Folly as It Flies Part 13

Do you suppose that the woman ever lived who would _prefer_ single to married life had she ever met with a man whom she could really love? I have seen cold, intellectual women, _apparently_ self-poised and self-sustained, gliding like the moon on their solitary path alone, diffusing light, perhaps, but no warmth; to the superficial observer looking as carelessly down upon joy as upon sorrow; but no power on earth could persuade me, that beneath that smooth ice there smouldered no volcano; no reasoning persuade me that those fingers would not rather have been twisting a baby's soft curls, than turning the leaves of musty folios; no negative shake of the head, or forced laugh, prevent my eyes from following with sorrowful looks the woman who was trying to make herself believe such a lie. Let her pile her books shelf upon shelf, and scribble till her pen, ink, paper, thoughts, eyes and candle give out;--and then let her turn round and face her woman's heart if she dare! I defy her to stop long enough to listen one half hour to its pleadings. I defy her to sit down in the still moonlight and look on, while old memories in mournful procession defile before her soul's mirror, without a smothered cry of anguish. I defy her to listen to the brook's ripple, the whispered leaf-music, or to look at the soft clouds, the quiet stars, the blossoming flowers, the little pairing birds as they build their nests--and above all, upon a mother with her babe's arms about her neck--without turning soul-sick away. She is _not_ a woman if she can do otherwise. She is not a woman if she can be satisfied with clasping her own arms over a waist which belongs to n.o.body but herself. I declare her to be a machine--a stick--and carved in straight instead of undulating lines; she's an icicle--an ossification--a petrifaction--an abortion--a monster--let her keep her stony eyes and cold fingers off me; she has no place in this living, breathing, panting, loving world. Out upon her for a walking mummy--leave her to her hieroglyphics, which are beyond my understanding.

Pshaw--there are no such women; they are only making the best of what they can't help; they are eating their own hearts and make no sign dying. They ought all to be wives and mothers. Cats, poodle-dogs, parrots--plants, canaries and vestry meetings--are nothing to it. No woman ever has the faintest glimpse into heaven till she has nursed her own baby; in fact, I half doubt if she has earned a right to go there till she has legitimately had one.

Now were I an old maid--had no man endowed me with the names of wife and mother, I would not go round the world whining about it, either in prose or verse, any more than I would affect a stoicism, transparent to every beholder; I would just adopt the first fat baby I could find, though I had to work my fingers to the bone to keep its little mouth filled. I _would_ have some motive to live--something to work for--something, in flesh and blood, which I could call my own:--some little live, warm thing to put my cheek against when my heart ached.

Unprotected!--"A little child" with its pure presence, should be my protection. I _wouldn't_ dry up and blow off like a useless leaf, with the warm, fragrant suns.h.i.+ne and blue sky about me, and my heart beating against my breast like a trip-hammer. My little room _shouldn't_ be cheerless and voiceless. I _wouldn't_ die till some little voice had called me "mother," though my blood did not flow in its rosy veins. I _would_ have something to make suns.h.i.+ne in my heart and home; my nature shouldn't be like a tree growing close to a stone wall, only one half of which had a chance to develop, only one half of which caught the air and light and suns.h.i.+ne--no, I would tear myself up by the roots, and turn round and replant myself. _Some_ bird should come, make its home with me, and sing for me; else what use were my sheltering leaves? Better the lightning should strike me, or the woodman's axe cut me down.

Men who have any physical defect, are apt to imagine that it will forever be a barrier between them and woman's love. There never was a greater mistake than this, as has been proved again and again in love's history. Not a hundred years since, nor a hundred miles distant, we heard of a young girl who had become strongly attached to a young man who was blind in one eye; _and for that very reason_! He was sensitive about his infirmity to that degree, that he shrank from general society, particularly that of ladies, whose presence seemed to make him morbidly miserable; so much had he exaggerated what he was quite unaware would call forth sympathy, instead of ridicule, from any _true_ woman. The young girl, of whom we speak, knowing what we have related about him, though personally a stranger to the young man, had insensibly, through her pity, begun to love, and was then earnestly seeking some way in which, without compromising her modesty, she could encourage his notice of her. One thing you may always be sure of. No woman is in love with a man whom she freely praises, and of whom she oftenest speaks; but if there is one whom she _never_ names, if she start and blush when others name him, if she can find no voice to answer the most common-place question he addresses her, if she avoid him, and will have none of him, if she pettishly find fault with him when he is commended to her notice by others, look sharp, for that is _the_ man.

