CHAPTER VI

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Mrs. Wade sat propped up in bed by pillows, for the nature of her disease rendered repose impossible; dreadful spasms--the forerunners of dissolution--at intervals convulsed her frame. Pale, but firm, the gentle Mary Hereford glided about her, now supporting the worn-out frame--now holding to her lips the cup meant for healing--now opening a door, or slightly raising a window, to facilitate the invalid’s labored breathing.

The fire had burned low in the grate, and when the gray light of morning stole in through the half open shutter, and the invalid would have replenished it, Mrs. Wade’s low whispered, “I shall not need it, Mary,” gave expression to the fearful certainty which her own heart had silently throbbed out through the long watches of that agonized night. Not a murmur escaped the sufferer’s lips--there was no request for the presence of the absent sleeper, who had promised “to cherish through sickness and health;” no mention was made of the children, who had been trustingly placed in the hands of Him who doeth all things well, and who wearily slumbered on, unconscious that the brightness of their childhood’s sky was fading out forever. The thin arms were wound around the neck of the first-born, about whom such happy hopes had once so thickly clustered, and peacefully as an infant drops asleep. Susan Wade closed her eyes forever; so peacefully that the daughter knew not the moment in which the desolate word--“motherless”--was written over against her name.

Motherless!--that in that little word should be compressed such weary weight of woe! It were sad to be written fatherless--but God and his ministering angels only know how dark this earth may be, when she who was never weary of us with all our frailties--she, to whom our very weaknesses clamored more loudly for love, lies careless of our tears.

* * * * *

“Henry!” said Mr. Wade to Mr. Hereford, “I had no idea, in fact--I didn’t think”--and the embarrassed man tried to rub open his still sleepy eyes--“I didn’t suppose, really, that Mrs. Wade would die yet; women are so notional, and that doctor seemed to be encouraging Mrs. Wade to be sick, as doctors always do--really I am quite taken by surprise, as one may say; I don’t know any thing about these things--I should like to have you do what is necessary. I suppose it will not be considered the thing for me to go to the store to-day,” and he looked for encouragement to do so in the face of his disgusted son-in-law.

“I should think not, decidedly,” said Mr. Hereford, dryly.

“Of course it would not be my wish,” said Mr. Wade, “when poor Susan lies dead; but one’s duty, you know, sometimes runs a different way from one’s inclination.”

And _vice versâ_, thought Henry, but he merely remarked that he would take any message for him to his place of business.

Mr. Wade could do no less than accept his offer, so, after eating his usual breakfast with his usual appetite, he paced up and down the parlor; got up and sat down; and looked out at the window, and tried in various ways to stifle certain uncomfortable feelings which began to disturb his digestion. It was uncomfortable--very. The awe-struck face of Betty as she stole in and out, the swollen eyes of the children, the pallid face of Mrs. Hereford, who was trying to give them the consolation she so much needed herself, and the heavy step of the undertaker over-head performing his repulsive office. And so the day wore away; and the form, that a child might have lifted, was laid in the coffin, and no trace of pain or sorrow lay upon the face upon which the death-angel had written Peace!

Why did _he_ fear to look upon its placid sweetness? No reproach ever came from the living lips--did he fear it from the dead?

How still lay the once busy fingers! What a mockery seemed the usual signs and sounds of domestic life! How empty, purposeless, aimless, seemed life’s petty cares and needs. How chilling this total eclipse of light, and love, and warmth! Blessed they, who can ease their pained hearts by sobbing all this out to the listening ear of sympathy. But what if the great agony be pent up within the swelling heart till it is nigh bursting? What if it be pent up thus in the gushing heart of childhood? What if no father’s arms be outstretched to enfold the motherless? What if the paternal hand never rests lovingly on the bowed young head? What if the moistening eye must send back to its source the welling tear? What if the choking sob be an offense? What if childhood’s ark of refuge--mother’s room--echo back only its own restless footsteps? O, how many houses that present only to the careless eye, a blank surface of brick and mortar, are inscribed all over with the handwriting, legible only to those whose baptism has been--tears!

But why count over the tears of the orphans, why tell of their weary days and sleepless nights--of honest Betty’s home-spun attempts at consolation--of Mr. Wade’s repeated refusals of Mrs. Hereford’s invitation for them to spend that part of the day with her in which he was absent at his business? Why tell of the invisible web the cunning Miss Alsop was weaving? Why tell of her speedy success? Why tell of the soft-eyed dove transformed by Hymen to the vulture? Why tell of _his_ astonishment, who prided himself upon his lynx-eyed and infallible penetration of the sex, at being forced to drain to the dregs that bitter cup he had held so unsparingly to the meek lips upon which death had set his seal of silence? Why tell of that pitiful old age, which, having garnered the chaff, and thrown away the wheat of a life-time, finds itself on the grave’s brink with no desire for repentance, clutching with palsied hands the treasure of which Death stands ready to rob it!

VISITING AND VISITORS.

“When are you coming to spend the day with us?” asked a lady of my acquaintance of another. “Spend the day with you, my dear!” replied the latter; “I should be tired to death spending the day with you; maybe I’ll take tea with you sometime.”

I have often pleased myself imagining how the wheels of society would creak greased with such honesty as that! and yet how many, if they but dared to speak their real sentiments, would make a similar response. Now, I respect that old lady; she had made good use of her years; she probably knew what it was to talk at a mark for hours on the stretch, to some one-idea-d statue, who, with crossed hands and starched attitude, seemed remorselessly exacting of her weary tongue--Give--Give! She knew what it was to long for dinner to reprieve her aching jaws, or, at least, afford them a diversion of labor. She knew what it was to be gladder to see one’s husband home on such a day, than on any other day in the year; and she knew what it was to have those hopes dashed to earth by that inglorious sneak selfishly retreating behind his newspaper, instead of shouldering the conversation as he ought. She knew what it was to have the hour arrive for her afternoon nap (I _won’t_ call it “siesta,”) instead of which, with leaden lids, and a great goneness of brain and diaphragm, she must still keep on ringing changes on the alphabet, for the edification of the monosyllabic statue, who--horror of horrors!--had “concluded to stay to tea.” She knew what it was in a fit of despair to present a book of engravings to the statue, and to hear that interesting functionary remark as she returned it, that “her eyes were weak.” She knew what it was to send in for a merry little chatterbox of a neighbor to relieve guard, and receive for answer, “that she had gone out of town!” She knew what it was to wish that she had forty babies up stairs, with forty pains under their aprons, if need be, that she might have an excuse for leaving the statue for at least one blessed half-hour. She knew what it was to have the inglorious sneak later to tea on that wearisome day than ever before; and on his entrance, blandly and coolly to unfurl a business letter, which, with a Chesterfieldian bow, he hoped the statue would excuse him for retiring to answer; and she knew what it was, five minutes later, to spy the wretch on the back piazza reveling in solitude and a cigar. She knew what it was, when the statue finally--(for every thing comes to an end _some time_, thank heaven)--took protracted leave--to cry hysterically from sheer weariness, and a recollection of pressing family duties indefinitely postponed, and to think for the forty-eleventh time, what propriety there was in calling her the _weaker_ sex, who had daily to shoulder burdens which the strongest man either couldn’t or--_wouldn’t_ bear. And so again, I say--sensible old lady--would there were more like her!

And yet we would fain hope that, like ours, this is but one side of her experience. We would hope that she knew what it was to throw her arms about the neck of a friend from whom she had no disguises; whose loving eyes scanned--not the wall for possible cobwebs, nor yet the carpet for darns, nor yet the mirror for fly-specks; but _her face_, to see what sorrow Time, in his flight, had registered there, which by sympathy she could lighten; what joy, which, by sharing, she could increase. We hope she knew what it was to sit side by side with such a one at the frugal meal--sweeter far than the stalled ox, for the love that seasoned it. We hope she knew what it was to lounge, or sit, or stand, or walk, or read, or sew, or doze even, in that friend’s presence, with that perfect love which casteth out fear. We hope she knew what it was to count the hours as they passed, not for their irksomeness, but as a miser tells his hoarded gold; jealous, lest even the smallest fraction should escape. We hope she knew what it was when she unwillingly closed the door upon her retreating form, that shutting it never so securely, kind words, good deeds, loving looks and tones, came flocking in to people the voiceless solitude as with shining troops of white-robed angels.

And we hope she knew what it was to give the cup of cold water to the humble disciple for the Master’s sake. We hope that the door of her house and heart were opened as widely for the destitute orphan, in whose veins her own blood flowed--who could repay it only with tearful thanks--as for those who could return feast for feast, and whose tongues were as smooth as their wine. And finally and lastly, lest we ourselves should be making too long a visit--we hope the old lady had no “best chamber,” with closed blinds; pillows as ruffled as the chambermaid’s temper; forbiddingly polished sheets; smothering canopy; counterpane all too dainty for tumbling; and pincushion, whose lettered words one must not invade, even at the most buttonless extremity! Blessings on the old lady: we trust her carpets were made to be trod on--her chairs to sit down upon--and her windows to open. We hope her house was too small to hold half of her friends, and too hot to hold one of her enemies.

OUR FIRST NURSE.

Now sit down, and I will tell you all about it. Charley and I were engaged. Youth comes but once, you know, and if we waited to be married until we could furnish a house in fashionable style--well, you see, we knew too much for that; we got married, and left other couples to grow gray, if they liked, on the distant prospect of damask curtains, gold salt-cellars, and trains of innumerable servants.

Charley did not know the meaning of a “club-house,” and the shopkeepers flashed their diamonds and satins in vain in my face; I never gave them a thought. We had some nice books, and some choice engravings, presented to Charley by an old antiquary who had taken a fancy to him. You might have gone into many a parlor on which thousands had been lavished, and liked ours all the better when you came back. Still, it wanted something--that we both agreed; for no house can be said to be properly furnished without a baby. Santa Claus, good soul, understood that, and Christmas day he brought us one, weighing the usual eight pounds, and as lively as a cricket. Such lungs as it had! Charley said it was intended for a minister.

Well, now it was all right, or would have been, if the baby had not involved a nurse. We had, to be sure, a vague idea that we must have one, and _as_ vague an idea of what a nurse was. We thought her a good kind of creature who understood baby-dom, and never interfered with any little family arrangements.

Not a bit of it!

The very first thing she did was to make preparation to sleep in my room, and send Charley off into a desolate spare chamber. Charley! _my_ Charley! whose shaving operations I had watched with the intensest interest; mixing up little foam seas of “lather” for him, handing him little square bits of paper to wipe his razor upon, and applying nice bits of courtplaster, when he accidentally cut his chin while we were laughing. Charley! whose cravats I had tied to suit my fancy every blessed morning, whose hair I had brushed up in elegant confusion, whose whiskers I had coaxed and trimmed, and--well, any one, unless a bachelor or old maid, who reads this, can see that it was perfectly ridiculous.

