807-73 6909 Sanborn Wit of women \G* ,V "The Wit of Women," by Miss Kate Sanborn, [Fu\.k & Wagnalls,] proves that the authoress is one of those rare women who are gifted with a sense of humor. For- tunately for her, the female sense of humor, when it does exist, is not affected by such trifles as " chestnuts." There- fore, women will read with pleasure Miss Sanborn's choice collection of these dainties. There are, however, many new anecdotes in Miss Sanborn's collection, and, taken as a whole, it may fairly be said to establish the fact that there have been feminine wits not inferior to the best of the opposite sex. THE WIT OF WOMEN FO UR TH EDITION NEW YORK (04 D \ \J FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY LONDON AND TORONTO 1895 Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1885, by FUNK & WAGNALLS, In the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington, D. C. Miss Addie Boyd, of the Cincinnati "Commercial," and Miss Anna M. T. Rossiter, alias Lilla M. Cushman, of the Meriden "Recorder," will probably rep- resent the gentler sex in the convention of paragraphers which meets next month. Tney are a pair o' graphic writers and equal to the best in the profession. [Waterloo Observer. INTEODUOTIOK IT is refreshing to find an unworked field all ready for harvesting. While the wit of men, as a subject for admiration and discussion, is now threadbare, the wit of women has been almost utterly ignored and unrecognized. With the joy and honest pride of a discoverer, I present the results of a summer's gleaning. And I feel a cheerful and Colonel Sellers-y confidence in the success of the book, for every woman will want to own it, as a matter of pride and interest, and many men will buy it just to see what women think they can do in this line. In fact, I expect a call for a second volume ! KATE SANBOKN. HANOVEK, N. EL, August, 1885. MY thanks are due to so many publishers, magazine editors, and personal friends for material for this book, that a formal note of acknowledgment seems meagre and unsatisfactory. Proper credit, however, has been given all through the volume, and with special indebtedness to Messrs. Harper & Brothers and Charles Scribner's Sons of New York, and Houghton, Mifflin & Co. of Boston. I add sincere gratitude to all who have so generously contributed whatever was requested. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. PAGE THE MELANCHOLY TONE OF WOMEN'S POETRY PUNS, GOOD AND BAD EPIGRAMS AND LACONICS CYNICISM OF FRENCH WOMEN SENTENCES CRISP AND SPARKLING 13 CHAPTER II. HUMOR OF LITERARY ENGLISHWOMEN 32 CHAPTER III. FROM ANNE BRAUSTREET TO MRS. STOWE 47 CHAPTER IV. " SAMPLES" HERE AND THERE 67 CHAPTER V. A BRACE OF WITTY WOMEN 85 CHAPTER VI. GINGER-SNAPS 103 CHAPTER VII. PROSE, BUT NOT PROSY 122 CHAPTER VIII. HUMOROUS POEMS 150 CHAPTER IX. GOOD-NATURED SATIRE 179 CHAPTER X. PARODIES REVIEWS CHILDREN'S POEMS COMEDIES BY WOMEN A DRAMXTIC TRTFF,E A STRING OF FIRECRACKERS.. . 195 TO G. W. B. In (grateful " There was in her soul a sense of delicacy mingled with that rarest of qualities in woman a sense of humor," writes Richard Grant White in " The Fate of Mansfield Humphreys.' 1 '' I hate noticed that when a novelist sets out to portray an uncommonly fine type of heroine, he inva- riably adds to her other intellectual and moral graces the above-mentioned lt rarest of qualities.' 11 I may be over-sanguine, but I anticipate that some sagacious genius will discover that woman as well as man has been endowed with this excellent gift from the gods, and that the gift pertains to the large, generous, sympathetic nature, quite irrespective of the indi- vidual's sex. In any case, having heard so repeatedly that woman has no sense of humor, it would be refreshing to haw a contrariety of opinion on that subject. THE CRITIC. PROEM.* WE are coming to the rescue, Just a hundred strong ; "With fun and pun and epigram, And laughter, wit, and song ; With badinage and repartee, And humor quaint or bold, And stories that are stories, Not several asons old ; With parody and nondescript, Burlesque and satire keen, And irony and playful jest, So that it may be seen That women are not quite so dull : We come a merry throng ; Yes, we're coming to the rescue, And just a hundred strong. KATE SANBOBN. * Not Poem ! THE WIT OF WOMEN. CHAPTER I. THE MELANCHOLY TONE OF WOMEN'S POETRY PUNS, GOOD AND BAD EPIGRAMS AND LACONICS CYNICISM OF FRENCH WOMEN SENTENCES CRISP AND SPARKLING. To begin a deliberate search for wit seems almost like trying to be witty : a task quite certain to brush the bloom from even the most fruitful results. But the statement of Richard Grant White, that humor is the " rarest of qualities in woman," roused such a host of brilliant recollections that it was a temptation to try to materialize the ghosts that M'ere haunting me ; to lay forever the suspicion that they did not exist. Two articles by Alice Wellington Rollins in the Critic* on " Woman's Sense of Humor" and " The Humor of Women," convinced me that the deliberate task might not be impossible to carry out, although I felt, as she did, that the humor and wit of women are difficult to analyze, and select examples, precisely because they possess in the highest degree that almost essential quality of wit, the un- premeditated glow which exists only with the occasion that calls its forth. Even from the humor of women found in books it is hard to quote not because there is so little, but because there is so much. 14 THE WIT OF WOMEN. The encouragement to attempt this novel enterprise of proving (" by their fruits ye shall know them") that women are not deficient in either wit or humor has not been great. Wise librarians have, with a smile, regretted the paucity of proper material ; literary men have predicted rather a thin volume ; in short, the general opinion of men is condensed in the sly question of a peddler who comes to our door, summer and winter, his stock varying with the season : sage-cheese and home-made socks, suspenders and cheap note-paper, early-rose potatoes and the solid pearmain. This shrewd old fellow remarked roguishly : " You're gittin' up a book, I see, 'baout women's wit. 'T won't be no great of an undertakin', will it ?" The outlook at first was certainly discouraging. In Parton's "Collection of Humorous Poetry" there was not one woman's name, nor in Dodd's large volume of epigrams of all ages, nor in any of the humorous departments of volumes of selected poetry. Griswold's " Female Poets of America" was next exam- ined. The genera] air of gloom hopeless gloom was de- pressing. Such mawkish sentimentality and despair ; such inane and mortifying confessions ; such longings for a lover to come ; such sighings over a lover departed ; such crav- ings for " only" " only" a grave in some dark, dank soli- tude. As Mrs. Dodge puts it, " Pegasus generally feels inclined to pace toward a graveyard the moment he feels a side-saddle on his back." The subjects of their lucubrations suggest Lady Mon- tagu's famous speech : " There was only one reason she was glad she was a woman : she should never have to marry one." THE MELANCHOLY TONE OF WOMEN'S POETKY. 15 From the " Female Poets" 1 copy this " Song," repre- senting the average woman's versifying as regards buoyancy and an optimistic view of this " Wale of Tears": " Ask not from me the sportive jest, The mirthful jibe, the gay reflection ; These social baubles fly the breast That owns the sway of pale Dejection. " Ask not from me the changing smile, Hope's sunny glow, Joy's glittering token ; It cannot now my griefs beguile- My soul is dark, my heart is broken ! *' Wit cannot cheat my heart of woe, Flattery wakes no exultation ; And Fancy's flash but serves to show The darkness of my desolation ! " By me no more in masking guise Shall thoughtless repartee be spoken ; My mind a hopeless ruin lies My soul is dark, my heart is broken !" In recalling the witty women of the world, I must surely go back, familiar as is the story, to the Grecian dame who, when given some choice old wine in a tiny glass by her miserly host, who boasted of the years since it had been bottled, inquired, " Isn't it very small of its age ?" This ancient story is too much in the style of the male story- monger you all know him who repeats with undi- minished gusto for the forty-ninth time a story that was tottering in senile imbecility when Methuselah was teeth- ing, and is now in a sad condition of anecdotage. It is affirmed that " women seldom repeat an anecdote." That is well, and no proof of their lack of wit. The disci- 16 THE WIT OF WOMEN. pline of life would be largely increased if they did insist on being "reminded" constantly of anecdotes as familiar as the hand-organ repertoire of " Captain Jinks" and " Beau- tiful Spring." Their sense of humor is too keen to allow them to aid these aged wanderers in their endless migra- tions. It is sufficiently trying to their sense of the ludi- crous to be obliged to listen with an admiring, rapt expres- sion to some anecdote heard in childhood, and restrain the laugh until the oft-repeated crisis has been duly reached. Still, I know several women who, as brilliant raconteurs, have fully equalled the efforts of celebrated after-dinner wits. It is also affirmed that " women cannot make a pun," which, if true, would be greatly to their honor. But, alas ! their puns are almost as frequent and quite as execrable as are ever perpetrated. It was Queen Elizabeth who said : " Though ye be burly, my Lord Burleigh, ye make less stir than my Lord Leicester." Lady Morgan, the Irish novelist, witty and captivating, who wrote " Kate Kearney" and the " Wild Irish Girl," made several good puns. Some one, speaking of the laxity of a certain bishop in regard to Lenten fasting, said : " I believe he would eat a horse on Aeh Wednesday." " And very proper diet," said her ladyship, "if it were a. fast horse. " Her special enemy, Croker, had declared that Welling, ton's success at Waterloo was only a fortunate accident, and intimated that he could have done better himself, under similar circumstances. "Oh, yes," exclaimed her lady- ship, " he had his secret for winning the battle. He had only to put his notes on Boswell's Johnson in front of the PUNS. 17 British lines, and all tlie Bonapartes that ever existed could never get through them !" " Grace Greenwood " has probably made more puns in print than any other woman, and her conversation is full of them. It was Grace Greenwood who, at a tea-drinking at the Woman's Club in Boston, was begged to tell one more story, but excused herself in this way : " No, I cannot get more than one story high on a cup of tea !' ' You see puns are allowed at that rarely intellectual assem- blage indeed, they are sometimes very bad ; as when the question was brought up whether better speeches could be made after simple tea and toast, or under the influence of champagne and oysters. Miss Mary Wadsworth replied that it would depend entirely upon whether the oysters were cooked or raw ; and seeing all look blank, she ex- plained : " Because, if raw, we should be sure to have a raw-oyster-ing time. " Louisa Alcott's puns deserve "honorable mention." I will quote one. " Query If steamers are named the Asia, the Russia, and the Scotia, why not call one the Nausea f' At a Chicago dinner-party a physician received a menu card with the device of a mushroom, and showing it to the lady next him, said : " I hope nothing invidious is in- tended." " Oh, no," was tli3 answer, " it only alludes to the fact that you spring up in the night." A gentleman, noticeable on the porch of the sanctuary as the pretty girls came in on Sabbath mornings, but not regarded as a devout attendant on the services within, declared that he was one of the " pillars of the church !" " Pillar-sham, I am inclined to think," was the retort of a lady friend. 18 THE WIT OF WOMEN. To a lady who, in reply to a gentleman's assertion that women sometimes made a good pun, but required time to think about it, had said that she could make a pun as quickly as any man, the gentleman threw down this chal- lenge : " Make a pun, then, on horse-shoe." " If you talk until you're horse-shoe can't convince me," was the instant answer. The best punning poem from a woman's pen was written by Miss Caroline B. Le Row, of Brooklyn, N. Y., a teacher of elocution, and the writer of many charming stories and verses. It was suggested by a study in butter of " The Dreaming lolanthe,' ' moulded by Caroline S. Brooks on a kitchen-table, and exhibited at the Centennial in Philadel- phia. I do not remember any other poem in the language that rings so many changes on a single word. It was pub- lished first in Baldwin's Monthly, but ran the rounds of the papers all over the country. I. " One of the Centennial buildings Shows us many a wondrous thing Which the women of our country. From their homes were proud to bring. In a little corner, guarded By Policeman Twenty-eight, Stands a crowd, all eyes and elbows, Seeing butter butter-plate II. " "Tis not ' butter faded flower ' That the people throng to see, Butter crowd comes every hour, Nothing butter crowd we see. PUNS. 19 Butter little pushing brings us Where we find, to our surprise, That within the crowded corner Butter dreaming woman lies. III. " Though she lies, she don't deceive us, As it might at first be thought ; This fair maid is made of butter, On a kitchen-table wrought. Nothing butter butter-paddle, Sticks and straws were used to bring Out of just nine pounds of butter Butter fascinating thing. IV. " Butter maid or made of butter, She is butter wonder rare ; Butter sweet eyes closed in slumber, Butter soft and yellow hair, Were the work of butter woman Just two thousand miles away ; Butter fortune's in the features That she made in butter stay. V. " Maid of all work, maid of honor, 'Whatsoever she may be, She is butter wondrous worker, As the crowd can plainly see. And 'tis butter woman shows us What with butter can be done, Nothing butter hands producing Something new beneath the sun. VI. " Butter line we add in closing, Which none butter could refuse : May her work be butter pleasure* Nothing butter butter use ; 20 THE WIT OF WOMEN. May she never need for butter, Though she'll often knead for bread, And may every churning bring her Butter blessing on her head." The second and last example is much more common in its form, but is just as good as most of the verses of this style in Parton's " Humorous Poetry." I don't pretend that it is remarkable, but it is equally worthy of presentation with many efforts of this sort from men with a reputation for wit. THE VEGETABLE GIKL. BY MAY TAYLOR. Behind a market-stall installed, I mark it every day, Stands at her stand the fairest girl I've met within the bay ; Her two lips are of cherry red, Her hands a pretty pair, With such a charming turn-up nose, And lovely reddish hair. 'Tis there she stands from morn till night, Her customers to please, And to appease their appetite She sells them beans and peas. Attracted by the glances from The apple of her eye, And by her Chili apples, too, Each passer-by will buy. She stands upon her little feet Throughout the livelong day, And sells her celery and things A big feat, by the way. EPIGRAMS AND LACONICS. 