_CONCERNING THE MISTAKES ABOUT OUR CHILDREN._

I believe every one is of the opinion that children should be taught civility; but there is one way that they are tortured, in the zealous parental endeavor to teach them politeness, which seems to us deserving of the severest reprehension. Some person comes to the house, it may be a valued and worthy friend, who is unfortunately repulsive in appearance and manners. Mamma tells Johnny to "go kiss"

the lady, or gentleman, as the case may be. Now Johnny, like other human beings, has his personal preferences, and in a case like this especially, prefers spontaneity. He may obey, it is true, but it is a question when a simple recognition would have answered, whether an act involving hypocrisy were not better omitted. I speak from experience, remembering well the horror with which I looked forward, in my childhood, to the periodical visits of a snuffy old person. I think my uncompromising hatred of tobacco in every form, dates back to those forced snuffy kisses, followed in many cases by actual nausea, and in all by a vigorous facial ablution on my part, after the repulsive ceremony. To this day, a colored silk handkerchief, of the antique pattern most affected by snuff-takers, affects me as does the sight of a red shawl, a belligerent rooster, or bull.

That horrible colored silk handkerchief! preferred to a white one, for a reason which makes one's flesh creep, and one's blood run cold, fumbled ever and anon from the stifling depths of a huge pocket, and flourished with its resurrectionized effluvia, under your disgusted and averted nose. Excuse my speaking with feeling, dear reader, for even in these later days have I sacrificed many a comfortable seat in a public conveyance that those infatuated lovers of the weed in every shape might have a wide berth for their noisome atmosphere. Now, to force a little child, fresh and sweet, with a breath like a bunch of spring violets, to contact with such impolite persons, for the sake of "_politeness_" seems to me an act of tyranny worthy of Nero.

Some mothers seem unwilling to recognize a child's individuality. "She is such a strange child--so different from other children," a mother remarked in my hearing, with a sigh of discontent; as if all children should be made after one model; as if one of the greatest charms of life were not individuality; as if one of the dearest, and weariest, and least improving, and most stagnating things in the world, were not a family or neighborhood which was only a mutual echo and re-echo.

"Different from other children!" Well--_let her be different_; you can't help it if you would--you ought not if you could. It is not your mission, or that of any parent, to crush out this or that faculty, or bias, which is G.o.d-implanted for wise purposes. You are only to modify and direct such by judicious counsel. A child who thinks for itself, prefers waiting upon itself, and is naturally self-sustained, is of course much more trouble than a heavy-headed child, who "stays put" wherever and however you choose to "dump" him down; but it is useless to ask which, with equally good training, will be the most efficient worker in the great life-field. Suppose he _does_ question your opinions occasionally, don't be in a hurry to call it "impertinence;" don't be too lazy or too dignified to argue the matter with him; thank G.o.d rather, that his faculties are wide awake and active. Nor does it necessarily follow that such a child must be contumacious or disobedient. Such a nature, however, should be tenderly dealt with, Firm yet _gentle_ words--never injustice or harsh usage. You may tell such a child to "hold its tongue" when it corners you in an argument, often, without any intentional disrespect, but you cannot prevent its thinking. It should not follow that a young person must, as a matter of course, though they mostly do, adopt the parental religious creed. Some parents I have known unwise enough to insist upon this. A forced faith for the wear and tear of life's trials, is but a broken reed to lean upon. On these subjects talk yourself; let your child talk, and then let him, like yourself, be free to think and choose, when this is done.

