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MUSINGS 
 
 OF 
 
 A MIDDLE-AGED WOMAN. 
 
 ^j 
 
Musings 
 
 or A 
 
 Middle-aged "Woman. 
 
 BY 
 
 A I L E N R O C.c V» ^*>>-i i 
 
 At thirty, man suspects himself a fool ; 
 Knows it at forty, and reforms his plan." 
 
 Young. 
 
 
 philadelphia: 
 
 CLAXTON, REMSEN & HAFFELFINGER, 
 
 Nos. 819 & 821 Market Street. 
 
 1872. 
 
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 Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1871, by 
 
 CLAXTON, REMSEN & HAFFELFINGER, 
 
 in the Ofnce of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 
 
 STEREOTYPED BY J. FAGAN & SON, PHILADELPHIA. 
 
 PRJNTEn BY MOORE BHOTUERS, 
 
 Franklin Buildings, Sixth St., below Arch, 
 Philadtlpbia- 
 
T FORMERLY held that, if one had anything to 
 "*" say, it could be as well said in social converse 
 as any other way. That belief is now a vanished 
 illusion, — vanished with my youth. I have found 
 out that other people have something to say, too ; 
 and when I am putting forth my most brilliant ideas, 
 most telling sarcasms, and convincing arguments, 
 they are not listening at all (or only with one ear), 
 but are thinking all the time what they shall say 
 when I get through. You know, reader, that one 
 never gets credit for brains, simply because one has 
 listened well; but if one is well read, why, that 
 immediately gives one a place among the literati ; 
 
X PREFACE, 
 
 and that, knowing this, many people will read who 
 will not listen. *' Therefore," having for more 
 than forty years tried in vain to be well listened 
 to, I now make an effort to be well read — trusting 
 for success and approval in my undertaking. 
 
 AlLENROC. 
 
MUSINGS 
 
 OF A 
 
 MIDDLE-AGED WOMAN. 
 
 MIDDLE LIFE. 
 
 " Manhood and womanhood with their dower of noble work, 
 and strength to do it." — Mrs. Charles. 
 
 ES, I am middle-aged — on the "wrong 
 side of forty " — with streaks of gray- 
 hair, and here and there a wrinkle. 
 Was brought to look this fact in the face 
 by a remark of a young friend of mine, a few 
 days ago, when urging her not to care what 
 " Mother Grundy " said on a certain occasion. 
 " Well," answered she, " middle-aged ladies, 
 like you, can do as they like; but it would 
 never answer for young girls to be so inde- 
 2 13 
 
14 MUSINGS OF A 
 
 pendent." I quietly assented, and she did not, 
 for an instant, suspect that she had reminded 
 me of a fact which I only remembered when 
 my birthdays came 'round, or when my pres- 
 ent indifference to what " people say," so con- 
 trasts itself with my girlish fear of censure, as 
 to tell me that I have arrived at the indepe7ide7it 
 age. Ah! if it were only independence — but, 
 alas! alas! for middle age — how much is 
 gone — how much fled before we get there! 
 Before we achieve our independence ! 
 
 It seems to me that, like republics, we only 
 gain self-reliance, knowledge, independence, 
 strength, through shattered hopes, strife, heart 
 losses, graves, and those added years which 
 take away the simplicity of our youth. Like 
 republics, did I say ? Aye, look at our own 
 land — this great America! The most glorious 
 and Christian republic the world ever saw ! 
 Her youth was weak and boastful — she was an 
 awkward, rough school-girl, yet simple, hon- 
 est, innocent — full of high hopes and great 
 aims; but she has reached middle age, and 
 
MIDDLE-AGED WOMAN. 1$ 
 
 is a great country, and strong (I admit), in 
 full noontide brilliance — rivalling the old mon- 
 archies in their fights, their fashions, and their 
 follies ! Has she lost nothing to gain it all ? 
 
 And you, men and women, sisters and 
 brothers ! all who are in the noontide of your 
 strength ; who have achieved independence of 
 thought and action ! What have you lost ? — 
 Nay, I see it in the faces of even the happiest 
 among you. In yours, successful man — suc- 
 cessful in business, in love, in fame. I have 
 seen you stop, and look with longing eye at 
 the boys flying their kites ; or at the youngster 
 coming home from school, with his satchel of 
 books ; and I knew (though you only appeared 
 to wipe your nose) that you gave a tear to 
 school-day pleasures and friendships, and the 
 zest which sweetened all. 
 
 I knew, if your little daughter sang "Ben 
 Bolt" for you that night, you would ask her 
 why she never sang it before — ask if it were 
 not a new song, and feel that the last verse was 
 not as true as the others, for 
 
l6 MUSINGS OF A 
 
 " There ' was ' a change in you." 
 
 And you, successful beauty — you fortunate 
 woman; who married well and the man of 
 your own choice — you, who have love and 
 give it, and are proud of your children who do 
 you credit, — have you lost nothing in all these 
 years ? When you get with the friends of your 
 girlhood (those who are left), do you talk of 
 your husband and children ? — of the present 
 at all ? Perhaps you mention with pride and 
 thankfulness your many blessings ; but it is of 
 past days that you, that they all talk most. 
 You talk of the time when the world was all 
 before you ; and voices grow low and eyes fill 
 as you speak of the dead — the changed. And 
 when some one recalls old day-dreams, and the 
 girlish simplicity which believed that a '' Thad- 
 deus of Warsaw," or a " Coelebs," was a certain 
 reward of beauty and propriety — a smile, with 
 a regret in it, goes around. 
 
 Aye! vanished illusions! vanished illusions! 
 To middle age, men are but men, and women 
 but women — not gods and goddesses; and 
 
MIDDLE-AGED WOMAN. 1/ 
 
 rare it is to find a person who, after forty, be- 
 lieves in the perfection of any human being. 
 The truth is, that after that age we are all prac- 
 tical believers in the " total depravity " of the 
 opposite sex, at any rate; and it scarcely needs 
 marriage even, to convert us. This change 
 comes to all ; the most fortunate, the happiest, 
 the best. But, friends, what of those others, 
 by far the most numerous, with wrecked for= 
 tunes, shattered hopes, and broken hearts? 
 Ask them ? Ask that woman sitting alone — 
 thinking, thinking ! 
 
 You and I remember her as a bright girl, full 
 of noble impulses — with strong hopes, poetic 
 fancies, and great aims ; and she has, perhaps, 
 realized her early promise, and become famous. 
 Yet, ask her! and she will answer with a smile, 
 which is sadder than a sigh, " You see 
 
 A worn and weary woman, 
 With all her illusions flown." 
 
 She is a strong woman now; not easily de- 
 ceived ; calm, cool, practical — expects not 
 
l8 MUSINGS OF A 
 
 much, trusts little. Perhaps she writes and 
 says sharp things, which are not always Chris- 
 tian and gentle; and the world calls her reck- 
 less and unwomanly. "Judge not:" you know 
 not what wrongs — what heart-breaks have 
 changed her so. Believe me, there is a story 
 back of it. Indeed, most men and women at 
 forty have their story, either of disappointed 
 love or ambition ; or heart and home made 
 desolate by some great crime or wrong; and 
 they scarcely know themselves how it has 
 changed them. But God be thanked that the 
 change sometimes is for the better; and that 
 when it is not, He brings " good out of evil ; " 
 and that those great, fiery, impulsive intellects, 
 which time and trial have hardened and sharp- 
 ened instead of softening (from Dean Swift down 
 to Ward Beecher), have done some good in the 
 world — have found a place, and amidst all 
 their rough witticisms, and queer theology, 
 have told many home truths, which men of 
 finer mould would have left unsaid, and which 
 the world needed to have said. 
 
MIDDLE-AGED WOMAN. I9 
 
 I am not, reader, seeking to excuse those 
 men or women who let the dealings of Provi- 
 dence, and the world's rougher usage, drive 
 them into shipwreck of their faith, and to a 
 " higher law " than Revelation ; or to forgetting 
 that true type of manliness and womanliness 
 drawn by the "pen of inspiration." But I 
 would say, pity and forgive them. You know 
 not what aching heads and hollow hearts may 
 first have been theirs. You, who are hedged 
 about with sympathy and love — you, who have 
 never had anything harder to bear than the 
 death of loved ones, pity those who have living 
 troubles ; and if it change them for the worse, 
 thank God, who has spared you. 
 
 Then, too, there are those who — starting out 
 on life's voyage, with sails all spread, and the 
 calm sea around rippling in the sunshine, un- 
 warned, and uncounselled — rush into quick- 
 sands, or on a hidden rock ; and out of the 
 wreck lift a voice to prevent younger mariners 
 from losing their all in the same venture. If 
 they cry loudly, and use strong terms, instead 
 
20 MUSINGS OF A 
 
 of blaming, let us rather thank them for their 
 generous efforts in others' behalf; remembering 
 that those who have suffered most from a 
 wrong, feel it most keenly ; and that all re- 
 formers, or would-be reformers (from Martin 
 Luther down), have gone to extremes, and that 
 there can be no reform without it. 
 
 But I said that sometimes the change is for 
 the better ; and so it is, and so it might always 
 be, if we men and women would only follow 
 the course of nature, and, like our own forests, 
 be rocked by wind and storm into strength and 
 beauty, as we reach our maturity. 
 
 Oh ! I have seen it, and so have you all ; 
 seen strong men, and gentle women, whose 
 sufferings, trials, and temptations have only 
 served to make them stronger and gentler ; to 
 make them sympathizers with every sufferer, 
 comforters to every mourner — increasing their 
 love and charity for their fellow-men; and their 
 faith in their God. 
 
 Yes, we have hope for middle life, as well as 
 consolation. Have we failed in our life-work, 
 
MIDDLE-AGED WOMAN. 21 
 
 you and I ? Ah ! how much we meant to do 
 for our race — our age. Yet, alas ! how little 
 we have done! How we have failed! — 
 
 " Fail ! yet rejoice, because no less 
 The failure that makes thy distress 
 May teach another full success." 
 
 Could we only see it so — only feel that our 
 failure is a brighter beacon than our success — 
 that our burning house will guide the wanderer 
 better than any little rushlight we might have 
 set in the windows of that house. 
 
 Then, too, it is not always failure. Is our 
 trial, as a nation, for self-government a failure, 
 because England has " stuck her finger in our 
 pie," till she roused all the bad blood both 
 sides of "Mason and Dixon's line;", and the 
 North, putting a chip on her shoulder, dared 
 the South to knock it off; and the South being 
 of stuff which would not be dared, they came 
 to blows, and spilt some of the best blood of 
 our land, and wrecked fortunes, and broke 
 hearts ? Because all this happened, is our 
 nationality a failure? And I answer — no! a 
 
22 MUSINGS OF A 
 
 thousand times no ! Are we any weaker in 
 sixty-nine than in sixty-one ? 
 
 Dare either of the great powers of Europe 
 lay a finger on our flag? — or even on our sores 
 to pity us? No, no; we are "Young. America" 
 no longer. We have fought our way to man- 
 hood — to middle age; can deal a man's blow, 
 endure with a man's calmness; and, with a 
 man's patience and perseverance, gather up the 
 broken links which bound brother to brother; 
 and out of the wrecked fortunes, spilt blood, 
 and broken hearts forge a chain of forgiveness, 
 sympathy, and love which shall bind us for- 
 ever. 
 
 And shall men and women talk of failure, 
 because they have reached their zenith ? be- 
 cause their soap-bubbles have burst? because 
 their castles-in-the-air are demolished? because 
 their illusions have given place to realities — their 
 poetry to prose? Shall they call it failure that 
 their life-work is not accomplished, when they 
 are stronger, wiser, and more capable than ever 
 before ? Oh, friends ! you have been preparing 
 
MIDDLE- AGED WOMAN. 2$ 
 
 for the battle all these years of discipline and 
 trial, do not shrink from it now. 
 
 But some, I know, are fettered, hindered on 
 every side, and feel their lives frittering away 
 in daily cares. Yes, some there are, both men 
 and women, (for I utter not the popular cry of 
 men's larger field,) many of both sexes, be it 
 whose fault it may, striving to eke out a living 
 for loved ones. The father, husband, or brother 
 spending brain and energies, which might have 
 ruled a nation well, upon the petty details 
 of some business which leaves no room, nor 
 time, nor strength for intellectual growth, nor 
 the advancement of his age, nor the improve- 
 ment of his kind. The wife, mother, or sister, 
 bearing her part in care for the family ; in do- 
 mestic retrenchment; in a prevention of house- 
 hold waste, which irritates the temper, and 
 wears away the spirit of a high-strung, intel- 
 lectual woman, and causes her to cry out: ''Is 
 this all? Is this the end of my youthful hopes 
 and aims? — this trying to make a pound of 
 butter last longer than it used to ? Oh, life ! 
 
24 MUSINGS OF A 
 
 life ! Is this all ? Is this all that middle age 
 brings us ? " And I answer, No, this is not all ; 
 yet will not be one of "Job's comforters," and 
 tell you, if it is all, you deserve it, and should 
 be thankful for what you have left. I will not 
 insult either your understanding or your Chris- 
 tianity, by supposing that you do not know 
 that " No man deserveth anything at the hand 
 of the Lord." Besides, how know I, or any 
 other man, that your sufferings, whether mental 
 or physical, are not all sent, like Job's, because 
 you are especially near and dear to the heart 
 of " Our Father." But I do know that even in 
 this life '* The Lord blessed the latter end of 
 Job better than the beginning." Aye, there is 
 more meaning than we usually give to it, in the 
 old proverb, "Where there is life there is hope." 
 Think you, it originally meant only physical 
 life, mere existence? I trow not. My mean- 
 ing is — of life in its fullest sense — Energy^ 
 Trust, and Faith. Faith in God, faith in man, 
 and faith in your own right arm upheld by an 
 Almighty one. Pray foi success in the lifting 
 of the burden ; then watch for its removal. 
 
MIDDLE-AGED WOMAN. 2$ 
 
 Ah, middle age ! you have lost one thing 
 with your youth, which you may regain if you 
 will. It is the simplicity of prayer which you 
 had when at your mother's knee, for a new 
 toy, or that God would take away the naughty 
 toothache, or that He would not let the dark 
 hurt you. Does it not all come back to you 
 now how, with simple faith, you watched for 
 the answer? How the new top (perhaps weeks 
 after), and the remedy which allayed the pain, 
 came to you as direct answers to prayer? And 
 how, though the dark was still a terror, it 
 could not hurt you, because you had asked 
 God, *' for Christ's sake," not to let it. Verily, 
 we must every one " become as little children," 
 not alone to inherit heaven, but to gain earth, 
 too. "Only believe." 
 
 But to all in middle life, both the fortunate 
 and the unfortunate, there comes also consola- 
 tion. If we have fewer hopes ; more graves to 
 tend; fewer living left to love; more battles to 
 fight; and more storms to breast — at least all 
 the burdens we have borne ; the pains we have 
 3 
 
-26 MUSINGS. 
 
 suffered; and the storms passed through, are 
 over, are ended — they cdin never come again. 
 If so much joy and hope have gone from our 
 lives, just so much sorrow and suffering have 
 gone too. 
 
 " One cross the less remains for me to bear, 
 Already borne is that of yesterday." 
 
 Half our life gone. Half our earthly joy and 
 hope — and, blessed be God, half our sorrows, 
 half our pains. Already the cross is lighter; 
 the home, yonder, is nearer. 
 
 " I 'm nearer my home to-day 
 Than I ever was before ; — 
 Nearer the bound of life, 
 Where we lay our burdens down. 
 Nearer leaving my cross, 
 Nearer wearing my crown." 
 
AM I AN OYSTER? 
 
 What 's done, we partly may compute, 
 But know not what 's resisted." — Burns. 
 
 DO not ask for information, but only 
 in indignant remonstrance at being 
 treated as one. I, a respectable, mid- 
 dle-aged woman, to be taken for an oyster ! 
 
 If it had been a monkey, I should quietly 
 have submitted to "inevitable destiny," for 
 Darwin says that we were all originally 
 monkeys ; and of course Darwin knows. Was 
 he not by? Did he not see the transformation, 
 and know all about the world and its inhabi- 
 tants centuries before their recorded creation ? 
 I am open to conviction on the subject of 
 monkeys; for, by frequent association with apes, 
 and the tendency human nature has for aping 
 
 27 
 
28 MUSINGS OF A 
 
 those it comes in contact with, who knows but 
 I might have dwindled back to my original 
 condition. Besides, monkeys certainly do be- 
 long to the highest order of brute creation. 
 They have instincts, character, individuality, 
 and enough of human nature to cause them to 
 delight in tormenting their neighbors, and 
 meddling in their business. In truth, they have 
 so many qualities belonging to mankind, that 
 to have been taken for one would not have 
 been quite so much of an insult, especially as 
 I have made the mistake several times myself 
 with regard to some of my acquaintances. To 
 be taken for a ino7ikey is bad enough, to be sure, 
 but — an oyster! 
 
 If it had been a cat even, it would have been 
 better; for pussy has means of self-defence, 
 powers of locomotion, and is possessed of 
 affections and antipathies. If you treat her 
 well, feed her, and give her a nice place on the 
 hearth-rug, she will purr, rub herself against 
 you to show her delight, keep your closets free 
 from mice, and otherwise prove herself a pleas- 
 ant inmate of your family. 
 
MIDDLE-AGED WOMAN. 29 
 
 But starve her, kick her off the rug, and rub 
 her fur the wrong way, and then see ! see how 
 she will spit, and show her claws and teeth 
 when you come near her. Now, I have so 
 much sympathy with pussy when she is driven 
 from the fire, and her fur rubbed the wrong way, 
 that I must have claws somewhere concealed, 
 which would make their appearance under 
 similar circumstances. 
 
 But I have no affinity, no sympathy with an 
 oyster; — lying still, shut up in its shell, doing 
 nothing but imbibing. So little of the animal 
 about it, that, when once ordered by my physi- 
 cian to take no other animal food, I felt as if 
 put on vegetable diet — and told him so. 
 
 Then, these creatures have no means of self- 
 defence ; or at least do not use them. When 
 " cook " takes hold of them, and, in an insulting 
 manner, pitches them into a basket preparatory 
 to roasting, why don't they open those big 
 mouths of theirs, and give her finger a bite she 
 would remember? — I should. And when she 
 puts them, alive, on broiling hot coals, why 
 3* 
 
30 MUSINGS OF A 
 
 don't they make a fuss, and jump off? — you 
 would, and I would, and most anything else 
 with animal life would; but not they. There 
 they lie and bear it, till the fire proves too 
 much for their vitality ; then, in a very decent 
 way, open their mouths at last, and with dying 
 gasp say, " You have done for me ; had you not 
 better, for your own sake, take me off." 
 
 I leave it to an "enlightened public;" am I 
 an oyster ? An oyster, indeed ! Let anybody 
 try it, and see if they have not taken hold of 
 an electric eel instead ! And they did try it — 
 have been trying it for some time — everybody; 
 "all the world, and the rest of mankind." 
 
 I may as well tell you the whole story; not 
 to get any sympathy, since you, like the rest, 
 will take me for an oyster ! I feel sure you will 
 — it is the fashion to do so. Still, I always 
 feel better when I relieve my mind ; and this 
 being one of the subjects upon which I tried, 
 vainly, to be well -listened to, shall make an 
 effort at being well-read. 
 
 Was a little dyspeptic, from desperate efforts 
 
MIDDLE-AGED WOMAN. 3I 
 
 to digest late dinners, and the " Negro Suffrage 
 Bill." Then, from reading so much about 
 " Reconstruction," " Tenure of Office," and 
 "horrible murders," (meanwhile being much 
 alone, and having no one to whom to express 
 my opinion,) became a highly-charged electric 
 battery. Physician sent for; and the case 
 stated by ''anxious friends" to be — exhaustion 
 from over-exertion. Exhaustion ! reader, I 
 would have given worlds to have gotten a 
 chance to exhaust my poor, bursting brain ; 
 but, being too sick to assert my rights just 
 then, held my tongue, while the doctor pre- 
 scribed, " Lie still, and do nothing." Of 
 course, like any reasonable being, I took the 
 prescription, with limitations ; supposing it 
 meant nothing which could be called work — 
 nothing to tire one; such as cleaning house, 
 making a shirt, walking a mile, writing a book, 
 or, reading one like — 
 
 Not being an oyster, I did not take it literally. 
 Did not for an instant imagine that it meant 
 to lie perfectly still, shut up in my shell — 
 
32 MUSINGS OF A 
 
 neither speaking, nor reading, nor thinking, 
 nor using my hands nor feet, not even ex- 
 pressing my opinion when imposed upon. 
 
