SONNET.—CYDNUS.
———
BY WM. ALEXANDER.
———
Cydnus! thou art a memorable stream!
Clear, crystal-like, thy proud waves roll apace,
As when with snowy plume and pallid face,
The daring Grecian felt thy cold extreme—
Two thousand summers have now passed away,
Yet, like white garments waving ’mid the gloom,
Seems thy bright water’s foam. Many a tomb
Lines thy green banks, as when in sad array
The great procession passed, with viol’s wail,
While underneath the canopy of gold,
Raised on the deck, lay Egypt’s queen, as cold
As when the aspic stung her. Spectres pale
Still haunt thy shore; thy waves all uselessly
Sweep on; “no galley there—no ship shall pass thereby.”
NELLY NOWLAN ON BLOOMERS.
———
BY MRS. S. C. HALL.
———
“I promised, my dear aunt,” continued Nelly, “when I left you, to tell you every thing I saw! I little knew what a promise that was when I made it! but there’s something so mighty quare has happened lately in this great town, that I should like you to come to knowledge of it; it is so different from what’s going on in poor ould Ireland. I haven’t much time for writing this month, so must tell it out of the face, and be done with it. Do you remember the watching we used to have when the war was going on betwixt Miss Mulvany of the big shop, and Mrs. Toney Casey of the red house, about the length of their gowns? All the county cried shame on Miss Mulvany, when the hem of her brand-new-Sunday-silk reached the binding of her shoe, and then they shouted double shame on Mrs. Tony Casey, all the way home from mass, when the next Sunday her dress touched the heel; sure it served us for conversation all the week, and every girl in the place letting down her hems—and happy she, who had a good piece in the gathers—and to see the smile and the giggle on Miss Mulvany’s face! We all knew, when we saw that, that she’d come out past the common, the next Sunday; and so she did, and a cruel wet Sunday it was, and she in another silk, a full finger on the ground behind and before, and she too proud to hold it up! and that little villain, Paddy Macgann, coming up to her in the civilist way and asking if he might carry home her tail for her! And then the row there was between Tony Casey and his wife, the little foolish crayshur, because he refused her the price of a new gown, with which she wanted to break the heart of the other fool, Miss Mulvany, by doubling the length, and how Mrs. Casey would not go to mass, because she couldn’t have a longer tail than Miss Mulvany! And sure you mind, aunt dear, when all that work was going on, how the fine priest stood on the altar, and ‘Girls and boys,’ he says—it was after mass—‘Girls and boys, but especially girls, I had a drame last night, or indeed, to be spaking good English, it was this morning I had it, and I need not tell you, my little darlings,’ (that was the kind way he had of speaking,) ‘that a morning drame comes true. Well, in my drame I was on the Fair green, and there was a fine lot of you, all looking fresh and gay like a bank of primroses, and all sailing about like a forest of paycocks, with tails as long and as draggled as Mary Mulvany has got, and Mrs. Tony Casey has not got.’
“‘No fault of hers, plaze your reverence,’ says Tony.
“‘Hould y’er tongue, Tony,’ said the priest, ‘until you’re spoken to, and don’t be a fool; when a wise man wins a battle, he shouldn’t brag of it; and it is ill manners you have, to be putting your priest out in the face of his congregation. Where was I?’
“‘In a forest of paycocks, your reverence,’ squeaked little Paddy Macgann.
“‘That’s a fine boy, Paddy, to remember what your priest says.’
“‘Your reverence promised me a penny the last time I held your horse,’ squeaked Paddy again; upon which there was a grate laugh, in which his reverence joined. It was mighty sharp of Paddy.
“‘Well, girls,’ continued his reverence, ‘you were all like paycocks, only some had longer tails than others, and very proud you were of them—mighty fine, and quite natural; showing them off, girls, not to one another, but at one another. Well, there is, as you all know, no accounting for drames, for all of a sudden who should come on the green, but the Black Gentleman himself! It’s downright earnest I am. I saw him as plain as I see you; hoofs and horns, there he was; and when you all saw him, of course you ran away like hares, and those that had short gowns got clean off, tight and tidy, but as for poor Mary Mulvany, and all like her, (in dress, I mean) all he had to do, was to put his hoof on the gown tails and they were done for—pinned for everlasting. Girls! remember the morning drame comes true! If ye make a vanity of your gown tails, it’s a sure sign that the devil has set his foot on them. Now be off every one of you, and let me see you next Sunday.’ Ah, aunt dear, the tails were cut off to the shoe binding.
