Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 5, March, 1858 by Various

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Thackeray says women like to be martyrized. I hardly think it is the
pursuit of pleasure which leads them to self-denial. Men, at any rate,
do not often seek enjoyment in that form. If women do make choice of
such a class of delights, even instinctively, they need advance no other
claim to superiority over men. The higher the animal, the higher its
propensities.

Kate the other day was asserting a wife's right to the control of her
own property, and incidentally advocating the equality of the sexes,--a
touchy point with her. I put in,--

"Tell me, then, Lina, why animals form stronger attachments to men than
to women. Your dog, your parrot, even your cat, already prefers me to
you. How can you account for it, unless by allowing that there is more
in us to respect and love?"

"I account for it," said she, with her most decided nod, "by affinity.
There is more affinity between you and brutes. It is the sons of God who
find the daughters of men fair. We draw angels from the skies;--even
your jealous, reluctant sex has borne witness to that."

"Pshaw! only those anomalous creatures, the poets. But please yourself
with such fancies; they encourage a pretty pride that becomes your sex.
Conscious forever of being your lords, we feel that the higher you raise
yourselves, the higher you place us. You can't help owning that angelic
woman-kind submits--and gladly--to us."

"Nonsense! conceited nonsense!"

"But _don't_ they?"

"Some do; but I do not."

"Why, all my life you have been to me a most devoted, obedient servant,
Kate."

"Yes, I have my pets," she answered, "and I care for them. I am
housemaid to my bird; my cat makes her bed of my lap and my best silk
dress; I am purveyor to my dog, head-scratcher to my parrot, and so
forth. It is my pleasure to be kind. Higher natures always are so,--yes,
Charlie, even minutely solicitous for the welfare of the objects of
their care; for are not the very hairs of our head all numbered by the
Most Beneficent?"

She began in playful insolence, but ended with tearful eyes, and a
grateful, humble glow upon her face. Its like I had never seen before in
her rather imperious countenance. I gazed at her with interest. She
saw me, and was irritated to be caught with moistened eyes. She scorns
crying, like a man.

"Come, come!" said she, childishly and snappishly, "what are you looking
at?"

Of course you cannot have any idea of her personal appearance from
memory, and I will try to give you one by description.

Though over thirty, she is generally considered very handsome, and is
in the very prime of her beauty; for it is not of the fragile, delicate
order. She has jet-black, very abundant hair, hazel eyes, and a
complexion that is very fair, without being blonde. A bright, healthy
color in cheek and lip makes her look as fresh as a rose. Her nose is
the doubtful feature. It is--hum!--_Roman_, and some fastidious folks
think a _trifle_ too large. But I think it suits well her keen eyes
and slightly haughty mouth. She has fine hands, a tall figure, and an
independent "grand action," that is not wanting in grace, but is more
significant of prompt energy.

The study of woman is a new one to me. I often see Kate's friends
and gossips,--for I occupy the parlor as sick-room,--and I lie
philosophizing upon them by the hour, puzzling myself to solve the
problem of their idiosyncrasies. Lady Mary Wortley Montague said, that,
in all her travels, she had met with but two kinds of people,--men
and women. I begin to think that one sex will never be thoroughly
comprehended by the other, notwithstanding the desperate efforts the
novelists are making now-a-days. They all go upon the same plan. They
take some favorite woman, watch her habits keenly, dissect her, analyze
her very blood and marrow,--then patch her up again, and set her in
motion by galvanism. She stalks through three volumes and--drops dead.
I have seen Kate laugh herself almost into convulsions over the knowing
remarks upon the sex in Thackeray, Reade, and others. And I must confess
that the women I know resemble those of no writer but Shakspeare.

We take our revenge for this irritating incapacity by saying that
neither can women create ideal men at all resembling reality. But _halte
la!_ Was it not said at first that Rochester _must_ be a man's man? Is
not the little Professor Paul Emanuel an actual masculine creature?
Heathcliff was a fiend,--but a male fiend.

But where am I wandering? To come back to my sister. She is a fair
specimen of the quick, impulsive, frank class of women. She says she
belongs to the _genus irritabile_. She is easily excited to every good
emotion, and also to the nobler failings of anger, indignation, and
pride. But she is so far above any meanness or littleness, that she
don't know them when she sees them. They pass with her for what they are
not, and she is spared the humiliation of knowing what her species is
capable of. Kate's nature is very charming, but there is a gentler,
calmer order of beings in the sex. I once was greatly attracted by one
of them; and you, I think, belong to that order. However, I should not
class you with her,--for Kate says she was a "deceitful thing." She may
have been so, for aught I know; but I hold it as my creed, that
there are some women all softness, all gentleness, all purity, all
loveableness, and yet all strength of principle. Kate says, if there
are men all courage, all chivalry, all ardor, and all virtue, I may be
right.