21 She changes off her stock for change, Attending to each call ; And when she has but one beet left, She says, " Now, that beats all." As to puns in conversation, my only fear is that they are too generally indulged in. Only one of this sort can be allowed, and that from the highest lady in the land, who is distinguished for culture and good sense, as well as wit. A friend said to her as she was leaving Buffalo for Washing- ton : " I hope you will hail from Buffalo." ' ' Oh, I see you expect me to hail from Buffalo and reign in Washington," said the quick-witted sister of our Presi- dent. In epigrams there is little to offer. But as it is stated that "women cannot achieve a well-rounded epigram," a few specimens must be produced. Jane Austen has left two on record. The first was sug- gested by reading in a newspaper the marriage of a Mr. Gell to Miss Gill, of Eastborne. "At Eastborne, Mr. Gell, from being perfectly well, Became dreadfully ill for love of Miss Gill ; So he said, with some sighs, 'I'm the slave of your iis ; Oh, restore, if you please, by accepting my ees.' " The second is on the marriage of a middle-aged flirt with a Mr. Wake, whom gossips averred she would have scorned in her prime. " Maria, good-humored and handsome and tall, For a husband was at her last stake ; And having in vain danced at many a ball, Is now happy to jump at a Wake." 22 THE \VIT OF WOMEN. It was Lady Tovvnsend who said that the human race was divided into men, women, and Herveys. This epigram has been borrowed in our day, substituting for Herveys the Beecher family. When some one said of a lady she must be in spirits, for she lives with Mr. Walpole, " Yes," replied Lady Town- send, " spirits of hartshorn." Walpole, caustic and critical, regarded this lady as unde- niably witty. It was Hannah More who said : i ' There are but two bad things in this world sin and bile." Miss Thackeray quotes several epigrammatic definitions from her friend Miss Evans, as : " A privileged person : one who is so much a savage when thwarted that civilized persons avoid thwarting him." "A musical woman : one who has strength enough to make much noise and obtuseness enough not to mind it." " Ouida" has given us some excellent examples of epi- gram, as : " A pipe is a pocket philosopher, a truer one than Socrates, for it never asks questions. Socrates must have been very tiresome, when one thinks of it." " Dinna ye meddle, Tarn ; it's niver no good a threshin' other folks' corn ; ye allays gits the flail agin' i' yer own .eye somehow." " Epigrams are the salts of life ; but they wither up the .grasses of foolishness, and naturally the grasses hate to be sprinkled therewith. ' ' " A man never is so honest as when he speaks well of him- self. Men are always optimists when they look inward, arid pessimists when they look round them. " CYNICISM OF FRENCH WOMEN. 23 " Nothing is so pleasant as to display your worldly wisdom in epigram and dissertation, but it is a trifle tedious to hear another person display theirs." " When you talk yourself you think how witty, how orig- inal, how acute you are ; but when another does so, you are very apt to think only, ' What a crib from Rochefou- cauld !'" ' ' Boredom is the ill-natured pebble that always will get in the golden slipper of the pilgrim of pleasure." " It makes all the difference in life whether hope is left or left out !" ' ' A frog that dwelt in a ditch spat at a worm that bore a lamp. " ' Why do you do that ? ' said the glow-worm. " ' Why do you shine ? ' said the frog." ' ' Calumny is the homage of our contemporaries, as some South Sea Islanders spit on those they honor." " Hived bees get sugar because they will give back honey. All existence is a series of equivalents." "'Men are always like Horace,' said the Princess. ' They admire rural life, but they remain, for all that, with Augustus.' ' " If the Venus de Medici could be animated into life, women would only remark that her waist was large." The brilliant Frenchwomen whose very names seem to sparkle as we write them, yet of whose wit so little has been preserved, had an especial facility for condensed cynicism. Think of Madame du Deffand, sceptical, sarcastic ; feared and hated even in her blind old age for her scathing criti- 2 THE WIT OF WOMEN. cisms. When the celebrated work of Helvetius appeared he was blamed in her presence for having made selfishness the great motive of human action. " Bah !" said she, " he has only revealed every one's secret." And listen to this trio of laconics, with their saddening knowledge of human frailty and their bitter Voltaireish flavor : We shall all be perfectly virtuous when there is no longer any flesh on our bones. Marguerite de Valois. We like to know the weakness of eminent persons ; it consoles us for our inferiority. Mme. de Lambert. Women give themselves to God when the devil wants nothing more to do with them. Sophie Arnould. Madame de Sevigne's letters present detached thoughts worthy of Rochefoucauld without his cynicism. She writes : " One loves so much to talk of one's self that one never tires of a tete-a-tete with a lover for years. That is the reason that a devotee likes to be with her confessor. It is for the pleasure of talking of one's self even though speaking evil. " And she remarks to a lady who amused her friends by always going into mourning for some prince, or duke, or member of some royal family, and who at last appeared in bright colors, " Madame, I congratulate myself on the health of Europe." 1 find, too, many fine aphorisms from " Carmen Sylva" (Queen of Roumania) : " 11 vaut mieux avoir pour confesseur un medecin qu'un pretre. Vous dites au pretre que vous detestez les hommes, il vous reponds que vous n'etes pas chretien. Le medecin vous donne de la rhubarbe, et voila que vous aimez votre semblable." SOME WITTY ENGLISHWOMEN. 25 " Vous dites an pretre que vous etes fatigue de vivre ; il vous reponds que le suicide est un crime. Le medecin vous donne un stimulant, et voila que vous trouvez la vie suppor- table." " La contradiction anime la conversation ; voila pourquoi les cours sont si ennuyeuses. " " Quand on veut affirmer quelqne chose, on appelle tou- jours Dieu a temoin, parce qu'il m 1 contredit jamais." " On ne peut jamais etre fatigue de la vie, on n'est fatigue que de soi-meme. " " II faut etre on tres-pieux on tres-philosophe ! il faut dire : Seigneur, que ta volonte soit faite ! ou : Mature, j'admets tes lois, ineme lorsqu'elles m ecrasent. " " L'homme est un violon. Ce n'est qne lorsque sa derniere corde se brise qu'il devient un morceau de bois." In the recently published sketch of Madame Mohl there are several sentences which show trenchant wit, as : "Na- tions squint in looking at one another ; we must discount what Germany and France say of each other." Several Englishwomen can be recalled who were noted for their epigrammatic wit : as Harriet, Lady Ashburton. On some one saying that liars generally speak good-nat- uredly of others, she replied : " Why, if you don't speak a word of truth, it is not so difficult to speak well of your neighbor." " Don't speak so hardly of , " some one said to her ; " he lives on your good graces.' ' " That accounts," she answered, " for his being so thin." Again : " I don't mind the canvas of a man's mind being good, if only it is completely hidden by the worsted and floss." 26 THE WIT OF WOMEN. Or : " She never speaks to any one, which is, of course, a great advantage to any one." Mrs. Carlyle was an epigram herself small, sweet, yet possessing a sting and her letters give us many sharp and original sayings. She speaks in one place of " Mrs. , an insupport- able bore ; her neck and arms were as naked as if she had never eaten of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil." And what a comical phrase is hers when she writes to her "Dearest" "I take time by the pig-tail and write at night, after post- hours 1 ' that growling, surly "dearest," of whom she said, " The amount of bile that he brings home is awfully grand." For a veritable epigram from an American woman's pen we must rely on Hannah F. Gould, who wrote many verses that were rather graceful and arch than witty. But her epitaph on her friend, the active and aggressive Caleb Gushing, is as good as any made by Saxe. " Lay aside, all ye dead, For in the next bed Reposes the body of Gushing ; He has crowded his way Through the world, they say, And even though dead will be pushing." Such a hit from a bright woman is refreshing. Our literary foremothers seemed to prefer to be pedantic, didactic, and tedious on the printed page. Catharine Sedgwick dealt somewhat in epigram, as when she says : " He was not one of those convenient single peo- ple who are used, as we use straw and cotton in packing, to fill up vacant places." EPIGRAMMATIC SENTENCES. 27 Eliza Leslie (famed for her cook-books and her satiric sketches), when speaking of people silent from stupidity, supposed kindly to be full of reserved power, says : " We cannot help thinking that when a head is full of ideas some of them must involuntarily ooze out. " And is not this epigrammatic advice ? " Avoid giving invitations to bores they will come without." Some of our later literary women prefer the epigrammatic form in sentences, crisp and laconic ; short sayings full of pith, of which I have made a collection. Gail Hamilton's books fairly bristle with epigrams in condensed style, and Kate Field has many a good thought in this shape, as : " Judge no one by his relations, whatever criticism you pass upon his companions. Relations, like features, are thrust upon us ; companions, like clothes, are more or less our own selection." Miss Jewett's style is less epigrammatic, but just as full of humor. Speaking of a person who was always complaining, she says : " Xothing ever suits her. She ain't had no more troubles to bear than the rest of us ; but you never see her that she didn't have a chapter to lay before ye. I've got 's much feelin' as the next one, but when folks drives in their spiggits and wants to draw a bucketful o' compassion every day right straight along, there does come times when it seems as if the bar'l was getting low." " The captain, whose eyes were not much better than his ears, always refused to go forth after nightfall without his lantern. The old couple steered slowly down the uneven sidewalk toward their cousin's house. The captain walked with a solemn, rolling gait, learned in his many long years at sea, and his wife, who was also short and stout, had 28 THE WIT OF WOMEN. caught the habit from him. If they kept step all went well ; but on this occasion, as sometimes happened, they did not take the first step out into the world together, so they swayed apart, and then bumped against each other as they went along. To see the lantern coming through the mist you might have thought it the light of a small craft at sea in heavy weather." " Deaf people hear more things that are worth listening to than people with better ears ; one likes to have some- thing worth telling in talking to a person who misses most of the world's talk." " Emory Ann," a creation of Mrs. Whitney's, often spoke in epigrams, as : " Good looks are a snare ; especially to them that haven't got 'em." While Mrs. Walker's creed, "I believe in the total depravity of inanimate things," is more than an epigram it is an inspiration. Charlotte Fiske Bates, who compiled the u Cambridge Book of Poetry," and has given us a charming volume of her own verses, which no one runs any " Risk" in buying, in spite of the title of the book, has done a good deal in this direction, and is fond of giving an epigrammatic turn to a bright thought, as in the following couplet : " "Would you sketch in two words a coquette and deceiver ? Name two Irish geniuses, Lover and Lever !" She also succeeds with the quatrain : ON BEING CALLED A GOOSE. A signal name is this, upon my word ! Great Juno's geese saved Rome her citadel. Another drowsy Manlius may be stirred And the State saved, if I but cackle well. EPIGRAMS FROM AMERICAN WOMEN. 29 I recall a charming jeu d" 1 esprit from Mrs. Barrows, the beloved " Aunt Fanny," who writes equally well for chil- dren and grown folks, and whose big heart ranges from earnest philanthropy to the perpetration of exquisite non- sense. It is but a trifle, sent with a couple of peanut-owls to a niece of Bryant's. The aged poet was greatly amused. " When great Minerva chose the Owl, That bird of solemn phiz, That truly awful-looking fowl, To represent her wis- Doin, little recked the goddess of The time when she would howl To see a Peanut set on end, And called Minerva's Owl." Miss Phelps has given us some sentences which convey an epigram in a keen and delicate fashion, as : " All forms of self-pity, like Prussian blue, should be sparingly used." " As a rule, a man can't cultivate his mustache and his talents impartially." " As happy as a kind-hearted old lady with a funeral to go to." " No men are so fussy about what they eat as those who think their brains the biggest part of them." " The professor's sister, a homeless widow, of excellent Vermont intentions and high ideals in cup-cake." And this longer extract has the same characteristics : ' ' You know how it is with people, Avis ; some take to zoology, and some take to religion. That's the way it is with places. It may be the Lancers, and it may be prayer- 30 THE WIT OF WOMEN. meetings. Once I went to see my grandmother in the country, and everybody had a candy-pull ; there were twenty-five candy-pulls and taffy- bakes in that town that winter. John Rose says, in the Connecticut Valley, where he came from, it was missionary barrels ; and I heard of a place where it was cold coffee. In Harmouth it's improv- ing your mind. And so," added Goy, " we run to read- ing clubs, and we all go fierce, winter after winter, to see who'll get the ' severest. ' There's a set outside of the faculty that descends to charades and music and inconceiv- ably low intellectual depths ; and some of our girls sneak off and get in there once in a while, like the little girl that wanted to go from heaven to hell to play Saturday after- noons, just as you and I used to do, Avis, when we dared. But I find I've got too old for that," said Coy, sadly. " When you're fairly past the college- boys, and as far along as the law students " " Or the theologues ?" interposed Avis. " Yes, or the theologues, or even the medical depart- ment ; then there positively is nothing for it but to im- prove your mind." Listen to Lavinia, one of Mrs. Rose Terry Cooke's sensi- ble Yankee women : " Land ! if you want to know folks, just hire out to 'em. They take their wigs off afore the help, so to speak, seem- ingly." " Marryin' a man ain't like settin' alongside of him nights and hearin' him talk pretty ; that's the fust prayer. There's lots an' lots o' meetin' after that !" And what an amount of sense, as well as wit, in Sam Lawson's sayings in " Old Town Folks." As this book is EPIGRAMS FROM AMERICAN WOMEN. 