly time for your Sabbath School to commence? I hope you have committed your hymns and commandments to memory. Put on your little jet bracelet, and your ruffled pantalettes. Now, say the third commandment, while I fix your curls. It does seem to me as if your hair never curls half as well on Sundays as on week days. Mind, you ask Letty Brown where her mother bought that cunning little straw hat of hers,—not in Sabbath School, of course—that would be very wicked—but after it is over, as you walk along to church.
“Jane, what’s the chief end of man? Don’t know? Well, it’s the most astonishing thing that that Assembly’s Catechism don’t stay in your head any better! It seems to go into one ear and out of the other. Now pay particular attention while I tell you what the chief end of man is. The chief end of man is—is—well—I—why don’t you hold still?—you are always putting a body out! You had better run up stairs and get your book. Here, stop a minute, and let me tie your sash straight. Pink is very becoming to you, Jane; you inherit your mother’s blonde beauty. Come away from that glass, Jane, this minute; don’t you know it is wicked to look in the glass on Sunday? See if you can say your ‘creed’ that your Episcopal teacher wants you to learn. Come; ‘I believe’—(In less than one week your toes will be through those drab gaiters, Jane.) Goodness, if there isn’t the bell! Why didn’t you get your lesson Saturday evening? Oh! I recollect; you were at dancing school. Well—you needn’t say anything about that to your teacher; because—because there’s ‘a time to dance,’ and a time to go to meeting, and now it is meeting time; so, come here, and let me roll that refractory ringlet over my finger once more, and then, do you walk solemnly along to church, as a baptised child should.
“Here! stop a bit!—you may wear this coral bracelet of mine, if you won’t lose it. There; now you look most as pretty as your mother did, when she was your age. Don’t toss your head so, Jane; people will call you vain; and you know I have always told you that it makes very little difference how a little girl looks, if she is only a little Christian. There, good-bye;—repeat your catechism, going along; and don’t let the wind blow your hair out of curl.”
(Mr. Dibdin reading a pile of business letters, fresh from the post-office; Mrs. Dibdin, in a pearl-colored brocade and lace ruffles, devouring “Bleak House.”)
Mrs. Dibdin.—“Jane, is it possible I see you on the holy Sabbath day, with Mother Goose’s Melodies? Put it away, this minute, and get your Bible. There’s the pretty story of Joseph building the ark, and Noah in the lion’s den, and Isaac killing his brother Cain, and all that.”
Jane.—“Well, but, mamma, you know I can’t spell the big words. Won’t you read it to me?”
Mrs. Dibdin.—“I am busy reading now, my dear; go and ask your papa.”
Jane.—“Please, papa, will you read to me in my little Bible? mamma is busy.”
Mr. Dibdin.—“My dear, will you be kind enough to pull that bell for Jane’s nursery maid?—she is getting troublesome.”
Exit Miss Jane to the nursery, to listen to Katy’s and her friend Bridget’s account of their successful flirtations with John O’Calligan and Michael O’Donahue.
“All the world and his wife” are travelling; and a nice day it is to commence a journey. How neat and tasteful those ladies look in their drab travelling dresses; how self-satisfied their cavaliers, freshly shaved and shampooed, in their brown linen over-alls. What apoplectic looking carpet-bags; full of newspapers, and oranges, and bon-bons, and novels, and night-caps! Saratoga, Newport, Niagara, White Hills, Mammoth Cave—of these, the ladies chatter.
Well, here come the cars. Band-boxes, trunks, baskets, and bundles are counted, and checks taken; a grave discussion is solemnly held, as to which side of the cars the sun shines on; seats are chosen with due deliberation, and the locomotive does its own “puffing” to the bystanders, and darts off.
