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EVERY DAY ESSAYS 
 
T "^jndf-was glad of the Kitchen s^-prori 
 
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 ^t'c pa^e 1/2 
 
Every Day 
 
 Essays 
 
 By 
 
 Marion Foster Washburne 
 
 Illustrated by 
 
 Ruth Mary Hallock 
 
 Rand, McNally & Company 
 Chicago New York 
 
LIBRmKY nt CONGRESS 
 Two Copies Receivod 
 
 APR I 1904 
 
 CopyiigM Entry 
 
 CLaSS -^ XXe. No. 
 
 COPY 8 
 
 
 Copyright., iqo4 
 By Marion Foster Washburne 
 
 CKije ^anti - ^i;$lall» firese 
 
 Chicago 
 
THE CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Every Morning's Comedy 7 
 
 Mother and Child 30 
 
 An Irresponsible Ramble 38 
 
 Home 51 
 
 The Day When Everythinjjf is Wrong . . 68 
 
 Pictures of Peace ........ 87 
 
 Coming Down in the World 102 
 
 The Spirit of Christmas 115 
 
 Aunt Catherine's Busy Day 133 
 
 Types of Childhood i45 
 
EVERY DAY ESSAYS 
 
 Every Morning's Comedy* 
 
 I wonder why children wake so early In the 
 morning? It isn't as if they were ready to 
 go to bed early; on the contrary, one never 
 finds the moment when they are willing to 
 give up the joys of the waking world. These 
 seem to have to be wrested from them by 
 force, either by Mother Nature or by the less 
 stern human mother. I have seen Jamie, for 
 example, so drowsy that he would nod off be- 
 tween mouthfuls at the table, yet when you 
 asked him if he didn't want to go to sleep, 
 he would resent the question as utterly unwar- 
 rantable. And in the morning his blue eyes 
 fly open as if the first touch of daylight were 
 some magic talisman calling him back instant- 
 ly from the land of dreams. 
 
 One rather envies them the fresh eager- 
 ness of this awaking, and perhaps one de- 
 tects in it some dim reproach. Surely this is 
 7 
 
8 Every Day Essays 
 
 the way one should face the new day — with 
 a confident wonder, a sweet readiness for all 
 things it holds concealed. Instead, we elders 
 cling to the day that has departed, and would 
 fain prolong It. What a contrast now is the 
 nursery, with the eastern sun pouring in at its 
 windows, the white-robed children chatting 
 gaily and irrepressibly in bed, to my own 
 carefully darkened room, in which the heavy 
 air of night still lingers ! I have waked the 
 nurse, who sleeps more heavily than I do, and 
 who yet wakes more cheerfully to the day's 
 duties. Is it because her life Is simpler, I 
 wonder? Yet it is surely less rich than mine. 
 These are my children, not hers, and it is my 
 dear husband whose morning nap I am try- 
 ing to shelter in the darkened bed-room. She 
 goes to bed early, to be sure — but if I did 
 that, where would be the time I give to my 
 husband? I am very tender in my thoughts 
 of him until he turns restlessly and growls 
 out something about wondering why two 
 women can't keep those children quiet in the 
 morning. 
 
Every Morning's Comedy 9 
 
 I soothe him off to sleep again, but I am 
 secretly a little indignant. Was it he or I, 
 I ask myself as I brush my hair, that rose 
 with the baby twice last night? In order to 
 have the nurse fresh and serene during the 
 day, I always take the baby at night. Be- 
 sides, I sleep lighter, and that makes it pos- 
 sible for me to watch him more carefully. 
 She would never notice whether the tempera- 
 ture changed or not, nor whether he threw 
 the clothes off when he turned. The other 
 children, too, are sure to get uncovered, and 
 some one must cover them again. Their 
 father says it is ail nonsense for me to prowl 
 around so much at night — but it is easier than 
 taking care of the children with heavy colds, 
 and I notice that, if I am sick and unable, 
 he prowls around a good deal himself. Men 
 are always throwing out remarks about the 
 way they would simplify the training of chil- 
 dren, if they had It to do; but they don't 
 seem eager to make opportunities for the dis- 
 play of this wisdom, nor do they rise very 
 
10 Every Day Essays 
 
 convincingly to such opportunities as unavoid- 
 ably present themselves. 
 
 Take this question of early rising, for ex- 
 ample. Nelson (that's my husband) set him- 
 self against it with all the force of a will that 
 has made him fairly successful in business, 
 after a rather hard childhood. He decided, 
 with our first baby, that it was all nonsense 
 to be waked every morning at five o'clock — 
 Jamie was really a little extra bad. At first 
 he was sure it was the morning light that 
 roused him, and he had the windows of our 
 room fitted with double shades to keep it out. 
 But no matter which window we left open, 
 the wind was sure to shift around to it in the 
 night, and those double shades would dance 
 a double shufile with the most heartless disre- 
 gard for our feelings. I would know that 
 they wakened Nelson by the way he would 
 lie there elaborately still, breathing with 
 careful regularity. I knew he wanted me to 
 go and shut that window, but I have a little 
 spirit left, and I thought it was enough for 
 me to attend to the baby without running 
 
fc^^/^C'^^.^^.S/.^-v^^S:-^^^ 
 
 v/onder why children waKe 
 so e?.rlyinthe morning" - 
 
 See fage 7 
 
Every Morning's Comedy ii 
 
 Nelson's shades too. Then it would occur to 
 me that the noise might wake the baby, and I 
 would begin to creep out of bed on my side, 
 just as Nelson bounded out on his. I used to 
 envy him his command of language. The 
 feminine vocabulary is so limited. 
 
 Well, but the worst of it was that the baby 
 woke up at five o'clock just the same, no mat- 
 ter how dark the room was. Then Nelson 
 said that it was all nonsense, my taking 
 charge of the baby at night. What was he 
 paying a nurse for, he should like to know, 
 if he was to have no rest? He proposed to 
 have her earn her wages. In vain I protested 
 that she wouldn't stay, and that a good 
 nurse was awfully hard to keep under the 
 circumstances. We argued on the subject 
 until we woke the baby, and then Nelson, 
 in his masculine, superior way, rose and 
 took him, howling, to Hilda. Hilda was one 
 of the best nurses I ever had, but she gave 
 notice next day, on the ground that I had told 
 her, when she came, that I would take care 
 of the baby at night myself. Nelson said that 
 
12 Every Day Essays 
 
 I made my mistake in telling her that, and so 
 I tried letting the next nurse plainly under- 
 stand that she should have the entire charge 
 of the baby. To my surprise, she did not 
 object, and I felt crestfallen, and didn't say 
 much about it to my husband. He wasn't so 
 magnanimous. He made it the subject of 
 conversation whenever we had our intimates 
 in for an evening, and I got thoroughly tired 
 of Molly's perfections as a nurse. The worst 
 was that the baby slept all night without a 
 murmur, and until seven in the morning, and 
 Nelson and my own father agreed that chil- 
 dren nearly always did bettei away from their 
 mothers. They petted them too much, father 
 said, and the children got exacting. Now, 
 a good, common Irish woman was just the 
 sort of simple-natured person to suit a child; 
 the modern woman was too nervous and com- 
 plicated. Anci so on, until I began to feel 
 such complicated instincts rising up in me as 
 made speech inadequate. Those two men 
 can thank the modern training that took me 
 
E.very Morning's Comedy 13 
 
 out of the room before certain primitive im- 
 pulses* entirely mastered me. 
 
 1 went straight up to the nursery where 
 Jamie lay asleep, intending to put my head 
 on his little arm, and nestle my hot face in 
 his delicious little neck, and assure myself 
 that he was my own baby and I was his own 
 mother, whether I was good for him or not. 
 He smells like the daintiest of wild flowers 
 when he is asleep, and I can never long 
 cherish any ill feelings with my cheek next 
 his. I love to let his milky breath blow over 
 my face, too. But what was this? He 
 smelled of whiskey! I couldn't believe my 
 very trustworthy nose. Then I decided that 
 it must be on his night-dress; but no, sniff as 
 I would, it smelled only nice and flannelly. 
 I sniffed and sniffed, and finally brushed my 
 nose lightly over his dear little mouth ! 
 Irish women, indeed! I admit that their 
 methods of securing a good baby at night are 
 much too simple for me. 
 
 Nelson bore up bravely under the blow, 
 protesting that he did not believe it was any- 
 
// Every Day Essays 
 
 thing but an occasional occurrence — as if I 
 would stand an occasionally drunken baby ! — 
 but when he saw how his modest supply of 
 whiskey had dwindled during Molly's stay, 
 he gave in; and I took my turn telling stories 
 to our friends. Nelson said, at last, that if I 
 didn't stop, I would give Jamie a reputation 
 for fast living before he was out of his cradle, 
 and for the dear child's sake I forbore. 
 
 We finally compromised on having the 
 nurse come and take the baby in the early 
 morning. But she was not nearly so reliable 
 in the matter of hours as Jamie was, and now, 
 after six years, it has got to be a regular habit 
 of mine to rise, take the baby — it's Jack 
 now — keep my eyes as nearly shut as pos- 
 sible, trying to hold on to the vague dreams 
 from which I have just been roused, go into 
 the nursery and wake the nurse. The other 
 children are always awake, too, and no 
 amount of management on my part has yet 
 sufficed to make them let me alone. They 
 want a kiss ; they want a drink ; they want to 
 tell me what they dreamed; they want to 
 
Every Morning's Comedy 75 
 
 wear their new clothes; they want to have a 
 picnic; they want a thousand things; and I 
 want to go to bed. I have tried kissing them 
 and saying nothing. They immediately want 
 to know if I am " mad." I say no, only 
 sleepy, and they spring around my neck. 
 Sweet nuisances ! It's a pity that I can't just 
 stay and be bright and sweet and loving with 
 them. I cuddle them a little, and sometimes 
 I get into bed with them, and we have a beau- 
 tiful time. But, dear me ! How sleepy I am 
 before my morning's work is half over ! And 
 then the next day they expect the same per- 
 formance; and I have made up my mind 
 against it, and I have to speak sharply to them 
 to make them let me go — and then I 
 am so utterly miserable at having spoiled 
 the beginning of their bright, beautiful day 
 that I go back to bed, and cry, and wake 
 Nelson, and he is crosser than he means to 
 be, and we have a constrained breakfast. He 
 generally brings me home a bunch of 
 flowers at night after such a season, and I 
 
i6 Every Day Essays 
 
 know by that that he has been at least a httle 
 miserable all day; and I am glad of it. 
 
 I do seem to have a good deal more to 
 think about in the way of child-management 
 than many of my neighbors do. Perhaps it 
 is because I don't believe in spanking. Nel- 
 son says so, at any rate. He holds the 
 opinion that a good sound thrashing would 
 settle most of my difficulties, and he points 
 to the case of our neighbors in triumphant 
 illustration. 
 
 " It's nothing for them to bring up chil- 
 dren," he explains. " They sew for them, 
 and work for them, and feed them, and spank 
 them, and that's all there is to it. They don't 
 lie awake nights trying to puzzle out the 
 exact kind of punishment necessary to fit a 
 given offense." 
 
 Even he, however, sees the absurdity of 
 spanking children by way of putting them to 
 sleep. He has often said that he wanted to, 
 as an expression of his own feelings, but 
 when I have told him to go ahead, and ex- 
 
Every Morning's Comedy 17 
 
 press mine too while he was about it, he has 
 always found some feeble excuse. 
 
 In the course of five or six years we have 
 progressed from rising at five o'clock to rising 
 at six, and we feel a bit encouraged. About 
 the time we get thoroughly broken in, the 
 children will begin to stay asleep until seven, 
 I suppose, and memories of my own child- 
 hood lead me to suspect that a few years fur- 
 ther on we may have trouble in waking them 
 at all. In the meantime, I take considerable 
 satisfaction out of the reflection that the 
 baby of one of my spanking neighbors wakes 
 every morning at four. 
 
 Nor is this the whole of the morning prob- 
 lem. There is the question of getting 
 dressed. Now I happen to be reading a 
 society novel in which the heroine, a superbly 
 healthy young married woman without any 
 children, and apparently living in a world 
 in which they are unknown quantities, wakes 
 in the morning to find her maid drawing 
 aside the curtains of her window and admit- 
 ting the late morning sunlight. Then she 
 
i8 Every Day Essays 
 
 has a cup of fragrant tea and some fruit and 
 toast and an egg on a dainty tray, on which 
 are laid her letters and a few loose, dewy 
 roses. She slips into her porcelain tub next, 
 and afterwards dons her exquisite morning 
 gown and sits dreaming of the other man 
 while her maid brushes her hair. 
 
 This just suits my ideas — all except the 
 other man. Nelson has his faults, but, after 
 all, I prefer him to any one else I know. 
 What I should like would be to repeat that 
 programme I have just outlined, and have 
 Nelson come in at the right moment and kiss 
 my hair and tell me I am the sweetest thing 
 on earth. He does sometimes, as it is, but 
 it is never in the morning before breakfast. 
 We seem to have to do our visiting when the 
 children are in bed. I have taken to bathing 
 at night, too, and Nelson shaves then. It is 
 really a good idea, and reduces some of the 
 difficulties of the morning. 
 
 What really happens is something like this : 
 I get dressed just as fast as I possibly can, 
 and slip on a kimono. It is a blessed gar- 
 
Every Morning s Comedy ly 
 
 ment, and we owe a real debt to Japan for it. 
 My hair goes up in the biggest kind of a 
 hurry, and quantities of invisible hair-pins 
 take the place of the curling-irons I really 
 ought to use. Still, I don't look untidy. I 
 have a little respect for Nelson, even before 
 breakfast, and I spend a good deal of time 
 and some money in getting myself morning 
 gowns that are pretty and easily put on. 
 
 The baby, bless him, is not much trouble. 
 He has been put into a double gown and a 
 nest of pillows and given quantities of toys. 
 But Jamie and Helen! They are ready for 
 anything except the business of dressing. 
 The orders to the nurse are to keep them in 
 bed and well covered until she herself is 
 dressed, but I have never been able to enforce 
 this rule. There was one woman who obeyed 
 it, but she never got herself properly attired 
 until after ten. I am afraid I don't manage 
 to be evenly severe. Helen generally finds it 
 imperative upon her to employ this interval 
 in play with the baby, and I must say for her 
 that she is very considerate of him, keeping 
 
20 Every Day Essays 
 
 him carefully covered, to the entire ignoring 
 of her own cold little toes. She creeps around 
 him on the bed to get what he wants, and lies 
 with her curly head in his lap, letting him 
 pull her hair as if it were as much fun for 
 her as for him. At other times she regards 
 this favorite occupation of his as an in- 
 sult and an injury, but anything seems to be 
 preferable to the torture of getting dressed. 
 
 Jamie, meanwhile, has crawled under the 
 bedclothes and made a tent of them, and 
 turned himself into all manner of animals. 
 Then he proposes to have an earthquake, and 
 the wildly agitated bedclothes presently strew 
 the floor. 
 
 There is scarcely a morning that some- 
 thing like this doesn't happen. It seems an 
 awful pity that the cheerful waking should 
 so soon be merged in sorrow and rebellion 
 and disorder. Sometimes I wonder if it isn't 
 our state of civilization that is to blame. 
 If these youngsters of ours are really the 
 little savages, the Vandals and Visigoths the 
 psychologists tell us they are, doesn't it stand 
 
Every Mornings Comedy 21 
 
 to reason that they would rebel at being so 
 early bound with the shackles of civilization? 
 
 While I am puzzling myself fruitlessly 
 over these speculations, Jamie has wriggled 
 and twisted into his clothes, ducked his head 
 under my arm when I attempted to wash his 
 face, informed me of the presence of sore 
 places on each of his fingers and across all of 
 his knuckles, objected valiantly to having his 
 hair parted in the middle — the only way that 
 is becoming to him — insisted upon wearing 
 his old sweater instead of his new blouse, and 
 been finally hustled down to breakfast. 
 Against all orders, Katie, losing patience 
 with Helen's dreamy pretence of dressing her- 
 self, has taken her bodily into her lap and 
 dressed her as if she were a baby. Absorbed 
 in my tussle with Jamie, I pretend not to 
 notice, for Nelson will be down by this time, 
 walking restlessly through the hall while he 
 waits for breakfast. How Helen is ever go- 
 ing to learn to dress herself is more than I 
 know. 
 
 Nelson and I are trying hard to be good- 
 
22 Every Day Essays 
 
 natured when we finally sit down to break- 
 fast, and the result is rather grim. He knows 
 that if he speaks his mind now on the import- 
 ance of teaching children to dress themselves 
 and inculcating habits of punctuality, he 
 will be sorry for it later. I mentally plead 
 my own defense as I pour the coffee, and 
 coax the children to drink their milk. They 
 talk away like two magpies. Jamie particu- 
 larly is never so communicative, never so 
 thirsty for information, as during this early 
 meal. 
 
 " Say, mamma," he begins, " can't I have 
 a football? I'm getting to be an awful big 
 boy now, and Jenkins Talbot, down in the 
 next block, has got a beauty. You lace it up 
 like a shoe and blow it up with a pipe stem. 
 And, papa, will you let me take your old pipe 
 to break the stem off? I'll tell you what, 
 save me all your old pipes. That will teach 
 you to be e — quo — nomical. Mamma, be 
 sure to write an excuse for me at school, and 
 don't you tell the teacher I had a stomach- 
 ache from eating too much candy. I want to 
 
ainty and ivGsh for the moment 
 m her second clean dre^^ 
 
 Slc page 
 
Every Mornings Comedy 2j 
 
 have her respect me. And I didn't eat any 
 more than Helen, anyway, and she didn't 
 have a stomachache. I don't think God's 
 very fair, myself. And, say, do you know 
 what she ate last night? " 
 
 Then his father and I enter the fray. The 
 father speaks his mind strongly on the sub- 
 ject of little boys teasing httle girls, while I 
 wipe Helen's eyes and feed her oatmeal, all 
 the time wondering what on earth she has 
 been eating this time, and whether it was 
 really bad for her. Helen has a finicky appe- 
 tite, and likes all the things she ought not to 
 like, and dislikes all manner of health-food 
 as thoroughly as does her father; so I am 
 presently playing games with her oatmeal to 
 induce her to swallow it. A little birdie, 
 loudly peeping, flys home to his nest in her 
 mouth with the first spoonful, and a barking 
 dog follows after with the second. Her 
 dreamy eyes look off into the distance as I 
 talk, and she is quite unconscious of what she 
 is swallowing. A straw is necessary to in- 
 duce her to drink her milk, and as soon as I 
 
2^ Every Day Essays 
 
 take my eyes off her, to look at my own rapid- 
 ly cooling breakfast, she uses it to blow milk 
 bubbles, and shouts with delight over them 
 in a way that attracts the attention of baby 
 Jack, and sets him reaching for her glass. 
 Over it goes, and the milk drenches the table- 
 cloth and her little fresh dress. Nelson 
 rises abruptly, and says he must hurry to the 
 office; and I choke down my cold coffee, 
 and wonder why breakfast Is never what it 
 ought to be. 
 
