The Project Gutenberg EBook of Threads of Grey and Gold, by Myrtle Reed
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Title: Threads of Grey and Gold
Author: Myrtle Reed
Illustrator: Clara M. Burd
Release Date: February 14, 2010 [EBook #31272]
[Last updated: May 28, 2011]
Language: English
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THREADS OF GREY
AND GOLD
BY
MYRTLE REED
Author of
Lavender and Old Lace
The Master's Violin
Old Rose and Silver
A Weaver of Dreams
Flower of the Dusk
At the Sign of the Jack O'Lantern
The Shadow of Victory
Etc.
New York
GROSSET & DUNLAP
Publishers
COPYRIGHT, 1902
BY
MYRTLE REED
BY MYRTLE REED:
A Weaver of Dreams Sonnets to a Lover
Old Rose and Silver Master of the Vineyard
Lavender and Old Lace Flower of the Dusk
The Master's Violin At the Sign of the Jack-O'Lantern
Love Letters of a Musician A Spinner in the Sun
The Spinster Book Later Love Letters of a Musician
The Shadow of Victory Love Affairs of Literary Men
Myrtle Reed Year Book
This edition is issued under arrangement with the publishers
G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS, NEW YORK AND LONDON
[Illustration: GEORGE WASHINGTON AND MARTHA CURTIS.
From a drawing by Clara M. Burd. (Page 34)]
TO THE READERS OF
THE ROMANCES OF MYRTLE REED.
--A world-wide circle comprising probably not less than two million
sympathetic admirers--
This volume, which presents some of the writer's most typical
utterances--utterances characterised by the combination of wisdom,
humour, and sentiment that belongs to all the writings of the gifted
author,
IS DEDICATED BY
THE EDITOR.
CHICAGO,
_January, 1913._
IN MEMORY OF A WEAVER OF DREAMS.
A tribute to Myrtle Reed in recognition of her beautiful and valuable
contributions to English literature.
As the spinner of silk weaves his sunbeams of gold,
Blending sunset and dawn in its silvery fold,
So she wove in the woof of her wonderful words
The soft shimmer of sunshine and music of birds.
With the radiance of moonlight and perfume of flowers,
She lent charm to the springtime and gladdened the hours.
She spoke cheer to the suffering, joy to the sad;
She gave rest to the weary, made the sorrowful glad.
The sweet touch of her sympathy soothed every pain,
And her words in the drouth were like showers of rain.
For she lovingly poured out her blessings in streams
As a fountain of waters--a weaver of dreams.
Her bright smiles were bejewelled, her tears were empearled,
And her thoughts were as stars giving light to the world;
Her fond dreams were the gems that were woven in gold,
And the fabric she wrought was of value untold.
Every colour of beauty was radiantly bright,
Blending faith, hope, and love in its opaline light.
And she wove in her woof the great wealth of her heart,
For the cord of her life gave the life to each part;
And the beauty she wrought, which gave life to the whole,
Was her spirit made real--she gave of her soul.
So the World built a temple--a glorious shrine--
A Taj Mahal of love to the woman divine.
ADDISON BLAKELY.
Editorial note
The Editor desires to make grateful acknowledgment to the editors and
publishers of the several periodicals in which the papers contained in
this volume were first brought into print, for their friendly courtesy
in permitting the collection of these papers for preservation in book
form.
CHICAGO,
_January, 1913_.
Contents
PAGE
HOW THE WORLD WATCHES THE NEW
YEAR COME IN 3
THE TWO YEARS. (Poem) 23
THE COURTSHIP OF GEORGE
WASHINGTON 26
THE OLD AND THE NEW. (Poem) 44
THE LOVE STORY OF "THE SAGE OF
MONTICELLO" 46
COLUMBIA. (Poem) 59
STORY OF A DAUGHTER'S LOVE 60
THE SEA VOICE. (Poem) 75
MYSTERY OF RANDOLPH'S COURTSHIP 77
HOW PRESIDENT JACKSON WON HIS
WIFE 91
THE BACHELOR PRESIDENT'S LOYALTY
TO A MEMORY 105
DECORATION DAY. (Poem) 118
ROMANCE OF LINCOLN'S LIFE 119
SILENT THANKSGIVING. (Poem) 135
IN THE FLASH OF A JEWEL 137
THE COMING OF MY SHIP. (Poem) 156
ROMANCE AND THE POSTMAN 158
A SUMMER REVERIE. (Poem) 171
A VIGNETTE 172
MEDITATION. (Poem) 175
POINTERS FOR THE LORDS OF CREATION 176
TRANSITION. (Poem) 187
THE SUPERIORITY OF MAN 189
THE YEAR OF MY HEART. (Poem) 196
THE AVERAGE MAN 197
THE BOOK OF LOVE. (Poem) 202
THE IDEAL MAN 204
GOOD-NIGHT, SWEETHEART. (Poem) 209
THE IDEAL WOMAN 211
SHE IS NOT FAIR. (Poem) 220
THE FIN-DE SIÈCLE WOMAN 222
THE MOON MAIDEN. (Poem) 229
HER SON'S WIFE 230
A LULLABY. (Poem) 247
THE DRESSING-SACK HABIT 248
IN THE MEADOW. (Poem) 259
ONE WOMAN'S SOLUTION OF THE
SERVANT PROBLEM 260
TO A VIOLIN. (Poem) 283
THE OLD MAID 284
THE SPINSTER'S RUBAIYAT. (Poem) 291
THE RIGHTS OF DOGS 293
TWILIGHT. (Poem) 298
WOMEN'S CLOTHES IN MEN'S BOOKS 299
MAIDENS OF THE SEA. (Poem) 320
TECHNIQUE OF THE SHORT STORY 321
TO DOROTHY. (Poem) 333
WRITING A BOOK 334
THE MAN BEHIND THE GUN. (Poem) 355
QUAINT OLD CHRISTMAS CUSTOMS 357
CONSECRATION. (Poem) 371
How the World Watches the
New Year Come In
The proverbial "good resolutions" of the first of January which are
usually forgotten the next day, the watch services in the churches,
and the tin horns in the city streets, are about the only formalities
connected with the American New Year. The Pilgrim fathers took no note
of the day, save in this prosaic record: "We went to work betimes";
but one Judge Sewall writes with no small pride of the blast of
trumpets which was sounded under his window, on the morning of January
1st, 1697.
He celebrated the opening of the eighteenth century with a very bad
poem which he wrote himself, and he hired the bellman to recite the
poem loudly through the streets of the town of Boston; but happily
for a public, even now too much wearied with minor poets, the custom
did not become general.
In Scotland and the North of England the New Year festivities are of
great importance. Weeks before hand, the village boys, with great
secrecy, meet in out of the way places and rehearse their favourite
songs and ballads. As the time draws near, they don improvised masks
and go about from door to door, singing and cutting many quaint
capers. The thirty-first of December is called "Hogmanay," and the
children are told that if they go to the corner, they will see a man
with as many eyes as the year has days. The children of the poorer
classes go from house to house in the better districts, with a large
pocket fastened to their dresses, or a large shawl with a fold in
front.
Each one receives an oaten cake, a piece of cheese, or sometimes a
sweet cake, and goes home at night heavily laden with a good supply of
homely New Year cheer for the rest of the family.
The Scottish elders celebrate the day with a supper party, and as the
clock strikes twelve, friend greets friend and wishes him "a gude New
Year and mony o' them."
Then with great formality the door is unbarred to let the Old Year out
and the New Year in, while all the guests sally forth into the streets
to "first foot" their acquaintances.
The "first foot" is the first person to enter a house after midnight
of December 31st. If he is a dark man, it is considered an omen of
good fortune. Women generally are thought to bring ill luck, and
in some parts of England a light-haired man, or a light-haired,
flat-footed man is preferred. In Durham, this person must bring a
piece of coal, a piece of iron, and a bottle of whiskey. He gives
a glass of whiskey to each man and kisses each woman.
In Edinburgh, a great crowd gathers around the church in Hunter Square
and anxiously watches the clock. There is absolute silence from the
first stroke of twelve until the last, then the elders go to bed, but
the young folks have other business on hand. Each girl expects the
"first foot" from her sweetheart and there is occasionally much
stratagem displayed in outwitting him and arranging to have some
grandmother or serving maid open the door for him.
During the last century, all work was laid aside on the afternoon of
the thirty-first, and the men of the hamlet went to the woods and
brought home a lot of juniper bushes. Each household also procured a
pitcher of water from "the dead and living ford," meaning a ford in
the river by which passengers and funerals crossed. This was brought
in perfect silence and was not allowed to touch the ground in its
progress as contact with the earth would have destroyed the charm.
The next morning, there were rites to protect the household against
witchcraft, the evil eye, and other machinations of his satanic
majesty. The father rose first, and, taking the charmed water and a
brush, treated the whole family to a generous sprinkling, which was
usually acknowledged with anything but gratitude.
Then all the doors and windows were closed, and the juniper boughs put
on the fire. When the smoke reached a suffocating point, the fresh air
was admitted. The cattle were fumigated in the same way and the
painful solemnities of the morning were over.
The Scots on the first of the year consult the Bible before breakfast.
They open it at random and lay a finger on a verse which is supposed
to be, in some way, an augury for the coming year. If a lamp or a
candle is taken out of the house on that day, some one will die during
the year, and on New Year's day a Scotchman will neither lend, borrow
nor give anything whatsoever out of his house, for fear his luck may
go with it, and for the same reason the floor must not be swept. Even
ashes or dirty water must not be thrown out until the next day, and if
the fire goes out it is a sign of death.
The ancient Druids distributed among the early Britons branches of the
sacred mistletoe, which had been cut with solemn ceremony in the night
from the oak trees in a forest that had been dedicated to the gods.
Among the ancient Saxons, the New Year was ushered in with friendly
gifts, and all fighting ceased for three days.
In Banffshire the peat fires are covered with ashes and smoothed down.
In the morning they are examined closely, and if anything resembling a
human footprint is found in the ashes, it is taken as an omen. If the
footprint points towards the door, one of the family will die or leave
home during the year. If they point inward, a child will be born
within the year.
In some parts of rural England, the village maidens go from door to
door with a bowl of wassail, made of ale, roasted apples, squares of
toast, nutmeg, and sugar. The bowl is elaborately decorated with
evergreen and ribbons, and as they go they sing:
"Wassail, wassail to our town,
The cup is white and the ale is brown,
The cup is made of the ashen tree,
And so is the ale of the good barley.
"Little maid, little maid, turn the pin,
Open the door and let us in;
God be there, God be here;
I wish you all a Happy New Year."
In Yorkshire, the young men assemble at midnight on the thirty-first,
blacken their faces, disguise themselves in other ways, then pass
through the village with pieces of chalk. They write the date of the
New Year on gates, doors, shutters, and wagons. It is considered lucky
to have one's property so marked and the revellers are never
disturbed.
On New Year's Day, Henry VI received gifts of jewels, geese, turkeys,
hens, and sweetmeats. "Good Queen Bess" was fairly overwhelmed with
tokens of affection from her subjects. One New Year's morning, she was
presented with caskets studded with gems, necklaces, bracelets, gowns,
mantles, mirrors, fans, and a wonderful pair of black silk stockings,
which pleased her so much that she never afterward wore any other
kind.
Among the Romans, after the reformation of the calendar, the first
day, and even the whole month, was dedicated to the worship of the god
Janus. He was represented as having two faces, and looking two
ways--into the past and into the future. In January they offered
sacrifices to Janus upon two altars, and on the first day of the month
they were careful to regulate their speech and conduct, thinking it an
augury for the coming year.
New Year's gifts and cards originated in Rome, and there is a record
of an amusing lawsuit which grew out of the custom. A poet was
commissioned by a Roman pastry-cook to write the mottoes for the New
Year day bonbons. He agreed to supply five hundred couplets for six
sesterces, and though the poor poet toiled faithfully and the mottoes
were used, the money was not forthcoming. He sued the pastry-cook, and
got a verdict, but the cook regarded himself as the injured party.
Crackers were not then invented, but we still have the mottoes--those
queer heart-shaped things which were the delight of our school-days.
The Persians remember the day with gifts of eggs--literally a "lay
out!"
In rural Russia, the day begins as a children's holiday. The village
boys get up at sunrise and fill their pockets with peas and wheat.
They go from house to house and as the doors are never locked,
entrance is easy. They throw the peas upon their enemies and sprinkle
the wheat softly upon their sleeping friends.
After breakfast, the finest horse in the little town is decorated with
evergreens and berries and led to the house of the greatest nobleman,
followed by the pea and wheat shooters of the early morning. The lord
admits both horse and people to his house, where the whole family is
gathered, and the children of his household make presents of small
pieces of silver money to those who come with the horse. This is the
greeting of the peasants to their lord and master.
Next comes a procession of domestic animals, an ox, cow, goat, and
pig, all decorated with evergreens and berries. These do not enter the
house but pass slowly up and down outside, that the master and his
family may see. Then the old women of the village bring barnyard fowls
to the master as presents, and these are left in the house which the
horse has only recently vacated. Even the chickens are decorated with
strings of berries around their necks and bits of evergreen fastened
to their tails.
The Russians have also a ceremony which is more agreeable. On each New
Year's Day, a pile of sheaves is heaped up over a large pile of grain,
and the father, after seating himself behind it, asks the children if
they can see him. They say they cannot, and he replies that he hopes
the crops for the coming year will be so fine that he will be hidden
in the fields.
In the cities there is a grand celebration of mass in the morning and
the rest of the day is devoted to congratulatory visits. Good wishes
which cannot be expressed in person are put into the newspapers in the
form of advertisements, and in military and official circles
ceremonial visits are paid.
The Russians are very fond of fortune-telling, and on New Year's eve
the young ladies send their servants into the street to ask the names
of the first person they meet, and many a bashful lover has hastened
his suit by taking good care to be the first one who is met by the
servant of his lady love. At midnight, each member of the family
salutes every other member with a kiss, beginning with the head of the
house, and then they retire, after gravely wishing each other a Happy
New Year.
Except that picturesque rake, Leopold of Belgium, every monarch of
Europe has for many years begun the New Year with a solemn appeal to
the Almighty, for strength, guidance, and blessing.
The children in Belgium spend the day in trying to secure a "sugar
uncle" or a "sugar aunt." The day before New Year, they gather up all
the keys of the household and divide them. The unhappy mortal who is
caught napping finds himself in a locked room, from which he is not
released until a ransom is offered. This is usually money for sweets
and is divided among the captors.
In France, no one pays much attention to Christmas, but New Year's day
is a great festival and presents are freely exchanged. The President
of France also holds a reception somewhat similar to, and possibly
copied from, that which takes place in the White House.
In Germany, complimentary visits are exchanged between the merest
acquaintances, and New Year's gifts are made to the servants. The
night of the thirty-first is called _Sylvester Aben_ and while many of
the young people dance, the day in more serious households takes on a
religious aspect. During the evening, there is prayer at the family
altar, and at midnight the watchman on the church tower blows his
horn to announce the birth of the New Year.
At Frankfort-on-the-Main a very pretty custom is observed. On New
Year's eve the whole city keeps a festival with songs, feasting,
games, and family parties in every house. When the great bell in the
cathedral tolls the first stroke of midnight, every house opens wide
its windows. People lean from the casements, glass in hand, and from a
hundred thousand throats comes the cry: "_Prosit Neujahr!_" At the
last stroke, the windows are closed and a midnight hush descends upon
the city.
The hospitable Norwegians and Swedes spread their tables heavily; for
all who may come in at Stockholm there is a grand banquet at the
Exchange, where the king meets his people in truly democratic fashion.
The Danes greet the New Year with a tremendous volley of cannon, and
at midnight old Copenhagen is shaken to its very foundations. It is
considered a delicate compliment to fire guns and pistols under the
bedroom windows of one's friends at dawn of the new morning.
The dwellers in Cape Town, South Africa, are an exception to the
general custom of English colonists, and after the manner of the early
Dutch settlers they celebrate the New Year during the entire week.
Every house is full of visitors, every man, woman, and child is
dressed in gay garments, and no one has any business except pleasure.
There are picnics to Table Mountain, and pleasure excursions in boats,
with a dance every evening. At the end of the week, everybody settles
down and the usual routine of life is resumed.
In the Indian Empire, the day which corresponds to our New Year is
called "Hooly" and is a feast in honour of the god Krishna. Caste
temporarily loses ground and the prevailing colour is red. Every one
who can afford it wears red garments, red powder is thrown as if it
were _confetti_, and streams of red water are thrown upon the
passers-by. It is all taken in good part, however, as snowballing is
with us.
Even "farthest North," where the nights are six months long, there is
recognition of the New Year. The Esquimaux come out of their snow huts
and ice caves in pairs, one of each pair being dressed in women's
clothes. They gain entrance into every _igloo_ in the village, moving
silently and mysteriously. At last there is not a light left in the
place, and having extinguished every fire they can find, they kindle a
fresh one, going through in the meantime solemn ceremonies. From this
one source, all the fires and lights in the district are kindled anew.
One wonders if there may not be some fear in the breasts of these
Children of the North, when for an instant they stand in the vastness
of the midnight, utterly without fire or light.
The most wonderful ceremonies connected with the New Year take place
in China and Japan. In these countries and in Corea the birth of the
year is considered the birthday of the whole community. When a child
is born he is supposed to be a year old, and he remains thus until the
changing seasons bring the annual birthday of the whole Mongolian
race, when another year is credited to his account.
In the Chinese quarter of the large cities, the New Year celebrations
are dreaded by the police, since where there is so much revelry there
is sure to be trouble. In the native country, the rejoicings absorb
fully a month, during the first part of which no hunger is allowed to
exist within the Empire.
The refreshments are light in kind--peanuts, watermelon seeds,
sweetmeats, oranges, tea and cakes. Presents of food are given to the
poor, and "brilliant cakes," supposed to help the children in their
studies, are distributed from the temples.
The poor little Chinamen must sadly need some assistance, in view of
the fact that every word in their language has a distinct root, and
their alphabet contains over twenty thousand letters.
At an early hour on New Year's morning, which according to their
calendar comes between the twenty-first of January and the nineteenth
of February, they propitiate heaven and earth with offerings of rice,
vegetables, tea, wine, oranges, and imitation of paper money which
they burn with incense, joss-sticks, and candles.
Strips of scarlet paper, bearing mottoes, which look like Chinese
laundry checks, are pasted around and over doors and windows. Blue
strips among the red, mean that a death has occurred in the family
since the last celebration.
New Year's calls are much in vogue in China, where every denizen of
the Empire pays a visit to each of his superiors, and receives them
from all of his inferiors. Sometimes cards are sent, and, as with us,
this takes the place of a call.
Images of gods are carried in procession to the beating of a deafening
gong, and mandarins go by hundreds to the Emperor and the Dowager
Empress, with congratulatory addresses. Their robes are gorgeously
embroidered and are sometimes heavy with gold. After this, they
worship their household gods.
Illuminations and fireworks make the streets gorgeous at night, and a
monstrous Chinese dragon, spouting flame, is drawn through the
streets.
People salute each other with cries of "Kung-hi! Kung-hi!" meaning I
humbly wish you joy, or "Sin-hi! Sin-hi!" May joy be yours.
Many amusements in the way of theatricals and illumination are
provided for the public.
In both China and Japan, all debts must be paid and all grudges
settled before the opening of the New Year. Every one is supposed to
have new clothes for the occasion, and those who cannot obtain them
remain hidden in their houses.
In Japan, the conventional New Year costume is light blue cotton, and
every one starts out to make calls. Letters on rice paper are sent to
those in distant places, conveying appropriate greetings.
The Japanese also go to their favourite tea gardens where bands play,
and wax figures are sold. Presents of cooked rice and roasted peas,
oranges, and figs are offered to every one. The peas are scattered
about the houses to frighten away the evil spirits, and on the
fourth day of the New Year, the decorations of lobster, signifying
reproduction, cabbages indicating riches, and oranges, meaning good
luck, are taken down and replaced with boughs of fruit trees and
flowers.
Strange indeed is the country in which the milestones of Time pass
unheeded. In spite of all the mirth and feasting, there is an
undercurrent of sadness which has been most fitly expressed by Charles
Lamb:
"Of all the sounds, the most solemn and touching is the peal
which rings out the old year. I never hear it without
gathering up in my mind a concentration of all the images
that have been diffused over the past twelve months; all
that I have done or suffered, performed, or neglected, in
that regretted time. I begin to know its worth as when a
person dies. It takes a personal colour, nor was it a
poetical flight in a contemporary, when he exclaimed: 'I saw
the skirts of the departing year!'"
The Two Years
Tread softly, ye throngs with hurrying feet,
Look down, O ye stars, in your flight,
And bid ye farewell to a time that was sweet,
For the year lies a-dying to-night.
In a shroud of pure snow lie the quickly-fled hours--
The children of Time and of Light;
Stoop down, ye fair moon, and scatter sweet flowers,
For the year lies a-dying to-night.
Hush, O ye rivers that sweep to the sea,
From hill and from blue mountain height;
The flood of your song should be sorrow, not glee,
For the year lies a-dying to-night.
Good night, and good-bye, dear, mellow, old year,
The new is beginning to dawn.
But we'll turn and drop on thy white grave a tear,
For the sake of the friend that is gone.
All hail to the New! He is coming with gladness,
From the East, where in light he reposes;
He is bringing a year free from pain and from sadness,
He is bringing a June with her roses.
A burst of sweet music, the listeners hear,
The stars and the angels give warning--
He is coming in beauty, this joyful New Year,
O'er the flower-strewn stairs of the morning.
He is bringing a day with glad pulses beating,
For the sorrow and passion are gone,
And Love and Life have a rapturous meeting
In the rush and the gladness of dawn.
The Old has gone out with a crown that is hoary,
The New in his brightness draws near;
Then let us look up in the light and the glory,
And welcome this royal New Year.
The Courtship of George
Washington
The quaint old steel engraving which shows George and Martha
Washington sitting by a table, while the Custis children stand
dutifully by, is a familiar picture in many households, yet few of us
remember that the first Lady of the White House was not always first
in the heart of her husband.
The years have brought us, as a people, a growing reverence for him
who was in truth the "Father of His Country." Time has invested him
with godlike attributes, yet, none the less, he was a man among men,
and the hot blood of youth ran tumultuously in his veins.
At the age of fifteen, like many another schoolboy, Washington
fell in love. The man who was destined to be the Commander of the
Revolutionary Army, wandered through the shady groves of Mount Vernon
composing verses which, from a critical standpoint, were very bad.
Scraps of verse were later mingled with notes of surveys, and
interspersed with the accounts which that methodical statesman kept
from his school-days until the year of his death.
In the archives of the Capitol on a yellowed page, in Washington's own
handwriting, these lines are still to be read:
"Oh, Ye Gods, why should my Poor Resistless Heart
Stand to oppose thy might and Power,
At last surrender to Cupid's feather'd Dart,
And now lays bleeding every Hour
For her that's Pityless of my grief and Woes,
And will not on me, pity take.
I'll sleep amongst my most inveterate Foes,
And with gladness never wish to wake.
In deluding sleepings let my Eyelids close,
That in an enraptured Dream I may
In a soft lulling sleep and gentle repose
Possess those joys denied by Day."
Among these boyish fragments there is also an incomplete acrostic,
evidently intended for Miss Frances Alexander, which reads as follows:
"From your bright sparkling Eyes I was undone;
Rays, you have, rays more transparent than the Sun
Amidst its glory in the rising Day;
None can you equal in your bright array;
Constant in your calm, unspotted Mind;
Equal to all, but will to none Prove kind,
So knowing, seldom one so young you'll Find.
"Ah, woe's me that I should Love and conceal--
Long have I wished, but never dare reveal,
Even though severely Love's Pains I feel;
Xerxes that great wast not free from Cupid's Dart,
And all the greatest Heroes felt the smart."
He wrote at length to several of his friends concerning his youthful
passions. In the tell-tale pages of the diary, for 1748, there is this
draft of a letter:
"DEAR FRIEND ROBIN: My place of Residence is at present at
His Lordship's where I might, was my heart disengag'd, pass
my time very pleasantly, as there's a very agreeable Young
Lady Lives in the same house (Col. George Fairfax's Wife's
Sister); but as that's only adding fuel to fire, it makes me
the more uneasy, for by often and unavoidably being, in
Company with her revives my former Passion for your Lowland
Beauty; whereas was I to live more retired from young Women
I might in some measure aliviate my sorrows by burying that
chaste and troublesome Passion in the grave of oblivion or
eternal forgetfulness, for as I am very well assured, that's
the only antidote or remedy, that I shall be relieved by, as
I am well convinced, was I ever to ask any question, I
should only get a denial which would be adding grief to
uneasiness."
The "Lowland Beauty" was Miss Mary Bland. Tradition does not say
whether or not she ever knew of Washington's admiration, but she
married Henry Lee.
"Light Horse Harry," that daring master of cavalry of Revolutionary
fame, was the son of the "Lowland Beauty," and some tender memories of
the mother may have been mingled with Washington's fondness for the
young soldier. It was "Light Horse Harry" also, who said of the
Commander-in-Chief that he was "first in war, first in peace, and
first in the hearts of his countrymen!"
By another trick of fate the grandson of the "Lowland Beauty" was Gen.
Robert E. Lee. Who can say what momentous changes might have been
wrought in history had Washington married his first love?
Miss Gary, the sister of Mrs. Fairfax, was the "agreeable young lady"
of whom he speaks. After a time her charm seems to have partially
mitigated the pain he felt over the loss of her predecessor in his
affections. Later he writes of a Miss Betsey Fauntleroy, saying that
he is soon to see her, and that he "hopes for a revocation of her
former cruel sentence."
When Braddock's defeat brought the soldier again to Mount Vernon, to
rest from the fatigues of the campaign, there is abundant evidence to
prove that he had become a personage in the eyes of women. For
instance, Lord Fairfax writes to him, saying:
"If a Satterday Night's Rest cannot be sufficient to enable
your coming hither to-morrow the Lady's will try to get
Horses to equip our Chair or attempt their strength on Foot
to Salute you, so desirious are they with loving Speed
to have an occular Demonstration of your being the same
identical Gent--that lately departed to defend his Country's
Cause."
A very feminine postscript was attached to this which read as follows:
"DEAR SIR
"After thanking Heaven for your safe return, I must accuse
you of great unkindness in refusing us the pleasure of
seeing you this night. I do assure you nothing but our being
satisfied that our company would be disagreeable, should
prevent us from trying if our Legs would not carry us to
Mount Vernon this night, but if you will not come to us,
to-morrow morning very early we shall be at Mount Vernon.
"SALLY FAIRFAX
ANN SPEARING
ELIZ'TH DENT"
Yet, in spite of the attractions of Virginia we find him journeying to
Boston, on military business, by way of New York.
The hero of Braddock's stricken field found every door open before
him. He was fêted in Philadelphia, and the aristocrats of Manhattan
gave dinners in honour of the strapping young soldier from the wilds
of Virginia.
At the house of his friend, Beverly Robinson, he met Miss Mary
Philipse, and speedily surrendered. She was a beautiful, cultured
woman, twenty-five years old, who had travelled widely and had seen
much of the world. He promptly proposed to her, and was refused, but
with exquisite grace and tact.
Graver affairs however soon claimed his attention, and he did not go
back, though a friend wrote to him that Lieutenant-Colonel Morris was
besieging the citadel. She married Morris, and their house in
Morristown became Washington's headquarters, in 1776--again, how
history might have been changed had Mary Philipse married her Virginia
lover!
In the spring of 1758, Washington met his fate. He was riding on
horseback from Mount Vernon to Williamsburg with important despatches.
In crossing a ford of the Pamunkey he fell in with a Mr. Chamberlayne,
who lived in the neighbourhood. With true Virginian hospitality he
prevailed upon Washington to take dinner at his house, making the
arrangement with much difficulty, however, since the soldier was
impatient to get to Williamsburg.
Once inside the colonial house, whose hospitable halls breathed
welcome, his impatience, and the errand itself, were almost forgotten.
A negro servant led his horse up and down the gravelled walk in front
of the house; the servant grew tired, the horse pawed and sniffed with
impatience, but Washington lingered.
A petite hazel-eyed woman--she who was once Patsy Dandridge, but then
the widow of Daniel Parke Custis--was delaying important affairs. At
night-fall the distracted warrior remembered his mission, and made a
hasty adieu. Mr. Chamberlayne, meeting him at the door, laid a
restraining hand upon his arm. "No guest ever leaves my house after
sunset," he said.
The horse was put up, the servant released from duty, and Washington
remained until the next morning, when, with new happiness in his
heart, he dashed on to Williamsburg.
We may well fancy that her image was before him all the way. She had
worn a gown of white dimity, with a cluster of Mayblossoms at her
belt, and a little white widow's cap half covered her soft brown hair.
She was twenty-six, some three months younger than Washington; she
had wealth, and two children. Mr. Custis had been older than his
Patsy, for she was married when she was but seventeen. He had been a
faithful and affectionate husband, but he had not appealed to her
imagination, and it was doubtless through her imagination, that the
big Virginia Colonel won her heart.
She left Mr. Chamberlayne's and went to her home--the "White
House"--near William's Ferry. The story is that when Washington came
from Williamsburg, he was met at the ferry by one of Mrs. Custis's
slaves. "Is your mistress at home?" he inquired of the negro who was
rowing him across the river.
"Yes, sah," replied the darkey, then added slyly, "I recon you am de
man what am expected."
It was late in the afternoon of the next day when Washington took his
departure, but he had her promise and was happy. A ring was ordered
from Philadelphia, and is duly set down in his accounts: "One
engagement ring, two pounds, sixteen shillings."
Then came weary months of service in the field, and they saw each
other only four times before they were married. There were doubtless
frequent letters, but only one of them remains. It is the letter of a
soldier:
"We have begun our march for the Ohio, [he wrote]. A courier
is starting for Williamsburg, and I embrace the opportunity
to send a few words to one whose life is now inseparable
from mine.
"Since that happy hour, when we made our pledges to each
other, my thoughts have been continually going to you as to
another self. That an All-powerful Providence may keep us
both in safety is the prayer of your ever faithful and
affectionate Friend,
"G. WASHINGTON
"20th of July
Mrs. Martha Custis."
On the sixth of the following January they were married in the little
church of St. Peter. Once again Dr. Mossum, in full canonicals,
married "Patsy" Dandridge to the man of her choice. The bridegroom
wore a blue cloth coat lined with red silk and ornamented with silver
trimmings. His vest was embroidered white satin, his shoe- and
knee-buckles were of solid gold, his hair was powdered, and a dress
sword hung at his side.
The bride was attired in heavy brocaded white silk inwoven with a
silver thread. She wore a white satin quilted petticoat with heavy
corded white silk over-skirt, and high-heeled shoes of white satin
with buckles of brilliants. She had ruffles of rich point lace, pearl
necklace, ear-rings, and bracelets, and was attended by three
bridesmaids.
The aristocracy of Virginia was out in full force. One of the
most imposing figures was Bishop, the negro servant, who had led
Washington's horse up and down the gravelled path in front of Mr.
Chamberlayne's door while the master lingered within. He was in the
scarlet uniform of King George's army, booted and spurred, and he held
the bridle rein of the chestnut charger that was forced to wait while
his rider made love.
On leaving the church, the bride and her maids rode back to the "White
House" in a coach drawn by six horses, and guided by black post-boys
in livery, while Colonel Washington, on his magnificent horse, and
attended by a brilliant company, rode by her side.
There was no seer to predict that some time the little lady in white
satin, brocade silk, and rich laces, would spend long hours knitting
stockings for her husband's army, and that night after night would
find her, in a long grey cloak, at the side of the wounded, hearing
from stiffening lips the husky whisper, "God bless you, Lady
Washington!"
All through the troublous times that followed, Washington was the
lover as well as the husband. He took a father's place with the little
children, treating them with affection, but never swerving from the
path of justice. With the fondness of a lover, he ordered fine clothes
for his wife from London.
After his death, Mrs. Washington destroyed all of his letters. There
is only one of them to be found which was written after their
marriage. It is in an old book, printed in New York in 1796, when the
narrow streets around the tall spire of Trinity were the centre of
social life, and the busy hum of Wall Street was not to be heard for
fifty years!
One may fancy a stately Knickerbocker stopping at a little bookstall
where the dizzy heights of the Empire Building now rise, or down near
the Battery, untroubled by the white cliff called "The Bowling Green,"
and asking pompously enough, for the _Epistles; Domestic,
Confidential, and Official, from General Washington_.
The pages are yellowed with age, and the "f" used in the place of the
"s", as well as the queer orthography and capitalisation, look strange
to twentieth-century eyes, but on page 56 the lover-husband pleads
with his lady in a way that we can well understand.
The letter is dated "June 24, 1776," and in part is as follows:
"MY DEAREST LIFE AND LOVE:--
"You have hurt me, I know not how much, by the insinuation
in your last, that my letters to you have been less frequent
because I have felt less concern for you.
"The suspicion is most unjust; may I not add, is most
unkind. Have we lived, now almost a score of years, in the
closest and dearest conjugal intimacy to so little purpose,
that on the appearance only, of inattention to you, and
which you might have accounted for in a thousand ways more
natural and more probable, you should pitch upon that single
motive which is alone injurious to me?
"I have not, I own, wrote so often to you as I wished and as
I ought.
"But think of my situation, and then ask your heart if I be
_without excuse_?
"We are not, my dearest, in circumstances the most favorable
to our happiness; but let us not, I beseech of you, make
them worse by indulging suspicions and apprehensions which
minds in distress are apt to give way to.
"I never was, as you have often told me, even in my better
and more disengaged days, so attentive to the little
punctillios of friendship, as it may be, became me; but my
heart tells me, there never was a moment in my life, since I
first knew you, in which it did not cleave and cling to you
with the warmest affection; and it must cease to beat ere it
can cease to wish for your happiness, above anything on
earth.
"Your faithful and tender husband, G. W."
"'Seventy-six!" The words bring a thrill even now, yet, in the midst
of those stirring times, not a fortnight before the Declaration was
signed, and after twenty years of marriage, he could write her like
this. Even his reproaches are gentle, and filled with great
tenderness.
