Yes, I’m nervous. I would rather not hear a dog bark more than half the night. The scissors-grinder’s eternal bell-tinkle, and the soap-fat man’s long-drawn whoop, send me out of my chair like a pop-gun. I break down under the best minister, after “forty-ninthly;” and am prepared to scream at any minute after every seat in a street car is filled, and every body is holding somebody in their laps; and somebody is treading on every body’s toes in the aisle; and every door and window is shut; and onions and musk, and tobacco and jockey-club, and whisky, and patchouli are mingling their sweets; and the unconscionable conductor continues to beckon to misguided females upon the sidewalk, with whole families of babies (every one of whom is sucking oranges or sugar-candy), to crowd in, and add the last drop of agony to my brimming cup.
Yes, I think I may say I am nervous. I prefer, when the windows of an omnibus are open, and the wind “sets that way,” that the driver should not ex-spit-orate any oftener than is necessary. If the skirt of my dress must be torn from my belt by hasty feet upon the sidewalk, I prefer it to be done by a man’s boot rather than a woman’s un-apologizing slipper; if the fringe of my mantle is foreordained “to catch,” the gods grant it may be in a surtout button rather than on a feminine watch-chain. If women shopkeepers were less lavish of cross looks, and crossed sixpences, I might have more faith in the predicted “millennium.” I don’t wish the Irish woman any harm who tortures me by grinding on her accordeon in the cars, but, if I thought she had settled her little reckoning with the priest, I should be happy to peruse her obituary. I had rather not exchange a pleasant parlor circle for the company of a huge bundle of “proof, to be called for by seven o’clock the next morning;” and I had rather not have the pianos, in five different houses near, each playing different tunes while I am revising it. I don’t wish to interfere with infant boys who are fond of bonfires, but if they could make them of something beside dried leaves, it would be a saving to my bronchial apparatus. If people who address me would spell “Fanny” with two ns, I should be more likely to answer their letters. If the little cherub, in jacket and trowsers, who blows the organ of a Sunday, would stand behind a screen, it would materially assist my devotions. If all the men in New York had as handsome a beard as the editor of the ——, I would not object to see them h—air ’em. I should rather the New Yorker would not say that such and such a paragraph would “go all over,” instead of “everywhere.” I should rather the Connecticuter, when he does not comprehend me, would not startle me out of my chair with a sharp Which? I should rather the Yankee would not say “he was going to wash him,” or speak of the “back side of the church.” And, lastly, if all the people who are born with seven fingers on one hand, or feet minus toes, or two noses, would not select me in the street to inspect their monstrosities, my epitaph might possibly be deferred a while longer.
A WORD TO PARENTS AND TEACHERS.
I have before me a simple but imploring letter from a little child, begging me “to write her a composition.” I could number scores of such which I have received. I allude to it for the sake of calling the attention of parents and teachers to this cruel bugbear of childhood, with which I can fully sympathize, although it never had terrors for me. The multiplication table was the rock on which I was scholastically wrecked; my total inability to ascertain “if John had ten apples, and Thomas took away three, how many John would have left,” having often caused me to wish that all the Johns in creation were—well, never mind that, now. I have learned to like Johns since!
But to return to the subject. Just so long as themes like “The Nature of Evil,” or “Hydrostatics,” or “Moral Science,” and kindred subjects, are given out to poor bewildered children, to bite their nails and grit their teeth over, while the ink dries on the nip of their upheld pens, just so long will “composition day” dawn on them full of terrors. Such themes are bad enough, but when you add the order to write three pages at a mark, you simply invite them to diffuse unmeaning repetitions, as subversive of good habits of composition as the command is tyrannical, stupid, and ridiculous. You also tempt to duplicity, for a child, cornered in this way, has strong temptations to pass off for its own what is the product of the brains of another; and this of itself, as a matter of principle, should receive serious consideration at the hands of these child-tormentors. A child should never be allowed, much less compelled to write words without ideas. Never be guilty of such a piece of stupidity as to return a child’s composition to him with the remark, “It is very good, but it is too short.” If he has said all he has to say, what more would you have? what more can you get but repetition? Tell him to stop when he gets through if it is at the end of the first line—a lesson which many an adult has yet to learn.
In the first place, give a child no theme above his comprehension and capacity; or, better still, allow him to make his own selection, and always consider one line, intelligibly and concisely expressed, better than pages of wordy bombast. In this way only can he be taught to write well, sincerely, and fluently. Nature teaches you this: The little bird at first takes but short flights to the nearest twig or tree. By-and-by, as his strength and confidence grow, they are voluntarily and pleasurably lengthened, till at last you can scarce follow him, as he pierces the clouds. This forcing nature—pushing the little fledgeling rudely out of the nest, can result only in total incapacity, or, at best, but crippled flights. In the name of the children, I enter my earnest protest against it, and beg teachers and parents to think of and remedy this evil.