Now I have made up my mind to "speak in meetin'". I don't care how many country editors jump on the fence and say, "Silence!" I wont be silent. I intend to fight a crusade against this crying sin of New England, so long as I can make a pen wag; and anybody whose rustic feathers get ruffled in the process may take his own time to oil them down. I persist that I have never yet "boarded" anywhere in the country that I found wholesome bread there, or meat cooked other than fried, unless it has been through line upon line and precept upon precept of my own; and that in these awful experiences of mine, Cape Ann bears off the palm. There! I am going to-morrow to the city to get some decent bread—the only place where it is to be found—and get some fish; for if you want fish, never go where they swim. Put that in your note-book too.
And now, in conclusion, I will add, that in a place where, through sour bread and sour theology, the element of cheerfulness is especially needed to keep the young folks from turning into premature vinegar cruets, it is a very great pity that at a picnic their only outlet for conviviality—dancing, by the youngsters—should be considered a sin. "It would break up the whole thing—it would never do!" was the reply to a philanthropic suggestion of the kind. Heavens! I wonder they don't fetter the legs of their lambs and calves; and insist upon all their birds singing, "Hark! from the tombs a dreadful sound!" Do you know what young people so brought up will do?—that is, if they don't commit suicide first. They'll just go to the city, and break every one of the ten commandments smack through, the first day they get there. Alas! when will "good people" learn that the devil is never better pleased than when they try to make "religion" a gloomy thing.
Said a little child to her mother, "Shall you live as long as I do?"—"Perhaps not—but I cannot tell," was the reply; "I have lived a long while, you know."—"Well," said the little one, skipping about the room and singing, "I guess there'll be somebody to take care of me." Oh, ye who are "careful and troubled,"—groping like the mole in the earth, blind to the brightness overhead, look up! like this little trusting child, look up! When you have made provision for to-day, as intelligently as you know how, do not be anxiously forecasting the morrow.
[FROM MY SEAT ON THE ROCKS.]
DOG-FISH, cat-fish, cod-fish, cunner." These are the animals that my friends paddle round for long hours—happy whether they are rewarded with the sight of five or fifty. Meantime I sit on the rocks, watching the pretty picture they make as they go sailing into the sunset, and am content. My feet are dry; so are my skirts. We have only one thing in common: when they shout, "I have a bite!" I respond, Amen!—with this difference, that mine is from a mosquito instead of a fish. The ocean is nice to look at: freaky—therefore I think it must be a she; sometimes dark and lowering, sometimes brightly sparkling; now smooth as deceit, anon lashing itself like a caged creature to get out of bounds. Don't you believe I enjoy it more than those damp people that are always vexing it with rod and line? As I said, they look well as a part of the picture. Those deluded women, now, with broad hats tied down with bright bits of ribbon—and didn't they calculate the picturesqueness of the same when they bought yards of it a thousand miles away? Certainly. And why do they ruin their best boots treading on rocks covered with treacherous seaweed? And why is that scarlet shawl disposed just where it will be effective? Answer me that. Can it be that they are fishers of men instead of cod? Ah! "worms" are not the only "bait" in that boat. I wonder do men know how much more attractive they look in slouched hats and easy jackets? Kid gloves, shiny hat, and tight boots are nothing to it. A man looks manly then; and that, I take it, is the first requisite in a man. See how they dress for their work, my sisters. Sleeves up to the elbow, not for the purpose of showing a round white arm either; trousers turned up at the heel; while you—! Wont the laundress rub the skin off her knuckles when she tries to get the fish-bait off your ruffled skirt, my dear? You can't be made to believe that those gentlemen would like you just as well in a dress suitable for "worms." But, all things being equal, I really think they would; or, if they didn't, their opinion would be a matter of small consequence.
I wish I could understand the difference between a brig, a sloop, a dory, a schooner, and a yacht. I have had them explained so many times at the seaside, but it has never yet lodged in my head a minute. I think the reason is, that before my expounders get half through telling, my eyes are so enchained by the gliding beauty of a boat's motion, that I have no ears for technicalities. That's it—and I'm not such a fool after all! I wish my belt were a little more to be depended on, for I'd like to drift over to the Isle of Shoals, or to Newburyport, or some of those places at which the sea-fog plays hide and seek so temptingly from these rocks. Of course I "can go by land;" but did you never get possessed to do or to have what the Fates denied? Well, I'm human too. You may catch those wriggling fish if you fancy—I don't wonder they make such horrid mouths at you before they die—if only I could drift dreamily away into that golden sunset? "Gates of amethyst and pearl!" I'm glad my Bible has "Revelations" in it. I don't know any poet who comes better to my assistance than Revelations. Keren Happuch, and Obed, and Jael—and "them" I am apt to skip; also who "begat Shem;" but the grand old "Psalms" and Revelations, I tell you, Tennyson, or any other "Son," may in vain crack their harp-strings trying to rival. Then imagine that watery dilution of a "Tupper" after reading a chapter in "Proverbs"! Put this in your note-book—that about all the good things you clap your hands at were stolen from the Bible. Brush the dust from off yours now, and see if it is not so; and have the grace to own up, when you do see it.
My heart is torn trying to decide whether my allegiance finally be given to the mountains or the ocean. I can see with my mind's eye lovely Brattleboro' and its enchanting mountains, the mist rolling slowly off their sides at sunrise, crowning their tops with many-hued wreaths; or I can see one gorgeous cloud at sunset resting lightly on their summit, and gradually fading away before the growing lustre of the bright evening star. All these pictures are framed in my memory, and never a tint has faded out through the busy years. But this later love of mine—the ocean—whom I perforce must admire at a respectful distance, sinuous, cold, treacherous, glittering, repelling, yet fascinating me as does the serpent the bird, I know not how to resist. Only last night this ocean drew a mist-veil softly over its face, and by help of a huge black cloud above it, jaggedly notched in and out at the upper edge, cunningly wooed me, in this mountain shape, to believe that whatsoever form I liked, that form it could assume to win me. Surely such devotion should have its reward.