by Kate Sanborn
My thoughts ran along in such beautiful meter,
I’m sure I ne’er saw any poetry sweeter:
It seemed that a law had been recently made
That a tax on old bachelors’ pates should be laid;
And in order to make them all willing to marry,
The tax was as large as a man could well carry.
The bachelors grumbled and said ‘twas no use—
‘Twas horrid injustice and horrid abuse,
And declared that to save their own hearts’ blood from spilling,
Of such a vile tax they would not pay a shilling.
But the rulers determined them still to pursue,
So they set all the old bachelors up at vendue:
A crier was sent through the town to and fro,
To rattle his bell and a trumpet to blow,
And to call out to all he might meet in his way,
“Ho! forty old bachelors sold here to-day!”
And presently all the old maids in the town,
Each in her very best bonnet and gown,
From thirty to sixty, fair, plain, red and pale,
Of every description, all flocked to the sale.
The auctioneer then in his labor began,
And called out aloud, as he held up a man,
“How much for a bachelor? Who wants to buy?”
In a twink, every maiden responsed, “I—I!”
In short, at a highly extravagant price,
The bachelors all were sold off in a trice:
And forty old maidens, some younger, some older,
Each lugged an old bachelor home on her shoulder.
A APELE FOR ARE TO THE SEXTANT.
BY ARABELLA WILSON.
O Sextant of the meetinouse which sweeps
And dusts, or is supposed to! and makes fiers,
And lites the gas, and sumtimes leaves a screw loose,
In which case it smells orful—wus than lampile;
And wrings the Bel and toles it when men dies
To the grief of survivin’ pardners, and sweeps paths,
And for these servaces gits $100 per annum;
Wich them that thinks deer let ‘em try it;
Gittin up before starlite in all wethers, and
Kindlin’ fiers when the wether is as cold
As zero, and like as not green wood for kindlins
(I wouldn’t be hierd to do it for no sum);
But o Sextant there are one kermodity
Wuth more than gold which don’t cost nuthin;
Wuth more than anything except the Sole of man!
I mean pewer Are, Sextant, I mean pewer Are!
O it is plenty out o’ dores, so plenty it doant no
What on airth to do with itself, but flize about
Scatterin leaves and bloin off men’s hats;
In short its jest as free as Are out dores;
But O Sextant! in our church its scarce as piety,
Scarce as bankbills when ajunts beg for mishuns,
Which sum say is purty often, taint nuthin to me,
What I give aint nuthing to nobody; but O Sextant!
You shet 500 men women and children
Speshily the latter, up in a tite place,
Sum has bad breths, none of em aint too sweet,
Sum is fevery, sum is scroflus, sum has bad teeth
And sum haint none, and sum aint over clean;
But evry one of em brethes in and out and in
Say 50 times a minnet, or 1 million and a half breths an hour;
Now how long will a church full of are last at that rate?
I ask you; say fifteen minnets, and then what’s to be did?
Why then they must breth it all over agin,
And then agin and so on, till each has took it down
At least ten times and let it up agin, and what’s more,
The same individible doant have the privilege
Of breathin his own are and no one else,
Each one must take wotever comes to him,
O Sextant! doant you know our lungs is belluses
To blo the fier of life and keep it from
Going out: und how can bellusses blo without wind?
And aint wind are? I put it to your konshens,
Are is the same to us as milk to babies,
Or water is to fish, or pendlums to clox,
Or roots and airbs unto an Injun doctor,
Or little pills unto an omepath,
Or Boze to girls. Are is for us to brethe.
What signifize who preaches ef I cant brethe?
What’s Pol? What’s Pollus to sinners who are ded?
Ded for want of breth! Why Sextant when we dye
Its only coz we cant brethe no more—that’s all.
And now O Sextant? let me beg of you
To let a little are into our cherch
(Pewer are is sertin proper for the pews);
And dew it week days and on Sundays tew—
It aint much trobble—only make a hoal,
And then the are will come in of itself
(It love to come in where it can git warm).
And O how it will rouze the people up
And sperrit up the preacher, and stop garps
And yorns and fijits as effectool
As wind on the dry boans the Profit tels of.
—_Christian Weekly._
CHAPTER IX.
GOOD-NATURED SATIRE.
Women show their sense of humor in ridiculing the foibles of their own sex, as Miss Carlotta Perry seeing the danger of “higher education,” and Helen Gray Cone laughing over the exaggerated ravings and moanings of a stage-struck girl, or the very one-sided sermon of a sentimental goose.
A MODERN MINERVA.
BY CARLOTTA PERRY.
‘Twas the height of the gay season, and I cannot tell the reason,
But at a dinner party given by Mrs. Major Thwing
It became my pleasant duty to take out a famous beauty—
The prettiest woman present. I was happy as a king.
Her dress beyond a question was an artist’s best creation;
A miracle of loveliness was she from crown to toe.