 In spite of the early rising, It Is now dan- 
 gerously near school-time. Jamie's cap and 
 gloves are nowhere to be found, and as he 
 struggles into his reefer, which sticks in a 
 most remarkable manner, he remembers that 
 he got the lining badly torn in a fight yester- 
 day. I have to go up stairs, therefore, and 
 get out his best reefer, and put it on him 
 with many misgivings. He kisses me hastily 
 and savagely, and when I hold him back for 
 some more satisfactory apology, he tears him- 
 self away with a howl to the effect that he 
 will be late at school. I stand watching him 
 
Every Mornings Comedy 23 
 
 down the street, with the tears very near my 
 eyes, for I do love him with all my heart, 
 and every one of his hasty young words has 
 hurt me to the quick. Presently he turns 
 around and sees me. He throws a kiss — an- 
 other and another — until I throw them back. 
 Then his face breaks into sunshine again, he 
 hurls himself at the tail-board of a passing 
 wagon, and hitches down the street out of 
 my sight, his stubby shoes spattering the back 
 of his best reefer with mud. 
 
 The kindergarten 'bus arrives for Helen, 
 presently, and she kisses me sweetly and 
 trips down the steps, dainty and fresh for the 
 moment in her second clean dress. How im- 
 portant she feels as she swings open the door 
 and climbs into the vehicle all by herself! 
 She will not let any one help her, and the 
 patient driver, tutored now by many months 
 of such experiences with children who prize 
 every scrap of their new-found Independence, 
 sits quietly upon the front seat, waiting for 
 her, and even the old horses perceive that, 
 there is time to hang their heads. If I could 
 
26 Every Day lissays 
 
 have taken her dressing this morning as 
 comfortably ! 
 
 I go in to the baby, who must have his 
 bath and be properly clothed with the 
 starched garments of conventionality. Happy 
 in his loose flannels, but already getting 
 dingy, he is rolling about the nursery floor. 
 
 There Is one thing I have thoroughly mas- 
 tered — the art of bathing a little baby. If I 
 knew any other thing as well as I know that, 
 I might perhaps find many of my problems 
 solving themselves. 
 
 T rise to this level of bliss — this conscious- 
 ness of agreeable labor skillfully performed — 
 only once a day. The baby and I both enjoy 
 the morning bath, and nothing would induce 
 me to leave to the nurse anything more than 
 getting the hot water ready for mc. He is 
 undressed in a jiffy, and his little warm 
 clothes, still showing the curves of his blessed 
 young body, drop into the basket at my side. 
 One small sleeve, full of raying wrinkles at 
 the elbow, hangs appeallngly over Its edge, 
 begging to be caressed, but 1 am too busy 
 
Every Moniiiii^'s Comedy 2y 
 
 loving the dimpled body in my arms. Talk 
 about poet's raptures over kissing a fair 
 maiden ! No such kisses can be compared, 
 for sheer delight, with kissing a little warm 
 healthy baby. I put him up around my neck, 
 and bury my face in sweetest flesh, all made 
 of milk; and he crows and gurgles and 
 clutches my hair until T pull his hands away 
 and kiss the pink palms of them, and the soles 
 of his darling feet. It is such fun to feel the 
 tiny toes trying to clutch my face as if they 
 were fingers! Mindful that one must not 
 press such joys too far lest they turn to woes, 
 1 presently dab one little foot in the bath, then 
 the other, and when he is eager for more, 
 gently lower him into the water. I never put 
 him in suddenly, or without fair warning of 
 what he is to expect. His mind is in the 
 water before he is. 
 
 Just lately he has learned ♦:o splash, and 
 his little legs and arms churn the water into 
 a splendid froth. His delicious mother-of- 
 pearl skin, pink amid the white suds, out- 
 
28 Every Day Essays 
 
 rivals that of any Venus shining through the 
 foam of the sea. 
 
 But now comes the crucial moment: he is 
 to be lifted from that basin of delights! 
 
 How lovely he is, as he lies there in my 
 arms, the white lids slowly drifting down 
 over his blissful blue eyes ! One little hand 
 grasps my finger and thrills me like the touch 
 of a lover. His feet gently push against me, 
 his soft body lies curled in utter peace and 
 contentment. I sing, as I rock, and as I 
 sing I think of the thousands of other 
 mothers who have rocked and sung as I am 
 doing. All down the ages this joy has passed 
 from generation to generation, holy and un- 
 selfish and pure. Surely the world is better 
 because of it ! The Egyptian women sang 
 under the shadow of the pyramids — low, 
 monotonous chants, perhaps, like the monot- 
 onous stretch of the desert, but swelling with 
 love, as even the barren desert swells toward 
 the bending sky. And they felt as I feel, sit- 
 ting here crooning to my baby. The Greek 
 wontem — deep-bosomed, strong, and serene — 
 
Every Morning's Comedy 29 
 
 dreamed the dreams of their own un- 
 awakened natures for their boy babies, as they 
 sang, and passed on to their girl babies their 
 own patience. The Roman women dedi- 
 cated their sleeping children to the gods of 
 war and of justice, but they loved as I love, 
 and they knew, as I know, that no dream and 
 no dedication could be high enough for the 
 precious little being sheltered in their arms. 
 The early Christian women learned to love 
 the Christ-Child the better because they knew 
 how it was with His mother; and over the 
 very God of the universe they felt something 
 of a mother's tenderness and longing. Oh, 
 my sisters, far and near, I know your inmost 
 heart of hearts as I sit here, rocking my baby ! 
 
Mother and Child, 
 
 In profound peace the mother lies with the 
 new baby on her arm. Her consciousness in 
 the quiet, darkened room is focussed on one 
 spot — her forefinger, rough with many fine 
 needle-pricks, and held fast in the baby's 
 warm clutch. Tiny thrills of life-giving love 
 run through her, as if that little hand were 
 a battery generating some fluid more potent 
 than electricity. Later, when the baby has 
 been lifted away from her, she still feels that 
 wonderful touch, and lies with shut eyes, try- 
 ing to tell herself what it is like. She has 
 heard of a rose-leaf skin — but the worn 
 phrase is, after all, too coarse. She has read 
 of hands cased in finest silk — but no silk 
 could compare with that velvety texture, so 
 exquisite, yet so full of life — of something 
 finer than life. She tries to imagine, as the 
 impression fades, what that is, compared with 
 30 
 
SW fas-e jt 
 
Mother and Child jr 
 
 which rose leaves are harsh, and when the 
 baby Is brought to her again, and seizes her 
 finger In his insistent grasp — the grasp of 
 mastery — she perceives that her Imagination 
 has fallen short of the truth. 
 
 It Is well that the long days, over-fraught 
 with the future, are broken by the many rou- 
 tine duties of the sick-room. It is well that 
 pain comes to break this ethereal bliss — this 
 sense of being chosen as one of the creative 
 powers of the universe. The baby's crying 
 saves her from too great awe of him. And 
 as, after a time, she washes and dresses him, 
 coaxing him into an unwilling acquiescence 
 with civilization, she finds herself able to for- 
 get, somewhat, the marvel of him, and to 
 accept him among the daily things. 
 
 And when, at last, the nurse goes — that 
 white-capped angel and tyrant in one, before 
 whom she has been ashamed to reveal her full 
 sense of the overwhelming miracle that has 
 been wrought — she tries to show her husband 
 a little of that which Is bursting her bosom. 
 He is young and strong, with a man's pride 
 
32 Every Day Essays 
 
 suddenly set upon his boyishness, and his arm 
 supports her as they walk to the cradle where 
 the baby lies asleep. They are alone together 
 with this little being who belongs to them 
 even more than they belong to themselves. 
 She tries to speak, but cannot; the message 
 is too great. They look down at the baby in 
 a tender silence. Does her husband really 
 know, she wonders, does he know as she 
 knows? She looks up at him, and the new 
 motherhood in her becomes aware of the 
 babyhood in him — of the undeveloped pos- 
 sibilities of his manhood. She leans her head 
 against his shoulder that he may have the 
 pleasure of caring for her. She knows a 
 secret that little by little, in spite of oblivions 
 and masculine rebellions, she will impart to 
 him — a secret which shall make him grow 
 Into such nobleness as her maiden dreams 
 guessed at. 
 
 He holds her quietly — this weak creature 
 who has done so much, suffered so much, 
 bravely shouldered such a great responsibil- 
 ity — this woman, who used, such a little while 
 
Mother and Child 33 
 
 ago, to be a gay girl, but is now sweetened 
 and chastened, the mother of his child. He 
 will shelter and protect her, sustain her as 
 never before. In his heart, inarticulately, he 
 takes the vows of fatherhood. 
 
 He leads her back to the sofa. In the fire- 
 lit room they sit hand in hand, listening to the 
 baby's fluttering breath. " See," she whis- 
 pers, " he doesn't even know how to breathe 
 yet, the young, young thing ! How he loses 
 his breath and catches it again. Doesn't the 
 little break in it hurt your heart, as you 
 listen?" 
 
 As this first rapture fades, there come other 
 joys, as if to whip her bounding love to an 
 ever swifter pace. The baby smiles! It is 
 like the birth of a fair soul in a fair body; 
 and she appeals to all her world to see this 
 great thing. It makes for balance when she 
 is tenderly laughed at, but she is not abashed 
 by the jokes about colic and meaningless con- 
 tractions of the muscles of the face. She 
 knows what she knows, and the baby and she 
 have a friendly understanding about it, a 
 
S4- Ez'ery Day Essays 
 
 friendliness which the baby presently ex- 
 presses in unmistakable gurgles and crows. 
 
 Now is the beginning of true companion- 
 ship, as mother and child play together. A 
 naked soul looks forth at her from these 
 crystal-clear eyes, unashamed and most beau- 
 tiful. Only because her eyes are washed in 
 love can the mother herself endure to see it. 
 
 This embodied energy overflows, by-and- 
 by, spreading like a transforming atmosphere 
 over the face of the world of things. Every- 
 thing becomes a plaything — the world itself 
 one great plaything. Everything is endowed 
 with life from the fullness of the life that be- 
 holds it. Common household utensils are 
 changed in the twinkling of an eye at the bid- 
 ding of his majesty the Player. Clothes-pins 
 are these? Never! They are birds, sheep, 
 soldiers, what he wills. A Caesar such as 
 Caesar never was, he flies the confines of time 
 and space, and soars amid the eternities — a 
 creator peopling his forming world with crea- 
 tures flexible to his bidding. 
 
 Later he finds limits to his power, and 
 
Mother and Child js 
 
 with them new dehghts. Here are other 
 young monarchs whose wills now clash with 
 his own, now reinforce it. He measures his 
 strength with these other children; is de- 
 feated; rises again. There is a new zest to 
 life; here are new fields to conquer — stub- 
 born, resistant fields that tax all his strength. 
 The children, together, conquer nature now 
 with their hands and bodies, as well as with 
 their imaginations. Balls fly through the air. 
 Kites tug like live things high in the clouds 
 and almost pull a giant boy, mighty as Thor, 
 from his firmly-planted feet. The mother, 
 looking on, knows a new and nobler pride. 
 These, her playing children, teach her deep 
 lessons as she watches and dreams. The 
 vague thoughts and profound emotions of her 
 own childhood come to clearer consciousness, 
 and help her to catch the rhythm of the 
 world-forces at play. 
 
 Her husband comes home from work In 
 the cool of the evening and pauses beside 
 her to watch the frolicking children. With 
 a shout they fall upon him, and drag him, 
 
j<5 Every Day Essays 
 
 only half protesting, into the game. Tired 
 as he is, he tosses hat and coat aside, and 
 romps with them. His wife sees the boyhood 
 she never knew, and arrives at an understand- 
 ing wifehood. So he, too, was a boy like 
 these? Yes; and he is one even to-day; yet 
 how faithfully he labors at hard tasks! He 
 tires soon, and throws himself, breathless, at 
 her feet. She slips her hand into his, stoop- 
 ing to do it, and they look into each other's 
 eyes with a smile. 
 
 The long bright day of childhood draws 
 to a rebelHous close. Sleep, the conqueror, 
 comes to take possession of a recalcitrant 
 foe. It is hard to drop the riotous joys, to 
 still the tingling nerves, to relax the tense 
 muscles. The children must stop playing it 
 seems; they must speak to God a little; they 
 must resign their sovereign wills. With what 
 jaunty irrelevance it is done ! Was there ever 
 a more spirited surrender? They swagger 
 in the very face of Divinity and speak their 
 prayers with lips full of undaunted curves. 
 The solemn words of the set supplications 
 
Mother and Child 37 
 
 are broken with irrepressible giggles. Yet 
 there is a reverence in the very midst of this 
 seeming irreverence. There Is a touching cer- 
 tainty that the Heavenly Father will not be 
 offended — that He will hear and understand. 
 The mother smiles to herself, and feels for a 
 moment as if she had looked into God's eyes, 
 as she did into her husband's, and shared 
 an intimate tenderness with Him. 
 
 At last, asleep! The tossing limbs have 
 suddenly stilled at some unheard word of 
 command. A stray curl still waves upon the 
 pillow. 
 
 Silence steals into the room — silence, and 
 the reach of the great star-filled spaces. The 
 hush is full of potencies, friendly, close, in- 
 expressibly tender and delicate — potencies 
 which order the cobweb threads of life and 
 weave therefrom the substance of the uni- 
 verse. The mother's heart, thrilling as 
 Mary's thrilled, lifts itself in a wordless 
 prayer, too deep for any utterance but the 
 long service of the years to come. 
 
An Irresponsible Ramble* 
 
 This morning I set forth, with note-book 
 under arm, resolved to do some thinking in 
 the open air. But man proposes and — a red 
 bird flew across my path and took my 
 startled eyes after him down the garlanded 
 aisles of the wood. He made a brilliant mark 
 for an enemy, as he flashed crimson through 
 the green gloom. Once upon a time didn't I 
 hear something about protective coloring for 
 birds? Here is a swashbuckling gallant, 
 dressing as he pleases with a braggart dis- 
 regard of prudence. 
 
 I know nothing about these wild-wood 
 neighbors of mine. Not a single corner of 
 my brain is devoted to cubby-holes in which 
 to file away facts concerning them. I have 
 no notion what name this red bird bears, nor 
 whether his are the full-throated notes I hear 
 presently from the deeper shadows. I should 
 38 
 
An Irresponsible Ramble jg 
 
 prefer him to be a Kentucky Cardinal, be- 
 cause of Mr. Allen's lovely book, but for no 
 other reason. He may fly away Into the 
 woods and back to his family duties unpur- 
 sued by any curiosity of mine. He is sufli- 
 cient just I know him — a rosy surprise. 
 
 Isn't there something to be said, after all, 
 for the dreamer who goes unseeing about 
 the world? Wild creatures take into their 
 confidence those who sit down in their chosen 
 haunts and are still: mental stillness and 
 passivity may have a similar power of attrac- 
 tion for the gentler potencies; and activity 
 of the mind, a positive aggressive attitude 
 toward the world, may render us unfriends 
 with some of the fairest truths and sweetest 
 affections in it. 
 
 Here's a pool — not a real one, just a hap- 
 pen-so pool. We have had heavy rains late- 
 ly, and this lies In a basin between hills gentle 
 as maidenly bosoms. It Is a shallow, lonely 
 little thing about five Inches deep, but you 
 should see the sky In it, all tangled up In wet 
 grass and dead leaves. The trees lean state- 
 
4.0 Every Day Essays 
 
 ly and tolerant above it, content to drink 
 from its modest cup. There are those who 
 think depth is a necessity for full reflection, 
 but here is proof that the deepest images 
 may linger in a sweet little place that is still 
 and friendly. 
 
 That frog certainly has bronchitis, with a 
 bad touch of asthma. Perhaps he finds the 
 pool a trifle damp? At any rate he has his 
 hoarse little barkings to himself. He disturbs 
 nobody and nobody disturbs him. There I 
 He is playing with his hoarseness like a 
 croupy child left alone. " Tchutt, tchutt! 
 Tchutt, tchutt! Tdi-tch-tch-toh-tchutt! '' A 
 httle bird twitters back to him. I know she's 
 on her nest, and feeling motherly. 
 
 The cunningest little liveling skitters across 
 the pool. No doubt he thinks it the ocean 
 and himself a focus of tremendous energy. 
 The splintered water shines behind his zig- 
 zags as he darts about, with wings of light 
 trailing after him. He covers the happen-so 
 pool with happen-so arabesques, the dearest, 
 most useless things, made of light and water. 
 
An Irresponsible Ramble 4.1 
 
 I am going to sit here a minute with my 
 back to this felled tree-trunk, and my eyes 
 closed. At once I am living in a world of 
 sounds and scents. The green leaves whisper 
 above, and the dry leaves chatter below, as 
 they dance over the ground, visiting and gos- 
 siping. All sorts of bird-notes play over the 
 universal rustling, like variations on a quiet 
 melody. First there comes a single whistle, 
 then an inquiring, gentle Hit, from low note 
 to higher; next a long trill with a quavering 
 fall at the end — and always that pervasive 
 rustle, soft, uninsistent, made up of innumer- 
 able small movements, yet with an elemental 
 vastness, like the murmur of the seas. 
 
 Insects whizz and whirl and buzz through 
 it all; like broken wires in a piano, marring 
 the harmony. They touch me with their feet 
 and wings. Brr ! Away with you ! I like 
 not such busy, bustling, trifling mites, indis- 
 criminately poking into everything, especially 
 into me. Isn't it too bad that the persons 
 we really care to know — the birds and squir- 
 rels and wildling animals — keep their dis- 
 
4-2 Every Day Essays 
 
 tance In tree-top and hiding-places, while 
 those we love not — the insect things — insist 
 upon our intimacy? They are the living 
 images of worries, these pests, shrill, articu- 
 late, circling. You can drive them away for 
 a second or two, but they come back. 
 
 England, they say, knows not these insect 
 hosts of ours. There people can drink tea on 
 the lawn with comfort, even in mid-summer. 
 Why is it — I ask in a whisper, for it is too 
 fanciful to be asked out loud — why Is It that 
 we in America hurry and worry so, and that, 
 at the same time, our air is full of hurrying, 
 worrying flies and mosqultos? There may be 
 no relation of cause and effect. We might all 
 take to loafing and inviting our souls, and 
 yet the spider and the fly-paper might con- 
 tinue plentifully busy; but sure I am of one 
 thing — the corruscations of the tree-trunks, 
 the cracks of our home wood-work, the 
 mosses, and grasses, the water, the very air 
 we breathe, are all full of the most disgusting 
 and convincing little pictures of our Inward 
 condition. Talk of the whip of our skies — 
 
An Irresponsible Ramble 4.3 
 
 it is the sting of our insects that drives us to 
 nervous prostration, and to spiritual failure 
 under the guise of financial success. Since we 
 can't kill off at once all the seventeen-year 
 locusts, and grasshoppers, and ants, and 
 mosca vomitoria (this is one scientific name I 
 have found thoroughly satisfactory), and all 
 the rest of those insane, sibilant shreds of ex- 
 istence, let us at least put up screens before 
 our mental windows and get a space of empty 
 air to rest in when we are at home with our- 
 selves. 
 
