For it is convention, rather than our years—it is the respect and fear of our neighbors that restrains us on an ordinary occasion. If we followed our innocent desires at the noon hour, without waiting for a carnival, how mad our streets would seem! The bellowing bass would pitch back his head and lament the fair Isolde. The old lady in lace cap would tuck up her skirts for hop-scotch and score her goal at last.
Is it not the French who set aside a special night for foolery, when everyone appears in fancy costume? They should set the celebration forward in the day, and let the blazing sun stare upon their mirth. Merriment should not wait upon the owl.
The Dickey Club at Harvard, I think, was fashioned with some such purpose of release. Its initiation occurs always in the spring, when the blood of an undergraduate is hottest against restraint. It is a vent placed where it is needed most. Zealously the candidates perform their pranks. They exceed the letter of their instruction. The streets of Boston are a silly spectacle. Young men wear their trousers inside out and their coats reversed. They greet strangers with preposterous speech. I once came on a merry fellow eating a whole pie with great mouthfuls on the Court House steps, explaining meantime to the crowd that he was the youngest son of Little Jack Horner. And, of course, with such a hardened gourmand for an ancestor, he was not embarrassed by his ridiculous posture.
But it is not youth which needs the stirring most. Nor need one necessarily play an absurd antic to be natural. And therefore, here at home, on our own Soldiers' Monument—on its steps and pediment that mount above the street—I offer a few suggestions to the throng.
Ladies and gentlemen! I invite you to a carnival. Here! Now! At noon! I bid you to throw off your solemn pretense. And be yourself! That sober manner is a cloak. Your dignity scarcely reaches to your skin. Does no one desire to play leap-frog across those posts? Do none of you care to skip and leap? What! Will no one accept my invitation?
You, my dear sirs, I know you. You play chess together every afternoon in your club. One of you carries at this moment a small board in his waistcoat pocket. Why hurry to your club, gentlemen? Here on this step is a place to play your game. Surely your concentration is proof against the legs that swing around you. And you, my dear sir! I see that you are a scholar by your bag of books. You chafe for your golden studies. Come, sit alongside! Here is a shady spot for the pursuit of knowledge. Did not Socrates ply his book in the public concourse?
My dear young lady, it is evident that a desire has seized you to practice your soprano voice. Why do you wait for your solitary piano to pitch the tune? On these steps you can throw your trills up heaven-ward.
An ice-wagon! With a tail-board! Is there no lady in her forties, prim in youth, who will take her fling? Or does no gentleman in silk hat wish a piece of ice to suck?
Observe that good-natured father with his son! They have shopped for toys. He carries a bundle beneath his arm. It is doubtless a mechanical bear—a creature that roars and walks on the turning of a key. After supper these two will squat together on the parlor carpet and wind it up for a trial performance. But must such an honest pleasure sit for the coming of the twilight? Break the string! Insert the key! Let the fearful creature stride boldly among the shoppers.
Here is an iron balustrade along the steps. A dozen of you desire, secretly, to slide down its slippery length.