Part 12

Which reminds me to say that I think Eve's baby, which she named Cain, had the advantage of Aurelia's baby in some respects. The chronicles of that day do not show that the baby Cain was obliged to take soothing syrup, squills, or paregoric. There is no proof that the angels smiled at him or talked to him in his sleep, as they do to modern babies through the medium of colic. Cain could wander about at his own sweet will, without any danger of catching the whooping cough, measles, chicken-pox or any other of the contagious infantile necessities which have been imposed upon all coming babies by his mother's exploits in stealing and eating apples. Adam did not have to walk the floor o' nights, have his whiskers pulled out by the roots, or buy rattles and india-rubber rings. There isn't a line on record to show that the infantile Cain suffered from pins sticking into his blessed little legs and arms. I do not suppose that the old ladies of the neighborhood came in every day or so, and scared Eve's life out of her, by conjuring up all sorts of diseases, with all sorts of remedies and cheerful predictions that Cain would die young, although I think it would have been better for Cain if he had. Holy Writ does not show, again, that Cain was entrusted in his marsupial days, to the care of that curious compound of a gin bottle and a baby-tender, who has a profound contempt for the mother, knows more than all the rest of the world combined, and looks upon a physician as a foe to the human race. I do not suppose Cain was kissed within an inch of his life by prospective young mothers and youthful females, who have graduated from the doll stage of their existence, nor that he was rigged up in bib, pinafore, and ribbon, until he was purple in the face, with the point of one very sharp pin inserted into the end of his back, and placed on exhibition in a state of squalls and general disgust consequent upon the aforesaid point, which he could feel, if he couldn't see. The youthful Cain was not made the victim of the maternal meetings, and crammed with Watts' hymns, and chapters of the Bible before he was into his fig-leaf breeches--and right here, I suppose somebody will say he would have turned out better if he had been brought up in this manner, to which I might retort with the fact that Abel was not subjected to the cramming process either. Cain never bumped his precious little head by falling out of his crib. He could not fall out of the cradle of the beautiful white arms of the first mother, which encircled him with their zone of love, and which, I warrant you, yearned for him even when he wandered through the earth, with the brand upon his brow, and the stain upon his heart, and our common mother mourned in the depths of a triple agony. And it is to be recorded as one of the incidents of his early days, that Eve was a healthy woman, and he was not brought up on chalk and water, and did not ruin his small stomach with candy and sweetmeats, presented by injudicious, but kindly disposed people, whose generosity was only equalled by their stupidity.

I am getting away from Aurelia's baby somewhat, but there are still some analogies between Aurelia and Eve untouched upon, and, as I am writing this screed I will be obliged to you if you do not interrupt me again, but leave me to say my say in my own manner. I candidly confess to you that I don't know where this baby business will take me, or when I shall get through talking about it, but just at present I prefer to let the subject take me along at will. I had rather trust myself to babies, than some grown people who insist upon interruption.

After this necessary parenthetical defence of my rights, I may say that although the youthful Cain turned out very badly, I do not suppose that Eve--as she sat under the pleasant trees of Eden, and watched the little Cain playing in the flowers, while all the birds, as yet unharmed by man, came and sang to her--ever thought her first-born would be a murderer, or ever saw anything in his face, as he lay upon her bosom, but love and joy. For the good God never made anything ugly or bad. All that comes from his hand is perfect and beautiful. No human being, do I sincerely believe, is born absolutely ugly. The ugly man has made himself ugly. The ugly woman is at fault herself.

And as Aurelia sits looking into the eyes of her baby, I do not think she ever dreams of what may be in store for it in the coming days. Her whole world is in the present. But as I watch them, smoking my cigar, I cannot help seeing visions in the smoke, and I sometimes shudder as I think that the sweet blue eyes may lose all their light of beauty, and purity, and innocence, and burn with the fierce flame of passion, or be dimmed with the mists of misery, or darkened with the night of anguish through which she may have to pass; that the little soft pink-and-white feet may have to travel and bleed on the flinty roads to which they are all unused, and that, weary and travel-worn, soiled and dusty, they may find no resting place this side of Heaven, save in the long rest under the flowers; that the tiny hands which now grasp at the world, as if they would clutch it all in the little fists, may full soon fold themselves, tired with the conflict, may grasp another only to be deceived, only to wither and waste away, only to be crossed above a cold, silent heart, with a flower in their marble fingers, may know cruel grasps of parting, and heart-ache, may do the deed which shall dishonor the sweet mother-hand which must too soon cease to guide, and must let go the hold which it would fain keep forever.

