The Contributors' Club

A CHAPLAIN in a Southern penitentiary, who is also doing a noble missionary and educational work among the poor and destitute colored people in his vicinity, sends his friends a graphic account of the unpacking of a Christmas box, received from friends at the North for the school-children under his charge. The humor of it is so quaint and delicious that the private circle of friends for whose amusement and edification alone it was written, ought not to have the sole enjoyment of it. The immediate theme is a boy’s remonstrance and protest because the contents of the box seemed chiefly intended for the girls.

“ The boys have long felt themselves aggrieved, but whether through design, or because of nature’s reservations in the matter of boys North, they could not quite determine ; some inclining to think one way, some the other.

“ Last year, looking in at the window during the process of unpacking, one boy observed with much acrimony, ‘ Dat yer’s de tenf doll dat’s come out’ dat one box, ’sides all de dresses and white fixins ; and all fur no ’count gals. I ’se disgusted, I is.’ And he sat down with his back to the window, as if there were nothing worth looking at.

“ ‘ An’ what’s ten dolls mongst a hundred gals ? ’ said a sprightly girl, quickly facing him. ' Dey ain’t one on ’um fur me, kase I ain’t had a good lessing since I ’member. An’ what’s you making a fuss fur ? Boys can’t git it all.’

“ ‘ Git it all! ’ replied the boy, rising in wrath. ‘ Did ye see ten marbles, or ten pair of breeches, or ten jackets, or ten nuffin else fur boys ? Git it all! — you ’se a baggage, you is. We uns don’ spec for to git nuffin whatsumdever, an’ we don’t want your dolls ! ’

“ 'An’ a good reason why you can’t git nuffin, kase de folks Norf knows you is n’t wuf a gif’, you lump of livin’ imperance,’ said the girl, no ways daunted by the boy’s threatening manner. ‘ An’ ef dere is n’t any boys dere, wich I t’inks very likely, it’s kase de Norven folks has got more sense dan Souvern folks, an’ knows what boys is too well t’ ave ’em a kickin’ roun’. You is a misplaced creation anyhow, boys is ; allers a-grumblin’, an’ a-hollerin’, an’ a-slammin’ doors, an’ a-fochin’ in dirt. What good ’ud new clothes do you, you mudrollin’, tree-climbin’, peach-stealin’ creetur? ’

“ The rejoinder to this is not recorded among my memoranda, so I cannot give it. But I find among them, written on loose sheets, and of about the same date, a conversation wherein the boy’s views are set forth with some force. My notes indicate a conversation, but comprise only the heads and occasional oddities of expression on the part of one speaker, hence it must here take the form of a monologue ; but it is altogether too good a specimen of ' unique ’ eloquence to be lost.

“ ' Not meanin’ to be saucy, nur to be runnin’ any onnecessary risks, we has yit sumpin fur to say about dis yer matter, bein’ as we don’ see no jestice in de way t’ings goes on. Talk about shoes ! Jus’ look at dese, w’ich is de only ones dis miserbul worl’ has for me. See my big toe an’ his little brudder a-tastin’ of de fros’ an’ col’ dis ebenin’. Is n’t you ’shamed fur to see dat ar', while you has de bes’ dat de lan’ fords? An’ look at dis yere hat! Dis is all de coverin’ fur my pore head dat I is had fur goin’ on five year. It ain’t got no top nur yit no brim. De col’ rains o’ de skeyi comes down onchecked fur to gim me rheumatiz; an’ when I goes to take it off fur to bow to de ladies, I allers pulls my own har. Is n’t you ’shamed o’ dat in a member o’ de schule consarnin’ w’ich you is one ob um ? I won’t speak o’ dese yere pants, kase dey is full of mouves w'ich speak fur dere selvs, only I will jes menchin dat my daddy has no trouble fur to fin’ a place fur to gimme a ’membrancer ; I does n't have to ondress. I jus’ leaves it to you if it’s one o’ de greeabilities o’ ’xistence to be ’bleeged t’ allers crawfish outen a room back’ards, 'r to be keerful whar I sits down, 'r to be a ’tinual subjec o’ larfin’ on de part of dose onfeelin’ ones what has no sympathy wiz misfortin’. De las’ time my mammy mended ’em she sewed on a gunny bag wiz my las’ kite string ; an’ I ain’t been able to tell w’ich wuz wuss, de scratchin’ o’ de gunny bag or de miserbulness of nuffin. I ain’t got a pockit what ’l hole what’s put inter it, an’ I eonserkently has to make a pockit out ’n my mouf, w’ich ain’t de bes’ ’dapted fur dat perfession, bein’ made ’riginally fur swallerin’,— w'ich it do, sometimes, wiz tings dat I is sorry fur to lose. If you t’inks dat all dis is n’t much, what dus you ’pinion ’bout my jackit? [He was in his shirt sleeves]

