Chapter VI: Part 6

At breakfast, this morning, our first topic of conversation was on the matter of parties. It has been, as you know, a great party week, and Old Blobbs, in a casual kind of way, desired to know my opinion of them. Celeste looked a little uneasy at this request, for there is nothing that so delights that Dear Child as a party crush, and nothing is sweeter to her than the fine disorder of her green silk, after young Gauche has emptied his sherry over it, or old Mrs. Dalrymple, who is _chaperoning_ her two nieces to the marital market, has spilled a plate of escalloped oysters upon it, and that overgrown boy of the Midases, who is out for the first time, has trodden them in and disturbed the integrity of the _panier_ besides. She regards all these things as the veteran does his scars, and loves to talk of them in her "confidences" to her two-and-forty dear young friends, who have just bobbed in after dinner to say "How do you do?" and inquire if it was really true, that bit of scandal about Matilda So-and-So and young Codliver. The company immediately pushed their chairs back. Mignon called the Canary from his cage for its morning meal, and as it flew to its customary place upon her shoulder, and watched with its sharp little black eyes the bread which was being crumbled for it, I thought I would rather talk about those two birds than parties. Blanche sat with her fine eyes half closed, as dear old Rossini used to sit at his table, and listened in a dreamy sort of way. Aurelia had all she could do to keep the baby still by threatening it with her shapely fore-finger, while Old Blobbs took his fifth baked potato, a feat in gormandizing which incurred a glance from Mrs. Blobbs that would have withered any other person and caused a rustle of her black silk (for Mrs. B. _will_ wear her black silk to breakfast), eloquent with promises of something between the curtains which would not be as soothing as a lullaby nor as delicious as a love-song.

And I spoke somewhat after the following manner: Some time ago I did myself the pleasure to give you my opinion of fashionable public weddings. Upon that occasion, you will remember that my principal objection to those weddings, was the fact that people mistake vulgarity for elegance. The same fatal mistake applies to public parties, as they are usually given; where genuine elegance becomes impossible, and there are no opportunities offered for the display of taste.

You all well know that party giving, at present, is a mere competition. Mrs. So-and-So issues her cards for two hundred. Mrs. This-and-That immediately sends out three hundred, and Mrs. Whether-or-No, at her party, increases her list to five hundred, and so on. Now, I have no hesitation in pronouncing this simple vulgarity. You cannot make miscellaneous herding elegant. In the first place the social element is killed. To claim that you have five hundred friends is simply stupid. To claim that you have fifty is susceptible of doubt. If you have five, you are much better off. Your five hundred people are, then, merely acquaintances. In the race to get ahead of some one else, you have invited scores of people you don't care a straw for, scores of others who don't care a straw for you, scores of boobies and simpletons, and when you have herded and packed them together, in a house not capable of holding one-fourth that number comfortably, you have simply made a vulgar crush, where no one knows his neighbor, and where mutual acquaintance is impossible, because, however peripatetic you may be in principle, you are stationary in fact. To make such an affair elegant, is in the nature of things impossible. Mere show, noise, glitter, gilt, gingerbread, and gew-gaw, are not elegance. Taste cannot be exercised among, nor appreciated by a genteel mob. In forms of art, in matters of taste and true elegance, there must be the element of repose. It is indispensable to perfection. A gathering of people without any conditions of age, character, or quality, literally packed into a space so small, that locomotion becomes impossible; a table which your restaurateur can't make a success, owing to this fact; an intellectual atmosphere, surcharged only with the small gossip and twaddle of the hour; an utter absence of culture, which alone could impart the repose of true elegance; a meretricious display of glitter, and no true gold; a feasting which is only gormandizing--for in such a miscellaneous gathering you cannot keep out the gluttons; an absence of all true courtesy, because it is impossible to exercise it in the crush; an occasion which does not offer a single inducement for attendance, in the way of art, music, literature, or the best forms of social intercourse--is all that you have accomplished.

Was it worth accomplishing? You know it was not, my dear madame, as well as I. You know that when you wake up the next morning, you are utterly disgusted with the whole affair, and that there is not a single element of gratification in remembering it, except the empty honor of beating Mrs. So-and-So. You know that nine-tenths of those who were present did not enjoy a single minute of comfort, and look back upon your party as a bore, while the happy ones are those whose regrets lie upon your table.

And all this, simply because it was vulgar--not vulgar as meaning immoral or low, but as meaning silly and common. You have made your house too common. No party can be a success, in the best sense of the word, in which there is not some discrimination used in inviting your guests. You should always arrange, if possible, to bring people together of similar tastes, and then have some central point to hold them together. If you _must_ invite five hundred people, you had better make five parties of one hundred each, carefully discriminating, so that your guests may enjoy themselves, than to herd the whole five hundred into one, and thus make a mere rush, scramble, crush and guzzle of it, and transform your house into a menagerie. I am glad to know that this view is not confined to myself, but that in good society, (not the "best" society, for that is almost always the worst), the home parties are included in small soirees of a distinctive character, in which there is ample room for the display of cultivated and artistic elegance, admission to which is deemed an honor.

But do not forget above all, that when a thing becomes miscellaneous, it becomes vulgar, and that judicious exclusiveness and cultured repose are absolutely essential to true elegance. The most delicate rose in the garden planted among hollyhocks, and sunflowers, and weeds, loses all its beauty and fragrance.

Old Blobbs had finished his potato, and was far advanced upon his sixth, when I concluded. He heartily agreed with me, although Celeste was pouting her pretty lips, and said that he desired to make a few remarks also, whereupon Mignon commenced teasing the Canary with a geranium leaf from our breakfast bouquet, and Mrs. Blobbs suddenly excused herself, which did not, however, deter Blobbs from saying his say.

January 10, 1869.

_AURELIA'S BABY._

It is necessary I should say something about Aurelia's Baby, for it is the only baby in the whole world. At least Aurelia thinks so--just as any other mother thinks.

I suppose there never was a baby born into this vale of tears, that its mother did not suppose to be the only baby in the world. I suppose those poor women who were the mothers of Nero, Richard, Elizabeth, Robespierre, Marat, and the latest murderer who has expiated his villainies on the gallows-tree, thought the same thing, equally with the mothers of all good and blessed people. I see no good reason why they should not, for the birth of the first baby revolutionizes the world. The mother passes into a new sphere of being, illumined by other suns and stars, in which other flowers blossom and other birds sing, and the only inhabitants of which are she and the baby. All her great love centres in the baby, and where all her love centres, of course, there is her world. The whole world of the baby is limited by the boundaries of its mother's eyes. You may have noticed a baby lying in its nurse's arms, looking up into the sky with wide-staring, vacant eyes and blank face. It has no more intelligence in its face than a small kitten or any other sucking possibility. In the arms of a nurse, all babies are alike--merely breathing bits of blank vacancy--apple-dumplings, with plums for eyes, and stuffed with colic. But, change the scene, and place the baby in the arms of its mother, and, somehow, by some strange necromancy that passes between the two, some subtle link of affinity, that baby's face lights up with intelligence and its little white soul looks out of the eyes as it recognizes its world in the calm, holy eyes of the mother; for I think every mother's eyes, from Aurelia's to some wild Indian mother's, crooning strange weird lullabies under tropic palms, to her first born, are saintly when they gaze into the sweet face of the first baby. And I believe that the angels do not know such a love as exists between those two mortals.

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._

* * * * * * * *

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._

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.")