 You may, therefore, imagine my surprise 
 when, upon taking up an amusing book for an 
 hour, or darning a pair of stockings, or talking 
 a httle, I was met with such remonstrances as 
 the following : ** Oh ! it will hurt your head to 
 read; let me read to you." I hid the book 
 under the bed-clothes, and held it tight; it 
 would have finished my head entirely to be 
 " read to." Or, " You must not sew, or talk ; 
 the doctor said you must be perfectly quiet ; let 
 me do the talking." The person in question 
 was fond of doing the talking. 
 
 I am naturally patient — at least, have great 
 powers of endurance, which I take to be the 
 same thing — so bore all this uncomplainingly, 
 trying every day to do more of "nothing" than 
 I did the day before. But fortunately, or un- 
 fortunately, just which you choose, I had read 
 the "Declaration of Independence;" and, if I 
 had not, should have known that " there is a 
 
MIDDLE-AGED WOMAN. 33 
 
 point beyond which patience ceases to be a 
 virtue." Accordingly, when put on broiling 
 coals, that is — when the dust was swept in 
 my eyes, instead of out of the door; my bed 
 knocked, and doors slammed by an awkward 
 chambermaid; and cakes sent me by my cook 
 which would make good shoe leather, — I got 
 angry. I had both nerves and dyspepsia, and 
 ^-was not an oyster! How could I help it? 
 I did n't try. I ordered the cakes down-stairs 
 and the chambermaid out of the room; and 
 when told at this crisis that " the doctor said I 
 must not get excited," asserted my rights, and 
 exclaimed, " I don't care what the doctor says ; 
 besides he does not know the truth." The little 
 girl's definition of the ninth commandment was, 
 ** When nobody did nothing, and somebody 
 went and told of it." That is just what you 
 have been doing; you have been "bearing false 
 witness against your neighbor." You shall not 
 call me impatient and irritable, just because I 
 will not be treated like an oyster. I am not 
 one ; and will not submit to mere existence in 
 
34 
 
 MUSINGS. 
 
 a shell ! to be put on broiling coals, and say- 
 nothing ! Call me a cat! an eel! a monkey! a 
 Bengal tiger! or even a locomotive! but — not 
 an oyster! 
 
 V 
 
SNOW. 
 
 " The snow fell fast and thick. He . . . thought that those 
 white ashes strewn upon his hopes and misery were suited 
 to them well." — DiCKENS, 
 
 |HE lamps are not yet lit. The boys 
 are making merry with their snowballs 
 and their sleds ; the people are hurry- 
 ing by; and the housemaid opposite is pretend- 
 ing to close the parlor-shutters early, to keep 
 out the snow, but, meanwhile, carrying on a 
 flirtation with the neighboring coachman. I 
 lay down my work, and sit and watch it all 
 through the gloaming — the boys, the passers- 
 by, the girl and her lover; and, as the snow 
 falls faster and faster, and the children shout 
 louder and merrier, there comes to me the 
 memory of "the long ago." I forget ''the 
 
 35 
 
36 MUSINGS OF A 
 
 weary, relentless years " which have passed, 
 and am a child again. A child in the old home 
 far away, peering out, through the chintz cur- 
 tains, at the snow falling as this does now. 
 
 Ah ! how the whole scene comes back, of 
 that family room. The wood-fire, crackling 
 and sending forth a bright glow, lights up the 
 home scene. The two boys in the corner 
 playing ninepins; the tea-table waiting for 
 my father's coming; my mother sitting by the 
 fire, with her baby in her arms, listening to 
 " our eldest," who, in the next room, with the 
 door slightly ajar, is playing what we children 
 call her twilight music. A girl a little older 
 than myself, and a boy a little younger, join 
 me at the window, and we talk in subdued 
 tones, for we know that this is our mother's 
 hour for rest. We discuss plans for the mor- 
 row. If the snow be deep, talk of building 
 snow forts, with the help of the other brothers. 
 There are to be two of these forts, a lady in 
 each, protected by several knights, — she to 
 make balls for her defenders. And " how we 
 
MIDDLE-AGED WOMAN. 37 
 
 love the snow, and hope that there will be a 
 great deal." But I do not like to tell the 
 others of the thoughts which had eome to me, 
 (as I stood there alone,) of the poor little 
 children who had no warm mittens like mine ; 
 and of my little friend who had died the 
 winter before, and was buried under the snow. 
 I throw off these graver thoughts, shake back 
 my curls, and join with zest in the anticipation 
 of to-morrow's sport; meanwhile snuggling 
 closely to my little brother, who, putting his 
 arm around my neck, says, **I choose you, 
 curly-head, for my lady." Then, as the other 
 sister, looking up, remarks, reproachfully, 
 
 "J , you always choose her;" he answers, 
 
 with his rare and knightly smile, " Well, it is 
 because she is the weakest, and I the strongest 
 of us all." 
 
 Oh, little knight! true knight! it was not 
 long that " the weakest of us all " had your 
 strong arm and chivalrous heart to protect her 
 from life's snows. Ah, me ! ah, me ! I re- 
 member a time, not many years after, when 
 
38 MUSINGS OF A 
 
 that arm was palsied, and that heart cold in the 
 death struggle. And the snow beat against the 
 window, and — on his grave — and, oh! bro- 
 ther ! brother ! though you went from us rest- 
 ing on a stronger Arm than your own, it was 
 long, very long, before I could feel you were 
 above the snows, and bathing in the sunshine. 
 But 
 
 .... "forgotten things 
 Stumble back strangely:" .... 
 
 the old home, my child-life, and that winter's 
 eve, haunt me still. I hear my sister's song ; 
 then footsteps in the hall. I rush for my 
 evening kiss ; I feel my father's hand upon my 
 head, and hear ** little daughter " in tones I 
 shall never hear again till I reach that home, 
 where he waits to welcome inc. I turn to say 
 "father," and no father is there. Instead of 
 " our eldest's " song, I hear the snow beating 
 against the window. 
 
 It has all vanished ! — the bright fire, the old 
 home, the loved ones. The curly-headed child 
 is a middle-aged woman now, with none of the 
 
MIDDLE-AGED WOMAN. 39 
 
 home faces around her — only portraits on the 
 wall, and graves covered by the snow, and a 
 memory of the past. I turn from the window 
 sadly, shiveringly ; and, drawing my chair to 
 the register, say, '' Snow, I do not love you ! 
 You are cold, cruel, unsympathizing ! What 
 care you for my loss, for my loneliness, for my 
 parted ones ? What care you for my dead, as 
 you beat pitilessly upon their graves, hiding 
 the verdure, which spoke of their resurrection? 
 No, no ; you speak of death : I do not love you! 
 And not alone of death, O snow, do you 
 speak, but of estrangements, too. You come 
 down, noiselessly at first, from we scarcely 
 know where. There is no darkness to herald 
 your approach — no storm-cloud, like good, 
 honest rain ; only a thin veil which hides the 
 sun, which grows thicker and thicker, till it 
 shuts out all that is bright and beautiful in 
 nature." And so with estrangements. At first 
 a thin veil ; we scarcely know where it is from 
 or what it is. 
 
 " Only a shadow 'twixt my friend and me," 
 
40 ■ MUSINGS OF A 
 
 But a coldness like snow comes ; and the 
 shadow deepens, thickens, till all brightness 
 and beauty are shut out from our life. Our 
 hearts grow cold, and we learn to thank God 
 for the loved ones covered by the snow here^ 
 and basking in the sunshine yoitder. Oh ! they 
 are nearer than the living. 
 
 " Space may keep friends apart ; 
 Death has a mighty thrall ; 
 There is another gulf 
 
 Harder to cross than all." 
 
 And how we long for the Sun to melt these 
 snows ; to dissipate these shadows ; to warm 
 these frozen hearts, and give us back in another 
 and a better life the beauty and brightness the 
 shadows have hidden in this. 
 
 The snow is coming down furiously now. 
 The lamp in front of our house is just being 
 lighted, and I, getting up, return to the window, 
 and by its light watch the passers-by. There 
 goes a newsboy, crying the evening paper. 
 Look how cruelly the snow beats down upon 
 him, finding its way into his little neck, and in 
 
MIDDLE-AGED WOMAN. 4I 
 
 that hole in his trousers. See how he fights with 
 it, and knocks it off; then calls "third e-di-tion," 
 then blows his poor little purple fingers ! Is 
 the snow beautiful ? Poor little newsboy ! you 
 do not see any beauty in it. 
 
 Nor does that woman with the thin face, and 
 thinner shawl, as she hurries to a fireless 
 home, — to a home where poverty cannot stop 
 the cracks, nor mend the roof and windows to 
 keep out the snow. 
 
 " God help the poor when it snows ! " Now 
 comes a man with an unmistakable something 
 about him ; the quick glance, the manner in 
 which he turns up his coat-collar, and the firm, 
 short, though tired step, all proclaiming him a 
 business-man, and not a prosperous one, either. 
 He has not the air of a man whose coachman 
 has neglected coming for him; nor of one who 
 has missed a car. His whole bearing is that of 
 a person accustomed to endurance; and we 
 know by the way he braces himself against the 
 storm, that he has a long walk before him, and 
 no extra pennies to spend in riding. He is 
 4^ 
 
42 MUSINGS OF A 
 
 evidently a brave man, perhaps a Christian ; 
 but he is tired and worn, and walks along with 
 that sullen air which seems to say, " Of course 
 it snows ; and the pavement must be cleaned, 
 and paid for ; and the boys will spoil their new 
 boots running in the snow." Does he love the 
 snow, think you? Or does that seamstress 
 yonder, going home tired from her work, with 
 just strength enough to get there, without 
 meeting any obstacles on the way ? No, no ; 
 nor do I either. I may draw my shawl ever so 
 closely about me, and close the blinds to keep 
 out the snow ; but I cannot shut from me the 
 thought of the tired, the homeless, and the 
 poor, out in the pitiless storm. 
 
 And yet the poet talks of the " beautiful 
 snow !'' Beautiful! So is death, if it be calm, 
 and peaceful, and natural ; or — so it looks to 
 us. But let it come in fury, or battle, or mur- 
 der, or pestilence, or by some terrible railroad 
 or steamboat accident, — the recital of which 
 causes the strongest nerves to thrill, — and then, 
 is death beautiful ? Has violence any beauty ? 
 
MIDDLE-AGED WOMAN. 43 
 
 Oh, no ! and snow, you are only beautiful, or 
 appear to be, when you come down quietly, in 
 great starry flakes, falling gently, gently. 
 
 I had a letter lately from a young physician 
 living up among the northern lakes. He writes : 
 " It has snowed forty demons for two days and 
 two nights ; and still it comes. The roads are 
 blocked up, and I can only get to my patients 
 on snow-shoes ; and the light of day is entirely 
 excluded, from even our second story, by great 
 snow-drifts. Thank God that we have plenty 
 in the house to eat ; and may He take pity on 
 those who have not, for no human power can 
 reach them now." Is such snow beautiful ? 
 Do you love it? I do not. I accept it as a 
 necessary evil, just as I do all of God's myste- 
 rious dispensations ; but I don't love it, even 
 though it be "the poor man's manure." Ma- 
 nure has its uses, to be sure ; yet is there any- 
 thing particularly lovely or lovable in it, 
 though it does make things grow ? Trial and 
 discipline develop us, and make us grow (spi- 
 ritually); still, we are not very fond of them; 
 
44 MUSINGS OF A 
 
 nor does God expect or wish us to be ; only to 
 bear them with patience and resignation. And 
 so with snow : I try to be resigned to it, espe- 
 cially as my lot is cast in regions where it is 
 likely to snow several months during the 
 year ; yet, if ever I break the tenth command- 
 ment, it is in envying those who live under 
 Southern skies, and scarcely ever see it. 
 
 Yes, the love of snow is a vanished illusion ! 
 and scarcely of my youth — it vanished with 
 my childhood. Even sleigh-riding had no 
 charm for me after I grew older ; and I never 
 could understand the charm it had for others. 
 
 There has been a great deal of "twaddle" 
 written, and a great number of stories founded, 
 '^ on the fact'' of sleigh-riding being conducive 
 to explanations between lovers. I don't be- 
 lieve it is — not true love. It may encourage 
 flirtations; but how should the ringing of bells, 
 and the most desperate attempts to keep one's 
 feet, hands, and nose warm, be the time for a 
 declaration of love; or even for drawing hearts 
 closer together? There may be fun, frolic, 
 
MIDDLE-AGED WOMAN. 45 
 
 gayety, in sleigh-riding; but no sentiment, 
 poetry, nor real happiness. Give me balmy air; 
 give me trees, flowers, soft showers, verdure ; 
 the shadows on the mountains and in the val- 
 leys ; give me the grain fields and the reapers ; 
 the singing of birds and the glorious sunshine, 
 — all of which speak of life, poetry, and love. 
 Yes, give me sunshine. Let me die in spring- 
 time, when all nature bursts the bands of death, 
 that I may think of my springing into eternal 
 life ; but not in winter, when the snow, as one 
 great winding-sheet, wraps the earth. No, 
 Snow ! 
 
 " I love thee [not] , all unlovely as thou seem'st, 
 And dreaded as thou art." 
 
RIGHTS. 
 
 If wrong our hearts, our heads are right in vain." 
 
 Young. 
 
 MONG the many vanished illusions of 
 my youth, I count the utility of con- 
 tending for rights. I mean the talk 
 and bluster so prevalent in these days, that 
 one can scarcely take up a periodical, go to a 
 social gathering, or even (I blush to say it) to 
 the house of God, without hearing this slang 
 talk — I can give it no better name — about 
 rights. 
 
 It is rights of husband and rights of wife ; 
 rights of parent and rights of child ; rights of 
 master and rights of servant ; rights of white 
 man and rights of black. A right to do every- 
 
 46 
 
MUSINGS. 47 
 
 thing which human wisdom can conceive or 
 human passion dictate. • 
 
 Now, as I intimated above, all this talk is 
 useless. If you have rights^ — if, conscientiously 
 and religiously, you feel them to be rights, — 
 why take them, if you can get them ; and you 
 usually can. Sometimes, I admit, you cannot. 
 Thejt, certainly, there is no use of contending; 
 especially when we consider that human nature 
 is so constituted that the simple discussion of 
 any question rouses opposition. Don't you 
 know what your rights are, without discussion ? 
 Is it necessary to call a convention to find out? 
 And cannot your neighbor take care of his own 
 rights without your help ? 
 
 Of course, I am not speaking nozv of those 
 great questions of right and wrong in the sight 
 of God. These are not discussed in this nine- 
 teenth century ! 
 
 Who, for instance, cares anything about that 
 great wro72g abiding in our midst; — off in those 
 pleasant valleys, where a people calling them- 
 selves a part of this Christian land (the laws of 
 
48 MUSINGS OF A 
 
 which make bigamy a crime) hold the right, 
 and practise it, to multiply their wives ad libitum ? 
 And yet — and yet — these men and women, 
 all around us, prate of ''women's rights^ Her 
 right to elevation, to culture, to equality ! Oh, 
 sisters ! so long as the Turkish harem, with 
 more than Turkish degradation, exists in Utah, 
 — and Utah is a free, enlightefted territory of 
 your own Union, — cease your cry for rights; 
 take what you have, and be thankful for them. 
 With the right to glorious womanhood — to a 
 home where you may reign sole and respected 
 mistress ; aye, queen, if you will. The right 
 by instilling good principles into the young 
 minds about you, and the expression of noble 
 Christian sentiments in social life, to influence 
 the future of your land and the world. Then 
 you can vote, too ! at least I did, and do; and 
 neither waited for the " Woman's Convention " 
 to determine my right, nor for the law's permis- 
 sion. And, wfiat is more, shall not fold my vote 
 up, and hide it, as these men do. Am not 
 ashamed of it; you are all welcome to a glance 
 
MIDDLE-AGED WOMAN. 49 
 
 at it. You cannot cheat me out of it ; and no 
 fraud or bribery can prevent my winning the 
 day, 
 
 I vote (in the first place) to be a zvoman. Am 
 glad I am a woman, proud to be a woman, and 
 intend to be one. Nobody shall persuade me 
 to ape men. I will not wear boots higher than 
 my ankle ; nor standing collars ; nor mannish 
 hats. And I will stay in the house in wet 
 weather, or dry, and take care of my family; 
 and make pickles and preserve fruit, and darn 
 stockings, instead of going out to doctor some 
 man with the small-pox; or to harangue a 
 sleepy jury in a dirty court-house ; or to travel 
 two or three hundred miles to collect a bad 
 debt. 
 
 And then I vote (in the second place) to 
 know my ozun business better than any one 
 else knows it ; and, if it be necessary, shall go 
 out, in fair weather or foul, to make a living 
 for loved ones ; or to save any poor soul from 
 ruin ; or to prevent myself from being cheated 
 or imposed upon. 
 
 5 D 
 
50 MUSINGS OF A 
 
 I vote even to force my way, alone, through 
 a crowd ; or to bear my testimony in court, if 
 necessity impel, and not ''faint at the idea." 
 And to stop in the street, and, by calling the 
 police, rescue a little boy from the hands of a 
 big boy, when my brother man is either too in- 
 different or too cowardly to interfere. Also to 
 attend to my own baggage in travelling, and 
 not trust to the tender mercies of a chamber- 
 " maid, qr the honesty of officials, generally, 
 even if I must go to the "captain's office." 
 And when the " ladies' cars " are so filled by 
 men that I can get a seat nowhere, shall take 
 one in the smoking-car, and be deaf to all 
 hints which imply that my presence there is 
 improper^ inasmuch as it prevents some of the 
 *^ stronger sex" from indulging in their usual 
 and 7iecessary recreations of gambling and 
 smoking. All this^ and a good deal more of 
 the same sort, I vote to do, and shall do it. 
 Other women can act as they please; I wait not 
 for theirs, or any man's decision, permission, or 
 approval. Can I wait? Have I time? Has 
 
MIDDLE-AGED WOMAN. 5I 
 
 any man or woman time to ask what are his 
 rights ? Must not necessity or, rather, Provi- 
 dence determine. I am sick of this puling talk 
 in both men and women about false position. 
 False position ! Who put you there ? Aye, I 
 know what you will answer : " Command of 
 parents, or circumstances, or necessity." Well, 
 if these reasons be true in either case (I say it 
 reverently), God put you there, for He says, 
 *' Children, obey your parents ; " and He con- 
 trols circumstances and necessity. Then how 
 dare you talk of false position, if the position 
 be given you by the all-wise; if the hand which 
 guided you to it be His who is called " the 
 Truth " ? But rarely do parents command, 
 though they may influence, children in the choice 
 of their life-work; and, as to the other plea, 
 how often do we let pride, wilfulness, indolence, 
 and want of decision control us, and call them 
 circumstances and necessity. Ah ! men and 
 women, you want to be somebody — to gain 
 name and fame — to be placed on the summit 
 of the hill without climbing — ■ to get your 
 
52 MUSINGS OF A 
 
 rights by loud talk, which costs nothing ; and 
 make no sacrifice of pride, or temper, or self- 
 indulgence to do so. Then this talk of rights 
 and false positions is often an effort, — and a 
 mighty poor one, too, — to excuse the half- 
 hearted manner in which we discharge duties. 
 
 "If anything is worth doing at all, it is worth 
 doing well." What business have we to be 
 half-hearted in anything? 
 
 " He that is born, is listed : life is war." 
 
