{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_10516/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_10516","id":"gutenberg_10516","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10516","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Essays, Letters & Speeches","Category: Parenthood & Family Relations","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Home"],"text":"BITS ABOUT HOME MATTERS.\n\nBy H. H.,\n\nAuthor of \"Verses\" and \"Bits of Travel.\"\n\n\n1873\n\n\n\nContents.\n\n\n\nThe Inhumanities of Parents--Corporal Punishment\nThe Inhumanities of Parents--Needless Denials\nThe Inhumanities of Parents--Rudeness\nBreaking the Will\nThe Reign of Archelaus\nThe Awkward Age\nA Day with a Courteous Mother\nChildren in Nova Scotia\nThe Republic of the Family\nThe Ready-to-Halts\nThe Descendants of Nabal\n\"Boys not allowed\"\nHalf an Hour in a Railway Station\nA Genius for Affection\nRainy Days\nFriends of the Prisoners\nA Companion for the Winter\nChoice of Colors\nThe Apostle of Beauty\nEnglish Lodging-Houses\nWet the Clay\nThe King's Friend\nLearning to speak\nPrivate Tyrants\nMargin\nThe Fine Art of Smiling\nDeath-bed Repentance\nThe Correlation of Moral Forces\nA Simple Bill of Fare for a Christmas Dinner\nChildren's Parties\nAfter-supper Talk\nHysteria in Literature\nJog Trot\nThe Joyless American\nSpiritual Teething\nGlass Houses\nThe Old-Clothes Monger in Journalism\nThe Country Landlord's Side\nThe Good Staff of Pleasure\nWanted--a Home\n\n\n\n\nBits of Talk.\n\n\n\nThe Inhumanities of Parents--Corporal Punishment.\n\n\nNot long ago a Presbyterian minister in Western New York whipped his\nthree-year-old boy to death, for refusing to say his prayers. The little\nfingers were broken; the tender flesh was bruised and actually mangled;\nstrong men wept when they looked on the body; and the reverend murderer,\nafter having been set free on bail, was glad to return and take refuge\nwithin the walls of his prison, to escape summary punishment at the hands\nof an outraged community. At the bare mention of such cruelty, every heart\ngrew sick and faint; men and women were dumb with horror: only tears and a\nhot demand for instant retaliation availed.\n\nThe question whether, after all, that baby martyr were not fortunate among\nhis fellows, would, no doubt, be met by resentful astonishment. But it is\na question which may well be asked, may well be pondered. Heart-rending as\nit is to think for an instant of the agonies which the poor child must\nhave borne for some hours after his infant brain was too bewildered by\nterror and pain to understand what was required of him, it still cannot\nfail to occur to deeper reflection that the torture was short and small in\ncomparison with what the next ten years might have held for him if he had\nlived. To earn entrance on the spiritual life by the briefest possible\nexperience of the physical, is always \"greater gain;\" but how emphatically\nis it so when the conditions of life upon earth are sure to be\nunfavorable!\n\nIf it were possible in any way to get a statistical summing-up and a\ntangible presentation of the amount of physical pain inflicted by parents\non children under twelve years of age, the most callous-hearted would be\nsurprised and shocked. If it were possible to add to this estimate an\naccurate and scientific demonstration of the extent to which such pain, by\nweakening the nervous system and exhausting its capacity to resist\ndisease, diminishes children's chances for life, the world would stand\naghast.\n\nToo little has been said upon this point. The opponents of corporal\npunishment usually approach the subject either from the sentimental or the\nmoral standpoint. The argument on either of these grounds can be made\nstrong enough, one would suppose, to paralyze every hand lifted to strike\na child. But the question of the direct and lasting physical effect of\nblows--even of one blow on the delicate tissues of a child's body, on the\nfrail and trembling nerves, on the sensitive organization which is trying,\nunder a thousand unfavoring conditions, to adjust itself to the hard work\nof both living and growing--has yet to be properly considered.\n\nEvery one knows the sudden sense of insupportable pain, sometimes\nproducing even dizziness and nausea, which follows the accidental hitting\nof the ankle or elbow against a hard substance. It does not need that the\nblow be very hard to bring involuntary tears to adult eyes. But what is\nsuch a pain as this, in comparison with the pain of a dozen or more quick\ntingling blows from a heavy hand on flesh which is, which must be as much\nmore sensitive than ours, as are the souls which dwell in it purer than\nours. Add to this physical pain the overwhelming terror which only utter\nhelplessness can feel, and which is the most recognizable quality in the\ncry of a very young child under whipping; add the instinctive sense of\ndisgrace, of outrage, which often keeps the older child stubborn and still\nthrough-out,--and you have an amount and an intensity of suffering from\nwhich even tried nerves might shrink. Again, who does not know--at least,\nwhat woman does not know--that violent weeping, for even a very short\ntime, is quite enough to cause a feeling of languor and depression, of\nnervous exhaustion for a whole day? Yet it does not seem to occur to\nmothers that little children must feel this, in proportion to the length\nof time and violence of their crying, far more than grown people. Who has\nnot often seen a poor child receive, within an hour or two of the first\nwhipping, a second one, for some small ebullition of nervous\nirritability, which was simply inevitable from its spent and worn\ncondition?\n\nIt is safe to say that in families where whipping is regularly recognized\nas a punishment, few children under ten years of age, and of average\nbehavior, have less than one whipping a week. Sometimes they have more,\nsometimes the whipping is very severe. Thus you have in one short year\nsixty or seventy occasions on which for a greater or less time, say from\none to three hours, the child's nervous system is subjected to a\ntremendous strain from the effect of terror and physical pain combined\nwith long crying. Will any physician tell us that this fact is not an\nelement in that child's physical condition at the end of that year? Will\nany physician dare to say that there may not be, in that child's life,\ncrises when the issues of life and death will be so equally balanced that\nthe tenth part of the nervous force lost in such fits of crying, and in\nthe endurance of such pain, could turn the scale?\n\nNature's retributions, like her rewards, are cumulative. Because her\nsentences against evil works are not executed speedily, therefore the\nhearts of the sons of men are fully set in them to do evil. But the\nsentence always is executed, sooner or later, and that inexorably. Your\nson, O unthinking mother! may fall by the way in the full prime of his\nmanhood, for lack of that strength which his infancy spent in enduring\nyour hasty and severe punishments.\n\nIt is easy to say,--and universally is said,--by people who cling to the\nold and fight against the new, \"All this outcry about corporal punishment\nis sentimental nonsense. The world is full of men and women, who have\ngrown up strong and good, in spite of whippings; and as for me, I know I\nnever had any more whipping than I deserved, or than was good for me.\"\n\nAre you then so strong and clear and pure in your physical and spiritual\nnature and life, that you are sure no different training could have made\neither your body or your soul better? Are these men and women, of whom the\nworld is full, so able-bodied, whole-souled, strong-minded, that you think\nit needless to look about for any method of making the next generation\nbetter? Above all, do you believe that it is a part of the legitimate\noutworking of God's plan and intent in creating human beings to have more\nthan one-half of them die in childhood? If we are not to believe that this\nfearful mortality is a part of God's plan, is it wise to refuse to\nconsider all possibilities, even those seemingly most remote, of\ndiminishing it?\n\nNo argument is so hard to meet (simply because it is not an argument) as\nthe assumption of the good and propriety of \"the thing that hath been.\" It\nis one of the devil's best sophistries, by which he keeps good people\nundisturbed in doing the things he likes. It has been in all ages the\nbulwark behind which evils have made stand, and have slain their\nthousands. It is the last enemy which shall be destroyed. It is the only\nreal support of the cruel evil of corporal punishment.\n\nSuppose that such punishment of children had been unheard of till now.\nSuppose that the idea had yesterday been suggested for the first time that\nby inflicting physical pain on a child's body you might make him recollect\ncertain truths; and suppose that instead of whipping, a very moderate and\nharmless degree of pricking with pins or cutting with knives or burning\nwith fire had been suggested. Would not fathers and mothers have cried out\nall over the land at the inhumanity of the idea?\n\nWould they not still cry out at the inhumanity of one who, as things are\nto-day, should propose the substitution of pricking or cutting or burning\nfor whipping? But I think it would not be easy to show in what wise small\npricks or cuts are more inhuman than blows; or why lying may not be as\nlegitimately cured by blisters made with a hot coal as by black and blue\nspots made with a ruler. The principle is the same; and if the principle\nbe right, why not multiply methods?\n\nIt seems as if this one suggestion, candidly considered, might be enough\nto open all parents' eyes to the enormity of whipping. How many a loving\nmother will, without any thought of cruelty, inflict half-a-dozen quick\nblows on the little hand of her child, when she could no more take a pin\nand make the same number of thrusts into the tender flesh, than she could\nbind the baby on a rack. Yet the pin-thrusts would hurt far less, and\nwould probably make a deeper impression on the child's mind.\n\nAmong the more ignorant classes, the frequency and severity of corporal\npunishment of children, are appalling. The facts only need to be held up\nclosely and persistently before the community to be recognized as horrors\nof cruelty far greater than some which have been made subjects of\nlegislation.\n\nIt was my misfortune once to be forced to spend several of the hottest\nweeks of a hot summer in New York. In near neighborhood to my rooms were\nblocks of buildings which had shops on the first floor and tenements\nabove. In these lived the families of small tradesmen, and mechanics of\nthe better sort. During those scorching nights every window was thrown\nopen, and all sounds were borne with distinctness through the hot still\nair. Chief among them were the shrieks and cries of little children, and\nblows and angry words from tired, overworked mothers. At times it became\nalmost unbearable: it was hard to refrain from an attempt at rescue. Ten,\ntwelve, twenty quick, hard blows, whose sound rang out plainly, I counted\nagain and again; mingling with them came the convulsive screams of the\npoor children, and that most piteous thing of all, the reiteration of \"Oh,\nmamma! oh, mamma!\" as if, through all, the helpless little creatures had\nan instinct that this word ought to be in itself the strongest appeal.\nThese families were all of the better class of work people, comfortable\nand respectable. What sounds were to be heard in the more wretched haunts\nof the city, during those nights, the heart struggled away from fancying.\nBut the shrieks of those children will never wholly die out of the air. I\nhear them to-day; and mingling with them, the question rings perpetually\nin my ears, \"Why does not the law protect children, before the point at\nwhich life is endangered?\"\n\nA cartman may be arrested in the streets for the brutal beating of a horse\nwhich is his own, and which he has the right to kill if he so choose.\nShould not a man be equally withheld from the brutal beating of a child\nwho is not his own, but God's, and whom to kill is murder?\n\n\n\n\nThe Inhumanities of Parents--Needless Denials.\n\n\n\nWebster's Dictionary, which cannot be accused of any leaning toward\nsentimentalism, defines \"inhumanity\" as \"cruelty in action;\" and \"cruelty\"\nas \"an act of a human being which inflicts unnecessary pain.\" The word\ninhumanity has an ugly sound, and many inhuman people are utterly and\nhonestly unconscious of their own inhumanities; it is necessary therefore\nto entrench one's self behind some such bulwark as the above definitions\nafford, before venturing the accusation that fathers and mothers are\nhabitually guilty of inhuman conduct in inflicting \"unnecessary pain\" on\ntheir children, by needless denials of their innocent wishes and impulses.\n\nMost men and a great many women would be astonished at being told that\nsimple humanity requires them to gratify every wish, even the smallest, of\ntheir children, when the pain of having that wish denied is not made\nnecessary, either for the child's own welfare, physical or mental, or by\ncircumstances beyond the parent's control. The word \"necessary\" is a very\nauthoritative one; conscience, if left free, soon narrows down its\nboundaries; inconvenience, hindrance, deprivation, self-denial, one or\nall, or even a great deal of all, to ourselves, cannot give us a shadow of\nright to say that the pain of the child's disappointment is \"necessary.\"\nSelfishness grasps at help from the hackneyed sayings, that it is \"best\nfor children to bear the yoke in their youth;\" \"the sooner they learn that\nthey cannot have their own way the better;\" \"it is a good discipline for\nthem to practise self-denial,\" &c. But the yoke that they _must_ bear, in\nspite of our lightening it all we can, is heavy enough; the instances in\nwhich it is, for good and sufficient reasons, impossible for them to have\ntheir own way are quite numerous enough to insure their learning the\nlesson very early; and as for the discipline of self-denial,--God bless\ntheir dear, patient souls!--if men and women brought to bear on the\nthwartings and vexations of their daily lives, and their relations with\neach other, one hundredth part of the sweet acquiescence and brave\nendurance which average children show, under the average management of\naverage parents, this world would be a much pleasanter place to live in\nthan it is.\n\nLet any conscientious and tender mother, who perhaps reads these words\nwith tears half of resentment, half of grief in her eyes, keep for three\ndays an exact record of the little requests which she refuses, from the\nbaby of five, who begged to stand on a chair and look out of the window,\nand was hastily told, \"No, it would, hurt the chair,\" when one minute\nwould have been enough time to lay a folded newspaper over the\nupholstery, and another minute enough to explain to him, with a kiss and\na hug, \"that that was to save his spoiling mamma's nice chair with his\nboots;\" and the two minutes together would probably have made sure that\nanother time the dear little fellow would look out for a paper himself,\nwhen he wished to climb up to the window,--from this baby up to the pretty\ngirl of twelve, who, with as distinct a perception of the becoming as her\nmother had before her, went to school unhappy because she was compelled to\nwear the blue necktie instead of the scarlet one, and surely for no\nespecial reason! At the end of the three days, an honest examination of\nthe record would show that full half of these small denials, all of which\nhad involved pain, and some of which had brought contest and punishment,\nhad been needless, had been hastily made, and made usually on account of\nthe slight interruption or inconvenience which would result from yielding\nto the request. I am very much mistaken if the honest keeping and honest\nstudy of such a three days' record would not wholly change the atmosphere\nin many a house to what it ought to be, and bring almost constant sunshine\nand bliss where now, too often, are storm and misery.\n\nWith some parents, although they are neither harsh nor hard in manner, nor\nyet unloving in nature, the habitual first impulse seems to be to refuse:\nthey appear to have a singular obtuseness to the fact that it is, or can\nbe, of any consequence to a child whether it does or does not do the thing\nit desires. Often the refusal is withdrawn on the first symptom of grief\nor disappointment on the child's part; a thing which is fatal to all real\ncontrol of a child, and almost as unkind as the first unnecessary\ndenial,--perhaps even more so, as it involves double and treble pains, in\nfuture instances, where there cannot and must not be any giving way to\nentreaties. It is doubtless this lack of perception,--akin, one would\nthink, to color-blindness,--which is at the bottom of this great and\ncommon inhumanity among kind and intelligent fathers and mothers: an\ninhumanity so common that it may almost be said to be universal; so common\nthat, while we are obliged to look on and see our dearest friends guilty\nof it, we find it next to impossible to make them understand what we mean\nwhen we make outcry over some of its glaring instances.\n\nYou, my dearest of friends,--or, rather, you who would be, but for this\none point of hopeless contention between us,--do you remember a certain\nwarm morning, last August, of which I told you then you had not heard the\nlast? Here it is again: perhaps in print I can make it look blacker to you\nthan I could then; part of it I saw, part of it you unwillingly confessed\nto me, and part of it little Blue Eyes told me herself.\n\nIt was one of those ineffable mornings, when a thrill of delight and\nexpectancy fills the air; one felt that every appointment of the day must\nbe unlike those of other days,--must be festive, must help on the \"white\nday\" for which all things looked ready. I remember how like the morning\nitself you looked as you stood in the doorway, in a fresh white muslin\ndress, with lavender ribbons. I said, \"Oh, extravagance! For breakfast!\"\n\n\"I know,\" you said; \"but the day was so enchanting, I could not make up my\nmind to wear any thing that had been worn before.\" Here an uproar from the\nnursery broke out, and we both ran to the spot. There stood little Blue\nEyes, in a storm of temper, with one small foot on a crumpled mass of pink\ncambric on the floor; and nurse, who was also very red and angry,\nexplained that Miss would not have on her pink frock because it was not\nquite clean. \"It is all dirty, mamma, and I don't want to put it on!\nYou've got on a nice white dress: why can't I?\"\n\nYou are in the main a kind mother, and you do not like to give little Blue\nEyes pain; so you knelt down beside her, and told her that she must be a\ngood girl, and have on the gown Mary had said, but that she should have on\na pretty white apron, which would hide the spots. And Blue Eyes, being\nonly six years old, and of a loving, generous nature, dried her tears,\naccepted the very questionable expedient, tried to forget the spots, and\nin a few moments came out on the piazza, chirping like a little bird. By\nthis time the rare quality of the morning had stolen like wine into our\nbrains, and you exclaimed, \"We will have breakfast out here, under the\nvines! How George will like it!\" And in another instant you were flitting\nback and forth, helping the rather ungracious Bridget move out the\nbreakfast-table, with its tempting array.\n\n\"Oh, mamma, mamma,\" cried Blue Eyes, \"can't I have my little tea-set on a\nlittle table beside your big table? Oh, let me, let me!\" and she fairly\nquivered with excitement. You hesitated. How I watched you! But it was a\nlittle late. Bridget was already rather cross; the tea-set was packed in a\nbox, and up on a high shelf.\n\n\"No, dear. There is not time, and we must not make Bridget any more\ntrouble; but\"--seeing the tears coming again--\"you shall have some real\ntea in papa's big gilt cup, and another time you shall have your tea-set\nwhen we have breakfast out here again.\" As I said before, you are a kind\nmother, and you made the denial as easy to be borne as you could, and Blue\nEyes was again pacified, not satisfied, only bravely making the best of\nit. And so we had our breakfast; a breakfast to be remembered, too. But as\nfor the \"other time\" which you had promised to Blue Eyes; how well I knew\nthat not many times a year did such mornings and breakfasts come, and that\nit was well she would forget all about it! After breakfast,--you remember\nhow we lingered,--George suddenly started up, saying, \"How hard it is to\ngo to town! I say, girls, walk down to the station with me, both of you.\"\n\n\"And me too, me too, papa!\" said Blue Eyes. You did not hear her; but I\ndid, and she had flown for her hat. At the door we found her, saying\nagain, \"Me too, mamma!\" Then you remembered her boots: \"Oh, my darling,\"\nyou said, kissing her, for you are a kind mother, \"you cannot go in those\nnice boots: the dew will spoil them; and it is not worth while to change\nthem, we shall be back in a few minutes.\"\n\nA storm of tears would have burst out in an instant at this the third\ndisappointment, if I had not sat down on the door-step, and, taking her in\nmy lap, whispered that auntie was going to stay too.\n\n\"Oh, put the child down, and come along,\" called the great, strong,\nuncomprehending man--Blue Eyes' dear papa. \"Pussy won't mind. Be a good\ngirl, pussy; I'll bring you a red balloon to-night.\"\n\nYou are both very kind, you and George, and you both love little Blue Eyes\ndearly.\n\n\"No, I won't come. I believe my boots are too thin,\" said I; and for the\nequivocation there was in my reply I am sure of being forgiven. You both\nturned back twice to look at the child, and kissed your hands to her; and\nI wondered if you did not see in her face, what I did, real grief and\npatient endurance. Even \"The King of the Golden River\" did not rouse her:\nshe did not want a story; she did not want me; she did not want a red\nballoon at night; she wanted to walk between you, to the station, with her\nlittle hands in yours! God grant the day may not come when you will be\nheart-broken because you can never lead her any more!\n\nShe asked me some questions, while you were gone, which you remember I\nrepeated to you. She asked me if I did not hate nice new shoes; and why\nlittle girls could not put on the dresses they liked best; and if mamma\ndid not look beautiful in that pretty white dress; and said that, if she\ncould only have had her own tea-set, at breakfast, she would have let me\nhave my coffee in one of her cups. Gradually she grew happier, and began\nto tell me about her great wax-doll, which had eyes that could shut; which\nwas kept in a trunk because she was too little, mamma said, to play very\nmuch with it now; but she guessed mamma would let her have it to-day; did\nI not think so? Alas! I did, and I said so; in fact, I felt sure that it\nwas the very thing you would be certain to do, to sweeten the day, which\nhad begun so sadly for poor little Blue Eyes.\n\nIt seemed very long to her before you came back, and she was on the point\nof asking for her dolly as soon as you appeared; but I whispered to her to\nwait till you were rested. After a few minutes I took her up to your\nroom,--that lovely room with the bay window to the east; there you sat, in\nyour white dress, surrounded with gay worsteds, all looking like a\ncarnival of humming-birds. \"Oh, how beautiful!\" I exclaimed, in\ninvoluntary admiration; \"what are you doing?\" You said that you were going\nto make an affghan, and that the morning was so enchanting you could not\nbear the thought of touching your mending, but were going to luxuriate in\nthe worsteds. Some time passed in sorting the colors, and deciding on the\ncontrasts, and I forgot all about the doll. Not so little Blue Eyes. I\nremembered afterward how patiently she stood still, waiting and waiting\nfor a gap between our words, that she need not break the law against\ninterrupting, with her eager--\n\n\"Please, mamma, let me have my wax dolly to play with this morning! I'll\nsit right here on the floor, by you and auntie, and not hurt her one bit.\nOh, please do, mamma!\"\n\nYou mean always to be a very kind mother, and you spoke as gently and\nlovingly as it is possible to speak when you replied:--\n\n\"Oh, Pussy, mamma is too busy to get it; she can't get up now. You can\nplay with your blocks, and with your other dollies, just as well; that's a\ngood little girl.\"\n\nProbably, if Blue Eyes had gone on imploring, you would have laid your\nworsteds down, and given her the dolly; for you love her dearly, and never\nmean to make her unhappy. But neither you nor I were prepared for what\nfollowed.\n\n\"You're a naughty, ugly, hateful mamma! You never let me do _any_ thing,\nand I wish you were dead!\" with such a burst of screaming and tears that\nwe were both frightened. You looked, as well you might, heart-broken at\nsuch words from your only child. You took her away; and when you came\nback, you cried, and said you had whipped her severely, and you did not\nknow what you should do with a child of such a frightful temper.\n\n\"Such an outburst as that, just because I told her, in the gentlest way\npossible, that she could not have a plaything! It is terrible!\"\n\nThen I said some words to you, which you thought were unjust. I asked you\nin what condition your own nerves would have been by ten o'clock that\nmorning if your husband (who had, in one view, a much better right to\nthwart your harmless desires than you had to thwart your child's, since\nyou, in the full understanding of maturity, gave yourself into his hands)\nhad, instead of admiring your pretty white dress, told you to be more\nprudent, and not put it on; had told you it would be nonsense to have\nbreakfast out on the piazza; and that he could not wait for you to walk to\nthe station with him. You said that the cases were not at all parallel;\nand I replied hotly that that was very true, for those matters would have\nbeen to you only the comparative trifles of one short day, and would have\nmade you only a little cross and uncomfortable; whereas to little Blue\nEyes they were the all-absorbing desires of the hour, which, to a child in\ntrouble, always looks as if it could never come to an end, and would never\nbe followed by any thing better.\n\nBlue Eyes cried herself to sleep, and slept heavily till late in the\nafternoon. When her father came home, you said that she must not have the\nred balloon, because she had been such a naughty girl. I have wondered\nmany times since why she did not cry again, or look grieved when you said\nthat, and laid the balloon away. After eleven o'clock at night, I went to\nlook at her, and found her sobbing in her sleep, and tossing about. I\ngroaned as I thought, \"This is only one day, and there are three hundred\nand sixty-five in a year!\" But I never recall the distorted face of that\npoor child, as, in her fearful passion, she told you she wished you were\ndead, without also remembering that even the gentle Christ said of him who\nshould offend one of these little ones, \"It were better for him that a\nmill-stone were hanged about his neck, and he were drowned in the depths\nof the sea!\"\n\n\n\n\nThe Inhumanities of Parents--Rudeness.\n\n\n/#\n  \"_Inhumanity_--Cruelty. _Cruelty_--The disposition to give unnecessary\n  pain.\"--_Webster's Dict_.\n#/\n\nI had intended to put third on the list of inhumanities of parents\n\"needless requisitions;\" but my last summer's observations changed my\nestimate, and convinced me that children suffer more pain from the\nrudeness with which they are treated than from being forced to do needless\nthings which they dislike. Indeed, a positively and graciously courteous\nmanner toward children is a thing so rarely seen in average daily life,\nthe rudenesses which they receive are so innumerable, that it is hard to\ntell where to begin in setting forth the evil. Children themselves often\nbring their sharp and unexpected logic to bear on some incident\nillustrating the difference in this matter of behavior between what is\nrequired from them and what is shown to them: as did a little boy I knew,\nwhose father said crossly to him one morning, as he came into the\nbreakfast-room, \"Will you ever learn to shut that door after you?\" and a\nfew seconds later, as the child was rather sulkily sitting down in his\nchair, \"And do you mean to bid anybody 'good-morning,' or not?\" \"I don't\nthink you gave _me_ a very nice 'good-morning,' anyhow,\" replied satirical\njustice, aged seven. Then, of course, he was reproved for speaking\ndisrespectfully; and so in the space of three minutes the beautiful\nopening of the new day, for both parents and children, was jarred and\nrobbed of its fresh harmony by the father's thoughtless rudeness.\n\nWas the breakfast-room door much more likely to be shut the next morning?\nNo. The lesson was pushed aside by the pain, the motive to resolve was\ndulled by the antagonism. If that father had called his son, and, putting\nhis arm round him, (oh! the blessed and magic virtue of putting your arm\nround a child's neck!) had said, \"Good-morning, my little man;\" and then,\nin a confidential whisper in his ear, \"What shall we do to make this\nforgetful little boy remember not to leave that door open, through which\nthe cold wind blows in on all of us?\"--can any words measure the\ndifference between the first treatment and the second? between the success\nof the one and the failure of the other?\n\nScores of times in a day, a child is told, in a short, authoritative way,\nto do or not to do such little things as we ask at the hands of older\npeople, as favors, graciously, and with deference to their choice. \"Would\nyou be so very kind as to close that window?\" \"May I trouble you for that\ncricket?\" \"If you would be as comfortable in this chair as in that, I\nwould like to change places with you.\" \"Oh, excuse me, but your head is\nbetween me and the light: could you see as well if you moved a little?\"\n\"Would it hinder you too long to stop at the store for me? I would be very\nmuch obliged to you, if you would.\" \"Pray, do not let me crowd you,\" &c.\nIn most people's speech to children, we find, as synonyms for these polite\nphrases: \"Shut that window down, this minute.\" \"Bring me that cricket.\" \"I\nwant that chair; get up. You can sit in this.\" \"Don't you see that you are\nright in my light? Move along.\" \"I want you to leave off playing, and go\nright down to the store for me.\" \"Don't crowd so. Can't you see that there\nis not room enough for two people here?\" and so on. As I write, I feel an\ninstinctive consciousness that these sentences will come like home-thrusts\nto some surprised people. I hope so. That is what I want. I am sure that\nin more than half the cases where family life is marred in peace, and\nalmost stripped of beauty, by just these little rudenesses, the parents\nare utterly unconscious of them. The truth is, it has become like an\nestablished custom, this different and less courteous way of speaking to\nchildren on small occasions and minor matters. People who are generally\ncivil and of fair kindliness do it habitually, not only to their own\nchildren, but to all children. We see it in the cars, in the stages, in\nstores, in Sunday schools, everywhere.\n\nOn the other hand, let a child ask for any thing without saying \"please,\"\nreceive any thing without saying \"thank you,\" sit still in the most\ncomfortable seat without offering to give it up, or press its own\npreference for a particular book, chair, or apple, to the inconveniencing\nof an elder, and what an outcry we have: \"Such rudeness!\" \"Such an\nill-mannered child!\" \"His parents must have neglected him strangely.\" Not\nat all: they have been steadily telling him a great many times every day\nnot to do these precise things which you dislike. But they themselves have\nbeen all the while doing those very things to him; and there is no proverb\nwhich strikes a truer balance between two things than the old one which\nweighs example over against precept.\n\nHowever, that it is bad policy to be rude to children is the least of the\nthings to be said against it. Over this they will triumph, sooner or\nlater. The average healthy child has a native bias towards gracious good\nbehavior and kindly affections. He will win and be won in the long run,\nand, the chances are, have better manners than his father. But the pain\nthat we give these blessed little ones when we wound their\ntenderness,--for that there is no atoning. Over that they can never\ntriumph, either now or hereafter. Why do we dare to be so sure that they\nare not grieved by ungracious words and tones? that they can get used to\nbeing continually treated as if they were \"in the way\"? Who has not heard\nthis said? I have, until I have longed for an Elijah and for fire, that\nthe grown-up cumberers of the ground, who are the ones really in the way,\nmight be burned up, to make room for the children. I believe that, if it\nwere possible to count up in any one month, and show in the aggregate, all\nof this class of miseries borne by children, the world would cry out\nastonished. I know a little girl, ten years old, of nervous temperament,\nwhose whole physical condition is disordered, and seriously, by her\nmother's habitual atmosphere of rude fault-finding. She is a sickly,\nfretful, unhappy, almost unbearable child. If she lives to grow up, she\nwill be a sickly, fretful, unhappy, unlovely woman. But her mother is just\nas much responsible for the whole as if she had deranged her system by\nfeeding her on poisonous drugs. Yet she is a most conscientious, devoted,\nand anxious mother, and, in spite of this manner, a loving one. She does\nnot know that there is any better way than hers. She does not see that her\nchild is mortified and harmed when she says to her, in the presence of\nstrangers, \"How do you suppose you _look_ with your mouth open like that?\"\n\"Do you want me to show you how you are sitting?\"--and then a grotesque\nimitation of her stooping shoulders. \"_Will_ you sit still for one\nminute?\" \"_Do_ take your hands off my dress.\" \"Was there ever such an\nawkward child?\" When the child replies fretfully and disagreeably, she\ndoes not see that it is only an exact reflection of her own voice and\nmanners. She does not understand any of the things that would make for her\nown peace, as well as for the child's. Matters grow worse, instead of\nbetter, as the child grows older and has more will; and the chances are\nthat the poor little soul will be worried into her grave.\n\nProbably most parents, even very kindly ones, would be a little startled\nat the assertion that a child ought never to be reproved in the presence\nof others. This is so constant an occurrence that nobody thinks of\nnoticing it; nobody thinks of considering whether it be right and best, or\nnot. But it is a great rudeness to a child. I am entirely sure that it\nought never to be done. Mortification is a condition as unwholesome as it\nis uncomfortable. When the wound is inflicted by the hand of a parent, it\nis all the more certain to rankle and do harm. Let a child see that his\nmother is so anxious that he should have the approbation and good-will of\nher friends that she will not call their attention to his faults; and\nthat, while she never, under any circumstances, allows herself to forget\nto tell him afterward, alone, if he has behaved improperly, she will spare\nhim the additional pain and mortification of public reproof; and, while\nthat child will lay these secret reproofs to heart, he will still be\nhappy.\n\nI know a mother who had the insight to see this, and the patience to make\nit a rule; for it takes far more patience, far more time, than the common\nmethod.\n\nShe said sometimes to her little boy, after visitors had left the parlor,\n\"Now, dear, I am going to be your little girl, and you are to be my papa.\nAnd we will play that a gentleman has just come in to see you, and I will\nshow you exactly how you have been behaving while this lady has been\ncalling to see me. And you can see if you do not feel very sorry to have\nyour little girl behave so.\"\n\nHere is a dramatic representation at once which that boy does not need to\nsee repeated many times before he is forever cured of interrupting, of\npulling his mother's gown, of drumming on the piano, &c.,--of the thousand\nand one things which able-bodied children can do to make social visiting\nwhere they are a martyrdom and a penance.\n\nOnce I saw this same little boy behave so boisterously and rudely at the\ndinner-table, in the presence of guests, that I said to myself, \"Surely,\nthis time she will have to break her rule, and reprove him publicly.\" I\nsaw several telegraphic signals of rebuke, entreaty, and warning flash\nfrom her gentle eyes to his; but nothing did any good. Nature was too much\nfor him; he could not at that minute force himself to be quiet. Presently\nshe said, in a perfectly easy and natural tone, \"Oh, Charley, come here a\nminute; I want to tell you something.\" No one at the table supposed that\nit had any thing to do with his bad behavior. She did not intend that they\nshould. As she whispered to him, I alone saw his cheek flush, and that he\nlooked quickly and imploringly into her face; I alone saw that tears were\nalmost in her eyes. But she shook her head, and he went back to his seat\nwith a manful but very red little face. In a few moments he laid down his\nknife and fork, and said, \"Mamma, will you please to excuse me?