 CHAPTER 1 TO THE LADY FROM PHILIDELPHIA Beloved by the Peterkin family, this book is dedicated. Preface. The following papers contain the last records of the Peterkin family, who unhappily ventured to leave their native land and have never returned. Elizabeth Eliza's commonplace book has been found among the family papers and will be published here for the first time. It is evident that she foresaw that the family were ill able to contend with the commonplace struggle of life, and we may not wonder that they could not survive the unprecedented. Far away from the genial advice of friends, especially that of the lady from Philadelphia. It is feared that Mr. and Mrs. Peterkin lost their lives after leaving Tobolsk, perhaps in some vast conflagration. Agamemnon and Solomon John were probably sacrificed in some effort to join in or control the disturbances which arose in the distant places where they had established themselves. Agamemnon and Madagascar, Solomon John and Rushchuk. The little boys have merged into men in some German university, while Elizabeth Eliza must have been lost in the mazes of the Russian language. Elizabeth Eliza writes a paper. Elizabeth Eliza joined the Circumbambient Club with the idea that it would be a long time before she, a new member, would have to read a paper. She would have time to hear the other papers read and to see how it was done, and she would find it easy when her turn came. By that time she would have some ideas, and long before she would be called upon she would have leisure to sit down and write out something. But a year passed away and the time was drawing near. She had, meanwhile, devoted herself to her studies and had tried to inform herself on all subjects by way of preparation. She had consulted one of the old members of the club as to the choice of a subject. All right about anything was the answer, anything that you have been thinking of. Elizabeth Eliza was forced to say that she had not been thinking lately. She had not had time. The family had moved and there was always an excitement about something that prevented her sitting down to think. Why not write out your family adventures? Ask the old member. Elizabeth Eliza was sure her mother would think would make them too public and most of the club papers she observed had some thought in them. She preferred to find an idea. So she set herself down to the occupation of thinking. She went out on the piazza to think. She stayed in the house to think. She tried a corner of the china closet. She tried thinking in the cars and lost her pocket book. She tried it in the garden and walked into the strawberry bed. In the house and out of the house it seemed to be the same. She could not think of anything to think of. For many weeks she was seen sitting on the sofa or in the window and nobody disturbed her. She is thinking about her paper, the family would say, but she only knew that she could not think of anything. Agamemnon told her that many writers waited till the last moment when inspiration came which was much finer than anything studied. Elizabeth Eliza thought it would be terrible to wait till the last moment if the inspiration should not come. She might combine the two ways, wait till a few days before the last and then sit down and write anyhow. This would give a chance for inspiration while she would not run the risk of writing nothing. She was much discouraged. Perhaps she had better give it up. But no, everybody wrote a paper. If not now she would have to do it sometime. And at last the idea of a subject came to her. But it was as hard to find a moment to write as to think. The morning was noisy till the little boys had gone to school for they had begun again upon their regular course with the plan of taking up the study of cider in October. And after the little boys had gone to school now it was one thing, now it was another. The china closet to be cleaned or one of the neighbors in to look at the sewing machine. She tried after dinner but would fall asleep. She felt that evening would be the true time after the cares of day were over. The Peterkins had wire mosquito nets all over the house at every door and every window. They were as eager to keep out the flies as the mosquitoes. The doors were all furnished with strong springs that pulled the doors too as soon as they were opened. The little boys had practice running in and out of each door and slamming it after them. This made a good deal of noise for they had gained great success in making one door slam directly after another. And at times would keep up a running volley of artillery as they called it with the slamming of the doors. Mr. Peterkin however preferred it to the flies. Elizabeth Eliza felt she would venture to write of a summer evening with all the windows open. She seated herself one evening in the library between two large kerosene lamps with paper, pen and ink before her. It was a beautiful night with the smell of the roses coming in through the mosquito nets and just the faintest odor of kerosene by her side. She began upon her work but what was her dismay? She found herself immediately surrounded with mosquitoes. They attacked her at every point. They fell upon her hand as she moved it to the ink stand. They hovered, buzzing over her head. They planted themselves under the lace of her sleeve. If she moved her left hand to frighten them from one point another band fixed themselves upon her right hand. Not only did they flutter and sting but they sang in a heathenous manner distracting her attention as she tried to write, as she tried to waft them off. Nor was this all. Myriads of Junebugs hovered round, flung themselves into the lamps and made disagreeable funeral fires of themselves tumbling noisily on her paper in their last unpleasant agonies. Occasionally one darted with a rush toward Elizabeth Eliza's head. If there was anything Elizabeth Eliza had a terror of, it was a Junebug. She had heard that they had a tenancy to get into the hair. One had been caught in the hair of a friend of hers who had long luxuriant hair but the legs of the Junebug were caught in it like fish hooks and it had to be cut out and the Junebug was only extricated by sacrificing large masses of the flowing locks. Elizabeth Eliza flung her handkerchief over her head. Could she sacrifice what hair she had to the claims of literature? She gave a cry of dismay. The little boys rushed in a moment to the rescue. They flapped newspapers, flung sofa cushions. They offered to stand by her side with fly whisks that she might be free to write. But the struggle was too exciting for her and the flying insects seemed to increase. Moths of every description, large brown moths, small delicate white millers, whirled about her while the irritating hum of the mosquito kept on more than ever. Mr. Peterkin and the rest of the family came in to inquire about the trouble. It was discovered that each of the little boys had been standing in the opening of a wire door for some time watching to see when Elizabeth Eliza would have made her preparations and would begin to write. Countless numbers of doorbugs and winged creatures of every description had taken occasion to come in. It was found that they were in every part of the house. We might open all the blinds and screens, suggested Agamemnon, and make a vigorous onslight and drive them all out at once. I do believe there are more inside than out now, said Solomon John. The wire nets, of course, said Agamemnon, keep them in now. We might go outside, propose Solomon John, and drive in all that are left, then tomorrow morning, when they are all torpid, kill them and make collections of them. Agamemnon had a tent which he had prepared in case he should ever go to the Adirondacks, and he proposed using it for the night. The little boys were wild for this. Mrs. Peterkin thought she and Elizabeth Eliza would prefer trying to sleep in the house, but perhaps Elizabeth Eliza would go on with her paper with more comfort out of doors. A student's lamp was carried out, and she was established on the steps of the back piazza, while screens were all carefully closed to prevent the mosquitoes and insects from flying out. But it was of no use. There were, outside, still, swarms of winged creatures that plunged themselves about her, and she had not been there long before a huge miller flung himself into the lamp and put it out. She gave up for the evening. Still the paper went on. How fortunate exclaimed Elizabeth Eliza that I did not put it off till the last evening. Having once begun she persevered in it at every odd moment of the day. Agamemnon presented her with a volume of synonym, which was of great service to her. She read her paper in its various stages to Agamemnon first for his criticism, then to her father in the library, then to Mr. and Mrs. Peterkin together, next to Solomon John, and afterward to the whole family assembled. She was almost glad that the lady from Philadelphia was not in town, as she wished it to be her own unaided production. She declined all invitations for the week before the night of the club, and on the very day she kept her room with au sucret that she might save her voice. Solomon John provided her with browns bronchial trochies when the evening came, and Mrs. Peterkin advised a handkerchief