Is n’t it pretty ? You kin see right froo it widout any trouble. Sort o’ gossamer like ; s’ like what de ladies wears when dey wants to make b’lieve dey has clo’s on. Mammy says I had a jackit wonst, an’ ef I hed been keerful I might a’ had it yit. It wur when I was a baby, dat jackit wur, an’ I leaves it to you ef I could a wored it ever since. When de wind blows col’ I tries to ’member how dat jackit use’ to feel, but I don’ find it warmin’. I won’t speak o’ dis yere shirt, as it ain’t much to speak of, an’ is tored now opin all de way down in front. Dis yere frien’ly string is all dat hol’s it togedder ; an f’ I wor to menchin it as I feels, ’t might go on a strike, an’ den whar’d I be ? Now dese dat I is been a menchinin’ is all dat I has in dis worl’, ’ceptin’ some marbles an’ udder t’ings dat I has buried away in a safe place down in de lot. Lots of de fellers is no better off nor I is. If dere is any thin’ in dis yere worl’ meant fur yus I hain’t foun’ it out yit. I has allers heard that boys worn’t good fur nuffin. I ’spresses no ’pinion ’bout dat, at present. What I knows is dat dey don’t git nuffin in dis yere miserbul worl’, ’ceptin kicks an' cuffs an’ sottin’s down. I hearn tell dat dere is folkses up Norf what sorry fur de pore nigger. So dey is, I jedge, fur de men and de wimming, an’ mos’ ’specially fur de gals ; but I don’ see no signs goin’ fur to show dat dey keers for nigger boys. I t'inks dat de hull worl’s out of jint in dis matter, ’specially since de Sunday-school’s gone back on us, too. But I dunno of no way to help it, t’ings bein’ as dey is now.’ ”

— Some mornings ago, a portion of the social world was considerably agitated by a rumor that one Timotheus, poet, had used a lyre with twelve strings; the original number had been seven, but had answered very well all bardic purposes. When the legislating worthies of Sparta (for this was in Sparta) heard of the affair, they had Timotheus called, tried, and found guilty of the offense alleged ; doubtless, too, the sentence and its execution were characteristically Laconic. At our remove, it is difficult to appreciate the objection at the time brought against this lyrical improvement ; we only know, there was grave apprehension that the twelfth string, if retained, would prelude the entrance of luxury and civic degeneracy, against which the guardians of the state had always presented a firm front.

We smile at the scruples of those crusty conservatives, — most un-Greeklike Greeks that they were ! Here we have a harp of a thousand strings, and they disputed the propriety of adding a pitiful five! Do we continually practice a beggarly, bound-out philosophy, because we dare not risk contact with the delicate and pleasant things of life, lest they steal our strength and valor ? On the contrary, we import our philosophy from Persia, and maintain that we are better candidates for citizenship, both in this world and the next, in proportion as we increase the number of our enjoyments, and expand our capacity for enjoying. We praise prosperity ; sweet are its uses. Perhaps in no other age before this could each human being so well suit himself from the treasury and armory of his time. He has but to beckon his choice, and it hastens to him, with means and equipments, from among the crowd of benevolent genii. One’s chief difficulty is to decide which, of all these wooing opportunities, it were best to wed.

So we say, exulting in the plenitude and variety of modern life. Yet it is possible that the old Spartan fear was not altogether groundless. Are we sure that the harp with its thousand strings makes purer and stronger harmony than the same instrument when the strings were fewer? We have books, the lecture, music, art, the drama, and numberless other generous contributors to our instruction and entertainment; we each receive into our mass a portion of the lively leaven, taste; we have “ social contact, which quickens sympathy and makes wit nimble ; we have at hand all our powers can absorb, — are soothed, satisfied, unadventurous. On the imaginative side, our growth seems not commensurate with the apparent advantage and encouragement of the situation. Would we not be justified if we drew the following conclusion : material possession of the things it accounts desirable oftener sates the imagination and puts it to sleep than rouses and stimulates it. The child that has not its amusement provided from the toy-shop, the child without companions, invents and constructs for itself the furniture of its play,—dramatizes its thought, and therefrom peoples the solitude. Imagination, genius, often works to best advantage when, to the casual observer, it appears to he exiled and defrauded. What it misses most it straightway exerts itself to supply by ideal creations. These ideal creations are the “sum and substance ” of poetry.