Charley looked at me, and I looked at him, and then we both looked at the bran new baby--and there’s where she had us. You might have seen it with half an eye, as she folded her hands complacently over her apron-strings, and sat down in my little rocking-chair, opposite the bed. I felt as though I was sold to the Evil One, as she fixed her basilisk eyes on me when Charley left the room. Poor Charley! He did not want to go. He neither smoked, nor drank, nor played billiards; he loved home and--me; so he wandered up stairs and down, sat with his hands in his pockets staring at the parlor fire till he could bear it no longer, and then came up stairs to get comforted. If you’ll believe it, that woman came fussing round the bed after him, just as if he were infringing some of her rights and immunities.

What if he did bring me a sly piece of cake in his pocket? Who likes to live on gruel forever? What if he did open the blinds and let a little blessed sunlight in, when she tried to humbug us into the belief that “it would hurt the baby’s eyes,” because she was too lazy to wipe the dust from the furniture? What if he did steal one of her knitting needles, when she sat there, evening after evening, knitting round, and round, and round that interminable old gray stocking, my eyes following her with a horrid sort of fascination, till my nerves were wound up to the screaming point? What if I did tell him that she always set her rocking-chair on that loose board on the floor, which sent forth that little crucifying squeak, and that she always said “Bless me!” and was always sure to get on to it again the very next time she sat down? What if I did tell him that when she had eaten too much dinner, and wanted to take a sly nap, she would muffle the baby up in so many blankets that it could not cry if it wanted to, and then would draw the curtains closely round my bed, and tell me that “it was high time I took a nap?” I, who neither by stratagem or persuasion, could ever be induced to sleep in the daytime? I, who felt as if my eye-lashes were fastened up to the roots of my hair, and as if legions of little ants were crawling all over me?

What if I did tell him that she got up a skirmish with me every night, because I would not wear a nuisance called a night-cap? What if I did tell him that she insisted upon putting a sticky pitch-plaster upon my neck, for a little ghost of a cough (occasioned by her stirring the ashes in the grate too furiously), and that when I outgeneraled her, and clapped it round the bed-post instead, she muttered, spitefully, that “a handsome neck would not keep me out of my coffin?” What if I did tell him that she tried on my nice little lace collars, when she thought I was asleep at night, and insisted on my drinking detestable porter, that its second-hand influence might “make the baby sleep?” What if I did, was he not my husband? Did I not tell him every thing? laugh with him? cry with him? eat out of _his_ plate? drink out of _his_ cup of tea, because being his, I fancied they tasted better than mine? and didn’t _he like it, too?_ Of course he did!

What if I did tell him all this? Poor Charley! _he_ was forlorn, too; his cravats were tied like a fright all the time I was sick, his hair looked like any other man’s, the buttons were off his pretty velvet vest, and he had not even the heart to get his boots blacked. Poor Charley!

Well; that nurse had the impudence to tell us one evening “that we acted like two children.” “_Children!_” _We!_ _Us!_ the parents of that eight-pound baby! That was the last drop in our cup. Charley paid her, and I was so glad when she went, that I laughed till I cried.

Then we both drew a long breath and sat down and looked at the new baby--_our_ baby; and Charley asked me about its little sleeping habits, and I told him, with a shake of the head, that I could not speak definitely on that point; and then we discussed, in a whisper, the respective merits of cribs and cradles, and the propriety of teaching it, at an early period, that impressive line of Mrs. Hemans:

“Night is the time for sleep;”

and then Charley got up, and exchanged his musical boots for a noiseless pair of slippers, and changed the position of the shovel, tongs, and poker, and oiled the creaking hinge of the closet door, and laid a chair over the squeaking board in the floor, that he might not tread on it, and with one eye on the baby, gently shaded the lamp; and then he looked at me, and gave a little sort of congratulatory nod, and then he drew off his vest and hung it over a chair, and then--out rattled a perfect tempest of half dollars, quarters, shillings, and sixpences, on the hearth! Of course, the baby woke (frightened out of a year’s growth), and screamed until it was black in the face. In vain its poor, inexperienced papa kissed it, scratching its little velvet face with his rough whiskers the while! In vain we both walked the floor with it. The fire went out, the lamp went; and just at daybreak it came to us like a revelation, the sarcastic tone of that hateful old nurse, as she said, “Good-by; I hope you’ll get along _comfortably_ with the dear baby!”

And so we did. Do you suppose one night’s watching was going to quench our love, either for the baby, or for each other? No--nor a thousand like it! for, as Dr. Watts, or Saxe, hath it, “it was one of the kind that was not born to die.”

THE SHADOW OF A GREAT ROCK IN A WEARY LAND.

Man may turn his back upon Revelation, and feed upon the dry husks of infidelity, if he will; but sure I am, that _woman_ can not do without her Saviour. In her happiest estate, she has sorrows that can only be intrusted to an Almighty ear; responsibilities that no human aid can give her strength to meet. But what if earthly love be poisoned at the fountain?--what if her feeble shoulders bend unsupported under the weight of her daily cross?--what if her life-sky be black with gathering gloom?--what if her foes be they of her own household?--what if treachery sit down at her hearth-stone, and calumny await her without, with extended finger? What then--if no Saviour’s arms be outstretched to enfold her? What if it be “absurd” (as some tell her) that the God who governs the universe should stoop to interest himself in her petty concerns? What if the Bible to which she flies be “a dead letter?” and “Come unto me all ye who are weary and heavy laden”--only “a metaphor?” What earthly accents can fall upon her ear as sweet as these--“A bruised reed will I not break?” Woman may be “weak;” but blessed be the weakness which leads her to lean on that Almighty arm, which man in his pride rejects; listening rather in his extremity, to the demon whisper--“Curse God and die.”

Woman may be “weak;” you may confuse her with your sophistries, deafen her with your arguments, and standing before her in your false strength, exclaim like the unbelievers of old--“Away with him!” and still her yearning soul cries out, with a voice no subtlety of yours can satisfy or stifle--“_My_ Lord and _my_ God!”

TO LITERARY ASPIRANTS.

My heart aches at the letters I am daily receiving from persons who wish to support themselves by their pens; many of these letters, mis-spelt and ungrammatical, show their writers to be totally unfit for the vocation they have chosen; and yet, alas! their necessities are for that reason none the less pressing. Others, unexceptionable in these respects, see no preliminary steps to be taken between avowing this their determination, and at once securing the remuneration accorded to long-practiced writers, who, by patient toil and waiting, have secured a remunerative name. They see a short article in print, by some writer; it reads easy--they doubt not it was written easily; this may or may not be the case; if so--what enabled the writer to produce it in so short a space of time? Long habit of patient, trained thinking, which the beginner has yet to acquire.

You are taken sick; you send for a physician; he comes in, stays ten minutes, prescribes for you a healing medicine, and charges you three or four dollars. You call this “extortionate”--forgetting the medical books he must have waded through, the revolting dissections he must have witnessed and participated in, and the medical lectures he must have digested, to have enabled him to pronounce on your case so summarily and satisfactorily. To return to our subject. These practiced writers have gone through (as you must do), the purgatorial furnace which separates the literary dross from the pure ore. That all who do this should come out fine gold, is impossible; but I maintain, that if there is any thing in a literary aspirant, this process will develop it, spite of discouragement--spite of depression--nay, on that very account.

Now what I would say is this. Let none enter this field of labor, least of all shrinking, destitute women, unless they are prepared for this long, tedious ordeal, and have also the self-sustaining conviction that they have a God-given talent. The reading community is not what it once was. The world is teeming with books--good, bad, and indifferent. Publishers have a wide field from which to cull. There is a great feast to sit down to; and the cloyed and fastidious taste demands dishes daintily and skillfully prepared. How shall an unpracticed aspirant, whose lips perhaps have not been touched with the live coal from the altar, successfully contend with these? How shall the halt and maimed win in such a race?

Every editor’s drawer is crammed--every newspaper office besieged--by hundreds doomed to disappointment; not two thirds of the present surfeit of writers, born of the success of a few, obtain even a hearing. Editors have any quantity of MSS. on hand, which they know will answer their purpose; and they have, they say, when I have applied to them for those who have written me to do so, neither time nor inclination to paragraph, punctuate, revise and correct the inevitable mistakes of beginners, even though there may possibly be some grains of wheat for the seeking.

To women, therefore, who are destitute, and rely upon their pen for a support, I would say, again, Do any thing that is honest that your hands find to do, but make not authorship, at least, your _sole_ dependence in the present state of things.

Now, having performed this ungrateful task, and mapped out faithfully the shoals and quicksands, if there are among you those whose mental and physical muscle will stand the strain with this army of competitors--and, above all, who have the “barrel of meal and cruse of oil” to fall back upon--I wish you God speed! and none will be happier than she, who has herself borne the burden and heat of the day, to see you crowned victor.

SUMMER TRAVEL.

Take a journey at this elevation of the thermometer! Not I. Think of the breakfastless start before daybreak--think of a twelve hours’ ride on the sunny side of the cars, in the neighborhood of some persistent talker, rattling untranslatable jargon into your aching ears; think of a hurried repast, in some barbarous half-way house; amid a heterogeneous assortment of men, women, and children, beef, pork, and mutton; minus forks, minus spoons, minus castor, minus come-atable waiters, and four shillings and indigestion to pay. Think of a “collision”--disemboweled trunks, and a wooden leg; think of an arrival at a crowded hotel; jammed, jaded, dusty, and dolorous; think of your closetless sentry-box of a room, infested by mosquitoes and Red Rovers; bed too narrow, window too small, candle too short, all the world and his wife a-bed, and the geography of the house an unexplained riddle. Think of your unrefreshing, vapor-bath sleep; think of the next morning, as seated on a dusty trunk, with your hair drooping about your ears, through which the whistle of the cars, and the jiggle-joggle of the brakeman, are still resounding; you try to remember, with your hand on your bewildered forehead, whether your breakfast robe is in the yellow trunk, or the black trunk, and if in either, whether it is at the top, bottom, or in the middle of the same, where your muslins and laces were deposited, what on earth you did with your dressing comb, and where amid your luggage, your toilet slippers may be possibly located. Think of a summons to breakfast at this interesting moment, the sun meanwhile streaming in through the blind chinks, with volcanic power. Think of all that, I say.

Now if I could travel _incog._ in masculine attire, no dresses to look after, no muslins to rumple, no bonnet to soil, no tresses to keep smooth, with only a hat and things, a neck-tie or two, a change of--of shirts--nothing but a moustache to twist into a horn when the dinner bell rings; just a dip into a wash-basin, a clean dicky, a jump into a pair of--trowsers, and above all, liberty to go where I liked, without being stared at or questioned; a seat in a chair on its hind-legs, on a breezy door-step, a seat on the stairs in a wide hall, “taking notes;” a peep everywhere I chose, by lordly right of my pantaloons; nobody nudging somebody, to inquire why Miss Spinks the authoress wore her hair in curls instead of plaits; or making the astounding discovery that it was hips, not hoops, that made her dress stand out--that now, would be worth talking about: I’ll do it.