\"\n\"Certainly, my dear,\" said she. Nobody but I understood it, or observed\nthat the little fellow had to run very fast to get out of the room without\ncrying. Afterward she told me that she never sent a child away from the\ntable in any other way. \"But what would you do,\" said I, \"if he were to\nrefuse to ask to be excused?\" Then the tears stood full in her eyes. \"Do\nyou think he could,\" she replied, \"when he sees that I am only trying to\nsave him from pain?\" In the evening, Charley sat in my lap, and was very\nsober. At last he whispered to me, \"I'll tell you an awful secret, if you\nwon't tell. Did you think I had done my dinner this afternoon when I got\nexcused? Well, I hadn't. Mamma made me, because I acted so. That's the way\nshe always does. But I haven't had to have it done to me before for ever\nso long,--not since I was a little fellow\" (he was eight now); \"and I\ndon't believe I ever shall again till I'm a man.\" Then he added,\nreflectively, \"Mary brought me all the rest of my dinner upstairs; but I\nwouldn't touch it, only a little bit of the ice-cream. I don't think I\ndeserved any at all; do you?\"\n\nI shall never, so long as I live, forget a lesson of this sort which my\nown mother once gave me. I was not more than seven years old; but I had a\ngreat susceptibility to color and shape in clothes, and an insatiable\nadmiration for all people who came finely dressed. One day, my mother said\nto me, \"Now I will play 'house' with you.\" Who does not remember when to\n\"play house\" was their chief of plays? And to whose later thought has it\nnot occurred that in this mimic little show lay bound up the whole of\nlife? My mother was the liveliest of playmates, she took the worst doll,\nthe broken tea-set, the shabby furniture, and the least convenient corner\nof the room for her establishment. Social life became a round of\nfestivities when she kept house as my opposite neighbor. At last, after\nthe washing-day, and the baking-day, and the day when she took dinner with\nme, and the day when we took our children and walked out together, came\nthe day for me to take my oldest child and go across to make a call at her\nhouse. Chill discomfort struck me on the very threshold of my visit. Where\nwas the genial, laughing, talking lady who had been my friend up to that\nmoment? There she sat, stock-still, dumb, staring first at my bonnet, then\nat my shawl, then at my gown, then at my feet; up and down, down and up,\nshe scanned me, barely replying in monosyllables to my attempts at\nconversation; finally getting up, and coming nearer, and examining my\nclothes, and my child's still more closely. A very few minutes of this\nwere more than I could bear; and, almost crying, I said, \"Why, mamma, what\nmakes you do so?\" Then the play was over; and she was once more the wise\nand tender mother, telling me playfully that it was precisely in such a\nway I had stared, the day before, at the clothes of two ladies who had\ncome in to visit her. I never needed that lesson again. To this day, if I\nfind myself departing from it for an instant, the old tingling shame burns\nin my cheeks.\n\nTo this day, also, the old tingling pain burns my cheeks as I recall\ncertain rude and contemptuous words which were said to me when I was very\nyoung, and stamped on my memory forever. I was once called a \"stupid\nchild\" in the presence of strangers. I had brought the wrong book from my\nfather's study. Nothing could be said to me to-day which would give me a\ntenth part of the hopeless sense of degradation which came from those\nwords. Another time, on the arrival of an unexpected guest to dinner, I\nwas sent, in a great hurry, away from the table, to make room, with the\nremark that \"it was not of the least consequence about the child; she\ncould just as well have her dinner afterward.\" \"The child\" would have been\nonly too happy to help on the hospitality of the sudden emergency, if the\nthing had been differently put; but the sting of having it put in that way\nI never forgot. Yet in both these instances the rudeness was so small, in\ncomparison with what we habitually see, that it would be too trivial to\nmention, except for the bearing of the fact that the pain it gave has\nlasted till now.\n\nWhen we consider seriously what ought to be the nature of a reproof from a\nparent to a child, and what is its end, the answer is simple enough. It\nshould be nothing but the superior wisdom and strength, explaining to\ninexperience and feebleness wherein they have made a mistake, to the end\nthat they may avoid such mistakes in future. If personal annoyance,\nimpatience, antagonism enter in, the relation is marred and the end\nendangered. Most sacred and inalienable of all rights is the right of\nhelplessness to protection from the strong, of ignorance to counsel from\nthe wise. If we give our protection and counsel grudgingly, or in a\nchurlish, unkind manner, even to the stranger that is in our gates, we are\nno Christians, and deserve to be stripped of what little wisdom and\nstrength we have hoarded. But there are no words to say what we are or\nwhat we deserve if we do thus to the little children whom we have dared,\nfor our own pleasure, to bring into the perils of this life, and whose\nwhole future may be blighted by the mistakes of our careless hands.\n\n\n\n\nBreaking the Will.\n\n\n\nThis phrase is going out of use. It is high time it did. If the thing it\nrepresents would also cease, there would be stronger and freer men and\nwomen. But the phrase is still sometimes heard; and there are still\nconscientious fathers and mothers who believe they do God service in\nsetting about the thing.\n\nI have more than once said to a parent who used these words, \"Will you\ntell me just what you mean by that? Of course you do not mean exactly what\nyou say.\"\n\n\"Yes, I do. I mean that the child's will is to be once for all\nbroken!--that he is to learn that my will is to be his law. The sooner he\nlearns this the better.\"\n\n\"But is it to your will simply _as_ will that he is to yield? Simply as\nthe weaker yields to the stronger,--almost as matter yields to force? For\nwhat reason is he to do this?\"\n\n\"Why, because I know what is best for him, and what is right; and he does\nnot.\"\n\n\"Ah! that is a very different thing. He is, then, to do the thing that you\ntell him to do, because that thing is right and is needful for him; you\nare his guide on a road over which you have gone, and he has not; you are\nan interpreter, a helper; you know better than he does about all things,\nand your knowledge is to teach his ignorance.\"\n\n\"Certainly, that is what I mean. A pretty state of things it would be if\nchildren were to be allowed to think they know as much as their parents.\nThere is no way except to break their wills in the beginning.\"\n\n\"But you have just said that it is not to your will as will that he is to\nyield, but to your superior knowledge and experience. That surely is not\n'breaking his will.' It is of all things furthest removed from it. It is\neducating his will. It is teaching him how to will.\"\n\nThis sounds dangerous; but the logic is not easily turned aside, and there\nis little left for the advocate of will-breaking but to fall back on some\ntexts in the Bible, which have been so often misquoted in this connection\nthat one can hardly hear them with patience. To \"Children, obey your\nparents,\" was added \"in the Lord,\" and \"because it is right,\" not \"because\nthey are your parents.\" \"Spare the rod\" has been quite gratuitously\nassumed to mean \"spare blows.\" \"Rod\" means here, as elsewhere, simply\npunishment. We are not told to \"train up a child\" to have no will but our\nown, but \"in the way in which he should go,\" and to the end that \"when he\nis old\" he should not \"depart from it,\"--i.e., that his will should be so\neducated that he will choose to walk in the right way still. Suppose a\nchild's will to be actually \"broken;\" suppose him to be so trained that he\nhas no will but to obey his parents. What is to become of this helpless\nmachine, which has no central spring of independent action? Can we stand\nby, each minute of each hour of each day, and say to the automata, Go\nhere, or Go there? Can we be sure of living as long as they live? Can we\nwind them up like seventy-year clocks, and leave them?\n\nBut this is idle. It is not, thank God, in the power of any man or any\nwoman to \"break\" a child's \"will.\" They may kill the child's body, in\ntrying, like that still unhung clergyman in Western New York, who whipped\nhis three-year-old son to death for refusing to repeat a prayer to his\nstep-mother.\n\nBodies are frail things; there are more child-martyrs than will be known\nuntil the bodies terrestrial are done with.\n\nBut, by one escape or another, the will, the soul, goes free. Sooner or\nlater, every human being comes to know and prove in his own estate that\nfreedom of will is the only freedom for which there are no chains\npossible, and that in Nature's whole reign of law nothing is so largely\nprovided for as liberty. Sooner or later, all this must come. But, if it\ncomes later, it comes through clouds of antagonism, and after days of\nfight, and is hard-bought.\n\nIt should come sooner, like the kingdom of God, which it is,--\"without\nobservation,\" gracious as sunshine, sweet as dew; it should begin with the\ninfant's first dawning of comprehension that there are two courses of\naction, two qualities of conduct: one wise, the other foolish; one right,\nthe other wrong.\n\nI am sure; for I have seen, that a child's moral perceptions can be so\nmade clear, and his will so made strong and upright, that before he is ten\nyears old he will see and take his way through all common days rightly and\nbravely.\n\nWill he always act up to his highest moral perceptions? No. Do we? But one\nright decision that he makes voluntarily, unbiassed by the assertion of\nauthority or the threat of punishment, is worth more to him in development\nof moral character than a thousand in which he simply does what he is\ncompelled to do by some sort of outside pressure.\n\nI read once, in a book intended for the guidance of mothers, a story of a\nlittle child who, in repeating his letters one day, suddenly refused to\nsay A. All the other letters he repeated again and again, unhesitatingly;\nbut A he would not, and persisted in declaring that he could not say. He\nwas severely whipped, but still persisted. It now became a contest of\nwills. He was whipped again and again and again. In the intervals between\nthe whippings the primer was presented to him, and he was told that he\nwould be whipped again if he did not mind his mother and say A. I forget\nhow many times he was whipped; but it was almost too many times to be\nbelieved. The fight was a terrible one. At last, in a paroxysm of his\ncrying under the blows, the mother thought she heard him sob out \"A,\" and\nthe victory was considered to be won.\n\nA little boy whom I know once had a similar contest over a letter of the\nalphabet; but the contest was with himself, and his mother was the\nfaithful Great Heart who helped him through. The story is so remarkable\nthat I have long wanted all mothers to know it. It is as perfect an\nillustration of what I mean by \"educating\" the will as the other one is of\nwhat is called \"breaking\" it.\n\nWilly was about four years old. He had a large, active brain, sensitive\ntemperament, and indomitable spirit. He was and is an uncommon child.\nCommon methods of what is commonly supposed to be \"discipline\" would, if\nhe had survived them, have made a very bad boy of him. He had great\ndifficulty in pronouncing the letter G,--so much that he had formed almost\na habit of omitting it. One day his mother said, not dreaming of any\nspecial contest, \"This time you must say G.\" \"It is an ugly old letter,\nand I ain't ever going to try to say it again,\" said Willy, repeating the\nalphabet very rapidly from beginning to end, without the G. Like a wise\nmother, she did not open at once on a struggle; but said, pleasantly, \"Ah!\nyou did not get it in that time. Try again; go more slowly, and we will\nhave it.\" It was all in vain; and it soon began to look more like real\nobstinacy on Willy's part than any thing she had ever seen in him. She has\noften told me how she hesitated before entering on the campaign. \"I always\nknew,\" she said, \"that Willy's first real fight with himself would be no\nmatter of a few hours; and it was a particularly inconvenient time for me,\njust then, to give up a day to it. But it seemed, on the whole, best not\nto put it off.\"\n\nSo she said, \"Now, Willy, you can't get along without the letter G. The\nlonger you put off saying it, the harder it will be for you to say it at\nlast; and we will have it settled now, once for all. You are never going\nto let a little bit of a letter like that be stronger than Willy. We will\nnot go out of this room till you have said it.\"\n\nUnfortunately, Willy's will had already taken its stand. However, the\nmother made no authoritative demand that he should pronounce the letter as\na matter of obedience to her. Because it was a thing intrinsically\nnecessary for him to do, she would see, at any cost to herself or to him,\nthat he did it; but he must do it voluntarily, and she would wait till he\ndid.\n\nThe morning wore on. She busied herself with other matters, and left Willy\nto himself; now and then asking, with a smile, \"Well, isn't my little boy\nstronger than that ugly old letter yet?\"\n\nWilly was sulky. He understood in that early stage all that was involved.\nDinner-time came.\n\n\"Aren't you going to dinner, mamma?\"\n\n\"Oh! no, dear; not unless you say G, so that you can go too. Mamma will\nstay by her little boy until he is out of this trouble.\"\n\nThe dinner was brought up, and they ate it together. She was cheerful and\nkind, but so serious that he felt the constant pressure of her pain.\n\nThe afternoon dragged slowly on to night. Willy cried now and then, and\nshe took him in her lap, and said, \"Dear, you will be happy as soon as you\nsay that letter, and mamma will be happy too, and we can't either of us be\nhappy until you do.\"\n\n\"Oh, mamma! why don't you _make_ me say it?\"\n\n(This he said several times before the affair was over.)\n\n\"Because, dear, you must make yourself say it. I am helping you make\nyourself say it, for I shall not let you go out of this room, nor go out\nmyself, till you do say it; but that is all I shall do to help you. I am\nlistening, listening all the time, and if you say it, in ever so little a\nwhisper, I shall hear you. That is all mamma can do for you.\"\n\nBed-time came. Willy went to bed, unkissed and sad. The next morning, when\nWilly's mother opened her eyes, she saw Willy sitting up in his crib, and\nlooking at her steadfastly. As soon as he saw that she was awake, he\nexclaimed, \"Mamma, I can't say it; and you know I can't say it. You're a\nnaughty mamma, and you don't love me.\" Her heart sank within her; but she\npatiently went again and again over yesterday's ground. Willy cried. He\nate very little breakfast. He stood at the window in a listless attitude\nof discouraged misery, which she said cut her to the heart. Once in a\nwhile he would ask for some plaything which he did not usually have. She\ngave him whatever he asked for; but he could not play. She kept up an\nappearance of being busy with her sewing, but she was far more unhappy\nthan Willy.\n\nDinner was brought up to them. Willy said, \"Mamma, this ain't a bit good\ndinner.\"\n\nShe replied, \"Yes, it is, darling; just as good as we ever have. It is\nonly because we are eating it alone. And poor papa is sad, too, taking\nhis all alone downstairs.\"\n\nAt this Willy burst out into an hysterical fit of crying and sobbing.\n\n\"I shall never see my papa again in this world.\"\n\nThen his mother broke down, too, and cried as hard as he did; but she\nsaid, \"Oh! yes, you will, dear. I think you will say that letter before\ntea-time, and we will have a nice evening downstairs together.\"\n\n\"I can't say it. I try all the time, and I can't say it; and, if you keep\nme here till I die, I shan't ever say it.\"\n\nThe second night settled down dark and gloomy, and Willy cried himself to\nsleep. His mother was ill from anxiety and confinement; but she never\nfaltered. She told me she resolved that night that, if it were necessary,\nshe would stay in that room with Willy a month. The next morning she said\nto him, more seriously than before, \"Now, Willy, you are not only a\nfoolish little boy, you are unkind; you are making everybody unhappy.\nMamma is very sorry for you, but she is also very much displeased with\nyou. Mamma will stay here with you till you say that letter, if it is for\nthe rest of your life; but mamma will not talk with you, as she did\nyesterday. She tried all day yesterday to help you, and you would not help\nyourself; to-day you must do it all alone.\"\n\n\"Mamma, are you sure I shall ever say it?\" asked Willy.\n\n\"Yes, dear; perfectly sure. You will say it some day or other.\"\n\n\"Do you think I shall say it to-day?\"\n\n\"I can't tell. You are not so strong a little boy as I thought. I believed\nyou would say it yesterday. I am afraid you have some hard work before\nyou.\"\n\nWilly begged her to go down and leave him alone. Then he begged her to\nshut him up in the closet, and \"see if that wouldn't make him good.\" Every\nfew minutes he would come and stand before her, and say very earnestly,\n\"Are you sure I shall say it?\"\n\nHe looked very pale, almost as if he had had a fit of illness. No wonder.\nIt was the whole battle of life fought at the age of four.\n\nIt was late in the afternoon of this the third day. Willy had been sitting\nin his little chair, looking steadily at the floor, for so long a time\nthat his mother was almost frightened. But she hesitated to speak to him,\nfor she felt that the crisis had come. Suddenly he sprang up, and walked\ntoward her with all the deliberate firmness of a man in his whole bearing.\nShe says there was something in his face which she has never seen since,\nand does not expect to see till he is thirty years old.\n\n\"Mamma!\" said he.\n\n\"Well, dear?\" said his mother, trembling so that she could hardly speak.\n\n\"Mamma,\" he repeated, in a loud, sharp tone, \"G! G! G! G!\" And then he\nburst into a fit of crying, which she had hard work to stop. It was over.\n\nWilly is now ten years old. From that day to this his mother has never had\na contest with him; she has always been able to leave all practical\nquestions affecting his behavior to his own decision, merely saying,\n\"Willy, I think this or that will be better.\"\n\nHis self-control and gentleness are wonderful to see; and the blending in\nhis face of childlike simplicity and purity with manly strength is\nsomething which I have only once seen equalled.\n\nFor a few days he went about the house, shouting \"G! G! G!\" at the top of\nhis voice. He was heard asking playmates if they could \"say G,\" and \"who\nshowed them how.\" For several years he used often to allude to the affair,\nsaying, \"Do you remember, mamma, that dreadful time when I wouldn't say\nG?\" He always used the verb \"wouldn't\" in speaking of it. Once, when he\nwas sick, he said, \"Mamma, do you think I could have said G any sooner\nthan I did?\"\n\n\"I have never felt certain about that, Willy,\" she said. \"What do _you_\nthink?\"\n\n\"I think I could have said it a few minutes sooner. I was saying it to\n_myself_ as long as that!\" said Willy.\n\nIt was singular that, although up to that time he had never been able to\npronounce the letter with any distinctness, when he first made up his mind\nin this instance to say it, he enunciated it with perfect clearness, and\nnever again went back to the old, imperfect pronunciation.\n\nFew mothers, perhaps, would be able to give up two whole days to such a\nbattle as this; other children, other duties, would interfere. But the\nsame principle could be carried out without the mother's remaining\nherself by the child's side all the time. Moreover, not one child in a\nthousand would hold out as Willy did. In all ordinary cases a few hours\nwould suffice. And, after all, what would the sacrifice of even two days\nbe, in comparison with the time saved in years to come? If there were no\nstronger motive than one of policy, of desire to take the course easiest\nto themselves, mothers might well resolve that their first aim should be\nto educate their children's wills and make them strong, instead of to\nconquer and \"break\" them.\n\n\n\n\nThe Reign of Archelaus.\n\n\n\nHerod's massacre had, after all, a certain mercy in it: there were no\nlingering tortures. The slayers of children went about with naked and\nbloody swords, which mothers could see, and might at least make effort to\nflee from. Into Rachel's refusal to be comforted there need enter no\nbitter agonies of remorse. But Herod's death, it seems, did not make Judea\na safe place for babies. When Joseph \"heard that Archelaus did reign in\nthe room of his father, Herod, he was afraid to return thither with the\ninfant Jesus,\" and only after repeated commands and warnings from God\nwould he venture as far as Nazareth. The reign of Archelaus is not yet\nover; he has had many names, and ruled over more and more countries, but\nthe spirit of his father, Herod, is still in him. To-day his power is at\nits zenith. He is called Education; and the safest place for the dear,\nholy children is still Egypt, or some other of the fortunate countries\ncalled unenlightened.\n\nSome years ago there were symptoms of a strong rebellion against his\ntyranny. Horace Mann lifted up his strong hands and voice against it;\nphysicians and physiologists came out gravely and earnestly, and fortified\ntheir positions with statistics from which there was no appeal. Thomas\nWentworth Higginson, whose words have with the light, graceful beauty of\nthe Damascus blade its swift sureness in cleaving to the heart of things,\nwrote an article for the \"Atlantic Monthly\" called \"The Murder of the\nInnocents,\" which we wish could be put into every house in the United\nStates. Some changes in school organizations resulted from these protests;\nin the matter of ventilation of school-rooms some real improvement was\nprobably effected; though we shudder to think how much room remains for\nfurther improvement, when we read in the report of the superintendent of\npublic schools in Brooklyn that in the primary departments of the grammar\nschools \"an average daily number of 33,275 pupils are crowded into\none-half the space provided in the upper departments for an average daily\nattendance of 26,359; or compelled to occupy badly lighted, inconvenient,\nand ill-ventilated galleries, or rooms in the basement stories.\"\n\nBut in regard to the number of hours of confinement, and amount of study\nrequired of children, it is hard to believe that schools have ever been\nmuch more murderously exacting than now.\n\nThe substitution of the single session of five hours for the old\narrangement of two sessions of three hours each, with a two-hours interval\nat noon, was regarded as a great gain. So it would be, if all the\nbrain-work of the day were done in that time; but in most schools with\nthe five-hours session, there is next to no provision for studying in\nschool-hours, and the pupils are required to learn two, three, or four\nlessons at home. Now, when is your boy to learn these lessons? Not in the\nmorning, before school; that is plain. School ends at two. Few children\nlive sufficiently near their schools to get home to dinner before half\npast two o'clock. We say nothing of the undesirableness of taking the\nhearty meal of the day immediately after five hours of mental fatigue; it\nis probably a less evil than the late dinner at six, and we are in a\nregion where we are grateful for _less_ evils! Dinner is over at quarter\npast three; we make close estimates. In winter there is left less than two\nhours before dark. This is all the time the child is to have for out-door\nplay; two hours and a half (counting in his recess) out of twenty-four.\nAsk any farmer, even the stupidest, how well his colt or his lamb would\ngrow if it had but two hours a day of absolute freedom and exercise in the\nopen air, and that in the dark and the chill of a late afternoon! In spite\nof the dark and the chill, however, your boy skates or slides on until he\nis called in by you, who, if you are an American mother, care a great deal\nmore than he does for the bad marks which will stand on his week's report\nif those three lessons are not learned before bed-time. He is tired and\ncold; he does not want to study--who would? It is six o'clock before he is\nfairly at it. You work harder than he does, and in half an hour one lesson\nis learned; then comes tea. After tea half an hour, or perhaps an hour,\nremains before bed-time; in this time, which ought to be spent in light,\ncheerful talk or play, the rest of the lessons must be learned. He is\nsleepy and discouraged. Words which in the freshness of the morning he\nwould have learned in a very few moments with ease, it is now simply out\nof his power to commit to memory. You, if you are not superhuman, grow\nimpatient. At eight o'clock he goes to bed, his brain excited and wearied,\nin no condition for healthful sleep; and his heart oppressed with the fear\nof \"missing\" in the next day's recitations. And this is one out of the\nschool-year's two hundred and sixteen days--all of which will be like\nthis, or worse. One of the most pitiful sights we have seen for months was\na little group of four dear children, gathered round the library lamp,\ntrying to learn the next day's lessons in time to have a story read to\nthem before going to bed. They had taken the precaution to learn one\nlesson immediately after dinner, before going out, cutting their out-door\nplay down by half an hour. The two elder were learning a long\nspelling-lesson; the third was grappling with geographical definitions of\ncapes, promontories, and so forth; and the youngest was at work on his\nprimer. In spite of all their efforts, bed-time came before the lessons\nwere learned. The little geography student had been nodding over her book\nfor some minutes, and she had the philosophy to say, \"I don't care; I'm so\nsleepy. I had rather go to bed than hear any kind of a story.\" But the\nelder ones were grieved and unhappy, and said, \"There won't _ever_ be any\ntime; we shall have just as much more to learn to-morrow night.\" The next\nmorning, however, there was a sight still more pitiful: the baby of seven,\nwith a little bit of paper and a pencil, and three sums in addition to be\ndone, and the father vainly endeavoring, to explain them to him in the\nhurried moments before breakfast. It would be easy to show how fatal to\nall real mental development, how false to all Nature's laws of growth,\nsuch a system must be; but that belongs to another side of the question.\nWe speak now simply of the effect of it on the body; and here we quote\nlargely from the admirable article of Col. Higginson's, above referred to.\nNo stronger, more direct, more conclusive words can be written:--\n\n\"Sir Walter Scott, according to Carlyle, was the only perfectly healthy\nliterary man who ever lived. He gave it as his deliberate opinion, in\nconversation with Basil Hall, that five and a half hours form the limit of\nhealthful mental labor for a mature person. 'This I reckon very good work\nfor a man,' he said. 'I can very seldom work six hours a day.' Supposing\nhis estimate to be correct, and five and a half hours the reasonable limit\nfor the day's work of a mature intellect, it is evident that even this\nmust be altogether too much for an immature one. 'To suppose the youthful\nbrain,' says the recent admirable report, by Dr. Ray, of the Providence\nInsane Hospital, 'to be capable of an amount of work which is considered\nan ample allowance to an adult brain is simply absurd.' 'It would be\nwrong, therefore, to deduct less than a half-hour from Scott's estimate,\nfor even the oldest pupils in our highest schools, leaving five hours as\nthe limit of real mental effort for them, and reducing this for all\nyounger pupils very much further.'\n\n\"But Scott is not the only authority in the case; let us ask the\nphysiologists. So said Horace Mann before us, in the days when the\nMassachusetts school system was in process of formation. He asked the\nphysicians in 1840, and in his report printed the answers of three of the\nmost eminent. The late Dr. Woodward, of Worcester, promptly said that\nchildren under eight should never be confined more than one hour at a\ntime, nor more than four hours a day.\n\n\"Dr. James Jackson, of Boston, allowed the children four hours schooling\nin winter and five in summer, but only one hour at a time; and heartily\nexpressed his detestation of giving young children lessons to learn at\nhome.\n\n\"Dr. S.G. Howe, reasoning elaborately on the whole subject, said that\nchildren under eight years of age should never be confined more than half\nan hour at a time; by following which rule, with long recesses, they can\nstudy four hours daily. Children between eight and fourteen should not be\nconfined more than three-quarters of an hour at a time, having the last\nquarter of each hour for exercise on the play-ground.\n\n\"Indeed, the one thing about which doctors do _not_ disagree is the\ndestructive effect of premature or excessive mental labor. I can quote\nyou medical authority for and against every maxim of dietetics beyond the\nvery simplest; but I defy you to find one man who ever begged, borrowed,\nor stole the title of M.D., and yet abused those two honorary letters by\nasserting under their cover that a child could safely study as much as a\nman, or that a man could safely study more than six hours a day.\"\n\n\"The worst danger of it is that the moral is written at the end of the\nfable, not at the beginning. The organization in youth is so dangerously\nelastic that the result of these intellectual excesses is not seen until\nyears after. When some young girl incurs spinal disease from some slight\nfall, which she ought not to have felt for an hour, or some business man\nbreaks down in the prime of his years from some trifling over-anxiety,\nwhich should have left no trace behind, the popular verdict may be\n'Mysterious Providence;' but the wiser observer sees the retribution for\nthe folly of those misspent days which enfeebled the childish constitution\ninstead of ripening it. One of the most striking passages in the report of\nDr. Ray, before mentioned, is that in which he explains that, 'though\nstudy at school is rarely the immediate cause of insanity, it is the most\nfrequent of its ulterior causes, except hereditary tendencies.' _It\ndiminishes the conservative power of the animal economy to such a degree\nthat attacks of disease which otherwise would have passed off safely\ndestroy life almost before danger is anticipated_.\"\n\nIt would be easy to multiply authorities on these points. It is hard to\nstop. But our limits forbid any thing like a full treatment of the\nsubject. Yet discussion on this question ought never to cease in the land\nuntil a reform is brought about. Teachers are to blame only in part for\nthe present wrong state of things. They are to blame for yielding, for\nacquiescing; but the real blame rests on parents. Here and there,\nindividual fathers and mothers, taught, perhaps, by heart-rending\nexperience, try to make stand against the current of false ambitions and\nunhealthy standards. But these are rare exceptions. Parents, as a class,\nnot only help on, but create the pressure to which teachers yield, and\nchildren are sacrificed. The whole responsibility is really theirs. They\nhave in their hands the power to regulate the whole school routine to\nwhich their children are to be subjected. This is plain, when we once\nconsider what would be the immediate effect in any community, large or\nsmall, if a majority of parents took action together, and persistently\nrefused to allow any child under fourteen to be confined in school more\nthan four hours out of the twenty-four, more than one hour at a time, or\nto do more than five hours' brain-work in a day. The law of supply and\ndemand is a first principle. In three months the schools in that community\nwould be entirely reorganized, to accord with the parents' wishes; in\nthree years the improved average health of the children in that community\nwould bear its own witness in ruddy bloom along the streets; and perhaps\neven in one generation so great gain of vigor might be made that the\nmelancholy statistics of burial would no longer have to record the death\nunder twelve years of age of more than two-fifths of the children who are\nborn.\n\n\n\n\nThe Awkward Age.\n\n\n\nThe expression defines itself. At the first sound of the words, we all\nthink of some one unhappy soul we know just now, whom they suggest. Nobody\nis ever without at least one brother, sister, cousin, or friend on hand,\nwho is struggling through this social slough of despond; and nobody ever\nwill be, so long as the world goes on taking it for granted that the\nslough is a necessity, and that the road must go through it. Nature never\nmeant any such thing. Now and then she blunders or gets thwarted of her\nintent, and turns out a person who is awkward, hopelessly and forever\nawkward; body and soul are clumsy together, and it is hard to fancy them\ntranslated to the spiritual world without too much elbow and ankle.\nHowever, these are rare cases, and come in under the law of variation. But\nan awkward age,--a necessary crisis or stage of uncouthness, through which\nall human beings must pass,--Nature was incapable of such a conception;\nlaw has no place for it; development does not know it; instinct revolts\nfrom it; and man is the only animal who has been silly and wrong-headed\nenough to stumble into it. The explanation and the remedy are so simple,\nso close at hand, that we have not seen them. The whole thing lies in a\nnutshell. Where does this abnormal, uncomfortable period come in? Between\nchildhood, we say, and maturity; it is the transition from one to the\nother. When human beings, then, are neither boys nor men, girls nor women,\nthey must be for a few years anomalous creatures, must they? We might,\nperhaps, find a name for the individual in this condition as well as for\nthe condition. We must look to Du Chaillu for it, if we do; but it is too\nserious a distress to make light of, even for a moment. We have all felt\nit, and we know how it feels; we all see it every day, and we know how it\nlooks.\n\nWhat is it which the child has and the adult loses, from the loss of which\ncomes this total change of behavior? Or is it something which the adult\nhas and the child had not? It is both; and until the loss and the gain,\nthe new and the old, are permanently separated and balanced, the awkward\nage lasts. The child was overlooked, contradicted, thwarted, snubbed,\ninsulted, whipped; not constantly, not often,--in many cases, thank God,\nvery seldom. But the liability was there, and he knew it; he never forgot\nit, if you did. One burn is enough to make fire dreaded. The adult, once\nfairly recognized as adult, is not overlooked, contradicted, thwarted,\nsnubbed, insulted, whipped; at least, not with impunity. To this\ngratifying freedom, these comfortable exemptions, when they are once\nestablished in our belief, we adjust ourselves, and grow contentedly\ngood-mannered. To the other _r\u00e9gime_, while we were yet children, we also\nsomewhat adjusted ourselves, were tolerably well behaved, and made the\nbest of it. But who could bear a mixture of both? What genius could rise\nsuperior to it, could be itself, surrounded by such uncertainties?\n\nNo wonder that your son comes into the room with a confused expression of\nuncomfortable pain on every feature, when he does not in the least know\nwhether he will be recognized as a gentleman, or overlooked as a little\nboy. No wonder he sits down in his chair with movements suggestive of\nnothing but rheumatism and jack-knives, when he is thinking that perhaps\nthere may be some reason why he should not take that particular chair, and\nthat, if there is, he will be ordered up.\n\nNo wonder that your tall daughter turns red, stammers, and says foolish\nthings on being courteously spoken to by strangers at dinner, when she is\nafraid that she may be sharply contradicted or interrupted, and remembers\nthat day before yesterday she was told that children should be seen and\nnot heard.\n\nI knew a very clever girl, who had the misfortune to look at fourteen as\nif she were twenty. At home, she was the shyest and most awkward of\ncreatures; away from her mother and sisters, she was self-possessed and\ncharming. She said to me, once, \"Oh! I have such a splendid time away from\nhome. I'm so tall, everybody thinks I am grown up, and everybody is civil\nto me.\"\n\nI know, also, a man of superb physique, charming temperament, and uncommon\ntalent, who is to this day--and he is twenty-five years old--nervous and\nill at ease in talking with strangers, in the presence of his own family.\nHe hesitates, stammers, and never does justice to his thoughts. He says\nthat he believes he shall never be free from this distress; he cannot\nescape from the recollections of the years between fourteen and twenty,\nduring which he was so systematically snubbed that his mother's parlor was\nto him worse than the chambers of the Inquisition. He knows that he is now\nsure of courteous treatment; that his friends are all proud of him; but\nthe old cloud will never entirely disappear. Something has been lost which\ncan never be regained. And the loss is not his alone, it is theirs too;\nthey are all poorer for life, by reason of the unkind days which are gone.