It is noon! How intense the heat; how annoying the dust; how crowded the cars; how incessant the cries of that poor tired baby! The ladies’ bonnets are getting awry, their foreheads flushed, and their smooth tresses unbecomingly frowsed, (see Fern Dictionary.) Now their little chattering tongues have a reprieve, for Slumber has laid her leaden finger on each drooping eyelid: even Alexander Smith’s new poem has slidden from between taper fingers. Dream not lovingly of the author, fair sleeper: poets and butterflies lose their brilliancy when caught.
How intensely ugly men look asleep! doubled up like so many jack-knives—sorry looking “blades”—with their mouths wide open, and their limbs twisted into all sorts of Protean shapes. Stay; there’s one in yonder corner who is an exception. That man knows it is becoming to him to go to sleep. He has laid his head against the window and taken off his hat, that the wind might lift those black curls from his broad white brow;—he knows that his eye-lashes are long and dark, and that his finely chiselled lips need no defect-concealing moustache;—he knows that he can afford to turn towards us his fine profile, with its classical outline;—he knows that his cravat is well tied, and that the hand upon which he supports his cheek is both well-formed and daintily white. Wonder if he knows anything else?
We halt suddenly. “Back! back!” says the conductor. The sleepers start to their feet; the old maid in the corner gives a little hysterical shriek; brakemen, conductor, and engineer jump off, push back their hats, and gaze nervously down the road. “What’s the matter?” echo scores of anxious voices. “What’s the matter?” Oh, nothing; only a mother made childless: only a little form—five minutes ago bounding with happy life—lying a mangled corpse upon the track. The engineer says, with an oath, that “the child was a fool not to get out of the way,” and sends one of the hands back to pick up the dismembered limbs and carry them to its mother, who forbade even the winds of heaven to blow too roughly on her boy; then he gives the “iron horse” a fresh impetus, and we dash on; imagination paints a scene in yonder house which many a frantic parent will recognize; and from which (even in thought) we turn shuddering away—while the weary mother in the corner covers her fretful babe with kisses, and thanks God, through her tears, that her loving arms are still its sheltering fold.
It is beyond my comprehension how Methusaleh lived nine hundred and sixty-nine years without a newspaper; or, what the mischief Noah did, during that “forty days” shower, when he had exhausted the study of Natural History. It makes me yawn to think of it. Or what later generations did, the famished half-hour before meals; or, when traveling, when the old stage-coach crept up a steep hill, some dusty hot summer noon. Shade of Franklin! how they must have been ennuyéd!
How did they ever know when flour had “riz”—or what was the market price of pork, small tooth combs, cotton, wool, and molasses? How did they know whether Queen Victoria had “made her brother an uncle or an aunt?” What christianized gouty old men and snappish old ladies? What kept the old maids from making mince-meat of pretty young girls? What did love-sick damsels do for “sweet bits of poetry” and “touching continued stories?” Where did their papas find a solace when the coffee was muddy, the toast smoked, and the beef-steak raw, or done to leather? What did cab-drivers do, while waiting for a tardy patron? What did draymen do, when there was “a great calm” at the dry-goods store of Go Ahead & Co.? What screen did husbands dodge behind, when their wives asked them for money?
Some people define happiness to be one thing, and some another. I define it to be a room “carpeted and furnished” with “exchanges,” with a place cleared in the middle for two arm-chairs—one for a clever editor, and one for yourself. I say it is to take up those papers, one by one, and laugh over the funny things and skip the stupid ones,—to admire the ingenuity of would-be literary lights, who pilfer one half their original (?) ideas, and steal the remainder. I say it is to shudder a thanksgiving that you are not in the marriage list, and to try, for the hundredth time, to solve the riddle: how can each paper that passes through your hands be “the best and cheapest periodical in the known world?”
I say it is to look round an editorial sanctum, inwardly chuckling at the forlorn appearance it makes without feminine fingers to keep it tidy: to see the looking-glass veiled with cobwebs; the dust on the desk thick enough to write your name in; the wash-bowl and towel mulatto color; the soap liquified to a jelly, (editors like soft soap!); the table covered with a heterogeneous mass of manuscripts, and paper folders, and wafers, and stamps, and blotting-paper, and envelopes, and tailors’ bills, and letters complimentary, belligerent and pacific.