But stop--I should have to cut my hair short--I should have to shave every morning, or at any rate call for hot water and go through the motions; men would jostle rudely past me, just as if they never had said such pretty things to me in flounces; I should be obliged, just as I had secured a nice seat in the cars, to get up, and give it to some imperious woman, who would not even say “thank you;” I should have to look on with hungry eyes till “the ladies” were all served at table; I should have to pick up their fans, and reticules, and handkerchiefs whenever they chose to drop them; I should have to give up the rocking-chairs, arm-chairs, and sofas for their use, and be called “a brute” at that; I should have to rush out of the cars, with five minutes’ grace, at some stopping place, to get a glass of milk, for some “crying baby,” with a contracted swallowing apparatus, and be pursued for life by the curses of its owner, because the whistle sounded while his two shilling tumbler was yet in the voracious baby’s tight grip. No--no--I’ll stay a woman, and what’s more, I’ll stay at home.

A GENTLE HINT.

In most of the New York shop windows, one reads: “Here we speak French;” “Here we speak Spanish;” “Here we speak German;” “Here we speak Italian.” I suggest an improvement--“Here we speak the _Truth_.”

A STORY FOR OLD HUSBANDS WITH YOUNG WIVES.

“I was an old fool! Yes--I was an old fool; that’s all there is about it. I ought to have known better; _she_ was not to blame, poor thing; she is but a child yet; and these baubles pleased her ambitious mother’s eye. It was not the old man, but his _money_--his _money_--I might have known it. May and December--May and December--pshaw! how could I ever have believed, that Mary Terry could _love_ an old fellow like me?” and Mark Ware surveyed himself in the large parlor mirror.

“See!--it reflects a portly old man of sixty, with ruddy face, snow-white hair, and eyes from which the light of youth has long since departed.” And yet there is fire in the old man’s veins too; see how he strides across the carpet, ejaculating, with fresh emphasis, “Yes, I was an old fool!--an old fool! But I will be kind to her; I’m not the man to tyrannize over a young girl, because her mother took her out of the nursery to make her my wife. I see now it is not in reason for a young girl like her to stay contentedly at home with my frosty head and gouty feet. Poor little Mary! No--I’ll not punish her because she can not love me; she shall have what she wants, and go where she likes; her mother is only too proud to trot her out, as the wife of the rich Mark Ware. If that will make them both happy, let them do it; may be”--and Mark Ware paused--“may be, after she has seen what that Dead Sea apple--the world--is made of, she will come back and love the old man a little--may be--who knows? No woman who is believed in, and well treated, ever makes a bad wife; there never was a bad wife yet, but there was a bad husband _first_; that’s gospel--Mark’s gospel, anyhow, and Mark Ware is going to act upon it. Mary shall go to the ball to-night, with her mother, and I will stay at home and nurse my patience and my gouty leg. There’s no evil in her; she’s as pure as a lily, and if she wants to see the world, why--she shall see it; and though I can’t go dancing round with her, I never will dim her bright eyes--no--no!”

* * * * *

“That will do, Tiffy; another pin in this lace; now move that rose in my hair a little to the left; so--that will do.”

“That will _do_!” Tame praise, for that small Grecian head, with its crown of braided tresses; for the full, round throat, and snowy, sloping shoulders; for the round, ivory arms, and tapering, rose-tipped fingers; for the lovely bosom, and dainty waist. Well might such beauty dazzle Mark Ware’s eyes, till he failed to discern the distance betwixt May and December.

Mark Ware had rightly read Mary. She was guileless and pure, as he had said; and child as she was, there was that in her manner, before which the most libidinous eye would have shrunk abashed.

When the young bride first realized the import of those words she had been made to utter, “till death do us part,” she looked forward, with shuddering horror, at the long, monotonous, weary years before her. Her home seemed a prison, and Mark Ware the keeper; its very splendor oppressed her; and she chafed and fretted in her gilded fetters, while her restless heart cried out--anywhere but home! Must she sit there, in her prison-house, day after day, listening only to the repinings of her own troubled heart? Must the bee and the butterfly only be free to revel in the bright sunshine? Had God made her beauty to fade in the stifling atmosphere of darkened parlors, listening to the complaints of querulous old age? Every pulse of her heart rebelled. How could her mother have thus sold her? How could Mark Ware have so unmagnanimously accepted the compulsory sacrifice? Why not have shown her the world and let her choose for herself? O anywhere--anywhere--from such a home!

There was no lack of invitations abroad; for Mary had flashed across the fashionable horizon, like some bright comet; eclipsing all the reigning beauties. No ball, no party, no dinner, was thought a success without her. Night after night found her _en route_ to some gay assemblage. To her own astonishment and her foolish mother’s delight, her husband never remonstrated; on the contrary, she often found upon her dressing-table, some choice little ornament, which he had provided for the occasion; and Mary, as she fastened it in her hair, or bosom, would say, bitterly, “He is anxious that I, like the other appendages of his establishment, should reflect credit on his faultless taste.”

Mistaken Mary!

Time passed on. Mark Ware _was_ “patient,” as he promised himself to be. His evenings were not so lonely now, for his little babe kept him company; the reprieved nurse, only too glad to escape to her pink ribbons and a “chat with John at the back gate.” It was a pretty sight--Mark and the babe! Old age and infancy are always a touching sight together. Not a smile or a cloud passed over that little face, that did not wake up all the father in Mark Ware’s heart; and he paced the room with it, or rocked it to sleep on his breast, talking to it, as if it could understand the strong, deep love, of which it was the unconscious object.

* * * * *

“I am weary of all this,” said Mark’s young wife, as she stepped into her carriage, at the close of a brilliant ball. “I am weary of seeing the same faces, and hearing the same stupid nonsense, night after night. I wonder shall I _ever_ be happy? I wonder shall I ever _love_ any thing, or anybody? Mamma is proud of me, because I am beautiful and rich, but she does not _love_ me. Mark is proud of me”--and Mary’s pretty lip curled scornfully. “Life is so weary, and I am only eighteen!” and Mary sighed heavily.

On whirled the carriage through the deserted streets; deserted--save by some inveterate pleasure-seeker like herself, from whom pleasure forever flees. Occasionally a lamp twinkled from some upper window, where a half-starved seamstress sat stitching her life away, or a heart-broken mother bent over the dead form of a babe, which her mother’s heart could ill spare, although she knew not where to find bread for the remaining babes who wept beside her. Now and then, a woman, lost to all that makes woman lovely, flaunted under the flickering street-lamps, while her mocking laugh rang out on the night air. Mary shuddered, and drew back--there was that in its hollowness which might make even devils tremble. Overhead the sentinel stars kept their tireless watch, and Mary’s heart grew soft under their gentle influence, and tears stole from beneath her lashes, and lay like pearls upon her bosom.

“You need not wait to undress me,” said Mary to the weary-looking waiting-maid, as she averted her swollen eyes from her gaze--and taking the lamp from her hand, Mary passed up to her chamber. So noiseless was the fall of her light foot upon the carpet, that Mark did not know she had entered. He sat with his back to the door, bending over the cradle of his child, till his snow-white locks rested on its rosy cheeks; talking to it, as was his wont, to beguile his loneliness.

“Mary’s forehead--Mary’s eyes--Mary’s mouth--no more like your old father than a rosebud is like a chestnut-burr. _You_ will love the lonely old man, little one, and perhaps _she_ will, by-and-by; who knows?” and Mark’s voice trembled.

“She will--she does”--said Mary, dropping on her knees at the cradle of her child, and burying her face in Mark’s hands; “my noble, patient husband!”

“You don’t mean that?” said Mark, holding her off at arm’s-length, and looking at her through a mist of tears; “you don’t mean that you will love an old fellow like me? God bless you, Mary--God forever bless you! I have been very--very lonely,”--and Mark wept for sheer happiness.

* * * * *

The gaping world, the far-sighted world, the charitable world, shook its wise head, when the star of fashion became a fixed star. Some said “her health must be failing;” others, that “her husband had become jealous at last;” while old stagers maliciously insinuated that it were wise to retire on _fresh_ laurels. But none said--what _I_ say--that a true woman’s heart may always be won--ay, and kept, too--by any husband who does not consider it beneath him to step off the pedestal of his “_dignity_” to learn how.

BREAKFAST AT THE PAXES’.

“Morning paper, John?”

“Didn’t come this morning, mem; I inquired at the office as I came up with the breakfast, mem; none there, mem.”

How provoking! What is breakfast without the morning paper? Coffee and eggs are well enough, but they don’t tell a body whether the Pacific has arrived, or Greeley’s head is safe on his non-resistant shoulders (I wish that man _could_ fight); or whether breadstuffs have “riz,” as every housekeeper knows they ought to; or whether Olmsted’s new book is selling as it deserves (were it only for that racy little morceau about his ride with Jenny, the mare); or whether the “Onguent warranted to raise a moustache and whiskers in six weeks” is still on the sprout; or whether Griswold is proven a saint or a sinner; or whether the amiable young man, who advertised the other day for “board in a family where there are no babies,” has found his desert-s; or whether the philanthropic firm of M‘Mush & Co. are still persisting in that “ruinous sacrifice,” for the benefit of a credulous public in general, and themselves in particular; or whether Barnum’s head is _really_ under water, or whether he has only made a dive to grab some new mermaid; or whether the Regular Male Line viâ (nobody knows where), is an heir line; or whether there are any lectures to be delivered to-night worth foregoing a cosy fireside, and freezing the tip of one’s nose to hear. How am I going to find out all this, I should like to know, without the morning paper? (Long life to the inventor of it!)

Oh! here comes Mr. Pax with one--good soul--he has been out in his slippers, and bought one. Now I shall find out all about every thing, and--who did what. See what a thing it is to have a husband! No, I shan’t either: may I be kissed if Pax has not sat down to read that paper himself, instead of giving it to me. Now I like that; I dare say he thinks because he is connected with the Press that he should have the first reading of it. Am not I connected with the Press I’d like to know? I guess you’d have thought so, had you seen me squeezing into the Opera House the other night to hear Everett’s lecture.

Perhaps he is going to read it aloud to me--I’ll sip my coffee and wait a bit. Good Pax! how I have maligned him; what an impatient wretch I am. I think impatience is a fault of mine. I wonder is it a fault? I wonder if I can help it, if it is? I wonder if people weren’t made that way the year I was born? Yes; Pax must be going to read me the paper; that’s it. Good Pax--how well he looks in that Turkish breakfast-jacket; he has really a nice profile and pretty hand. I can’t say that he has a very saintly under lip, but I have known more saintly _looking_ ones do naughtier things! Yes; I’ll sip my coffee--he is undoubtedly going to read the paper to me; no, he isn’t either; he means to devour the whole of it solus. I won’t stand it--hem--no reply--hem--none so deaf as those who won’t hear.