And so it went on, through the Revolution and through the stormy days
in which the Republic was born. There were long and inevitable
separations, yet a part of the time she was with him, doing her duty
as a soldier's wife, and sternly refusing to wear garments which were
not woven in American looms.
During the many years they lived at Mount Vernon, they attended divine
service at Christ Church, Alexandria, Virginia, one of the quaint
little landmarks of the town which is still standing. For a number of
years he was a vestryman of the church, and the pew occupied by him is
visited yearly by thousands of tourists while sight-seeing in the
national Capitol. Indeed all the churches, so far as known, in which
he once worshipped, have preserved his pew intact, while there are
hundreds of tablets, statues, and monuments throughout the country.
In the magnificent monument at Washington, rising to a height of more
than 555 feet, the various States of the Union have placed stone
replicas of their State seals, and these, with other symbolic devices,
constitute the inscriptions upon one hundred and seventy-nine of these
memorial stones. Not only this, but Europe and Asia, China and Japan
have honoured themselves by erecting memorials to the great American.
When at last his long years of service for his country were ended, he
and his beloved wife returned again to their beautiful home at Mount
Vernon, to wait for the night together. The whole world knows how the
end came, with her loving ministrations to the very last of the three
restful years which they at this time spent together at the old home,
and how he looked Death bravely in the face, as became a soldier and a
Christian.
The Old and the New
Grandmother sat at her spinning wheel
In the dust of the long ago,
And listened, with scarlet dyeing her cheeks,
For the step she had learned to know.
A courtly lover, was he who came,
With frill and ruffle and curl--
They dressed so queerly in the days
When grandmother was a girl!
"Knickerbockers" they called them then,
When they spoke of the things at all--
Grandfather wore them, buckled and trim,
When he sallied forth to call.
Grandmother's eyes were youthful then--
His "guiding stars," he said;
While she demurely watched her wheel
And spun with a shining thread.
Frill, and ruffle, and curl are gone,
But the "knickers" are with us still--
And so is love and the spinning wheel,
But we ride it now--if you will!
In grandfather's "knickers" I sit and watch
For the gleam of a lamp afar;
And my heart still turns, as theirs, methinks,
To my wheel and my guiding star.
The Love Story of the "Sage of
Monticello"
American history holds no more beautiful love-story than that of
Thomas Jefferson, third President of the United States, and author of
the Declaration of Independence. It is a tale of single-hearted,
unswerving devotion, worthy of this illustrious statesman. His love
for his wife was not the first outpouring of his nature, but it was
the strongest and best--the love, not of the boy, but of the man.
Jefferson was not particularly handsome as a young man, for he was
red-haired, awkward, and knew not what to do with his hands, though he
played the violin passably well. But his friend, Patrick Henry, suave,
tactful and popular, exerted himself to improve Jefferson's manners
and fit him for general society, attaining at last very pleasing
results, although there was a certain roughness in his nature, shown
in his correspondence, which no amount of polishing seemed able to
overcome.
John Page was Jefferson's closest friend, and to him he wrote very
fully concerning the state of his mind and heart, and with a certain
quaint, uncouth humour, which to this day is irresistible.
For instance, at Fairfield, Christmas day, 1762, he wrote to his
friend as follows:
"DEAR PAGE
"This very day, to others the day of greatest mirth and
jolity, sees me overwhelmed with more and greater
misfortunes than have befallen a descendant of Adam for
these thousand years past, I am sure; and perhaps, after
excepting Job, since the creation of the world.
"You must know, Dear Page, that I am now in a house
surrounded by enemies, who take counsel together against my
soul; and when I lay me down to rest, they say among
themselves, 'Come let us destroy him.'
"I am sure if there is such a thing as a Devil in this
world, he must have been here last night, and have had some
hand in what happened to me. Do you think the cursed rats
(at his instigation I suppose) did not eat up my pocket
book, which was in my pocket, within an inch of my head? And
not contented with plenty for the present, they carried away
my gemmy worked silk garters, and half a dozen new minuets I
had just got, to serve, I suppose, as provision for the
winter.
"You know it rained last night, or if you do not know it, I
am sure I do. When I went to bed I laid my watch in the
usual place, and going to take her up after I arose this
morning, I found her in the same place, it is true, but all
afloat in water, let in at a leak in the roof of the house,
and as silent, and as still as the rats that had eaten my
pocket book.
"Now, you know if chance had anything to do in this matter,
there were a thousand other spots where it might have
chanced to leak as well as this one which was
perpendicularly over my watch. But I'll tell you, it's my
opinion that the Devil came and bored the hole over it on
purpose.
"Well, as I was saying, my poor watch had lost her speech. I
would not have cared much for this, but something worse
attended it--the subtle particles of water with which the
case was filled had, by their penetration, so overcome the
cohesion of the particles of the paper, of which my dear
picture, and watch patch paper, were composed, that in
attempting to take them out to dry them, my cursed fingers
gave them such a rent as I fear I shall never get over.
"... And now, though her picture be defaced, there is so
lively an image of her imprinted in my mind, that I shall
think of her too often, I fear for my peace of mind; and too
often I am sure to get through old Coke this winter, for I
have not seen him since I packed him up in my trunk in
Williamsburg. Well, Page, I do wish the Devil had old Coke
for I am sure I never was so tired of the dull old scoundrel
in my life....
"I would fain ask the favor of Miss Bettey Burwell to give
me another watch paper of her own cutting, which I should
esteem much more though it were a plain round one, than the
nicest in the world cut by other hands; however I am afraid
she would think this presumption, after my suffering the
other to get spoiled. If you think you can excuse me to her
for this, I should be glad if you would ask her...."
Page was a little older than Jefferson, and the young man thought much
of his advice. Six months later we find Page advising him to go to
Miss Rebecca Burwell and "lay siege in form."
There were many objections to this--first, the necessity of keeping
the matter secret, and of "treating with a ward before obtaining
the consent of her guardian," which at that time was considered
dishonourable, and second, Jefferson's own state of suspense and
uneasiness, since the lady had given him no grounds for hope.
"If I am to succeed [he wrote], the sooner I know it the
less uneasiness I shall have to go through. If I am to meet
with disappointment, the sooner I know it, the more of life
I shall have to wear it off; and if I do meet with one, I
hope and verily believe it will be the last.
"I assure you that I almost envy you your present freedom
and I assure you that if Belinda will not accept of my
heart, it shall never be offered to another."
In his letters he habitually spoke of Miss Burwell as "Belinda,"
presumably on account of the fear which he expresses to Page, that the
letters might possibly fall into other hands. In some of his letters
he spells "Belinda" backward, and with exaggerated caution, in Greek
letters.
Finally, with much fear and trembling, he took his friend's advice,
and laid siege to the fair Rebecca in due form. The day
afterward--October 7, 1763--he confided in Page:
"In the most melancholy fit that ever a poor soul was, I sit
down to write you. Last night, as merry as agreeable company
and dancing with Belinda could make me, I never could have
thought that the succeeding sun would have seen me so
wretched as I now am!
"I was prepared to say a great deal. I had dressed up in my
own mind, such thoughts as occurred to me, in as moving
language as I knew how, and expected to have performed in a
tolerably creditable manner. But ... when I had an
opportunity of venting them, a few broken sentences, uttered
in great disorder, and interrupted by pauses of uncommon
length were the too visible marks of my strange confusion!
"The whole confab I will tell you, word for word if I can
when I see you which God send, may be soon."
After this, he dates his letters at "Devilsburg," instead of
Williamsburg, and says in one of them, "I believe I never told you
that we had another occasion." This time he behaved more creditably,
told "Belinda" that it was necessary for him to go to England,
explained the inevitable delays and told how he should conduct himself
until his return. He says that he asked no questions which would admit
of a categorical answer--there was something of the lawyer in this
wooing! He assured Miss Rebecca that such a question would one day be
asked. In this letter she is called "Adinleb" and spoken of as "he."
Miss Burwell did not wait, however, until Jefferson was in a position
to seek her hand openly, but was suddenly married to another. The news
was a great shock to Jefferson, who refused to believe it until Page
confirmed it; but the love-lorn swain gradually recovered from his
disappointment.
With youthful ardour they had planned to buy adjoining estates and
have a carriage in common, when each married the lady of his love,
that they might attend all the dances. A little later, when Page was
also crossed in love, both forswore marriage forever.
For five or six years, Jefferson was faithful to his vow--rather an
unusual record. He met his fate at last in the person of a charming
widow--Martha Skelton.
The death of his sister, his devotion to his books, and his
disappointment made him a sadder and a wiser man. His home at Shadwell
had been burned, and he removed to Monticello, a house built on the
same estate on a spur of the Blue Ridge Mountains, five hundred feet
above the common level.
He went often to visit Mrs. Skelton who made her home with her father
after her bereavement. Usually he took his violin under his arm, and
out of the harmonies which came from the instrument and the lady's
spinet came the greater one of love.
They were married in January of 1772. The ceremony took place at "The
Forest" in Charles City County. The chronicles describe the bride as a
beautiful woman, a little above medium height, finely formed, and with
graceful carriage. She was well educated, read a great deal, and
played the spinet unusually well.
The wedding journey was a strange one. It was a hundred miles from
"The Forest" to Monticello, and years afterward their eldest daughter,
Martha Jefferson Randolph, described it as follows:
"They left 'The Forest' after a fall of snow, light then,
but increasing in depth as they advanced up the country.
They were finally obliged to quit the carriage and proceed
on horseback. They arrived late at night, the fires were all
out, and the servants had retired to their own houses for
the night. The horrible dreariness of such a house, at the
end of such a journey, I have often heard both relate."
Yet, the walls of Monticello, that afterwards looked down upon so much
sorrow and so much joy, must have long remembered the home-coming of
master and mistress, for the young husband found a bottle of old wine
"on a shelf behind some books," built a fire in the open fireplace,
and "they laughed and sang together like two children."
And that life upon the hills proved very nearly ideal. They walked and
planned and rode together, and kept house and garden books in the most
minute fashion.
Births and deaths followed each other at Monticello, but there was
nothing else to mar the peace of that happy home. Between husband and
wife there was no strife or discord, not a jar nor a rift in that
unity of life and purpose which welds two souls into one.
Childish voices came and went, but two daughters grew to womanhood,
and in the evening, the day's duties done, violin and harpsichord
sounded sweet strains together.
They reared other children besides their own, taking the helpless
brood of Jefferson's sister into their hearts and home when Dabney
Carr died. Those three sons and three daughters were educated with his
own children, and lived to bless him as a second father.
One letter is extant which was written to one of the nieces whom
Jefferson so cheerfully supported. It reads as follows:
"PARIS, June 14, 1787.
"I send you, my dear Patsey, the fifteen livres you desired.
You propose this to me as an anticipation of five weeks'
allowance, but do you not see, my dear, how imprudent it is
to lay out in one moment what should accommodate you for
five weeks? This is a departure from that rule which I wish
to see you governed by, thro' your whole life, of never
buying anything which you have not the money in your pocket
to pay for.
"Be sure that it gives much more pain to the mind to be in
debt than to do without any article whatever which we may
seem to want.
"The purchase you have made is one I am always ready to make
for you because it is my wish to see you dressed always
cleanly and a little more than decently; but apply to me
first for the money before making the purchase, if only to
avoid breaking through your rule.
"Learn yourself the habit of adhering vigorously to the
rules you lay down for yourself. I will come for you about
eleven o'clock on Saturday. Hurry the making of your gown,
and also your redingcote. You will go with me some day next
week to dine at the Marquis Fayette. Adieu, my dear
daughter,
"Yours affectionately,
"TH. JEFFERSON"
Mrs. Jefferson's concern for her husband, the loss of her children,
and the weary round of domestic duties at last told upon her strong
constitution.
After the birth of her sixth child, Lucy Elizabeth, she sank rapidly,
until at last it was plain to every one, except the distracted
husband, that she could never recover.
Finally the blow fell. His daughter Martha wrote of it as follows:
"As a nurse no female ever had more tenderness or anxiety.
He nursed my poor mother in turn with Aunt Carr, and her own
sister--sitting up with her and administering her medicines
and drink to the last.
"When at last he left his room, three weeks after my
mother's death, he rode out, and from that time, he was
incessantly on horseback, rambling about the mountain."
Shortly afterward he received the appointment of Plenipotentiary to
Europe, to be associated with Franklin and Adams in negotiating peace.
He had twice refused the same appointment, as he had promised his wife
that he would never again enter public life, as long as she lived.
Columbia
She comes along old Ocean's trackless way--
A warrior scenting conflict from afar
And fearing not defeat nor battle-scar
Nor all the might of wind and dashing spray;
Her foaming path to triumph none may stay
For in the East, there shines her morning star;
She feels her strength in every shining spar
As one who grasps his sword and waits for day.
Columbia, Defender! dost thou hear?
The clarion challenge sweeps the sea
And straight toward the lightship doth she steer,
Her steadfast pulses sounding jubilee;
Arise, Defender! for thy way is clear
And all thy country's heart goes out to thee.
The Story of a Daughter's Love
Aaron Burr was past-master of what Whistler calls "the gentle art of
making enemies!" Probably no man ever lived who was more bitterly
hated or more fiercely reviled. Even at this day, when he has been
dead more than half a century, his memory is still assailed.
It is the popular impression that he was a villain. Perhaps he was,
since "where there is smoke, there must be fire," but happily we have
no concern with the political part of his life. Whatever he may have
been, and whatever dark deeds he may have done, there still remains a
redeeming feature which no one has denied him--his love for his
daughter, Theodosia.
One must remember that before Burr was two years old, his father,
mother, and grandparents were all dead. He was reared by an uncle,
Timothy Edwards, who doubtless did his best, but the odds were against
the homeless child. Neither must we forget that he fought in the
Revolution, bravely and well.
From his early years he was very attractive to women. He was handsome,
distinguished, well dressed, and gifted in many ways. He was generous,
ready at compliments and gallantry, and possessed an all-compelling
charm.
In the autumn of 1777, his regiment was detailed for scouting duty in
New Jersey, which was then the debatable ground between colonial and
British armies. In January of 1779, Colonel Burr was given command of
the "lines" in Westchester County, New York. It was at this time that
he first met Mrs. Prevost, the widow of a British officer. She lived
across the Hudson, some fifteen miles from shore, and the river was
patrolled by the gunboats of the British, and the land by their
sentries.
In spite of these difficulties, however, Burr managed to make two
calls upon the lady, although they were both necessarily informal. He
sent six of his trusted soldiers to a place on the Hudson, where there
was an overhanging bank under which they moored a large boat, well
supplied with blankets and buffalo robes. At nine o'clock in the
evening he left White Plains on the smallest and swiftest horse he
could procure, and when he reached the rendezvous, the horse was
quickly bound and laid in the boat. Burr and the six troopers stepped
in, and in half an hour they were across the ferry. The horse was
lifted out, and unbound, and with a little rubbing he was again ready
for duty.
Before midnight, Burr was at the house of his beloved, and at four in
the morning he came back to the troopers awaiting him on the river
bank, and the return trip was made in the same manner.
For a year and a half after leaving the army, Burr was an invalid, but
in July, 1782, he married Mrs. Prevost. She was a widow with two
sons, and was ten years older than her husband. Her health was
delicate and she had a scar on her forehead, but her mind was finely
cultivated and her manners charming.
Long after her death he said that if his manners were more graceful
than those of some men, it was due to her influence, and that his wife
was the truest woman, and most charming lady he had ever known.
It has been claimed by some that Burr's married life was not a happy
one, but there are many letters still extant which passed between them
which seemed to prove the contrary. Before marriage he did not often
write to her, but during his absences afterward, the fondest wife
could have no reason to complain.
For instance:
"This morning came your truly welcome letter of Monday
evening," he wrote her at one time. "Where did it loiter so
long?
"Nothing in my absence is so flattering to me as your health
and cheerfulness. I then contemplate nothing so eagerly as
my return, amuse myself with ideas of my own happiness, and
dwell upon the sweet domestic joys which I fancy prepared
for me.
"Nothing is so unfriendly to every species of enjoyment as
melancholy. Gloom, however dressed, however caused, is
incompatible with friendship. They cannot have place in the
mind at the same time. It is the secret, the malignant foe
of sentiment and love."
He always wrote fondly of the children:
"My love to the smiling little girl," he said in one letter.
"I continually plan my return with childish impatience, and
fancy a thousand incidents which are most interesting."
After five years of married life the wife wrote him as follows:
"Your letters always afford me a singular satisfaction, a
sensation entirely my own. This was peculiarly so. It
wrought strangely upon my mind and spirits. My Aaron, it was
replete with tenderness and with the most lively affection.
I read and re-read till afraid I should get it by rote, and
mingle it with common ideas."
Soon after Burr entered politics, his wife developed cancer of the
most virulent character. Everything that money or available skill
could accomplish was done for her, but she died after a lingering and
painful illness, in the spring of 1794.
They had lived together happily for twelve years, and he grieved for
her deeply and sincerely. Yet the greatest and most absorbing passion
of his life was for his daughter, Theodosia, who was named for her
mother and was born in the first year of their marriage. When little
Theodosia was first laid in her father's arms, all that was best in
him answered to her mute plea for his affection, and later, all that
was best in him responded to her baby smile.
Between those two, there was ever the fullest confidence, never
tarnished by doubt or mistrust, and when all the world forsook him,
Theodosia, grown to womanhood, stood proudly by her father's side and
shared his blame as if it had been the highest honour.
When she was a year or two old, they moved to a large house at the
corner of Cedar and Nassau Streets, in New York City. A large garden
surrounded it and there were grapevines in the rear. Here the child
grew strong and healthy, and laid the foundations of her girlish
beauty and mature charm. When she was but three years old her mother
wrote to the father, saying:
"Your dear little Theodosia cannot hear you spoken of
without an apparent melancholy; insomuch, that her nurse is
obliged to exert her invention to divert her, and myself
avoid the mention of you in her presence. She was one whole
day indifferent to everything but your name. Her attachment
is not of a common nature."
And again:
"Your dear little daughter seeks you twenty times a day,
calls you to your meals, and will not suffer your chair to
be filled by any of the family."
The child was educated as if she had been a boy. She learned to
read Latin and Greek fluently, and the accomplishments of her time
were not neglected. When she was at school, the father wrote her
regularly, and did not allow one of her letters to wait a day for
its affectionate answer. He corrected her spelling and her grammar,
instilled sound truths into her mind, and formed her habits. From this
plastic clay, with inexpressible love and patient toil, he shaped his
ideal woman.
She grew into a beautiful girl. Her features were much like her
father's. She was petite, graceful, plump, rosy, dignified, and
gracious. In her manner, there was a calm assurance--the air of
mastery over all situations--which she doubtless inherited from him.
When she was eighteen years of age, she married Joseph Alston of
South Carolina, and, with much pain at parting from her father, she
went there to live, after seeing him inaugurated as Jefferson's
Vice-President. His only consolation was her happiness, and when he
returned to New York, he wrote her that he approached the old house
as if it had been the sepulchre of all his friends. "Dreary, solitary,
comfortless--it was no longer home."
After her mother's death, Theodosia had been the lady of his household
and reigned at the head of his table. When he went back there was no
loved face opposite him, and the chill and loneliness struck him to
the heart.
For three years after her marriage, Theodosia was blissfully
happy. A boy was born to her, and was named Aaron Burr Alston.
The Vice-President visited them in the South and took his namesake
unreservedly into his heart. "If I can see without prejudice," he
said, "there never was a finer boy."
His last act before fighting the duel with Hamilton, was writing to
his daughter--a happy, gay, care-free letter, giving no hint of what
was impending. To her husband he wrote in a different strain, begging
him to keep the event from her as long as possible, to make her happy
always, and to encourage her in those habits of study which he
himself had taught her.
She had parted from him with no other pain in her heart than the
approaching separation. When they met again, he was a fugitive from
justice, travel-stained from his long journey in an open canoe,
indicted for murder in New York, and in New Jersey, although still
President of the Senate, and Vice-President of the United States.
The girl's heart ached bitterly, yet no word of censure escaped her
lips, and she still held her head high. When his Mexican scheme was
overthrown, Theodosia sat beside him at his trial, wearing her
absolute faith, so that all the world might see.
When he was preparing for his flight to Europe, Theodosia was in New
York, and they met by night, secretly, at the house of friends. Just
before he sailed, they spent a whole night together, making the best
of the little time that remained to them before the inevitable
separation. Early in June they parted, little dreaming that they
should see each other no more.
During the years of exile, Theodosia suffered no less than he. Mr.
Alston had lost his faith in Aaron Burr, and the woman's heart
strained beneath the burden. Her health failed, her friends shrank
from her, yet openly and bravely she clung to her father.
Public opinion showed no signs of relenting, and his evil genius
followed him across the sea. He was expelled from England, and in
Paris he was almost a prisoner. At one time he was obliged to live
upon potatoes and dry bread, and his devoted daughter could not help
him.
He was despised by his countrymen, but Theodosia's adoring love never
faltered. In one of her letters she said:
"I witness your extraordinary fortitude with new wonder at
every misfortune. Often, after reflecting on this subject,
you appear to me so superior, so elevated above other men--I
contemplate you with such a strange mixture of humility,
admiration, reverence, love, and pride, that a very little
superstition would be necessary to make me worship you as a
superior being, such enthusiasm does your character excite
in me.
"When I afterward revert to myself, how insignificant do my
best qualities appear! My own vanity would be greater if I
had not been placed so near you, and yet, my pride is in our
relationship. I had rather not live than not to be the
daughter of such a man."
She wrote to Mrs. Madison and asked her to intercede with the
President for her father. The answer gave the required assurance, and
she wrote to her father, urging him to go boldly to New York and
resume the practice of his profession. "If worse comes to worst," she
wrote, "I will leave everything to suffer with you."
He landed in Boston and went on to New York in May of 1812, where his
reception was better than he had hoped, and where he soon had a
lucrative practice. They planned for him to come South in the summer,
and she was almost happy again, when her child died and her mother's
heart was broken.
She had borne much, and she never recovered from that last blow. Her
health failed rapidly, and though she was too weak to undertake the
trip, she insisted upon going to New York to see her father.
Thinking the voyage might prove beneficial, her husband reluctantly
consented, and passage was engaged for her on a pilot-boat that had
been out privateering, and had stopped for supplies before going on to
New York.
The vessel sailed--and a storm swept the Atlantic coast from Maine to
Florida. It was supposed that the ship went down off Cape Hatteras,
but forty years afterward, a sailor, who died in Texas, confessed on
his death-bed that he was one of a crew of mutineers who took
possession of the _Patriot_ and forced the passengers, as well as the
officers and men, to walk the plank. He professed to remember Mrs.
Alston well, and said she was the last one who perished. He never
forgot her look of despair as she stepped into the sea--with her head
held high even in the face of death.
Among Theodosia's papers was found a letter addressed to her husband,
written at a time when she was weary of the struggle. On the envelope
was written: "My Husband. To be delivered after my death. I wish this
to be read immediately and before my burial."
He never saw the letter, for he never had the courage to go through
her papers, and after his death it was sent to her father. It came to
him like a message from the grave:
"Let my father see my son, sometimes," she had written. "Do
not be unkind to him whom I have loved so much, I beseech of
you. Burn all my papers except my father's letters, which I
beg you to return to him."
A long time afterward, her father married Madame Jumel, a rich New
York woman who was many years his junior, but the alliance was
unfortunate, and was soon annulled. Through all the rest of his life,
he never wholly gave up the hope that Theodosia might return. He clung
fondly to the belief that she had been picked up by another ship, and
some day would be brought back to him.
Day by day, he haunted the Battery, anxiously searching the faces of
the incoming passengers, asking some of them for tidings of his
daughter, and always believing that the next ship would bring her
back.
He became a familiar figure, for he was almost always there--a bent,
shrunken little man, white-haired, leaning heavily upon his cane,
asking questions in a thin piping voice, and straining his dim eyes
forever toward the unsounded waters, from whence the idol of his heart
never came.
For out within those waters, cruel, changeless,
She sleeps, beyond all rage of earth or sea;
A smile upon her dear lips, dumb, but waiting,
And I--I hear the sea-voice calling me.
The Sea-Voice
Beyond the sands I hear the sea-voice calling
With passion all but human in its pain,
While from my eyes the bitter tears are falling,
And all the summer land seems blind with rain;
For out within those waters, cruel, changeless,
She sleeps, beyond all rage of earth or sea,
A smile upon her dear lips, dumb, but waiting,
And I--I hear the sea-voice calling me.
The tide comes in. The moonlight flood and glory
Of that unresting surge thrill earth with bliss,
And I can hear the passionate sweet story
Of waves that waited round her for her kiss.
Sweetheart, they love you; silent and unseeing,
Old Ocean holds his court around you there,
And while I reach out through the dark to find you
His fingers twine the sea-weed in your hair.
The tide goes out and in the dawn's new splendour
The dreams of dark first fade, then pass away,
And I awake from visions soft and tender
To face the shuddering agony of day
For out within those waters, cruel, changeless,
She sleeps, beyond all rage of earth or sea;
A smile upon her dear lips, dumb, but waiting,
And I--I hear the sea-voice calling me.
The Mystery of Randolph's
Courtship
It is said that in order to know a man, one must begin with his
ancestors, and the truth of the saying is strikingly exemplified in
the case of "John Randolph of Roanoke," as he loved to write his name.
His contemporaries have told us what manner of man he was--fiery,
excitable, of strong passions and strong will, capable of great
bitterness, obstinate, revengeful, and extremely sensitive.
"I have been all my life," he says, "the creature of impulse, the
sport of chance, the victim of my own uncontrolled and uncontrollable
sensations, and of a poetic temperament."
He was sarcastic to a degree, proud, haughty, and subject to fits of
Byronic despair and morbid gloom. For these traits we must look back
to the Norman Conquest from which he traced his descent in an unbroken
line, while, on the side of his maternal grandmother, he was the
seventh in descent from Pocahontas, the Indian maiden who married John
Rolfe.
The Indian blood was evident, even in his personal appearance. He was
tall, slender, and dignified in his bearing; his hands were thin, his
fingers long and bony; his face was dark, sallow, and wrinkled, oval
in shape and seamed with lines by the inward conflict which forever
raged in his soul. His chin was pointed but firm, and his lips were
set; around his mouth were marked the tiny, almost imperceptible lines
which mean cruelty. His nose was aquiline, his ears large at the top,
tapering almost to a point at the lobe, and his forehead unusually
high and broad. His hair was soft, and his skin, although dark,
suffered from extreme sensitiveness.
"There is no accounting for thinness of skins in different
animals, human, or brute [he once said]. Mine, I believe to
be more tender than many infants of a month old. Indeed I
have remarked in myself, from my earliest recollection, a
delicacy or effeminacy of complexion, which but for a spice
of the devil in my temper would have consigned me to the
distaff or the needle."
"A spice of the devil" is mild indeed, considering that before he was
four years old he frequently swooned in fits of passion, and was
restored to consciousness with difficulty.
His most striking feature was his eyes. They were deep, dark, and
fiery, filled with passion and great sadness at the same time. "When
he first entered an assembly of people," said one who knew him, "they
were the eyes of the eagle in search of his prey, darting about from
place to place to see upon whom to light. When he was assailed they
flashed fire and proclaimed a torrent of rage within."
The voice of this great statesman was a rare gift:
"One might live a hundred years [says one,] and never hear
another like it. The wonder was why the sweet tone of a
woman was so harmoniously blended with that of a man. His
very whisper could be distinguished above the ordinary tones
of other men. His voice was so singularly clear, distinct,
and melodious that it was a positive pleasure to hear him
articulate anything."
Such was the man who swayed the multitude at will, punished offenders
with sarcasm and invective, inspired fear even in his equals, and
loved and suffered more than any other prominent man of his
generation.
He had many acquaintances, a few friends, and three loves--his mother,
his brother, and the beautiful young woman who held his heart in the
hollow of her hand, until the Gray Angel, taking pity, closed his eyes
in the last sleep.
His mother, who was Frances Bland, married John Randolph in 1769, and
John Randolph, of Roanoke, was their third son.
Tradition tells us of the unusual beauty of the mother--
"the high expanded forehead, the smooth arched brow; the
brilliant dark eyes; the well defined nose; the full round
laughing lips; the tall graceful figure, the beautiful dark
hair; an open cheerful countenance--suffused with that deep,
rich Oriental tint which never seems to fade, all of which
made her the most beautiful and attractive woman of her
age."
She was a wife at sixteen, and at twenty-six a widow. Three years
after the death of her husband, she married St. George Tucker, of
Bermuda who proved to be a kind father to her children.
In the winter of 1781, Benedict Arnold, the traitor who had spread
ruin through his native state, was sent to Virginia on an expedition
of ravage. He landed at the mouth of the James, and advanced toward
Petersburg. Matoax, Randolph's home, was directly in the line of the
invading army, so the family set out on a cold January morning, and at
night entered the home of Benjamin Ward, Jr.
John Randolph was seven years old, and little Maria Ward had just
passed her fifth birthday. The two children played together happily,
and in the boy's heart was sown the seed of that grand passion which
dominated his life.
After a few days, the family went on to Bizarre, a large estate on
both sides of the Appomattox, and here Mrs. Tucker and her sons spent
the remainder of the year, while her husband joined General Greene's
army, and afterward, the force of Lafayette.
In 1788, John Randolph's mother died, and his first grief swept over
him in an overwhelming torrent. The boy of fifteen spent bitter
nights, his face buried in the grass, sobbing over his mother's grave.
Years afterward, he wrote to a friend, "I am a fatalist. I am all but
friendless. Only one human being ever knew me. _She_ only knew me."
He kept his mother's portrait always in his room, and enshrined her in
loving remembrance in his heart. He had never seen his father's face
to remember it distinctly, and for a long time he wore his miniature
in his bosom. In 1796, his brother Richard died, and the unexpected
blow crushed him to earth. More than thirty years afterward he wrote
to his half-brother, Henry St. George Tucker, the following note:
"DEAR HENRY
"Our poor brother Richard was born in 1770. He would have
been fifty-six years old the ninth of this month. I can no
more.
"J. R. OF R."
At some time in his early manhood he came into close relationship with
Maria Ward. She had been an attractive child, and had grown into a
woman so beautiful that Lafayette said her equal could not be found in
North America. Her hair was auburn, and hung in curls around her face;
her skin was exquisitely fair; her eyes were dark and eloquent. Her
mouth was well formed; she was slender, graceful, and coquettish,
well-educated, and in every way, charming.
To this woman, John Randolph's heart went out in passionate, adoring
love. He might be bitter and sarcastic with others, but with her he
was gentleness itself. Others might know him as a man of affairs, keen
and logical, but to her he was only a lover.
Timid and hesitating at first, afraid perhaps of his fiery wooing,
Miss Ward kept him for some time in suspense. All the treasures of his
mind and soul were laid before her; that deep, eloquent voice which
moved the multitude to tears at its master's will was pleading with a
woman for her love.
What wonder that she yielded at last and promised to marry him? Then
for a time everything else was forgotten. The world lay before him to
be conquered when he might choose. Nothing would be too great for him
to accomplish--nothing impossible to that eager joyous soul enthroned
at last upon the greatest heights of human happiness. And then--there
was a change. He rode to her home one day, tying his horse outside as
was his wont. A little later he strode out, shaking like an aspen,
his face white in agony. He drew his knife from his pocket, cut the
bridle of his horse, dug his spurs into the quivering sides, and was
off like the wind. What battle was fought out on that wild ride is
known only to John Randolph and his God. What torture that fiery soul
went through, no human being can ever know. When he came back at
night, he was so changed that no one dared to speak to him.
He threw himself into the political arena in order to save his reason.
Often at midnight, he would rise from his uneasy bed, buckle on his
pistols, and ride like mad over the country, returning only when his
horse was spent. He never saw Miss Ward again, and she married Peyton
Randolph, the son of Edmund Randolph, who was Secretary of State under
Washington.
The entire affair is shrouded in mystery. There is not a letter, nor a
single scrap of paper, nor a shred of evidence upon which to base even
a presumption. The separation was final and complete, and the
white-hot metal of the man's nature was gradually moulded into that
strange eccentric being whose foibles are so well known.
Only once did Randolph lift even a corner of the veil. In a letter to
his dearest friend he spoke of her as:
"One I loved better than my own soul, or Him who created it.
My apathy is not natural, but superinduced. There was a
volcano under my ice, but it burnt out, and a face of
desolation has come on, not to be rectified in ages, could
my life be prolonged to patriarchal longevity.
"The necessity of loving and being loved was never felt by
the imaginary beings of Rousseau and Byron's creation, more
imperiously than by myself. My heart was offered with a
devotion that knew no reserve. Long an object of
proscription and treachery, I have at last, more mortifying
to the pride of man, become an object of utter
indifference."
The brilliant statesman would doubtless have had a large liberty of
choice among the many beautiful women of his circle, but he never
married, and there is no record of any entanglement. To the few women
he deemed worthy of his respect and admiration, he was deferential and
even gallant. In one of his letters to a young relative he said:
"Love to god-son Randolph and respectful compliments to Mrs.
R. She is indeed a fine woman, one for whom I have felt a
true regard, unmixed with the foible of another passion.
"Fortunately or unfortunately for me, when I knew her, I
bore a charmed heart. Nothing else could have preserved me
from the full force of her attractions."
For much of the time after his disappointment, he lived alone with
his servants, solaced as far as possible by those friends of all
mankind--books. When the spirit moved him, he would make visits to the
neighbouring plantations, sometimes dressed in white flannel trousers,
coat, and vest, and with white paper wrapped around his beaver hat!
When he presented himself in this manner, riding horseback, with his
dark eyes burning, he was said to have presented "a most ghostly
appearance!"
An old lady who lived for years on the banks of the Staunton, near
Randolph's solitary home, tells a pathetic story:
She was sitting alone in her room in the dead of winter, when a
beautiful woman, pale as a ghost, dressed entirely in white, suddenly
appeared before her, and began to talk about Mr. Randolph, saying he
was her lover and would marry her yet, as he had never proved false to
his plighted faith. She talked of him incessantly, like one deranged,
until a young gentleman came by the house, leading a horse with a
side-saddle on. She rushed out, and asked his permission to ride a few
miles. Greatly to his surprise, she mounted without assistance, and
sat astride like a man. He was much embarrassed, but had no choice
except to escort her to the end of her journey.