 Woman ! because you happen to be intel- 
 lectual and cultivated, — yet choosing to marry 
 a man in modest circumstances, and to sur- 
 round yourself with home joys and home 
 cares, you do not find so much time for literary 
 pursuits as in your girlhood, — are you to neglect 
 your duties as wife and mother, and excuse 
 yourself by the old plea q>{ uncongenial pursuits f 
 Shall you dare talk of having no time to im- 
 prove your mind ? I know a noble woman, 
 with more intellect and culture than most of 
 you, who, married to a farmer, and with but 
 
MIDDLE-AGED WOMAN. 53 
 
 " one maid of all work," is spoken of for her 
 thrift, and management, and industry through- 
 out the ** country side." Yet this woman finds 
 time for a large correspondence, for much 
 general reading, and intellectual social converse 
 with husband, children, and guests. Few wo- 
 men are as well posted ; and few can talk as well 
 on every subject. "Well," you answer, "she- 
 is a remarkable woman, and should not be given 
 as an instance." But that is just the reason why 
 I do give her as one. If yon are a remarkable 
 woman, you can do the same ; and, if you are 
 not^ do not prate about your intellect and rights; 
 you have quite as many of the latter as you 
 can keep and use. It is not from among rich 
 women of leisure that our great and useful 
 women usually come. Those best known to 
 fame have most always been women who have 
 written, or thought, or acted in odd minutes 
 stolen from necessary recreation. You have 
 only to read Hannah More's biography, or ac- 
 quaint yourself with the early literary efforts 
 of our own Mrs. Hale, to ascertain the truth of 
 5* 
 
54 MUSINGS OF A 
 
 my assertion. No, no ; women do not talk of 
 want of time, when you can find time to dress, 
 and visit, and gossip. 
 
 And YOU, strong man ! whose life, so far, has 
 been a failure for want of energy, decision, or 
 (worse still) moral courage. Do not tell me 
 of your false position and "unappreciated 
 genius," or, putting on a Byronic air, talk bit- 
 terly of women and blighted hopes ; intimat- 
 ing that some woman has to answer for your 
 failure. Do not come to me with such stuff — I 
 don't believe in it. Have you so little of moral 
 or intellectual strength even, that the smile or 
 frown of any woman should make or mar your 
 life? Ah! many of you have. I know it — I 
 know it only too well. The strongest among 
 you are apt to be Samsons. Yet, should it be 
 so ? Would it be so, if you had the best kind 
 of strength? — the strength which lives for 
 something else besides self and selfish pas- 
 sions ; which goes on doing its duty, seeking 
 not to be understood or appreciated by any 
 save Him who hath promised a seat on His 
 
MIDDLE-AGED WOMAN. 55. 
 
 throne to "him that overcometh." Oh, men 
 and women! brothers and sisters all! take the 
 rights which are yours — which God has given 
 you. Your right to manhood and womanhood 
 to individuality, to character, to Christianity, to 
 prayer, to heaven. Dare to be yourself and 
 nobody else — your redeemed, Christianized, 
 sanctified self — yet, still yourself. Ape no one. 
 Neither sell nor give yourself body and soul to 
 any mortal. Let no man or woman have 
 power enough over you to change your nature, 
 or make your life a failure. Alone you must 
 stand before the judgment bar, and answer for 
 yourself for the life given you to make the 
 most of. And then, too, there is so much to 
 do in this world of ours. We have but one life, 
 and there is no time to talk of rights and false 
 positions, nor even of failures and misspent time. 
 Ah! you middle-aged, if your youth has 
 known some great sorrow, and you have been 
 weak or wicked enough to sink into inaction 
 or rush into crime — rise up ! " Redeem the 
 time ; " you can if you will, for though 
 
 " Those wounds men give themselves heal ill," 
 
56 MUSINGS OF A 
 
 still they do heal; and the best way to heal 
 <2;rj/ wound is to keep it bound up, out of the 
 air; not looking at it often ; and by the use of 
 proper food, healthy air, and exercise get the 
 blood in the right condition. 
 
 But there comes up the cry from thousands — 
 and it is the war-cry of these Rights' people — 
 " What is my life-work? What is my mission? 
 How shall / occupy my time, and expend my 
 energies?" And I answer — that you should 
 be ashamed to have any time to occupy, you 
 strong, healthy people, in a world where there 
 is so much vice to put down ; so much sorrow 
 to sympathize with; so much suffering to 
 soothe ; so many souls to save ; and your own 
 salvation to work out with fear and trembling; 
 Aye ! even the weak ones, bodily — even for 
 those there is work. For those invalids who, 
 recognizing the hand of God in their physical 
 sufferings, and bearing them with Christian 
 fortitude, yet cry out ** My days are past, my 
 purposes are broken off." And I am not 
 about to insult them with the ordinary method 
 
MIDDLE-AGED WOMAN. 5/ 
 
 of consolation — shall not tell them that their 
 special mission is to discipline well people by- 
 trying their patience. I should like to know 
 if well people do not try sick people occasion- 
 ally ? Shall not attempt to argue the case just 
 now, though it does rather come under the 
 head of rights ; only ask you to cast up the 
 balance sheet for yourselves, and see if it does 
 not come out '' quits." 
 
 No, no, friends ; these invalids of ours have 
 a higher, a holier mission ! It is to sympa- 
 thize and counsel. Living out of the world as 
 they necessarily must, and feeling nearer to the 
 other than healthy people, their judgment is 
 not so apt to be warped by the customs of 
 society, or the opinions of men. They look at 
 things more as dying men look at them. They 
 have been to 
 
 « The Border Land .... 
 Where small seemed great as weighed in scales 
 Held by God's hand alone," 
 
 and we all instinctively feel confidence in their 
 judgment. Then, too, if they be not very 
 
58 MUSINGS OF A 
 
 selfish people, they are glad for awhile to forget 
 their own suffering and contracted life, and are 
 interested in whatever enables them to do so. 
 They are thankful for those other lives so full 
 of romance — so "big with events" — for those 
 other people who have so much to tell ; there- 
 fore are sympathizing and attentive listeners. 
 Yes, my sick friend, you can have a mission if 
 you will, and a noble one, too. You can feel 
 for the young in their joys and their sorrows; 
 their love-tales will they pour into your ear, 
 being sure of an interested listener; and you 
 who know (who so well) how little worth is 
 pride, and how much worth is patience , will 
 counsel the putting down of the former, and 
 the exercising of the latter; and God only 
 knows how many breaches you may heal — 
 how many hearts save from breaking. 
 
 And to the broken-hearted and the aged — 
 to those who are already beginning to feel 
 what desolation means — to them you have a 
 special message. Knowing, as you do, how 
 "thin the partition wall" which divides us from 
 
MIDDLE-AGED WOMAN. 59 
 
 eternity, you can for them lift the veil, and 
 show them the land 
 
 "Where the hidden wound is healed, 
 Where the blighted light reblooms, 
 Where the smitten heart the freshness 
 Of its buoyant youth resumes." 
 
 Oh ! who has not a mission ? Who can say 
 he has no life-work ? No one. The only dif- 
 ficulty is that we frequently lack the wisdom, 
 or time, or strength, to accomplish it. "What- 
 soever your hand findeth to do, do with all 
 your might." If yoiL have not the strength or 
 time to finish it, some one else will. People do 
 not plant trees, expecting to see them grow to 
 m.aturity during their own lifetime; they know 
 that they will, perhaps, need the tending and 
 watering of the next generation. And so with 
 your life-work, my friend; sometimes one but 
 finishes another man's work, sometimes but 
 commences for another to finish. Indeed, we 
 are all but doing parts of one great work after 
 all — but " clay in the hands of the potter." Do- 
 ing some great thing, or some little, as He wills. 
 
60 MUSINGS OF A 
 
 Then, too, by sticking to the above text, you 
 can find your rights, or, rather, your work, 
 which is what you pretend to mean by rights. 
 "Whatsoever your \id.ndji7tdeih," — not whatso- 
 ever it seeketh, for there is a great difference in 
 the meaning of the two words. In seeking, 
 " we make search ; we pursue ; we endeavor to 
 gain." In finding, "we discover; we meet 
 with ; reach or attain to ; hit on by accident ; 
 obtain something lost." 
 
 Alas! how many of you find your life-work, 
 your rights, close by your own firesides — 
 could get and keep them without even the lift- 
 ing of your voice, and yet go forth over the 
 world seeking a mission ! You wear out your 
 forces, and expend your ammunition in main- 
 taining your riglit to your neighbor's field, 
 instead of keeping your powder, armor, and 
 strength for the real " battle of life," and for 
 your true enemies — "the world, the flesh, and 
 the devil." Ah, friends! soldiers on the same 
 battle-field ! let us remember one thing when we 
 claim and talk of our rights, — that other people 
 
MIDDLE-AGED WOMAN. 6l 
 
 have rights^ too. Let us see to it that we do 
 not infringe upon our brother's rights^ when con- 
 tending for our own. I often, when Hstening to 
 discussions on this vexed question, am re- 
 minded of a Httle incident which happened to 
 me some years since. 
 
 Next door to me Hved a couple who rejoiced 
 in the possession of several unruly sons. As 
 our yards came close together, these boys were 
 in the habit of annoying my servants in various 
 ways, such as unhooking lines from the fence 
 when full of clean clothes, or snow-balling them 
 when hanging up said clothes. My Biddy bore 
 all with exemplary patience (being good-natured 
 and fond of children), till the following en- 
 croachment upon her rights. The young gen- 
 tlemen, one day in the Spring, chose to play 
 ball so near the line-fence, that every stroke of 
 the bat sent it into our yard ; when the oldest, 
 and most courageous of the boys would ring 
 our bell, and demand the right to search for his 
 ball in our yard. Five times the right was ac- 
 corded him through courtesy; but at the sixth, 
 
62 MUSINGS OF A 
 
 Biddy (it being washing-day), revolted, and 
 coming into the parlor, said, "Indade, ma'am, I 
 don't want to lave, but I did n't come here to 
 wait on those childer next door. Will the 
 misthress plase to spake to them, for they 
 worritt my life out complately." Thus adjured, 
 I quietly told the " childer " that was the last 
 time he could look for his ball in our yard, as 
 my servant could not be disturbed going to the 
 door every few minutes. Still, the seventh time 
 the ball came over, and the bell rang. I at- 
 tended to the latter myself, and informed 
 "Young America" that he could not come in; 
 at which he blustered, and said "he guessed 
 he 'd see who had the best right to his ball." I 
 told him that I did not dispute his right to his 
 ball; but I did \.o \i\s looking for it every five 
 minutes in my yard, and — shut the door in his 
 face. The ball lay and rotted in one corner of 
 my flower-beds ; the boys got another, and it 
 never by any accident landed outside their own 
 precincts. 
 
 Friends, do not play ball too near your 
 
MIDDLE-AGED WOMAN. 63 
 
 neighbor's line -fence; and if by accident it 
 happen to go into his yard, do not demand 
 your right to look for it there. He may accord 
 you permission through courtesy, provided you 
 do not wear out his patience by too frequent 
 repetition. No, no ; keep to your own field — 
 inside your own fence; you will find your 
 rights there, and plenty to do without going 
 abroad to seek them. 
 
 Finally, to all I would say — to men and 
 women ; husbands and wives ; parents and 
 children; masters and servants — do not spend 
 time and strength in talking of each other's 
 duty. " Be not busybodies in other men's 
 matters," but " do your own duty in that state of 
 life in which it hath pleased God to call you." 
 Do it bravely, independently, conscientiously ; 
 caring not for man's censure or approval, but 
 taking the " word of Inspiration " only for your 
 guidance. Quietly and firmly do right, trusting 
 to God to take care of the consequences. 
 
THOSE MIGHT-HAVE-BEENS. 
 
 There is a divinity which shapes our ends, 
 Rough hew them as we will." — Shakspeare. 
 
 H ! how they come to us all ! Oftener 
 and with more power to us in middle 
 life. Might have been I Might have 
 been ! What ? And why not ? Why a thou- 
 sand things, and for as many reasons. There 
 is a pathos, a sadness, a whole history in that 
 one sentence. It is a perfect wail over a 
 mistaken, misspent life; misused energies or 
 talents ; lost opportunities ; friends dead or es- 
 tranged ; health and youth gone. I know that 
 no man ever utters that cry in earnest till his 
 heart has ached, as hearts only ache when the 
 first brightness of life has fled. Is not that the 
 
 64 
 
MUSINGS. 65 
 
 reason why memories have always a strain of 
 sadness in them ; because we think of what 
 was, and what might have been ; and contrast it 
 with what is? Do we ever attain to the life 
 which might have been? And why not? I 
 said there were a thousand reasons, and so 
 there are. It may have been our own fault, or 
 some loving chastening from "Our Father's" 
 hand, which has made us and our life what they 
 are, and not what we thought they might be. 
 
 How much oftener than any other reason is 
 it "the first mistaken impulse of an undisci- 
 plined heart?" Ah! Copperfield is not the 
 only man who chose a Dora when he might 
 have had an Agnes, nor the only one who re- 
 pented it when it was too late. 
 
 Such a man has thoughts, hopes, aspirations, 
 ambitions, which the " child-wife " cannot un- 
 derstand. She may be bright, sweet, and pretty ; 
 but she cannot share his disappointments, nor 
 enter into his joys. He may have capabilities 
 of greatness and usefulness, and — unwilling 
 to give up his life's aim — is 
 6* E 
 
66 MUSINGS OF A 
 
 "Too much with the minister. 
 Too little with the wife." 
 
 And — then he is not happy. Or, determining 
 to be happy, he gives up youthful hopes and 
 tastes, content to play with ** Jip," and feel the 
 pretty arms around his neck, the sweet face 
 looking thanks, and — then he is not great. 
 Yet there come times in his life when memory 
 brings back all he meant to be, all he meant to 
 do. As he sits alone, dreaming, he sees a wo- 
 man with an earnest face, who urged him on- 
 ward, ever. A woman to whom his fame, his 
 usefulness, were dearer than even his dear pres- 
 ence; and who would have thought no toil, 
 no sacrifice, too great which helped him to win 
 the crown. 
 
 He is famous now ! His brows are crowned 
 with laurel ! and she — his Agnes, his female 
 Warwick, his "king-maker" — welcomes her 
 hero with that voice, those eyes, that smile, 
 which had been his inspiration. Alas ! alas ! 
 he dreams ! he dreams ! He is among the 
 might-have-beens! and the voice of his "child- 
 
MIDDLE-AGED WOMAN. 6/ 
 
 wife " rouses him to what is. Pity him ! pity 
 him! 
 
 And pity, too, that woman who cannot read 
 "Locksley Hall" without shuddering; who 
 I cries out 
 
 " Cursed be the social wants that sin against the strength of 
 youth ! " 
 
 That woman who is "puppet to a father's 
 threat," or — want; or who, for her own pride's 
 sake, or any other reason, save true love, binds 
 herself to one who, (not understanding her 
 soul's wants) cuts across those "finer feelings" 
 with which women are so bountifully blessed, 
 or — cursed ; which shall I say ? Ah ! such a 
 woman may have learned to love her husband ; 
 for I hold that loving her, and being her hus- 
 band, she must, if he be ordinarily good and 
 agreeable. 
 
 And yet — and yet there comes a time — 
 there come many times, let her be as pure and 
 constant as she may, when 
 
 " AH too sore the fretful household cares, 
 Free of the contrast of remembered things." 
 
6S MUSINGS OF A 
 
 A time when trial and trouble come; when 
 things go wrong, and her husband's temper 
 gives way (as all men's do) ; when her life is 
 not what she dreamt it would be — not what 
 she might have made it; and her love not being 
 of the kind which "strengthens her to brave 
 endurance," she cries out "^V might have been — 
 oh ! it might have been!' Or let the man she 
 has married falter in his allegiance — be false to 
 his marriage vows, then — God pity her ! 
 God help her ! for man cannot. She is a good 
 woman, indeed, whose memory at such a time 
 does not bring back the face of one who was 
 truer — one better loved, who might have been 
 — what? Aye! something nobler; something 
 better and greater; perhaps blessed by her 
 love — by her presence. Perhaps his face has 
 met her in the street — has somewhere crossed 
 her path ; and it is the face of one not happy, 
 not blessed; and the world speaks of his youth- 
 ful promise, and what he might have been ; but 
 for her — then, oh ! then — pity her ! pity her ! 
 for 
 
MIDDLE-AGED WOMAN. 69 
 
 " I don't think it is such a comfort 
 One has only one's self to blame." 
 
 And to blame, too, in the wrecking or unhap- 
 piness of another life. Pride may enable one to 
 bear one's own pain — one's own trouble ; but 
 the failure of another life is a hard burden, 
 sister, and one under which grace alone will 
 sustain you. Turn resolutely from the past — 
 from the might-have-beens you cannot undo. 
 No man (save your husband, father, or brother) 
 has a right to any effort in his behalf except 
 your prayers. Do not, in trying to right one 
 wrong, commit a greater. Look only to what 
 you may do — to what you can do for that 
 other man — your husbaitd. He has a right io 
 every effort you can make to raise him morally 
 — aye, even intellectually; for though you can- 
 not give him brains, you can influence him to 
 use what he has. Tell me not that 
 
 "As the husband is, the wife is." 
 
 It is generally just the opposite, at least socially 
 and morally, and sometimes even intellectually. 
 
70 MUSINGS OF A 
 
 So try it, sister ! try it ! You have a great life- 
 work before you ! Infuse your husband with 
 noble sentiments, with high aims. What 
 care you if he do " steal your thunder," if it be 
 good thunder, and the world acknowledge it as 
 such ? What matters it ? It gives you repre- 
 sentation! and that is all we want; 'tis the height 
 of woman's ambition in this age ! Besides, you 
 took your husband " for better, for worse ; " 
 what right have you to complain because there 
 is more worse than better? How can you be 
 sure it might not have been the same with that 
 other man ? Be content ; the cross might have 
 been harder to bear. And brother, with the 
 " child-wife," be thankful it is no worse. It 
 might have been in these days of unfaithful 
 wives. Be thankful that your wife is a child in 
 innocence, in purity, in truth. Be thankful that 
 she does throw her arms around your neck, and 
 yours only ; and that she does nothing more cul- 
 pable than draw pictures, and play with *' Jip," 
 when she should have been attending to the 
 dinner. You can be good, if you cannot be 
 
MIDDLE-AGED WOMAN. 7I 
 
 great. You have chosen your lot, and must 
 abide by it. You can make one little woman 
 happy — one home blessed, if you cannot re- 
 form the world. 
 
 Reader, these two instances of the many, 
 many might-have-beens come the most readily 
 to my musings, being the reasons oftenest given 
 (by both men and women) for failing to be 
 either great or good — this mismating, this un- 
 congeniality. Now either we give it our great- 
 est sympathies, or else condemn as morbid and 
 sentimental the whole matter. / can do 
 neither ; I am but musing on facts ! and facts 
 these are, as many a man and woman who 
 reads these pages will testify. I cannot call it 
 sentimental merely, for — ah me! ah me! I 
 have seen energy, and strength, and health, 
 and even principle, give way under such mem- 
 ories. I would counsel and comfort, but not 
 blame, thinking what, under temptation, with- 
 out grace, we all might have been. 
 
 But neither do my greatest sympathies go 
 with those men and women who are but reaping 
 
J2 MUSINGS OF A 
 
 the consequences of their own sowing. I have 
 only to look around me to see other men and 
 women so much worthier, who, though true to 
 all their nobler instincts, yet cry out " It might 
 have been." 
 
 I see a business man stop to gaze upon his 
 neighbor's home of luxury, at his carriage, 
 and other signs of "wealth. I see him turn 
 away with a gesture of impatience, which many 
 would call envy or avarice. I know it is 
 neither. He is among the might-have-beens. 
 He thinks if only the war had not come, or 
 that bank had not broken, how his loved wife 
 (whose steps are growing feebler) might have 
 been riding in her carriage — might have had her 
 servants. How his children, instead of drag- 
 ging along feebly in the hot city through the 
 dog-days, might have been luxuriating in fresh 
 air at a pleasant country-seat, or in salt breezes 
 at the sea-side. Do you wonder that for the 
 moment he is unmanned ? And shall we not 
 sympathize with him, and respect him, too? 
 with the man whose might-have-beens for his 
 loved ones leave no room for selfish regrets? 
 