Out of twenty violets in a garden, you shall not find any two alike, but this does not displease you. One is a royal purple, another a light lilac; one flecked with little bright golden spots, another shaded off with different tints of the same violet color, with a delicacy no artist could improve. You plant them, and let them all grow and develop according to their nature, now and then plucking off a dead leaf, now loosening the earth about the roots, or watering or giving it shade or suns.h.i.+ne, as the case may be, but you don't try to erase the delicate tints upon its leaves and subst.i.tute others which you fancy are better. No human fingers could recreate what you would mar--you know that; so you bend over it lovingly, and let it nod to the breeze, and bend pliantly to the shower, or lift its sweet face, when the sun s.h.i.+nes out, and through all its various changes you do not sigh for monotony. So, when I see a family of children, I like the mother's blue eyes reproduced, and the father's black eyes. I like the waving, sunny locks, and the light brown, and the raven; I like the peach-blossom skin, and the gipsy olive, round the same hearthstone, all rocked in the same cradle. Each is beautiful of its kind; the variety pleases me. Just so I like diversity in regard to temperament and mental faculties. Each have their merits; Heaven forbid they should be rolled and swathed up like mental mummies, bolt upright, rigid, and fearfully repeated; no collision of mind to strike out new ideas, no progress, no improvement. Surely this is not the age for that.

A public toast recently given runs thus; "Our parents: the only tenders who never misplaced a switch."

Now you may laugh at that--so did I--but where could you find a greater fib? Many a time and oft have parents laid the switch on their children's backs, when they should have applied it to their own; many a time has the lash which should have descended upon the back of the favorite, fallen upon his much abused brother's. There is nothing in creation which parents so often misplace as the switch; and it need not of necessity be a birchen rod or a ferule; there are switches which cut deeper than either, of which many a ruined man and woman can tell you.

I knew two children--one blundering, but honest, sincere, self-reliant, speaking the plain truth on all occasions without qualification, making his requests in few words, and smothering his disappointment as best he might when refused. The other, wily, diplomatic, Chesterfieldian, ever with a soft word on the tip of his tongue, to pave the way for the much desired boon, which was never refused, so winning, so courteous, so apparently respectful was the seeker. Follow these two children. See the latter in the play-ground, boasting to his young a.s.sociates what he has got from the "old gentleman" or the "old lady," boasting what he will yet get--boasting that he knows how to do it; rehearsing to them the disgusting pantomime of the caress, the respectful, deferential att.i.tude which he uses on such occasions. Follow the other to his little room at the top of the house; see him sitting in gloomy silence, too proud to weep, too proud to complain, brooding over the injustice done him--not hating the fraternal owner of the "coat of many colors," no thanks to those who gave them both birth, but looking into the far dim future with that wistful longing which comes of unloved, precocious childhood; sitting there--with his own hand turning the poisoned arrow round and round in the festering wound, incapable of extracting it, and yet knowing no balm to a.s.suage its intolerable anguish.

Follow out their two histories. See the Chesterfieldian favorite sent to college; contracting long livery-stable, hotel, and tailors' bills, with a perfect reliance upon his diplomatic abilities to "set it all right with the old gentleman;" thanking him deceitfully for his unparalleled generosity to a son so unworthy; alluding delicately to his pride in him as a father, and trusting some day to make a proper return for all his goodness, etc., etc. See the "stupid boy" who is summarily set down to be wanting in cleverness, accepting in silence this verdict, and the consequent disposal of his time in some uncongenial, distasteful employment, till at last, wearied out by the silent drop that descends mercilessly and unremittingly, hour by hour, on his tortured soul, he rushes from the home which has been a home only in name, and wanders forth, with the gnawing pain in his heart for silent company. Merciful G.o.d! what is to keep him? His blood is young and warm, his heart throbbing wildly in his breast for what every human thing yearns for--sympathy--love!

Years pa.s.s on. The college boy returns with more knowledge of horses, wine and women, than of Greek, Latin and mathematics--returns to receive the congratulations of partial friends that he has pa.s.sed off for pure gold the glittering bra.s.s of his showy superficiality. The truant's name is never mentioned, or if so, with the hope, not that he may be kept from evil, but "that he may not disgrace us." Meanwhile the wanderer lies languis.h.i.+ng on a bed of sickness in a foreign country. Woman's heart is the same in all lands, when pity knocks at it, else had he closed his eyes in exile. Pity he had not--pity he returned to be asked, with cold tones and averted eyes, why he did not stay there. Pity that he could not smother that unconquerable longing which approaching death brings, to look our last upon our native land.

