BEARDED CIVILIZATION.
It may not be generally known that beards are singularly connected in history with the progress of civilization. The early Greeks and Romans did not shave. The Greeks began to use the razor about the time of Alexander, who commanded all his soldiers to shave, lest their beards should afford a handle for their enemies. This was little more than three hundred years before the Christian era; and thirty years after Alexander, Ticinius introduced the habit of shaving amongst the Romans. The Gothic invaders of the Western empire revived the habit of wearing the beard. The Anglo-Saxons were a bearded race when William the Conqueror invaded England, and, therefore, the Conqueror and his Normans ever after wore the chin smooth, in order to distinguish them from the vanquished; and thus, even in the Norman invasion, the shaven chin became the emblem of an advanced civilization. In like manner, amidst all the long controversies between the Eastern and Western Churches, the Western Church has invariably espoused the cause of the razor, whilst the Greek or Eastern Church as resolutely defends the cause of the beard. Civilization has marched in the West, and remained stationary in the East, in the land of beards. When Peter the Great determined to civilize his Russian subjects, one of the means which he considered indispensable was the use of the razor, he, therefore, commanded his soldiers to shave every layman who refused to do it himself, and rare sport they had with the stubborn old patriarchs, who persisted in retaining their much-cherished emblems of age and wisdom.
BABYLON, NINEVEH, AND MR. LAYARD.
(Concluded from page 136.)
ENTRANCE TO THE SMALL TEMPLE AT NIMROUD.
Returning to Konyunjik, Mr. Layard renewed his excavations. Soon afterwards, he discovered what he called the "chamber of records," which was filled with tablets. These are of vast importance in a historical point of view; and, when completely translated, they will add immensely to our knowledge of the ancient Assyrians. Hincks and others, who have devoted much attention to the study of the cuneiform character, have employed themselves in the translation with considerable success. In other apartments were discovered bas-reliefs, containing representations of attendants carrying strings of pomegranates and locusts; musicians playing upon harps, tabors, double-pipes, and an instrument like the modern santour of the East, consisting of a number of strings stretched over a hollow case or sounding-board.
In the mean time, excavations carried on in the high mound of Nimroud resulted in the discovery of several temples, ornamented with great beauty and effect. One of them had a gateway formed by two colossal lions, with extended jaws, gathered up lips and nostrils, flowing manes, and ruffs of bristly hair. The heads were vigorous and truthful in design. The limbs conveyed the idea of strength, and the veins and muscles were accurately portrayed. But the front of the animal was narrow and cramped, and unequal in dignity to the side. The sculptor had given five legs to the animal, in order that they might offer a complete front and side view. The height of the lions was about eight feet, and their length thirteen. In front of them were two altars, hollow at the top, and ornamented with gradines resembling the battlements of a castle. The exterior walls appeared to have been adorned with enamelled bricks, many of which still remained. The slabs on the floor of the temple were inscribed with records of the wars and campaigns of the earliest Nimroud king.
SMALL TEMPLE AT NIMROUD.
Another small temple was discovered at the north-west corner of the mound. Four of its chambers were explored, chiefly by means of tunnels carried through the enormous mass of earth and rubbish in which the ruins were buried. The great entrances were to the east. The principal portal was formed by two colossal human-headed lions, sixteen feet and a half high, and fifteen feet long. They were flanked by three small-winged figures, one above the other, and divided by an ornamental cornice, and between them was an inscribed pavement slab of alabaster. In front of each was a square stone, apparently the pedestal of an altar, and the walls on both sides were adorned with enamelled bricks.
Having dispatched another lot of very interesting sculptures to Busrah, Mr. Layard determined to set out for Babylonia. Upon the reputed site of ancient Babylon he designed to carry on extensive excavations, provided his means would permit. The remains of Babylon were found upon the banks of the Euphrates. Towering above all was the great mound of Babel. Beyond, for many an acre, were shapeless heaps of rubbish, the ridges that marked the course of canals and aqueducts. On all sides, fragments of inscribed glass, marble, and pottery were mingled with that peculiar nitrous and blanched soil, which, bred from the remains of ancient habitations, checks vegetation and renders the site of Babylon a hideous waste. Southward of Babel, for the distance of nearly three miles, there is an almost uninterrupted line of mounds, the ruins of vast edifices, the whole being inclosed by earthen ramparts. On the west of the Euphrates is the vast ruin called the Birs Nimroud, which some have conjectured to be the remains of the Temple of Belus, which, according to Herodotus, stood in one of the western divisions of Babylon. According to the united testimony of ancient authors, the city was divided by the Euphrates into two parts. The principal existing ruins are to the east of the river.
The hostility of the Arab tribes prevented Mr. Layard from making excavations at the Birs Nimroud. He visited that famous ruin, and formed an opinion in regard to the shape of the edifice, but made no discoveries worthy of notice. The excavations carried on upon the eastern bank of the river were not attended with very remarkable results. Bricks, inscribed with the name and titles of Nebuchadnezzar, king of the Chaldees, were numerous. Coffins, containing skeletons that fell to pieces on exposure to the air, were discovered. No relic or ornament seemed to have been buried with the bodies. Glass bottles, glazed earthen vessels, and many other relics of a doubtful period, were found. Digging trenches into the foot of the mound of Babel, Mr. Layard came upon walls and masses of masonry, but failed to trace the plan of an edifice, or discover any remains of sculptured stone or painted plaster. The mound called Kasr was explored, and found to contain some astonishing specimens of masonry, the bricks being deeply inscribed with the name and title of Nebuchadnezzar. But the plan of an edifice could not be ascertained. The only relic of any interest discovered was a fragment of limestone, on which were parts of two figures, undoubtedly those of gods. This showed that the Babylonians portrayed their divinities in the same manner as the Assyrians. In the mound of Amran were found some bowls, on which were inscriptions in a curious character. These were deciphered by Mr. Thomas Ellis, of the British Museum, and ascertained to have been written by Jews. Mr. Layard thinks that there is no reason to doubt that the bowls belonged to the descendants of those Jews who were carried captive by Nebuchadnezzar to Babylon and the surrounding cities. From the same mound were also taken some earthen or terracotta tablets. They resembled those which had been already deposited in the British Museum by Colonel Rawlinson. On one of these is the figure of a man leading a large and powerful dog, which has been identified with a species still existing in Thibet. The Babylonians prized these dogs very highly. One of their satraps is said to have devoted the revenues of four cities to the support of these animals.
TERRACOTTA TABLET FROM BABYLON.
Brick appears to have been the common material for building purposes in Babylon. But such bricks and such bricklaying were never seen elsewhere. All the bricks were enamelled and ornamented with figures of men and animals. They were joined together by the finest cement. The immense edifices erected from such materials were even more astonishing than the pyramids of Egypt or the palaces of Assyria, as these were the results of greater toil and skill.
Leaving Babylon somewhat disappointed, Mr. Layard proceeded to the mounds of Niffer, in the same district. There, however, he had no better success than at Babylon. Masses of masonry, inscribed bricks, and sarcophagi of an unknown date, were all that could be obtained by excavations. Soon afterwards, Mr. Layard returned to the site of Nineveh to superintend the removal of his sculptures, and the work of exploration was relinquished.
It now remains to sum up the results of the discoveries of Layard to chronology and history. The translators of the Assyrian inscriptions have ascertained that the earliest king, of whom they can gain any detailed account, was the builder of the north-west palace at Nimroud, the most ancient edifice hitherto discovered in Assyria. His records, however, with other inscriptions, furnish the names of five, if not seven, of his predecessors, some of whom erected palaces at Nineveh, and originally founded those which were only rebuilt by subsequent monarchs. The translators, after a careful consideration of all the evidence, fix the date of the reign of the earliest king at about 1121 B. C. Colonel Rawlinson calls him the founder of Nineveh; but this is a hasty conclusion. His name is believed to have been Ashurakbal. He carried his arms to the west of Nineveh, across Syria, to the Mediterranean, to the south into Chaldea, and to the north into Asia Minor and Armenia. Of his sons, Divanubar, was also a great conqueror. He waged war, either in person or by his generals, in Syria, Armenia, Babylonia, Chaldæa, Media, and Persia. The kings of Israel and Egypt paid him tribute, so that he was, indeed, a mighty sovereign. Divanubar seems to have had two successors, but even their names are uncertain. The next king of whom there are any actual records appears to have been the predecessor of Pul, or Tiglath-Pileser, who is mentioned in the Scriptures. His name has not yet been deciphered. He was a successful warrior, and carried his arms into Chaldea and the remotest parts of Armenia. The successor of this monarch was Sargon, the builder of the palace of Khorsobad—a king mentioned by the prophet Isaiah. He was a warlike prince, and carried his arms to the islands of the Mediterranean, and into all the neighboring countries. He made 27,280 Israelites captive in Samaria and its dependent districts. Egypt paid him tribute. From the reign of Sargon, we have a complete list of kings to the fall of the empire, or to a period not far distant from that event. He was succeeded by the mighty Sennacherib, whose history is well known. This king ascended the throne about 703 B. C. After spreading the terror of his arms in every direction, he was assassinated, and his son, Essarhaddon, ascended the throne. This king is mentioned in the Scriptures. He built the south-west palace at Nimroud, and an edifice, the ruins of which are now covered by the tomb of Jonah, opposite Mosul. In his inscriptions, he is styled king of Egypt and Ethiopia, and he appears to have been a great warrior. The son of Essarhaddon was named after the builder of the north-west palace at Nimroud. His son was the last king of the second dynasty, and, as Mr. Layard says, may have been that Sardanapalus who was conquered by the combined armies of the Medes and Babylonians under Cyaxares, 606 B. C., and who made a funeral pile of his palace, his wealth, and his wives.
The records of Nineveh do not go back farther than the twelfth century before Christ. From Egyptian monuments, however, distinguished scholars have gleaned the intelligence that a kingdom called Assyria, with a capital called Nineveh, existed as early as the fifteenth century before Christ. The Assyrian empire appears to have been at all times a kind of confederation formed by many tributary states, whose kings were so far independent that they were only bound to furnish troops to the supreme lord in time of war, and to pay him an annual tribute. On the occasion of every change at the capital, these tributary states seem to have striven to throw off the yoke of the Assyrians. The Assyrian armies were made up of many various nations, retaining their own costumes, arms, and modes of warfare. The Jewish tribes can now be proved to have held their dependent position upon the Assyrian king from a very early period—indeed, long before the time inferred from any passage in Scripture.
The religious system of the Assyrians is still uncertain. All we can infer is that this people worshipped one supreme God, as the great national deity under whose immediate protection they lived. He was called Asshur, and Assyria was known as the "country of Asshur." Beneath him were twelve gods of vast power, and there seems to have been about 4,000 inferior divinities. Asshur was always typified by a winged figure in a circle.
Mr. Layard does not think that the extent of Nineveh has been exaggerated. The space within the ruined ramparts does not seem to have been occupied with houses. These ramparts merely surrounded the magnificent palaces and their beautiful grounds. The citizens resided beyond them, having the space within for a refuge in case of invasion. This is the plan of some modern cities in the East. From a careful survey of the whole ground, Mr. Layard believes that Nineveh was a "city of three days' journey round"—say, sixty miles in circumference.
VEGETABLE PHYSIOLOGY.
BY HARLAND COULTAS.
PROCESS OF FERTILIZATION.—The young seeds or ovules are contained in the interior of the pistil before the flower opens, and continue to grow until that time, but no longer, unless they are acted upon by the pollen of the anthers. The necessity of this process shows why it is that stamens and pistils are so constantly found in flowers, and why the former surround the latter so nicely as they in general do; and, even in circumstances which seem somewhat adverse to fertilization, still some admirable contrivance is always found to bring about the same end.
In some flowers, we meet with beautiful contrivances for securing the fecundation of their pistils. Thus, such as are erect have usually the stamens longer than the pistils, whilst in pendulous flowers it will be found that the pistils are the longest and the stamens the shortest. By this admirable relative adjustment, the pollen, in falling, comes into contact with the pistil. The Fuchsia, or ladies' ear-drop (Fig. 1), shows the character of this arrangement in a pendulous flower: p is the pistil, and s the stamens, which, it will be perceived, are much shorter, and situated above the pistil, in order that its viscid stigma or summit may receive the pollen as it falls out of the anther cells.
Fig. 1.
There are a few well-known instances in which fertilization is effected by certain special movements of the stamens. The stamens of the barberry spring to the pistil, if the lower part of their filaments is touched; and in Parnassia palustris, the grass of Parnassus, a rare and beautiful snow-white swamp flower, the stamens move towards the pistil in succession to discharge their polliniferous contents.
The flowers of the Kalmia latifolia, or mountain kalmia, a native evergreen, very abundant on the side of barren hills and the rocky margins of rivulets, are especially deserving of attention. The corollas of the kalmia are rotate or wheel-shaped, and have ten stamens, the anthers of which, before the flowers expand, are contained in ten little cavities or depressions in the side of each corolla, where they are secured by a viscid secretion. When the corollas open, the filaments of the stamens are bent back by this confinement of their anthers like so many springs, in which condition they remain until the pollen in the anther cells becomes ripe and absorbs the secretion. The anthers, becoming suddenly liberated by this means from their cavities, fly up with such force as to eject their pollen on the pistil. The slightest touch with the point of a needle, or the feet of an insect crawling over their filaments, is sufficient to produce the same effects when the pollen is mature. Fig. 2 shows, at a, the fully expanded flower with the confined anthers; at b, the flower after the anthers have discharged their pollen.