“Now, aunt, it would be the greatest blessing in life if the fine ladies here had some little contrivance (those who walk) for keeping their dresses off the streets; it’s a murdering pity to see the sweep they give to the dirt and dust as they float over the pavements; my mistress says, that long ago the upper petticoat reached the ancle joint, and was of quilted silk, mighty handsome, and the dress drawn up so as to show it a bit, and could be let down at pleasure; it’s next to impossible to keep shoes and stockings clean, while what our good old priest called the ‘paycock’s tail’ sweeps the streets as the lady walks. But, indeed, (as my dear, good lady says) ‘extremes meet;’ for will you believe it, that there has been an attempt made by some ladies from America (that wonderful uneasy country, that’s too big to contain itself, and must keep on a-meddling and a-doing for ever more) to revolutionize, that is, stir up a rebellion against every stitch we wear! There is reason in all things; and it would be both more clean and more convenient if the ladies left it to the dear little red-coated ragged-school boys, to sweep the streets; but these ladies (Bloomers they call themselves) are for turning all the women into men, by act of parliament. I don’t know if they have got any plan for turning the men into women, but my mistress says that must follow. You remember, aunt, that we used to call the darling Miss Mildred a ‘bloomer;’ and there was a poem made about her, in such beautiful rhyme:
‘Oh, you are like Cassandra fair,
Who won great Alexander’s heart;
A bloomer, sweeter than the rose.’
I forget it, aunty, but it continued very learned—about
‘O’Donaghoo and the great O’Brien,
That banged the strength out of Orion.’
It was all about her, and her bating Venus for beauty, and went to the tune of ‘Jackson’s Morning Brush.’
“Only think of our darling Miss Mildred being thought of in the same day with these ‘bloomers,’ as if she wore a man’s hat and waistcoat—to say nothing of the other things—in the broad light of day; and if that isn’t enough, strapped over the boot! Our own, born, bred, and reared Miss Mildred, with the blush of innocence on her cheek, a brow as fair as if it had been bathed in May-dew every morning of her life, with the freshness of youth on her rosy lips, cantering through the country on her snow-white pony, man-fashion, to say nothing of boots and spurs!
“Well, this band of Bloomers is quite different to what you would expect from the name. My mistress bought the picture of one, and that was pretty enough to look at. But think of the dress of a slim young lady of ten years old, on a grown-up woman, particularly if she is rather fallen into flesh, and you’ll see how I saw a stout Bloomer look—certainly, that was not blooming. Any thing looks well on youth and beauty; or rather, youth and beauty look well in any thing; but the deepness of the dress was that it was only a cloak, (though that’s not true, for cloaks are not Bloomers,) only a sign, or an all-over sort of badge, for another thing—putting us all into counsellor’s wigs, and turning us into Parliament men and ministers, and police-inspectors and generals, and rifle-brigades. The upsettingest thing that ever crossed the wild waters of the Atlantic!
“My dear mistress shook her poor head, and said to me—for I was greatly troubled at the first going off to think if it was passed into a law here, what I should have to turn to myself, or whether it would not be more patriotic for me to go back to ould Ireland and be a White-Boy at once, because if the women were turned into men, surely we’d have the best of it then, any how. I was troubled, for I hate the law, and as for Parliament, I never could stand the arguments there, as I’d like best to have my own way, without any contradiction, which a woman can do at home if she’s at all cute; so, seeing me bothered, (this as I say was at the first) my lady was quite amused, and ‘Ellen,’ she said, ‘do not trouble yourself about it, there is little doubt but that the more civilized we become, the more employment will be found for women, and the more highly will they be respected; but to be either happy or useful, a woman must be employed as a Woman, not as a man; she must be employed where her tenderness, her quick perceptions, her powers of endurance, her unselfishness, her devotion, are called into, and kept in, action. She who is the mother of heroes does not covet to enter the battle-field herself,’ said my mistress, all as one as if she was reading out of a printed book—(I never could handle any thing but a stone, and should dead faint at the sound of a pistol, but I was not going to let on that to her)—so, ‘True for you, ma’am,’ I said, though I was fairly bothered, but made bould to add, ‘Sure no lady could attend to the Parliament-house and the wants of a large small family.’
