A String of Amber Beads | Page 5

that a fish cannot

perspire--no blood in 'em! Cut them and they would run cold sap, like a
maple tree in April. Such people are always frightened to death for fear
of what the world is going to say about them. They are under
everlasting bonds to keep the peace. I wonder that they ever un-bend to
kiss their children. If one of them lived in my house I should stick pins
in him. Morality and goodness that lie no deeper than "behavior" are
like the veneering they put on cheap tables--very tawdry and soon
peeled off.

X.
NOTHING SO GRAND AS FORCE.
Reading about the superb management of the big fire the other day, a
certain girl of my acquaintance remarked: "Is there anything so grand
in a man as force? In my estimation those firemen and the chief who so
splendidly controlled them are as far superior to the dancing youth, we
meet at parties and hops, as meat is better than foam." Put that into your
pipe, you callow striplings, who aim to be lady-killers! It is not your
tennis suits, nor your small feet, nor your ability to dance and lead the
german that makes a woman's heart kindle at your approach. It is your
response to an emergency, your muscle in a tilt against odds, your
endurance and force, that will win the way to feminine regard. As for
me there is something pathetic in the sight of a big, handsome fellow in
dancing pumps and a Prince Albert coat. I would rather see him
swinging a blacksmith's hammer, or driving a plow through stony
furrows if need be. The "original man" was not created to shine in the
military schottische or win his laurels in the berlin.

XI.
A RAINY RHAPSODY.
Gently, idly, lazily, as petals from an over-blown rose, while I write,
the welcome rain is falling. The sky is neutral tinted, save in the east,

where a faint blush lingers. All along the country roadways a thousand
fainting clovers uplift their purple crests, and in the dusky spaces of the
dense June woods a host of grateful leaves wait and beckon. A voice
comes from the garden bed; it is the complaint of the pansy. "Here I
lie," it says, "with all my jewels low in the dust. Where is the purple of
my amethysts, the yellow of my topaz, the inimitable sheen of my
milk-white pearls? Alas and alack for pansies when the rain beats them
earthward!" The marigold, like a yellow-haired boy with his straw hat
well back from his flying mane, whistles softly to himself for joy, and
buries his hands in the pockets of his green breeches. The peonies burn
low their tinted globes of light, and the sweet peas swing like idle girls
upon the tendrils of their drooping vines. The dog lifts his nose and
sniffs the moist air approvingly, while poor Old Tom, the cat, blinks
benignly upon the scene. In the poultry yard the hens pose in the same
indescribable amaze that has bewildered their species since the dawn of
time. I think the first chicken that was ever hatched in Eden must have
experienced some great nervous shock that has descended along the
infinite line of its progeny. The monotonous rooster chants ever and
anon from the top of the fence his unalterable convictions. The ducks
waddle waggishly through the rain and the pigeons coo softly the
mellowest melodies that ever sounded from a feathered throat.

XII.
CAUSE FOR WONDER.
I do not wonder so much that so few people blossom into sunny old age,
as I wonder that one-half of humanity ever shows a leaf or unfolds a
bud. Look at the idiots who have children. Look at the little ones
thrown into the street like troublesome kittens. Look at the injudicious
methods of diet and training. I declare, my dear, if I were to go into the
room where Theodore Thomas was rehearsing his orchestra, and see
the flutists using their flutes for hammers, and the violinists using their
violins for tennis rackets, and the divine old cello in the hands of a
lusty blacksmith who was utilizing it for an anvil, the sight would be
nothing to what it is to see the muddle we make of the children's sweet

lives. God meant us for musical instruments, and gave to each soul its
capacity for some original harmony. Can a flute keep its tone for three
score years it you use it for a clothes stick on wash day, or a violin
retain intact the angel voice within it if you let rats breed and nest in it,
fling it against the side of the house and dance on it with hob-nailed
boots? If an instrument subjected to such usage