Various - Autumn Leaves
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Various >> Autumn Leaves
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Be doubly careful of those to whom nature has been a niggard. The oak
and the palm take their own forms under all circumstances; the fungi
seem to owe theirs to outward influences.
It is a poor plant that crisps quickly into wood. It is a meagre
character which runs perpetually into prejudices.
As light suffers from no change of medium when it falls
perpendicularly, so the consequences of a perfectly upright action, or
cause of action, are strictly fortunate. But let it be ever so little
oblique, the new medium will exaggerate its obliquity; and the farther
it departs from uprightness, the more frightfully it is distorted.
Hoops and coins, which cannot preserve their equilibrium when in rest,
keep it when set in motion. Man also in activity finds his safest
position.
As it takes a diamond to cut and shape a diamond, so there are faults
so obstinate that they can be worn away only by life-long contact with
similar faults in those we love.
Learn the virtue of action. Who inquires whether momentum comes from
mass or velocity? But velocity has this advantage; it depends on
ourselves.
The grass is green after these October rains, because in the July
drought it struck deep roots.
MISERIES.
No. 1.
Did you ever try to eat a peach elegantly and gracefully? Of course
you have. Show me a man who has not tried the experiment, when under
the restraint of human surveillance, and I shall look upon him as a
curiosity. There is no fruit, certainly, which has so fair and
alluring an exterior; but few content themselves with feasting their
eyes upon it. How fresh and ripe it looks as it lies upon the plate,
with its rosy cheek turned temptingly upward! How cool and soft is the
downy skin to the touch! And the fragrance, so suggestive of its rich,
delicious flavor, who can resist? Ah, unhappy wight! Bitterly you
shall repent your rashness. Any other fruit can be eaten with
comparative ease and politeness; a peach was evidently intended only
to be looked at, or enjoyed beneath your own tree, where no eye may
watch and criticize your motions.
I see you, in imagination, at a party, standing in the middle of the
room, plate in hand, regarding your peach as if it were some great
natural curiosity. A sudden jog of your elbow compels you to a
succession of most dexterous balancings as your heavy peach rolls from
side to side, knocks down your knife, and threatens to plunge after it
when you stoop to regain it. You look distractedly round for a table,
but all are occupied. Even the corner of the mantel-shelf holds a
plate, and you enviously see the owner thereof leaning carelessly
against the chimney, and looking placidly round upon his less
fortunate companions. You glance at the different groups to see if any
one else is in your most unenviable predicament. Ah, yes! Yonder
stands a gentleman worse off yet, for, in addition to your
perplexities, he is talking with a young, laughing girl, who is
watching his movements, with a merry twinkle in her bright eyes. He
evidently wishes to astonish her by his dexterity, and disappoint her
roguish expectations. He holds his plate firmly in his left hand, and
proceeds, at once, to cut his peach in halves. Deuce take the blunt
silver knife! The tough skin resists its pressure. The knife and plate
clash loudly together; the peach is bounding and rolling at the very
feet of the young lady, who is in an ecstasy of laughter. Ah! she
herself has no small resemblance to a peach, fair, beautiful, and
attractive without, and, I sadly fear, with a hard heart beneath.
Are you yet more miserable than before? Turn then to yonder
sober-looking gentleman, who certainly seems sufficiently composed to
perform the difficult manoeuvre. He has the advantage of a table to be
sure; but that is not every thing. He begins right, by deliberately
removing the woolly skin. Now he lays the slippery peach in his plate,
and makes a plunge at it with his knife. A sharp, prolonged screech
across his plate salutes the ears of all the bystanders, and a fine
slice of juicy pulp is flung unceremoniously into the face of the
gentleman opposite, who certainly does not look very grateful for the
unexpected gift.
Every one, of course, has seen the awkward accident. O no! That
pretty, animated girl upon the sofa is much too pleasantly engaged,
that is evident, to be watching her neighbors. Playing carelessly with
her fan, and casting many sparkling glances upward at the two
gentlemen who are vying with each other in their gallant attentions,
she has enough to do without noticing other people. She is happily
unconscious of the mortification which is in store for her, or
wilfully shuts her eyes to the peril. Alas! Her hand is resting, even
now, upon the destroyer of all her present enjoyment, the beautiful,
fragrant, treacherous peach. With a nonchalance really shocking to the
anxious beholder, she raises it, and breaks it open, talking the
while, and scarcely bestowing a thought upon what she is about.