31 not to be as large as Worcester's Unabridged Dictionary, I can only give room to one. " We don't none of us like to have our sins set in order afore us. There was David, now, he was crank as could be when he thought Nathan was a talkin' about other peo- ple's sins. Says David : ' The man that did that shall surely die. ' But come to set it home and say, ' Thou art the man ! ' David caved right in. ' Lordy massy, bless your soul and body, Xathan ! ' says he, ' I don't want to die. ' ' And Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney must not be forgotten. " As Emory Ann said once about thoughts : ' You can't hinder 'em any more than you can the birds that fly in the air ; but you needn't let 'em light and make a nest in your hair.' : And what a capital hit on the hypocritical apologies of conceited housekeepers is this bit from Mrs. Whicher (" Widow Bedott") : " A person that didn't know how wimmin always go on at such a place would a thought that Miss Gipson had tried to have everything the miserablest she possibly could, and that the rest on 'em never had any- thing to hum but what was miserabler yet." And Marietta Holley, who has caused a tidal-wave of laughter by her " Josiah Allen's Wife" series, shall have her say. " We, too, are posterity, though mebby we don't realize it as we ort to. ' ' "She didn't seem to sense anything, only ruffles and such like. Her mind all seemed to be narrowed down and puckered up, just like trimmin'." But 1 must have convinced the most sceptical of woman's wit in epigrammatic form, and will now return to an older generation, who claim a fair share of attention. CHAPTER II. HUMOR OF LITERAEY ENGLISHWOMEN. IN reviewing the Ion-mots of Stella, whom Swift pro- nounced the most witty woman he had ever known, it seems that we are improving. I will give but two of her sayings, which were so carefully preserved by her friend. When she was extremely ill her physician said, " Madam, you are near the bottom of the hill, but we will endeavor to get you up again ;" she answered : " Doctor, I fear I shall be out of breath before I get up to the top." After she had been eating some sweet thing a little of it happened to stick on her lips. A gentleman told her of it, and offered to lick it off. She said : " No, sir, I thank you ; I have a tongue of my own." Compare these with the wit of George Eliot or the irony of Miss Phelps. Some of Jane Taylor's stories and poems were formerly regarded as humorous ; for instance, the " Discontented Pendulum" and the "Philosopher's Scales." They do not now raise the faintest smile. Fanny Burney's novels were considered immensely humorous and diverting in their day. Burke complimented her on " her natural vein of humor," and another eminent critic speaks of " her sarcasm, drollery, and humor ;" but it would be almost impossible to find a passage for quota- HUMOR OF LITERARY ENGLISHWOMEN. 33 tion that would now satisfy on these points. Even Jane Austen's novels, which strangely retain their hold on the public taste, are tedious to those who dare to think for themselves and forget Macaulay's verdict. Mrs. Barbauld, in her poem on " Washing Day," shows a capacity seldom exercised for seeing the humorous side of every-day miseries. " Woe to the friend Whose evil stars have urged him forth to claim On such a day the hospitable rites ! Looks, blank at best, and stinted courtesy Shall he receive. Vainly he feeds his hopes With dinner of roast chicken, savory pie, Or tart, or pudding ; pudding he nor tart That day shall eat ; nor, though the husband try Mending what can't be helped to kindle mirth From cheer deficient, shall his consort's brow Cheer up propitious ; the unlucky guest In silence dines, and early slinks away." But her style is too stiff and stately for every day. There were many literary Englishwomen who had un- doubted humor. Hannah More did get unendurably poky, narrow, and solemn in her last days, and not a little sancti- monious ; and we naturally think of her as an aged spinster with black mitts, corkscrew curls, and a mob cap, always writing or presenting a tedious tract, forgetting her brilliant youth, when she was quite good enough, and lively, too. She was a perennial favorite in London, meeting all the notables ; the special pet of Dr. Johnson, Davy Garrick, and Horace Walpole, who called her his " holy Hannah," but admired and honored her, corresponding with her through a long life. She was then full of spirit and humor 34: THE WIT OF WOMEN. and versatile talent. An extract from her sisters lively letter shows that Hannah could hold her own with the Ursa Major of literature : " Tuesday evening we drank tea at Sir Joshua's with Dr. Johnson. Hannah is certainly a great favorite. She was placed next him, and they had the entire conversation to themselves. They were both in remarkably high spirits. It was certainly her lucky night. I never heard her say so many good things. The old genius was extremely jocular, and the young one very pleasant. You would have imagined we had been at some comedy had you heard our peals of laughter. They, indeed, tried which could pepper the high- est, and it is not clear to me that the lexicographer was really the highest seasoner. ' ' And how deliciously does she set out the absurdity then prevailing, and seen now in editions of Shakespeare and Chaucer, of writing books, the bulk of which consists of notes, with only a line or two at the top of each page of the original text. It seems that a merry party at Dr. Kennicott's had each adopted the name of some animal. Dr. K. was the ele- phant ; Mrs. K., dromedary ; Miss Adams, antelope ; and H. More, rhinoceros. " HAMPTON, December 24, 1728. " DEAR DKOMY (a) : Pray, send word if Anie (b) is come, and also how Ele (c) does, to your very affectionate KHYNEY' ' (d). " The following notes on the above epistle are by a com- mentator of the latter end of the nineteenth century. This epistle is all that is come down to us of this voluminous author, and is probably the only thing she ever wrote that HUMOR OF LITERARY ENGLISHWOMEN. 35 was worth preserving, or which might reasonably expect to reach posterity. Her name is only presented to us in some beautiful hendecasyllables written by the best Latin poet of his time (Bishop Lowth) : Note (a). " Dromy. From the termination of this address it seems to have been written to a woman, though there is no internal evidence to support this hypothesis. The best critics are much puzzled about the orthography of this abbreviation. Wartonius and other skilful etymologists contend that it ought to be spelled drummy, being addressed to a lady who was probably fond of warlike instruments, and who had a singular predilec- tion for a canon. Drummy, say they, was a tender diminutive of drum, as the best authors in their more familiar writings now begin to use gunny for gun. But Hardlus, a contemporary critic, contends, with more probability, that it ought to be written Drome, from hippodrome ; a learned leech and elegant bard of Bath having left it on record that this lady spent much of her time at the riding-school, being a very ex- quisite judge of horsemanship Colmanus and Horatius Strawberryensis insist that it ought to be written Dromo, in reference to the Dromo Sora- sius of the Latin dramatist. Note (b). " Ante. Scaliger 2d says this name simply signifies the appellation of uncle's wife, and ought to be written Aunty. But here, again, are various readings. Philologists of yet greater name affirm that it was meant to designate pre-eminence, and therefore ought to be written ante, before, from the Latin, a language now pretty well forgotten, though the authors who wrote in it are still preserved in French translations. The younger Madame Dacier insists that this Udy was against all men, and that it. ought to be spelled anti ; but this Kennicotus, a rabbi of the most recon- dite learning, with much critical wrath, vehemently contradicts, affirm- ing it to have been impossible she could have been against mankind whom all mankind admired. He adds that ante is for antelope, and is emblematically used to express an elegant and slender animal, or that it is an elongation of ant, the emblem of virtuous citizenship. " And so she continues her comments to close of notes. 36 THE WIT OF WOMEN. Mrs. Gaskell's "Cranford" is full of the most delicate but veritable humor, as her allusion to the genteel and cheerful poverty of the lady who, in giving a tea-party, " now sat in state, pretending not to know what cakes were sent up, though she knew, and we knew, and she knew that we knew ; and we knew that she knew that we knew she had been busy all the morning making tea-bread and sponge-cakes." The humor of Mary Russell Mitford, quiet and delectable, must not be forgotten. We will sympathize with her woes as she describes a visitation from THE TALKING LADY. " Ben Jonson has a play called The Silent Woman, who turns out, as might be expected, to be no woman at all nothing, as Master Slender said, but ' a great lubberly boy,' thereby, as I apprehend, discourteously presuming that a silent woman is a nonentity. If the learned dramatist, thus happily prepared and predisposed, had happened to fall in with such a specimen of female loquacity as I have just parted with, he might, perhaps, have given us a pendant to his picture in the talking lady. Pity but he had ! He would have done her justice, which I could not at any time, least of all now ; I atn too much stunned, too much like one escaped from a belfry on a coronation day. I am just resting from the fatigue of four days' hard listening four snowy, sleety, rainy days ; days of every variety of falling weather, all of them too bad to admit the possibility that any petticoated thing, were she as hardy as a Scotch fir, should stir out ; four days chained by ' sad civility ' to HUMOR OF LITERARY ENGLISHWOMEN. 37 that fireside, once so quiet, and again cheering thought ! again I trust to be so when the echo of that visitor's inces- sant tongue shall have died away. . . . " She took us in her way from London to the west of England, and being, as she wrote, ' not quite well, not equal to much company, prayed that no other guest might be admitted, so that she might have the pleasure of our conversation all to herself (purs ! as if it were possible for any of us to slide in a word edgewise !), and especially enjoy the gratification of talking over old times with the master of the house, her countryman. ' " Such was the promise of her letter, and to the letter it has been kept. All the news and scandal of a large county forty years ago, and a hundred years before, and ever since ; all the marriages, deaths,, births, elopements, law- suits, and casualties of her own times, her father's, grand- father's, great-grandfathers, nephews', and grandnephews' , has she detailed with a minuteness, an accuracy, a prodigal- ity of learning, a profuseness of proper names, a pedantry of locality, which would excite the envy of a county histo- rian, a king-at-arms, or even a Scotch novelist. " Her knowledge is most astonishing ; but the most astonishing part of all is how she came by that knowledge. It should seern, to listen to her, as if at some time of her life she must have listened herself ; and yet her countryman declares that in the forty years he has known her, no such event has occurred ; and she knows new news, too ! It must be intuition ! . . . " The very weather is not a safe subject. Her memory is a perpetual register of hard frosts and long droughts, and high winds and terrible storms, with all the evils that fol- 38 THE WIT OF WOMKX. lowed in their train, and all the personal events connected with them ; so that, if you happen to remark that clouds are come up and you fear it may rain, she replies : ' Ay, it is just such a morning as three-and-thirty years ago, when my poor cousin was married you remember my cousin Barbara ; she married so-and-so, the son of so-and-so ; ' and then comes the whole pedigree of the bridegroom, the amount of the settlements, and the reading and signing them overnight ; a description of the wedding-dresses in the style of Sir Charles Grandison, and how much the bride's gown cost per yard ; the names, residences, and a short subsequent history of the bridesmaids and men, the gentleman who gave the bride away, and the clergyman who performed the ceremony, with a learned antiquarian digression relative to the church ; then the setting out in procession ; the marriage, the kissing, the crying, the break- fasting, the drawing the cake through the ring, and, finally, the bridal excursion, which brings us back again, at an hour's end, to the starting-post, the weather, and the whole story of the sopping, the drying, the clothes-spoiling, the cold- catching, and all the small evils of a summer shower. By this time it rains, and she sits down to a pathetic see-saw of conjectures on the chance of Mrs. Smith's having set out for her daily walk, or the possibility that Dr. Brown may have ventured to visit his patients in his gig, and the cer- tainty that Lady Green's new housemaid would come from London on the outside of the coach. . . . " I wonder, if she had happened to be married, how many husbands she would have talked to death. It is cer- tain that none of her relatives are long-lived, after she comes to reside with them. Father, mother, uncle, sister, HUMOR OF LITERAKY ENGLISHWOMEN. 39 brother, two nephews, and one niece, all these have suc- cessively passed away, though a healthy race, and with no visible disorder except But we must not be unchari- table." Mary Ferrier, the Scotch novelist, was gifted with genial wit and a quick sense of the ludicrous. Walter Scott ad- mired her greatly, and as a lively guest at Abbotsford she did much to relieve the sadness of his last days. He said of her : " She is a gifted personage, having, besides her great talents, conversation the least exigeante of any author, female at least, whom I have ever seen, among the long list I have encountered. Simple and full of humor, and ex- ceedingly ready at repartee ; and all this without the least affectation of the blue-stocking. The general strain of her writing relates to the foibles and oddities of mankind, and no one has drawn them with greater breadth of comic humor or effect. Her scenes often resemble the style of our best old comedies, and she may boast, like Foote, of adding many new and original characters to the stock of our comic literature." Here is one of her admirably-drawn portraits : THE SENSIBLE WOMAN. " Miss Jacky, the senior of the trio, was what is reck- oned a very sensible woman which generally means a very disagreeable, obstinate, illiberal director of all men, women, and children a sort of superintendent of all actions, time, and place, with unquestioned authority to arraign, judge, 40 THE WIT OF WOMEN. and condemn upon the statutes of her own supposed sense. Most country parishes have their sensible woman, who lays down the law on all affairs, spiritual and temporal. Miss Jacky stood unrivalled as the sensible woman of Glenfern. She had attained this eminence partly from having a little more understanding than her sisters, but principally from her dictatorial manner, and the pompous, decisive tone in which she delivered the most commonplace truths. At home her supremacy in all matters of sense was perfectly established ; and thence the infection, like other supersti- tions, had spread over the whole neighborhood. As a sensible woman she regulated the family, which she took care to let everybody hear ; she was a sort of postmistress- general, a detector of all abuses and impositions, and deemed it her prerogati ve to be consulted about all the useful and useless things which everybody else could have done as well. She was liberal of her advice to the poor, always enforcing upon them the iniquity of idleness, but doing nothing for them in the way of employment, strict economy being one of the many points in which she was particularly sensible. The consequence was that, while she was lecturing half the poor women in the parish for their idleness, the bread was kept out of their mouths by the incessant carding of wool, and knitting of stockings, and spinning, and reeling, and winding, and pirning, that went on among the ladies them- selves. And, by the by, Miss Jacky is not the only sensi- ble woman who thinks she is acting a meritorious part when she converts what ought to be the portion of the poor into the employment of the affluent. " In short, Miss Jacky was all over sense. A skilful physiognomist would at a single glance have detected the HDMOK OF LITERARY ENGLISHWOMEN. 