Great Mysteries And Little Plagues Part 1

Great Mysteries and Little Plagues.

by John Neal.

PREFACE.

I hate prefaces; and the older I grow, the more I hate them, and the more unwilling I am to transgress--in that way--with my eyes open.

But something must be said, I suppose, if only by way of an advertis.e.m.e.nt, or warning.

When I had finished what one of my daughters persists in calling my "NAUGHTY-BIOGRAPHY," and the other, "PERSONALITIES"--while my hair has grown visibly thinner, I will not say under what kind of domestic remonstrance from another quarter, and a very amiable, though witty somebody writes it "_Maundering_ Recollections"--I had an idea that, if I went further, I might be found "painting the lily, gilding refined gold," etc., etc., and so I pulled up--for the present.

But this little book was already under way. I had promised it, and such promises I always keep--and for the best of reasons: I cannot afford to break them.

When I turned out the original of "Children--What are they good for?"

some forty years ago, or thereabouts, I had never met with, nor heard of, anything in that way. Children were overlooked. Their droppings were unheeded--out of the nursery. But now, and in fact very soon after my little essay appeared in the "Atlantic Souvenir," if I do not mistake, the papers and magazines, both abroad and at home, were continually brightened up with diamond-sparks and with Down-easterly or "Orient pearls, at random strung," which seemed to have been picked up in play-grounds, or adrift, or along the highway; and itemizers were seen dodging round among the little folks, wherever they were congregated, or following them as the Chinese follow a stranger, if they see him make wry faces.

For amus.e.m.e.nt only, and to keep myself out of mischief--I hope I have succeeded--just after the fire, not having much to do beyond twirling my thumbs, and trying to whistle "I cares for n.o.body, and n.o.body cares for me," I began collecting such as fell in my way.

My first idea was to call them "KINDLING-STUFF," or

"OVEN-WOOD," as characteristic, if not of them, at least of the compiler; but finding the collection grew upon me, and myself growing serious, I adopted "PICKINGS AND STEALINGS," which, on the whole, I think still more characteristic, beside being both suggestive and descriptive.

"GOODY GRACIOUS, A FAIRY STORY," I wrote for the purpose of showing--and _proving_--that fairy stories need not be crowded with extravagant impossibilities, to engage the attention of our little folks; and that if they are so contrived as to seem true, or at least possible, they need not be unwholesome. Am I wrong?

And furthermore saith not, as Jacob Barker used to write, at the bottom of his letters,

"Your respected friend,"

J. N.

CONTENTS.

I.--CHILDREN--WHAT ARE THEY GOOD FOR?

II.--GOODY GRACIOUS! AND THE FORGET-ME-NOT.

III.--PICKINGS AND STEALINGS.

CHILDREN--WHAT ARE THEY GOOD FOR?

The child is father of the man. Men are but children of a larger growth.

How often do we meet with this array of words! Yet how insensible we are to the profound philosophy they enwrap. Sublime and astonis.h.i.+ng truths!

Uttered every day in our hearing, set before our eyes at every step of our journey through life, written over all the monuments of Earth, upon the pages and banners of all History, upon the temples and the pyramids, the palaces and the sepulchres of departed Nations, upon all the doings of the Past and the Present, as with unextinguishable fire, and sounding forever and ever in the unapproachable solitudes of the Future! Yet heard with indifference, read without emotion, and repeated from mouth to mouth, day after day and year after year, without a suspicion of their deep meaning, of their transcendent importance, of their imperishable beauty. And why? The language is too familiar, the apparent signification too simple and natural for the excited understandings of the mult.i.tude. There is no curtain to be lifted, no veil to be rent as with the hands of giants, no zone to be loosened, no mystery to be expounded afar off, as in the language of another world, nothing to be guessed at, or deciphered, nothing but what anybody might understand if he would; and, _therefore_, nothing to be remembered or cared for.

But, in simple truth, a more sublime interrogation could not be propounded than that which may appear to be answered by the language referred to. _What are children?_ Step to the window with me. The street is full of them. Yonder a school is let loose; and here, just within reach of our observation, are two or three noisy little fellows; and there another party mustering for play. Some are whispering together, and plotting so loudly and so earnestly, as to attract everybody's attention; while others are holding themselves aloof, with their satchels gaping so as to betray a part of their plans for to-morrow afternoon, or laying their heads together in pairs, for a trip to the islands. Look at them, weigh the question I have put to you, and then answer it, as it deserves to be answered. _What are children?_ To which you reply at once, without any sort of hesitation perhaps,--"Just as the twig is bent the tree's inclined"; or, "Men are but children of a larger growth"; or, peradventure, "The child is father of the man." And then, perhaps, you leave me, perfectly satisfied with yourself and with your answer, having "plucked out the heart of the mystery," and uttered, without knowing it, a string of glorious truths,--pearls of great price.