The Germans say, "Give the Devil a hair, and he will get your whole
head." Luckily it is the same with the good angels. I have seen a
hundred examples to prove it true. I will give the one nearest my heart.

Lina's generous aspiration at the birth of her baby brother was the
hair. Since then, the angel of generosity has drawn her on from one
self-denying deed to another, until he has possessed her utterly. Her
self-sacrifice was completed some weeks ago. I will tell you how,--for
her light shall not be hidden under a bushel.

When I arrived at this, her little cottage home, after the accident, it
was found impossible to get me up stairs. So I have since occupied the
parlor as my sick-room,--having converted a large airy china-closet into
a recess for a bed, and banished the dishes to the kitchen dresser.
During the day I occupy a soft hair-cloth-covered couch, and from it I
can command, not a view, but a hearing, of the two porches, the hall,
and the garden.

The day after my return was a soft, warm day; and though it was in
February, the windows were all open. I heard a light carriage drive up
to the front door, and supposing it to be the doctor, I awaited his
entrance with impatience. After some time I discovered that he was with
Kate in the garden, and I could hear their voices. I listened with all
my ears, that I might steal his true opinion of myself; for I concluded
that Kate was having a private consultation, and arranging plans by
which I was to be bolstered up with prepared accounts, and not told the
plain facts of the case. I had before suspected that they did not tell
me the worst. I could just catch my name now and then, but no more; and
I wished heartily that they were a little nearer the windows. They must
be, I thought, quite at the bottom of the garden. Suddenly I perceived
that the voice addressing my sister was one of impassioned persuasion,
and I heard the words, "Be calm and reasonable,"--"Not forever." Then
Kate said, with a burst of sobs, "Only in heaven."

"It is all over with me, then," I thought, aghast. But having settled
it, after a struggle, to be the best thing both for me and Kate, I began
to listen again. They were quite silent for some moments. Then I heard
sounds which surprised me,--low, loving tones,--and I desperately
wrenched myself upon my elbows to look out. The agony of such effort was
more tolerable than the agony of suspense. They were not far off, as I
supposed, but close under the window, standing in the little box-tree
arbor, screened from all eyes but mine; and no doubt Kate believed
herself safe enough from these, as I had never been capable of such
exertion since the accident. Their low tones had deceived me as to their
distance.

I was mistaken in another respect. It was not the doctor with Kate, but
a fine-looking man, whose emotion declared him her lover. His arm held
her, and hers rested upon his shoulder, as she looked up at him and
spoke earnestly. His face expressed the greatest alarm and grief. I do
not know where she found the resolution, while looking upon it, to do
what she did; for, Mary,--I can hardly bear to write it,--I heard her
forever renounce her love and happiness for my sake.

I might then have cried out against this self-sacrifice; but there is
something sacred in such an interview, and I could not thrust myself
upon it. I wish now that I had done so. But then I listened in
silence--grief-struck--to the rejection of him she loved,--to the
farewells. I saw the long-clasped hands severed with an effort and a
shudder; I saw my proud sister offer and give a kiss far more fervent
than that which she received in return;--for she felt that this was a
final parting, and her heart was full of love and sorrow; while in his
there lingered both hope and anger,--hope that I would recover, and
release her,--resentment because she could sacrifice him to me.

And yet, after the parting, Kate had but just turned from him, when a
change came over his countenance, at first of enthusiastic admiration,
then of a yet more burning pain. He walked quickly after her, caught her
in his arms, and dashing away tears, that they might not fall upon her
face, he kissed her passionately, and said, "It is hard that I must say
it, but you are right, Lina! Oh, my God! _must_ I lose such a woman?"

Kate, trembling, panting, stamped her foot and cried, "Go, go!--I cannot
stand it!--go!" Ah, Mary! that poor, pale face! He went. Kate made one
quick, terrified, instantly restrained motion of recall, which he did
not see; but I did, and I fainted with the pang it gave me.

When I recovered consciousness, I found my sister bending over me,
blaming herself for neglecting me for so long a time, and calling
herself a cruel, faithless nurse, with acute self-reproach!--There's
woman for you!