Dexterously done; but--O luckless maiden!--the fruit is ripe, and
rich, and juicy, and the running drops fall, not into her plate, but
upon the delicate folds of her dress.
The merry repartee dies away upon her lips, as she becomes conscious
of the catastrophe. It is with a forced smile that she declares, "It
is nothing; O, not of the slightest consequence!" That unlucky peach!
How many blunders, how many pauses, how many absent-minded remarks it
occasions! She makes the most frenzied attempts to regain her former
gayety, but in vain. Her gloves are stained and sticky with the
flowing juice, and she is oppressed by the conviction that all her
partners for the rest of the evening will hate her most heartily. An
expression of real vexation steals over her pretty face, and she gives
up her plate to one of the attendant beaux, with not so much as a wish
that he will return to her. Where are the arch smiles, the lively
tones, the quick and ready responses now? Her spirit is quenched. Her
manner has become subdued, depressed,--shall I say it?--yes, even
sulky.
Ah! I see your courage will not brave laughter. You steal to the
table, half ashamed of yourself as you set down your untasted peach.
Your sudden zeal to relieve those ladies of their plates serves as a
very good excuse for the relinquishment of your own. You have rescued
yourself very well from your dilemma this time. Remember my advice for
the future. Never accept a peach in company.
MISERIES.
No. 2.
A DARK NIGHT.
There are some people who seem to have the faculty which horses and
dogs are said to possess,--of seeing in the dark. But I, alas! am
blind and blundering as a beetle; I never can find my way about house
in the evening, without a lamp to illumine my path. Many smarting
remembrances have I of bruised nose and black eyes, the consequences
of attempting to run through a partition, under the full conviction
that I have arrived at an open door. My most prominent feature has
been rudely assailed, also, by doors standing ajar, unexpectedly,
which I have embraced with both outstretched arms. Crickets, tables,
chairs (especially chairs with very sharp rockers), and other movable
articles of furniture, have stationed themselves, as it would seem,
with malicious intent to trip me up. Some murderous contusion makes me
suddenly conscious of their presence. Then a feeling of complete
bewilderment and helplessness and timidity comes over me. I have not
the least idea in what part of the room I am. I am oppressed with a
sense of chairs, scattered about in improbable places. I long most
ardently for a lamp, or only for one gleam from a neighbor's
window. It is no rare thing for me to discover, by a thrilling touch
upon the cold glass, that I have been feeling my way exactly in the
opposite direction from what I imagined. Strange how ideas of
direction and distance are lost when the sight is powerless! _Touch_
may find out mistakes, but cannot always prevent them. Touch may
convince me that I have arrived at my bureau, but it is too careless
to perceive (what the poor, straining eyes would have discovered at a
glance) the open upper drawer that salutes my forehead as I stoop
hastily to grasp the handles beneath. Touch is clumsy. It only serves
to upset valuable plants, inkstands, solar lamps, &c., with an
appalling crash, and then leaves me standing aghast, in utter
uncertainty as to the extent of the catastrophe. In such emergencies a
rush for the stairs is the first impulse. Ah! but those stairs!
I will pass over the startling plunge which begins my descent, the
frantic snatch for the banisters, and the strange, momentary doubt as
to which foot must move first, like what a child may feel when
learning to walk. All this only serves to render me so over-careful,
that, when I actually arrive at the foot of the staircase, I cannot
believe it, until a loud scuff, and the shock that follows the
interruption of my expected descent, assure me beyond a doubt. There
is nothing more exasperating than this, unless it may be the
corresponding disappointment in running up stairs, when you raise your
foot high in air, and bring it down with an emphatic stamp exactly
upon a level with the other.
But these are mere household experiences. Sad though they are, I
esteem them as nothing in comparison with my adventures out of doors.
In a dark night, and especially in a night both dark and stormy, I
feel myself one of the most wretched beings in existence. Imagine a
vessel lost in the wide ocean, and without a compass, and you will
have some faint idea of my perplexity, discouragement, and loneliness
at such a time. I have a strange propensity for shooting off into the
gutter, or for shouldering the fences, under the impression that I am
pursuing a straight course. I go quite out of my way to trip over
chance stones, or to pick out choice bits of slippery ice. I splash
recklessly through deep puddles, stumble over unfortunate scrapers,
walk unexpectedly into open cellars, and lay my length upon wet stone
doorsteps. I start back at visions of posts looming up in the
darkness, and whitewashed fences and trees, all of which would be
quite unlikely to be standing in the middle of the sidewalk, and which
disappear at the first reasonable thought. I run into harmless
passengers as if I would knock the breath of life out of them, and
tangle our umbrellas together so fearfully that they spin round and
round some time after their separation. O that umbrella of mine!