over her head in case of June bugs. It was, however, a cool night. Agamemnon escorted her to the house. The club met at Anna Maria Bromwick's. No gentlemen were admitted to the regular meetings. There were what Solomon John called occasional annual meetings to which they were invited, when all the choicest papers of the year were re-read. Elizabeth Eliza was placed at the head of the room at a small table with a brilliant gas jet on one side. It was so cool the windows could be closed. Mrs. Peterkin, as a guest, sat in the front row. This was her paper as Elizabeth Eliza read it, for she frequently inserted fresh expressions. The sun. It is impossible that much can be known about it. This is why we have taken it up as a subject. We mean the sun that lights us by day and leaves us by night. In the first place it is so far off. No measuring tapes could reach it. And both the earth and the sun are moving about so that it would be difficult to adjust ladders to reach it if we could. Of course people have written about it, and there are those who have told us how many miles off it is. But it is a very large number, with a great many figures in it. And though it is taught in most, if not all, of our public schools, it is a chance if any one of the scholars remembers exactly how much it is. It is the same with its size. We cannot, as we have said, reach it by ladders to measure it. And if we did reach it, we should have no measuring tapes large enough. And those that shut up with springs are difficult to use in a high place. We are told it is true, in a great many of the school books, the size of the sun. But again very few of those who have learned the number have been able to remember it after they have recited it, even if they remembered it then. And almost all of the scholars have lost their school books or have neglected to carry them home. And so they are not able to refer to them, I mean after leaving school. I must say that is the case with me. I should say with us, though it was different. The older ones gave their school books to the younger ones who took them back to school to lose them or who have destroyed them when there were no younger ones to go to school. I should say there are such families. What I mean is the fact that in some families there are no younger children to take off the school books. But even then they are put away on upper shelves in closets or in attics and seldom found if wanted, if then dusty. Of course we all know of a class of persons called astronomers who might be able to give us information on the subject in hand and who probably do furnish what information is found in school books. It should be observed, however, that these astronomers carry on their observations always in the night. Now it is well known that the sun does not shine in the night. Indeed, that is one of the peculiarities of the night, that there is no sun to light us. So we have to go to bed as long as there is nothing else we can do without its light unless we use lamps, gas, or kerosene, which is very well for the evening. But would be expensive all night long, the same with candles. How then can we depend upon their statements, if not made from their own observation? I mean if they never saw the sun. We could not expect that astronomers should give us any valuable information with regard to the sun, which they never see. Their occupation compelling them to be up at night. It is quite likely that they never see it, for we should not expect them to sit up all day as well as all night, as under such circumstances their lives would not last long. Indeed we are told that their name is taken from the word Aster, which means star. The word is Aster no more. This doubtless means that they know more about the stars than other things. We see therefore that their knowledge is confined to the stars, and we cannot trust what they have to tell us of the sun. There are other Asters which should not be mixed up with these. We mean those growing by the wayside in the fall of the year. The astronomers from their nocturnal habits can scarcely be acquainted with them, but as it does not come within our province we will not inquire. We are left then to seek our own information about the sun, but we are met with a difficulty. To know a thing we must look at it. How can we look at the sun? It is so very bright that our eyes are dazzled and gazing upon it. We have to turn away or they would be put out. The sight I mean. It is true we might use smoked glass, but that is apt to come off on the nose. How then, if we cannot look at it, can we find out about it? The noon day would seem to be the better hour when it is the sunniest, but besides injuring the eyes it is painful to the neck to look up for a long time. It is easy to say that our examination of this heavenly body should take place at sunrise when we could look at it more on a level without having to endanger the spine. But how many people are up at sunrise? Those who get up early do so because they are compelled to and have something else to do than look at the sun. The milkman goes forth to carry the daily milk, the iceman to leave the daily ice. But either of these would be afraid of exposing their vehicles to the heating orb of day. The milkman, afraid of turning the milk, the iceman, timorous, of melting his glass. And they probably avoid those directions where they shall meet the sun's rays. The student who might inform us has been burning the midnight oil. The student is not in the mood to consider the early sun. There remains to us the evening also the leisure hour of the day. But alas our houses are not built with an adaptation to this subject. They are seldom made to look toward the sunset. A careful inquiry and close observation such as have been called for in preparation of this paper have developed the fact that not a single house in this town faces the sunset. There may be windows looking that way, but in such a case there is always a bar in between. I can testify to this from personal observations because, with my brothers, we have walked through the several streets of this town with notebooks, carefully noting every house looking upon the sunset and have found none from which the sunset could be studied. Sometimes it was the next house, sometimes a row of houses, or in its own woodhouse that stood in the way. Of course a study of the sun might be pursued out of doors, but in summer sunstroke would be likely to follow. In winter, neuralgia and cold, and how could you consult your books, your dictionaries, your encyclopedias? There seems to be no hour of the day for studying the sun. You might go to the east to see it at its rising, or to the west to gaze upon its setting, but you don't. Here Elizabeth Eliza came to a pause. She had written five different endings and had brought them all, thinking when the moment came she would choose one of them. She was pausing to select one, and inadvertently said to close the paragraph, you don't. She had not meant to use the expression which she would not have thought sufficiently imposing. It dropped out unconsciously. But it was received as a close with rapturous applause. She had read slowly, and now that the audience applauded at such a length, she had time to feel she was much exhausted and glad of an end. Why not stop there? Though there were some pages more, applause too was heard from the outside. Some of the gentlemen had come, Mr. Peterkin, Agamemnon, and Solomon John with others, and demanded admission. Since it is all over, let them in, said Anna Maria Bromwick. Elizabeth Eliza assented and rose to shake hands with her applauding friends. Butterside Down. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Marko Zinberg. Butterside Down by Edna Ferber. Story number one. The Frog and the Puddle. Anyone who has ever written for the magazines, nobody could devise more sweeping opening. It includes the Iceman, who does a humorous article on the subject of his troubles, and the neglected wife next door who journalizes, knows that a story, the scene of which is not New York, is merely junk. Take Fifth Avenue as a framework, pat it out to 5,000 words, and there you have the ideal short story. Consequently, I feel a certain timidity in confessing that I do not know Fifth Avenue from Hester Street when I see it, because I've never seen it. It has been said that from the latter to the former is a ten-year journey, from which I've gathered that they lie some miles apart. As for 42nd Street, of which musical comedians carol, I know not if it be a fashionable shopping thoroughfare or a factory district. A confession of this kind is not only good for the soul but for the editor. It saves him the trouble of turning to page two. This is a story of Chicago, which is a first cousin of New York, although the two are not on shummy terms. It is a story of that part of Chicago, which lies east of Dearborn Avenue and south of Division Street, and which may be called the Nottingham Curtin District. In the Nottingham Curtin District, every front parlor window is embellished with a rooms with or without board sign. The curtains themselves have mellowed from their original department store basement white to a rich deep tone of Chicago smoke, which has the notorious London variety beaten by several shades. Block after