“‘Oh,’ she said, smiling, ‘no married lady, I suppose, would think of entering Parliament, it would be very awkward indeed when a right honorable lady-member was delivering her opinion on the malt tax, or on the duty on bread-stuffs, just as the ladies on the opposition benches cried out ‘Hear, hear,’ to be interrupted by a message from the other house, of ‘Please, ma’am, the baby wants you.’’
“Well, I saw a great deal of good sense in this, and thought it would be better for women to be content to be women. I am sure we used to be very happy long ago, before this came into our heads, but the landlady I told you of did not think so: she has two or three friends that come and talk over all the domestic and un-domestic arrangements of all their ‘gossips:’ one of these ladies is a widow—for the second time; and they say she was the death of the first by her tongue, and of the second by her temper, maybe the one helped on the other against both the poor fellows! any how, they both are dead, and she makes a great boast of never taking a third; they say she was never asked: she is what’s called a ‘strong-minded woman,’ she would say any thing, or do any thing; and what I can’t understand—though she is forever abusing the men, and letting on she hates them and their ways—is that she does every thing in the world she can to seem manly. She tramps about in high-heeled boots, with straps; she speaks in—what she calls—a ‘fine, manly tone,’ and hates soft voices, because they are womanly; she has a way of her own, of turning the rights of women into the rights of men; she parts her hair at the side, and turns it in an under roll all round—‘because it is like a man’s;’ and yet she calls ‘them men’ bears and brutes enough to fill the zoology gardens; and though she grumbles because men tyrannize over women, she is bringing up her son to have his way in every thing, and makes his sister give the cake from her hand, and the orange from her lips to pamper him.
“Now that’s mighty quare to me—she is the landlady’s prime minister—her name is Mrs. Blounet. Then there are the two Miss Hunters—Miss Cressy and Miss Mary Jane. Miss Cressy is a fine stately woman—all bone—and high-learned, and has spoken more than once on ‘Man, the oppressor;’ but, though Miss Mary Jane dresses bloomer, she does not abuse her fellow-creatures as badly as Miss Cressy. She is five years younger, and very good-looking—by candle-light. To be sure it is wonderful how the tongues of the three go against mankind, when they’re all together, and the landlady making one little lament after another, how that her husband does this, and doesn’t do that; and this often makes me think of what I heard of often, from one we both loved—you will remember who it was when I tell you the advice. ‘If you would lead a happy life, never tell your husband’s faults to any ear but his own; a woman who makes her husband’s failings a subject for conversation, is unworthy his respect or his affection.’ And, if you mind, aunty, the same woman—the heavens be her bed!—used to say, we had two ears and but one tongue: a sign that we should not say all we hear. Anyhow, it would bother the saints to hear the talk of them—Mrs. Blounet hitting ever so hard at Miss Cressy and Miss Mary Jane for being old maids; and, Miss Cressy especially, turning upon Mrs. Blounet for having two husbands—not at a time, though. It was wonderful the talk they used to have, and the suppers; and then Miss Cressy disappeared in the evenings, and poor Mr. Creed—that’s the landlady’s husband—declared she served at a confectioner’s of an evening in the dress; and my mistress said that sort of thing would crush ‘the movement altogether;’ as if the dress was thought to be ever so healthy and convenient, its going into that class as a show, and a vulgar attraction, would prevent its ever being recognized as respectable in England. Then Mrs. Blounet took stronger than ever to lecturing in pink trousers—she weighs thirteen stone—and a gray ‘tunic,’ she calls it; but it is just a short petticoat pleated full. Oh! so short.