41 sensible woman in the erect head, the compressed lips, square elbows, and firm, judicious step. Even her very garments seemed to partake of the prevailing character of their mistress. Her ruff always looked more sensible than any other body's ; her shawl sat most sensibly on her shoul- ders ; her walking-shoes were acknowledged to be very sensible, and she drew on her gloves with an air of sense, as if the one arm had been Seneca, the other Socrates. From what has been said it may easily be inferred that Miss Jacky was, in fact, anything but a sensible woman, as, indeed, no woman can be who bears such visible outward marks of what is in reality the most quiet and unostentatious of all good qualities." Frederika Bremer, the Swedish novelist, whose novels have been translated into English, German, French, and Dutch, had a style peculiarly her own. Her humor reminds me of a bed of mignonette, with its delicate yet permeating fragrance. One paragraph, like one spray of that shy flower, scarcely reveals the dainty flavor. From the " Neighbors," her best story, and one that still has a moderate sale, I take her description of Franziska's first little lover-like quarrel with her adoring husband, the " Bear." (Let us remember Miss Bremer with appreciation and gratitude, as one of the very few visitors we have enter- tained who have written kindly of our country and our " Homes.") THE FIRST QUARREL. " Here I am again sitting with a pen in my hand, im- pelled by a desire for writing, yet with nothing particular 42 THE WIT OF WOMEN. to write about. Everything in the house and in the whole household arrangement is in order. Little patties are bak- ing in the kitchen, the weather is oppressively hot, and every leaf and bird seem as if deprived of motion. The hens lie outside in the sand before the window, the cock stands solitarily on one leg, and looks upon his harem with the countenance of a sleepy sultan. Bear sits in his room writing letters. I hear him yawn ; that infects me. Oh ! oh ! I must go and have a little quarrel with him on pur- pose to awaken us both. " I want at this moment a quire of writing-paper on which to drop sugar-cakes. He is terribly miserly of his writing-paper, and on that very account I must have some now. "Later. All is done! A complete quarrel, and how completely lively we are after it ! You, Maria, must hear all, that you may thus see how it goes on among married people. " I went to my husband and said quite meekly, ' My Angel Bear, you must be so very good as to give me a quire of your writing-paper to drop sugar-cakes upon.' "He (in consternation}. ' A quire of writing-paper ? ' "She ' Yes, my dear friend, of your very best writing- paper.' "He. ' Finest writing-paper ? Are you mad ? ' "She. ' Certainly not ; but I believe you are a little out of your senses. ' "He. ' You covetous sea-cat, leave off raging among my papers ! You shall not have my paper ! ' "She. ' Miserly beast ! I shall and will have the paper.' "He. ' " I shall " ! Listen a moment. Let's see, now, HUMOR OF LITERARY ENGLISHWOMEN. 43 how you will accomplish your will.' And the rough Bear held both my small hands fast in his great paws. "She. i You ugly Bear ! You are worse than any of those that walk on four legs. Let me loose ! Let me loose, else I shall bite you ! ' And as he would not let me loose I bit him. Yes, Maria, I bit him really on the hand, at which he only laughed scornfully and said : ' Yes, yes, my little wife, that is always the way of those who are for- ward without the power to do. Take the paper. Now, take it ! ' "She. i Ah ! Let me loose ! let me loose ! ' "He. f Ask me prettily. ' "She. 'Dear Bear!' "He. ' Acknowledge your fault.' "She. 'I do.' "He. ' Pray for forgiveness.' "She. ' Ah, forgiveness ! ' "He. ' Promise amendment.' "She. l Oh, yes, amendment ! ' "He. 'Nay, I'll pardon you. But now, no sour faces, dear wife, but throw your arms round my neck and kiss me. ' " I gave him a little box on the ear, stole a quire of paper, and ran off with loud exultation. Bear followed into the kitchen growling horribly ; but then I turned upon him armed with two delicious little patties, which I aimed at his mouth, and there they vanished. Bear, all at once, was quite still, the paper was forgotten, and reconciliation con- cluded. " There is, Maria, no better way of stopping the mouths of these lords of the creation than by putting into them something good to eat." 44: THE WIT OF WOMEN. I wish I had room for my favorite Irishwoman, Lady Morgan, and her description of her first rout at the house of the eccentric Lady Cork. The off-hand songs of her sister, Lady Clarke, are fine illustrations of rollicking Irish w r it and badinage. At one of Lady Morgan's receptions, given in honor of fifty philosophers from England, Lady Clarke sang the fol- lowing song with " great effect :" FUN AND PHILOSOPHY. Heigh for ould Ireland ! Oh, would you require a land Where men by nature are all quite the thing, Where pure inspiration has taught the whole nation To fight, love, and reason, talk politics, sing ; 'Tis Pat's mathematical, chemical, tactical, Knowing and practical, fanciful, gay, * Fun and philosophy, supping and sophistry, There s nothing in life that is out of his way. He makes light of optics, and sees through dioptrics, He's a dab at projectiles ne'er misses his man ; He s complete in attraction, and quick at reaction, By the doctrine of chances he squares every plan ; In hydraulics so frisky, the whole Bay of Biscay, If it flowed but with whiskey, he'd store it away. Fun and philosophy, supping and sophistry, There's nothing in life that is out of his way. So to him cross over savant and philosopher, Thinking, God help them ! to bother us all ; But they'll find that for knowledge 'tis at our own college Themselves must inquire for- beds, dinner, or ball. There are lectures to tire, and good lodgings to hire, To all who require and have money to pay ; While fun and philosophy, supping and sophistry, Ladies and lecturing fill up the day. HUMOR OF LITERARY ENGLISHWOMEN. 4:5 So at the Rotunda we all sorts of fun do, Hard hearts and pig-iron we melt in one flame ; For if Love blows the bellows, our tough college fellows Will thaw into rapture at each lovely dame. There, too, sans apology, tea, tarts, tautology, Are given with zoology, to grave and gay ; Thus fun and philosophy, supping and sophistry Send all to England home, happy and gay. From George Eliot, whose humor is seen at its best in " Adam Bede" and " Silas Marner," how much we could quote ! How some of her searching comments cling to the memory ! " I've nothing to say again' her piety, my dear ; but I know very well I shouldn't like her to cook my victuals. When a man coines in hungry and tired, piety won't feed him, I reckon. Hard carrots 'nil lie heavy on his stomach, piety or no piety. I called in one day when she was dish- in' up Mr. Try an 's dinner, an' I could see the potatoes was as watery as watery. It's right enough to be speritial, I'm no enemy to that, but I like my potatoes mealy." " You're right there, Tookey ; there's allays two 'pin- ions : there's the 'pinion a man has of himsen, and there's the 'pinion other folks have on him. There'd be two 'pin- ions about a cracked bell if the bell could hear itself." " You're mighty fond o' Craig ; but for my part, 1 think he's welly like a cock as thinks the sun's rose o' purpose to hear him crow." " When Mr. Brooke had something painful to tell it was usually his way to introduce it among a number of dis- jointed particulars, as if it were a medicine that would get a milder flavor by mixing." 46 THE WIT OF WOMEN. " Heaven knows what would become of our sociality if we never visited people we speak ill of ; we should live like Egyptian Jierinits, in crowded solitude." " No, I ain't one to see the cat walking into the dairy and wonder what she's come after." " I have nothing to say again' Craig, on'y it is a pity he couldna be hatched o'er again, and hatched different." " I'm not denyin' the women are foolish ; God Almighty made 'em to match the men." " It's a waste of time to praise people dead whom you maligned while living ; for it's but a poor harvest you'll get by watering last year's crop." " I suppose Dinah's like all the rest of the women, and thinks two and two will come to make five, if she only cries and makes bother enough about it. " " Put a good face on it and don't seem to be looking out for crows, else you'll set other people to watchin' for 'em, too." " I took pretty good care, before I said ' sniff,' to be sure she would say 'snaff,' and pretty quick, too. I warn't a-goin' to open my mouth like a dog at a fly, and snap it to again wi' nothin' to s waller." CHAPTER III. FROM ANNE BRADSTREET TO MRS. 8TOWE. THE same gratifying progress and improvement noticed in the wit of women of other lands is seen in studying the literary annals of our own countrywomen. Think of Anne Bradstreet, Mercy Warren, and Tabitha Tenney, all extolled to the skies by their contemporaries. Mercy Warren was a satirist quite in the strain of Juve- nal, but in cumbrous, artificial fashion. Hon. John Winthrop consulted her on the proposed sus- pension of trade with England in all but the necessaries of life, and she playfully gives a list of articles that would be included in that word : " An inventory clear Of all she needs Lamira offers here ; Nor does she fear a rigid Cato's frown, When she lays by the rich embroidered gown, And modestly compounds for just enough, Perhaps some dozens of mere nighty stuff ; With lawns and lute strings, blonde and Mechlin laces, Fringes and jewels, fans and tweezer-cases ; Gay cloaks and hat, of every shape and size, Scarfs, cardinals, and ribands, of all dyes, With ruffles stamped and aprons of tambour, Tippets and handkerchiefs, at least threescore ; With finest muslins that fair India boasts, And the choice herbage from Chinesian coasts : 4:8 THE WIT OF WOMEN. Add feathers, furs, rich satin, and ducapes, And head-dresses in pyramidal shapes ; Sideboards of plate and porcelain profuse, With fifty dittoes that the ladies use. So weak Lamira and her wants so few Who can refuse? they're but the sex's due." Mrs. Sigourney, voluminous and mediocre, is amusing because so absolutely destitute of humor, and her style, a feminine Johnsonese, is absurdly hifalutin and strained. This is the way in which she alludes to green apples : " From the time of their first taking on orbicular shape, and when it might be supposed their hardness and acidity would repulse all save elephantine tusks and ostrich stom- achs, they were the prey of roaming children." And in her poem " To a Shred of Linen" : " Methinks I scan Some idiosyncrasy that marks thee out A defunct pillow-case." She preserved, however, a long list of the various solicita- tions sent her to furnish poems for special occasions, and I think this shows that she possessed a sense of humor. Let me quote a few : " Some verses were desired as an elegy on a pet canary accidentally drowned in a barrel of swine's food. " A poem requested on the dog-star Sirius. " To write an ode for the wedding of people in Maine, of whom I had never heard. " To punctuate a three-volume novel for an author who complained that the work of punctuating always brought on a pain in the small of his back. FKOM ANNE BKADSTKEET TO MKS. STOWE. 49 " Asked to assist a servant-man not very well able to read in getting his Sunday-school lessons, and to write out all the answers for him clear through the book to save his time. " A lady whose husband expects to be absent on a jour- ney for a month or two wishes I would write a poem to testify her joy at his return. " An elegy on a young man, one of the nine children of a judge of probate." Miss Sedgwick, in her letters, occasionally showed a keen sense of humor, as, when speaking of a certain novel, she eaid : " There is too much force for the subject. It is as if a railroad should be built and a locomotive started to transport skeletons, specimens, and one bird of Paradise." Mrs. Caroline Gilrnan, born in 1794, and still living, author of " Recollections of a Southern Matron," etc., will be represented by one playful poem, .which has a veritable New England flavor : JOSHUA'S COURTSHIP. A NZW ENGLAND BALLAD. Stout Joshua was a farmer's son, And a pondering he sat One night when the fagots crackling burned, And purred the tabby cat. Joshua was a well-grown youth, As one might plainly see By the sleeves that vainly tried to reach His hands upon his knee. 50 THE WIT OF WOMEN. His splay -feet stood all parrot-toed In cowhide shoes arrayed, And his hair seemed cut across his brow By rule and plummet laid. And what was Joshua pondering on, With his widely staring eyes, And his nostrils opening sensibly To ease his frequent sighs ? Not often will a lover's lips The tender secret tell, But out he spoke before he thought, " My gracious ! Nancy Bell !" His mother at her spinning-wheel, Good woman, stood and spun, " And what," says she, " is come o'er you, Is't airnest or is't fun ?" Then Joshua gave a cunning look, Half bashful and half sporting, " Now what did father do," says he, " When first he came a courting?" " Why, Josh, the first thing that he did," With a knowing wink, said she, " He dressed up of a Sunday night, And cast sheep's eyes at me." Josh said no more, but straight went out And sought a butcher's pen, Where twelve fat sheep, for market bound, Had lately slaughtered been. He bargained with a lover's zeal, Obtained the wished-for prize, And filled his pockets fore and aft With twice twelve bloody eyes. FKOM ANNE BEADSTKEET TO MUS. STOWE. 