block, the two-story and basement houses stretch, all grimy and gritty, and looking, sadly, down upon the five-square feet of mangy grass forming the pitiful front yard of each. Now and then, the countless line of front stoops is broken by an outjetting basement delicatessen shop, but not often. The Nottingham Curtin District does not run heavily to delicacies. It is stronger on creamed cabbage and bread pudding. Up in the third floor, back at Ms. Bucks, elegant rooms $2.50 and up a week, gents preferred, Gertie was brushing her hair for the night. One hundred strokes with a bristle brush. One who reads the beauty column in the newspapers knows that. There was something heroic in the sight of Gertie brushing her hair one hundred strokes before going to bed at night. Only a woman could understand her doing it. Gertie clerked downtown on State Street in a gents' glove department. A gents' glove department requires careful dressing on the part of its clerks, and the manager, in selecting them, is particular about choosing lookers, with a special attention to figure hair and fingernails. Gertie was a looker. Providence had taken care of that, but you cannot leave your hair and fingernails to Providence. They demand coaxing with a bristle brush and an orangewood stick. Now, clerking, as Gertie would tell you, is fierce on the feet. And when your feet are tired, you are tired all over. Gertie's feet were tired every night. About eight-thirty, she longed to peel off her clothes, drop them in a heap on the floor, and tumble, unbrushed, unwashed, unmanicured into bed. She never did it. Things had been particularly trying to-night. After washing out three handkerchiefs and pasting them with practised hand over the mirror, Gertie had taken off her shoes and discovered a hole the size of a silver quarter in the heel of her left stocking. Gertie had a country-bred horror of holy stockings. She darned the hole, yawning. Her aching feet pressed against the smooth cool leg of the iron bed. That done, she had had the colossal courage to wash her face, slap cold cream on it, and push back the cuticle around her nails. Seated huddled on the side of her thin little iron bed, Gertie was brushing her hair bravely, counting the strokes somewhere in her subconscious mind, and thinking busily all the while of something else. Her brush rose, fell, swept downward, rose, fell, rhythmically. Ninety-six, ninety-seven, ninety-eight, ninety— Oh, darn it! What's the use, cried Gertie, and hurled the brush across the room with a crack. She sat looking after it with wide-staring eyes until the brush bored in with the faded red roses on the carpet. When she found it doing that, she got up, wadded her hair viciously into a hard bun in the back, instead of braiding it carefully as usual, crossed the room—it wasn't much of a trip— picked up the brush and stood looking down at it, her underlip caught between her teeth. That is the humiliating part of losing your temper and throwing things. You have to come down to picking them up, anyway. Her lips still held prisoner. Gertie tossed the brush on the bureau, fastened her nightgown at the throat with a safety pin, turned out the gas, and crawled into her bed. Perhaps the hard bun at the back of her head kept her awake. She lay there with her eyes wide open and sleepless, staring into the darkness. At midnight the kid next door came in whistling, like one unused to boarding-room rules. Gertie liked him for that. At the head of the stairs he stopped whistling and came softly into his own third floor back, just next to Gertie's. Gertie liked him for that, too. The two rooms had been one in the fashionable days of the Nottingham Curtain District, long before the advent of Miss Buck. That thrifty lady, uncoming into possession, had caused a flimsy partition to be run up, slicing the room in twain and doubling its rental. Lying there, Gertie could hear the kid next door moving about, getting ready for bed, and humming, Every little movement has a meaning of a tone. Very lightly, under his breath, he polished his shoes briskly, and Gertie smiled there in the darkness of her own room in sympathy. Poor kid, he had his beauty struggles, too. Gertie had never seen the kid next door, although he'd come four months ago, but she knew he wasn't a grouch because he alternately whistled and sang off key tenor while dressing in the morning. She had also discovered that his bed must run along the same wall against which her bed was pushed. Gertie told herself that there was something almost immodest about being able to hear him breathing as he slept. He had tumbled into bed with a little grunt of weariness. Gertie lay there another hour, staring into the darkness. Then she began to cry softly, lying on her face with her head between her arms. The cold cream and the salt tears mingled and formed a slippery paste. Gertie wept on because she couldn't help it. The longer she wept, the more difficult her sobs became until finally they bordered on the hysterical. They filled her lungs until they ached and reached her throat with a force that jerked her head back. WAP WAP WAP sounded sharply from the head of her bed. Gertie stopped sobbing and her heart stopped beating. She lay tense and still, listening. Everyone knows that Spooks wrap three times at the head of one's bed. It's a regular high sign with them. WAP WAP WAP Gertie's skin became goose flesh and cold water effects chased up and down her spine. What's your trouble in there? Demanded an unspooky voice so near that Gertie jumped. Sick? It was the kid next door. N-no, I'm not sick. Felted Gertie, her mouth close to the wall. Just then a belated sob that had stopped halfway when the wraps began hustled on to join its sisters. It took Gertie by surprise and brought prompt response from the other side of the wall. I'll bet I scared you green. I didn't mean to, but on the square, if you're feeling sick, a little nip of brandy will set you up. Excuse my mentioning it, girly, but I do the same for my sister. I hate like sin to hear a woman suffer like that. In any way, I don't know whether you're 14 or 40, so it's perfectly respectable. I'll get the bottle and leave it outside your door. No, you don't," answered Gertie in a hollow voice, praying, meanwhile, that the woman in the room below might be sleeping. I'm not sick. Honestly, I'm not. I'm just as much obliged, and I'm dead sorry I woke you up with my blubbering. I started out with a soft pedal on, but things got away from me. Can you hear me? Like a phonograph? Sure you couldn't use a sip of brandy where it do the most good? Sure. Well, then, cut out the weeps and get your beauty sleep, kid. He ain't worth sobbing over anyway, believe me. He, snorted Gertie indignantly, you're cold. There was never anything in pegged tops that could make me carry on like the heroine of the Elsie series. Lost your job? No such luck. Well, then, what in Sam Hill could make a woman lonesome, snapped Gertie. And the floor walker got fresh today, and I found two gray hairs tonight, and I give my next week's pay envelope to hear the double click that our front gate gives back home. Back home? Echoed the kid next door in a dangerously loud voice. Say, I want to talk to you. If you'll promise you won't get sore and think I'm fresh, I'll ask you a favor. Slip on a kimono, and we'll sneak down to the front stoop and talk it over. I'm as wide awake as a chorus girl, and twice as hungry. I've got two apples and a box of crackers. Are you on? Gertie snickered. It isn't done in our best sets, but I'm on. I've got a can of sardines and an orange. I'll be ready in six minutes. She was, too. She wiped off the cold cream and salt tears with a dry towel, did her hair in a schoolgirl braid, and tied it with a big bow, and dressed herself in a black skirt and a baby blue dressing sack. The kid next door was waiting outside in the hall. His gray sweater covered a multitude of sartorial deficiencies. Gertie stared at him, and he stared at Gertie in the sickly blue light of the boarding-house hall. And it took her one half of one second to discover that she liked his mouth and his eyes, and the way his hair was must. Why, you're only a kid! whispered the kid next door in surprise. Gertie smothered a laugh. You're not the first man that's been deceived by a pigtail braid and a baby blue waist. I could locate those two gray hairs for you with my eyes shut and my feet in a sack. Come on, boy, these Robert W. Chalmer situations make me nervous. Many earnest young writers with a flow of adjectives and a passion for detail have attempted to describe the quiet of a great city at night when a few million people within it are sleeping or ought to be. They work in the clang of a distant owl-car and the roar of an occasional L-train and the hollow echo of the footsteps of the late passer-by. They go elaborately into description and are strong on the brooding hush, but the thing has never been done satisfactorily. Gertie, sitting on the front stoop at two in the morning, with her orange in one hand and the sardine can in the other, put it this way. If I was to hear a cricket chirp now, I'd screech. This isn't really quiet. It's like waiting for a cannon-cracker to go off just before the fuse is burned down. The bang isn't there yet, but you