— This is a world of compromises, of balancing contraries, weighing of pleasures against pains, etc., and, by dint of close search and careful adjustment, one generally succeeds in getting hold of the correspondences and making the scale swing even. But bad weather is one of the things that the most optimistic philosopher may find a difficulty in finding a set-off for, especially if he live at a remove from the stones of a city pavement, the sole security for the foot in this present weather dispensation of slipping and splashing on ice or in slush, and when pedestrianism is only a trifle worse than getting about in vehicles which go skating around icy corners, dragging over muddy clearings, and jolting over the gulfs of gutter-crossings. Nature has had a dismal face on during the past few weeks ; the landscape has had the smudgy look of a poor mezzotint, — nothing but blurred lines and a dull uniformity of color. To-day the weather is still bad, according to barometers and in the meaning of weather prophecies ; but at length has come a change in the aspect of things, which one may take as compensation for their unpleasantness to the mere bodily sensation. Until ten A. M. there was no visible world, external to the few feet of space in which each one found himself. Then began a battle between the dense fog and the sun, aided by a feeble breath of southwest wind. The sun peered for a moment over the edge of vapor-drift, in size and color like a pale moon, and then sank and was lost again beneath the billows of mist. The mist decidedly had the best of it, and I was glad to see the sun go under. Across the frozen river a layer of white vapor stretched motionless along the hillside, and looked like another solid stream, bounded by a second blue hill range. When I presently went out in the sleigh, and turned toward the south, the mountains that run westwardly and cross the line of vision were looming grandly up, while above the actual mountain was a splendid cloud-piled height. Looking off at it over the length of intervening valley, I could almost fancy myself on the Axenstein, gazing Lucerne-ward to Pilatus and his great confrères. Another turn of the road brought the river into sight again, and right across the narrow opening between the hills, at right and left, lay a low fog wreath, which a chance sungleam fell on, and turned into a goldtipped barrier closing the way to fairyland. Out of such stuff as these floating, fluctuating mists it is that fancy loves to build cloud-capped towers and gorgeous palaces, which presently are " melted into air, thin air.” There is hardly a street in our town from which some glimpse may not be had of the river below and the hills beyond, and, as we turned to the north again, on our way homeward, I glanced down a side street, and saw what seemed the remains of a great conflagration ; for the sun just then had quite disappeared, and the heavy masses of fog lying below, at the end of the street vista, were the color of thick smoke, which seemed to hang over the smouldering ashes of a huge fire just extinguished. Why has there never arisen a second Turner to attempt the noting of these curious atmospheric effects, which are sometimes, though not so often, seen inland as well as on and by the sea ? Any one with an eye for color of course finds a never-failing and intense delight in the effects of dawn, sunset, and twilight, and the variations of tones in clear or partially clear skies ; but we are not so apt to take note of color effects in dull weather with clouded skies. I, for one, know that I have Ruskin to thank for directing me to find a pleasure in observing the delicate gradations and subtle blending of tone in neutral skies and landscape. I never could see the truth of his statement, however, that nature does not use brown paint.

