"There is a time for everything," the good Book says, and so there is a time and place to be "petted." None of us want it in public. In fact, the men and women guilty of it render themselves liable to the suspicion of only being affectionate in public. But deliver me from the granite woman who prefers to live without it, who prides herself on not wanting it. I wouldn't trust her with my baby were there a knife handy. Thank God there are few such. The noblest and greatest and best women I have ever known, have been big-hearted and loving, and have known how to pet and be "petted," without losing either strength or dignity of character.
Facing a Thin Congregation.—It is comparatively easy for a clergyman to preach to a full audience; but the test which shows whether one's heart is in his work, is to get up and face a thin congregation, and yet deliver his message with an earnestness which shows that he has a realizing sense of the value of even one soul. Only that clergyman who keeps this at all times in view, can so utterly leave himself out of consideration, that he will be just as eloquent and just as earnest when speaking to a thin audience, as if he were addressing a large multitude, from whose eager, upturned faces he might well draw inspiration.
MY GRIEVANCE.
Some jilted bachelor has remarked that "no woman is happy unless she has a grievance." Taking this view of the case, it seems to me that men generally deserve great praise for their assiduity in furnishing this alleged requisite of feminine felicity. But that is not what I was going to talk about. I have "a grievance." My fly has come! I say my fly, because, as far as I can find out, he never goes to anybody else; he is indifferent to the most attractive visitor; what he wants is me—alas! me—only me! The tortures I have endured from that creature, no pen, tongue, or dictionary can ever express. His sleepless, untiring, relentless persecution of a harmless female is quite fiendish. His deliberate choice, and persistent retention of agonizing titillating perches, shows a depth of "strategy" unequalled in one so young. Raps, slaps, exclamations not in the hymn-book, handkerchief waving, sudden startings to the feet—what do they all avail me? He dogs me like a bailiff, from one corner of the room to another. All the long, hot day he attends my steps; all night he hovers over my couch, ready for me at the first glimmer of daybreak. The marvellous life-preserving way he has of dodging instant and vengeful annihilation, would excite my admiration, were not all my faculties required to soothe my nose after his repeated visits. In vain I pull my hair over my ears to shield them. In vain I try to decoy him into saucers of sweet things while I write. Down goes my pen, while my hands fly like the wings of a windmill in the vain attempt to dislodge him permanently. In vain I open the door, in the hope he may be tempted out. In vain I seat myself by the open window, trusting he will join the festive throng of happy Christian flies, whizzing in the open air in squads, and harming nobody. If he would only go, you know, I would clap down my window, and die of stifling, rather than of his harrowing tickling. See there! he goes just near enough to raise my hopes, and then lights on the back of my neck. I slap him—he retires an instant—I throw my slipper after him—it breaks my Cologne bottle, and he comes back and alights on my nostril. Look! here! I'm getting mad; now I'll just sit calmly down in that arm-chair, and fix my eyes on that Madonna, and let him bite. Some time he will surely get enough, and now I'll just stand it as long as he can. Heavens! no, I can't; he is inside my ear! Now, as I'm a sinner, I'll tell you what I'll do. Good! I'll go a journey, and lose him! I'll go to Lake George. Saints and angels, don't he follow me there too? To Niagara—do the rapids rid me of him? To the White Mountains? Don't he ascend with me? To the sea-shore? Is he afraid of the seventh wave? Look here! a thought strikes me. Do you suppose that fly would cross Jordan with me? for I can't stand this thing much longer.
Standing Alone.—Thank Heaven, I can stand alone! Can you? Are you yet at the end of your life journey? Have you yet stood over the dead body of wife or child, snatched from you when life was at the flood-tide of happiness? Did you ever close your weary eyes to the bright dawn of a new day, and pray that you might never live to look at another? If a woman, did you ever face poverty where luxury had been, and vainly look hither and thither for the summer friends that you would never see again till larder and coffer were replenished? Are you sure, when you boast that you can "stand alone," that you have learned also how to fall alone?