Part 13
Our talk at the breakfast table yesterday morning, was discursive to a degree which would have distracted Anna Dickinson. We had no hobbies to ride, and we rattled on about this, that, and the other, Mignon's Canary singing at the top of his little lungs, and Aurelia's baby adding to the general confusion by the most desperate protests, in an unknown tongue, against a pin, which was sticking into his blessed little back. We were all very happy, and not even Mrs. Blobbs complained of any invasion of her rights. Old Blobbs, his face beaming with delight, was undressing his third baked potato, and asked, in a careless, and slightly sarcastic way, "Well, what have you been day-dreaming about lately?"
And I replied: "You should not speak so lightly of day dreams, for _you_ are a day-dreamer."
Blobbs looked up in surprise, and Mrs. Blobbs stopped stirring her coffee to gravely shake her head. "Yes, my dear Blobbs," said I, "you are a dreamer. We are all dreamers. Life is all a dream, and we shall not cease dreaming until we fall into the dreamless sleep, when all that is now dark will become bright, and the Sphynx will no longer torment us with the enigma of its stony lips and staring eyes. It is useless for you to deny that you have any sentiment in your nature. You may try to cover it up with discounts, invoices, bills of lading and mortgages. You may mingle with men upon 'Change, and wear a hard, practical face. You may talk in the conventional _patois_ of life, and try to convince those around you that you are a mill-stone, busily engaged in crushing sentiment, but you cannot cheat yourself. You are a living lie. You are too proud to acknowledge there is any poetry in your heart. But it is there, nevertheless, and when you least expect it, some strain of music, some song of a bird, some perfume of a flower, some thought in a book will bring it out. Deep down in the heart of man it rests. It may be a thought, it may be a principle, it may be only a remembrance, but it is there in some shape. You may conceal it from your fellows, but when you are with yourself, you dare not deny it. You may forget it in the rush and din of trade, and the wheels of Mammon may drown its still, small voice, but there must be times when you retire within yourself and forget the practical; and, in those moments, when there is no one near you, those moments which make a man of you, you think of what has been, and what might have been. Dare you deny that you have a little memento laid away--some long faded flower, some bit of ribbon, some little trinket--which is full of precious remembrances? Dare you deny that I found you the other day with a tear in your eye, as you stood looking at a wreath of faded white and green, which once rested upon the breast of a little sleeper, who came among us, and stayed but for a day, because they had need of her in Heaven? It was not your child. What was that dead wreath to you? The angels did not rob you. It was simply, my dear Blobbs, a link between the seen and the unseen. It tied Heaven and earth together. It suggested to you what might have been. It made you think of little eyes, you long had waited for, which never looked into yours; of little feet, you long had waited for, which never made music in your house. It rekindled the ashes of a dead longing, and you dare not deny that you thought with unutterable pain, it were better to have possessed and lost, than never to have possessed at all. It was your better nature, which you strive so hard to suppress, coming to the surface."
And Mignon said: "All of us have this sentiment in our composition, although the most of us are too proud to acknowledge it. I have been in the woods in March, when the ground was covered with snow. I have carefully pulled up the matted layers of dead leaves, and underneath all this debris was the arbutus, with its glossy, green leaves, and its pink and white petals, as full of beauty and delicious fragrance as if it had never been buried under the corruption of a dead year--as if it had never been hidden from the air and the sun. So in every heart, down under the snows of life, down under the dead, matted leaves of care, passion, sin, and shame, are growing flowers of sentiment. You will do well to uncover them now and then, for they will give beauty and perfume to your whole nature, and make you a better man or woman. And God grant, that when you clear away the debris, you do not find a grave of dead hopes."
March 14, 1869.
_LENT AND CHILDREN._
Whew!
Which is meant to express a sigh of relief that Lent is over.
Isn't it nice?
This saving one's soul on fish when fish commands a premium, is expensive and monotonous.
Welcome the hens. Exit white-fish, enter eggs.
Whew!