Fig. 2.
When the stamens and pistils are together in the same flower, it is designated as hermaphrodite, and complete; but, if the flower contains only one of these organs, it is termed unisexual, and, in this case, it is either male or female, according as it is composed uniquely of stamens, or male sexual organs, or of pistils, or female sexual organs. This separation of the sexual organs in flowers is of very frequent occurrence. The greater portion of our forest trees, and many herbaceous plants and shrubs, have unisexual flowers.
Sometimes the stamens and pistils are situated in separate flowers on the same plant. When this is the case, the staminate flowers are generally situated above the pistillate. The Indian corn exemplifies this arrangement. It is well known that the flowering panicle at the summit of the stem does not produce corn; these are the staminiferous flowers from whose anthers descend clouds of pollen on the threadlike pistils forming the silky tuft beneath. Without this pollen, the corn in the lower spike would not ripen; hence the evident design of nature in placing the pistillate below the staminate spike of flowers.
In forest trees, these unisexual flowers are usually borne on separate individuals of the same species, or the flowers on one tree are wholly staminate, and those on the other altogether pistillate. It must be obvious that such plants are still more unfavorably situated for fertilization. The great abundance of pollen produced compensates for the unfavorable situation of the flowers. The wind drives it far and near, and the air becomes sometimes so charged with it that rain, in falling, brings it down to the ground in considerable quantities, producing the so called sulphur showers of which we read in history. There is no doubt, also, that the bee and other insects in search of honey convey the pollen from the stamens to the pistils in unisexual plants.
CELESTIAL PHENOMENA.—MARCH.
BY D. W. BELISLE.
ARGO NAVIS.—This beautiful constellation occupies a large space in the southern hemisphere, though few of its stars are seen in our latitude. It is situated south-east of Canis Major, and may be known by three stars forming a small triangle in the prow and deck of the ship. Sixteen degrees south of this triangle is a very brilliant star in the row-lock, called Naos. This star is the south-east corner of the Egyptian X, and comes to the meridian on the 3d of March, when, for a few hours only, it is visible in our latitude. It is then eight degrees above the horizon. Seven degrees south of Naos, on the 7th of March, may be seen Gamma, a brilliant star which, for a few moments, skims the horizon, and then disappears. It is never in our latitude more than one degree above the horizon, and is rarely visible. Thirty-six degrees south of Sirius is Canopus, a star of great brilliancy and beauty. It is of the first magnitude; but, having a south declination of fifty-three degrees, it cannot be seen in the United States. Twenty-five degrees east of Canopus is Miaplacidus, a star of the first magnitude in the oars of the ship. This is also invisible to us. This constellation contains sixty-four stars, which, seen from the southern hemisphere, are of singular beauty and brilliancy.
"There they stand,
Shining in order, like a living hymn
Written in light."
According to Greek mythology, the ship was placed in the heavens to perpetuate the expedition of Jason into Colchis to recover the Golden Fleece. Hebrew mythology also claims the origin of it, and with them it perpetuates Noah's Ark, in which a remnant of every living thing was saved during the deluge. There is good foundation for the supposition that the Argonautic expedition is founded on certain Egyptian traditions relating to Noah's Ark, and that the Greeks located them within their territory, and claimed them as a triumph of Neptune, the god of the sea.
CANCER.—This constellation is situated directly east of the Twins, and occupies considerable space in the heavens. Its stars are small and scattered, yet it may readily be distinguished by three small stars in the centre, which form a triangle, and nearly in the centre of this triangle is a nebula, sufficiently luminous to be distinguished with the naked eye. The appearance of this nebula to the unassisted eye is not unlike the nucleus of a comet, and it was repeatedly mistaken for the comet of 1832, which passed in its neighborhood. On being viewed through a telescope, it resolves into distinct stars, and we thus catch a glimpse of an interminable range of systems upon systems, and firmaments upon firmaments; and, in contemplating the immensity of space that encircles them, the imagination becomes bewildered and lost. Who can trace the boundless depths of air?
Beyond the reach of telescope,
Whose powers o'erstep the space
That lies where eye may never hope
To pierce, or e'en to trace
The bounds of worlds which it reveals
In those illimitable fields?
These minute stars have the appearance of planets with oval disks, somewhat mottled, but approaching in vividness to actual planets. This constellation is on the meridian the 3d of March.
The Greeks assert that Cancer received its origin through the favor of Juno, who sent a sea-crab to annoy Hercules during his famous contest with the Lernean monster. The Chaldeans, however, represented the cluster by the figure of an ass, whose name, in the Chaldaic, is muddiness. It is supposed to allude to the discoloring of the Nile, which began to rise when the sun was entering Cancer.
VIA LACTEA.—
"A way there is in heaven's extended plain,
Which, when the sky is clear, is seen below,
And mortals, by the name of Milky, know;
The groundwork is of stars, through which the road
Lies open to the Thunderer's abode."
There is a luminous zone, varying from four to twenty degrees in width, which passes quite round the heavens, called by the Greeks Galaxy, by the Latins Via Lactea, which, in our tongue, is Milky Way. "Of all the constellations which the heavens exhibit to our view, this fills the mind with the most indescribable grandeur and amazement. When we consider what unnumbered millions of mighty suns compose this cluster, whose distance is so vast that the strongest telescope can hardly separate their mingled twilight into distinct specks, and that the most contiguous of any two of them may be as far asunder as our sun is from them, we fall as far short of adequate language to express our ideas of such immensity as we do of instruments to measure its boundaries."
"Throughout the Galaxy's extended line,
Unnumbered orbs in gay confusion shine;
Where every star that gilds the gloom of night
With the faint tremblings of a distant light,
Perhaps illumes some system of its own
With the strange influence of a radiant sun."
All the stars in the universe have been arranged into groups, which are called nebulæ or starry systems. The fixed star which we call our sun belongs to that extensive nebula the Milky Way, and, though evidently of such immeasurable distance from its fellows, it is probably no farther from them than they are from each other. We know very little of the number and economy of the stars that compose this group. Herschel counted five hundred and eighty-eight in a single spot, without moving his telescope. He found the stars unequally dispersed in all parts of the constellation, and apparently arranged into separate systems or clusters. In a small space in Cygni, the stars seem to be clustered into two distinct divisions, and in each division he counted upwards of one hundred and sixty-five thousand stars.
Various changes are constantly taking place among the nebulæ. Several new ones are being formed by the dissolution of larger ones, and it has been ascertained beyond a doubt that many nebulæ of this kind are detaching themselves from the Milky Way at the present time. In the body of Scorpio there is a large opening, four degrees broad, entirely destitute of stars, through which we get a glimpse of regions of space beyond.
"Oh, what a confluence of ethereal fires,
From urns unnumbered down the steeps of heaven,
Streams to a point, and centres on my sight!"
Already nearly three thousand nebulæ have been observed, and if each contains as many stars as the Milky Way in that portion of the heavens which lies open to our observation, there must be several hundred millions of stars. How vast and unfathomable to mortal mind must be the ways and attributes of that intelligence that creates and guides in unison these starry worlds!
"The hand of God
Has written legibly, that man may know
The glory of his Maker."
This nebula may be traced in the heaven, beginning at the polar star, through the constellations Cassiopeia, Perseus, Auriga, part of Orion, and the feet of Gemini, where it crosses the Zodiac, thence over the equinoctial into the southern hemisphere, through Monoceros and Argo Navis, St. Charles's Oak, the Cross, the Altar, and the feet of the Centaur. Here it passes over the Zodiac into the northern hemisphere, divides itself, one branch running through the tail of Scorpio, the bow of Sagittarius, the shield of Sobieski, the feet of Antonius, Aquila Delphinus, the Arrow, and the Swan. The other branch passes through the upper part of the tail of Scorpio, the side of Serpentarius, Taurus Poniatowski, Goose, neck of the Swan, head of Cepheus to the polar star, where it again unites to the place of its beginning.
Anciently, the Milky Way was supposed to be the sun's track, and its luminous appearance was caused by the scattered beams left visible in the heavens. The Pagans maintained it was a path their deities used in the heavens, which led directly to the throne of Jupiter.
"Heaven
Is the book of God before thee set,
Wherein to read his wondrous works."
TABLE-MOVING.
BY PAULINE FORSYTH.
Westbridge is a small town, so near one of the largest cities in our Union that it can keep pace with all the vagaries and wild chimeras with which the fantastic spirit of the age seems to delight to bewilder and mislead its votaries, as well as learn the latest news or display the latest fashions. And yet it is far enough from New York to have a character and mode of living entirely its own. That character is the severe, and the mode of life rigid and exemplary. All kinds of amusements are looked upon with a disapproving eye, and many of them have been so completely extirpated that they are hardly ever alluded to. Dancing alone has contrived to maintain a precarious foothold in the community, sometimes shrinking down into the modest cotillion, and again, when the ranks of its votaries are recruited from some less scrupulous portion of the country, bursting forth in the full horror of waltz, polka, or schottisch. Its reign is, however, short, and the social gatherings soon regain their usual character for staid propriety.
When you go to a party at Westbridge, to be invited to which is a sort of a testimonial that you are a discreet and proper person, you are expected to take a seat and remain seated. To move about much argues a lightness of mind, and will cause talk. Of course, the conversation will have to be principally carried on with your neighbor, whoever he or she may happen to be; and three hours' uninterrupted conversation with a shy youth or a heavy old bachelor is a mental effort of which let those speak who have tried it. I have generally taken refuge in silence, after having made the observations that are usually considered proper on such occasions.
If you are a lady, books as a subject of conversation are interdicted; for, St. Paul being our great oracle, puddings, and not literature, are considered as the proper objects on which the female mind may exercise itself; and, though the state of public feeling in Westbridge allows a critical supervision over the conduct of the members of its society, yet gossip in its broader sense is interdicted.
Thus deprived of the aliment that sustains it in so many places, the social feeling languished, and sometimes seemed almost extinct. Yet, in reality, it retained a vigorous vitality, and only needed an opportunity to show how strong and deep it had struck its roots in our common nature, so that neither circumstances nor education could utterly destroy it. The mania for moving tables in the peculiar way that came in with the spirit-rappings was just such an occasion as the people in Westbridge would allow themselves to seize upon, as a legitimate means for gratifying the love for novelty and excitement that is inherent in mankind.
They excused, or, I should say, accounted for their ardor in the cause—for to excuse their course of conduct is below a true Westbridgeite—by speaking calmly and wisely of moving tables in that mysterious way as a new fact in science yet unaccounted for, and all their efforts were to be considered as so many scientific experiments to discover whether electricity, or some hitherto unknown physical influence, were the agent. For a time in Westbridge, we all, young and old, became natural philosophers, and pursued our investigations with a most exemplary zeal.
In a state of benighted ignorance on the subject of table-moving, never having heard of it even, I made my entrance into the sewing society, held weekly at Westbridge. As soon as I entered, I became aware that some exciting topic was under discussion. That being our only weekly gathering during the winter, in the calmest times the tongue ran an even race with the needle; but on this particular afternoon the sewing seemed to be forgotten. Work in hand, I seated myself near a lady to whom a large circle were listening in open-eyed wonder.
"At my cousin's in New York," she was saying, with animated emphasis, "they moved a heavy table, with a marble top, up stairs."
"Well, I suppose that is often done," said I, as yet uninitiated into the mystery.
"Yes; but with their hands—that is, without their hands. I mean just by putting their hands on the top of it, without using any force at all."
"I know a gentleman in the city who can, after keeping his hands on the table for a little while, take them off, and it will follow him all about the room," said another lady.
"My cousin told me," said a young girl, so absorbed in listening that her work had fallen on the floor, "that he had heard of tables being made to spring up to the ceiling—heavy tables."
"Can such things be, and not o'ercome us with a special wonder?" thought I; and I asked, rather skeptically, "Have you ever seen any of these wonderful things?"
"Oh, yes!" said several at once, and one of the speakers continued—
"We have been trying experiments at Colonel Dutton's, and Mr. Johnson's, and at our house, and we find that we can make the tables move about the room as long as we keep our hands on them. We have not yet succeeded in making them follow us or spring up from the floor; but I have no doubt we shall. Our power seems to increase every day."
"What kind of power is it?"
"Some persons think it a new development of electricity. I think myself it is some mysterious physical agent residing in our bodies—a kind of magnetism that works all these wonders. That is also Dr. Whitman's opinion."
"How do you try your experiments?" asked I, rather more inclined to believe in it, since I had heard those scientific terms and Dr. Whitman's name.
"We sit round a table, and lay our hands upon it so as to cover as large a surface as possible; the thumbs must touch, and the little fingers of each hand be in contact with the little fingers of the one on either side, so as to form a complete circle. You must not allow any other part of your person or dress to touch the table, or the communication will be interrupted; and it is better not to talk or laugh, but to be perfectly quiet and intent on your object."