I say it is to hear the editor complain, with a frown, of the heat and his headache; to conceal a smile, while you suggest the probability of relief if a window should be opened; to see him start at your superior profundity; to hear him say, with a groan, how much “proof” he has to read, before he can leave for home; to take off your gloves and help him correct it;—to hear him say, there is a book for review, which he has not time to look over; to take a folder and cut the leaves, and affix guide-boards for notice at all the fine passages; to see him kick over an innocent chair, because he cannot get hold of the right word for an editorial; to feel (while you help him to it) very much like the mouse who gnawed the lion out of the net, and then to take up his paper some days after, and find a paragraph endorsed by him, “deploring the intellectual inferiority of women.”
That’s what I call happiness!
Walking along the street the other day, my eye fell upon this placard,—
Well; they have been “wanted” for some time; but the article is not in the market, although there are plenty of spurious imitations. Time was, when a lady could decline writing for a newspaper without subjecting herself to paragraphic attacks from the editor, invading the sanctity of her private life. Time was, when she could decline writing without the editor’s revenging himself, by asserting falsely that “he had often refused her offered contributions?” Time was, when if an editor heard a vague rumor affecting a lady’s reputation, he did not endorse it by republication, and then meanly screen himself from responsibility by adding, “we presume, however, that this is only an on dit!” Time was, when a lady could be a successful authoress, without being obliged to give an account to the dear public of the manner in which she appropriated the proceeds of her honest labors. Time was, when whiskered braggadocios in railroad cars and steamboats did not assert, (in blissful ignorance that they were looking the lady authoress straight in the face!) that they were “on the most intimate terms of friendship with her!” Time was, when milk-and-water husbands and relatives did not force a defamed woman to unsex herself in the manner stated in the following paragraph:
“Man Shot by a Young Woman.—One day last week, a young lady of good character, daughter of Col. ——, having been calumniated by a young man, called upon him, armed with a revolver. The slanderer could not, or did not deny his allegations; whereupon she fired, inflicting a dangerous if not a fatal wound in his throat.”
Yes; it is very true that there are “Men wanted.” Wonder how many 1854 will furnish?
And so you have “the blues,” hey! Well, I pity you! No I don’t either; there’s no need of it. If one friend proves a Judas, never mind! plenty of warm, generous, nice hearts left for the winning. If you are poor, and have to sell your free agency for a sixpence a week to some penurious relative, or be everlastingly thankful for the gift of an old garment that won’t hang together till you get it home! go to work like ten thousand evil spirits, and make yourself independent! and see with what a different pair of spectacles you’ll get looked at! Nothing like it! You can have everything on earth you want, when you don’t need anything.
Don’t the Bible say, “To him that hath shall be given?” No mistake, you see. When the wheel turns round with you on the top, (saints and angels!) you can do anything you like—play any sort of a prank—pout or smile, be grave or gay, saucy or courteous, it will pass muster! You never need trouble yourself,—can’t do anything wrong if you try. At the most, it will only be an “eccentricity!” But you never need be such a fool as to expect that anybody will find out you are a diamond till you get a showy setting! You’ll get knocked and cuffed around, and roughly handled, with paste and tinsel, and rubbish, till that auspicious moment arrives. Then! won’t all the sheaves bow down to your sheaf?—not one rebellious straggler left in the field! But stay a little.
In your adversity, found you one faithful heart that stood firmly by your side and shared your tears, when skies were dark, and your pathway thorny and steep, and summer friends fell off like autumn leaves? By all that’s noble in a woman’s heart, give that one the first place in it now. Let the world see one heart proof against the sunshine of prosperity. You can’t repay such a friend—all the mines of Golconda couldn’t do it. But in a thousand delicate ways, prompted by a woman’s unerring tact, let your heart come forth gratefully, generously, lovingly. Pray heaven he be on the shady side of fortune—that your heart and hand may have a wider field for gratitude to show itself. Extract every thorn from his pathway, chase away every cloud of sorrow, brighten his lonely hours, smooth the pillow of sickness, and press lovingly his hand in death.