Her smile was sweet as could be, her voice just as it should be—
Not high, and sharp, and wiry, but musical and low.
Her hair was soft and flossy, golden, plentiful and glossy;
Her eyes, so blue and sunny, shone with every inward grace;
I could see that every fellow in the room was really yellow
With jealousy, and wished himself that moment in my place.
As the turtle soup we tasted, like a gallant man I hasted
To pay some pretty tribute to this muslin, silk, and gauze;
But she turned and softly asked me—and I own the question tasked me—
What were my fixed opinions on the present Suffrage laws.
I admired a lovely blossom resting on her gentle bosom;
The remark I thought a safe one—I could hardly made a worse;
With a smile like any Venus, she gave me its name and genus,
And opened very calmly a botanical discourse.
But I speedily recovered. As her taper fingers hovered,
Like a tender benediction, in a little bit of fish,
Further to impair digestion, she brought up the Eastern Question.
By that time I fully echoed that other fellow’s wish.
And, as sure as I’m a sinner, right on through that endless dinner
Did she talk of moral science, of politics and law,
Of natural selection, of Free Trade and Protection,
Till I came to look upon her with a sort of solemn awe.
Just to hear the lovely woman, looking more divine than human,
Talk with such discrimination of Ingersoll and Cook,
With such a childish, sweet smile, quoting Huxley, Mill, and Carlyle—
It was quite a revelation—it was bette
r than a book.
Chemistry and mathematics, agriculture and chromatics,
Music, painting, sculpture—she knew all the tricks of speech;
Bas-relief and chiaroscuro, and at last the Indian Bureau—
She discussed it quite serenely, as she trifled with a peach.
I have seen some dreadful creatures, with vinegary features,
With their fearful store of learning set me sadly in eclipse;
But I’m ready quite to swear if I have ever heard the Tariff
Or the Eastern Question settled by such a pair of lips.
Never saw I a dainty maiden so remarkably o’erladen
From lip to tip of finger with the love of books and men;
Quite in confidence I say it, and I trust you’ll not betray it,
But I pray to gracious heaven that I never may again.
—_Chicago Tribune._
THE BALLAD OF CASSANDRA BROWN.
BY HELEN GRAY CONE.
Though I met her in the summer, when one’s heart lies ‘round at ease,
As it were in tennis costume, and a man’s not hard to please;
Yet I think at any season to have met her was to love,
While her tones, unspoiled, unstudied, had the softness of the dove.
At request she read us poems, in a nook among the pines,
And her artless voice lent music to the least melodious lines;
Though she lowered her shadowing lashes, in an earnest reader’s wise,
Yet we caught blue gracious glimpses of the heavens that were her eyes.
As in Paradise I listened. Ah, I did not understand
That a little cloud, no larger than the average human hand,
Might, as stated oft in fiction, spread into a sable pall,
When she said that she should study elocution in the fall.
I admit her earliest efforts were not in the Ercles vein:
She began with “Lit-tle Maaybel, with her faayce against the paayne,
And the beacon-light a-trrremble—” which, although it made me wince,
Is a thing of cheerful nature to the things she’s rendered since.
Having learned the Soulful Quiver, she acquired the Melting Mo-o-an,
And the way she gave “Young Grayhead” would have liquefied a stone;
Then the Sanguinary Tragic did her energies employ,
And she tore my taste to tatters when she slew “The Polish Boy.”
It’s not pleasant for a fellow when the jewel of his soul
Wades through slaughter on the carpet, while her orbs in frenzy roll:
What was I that I should murmur? Yet it gave me grievous pain
When she rose in social gatherings and searched among the slain.
I was forced to look upon her, in my desperation dumb—
Knowing well that when her awful opportunity was come
She would give us battle, murder, sudden death at very least—
As a skeleton of warning, and a blight upon the feast.
Once, ah! once I fell a-dreaming; some one played a polonaise
I associated strongly with those happier August days;
And I mused, “I’ll speak this evening,” recent pangs forgotten quite.
Sudden shrilled a scream of anguish: “Curfew SHALL not ring to-night!”
Ah, that sound was as a curfew, quenching rosy warm romance!
Were it safe to wed a woman one so oft would wish in France?
Oh, as she “cull-imbed!” that ladder, swift my mounting hope came down.
I am still a single cynic; she is still Cassandra Brown!
THE TENDER HEART.
BY HELEN GRAY CONE.
She gazed upon the burnished brace
Of plump, ruffed grouse he showed with pride,
Angelic grief was in her face:
“How could you do it, dear?” she sighed.
“The poor, pathetic moveless wings!”
The songs all hushed—”Oh, cruel shame!”
Said he, “The partridge never sings,”
Said she, “The sin is quite the same.”
“You men are savage, through and through,
A boy is always bringing in
Some string of birds’ eggs, white and blue,
Or butterfly upon a pin.
