“Jest what Mr. Picket’s wife said, over at Elm Bridge, when I told them this same story. I said ’twas actooally true. And Mr. Picket, said he, ‘I tell you how we’ll prove it. You said ’twas in the old Boston newspapers. My cousin goes representative to General Court. They keep files of the old Boston papers in the Boston Library,’ says he; ‘and I’ll write my cousin word to look ’em over.’ We reckoned back, and found father must have been among the last of his teens about the year 1800. So Mr. Picket wrote word to his cousin; and his cousin looked the files over, and found a paper that had a piece in it on this very subject; and the name of the paper, if I don’t mistake my memory, was ‘The Columbia Sentinel.’”
I was quite interested in this little story of Mr. Hale’s. Indeed, since my attention has been called to domestic science, I have felt a steadily-increasing interest in whatever relates to the condition of women, past, present, and future. Previous to that, I used to think, or rather took it for granted in an indifferent way without thinking, that, in matters of religion, women were on an equality with men. I had the impression that this equality was claimed for one of the results of Christianity as being enjoined by the text, ending, “Neither male nor female, but all one in Christ Jesus.” A few sarcastic remarks of Nanny Joe (which remarks I had in mind while writing one of the early numbers of these papers), together with some of my own observations, have caused me to read with close attention the discussions which are so continually going on in the papers in regard to what woman should or should not be allowed to do. And, with all my reading and all my thinking, I can arrive at no other conclusion than that of my friend who sells “Archangel Bitters;” namely, that woman, having been endowed by her Creator with mind and with conscience, should be left to understand Scripture with her own understanding, and to judge for herself what is right, and what is wrong, man not being accountable therefor.
XV.
THE WRITER FACES HIS OWN MUSIC.
A LADY-FRIEND, after looking over my papers, asked why I harped so much on the rather low and trivial subject of eating. “Because,” said I, “daily observation has driven me to it.” And this is just the truth. I see that everybody takes it for granted they must have good living, “whatever,” to use Mrs. Melendy’s word, rather than pleasures of a higher grade, even the pleasure of helping the needy.
Take a close fisted man like Mr. David, who, though well enough off, practices the strictest stinginess. With him the spending of each dime is carefully considered. A half-dollar given away is, as one may say, hung up in his memory, set in a frame, for handy reference. When such a man affords his family cakes, pies, preserves, and the like, for their daily food, we may consider such things to be firmly established as “must haves.” Indeed, all classes, poor as well as rich, seem to agree that the earning and compounding of these and similar articles rank among the chief objects of life. The very phrase “good living” shows this, since it implies that to live well is to eat well. A man said to me the other day, “When I can’t eat and drink what I want to, then I want to die.”
Now, if we were created only a little lower than the angels, there certainly should be a wider space between us and the inferior animals than such a state of gormandism denotes. Not that the pleasures of eating are to be wholly despised. There is, after all, a relationship between us and the brutes; and we need not be ashamed to own our kindred, or to share in their enjoyments. Besides, these grains, fruits, vegetables, &c., which we are called to meet three times a day, are all our relations, on the mother’s side (Mother Nature’s), and should by no means be regarded with contempt, especially as it is their destiny to be worked up into human beings, actually made bone of our bone, and flesh of our flesh.
I believe in festival days with all my heart, which is the very best way of believing. I think we should sometimes call our friends together, and gratify the whole of them (not meaning all of them, but the whole nature of each one),—give them bright thoughts for the intellect, friendliness for the heart, and good things for the palate, keeping, as regards the last, within the bounds of common-sense and healthfulness.
The palate craves enjoyment; and that craving, being a natural one, must be recognized as such. But what I insist upon is this; namely, that gratifying the palate shall not rank among the chief occupations or the chief enjoyments of life, for it has usurped those positions long enough.
And not only is it an usurper, crowding out better and more ennobling aims, but it makes slaves of women, and seriously affects their peace of mind. I have a bright-eyed young cousin, whose one idea, during the first half of the day at least, is to prepare a dinner which shall please the fastidious taste of her husband. For this end she works, plans, ponders, experiments, contrives, invents, and consults cook-books and cooks; and, this end attained, she is happy. But I have seen her at mealtime, when he has criticised unfavorably a dish on which she had spent much labor and more anxiety,—have seen her flush up, leave the table on some pretended errand, and (this is actual truth) brush tears from those bright eyes of hers. Another case. An elderly woman of this village died recently, the chief end and aim of whose whole married life had been, so people say who know, to cook in such a manner as exactly to please her husband. She succeeded. That husband made the remark, in this very house, and within this very week, that he hadn’t tasted a decent piece of custard-pie since his wife died. Among the wealthier classes it is just the same. I believe that Mrs. Manchester goes to her dinner-table every day with fear and trembling. Perhaps her case is worse than that of my cousin, as, with Mrs. Manchester, success or failure depends on the uncertain capabilities of Irish help. The blame, however, if blame there be, rests on Mrs. Manchester; and I have seen that the sarcastic manner in which Mr. Manchester blames, sometimes cuts into the quick. These may be exceptional cases: I trust they are. But that this state of things does prevail more or less generally, cannot be denied. If, then, the low and trivial matter of eating be sufficiently high and important to take so very prominent a position among our enjoyments, and to seriously affect the peace and happiness of woman’s life, why not harp on it?
It should be harped on, likewise, because it affects the condition of almost everybody. Simplify cookery, thus reducing the cost of living, and how many longing individuals, now forbidden, would thereby be enabled to afford themselves the pleasures of culture, of travel, of social intercourse, of tasteful dwellings! And it might be added, at the risk of raising a smile, how many pairs of waiting lovers, now forbidden, would thereby be enabled to marry, and go to—paradise, which is to say housekeeping!