51 The next night was the happy time When all New England sparks, Drest in their best, go out to court, As spruce and gay as larks. When floors are nicely sanded o'er, When tins and pewter shine, And milk-pans by the kitchen wall Display their dainty line ; While the new ribbon decks the waist Of many a waiting lass, Who steals a conscious look of pride Toward her answering glass. In pensive mood sat Nancy Bell ; Of Joshua thought not she, But of a hearty sailor lad Across the distant sea. Her arm upon the table rests, Her hand supports her head, When Joshua enters with a scrape, And somewhat bashful tread. No word he spake, but down he sat, And heaved a doleful sigh, Then at the table took his aim And rolled a glassy eye. Another and another flew, With quick and strong rebound, They tumbled in poor Nancy's lap, They fell upon the ground. While Joshua smirked, and sighed, and smiled Between each tender aim, And still the cold and bloody balls In frightful quickness came. 52 THE WIT OF WOMEN. Until poor Nancy flew with screams, To shun the amorous sport, And Joshua found to cast sheep's eyes Was not the way to court. " Fanny Forrester" and " Fanny Fern" both delighted the public with individual styles of writing, vastly success- ful when a new thing. When wanting a new dress and bonnet, as every woman will in the spring (or any time), Fanny Forrester wrote to Willis, of the New Mirror, an appeal which he called " very clever, adroit, and fanciful." " You know the shops in Broadway are very tempting this season. Such beautiful things ! Well, you know (no, you don't know that, but you can guess) what a de- lightful thing it would be to appear in one of those charming, head-adorning, complexion-softening, hard-feat- ure-subduing Neapolitans, with a little gossamer veil drop- ping daintily on the shoulder of one of those exquisite bal- zarines, to be seen any day at Stewart's and elsewhere. Well, you know (this you must know) that shopkeepers have the impertinence to demand a trifling exchange for these things, even of a lady ; and also that some people have a remarkably small purse, and a remarkably small portion of the yellow " root" in that. And now, to bring the matter home, I am one of that class. 1 have the most beautiful little purse in the world, but it is only kept for show, i even find myself under the necessity of coun- terfeiting that is, filling the void with tissue-paper in lieu of bank-notes, preparatory to a shopping expedition. Well, now to the point. As Bel and I snuggled down on the sofa FKOM ANNE BKADSTKEET TO MRS. STOWE. 53 this morning to read the New Mirror (by the way, Cousin Bel is ne'ver obliged to put tissue-paper in her purse), it struck us that you would be a friend in need, and give good counsel in this emergency. Bel, however, insisted on my not telling what I wanted the money for. She even thought that I had better intimate orphanage, extreme suffering from the bursting of some speculative bubble, illness, etc. ; but did I not know you better ? Have I read the New Mirror so much (to say nothing of the graceful things coined under a bridge, and a thousand other pages flung from the inner heart) and not learned who has an eye for everything pretty ? Not so stupid, Cousin Bel, no, no ! .*. . " And to the point. Maybe you of the New Mirror PAY for acceptable articles, maybe not. Comprenez vousf Oh, I do hope that beautiful lalzarine like Bel's will not be gone before another Saturday ! You will not forget to answer me in the next Mirror but pray, my dear Editor, let, it be done very cautiously, for Bel would pout all day if she should know what I have written. " Till Saturday, your anxiously-waiting friend, "FANNY FORRESTER." Such a note received by an editor of this generation would promptly fall into the waste-basket. But Willis was captivated, and answered : " "Well, we give in ! On condition that you are under twenty-five and that you will wear a rose (recognizably) in your bodice the first time you appear in Broadway with the hat and baharine, we will pay the bills. Write us there- after a sketch of Bel and yourself as cleverly done as this 54: THE WIT OF WOMEN. letter, and yon may ' snuggle ' down on the sofa and con- sider us paid, and the public charmed with you." This style of ingratiating one's self with an editor is as much a bygone as an alliterative pen-name. Fanny Fern (Sarah Willis Parton) also established a style of her own " a new kind of composition ; short, pointed paragraphs, without beginning and without end one clear, ringing note, and then silence." Her talent for humorous composition showed itself in her essays at school. I'll give a bit from her " Suggestions on Arithmetic after Cramming for an Examination" : " Every incident, every object of sight seemed to pro- duce an arithmetical result. I once saw a poor wretch evi- dently intoxicated ; thought 1, ' That man has overcome three scruples, to say the least, for three scruples make one dram.' Even the Sabbath was no day of rest for me the psalms, prayers, and sermons were all translated by me into the language of arithmetic. A good man^ spoke very feel- ingly upon the manner in which our cares and perplexities were multiplied by riches. Muttered I : ' That, sir, de- pends upon whether the multiplier is a fraction or a whole number ; for if it be a fraction, it makes the product less.' And when another, lamenting the various divisions of the Church, pathetically exclaimed : ' And how shall we unite .these several denominations in one ? ' " ' Why, reduce them to a common denominator,' ex- claimed I, half aloud, wondering at his ignorance. ' l And when an admiring swain protested his warm ' in- terest, ' he brought only one word that chimed with my train of thought. FROM ANNE BRADSTREET TO MRS. STOWE. 55 " ' Interest ? ' exclaimed I, starting from my reverie. ' What per cent, sir ? ' ' ' ' Ma'am 2 ' exclaimed my attendant, in the greatest possible amazement. " ' How much per cent, sir ? ' said I, repeating my ques- tion. "His reply was lost on my ear save: 'Madam, at any rate do not trifle with my feelings. ' " ' At any rate, did you say ? Then take six per cent ; that is the easiest to calculate.' : Her style, too, has gone out of fashion ; but in its day it was thought very amusing. Mrs. Stowe needs no introduction, and she is another of those from whom we quote little, because she could con- tribute so much, and one does not know where to choose. Her ' ' Sam Lawson' ' is, perhaps, the most familiar of her odd characters and talkers. SAM LAWSON'S SAYINGS. ""Well, Sam, what did you think of the sermon ?" said Uncle Bill. " Wall," said Sam, leaning over the fire with his long, bony hands alternately raised to catch the warmth, and then dropped with an utter laxness when the warmth became too pronounced, " Parson Simpson's a smart man ; but I tell ye, it's kind o' discouragin' . Why, he said our state and condition by natur war just like this : We war clear down in a well fifty feet deep, and the sides all round nothin' but glare ice ; but we war under immediate obligations to get 56 THE WIT OF WOMEN. out, 'cause we war free, voluntary agents. But nobody ever had got out, and nobody would, unless the Lord reached down and took 'em. And whether he would or not nobody could tell ; it was all sovereignty. lie said there warn't one in a hundred, not one in a thousand, not one in ten thousand, that would be saved. ' Lordy massy,' says I to myself, ' ef that's so they're any of 'em welcome to my chance.' And so I kind o' ris up and come out, 'cause I'd got a pretty long walk home, and 1 wanted to go round by South Pond and inquire about Aunt Sally Morse's toothache." . . . 11 This 'ere Miss Sphyxy Smith's a rich old gal, and 'mazin' smart to work," he began. " Tell you, she holds all she gets. Old Sol, he told me a story 'bout her that was a pretty good un." " What was it ?" said my grandmother. " Wai, ye see, you 'member old Parson Jeduthun Ken- dall that lives up in Stonytown ; he lost his wife a year ago last Thanksgivin', and he thought 'twar about time he hed another ; so he comes down and consults our Parson Lothrop. Says he : 'I want a good, smart, neat, economi- cal woman, with a good property. I don't care notbin' about her bein' handsome. In fact, I ain't particular about anything else,' says he. Wai, Parson Lothrop, says he : ' I think, if that's the case, 1 know jest the woman to suit ye. She owns a clear, handsome property, and she's neat and economical ; but she's no beauty ! ' ' Oh, beauty is nothin' to me,' says Parson Kendall ; and so he took the direction. Wai, one day he hitched up his old one-hoss shay, and kind o' brushed up, and started off a-courtin'. Wai, the parson come to the house, and he war tickled to * FKOM ANNE BRADSTREET TO MRS. STOWE. 57 pieces with the looks o' things outside, 'cause the house is all well shingled and painted, and there ain't a picket loose nor a nail wantin' nowhere. " ' This 'ere's the woman for me,' says Parson Kendall. So he goes up and raps hard on the front door with his whip-handle. Wai, you see, Miss Sphyxy she war jest goin' out to help get in her hay. She had on a pair o' clompin' cowhide boots, and a pitchfork in her hand, jest goin' out, when she heard the rap. So she come jest as she was to the front door. Now, you know Parson Kendall's a little midget of a man, hut he stood there on the step kind o' smilin' and genteel, lickin' his lips and lookin' so agree- able ! Wai, the front door kind o' stuck front doors gen- erally do, ye know, 'cause they ain't opened very often and Miss Sphyxy she had to pull and haul and put to all her strength, and finally it come open with a bang, and she 'peared to the parson, pitchfork and all, sort o' frownin' like. " l What do you want ? ' says she ; fer, you see, Miss Sphyxy ain't no ways tender to the men. " ' I want to see Miss Asphyxia Smith,' says he, very civil, thinking she war the hired gal. " ' Pm Miss Asphyxia Smith,' says she. ' What do you want o' me ? ' " Parson Kendall he jest took one good look on her, from top to toe. 'Noram',' says he, and turned right round and went down the steps like lightnin'." Years ago Mrs. Stowe published some capital stories of New England life, which were collected in a little volume called " The Mayflower," a book which is now seldom seen, 58 THE WIT OF WOMEN. and almost unknown to the present generation. From this I take her "Night in a Canal-Boat." Extremely effective when read with enthusiasm and proper variety of tone. I quote it as a boon for the boys and girls who are often looking for something " funny" to read aloud. THE CANAL-BOAT. BY HARRIET BEECHER STOWE. Of all the ways of travelling which obtain among our locomotive nation, this said vehicle, the canal-boat, is the most absolutely prosaic and inglorious. There is something picturesque, nay, almost sublime, in the lordly march of your well-built, high-bred steamboat. Go take your stand on some overhanging bluff, where the blue Ohio winds its thread of silver, or the sturdy Mississippi tears its path through unbroken forests, and it will do your heart good to see the gallant boat walking the waters with unbroken and powerful tread, and, like some fabled monster of the wave, breathing fire and making the shores resound with its deep respirations. Then there is something mysterious even awful in the power of steam. See it curling up against a blue sky some rosy morning, graceful, floating, intangible, and to all appearance the softest and gentlest of all spiritual things, and then think that it is this fairy spirit that keeps all the world alive and hot with motion ; think how excel- lent a servant it is, doing all sorts of gigantic works, like the genii of old ; and yet, if you let slip the talisman only for a moment, what terrible advantage it will take of you ! and you will confess that steam has some claims both to the beautiful and the terrible ! For our own part, when we are FROM ANNE BRADSTREET TO MRS. STOWE. 59 down among the machinery of a steamboat in full play, we conduct ourselves very reverently, for we consider it as a very serious neighborhood, and every time the steam whizzes with such red-hot determination from the escape- valve, we start as if some of the spirits were after us. But in a canal-boat there is no power, no mystery, no danger ; one cannot blow up, one cannot be drowned unless by some special effort ; one sees clearly all there is in the case a horse, a rope, and a muddy strip of water and that is all. Did you ever try it, reader ? If not, take an imaginary trip with us, just for experiment. " There's the boat !" exclaims a passenger in the omnibus, as we are rolling down from the Pittsburg Mansion House to the canal. " Where ?" exclaim a dozen of voices, and forthwith a dozen heads go out of the window. " Why, down there, under that bridge ; don't you see those lights ?" " What, that little thing !" exclaims an inexperienced traveller ; " dear me ! we can't half of us get "into it !'' " We ! in- deed," says some old hand in the business ; " I think you'll find it will hold us and a dozen more loads like us." " Im- possible !" say some. " You'll see," say the initiated ; and as soon as you get out you do see, and hear, too, what seems like a general breaking loose from the Tower of Babel, amid a perfect hail-storm of trunks, boxes, valises, carpet- bags, and every describable and indescribable form of what a Westerner calls " plunder." " That's my trunk !" barks out a big, round man. " That's my bandbox !" screams a heart-stricken old lady, in terror for her immaculate Sunday caps. " Where's my little red box ? 1 had two carpet-bags and a My trunk 60 THE WIT OF WOMEN. had a scarle Halloo ! where are you going with that portmanteau ? Husband ! Husband ! do see after the large basket and the little hair-trunk- Oh, and the O baby's little chair !" " Go below, go below, for mercy's sake, my dear ; I'll see to the baggage." At last the femi- nine part of creation, perceiving that, in this particular in- stance, they gain nothing by public speaking, are content to be led quietly under hatches ; and amusing is the look of dismay which each new-comer gives to the confined quar- ters that present themselves. Those who were so ignorant of the power of compression as to suppose the boat scarce large enough to contain them and theirs, find, with dismay, a respectable colony of old ladies, babies, mothers, big baskets, and carpet-bags already established. " Mercy on us !" says one, after surveying the little room, about ten feet long and six feet high, " where are we all to sleep to- night ?" " Oh, me, what a sight of children !" says a young lady, in a despairing tone. " Pooh !" says an initi- ated traveller, " children ! scarce any here ; let's see : one ; the woman in the corner, two ; that child with the bread and butter, three ; and then there's that other woman with two. Really, it's quite moderate for a canal -boat. How- ever, we can't tell till they have all come." " All ! for mercy's sake, you don't say there are any more coming !" exclaim two or three in a breath ; " they can't come ; there -is not room /" Notwithstanding the impressive utterance of this sentence the contrary is immediately demonstrated by the appearance of a very corpulent elderly lady with three well-grown daughters, who come down looking about them most com- placently, entirely regardless of the unchristian looks of the FROM ANNE BRADSTEEET TO MRS. STO\VE. 61 company. What a mercy it is that fat people are always good-natured ! After this follows an indiscriminate raining down of all shapes, sizes, sexes, and ages men, women, children, babies, and nurses. The state of feeling becomes perfectly desperate. Darkness gathers on all faces. " We shall be smothered ! we shall be crowded to death ! we can't stay here !" are heard faintly from one and another ; and yet, though the boat grows no wider, the walls no higher, they do live, and do stay there, in spite of repeated protestations to the contrary. Truly, as Sam Slick says, " there's a sight of wear in human natur'!" But meanwhile the children grow sleepy, and divers in- teresting little duets and trios arise from one part or another of the