“Pax!”

“Well, dear” (without raising his eyes).

“Pax! what is there interesting in that paper?”

(Pax still reading intently.) “Nothing, my dear, absolutely nothing.”

Humph! wonder if it takes a man a whole hour to read “nothing?”

Now, do you suppose I whined about that? cried till my eyes looked as though they were bound with pink tape? Not I. I just sat down and wrote an article about it for the “WEEKLY MONOPOLIZER,” and when it is published, as published it will be, I shall be disinterested enough to hand Pax my paper to read first! Then--when he reads the article, and looking up reproachfully, says: “Mrs. Pax!” it will be _my_ turn not to hear, you know; and when he gets up, and laying his connubial paw on my shoulder, says: “Mrs. Pax, do you know any thing about this article in the Weekly Monopolizer?” I shall reply, with lamb-like innocence: “Nothing, my dear, absolutely nothing!”

Won’t that floor him?

GIRLS’ BOARDING-SCHOOLS.

Had I twenty daughters, which I regret to say I have not, not one of them should ever enter a “Boarding-school.” I beg pardon; I should say “Institute;” schools are exploded; every two-year-older learns his A B C now at an “Institute,” though that institute, when hunted down, may consist of a ten-feet-square basement room. But this is a digression.

To every mother who is contemplating sending her daughter to a boarding-school I would say: Let neither your indolence, nor the omnipotent voice of fashion, nor high-sounding circulars, induce you to remove her from under your own personal care and supervision, at a time when the physique of this future wife and mother requires a lynx-eyed watchfulness on your part, which no institute ever has--ever will supply. This is a point which I am astonished that parents seem so utterly to overlook. Every mother knows how fatal wet feet, or insufficient clothing, may be to a young girl at the critical age at which they are generally sent away to school. It is not enough that you place India-rubbers, thick-soled shoes, and flannels in the trunk which bears the little exile company; they will not insure her from disease _there_. It is not enough that you say to her, “My dear, be careful of your choice of companions,” when she _has_ no choice; when her bed-fellows and room-mates--the latter often three or four in number--are what chance and the railroads send; for what teacher, with the best intentions, ever gives this subject the attention which it deserves, or which a mother’s anxious heart asks? That the distant home of her daughter’s room-mates is located within the charmed limits of fashion; that a carriage with liveried servants (that disgusting libel on republicanism), stands daily before their door; that the dresses of these room-mates are made in the latest style, and their wrists and ears decked with gold and precious stones--is an affirmative answer to these questions to satisfy a true mother?

No--and it is not the blushing country maiden, with her simple wardrobe, and simpler manners, whom that mother has to fear for her child’s companion or bed-fellow. It is the over-dressed, vain, vapid, brainless offshoot of upstart aristocracy, who would ridicule the simple gingham in which that country girl’s mother studied geography, and which fabric she very properly considers quite good enough for her child, and which is much more appropriate in the school-room than silk or satin. It is this child of the upstart rich mother, whose priceless infancy and childhood have been spent with illiterate servants; with the exception of the hour after dessert, when she was reminded that she had a mother, by being taken in an embroidered robe to be exhibited for a brief space to her guests. It is this girl, whose childhood, as I said, has been passed with servants, peeping into the doubtful books with which doubtful servants often beguile the tedious hours (for there are bad servants as well as bad masters and mistresses)--this girl, lying awake in her little bed, hearing unguarded details of servants’ amours, while her mother dances away the hours so pregnant with fate to that listening child. It is such a girl, more to be pitied than blamed, whose existence is to be recognized by her thoughtless mother only, when her “coming out,” delayed till the latest possible period, forces her reluctantly to yield to a younger aspirant her own claims to admiration. This girl whose wealth, and the social position arising from it, so dazzles the eyes of proprietors of “Institutes” that they are incapable of perceiving, or unwilling to admit, her great moral and mental delinquencies; it is _such_ a companion that a true mother has to fear for her pure-minded, simple-hearted young daughter, leaving for the first time the guarded threshold and healthful atmosphere of home.

And when after months have passed--and insufficient exercise,[A] imperfect ventilation, and improper companionship, have transformed her rosy, healthy, simple-hearted child, to a pale, languid, _spineless_, dressy young woman, with a smattering of fashionable accomplishments, and an incurable distaste of simple, home pleasures--will it restore the bloom to her cheek, the spring to her step, the fresh innocence to her heart, to say, “but the school was fashionable and _so_ well recommended?”

[A] Is a formal, listless walk, in a half-mile procession, to answer the purpose of _exercise_ for young, growing girls confined at least ten hours a day over their lessons, and crowded at night into insufficient sleeping-rooms?--from which the highest prices paid for tuition, so far as my observation extends, furnish no immunity.

CLOSET MEDITATIONS,

NOT FOUND IN JAY OR DODDRIDGE.

Shall I ever be unhappy again? Six big closets with shelves and drawers! What a Godsend! You laugh! you are unable to comprehend how such joyful emotions can spring from so trivial a cause.

Trivial! Did you ever board out? Did you ever stand in the midst of your gas-lighted, damask-curtained, velvet-chaired, _closetless_ hotel (yes--_hotel_) apartments, with a six-cent ink-bottle between your perplexed thumb and finger, taxing your brain, as it was never taxed before, to discover an oasis where to deposit it, when not in use?

Trivial? Did you ever live for a series of years with your head in a trunk? Did you ever see your ghost-like habiliments dangling day after day from pegs in the wall? Did you ever turn away your disgusted eyes, as the remorseless chambermaid whirled clouds of dust over their unprotected fabrics? Did you ever, as you lay in bed of a morning, exhaust your ingenuity in devising some means of relief? Did you ever, exulting in your superior acumen, rush out, and purchase at your own expense, a curtain to cover them? Did you ever jam off all your finger nails trying to drive it up? (for what woman ever yet hit a nail on the head?) Did you ever have that dusty curtain drop down on your nicely-smoothed hair, nine times out of ten when you went to it for a dress? Did you ever set fire to it with a candle, when in an abstracted state of mind?

Trivial? Did you ever implore a white-aproned waiter, with tears in your eyes, and twenty-five cents in your hand, to bring you an empty cigar-box to keep your truant slippers in? Did you ever stifle with closed windows, because if you threw them up, you would throw out your books, which were piled on the window lodge? Were you ever startled in the middle of the night, by the giving way of a solitary nail, on which were hung a bag of buttons, a bag of hooks and eyes, a child’s satchel, a child’s slate, a basket of oyster crackers, a bag of chess-men, and--your hoops?

Trivial? Did you ever partially carry out the curse which was passed on Eden’s tempter, the serpent, as, with a long-handled umbrella, you explored, for some missing shoe, the unknown regions under the bed? Did you ever sit on your best bonnet? Did you ever step into your husband’s hat? Did you ever tear a zig-zag rent in your favorite dress, and find, on looking for pieces of the same to mend it, that you had given them away to your washwoman, with other uncounted needfuls, because you had no place to keep them? Did you ever stand in dismay over your furs and woolens in spring, and your muslins, grenadines, and bareges, in autumn?

Trivial? Ah!--you never witnessed the cold-blooded indifference with which hotel-keepers, and landlords generally, shrug their shoulders, as surveying your rooms, and taking a _coup d’œil_ of your feminine effects, you pathetically exclaim, with dropped hands and intonation--“No closets!”

A FEMININE VIEW OF NAPOLEON AS A HUSBAND.

It is said that writers of books seldom read many. The “Confidential Letters of Napoleon and Josephine” had not been published when that remark was made. The Napoleon-mad author, Mr. Abbot, says, in his Preface: “We are familiar with him as the warrior, the statesman, the great administrator--but here we behold him as the husband, the father, the brother, moving freely amid all the tender relations of domestic life. His _heart_ is here revealed,” etc. I suggest to Mr. Abbot (for whom, apart from this extraordinary hallucination, I have a great respect), the following amendment of the above sentence, viz.: his _want of heart_ is here revealed; but let that pass.

I have devoured the book at a sitting, and it has given me, as do stimulants generally, mental or otherwise, a villainous headache. With the sad fate of the peerless Josephine fresh in my mind, I read with an impatient pshaw! the burning billet-doux, addressed to her by the man who could coolly thrust her aside for his mad ambition. Hear what he once said:

“Death alone can break the union, which love, sentiment, and sympathy have formed. A thousand and a thousand kisses.”

Also,

“I hope very soon to be in your arms; I love you most passionately (_à la fureur_).”

Also,

“I hope in a little time to fold you in my arms, and cover you with kisses burning as the equator.”

Also, this consistent lover begs from her whom he afterward deserted,

“Love without bounds, and _fidelity without limit_.”

How very like a man!

Well, I turned over the pages, and read with moistened eyes, for the hundredth time, the wretched state farce enacted at the divorce; and with fresh admiration perused the magnanimous and memorable reply of the queenly Josephine, to the brilliant but cold, intellectual but selfish, imperious yet fascinating Napoleon. Ah! then I would have led away his victim, spite of herself, out of sight, sound, and hearing of this cold, cruel man, who, when it suited his whim, caprice, or convenience; who, when weary of the tame, spiritless Maria Louise, returned secretly to the intoxicating presence of the bewitching Josephine; whom, though repudiating, he yet controlled, down to the lowest menial in her household, down to the color of their jackets and hose; quite safe, in always appending, with gracious condescension, permission “to please herself,” to one whose greatest pleasure, he well knew, was to kiss his imperial shoe-tie.

My love and pity for her merge (momentarily) into contempt, when she abjectly begs for the crumbs of his favor, that fall from happier favorites; for (to quote the touching words of her who would have shared his exile had not death prevented, when the woman for whom she had been cast aside, by a retributive justice, deserted him in his extremity) “he could forget me _when he was happy_!” Ay, it was when pleasure palled, when friends proved false, when the star of his destiny paled, when he _needed_ the noble Josephine, that he sought her.