\n\nThis, then, is the explanation of the awkward age. I am not afraid of any\ndissent from my definition of the source whence its misery springs.\nEverybody's consciousness bears witness. Everybody knows, in the bottom of\nhis heart, that, however much may be said about the change of voice, the\nthinness of cheeks, the sharpness of arms, the sudden length in legs and\nlack of length in trousers and frocks,--all these had nothing to do with\nthe real misery. The real misery was simply and solely the horrible\nfeeling of not belonging anywhere; not knowing what a moment might bring\nforth in the way of treatment from others; never being sure which impulse\nit would be safer to follow, to retreat or to advance, to speak or to be\nsilent, and often overwhelmed with unspeakable mortification at the rebuff\nof the one or the censure of the other. Oh! how dreadful it all was! How\ndreadful it all is, even to remember! It would be malicious even to refer\nto it, except to point out the cure.\n\nThe cure is plain. It needs no experiment to test it. Merely to mention it\nought to be enough. If human beings are so awkward at this unhappy age,\nand so unhappy at this awkward age, simply because they do not know\nwhether they are to be treated as children or as adults, suppose we make a\nrule that children are always to be treated, in point of courtesy, as if\nthey were adults? Then this awkward age--this period of transition from an\natmosphere of, to say the least, negative rudeness to one of gracious\npoliteness--disappears. There cannot be a crisis of readjustment of social\nrelations: there is no possibility of such a feeling; it would be hard to\nexplain to a young person what it meant. Now and then we see a young man\nor young woman who has never known it. They are usually only children, and\nare commonly spoken of as wonders. I know such a boy to-day. At seventeen\nhe measures six feet in height; he has the feet and the hands of a still\nlarger man; and he comes of a blood which had far more strength than\ngrace. But his manner is, and always has been, sweet, gentle,\ncomposed,--the very ideal of grave, tender, frank young manhood. People\nsay, \"How strange! He never seemed to have any awkward age at all.\" It\nwould have been stranger if he had. Neither his father nor his mother ever\ndeparted for an instant, in their relations with him, from the laws of\ncourtesy and kindliness of demeanor which governed their relations with\nothers.\n\nHe knew but one atmosphere, and that a genial one, from his babyhood up;\nand in and of this atmosphere has grown up a sweet, strong, pure soul, for\nwhich the quiet, self-possessed manner is but the fitting garb.\n\nThis is part of the kingdom that cometh unobserved. In this kingdom we are\nall to be kings and priests, if we choose; and all its ways are\npleasantness. But we are not ready for it till we have become peaceable\nand easy to be entreated, and have learned to understand why it was that\none day, when Jesus called his disciples together, he set a little child\nin their midst.\n\n\n\n\nA Day with a Courteous Mother.\n\n\n\nDuring the whole of one of last summer's hottest days I had the good\nfortune to be seated in a railway car near a mother and four children,\nwhose relations with each other were so beautiful that the pleasure of\nwatching them was quite enough to make one forget the discomforts of the\njourney.\n\nIt was plain that they were poor; their clothes were coarse and old, and\nhad been made by inexperienced hands. The mother's bonnet alone would have\nbeen enough to have condemned the whole party on any of the world's\nthoroughfares. I remembered afterward, with shame, that I myself had\nsmiled at the first sight of its antiquated ugliness; but her face was one\nwhich it gave you a sense of rest to look upon,--it was so earnest,\ntender, true, and strong. It had little comeliness of shape or color in\nit, it was thin, and pale; she was not young; she had worked hard; she had\nevidently been much ill; but I have seen few faces which gave me such\npleasure. I think that she was the wife of a poor clergyman; and I think\nthat clergyman must be one of the Lord's best watchmen of souls. The\nchildren--two boys and two girls--were all under the age of twelve, and\nthe youngest could not speak plainly. They had had a rare treat; they had\nbeen visiting the mountains, and they were talking over all the wonders\nthey had seen with a glow of enthusiastic delight which was to be envied.\nOnly a word-for-word record would do justice to their conversation; no\ndescription could give any idea of it,--so free, so pleasant, so genial,\nno interruptions, no contradictions; and the mother's part borne all the\nwhile with such equal interest and eagerness that no one not seeing her\nface would dream that she was any other than an elder sister. In the\ncourse of the day there were many occasions when it was necessary for her\nto deny requests, and to ask services, especially from the eldest boy; but\nno young girl, anxious to please a lover, could have done either with a\nmore tender courtesy. She had her reward; for no lover could have been\nmore tender and manly than was this boy of twelve. Their lunch was simple\nand scanty; but it had the grace of a royal banquet. At the last, the\nmother produced with much glee three apples and an orange, of which the\nchildren had not known. All eyes fastened on the orange. It was evidently\na great rarity. I watched to see if this test would bring out selfishness.\nThere was a little silence; just the shade of a cloud. The mother said,\n\"How shall I divide this? There is one for each of you; and I shall be\nbest off of all, for I expect big tastes from each of you.\"\n\n\"Oh, give Annie the orange. Annie loves oranges,\" spoke out the oldest\nboy, with a sudden air of a conqueror, and at the same time taking the\nsmallest and worst apple himself.\n\n\"Oh, yes, let Annie have the orange,\" echoed the second boy, nine years\nold.\n\n\"Yes, Annie may have the orange, because that is nicer than the apple, and\nshe is a lady, and her brothers are gentlemen,\" said the mother, quietly.\nThen there was a merry contest as to who should feed the mother with\nlargest and most frequent mouthfuls; and so the feast went on. Then Annie\npretended to want apple, and exchanged thin golden strips of orange for\nbites out of the cheeks of Baldwins; and, as I sat watching her intently,\nshe suddenly fancied she saw longing in my face, and sprang over to me,\nholding out a quarter of her orange, and saying, \"Don't you want a taste,\ntoo?\" The mother smiled, understandingly, when I said, \"No, I thank you,\nyou dear, generous little girl; I don't care about oranges.\"\n\nAt noon we had a tedious interval of waiting at a dreary station. We sat\nfor two hours on a narrow platform, which the sun had scorched till it\nsmelt of heat. The oldest boy--the little lover--held the youngest child,\nand talked to her, while the tired mother closed her eyes and rested. Now\nand then he looked over at her, and then back at the baby; and at last he\nsaid confidentially to me (for we had become fast friends by this time),\n\"Isn't it funny, to think that I was ever so small as this baby? And papa\nsays that then mamma was almost a little girl herself.\"\n\nThe two other children were toiling up and down the banks of the\nrailroad-track, picking ox-eye daisies, buttercups, and sorrel. They\nworked like beavers, and soon the bunches were almost too big for their\nlittle hands. Then they came running to give them to their mother. \"Oh\ndear,\" thought I, \"how that poor, tired woman will hate to open her eyes!\nand she never can take those great bunches of common, fading flowers, in\naddition to all her bundles and bags.\" I was mistaken.\n\n\"Oh, thank you, my darlings! How kind you were! Poor, hot, tired little\nflowers, how thirsty they look! If they will only try and keep alive till\nwe get home, we will make them very happy in some water; won't we? And you\nshall put one bunch by papa's plate, and one by mine.\"\n\nSweet and happy, the weary and flushed little children stood looking up in\nher face while she talked, their hearts thrilling with compassion for the\ndrooping flowers and with delight in the giving of their gift. Then she\ntook great trouble to get a string and tie up the flowers, and then the\ntrain came, and we were whirling along again. Soon it grew dark, and\nlittle Annie's head nodded. Then I heard the mother say to the oldest boy,\n\"Dear, are you too tired to let little Annie put her head on your shoulder\nand take a nap? We shall get her home in much better case to see papa if\nwe can manage to give her a little sleep.\" How many boys of twelve hear\nsuch words as these from tired, overburdened mothers?\n\nSoon came the city, the final station, with its bustle and noise. I\nlingered to watch my happy family, hoping to see the father. \"Why, papa\nisn't here!\" exclaimed one disappointed little voice after another. \"Never\nmind,\" said the mother, with a still deeper disappointment in her own\ntone; \"perhaps he had to go to see some poor body who is sick.\" In the\nhurry of picking up all the parcels, and the sleepy babies, the poor\ndaisies and buttercups were left forgotten in a corner of the rack. I\nwondered if the mother had not intended this. May I be forgiven for the\ninjustice! A few minutes after I passed the little group, standing still\njust outside the station, and heard the mother say, \"Oh, my darlings, I\nhave forgotten your pretty bouquets. I am so sorry! I wonder if I could\nfind them if I went back. Will you all stand still and not stir from this\nspot if I go?\"\n\n\"Oh, mamma, don't go, don't go. We will get you some more. Don't go,\"\ncried all the children.\n\n\"Here are your flowers, madam,\" said I. \"I saw that you had forgotten\nthem, and I took them as mementoes of you and your sweet children.\" She\nblushed and looked disconcerted. She was evidently unused to people, and\nshy with all but her children. However, she thanked me sweetly, and\nsaid,--\n\n\"I was very sorry about them. The children took such trouble to get them;\nand I think they will revive in water. They cannot be quite dead.\"\n\n\"They will _never_ die!\" said I, with an emphasis which went from my heart\nto hers. Then all her shyness fled. She knew me; and we shook hands, and\nsmiled into each other's eyes with the smile of kindred as we parted.\n\nAs I followed on, I heard the two children, who were walking behind,\nsaying to each other, \"Wouldn't that have been too bad? Mamma liked them\nso much, and we never could have got so many all at once again.\"\n\n\"Yes, we could, too, next summer,\" said the boy, sturdily.\n\nThey are sure of their \"next summers,\" I think, all six of those\nsouls,--children, and mother, and father. They may never again gather so\nmany ox-eye daisies and buttercups \"all at once.\" Perhaps some of the\nlittle hands have already picked their last flowers. Nevertheless, their\nsummers are certain. To such souls as these, all trees, either here or in\nGod's larger country, are Trees of Life, with twelve manner of fruits and\nleaves for healing; and it is but little change from the summers here,\nwhose suns burn and make weary, to the summers there, of which \"the Lamb\nis the light.\"\n\nHeaven bless them all, wherever they are.\n\n\n\n\nChildren in Nova Scotia.\n\n\n\nNova Scotia is a country of gracious surprises. Instead of the stones\nwhich are what strangers chiefly expect at her hands, she gives us a\nwealth of fertile meadows; instead of stormy waves breaking on a frowning\ncoast, she shows us smooth basins whose shores are soft and wooded to the\nwater's edge, and into which empty wonderful tidal rivers, whose courses,\nwhere the tide-water has flowed out, lie like curving bands of bright\nbrown satin among the green fields. She has no barrenness, no\nunsightliness, no poverty; everywhere beauty, everywhere riches. She is\nbiding her time.\n\nBut most beautiful among her beauties, most wonderful among her wonders,\nare her children. During two weeks' travel in the provinces, I have been\nconstantly more and more impressed by their superiority in appearance,\nsize, and health to the children of the New England and Middle States. In\nthe outset of our journey I was struck by it; along all the roadsides they\nlooked up, boys and girls, fair, broad-cheeked, sturdy-legged, such as\nwith us are seen only now and then. I did not, however, realize at first\nthat this was the universal law of the land, and that it pointed to\nsomething more than climate as a cause. But the first school that I saw,\n_en masse_, gave a startling impetus to the train of observation and\ninference into which I was unconsciously falling. It was a Sunday school\nin the little town of Wolfville, which lies between the Gaspcreau and\nCornwallis rivers, just beyond the meadows of the Grand Pr\u00e9, where lived\nGabriel Lajeunesse, and Benedict Bellefontaine, and the rest of the\n\"simple Acadian farmers.\"\n\n\"Mists from the mighty Atlantic\" more than \"looked on the happy valley\"\nthat Sunday morning. Convicting Longfellow of a mistake, they did descend\n\"from their stations,\" on solemn Blomidon, and fell in a slow, unpleasant\ndrizzle in the streets of Wolfville and Horton. I arrived too early at one\nof the village churches, and while I was waiting for a sexton a door\nopened, and out poured the Sunday school, whose services had just ended.\nOn they came, dividing in the centre, and falling to the right and left\nabout me, thirty or forty boys and girls, between the ages of seven and\nfifteen. I looked at them in astonishment. They all had fair skins, red\ncheeks, and clear eyes; they were all broad-shouldered, straight, and\nsturdy; the younger ones were more than sturdy,--they were fat, from the\nankles up. But perhaps the most noticeable thing of all was the quiet,\nsturdy, unharassed expression which their faces wore; a look which is the\ngreatest charm of a child's face, but which we rarely see in children over\ntwo or three years old. Boys of eleven or twelve were there, with\nshoulders broader than the average of our boys at sixteen, and yet with\nthe pure, childlike look on their faces. Girls of ten or eleven were there\nwho looked almost like women,--that is, like ideal women,--simply because\nthey looked so calm and undisturbed. The Saxon coloring prevailed;\nthree-fourths of the eyes were blue, with hair of that pale ash-brown\nwhich the French call \"_blonde cendr\u00e9e_\" Out of them all there was but one\nchild who looked sickly. He had evidently met with some accident, and was\nlame. Afterward, as the congregation assembled, I watched the fathers and\nmothers of these children. They, too, were broad-shouldered, tall, and\nstraight, especially the women. Even old women were straight, like the\nnegroes one sees at the South, walking with burdens on their heads.\n\nFive days later I saw in Halifax the celebration of the anniversary of the\nsettlement of the province. The children of the city and of some of the\nneighboring towns marched in \"bands of hope\" and processions, such as we\nsee in the cities of the States on the Fourth of July. This was just the\nopportunity I wanted. It was the same here as in the country. I counted on\nthat day just eleven sickly-looking children; no more! Such brilliant\ncheeks, such merry eyes, such evident strength; it was a scene to kindle\nthe dullest soul. There were scores of little ones there, whose droll, fat\nlegs would have drawn a crowd in Central Park; and they all had that same,\nquiet, composed, well-balanced expression of countenance of which I spoke\nbefore, and of which it would be hard to find an instance in all Central\nPark.\n\nClimate undoubtedly has something to do with this. The air is moist, and\nthe mercury rarely rises above 80\u00b0 or falls below 10\u00b0. Also the\ncomparative quiet of their lives helps to make them so beautiful and\nstrong. But the most significant fact to my mind is that, until the past\nyear, there have been in Nova Scotia no public schools, comparatively few\nprivate ones; and in these there is no severe pressure brought to bear on\nthe pupils. The private schools have been expensive, consequently it has\nbeen very unusual for children to be sent to school before they were\n_eight or nine_ years of age; I could not find a person who had ever known\nof a child's being sent to school _under seven!_ The school sessions are\non the old plan of six hours per day,--from nine till twelve, and from one\ntill four; but no learning of lessons out of school has been allowed.\nWithin the last year a system of free public schools has been introduced,\n\"and the people are grumbling terribly about it,\" said my informant.\n\"Why?\" I asked; \"because they do not wish to have their children\neducated?\" \"Oh, no,\" said he; \"because they do not like to pay the taxes!\"\n\"Alas!\" I thought, \"if it were only their silver which would be taxed!\"\n\nI must not be understood to argue from the health of the children of Nova\nScotia, as contrasted with the lack of health among our children, that it\nis best to have no public schools; only that it is better to have no\npublic schools than to have such public schools as are now killing off our\nchildren.\n\nThe registration system of Nova Scotia is as yet imperfectly carried out.\nIt is almost impossible to obtain exact returns from all parts of so\nthinly settled a country. But such statistics as have been already\nestablished give sufficient food for reflection in this connection. In\nMassachusetts more than two-fifths of all the children born die before\nthey are twelve years old. In Nova Scotia the proportion is less than\none-third. In Nova Scotia one out of every fifty-six lives to be over\nninety years of age; and one-twelfth of the entire number of deaths is\nbetween the ages of eighty and ninety. In Massachusetts one person out of\none hundred and nine lives to be over ninety.\n\nIn Massachusetts the mortality from diseases of the brain and nervous\nsystem is eleven per cent. In Nova Scotia it is only eight per cent.\n\n\n\n\nThe Republic of the Family.\n\n\n\n\"He is lover and friend and son, all in one,\" said a friend, the other\nday, telling me of a dear boy who, out of his first earnings, had just\nsent to his mother a beautiful gift, costing much more than he could\nreally afford for such a purpose.\n\nThat mother is the wisest, sweetest, most triumphant mother I have ever\nknown. I am restrained by feelings of deepest reverence for her from\nspeaking, as I might speak, of the rare and tender methods by which her\nmotherhood has worked, patiently and alone, for nearly twenty years, and\nmade of her two sons \"lovers and friends.\" I have always felt that she\nowed it to the world to impart to other mothers all that she could of her\ndivine secret; to write out, even in detail, all the processes by which\nher boys have grown to be so strong, upright, loving, and manly.\n\nBut one of her first principles has so direct a bearing on the subject\nthat I wish to speak of here that I venture to attempt an explanation of\nit. She has told me that she never once, even in their childish days, took\nthe ground that she had right to require any thing from them simply\n_because_ she was their mother. This is a position very startling to the\naverage parent. It is exactly counter to traditions.\n\n\"Why must I?\" or \"Why cannot I?\" says the child. \"Because I say so, and I\nam your father,\" has been the stern, authoritative reply ever since we can\nany of us remember; and, I presume, ever since the Christian era, since\nthat good Apostle Paul saw enough in the Ephesian families where he\nvisited to lead him to write to them from Rome, \"Fathers, provoke not your\nchildren to wrath.\"\n\nIt seems to me that there are few questions of practical moment in\nevery-day living on which a foregone and erroneous conclusion has been\nadopted so generally and so undoubtingly. How it first came about it is\nhard to see. Or, rather, it is easy to see, when one reflects; and the\nvery clearness of the surface explanation of it only makes its injustice\nmore odious. It came about because the parent was strong and the child\nweak. Helplessness in the hands of power,--that is the whole story.\nSuppose for an instant (and, absurd as the supposition is practically, it\nis not logically absurd), that the child at six were strong enough to whip\nhis father; let him have the intellect of an infant, the mistakes and the\nfaults of an infant,--which the father would feel himself bound and _would\nbe_ bound to correct,--but the body of a man; and then see in how\ndifferent fashion the father would set himself to work to insure good\nbehavior. I never see the heavy, impatient hand of a grown man or woman\nlaid with its brute force, even for the smallest purpose, on a little\nchild, without longing for a sudden miracle to give the baby an equal\nstrength to resist.\n\nWhen we realize what it is for us to dare, for our own pleasure, even with\nsolemnest purpose of the holiest of pleasures, parenthood, to bring into\nexistence a soul, which must take for our sake its chance of joy or\nsorrow, how monstrous it seems to assume that the fact that we have done\nthis thing gives us arbitrary right to control that soul; to set our will,\nas will, in place of its will; to be law unto its life; to try to make of\nit what it suits our fancy or our convenience to have it; to claim that it\nis under obligation to us!\n\nThe truth is, all the obligation, in the outset, is the other way. We owe\nall to them. All that we can do to give them happiness, to spare them\npain; all that we can do to make them wise and good and safe,--all is too\nlittle! All and more than all can never repay them for the sweetness, the\nblessedness, the development that it has been to us to call children ours.\nIf we can also so win their love by our loving, so deserve their respect\nby our honorableness, so earn their gratitude by our helpfulness, that\nthey come to be our \"lovers and friends,\" then, ah! then we have had\nenough of heaven here to make us willing to postpone the more for which we\nhope beyond!\n\nBut all this comes not of authority, not by command; all this is perilled\nalways, always impaired, and often lost, by authoritative, arbitrary\nruling, substitution of law and penalty for influence.\n\nIt will be objected by parents who disagree with this theory that only\nauthority can prevent license; that without command there will not be\ncontrol. No one has a right to condemn methods he has not tried. I know,\nfor I have seen, I know, for I have myself tested, that command and\nauthority are short-lived; that they do not insure the results they aim\nat; that real and permanent control of a child's behavior, even in little\nthings, is gained only by influence, by a slow, sure educating,\nenlightening, and strengthening of a child's will. I know, for I have\nseen, that it is possible in this way to make a child only ten years old\nquite as intelligent and trustworthy a free agent as his mother; to make\nhim so sensible, so gentle, so considerate that to say \"must\" or \"must\nnot\" to him would be as unnecessary and absurd as to say it to her.\n\nBut, if it be wiser and better to surround even little children with this\natmosphere of freedom, how much more essential is it for those who remain\nunder the parental roof long after they have ceased to be children! Just\nhere seems to me to be the fatal rock upon which many households make\nutter shipwreck of their peace. Fathers and mothers who have ruled by\nauthority (let it be as loving as you please, it will still remain an\narbitrary rule) in the beginning, never seem to know when their children\nare children no longer, but have become men and women. In any average\nfamily, the position of an unmarried daughter after she is twenty years\nold becomes less and less what it should be. In case of sons, the question\nis rarely a practical one; in those exceptional instances where invalidism\nor some other disability keeps a man helpless for years under his father's\nroof, his very helplessness is at once his vindication and his shield, and\nalso prevents his feeling manly revolt against the position of unnatural\nchildhood. But in the case of daughters it is very different. Who does not\nnumber in his circle of acquaintance many unmarried women, between the\nages of thirty and forty, perhaps even older, who have practically little\nmore freedom in the ordering of their own lives than they had when they\nwere eleven? The mother or the father continues just as much the\nautocratic centre of the family now as of the nursery, thirty years\nbefore. Taking into account the chance--no, the certainty--of great\ndifferences between parents and children in matters of temperament and\ntaste, it is easy to see that great suffering must result from this;\nsuffering, too, which involves real loss and hindrance to growth. It is\nreally a monstrous wrong; but it seems to be rarely observed by the world,\nand never suspected by those who are most responsible for it. It is\nperhaps a question whether the real tyrannies in this life are those that\nare accredited as such. There are certainly more than even tyrants know!\n\nEvery father and mother has it within easy reach to become the intimate\nfriend of the child. Closest, holiest, sweetest of all friendships is this\none, which has the closest, holiest tie of blood to underlie the bond of\nsoul. We see it in rare cases, proving itself divine by rising above even\nthe passion of love between man and woman, and carrying men and women\nunwedded to their graves for sake of love of mother or father. When we\nrealize what such friendship is, it seems incredible that parents can\nforego it, or can risk losing any shade of its perfectness, for the sake\nof any indulgence of the habit of command or of gratifying of selfish\npreference.\n\nIn the ideal household of father and mother and adult children, the one\ngreat aim of the parents ought to be to supply, as far as possible to each\nchild, that freedom and independence which they have missed the\nopportunity of securing in homes of their own. The loss of this one thing\nalone is a bitterer drop in the loneliness of many an unmarried woman than\nparents, especially fathers, are apt even to dream,--food and clothes and\nlodgings are so exalted in unthinking estimates. To be without them would\nbe distressingly inconvenient, no doubt; but one can have luxurious\nprovision of both and remain very wretched. Even the body itself cannot\nthrive if it has no more than these three pottage messes! Freedom to come,\ngo, speak, work, play,--in short, to be one's self,--is to the body more\nthan meat and gold, and to the soul the whole of life.\n\nJust so far as any parent interferes with this freedom of adult children,\neven in the little things of a single day or a single hour, just so far it\nis tyranny, and the children are wronged. But just so far as parents\nhelp, strengthen, and bestow this freedom on their children, just so far\nit is justice and kindness, and their relation is cemented into a supreme\nand unalterable friendship, whose blessedness and whose comfort no words\ncan measure.\n\n\n\n\nThe Ready-to-Halts.\n\n\n\nMr. Ready-to-Halt must have been the most exasperating pilgrim that Great\nHeart ever dragged over the road to the Celestial City. Mr. Feeble Mind\nwas bad enough; but genuine weakness and organic incapacity appeal all the\nwhile to charity and sympathy. If people really cannot walk, they must be\ncarried. Everybody sees that; and all strong people are, or ought to be,\nready to lift babies and cripples. There are plenty of such in every\nparish. The Feeble Minds are unfortunately predisposed to intermarry; and\nour schools are overrun with the little Masters and Misses Feeble Mind.\nBut, heavy as they are (and they are apt to be fat), they are precious and\npleasant friends and neighbors in comparison with the Ready-to-Halts.\n\nThe Ready-to-Halts are never ready for any thing else. They can walk as\nwell as anybody else, if they only would; but they are never quite sure on\nwhich road they would better go. Great Hearts have to go back, and go\nback, to look them up. They are found standing still, helpless and\nbewildered, on all sorts of absurd side-paths, which lead nowhere; and\nthey never will confess, either, that they need help. They always think\nthey are doing what they call \"making up their mind.\" But, whichever way\nthey make it, they wish they had made it the other; so they unmake it\ndirectly. And by this time the crisis of the first hour which they lost\nhas become complicated with that of the second hour, for which they are in\nno wise ready; and so the hours stumble on, one after another, and the day\nis only a tangle of ineffective cross purposes. Hundreds of such days\ndrift on, with their sad burden of wasted time. Year after year their\nlives fail of growth, of delight, of blessing to others. Opportunity's\ngreat golden doors, which never stay long open for any man, have always\njust closed when they reach the threshold of a deed; and it is hard, very\nhard, to see why it would not have been better for them if they had never\nbeen born.\n\nAfter all, it is not right to be impatient with them; for, in nine cases\nout of ten, they are no more responsible for their mental limp than the\npoor Chinese woman is for her feeble feet. From their infancy up to what\nin our comic caricature of words we call \"maturity,\" they have been\nbandaged. How should their muscles be good for any thing? From the day\nwhen we give, and take, and arrange the baby's playthings for him, hour by\nhour, without ever setting before him to choose one of two and give up the\nother, to the day when we take it upon ourselves to decide whether he\nshall be an engineer or a lawyer, we persist in doing for him the work\nwhich he should do for himself. This is because we love him more than we\nlove our own lives. Oh! if love could but have its eyes opened and see!\nIf we were not blind, we should know that whenever a child decides for\nhimself deliberately, and without bias from others, any question, however\nsmall, he has had just so many minutes of mental gymnastics,--just so much\nstrengthening of the one faculty on whose health and firmness his success\nin life will depend more than upon any other thing.\n\nSo many people do not know the difference between obstinacy and\nclear-headed firmness of will, that it is hardly safe to say much in\npraise or blame of either without expressly stating that you do not mean\nthe other. They are as unlike as digestion and indigestion, and one would\nsuppose could not be much more easily confounded; but it is constantly\ndone. It has not yet ceased to be said among fathers and mothers that it\nis necessary to \"break the will\" of children; and it has not yet ceased to\nbe seen in the land that men by virtue of simple obstinacy are called men\nof strong character. The truth is that the stronger, better-trained will a\nman has, the less obstinate he will be. Will is of reason; obstinacy, of\ntemper. What have they in common?\n\nFor want of strong will kingdoms and souls have been lost. Without it\nthere is no kingdom for any man,--no, not even in his own soul. It is the\none attribute of all we possess which is most God-like. By it, we say,\nunder his laws, as he says, enacting those laws, \"So far and no further.\"\nIt is not enough that we do not \"break\" this grand power. It should be\nstrengthened, developed, trained. And, as the good teacher of gymnastics\ngives his beginners light weights to lift and swing, so should we bring to\nthe children small points to decide; to the very little children, very\nlittle points. \"Will you have the apple, or the orange? You cannot have\nboth. Choose; but after you have chosen you cannot change.\" \"Will you have\nthe horseback ride to-day, or the opera to-morrow night? You can have but\none.\"\n\nEvery day, many times a day, a child should decide for himself points\ninvolving pros and cons,--substantial ones too. Let him even decide\nunwisely, and take the consequences; that too is good for him. No amount\nof Blackstone can give such an idea of law as a month of prison. Tell him\nas much as you please of what you know on both sides; but compel him to\ndecide, and also compel him not to be too long about it. \"Choose ye this\nday whom ye will serve\" is a text good for every morning.\n\nIf men and women had in their childhood such training of their wills as\nthis, we should not see so many putting their hands to the plough and\nlooking back, and \"not fit for the kingdom of heaven.\" Nor for any kingdom\nof earth, either, unless it be for the wicked little kingdom of the Prince\nof Monaco, where there are but two things to be done,--gamble, or drown\nyourself.\n\n\n\n\nThe Descendants of Nabal.\n\n\n\nThe line has never been broken, and they have married into respectable\nfamilies, right and left, until to-day there can hardly be found a\nhousehold which has not at least one to worry it.\n\nThey are not men and women of great passionate natures, who flame out now\nand then in an outbreak like a volcano, from which everybody runs. This,\nthough terrible while it lasts, is soon over, and there are great\ncompensations in such souls. Their love is worth having. Their tenderness\nis great. One can forgive them \"seventy times seven,\" for the hasty words\nand actions of which they repent immediately with tears.\n\nBut the Nabals are sullen; they are grumblers; they are never done. Such\nsons of Belial are they to this day that no man can speak peaceably unto\nthem. They are as much worse than passionate people as a slow drizzle of\nrain is than a thunder-storm. For the thunder-storm, you stay in-doors,\nand you cannot help having pleasure in its sharp lights and darks and\nechoes; and when it is over, what clear air, what a rainbow! But in the\ndrizzle, you go out; you think that with a waterproof, an umbrella, and\novershoes, you can manage to get about in spite of it, and attend to your\nbusiness. What a state you come home in,--muddy, limp, chilled,\ndisheartened! The house greets you, looking also muddy and cold,--for the\nbest of front halls gives up in despair and cannot look any thing but\nforlorn in a long, drizzling rain; all the windows are bleared with\ntrickling, foggy wet on the outside, which there is no wiping off nor\nseeing through, and if one could see through there is no gain. The street\nis more gloomy than the house; black, slimy mud, inches deep on crossings;\nthe same black, slimy mud in footprints on side-walks; hopeless-looking\npeople hurrying by, so unhappy by reason of the drizzle that a weird sort\nof family likeness is to be seen in all their faces. This is all that can\nbe seen outside. It is better not to look. For the inside is no redemption\nexcept a wood-fire,--a good, generous wood-fire,--not in any of the modern\ncompromises called open stoves, but on a broad stone hearth, with a big\nbackground of chimney, up which the sparks can go skipping and creeping.\n\nThis can redeem a drizzle; but this cannot redeem a grumbler. Plump he\nsits down in the warmth of its very blaze, and complains that it snaps,\nperhaps, or that it is oak and maple, when he paid for all hickory. You\ncan trust him to put out your wood-fire for you as effectually as a\nwater-spout. And, if even a wood-fire, bless it! cannot outshine the gloom\nof his presence, what is to happen in the places where there is no\nwood-fire, on the days when real miseries, big and little, are on hand, to\nbe made into mountains of torture by his grumbling? Oh, who can describe\nhim? There is no language which can do justice to him; no supernatural\nforesight which can predict where his next thrust will fall, from what\nunsuspected corner he will send his next arrow. Like death, he has all\nseasons for his own; his ingenuity is infernal. Whoever tries to forestall\nor appease him might better be at work in Augean stables; because, after\nall, we must admit that the facts of life are on his side. It is not\nintended that we shall be very comfortable. There is a terrible amount of\ntotal depravity in animate and inanimate things. From morning till night\nthere is not an hour without its cross to carry. The weather thwarts us;\nservants, landlords, drivers, washerwomen, and bosom friends misbehave;\nclothes don't fit; teeth ache; stomachs get out of order; newspapers are\nstupid; and children make too much noise. If there are not big troubles,\nthere are little ones. If they are not in sight, they are hiding. I have\nwondered whether the happiest mortal could point to one single moment and\nsay, \"At that moment there was nothing in my life which I would have had\nchanged.\" I think not.\n\nIn argument, therefore, the grumbler has the best of it. It is more than\nprobable that things are as he says. But why say it? Why make four\nmiseries out of three? If the three be already unbearable, so much the\nworse. If he is uncomfortable, it is a pity; we are sorry, but we cannot\nchange the course of Nature. We shall soon have our own little turn of\ntorments, and we do not want to be worn out before it comes by having\nlistened to his; probably, too, the very things of which he complains are\npressing just as heavily on us as on him,--are just as unpleasant to\neverybody as to him. Suppose everybody did as he does. Imagine, for\ninstance, a chorus of grumble from ten people at a breakfast-table, all\nsaying at once, or immediately after each other, \"This coffee is not fit\nto drink.\" \"Really, the attendance in this house is insufferably poor.\" I\nhave sometimes wished to try this homoeopathic treatment in a bad case of\ngrumble. It sounds as if it might work a cure.\n\nIf you lose your temper with the grumbler, and turn upon him suddenly,\nsaying, \"Oh, do not spoil all our pleasure. Do make the best of things:\nor, at least, keep quiet!