The old lady who tells of this strange experience says that the young
woman several times visited Mr. Randolph, always dressed in white and
usually in the dead of winter. He always put her on a horse and sent
her away with a servant to escort her.
In his life there were but two women--his mother and Maria Ward. While
his lips were closed on the subject of his love, he did not hesitate
to avow his misery. "I too am wretched," he would say with infinite
pathos; and after her death, he spoke of Maria Ward as his "angel."
In a letter written sometime after she died, he said, strangely
enough: "I loved, aye, and was loved again, not wisely, but too well."
His brilliant career was closed when he was sixty years old, and in
his last illness, during delirium, the name of Maria was frequently
heard by those who were anxiously watching with him. But, true to
himself and to her, even when his reason was dethroned, he said
nothing more.
He was buried on his own plantation, in the midst of "that boundless
contiguity of shade," with his secret locked forever in his tortured
breast. "John Randolph of Roanoke," was all the title he claimed; but
the history of those times teaches us that he was more than that--he
was John Randolph, of the Republic.
How President Jackson Won
His Wife
In October of 1788, a little company of immigrants arrived in
Tennessee. The star of empire, which is said to move westward, had not
yet illumined Nashville, and it was one of the dangerous points "on
the frontier."
The settlement was surrounded on all sides by hostile Indians. Men
worked in the fields, but dared not go out to their daily task without
being heavily armed. When two men met, and stopped for a moment to
talk, they often stood back to back, with their rifles cocked ready
for instant use. No one stooped to drink from a spring unless another
guarded him, and the women were always attended by an armed force.
Col. John Donelson had built for himself a blockhouse of unusual size
and strength, and furnished it comfortably; but while surveying a
piece of land near the village, he was killed by the savages, and his
widow left to support herself as best she could.
A married daughter and her husband lived with her, but it was
necessary for her to take other boarders. One day there was a vigorous
rap upon the stout door of the blockhouse, and a young man whose name
was Andrew Jackson was admitted. Shortly afterward, he took up his
abode as a regular boarder at the Widow Donelson's.
The future President was then twenty-one or twenty-two. He was tall
and slender, with every muscle developed to its utmost strength. He
had an attractive face, pleasing manners, and made himself agreeable
to every one in the house.
The dangers of the frontier were but minor incidents in his
estimation, for "desperate courage makes one a majority," and he had
courage. When he was but thirteen years of age, he had boldly defied a
British officer who had ordered him to clean some cavalry boots.
"Sir," said the boy, "I am a prisoner of war, and I claim to be
treated as such!"
With an oath the officer drew his sword, and struck at the child's
head. He parried the blow with his left arm, but received a severe
wound on his head and another on his arm, the scars of which he always
carried.
The protecting presence of such a man was welcome to those who dwelt
in the blockhouse--Mrs. Donelson, Mr. and Mrs. Robards, and another
boarder, John Overton. Mrs. Donelson was a good cook and a notable
housekeeper, while her daughter was said to be "the best story teller,
the best dancer, the sprightliest companion, and the most dashing
horsewoman in the western country."
Jackson, as the only licensed lawyer in that part of Tennessee, soon
had plenty of business on his hands, and his life in the blockhouse
was a happy one until he learned that the serpent of jealousy lurked
by that fireside.
Mrs. Robards was a comely brunette, and her dusky beauty carried with
it an irresistible appeal. Jackson soon learned that Captain Robards
was unreasonably and even insanely jealous of his wife, and he learned
from John Overton that before his arrival there had been a great deal
of unhappiness because of this.
At one time Captain Robards had written to Mrs. Donelson to take her
daughter home, as he did not wish to live with her any longer; but
through the efforts of Mr. Overton a reconciliation had been effected
between the pair, and they were still living together at Mrs.
Donelson's when Jackson went there to board.
In a short time, however, Robards became violently jealous of Jackson
and talked abusively to his wife, even in the presence of her mother
and amidst the tears of both. Once more Overton interfered, assured
Robards that his suspicions were groundless, and reproached him for
his unmanly conduct.
It was all in vain, however, and the family was in as unhappy a state
as before, when they were living with the Captain's mother who had
always taken the part of her daughter-in-law.
At length Overton spoke to Jackson about it, telling him it was better
not to remain where his presence made so much trouble, and offered to
go with him to another boarding-place. Jackson readily assented,
though neither of them knew where to go, and said that he would talk
to Captain Robards.
The men met near the orchard fence, and Jackson remonstrated with the
Captain who grew violently angry and threatened to strike him. Jackson
told him that he would not advise him to try to fight, but if he
insisted, he would try to give him satisfaction. Nothing came of the
discussion, however, as Robards seemed willing to take Jackson's
advice and did not dare to strike him. But the coward continued to
abuse his wife, and insulted Jackson at every opportunity. The result
was that the young lawyer left the house.
A few months later, the still raging husband left his wife and went to
Kentucky, which was then a part of Virginia. Soon afterward, Mrs.
Robards went to live with her sister, Mrs. Hay, and Overton returned
to Mrs. Donelson's.
In the following autumn there was a rumour that Captain Robards
intended to return to Tennessee and take his wife to Kentucky, at
which Mrs. Donelson and her daughter were greatly distressed. Mrs.
Robards wept bitterly, and said it was impossible for her to live
peaceably with her husband as she had tried it twice and failed. She
determined to go down the river to Natchez, to a friend, and thus
avoid her husband, who she said had threatened to haunt her.
When Jackson heard of this arrangement he was very much troubled, for
he felt that he had been the unwilling cause of the young wife's
unhappiness, although entirely innocent of any wrong intention. So
when Mrs. Robards had fully determined to undertake the journey to
Natchez, accompanied only by Colonel Stark and his family, he offered
to go with them as an additional protection against the Indians who
were then especially active, and his escort was very gladly accepted.
The trip was made in safety, and after seeing the lady settled with
her friends, he returned to Nashville and resumed his law practice.
At that time there was no divorce law in Virginia, and each separate
divorce required the passage of an act of the legislature before a
jury could consider the case. In the winter of 1791, Captain Robards
obtained the passage of such an act, authorising the court of Mercer
County to act upon his divorce. Mrs. Robards, hearing of this,
understood that the passage of the act was, in itself, divorce, and
that she was a free woman. Jackson also took the divorce for granted.
Every one in the country so understood the matter, and at Natchez, in
the following summer, the two were married.
They returned to Nashville, settled down, and Jackson began in earnest
the career that was to land him in the White House, the hero of the
nation.
In December of 1793, more than two years after their marriage, their
friend Overton learned that the legislature had not granted a divorce,
but had left it for the court to do so. Jackson was much chagrined
when he heard of this, and it was with great difficulty that he was
brought to believe it. In January of 1794, when the decree was finally
obtained, they were married again.
It is difficult to excuse Jackson for marrying the woman without
positive and absolute knowledge of her divorce. He was a lawyer, and
could have learned the facts of the case, even though there was no
established mail service. Each of them had been entirely innocent of
any intentional wrong-doing, and their long life together, their
great devotion to each other, and General Jackson's honourable career,
forever silenced the spiteful calumny of his rivals and enemies of
early life.
In his eyes his wife was the soul of honour and purity; he loved and
reverenced her as a man loves and reverences but one woman in his
lifetime, and for thirty-seven years he kept a pair of pistols loaded
for the man who should dare to breathe her name without respect.
The famous pistol duel with Dickinson was the result of a quarrel
which had its beginning in a remark reflecting upon Mrs. Jackson, and
Dickinson, though a crack shot, paid for it with his life.
Several of Dickinson's friends sent a memorial to the proprietors of
the _Impartial Review_, asking that the next number of the paper
appear in mourning, "out of respect for the memory, and regret for the
untimely death, of Mr. Charles Dickinson."
"Old Hickory" heard of this movement, and wrote to the proprietors,
asking that the names of the gentlemen making the request be published
in the memorial number of the paper. This also was agreed to, and it
is significant that twenty-six of the seventy-three men who had signed
the petition called and erased their names from the document.
"The Hermitage" at Nashville, which is still a very attractive spot
for visitors, was built solely to please Mrs. Jackson, and there she
dispensed gracious hospitality. Not merely a guest or two, but whole
families, came for weeks at a time, for the mistress of the mansion
was fond of entertaining, and proved herself a charming hostess. She
had a good memory, had passed through many and greatly varied
experiences, and above all she had that rare faculty which is called
tact.
Though her husband's love for her was evident to every one, yet, in
the presence of others, he always maintained a dignified reserve. He
never spoke of her as "Rachel," nor addressed her as "My Dear." It
was always "Mrs. Jackson," or "wife." She always called him "Mr.
Jackson," never "Andrew" nor "General."
Both of them greatly desired children, but this blessing was denied
them; so they adopted a boy, the child of Mrs. Jackson's brother,
naming him "Andrew Jackson," and bringing him up as their own child.
The lady's portrait shows her to have been wonderfully attractive. It
does not reveal the dusky Oriental tint of her skin, the ripe red of
her lips, nor the changing lights in her face, but it shows the high
forehead, the dark soft hair, the fine eyes, and the tempting mouth
which was smiling, yet serene. A lace head-dress is worn over the
waving hair, and the filmy folds fall softly over neck and bosom.
When Jackson was elected to the Presidency, the ladies of Nashville
organized themselves into sewing circles to prepare Mrs. Jackson's
wardrobe. It was a labour of love. On December 23, 1828, there was to
be a grand banquet in Jackson's honour, and the devoted women of their
home city had made a beautiful gown for his wife to wear at the
dinner. At sunrise the preparations began. The tables were set, the
dining-room decorated, and the officers and men of the troop that was
to escort the President-elect were preparing to go to the home and
attend him on the long ride into the city. Their horses were saddled
and in readiness at the place of meeting. As the bugle sounded the
summons to mount, a breathless messenger appeared on a horse flecked
with foam. Mrs. Jackson had died of heart disease the evening before.
The festival was changed to a funeral, and the trumpets and drums that
were to have sounded salute were muffled in black. All decorations
were taken down, and the church bells tolled mournfully. The grief of
the people was beyond speech. Each one felt a personal loss.
At the home the blow was terrible. The lover-husband would not leave
his wife. In those bitter hours the highest gift of his countrymen
was an empty triumph, for his soul was wrecked with the greatness of
his loss.
When she was buried at the foot of a slope in the garden of "The
Hermitage," his bereavement came home to him with crushing strength.
Back of the open grave stood a great throng of people, waiting in the
wintry wind. The sun shone brightly on the snow, but "The Hermitage"
was desolate, for its light and laughter and love were gone. The
casket was carried down the slope, and a long way behind it came the
General, slowly and almost helpless, between two of his friends.
The people of Nashville had made ready to greet him with the blare of
bugles, waving flags, the clash of cymbals, and resounding cheers. It
was for the President-elect--the hero of the war. The throng that
stood behind the open grave greeted him with sobs and tears--not the
President-elect, but the man bowed by his sixty years, bareheaded,
with his gray hair rumpled in the wind, staggering toward them in the
throes of his bitterest grief.
In that one night he had grown old. He looked like a man stricken
beyond all hope. When his old friends gathered around him with the
tears streaming down their cheeks, wringing his hand in silent
sympathy, he could make no response.
He was never the same again, though his strength of will and his
desperate courage fought with this infinite pain. For the rest of his
life he lived as she would have had him live--guided his actions by
the thought of what his wife, if living, would have had him do--loving
her still, with the love that passeth all understanding.
He declined the sarcophagus fit for an emperor, that he might be
buried like a simple citizen, in the garden by her side.
His last words were of her--his last look rested upon her portrait
that hung opposite his bed, and if there be dreaming in the dark, the
vision of her brought him peace at last.
The Bachelor President's Loyalty
to a Memory
The fifteenth President was remarkable among the men of his time
for his lifelong fidelity to one woman, for since the days of
knight-errantry such devotion has been as rare as it is beautiful. The
young lawyer came of Scotch-Irish parentage, and to this blending of
blood were probably in part due his deep love and steadfastness. There
was rather more of the Irish than of the Scotch in his face, and when
we read that his overflowing spirits were too much for the college in
which he had been placed, and that, for "reasons of public policy,"
the honours which he had earned were on commencement day given to
another, it is evident that he may sometimes have felt that he owed
allegiance primarily to the Emerald Isle.
Like others, who have been capable of deep and lasting passion, James
Buchanan loved his mother. Among his papers there was found a fragment
of an autobiography, which ended in 1816, when the writer was only
twenty-five years of age. He says his father was "a kind father, a
sincere friend, and an honest and religious man," but on the subject
of his mother he waxes eloquent:
"Considering her limited opportunities in early life [he
writes], my mother was a remarkable woman. The daughter of a
country farmer, engaged in household employment from early
life until after my father's death, she yet found time to
read much, and to reflect deeply on what she read.
"She had a great fondness for poetry, and could repeat with
ease all the passages in her favorite authors which struck
her fancy. These were Milton, Pope, Young, Cowper, and
Thompson.
"I do not think, at least until a late period in life, she
had ever read a criticism on any one of these authors, and
yet such was the correctness of her natural taste, that she
had selected for herself, and could repeat, every passage
in them which has been admired....
"For her sons, as they grew up successively, she was a
delightful and instructive companion.... She was a woman of
great firmness of character, and bore the afflictions of her
later life with Christian philosophy.... It was chiefly to
her influence, that her sons were indebted for a liberal
education. Under Providence I attribute any little
distinction which I may have acquired in the world to the
blessing which He conferred upon me in granting me such a
mother."
If Elizabeth Buchanan could have read these words, doubtless she would
have felt fully repaid for her many years of toil, self-sacrifice, and
devotion.
After the young man left the legislature and took up the practice of
law, with the intention of spending his life at the bar, he became
engaged to Anne Coleman, the daughter of Robert Coleman, of Lancaster.
She is said to have been an unusually beautiful girl, quiet, gentle,
modest, womanly, and extremely sensitive. The fine feelings of a
delicately organized nature may easily become either a blessing or a
curse, and on account of her sensitiveness there was a rupture for
which neither can be very greatly blamed.
Mr. Coleman approved of the engagement, and the happy lover worked
hard to make a home for the idol of his heart. One day, out of the
blue sky a thunderbolt fell. He received a note from Miss Coleman
asking him to release her from her engagement.
There was no explanation forthcoming, and it was not until long
afterward that he discovered that busy-bodies and gossips had gone to
Miss Coleman with stories concerning him which had no foundation save
in their mischief-making imaginations, and which she would not repeat
to him. After all his efforts at re-establishing the old relations had
proved useless, he wrote to her that if it were her wish to be
released from her engagement he could but submit, as he had no desire
to hold her against her will.
The break came in the latter part of the summer of 1819, when he was
twenty-eight years old and she was in her twenty-third year. He threw
himself into his work with renewed energy, and later on she went to
visit friends in Philadelphia.
Though she was too proud to admit it, there was evidence that the
beautiful and high-spirited girl was suffering from heartache. On the
ninth of December, she died suddenly, and her body was brought home
just a week after she left Lancaster. The funeral took place the next
day, Sunday, and to the suffering father of the girl, the heart-broken
lover wrote a letter which in simple pathos stands almost alone. It is
the only document on this subject which remains, but in these few
lines is hidden a tragedy:
"LANCASTER, December 10, 1819.
"MY DEAR SIR:
"You have lost a child, a dear, dear child. I have lost the
only earthly object of my affections, without whom, life now
presents to me a dreary blank. My prospects are all cut off,
and I feel that my happiness will be buried with her in her
grave.
"It is now no time for explanation, but the time will come
when you will discover that she, as well as I, has been
greatly abused. God forgive the authors of it! My feelings
of resentment against them, whoever they may be, are buried
in the dust.
"I have now one request to make, and for the love of God,
and of your dear departed daughter, whom I loved infinitely
more than any human being could love, deny me not. Afford me
the melancholy pleasure of seeing her body before its
interment. I would not, for the world, be denied this
request.
"I might make another, but from the misrepresentations that
have been made to you, I am almost afraid. I would like to
follow her remains, to the grave as a mourner. I would like
to convince the world, I hope yet to convince you, that she
was infinitely dearer to me than life.
"I may sustain the shock of her death, but I feel that
happiness has fled from me forever. The prayer which I make
to God without ceasing is, that I yet may be able to show my
veneration for the memory of my dear, departed saint, by my
respect and attachment for her surviving friends.
"May Heaven bless you and enable you to bear the shock with
the fortitude of a Christian.
"I am forever, your sincere and grateful friend,
"JAMES BUCHANAN."
The father returned the letter unopened and without comment. Death had
only widened the breach. It would have been gratifying to know that
the two lovers were together for a moment at the end.
For such a meeting as that there are no words but Edwin Arnold's:
"But he--who loved her too well to dread
The sweet, the stately, the beautiful dead--
He lit his lamp, and took the key,
And turn'd it!--alone again--he and she!"
For him there was not even a glimpse of her as she lay in her coffin,
nor a whisper that some day, like Evelyn Hope, she might "wake, and
remember and understand." With that love that asks only for the right
to serve, and feeling perhaps that no pen could do her justice, he
obtained permission to write a paragraph for a local paper, which was
published unsigned:
"Departed this life, on Thursday morning last, in the
twenty-third year of her age, while on a visit to friends in
the city of Philadelphia, Miss Anne C. Coleman, daughter of
Robert Coleman, Esquire of this city.
"It rarely falls to our lot to shed a tear over the remains
of one so much and so deservedly beloved as was the
deceased. She was everything which the fondest parent, or
the fondest friend could have wished her to be.
"Although she was young and beautiful and accomplished, and
the smiles of fortune shone upon her, yet her native modesty
and worth made her unconscious of her own attractions. Her
heart was the seat of all the softer virtues which ennoble
and dignify the character of woman.
"She has now gone to a world, where, in the bosom of her
God, she will be happy with congenial spirits. May the
memory of her virtues be ever green in the hearts of her
surviving friends. May her mild spirit, which on earth still
breathes peace and good will, be their guardian angel to
preserve them from the faults to which she was ever a
stranger.
"The spider's most attenuated thread
Is cord, is cable, to man's tender tie
On earthly bliss--it breaks at every breeze."
How deeply he felt her death is shown by extracts from a letter
written to him by a friend in the latter part of December:
"I am writing, I know not why, and perhaps had better not. I
write only to speak of the awful visitation of Providence
that has fallen upon you, and how deeply I feel it.... I
trust to your philosophy and courage, and to the elasticity
of spirits natural to most young men....
"The sun will shine again, though a man enveloped in gloom
always thinks the darkness is to be eternal. Do you remember
the Spanish anecdote?
"A lady who had lost a favorite child remained for months
sunk in sullen sorrow and despair. Her confessor, one
morning visited her, and found her, as usual immersed in
gloom and grief. 'What,' said he, 'Have you not forgiven God
Almighty?'
"She rose, exerted herself, joined the world again, and
became useful to herself and her friends."
Time's kindly touch heals many wounds, but the years seemed to bring
to James Buchanan no surcease of sorrow. He was always under the
cloud of that misunderstanding, and during his long political career,
the incident frequently served as a butt for the calumnies of his
enemies. It was freely used in "campaign documents," perverted,
misrepresented, and twisted into every conceivable shape, though it is
difficult to conceive how any form of humanity could ever be so base.
Next to the loss of the girl he loved, this was the greatest grief of
his life. To see the name of his "dear, departed saint" dragged into
newspaper notoriety was absolute torture. Denial was useless, and
pleading had no effect. After he had retired to his home at Wheatland,
and when he was past seventy--when Anne Coleman's beautiful body had
gone back to the dust, there was a long article in a newspaper about
the affair, accompanied by the usual misrepresentations.
To a friend, he said, with deep emotion: "In my safety-deposit box in
New York there is a sealed package, containing papers and relics which
will explain everything. Sometime, when I am dead, the world will
know--and absolve."
But after his death, when his executors found the package, there was a
direction on the outside: "To be burned unopened at my death."
He chose silence rather than vindication at the risk of having Anne
Coleman's name again brought into publicity. In that little parcel
there was doubtless full exoneration, but at the end, as always, he
nobly bore the blame.
It happened that the letter he had written to her father was not in
this package, but among his papers at Wheatland--otherwise that
pathetic request would also have been burned.
Through all his life he remained true to Anne's memory. Under the
continual public attacks his grief became one that even his friends
forebore to speak of, and he had a chivalrous regard for all women,
because of his love for one. His social instincts were strong,
his nature affectionate and steadfast, yet it was owing to his
disappointment that he became President. At one time, when he was in
London, he said to an intimate friend: "I never intended to engage
in politics, but meant to follow my profession strictly. But my
prospects and plans were all changed by a most sad event, which
happened at Lancaster when I was a young man. As a distraction from my
grief, and because I saw that through a political following I could
secure the friends I then needed, I accepted a nomination."
A beautiful side of his character is shown in his devotion to his
niece, Harriet Lane. He was to her always a faithful father. When she
was away at school or otherwise separated from him, he wrote to her
regularly, never failing to assure her of his affection, and received
her love and confidence in return. In 1865, when she wrote to him of
her engagement, he replied, in part, as follows:
"I believe you say truly that nothing would have induced you
to leave me, in good or evil fortune, if I had wished you to
remain with me.
"Such a wish on my part would be very selfish. You have long
known my desire that you should marry whenever a suitor
worthy of you should offer. Indeed, it has been my strong
desire to see you settled in the world before my death. You
have now made your own unbiased choice; and from the
character of Mr. Johnston, I anticipate for you a happy
marriage, because I believe from your own good sense, you
will conform to your conductor, and make him a good and
loving wife."
The days passed in retirement at Wheatland were filled with quiet
content. The end came as peacefully as the night itself. He awoke from
a gentle sleep, murmured, "O Lord, God Almighty, as Thou wilt!" and
passed serenely into that other sleep, which knows not dreams.
The impenetrable veil between us and eternity permits no lifting of
its folds; there is no parting of its greyness, save for a passage,
but perhaps, in "that undiscovered country from whose bourne no
traveller returns" Anne Coleman and her lover have met once more, and
the long life of faithfulness at last has won her pardon.
Decoration Day
The trees bow their heads in sorrow,
While their giant branches wave,
With the requiems of the forest,
To the dead in a soldier's grave.
The pitying rain falls softly,
In grief for a nation's brave,
Who died 'neath the scourge of treason
And rest in a lonely grave.
So, under the willow and cypress
We lay our dead away,
And cover their graves with blossoms,
But the debt we never can pay.
All nature is bathed in tears,
On our sad Memorial day,
When we crown the valour of heroes
With flowers from the garments of May.
The Romance of the Life of
Lincoln
By the slow passing of years humanity attains what is called the
"historical perspective," but it is still a mooted question as to how
many years are necessary.
We think of Lincoln as a great leader, and it is difficult to imagine
him as a lover. He was at the helm of "the Ship of State" in the most
fearful storm it ever passed through; he struck off the shackles of a
fettered people, and was crowned with martyrdom; yet in spite of his
greatness, he loved like other men.
There is no record for Lincoln's earlier years of the boyish love
which comes to many men in their school days. The great passion of his
life came to him in manhood but with no whit of its sweetness gone.
Sweet Anne Rutledge! There are those who remember her well, and to
this day in speaking of her, their eyes fill with tears. A lady who
knew her says: "Miss Rutledge had auburn hair, blue eyes, and a fair
complexion. She was pretty, rather slender, and good-hearted, beloved
by all who knew her."
Before Lincoln loved her, she had a sad experience with another man.
About the time that he came to New Salem, a young man named John
McNeil drifted in from one of the Eastern States. He worked hard, was
plucky and industrious, and soon accumulated a little property. He met
Anne Rutledge when she was but seventeen and still in school, and he
began to pay her especial attention which at last culminated in their
engagement.
He was about going back to New York for a visit and leaving he told
Anne that his name was not McNeil, but McNamar--that he had changed
his name so that his dependent family might not follow him and settle
down upon him before he was able to support them. Now that he was in
a position to aid his parents, brothers, and sisters, he was going
back to do it and upon his return would make Anne his wife.
For a long time she did not hear from him at all, and gossip was rife
in New Salem. His letters became more formal and less frequent and
finally ceased altogether. The girl's proud spirit compelled her to
hold her head high amid the impertinent questions of the neighbors.
Lincoln had heard of the strange conduct of McNeil and concluding that
there was now no tie between Miss Rutledge and her quondam lover, he
began his own siege in earnest. Anne consented at last to marry him
provided he gave her time to write to McNamar and obtain a release
from the pledge which she felt was still binding upon her.
She wrote, but there was no answer and at last she definitely accepted
Lincoln.
It was necessary for him to complete his law studies, and after that,
he said, "Nothing on God's footstool shall keep us apart."
He worked happily but a sore conflict seemed to be raging in Anne's
tender heart and conscience, and finally the strain told upon her to
such an extent that when she was attacked by a fever, she had little
strength to resist it.
The summer waned and Anne's life ebbed with it. At the very end of her
illness, when all visitors were forbidden, she insisted upon seeing
Lincoln. He went to her--and closed the door between them and the
world. It was his last hour with her. When he came out, his face was
white with the agony of parting.
A few days later, she died and Lincoln was almost insane with grief.
He walked for hours in the woods, refused to eat, would speak to no
one, and there settled upon him that profound melancholy which came
back, time and again, during the after years. To one friend he said:
"I cannot bear to think that the rain and storms will beat upon her
grave."
When the days were dark and stormy he was constantly watched, as his
friends feared he would take his own life. Finally, he was persuaded
to go away to the house of a friend who lived at some distance, and
here he remained until he was ready to face the world again.
A few weeks after Anne's burial, McNamar returned to New Salem. On his
arrival he met Lincoln at the post-office and both were sorely
distressed. He made no explanation of his absence, and shortly seemed
to forget about Miss Rutledge, but her grave was in Lincoln's heart
until the bullet of the assassin struck him down.
In October of 1833, Lincoln met Miss Mary Owens, and admired her
though not extravagantly. From all accounts, she was an unusual woman.
She was tall, full in figure, with blue eyes and dark hair; she was
well educated and quite popular in the little community. She was away
for a time, but returned to New Salem in 1836, and Lincoln at once
began to call upon her, enjoying her wit and beauty. At that time she
was about twenty-eight years old.
One day Miss Owens was out walking with a lady friend and when they
came to the foot of a steep hill, Lincoln joined them. He walked
behind with Miss Owens, and talked with her, quite oblivious to the
fact that her friend was carrying a heavy baby. When they reached the
summit, Miss Owens said laughingly: "You would not make a good
husband, Abe."
They sat on the fence and a wordy discussion followed. Both were angry
when they parted, and the breach was not healed for some time. It was
poor policy to quarrel, since some time before he had proposed to Miss
Owens, and she had asked for time in which to consider it before
giving a final answer. His letters to her are not what one would call
"love-letters." One begins in this way:
"MARY:--I have been sick ever since my arrival, or I should
have written sooner. It is but little difference, however,
as I have very little even yet to write. And more, the
longer I can avoid the mortification of looking in the
post-office for your letter, and not finding it, the better.
You see I am mad about that old letter yet. I don't like
very well to risk you again. I'll try you once more,
anyhow."
The remainder of the letter deals with political matters and is signed
simply "Your Friend Lincoln."
In another letter written the following year he says to her:
"I am often thinking about what we said of your coming to
live at Springfield. I am afraid you would not be satisfied.
There is a great deal of flourishing about in carriages
here, which it would be your doom to see without sharing it.
You would have to be poor without the means of hiding your
poverty. Do you believe you could bear that patiently?
"Whatever woman may cast her lot with mine, should any ever
do so, it is my intention to do all in my power to make her
happy and contented; and there is nothing I can imagine that
would make me more unhappy than to fail in the effort.
"I know I should be much happier with you than the way I am,
provided I saw no signs of discontent in you. What you have
said to me may have been in the way of jest, or I may have
misunderstood it.
"If so, then let it be forgotten; if otherwise I much wish
you would think seriously before you decide. For my part, I
have already decided.
"What I have said I will most positively abide by, provided
you wish it. My opinion is that you would better not do it.
You have not been accustomed to hardship, and it may be more
severe than you now imagine.
"I know you are capable of thinking correctly upon any
subject and if you deliberate maturely upon this before you
decide, then I am willing to abide by your decision."
Matters went on in this way for about three months; then they met
again, seemingly without making any progress. On the day they parted,
Lincoln wrote her another letter, evidently to make his own position
clear and put the burden of decision upon her.
"If you feel yourself in any degree bound to me [he said], I
am now willing to release you, provided you wish it; while,
on the other hand, I am willing and even anxious, to bind
you faster, if I can be convinced that it will in any
considerable degree add to your happiness. This, indeed, is
the whole question with me. Nothing would make me more
miserable than to believe you miserable--nothing more happy
than to know you were so."
In spite of his evident sincerity, it is not surprising to learn that
a little later, Miss Owens definitely refused him. In April, of the
following year, Lincoln wrote to his friend, Mrs. L. H. Browning,
giving a full account of this grotesque courtship:
"I finally was forced to give it up [he wrote] at which I
very unexpectedly found myself mortified almost beyond
endurance.
"I was mortified it seemed to me in a hundred different
ways. My vanity was deeply wounded by the reflection that I
had so long been too stupid to discover her intentions, and
at the same time never doubting that I understood them
perfectly; and also, that she, whom I had taught myself to
believe nobody else would have, had actually rejected me,
with all my fancied greatness.
"And then to cap the whole, I then, for the first time,
began to suspect that I was really a little in love with
her. But let it all go. I'll try and outlive it. Others have
been made fools of by the girls; but this can never with
truth be said of me. I most emphatically in this instance
made a fool of myself. I have now come to the conclusion
never again to think of marrying, and for this reason I can
never be satisfied with any one who would be blockhead
enough to have me!"
The gist of the matter seems to be that at heart Lincoln hesitated at
matrimony, as other men have done, both before and since his time. In
his letter to Mrs. Browning he speaks of his efforts to "put off the
evil day for a time, which I really dreaded as much, perhaps more,
than an Irishman does the halter!"
But in 1839 Miss Mary Todd came to live with her sister, Mrs. Ninian
Edwards, at Springfield. She was in her twenty-first year, and is
described as "of average height and compactly built." She had a
well-rounded face, rich dark brown hair, and bluish grey eyes. No
picture of her fails to show the full, well-developed chin, which,
more than any other feature is an evidence of determination. She
was strong, proud, passionate, gifted with a keen sense of the
ridiculous, well educated, and swayed only by her own imperious will.
Lincoln was attracted at once, and strangely enough, Stephen A.
Douglas crossed his wooing. For a time the two men were rivals, the
pursuit waxing more furious day by day. Some one asked Miss Todd which
of them she intended to marry, and she answered laughingly: "The one
who has the best chance of becoming President!"
She is said, however, to have refused the "Little Giant" on account of
his lax morality and after that the coast was clear for Lincoln. Miss
Todd's sister tells us that "he was charmed by Mary's wit and
fascinated by her quick sagacity, her will, her nature, and culture."
"I have happened in the room," she says, "where they were sitting,
often and often, and Mary led the conversation. Lincoln would listen,
and gaze on her as if drawn by some superior power--irresistibly so;
he listened, but scarcely ever said a word."
The affair naturally culminated in an engagement, and the course of
love was running smoothly, when a distracting element appeared in the
shape of Miss Matilda Edwards, the sister of Mrs. Edwards's husband.
She was young and fair, and Lincoln was pleased with her appearance.
For a time he tried to go on as before, but his feelings were too
strong to be concealed. Mr. Edwards endeavoured to get his sister to
marry Lincoln's friend, Speed, but she refused both Speed and Douglas.
It is said that Lincoln once went to Miss Todd's house, intending to
break the engagement, but his real love proved too strong to allow him
to do it.
His friend, Speed, thus describes the conclusion of this episode.
"Well, old fellow," I said, "did you do as you intended?"
"Yes, I did," responded Lincoln thoughtfully, "and when I told Mary I
did not love her, she, wringing her hands, said something about the
deceiver being himself deceived."
"What else did you say?"
"To tell you the truth, Speed, it was too much for me. I found the
tears trickling down my own cheeks. I caught her in my arms and kissed
her."
"And that's how you broke the engagement. Your conduct was tantamount
to a renewal of it!"
And indeed this was true, and the lovers again considered the time of
marriage.
There is a story by Herndon to the effect that a wedding was arranged
for the first day of January, 1841, and then when the hour came
Lincoln did not appear, and was found wandering alone in the woods
plunged in the deepest melancholy--a melancholy bordering upon
insanity.
This story, however, has no foundation; in fact, most competent
witnesses agree that no such marriage date was fixed, although some
date may have been considered.
It is certain, however, that the relations between Lincoln and Miss
Todd were broken off for a time. He did go to Kentucky for a while,
but this trip certainly was not due to insanity. Lincoln was never so
mindless as some of his biographers would have us believe, and the
breaking of the engagement was due to perfectly natural causes--the
difference in temperament of the lovers, and Lincoln's inclination to
procrastinate. After a time the strained relations gradually improved.
They met occasionally in the parlor of a friend, Mrs. Francis, and it
was through Miss Todd that the duel with Shields came about.
She wielded a ready and a sarcastic pen, and safely hidden behind a
pseudonym and the promise of the editor, she wrote a series of
satirical articles for the local paper, entitled: "Letters from Lost
Townships." In one of these she touched up Mr. Shields, the Auditor of
State, to such good purpose that believing that Lincoln had written
the article, he challenged him to a duel. Lincoln accepted the
challenge and chose "cavalry broadswords" as the weapons, but the
intervention of friends prevented any fighting, although he always
spoke of the affair as his "duel."
As a result of this altercation with Shields, Miss Todd and the future
President came again into close friendship, and a marriage was decided
upon.
The license was secured, the minister sent for, and on November 4,
1842, they became man and wife.