And _she_? When pealing bells and roaring cannon announced to France that her rival had presented her husband the long-desired heir; _she_, upon whose quivering heart every stroke of those joyous bells must have smitten like a death-knell; _she_, the deserted wife, hung festal wreaths over the grave of her hopes, gave jewels to the messenger who brought her the news of _his_ happiness, and ordered a _fête_ in honor of the young heir. Match me that, who can, in the wide annals of _man’s_ history? But, oh! when midnight came on, and garlands drooped, and bright eyes closed, and tripping feet were stilled, when the farce was played out, and the iron hand of court etiquette was lifted from off that loving, throbbing, bursting heart, it thus poured itself out to Napoleon:

“She (Maria Louise), can not be more tenderly devoted to you than I; but she has been enabled to contribute more to your happiness, by securing that of France. She has then a right to your first feelings, to all your cares; and I, who was but your companion in times of difficulty, I can not ask more than a place in your affections far removed from that occupied by the Empress Louise. _Not till you shall have ceased to watch by her bed, not till you are weary of embracing your son, will you take the pen to converse with your best friend. I will wait._”

The answer to the touching letter, from which this is an extract (and every _woman_ with a heart, who reads it, can measure the height and depth of its anguish), was the following _verbal_, the following _delicate_ message, through Eugene!

“Tell your mother I would have written to her already, _had I not been completely absorbed in the pleasure of looking upon my son_.”

About eleven o’clock that evening she received the much-coveted line from his own hand; in which he seemed to have been able at last to remember somebody beside himself; and for which the all-enduring, all-forgiving Josephine adores as a god, “the man who, _when he willed_, could be the most delightful of men.” Nobody will deny the matchless tact of the lines which dried poor Josephine’s tears:

“This infant, _in concert with our Eugene_, will constitute my happiness, and that of France.”

But the man “who could be so delightful when he willed,” did not, any more than the rest of his sex, always will it. Motes and butterflies seek the sunbeams, and the friends of poor Josephine’s happier days, forsook her for those whom Fortune smiled upon. Malice, always on tiptoe to whisper into the tortured ear, told her of the “happiness” of the inconstant Napoleon; and with the birds, flowers, and fountains of Malmaison mocking her tears, her crushed heart thus sobs itself out to the emperor:

“I limit myself in asking one favor; it is, that you, yourself, will seek means, _sometimes to convince me, and those who surround me_”--(mark how strong and deathless must be the love that could thus abjectly sue)--“that I have still a place in your memory, and a large share of your esteem and friendship. These means, whatever they may be, will soothe my anguish, without the danger, as it seems to me, of compromising that _which is more important than all together, the happiness of your majesty_.”

Well, what was the answer of “his majesty” to the tortured Josephine, in whose heart, his majesty boasted that “he held the first place, and her children by a former husband next, and that she did right thus to love him!” What was his majesty’s answer to her, whom he wished to “cover with kisses burning as the equator,” “whom he would wish to imprison in his heart, lest she should escape;” “the beautiful, the good one, all unequaled, all divine,” to whom he had “sent thousands of kisses, burning as his heart, pure as her own,” whom “he loved _à la fureur_?” What was his majesty’s answer to the weary, weeping, faithful watcher at Malmaison?

“I have received your letter of the 19th of April; it _is in a very bad style_.”

Could any thing be more coolly diabolical? O, foolish Josephine! with all your tact and wisdom, not to have found out that man (with rare exceptions) is unmagnanimous; that to pet and fondle him is to forge your own chains; that the love which is sure is to him worthless; that variety is as necessary to his existence, as a looking-glass and a cigar; and that his vows are made, like women’s hearts, to break.

And yet, how surely, even in this world, retribution follows. The dreary rock of St. Helena; the dilapidated, vermin-infested lodgings; the petty, grinding, un-let-up-able tyranny of the lynx-eyed foe; the unalloyed, unassuaged anguish of hydra-headed disease; the merciless separation from the child, who had dug poor Josephine’s premature grave; the heaped up, viper, newspaper obloquy which had always free pass to Longwood, when bristling bayonets kept at bay the voices which the ear of its captive ached to hear; the dreary, comfortless death-bed; the last faltering request denied; as if malice still hungered for vengeance when the weary heart it would torture had lost all power to feel. Josephine! Josephine! thou wert indeed avenged!

“FIRST PURE.”

I would that I had time to answer the many kind letters I receive from my unknown friends, or power, as they seem to imagine, to reform the abuses to which they call my attention. The subject of licentiousness, upon which I have just received a letter, is one upon which I have thought much and often since my residence in New York. I could not, if I would, ignore it, when at every step its victims rustle past me in the gay livery of shame, or stretch out to me, from beneath tattered garments, the hand, prematurely old, which should, alas! wear the golden pledge of honorable love. But they tell me this is a subject a woman can not understand, and should not write about. Perhaps so; but woman can understand it when, like a blighting mildew, it strips bud, blossom, and verdure, from her household olive-plants; woman can understand it when she weeps in secret over the wrong which she may not whisper even to herself; woman can understand it when the children of the man whom she thought worthy of her maidenly love and honor, sink into early graves, under the inherited taint of his “youthful follies.”

And yet they are right; virtuous woman does _not_ understand it; would that she did--would that she sometimes paused to think of her share of blame in this matter; would that she know how much her ready smile, and _indiscriminate hand of welcome_ has to do in perpetuating it; how often it blunts the sting of conscience, and confirms the immoral man in that detestable club-house creed, that woman’s virtue depends upon opportunity. Would that mothers would sometimes ask, not--is he a gentleman, or is he accomplished? but, is he moral? is he pure? Pure! Young New York holds its sides in derision at the word. Pure! is he in leading strings? Pure! it is a contemptible reflection on his manhood and free will. Pure! it is a word for old women and priests.

I once expressed my astonishment to a lady, that she should permit the calls of a gentleman whom she knew to be licentious. “That is none of my business, you know, my dear,” she replied, “so long as he behaves himself properly in my presence;” and this answer, I am afraid, would be endorsed by too many of my readers. As well might she have said, that it was none of her business that her neighbor’s house was in flames, or that they had the yellow fever or the plague. That a man sings well, dresses well, or talks well, is, I am sorry to say, too often sufficient to outweigh his moral delinquency. This is poor encouragement to young men who, not having yet learned to think lightly of the sex to which their mothers and sisters belong, are old-fashioned enough to wish to lead virtuous lives; and some of whom, notwithstanding, have the courage and manhood in these degenerate days to _dare_ to do it.

As to a reform in this matter, I think virtuous women must begin it, by turning the cold shoulder to every man of their acquaintance whom they know to be immoral, and I think a woman of penetration will not be at fault, if she takes pains to sift a man’s sentiments in conversation.

Perhaps you will tell me (though I hope it is not so), that this would exclude two thirds of every lady’s gentlemen acquaintance. Be it so; better for those ladies, better for their daughters, if they have any, better for the cause of virtue; at least, it would not take long, at that rate, to thin the ranks of vice.

I wonder does man never think, in his better moments, how much nobler it were to protect than to debase woman?--ay, protect her--if need be--_even from herself_, and ignoring the selfish creed that she has a right to, and is alone responsible for, her own self-disposal, withdraw her, as with a brother’s hand, from the precipice over which misery or inclination would plunge her, and prove to the “weaker sex” that he is in the noblest sense the stronger. That, indeed, were God-like.

HOLIDAY THOUGHTS.

Well--New Year’s and Christmas are both over: there is a lull equal to that after a Presidential election. What is to be done for an excitement now? Every body is yawning: the men on account of the number of complimentary fibs that they foolishly felt themselves called upon to tell the ladies, on their New Year’s calls; and the ladies, because they were obliged to listen as if they did not know them all stereotyped, to be repeated, _ad infinitum_, at every house on their visiting rounds; the matron, because her handsome carpet is inch-deep in cake crumbs; and her husband, because bills are pouring in from butchers, bakers, grocers, milkmen, tailors, dressmakers, and jewelers, like the locusts of Egypt. Well--we shall not say any thing against New Year’s and its jollities, while it frees the poor hack of a clerk, and gives him one day of happiness and rest; while it throws over the indefatigable cook’s shoulders the cloak for which she has been vainly toiling and hoping; while it wings the feet of so many bright-eyed children, and lights up the prim parlor of so many hopeless old maids. We shall not say any thing against New Year’s, when, after long months of wrong and estrangement, it stretches out the tardy hand of repentance, for which even the Bible bids us to wait, ere we forgive; we shall not say any thing against New Year’s, though it reminds us that hands we used to grasp so warmly, are crossed forever over pulseless hearts; though memories sad, but sweet, come thronging thick and fast, of “Happy New Years,” from lips upon which Death has set his final seal. And yet _not_ final; thank Him who giveth, and Him who taketh, _not_ final; for even here we trace their noiseless footsteps--even here we see the flitting of their shadowy garments--even here we smile in dreams, at the overshadowing wings of the angels who “have charge to keep us.” No, no--_not_ final: our love o’erleaps the dark river, to greet the sister, amid whose orange wreath there crept the cypress vine; to clasp the child, who quickened our heart-throbs ere we saw the lips that called us (alas, for so brief a space), by that blessed name--“Mother.” No, no--_not_ final;--else were this fair earth to us a satisfying birth-right; else had the midnight stars no eyes of flame to search the guilty conscience; else had the shimmer of the moonbeam, the ripple of the wave, the crash of the thunder, the flash of the lightning, the ceaseless moan of the vexed sea, no voice to waken the never-dying echo of the immortal in our nature. No--God be praised--_not_ final!

But we had not intended a homily. To return to the observance of New Year’s: for our own taste, we should prefer the sugar, which custom so lavishly heaps upon New Year’s cake, spread more sparingly upon our slices of “daily bread;” in other words, we should prefer to distribute the compressed courtesies of our friends on this day, equally, through the weeks and months of the year. As to the absurd custom of excluding the daylight, to receive one’s visitors by the glare of gas, it is a tacit admission of artificial charms, which one would think even “fashion” would be slow to make. The inordinate display of edibles on such occasions, seems to us as useless as it is disgusting; a cup of coffee, a slice of cake, or a sandwich, being, in our humble estimation, sufficient for any gentleman who is able to distinguish between a private house and a restaurant.

A HEADACHE.

Now I am in for it, with one of my unappeasable headaches. Don’t talk to me of doctors; it is incurable as a love-fit; nothing on earth will stop it; you may put that down in your memorandum-book. Now, I suppose every body in the house to-day will put on their creakingest shoes; and every body will go up and down stairs humming all the tunes they ever heard, especially those I most dislike; and I suppose every thing that is cooked in the kitchen will boil and stew over, and the odor will come up to me; and I have _such_ a nose! And I suppose all the little boys in the neighborhood, bless their little restless souls, will play duets on tin-pans and tin-kettles; and I suppose every body who comes into my room to ask me how I do, will squeak that horrid door, and _keep_ squeaking it; and I suppose that unhappy dog confined over in that four-square-feet yard, will howl more deliriously than ever; and Mr. Jones’s obnoxious blind will flap and bang till I am as crazy as an omnibus-driver who has a baulky horse, and whose passengers are hopping out behind without paying their fare; and I suppose some poor little child will be running under the window every now and then, screaming “Mother,” and whenever I hear that, I think somebody wants _me_; and I’ve no doubt there will be “proof” to read to-day, and that that pertinacious and stentorian rag-man will lumber past on his crazy old cart, and insist on having some of my dry goods; and I feel it in my bones that oysters and oranges, and tape, and blacking, and brooms, and mats, and tin-ware, will settle and congregate on this side-walk, and assert their respective claims to my notice, till the sight of an undertaker would be a positive blessing.