But, instead of answering you as another might, instead of saying, _Very true_, what if I were to call you back to the window with words like these: Do you know what you have said? do you know the meaning of the language you have employed? or, in other words, _do you know your own meaning_? what would you think of me? That I was playing the philosopher, perhaps, that I wanted to puzzle you with a childish question, that I thought I was thinking, or at best that I was a little out of my senses. Yet, if you were a man of understanding, I should have paid you a high compliment; a searcher after truth, I should have done you a great favor; a statesman, a lawgiver, a philanthropist, a patriot, or a father who deserved to be a father, I should have laid you under everlasting obligations, I should have opened a boundless treasury underneath your feet, I should have translated you instantly to a new world, carried you up into a high mountain, as it were, and set before you all the kingdoms of the earth, with all their revolutions and changes, all future history, the march of armies, the growth of conquerors, the waxing and the waning of empire, the changes of opinion, the apparition of thrones das.h.i.+ng against thrones, the overthrow of systems, and the revolution of ages.

Among the children who are now playing _together_,--like birds among the blossoms of earth, haunting all the green shadowy places thereof, and rejoicing in the bright air; happy and beautiful creatures, and as changeable as happy, with eyes brimful of joy, and with hearts playing upon their little faces like suns.h.i.+ne upon clear waters; among those who are now idling together on that slope, or hunting b.u.t.terflies together on the edge of that wood, a wilderness of roses,--you would see not only the gifted and the powerful, the wise and the eloquent, the ambitious and the renowned, the long-lived and the long-to-be-lamented of another age, but the wicked and the treacherous, the liar and the thief, the abandoned profligate and the faithless husband, the gambler and the drunkard, the robber, the burglar, the ravisher, the murderer, and the betrayer of his country. _The child is father of the man._

Among them, and that other little troop just appearing, children with yet happier faces and pleasanter eyes, the blossoms of the future--the mothers of nations--you would see the founders of states and the destroyers of their country, the steadfast and the weak, the judge and the criminal, the murderer and the executioner, the exalted and the lowly, the unfaithful wife and the broken-hearted husband, the proud betrayer and his pale victim, the living and breathing portents and prodigies, the embodied virtues and vices, of another age and of another world, _and all playing together_! Men are but children of a larger growth.

Pursuing the search, you would go forth among the little creatures, as among the types of another and a loftier language, the mystery whereof has been just revealed to you,--a language to become universal hereafter, types in which the autobiography of the Future was written ages and ages ago. Among the innocent and helpless creatures that are called _children_, you would see warriors, with their garments rolled in blood, the spectres of kings and princes, poets with golden harps and illuminated eyes, historians and painters, architects and sculptors, mechanics and merchants, preachers and lawyers; here a grave-digger flying his kite with his future customers, there a physician playing at marbles with his; here the predestined to an early and violent death for cowardice, fighting the battles of a whole neighborhood; there a Cromwell or a Caesar, a Napoleon or a Was.h.i.+ngton, hiding themselves for fear, enduring reproach or insult with patience; a Benjamin Franklin higgling for nuts or gingerbread, or the "Old Parr" of another generation sitting apart in the suns.h.i.+ne, and s.h.i.+vering at every breath of wind that reaches him. Yet we are told that "just as the twig is bent, the tree's inclined."

Hereafter is made up of the shreds and patches of Heretofore. If "Men are but children of a larger growth," then _what are children_? Men of a smaller growth. And this happens to be the truth, not only in the world of imagination, but in the world of realities; not only among poets, but among lawyers. At law, children are men,--little children murderers. A boy of nine, and others of ten and eleven, have been put to death in England, two for murder, and a third for "cunningly and maliciously" firing two barns. Of the little murderers, one killed his playmate and the other his bedfellow. One hid the body, and the other himself. And therefore, said the judges, they knew they had done wrong,--they could distinguish between good and evil; and therefore they ordered both to be strangled. And they were strangled accordingly. As if a child who is old enough to know that he has done wrong, is therefore old enough to know that he deserves death!