 The Garden of Eden Is guarded from us, 
 I almost believe, not only by an angel with a 
 flaming sword that turns every way, but by 
 a thick zone of such buzzing insects as these 
 that mar the peace of our woods — or are they 
 merely the flashes from the angel's sword, be- 
 wildering and confusing us, and filling our 
 brains with a humming we think comes from 
 without? In that Garden man walked, naked 
 and unashamed, in the cool of the evening 
 with God. Probably he did not speak, but 
 he knew what the trees meant, and the birds, 
 
4-4' Every Day Essays 
 
 the wild creatures, and the little flowers under- 
 foot. God, and man, and the world spoke 
 the same language. For see how well Eve 
 understood the serpent, and guessed, trem- 
 bling, the transcendent nature of the fruit he 
 tempted her to eat ! Oh, it may be that our 
 most dearly bought knowledge has driven us 
 forth from this delectable place; but we can 
 at least catch glimpses, through the blinding 
 flashes, of the green peace and innocence we 
 may not possess. We can be true to our her- 
 itage and love it, though it be riven from us. 
 
 It is time for me to open my eyes and move 
 on. The air here really is a bit damp. The 
 trees shade me too much. Longings creep 
 out of the hot moist earth, and touch me 
 slimily. 
 
 The trees step aside as I advance. They 
 grow taller toward the sun. Their branches 
 reach out In freedom and grow In grace and 
 strength. The increasing light shines through 
 their leaves till they hang Hke faintly-lighted 
 green lanterns. Grass-blades shoot thicker 
 and thicker through the dead leaves, the earth 
 
An Irresponsible Ramble 45 
 
 shows sandy here and there — ah, we are near- 
 Ing the river! I had forgot that It ran 
 through these woods, the dear, twisting river 
 I know and love. 
 
 Now we have the sky, a breath of cooler 
 air, and more space. Suddenly there Is also 
 more life. The woods were nowhere still 
 and empty; but here their teeming rustle, 
 and flicker, and call Is but the suitable ac- 
 companiment for a mightier life. 
 
 I never get over wondering why the river 
 seems so alive, so instantly the very soul of 
 any scene of which It Is a part. This Is so 
 much so that I cannot wander long in the 
 loveliest place without looking for some 
 stretch of water. Until I find it I am not con- 
 tent, nor am I then content. It is like the 
 hovering hope of the key-note in music. You 
 must have it, or know no rest; but once hav- 
 ing It, even though the music stops, your 
 mind goes on, over and over the lovely phras- 
 ing that soars above and drops below the 
 tonic chord, only to return to it, inevitably, 
 and fill it fuller of meaning. 
 
46 Every Day Essays 
 
 Once I stood on a mountain top, high in 
 the stainless air, and looked forth upon un- 
 reckoned miles of massed mountains. A 
 majesty almost beyond endurance loomed up- 
 on me from the mighty dome of the sky and 
 my heart swelled with the heave of the hills; 
 yet my questioning mind sought, dissatisfied, 
 for the expanse of blue water that ought, 
 somewhere, to have made a beginning and an 
 end. 
 
 But why? What is there In this vast ag- 
 glomeration of atoms of HoO that so moves 
 the soul of man? One drop of water has 
 no such power — nor a hundred, nor a mil- 
 lion — why, then, trillions? Is It merely a 
 matter of multiplication ? Truly there 
 dwells in us all a love of wrestling with the 
 Immensities, of counting the sons, and 
 reckoning the Infinities. In an effort to grasp 
 what may not be grasped we try to exalt 
 matter into spirit merely by getting more of 
 it, thus building another Tower of Babel in 
 the effort to scale the skies. The real process, 
 I think, is much simpler: we see angels as- 
 
An Irresponsible Ramble // 
 
 cending and descending Jacob's ladder In our 
 dreams. 
 
 I am going to lie along this tree-trunk bent 
 out over the river. My fingers drop into the 
 cool water that slides between them quiver- 
 ingly. If I keep very still and touch the rush- 
 ing power delicately perhaps I shall guess 
 its meaning. This is what all peoples have 
 done and still do in their infancy — touch na- 
 ture with themselves in the effort to under- 
 stand her. Beautiful guesses some of them 
 have made, and where beauty is one is in- 
 clined to suspect some truth. Thus the 
 Greeks filled the waters full of lovely lives, 
 seeing naiads in the woodland fountains, 
 nymphs In the rivers, and Tritons and Sirens 
 in the mighty ocean. Venus, the desire of 
 mankind, rose from the sea — of course she 
 did. One perceives Immediately that this 
 was no fancy, but a necessity. And the wilder 
 creatures of Norse mythology — the Rhine 
 maidens, the god who drank the ocean at a 
 draught — these, too, are true. They strike 
 the note of power which lurks beneath the 
 
^8 Every Day Essays 
 
 peacefulest song of the waters. All peoples 
 perceive themselves reflected in the waters of 
 the world, and perceive something of the 
 waters in themselves. This the Indians knew 
 and explained in their Story of Hawt, the 
 Spirit of the Waters, who played upon the 
 flute of his own body the song of all the 
 world, and finally his own song, which no one 
 else knew. 
 
 The meaning of the world is what we all 
 seek to know — bright Greek, strong Norse- 
 man, simple children of Nature, alert Amer- 
 icans, all — and it is this we never find. Still 
 the fairy promises us the gift of understand- 
 ing the speech of animals and of growing 
 things; but as sure as we hold the gift we 
 lose it. This river is telling me things 
 through my finger-tips — things my mind is 
 too young to understand, and will be too 
 young, though I should live a thousand years. 
 The trees, the birds, and all the out-of-door 
 things have been talking to my soul. I catch 
 a syllable now and then, and I know the love 
 in the changing face bent above my infancy. 
 
An Irresponsible Ramble 4.9 
 
 If I am patient, and wait, hearing the same 
 words over and over again, perhaps some day 
 a whole sentence, full of love and truth, may 
 wake me to answering speech. 
 
 I remember that long ago there played up- 
 on the hills of Galilee a little boy whose soul 
 thus Hstened and who found the answer. He 
 knew the secret of the stormy waves and the 
 ways of the fishes within them. The winds 
 and the wilderness he knew, and when, a 
 wearied man, he fled from the importunate 
 multitude at night, the mountain solitudes re- 
 ceived him like a mother. When he spoke, 
 his speech was full of the living world, and 
 therefore of eternal verity. Oh, beautiful 
 river, bending trees, singing birds, and 
 caressing winds, let me lose my inadequacies 
 in the wonder of you and be lifted, for a lit- 
 tle, to my rightful place in the order of the 
 universe. Thence, it may be, I shall be 
 enabled to look this Man clearly in the face 
 and do reverence to the secret which made 
 him your master and interpreter. 
 
 I cannot tell the rest. Out of a deep peace, 
 
^o Every Day Essays 
 
 below and above thought, the wind arises 
 presently and buffets me hito my every day 
 consciousness. I discover that I am cramped 
 on my tree-trunk and very hungry, also that 
 the sun Is straight above the center of the 
 river, throwing dazzling reflections Into my 
 eyes. As I go home along the dusty road — 
 for the way Is shorter and dinner beckons Im- 
 peratively — my feet carry me sprlnglly under 
 the hot noon sky, my lungs drink deep of the 
 sweet air, rich with Nature's cookery, my 
 heart beats free, my stomach Is unashamed 
 of Its honest need, and I am glad to be alive. 
 I am glad there Is food and after it work — 
 lots of work for the piled-up energy within 
 me. There Is not a single line of writing In 
 my note-book, but I have made a discovery 
 for all that : I have discovered that there are 
 more ways for Nature to help us than by 
 tickling the tops of our brains. 
 
Home* 
 
 The American is much giv^en to roaming 
 about loose in his large country like a restless 
 child in an unfamiliar room. Here and 
 there a quiet corner shows that he is taking 
 possession; but for the most part there are 
 too many places that invite him for him to 
 remain long in any one of them. He is, 
 nevertheless, a home-loving body. He may 
 manage to contrive for years in a dug-out, a 
 log cabin, or a fashionable hotel; but he 
 prefers to have some one belonging to him 
 stay at home somewhere and keep a place 
 for him. 
 
 In her younger years the American woman 
 is not at all the sort of person likely to oblige 
 him in this particular. She does not seem 
 to hav^e the instinct for home in the same 
 degree as her forebears, but has, instead, an 
 instinct for freedom and independence, 
 51 
 
52 Every Day Essays 
 
 sharpened by long repression. Home, if it 
 deprive her of these things, is no place of 
 deh'ght to her, but a place of restraint. She 
 tears herself free from it and hies her forth 
 to boarding-house and lunch-club, taking up 
 her abode with a fair degree of contentment 
 in a little dark room devoid of all prettiness. 
 Indeed, the room in which the business girl 
 spends her few hours of rest and adornment 
 is likely to be much less attractive than her 
 personal appearance would lead one to ex- 
 pect. It is a sleeping-place, merely, cared for 
 as little as a man's room. 
 
 The instinct may be crowded out, but it is 
 still present, and asserts itself in various ways 
 — most noticeably at her office. Here she 
 keeps a slender vase, filled with flowers 
 bought with her hard-earned dimes and quar- 
 ters from the stand on the street-corner. 
 Here, too, is a drawer, lined with clean white 
 paper and filled with little boxes of pins, 
 needles and thread, scented soap, and a pow- 
 der-puff — the hidden modern prototype of 
 the muslin-draped toilet-table dear to her 
 
Home S3 
 
 mother's girlhood. No one could mistake 
 her desk for a man's except on the most cur- 
 sory survey of it. If her china-closet is re- 
 duced to an ice-water glass, see how bright she 
 keeps It and how jealously she guards It from 
 the sacrilegious fingers of the office-boy! 
 
 This other girl, too, who has flown far 
 afield in the pursuit of knowledge, does what 
 she can to make her college room homelike. 
 Just why the poster should have achieved so 
 honorable a reputation as a means to this end 
 may be a matter of wonder to the next gen- 
 eration, but this one has set its seal upon It 
 as well as upon window-seats and sofa-pillows 
 as the certain symbols of home. The college 
 girl has them all, as well as a chafing-dish 
 and tea-kettle, and in disposing of them in the 
 tiny space that is hers is comforted of her 
 homesickness. She sends her mother long 
 descriptions of her surroundings, accom- 
 panied by little amateur blue-prints, as a sort 
 of link between this temporary abiding-place 
 and the home she never appreciated till she 
 left it. On Thanksgiving day, when the big 
 
54- Every Day Essays 
 
 box comes, filled with cookies and preserves, 
 her heart overflows and she shares all she has, 
 and In return gets little dishes of dainties 
 from other girls and with them vicarious 
 glimpses Into other homes. The girls trip 
 from room to room, laden with gifts and 
 vocal with chatter about their goodies and the 
 dear people who sent them. They describe 
 minutely to one another the familiar Idiosyn- 
 crasies of their uncles and aunts, and discover, 
 as they hold forth to sympathetic listeners, an 
 Interest In peculiarities which heretofore have 
 been merely maddening. In the retrospect, 
 short as It Is, these things are softened and 
 seen In a truer perspective. The talk grows 
 wistful and tender as the day deepens, and 
 over these hives full of working bees falls, 
 with the Thanksgiving twilight, the blessed 
 shadow of home. 
 
 Some such appreciation of the home that 
 Is really at the heart of every American may 
 be detected In other unlikely places — even In 
 the Pullman dining-car. Its bill of fare Is an 
 elaboration, at this season, of the turkey 
 
See page 33 
 
Home SS 
 
 dinner being eaten by family parties over the 
 whole length and breadth of the land. The 
 traveler, eating while he is hurled through 
 space at the rate of a mile a minute, is shy of 
 watching other persons or of being watched. 
 He jokes jovially with the admiring waiter, 
 and fees liberally. The big negro waiter 
 understands, and his alert " Yes, sah! " his 
 deft withdrawing of the chair at the right 
 moment, are full of sympathy too genuine 
 and fine to express itself more openly. He is 
 a man and a brother, though dusky, and were 
 his Thanksgiving tips ever so high, he would 
 willingly forego them if he could only sit 
 down to his own table. 
 
 Here and there the ideal, struggling for ex- 
 pression in all these inadequate forms, finds 
 complete expression. The trains are full of 
 happy people whose laps are heaped with bun- 
 dles and babies, and who show a holiday will- 
 ingness to crowd up and make room for the 
 new-comer. They are traveling for a fare 
 and a third to the family reunion, and are 
 taking with them their contributions to the 
 
5^ Every Day Essays 
 
 feast. Those who live in the country flock to 
 the city, and those who Hve in the city flock 
 to the country. The little old farm-house by 
 the road-side, just barely maintaining its own 
 in a decent unobtrusiveness against the tide 
 of modern progress, gets out its store of patch- 
 work quilts, throws off its shyness, and wel- 
 comes a round dozen of guests from the city. 
 The city house remembers the simple ways of 
 its country predecessor, and opens wide its 
 doors to more guests than it can accommodate 
 with the degree of style upon which it prides 
 itself. This dignified man of the world is 
 a farmer's boy again, jovial, warm-hearted, 
 and free. His quiet wife remembers the days 
 of her happier youth with patient pride. She 
 has seen her children leav^e the home-nest one 
 by one; she has left it herself, and may never 
 see it again. This house that she keeps so 
 beautifully will never seem quite like the old 
 homestead; yet now that it teems with her 
 children and grandchildren, disorderly and 
 noisy as home used to be, something sad with- 
 in her takes comfort. Surely, she thinks as 
 
Home 57 
 
 she looks around, there is much to be thank- 
 ful for, yet. Were there ever finer children? 
 What a wonderful variety of things they do 
 — how rich and full their lives are! The 
 house seems to pulse and throb with vitality, 
 now they are here. What if she does not 
 quite understand them all — if they seem to 
 have outgrown her love and care? To-day, 
 at least, they are hers, dependent upon her 
 house for shelter and upon her bounty for 
 food. 
 
 As her heart aches with the desire to give 
 shelter — to be necessary again to some one's 
 happiness and welfare — so other hearts ache 
 with the desire to be sheltered and cared for. 
 There are those who lov-e home only in this 
 passive voice, and do not know it in its ten- 
 derer, truer aspect. To the lonely man or 
 woman out in the world, struggling against 
 misfortune, looked down upon and baffled, 
 home is no especial place, but any place where 
 he or she can hope to be loved and believed in. 
 Who can bear to hear even a hand-organ 
 down the street play " Home, Sweet Home," 
 
$8 Every Day Essays 
 
 in such hours of discouragement? Yet per- 
 haps there is no picture of a lowly thatched' 
 cottage called to mind by the song — in all 
 likelihood we whom the song fills with long- 
 ing could not endure life in a thatched cottage 
 for a month — yet somewhere in the proces- 
 sion of flats, rented rooms, and blocked or 
 detached city houses which memory reviews 
 there is something that speaks peace, and for 
 this we yearn. 
 
 To young men and women, starting a new 
 home of their own, it seems unlikely that any 
 such passion of longing for old friends and 
 places can ever come over them. At first, the 
 new little house is so complete, so gay with 
 wedding-presents, and so full of all sorts of 
 little notions of style and finish, that the old 
 home looks shabby and out-of-date; but pres- 
 ently the joy of newness wears off, and the 
 fact that, after all, they are not so intimately 
 acquainted with this place and these things 
 as they had supposed — that, somehow, certain 
 dear associations are wanting — begins to be 
 borne in upon a sore consciousness. It is 
 
Home 5P 
 
 hard to realize, in the midst of this flat dis- 
 satisfaction, that they themselves (who, now 
 that they have entered upon the estate of 
 matrimony, and are reckoned full-fledged men 
 and women, feel, in their secret souls, more 
 like children than ever before in their lives) 
 are becoming the center for a genuine home, 
 and that to them children will look for all 
 that tender sympathy, that sense of utter 
 safety, which they yet shiver for. x'\s the 
 years roll by, mellowing both surroundings 
 and judgment, the old home grows steadily 
 dearer, and its value is more appreciated. 
 
 Perhaps, as they arrive at this appreciation, 
 the old home itself fades from earth, with 
 the beloved old people who made it; and it 
 may be because of the unsatisfied yearning 
 that must remain, that on Thanksgiving day 
 most persons feel a sudden welling up of sym- 
 pathy for their more bitterly homeless breth- 
 ren. They see to it that oyster soup, roast 
 turkey, cranberry sauce, and mince and 
 pumpkin pies grace every table In hospital or 
 prison, In reminder of the home feast for 
 
6o Every Day Essays 
 
 which all these possibly depraved, but certain- 
 ly deprived, fellow-beings are longing. Be- 
 yond these things they feel that they must do 
 more. They are not content to subscribe to 
 the waif's dinner, or to drop a quarter into 
 the box of the member of the Salvation 
 Army who stands in the highways collecting 
 such crumbs of beneficence. When they find 
 out some one who needs and will accept a 
 good dinner, how lavishly they go about it ! 
 They take pleasure in sending a turkey, or 
 at least a good fat chicken, as well as the 
 necessary flour and potatoes. They even tuck 
 into the box a little candy and some nuts, 
 glad to think that these are quite superfluous 
 and foolish, but that they will give a great 
 deal of unregulated pleasure. Their brim- 
 ming hearts help them to regard their poorer 
 brother as a member of the larger family 
 which not every one grows up to appreciate. 
 They grant that he has his little follies, like 
 the rest, and do not expect him to be alto- 
 gether reasonable and economical. They take 
 
Home 6i 
 
 a loving delight, for this one meal-time, in 
 making him happy on his own terms. 
 
 All this home sentiment, as we have seen, 
 is, with the American, almost independent of 
 any stability of place. His home is peripa- 
 tetic. He has little of the feeling of the horse 
 who awakes Into life the moment his nose is 
 pointed homeward, no matter how poor and 
 insufficient may be stall and fodder. He 
 hears but faintly the call inviting the cattle 
 to leave their juicy fields and wend their way 
 through country lanes to the accustomed place 
 of shelter. The homing-pigeons that fly, for 
 wear)^ day upon weary day, across great 
 stretches of country, past innumerable in- 
 viting pigeon-houses, to reach the one fa- 
 miliar opening in the wall of one familiar 
 barn, are led by some feeling which, in that 
 form, at any rate, is not in him. The squeal- 
 ing piglets that, carried in a closed sack from 
 one barn-yard to another, and fed as well in 
 the new place as in the old, burrow beneath 
 fences with their unringed noses and, scent- 
 ing the old pig-sty across miles of pure pas- 
 
62 Every Day Essays 
 
 ture, make unerringly for it, possess an in- 
 stinct which has become, in him, either over- 
 laid or transformed. His homing thoughts 
 turn scarcely more to one section of this coun- 
 try than another — perhaps not to his country 
 at all. If In any one place on the round old 
 globe there are more persons who love him 
 and whom he loves, than in another, then to 
 that place his heart seeks most often — that 
 place is home. 
 
 The ease with which he settles himself In 
 a new environment, the ready friendliness 
 with which he cultivates new acquaintances, 
 the speed with which he becomes known by 
 his Christian name or by some abbreviated, 
 half-slangy title, prove that he carries with 
 him the hidden materials for home-building. 
 He carries his home in his heart, in his sense 
 of friendliness with every face of nature and 
 with the whole human race. He has made 
 the discovery that where peace and love are 
 there Is home. 
 
