Autumn Leaves Part 3

As mineral poisons kill, because by their strong affinity they decompose the blood and form new stony substances, so the soul possessed by too strong an affinity for gold petrifies.

Our principles are central forces, our desires tangential; it requires both to describe the curve of life.

The slightest inclination of a standing body virtually narrows its base; the least departure from integrity lessens our foundation. The pyramid, broad-based, yet heaven-pointed, is the firmest figure. Most characters are inconsistent, unsymmetrical, and have a base wanting extent in some direction.

Be not over-curious in a.s.signing causes or predicting consequences; the same diagonal may be formed by various combining forces.

Through water the musical sound is not transmitted, only the harsh material noise. In air the noise is heard very near, the musical sounds only are transmitted. Be thankful, poets and prophets, when you live in an element such that your uncomely features are known only to your own village.

"Do not sing its fundamental note too loud near a delicate gla.s.s, or it will break," whispered my friend to me, as he saw me gazing at this lovely being.

Seek the golden mean of life. Like the temperate regions, it has but few th.o.r.n.y plants.

Be doubly careful of those to whom nature has been a n.i.g.g.ard. The oak and the palm take their own forms under all circ.u.mstances; 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 ma.s.s or velocity? But velocity has this advantage; it depends on ourselves.

The gra.s.s 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 part.i.tion, under the full conviction that I have arrived at an open door. My most prominent feature has been rudely a.s.sailed, 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 gla.s.s, 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 pa.s.s over the startling plunge which begins my descent, the frantic s.n.a.t.c.h 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, a.s.sure 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 compa.s.s, 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 sc.r.a.pers, 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 pa.s.sengers 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 sc.r.a.pe 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 ap.r.o.n-strings, d.i.c.key-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 a.s.sortment, 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 quant.i.ty 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, coa.r.s.e 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 pa.s.sing breeze, and the wind chased the smoke down the wide-mouthed chimney, n.o.body 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 a.s.sure you, we children were always breaking panes of gla.s.s 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.