Would that we lived in the grand old days when the sun danced in the sky on Easter morning; when the children played the pretty games with colored eggs; when the Aldermen went out on Easter morn for a little municipal game of ball; when it would have been my privilege to parade the streets and claim the privilege of lifting every woman three times from the ground, receiving as payment a kiss or a silver shilling, the women having the same privilege on the next day, in order to make things even.
Wouldn't it be nice? That is, if one didn't meet Parepa and undertake that little job.
When the men and women threw apples into the churchyard, and those who had been married during the year threw three times as many as the rest. It strikes me, however, that if this rule had been reversed, and those who had been divorced during the year were obliged to throw three times as many apples as the rest, the Chicago church-wardens would fare better.
And then to go to the minister's and feast on bread, cheese and ale, on bacon and tansy pudding.
As it is, the only relief one has now is the blessed feeling that he can go to sinning again. It is too much for any constitution to be strictly pious for six weeks, and live on beans and fish. Neither the moral nor the physical diet agrees with me. A little sin now will be an excellent tonic.
And it will agree with you, Celeste, also. You didn't look well sitting in black, picking fish bones. I knew all the time you were thinking of the flesh pots. It is useless for you to try to convince me that you have been an angel for the past six weeks. It won't do. There is not the slightest sign of a pin feather, even, on your pretty white shoulders. You are essentially human. I know that, eating your lentils, you sighed for the salads, and filets, and Burgundy. I know that, in your suit of serge, your eyes were prospectively fixed upon the new spring hat and all the pretty petals which would unfold about you on Easter, and turn you into a lily, to blossom to-morrow, in accordance with the provisions of the Council of Nice.
Isn't it nice?
When you kept saying to yourself, all through Lent, that you were a poor, weak, miserable creature, and that there was nothing but vanity in the world, I know you excepted that delightful fellow in black hair, with a divine moustache and taper fingers, who looked unutterably pretty things at you over the top of his prayer-book, divided his responses between you and Parson Primrose, and wore a diamond ring on his third finger, which he managed, somehow, to keep directly in the light which streamed through St. John on the stained window.
You are now absolved, my dear Celeste. Go in and sin just a little, and prove your humanity. You are not made to be an angel, but "a little lower than the angels," you know. Undrape your pretty rounded shoulders. Pile up your chignon. Put on those darling white slippers, which leave footsteps almost as small as those of the robins in the early spring. No more cypress and rue on your corsage, but the wicked camelia, and the flaunting azalia. Set your slow monastic march to a quicker _tempo_ and, _voila_, the German. Sound fiddles and blow trombones, for Capuchin is now Columbine, and the gilded doors of Fashion swing quickly open for the maskers to enter. It is a merry procession. Sly glances flash through the masks, and there are rounded outlines in the dominoes. Bells tinkle on the gay robes. Who is who? What matters it, so you keep the masks on? Of course, the black mask, now and then, will enter and beckon to one or the other of us to come out with him to the anteroom and take off our masks, preparatory to a long journey with him.
Heigh ho! We shall never come back to the gay scene; but the revel will go on just the same as if you and I had never been in the set. The fiddles will only play a little more _forte_, just loud enough to drown the dirge outside, and we shall go into the dreamless sleep, and grope our way through the shadowy land to the light beyond. Pray God, we all lay ourselves down like true ladies and gentlemen, and that the bugles sing peace over us with all the world.
Which reminds me to say, that in looking over the advertising columns, a few mornings since, I observed a card published by some party who desired boarders--"a gentleman and lady without encumbrances."
Of course the "encumbrances" are children. I protest against the application of the term. If there be anything in the world which can make stale bread and hash palatable, it is a child. If there be anything which can bring a ray of sunshine into the dreary, gloomy desert of a boarding house, it is a child.