 This discovery has set him free. On what- 
 ever rock of Isolated circumstances he may 
 
Home 6j 
 
 happen to stand, surrounded by whatever seas 
 of wildly shifting chance, he knows, with 
 Monte Cristo, that the world and its best 
 riches are his. The winds of destiny that 
 blow him about blow also. In a fine cloud 
 around him, the seeds of home ; and as he flies 
 from place to place he makes the earth beau- 
 tiful with sprouting comforts. Is he, in this, 
 less than the animal that finds safety safest In 
 one spot ? — less than the Chinaman who bears 
 all manner of contumely, Incongruously coil- 
 ing an Oriental pigtail under an Occidental 
 hat for the hope of final burial In the one 
 country that, for him, offers an opening to a 
 home after death? Is he less than the Eng- 
 lishman who, world-rover though he be, al- 
 ways returns or struggles to return to the 
 home anchorage at the end? Or is he learn- 
 ing to love and trust the real home, which is 
 independent of time and space, which Is built 
 of spiritual substances — that home which, 
 abiding in the heavens, may here be only 
 fleetingly and more or less imperfectly rep- 
 resented ? 
 
6^ Every Day Essays 
 
 The imperfections here are so obvious that 
 In the close perception of them we often lose 
 entirely the sense of homelikeness. No place 
 Is so foreign to us — so repels our weary souls, 
 seeking to be at ease — as home itself at cer- 
 tain seasons. These four walls, holding dis- 
 cordant elements, echoing fmitless jangles, 
 shutting us in to our discomfortable selves, 
 are the walls of a prison w^hereln we sit 
 lamenting, in the Ignoble uniform of defeat, 
 waiting for an unsocial dish of food. And 
 now Indeed we know what homesickness Is 
 — the Incurable homesickness which attacks 
 us only at home. What jaundice is this that 
 galls truth into distemper, and turns love 
 Itself Into bitterness? Our heavy eyes follow 
 the spots on the carpet and miss the pattern. 
 Our dulled ears hear only the irritating 
 crackle of unwished-for voices, and know not 
 what speech they essay. We view the daily 
 litter of living with disgust; and, wherever 
 we are, wish vainly we were elsewhere. 
 
 What we need for our cure is change of 
 scene — perhaps it is some instinct of this sort 
 
Home 6^ 
 
 that sets us all a-roving — but fortunately the 
 railroad is not the only road we can travel. 
 Here, shut within our bookcases, are pass- 
 ports to a distant and wholesome region. The 
 air-ship of imagination waits at our com- 
 mand to sail the ocean of the skies. These 
 walls cannot imprison our spirits; and they, 
 breaking forth, may let in fresh air upon 
 these other troubled ones, our house-mates. 
 Whatever the confusion and the stifle near at 
 hand, we are not held to it. The stars invite 
 us, and all the wide world of space and time 
 is ours for escape. 
 
 From a distance we look back and see 
 where, high on the mountain-side, stands the 
 cabin we love. From these colder regions 
 how warm is the glow of its windows — how 
 dear even the unmended chinks through 
 which it shines ! We wonder that we could 
 have so lost perspective as to fret at small 
 ills in the face of large blessings. From the 
 lowly valley we look up and see home exalted, 
 with the light of the dying day still lingering 
 above it; and in the darkness of our humility 
 
66 Every Day Essays 
 
 and loneliness a new light rises — not the sun, 
 but a humbler luminary, content with quiet 
 reflection. When we get home, we promise 
 ourselves, we will be truer to it. 
 
 When we get home! It is something to 
 hope for — to make resolves for. When we 
 get home we shall be all we ought to be, and 
 with full hands shall add blessings to that 
 much-loved place, contenting ourselves no 
 longer with mere receptivity. In the fuss 
 and fume of the world, in the insensate jostle 
 of it, it is much that we have this to cheer 
 us — this faith that sometime and somewhere 
 the home we never knew shall open to us 
 in response to the persistent knocking of our 
 hearts. Every moment we hold this faith 
 moves away mountains of obstacles, and 
 breaks them into stones for the building of 
 the home we pray for. Every impatience 
 repressed binds them firmer in position. All 
 high hopes may be safely shrined there; all 
 noble endeavor bears fruit there. The truest 
 friends forgather there, each rich in appre- 
 ciation of the other. Work casts off its 
 
Home 6y 
 
 cindery disguise and shows Itself a blessing 
 there; and we, the workers, know the joy of 
 adequacy and the grace of perfect accom- 
 plishment. For love's sweet sake we work 
 there, and our daily work makes daily com- 
 fort for those we love. The light of our 
 windows shines far over the dimming world, 
 and the warmth of our hearthstone is for 
 those who choose to come homing in to us 
 from afar. Peace that is not stagnation 
 keeps the door of our hearts, and charity 
 tempers our judgments. Ah, it will be easy 
 to be what we should be — when we get 
 home. 
 
The Day When Everything Is Wrong. 
 
 It comes to all ; to some with much tre- 
 quency; to others so infrequently as to be 
 especially appalling; and some unfortunate 
 mortals seem to play into the hands of fate 
 with leads of various kinds of inadequacy, 
 prolonging the pain of such days into a 
 chronic disease; but no one entirely escapes. 
 
 It is a comfort to recognize this, for art, 
 whether lowly or lofty, skillfully ignores it. 
 When, for example, you sit in a dentist's chair 
 suffering the pangs of mechanical renovation, 
 the gay simper of the calendar young lady on 
 the wall is a mockery. Surely, you think, she 
 never had to give up a charming lunch party 
 for the doubtful joys of gold filling. Her 
 pretty clothes never cost her a thought, and 
 her hair is naturally wavy and up-standing. 
 The heroines of the books we read enjoy a 
 similar immunity. Trials come to them, but 
 6S 
 
When Everything Is Wrong 6g 
 
 trials of the nobler sort, such as any women of 
 good taste might elect to undergo with grace 
 and dignity. Poverty never betrays them into 
 unsuitable clothing, nor does sorrow find them 
 short of pocket-handkerchiefs. They bear 
 reproach and calumny with equal sufficiency, 
 never by any chance being put in the wrong 
 by any little human weakness of their own 
 cropping up at the crucial moment. We who 
 admire and love them, weep over them, and 
 would fain be like them, find their perfection 
 a derision when we think of it from the depths 
 of ignominy into which some little, little things 
 have the power to betray us. 
 
 Perhaps if we could know when this day 
 of wrath and of judgment was to dawn upon 
 us, we might prepare ourselves for it by vigil 
 and fasting; but no token is given. A rainy 
 morning may usher it in with a sudden sense 
 of our unreadiness for the weather, and of the 
 fact that a friend has borrowed our only avail- 
 able umbrella and failed to return it; or, 
 worse, that we ourselves are the borrowers 
 and the remiss ones. Our short skirt is laid 
 
TO Every Day Essays 
 
 up for repairs, and we cannot find our rubbers. 
 This is an obvious and frequent beginning. 
 On such days lawn parties are scheduled to 
 come off, or we have an appointment with a 
 telephoneless friend downtown, and cannot 
 guess whether or not she will think the 
 weather sufficient excuse for staying at home. 
 The heavy clouds weigh upon our spirits, and 
 the children clamorously contend that they 
 cannot go to school in the rain. 
 
 But it may be a bright day, the sun rising 
 fair upon a hopeful world. You plan plea- 
 sant things as you do your hair, and dress a 
 bit carefully in readiness for out-of-doors just 
 after breakfast. The breakfast bell does not 
 ring at the appointed time, and you seize the 
 opportunity to put on an extra touch or two 
 of daintiness. You hang up the things about 
 the room, straighten the bureau, and get an 
 agreeable glow of conscious virtue as you con- 
 template the pleasant orderhness about you; 
 but at length you grow uneasy and descend to 
 the kitchen. No one there ! All is silent, cold 
 and empty. A brief investigation shows that 
 
SW fage 73 
 
When Everything Is Wrong yr 
 
 Nora, the little-regarded but necessary one, 
 is groaning in bed with the toothache, and 
 Mary has not been home since she went out 
 last night. You try to light the fire, using 
 only the tips of your polished fingers. You 
 get very warm, but the kitchen is still cold 
 when your husband calls down and wants to 
 know whatever is the matter with breakfast; 
 he has an important engagement downtown. 
 The children, when they discover the state of 
 affairs, wail that they will be late to school; 
 and you give all of them the kind of break- 
 fast food that doesn't require cooking, and 
 make some very poor coffee with water that 
 hasn't boiled yet. Your husband's opinion of 
 your capacities is poorly concealed behind the 
 morning paper; and you are wondering 
 whether, if you discharge Mary, as you 
 ought, you will ever get another cook. 
 
 This is the moment that Henry, your eldest 
 boy, chooses to announce that you must write 
 his teacher an excuse for his absence from 
 school last week; and Mabel reminds you, 
 with a burst of tears, that you haven't yet 
 
7^ Every Day Essays 
 
 visited her class-room, although you have 
 promised ever so often; and Godfrey, the 
 youngest, languidly refuses breakfast food 
 and finds appetite only for eggs and fruit 
 because he has such an awful headache. No, 
 he doesn't want to stay home from school — 
 he likes school well enough — but he doesn't 
 see how he is going to manage to get there 
 to-day. He just feels sick all over. Henry 
 scoffs unfeelingly, and Godfrey kicks his shins 
 under the table. Henry rises up to adminis- 
 ter a stinging reproof; Godfrey dodges, runs 
 behind your chair, and makes you spill the 
 water you are drinking. Their father orders 
 both boys to sit down and behave like gentle- 
 men ; and then watches in disgust while God- 
 frey takes his knife in his left hand and pro- 
 ceeds to pull at his toast with the fork in his 
 right, finally, with desperate quickness, bolt- 
 ing most of the toast and the unbroken yolk 
 of his egg in one triumphant gulp. Henry, 
 in a hurry for school, takes advantage of 
 the storm that rages around Godfrey to pour 
 his cofkc into his saucer, and, startled by his 
 
When Ei'erything Is Wrong yj 
 
 father's sudden glare In his direction, spills 
 the brown fluid all over the last clean table- 
 cloth. 
 
 Mabel starts off in silent superiority, but 
 finds that her bicycle-tire is soft and the pump 
 out of order. She returns minus her dignity, 
 and prances about frantically while the boys 
 each accuse the other of having had it last, 
 and the father gives her car fare to ride to 
 school. It is too far to the cars; she is al- 
 ready late; won't father drive her? she im- 
 plores. No, he won't! He has something 
 else to do besides looking after children when 
 he pays for a houseful of women to do that 
 work. He wouldn't have such a servant as 
 Mary under any circumstances. He'd rather 
 do the cooking himself. Pay her and send 
 her off. As for the washing (of course it is 
 Monday), send it to the laundry or pitch it 
 into the alley — he doesn't care which. He 
 should think that the women of this day of 
 clubs and advancement ought to be able to 
 manage a little thing like that without turning 
 the whole house upside down. 
 
7^ Every Day Essays 
 
 Indignation seizes you by the throat — you 
 are lucky if it renders you speechless. You 
 ask yourself if this is the love and cherish- 
 ing he promised at the altar — you are lucky 
 if you do not ask him. Mabel goes off in a 
 storm of tears, stopping at the mirror in the 
 hall to see how she looks when storming. 
 Henry's manner is as loftily scornful as his 
 father's, but he condescends to biff Godfrey 
 as he passes. Godfrey flies into a rage that 
 makes him forget his headache, and flings out 
 of the house vowing vengeance; and you are 
 left to face the soiled dishes, Nora's tooth- 
 ache, Mary's slyness, and the laundry ques- 
 tion all alone. 
 
 While you are struggling ineffectually with 
 these diflUculties the postman comes, and you 
 tear open your letters in the desperate hope 
 of a little relief. You take the bills first, so 
 as to have them over with, and find each 
 one larger than you expected or than it has 
 any right to be. The silk skirt you had sent 
 up on approval, and went downtown to re- 
 turn in a pouring rain in order to have It 
 
When Ez'erything Is Wrong 75 
 
 credited before the first of the month, so that 
 your husband might not be appalled at the 
 size of the bill, is still charged to you, and 
 you rush to the telephone to have the bill 
 altered. It is long before you get any re- 
 sponse, and it is evident that you are a very 
 unpopular person when you demand the com- 
 plaint desk. The first clerk who comes knows 
 nothing about the matter and calls another. 
 The only one who has your affairs in hand, 
 it seems, is out, and won't be back until after- 
 noon. Call again. 
 
 The next letter is from your least-desirable 
 relative, who announces, in unmistakable 
 terms, that she is coming to pay you a visit 
 on the third — and that is the day of your 
 dinner party ! The next tells you of a spe- 
 cial club meeting called for that same day — 
 a meeting that promises some developments 
 you wouldn't miss for the world. Another 
 letter is in the well-known writing of an old 
 friend of your own. You open it, with only 
 a hasty glance at the superscription, to dis- 
 cover that she is writing to your husband, 
 
y6 Every Day Essays 
 
 asking him If you are ill or in any deep dis- 
 tress: you have not written her for so long 
 that she Is worried, and therefore she has 
 ventured to trouble him, etc. The last Is a 
 bulky epistle from a woman who insists upon 
 regarding you as a sort of literary patroness — 
 Heaven only knows why. She intrusts you 
 with her precious paper to be read before the 
 Literary Society. Will you promise to give 
 her your frank and unbiased opinion of it? 
 
 But the list grows wearisome. One might 
 prolong it mercilessly, and yet not exhaust 
 the host of little bothers familiar to us all 
 — bothers which beset all alike, which no 
 system can wholly prevent, no foresight fully 
 anticipate, no sweetness of disposition and 
 competence of intellect altogether withstand. 
 Before these foes the mightiest of us lie pros- 
 trate now and then, Gullivers waking from 
 sleep to find ourselves enmeshed in ignoble 
 webs, tied at a hundred points to the lowly 
 soil. Whatever we attempt goes wrong: If 
 we write a letter, we find ourselves unexpect- 
 edly out of good note-paper; the envelopes 
 
When Everything Is IVrong yy 
 
 are of all sizes but the right one; the ink has 
 thickened overnight; and the pen suddenly 
 becomes superannuated. If we attempt a 
 story on the typewriter, the letters double, we 
 write on the same line twice and spoil a 
 whole page, or, inspiration falling suddenly 
 upon us, we click away frantically, only to dis- 
 cover that our paper has been exhausted, and 
 we have confided a brilliant paragraph to the 
 unrecording roller. Our newly washed hair 
 refuses to hold hair-pins and combs, and we 
 come home from a windy trip downtown 
 looking like a second-hand hair-dresser's 
 model. If we have a kitten, it chooses the 
 most objectionable moment to get under our 
 feet. The dog leaps upon us in riotous wel- 
 come, regardless of muddy paws. If we need 
 milk for dinner, it has soured. If we want to 
 drive, the horse has lost a shoe and must go 
 at once to the blacksmith's. 
 
 Even our power of speech deserts us at such 
 times, and plays all sorts of pranks upon us. 
 We are sure, for one thing, to forget the 
 names of friends we are trying to introduce. 
 
^8 Every Day Essays 
 
 We tell funny stories, and discover, aghast, 
 that we are twitting on painful facts. Words 
 twist on our tongues, and we out-Malaprop 
 Mrs. Malaprop herself. I remember an ex- 
 perience to the point : A friend of mine had 
 the trading-stamp habit, and told me with 
 misplaced pride of the rug she had bought 
 with stamps representing about a hundred 
 dollars' worth of somewhat forced shopping. 
 I went to see her when such a sirocco of mis- 
 fortune was blowing about me, having act- 
 ually gone calling in a desperate attempt to 
 escape my fate. Seeing a red and blue rug 
 rather sharply out of keeping with her other 
 things, I inquired, with every agreeable in- 
 tention, whether that was the rug she had 
 bought at the five and ten cent store ! 
 
 It was in a similar gloomy penumbra that 
 another friend moved when he found himself 
 at an evening gathering of some sort, and 
 saw, at the other end of the long parlors, a 
 lady whom he knew. There were two of these 
 ladies in the same family, closely resembling 
 each other; but they were mother and daugh- 
 
When Everything Is Wrong jg 
 
 ter. My friend studied the situation for some 
 time, and, catching the lady's eye before he 
 was quite master of his recollections, rushed 
 up to her with impetuous cordiality, exclaim- 
 ing: 
 
 " Why, how do you do, Mrs. ? Do 
 
 you know, at the other end of the room I act- 
 ually thought you were your own daughter! " 
 
 " Sir," said the lady, with freezing dignity, 
 " I am the daughter! " 
 
 If your own tongue does not betray you in 
 some such fashion, those of your children 
 surely will. On such a day, for example, we 
 were dining some youngish maiden ladies, 
 very refined, correct, and delightful. The 
 children had begged for the privilege of re- 
 maining at the table, and, thinking to give 
 them some of the benefits of good society, and 
 disregarding the fact that It was a day dedi- 
 cated to mischance, we had consented. Rich- 
 ard, our elder son, wore his sweetest smile, 
 and was amiably sociable. 
 
 " Miss Blank," he asked, beginning the 
 conversation as strange persons addressing 
 
 6 
 
So Every Day Essays 
 
 him usually begin it, "how old are you?" 
 
 She rose to the situation with ready tact. 
 " Oh, between sixty and seventy," she said, 
 smiling. 
 
 "Dear me!" exclaimed Richard, quite 
 appalled. " Then why don't you get mar- 
 ried?" 
 
 After the laugh had subsided, our little 
 daughter was heard explaining to the other 
 lady that there had been a fly in the cream; 
 but she didn't mind that because it wasn't 
 squashed; while our youngest, growing sleepy 
 after the third course, inquired suddenly how 
 on earth they could eat so much; he was 
 through long ago ! 
 
 But this is prolonging the list. After all, 
 it is a comfort to tell one's woes, and. In the 
 telling, to recognize that they are the common 
 heritage of mankind. This reflection Is much 
 more truly anci lastingly consolatory than the 
 one so often urged upon our attention by 
 glibly sympathetic friends, and, of late, whole- 
 somely gibed at In some popular cartoons — 
 the reflection, namely, that It might have been 
 
When Everything Is Wrong Si 
 
 worse. Your children might be dead or non- 
 existent instead of inconvenient and difficult; 
 your husband might be a drunkard or a rav- 
 ing maniac instead of absorbed in his own 
 affairs when you need help with yours; your 
 letters, like Mrs. Somebody's, might contain 
 news of the loss of all your fortune; — and so 
 on, in a list calculated to create the blackness 
 of a midnight in the sunniest soul. To add 
 to the effectiveness of this style of argument, 
 you are invited to take an imaginary trip to 
 the slums and the prisons, and there to con- 
 template the wrecks of humanity to whom 
 your present tribulations would seem like the 
 joys of the blest. Your weakened and baf- 
 fled soul dimly discerns that there is some- 
 thing wrong in endeavoring to extract joy 
 from the contemplation of so much unedify- 
 ing misery; but you find in yourself such an 
 affinity for everything dark and disagreeable 
 that, likely enough, you take the trip sug- 
 gested, and get so immersed in the thickly 
 bubbling mud Dante tells of that It Is doubt- 
 
S2 Every Day Essays 
 
 till if you ever get yourself wholly cleansed 
 from it. 
 