MIDDLE-AGED WOMAN. 73 
 
 Or with that woman become famous too late ; 
 when the father who would have been proud 
 of her; the mother who would have bathed 
 her aching head, and soothed her unstrung 
 nerves ; the brother who would have shared in 
 her pursuits, and partaken of her success, are 
 lying beneath the sod? I see her turn away 
 wearily from the world's applause — from con- 
 gratulations of later friends, murmuring, " // 
 might have been ; but now — ah ! 
 
 "'What avails half life's success, 
 No early friends can see or share.' " 
 
 Friends, I might multiply instances — your 
 own hearts tell you so. There are childless 
 mothers, whose little ones are safely garnered 
 away from the storms of life, yet who, when 
 they see other mothers, with sons and daugh- 
 ters growing up about them, cry out " It might 
 have been." 
 
 Oh, those dead! our children, our parents, 
 brothers, sisters, friends ! 
 7 
 
74 MUSINGS OF A 
 
 " How doth Death speak of our beloved, 
 When it hath laid them low ? 
 
 It takes each failing on our part, 
 
 And brands it in upon the heart 
 
 With caustic power and cruel smart. 
 
 The small neglect which may have pained, 
 
 A giant stature will have gained, 
 
 When it can never be explained. 
 
 The little gift from out our store 
 
 WTiich might have cheered some cheerless hour, 
 
 But never will be needed more ! " 
 
 Surely, if we have hearts, for us all are these 
 might-have-beens. Sometimes they come to us 
 with overwhelming power years after our loss. 
 Indeed, as years go on, and one by one is taken 
 from our love — our care ; as our graves thick- 
 en, and the seats in our households, the friends 
 of our hearts grow less, how, at times, the 
 longing to live again the past — to turn the 
 might-have-been into it was — becomes almost 
 painful. And if this longing, this heart-break- 
 ing makes us patient and loving with every 
 little child, tender and attentive to every gray 
 head, and lovingly regardful of those friends 
 
MIDDLE-AGED WOMAN. 75 
 
 left US, why, then, it is not a mere morbid senti- 
 mentalism ; it is a feeling for which to thank 
 God. But we have our living as well as our 
 dead. There are lost minutes, and unsaid 
 words, and unwritten letters. There is the 
 letter which never reached its destination, or 
 came too late. The letter which contained 
 foolish gossip, or foul slander, which separated 
 hearts. Oh ! the seemingly little things which 
 change our whole lives ! Sometimes they are 
 almost ludicrous in their very sadness. 
 
 We scarcely know whether to laugh at or be 
 sorry for the political candidate who might 
 have been feted, caressed, and serenaded as the 
 people's idol; but who, by the loss of a few 
 votes, becomes a by-word in men's mouths, is 
 abused by the press, and burnt in effigy by the 
 boys. Then the man who might have been a 
 hero and a patriot, but who, by the loss of a 
 battle, becomes a rebel, a prisoner, and a crimi- 
 nal. Or he who might have been a monarch, 
 but who, by the birth of a wee baby, remains a 
 subject. 
 
76 MUSINGS OF A 
 
 Ah ! 't is sad, and 't is funny ! How I pity 
 you all ! how I pity myself! how I pity fallen 
 human nature, which is ever crying out it 
 might have bee7i ! Ever uttering it in sadness, 
 almost in murmuring against a wise Providence 
 which has withheld blessings, taken friends, or 
 permitted us to waste opportunity and talent, 
 and fall into error. 
 
 If we would only feel instead 
 
 .** That we may be always 
 What we might have been," 
 
 and gather up our energies for another struggle 
 in the years that we may still call ours. 
 
 But in our might-have-beens^ how often we 
 are mistaken. We imagine that we might 
 have been rich, or great, or famous, or happy, 
 under certain circumstances ; and we may not 
 have been any such thing at all. We may 
 have needed failure to give us wisdom ; study 
 to give us wit; trial and suffering to develop 
 us ; and losses enough to make us thankful for 
 blessings left us. 
 
MIDDLE-AGED WOMAN. 7/ 
 
 How many fine poems, great works of fiction, 
 or any books which speak to the heart ; how 
 many great statesmen and philanthropists; how 
 many of our finest, strongest, best men and 
 women, think you, do we owe to those might- 
 have-beens? I doubt much if a man can be 
 great without them ; and so would thank God 
 for them, as I would for the rain which makes 
 my flowers grow, and my trees bear fruit. 
 
 Then, too, why not use these might-have- 
 beens in another and happier sense ? In thank- 
 fulness for what has been spared us. For the 
 suffering, and trial, and sin, and loss which 
 might-have-been, and — are not. We might have 
 been homeless, friendless, outcast, penniless, 
 and hopeless, or — dead, dead without hope. 
 Ah ! we who have firesides and friends left, and 
 know where to get " our daily bread," and have 
 been permitted to commit no great crime ; we 
 who are hving, loving, hoping men and women 
 in a free land, — in a land where the cross is 
 planted, — let us look up with radiant faces when 
 we say " It might have been!' 
 7* 
 
PATCHWORK. 
 
 The web of our life is of a mingled yarn ; good and ill to- 
 gether." — Shakspeare. 
 
 HAVE not the slightest intention, 
 dear madam, of giving you any new 
 devices for patchwork — look in " Go- 
 dey's " for them. Have no passion that way ; 
 and if I had, could not gratify it, for the very 
 best of reasons — want of material. 
 
 My poor patchbox has so many demands 
 upon it to supply patches for the numerous silk, 
 worsted, and cotton quilts ; for the afghans, 
 chair-covers, sofa-pillows, etc., etc., of all my 
 friends and acquaintances, that it is always in 
 an exhausted condition. 
 
 I suggested to a young friend (not long 
 since) that the roll in my hand contained 
 
 78 
 
MUSINGS. 79 
 
 pieces of a dress just finished. "Oh!" was the 
 answer, " nobody wants so many; just give me 
 a piece or two." 
 
 Friends, I am not remarkable for my meek- 
 ness, but there is such a thing as philosophy ; 
 so concluding if she did not get them, some 
 one else would, I yielded. And now, if you can 
 find anything in the poor old box, excepting a 
 roll of Canton flannel, one of black cloth and 
 another of white, some old ribbons, and stuff 
 out of which to make iron-holders, why you may 
 have it (I was going to say); but, on second 
 thought, think I will keep it myself, and learn 
 how to make patchwork. Not the old-fashioned 
 sort (I learned to do that in childhood), but the 
 kind they make now, of pretty curtain calico, 
 cut up into little bits, and sewed upon white 
 muslin ; or pieces of silk or worsted, of every 
 conceivable shape, fitted together like a Chinese 
 puzzle. 
 
 I jam actually willing, at my age, to attempt 
 acquiring this accomplishment, as a penance 
 for fibbing; and my worst enemy could not 
 
80 MUSINGS OF A 
 
 wish me any greater punishment, as it seems 
 to me one of the most disagreeable ways of 
 "killing time;" yet, if any of my middle-aged 
 sisters cannot "occupy their time," or you girls 
 cannot find sufficient upon which to expend 
 your energies, I advise you, by all means, to 
 make patchwork; it is certainly more harmless 
 than either gossip, dissipation, or " Women's 
 Rights' Conventions," if not more useful. 
 
 But this particular quilt which set me musing, 
 was of the old-fashioned sort, and made by a 
 dear little woman who never had " any time to 
 occupy,'* and did not know what "ennui" 
 meant, though she did read French. As I was 
 lying on the lounge one day, she threw it over 
 me, saying, "There, darling, I had intended 
 making a large quilt; but wanting to have 
 nothing in it except bits of the worsted dresses 
 of our mother and sisters, and scraps of the 
 vests and wrappers of our father and brothers, 
 was obliged to make you an afghan instead 
 of what I first intended ; for it was impossi- 
 ble to preserve my original pattern, and not 
 
MIDDLE-AGED WOMAN. 8l 
 
 go out of the family for material, as people do 
 wear such sober colors now-a-days." 
 
 I could truthfully assure her that I abhorred 
 large patchwork quilts (preferring white spreads), 
 but did like her pretty afghan — then fell to 
 musing over the article itself, and the loving in- 
 tent of the design, the loving wisdom in its com- 
 pletion. Ah ! I thought if we would all learn 
 in any work, in little matters, or in our life- 
 work, if we cannot do as well as we would, do 
 as well as we can. If circumstances, material, 
 and time prevent us from doing great things, 
 be content to do little things. If we cannot 
 make a large quilt, make an afghan ; and ten to 
 one the small work is more needed, better ap- 
 preciated than the larger one would have been. 
 
 Even *' our Father in heaven " loves better a 
 little deed finished with loving intent, than a 
 great one attempted from selfish motives. 
 
 Improve your one talent. Better do a small 
 
 work well than a large one badly. If your 
 
 bright colors, your talents, wit, energy, wealth, 
 
 beauty, health, and character are not sufficient 
 F 
 
82 MUSINGS OF A 
 
 to lighten a large circle, to make your influence 
 widely felt, thank God for the smaller sphere 
 which you can brighten, and so expend the 
 brightness that (like the bright colors in my 
 afghan) it make the whole work so pleasing, 
 one forgets the scarcity of the material in the 
 result produced. 
 
 How Scripture upholds and encourages the 
 doing of what we call little things. Is there 
 any blessing pronounced upon great talents, or 
 brilliant deeds ? It is " the pure in heart, the 
 peace-maker, the poor in spirit, the meek, the 
 merciful, the persecuted for righteousness' sake, 
 and those which do hunger and thirst after 
 righteousness," who are blessed. It is the 
 giving " a cup of cold water " which meets the 
 reward; and the widow's mite which is com- 
 mended. 
 
 Our Saviour said of Mary, "she hath done 
 what she could," and does he expect more from 
 us than that ? Let us all do what we can, and 
 what we can best do. Let us look at ourselves 
 as we look at others — look at our circumstances 
 and capabilities. 
 
MIDDLE-AGED WOMAN. 83 
 
 We all know, well enough, when our neigh- 
 bor has mistaken his calling, when his ambition 
 has gone beyond his capability ; could tell what 
 he was fitted for, and appoint him his life-work. 
 Shall we know less about ourselves? Shall 
 we not begin in middle age, at least, to scan 
 our lives, to see what we are making of them ? 
 
 Ah ! that quilt (as I lie looking at it) how 
 like my life — how like everybody's life it 
 seems. 
 
 The intention, evidently, was to have half of 
 every block gay and bright ; relieved and made 
 brighter by the sombre hues of the other half; 
 but the bright colored material giving out, only 
 in the centre blocks was the original plan 
 strictly preserved. The gay colors became less 
 and less, till along the outer edge the blocks 
 boasted only a little bright spot in the centre. 
 And is not that just like life ? In our youth 
 half sunshine, half shadow — the shadow only 
 making the sunshine seem the brighter. 
 
 Then there comes a day when the darkness 
 deepens — when there is more of it. There is 
 
84 MUSINGS OF A 
 
 just that time in all our lives, between youth and 
 middle age, when, though there is still much 
 sunshine left, we see only the shadow, as I do 
 now those pieces of mourning goods which 
 mark the deaths in our household. They set 
 me thinking of the one for whom such and 
 such a garment was worn. My loss comes 
 back in all its power : the dead face, the coffin, 
 the darkened house, the vacant place in our 
 home and hearts, that one little strip of black 
 brings back to me. Think you my tears will 
 let me see the pieces of red merino alongside, 
 or care for them ? Yet the child who wore the 
 bright dress lives to bless and love me. 
 
 And just so it is in early manhood and wo- 
 manhood. We are not used to such deep 
 shadows ; it seems so terrible to think that 
 they deepen with our years, that our tears flow 
 so freely we cannot see the brightness left us. 
 
 But there comes a time when the one bright 
 spot is made much of, and all the darkness and 
 shadow is not seen. Yes, friends, on the "outer 
 edge of life," how far a small attention — a little 
 
MIDDLE-AGED WOMAN. 85 
 
 pleasure goes. It is said that old people, like 
 children, are pleased by little things ; and so 
 they are; but why? Because, alas! they have 
 only little things to please them. All great 
 things have passed out of their lives, except 
 great shadows^ great griefs, great pains. Like 
 the outer edge of my afghan, it is all grave and 
 dark around, and the little spots of brightness 
 here and there stand out in " bold relief," so 
 bright — so very bright. 
 
 But there are middle-aged blocks too. Look 
 at those sober colors, which my little friend re- 
 gretted " people would wear." Did she know, 
 I wonder, that there is a time when we wear 
 them inside as well as outside. A time when 
 
 "In this world of ours 
 
 The dreadful commonplace succeeds all change," 
 
 and even the shadows have not the power to 
 move us they once had. When we take what 
 there is of sunshine in our lots quite calmly; if 
 we be Christians, taking it thankfully, but know- 
 ing and feeling that life is too real, too earnest, 
 too short to be spent in useless repining over 
 
86 MUSINGS OF A 
 
 trouble or ecstacy over pleasure. These are, or 
 should be our working-days ; and the hours fly 
 so fast that bright ones do not last, and sorrow- 
 ful ones, we know, will soon end in that land 
 where 
 
 •' There is no broken sunshine." 
 
 Yes, yes ; our life is all patchzvork. And so 
 are we, if we do not put it in words ; we get to 
 feeling it, after awhile, in middle life. Our 
 deeds, our work, ourselves made up of patches 
 — partly good, partly bad. 
 
 Some one has said that " the world was di- 
 vided into three classes, — the good, the bad, 
 and the Beecher family." / do not believe in 
 the classification ; there is more patchwork in 
 this world than the ^^ Beecher family !' for what a 
 strange compound human nature is, at its best. 
 What queer medleys we men and women all are ! 
 We are like nothing else in the world but 
 patchwork. Gay streaks and grave ones ; deli- 
 cate tints and vulgar coloring; pure white 
 spots and those as black as night. Our smiles 
 and tears lying closely together, our good deeds 
 
MIDDLE-AGED WOMAN. 8/ 
 
 and bad ones side by side. One moment with 
 thoughts so beautiful, so noble, so full of 
 poetry that they link us to angels ; and the 
 next instant becoming of "this earth earthy," 
 sink almost to the level of brutes in absorbing 
 care for our mortal bodies, and in the indulgence 
 of sensual appetites. 
 
 But there is a great difference in people; 
 though they are all patchwork^ it is not all 
 alike. Just contrast those two blocks yonder. 
 The one nearest, with all the colors so artisti- 
 cally, or rather so properly arranged — so ac- 
 cording to rule. It will bear criticism — it 
 looks nicely, and is pleasant to the eye at first 
 sight, but after awhile one gets tired of it. It 
 is pretty to look at, but you take it all in at a 
 glance ; you see nothing new in a second look 
 at it, so turn for relief to the one beyond, with 
 its fitful lights and shadows — its colors all 
 thrown in without regard to order. There is 
 no gradual shading, but blue and red side by 
 side, and a light stripe where you expected a 
 dark one — startling one by its strong contrasts. 
 
88 MUSINGS OF A 
 
 It will not bear criticism at all, but it will bear 
 study — it interests one. The first seems to me 
 like some people who are " gotten up " accord- 
 ing to "Gunter." Those proper people who 
 dress, walk, talk, and write by rule, who never 
 transgress any law of etiquette. Miss Bremer 
 says that " we are all somewhat related to 
 chaos." She should have excepted proper 
 people — tkejf certainly are not. To be sure, I 
 cannot tell from personal experience, but one 
 would think, to look at them, that there never 
 was a time when they had the least doubt as to 
 what was proper, either in action or speech ; 
 when they had longings or cravings which 
 could not or ought not to be gratified. 
 
 There was -a time when I both envied and 
 hated proper people (don't be shocked, reader). 
 I do neither now; only rate them at their just 
 value, as nice people of whom one soon gets 
 enough, like the artistic block in my quilt. 
 One knows so well just what they will do or 
 say about people, or books, or under certain 
 circumstances; and I would give anything, 
 
MIDDLE-AGED WOMAN. 89 
 
 almost, to startle them out of their proprieties, 
 or catch them in dhhabille. 
 
 I once saw a young lady in such distress at the 
 loss of a near relative, that she alarmed the house- 
 hold by going into spasms; yet she managed 
 to keep her new suit of mourning (veil and all) 
 in perfect preservation the whole time ; and not 
 even a stray lock escaped from her fashionable 
 chignon. It was the greatest triumph of pro- 
 priety over feeling that I ever witnessed, or ever 
 want to. And yet, my friends, there is some- 
 thing nice about these proper people. They 
 never shock one by loud tones, even when they 
 say disagreeable things ; they do it with the 
 softest and gentlest accent imaginable. They 
 never startle one by advancing pretty little 
 heresies, as other people do : still, I like some 
 of these other people better. These people 
 with the fitful lights and shadows ; who come 
 out bright when you are not expecting it ; who 
 are full of strong contrasts, and who interest 
 you because you do not take them in at a 
 glance. They often transgress all human laws 
 8* 
 
90 MUSINGS OF A 
 
 of beauty, both in appearance and character. 
 They write and say queer things, are forever 
 feeling after the truth, asking strange questions, 
 and propounding stranger theories. They are 
 full of what a friend of mine calls "queerities." 
 They are always going astray, and always re- 
 penting ; and I often wonder whether He to whom 
 Abraham, and David, and Peter, and Paul were 
 so dear, has not chosen these people, so full of 
 strong contrasts of light and shade, to do a spe- 
 cial work in this world. They certainly exert 
 the most power, the most influence, and for very 
 good reasons. In the first place, there must be 
 strength of character — originality to produce 
 strong contrast. When I speak of strength, I 
 mean strength of principles, strength of feeling, 
 strength of purpose. And here comes in the 
 question : " Can people feel without showing it 
 either in action or speech?" I think not, espe- 
 cially if a strong will and strength of principle 
 go with it. There is much said and written 
 about self-control, and repression of feeling; 
 and it is all very well when it happens to be 
 
MIDDLE-AGED WOMAN. 9I 
 
 bad feeling. We should control bad passions; 
 we should not have bad feelings; though if we 
 do show them, let us do it in speech rather than 
 action. The Bible says, " Out of the abundance 
 of the heart the mouth speaketh." It is a 
 gospel utterance and a gospel truth, that feel- 
 ing will show itself, and — I believe it. There 
 may be people who, frqm the force of circum- 
 stances, or from education, have learned to 
 control deep feeling, so that one scarcely knows 
 they have any ; yet even they (having a smoul- 
 dering fire beneath) must, like a volcano, some- 
 times, in the course of years, have an irruption. 
 Yes, the heart will speak out; and thank God 
 that it does, that the thousand other hearts 
 waiting to be spoken to, do not wait in vain. 
 Do not wonder, then, that I say (in the second 
 place) that feeling begets feeling. Have you 
 never felt it when you listened to an eloquent 
 speech, or read a thrilling poem? Has not the 
 strong expression of feeling in the orator or 
 poet stirred the blood within you till you were 
 roused to do or dare anything for the cause 
 
92 MUSINGS OF A 
 
 advocated? I am not stopping to inquire 
 whether the cause be right or wrong ; that has 
 nothing to do with the fact; and (as stated be- 
 fore), I am only musing on facts — not discussing 
 either politics or religion. 
 
 We all know that it is so patent a fact that 
 those who write and speak strongly, and of 
 course feel strongly, exert the greatest power, 
 that men, in all time, have been afraid of the 
 influence of certain books and certain people. 
 
 Ah, my friends, believe me that it is those 
 other people, with the fitful lights and shadows, 
 who rouse us, who gain power over us, whether 
 for good or evil; who stir the world, and 
 either upset or reform it, who hold nations in 
 check, and whom God uses either to advance 
 his cause in this world, or to scourge his people 
 for their sins. 
 
 But what in the world ever makes people 
 wear those horrid washed-out colors? Not 
 good, respectable grays, or browns, or greens, 
 or blues, but a mixture of all, faded out; some- 
 times one predominating, sometimes another — 
 
MIDDLE-AGED WOMAN. 93 
 
 a kind of " water-gruel color." I suppose they 
 really are worn for economy ; they should be 
 cheap. Remember to have possessed a dress 
 of that sort myself, once ; and of being much 
 bothered as to what color it ought to be 
 trimmed with, not knowing what it was most 
 like. Finally (concluding to put on something 
 as unlike itself as possible) chose cherry — and 
 it actually looked well. I thought then, and do 
 still, that it was a wise choice, and that " water- 
 gruel " people would do well to profit by the 
 suggestion. 
 
