Bohemian Society

by Lydia Leavitt

The years rolled by taking with them her girlish beauty, and leaving in its place the wrinkles of time and sorrow. As time passed the idea took possession of her that her lover would still come back. True the vessel in which he sailed had been wrecked, but still there lingered the one faint hope, and every night she lit the lamp and placed it in the window as she had done in her youth, as the beacon light for the absent love. As time passed she followed her father to the grave and in a short time stood by the bed of her dying mother. And now she was alone in her loneliness and desolation. Every year when the day came which was to have been her wedding day, the white dress, which had grown yellow with age, was taken out, folded and flowers scattered over it as carefully as we would sprinkle flowers over a child's grave, for in the box in which the garment lay, were buried all her hopes. Does it not seem strange that one can live on year after year, with no hope, no joy; waken in the morning with the thought that "here is another day to be passed over," another night with the sad dreams and gloomy awaking.

At the approach of a storm, when the clouds began to gather, the solitary woman could be seen standing on the shore gazing long and earnestly over the dark waters. But at last it was with difficulty that she dragged herself to the beach and her hands trembled so that she could scarcely light the lamp for the window, but she said to herself "he will surely come," for if faith, hope and long suffering, if patient waiting, prayers and longing have power to affect disembodied spirits, my faith will surely be rewarded.

And now another year has passed and again the anniversary of the sad day has dawned. With trembling, withered hands, she once more unfolds the wedding dress. She must make one more visit to the shore, for she feels it will be for the last time, as with slow uncertain steps she drags herself along. And now as night approaches she is too ill to light the lamp.

Neighbors miss the accustomed light, find the lonely woman too ill to rise, and they know that in a few hours all will be over. They lit the lamp to humor the whim of a dying woman. The winds began to moan fitfully; the waves could be heard dashing on the shore, while the lightning flashed and illuminated the room in which the woman lay. There is something weird in the whole scene—the lighted lamp for the lover, dead over half a century, the dying woman, the moaning wind, and the sound of the waters. And now she is muttering in her dreams, and talking to her lover, she has forgotten all the years that have passed, and is bidding him a joyous welcome and while the storm is at its height, a smile of tenderness has passed over the face of the old creature, making her look almost young, when the door opens; a figure in a wet winding sheet, with hair in which was mingled sea weed, glides to the bed-side, a whispered utterance from the dying woman, "he has come," the figure moves again to the door. An invisible power has extinguished the light, and the flame of the lamp and the woman's soul, have gone out together, while from the bedside to the door there is the trail of wet garments.

Again I hear the voice of the Cynic.

This is an age of shoddyism, and it is difficult at times to distinguish the real from the sham. The woman who is covered with jewelry, looking like a travelling doorplate, is the kind from whom we expect the bow to vary, in coldness or cordiality, according to the clothes we wear, or the entertainments we are able to give. With such people money means everything, brains and breeding being secondary considerations. And it is very amusing on meeting Madam Shoddy to note the look with which she scans one from head to foot, balancing in her mind the cost of each article of apparel, her mind wholly given up to dollars and cents, and woe unto the person, who does not come up to the proper standard, of pounds, shillings and pence.

In talking with such a one you will find their conversation frequently interlarded with the use of the words ladies and gentlemen. But madam shoddy does really very little actual harm, all these things being a harmless sort of imbecility.

But at the hands of Madam Snob, one will not fare as well, for having nothing noble in her own nature she is constantly picking flaws in the character of others. Madam Snob will entertain you with a long account of her family connections. Poor soul she is constantly resurrecting the remains of dead and gone ancestors; her life is spent in the charnel house, being very careful however, to let the remains of a certain few rest in peace, while she rattles the dry bones of her favored ones in our face, until we are tempted to cry "peace." At last our curiosity is aroused, and we make inquiries as to these noble ancestors, and find the overwhelming fact—that they had been born! and that they had died! very noble of them to have been born, and very heroic, to have died. If the successors would follow their illustrious example in the last act, the world would still exist. But you say "this is harmless and only another form of idiocy." True if it stopped there, no harm would be done. But did any one ever know Madam Snob to stop there? After having visited her family vault, you are requested to enter the abode of your neighbor's dead, and then your turn will come next and you are asked by madam to unearth your dead. Now to people who know little and care less about their great, great, great grandfather, all this is very amusing. If the Bible be true, and who can doubt it? there was an ark built in which God's chosen were placed for safety. Now any one is safe in saying "my ancestry dates from the ark" but I think it would be rather difficult for a person to trace their ancestry from the time the chosen few stepped from the ark to dry land, down to the present time. But every one has some imagination, and in order to gratify Madam Snob's curiosity, just make use of it. Tell her some were hanged, some were drowned, some were in prison for debt, one fought in the War of the Roses, one was killed in a street brawl, another hanged for treason. Tell her—well tell her anything that will satisfy her curiosity, for there are times when an elastic conscience is excusable. There is another Madam Snob, who not knowing in the slightest degree what constitutes a lady, is ignorant of the fact that a lady is civil to everyone; this madam is uncivil to her servants, but does not hesitate to gossip with them, is careless, in speech and manner, in the presence of inferiors, in fact is guided wholly in matters of civility by the position in which the people are in, whom she is with; is constantly talking of society, and turning up her aristocratic nose at trades-people and in nine cases out of ten, her father was a cobbler, or kept a peanut stand, neither of which would do her any harm, if she only knew that "silence is golden." We say, that is the lowest form of snob feminine and rarely met with.

There is another form of snobbery which is not so easily recognized, and requires a good judge of human nature to detect. This Madam Snob is one who should be a lady, for by education and good breeding she is entitled to the name. Now, she really possess a good, kind heart, is kind to the poor, tries to do her duty, but away down, under several layers of good intentions, there is a little taint of snobbery, and she really has not the moral courage to rid herself of it. This Mrs. Snob may have a large circle of friends, but to each one she accords a different reception; to all she is kind, remember, but you can judge of her opinion of different ones, from the invitations which she issues. First in her estimation, come the fashionable people, those she asks to her dinner parties; then the people whose position in life is not very good, she asks to luncheon; then at last, come those whom she really does not know how to place, and they are the ones she asks to meet her alone.

Now this poor woman, for whom I have a degree of pity, not unmixed with contempt, is in a constant struggle with herself, in her desire to do what she thinks to be right, and at the same time, do everything that her neighbors do, for she is bound hand and foot and dare not make an independent move. But if Mrs. Fitznoodle were to do certain things, Mrs. Fitzsnob would follow her example, and the people who are asked to meet their hostess—alone, might find themselves seated around the mahogany with Mr. and Mrs. Fitznoodle and daughters and a select circle of little Noodles.