 Or perhaps you misguldedly try silence and 
 martyrdom, persuading yourself that the first 
 is self-control, and the second merely interest- 
 ing resignation. This makes life almost un- 
 hearable for your immediate friends and 
 relatives, but has the advantage of drawing 
 the trouble to a sufficient though painful head. 
 
 Or, still more misguidedly, you may go off 
 into tears, preceded by a vigorous expression 
 of your disappointment In your husband as a 
 help and defense In time of trouble. He 
 won't like this, and you may get into a condi- 
 tion where little troubles look little because 
 you have such a big one in hand. 
 
 Such a result, indeed, is not altogether to 
 be scorned ; for a big trouble enables us to 
 bring our reserve strength to bear. To be 
 fretted and rasped out of all lovableness by 
 a series of mosquito-like annoyances is un- 
 dignified at best, and stings our self-love 
 beyond endurance; but there is something 
 romantically Interesting, worthy of the powers 
 
When Everything Is Wrong 8j 
 
 we feel within ourselves, in a genuine trouble. 
 In a certain sense we rejoice to find our- 
 selves elected to bear it. Therefore, like the 
 famous doctor who threw all his patients into 
 fits because he was death on fits, we are some- 
 times fairly driven to magnify our pygmy 
 disasters to a graspable size. 
 
 From the elevation of genuine grief, on 
 the contrary, we all of us see, at some period 
 or other, the true proportions of things, and, 
 seeing them, are enabled to smile and endure 
 where otherwise we should writhe. Some 
 writer has said that the thing American 
 women most lack Is a sense of perspective. 
 Whether this is especially true of American 
 women or not, certainly the possession of this 
 sense is a great source of consolation. To 
 see things, while yet we smart under their 
 pricks, as we shall see them when we look 
 back on them from a distance, this enables 
 us to lay hold upon grace — the grace either of 
 patience or of wholesome and refreshing 
 laughter. 
 
 Many of us have found this latter way 
 
84- Every Day Essays 
 
 out the easier. Recently a woman I knew 
 lost her pocket-book at a most trying junc- 
 ture. She lived out-of-town, and having been 
 to the city on urgent business, discovered her 
 loss just as she was about to get upon the 
 train which was to take her back to her hus- 
 band and young baby. It was the last train 
 for that day, and her ticket was in the missing 
 purse, as was also all her money. She did not 
 know where to look for help, or what her 
 baby was to do without her. As she walked 
 the platform in frantic distress, and watched 
 the unfeeling train draw away from her, she 
 said aloud in the poignancy of her desire, 
 " Oh, if I could only see something funny in 
 it, I could bear it!" It is a good prayer, 
 and brings its own answer. 
 
 Next to a sense of humor, which is the 
 sanest and most certainly available means of 
 escape, mere physical absence has its advan- 
 tages. Just to leave your work and your 
 worries — your dishes in the sink, your beds 
 unmade, your marketing undone, and, if need 
 be, your doors unlocked — and go forth into 
 
When Everything Is Wrong Sj 
 
 the great outside world, is to run with eager 
 feet towards peace. It is good to go and see 
 a friend and talk your trouble over; but it 
 is better to go out under the sky and for- 
 get it. Let the unhurried world of nature 
 preach to you of steadfast peace and growth 
 under unceasing change. Let the big empty 
 sky replace the cobwebbed ceiling of your 
 house-bound consciousness, and flood the 
 darkened places with wholesome sunshine. 
 When you go back to your dishes, they will 
 almost wash themselves, for all the good 
 fairies of out-of-doors will come home with 
 you and lend a willing hand to your work. 
 
 To be able to do this requires, of course, 
 some just perception of the relative impor- 
 tance of yourself and your bothers — the sense 
 of perspective, in short. But perspective, 
 while it reduces near mole-hills to their 
 proper size, also lets us know the true nature 
 of the mountains lurking behind. The little 
 worries are really little, but their work in the 
 soul is not little. Nothing so searches out 
 our hidden weaknesses as the days when 
 everything is wrong. They are the house- 
 
86 Every Day Essays 
 
 cleaning days of the soul, when every un- 
 savory negligence is haled into view, and the 
 house-cleaner must needs get ruffled and dis- 
 ordered in the effort to restore order. 
 
 These lowly places in which we toil un- 
 heeded of men, ashamed of ourselves, and 
 feeling that victory is merely decency, are 
 the valleys that shall be exalted when every 
 mountain and hill of more glorious achieve- 
 ment shall be laid low. If we recognize this 
 and keep our minds, as far as may be, upon 
 the spiritual equanimities we would fain 
 achieve, and refuse, again as far as may be, 
 to be led astray into desperate efforts to re- 
 store the merely physical order at whatever 
 expense to the spiritual, we shall emerge from 
 the fray inevitably a little dusty and dishev- 
 eled, but with a surer insight. It is some- 
 thing to be able to conquer, from meekness 
 under ignoble trials, the inheritance of the 
 earth — and nothing less than this is the final 
 reward of those who struggle faithfully with 
 the pestiferous nothings that sometimes 
 threaten to overwhelm us. 
 
See page S3 
 
Pictures of Peace. 
 
 I sat by the river-bank at twilight. Bob, 
 my fox-terrier, foraged in the distance, his 
 short tail gayly upright, his active white 
 body darting among the tree-trunks. There 
 was no contemplation for him while birds 
 could be scared up from the ground and 
 squirrels smelled out in the hollow trees. 
 Aquiver from the tip of his inquiring nose 
 to the missing tip of his tail, he sought for 
 sensations, found them, loved them, and 
 lived in them. The life of nature seemed 
 visibly to flow into and out of him, a stream 
 as real as the stream at my feet. 
 
 This, too — the river I love — is full of life. 
 There is the life of the little mosses and reeds 
 by the brim, and that of the great brooding 
 trees, drinking it in through their brown 
 roots twisting out among the lesser growths 
 into the clear amber water. These roots are 
 87 
 
88 Every Day Essays 
 
 sometimes fringed with young rootlets, eager 
 suckers dripping with bountiful nourishment. 
 In among them queer insect creatures snuggle 
 content. The very stones roll softly with the 
 rolling river. 
 
 You can imagine the fresh-water clams 
 under the ooze, peacefully letting their shells 
 fall open. The little fishes swim over and 
 under, and in and out, and round about, in a 
 languid, smooth dance, keeping close together. 
 The larger fishes, noses up current, wave 
 luxurious tails and fins, opening and shutting 
 pink-lined gills. And the nourishing mother 
 of all, the broad-bosomed river, moves on its 
 steadfast way to the sea, unburdened, 
 minished, finding life in giving it. 
 
 Across, on the island, the sheep crop the 
 short grass. Their heavy wool protects them 
 from the cool of the evening as from the heat 
 of the day. One of them, on my side of the 
 river, foolishly terrified by my triumphant 
 Bob, runs down the bank, plunges into the 
 shallows, and swims across to his comrades on 
 the island. His wet sides heave with his pant' 
 
Pictures of Peace Sp 
 
 ing, but across the water one can feel his sat- 
 isfaction as he gazes at the chidden httle dog 
 whose collar I hold. Safe, he begins again 
 the serious business of life — grazing and 
 growing wool. 
 
 Pressed down by an unrelenting hand, Bob 
 lies for a few moments, as resistant as a coiled 
 spring, his pink tongue lolling. The bright 
 eyes set and close, the tense body relaxes, and 
 all In another minute the tired dog lies against 
 me, sound asleep. 
 
 Now I have time to be still, to forget to 
 think or to notice. The faint tints are fading 
 from the sky, the soft wind blows, the river's 
 song rises clear. Near me a breath of milky 
 fragrance, a steady cropping, here and there a 
 darkling bulk, mean that the cows are covet- 
 ing the grass on which I rest. Their empty 
 udders swing light. The cows have been fed 
 at the barn, when they were milked, and are 
 eating now for pure luxury. 
 
 But what is this rubbing against my tree- 
 trunk and my back? What this recurrent, 
 throaty growl, this rumbling low joggle of 
 
po Every Day Essays 
 
 friendliness? It is Tom, my Maltese cat, 
 waking from the day's long drowse as the sun 
 goes down, slipping forth in the gray even- 
 ing, invisible in his likeness to it, silent, swift, 
 with eyes that open and shut like a stoked 
 furnace at night. This is his hour, the hour 
 that sets him gliding swiftly along in the dim- 
 ness, far from home, intent to explore the 
 world and the joys that are in it. And here 
 in his path he finds an empty-handed mis- 
 tress, idly dreaming by the river. He pauses 
 to greet me, making songs in the depths of his 
 throat; but when I try to draw him into my 
 lap for a warm cuddle he grows slim and 
 smooth, and slips away between my hands. 
 
 The birds in the trees above have ceased 
 their chirping. They rustle among the 
 branches, and are still. Hanging their idle 
 leaves unresponsive to the evening air, the 
 trees too have gone to sleep. In the island 
 marsh, half-way across the river, the frogs 
 have begun their concert. The tree-toads are 
 shrilling their antiphon to the hushed birds. 
 The river alone is as before, awake and sufE- 
 
Pictures of Peace pi 
 
 cient in the night as in the day, moving, un- 
 faltering, to the sea. But it has drawn a gray 
 mist over its face, and its song is of hidden 
 things. I must go home. I wonder where 
 the Httle fishes sleep? 
 
 Here alone in the stubble field, beneath 
 bare boughs I sit. We are facing the coming 
 winter, the world and I together. I lean, for 
 companionship, close to the one tree standing 
 in the field. The ground is cold with frost, 
 though soft yet from the spring-time plough- 
 ing; the grasses the corn used to hide as it 
 waved far above them in the summer air, 
 now have the sunshine and the frost to them- 
 selves. Perhaps great thoughts in my mind 
 are growing from the little idle thoughts of 
 the hour — who knows? Early this morning 
 these grasses were clothed in bridal white; 
 now they are gracious shades of gray and tan, 
 warm wine-color near the roots. Their deh- 
 cate tops, tasseling bravely in emulation of 
 the corn, are rich with seeds. Even the 
 grasses are ready for winter — ready for rest, 
 and, after that, for next year's growth. 
 
P& Every Day Essays 
 
 " Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of 
 the field, which to-day is, and to-morrow is 
 cast into the oven, shall He not much more 
 clothe you, O ye of little faith? " 
 
 This, my tree, is an apple-tree, standing 
 broad and bountiful among the shocks of 
 corn. It does not look as if fruit-bearing were 
 easy. Its short trunk is contorted with effort; 
 its branches grow as they can at ungainly 
 angles. They look as if they had started 
 heavenward in their youth, but later had been 
 borne steadily earthward with the weight of 
 years and of fruit, till they spread horizontal, 
 yearning over the fields. It is a motherly tree, 
 full of wrinkles and gnarls, with young off- 
 shoots springing gayly from the level branches 
 straight up toward the sky. I think they feel 
 sure that they will never bend, w^hatever 
 weight they bear; or break, whatever wind 
 may blow. There is a dry crackle as of 
 laughter above me, as the wind shakes the 
 few remaining leaves. Most of them have 
 already fallen, pushed off by the crowding 
 buds; the bare twigs are knobbed with 
 
Pictures of Peace pj 
 
 promise. What, old tree ! With the burden 
 of years upon you, do you hope still, in the 
 near presence of winter? While I — 
 
 Pleasant play-houses these corn-shocks 
 would make. Wigwams they are, full of 
 food, well supplied against famine. Their 
 plumed heads nod to the breezes like the 
 feathered head-dresses of hospitable Indians, 
 welcoming even the stranger to share their 
 full store. 
 
 The year's work is over; the field is no 
 longer busy with growth — yet has it ever been 
 busy? Has it ever done aught beyond let- 
 ting the sun and the rain cherish and feed it, 
 the kindly laws of nature take sufficient effect? 
 Here is all the rich product of labor, with 
 none of its exhaustion; here the hving faith 
 resting serene in good works. I, too, lying 
 close against the earth, will yield me to the 
 laws of growth and of rest. W^e will all be 
 still together — all of us here in the field — un- 
 knowing, yet not dead, our lives secure within 
 us; played upon by pure air, warmed by the 
 sunshine, soothed into quiescence by the 
 
p/ Every Day Essays 
 
 pointed fingers of the frost — unafraid, un- 
 rejoicing, in utter peace beneath the sky. 
 
 I have carried the baby into my own room, 
 to put him to sleep before the fire. The chil- 
 dren have all had their early supper, and the 
 others are frolicking in the nursery with their 
 father — he enjo)^s this good-night frolic as 
 much as they do. Baby has played until he 
 is tired out, and must come with me into 
 the quiet and go to sleep. The noise of the 
 laughing children still reaches us, softened by 
 distance and curtained doorways. The 
 drowsing baby starts and turns toward the 
 door. 
 
 No, sweetheart; no more play for mother's 
 boy to-night. It is sleepy-time now. See the 
 pretty fire; how it dances up the dark chim- 
 ney. And see, over there, how it shines on the 
 walls and looks at itself in the long mirror. 
 And hear the crackling, snapping song it 
 sings — singing baby to sleep. 
 
 Would you like to stretch your toes to it? 
 Well, turn over on mother's lap. Oh, you 
 curly thing! You fairly hug mother's knees 
 
<; 
 
 cn-tVSSN f"■V^V^^>q^^\^W,^■^^^^^'<^ ' ^^ ^ . V- ■■ ^^^"^. ■t-^^^'ij-' ' - J.j; 
 
 e are farcing the coming v/inter, 
 Ibe^X^orld and I together 
 
 See page qr 
 
Pictures of Peace g^ 
 
 with all your little self, as you lie there on 
 your stomach. Uncurl your toes to the pleas- 
 ant warmth, and see what the new muscles 
 in the backs of your legs can do. Stretch and 
 breathe, cuddle up to mother, and be happy, 
 littlest. 
 
 Shall I rub your back awhile? Ah, what a 
 good loose flannel gown this is! My hand 
 goes 'way up to your darling, darling shoul- 
 ders. The sleeves are just big enough to let in 
 two of my fingers, curving along the smooth 
 little arms. Now across — and up — and down. 
 Do you like it, love-bird? A kiss I must 
 have, though it wake you — here at your waist, 
 where the two dimples hide. Did it bother 
 you, poor dear? Well, that Is part of the 
 price of mothers. 'Sh! 'Sh! I'll rub again 
 — across — and down — and up — with a gentle 
 trot, and a little rock, and a murmured snatch 
 of song: 
 
 " Bye, baby — bye — bye ! " 
 
 Now gently I lift you into my arms. The 
 blue eyes I love are closed, the drooping head 
 rests upon my bosom. A long sigh of sweetest 
 
 7 
 
()6 Ez'cry Ihiy Essays 
 
 breath, an utter yielding of the flower-soft 
 body, and I sing again, with a swelhng throat, 
 
 " Hush, my dear, lie still ami slumber — " 
 
 Why does my heart ache so? And what is 
 it for which I long, now that my arms and 
 heart are full? 
 
 " Holy angels guard thy bed — " 
 
 Yes, that is it. There arc angels near — 
 angels who love little babies, who know how 
 to be all love and graciousness, who never 
 fail, as T fail. They fill the dim corners of 
 the room. I can almost see their robes wav- 
 ing in the waving firelight. In my soul T feel 
 their presence, helping me to bear the weight 
 of tenderness that oppresses me. Ah, Lord, 
 how did You ever dare to trust me with this 
 little child — Your own precious little child? 
 
 He is sound asleep in my arms; and I lie 
 back in the Everlasting Arms, safe in a 
 greater love than this that is too great for my 
 heart. The children in the nursery have 
 dropped into silence. Their father tiptoes 
 
Pictures of Peace pj 
 
 past my door, but I feel his love as, afraid to 
 speak, he hfts the curtain and looks in at us. 
 
 At last I am clear of the city and can 
 dream as I will under the stars and the sky. 
 Oh, it is good to hav^e the sky to one's self, 
 unfretted by a single roof! I breathe in deep 
 breaths of it. There are not even trees about 
 me, just here, though a row of them stands 
 on the edge of the further field, a dehcate 
 band of lace against the softly luminous 
 horizon. I am blissfully alone under the clear 
 breadth of the heavens, empty of all littleness. 
 
 When I grow tired of gazing straight up 
 and up, I rest mv eyes on that slender line of 
 trees, rest them that they may search further 
 in their next upward sweep. The sky is so 
 unthinkably vast that I find it tends to make 
 you lose not only your worries, but your full 
 personal consciousness. To catch your breath, 
 you need to drop nearer earth now and then; 
 else you are in danger of losing your center, 
 of having no point of intense feeling upon 
 which to focus your perception of the immen- 
 
gB Every Day Essays 
 
 sities. It is no wonder that certain wise men, 
 watching the Oriental stars and moon, look- 
 ing deep into the sky for night after night, 
 should conceive of Nirvana as the uttermost 
 state of the soul. For me, I choose to have a 
 little nest of selfhood into which I may gather 
 my thoughts, hover over them, and bring 
 forth something that has life. 
 
 I never knew much of astronomy. How 
 many millions of miles away is the sun? At 
 any rate, it is only a few thousand miles of 
 earth that now hides him from me, and lets 
 me see him only as he is reflected in the face 
 of the moon. And she is a cold, dead world? 
 It may be true, but it is not the truth for me. 
 I like best to love her just as she looks — 
 silver-bright, golden-bright — which is it? — 
 with a dim halo about her, like the loves of 
 the ages made visible. Think of the love 
 that has gone out to her, the loves she has 
 cherished. Dear Lady Moon, they are blind 
 who call you dead. 
 
 And these stars — I cannot bear the thought 
 of them as they really are. I like Shake- 
 
Pictures of Peace pp 
 
 peare's sensitive touch of description, as he 
 catches the hght of them for an instant in a 
 boy's mirror, and plays with it: 
 
 " Look how the floor of heaven 
 Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold." 
 
 Patines — those whirling suns, the centers 
 of mighty world-systems! Bright gold — 
 those globes of liquid fire! Yet Shakespeare 
 knew the human heart. It is crushed under 
 the thought of millions of suns, awhirl in un- 
 lit space — of violet gases, and green and yel- 
 low, flaring tremendous on the eyeless void. 
 The human heart — my own trembling human 
 heart — is not able to love such stupendous 
 things. Let me look back again to my near 
 and friendly trees. 
 
 What is that — a panting breath, drawing 
 nearer and nearer? A rush of sparks, au- 
 daciously flung at the unwinking stars; a roar, 
 a jangle, a rhythmical clatter and roll, and 
 the train speeds by, across the quiet country, 
 under the awful sky. A reek of smoke ob- 
 scures the fair face of the moon, a harsh cry 
 dies out along the still reaches of the air, and 
 
 LcfC. 
 
loo Every Day Essays 
 
 the train is gone. It showed for the moment 
 hke a great dragon hastening through the 
 dark, breathing fire and snorting, its sides set 
 with even, bright scales. 
 