 For there are " water-gruel " people in this 
 world. Those undecided, washed-out individuals, 
 both in appearance and character; neither pretty, 
 nor ugly, nor sharp, nor sour, nor sweet, nor 
 smart, nor stupid ; who have just sufficient brains 
 to entitle them to a place in society, and the 
 right to be entertained; but not enough to know 
 that those who do entertain them should be 
 ranked among the martyrs. So, as I said, they 
 should be trimmed with cherry. They should 
 live with bright, decided people ; who have so 
 
94 MUSINGS OF A 
 
 much character that it throws a pleasant glow 
 all around, lighting up those colorless ones, 
 and startling them out of their indifference. 
 Then, too, (though nature cannot be entirely- 
 changed,) we human beings have powers of 
 assimilation and imitation, which often answer 
 pretty well in the place of brains. 
 
 Not alone is it our individual life, and the 
 people in the world; but the world itself is one 
 great piece of patchwork. Aye, these patches 
 of light and shade in nature, how beautiful they 
 are ! How the eye delights to gaze on this 
 mingling of green and brown ! Look at that 
 glorious old elm-tree yonder, with its rough 
 bark and verdant leaves; at the green grass 
 along the road-side; at the brown cottage 
 covered with verdure ; and, dearer than all, the 
 rustic stile, and " the old oaken bucket," with 
 patches of moss upon them. 
 
 Then there are patches of land and patches 
 of water. There is the "green, green sea" and 
 the blue, blue lake; the little brook and the big 
 river; the calm, clear stream and the rushing 
 
MIDDLE-AGED WOMAN. 95 
 
 mountain torrent; and once I saw a river as 
 black as any patch in my afghan. Alas ! I fear 
 it has been, since then, as bright as that scarlet 
 merino yonder — bright with the blood of some 
 of our best and bravest, both North and South. 
 But how I love these patches of warm 
 valleys, rugged mountains, and great gray 
 rocks ! How I want to fall down and embrace 
 them ! And as for that great block above us, 
 with its fitful Hghts and shadows; well — (it did 
 not startle me quite as much as it should, that 
 idea in " Gates Ajar," of the child having the 
 clouds to make blocks of), because, when a 
 child myself, I used to lie on my back on the 
 grass, and, looking up, wonder if, when I went 
 to heaven, God would let me have the clouds 
 to play with ; thinking, meanwhile, what pretty 
 patchwork they would make. If "the truth, 
 and the zvhole truth," must be told, I have not 
 gotten entirely over that youthful illusion yet. 
 It is at sunset that the fit oftenest takes me. I 
 sit and look at those beautiful dissolving views, 
 and do not want a " piece of the moon," but a 
 
96 MUSINGS OF A 
 
 piece of that changing, fleeting cloud. It fades ; 
 it has gone. I draw my breath, and ask my- 
 self why we human beings are so afraid of 
 strong contrasts, when God deals so bountifully 
 in them. He puts pink and blue side by side, 
 and yellow and green, and flings all the colors 
 together in His "bow of promise," and His 
 glorious sunsets. But man, poor man, can have 
 only one idea at a time, or at best two ; and they 
 must be as like each other as possible. 
 
 I once heard a lady say that a carpet which 
 contained more than two colors, she did not 
 consider genteel. Of course, I did not ask how 
 she would like one made of sunset clouds or 
 autumn leaves, fearing the idea would be lost; 
 but confess (privately) that / would, (provided 
 it would wear well.) 
 
 In a former chapter of this book, I mentioned 
 sitting by the window whilst the snow beat 
 against the pane, and I shiveringly drew my 
 shawl around me. Since then winter has given 
 place to spring, the snow has melted before the 
 showers of April, flowers have budded and 
 
MIDDLE-AGED WOMAN. Q/ 
 
 blossomed, and noiv midsummer is here. The 
 thermometer ranges between eighty and ninety, 
 and I close the shutters to keep out the sun 
 and flies. Then it grows dark, and I push them 
 open just in time to see the great black cloud, 
 before the flash comes to lighten it. The thun- 
 der rolls; the rain falls in torrents; and the 
 thirsty earth drinks it up gladly. The birds 
 twitter home to their nests and their young- 
 lings, the trees hold up their heads refreshed, 
 and a fresh "earthy" smell comes into my 
 window as I lean out to watch it all. Presently 
 the clouds break away, the blue sky shines 
 through, and the July sun forces me to shut out 
 the scene ; the while musing — 't is patchwork 
 all — these winters and summers; this snow 
 and rain; this cold and heat; these shadows 
 and sunshine. Ah ! all, all. These burning 
 deserts and green oases ; this strong oak with 
 the fragile anemone at its root; this burly beast 
 of the field and delicate fowl of the air ; this 
 rose amidst its thorns; and this Southern jessa- 
 9 G 
 
98 MUSINGS OF A 
 
 mine, so full of sweetness and beauty, forming 
 thickets in which venomous reptiles hide. 
 
 Believe me, friends, that this patchbox of na- 
 ture is so full of patches, it can never be ex- 
 hausted (like mine) by forays made upon it. 
 No, no; this whole world of patchwork-makers 
 — these preachers, orators, poets, writers of any 
 sort who draw upon it for bright colors with 
 which to lighten their (otherwise) "water-gruel" 
 writing — can never exhaust it. What should 
 we do without it? What should we do in art 
 without nature? Talk of originality — man's 
 originality of thought ! Is it not a reproduc- 
 tion of God's great thoughts ? Does not the 
 artist paint what he has seen, or heard, or felt, 
 whether it be sunset clouds, or ocean, or sky, 
 or beast, or portraiture of grief or joy, or love 
 or hate ? And why can Shakspeare and Dick- 
 ens move us to tears or laughter, as they choose; 
 and Young raise us above the fear of death, 
 and make us long for heaven? Because these 
 men have discovered God's great truths, and 
 tell them well. 
 
MIDDLE-AGED WOMAN. 99 
 
 Yes, yes ; with this busy world around us — 
 these scenes which this sunshine falls upon, 
 these shadows hide — have we not enough 
 patches for both painter and poet? Can we 
 take up a daily paper, even, and not meet with 
 this mingling of light and dark in life ? Mar- 
 riages and deaths side by side ; births in one 
 column, murders in the next. On one page 
 the account of a party with its lights, dress, 
 and luxury at some " Fifth Avenue " palace ; 
 and on another the recital of destitution, crime, 
 and misery at " Five Points." 
 
 Aye ! look, too, out of that window, and see 
 the boys playing ball, and the girls jumping 
 rope, without a care for the future, but to be 
 "first best" in the game. Then turn your eyes 
 to the other side of the street, and watch that 
 boy and girl (with the basket between them)^ 
 in their bare feet and ragged clothes, trudging 
 along. They are no older than the players ; but 
 their faces are prematurely old and careworn, 
 with that cunning look which youthful battling 
 with the world is sure to give — that look which 
 
lOO MUSINGS OF A 
 
 the street- beggar always wears, and which 
 pains us to see in children ; feeling, as we do, 
 that this soiling of the child-nature is one of 
 the hardest stings of poverty. 
 
 But I cannot tell it all, friends ; the thought- 
 ful among you have seen it — do see it both in 
 times of peace and in times of war — this life 
 PATCHWORK. You have seen the spreading of 
 flags to the breeze ! have heard the shout of 
 the people in victory ! and meanwhile the groans 
 of the dying and the cries of the widow and 
 orphan alongside. 
 
 You have seen the hearse with the dead in it 
 going up the street, the car full of living people 
 going down. On the one side of the way the 
 jcriminal carried to prison or the scaffold; on 
 the other the hero borne in triumph to receive 
 his laurels. 
 
 Oh ! how this blending of bright and dark 
 confuses me as I write. How this mixture of 
 suffering and enjoying, of sinning and ap- 
 plauding, tries my faith ! I throw down my 
 pen, saying, I will not try to reason. I will 
 not think. 
 
MIDDLE-AGED WOMAN. lOI 
 
 " In thinking of these things, 
 
 Some men have lost their minds, and others may." 
 
 I turn for relief to the pretty colors of my 
 afghan flitting before me — light and dark, 
 bright and gay. Some patches ugly to look at, 
 some making me sad, some washed-out; yet 
 all fitting, blending — making together such a 
 pretty, harmonious whole upon which to rest 
 my tired eyes, that I never spread it over me 
 without an inward "thank ye" to the giver. 
 But to-day something more than that has it 
 done for me. It has strengthened my faith. 
 In looking at it, I muse : just so, perhaps, is this 
 patchwork of my life, of everybody' s life, of the 
 world and nature, being fitted, blended. There 
 are some ugly spots in it — some sad, and dark, 
 and colorless ones; yet can I not trust the 
 great Maker's power and will to so finish His 
 work that it shall form a beautiful and harmo- 
 nious whole, to gladden our eyes when we take 
 our great rest in heaven ? 
 9* 
 
GIRLOLOGY. 
 
 There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, 
 Than are dreamt of in your philosophy." — ShakspeARE. 
 
 ES, gentlemen : I repeat it, girlology. 
 Don't sneer, and, gazing into the air, 
 put on benevolent looks at a woman's 
 mistake, and ask if I know the meaning of 
 ology. I can assure you there is no mistake. 
 There is a science of girls ; and, moreover, you 
 know nothing about it, and shall therefore be 
 forgiven your scepticism, as you could not be 
 expected to believe in a science of which you 
 are ignorant of the first principles. For you are 
 lamentably ignorant of girlology. In the first 
 place, you men who consider it your special 
 mission to keep girls from doing anything 
 improper, and publish it to the world when 
 
MIDDLE-AGED WOMAN. IO3 
 
 they do. In the second place, you other men, 
 who, espousing their cause, are trying to give 
 girls their rights whether they will have them 
 or not. I assert distinctly and positively, that 
 neither of you know anything about girlology. 
 Why do you not stick to boys, and keep them 
 straight, and give them their "rights and mis- 
 sion " ? I am sure they need some one to ad- 
 vocate their cause — poor little souls! You 
 see, you were boys yourselves once, and know 
 what they like, which is considerably more than 
 you know about girls. Just try it Tell your 
 little daughter that " her sphere is home " — 
 her mission "to be wife and mother. That, 
 if she wishes to remain womanly, to be ad- 
 mired, and loved, and happy, she must not let 
 her foot step out of that sphere — neither have 
 opinions of her own, nor express them either 
 in speaking or writing." 
 
 Just tell her this, and see how many instances 
 she will rattle off of great and good women, 
 too, who did have opinions of their own, and 
 who did their own thinking, and talking, and 
 
I04 MUSINGS OF A 
 
 writing. Women who found their sphere some- 
 where else besides home ; and whose mission 
 was not to be either wife or mother, and yet 
 who were womanly and happy. 
 
 On the other hand, tell her that she is old 
 enough to have some object in life — talk to 
 her as you do to your boys, and propose to her 
 to follow some calling. Do that, and see how 
 she will pout her pretty lips, and answer, " I 
 thought girls were to stay at home and be 
 taken care of I don't want an object in life ; 
 
 but I would like to go to Mrs. B 's party 
 
 next week, if only I had a new dress to wear." 
 
 I told you that you didn't know anything 
 about girls, and — you don't. But / do, for I 
 was a girl myself once ; and if you will profit 
 by my experience, and not let your daughters 
 pull my hair for disclosing secrets, I will tell 
 you a good deal that you don't know. And, 
 girls, don't you get on a " rampage," and ask 
 me why I do not write about boys, and let you 
 alone — that you have been written and talked 
 about quite enough. I tell you that I don't 
 
MIDDLE-AGED WOMAN. IO5 
 
 know about boys — I don't understand boys, 
 and could not be expected to ; for I never was 
 a boy. It is a fact that they do queer things as 
 well as you — but why? — there's the mischief. 
 
 I know that the little boys — your brothers — 
 tease you terribly, pull your curls, wash your 
 dolls' faces, drown your kittens, and generally 
 make life a burden to you. Yet they glory in 
 protecting you — will not let other boys snow- 
 ball you — will fight a dog, or even bull, in your 
 defence — will climb the highest trees to get 
 you nuts and apples ; and that you cannot do 
 without these same little teasing, tormenting 
 brothers of yours. I know, too, that those big 
 boys — your lovers — though they like you to 
 be shy and modest, and "chary of your smiles," 
 yet, if you are so, will flirt with other girls, and 
 make your hearts ache. That they say, " a 
 girl has no business to think a man loves her 
 till he tells her so," yet call girls (who act upon 
 that principle) coquettes. But why ? but why ? 
 
 Then there are those older boys — your hus- 
 bands ! They love you better than any one — 
 
I06 MUSINGS OF A 
 
 will almost worship you, and will choose you 
 out of the whole world. They will think and 
 say that you are smarter and prettier than any 
 one; yet will neglect you for others, will find 
 fault with you, and will permit others to do so ; 
 and will let you be the recipient of their troubles, 
 their temper, and their tyranny? But why, 
 girls ? why ? 
 
 There evidently is boyology, too ; for the sub- 
 ject has sufficient quirks and " queerities " in it 
 to entitle it to a place among the sciences. It 
 was the study and bother of my childhood, 
 and has been ever since — this trying to under- 
 stand boys. There is no use, girls, you need 
 not try — you can't do it. I had as good a 
 chance as most of you, and tried hard enough, 
 but now, in middle life, give it up as impossible. 
 They will not tell of themselves — catch them 
 at that I They will tell you all sorts of things 
 about girls, which you knew before, and can give 
 a reason for far better than they. But about 
 boys, big or little ! Why, even that great char- 
 acter painter, that great truth-teller, Shakspeare, 
 
MIDDLE-AGED WOMAN. lO/ 
 
 throws no light on the subject. They will all 
 paint us some great villain — tell us he did 
 thus, and so, but not why! Ah, no! I wish 
 that they would, for it would so simplify mat- 
 ters to know what we might expect — to un- 
 derstand the symptoms, to say the least of it. 
 But they don't, and, I suppose, they won't; 
 therefore I come back to girls, whom I do 
 understand, and love better in consequence — 
 even with all " their inconsistencies y Inconsist- 
 encies ! pshaw ! all human beings are incon- 
 sistent ; and girls are consistent with them- 
 selves at any rate. 
 
 One great difficulty in the study of girlology 
 is, that men, and women, too, whenever a girl 
 does anything peculiar, eccentric, or blame- 
 worthy, call it unwomanly, and think they 
 have exhausted the subject; think they have 
 " hit the nail on the head,' when they have only 
 hit it on the side, and driven it half-way in, 
 and crooked at that. 
 
 It is, to be sure, a great compliment to 
 womanhood, to girlhood, to say that all un- 
 
I08 MUSINGS OF A 
 
 pleasant peculiarity, all naughtiness, is un- 
 womanly; implying that woman-nature, girl- 
 nature, is always good and pleasant. It is a 
 great compliment, but — not a great truth. 
 
 An old farmer once said about potatoes, 
 " Taters is taters ; but you see there is a dif~ 
 ference in taters." And so girls are girls; but, 
 you see, there is a difference in girls. Because 
 a potato is not a good potato — is queer, and 
 somewhat different from that tuber generally — 
 does it cease to be a potato ? No, indeed. 
 Potatoes are potatoes, most decidedly ; and, 
 what is more, will remain so^ do what you will 
 with them. Transplant them to other lands 
 and other soils ; cultivate them or leave them 
 alone ; give them water, and air, and sunshine, 
 or deprive them of these advantages ; plant 
 them by themselves, or among corn, or 
 turnips, or beets, or squashes, or onions, still 
 they remain potatoes ; still they retain their 
 individuality, and are the one vegetable which 
 no household can do without. And girls, bless 
 their hearts ! will do so too. Transplant them; 
 
MIDDLE-AGED WOMAN. IO9 
 
 try to change their nature by sending them 
 into the world — even make medical students 
 of them, and give them the run of the hospitals 
 with the men, and still their girlhood will assert 
 itself; they will go down a by-way to avoid 
 the impertinent stare of the male students. I 
 think it was mean in those big boys, and just 
 like them ; yet I was glad of it ; glad of any- 
 thing which proves that girls cannot unsex 
 themselves, try as hard as they will. 
 
 There have been, it is true, women, who, in 
 some great cause, under some strong excite- 
 ment, or impelled by stern necessity, have faced 
 crowds, or gone into battle unflinchingly, or into 
 the haunts of men, with head erect, and an eye 
 before which impertinence quailed, and the 
 rude jest and sneer were smothered in their 
 birth. But after all, that only proved their 
 individuality — the girlhood, the womanhood 
 within them. Strong impulse, great need, im- 
 pelled them ; and, woman-like, they stopped not 
 to reason. They thought not of the propriety 
 of time or place, or of themselves at all. The 
 
no MUSINGS OF A 
 
 great must drove them onward, and gave them 
 that true strength and dignity which such inspi- 
 ration always gives. They were not unsexed ! 
 They were women, fulfilling their highest, their 
 holiest mission of ministering, succoring, saving. 
 They were doing the work of angels ; and was it 
 any wonder that, as they passed with such high, 
 pure purpose written on their uplifted brows, 
 rude, uncultivated men felt their power; bad 
 men reverenced them ; and that all joined in 
 calling a Joan d'Arc, a Florence Nightingale, 
 and such like, angels indeed ? They were 
 angels for the time being, ministering spirits ; 
 and so there is a touch of angel nature in all 
 girls ! Dickens deserves the thanks of the sex 
 that he has found it out ; that he has pictured 
 an Edith Dombey, kept from sin by her great 
 love for Florence ; a fallen Martha redeeming 
 herself that she might save "little Em'ly;" and 
 a degraded Nance bearing a blow from the 
 man she loved, for the sake of the child Oliver. 
 Yet they are very naughty, these girls — like 
 potatoes. A writer says about the latter that 
 
MIDDLE-AGED WOMAN. Ill 
 
 ** There is no vegetable so prone to run back- 
 wards. Just give him his way, and he goes 
 headlong to ruin as fast as a potato can." 
 And so it is with girls ; there is no denying it. 
 They are so strong, so decisive, that they must 
 do something. If you do not help them for- 
 wards, they will go backwards. Ah ! yes, 
 potatoes and girls are alike in that they want 
 culture^ and air, and rain, and sunshine, and 
 more sunshine than rain they both want. Give 
 potatoes too much rain and they run to vines, 
 to head — the poor tuber is small and watery, 
 and often hollow-hearted. 
 
 Give girls too much discipline, and they will 
 grow to head also — the real girl, the heart, 
 does not develop. They are sharp, suspicious, 
 and hard. 
 
 Give it rain, and sunshine, and air, but no 
 culture, and the potato may have plenty both 
 of vines and tubers ; but, after all, it is a wild 
 potato, make the best of it. Just so is your 
 girl without culture. She is a thorough girl, 
 with wits and heart all alive, eyes everywhere ; 
 but a wild specimen at the best. 
 
112 MUSINGS OF A 
 
 What these girls want the most, we give 
 them least of. You say they are vain ; and so 
 they are : that they love dress and gayety ; and 
 so they do. Why are they vain ? Poor little 
 souls! they want love; they want sunshine. 
 Give them plenty of it, and see if they will be 
 vain ! Are not the plainest girls, the least ad- 
 mired, often the vainest ? 
 
 Why do they love dress? Partly because 
 they wish to make themselves attractive, and 
 know of no other way to accomplish it ; and 
 partly because, from lack of culture, they have 
 nothing else to do. It is the only taste culti- 
 vated by either father or mother. Yes, I dare 
 to say it — father! Do you not tell your little 
 girl (whose vanity had never gone farther than 
 a clean apron) that, if she will take her medi- 
 cine, or do something equally disagreeable, you 
 will get her a pretty new dress ; and she will 
 look so nice in it, and shall go out to walk 
 with papa; connecting the idea of the new 
 dress with her walk with you till she (poor 
 little innocent !) thinks papa's affections depend 
 
MIDDLE-AGED WOMAN. II3 
 
 on her dress? And when she is older, you 
 carry on the same game. You like to see her 
 look pretty ; you are proud of her ; and always 
 take out most with you the prettiest, the best 
 dressed, daughter. Ah ! she even gets the 
 most kisses (generally) and the most love. 
 