It is not surprising that more or less unhappiness obtained in their
married life, for Mrs. Lincoln was a woman of strong character, proud,
fiery, and determined. Her husband was subject to strange moods and
impulses, and the great task which God had committed to him made him
less amenable to family cares.
That married life which began at the Globe Tavern was destined to end
at the White House, after years of vicissitude and serious national
trouble. Children were born unto them, and all but the eldest died.
Great responsibilities were laid upon Lincoln and even though he met
them bravely it was inevitable that his family should also suffer.
Upon the face of the Commander-in-chief rested nearly always a mighty
sadness, except when it was occasionally illumined by his wonderful
smile, or when the light of his sublime faith banished the clouds.
Storm and stress, suffering and heartache, reverses and defeat were
the portion of the Leader, and when Victory at last perched upon the
National standard, her beautiful feet were all drabbled in blood, and
the most terrible war on the world's records passed down into history.
In the hour of triumph, with his great purpose nobly fulfilled, death
came to the great Captain.
The United Republic is his monument, and that rugged, yet gracious
figure, hallowed by martyrdom, stands before the eyes of his
countrymen forever serene and calm, while his memory lingers like
a benediction in the hearts of both friend and foe.
Silent Thanksgiving
She is standing alone by the window--
A woman, faded and old,
But the wrinkled face was lovely once,
And the silvered hair was gold.
As out in the darkness, the snow-flakes
Are falling so softly and slow,
Her thoughts fly back to the summer of life,
And the scenes of long ago.
Before the dim eyes, a picture comes,
She has seen it again and again;
The tears steal over the faded cheeks,
And the lips that quiver with pain,
For she hears once more the trumpet call
And sees the battle array
As they march to the hills with gleaming swords--
Can she ever forget that day?
She has given her boy to the land she loves,
How hard it had been to part!
And to-night she stands at the window alone,
With a new-made grave in her heart.
And yet, it's the day of Thanksgiving--
But her child, her darling was slain
By the shot and shell of the rebel guns--
Can she ever be thankful again?
She thinks once more of his fair young face,
And the cannon's murderous roll,
While hatred springs in her passionate heart,
And bitterness into her soul.
Then out of the death-like stillness
There comes a battle-cry--
The song that led those marching feet
To conquer, or to die.
"Yes, rally round the flag, boys!"
With tears she hears the song,
And her thoughts go back to the boys in blue,
That army, brave and strong--
Then Peace creeps in amid the pain.
The dead are as dear as the living,
And back of the song is the silence,
And back of the silence--Thanksgiving.
In the Flash of a Jewel
Certain barbaric instincts in the human race seem to be ineradicable.
It is but a step from the painted savage, gorgeous in his beads and
wampum, to my lady of fashion, who wears a tiara upon her stately
head, chains and collars of precious stones at her throat, bracelets
on her white arms, and innumerable rings upon her dainty fingers. Wise
men may decry the baleful fascination of jewels, but, none the less,
the jeweller's window continues to draw the crowd.
Like brilliant moths that appear only at night, jewels are tabooed in
the day hours. Dame Fashion sternly condemns gems in the day time as
evidence of hopelessly bad taste. No jewels are permitted in any
ostentatious way, and yet a woman may, even in good society, wear a
few thousand dollars' worth of precious stones, without seeming to be
overdressed, provided the occasion is appropriate, as in the case of
functions held in darkened rooms.
In the evening when shoulders are bared and light feet tread fantastic
measures in a ball room, which is literally a bower of roses, there
seems to be no limit as regards jewels. In such an assembly a woman
may, without appearing overdressed, adorn herself with diamonds
amounting to a small fortune.
During a season of grand opera in Chicago, a beautiful white-haired
woman sat in the same box night after night without attracting
particular attention, except as a woman of acknowledged beauty. At a
glance it might be thought that her dress, although elegant, was
rather simple, but an enterprising reporter discovered that her gown
of rare old lace, with the pattern picked out here and there with chip
diamonds, had cost over fifty-five thousand dollars. The tiara,
collar, and few rings she wore, swelled the grand total to more than
three hundred thousand dollars.
Diamonds, rubies, sapphires, emeralds, pearls, and opals--these
precious stones have played a tremendous part in the world's history.
Empires have been bartered for jewels, and for a string of pearls many
a woman has sold her soul. It is said that pearls mean tears, yet they
are favourite gifts for brides, and no maiden fears to wear them on
her way up the aisle where her bridegroom waits.
A French writer claims that if it be true that the oyster can be
forced to make as many pearls as may be required of it, the jewel will
become so common that my lady will no longer care to decorate herself
with its pale splendour. Whether or not this will ever be the case, it
is certain that few gems have played a more conspicuous part in
history than this.
Not only have we Cleopatra's reckless draught, but there is also a
story of a noble Roman who dissolved in vinegar and drank a pearl
worth a million sesterces, which had adorned the ear of the woman he
loved. But the cold-hearted chemist declares that an acid which could
dissolve a pearl would also dissolve the person who swallowed it, so
those two legends must vanish with many others that have shrivelled up
under the searching gaze of science.
There is another interesting story about the destruction of a pearl.
During the reign of Elizabeth, a haughty Spanish ambassador was
boasting at the Court of England of the great riches of his king. Sir
Thomas Gresham, wishing to get even with the bragging Castilian,
replied that some of Elizabeth's subjects would spend as much at one
meal as Philip's whole kingdom could produce in a day! To prove this
statement, Sir Thomas invited the Spaniard to dine with him, and
having ground up a costly Eastern pearl the Englishman coolly
swallowed it.
Going back to the dimness of early times, we find that many of the
ancients preferred green gems to all other stones. The emerald was
thought to have many virtues. It kept evil spirits at a distance, it
restored failing sight, it could unearth mysteries, and when it turned
yellow its owner knew to a certainty that the woman he loved was false
to him.
The ruby flashes through all Oriental romances. This stone banished
sadness and sin. A serpent with a ruby in its mouth was considered an
appropriate betrothal ring.
The most interesting ruby of history is set in the royal diadem of
England. It is called the Black Prince's ruby. In the days when the
Moors ruled Granada, when both the men and the women of that race
sparkled with gems, and even the ivory covers of their books were
sometimes set with precious stones, the Spanish king, Don Pedro the
Cruel, obtained this stone from a Moorish prince whom he had caused to
be murdered.
It was given by Don Pedro to the Black Prince, and half a century
later it glowed on the helmet of that most picturesque of England's
kings, Henry V, at the battle of Agincourt.
The Scotchman, Sir James Melville, saw this jewel during his famous
visit to the Court of Elizabeth, when the Queen showed him some of the
treasures in her cabinet, the most valued of these being the portrait
of Leicester.
"She showed me a fair ruby like a great racket ball," he says. "I
desired she would send to my queen either this or the Earl of
Leicester's picture." But Elizabeth cherished both the ruby and the
portrait, so she sent Marie Stuart a diamond instead.
Poets have lavished their fancies upon the origin of the opal, but no
one seems to know why it is considered unlucky. Women who laugh at
superstitions of all kinds are afraid to wear an opal, and a certain
jeweller at the head of one of the largest establishments in a great
city has carried his fear to such a length that he will not keep one
in his establishment--not only this, but it is said that he has even
been known to throw an opal ring out of the window. The offending
stone had been presented to his daughter, but this fact was not
allowed to weigh against his superstition. It is understood when he
entertains that none of his guests will wear opals, and this wish is
faithfully respected.
The story goes that the opal was discovered at the same time that
kissing was invented. A young shepherd on the hills of Greece found
a pretty pebble one day, and wishing to give it to a beautiful
shepherdess who stood near him, he let her take it from his lips
with hers, as the hands of neither of them were clean.
Many a battle royal has been waged for the possession of a diamond,
and several famous diamonds are known by name throughout the world.
Among these are the Orloff, the Koh-i-noor, the Regent, the Real
Paragon, and the Sanci, besides the enormous stone which was sent to
King Edward from South Africa. This has been cut but not yet named.
The Orloff is perhaps the most brilliant of all the famous group.
Tradition says that it was once one of the eyes of an Indian idol and
was supposed to have been the origin of all light. A French grenadier
of Pondicherry deserted his regiment, adopted the religion and manners
of the Brahmans, worshipped at the shrine of the idol whose eyes were
light itself, stole the brightest one, and escaped.
A sea captain bought it from him for ten thousand dollars and sold it
to a Jew for sixty thousand dollars. An Armenian named Shafras bought
it from the Jew, and after a time Count Orloff paid $382,500 for this
and a title of Russian nobility.
He presented the wonderful refractor of light to the Empress Catherine
who complimented Orloff by naming it after him. This magnificent
stone, which weighs one hundred and ninety-five carats, now forms the
apex of the Russian crown.
The Real Paragon was in 1861 the property of the Rajah of Mattan.
It was then uncut and weighed three hundred and seven carats. The
Governor of Batavia was very anxious to bring it to Europe. He offered
the Rajah one hundred and fifty thousand dollars and two warships with
their guns and ammunition, but the offer was contemptuously refused.
Very little is known of its history. It is now owned by the Government
of Portugal and is pledged as security for a very large sum of money.
It has been said that one could carry the Koh-i-noor in one end of a
silk purse and balance it in the other end with a gold eagle and a
gold dollar, and never feel the difference in weight, while the value
of the gem in gold could not be transported in less than four dray
loads!
Tradition says that Karna, King of Anga, owned it three thousand years
ago. The King of Lahore, one of the Indies, heard that the King of
Cabul, one of the lesser princes, had in his possession the largest
and purest diamond in the world. Lahore invited Cabul to visit him,
and when he had him in his power, demanded the treasure. Cabul,
however, had suspected treachery, and brought an imitation of the
Koh-i-noor. He of course expostulated, but finally surrendered the
supposed diamond.
The lapidary who was employed to mount it pronounced it a piece of
crystal, whereupon the royal old thief sent soldiers who ransacked the
palace of the King of Cabul from top to bottom, in vain. At last,
however, after a long search, a servant betrayed his master, and the
gem was found in a pile of ashes.
After the annexation of the Punjab in 1849, the Koh-i-noor was given
up to the British, and at a meeting of the Punjab Board was handed to
John (afterward Lord) Lawrence who placed it in his waistcoat pocket
and forgot the treasure. While at a public meeting some time later, he
suddenly remembered it, hurried home and asked his servant if he had
seen a small box which he had left in his waistcoat pocket.
"Yes, sahib," the man replied; "I found it, and put in your drawer."
"Bring it here," said Lawrence, and the servant produced it.
"Now," said his master, "open it and see what it contains."
The old native obeyed, and after removing the folds of linen, he said:
"There is nothing here but a piece of glass."
"Good," said Lawrence, with a sigh of relief, "you can leave it with
me."
The Sanci diamond belonged to Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, who
wore it in his hat at the battle of Nancy, where he fell. A Swiss
soldier found it and sold it for a gulden to a clergyman of Baltimore.
It passed into the possession of Anton, King of Portugal, who was
obliged to sell it, the price being a million francs.
It shortly afterward became the property of a Frenchman named Sanci,
whose descendant being sent as an ambassador, was required by the King
to give the diamond as a pledge. The servant carrying it to the King
was attacked by robbers on the way and murdered, not, however, until
he had swallowed the diamond. His master, feeling sure of his
faithfulness, caused the body to be opened and found the gem in his
stomach. This gem came into the possession of the Crown of England,
and James II carried it with him to France in 1688.
From James it passed to his friend and patron, Louis XIV, and to his
descendants, until the Duchess of Berry at the Restoration sold it to
the Demidoffs for six hundred and twenty-five thousand francs.
It was worth a million and a half of francs when Prince Paul
Demidoff wore it in his hat at a great fancy ball given in honour
of Count Walewski, the Minister of Napoleon III--and lost it
during the ball! Everybody was wild with excitement when the loss
was announced--everybody but Prince Paul Demidoff. After an hour's
search the Sanci was found under a chair.
After more than two centuries, "the Regent is," as Saint-Simon
described it in 1717, "a brilliant, inestimable and unique." Its
density is rather higher than that of the usual diamond, and it
weighs upwards of one hundred and thirty carats. This stone was found
in India by a slave, who, to conceal it, made a wound in his leg and
wrapped the gem in the bandages. Reaching the coast, he intrusted
himself and his secret to an English captain, who took the gem, threw
the slave overboard, and sold his ill-gotten gains to a native
merchant for five thousand dollars.
It afterwards passed into the hands of Pitt, Governor of St. George,
who sold it in 1717 to the Duke of Orleans, then Regent of France, for
$675,000. Before the end of the eighteenth century the stone had more
than trebled in worth, and we can only wonder what it ought to bring
now with its "perfect whiteness, its regular form, and its absolute
freedom from stain or flaw!"
The collection belonging to the Sultan of Turkey, which is probably
the finest in the world, dates prior to the discovery of America, and
undoubtedly came from Asia. One Turkish pasha alone left to the Empire
at his death, seven table-cloths embroidered with diamonds, and
bushels of fine pearls.
In the war with Russia, in 1778, Turkey borrowed $30,000,000 from the
Ottoman Bank on the security of the crown jewels. The cashier of the
bank was admitted to the treasure-chamber and was told to help himself
until he had enough to secure his advances.
"I selected enough," he says, "to secure the bank against loss in any
event, but the removal of the gems I took made no appreciable gap in
the accumulation."
In the imperial treasury of the Sultan, the first room is the richest
in notable objects. The most conspicuous of these is a great throne or
divan of beaten gold, occupying the entire centre of the room, and set
with precious stones: pearls, rubies, and emeralds, thousands of them,
covering the entire surface in a geometrical mosaic pattern. This
specimen of barbaric magnificence was part of the spoils of war taken
from one of the shahs of Persia.
Much more interesting and beautiful, however, is another canopied
throne or divan, placed in the upper story of the same building. This
is a genuine work of old Turkish art which dates from some time during
the second half of the sixteenth century. It is a raised square seat,
on which the Sultan sat cross-legged. At each angle there rises a
square vertical shaft supporting a canopy, with a minaret or pinnacle
surmounted by a rich gold and jewelled finial. The entire height of
the throne is nine or ten feet. The materials are precious woods,
ebony, sandal-wood, etc., with shell, mother-of-pearl, silver, and
gold.
The entire piece is decorated inside and out with a branching
floriated design in mother-of-pearl marquetry, in the style of the
fine early Persian painted tiles, and the centre of each of the
principal leaves and flowers is set with splendid _cabochon_ gems,
fine balass rubies, emeralds, sapphires, and pearls.
Pendant from the roof of the canopy, and in a position which would be
directly over the head of the Sultan, is a golden cord, on which is
hung a large heart-shaped ornament of gold, chased and perforated with
floriated work, and beneath it hangs a huge uncut emerald of fine
colour, but of triangular shape, four inches in diameter, and an inch
and a half thick.
Richly decorated arms and armour form a conspicuous feature of the
contents of all three of these rooms. The most notable work in this
class in the first apartment is a splendid suit of mixed chain and
plate mail, wonderfully damascened and jewelled, worn by Sultan Murad
IV, in 1638, at the taking of Bagdad.
Near to it is a scimetar, probably a part of the panoply of the same
monarch. Both the hilt and the greater part of the broad scabbard
of this weapon are incrusted with large table diamonds, forming
checkerwork, all the square stones being regularly and symmetrically
cut, of exactly the same size--upward of half an inch across. There
are many other sumptuous works of art which are similarly adorned.
Rightfully first among the world's splendid coronets stands the State
Crown of England. It was made in 1838 with jewels taken from old
crowns and others furnished by command of the Queen.
It consists of diamonds, pearls, rubies, sapphires, and emeralds, set
in silver and gold. It has a crimson velvet cap with ermine border;
it is lined with white silk and weighs about forty ounces. The lower
part of the band above the ermine border consists of a row of one
hundred and ninety-nine pearls, and the upper part of this band has
one hundred and twelve pearls, between which, in the front of the
crown, is a large sapphire which was purchased for it by George IV.
At the back is a sapphire of smaller size and six others, three on
each side, between which are eight emeralds. Above and below the
sapphires are fourteen diamonds, and around the eight emeralds are one
hundred and twenty-eight diamonds. Between the emeralds and sapphires
are sixteen ornaments, containing one hundred and sixty diamonds.
Above the band are eight sapphires, surmounted by eight diamonds,
between which are eight festoons, consisting of one hundred and
forty-eight diamonds.
In the front of the crown and in the centre of a diamond Maltese cross
is the famous ruby of the Black Prince. Around this ruby to form the
cross are seventy-five brilliant diamonds. Three other Maltese
crosses, forming the two sides and back of the crown, have emerald
centres, and each contains between one and two hundred brilliant
diamonds. Between the four Maltese crosses are four ornaments in the
form of the French _fleur-de-lis_, with four rubies in the centre, and
surrounded by rose diamonds.
From the Maltese crosses issue four imperial arches, composed of oak
leaves and acorns embellished with hundreds of magnificent jewels.
From the upper part of the arches are suspended four large pendant
pear-shaped pearls, with rose diamond caps. Above the arch stands the
mound, thickly set with brilliants. The cross on the summit has a
rose cut sapphire in the centre, surrounded by diamonds.
A gem is said to represent "condensed wealth," and it is also
condensed history. The blood of a ruby, the faint moonlight lustre of
a pearl, the green glow of an emerald, and the dazzling white light
of a diamond--in what unfailing magic lies their charm? Tiny bits
of crystal as they appear to be--even the Orloff diamond could be
concealed in a child's hand--yet kings and queens have played for
stakes like these. Battle and murder have been done for them, honour
bartered and kingdoms lost, but the old magic beauty never fades, and
to-day, as always, sin and beauty, side, by side, are mirrored in the
flash of a jewel.
The Coming of My Ship
Straight to the sunrise my ship's sails are leaning,
Brave at the masthead her new colours fly;
Down on the shore, her lips trembling with meaning,
Love waits, but unanswering, I heed not her cry.
The gold of the East shall be mine in full measure,
My ship shall come home overflowing with treasure,
And love is not need, but only a pleasure,
So I wait for my ship to come in.
Silent, half troubled, I wait in the shadow,
No sail do I see between me and the dawn;
Out in the blue and measureless meadow,
My ship wanders widely, but Love has not gone.
"My arms await thee," she cries in her pleading,
"Why wait for its coming, when I am thy needing?"
I pass by in stillness, all else unheeding,
And wait for my ship to come in.
See, in the East, surrounded by splendour,
My sail glimmers whitely in crimson and blue;
I turn back to Love, my heart growing tender,
"Now I have gold and leisure for you.
Jewels she brings for thy white breast's adorning,
Measures of gold beyond a queen's scorning"--
To-night I shall rest--joy comes in the morning,
So I wait for my ship to come in.
Remembering waters beat cold on the shore,
And the grey sea in sadness grows old;
I listen in vain for Love's pleading once more,
While my ship comes with spices and gold.
The sea birds cry hoarsely, for this is their songing,
On masthead and colours their white wings are thronging,
But my soul throbs deep with love and with longing,
And I wait for my ship to come in.
Romance and the Postman
A letter! Do the charm and uncertainty of it ever fade? Who knows what
may be written upon the pages within!
Far back, in a dim, dream-haunted childhood, the first letter came to
me. It was "a really, truly letter," properly stamped and addressed,
and duly delivered by the postman. With what wonder the chubby fingers
broke the seal! It did not matter that there was an inclosure to one's
mother, and that the thing itself was written by an adoring relative;
it was a personal letter, of private and particular importance, and
that day the postman assumed his rightful place in one's affairs.
In the treasure box of many a grandmother is hidden a pathetic scrawl
that the baby made for her and called "a letter." To the alien eye,
it is a mere tangle of pencil marks, and the baby himself, grown
to manhood, with children of his own, would laugh at the yellowed
message, which is put away with his christening robe and his first
shoes, but to one, at least, it speaks with a deathless voice.
It is written in books and papers that some unhappy mortals are
swamped with mail. As a lady recently wrote to the President of the
United States: "I suppose you get so many letters that when you see
the postman coming down the street, you don't care whether he has
anything for you or not."
Indeed, the President might well think the universe had gone suddenly
wrong if the postman passed him by, but there are compensations in
everything. The First Gentleman of the Republic must inevitably miss
the pleasant emotions which letters bring to the most of us.
The clerks and carriers in the business centres may be pardoned if
they lose sight of the potentialities of the letters that pass
through their hands. When a skyscraper is a postal district in
itself, there is no time for the man in grey to think of the burden he
carries, save as so many pounds of dead weight, becoming appreciably
lighter at each stop. But outside the hum and bustle, on quiet streets
and secluded by-ways, there are faces at the windows, watching eagerly
for the mail.
The progress of the postman is akin to a Roman triumph, for in his
leathern pack lies Fate. Long experience has given him a sixth sense,
as if the letters breathed a hint of their contents through their
superscriptions.
The business letter, crisp and to the point, has an atmosphere of its
own, even where cross lines of typewriting do not show through the
envelope.
The long, rambling, friendly hand is distinctive, and if it has been
carried in the pocket a long time before mailing, the postman knows
that the writer is a married woman with a foolish trust in her
husband.
Circulars addressed mechanically, at so much a thousand, never
deceive the postman, though the recipient often opens them with
pleasurable sensations, which immediately sink to zero. And the
love-letters! The carrier is a veritable Sherlock Holmes when it comes
to them.
Gradually he becomes acquainted with the inmost secrets of those upon
his route. Friendship, love, and marriage, absence and return, death,
and one's financial condition, are all as an open book to the man
in grey. Invitations, cards, wedding announcements, forlorn little
letters from those to whom writing is not as easy as speech, childish
epistles with scrap pictures pasted on the outside, all give an
inkling of their contents to the man who delivers them.
When the same bill comes to the same house for a long and regular
period, then ceases, even the carrier must feel relieved to know that
it has been paid. When he isn't too busy, he takes a friendly look at
the postal cards, and sometimes saves a tenant in a third flat the
weariness of two flights of stairs by shouting the news up the tube!
If the dweller in a tenement has ingratiating manners, he may learn
how many papers, and letters are being stuffed into the letter-box, by
a polite inquiry down the tube when the bell rings. Through the subtle
freemasonry of the postman's voice a girl knows that her lover has not
forgotten her--and her credit is good for the "two cents due" if the
tender missive is overweight.
"All the world loves a lover," and even the busy postman takes a
fatherly interest in the havoc wrought by Cupid along his route. The
little blind god knows neither times nor seasons--all alike are his
own--but the man in grey, old and spectacled though he may be, is his
confidential messenger.
Love-letters are seemingly immortal. A clay tablet on which one of the
Pharaohs wrote, asking for the heart and hand of a beautiful foreign
princess, is now in the British Museum. But suppose the postman had
not been sure-footed, and all the clay letters had been smashed into
fragments in a single grand catastrophe! What a stir in high places,
what havoc in Church and State, and how many fond hearts broken, if
the postman had fallen down!
"Nothing feeds the flame like a letter," said Emerson; "it has intent,
personality, secrecy." Flimsy and frail as it is, so easily torn or
destroyed, the love-letter many times outlasts the love. Even the
Father of his Country, though he has been dead this hundred years or
more, has left behind him a love-letter, ragged and faded, but still
legible, beginning: "My Dearest Life and Love."
"Matter is indestructible," so the scientists say, but what of the
love-letter that is reduced to ashes? Does its passion live again in
some far-off violet flame, or, rising from its dust, bloom once more
in a fragrant rose, to touch the lips of another love?
In countless secret places, the tender missives are hidden, for the
lover must always keep his joy in tangible form, to be sure that it
was not a dream. They fly through the world by day and night, like
white-winged birds that can say, "I love you"--over mountain, hill,
stream, and plain; past sea and lake and river, through the desert's
fiery heat and amid the throbbing pulses of civilisation, with never
a mistake, to bring exquisite rapture to another heart and wings of
light to the loved one's soul.
Under the pillow of the maiden, her lover's letter brings visions of
happiness too great for the human heart to hold. Even in her dreams,
her fingers tighten upon his letter--the visible assurance of his
unchanging and unchangeable love.
When the bugle sounds the charge, and dimly through the flash and
flame the flag signals "Follow!" many a heart, leaping to answer with
the hot blood of youth, finds a sudden tenderness in the midst of its
high courage, from the loving letter which lies close to the soldier's
breast.
Bunker Hill and Gettysburg, Moscow and the Wilderness, Waterloo,
Mafeking, and San Juan--the old blood-stained fields and the modern
scenes of terror have all alike known the same message and the same
thrill. The faith and hope of the living, the kiss and prayer of the
dying, the cries of the wounded, and the hot tears of those who have
parted forever, are on the blood-stained pages of the love-letters
that have gone to war.
"_Ich liebe Dich_," "_Je t'aime_," or, in our dear English speech, "I
love you,"--it is all the same, for the heart knows the universal
language, the words of which are gold, bedewed with tears that shine
like precious stones.
Every attic counts old love-letters among its treasures, and when the
rain beats on the roof and grey swirls of water are blown against the
pane, one may sit among the old trunks and boxes and bring to light
the loves of days gone by.
The little hair-cloth trunk, with its rusty lock and broken hinges,
brings to mind a rosy-cheeked girl in a poke bonnet, who went
a-visiting in the stage-coach. Inside is the bonnet itself--white,
with a gorgeous trimming of pink "lute-string" ribbon, which has faded
into ashes of roses at the touch of the kindly years.
From the trunk comes a musty fragrance--lavender, sweet clover,
rosemary, thyme, and the dried petals of roses that have long since
crumbled to dust. Scraps of brocade and taffeta, yellowed lingerie,
and a quaint old wedding gown, daguerreotypes in ornate cases, and
then the letters, tied with faded ribbon, in a package by themselves.
The fingers unconsciously soften to their task, for the letters are
old and yellow, and the ink has faded to brown. Every one was cut open
with the scissors, not hastily torn according to our modern fashion,
but in a slow and seemly manner, as befits a solemn occasion.
Perhaps the sweet face of a great-grandmother grew much perplexed at
the sight of a letter in an unfamiliar hand, and perhaps, too, as is
the way of womankind, she studied the outside a long time before she
opened it. As the months passed by, the handwriting became familiar,
but a coquettish grandmother may have flirted a bit with the letter,
and put it aside--until she could be alone.
All the important letters are in the package, from the first formal
note asking permission to call, which a womanly instinct bade the
maiden put aside, to the last letter, written when twilight lay upon
the long road they had travelled together, but still beginning: "My
Dear and Honoured Wife."
Bits of rosemary and geranium, lemon verbena, tuberose, and
heliotrope, fragile and whitened, but still sweet, fall from the
opened letters and rustle softly as they fall.
Far away in the "peace which passeth all understanding," the writer of
the letters sleeps, but the old love keeps a fragrance that outlives
the heart in which it bloomed.
At night, when the fires below are lighted, and childish voices make
the old house ring with laughter, Memory steals into the attic to sing
softly of the past, as a mother croons her child to sleep.
Rocking in a quaint old attic chair, with the dear familiar things of
home gathered all about her, Memory's voice is sweet, like a harp
tuned in the minor mode when the south wind sweeps the strings.
Bunches of herbs swing from the rafters and fill the room with the
wholesome scent of an old-fashioned garden, where rue and heartsease
grew. With the fragrance comes the breath from that garden of
Mnemosyne, where the simples for heartache nod beside the River of
Forgetfulness.
In a flash the world is forgotten, and into the attic come dear faces
from that distant land of childhood, where a strange enchantment
glorified the commonplace, and made the dreams of night seem real.
Footsteps that have long been silent are heard upon the attic floor,
and voices, hushed for years, whisper from the shadows from the other
end of the room.
A moonbeam creeps into the attic and transfigures the haunted chamber
with a sheen of silver mist. From the spinning-wheel come a soft hum
and a delicate whir; then a long-lost voice breathes the first notes
of an old, old song. The melody changes to a minuet, and the lady in
the portrait moves, smiling, from the tarnished gilt frame that
surrounds her--then a childish voice says: "Mother, are you asleep?"
Down the street the postman passes, bearing his burden of joy and
pain: letters from far-off islands, where the Stars and Stripes gleam
against a forest of palms; from the snow-bound fastnesses of the
North, where men are searching for gold; from rose-scented valleys and
violet fields, where the sun forever shines, and from lands across the
sea, where men speak an alien tongue--single messages from one to
another; letters that plead for pardon cross the paths of those that
are meant to stab; letters written in jest too often find grim earnest
at the end of their journey, and letters written in all tenderness
meet misunderstandings and pain, when the postman brings them home;
letters that deal with affairs of state and shape the destiny of a
nation; tidings of happiness and sorrow, birth and death, love and
trust, and the thousand pangs of trust betrayed; an hundred joys and
as many griefs are all in the postman's hands.
No wonder, then, that there is a stir in the house, that eyes
brighten, hearts beat quickly, and eager steps hasten to the door of
destiny, when the postman rings the bell!
A Summer Reverie
I sit on the shore of the deep blue sea
As the tide comes rolling in,
And wonder, as roaming in sunlit dreams,
The cause of the breakers' din.
For each of the foam-crowned billows
Has a wonderful story to tell,
And the surge's mystical music
Seems wrought by a fairy spell.
I wander through memory's portals,
Through mansions dim and vast,
And gaze at the beautiful pictures
That hang in the halls of the past.
And dream-faces gather around me,
With voices soft and low,
To draw me back to the pleasures
Of the lands of long ago.
There are visions of beauty and splendour,
And a fame that I never can win--
Far out on the deep they are sailing--
My ships that will never come in.
A Vignette
It was a muddy down-town corner and several people stood in the cold,
waiting for a street-car. A stand of daily papers was on the sidewalk,
guarded by two little newsboys. One was much younger than the other,
and he rolled two marbles back and forth in the mud by the curb.
Suddenly his attention was attracted by something bright above him,
and he looked up into a bunch of red carnations a young lady held in
her hands. He watched them eagerly, seemingly unable to take his eyes
from the feast of colour. She saw the hungry look in the little face,
and put one into his hand. He was silent, until his brother said: "Say
thanky to the lady." He whispered his thanks, and then she bent down
and pinned the blossom upon his ragged jacket, while the big policeman
on the corner smiled approvingly.
"My, but you're gay now, and you can sell all your papers," the bigger
boy said tenderly.
"Yep, I can sell 'em now, sure!"
Out of the crowd on the opposite corner came a tiny, dark-skinned
Italian girl, with an accordion slung over her shoulder by a dirty
ribbon; she made straight for the carnations and fearlessly cried,
"Lady, please give me a flower!" She got one, and quickly vanished in
the crowd.
The young woman walked up the street to a flower-stand to replenish
her bunch of carnations, and when she returned, another dark-skinned
mite rushed up to her without a word, only holding up grimy hands with
a gesture of pathetic appeal. Another brilliant blossom went to her,
and the young woman turned to follow her; on through the crowd the
child fled, until she reached the corner where her mother stood,
seamed and wrinkled and old, with the dark pathetic eyes of sunny
Italy. She held the flower out to her, and the weary mother turned and
snatched it eagerly, then pressed it to her lips, and kissed it as
passionately as if it had been the child who brought it to her.
Just then the car came, and the big grey policeman helped the owner of
the carnations across the street, and said as he put her on the car,
"Lady, you've sure done them children a good turn to-day."
Meditation
I sail through the realms of the long ago,
Wafted by fancy and visions frail,
On the river Time with its gentle flow,
In a silver boat with a golden sail.
My dreams, in the silence are hurrying by
On the brooklet of Thought where I let them flow,
And the "lilies nod to the sound of the stream"
As I sail through the realms of the long ago.
On the shores of life's deep-flowing stream
Are my countless sorrows and heartaches, too,
And the hills of hope are but dimly seen,
Far in the distance, near heaven's blue.
I find that my childish thoughts and dreams
Lie strewn on the sands by the cruel blast
That scattered my hopes on the restless streams
That flow through the mystic realms of the past.
Pointers for the Lords of Creation
Some wit has said that the worst vice in the world is advice, and it
is also quite true that one ignorant, though well-meaning person can
sometimes accomplish more damage in a short time, than a dozen people
who start out for the purpose of doing mischief.
The newspapers and periodicals of to-day are crowded with advice to
women, and while much of it is found in magazines for women, written
and edited by men, it is also true that a goodly quantity of it comes
from feminine writers; it is all along the same lines, however, the
burden of effort being to teach the weaker sex how to become more
attractive and more lovable to the lords of creation. It is, of
course, all intended for our good, for if we can only please the men,
and obey their slightest wish even before they take the trouble to
mention the matter, we can then be perfectly happy.
A man can sit down any day and give us directions enough to keep us
busy for a lifetime, and we seldom or never return the compliment.
This is manifestly unfair, and so this little preachment is meant for
the neglected and deserving men, and for them only, so that all women
who have read thus far are invited to leave the matter right here and
turn their attention to the column of "Advice to Women" which they can
find in almost any periodical.
In the first place, gentlemen, we must admit that you do keep us
guessing, though we do not sit up nights nor lose much sleep over your
queer notions.
We can't ask you many questions, either, dear brethren, for, as you
know, you rather like to fib to us, and sometimes we are able to find
it out, and then we never believe you any more.
We may venture, however, to ask small favours of you, and one of these
is that you do not wear red ties. You look so nice in quiet colours
that we dislike exceedingly to have you make crazy quilts of
yourselves, and that is just what you do when you begin experimenting
with colours which we naturally associate with the "cullud pussons."
And a cane may be very ornamental, but it's of no earthly use, and we
would rather you would not carry it when you go out with us.
Never tell us you haven't had time to come and see us, or write to us,
because we know perfectly well that if you wanted to badly enough, you
would take the time, so the excuse makes us even madder than does the
neglect. Still, when you don't want to come, we would not have you do
it for anything.
There is an old saying that "absence makes the heart grow fonder"--so
it does--of the other fellow. We don't propose to shed any tears over
you; we simply go to the theatre with the other man and have an
extremely good time. When you are very, very bright, you can manage
some way not to allow us to forget you for a minute, nor give us much
time to think of anything else.
When we are angry, for heaven's sake don't ask us why, because that
shows your lack of penetration. Just simply call yourself a brute, and
say you are utterly unworthy of even our faint regard, and you will
soon realise that this covers a lot of ground, and everything will be
all right in a few minutes.