Thus fully instructed, I went home bent on experimenting. Who could tell but that I should go to my room at night followed by all the furniture in the drawing-room in a slow procession? Though thus extravagant in my hopes, I showed a proper humility in my first attempts, selecting a very small tea-poy as the object of my experiment. I obtained an assistant, a lady, who, at first, when seated opposite to me with her hands outspread on the table before her, having nothing else to do, was very much inclined to converse, but, at my earnest entreaty, she relapsed into silence; and thus we sat for two weary hours. I had been told that my fingers would tingle, and they did tingle, and that was the sole result of this patient waiting. Tired out at last, we came to the conclusion either that, in our ignorance, we had neglected something essential to the success of the attempt, or that we were entirely deficient in that mysterious physical agent, of which some other persons seemed to possess such a super-abundance.
After having been pursued all night by tables, from which my utmost efforts hardly enabled me to escape, I arose with a nightmare-feeling of oppression upon me, for which a walk in the bracing air of a cold bright day in February seemed the best remedy.
"I will run over directly after breakfast to Mrs. Atwood's, to get the receipt for that new pudding, which she promised me, and then return and devote the rest of the morning to making calls," thought I.
And, accordingly, a little after nine, I put my head into Mrs. Atwood's sitting-room.
"I won't come in, thank you, this morning," said I, in answer to her invitation. "I cannot stay a minute. I merely came to ask for the receipt for that apple and tapioca pudding. Henrietta isn't as well as usual to-day, and I thought she might like it. Oh, you are trying to move a table! Don't let me disturb you, then. How do you succeed?"
"Not very well this morning," said Mrs. Atwood; "but last night we were very successful. It was our first attempt, too. Jane brought home such wonderful accounts from the sewing society, that we could not rest until we had made a trial of our powers. I think this morning we need a little more assistance, as some of the children have gone to school. I wish you would stay a little while and help us."
"I should be very happy to do so," said I, yielding to her solicitations and my own curiosity, and coming forward; "but I am afraid I should be a hindrance rather than an assistance." And I related my failure of the preceding evening.
I found Mrs. Atwood, her two eldest daughters, and one of her boys sitting anxiously, with outspread hands, round a very small table. A more miserable, distressed-looking child than the little white-headed Charles Atwood I do not think I have ever seen.
"I made Charley come in from his play to help us," said Mrs. Atwood, "because Jane was told that light-haired people possess more of that peculiar electric power, or whatever it is, than any other. Charley is the only member of our family who has light hair. Sit still, my son," she added, as Charley gave the table a little nervous kick.
There was a long silence, broken only once when Charley looked up, with his face full of some deep purpose, and inquired the very lowest price for which wigs could be bought. The question being considered irrelevant, the only answer the poor child received was a shake of the head and a frown from his mother. A peculiar whistle, the familiar signal of one of his favorite companions, threw Charley into such a state of painful suffering that, in commiseration for him, I consented to take his place. He bounded off in an ecstasy of joy, and I took no more note of time till we heard the clock strike eleven. In the mean time, the table had quivered twice, and once moved about an inch. With a sort of Jonah-like feeling, I arose, saying—
"It is useless for me to try longer; I am convinced that I rather retard the movements of the table than assist you." And, bidding her good-morning, I turned my steps homeward.
As I passed the house of one of my acquaintances, my attention was arrested by a tap on the window—a phenomenon that never happened in Westbridge before within my recollection. I obeyed the summons, and found the whole family assembled, gazing in gleeful wonder at the clumsy antics a table was playing under the guidance of three of its members. One of these was a light-haired boy of about thirteen. There was a sober mischief lurking in his face that awoke a slight suspicion in my mind.
"Are you sure that Robert is not using a little muscular force?" asked I.
"Bob? Oh no; he wouldn't do such a thing. He knows how anxious we are to discover the truth that lies at the bottom of these strange developments. And look how lightly his hands rest on the table—the fingers hardly touch it. But Bob has a great deal of electricity about him."
He looked as though he had.
"And I have observed," continued Mrs. Dutton, "that boys and very young men are more successful than any others in moving tables."
If that had not been announced to me as a scientific fact, I should have regarded it as a suspicious circumstance. But manner has a great effect, and Mrs. Dutton's grand emphatic way impressed me so strongly that I listened with the unquestioning reliance of an ignorant, but trusting disciple.
I watched the table as it went reeling and pitching, in a blind and purposeless sort of way, about the room, closely attended by the three who had set it in motion.
"Now take your hands off, and perhaps it will follow you," said I.
That was an unfortunate request of mine, for, with the lifting of the hands, all movement in the table ceased. Bob took the opportunity thus afforded him, and made his escape from the room. We spent a long time in trying to "charge the table," as we called it in our wisdom, again, but were unsuccessful. I was astonished in the midst of our attempts, and just as the table began to make its usual quiver preparatory to a start, to hear the clock strike three. I hastened home to dinner without the receipt, and with the pudding and the calls still unmade, but with my mind so full of perplexed wonder at what I had seen and heard, that I hardly gave a thought to my omissions.
We were discussing the matter in a family circle in the evening, and I presume most of the other households in Westbridge were engaged in the same way, when two young ladies were shown into the parlor.
"We have come to borrow one of your tables—your very smallest, Mrs. Forsyth; and, Pauline, we want you to come back with us. You know how these experiments are tried, I believe. Mrs. Dutton says you were in there this morning, and saw how they did it. We have been trying in vain for the last hour, and at last I came to the conclusion that our tables were all too large, and I told mamma I was sure you would lend us one, and come and see if we omitted anything essential."
"Certainly," said I, "I will do all I can—that is very little. I have not succeeded yet in any attempt I have made. How shall we get the table carried round? Our servants are unfortunately out or engaged."
"Oh, we can carry it ourselves," said Miss Preston, an enthusiast, whom no trifling obstacles daunted; and we passed through the quiet streets of Westbridge carrying the table between us, and amusing ourselves with the curious surprise of the few pedestrians we met, as the full moonlight fell on us and our burden.
At Mrs. Preston's I was successful for the first time. The table quivered, then rocked, then tilted, and at last moved a little this way and that—not much, but just enough to lift from my mind the oppressive feeling of my own inability to do that of which all the men, women, and children in Westbridge seemed to be capable.
When I returned in the evening, I was told that another one of our set of small tea-poys had been borrowed by another neighbor; and for the succeeding fortnight there was little heard or thought of in Westbridge but moving tables. We ran into each other's houses unceremoniously in the evening, and met in little social groups, and our town began to wear another aspect.
But the heresy of involuntary muscular action had arisen in some way. The person who first broached the opinion, abashed perhaps by the indignant disapprobation with which it was received, had shrunk back into silence, but his opinion remained and was gaining ground. The parties began to run high. The people in Westbridge who had performed such wonders with their electric or magnetic force felt called upon to stand their ground and give some convincing proof that they had not all this time been duping themselves.
Those who had lately been devoting themselves to scientific experiments were invited to a soirée at Mrs. Dutton's. A few disbelievers in the science were also asked, that the examination might be carried on fairly and openly.
On entering the drawing-room at Mrs. Dutton's, I found the company already assembled. I saw all the familiar faces I had met so often lately around, not the festive, but the scientific board, and mingled with them were few not so often seen of late. Seated in the place of honor, on the luxurious sofa, were two stout and stately dowagers, guarding between them their niece, Edith Floyd, a lovely, blooming little beauty of sixteen, with brown eyes and fair hair falling in soft curls on either side of her face. Nearly opposite to her, and leaning against a door, stood Reginald Archer, a young Virginian, at that time a student at the college in Westbridge.
It was a rare event to meet a college student in the society of the place, for so many of them had acted the part of the false young knight "who loves and who rides away," that they had been for some time laboring under a kind of polite ostracism. But Mr. Archer had connections in the town, which fact accounted for his exception from the social banishment to which his companions were doomed. The first sight of Edith Floyd had so captivated him, that ever since he had been trying, but trying in vain, to obtain an introduction to her. She was so carefully watched and secluded by her two guardians, that this was the first evening that Mr. Archer had found himself in the same room with her. Even then he did not feel equal to encountering her imposingly dignified aunts, and stood waiting for a more favorable opportunity of forming her acquaintance.
Moving about from one group to another, talking in an excited, earnest way, was Mr. Harrison, the only man in all Westbridge who had expressed an utter disbelief in the whole movement from the first to the last. Even the idea of involuntary or unconscious muscular action was scouted at by him. There had not been a table moved in the town, he said, which had not been done by some person who was perfectly conscious of what he or she was doing. He would not reason nor listen to reason on the subject. It was too purely absurd, he said, for argument. He never entered a room where it was going on without being thrown out of all patience, and yet he haunted the tables and the groups around them, as if he found some strange fascination about them, talking, jesting, and inveighing at our ridiculous credulity, and doing his utmost to stem the tide that was so strong against him. But it was all to no purpose. Mrs. Dutton said, in her oracular way, that "Mr. Harrison had no faith, and faith was the key to knowledge."
Though thus summarily disposed of, he fought on still, not a whit discouraged by his want of success or the little credit he gained for himself.
After selecting with care a suitable table, those of the company who chose to be the experimenters placed themselves around it, and the number and variety of the fingers that were spread on that little surface was quite wonderful to behold. Under such experienced hands, the table performed its part to admiration. Its mode of progression was awkward and angular, to be sure; but what could be expected from the first attempt of a candlestand? It began at last to turn with such rapidity that it was followed with difficulty, and the laughing, confusion, and bustle occasioned by the endeavor to keep pace with its irregular movements created a merry turmoil seldom seen in a decorous assembly in Westbridge. Suddenly, the table made an unexpected tilt nearly to the floor, thus releasing itself from most of the hands laid upon it. The rest, satisfied with the result of the experiment, withdrew their fingers and went to receive the congratulations of the company.
Mrs. Dutton, in a state of high excitement, turned to Mr. Harrison and asked his opinion.
"You have humbugged each other most successfully," said he, too intolerant of the affair to be very choice in his expressions.
Mr. Archer, to whom the whole proceedings were new and strange, and who had had his attention about equally divided between the table and Edith Floyd, said, in a low voice, to Mr. Harrison—
"If I were to find myself seated with hands outspread at a table, waiting for it to move, I should certainly think that my head was a little touched."
"You are the only sensible person in Westbridge—besides myself," said Mr. Harrison, warmly.
Meantime, Ellwood Floyd, Edith's brother, desirous to repeat the experiment, had seated himself at the table, and was endeavoring to obtain assistants. But, satisfied and tired, most of the company were more inclined to talk.
"Come, Edith," said he, impatiently.
She looked beseechingly at her aunts, who, with some reluctance, gave their consent. They evidently regarded her as some precious jewel, which they were afraid to trust for one moment out of their care, for fear they should be rifled of it.
With blushing eagerness, Edith hastened to her brother's side, and two little hands, white and soft as snow-flakes, fell softly on the table. Instantly, two other hands, whose aristocratic beauty of form Lord Byron might have envied, although their color was somewhat of the brownest, were placed beside them.
"Introduce me, if you please," asked Mr. Archer, in a whisper, of a cousin of his, a lady who was standing near; and, the ceremony being performed, Mr. Archer felt inclined to bless the credulity which had thus enabled him to accomplish what had been for many months the desire of his heart.
Mr. Harrison looked on in astonishment.
"Is it possible!" he exclaimed.
"I begin to think there is something in it," said Mr. Archer.
"Is your brain turned too?"
"Perhaps it is a little," said Mr. Archer, with a half smile, while a flush stole over his face. He would not on any account have Mr. Harrison, the greatest tease in Westbridge, suspect the true reason for his sudden change.
All farther attempts at conversation were strictly forbidden by Mr. Floyd, who took upon himself the direction of the experiment. Three other ladies had joined, but he still looked about for more recruits.
"Come, Mr. Lamb," asked he of a large, mild-looking man, who had gathered himself up in a corner, as if he were laboring under a constant apprehension that he took up too much room in the world, "you will help us, I know."
Mr. Lamb begged to be excused, and the effort of speaking before so many brought a faint pink tinge to his face.
"Have you no faith either?" asked Mr. Harrison.
"You would not ask that, if you had seen him as I did yesterday," said Mr. Floyd, "sitting with outstretched hands over a large dining-table. He told me, when I went in, that he had been there all the afternoon, and had not yet produced the slightest effect."
Mr. Lamb's face was by this time a deep crimson, and, feeling it useless to attempt to withdraw any longer from observation, he advanced to the table and placed upon it a pair of hands so large, soft, and yielding that, when they at last stopped spreading, seemed to cover two-thirds of the table.
"Ah, that is something like!" said Mr. Floyd, highly satisfied with his new recruit.
But yet the table did not move as soon as before. Several times I fancied I observed a preparatory quiver in it, and the exclamations of those around it showed that they also were in expectation of some decided result; but we were as often disappointed. Looking closely, I thought that Mr. Archer's hands rested more heavily on the table than was expedient. I suggested this to him, and he thanked me politely, and showed such an evident desire to do nothing out of rule that he quite won my approval.
"My fingers are tingling," said one of the ladies.
"So are mine," said Mr. Archer.
But nothing came of it. After a long waiting, Edith Floyd burst out with, "I am so tired!" in a low, sighing whisper.
Instantly, the table began to move, very slowly and cautiously at first. But soon it increased its velocity, until the excited group around it could hardly keep pace with it. It whirled from one end of the drawing-room to the other with a rapidity never before seen in Westbridge.