— A curious and beautiful little plant is the mimosa, but if it could be rendered spontaneous in my garden I would not encourage its growing there ; to be continually offending so delicate a creature would be far from pleasant. The same consideration might warrant one’s hesitating to cultivate in his garden of choice acquaintances many human counterparts of the genus mimosa. These sensitive plants, by reason of the tender, irritable surface they present, always manage to convince us, while we are with them, that our moral touch is exceptionally harsh and clumsy. We are not aware of having given offense until we see the recoil of the sensitive plant, — its leaves shrinking and folding together, retiring about the stem; until we meet, instead of genial reciprocity, a precipitate withdrawing into itself of our friend’s personality, all kindly mutualities being temporarily suspended. How much patient adroitness it takes to bring back in statu quo our relations with the wounded, only those know who have had to deal with the plant. We have referred, casually, to some contemporaneous instance, or have passed criticism upon remote affairs or persons, or have drawn a harmless, humorous characterization, when, presto, our listener feels a hand laid upon him. He never “ gives away the sermon,” but takes all to himself; and the humorous characterization, also, he contrives to carry off, to his own discomfiture. And we are left to plead guilty to an ugly gaucherie ! If the sensitive plant would only consider of what inverse misery it is the cause ! But that is rarely the nature of the plant; it has little power to exchange places with another, little imagination where itself is not immediately concerned. After some not unuseful experience of its peculiarities, it has dawned upon us that selfishness is the big tap-root which feeds the germination and morbid growth of such sensitiveness. It might not be amiss to lay down a rule : Doubt those persons who are frequently given to the confession that they are sensitive, — far too sensitive for their own good. (The latter half of the statement is true enough, but not in the sense intended by them.) If they were indeed as sensitive as they would have us believe, the fact would have to be ascertained in some other way than through oral acknowledgment. Having to deal with them, we probably find that what they mistake in themselves for fine spiritual acumen and sensibility is something very akin to jealousy, — an ungenerous distrustfulness of nature. “ To cherish good hopes, and to believe I am loved by my friends ” —recommended by no less authority than Marcus Antoninus — is an excellent specific in these aggravated cases. Who that maintains continual bivouac, lest at some unguarded moment he fall victim to Punic faith, is a suitable candidate for any of the ingenuous offices of friendship ? He is undoubtedly too wary and suspicious (not sensitive) for his own good. The only admirable order of sensitiveness is that to which the Apostle’s definition of charity is applicable. Like that Christian virtue, it suffers long, is patient, vaunteth not itself. It has a shy " elvish face,” and is not to be met with upon the street. It so sedulously hides itself that the kindest house-mate impinges on it unawares. It has a rare aptitude for vicarious suffering, and every day immolates itself, unthanked, for some one. It supposes every one it meets to be endowed with as thin a skin as its own, and is therefore constantly on its guard to commit no cruelty. Often it absurdly overrates the tender susceptibility of others ; takes superfluous pains to direct its eye-shot well above any physical or moral imperfection of its neighbor, and in any company is always “ heading off ” the conversation, lest it range over the opinions and prejudices of those present. So vivid is its dramatic imagination that it is sometimes perilously near sympathizing with depravity, its manners becoming infected with the neighboring baseness. Then its behavior is not unlike that of Christabel, who unconsciously narrowed the eye, and repeated the vicious glance of the serpent-lady.

Genuine sensitiveness parries discovery by a variety of ingenious methods, one of which is to announce its complete imperviousness ; it bids you feel the rhinoceros rings and bosses it has put on, intending to pass them for its natural habit. To conclude, we give the deposition with which a sensitive plant lately favored us : " It is the frank and egotistic behavior I have adopted, of late years, that makes it seem easy to lay hands upon my heart and life ; but I find the device protective, and the hurts I receive are far less painful than they used to be.”

— May I be pardoned the impertinence, but I have of late taken some pains to ascertain the age of the heroine,— the heroine of the contemporary novel. Examining carefully, in several instances, the data furnished by her sponsors, I have sorted out and tabulated certain general facts. These facts show her age to be, never under twenty; rarely two-and-twenty ; usually from twenty-four to twenty-seven, twentyeight, and even there-above, giving an average of twenty-five (plus). While pursuing these numerical calculations, I am closely observing the heroine’s face. There are no “ telling lines ” upon the brow or about the eye, and her color is still faultless. It is to be noted, moreover, that she retains in her manner a wonderful measure of youthful vivacity and frankness. I am far from caviling at the happy ease and gracefulness with which she carries the weight of her years. This is as we would have it; but the singularity of the case appears, when her age is contrasted with that of her predecessor, the heroine of the old-fashioned novel. The latter is always a jeune fille, who, when the narrative of her fortunes is concluded, has scarcely more than crossed the threshold of the twenties. Rustic and unschooled, or accomplished and sophisticated; phlegmatic or piquant, timid or audacious, — whatever her temperament and behavior, she is invariably lovely and of tender age. What writer of fiction in its early days would have presented, or what reader would have accepted, a heroine who did not possess the two chief requisites, beauty and youth ? Of beauty, it is still expected the heroine shall have a certain allowance, as a pair of fine eyes or a “ sensitive mouth.” As to youth, the restriction no longer holds. Why the changed fashion ? I account for it in only one way : the metaphysical tendency of the modern novel seems to require that the character of central importance shall interest us subjectively. This character must be subtended by actual experience, ripe feeling, settled convictions, and a clever vein of casuistry. Now, as these do not consist with the idea of extreme youth, and as consistency and realism are the special jewels of the present fiction school, it follows that we have a heroine who, to say the least, is “ no longer young.” Again, conversation is, as every reader knows, an essential element of the contemporary novel ; and analysis would probably show the following ratio: Conversation, including speculative interpolation by the author, three parts ; incident, one. What, in the present exigency, were a silent or monosyllabic heroine ? The heroine is she who converses subtilely,saying far more than “meets the ear,” adroitly touching both the heights and deeps of experience. The conversation of school-girls is not wont to be of this order; hence the reigning heroine’s maturer age.