hear it a hundred times in your mind before it happens. My name's Augustus G. Eddy, announced the kid next door solemnly. Back home they always called me Gus. You peel that orange while I unroll the top of the sardine can. I'm guilty of having interrupted you in the middle of what the girls call a good grie, and I know you'll have to get it out of your system some way. Take a bite of apple and then wade right in and tell me what you're doing in this burg if you don't like it. Saying ought to have slow music, began Gertie. It's pathetic. I came to Chicago from Beloit, Wisconsin because I thought that little town was a lonesome hole for a vivacious creature like me. Lonesome. Listen while I laugh, a low, mirthless laugh. I didn't know anything about the three-ply, double-barreled, extra-heavy brand of loneliness that a big town like this can deal out. Talk about your desert wastes. People and snug compared to this. I know three-fourths of the people in Beloit, Wisconsin, by their first names. I've lived here six months, and I'm not on informal terms with anybody, except Teddy, the landlady's dog. And he's a trained rat and book agent, terrier, not inclined to over-friendliness. When I clerked at the enterprise store in Beloit, the women used to come in and ask for something we didn't carry, just for an excuse to copy the way these yolk effects were planned in my shirt wastes. You ought to see the way those same shirt wastes stack up here. My boy, the lingerie wastes that the other girls in my department wear make my best hand-talked effort look like a simple English country blouse. They're so dripping with Irish crochet and real Val and Clooney insertions, it's a wonder the girls don't get stoop-shouldered carrying them around. Hold on a minute, commanded Gus. This thing is uncanny. Our case is dovetail like the deductions in a detective's story. Kneel here at my feet, little daughter, and I'll tell you the story of my sad young life. I'm no child of city streets, either. Say, I came to this town because I thought there was a bigger field for me in gents furnishings. Choke, what? But Gertie didn't smile. She gazed up at Gus, and Gus gazed down at her, and his fingers fiddled absently at the end of her braid. And isn't there? asked Gertie sympathetically. Girlie, I haven't saved twelve dollars since I came. I'm no tight-wad, and I don't believe in packing everything away into a white marble mausoleum. But still, a gink kind of whispers to himself that some day he'll be furnishing up a kitchen pantry of his own. Oh! said Gertie. And let me mention in passing continued Gus, winding the ribbon bow around his finger, that in the last hour or so that whispers been swelling to a shout. Oh! said Gertie again. You said it. But I couldn't buy a second-hand gas stove with what I've saved in the last half year here. Back home they used to think I was a regular little village John drew. I was so dressy. But here I look like a yokel on circus day compared to the other fellows in the store. All they need is a field glass strung over their shoulder to make them look like a clothing ad of a popular magazine. Say, girly, you've got the prettiest hair I've seen since I blew in here. Look at that braid, thick as a rope. That's no relation to the piles of juke that the flossies hear stack on their heads. And shines like satin. It ought to, said Gertrude wearily. I brush at a hundred strokes every night. Sometimes I'm so beep that I fall asleep with my brush in the air. The manager won't stand for any romping curls and hooks and eyes that don't connect. Keeps me so busy being beautiful and what the society writers call well-groomed that I don't have time to sew the buttons on my under clothes. But don't you get some amusement in the evening, marveled Gus? What was the matter with you and the other girls in the store? Can't you hit it off? Me? No, I guess I was too woodsy for them. I went out with them a couple of times. I guess they're nice girls, all right. But you call a broader way of looking at things than I have. Living in a little town all your life makes you narrow. These girls? Well, maybe I'll get educated up to their plane some day, but no, you don't, hissed Gus, not if I can help it. But you can't, replied Gertrude sweetly. My, ain't this a grand night? Evenings like this I used to love to putter around the yard after supper, sprinkling the grass and weeding the radishes. I'm the greatest kid to fool around with a hose and flowers. Say, they just grow for me. Y'all to have seen my pansies in Nestorium's last summer. The fingers of the kid next door wandered until they found Gerties. They clasped them. This thing just points one way, little one. It's as plain as a path leading up to a cozy little three room flat up here on the north side somewhere. See it? With me and you married, and playing at housekeeping in a parlor and bedroom and kitchen, and both of us going downtown to work in the morning, just the same as we do now. Only not the same, either. Wake up, little boy, said Gertie, prying her fingers away from those other detaining ones. I'd fit into a three room flat like a whale in a kitchen sink. I'm going back to Beloit, Wisconsin. I've learned my lesson all right. There's a fellow there waiting for me. I used to think he was too slow, but, say, he's got the nicest little painting and paper-hanging business you ever saw in making money. He's the secretary of the KPs back home. They give some swell little dances during the winter, especially for the married members. In five years we'll own our own home with a vegetable garden in the back. I'm a little frog, and it's me for the puddle. Gus stood up slowly, Gertie felt a little pang of compunction when she saw what a boy he was. I don't know when I've enjoyed a talk like this. I've heard about these daunties, but I never thought I'd go to one. She said, Good night, girly. Interrupted Gus abruptly. It's the dreamless couch for mine. We've got a big sail on in ten and black seconds tomorrow. End of Story One The Frog in the Puddle in Buttered Side Down Chapter One of the Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe Compied from her letters and journals by her son Giles Edward Stowe. This is a LibriVox recording, all LibriVox recording in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Maya Helen Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe Compied from her letters and journals by her son Giles Edward Stowe. Chapter One Childhood, 1811-1824 Death of her mother First journey from home Life at Nutt Plains School days and hours with favourite authors The new mother Lechfield Academy in its influence First literary efforts A remarkable composition Ghost to Huttford Harriet Beecher Stowe was born June 14th, 1811 in the characteristic New England Tile Richfield Corn. Her father was the Rev. Dr. Lyman Beecher A distinguished, cavernistic divine. Her mother rose and food His first wife The little new Cormor was ushered into a household of happy, healthy children and found five brothers and sister awaiting her. The eldest was Catherine Born September 6th, 1800 Following her were two study boys William and Edward then Kamari, then Jog and at last Harriet. Another little Harriet Born three years before had died when only one month old and the fourth daughter was named In memory of the sister Harriet Elizabeth Beecher Just two years after Harriet was born in the same month another brother, Henry Word was welcomed to the family circle and after him come Charles the last of Rosenbeecher's children The first memorable incident of Harriet's life was the death of her mother which occurred when she was four years old and whichever afterwards were meant with her as the tenderest, saddest and most sacred memory of her childhood Mrs Doe's recollections of her mother are found in a letter to her brother Charles afterwards published in the autobiography and correspondence of Lyman Beecher She says I was between three and four years of age when our mother died and my personal recollections of her are therefore but few but the deep interest and veneration that she inspired in all who knew her was such that during all my childhood I were constantly hearing her spoken of and from one friend or another some incident or anecdote of her life was constantly being impressed upon me Mother was one of those strong, restful yet widely sympathetic natures in whom all around sympathised comforts and repose The communion between her and my father was a peculiar one It was an intimacy throughout the whole range of their being There was no human mind in whose decisions he had great to confidence Both intellectually and morally he regarded her as the better and stronger portion of himself and I remember hearing him say that after her death his first sensation was a sort of terror like that of a child certainly shut out alone in the dark In my old childhood only two incidents of my mother twinkle like rays through the darkness one was of our all running and dancing out before her from the nursery to the sitting room once above morning and her pleasant voice saying after us remembers it's our birthday to keep it highly tuned Another remembrance is this Mother was an enthusiastic, horiculturist in all the small ways that limited men's allowed Her brother John in New