So with regard to children of the other s.e.x. At law, babies are women, women babies. The same law which cla.s.ses our mothers and our wives, our sisters and our daughters, with infants, lunatics, idiots, and "persons beyond sea," allows a child to be betrothed at seven, to be endowed of her future husband's estate at nine, and to agree or disagree to a previous marriage at twelve. And what is law in England is law here. We are still governed by the Court of King's Bench, the lawyers and the judges of Westminister Hall. Let no man say, therefore, that these are the dreams of poetry, the glittering shapes that wander about forever and ever among the vast chambers of a disordered imagination. They are not so. They are no phantasms,--they are realities, they are substantial existences, they "are known to the law."

Such are children. Corrupted, they are fountains of bitterness for ages.

Would you plant for the skies? Plant in the live soil of the warm and generous and youthful; pour all your treasures into the hearts of children. Would you look into the future as with the spirit of prophecy, and read as with a telescope the history and character of our country, and of other countries? You have but to watch the eyes of children at play.

What children are, neighborhoods are. What neighborhoods are, communities are,--states, empires, worlds! They are the elements of Hereafter made visible.

Even fathers and mothers look upon children with a strange misapprehension of their dignity. Even with the poets, they are only the flowers and blossoms, the dew-drops, or the playthings of earth. Yet "of such is the kingdom of heaven." The Kingdom of Heaven! with all its princ.i.p.alities and powers, its hierarchies, dominations, thrones! The Saviour understood them better; to Him their true dignity was revealed.

Flowers! They are the flowers of the invisible world,--indestructible, self-perpetuating flowers, with each a mult.i.tude of angels and evil spirits underneath its leaves, toiling and wrestling for dominion over it! Blossoms! They are the blossoms of another world, whose fruitage is angels and archangels. Or dew-drops? They are dew-drops that have their source, not in the chambers of the earth, nor among the vapors of the sky, which the next breath of wind, or the next flash of suns.h.i.+ne may dry up forever, but among the everlasting fountains and inexhaustible reservoirs of mercy and love. Playthings! G.o.d!--if the little creatures would but appear to us in their true shape for a moment! We should fall upon our faces before them, or grow pale with consternation,--or fling them off with horror and loathing.

What would be our feelings to see a fair child start up before us a maniac or a murderer, armed to the teeth? to find a nest of serpents on our pillow? a destroyer, or a traitor, a Harry the Eighth, or a Benedict Arnold asleep in our bosom? A Catherine or a Peter, a Bacon, a Galileo, or a Bentham, a Napoleon or a Voltaire, clambering up our knees after sugar-plums? Cuvier laboring to distinguish a horse-fly from a blue-bottle, or dissecting a spider with a rusty nail? La Place trying to multiply his own apples, or to subtract his playfellow's gingerbread?

What should we say to find ourselves romping with Messalina, Swedenborg, and Madame de Stael? or playing bo-peep with Murat, Robespierre, and Charlotte Corday? or puss-puss in the corner with George Was.h.i.+ngton, Jonathan Wild, Shakspeare, Sappho, Jeremy Taylor, Mrs. Clark, Alfieri, and Harriet Wilson? Yet stranger things have happened. These were all children but the other day, and clambered about the knees, and rummaged in the pockets, and nestled in the laps of people no better than we are.

But _if_ they had appeared in their true shape for a single moment, while playing together! What a scampering there would have been among the grown folks! How their fingers would have tingled!

Now to me there is no study half so delightful as that of these little creatures, with hearts fresh from the gardens of the sky, in their first and fairest and most unintentional disclosures, while they are indeed a mystery, a fragrant, luminous, and beautiful mystery. And I have an idea that if we only had a name for the study, it might be found as attractive and as popular, and perhaps--though I would not go too far--_perhaps_ about as advantageous in the long run to the future fathers and mothers of mankind, as the study of shrubs and flowers, or that of birds and fishes. And why not? They are the cryptogamia of another world,--the infusoria of the skies.