I am bound to protest against this opposition to children, which is growing fiercer every day. Occasionally you will find a family with soul enough in its collective breast to admit a party with one child, with a mental reservation that they are entitled to a crown of glory for so doing. But what are those fond parents, whose nest is full of these lively and demonstrative pledges of conjugal affection, to do? A house which has not a little blue and gold edition of humanity, fluttering through its rooms, dancing, singing, and crowing, as full of love as an egg is of meat, whose sky is all sunshine, or at most overcast by the thinnest of April clouds, sounding a jubilant peal of ecstasy in the morning, and making the coming night doubly holy and beautiful with its little prayer at evening, must be a very lonely house. A house which has not a little crib in the nursery; a mutilated battalion of dolls, minus legs, arms, and heads, looking for all the world as though they had just come from some Lilliputian battle; marvelous books, reciting the exploits of the matronly Goose, the good fortune of Cinderella, and the bad fortune of Polly Flinders, scattered about in every room, _sans_ covers, and tattered and torn; little blue and red shoes and striped stockings in the drawers; little fingerprints about the door-knobs and marks of juvenile industry everywhere, such as combs in the coal scuttle, carving knives in the molasses jug, tea spoons in the stoves, a family bible illustrated with pencil marks, intended by the youthful Raphael to be letters to some distant aunt, or _chefs d`oeuvres_ in natural history, sugar deftly mixed with the salt, Eau de Cologne in the slop jar, and your favorite arm chair harnessed with strings, and mustered into service as a horse-car--such a home must be as cheerful as the cell of a recluse.
The house which has not seen the day change into night, and all the blessed sun-light extinguished; which has not heard the music of childhood suddenly cease; which listens in vain for the little footfalls pattering from room to room; out from the doors of which a little coffin went one day, leaving a great blank, carrying with the little sleeper almost all our love, and hope, and faith; the house which is not connected more closely with Heaven by that little billow of turf which will soon be starred all over with daisies--such a house must be very dreary. Children, encumbrances! Bah! The man or woman who wrote that card--it could not have been a woman--will never be troubled with heart disease.
In the name, and for the sake of the children, I protest against this outrage upon these little people, whose mission it is to elevate, refine, and humanize us; into whose pure, innocent faces one can look with so much relief, after a day of intercourse with the rough, hard faces of the world; who are the only reminders that there ever was an Eden, and who make Heaven possible on earth.
I wouldn't trust a man with a torn five cent shin-plaster who didn't love a child. It is impossible for a woman not to love a child. There never was a woman so depraved, or so unwomanly, but that a little child could find a good spot in her heart.
And I not only protest against this term of "encumbrance," but I protest against the manner in which children are treated. The other day, I observed an elegantly dressed little child paddling along on the wet, muddy sidewalk, with the thinnest of blue paper shoes. Every step the little one took, must, inevitably, have dampened her feet. A foolish woman was walking by her side quite comfortably shod.
I don't know that that foolish woman knew what she was doing, but I will tell her. In allowing your child to go out with those shoes, you were sowing the seeds of disease, which will either kill her before she leaves childhood, or send her into womanhood wrecked for life, and finally to die of consumption. If your child dies before leaving childhood, you will undoubtedly mourn as sincerely as did Rachel, and your good minister will come to comfort you. He will assure you that "the Lord gave, and the Lord taketh away." He will tell you that whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth. He will also caution you against repining at an affliction wisely ordered by Divine Providence.
All this may do as a salve for your sorrow; but it isn't true. The Lord didn't take away your child. You yourself sent her away. This affliction was not ordered by Divine Providence. It was an affliction solely of your own preparation and consummation. No one else in the wide world is responsible for your child's death, and, but for you, she might have been living now. It may be very pleasant for you to cast the responsibility upon Divine Providence, but it isn't fair.
We are all of us too apt to shirk the responsibility, and, with a sort of meek, resigned, gracious wave of the hand, transfer the responsibility to Divine Providence. But it won't do. You can't deceive Heaven in that way.