Sometimes I hook it in the drooping branches of trees, and, losing my
hold in the suddenness of the shock, have the gratification of feeling
it tip up, and go down over my shoulder into the mud behind me. Its
bone tips tap and scratch at the windows as I go by, and scrape
against the tall fences, like fingers trying to catch at something to
hold on by, and stop my progress. It hits a low branch, and its
varnished handle slips through my woollen gloves, knocking my hat over
my eyes, and extinguishing me for the time being. As if the night were
not dark enough without!
My friends, I could go on much longer with my complaints, but I feel
that I have drawn upon your sympathies sufficiently for the
present. You will be as glad to leave me at my own house-door, as I am
to find it.
MISERIES.
No. 3.
TWINE.
Under the general head of _string_, I might enumerate a long list of
this world's miseries. Shoe-strings alone comprehend an amount of
wretchedness, which is but feebly described in the tragical story of
Jemmy String. Bonnet-strings and apron-strings, dickey-strings and
watch-guards, curtain-cord, bed-cord, and cod-line, each and all have
furnished enough discomfort to make out a long grumbling article. But
I cannot linger to describe their treacherous desertions when their
services are most needed, their unexpected weakness, and their
obstinate entanglements when time presses. A certain pudding-bag
string is commemorated in one of the beautiful couplets of Mother
Goose's Melodies. I am sure you cannot have forgotten it, nor the
staring spotted cat that is there represented racing away with her
booty. That lamented pudding-bag string is but a type of strings in
general. They are fleeting possessions, always hiding, always
misplaced, never in order. You fit up a string-drawer, perhaps, with a
fine assortment, and pride yourself upon its nice arrangement. Go to
it a week after, and see if you can find one ball where you left it!
Can you lay your hand upon a single piece that you want? No, indeed!
Twine is considered common property. If any one has a use for it, he
takes it without leave or license, without even inquiring who is the
owner, and you may be sure he will never bring any of it back again. O
the misery endured for the want of an errant piece of twine, when you
are in a nervous hurry to do up a parcel, some one waiting at the door
meanwhile! After an immense deal of pains, you have it at last folded
to your liking, with every corner squared and even, every wrinkle
smoothed. Then, clasping tightly with one hand the stiff wrapper, you
search distractedly with the other for a ball of twine, which you
distinctly remember tossing into the paper-drawer only the day before.
In vain you surround yourself with newspaper and brown paper, and
useless rubbish, tumbling your whole drawer into confusion. In vain
you relinquish your nicely packed parcel, and see its contents
scattered in all directions. In vain you grumble and scold. The ball
is not forthcoming. Your little brother has seized it to fly his kite,
or your sister is even now tying up her trailing morning-glories, or
sweet peas, with the stolen booty. You plunge your hand exploringly
into the drawer, and bring up a long roll wound thickly with twine of
all kinds and colors. Your eyes sparkle at the prize; but, alas! the
first energetic pull leaves in your hand a piece about four inches
long, and a quantity of dangling ends and rough knots convince you
that you have nothing to hope in that quarter. A second plunge brings
up a handful of odds and ends, strong pieces clumsy and rough, coarse
red quill-cord, delicate two-colored bits far too short, cotton twine
breaking at a touch, fine long pieces hopelessly tangled together, so
that not even an end is visible. The more you twitch at the loops, the
more desperate is the snarl. Poor mortal! Your pride gives way before
the urgency of haste. You send off your nice packet miserably tied
together by two kinds of twine.