York had just sent her a small parcel of five tulip books I remember rummaging these out of an obscure corner of the nursery one day when she was gone out and being strongly seized with the idea that they were good to it Using all the little English I then possessed to this way my brothers that these were Ornians such as wrong people ate and would be very nice for us So we fell to and devoured the whole and I recollect being somewhat disappointed in the art switch's taste and thinking that Ornians was not so nice as I had supposed The mother's serene face appeared at the nursery door and we all ran towards her telling with one voice of our discovery and achievement we had found a bug of Ornians and had eaten them all up Also, I remember that there was not even a momentary expression of impatience but that she sat down and said My dear children what you have done makes Mama very sorry Those were not Ornians but roots of beautiful flowers and if you have left them alone we should have next summer in the garden great beautiful red and yellow flowers such as you never saw I remember how drooping and dispirited we all grew at this picture and how suddenly we got at the empty paper bar Then I have a recollection of her draining a route to the children Miss Edgeworth's Frank which had just come out I believe and was exciting a good deal of attention among the educational circles of Lichfield After that came a time when everyone said she was sick She used to be permitted to go once a day into her room where she sat bolstered up in bed I have a vision of a very fair face with a bright red spot on each cheek and a quiet smile I remember dreaming one night that Mama had got well and of waking with loud transports of joy that were hushed down by someone who came into the room My dream was indeed a true one She was forever well Then came the funeral Harry was too little to go I can see his golden curls and little black frock as a frolic in the sun like kitten full of ignoring joy I recollect the morning dresses the tears of the older children the walking to the funeral ground and somebody speaking at the grave then all was closed and were little ones they were so confused asked where she was gone and would she never come back They told us at one time that she had been led in the ground and at another that she had gone to heaven Then upon Henry putting his two things together resolved to take through the ground and go to heaven to fight her for being a discovered under Sister Catherine's window one morning digging with great zeal and earnestness told to him to know what he was doing lifting his curly head he answered with great simplicity Why? I'm going to heaven to fight Mama Although our mother's bodily presence that's disappeared from our circle I think her memory and example had more influence in mourning her family into tearing from evil and exciting to good than the leaving presence of many mothers It was a memory that met us everywhere for every person in a town from the highest to the lowest seems to have been so impressed by her character and life that they constantly reflected some portion of it back upon us The past section Uncle Tom where Augustine Sainte Claire describes his mother's influence is a simple reproduction of my old mother's influence as it has always been felt in her family of his diseased wife Dr. Beecher said few women had attend to more remarkable piety her faith was strong and her prayer prevailing it was her wish that all her sons should devote themselves to the ministry and to it she consecrated them with fervent prayer her prayers had been heard all her sons had been converted and are now a queen to her wish the sisters of the Christ Such was Rosenbeecher whose influence upon her four-year-old daughter was strong enough to mourn the whole afterlife of the author of Uncle Tom Cabin After the mother's death the Litchfield home was such a sad, lonely place for the child that her aunt Harriet Foote took her away for a long visit at her grandmother's at Nutplands near Guidefort, Corn the first journey from home the little one had ever made of this visit Mrs. Stowe herself says among my earliest recollections are those of a visit to Nutplands immediately after my mother's death Aunt Harriet Foote, who was with mother during all her last sickness took me home to stay with her at the close of what seems to me a long day's ride we'll ride after dog at a lonely little white farmhouse and what ushered into a latchpala where a cheerful wood fire was crackling I was placed in the arms of an old lady who held me close and what silently a thing at which I marveled for my great loss was already faded from my childish mind I remember being put to bed by my aunt in a latch room on one side of which stood the bed appropriated to her and me and on the other side of my grandmother my aunt Harriet's was no common character a more energetic human being never undertook the education of a child her ideas of education were those of a vigorous English woman of the old school she believed in a church and had she been born in that regime would have believed in the King Stoutley although being of the generation following the revolution she was not less stanched supporter of the decoration of independence according to her views the two girls were to be taught to move very gently to speak subtly and practically to say yes ma'am and no ma'am never to tear their clothes to sew, to meet at regular hours to go to church on Sunday and make all the responses and to come home and be cut to ties during these catechizing she used to place my little cousin Marie and myself bold upright at her knee while plaque dinner and Harry the bowed boy arranged acts of respectful distance behind us for aunt Harriet always impressed that upon her servants to offer themselves lowly and reverently to all the betters a portion of the church catechism that always pleased me particularly when applied to them as ensured they're calling me Miss Harriet and treating me with a degree of consideration such as I never enjoyed in the more democratic circle at home I become proficient in the church catechism and gave my aunt great satisfaction by the old fashioned gravity and steadiness with which I learned to repeat it as my father was a congregational minister I believe aunt Harriet though the highest of high church women felt some scrub pose as to whether it was desirable that my religious education should be entirely out of the sphere of my birth therefore when this catechetical exercise was finished she would say now news you have to learn another catechism because your father is a Presbyterian minister and then she would indeed be to make me commit to memory the assembly catechism at this lengthening of exercise I secretly murmured I was rather pleased at the first question in the church catechism which is certainly quite on a level of any chance understanding what is your name it was such an easy good start I could say it's so loud and clear and I was accustomed to compare it with the first question in Brimer what is the chef and the man as vastly more difficult for me to answer in fact the two of my aunts secret and belief and my all childish impatience of too much catechism the matter was indefinitely postponed after a few ineffectual times and I was overjoyed to hear her announce privately to grandmother that she thought it would be time enough for Harriet to learn the Presbyterian catechism when she went home mingled with the superabundance of catechism and plentiful little way of child was treated to copies extracts from Lowe's Eiser Buchanan's researchers in Asia Bishop Heber's life and Dr. Johnson's works which after her Bible Embraer book were her grandmother's favourite reading Harriet does not seem to have fully appreciated these but she did enjoy her grandmother's comments upon their biblical readings among the evangelists especially worth the old lady perfectly at home and her idea of each of the apostles was so distinct and dramatic that she spoke of them as her familiar acquaintances she would for instance always smile indulgently at Peter's remarks and say there he is again now that she's like Peter he's always so ready to put in it must have been during this winter's bend amid such surroundings that Harriet began committing to memory that wonderful assortment of hymns, poems and scriptural passages from which in after years she quoted so readily and effectively for a sister Catherine inviting her the following November says Harriet is a very good girl she has been to school all the summer and has learned to read very fluently she has committed to memory 27 hymns and two long chapters in the Bible she has a remarkably retentive memory and will make a very good scholar at this time the child was five years old and a regular attendant at Mount Kilbourne's school on West Street to which she walked every day hand in hand with her chubby rosy face bare-fitted four-year-old brother Henry Ward with the ability to read germinated the intense victorily longing that was to be hers for life in those days that few books was specially repaired for children and at six years of age we find a little girl hungryly searching for mental food amidst barrels of old sermons and pamphlets stored in a corner of a garret Harriet sims