 And above here, in the dark fields of space, 
 another dragon moves, noiseless. I see the 
 glittering scales on its sides. I know not the 
 Man who holds command, who looks ahead 
 over the way we go; yet I can go to sleep, 
 like those people In the train. What am I, 
 truly, shivering and thinking In my allotted 
 section of time and space, but one bit of sub- 
 stance under law, carried along with the rest? 
 These stars obey, and whirl, and shine, burn- 
 ing for untold ages unconsumed, in an order 
 that reaches even my little eye and comforts 
 even my foolish heart. How shall I plan 
 rebellion, then, or find a fear worth holding? 
 
 An insect trills In the grass at my ear; 
 a fire-fly flashes past, a tiny copyist of the 
 stars. The Impudent atom ! — yet it, too, is 
 under law, riding along secure in the great 
 world-dragon. If one can light a little spark 
 under one's wings, shall one not? It may 
 
Pictures of Peace loi 
 
 match the stars' far glory, to some near in- 
 sect eye. That undaunted chirp rises clear 
 again — a song in the face of the sky and the 
 night. What Power is this that orders alike 
 the universes of the endless heavens and the 
 insect lives in the lowly grass? I could send 
 a kiss into the sky if I could forget the mil- 
 lions and billions and trillions of miles up 
 there. 
 
 Oh, I will get me back to the town where 
 there are huddling houses and crowds of 
 things. It glows cozily along the horizon. 
 My trouble lurks there, I know, but I know 
 also that there is a Power that can speed me 
 along my appointed way, with all my weights 
 upon me, as easily as it flicked that little 
 train across half a little continent. And even 
 in the noisy, bustling town, within the close 
 four walls of home, in the firelight glow, are 
 peace and rest. 
 
Coming Doivn in the World, 
 
 It is easier to bear success than to bear 
 failure. There are those who, In theory, 
 doubt this statement; but in practice ev-ery 
 one is eagerly willing to assume whatever 
 burdens success may impose. To succeed is 
 to put a certain polish on the cheapest wood. 
 Although the coarse grain may be thereby 
 thrown into relief, some one is sure to admire 
 it, and it has, to any eye, a certain force and 
 individuality. 
 
 Failure, on the contrary, dims all that it 
 touches. The whole world questions the 
 value of the man whose outlines are blurred 
 by it. Every one knows why he has failed, 
 and nearly every' one tells him so. A dozen 
 times a day, while the wound is fresh, zealous 
 friends dress it with mustard. He winces — 
 and this is, to them, another evidence of weak- 
 ness. 
 
See pit^'^e q4 
 
Coming Down in the World loj 
 
 The worst of the pain hes in the pride that 
 will not die at once — that, far from accepting 
 these friendly diagnoses, has quite another 
 explanation to offer. We all remember 
 Thackeray's moving picture of ruined Mr. 
 Sedley, conning his useless papers, and prov- 
 ing to every one, to the waiter in the dingy 
 coffee-house as well as to pitiful Captain Dob- 
 bin, that the fault was all Bonaparte's. " And 
 I say that the escape of Boney from Elba was 
 a damned imposition and plot, sir, in which 
 half the powers of Europe were concerned, 
 to bring the funds down and ruin the country. 
 That's why I am here, William. That's why 
 my name's in the Gazette. Why sir? Be- 
 cause I trusted the Emperor of Russia and 
 the Prince Regent." 
 
 Thackeray does not tell us about Mrs. 
 Sedley's actions at this moment, but doubt- 
 less she also had her little shams. We have 
 fair warrant for imagining that her manner 
 to the faithful servant who continued work- 
 ing for her without pay was as lofty as ever. 
 Mrs. Sedley would omit no customary de- 
 
104- Every Day Essays 
 
 mand, and level no barriers of rank. Her 
 nearest approach to familiarity would be the 
 cry for sympathy. 
 
 " You know, Blenkinsop, how well I used 
 to live. I ask you, can any reasonable per- 
 son expect me to drink such tea as this? " 
 
 The need of money is so sordid and de- 
 pressing a need that it is next to im- 
 possible to preserve a lofty ideal in the 
 face of it. It is not so much the 
 mere privation of accustomed luxuries 
 that hurts — though that does hurt — as the 
 inevitable shabbishness and ugliness that re- 
 sults from financial inability to keep up with 
 repairs. Who does not know the sense of 
 degradation that comes from covering a hole 
 in the carpet with a rug? F>om shabby bed- 
 covers? From the association of solid silver 
 with nicked china and an insufficient supply 
 of table-linen? When we fall behind we find 
 ourselves living in a hodge-podge of incon- 
 gruous and unbeautiful wreckage, and our 
 surroundings daily mortify our taste and our 
 self-respect. 
 
Coming Down in the World /05 
 
 If we can maintain ourselves sufficiently to 
 work slowly through the debris, ordering and 
 arranging it as light dawns upon us, we may 
 be rewarded by an intimate perception of what 
 is genuinely beautiful and necessary to beau- 
 tiful living. Such a perception is as rare as 
 it is precious in our commercial civilization, 
 where, as Professor Veblin so scorchingly 
 points out, the love of ostentatious waste has 
 vitiated nearly all our conceptions of decency. 
 To those of us who fall behind may be left, 
 possibly, the discovery of the essentials. We 
 may discover the fitness of oiled dining-room 
 tables when our fine linen wears out; and 
 gain a new respect for space and sunshine In 
 our rooms, as the bric-a-brac breaks. Of 
 course the danger is that we will do nothing 
 of the kind, but will take to passe-par-tout- 
 ing illustrated newspaper supplements and 
 making puffy sofa-pillows out of scraps. 
 Such imitation ostentation is even worse than 
 genuine ostentation. We wear out our spirits 
 in the effort to attain it, and dip our scant 
 bread in bitterness in the effort to preserve 
 
io6 Every Day Essays 
 
 it. Why not let everything that, under the 
 stress of daily living, proves itself to be rub- 
 bish, go on the rubbish heap, leaving a re- 
 poseful emptiness behind it? 
 
 The trouble is that nothing of this clearance 
 happens all at once. In our desperate mo- 
 ments we long for a conflagration to sweep 
 our rooms of all the accumulation that is, as 
 sighing housewives say, too good to throw 
 away and not good enough to keep. It is 
 hard so to balance ourselves as to endure it 
 while it is with us, and to rejoice at its gradual 
 removal. Yet if we succeed in this, have we 
 not done well? Is not this genuine poise and 
 patience — a possession laid up in the skies — 
 a fair offset to the pain of failure? 
 
 Although I am thus preaching the virtues 
 of resignation, and of making the best of 
 things (and oh! the preaching is easier than 
 the practice!), I am not meaning to uphold, 
 even by implication, a state of society and of 
 public opinion which fills financial failure full 
 of such unnecessary suffering. I do not be- 
 lieve there ought to be poverty or ignominy 
 
Coining Dozv'u in the World lo^ 
 
 for any but the willfully vicious and idle — also 
 for the willfully greedy and self-indulgent. 
 But that belief, though it is worth holding and 
 stating — worth some effort to bring into ac- 
 tion — cannot affect, very appreciably, our im- 
 mediate problem. That problem Is how best 
 to huddle together for warmth, while we wait 
 the end of our winter of discontent. 
 
 No one need be less lonely than we who 
 come down in the world. By force of circum- 
 stances we become East SIders, and on the 
 East Side, you know, millions of our fellows 
 live. Having come here, is there any reason 
 why we should not bring with us such graces 
 and beauties of the West Side as will bear 
 transplantation? We may be compelled to 
 leave behind our liveried servants, and our 
 expensive gewgaws, but who shall deprive us 
 of our good manners? of our books? of the 
 habit of worthy conversation? We are social 
 settlers by force, perhaps, but why any the 
 less social settlers? 
 
 Here are our new neighbors eager to greet 
 us. No wealth now builds its hard barrier 
 
toB Every Day Essays' 
 
 between the wide reaches of humanity and 
 our own souls. We bathe in the great ocean 
 of hfe, no longer cooped in a ridiculous bath- 
 ing-machine of convention. The tides sweep 
 over us, surging around the globe, following 
 mysterious but irresistible leadings. We 
 know ourselves as but one of many like atoms 
 — oh, shall we spoil the splendid sense of kin- 
 ship by insistence on such scummy excrescences 
 as we may have brought with us from the 
 stagnant back-water reaches where we used 
 to dwell ? 
 
 The other day, while meditating on these 
 things, I chanced to be in the big arch-way 
 of the Grand Central Station, in Chicago. 
 The rain percolated through the sooty atmos- 
 phere and insistent cabmen tendered me im- 
 possible luxuries in the way of transportation. 
 No good, warm, democratic, undeviating 
 trolley clanged its way to my rescue. A mile 
 or so distant, probably, some ships were pass- 
 ing up or down the river, and thousands of 
 human beings unwillingly waited on their pas- 
 sage. Beside me stood a boy of about ten 
 
Coming Damn in the World locj 
 
 years of age, in a neat soldier-cap and over- 
 coat. Above the velvet collar of his coat 
 showed a white collar and a stiffly-tied blue 
 necktie. I have since thought that the collar 
 may have been celluloid, but one can't easily 
 tell, in Chicago. At any rate, I felt distinctly 
 set at my distance by it. No child so obvious- 
 ly equal to the demands of our civilization 
 could need any friendliness of mine. So we 
 stood, side by side, wrapped in a common 
 misery, under the big stone arch, silent and 
 uncommunicative, when my eye happened to 
 fall on his shoes. They were shabby and old, 
 and the shoe-strings were tied in a dozen 
 knots. I saw at once that he had on his Sun- 
 day coat and hat, and his every-day trousers 
 and shoes. I had a knot in my own shoe- 
 strings, and my heart warmed to him. 
 
 So, presently, I asked him, very humbly, 
 when he thought the car would be along; 
 and he said, beginning with a fine show of 
 indifference, but with a chin that trembled a 
 little toward the end, that he thought it would 
 be along pretty soon, now: he had already 
 
iTo Every Day Assays 
 
 been waiting a half-hour. We fell into con- 
 versation, and I learned that he had accom- 
 panied a friend of his mother's to the train, 
 carrying her bag for her, and that he was ex- 
 pected to return by exactly the same route — 
 the only one he knew. He had just seven 
 cents in his pocket, and he could not go by a 
 route involving a change of cars, even if he 
 knew how. I could have made the seven 
 cents ten, or even fifteen, if he would have 
 permitted it, but I could not supply the miss- 
 ing knowledge. 
 
 We kept on waiting, and presently two or 
 three cabmen, leaning on their whip-stocks, 
 entered into our discussion of ways and means, 
 and a policeman and a red-capped railroad 
 porter joined us. They joked with us in a 
 friendly way, but could offer no help to a boy 
 whose whole supply of worldly knowledge 
 seemed to be that he was to get off at Lincoln 
 Avenue, walk to Mallory's grocery, and then 
 he knew his way. When the belated car final- 
 ly crashed upon us around the corner, it was 
 hailed with delight by a round dozen of sym- 
 
Coming Dozmi in the World iii 
 
 pathizers and we boarded it out of quite a 
 circle of benevolence. I reflected that a 
 knotted shoe-string, notwithstanding its un- 
 deniable inferiority to a whole shoe-string, 
 has some distinct advantages of its own. 
 
 Contrariwise, I have just been talking to 
 a dear old lady, compounded of all the vir- 
 tues and many of the graces, who is to-day 
 suffering under the grievous loneliness of old 
 age, uncomforted by any but rather distant 
 relatives. " I knew nearly every one in this 
 town once," she told me, " but after I was 
 married, and we moved out on the farm, I 
 lost them all. They were good to me, they 
 used often to drive out, and to this day they 
 invite me to their receptions, but — you know 
 — I couldn't dress right. A farmer's wife 
 can't. I remember when Mr. — (she named 
 a prominent citizen) drove out with his young 
 wife, I was on my knees in the strawberry- 
 bed, and of course I was all dirty. They 
 were nice about it, but I didn't return the 
 call. I was never sure my clothes were just 
 right, and I put off going. I have been put- 
 
 8 
 
112 Every Day Essays 
 
 ting it off for thirty years. And now I am 
 alone. It's all wrong. I oughtn't to have 
 been so proud, but I was. And I don't 
 know " — she mused awhile — " I don't know 
 as I really should have liked being with them, 
 anyhow. Perhaps it's just as well — as it is." 
 
 I rolled my hands comfortably in the kit- 
 chen apron that had set her free to visit with 
 me, and went with her to the gate. There I 
 stood watching her as she crept up the road, 
 a frail, gentle, sweet old soul, alone with the 
 fast-coming night. And I was glad of the 
 kitchen apron. 
 
 Humbleness of spirit, and corresponding 
 humbleness of vesture and housing, thus 
 brings its own rich reward. It transports us 
 from showy parks patrolled by policemen 
 and inhabited by caged animals into a garden 
 of loveliness. Therein forget-me-nots and 
 heart's-ease bloom, and birds sing unafraid. 
 Lovers wander down its shady isles, and 
 friends meet rejoicing in its open places. 
 Every one who enters this sweet garden suf- 
 fers a sea-change; he does not strut, nor 
 
Coining Dmmi in the ll'orld 113 
 
 boast, but opens his heart to you, the master 
 of the garden, and shares with you its richest 
 secrets. This sad old earth becomes for you 
 a garden, a home, a place of pleasantness, full 
 of friends who eagerly teach you and lead 
 you when you need it, and turn to you for 
 help when they need it. 
 
 Yet over against this fair plaisance stands 
 an angel with flaming sword. None but the 
 fit may enter in. He does not bar out those 
 who wear rags, nor insist too sternly upon 
 cleanliness; but to the vulgarity of pretense 
 he is enduringly severe. To this Man with 
 the Manners of Heaven nothing so entirely 
 proves unfitness for paradise as pretended 
 meekness. It is even worse than pretended 
 superiority. Only genuine meekness can win 
 in at that gate — genuine meekness and its 
 twin-sister, charity. And this is because 
 meekness clears out eyes of self, and lets us 
 see others, and charity makes us love what we 
 see. 
 
 Bunyan knew this place. In prison for 
 debt — oh ! don't we know the prison ! its 
 
114 Every Day Essays 
 
 bare walls, scrawled with the wails of Innu- 
 merable other sufferers, its terrifying jailor, 
 its tantalizing glimpses of outer sunshine! — 
 in prison, I say, he saw the vision of the 
 Valley of Humiliation, and thus he wrote of 
 it: 
 
 " Here a man shall be free from the noise 
 and from the hurrying of this life. All states 
 are full of noise and confusion, only the Val- 
 ley of Humiliation is that empty and solitary 
 place. * * * * " J)|j I say that our 
 Lord had here in former days His country 
 house, and that He loved here to walk? I 
 will add — in this place, and to the people that 
 live and trace these grounds, he has left a 
 yearly revenue, to be faithfully paid them 
 at certain seasons for their maintenance by 
 the way, and for their further encouragement 
 to go on pilgrimage." 
 
itllAvonder- filled eyes expecta^nt 01 ^^J 
 f-dJiry marvels in a city -S" to re 
 
 Sc'<' page 121 
 
The Spirit of Christmas, 
 
 No matter when we begin our Christmas 
 preparations, it is sure not to be early enough; 
 the great holiday never finds us with that com- 
 fortable sense of good work well done, which 
 we have striven for. Nor is the failure wholly 
 due to our own weakness and lack of fore- 
 sight; something must be allowed for the 
 fact that the approach of Christmas sharpens 
 the memory and enlarges the heart. Early 
 in Novem.ber, perhaps, we make out a list 
 of those to whom we wish to give, this year; 
 we may even begin the working of sofa pil- 
 lows and center-pieces on the verandas of 
 summer hotels when the thermometer stands 
 at ninety and December is unthinkably dis- 
 tant; but as time draws on we add name 
 after name to our list, and then, on Christ- 
 mas eve, suddenly discover that we have over- 
 115 
 
ii6 Every Day Essays 
 
 looked the last person In the world who could 
 be expected to endure It. 
 
 On this fatally long list — fatal to our peace 
 of mind and serenity — are several names we 
 wish we could scratch off, but dare not. This 
 one has always given to us and we cannot lie 
 In her debt with ease. This other Is a girl- 
 hood's friend, no tie remaining, of all those 
 that seemed so unbreakable, except this year- 
 ly token of remembrance. That one Is a for- 
 lorn old being whom no one loves — not even 
 we ourselves. Perhaps If we did not send her 
 something, she would have nothing to mark 
 the day. She deserves nothing? That may 
 be — deliver us from being remembered on 
 Christmas day according to our deserts ! 
 
 Reason as we may, from item to item, we 
 are not altogether happy over this list. We 
 cannot escape an uneasy feeling that, if we 
 owe the gift, we owe more than the gift. We 
 are haunted with a sense of hypocrisy that 
 makes us tear up and rewrite the Inscrip- 
 tions that accompany these reluctant offerings, 
 In a futile attempt at sincerity. For our com- 
 
The Spirit of Christmas iiy 
 
 fort let us remember that even a futile attempt 
 may, in the long run, count for something; 
 it is not mere wasted energy. We may per- 
 form the act dutifully now, In the hope of 
 sometime being able to perform it with a 
 warmer feeling, recognizing, meanwhile, our 
 narrow-heartedness, and trusting that succes- 
 sive Christmasses may find us broader and 
 sweeter. 
 
 This is what has happened, in spite of 
 himself, to that dear old father of ours. He 
 has always declared that he did not believe 
 in Christmas nonsense, and he has been severe 
 with us over the lot of dead wood we keep in 
 our list. He has pointed out that the chil- 
 dren stand more in need of good warm clothes 
 than of toys, and that habits of economy are 
 good all the year round. He has voiced 
 the protests of our own conscience when he 
 has asked us, rather pointedly, whether we 
 could attend to our household duties properly 
 and spend so much time downtown. Never- 
 theless, he has always gone secretly forth, at 
 the last moment, and bought the most extrav- 
 
ii8 Every Day Essays 
 
 agant things — enough to make him curse gift- 
 giving all the rest of the year. To-morrow, 
 however, he will fairly glow with hospitality 
 and benevolence as he stands whetting his 
 carving-knife over the great turkey and look- 
 down the long table surrounded by the faces 
 he loves best. 
 
 Smiling gently back at him from the other 
 end of the table sits the wife of his bosom — 
 she who has seen to it that his business prin- 
 ciples were annually overthrown in the in- 
 terests of a higher economy. Never for one 
 year of her meek and wifely existence has 
 she obeyed her husband's injunctions in re- 
 gard to gift-giving. She may have shed, for 
 his sake, a few tears over her holiday efforts, 
 but she has always gone on making them. 
 She has performed all sorts of miracles with 
 the housekeeping money to save enough for 
 Christmas; and in the hot days of summer 
 has crimsoned her face and risked heat-pros- 
 tration and apoplexy over kettles of jelly and 
 jam, in order to have her favorite gifts ready 
 for the sons and daughters who tell her, half- 
 
The Spirit of Christmas up 
 
 patronizingly, that no preserves were ever 
 equal to hers. Her womanly intuition has 
 taught her how much of the tenderness with 
 which home is remembered, how much of its 
 lasting influence, therefore, depends upon the 
 fit observance of such special days. 
 