And whatever you do, don't show any temper yourself. A woman requires
of a man that he shall be as immovable as the rock of Gibraltar, no
matter what she does to him. And you play your strongest card when you
don't mind our tantrums--even though it's a state secret we are
telling you.
Don't get huffy when you meet us with another man; in nine cases out
of ten, that's just what we do it for. And don't make the mistake of
retaliating by asking another girl somewhere. You'll have a perfectly
miserable time if you do, both then and afterward.
When you do come to see us, it is not at all nice to spend the entire
evening talking about some other girl. How would you like to have the
graces of some other man continually dinned into your ears? Sometimes
we take that way in order to get a rest from your overweening raptures
over the absent girl.
We have a well-defined suspicion that you talk us over with your chums
and compare notes. But, bless you, it can't possibly hold a candle to
the thorough and impartial discussions that some of you get when girls
are together, either in small bevies, or with only one chosen friend.
And we don't very much care what you say about us, for a man never
judges a woman by the opinion of any one else, but another woman's
opinion counts for a great deal with us, so you would better be
careful.
If you are going to say things that you don't mean, try to stamp
them with the air of sincerity--if you can once get a woman to fully
believe in your sincerity, you have gone a long way toward her heart.
Haven't you found out that women are not particularly interested in
anecdotes? Please don't tell us more than fifteen in the same evening.
And don't begin to make love to us before you have had time to make a
favourable impression along several lines--a man, as well as a woman,
loses ground and forfeits respect by making himself too cheap.
If a girl runs and screams when she has been caught standing under the
mistletoe, it means that she will not object; if she stiffens up and
glares at you, it means that she does. The same idea is sometimes
delicately conveyed by the point of a pin. But a woman will be able to
forgive almost anything which you can make her believe was prompted by
her own attractiveness, at least unless she knows men fairly well.
You know, of course, that we will not show your letters, nor tell when
you ask us to marry you and are refused. This much a woman owes to
any man who has honoured her with an offer of marriage--to keep his
perfect trust sacredly in her own heart. Even her future husband has
no business to know of this--it is her lover's secret, and she has no
right to betray it.
Keeping the love-letters and the offers of marriage from any
honourable man safe from a prying world are points of honour which all
good women possess, although we may sometimes quote certain things
from your letters, as you do from ours.
There's nothing you can tell a woman which will please her quite so
much as that knowing her has made you better, especially if you can
prove it by showing a decided upward tendency in your morals. That's
your good right bower, but don't play it too often--keep it for
special occasions.
There's one mistake you make, dear brethren, and that is telling a
woman you love her as soon as you find it out yourself, and the most
of you will do that very thing. There is one case on record where a
man waited fifteen minutes, but he nearly died of the strain. The
trouble is that you seldom stop to consider whether we are ready to
hear you or not, nor whether the coast is clear, nor what the chances
are in your favour. You simply relieve your mind, and trust in your
own wonderful charms to accomplish the rest.
And we wish that when the proper time comes for you to speak your mind
you'd try to do it artistically. Of course you can't write it, unless
you are far away from her, for if you can manage an opportunity to
speak, a resort to the pen is cowardly. And don't mind our evading the
subject--we always do that on principle, but please don't be scared,
or at least don't show it, whatever you may feel. If there is one
thing a woman dislikes more than another it is a man who shows
cowardice at the crucial point in life.
Every man, except yourself, dear reader, is conceited. And one
particular sort of it makes us very, very weary. You are so blinded by
your own perfections, so sure that we are desperately in love with
you, that you sometimes give us little unspoken suggestions to that
effect, and then our disgust is beyond words.
Another cowardly thing you sometimes do, and that is to say that we
have spoiled your life--that we could have made you anything we
pleased--and that you are going straight to perdition. If one woman
is all that keeps you from going to ruin, you have secured a through
ticket anyway, and it's too late to save you. You don't want a woman
who might marry you only out of pity, and you are not going to die of
a broken heart. Men die of broken vanity, sometimes, but their hearts
are pretty tough, being made of healthy muscle.
You get married very much as you go down town in the morning. You run,
like all possessed, until you catch your car, and then you sit down
and read your newspaper. When you think your wife looks unusually
well, it would not hurt you in the least to tell her so, and the way
you leave her in the morning is going to settle her happiness for the
day, though she may be too proud to let you know that it makes any
difference. Women are quick to detect a sham, and they don't want you
to say anything that you don't feel, but you are pretty sure to feel
tenderly toward her sometimes, careless though you may be, and then is
the time to tell her so. You don't want to wait until she is dead, and
then buy a lily to put on her coffin. You'd better bring her the lily
some time when you've been cross and grumpy.
But don't imagine that a present of any kind ever atones for a hurt
that has been given in words. There's nothing you can say which is
more manly or which will do you both so much good as the simple
"forgive me" when you have been wrong.
Rest assured, gentlemen, that you who spend the most of your evenings
in other company, and too often find fault with your meals when you
come home, are the cause of many sorrowful talks among the women who
are wise enough to know, even though your loyal wife may put up a
brave front in your defense.
How often do you suppose the brave woman who loves you has been
actually driven in her agony to some married friend whom she can trust
and upon her sympathetic bosom has cried until she could weep no more,
simply because of your thoughtless neglect? How often do you think she
has planned little things to make your home-coming pleasant, which you
have never noticed? And how often do you suppose she has desperately
fought down the heartache and tried to believe that your absorption in
business is the reason for your forgetfulness of her?
Do you ever think of these things? Do you ever think of the days
before you were sure of her, when you treasured every line of her
letters, and would have bartered your very hopes of heaven for the
earthly life with her?
But perhaps you can hardly be expected to remember the wild sprint
that you made from the breakfast table to the street-car.
Transition
I am thy Pleasure. See, my face is fair--
With silken strands of joy I twine thee round;
Life has enough of stress--forget with me!
Wilt thou not stay? Then go, thou art not bound.
I am thy Pastime. Let me be to thee
A daily refuge from the haunting fears
That bind thee, choke thee, fill thy soul with woe.
Seek thou my hand, let me assuage thy tears.
I am thy Habit. Nay, start not, thy will
Is yet supreme, for art thou not a man?
Then draw me close to thee, for life is brief--
A little space to pass as best one can.
I am thy Passion. Thou shalt cling to me
Through all the years to come. The silken cord
Of Pleasure has become a stronger bond,
Not to be cleft, nor loosened at a word.
I am thy Master. Thou shalt crush for me
The grapes of truth for wine of sacrifice;
My clanking chains were forged for such as thee,
I am thy Master--yea, I am thy vice!
The Superiority of Man
Without pausing to inquire why savages and barbarians are capable of
producing college professors, who sneer at the source from which they
sprung, we may accept for the moment the masculine hypothesis of
intellectual superiority. Some women have been heard to say that they
wish they had been born men, but there is no man bold enough to say
that he would like to be a woman.
If woman can produce a reasoning being, it follows that she herself
must be capable of reasoning, since a stream can rise no higher than
its fountain. And yet the bitter truth stares us in the face. We have
no Shakespeare, Michelangelo, or Beethoven; our Darwins, our Schumanns
are mute and inglorious; our Miltons, Raphaels, and Herbert Spencers
have not arrived.
Call the roll of the great and how many women's names will be found
there? Scarcely enough to enable you to call the company mixed.
No woman in her senses wishes to be merely the female of man. She
aspires to be distinctly different--to exercise her varied powers in
wholly different ways. Ex-President Roosevelt said: "Equality does not
imply identity of function." We do not care to put in telephones or to
collect fares on a street-car.
Primitive man set forth from his cave to kill an animal or two, then
repaired to a secluded nook in the jungle, with other primitive men,
to discuss the beginnings of politics. Primitive woman in the cave
not only dressed his game, but she cooked the animal for food,
made clothing of its skin, necklaces and bracelets of its teeth,
passementerie of its claws, and needles of its sharper bones. What
wonder that she had no time for an afternoon tea?
The man of the twentieth century has progressed immeasurably beyond
this, but his wife, industrially speaking, has not gone half so far.
Is she not still in some cases a cave-dweller, while he roams the
highways of the world?
If a woman mends men's socks, should he not darn her lisle-thread
hosiery, and run a line of machine stitching around the middle of the
hem to prevent a disastrous run from a broken stitch? If she presses
his ties, why should he not learn to iron her bits of fine lace?
Some one will say: "But he supports her. It is her duty."
"Yes, dear friend, but similarly does he 'support' the servant who
does the same duties. He also gives her seven dollars every Monday
morning, or she leaves." Are we to suppose that a wife is a woman who
does general housework for board and clothes, with a few kind words
thrown in?
A German lady, whom we well knew, worked all the morning attending to
the comforts of her liege lord. In the dining room he was stretched
out in an easy chair, while the queen of his heart brushed and
repaired his clothes--yes, and blacked his boots! Doubtless for a
single kiss, redolent of beer and sausages, she would have pressed his
trousers. Kind words and the fragrant osculation had already saved him
three dollars at his tailor's.
By such gold-brick methods, dear friends, do men get good service
cheap. Would that we could do the same! Here, and gladly, we admit
masculine superiority.
Our short-sightedness, our weakness for kind words, our graceful
acceptance of the entire responsibility for the home, have chained us
to the earth, while our lords soar. After having worked steadily for
some six thousand years to populate the earth passably, some of us may
now be excused from that duty.
Motherhood is a career for which especial talents are required. Very
few women know how to bring up children properly. If you don't believe
it, look at the difference between our angelic offspring, and the
little imps next door! It is as unreasonable to suppose that all women
can be good mothers as it is to suppose that all women can sing in
grand opera.
And yet, let us hug to our weary hearts, in our most discouraged
moments, the great soul-satisfying truth that men, no matter what they
say or write, think that we are smarter than they are. Otherwise, they
would not expect of us so much more than they can possibly do
themselves.
In every field of woman's work outside the house, the same
illustration applies. They also think that we possess greater physical
strength. They chivalrously shield us from the exhausting effort of
voting, but allow us to stand in the street-cars, wash dishes, push a
baby carriage, and scrub the kitchen floor. Should we not be proud
because they consider us so much stronger and wiser than they?
Interruptions are fatal to their work, as the wife of even a business
man will testify.
What would have become of Spencer's _Data of Ethics_ if, while he was
writing it, he had two dressmakers in the house? Should we have had
_Hamlet_, if at the completion of the first act Mr. Shakespeare had
given birth to twins, when he had made clothes for only one?
The great charm of marriage, as of life itself, is its unexpectedness.
The only way to test a man is to marry him. If you live, it's a
mushroom; if you die, it's a toadstool!
Or, as another saying goes: "Happiness after marriage is like the soap
in the bath-tub; you knew it was there when you got in."
Man's clothes are ugly, but the styles change gradually. A judge on
the bench may try a case lasting two weeks, and his hat will not be
hopelessly behind the times when it is finished. A man can stoop to
pick up a fallen magazine without pausing to remember that his front
steels are not so flexible this year as they were last.
He is not distressed by the fear that some other man may have a suit
just like his, or that the neighbours will think it is his last year's
suit dyed.
We women fritter ourselves away upon a thousand unnecessary things.
We waste our creative energies and our inspired moments upon pursuits
so ephemeral that they are forgotten to-morrow. Our day's work counts
for nothing when tested by the standards of eternity. We are unjust,
not only to ourselves, but to the men who strive for us, for
civilisation must progress very slowly when half of us are dragged by
pots and pans.
A house is a material fact, but a home is a fine spiritual essence
which may pervade even the humblest abode. If love means harmony, why
not try a little of it in the kitchen? Better a perfect salad than a
poor poem; better a fine picture than an immaculate house.
The Year of My Heart
A sigh for the spring, full flowered, promised spring,
Laid on the tender earth, and those dear days
When apple blossoms gleamed against the blue!
Ah, how the world of joyous robins sang:
"I love but you, Sweetheart, I love but you!"
A sigh for summer fled. In warm, sweet air
Her thousand singers sped on shining wing;
And all the inward life of budding grain
Throbbed with a thousand pulses, while I cling
To you, my Sweet, with passion near to pain.
A sigh for autumn past. The garnered fields
Lie desolate to-day. My heart is chill
As with a sense of dread, and on the shore
The waves beat grey and cold, and seem to say:
"No more, oh, waiting soul, oh nevermore!"
A sigh for winter come. No singing bird,
Nor harvest field, is near the path I tread;
An empty husk is all I have to keep.
The largess of my giving left me bare,
And I ask God but for His Lethe--sleep.
The Average Man
The real man is not at all on the outskirts of civilisation. He is
very much in evidence and everybody knows him. He has faults and
virtues, and sometimes they get so mixed up that "you cannot tell one
from t'other."
He is erratic and often queer. He believes, with Emerson, that "with
consistency a great soul has nothing to do." And he is, of course, "a
great soul." Logical, isn't it?
The average man _thinks_ that he is a born genius at love-making.
Henders, in _The Professor's Love Story_, states it thus:
"Effie, ye ken there are some men ha' a power o'er women....
They're what ye might call 'dead shots.' Ye canna deny,
Effie, that I'm one o' those men!"
Even though a man may be obliged to admit, in strict confidence
between himself and his mirror, that he is not at all handsome,
nevertheless he is certain that he has some occult influence over that
strange, mystifying, and altogether unreasonable organ--a woman's
heart.
The real man is conceited. Of course you are not, dear masculine
reader, for you are one of the bright particular exceptions, but all
of your men friends are conceited--aren't they?
And then he makes fun of his women folks because they spend so much
time in front of the mirror in arranging hats and veils. But when a
high wind comes up and disarranges coiffures and chapeaux alike, he
takes "my ladye fair" into some obscure corner, and saying, "Pardon
me, but your hat isn't quite straight," he will deftly restore that
piece of millinery to its pristine position. That's nice of him, isn't
it? He does very nice things quite often, this real man.
He says women are fickle. So they are, but men are fickle too, and
will forget all about the absent sweetheart while contemplating the
pretty girls in the street. For while "absence makes the heart grow
fonder" in the case of a woman, it is presence that plays the mischief
with a man, and Miss Beauty present has a very unfair advantage over
Miss Sweetheart absent.
The average man thinks he is a connoisseur of feminine attractiveness.
He thinks he has tact, too, but there never was a man who was blessed
with much of this valuable commodity. Still, as that is a favourite
delusion with so large a majority of the human race, the conceit of
the ordinary masculine individual ought not to be censured too
strongly.
The real man is quite an expert at flattery. Every girl he meets, if
she is at all attractive, is considered the most charming lady that he
ever knew. He is sure she isn't prudish enough to refuse him a kiss,
and if she is, she wins not only his admiration, but that which is
vastly better--his respect.
If she hates to be considered a prude and gives him the kiss, he is
very sweet and appreciative at the time, but later on he confides to
his chum that she is a silly sort of a girl, without a great deal of
self-respect!
There are two things that the average man likes to be told. One is
that his taste in dress is exceptional; the other that he is a deep
student of human nature and knows the world thoroughly. This remark
will make him your lifelong friend.
Again, the real man will put on more agony when he is in love than is
needed for a first-class tragedy. But there's no denying that most
women like that sort of thing, you, dear dainty feminine reader, being
almost the only exception to this rule.
But, resuming the special line of thought, man firmly believes that
woman cannot sharpen a pencil, select a necktie, throw a stone, drive
a nail, or kill a mouse, and it is very certain that she cannot cook a
beef-steak in the finished style of which his lordship is capable.
Yes, man has his faults as well as woman. There is a vast room for
improvement on both sides, but as long as this old earth of ours turns
through shadow and sunlight, through sorrow and happiness, men and
women will forgive and try to forget, and will cling to, and love each
other.
The Book of Love
I dreamt I saw an angel in the night,
And she held forth Love's book, limned o'er with gold,
That I might read of days of chivalry
And how men's hearts were wont to thrill of old.
Half wondering, I turned the musty leaves,
For Love's book counts out centuries as years,
And here and there a page shone out undimmed,
And here and there a page was blurred with tears.
I read of Grief, Doubt, Silence unexplained--
Of many-featured Wrong, Distrust, and Blame,
Renunciation--bitterest of all--
And yet I wandered not beyond Love's name.
At last I cried to her who held the book,
So fair and calm she stood, I see her yet;
"Why write these things within this book of Love?
Why may we not pass onward and forget?"
Her voice was tender when she answered me:
"Half child, half woman, earthy as thou art,
How should'st thou dream that Love is never Love
Unless these things beat vainly on the heart?"
The Ideal Man
He isn't nearly so scarce as one might think, but happy is the woman
who finds him, for he is often a bit out of the beaten paths,
sometimes in the very suburbs of our modern civilisation. He is,
however, coming to the front rather slowly, to be sure, but
nevertheless he is coming.
He wouldn't do for the hero of a dime novel--he isn't melancholy in
his mien, nor Byronic in his morals. It is a frank, honest, manly face
that looks into the other end of our observation telescope when we
sweep the horizon to find something higher and better than the rank
and file of humanity.
He is a gentleman, invariably courteous and refined. He is careful in
his attire, but not foppish. He is chivalrous in his attitude toward
woman, and as politely kind to the wrinkled old woman who scrubs his
office floor as to the aristocratic belle who bows to him from her
carriage.
He is scrupulously honest in all his dealings with his fellow men, and
meanness of any sort is utterly beneath him. He has a happy way of
seeing the humorous side of life, and he is an exceedingly pleasant
companion.
When the love light shines in his eyes, kindled at the only fire where
it may be lighted, he has nothing in his past of which he need be
ashamed. He stands beside her and pleads earnestly and manfully for
the treasure he seeks. Slowly he turns the pages of his life before
her, for there is not one which can call a blush to his cheek, or to
hers.
Truth, purity, honesty, chivalry, the highest manliness--all these are
written therein, and she gladly accepts the clean heart which is
offered for her keeping.
Her life is now another open book. To him her nature seems like a harp
of a thousand strings, and every note, though it may not be strong
and high, is truth itself, and most refined in tone.
So they join hands, these two: the sweetheart becomes the wife; the
lover is the husband.
He is still chivalrous to every woman, but to his wife he pays the
gentler deference which was the sweetheart's due. He loves her, and is
not ashamed to show it. He brings her flowers and books, just as he
used to do when he was teaching her to love him. He is broad-minded,
and far-seeing--he believes in "a white life for two." He knows his
wife has the same right to demand purity in thought, word, and deed
from him, as he has to ask absolute stainlessness from her. That is
why he has kept clean the pages of his life--why he keeps the record
unsullied as the years go by.
He is tender in his feelings; if he goes home and finds his wife in
tears, he doesn't tell her angrily to "brace up," or say, "this is a
pretty welcome for a man!" He doesn't slam the door and whistle as if
nothing was the matter. But he takes her in his comforting arms and
speaks soothing words. If his comrades speak lightly of his devotion,
he simply thinks out other blessings for the little woman who presides
at his fireside.
His wife is inexpressibly dear to him, and every day he shows this,
and takes pains, also, to tell her so. He admires her pretty gowns,
and is glad to speak appreciatively of the becoming things she wears.
He knows instinctively that it is the thoughtfulness and the little
tenderness which make a woman's happiness, and he tries to make her
realise that his love for her grew brighter, instead of fading, when
the sweetheart blossomed into the wife. For every woman, old,
wrinkled, and grey, or young and charming, likes to be loved.
The ideal man will do his utmost to make his wife realise that his
devotion intensifies as the years go by.
What greater thing is there for two human souls than to feel that they
are joined for life--to strengthen each other in all labour, to rest
upon each other in all sorrow, to minister to each other in all pain,
to be one with each other in silent unspeakable memories at the moment
of the last parting?
God bless the ideal man and hasten his coming in greater numbers.
Good-Night, Sweetheart
Good-night, Sweetheart; the wingèd hours have flown;
I have forgotten all the world but thee.
Across the moon-lit deep, where stars have shone,
The surge sounds softly from the sleeping sea.
Thy heart at last hath opened to Love's key;
Remembered Aprils, glorious blooms have sown,
And now there comes the questing honey bee.
Good-night, Sweetheart; the wingèd hours have flown.
My singing soul makes music in thine own,
Thy hand upon my harp makes melody;
So close the theme and harmony have grown
I have forsaken all the world for thee.
Before thy whiteness do I bend the knee;
Thou art a queen upon a stainless throne,
Like Dian making royal jubilee,
Across the vaulted dark where stars are blown.
Within my heart thy face shines out alone,
Ah, dearest! Say for once thou lovest me!
A whisper, even, like the undertone
The surge sings slowly from the rhythmic sea.
Thy downcast eyes make answer to my plea;
A crimson mantle o'er thy cheek is thrown
Assurance more than this, there need not be,
For thus, within the silence, love is known.
Good-night, Sweetheart.
The Ideal Woman
The trend of modern thought in art and literature is toward the real,
but fortunately the cherishing of the ideal has not vanished.
All of us, though we may profess to be realists, are at heart
idealists, for every woman in the innermost sanctuary of her thoughts
cherishes an ideal man. And every man, practical and commonplace
though he be, has before him in his quiet moments a living picture of
grace and beauty, which, consciously or not, is his ideal woman.
Every man instinctively admires a beautiful woman. But when he seeks a
wife, he demands other qualities besides that wonderful one which is,
as the proverb tells us, "only skin deep."
If men were not such strangely inconsistent beings, the world
would lose half its charm. Each sex rails at the other for its
inconsistency, when the real truth is that nowhere exists much of
that beautiful quality which is aptly termed a "jewel."
But humanity must learn with Emerson to seek other things than
consistency, and to look upon the lightning play of thought and
feeling as an index of mental and moral growth.
For those who possess the happy faculty of "making the best of
things," men are really the most amusing people in existence. To hear
a man dilate upon the virtues and accomplishments of the ideal woman
he would make his wife is a most interesting diversion, besides being
a source of what may be called decorative instruction.
She must, first of all, be beautiful. No man, even in his wildest
moments, ever dreamed of marrying any but a beautiful woman, yet, in
nine cases out of ten when he does go to the altar, he is leading
there one who is lovely only in his own eyes.
He has read Swinburne and Tennyson and is very sure he won't have
anything but "a daughter of the gods, divinely tall, and most divinely
fair." Then, of course, there is the "classic profile," the "deep,
unfathomable eyes," the "lily-white skin," and "hair like the raven's
wing," not to mention the "swan-like neck" and "tapering, shapely
fingers."
Mr. Ideal is really a man of refined taste, and the women who hear
this impassioned outburst are supremely conscious of their own
imperfections.
But beauty is not the only demand of this fastidious gentleman; the
fortunate woman whom he deigns to honour must be a paragon of
sweetness and docility. No "woman's rights" or "suffrage rant" for
him, and none of those high-stepping professional women need apply
either--oh, no! And then all of her interests must be his, for of all
things on earth, he "does despise a woman with a hobby!" None of these
"broad-minded women" were ever intended for Mr. Ideal. He is very
certain of that, because away down in his secret heart he was sure he
had found the right woman once, but when he did, he learned also that
she was somewhat particular about the man she wanted to marry, and the
applicant then present did not fill the bill! He is therefore very
sure that "a man does not want an intellectual instructor: he wants a
wife."
Just like the most of them after all, isn't he?
The year goes round and Mr. Ideal goes away on a summer vacation.
There are some pleasant people in the little town to which he goes,
and there is a girl in the party with her mother and brother. Mr.
Ideal looks her over disapprovingly. She isn't pretty--no, she isn't
even good-looking. Her hair is almost red, her eyes are a pale blue,
and she wears glasses. Her nose isn't even straight, and it turns up
too much besides. Her skin is covered with tiny golden-brown blotches.
"Freckles!" exclaims Mr. Ideal, _sotto voce_. Her mouth isn't bad, the
lips are red and full and her teeth are white and even. She wears a
blue boating suit with an Eton jacket. "So common!" and Mr. Ideal goes
away from his secluded point of observation.
A merry laugh reaches his ear, and he turns around. The tall
brother is chasing her through the bushes, and she waves a letter
tantalisingly at him as she goes, and finally bounds over a low fence
and runs across the field, with her big brother in close pursuit.
"Hoydenish!" and Mr. Ideal hums softly to himself and goes off to find
Smith. Smith is a good fellow and asks Mr. Ideal to go fishing. They
go, but don't have a bite, and come home rather cross. Does Smith know
the little red-headed girl who was on the piazza this morning?
Yes, he has met her. She has been here about a week. "Rather nice, but
not especially attractive, you know." No, she isn't, but he will
introduce Mr. Ideal.
Days pass, and Mr. Ideal and Miss Practical are much together. He
finds her the jolliest girl he ever knew. She is an enthusiastic
advocate of "woman" in every available sphere.
She herself is going to be a trained nurse after she learns to "keep
house." "For you know that every woman should be a good housekeeper,"
she says demurely.
He doesn't exactly like "that trained nurse business," but he admits
to himself that, if he were ill, he should like to have Miss Practical
smooth his pillow and take care of him.
And so the time goes on, and he is often the companion of the girl. At
times, she fairly scintillates with merriment, but she is so
dignified, and so womanly--so very careful to keep him at his proper
distance--that, well, "she is a type!"
In due course of time, he plans to return to the city, and to the
theatres and parties he used to find so pleasant. All his friends are
there. No, Miss Practical is not in the city; she is right here. Like
a flash a revelation comes over him, and he paces the veranda angrily.
Well, there's only one thing to be done--he must tell her about it.
Perhaps--and he sees a flash of blue through the shrubbery, which he
seeks with the air of a man who has an object in view.
* * * * *
His circle of friends are very much surprised when he introduces Mrs.
Ideal, for she is surely different from the ideal woman about whom
they have heard so much. They naturally think he is inconsistent, but
he isn't, for some subtle alchemy has transfigured the homely little
girl into the dearest, best, and altogether most beautiful woman Mr.
Ideal has ever seen.
She is domestic in her tastes now, and has abandoned the professional
nurse idea. She knows a great deal about Greek and Latin, and still
more about Shakespeare and Browning and other authors.
But she neglects neither her books nor her housekeeping, and her
husband spends his evenings at home, not because Mrs. Ideal would cry
and make a fuss if he didn't, but because his heart is in her keeping,
and because his own fireside, with its sweet-faced guardian angel, is
to him the most beautiful place on earth, and he has sense enough to
appreciate what a noble wife is to him.
* * * * *
The plain truth is, when "any whatsoever" Mr. Ideal loves a woman, he
immediately finds her perfect, and transfers to her the attributes
which only exist in his imagination. His heart and happiness are
there--not with the creatures of his dreams, but the warm, living,
loving human being beside him, and to him, henceforth, the ideal is
the real.
For "the ideal woman is as gentle as she is strong." She wins her way
among her friends and fellow human beings, even though they may be
strangers, by doing many a kindness which the most of us are too apt
to overlook or ignore.
No heights of thought or feeling are beyond her eager reach, and no
human creature has sunk too low for her sympathy and her helping hand.
Even the forlorn and friendless dog in the alley looks instinctively
into her face for help.
She is in every man's thoughts and always will be, as she always has
been--the ideal who shall lead him step by step, and star by star, to
the heights which he cannot reach alone.
Ruskin says: "No man ever lived a right life who has not been
chastened by a woman's love, strengthened by her courage and guided by
her discretion."
The steady flow of the twentieth-century progress has not swept away
woman's influence, nor has it crushed out her womanliness. She lives
in the hearts of men, a queen as royal as in the days of chivalry, and
men shall do and dare for her dear sake as long as time shall last.
The sweet, lovable, loyal woman of the past is not lost; she is only
intensified in the brave wifehood and motherhood of our own times. The
modern ideal, like that of olden times, is and ever will be, above all
things--womanly.
She Is Not Fair
She is not fair to other eyes--
No poet's dream is she,
Nor artist's inspiration, yet
I would not have her be.
She wanders not through princely halls,
A crown upon her hair;
Her heart awaits a single king
Because she is not fair.
Dear lips, your half-shy tenderness
Seems far too much to win!
Yet, has your heart a tiny door
Where I may peep within?
That voiceless chamber, dim and sweet,
I pray may be my own.
Dear little Love, may I come in
And make you mine alone?
She is not fair to other eyes--
I would not have it so;
She needs no further charm or grace
Or aught wealth may bestow;
For when the love light shines and makes
Her dear face glorified--
Ah Sweetheart! queens may come and go
And all the world beside.
The Fin-de-Siècle Woman
The world has fought step by step the elevation of woman from
inferiority to equality, but at last she is being recognised as a
potent factor in our civilisation.
The most marked change which has been made in woman's position during
the last half century or more has been effected by higher education,
and since the universities have thrown open their doors to her, she
has been allowed, in many cases, to take the same courses that her
brother does.
Still, the way has not been entirely smooth for educated and literary
women, for the public press has too often frowned upon their efforts
to obtain anything like equal recognition for equal ability. The
literary woman has, for years, been the target of criticism, and if we
are to believe her critics, she has been entirely shunned by the
gentlemen of her acquaintance; but the fact that so many of them are
wives and mothers, and, moreover, good wives and mothers, proves
conclusively that these statements are not trustworthy.
It is true that some prefer the society of women who know just
enough to appreciate their compliments--women who deprecate their
"strong-minded" sisters, and are ready to agree implicitly with every
statement that the lords of creation may make; but this readiness is
due to sheer inability to produce a thought of their own.
It is true that some men are afraid of educated women, but a man who
is afraid of a woman because she knows something is not the kind of a
man she wants to marry. He is not the kind of a man she would choose
for either husband or friend; she wants an intellectual companion, and
the chances are that she will find him, or rather that he will find
her. A woman need not be unwomanly in order to write books that will
help the world.
She may be a good housekeeper, even if she does write for the
magazines, and the husbands of literary women are not, as some folks
would have us believe, neglected and forlorn-looking beings. On the
contrary, they carry brave hearts and cheerful faces with them always,
since their strength is reinforced by the quiet happiness of their own
firesides.
The _fin-de-siècle_ woman is literary in one sense, if not in
another, for if she may not wield her pen, she can keep in touch with
the leading thinkers of the day, and she will prove as pleasant a
companion during the long winter evenings as the woman whose husband
chose her for beauty and taste in dress.
The literary woman is not slipshod in her apparel, and she may, if she
chooses, be a society and club woman as well. Surely there is nothing
in literary culture which shall prevent neatness and propriety in
dress as well as in conduct.
The devoted admirer of Browning is not liable to quote him in
a promiscuous company and though a lady may be familiar with
Shakespeare, it does not follow that she will discuss _Hamlet_
in social gatherings.
If she reads Greek as readily as she does her mother tongue, you may
rest assured she will not mention Homer in ordinary conversation, for
a cultivated woman readily recognises the fitness of things, and
accords a due deference to the tastes of others. She has her club and
her friends, as do the gentlemen of her acquaintance, but her children
are not neglected from the fact that she sometimes thinks of other
things. She is a helpmeet to her husband, and not a plaything, or a
slave. If duty calls her to the kitchen, she goes cheerfully, and,
moreover, the cook will not dread to see her coming; or if that
important person be absent, the table will be supplied with just as
good bread, and just as delicate pastry, as if the lady of the house
did not understand the chemicals of their composition.
If trouble comes, she bears it bravely, for the cultured woman has a
philosophy which is equal to any emergency, and she does the best she
can on all occasions.
If her husband leaves her penniless, she will, if possible, clothe her
children with her pen, but if her literary wares are a drug on the
market, she will turn bravely to other fields, and find her daily
bread made sweet by thankfulness. She does not hesitate to hold out
her hands to help a fellow-creature, either man or woman, for she is
in all things womanly--a wife to her husband and a mother to her
children in the truest sense of the words.
Her knowledge of the classics does not interfere with the making of
dainty draperies for her home, and though she may be appointed to read
a paper before her club on some scholarly theme, she will listen just
as patiently to tales of trouble from childish lips, and will tie up
little cut fingers just as sympathetically as her neighbour who folds
her arms and who broadly hints that "wimmen's spear is to hum!"
Whether the literary woman be robed in silk and sealskin, or whether
she rejoices in the possession of only one best gown, she may,
nevertheless, be contented and happy.
Whether she lives in a modest cottage, or in a fashionable home,
she may be the same sweet woman, with cheerful face and pleasant
voice--with a broad human sympathy which makes her whole life glad.
Be she princess, or Cinderella, she may be still her husband's
confidant and cherished friend, to whom he may confide his business
troubles and perplexities, certain always of her tender consolation
and ready sympathy. She may be quick and versatile, doing well
whatever she does at all, for her creed declares that "whatever is
honest is honourable."
She glories in her womanhood and has no sympathy with anything which
tends to degrade it.
All hail to the woman of the twentieth century; let _fin de siècle_
stand for all that is best and noblest in womanhood: for liberty,
equality, and fraternity; for right, truth, and justice.
All hail the widespread movement for the higher education of woman,
for in intellectual development is the future of posterity, in study
is happiness, through the open door of the college is the key of a
truer womanhood, a broader humanity, and a brighter hope. In education
along the lines of the broadest and wisest culture is to be found the
emancipation of the race.
The Moon Maiden
There's a wondrous land of misty gold
Beyond the sunset's bars.
There's a silver boat on a sea of blue,
And the tips of its waves are stars.
And idly rocking to and fro,
Her cloud robes floating by,
There's a maiden fair, with sunny hair,
The queen of the dreamy sky.
Her Son's Wife
The venerable mother-in-law joke appears in the comic papers with
astonishing regularity. For a time, perhaps, it may seem to be lost in
the mists of oblivion, but even while one is rejoicing at its absence
it returns to claim its original position at the head of the
procession.
There are two sides to everything, even to an old joke, and the artist
always pictures the man's dismay when his wife's mother comes for a
visit. Nobody ever sees a drawing of a woman's mother-in-law, and yet,
the bitterness and sadness lie mainly there--between the mother and
the woman his son has chosen for his wife.
It is a pleasure to believe that the average man is a gentleman, and
his inborn respect for his own mother, if nothing else, will usually
compel an outward show of politeness to every woman, even though she
may be a constant source of irritation. Grey hair has its own claims
upon a young man's deference, and, in the business world, he is
obliged to learn to hold his tongue, hide his temper, and "assume a
virtue though he has it not."