Patter, patter, patter! down comes the city shower, on dusty and heated pavements; gleefully the willow trees shake out their long green tresses, and make their toilettes in the little mirror pools beneath. The little child runs out, with outspread palm, to catch the cool and pearly drops. The weary laborer, drawing a long, grateful breath, bares the flushed brow of toil; boyhood, with bare and adventurous foot, wades through gutter rivers, forgetful of birch, and bread and butter. Ladies skutter tiptoe, with uplifted skirts, to the shelter of some friendly omnibus; gentlemen, in the independent consciousness of corduroys, take their time and umbrellas, while the poor jaded horses shake their sleek sides, but do not say neigh to their impromptu shower-bath.
The little sparrows twitter their thanks from the dripping eaves, circling the piazza, then laving their speckled breasts at the little lakelets in the spout. Old Towser lies with his nose to the door-mat, sniffing “the cool,” with the philosophy of Diogenes. Petrarch sits in the parlor with his Laura, too happy when some vivid lightning flash gives him an excuse for closer quarters. Grandpapa puts on his spectacles, walks to the window, and taking a look at the surrounding clouds, says, “How this rain will make the corn grow.” The old maid opposite sets out a single geranium, scraggy as herself, invoking some double blossoms. Forlorn experimenter! even a spinster’s affections must centre somewhere.
See that little pinafore mariner stealing out, with one eye on the nursery window, to navigate his pasteboard boat in the street pools. There’s a flash of sunshine! What a glorious rainbow! The little fellow tosses his arms aloft, and gazes at it. Ten to one, the little Yankee, instead of admiring its gorgeous splendor, is wishing he could invert it for a swing, and seizing it at both ends, sweep through the stars with it. Well, it is nothing new for a child to like “the milky way.”
Fair weather again! piles of heavy clouds are drifting by, leaving the clear blue sky as serene as when “the morning stars first sang together.” Nature’s gems sparkle lavishly on glossy leaf and swaying branch, on bursting bud and flower; while the bow of peace melts gently and imperceptibly away, like the dying saint into the light of Heaven.
Oh, earth is gloriously fair! Alas! that the trail of the serpent should be over it all!
“Any man who believes that, had better step into my shoes,” said little Mr. Weasel. “I suppose I’m what you call ‘the head of the family,’ but I shouldn’t know it if somebody didn’t tell me of it. Heigho! who’d have thought it five and twenty years ago? Didn’t I stifle a tremendous strong penchant for Diana Dix, (never smoked, I remember, for four hours after it,) because I had my private suspicions she’d hold the reins in spite of my teeth, and so I offered myself to little Susey Snow, (mistake in her name, by the way.) You might have spanned her round the waist, or lifted her with one hand. She never looked anybody in the face when they spoke to her, and her voice was as soft as——my brains! I declare, it’s unaccountable how deceitful female nature is! Never was so taken in in my life; she’s a regular Vesuvius crater! Her will? (don’t mention it!) Try to pry up the Alps with a cambric needle! If she’d only fly into a passion, I think I could venture to pluck up a little spirit; but that cool, determined, never-say-die look would turn Cayenne pepper to oil. It wilts me right down, like a cabbage leaf. I’d as lief face a loaded cannon! I wish I could go out evenings; but she won’t let me. Tom Jones asked me yesterday why I wasn’t at Faneuil Hall the night before. I told him I had the bronchitis. He saw through it! Sent me a pair of reins the next day,—‘said to be a certain cure!’ Ah! it’s very well for him to laugh, but it’s no joke to me. I suppose it’s time to feed that baby; Mrs. Weasel will be home pretty soon, from the ‘Woman’s Rights Convention.’ No, I won’t, either; I’ll give it some paregoric, and run up garret and smoke one cigar. I feel as though I couldn’t look a humming-bird in the eye! Nice cigar!—very nice! What a fool I am to be ordered round by a little blue-eyed woman, three feet high! I’m a very good looking fellow, and I won’t stand it! Isn’t that little Weasel as much her baby as it is mine? Certainly.”