 And, mother, do you not punish your child 
 sooner for soiling her dress than her book ? 
 Don't you tell her, when she throws her little 
 arms around your neck in an impulsive em- 
 brace, not to rumple your hair, nor your collar ? 
 Well, I am no friend to either rumpled collars 
 or hair; but those little soft arms around one's 
 neck — those little fingers fumbling in one's 
 hair, can the want of them be made up to 
 you and me by the most unexceptionable 
 toilet ? No ! no ! Woman, if you have no little 
 fingers to pull your hair down — no little arms 
 to rumple your collar, borrow your neighbor's 
 little girl for that purpose ; and, besides the ray 
 of sunshine you will shed on her path, you can 
 never calculate the blessing she will be to you. 
 She will pull down with the hair the years 
 10* H 
 
114 MUSINGS OF A 
 
 which separate you from your girlish feelings — 
 your girlhood's home. She will "keep your 
 memory green " of other little fingers, which 
 once loved to be so employed ; and of another 
 little heart once as easily made glad ; and it 
 will make you gentler towards girlish weak- 
 nesses — towards girlish faults. For they have 
 faults, these girls ; and yet, as I said before, 
 they all have a touch of the angel- nature in 
 them, which is the reason (I take it) why 
 women are so much worse than men when 
 they are bad. Fallen angels are certainly 
 worse than fallen men ; for you know, friends, 
 that the Devil is a fallen angel. Still, do not 
 for an instant imagine that I agree with " Owen 
 Meredith " in supposing that 
 
 " The Devil is a woman just now." 
 
 Yet I am willing to allow that these little 
 girls are naughty, often very naughty. Some- 
 times the darlings are absolutely vicious, as 
 vicious as young colts ; and, what is worse, 
 take real delight in being so — pride themselves 
 
MIDDLE-AGED WOMAN. II5 
 
 upon being wilful, unreasonable, and uncon- 
 trollable. Said a naughty little girl to me 
 once, " I am so bad, nobody can do anything 
 with me. I torment everybody's life out." 
 "Well, my dear," was the answer, "you are 
 not alone in that, — a great many girls are the 
 same. If you want to be original and peculiar, 
 try to be good, for good girls are rarer than bad 
 ones." 
 
 She looked up in my face with a gleam of 
 intelligence and amusement in her great gipsy 
 eyes, and asked, " How did you know that? " 
 
 Ah ! girls, don't I know ? Don't I know 
 that, though you are not worse than the rest 
 of us, than all who have the taint, yet, after all, 
 being more guileless and honest than we grown- 
 up people, you come out with the naughtiness, 
 and make yourselves disagreeable? Yes, I 
 know that ; and know, too, how, when being 
 mistrusted, misunderstood, and unloved, you 
 often do really become naughty and reckless, 
 and think, if you cannot get love and admira- 
 tion, you will have notoriety at any rate. God 
 
Il6 MUSINGS OF A 
 
 help you that it go no farther! that you 
 do not try to unsex yourselves, or succeed in 
 degrading your own sex and losing your own 
 souls. Oh ! dear young friends, be notorious 
 if you will, if you can, but be notoriously great 
 and good. 
 
 But there is another reason, girls, why you 
 are so naughty sometimes. How very good 
 some of you would be if you were not so very, 
 very idle. If only those heads and hearts and 
 hands were well employed. Don't tell me it is 
 because you have nothing to do. It is not so. 
 You do not want to do anything ; you won't 
 do what hes right in your path ; and you may 
 as well acknowledge it. Nine-tenths of you 
 are like an honest little friend of mine, who 
 said that her dream of life was "to swing on 
 the gate, and drink buttermilk." In other 
 words, have fun generally ; have all you want, 
 and do nothing useful. You get over it after 
 awhile (sometimes), but not entirely ; and there 
 seems always to be a propensity to do every- 
 thing under the sun but the one useful thing 
 
MIDDLE-AGED WOMAN. 11/ 
 
 God intended for you. You are not lazy all of 
 you, nor most of you — oh no ! you are " only 
 self-indulgent ! " and what is the difference in 
 the result ? When you get to be large girls, to 
 be " old girls," how those idle habits cling to 
 you. You have not been trained; you have 
 not trained yourselves to work — to work in 
 the best sense of the term. That heart of 
 yours has not gone out in sympathy and love 
 for those in your home — those around you. 
 Those heads have not worked to any purpose. 
 And those hands — alas ! alas ! they have held 
 to the gate whilst you swung, and that is all. 
 But some of you have brains which cannot be 
 idle; and all have hands, and most of you 
 hearts ; for, like potatoes, it is only occasionally 
 that a hollow-hearted one is found among you. 
 And you get tired of swinging on a gate. 
 The brains wake up. The hands itch to do 
 something. The heart either fastens itself on 
 the first presentable man you meet, or on your 
 own dear self; and, perhaps, you go on through 
 life (if not very useful) at least not unhappy. 
 
Il8 MUSINGS OF A 
 
 But it is a great venture (make the most of it), 
 and the poor heart often gets broken, or frozen, 
 or dried up. Then how those idle brains and 
 hands try to avenge it. How you sink into 
 coquettes, vain and untrue — perhaps become 
 married flirts, or — worse! Or else you rush 
 off into a wicked and useless pursuit of " a 
 mission." You who have never worked, or 
 cared to work in your whole lives, crying out 
 for your right to some great life-work (your 
 neighbor's, perhaps), when your own lies un- 
 done, untouched, even, beside you. Ah ! girls, 
 
 " Get work, get work, 
 
 Be sure 'tis better than what you work to get." 
 
 You cannot be very naughty or very unhappy 
 if you are usefully occupied. 
 
 I know how hard it is to get up betimes in 
 the morning, and feel there is nothing before 
 you but work, monotonous work, the same old 
 "tread-mill," day after day. And it comes 
 harder to your yoimg natures than to ours ; 
 but is it harder than an "eternal round of 
 pleasure " ? 
 
MIDDLE-AGED WOMAN. I I9 
 
 There is so much satisfaction in finishing 
 anything ; in seeing things grow under one's 
 hands; in even a nice, clean, tasteful room 
 which we have helped to make so ; that, upon 
 the whole, I don't pity you much ; I don't pity 
 myself that little duties, little cares, make up 
 the sum of most women's lives. 
 
 But, "there's a difference in taters " and — 
 girls. A good Peach-Blow is not like a good 
 Mercer, nor a Sweet Potato or Early June like 
 either. They are all potatoes, to be sure ; all 
 from the same parent stock originally, and 
 though soil, climate, and culture have made a 
 great diversity in them, and increased the num- 
 ber of species, still, amidst that diversity, they 
 all retain certain characteristics, which unmis- 
 takably show them to be potatoes. 
 
 Ah! those Peach-Blows, how nice they are 
 — how hard it is to spoil them, and how much 
 more reliable they are than any other potatoes. 
 In a drought, which causes a total failure in 
 other crops, or in a flood which makes other 
 potatoes soggy and good for nothing, they will 
 
120 MUSINGS OF A 
 
 be quite mealy and eatable, and bear a pretty- 
 good crop. Let a good, industrious, intelligent 
 farmer plant them, and hoe and cultivate them 
 as only a good farmer can or does, and they 
 produce (in a good season) large quantities of 
 great, magnificent tubers, fair to look upon, 
 and pleasant to the taste. Or, let a poor farmer 
 get hold of them and neglect them, still they 
 will look nice, and are very passable potatoes. 
 Then "the rot" rarely touches them; they 
 are very seldom hollow-hearted; and scarcely 
 any kind of cookery will spoil them, provided 
 they are cooked enough — and they do need 
 more cooking than any potatoes that I ever 
 tried. 
 
 And Peach-Blow girls ditto. They have 
 hearts, most decidedly ; but they are not very 
 soft, and need the application of a good deal 
 of heat to make them so. 
 
 How nice and pleasant these girls are — how 
 yielding and gentle they seem. One would 
 suppose them easily affected by either love or 
 hate, censure or approval. But just try them, 
 
MIDDLE-AGED WOMAN. 121 
 
 and see if they are not as hard as a Peach-Blow 
 potato. Yet, like these same potatoes, they 
 cannot be readily spoilt by either adversity or 
 sunshine. They are pleasant through every- 
 thing; pleasant to look at; pleasant to talk 
 to ; pleasant to be with. Their feelings are 
 not quick or keen enough to render them 
 disagreeable or exacting. They have much 
 gumption and tact, but their intellects are not 
 of that higher order Which makes of them 
 thinking and inquiring girls, who sometimes are 
 unpopular. No, no — this style of girl is very 
 popular, even as a little girl. *' Mamma " likes 
 her because she never asks unanswerable ques- 
 tions nor rumples her collar. " Papa " ap- 
 proves of her because she is self-possessed in 
 society and yielding at home. Teachers like 
 her because she is not naughty, nor restless, 
 nor inventive in tormenting. And, when she 
 grows up, how the beaux like her! how they 
 break their hearts for her ! — no, I did n't mean 
 break, I meant bruise, for it is not often men 
 break their hearts for a Peach-Blow girl. And, 
 
122 MUSINGS OF A 
 
 bless you, as for her heart, the darHng ! does 
 it ever get broken ? Not a bit of it. She will 
 talk softly and gently to you of woman's sphere 
 [and affections — will raise her eyes to your face 
 with a look which acknowledges your supe- 
 riority, and appeals to your protection, till you 
 think yourself the one man in the world to her, 
 and yet — ask her to marry you. Ten chances 
 to one, she will say (with drooping eyelids) 
 that " she is very sorry, but she cannot love 
 you — will you not be her friend." Or, if you 
 prove false and unworthy — if you play the 
 jilt — you need not pity ''the poor little soul." 
 She will not lose many nights of sleep — not 
 she. She will look interesting, and the world 
 will talk of her fortitude and resignation be- 
 cause she don't break her heart — but she worit. 
 No, no ; her heart is made of '* sterner stuff;" it 
 will not even freeze or dry up ; and I think she 
 is right — if she can do it: I quite approve of 
 her. 
 
 Yet this class of girls is not the highest 
 style by any means. On certain soils, with 
 
MIDDLE-AGED WOMAN. I23 
 
 certain culture, noble women are developed 
 from among them; still, inasmuch as the physi- 
 cal generally predominates in them, they are 
 not the sort which we ever, for a moment, 
 think of as angels. But I don't know; per- 
 haps, if their hearts were hammered on, melted 
 — cooked enough when young — they might 
 be more angelic. 
 
 And here I am met by the remark, " But we 
 don't want angels, we want women." 
 
 Well, just as you choose — I don't object; 
 only I do think it would be nice to have these 
 girls of ours little " ministering spirits " in our 
 homes. / would like them to be something 
 more than pleasant and agreeable, and nice 
 looking, and nice behaved. If there happened 
 to be one of these Peach-Blow girls in my 
 home, I should try my best to soften her heart, 
 awaken her sympathies, quicken her impulses, 
 and teach her to love me well enough to give 
 me a good hug and kiss regardless of appear- 
 ances — regardless of consequences. 
 
 Friends, I like Peach-Blow potatoes, and buy 
 
124 MUSINGS OF A 
 
 them, generally; but it is only because I cannot 
 get good Mercers. Don't tell me that the former 
 are just as good as the latter: I know better. 
 I ate Mercers years ago, before " the rot " be- 
 came so prevalent ; when Mapes and ever>'"- 
 body else said that they were the best sort of 
 potatoes ; when no farmer who thought any- 
 thing of his reputa ion would be without them; 
 when old housekeepers felt insulted if market 
 women asked them to buy anything else. 
 
 Ah, how nice and mealy they were! How 
 white — how delicate to the taste if boiled just 
 right, or if roasted in ashes. 
 
 Those were days when farmers used hoes 
 instead of cultivators, and were not afraid to 
 work. Of course I don't knozv, but it does seem 
 to me that, if the soil were properly prepared, 
 and they were put in just right, and thoroughly 
 cultivated afterwards, we might have good 
 Mercers now as well as formerly. I know 
 that they are more easily affected by either a 
 too dry or too wet season than most varieties ; 
 that ^' the rot " has a particular fancy for them, 
 
MIDDLE-AGED WOMAN. 12$ 
 
 at which I don't wonder; for if it be little 
 insects, as some horticulturists insist, they cer- 
 tainly show good taste. If man's taste only 
 rivalled his indolence, he would make more 
 effort to reclaim from these little epicures this 
 delicious tuber for his own use. I insist upon 
 it that they are worth taking extra trouble 
 about; and so are girls of the Mercer type, too. 
 
 Don't you know the sort ? To be sure you 
 do ; for though they are not so plenty as Peach- 
 Blows, yet we have all seen them, and are sure 
 to know them. They are so distinctive, have 
 so much individuality, that we can never mis- 
 take them. 
 
 As the Mercer potato has a tendency to run 
 to vines, so the girl has to run to brains — to 
 have opinions of her own and express them, 
 and is, consequently, not popular. Then, how 
 impulsive she is — how regardless of conse- 
 quences ! How restless and troublesome, and 
 awkward, and malapropos as a child she is — 
 how hard to train, and how (like Mercer po- 
 tatoes) she is not liked because she is trouble- 
 II* 
 
126 MUSINGS OF A 
 
 some, and is often neglected and uncultivated. 
 So (poor little soul!) she trains herself by- 
 asking all sorts of questions; by reading all 
 sorts of books ; by forming violent friendships 
 with peculiar people ; and by doing all sorts 
 of odd things generally. How she shocks you 
 all by her Quixotic endeavors to right her 
 friends, relieve the oppressed, and reform the 
 world. 
 
 Her heart is very soft and tender; she is 
 "sweet at the core;" but the world does not 
 know it — even her lovers do not dream of it ; 
 for she is a proud little minx, and carries a 
 high head and flashing eye. She does not 
 " stoop to conquer," — not she. No ! no ! — she 
 is a ** born princess," and will be wooed. 
 
 If the man who has won her love " dare " 
 neglect her, and she hear aught against his 
 constancy, which his own actions confirm, 
 then — pity both ! How she will trample on 
 her own heart and crush out its love, till 
 heart and nerves — yea, almost life itself — give 
 way under the pressure. But the head is just 
 
MIDDLE-AGED WOMAN. 12/ 
 
 as high, the lip as smiling, and the step firmer 
 than ever. Meanwhile, the lover votes her 
 heartless; thinks she never loved him; and 
 " they lose each other on the sea of life, drift- 
 ing forever further and further apart, beyond 
 reach of look, or tone, or cry of anguish." 
 Then, if she be the 07ie woman in the world to 
 him, she is avenged as she never meant or 
 wished to be — for men have been known to 
 break their hearts, or have their lives blighted, 
 out of love for such girls. 
 
 I suppose that I ought to feel sorry for hinty 
 and condemn her : she had no business to be so 
 proud ; that (according to the accepted mean- 
 ing of the term) it would be more womanly to 
 do so. But " doctors differ; " / think it would 
 be more womanly not to do so, inasmuch as I am 
 a woman myself, and would naturally lean to 
 the girl-side of the question, especially when I 
 consider how easily Mercer girls are spoilt. 
 Ah ! there is so much of the angel in those 
 great, high-strung, unselfish, loving natures, that 
 I tremble for what they may become through 
 
128 MUSINGS OF A 
 
 doubt, neglect, or wrong. That if planted on 
 a cold, clay soil, with defective culture, and they 
 have too much rain and too little sunshine, ** the 
 rot" will overtake them ; and then! Perhaps 
 they are only touched, and still are white and 
 pure at heart; but the mealiness, the sweetness, 
 is gone, and they become outwardly hard, sharp, 
 and indifferent. 
 
 But if the disease be bad, and the whole 
 heart turn black — what then ? Why, then, let 
 us speak it softly, mournfully, as we whisper 
 of the death of loved ones, yea, as we tell of 
 the wreck of some noble ship, let us tell of this 
 greater human wreck, this woman-heart in ruins. 
 This woman becomes desperate, cruel, almost 
 fiendish. I verily believe that our worst wo- 
 men come from this class — and so do our best. 
 They are the strongest natures, and capable of 
 the greatest extremes. They rarely, if ever, 
 lose their virtue — they are too proud and un- 
 yielding for that; but they become Rosa 
 Dartles, and Charlotte Cordays, and Helen 
 McGregors. 
 
MIDDLE-AGED WOMAN. I29 
 
 Like the best-blooded horses, they have the 
 most mettle, and (even as children) show it. 
 They are the girls who have most temper ; and 
 it is naughty, very naughty, I would not en- 
 courage them in it. But " deal gently" with 
 them, for with such girls ''I, at least, know no 
 way of fighting with what is wrong, like help- 
 ing everything good and true to grow." 
 
 How love and trust, good air, good soil, and 
 right culture develop them ! The warm, unsel- 
 fish impulses become right principles ; the reck- 
 lessness, moral courage; the restlessness, ener- 
 gy in a good cause ; the pride, self-respect ; and 
 the strong will. Christian firmness and endurance. 
 
 They are " of the stuff from which martyrs 
 are made." Not those alone spoken of "in 
 history and in song," but household martyrs, 
 too. They who are stretched on the rack for 
 years instead of days; who bear more than 
 one burning; who themselves guillotine their 
 most cherished tastes, their dearest hopes,, for 
 love or duty's sake, yet never ask nor get the 
 world's applause or pity. And they need it 
 I 
 
130 MUSINGS OF A 
 
 not. They are self-sustained, because God-sus- 
 tained ; and never lean but on Omnipotence. 
 
 Reader, have you never felt that there were 
 some things, and some people, which you would 
 have liked a great deal better, if the reality had 
 not fallen short of your expectations ? If it had 
 not been for the humiliating feeling that you were 
 cheated — imposed upon? If so, you felt just 
 as I did the other day, when, buying (as I 
 thought) Mercer potatoes, I got Blue-Noses 
 instead, and never found out my mistake till 
 they came to be peeled. 
 
 Angry don't begin to express my feelings. 
 I was beside myself — raving. Declared that I 
 had been cheated, and that the man should 
 take them back. 
 
 In vain did my cook say that '* they were 
 pretty good potatoes." 
 
 My expectations were of good, old-fashioned, 
 white, mealy Mercers; and I would not be satis- 
 fied with anything less. One member of the 
 family suggested that, having bought the pota- 
 
MIDDLE-AGED WOMAN. I3I 
 
 toes myself, I ought to have known what I was 
 buying-. I turned upon him fiercely. " How 
 should I, a woman, know the difference be- 
 tween a Mercer and a Blue-Nose with the 
 skins on ? Don't they look just alike till they 
 are peeled? But they are not alike. The latter 
 is only an imitation of the former, and I hate all 
 imitations — all pretensions." As I stopped to 
 take breath, he went on coolly : " No, they are 
 not alike, not even with the skins on. A Mercer 
 (if good) is the same shade all over; but a Blue- 
 Nose is darker in spots, generally at one end, 
 and is very inferior in taste to the former ; yet, 
 being easier of cultivation than Mercers (as they 
 are not so readily affected by either wet or dry 
 weather, or the rot), farmers like them better." 
 Of course, reader, they like them better be- 
 cause they are less trouble, and so give us a 
 poor imitation instead of the genuine article, 
 and have the audacity to call them Blue Mercers. 
 I, for one, don't mean to stand it ! T'is a foul 
 slander on the rea/ Mercer, and a great imposi- 
 tion on us. 
 
132 MUSINGS OF A 
 
 But, as bad as the potato Imitation is, the girl 
 imitation is worse ; when it comes to that, I 
 have no words for my indignation. 
 