"Not so bad a substitute for the waltz," said Mr. Harrison, as he watched the movers running, laughing, and exclaiming, mingled in apparently inextricable confusion. "I would not object to take a turn myself."
That was an unfortunate speech. One by one the movers withdrew their hands, until at last Mr. Lamb was left alone standing by the table in the middle of the room. In great confusion, he retired, and very soon the company dispersed.
That was the climax of the table-moving mania in Westbridge. What might have happened, if we had gone on, cannot be conjectured. We might all have been hearing mysterious rappings, and conversing with those most earthy spirits, whose utter barrenness and poverty of intellect have not hindered them from misleading some of our thoughtful and earnest minds.
The very day after Mrs. Dutton's soirée, Professor Faraday's exposition of the whole jugglery came out, and even the "Westbridge Chronicle" had the barbarity to publish it, "for the benefit," it said, "of some of its readers," when everybody in Westbridge knew that the editor had piqued himself on the possession of more electricity than any one else in town. The subject of table-moving is now a forbidden one in Westbridge. I have not heard an allusion to it for the last six month.
Yet, I fancy, it has produced some results; for Edith's two aunts, who were wont to delight in the most severe strictures on the young men of the present day, now make, in their sweeping assertions, a marked exception in favor of Mr. Reginald Archer.
INSTRUCTIONS FOR MAKING ORNAMENTS IN RICE SHELL-WORK.
[THIRD AND CONCLUDING ARTICLE.]
BASKET IN RICE SHELL-WORK.
We have hitherto only described those rice-shell ornaments which are adapted for wear. It is time we proceed to describe some of those ornamental articles for the drawing-room which can be manufactured, and which, from their delicacy, lightness, and rarity, are admirably adapted for presents.
Baskets of various kinds and forms may be made, either of the shells only, or of shells and card-board. Perforated card-board is the best when that material is used, as it saves trouble, and forms the pattern more evenly.
If we would make a card-basket or tray, for the reception of visitors' cards, the requisite number of pieces to form the article must be shaped out from the colored perforated card-board, and the pattern or arabesque, which is to be worked on it with the shells, pencilled. Colored card-board should be used, because that throws up the pure white of the shells. Having joined the different pieces together which form the basket, by sewing them with fine chenil, or silk twist, we take about half a yard of the finest silver wire and attach it to the basket at the place we purpose commencing the pattern, and bring it through one of the holes or perforations just there. We then thread a shell on it, and pass the wire through another hole so situated as, when the wire is drawn tight, to cause the shell to lie in that direction which will make it fall into its right position in the pattern. The wire must then be returned to the right side again, and another shell threaded on it, and the same manœuvre gone through; or, if it be intended to work a shell pattern inside and outside the basket, a second shell must be threaded on the wire before it is returned to the right side, and that adjusted into its place by a proceeding similar to the one just described. It is, however, difficult to manage the two patterns at once; one is sure to mar the other to a greater or less extent; therefore, it will always be best either to make the basket very open and tray-shaped, and to work the pattern on the inside, which will then be the only one much seen; or else to make it rather close and upright, so as to show chiefly the outside, and to work the pattern there.
Baskets may be made of unperforated card-board by gumming the pattern with a very thick solution of gum-dragon, and then sticking the shells on in their proper places.
In all kinds of baskets made with rice-shells, the back of the shell is to form the surface, and the opening to be turned inwards.
The basket, of which we have given a cut, is composed of shells, and the coarsest of the three sizes of silver wire. It is made in lattice-work, or squares, and requires some art to mould or shape it into form.
We commence at the bottom, and with the central square. A length of wire, measuring twelve or fourteen inches, must be taken, and the small shells used. Thread four shells on the wire, arranging them so that the point of the first meets the point of the second, and the end of the second meets the end of the third; while the point of the third meets the point of the fourth. Push them along the wire to within about an inch of the end, then bend them into a square, and twist the short end of the wire firmly and neatly with the other, and cut off the superfluous bit. Now thread three shells on the wire, so arranged that the end of the first and the point of the third shall meet the corresponding end and point of that shell of the square already formed, which, when these three are bent into their positions, will constitute the fourth side of this second square. Loop the wire through the corner of the foundation square, and we have the second completed.
A certain firmness, divested, however, of tightness, is requisite in performing these manipulations; for, if the shells are jammed too closely together, the work will have an uneven, stiff appearance, whereas, if they are left too loose, the fabric will never set in form, and will look slovenly. The drawing the wire through the corners of the preceding squares, in order to complete the one which is being worked, too, is a nice operation, which must be gently done, or we may crack the work; and securely and neatly managed, or the squares will not be firm and compact.
Three shells are now again to be symmetrically threaded, and formed into a square, and fastened down to the central one. Two other squares are then to be formed in like manner, and we now have five, or one on each of the four sides of the foundation square. All the sixteen shells used for this should be small, and as nearly as possible of a size.
The wire is now passed up through the inside of the shell nearest to it, and it will be found that the next round of squares will be formed, first, by threading two shells, and bending them into position, and fastening them down at the corner, over the place where the preceding round has left us two sides of a square, and then by threading three shells, and bringing them into shape, where we have only one side ready for us. The two shells, and the three shells, used alternately, will produce another round, consisting of eight squares. Care must be taken to use shells of equal size for a round, although in each fresh round the size of the shells should be in a slight degree increased. The backs of the shells must all lie one way, and the openings the other; the latter constitutes the inside of the basket, as they do not look so uniform and handsome.
The following engraving will give an idea of the appearance of the fabric in an early stage.
When it is necessary to take a fresh length of wire, it must be joined on close to the corner of a completed square, by twisting it firmly and neatly with the end of the length just used up, and cutting up the superfluous point.
The third round is formed as the second, by using alternately the two and the three shells as required to complete the squares.
The number of rounds which are to be worked for the bottom depends entirely upon the size which we design to make the basket. In general, these three, or at any rate four rounds, will be sufficient to make a very pretty sized one.
The next round is to be worked exactly in the same way and with exactly the same sized shells as the last one of the bottom, and, after it is worked, it is to be turned up like a rim all round. This commences the basket itself.
These rounds are now to be added with the small shells, and shaped into form; and then the middle-sized shells, in rounds of gradually increasing size, are to be used for about six rounds; and then the large shells, in gradually increasing size, are to be brought in use and continued until the basket is finished.
It will soon be perceived, while working, that it will occasionally be necessary to miss a square, or to add one or more here and there in order to preserve the raised, and opened, and rounded form requisite for the oval of a basket. The symmetrical arrangement of the points and ends must be carefully attended to, or else the star-like combinations, which add so materially to the appearance of the fabric, will be marred or lost.
A pair of tweezers, or very small nippers, may be used for twisting the wire when fastening on a fresh length, as the fingers will thus be saved, and additional firmness obtained.
Having raised the basket-work to the required height, which, when the bottom consists of four rounds, should be about six inches, a piece of round silk wire, either white or colored, and exactly the size, but not larger than the circle of the top of the basket, must be taken, and firmly attached to the edge of the basket with middle-sized wire; this is to give shape and firmness to the work, and to this another piece of wire is attached, to form the handle.
The basket must now be trimmed, and for this purpose we make two light and graceful wreaths, one long enough to go round the top of the basket, and the other as long as the handle. The single flower, the bud, the spiral group, and leaves of seven or nine shells each, are what will be required for an ordinary-sized basket. When the wreath is made in simple rice shell-work, the stems must be twisted, and the wreath bound together with fine silver wire, and attached to the handle and to the circular wire with the same; the silk wire used must be white.
If, however, the wreath is to be made in the "composite" style, light flower-seeds or small glass beads may be introduced into the centre of the flowers, and the stems may be wound, and the wreaths put together with floss silk, and then they are to be attached to the handle and circular wire with fine chenil. The following combinations are pretty and effective: beads or seeds of pink, or yellow, or coral, or blue, and the stems of the flowers and buds wound with silk to match, the stems of the leaves wound with green, and the wreaths attached in their places with green chenil. There should not be more than two colors, the green and one other, used at a time, and these should be delicate shades; for the shells have so pure and light an appearance, that anything in the least degree showy or gaudy spoils the effect of the whole.
Pendent from below each end of the handle, should be a grape-like bunch of shells, not set on so closely together as in the wheat-ear, or so far apart as in a leaf, and reaching about half way down the basket.
When completed, the article should be placed under a glass case to preserve it from dust and injury, and a few wax or artificial flowers may be tastefully arranged in it with advantage.
A square basket, or a long, straight-sided one, or one in almost any given shape, may be made in this lattice-work, by manufacturing each piece separately, and in the required shape, and then lacing them together with silver wire, chenil, or twist. There is, however, no trimming more graceful, or better adapted for them, than the wreath.
If thought fit, the wreath, however, need only be put round the top of the basket, and the handle made of a succession of squares of the kind we have described.
Light wreaths, either of "simple" or "composite" rice shell-work, may, with very pretty effect, be entwined around alabaster vases or baskets.
For wedding-cakes, rice-shell wreaths and bouquets, with silver bullion in the flowers, are both tasteful and appropriate.
Intermingled with groups of the wax, or artificial, or feather, or paper flowers, the shell-leaves and double and daisy flowers look very pretty.
As the shells never wear out, when any ornament is crushed, or soiled, or tarnished, it can be cut up, the wires picked out, and the shells, when washed and dried, will be ready to be used again and again.
But we are sure that we have suggested quite enough to our readers to enable them to devise for themselves many other pretty and fanciful uses for this work, and we feel convinced that, when once they have overcome the first difficulties of learning it, they will find pleasure in seeing the graceful articles that will, as it were, develop themselves under their busy fingers.
And so we now take our leave of this subject for the present, commending it to the favorable attention of those who may have taken the trouble to peruse what we have written.
ROMAN WOMEN IN THE DAYS OF THE CÆSARS.
BY H. P. HAYNES.
The condition of woman constitutes an important part of the complete history of any age or country. In her own appropriate sphere, she exerts an influence, powerful and enduring, for the political greatness, the moral grandeur, and general prosperity of a state, as well as for its social peace and harmony. In her heart dwell, for the most part, the charity, the virtue, the moral soundness of communities, and, it almost might be said, the patriotism of a people. Her character and condition are the character and condition of the society of which she is a component part. In those countries and climes where the female is made a slave, or treated with unmerited severity, the males are not men, but the most brutal of savages. Where civilization, Christianity, and refinement allow woman her proper level, man is the exponent of real humanity and intelligence. The annals of ages are but an accumulation of evidence establishing these truths.
The graver of the Athenians, in the age of Pericles, attributed the decline of those virtues which, in all ages, have been considered the brightest ornaments of the sex, and the consequent increase of vice in the republic, to the pernicious influence of the beautiful and fascinating Aspasia. To her they imputed the crime of seducing the first orator and statesman of his time. On the other hand, the stern virtue, the heroism, the self-denying patriotism of the sons of Sparta, were legacies from their mothers. They shunned no dangers, feared no enemy, shrank from no hardship, and, when they met an honorable death in combat with the invaders of Grecian soil, the brave-hearted matrons consoled themselves with the idea that for this purpose they had given birth to children.
When Carthage was for the last time besieged by the Romans, the patriotic women of that devoted city imparted to her warrior defenders a portion of their heroism and love of country, and cut off their tresses for bowstrings for the archers.
Roman history has described with great minuteness the extraordinary virtue and the excellent domestic habits of Lucretia, her sad fate, and the sympathy it awakened, and the indignation it aroused in the hearts of all good citizens. Her sacred regard for her own honor—that honor insulted by a corrupt nobleman, an unprincipled monarch—proved a death-blow to kingly power for a season in Rome. Whether the story of Lucretia be a cunningly-devised fable, or veritable, sober history, is not material, since it illustrates a principle well substantiated by all history and observation, that insults to female virtue and honor do not escape unavenged. Cleopatra, the beautiful and accomplished Egyptian queen, subdued successively the hearts of two stern Romans—heroes who had met the wildest shocks of battle undismayed, and who had never quailed with fear, nor scarce melted with pity. In her magic fingers hung, at an important crisis, the fate of the Roman empire. Her influence was as destructive as her presence was potential and commanding. These are marked instances of woman's influence, and of her characteristics.
The reign of Octavius Cæsar was the golden age of Rome. At that period, the almost unlimited control of the civilized world was hers. Her colonies were planted on every shore of the known world—the Roman eagles triumphed in every clime. Three continents paid her tribute. One intervening sea washed their shores and wafted her fleets. Extensive sway and the contributions of wealthy nations had not only rendered her proud and insolent, but corrupt, and, in a measure, cruel. The principal distinctions in her society were those of wealth and power, rather than of talents, sobriety, and virtue. The corrupt and the vile were, for the most part, the esteemed and highly favored.