“Mr. Weasel!”
“Hem,—my—dear—(oh! that eye of hers!)—you see, my dear, (there, I won’t do it again, Mrs. Weasel.) How’s ‘the Convention,’ dear? Carried the day, I hope?—made one of your smart speeches, hey? ’Tisn’t every man owns such a chain-lightning wife;—look out for your rights, dear; (deuce knows I dare not!”)
’Tis Sunday in the city.
The sun glares murkily down, through the smoky and stench-laden atmosphere, upon the dirty pavements; newsboys, with clamorous cries, are vending their wares; milkmen rattle over the pavements, and startle drowsy sleepers by their shrill whoopings; housemaids are polishing door knobs, washing sidewalks, and receiving suspicious looking baskets and parcels from contiguous groceries and bakeshops.
The sun rolls on his course; purifying the air and benignly smiling upon all the dwellers in the city, as though he would gently win them from unholy purposes to heavenly meditations and pursuits.
—And now the streets are filled with a motley show of silks, satins, velvets, feathers and jewels—while carriages and vehicles of every description roll past, freighted with counter-freed youths and their Dulcineas, bent upon a holiday. Hundreds of “drinking saloons” belch forth their pestiferous breath, upon which is borne, to the ear of the passer-by, (perhaps a lady or tender child,) the profane curse and obscene gibe; and from their portals reel intoxicated brutes, who once were men. Military companies march to and fro; now, at slow and solemn pace, to the mournful strains of a dead-march; now, (having rid themselves of the corpse of their dead comrade,) they gaily “step out,” blithe and merry, to the cheering strains of an enlivening quickstep, based on an Ethiopian melody; the frivolous tones blending discordantly with the chimes of the Sabbath bells. And stable-keepers, oyster and ice-cream venders, liquor sellers, et id omne genus, are reaping a golden harvest, upon which the “Lord of the Sabbath” shall, sooner or later, send “a blight and a mildew.”
’Tis Sunday in the country.
Serene and majestic, in the distance, lie the blue, cloud-capped hills; while, at their base, the silver stream winds gracefully, sparkling in the glad sunlight. Now the fragrant branches stir with feathered life; and one clear, thrilling carol lifts the finger from the dumb lip of Nature, heralding a full orchestra of untaught choristers, which plume their wings, and soaring, seem to say, Praise Him! praise Him!
Obedient to the sweet summons, the silver-haired old man and rosy child, along grassy, winding paths, hie to the little village church. On the gentle maiden’s kindly arm leans the bending form of “four score years and ten,” gazing, with dimmed but grateful eye, on leafy stem, and bursting bud, and full-blown flower; or, listening to the wind dallying with the tall tree-tops, or kissing the fields of golden grain, which wave their graceful recognition, as it sweeps by on its fragrant path.
And now, slowly the Sabbath sun sinks beneath the western hills in gold and purple glory. Gently the dew of peace descends on closed eyes and flowers; while holy stars creep softly out, to keep their tireless watch o’er happy hearts and Sabbath-loving homes.
“If your husband looks grave, let him alone; don’t disturb or annoy him.”