“And Miss Mary Jane was wonderful, except when Mr. Creed had any gentlemen visitors; then she would allow that Alexander the Great, and Bonaparte, and a few more, were equal to us. But the worst of it was that this spirit of Bloomer was quite upsetting our house: the landlady took to writing about the rights of woman, and left every one of her duties uncared for. Mr. Creed is a police inspector of the P division, and often wanted a hot cup of coffee, but Mrs. Creed downright refused to make it. The baby did as it liked. The only thing its mother corrected was proofs!—long strips of printed paper, like dirty farthing ballads; and Mrs. Blounet and she would sit all day, just making mischief, and writing the botheringest nonsense that ever was, while my mistress might wait for her dinner. Think of three guineas a-week for three rooms, and done for!—and yet not able to get a chop dressed, because the landlady is practicing the rights of women—by giving us no rights at all. Now, isn’t it quare? And it was worse and worse she was getting, so that between her and the east wind, we had neither peace nor quiet—all the morning she was reading newspapers, and correcting them ‘proofs;’ all the evenings, attending public meetings. And the poor babby!—I have heard her tell her husband that if he wanted it washed, he must do it himself, for she had the rights of her sex to attend to, and it was as much his business as hers to mind it. Oh! it’s wonderful when politics get into a woman’s head how they drive nature out of it!—they beat small tea-parties, and fairs, and dances, and patterns—ay, and falling in love—out and out for making a woman forget herself. And yet if there’s a thing in the world she is proud of, it is that babby, and sitting at the head of her tea-table, pouring out tea, and laying down the law. You used to say, aunty dear, that a woman never went out and out to the bad, until her heart got into the wrong place: indeed, you and the landlady would not agree at all; for in almost every thing she had reasoned herself out of nature—and that’s what they try to do—but just wait until I tell you how things went on. We were very uncomfortable: my poor mistress kept waiting for her dinner, and if I had not studied a cookery-book as hard as ever Father Jonas—dear holy man!—studied his breviary, she must have gone days and days without a bit of proper food, for there is but one poor fag of a servant, who was born on her legs, and has kept on them ever since, to cook, and wash, and walk with the children, and lay the cloth, and wait the table, and go everybody’s messages, and open the door, and bear the ill temper of the parlors, drawing-rooms, and every floor, and faction in the house. Well, since the landlady took up with the rights of women, no slave in the free states of America has been so overworked as that poor girl; among other things, the landlady reproached her for taking no pride in laying out supper for the ‘great movers,’ as she called them, ‘in the cause of women:’ and the girl asked what good the ‘movement’ was to her, except to give her more work. Well, you should have heard the landlady’s tongue go after that—no one that did could ever forgot it—how she reproached her for want of public spirit, and proper feeling—and ‘sympathy.’ Now the best of it is, that this good woman’s husband is—as I said—a Police Inspector, though she tried hard and long to make me believe he had a ‘situation in the city,’ which did not sound like policeman. You see, darling, the English are grown very like ourselves in that; my mistress says, that a great deal of the pride and spirit they took in honest labor and its profits are gone; and forgetting the respect due to great people—I mean, aunt, great good people, and great good things—they run into every little dirty short cut to wealth they can find; and after all sorts and kinds of money—like mad: in fact, she says,—that there are as many at ‘their dirty diggings’ in the city of London, as in that place, they call it by the name of California, in a far away country. Now, to take pride out of mere money there and then, seems of all things the most unnatural for those who have souls in their bodies: the understanding that two and two make four, doesn’t seem much to be proud of, and yet that’s the beginning and end of half the knowledge and pride going—of all the knowledge the gold-seekers care about, just as if grubbing up and counting up would make them all as one as the rale quality; and then, if you say a word, they get up a cry of
‘A man’s a man for a’ that,’
and bother ye’r heart out with ‘it’s nothing what a man was, but what he is;’ and so I say, but with a different meaning,
‘A grub’s a grub for a’ that;’
and don’t tell me! all the wealth of California and Australia to the back of it, wont change a man; what he was, he is, unless something brighter than gold comes over him; the seeking and loving money never purified a heart yet, nor raised a man the breadth of a straw.
‘It’s not the wealth, but how you use it.’