cabin. " Hush, Johnny ! be a good boy," says a pale, nursing mamma, to a great, bristling, white-headed phenomenon, who is kicking very much at large in her lap. f " I won't be a good boy, neither," responds Johnny, with interesting explicitness ; " I want to go to bed, and so-o-o-o !" and Johnny makes up a mouth as big as a tea- cup, and roars with good courage, and his mamma asks him "if he ever saw pa do so," and tells him that "he is mamma's dear, good little boy, and must not make a noise," with various observations of the kind, which are so strikingly efficacious in such cases. Meanwhile the do- mestic concert in other quarters proceeds with vigor. " Mamma, I'm tired !" bawls a child. " Where's the baby's nightgown ?" calls a nurse. " Do take Peter up in your lap, and keep him still." "Pray get out some bis- cuits to stop their mouths." Meanwhile sundry babies 62 THE WIT OF WOMEN. strike in con spirito, as the music-books have it, and execute various flourishes ; the disconsolate mothers sigh, and look as if all was over with them ; and the young ladies appear extremely disgusted, and wonder " what business women have to be travelling round with children." To these troubles succeeds the turning-out scene, when the whole caravan is ejected into the gentlemen's cabin, that the beds may be made. The red curtains are put down, and in solemn silence all the last mysterious prepara- tions begin. At length it is announced that all is ready. Forthwith the whole company rush back, and find the walls embellished by a series of little shelves, about a foot wide, each furnished with a mattress and bedding, and hooked to the ceiling by a very suspiciously slender cord. Direful are the ruminations and exclamations of inexperienced travellers, particularly young ones, as they eye these very equivocal accommodations. "What, sleep up there! / won't sleep on one of those top shelves, / know. The cords will certainly break." The chambermaid here takes up the conversation, and solemnly assures them that such an accident is not to be thought of at all ; that it is a natu- ral impossibility a thing that could not happen without an actual miracle ; and since it becomes increasingly evident that thirty ladies cannot all sleep on the lowest shelf, there is some effort made to exercise faith in this doctrine ; never- theless all look on their neighbors with fear and trembling ; and when the stout lady talks of taking a shelf, she is most urgently pressed to change places with her alarmed neigh- bor below. Points of location being after a while adjusted, comes the last struggle. Everybody wants to take oif a bonnet, or look for a shawl, to find a cloak, or get a carpet- FROM ANNE BRADSTREET TO MRS. STOWE. 63 bag, and all set about it with such zeal that nothing can be done. "Ma'am, you're on my foot !" says one. " "Will you please to move, ma'am ?" says somebody, who is gasp- ing and struggling behind you. " Move !" you echo. " Indeed, 1 should be very glad to, but I don't see much prospect of it." " Chambermaid !" calls a lady who is struggling among a heap of carpet-bags and children at one end of the cabin. " Ma'am !" echoes the poor chamber- maid, who is wedged fast in a similar situation at the other. " Where's my cloak, chambermaid ?" " I'd find it, ma'am, if 1 could move." " Chambermaid, my basket !" " Chambermaid, my parasol !" " Chambermaid, my carpet- bag !" " Mamma, they push ine so !" " Hush, child ; crawl under there and lie still till I can undress you." At last, however, the various distresses are over, the babies sink to sleep, and even that much-enduring being, the chambermaid, seeks out some corner for repose. Tired and drowsy, you are just sinking into a doze, when, bang ! goes the boat against the sides of a lock ; ropes scrape, men run and shout,' and up fly the heads of all the top-shelfites, who are generally the more juvenile and airy part of the company. " What's that ! what's that !" flies from mouth to mouth ; and forthwith they proceed to awaken their re- spective relations. " Mother ! Aunt Hannah ! do wake up; what is this awful noise?" "Oh, only a lock." " Pray, be still," groan out the sleepy members from below. " A lock !" exclaim the vivacious creatures, ever on the alert for information ; " and what is a lock, pray ?" " Don't you know what a lock is, you silly creatures. Do lie down and go to sleep." 64: THE WIT OF WOMEN. " But say, there ain't any danger in a lock, is there ?" respond the querists. " Danger !" exclaims a deaf old lady, poking up her head. "What's the matter? There hain't nothing burst, has there ?" " No, no, no !" exclaim the provoked and despairing opposition party, who find that there is no such thing as going to sleep till they have made the old lady below and the young ladies above understand exactly the philosophy of a lock. After a while the con- versation again subsides ; again all is still ; you hear only the trampling of horses and the rippling of the rope in the water, and sleep again is stealing over you. You doze, you dream, and all of a sudden you are startled by a cry, " Chambermaid ! wake up the lady that wants to be set ashore." Up jumps chambermaid, and up jump the lady and two children, and forthwith form a committee of in- quiry as to ways and means. " Where's my bonnet ?" says the lady, half awake and fumbling among the various articles of that name. " 1 thought I hung it up behind the door." " Can't you find it ?" says the poor chambermaid, yawning and rubbing her eyes. " Oh, yes, here it is," says the lady ; and then the cloak, the shawl, the gloves, the shoes, receive each a separate discussion. At last all seems ready, and they begin to move off, when lo ! Peter's cap is miss- ing. " Now, where can it be ?" soliloquizes the lady. " I put it right here by the table-leg ; maybe it got into some of the berths." At this suggestion the chambermaid takes the candle, and goes round deliberately to every berth, poking the light directly in the face of every sleeper. "Here it is," she exclaims, pulling at something black under one pillow. "No, indeed, those are my shoes," says the vexed sleeper. " Maybe it's here." she resumes, FROM AXNE BKADSTREET TO MRS. STOWE. 65 darting upon something dark in another berth. " No, that's my bag," responds the occupant. The chambermaid then proceeds to turn over all the children on the floor, to see if it is not under them. In the course of which process they are most agreeably waked up and enlivened ; and when everybody is broad awake, and most uncharitably wishing the cap, and Peter too, at the bottom of the canal, the good lady exclaims, " "Well, if this isn't lucky ; here I had it safe in my basket all the time !" And she departed amid the what shall I say ? execrations ! of the whole company, ladies though they be. Well, after this follows a hushing up and wiping up among the juvenile population, and a series of remarks commences from the various shelves of a very edifying and instructive tendency. One says that the woman did not seem to know where anything was ; another says that she has waked them all up ; a third adds that she has waked up all the children, too ; and the elderly ladies make moral reflec- tions on the importance of putting your things where you can find them being always ready ; which observations, being delivered in an exceedingly doleful and drowsy tone, form a sort of sub-bass to the lively chattering of the upper- shelfites, who declare that they feel quite awake that they don't think they shall go to sleep again to-night, and dis- course over everything in creation, until you heartily wish you were enough related to them to give them a scolding. At last, however, voice after voice drops off ; you fall into a most refreshing slumber ; it seems to you that you sleep about a quarter of an hour, when the chambermaid pulls you by the sleeve. ' ' Will you please to get up, ma'am? We want to make the beds." You start and Ob THE WIT OF WOMEN. stare. Sure enough, the night is gone. So much for sleeping on board canal-boats ! Let us not enumerate the manifold perplexities of the morning toilet in a place where every lady realizes most forcibly the condition of the old woman who lived under a broom : u All she wanted was elbow-room. " Let us not tell how one glass is made to answer for thirty fair faces, one ewer and vase for thirty lavations ; and tell it not in Gath one towel for a company ! Let us not intimate how ladies' shoes have, in a night, clandestinely slid into the gentlemen's cabin, and gentlemen's boots elbowed, or, rather, toed their way among ladies' gear, nor recite the ex- clamations after runaway property that are heard. " I can't find nothing of Johnny's shoe !" " Here's a shoe in the water-pitcher is this it?" "My side-combs are gone !" exclaims a nymph with dishevelled curls. "Massy! do look at my bonnet!" exclaims an old lady, elevating an article crushed into as many angles as there are pieces in a mince-pie. " I never did sleep so much to- gether in my life," echoes a poor little French lady, whom despair has driven into talking English. But our shortening paper warns us not to prolong our catalogue of distresses beyond reasonable bounds, and there- fore we will close with ad vising, all our friends, who intend to try this way of travelling for pleasure, to take a good stock both of patience and clean towels with them, for we think that they will find abundant need for both. CHAPTER IY. " SAMPLES " HERE AND THEEE. NEXT comes Mrs. Caroline M. Kirkland with her "Western sketches. Many will remember her laughable description of " Borrowing Out West," with its two appropriate mottoes : " Lend me your ears," from Shakespeare, and from Bacon : " Grant graciously what you cannot refuse safely." " ' Mother wants your sifter,' said Miss Ian the Ploward, a young lady of six years' standing, attired in a tattered calico thickened with dirt ; her unkempt locks straggling from under that hideous substitute for a bonnet so universal in the Western country a dirty cotton handkerchief which is used ad nauseam for all sorts of purposes. " ' Mother wants your sifter, arid she says she guesses you can let her have some sugar and tea, 'cause you've got plenty.' This excellent reason, ' 'cause you've got plenty,' is conclusive as to sharing with neighbors. " Sieves, smoothing-irons, and churns run about as if they had legs ; one brass kettle is enough for a whole neighborhood, and I could point to a cradle which has rocked half the babies in Montacute. " For my own part, I have lent my broom, my thread^ my tape, my spoons, my cat, my thimble, my scissors, my shawl, my shoes, and have been asked for my combs and brushes, and my husband for his shaving apparatus and pantaloons." 68 THE WIT OF WOMEN. Mrs. Whichsr, whose " Widow Bedott" is a familiar name, resembles Mrs. Kirkland in her comic portraitures, which were especially good of their kind, and never be- trayed any malice. The " Bedott Papers" first appeared in 1846, and became popular at once. They are good examples of what they simply profess to be : an amusing series of comicalities. I shall not quote from them, as every one who enjoys that style of humor knows them by heart. It would be as useless as copying "Now I lay me down to sleep," or " Mary had a little lamb," for a child's collection of verses ! There are many authors whom I cannot represent wor- thily in these brief limits. "When, encouraged by the un- precedented popularity of this venture, I prepare an encyclopaedia of the " "Wit and Rumor of American "Women," I can do justice to such writers as " Gail Hamil- ton" and Miss Alcott, whose " Transcendental Wild Oats" cannot be cut. Rose Terry Cooke thinks her " Knoware" the only funny thing she lias ever done. She is greatly mistaken, as 1 can soon prove. " Knoware" ought to be printed by itself to delight thousands, as her " Deacon's Week" ' has already done. To search for a few good things in the works of my witty friends is searching not for the time-honored needle in a hay-mow, but for two or three needles of just the right size out of a whole paper of needles. " The Insanity of Cain," by Mrs. Mary Mapes Dodge, an inimitable satire on the feebleness of our jury system and the absurd pretence of "temporary insanity," must "SAMPLES" HERE AND THERE. 69 wait for that encyclopaedia. And her " Miss Molony on the Chinese Question" is known and admired by every one, including the Prince of Wales, who was fairly convulsed by its fun, when brought out by our favorite elocutionist, Miss Sarah Cowell, who had the honor of reading before royalty. I regretfully omit the " Peterkin Letters," by Lucretia P. Hale, and the famous " William Henry Letters," by Mrs. Abby Morton Diaz. The very best bit from Miss Sallie McLean would be how " Grandma Spicer gets Grandpa Ready for Sunday-school," from the " Cape Cod Folks ;" but why not save space for what is not in everybody's mouth and memory ? This is equally true of Mrs. Cleave- land's "No Sects in Heaven," which, like Arabella Wil- son's "Sextant," goes the rounds of all the papers every other year as a fresh delight. Marietta Holley, too, must be allowed only a brief quo- tation. " Samantha" is a family friend from Mexico to Alaska. Mrs. Metta Victoria Victor, who died recently, has written an immense amount of humorous sketches. Her " Miss Slimmens," the boarding-house keeper, is a marked character, and will be remembered by many. I will select a few " samples," unsatisfactory because there is so much more just as good, and then give room for others less familiar. MISS LUCINDA'S PIG. BY ROSE TERRY COOKE. "You don't know of any poor person who'd like to have a pig, do you ?' ' said Miss Lucinda, wistfully. " Well, the poorer they was, the quicker they'd eat him up, 1 guess ef they could eat such a razor-back." 70 THE WIT OF WOMEN. 11 Oh, I don't like to think of his being eaten ! I wish he could be got rid of some other way. Don't you think he might be killed in his sleep, Israel ?' ' 11 I think it's likely it would wake him up," said he, demurely. " Killin' 's killin', and a critter can't sleep over it 's though 'twas the stomachache. 1 guess he'd kick some, ef he was asleep and screech some, too !' ' " Dear me !" said Miss Lucinda, horrified at the idea. "I wish he could be sent out to run in the woods. Are there any good woods near here, Israel ?" " I don't know but what he'd as lieves be slartered to once as to starve an' be hunted down out in the lots. Be- sides, there ain't nobody as I knows of would like a hog to be a-rootin' round among their turnips and young wheat." ""Well, what I shall do with him I don't know !" de- spairingly exclaimed Miss Lucinda. " He was such a dear little thing when you bought him, Israel ! Do you remem- ber how pink his pretty little nose was just like a rosebud and how bright his eyes were, and his cunning legs ? And now he's grown so big and fierce ! But I can't help liking him, either." " He's a cute critter, that's sartain ; but he does too much rootin' to have a pink nose now, I expect ; there's eonsider- 'ble on 't, so I guess it looks as well to have it gray. But I don't know no more'n you do what to do abaout it." " If I could only get rid of him without knowing what became of him !" exclaimed Miss Lucinda, squeezing her forefinger with great earnestness, and looking both puzzled and pained. ' ' If Mees Lucinda would pairmit ?' ' said a voice behind her. "SAMPLES" HERE AND THERE. 