 I like everything in the shape of a girl — it 
 is my greatest weakness. The little chits them- 
 selves know it, and impose on me ; and all my 
 friends take advantage of it. They are con- 
 stantly coming to persuade me to engage in 
 some " woman's mission," or " girl's industrial 
 school," or to subscribe to some female orphan 
 or blind, or something or another, asylum. 
 They know they are hitting my weak point — 
 my hobby. And yet, friends, there is a girl — 
 this imitation girl — who excites my direst wrath, 
 and it is because she is not genuine, not honest. 
 It is such a mean, cowardly fault, this attempt- 
 ing, this pretending to be something different 
 from what one is — this hoisting of false colors. 
 
 Run up your own flag, girls, even if it be 
 black, and let us know where you stand. But 
 it is not black ; oh ! no ; only a little streaked. 
 
 You have some brains, occasionally a good 
 deal of talent, and if you would only be satis- 
 
MIDDLE-AGED WOMAN. I33 
 
 fied with that, and not pretend to so much sen- 
 timent, and impulse, and intellect, I should like 
 you better. You are very nice girls, and capa- 
 ble (under culture and pressure) of achieving 
 considerable. But do not put on absent-minded 
 airs, and be slovenly in your dress, and behave 
 as if it were impossible for you to bring your 
 minds down to sewing and household duties. 
 It is of no use. Those of us who understand 
 as much about girls, as my friend did about 
 potatoes, know (even before you are peeled) 
 that you are not Mercers. If you were, you 
 would be ashamed of your natural failings — 
 would blush at them, instead of talking about 
 them ; would make the most desperate efforts 
 to dress like other people; and be more proud 
 of making a good loaf of bread, or a really 
 pretty apron than — of writing a book. 
 
 Then, too, though Mercer girls care little for 
 dress, I doubt their being more slovenly than 
 other people; or that they look down with con- 
 tempt on household affairs. I deny both facts. 
 
134 MUSINGS OF A 
 
 Also that they are absent-minded, for, like 
 Mercer potatoes, they are all eyes, and know 
 and see everything that is going on. 
 
 You court observation, too, either in joy or 
 sorrow; and if you were real Mercers, you 
 would feel too keenly to have your sores 
 touched by everybody. You would cry out, 
 
 " Being observed, 
 
 When observation is not sympathy, 
 Is just being tortured." 
 
 Even in love or marriage, you cannot be 
 honest. You do love sometimes ; for you have 
 hearts, though they are so streaked through 
 with worldly wisdom and policy that they are 
 not always either as tender or white as we 
 would have them. So, often when love is your 
 only motive, you talk (very piously) about the 
 leadings of Providence, and how your sphere 
 and life are marked out for you so plainly that 
 you dare not disobey, etc., etc. 
 
 One would think, to hear you, that you had 
 been the subject of a direct revelation in the 
 matter. 
 
MIDDLE-AGED WOMAN. I35 
 
 I am sure that I have no particular objection 
 to your being conscientious on the subject of 
 love and marriage, as well as any other. In- 
 deed (on the contrary) I would say trample 
 either love or worldly advantage under foot, 
 sooner than marry a man whose moral or re- 
 ligious character is what you cannot approve ; 
 sooner than take so important a step in your 
 life, and not be able to pray over it. But don't 
 pretend. When you do marry for love, say so, 
 and be proud of it (I certainly think it is noth- 
 ing to be ashamed of); and if you don't, the 
 least said about it the better. 
 
 You see, girls, we understand you. There is 
 no use of trying to blind us with your affecta- 
 tions. Be as refined as you choose. Be cul- 
 tivated. Christian gentlewomen, but — dmi't 
 act ! Don't pretend to be geniuses, or saints, 
 with nerves so delicate that a small word or a 
 common word grates on your ear, and that you 
 cannot bear the society of uncultivated people, 
 though all the time trying to impose upon us 
 a heart so large and warm that even a Mrs. 
 
136 MUSINGS OF A 
 
 Jejleby would die of envy beholding your 
 superior philanthropy. 
 
 Oh! we would like you so well, if you would 
 only be natural. If you only had the courage 
 to be yourselves — nice, smart, presentable girls, 
 who cared how you looked; who thought more 
 of the IdiSt /as/iw7t than the last poej/i; and who, 
 even in affliction, never forgot to order a most 
 becoming bonnet. 
 
 But now what can we do ? You are so re- 
 fined we cannot refine you; so smart that it is 
 useless to cultivate you; and so good that you 
 cannot be any '' gooder!' ^^ CJiacun a son goitt ;'' 
 but to my notion, you would be a little improved 
 by cultivating your conscience and self-respect, 
 that you might care more 'Uo be'' than ''to seem 
 to be!' 
 
 I ate some potatoes at a friend's table early 
 in June, which were so large, and fine, and 
 mealy, that I was surprised to learn they were 
 new potatoes. Upon my wondering that every- 
 body did not grow them in preference to other 
 kinds, was told that they were Early Jimes, and 
 
MIDDLE-AGED WOMAN. I37 
 
 matured earlier than other varieties, but were 
 never any better than I saw them then. " In- 
 deed/' continued my host, "you would not like 
 them in October at all. They come to perfec- 
 tion too soon to be good for anything in 
 autumn and winter." 
 
 Ah ! girls, girls ! I wonder how many of you 
 are Early Junes? Judging from the number 
 which pass my window every day, the species 
 must be alarmingly on the increase. You are 
 carefully and finely dressed, and are stylish and 
 graceful, without crudeness or awkward girlish 
 ways ; and I scarcely wonder that your mothers 
 are proud of you. I like you myself, but I don^t 
 approve of you. What business have you to 
 ripen so soon ? To be women at fifteen ? To 
 have lovers before you have brains ; and to be 
 able to get up an "unexceptionable toilet" 
 before you have either ? At least, you consider 
 it unexceptionable, but / don't; and neither 
 would you, if you had taken time to develop 
 brains. No, no ; you would have thought twice 
 before you wore a man's hat and boots, put a 
 12* 
 
138 MUSINGS OF A 
 
 camel's hump on your back, and walked the 
 streets in the dress of a harlequin. 
 
 But you have not any brains, poor child ! 
 and, what is worse, never will have, I am afraid. 
 There is as much of you as there will ever be ; 
 for you matured so quickly that the intellect 
 was entirely overlooked. 
 
 You are lively, and pleasant, and pretty, and 
 stylish, and it does very well while youth lasts ; 
 but in October, girls, in autimm and zvinter ! 
 I am afraid we shall not like you any better 
 then than we like the potatoes. 
 
 And what will you do with yourselves then ? 
 You have never thought of anything but beaux 
 and dress ; never dojie anything but dress and 
 flirt ; and never had any other mission but to 
 make yourselves pretty by dress. What will 
 you do in autumn — in mnddle age? Dress? 
 Well, some of you will; some of you do, I 
 know; but you look like old fools; and — ex- 
 cuse me — you ai^e what you look like; and I 
 am not the only person who thinks so. 
 
 You had hearts when you started, and that 
 
MIDDLE-AGED WOMAN. I39 
 
 was one reason we liked you so well; but feed- 
 ing only on self, they are starved out, and either 
 dry up or die a natural death. Even if you get 
 married, you are selfish mothers, selfish wives. 
 You hunger for the old excitement, the old ad- 
 miration. If you happen to be too pure to be 
 married flirts, you are {iiot often) too good (be 
 you rich) to endeavor to break your neighbor's 
 heart with envy at your superior appointments 
 in house, dress, and equipage. If you be poor, 
 how you worry your husband into expenditure 
 beyond his means, that you may rival your 
 richer neighbors and friends. 
 
 Oh! little girls! little girls! what will save 
 you from becoming such women as I see all 
 around me? Cannot we keep you little girls 
 till your brains develop, and your hearts grow? 
 I should try — I should try. I would make 
 your home, your girlhood so happy, that you 
 would be sorry to ''grow up." I would get 
 you dolls to dress, instead of yourselves, and 
 help you dress them. Would get you story- 
 books and games; would romp and laugh with 
 
140 MUSINGS OF A 
 
 you, and make you sew and study with me. 
 Should not scold you if you happened to be 
 caught in deshabille by company, but teach you 
 to be so clean and neat that it would not often 
 happen. 
 
 And what nice times we should have when 
 we went out walking together. We should be 
 so occupied with looking at pretty pictures, and 
 statuary, and flowers, and vases, in the shop- 
 windows, and talking about them, that we 
 should not think of other people's dress, nor of 
 our own. 
 
 And at times I would tell you of some noble 
 women — good women whom I had known, 
 single women, too — who had lived useful, happy 
 lives. I would read to you of others who had 
 lived great lives, and would tell you what they 
 had thought, written, and accomplished; and 
 then you would not care so much to dress for 
 beaux, and marry the first fool or scamp who 
 asked you, because you were afraid of being 
 called ''old girls;" for you would know that 
 some of the greatest, best women of every age, 
 in all times, have been *' old girls'* 
 
MIDDLE-AGED WOMAN. I4I 
 
 Szveet potatoes^ are you getting tired of wait- 
 ing ? Don't you know that zve have to wait a 
 great while for you in the fall of the year? 
 That you are longer maturing than any other 
 kind, and will not mature at all, if the soil is 
 not just to your liking ? 
 
 How you do like warmth and dryness ! and 
 how scrubby and good-for-nothing you are 
 without. My mouth waters now at the thought 
 of how nice you used to be, grovv^n in your own 
 Carolinas, on your native soil, in your own 
 sunny clime. How (running wild at your own 
 sweet will) with very little culture you turned 
 out ** all right," and were sweet, and mealy, and 
 luscious. How all through the winter in that 
 Southern land (covered by that warm, dry 
 sand) you held your own, and never wilted, or 
 rotted, or lost your sweetness. Still, even then, 
 I remember longing for a good Irish potato, 
 and wondering at dinner-time whether people 
 ever died of too much sweetness. Ah ! tliese 
 potatoes certainly are injured by it. If they do 
 not rot outright, they become sticky and dis- 
 
142 MUSINGS OF A 
 
 agreeable in consequence, when we attempt to 
 keep them all winter at the North. I for one 
 am tempted to wish they had less sugar and 
 more starch, to give them more strength, that 
 they might stand our climate better. 
 
 Just give them warm soil (these Sweet pota- 
 toes), and they will mature at the North as 
 readily as in their own climate. They do not 
 care, not they, so long as they get plenty of 
 sugar and sunshine, whether it be their native 
 soil or not. They will stretch out those ten- 
 drils of theirs all over creation, after sweetness 
 and warmth. They will run into all the neigh- 
 boring patches, and even cross wide paths in 
 the search. But they don't always find what 
 they want, and how can they? Why don't 
 they stay at home? They may run around 
 (with impunity) in the soil and climate to which 
 they are indigenous, but it will not do here. 
 We must clip off their runners, and make them 
 stay where they were planted, or they will never 
 turn out well. 
 
 Girls of the Sweet-potato type, how much 
 
MIDDLE-AGED WOMAN. I43 
 
 better ofif you are when you stay where you 
 were planted. But you dotit, and I hear you 
 say you worHt. 
 
 You are very sweet — you have more sugar 
 than starch ; more sweetness than strength ; 
 more vanity than pride. You long for admira- 
 tion, for love, and throw out those tendrils of 
 yours all over creation after it. If you do not 
 get what you want at home, in your own social 
 circle, you go into your neighbor's patches to 
 find it. You attempt all sorts of missions, all 
 sorts of work ; you even cross the wide path 
 which separates modest maidens from fast 
 young women, and then — you do not turn out 
 well. 
 
 It does seem strange that the very sweetest 
 women are the ones least satisfied with remain- 
 ing as God made them — that, as a class, they 
 are the ones who try hardest to unsex them- 
 selves. It can only be explained from the fact 
 that they have not enough self-respect to glory 
 in their girlhood — their womanhood. Then, too, 
 they are not strong; for sugar <3;/<?;2^ does not give 
 
144 MUSINGS OF A 
 
 strength, however pleasant it may be. They 
 cannot endure the storms, the frosts of hfe. 
 They sink under the discipline and suffering, 
 of which most women have their share. They 
 doiit like it. They do not get irritable ; they 
 are not disagreeable, even. They are bright 
 and sweet ; but they wish that they were boys 
 — were men, so as to get rid of little daily 
 cares and vexations ; little pains and aches of 
 both body and mind, and those discomforts, 
 generally, which belong to women as much as 
 her smooth skin, small hands and feet, and 
 delicate organization. They do not always 
 throw off all restraint, and (braving public 
 opinion) cross over into man's field ; but they 
 go as far as they can — as they dare. They 
 shirk home-duties, and are interested in every- 
 thing outside which will give them notoriety, or 
 take them away from domestic disagreeable- 
 ness. 
 
 Then how long these girls are maturing. 
 They are children a great while, because they 
 love to lean, to be taken care of and do noth- 
 
MIDDLE-AGED WOMAN. I45 
 
 ing. They are slow learning woman's dignity, 
 patience, and unselfishness. When they do 
 reach maturity, when they get all the sunshine 
 and sugar they want, how luscious they are — 
 how very, very sweet! How we all love them ! 
 We cannot help it ; but we do not exactly ad- 
 mire them. We are sure they will kiss us, and 
 love us, and cling around us while all goes 
 smoothly ; but they cannot bear adversity. If 
 they happen to love us so well, with those soft 
 hearts of theirs, that our sorrows become their 
 sorrows, why then, poor darlings ! how they 
 will wilt and droop, and sometimes die, when 
 we are driven by the storms of life into ship- 
 wreck of fame or fortune. 
 
 Oh ! I pity these little girls — these sweet 
 women ! I want to pet them always — to put 
 my arms around them, and ward off everything 
 unpleasant ; to shield them from sin, and suf- 
 fering, and sorrow. But I can't. They must 
 bear their own burdens like the rest of us; and 
 so I would clip their tendrils. I would plant 
 and keep them in their own soil, where I would 
 13 K 
 
146 MUSINGS OF A 
 
 put a little more starch, even if they were not 
 quite so sweet. I would not let them lean on 
 me. I would throw them off, that they might 
 be forced to lean on the Strongest Arm, and so 
 gain strength. It would be very hard to do so, 
 for it is pleasant to have them cling ; but, ah ! 
 me, they should cling to " the Rock,'' and not to 
 a poor tree, which storms may, and time musty 
 destroy. 
 
 In the spring, when I want to treat my friends, 
 I give them Bermuda potatoes. People who 
 never eat any other sort like them, and imagine 
 (have what else you choose) that you have given 
 them a grand dinner. Whether they have beef 
 or mutton, veal or lamb, it makes no difference, 
 so they get Bermudas. Perhaps it is because 
 they are so rare, or because they breathe to us 
 of those sunny climes we so long for in our 
 fitful Northern springs. Possibly we love them 
 because to us they herald summer; it has 
 already reached that far-off land, and these 
 potatoes were matured in its sunshine. But I 
 don't care what the reason is, I love them, and 
 
MIDDLE-AGED WOMAN. I47 
 
 SO do you. We wish they would grow here ; 
 but they won't — at least (when they do) they 
 are something else, and not delicious, mealy 
 Bermudas. 
 
 I know a style of girls so like them — so rare 
 she is, so good, so lovable, and fond of home, 
 and only there do you find out her full value. 
 Let sickness and trouble come ; let servants be 
 unruly or leave suddenly, and everything be 
 *'at sixes and sevens ; " let the whole household 
 machinery be deranged, and everybody in de- 
 spair ; then how valuable is my Bermuda girl ! 
 How quickly everything adjusts itself at her 
 touch ! We don't mind it so much now. We do 
 not care whether the storm be big or little, for 
 there is a wise head, a ready hand, and a brave 
 and loving heart to pilot us through. She 
 seems, too, to breathe of some far-off sunny 
 land where there are no storms; and she 
 brings it near — so near that the air seems full 
 of the warmth and sweetness of that "blest 
 shore," 'neath whose sunshine she has ripened. 
 What care we for the storms ? What matters 
 
148 MUSINGS OF A 
 
 it? "The winter of our discontent" has passed 
 — summer is at hand. 
 
 This girl is seldom what is called fascinating, 
 rarely even pretty ; but how pleasing she is, how 
 trustworthy, how calm and brave ! She may 
 dress our sores (both physical and mental); her 
 touch is so gentle, she will not hurt us. 
 
 "Has she any faults?" 
 
 If being too gentle, too lenient, be a fault — 
 yes. She can scarcely condemn even sin ; 
 sometimes (I am afraid) sacrificing her sense 
 of right to love for the sinner. 
 
 As a little girl, how she loves her pussies! 
 How she cries because "mamma" will not let 
 them all sleep in the house at night. If little 
 brother has been naughty, and got a whipping, 
 she gives him all her candies and her favorite 
 plaything to console him. She gives all her 
 pennies, and even her own little shoes, to a 
 poor little beggar who has neither. She is not 
 often naughty herself, yet thinks it very cruel 
 to punish naughty children and naughty people. 
 When she grows older, she has a theory that 
 
MIDDLE-AGED WOMAN. I49 
 
 everybody can be won by love. She tries it, 
 and succeeds so often that she almost converts 
 us. Still, it is well she is not a sovereign, for 
 she might upset society by her superabundance 
 of Mercy and lack of Justice. But she stays at 
 home so much, and, like the potato, if planted 
 anywhere else, is not a Bermuda at all, that I 
 think now she does not a great deal of harm. 
 Sometimes she gets harm, by trusting too much 
 in frail, human nature ; especially if she happen 
 to love is this the case. How confiding she is ! 
 How she trusts everything to her affection! 
 Thinks that a man may be won from evil 
 courses, from even infidelity itself, by love. 
 Oh, darling! if Christ's love has failed to win 
 him, can yours ? Can yours ? If you be mar- 
 ried, trust and love, and hope as much as you 
 can ; but, \inot, why then "a word to the wise " 
 is sufficient; you are wise about other things, be 
 so in this. But you are so rare, so unselfish, that 
 we will delight in you despite this weakness. 
 We will be very fond of you, and thank God 
 13* 
 
150 MUSINGS OF A 
 
 for you, and wish that every home were blessed 
 with such " an angel in the household." 
 
 Reader, I could multiply the different styles 
 of girls, but they would only (like different 
 sorts of potatoes) be some one of the kinds I 
 have already mentioned, varied by soil or cul- 
 ture, or, perhaps, a cross of two or three 
 varieties. I have given enough instances to 
 show " there 's a difference in taters " and — 
 girls. I trust, too, that I have convinced you 
 there is a science of girls — that there is a 
 girlology; and that it is worth your study, 
 worth the study of the greatest intellect in the 
 land, either man's or woman's. 
 
 He is a poor farmer, who, having potatoes in 
 his field, knows not what sort they are, what 
 soil and culture they need, or (worse still) 
 knows nothing 2}ooyx\. potatoes at all. 
 
 We most of us men and women have girls 
 in our field. Shall we be poor husbandmen, 
 and not know what sort they are? What soil 
 and culture they need? Not know anything 
 about girls at all ? 
 
MIDDLE-AGED WOMAN. 151 
 
 We study all sorts of things. We read all 
 sorts of things, and try to find out even that 
 "beyond our ken." Shall we not try to read 
 our girls' hearts, and find out what they need 
 to mature them rightly, to develop them into 
 good, refined, brave, Christian gentlewomen. 
 
 And, men ! do not yon judge us, unless you 
 know, at least, as much about us as you do 
 about your potatoes ; unless you know the soil 
 and culture we have had, and even then 
 
 " Who knows the past ? and who can judge us right ? " 
 
 But, little girls, don't you get impatient with 
 us older people. Remember we are mortal ! 
 Do not exclaim, as you finish this chapter, 
 
 "What then? 
 Who cares for a gnat ? — or girl ? " 
 
 I tell you that we do care for you — all of us. 
 
 Don't your father care for you when he works 
 all day (sometimes all night), that he may give 
 you luxuries and pleasures ? When he denies 
 himself indulgences, and even necessities, that 
 
I$2 MUSINGS OF A 
 
 he may bring home some nice bonbons^ or 
 the last novel, or a new dress for his " little 
 daughter " ? 
 
 And your mother, don't she care for you ? 
 Don't she care for your pleasure, your looks, 
 your health, your manners, till she vexes you 
 by too much care for you — too much anxiety 
 for your welfare ? Aye, whether or not it be 
 the best thing for you, still give her credit for 
 unselfishness, for love, at any rate. And when 
 she crosses and annoys you, try and remember 
 
 " How that small fretting fretfulness 
 Was but love's over-anxiousness, 
 Which had not been had love been less." 
 