Pity that the errors born of neglected childhood, and forsaken youth, should have been held up to him by the pharisaical hands which goaded him into them, even at the tomb's portal. Pity that sinful man may not be merciful as a holy, pitying G.o.d.

I ask you, and you, and you, who have woven the "coat of many colors"

for some one of your household--you who, by your partiality and short-sightedness, are fostering the rank weeds, and trampling under foot the humble flowers--you who are bringing up children whose hearts shall one day be colder to each other than the dead in their graves--you upon whom shall be visited--alas! too late--every scalding tear of agony and disappointment from out young eyes, which should have beamed only with hope and gladness;--I ask every parent who is doing this, if he or she is willing that his or her child shall grow up by these means to lose his faith in man, and sadder still, in G.o.d?

I wonder is it foreordained that there shall be one child in every family whom "n.o.body can do anything with?" Who tears around the paternal pasture with its heels in the air, looking at rules, as a colt does at fences, as good things to jump over. We all know that the poor thing must be "broken in," and all its graceful curvetings sobered down to a monotonous jog-trot; that it must be taught to bear heavy burdens, and to toil up many a steep ascent at the touch of the spur; but who that has climbed the weary height does not pa.s.s the halter round the neck of the pretty creature with a half-sigh, that its happy day of careless freedom should be soon ended?

How it bounds away from you, making you almost glad that your attempt was a failure; how lovingly your eye follows it, as it makes the swift breathless circle, and stops at a safe distance to nod you defiance.

Something of all this every loving parent has felt, while trying to reduce to order the child whom "n.o.body can do anything with."

Geography, grammar and history seem to be put into one ear, only to go out at the other. The multiplication table might as well be written in Arabic, for any idea it conveys, or lodges, if conveyed, in the poor thing's head. Temperate, torrid, and frigid zones may all be of a temperature, for all she can remember, and her mother might have been present at the creation of the world, or at the birth of the Author of it, for aught she can chronologically be brought to see.

But look! she is tired of play, and has taken up her pencil to draw; she has had no instruction; but peep over her shoulder and follow her pencil; there is the true artist touch in that little sketch, though she does not know it--a freedom, a boldness which teaching may regulate, never impart. Now she is tired of drawing, and takes up a volume of poems, far beyond the comprehension, one would think, of a child of her years, and though she often miscalls a word, and knows little and cares less about commas and semi-colons, yet not the finest touch of humor or pathos escapes her, and the poet would be lucky, were he always sure of so appreciative a reader. She might tell you that France was bounded south by the Gulf of Mexico, but you yourself could not criticise d.i.c.kens or Thackeray with more discrimination.

Down goes the book, and she is on the tips of her toes pirouetting.

She has never seen a dancing-school, nor need she; perfectly modeled machinery cannot but move harmoniously; she does not know, as she floats about, that she is an animated poem. Now she is tired of dancing, and she throws herself into an old arm-chair, in an att.i.tude an artist might copy, and commences to sing; she is ignorant of quavers, crotchets and semi-breves, of tenors, baritones and sopranos, and yet you, who have heard them with rapturous encores, stop to listen to her simple melody.

Now she is down in the kitchen playing cook; she turns a beef-steak as if she had been brought up in a restaurant, and washes dishes for fun, as if it had been always sober earnest; singing, dancing and drawing the cook's portrait at intervals, and all equally well done.

Now send that child to any school in the land, where "Moral Science"

is hammered remorselessly and uselessly into curly heads, and she would be p.r.o.nounced an incorrigible dunce. Idiotically stupid parrot-girls would ride over her shrinking, sensitive shame-facedness, rough-shod. She would be kept after school, kept in during recess, and have a discouraging list of bad recitation marks as long as Long Island; get a crooked spine, grow ashamed of throwing snow-b.a.l.l.s, have a chronic headache, and an incurable disgust of teachers and schools, as well she might.

She is like a wild rose, creeping here, climbing there, blossoming where you least expect it, on some rough stone wall or gnarled trunk, at its own free, graceful will. You may dig it up and transplant it into your formal garden if you like, but you would never know it more for the luxuriant wild-rose, this "child whom n.o.body can do anything with."