71 She turned round to see Monsieur Leclerc on liis crutches, just in the parlor-door. " I shall, mees, myself dispose of piggie, if it please. I can. I shall have no sound ; he shall to go away like a silent snow, to trouble you no more, never !" " Oh, sir, if you could ! But I don't see how !" " If mees was to see, it would not be to save her pain. I shall have him to go by magique to fiery land." Fairy-land, probably. But Miss Lucinda did not per- ceive the equivoque. " Nor yet shall I trouble Meester Israyel. I shall have the aid of myself and one good friend that 1 have ; and some night, when you rise of the morning, he shall not be there." Miss Lucinda breathed a deep sigh of relief. " I am greatly obliged I mean, I shall be," said she. " Well, I'm glad enough to wash my hands on 't," said Israel. " I shall hanker arter the critter some, but he's a-gettin* too big to be handy ; 'n it's one comfort about critters, you ken git rid on 'em somehaow when they're more plague than profit. But folks has got to be let alone, excep' the Lord takes 'em ; an' He generally don't see fit." From Somebody's Neighbors. A GIFT HORSE. BY ROSE TERRY COOKE. " Well, he no need to ha' done it, Sary. I've told him more'n four times he hadn't ought to pull a gun tow'rds him by the muzzle on't. Now he's up an' did it once for all." " He won't never hare no chance to do it again, Scotty, 72 THE WIT OF WOMEN. if you don't hurry up after the doctor," said Sary, wiping her eyes on her dirty calico apron, thereby adding an effective shadow under their redness. " Well, I'm agoin', ain't I ? But ye know yerself 'twon't do to go so fur on eend, 'thout ye're vittled con- sider' ble well." So saying, he fell to at the meal she Lad interrupted, hot potatoes, cold pork, dried venison, and blueberry pie van- ishing down his throat with an alacrity and dispatch that augured well for the thorough " vittling" he intended, while Sary went about folding chunks of boiled ham, thick slices of brown bread, solid rounds of " sody biskit," and slab-sided turnovers in a newspaper, filling a flat bottle with whiskey, and now and then casting a look at the low bed where young Harry McAlister lay, very much whiter than the sheets about him, and quite as unconscious of sur- roundings, the blood oozing slowly through such bandages as Scott Peck's rude surgery had twisted about a gunshot- wound in his thigh, and brought to close tension by a stick thrust through the folds, turned as tight as could be borne, and strapped into place by a bit of coarse twine. It was a long journey paddling up the Racquette River, across creek and carry, with the boat on his back, to the lakes, and then from Martin's to " Harri'tstown," where he knew a surgeon of repute from a great city was spending his vacation. It was touch-and-go with Harry before Scott and Dr. Drake got back. Sary had dosed him with veni- son-broth, hot and greasy, weak whiskey and water, and a little milk (only a little), for their cow was old and pastured chiefly on leaves and twigs, and she only came back to the shanty when she liked or needed to come, so their milk "SAMPLES" HEBE AND THERE. 73 supply was uncertain, and Sary dared not leave her patient long enough to row to the end of Tupper's Lake, where the nearest cow was kept. But youth has a power of recovery that defies circumstance, and Dr. Drake was very skilful. Long weeks went by, and the green woods of July had brightened and faded into October's dim splendor be- fore Harry McAlister could be carried up the river and over to Bartlett's, where his mother had been called to meet him. She was a widow, and he her only child ; and, though she was rather silly and altogether unpractical, she had a tender, generous heart, and was ready to do anything possible for Scott and Sarah Peck to show her gratitude for their kindness to her boy. She did not consult Harry at all. He had lost much blood from his accident and recov- ered strength slowly. She kept everything like thought or trouble out of his way as far as she could, and when the family physician found her heart was set on taking him to Florida for the winter, because he looked pale and her grandmother's aunt had died of consumption, Dr. Peet, like a wise man, rubbed his hands together, bowed, and assured her it would be the very thing. But something must be done for the Pecks before she went away. It occurred to her how difficult it must be for them to row everywhere in a small boat. A horse would be much bet- ter. Even if the roads were not good they could ride, Sarah behind Scott. And so useful in farming, too. Her mind was made up at once. She dispatched a check for three hundred dollars to Peter Haas, her old coachman, who had bought a farm in Vermont with his savings, and retired, with the cook for his wife, into the private life of a farmer. Mrs. McAlister had much faith in Peter's knowl- 7-4 THE WIT OF WOMEN. edge of horses and his honesty. She wrote him to buy a strong, steady animal, and convey it to Scott Peck, either sending him word to come up to Bartlett's after it, or tak- ing it down the river ; but, at any rate, to make sure he had it. If the check would not pay all expenses, he was to draw on her for more. Peter took the opportunity to get rid of a horse he had no use for in winter ; a beast restive as a racer when not in daily use, but strong enough for any work, and steady enough if he had work. Two hundred and fifty dollars was the price now set on his head, though Peter had bought him for seventy-five, and thought him dear at that. The remaining fifty was ample for expenses ; but Peter was a prudent German and liked a margin. There was no difficulty in getting the horse as far as Martin's, and by dint of patient insistence Peter contrived to have him conveyed to Bartlett's ; but here he rested and sent a messenger down to Scott Peck, while he himself returned to Bridget at the farm, slowly cursing the country and the people as he went his way, for his delays and troubles had been numerous. " Gosh !" said Scott Peck, when he stepped up to the log -house that served for the guides, unknowing what awaited him, for the messenger had not found him at home, but left word he was to come to Bartlett's for something, and the first thing he saw was this gray horse. " "What fool fetched his hoss up here ?" The guides gathered about the door of their hut, burst into a loud cackle of laughter ; even the beautiful hounds in their rough kennel leaped up and bayed. ""W-a-a-1," drawled lazy Joe Tucker, "the feller 't owns him ain't nobody's fool. Be ye, Scotty ?" ''SAMPLES HERE AND THERE. ng her mien Was very imposing from such a height, It imposed upon many a dazzled wight, Who snuffed the perfume floating down From the rustling folds of her gorgeous gown, But never could smell through these bouquets The fishy odor of former days. 166 THE WIT OF WOMEN. She went on her golden stilts to pray, Which never became her better than then, When her murmuring lips were heard to say, " Thank God, I am not as my fellow -men !" Her pastor loved as a pastor might His house that was built on a golden rock ; He pointed it out as a shining light To the lesser lambs of his fleecy flock. The stilts were a help to the church, no doubt, They kindled its self-expiring embers, So that before the season was out It gained a dozen excellent members. Mrs. Mackerel gave a superb soiree, Standing on stilts to receive her guests ; The gas-lights mimicked the glowing day So well, that the birds, in their flowery nests, Almost burst their beautiful breasts, Trilling away their musical stories In Mrs. Mackerel's conservatories. She received on stilts ; a distant bow Was all the loftiest could attain- Though some of her friends she did allow To kiss the hem of her jewelled train. One gentleman screamed himself quite hoarse Kequesting her to dance ; which, of course, Couldn't be done on stilts, as she Halloed down to him rather scornfully. The fact is, when Mackerel kept a shop, His wife was very fond of a hop, And now, as the muhic swelled and rose, She felt a tingling in her toes, A restless, tickling, funny sensation Which didn't agree with her exaltation. When the maddened music was at its height* And the waltz was wildest behold, a sight ! The stilts began to hop and twirl Like the saucy feet of a ballet-girl, HUMOROUS POEMS. 167 And their haughty owner, through the air, Was spin, spin, spinning everywhere. Everybody got out of the way To give the dangerous stilts fair play. In every corner, at every door, With faces looking like unfilled blanks, They watched the stilts at their airy pranks, Giving them, unrequested, the floor. They never had glittered so bright before ; The light it flew in flashing splinters Away from those burning, revolving centres ; While the gems on the lady's flying skirts Gave out their light in jets and spirts. Poor Mackerel gazed in mute dismay At this unprecedented display. " Oh, stop, love, stop !" he cried at last ; But she only flew more wild and fast, While the flutes and fiddles, bugle and dram, Followed as if their time had come. She went at such a bewildering pace Nobody saw the lady's face, But only a ring of emerald light From the crown she wore on that fatal night. Whether the stilts were propelling her, Or she the stilts, none could aver. Around and around the magnificent hall Mrs. Mackerel danced at her own grand ball. " As the twig is bent the tree's inclined ;" This must have been a case in kind. " What's in the blood will sometimes show " 'Kound and around the wild stilts go. It had been whispered many a time That when poor Mack was in his prime Keeping that little retail store, He had fallen in love with a ballet-girl, Who gave up fame's entrancing whirl To be shis own, and the world's no mo*e. 168 THE WIT OF WOMEN. She made him a faithful, prudent wife Ambitious, however, all her life. Could it be that the soft, alluring waltz Had carried her back to a former age, Making her memory play her false, Till she dreamed herself on the gaudy stage ? Her crown a tinsel crown her guests The pit that gazes with praise and jests ? " Pride," they say, " must have a fall " Mrs. Mackerel was very proud And now she danced at her own grand ball, While the music swelled more fast and loud. The gazers shuddered with mute affright, For the stilts burned now with a bluish light, While a glimmering, phosphorescent glow Did out of the lady's garments flow. And what was that very peculiar smell ? Fish, or brimstone ? no one could tell. Stronger and stronger the odor grew, And the stilts and the lady burned more blue ; "Bound and around the long saloon, While Mackerel gazed in a partial swoon, She approached the throng, or circled from it, With a flaming train like the last great comet ; Till at length the crowd All groaned aloud. For her exit she made from her own grand ball Out of the window, stilts and all. None of the guests can really say How she looked when she vanished away. Some declare that she carried sail On a flying fish with a lambent tail ; And some are sure she went out of the room Biding her stilts like a witch a broom, While a phosphorent odor followed her track : Be this as it may, Ihe never came back. HUMOROUS POEMS. 169 Since then, her friends of the gold-fish fry Are in a state of unpleasant suspense, Afraid, that unless they unselfishly try To make better use of their dollars and sense To chasten their pride, and their manners mend, They may meet a similar shocking end. Cosmopolitan Art Journal. - JUST SO. BY METTA YICTOBIA VICTOE. A youth and maid, one winter night, Were sitting in the corner ; His name, we're told, was Joshua White, And hers was Patience Warner. Not much the pretty maiden said, Beside the young man sitting ; Her cheeks were flushed a rosy red, Her eyes bent on her knitting. Nor could he guess what thoughts of him Were to her bosom flocking, As "her fair fingers, swift and slim, Flew round and round the stocking. While, as for Joshua, bashful youth, His words grew few and fewer ; Though all the time, to tell the truth, His chair edged nearer to her. Meantime her ball of yarn gave out, She knit so fast and steady ; And he must give his aid, no doubt, To get another ready. He held the skein ; of course the thread Got tangled, snarled and twisted ; " Have Patience !" cried the artless maid, To him who her assisted. 170 THE WIT OF WOMEN. Good chance was this for tongue-tied churl To shorten all palaver ; " Have Patience !' ' cried he, " dearest girl ! And may I really have her ?" The deed was done ; no more, that night, Clicked needles in the corner : And she is Mrs. Joshua White That once was Patience Warner. THE INVENTOR'S WIFE. BY E. T. CORBETT. It's easy to talk of the patience of Job. Humph ! Job had no thin* to try him ; Ef he'd been married to 'Bijah Brown, folks wouldn't have dared come nigh him. Trials, indeed ! Now I'll tell you what ef you want to be sick of your life, Jest come and change places with me a spell, for I'm an inventor's wife. And sech inventions ! I'm never sure when I take up my coffee-pot, That 'Bijah hain't been " improvin' " it, and it mayn't go off like a shot. Why, didn't he make me a cradle once that would keep itself a-rockin', And didn't it pitch the baby out, and wasn't his head bruised shockin' ? And there was his " patent peeler," too, a wonderful thing I'll say ; But it hed one fault it never stopped till the apple was peeled away. As for locks and clocks, and mowin' machines, and reapers, and all such trash, Why, 'Bijah' s invented heaps of them, but they don't bring in no cash ! Law ! that don't worry him not at all ; he's the aggravatinest man He'll set in his little workshop there, and whistle and think and plan, Inventin' a Jews-harp to go by steam, or a new-fangled powder-horn, While the children's goin' barefoot to school, and the weeds is chokin' our corn. When 'Bijah and me kep' company, he wasn't like this, you know ; Our folks all thought he was dreadful smart but that was years ago. He was handsome as any pictur' then, and he had such a glib, bright way I never thought that a time would come when I' d rue my weddin'-day ; HUMOROUS POEMS. 171 But when I've been forced to chop the wood, and tend to the farm beside, And look at 'Bijah a-settin' there, I've jest dropped down and cried. We lost the hull of our turnip crop while he was inventin' a gun, But I counted it one of my marcies when it bust before 'twas done. So he turned it into a " burglar alarm." It ought to give thieves a fright 'Twould scare an honest man out of his wits, ef he sot it off at night. Sometimes I wonder ef 'Bijah' s crazy, he does such curious things. 'Have I told you about his bedstead yit? 