The mother's welcome from her daughter's husband depends much upon
herself. Her long years of marriage have been in vain if they have not
taught her to watch a man's moods and tenses; when to speak and when
to be silent, and how to avoid useless discussion of subjects on which
there is a pronounced difference of opinion. Leaving out the personal
equation, the older and more experienced woman is better fitted to get
along peaceably with a man than the young girl who has her wisdom yet
to acquire.
Moreover, it is to the daughter's interest to cement a friendship
between her mother and her husband, and so she stands as a shield
between the two she holds dearest, to exercise whatever tact she may
possess toward an harmonious end.
"A son's a son till he gets him a wife,
But a daughter's a daughter all the days of her life."
Thus the old saying runs, and there is a measure of truth in it,
more's the pity. Marriage and a home of her own interfere but little
with a daughter's devotion to her mother, even though the daily
companionship be materially lessened. The feeling is there and remains
unchanged, unless it grows stronger through the new interests on both
sides.
If a man has won his wife in spite of her mother's opposition, he can
well afford to be gracious and forget the ancient grudge. It is his
part, too, to prove to the mother how far she was mistaken, by making
the girl who trusted him the happiest wife in the world. The woman who
sees her daughter happy will have little against her son-in-law,
except that primitive, tribal instinct which survives in most of us,
and jealously guards those of our own blood from the aggression of
another family or individual.
One may as well admit that a good husband is a very scarce article,
and that the mother's anxiety for her daughter is well-founded. No man
can escape the sensation of being forever on trial in the eyes of his
wife's mother, and woe to him if he makes a mistake or falters in his
duty! Things which a woman would gladly condone in her husband are
unpardonable sins in the man who has married her daughter, and taken
her from a mother's loving care.
A good husband and a good man are not necessarily the same thing. Many
a scapegrace has been dearly loved by his wife, and many a highly
respected man has been secretly despised by his wife and children.
When the prison doors open to discharge the sinners who have served
long sentences, the wives of those who have been good husbands are
waiting for them with open arms. The others have long since taken
advantage of the divorce laws.
Since women know women so well, perhaps it is only natural for a
mother to feel that no girl who is good enough for her son ever has
been born. All the small deceits, the little schemes and frailties,
are as an open book in the eyes of other women.
"If you were a man," said one girl to another, "and knew women as well
as you do now, whom would you marry?"
The other girl thought for a moment, and then answered unhesitatingly:
"I'd stay single."
Women are always suspicious of each other, and the one who can deceive
another woman is entitled to her laurels for cleverness. With the keen
insight and quick intuition of the woman on either side of him, when
these women are violently opposed to each other, no man need look for
peace.
In spite of their discernment, women are sadly deficient in analysis
when it comes to a question of self. Neither wife nor mother can
clearly see her relation to the man they both love. Blinded by
passionate devotion and eager for power, both women lose sight of the
truth, and torment themselves and each other with unfounded jealousy
and distrust.
In no sense are wife and mother rivals, nor can they ever be so.
Neither could take the place of the other for a single instant, and
the wife foolishly guards the point where there is no danger, for, of
all the women in the world, his mother and sisters are the only ones
who could never by any possibility usurp her place.
A woman need only ask herself if she would like to be the mother
of her husband--to exchange the love which she now has for filial
affection--for a temporary clearness of her troubled skies. The mother
need only ask herself if she would surrender her position for the
privilege of being her son's wife, if she seeks for light on her dark
path.
Yet, in spite of this, the two are often open and acknowledged rivals.
A woman recently wrote to the "etiquette department" of a daily paper
to know whether she or her son's fiancée should make the first call.
In answering the question, the head of the department, who, by the
way, has something of a reputation for good sense, wrote as follows:
"It is your place to make the first call, and you have my sympathy in
your difficult task. You must be brave, for you are going to look into
the eyes of a woman whom your son loves better than he does you!"
"Better than he does you!" That is where all the trouble lies, for
each wishes to be first in a relation where no comparison is possible.
When an American yacht first won the cup, Queen Victoria was watching
the race. When she was told that the _America_ was in the lead, she
asked what boat was second. "Your Majesty," replied the naval officer
sadly, "there is no second!"
So, between wife and mother there is no second place, and it is
possible for each to own the whole of the loved one's heart, without
infringing or even touching upon the rights of the other.
Few of the passengers on a lake steamer, during a trip in northern
waters a few years since, will ever forget a certain striking group.
Mother and son, and the son's fiancée, were off for a week's vacation.
The mother was tall and stately, with snow-white hair and a hard face
deeply seamed with wrinkles, and with the fire of southern countries
burning in her faded blue eyes. The son was merely a nice boy, with a
pleasant face, and the girl, though not pretty, had a fresh look about
her which was very attractive.
She wore an engagement ring, so he must have cared for her, but
otherwise no one would have suspected it. From beginning to end, his
attention was centred upon his mother. He carried his mother's wraps,
but the girl carried her own. He talked to the mother, and the girl
could speak or not, just as she chose. Never for an instant were the
two alone together. They sat on the deck until late at night, with the
mother between them. When they changed, the son took his own chair
and his mother's, while the girl dragged hers behind them. At the end
of their table in the cabin, the mother sat between them at the head.
Once, purely by accident, the girl slipped into the nearest chair,
which happened to be the mother's, and the deadly silence could be
felt even two tables away. The girl turned pale, then the son said:
"You'll take the head of the table, won't you, mother?"
The steely tone of her voice could be heard by every one as she said,
"No!"
The girl ate little, and soon excused herself to go to her stateroom,
but the next day things were as before, and the foolish old mother had
her place next to her son.
Discussion was rife among the passengers, till an irreverent youth
ended it by saying: "Mamma's got the rocks; that's the why of it!"
Perhaps it was, but one wonders why a man should slight his promised
wife so publicly, even to please a mother with "rocks!"
To the mother who adores her son, every girl who smiles at him has
matrimonial designs. When he falls in love, it is because he has been
entrapped--she seldom considers him as being the aggressive one of the
two. The mother of the girl feels the same way, and, in the lower
circles, there is occasionally an illuminating time when the two
mothers meet.
Each is made aware how the other's offspring has given the entrapped
one no peace, and how the affair has been the scandal of two separate
neighbourhoods, more eligible partners having been lost by both sides.
In the Declaration of Independence there is no classification of the
rights of the married, but the clause regarding "life, liberty, and
the pursuit of happiness" has been held pointedly to refer to the
matrimonial state. If the mother would accord to her daughter-in-law
the same rights she claimed at the outset of her own married life, the
relation would be perceptibly smoother in many instances.
When a woman marries, she has a right to expect the love of her
husband, material support, a home of her own, even though it be only
two tiny rooms, and absolute freedom from outside interference. It is
her life, and she must live it in her own way, and a girl of spirit
_will_ live it in her own way, without taking heed of the
consequences, if she is pushed too far.
On the other hand, the mother who bore him still has proprietary
rights. She may reasonably claim a share of his society, a part of his
earnings, if she needs financial assistance, and his interest in all
that nearly concerns her. If she expects to be at the head of his
house, with the wife as a sort of a boarder, she need not be surprised
if there is trouble.
Marriage brings to a girl certain freedom, but it gives her no
superiority to her husband's family. A chain is as strong as its
weakest link, and the members of a family do not rise above the
general level. Every one of them is as good as the man she has
married, and she is not above any of them, unless her own personality
commands a higher position.
She treasonably violates the confidence placed in her if she makes
a discreditable use of any information coming to her through her
association with her husband's family. There are skeletons in every
closet, and she may not tell even her own mother of what she has seen
in the other house. A single word breathed against her husband's
family to an outsider stamps her as a traitor, who deserves a
traitor's punishment.
The girl who tells her most intimate friend that the mother of her
fiancé "is an old cat," by that act has lowered herself far below the
level of any self-respecting cat. Even if outward and visible disgrace
comes to the family of her husband, she is unworthy if she does not
hold her head high and let the world see her loyalty.
Marriage gives her no right to criticise any member of her husband's
family; their faults are out of her reach except by the force of
tactful example. Her concern is with herself and him, not his family,
and a wise girl, at the beginning of her married life, will draw a
sharp line between her affairs and those of others, and will stay on
her own side of the line.
When a man falls in love with a thoughtless butterfly, his womenfolk
may be pardoned if they stand aghast a moment before they regain their
self-command. In a way it is like a guest who is given the freedom of
the house, and who, when her visit is over, tells her friends that the
parlour carpet was turned, and the stairs left undusted.
Another household is intimately opened to the woman whom the son has
married, and the members of it can make no defence. She can betray
them if she chooses; there is nothing to shield them except her love
for her husband, and too often that is insufficient.
A girl seldom stops to think what she owes to her husband's mother.
Twenty-five or thirty years ago, the man she loves was born. Since
then there has been no time, sleeping or waking, when he has not been
in the thoughts of the mother who has sought to do her best by him.
She gave her life wholly to the demands of her child, without a
moment's hesitation.
She has sacrificed herself in countless ways, all through those years,
in order that he might have his education, his pleasures, and his
strong body. With every day he has grown nearer and dearer to her;
every day his loss would have been that much harder to bear.
In quiet talks in the twilight, she teaches him to be gentle and
considerate, to be courteous to every woman because a woman gave him
life; to be brave, noble, and tender; to be strong and fine; to choose
honour with a crust, rather than shame with plenty.
Then comes the pretty butterfly, with whom her son is in love. Is it
strange that the heart of the mother tightens with sudden pain?
With never a thought, the girl takes it all as her due. She would
write a gracious note of thanks to the friend who sent her a pretty
handkerchief, but for the woman who is the means of satisfying her
heart's desire she has not even toleration. All the sweetness and
beauty of his adoring love are a gift to her, unwilling too often,
perhaps, but a gift nevertheless, from his mother.
Long years of life have taught the mother what it may mean and what,
alas, it does too often mean. Memories only are her portion; she need
expect nothing now. He may not come to see his mother for an old
familiar talk, because his wife either comes with him, or expects
him to be at home. He has no time for his mother's interests or his
mother's friends; there is scant welcome in his home for her, because
between them has come an alien presence which never yields or softens.
Strangely, and without any definite idea of the change, he comes to
see his mother as she is. Once, she was the most beautiful woman in
the world, and her roughened hands were lovely because they had
toiled for him. Once, her counsel was wise, her judgment good, and the
gift of feeling which her motherhood brought her was seen as generous
sympathy.
Now, by comparison with a bright, well-dressed wife, he sees what an
"old frump" his mother is. She is shabby and old-fashioned, clinging
to obsolete forms of speech, hysterical and emotional. When the mists
of love have cleared from her boy's eyes, she may just as well give
up, because there is no return, save in that other mist which comes
too late, when mother is at rest.
The wife who tries to keep alive her husband's love for his family,
not only in his heart, but in outward observance as well, serves her
own interests even better than theirs. The love of the many comes with
the love of the one, and just as truly as he loves his sweetheart
better because of his mother and sisters, he may love them better
because of her.
The poor heart-hungry mother, who stands by with brimming eyes,
fearful that the joy of her life may be taken from her, will be
content with but little if she may but keep it for her own. It is only
a little while at the longest, for the end of the journey is soon, but
sunset and afterglow would have some of the rapture of dawn, if her
son's wife opened the door of her young heart and said with true
sincerity and wells of tenderness: "Mother--Come!"
A Lullaby
Sleep, baby, sleep,
The twilight breezes blow,
The flower bells are ringing,
The birds are twittering low,
Sleep, baby, sleep.
Sleep, baby, sleep,
The whippoorwill is calling,
The stars are twinkling faintly,
The dew is softly falling,
Sleep, baby, sleep.
Sleep, baby, sleep,
Upon your pillow lying,
The rushes whisper to the stream,
The summer day is dying,
Sleep, baby, sleep.
The Dressing-Sack Habit
Someone has said that a dressing-sack is only a Mother Hubbard with a
college education. Accepting this statement as a great truth, one is
inclined to wonder whether education has improved the Mother Hubbard,
since another clever person has characterised a college as "a place
where pebbles are polished and diamonds are dimmed!"
The bond of relationship between the two is not at first apparent, yet
there are subtle ties of kinship between the two. If we take a Hubbard
and cut it off at the hips, we have only a dressing-sack with a yoke.
The dressing-sack, however, cannot be walked on, even when the wearer
is stooping, and in this respect it has the advantage of the other; it
is also supposed to fit in the back, but it never does.
Doubtless in the wise economy of the universe, where every weed has
its function, even this garment has its place--else it would not be.
Possibly one may take a nap, or arrange one's crown of glory to better
advantage in a "boudoir négligée," or an invalid may be thus tempted
to think of breakfast. Indeed, the habit is apt to begin during
illness, when a friend presents the ailing lady with a dainty affair
of silk and lace which inclines the suffering soul to frivolities.
Presently she sits up, takes notice, and plans more garments of the
sort, so that after she fully recovers all the world may see these
becoming things!
The worst of the habit is that all the world does see. Fancy runs riot
with one pattern, a sewing-machine, and all the remnants a single
purse can compass. The lady with a kindly feeling for colour browses
along the bargain counter and speedily acquires a rainbow for her own.
Each morning she assumes a different phase, and, at the end of the
week, one's recollection of her is lost in a kaleidoscopic whirl.
Red, now--is anything prettier than red? And how the men admire it!
Does not the dark lady build wisely who dons a red dressing-sack on a
cold morning, that her husband may carry a bright bit of colour to the
office in his fond memories of home?
A book with a red cover, a red cushion, crimson draperies, and scarlet
ribbons, are all notoriously pleasing to monsieur--why not a red
dressing-sack?
If questioned, monsieur does not know why, yet gradually his passion
for red will wane, then fail. Later in the game, he will be affronted
by the colour, even as the gentleman cow in the pasture. It is not the
colour, dear madame, but the shiftless garment, which has wrought this
change.
There are few who dare to assume pink, for one must have a complexion
of peaches and cream, delicately powdered at that, before the rosy
hues are becoming. Yet, the sallow lady, with streaks of grey in her
hair, crow's feet around her eyes, and little time tracks registered
all over her face, will put on a pink dressing-sack when she gets
ready for breakfast. She would scream with horror at the thought of a
pink and white organdie gown, made over rosy taffeta, but the kimono
is another story.
Green dressing-sacks are not often seen, but more's the pity, for in
the grand array of colour nothing should be lacking, and the wearers
of these garments never seem to stop to think whether or not they are
becoming. What could be more cheerful on a cloudy morning than a
flannel négligée of the blessed shade of green consecrated to the
observance of the seventeenth of March?
It looks as well as many things which are commonly welded into
dressing-sacks; then why this invidious distinction?
When we approach blue in our dressing-sack rainbow, speech becomes
pitifully weak. Ancient maidens and matrons, with olive skins,
proudly assume a turquoise négligée. Blue flannel, with cascades of
white lace--could anything be more attractive? It has only one
rival--the garment of lavender eiderdown flannel, the button-holes
stitched with black yarn, which the elderly widow too often puts on
when the tide of her grief has turned.
The combination of black with any shade of purple is well fitted to
produce grief, even as the cutting of an onion will bring tears. Could
the dear departed see his relict in the morning, with lavender
eiderdown environment, he would appreciate his mercies as never
before.
The speaking shades of yellow and orange are much affected by German
ladies for dressing-sacks, and also for the knitted tippets which our
Teutonic friends wear, in and out of the house, from October to July.
Canary yellow is delicate and becoming to most, but it is German taste
to wear orange.
At first, perhaps, with a sense of the fitness of things, the négligée
is worn only in one's own room. She says: "It's so comfortable!"
There are degrees in comfort, varying from the easy, perfect fit of
one's own skin to a party gown which dazzles envious observers, and
why is the adjective reserved for the educated but abbreviated Mother
Hubbard?
"The apparel oft proclaims the man," and even more is woman dependent
upon her clothes for physical, moral, and intellectual support. An
uncorseted body will soon make its influence felt upon the mind. The
steel-and-whalebone spine which properly reinforces all feminine
vertebra is literally the backbone of a woman's self-respect.
Would the iceman or the janitor hesitate to "talk back" to the
uncorseted lady in a pink dressing-sack?--Hardly!
But confront the erring man with a quiet, dignified woman in a crisp
shirt-waist and a clean collar--verily he will think twice before he
ventures an excuse for his failings.
The iceman and the grocery boy see more dressing-sacks than most
others, for they are privileged to approach the back doors of
residences, and to hold conversations with the lady of the house,
after the departure of him whose duty and pleasure it is to pay for
the remnants. And in the lower strata they are known by their clothes.
"Fifty pounds for the red dressing-sack," says the iceman to his
helper, "and a hundred for the blue. Step lively now!"
And how should madame know that her order for a steak, a peck of
potatoes, and two lemons, is registered in the grocery boy's book
under the laconic title, "Pink"?
* * * * *
After breakfast, when she sits down to read the paper and make her
plans for the day, the insidious dressing-sack gets in its deadly
work.
"I won't dress," she thinks, "until I get ready to go out." After
luncheon, she is too tired to go out, and too nearly dead to dress.
Friends come in, perhaps, and say: "Oh, how comfortable you look!
Isn't that a dear kimono?" Madame plumes herself with conscious pride,
for indeed it is a dear kimono, and already she sees herself with a
reputation for "exquisite négligée."
The clock strikes six, and presently the lord of the manor comes home
to be fed. "I'm dreadfully sorry, dear, you should find me looking
so," says the lady of his heart, "but I just haven't felt well enough
to dress. You don't mind, do you?"
The dear, good, subdued soul says he is far from minding, and dinner
is like breakfast as far as dressing-sacks go.
Perhaps, in the far depths of his nature, the man wonders why it was
that, in the halcyon days of courtship, he never beheld his beloved in
the midst of a gunny--no, a dressing-sack. Of course, then, she didn't
have to keep house, and didn't have so many cares to tire her. Poor
little thing! Perhaps she isn't well!
Isn't she? Let another woman telephone that she has tickets for the
matinée, and behold the transformation! Within certain limits and
barring severe headaches, a woman is always well enough to do what she
wants to do--and no more.
As the habit creeps upon its victim, she loses sight of the fact
that there are other clothes. If she has a golf cape, she may venture
to go to the letter-box or even to market in her favourite garment.
After a while, when the habit is firmly fixed, a woman will wear a
dressing-sack all the time--that is, some women will, except on rare
and festive occasions. Sometimes in self-defence, she will say that
her husband loves soft, fluffy feminine things, and can't bear to see
her in a tailor-made outfit. This is why she wears the "soft fluffy
things," which, with her, always mean dressing-sacks, all the time he
is away from home, as well as when he is there.
It is a mooted question whether shiftlessness causes dressing-sacks,
or dressing-sacks cause shiftlessness, but there is no doubt about the
loving association of the two. The woman who has nothing to do, and
not even a shadow of a purpose in life, will enshrine her helpless
back in a dressing-sack. She can't wear corsets, because, forsooth,
they "hurt" her. She can't sit at the piano, because it's hard on her
back. She can't walk, because she "isn't strong enough." She can't
sew, because it makes a pain between her shoulders, and indeed why
should she sew when she has plenty of dressing-sacks?
This type of woman always boards, _if she can_, or has plenty of
servants at her command, and, in either case, her mind is free to
dwell upon her troubles.
First, there is her own weak physical condition. Just wait until she
tells you about the last pain she had. She doesn't feel like dressing
for dinner, but she will try to wash her face, if you will excuse her!
When she returns, she has plucked up enough energy to change her
dressing-sack!
The only cure for the habit is a violent measure which few indeed are
brave enough to adopt. Make a bonfire of the offensive garments, dear
lady; then stay away from the remnant counters, and after a while you
will become immune.
Nothing is done in a négligée of this sort which cannot be done
equally well in a shirt-waist, crisp and clean, with a collar and
belt.
There is a popular delusion to the effect that household tasks
require slipshod garments and unkempt hair, but let the frowsy ones
contemplate the trained nurse in her spotless uniform, with her snowy
cap and apron and her shining hair. Let the doubtful ones go to a
cooking school, and see a neat young woman, in a blue gingham gown and
a white apron, prepare an eight-course dinner and emerge spotless from
the ordeal. We get from life, in most cases, exactly what we put into
it. The world is a mirror which gives us smiles or frowns, as we
ourselves may choose. The woman who faces the world in a shirt-waist
will get shirt-waist appreciation, while for the dressing-sack there
is only a slipshod reward.
In the Meadow
The flowers bow their dainty heads,
And see in the shining stream
A vision of sky and silver clouds,
As bright as a fairy's dream.
The great trees nod their sleepy boughs,
The song birds come and go,
And all day long, to the waving ferns
The south wind whispers low.
All day among the blossoms sweet,
The laughing sunbeams play,
And down the stream, in rose-leaf boats
The fairies sail away.
One Woman's Solution of the
Servant Problem
Being a professional woman, my requirements in the way of a housemaid
were rather special. While at times I can superintend my small
household, and direct my domestic affairs, there are long periods
during which I must have absolute quiet, untroubled by door bell,
telephone, or the remnants of roast beef.
There are two of us, in a modern six room apartment, in a city where
the servant problem has forced a large and ever-increasing percentage
of the population into small flats. We have late breakfasts, late
dinners, a great deal of company, and an amount of washing, both house
and personal, which is best described as "unholy."
Five or six people often drop in informally, and unexpectedly, for
the evening, which means, of course, a midnight "spread," and an
enormous pile of dishes to be washed in the morning. There are,
however, some advantages connected with the situation. We have a
laundress besides the maid; we have a twelve-o'clock breakfast on
Sunday instead of a dinner, getting the cold lunch ourselves in the
evening, thus giving the girl a long afternoon and evening; and we are
away from home a great deal, often staying weeks at a time.
The eternal "good wages to right party" of the advertisements was our
inducement also, but, apparently, there were no "right parties!"
The previous incumbent, having departed in a fit of temper at half an
hour's notice, and left me, so to speak, "in the air," with dinner
guests on the horizon a day ahead, I betook myself to an intelligence
office, where, strangely enough, there seems to be no intelligence,
and grasped the first chance of relief.
Nothing more unpromising could possibly be imagined. The new maid was
sad, ugly of countenance, far from strong physically, and in every way
hopeless and depressing. She listened, unemotionally, to my glowing
description of the situation. Finally she said, "Ay tank Ay try it."
She came, looked us over, worked a part of a week, and announced that
she couldn't stay. "Ay can't feel like home here," she said. "Ay am
not satisfied."
She had been in her last place for three years, and left because "my's
lady, she go to Europe." I persuaded her to try it for a while longer,
and gave her an extra afternoon or two off, realising that she must be
homesick.
After keeping us on tenter-hooks for two weeks, she sent for her
trunk. I discovered that she was a fine laundress, carefully washing
and ironing the things which were too fine to go into the regular
wash; a most excellent cook, her kitchen and pantry were at all times
immaculate; she had no followers, and few friends; meals were ready
on the stroke of the hour, and she had the gift of management.
Offset to this was a furious temper, an atmosphere of gloom and
depression which permeated the house and made us feel funereal,
impertinence of a quality difficult to endure, and the callous,
unfeeling, almost inhuman characteristics which often belong in a high
degree to the Swedes.
For weeks I debated with myself whether or not I could stand it to
have her in the house. I have spent an hour on my own back porch, when
I should have been at work, because I was afraid to pass through the
room which she happened to be cleaning. Times without number, a crisp
muffin, or a pot of perfect coffee, has made me postpone speaking the
fateful words which would have separated us. She sighed and groaned
and wept at her work, worried about it, and was a fiend incarnate if
either of us was five minutes late for dinner. We often hurried
through the evening meal so as to leave her free for her evening out,
even though I had long since told her not to wash the dishes after
dinner, but to pile them neatly in the sink and leave them until
morning.
Before long, however, the strictly human side of the problem began to
interest me. I had cherished lifelong theories in regard to the
brotherhood of man and the uplifting power of personal influence. I
had at times been tempted to try settlement work, and here I had a
settlement subject in my own kitchen.
There was not a suggestion of fault with the girl's work. She kept her
part of the contract, and did it well; but across the wall between us,
she glared at--and hated--me.
But, deliberately, I set to work in defence of my theory. I ignored
the impertinence, and seemingly did not hear the crash of dishes and
the banging of doors. When it came to an issue, I said calmly, though
my soul quaked within me: "You are not here to tell me what you will
do and what you won't. You are here to carry out my orders, and when
you cannot, it is time for you to go."
If she asked me a question about her work which I could not answer
offhand, I secretly consulted a standard cook-book, and later gave her
the desired information airily. I taught her to cook many of the
things which I could cook well, and imbued her with a sort of sneaking
respect for my knowledge. Throughout, I treated her with the perfect
courtesy which one lady accords to another, ignoring the impertinence.
I took pains to say "please" and "thank you." Many a time I bit my
lips tightly against my own rising rage, and afterward in calmness
recognised a superior opportunity for self-discipline.
For three or four months, while the beautiful theory wavered in the
balance, we fought--not outwardly, but beneath the surface. Daily, I
meditated a summary discharge, dissuaded only by an immaculate house
and perfectly cooked breakfasts and dinners. I still cherished a
lingering belief in personal influence, in spite of the wall which
reared itself between us.
A small grey kitten, with wobbly legs and an infantile mew, made the
first breach in the wall. She took care of it, loved it, petted it,
and began to smile semi-occasionally. She, too, said "please" and
"thank you." My husband suggested that we order ten kittens, but I let
the good work go on with one, for the time being. Gradually, I learned
that the immovable exterior was the natural protection against an
abnormal sensitiveness both to praise and blame. Besides the cat, she
had two other "weak spots"--an unswerving devotion to a widowed sister
with two children, whom she partially supported, and a love for
flowers almost pathetic.
As I could, without seeming to make a point of it, I sent things to
the sister and the children--partially worn curtains, bits of ribbons,
little toys, and the like. I made her room as pretty and dainty as my
own, though the furnishings were not so expensive, and gave her a
potted plant in a brass jar. When flowers were sent to me, I gave her
a few for the vase in her room. She began to say "we" instead of
"you." She spoke of "our" spoons, or "our" table linen. She asked,
what shall "we" do about this or that? what shall "we" have for
dinner? instead of "what do _you_ want?" She began to laugh when she
played with the kitten, and even to sing at her work.
When she did well, I praised her, as I had all along, but instead of
saying, "Iss dat so?" when I remarked that the muffins were delicious
or the dessert a great success, her face began to light up, and a
smile take the place of the impersonal comment. The furious temper
began to wane, or, at least, to be under better control. Guests
occasionally inquired, "What have you done to that maid of yours?"
Five times we have left her, for one or two months at a time, on full
salary, with unlimited credit at the grocery, and with from fifty to
one hundred dollars in cash. During the intervals we heard nothing
from her. We have returned each time to an immaculate house, a
smiling maid, a perfectly cooked and nicely served meal, and an
account correct to a penny, with vouchers to show for it, of the sum
with which she had been intrusted.
I noticed each time a vast pride in the fact that she had been so
trusted, and from this developed a gratifying loyalty to the
establishment. I had told her once to ask her sister and children to
spend the day with her while we were gone. It seems that the children
were noisy, and the lady in the apartment below us came up to object.
An altercation ensued, ending with a threat from the lady downstairs
to "tell Mrs. M. when she came home." Annie told me herself, with
flashing eyes and shaking hands. I said, calmly: "The children must
have been noisy, or she would not have complained. You are used to
them, and besides it would sound worse downstairs than up here. But it
doesn't amount to anything, for I had told you you could have the
children here, and if I hadn't been able to trust you I wouldn't have
left you." Thus the troubled waters were calmed.
The crucial test of her qualities came when I entered upon a long
period of exhaustive effort. The first day, we both had a hard time,
as her highly specialised Baptist conscience would not permit her to
say I was "not at home," when I was merely writing a book. After she
thoroughly understood that I was not to be disturbed unless the house
took fire, further quiet being insured by disconnecting the doorbell
and muffling the telephone, things went swimmingly.
"Annie," I said, "I want you to run this house until I get through
with my book. Here is a hundred dollars to start with. Don't let
anybody disturb me." She took it with a smile, and a cheerful "all
right."
From that moment to the end, I had even less care than I should have
had in a well-equipped hotel. Not a sound penetrated my solitude. If
I went out for a drink of water, she did not speak to me. We had
delicious dinners and dainty breakfasts which might have waited for
us, but we never waited a moment for them. She paid herself regularly
every Monday morning, kept all receipts, sent out my husband's
laundry, kept a strict list of it, mended our clothes, managed our
household as economically as I myself could have done it, and, best of
all, insured me from any sort of interruption with a sort of fierce
loyalty which is beyond any money value.
Once I overheard a colloquy at my front door, which was briefly and
decisively terminated thus: "Ay already tell you dat you _not see
her_! She says to me, 'Annie, you keep dose peoples off from me,' and
Ay _keep dem off_!" I never have known what dear friend was thus
turned away from my inhospitable door.
Fully appreciating my blessings, the night I finished my work I went
into the kitchen with a crisp, new, five-dollar bill. "Annie," I said,
"here is a little extra money for you. You've been so nice about the
house while I've been busy."
She opened her eyes wide, and stared. "You don't have to do dat," she
said.
"I know I don't," I laughed, "but I like to do it."
"You don't have to do dat," she repeated. "Ay like to do de
housekeeping."
"I know," I said again, "and I like to do this. You've done lots of
things for me you didn't have to do. Why shouldn't I do something for
you?"
At that she took it, offering me a rough wet hand, which I took
gravely. "Tank you," she said, and the tears rolled down her cheeks.
"You've earned it," I assured her, "and you deserve it, and I'm very
glad I can give it to you."
From that hour she has been welded to me in a bond which I fondly hope
is indestructible. She laughs and sings at her work, pets her beloved
kitten, and diffuses through my six rooms the atmosphere of good
cheer. She "looks after me," anticipates my wishes, and dedicates to
me a continual loyal service which has no equivalent in dollars and
cents. She asked me, hesitatingly, if she might not get some one to
fill her place for three months while she went back to Sweden. I
didn't like the idea, but I recognised her well-defined right.
"Ay not go," she said, "if you not want me to. Ay tell my sister dat
I want to stay wid Mrs. M. until she send me away."
I knew she would have to go some time before she settled down to
perpetual residence in an alien land, so I bade her God-speed. She
secured the substitute and instructed her, arranged the matter of
wages, and vouched for her honesty, but not for her work.
Before she left the city, I found that the substitute was hopelessly
incompetent and stupid. When Annie came to say "good-bye" to me, I
told her about the new girl. She broke down and wept. "Ay sorry Ay try
to go," she sobbed. "Ay tell my sister dere iss nobody what can take
care of Mrs. M. lak Ay do!"
I was quite willing to agree with her, but I managed to dry her tears.
Discovering that she expected to spend two nights in a day coach, and
remembering one dreadful night when I could get no berth, I gave her
the money for a sleeping-car ticket both ways, as a farewell gift. The
tears broke forth afresh. "You been so good to me and to my sister,"
she sobbed. "Ay can't never forget dat!"
"Cheer up," I answered, wiping the mist from my own eyes. "Go on, and
have the best time you ever had in your life, and don't worry about
me--I'll get along somehow. And if you need money while you are away,
write to me, and I'll send you whatever you need. We'll fix it up
afterward."
Once again she looked at me, with the strangest look I have ever seen
on the human face.
"Tank you," she said slowly. "Dere iss not many ladies would say dat."
"Perhaps not," I replied, "but, remember, Annie, I can trust you."
"Yes," she cried, her face illumined as by some great inward light,
"you can trust me!"
I do not think she loves us yet, but I believe in time she will.
The day the new girl came, I happened to overhear a much valued
reference to myself: "Honestly," she said, "Ay been here more dan one
year, and Ay never hear a wrong word between her and him, nor between
her and me. It's shust wonderful. Ay isn't been see anyting like it
since Ay been in diss country."
"Is it so wonderful?" I asked myself, as I stole away, my own heart
aglow with the consciousness of a moral victory, "and is the lack of
self-control and human kindness at the bottom of the American servant
problem? Are we women such children that we cannot deal wisely with
our intellectual inferiors?" And more than all I had given her, as I
realised then for the first time, was the power of self-discipline
and self-control which she, all unknowingly, had developed in me.
I have not ceased the "treatment," even though the patient is nearly
well. It costs me nothing to praise her when she deserves it, to take
an occasional friend into her immaculate kitchen, and to show the
shining white pantry shelves (without papers), while she blushes and
smiles with pleasure. It costs me nothing to see that she overhears
me while I tell a friend over the telephone how capable she has been
during the stress of my work, or how clean the house is when we come
home after a long absence. It costs me nothing to send her out for a
walk, or a visit to a nearby friend, on the afternoons when her work
is finished and I am to be at home--nothing to call her attention to a
beautiful sunset or a perfect day, or to tell her some amusing story
that her simple mind can appreciate. It costs me nothing to tell
her how well she looks in her cap and apron (only I call the cap a
"hair-bow"), nor that one of the guests said she made the best cake
she had ever eaten in her life.
It costs me little to give her a pretty hatpin, or some other girlish
trifle at Easter, to bring her some souvenir of our travels, to give
her a fresh ribbon for her belt from my bolt, or some little toy "for
de children."
It means only a thought to say when she goes out, "Good-bye! Have a
good time!" or to say when I go out, "Good-bye! Be good!" It means
little to me to tell her how much my husband or our guests have
enjoyed the dinner, or to have him go into the kitchen sometimes,
while she is surrounded by a mountain of dishes, with a cheery word
and a fifty-cent piece.
It isn't much out of my way to do a bit of shopping for her when I am
shopping for myself, and no trouble at all to plan for her new gowns,
or to tell her that her new hat is very pretty and becoming.
When her temper gets the better of her these days, I can laugh her
out of it. "To think," I said once, "of a fine, capable girl like you
flying into a rage because some one has borrowed your clothesline
without asking for it!"
The clouds vanished with a smile. "Dat iss funny of me," she said.
