Over the Teacups

by Oliver Wendell Holmes

It is a wonder how Number Five can find the time to be so much to so many friends of both sexes, in spite of the fact that she is one of the most insatiable of readers. She not only reads, but she remembers; she not only remembers, but she records, for her own use and pleasure, and for the delight and profit of those who are privileged to look over her note-books. Number Five, as I think I have said before, has not the ambition to figure as an authoress. That she could write most agreeably is certain. I have seen letters of hers to friends which prove that clearly enough. Whether she would find prose or verse the most natural mode of expression I cannot say, but I know she is passionately fond of poetry, and I should not be surprised if, laid away among the pressed pansies and roses of past summers, there were poems, songs, perhaps, of her own, which she sings to herself with her fingers touching the piano; for to that she tells her secrets in tones sweet as the ring-dove's call to her mate.

I am afraid it may be suggested that I am drawing Number Five's portrait too nearly after some model who is unconsciously sitting for it; but have n't I told you that you must not look for flesh and blood personalities behind or beneath my Teacups? I am not going to make these so lifelike that you will be saying, This is Mr. or Miss, or Mrs. So-and-So. My readers must remember that there are very many pretty, sweet, amiable girls and women sitting at their pianos, and finding chords to the music of their heart-strings. If I have pictured Number Five as one of her lambs might do it, I have succeeded in what I wanted to accomplish. Why don't I describe her person? If I do, some gossip or other will be sure to say, “Oh, he means her, of course,” and find a name to match the pronoun.

It is strange to see how we are all coming to depend upon the friendly aid of Number Five in our various perplexities. The Counsellor asked her opinion in one of those cases where a divorce was too probable, but a reconciliation was possible. It takes a woman to sound a woman's heart, and she found there was still love enough under the ruffled waters to warrant the hope of peace and tranquillity. The young Doctor went to her for counsel in the case of a hysteric girl possessed with the idea that she was a born poetess, and covering whole pages of foolscap with senseless outbursts, which she wrote in paroxysms of wild excitement, and read with a rapture of self-admiration which there was nothing in her verses to justify or account for. How sweetly Number Five dealt with that poor deluded sister in her talk with the Doctor! “Yes,” she said to him, “nothing can be fuller of vanity, self-worship, and self-deception. But we must be very gentle with her. I knew a young girl tormented with aspirations, and possessed by a belief that she was meant for a higher place than that which fate had assigned her, who needed wholesome advice, just as this poor young thing does. She did not ask for it, and it was not offered. Alas, alas! 'no man cared for her soul,'—no man nor woman either. She was in her early teens, and the thought of her earthly future, as it stretched out before her, was more than she could bear, and she sought the presence of her Maker to ask the meaning of her abortive existence.—We will talk it over. I will help you take care of this child.”

The Doctor was thankful to have her assistance in a case with which he would have found it difficult to deal if he had been left to, his unaided judgment, and between them the young girl was safely piloted through the perilous straits in which she came near shipwreck.

I know that it is commonly said of her that every male friend of hers must become her lover unless he is already lassoed by another. Il fait passer par l'a. The young Doctor is, I think, safe, for I am convinced that he is bewitched with Delilah. Since she has left us, he has seemed rather dejected; I feel sure that he misses her. We all do, but he more seriously than the rest of us. I have said that I cannot tell whether the Counsellor is to be counted as one of Number Five's lambs or not, but he evidently admires her, and if he is not fascinated, looks as if he were very near that condition.

It was a more delicate matter about which the Tutor talked with her. Something which she had pleasantly said to him about the two Annexes led him to ask her, more or less seriously, it may be remembered, about the fitness of either of them to be the wife of a young man in his position. She talked so sensibly, as it seemed to him, about it that he continued the conversation, and, shy as he was, became quite easy and confidential in her company. The Tutor is not only a poet, but is a great reader of the poetry of many languages. It so happened that Number Five was puzzled, one day, in reading a sonnet of Petrarch, and had recourse to the Tutor to explain the difficult passage. She found him so thoroughly instructed, so clear, so much interested, so ready to impart knowledge, and so happy in his way of doing it, that she asked him if he would not allow her the privilege of reading an Italian author under his guidance, now and then.

