There is a type of humanity we all encounter from day to day, at whose funeral I shall carry a banner and beat a tom-tom. He is the man who knows it all. In his grave, human forethought, and general knowledge, and mortal perfection and everything worth knowing, shall one day lie down and die. He never makes mistakes, nor loses his temper, nor gets the worst of an argument, nor is worsted in a bargain. He never acts on impulse, nor jumps without looking, nor commits himself rashly, nor loses the wind out of his sails. He is so overwhelmingly superior (sometimes he is a woman!) that in his presence you are a child of wrath, a hopeless imbecile, and a black sheep all in one, and yet—how you hate him and how you long to see some brave young David come along and hit him with a sling shot! Such a man as he, is fitted to bring the average human to the dust as quickly and as surely as a well aimed bullet brings down a wild duck.
XXIX.
BALD HEADS AND UNEQUAL CHANCES.
What a superior chance a man has in this world over a woman! In the matter of physical attributes alone his innings are as far ahead of hers as the man who carries the banner in a Fourth of July procession is ahead of the little boy who tugs along behind with the lemonade pail. The other evening I attended the theatre, and casting my eye over the audience between acts, I beheld no less than a score of bald-headed men. They were composed, and even cheerful, under an infliction that would have ostracized a woman. Imagine a man taking a bald-headed woman to see the "Railroad of Love!" Imagine a bald-headed girl with a fat, red neck and white eyelashes being in eager demand for parties, coaching jubilees or private suppers. There never was a man so homely, so halt, so deficient in beauty or brain that he could not get a wife when he wanted, but the candidates for the position of mistress of any man's household must be pretty, graceful and sweet. The chances are uneven, my dear, but what are you going to do about it?
XXX.
HUMAN STRAWS.
There is not much credit in being jolly when the joints of life are well oiled and events move as smoothly as feathers drawn through cream. The glory lies in maintaining your serenity under adverse circumstances; in emulating Mark Tapley, and being jolly when there is not a hand's breadth of blue in all the heavens. There are straws laid upon us every day, which, if they do not break our backs, at least go far to loosen the vertebrae of our temper. One of these straws is the man who expectorates in public places. What shall I do with that man? I cannot kill him, because there is a law against the violent removal of even a human straw. To be sure, he is the most insignificant straw that the wind of destiny blows across the waste of life. He never will mature a head of wheat though you give him eleven eternities to do it in. But he serves his purpose, and breaks the back of toleration.
XXXI.
A SALLOW FACED GIRL FOR YOUR PITY.
On the opposite corner sits a half-grown girl peddling apples. She polishes the fruit occasionally with a rag that she carries about her person (let us humbly hope it is not her handkerchief!) and now and then breaks into a double shuffle to dissipate the chill that invades her ill-clothed frame. What taste of joy do you suppose that child ever got out of the pewter cup the fates pour for her? Does she ever find time to run about with other children, playing the games which the generations hand down from one to the other? Does she ever play "tag," or "gray wolf," or "I spy?" Does she ever swing in a hammock like other girls when the days are long and blithe and sweet, as free from care as a cloud or a butterfly? Does life hold for her one sparkle in its poor cup of wine, one flavor that is not sordid and low and mean? You say it is easy to sit here all day selling apples, and wonder why I hold this sallow-faced girl up for special pity. To be sure there is no hardship in the part of her life visible to us. But in her dull soul lurks constantly the shadow of an ever present fear. The poor child is accountable to a cruel master, whether father or mother it matters little, who beats her each night that she returns to her wretched home with a scanty showing of nickels; and the consciousness of dull times and slow sales keeps her in a state of trepidation, which in you or me, my dear, would soon lapse into "nervous prostration," a big doctor's fee, and a change of air. Yet mark my words, if the dark-browed liberator of sorrow's captives were to proffer my little fruit peddler the exchange of death for all this wearing apprehension and constant toil, do you think she would accept the transfer? Not she. The "captain" out snow-balling to-day in her love-guarded home, with never a fear to shadow her sunny eyes, nor a big sorrow to start the showery tears, would not plead harder for the boon of longer living.