When her work goes wrong, as of course it sometimes does, though
rarely, and she is worrying for fear I shall be displeased, I say:
"Never mind, Annie; things don't always go right for any of us. Don't
worry about it, but be careful next time."
It has cost me time and effort and money, and an infinite amount of
patience and tact, not to mention steady warfare with myself, but in
return, what have I? A housemaid, as nearly perfect, perhaps, as they
can ever be on this faulty earth, permanently in my service, as I hope
and believe.
If any one offers her higher wages, I shall meet the "bid," for she is
worth as much to me as she can be to any one else. Besides giving me
superior service, she has done me a vast amount of good in furnishing
me the needed material for the development of my character.
On her own ground, she respects my superior knowledge. Once or twice
I have heard her say of some friend, "Her's lady, she know nodding at
all about de housekeeping--no, nodding at all!"
The airy contempt of the tone is quite impossible to describe.
A neighbour whom she assisted in a time of domestic stress, during my
absence, told me amusedly of her reception in her own kitchen. "You
don't have to come all de time to de kitchen to tell me," remarked
Annie.
"Doesn't Mrs. M. do that?" queried my neighbour, lightly.
"Ay should say not," returned the capable one, indignantly. "She nefer
come in de kitchen, and _she know, too_!"
While that was not literally true, because I do go into my kitchen if
I want to, and cook there if I like, I make a point of not intruding.
She knows what she is to do, and I leave her to do it, in peace and
comfort.
Briefly summarised, the solution from my point of view is this. _Know
her work yourself, down to the last detail_; pay the wages which other
people would be glad to pay for the same service; keep your temper,
and, in the face of everything, _be kind_! Remember that housework is
hard work--that it never stays done--that a meal which it takes half a
day to prepare is disposed of in half an hour. Remember, too, that it
requires much intelligence and good judgment to be a good cook, and
that the daily tasks lack inspiration. The hardest part of housework
must be done at a time when many other people are free for rest and
enjoyment, and it carries with it a social bar sinister when it is
done for money. The woman who does it for her board and clothes, in
her own kitchen, does not necessarily lose caste, but doing it for a
higher wage, in another's kitchen, makes one almost an outcast.
Strange and unreasonable, but true.
It was at my own suggestion that she began to leave the dishes piled
up in the sink until morning. When the room is otherwise immaculate,
a tray of neatly piled plates, even if unwashed, does not disturb my
æsthetic sense.
Ordinarily, she is free for the evening at half-past seven or a
quarter of eight--always by eight. Her evenings are hers, not
mine,--unless I pay her extra, as I always do. A dollar or so counts
for nothing in the expense of an entertainment, and she both earns and
deserves the extra wage.
If I am to entertain twenty or thirty people--the house will hold no
more, and I cannot ask more than ten to dinner--I consult with her,
decide upon the menu, tell her that she can have all the help she
needs, and go my ways in peace. I can order the flowers, decorate the
table, put on my best gown, and receive my guests, unwearied, with an
easy mind.
When I am not expecting guests, I can leave the house immediately
after breakfast, without a word about dinner, and return to the right
sort of a meal at seven o'clock, bringing a guest or two with me, if I
telephone first.
I can work for six weeks or two months in a seclusion as perfect as I
could have in the Sahara Desert, and my household, meanwhile, will
move as if on greased skids. I can go away for two months and hear
nothing from her, and yet know that everything is all right at home. I
think no more about it, so far as responsibility is concerned, when I
am travelling, than as if I had no home at all. When we leave the
apartment alone in the evening, we turn on the most of the lights,
being assured by the police that burglars will never molest a
brilliantly illuminated house.
The morose countenance of my ugly maid has subtly changed. It
radiates, in its own way, beauty and good cheer. Her harsh voice is
gentle, her manner is kind, her tastes are becoming refined, her ways
are those of a lady.
My friends and neighbours continually allude to the transformation as
"a miracle." The janitor remarked, in a burst of confidence, that he
"never saw anybody change so." He "reckoned," too, that "it must be
the folks she lives with!" Annie herself, conscious of a change,
recently said complacently: "Ay guess Ay wass one awful crank when Ay
first come here."
And so it happens that the highest satisfaction is connected with the
beautiful theory, triumphantly proven now, against heavy odds.
Whatever else I may have done, I have taught one woman the workman's
pride in her work, shown her where true happiness lies, and set her
feet firmly on the path of right and joyous living.
To a Violin
(Antonius Stradivarius, 1685.)
What flights of years have gone to fashion thee,
My violin! What centuries have wrought
Thy sounding fibres! What dead fingers taught
Thy music to awake in ecstasy
Beyond our human dreams? Thy melody
Is resurrection. Every buried thought
Of singing bird, or stream, or south wind, fraught
With tender message, or of sobbing sea,
Lives once again. The tempest's solemn roll
Is in thy passion sleeping, till the king
Whose touch is mastery shall sound thy soul.
The organ tones of ocean shalt thou bring,
The crashing chords of thunder, and the whole
Vast harmony of God. Ah, Spirit, sing!
The Old Maid
One of the best things the last century has done for woman is to make
single-blessedness appear very tolerable indeed, even if it be not
actually desirable.
The woman who didn't marry used to be looked down upon as a sort of a
"leftover" without a thought, apparently, that she may have refused
many a chance to change her attitude toward the world. But now, the
"bachelor maid" is welcomed everywhere, and is not considered
eccentric on account of her oneness.
With the long records of the divorce courts before their eyes, it is
not very unusual for the younger generation of women nowadays
deliberately to choose spinsterhood as their independent lot in life.
A girl said the other day: "It's no use to say that a woman can't
marry if she wants to. Look around you, and see the women who _have_
married, and then ask yourself if there is anybody who can't!"
This is a great truth very concisely stated. It is safe to say that no
woman ever reached twenty-five years of age, and very few have passed
twenty, without having an opportunity to become somebody's mate.
A very small maiden with very bright eyes once came to her mother with
the question: "Mamma, do you think I shall ever have a chance to get
married?"
And the mother answered: "Surely you will, my child; the woods are
full of offers of marriage--no woman can avoid them."
And ere many years had passed the maiden had learned that the wisdom
of her mother's prophecy was fully vindicated.
Every one knows that a woman needs neither beauty, talent, nor money
to win the deepest and sincerest love that man is capable of giving.
Single life is, with rare exceptions, a matter of choice and not of
necessity; and while it is true that a happy married life is the
happiest position for either man or woman, there are many things which
are infinitely worse than being an old maid, and chiefest among these
is marrying the wrong man!
The modern woman looks her future squarely in the face and decides
according to her best light whether her happiness depends upon
spinsterhood or matrimony. This decision is of course influenced very
largely by the quality of her chances in either direction, but if the
one whom she fully believes to be the right man comes along, he is
likely to be able to overcome strong objections to the married state.
If love comes to her from the right source, she takes it gladly;
otherwise she bravely goes her way alone, often showing the world that
some of the most mother-hearted women are not really mothers. Think of
the magnificent solitude of such women as Florence Nightingale and our
own splendid Frances Willard! Who shall say that these, and thousands
of others of earth's grandest souls, were not better for their
single-heartedness in the service of humanity?
A writer in a leading journal recently said: "The fact that a woman
remains single is a tribute to her perception. She gains an added
dignity from being hard to suit."
This, from the pen of a man, is somewhat of a revelation, in the light
of various masculine criticisms concerning superfluous women. No woman
is superfluous. God made her, and put her into this world to help her
fellow-beings. There is a little niche somewhere which she, and she
alone, can fill. She finds her own completeness in rounding out the
lives of others.
It has been said that the average man may be piloted through life by
one woman, but it must be admitted that several of him need somewhere
near a dozen of the fair sex to wait upon him at the same time. His
wife and mother are kept "hustling," while his "sisters and his aunts"
are likely to be "on the keen jump" from the time his lordship enters
the house until he leaves it!
But to return to the "superfluous woman,"--although we cannot
literally return to her because she does not exist. Of the "old maid"
of to-day, it is safe to say that she has her allotted plane of
usefulness. She isn't the type our newspaper brethren delight to
caricature. She doesn't dwell altogether upon the subject of "woman's
sphere," which, by the way, comes very near being the plane of the
earth's sphere, and she need not, for her position is now well
recognised.
She doesn't wear corkscrew curls and hideous reform garments. She is a
dainty, feminine, broad-minded woman, and a charming companion. Men
are her friends, and often her lovers, in her old age as well as in
her youth.
Every old maid has her love story, a little romance that makes her
heart young again as she dreams it over in the firelight, and it
calls a happy smile to the faded face.
Or, perhaps, it is the old, sad story of a faithless lover, or a
happiness spoiled by gossips--or it may be the scarcely less sad story
of love and death.
Ibsen makes two of his characters, a young man and woman who love each
other, part voluntarily on the top of a high mountain in order that
they may be enabled to keep their high ideals and uplifting love for
each other.
So the old maid keeps her ideals, not through fulfilment, but through
memory, and she is far happier than many a woman who finds her ideal
surprisingly and disagreeably real.
The bachelor girl and the bachelor man are much on the increase.
Marriage is not in itself a failure, but the people who enter unwisely
into this solemn covenant too often are not only failures, but bitter
disappointments to those who love them best.
Life for men and women means the highest usefulness and happiness, for
the terms are synonymous, neither being able to exist without the
other.
The model spinster of to-day is philanthropic. She is connected, not
with innumerable charities, but with a few well-chosen ones. She gives
freely of her time and money in many ways, where her left hand
scarcely knoweth what her right doeth, and the record of her good
works is not found in the chronicles of the world.
She is literary, musical, or artistic. She is a devoted and loyal club
member, and is well informed on the leading topics of the day, while
the resources of her well-balanced mind are always at the service of
her friends.
And when all is said and done, the highest and truest life is within
the reach of us all. Doing well whatever is given us to do will keep
us all busy, and married or single, no woman has a right to be idle.
The old maid may be womanly and mother-hearted as well as the wife and
mother.
The Spinster's Rubaiyat
I
Wake! For the hour of hope will soon take flight
And on your form and features leave a blight;
Since Time, who heals full many an open wound,
More oft than not is impolite.
II
Before my relatives began to chide,
Methought the voice of conscience said inside:
"Why should you want a husband, when you have
A cat who seldom will at home abide?"
III
And, when the evening breeze comes in the door,
The lamp smokes like a chimney, only more;
And yet the deacon of the church
Is telling every one my parrot swore.
IV
Behold, my aunt into my years inquires,
Then swiftly with my parents she conspires,
And in the family record changes dates--
In that same book that says all men are liars.
V
Come, fill the cup and let the kettle sing!
What though upon my finger gleams no ring,
Save that cheap turquoise that I bought myself?
The coming years a gladsome change may bring.
VI
Here, minion, fill the steaming cup that clears
The skin I will not have exposed to jeers,
And rub this wrinkle vigorously until
The maddening crow's-foot wholly disappears.
VII
And let me don some artificial bloom,
And turn the lamps down low, and make a gloom
That spreads from library to hall and stair;
Thus do I look my best--but ah, for whom?
The Rights of Dogs
We hear a great deal about the "rights of men" and still more,
perhaps, about the "rights of women," but few stop to consider those
which properly belong to the friend and companion of both--the dog.
According to our municipal code, a dog must be muzzled from June 1st
to September 30th. The wise men who framed this measure either did not
know, or did not stop to consider, that a dog perspires and "cools
off" only at his mouth.
Man and the horse have tiny pores distributed all over the body, but
in the dog they are found only in the tongue.
Any one who has had a fever need not be told what happened when these
pores ceased to act; what, then, must be the sufferings of a dog on a
hot day, when, securely muzzled, he takes his daily exercise?
Even on the coolest days, the barbarous muzzle will fret a
thoroughbred almost to insanity, unless, indeed, he has brains to free
himself, as did a brilliant Irish setter which we once knew. This wise
dog would run far ahead of his human guardian, and with the help of
his forepaws slip the strap over his slender head, then hide the
offending muzzle in the gutter, and race onward again. When the loss
was discovered, it was far too late to remedy it by any search that
could be instituted.
And still, without this uncomfortable encumbrance, it is unsafe for
any valuable dog to be seen, even on his own doorsteps, for the
"dog-catcher" is ever on the look-out for blue-blooded victims.
The homeless mongrel, to whom a painless death would be a blessing, is
left to get a precarious living as best he may from the garbage boxes,
and spread pestilence from house to house, but the setter, the collie,
and the St. Bernard are choked into insensibility with a wire noose,
hurled into a stuffy cage, and with the thermometer at ninety in the
shade, are dragged through the blistering city, as a sop to that
Cerberus of the law which demands for its citizens safety from dogs,
and pays no attention to the lawlessness of men.
The dog tax which is paid every year is sufficient to guarantee the
interest of the owner in his dog. Howells has pitied "the dogless
man," and Thomas Nelson Page has said somewhere that "some of us know
what it is to be loved by a dog."
Countless writers have paid tribute to his fidelity and devotion, and
to the constant forgiveness of blows and neglect which spring from the
heart of the commonest cur.
The trained hunter, who is as truly a sportsman as the man who brings
down the birds he finds, can be easily fretted into madness by the
injudicious application of the muzzle.
The average dog is a gentleman and does not attack people for the
pleasure of it, and it is lamentably true that people who live in
cities often find it necessary to keep some sort of a dog as a
guardian to life and property. In spite of his loyalty, which every
one admits, the dog is an absolute slave. Men with less sense, and
less morality, constitute a court from which he has no appeal.
Four or five years of devotion to his master's interests, and four or
five years of peaceful, friendly conduct, count for absolutely nothing
beside the perjured statement of some man, or even woman, who, from
spite against the owner, is willing to assert, "the dog is vicious."
"He is very imprudent, a dog is," said Jerome K. Jerome. "He
never makes it his business to inquire whether you are in
the right or wrong--never bothers as to whether you are
going up or down life's ladder--never asks whether you are
rich or poor, silly or wise, saint or sinner. You are his
pal. That is enough for him, and come luck or misfortune,
good repute or bad, honour or shame, he is going to stick to
you, to comfort you, guard you, and give his life for you,
if need be--foolish, brainless, soulless dog!
"Ah! staunch old friend, with your deep, clear eyes, and
bright quick glances that take in all one has to say, before
one has time to speak it, do you know you are only an animal
and have no mind?
"Do you know that dull-eyed, gin-sodden lout leaning against
the post out there is immeasurably your intellectual
superior? Do you know that every little-minded selfish
scoundrel, who never had a thought that was not mean and
base--whose every action is a fraud and whose every
utterance is a lie; do you know that these are as much
superior to you as the sun is to the rush-light, you
honourable, brave-hearted, unselfish brute?
"They are men, you know, and men are the greatest, noblest,
wisest, and best beings in the universe. Any man will tell
you that."
Are the men whom we elect to public office our masters or our
servants? If the former, let us change our form of government; if the
latter, let us hope that from somewhere a little light may penetrate
their craniums and that they may be induced to give the dog a chance.
Twilight
The birds were hushed into silence,
The clouds had sunk from sight,
And the great trees bowed to the summer breeze
That kissed the flowers good-night.
The stars came out in the cool still air,
From the mansions of the blest,
And softly, over the dim blue hills,
Night came to the world with rest.
Women's Clothes in Men's Books
When asked why women wrote better novels than men, Mr. Richard Le
Gallienne is said to have replied, more or less conclusively, "They
don't"; thus recalling _Punch's_ famous advice to those about to
marry.
Happily there is no segregation in literature, and masculine and
feminine hands alike may dabble in fiction, as long as the publishers
are willing.
If we accept Zola's dictum to the effect that art is nature seen
through the medium of a temperament, the thing is possible to many,
though the achievement may differ both in manner and degree. For women
have temperament--too much of it--as the hysterical novelists daily
testify.
The gentleman novelist, however, prances in boldly, where feminine
feet well may fear to tread, and consequently has a wider scope for
his writing. It is not for a woman to mingle in a barroom brawl and
write of the thing as she sees it. The prize-ring, the interior of a
cattle-ship, Broadway at four in the morning--these and countless
other places are forbidden by her innate refinement as well as by the
Ladies' Own, and all the other aunties who have taken upon themselves
the guardianship of the Home with a big H.
Fancy the outpouring of scorn upon the luckless offender's head if one
should write to the Manners and Morals Department of the Ladies' Own
as follows: "Would it be proper for a lady novelist, in search of
local colour and new experiences, to accept the escort of a strange
man at midnight if he was too drunk to recognise her afterward?" Yet a
man in the same circumstances would not hesitate to put an intoxicated
woman into a sea-going cab, and would plume himself for a year and a
day upon his virtuous performance.
All things are considered proper for a man who is about to write a
book. Like the disciple of Mary McLane who stole a horse in order to
get the emotions of a police court, he may delve deeply not only into
life, but into that under-stratum which is not spoken of, where
respectable journals circulate.
Everything is fish that comes into his net. If conscientious, he may
even undertake marriage in order to study the feminine personal
equations at close range. Woman's emotions, singly and collectively,
are pilloried before his scientific gaze. He cowers before one
problem, and one only--woman's clothes!
Carlyle, after long and painful thought, arrives at the conclusion
that "cut betokens intellect and talent; colour reveals temper and
heart."
This reminds one of the language of flowers, and the directions given
for postage-stamp flirtation. If that massive mind had penetrated
further into the mysteries of the subject, we might have been told
that a turnover collar indicated that the woman was a High Church
Episcopalian who had embroidered two altar cloths, and that suède
gloves show a yielding but contradictory nature.
Clothes are, undoubtedly, indices of character and taste, as well as a
sop to conventionality, but this only when one has the wherewithal to
browse at will in the department store. Many a woman with ermine
tastes has only a rabbit-fur pocket-book, and thus her clothes wrong
her in the sight of gods and women, though men know nothing about it.
Once upon a time there was a notion to the effect that women dressed
to please men, but that idea has long since been relegated to the
limbo of forgotten things.
Not one man in a thousand can tell the difference between Brussels
point at thirty dollars a yard, and imitation Valenciennes at ten or
fifteen cents a yard which was one of the "famous Friday features in
the busy bargain basement."
But across the room, yea, even from across the street, the eagle eye
of another woman can unerringly locate the Brussels point and the
mock Valenciennes.
A man knows silk by the sound of it and diamonds by the shine. He will
say that his heroine "was richly dressed in silk." Little does he wot
of the difference between taffeta at eighty-five cents a yard and
broadcloth at four dollars. Still less does he know that a white
cotton shirt-waist represents financial ease, and a silk waist of
festive colouring represents poverty, since it takes but two days to
"do up" a white shirt-waist in one sense, and thirty or forty cents to
do it up in the other!
One listens with wicked delight to men's discourse upon woman's
clothes. Now and then a man will express his preference for a tailored
gown, as being eminently simple and satisfactory. Unless he is married
and has seen the bills for tailored gowns, he also thinks they are
inexpensive.
It is the benedict, wise with the acquired knowledge of the serpent,
who begs his wife to get a new party gown and let the tailor-made go
until next season. He also knows that when the material is bought, the
expense has scarcely begun, whereas the ignorant bachelor thinks that
the worst is happily over.
In _A Little Journey through the World_ Mr. Warner philosophised thus:
"How a woman in a crisis hesitates before her wardrobe, and at last
chooses just what will express her innermost feelings!"
If all a woman's feelings were to be expressed by her clothes, the
benedicts would immediately encounter financial shipwreck. On account
of the lamentable scarcity of money and closets, one is eternally
adjusting the emotion to the gown.
Some gown, seen at the exact psychological moment, fixes forever in a
man's mind his ideal garment. Thus we read of blue calico, of
pink-and-white print, and more often still, of white lawn. Mad colour
combinations run riot in the masculine fancy, as in the case of a man
who boldly described his favourite costume as "red, with black ruffles
down the front!"
Of a hat, a man may be a surpassingly fine critic, since he recks not
of style. Guileful is the woman who leads her liege to the millinery
and lets him choose, taking no heed of the price and the attendant
shock until later.
A normal man is anxious that his wife shall be well dressed because it
shows the critical observer that his business is a great success.
After futile explorations in the labyrinth, he concerns himself simply
with the fit, preferring always that the clothes of his heart's
dearest shall cling to her as lovingly as a kid glove, regardless of
the pouches and fulnesses prescribed by Dame Fashion.
In the writing of books, men are at their wits' end when it comes to
women's clothes. They are hampered by no restrictions--no thought of
style or period enters into their calculations, and unless they have a
wholesome fear of the unknown theme, they produce results which
further international gaiety.
Many an outrageous garment has been embalmed in a man's book, simply
because an attractive woman once wore something like it when she fed
the novelist. Unbalanced by the joy of the situation, he did not
accurately observe the garb of the ministering angel, and hence we
read of "a clinging white gown" in the days of stiff silks and rampant
crinoline; of "the curve of the upper arm" when it took five yards for
a pair of sleeves, and of "short walking skirts" during the reign of
bustles and trains!
In _The Blazed Trail_, Mr. White observes that his heroine was clad in
brown which fitted her slender figure perfectly. As Hilda had yellow
hair, "like corn silk," this was all right, and if the brown was of
the proper golden shade, she was doubtless stunning when Thorpe first
saw her in the forest. But the gown could not have fitted her as the
sheath encases the dagger, for before the straight-front corsets there
were the big sleeves, and still further back were bustles and
_bouffant_ draperies. One does not get the impression that _The_
_Blazed Trail_ was placed in the days of crinolines, but doubtless
Hilda's clothes did not fit as Mr. White seems to think they did.
That strenuous follower of millinery, Mr. Gibson, might give lessons
to his friend, Mr. Davis, with advantage to the writer, if not to the
artist. In _Captain Macklin_, the young man's cousin makes her first
appearance in a thin gown, and a white hat trimmed with roses,
reminding the adventurous captain of a Dresden statuette, in spite of
the fact that she wore heavy gauntlet gloves and carried a trowel. The
lady had been doing a hard day's work in the garden. No woman outside
the asylum ever did gardening in such a costume, and Mr. Davis
evidently has the hat and gown sadly mixed with some other pleasant
impression.
The feminine reader immediately hides Mr. Davis' mistake with the
broad mantle of charity, and in her own mind clothes Beatrice properly
in a short walking skirt, heavy shoes, shirt-waist, old hat tied down
over the ears with a rumpled ribbon, and a pair of ancient masculine
gloves, long since discarded by their rightful owner. Thus does lovely
woman garden, except on the stage and in men's books.
In _The Story of Eva_, Mr. Payne announces that Eva climbed out of a
cab in "a fawn-coloured jacket," conspicuous by reason of its newness,
and a hat "with an owl's head upon it!"
The jacket was possibly a coat of tan covert cloth with strapped
seams, but it is the startling climax which claims attention. An owl!
Surely not, Mr. Payne! It may have been a parrot, for once upon a
time, before the Audubon Society met with widespread recognition,
women wore such things, and at afternoon teas where many fair
ones were gathered together the parrot garniture was not without
significance. But an owl's face, with its glaring glassy eyes, is
too much like a pussy cat's to be appropriate, and one could no
wear it at the back without conveying an unpleasant impression
of two-facedness, if the coined word be permissible.
Still the owl is no worse than the trimming suggested by a funny
paper. The tears of mirth come yet at the picture of a hat of rough
straw, shaped like a nest, on which sat a full-fledged Plymouth Rock
hen, with her neck proudly, yet graciously curved. Perhaps Mr. Payne
saw the picture and forthwith decided to do something in the same
line, but there is a singular inappropriateness in placing the bird of
Minerva upon the head of poor Eva, who made the old, old bargain in
which she had everything to lose, and nothing save the bitterest
experience to gain. A stuffed kitten, so young and innocent that its
eyes were still blue and bleary, would have been more appropriate on
Eva's bonnet, and just as pretty.
In _The Fortunes of Oliver Horn_, Margaret Grant wears a particularly
striking costume:
"The cloth skirt came to her ankles, which were covered with
yarn stockings, and her feet were encased in shoes that gave
him the shivers, the soles being as thick as his own and
the leather as tough.
"Her blouse was of grey flannel, belted to the waist by a
cotton saddle-girth, white and red, and as broad as her
hand. The tam-o-shanter was coarse and rough, evidently
home-made, and not at all like McFudd's, which was as soft
as the back of a kitten and without a seam."
With all due respect to Mr. Smith, one must insist that Margaret's
shoes were all right as regards material and build. She would have
been more comfortable if they had been "high-necked" shoes, and, in
that case, the yarn hosiery would not have troubled him, but that is a
minor detail. The quibble comes at the belt, and knowing that Margaret
was an artist, we must be sure that Mr. Smith was mistaken. It may
have been one of the woven cotton belts, not more than two inches
wide, which, for a dizzy moment, were at the height of fashion, and
then tottered and fell, but a "saddle-girth"--never!
In that charming morceau, _The Inn of the Silver Moon_, Mr. Viele puts
his heroine into plaid stockings and green knickerbockers--an
outrageous costume truly, even for wheeling.
As if recognising his error, and, with veritable masculine
stubbornness, refusing to admit it, Mr. Viele goes on to say that the
knickerbockers were "tailor-made!" And thereby he makes a bad matter
very much worse.
In _The Wings of the Morning_, Iris, in spite of the storm through
which the _Sirdar_ vainly attempts to make its way, appears throughout
in a "lawn dress"--white, undoubtedly, since all sorts and conditions
of men profess to admire white lawn!
How cold the poor girl must have been! And even if she could have been
so inappropriately gowned on shipboard, she had plenty of time to put
on a warm and suitable tailor-made gown before she was shipwrecked.
This is sheer fatuity, for any one with Mr. Tracy's abundant ingenuity
could easily have contrived ruin for the tailored gown in time for
Iris to assume masculine garb and participate bravely in that fearful
fight on the ledge.
Whence, oh whence, comes this fondness for lawn? Are not organdies,
dimities, and embroidered muslins fully as becoming to the women who
trip daintily through the pages of men's books? Lawn has been a back
number for many a weary moon, and still we read of it!
"When in doubt, lead trumps," might well be paraphrased thus: "When in
doubt, put her into white lawn!" Even "J. P. M.," that gentle spirit
to whom so many hidden things were revealed, sent his shrewish "Kate"
off for a canter through the woods in a white gown, and, if memory
serves, it was lawn!
In _The Master_, Mr. Zangwill describes Eleanor Wyndwood as "the
radiant apparition of a beautiful woman in a shimmering amber gown,
from which her shoulders rose dazzling."
So far so good. But a page or two farther on, that delightful minx,
Olive Regan, wears "a dress of soft green-blue cut high, with yellow
roses at the throat." One wonders whether Mr. Zangwill ever really saw
a woman in any kind of a gown "with yellow roses at the throat," or
whether it is but the slip of an overstrained fancy. The fact that he
has married since writing this gives a goodly assurance that by this
time he knows considerably more about gowns.
Still there is always a chance that the charm may not work, for Mr.
Arthur Stringer, who has been reported as being married to a very
lovely woman, takes astonishing liberties in _The Silver Poppy_:
"She floated in before Reppellier, buoyant, smiling, like a
breath of open morning itself, a confusion of mellow
autumnal colours in her wine-coloured gown, and a hat of
roses and mottled leaves.
"Before she had as much as drawn off her gloves--and they
were always the most spotless of white gloves--she glanced
about in mock dismay, and saw that the last of the righting
up had already been done."
Later, we read that the artist pinned an American Beauty upon her
gown, then shook his head over the colour combination and took it
off. If the American Beauty jarred enough for a man to notice it, the
dress must have been the colour of claret, or Burgundy, rather than
the clear soft gold of sauterne.
This brings us up with a short turn before the hat. What colour were
the roses? Surely they were not American Beauties, and they could not
have been pink. Yellow roses would have been a fright, so they must
have been white ones, and a hat covered with white roses is altogether
too festive to wear in the morning. The white gloves also would have
been sadly out of place.
What a comfort it would be to all concerned if the feminine reader
could take poor Cordelia one side and fix her up a bit! One could pat
the artistic disorder out of her beautiful yellow hair, help her out
of her hideous clothes into a grey tailor-made, with a shirt-waist of
mercerised white cheviot, put on a stock of the same material, give
her a "ready-to-wear" hat of the same trig-tailored quality, and, as
she passed out, hand her a pair of grey suède gloves which exactly
matched her gown.
Though grey would be more becoming, she might wear tan as a concession
to Mr. Stringer, who evidently likes yellow.
In the same book, we find a woman who gathers up her "yellow skirts"
and goes down a ladder. It might have been only a yellow taffeta
drop-skirt under tan etamine, but we must take his word for it, as we
did not see it and he did.
As the Chinese keep the rat tails for the end of the feast, the worst
clothes to be found in any book must come last by way of climax. Mr.
Dixon, in _The Leopard's Spots_, has easily outdone every other knight
of the pen who has entered the lists to portray women's clothes.
Listen to the inspired description of Miss Sallie's gown!
"She was dressed in a morning gown of a soft red material,
trimmed with old cream lace. The material of a woman's dress
had never interested him before. He knew calico from silk,
but beyond that he never ventured an opinion. To colour
alone he was responsive. This combination of red and creamy
white, _with the bodice cut low, showing the lines of her
beautiful white shoulders_, and the great mass of dark hair
rising in graceful curves from her full round neck,
heightened her beauty to an extraordinary degree.
"As she walked, the clinging folds of her dress, outlining
her queenly figure, seemed part of her very being, and to be
imbued with her soul. He was dazzled with the new revelation
of her power over him."
The fact that she goes for a ride later on, "dressed in pure white,"
sinks into insignificance beside this new and original creation of Mr.
Dixon's. A red morning gown, trimmed with cream lace, cut low enough
to show the "beautiful white shoulders"--ye gods and little fishes!
Where were the authorities, and why was not "Miss Sallie" taken to the
detention hospital, pending an inquiry into her sanity?
It would seem that any man, especially one who writes books, could be
sure of a number of women friends. Among these there ought to be at
least one whom he could take into his confidence. The gentleman
novelist might go to the chosen one and say: "My heroine, in moderate
circumstances, is going to the matinée with a girl friend. What shall
she wear?"
Instantly the discerning woman would ask the colour of her eyes and
hair, and the name of the town she lived in, then behold!
Upon the writer's page would come a radiant feminine vision, clothed
in her right mind and in proper clothes, to the joy of every woman who
reads the book.
But men are proverbially chary of their confidence, except when they
are in love, and being in love is supposed to put even book women out
of a man's head. Perhaps in the new Schools of Journalism which are to
be inaugurated, there will be supplementary courses in millinery
elective, for those who wish to learn the trade of novel writing.
If a man knows no woman to whom he can turn for counsel and advice at
the critical point in his book, there are only two courses open to
him, aside from the doubtful one of evasion. He may let his fancy run
riot and put his heroine into clothes that would give even a dumb
woman hysterics, or he may follow the example of Mr. Chatfield-Taylor,
who says of one of his heroines that "her pliant body was enshrouded
in white muslin with a blue ribbon at the waist."
Lacking the faithful hench-woman who would gladly put them straight,
the majority of gentlemen novelists evade the point, and, so far as
clothes are concerned, their heroines are as badly off as the Queen of
Spain was said to be for legs.
They delve freely into emotional situations, and fearlessly attempt
profound psychological problems, but slide off like frightened crabs
when they strike the clothesline.
After all, it may be just as well, since fashion is transient and
colours and material do not vary much. Still, judging by the painful
mistakes that many of them have made, the best advice that one can
give the gallant company of literary craftsmen is this: "When you come
to millinery, crawfish!"
Maidens of the Sea
Far out in the ocean, deep and blue,
Where the winds dance wild and free,
In coral caves, dwells a beautiful band--
The maidens of the sea.
There are stories old, of the mystic tide,
And legends strange, of the deep,
How the witching sound of the siren's song
Can lull the tempest to sleep.
When moonlight falls on a crystal sea,
When the clouds have backward rolled,
The mermaids sing their low sweet songs,
And their harp strings are of gold.
The billows come from the vast unknown--
From their far-away unseen home;
The waves bring shells to the sandy bar,
And the fairies dance on the foam.
The Technique of the Short Story
An old rule for those who would be well-dressed says: "When you have
finished, go to the mirror and see what you can take off." The same
rule applies with equal force to the short story: "When you have
written it out, go over it carefully, and see what you can take out."
Besides being the best preparation for the writing of novels,
short-story writing is undoubtedly, at the present time, the best
paying and most satisfactory form of any ephemeral literary work. The
qualities which make it successful are to be attained only by constant
and patient practice. The real work of writing a story may be brief,
but years of preparation must be worked through before a manuscript,
which may be written in an hour or so, can present an artistic result.
The first and most important thing to consider is the central idea.
There are only a few ideas in the world, but their ramifications are
countless, and one need never despair of a theme. Your story may be
one of either failure or success, but it must have the true ring.
Given the man and the circumstances, we should know his action.
The plot must unfold naturally; otherwise it will be a succession of
distinct sensations, rather than a complete and harmonious whole.
There is no better way to produce this effect than to follow Edmund
Russell's rule of colour in dress: "When a contrasting colour is
introduced, there should be at least two subordinate repetitions of
it."
Each character should appear, or be spoken of, at least twice before
his main action. Following this rule makes one of the differences
between artistic and sensational literature.
The heroine of a dime novel always finds a hero to rescue her in the
nick of time, and perhaps she never sees him again. In the artistic
novel, while the heroine may see the rescuer first at the time she
needs him most, he never disappears altogether from the story.
Description is a thing which is much abused. There is no truer
indication of an inexperienced hand than a story beginning with a
description of a landscape which is not necessary to the plot. If the
peculiarities of the scenery must be understood before the idea can be
developed, the briefest possible description is not out of place.
Subjectively, a touch of landscape or weather is allowable, but it
must be purely incidental. Weather is a very common thing and is apt
to be uninteresting.
It is a mistake to tell anything yourself which the people in the
story could inform the reader without your assistance. A conversation
between two people will bring out all the facts necessary as well as
two pages of narration by the author.
There is a way also of telling things from the point of view of the
persons which they concern. Those who have studied Latin will find
the "indirect discourse" of Cicero a useful model.
The people in the story can tell their own peculiarities better than
the author can do it for them. It is not necessary to say that a woman
is a snarling, grumpy person. Bring the old lady in, and let her
snarl, if she is in your story at all.