The angle-worm in anguish dies,
Impaled, the pretty trout to tease—”
“My own, we fish for trout with flies—”
“Don’t wander from the question, please.”
She quoted Burns’s “Wounded Hare,”
And certain burning lines of Blake’s,
And Ruskin on the fowls of air,
And Coleridge on the water-snakes.
At Emerson’s “Forbearance” he
Began to feel his will benumbed;
At Browning’s “Donald” utterly
His soul surrendered and succumbed.
“Oh, gentlest of all gentle girls!
He thought, beneath the blessed sun!”
He saw her lashes hang with pearls,
And swore to give away his gun.
She smiled to find her point was gained
And went, with happy parting words
(He subsequently ascertained),
To trim her hat with humming birds.
—_From the Century._
A dozen others equally good must be reserved for that encyclopaedia! This specimen, of vers de societe rivals Locker or Baker:
PLIGHTED: A.D. 1874.
BY ALICE WILLIAMS.
“Two souls with but a single thought,
Two hearts that beat as one.”
NELLIE, loquitur.
Bless my heart! You’ve come at last,
Awful glad to see you, dear!
Thought you’d died or something, Belle—
Such an age since you’ve been here!
My engagement? Gracious! Yes.
Rumor’s hit the mark this time.
And the victim? Charley Gray.
Know him, don’t you? Well, he’s prime.
Such mustachios! splendid style!
Then he’s not so horrid fast—
Waltzes like a seraph, too;
Has some fortune—best and last.
Love him? Nonsense. Don’t be “soft;”
Pretty much as love now goes;
He’s devoted, and in time
I’ll get used to him, I ‘spose.
First love? Humbug. Don’t talk stuff!
Bella Brown, don’t be a fool!
Next you’d rave of flames and darts,
Like a chit at boarding-school;
Don’t be “miffed.” I talked just so
Some two years back. Fact, my dear!
But two seasons kill romance,
Leave one’s views of life quite clear.
Why, if Will Latrobe had asked
When he left two years ago,
I’d have thrown up all and gone
Out to Kansas, do you know?
Fancy me a settler’s wife!
Blest escape, dear, was it not?
Yes; it’s hardly in my line
To enact “Love in a Cot.”
Well, you see, I’d had my swing,
Been engaged to eight or ten,
Got to stop some time, of course,
So it don’t much matter when.
Auntie hates old maids, and thinks
Every girl should marry young—
On that theme my whole life long
I have heard the changes sung.
So, ma belle, what could I do?
Charley wants a stylish wife.
We’ll suit well enough, no fear,
When we settle down for life.
But for love-stuff! See my ring!
Lovely, isn’t it? Solitaire.
Nearly made Maud Hinton turn
Green with envy and despair.
Her’s ain’t half so nice, you see.
Did I write you, Belle, about<
br />
How she tried for Charley, till
I sailed in and cut her out?
Now, she’s taken Jack McBride,
I believe it’s all from pique—
Threw him over once, you know—
Hates me so she’ll scarcely speak.
Oh, yes! Grace Church, Brown, and that—
Pa won’t mind expense at last
I’ll be off his hands for good;
Cost a fortune two years past.
My trousseau shall outdo Maud’s,
I’ve carte blanche from Pa, you know—
Mean to have my dress from Worth!
Won’t she be just RAVING though!
—_Scribner’s Monthly Magazine, 1874._
Women are often extremely humorous in their newspaper letters, excelling in that department. As critics they incline to satire. No one who read them at the time will ever forget Mrs. Runkle’s review of “St. Elmo,” or Gail Hamilton’s criticism of “The Story of Avis,” while Mrs. Rollins, in the Critic, often uses a scimitar instead of a quill, though a smile always tempers the severity. She thus beheads a poetaster who tells the public that his “solemn song” is
“Attempt ambitious, with a ray of hope
To pierce the dark abysms of thought, to guide
Its dim ghosts o’er the towering crags of Doubt
Unto the land where Peace and Love abide,
Of flowers and streams, and sun and stars.”
“His ‘solemn song’ is certainly very solemn for a song with so cheerful a purpose. We have rarely read, indeed, a book with so large a proportion of unhappy words in it. Frozen shrouds, souls a-chill with agony, things wan and gray, icy demons, scourging willow-branches, snow-heaped mounds, black and freezing nights, cups of sorrow drained to the lees, etc., are presented in such profusion that to struggle through the ‘dark abyss’ in search of the ‘ray of hope’ is much like taking a cup of poison to learn the sweetness of its antidote. Mr. –- in one of his stanzas invites his soul to ‘come and walk abroad’ with him. If he ever found it possible to walk abroad without his soul, the fact would have been worth chronicling; but if it is true that he only desires to have his soul with him occasionally, we should advise him to walk abroad alone, and invite his soul to sit beside him in the hours he devotes to composition.”