to her with some thousands of the most deletable things an appeal on unlawfulness of a man marrying his wife's sister turned up in every barrow she investigated by twos or threes or dozens to a soul dispaired of fighting an end at last her patience shetch was rewarded for at the very bottom of a barrow of mustard sermons she discovered an ancient volume of the Arabian Nights this her fortune was made for in these most fascinating of fairy tales the imaginative child discovered a wellspring of joy that was all her own when things went astray with her when her brothers stopped it off on long discussions refusing to take her with them when any of the childers saw her she had only to curl herself up in some snuck corner and sell forth on her bit of enchanted carpet into furrow land to forget all her grits in recalling her old childlike Mr. Stowe among all the things describes her father's library and gives a vivid bit of her old experiences within its walls she says high above all the noise of the house this room had to meet the air of a refuge and a sanctuary its walls were set frowned from floor to ceiling friendly quiet phases of books and there stood my father's great writing chair a one arm of which lay open always his crudence concordance and his bible here I loved to retreat and niche myself down in a quiet corner with my favourite books around me I had a kind of sheltered feeling as I thus sat and watched my father writing turning to his books and speaking from time to time a loud honest whisper I vaguely felt that he was about some holy and mysterious work quite beyond my little comprehension and I was careful never to disturb him with question or remark the books range around filled me too with a solemn awe on the lower shelves were enormous folios on whose backs I spelled in black letters light fit opera a title word I wondered considering the bunk of volumes above these, gripped along in friendly, social rows were bicks of all sorts size and bindings the titers of which I had read so often that I knew them by heart there were bell sermons bonus enquiries burgesses, top lady on predestination bolstern fourfold state law series car and other works of that kind over wistfully day after day without even a hope of getting something interesting out of him the thoughts that father could read and understand things like these filled me with a vague awe and I wonder if I would ever be old enough to know what it's all about but there was one of my father's books that proved a mind of wealth to me it was a happy hour when he brought home and set up in his bookcase Copter Martha's Malaria a new edition of two volumes what wonderful stories those stories too about my old country stories that made me feel very proud I chalked on to be consecrated by some special dealing with God's providence in continuing these reminiscences Mrs. Doe describes as follows her sensations upon first hearing the declaration of independence I had never heard it before and even now had but a vague idea of what was meant by some parts of it still I got it enough from the recital of the abusers and injuries that had driven my nation to this cause to feel myself swelling with indignation and ready with all my little mind and strength to upload the concluding passage which Conno Tamage rendered with resounding majesty I was as ready as any of them to pledge my life for fortune and sacred honour for such a cause the heroic elements were strong in me having a calm down by ordinary generation from a long lie of Puritan ancestry and just now it made me long to do something I knew not what to fight for my country or to make some declaration on my all account when Harriet was nearly 60 years old her father murdered as a second wife Harriet Potter a portland main and Mrs. Doe thus describes her new mother I slept in the nursery with my two younger brothers we knew that father was gone away somewhere on a journey and were expected home therefore the sound of a bustle in a house the more easily awoke us as Father came into our room our new mother followed him she was very fair with bright blue eyes and soft urban hair bowed well with a black velvet bundle then to us she seemed very beautiful never did step mother make a breath to her or sweet to impression the morning falling her arrival we looked at her with awe she seemed to us so fair so delicate so elegant that we were almost afraid to go near her we must have appeared to her as rough, red-faced contradictory, honest obedient and bashful she was peculiarly dainty and neat in all her ways and arrangements and I used to feel breezy rough and rude in her presence in her religion she was distinguished for a most unfonturing Christ worship she was of a type noble but severe naturally hard, correct, exact and exacting with intense natural and moral clarity. Had it not been that Dr. Payson had set up and kept for her a tender, human loving Christ she would have been only a conscious to speak it this image however gave softness and warmth to her religious life and I have since noticed how her Christ enthusiasm has sprung up in the hearts of all her children. In writing to her old home of her first impressions of her new one she just says it is a very lovely family and with heartfelt gratitude I observed how cheerful and healthy they were the sentiment is greatly increased since I perceive them to be of agreeable habits and some of them of uncommon intellect this new mother proved to be indeed all that the name implies to her husband's children and never did they have occasion to coer ought over than blessed here finds a new baby brother Federick by name added to the family at this time too we catch a characteristic glimpse of Harriet in one of her sister Catherine's letters. She says last week we interred John Jr with funeral owners by the side of all Tom of Happy Memory. Our Harriet is Chef Mona always at stepbrunneros. She asked for what she called an epithet for the lifestyle of Tom Jr which it gave as follows here lies our kit who had a feet and acted queer short with a gun her race is run and she lies here in June 1820 little Frederick died from a scarlet fever and Harriet was seized with a violent attack of the same direct disease but after a severe struggle recovered following her happy hearty drive life we find her chomping through the words or going on fishing excursions with her brothers sitting thoughtfully in a father's study listening eagerly to the animated theological discussions of the day visiting her grandmother at Nuts Blends and figuring as one of the brightest scholars in the Lichfield Academy taught by Mr. John Brace and Miss Harris when she was 11 years old her brother Edward wrote of her Harriet writs everything she can lay hands on and sores and knits diligently at this time she was no longer the youngest girl of the family for another sister Isabella had been born in 1822 this event served greatly to mature her as she was entrusted with much of the care of the baby after school hours but not however allowed to interfere in any way with her studies and under the skillful direction of her beloved teachers she seemed to absorb knowledge with every sense she herself writes much of the training and inspiration of my early days consisted not in the things that I was supposed to be studying but in hearing while I sat there and noticed at my desk there from hour to hour I listened with eager ears to historical criticisms and discussions or to recitations in such works as Paris Morrow philosophy Blair's rhetoric a lesson on taste all full of most awakening suggestions to my thoughts Mr. Brace excited all teachers I ever knew in the faculty of teaching composition the constant excitement in which he kept the minds of peoples the wide and varied regions of thought into which she let them formed a preparation for conversation the men requisite for which is to have something which one feels interested to say can the immortality of the soul be proved otherwise of nature it has just been concluded by the philosophers of every age that the proper study of mankind and its nature and composition both physical and mental have been subject to the most critical examination in the cause of these researchers many have been at the lot to account for the change which takes place in the body at the time of death by some it has been attributed to the flight of its tenons and by others to its final annihilation the questions what becomes of the soul at the time of death whether it be not annihilated what is its destiny after death are those which from the interest that we all feel in them will probably encross universal attention in pursuing these inquiries it will be an accessory to divest ourselves of all that knowledge which we have obtained from the light which revelation has shed over them and place ourselves in the same position as the philosophers of past ages when considering the same subject the first argument which has been advanced to prove the immortality of the soul is drawn from the nature of the mind its own it has said the supporters of this theory no conversation of hearts and therefore as there are no particles is not susceptible of divisibility and cannot be acted upon by decay and therefore if it were not decay it will exist forever now because the mind is not