Some who read this may ask, and properly, is such a child never to know the restraint of rule? I would be the last to answer in the negative, nor (and here it seems to me the great agony of outraged childhood comes in) would I have parents or teachers stretch or dwarf children of all sorts, sizes and capacities, on the same narrow Procrustean bed of scholastic or parental rule. No farmer plants his celery and potatoes in the same spot, and expects it to bear good fruit. Some vegetables he s.h.i.+elds from the rude touch, the rough wind, the blazing sun; he knows that each requires different and appropriate nurture, according to its capacities. Should they who have the care of the immortal be less wise?

"You have too much imagination, you should try to crush it out," was said many years ago to the writer, in her school-days, by one who should have known that "He who seeth the end from the beginning,"

bestows _no_ faculty to be "crushed out;" that this very faculty it is which has placed the writer, at this moment, beyond the necessity of singing, like so many of her s.e.x, the weary "Song of the s.h.i.+rt."

One request I would make of every mother. Make your "nursery"

pleasant. Never mind about your "parlor," _but is your nursery a cheerful place_? Is there anything there upon the wall for little eyes to look at, and little minds to think about when they wake so early in the morning; or as they lounge about when a stormy day keeps them close prisoners? If not, see to it without delay. Don't say I "can't afford it;" one s.h.i.+lling--two s.h.i.+llings will do it; if you can spare a few s.h.i.+llings more, so much the better. You know the effect a bright, cheerful apartment has upon yourself, even with all your mature resources for thought and pleasure. Think then of the little children, reaching out their young thoughts, like vine tendrils, for something to twine about, something to lean on, something to grow to,--in fine, something to think and talk about. A blank, white wall is not suggestive or inspiriting. Give the little nursery prisoner something bright to look at. Can that be called "a trifle" which makes home attractive? We think not. Therefore we like flowering plants in windows. There are some houses which make us feel as though we were on friendly terms with the inmates, through these cheerful, mute tokens.

Mute! did I say? Have our past lives been so barren of incident that the perfume of a flower never brought before us some bright face, or loved form, which has made life for us blessed? You must have felt it--and _you_ and _you_; I am sure of it. Just such a rose as that you have "seen in her hair;" and you sit dreamily looking at it, as it sways gracefully on the stem; and you wonder what the dear child, so many hundred miles away, is thinking of now; and whether her full-blossomed life has fulfilled its budding promise. And that reminds you how the whirlpool of life's cares and duties has almost engulfed these sweet memories; and resolutely turning your back upon them all, you sit down and write a warm _heart-letter_, which comes to her in her distant home, like a white-winged dove at the window of a dreary winter day. And all this came of the little rose in your window; the old love wakened in _your_ heart, and the gladness to _hers_!

Eloquent? If flowers are not eloquent, who or what is? Then, why are so many withered leaves put away with bright tresses and pressed pa.s.sionately to lonely lips, whose quivering no eye sees save His "who wounds but to heal?" Eloquent? Could mines of gold buy them? _This_ was twined in her bridal veil; _that_ was laid upon her coffin-lid. No fingers but yours may touch the shrivelled treasures. For _her_ sake you have placed their blossoming counterparts in your window. You shut your eyes when you go near them, that their perfume may seem her very breath.

Eloquent? Why does the old man stoop, and with trembling fingers pick the daisy or violet, and place them in his b.u.t.ton-hole? Don't question him about it when strangers are by. It is the key to his whole life--that little flower.

"My mother liked primroses," the matron says to her little child; and so they blossom in _her_ home as they did, many years ago, in the sunny nursery-window of her childhood. Ah, these "mothers!" whose "rights," guaranteed by the Great Law-giver, nor statute makers, nor statute breakers can weaken or set aside. Long years after they are dust, shall some little blossom they loved be placed in a bosom which yearns unceasingly, over and above every other human love, for her who gave it these warm pulsations. Blessed be these memorials of "the long ago!"

There is a cla.s.s of mothers, _easy_ mothers, who lose much time by not _finding time_ for imperative duties. We wish it were possible to persuade some of them, who are otherwise most excellent mothers--how much trouble they would save themselves, by exercising a little firmness toward their young children. Of course it takes more time to contest a point with a child, than to yield it; and a busy mother not reflecting that this is not for once, but for thousands of future times, and to rid herself of importunity, says wearily--"yes--yes--you may do it;" when all the while she knows it to be wrong and most injurious to the child. Then there comes a time when she _must_ say No! and the difficulty of enforcing it, at so late a period of indulgence, none can tell but "easy" mothers of self-willed children.