 It Is true that we must spend much time 
 in the crowded downtown districts at this 
 season ; and there are exhausted moments 
 when we share our father's opinion of the 
 iniquity of it. We start out early in the 
 morning, intending to get ahead of the crowd, 
 but the crowd is equally determined to get 
 ahead of us, and darkens the platforms of all 
 the Elevated stations, hangs by straps In the 
 aisles of all the trolleys, and Is wrung 
 through the revolving storm-doors of all the 
 big stores in a steady dark line, like one con- 
 tinuous fabric. The women with babies In 
 their arms, abhorred of clerk and shopper, 
 patiently ask the prices of cheap toys, calcu- 
 latingly finger men's sweaters, and shift the 
 baby to the other hip while they meditate on 
 the merits of a pair of small red shoes. Their 
 
I20 Every Day Essays 
 
 sisters, with two or three older children cling- 
 ing to them, are in greater difficulties, trying 
 to pilot their little flock through the dense 
 throng without unclasping hands. The chil- 
 dren have bags and old purses full of care- 
 fully hoarded pennies which they are sure to 
 spill, bumping into every one's knees as they 
 stoop to pick them up. Rising with flushed 
 face from her efforts to assist the children 
 and speak her mind, the mother finds the 
 shop-girls in that vicinity abnormally busy 
 and oblivious as she asks to see stick-pins, or 
 ribbons, or colored crepe paper. But every 
 now and then the woman heart in the breast 
 of some tired clerk overflows, and the young- 
 est child is set on the counter and kindly asked 
 his name and age, while the boy is allowed to 
 examine cameras and listen to the blatant 
 phonograph. The crowd pushing past smiles 
 vaguely in sympathy; and it is evident that 
 though its mere mass may hold down the 
 Christmas feeling for a time, it cannot quite 
 crush it. 
 
 This crowd downstairs, however, seems to 
 
The Spirit of Christmas 121 
 
 have vast spaces between Its component atoms 
 as compared with the crowd near Santa 
 Claus's house on the fifth floor. How all 
 these persons, mostly diminutive, have been 
 swung safely up in those packed and palpi- 
 tant cages, the elevators, is one of the un- 
 considered marvels of the age; but here they 
 stand, perspiring in December, with wonder- 
 filled eyes expectant of fairy marvels in a 
 city store. They are squeezed painfully for- 
 ward by the press behind, jerked painfully 
 upward and backward by anxious mothers, 
 unable to see because of the unfeeling bulk 
 and height of the grown persons about, 
 shouted at by unintelligible but none the less 
 terrifying policemen, and slowly, suffocating- 
 ly, moved on to the promised end. They have 
 long dreaded to lose this blissful experience 
 by some unexpected attack of naughtiness; 
 they have dreamed of it and talked of it for 
 days; and at last here It is — to adult eyes 
 nothing but an Indifferent, tired man, with a 
 white beard and a big book, who plays his 
 part very badly. But the children receive the 
 
122 Every Day Essays 
 
 cheap box of checkers and crayons from his 
 hands with rapture, and are shoved inertly out 
 of the other door, too overawed for some 
 moments to think of demanding the soda- 
 fountain. 
 
 We mothers, to whose childhood Santa 
 Claus was never so obvious, who saw him 
 only with the spiritual eye of the imagina- 
 tion, falter before this commercial incarna- 
 tion of our old familiar saint. Perhaps we 
 find skill to suggest, without spoiling the 
 play, that this is only a make-believe Santa 
 Claus, very amusing, to be sure, but not half 
 so fine or beautiful as the true one. We and 
 the children may pity together those unfor- 
 tunate persons who do not believe in Santa 
 Claus at all, having been fooled by the mock 
 personage downtown. We know that the 
 true gift-giver is a fairy, and therefore invisi- 
 ble; and that there is a secret about him 
 which we love to guess at. Perhaps we should 
 be on the track of it if we could discover the 
 reason why he goes his rounds at Christmas 
 time. In some such fashion we may hope 
 
The Spirit of Christmas i2j 
 
 to preserve the lovely myth — our only living 
 myth — from desecration, and allow it to play 
 its true part in the forming soul of child- 
 hood. 
 
 Those of us who hold close for dear life to 
 the spiritual realities, who must make them 
 living and warm to our consciousness, quickly 
 see the need of all such cherishing of whole- 
 some faiths. Ah, well we remember the year 
 we wore black among the Christmas shop- 
 pers! How intolerably our hearts paineci! 
 Before our blurred eyes the noisy scene would 
 fade and grow silent, giving place to scenes 
 we dared not remember, yet could not forget. 
 If our list had had one more name upon it, 
 how much lighter had been our task ! We 
 stepped from the wintry outside world into 
 a tropical florist's shop and bought violets to 
 set before a little picture on our mantel at 
 home, our throats swelling as we thought that 
 this was the only gift we could offer. Yet, 
 after all, was there ever a time when the 
 shopping went so easily, when the things 
 we wanted came so straight to our 
 
124- Every Day Essays 
 
 hands, when the saleswomen were so atten- 
 tive, and our fellow-buyers so considerate? 
 We saw that, sad as the world might be, it 
 was bursting-full of love and kindness. 
 
 No one knows Christmas as it is who does 
 not get some such glimpse of the hidden and 
 eternal side of it. Dickens has shown us 
 this inimitably, of course, but it needs to be 
 brought to mind because the cheaper and 
 more jovial side of Christmas is thrust at us 
 everywhere; and on this side it seems to be 
 so entirely a day of merrymaking that we, 
 who cannot disburthen our hearts and be 
 boisterous, feel ourselves defrauded. Instead 
 of the deep human sympathy that should be 
 ours we get a sense of self-pity and lose the 
 perception of our higher moments that there 
 is nothing in life half so dignified and beauti- 
 ful as its sorrows. Mere unthinking joy is, 
 after all, as Emerson saw, somewhat given to 
 barbaric yawps. No one knows the lovely 
 outlines of the higher joy except as he sees 
 them for a fleeting instant clear-cut and 
 radiant against a dark background. The 
 
The Spirit of Christmas 12^ 
 
 Christmas these deeper moments show us 
 holds in its depths a memory of the sufferings 
 of the children of Israel and a prophecy of 
 a nobler sorrow to come. 
 
 Reflections like these may visit us in the 
 quieter hours preceding the twenty-fifth, but 
 as the day itself approaches, the opportunities 
 for observing its true character grow fewer. 
 Flurry marks Christmas eve for its own, and 
 we are more likely to be cross than uplifted. 
 The stockings, instead of being hung by the 
 chimney with care, are safety-pinned to a 
 chair-back with an impatient and unsympa- 
 thetic " There! Now get to bed, do! " In 
 the end the excited children may have to be 
 scolded to sleep, and then, after silence falls, 
 how sorry we are ! We must finish dressing 
 Mary's doll — and the stockings must be filled 
 — and we have forgotten the nuts and raisins. 
 Goodness ! Does any one suppose the stores 
 are closed yet? 
 
 We throw on our wraps, and go without 
 our rubbers because we can find only one, 
 and nearly fall down the slippery front stairs 
 
126 Every Day Essays 
 
 in consequence; but we get a whiff of holiday- 
 time that repays us, tired as we are, as we 
 hurry through the wakeful streets. The crisp 
 air sparkles with frost, the arc-lights fizz and 
 sputter, the surface cars clang merrily along 
 their shining tracks. Theatrical posters and 
 illuminated signs grin upon us with insistent 
 jollity. Vanishing electric lights wink ro- 
 bustly at us, as if openly amused at the ex- 
 aggeration of the signs to which they call 
 attention, while others whirl in colored circles 
 above us with an irresponsible gayety. And 
 presently, to our relief, we come upon the 
 great department stores, still lifting their 
 tiers of brilliantly lighted windows into the 
 dark sky like huge conventionalized Christ- 
 mas trees. 
 
 Within, the merchants walk the crowded 
 aisles like suave spiders sHding down the 
 lines of their glittering webs, and looking con- 
 tentedly over the hosts of buzzing, preoccu- 
 pied human flies. They suck the money 
 from our pockets, and then obligingly release 
 us, bending under a load of brown-paper par- 
 
The Spirit of Christmas I2f 
 
 eels, fearful that we have bought the wrong 
 things, staggering with fatigue, but, after all, 
 thoroughly content to be a part of this mad 
 carnival of generosity. 
 
 If we stay up thus till after midnight, tor- 
 mented by all the little devils that delight in 
 a bustle, our fingers all thumbs, and our 
 memories, goaded to an unnatural clearness, 
 telling us all sorts of things we ought to have 
 thought of sooner but didn't, and don't want 
 to think of now; if at last we drop exhausted 
 into bed, afraid to look at the clock, it is hard 
 to put on a holiday face a few hours later and 
 shout, " Merry Christmas " in the dawn. 
 The beloved youngsters for whom we have 
 performed most of this labor hop into our 
 bed, spill pop-corn and nut shells down our 
 backs and insist upon our eating candy before 
 breakfast. Sticky, happy, wriggly, all talking 
 at once at the top of their voices, they are not 
 the most satisfactory bedfellows in the world. 
 The baby gets excited and cries; the pup 
 rushes wildly about and barks, and has to be 
 cuffed for eating up the ginger-bread animals; 
 
 9 
 
128 Every Day Essays 
 
 the father Inquires if any one supposes that 
 this is fun ; and the mother tries to quiet the 
 baby, put out the pup, mate the stockings, 
 fasten buttons, and do her own hair in a 
 fashion fit for church, without losing the good 
 cheer the occasion dem.ands. 
 
 Absorbed as we are in the children, full as 
 our minds have been for weeks of the pres- 
 ents we have been providing for others, now, 
 when we gather around the glorified tree, 
 with its waxen angel swinging on the topmost 
 bough, Its gold and silver fruit straight from 
 fairy-land, its drapery of snowy pop-corn and 
 glittering tinsel, its base lost In a mass of 
 white parcels tied with gay ribbons, we care, 
 at last, for what we are to have ourselves. 
 Memories of past years, when the tree bore 
 such weight of joy for us, creep Into our hearts 
 and fill us with sweet anticipations. We kiss 
 the children a bit absent-mindedly, thanking 
 them for their little hat-pins and stick-pins 
 and kindergarten pen-wipers, but we wonder 
 what the unknown gifts are — we are lured 
 astray by the magic possibilities of the mys- 
 
The Spirit of Christmas i2g 
 
 terious parcels before us. Perhaps at no time 
 during the whole trying year is the secret 
 soul of us so keenly probed for lingering evils 
 as on this day of love. 
 
 We find ourselv^es, for one thing, unexpect- 
 edly lacking in common-sense. For are not 
 the presents we most enjoy just the ones we 
 have not asked for and should never dream of 
 buying? We may be properly thankful in 
 the days to come for the patent coffee-pot or 
 the box of hosiery, but just to-day we do not 
 find it easy to give them quite the spontane- 
 ous welcome which greets the possibly super- 
 fluous but certainly charming presents which 
 meet the hidden wishes of our foolish hearts. 
 A fur boa, for instance, does not seem half 
 so holidaylike as a couple of seats for the 
 theatre, or a big box of chocolates. The fact 
 that it costs a great deal more and will last a 
 great deal longer is just so much dead weight 
 to keep us from bubbling gleefully over it, 
 as we do over the dear gimcracks designed 
 merely for our momentary pleasure. For one 
 thing, the useful present is likely to be so 
 
1^0 Every Day Essays 
 
 very useful that it is bestowed before the holi- 
 days, and then, when the Great Occasion itself 
 arrives, the most conscientious effort fails to 
 make our gratitude effervesce as it ought. 
 Perhaps we might as well admit, cheerfully 
 and at once, that Christmas is the time for 
 superfluities. It is the day for the expression 
 of a love so abounding that it provides more 
 than we need — so full that it overflows in lit- 
 tle laughing joys. Its presents may well be 
 like caresses — unnecessary, unsought-for and 
 disproportionately precious. 
 
 It is afterward, when the children — and 
 ourselves ! — hav^e recovered a little from the 
 greed of getting, that the day takes on its 
 nobler aspect. Perhaps we get the right at- 
 mosphere most surely when we go outside our 
 own little circle and give to the neighbor we 
 are enjoined to love. We may pack a basket 
 with good things for the poor, or carry fruit 
 and flowers to the hospital; but the true 
 heavenly glow comes when we recognize that 
 our neighbor is some one nearer at hand, 
 in need of more discriminating help. It is 
 
The Spirit of Christmas ijr 
 
 easy to give to those destitute poor who have 
 passed through such a furnace of sin and 
 misery and foohshness that they have har- 
 dened back into a primitive condition, and are 
 willing to rejoice over bread they have not 
 earned, to eat, drink, and be merry, whether 
 to-morrow they die or not; but the poor who 
 most need us are nearer our own station, piti- 
 fully hiding their poverty, whether of love or 
 of gold, and standing in need of tact and fine 
 sympathy — of spiritual rather than of ma- 
 terial gifts. We rise into a heavenly light 
 when we minister to them. 
 
 In this light we perceive that the important 
 thing, after all, is that we ourselves should 
 keep the Christmas spirit. The presents we 
 are able to give may be poor and few, and if 
 so, then we are called upon for the richest 
 gift of all — a gift that He whose birthday 
 we keep would not disdain. For to be will- 
 ing, with entire sweetness, to give simple grat- 
 itude and love when we long to give some 
 little dollar's-worth trinket, is to see clearly 
 what things are worth while. To give what 
 
132 Every Day Essays 
 
 we justly may, neither counting nor apologiz- 
 ing for the cost, to receive what comes to us 
 with a similar ignoring, seeing beneath the 
 tinsel disguise the same love that we give in 
 return when we simply say thank you, Is to be- 
 hold, hidden behind the little waxen image in 
 the tree-top, the true great Christmas angel 
 blessing all our gifts. Under such benedic- 
 tion, we cannot fail to give to those who love 
 us the best gift of all — the comfort of seeing 
 us serene and blessed, appreciative of every 
 effort for our happiness, and oblivious of fail- 
 ures and neglects — even of our own. 
 
Aant Catherine's Busy Day. 
 
 When Aunt Catherine, in order to enable 
 her young sister-in-law to attend the annual 
 meeting of the Club, agreed to take charge 
 of Jamie for the day, she felt herself quite 
 competent to the situation. Although her 
 maiden estate naturally left her without much 
 responsible personal contact with children, she 
 was not at all lacking in ideas concerning 
 them. She had seen them in public places, 
 and had her private opinion of the way they 
 behaved. She had several young relatives; 
 and, most enlightening experience of all, she 
 lived in an apartment house wherein a number 
 of children were confined. 
 
 She began operations according to pro- 
 gram. She rose early, and had her work 
 done, and the pudding for luncheon in the 
 oven — a wholesome rice pudding, such as 
 little boys ought to eat, with a sprinkling of 
 133 
 
134- Every Day Essays 
 
 raisins and currants by way of enticement — 
 all before Jamie arrived. 
 
 " Now, my dear," said she, kindly, but 
 firmly, as she took off his wraps, " you and I 
 are going to have a long day together, and, I 
 hope, a pleasant one. I have put the house in 
 good order, and I expect you to help me keep 
 it so. We can enjoy ourselves better in a nice 
 clean house than in one that is all mixed 
 up, can't we? " 
 
 " Donno ! " said Jamie, without enthusi- 
 asm. He was studying his aunt's face. 
 
 " Well, we can. Take my word for it. 
 There are plenty of ways you can play with- 
 out tearing things to pieces." 
 
 " Have you got any little boys and girls? " 
 asked Jamie, a bit wildly. His lips trembled. 
 So did his aunt's heart. Mercy ! Was he go- 
 ing to cry? 
 
 " No, dear, I have no little boys or girls, 
 but I have the finest cat you ever saw. Here, 
 kitty, kitty, kitty! " 
 
 Jamie permitted himself to be consoled, 
 which was fortunate, since just then the elec- 
 
Sc'L' page IJ4 
 
AiDif Catherine's Busy Day ij^ 
 
 trie bell burred in the hallway, and a visitor 
 was shown into the tiny parlor. Aunt Cath- 
 erine, after a glance at the satisfied little boy, 
 seated decorously on the window-seat of the 
 sitting-room, stroking the cat, went back to 
 her guest with an easy mind. They had im- 
 portant matters to discuss. There was a pros- 
 pect of a change of janitors. A new flat 
 building was to be built next door — how 
 much light would it cut off ! Young Mr. 
 Hyson, in B i6, did not get home the other 
 night until after the last hall-boy had locked 
 up and gone home; this was the second time 
 in a month. Every one was so sorry for poor 
 Mrs. Hyson. Occasionally Aunt Catherine's 
 mind turned toward her younger guest, and 
 once she thought she heard the sound of run- 
 ning water. But on the whole she had a 
 pleasant visit, and bade her friend good-bye 
 in calmness of soul. 
 
 " Jamie, dear, did you get tired of wait- 
 ing for auntie? " she inquired in dulcet tones, 
 as she shut the outer door. There was no 
 
136 Every Day Essays 
 
 response ; the sitting-room was empty — where 
 on earth was that boy ? 
 
 She looked in every room in turn. As she 
 passed the bath-room on her way to the kit- 
 chen, a trickle of water creeping under the 
 door caught her eye; at the same moment a 
 splash and a laugh caught her ear. She 
 opened the door. There was Jamie, sitting 
 blissfully astride the head of the tub, push- 
 ing down the paws and tail of the luckless cat 
 as fast as they appeared above the water. 
 
 " Stay down there ! Get a good bath ! " he 
 shouted. " Get your footses clean ! Black 
 footses ! Shame on you ! " 
 
 Aunt Catherine rescued the cat with one 
 hand, and bore Jamie off with the other. She 
 carried the cat by the nape of his neck and 
 Jamie by the nape of his jacket, and deposited 
 them both, dripping, on the kitchen linoleum. 
 She did not trust herself to speak — at best, 
 language seemed inadequate — and she went 
 back to turn off the water, and mop up the 
 bath-room floor. 
 
 " I do hope it won't drip down and spoil 
 
Aunt Catherine's Busy Day /jy 
 
 the ceiling of C 25," she reflected, as she 
 worked in frantic haste. " That woman 
 would report me at once and never let me 
 
 hear the last of it. I wonder what that " 
 
 (she swallowed) " I wonder what Jamie is 
 up to now? " 
 
 She found out soon as she entered the kit- 
 chen, though it took her a moment to get her 
 bearings and discover the cause of the smoke 
 that dimmed her vision and — oh ye gods ! — 
 the smell that smote her nostrils ! Through 
 the reek she saw the coughing cat on the 
 window-sill pressed close against the glass, 
 and the intensely interested face of the little 
 boy bending over the stove. Her skirts 
 swished with the vehemence of her motions 
 as she threw open the window, tossed rubber 
 bands and other foreign objects off the hot 
 stove, and bore away a limp child, hung help- 
 less over her hip. 
 