susceptible of decay effected on the ordinary way by a gradual separation of particles a thought no proof that the same omnipotent power which created it cannot by a not a simple exertion of power again reduce it to nothing the only reason for belief which this argument of thought is that the soul cannot be acted upon by decay but it does not prove that it cannot destroy its existence therefore for the validity of this argument it must either be proved that the greater has not the power to restore it or that he has not the will but as neither of these can be established our immortality is left dependent on the pleasure of the re-greater but it is said that it is evidence that the greater desired the soul for immortality or he would never have greater it so essentially different from the body for had they both been desired for the same end they would both have been greater alike as there would have been no object informing them otherwise this only proves that the soul and body had not the same destinations now of what these destinations are we know nothing and after much use this reasoning we return well began our argument depending upon the good pleasure of the greater and here it is said that being of such infinite wisdom and benevolence as that of which the greater is possessed would not have formed a man with such vast capacities and balanced desires and would have given him no opportunity for exercising them in order to establish the validity of this argument it is a accessory to prove for the lives of nature that the greater benevolence which being practicable is of itself sufficient to render the argument invalid but the argument proceeds upon the supposition that to destroy the soul would be unwise now this is a reasoning that all wise before the tribunal of his subjects to answer for the mistakes in his government can we look into the counsel of the unsuchable and see what means are made to answer their ends we do not know but the destruction of the soul may in the government of God be made to answer such a purpose but its existence would be contrary to the text of wisdom the great desire of the soul for immortality its secrets in its horror of annihilation has been brought to prove its immortality but do we always find this horror of its desire is it not much more evidence that the great majority of mankind have no such jet at all true that there is a strong feeling of horror excited by the idea of perishing from the earth and being forgotten of losing all those honors and all that fame awaited them many feel the secret horror when we look down upon the veil of fertility and reflect that though now the idols of the world so all which will be left of them will be the common portion of mankind oblivion but this dread does not arise from any idea of a destiny beyond the tomb and even with this true it would afford no proof that the mind would exist forever merely from its strong desires for its mind with as much correctness be argued that the body will exist forever because we have a great dread of dying and upon this principle nothing which we strongly die would ever be withheld from us and no evil that will greatly dread will ever come upon us a principle evidently false again it has been said that a constant progression of the powers of the mind affords another proof of its immortality concerning this other some remarks were human soul ever thus at a stand in their equitment will have faculties to be full and long and incapable of further enlargement to imagine that she might fall away insensibly and drop at once into a state of annihilation but kind will believe the thinking being that is in a perpetual regression of improvements and traveling on from perfection after having just looked abroad into the works of her greater and made a few discoveries of its infinite wisdom and goodness must perish at her first setting out and in the very beginning of her inquiries in answer to this it might be said that the soul is not always progressing in her powers is it not rather a subject of general remark but those brilliant tones which in youth expand and manhood become stationary and in all age gradually sink to decay till when the ancient man descends to the tomb scares a wreck of that one's powerful mind remains who but upon reading the history of England does not look with all upon the effects produced by the talents of her Elizabeth who but amised that undaunted firmness in time of peace and that profiled death in policy which she displayed in the cabinet yet behold the tragical end that this learned this politic princess behold the triumphs of age and sickness over her once powerful talents and say not that the faculties of man are always progressing in their powers from the activity of the mind at the hour of death has also been deduced at immortality but it is not true that the mind is always active at the time of death we far recorded in history numberless instances of those talents which were once adequate to the governments of a nation being so weakened and pulsed by the touch of sickness as scallies to tell to beholders what they once were the talents of the statement the wisdom of the sage the courage and might of the warrior are instantly destroyed by it and all that remains of them is the waste of idiocy or the madness of insanity some minds they are who at the time of death pretend their faculties very much impaired and if the arguments be valid these are the only cases where immortality is conferred again it is urged that the inequality of rewards and punishments in this world demand another in which virtue may be rewarded and vice punished this argument in the first place takes for its foundation that by the light of nature the distinction between virtue and vice can be discovered by some this is absolutely disbelieved and by all conceded at extremely doubtful and secondly it puts the creator under an obligation to reward and punish the actions of its creatures no such obligation exists and therefore the argument cannot be valid and this opposes the creator to be a being of justice which cannot by the light of nature be brewed and as the whole argument rests upon this foundation it certainly cannot be correct this argument also directly impitches the wisdom of the creator for the sense of it is this that for as much as he was not able to manage his governments in this world he must have another in which to rectify the mistakes and oversize of this and what an idea would this give us of our all wise creator it is also said that all nations have some conceptions of a future state that the asian greeks and romans believed in it that no nation has been found but have possessed some idea of a future state of existence but the believer raised more from the fact that they wished it to be sovereign from any real creator for arguments appear much more plausible when the mind wishes to be convinced but it is said that every nation however certain stands possess some idea of a future state we may account by the fact that it was handed down by tradition from the time of the flood from all these arguments which however plausible at first sight have failed to be foretold may be argued the necessity of a revelation without it the destiny of the noblest of the words of God would have been left in obscurity never till the blessed rites of the gospel dawned on the borders of the pits and the horrors of the cross proclaimed on earth and good will to me was it that bewildered and misled man was enabled to treat as celestial or asian and glorious destiny the son of the gospel has dispelled the darkness that has rested on objects beyond the tomb in the gospel man learned that when the dust will turn to dust the spirit fled to the god who gave it he there thought that though man has lost the image of his divine creator he is still destined after this earthly house of his tabernacle is dissolved to an inheritance incorruptible undefiled and that they's not away to a house not made with hands internal in the heavens soon after the writing of this remarkable conversation Harriet's shy life in Lichfield come to an end for that same year she went to Hartford to pursue her studies in a school which had been recently published by her sister Catherine in that city end of chapter one recording by my Helen comment and review by Charlotte Perkins Gilman this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org read by Betsy Bush November 2009 comment and review by Charlotte Perkins Gilman published in the forerunner volume two number six the new Machiavelli by H.G. Wells Dufffield and Company New York a dollar thirty five net in times past when an unusual woman showed marked capacity in some line of human service all were quick to see and point out with scorn or pity the feminine limitations of her work it was done like a woman they said it was womanish it was to be grudgingly measured as good for a woman if good at all now we are beginning to use something of the opposite point of view in regard to men's achievements and we need it constantly in considering the work of Mr. H.G. Wells the masculine limitations of this author are marked and persistent he sees life wholly from the side of sex his sex and when in this last book he frankly announces himself feminist it is only sex in women which he