The Tutor found Number Five an apt scholar, and something more than that; for while, as a linguist, he was, of course, her master, her intelligent comments brought out the beauties of an author in a way to make the text seem like a different version. They did not always confine themselves to the book they were reading. Number Five showed some curiosity about the Tutor's relations with the two Annexes. She suggested whether it would not be well to ask one or both of them in to take part in their readings. The Tutor blushed and hesitated. “Perhaps you would like to ask one of them,” said Number Five. “Which one shall it be?” “It makes no difference to me which,” he answered, “but I do not see that we need either.” Number Five did not press the matter further. So the young Tutor and Number Five read together pretty regularly, and came to depend upon their meeting over a book as one of their stated seasons of enjoyment. He is so many years younger than she is that I do not suppose he will have to pass par la, as most of her male friends have done. I tell her sometimes that she reminds me of my Alma Mater, always young, always fresh in her attractions, with her scholars all round her, many of them graduates, or to graduate sooner or later.

What do I mean by graduates? Why, that they have made love to her, and would be entitled to her diploma, if she gave a parchment to each one of them who had had the courage to face the inevitable. About the Counsellor I am, as I have said, in doubt. Who wrote that “I Like You and I Love You,” which we found in the sugar-bowl the other day? Was it a graduate who had felt the “icy dagger,” or only a candidate for graduation who was afraid of it? So completely does she subjugate those who come under her influence that I believe she looks upon it as a matter of course that the fateful question will certainly come, often after a brief acquaintance. She confessed as much to me, who am in her confidence, and not a candidate for graduation from her academy. Her graduates—her lambs I called them—are commonly faithful to her, and though now and then one may have gone off and sulked in solitude, most of them feel kindly to her, and to those who have shared the common fate of her suitors. I do really believe that some of them would be glad to see her captured by any one, if such there can be, who is worthy of her. She is the best of friends, they say, but can she love anybody, as so many other women do, or seem to? Why shouldn't our Musician, who is evidently fond of her company, and sings and plays duets with her, steal her heart as Piozzi stole that of the pretty and bright Mrs. Thrale, as so many music-teachers have run away with their pupils' hearts? At present she seems to be getting along very placidly and contentedly with her young friend the Tutor. There is something quite charming in their relations with each other. He knows many things she does not, for he is reckoned one of the most learned in his literary specialty of all the young men of his time; and it can be a question of only a few years when some first-class professorship will be offered him. She, on the other hand, has so much more experience, so much more practical wisdom, than he has that he consults her on many every-day questions, as he did, or made believe do, about that of making love to one of the two Annexes. I had thought, when we first sat round the tea-table, that she was good for the bit of romance I wanted; but since she has undertaken to be a kind of half-maternal friend to the young Tutor, I am afraid I shall have to give her up as the heroine of a romantic episode. It would be a pity if there were nothing to commend these papers to those who take up this periodical but essays, more or less significant, on subjects more or less interesting to the jaded and impatient readers of the numberless stories and entertaining articles which crowd the magazines of this prolific period. A whole year of a tea-table as large as ours without a single love passage in it would be discreditable to the company. We must find one, or make one, before the tea-things are taken away and the table is no longer spread.

The Dictator turns preacher.

We have so many light and playful talks over the teacups that some readers may be surprised to find us taking up the most serious and solemn subject which can occupy a human intelligence. The sudden appearance among our New England Protestants of the doctrine of purgatory as a possibility, or even probability, has startled the descendants of the Puritans. It has naturally led to a reconsideration of the doctrine of eternal punishment. It is on that subject that Number Five and I have talked together. I love to listen to her, for she talks from the promptings of a true woman's heart. I love to talk to her, for I learn my own thoughts better in that way than in any other “L'appetit vient en mangeant,” the French saying has it. “L'esprit vient en causant;” that is, if one can find the right persons to talk with.