Then why not pursue the study for yourself? The subjects are always before you. No books are needed, no costly drawings, no lectures, neither transparencies nor ill.u.s.trations. Your specimens are all about you. They come and go at your bidding. They are not to be hunted for, along the edge of a precipice, on the borders of the wilderness, in the desert, nor by the sea-sh.o.r.e. They abound, not in the uninhabited or unvisited place, but in your very dwelling-houses, about the steps of your doors, in every street of every village, in every green field, and every crowded thoroughfare. They flourish bravely in snow-storms, in the dust of the trampled highway, where drums are beating and colors flying--in the roar of cities. They love the sounding sea-breeze and the open air, and may always be found about the wharves, and rejoicing before the windows of toy-shops. They love the blaze of fireworks and the smell of gunpowder; and where that is, they are, to a dead certainty.

You have but to go abroad for half an hour in pleasant weather, or to throw open your doors or windows on a Sat.u.r.day afternoon, if you live anywhere in the neighborhood of a school-house, or a vacant lot, with here and there a patch of green, or a dry place in it, and steal behind the curtains, or draw the blinds, and let the fresh wind blow through and through the chambers of your heart for a few minutes, winnowing the dust and scattering the cobwebs that have gathered there while you were asleep, and lo! you will find it ringing with the voices of children at play, and all alive with the glimmering phantasmagoria of leap-frog, prison-base, or knock-up-and-catch.

Let us try the experiment. There! I have opened the windows, I have drawn the blinds, and hark! already there is the sound of little voices afar off, like "sweet bells jangling." Nearer and nearer come they, and now we catch a glimpse of bright faces peeping round the corners, and there, by that empty inclosure, you see a general mustering and swarming, as of bees about a newly-discovered flower-garden. But the voices we now hear proceed from two little fellows who have withdrawn from the rest. One carries a large basket, and his eyes are directed to my window; he doesn't half like the blinds being drawn. The other follows him, with a tattered book under his arm, rapping the posts, one after the other, as he goes along. He is clearly on bad terms with himself. And now we can see their faces. Both are grave, and one rather pale, and trying to look ferocious. And hark! now we are able to distinguish their words. "Well, I ain't skeered o' you," says the foremost and the larger boy. "Nor I ain't skeered o' you," retorts the other; "but you needn't say you meant to lick me." And so I thought.

Another, less acquainted with children, might not be able to see the connection; but I could,--it was worthy of Aristotle himself, or John Locke. "I _didn't_ say I meant to lick ye," rejoined the first, "I said I _could_ lick ye, and so I can." To which the other replies, glancing first at my window and then all up and down street, "I should like to see you try." Whereupon the larger boy begins to move away, half backwards, half sideways, muttering just loud enough to be heard, "Ah, you want to fight now, jest 'cause you're close by your own house." And here the dialogue finished, and the babies moved on, shaking their little heads at each other, and muttering all the way up street. Men are but children of a larger growth! Children but Empires in miniature.

How beautiful and how strange are the first combinations of thought in a wayward or peevish child! And then, how alike we all are in our waywardness and peevishness! It is but a change of name, and one trifle is about as good as another to breed a quarrel, or to throw the wisest and the best of our grown babies off their balance. A bit of writing, the loss of a paper with pictures on it, a handful of glittering dust, or somebody making mouths at us, a word or a look, and we are stamping with rage, or miserable for half a day. A cloud coming up when the horses are at the door, a little bad weather, a spot upon our new clothes, or a lump of sugar not quite so large as another's; and what children we are! How perfectly wretched!

I once knew a little boy, who, after sitting awhile as if lost in thought, turned to his mother, and said: "Mother! what did you marry my father for? Why didn't you wait till I grew up, and then marry me?"

Rather a strange question, to be sure, and the little fellow was but just old enough to put his words together. But compare it with many a question put by the sages of earth. Consider it side by side with the ponderings and the misgivings, the inquisitiveness and the apprehensions of a great Philosopher, when he interrogates the Builder of the Universe, and sets himself in array, face to face, with Jehovah.

Nay, I have heard a very intelligent person of mature age betray a confusion of thought altogether as laughable as that of the poor boy.

She had been to see a captious old lady whom her father, in his youth, had once intended to marry. "And how did you like her?" said I. "Not at all," she replied; "oh, you don't know how glad I am that father did not marry her; I never should have liked her, I am sure." As if, marry whom he might, she must have been born, _she_ herself, with precisely the same preferences, prejudices and opinions!

"Oh, mother!" said little Mary, aged two years and a half at the time, looking up as she heard a noise, and blus.h.i.+ng from head to foot, "_I hear a bad smell_,--'taint me nor brother. It was an old man in the next house;" hemming loudly and suddenly, with a cough. Modesty is one thing,--squeamishness about children another; and this is really too good to be lost.