There were numerous instances, it is true, of patriotism, virtue, and highmindedness among Roman citizens of this period, well worthy of imitation and remembrance. There was a sort of refinement of which the earlier Romans did not boast, and which they openly condemned. Grecian art and learning, combined with the wealth and vices introduced from the East, had wrought a great change in the national character and habits. Republican simplicity had given place to excessive extravagance and prodigality. In this, as in every age, woman acted no indifferent part in the everyday drama of Roman life. She was herself extravagant, and, if the history of that period be truly narrated, not always a discourager of vice and dissipation. Cicero, the greatest intellect Rome ever produced, with the exception, it may be, of Julius Cæsar, lived at this age in Rome, and contributed, in no small degree, to give it the title golden. He was, we are told, not only of the highest order of human intelligences, but a man of wisdom and purity of character. While he united in his own person all the noble qualifications of an able statesman, a brilliant scholar and orator, a learned and ingenious lawyer, and a good citizen, as well as a devoted father and husband, his first wife, Teruntia, was nearly the opposite. That he did not lack in kindness towards her, his known characteristics and disposition, as well as his letters to her when at a distance, fully prove. His social qualities eminently fitted him to discharge the duties of a husband in the most amiable manner. Teruntia, though of a rich and noble family, was of a turbulent and impetuous spirit, negligent, intriguing, and finally became so uncongenial a companion to the illustrious orator that he became divorced from her. He afterwards connected himself by marriage with another Roman lady of great wealth; but from her likewise he separated himself, finding her destitute of social kindness, domestic affection, and humanity.
Tullia, Cicero's daughter, is awarded a high rank among Roman ladies of her time; but she was thrice married, and as many times divorced. The cause may not have been hers so much as her husband's, or it may have been more attributable to the loose morals of the age than to either party in particular. If, however, Tullia was wanting in those domestic qualities so necessary to the permanent calm of married life, she was not destitute of learning and the polite accomplishments of her time. She is said, by Roman historians, to have been an "admirable woman"—affectionate and piously observant of her father—one of the most learned of Roman women.
In the earlier days of Rome, the noblest matrons were noted for nothing more than their excellent domestic habits—industry, frugality, and devotion to and affection for their families. The greatness of that vast empire was founded not more in the devoted patriotism and persevering energy of the Roman citizens, than in the incorruptible virtue, the sacrificing spirits, and noble hearts of Roman matrons. Not so in the declining days of the republic. Not so when the robust and vigorous youth of the nation began to tremble with advancing years, and to wreath its brow with gray hairs—a result not of age and toil and serious care, but of dissipation and inglorious ease, of wealth, and wine, and extravagant feasts. Not so when the humble cottage, the home wherein dwelt domestic peace and content, was exchanged for a marble palace, decorated with statues and paintings, lined with Tyrian couches, bespangled with gold and silver ornaments, and thronged with slaves. Not so when the Cæsars and Mark Antony ruled the imperial city with hordes of mercenary soldiers; nor when the republic was metamorphosed into an empire, and all regard to life, property, and private right had, in a measure, ceased. The social and domestic character of Roman society were so sadly changed, and foreign vice and corruption became naturalized to such an extent, that the decay of the empire is no marvel.
The simplicity and integrity of earlier times were the base on which was reared a magnificent national superstructure. Thereon was based the sure growth, the gradual, healthy expansion of Roman power, till all the tribes and nations of the earth respected and feared it. Therein consisted the peculiar glory of Rome's first estate—of her earlier conquests—that force of character and energy of action that wearied Pyrrhus, conquered Mithridates, and overwhelmed Carthage. No coward dared return from a field which he had dishonored to the bosom of his wife, his sister, or his family; for they scorned and detested cowardice and unmanly and unsoldierly behavior, while they honored bravery and patriotism, whether manifested against the invaded or in an offensive war against a foreign foe. They applauded whatever was noble, generous, and manly; though, to gratify this spirit, husbands, fathers, brothers, and sons were sacrificed on war's grim altar. The inflexible mandates of the immortal gods were to be observed at whatever cost.
The citizens were instruments in the hands of the deities to avenge wrongs, to enforce right, and to glorify the city of their birth. The great dramatic bard, in "Coriolanus," makes Volumnia, the mother of Marcius Coriolanus, say: "Hear me profess sincerely. Had I a dozen sons, each in my love alike, and none less dear than thine and my good Marcius, I had rather had eleven die nobly for his country than one voluptously surfeit out of action." She but spoke the spirit of her time; and her language is but the language of Roman matrons of her age. Thus grew and flourished, as by magic forces and divine ordination, the city of Romulus, the world's hope and dread, at once the saviour and destroyer of civilization, whose porous social system absorbed and quickly dissolved the mysteries of Egypt, the classic beauties of Greece, and the wealth of the "exhaustless East."
But the great distinguishing trait in the Roman woman, in the days of the republic and under the earlier kings, was her attention to household employments. This the Roman expected of his wife—it was enjoined upon her by the marriage rite. Thus, indeed, it was among most of the more enlightened nations of antiquity. The noble born of both sexes did not disdain to toil in their appropriate spheres; the prince of royal blood was proud of holding the plough and of acting the husbandman, and daughters of princes were not ashamed to ply the needle or tend the distaff.
"So it was of old
That woman's hand, amid the elements
Of patient industry and household good,
Reproachless wrought, twining the slender thread
From the light distaff; or, in the skilful loom,
Weaving rich tissues, or, with glowing tints
Of rich embroidery, pleased to decorate
The mantle of her lord. And it was well;
For in such sheltered and congenial sphere
Content with duty dwells."
The great veneration for home, and love for its pursuits and associations, grew weaker and weaker as the state exchanged a popular government for the reign of military dictators and kings. In the Augustan age, though instances of female virtue, nobility, and culture are not few, we find from the scanty records of female history of those times extant, which, indeed, are merely incidental, that woman is less often the ideal of self-sacrificing worth and of retiring modesty, less noted for her attachment to her family, her home, and her domestic pursuits, less careful in the training of her children, than formerly. In earlier times, no Roman matron coveted the infamous character of a masculine conspirator; no Roman woman left her quiet hearth disgracefully to insult the remains of a murdered citizen; no Roman woman had instigated a civil war, or proscribed her victims for assassination.
Fulvia, the ambitious wife of Mark Antony, did all this. After the assassination of Clodius, she raised a sedition. Imitating, or rather out-rivalling the cruelty of her husband, she joined in his proscriptions, that Roman blood might flow by Roman hands still more freely. After the great Cicero had been slain in a spirit of the most relentless and vindictive cruelty, and his head brought to Antony, Fulvia took it on her knees, broke out in a torrent of cowardly and abusive epithets on the character of the deceased, and then, with the most fiendish inhumanity, pierced his tongue with her golden bodkin. During the absence of her husband in the East, she not only endeavored to stir up insurrections, but sold the government of provinces and decreed unmerited triumphs. What an eternity of infamy should be hers for such deeds as these! What an example in the wife of a ruler for the imitation of an empire! When such a spirit actuates the female mind, when coupled with ambition, recommended by beauty and intelligence, and supported by power, it is sadly to be deplored. That ambition which at any time induces woman to step beyond her sphere, to take upon her shoulders masculine responsibilities, to take part in political struggles and sectional wrangles, to usurp the places and duties of those who were created and destined to cherish and protect her, it is, for her own sake, to be regretted. Such attempts are not only pernicious in their influence, but they tend to render those unhappy who make them. Such are the results of our reflection and observation, and such is the lesson taught by impartial history.
In the life of Fulvia, however, we do not get a fair representation of the female character of her time, but merely some of its tendencies. A spirit of insubordination to the laws of place and the rules of decorum; an overweening ambition that steps without household limits; assumption of power far beyond the reach of female duties; arrogance and haughtiness from the high official station of the husband; vindictive cruelty to avenge a fancied or a real wrong; prodigality and masculine pride, oftener perceptible in this age than formerly—were unmistakable indications of its character and tendencies. Yet the picture was not altogether sad, though at various points dark shadows were visible. Here and there the heaviness of the prospect was relieved by the most delightful views and cheering lights. The wife of the second Brutus is portrayed by the great limner of human character, in "Julius Cæsar," as worthy the beautiful tribute bestowed by her husband.
In this play, Portia is made to act the part and display the genuine qualities of a "true wife," understanding her duties as such, and manifesting all due sympathy and affection for her husband, as is shown where she beseeches Brutus to reveal to her why he is heavy in heart, the secrets of his bosom, and what designs he cherishes:—
PORTIA.
Within the bond of marriage, tell me, Brutus,
Is it excepted I should know no secrets
But, as it were, in sort or limitation;
To keep with you at meals, comfort your bed,
And talk to you sometimes? Dwell I but in the suburbs
Of your good pleasure? If it be no more,
Portia is Brutus's harlot, not his wife.
BRUTUS.
You are my true and honorable wife!
As dear to me as are the ruddy drops
That visit my sick heart!
PORTIA.
Then should I know this secret.
I grant I am a woman; but, withal,
A woman that Lord Brutus took to wife:
I grant I am a woman; but, withal,
A woman well reputed—Cato's daughter.
Think you I am no stronger than my sex,
Being so fathered, and so husbanded?
Tell me your counsels; I will not disclose them.
I have given strong proof of my constancy,
Giving myself a voluntary wound.
————— Can I bear that with patience,
And not my husband's secrets?
BRUTUS.
Oh, ye gods,
Render me worthy of this noble wife!
In the same play, Shakspeare would have us believe that Calpurnia, wife of Cæsar, had quite persuaded her husband not to go to the senate house on the fatal ides of March, though then and there he was to be crowned and clothed with regal power. The apprehensions she had raised in his mind were, however, dispelled by Oceius Brutus.
Antony's second wife, Octavia, was quite the reverse of Fulvia in character and disposition. She was of a gentle and peaceable spirit, doing her strict duty to her husband long after he had ceased to deserve her confidence or respect. The marriage, on the whole, was an unhappy one, being suggested by policy and public expediency, and effected for the purpose of uniting two powerful factions. Octavia was, for a considerable period, instrumental in preventing a rupture between her brother and husband, though that event finally occurred, with the most disastrous consequences to Antony. Though Antony was an able general, a man of capacity and great personal courage, yet he had so involved himself in the dissipations and luxuries of the Egyptian court, whose crowning star was Cleopatra, that he was no match for the graver and more calculating Augustus. The charms of Cleopatra had completely unmanned him, and smothered, in a measure, his ambition.
Time did not serve to rally him from the lethargy, hopeless and fatal, into which her spell had thrown him. The chains which bound him grew stronger and stronger, and his desire to break them weaker and weaker. This he attributed to her unrivalled beauty and the extent and variety of her accomplishment, to depict which requires a poet's pen and limner's art.
"Age cannot wither, nor custom stale
Her infinite variety. Other women clog
The appetites they feed; but she makes hungry
Where most she satisfies."
Happy picture! yet how inadequate to convey a correct impression of her entire character or history! But that portion intended to be depicted, the winning graces, the charming exterior, her manifold accomplishments, and queenly airs, how delicately, perhaps faithfully, touched off! The gifted and happy artist was not at fault here. The usually faithful limner, we have reason to believe, was not here unfaithful. He has portrayed the Egyptian queen, as she walked along the stage with Antony, truly and well.
But Cleopatra completed the ruin of Antony. He had wellnigh ruined himself; but it was hers to give the final stroke. How little he heeded his vow to Octavia at Rome, after he had spent part of his dissolute career in Egypt!
"My Octavia,
Read not my blemishes in the world's report.
I have not kept my square; but that to come
Shall all be done by the rule."
Poor Antony! the sequel of his life, the consummation of his destiny, how just, yet how painful to be observed! Fit retribution to one forsaking a true and faithful wife, to one choosing the paths of vice and dissipation and enervating pleasures. The stern warrior, the experienced general, the able statesman and orator found, at last, in the hand of the Venus he adored, the sword of a Nemesis.
Among the many noticeable women of this age, we would not pass by with seeming indifference the three Cornelias, wives of distinguished men, themselves, "withal, well reputed." Cornelia, the daughter of Cinna, was a very estimable woman, and the wife of Julius Cæsar. The best eulogy that has been pronounced upon her character and worth is the fact related by Plutarch concerning her. It appears that, though it was at that time contrary to custom at Rome to have funeral orations on young women deceased—only on the aged—yet Cæsar, from his high appreciation of the virtues of his wife, himself pronounced hers without regard to the practice of the times. This was her highest praise—the most worthy commendation of her merit. To recommend herself to her husband thus is one of the rarest excellences of a wife.
Pompey's wife, Cornelia, was Metellus Scipio's daughter. Considering the time in which she lived, the condition of society in which she moved, and the many examples of corruption daily exhibited in and about Rome, she certainly must be regarded as a woman of remarkable character and stability of virtue. Her accomplishments were many and various, and she was equally noted for the excellency of her private character, her domestic habits, and the extent and variety of her information.
Cornelia, the mother of the Gracchi, so celebrated in Roman history, was the daughter of Scipio Africanus Major. She also occupied a high rank among the worthy women of her day. She had a masculine turn of mind, but an irreproachable character. She is said, after the death of her husband, to have trained and educated her children in the most exemplary manner. In illustration of her regard for them, is the anecdote of Valerius Maximus concerning Cornelia, wherein she is represented, after having had displayed to her by a Campanian lady very many beautiful ornaments, and having been requested in turn to display her own, as having said, pointing to her children, "Here are my ornaments."