 For a long period thereafter — it seemed 
 to him ages long — Jamie sat upon his aunt's 
 lap, firmly held in a muscular grip, and lis- 
 tened to her opinion of his conduct and her 
 
ijS Every Day Essays 
 
 prophecies of his future. But at last the im- 
 minence of the luncheon-hour released him. 
 He was led back to the kitchen, firmly held by 
 one hand, and for some minutes dragged from 
 stove to sink and china-closet as Miss Cath- 
 erine's duties called her. But this soon proved 
 too irksome to the elder party — she was not 
 so disciplined to the endurance of arbitrary 
 discomfort as the younger was — and he was 
 placed on a chair near the window and bid 
 to watch the few indestructible English spar- 
 rows that flew about the court-yard. This 
 seemed a safe amusement enough, for the 
 window gave on a fire-escape; so that even 
 if he leaned out too far and fell, the iron bal- 
 cony would catch him. Aunt Catherine, as 
 her wont was, fell to on her work, with a 
 single mind. 
 
 Five minutes later she was sitting in the 
 middle of the kitchen floor, sobbing aloud 
 over the recovered boy. Oh! If he had 
 fallen! If she had been too late, or her 
 trembling grasp had failed ! He seemed to 
 think he could fly as well as any of those 
 
Atmt Catherine's Busy Day 13P 
 
 pesky sparrows — in another second he would 
 have been reduced to flying forever, the poor 
 little chap ! He was only a baby, after all 
 — ^Auntie's baby! Did he want some dinner, 
 and some nice rice pudding with raisins in it? 
 
 He sat on her lap at table, his soft curls 
 bobbing against her stiff shirt-waist. She fed 
 him as if he were six months old, laughed at 
 him, talked streams of nonsense at him, 
 dropped kisses every now and then on the top 
 of his head — behaved just as his mother did. 
 Jamie leaned closer, as if he felt at home. 
 His vigorous young muscles relaxed. 
 
 "Jamie sleepy!" he murmured, with his 
 mouth full. 
 
 " Of course you are, darling! I remember 
 now your mother said you always took a nap 
 after luncheon. Auntie will carry you. Here 
 is a nice cool place, on the sitting-room 
 lounge ; you can watch the gold-fish, swim- 
 ming round and round, until you go to sleep. 
 Auntie will draw the shades — no ? Don't you 
 want It dark? Can't see the fish? Very well, 
 then, dearie; just as you like. Now, auntie 
 
T^d Every Day Essays 
 
 is going to wash up the dinner dishes — she'll 
 be right here in the next room — oh, no! you 
 aren't afraid, such a big boy as you I You 
 can see into the kitchen — I'll leave the door 
 open — you can hear me rattle the dishes — 
 there! don't cry! Does he want his auntie 
 to stay by him? Well, auntie will sit here in 
 the big chair, then, and perhaps she'll take 
 a little bit of a nap herself." 
 
 She didn't expect really to do it, but her 
 morning had been one of such unwonted exer- 
 tions, and, at the last, of such exhausting emo- 
 tions, that she was justly in need of some re- 
 pose. Once she glanced over at the little boy, 
 breathing peacefully, in the utter abandon of 
 trusting childhood, and her heart warmed 
 within her. She let herself drift into dream- 
 land. 
 
 It was no definite sound that aroused her, 
 for Jamie's movements had been wary, but 
 rather a sense of impending trouble, a pre- 
 sentiment that, It occurred to her afterward, 
 must be the chronic state of mind afflicting 
 Jamie's mother. Where was he ? Not on the 
 
'Aunt Catherine's Busy Day /// 
 
 sofa ! Had he gone to the kitchen again, or 
 was he playing with the water — ah ! there he 
 was, at the table. 
 
 " Jamie, dear, come here to auntie. What 
 are you doing — pet! !" She hadn't in- 
 tended the last word to be quite so emphatic, 
 or to speak it in quite such a tone. She leapt 
 toward the fish-bowl, and she hoped she had 
 saved Goldie's life. But the poor creature 
 looked very much squashed and he floated on 
 the top of the water in a most discouraging 
 way. 
 
 Aunt Catherine rose to the occasion. Re- 
 freshed by her nap she did not hesitate to take 
 drastic measures. She bore the boy off to the 
 kitchen, and tied him fast in a chair. 
 
 " Now, young man, we'll see if you get 
 into any more mischief till I have these dishes 
 washed! Aren't you ashamed of yourself 
 killing a poor little gold-fish? " 
 
 "Didn't kill him! Just fished him!" 
 muttered Jamie. His brow was overcast, his 
 jaw underhung. " What are old fishes good 
 
t^2 Every Day Essays 
 
 for, anyhow, if you can't fish 'em? Wouldn't 
 have such a fish ! No good on earth." 
 
 " Tut, tut, tut! " remonstrated Aunt Cath- 
 erine. 
 
 " I won't tut! " said Jamie, still rebellious. 
 Aunt Catherine took time to think. 
 
 " Little boys shouldn't say won't," said she 
 finally. 
 
 " Humph ! I'd like to know what else I'd 
 say ! " protested Jamie. 
 
 Silence. 
 
 " What'd you say, now? " he Inquired, in 
 a tone of awakening interest. 
 
 Aunt Catherine glanced at the clock. 
 Thank Heaven it was verging on four. In 
 another hour or so she would be released; 
 until then she might as well yield to him. 
 It would be a pity to have his memory of the 
 day with her all made up of disagreeables. 
 It wasn't as If there was a principle at stake, 
 She didn't have the daily charge of him; 
 she could afford to relax a little. Thus weak- 
 ly did she parley with a Puritanic conscience, 
 which was, to be sure, a trifle out of training. 
 
Sec page 146 
 
Aiint Catherine's Busy Day i^j 
 
 Into the brief space of the following hour 
 she crowded the varied experiences of several 
 lifetimes. She was first a horse, driven by 
 an exacting rider much given to bouncing and 
 shouting; and next the engineer of a choo- 
 choo train made up of all her parlor and sit- 
 ting-room chairs. In this capacity she rang 
 her silver table-bell till the tongue fell out, 
 while Jamie tooted and puffed in the most 
 lifelike manner. In rapid succession there- 
 after she essayed the parts of a flying birdie, 
 crying peep-peep; an ooh-bear, gutterally 
 growling; an old witch; a fairy, with the 
 poker for a wand; a doctor, prescribing 
 learnedly for a dejected cat wrapped in a 
 shawl and held on the sofa by main force; 
 and an undertaker presiding over the funeral 
 of a dead gold-fish. 
 
 When Jamie's mother arrived, fresh, and 
 daintily dressed, Aunt Catherine was too ex- 
 hausted to feel more than a languid wonder 
 that any one in the world could be so unruf- 
 fled and contented. She looked on while 
 Jamie was mumbled with kisses, and show- 
 
 10 
 
14.4- Every Day Essays 
 
 ered with loving words, the while an unwil- 
 ling and limp little arm was stuffed into a 
 reefer sleeve. Jamie's protests that he didn't 
 want to go home, that it wasn't time yet, and 
 he wanted to play some more with Aunt 
 Catherine, left her cold in spite of the half- 
 envious congratulations of the young mother, 
 who remarked that the boy must have been 
 having the time of his life, and that Aunt 
 Catherine must be a wonder with children. 
 After the departure of her guests. Miss 
 Catherine was too weary to get supper, and 
 after a frugal meal of crackers and cold tea^ 
 she crept early to bed. Even here she failed 
 to rest comfortably, for she dreamed that 
 she had married the lover of her youth and 
 had six Jamies to take care of. She woke in a 
 fright, and looked out into the familiar dark 
 of her little bed-room. She felt its loneliness 
 close on her with a sense of peace, and slept 
 again. 
 
Types of Childhood. 
 
 She is the roly-poly child of the old-fash- 
 ioned story-book — mother's darling, father's 
 pet, and the joy of the household. Like 
 Lorna Doone, her dimpled elbows leave no 
 room for sharp words. Down the middle of 
 her forehead she has a little curl, but although 
 she can, on occasion, be naughty, she is never, 
 by any chance, horrid. Her very mischief is 
 endearing, and she takes to spoiling as a duck 
 takes to water. Her round young body is 
 made for cuddles and kisses, and it is evident 
 that she will never miss them. Her appeal 
 to the maternal and paternal tenderness is so 
 irresistible that through her whole life she Is 
 sure to be mothered by all true women and 
 cherished and protected by all true men. Al- 
 though frankly seeking the sunshine of love, 
 like a little human flower she gives it back 
 145 
 
14.6 Every Day Essays 
 
 again in fragrance, her very breath adding to 
 the sum of sweetness in the world. 
 
 She lavishes herself whole-heartedly upon 
 her doll, forgetting herself in the fond duties 
 of motherhood. If, in loyal imitation of her 
 elders, she finds it incumbent upon her to pun- 
 ish her offspring, the stern frown she musters 
 up must struggle to draw her far eyebrows 
 together. The deep corners of her mouth, 
 little holes full of laughter, draw down in 
 obedience to her will, but jerk back into their 
 accustomed jollity as soon as she forgets to 
 command them. She spanks with a liberal 
 fat hand, humanly enjoying the realistic sound 
 of the slaps; but when the punishment is 
 over, and love free to express itself more nat- 
 urally, she takes her rebellious offspring to her 
 tender heart again. Hear her as she coos 
 and gurgles and comforts, rocking to and fro 
 in an ecstasy of forgiveness. There is solid 
 satisfaction to be had out of a spanking ad- 
 ministered by such a spanker. One can im- 
 agine the chastised one screaming luxuriously 
 during the operation, all the time aware of 
 
Types of Childhood i^^ 
 
 the ice-cream and cakes of comfort sure to 
 follow. 
 
 Unconscious she is as a child, and uncon- 
 scious will she be as a woman, living so en- 
 tirely in the love-world that it is only in the 
 service of love she even thinks. One sees 
 her mother reflected in her every act, and 
 knows that her daughter will in turn reflect 
 her. For how far into the dim reaches of 
 the past does her lineage of sweet-heartedness 
 reach, a mercy enduring forever? 
 
 Behold him, the master of all that is and is 
 not! Undaunted by knickerbockers and half- 
 feminine clothes, he scorns his youth and as- 
 serts his manhood. Though his hair will 
 snarl, and an unsympathetic mother allows it 
 to grow longish, he manages to lessen its 
 weakening charms by a systematic ignoring of 
 brush and comb. His imagination rises su- 
 perior to such trifles as a garterless stocking 
 or an unwashed face. He sees himself an 
 heroic knight, victorious over darkling foes. 
 He rears aloft his triumphant spear with easy 
 
1^8 "Every Day Essays 
 
 strength, although it bears, impaled on high, 
 the struggling form of his victim. His hand 
 rests for a moment on the hilt of his trusty 
 sword. 
 
 To the making of this hacked weapon how 
 many days of very remittent labor went ! For 
 he is not a patient nor a very competent work- 
 man; his nervous body moves jerkily in re- 
 sponse to the constant urging of his tumult- 
 uous will, and his imagination dresses the 
 crudest product of his labor into all he would 
 have it be. 
 
 He has his characteristic list of faults. 
 He is passionate, impetuous, self-willed. He 
 questions the world about him with thumps 
 and thwacks, careless of what he may de- 
 stroy. Like a living interrogation mark, he 
 rears himself inquiringly upon the smallest 
 point of fact, facing eagerly all that has gone 
 before, and putting a full stop to further ad- 
 vance until he is disposed of. He is restless; 
 he demands an exhausting amount of atten- 
 tion; he is quite capable of using up, in an 
 hour, all the powers of amusement and stores 
 
Types of Childhood i^g 
 
 of information contained in a large family of 
 adults; and then peremptorily demanding 
 that he be given something else to do. 
 
 What an example he is of the power of 
 mind over matter — he the helpless one, un- 
 able to tie his own shoes, who nevertheless 
 reproduces the circle of the world's activities 
 in a day ! And at night, when he lies asleep, 
 you perceive, with accusing pangs, what a 
 baby he is, after all, how relaxed and small 
 and appealingly weak. It is borne in upon 
 you that all this splendid vigor depends upon 
 you for permission to be — that without your 
 love and protecting tenderness it cannot main- 
 tain itself. You kiss gently the begrimed 
 little hand that, when the boy is awake, tan- 
 talizingly evades your tenderness; and you 
 fall on your knees, aware of the insufiiciency 
 of your love and patience. 
 
 He is stern justice personified. His chief 
 ambition in life is expressed in the aspiration 
 of a temporarily crushed young person some 
 eight years old, who after a battle in which 
 
j^o Every Day Essays 
 
 his mother had come off victorious, was heard 
 to soliloquize as follows : 
 
 " Well, anyhow, when I grow up I am go- 
 ing to get married and have a lot of children 
 so I can do some bossing myself! " 
 
 He does his " bossing " with all his might. 
 He sets his teeth and uses every muscle in his 
 sturdy body. He feels himself every inch a 
 Napoleon long before he knows who Na- 
 poleon is. He is the terror of his soft-hearted 
 mother, who is restrained in the carrying out 
 of plans of chastisement by scruples of whose 
 existence he knows nothing. He reminds her 
 of all the impulsive threats she would fain 
 forget, and proves to her, at the top of his 
 lungs, that she is ruining the baby. 
 
 One of his sort once had a kicking cow to 
 milk, and devised a complete code of disci- 
 pline for her management. As he explained, 
 he gave her no just cause for such misdirec- 
 tion of her energies, but fed her well, and 
 watered her, and saw that she had things to 
 munch while he milked. He tied her tail 
 up out of harm's way, and placed his stool in 
 
Types of Childhood 151 
 
 exactly the right place when he sat down to 
 milk her. Now, If, after all this, she kicked. 
 It must be for pure cussedness, he contended, 
 and he should deal with it as it deserved. He 
 had a strap at hand, armed with a buckle at 
 one end. If she kicked gently he gave her 
 the unarmed end; if violently, the buckle. 
 One kick earned her one blow, and three 
 kicks three blows, all nicely proportioned. 
 Under this skillful administration of justice 
 he argued a steady improvement, though the 
 barn floor was still frequently sprinkled with 
 milk. He had various reasons for this : once 
 it was because the cow, on a certain day, 
 wished to avenge herself for an oversight of 
 his, and kicked over the milk to spite him. 
 The oversight referred to had been his forget- 
 ting to untie her tail, and, of course, he gen- 
 erously allowed this was Inconvenient for the 
 cow, since she had no hands with which to un- 
 tie It herself. 
 
 Observe, under all this crude young effort 
 at mastery, the fine sense of justice sprouting. 
 Even the cow, he recognizes, has her right to 
 
1^2 Every Day Essays 
 
 resentment when her tail is too long out of 
 commission. The little brother who is wise 
 enough to perceive this virtue in the midst 
 of unpleasantness and to submit meekly to 
 this self-appointed dictator finds himself as- 
 signed certain rather rigid limits within which 
 he may disport himself, these limits being 
 well guarded by the big brother against all 
 intrusion from without. In this case the small 
 boy, after the approved fashion of primitive 
 society, yields his freedom in return for pro- 
 tection; but the brother who rebels knows 
 what it is to struggle with a superior power 
 indeed. 
 
 This little brother, howev^er, has as keen a 
 sense for the joys of rebellion as the big 
 brother for the joys of mastery. Independ- 
 ence is the breath of his being, and he resents 
 being placed under authority, however just or 
 righteously ordained. When his immature 
 sense of things tells him that there is a doubt 
 of the justice and the righteousness of the 
 power placed over against him, then his con- 
 stitutional rebelliousness heightens into fury. 
 
Types of Childhood i^j 
 
 His revolt is amazingly passionate and heed- 
 less of consequences, giving him a momentary 
 strength beyond his years ; when he comes in- 
 to collison with the determined young believer 
 in the divine right of elder brothers, quick- 
 moving household revolutions may be looked 
 for. 
 
 As the elder feels himself a competent 
 giant, battling with obstacles worthy of his 
 strength, so the younger discovers new powers 
 in himself with every tussle. He gets splen- 
 did noises out of his lungs; his legs learn to 
 kick with varied might; his hitherto helpless 
 fists, used chiefly for sucking, know what it 
 is to smack into responsive flesh. He will 
 soon learn to look forward to the day when 
 he will be able to beat his big brother; and 
 thus he acquires the art of hoping — of shed- 
 ding the light of a coming day upon the over- 
 cast present. For him time has begun and he 
 has an object in growing. 
 
 Who has not seen her — the child with her 
 back turned to the world? It is a sturdy lit- 
 
154- Every Day Essays 
 
 tie back in conventional clothes of no especial 
 style, with regulation pigtails straddling down 
 it, and an aspiring knob atop. She does as 
 she is bid about as well as the average child; 
 cries when she is hurt; plays when she can 
 and works when she must — nothing in her 
 daily life is unusual or individual, except, per- 
 haps, this very lack of individuality. She re- 
 sponds to the usual stimuli — praise, blame, 
 reward, punishment, curiosity, and the rest — 
 in the usual way; but all the while there Is 
 a curious elusiveness about her. If she says 
 she is sorry for some misdeed, you want to 
 shake her to make the admission more intense. 
 If an irate interlocutor wants to know what 
 on earth she means by a certain course of 
 conduct, she hangs her head and is dumb ; 
 while the most sympathetic inquiry fails to 
 elicit a more satisfactory response. 
 
 You wonder if there really is any conscious 
 motive back of the commonplace acts; and 
 then, some day, you surprise a look in the 
 clear, shallow eyes — are they shallow? Or 
 perhaps you wish to recall something which 
 
See page JS4 
 
Types of Childhood 155 
 
 evades your utmost effort of memory, and lo ! 
 this inattentive, absent child, who seemed to 
 know nothing of it at the time, finds her 
 tongue and tells it all to you, omitting no 
 finest detail. Or you may come upon her in 
 a fit of inarticulate and apparently causeless 
 weeping, and be amazed at the storm of in- 
 coherent reproaches hurled at you. It is an 
 awakening indeed, but after the violent dem- 
 onstration is over the child retreats again into 
 the gray distance, and shuts the door of her 
 soul upon you. 
 
 If John Fiske is right In his interpretation 
 of the meaning of infancy, what wealth of 
 subtle and complex powers, unfolding tardily 
 because of their very complexity, does not 
 this protracted infancy promise? Rare 
 flowers grow thus in silence and obscurity, 
 their fairest growth often hedged about with 
 thorns, blossoming into glory only after long 
 preparation. Weeds spring up smoothly in 
 a night. 
 
 Ah, well for the child if she grows where 
 she is understood ! — where no mistaken Pur- 
 
1^6 Every Day Essays 
 
 itanism forces her to a premature and abnor- 
 mal conscientiousness; where no tormenting 
 anxiety insists upon scanning the hidden 
 processes of her being; where no vulgar emu- 
 lation strives to force her into competition 
 with mediocrity! Like a sleeping baby, she 
 needs silence, and dimness, and a watchful 
 but undisturbing tenderness. Well for her 
 if sweet lullabies, vague and rhythmical, haunt 
 her long sleep, and if when she at last awakes 
 she looks with wonder into eyes full of quiet 
 welcome. A Sleeping Beauty indeed, all her 
 world asleep about her, Nature alone at work 
 in the luxuriance of unchecked growth, who 
 shall be the happy Prince who breaks through 
 the encompassing wilderness, knows her for 
 the Princess, and wakes her with the kiss of 
 understanding love ? 
 
 THE END. 
 
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