“That head-dress is a shame, and a disgrace. You wouldn’t ketch me in no such extravagance. The money had better have been took and distributed round amongst the poorer classes in the country.”
I don’t s’pose I ort to, and I don’t know exactly how it happened that I did, but I won’t deny it, that comin’ down so awful sudden off of the height of eloquence I had been a soarin’ on, bein’ brought down so awful short and sort o’ onexpected, it did, and I won’t deny it, it did, for as much as a minute and a half, make me mad. It sort o’ jarred me all over, and I spoke up sharp, and says I:
“There are exceptions to every ruler, as scholars have always said. But as a general thing, the people who deny themselves all the beauty and brightness of life, are the very ones who deny it to others. Those who talk the most about others’ extravagance, and what great things they would do if they was in other folks’es places, are the very ones who, if they wuz there, wouldn’t do nothin’. It is the tight ones of earth who talk the most about looseness: how awful loose they would be under certain circumstances. But I believe, and Josiah duz, that they wouldn’t under the very loosest circumstances ever be loose, but would always be tight. And them who says the least often does the most. Them who scold the least about other folks’es duty, often do their own duty the best. Curious. But so it is.
“And those who love to put beauty into their own lives, are often the ones who love to bless other lives—are the ones whose hearts ache at the pleading of a sorrowful eye—whose hearts thrill clear to their center at the voice of a hungry child.
“And if the heart is thrilled in the right way, that thrill always trembles right down into the portmoney, and trembles it open, and jars the money right out of it. The money that will make that hungry cry change into a thankful one, and that wistful look change into a rejoicin’ one.
“Why,” says I in a earnest, lofty tone, wantin’ to convince him, “look at that female I have been a talkin’ about; look at Nater. See what she duz. You have had to give up that no other female ever loved the beautiful as she duz. And you have got to give up that no other female was ever so great-hearted, so compassionate and generous.”
And havin’ by this time got all over my little temporary madness, I went on agin about her, beautiful. Somehow I always do talk eloquent about Nater. I guess it is because I think so much of her.
Says I: “No tenderer care does she give to the monarch on his throne than she gives to the little bare-foot peasant child, or the little foolish sparrer. She takes no greater thought to guide the great ship freighted with noble lives, and help her plow her way through the billows, than she takes to guide the way of the sea-bird over the wild waters, or the flight of the frightened northern birds fleeing southward through the trackless sky before the snows.
“Good to all, generous, helpful to all, patient to all. And at the last she just opens her loving arms and gives rest to all, simple and gentle, serf and monarch; to the prosperous and happy, and to all the heavy-hearted, all the broken-hearted, all the worn, the defeated, the despairin’ souls; the saint and the sinner alike, without rebuking or questioning; she jest reaches out her arms to them all, and gives them rest.”