I walked several blocks out of my way behind a man, the other day, who positively "stepped off." What a chest he had! what a splendid poise of the head! what a free, jubilant swing of the arm! I hope he will come to New York again some day, for I'm sure he was a stranger to it, for he neither stopped anywhere to take a drink, buy a cigar, nor did he hail an omnibus!
Magnificent giant! I wonder what was his name, and had he a mother. If not—well, it was a pity he shouldn't have.
I wonder what are "good manners"? The question occurred to me the other evening in a place of public amusement. I was one of a dozen or so of ladies, wedged in a row of the usual narrow seats. At every pause in the performance, three gentlemen stepped over the laps of the ladies in that seat, carrying off in their exit, or knocking upon the floor, opera-glasses, fans, scarfs, handkerchiefs, and, almost, the ladies themselves; returning each time wiping their lips, and introducing with them a strong odious smell of tobacco. I respectfully submit to any real gentleman who reads this article, if that is "good manners."
Of course, I know it would be better if all seats at such places could be so arranged that gentlemen need not clean their boots on ladies' laps in order to pass out. But also it would be well if gentlemen took all the sustenance in the way of wine which they needed before starting from home; and if they could also bring their godlike minds, to defer smoking till they could annoy only the one lady, whom they have a legal right to annoy, it would add to the general comfort, as well as their public reputation for gallantry and politeness. Men generally object to going out evenings, "because they are so tired." Why, then, they never embrace the opportunity to sit still when they get there, is an inconsistency which we must place unsolved, on the shelf already so well labelled with them. I might suggest also, that if they will persist in cleaning their boots on our laps, in order to get out these narrow sets of seats, and if they will carry off in their exit our gloves and fans and opera-glasses, and if they will keep on repeating this little pastime all the evening, to say nothing of occasionally crushing our feet out of all shape, I would venture to suggest that they should mitigate the suffering by saying, occasionally, "I beg pardon," or, "Pray excuse me," or by some such little deference acknowledge the infinite bore of their presence.
Failing in this, I propose that each gentleman, on his return, should bring in his hand a peace-offering to the ladies in the seat, of a glass of lemonade and a bit of cake. Why shouldn't we be thirsty too? Mr. Beecher says a woman has a right to—no, I believe he didn't say that, but he ought to have done so; and if he didn't, "fair play is a jewel."
Mr. Smith exclaims, on reading this, "Horrible woman!" because, though a handsome man, he sees himself looking selfish and ugly in the glass I hold up to him. Now, Mr. Smith wouldn't say that, if he should sit down beside me and let me talk to him five minutes. Not he! You see I have him at a great disadvantage, away off at the other end of the city or over to Brooklyn. I could say the very same things to him I have just said on paper, sitting here on my sofa beside me, and that man would go on lying, as men will, to other men's wives' faces, and be so polite and smiling, that his own wife never would know him, if she happened in; and he'd tell me that "what I said was all true, and that men were selfish animals," meaning Tom Jones and Sam Jenkins, and every other man but just himself. Don't I know them?
[NOTES FROM PLYMOUTH ROCK.]
HOW I ever lived so many years in Boston without coming to see Plymouth, is one of the sins of omission for which I am at this present finding doing my best to atone. I trust all of you who are equally guilty, will come as soon as may be to breathe the fine Newport air of the place, and take time to visit its interesting coast, its numerous ponds, its lovely drives through odorous woods, and all the hallowed spots which ought to be dear to the heart of every true American. Don't go to Paris or London till you have been to Plymouth. It were well to "see Niagara" first; but it were better to have gone with me to the "Record Office" this morning, and seen the yellow manuscripts, covered thickly with the small German text-looking handwriting of our Pilgrim Fathers; setting forth, for instance, "the shares they severally held in a cow," in the simple, honest, straightforward manner of the time—one signed by "Myles Standish," who, it seems, having the primitive ambition to own an entire cow, kept buying up the shares of the rest as speedily as his means allowed. I thought of Mr. Bonner's stables, and the thousands of dollars his horses represented, and wondered how he dared to say his catechism! Then I saw their veritable "Charter," kept in a dark cupboard, with a silken curtain drawn across the precious signatures, lest the unscrupulous sunlight, invading this "Holy of Holies," should snatch them from posterity. And then and there was exploded for me the theory that handwriting is indicative of character. Certainly those effeminate, small, beautiful letters gave no sign or token of the moral strength, the rugged persistence of purpose, of the Pilgrim Fathers. Not one modern young lady in a hundred could write so minute and beautiful a hand. They must have had good eyesight in those days, when gas and furnaces were not. Sharp men they were; disguising the very graves of the first little Mayflower band, lest the Indians should take advantage of the reduction of their numbers. The very house I am in bears the name of the first Indian who visited them,—"Samoset." Whether the fair and tender-hearted Rose Standish quailed before the savage owner of this most musical name, I have not learned. I do not hesitate to say, that I should have made for the bushes on his first appearance. It is curious, in walking the streets of Plymouth, to hear the little children calling to each other, in their play, and using the old familiar Mayflower names of hundreds of years ago.