 Do not your brothers care for you, when 
 they can have no fun without you? When 
 they are proud of their smart and pretty sisters, 
 and are ready to whip any boy who denies the 
 fact ? Yes, even when they abuse your care- 
 fully got up toilet, and bring tears of vexation 
 to your eyes by their ridicule ? I assert that 
 even then they care for you — for your appear- 
 ance. 
 
MIDDLE-AGED WOMAN. I53 
 
 And the beaux ! they care for you, too. Do 
 you (for one instant) suppose that they sport 
 those " immaculate kids," those " killing " neck- 
 ties, and dandy canes for each other ? Or that 
 they go to balls and parties to meet men? Not 
 a bit of it. It is you they care for, girls. So 
 much do they care for your opinion that they 
 are absolutely afraid of you ; and would rather 
 face an enemy in battle, than a girl's laugh or 
 frown. If you put your standard high, how 
 they try to live up to it ; and — don't they care 
 for you ? 
 
 I saw, the other day, a gentleman, hurrying 
 home through the snow and wet, stop his quick 
 step as a little girl fell down in the partly frozen 
 gutter. He looked cold and tired himself, but 
 he picked her up, brushed off her little dress 
 and shoes with his hand, and soothed her 
 kindly, telling her to run home quickly, that 
 she might not take cold, and waiting to see 
 that she did so. 
 
 I saw in the cars, too, — indeed, I see it often, 
 — young men and gray-haired men, men in the 
 
154 MUSINGS OF A 
 
 garb of gentlemen, and men dressed as work- 
 men, as day-laborers, rise and give you girls 
 seats ; and yet you say " no one cares for you." 
 
 Yes, yes; you little witches! we do care for 
 you. We love your nonsense and brightness 
 in our homes. We care to have you in the 
 street, and in the cars — anywhere on our path, 
 with your laughter and frolicking, and candy- 
 eating, and your cunning little airs. We would 
 sooner put up with your pouting, and naughty 
 tempers, even, than not to have you at all. Oh, 
 girls ! we care for you ! we care for you ! 
 
 But we are not always clear-sighted, and 
 often misjudge you; or are weakly loving, and 
 spoil you. We are ambitious for you, and for- 
 get that you have hearts, or are self-indulgent, 
 and neglect you. 
 
 So, with all our caring, life seems very hard, 
 the world very dark to you, sometimes, darlings! 
 And (if you would be good and happy) you 
 dare not look earthward; those eyes of yours 
 must be turned "skyward, sunward," upward 
 towards One who is too wise to misjudge, too 
 
MIDDLE-AGED WOMAN. 
 
 155 
 
 good to err, and " He careth for you," and 
 makes little duties, little cares, little trials, little 
 sufferings, little wrongs seem, oh ! so little in 
 the light of the great joy ^ the great hereafter to 
 which you are looking. 
 
HOBBY-HORSES. 
 
 " These are truths unquestionable. If they make no un- 
 pression, it is because they are too vulgar and notorious." 
 
 Junius Letters. 
 
 N these days of progress, when every- 
 thing is advancing at a velocipede rate, 
 dare I speak of hobby-hoi'ses ? It is 
 somewhat venturesome in an age when toy- 
 merchants put them out of sight, and little 
 boys blush to acknowledge that they own one 
 (lest they should be thought slow), to put down 
 in black and white one's preference for hobby- 
 horses over velocipedes. Still, you " grown- 
 up " people cannot move me from my position 
 by talking about " advance and progress," nor 
 you boys by laughing at my " old fogyism." 
 
 Advance and progress are both very well when 
 you know what you are advancing to, and in 
 
 156 
 
MUSINGS. 157 
 
 what direction you are progressing. What is 
 the use of a movement which accomplishes 
 nothing — which does not pretend to accom- 
 plish anything — whose only aim is going? Yes, 
 boys, I am an '' old fogy." I like safe things, 
 and dislike unsafe and aimless ones. 
 
 Then, now that velocipedes are " the rage," 
 when little boys and great boys run them on 
 the side-walks of our cities without fear of 
 molestation, I should like to know what 
 guarantee we foot-passengers have for life and 
 limb ? 
 
 It is not always bad manners in our boys 
 either — they cannot often help running you 
 down. How can they suddenly stop one of 
 those vehicles under full headway? How can 
 they tell where they will pull up ? " Some- 
 where ! " a boy said to me the other day, when, 
 adroitly getting out of his way, I inquired where 
 he was going. 
 
 Yes, it is " somewhere!' or rather nowhere ^ that 
 these boys go on their velocipedes, and my 
 only wonder is, that they don't oftener break 
 14 
 
158 MUSINGS OF A 
 
 their own necks, and those of other people 
 besides. They go as far as they can (without 
 running off a crossing, or against a brick wall, 
 or people, or dogs, or hand- carts, or other 
 velocipedes), and call it fun ; and cry, '' See 
 how I go ! " And their mammas think it such 
 " fine exercise in the open air " for them, talk- 
 ing in a would-be indifferent tone about the 
 French prince making it his favorite pastime. 
 Of course that never influenced them in choos- 
 ing it for their sons ; oh ! no ; " but it is such a 
 healthy amusement, and keeps the little fellows 
 so out of the way." Yes, it does keep them 
 out of the way, for our city yards are not the 
 '• Royal Gardens," nor our Biddies the intelli- 
 gent and careful attendants of the French 
 prince.* And so our boys must go to the 
 street for this very healthy exercise. 
 
 *This article was written before the " Franco-Prussian " war 
 had caused the poor little prince to pull up " somewhere^ 
 That velocipedes are not as popular as they were a year ago, 
 is the best reason I can give for leaving unaltered what I have 
 written ; as preachers say, "it proves my position." — Ailenroc. 
 
MIDDLE-AGED WOMAN. I59 
 
 I do not see the exercise — do not see how 
 it develops either bone or muscle, or promotes 
 health — still, as this is a mooted point, I shall 
 let it alone, only asking if the rocking-horse 
 can be ridden often without developing the 
 muscles, straightening the spine, and sending 
 the blood coursing through the cheeks of the 
 palest ? Then, too, are we to think more of 
 the health of the body than of the mind — of 
 the heart ? Alas ! when our children are out 
 of the way of their mothers, they are very apt 
 to be in the way of somebody, or something, 
 which will not prove good for their soul's 
 health. American mothers ! has it come to 
 this — that you approve of a toy because it 
 takes your boys out of your way ? The time 
 may come when you will try to keep them in 
 the way and cannot. One would think that 
 you would like to now, if not for their sakes, 
 for your own. They make no more noise than 
 that Italian opera troupe you heard the other 
 night. They are a prettier sight than any pic- 
 ture at " the Academy," etc., and more difficult 
 
l60 MUSINGS OF A 
 
 to read, better worth studying than any book 
 your superior intellect has ever mastered. 
 
 Pull down out of the garret the old hobby- 
 horse, and let the little ones rock ; and rock, 
 even if they do wear out your carpets and 
 — nerves. Things can't last forever — carpets 
 must wear out; and, after all, they are not a 
 necessity — one can do without them. As to 
 nerves — it will be a bigger strain on your 
 nerves some day, when your boys are far out of 
 your way ; out of the way of all that you love 
 and venerate ; and, in a moral velocipede, 
 riding — where? somewhere — you and I shud- 
 der to think where. It is so pleasant to be 
 borne along without effort! Will they pull up 
 in time, before they reach the crossing ; before 
 they dash their brains out against yonder wall? 
 I fear 7iot, and you fear not: what about your 
 nerves now? 
 
 Oh ! that mother-love which likes to have 
 the little people about ! how beautiful it is ! 
 how rare it is in this age of progress ! 
 
 Women are getting ashamed of their old- 
 
MIDDLE-AGED WOMAN. l6l 
 
 fashioned hobbies — their children, their homes ; 
 and I do not like their new-fashioned veloci- 
 pedes half as well. If they only amounted to 
 anything. If I only knew — if they only knew 
 themselves where they were going, and what 
 they wanted — but they don't. It seems as 
 though all these velocipede people cared about 
 was, to have a right to do something — a right 
 to go somezvhere. They are very trying people 
 to live with, for one never knows where to find 
 them. 
 
 You think they are alongside of you, when 
 lo ! they are across the street. You turn to 
 speak to them, and they have turned the cor- 
 ner, and are out of sight. 
 
 But, as trying as it is to live with them, it is 
 more so to love them ; to twine our hearts about 
 them ; to lavish all our best affections on them ; 
 and to find — no, we don't find them at all, or, 
 if we do, cannot keep them. One's hair grows 
 gray, planning and thinking how to keep track 
 of them. We live in constant dread of their 
 running us down, or running away from us, or 
 14* L 
 
l62 MUSINGS OF A 
 
 (getting under full headway) of their failing to 
 pull up at the right time, and — somebody gets 
 hurt. 
 
 Yes, friends, it is safer to ride a hobby, and, 
 I should think, pleasanter. I never rode on a 
 velocipede, but have on a hobby-horse (of 
 course in a nice, lady-like manner). Why not, 
 as well as on a real horse ? And, if I am vain 
 of any personal accomplishment, it is of my 
 seat on a horse: I learned how to do it on the 
 old white rocking-horse, which stood in our 
 hall in my childhood. 
 
 What a real, live horse he was to us all ! 
 How we combed his mane, and caressed him, 
 and honored him with the name of " Old Hick- 
 ory!" What rides we took on him, going just 
 where we chose (in imagination), and we always 
 knew where we were going to — could always 
 tell. It was not "somewhere," but to London 
 or Paris, or where the oranges grew, and the 
 roses blossomed all the year round. Some- 
 times we joined Gulliver in his travels, or fol- 
 lowed Robinson Crusoe to his island home. 
 
MIDDLE-AGED WOMAN. 163 
 
 Nothing stopped us — neither distance, nor 
 wind, nor wave, even armed soldiery were no 
 barrier, — 
 
 " But the whole boundless universe was ours." 
 
 Was it of no use, think you? Did it amount 
 to nothing ? Have you never, when tired and 
 worn by care, and trouble, and disappointment, 
 for a time forgotten everything, been rested by 
 some book which carried you to scenes away 
 from your trouble ! Or have you never had 
 real suffering, real grief, allayed by a trip to 
 some pleasant land ? You are not strong 
 enough to forget yourself in loving, active care 
 for others. You are not good enough to sit 
 quietly at home and face your trouble — to face 
 yourself in the trouble. You long to think of 
 something else, of somebody else ; and loving 
 friends take pity on you, and carry you to 
 brighter scenes and new people, and you lose 
 yourself — forget that you were never to be 
 happy any more. 
 
 And shall not the children's hobby-horses 
 do as much for them ? 
 
164 MUSINGS OF A 
 
 That active little boy of yours — full of life, 
 and fun, and adventure — how he torments you 
 sometimes. He wants to do something ; he 
 wants to see and find out something new. He 
 goes on a voyage of discovery into your work- 
 basket, and unwinds all your spools, takes your 
 needles out of their place, and snaps your 
 thimble-case till he breaks the hinge. Or he 
 teases his little sister, or pinches the baby's ears 
 (to see the effect), and makes it cry. In short, 
 is in everybody's way, and his own, too. 
 
 Now get him on his hobby-horse, and sug- 
 gest to him to hunt buffaloes on the Western 
 prairies, or to chase Indians in the Western ter- 
 ritories, and see how he will ride off his rest- 
 lessness. How fast he will go \ how his hair 
 will fly, and his cheeks glow ! He is the hunter, 
 the soldier, for the time being; he is far away 
 — his fleet horse has carried him amid new 
 scenes; made him happier, and left fou and 
 others in peace. 
 
 And that little fellow full of poetry, with the 
 artist's soul, the sensitive poet's nature, who 
 
MIDDLE-AGED WOMAN. 165 
 
 feels wrong keenly, and longs to avenge it. 
 Somebody has rubbed out the picture he had 
 drawn on his slate, or torn his copy of " Swiss 
 Family Robinson," or " the boys " have made 
 fun of his delicate physique and tastes, and his 
 whole nature is grieved, irritated. His eye is 
 full of unshed tears ; his lip quivers ; and he sits 
 disconsolately, with no care for his usual pas- 
 times. You reason with him ; you tell him 
 that he can draw another picture, and have 
 another book, and that he must not care what 
 the boys say as long as he does right. 
 
 But that picture was part of himself — that 
 particular book he had associations with ; and, 
 besides, it was well thumbed, and he could find 
 all his favorite passages in it " right away'^' as 
 he could not in another copy ; and he does care 
 for what the boys say, and will not be consoled. 
 
 Now talk to him about the " knights of old, 
 sans peur, sans reproche'' who fought for the 
 right — ask him if he does not want to be a 
 knight, and ride to battle ; and see how soon 
 the tear will be dried, and the eye flash, as he 
 
l66 MUSINGS OF A 
 
 mounts his hobby. He has forgotten all his 
 troubles, as he dreams of victory and renown ; 
 what matters an erased picture, a torn book, to 
 him now? As for the boys — why! he is a 
 Christian knight! he must be magnanimous. 
 They shall all ride in his train to victory, and 
 partake of his fame! Has it done him no 
 good, to take him away from his grievances, 
 and help him to forgive injuries ? 
 
 Yes, I like hobby-horses — like to see children 
 riding off their troubles, and the naughtiness, 
 beneath the shelter of their homes, with loved 
 faces around them ; and I like to see older 
 people do the same. 
 
 Professor Vitch says, " that every good man 
 has a hobby, the bad supplying its place with 
 a vice." So let us have the hobby, if we must 
 have one or the other. To be sure, it is very 
 inconvenient sometimes to have your corns 
 rocked on by some of these hobbies ; your 
 carpets \yorn out, and your nerves put on the 
 rack by others. It is very inconvenient and 
 unpleasant, but not disastrous — not fatal, by 
 any means. 
 
MIDDLE-AGED WOMAN. 167 
 
 Then, if it keeps people good ; keeps them 
 from vice, why we, ourselves, are the gainers in 
 the long run. 
 
 That man who litters up his wife's house and 
 carpets in pursuit of his mania for old books, 
 or coins, or collections of fossils, is certainly a 
 trial to an orderly woman — is much in her 
 way sometimes. Yet there are women whose 
 husbands are never in their way who are more 
 tried ; and who, when they sit alone waiting for 
 the step so long in coming, so far away, so 
 far out of the way of virtue and truth, — envy 
 the woman whose husband ruins nothing but 
 her carpets. 
 
 It must, too, be very trying to a man accus- 
 tomed to sedentary and intellectual pursuits 
 (who" prefers dust and litter to having his 
 papers disturbed), to possess a wife whose hobby 
 is cleaning. A wife who, belonging to the 
 "Veneering Family," likes everything new, 
 and has no reverence for old papers, old books, 
 and old furniture. Who even invades her hus- 
 band's sanctum, and lays violent hands on his 
 
l68 MUSINGS OF A 
 
 old treasures. That old chair, in which he has 
 done his thinking and writing for years, and 
 which just fits his head and back, she sends to 
 auction, and replaces it by a handsomer, softer, 
 better one altogether — intending it as an agree- 
 able surprise. But he has lost an old friend, 
 does not care for the new one, and does not 
 appreciate the surprise. 
 
 She dusts and cleans, and some little slip of 
 paper, with a date or memoranda on it, is gone. 
 It seems of no value to her, but the husband 
 (poor man) must search through many volumes 
 to replace it. Yet he bears it all with patience, 
 for his wife is good and loving ; his hearth and 
 home are always bright and clean ; and his 
 meals punctual and well-ordered. Why should 
 he not be patient with her hobby? She has no 
 vice. 
 
 Our friend has a religious hobby, or a medi- 
 cal or political one, and we get afraid to ask 
 him to our tea-drinkings, lest he should rock 
 on somebody's toes, and disturb the harmony 
 of our pleasant gatherings. Or he has started 
 
MIDDLE-AGED WOMAN. 169 
 
 a society for ameliorating the condition of some 
 class or another, or invented a patent tooth- 
 pick, or gotten a mania for autographs; and we 
 are afraid (in the first instance) to introduce 
 him to our rich acquaintances, fearing he may- 
 ask for a subscription or patronage ; and to our 
 famous ones (in the second) lest he solicit their 
 autographs. 
 
 And all this sort of thing does annoy and 
 worry us very much. It is so unpleasant to 
 have one's taste offended, one's pride wounded, 
 one's nerves upset; still, ''there is nobody hurt'* 
 very much. 
 
 Yet, as we are only human, after all (be we 
 ever so good), I am afraid we are often apt to 
 prefer the man of tact and address, even if he 
 have a vice. 
 
 I do not assert that all men of tact have vices, 
 only that most all vicious nieit have tact. Like 
 velocipedes, they run smoothly, and we are apt 
 to see nothing out of the way — nothing dis- 
 agreeable in them, till they run us, or them- 
 selves, off the track, 
 IS 
 
I/O MUSINGS OF A 
 
 But these people with hobbies we always 
 know where to find ; they always know where 
 to find themselves, and know what they want, 
 even if they never get it. They ai7n high, at 
 any rate. 
 
 Did not Columbus know what he wanted? 
 and Galileo, and Sir Isaac Newton, and Ben- 
 jamin Franklin, and Mrs. Fry? Do not people 
 accuse Miss Dix and John B. Gough of riding 
 their hobbies to death? Yet do we not honor 
 them ? Are we not, as Americans, proud of 
 them; and as Christians, thankful for them? 
 
 I once heard a great and good man define 
 genius as " a natural bent for some pursuit, with 
 the will and capability to pursue it persevering- 
 ly." This was many years ago, and since then 
 the time and opportunity have been given me 
 for making many observations, the result of 
 which prompts me to make the following query. 
 Is not a man who has a hobby, and is said to 
 ride it to death, a genius ? 
 
 But all of us have not the will or energy to 
 ride our hobbies to the death ; we give in at 
 
MIDDLE-AGED WOMAN. I7I 
 
 the first heat. We have not genius ; we do not 
 win the race ! 
 
 Others have hobbies at the start, but they 
 become old-fashioned and unpopular; and (hav- 
 ing neither the good taste nor moral courage 
 to ride them any more) they hide them away 
 in the garret, and take to velocipedes, which 
 carry them ''somewhere,'' — I do not like to say 
 where, for fear of rocking on somebody's toes, 
 or lest my own skirts get soiled by touching 
 the ground where they ride. 
 
 I mount my hobby and ride to a land where 
 the me7t are all Christian knights, fighting for 
 the right, storming the strong fortress of Satan 
 in this world, and demolishing daily the stronger 
 citadel of sin in their own hearts. 
 
 Where the women are all Christian gentle- 
 women, worthy of such knights ; women glory- 
 ing in their womanhood; women in whom the 
 touch of angel nature has so grown we almost 
 see their wings, and forget that they are the 
 daughters of that Eve who fell, because she 
 tried to be other than she was made ; because 
 she would know more than was revealed ! 
 
1/2 MUSINGS. 
 
 And in this land there are no velocipedes; — 
 the children all have rocking-horses ; and they 
 ride and sing. All the grown people have 
 hobbies ; what care they for getting middle- 
 aged? They are only farther on in the race. 
 What care they for the golden hair turned gray? 
 They are only ripening. 
 
 Reader, I have ridden off my restlessness, 
 and I don't care if somebody has rubbed out 
 my picture. I can and will draw another. 
 What matters it if my book be torn — my play- 
 thing broken ? I cannot stop to mourn. I 'm 
 a Christian soldier fighting for the right. 
 
 And I '11 forgive the boys (and girls, too,) for 
 the many times they have made life a burden 
 to me. I do not mean the little people, who 
 are so many flowers in my pathway, but those 
 larger folk, who ignore ^ e's nerves, laugh at 
 one's tastes, and forget that one has a heart to 
 break and a soul to be fed. 
 
 Yes, friends, I forgive you — every one ! 
 Wilt mount? Wilt ride in my train to battle? 
 
 to VICTORY? 
 
 THE END.