I see and hear a deal about wealth, but something keeps stirring in my heart, and whispering in my ear, which, as a poor girl, I’ve no right to talk about; there are ways of working up like the little grain of mustard seed my mistress reads of, that grew into a great tree, and sheltered the houseless and homeless. Now that is a fine thing to think of, and I delight in a little story of a mouse letting a lion out of a net—there’s great comfort in that—and I feel
‘A man’s a man for a’ that,’
when I hear tell of a little old man who, blessed be God! first thought of Infant Schools—Oh! it’s them are the blessings. The things I love best, are the things that teach people how to keep from sin—of the two I like them better than what takes them out of it. And when I remember WHO sent Temperance abroad to the four quarters of the globe—so that even gentlemen are ashamed of being tipsy—and how as a regenerator that Temperance is only next to Godliness—there’s a glory for Ireland! And I think of a fine ancient white-headed saint in Manchester, Wright by name and nature, who remembers, as my dear mistress says, to tread in his Master’s footsteps, who was sent, ‘not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.’ And I think of the charities, grander than the Pyramids of Egypt my cousin writes home about; charities purifying the great sins of great London; charities, Aunt darling, increasing every year, and as each new one starts up, from the brain maybe of some poor working man, the people cry out, as with one voice, ‘This can’t be done without.’ I am glad of such thoughts, and such knowledge, for I’ll tell you the truth, I mortally abominate them great bloated gold-finders. When I think of the gold-loving English, I could send all the Fathers of the Church against them, with bell, book, and candle. When I think of the other things, Aunt dear, why I can only pray that they may be remembered to them as a people, at the last day;—and I’m willing to do penance for the prayer, if so be it’s a sin!
“But it’s high up above Bloomerism, and all other follies I’ve got, sure enough; only as the lark said, I must come down some time. At last the house became a fair Babel, worse than what I’ve heard of Donnybroke itself, when the boys used to cry out, ‘Oh! the glory’s left ould Ireland—twelve o’clock, and no fight;’ and when the poor fellows would be going about the Fair green, shouting, ‘Who’ll fight me for the sake of St. Patrick.’ The man of the house was sorely to be pitied, he was a mighty quiet man; and impossible as it may seem, very fond of his vixen of a wife (talk as you will, there’s mighty little reason in love,) and his baby; and moreover, he was very little at home at all, which ought to have made her all the pleasanter when he was in it, for it’s very easy to find words going sharp, when a man’s ever and always molly coddling about a house, and bothering about every in and out, no ways becoming to him. Of late, she was always grumbling when he went out, though it was about his business—and yet never peaceable when he came in; I wondered how he took it so easy, but there is no use ever interfering betwixt married people; no matter how bitter they are to-night, they may be all like sugar and honey to-morrow morning, and whatever you say to one, is sure to go to the other—they’re not safe to make or meddle with; if you want to make peace, you must never let one know what the other says when they’re in their ‘tiffs;’ and to keep quit of that you must tell more woppers than is at all pleasant to carry, particularly when the priest is cross, and puts heavy weights on the penances.
“I kept as clear of both husband and wife as I could, though they would come now and again, and tell me their troubles; the landlady blaming the tyranny of mankind, and the badness of the laws—and the husband bewailing that she had got among the bloomers; I hinted that may be if the dress which she only wore at their meetings was burned, it might put her off her fancy; but he said, ‘he couldn’t do that—she looked so pretty in it;’ was not that foolish? but Aunt, dear, men is that—and think more of a pretty face with a sharp tongue—than of a plain one, that has nothing to say but goodness. Well, he gave in to her—it seemed so in every thing for ever so long, but I sometimes thought that smooth water runs deep. One evening he told her he was going to have a few of his friends come there, and he hoped she would do her best to make them comfortable; she rose at this, and said she wasn’t going to be no man’s slave, and that if he had company, he must attend to them himself; and that she would dress as she pleased, and have one of her own friends with her, and sit at the head of her tea-table—like the queen; well, he said he hoped she would wear the dress, and have her friend by all means, and he would give her as little trouble as possible; instead of this putting her into good humor, it made her quite fractious, for she liked to be contradicted, that she might have something to complain of: they went on jangling all day—I heard her say:—
“‘The world never will be right until we change places.’
“‘My love,’ he answered, ‘I thought you wanted us all to be in the same place.’
“‘Not I indeed,’ she said, ‘you are much more suited to be a slave than I am; content that every thing should be as it is, so that you may not have the trouble of moving it—augh!’
“‘Very true, my dear.’
“‘I only wish they would make ME an Inspector of Police—I would soon get things in order—I only wish I was a man!’
“‘I wish you were, my dear!’
