The Poet at the Breakfast-Table Part 7

--How does she go to work to help you?

--Why, she listens to my stories, to begin with, as if she really liked to hear them. And then you know I am dreadfully troubled now and then with some of my characters, and can't think how to get rid of them. And she'll say, perhaps, Don't shoot your villain this time, you've shot three or four already in the last six weeks; let his mare stumble and throw him and break his neck. Or she'll give me a hint about some new way for my lover to make a declaration. She must have had a good many offers, it's my belief, for she has told me a dozen different ways for me to use in my stories. And whenever I read a story to her, she always laughs and cries in the right places; and that's such a comfort, for there are some people that think everything pitiable is so funny, and will burst out laughing when poor Rip Van Winkle--you've seen Mr.

Jefferson, haven't you?--is breaking your heart for you if you have one. Sometimes she takes a poem I have written and reads it to me so beautifully, that I fall in love with it, and sometimes she sets my verses to music and sings them to me.

--You have a laugh together sometimes, do you?

--Indeed we do. I write for what they call the "Comic Department" of the paper now and then. If I did not get so tired of story-telling, I suppose I should be gayer than I am; but as it is, we two get a little fun out of my comic pieces. I begin them half-crying sometimes, but after they are done they amuse me. I don't suppose my comic pieces are very laughable; at any rate the man who makes a business of writing me down says the last one I wrote is very melancholy reading, and that if it was only a little better perhaps some bereaved person might pick out a line or two that would do to put on a gravestone.

--Well, that is hard, I must confess. Do let me see those lines which excite such sad emotions.

--Will you read them very good-naturedly? If you will, I will get the paper that has "Aunt Tabitha." That is the one the fault-finder said produced such deep depression of feeling. It was written for the "Comic Department." Perhaps it will make you cry, but it was n't meant to.

--I will finish my report this time with our Scheherezade's poem, hoping that--any critic who deals with it will treat it with the courtesy due to all a young lady's literary efforts.

AUNT TABITHA.

Whatever I do, and whatever I say, Aunt Tabitha tells me that isn't the way; When she was a girl (forty summers ago) Aunt Tabitha tells me they never did so.

Dear aunt! If I only would take her advice!

But I like my own way, and I find it so nice!

And besides, I forget half the things I am told; But they all will come back to me--when I am old.

If a youth pa.s.ses by, it may happen, no doubt, He may chance to look in as I chance to look out; She would never endure an impertinent stare, It is horrid, she says, and I mustn't sit there.

A walk in the moonlight has pleasures, I own, But it is n't quite safe to be walking alone; So I take a lad's arm,--just for safety, you know, But Aunt Tabitha tells me they didn't do so.

How wicked we are, and how good they were then!

They kept at arm's length those detestable men; What an era of virtue she lived in!--But stay Were the men all such rogues in Aunt Tabitha's day?

If the men were so wicked, I'll ask my papa How he dared to propose to my darling mamma; Was he like the rest of them? Goodness! Who knows And what shall I say if a wretch should propose?

I am thinking if aunt knew so little of sin, What a wonder Aunt Tabitha's aunt must have been!

And her grand-aunt--it scares me--how shockingly sad.

That we girls of to-day are so frightfully bad!

A martyr will save us, and nothing else can; Let me perish--to rescue some wretched young man!

Though when to the altar a victim I go, Aunt Tabitha'll tell me she never did so!

IV

The old Master has developed one quality of late for which I am afraid I hardly gave him credit. He has turned out to be an excellent listener.

--I love to talk,--he said,--as a goose loves to swim. Sometimes I think it is because I am a goose. For I never talked much at any one time in my life without saying something or other I was sorry for.

--You too!--said I--Now that is very odd, for it is an experience I have habitually. I thought you were rather too much of a philosopher to trouble yourself about such small matters as to whether you had said just what you meant to or not; especially as you know that the person you talk to does not remember a word of what you said the next morning, but is thinking, it is much more likely, of what she said, or how her new dress looked, or some other body's new dress which made--hers look as if it had been patched together from the leaves of last November.

That's what she's probably thinking about.

--She!--said the Master, with a look which it would take at least half a page to explain to the entire satisfaction of thoughtful readers of both s.e.xes.

--I paid the respect due to that most significant monosyllable, which, as the old Rabbi spoke it, with its targum of tone and expression, was not to be answered flippantly, but soberly, advisedly, and after a pause long enough for it to unfold its meaning in the listener's mind. For there are short single words (all the world remembers Rachel's Helas!) which are like those j.a.panese toys that look like nothing of any significance as you throw them on the water, but which after a little time open out into various strange and unexpected figures, and then you find that each little shred had a complicated story to tell of itself.