And in all the great joy in her eyes, I see no traces of a shadow which may come into the house; no fear that some day the sun will not shine for her, and the stars be darkened in the cruel heavens; that the baby which but yesterday filled all the home with the light of her eyes and the silvery music of her voice, will be lying cold and still in the chamber overhead; that the little waxen face moulded into a moment's unearthly beauty, by that cunning sculptor, Death, will cease to respond to her; that the white and green of the cross and the crown, and the half opened rose-bud, no whiter than the fingers holding it, will be the only souvenirs of her whom the jealous angels carried away in the night watches, because she was fairer than they. I think sometimes of these things as I sit watching them, but I know that she does not, and I pray Heaven to avert the cruel blow, and that the mother may be waiting for the child at the Gate Beautiful, and not the child waiting for the mother; and that all the good angels may watch over them, and shield them both, however deep the waters through which they may pass.

I think that Aurelia's face has suffered "a sea-change" since the little one was born; that it has been transfigured into something more beautiful--a serenity, and holy calm, which is not altogether beauty, but a rapt and saintly expression, such as you may see in the Madonna della Sedia of Raphael. I think you will often see it in young mothers at certain times. All that was there before imprinted by the wear and friction of life, with its petty annoyances, vexations and passions, all the weariness and _ennui_, all the storms and conflicts, seem to have passed away, and in their stead has settled down a placid, gentle, saintly expression, just as after the noise and bustle, the smoke and dust, the jangle and jar of the day, come the brooding wings of the twilight, the holy hush of evening, and the silence of the stars.

January 17, 1869.

_THE QUARREL._

Old Blobbs, who always takes a fiendish delight in chaffing Fitz-Herbert, immediately proceeded to enlighten him, by declaring it was nothing of the sort. "I suppose, my young friend, that Lambele had the same right to get married as Mrs. Blobbs had, and would give the same reason. I suppose, if you live long enough, sir, you will find some foolish young woman who will want to marry _you_, although I think you will be quite old by that time. Mrs. Blobbs and I have lived together a great many years. With all due deference to Mrs. Blobbs, we have had a good many clouds in our sky, and some storms. It is not for me to say who has caused these storms, nor to insinuate that it is not altogether necessary for us to have had clouds in our sky. Perhaps, if the sun shone all the time, we should not appreciate each other as we do. At the same time, Mrs. B. will join me in saying that it is a blessed thing to be married. Why, sir, look at J. Grau, who has been sitting under the willows of Babylon, playing the harp all his life, in single blessedness, and is going to marry a young New York lady, of charming beauty and great expectations. Now, you may ask why J. Grau, who has always been wedded to art (when it paid), wants to marry? It will make a man of J. Grau, sir--make a man of him. It makes a man of any one. A man without a wife is a boat without oars. It will drift without purpose, and finally go to pieces. He is a jug without a handle--a bow without an arrow. It would make a man of _you_, sir, although it might take more than one woman to do it. Your prospects for an early attainment of that desideratum would be better under the wings of Brigham Young, albeit the 'heft' of the labor would come upon your marital female fractional parts. Any further information you desire, you can obtain from Mrs. Blobbs, if you apply between the hours of two and three, when she is invariably at peace with me and all the rest of the world." Whereupon Fitz-Herbert smoothed his back hair and looked at himself in the mirror opposite, and Mrs. Blobbs' black silk began to rustle, when Mignon prevented an outbreak between Jupiter and Juno by declaring it was a shame to have the pleasure of the breakfast-table marred with any differences. The Canary stopped singing when Mignon spoke, ashamed of his music, and as the Dear Creature arose and kissed the frown out of Mrs. B.'s face, and smoothed down Old Blobbs' iron-gray locks, she said: "We must have no naughty words, my dear Blobbs, in this golden sunlight and under these blue heavens. Let us thank the good God who sent us gifts of days like these in the new year, and who tempers the winter winds in blessings to the firesides of the poor, and not mar their perfect beauty with our little differences." And she took Blobbs' hard, horny hand, and Mrs. B.'s thin and withered hand in her own little white hands, and, placing them together, said: "We will have no more quarrels, my dears, and, under clear and cloudy skies--in bright or stormy weather--when roses are blooming and roses are dying--when the birds build among the leaves, and when no birds fly under the gray heavens--we will go hand in hand and heart to heart, for life is too short for us to quarrel in. The sun is low down in the west, and our shadows grow longer. We have but a little way to go down the hill, and one of us must leave the other before we get to the foot of it. We will, therefore, forget all about the rough journeys up the hill, and make the rest of our way lighter and brighter, in remembrance of that day, so long ago, when we placed our hands together thus, and promised so to do." And there were tears in Mrs. Blobbs' face, and Old Blobbs' face lighted up with an expression none of us had ever seen it wear before. As the old couple sat for some time, hand in hand, and neither of them spoke, we knew that the trumpets were singing truce, and that the battle was over.

January 23, 1869.