Whack! how my head snaps! Don’t tell me any living woman ever had such a headache before--because it will fill me with disgust. What o’clock is it? “Twelve.” Merciful man! only twelve o’clock! I thought it was five. How am I to get through the day, I would like to know, for this headache won’t let up till sundown; it never does. “Read to me.” What’ll you read? “Tom Moore!” as if I were not sick enough already! Moore! with his nightingales, and bulbuls, and jessamines; and loves and doves, and roses and poesies--till the introduction of an uneducated wildcat, or the tearingest kind of a hyena in his everlasting gardens, would be an untold relief. No--I hate Moore. Beside--he is the fellow who said, “When away from the lips that we love, we’ll make love to the lips that are near.” No wonder he was baptized _more_--carnivorous old profligate.

“Will I have a cup of tea?” No; of course I won’t. I’m not an old maid. Tea! I’d like a dose of strychnine. There goes my head again--I should think a string of fire-crackers was fastened to each hair. Now the pain is in my left temple; now it is in my eyeballs; now--oh dear--it is everywhere. Sit down beside me, on the bed--don’t jar it; now put your cold hand on my forehead--so--good gracious! There’s a hand-organ! I knew it--the very one I moved here to get rid of. Playing the same old tune, too, composed of three notes: “tweedle--dum--tweedle--dee!”

Now if that organ-man would pull each of my finger and toe-nails out by the roots, one by one, I wouldn’t object, but that everlasting “tweedle--” oh dear!--Or if a cat’s tail were to be irretrievably shut into yonder door--or a shirt-sleeve should be suddenly and unexpectedly thrown around an old maid’s neck in this room, any thing--every thing but that eternal, die-away “tweedle.” What’s the use of a city government? What is the use of any thing? What is the use of _me_?

HAS A MOTHER A RIGHT TO HER CHILDREN?

Most unquestionably, law or no law. Let us begin at the beginning. Let us take into consideration the physical prostration of mind and body endured by mothers antecedent to the birth of their offspring; their extreme nervousness and restlessness, without the ability for locomotion; the great nameless horror which hangs over those who, for the first time, are called upon to endure agonies that no man living would have fortitude to bear more than once, even at their shortest period of duration; and which, to those who have passed through it, is intensified by the vivid recollection (the only verse in the Bible which I call in question being this--“She remembereth no more her pains, for joy that a man-child is born into the world”). Granted that the mother’s life is spared through this terrible ordeal, she rises from her sick-bed, after weeks of prostration, with the precious burden in her arms which she carried so long and so patiently beneath her heart. Oh, the continuous, tireless watching necessary to preserve the life and limbs of this fragile little thing! At a time, too, of all times, when the mother most needs relaxation and repose. It is known only to those who have passed through it. Its reward is with Him who seeth in secret.

I speak now only of _good_ mothers; mothers who deserve the high and holy name. Mothers who in their unselfish devotion look not at their capacity to endure, but the duties allotted to them (would that husbands and fathers did not so often leave it to the tombstone to call their attention to the former). Mothers, whose fragile hands keep the domestic treadmill in as unerring motion as if no new care was superadded in the feeble wail of the new-born infant. Mothers whose work is literally _never_ done; who sleep with one eye open, intrusting to no careless hireling the precious little life. Mothers who can scarce secure to themselves five minutes of the morning hours free from interruption, to ask God’s help that a feeble, tried woman may hold evenly the scales of domestic justice amid the conflicting elements of human needs and human frailties. Now I ask you--shall any human law, for any conceivable reason, wrest the child of such a mother from her frenzied clasp?

Shall any human law give into a man’s hand, though that man be the child’s own father, the sole right to its direction and disposal? Has not she, who suffered, martyr-like, these crucifying pains--these wearisome days and sleepless nights, _earned_ this her sweet reward?

Shall any virtuous woman, who is in the full possession of her mental faculties, how poor soever she may be, be _beggared_ by robbing her of that which has been, and, thank God! will be the salvation of many a down-trodden wife?

“AND YE SHALL CALL THE SABBATH A DELIGHT.”

I like to throw open the windows of my soul on Sabbath morning--air it of the week’s fret, and toil, and care--and beckon in the white-winged dove of Peace to sing me a song of heaven. I like to go to church; it is to me like turning from the dusty highway of life into green fields, and, under the friendly shade of some sheltering tree, gazing, through its leafy canopy, into the serene blue depths above. The holy hymn soothes me like a mother’s lullaby to her weary child. I care not to read the words of the book which custom places in my hands. I would listen, with closed eyes, while my soul syllables its own secret burden; floating away on that melody to Him who has given us this blessed day of rest; and as the last note dies away, I would cross the sacred threshold, hugging to my heart this holy peace; nor stay to listen to the cold, theoretical, charnel-house sermons to which, Sunday after Sunday--vary the church as I may--I feel myself, unless I do this, a disappointed, disheartened, and wearied listener. No earnestness, no life, no soul; long, dry, windy, wordy skeleton-discourses; tame platitudes, disgusting rant, a school-boy’s parrot-lesson, injudicious depreciation of a world which is sweet to live in, and fair to see; injudicious denunciation of innocent, youthful pleasures--proper and healthful for life’s young spring-time; an ascetic rendering of that Blessed Book which is, has been, and will be, the soul’s life-boat, spite of its listless and blundering clerical expositors--many of whom offer us a Procrustean bed of theology, too short for any healthy creature of God to stretch himself upon. Who can wonder at the rebound? Who can wonder that our young people pass by the church-door, or cross its threshold compulsorily? or that their decorous seniors enter it but to sleep?

A few Sabbaths since I chanced into a church where a hundred and fifty children were assembled for the afternoon service, to be addressed as Sunday-school scholars. The out-door air was a luxury to breathe--it was one of those lovely spring days, which woo every living thing to bask in the warm sunshine. These children, many of them under four, none over fifteen, perspiring in their out-door clothing, were closely packed in those high-backed, uncomfortable seats--their cheeks at fever heat, and every pore in their crucified bodies crying out for ventilation and common sense--neither of which they had for a mortal hour-and-a-half, to speak within bounds. In vain did teachers frown, and nudge, and poke--in vain did the well-meaning but stupidest of possible ministers pound the pulpit cushions, to impress upon their memories, by gesticulation, his long-winded sentences; they were all written--as they deserved to be--in water. Flesh and blood couldn’t stand it--_least of all that most unperverted, critical, and discerning of audiences--childhood_!

That preacher, in my opinion (and I ached to tell him so), did more harm in that hour and a half than he can remedy in a life-time. This may seem a bold assertion. _I_ think not. One hundred and fifty little children to carry away with them from that church (not only for that afternoon, but for a long life of Sundays), a disgust of that blessed day, and what _should_ be its sweet and holy services. But what is the use of talking? Every great and good cause is sure to be knocked in the head by some blunderbuss. Why didn’t that man tell those children some _short_, simple story that the youngest child there could understand, appreciate, and be interested in? Why didn’t he open wide the church-doors before their attention and interest flagged? Why so enamored of the sound of his own voice, as to keep those steaming, par-boiled little victims in that sacerdotal vapor-bath, after he had said all he could think of to them, to address their teachers, who, if necessary, should have had a meeting by themselves for that infliction? And why--(I ask all of you who have not forgotten how _your_ restless limbs ached when _you_ were children)--must _another_ minister get up after that, and torture common-sense, and his fainting, frying auditors, by another aimless, inflated, meaningless, and last-drop-in-the-bucket, but (thanks to a kind Providence), _final_ address? And why didn’t somebody seize the sexton of that church, who had compelled a hundred and fifty children to breathe the foul air which the morning worshipers had bequeathed, and which he was too lazy to let out the windows--why didn’t somebody, I say, seize that sexton, and place him in an exhausted receiver, long enough to give him some _faint_ notion of what he made those par-boiled children suffer in that “protracted meeting?”

“COME ON, MACDUFF.”

A correspondent wishes us to “oblige a lady,” by publishing a communication containing strictures on Fanny Fern. But, why should we “oblige a lady” whom we do not know, and at the same time disoblige a lady whom all the world knows?--_New York Evening Mirror._

“Oblige a lady.” She is not the first, or the only lady, who has tried to be “obliged,” and _obliging_, in this way. Dear creatures! how they love me! There was Miss Moses, _proper_ Miss Moses, who had been for a year or more writing for the _Scribetown Gazette_, when I commenced. How delighted she was at my advent--how pleased she was with my articles--how many things she said about me, personally and literarily, to the editor of the _Gazette_--what an interest she took in my progress. _She_ never tried to keep my articles out of the paper, (benevolent soul!) “lest they should injure its reputation”--not she; she never, when looking over the exchanges, hid away those in which my articles were copied, and commended--not she, she never, when she found one containing a personal attack on me (written at her own suggestion), marked it with a double row of ink marks, and laid it in a conspicuous place on the editor’s table--not she. She _liked_ my articles--liked them so well, that, on several occasions, she appropriated whole sentences and paragraphs; omitting (probably through forgetfulness), to make the necessary quotation marks! Dove-like Miss Moses! I think I see her now looking as though she was going to be translated (which by the way, her works never have been.) Pious Miss Moses, who rang threadbare changes on the ten commandments, and was addicted to meetings and melancholy; she tried hard to extinguish me, but success makes one magnanimous. I forgive her.

And there was Miss Fox, who “never could see any thing to like in Fanny Fern’s articles,” who knew her to have come from a family, “who _always_ fizzled out”--(on this point this deponent saith nothing)--but who, when she (Miss Fox) had occasion to write a newspaper story, got some kind friend to say in print, “that the story by Rosa, was probably written by Fanny Fern.” Sweet Miss Fox!

Then there was Miss Briar, who “wondered if Mr. Bonner, of the New York _Ledger_, gave Fanny Fern, _who had never been out of sight of America_, $100 a column for her stupid trash, what he would give _her_, Miss Briar, who had crossed the big pond, when _she_ touched pen to paper! Fanny Fern, indeed! Humph!”

Lovely creatures! I adore the whole sex. I always prefer hotels, ferry boats, and omnibusses, where they predominate, and abound; how courteous they are to each other, in case of a squeeze! Lord bless ’em! How truly Burns says:

“Auld Nature swears, the lovely dears Her noblest work she classes, O: Her ’prentice han’ she tried on man, And then she made the lasses, O. _The sweetest hours that e’er I spend Are spent amang the lasses, O._”

LOOK ALOFT.