“‘You know you don’t wish any such thing—Oh yes! you would like finely to be trampled upon, as all poor women are—but I don’t wait on your friends, you may depend on that: you may snub me as you always do, and set the baby crying, that my maternal feelings may be worked on to attend to it; you may spill the tea-kittle into the fire, that I may be forced—yes, Mr. Peter Creed—forced to light it again, you having first sent the other white slave out for cigars and muffins—but from this hour I’ll pluck up a spirit!’
“‘Which spirit, my love?’
“And so they went on; I wondered how he could bear it; for she told him over and over again, he was only fit for woman’s work; but my dear mistress says, its always the way—the gentle quiet men get the vixens; and surely young maids are so gentle, that one wonders where the old vixens come from! However, in the course of the evening, as she was flourishing down in her ‘bloomers,’ she told me that she had made up her mind not to do a hand’s turn, let Peter manage as he might; but sit as grand as Cromwell, at the head of her tea-table—pour out her tea, and talk of the wrongs of woman! She was as proud of her beautiful chaney as of her baby. Well, about an hour after, before any one came, I met a strange woman on the stairs, a very tall, thin woman, and then there was a knock at the door; Mrs. Creed kept firm, the poor servant was out; but to my surprise, the tall woman sprang up from somewhere, and introduced the gentlemen to the bloomer ladies in the parlor—oh what a skrietch the landlady gave. ‘Why,’ she said, ‘that is Peter, that is my husband—in my best apple silk.’
“‘Changed places—that is all,’ said the Inspector of the P Division, coolly; ‘we agreed, my good friends, (the first time we have agreed since the new movement,) that I was intended by nature to be one of the fair sex, and my wife—(according to the old fashion,) to be one of the foul; so I have taken her place, and when the hour comes, she will accompany you to Great Scotland Yard, and take my duty, while I attend to the house and baby.’ After this speech, he plumped down at the head of the tea-table, the seat she delighted in, and began placing the things—or rather misplacing them—and pouring out the tea. Oh, if you could but have seen her! At first she and her friend, Miss Cressy, stormed; and when they did, the men laughed so loudly, as to drown the storming; then she flew at her husband like a mad cat, and tore his cap, and a cup and saucer were broken; upon which she sat down and went into determined hysterics—the men declaring it was the first time their Inspector had ever occasion to use vinegar and burnt feathers; then a basin of water was thrown over her to bring her to, and in the midst of it the baby cried; just as a fierce cat will run to its kitten—the screaming took another turn, and she called out ‘My child, my child!’ but the men would not let her move—and the Inspector rushed out and returned bringing in the baby, hush-owing it in his arms, and talking all kinds of nursery nonsense to it, and dancing it as a woman would, but far more roughly: then he placed it on his knee, and stuffed cake into its mouth; and then a knock came to the door, with a message that the Inspector of the P Division was wanted immediately, as there was a fire in Holborn; and Peter insisted that the new superintendent of the P Division should act up to her words and go; he had done all according to her wishes, and to please her, had resolved to dress as a woman, and perform all a woman’s duties; and she must therefore take his place, and act his part; that she had declared publicly and privately that she was the better man of the two, and he therefore insisted she should now prove it, and that his friends would see that she did so. I could hardly tell whether to laugh or cry, I was so frightened for fear the poor innocent baby should get hurt; and because it continued screaming, the father went to the cupboard and emptied a whole bottle full of that wicked Daffy’s Elixir, which the women here of that class, half in ignorance, half in laziness, give their infants to keep them quiet; and seemed as though he was going to pour it at once down the dear baby’s throat. Och hone! it was then I pitied the poor mother.
“‘Oh, Peter, Peter!’ she called out, ”even a spoonful is too much. Don’t—don’t. Oh, just give my baby to myself again, and I’ll never be a Bloomer;“ and then the dreadful instigator of the mischief shook her head at her, and cried, ‘For shame, for shame,’ and harangued about consistency, and called upon her ‘to be worthy of herself, and go to the fire and command the force, not like a man, but—a woman!’ And all the time the poor mother was struggling to get at her baby; and, for fear of mischief, I turned over the cup—though to be sure it did for the apple-green silk. Poor woman! she could see nothing but her child, and hear nothing but its cries. ‘Give me my baby, and go to your duty, and I’ll never go near a Rights of Woman woman as long as I live,’ she repeated.