I told her what I had overheard, and protested against what she had
done. She said I must not talk now,--I was too ill; she would listen to
me to-morrow. The next day I broached the subject again, as she sat by
my side, reading the evening paper. She put her finger on a paragraph
and handed it to me. I read that one of the steamships had sailed
at twelve o'clock that day. "He is in it," Kate said, and left the
room.--He is in Europe by this time.

Helpless wretch that I am!

Are not Kate's whole head and heart, and all, under the dominion of
Heaven's best angels?

II.

March, 1855.

And now, dear Mary, I intend to let you into our household affairs. This
illness has brought me one blessing,--a home. It has plunged me into the
bosom of domestic life, and I find things there exceedingly amusing.
Things commonplace to others are very novel and interesting to me, from
my long residence in hotels, and perfect ignorance of how the pot was
kept boiling from which my dinners came.

But before you enter the house, take a look at the outside, and let me
localize myself in your imagination. Bosky Dell is a compact little
place of ten acres, covered mostly with a dense grove, and cut into two
unequal parts by a brawling, rocky stream. The house--a little cottage,
draped with vines, and porched--sits on a slope, with an orchard on one
side, a tiny lawn bordered with flowers on another, the shade of
the grove darkening the windows of a third, and on the fourth a
kitchen-garden with strawberry-beds and grape-trellises. It is a pretty
little place, and full of cosy corners. My favorite one I must describe.

It is a porch on the south side of the house, between two projections.
Consequently both ends of it are closed; one, by the parlor wall, in
which there is a window,--and the other, by the kitchen window and wall.
It is quite shut in from winds, and the sun beams pleasantly upon it,
these chilly March days. There is just room enough for my couch, Kate's
rocking-chair, and a little table. Here we sit all the morning,--Kate
sewing, I reading, or watching the sailing clouds, the swelling
tree-buds in the grove, and the crocus-sprinkled grass, which is growing
greener every day.

Thus, while busy with me, Kate can still have an eye to her kitchen, and
we both enjoy the queer doings and sayings of our "culled help," Saide.
She became Kate's servant under an inducement which I will give in her
own words.

"Massy! Miss Catline, when _I_ does a pusson a good turn, seems like I
wants to keep on doin' 'em good turns. I didn't do so dreffle much
for you, but I jes got one chance to help you a bit, and seems like I
couldn't be satisfactioned to let you alone no more."--A novel reason to
hear given, but a true one in philosophy.

This "chance" was when my sister was attacked with cholera once, in the
first panic caused by it, of late years. All her friends had fled to the
country, and she was quite alone in a boarding-house. I was at college.
She would have been left to die alone, so great was the fear of the
disease, if Saide, who was cook in the establishment, had not boiled
over with indignation, and addressed her selfish mistress in this
fashion:--

"That ar' young lady's not to have no care, nohow, took of her, a'n't
she? She's to be lef' there a-sufferin' all alone that-a-way, is she? I
guess so too! Hnh! Now I'se gwine to nuss her, and I don't keer if you
don't know nothin' about _culining_, you must get yer own dinnas and
breakwusses and suppas. That's the plain English of it,--leastways till
she's well ag'in."

She devoted herself night and day to Kate for several weeks, and
then accompanied her to this house, as a matter of course. She is a
privileged personage. She often pops her head out of the kitchen window
to favor us with her remarks. As they always make us laugh, she
won't take reproofs upon that subject. Kate says her impertinence is
intolerable, but suffers it rather than resort to severity with her old
benefactress. I enjoy it.

She manages to turn her humor to account in various ways. I heard her
exclaim,--

"Laws-a-me! Dere goes de best French-chayny gold-edged tureen all to
smash! Pieces not big enough to save! Laws now, do let me study how to
tell de folks, so's to set 'em larfin'. Dere's great 'casion to find
suthin' as 'll do it, 'cause dey thinks a heap o' dis yere ole chayny.
Mr. Charley now,--he's easy set off; but Miss Catline,--she takes
suthin' purty 'cute! Laws, I has to fly roun' to git dat studied out!"

Kate overheard this;--how could she scold?

Saide can never think unless she is "flyin' roun'"; and whenever there
is a great tumult in the kitchen, pans kicked about, tongs falling,
dishes rattling, and table shoved over the floor, something pretty good,
in the shape either of a _bonne-bouche_ or a _bon-mot_, is sure to turn
up.

This morning there was a furious hubbub, that threatened to drown my
voice. Saide was evidently "flyin' roun'," and Kate, who could not hear
half that I read, got out of patience.