\" then how aggrieved he is! how unjust he thinks\nyou are to \"make a personal matter of it\"! \"You do not, surely, suppose I\nthink you are responsible for it, do you?\" he says, with a lofty air of\nastonishment at your unreasonable sensitiveness. Of course, we do not\nsuppose he thinks we are to blame; we do not take him to be a fool as well\nas a grumbler. But he speaks to us, at us, before us, about the cause of\nhis discomfort, whatever it may be, precisely as he would if we were to\nblame; and that is one thing which makes his grumbling so insufferable.\nBut this he can never be made to see. And the worst of it is that\ngrumbling is contagious. If we live with him, we shall, sooner or later,\nin spite of our dislike of his ways, fall into them; even sinking so low,\nperhaps, before the end of a single summer, as to be heard complaining of\nbutter at boarding-house tables, which is the lowest deep of vulgarity of\ngrumbling. There is no help for this; I have seen it again and again. I\nhave caught it myself. One grumbler in a family is as pestilent a thing as\na diseased animal in a herd: if he be not shut up or killed, the herd is\nlost.\n\nBut the grumbler cannot be shut up or killed, since grumbling is not held\nto be a proof of insanity, nor a capital offence,--more's the pity.\n\nWhat, then, is to be done? Keep out of his way, at all costs, if he be\ngrown up. If it be a child, labor day and night, as you would with a\ntendency to paralysis, or distortion of limb, to prevent this blight on\nits life.\n\nIt sounds extreme to say that a child should never be allowed to express a\ndislike of any thing which cannot be helped; but I think it is true. I do\nnot mean that it should be positively forbidden or punished, but that it\nshould never pass unnoticed; his attention should be invariably called to\nits uselessness, and to the annoyance it gives to other people. Children\nbegin by being good-natured little grumblers at every thing which goes\nwrong, simply from the outspokenness of their natures. All they think they\nsay and act. The rudiments of good behavior have to be chiefly negative at\nthe outset, like Punch's advice to those about to marry,--\"Don't.\"\n\nThe race of grumblers would soon die out if all children were so trained\nthat never, between the ages of five and twelve, did they utter a needless\ncomplaint without being gently reminded that it was foolish and\ndisagreeable. How easy for a good-natured and watchful mother to do this!\nIt takes but a word.\n\n\"Oh, dear! I wish it had not rained to-day. It is too bad!\"\n\n\"You do not really mean what you say, my darling. It is of much more\nconsequence that the grass should grow than that you should go out to\nplay. And it is so silly to complain, when we cannot stop its raining.\"\n\n\"Mamma, I hate this pie.\"\n\n\"Oh! hush, dear! Don't say so, if you do. You can leave it. You need not\neat it. But think how disagreeable it sounds to hear you say such a\nthing.\"\n\n\"Oh, dear! Oh, dear! I am too cold.\"\n\n\"Yes, dear, I know you are. So is mamma. But we shall not feel any warmer\nfor saying so. We must wait till the fire burns better; and the time will\nseem twice as long if we grumble.\"\n\n\"Oh, mamma! mamma! My steam-engine is all spoiled. It won't run. I hate\nthings that wind up!\"\n\n\"But, my dear little boy, don't grumble so! What would you think if mamma\nwere to say, 'Oh, dear! oh, dear! My little boy's stockings are full of\nholes. How I hate to mend stockings!' and, 'Oh, dear! oh, dear! My little\nboy has upset my work-box! I hate little boys'?\"\n\nHow they look steadily into your eyes for a minute,--the honest,\nreasonable little souls!--when you say such things to them; and then run\noff with a laugh, lifted up, for that time, by your fitly spoken words of\nhelp.\n\nOh! if the world could only stop long enough for one generation of\nmothers to be made all right, what a millennium could be begun in thirty\nyears!\n\n\"But, mamma, you are grumbling yourself at me because I grumbled!\" says a\nquick-witted darling not ten years old. Ah! never shall any weak spot in\nour armor escape the keen eyes of these little ones.\n\n\"Yes, dear! And I shall grumble at you till I cure you of grumbling.\nGrumblers are the only thing in this world that it is right to grumble\nat.\"\n\n\n\n\n\"Boys Not Allowed.\"\n\n\n\nIt was a conspicuous signboard, at least four feet long, with large black\nletters on a white ground: \"Boys not allowed.\" I looked at it for some\nmoments in a sort of bewildered surprise: I did not quite comprehend the\nmeaning of the words. At last I understood it. I was waiting in a large\nrailway station, where many trains connect; and most of the passengers\nfrom the train in which I was were eating dinner in a hotel near by. I was\nentirely alone in the car, with the exception of one boy, who was perhaps\neleven years old. I made an involuntary ejaculation as I read the words on\nthe sign, and the boy looked around at me.\n\n\"Little boy,\" said I, solemnly, \"do you see that sign?\"\n\nHe turned his head, and, reading the ominous warning, nodded sullenly, but\nsaid nothing.\n\n\"Boy, what does it mean?\" said I. \"Boys must be allowed to come into this\nrailway station. There are two now standing in the doorway directly under\nthe sign.\"\n\nThe latent sympathy in my tone touched his heart. He left his seat, and,\ncoming to mine, edged in past me; and, putting his head out of the window,\nread the sentence aloud in a contemptuous tone. Then he offered me a\npeanut, which I took; and he proceeded to tell me what he thought of the\nsign.\n\n\"Boys not allowed!\" said he. \"That's just the way 'tis everywhere; but I\nnever saw the sign up before. It don't make any difference, though,\nwhether they put the sign up or not. Why, in New York (you live in New\nYork, don't you?) they won't even stop the horse-cars for a boy to get on.\nNobody thinks any thing'll hurt a boy; but they're glad enough to 'allow'\nus when there's any errands to be done, and\"--\n\n\"Do you live in New York?\" interrupted I; for I did not wish to hear the\npoor little fellow's list of miseries, which I knew by heart beforehand\nwithout his telling me, having been hopeless knight-errant of oppressed\nboyhood all my life.\n\nYes, he \"lived in New York,\" and he \"went to a grammar school,\" and he had\n\"two sisters.\" And so we talked on in that sweet, ready, trustful talk\nwhich comes naturally only from children's lips, until the \"twenty minutes\nfor refreshments\" were over, and the choked and crammed passengers, who\nhad eaten big dinners in that breath of time, came hurrying back to their\nseats. Among them came the father and mother of my little friend. In angry\nsurprise at not finding him in the seat where they left him, they\nexclaimed,--\n\n\"Now, where _is_ that boy? Just like him! We might have lost every one of\nthese bags.\"\n\n\"Here I am, mamma,\" he called out, pleasantly. \"I could see the bags all\nthe time. Nobody came into the car.\"\n\n\"I told you not to leave the seat, sir. What do you mean by such conduct?\"\nsaid the father.\n\n\"Oh, no, papa,\" said poor Boy, \"you only told me to take care of the\nbags.\" And an anxious look of terror came into his face, which told only\ntoo well under how severe a _r\u00e9gime_ he lived. I interposed hastily with--\n\n\"I am afraid I am the cause of your little son's leaving his seat. He had\nsat very still till I spoke to him; and I believe I ought to take all the\nblame.\"\n\nThe parents were evidently uncultured, shallow people. Their irritation\nwith him was merely a surface vexation, which had no real foundation in a\ndeep principle. They became complaisant and smiling at my first word, and\nBoy escaped with a look of great relief to another seat, where they gave\nhim a simple luncheon of saleratus gingerbread. \"Boys not allowed\" to go\nin to dinner at the Massasoit, thought I to myself; and upon that text I\nsat sadly meditating all the way from Springfield to Boston.\n\nHow true it was, as the little fellow had said, that \"it don't make any\ndifference whether they put the sign up or not!\" No one can watch\ncarefully any average household where there are boys, and not see that\nthere are a thousand little ways in which the boys' comfort, freedom,\npreference will be disregarded, when the girls' will be considered. This\nis partly intentional, partly unconscious. Something is to be said\nundoubtedly on the advantage of making the boy realize early and keenly\nthat manhood is to bear and to work, and womanhood is to be helped and\nsheltered. But this should be inculcated, not inflicted; asked, not\nseized; shown and explained, not commanded. Nothing can be surer than the\ngrowth in a boy of tender, chivalrous regard for his sisters and for all\nwomen, if the seeds of it be rightly sown and gently nurtured. But the\ncommon method is quite other than this. It begins too harshly and at once\nwith assertion or assumption.\n\n\"Mother never thinks I am of any consequence,\" said a dear boy to me, the\nother day. \"She's all for the girls.\"\n\nThis was not true; but there was truth in it. And I am very sure that the\nselfishness, the lack of real courtesy, which we see so plainly and\npitiably in the behavior of the average young man to-day is the slow,\ncertain result of years of just such feelings as this child expressed. The\nboy has to scramble for his rights. Naturally he is too busy to think much\nabout the rights of others. The man keeps up the habit, and is negatively\nselfish without knowing it.\n\nTake, for instance, the one point of the minor courtesies (if we can dare\nto call any courtesies minor) of daily intercourse. How many people are\nthere who habitually speak to a boy of ten, twelve, or fourteen with the\nsame civility as to his sister, a little younger or older?\n\n\"I like Miss----,\" said this same dear boy to me, one day; \"for she\nalways bids me good-morning.\"\n\nAh! never is one such word thrown away on a loving, open-hearted boy. Men\nknow that safe through all the wear and tear of life they keep far greener\nthe memory of some woman or some man who was kind to them in their boyhood\nthan of the friend who helped or cheered them yesterday.\n\nDear, blessed, noisy, rollicking, tormenting, comforting Boy! What should\nwe do without him? How much we like, without suspecting it, his breezy\npresence in the house! Except for him, how would errands be done, chairs\nbrought, nails driven, cows stoned out of our way, letters carried, twine\nand knives kept ready, lost things found, luncheon carried to picnics,\nthree-year-olds that cry led out of meeting, butterflies and birds' nests\nand birch-bark got, the horse taken round to the stable, borrowed things\nsent home,--and all with no charge for time?\n\nDear, patient, busy Boy! Shall we not sometimes answer his questions? Give\nhim a comfortable seat? Wait and not reprove him till after the company\nhas gone? Let him wear his best jacket, and buy him half as many neckties\nas his sister has? Give him some honey, even if there is not enough to go\nround? Listen tolerantly to his little bragging, and help him \"do\" his\nsums?\n\nWith a sudden shrill scream the engine slipped off on a side-track, and\nthe cars glided into the great, grim city-station, looking all the grimmer\nfor its twinkling lights. The masses of people who were waiting and the\nmasses of people who had come surged toward each other like two great\nwaves, and mingled in a moment. I caught sight of my poor little friend,\nBoy, following his father, struggling along in the crowd, carrying two\nheavy carpet-bags, a strapped bundle, and two umbrellas, and being sharply\ntold to \"Keep up close there.\"\n\n\"Ha!\" said I, savagely, to myself, \"doing porters' work is not one of the\nthings which 'boys' are 'not allowed.'\"\n\n\n\n\nHalf an Hour in a Railway Station.\n\n\n\nIt was one of those bleak and rainy days which mark the coming of spring\non New England sea-shores. The rain felt and looked as if it might at any\nminute become hail or snow; the air pricked like needles when it blew\nagainst flesh. Yet the huge railway station was as full of people as ever.\nOne could see no difference between this dreariest of days and the\nsunniest, so far as the crowd was concerned, except that fewer of the\npeople wore fine clothes; perhaps, also, that their faces looked a little\nmore sombre and weary than usual.\n\nThere is no place in the world where human nature shows to such sad\ndisadvantage as in waiting-rooms at railway stations, especially in the\n\"Ladies' Room.\" In the \"Gentlemen's Room\" there is less of that ghastly,\napathetic silence which seems only explainable as an interval between two\nterrible catastrophes. Shall we go so far as to confess that even the\nunsightly spittoons, and the uncleanly and loquacious fellowship resulting\nfrom their common use, seem here, for the moment, redeemed from a little\nof their abominableness,--simply because almost any action is better than\nutter inaction, and any thing which makes the joyless, taciturn American\nspeak to his fellow whom he does not know, is for the time being a\nblessing. But in the \"Ladies' Room\" there is not even a community of\ninterest in a single bad habit, to break the monotone of weary stillness.\nWho has not felt the very soul writhe within her as she has first crossed\nthe threshold of one of these dismal antechambers of journey? Carpetless,\ndingy, dusty; two or three low sarcophagi of greenish-gray iron in open\nspaces, surrounded by blue-lipped women, in different angles and attitudes\nof awkwardness, trying to keep the soles of their feet in a perpendicular\nposition, to be warmed at what they have been led to believe is a\nsteam-heating apparatus; a few more women, equally listless and\nweary-looking, standing in equally difficult and awkward positions before\na counter, holding pie in one hand, and tea in a cup and saucer in the\nother, taking alternate mouthfuls of each, and spilling both; the rest\nwedged bolt upright against the wall in narrow partitioned seats, which\nonly need a length of perforated foot-board in front to make them fit to\nbe patented as the best method of putting whole communities of citizens\ninto the stocks at once. All, feet warmers, pie-eaters, and those who sit\nin the red-velvet stocks, wear so exactly the same expression of vacuity\nand fatigue that they might almost be taken for one gigantic and unhappy\nfamily connection, on its way to what is called in newspapers \"a sad\nevent.\" The only wonder is that this stiffened, desiccated crowd retains\nvitality enough to remember the hours at which its several trains depart,\nand to rise up and shake itself alive and go on board. One is haunted\nsometimes by the fancy that some day, when the air in the room is\nunusually bad and the trains are delayed, a curious phenomenon will be\nseen. The petrifaction will be carried a little farther than usual, and,\nwhen the bell rings and the official calls out, \"Train made up for Babel,\nHinnom, and way stations?\" no women will come forth from the \"Ladies'\nRoom,\" no eye will move, no muscle will stir. Husbands and brothers will\nwait and search vainly for those who should have met them at the station,\nwith bundles of the day's shopping to be carried out; homes will be\ndesolate; and the history of rare fossils and petrifactions will have a\nnovel addition. Or, again, that, if some sudden convulsion of Nature, like\nthose which before now have buried wicked cities and the dwellers in them,\nwere to-day to swallow up the great city of New Sodom in America, and keep\nit under ground for a few thousand years, nothing in all its circuit would\nso puzzle the learned archaeologists of A.D. 5873 as the position of the\nskeletons in these same waiting-rooms of railway stations.\n\nThinking such thoughts as these, sinking slowly and surely to the level of\nthe place, I waited, on this bleak, rainy day, in just such a \"Ladies'\nRoom\" as I have described. I sat in the red-velvet stocks, with my eyes\nfixed on the floor.\n\n\"Please, ma'am, won't you buy a basket?\" said a cheery little voice. So\nnear me, without my knowing it, had the little tradesman come that I was\nas startled as if the voice had spoken out of the air just above my head.\n\nHe was a sturdy little fellow, ten years old, Irish, dirty, ragged; but he\nhad honest, kind gray eyes, and a smile which ought to have sold more\nbaskets than he could carry. A few kind words unsealed the fountain of his\nchildish confidences. There were four children younger than he; the mother\ntook in washing, and the father, who was a cripple from rheumatism, made\nthese baskets, which he carried about to sell.\n\n\"Where do you sell the most?\"\n\n\"Round the depots. That's the best place.\"\n\n\"But the baskets are rather clumsy to carry. Almost everybody has his\nhands full, when he sets out on a journey.\"\n\n\"Yis'm; but mostly they doesn't take the baskets. But they gives me a\nlittle change,\" said he, with a smile; half roguish, half sad.\n\nI watched him on in his pathetic pilgrimage round that dreary room,\nseeking help from that dreary circle of women.\n\nMy heart aches to write down here the true record that out of those scores\nof women only three even smiled or spoke to the little fellow. Only one\ngave him money. My own sympathies had been so won by his face and manner\nthat I found myself growing hot with resentment as I watched woman after\nwoman wave him off with indifferent or impatient gesture. His face was a\nface which no mother ought to have been able to see without a thrill of\npity and affection. God forgive me! As if any mother ought to be able to\nsee any child, ragged, dirty, poor, seeking help and finding none! But his\nface was so honest, and brave, and responsive that it added much to the\nappeal of his poverty.\n\nOne woman, young and pretty, came into the room, bringing in her arms a\nlarge toy horse, and a little violin. \"Oh,\" I said to myself, \"she has a\nboy of her own, for whom she can buy gifts freely. She will surely give\nthis poor child a penny.\" He thought so, too; for he went toward her with\na more confident manner than he had shown to some of the others. No! She\nbrushed by him impatiently, without a word, and walked to the\nticket-office. He stood looking at the violin and the toy horse till she\ncame back to her seat. Then he lifted his eyes to her face again; but she\napparently did not see him, and he went away. Ah, she is only half mother\nwho does not see her own child in every child!--her own child's grief in\nevery pain which makes another child weep!\n\nPresently the little basket-boy went out into the great hall. I watched\nhim threading his way in and out among the groups of men. I saw one\nman--bless him!--pat the little fellow on the head; then I lost sight of\nhim.\n\nAfter ten minutes he came back into the Ladies' Room, with only one basket\nin his hand, and a very happy little face. The \"sterner sex\" had been\nkinder to him than we. The smile which he gave me in answer to my glad\nrecognition of his good luck was the sunniest sunbeam I have seen on a\nhuman face for many a day. He sank down into the red-velvet stocks, and\ntwirled his remaining basket, and swung his shabby little feet, as idle\nand unconcerned as if he were some rich man's son, waiting for the train\nto take him home. So much does a little lift help the heart of a child,\neven of a beggar child. It is a comfort to remember him, with that look on\nhis face, instead of the wistful, pleading one which I saw at first. I\nleft him lying back on the dusty velvet, which no doubt seemed to him\nunquestionable splendor. In the cars I sat just behind the woman with the\ntoy-horse and the violin. I saw her glance rest lovingly on them many\ntimes, as she thought of her boy at home; and I wondered if the little\nbasket-seller had really produced no impression whatever on her heart. I\nshall remember him long after (if he lives) he is a man!\n\n\n\n\nA Genius For Affection.\n\n\nThe other day, speaking superficially and uncharitably, I said of a woman,\nwhom I knew but slightly, \"She disappoints me utterly. How could her\nhusband have married her? She is commonplace and stupid.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said my friend, reflectively; \"it is strange. She is not a\nbrilliant woman; she is not even an intellectual one; but there is such a\nthing as a genius for affection, and she has it. It has been good for her\nhusband that he married her.\"\n\nThe words sank into my heart like a great spiritual plummet They dropped\ndown to depths not often stirred. And from those depths came up some\nshining sands of truth, worth keeping among treasures; having a\nphosphorescent light in them, which can shine in dark places, and, making\nthem light as day, reveal their beauty.\n\n\"A genius for affection.\" Yes; there is such a thing, and no other genius\nis so great. The phrase means something more than a capacity, or even a\ntalent for loving. That is common to all human beings, more or less. A man\nor woman without it would be a monster, such as has probably never been on\nthe earth. All men and women, whatever be their shortcomings in other\ndirections, have this impulse, this faculty, in a degree. It takes shape\nin family ties: makes clumsy and unfortunate work of them in perhaps two\ncases out of three,--wives tormenting husbands, husbands neglecting and\nhumiliating wives, parents maltreating and ruining children, children\ndisobeying and grieving parents, and brothers and sisters quarrelling to\nthe point of proverbial mention; but under all this, in spite of all this,\nthe love is there. A great trouble or a sudden emergency will bring it\nout. In any common danger, hands clasp closely and quarrels are forgotten;\nover a sick-bed hard ways soften into yearning tenderness; and by a grave,\nalas! what hot tears fall! The poor, imperfect love which had let itself\nbe wearied and harassed by the frictions of life, or hindered and warped\nby a body full of diseased nerves, comes running, too late, with its\neffort to make up lost opportunities. It has been all the while alive, but\nin a sort of trance; little good has come of it, but it is something that\nit was there. It is the divine germ of a flower and fruit too precious to\nmature in the first years after grafting; in other soils, by other waters,\nwhen the healing of the nations is fulfilled, we shall see its perfection.\nOh! what atonement will be there! What allowances we shall make for each\nother, then! with what love we shall love!\n\nBut the souls who have what my friend meant by a \"genius for affection\"\nare in another atmosphere than that which common men breathe. Their \"upper\nair\" is clearer, more rarefied than any to which mere intellectual genius\ncan soar. Because, to this last, always remain higher heights which it\ncannot grasp, see, nor comprehend.\n\nMichel Angelo may build his dome of marble, and human intellect may see as\nclearly as if God had said it that no other dome can ever be built so\ngrand, so beautiful. But above St. Peter's hangs the blue tent-dome of the\nsky, vaster, rounder, elastic, unfathomable, making St. Peter's look small\nas a drinking-cup, shutting it soon out of sight to north, east, south,\nand west, by the mysterious horizon-fold which no man can lift. And beyond\nthis horizon-fold of our sky shut down again other domes, which the wisest\nastronomer may not measure, in whose distances our little ball and we,\nwith all our spinning, can hardly show like a star. If St. Peter's were\nswallowed up to-morrow, it would make no real odds to anybody but the\nPope. The probabilities are that Michel Angelo himself has forgotten all\nabout it.\n\nTitian and Raphael, and all the great brotherhood of painters, may kneel\nreverently as priests before Nature's face, and paint pictures at sight of\nwhich all men's eyes shall fill with grateful tears; and yet all men shall\ngo away, and find that the green shade of a tree, the light on a young\ngirl's face, the sleep of a child, the flowering of a flower, are to their\npictures as living life to beautiful death.\n\nComing to Art's two highest spheres,--music of sound and music of\nspeech,--we find that Beethoven and Mozart, and Milton and Shakespeare,\nhave written. But the symphony is sacred only because, and only so far as,\nit renders the joy or the sorrow which we have felt. Surely, the\ninterpretation is less than the thing interpreted. Face to face with a\njoy, a sorrow, would a symphony avail us? And, as for words, who shall\nexpress their feebleness in midst of strength? The fettered helplessness\nin spite of which they soar to such heights? The most perfect sentence\never written bears to the thing it meant to say the relation which the\nchemist's formula does to the thing he handles, names, analyzes, can\ndestroy, perhaps, but cannot make. Every element in the crystal, the\nliquid, can be weighed, assigned, and rightly called; nothing in all\nscience is more wonderful than an exact chemical formula; but, after all\nis done, will remain for ever unknown the one subtle secret, the vital\ncentre of the whole.\n\nBut the souls who have a \"genius for affection\" have no outer dome, no\nhigher and more vital beauty; no subtle secret of creative motive force to\nelude their grasp, mock their endeavor, overshadow their lives. The\nsubtlest essence of the thing they worship and desire, they have in their\nown nature,--they are. No schools, no standards, no laws can help or\nhinder them.\n\nTo them the world is as if it were not. Work and pain and loss are as if\nthey were not. These are they to whom it is easy to die any death, if good\ncan come that way to one they love. These are they who do die daily\nunnoted on our right hand and on our left,--fathers and mothers for\nchildren, husbands and wives for each other. These are they, also, who\nlive,--which is often far harder than it is to die,--long lives, into\nwhose being never enters one thought of self from the rising to the going\ndown of the sun. Year builds on year with unvarying steadfastness the\ndivine temple of their beauty and their sacrifice. They create, like God.\nThe universe which science sees, studies, and explains, is small, is\npetty, beside the one which grows under their spiritual touch; for love\nbegets love. The waves of eternity itself ripple out in immortal circles\nunder the ceaseless dropping of their crystal deeds.\n\nAngels desire to look, but cannot, into the mystery of holiness and beauty\nwhich such human lives reveal. Only God can see them clearly. God is their\nnearest of kin; for He is love.\n\n\n\n\nRainy Days.\n\n\nWith what subtle and assured tyranny they take possession of the world!\nStoutest hearts are made subject, plans of conquerors set aside,--the\nheavens and the earth and man,--all alike at the mercy of the rain. Come\nwhen they may, wait long as they will, give what warnings they can, rainy\ndays are always interruptions. No human being has planned for them then\nand there. \"If it had been but yesterday,\" \"If it were only to-morrow,\" is\nthe cry from all lips. Ah! a lucky tyranny for us is theirs. Were the\nclouds subject to mortal call or prohibition, the seasons would fail and\ndeath get upper hand of all things before men agreed on an hour of common\nconvenience.\n\nWhat tests they are of people's souls! Show me a dozen men and women in\nthe early morning of a rainy day, and I will tell by their words and their\nfaces who among them is rich and who is poor,--who has much goods laid up\nfor just such times of want, and who has been spend-thrift and foolish.\nThat curious, shrewd, underlying instinct, common to all ages, which takes\nshape in proverbs recognized this long ago. Who knows when it was first\nsaid of a man laying up money, \"He lays by for a rainy day\"? How close\nthe parallel is between the man who, having spent on each day's living the\nwhole of each day's income, finds himself helpless in an emergency of\nsickness whose expenses he has no money to meet, and the man who, having\nno intellectual resources, no self-reliant habit of occupation, finds\nhimself shut up in the house idle and wretched for a rainy day. I confess\nthat on rainy mornings in country houses, among well-dressed and so-called\nintelligent and Christian people, I have been seized with stronger\ndisgusts and despairs about the capacity and worth of the average human\ncreature, than I have ever felt in the worst haunts of ignorant\nwickedness.\n\n\"What is there to do to-day?\" is the question they ask. I know they are\nabout to ask it before they speak. I have seen it in their listless and\ndisconcerted eyes at breakfast. It is worse to me than the tolling of a\nbell; for saddest dead of all are they who have only a \"name to live.\"\n\nThe truth is, there is more to do on a rainy day than on any other. In\naddition to all the sweet, needful, possible business of living and\nworking, and learning and helping, which is for all days, there is the\nbeauty of the rainy day to see, the music of the rainy day to hear. It\ndrums on the window-panes, chuckles and gurgles at corners of houses,\ntinkles in spouts, makes mysterious crescendoes and arpeggio chords\nthrough the air; and all the while drops from the eaves and upper\nwindow-ledges are beating time as rhythmical and measured as that of a\nmetronome,--time to which our own souls furnish tune, sweet or sorrowful,\ninspiriting or saddening, as we will. It is a curious experiment to try\nrepeating or chanting lines in time and cadence following the patter of\nraindrops on windows. It will sometimes be startling in its effect: no\nmetre, no accent fails of its response in the low, liquid stroke of the\ntender drops,--there seems an uncanny _rapport_ between them at once.\n\nAnd the beauty of the rain, not even love can find words to tell it. If it\nleft but one trace, the exquisite shifting sheen of pearls on the outer\nside of the window glass, that alone one might watch for a day. In all\ntimes it has been thought worthy of kings, of them who are royally rich,\nto have garments sown thick in dainty lines and shapes with fine seed\npearls. Who ever saw any such embroidery which could compare with the\nbeauty of one pane of glass wrought on a single side with the shining\nwhite transparent globulets of rain? They are millions; they crowd; they\nblend; they become a silver stream; they glide slowly down, leaving\ntiniest silver threads behind; they make of themselves a silver bank of\nminiature sea at the bottom of the pane; and, while they do this, other\nmillions are set pearl-wise at the top, to crowd, blend, glide down in\ntheir turn, and overflow the miniature sea. This is one pane, a few inches\nsquare; and rooms have many windows of many panes. And looking past this\nspectacle, out of our windows, how is it that we do not each rainy day\nweep with pleasure at sight of the glistening show? Every green thing,\nfrom tiniest grass-blade lying lowest, to highest waving tips of elms,\nalso set thick with the water-pearls; all tossing and catching, and\ntossing and catching, in fairy game with the wind, and with the rain\nitself, always losing, always gaining, changing shape and place and number\nevery moment, till the twinkling and shifting dazzle all eyes.\n\nThen at the end comes the sun, like a magician for whom all had been made\nready; at sunset, perhaps, or at sunrise, if the storm has lasted all\nnight. In one instant the silver balls begin to disappear. By countless\nthousands at a time he tosses them back whence they came; but as they go,\nhe changes them, under our eyes, into prismatic globes, holding very light\nof very light in their tiny circles, shredding and sorting it into blazing\nlines of rainbow color.\n\nAll the little children shout with delight, seeing these things; and call\ndull, grown-up people to behold. They reply, \"Yes, the storm is over;\" and\nthis is all it means to most of them. This kingdom of heaven they cannot\nenter, not being \"as a little child.\"\n\nIt would be worth while to know, if we only could, just what our\nbetters--the birds and insects and beasts--do on rainy days. But we cannot\nfind out much. It would be a great thing to look inside of an ant-hill in\na long rain. All we know is that the doors are shut tight, and a few\nsentinels, who look as if India-rubber coats would be welcome, stand\noutside. The stillness and look of intermission in the woods on a really\nrainy day is something worth getting wet to observe. It is like Sunday in\nLondon, or Fourth of July in a country town which has gone bodily to a\npicnic in the next village. The strays who are out seem like accidentally\narrived people, who have lost their way. One cannot fancy a caterpillar's\nbeing otherwise than very uncomfortable in wet hair; and what can there be\nfor butterflies and dragon-flies to do, in the close corners into which\nthey creep, with wings shut up as tight as an umbrella? The beasts fare\nbetter, being clothed in hides. Those whom we oftenest see out in rains\n(cows and oxen and horses) keep straight on with their perpetual munching,\nas content wet as dry, though occasionally we see them accept the partial\nshelter of a tree from a particularly hard shower.\n\nHens are the forlornest of all created animals when it rains. Who can help\nlaughing at sight of a flock of them huddled up under lee of a barn, limp,\ndraggled, spiritless, shifting from one leg to the other, with their silly\nheads hanging inert to right or left, looking as if they would die for\nwant of a yawn? One sees just such groups of other two-legged creatures in\nparlors, under similar circumstances. The truth is, a hen's life at best\nseems poorer than that of any other known animal. Except when she is\nsetting, I cannot help having a contempt for her. This also has been\nrecognized by that common instinct of people which goes to the making of\nproverbs; for \"Hen's time ain't worth much\" is a common saying among\nfarmers' wives. How she dawdles about all day, with her eyes not an inch\nfrom the ground, forever scratching and feeding in dirtiest places,--a\nsort of animated muck-rake, with a mouth and an alimentary canal! No\nwonder such an inane creature is wretched when it rains, and her soulless\nbusiness is interrupted. She is, I think, likest of all to the human\nbeings, men or women, who do not know what to do with themselves on rainy\ndays.\n\n\n\n\nFriends of the Prisoners.\n\n\n\nIn many of the Paris prisons is to be seen a long, dreary room, through\nthe middle of which are built two high walls of iron grating, enclosing a\nspace of some three feet in width.\n\nA stranger visiting the prison for the first time would find it hard to\ndivine for what purpose these walls of grating had been built. But on the\nappointed days when the friends of the prisoners are allowed to enter the\nprison, their use is sadly evident. It would not be safe to permit wives\nand husbands, and mothers and sons, to clasp hands in unrestrained\nfreedom. A tiny file, a skein of silk, can open prison-doors and set\ncaptives free; love's ingenuity will circumvent tyranny and fetters, in\nspite of all possible precautions. Therefore the vigilant authority says,\n\"You may see, but not touch; there shall be no possible opportunity for an\ninstrument of escape to be given; at more than arm's length the wife, the\nmother must be held.\" The prisoners are led in and seated on a bench upon\none side of these gratings; the friends are led in and seated on a similar\nbench on the other side; jailers are in attendance in both rooms; no words\ncan be spoken which the jailers do not hear. Yearningly eyes meet eyes;\nfaces are pressed against the hard wires; loving words are exchanged; the\npoor prisoned souls ask eagerly for news from the outer world,--the world\nfrom which they are as much hidden as if they were dead. Fathers hear how\nthe little ones have grown; sometimes, alas! how the little ones have\ndied. Small gifts of fruit or clothing are brought; but must be given\nfirst into the hands of the jailers. Even flowers cannot be given from\nloving hand to hand; for in the tiniest flower might be hidden the secret\npoison which would give to the weary prisoner surest escape of all. All\nday comes and goes the sad train of friends; lingering and turning back\nafter there is no more to be said; weeping when they meant and tried to\nsmile; more hungry for closer sight and voice, and for touch, with every\nmoment that they gaze through the bars; and going away, at last, with a\nnew sense of loss and separation, which time, with its merciful healing,\nwill hardly soften before the visiting-day will come again, and the same\nheart-rending experience of mingled torture and joy will again be borne.\nBut to the prisoners these glimpses of friends' faces are like manna from\nheaven. Their whole life, physical and mental, receives a new impetus from\nthem. Their blood flows more quickly, their eyes light up, they live from\none day to the next on a memory and a hope. No punishment can be invented\nso terrible as the deprivation of the sight of their friends on the\nvisiting-day. Men who are obstinate and immovable before any sort or\namount of physical torture are subdued by mere threat of this.\n\nA friend who told me of a visit he paid to the Prison Mazas, on one of the\ndays, said, with tears in his eyes, \"It was almost more than I could bear\nto see these poor souls reaching out toward each other from either side of\nthe iron railings. Here a poor, old woman, tottering and weak, bringing a\nlittle fruit in a basket for her son; here a wife, holding up a baby to\nlook through the gratings at its father, and the father trying in an agony\nof earnestness to be sure that the baby knew him; here a little girl,\nlooking half reproachfully at her brother, terror struggling with\ntenderness in her young face; on the side of the friends, love and\nyearning and pity beyond all words to describe; on the side of the\nprisoners, love and yearning just as great, but with a misery of shame\nadded, which gave to many faces a look of attempt at dogged indifference\non the surface, constantly betrayed and contradicted, however, by the\nflashing of the eyes and the red of the cheeks.