Oh, pshaw! were I married, the soberer my husband looked, the more fun I’d rattle about his ears. Don’t disturb him! I guess so! I’d salt his coffee—and pepper his tea—and sugar his beef-steak—and tread on his toes—and hide his newspaper—and sew up his pockets—and put pins in his slippers—and dip his cigars in water,—and I wouldn’t stop for the great Mogul, till I had shortened his long face to my liking. Certainly, he’d “get vexed;” there wouldn’t be any fun in teasing him if he didn’t; and that would give his melancholy blood a good, healthful start; and his eyes would snap and sparkle, and he’d say, “Fanny, will you be quiet or not?” and I should laugh, and pull his whiskers, and say decidedly, “Not!” and then I should tell him he hadn’t the slightest idea how handsome he looked when he was vexed, and then he would pretend not to hear the compliment—but would pull up his dickey, and take a sly peep in the glass (for all that!) and then he’d begin to grow amiable, and get off his stilts, and be just as agreeable all the rest of the evening as if he wasn’t my husband; and all because I didn’t follow that stupid bit of advice “to let him alone.” Just as if I didn’t know! Just imagine me, Fanny, sitting down on a cricket in the corner, with my forefinger in my mouth, looking out the sides of my eyes, and waiting till that man got ready to speak to me! You can see at once it would be—be—. Well, the amount of it is, I shouldn’t do it!
Sing away, little bird! only you, the trees, and myself, are stirring, but you have an appreciative audience. Your sweet carol and the graceful waving of yonder tree, as the soft wind turns up its silver-lined leaves in the sunlight, fill my heart with a quiet gladness.
Whom have we here? with ragged skirt, bare mud-begrimm’d feet and ankles, tattered shawl, and tangled masses of hair fluttering round a face ploughed deep with time and trouble. See—she stoops, and, stretching her skeleton fingers towards the gutter, grasps some refuse rags and paper, and thrusts them greedily into the dirty sack she bears upon her shoulders. Good heavens! that dirty mass of rags a woman? How wearily she leans against yonder tree, gazing upward into its branches! Perhaps that little bird’s matin song has swept some chord for long years untouched in that callous heart; telling her of the shelter of a happy home, where Plenty sat at the board and Love kept guard at the threshold. Oh! who can tell? One more song, my little bird, ere she goes; not so mockingly joyous, but sweet, and soft, and low—a requiem for blighted youth and blasted hopes; for know that the blue sky to whose arch you soar, bends over misery enough to make the bright seraphs weep.
Bless me! what yell is that? “Yeei—ho—oe—yeei—ho.” It is only a milkman, and that horrid cry simply means, “Milk for sale.” What a picture of laziness is the vender! Jump off your cart, man, thump on the kitchen door with your milk-dipper, and rouse that sleepy cook who is keeping you waiting her pleasure; that’s the way to do business: pshaw! your manliness must have been diluted with your milk. One by one they emerge, the dead-and-alive looking housemaids, dragging their brooms after them lazily and helplessly, and bandy words with the vexed milkman, and gossip with each other, as they rest their chins on their broom-handles, on “kitchen cabinet” affairs.
Here comes an Italian, balancing a shelf-load of plaster Cupids and Venuses, and dove-circled vases. How mournfully his dark eyes look out from beneath his tasseled cap, as he lifts his burden from his head for a momentary reprieve. They tell of weary feet, a heavy heart, and a light purse. They tell, with a silent reproach, that our hearts are as cold as our clime. Oh! not all, good Pietro! For your sake, I’ll make myself mistress of that sleeping child; though, truth to say, the sculptor who moulded it has most wofully libelled Nature. Would I could see the sunny skies upon which your dark eyes first opened, and all the glorious forms that beauty wears in your vine-clad home beyond the seas.
How the pedestrians hurry along!—merchants to their cares and their counting-rooms, and shop-girls and seamstresses to their prisons. Here comes a group of pale-faced city children, on their way to school. God bless the little unfortunates! Their little feet should be crushing the strawberries, ripe and sweet, on some sunny hill-slope, where breath of new-mown hay and clover blossoms would give roses to their cheeks and strength and grace to their cramped and half-developed limbs. Poor little creatures! they never saw a patch of blue sky bigger than their satchels, or a blade of grass that dared to grow without permission from the mayor, aldermen and common council. Poor little skeletons! tricked out like the fashion-prints, and fed on diluted skim-milk and big dictionaries. I pity you.