-Yes,--said I, at the close of this silent interval, during which the monosyllable had been opening out its meanings,--She. When I think of talking, it is of course with a woman. For talking at its best being an inspiration, it wants a corresponding divine quality of receptiveness; and where will you find this but in woman?

The Master laughed a pleasant little laugh,--not a harsh, sarcastic one, but playful, and tempered by so kind a look that it seemed as if every wrinkled line about his old eyes repeated, "G.o.d bless you," as the tracings on the walls of the Alhambra repeat a sentence of the Koran.

I said nothing, but looked the question, What are you laughing at?

--Why, I laughed because I couldn't help saying to myself that a woman whose mind was taken up with thinking how she looked, and how her pretty neighbor looked, wouldn't have a great deal of thought to spare for all your fine discourse.

--Come, now,--said I,--a man who contradicts himself in the course of two minutes must have a screw loose in his mental machinery. I never feel afraid that such a thing can happen to me, though it happens often enough when I turn a thought over suddenly, as you did that five-cent piece the other day, that it reads differently on its two sides. What I meant to say is something like this. A woman, notwithstanding she is the best of listeners, knows her business, and it is a woman's business to please. I don't say that it is not her business to vote, but I do say that a woman who does not please is a false note in the harmonies of nature. She may not have youth, or beauty, or even manner; but she must have something in her voice or expression, or both, which it makes you feel better disposed towards your race to look at or listen to. She knows that as well as we do; and her first question after you have been talking your soul into her consciousness is, Did I please? A woman never forgets her s.e.x. She would rather talk with a man than an angel, any day.

--This frightful speech of mine reached the ear of our Scheherezade, who said that it was perfectly shocking and that I deserved to be shown up as the outlaw in one of her bandit stories.

Hush, my dear,--said the Lady,--you will have to bring John Milton into your story with our friend there, if you punish everybody who says naughty things like that. Send the little boy up to my chamber for Paradise Lost, if you please. He will find it lying on my table. The little old volume,--he can't mistake it.

So the girl called That Boy round and gave him the message; I don't know why she should give it, but she did, and the Lady helped her out with a word or two.

The little volume--its cover protected with soft white leather from a long kid glove, evidently suggesting the brilliant a.s.semblies of the days when friends and fortune smiled-came presently and the Lady opened it.--You may read that, if you like, she said,--it may show you that our friend is to be pilloried in good company.

The Young Girl ran her eye along the pa.s.sage the Lady pointed out, blushed, laughed, and slapped the book down as though she would have liked to box the ears of Mr. John Milton, if he had been a contemporary and fellow-contributor to the "Weekly Bucket."--I won't touch the thing,--she said.--He was a horrid man to talk so: and he had as many wives as Blue-Beard.

--Fair play,--said the Master.--Bring me the book, my little fractional superfluity,--I mean you, my nursling,--my boy, if that suits your small Highness better.

The Boy brought the book.

The old Master, not unfamiliar with the great epic opened pretty nearly to the place, and very soon found the pa.s.sage: He read, aloud with grand scholastic intonation and in a deep voice that silenced the table as if a prophet had just uttered Thus saith the Lord:--

"So spake our sire, and by his countenance seemed Entering on studious thoughts abstruse; which Eve Perceiving--"

went to water her geraniums, to make a short story of it, and left the two "conversationists," to wit, the angel Raphael and the gentleman,--there was but one gentleman in society then, you know,--to talk it out.

"Yet went she not, as not with such discourse Delighted, or not capable her ear Of what was high; such pleasure she reserved, Adam relating, she sole auditress; Her husband the relater she preferred Before the angel, and of him to ask Chose rather; he she knew would intermix Grateful digressions, and solve high dispute With conjugal caresses: from his lips Not words alone pleased her."

Everybody laughed, except the Capitalist, who was a little hard of hearing, and the Scarabee, whose life was too earnest for demonstrations of that kind. He had his eyes fixed on the volume, however, with eager interest.

--The p'int 's carried,--said the Member of the Haouse.

Will you let me look at that book a single minute?--said the Scarabee.

I pa.s.sed it to him, wondering what in the world he wanted of Paradise Lost.

Dermestes lardarius,--he said, pointing to a place where the edge of one side of the outer cover had been slightly tasted by some insect.--Very fond of leather while they 're in the larva state.

--Damage the goods as bad as mice,--said the Salesman.

--Eat half the binding off Folio 67,--said the Register of Deeds.

Something did, anyhow, and it was n't mice. Found the shelf covered with little hairy cases belonging to something or other that had no business there.