"What _is_ the matter?" she asked, raising the sash of the window.

"I on'y wants the currender, (colander,) Miss Catline,--dat's all,
Miss."

"Well, does it take a whirlwind to produce it?"

"Oh, laws, Miss Catline! Don't be _dat_ funny now, don't!--yegh!
yegh!--I'se find it presentry. I'se on'y a little frustrated,
(flustered,) Miss, with de 'fusion, and I'se jes a-studyin'. Never
mind me, Miss,--dat's all, indeed it is,--and you'll have a fuss-rate
minch-pie for dinner. I guess so, too!--yegh! yegh!"--And so we had.

Kate's domestics stand in much awe of her, but feel at least equal love.
So that hers is a household kept in good order, with very little of the
vexation, annoyance, and care, I hear so many of her married friends
groaning about.

April.

For a month nearly, Kate has forbidden my writing, and the first part of
this letter was not sent; so I will finish it now. My sister thought the
effort of holding a pen, in my recumbent position, was too wearying to
me; but now I am stronger, and can sit up supported by pillows. I hasten
to tell you of another most important addition to my comfort, which has
been made since I wrote last. I am so eager with the news, that I can
hardly hold a steady pen. Isn't this a fine state for a promising young
lawyer to be reduced to? He is wild with excitement, because some one
has given him a new go-cart!

Ben, the gardener, was that indulgent individual. He made for me, with
his own industrious hands, what he calls a "jaunting-car-r-r-r." It is a
large wheeled couch on springs. I am a house-prisoner no longer!

I think the first ride I took in it was the most exciting event of my
life. I was not exactly conscious of being mortally tired of looking
from the same porch, over the same garden, into the same grove, and up
to the same quarter of the heavens, for so many months; but when the
change came unexpectedly, it was _transporting_ happiness.

I suppose it may be so when we enter a future life. While here, we think
we do not want to go elsewhere,--even to a better land; but when we
reach that shore, we shall probably acknowledge it to be a lucky change.

Ben drew me carefully down the garden-path. I inhaled the breath of the
tulips and hyacinths, as we passed them. I longed to stay there in that
fairy land, for they brought back all the unspeakably rapturous feelings
of my boyhood. Strange that such delight, after we become men, never
visits us except in moments brief as lightning-flashes,--and then
generally only as a memory,--not, as when we were children, in the form
of a hope! When we are boys, and sudden joy stirs our hearts, we say,
"Oh, how grand life will be!" When we are men, and are thus moved, it
is, "Ah, how bright life was!"

Ben did not pause in the hyacinth-bed with me. He was anxious to prove
the excellence of his vehicle; so he dragged me on in it, until we had
nearly reached the boundary of our grounds, where the two tall, ragged
old cedar-trees marked the extreme point of the evergreen shrubbery,
and _the_ view of the neighborhood lies before us. He stopped there and
said,--

"Ye'll mappen like to look abroad a bit, and I'se go on to the
post-office. Miss Kathleen bid me put you here fornenst the landskip,
and then leave ye. She was greatly fashed at the coompany cooming just
then. I must go, Sir."

"All right, Ben. You need not hurry."

The fresh morning wind whisked up to me and kissed my face bewitchingly,
as Ben removed his tall, burly form from the narrow opening between the
two trees, and left me alone there in the shade, with nothing between me
and the view.

That moment revealed to me the joy of all liberated prisoners. My eyes
flew over the wide earth and the broad heavens. After a sweeping view of
both in their vast unity, I began to single out particulars. There lay
the village in the lap of the hills, in summer time "bosomed high in
tufted trees," but now only half veiled by the gauze-like green of the
budding foliage. The apple orchards, still white with blossoms, and
green with wheat or early grass, extended up the hills, and encroached
upon the dense brown forests. There was the little red brick turret
which crowned the village church, and my eye rested lovingly upon it.
Not that it was anything to me; but Kate and all the women I respect
love it, or what it stands for, and through them I hope to experience
that warm love of worship, and of the places dedicated to it, which
seems native to them, and much to be desired for us. I have cared little
for such things hitherto. Their beauty and happiness are just beginning
to dawn upon me.

----"Dear Jesus, can it be?
Wait we till all things go from us or e'er we go to thee?
Ay, sooth! We feel such strength in weal, thy love may seem
withstood:
But what are we in agony? _Dumb,_ if we cry not 'God!'"