The choice of words is not lightly to be considered. Never use two
adjectives where one will do, or a weak word where a stronger one is
possible. Fallows' _100,000 Synonyms and Antonyms_ and Roget's
_Thesaurus of Words and Phrases_ will prove invaluable to those who
wish to improve themselves in this respect.
Analysis of sentences which seem to you particularly strong is a good
way to strengthen your vocabulary. Take, for instance, the oft-quoted
expression of George Eliot's: "Inclination snatches argument to make
indulgence seem judicious choice." Substitute "takes" for "snatches"
and read the sentence again. Leave out "seem" and put "appear" in its
place. "Proper" is a synonym for "judicious"; substitute it, and put
"selection" in the place of "choice."
Reading the sentence again we have: "Inclination takes argument to
make indulgence appear proper selection." The strength is wholly gone
although the meaning is unchanged.
Find out what you want to say, and then say it, in the most direct
English at your command. One of the best models of concise expressions
of thought is to be found in the essays of Emerson. He compresses a
whole world into a single sentence, and a system of philosophy into an
epigram.
"Literary impressionism," which is largely the use of onomatopoetic
words, is a valuable factor in the artistic short story. It is
possible to convey the impression of a threatening sky and a stormy
sea without doing more than alluding to the crash of the surf against
the shore. The mind of the reader accustomed to subtle touches will at
once picture the rest.
An element of strength is added also by occasionally referring an
impression to another sense. For instance, the newspaper poet writes:
"The street was white with snow," and makes his line commonplace
doggerel. Tennyson says: "The streets were _dumb_ with snow," and his
line is poetry.
"Blackening the background" is a common fault with story writers. In
many of the Italian operas, everybody who does not appear in the final
scene is killed off in the middle of the last act. This wholesale
slaughter is useless as well as inartistic. The true artist does not,
in order that his central figure may stand out prominently, make his
background a solid wall of gloom. Yet gloom has its proper place, as
well as joy.
In the old tragedies of the Greeks, just before the final catastrophe,
the chorus is supposed to advance to the centre of the theatre and
sing a bacchanal of frensied exultation.
In the _Antigone_ of Sophocles, just before the death of Antigone and
her lover, the chorus sings an ode which makes one wonder at its
extravagant expression. When the catastrophe occurs, the mystery is
explained. Sophocles meant the sacrifice of Antigone to come home with
its full force; and well he attained his end by use of an artistic
method which few of our writers are subtle enough to recognise and
claim for their own purposes.
"High-sounding sentences," which an inexperienced writer is apt to put
into the mouths of his people, only make them appear ridiculous. The
schoolgirl in the story is too apt to say: "The day has been most
unpleasant," whereas the real schoolgirl throws her books down with a
bang, and declares that she has "had a perfectly horrid time!"
Her grammar may be incorrect, but her method of expression is true to
life, and there the business of the writer ends.
Put yourself in your hero's place and see what you would do under
similar circumstances. If you were in love with a young woman, you
wouldn't get down on your knees, and swear by all that was holy that
you would die if she didn't marry you, at the same time tearing your
hair out by handfuls, and then endeavour to give her a concise
biography of yourself.
You would put your arm around her, the first minute you had her to
yourself, if you felt reasonably sure that she cared for you, and tell
her what she meant to you--perhaps so low that even the author of the
story couldn't hear what you said, and would have to describe what
he saw afterward in order to let his reader guess what had really
happened.
It is a lamentable fact that the description of a person's features
gives absolutely no idea of his appearance. It is better to give a
touch or two, and let the imagination do the rest. "Hair like raven's
wing," and the "midnight eyes," and many similar things, may be very
well spared. The personal charms of the lover may be brought out
through the mediations of the lovee, much better than by pages of
description.
The law of compensation must always have its place in the artistic
story. Those who do wrong must suffer wrong--those who work must be
rewarded, if not in the tangible things they seek, at least in the
conscious strength that comes from struggling. And "poetic justice,"
which metes out to those who do the things that they have done, is
relentless and eternal, in art, as well as in life.
"Style" is purely an individual matter, and, if it is anything at all,
it is the expression of one's self. Zola has said that, "art is nature
seen through the medium of a temperament," and the same is true of
literature. Bunner's stories are as thoroughly Bunner as the man who
wrote them, and _The Badge of Courage_ is nothing unless it be the
moody, sensitive, half-morbid Stephen Crane.
Observation of things nearest at hand and the sympathetic
understanding of people are the first requisites. Do not place the
scene of a story in Europe if you have never been there, and do not
assume to comprehend the inner life of a Congressman if you have never
seen one. Do not write of mining camps if you have never seen a
mountain, or of society if you have never worn evening dress.
James Whitcomb Riley has made himself loved and honoured by writing of
the simple things of home, and Louisa Alcott's name is a household
word because she wrote of the little women whom she knew. Eugene Field
has written of the children that he loved and understood, and won
a truer fame than if he had undertaken _The Master_ of Zangwill.
Kipling's life in India has given us _Plain Tales from the Hills_ and
_The Jungle Book_, which Mary E. Wilkins could not have written in
spite of the genius which made her New England stories the most
effective of their kind. Joel Chandler Harris could not have written
_The Prisoner of Zenda_, but those of us who have enjoyed the wiles of
that "monstus soon beast, Brer Rabbit," would not have it otherwise.
* * * * *
You cannot write of love unless you have loved, of suffering unless
you have suffered, or of death unless some one who was near to you has
learned the heavenly secret. A little touch of each must teach you the
full meaning of the great thing you mean to write about, or your work
will be lacking. There are few of us to whom the great experiences do
not come sooner or later, and, in the meantime, there are the little
everyday happenings, which are full of sweetness and help, if they are
only seen properly, to last until the great things come to test our
utmost strength, to crush us if we are not strong, and to make us
broader, better men and women if we withstand the blow.
And lastly, remember this, that merit is invariably recognised. If
your stories are worth printing, they will fight their way through
"the abundance of material on hand." The light of the public square
is the unfailing test, and a good story is sure to be published
sooner or later, if a fair amount of literary instinct is exercised in
sending it out. Meteoric success is not desirable. Slow, hard,
conscientious work will surely win its way, and those who are now near
the bottom of the ladder are gradually ascending to make room for the
next generation of story-writers on the rounds below.
To Dorothy
There's a sleepy look in your violet eyes,
So the sails of our ship we'll unfurl,
And turn the prow to the Land of Rest,
My dear little Dorothy girl.
Twilight is coming soon, little one,
The sheep have gone to the fold;
See! where our white sails bend and dip
In the sunset glow of gold.
The roses nod to the sound of the waves,
And the bluebells sweet are ringing;
Do you hear the music, Dorothy dear?
The song that the angels are singing?
The fairies shall weave their drowsy spell
On the shadowy shore of the stream;
Dear little voyager say "good-night,"
For the birds are beginning to dream.
O white little craft, with sails full spread,
My heart goes out with thee;
God keep thee strong with thy precious freight,
My Dorothy--out at sea.
Writing a Book
Having written a few small books which have been published by a
reputable house, and which have been pleasantly received by both the
press and the public, and having just completed another which I
devoutly pray may meet the same fate, I feel that I may henceforth
deem myself an author.
I have been considered such for some time among my numerous
acquaintances ever since I made my literary bow with a short story
in a literary magazine, years and years ago. Being of the feminine
persuasion, I am usually presented to strangers as "an authoress." It
is at these times that I wish I were a man.
The social side of authorship is extremely interesting. At least once
a week, I am asked how I "came to write."
This is difficult, for I do not know. When I so reply, my questioner
ascertains by further inquiries where I was educated and how I have
been trained. Never having been through a "School of Journalism," my
answer is not satisfactory.
"You must read a great deal in order to get all those ideas," is
frequently said to me. I reply that I do read a great deal, being
naturally bookish, but that it is the great object of my life to avoid
getting ideas from books. To an author, "Plagiarist" is like the old
cry of "Wolf," and when an idea is once assimilated it is difficult
indeed to distinguish it from one's own.
I am often asked how long it takes me to write a book. I am ashamed to
tell, but sometimes the secret escapes, since I am naturally truthful,
and find it hard to parry a direct question. The actual time of
composition is always greeted with astonishment, and I can read the
questioner's inference, that if I can do so much in so short a time,
how much could I do if I actually worked!
This is always distasteful, so I hasten to add that the composition
is really a very small part of the real writing of a book, and that
authors' methods differ. My own practice is not to begin to write
until my material is fully arranged in my mind, and I often use notes
which I have been making for a period of months. Such a report is
seldom convincing, however, to my questioners. I am gradually
learning, when this inquiry comes, to smile inscrutably.
It seems strange to many people that I do not work all the time. If I
can write a short story in two hours and be paid thirty dollars for
it, I am an idiot indeed if I do not write at least three in a day!
Ninety dollars a day might easily mount up into a very comfortable
income.
Still, there are some who understand that an author cannot write
continuously any more than a spider or a silkworm can spin all the
time. These people ask me when, and where, and how, I get my
material.
"Getting material" is supposed to be a secret process, and I am
thought a gay deceiver when I say I make no particular effort to get
it--that it comes in the daily living--like the morning cream! I am
then asked if I rely wholly upon "inspiration." I answer that
"inspiration" doubtless has its value as well as hard work, and that
the author who would derive all possible benefit from the rare flashes
of it must have the same command of technique that a good workman has
of his tools.
The majority learn with surprise that there is more to a book than is
self-evident. It was once my happy lot to put this fact into the
understanding of a lady from the country.
With infinite pains I told her of the constant study of words,
illustrated the fine shades of distinction between synonyms, spoke of
the different ways in which characters and events might be introduced,
and of the subordinate repetition of contrasting themes. She listened
in breathless wonder, and then turned to her daughter: "There, Mame,"
she said, "I told you there was something in it!"
There is nothing so pathetic as the widespread literary ambition among
people whose future is utterly hopeless. It is sad enough for one who
has attained a small success to see the heights which are ever beyond,
and it makes one gentle indeed to those who come seeking aid.
One ambitious soul once asked me if I would teach her to write. I
replied that I did not know of any way in which it could be taught,
but that I would gladly help her if I could. She said she had
absolutely no imagination, and asked me if that would make any
difference. I told her it was certainly an unfortunate circumstance
and advised her to cultivate that quality before she attempted
extensive writing. I suppose she is still doing it, for I have not
been asked for further assistance.
People often inquire what qualities I deem essential to literary
success. Imagination is, of course, the first, observation, the
second, and ambition, perseverance and executive ability are
indispensable. Besides these I would place the sense of humour, of
proportion, sympathy, insight,--indeed, there is nothing admirable in
human nature which would come amiss in the equipment of a writer.
The necessity for the humourous sense was recently brought home to me
most forcibly. A woman brought me the manuscript of a novel which she
asked me to read. She felt that something was wrong with it, but she
did not know just what it was. She said it needed "a few little
touches," she thought, such as my experience would have fitted me to
give, and she would be grateful, indeed, if I would revise it. She
added that, owing to the connection which I had formed with my
publishing house, it would be an easy matter for me to get it
published, and she generously offered to divide the royalties with me
if I would consummate the arrangement!
I began to read the manuscript, and had not gone far when I discovered
that it was indeed rare. The entire family read it, or portions of it,
with screams of laughter, and with tears in their eyes, although it
was not intended to be a funny book at all. To this day, certain
phrases from that novel will upset any one of us, even at a solemn
time.
Of course it was badly written. Characters appeared, talked for a few
pages, and were never seen or heard from again.
Long conversations were intruded which had no connection with such
plot as there was. Commonplace descriptions of scenery, also useless,
were frequent. Many a time the thread of the story was lost. There
were no distinguishing traits in any one of the characters--they all
talked very much alike. But the supreme defect was the author's lack
of humour. With all seriousness, she made her people say and do
things which were absolutely ridiculous and not by any means true to
life.
I think I must have an unsuspected bit of tact somewhere for I
extricated myself from the situation, and the woman is still my
friend. I did not hurt her feelings about her book, nor did I send it
to my publishers with a letter of recommendation. I remarked that her
central idea was all right, which was true, since it was a love story,
but that it had not been properly developed and that she needed to
study. She thanked me for my counsel and said she would rewrite it. I
wish it might be printed just as it was, however, for it is indeed a
sodden and mirthless world in which we live and move.
As the editors say on the refusal blanks, "I am always glad to read
manuscripts," although, as a rule, it makes an enemy for me if I try
to help the author by criticism, when only praise was expected or
desired.
Having written some verse which has landed in respectable places, I
am also asked about poetry. Poems written in trochaic metre with the
good old rhymes, "trees and breeze," "light and night," soldered on at
the end of the lines, are continually brought to me for revision and
improvement.
Once, for the benefit of the literary aspirant, I brought out my
rhyming dictionary, but I shall never do it again. He looked it over
carefully, while I explained the advantage for the writer in having
before him all the available rhymes, so that the least common might
be quickly chosen and the verse made to run smoothly.
"Humph!" he said; "it's just the book. Anybody can write poetry with
one of these books!"
My invaluable thesaurus is chained to my desk in order that it may not
escape, and I frequently have to justify its existence when aliens
penetrate my den. "It's no wonder you can write," was said to me once.
"Here's all the English language right on your desk, and all you've
got to do is to put it together."
"Yes," I answered wickedly, "but it's all in the dictionary too."
Last week I had a rare treat. I met a woman who had "never seen a
literary person before," and who said "it was quite a novelty!" I
beamed upon her, for it is very nice to be a "novelty," and after a
while we became quite confidential.
"I want you to tell me just how you write," she said, "so's I can tell
the folks at home. I'm going to buy some of your books to give away."
Mindful of "royalty to author," I immediately became willing to tell
anything I could.
"Well, I want to know how you write. Do you just sit down and do it?"
"Yes, I just sit down and do it."
"Do you write any special time?"
"No, mornings, usually; but any time will do."
"What do you write with--a pen or a pencil?"
"Neither, I always use a typewriter."
"Why, can you write on a typewriter?"
"Yes, it's much easier than a pen, and it keeps the ink off your
hands. You can write with both hands at once, you know."
"You have to write it all out with a pencil, first, don't you?"
"No, I just think into the keys."
"Wouldn't it be easier to write it with a pencil first and then copy
it?"
"No, or I'd do it that way."
"Do you dress any special way when you write?"
"No, only I must be neat and also comfortable. I usually wear a
shirt-waist and take off my collar. Can't write with a collar on, but
I must be well groomed otherwise."
There was a long silence. The little lady was digesting the
information which she had just received.
"It seems easy enough," she said. "I should think any one could write.
What do you do when it is done?"
"Oh, I go all over it and revise very carefully."
"Why, do you have to go all over it, after it is done?"
"Certainly."
"Then it takes you longer than it does most people, doesn't it?"
"I cannot say as to that. Everybody revises."
"Why, when I write a letter, if I go over it I always scratch out so
much that I have to do it over."
"That's the idea, exactly," I replied. "I go over it until there isn't
a thing to be scratched out, or a word to be changed."
"But you've got lots left," she said, enviously. "When I go over a
letter there's hardly anything left."
Innumerable questions followed these, but at last she had her
curiosity partially satisfied and turned away from me. I trust,
however, that I shall some day meet her again, for she too is "a
novelty!"
The mechanical part of a book is a source of great wonder to the
uninitiated. My galley proofs were once passed around among the guests
at a summer hotel as if they were some new strange animal. They did
not understand page proofs nor plates, nor how I could ever know when
it was right.
The cover is frequently commented upon as a thing of beauty (which
with my publishers it always is), and I am asked if I did it. I am
always sorry that I do not know enough to do covers, so I have to
explain that an artist does that--that I often do not see it until the
first copies come from the bindery, and that I am of such small
importance that I am not often consulted in relation to the
matter--being merely the poor worm who wrote the book.
There are many people who seem to be afraid to talk before me lest
their pearly utterances be transformed into copy. Time and time again
I have heard this: "We must be very careful what we say now, or Miss
---- will put us into a book!"
People are strangely literal. An author gets no credit whatever for
inventive faculty--his characters and stories are supposedly real
people and real things. I am asked how I came to know so much about
such and such a thing. I once wrote a love story with an unhappy
ending and it was at once assumed that I had been disappointed in
love!
When my first book came from the press I was pointed out at a
reception as the author of it. The man surveyed me long and carefully,
then he announced: "That's a mistake. That girl never wrote that book.
She's too frivolous and empty headed!"
I have tried, until I am discouraged, to make people understand that a
book does not have to be a verity in order to be true--that a story
must be possible, instead of actual, and that actual circumstances may
be too unreal for literature.
There are always people who will ask that things, even books, may be
written especially for them. People often want to tell me a story and
let me write it up into a nice book and divide the royalties with
them! During a summer at the coast, I had endless opportunities to
write biographical sketches of the guests at the hotel--to write a
story and put them all into it, or to write something about anything,
that they might have as "a souvenir!" As a matter of fact, there were
only two people at the hotel who could have been of any possible use
as copy, and one of these was a woman to whom only Mr. Stockton could
have done justice.
It was hard to be always good-natured, but I lost my temper only once.
We stayed late into the autumn and were rewarded by a magnificent
storm. I put on my bathing suit and my mackintosh and went down to the
beach, in the teeth of a northwest gale. Little needles of sand were
blown in my face, and I lost my cap, but it was well worth the effort.
For over an hour we stood on the desolate beach, sheltered from the
sand by a bath house. I had never seen anything so grand--it was far
beyond words. At last it grew dark and I was soaked through and stiff
with the cold. So I went back to the hotel, my soul struck dumb by
the might and glory of the sea. My heart was too full to speak. The
majestic chords were still thundering in my ears; that tempest-tossed
ocean was still before my eyes. On my way upstairs I met a woman whom
I had formerly liked.
"Oh, Miss ----, I want you to write me a description of that storm!" I
brushed past her, rudely, I fear, and she caught hold of the cape of
my mackintosh with elephantine playfulness. "You can't go," she said
coquettishly, "until you promise to write me a description of that
storm!"
"I can't write it," I said coldly. "Please let me go."
"You've got to write it," she returned. "I know you can, and I won't
let you go until you promise me."
I wrenched myself away from her, white with wrath, and got to my room
before she did, though she was still pursuing me. I locked my door and
had a hard fight for my self-control. From the beach came the distant
boom of the surf, mingled with the liquid melody of the returning
breakers.
Later, just as I had finished dressing for dinner, there was a tap at
my door. My friend (?) stood there beaming. "Have you got it done? You
know you promised to write me a description of that storm!"
She remained only three days longer, and I stayed away from her as
much as possible, but occasional meetings were inevitable. When the
gladsome time of parting came, she hung about my neck.
"I want you to come and see me," she said. "You know you haven't done
what you said you would. Don't you forget to write me a description of
that storm!"
My business arrangements with my publishers are seemingly a matter of
public interest. I am asked how much it costs to print a book the size
of mine. People are surprised to find that I do not pay the expenses
and that I haven't the least idea of what it costs.
Then they want to know if the publisher buys the book of me. I explain
that this is sometimes done, but that I myself am paid upon the
royalty basis, ---- per cent. on the list price of every copy sold.
This seems painfully small to the dear public, but it is comparatively
easy to demonstrate that the royalty on five or six thousand copies is
quite worth while.
They shortly come to the conclusion, however, that the publishers make
more money than I do, and that seems to them to be very unfair. They
suggest that if I published it myself, I should make a great deal more
money!
It is difficult for them to understand that writing books and selling
books are two very different propositions--that I don't know enough to
sell books, and that the imprint of a reputable house upon the
title-page is worth a great deal to any author.
"Well," a man once said to me, "how much did you make out of your book
this year?"
I explained that the percentage royalty basis was really an equal
division of the profits, everything considered, and that all the
financial risk was on one side. I named my few hundreds, with which I
was very well satisfied. He absorbed himself in a calculation on the
back of an envelope.
"I figure out," said he, at length, "that they must have made at least
a third more than you did. That isn't fair!"
My ire arose. "It is perfectly fair," I replied. "Paper is cheap, I
know, but composition isn't, and advertising isn't. They are welcome
to every penny they can make out of my books. I'd be glad to have them
make twice as much as they do now, even if my own income remained the
same."
At this point, I became telepathically aware that I was considered
crazy, so I changed the subject.
I am often asked how I happened to meet my publishers and "get in with
them," and as a very great favour to me, and to them, I am offered the
privilege of sending them some "splendid novel which was written by a
friend" of somebody--as they know me, "they have decided to let my
publishers have the book!"
They are surprised to hear me say that I have never met any member of
the firm, though I was in the same city with them for over a year.
More than this, there is nothing on earth, except a green worm, which
would scare me so much as a summons to that publishing house.
I have walked by in fear and trembling. I have seen a huge pile of my
books in the window, and on the bulletin board a poster which bore my
name in conspicuous letters, as if I had been cured of something. But
I should no more dare to go into that office than I should venture to
call upon the wife of the President with a shawl over my head, and my
fancywork tucked under my arm.
This is incomprehensible to the uninitiated. The publishers have ever
been most courteous and kind. They are people with whom it is a
pleasure to have any sort of business dealings, but we are not bosom
friends--and I very much fear that they do not care to become chummy
with me.
There may be some authors who have taken nerve tonics and are not
afraid to meet an editor or publisher. I have even read of some who
will walk cheerfully into an editorial sanctum--but I've never seen a
sanctum, nor an editor, nor a publisher. I don't even write to an
editor when I send him a piece--just put in a stamp. He usually knows
what to do with it.
Fame, or long experience, may enable authors to meet the arbiters of
their destiny without becoming frightened, but I have had brief
experience, and still less fame. The admirable qualities of the
pachyderm may have been bestowed upon some authors--but not on this
one.
The Man Behind the Gun
Now let the eagle flap his wings
And let the cannon roar,
For while the conquering bullet sings
We pledge the commodore.
First battle of a righteous war
Right royally he won,
But here's a health to the jolly tar--
To the man behind the gun!
Now praise be to the flag-ship's spars--
To the captain in command,
And honour to the Stripes and Stars
For whose defence they stand;
And for the pilot at his wheel
Let the streams of red wine run,
But here's a health to the man of steel--
The man behind the gun!
Here's to the man who does not swerve
In the face of any foe;
Here's to the man of iron nerve,
On deck and down below;
Here's to the man whose heart is glad
When the battle has begun;
Here's to the health of that daring lad--
To the man behind the gun!
Now let the Stars and Stripes float high
And let the eagle soar;
Until the echoes make reply
We pledge the commodore.
Here's to the chief and here's to war,
And here's to the fleet that won,
And here's a health to the jolly tar--
To the man behind the gun!
Quaint Old Christmas Customs
Compared with the celebrations of our ancestors, the modern Christmas
becomes a very hurried thing. The rush of the twentieth century
forbids twelve days of celebration, or even two. Paterfamilias
considers himself very indulgent if he gives two nights and a day to
the annual festival, because, forsooth, "the office needs him!"
One by one the quaint old customs have vanished. We still have the
Christmas tree, evergreens in our houses and churches, and the yawning
stocking still waits in many homes for the good St. Nicholas.
But what is poor Santa Claus to do when the chimney leads to the
furnace? And what of the city apartment, which boasts a radiator and
gas grate, but no chimney? The myth evidently needs reconstruction to
meet the times in which we live, and perhaps we shall soon see
pictures of Santa Claus arriving in an automobile, and taking the
elevator to the ninth floor, flat B, where a single childish stocking
is hung upon the radiator.
Nearly all of the Christmas observances began in ancient Rome. The
primitive Italians were wont to celebrate the winter solstice and
call it the feast of Saturn. Thus Saturnalia came to mean almost
any kind of celebration which came in the wake of conquest, and
these ceremonies being engrafted upon Anglo-Saxon customs assumed
a religious significance.
The pretty maid who hesitates and blushes beneath the overhanging
branch of mistletoe, never stops to think of the grim festival with
which the Druids celebrated its gathering.
In their mythology the plant was regarded with the utmost reverence,
especially when found growing upon an oak.
At the time of the winter solstice, the ancient Britons, accompanied
by their priests, the Druids, went out with great pomp and rejoicing
to gather the mistletoe, which was believed to possess great curative
powers. These processions were usually by night, to the accompaniment
of flaring torches and the solemn chanting of the people. When an oak
was reached on which the parasite grew, the company paused.
Two white bulls were bound to the tree and the chief Druid, clothed
in white to signify purity, climbed, more or less gracefully, to the
plant. It was severed from the oak, and another priest, standing
below, caught it in the folds of his robe. The bulls were then
sacrificed, and often, alas, human victims also. The mistletoe thus
gathered was divided into small portions and distributed among the
people. The tiny sprays were fastened above the doors of the houses,
as propitiation to the sylvan deities during the cold season.
These rites were retained throughout the Roman occupation of Great
Britain, and for some time afterward, under the sovereignty of the
Jutes, the Saxons, and the Angles.
In Scandinavian mythology there is a beautiful legend of the
mistletoe. Balder, the god of poetry, the son of Odin and Friga, one
day told his mother that he had dreamed his death was near at hand.
Much alarmed, the mother invoked all the powers of nature--earth, air,
water, fire, animals and plants, and obtained from them a solemn oath
that they would do her son no harm.
Then Balder fearlessly took his place in the combats of the gods and
fought unharmed while showers of arrows were falling all about him.
His enemy, Loake, determined to discover the secret of his
invulnerability, and, disguising himself as an old woman, went to the
mother with a question of the reason of his immunity. Friga answered
that she had made a charm and invoked all nature to keep from injuring
her son.
"Indeed," said the old woman, "and did you ask all the animals and
plants? There are so many, it seems impossible."
"All but one," answered Friga proudly; "all but a little insignificant
plant which grows upon the bark of the oak. This I did not think of
invoking, since so small a thing could do no harm."
Much delighted, Loake went away and gathered mistletoe. Then he
entered the assembly of the gods and made his way to the blind Heda.
"Why do you not shoot with the arrows at Balder?" asked Loake.
"Alas," replied Heda, "I am blind and have no arms."
Loake then gave him an arrow tipped with mistletoe and said: "Balder
is before thee." Heda shot and Balder fell, pierced through the heart.
In its natural state, the plant is believed to be propagated by the
missel-thrush, which feeds upon its berries, but under favourable
climatic conditions one may raise one's own mistletoe by bruising the
berries on the bark of fruit trees, where they take root readily. It
must be remembered, however, that the plant is a true parasite and
will eventually kill whatever tree gives it nourishment.
Kissing under the mistletoe was also a custom of the Druids, and in
those uncivilised days men kissed each other. For each kiss, a single
white berry was plucked from the spray, and kept as a souvenir by the
one who was kissed.
The burning of the Yule log was an ancient Christmas ceremony borrowed
from the early Scandinavians. At their feast of Juul (pronounced
_Yuul_), at the time of the winter solstice, they were wont to kindle
huge bonfires in honour of their god Thor. The custom soon made its
way to England where it is still in vogue in many parts of the
country.
One may imagine an ancient feudal castle, heavily fortified, standing
in splendid isolation upon a snowy hill, on that night of all others
when war was forgotten and peace proclaimed. Drawn by six horses, the
great Yule log was brought into the hall and rolled into the vast
fireplace, where it was lighted with the charred remnants of last
year's Yule log, religiously kept in some secure place as a charm
against fire.
As the flames seize upon the oak and the light gleams from the castle
windows, a lusty procession of wayfarers passes through, each one
raising his hat as he passes the fire which burns all the evil out of
the hearts of men, and up to the rafters there rings a stern old Saxon
chant.
When the song was finished, the steaming wassail bowl was brought out,
and all the company drank to a better understanding.
Up to the time of Henry VI, and even afterward, the Yule log was
greeted with bards and minstrelsy. If a squinting person came into the
hall while the log was burning, it was sure to bring bad luck. The
appearance of a barefooted man was worse, and a flat-footed woman was
the worst of all.
As an accompaniment to the Yule log, a monstrous Christmas candle was
burned on the table at supper; even now in St. John's College at
Oxford, there is an old candle socket of stone, ornamented with the
figure of a lamb. What generations of gay students must have sat
around that kindly light when Christmas came to Oxford!
Snap-dragon was a favourite Christmas sport at this time. Several
raisins were put into a large shallow bowl and thoroughly saturated
with brandy. All other lights were extinguished and the brandy
ignited. By turns each one of the company tried to snatch a raisin
out of the flames, singing meanwhile.
In Devonshire, they burn great bundles of ash sticks, while master and
servants sit together, for once on terms of perfect equality, and
drink spiced ale, and the season is one of great rejoicing.
Another custom in Devonshire is for the farmer, his family, and
friends, to partake of hot cake and cider, and afterward go to the
orchard and place a cake ceremoniously in the fork of a big tree, when
cider is poured over it while the men fire off pistols and the women
sing.
A similar libation, but of spiced ale, used to be sprinkled through
the orchards and meadows of Norfolk. Midnight of Christmas was the
time usually chosen for the ceremony.
In Devon and Cornwall, a belief is current that, at midnight on
Christmas Eve, the cattle kneel in their stalls in honour of the
Saviour, as legend claims they did in Bethlehem.
In Wales, they carry about at Christmas time a horse's skull gaily
adorned with ribbons, and supported on a pole by a man who is wholly
concealed by a white cloth. There is a clever contrivance for opening
and shutting the jaws, and this strange creature pursues and bites all
who come near it.
The figure is usually accompanied by a party of men and boys
grotesquely dressed, who, on reaching a house, sing some verses, often
extemporaneous, demanding admittance, and are answered in the same
fashion by those within until rhymes have given out on one side or
the other.
In Scotland, he who first opens the door on Christmas Day expects more
good luck than will fall to the lot of other members of the family
during the year, because, as the saying goes, he lets in Yule.
In Germany, Christmas Eve is the children's night, and there is a tree
and presents. England and America appear to have borrowed the
Christmas tree from Germany, where the custom is ancient and very
generally followed.
In the smaller towns and villages in northern Germany, the presents
are sent by all the parents to some one fellow who, in high buskins,
white robe, mask, and flaxen wig, personates the servant, Rupert. On
Christmas night he goes around to every house, and says that his
master sent him. The parents and older children receive him with pomp
and reverence, while the younger ones are often badly frightened.
He asks for the children, and then demands of their parents a report
of their conduct during the past year. The good children are rewarded
with sugar-plums and other things, while for the bad ones a rod is
given to the parents with instructions to use it freely during the
coming year.
In those parts of Pennsylvania where there are many German settlers,
the little sinners often find birchen rods suggestively placed in
their stockings on Christmas morning.
In Poland, the Christmas gifts are hidden, and the members of the
family search for them.
In Sweden and Norway, the house is thoroughly cleaned, and juniper or
fir branches are spread over the floor. Then each member of the family
goes in turn to the bake house, or outer shed, where he takes his
annual bath.
But it is back to Old England, after all, that we look for the
merriest Christmas. For two or three weeks beforehand, men and boys
of the poorer class, who were called "waits," sang Christmas carols
under every window. Until quite recently these carols were sung all
through England, and others of similar import were heard in France and
Italy.
The English are said to "take their pleasures sadly," but in the
matter of Christmas they can "give us cards and spades and still win."
Parties of Christmas drummers used to go around to the different
houses, grotesquely attired, and play all sorts of tricks. The actors
were chiefly boys, and the parish beadle always went along to insure
order.
The Christmas dinner of Old England was a thing capable of giving the
whole nation dyspepsia if they indulged freely.
The main dish was a boar's head, roasted to a turn, and preceded by
trumpets and minstrelsy. Mustard was indispensable to this dish.
Next came a peacock, skinned and roasted. The beak was gilded, and
sometimes a bit of cotton, well soaked in spirits, was put into his
mouth, and when he was brought to the table this was ignited, so that
the bird was literally spouting fire. He was stuffed with spices,
basted with yolks of eggs, and served with plenty of gravy.
Geese, capons, pheasants, carps' tongues, frumenty, and mince, or
"shred" pies, made up the balance of the feast.
The chief functionary of Christmas was called "The Lord of Misrule."
In the house of king and nobleman he held full sway for twelve days.
His badge was a fool's bauble and he was always attended by a page,
both of them being masked. So many pranks were played, and so much
mischief perpetrated which was far from being amusing, that an edict
was eventually issued against this form of liberty, not to say
license.
The Lord of Misrule was especially reviled by the Puritans, one of
whom set him down as "a grande captain of mischiefe." One may easily
imagine that this stern old gentleman had been ducked by a party of
revellers following in the wake of the lawless "Captaine" because he
had refused to contribute to their entertainment.
We need not lament the passing of Christmas pageantry, if the spirit
of the festival remains. Through the centuries that have passed since
the first Christmas, the spirit of it has wandered in and out like a
golden thread in a dull tapestry, sometimes hidden, but never wholly
lost. It behooves us to keep well and reverently such Christmas as we
have, else we shall share old Ben Jonson's lament in _The Mask of
Father Christmas_, which was presented before the English Court nearly
two hundred years ago:
"Any man or woman ... that can give any knowledge, or tell
any tidings of an old, very old, grey haired gentleman
called Christmas, who was wont to be a very familiar ghest,
and visit all sorts of people both pore and rich, and used
to appear in glittering gold, silk and silver in the court,
and in all shapes in the theatre in Whitehall, and had
singing, feasts and jolitie in all places, both citie and
countrie for his coming--whosoever can tel what is become of
him, or where he may be found, let them bring him back again
into England."
Consecration
Cathedral spire and lofty architrave,
Nor priestly rite and humble reverence,
Nor costly fires of myrrh and frankincense
May give the consecration that we crave;
Upon the shore where tides forever lave
With grateful coolness on the fevered sense;
Where passion grows to silence, rapt, intense,
There waits the chrismal fountain of the wave.
By rock-hewn altars where is said no word,
Save by the deep that calleth unto deep,
While organ tones of sea resound above;
The truth of truths our inmost souls have heard,
And in our hearts communion wine we keep,
For He Himself hath said it--"God is Love!"
TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE:
Minor changes have been made to correct typesetters' errors;
otherwise, every effort has been made to remain true to the author's
words and intent.
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