From the days of the Cæsars, Rome's glory began to depart. The stars that sparkled in her imperial diadem one by one faded, and at last were extinguished, leaving nations long accustomed to bondage and tribute free to grope about in the night of northern barbarism. Her conquerors and destroyers, though stigmatized as cowardly barbarians, without taste, learning, or genius, and destitute of any appreciation of the uses or beauty of art, could at least boast of a higher respect for woman. Ignorant and uncultivated, they yet looked upon the gentler sex with a kindly eye, and in her presence felt a generous sentiment, noble in itself and worthy of men. They looked upon woman as on the face of the calm heavens, to draw thence a kind of holy inspiration. They regarded her as mother, sister, wife, daughter—not as slave, servant, or a temporary toy. A worthy characteristic, though manifest in Goth and Vandal, the destroyers of statues, paintings, and magnificent cities, the dismantlers of queenly Rome, or the ravagers of Tuscany.
One of the disorders of which old Rome died—she had many preying on her vitals—was the rottenness of her social system. The Roman, in the days of Augustus, could not justify himself to his family on any rules of ancient or modern propriety; and too often it happened that his family, his wife, sister, and daughter, could not vindicate their own conduct, much less atone for that of the Roman man.
The history of that age, with what afterwards befel that proud empire, teaches with a plainness that is unmistakable that, when a nation or state loses its self-respect, and the people cease to pay a proper regard to social proprieties, and due respect and deference to female character—when woman is denied the charity she merits, or when she herself is encouraged to step beyond her generously accorded limits, its heart is unsound and its path is descending.
LETTERS LEFT AT THE PASTRY-COOK'S:
BEING THE CLANDESTINE CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN KITTY CLOVER AT SCHOOL, AND HER "DEAR, DEAR FRIEND" IN TOWN.
EDITED BY HORACE MAYHEW.
THE THIRD LETTER LEFT.
(Dated March 3d.)
SHOWING WHAT KITTY THOUGHT OF SOME OF HER SCHOOL-FELLOWS.
I do begin, Nelly, to like this wretched place a little better. All the girls are not Nobles and Peacocks; and it's lucky they ain't, for I never met with such a couple of disagreeable things. They set themselves up for great judges and wits, ridiculing everything they do not like, and trying to make the rest feel humbled and worthless, because our mas have never been to court, or our pas do not drive a pair of horses!
Meggy Sharpe and I both think Annie Flower much prettier than Rosa Peacock, although she is not a fine lady, and her father is only a farmer. They call her "Dairymaid;" but, for all that, Miss Rosa Peacock is jealous of her beautiful complexion, and is always imitating Annie's merry laugh.
That little impudent thing with the turn-up nose is a Miss St. Ledger. Her pa is a city alderman, and a great patron of Mrs. Rodwell. Meggy calls her "Piggy," because she is always stuffing—hiding in the closets and the box-room, to eat by herself, the things she smuggles into the college. Whenever you meet her in the passages, she cannot speak—her cheeks are crammed so full of goodies. They tell a story against her about the drawing-room piano. It was terribly out of tune, and upon examination was found to be full of orange-peel and peach-stones. The supposition is that Miss St. Ledger had taken the peaches and oranges up with her to be able to eat them on the sly when she was practising, and, being suddenly disturbed, had thrown them inside the lid of the grand piano, so as not to be detected. This greedy girl is extremely rich, and she is always boasting that her papa could buy up a whole street of such poor creatures as Noble and Peacock, who she says, have nothing but debts for a fortune, and a title to pay them of with. At the same time, she flatters them, and tries all she can to get friendly with them; but they only snub her the more. But, Nelly, she dresses so beautifully, always in silks, and her pocket-handkerchiefs are as fine as muslin, and, I'm speaking the truth, trimmed with real Valenciennes! They give you a fever to finger them. Then she has boxes upon boxes full of the most lovely ribbons and belts; whilst Madame La Vautrien makes her bonnets, and charges three guineas apiece for them! But, in spite of all her finery, she is the meanest girl in the school—so stingy and greedy, always borrowing, and never lending—never sharing, never helping any one. I do not like her a bit—nasty, disagreeable thing! if she did not go and pry into my boxes; and I heard her telling the girls "all was cheap and common—only one silk dress, and that a turned one of mamma's." The lady principal is very fond of her (her money, more likely), and is always sending her into the drawing-room to practise (though she can't play a bit), because she is so fat and fine, and has hot-house grapes sent to her.
Miss Plodder is another favorite. She is the "Good Girl." Her nickname is "Preterpluperfect." Poor girl, her face makes you sad to look at it! It seems full of tasks and forfeits. Her fingers are always inky, and her hand is so cold that touching it is as unpleasant as the tearing of silk. My blood runs cold merely to think of it. She never plays or laughs, but is always thumbing her lessons, though what she does with her learning no one can tell, for she is never "up" in class, and is always sent "down" at examinations.
How different is dear Lucy Wilde! She seems to know everything without looking at a book. It comes as naturally to her as eating. Ah! she is clever. The professors pay her such compliments before all the school, and the governesses are afraid of her. The lady principal, however, cannot bear Lucy, because she is idle, and up to fun. She tries to keep her down; but Lucy is like a cork in a pail, she is sure to come to the top again. The more she is pushed under, the more she rises. With all her mad-cap tricks, she is always at the head of the class. How she learns no one can tell, for she is never seen with a book. Meggy says it comes to her in her sleep. Professor Drudge told us last week that if Lucy could only be tamed into studying she could do anything, and I believe it. She writes verses, too—little satirical poems on the mistresses, and Peacock and Noble; and sent off on Tuesday the most beautiful Valentine I think I ever read.
But, Nelly, it is Amy Darling you would love best—a bright, pleasant girl, all sunshine, except when she cries, and she cries immediately any one is hurt. We all run to Amy directly we are in trouble. She is like a young mother to us, and treats us with such tenderness that it is almost a pleasure to be in trouble to be comforted by Amy. She consoles one so beautifully; and I'm sure, if our puddings were taken away, we should miss them far less than the absence of dearest Amy. You should see how the little girls crowd round her in the play hours, and pull her about. She romps with them with the greatest good-humor, and never tires in teaching the little things some new game. She was in bed for three days once, and one would have imagined there was a death in the house; but when she recovered, we made so much noise that the lady principal came down from her boudoir to inquire what was the matter. It's strange! She is not clever, nor altogether pretty, nor even professional (her papa's a coachmaker), and yet, somehow, notwithstanding these tremendous drawbacks, she is the favorite of all the school. Even the masters and schoolmistresses cannot help giving the preference to Amy. Professor Drudge himself, who seems to love nothing in the world but his snuff-box, pats her occasionally on the head, bestowing on her at the same time a grim snuffy smile, that he accords to no one else. She is such a dear, dear love! so sweet—so full of joy and sympathy—that I really believe, Nelly, she was intended for an angel, and was only made a school-girl by mistake. Her sweetness is best shown by the fact that Peacock and Noble never give themselves airs to her, though her father is but a coachmaker. She would shame them out of their vulgarity without retorting a harsh word, and make them blush (if that was possible) by merely reproaching them kindly. It is a wonder for a school, where there are so many girls, that not one of them is jealous of Amy. Such a thing would appear unnatural. It would be like being jealous of your mother, or of a nurse who had tended you through a long illness. We are too grateful to be jealous; for there is not a girl in the school, big or little, but who has some cause to be grateful to her. The little girls she protects, and saves them from being bullied; and the big ones she advises when they are in a mess, besides helping them through their tasks. She is the protectress that all fly to—the peacemaker that all abide by (even those in the wrong); and the general confidante of us all, the poor mistresses included. Meggy calls her our "Sister Confessor;" and really it is terrible to think of the heap of secrets that must be piled up, as high as the boxes on a Margate steamer, upon her honor. When you think, Nelly, it is as much as we can do to keep one secret, I wonder how Amy can breathe with such a load upon her breast! Yet she carries it all as lightly as a fairy does her wand.
Meggy says, "poor Mary Owen is in pawn to Mrs. Rodwell," which means that she has been left as security for a debt, as hopeless as any national one.
Years ago (so Meggy tells me) Mary's father—a captain in the army—left her at school, with directions that she was to learn everything, and no expense spared in her education. With the exception of one or two small remittances, nothing has been heard of her father since. Year after year, Mary grows paler and more sad, with not a friend in the world to cling to, but dearest Amy, who treats her more like a sister than anything else, being always by her side, as something told her that if the poor girl hadn't a crutch of some sort to lean upon she would assuredly fall to the ground. The lady principal has lost all hope of Mary being ever claimed, or (worse still) of her bill being ever paid. This makes Mary's position all the more melancholy, for she is pointed to as a kind of living monument to the cardinal virtues of the schoolmistress who keeps her. If there is a little sermon on charity or benevolence, Mary is always chosen as its text. Whenever there is a lecture read about ingratitude, poor Mary is always brought forward as the disgraceful illustration of it. It is the same with dishonesty, taradiddles, fibbing, and the entire category of school vices—Mary serves as the example of them all. It would seem as if the poor girl was kept as a "terrible warning" to the college; and I'm sure in this capacity alone, that her bill has been paid more than twenty times over. It is sad to watch the poor girl while she's being thus publicly pointed at before her school-fellows. She never says a word, nor attempts to defend herself. She sits quietly in her seat, her face growing paler, and her head falling lower with each blow of her accuser; and if you saw her heavy, tearless eye, Nelly, and her lips quite colorless, as I have seen them, you would pity her with all your heart, and long to go up and kiss her, and tell her not to mind it. Often and often have I felt inclined to call out and beg of Mrs. Rodwell to stop such cruelty; but fear has pinched my lips, and I have caught myself crying, and I defy any one to help it. But I don't mean to say that Mrs. Rodwell ill-treats Mary, or is positively unkind, or lifts her hand against her; but she is always taunting her with her misfortune in so sharp a manner, that I would sooner by far be beat outright, or be sent away at once. It is one unceasing tyranny of little petty trifles all day long (a tyranny of pins and needles, Meggy calls it), which I call most cowardly for a woman like Mrs. Rodwell (though she has lost her money) to use against a poor girl who cannot defend herself: just as if Mary wouldn't pay if she could! On such occasions, Amy is kinder to her than ever, and struggles, by dint of affection, and by trying to lead her into play, to make her forget the harshness she has experienced during school hours. I'm not certain that she succeeds very well. Mary tries, in grateful return for so much kindness, to smile and to play; but it isn't smiling nor playing, Nelly; it's working, and hard working at it.
Her dress is the funniest thing you ever saw. When I, say funny, I do not mean it makes you laugh—far from it—but that it is extremely odd and peculiar. At first, Mary used to wear the cast-off things of two Indian girls, who are here and never go home; but since she has grown tall she is packed up in Mrs. R.'s old trumpery finery, and flits about like a thin shadow of what the lady principal was six months previously. No one, however, is cruel enough to quiz Mary. Her sorrow throws a sacred protection over her that is better than any shield, and even Miss St. Ledger (with her pert turn-up nose) forgets the sharpness of her tongue in her presence. Amy, besides, wouldn't allow any one to slight her. They tell me, Nelly, that when "breaking-up day" comes round, and all are skipping about in the wild joy of being fetched home, poor Mary sits silently apart, shunning everybody—avoiding the windows where all the girls are heaped together, watching the arrival of the carriages; and that she almost runs away from dear Amy's caresses, rejecting her loving endeavors to cheer her, as if they were a source of pain to her. Dear Amy always stops the last with her; but, when it comes to her turn to go away, then poor Mary flings herself round her devoted friend's neck, and bursts into one long flood of tears, as if her heart was breaking. May we never know such grief as that, Nelly! Only think, dearest, how cheerless must the holidays be to the poor homeless girl! The reassembling of school, which school-girls dread so much, must come back to her with all the delight of holidays to us.
Once Amy asked for Mary to go home with her, but the lady principal objected to it. It would take too much money and trouble to "get her up." Amy said she should wear her things; but Mrs. Rodwell still objected. She was afraid (Meggy says) to "trust the security of her debt out of sight!" Poor Mary has never left the Princesses' College now for four years, except at such times when she has been out walking with the school!
This is very sad and terrible, Nelly, and we ought to think ourselves very fortunate, that we have such good papas and mammas, and that our positions in life are very different from that of poor Mary Owen! But I have written myself quite miserable, and you too, I am afraid, Nelly; so no more at present, dear, from
Your little stupid
KITTY CLOVER.
P. S. Excuse haste.
P. S. Why don't you write?
MRS. MUDLAW'S RECIPE FOR POTATO PUDDING;
OR, GOSSIP FROM OUR TOWN.
BY THE AUTHOR OF "THE BEDOTT PAPERS."
[The following story is not now published for the first time; but we republish it at the request of many subscribers, who want it in an endurable form, and because we wish to preserve a story so characteristic of the peculiar talent of its amiable writer, whose memoir we published in our numbers for July and August, 1853.]
Mr. John Darling, a worthy and intelligent mechanic, who has been, for two years past, a resident of our town, was somewhat surprised and considerably gratified one day last fall, at receiving an invitation to dine with Colonel Philpot, one of the aristocracy.
Mr. Darling enjoys that respect in our community which mechanical ingenuity and integrity united are always sure to command everywhere. These qualities, and a more than ordinary degree of information, acquired by the employment of much of his leisure time in reading, have given him an almost unbounded influence amongst his own class.
