“BLESSINGS ON THEM ALL!”
And says I, lookin’ up to the ceilin’ in a almost rapped eloquence of mean, and a lofty fervency and earnestness of axent:
“Heaven bless all the generous, loving hearts that beat under any and every colored robe; under the shabby garb of poverty; the somber hue of some consecrated sisterhood of compassion; under the quaint Quaker garb, or the bright silks of the Widder Albert’s generous daughters; those who conscientiously wear sober clothing, and those who jest as innocently wear brighter apparel. Heaven bless them all; the gray-robed sisterhood of Mercy, God’s dove-colored angels, who lean over the beds of the sick and the sorrowing, and whose shadows falling by the beds of pain the sad-eyed soldiers kiss; Catholic or Protestant, whatever their creed, they have the divinest gift of the three—the divine gift of Charity. God made them all—the rose and the gray; the blue sky, the rainbow, and the soft shadow of the twilight clouds. He made the earth for His beloved; nothing is too good for them, or too beautiful. And why should one color boast over another, as being purer-minded, and less wicked?”
A HEAVENLY MESSENGER.
I had been very eloquent, and felt considerable eloquent still, but happenin’ to let the eye of my speck fall for a minute on Kellup, I see by the awful unbelievin’ look on his face that I had got to simplify it down to his comprehension. I see that he did not understand my soarin’ ideas as I would wish ’em to be understood.
Not that I blamed him for it. Good land! a tow string hain’t to blame for not bein’ made a iron spike. But at the same time it is bad and wearisome business for the one who attempts to use that tow string for a spike—tries to drive it into the solid wall of argument and clinch a fact with it. I had said a good deal about beauty, but it seemed[seemed] as if I wanted to say sunthin’ more, and I went on and said it:
“Some folks seem to be afraid of beauty; as ’fraid of it as if it was a bear. They seem to be more afraid of lettin’ a little beauty into their lives than they be of lettin’ the same amount of wickedness in. You would think a man was awful simple who would spend his hull strength in puttin’ up coverin’s to his windows to keep out the sunshine and fresh air, and not pay any attention to the obnoxious creeters, wild-cats, burglars, and etcetery that was comin’ right into the open front-door. And it hain’t a mite more simple than it is for them, for they take so much pains a puttin’ up iron bars (as it were) across the windows of their souls to keep beauty and brightness and innocent recreation out of it, that they have no time to see how uncharitableness and envy and malice and hatred and a hull regiment of just such ugly creeters are troopin’ right into the front-door unbeknown to them.
“They seem to take a pride in despisin’ beauty, as if it was a merit in them to look down upon, and feel hauty and contemptuous toward the divinest and loveliest thing God ever made. I don’t feel so, Kellup. I don’t think it is wicked for me to lay holt of all the beauty and happiness that I can, consistently with my duty to humanity and Josiah.