All the rest of the day you are tormented by a superfluity of the very
thing you needed so much. It was impossible to get it when you wanted
it; but now it is pertinaciously in your way when you do _not_ want
it. You almost break your neck tripping over a long, firm cord, which
proves to be a pair of reins left hanging on a chair by some careless
urchin. The carpet and furniture are strewed with long, straggling
pieces of packthread. You find a white end dangling conspicuously from
your waistcoat pocket. As you walk the streets you see twine flying
from fences, or lying useless on the sidewalk, black with dust and
age. To crown the whole, a friend comes with a piece of twine
extending across two rooms, and asks you to help him twist and double
it into a cord. It is a very entertaining process. You amuse yourself
with watching one little rough place that whirls swiftly round, stops
with a jerk, turns hesitatingly one side and the other, then, yielding
to a new impulse, flies round and round again till you are dizzy. You
look with great complacency at the tightening twist, now brought
_almost_ to perfection. You turn it carelessly in your fingers,
scarcely noticing its convulsive starts for freedom. Ah! your
imprudent friend, without any warning, gives it a final pull to
stretch it into shape. The twine slips from your grasp, springs away
across the room, curls itself into a succession of snarls and twisted
loops, and then lies motionless. Your friend looks thunderstruck. With
a hasty apology, you step forward and tightly clasp the recreant
end. You are in nervous expectation of dropping it again. Your fingers
are benumbed at the tips with their tight compression, and the
constant twitching. They give a sudden jerk. You make an involuntary
clutch for the cord, but in vain. It is rapidly untwisting at the very
feet of your companion, who looks at it in despair. Again you make an
attempt with no success at all, the refractory twine eluding your
utmost endeavors to hold it. Once more! Your fellow-twister walks off
at last, with a wretchedly rough affair, which he good humoredly says
"will do very well."
MISERIES.
No. 4.
I believe the world has gone quite crazy on the subject of fresh
air. In the next century people will think they must sleep on the
house-tops, I suppose, or camp out in tents in primitive style.
Nothing is talked about but ventilators, and air-tubes, and
chimney-draughts. One would suppose that fire-places were invented
expressly for cooling and airing a room, instead of heating it. There
was no such fuss when I was young; in those good old times these airy
notions had not come into fashion. Where the loose window-sashes
rattled at every passing breeze, and the wind chased the smoke down
the wide-mouthed chimney, nobody complained of being stifled. There
were no furnaces then to spread a summer heat to every corner of the
house. No, indeed! We ran shivering through the long, windy entries,
all wrapped in shawls, and hugging ourselves to retain the friendly
warmth of the fire as long as possible. Far from devising ways of
letting _in_ the air, we tried hard to keep it _out_ by stuffing the
cracks with cotton, and closely curtaining the windows and bed. Even
then, the ice in the wash-basin, and the electricity which made our
hair literally stand on end in the process of combing, and the gradual
transformation of fingers into thumbs, showed but too plainly that the
wintry air had penetrated our defences. When we crowded joyfully round
a crackling, sparkling wood-fire, even while our faces glowed with the
intense heat, cold shivers were creeping down our backs, and sudden
draughts from an opening door set our teeth chattering. I often wished
myself on a spit, to revolve slowly before the fire until thoroughly
roasted. Not from any want of air, I assure you, we children were
always breaking panes of glass on the bitterest days, and the glazier
was never known to come under a week to replace them. Why people
should wish to revive, and live through again, the miseries of such a
frost-nipped childhood, I cannot imagine.
I, for one, love a snug house, even a warm house. I am of a chilly
temperament, and subject to rheumatism, horrible colds, &c. Fresh air
is my bane. I banish all books on the subject from my table. I
studiously avoid all notorious fresh-air lovers, or try in every way
to bring over the poor, misguided mortals to my views; but it is of no
use. Fresh air is the fashion, and is run to extremes, as all fashions
must be. I call in a physician; lo! _fresh air_ is recommended as a
tonic. I give a party; of course my windows are all thrown open, and
foolish young girls, in the thinnest of white muslins, are standing in
the draught; and such a whirlwind is raised by the flirting of fans,
and the rush of the dancers, that I am blown, like a dry leaf, into a
corner, where I stand shivering, and making rueful attempts to appear
smiling and hospitable. I go out to pass a social afternoon with a
friend, and am set down in a room just above the freezing-point, with
a little crack opened in the window, and all the doors flying, to
_change the air_. I ride in the omnibus, and am almost choked with my
bonnet-strings, such a furious draught meets me in the face, and when,
with infinite pains, I have secured the only tolerably warm corner, my
next neighbor becomes very faint, and must have the window open. Even
the poor babies are not safe from this popular insanity. You may see
the little victims any day, taking an airing, with their little red
noses and watery eyes peeping forth from under the cap and
feathers. The old-fashioned blanket, in which the baby was done up
head and all, like a bundle, is thrown aside. The child is not quite
so often carried upside down. I suppose, under the new system, but
what difference does it make whether the poor thing is smothered or
frozen to death?