\"\n\nThe story so impressed me that I could not for days lose sight of the\npicture it raised; the double walls of iron grating; the cruel,\ninexorable, empty space between them,--empty, yet crowded with words and\nlooks; the lines of anxious, yearning faces on either side. But presently\nI said to myself, It is, after all, not so unlike the life we all live.\nWho of us is not in prison? Who of us is not living out his time of\npunishment? Law holds us all in its merciless fulfilment of penalty for\nsin; disease, danger, work separate us, wall us, bury us. That we are not\nnumbered with the number of a cell, clothed in the uniform of a prison,\nlocked up at night, and counted in the morning, is only an apparent\ndifference, and not so real a one. Our jailers do not know us; but we know\nthem. There is no fixed day gleaming for us in the future when our term of\nsentence will expire and we shall regain freedom. It may be to-morrow; but\nit may be threescore years away. Meantime, we bear ourselves as if we were\nnot in prison. We profess that we choose, we keep our fetters out of\nsight, we smile, we sing, we contrive to be glad of being alive, and we\ntake great interest in the changing of our jails. But no man knows where\nhis neighbor's prison lies. How bravely and cheerily most eyes look up!\nThis is one of the sweetest mercies of life, that \"the heart knoweth its\nown bitterness,\" and, knowing it, can hide it. Hence, we can all be\nfriends for other prisoners, standing separated from them by the\nimpassable iron gratings and the fixed gulf of space, which are not\ninappropriate emblems of the unseen barriers between all human souls. We\ncan show kindly faces, speak kindly words, bear to them fruits and food,\nand moral help, greater than fruit or food. We need not aim at\nphilanthropies; we need not have a visiting-day, nor seek a prison-house\nbuilt of stone. On every road each man we meet is a prisoner; he is dying\nat heart, however sound he looks; he is only waiting, however well he\nworks. If we stop to ask whether he be our brother, he is gone. Our one\nsmile would have lit up his prison-day. Alas for us if we smiled not as we\npassed by! Alas for us if, face to face, at last, with our Elder Brother,\nwe find ourselves saying, \"Lord, when saw we thee sick and in prison!\"\n\n\n\n\nA Companion for the Winter.\n\n\n\nI have engaged a companion for the winter. It would be simply a\nsuperfluous egotism to say this to the public, except that I have a\nphilanthropic motive for doing so. There are many lonely people who are in\nneed of a companion possessing just such qualities as his; and he has\nbrothers singularly like himself, whose services can be secured. I despair\nof doing justice to him by any description. In fact, thus far, I discover\nnew perfections in him daily, and believe that I am yet only on the\nthreshold of our friendship.\n\nIn conversation he is more suggestive than any person I have ever known.\nAfter two or three hours alone with him, I am sometimes almost startled to\nlook back and see through what a marvellous train of fancy and reflection\nhe has led me. Yet he is never wordy, and often conveys his subtlest\nmeaning by a look.\n\nHe is an artist, too, of the rarest sort. You watch the process under\nwhich his pictures grow with incredulous wonder. The Eastern magic which\ndrops the seed in the mould, and bids it shoot up before your eyes,\nblossom, and bear its fruit in an hour, is tardy and clumsy by side of the\ncreative genius of my companion. His touch is swift as air; his coloring\nis vivid as light; he has learned, I know not how, the secrets of hidden\nplaces in all lands; and he paints, now a tufted clump of soft cocoa\npalms; now the spires and walls of an iceberg, glittering in yellow\nsunlight; now a desolate, sandy waste, where black rocks and a few\ncrumbling ruins are lit up by a lurid glow; then a cathedral front, with\ncarvings like lace; then the skeleton of a wrecked ship, with bare ribs\nand broken masts,--and all so exact, so minute, so life-like, that you\nbelieve no man could paint thus any thing which he had not seen.\n\nHe has a special love for mosaics, and a marvellous faculty for making\ndrawings of curious old patterns. Nothing is too complicated for his\nmemory, and he revels in the most fantastic and intricate shapes. I have\nknown him in a single evening throw off a score of designs, all beautiful,\nand many of them rare: fiery scorpions on a black ground; pale lavender\nfilagrees over scarlet; white and black squares blocked out as for tiles\nof a pavement, and crimson and yellow threads interlaced over them; odd\nChinese patterns in brilliant colors, all angles and surprises, with no\nlikeness to any thing in nature; and exquisite little bits of landscape in\nsoft grays and whites. Last night was one of his nights of reminiscences\nof the mosaic-workers. A furious snow-storm was raging, and, as the flaky\ncrystals piled up in drifts on the window-ledges, he seemed to catch the\ninspiration of their law of structure, and drew sheet after sheet of\ncrystalline shapes; some so delicate and filmy that it seemed as if a jar\nmight obliterate them; some massive and strong, like those in which the\nearth keeps her mineral treasures; then, at last, on a round charcoal\ndisk, he traced out a perfect rose, in a fragrant white powder, which\npiled up under his fingers, petal after petal, circle after circle, till\nthe feathery stamens were buried out of sight. Then, as we held our breath\nfor fear of disturbing it, with a good-natured little chuckle, he shook it\noff into the fire, and by a few quick strokes of red turned the black\ncharcoal disk into a shield gay enough for a tournament.\n\nHe has talent for modelling, but this he exercises more rarely. Usually,\nhis figures are grotesque rather than beautiful, and he never allows them\nto remain longer than for a few moments, often changing them so rapidly\nunder your eye that it seems like jugglery. He is fondest of doing this at\ntwilight, and loves the darkest corner of the room. From the half-light he\nwill suddenly thrust out before you a grinning gargoyle head, to which he\nwill give in an instant more a pair of spider legs, and then, with one\nroll, stretch it out into a crocodile, whose jaws seem so near snapping\nthat you involuntarily draw your chair further back. Next, in a freak of\nventriloquism, he startles you still more by bringing from the crocodile's\nmouth a sigh, so long drawn, so human, that you really shudder, and are\nready to implore him to play no more tricks. He knows when he has reached\nthis limit, and soothes you at once by a tender, far-off whisper, like the\nwind through pines, sometimes almost like an Aeolian harp; then he rouses\nyou from your dreams by what you are sure is a tap at the door. You turn,\nspeak, listen; no one enters; the tap again. Ah! it is only a little more\nof the ventriloquism of this wonderful creature. You are alone with him,\nand there was no tap at the door.\n\nBut when there is, and the friend comes in, then my companion's genius\nshines out. Almost always in life the third person is a discord, or at\nleast a burden; but he is so genial, so diffusive, so sympathetic, that,\nlike some tints by which painters know how to bring out all the other\ncolors in a picture, he forces every one to do his best. I am indebted to\nhim already for a better knowledge of some men and women with whom I had\ntalked for years before to little purpose. It is most wonderful that he\nproduces this effect, because he himself is so silent; but there is some\nsecret charm in his very smile which puts people _en rapport_ with each\nother, and with him at once.\n\nI am almost afraid to go on with the list of the things my companion can\ndo. I have not yet told the half, nor the most wonderful; and I believe I\nhave already overtaxed credulity. I will mention only one more,--but that\nis to me far more inexplicable than all the rest. I am sure that it\nbelongs, with mesmerism and clairvoyance, to the domain of the higher\npsychological mysteries. He has in rare hours the power of producing the\nportraits of persons whom you have loved, but whom he has never seen. For\nthis it is necessary that you should concentrate your whole attention on\nhim, as is always needful to secure the best results of mesmeric power. It\nmust also be late and still. In the day, or in a storm, I have never\nknown him to succeed in this. For these portraits he uses only shadowy\ngray tints. He begins with a hesitating outline. If you are not tenderly\nand closely in attention, he throws it aside; he can do nothing. But if\nyou are with him, heart and soul, and do not take your eyes from his, he\nwill presently fill out the dear faces, full, life-like, and wearing a\nsmile, which makes you sure that they too must have been summoned from the\nother side, as you from this, to meet on the shadowy boundary between\nflesh and spirit. He must see them as clearly as he sees you; and it would\nbe little more for his magic to do if he were at the same moment showing\nto their longing eyes your face and answering smile.\n\nBut I delay too long the telling of his name. A strange hesitancy seizes\nme. I shall never be believed by any one who has not sat as I have by his\nside. But, if I can only give to one soul the good-cheer and strength of\nsuch a presence, I shall be rewarded.\n\nHis name is Maple Wood-fire, and his terms are from eight to twelve\ndollars a month, according to the amount of time he gives. This price is\nridiculously low, but it is all that any member of the family asks; in\nfact, in some parts of the country, they can be hired for much less. They\nhave connections by the name of Hickory, whose terms are higher; but I\ncannot find out that they are any more satisfactory. There are also some\ndistant relations, named Chestnut and Pine, who can be employed in the\nsame way, at a much lower rate; but they are all snappish and uncertain in\ntemper.\n\nTo the whole world I commend the good brotherhood of Maple, and pass on\nthe emphatic indorsement of a blessed old black woman who came to my room\nthe other day, and, standing before the rollicking blaze on my hearth,\nsaid, \"Bless yer, honey, yer's got a wood-fire. I'se allers said that, if\nyer's got a wood-fire, yer's got meat, an' drink, an' clo'es.\"\n\n\n\n\nChoice of Colors.\n\n\n\nThe other day, as I was walking on one of the oldest and most picturesque\nstreets of the old and picturesque town of Newport, R.I., I saw a little\ngirl standing before the window of a milliner's shop.\n\nIt was a very rainy day. The pavement of the side-walks on this street is\nso sunken and irregular that in wet weather, unless one walks with very\ngreat care, he steps continually into small wells of water. Up to her\nankles in one of these wells stood the little girl, apparently as\nunconscious as if she were high and dry before a fire. It was a very cold\nday too. I was hurrying along, wrapped in furs, and not quite warm enough\neven so. The child was but thinly clothed. She wore an old plaid shawl and\na ragged knit hood of scarlet worsted. One little red ear stood out\nunprotected by the hood, and drops of water trickled down over it from her\nhair. She seemed to be pointing with her finger at articles in the window,\nand talking to some one inside. I watched her for several moments, and\nthen crossed the street to see what it all meant. I stole noiselessly up\nbehind her, and she did not hear me. The window was full of artificial\nflowers, of the cheapest sort, but of very gay colors. Here and there a\nknot of ribbon or a bit of lace had been tastefully added, and the whole\neffect was really remarkably gay and pretty. Tap, tap, tap, went the small\nhand against the window-pane; and with every tap the unconscious little\ncreature murmured, in a half-whispering, half-singing voice, \"I choose\n_that_ color.\" \"I choose _that_ color.\" \"I choose _that_ color.\"\n\nI stood motionless. I could not see her face; but there was in her whole\nattitude and tone the heartiest content and delight. I moved a little to\nthe right, hoping to see her face, without her seeing me; but the slight\nmovement caught her ear, and in a second she had sprung aside and turned\ntoward me. The spell was broken. She was no longer the queen of an\nair-castle, decking herself in all the rainbow hues which pleased her eye.\nShe was a poor beggar child, out in the rain, and a little frightened at\nthe approach of a stranger. She did not move away, however; but stood\neying me irresolutely, with that pathetic mixture of interrogation and\ndefiance in her face which is so often seen in the prematurely developed\nfaces of poverty-stricken children.\n\n\"Aren't the colors pretty?\" I said. She brightened instantly.\n\n\"Yes'm. I'd like a goon av thit blue.\"\n\n\"But you will take cold standing in the wet,\" said I. \"Won't you come\nunder my umbrella?\"\n\nShe looked down at her wet dress suddenly, as if it had not occurred to\nher before that it was raining. Then she drew first one little foot and\nthen the other out of the muddy puddle in which she had been standing,\nand, moving a little closer to the window, said, \"I'm not jist goin' home,\nmem. I'd like to stop here a bit.\"\n\nSo I left her. But, after I had gone a few blocks, the impulse seized me\nto return by a cross street, and see if she were still there. Tears sprang\nto my eyes as I first caught sight of the upright little figure, standing\nin the same spot, still pointing with the rhythmic finger to the blues and\nreds and yellows, and half chanting under her breath, as before, \"I choose\n_that_ color.\" \"I choose _that_ color.\" \"I choose _that_ color.\"\n\nI went quietly on my way, without disturbing her again. But I said in my\nheart, \"Little Messenger, Interpreter, Teacher! I will remember you all my\nlife.\"\n\nWhy should days ever be dark, life ever be colorless? There is always sun;\nthere are always blue and scarlet and yellow and purple. We cannot reach\nthem, perhaps, but we can see them, if it is only \"through a glass,\" and\n\"darkly,\"--still we can see them. We can \"choose\" our colors. It rains,\nperhaps; and we are standing in the cold. Never mind. If we look earnestly\nenough at the brightness which is on the other side of the glass, we shall\nforget the wet and not feel the cold. And now and then a passer-by, who\nhas rolled himself up in furs to keep out the cold, but shivers\nnevertheless,--who has money in his purse to buy many colors, if he likes,\nbut, nevertheless, goes grumbling because some colors are too dear for\nhim,--such a passer-by, chancing to hear our voice, and see the\natmosphere of our content, may learn a wondrous secret,--that\npennilessness is not poverty, and ownership is not possession; that to be\nwithout is not always to lack, and to reach is not to attain; that\nsunlight is for all eyes that look up, and color for those who \"choose.\"\n\n\n\n\nThe Apostle of Beauty.\n\n\n\nHe is not of the twelve, any more than the golden rule is of the ten. \"A\ngreater commandment I give unto you,\" was said of that. Also it was called\nthe \"new commandment.\" Yet it was really older than the rest, and greater\nonly because it included them all. There were those who kept it ages\nbefore Moses went up Sinai: Joseph, for instance, his ancestor; and the\nking's daughter, by whose goodness he lived. So stands the Apostle of\nBeauty, greater than the twelve, newer and older; setting Gospel over\nagainst law, having known law before its beginning; living triumphantly\nfree and unconscious of penalty.\n\nHe has had martyrdom, and will have. His church is never established; the\nworld does not follow him; only of Wisdom is he known, and of her\nchildren, who are children of light. He never speaks by their mouths who\nsay \"Shalt not.\" He knows that \"shalt not\" is illegitimate, puny, trying\nalways to usurp the throne of the true king, \"Thou shalt.\"\n\n\"This is delight,\" \"this is good to see,\" he says of a purity, of a fair\nthing. It needs not to speak of the impurity, of the ugliness. Left\nunmentioned, unforbidden, who knows how soon they might die out of men's\nlives, perhaps even from the earth's surface? Men hedging gardens have for\ncenturies set plants under that \"letter of law\" which \"killeth,\" until the\nvery word hedge has become a pain and an offence; and all the while there\nhave been standing in every wild country graceful walls of unhindered\nbrier and berry, to which the apostles of beauty have been silently\npointing. By degrees gardeners have learned something. The best of them\nnow call themselves \"landscape gardeners;\" and that is a concession, if it\nmeans, as I suppose it does, that they will try to copy Nature's\nlandscapes in their enclosures. I have seen also of late that on rich\nmen's estates tangled growths of native bushes are being more let alone,\nand hedges seem to have had some of the weights and harness taken off of\nthem.\n\nThis is but one little matter among millions with which the Apostle of\nBeauty has to do; but it serves for instance of the first requisite he\ndemands, which is freedom. \"Let use take care of itself.\" \"It will,\" he\nsays. \"There is no beauty without freedom.\"\n\nNothing is too high for him, nothing too low or small. To speak more\ntruly, in his eyes there is no small, no low. From a philanthropy down to\na gown, one catholic necessity, one catholic principle; gowns can be\nbenefactions or injuries; philanthropies can be well or ill clad.\n\nHe has a ministry of co-workers,--men, women, and guileless little\nchildren. Many of them serve him without knowing him by name. Some who\nserve him best, who spread his creeds most widely, who teach them most\neloquently, die without dreaming that they have been missionaries to\nGentiles. Others there are who call him \"Lord, Lord,\" build temples to him\nand teach in them, who never know him. These are they who give their goods\nto the poor, their bodies to be burned; but are each day ungracious,\nunloving, hard, cruel to men and women about them. These are they also who\nmake bad statues, bad pictures, invent frightful fashions of things to be\nworn, and make the houses and the rooms in which they live hideous with\nunsightly adornments. The centuries fight such,--now with a Titian, a\nMichel Angelo; now with a great philanthropist, who is also peaceable and\neasy to be entreated; now with a Florence Nightingale, knowing no sect;\nnow with a little child by a roadside, holding up a marigold in the sun;\nnow with a sweet-faced old woman, dying gracefully in some almshouse. Who\nhas not heard voice from such apostles?\n\nTo-day my nearest, most eloquent apostle of beauty is a poor shoemaker,\nwho lives in the house where I lodge. How poor he must be I dare not even\ntry to understand. He has six children: the oldest not more than thirteen,\nthe third a deaf-mute, the baby puny and ill,--sure, I think (and hope),\nto die soon.\n\nThey live in two rooms, on the ground-floor. His shop is the right-hand\ncorner of the front room; the rest is bedroom and sitting-room; behind are\nthe bedroom and kitchen. I have never seen so much as I might of their way\nof living; for I stand before his window with more reverent fear of\nintruding by a look than I should have at the door of a king's chamber. A\nnarrow rough ledge added to the window-sill is his bench. Behind this he\nsits from six in the morning till seven at night, bent over, sewing slowly\nand painfully on the coarsest shoes. His face looks old enough for sixty\nyears; but he cannot be so old. Yet he wears glasses and walks feebly; he\nhas probably never had in any one day of his life enough to eat. But I do\nnot know any man, and I know only one woman, who has such a look of\nradiant good-cheer and content as has this poor shoemaker, Anton Grasl.\n\nIn his window are coarse wooden boxes, in which are growing the common\nmallows. They are just now in full bloom,--row upon row of gay-striped\npurple and white bells. The window looks to the east, and is never shut.\nWhen I go out to my breakfast the sun is streaming in on the flowers and\nAnton's face. He looks up, smiles, bows low, and says, \"Good-day, good my\nlady,\" sometimes holding the mallow-stalks back with one hand, to see me\nmore plainly. I feel as if the day and I had had benediction. It is always\na better day because Anton has said it is good; and I am a better woman\nfor sight of his godly contentment. Almost every day he has beside the\nmallows in the boxes a white mug with flowers in it,--nasturtiums,\nperhaps, or a few pinks. This he sets carefully in shade of the thickest\nmallows; and this I have often seen him hold down tenderly, for the little\nones to see and to smell.\n\nWhen I come home in the evenings, between eight and nine o'clock, Anton\nis always sifting in front of the door, resting his head against the wall.\nThis is his recreation, his one blessed hour of out-door air and rest. He\nstands with his cap in his hand while I pass, and his face shines as if\nall the concentrated enjoyment of my walk in the woods had descended upon\nhim in my first look. If I give him a bunch of ferns to add to his\nnasturtiums and pinks, he is so grateful and delighted that I have to go\ninto the house quickly for fear I shall cry. Whenever I am coming back\nfrom a drive, I begin to think, long before I reach the house, how glad\nAnton will look when he sees the carriage stop. I am as sure as if I had\nomniscient sight into the depths of his good heart that he has distinct\nand unenvious joy in every pleasure that he sees other people taking.\n\nNever have I, heard one angry or hasty word, one petulant or weary cry\nfrom the rooms in which this father and mother and six children are\nstruggling to live. All day long the barefooted and ragged little ones\nplay under my south windows, and do not quarrel. I amuse myself by\ndropping grapes or plums on their heads, and then watching them at their\nfeast; never have I seen them dispute or struggle in the division. Once I\npurposely threw a large bunch of grapes to the poor little mute, and only\na few plums to the others. I am sorry to say that voiceless Carl ate all\nhis grapes himself; but not a selfish or discontented look could I see on\nthe faces of the others,--they all smiled and beamed up at me like suns.\n\nIt is Anton who creates and sustains this rare atmosphere. The wife is\nonly a common and stupid woman; he is educating her, as he is the\nchildren. She is very thin and worn and hungry-looking, but always smiles.\nBeing Anton's wife, she could not do otherwise.\n\nSometimes I see people passing the house, who give a careless glance of\ncontemptuous pity at Anton's window of mallows and nasturtiums. Then I\nremember that an apostle wrote:--\n\n\"There are, it may be, so many kinds of voices in the world, and none of\nthem is without signification.\n\n\"Therefore, if I know not the meaning of the voice, I shall be unto him\nthat speaketh a barbarian, and he that speaketh shall be a barbarian unto\nme.\"\n\nAnd I long to call after them, as they go groping their way down the\nbeautiful street,--\n\n\"Oh, ye barbarians, blind and deaf! How dare you think you can pity Anton?\nHis soul would melt in compassion for you, if he were able to comprehend\nthat lives could be so poor as yours. He is the rich man, and you are\npoor. Eating only the husks on which you feed, he would starve to death.\"\n\n\n\n\nEnglish Lodging-Houses.\n\n\n\nSomebody who has written stories (is it Dickens?) has given us very wrong\nideas of the English lodging-house. What good American does not go into\nLondon with the distinct impression that, whatever else he does or does\nnot do, he will upon no account live in lodgings? That he will even be\ncontent with the comfortless coffee-room of a second-rate hotel, and\nfraternize with commercial travellers from all quarters of the globe,\nrather than come into relations with that mixture of vulgarity and\ndishonesty, the lodging-house keeper?\n\nIt was with more than such misgiving that I first crossed the threshold of\nMrs. ----'s house in Bedford Place, Bloomsbury. At this distance I smile\nto remember how welcome would have been any alternative rather than the\nremaining under her roof for a month; how persistently for several days I\ndoubted and resisted the evidence of all my senses, and set myself at work\nto find the discomforts and shortcomings which I believed must belong to\nthat mode of life. To confess the stupidity and obstinacy of my ignorance\nis small reparation, and would be little worth while, except for the hope\nthat my account of the comfort and economy in living on the English\nlodging-house system may be a seed dropped in due season, which shall\nspring up sooner or later in the introduction of a similar system in\nAmerica. The gain which it would be to great numbers of our men and women\nwho must live on small incomes cannot be estimated. It seems hardly too\nmuch to say that in the course of one generation it might work in the\naverage public health a change which would be shown in statistics, and rid\nus of the stigma of a \"national disease\" of dyspepsia. For the men and\nwomen whose sufferings and ill-health have made of our name a by-word\namong the nations are not, as many suppose, the rich men and women,\ntempted by their riches to over-indulgence of their stomachs, and paying\nin their dyspepsia simply the fair price of their folly; they are the\nmoderately poor men and women, who are paying cruel penalty for not having\nbeen richer,--not having been rich enough to avoid the poisons which are\ncooked and served in American restaurants and in the poorer class of\nAmerican homes.\n\nMrs. ----'s lodging-house was not, so far as I know, any better than the\naverage lodging-houses of its grade. It was well situated, well furnished,\nwell kept, and its scale of prices was moderate. For instance, the rent of\na pleasant parlor and bedroom on the second floor was thirty-four\nshillings a week, including fire and gas,--$8.50, gold. Then there was a\ncharge of two shillings a week for the use of the kitchen-fire, and three\nshillings a week for service; and these were the only charges in addition\nto the rent. Thus for $9.75 a week one had all the comforts that can be\nhad in housekeeping, so far as room and service are concerned. There were\nfour good servants,--cook, scullery maid, and two housemaids. Oh, the\npleasant voices and gentle fashions of behavior of those housemaids! They\nwere slow, it must be owned; but their results were admirable. In spite of\nLondon smoke and grime, Mrs. ----'s floors and windows were clean; the\ngrates shone every morning like mirrors, and the glass and silver were\nbright. Each morning the smiling cook came up to take our orders for the\nmeals of the day; each day the grocer and the baker and the butcher\nstopped at the door and left the sugar for the \"first floor front,\" the\nbeef for the \"drawing-room,\" and so on. The smallest article which could\nbe required in housekeeping was not overlooked. The groceries of the\ndifferent floors never got mixed, though how this separateness of stores\nwas accomplished will for ever remain a mystery to me; but that it was\nsuccessfully accomplished the smallness of our bill was the best of\nproof,--unless, indeed, as we were sometimes almost afraid, we did now and\nthen eat up Dr. A----'s cheese, or drink the milk belonging to the B's\nbelow us. We were a party of four; our fare was of the plain, substantial\nsort, but of sufficient variety and abundance; and yet our living never\ncost us, including rent, service, fires, and food, over $60 a week. If we\nhad chosen to practise closer economies, we might have lived on less.\nCompare for one instant the comfort of such an arrangement as this, which\nreally gave us every possible advantage to be secured by housekeeping, and\nwith almost none of the trouble, with any boarding or lodging possible in\nNew York. We had two parlors and two bedrooms; our meals served promptly\nand neatly, in our own parlor. The same amount of room, and service, and\nsuch a table, for four people, cannot be had in New York for less than\n$150 or $200 a week; in fact, they cannot be had in New York for any sum\nof money. The quiet respectfulness of behavior and faithful interest in\nwork of English servants on English soil are not to be found elsewhere. We\nafterward lived for some weeks in another lodging-house in Great Malvern,\nWorcestershire, at about the same price per week. This house was even\nbetter than the London one in some respects. The system was precisely the\nsame; but the cooking was almost faultless, and the table appointments\nwere more than satisfactory,--they were tasteful. The china was a\npleasure, and there were silver and linen and glass which one would be\nglad to have in one's own home.\n\nIt may be asked, and not unnaturally, how does this lodging-house system\nwork for those who keep the houses? Can it be possible that all this\ncomfort and economy for lodgers are compatible with profits for landlords?\nI can judge only from the results in these two cases which came under my\nown observation. In each of these cases the family who kept the house\nlived comfortably and pleasantly in their own apartment, which was, in the\nLondon house, almost as good a suite of rooms as any which they rented.\nThey certainly had far more apparent quiet, comfort, and privacy than is\ncommonly seen in the arrangements of the keepers of average\nboarding-houses. In the Malvern house, one whole floor, which was less\npleasant than the others, but still comfortable and well furnished, was\noccupied by the family. There were three little boys, under ten years of\nage, who had their nursery governess, said lessons to her regularly, and\nwere led out decorously to walk by her at appointed seasons, like all the\nrest of good little English boys in well-regulated families; and yet the\nmother of these children came to the door of our parlor each morning, with\nthe respectful air of an old family housekeeper, to ask what we would have\nfor dinner, and was careful and exact in buying \"three penn'orth\" of herbs\nat a time for us, to season our soup. I ought to mention that in both\nthese places we made the greater part of our purchases ourselves, having\nweekly bills sent in from the shops, and in our names, exactly as if we\nwere living in our own house. All honest lodging-house keepers, we were\ntold, preferred this method, as leaving no opening for any unjust\nsuspicions of their fairness in providing. But, if one chooses to be as\nabsolutely free from trouble as in boarding, the marketing can all be done\nby the family, and the bills still made out in the lodgers' names. I have\nbeen thus minute in my details because I think there may be many to whom\nthis system of living is as unknown as it was to me; and I cannot but hope\nthat it may yet be introduced in America.\n\n\n\n\nWet the Clay.\n\n\nOnce I stood in Miss Hosmer's studio, looking at a statue which she was\nmodelling of the ex-queen of Naples. Face to face with the clay model, I\nalways feel the artist's creative power far more than when I am looking at\nthe immovable marble.\n\nA touch here--there--and all is changed. Perhaps, under my eyes, in the\ntwinkling of an eye, one trait springs into life and another disappears.\n\nThe queen, who is a very beautiful woman, was represented in Miss Hosmer's\nstatue as standing, wearing the picturesque cloak that she wore during\nthose hard days of garrison life at Gaeta, when she showed herself so\nbrave and strong that the world said if she, instead of that very stupid\nyoung man her husband, had been king, the throne need not have been lost.\nThe very cloak, made of light cloth showily faced with scarlet, was draped\nover a lay figure in one corner of the room. In the statue the folds of\ndrapery over the right arm were entirely disarranged, simply rough clay.\nThe day before they had been apparently finished; but that morning Miss\nHosmer had, as she laughingly told us, \"pulled it all to pieces again.\"\n\nAs she said this, she took up a large syringe and showered the statue\nfrom head to foot with water, till it dripped and shone as if it had been\njust plunged into a bath. Now it was in condition to be moulded. Many\ntimes a day this process must be repeated, or the clay becomes so dry and\nhard that it cannot be worked.\n\nI had known this before; but never did I so realize the significant\nsymbolism of the act as when I looked at this lifeless yet lifelike thing,\nto be made into the beauty of a woman, called by her name, and cherished\nafter her death,--and saw that only through this chrysalis of the clay, so\ncared for, moistened, and moulded, could the marble obtain its soul.\n\nAnd, as all things I see in life seem to me to have a voice either for or\nof children, so did this instantly suggest to me that most of the failures\nof mothers come from their not keeping the clay wet.\n\nThe slightest touch tells on the clay when it is soft and moist, and can\nproduce just the effect which is desired; but when the clay is too dry it\nwill not yield, and often it breaks and crumbles beneath the unskilful\nhand. How perfect the analogy between these two results, and the two\natmospheres which one often sees in the space of one half-hour in the\nmanagement of the same child! One person can win from it instantly a\ngentle obedience: that person's smile is a reward, that person's\ndispleasure is a grief it cannot bear, that person's opinions have utmost\nweight with it, that person's presence is a controlling and subduing\ninfluence. Another, alas! the mother, produces such an opposite effect\nthat it is hard to believe the child can be the same child. Her simplest\ncommand is met by antagonism or sullen compliance; her pleasure and\ndispleasure are plainly of no account to the child, and its great desire\nis to get out of her presence.\n\nWhat shape will she make of that child's soul? She does not wet the clay.\nShe does not stop to consider before each command whether it be wholly\njust, whether it be the best time to make it, and whether she can explain\nits necessity. Oh! the sweet reasonableness of children when disagreeable\nnecessities are explained to them, instead of being enforced as arbitrary\ntyrannies! She does not make them so feel that she shares all their\nsorrows and pleasures that they cannot help being in turn glad when she is\nglad, and sorry when she is sorry. She does not so take them into constant\ncompanionship in her interests, each day,--the books, the papers she\nreads, the things she sees,--that they learn to hold her as the\nrepresentative of much more than nursery discipline, clothes, and bread\nand butter. She does not kiss them often enough, put her arms around them,\nwarm, soften, bathe them in the ineffable sunshine of loving ways. \"I\ncan't imagine why children are so much better with you than with me,\"\nexclaims such a mother. No, she cannot imagine; and that is the trouble.\nIf she could, all would be righted. It is quite probable that she is a far\nmore anxious, self-sacrificing, hard-working mother than the neighbor,\nwhose children are rosy and frolicking and affectionate and obedient;\nwhile hers are pale and fretful and selfish and sullen.\n\nShe is all the time working, working, with endless activity, on hard, dry\nclay; and the neighbor, who, perhaps half-unconsciously, keeps the clay\nwet, is with one-half the labor modelling sweet creatures of Nature's own\nloveliest shapes.\n\nThen she says, this poor, tired mother, discouraged because her children\ntell lies, and irritated because they seem to her thankless, \"After all,\nchildren are pretty much alike, I suppose. I believe most children tell\nlies when they are little; and they never realize until they are grown up\nwhat parents do for them.\"\n\nHere again I find a similitude among the artists who paint or model.\nStudios are full of such caricatures, and the hard-working, honest souls\nwho have made them believe that they are true reproductions of nature and\nlife.\n\n\"See my cherub. Are not all cherubs such as he?\" and \"Behold these trees\nand this water; and how the sun glowed on the day when I walked there!\"\nand all the while the cherub is like a paper doll, and the trees and the\nwater never had any likeness to any thing that is in this beautiful earth.\nBut, after all, this similitude is short and paltry, for it is of\ncomparatively small moment that so many men and women spend their lives in\nmaking bad cherubs in marble, and hideous landscapes in oil. It is\nindustry, and it keeps them in bread; in butter, too, if their cherubs and\ntrees are very bad. But, when it is a human being that is to be moulded,\nhow do we dare, even with all the help which we can ask and find in earth\nand in heaven, to shape it by our touch!\n\nClay in the hands of the potter is not more plastic than is the little\nchild's soul in the hands of those who tend it. Alas! how many shapeless,\nhow many ill-formed, how many broken do we see! Who does not believe that\nthe image of God could have been beautiful on all? Sooner or later it will\nbe, thank Christ! But what a pity, what a loss, not to have had the sweet\nblessedness of being even here fellow-workers with him in this glorious\nmodelling for eternity!\n\n\n\n\nThe King's Friend.