You are “discouraged!” _You?_ with strong limbs, good health, the green earth beneath your feet, and the broad blue sky above? “Discouraged?” and why? You are poor, unknown, friendless, obscure, unrecognized, and alone in this great swarming metropolis; the rich man suffocates you with the dust of his pretentious chariot wheels.

As you are now, so once was he. Did he waste time whining about it? No, by the rood! or he would not now be President of the Bank before which he once sold beer at a penny a glass, to thirsty cabmen and newsboys. For shame, man! get up and shake yourself, if you are not afraid such a mass of inanity will fall to pieces. Cock your hat on your head, torn rim and all; elbow your way through the crowd; if they don’t move for you, _make_ them do it; push past them; you have as much right in the world as your neighbor. If you wait for him to take you by the hand, the grass will grow over your grave. Rush past him and get employment. “You have tried, and failed.” So have thousands before you, who, to-day, are pecuniarily independent. I have the most unqualified disgust of a man who folds his hands at every obstacle, instead of leaping over it; or who dare not do any thing under heaven, unless it be to blaspheme God, wrong his neighbor, or dishonor woman.

I tell you, if you are determined, you _can_ get employment; but you won’t get it by cringing round the doors of rich relations; you won’t get it if you can’t dine on a crust, month after month, and year after year, if need be, with hope for a dessert; you won’t get it if you stand with your lazy hands in your pockets, listening to croakers; you won’t do it if you don’t raise your head above every billow of discouragement which dashes over you, and halloo to Fate, with a stout heart: “Try again, old fellow!” No--and it is not right you should--you are good for nothing but to go sniveling through the world, making wry faces at the good fortune of other people. Bah! I’m disgusted with you.

* * * * *

_You_ despair. Why? “You are a widow.” Of how much sorrow is that little word the voice? Oh! I know, poor mourner, how dark earth looks to you. I know that sun and stars mock you with their brightness. I know that you shut out the placid moonbeams, and pray to die. Listen! Are there no bleeding hearts but yours? Your dead sleep peacefully; their tears are all shed; their sighs all heaved; their weary hands folded over quiet hearts; but oh, repiner! the _living_ sorrows that are masked beneath the smiling faces you envy! the corroding bitterness of a _dishonored_ hearth-stone; the mantle all too narrow, all too scant, to hide from prying, malignant eyes, the torturing secret!--bone of your bone, flesh of your flesh, and yet, stranger to you than the savage of the desert--colder to you than the dead for whom you so repiningly grieve. Ah! are there no bleeding hearts save yours? Is the “last vial” emptied on your shrinking head?

But your little children stand looking into your tear-stained face, imploring you for bread--bread that you know not where to procure; your ear aches for the kind words which never come to you. Oh, where is your faith in God? Who says to you in accents sweeter than ever fell from human lips: “A bruised reed will I not break;” “Let your widows trust in me.” No kind words? Is it nothing, that those musical little voices call you “mother?” Is the clasp of those soft arms, the touch of those velvet lips, nothing? Is it thus you teach them to put their little hands into that of the Almighty Father, and say, “Give us this day our daily bread?” Oh, get on your knees before those sweet little teachers, who know no danger--no harm, who fear no evil while “mother” is near, and learn of them to watch, and hope, and trust; for sure as the sun shines above your and their heads, so sure is _His_ promise to those who believingly claim it.

“Lonely,” are you? Oh, above all loneliness is his, who, having thrown away his faith in God, and bereft of earthly idols, stands like some lightning-reft tree, blossomless, verdureless, scathed, and blasted!

KNICKERBOCKER AND TRI-MOUNTAIN.

The New York woman doteth on rainbow hats and dresses, confectionery, the theater, the opera, and flirtation. She stareth gentlemen in the street out of countenance, in a way that puzzleth a stranger to decide the question of her respectability. The New York woman thinketh it well-bred to criticise _in an audible tone_ the dress and appearance of every chance lady near her, in the street, shop, ferry-boat, car, or omnibus. If doubtful of the material of which her dress is composed, she draweth near, examineth it microscopically, and pronounceth it--“after all--silk.” The New York woman never appeareth without a dress-hat and flounces, though the time be nine o’clock in the morning, and her destination the grocer’s, to order some superfine tea. She delighteth in embroidered petticoats, which she liberally displayeth to curious bipeds of the opposite sex. She turneth up her nose at a delaine, wipeth up the pavement with a thousand-dollar silk, and believeth point-lace collars and handkerchiefs essential to salvation. She scorneth to ride in an omnibus, and if driven by an impertinent shower therein, sniffeth up her aristocratic nose at the plebeian occupants, pulleth out her costly gold watch to--ascertain the time! and draweth off her gloves to show her diamonds. Arrived at Snob avenue, she shaketh off the dust of her silken flounces against her fellow-travelers, trippeth up her aristocratic steps, and holding up her dress sufficiently high to display to the retreating passengers her silken hose, and dainty boot, resigneth her parasolette to black John, and maketh her triumphant exit.

At the opera, the New York woman taketh the most conspicuous box, spreadeth out her flounces to their fullest circumference, and betrayeth a constant and vulgar consciousness that she is in her go-to-meetin-fixins, by arranging her bracelets and shawl, settling her rings, and fiddling at her coiffure, and the lace kerchief on her neck. She also talketh incessantly during the opera, to show that she is not a novice to be amused by it; and leaveth with much bustle, just before the last act, for the same reason, and also to display her toilette.

On Sunday morning, the New York woman taketh all the jewelry she can collect, and in her flashiest silk and bonnet, taketh her velvet-bound, gilt-clasped prayer-book out for an airing. Arrived at Dives’ church, she straightway kneeleth and boweth her head; not, as the uninitiated may suppose, to pray, but privately to arrange her curls; this done, and raising her head, she sayeth, “we beseech thee to hear us, good Lord!” while she taketh a minute inventory of the Hon. Mrs. Peters’s Parisian toilette. After church, she taketh a turn or two in Fifth Avenue, to display her elaborate dress, and to wonder “why vulgar people don’t confine themselves to the Bowery.”

THE BOSTON WOMAN.

The Boston woman draweth down her mouth, rolleth up her eyes, foldeth her hands, and walketh on a crack. She rejoiceth in anatomical and chemical lectures. She prateth of Macaulay and Carlyle; belongeth to many and divers reading-classes, and smileth in a chaste, moonlight kind of way on literary men. She dresseth (to her praise be it spoken) plainly in the street, and considereth india-rubbers, a straw bonnet, and a thick shawl, the fittest costume for damp and cloudy weather. She dresseth her children more for comfort than show, and bringeth them up also to walk on a crack. She maketh the tour of the Common twice or three times a day, without regard to the barometer. She goeth to church twice or three times on Sunday, sandwiched with Bible-classes and Sabbath-schools. She thinketh London, Vienna, or Paris--fools to Boston; and the “Boulevards” and “Tuilleries” not to be mentioned with the Frog Pond and the Common. She is well posted up as to politics--thinketh, “as Pa does,” and sticketh to it through thunder and lightning. When asked to take a gentleman’s arm, she hooketh the tip of her little finger circumspectly on to his male coat-sleeve. She is as prim as a bolster, as stiff as a ram-rod, as frigid as an icicle, and not even matrimony with a New Yorker could thaw her.

THE NEW YORK MALE.

The New York male exulteth in fast horses, stylish women, long-legged hounds, a coat-of-arms, and liveried servants. Beside, or behind him, may be seen his servant, with folded arms and white gloves, driven out daily by his master, to inhale the gutter breezes of Broadway, to excite the wonder of the curious, and to curl the lips of republicanism. The New York male hath many and divers garments; some of which he weareth bob-tailed; some shanghai, some with velvet collars, some with silk; anon turned up; anon turned down; and some carelessly a-la-flap. The New York male breakfasteth late, owing to pressing engagements which keep him abroad after midnight. About twelve the next morning he lighteth a cigar to assist his blear-eyes to find the way down-town; and with his hands in his pockets, and arms akimbo, he navigateth tortuously around locomotive “hoops;”--indefatigably pursueth a bonnet for several blocks, to get a peep it its owner; nor getteth discouraged at intervening parasols, or impromptu shopping errands; nor thinketh his time or shoe leather wasted. The New York male belongeth to the most ruinous club and military company; is a connoisseur in gold sleeve-buttons, and seal-rings, and diamond studs. He cometh into the world with an eye-glass and black ribbon winked into his left eye, and prideth himself upon having broken all the commandments before he arrived at the dignity of coat-tails.

THE BOSTON MALE.

The Boston male is respectable all over; from the crown of his glossy hat to the soles of his shiny shoes; and huggeth his mantle of self-esteem inseparably about him, that he may avoid contaminating contact with the non-elect of his “set.” The Boston male is for the most part good-looking; and a stanch devotee of starch and buckram; he patronizeth jewelry but sparingly, and _never discerneth a diamond in the rough_. If, as Goethe sayeth, “the unconscious is the alone complete,” then is the male Bostonian yet in embryo. He taketh, and readeth all the newspapers and magazines, foreign and domestic; and yet, strange to say, sweareth by the little tea-table “Transcript.” When the Boston male traveleth he weareth his best clothes; arrived at his destination he putteth up at the most showy hotel, ordereth the most expensive rooms and edibles, and maketh an unwonted “splurge” generally. He then droppeth the proprieties--_pro tem._--being seized with an anatomical desire to dissect the great sores of the city; fancying, like the ostrich, that if his head only be hidden, he is undiscernible.

The Boston male is conservative as a citizen, prosaic as a lover; hum-drum as a husband, and hath no sins--_to speak of_!

MY OLD INK-STAND AND I;

OR, THE FIRST ARTICLE IN THE NEW HOUSE.

Well, old Ink-stand, what do you think of this? Haven’t we got well through the woods, hey? A few scratches and bruises we have had, to be sure, but what of that? Didn’t you whisper where we should come out, the first morning I dipped my pen in your sable depths, in the sky-parlor of that hyena-like Mrs. Griffin? With what an eagle glance she discovered that my bonnet-ribbon was undeniably guilty of two distinct washings, and, emboldened by my shilling de laine, and the shabby shoes of little Nell, inquired “if I intended taking in slop-work into _her_ apartments?” How distinctly I was made to understand that Nell was not to speak above a whisper, or in any way infringe upon the rights of her uncombed, unwashed, unbaptized, uncomfortable little Griffins. Poor little Nell, who clung to my gown with childhood’s instinctive appreciation of the hard face and wiry voice of our jailor. With what venom I overheard her inform Mr. Griffin that “they must look sharp for the rent of their sky-parlor, as its tenant lived on bread and milk, and wore her under-clothes rough-dry, because she could not afford to pay for ironing them!” Do you remember _that_, old Ink-stand? And do you remember the morning she informed me, as you and I were busily engaged in out first article, that I must “come and scrub the stairs which led up to my room;” and when I ventured humbly to mention, that this was not spoken of in our agreement, do you remember the Siddons-like air with which she thundered in our astonished ears--“Do it, or tramp!” And do you remember how you vowed “if I did tramp,” you would stand by me, and help me out of the scrape? and haven’t you _done_ it, old Ink-stand? And don’t you wish old Griffin, and all the little Griffins, and their likes, both big and little, here and elsewhere, could see this bran-new house that you have helped me into, and the dainty little table upon which I have installed you, untempted by any new papier-mache modern marvel?