_A WOMAN NOT OF THE PERIOD._

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But thus formally embracing the Woman of the Period, I cannot altogether suppress memories, and among them will come memories not of the period; a woman who believes that God Almighty did not intend to unsex her; a woman who believes that as soon as her dependence upon man ceases, she loses all her loveliness; a woman whose home is a perennial spring, from which flow the purest of pleasures; a woman who sends out her boys and girls into the world, clothed with her own graces of humility, and beauty, and goodliness, whereby they may crown her old age with blessing; a woman who is queen at her own fireside, and rules her own household with the sceptre of love; a woman who governs because she serves; a woman whose influence radiates far and wide from the home circle, as light and heat radiate from the sun; a woman upon whose breast you first opened your eyes to the light of day, and a woman upon whose breast you would fain lie when you close your eyes forever to the light, and prepare to go through the darkness alone; a woman to whom invisible forces are ever drawing you, under all suns, in all times, and in all wanderings, be they never so far; a woman, the perfume of whose prayers always follows you, in good or evil report; a woman who always clings to you, even to the depths of degradation; a woman whose great love is superior to all the accidents of time; a woman whose still, small voice, warning finger, and pleading eyes, are ever present with you when overwhelmed with sore temptations; a woman whose price is above rubies, who worketh willingly with her hands, who giveth meat to her household, who stretcheth her hands to the poor, whose husband is known in the gates, when _he_, (not she), sitteth among the elders of the land; who openeth her mouth with wisdom, and in whose tongue is the law of kindness; who looketh well to the ways of her household, and whose children and her husband also arise up and call her blessed; a woman to whom you look up, and whom you worship, though no halo, except that of love, sheds its light upon her sweet face; a woman whose life is too holy to be debased with politics, too industrious to be wasted on empty babble, too lofty and too noble to be dragged down to the level of man; a woman, best of all women--your mother and my mother.

February 13, 1869.

_A TRIP TO HEAVEN._

It was in a dream, and, I think, the _Andante_ of the fifth symphony had something to do with it. In any event I left this Earth very suddenly on a trip among the stars. After I had risen a short distance, I looked down upon the Earth, and was astonished to find what a small and insignificant place it was, after all. Quite a number of people whom I might mention, who make a great parade and show, and who strut up and down the green footstool, like Sir Oracles, actually looked to me like ants, running about on an ant hill, and they didn't appear at my height to any better advantage than those who were more humble and retired. Several loud, blatant fellows, and several women gifted with Gab, strange to say, I couldn't hear at all. In fact, I couldn't discover that there was anything at all of much consequence in this world, to a man half a mile up in the air. When I arrived at the Moon, I stopped to rest, and had a talk with the Man in it, who laid down his bundle of sticks and was very affable. Much to my surprise, when I looked after the Earth I couldn't find it, and inquiry of the Man did not help me any, as he had never known such a place, except from hearsay. He pointed out several millions of stars in an obscure and remote part of the heavens, which were dimly visible, and intimated that the Earth might be among them, but, as it was of so little consequence he never troubled himself about it. When I told him, however, how the lovers of Earth worshipped his planet, he seemed pleased, and expressed his gratification that there was so much moonshine in love. I gave him the latest intelligence of the doings of the Sorosis, in which he manifested considerable interest, there being, as he told me, no women in the Moon. I noticed that the place was exceedingly quiet.

After guiding me upon my way to Heaven, he picked up his bundle of sticks and resumed his journey, and I set off on another flight. I passed Jupiter, who was still up to his scandalous tricks, which, of old, brought Antiope, Leda, Europa, and others, into the divorce courts; passed Mars, who was just putting on his helmet and preparing to thresh a small planet in a distant galaxy; passed Venus, to whom I touched my hat and hurried on, as she was just then engaged in a _tete-a-tete_ with Adonis; passed the Pleiades, all of whom still wear mourning for their lost sister, who, they informed me, ran away several thousand years ago, with a pretty little comet with a tail like a peacock's; passed Ursa Major, who growled somewhat, but finally gave me a drink from his Dipper; passed the North Star, the only steady and well-behaved star in the heavens. After leaving the Cynosure, my course led me into the Milky Way, a wretched place, which, to my astonishment, I found full of milkmen, who, on earth, have been accustomed to sell chalk and water. One of these unfortunate shades, who used to have an Elgin dairy on the Archer road, informed me, with tears in his ghostly eyes, that the Milky Way was reserved for the milkmen of Earth, who have proclivities for pumps, and that they are doomed to be chased through all eternity by stump-tailed cows. He begged me, when I returned to earth, to warn his relatives and all others in the business. I promised to do so, and, when I left the Milky Way, he was making the grand round, with a whole herd of stump-tails, who used to live on the North Branch, after him.