'Twas full of wheels and springs ; It hed a key to wind it up, and a clock-face at the head ; All you did was to tiirn them hands, and at any hour you said That bed got up and shook itself, and bounced you on the floor, And then shet up, jest like a box, so you couldn't sleep any more. Wa'al, 'Bijah he fixed it all complete, and he sot it at half-past five, But he hadn't more 'n got into it, when dear me ! sakes alive ! Them wheels began to whizz and whirr ! I heard a fearful snap, And there was that bedstead with 'Bijah inside shet up jest like a trap ! I screamed, of course, but 'twant no use. Then I worked that hull long night A-tryin' to open the pesky thing. At last I got in a fright : I couldn't hear his voice inside, and I thought he might be dyin', So I took a crowbar and smashed it in. There was 'Bijah peacefully lyin', Inventin' a way to git out agin. That was all very well to say, But I don't believe he'd have found it out if I'd left him in all day. Now, since I've told you my story, do you wonder I'm tired of life, Or think it strange I often wish I warn't an inventor's wife ? AN UNKUFFLED BOSOM. (Story of an old Woman who knew Washington.) BY LIZZIE W. CHAMPNET. An aged negress at her door Is sitting in the sun ; Her day of work is almost o'er, Her day of rest begun. 172 THE WIT OF WOMEN. Her face is black as darke?t night, Her form is bent and thin, And o'er her bony visage tight Is stretched her wr.nkled skin. Her dress is scant and mean ; yet still About her ebon face There flows a soft and creamy frill Of costly Mechlin lace. "What means the contrast strange and wide ? Its like is seldom seen A pauper's aged face beside The laces of a queen. Her mien is stately, proud, and high, And yet her look is kind, And Ihe calm light within her eye Speaks an unruffled mind. " Dar comes anodder ob dem tramps," She mumbles low in wrath, ** I know dose sleek Centennial chaps Quick as dey mounts de path. A-axing ob a lady's age I tink is impolite, And when dey gins to interview I disremembers quite. Dar was dat spruce photometer Dat tried to take my head, And Mr. Squibbs, de porterer, Wrote down each word I said. Six hundred years I fought it was, Or else it was sixteen Yes ; I'd shook hands wid Washington And likewise General Greene. I tole him all de generals' names Dar ebber was, I guess, From General Lee and La Fayette To General Distress. Den dar's dem high-flown ladies My old tings came to see ; HUMOROUS POEMS. 173 Wanted to buy dem some heirlooms Of real Aunt Tiquity. Says I, " Dat isn't dis chile's name, Dey calls me Auntie Scraggs," And den I axed dem, by de pound How much dey gabe for rags ? De missionary had de mose Insurance of dem all ; He tole me I was ole, and said, Laabes had dar time to fall. He simply wished to ax, he said, As pastor and as friend, If wid unruffled bosom I Approached my latter end. Now how he knew dat story I Should mightily like to know. I 'clar to goodness, Massa Guy, If dat ain't really you ! You say dat in your wash I sent You only one white vest ; And as you'se passin' by you fought You'd call and get de rest. Now, Massa Guy, about your shirts, At least, it seems to me Dat you is more particular Dan what you used to be. Your family pride is stiff as starch, Your blood is mighty blue I nebber spares de indigo To make your shirts so, too. I uses candle ends, and wax, And satin gloss and paints, Until your wristbands shine like to De pathway ob de saints. But when a gemman sends to me Eight white vests eberry week, A stain ob har-oil on each one, I tinks it's time to speak. 174: THE WIT OF WOMEN. When snarled around a button dar's A golden bar or so, Dat young man's going to be wed, Or someting's wrong, I know. Yoii needn't laugh, and turn it off By axing 'bout my cap ; You didn't use to know nice lace, And never cared a snap What 'twas a lady wore. But folks Wid teaching learn a lot, And dey do say Miss Bella buys De best dat's to be got. But if you really want to know, I don't mind telling you Jus' how I come by dis yere lace It's cur'us, but it's true. My mother washed for Washington When I warn't more'n dat tall ; I cut one of his shirt-frills off To dress my corn-cob doll ; And when de General saw de shirt, He jus' was mad enough To tink he got to hold review Widout his best Dutch ruff. Ma'am said she 'lowed it was de calf Dat had done chawed it off ; But when de General heard dat ar, He answered with a scoff ; He said de marks warn't don' of teef, But plainly dose ob shears ; An' den he showed her to de do' And cuffed me on ye years. And when my ma'am arribed at home She stretched me "cross her lap, Den took de lace away from me An' sewed it on her cap. And when I dies I hope dat dey Wid it my shroud will trim. HUMOROUS POEMS. 175 Den when we meets on Judgment Day, I'll gib it back to him. So dat's my story, Massa Guy, Maybe I's little wit ; But I has lamed to, when I'm wrong, Make a clean breast ob it. Den keep a conscience smooth and white (You can't if much you flirt), And an unruffled bosom, like De General's Sunday shirt. HAT, ULSTER AND ALL. BY CHARLOTTE FISKE BATES. John Verity's Experience. I saw the congregation rise, And in it, to my great surprise, A Kossuth-covered head. I looked and looked, and looked again, To make quite sure my sight was plain, Then to myself I said : That fellow surely is a Jew, To whom the Christian faith is new, Nor is it strange, indeed, If used to wear his hat in church, His manners leave him in the lurch Upon a change of creed. Joining my friend on going out, Conjecture soon was put to rout By smothered laugh of his : Ha ! ha ! too good, too good, no Jew, Dear fellow, but Miss Moll Carew, Good Christian that she is ! Bad blunder ! all I have to say, It is a most unchristian way To rig Miss Moll Carew 176 THE WIT OF WOMEN, She has my hat, my cut of hair, Just such an ulster as I wear, And heaven knows what else, too. AUCTION EXTRAORDINARY. BY LUCKETIA DAVIDSON. I dreamed a dream in the midst of my slumbers, And as fast as I dreamed it, it came into numbers ; 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 nocked 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. HUMOROUS POEMS. 177 A APELE FOR ARE TO THE SEXTANT. BY ABABELLA WILSON. 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 sturlite 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 ! 1 mean pewer Are, Sextant, I mean pewer Are ! 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 Sextant I 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 ? 1 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 ITS THE WIT OF WOMEN. 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 Sexta,nt ! doant you know our lungs is belluses To bio the fier of life and keep it from Going out : und how can bellusses bio 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 (Fewer 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 SATIKE. WOMEN show their sense of humor in ridiculing the foi- bles of their own sex, as Miss Carlotta Perry seeing the danger of " higher education," and Helen Gray Cone laughing over the exaggerated ravings and meanings of a stage-struck girl, or the very one-sided sermon of a senti- mental goose. A MODEKN MINERVA. BY CABLOTTA PEERY. '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. 180 THE WIT OF WOMEN. 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 better 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 OKAY CONE. Though I met her in the stammer, 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. GOOD-NATURED SATIRE. 181 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 f aayce 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 SH^LL 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 ! 182 THE WIT OF WOMEN. THE TENDER HEART. BY HELEN OKAY 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 Rxiskin 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 I" 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. GOOD-NATURED SATIRE. 183 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 1 My engagement ? Gracious ! Yes. Rumor's hit the mark this time. And the victim ? Charley Gray. Know him, don't you? Well, he's prtnw. 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, 184: THE WIT OF WOMEN. 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-staff ! 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 How she tried for Charley, till I sailed in and cut her out V 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 carle blanche from Pa, you know- Mean to have my dress from Worth ! Won't she be just HAVING though ! Scribner's Monthly Magazine, 1874. GOOD-NATURED SATIKE. 185 Women are often extremely humorous in their newspaper letters, excelling in that department. As critics they in- cline 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 " sol- emn 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 occasion- ally, we should advise him to walk abroad alone, and invite his soul to sit beside him in the hours he devotes to com- position." 186 THE WIT OF WOMEN. Then humor is displayed in the excellent parodies by women as Grace Greenwood's imitations of various au- thors, written in her young days, but quite equal to the " Echo Club" of Bayard Taylor. How perfect her mimicry of Mrs. Sigourney ! A FRAGMENT. BY L. H. 8. How hardly doth the cold and careless world Bequite the toil divine of genius-souls, Their wasting cares and agonizing throes ! I had a friend, a sweet and precious friend, One passing rich in all the strange and rare, And fearful gifts of song. On one great work, A poem in twelve cantos, she had tailed From early girlhood, e'en till she became An olden maid. Worn with intensest thought. She sunk at last, just at the " finis" sunk ! And closed her eyes forever ! The soul-gem Had fretted through its casket ! As I stood Beside her tomb, I made a solemn vow To take in charge that poor, lone orphan work, And edit it ! My publisher I sought, A learned man and good. He took the work, Head here and there a line, then laid it down, And said, " It would not pay." I slowly turned, And went my way with troubled brow, " but more In sorrow than in anger." Phosbe Gary's parody on " Maud Muller" I never fan- cied ; it seems almost wicked to burlesque anything so per- fect. But so many parodies have been made on Kingsley's GOOD-NATURED SATIRE. 187 " Three Fishers" that now I can enjoy a really good one, like this from Miss Lilian Whiting, of the Boston Daily Traveller, the well-known correspondent of various "Western papers : THE THKEE POETS. After Kingsley. BY T.TT.TAN WHITING. Three poets went sailing down Boston streets, All iiito the East as the sun went down, Each felt that the editor loved him best And would welcome spring poetry in Boston town. For poets must write tho' the editors frown, Their aesthetic natures will not be put down, While the harbor bar is moaning ! Three editors climbed to the highest tower That they could find in all Boston town, And they planned to conceal themselves, hour after hour, Till the sun or the poets had both gone down. For Spring poets must write, though the editors rage, The artistic spirit must thus be engaged Though the editors all were groaning. Three corpses lay out on the Back Bay sand, Just after the first spring sun went down, And the Press sat down to a banquet grand, In honor of poets no more in the town. For poets will write while editors sleep, Though they've nothing to earn and no one to keep ; And the harbor bar keeps moaning. The humor of women is constantly seen in their poems for children, such as " The Dead Doll," by Margaret Vandergrift, and the " Motherless Turkeys," by Marian Douglas. Here are some less known : 188 THE WIT OF WOMEN. BEDTIME. BY NELLIE K. KELLOGG. 'Twas sunset-time, when grandma called To lively little Fred : " Come, dearie, put your toys away, It's time to go to bed." But Fred demurred. " He wasn't tired, He didn't think 'twas right That he should go so early, when Some folks sat up all night." Then grandma said, in pleading tone, " The little chickens go To bed at sunset ev'ry night, All summer long, you know." Then Freddie laughed, and turned to her His eyes of roguish blue, " Oh, yes, I know," he said ; " but then, Old hen goes with them, too." Good Cheer. THE KOBIN AND THE CHICKEN. BY GRACE F. COOLIDGE. A plump little robin flew down from a tree, To hunt for a worm, which he happened to see ; A frisky young chicken came scampering by, And gazed at the robin with wondering eye. Said the chick, " What a queer-looking chicken is that ! Its wings are so long and its body so fat !" While the robin remarked, loud enough to be heard : " Dear me ! an exceedingly strange-looking bird !" " Can you sing ?" robin asked, and the chicken said " No ;" But asked in its turn if the robin could crow. So the bird sought a tree and the chicken a wall, And each thought the other knew nothing at all. Sf. Nicholas. GOOD-NATUKED SATIRE. 189 Harriette "W". Lotlirop, wife of the popular publisher better known by her pen name of " Margaret Sidney" has done much in a humorous way to amuse and instruct little folks. She has much quiet humor. WHY POLLY DOESN'T LOVE CAKE! BY MARGARET SIDNEY. They all said " No !" As they stood in a row, The poodle, and the parrot, and the little yellow cat, And they looked very solemn, This straight, indignant column, And rolled their eyes, and shook their heads, a-standing on the mat. Then I took a goodly stick, Very short and very thick, And I said, " Dear friends, you really now shall rue it, For one of you did take That bit of wedding-cake, And so I'm going to whip you all. I honestly will do it." Then Polly raised her claw ! " I never, never saw That stuff. I'd rather have a cracker, And so it would be folly," Said this naughty, naughty Polly, " To punish me ; but Pussy, you can whack her." The cat rolled up her eyes In innocent surprise, And waved each trembling whisker end. " A crumb I have not taken, But Bose ought to be shaken. And then, perhaps, his thieving, awful ways he'll mend." "I'll begin right here With you, Polly, dear," And my stick I raised with righteous good intent. 190 THE WIT OF WOMEN. " Oh, dear !" and " Oh, dear !" The groans that tilled my ear. As over head and heels the frightened column -went ! The cat flew out of window, The dog flew under bed, And Polly flapped and beat the air, Then settled on my head ; When underneath her wing, From feathered corner deep, A bit of wedding-cake fell down, That made poor Polly weep. The cat raced off to cat-land, and was never seen again, And the dog sneaked out beneath the bed to scud with might and main ; While Polly sits upon her roost, and rolls her eyes in fear, And when she sees a bit of cake, she always says, " Oh, dear !" KITTEN TACTICS. BY ADELAIDE CILLEY WALDRON. Four little kittens in a heap, One wide awake and three asleep. Open-eyes crowded, pushed the rest over, While the gray mother-cat went playing rover. Three little kittens stretched and mewed ; Cried out, " Open-eyes, you're too rude !" Open-eyes, winking, purred so demurely, All the rest stared at him, thinking " surely We were the ones that were so rude, We were the ones that cried and mewed ; Let us lie here like good little kittens ; We cannot sleep, so we'll wash our mittens." Four little kittens, very sleek, Purred so demurely, looked so meek, When the gray mother came home from roving " What good kittens !" said she ; " and how loving !' GOOD-NATURED 'SATIRE. 191 BOTH SIDES. BY GAIL HAMTLTON. " Kitty, Kitty, you mischievous elf, What have you, pray, to say for yourself?" But Kitty was now Asleep on the mow, And only drawled dreamily, " Ma-e-ow !" " Kitty, Kitty, come here to me, The naughtiest Kitty I ever did see ! I know very well what you've been about ; Don't try to conceal it, murder will out. Why do you lie so lazily there ?" " Oh, I have had a breakfast rare !" " Why don't you go and hunt for a mouse ?" " Oh, there's nothing fit to eat in the house." " Dear me ! Miss Kitty, This i