Though the invitation to Colonel P.'s created some surprise in his mind, he felt more disposed to be pleased at the honor than to question the motives which prompted it; for his nature is wholly free from suspicion and the petty feeling of jealousy which those in his station sometimes indulge towards the "upper ten"—feelings with which, we are sorry to say, the bosom of his better half was frequently agitated.
"We have been neighbors for some time, Mr. Darling," said Colonel Philpot; "it is time we were better acquainted. You must come and dine socially with me to-morrow. Mrs. Philpot and the children are out of town, and I am going to have a few friends to enliven my solitude."
So John Darling "saved his appetite," dressed himself in his best clothes, and, at the appointed hour—a somewhat later one than his customary time for dining—repaired to Colonel Philpot's.
He met there several of his associates—had a "fine time and a grand dinner"—the utmost hilarity and good feeling prevailed; and Mr. Darling entertained his wife with an account of it at every meal for several weeks.
"Hester," said he one day, as they were seated at a codfish dinner, "did you ever taste a potato pudding?"
"Potato pudding! No; I never heard of such a thing."
"Well, I wish you could, for 'tis delicious! We had one when I dined at Colonel Philpot's."
"I wonder what you didn't have at Colonel Philpot's," said Mrs. Darling. "I declare, I'm tired hearing about it."
"Well, I'll tell you one thing we didn't have—we didn't have codfish. But, that pudding—I wish you'd learn how to make it; it was superb!"
"I presume so; and I guess, if I had half a dozen servants at my heels, and a thorough-trained cook into the bargain, I could have things superb, too. But, as long as I have everything to do myself, and very little to do with, I don't see how I'm to get up things in style. I wonder you can expect me to."
"I don't expect you to, Hester. You always do things to suit my taste. But that pudding was excellent; and, being made of potatoes, I thought, of course, it must be economical, and"—
"Economical! That's all you know about it. What gumps men are! I'll warrant it had forty different things in it, and less potatoes than anything else. I'm no hand to fuss up. I like plain cookery, for my part."
"So do I, as a general thing. But, then, you know, it's well to have something a little better than ordinary once in a while."
"Well, if you're not satisfied with my way of doing things, you must hire a cook, or go and board out." And Mrs. Darling put on her injured look, and remained silent during the rest of the dinner.
But, after all, she was not an ill-natured woman really; and, after her husband had gone to his shop, she began to feel a little pricked in her conscience for having been so cross at dinner. She wished she had not gone on at such a rate. But, then, John had bored her so about that dinner at Colonel Philpot's—she was out of patience with it. Yet what right had she to be out of patience with John? He never was out of patience with her, and she could but acknowledge that he often had reason to be so. So she resolved to make it up as soon as possible.
"John," said she, as she handed him a cup of tea, "I've a great notion to try that potato pudding. I believe I could make one."
"No doubt of it, Hester," said her husband; "you can do almost anything you try to."
"I suppose it takes butter, and sugar, and eggs, and spices, and so forth; but I wish I knew the proportions."
"It's very easy to find out all about it by calling at Colonel Philpot's. He said his wife would be delighted to get acquainted with you."
"So you've told me a dozen times; but I think that, if she wanted to get acquainted with me, she might call upon me. She's lived here longer than I have, and it isn't my place to call first; and I don't believe the colonel tells the truth when he says she wants to get acquainted with me."
"Well, I always think people mean as they say, and I wish you would, too, Hester."
"But it's very evident that she holds herself a great deal above me. She has no reason to, certainly, for her family wasn't half as respectable as mine. Mrs. David Potter knows all about them, root and branch, and she says that Mrs. Philpot's father kept a very low tavern in Norridge, and Mrs. Philpot herself tended the bar when she was a girl. But, somehow, Colonel Philpot happened to fall in love with her, and he sent her away to school, and then married her."
"Well, that's nothing against her, is it?"
"No, of course it wouldn't be, if she didn't carry her head so high now. But it's always the way with such persons—they never know how to bear prosperity. There wouldn't be anything said about her origin, if she didn't put on such airs; but, as long as she feels so lifted up, folks will talk, you know."
"Perhaps you don't do her justice, Hester. You know nothing about her excepting what you've heard. At any rate, it would do no harm to call upon her."
After repeated conversations and discussions of this sort, Mrs. Darling concluded to pay Mrs. Philpot a visit. She could make the potato pudding an excuse, and be governed by Mrs. P.'s reception in regard to farther intercourse. Mrs. Philpot has been, for several years past, to use her own expression, "very unfortunate in her domestics." With the exception of her cook—up to the time of Mrs. Darling's call—she had seldom kept one above a month, and sometimes not as long as that. This frequent change of servants was not so much owing to any unkindness on Mrs. Philpot's part, as to the fact that Mrs. Mudlaw, her cook, could never agree with them. This functionary had been, for several years, a fixture in Colonel P.'s establishment; indeed, Mrs. P. declared she could not possibly get along without her. Mrs. Mudlaw was, in fact, a good cook, and so entirely relieved that lady from all care in that department that, rather than part with her, she was willing to submit to her petty tyranny in everything. The cook actually "ruled the roast" at Colonel P.'s in more than one sense. And she did not often find the subalterns of the household as submissive to her wishes as Mrs. Philpot herself was. She contrived to quarrel them away in a short time, for she had only to say to Mrs. P., "Well, either Bridget or I must quit, so you may take your choice;" and the offending servant-maid was dismissed forthwith, there being no appeal from Mrs. Mudlaw's decision.
A scene of this kind had just occurred when Mrs. Darling made her visit, and a new raw Irish girl had that morning been installed in place of the one discharged. The duty of this girl was to answer the door-bell, and help Mrs. Mudlaw. In fact, the hardest and most disagreeable of the kitchen-work came upon her. When Mrs. Darling rang, Mrs. Philpot was in the kitchen giving instructions to Peggy, or rather acquiescing in those which Mrs. Mudlaw was laying down.
"There goes the bell," said that important personage, and Mrs. Philpot hastened to an upper window to see who it was. Having satisfied herself, she came back and told Peggy to go and admit the lady.
"Why don't you start, you?" said Mrs. Mudlaw.
"Well, what'll I do now?" said Peggy, whirling round in that bewildered way peculiar to Irish girls.
"Do!" roared Mudlaw. "Don't you know nothin'? Hain't we jest been tellin' ye 'twas your duty to tend to the door-bell? Run to the front door and let 'em in, and show 'em into the drawin'-room. You know where that is, don't you?"
"Faith, I know that," answered Peggy, and away she ran, thanking her stars that there was at least one thing that she knew.
"It's no one that I know, I'm sure," said Mrs. Philpot, after Peggy had gone; "at least, the bonnet and shawl are not familiar to me. I presume it is somebody I don't care about seeing."
"I shouldn't wonder," said Mudlaw. "But I s'pose you couldn't do otherways, as the curnel has given orders that nobody ain't to be refused till after 'lection."
With much confusion and toe-stubbing, the unfortunate Peggy ushered Mrs. Darling into the nursery, which was also Mrs. Philpot's ordinary sitting-room. It was directly over the kitchen, and heated from the cooking-stove by means of a drum, or dummy, as Mrs. Mudlaw called it. Every word that was said in the kitchen could easily be heard in the nursery—quite a convenience to Mudlaw, as it enabled her often to communicate with Mrs. Philpot without the trouble of going up stairs. Many an interesting account of what she did when Mr. Mudlaw was living, and how they managed at General K.'s when she was staying there, has gone up that stove-pipe.
The nursery was in a state of the greatest disorder, as was usually the case, though the children were all out just then. Sukey, the nurse-girl, had taken the baby out to ride, and Philip Augustus had gone with them; and Zoe Matilda was at school. Playthings of every description, carts, horses, dolls, as well as children's books and clothes, were scattered about the room in what Mrs. Darling called "awful confusion." But she had not time for inward comments upon this state of things, before her attention was called to the conversation below.
"It's Mrs. Darling as wushes to see ye, mum," said Peggy.
"That Mrs. Darling! Did you ever!" exclaimed Mrs. Philpot.
"She ain't nobody, is she?" said Mrs. Mudlaw.
"Nobody at all. Her husband is a cabinet-maker; but the colonel has charged it upon me to be polite to her just now. He wished me to call upon her; but I wouldn't condescend to stoop so low as that, though he made me promise to treat her with attention if she called."
"Well, I wouldn't do it, if I was you," said the cook. "I'd be mistress in my own house, anyhow."
"But, you know, it's for his interest now. He says that Darling has a great deal of influence among mechanics—can command a good many votes."
"Oh, I remember now! he's one of them codgers that dined here while you was away, that the curnel was laughin' about afterwards, and tellin' you how awkward they handled the silver forks."
"Yes; isn't it provoking to have to be polite to such people? Well, I shall be glad when 'lection 's over, for the colonel says I may cut them all then, and I think it won't be long before they sink back to their own level." And Mrs. Philpot arose with a sigh, and ascended to the drawing-room, arranging her features into a gracious and patronizing expression as she went.
Mrs. Darling's feelings during this conversation "can be better imagined than described," as the novels would say. Her first impulse was to leave the house without waiting for Mrs. Philpot's appearance, and she rose and made a few steps with that intention; but, on second thoughts, she resolved to remain, and let her know that she only came on an errand, and resumed her seat.
When Mrs. Philpot found no one in the drawing-room she returned to the kitchen, supposing that her visitor had gone.
"She's gone," said she, "without waiting for me. She doesn't know enough about good society to understand that a lady doesn't make her appearance the moment she's called for."
"I shouldn't wonder if she was in the nursery all the time," said Mudlaw; "for I heard a stepping up there a while ago, and the children hain't got home yet. Where did you take her to, you?"
"Why, I tuck her in the dhrawin'-room, sure, as you tould me, right overhid," said Peggy, in some alarm.
"You blunderin' Irish gumphead! Don't you know the drawin'-room from the nursery?"
"Och! but I thought it was the dhrawin'-room; for didn't I see the young masther a dhrawin' his cart, and wasn't Shukey a dhrawin' the baby about the floore by its feet, when I went up to take the wather this mornin'?"
"There, I told you she was a born fool!" said Mudlaw, in a rage. "She'll never know nothing—she'll never learn nothing—you may as well send her off first as last."
"Hush! don't speak so loud," said Mrs. Philpot, in a whisper. "She can hear all you say—she has heard enough already. Dear me, what shall I do? The colonel will be so provoked! How could you be so dumb, Peggy? Run right up and take her into the drawing-room. Stop! you needn't; you will make some other mistake. I'll go myself."
In a state of mind not to be envied, Mrs. Philpot hastened to the nursery. But, as she entertained a faint hope that the conversation below had not penetrated through Mrs. Darling's bonnet, she endeavored to hide her embarrassment under an affable smile, extended her hand gracefully, and drawled out a genteel welcome to her visitor.
"Delighted to see you, Mrs. Darling; but very sorry you should have been brought into the nursery"—no wonder she's sorry, thought Mrs. Darling—"these raw Irish girls are so stupid! Walk into the parlor, if you please."
"No, I thank you, Mrs. Philpot, I'd as soon sit here," returned Mrs. Darling. "I can only stay a moment. I called to ask for a receipt for potato pudding. Mr. Darling tasted one when he dined with Colonel Philpot, and liked it so much that he wished me to get directions for making it."
"Potato pudding? Ah, yes, I recollect. Mudlaw, my cook, does make a very good plain thing that she calls a potato pudding; but I know nothing about her manner of preparing it. I will call her, however, and she shall tell you herself." Thereupon she pulled the bell, and Peggy shortly appeared, looking more frightened and bewildered than ever.
"Send Mudlaw here," said Mrs. Philpot.
She would not have dared to address her "chief cook and bottle-washer" without the respectful title of Mrs.; but it was rather more grand to omit it, and she always did so when not in her hearing.
"The missus said I was to send you there," said Peggy.
"You send me!" exclaimed the indignant cook. "I guess when I go for your sending, it'll be after this."
Mrs. Philpot, although conversing in a condescending manner with Mrs. Darling, caught something of the cook's reply to her summons, and asked to be excused for a moment, saying that Peggy was so stupid, she feared that Mudlaw might not understand her, and she would go herself and send her. So she hastened down to the kitchen, where she found the head functionary standing on her dignity.
"Pretty well," said she, "if I am to be ordered round by an Irish scullion!"
"Mrs. Mudlaw, step here a moment, if you please," said Mrs. Philpot, meekly, opening the door of an adjoining room.
The offended lady vouchsafed to comply with the request, and, with a stern aspect, entered the room with Mrs. Philpot. The latter closed the door for fear of being heard overhead, and began—
"What do you think, Mrs. Mudlaw? That Mrs. Darling has come to learn how to make a potato pudding, and you'll have to go up and tell her."
"I sha'n't do it. I make it a point never to give my receipts to nobody."
"I know it; and, I'm sure, I don't blame you. But, in this case—just now—I really don't see how we can refuse."
"Well, I sha'n't do it, and that 's the hull on 't."
"Oh, do, Mrs. Mudlaw, just this once. The colonel is so anxious to secure Darling, and he will be so angry if we offend them in any way."
"But he needn't know it, need he?"
"He certainly will find it out by some means. I know it is real vexatious to you, and I wouldn't ask it if election was over; but now 'tis very important—it may save us all trouble. The colonel is so decided, you know."
