Now I am not apologizing for this – not a bit! I am only sorry for those of you who trudge along whether from choice or necessity – through life's dusty highway, without stopping to notice, or to cull, the flowers hidden in its hedge-rows, and place them as you go, in your hair, or in your bosom.
Pretty things are humanizing. I wish every work-room could have its flowers and its pictures. My God don't turn His back on either. Even in the dull old yard of a tenement house, He sends up through the chinks tiny blades of grass and dandelion, and chickweed blossoms. And does not the pure white snow come sifting down over the garbage-heaps and ash-barrels before the door of poverty which man, less merciful, would doom to have all the year round before their disgusted vision?
Meantime, let us hope that "the minister's" holiday present may be a pair of boxing-gloves instead of a hymn-book, of which latter he has a surfeit. As to his wife – for goodness' sake, send her the same thing you would, were she the wife of a layman. And if you order her a cake, don't surmount it with a cross, of which ministers' wives have already too many in their parishioners. Give an editor a new subscriber and you can't miss it. Send a lawyer no bones to pick, unless – well covered with meat! And don't make a pup of your husband by giving him a velvet dressing-gown. And as to you, sir, don't pick out for your wife just what your friend Jenkins does for his; because, though men are all alike, and cigars are always acceptable to them, yet a man can never be certain whether his wife, on the receipt of a present from her husband, will box his ears, or fall to kissing him; and since Variety is the god of most men, I suppose this is all right.
It must be owned, that of all perplexing things on earth, the greatest is the perplexity of choosing a present. After you have considered, first your purse; then the multifarious demands upon it; then the age, desires, and taste of the recipient – comes the weary tramp in hot, crowded stores for the desired article; comes the known incivility of most women bent on shopping errands, to their fellow-women; of addressing the clerk, upon whom you, as first-comer, have a prior claim, or even drawing from your and his fingers the very article you have under distracted consideration. Of course I don't mean you, my dear; didn't I say most women? You will always find that I leave a door of escape open, before I insinuate that my sex are not all seraphs. Well – you make your purchase, and perspire in your furs, while "cash" performs his gymnastics through feminine feet and hoops, to get it parcelled and return your change. But, alas! this is only one present, and it has taken an entire morning to get it, and when you get home Aunt Jemima whispers confidentially "that she overheard John say that he had bought that very article for the same person for whom yours was intended;" and, what is worse, you can't transfer it, because there is no other member of the family for whom it would be suitable. You wonder if it wouldn't do to enclose so many dollars to each member of the family, and let them make their own selection. Sentiment would have to "go under," of course; but don't it when a recipient wonders "how much you paid for your gift"? Time was, when a present was acceptable, or on the contrary, according to the love which prompted it, and not according to the value of the gift. Now, young ladies expect diamonds, and pearls, and rubies, and quite turn up their pretty noses at a book, or a work-box, or a writing-desk. What with "golden weddings" and "silver weddings," and other bids for gold and silver in various shapes, what with the bugbear word "mean" in such connection, bankruptcy, or an inglorious exit, is the only alternative to many. I have been some time coming to my moral, which is this: that the "present" system is, to use a slang expression, "run into the ground." I except the present a husband gives his wife, for whom nothing of course is too good, or too tasteful, or too costly; and who can, while receiving it, ask him to give her a hundred dollars or so, to go out and buy him one! Also, in all heartiness, and without joking, I except the little children, whose lovely dream of Santa Claus vanishes with the flossy, golden-tipped curls of babyhood. Pile up for them the dolls, and tops, and whistles, and wagons, and kaleidoscopes, and velocipedes, that they may always when old age seats them in the chimney-corner have this bright spot to look back upon, over the graves of buried hopes and hearts, which could not else bear thinking of.
A BID FOR AN EDITORSHIP
I THINK I should like to be an editor, if somebody would do all the disagreeable, hard work for me, and leave me only the fancy touches. I don't know how profound my political articles would be, but they would be mine. I think my book reviews would be pleasant reading, at least to everybody but some of the authors. I should have a high railing round my editorial desk, and "through the lattice" microscopically and leisurely regard the row of expectant men waiting outside for a hearing. I should not need a spittoon in my office. Nobody should contribute to my paper who smoked, or chewed, or snuffed tobacco; that would diminish my contributors' list about right. I should discard Webster and Walker, and inaugurate a dictionary of my own. I should allow anybody who felt inclined to send me samples of big strawberries and peaches, and bunches of flowers; and I should get a fine library, free gratis, out of the books sent me to review. As to grinding the axes of the givers in return, why that, of course, should always be left to the option of the editor. Before I commenced an editor's life, I should secure money enough in some way to be able to snap my fingers in the face of that grim ogre, "Stop my Paper!" I tell you I wouldn't stop it. It is a free country. I'd keep on sending it to him. I'd always have something in every number about him, so that he couldn't do without having it, how much soever he might want to.
Then you should see my desk. It should be dusted once a year, to show editors what a desk might be. My editorial chair shouldn't pivot; there should be no shadow of turning about that. Gibraltar should be a circumstance to it. The windows of my editorial den should be scraped with a sharp knife occasionally, to take off sufficient dirt to enable me to write legibly. I should keep my best bonnet in a bandbox under my desk, for any sudden dress emergency, as do editors their go-to-meetin' hat. Like them, too, I should have a small looking-glass for – visitors! also a bottle of – "medicine" for – visitors! I don't think I should need a safe, as the principles upon which my paper would be conducted would render it unnecessary. My object would be to amuse myself, and say just what came uppermost, not by any means to please or edify my species. Now, I have examined all the papers that cross my threshold, and I am very sure that I have hit on quite an original idea.
If it stormed badly on publication day, I wouldn't send the poor devils in my employ out with my paper, just because my subscribers fancied they wanted it. Let 'em wait. The first fair day they'd have it, of course. In the meantime, the printer's devil, and the compositors, and the rest of 'em, could play chequers till the sky cleared up.
If anybody sued me for libel, I'd – I'd whine out, "Aint you ashamed to annoy a female? Why don't you strike one of your own size?" I should insist on being treated with the deference due to a woman, though in all respects I should demand the untrammeled-seven-leagued-boots-freedom of a man. My object would be to hit everybody smack between the eyes, when I felt like it; and when I saw brutal retribution coming, to throw my silk apron over my head and whimper.
I have not yet decided upon the title of my paper. Children are not generally baptized until after they are born. Nor do I know who will stand sponsor. All that is in the misty future. As to the price, I should nail up a cash-box at the foot of the stairs, and people could drop in whatever they liked. I should, by that means, not only show my unshaken confidence in human nature, but also learn in what estimation the general public held my services. There's nothing so dear to my heart as spontaneity.
A SERMON TO PLYMOUTH PULPIT
O MR. BEECHER! that you should recommend "candy," or "sugar plums," it is all the same, for the youngsters. That you should be quoted through the length and breadth of the land as having done so, to the delight of these youngsters, and the candy-merchants, and the dentists, and the doctors generally! To be candid, I am ashamed of you.
Do you suppose that you are the only grandparent in the land? The only loving, the only proud grandparent? I am a grandparent. I can love as hard