I never shall forget a long journey I took once with a friend who was
raving mad on the subject of fresh air and cold water. Every morning
the windows were thrown wide open, and the blinds flung back with an
energetic bang, while a stiff wintry wind whirled every thing about
the room, and flapped the curtains against the ceiling. And there she
stood, declaring herself exhilarated, while her nose and lips turned
from red to blue, and the tears ran down her cheeks. I always took to
flight. Afterwards the poor auto-martyr went out to walk before
breakfast, scornfully rejecting all offers of furs and extra
wrappings. O dear, no! _She_ never thought of muffs, tippets,
snow-boots, but as encumbrances fit for extreme old age and
infirmity. She always walked fast, and the more the wind blew, the
warmer she felt, I might be assured. As soon as she had gone, I
established myself in comfort by the side of a glowing grate, happy
but for dreading her return. She came in dreadfully fresh and breezy
from the outer air, very energetic, very noisy, and fully bent upon
stirring me up and making me take exercise. After snapping the door
open and slamming it behind her with a clap that greatly disturbed my
nerves, she exclaimed in a stentorian voice, "O dear me! I shall _die_
in such an oven! My dear child, you have no idea how hot it is!" And
the first thing I knew, up would go a window with a crash that made
the weights rattle. It might rain or shine; weather made no difference
to this inveterate air-seeker. Many a time has she come in all
dripping, and tracking the carpet, brushed carelessly against me with
her wet garments, and finally enveloped me with the steam arising from
them as they hung around my fire. It roused my indignation that she
should make herself and every body else so uncomfortable, and then
glory in the deed as if it were indubitably and indisputably
praiseworthy. She was so good-natured, however, and so happy in her
delusion, that I could not find it in my heart to remonstrate very
vehemently, except when she would make me listen to her interminable
lectures upon the importance, the _necessity_, of fresh air, and the
effect of a snug, cosy room upon the blood, the heart, the lungs, the
head, and (as I verily believe she hinted) _the temper_. I know I lost
all control of _mine_ long before she finished; but whether it was the
want of fresh air in practice, or too much of it in theory, I leave
you to imagine.
My friend always carried a small thermometer in her trunk, which she
consulted a dozen times an hour, in order to regulate the temperature
of the room. Alas for me if the quicksilver rose above 60! I devoutly
hoped she would leave it behind in some of our numerous
stopping-places, and with an eye to that possibility, I must confess,
I hung it in the most out-of-the-way corners I could find; but it
seemed to be on her mind continually. She never forgot it, and always
packed it very carefully, too. I asked her two or three times to let
me put it in _my_ trunk, where I had slyly arranged a nice little
place full of hard surfaces and sharp corners, but she always had
plenty of room.
I believe my zealous friend is now residing at the sea-shore, freezing
in the cold sea-winds, and losing her breath every morning in the
briny wave, under the strange illusion that she is improving her
health.
FAREWELL.
They tell me my hat is old!
I scarce believe it so;
But since I'm uncivilly told
The dear old thing must go,
I bid thee farewell, old hat,
Good hat!
Farewell to thee, good old hat!
I must soon to the city his,
And trudge to some horrid store,
A smart new tile to buy,
With a heart exceedingly sore,
For I cast off a long-tried friend,
A close friend,--
I'm ashamed of a trusty old friend.
Ah, let me remember with tears
The day thou wast first my own,
When I settled thee over my ears,
Then with soap-locks overgrown.
"Hurra for a beaver hat,
A sleek hat!
A cheer for a sleek beaver hat!"
That day is in memory green
Among those that were all of that hue;
Sweet days of my youth! Ah! I've seen
But too many since that were _blue_.
How smooth was our front, my hat,
My first hat!
Unbent were our brows, my first hat!
The first dent,--what a sorrow it was!
Were it only my skull instead!
Indignant I think on the cause,
And pommel my stupid head.
I was new to the care of a hat,
A tall hat,--
Unworthy to wear a tall hat.
The omnibus portal, low-browed,
Had ne'er grazed my humble cap,
But it knocked off my beaver so proud,
Which into a puddle fell slap.
Alas for my dignified hat,
My proud hat!
Woe to my lofty-crowned hat!
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