\n\n\n\nWe are a gay party, summering among the hills. New-comers into the little\nboarding-house where we, by reason of prior possession, hold a kind of\nsway are apt to fare hardly at our hands unless they come up to our\nstandard. We are not exacting in the matter of clothes; we are liberal on\ncreeds; but we have our shibboleths. And, though we do not drown unlucky\nEphraimites, whose tongues make bad work with S's, I fear we are not quite\nkind to them; they never stay long, and so we go on having it much our own\nway.\n\nWeek before last a man appeared at dinner, of whom our good little\nlandlady said, deprecatingly, that he would stay only a few days. She knew\nby instinct that his presence would not be agreeable to us. He was not in\nthe least an intrusive person,--on the contrary, there was a sort of mute\nappeal to our humanity in the very extent of his quiet inoffensiveness;\nbut his whole atmosphere was utterly uninteresting. He was untrained in\nmanner, awkwardly ill at ease in the table routine; and, altogether, it\nwas so uncomfortable to make any attempt to include him in our circle that\nin a few days he was ignored by every one, to a degree which was neither\ncourteous nor Christian.\n\nIn all families there is a leader. Ours is a charming and brilliant\nmarried woman, whose ready wit and never-failing spirits make her the best\nof centres for a country party of pleasure-seekers. Her keen sense of\nhumor had not been able entirely to spare this unfortunate man, whose\nattitudes and movements were certainly at times almost irresistible.\n\nBut one morning such a change was apparent in her manner toward him that\nwe all looked up in surprise. No more gracious and gentle greeting could\nshe have given him if he had been a prince of royal line. Our astonishment\nalmost passed bounds when we heard her continue with a kindly inquiry\nafter his health, and, undeterred by his evident readiness to launch into\ndetailed symptoms, listen to him with the most respectful attention. Under\nthe influence of this new and sweet recognition his plain and common face\nkindled into something almost manly and individual. He had never before\nbeen so spoken to by a well-bred and beautiful woman.\n\nWe were sobered, in spite of ourselves, by an indefinable something in her\nmanner; and it was with subdued whispers that we crowded around her on the\npiazza, and begged to know what it all meant. It was a rare thing to see\nMrs. ---- hesitate for a reply. The color rose in her face, and, with a\nhalf-nervous attempt at a smile, she finally said, \"Well, girls, I suppose\nyou will all laugh at me; but the truth is, I heard that man say his\nprayers this morning. You know his room is next to mine, and there is a\ngreat crack in the door. I heard him praying, this morning, for ten\nminutes, just before breakfast; and I never heard such tones in my life. I\ndon't pretend to be religious; but I must own it was a wonderful thing to\nhear a man talking with God as he did. And when I saw him at table, I felt\nas if I were looking in the face of some one who had just come out of the\npresence of the King of kings, and had the very air of heaven about him. I\ncan't help what the rest of you do or say; _I_ shall always have the same\nfeeling whenever I see him.\"\n\nThere was a magnetic earnestness in her tone and look, which we all felt,\nand which some of us will never forget.\n\nDuring the few remaining days of his stay with us, that untutored,\nuninteresting, stupid man knew no lack of friendly courtesy at our hands.\nWe were the better for his homely presence; unawares, he ministered unto\nus. When we knew that he came directly from speaking to the Master to\nspeak to us, we felt that he was greater than we, and we remembered that\nit is written, \"If any man serve me, him will my Father honor.\"\n\n\n\n\nLearning to Speak.\n\n\n\nWith what breathless interest we listen for the baby's first word! What a\nnew bond is at once and for ever established between its soul and ours by\nthis mysterious, inexplicable, almost incredible fact! That is the use of\nthe word. That is its only use, so far as mere gratification of the ear\ngoes. Many other sounds are more pleasurable,--the baby's laugh, for\ninstance, or its inarticulate murmurs of content or sleepiness.\n\nBut the word is a revelation, a sacred sign. Now we shall know what our\nbeloved one wants; now we shall know when and why the dear heart sorrows\nor is glad. How reassured we feel, how confident! Now we cannot make\nmistakes; we shall do all for the best; we can give happiness; we can\ncommunicate wisdom; relation is established; the perplexing gulf of\nsilence is bridged. The baby speaks!\n\nBut it is not of the baby's learning to speak that we propose to write\nhere. All babies learn to speak; or, if they do not, we know that it means\na terrible visitation,--a calamity rare, thank God! but bitter almost\nbeyond parents' strength to bear.\n\nBut why, having once learned to speak, does the baby leave off speaking\nwhen it becomes a man or a woman? Many of our men and women to-day need,\nalmost as much as when they were twenty-four months old, to learn to\nspeak. We do not mean learning to speak in public. We do not mean even\nlearning to speak well,--to pronounce words clearly and accurately; though\nthere is need enough of that in this land! But that is not the need at\nwhich we are aiming now. We mean something so much simpler, so much\nfurther back, that we hardly know how to say it in words which shall be\nsimple enough and also sufficiently strong. We mean learning to speak at\nall! In spite of all which satirical writers have said and say of the\nloquacious egotism, the questioning curiosity of our people, it is true\nto-day that the average American is a reticent, taciturn, speechless\ncreature, who, for his own sake, and still more for the sake of all who\nlove him, needs, more than he needs any thing else under heaven, to learn\nto speak.\n\nLook at our silent railway and horse-cars, steamboat-cabins, hotel-tables,\nin short, all our public places where people are thrown together\nincidentally, and where good-will and the habit of speaking combined would\ncreate an atmosphere of human vitality, quite unlike what we see now. But\nit is not of so much consequence, after all, whether people speak in these\npublic places or not. If they did, one very unpleasant phase of our\nnational life would be greatly changed for the better. But it is in our\nhomes that this speechlessness tells most fearfully,--on the breakfast and\ndinner and tea-tables, at which a silent father and mother sit down in\nhaste and gloom to feed their depressed children. This is especially true\nof men and women in the rural districts. They are tired; they have more\nwork to do in a year than it is easy to do. Their lives are\nmonotonous,--too much so for the best health of either mind or body. If\nthey dreamed how much this monotony could be broken and cheered by the\nconstant habit of talking with each other, they would grasp at the\nslightest chance of a conversation. Sometimes it almost seems as if\ncomplaints and antagonism were better than such stagnant quiet. But there\nneed not be complaint and antagonism; there is no home so poor, so remote\nfrom affairs, that each day does not bring and set ready, for family\nwelcome and discussion, beautiful sights and sounds, occasions for\nhelpfulness and gratitude, questions for decision, hopes, fears, regrets!\nThe elements of human life are the same for ever; any one heart holds in\nitself the whole, can give all things to another, can bear all things for\nanother; but no giving, no bearing, no, not even if it is the giving up of\na life, if it is done without free, full, loving interchange of speech, is\nhalf the blessing it might be.\n\nMany a wife goes down to her grave a dulled and dispirited woman simply\nbecause her good and faithful husband has lived by her side without\ntalking to her! There have been days when one word of praise, or one word\neven of simple good cheer, would have girded her up with new strength. She\ndid not know, very likely, what she needed, or that she needed any thing;\nbut she drooped.\n\nMany a child grows up a hard, unimpressionable, unloving man or woman\nsimply from the uncheered silence in which the first ten years of life\nwere passed. Very few fathers and mothers, even those who are fluent,\nperhaps, in society, habitually _talk_ with their children.\n\nIt is certain that this is one of the worst shortcomings of our homes.\nPerhaps no other single change would do so much to make them happier, and,\ntherefore, to make our communities better, as for men and women to learn\nto speak.\n\n\n\n\nPrivate Tyrants.\n\n\n\nWe recognize tyranny when it wears a crown and sits on an hereditary\nthrone. We sympathize with nations that overthrow the thrones, and in our\nsecret hearts we almost canonize individuals who slay the tyrants. From\nthe days of Ehud and Eglon down to those of Charlotte Corday and Marat,\nthe world has dealt tenderly with their names whose hands have been red\nwith the blood of oppressors. On moral grounds it would be hard to justify\nthis sentiment, murder being murder all the same, however great gain it\nmay be to this world to have the murdered man put out of it; but that\nthere is such a sentiment, instinctive and strong in the human soul, there\nis no denying. It is so instinctive and so strong that, if we watch\nourselves closely, we shall find it giving alarming shape sometimes to our\nsecret thoughts about our neighbors.\n\nHow many communities, how many households even, are without a tyrant? If\nwe could \"move for returns of suffering,\" as that tender and thoughtful\nman, Arthur Helps, says, we should find a far heavier aggregate of misery\ninflicted by unsuspected, unresisted tyrannies than by those which are\npatent to everybody, and sure to be overthrown sooner or later.\n\nAn exhaustive sermon on this subject should be set off in three divisions,\nas follows:--\n\n  PRIVATE TYRANTS.\n\n  _1st._ Number of--\n  _2d._ Nature of--\n  _3d._ Longevity of--\n\n_First_. Their number. They are not enumerated in any census. Not even the\nmost painstaking statistician has meddled with the topic. Fancy takes bold\nleaps at the very suggestion of such an estimate, and begins to think at\nonce of all things in the universe which are usually mentioned as beyond\nnumbering. Probably one good way of getting at a certain sort of result\nwould be to ask each person of one's acquaintance, \"Do you happen to know\na private tyrant?\"\n\nHow well we know beforehand the replies we should get from _some_ beloved\nmen and women,--that is, if they spoke the truth!\n\nBut they would not. That is the saddest thing about these private\ntyrannies. They are in many cases borne in such divine and uncomplaining\nsilence by their victims, perhaps for long years, the world never dreams\nthat they exist. But at last the fine, subtle writing, which no control,\nno patience, no will can thwart, becomes set on the man's or the woman's\nface, and tells the whole record. Who does not know such faces? Cheerful\nusually, even gay, brave, and ready with lines of smile; but in repose so\nmarked, so scarred with unutterable weariness and disappointment, that\ntears spring in the eyes and love in the hearts of all finely organized\npersons who meet them.\n\n_Secondly_. Nature of private tyrants. Here also the statistician has not\nentered. The field is vast; the analysis difficult.\n\nSelfishness is, of course, their leading characteristic; in fact, the very\nsum and substance of their natures. But selfishness is Protean. It has as\nmany shapes as there are minutes, and as many excuses and wraps of sheep's\nclothing as ever ravening wolf possessed.\n\nOne of its commonest pleas is that of weakness. Here it often is so\ninextricably mixed with genuine need and legitimate claim that one grows\nbewildered between sympathy and resentment. In this shape, however, it\ngets its cruelest dominion over strong and generous and tender people.\nThis kind of tyranny builds up and fortifies its bulwarks on and out of\nthe very virtues of its victims; it gains strength hourly from the very\nstrength of the strength to which it appeals; each slow and fatal\nencroachment never seems at first so much a thing required as a thing\noffered; but, like the slow sinking inch by inch of that great, beautiful\ncity of stone into the relentless Adriatic, so is the slow, sure going\ndown and loss of the freedom of a strong, beautiful soul, helpless in the\nomnipresent circumference of the selfish nature to which it is or believes\nitself bound.\n\nThat the exactions never or rarely take shape in words is, to the\nunbiassed looker-on, only an exasperating feature in their tyranny. While\nit saves the conscience of the tyrant,--if such tyrants have any,--it\nmakes doubly sure the success of their tyranny. And probably nothing short\nof revelation from Heaven, in shape of blinding light, would ever open\ntheir eyes to the fact that it is even more selfish to hold a generous\nspirit fettered hour by hour by a constant fear of giving pain than to\ncoerce or threaten or scold them into the desired behavior. Invalids, all\ninvalids, stand in deadly peril of becoming tyrants of this order. A\nchronic invalid who entirely escapes it must be so nearly saint or angel\nthat one instinctively feels as if their invalidism would soon end in the\nhealth of heaven. We know of one invalid woman, chained to her bed for\nlong years by an incurable disease, who has had the insight and strength\nto rise triumphant above this danger. Her constant wish and entreaty is\nthat her husband should go freely into all the work and the pleasure of\nlife. Whenever he leaves her, her farewell is not, \"How soon do you think\nyou shall come back? At what hour, or day, may I look for you?\" but, \"Now,\npray stay just as long as you enjoy it. If you hurry home one hour sooner\nfor the thought of me, I shall be wretched.\" It really seems almost as if\nthe longer he stayed away,--hours, days, weeks even,--the happier she\nwere. By this sweet and wise unselfishness she has succeeded in realizing\nthe whole blessedness of wifehood far more than most women who have\nhealth. But we doubt if any century sees more than one such woman as she\nis.\n\nAnother large class, next to that of invalids the most difficult to deal\nwith, is made up of people who are by nature or by habit uncomfortably\nsensitive or irritable. Who has not lived at one time or other in his life\nin daily contact with people of this sort,--persons whose outbreaks of\ntemper, or of wounded feeling still worse than temper, were as\nincalculable as meteoric showers? The suppressed atmosphere, the chronic\nstate of alarm and misgiving, in which the victims of this species of\ntyranny live are withering and exhausting to the stoutest hearts. They are\nalso hardening; perpetually having to wonder and watch how people will\n\"take\" things is apt sooner or later to result in indifference as to\nwhether they take them well or ill.\n\nBut to define all the shapes of private tyranny would require whole\nhistories; it is safe, however, to say that so far as any human being\nattempts to set up his own individual need or preference as law to\ndetermine the action of any other human being, in small matters or great,\nso far forth he is a tyrant. The limit of his tyranny may be narrowed by\nlack of power on his part, or of response on the part of his fellows; but\nits essence is as purely tyrannous as if he sat on a throne with an\nexecutioner within call.\n\n_Thirdly._ Longevity of private tyrants. We have not room under this head\nto do more--nor, if we had all room, could we do better--than to quote a\nshort paragraph from George Eliot's immortal Mrs. Poyser: \"It seems as if\nthem as aren't wanted here are th' only folks as aren't wanted i' th'\nother world.\"\n\n\n\n\nMargin.\n\n\n\nWide-margined pages please us at first sight. We do not stop to ask why.\nIt has passed into an accepted rule that all elegant books must have\nbroad, clear margins to their pages. We as much recognize such margins\namong the indications of promise in a book, as we do fineness of paper,\nclearness of type, and beauty of binding. All three of these last, even in\nperfection, could not make any book beautiful, or sightly, whose pages had\nbeen left narrow-margined and crowded. This is no arbitrary decree of\ncustom, no chance preference of an accredited authority. It would be\ndangerous to set limit to the power of fashion in any thing; and yet it\nseems almost safe to say that not even fashion itself can ever make a\nnarrow-margined page look other than shabby and mean. This inalienable\nright of the broad margin to our esteem is significant. It lies deep. The\nbroad margin means something which is not measured by inches, has nothing\nto do with fashions of shape. It means room for notes, queries, added by\nany man's hand who reads. Meaning this, it means also much more than\nthis,--far more than the mere letter of \"right of way.\" It is a fine\ncourtesy of recognition that no one page shall ever say the whole of its\nown message; be exhaustive, or ultimate, even of its own topic; determine\nor enforce its own opinion, to the shutting out of others. No matter if\nthe book live and grow old, without so much as an interrogation point or a\nline of enthusiastic admiration drawn in it by human hand, still the\ngracious import and suggestion of its broad white spaces are the same.\nEach thought invites its neighbor, stands fairly to right or left of its\nopponent, and wooes its friend.\n\nThinking on this, we presently discover that margin means a species of\nfreedom. No wonder the word, and the thing it represents, wherever we find\nthem, delight us.\n\nWe use the word constantly in senses which, speaking carelessly, we should\nhave called secondary and borrowed. Now we see that its application to\npages, or pictures, or decorations, and so forth, was the borrowed and\nsecondary use; and that primarily its meaning is spiritual.\n\nWe must have margin, or be uncomfortable in every thing in life. Our plan\nfor a day, for a week, for our lifetime, must have it,--margin for change\nof purpose, margin for interruption, margin for accident. Making no\nallowance for these, we are fettered, we are disturbed, we are thwarted.\n\nIs there a greater misery than to be hurried? If we leave ourselves proper\nmargin, we never need to be hurried. We always shall be, if we crowd our\nplan. People pant, groan, and complain as if hurry were a thing outside\nof themselves,--an enemy, a monster, a disease which overtook them, and\nagainst which they had no shelter. It is hard to be patient with such\nnonsense. Hurry is almost the only known misery which it is impossible to\nhave brought upon one by other people's fault.\n\nIf our plan of action for an hour or a day be so fatally spoiled by lack\nof margin, what shall we say of the mistake of the man who leaves himself\nno margin in matters of belief? No room for a wholesome, healthy doubt? No\nprovision for an added enlightenment? No calculation for the inevitable\nprogress of human knowledge? This is, in our eyes, the crying sin and\ndanger of elaborate creeds, rigid formulas of exact statement on difficult\nand hidden mysteries.\n\nThe man who is ready to give pledge that the opinion he will hold\nto-morrow will be precisely the opinion he holds to-day has either thought\nvery little, or to little purpose, or has resolved to quit thinking\naltogether.\n\n\n\n\nThe Fine Art of Smiling.\n\n\nSome theatrical experiments are being made at this time to show that all\npossible emotions and all shades and gradations of emotion can be\nexpressed by facial action, and that the method of so expressing them can\nbe reduced to a system, and taught in a given number of lessons. It seems\na matter of question whether one would be likely to make love or evince\nsorrow any more successfully by keeping in mind all the while the detailed\ncatalogue of his flexors and extensors, and contracting and relaxing No.\n1, 2, or 3, according to rule. The human memory is a treacherous thing,\nand what an enormous disaster would result from a very slight\nforgetfulness in such a nicely adjusted system! The fatal effect of\ndropping the superior maxillary when one intended to drop the inferior, or\nof applying nervous stimuli to the up track, instead of the down, can\neasily be conceived. Art is art, after all, be it ever so skilful and\ntriumphant, and science is only a slow reading of hieroglyphs. Nature sits\nhigh and serene above both, and smiles compassionately on their efforts\nto imitate and understand. And this brings us to what we have to say about\nsmiling. Do many people feel what a wonderful thing it is that each human\nbeing is born into the world with his own smile? Eyes, nose, mouth, may be\nmerely average commonplace features; may look, taken singly, very much\nlike anybody's else eyes, nose, or mouth. Let whoever doubts this try the\nsimple but endlessly amusing experiment of setting half a dozen people\nbehind a perforated curtain, and making them put their eyes at the holes.\nNot one eye in a hundred can be recognized, even by most familiar and\nloving friends. But study smiles; observe, even in the most casual way,\nthe variety one sees in a day, and it will soon be felt what subtle\nrevelation they make, what infinite individuality they possess.\n\nThe purely natural smile, however, is seldom seen in adults; and it is on\nthis point that we wish to dwell. Very early in life people find out that\na smile is a weapon, mighty to avail in all sorts of crises. Hence, we see\nthe treacherous smile of the wily; the patronizing smile of the pompous;\nthe obsequious smile of the flatterer; the cynical smile of the satirist.\nVery few of these have heard of Delsarte; but they outdo him on his own\ngrounds. Their smile is four-fifths of their social stock in trade. All\nsuch smiles are hideous. The gloomiest, blankest look which a human face\ncan wear is welcomer than a trained smile or a smile which, if it is not\nactually and consciously methodized by its perpetrator, has become, by\nlong repetition, so associated with tricks and falsities that it partakes\nof their quality.\n\nWhat, then, is the fine art of smiling?\n\nIf smiles may not be used for weapons or masks, of what use are they? That\nis the shape one would think the question took in most men's minds, if we\nmay judge by their behavior! There are but two legitimate purposes of the\nsmile; but two honest smiles. On all little children's faces such smiles\nare seen. Woe to us that we so soon waste and lose them!\n\nThe first use of the smile is to express affectionate good-will; the\nsecond, to express mirth.\n\nWhy do we not always smile whenever we meet the eye of a fellow-being?\nThat is the true, intended recognition which ought to pass from soul to\nsoul constantly. Little children, in simple communities, do this\ninvoluntarily, unconsciously. The honest-hearted German peasant does it.\nIt is like magical sunlight all through that simple land, the perpetual\ngreeting on the right hand and on the left, between strangers, as they\npass by each other, never without a smile. This, then, is \"the fine art of\nsmiling;\" like all fine art, true art, perfection of art, the simplest\nfollowing of Nature.\n\nNow and then one sees a face which has kept its smile pure and undefiled.\nIt is a woman's face usually; often a face which has trace of great sorrow\nall over it, till the smile breaks. Such a smile transfigures; such a\nsmile, if the artful but knew it, is the greatest weapon a face can have.\nSickness and age cannot turn its edge; hostility and distrust cannot\nwithstand its spell; little children know it, and smile back; even dumb\nanimals come closer, and look up for another.\n\nIf one were asked to sum up in one single rule what would most conduce to\nbeauty in the human face, one might say therefore, \"Never tamper with your\nsmile; never once use it for a purpose. Let it be on your face like the\nreflection of the sunlight on a lake. Affectionate good-will to all men\nmust be the sunlight, and your face is the lake. But, unlike the sunlight,\nyour good-will must be perpetual, and your face must never be overcast.\"\n\n\"What! smile perpetually?\" says the realist. \"How silly!\"\n\nYes, smile perpetually! Go to Delsarte here, and learn even from the\nmechanician of smiles that a smile can be indicated by a movement of\nmuscles so slight that neither instruments nor terms exist to measure or\nstate it; in fact, that the subtlest smile is little more than an added\nbrightness to the eye and a tremulousness of the mouth. One second of time\nis more than long enough for it; but eternity does not outlast it.\n\nIn that wonderfully wise and tender and poetic book, the \"Layman's\nBreviary,\" Leopold Schefer says,--\n\n  \"A smile suffices to smile death away;\n  And love defends thee e'en from wrath divine!\n  Then let what may befall thee,--still smile on!\n  And howe'er Death may rob thee,--still smile on!\n  Love never has to meet a bitter thing;\n  A paradise blooms around him who smiles.\"\n\n\n\n\nDeath-Bed Repentance.\n\n\nNot long since, a Congregationalist clergyman, who had been for forty-one\nyears in the ministry, said in my hearing, \"I have never, in all my\nexperience as a pastor, known of a single instance in which a repentance\non what was supposed to be a death-bed proved to be of any value whatever\nafter the person recovered.\"\n\nThis was strong language. I involuntarily exclaimed, \"Have you known many\nsuch cases?\"\n\n\"More than I dare to remember.\"\n\n\"And as many more, perhaps, where the person died.\"\n\n\"Yes, fully as many more.\"\n\n\"Then did not the bitter failure of these death-bed repentances to bear\nthe tests of time shake your confidence in their value under the tests of\neternity?\"\n\n\"It did,--it does,\" said the clergyman, with tears in his eyes. The\nconversation made a deep impression on my mind. It was strong evidence,\nfrom a quarter in which I least looked for it, of the utter paltriness and\ninsufficiency of fear as a motive when brought to bear upon decisions in\nspiritual things. There seem to be no words strong enough to stigmatize it\nin all other affairs except spiritual. All ages, all races, hold cowardice\nchief among vices; noble barbarians punished it with death. Even\ncivilization the most cautiously legislated for, does the same thing when\na soldier shows it \"in face of the enemy.\" Language, gathering itself up\nand concentrating its force to describe base behavior, can do no more than\ncall it \"cowardly.\" No instinct of all the blessed body-guard of instincts\nborn with us seems in the outset a stronger one than the instinct that to\nbe noble, one must be brave. Almost in the cradle the baby taunts or is\ntaunted by the accusation of being \"afraid.\" And the sting of the taunt\nlies in the probability of its truth. For in all men, alas! is born a\ncertain selfish weakness, to which fear can address itself. But how\nstrange does it appear that they who wish to inculcate noblest action,\nraise to most exalted spiritual conditions, should appeal to this lowest\nof motives to help them! We believe that there are many \"death-bed\nrepentances\" among hale, hearty sinners, who are approached by the same\nmethods, stimulated by the same considerations, frightened by the same\nconceptions of possible future suffering, which so often make the chambers\nof dying men dark with terrors. Fear is fear all the same whether its\ndread be for the next hour or the next century. The closer the enemy, the\nswifter it runs. That is all the difference. Let the enemy be surely and\nplainly removed, and in one instance it is no more,--is as if it had\nnever been. Every thought, word, and action based upon it has come to end.\n\nI was forcibly reminded of the conversation above quoted by some\nobservations I once had opportunity of making at a Methodist camp-meeting.\nMuch of the preaching and exhortation consisted simply and solely of\nurgent, impassioned appeals to the people to repent,--not because\nrepentance is right; not because God is love, and it is base not to love\nand obey him; not even because godliness is in itself great gain, and\nsinfulness is, even temporarily, loss and ruin; but because there is a\nwrath to come, which will inflict terrible and unending suffering on the\nsinner. He is to \"flee\" for his life from torments indescribable and\neternal; he is to call on Jesus, not to make him holy, but to save him\nfrom woe, to rescue him from frightful danger; all and every thing else is\nsubordinate to the one selfish idea of escaping future misery. The effect\nof these appeals, of these harrowing pictures, on some of the young men\nand women and children was almost too painful to be borne. They were in an\nhysterical condition,--weeping from sheer nervous terror. When the\nexcitement had reached its highest pitch, an elder rose and told the story\nof a wicked and impenitent man whom he had visited a few weeks before. The\nman had assented to all that he told him of the necessity of repentance;\nbut said that he was not at leisure that day to attend the class meeting.\nHe resolved and promised, however, to do so the next week. That very\nnight he was taken ill with a disease of the brain, and, after three days\nof unconsciousness, died. I would not like to quote here the emphasis of\napplication which was made of this story to the terrors of the weeping\nyoung people. Under its influence several were led, almost carried by\nforce, into the anxious seats.\n\nIt was hard not to fancy the gentle Christ looking down upon the scene\nwith a pain as great as that with which he yearned over Jerusalem. I\nlonged for some instant miracle to be wrought on the spot, by which there\nshould come floating down from the peaceful blue sky, through the sweet\ntree-tops, some of the loving and serene words of balm from his Gospel.\n\nTheologians may theorize, and good Christians may differ (they always\nwill) as to the existence, extent, and nature of future punishment; but\nthe fact remains indisputably clear that, whether there be less or more of\nit, whether it be of this sort or of that, fear of it is a base motive to\nappeal to, a false motive to act from, and a worthless motive to trust in.\nPerfect love does not know it; spiritual courage resents it; the true\nKingdom of Heaven is never taken by its \"violence.\"\n\nSomewhere (I wish I knew where, and I wish I knew from whose lips) I once\nfound this immortal sentence: \"A woman went through the streets of\nAlexandria, bearing a jar of water and a lighted torch, and crying aloud,\n'With this torch I will burn up Heaven, and with this water I will put out\nHell, that God may be loved for himself alone.'\"\n\n\n\n\nThe Correlation of Moral Forces.\n\n\n\nScience has dealt and delved patiently with the laws of matter. From\nCuvier to Huxley, we have a long line of clear-eyed workers. The\ngravitating force between all molecules; the law of continuity; the\ninertial force of matter; the sublime facts of organic co-ordination and\nadaptation,--all these are recognized, analyzed, recorded, taught. We have\nlearned that the true meaning of the word law, as applied to Nature, is\nnot decree, but formula of invariable order, immutable as the constitution\nof ultimate units of matter. Order is not imposed upon Nature. Order is\nresult. Physical science does not confuse these; it never mistakes nor\ndenies specific function, organic progression, cyclical growth. It knows\nthat there is no such thing as evasion, interruption, substitution.\n\nWhen shall we have a Cuvier, a Huxley, a Tyndall for the immaterial\nworld,--the realm of spiritual existence, moral growth? Nature is one. The\nthings which we have clumsily and impertinently dared to set off by\nthemselves, and label as \"immaterial,\" are no less truly component parts\nor members of the real frame of natural existence than are molecules of\noxygen or crystals of diamond. We believe in the existence of one as much\nas in the existence of the other. In fact, if there be balance of proof in\nfavor of either, it is not in favor of the existence of what we call\nmatter. All the known sensible qualities of matter are ultimately\nreferable to immaterial forces,--\"forces acting from points or volumes;\"\nand whether these points are occupied by positive substance, or \"matter\"\nas it is usually conceived, cannot to-day be proved. Yet many men have\nless absolute belief in a soul than in nitric acid; many men achieve\nlifetimes of triumph by the faithful use and application of Nature's\nlaw--that is, formula of uniform occurrence--in light, sound, motion,\nwhile they all the while outrage and violate and hinder every one of those\nsweet forces equally hers, equally immutable, called by such names as\ntruth, sobriety, chastity, courage, and good-will.\n\nThe suggestions of this train of thought are too numerous to be followed\nout in the limits of a single article. Take, for instance, the fact of the\nidentity of molecules, and look for its correlative truth in the spiritual\nuniverse. Shall we not thence learn charity, and the better understand the\nfull meaning of some who have said that vices were virtues in excess or\nrestraint? Taking the lists of each, and faithfully comparing them from\nbeginning to end, not one shall be found which will not confirm this\nseemingly paradoxical statement.\n\nTake the great fact of continuous progressive development which applies\nto all organisms, vegetable or animal, and see how it is one with the law\nthat \"the holy shall be holy still, the wicked shall be wicked still.\"\n\nDare we think what would be the formula in statement of spiritual life\nwhich would be correlative to the \"law of continuity\"? Having dared to\nthink, then shall we use the expression \"little sins,\" or doubt the\nterrible absoluteness of exactitude with which \"every idle word which men\nspeak\" shall enter upon eternity of reckoning.\n\nOn the other hand, looking at all existences as organisms, shall we be\ndisturbed at seeming failure?--long periods of apparent inactivity? Shall\nwe believe, for instance, that Christ's great church can be really\nhindered in its appropriate cycle of progressive change and adaptation?\nThat any true membership of this organic body can be formed or annulled by\nmere human interference? That the lopping or burning of branches of the\ntree, even the uprooting and burning of the tree itself, this year, next\nyear, nay, for hundreds of years, shall have power to annihilate or even\ndefer the ultimate organic result?\n\nThe soul of man is not outcast from this glory, this freedom, this safety\nof law. We speak as if we might break it, evade it; we forget it; we deny\nit: but it never forgets us, it never refuses us a morsel of our estate.\nIn spite of us, it protects our growth, makes sure of our development. In\nspite of us, it takes us whithersoever we tend, and not whithersoever we\nlike; in spite of us, it sometimes saves what we have carelessly perilled,\nand always destroys what we wilfully throw away.\n\n\n\n\nA Simple Bill of Fare for a Christmas Dinner.\n\n\nAll good recipe-books give bills of fare for different occasions, bills of\nfare for grand dinners, bills of fare for little dinners; dinners to cost\nso much per head; dinners \"which can be easily prepared with one servant,\"\nand so on. They give bills of fare for one week; bills of fare for each\nday in a month, to avoid too great monotony in diet. There are bills of\nfare for dyspeptics; bills of fare for consumptives; bills of fare for fat\npeople, and bills of fare for thin; and bills of fare for hospitals,\nasylums, and prisons, as well as for gentlemen's houses. But among them\nall, we never saw the one which we give below. It has never been printed\nin any book; but it has been used in families. We are not drawing on our\nimagination for its items. We have sat at such dinners; we have helped\nprepare such dinners; we believe in such dinners; they are within\neverybody's means. In fact, the most marvellous thing about this bill of\nfare is that the dinner does not cost a cent. Ho! all ye that are hungry\nand thirsty, and would like so cheap a Christmas dinner, listen to this\n\n\nBILL OF FARE FOR A CHRISTMAS DINNER.\n\n_First Course._.--GLADNESS.\n\nThis must be served hot. No two housekeepers make it alike; no fixed rule\ncan be given for it. It depends, like so many of the best things, chiefly\non memory; but, strangely enough, it depends quite as much on proper\nforgetting as on proper remembering. Worries must be forgotten. Troubles\nmust be forgotten. Yes, even sorrow itself must be denied and shut out.\nPerhaps this is not quite possible. Ah! we all have seen Christmas days on\nwhich sorrow would not leave our hearts nor our houses. But even sorrow\ncan be compelled to look away from its sorrowing for a festival hour which\nis so solemnly joyous as Christ's Birthday. Memory can be filled full of\nother things to be remembered. No soul is entirely destitute of blessings,\nabsolutely without comfort. Perhaps we have but one. Very well; we can\nthink steadily of that one, if we try. But the probability is that we have\nmore than we can count. No man has yet numbered the blessings, the\nmercies, the joys of God. We are all richer than we think; and if we once\nset ourselves to reckoning up the things of which we are glad, we shall be\nastonished at their number.\n\nGladness, then, is the first item, the first course on our bill of fare\nfor a Christmas dinner.\n\n_Entr\u00e9es_.--LOVE garnished with Smiles.\n\nGENTLENESS, with sweet-wine sauce of Laughter.\n\nGRACIOUS SPEECH, cooked with any fine, savory herbs, such as Drollery,\nwhich is always in season, or Pleasant Reminiscence, which no one need be\nwithout, as it keeps for years, sealed or unsealed.\n\n_Second Course_.--HOSPITALITY.