Turn my back on _you_, old Ink-stand! Not I. Throw you aside, for your shabby exterior, as we were thrown aside, when it was like drawing teeth to get a solitary shilling to buy you at a second-hand shop? Perish the thought!

Yes, old Ink-stand, Griffin and all that crew, should see us now. Couldn’t we take the wind out of their sails? Couldn’t we come into their front door, instead of their “back gate?” Didn’t they “_always know_ that there was something in us?” We can forgive them, though, can’t we? By the title deed, and insurance policy, of this bran-new pretty house, which their sneers have helped us into, and whose doors shall always be open to those who have cheered us on, we’ll do it.

Dropped many a tear into you, have I? Well--who cares? You know, very well, that every rough word aimed at my quivering ears, was an extra dollar in my purse; every rude touch of my little Nell, strength and sinew to my unstrung nerves and flagging muscles. I say, old Ink-stand, look at Nell now! Does any landlady lay rough hands on those plump shoulders? Dare she sing and run, and jump and play to her heart’s content? Didn’t you yourself buy her that hoop and stick, and those dolls, and that globe of gold-fish? Don’t you feed and clothe her, every day of her sunshiny life? Haven’t you agreed to do it, long years to come? and won’t you teach her, as you have me, to defy false friends, and ill-fortune? And won’t you be to my little Nell a talisman, when my eyes grow dim, and hers brighten? Say, old Ink-stand?

THE SOUL--AND THE STOMACH.

There is a good old man. His head is white--his form is bent--his step slow and tremulous. Life has no charms for him, and the opening grave is full of terrors; he wanders up and down--up and down--wringing his withered hands, and says, “I have committed the unpardonable sin; I am lost--lost--lost.” They who love him, and their name is Legion, look on dismayed at this good father, good husband, good neighbor, good Christian; and one of them says to me, “Why, if your God be merciful, does he afflict his faithful servant thus? God is not good!”

God is good, though all else fail, and we, like insects, creep and complain; God is good. It is not religion that makes the old man gloomy--it is not that the Word of God shall not stand forever; but He who has bid us care for the soul, bids us also care for the body. “If one member suffer, all the other members suffer with it.” If we neglect the laws of health, and abuse our bodies, _even in His service_, he does not guaranty to the delinquent, a strong mind, an unperverted spiritual vision--clouds and darkness will come between us and the Sun of Righteousness, and though we shall feel after Him, we shall grope like children in the dark. It is an earthly physician which such as that old man needs; a tonic for the body, not a sermon from the pulpit. Let him lean upon your arm; lead him forth to the green fields, where every little bird sings God is good; where waving trees and blossoming flowers pass the whisper round with myriad voices; take away the old man’s psalm-book, and let him listen to that anthem, and as the soft breath of spring lifts his white locks from his troubled brow, the film of disease will fall from his eyes, and he, too, shall sing that God is _good_.

Never lay upon the back of Religion what Dyspepsia should shoulder. The Christian warrior, no more than any other, can afford to neglect or gorge his “rations” when preparing for battle; nor if either faint by the way, in consequence, is it to be laid to the commander.

AWE-FUL THOUGHTS.

“This had, from the very beginning of their acquaintance, induced in her that _awe_, which is the most delicious feeling a wife can have toward her husband.”

“Awe!”--awe of a man whose whiskers you have trimmed, whose hair you have cut, whose cravats you have tied, whose shirts you have “put into the wash,” whose boots and shoes you have kicked into the closet, whose dressing-gown you have worn while combing your hair; who has been down cellar with you at eleven o’clock at night, to hunt for a chicken-bone; who has hooked your dresses, unlaced your boots, fastened your bracelets, and tied on your bonnet; who has stood before your looking-glass, with thumb and finger on his proboscis, scraping his chin; whom you have buttered, and sugared, and toasted, and tea-ed; whom have seen asleep with his mouth wide open! Ri--diculous!

A WORD TO PARENTS AND TEACHERS.

Why _will_ New York women be eternally munching cake and confectionery? What is more disgusting than to see a lady devouring at a sitting, ounces of burnt almonds, and sugared wine and brandy-drops, or packing away, in her rosy mouth, uncounted platesful of jelly-cake or maccaroons? “But shopping is hungry business;” that is true, and many a shopper comes hungry distances to perform it; but are cake and confectionery wholesome diet between meals? and is not ice-cream at such a time rank poison? Call for a sandwich or a roll, and you may not be considered suicidal.

Every body knows that young girls are foreordained to go through a regular experience in eating slate-pencils, burnt quills, pickles, and chalk; but this green age passed, one looks for a little common sense. I have often seen New York women, not content with ruining their own constitution in this way (and consequently periling their prospective offspring), buy, before leaving the confectioner’s shop, five or six pounds of candy for _nursery distribution_, and ask Betty, the next day (the sapient mother!), “what can ail those children to fret so?” It were more merciful to purchase a dose of strychnine, and put an immediate end to their misery, than thus murder them by inches. Are the rosy, robust, beautiful English children, candy-fed? Are they suffered to gorge themselves on hot bread, preserves, cake and pastry, _ad libitum_? Do they have any thing but the plainest puddings, the stalest bread, and the most unmitigated roast and boiled meat, unpoisoned by those dyspepsia-breeding gravies of ours?

It is pitiful, this dwarfing of American children with improper food, want of exercise, and cork-screw clothes. It is inhuman to require of their enfeebled minds and bodies, in ill-ventilated schoolrooms, tasks which the most vigorous child should never have imposed upon his tender years. As if a child’s physique were not of the first importance!--as if all the learning in the world could be put to any practical use by an enfeebled body! As if a parent _had a right_, year after year, thus to murder the innocents.

Think of one of those candy-and-cake-fed young girls, bending over her tasks in school, from nine o’clock till three, with perhaps ten or fifteen minutes intermission (spent in the close air of the school-room) and two days out of a week at three, after another ten minutes’ intermission, and another cake-and-candy feed, commencing drawing, or music lessons, to last till five; her mother, meanwhile, rocking away as comfortably, in her chair at home, as if her daughter’s spine were not crooking irretrievably. I will not speak of the utter impossibility that this young girl should have a _steady hand_ for drawing, under such circumstances, because any fool can understand that to be impossible.

I ask what _right_ have you to require of your child, your growing, restless child, what it would be impossible for you to do yourself? You know very well that you could not keep your mind on the stretch for so many hours to any profit; or your body in one position for such a length of time, without excessive pain and untold weariness. Then add to this the tasks which must be conned on the return home for the next day’s lesson, and one marvels no longer at the sickly, sallow, narrow-chested, leaden-eyed young girls we are in the habit of meeting.

What _would_ I have? I would have teachers less selfishly consult their own convenience, in insisting upon squeezing into the forenoon what should be divided between forenoon and afternoon, as in the good old-fashioned way of keeping school, with time to eat a wholesome dinner between. A teacher’s established constitution may possibly stand this modern nonsense (though I am told not long); but that _children_ should be thus victimized, without at least a remonstrance on the part of their natural guardians, I can only ascribe to the criminal indifference of parents to the welfare of their offspring.

LADY DOCTORS.

And so the female doctors are prospering and getting practice. I am sure I am heartily glad of it, for several reasons; one of which is, that it is an honest and honorable deliverance from the everlasting, non-remunerating, consumptive-provoking, monotonous needle. Another is, that it is a more excellent way of support, than by the mercenary and un-retraceable road, through the church-door to the altar, into which so many non-reliant women are driven. Having said this I feel at liberty to remark that we all have our little fancies, and one of mine is, that a hat is a pleasanter object of contemplation in a sick-room than a bonnet. I think, too, that my wrist reposes more comfortably in a big hand than a little one, and if my mouth is to be inspected, I prefer submitting it to a beard than to a flounce. Still, this may be a narrow prejudice--I dare say it is--but like most of my prejudices, I am afraid no amount of fire will burn it out of me.

A female doctor! Great Esculapius! Before swallowing her pills (of which she would be the first), I should want to make sure that I had never come between her and a lover, or a new bonnet, or been the innocent recipient of a gracious smile from her husband. If I desired her undivided attention to my case, I should first remove the looking-glass, and if a consultation seemed advisable, I should wish to arm myself with a gridiron, or a darning-needle, or some other appropriate weapon, before expressing such a wish. If my female doctor recommended a blister on my head, I should strongly doubt its necessity if my hair happened to be handsome, also the expediency of a scar-defacing plaster for my neck, if it happened to be plump and white. Still, these may be little prejudices; very like they are; but this I will say, before the breath is taken out of me by any female doctor, that while I am in my senses I will never exchange my gentlemanly, soft-voiced, soft-stepping, experienced, intelligent, handsome doctor, for all the female M. D.’s who ever carved up dead bodies or live characters--or tore each other’s caps.

THE CHERUB IN THE OMNIBUS.

They stepped in together--the man and his wife--honest, healthy country-folk. She--rosy and plump; he--stalwart, broad-chested, and strong-limbed, as God intended man and woman to be. I might not have noticed them particularly, but they had a baby; and such a baby! None of your flabby city abortions; but a flesh-and-blood baby--a baby to make one’s mouth water--ay, and _eyes, too_! Such a baby as might have been born in the Garden of Eden, had the serpent never crept in; born of parents fed on strawberries and pomegranates--pure in soul, pure in body, and healthy and vigorous as purity _alone_ can be.

Such a baby! such eyes--such a skin--such bewildering lips--such a heaven-born smile; my eyes overflowed as I looked at it. I was not worthy to hold that baby, but my heart yearned for it, and I held out my hands invitingly.

See! the little trusting thing leaps from its father’s arms and sits smiling on my knee. Ah! little baby, turn away those soft blue eyes from mine; is it not enough that my soul is on its knees to you? Is it not enough, that for every bitter word wrung from my tortured soul by wrong and suffering, I could cry: “God be merciful to me a sinner?”

And yet, little baby, I was once like thee. Like thee, I stretched out the trusting hand to those who----ah, little baby--I am not like thee now; yet stay with me, and perhaps I shall be. Jesus “took a little child and set him in the midst.” Take hold of my hand, and lead me to heaven.

Going? then God be with thee, as surely as he has been with me, in thy pure presence. I shall see thee again, little baby, if I heed thy teachings; thou hast done thy silent mission.

FANNY FORD.

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