For _your own sakes_, then, mothers, if you have not the future good of your children at heart; for your own sakes--and to save yourselves great trouble in the future, _learn to say No--and take time to enforce it_. Let everything else go, if necessary, because this contest must be fought out, successfully, with every separate child; and remember once fought it is done with forever. When we see mothers, day by day, worried--hara.s.sed, worn out by ceaseless teasings and importunities, all for want of a little firmness at the outset, we know not whether to be more sorry or angry.

Again: some mothers are so busy about the temporal wants of their children that they are wholly unacquainted with them spiritually. You are very careful of your daughter's dress; you attend personally to its purchase and fit. You go with her to see that her foot is nicely gaitered; and you give your milliner special instructions as to the make and becomingness of her bonnets; but do you ever ask yourself, _what she is thinking about_? In other words, do you know anything at all of her inner life? Many who are esteemed most excellent mothers, are as ignorant on this all-important point as if they had never looked upon their daughters' faces. They exact respectful obedience, and if the young creature yields it, and has no need of a physician's immediate services, they consider their duty done. Alas, what a fatal mistake! These are the mothers, who, never having invited the confidence of those young hearts, live to see it bestowed anywhere and everywhere but in accordance with their wishes. _Is_ it, _can_ it be enough to a mother worthy the name, to be satisfied that her daughter's physical wants are cared for? What of that yearning, hungry soul, that is casting about, here and there, for something to satisfy its questionings? Oh, give a thought _sometimes_ to this. When she sits there by the fire, or by the window, musing, sit down by her, and _love_ her thoughts out of her. Cast that fatal "dignity" or indifference to the winds, which has come between so many young creatures and the heart to which they should lie nearest in these important forming years. "Respect" is good in its place; but when it freezes up your daughter's soul-utterances; when it sends her for sympathy and companions.h.i.+p to chance guides, _what then_? A word, a loving, kind word, at the right moment! No mind can over-estimate its importance. Remember this, when you see the sad wrecks of womanhood about you; and amid the sweeping waves of life's cares and life's pleasures, what else soever you neglect, do not fail to know _what that young daughter of yours is thinking about_.

How strong sometimes is weakness! When a very young child loses its mother, before it has yet learned to syllable her name, we are generally struck with pity at what we call its "helpless condition;"

and yet, after all, its apparent helplessness is at once its strength and s.h.i.+eld; for is not every kind heart about it immediately drawn toward it in love and sympathy? Do not the touch of its soft hand, its pretty flitting smile, the "cuddlesome" leaning of the little head, the trustful innocence of its eyes, do more for it, than could all the eloquence of Demosthenes? I was struck with the truth of this not long since, upon going into a shop to make a purchase, where I found the young girl who usually waited there, with a little babe in charge, whose mother had just died. Looking about the shop, and remarking the many calls upon her time and attention, as she moved quickly around with this pretty little burden upon her arm, I said, this child must be a great care for you. Yes, said she; but oh, _such a comfort, too_.

And so playing with the baby and talking the while, I learned that before its mother died, it was taken in every night for her to kiss it, before it was put to sleep. After the mother's funeral, as the young girl was pa.s.sing through that room with it, the little creature _stretched out its hands toward the empty bed for the accustomed kiss_? Tears stood in her eyes, as she again kissed the baby. I knew _now_ how it was that the "_comfort_" outweighed the "_care_." No voice from the spirit-land could so effectually and solemnly have bound up her future with that orphan baby as that mute reaching out of its loving arms to that empty bed. _Now_ had that young girl a _soul_ for labor; a motive for living. _Now_ there was something to repay toil. Something for her to love--something to love her. Every customer who came in, was so much toward a subsistence for little Annie. Ah, the difference between plodding on for cold duty's sake, and working with one's heart in it! The little shop looked bright as heaven, that cold November afternoon, and I went out of it, wondering what people could mean when they spoke of "_infant helplessness_;" since all New York might have failed to do for that little one, what it had accomplished for itself by that one unconscious, touching little action.