\n\nThe precise form of this also depends on individual preferences. We are\nnot undertaking here to give exact recipes, only a bill of fare.\n\nIn some houses Hospitality is brought on surrounded with Relatives. This\nis very well. In others, it is dished up with Dignitaries of all sorts;\nmen and women of position and estate for whom the host has special likings\nor uses. This gives a fine effect to the eye, but cools quickly, and is\nnot in the long-run satisfying.\n\nIn a third class, best of all, it is served in simple shapes, but with a\ngreat variety of Unfortunate Persons,--such as lonely people from\nlodging-houses, poor people of all grades, widows and childless in their\naffliction. This is the kind most preferred; in fact, never abandoned by\nthose who have tried it.\n\n_For Dessert_.--MIRTH, in glasses.\n\nGRATITUDE and FAITH beaten together and piled up in snowy shapes. These\nwill look light if run over night in the moulds of Solid Trust and\nPatience.\n\nA dish of the bonbons Good Cheer and Kindliness with every-day mottoes;\nKnots and Reasons in shape of Puzzles and Answers; the whole ornamented\nwith Apples of Gold in Pictures of Silver, of the kind mentioned in the\nBook of Proverbs.\n\nThis is a short and simple bill of fare. There is not a costly thing in\nit; not a thing which cannot be procured without difficulty.\n\nIf meat is desired, it can be added. That is another excellence about our\nbill of fare. It has nothing in it which makes it incongruous with the\nrichest or the plainest tables. It is not overcrowded by the addition of\nroast goose and plum-pudding; it is not harmed by the addition of herring\nand potatoes. Nay, it can give flavor and richness to broken bits of stale\nbread served on a doorstep and eaten by beggars.\n\nWe might say much more about this bill of fare. We might, perhaps, confess\nthat it has an element of the supernatural; that its origin is lost in\nobscurity; that, although, as we said, it has never been printed before,\nit has been known in all ages; that the martyrs feasted upon it; that\ngenerations of the poor, called blessed by Christ, have laid out banquets\nby it; that exiles and prisoners have lived on it; and the despised and\nforsaken and rejected in all countries have tasted it. It is also true\nthat when any great king ate well and throve on his dinner, it was by the\nsame magic food. The young and the free and the glad, and all rich men in\ncostly houses, even they have not been well fed without it.\n\nAnd though we have called it a Bill of Fare for a Christmas Dinner, that\nis only that men's eyes may be caught by its name, and that they, thinking\nit a specialty for festival, may learn and understand its secret, and\nhenceforth, laying all their dinners according to its magic order, may\n\"eat unto the Lord.\"\n\n\n\n\nChildren's Parties.\n\n\n\"From six till half-past eleven.\"\n\n\"German at seven, precisely.\"\n\nThese were the terms of an invitation which we saw last week. It was sent\nto forty children, between the ages of ten and sixteen.\n\n\"Will you allow your children to stay at this party until half-past\neleven?\" we said to a mother whose children were invited. \"What can I do?\"\nshe replied. \"If I send the carriage for them at half-past ten, the\nchances are that they will not be allowed to come away. It is impossible\nto break up a set. And as for that matter, half-past ten is two hours and\na half past their bed-time; they might as well stay an hour longer. I wish\nnobody would ever ask my children to a party. I cannot keep them at home,\nif they are asked. Of course, I _might_; but I have not the moral courage\nto see them so unhappy. All the other children go; and what can I do?\"\n\nThis is a tender, loving mother, whose sweet, gentle, natural methods with\nher children have made them sweet, gentle, natural little girls, whom it\nis a delight to know. But \"what can she do?\" The question is by no means\none which can be readily answered. It is very easy for off-hand severity,\nsweeping condemnation, to say, \"Do! Why, nothing is plainer. Keep her\nchildren away from such places. Never let them go to any parties which\nwill last later than nine o'clock.\" This is the same thing as saying,\n\"Never let them go to parties at all.\" There are no parties which break up\nat nine o'clock; that is, there are not in our cities. We hope there are\nsuch parties still in country towns and villages,--such parties as we\nremember to this day with a vividness which no social enjoyments since\nthen have dimmed; Saturday-afternoon parties,--_matin\u00e9es_ they would have\nbeen called if the village people had known enough; parties which began at\nthree in the afternoon and ended in the early dusk, while little ones\ncould see their way home; parties at which there was no \"German,\" only the\nsimplest of dancing, if any, and much more of blind-man's-buff; parties at\nwhich \"mottoes\" in sugar horns were the luxurious novelty, caraway cookies\nthe staple, and lemonade the only drink besides pure water. Fancy offering\nto the creature called child in cities to-day, lemonade and a caraway\ncooky and a few pink sugar horns and some walnuts and raisins to carry\nhome in its pocket! One blushes at thought of the scornful contempt with\nwhich such simples would be received,--we mean rejected!\n\nFrom the party whose invitation we have quoted above the little girls came\nhome at midnight, radiant, flushed, joyous, looking in their floating\nwhite muslin dresses like fairies, their hands loaded with bouquets of\nhot-house flowers and dainty little \"favors\" from the German. At eleven\nthey had had for supper champagne and chicken salad, and all the other\nunwholesome abominations which are set out and eaten in American evening\nentertainments.\n\nNext morning there were no languid eyes, pale cheeks. Each little face was\neager, bright, rosy, though the excited brain had had only five or six\nhours of sleep.\n\n\"If they only would feel tired the next day, that would be something of an\nargument to bring up with them,\" said the poor mother. \"But they always\ndeclare that they feel better than ever.\"\n\nAnd so they do. But the \"better\" is only a deceitful sham, kept up by\nexcited and overwrought nerves,--the same thing that we see over and over\nand over again in all lives which are temporarily kindled and stimulated\nby excitement of any kind.\n\nThis is the worst thing, this is the most fatal thing in all our\nmismanagements and perversions of the physical life of our children. Their\nbeautiful elasticity and strength rebound instantly to an apparently\nuninjured fulness; and so we go on, undermining, undermining at point\nafter point, until suddenly some day there comes a tragedy, a catastrophe,\nfor which we are as unprepared as if we had been working to avert, instead\nof to hasten it. Who shall say when our boys die at eighteen, twenty,\ntwenty-two, our girls either in their girlhood or in the first strain of\ntheir womanhood,--who shall say that they might not have passed safely\nthrough the dangers, had no vital force been unnecessarily wasted in their\nchildhood, their infancy?\n\nEvery hour that a child sleeps is just so much investment of physical\ncapital for years to come. Every hour after dark that a child is awake is\njust so much capital withdrawn. Every hour that a child lives a quiet,\ntranquil, joyous life of such sort as kittens live on hearths, squirrels\nin sunshine, is just so much investment in strength and steadiness and\ngrowth of the nervous system. Every hour that a child lives a life of\nexcited brain-working, either in a school-room or in a ball-room, is just\nso much taken away from the reserved force which enables nerves to triumph\nthrough the sorrows, through the labors, through the diseases of later\nlife. Every mouthful of wholesome food that a child eats, at seasonable\nhours, may be said to tell on every moment of his whole life, no matter\nhow long it may be. Victor Hugo, the benevolent exile, has found out that\nto be well fed once in seven days at one meal has been enough to transform\nthe apparent health of all the poor children in Guernsey. Who shall say\nthat to take once in seven days, or even once in thirty days, an\nunwholesome supper of chicken salad and champagne may not leave as lasting\neffects on the constitution of a child?\n\nIf Nature would only \"execute\" her \"sentences against evil works\" more\n\"speedily,\" evil works would not so thrive. The law of continuity is the\nhardest one for average men and women to comprehend,--or, at any rate, to\nobey. Seed-time and harvest in gardens and fields they have learned to\nunderstand and profit by. When we learn, also, that in the precious lives\nof these little ones we cannot reap what we do not sow, and we must reap\nall which we do sow, and that the emptiness or the richness of the harvest\nis not so much for us as for them, one of the first among the many things\nwhich we shall reform will be \"children's parties.\"\n\n\n\n\nAfter-Supper Talk.\n\n\n\"After-dinner talk\" has been thought of great importance. The expression\nhas passed into literature, with many records of the good sayings it\nincluded. Kings and ministers condescend to make efforts at it; poets and\nphilosophers--greater than kings and ministers--do not disdain to attempt\nto shine in it.\n\nBut nobody has yet shown what \"after-supper talk\" ought to be. We are not\nspeaking now of the formal entertainment known as \"a supper;\" we mean the\nevery-day evening meal in the every-day home,--the meal known heartily and\ncommonly as \"supper,\" among people who are neither so fashionable nor so\nfoolish as to take still a fourth meal at hours when they ought to be\nasleep in bed.\n\nThis ought to be the sweetest and most precious hour of the day. It is too\noften neglected and lost in families. It ought to be the mother's hour;\nthe mother's opportunity to undo any mischief the day may have done, to\nforestall any mischief the morrow may threaten. There is an instinctive\ndisposition in most families to linger about the supper-table, quite\nunlike the eager haste which is seen at breakfast and at dinner. Work is\nover for the day; everybody is tired, even the little ones who have done\nnothing but play. The father is ready for slippers and a comfortable\nchair; the children are ready and eager to recount the incidents of the\nday. This is the time when all should be cheered, rested, and also\nstimulated by just the right sort of conversation, just the right sort of\namusement.\n\nThe wife and mother must supply this need, must create this atmosphere. We\ndo not mean that the father does not share the responsibility of this, as\nof every other hour. But this particular duty is one requiring qualities\nwhich are more essentially feminine than masculine. It wants a light touch\nand an _undertone_ to bring out the full harmony of the ideal home\nevening. It must not be a bore. It must not be empty; it must not be too\nmuch like preaching; it must not be wholly like play; more than all\nthings, it must not be always--no, not if it could be helped, not even\ntwice--the same! It must be that most indefinable, most recognizable\nthing, \"a good time.\" Bless the children for inventing the phrase! It has,\nlike all their phrases, an unconscious touch of sacred inspiration in it,\nin the selection of the good word \"good,\" which lays peculiar benediction\non all things to which it is set.\n\nIf there were no other reason against children's having lessons assigned\nthem to study at home, we should consider this a sufficient one, that it\nrobs them of the after-supper hour with their parents. Even if their\nbrains could bear without injury the sixth, seventh, or eighth hour, as\nit may be, of study, their hearts cannot bear the being starved.\n\nIn the average family, this is the one only hour of the day when father,\nmother, and children can be together, free of cares and unhurried. Even to\nthe poorest laborer's family comes now something like peace and rest\nforerunning the intermission of the night.\n\nEverybody who has any artistic sense recognizes this instinctively when\nthey see through the open doors of humble houses the father and mother and\nchildren gathered around their simple supper. Its mention has already\npassed into triteness in verse, so inevitably have poets felt the sacred\ncharm of the hour.\n\nPerhaps there is something deeper than on first thoughts would appear in\nthe instant sense of pleasure one has in this sight; also, in the\nuniversal feeling that the evening gathering of the family is the most\nsacred one. Perhaps there is unconscious recognition that dangers are near\nat hand when night falls, and that in this hour lies, or should lie, the\nspell to drive them all away.\n\nThere is something almost terrible in the mingling of danger and\nprotection, of harm and help, of good and bad, in that one thing,\ndarkness. God \"giveth his beloved sleep\" in it; and in it the devil sets\nhis worst lures, by help of it gaining many a soul which he could never\nget possession of in sunlight.\n\nMothers, fathers! cultivate \"after-supper talk;\" play \"after-supper\ngames;\" keep \"after-supper books;\" take all the good newspapers and\nmagazines you can afford, and read them aloud \"after supper.\" Let boys and\ngirls bring their friends home with them at twilight, sure of a pleasant\nand hospitable welcome and of a good time \"after supper,\" and parents may\nlaugh to scorn all the temptations which town or village can set before\nthem to draw them away from home for their evenings.\n\nThese are but hasty hints, bare suggestions. But if they rouse one heart\nto a new realization of what evenings at home _ought_ to be, and what\nevenings at home too often are, they have not been spoken in vain nor out\nof season.\n\n\n\n\nHysteria In Literature.\n\n\n\nPhysicians tell us that there is no known disease, no known symptom of\ndisease, which hysteria cannot and does not counterfeit. Most skilful\nsurgeons are misled by its cunning into believing and pronouncing\nable-bodied young women to be victims of spinal disease, \"stricture of the\noesophagus,\" \"gastrodynia,\" \"paraplegia,\" \"hemiplegia,\" and hundreds of\nother affections, with longer or shorter names. Families are thrown into\ndisorder and distress; friends suffer untold pains of anxiety and\nsympathy; doctors are summoned from far and near; and all this while the\nvertebra, or the membrane, or the muscle, as it may be, which is so\nhonestly believed to be diseased, and which shows every symptom of\ndiseased action or inaction, is sound and strong, and as well able as ever\nit was to perform its function.\n\nThe common symptoms of hysteria everybody is familiar with,--the crying\nand laughing in inappropriate places, the fancied impossibility of\nbreathing, and so forth,--which make such trouble and mortification for\nthe embarrassed companions of hysterical persons; and which, moreover, can\nbe very easily suppressed by a little wholesome severity, accompanied by\njudicious threats or sudden use of cold water. But few people know or\nsuspect the number of diseases and conditions, supposed to be real,\nserious, often incurable, which are simply and solely, or in a great part,\nundetected hysteria. This very ignorance on the part of friends and\nrelatives makes it almost impossible for surgeons and physicians to treat\nsuch cases properly. The probabilities are, in nine cases out of ten, that\nthe indignant family will dismiss, as ignorant or hard-hearted, any\npractitioner who tells them the unvarnished truth, and proposes to treat\nthe sufferer in accordance with it.\n\nIn the field of literature we find a hysteria as widespread, as\nundetected, as unmanageable as the hysteria which skulks and conquers in\nthe field of disease.\n\nIts commoner outbreaks everybody knows by sight and sound, and everybody\nexcept the miserably ignorant and silly despises. Yet there are to be\nfound circles which thrill and weep in sympathetic unison with the\nridiculous joys and sorrows, grotesque sentiments, and preposterous\nadventures of the heroes and heroines of the \"Dime Novels\" and novelettes,\nand the \"Flags\" and \"Blades\" and \"Gazettes\" among the lowest newspapers.\nBut in well-regulated and intelligent households, this sort of writing is\nnot tolerated, any more than the correlative sort of physical phenomenon\nwould be,--the gasping, shrieking, sobbing, giggling kind of behavior in a\nman or woman.\n\nBut there is another and more dangerous working of the same thing; deep,\nunsuspected, clothing itself with symptoms of the most defiant\ngenuineness, it lurks and does its business in every known field of\ncomposition. Men and women are alike prone to it, though its shape is\nsomewhat affected by sex.\n\nAmong men it breaks out often, perhaps oftenest, in violent illusions on\nthe subject of love. They assert, declare, shout, sing, scream that they\nlove, have loved, are loved, do and for ever will love, after methods and\nin manners which no decent love ever thought of mentioning. And yet, so\ndoes their weak violence ape the bearing of strength, so much does their\ncheat look like truth, that scores, nay, shoals of human beings go about\nrepeating and echoing their noise, and saying, gratefully, \"Yes, this is\nlove; this is, indeed, what all true lovers must know.\"\n\nThese are they who proclaim names of beloved on house-tops; who strip off\nveils from sacred secrets and secret sacrednesses, and set them up naked\nfor the multitude to weigh and compare. What punishment is for such\nbeloved, Love himself only knows. It must be in store for them somewhere.\nDimly one can suspect what it might be; but it will be like all Love's\ntrue secrets,--secret for ever.\n\nThese men of hysteria also take up specialties of art or science; and in\ntheir behoof rant, and exaggerate, and fabricate, and twist, and lie in\nsuch stentorian voices that reasonable people are deafened and bewildered.\n\nThey also tell common tales in such enormous phrases, with such gigantic\nstructure of rhetorical flourish, that the mere disproportion amounts to\nfalse-hood; and, the diseased appetite in listeners growing more and more\ndiseased, feeding on such diseased food, it is impossible to predict what\nit will not be necessary for story-mongers to invent at the end of a\ncentury or so more of this.\n\nBut the worst manifestations of this disease are found in so-called\nreligious writing. Theology, biography, especially autobiography, didactic\nessays, tales with a moral,--under every one of these titles it lifts up\nits hateful head. It takes so successfully the guise of genuine religious\nemotion, religious experience, religious zeal, that good people on all\nhands weep grateful tears as they read its morbid and unwholesome\nutterances. Of these are many of the long and short stories setting forth\nin melodramatic pictures exceptionally good or exceptionally bad children;\nor exceptionally pathetic and romantic careers of sweet and refined\nMagdalens; minute and prolonged dissections of the processes of spiritual\ngrowth; equally minute and authoritative formulas for spiritual exercises\nof all sorts,--\"manuals of drill,\" so to speak, or \"field tactics\" for\nsouls. Of these sorts of books, the good and the bad are almost\nindistinguishable from each other, except by the carefulest attention and\nthe finest insight; overwrought, unnatural atmosphere and meaningless,\nshallow routine so nearly counterfeit the sound and shape of warm, true\nenthusiasm and wise precepts.\n\nWhere may be the remedy for this widespread and widely spreading disease\namong writers we do not know. It is not easy to keep up courageous faith\nthat there is any remedy. Still Nature abhors noise and haste, and shams\nof all sorts. Quiet and patience are the great secrets of her force,\nwhether it be a mountain or a soul that she would fashion. We must believe\nthat sooner or later there will come a time in which silence shall have\nits dues, moderation be crowned king of speech, and melodramatic,\nspectacular, hysterical language be considered as disreputable as it is\nsilly. But the most discouraging feature of the disease is its extreme\ncontagiousness. All physicians know what a disastrous effect one\nhysterical patient will produce upon a whole ward in a hospital. We\nremember hearing a young physician once give a most amusing account of a\nwoman who was taken to Bellevue Hospital for a hysterical cough. Her\nlungs, bronchia, throat, were all in perfect condition; but she coughed\nalmost incessantly, especially on the approach of the hour for the\ndoctor's visit to the ward. In less than one week half the women in the\nward had similar coughs. A single--though it must be confessed rather\nterrific--application of cold water to the original offender worked a\nsimultaneous cure upon her and all of her imitators.\n\nNot long ago a very parallel thing was to be observed in the field of\nstory-writing. A clever, though morbid and melodramatic writer published a\nnovel, whose heroine, having once been an inmate of a house of ill-fame,\nescaped, and, finding shelter and Christian training in the home of a\nbenevolent woman, became a model of womanly delicacy, and led a life of\nexquisite and artistic refinement. As to the animus and intent of this\nstory there could be no doubt; both were good, but in atmosphere and\nexecution it was essentially unreal, overwrought, and melodramatic. For\nthree or four months after its publication there was a perfect outburst\nand overflow in newspapers and magazines of the lower order of stories,\nall more or less bad, some simply outrageous, and all treating, or rather\npretending to treat, the same problem which had furnished theme for that\nnovel.\n\nProbably a close observation and collecting of the dreary statistics would\nbring to light a curious proof of the extent and certainty of this sort of\ncontagion.\n\nReflecting on it, having it thrust in one's face at every book-counter,\nrailway-stand, Sunday-school library, and parlor centre-table, it is hard\nnot to wish for some supernatural authority to come sweeping through the\nwards, and prescribe sharp cold-water treatment all around to half drown\nall such writers and quite drown all their books!\n\n\n\n\nJog Trot.\n\n\nThere is etymological uncertainty about the phrase. But there is no doubt\nabout its meaning; no doubt that it represents a good, comfortable gait,\nat which nobody goes nowadays.\n\nA hundred years ago it was the fashion: in the days when railroads were\nnot, nor telegraphs; when citizens journeyed in stages, putting up prayers\nin church if their journey were to be so long as from Massachusetts into\nConnecticut; when evil news travelled slowly by letter, and good news was\ncarried about by men on horses; when maidens spun and wove for long,\nquiet, silent years at their wedding _trousseaux_, and mothers spun and\nwove all which sons and husbands wore; when newspapers were small and\ninfrequent, dingy-typed and wholesomely stupid, so that no man could or\nwould learn from them more about other men's opinions, affairs, or\noccupations than it concerned his practical convenience to know; when even\nwars were waged at slow pace,--armies sailing great distances by chance\nwinds, or plodding on foot for thousands of miles, and fighting doggedly\nhand to hand at sight; when fortunes also were slowly made by simple,\nhonest growths,--no men excepting freebooters and pirates becoming rich\nin a day.\n\nIt would seem treason or idiocy to sigh for these old days,--treason to\nideas of progress, stupid idiocy unaware that it is well off. Is not\nto-day brilliant, marvellous, beautiful? Has not living become subject to\na magician's \"presto\"? Are we not decked in the whole of color, feasted on\nall that shape and sound and flavor can give? Are we not wiser each moment\nthan we were the moment before? Do not the blind see, the deaf hear, and\nthe crippled dance? Has not Nature surrendered to us? Art and science, are\nthey not our slaves,--coining money and running mills? Have we not built\nand multiplied religions, till each man, even the most irreligious, can\nhave his own? Is not what is called the \"movement of the age\" going on at\nthe highest rate of speed and of sound? Shall we complain that we are\nmaddened by the racket, out of breath with the spinning and whirling, and\ndying of the strain of it all? What is a man, more or less? What are one\nhundred and twenty millions of men, more or less? What is quiet in\ncomparison with riches? or digestion and long life in comparison with\nknowledge? When we are added up in the universal reckoning of races, there\nwill be small mention of individuals. Let us be disinterested. Let us\nsacrifice ourselves, and, above all, our children, to raise the general\naverage of human invention and attainment to the highest possible mark. To\nbe sure, we are working in the dark. We do not know, not even if we are\nHuxley do we know, at what point in the grand, universal scale we shall\nultimately come in. We know, or think we know, about how far below us\nstand the gorilla and the seal. We patronize them kindly for learning to\nturn hand-organs or eat from porringers. Let us hope that, if we have\nbrethren of higher races on other planets, they will be as generously\nappreciative of our little all when we have done it; but, meanwhile, let\nus never be deterred from our utmost endeavor by any base and envious\nmisgivings that possibly we may not be the last and highest work of the\nCreator, and in a fair way to reach very soon the final climax of all\nwhich created intelligences can be or become. Let us make the best of\ndyspepsia, paralysis, insanity, and the death of our children. Perhaps we\ncan do as much in forty years, working night and day, as we could in\nseventy, working only by day; and the five out of twelve children that\nlive to grow up can perpetuate the names and the methods of their fathers.\nIt is a comfort to believe, as we are told, that the world can never lose\nan iota that it has gained; that progress is the great law of the\nuniverse. It is consoling to verify this truth by looking backward, and\nseeing how each age has made use of the wrecks of the preceding one as\nmaterial for new structures on different plans. What are we that we should\nmention our preference for being put to some other use, more immediately\nremunerative to ourselves!\n\nWe must be all wrong if we are not in sympathy with the age in which we\nlive. We might as well be dead as not keep up with it. But which of us\ndoes not sometimes wish in his heart of hearts, that he had been born long\nenough ago to have been boon companion of his great-grandfather, and have\ngone respectably and in due season to his grave at a good jog trot?\n\n\n\n\nThe Joyless American.\n\n\nIt is easy to fancy that a European, on first reaching these shores, might\nsuppose that he had chanced to arrive upon a day when some great public\ncalamity had saddened the heart of the nation. It would be quite safe to\nassume that out of the first five hundred faces which he sees there will\nnot be ten wearing a smile, and not fifty, all told, looking as if they\never could smile. If this statement sounds extravagant to any man, let him\ntry the experiment, for one week, of noting down, in his walks about town,\nevery face he sees which has a radiantly cheerful expression. The chances\nare that at the end of his seven days he will not have entered seven faces\nin his note-book without being aware at the moment of some conscientious\ndifficulty in permitting himself to call them positively and unmistakably\ncheerful.\n\nThe truth is, this wretched and joyless expression on the American face is\nso common that we are hardened to seeing it, and look for nothing better.\nOnly when by chance some blessed, rollicking, sunshiny boy or girl or man\nor woman flashes the beam of a laughing countenance into the level gloom\ndo we even know that we are in the dark. Witness the instant effect of\nthe entrance of such a person into an omnibus or a car. Who has not\nobserved it? Even the most stolid and apathetic soul relaxes a little. The\nunconscious intruder, simply by smiling, has set the blood moving more\nquickly in the veins of every human being who sees him. He is, for the\nmoment, the personal benefactor of every one; if he had handed about money\nor bread, it would have been a philanthropy of less value.\n\nWhat is to be done to prevent this acrid look of misery from becoming an\norganic characteristic of our people? \"Make them play more,\" says one\nphilosophy. No doubt they need to \"play more;\" but, when one looks at the\naverage expression of a Fourth of July crowd, one doubts if ever so much\nmultiplication of that kind of holiday would mend the matter. No doubt we\nwork for too many days in the year, and play for too few; but, after all,\nit is the heart and the spirit and the expression that we bring to our\nwork, and not those that we bring to our play, by which our real vitality\nmust be tested and by which our faces will be stamped. If we do not work\nhealthfully, reasoningly, moderately, thankfully, joyously, we shall have\nneither moderation nor gratitude nor joy in our play. And here is the\nhopelessness, here is the root of the trouble, of the joyless American\nface. The worst of all demons, the demon of unrest and overwork, broods in\nthe very sky of this land. Blue and clear and crisp and sparkling as our\natmosphere is, it cannot or does not exorcise the spell. Any old man can\ncount on the fingers of one hand the persons he has known who led lives of\nserene, unhurried content, made for themselves occupations and not tasks,\nand died at last what might be called natural deaths.\n\n\"What, then?\" says the congressional candidate from Mettibemps; the \"new\ncontributor\" to the oceanic magazine; Mrs. Potiphar, from behind her\nliveries; and poor Dives, senior, from Wall Street; \"Are we to give up all\nambition?\" God forbid. But, because one has a goal, must one be torn by\npoisoned spurs? We see on the Corso, in the days of the Carnival, what\nspeed can be made by horses under torture. Shall we try those methods and\nthat pace on our journeys?\n\nSo long as the American is resolved to do in one day the work of two, to\nmake in one year the fortune of his whole life and his children's, to earn\nbefore he is forty the reputation which belongs to threescore and ten, so\nlong he will go about the streets wearing his present abject, pitiable,\noverwrought, joyless look. But, even without a change of heart or a reform\nof habits, he might better his countenance a little, if he would. Even if\nhe does not feel like smiling, he might smile, if he tried; and that would\nbe something. The muscles are all there; they count the same in the\nAmerican as in the French or the Irish face; they relax easily in youth;\nthe trick can be learned. And even a trick of it is better than none of\nit. Laughing masters might be as well paid as dancing masters to help on\nsociety! \"Smiling made Easy\" or the \"Complete Art of Looking\nGood-natured\" would be as taking titles on book-sellers' shelves as \"The\nComplete Letter-writer\" or \"Handbook of Behavior.\" And nobody can\ncalculate what might be the moral and spiritual results if it could only\nbecome the fashion to pursue this branch of the fine arts. Surliness of\nheart must melt a little under the simple effort to smile. A man will\ninevitably be a little less of a bear for trying to wear the face of a\nChristian.\n\n\"He who laughs can commit no deadly sin,\" said the wise and sweet-hearted\nwoman who was mother of Goethe.\n\n\n\n\nSpiritual Teething\n\n\nMilk for babes; but, when they come to the age for meat of doctrine, teeth\nmust be cut. It is harder work for souls than for bodies; but the\nprocesses are wonderfully parallel,--the results too, alas! If clergymen\nknew the symptoms of spiritual disease and death, as well as doctors do of\ndisease and death of the flesh, and if the lists were published at end of\neach year and month and week, what a record would be shown! \"Mortality in\nBrooklyn, or New York, or Philadelphia for the week ending July 7th.\" We\nare so used to the curt heading of the little paragraph that our eye\nglances idly away from it, and we do not realize its sadness. By tens and\nby scores they have gone,--the men, the women, the babies; in hundreds new\nmourners are going about the streets, week by week. We are as familiar\nwith black as with scarlet, with the hearse as with the pleasure-carriage;\nand yet \"so dies in human hearts the thought of death\" that we can be\nmerry.\n\nBut, if we knew as well the record of sick and dying and dead souls, our\nhearts would break. The air would be dark and stifling. We should be\nafraid to move,--lest we might hasten the last hour of some neighbor's\nspiritual breath. Ah, how often have we unconsciously spoken the one word\nwhich was poison to his fever!\n\nOf the spiritual deaths, as of the physical, more than half take place in\nthe period of teething. The more one thinks of the parallelism, the closer\nit looks, until the likeness seems as droll as dismal. Oh, the sweet,\nunquestioning infancy which takes its food from the nearest breast; which\nknows but three things,--hunger and food and sleep! There is only a little\nspace for this delight. In our seventh month we begin to be wretched. We\ndrink our milk, but we are aware of a constant desire to bite; doubts\nwhich we do not know by name, needs for which there is no ready supply,\nmake us restless. Now comes the old-school doctor, and thrusts in his\nlancet too soon. We suffer, we bleed; we are supposed to be relieved. The\ntooth is said to be \"through.\"\n\nThrough! Oh, yes; through before its time. Through to no purpose. In a\nweek, or a year, the wounded flesh, or soul, has reasserted its right,\nshut down on the tooth, making a harder surface than ever, a cicatrized\ncrust, out of which it will take double time and double strength for the\ntooth to break.\n\nThe gentle doctor gives us a rubber ring, it has a bad taste; or an ivory\none, it is too hard and hurts us. But we gnaw and gnaw, and fancy the new\npain a little easier to bear than the old. Probably it is; probably the\ntooth gets through a little quicker for the days and nights of gnawing.\nBut what a picture of patient misery is a baby with its rubber ring!\nReally one sees sometimes in the little puckered, twisting face such\ngrotesque prophecy of future conflicts, such likeness to the soul's\nprocesses of grappling with problems, that it is uncanny.\n\nWhen we come to the analysis of the diseases incident to the teething\nperiod, and the treatment of them, the similitude is as close.\n\nWe have sharp, sudden inflammations; we have subtle and more deadly\nthings, which men do not detect till it is, in nine cases out of ten, too\nlate to cure them,--like water on the brain; and we have slow wastings\naway; atrophies, which are worse than death, leaving life enough to\nprolong death indefinitely, being as it were living deaths.\n\nWho does not know poor souls in all stages of all these,--outbreaks of\nrebellion against all forms, all creeds, all proprieties; secret adoptions\nof perilous delusions, fatal errors; and slow settling down into\nindifferentism or narrow dogmatism, the two worst living deaths?\n\nThese are they who live. Shall we say any thing of those of us who die\nbetween our seventh and eighteenth spiritual month? They never put on\nbabies' tombstones \"Died of teething.\" There is always a special name for\nthe special symptom or set of symptoms which characterized the last days.\nBut the mother believes and the doctor knows that, if it had not been for\nthe teeth that were coming just at that time, the fever or the croup would\nnot have killed the child.\n\nNow we come to the treatments; and here again the parallelism is so close\nas to be ludicrous. The lancet and the rubber ring fail. We are still\nrestless, and scream and cry. Then our self-sacrificing nurses walk with\nus; they rock us, they swing us, they toss us up and down, they jounce us\nfrom top to bottom, till the wonder is that every organ in our bodies is\nnot displaced. They beat on glass and tin and iron to distract our\nattention and drown out our noise by a bigger one; they shake back and\nforth before our eyes all things that glitter and blaze; they shout and\nsing songs; the house and the neighborhood are searched and racked for\nsomething which will \"amuse\" the baby. Then, when we will no longer be\n\"amused,\" and when all this restlessness outside and around us, added to\nthe restlessness inside us, has driven us more than frantic, and the day\nor the night of their well-meant clamor is nearly over, their strength\nworn out, and their wits at end,--then comes the \"soothing syrup,\"\ndeadliest weapon of all. This we cannot resist. If there be they who are\nmighty enough to pour it down our throats, physically or spiritually, to\nsleep we must go, and asleep we must stay so long as the effect of the\ndose lasts.\n\nIt is of this, we oftenest die,--not in a day or a year, but after many\ndays and many years; when in some sharp crisis we need for our salvation\nthe force which should have been developing in our infancy, the muscle or\nthe nerve which should have been steadily growing strong till that moment.\nBut the force is not there; the muscle is weak; the nerve paralyzed; and\nwe die at twenty of a light fever, we fall down at twenty, under sudden\ngrief or temptation, because of our long sleeps under soothing syrups when\nwe were babies.