Behind the village I can see the blue hazy line of a far-distant
horizon, as the valley opens in that direction. I know the sea lies
there, and sometimes I fancy that _mirage_ lifts its dark waters to my
sight.

In a wooded nook on my right stands the little brown mill, with its huge
wheel, and wide blue pond, and foamy waterfall. On that day I heard its
drone, and saw the geese bathing, and throwing up the bright sparkling
drops with their wings, until they fell like fountains.

On my left lay "a little lane serene," with stone fences half hid by
blackberry-bushes--

----"A little lane serene,
Smooth-heaped from wall to wall with unbroken snows.
Or in the summer blithe with lamb-cropped green,
Save the one track, where naught more rude is seen
Than the plump wain at even
Bringing home four months' sunshine bound in sheaves."

I thought of those lines there and then, and they enhanced even the joy
of Nature. They tinged her for me with the magic colors of poetry.

When I had thus scrutinized earth, I looked up to heaven. It had been so
long shut from me by the network of the grove, that it was like escaping
from confining toils, to look straight into Heaven's face, with nothing
between, not even a cloud.

I have never seen a sweeter, calmer picture than that I gazed upon all
the morning, and for which the two huge old cedars formed a rugged, but
harmonious frame.

I have lived out of doors since. When it is cold, I am wrapped in a
wadded robe Kate has made for me,--a capital thing, loose, and warm, and
silky-soft. To an invalid with nerves all on edge, that is much. I never
found out, until Kate enveloped me in its luxurious folds, what it was
that rasped my feelings so, every morning, when I was dressed; I then
knew it must have been my flashy woollen dressing-gown. I envy women
their soft raiment, and I rather dread the day when I shall be compelled
to wear coats again. (Let me cheat myself, if I can.)

III.

May, 1855.

You wish to know more of Ben. I am glad of it. You shall be immediately
gratified.

He is a true Scot, tall and strong and sandy-haired, with quick gray
eyes, and a grave countenance, which relaxes only upon very great
provocation.

Before I came here, he was known simply as a most careful, industrious,
silent, saving machine, which cared not a jot for anybody in particular,
but never wanted any spur to its own mechanical duty. It was never known
to do a turn of work not legitimately its own, though mathematically
exact in its proper office. But after I came here with my sister, a
helpless cripple, we found out that the mathematical machine was a man,
with a soft, beating heart. He was called upon to lift me from the
carriage, and he did it as tenderly as a woman. He took me up as a
mother lifts her child from the cradle, and I reposed passively in his
strong arms, with a feeling of perfect security and ease.

From that day to this, Ben has been a most devoted friend to me. He
watches for opportunities to do me kindnesses, and takes from his own
sacred time to make me comforts. He has had me in his arms a hundred
times, and carries me from bed to couch like a baby. I positively blush
in writing this to you. You have known me to be a man for years, and
here I am in arms again!

Ben's decent, well-controlled self-satisfaction, which almost amounts
to dignity, is gone like a puff of smoke, at the word "Shanghai." Poor
fellow! He once had the hen-fever badly, and he don't like to recall his
sufferings.

The first I knew of it was by his starting and changing color one day,
when I was reading the news from China to Kate in the garden, he being
engaged in tying up a rose-bush close by. Kate saw his confusion, and
smiled. Ben, catching the expression of her face, looked inconceivably
sheepish. He dropped his ball of twine, and was about to go away, but
thinking better of it, he suddenly turned and said, with a grin and a
blush,--

"Ye'll be telling on me, Miss Kathleen! so I'se be aforehond wi' ye, and
let Mr. Charlie knaw the warst frae my ain confassion, if he will na
grudge me a quarter hour."

I signified my wish to hear, and with much difficulty and many questions
wrung from him his "confassion." Kate afterwards gave me her version,
and the facts were these:--

He persuaded Kate to let him buy a pair of Shanghais.

"But don't do it unless you are sure of its being worth while,"
Kate charged him; "because I can't afford to be making expensive
experiments."

Ben counted out upon his fingers the numberless advantages.

"First, the valie o' the eggs for sale, (mony ane had fetched a dollar,)
forbye the ecawnomy in size for cooking, one shell handing the meat o'
twa common eggs. Second, the size o' the chickens for table, each hen
the weight o' a turkey. Third, for speculation. Let the neebors buy, and
she could realize sixty dollar on the brood o' twal' chicks; for they
fetched ten dollar the pair, and could be had for nae less onywheres.
Every hen wad hae twa broods at the smallest."

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