“‘Oh you unworthy member!’ cried her friend. ‘If you had a drop of the old Roman blood in your veins you would sacrifice home, husband, child, to the public good.’
“Now, aunt, think of that being said before me—and I being a Roman born, bred, and reared—as you and Father Doyle know well—as if female Romans did not care for their children! I gave it to her then. I never let my tongue go as I did then, since I’ve been in the country. She said she should not forget me, and I told her the remembrance would be mutual. Roman blood, indeed! I saw her out of the house, and going down the street, with a gang of boys after her, calling out, ‘There’s an old Bloomer—there’s an old Bloomer!’
“While I was busy with her the poor landlady got her baby, and humbled herself—as was right—and in another hour the house was quiet enough, and the Inspector gone to his duty. The next morning my dear good mistress sent for the landlady.
“‘I suppose,’ she said to me, going up stairs, ‘I shall lose my lodgers as well as my character.’
“Now my mistress says, that of all laws the law of kindness is the strongest; and, though the landlady entered the drawing-room with every nerve in her body set for a battle, the tears came into her eyes by the time my mistress bade her good morning and told her to sit down—of course, I came away. When Peter came home that evening, I heard his wife go—rather slowly, but she did go—to the door; and I heard him say, ‘Thank you, my love—this is very good of you.’ And when I told my dear lady this, she smiled the old smile, and went on talking so sweetly to me, that I judged it was just the way she talked to her.
“‘Ah!’ she said, ‘it is very wrong to go on laughing at follies that are likely to lead to evil. Not but what ridicule will sometimes gain a quicker victory than reason; but it leaves an ugly scar, which marks to the death.’ (I always put down her exact words.) ‘Whether the young or the ignorant listen patiently or not, to reproof or advice, it is no less the duty of the old to give it; but to be done usefully, Ellen, it must be done kindly. I should have talked to this young creature before, and not have suffered her to go on in her folly without remonstrance. It is a vain creature, as I might have known by the cards—that was one turn of the vanity, this is another. All love of notoriety is vanity; it’s wonderful the forms it takes. One man wants to write a book before he can spell; another talks of joining the legislature because he has been listened to at a vestry; another’s desire leads to heading charity lists—very useful, if he pays the money. One woman piques herself on small hands, and lays them on the top of a muff intended to keep them warm; another gets up an ancestry; another, (the vulgarest,) talks of her rich friends and her accounts at her banker’s, or stuffs your ears with titles, committed to memory from the peerage. But these, Ellen, if you understand them, are innocent vanities, doing no harm. The ill-spelt book will never be published; if the would-be orator gets into parliament, he continues a ‘single-speech Jack’ to the end of his days; the small hands become chilblained; the rich friends get into the list of uncertified bankrupts, the titles are soon drilled off; but the vanity which takes a woman from the sacred duties of home to display her weakness abroad—and unsexes her—strikes at the root of our domestic happiness, and should be treated accordingly. I should have talked to her before, Ellen—I should indeed!—kindly, you know, and nothing daunted even if repulsed. And I am not sure but that kindness can turn even vanity to good account. There are plenty of mischievous people always ready to start new wrongs and new sorrows as causes for discontent; and, between you and me, Ellen, if more extensive employment could be given to women, they would not get into such imaginary troubles; they would have more to do. In gentle, profitable employment the legislature—law-makers, Ellen—have neglected our interests now and then; but short tunics and long trowsers wont alter laws, you know. That young woman confesses she never knew she had any thing to complain of until it was put into her head. And—it makes me smile—but she says, the folly of the thing never struck her until she saw that six-foot-two Peter of hers, with his black whiskers and broad shoulders, in her dress, spoon-feeding the baby! She bitterly resents his exposing her to the ridicule of his companions; but I reminded her she had exposed herself by her attempts at establishing so unblushing a notoriety. Certainly the landlady is a changed woman, poor thing! poor thing!’
“It will be some time, dear aunt, before I will be able to write to you again, for we are going to a fine watering-place—over the seas—to seek that health for my mistress that is so plenty on our hill-side. Oh, dear! if every thing in ould Ireland was as plenty as health, what a people we should be!
“Ever, with a heart and a half, your own
“Nelly Nowlan.”