\n\nOh, good nurses and doctors of souls, let them cut their own teeth, in the\nnatural ways. Let them scream if they must, but keep you still on one\nside; give them no false helps; let them alone so far as it is possible\nfor love and sympathy to do so. Man is the only animal that has trouble\nfrom the growing of the teeth in his body. It must be his own fault\nsomehow that he has that; and he has evidently been always conscious of a\nlikeness between this difficulty and perversion of a process natural to\nhis body, and the difficulty and perversion of his getting sensible and\njust opinions; for it has passed into the immortality of a proverb that a\nshrewd man is a man who has \"cut his eye-teeth;\" and the four last teeth,\nwhich we get late in life, and which cost many people days of real\nillness, are called in all tongues, all countries, \"wisdom teeth!\"\n\n\n\n\nGlass Houses.\n\n\nWho would live in one, if he could help it? And who wants to throw stones?\n\nBut who lives in any thing else, nowadays? And how much better off are\nthey who never threw a stone in their lives than the rude mob who throw\nthem all the time?\n\nReally, the proverb might as well be blotted out from our books and\ndropped from our speech. It has no longer use or meaning.\n\nIt is becoming a serious question what shall be done, or rather what can\nbe done, to secure to fastidious people some show and shadow of privacy in\ntheir homes. The silly and vulgar passion of people for knowing all about\ntheir neighbors' affairs, which is bad enough while it takes shape merely\nin idle gossip of mouth, is something terrible when it is exalted into a\nregular market demand of the community, and fed by a regular market supply\nfrom all who wish to print what the community will read.\n\nWe do not know which is worse in this traffic, the buyer or the seller; we\nthink, on the whole, the buyer. But then he is again a seller; and so\nthere it is,--wheel within wheel, cog upon cog. And, since all these\nsellers must earn their bread and butter, the more one searches for a fair\npoint of attacking the evil, the more he is perplexed.\n\nThe man who writes must, if he needs pay for his work, write what the man\nwho prints will buy. The man who prints must print what the people who\nread will buy. Upon whom, then, shall we lay earnest hands? Clearly, upon\nthe last buyer,--upon him who reads. But things have come to such a pass\nalready that to point out to the average American that it is vulgar and\nalso unwholesome to devour with greedy delight all sorts of details about\nhis neighbors' business seems as hopeless and useless as to point out to\nthe currie-eater or the whiskey-drinker the bad effects of fire and\nstrychnine upon mucous membranes. The diseased palate craves what has made\nit diseased,--craves it more, and more, and more. In case of stomachs,\nNature has a few simple inventions of her own for bringing reckless abuses\nto a stand-still,--dyspepsia, and delirium-tremens, and so on.\n\nBut she takes no account, apparently, of the diseased conditions of brains\nincident to the long use of unwholesome or poisonous intellectual food.\nPerhaps she never anticipated this class of excesses. And, if there were\nto be a precisely correlative punishment, it is to be feared it would fall\nmore heavily on the least guilty offender. It is not hard to fancy a poor\nsoul who, having been condemned to do reporters' duty for some years, and\nhaving been forced to dwell and dilate upon scenes and details which his\nvery soul revolted from mentioning,--it is not hard to fancy such a soul\nvisited at last by a species of delirium-tremens, in which the speeches of\nmen who had spoken, the gowns of women who had danced, the faces, the\nfigures, the furniture of celebrities, should all be mixed up in a\ngrotesque phantasmagoria of torture, before which he should writhe as\nhelplessly and agonizingly as the poor whiskey-drinker before his snakes.\nBut it would be a cruel misplacement of punishment. All the while the true\nguilty would be placidly sitting down at still further unsavory banquets,\nwhich equally helpless providers were driven to furnish!\n\nThe evil is all the harder to deal with, also, because it is like so many\nevils,--all, perhaps,--only a diseased outgrowth, from a legitimate and\njustifiable thing. It is our duty to sympathize; it is our privilege and\npleasure to admire. No man lives to himself alone; no man can; no man\nought. It is right that we should know about our neighbors all which will\nhelp us to help them, to be just to them, to avoid them, if need be; in\nshort, all which we need to know for their or our reasonable and fair\nadvantage. It is right, also, that we should know about men who are or\nhave been great all which can enable us to understand their greatness; to\nprofit, to imitate, to revere; all that will help us to remember whatever\nis worth remembering. There is education in this; it is experience, it is\nhistory.\n\nBut how much of what is written, printed, and read to-day about the men\nand women of to-day comes under these heads? It is unnecessary to do more\nthan ask the question. It is still more unnecessary to do more than ask\nhow many of the men and women of to-day, whose names have become almost as\nstereotyped a part of public journals as the very titles of the journals\nthemselves, have any claim to such prominence. But all these\nconsiderations seem insignificant by side of the intrinsic one of the\nvulgarity of the thing, and its impudent ignoring of the most sacred\nrights of individuals. That there are here and there weak fools who like\nto see their names and most trivial movements chronicled in newspapers\ncannot be denied. But they are few. And their silly pleasure is very small\nin the aggregate compared with the annoyance and pain suffered by\nsensitive and refined people from these merciless invasions of their\nprivacy. No precautions can forestall them, no reticence prevent; nothing,\napparently, short of dying outright, can set one free. And even then it is\nmerely leaving the torture behind, a harrowing legacy to one's friends;\nfor tombs are even less sacred than houses. Memory, friendship,\nobligation,--all are lost sight of in the greed of desire to make an\neffective sketch, a surprising revelation, a neat analysis, or perhaps an\nadroit implication of honor to one's self by reason of an old association\nwith greatness. Private letters and private conversations, which may touch\nliving hearts in a thousand sore spots, are hawked about as coolly as if\nthey had been old clothes, left too long unredeemed in the hands of the\npawn-broker! \"Dead men tell no tales,\" says the proverb. One wishes they\ncould! We should miss some spicy contributions to magazine and newspaper\nliterature; and a sudden silence would fall upon some loud-mouthed living.\n\nBut we despair of any cure for this evil. No ridicule, no indignation\nseems to touch it. People must make the best they can of their glass\nhouses; and, if the stones come too fast, take refuge in the cellars.\n\n\n\n\nThe Old-Clothes Monger in Journalism.\n\n\n\nThe old-clothes business has never been considered respectable. It is\nsupposed to begin and to end with cheating; it deals with very dirty\nthings. It would be hard to mention a calling of lower repute. From the\nmen who come to your door with trays of abominable china vases on their\nheads, and are ready to take any sort of rags in payment for them,\ndown--or up?--to the bigger wretches who advertise that \"ladies and\ngentlemen can obtain the highest price for their cast-off clothing by\ncalling at No. so and so, on such a street,\" they are all alike odious and\ndespicable.\n\nWe wonder when we find anybody who is not an abject Jew, engaged in the\nbusiness. We think we can recognize the stamp of the disgusting traffic on\ntheir very faces. It is by no means uncommon to hear it said of a sorry\nsneak, \"He looks like an old-clothes dealer.\"\n\nBut what shall we say of the old-clothes mongers in journalism? By the\nvery name we have defined, described them, and pointed them out. If only\nwe could make the name such a badge of disgrace that every member of the\nfraternity should forthwith betake him or herself to some sort of honest\nlabor!\n\nThese are they who crowd the columns of our daily newspapers with the\ndreary, monotonous, worthless, scandalous tales of what other men and\nwomen did, are doing, or will do, said, say, or will say, wore, wear, or\nwill wear, thought, think, or will think, ate, eat, or will eat, drank,\ndrink, or will drink: and if there be any other verb coming under the head\nof \"to do, to be, to suffer,\" add that to the list, and the old-clothes\nmonger will furnish you with something to fill out the phrase.\n\nThese are they who patch out their miserable, little, sham \"properties\"\nfor mock representations of life, by scraps from private letters, bits of\nconversation overheard on piazzas, in parlors, in bedrooms, by odds and\nends of untrustworthy statements picked up at railway-stations,\nchurch-doors, and offices of all sorts, by impudent inferences and\nsuppositions, and guesses about other people's affairs, by garblings and\npartial quotings, and, if need be, by wholesale lyings.\n\nThe trade is on the increase,--rapidly, fearfully on the increase. Every\nlarge city, every summer watering-place, is more or less infested with\nthis class of dealers. The goods they have to furnish are more and more in\ndemand. There is hardly a journal in the country but has column after\ncolumn full of their tattered wares; there is hardly a man or woman in the\ncountry but buys them.\n\nThere is, perhaps, no remedy. Human nature has not yet shed all the\nmonkey. A lingering and grovelling baseness in the average heart delights\nin this sort of cast-off clothes of fellow-worms. But if the trade must\ncontinue, can we not insist that the profits be shared? If A is to receive\nten dollars for quoting B's remarks at a private dinner yesterday, shall\nnot B have a small percentage on the sale? Clearly, this is only justice.\nAnd in cases where the wares are simply stolen, shall there be no redress?\nHere is an opening for a new Bureau. How well its advertisements would\nread:--\n\n\"Ladies and gentlemen wishing to dispose of their old opinions,\nsentiments, feelings, and so forth, and also of the more interesting facts\nin their personal history, can obtain good prices for the same at No.--\nTittle-tattle street. Inquire at the door marked 'Regular and Special\nCorrespondence.'\n\n\"N. B.--Persons willing to be reported _verbatim_ will receive especial\nconsideration.\"\n\nWe commend this brief suggestion of a new business to all who are anxious\nto make a living and not particular how they make it. Perhaps the class of\nwhom we have been speaking would find it profitable to set it up as a\nbranch of their own calling. It is quite possible that nobody else in the\ncountry would like to meddle with it.\n\n\n\n\nThe Country Landlord's Side.\n\n\n\nIt is only one side, to be sure. But it is the side of which we hear\nleast. The quarrel is like all quarrels,--it takes two to make it; but\nas, of those two, one is only one, and the other is from ten to a hundred,\nit is easy to see which side will do most talking in setting forth its\ngrievances.\n\n\"It is naught, it is naught, saith the buyer; and when he is gone his way\nthen he boasteth.\" We are oftener reminded of this text of Scripture than\nof any other when we listen to conversations in regard to boarders in\ncountry houses.\n\n\"Oh, let me tell you of such a nice place we have found to board in the\ncountry. It is only--miles from Mt.--or--Lake; the drives are delightful,\nand board is only $7 a week.\"\n\n\"Is the table a good one?\"\n\n\"Oh, yes; very good for the country. We had good butter and milk, and eggs\nin abundance. Meats, of course, are never very good in the country. But\neverybody gained a pound a week; and we are going again this year, if they\nhave not raised their prices.\"\n\nThen this model of a city woman, in search of country lodgings, sits down\nand writes to the landlord:--\n\n\"Dear Sir,--We would like to secure our old rooms in your house for the\nwhole of July and August. As we shall remain so long a time, we hope you\nmay be willing to count all the children at half-price. Last year, you may\nremember, we paid full price for the two eldest, the twins, who are not\nyet quite fourteen. I hope, also, that Mrs. ---- has better arrangements\nfor washing this summer, and will allow us to have our own servant to do\nthe washing for the whole family. If these terms suit you, the price for\nmy family--eight children, myself, and servant--would be $38.50 a week.\nPerhaps, if the servant takes the entire charge of my rooms, you would\ncall it $37; as, of course, that would save the time of your own\nservants.\"\n\nThen the country landlord hesitates. He is not positively sure of filling\nall his rooms for the season. Thirty-seven dollars a week would be, he\nthinks, better than nothing. In his simplicity, he supposes that, if he\nconfers, as he certainly does, a favor on Mrs.----, by receiving her great\nfamily on such low terms, she will be thoroughly well disposed toward him\nand his house, and will certainly not be over-exacting in matter of\naccommodations. In an evil hour, he consents; they come, and he begins to\nreap his reward. The twins are stout boys, as large as men, and much\nhungrier. The baby is a sickly child of eighteen months, and requires\nespecial diet, which must be prepared at especial and inconvenient hours,\nin the crowded little kitchen. The other five children are average boys\nand girls, between the ages of three and twelve, eat certainly as much as\nfive grown people, and make twice as much trouble. The servant is a slow,\ninefficient, impudent Irish girl, who spends the greater part of four days\nin doing the family washing, and makes the other servants uncomfortable\nand cross.\n\nIf this were all; but this is not. Mrs.----, who writes to all her friends\nboastingly of the cheap summer quarters that she has found, and who gains\nby the village shop-keeper's scales a pound of flesh a week, habitually\nfinds fault with the food, with the mattresses, with the chairs, with the\nrag-carpets, with every thing, in short, down to the dust and the flies,\nfor neither of which last the poor landlord could be legitimately held\nresponsible. This is not an exaggerated picture. Everybody who has boarded\nin country places in the summer has known dozens of such women. Every\ncountry landlord can produce dozens of such letters, and of letters still\nmore exacting and unreasonable.\n\nThe average city man or woman who goes to a country house to board, goes\nexpecting what it is in the nature of things impossible that they should\nhave. The man expects to have boots blacked and hot water ready, and a\nbell to ring for both. What experienced country boarder has not laughed in\nhis sleeve to see such an one, newly arrived, putting his head out\nsnappingly, like a turtle, from his doorway, and calling to chance\npassers, \"How d'ye get at anybody in this house?\"\n\nIf it is a woman, she expects that the tea will be of the finest flavor,\nand never boiled; that steaks will be porter-house steaks; that green peas\nwill be in plenty; and that the American girl, who is chambermaid for the\nsummer, and school-teacher in the winter, and who, ten to one, could put\nher to the blush in five minutes by superior knowledge on many subjects,\nwill enter and leave her room and wait upon her at the table with the\nsilent respectfulness of a trained city servant.\n\nThis is all very silly. But it happens. At the end of every summer\nhundreds of disappointed city people go back to their homes grumbling\nabout country food and country ways. Hundreds of tired and discouraged\nwives of country landlords sit down in their houses, at last emptied, and\nvow a vow that never again will they take \"city folks to board.\" But the\ngreat law of supply and demand is too strong for them. The city must come\nout of itself for a few weeks, and get oxygen for its lungs, sunlight for\nits eyes, and rest for its overworked brain. The country must open its\narms, whether it will or not, and share its blessings. And so the summers\nand the summerings go on, and there are always to be heard in the land the\nvoices of murmuring boarders, and of landlords deprecating, vindicating.\nWe confess that our sympathies are with the landlords. The average country\nlandlord is an honest, well-meaning man, whose idea of the profit to be\nmade \"off boarders\" is so moderate and simple that the keepers of city\nboarding-houses would laugh it and him to scorn. If this were not so,\nwould he be found undertaking to lodge and feed people for one dollar or a\ndollar and a half a day? Neither does he dream of asking them, even at\nthis low price, to fare as he fares. The \"Excelsior\" mattresses, at which\nthey cry out in disgust, are beds of down in comparison with the straw\n\"tick\" on which he and his wife sleep soundly and contentedly. He has paid\n$4.50 for each mattress, as a special concession to what he understands\ncity prejudice to require. The cheap painted chamber-sets are holiday\nadorning by the side of the cherry and pine in the bedrooms of his family.\nHe buys fresh meat every day for dinner; and nobody can understand the\nimportance of this fact who is not familiar with the habit of salt-pork\nand codfish in our rural districts. That the meat is tough, pale, stringy\nis not his fault; no other is to be bought. Stetson, himself, if he dealt\nwith this country butcher, could do no better. Vegetables? Yes, he has\nplanted them. If we look out of our windows, we can see them on their\nwinding way. They will be ripe by and by. He never tasted peas in his life\nbefore the Fourth of July, or cucumbers before the middle of August. He\nhears that there are such things; but he thinks they must be \"dreadful\nunhealthy, them things forced out of season,\"--and, whether healthy or\nnot, he can't get them. We couldn't ourselves, if we were keeping house in\nthe same township. To be sure, we might send to the cities for them, and\nbe served with such as were wilted to begin with, and would arrive utterly\nunfit to be eaten at end of their day's journey, costing double their\nmarket price in the added express charge. We should not do any such thing.\nWe should do just as he does, make the best of \"plum sauce,\" or even dried\napples. We should not make our sauce with molasses, probably; but he does\nnot know that sugar is better; he honestly likes molasses best. As for\nsaleratus in the bread, as for fried meat, and fried doughnuts, and\nubiquitous pickles,--all those things have he, and his fathers before him,\neaten, and, he thinks, thriven on from time immemorial. He will listen\nincredulously to all we say about the effects of alkalies, the change of\nfats to injurious oils by frying, the indigestibility of pickles, &c.;\nfor, after all, the unanswerable fact remains on his side, though he may\nbe too polite or too slow to make use of it in the argument, that, having\nfed on these poisons all his life, he can easily thrash us to-day, and his\nwife and daughters can and do work from morning till night, while ours\nmust lie down and rest by noon. In spite of all this, he will do what he\ncan to humor our whims. Never yet have we seen the country boarding-house\nwhere kindly and persistent remonstrance would not introduce the gridiron\nand banish the frying-pan, and obtain at least an attempt at yeast-bread.\nGood, patient, long-suffering country people! The only wonder to us is\nthat they tolerate so pleasantly, make such effort to gratify, the\npreferences and prejudices of city men and women, who come and who remain\nstrangers among them; and who, in so many instances, behave from first to\nlast as if they were of a different race, and knew nothing of any common\nbonds of humanity and Christianity.\n\n\n\n\nThe Good Staff of Pleasure.\n\n\n\nIn an inn in Berchtesgaden, Bavaria, where I dined every day for three\nweeks, one summer, I made the acquaintance of a little maid called\nGretchen. She stood all day long washing dishes, in a dark passageway\nwhich communicated in some mysterious fashion with cellar, kitchen,\ndining-room, and main hall of the inn. From one or other of these quarters\nGretchen was sharply called so often that it was a puzzle to know how she\ncontrived to wash so much as a cup or a plate in the course of the day.\nPoor child! I am afraid she did most of her work after dark; for I\nsometimes left her standing there at ten o'clock at night. She was\nblanched and shrunken from fatigue and lack of sunlight. I doubt if ever,\nunless perhaps on some exceptional Sunday, she knew the sensation of a\nfull breath of pure air or a warm sunbeam on her face.\n\nBut whenever I passed her she smiled, and there was never-failing\ngood-cheer in her voice when she said \"Good-morning.\" Her uniform\natmosphere of contentedness so impressed and surprised me that, at last, I\nsaid to Franz, the head waiter,--\n\n\"What makes Gretchen so happy? She has a hard life, always standing in\nthat narrow dark place, washing dishes.\"\n\nFranz was phlegmatic, and spoke very little English. He shrugged his\nshoulders, in sign of assent that Gretchen's life was a hard one, and\nadded,--\n\n\"Ja, ja. She likes because all must come at her door. There will be no one\nwhich will say not nothing if they go by.\"\n\nThat was it. Almost every hour some human voice said pleasantly to her,\n\"Good-morning, Gretchen,\" or \"It is a fine day;\" or, if no word were\nspoken, there would be a friendly nod and smile. For nowhere in\nkind-hearted, simple Germany do human beings pass by other human beings,\nas we do in America, without so much as a turn of the head to show\nrecognition of humanity in common.\n\nThis one little pleasure kept Gretchen not only alive, but comparatively\nglad. Her body suffered for want of sun and air. There was no helping\nthat, by any amount of spiritual compensation, so long as she must stand,\nyear in and year out, in a close, dark corner, and do hard drudgery. But,\nif she had stood in that close, dark corner, doing that hard drudgery, and\nhad had no pleasure to comfort her, she would have been dead in three\nmonths.\n\nIf all men and women could realize the power, the might of even a small\npleasure, how much happier the world would be! and how much longer bodies\nand souls both would bear up under living! Sensitive people realize it to\nthe very core of their being. They know that often and often it happens\nto them to be revived, kindled, strengthened, to a degree which they could\nnot describe, and which they hardly comprehend, by some little\nthing,--some word of praise, some token of remembrance, some proof of\naffection or recognition. They know, too, that strength goes out of them,\njust as inexplicably, just as fatally, when for a space, perhaps even a\nshort space, all these are wanting.\n\nPeople who are not sensitive also come to find this out, if they are\ntender. They are by no means inseparable,--tenderness and sensitiveness;\nif they were, human nature would be both more comfortable and more\nagreeable. But tender people alone can be just to sensitive ones; living\nin close relations with them, they learn what they need, and, so far as\nthey can, supply it, even when they wonder a little, and perhaps grow a\nlittle weary.\n\nWe see a tender and just mother sometimes sighing because one\nover-sensitive child must be so much more gently restrained or admonished\nthan the rest. But she has her reward for every effort to adjust her\nmethods to the instrument she does not quite understand. If she doubts\nthis, she has only to look on the right hand and the left, and see the\neffect of careless, brutal dealing with finely strung, sensitive natures.\n\nWe see, also, many men,--good, generous, kindly, but not\nsensitive-souled,--who have learned that the sunshine of their homes all\ndepends on little things, which it would never have entered into their\nbusy and composed hearts to think of doing, or saying, or providing, if\nthey had not discovered that without them their wives droop, and with them\nthey keep well.\n\nPeople who are neither tender nor sensitive can neither comprehend nor\nmeet these needs. Alas! that there are so many such people; or that, if\nthere must be just so many, as I suppose there must, they are not\ndistinguishable at first sight, by some mark of color, or shape, or sound,\nso that one might avoid them, or at least know what to expect in entering\ninto relation with them. Woe be to any sensitive soul whose life must, in\nspite of itself, take tone and tint from daily and intimate intercourse\nwith such! No bravery, no philosophy, no patience can save it from a slow\ndeath. But, while the subtlest and most stimulating pleasures which the\nsoul knows come to it through its affections, and are, therefore, so to\nspeak, at every man's mercy, there is still left a world of possibility of\nenjoyment, to which we can help ourselves, and which no man can hinder.\n\nAnd just here it is, I think, that many persons, especially those who are\nhard-worked, and those who have some special trouble to bear, make great\nmistake. They might, perhaps, say at hasty first sight that it would be\nselfish to aim at providing themselves with pleasures. Not at all. Not one\nwhit more than it is for them to buy a bottle of Ayer's Sarsaparilla (if\nthey do not know better) to \"cleanse their blood\" in the spring! Probably\na dollar's worth of almost any thing out of any other shop than a\ndruggist's would \"cleanse their blood\" better,--a geranium, for instance,\nor a photograph, or a concert, or a book, or even fried oysters,--any\nthing, no matter what, so it is innocent, which gives them a little\npleasure, breaks in on the monotony of their work or their trouble, and\nmakes them have for one half-hour a \"good time.\" Those who have near and\ndear ones to remember these things for them need no such words as I am\nwriting here. Heaven forgive them if, being thus blessed, they do not\nthank God daily and take courage.\n\nBut lonely people, and people whose kin are not kind or wise in these\nthings, must learn to minister even in such ways to themselves. It is not\nselfish. It is not foolish. It is wise. It is generous. Each contented\nlook on a human face is reflected in every other human face which sees it;\neach growth in a human soul is a blessing to every other human soul which\ncomes in contact with it.\n\nHere will come in, for many people, the bitter restrictions of poverty.\nThere are so many men and women to whom it would seem simply a taunt to\nadvise them to spend, now and then, a dollar for a pleasure. That the poor\nmust go cold and hungry has never seemed to me the hardest feature in\ntheir lot; there are worse deprivations than that of food or raiment, and\nthis very thing is one of them. This is a point for charitable people to\nremember, even more than they do.\n\nWe appreciate this when we give some plum-pudding and turkey at Christmas,\ninstead of all coal and flannel. But, any day in the year, a picture on\nthe wall might perhaps be as comforting as a blanket on the bed; and, at\nany rate, would be good for twelve months, while the blanket would help\nbut six. I have seen an Irish mother, in a mud hovel, turn red with\ndelight at a rattle for her baby, when I am quite sure she would have been\nindifferently grateful for a pair of socks.\n\nFood and physicians and money are and always will be on the earth. But a\n\"merry heart\" is a \"continual feast,\" and \"doeth good like-a medicine;\"\nand \"loving favor\" is \"chosen,\" \"rather than gold and silver.\"\n\n\n\n\nWanted.--A Home.\n\n\n\nNothing can be meaner than that \"Misery should love company.\" But the\nproverb is founded on an original principle in human nature, which it is\nno use to deny and hard work to conquer. I have been uneasily conscious of\nthis sneaking sin in my own soul, as I have read article after article in\nthe English newspapers and magazines on the \"decadence of the home spirit\nin English family life, as seen in the large towns and the metropolis.\" It\nseems that the English are as badly off as we. There, also, men are\nwide-awake and gay at clubs and races, and sleepy and morose in their own\nhouses; \"sons lead lives independent of their fathers and apart from their\nsisters and mothers;\" \"girls run about as they please, without care or\nguidance.\" This state of things is \"a spreading social evil,\" and men are\nat their wit's end to know what is to be done about it. They are\nransacking \"national character and customs, religion, and the particular\ntendency of the present literary and scientific thought, and the teaching\nand preaching of the public press,\" to find out the root of the trouble.\nOne writer ascribes it to the \"exceeding restlessness and the desire to be\ndoing something which are predominant and indomitable in the Anglo-Saxon\nrace;\" another to the passion which almost all families have for seeming\nricher and more fashionable than their means will allow. In these, and in\nmost of their other theories, they are only working round and round, as\ndoctors so often do, in the dreary circle of symptomatic results, without\nso much as touching or perhaps suspecting their real centre. How many\npeople are blistered for spinal disease, or blanketed for rheumatism, when\nthe real trouble is a little fiery spot of inflammation in the lining of\nthe stomach! and all these difficulties in the outworks are merely the\ncreaking of the machinery, because the central engine does not work\nproperly. Blisters and blankets may go on for seventy years coddling the\npoor victim; but he will stay ill to the last if his stomach be not set\nright.\n\nThere is a close likeness between the doctor's high-sounding list of\nremote symptoms, which he is treating as primary diseases, and the hue and\noutcry about the decadence of the home spirit, the prevalence of excessive\nand improper amusements, club-houses, billiard-rooms, theatres, and so\nforth, which are \"the banes of homes.\"\n\nThe trouble is in the homes. Homes are stupid, homes are dreary, homes are\ninsufferable. If one can be pardoned for the Irishism of such a saying,\nhomes are their own worst \"banes.\" If homes were what they should be,\nnothing under heaven could be invented which could be bane to them, which\nwould do more than serve as useful foil to set off their better cheer,\ntheir pleasanter ways, their wholesomer joys.\n\nWhose fault is it that they are not so? Fault is a heavy word. It\nincludes generations in its pitiless entail. Sufficient for the day is the\nevil thereof is but one side of the truth. No day is sufficient unto the\nevil thereof is the other. Each day has to bear burdens passed down from\nso many other days; each person has to bear burdens so complicated, so\ninterwoven with the burdens of others; each person's fault is so fevered\nand swollen by faults of others, that there is no disentangling the\nquestion of responsibility. Every thing is everybody's fault is the\nsimplest and fairest way of putting it. It is everybody's fault that the\naverage home is stupid, dreary, insufferable,--a place from which fathers\nfly to clubs, boys and girls to streets. But when we ask who can do most\nto remedy this,--in whose hands it most lies to fight the fight against\nthe tendencies to monotony, stupidity, and instability which are inherent\nin human nature,--then the answer is clear and loud. It is the work of\nwomen; this is the true mission of women, their \"right\" divine and\nunquestionable, and including most emphatically the \"right to labor.\"\n\nTo create and sustain the atmosphere of a home,--it is easily said in a\nvery few words; but how many women have done it? How many women can say to\nthemselves or others that this is their aim? To keep house well women\noften say they desire. But keeping house well is another affair,--I had\nalmost said it has nothing to do with creating a home. That is not true,\nof course; comfortable living, as regards food and fire and clothes, can\ndo much to help on a home. Nevertheless, with one exception, the best\nhomes I have ever seen were in houses which were not especially well kept;\nand the very worst I have ever known were presided (I mean tyrannized)\nover by \"perfect housekeepers.\"\n\nAll creators are single-aimed. Never will the painter, sculptor, writer\nlose sight of his art. Even in the intervals of rest and diversion which\nare necessary to his health and growth, every thing he sees ministers to\nhis passion. Consciously or unconsciously, he makes each shape, color,\nincident his own; sooner or later it will enter into his work.\n\nSo it must be with the woman who will create a home. There is an evil\nfashion of speech which says it is a narrowing and narrow life that a\nwoman leads who cares only, works only for her husband and children; that\na higher, more imperative thing is that she herself be developed to her\nutmost. Even so clear and strong a writer as Frances Cobbe, in her\notherwise admirable essay on the \"Final Cause of Woman,\" falls into this\nshallowness of words, and speaks of women who live solely for their\nfamilies as \"adjectives.\"\n\nIn the family relation so many women are nothing more, so many women\nbecome even less, that human conception may perhaps be forgiven for losing\nsight of the truth, the ideal. Yet in women it is hard to forgive it.\nThinking clearly, she should see that a creator can never be an adjective;\nand that a woman who creates and sustains a home, and under whose hands\nchildren grow up to be strong and pure men and women, is a creator, second\nonly to God.\n\nBefore she can do this, she must have development; in and by the doing of\nthis comes constant development; the higher her development, the more\nperfect her work; the instant her own development is arrested, her\ncreative power stops. All science, all art, all religion, all experience\nof life, all knowledge of men--will help her; the stars in their courses\ncan be won to fight for her. Could she attain the utmost of knowledge,\ncould she have all possible human genius, it would be none too much.\nReverence holds its breath and goes softly, perceiving what it is in this\nwoman's power to do; with what divine patience, steadfastness, and\ninspiration she must work.\n\nInto the home she will create, monotony, stupidity, antagonisms cannot\ncome. Her foresight will provide occupations and amusements; her loving\nand alert diplomacy will fend off disputes. Unconsciously, every member of\nher family will be as clay in her hands. More anxiously than any statesman\nwill she meditate on the wisdom of each measure, the bearing of each word.\nThe least possible governing which is compatible with order will be her\nfirst principle; her second, the greatest possible influence which is\ncompatible with the growth of individuality. Will the woman whose brain\nand heart are working these problems, as applied to a household, be an\nadjective? be idle?\n\nShe will be no more an adjective than the sun is an adjective in the\nsolar system; no more idle than Nature is idle. She will be perplexed; she\nwill be weary; she will be disheartened, sometimes. All creators, save\nOne, have known these pains and grown strong by them. But she will never\nwithdraw her hand for one instant. Delays and failures will only set her\nto casting about for new instrumentalities. She will press all things into\nher service. She will master sciences, that her boys' evenings need not be\ndull. She will be worldly wise, and render to Caesar his dues, that her\nhusband and daughters may have her by their side in all their pleasures.\nShe will invent, she will surprise, she will forestall, she will remember,\nshe will laugh, she will listen, she will be young, she will be old, and\nshe will be three times loving, loving, loving.\n\nThis is too hard? There is the house to be kept? And there are poverty and\nsickness, and there is not time?\n\nYes, it is hard. And there is the house to be kept; and there are poverty\nand sickness; but, God be praised, there is time. A minute is time. In one\nminute may live the essence of all. I have seen a beggar-woman make half\nan hour of home on a doorstep, with a basket of broken meat! And the most\nperfect home I ever saw was in a little house into the sweet incense of\nwhose fires went no costly things. A thousand dollars served for a year's\nliving of father, mother, and three children. But the mother was a creator\nof a home; her relation with her children was the most beautiful I have\never seen; even a dull and commonplace man was lifted up and enabled to\ndo good work for souls, by the atmosphere which this woman created; every\ninmate of her house involuntarily looked into her face for the key-note of\nthe day; and it always rang clear. From the rose-bud or clover-leaf which,\nin spite of her hard housework, she always found time to put by our plates\nat breakfast, down to the essay or story she had on hand to be read or\ndiscussed in the evening, there was no intermission of her influence. She\nhas always been and always will be my ideal of a mother, wife, home-maker.\nIf to her quick brain, loving heart, and exquisite tact had been added the\nappliances of wealth and the enlargements of a wider culture, hers would\nhave been absolutely the ideal home. As it was, it was the best I have\never seen. It is more than twenty years since I crossed its threshold. I\ndo not know whether she is living or not. But, as I see house after house\nin which fathers and mothers and children are dragging out their lives in\na hap-hazard alternation of listless routine and unpleasant collision, I\nalways think with a sigh of that poor little cottage by the seashore, and\nof the woman who was \"the light thereof;\" and I find in the faces of many\nmen and children, as plainly written and as sad to see as in the newspaper\ncolumns of \"Personals,\" \"Wanted,--a home.\"","title":"Bits about Home Matters","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":53998}