You yourself hold that child's life in your hand. You can save her, or you can kill her by the mere matter of thickness of leather. If you don't take off those blue shoes, woman, your child will die. Divine Providence won't take off the shoes for you. The requisites for the life of your child are common sense and a shoemaker. It is criminally thoughtless for you to expose your child. It is cowardly for you, when your child dies, to try to shift the responsibility upon Heaven, which had nothing to do with it. If the epitaph was written properly or truthfully upon her little gravestone, hereafter, it would read somewhat after the following fashion:
Here Lies the Body of
* * * *
WHO DIED OF THIN SHOES AND MATERNAL FOLLY.
_Her Mother Did It._
If what I have said shall get a pair of thick shoes for even one child, my purpose will be answered.
March 27, 1869.
_BELLS._
At the dinner table, the other day, we were discussing the subject of bells, and we unanimously regretted the fact that so many beautiful churches have been erected in this city without bells. A church without a bell is like a bush without roses, or a harp without strings.
I believe it to be a Christian duty to hang a bell in every church-tower or steeple; a bell dedicated to solemn and eternal things, dwelling in a realm of music, and swinging in the mid-heavens, to teach us of the mutability of earth; a voice above us--above the din and roar of the city--above the strife of mammon and the jargon of trade--to warn, and to console, and to bring repose to us. And upon every bell, I would, if I had my way, cause to be engraved that solemn legend upon the bell in the minster of Schaffhausen: "Vivos voco; mortuos plango; fulguros frango," ("I call the living; I mourn the dead; I break the lightnings.")
We need more bells. Bells, whose evening chimes mourn the death of the day, and, like the song of the swan, are the sweetest when the day is done; which, like the Ranz des Vaches of Switzerland, call man from his toil and hurry, to the night of repose, and into the weird world of dreams; evening bells, like those which used to be rung to direct the wanderer through the forests to his nightly home, and which, as Jean Paul says, with his rare eloquence, have their parallel in the voices within us and about us, which call us in our straying, and make us calmer, and teach us to moderate our own joys and conceive those of others; vesper bells, veiling all the landscape with a holy hush, and calling man to prayer; bells wafting the sweetest music over the water to the homeward-bound sailor, and coming to him like voices from home, softened by the twilight; bells to welcome him who has wandered the world over, with pilgrim's staff and scallop-shell, seeking for rest--who, tired with life's tumultuous pleasures, surfeited with its vain shows, and filled with nameless, unutterable longings, turns his face homeward again, and finds his heart leaping with joy at the familiar sound of the bells in the distant city--peal upon peal vibrating in sweet music, and telling him of home, and rest, and peace; bells to break the peaceful silence of the Sabbath morning with the lingering cadences of their sweet concord--to summon to worship, to rouse the ear, and to kindle the heart with praise; bells to ring glad, jubilant peals of triumph--to proclaim peace--to wail with sorrow in their voices--to shriek, with warning alarum, the danger in the night.
And if I had my way again, there should be a bell in every steeple to proclaim the birth, the wedding, and the death of man. When the child enters upon the rosy morning of life, the bells should be the first tones to strike upon his ear. Their music should greet him as his little feet take hold upon the rough highway of life, from which they must sometimes stray into forbidden fields, on which they must become so begrimed, so weary and so tottering, and at the end of which they will find rest after the long wandering, sooner or later. When the child, grown into youth, enters upon marriage, the bells should ring their harmonious concord, and their glad tones should mingle with the orange flowers, and the mutual gifts and good wishes. The same bells which welcomed him as he started alone upon the journey, should welcome him now, as the way is made lighter by a companion, and roses grow in the paths where before there were only sharp pebbles and flint. And when the end of the road is reached, and the eye dims, and the flowers fade, and the blue sky is all clouded over, and the two companions must part, the same bells tolling sadly and heavily from the steeples, should guide the weary traveller to his last home with their dirge-like tones.