These last words of Mrs. Philpot had an effect upon Mudlaw which no wish or entreaty of that lady would have ever produced, for they suggested to her selfish mind the possibility of a dismissal from her snug birth at Colonel P.'s, where she carried it with a high hand; so she gave in.
"Well, jest to please you and the curnel, I'll do it; but I wish 'lection was over."
Mrs. Philpot returned to the nursery, and Mrs. Mudlaw took off her apron, changed her cap for one trimmed with pink ribbons and blue roses, gave numerous orders to Peggy, and followed. She was a short, fat woman, with a broad, red face—such a person as a stranger would call the very personification of good nature; though I have never found fat people to be any more amiable than lean ones. Certainly, Mrs. Mudlaw was not a very sweet-tempered woman. On this occasion, she felt rather more cross than usual, forced, as she was, to give one of her receipts to a nobody. She, however, knew the necessity of assuming a pleasant demeanor at that time, and accordingly entered the nursery with an encouraging grin on her blazing countenance. Mrs. Philpot, fearing lest her cook's familiarity might belittle her mistress in the eyes of Mrs. Darling, and again asking to be excused for a short time, went into the library, a nondescript apartment, dignified by that name, which communicated with the nursery. The moment she left her seat, a large rocking-chair, Mudlaw dumped herself down in it, exclaiming—
"Miss Philpot says you want to get my receipt for potater puddin'?"
"Yes," replied Mrs. Darling. "I would be obliged to you for the directions." And she took out of her pocket a pencil and paper to write it down.
"Well, 'tis an excellent puddin'," said Mudlaw, complacently; "for my part, I like it about as well as any puddin' I make, and that's sayin' a good deal, I can tell you, for I understand makin' a great variety. 'Taint so awful rich as some, to be sure. Now, there's the Cardinelle puddin', and the Washington puddin', and the Lay Fayette puddin', and the—"
"Yes. Mr. Darling liked it very much—how do you make it?"
"Wal, I peel my potaters and bile 'em in fair water. I always let the water bile before I put 'em in. Some folks let their potaters lie and sog in the water ever so long, before it biles; but I think it spiles 'em. I always make it a pint to have the water bile—"
"How many potatoes?"
"Wal, I always take about as many potaters as I think I shall want. I'm generally governed by the size of the puddin' I want to make. If it's a large puddin', why I take quite a number, but if it's a small one, why, then I don't take as many. As quick as they're done, I take 'em up and mash 'em as fine as I can get 'em. I'm always very partic'lar about that—some folks ain't; they'll let their potaters be full o' lumps. I never do; if there 's anything I hate, it's lumps in potaters. I won't have 'em. Whether I'm mashin' potaters for puddin's or for vegetable use, I mash it till there ain't the size of a lump in it. If I can't git it fine without sifting, why, I sift it. Once in a while, when I'm otherways engaged, I set the girl to mashin' on't. Wal, she'll give it three or four jams, and come along, 'Miss Mudlaw, is the potater fine enough?' Jubiter Rammin! that's the time I come as near gittin' mad as I ever allow myself to come, for I make it a pint never to have lumps—"
"Yes, I know it is very important. What next?"
"Wal, then I put in my butter; in winter time I melt it a little, not enough to make it ily, but jest so's to soften it."
"How much butter does it require?"
"Wal, I always take butter accordin' to the size of the puddin'; a large puddin' needs a good sized lump o' butter, but not too much. And I'm always partic'lar to have my butter fresh and sweet. Some folks think it's no matter what sort o' butter they use for cookin', but I don't. Of all things, I do despise strong, frowy, rancid butter. For pity's sake, have your butter fresh."
"How much butter did you say?"
"Wal, that depends, as I said before, on what sized puddin' you want to make. And another thing that regulates the quantity of butter I use is the 'mount o' cream I take. I always put in more or less cream; when I have abundance o' cream, I put in considerable, and when it's scarce, why, I use more butter than I otherways should. But you must be partic'lar not to get in too much cream. There's a great deal in havin' jest the right quantity; and so 'tis with all the ingrejiences. There ain't a better puddin' in the world than a potater puddin', when it's made right, but tain't everybody that makes 'em right. I remember when I lived in Tuckertown, I was a visitin' to Squire Humprey's one time—I went in the first company in Tuckertown—dear me! this is a changeable world. Wal, they had what they called a potater puddin' for dinner. Good laud! Of all the puddin's! I've often occurred to that puddin' since, and wondered what the Squire's wife was a thinkin' of when she made it. I wa'n't obleeged to do no such things in them days, and didn't know how to do anything as well as I do now. Necessity's the mother of invention. Experience is the best teacher after all—"
"Do you sweeten it?"
"Oh, yes, to be sure it needs sugar, the best o' sugar, too; not this wet, soggy, brown sugar. Some folks never think o' usin' good sugar to cook with, but for my part I won't have no other."
"How much sugar do you take?"
"Wal, that depends altogether on whether you calculate to have sass for it—some like sass, you know, and then some agin don't. So, when I calculate for sass, I don't take so much sugar; and when I don't calculate for sass, I make it sweet enough to eat without sass. Poor Mr. Mudlaw was a great hand for puddin'-sass. I always made it for him—good, rich sass, too. I could afford to have things rich before he was unfortinate in bisness." (Mudlaw went to State's prison for horse-stealing.) "I like sass myself, too; and the curnel and the children are all great sass hands; and so I generally calculate for sass, though Miss Philpot prefers the puddin' without sass, and perhaps you'd prefer it without. If so, you must put in sugar accordingly. I always make it a pint to have 'em sweet enough when they're to be eat without sass."
"And don't you use eggs?"
"Certainly, eggs is one o' the principal ingrejiences."
"How many does it require?"
"Wal, when eggs is plenty, I always use plenty; and when they 're scarce, why I can do with less, though I'd ruther have enough; and be sure to beat 'em well. It does distress me, the way some folks beat eggs. I always want to have 'em thoroughly beat for everything I use 'em in. It tries my patience most awfully to have anybody round me that won't beat eggs enough. A spell ago we had a darkey to help in the kitchen. One day I was a makin' sponge cake, and havin' occasion to go up stairs after something, I sot her to beatin' the eggs. Wal, what do you think the critter done? Why, she whisked 'em round a few times, and turned 'em right onto the other ingrejiences that I'd got weighed out. When I come back and saw what she'd done, my gracious! I came as nigh to losin' my temper as I ever allow myself to come. 'Twas awful provokin'! I always want the kitchen help to do things as I want to have 'em done. But I never saw a darkey yet that ever done anything right. They're a lazy, slaughterin' set. To think o' her spilin' that cake so, when I'd told her over and over agin that I always made it a pint to have my eggs thoroughly beat!"
"Yes, it was too bad. Do you use fruit in the pudding?"
"Wal, that's jest as you please. You'd better be governed by your own judgment as to that. Some like currants and some like raisins, and then agin some don't like nary one. If you use raisins, for pity's sake pick out the stuns. It's awful to have a body's teeth come grindin' onto a raisin stun. I'd rather have my ears boxt any time."
"How many raisins must I take?"
"Wal, not too many—it's apt to make the puddin' heavy, you know; and when it's heavy, it ain't so light and good. I'm a great hand—"
"Yes. What do you use for flavoring?"
"There agin you'll have to exercise your own judgment. Some likes one thing, and some another, you know. If you go the hull figger on temperance, why some other kind o' flavorin' 'll do as well as wine or brandy, I s'pose. But whatever you make up your mind to use, be partic'lar to git in a sufficiency, or else your puddin' 'll be flat. I always make it a pint—"
"How long must it bake?"
"There's the great thing after all. The bakin' 's the main pint. A potater puddin', of all puddin's, has got to be baked jest right. For if it bakes a leetle too much, it's apt to dry it up; and then agin if it don't bake quite enough, it's sure to taste potatery—and that spiles it, you know."
"How long should you think?"
"Wal, that depends a good deal on the heat o' your oven. If you have a very hot oven, 'twon't do to leave it in too long; and if your oven ain't so very hot, why, you'll be necessiated to leave it in longer."
"Well, how can I tell anything about it?"
"Why, I always let 'em bake till I think they're done—that's the safest way. I make it a pint to have 'em baked exactly right. It's very important in all kinds o' bakin'—cake, pies, bread, puddin's, and everything—to have 'em baked precisely long enough, and jest right. Some folks don't seem to have no system at all about their bakin'. One time they'll burn their bread to a crisp, and then agin it'll be so slack tain't fit to eat. Nothing hurts my feelin's so much as to see things overdone or slack-baked. Here only t'other day, Lorry, the girl that Miss Philpot dismissed yesterday, come within an ace o' letting my bread burn up. My back was turned a minnit, and what should she do but go to stuffin' wood into the stove at the awfullest rate? If I hadn't a found it out jest when I did, my bread would a ben spilt as sure as I'm a live woman. Jubiter Rammin! I was about as much decomposed as I ever allow myself to git! I told Miss Philpot I wouldn't stan' it no longer—one of us must quit—either Lorry or me must walk."
"So you've no rule about baking this pudding?"
"No rule!" said Mudlaw, with a look of intense surprise.
"Yes," said Mrs. Darling, "you seem to have no rule for anything about it."
"No rule!" screamed the indignant cook, starting up, while her red face grew ten times redder, and her little black eyes snapped with rage. "No rules!" and she planted herself in front of Mrs. Darling, erecting her fleshy figure to its full height of majestic dumpiness, and extending the forefinger of her right hand till it reached an alarming propinquity to that lady's nose. "No rules! do you tell me I've no rules! Me! that's cooked in the first families for fifteen years, and always gin satisfaction, to be told by such as you that I hain't no rules!"
Thus far had Mudlaw proceeded, and I know not to what length she would have "allowed herself" to go, had not the sudden entrance of Col. Philpot interrupted her. He being a person of whom she stood somewhat in awe, particularly "jest at this time," she broke off in the midst of her tirade, and, casting a look of ineffable disgust at Mrs. Darling, retreated to her own dominions to vent her fury upon poor Peggy, who had done everything wrong during her absence.
While Col. Philpot was expressing his extreme satisfaction at seeing Mrs. Darling, Mrs. Philpot emerged from the library, where she had been shaking in her shoes during the interview between that lady and Mudlaw.
"Matilda, my dear," said the colonel, "this is quite an unexpected pleasure, for really, Mrs. Darling, we began to fear that you did not intend to cultivate us."
"I did not come for that purpose," replied Mrs. Darling, who, now that she saw through Col. Philpot, despised him thoroughly, and was not afraid to let him know it, notwithstanding he belonged to the aristocracy of our town. "I came on an errand, and your cook has got very angry with me for some reason, I scarcely know what."
"Poor Mudlaw," said Mrs. Philpot, anxious to screen her main stay from the colonel's displeasure, yet feeling the necessity of some apology to Mrs. Darling. "Poor Mudlaw! I don't think she intended to be rude."
"What! has the cook been rude to Mrs. Darling?" exclaimed Col. P.
"Not rude, exactly, dear; but you know she is so sensitive about everything connected with her department, and she fancied that Mrs. Darling called her skill in question, and became somewhat excited."
"Quite excited, I should call it," said Mrs. D. with a smile.
"And she has dared to treat Mrs. Darling rudely!" said Col. P., apparently much agitated. "Shameful! disgraceful! the wretch shall suffer for it! To think that a lady like Mrs. Darling should be insulted by a cook! in my house, too!"
"And just before election, too; it is a pity!" said Mrs. Darling quietly, as she rose, and wishing them good-morning, departed, leaving Col. Philpot lost in astonishment. Her last remark rendered necessary some explanation from Mrs. P. She was compelled to repeat some part of the conversation that had taken place in the kitchen, which, though softened down as much as possible, was sufficient to rouse the colonel's indignation to the highest pitch, for he saw at once that Darling was lost. He gave his silly wife a hearty blowing up, but upon Mudlaw his wrath fell heaviest. No entreaties of her mistress could save her; she was commanded to quit the premises, to troop forthwith "for being rude to visitors." But Mudlaw knew well enough the real reason of her dismissal, and when she went forth in rage and sorrow, she found some consolation in spreading it far and wide, thereby making Col. Philpot very ridiculous in the eyes of the community.
"Well, I'm surprised, Hester," said John Darling, after his wife had given him a circumstantial account of her visit. "And I'm right sorry, too, to have my good opinion of a man knocked in the head so, for I did think well of Col. Philpot. I really believed we couldn't send a better man to Congress. But it won't do. A man that can stoop to such conduct isn't fit to go there. I can't vote for him, and my influence, what little I have, must go against him. If he gets there, it must be without any help from John Darling!"
Col. Philpot did not go to Congress, and what made his defeat the more aggravating was the fact that his opponent was elected by the small majority of three votes. And so Col. Philpot lost his election; and Mrs. Philpot lost her cook; and Mr. Darling lost his esteem for Col. Philpot, and all through the over-politeness of the latter.
And was there nothing gained? Oh, yes; Mrs. Darling gained something. Not much information in regard to the potato pudding, certainly; but she gained some knowledge of the internal arrangements of Mrs. Philpot's household, which proved of great service to her, for she confesses to John that she was never so contented with her own home and her own husband as she has been since she made that memorable call at Col. Philpot's.