Autobiography of a Pocket-Handkerchief Part 8

"Yes, one DOES hear a great deal of it. I shall be glad when the gentlemen learn to talk of something else. But the best is to come. At last, Pa asked Mr. Murray if he had inventoried lately."

"Did he?"

"Yes, he did. Of course you know what that means?"

"It meant to FILL, as they call it, does it not?"

"So I thought at first, but it means no such thing. It means to count up, and set down how much one is worth. Mr. Murray said he did THAT every month, and of course he knew very well what HE was worth. I forget how much it was, for I didn't care, you know George Murray is not as old as I am, and so I listened to what Pa had inventoried. Now, how much do you guess?"

"Really, my dear, I haven't the least idea," answered Clara, slightly gaping--"a thousand dollars, perhaps."

"A thousand dollars! What, for a gentleman who keeps his coach--lives in Broadway--dresses his daughter as I dress, and gives her hundred-dollar handkerchiefs. Two hundred million, my dear; two hundred million!"

Eudosia had interpolated the word "hundred," quite innocently, for, as usually happens with those to whom money is new, her imagination ran ahead of her arithmetic. "Yes," she added, "two hundred millions; besides sixty millions of odd money!"

"That sounds like a great deal," observed Clara quietly; for, besides caring very little for these millions, she had not a profound respect for her friend's accuracy on such subjects.

"It IS a great deal. Ma says there are not ten richer men than Pa in the state. Now, does not this alter the matter about the pocket-handkerchief? It would be mean in me not to have a hundred-dollar handkerchief, when I could get one."

"It may alter the matter as to the extravagance; but it does not alter it as to the fitness. Of what USE is a pocket-handkerchief like this? A pocket-handkerchief is made for USE, my dear, not for show."

"You would not have a young lady use her pocket-handkerchief like a snuffy old nurse, Clara?"

"I would have her use it like a young lady, and in no other way. But it always strikes me as a proof of ignorance and a want of refinement when the uses of things are confounded. A pocket-handkerchief, at the best, is but a menial appliance, and it is bad taste to make it an object of attraction. FINE, it may be, for that conveys an idea of delicacy in its owner; but ornamented beyond reason, never. Look what a tawdry and vulgar thing an embroidered slipper is on a woman's foot."

"Yes, I grant you that, but everybody cannot have hundred-dollar handkerchiefs, though they may have embroidered slippers. I shall wear my purchase at Miss Trotter's ball to-night."

To this Clara made no objection, though she still looked disapprobation of her purchase. Now, the lovely Eudosia had not a bad heart; she had only received a bad education. Her parents had given her a smattering of the usual accomplishments, but here her superior instruction ended.

Unable to discriminate themselves, for the want of this very education, they had been obliged to trust their daughter to the care of mercenaries, who fancied their duties discharged when they had taught their pupil to repeat like a parrot. All she acquired had been for effect, and not for the purpose of every-day use; in which her instruction and her pocket-handkerchief might be said to be of a piece.

CHAPTER XI.

And here I will digress a moment to make a single remark on a subject of which popular feeling, in America, under the influence of popular habits, is apt to take an exparte view. Accomplishments are derided as useless, in comparison with what is considered household virtues. The accomplishment of a cook is to make good dishes; of a seamstress to sew well, and of a lady to possess refined tastes, a cultivated mind, and agreeable and intellectual habits. The real VIRTUES of all are the same, though subject to laws peculiar to their station; but it is a very different thing when we come to the mere accomplishments. To deride all the refined attainments of human skill denotes ignorance of the means of human happiness, nor is it any evidence of acquaintance with the intricate machinery of social greatness and a lofty civilization. These gradations in attainments are inseparable from civilized society, and if the skill of the ingenious and laborious is indispensable to a solid foundation, without the tastes and habits of the refined and cultivated, it never can be graceful or pleasing.

{exparte = should be "ex parte"--one-sided (Latin)}

Eudosia had some indistinct glimmerings of this fact, though it was not often that she came to sound and discriminating decisions even in matters less complicated. In the present instance she saw this truth only by halves, and that, too, in its most commonplace aspect, as will appear by the remark she made on the occasion.

"Then, Clara, as to the PRICE I have paid for this handkerchief," she said, "you ought to remember what the laws of political economy lay down on such subjects. I suppose your Pa makes you study political economy, my dear?"

"Indeed he does not. I hardly know what it means."

"Well, that is singular; for Pa says, in this age of the world, it is the only way to be rich. Now, it is by means of a trade in lots, and political economy, generally, that he has succeeded so wonderfully; for, to own the truth to you, Clara, Pa hasn't always been rich."

"No?" answered Clara, with a half-suppressed smile, she knowing the fact already perfectly well.

"Oh, no--far from it--but we don't speak of this publicly, it being a sort of disgrace in New York, you know, not to be thought worth at least half a million. I dare say your Pa is worth as much as that?"

"I have not the least idea he is worth a fourth of it, though I do not pretend to know. To me half a million of dollars seems a great deal of money, and I know my father considers himself poor--poor, at least, for one of his station. But what were you about to say of political economy? I am curious to hear how THAT can have any thing to do with your handkerchief."