There are sorrow, music, joy and blessing in bells. The church tower may point to Heaven with Gothic solemnity, but, if no bell is there, no voice calls. Bells are sacred with associations. Year after year they have marked the flight of the hours in their perch in mid air, with no companions but the birds. They have looked down, year after year, upon grandfather, father, and son, grandmother, mother, and daughter, and followed them to their graves in the adjacent acre of God with solemn toll. They have rung glad peals of ecstasy to those who came before us, and have now gone, and they will ring the same glad peals to those yet to come. They are ringing for you and for me now, and they will ring on just the same when you and I are gone. It is now Te Deum, and now Requiem; marriage bells of gladness, and funeral bells of woe. But I would that she, who will come after me, should hear the same bells that I hear, and that they should tell her the same melodic tidings they tell to me, and teach her the same lessons.
Don't build any more churches without bells. Place a bell in every steeple. Consecrate it with joyful service. Bid it to ring for the living, and toll for the dying. Raise it to its belfry with glad acclamation, and then solemnly leave it there in the mid-heavens, above the jargon of earth, companion of the birds and the lightnings, to bring comfort, consolation, and repose forever to the weary--to warn, to inspire, and to gladden.
At present the bells are confined to the pews in the church, and their tongues are not always musical.
April 4, 1869.
_TENORS AND BASSOS._
The tenor, I take to be the happiest man in the world, or, at least, he ought to be. He is the individual whom all the operatic Elviras love. He loves them, also. He has all the serenades to sing. He alone can indulge in the _ut de poitrine_. Almost invariably, he is allowed to die for the heroine, when he isn't permitted to marry her, and always has a _fortissimo_ death-song given to him, which, like the swan's is the sweetest. What little stage business there is, in the way of kneeling at the feet of the _inamoratas_, kissing of hands, and embracing of languishing Leonoras, belongs exclusively to him. He also can be the melancholy man, and drown susceptible damsels with tears, over his chalky grief and cork-lined wrinkles of woe. The women dote upon the tenor, send him little billets, look at him through the lorgnettes, and adore him in secret, as Heine's pine adored the palm. He finds bouquets upon his mantel, and little perfumed notes upon his dressing-table. If he be a _tenor di grazia_, lovely woman will sigh for him; if a _tenor robusto_, lovely woman will die for him, or wish that Heaven had made her such a man. The amateur tenor enjoys the same advantages as the operatic tenor, on a small scale. He is privileged to sing all the pretty things, and he may sing them as badly as may be, if he is only interesting. He is the idol before which female bread-and-butterhood bends, both Grecian and otherwise. He is usually fragile, _spirituel_ and delicate. He sleeps on the underside of a rose-leaf, drinks Angelica, eats caramels, and catches butterflies. He carries his voice in a lace pocket-handkerchief, when in the open air, and does it up in amber when he retires to sleep upon the rose-leaves. He alone is permitted to wear white kids and vest, and otherwise array himself after the manner of the festive hotel waiter. He knows the secret of immortal youth, and never grows old. All tuneful lays set to the tinkling of flutes, guitars and harps, belong to him. He alone can sing to the moon and address the stars. In his _repertoire_ are all the interesting brigands, the high-born cavaliers, the romantic lovers, and the melancholy artists.
And he has nice legs, or, if he hasn't, he had better degenerate into a baritone, and have done with it.
A tenor without nice legs is worse off than a soprano who can't sing "With Verdure Clad," if there be such a _rara avis_, or an alto who has to do _Siebel_ and _Maffeo Orsini_ with elephantine ankles, and there never was an alto in the world with whom I wouldn't measure feet, and give them the odds of one or two numbers.
The tenor lives in clover, chin deep, and never gets stung by the bees. Sometimes he forgets to wrap up his voice in the handkerchief when he goes out, or he sleeps in the direct line of a current of air, which comes in under the door, and the result is an indisposition. When he has an indisposition, he goes off hunting ducks at Calumet, instead of dears in the audience, and the manager forgives him and the audience pity him. He doesn't die like other singers, but gradually fades away like the rose, and disappears in a little cloud of perfume.