careful forethought for her family. Husbands are too apt to take these every-day heroisms as matters of course. Therefore we say again, it is well sometimes that their attention should be awakened to it, when the doctor has vetoed for them awhile the office and the counting-room, and they are childishly frantic at gruel and closed blinds.
A woman's education is generally considered to be finished when she is married, whereas she has only arrived at A B C. If husbands took half the thought for, or interest in, their wives' minds, that wives are obliged to take for their husbands' bodies, women would be more intelligent. A missing button or string is often the cause of a bitter outcry; but what of the little woman who sits twiddling her thumbs in the presence of her husband's intelligent visitors, because she has not the slightest idea what they are all talking about, and because, if she wouldn't mortify her husband, she must forever keep speechless? The intelligent husband, who, from fear of jeopardizing his puddings or his coffee, rests contented with this state of things, is guilty of an injustice toward that little woman, of which he ought to be heartily ashamed. True, when he married her this difference did not exist, or if it did, the glamour of youth and beauty, like a soft mist-veil over a landscape, hid, or clothed with loveliness, even defects. Because her youth and beauty have been uncomplainingly transmitted to his many children, whose little mouths must be fed, and little feet tended, not always by a hireling, through the long day; and whose little garments must be often planned and made, when she would gladly rest, while they sleep: should he, who is free to read and think, he who, coming in contact with strong, reflecting minds, has left her far behind, never turn a loving glance back, and with his own strong hand and encouraging smile, beg her not to sit down discouraged by the wayside —she, who "hath done what she could?" It is a shame for such a man to put on his soul's festival-dress for everybody but her who should be his soul's queen. It is a shame for a man to be willing so to degrade the mother and teacher of his children. It is a shame for him, while she sits sewing by his side, never to raise her drooping self-respect, by addressing an intelligent word to her about the book he is reading, or the subject upon which he is thinking, as he sits looking into the fire. I marvel and wonder at the God-like patience of these upper housekeepers, or I should, had I not seen them dropping tears over the faces of their sleeping children, to cool their hearts.
I want to hear no nonsense about the mental "equality or inequality of the sexes." I am sick of it; that is a question men always start when women ask for justice, to dodge a fair answer. They may be equal or unequal – that's not what I am talking about. Napoleon the Third gives his dear French people diversions, fête days, and folly of all kinds, if they will only let him manage the politics. Our domestic Napoleons, too many of them, give flattery, bonnets and bracelets to women, and everything else but– justice; that question is one for them to decide, and many a gravestone records how it is done.
An intelligent man sometimes satisfies his conscience by saying of his wife, Oh, she's a good little woman, but there is one chamber in my soul through whose window she is not tall enough to peep. Get her but a footstool to stand on, Mr. Selfishness, and see how quick she will leap over that window sill! In short, show but the disposition to help her, and some manly, loving interest in her progress, instead of striding on alone, as you do, in your seven league mental boots, without a thought of her, and take my word for it, if you are thus just to her, and if she loves you, which last, by the way, all wives would do, if husbands were truly just, and you will find that though she has but average intellect, you will soon be astonished at the progress of your pupil.
I am not unaware that there are men whom the tailor makes, and women who are manufactured by the dress-maker, and that they often marry each other. Let such fulfill their august destiny – to dress. I know that there are women much more intelligent than their husbands; let such show their intelligence by appearing not to know it. Still, it remains as I have said, that there exist the wives and mothers whose cause I now plead, fulfilling each day, not hopelessly – God forbid! but sometimes with a sad sinking of heart, the duties which no true wife or mother will neglect, even under circumstances rendered so disheartening by the husband and father, of whose praise, perhaps, the world is full. Let the latter see to it, that while the momentous question, "What shall I get for dinner?" may never, though the heavens should fall, evade her daily and earnest consideration, that he would sometimes, by his intelligent conversation, when there is no company, recognize the existence of the soul of this married housekeeper.
GRANDMOTHER'S CHAT ABOUT CHILDREN AND CHILDHOOD
WHAT can fascinate you in that ugly beast?"
This question was addressed to me, while regarding intently a camel in a collection of animals. "Ugly?" To me he was poetry itself. I was a little girl again. I was kneeling down at my little chair at family prayers. I didn't understand the prayers. "The Jews" were a sealed book to me then. I didn't know why "a solemn awe" should fall upon me either; or what was a solemn awe, anyhow. For a long time, I know, till I was quite a big girl, I thought it was one word – thus, solemnor– owing to the rapid manner in which it was pronounced. Where the heathen were going to be "brought in," or what they were coming for, I didn't understand; and as to "justification," and "sanctification," and "election," it was no use trying. But the walls of the pleasant room where family prayers were held, were papered with "a Scripture paper." There were great feathery palm-trees. There were stately females bearing pitchers on their heads. There were Isaac and Rebecca at the well; and there were camels, humped, bearing heavy burdens, with long flexile necks, resting under the curious, feathery trees, with their turbaned attendants. I understood that. To be sure, the blue was, as I now recollect it, sometimes on their noses as well as on the sky; and the green was on their hair as well as on the grass; but at the pinafore-age we are not hypercritical. To me it was fairy-land; and often when "Amen" was said, I remained with my little chin in my palms, staring at my beloved camels, unconscious of the breakfast that was impending, for our morning prayers were said on an empty stomach.
I hear, now, the soft rustle of my mother's dress, as she rose after the "Amen." I see the roguish face of my baby brother, whose perfect beauty was long since hid under the coffin lid. I see the servants, disappearing through the door that led down to the kitchen, whence came the fragrant odor of coming coffee. I see my mother's flowering plants in the window, guiltless of dust or insect, blossoming like her virtues and goodness, perennially. I see black curly heads, and flaxen curly heads, of all sizes, but all "curly," ranged round the breakfast table; the names of many of their owners are on marble slabs in Mount Auburn now.
So you understand why I "stood staring at that ugly beast," in the collections of animals, and thinking of the changes, in all these long years, that had passed so swiftly; for now I am fifty-four, if I am a minute. And how wonderful it was, that after such a lapse of time, and so thickly crowded with events, that this family-morning-prayer-hour should come up with such astonishing vividness, at sight of that camel. Oh! I shall always love a camel. He will never look "ugly" to me. I am not sorry, nor ever have been, that I was brought up to "family prayers," unintelligible though they then were to me.
I hunted up those "Jews" after I got bigger, and many other things, too, the names of which got wedged crosswise in my childish memory, and stuck there. They never did me any harm, that ever I found out. I have sent up many a prayer, both in joy and sorrow, since then, but not always "on my knees," which was considered essential in those days. As to the "solemn awe," I don't understand it now any better than when I was a child. I can't feel it, in praying, any more than I should when running to some dear, tried friend, with a burdened heart, to sob my grief away there, till I grew peaceful again. And all this came of a Camel.
And now I am a grandmother! and here come the holidays again. As I look into the crowded toyshops, I think, how lucky for their owners that children will always keep on being born, and that every one of them will have a grandmother. Uncles, and aunts, and cousins, are all very well, and fathers and mothers are not to be despised; but a grandmother, at holiday time, is worth them all. She might have