After leaving the Milky Way, I reached the boundary of our system of planets, and dodging innumerable meteors and comets which were flying about in the most eccentric manner, and narrowly escaping destruction by the explosion of a planet, many times larger than the Earth, which burst into millions of atoms with a roar which seemed to shake the whole empyrean, and went floating off into space like a piece of burned tinder, passed into another system of stars and planets, all revolving round their central sun. The earthly system was soon lost to view. I passed from planet to planet, from galaxy to galaxy, floated in azure fields full of gorgeous nebulæ, or rode on undulating billows of air, between comets of lustrous sheen, and moons and suns, whose orbits interlaced, in sheens of glowing, rosy light. Out of this system into still another, and the last faded from sight again, and so on till I reached a great calm sea of golden light in which there were no suns nor no moons. I had passed the confines of all worlds, and they had all disappeared. Above, below, and all around was only this serene, golden atmosphere, unflecked by a single spot, undotted by a single island. It was the vast, open sea of Immortality, which never began, and shall never end. In that sea there was no limit to vision. In that sea all things became clear. Time dwindled to a speck, and Death was only an incident. Life was incomprehensible in this sea, but it seemed to me with my new vision that I had lived many lives before this one, and that I saw the shadows and indistinct forms of others yet to be lived. As I floated on, I suddenly rose out of the gold into a crystal atmosphere, which was no longer the solitude of the sea, but was peopled with beautiful forms which flew slowly past me with wondering eyes, and one or two there were, who gazed at me with an old familiar look I somehow seemed to remember in that Earth, millions of miles below me, but no sound came from their lips, and thus I questioned them in vain. As I rose higher, this crystal atmosphere was crowded with lustrous forms, and suddenly, in a blaze of almost blinding brightness, I found myself at the great gate of pearl, with St. Peter keeping watch and ward, the keys in his hands, as the old masters loved to paint him. He very courteously denied me admission, as I was only in a dream, and had not yet passed to that sleep which knows no dreams; but he allowed me to stand at the gate.

And as I stood there, several disembodied individuals who had formerly lived on Earth, applied for admission. Upon each application, St. Peter inquired in a loud voice within, if there was any objection. The first who came was a cartman. The usual inquiry was made, and as the cartman was about to enter, his horse, whom he had beaten and killed with cruelty, and whose sufferings had reached the throne of the infinite God, confronted him, and gazed at him with those eyes which had appealed to him for mercy in life, until he fled in dismay into the outer abyss. Another came, and a little bird, whom he had wantonly shot on Earth, to whom God had given life not without purpose, flew from a lotus plant to the gate, and confronted him. He, too, asked no questions and turned away. Another came, and, as he was about to enter, a pallid form with a gory wound on his forehead, suddenly appeared before him, and the now revealed murderer fled, shrieking, away from the gate. The next who came was a purse-proud individual, who had on Earth ground down his female employees, and paid them only the scantiest pittance, and as he was about to enter, a woman in rags, with pinched, wan features, who had died of neglect and starvation, met him and prevented his entrance. I could not begin to enumerate all who came to that gate and went away. One man's entrance was prevented by a butterfly, whom he, cruelly and in wanton sport, had torn to pieces to gratify his malicious idleness. Each one that had perpetrated a needless wrong, met that wrong at the gate, and it stood in his way. And I inquired of St. Peter if that was the universal law in Heaven, and he said to me: "The law of Heaven is love. The law of kindness is the law of love, and he loves the great God best who loves everything He has made--the beast of the field, the bird of the air, and the fish of the sea; and Heaven loves him best who loves all His works on the Earth, from the tiniest insect to his brother Man."

St. Peter ceased, for just then Beethoven and Mozart and Mendelssohn and Bach commenced to play a new quartette, which they had just composed together, and so sweet was that music that all the angels came flocking to hear it. Dante stood by listening, with Beatrice, for he no longer looked up to her in the shining heights, but beheld his "most gentle lady" face to face. Irma, who found repose on the Heights, and the other Beatrice, now kindred spirits, were there. Petrarch and Laura, and Abelard and Heloise, freed from all earthly taints, reclined upon a flowery bank and listened, and many others, whom I have not time to enumerate, who did great deeds upon Earth, and suffered great sorrows, and yet were nameless heroes there, found their great reward in these delights. As the music ceased and I was about to turn away, there was a little form which flew towards me and looked at me with unutterable love in her eyes, and stretched out her little white hands to me, and I recognized the eyes as those I had seen on Earth and the hands as those which I had seen crossed over a rose-bud no whiter than they, and the form as one we had laid away, when all the birds were singing and all the flowers were in bloom, in the populous Acre of God. And I would fain have gone to her, but as I sprang forward, she vanished slowly into the distance, still looking at me with the loving eyes, still stretching out the white hands, and, like a strain of beautiful music wafted over water in the night-watches, came the words to me, "Not yet." And the heavens vanished and I awoke upon the dim spot which men call Earth.

February 20, 1869.

_DAY DREAMS._