"Why, my dear, in this manner. You know a distribution of labor is the source of all civilization--that trade is an exchange of equivalents--that custom-houses fetter these equivalents--that nothing which is fettered is free--"

"My dear Eudosia, what IS your tongue running on?"

"You will not deny, Clara, that any thing which is fettered is not free? And that freedom is the greatest blessing of this happy country; and that trade ought to be as free as any thing else?"

All this was gibberish to Clara Caverly, who understood the phrases, notwithstanding, quite as well as the friend who was using them.

Political economy is especially a science of terms; and free trade, as a branch of it is called, is just the portion of it which is indebted to them the most. But Clara had not patience to hear any more of the unintelligible jargon which has got possession of the world to-day, much as Mr. Pitt's celebrated sinking-fund scheme for paying off the national debt of Great Britain did, half a century since, and under very much the same influences; and she desired her friend to come at once to the point, as connected with the pocket-handkerchief.

{Mr. Pitt's celebrated sinking-fund = Sir William Pitt "the younger"

(1759-1806), when he became Prime Minister in 1784, sought to raise taxes in order to pay off the British national debt}

"Well, then," resumed Eudosia, "it is connected in this way. The luxuries of the rich give employment to the poor, and cause money to circulate. Now this handkerchief of mine, no doubt, has given employment to some poor French girl for four or five months, and, of course, food and raiment. She has earned, no doubt, fifty of the hundred dollars I have paid. Then the custom-house--ah, Clara, if it were not for that vile custom-house, I might have had the handkerchief for at least five-and-twenty dollars lower----!"

"In which case you would have prized it five-and-twenty times less,"

answered Clara, smiling archly.

"THAT is true; yes, free trade, after all, does NOT apply to pocket-handkerchiefs."

"And yet," interrupted Clara, laughing, "if one can believe what one reads, it applies to hackney-coaches, ferry-boats, doctors, lawyers, and even the clergy. My father says it is----"

"What? I am curious to know, Clara, what as plain speaking a man as Mr.

Caverly calls it."

"He is plain speaking enough to call it a ---- HUMBUG," said the daughter, endeavoring to mouth the word in a theatrical manner. "But, as Oth.e.l.lo says, the handkerchief."

{Oth.e.l.lo says... = "Fetch me the handkerchief," Shakespeare, "Oth.e.l.lo,"

Act III, Scene 4, line 98}

"Oh! Fifty dollars go to the poor girl who does the work, twenty-five more to the odious custom-house, some fifteen to rent, fuel, lights, and ten, perhaps, to Mr. Bobbinet, as profits. Now all this is very good, and very useful to society, as you must own."

Alas, poor Adrienne! Thou didst not receive for me as many francs as this fair calculation gave thee dollars; and richer wouldst thou have been, and, oh, how much happier, hadst thou kept the money paid for me, sold the lace even at a loss, and spared thyself so many, many hours of painful and anxious toil! But it is thus with human calculations, The propositions seem plausible, and the reasoning fair, while stern truth lies behind all to level the pride of understanding, and prove the fallacy of the wisdom of men. The reader may wish to see how closely Eudosia's account of profit and loss came to the fact, and I shall, consequently, make up the statement from the private books of the firm that had the honor of once owning me, viz.:

Super-extraordinary Pocket-handkerchief, &c., in account with Bobbinet & Co.

DR.

To money paid, first cost, francs 100, at 5.25, -- $19.04 To interest on same for ninety days, at 7 per cent., -- 00.33 To portion of pa.s.sage money, -- 00.04 To porterage, -- 00.00 1/4 To washing and making up, -- 00.25 ------------- $19 66 1/4

CR.

By cash paid by Miss Thimble, -- $1.00 By cash paid for article, -- 100.00 By washerwoman's deduction, -- 00.05 ---------- 101.05 ---------- By profit, -- $81.39 3/4

As Clara Caverly had yet to see Mrs. Thoughtful, and pay Eudosia's subscription, the former now took her leave. I was thus left alone with my new employer, for the first time, and had an opportunity of learning something of her true character, without the interposition of third persons; for, let a friend have what hold he or she may on your heart, it has a few secrets that are strictly its own. If admiration of myself could win my favor, I had every reason to be satisfied with the hands into which fortune had now thrown me. There were many things to admire in Eudosia--a defective education being the great evil with which she had to contend. Owing to this education, if it really deserved such a name, she had superficial accomplishments, superficially acquired--principles that scarce extended beyond the retenue and morals of her s.e.x--tastes that had been imbibed from questionable models--and hopes that proceeded from a false estimate of the very false position into which she had been accidentally and suddenly thrown. Still Eudosia had a heart. She could scarcely be a woman, and escape the influence of this portion of the female frame. By means of the mesmeritic power of a pocket-handkerchief, I soon discovered that there was a certain Morgan Morely in New York, to whom she longed to exhibit my perfection, as second to the wish to exhibit her own.

{retenue = discretion}

I scarcely know whether to felicitate myself or not, on the circ.u.mstance that I was brought out the very first evening I pa.s.sed in the possession of Eudosia Halfacre. The beautiful girl was dressed and ready for Mrs. Trotter's ball by eight; and her admiring mother thought it impossible for the heart of Morgan Morely, a reputed six figure fortune, to hold out any longer. By some accident or other, Mr.