sees and for which he demands social recognition of course it is difficult for a man to overcome this bias more so than for a woman yet many great men have been able to do it Mr. Wells has not note this record of masculine emotion and conduct its morbid excesses blasting and otherwise valuable life indeed several of them yet discussed with naive solemnity as if it was all in the necessary order of nature the book tells of a boy somewhat unfortunate in birth and breeding as most of us are growing up to keen minded speculation on human life its pressing needs and problems yet in all this wide sociological interest totally oblivious to such a predominating social question as the woman's movement the girl he passes in the street who stirs his boyish sensations the woman of his frankly told experiences the woman he marries I suppose it was because I had so great a need of such help as her whiteness proffered he says I wanted a woman to save me and the next one with whom he overwhelmingly falls in love these are real to him and one other mercilessly caricatured these impress him but the change in social relation of thousands does not impress him the work is powerful and clear the view of the present confusion of methods especially in the rearing of young people is vividly appealing but the criticisms of political life show a strange lack of adjustment in eyes that see so far to be in the immediate workings of the political department of the social body must necessarily be confusing the social philosopher can see an ordered procession of changes for centuries ahead but the politician must introduce those changes to be kept with some heat the worst thing about this book is the spirit of personal enmity it reveals the Dante-esque consigning of enemies to the hell of the wickedly clever characterization little London where everybody who is anybody knows everybody else buzzed madly over the book this is pitiful work if there was no personal animus in this bitter ridicule it shows sheer malice if there was a personal ground it implicates the author with his creation most painfully Mr. Wells is easily among the first of those who are kindled with the social consciousness and able to spread the light and heat of it to others his work is extremely able though irregular and with his unrivaled imagination wide scientific knowledge in highly developed art he ought to be one of the prime movers of the world today but here enter the disabilities of sex not only as in this tale is a man's political life ruined by open scandal but the artist, scientist, and publicist is cut off from highest usefulness by this constant limitation in a publication whose popularity proves its knowledge of the prevailing tastes of the man in the street has been running a story most pleasing and absorbing to that man with passionate eagerness he read it from week to week discussed it with his friends commented sagely on its floored philosophy this story is the grain of dust by the late David Graham Phillips it is a man's story utterly masculine from start to finish with women only thrown in as a background the vain and shallow fiance the vain and shallow sister the vain and shallow girl who served as a grain of dust to stop the action of the hero's works not that she had power even to do that the power was all in him it isn't the woman who makes a fool of the man, said Norman it's the man who makes a fool of himself the most amusing feature of the book is this the ultra male hero vain beyond belief brutally self-confident unprincipled as a fish indifferent to any interests but his own self-indulgent to a degree which would have made him a shameful wreck in five years had not the author endowed him with a magic opportunity to all excesses and first last and always the ceaseless mouthpiece of an egotism unmeasured and unashamed this man dwells continually on the vanity and egotism of women because a girl the effect of whose marvelous ever-changing beauty forms the subject matter of the story thinks she is beautiful therefore she is a monument of the egotism of her sex because another girl whom this lovable hero was about to marry beauty money and position and who was somewhat in love with him really expected him to love her really resented his loving another woman while relentlessly going on to marry her for business purposes and really recognized in herself the beauty wealth and position he was marrying her for she was another monument of feminine egotism it would seem on the face of it that if one wished to write a book to establish the utter incapacity selfishness and vanity of women one would choose a type of that sort and surround her with the effective contrast of useful noble modest and unselfish men such a woman so exhibited should exert her arts in vain upon these noble characters in this story however we have for our heroine a quiet lovely girl efficient and devoted as a daughter self-supporting and self-respecting under long temptation finally choosing to marry her chief pursuer even without love preferring his wealth and professed devotion to long poverty and possible failure and shame a deed at worst no more to be condemned than his earlier attempt his wealth by the way was non-existent when he married her he deliberately deceived her in this and his love vanished on the morning after thereafter he treats her as an upper servant whose only business and life is to minister to his personal comfort whose only claim on him was for support and in her new efforts to please him forgetting that she had done the work of a house for years and cared tenderly for an absent minded father while at the same time earning her living at distasteful labor he is at great pains to show her pitifully inefficient and never more than moderately successful and we can never ask the author if this book was really meant as a satire on men the players of London written by Louise Beecher Chancellor decorated by Harry B. Matthews published by B. W. Dodge company New York 1909 this is not a new book in the strict publisher sense but it is an extremely attractive one with its binding of lilac and gold its profuse inner trimmings of lilac and vivid illuminations in black and white the story is a simple one of the days of good queen best with no less a person for the hero than master William Shakespeare and for the heroine the first woman to appear on the English stage it does seem strange indeed for Romeo and Juliet to be written with the expectation of some lads taking the part of that passionate young heroine but this appears to be what Shakespeare did how he was misled in the manner for what noble purpose and to what poor end is shown in this old world tale end of comment and review by Charlotte Perkins Gilman Venuses Dove this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by Abigail Bartels Venuses Dove by Lydia Maria Child in old heathen times on the shore of the Adriatic lived a little girl whose greatest pleasure was to wander by the side of the lonely sea she liked better to sit on a high rock with the spray just tossing against her feet than to play with her village companions who laughed at her for her wild ways and asked her if she were the child of Neptune and if she dwelt in a shell palace under the water although they knew very well that old Minos, the fisherman was her father and that she lived in a little hut just above the line of seaweed which the highest tides leave upon the beach one day Ida roamed far along the beach amusing herself making deep footprints in the sand which the rising tide quickly filled when at last she came upon a high wall of rock too steep to climb yet looking as if a pleasant bay beyond she scrambled along the rock slippery with seaweed until she could peep round into a great cave before which was a little beach of smooth white sand with dark frowning rocks all around except where the sea broke gently in upon it in the darkness of the cave an old woman leaned over a book its brilliant cover attracted Ida who half in fear stole near and near treading so softly in the sand that her footsteps could not be heard and at last seated herself in the shadow by the old woman and listened to the wonderful stories which she read in a low murmuring voice high upon Olympus on his golden throne the blue sky shines above him in a round stand the immortals and then mingled with the sound of the ways came songs from Apollo's lyre and descriptions of Bacchus drawn by his soft footed leopards of Venus and her snowy doves of fawns and nymphs and wondrous people of whom Ida had never before heard she listened until the sun set and night darkened upon the waters then slowly retraced her way home thinking every cloud that floated above her might be a messenger from Olympus and that every fleck of foam was perhaps the little white hand of a narrate sporting amid the waves in vain came her cousin Lara the next morning to ask her to go in quest of crabs and sea urchins with the other children Ida went off alone on another quest the old woman sat in the cave with the morning sun glancing upon her silver hair and upon a most beautiful picture to which she had just turned now Ida was an affectionate child she loved her father although she but seldom saw him as he was out upon the sea for weeks at a time and she loved her Aunt Lydian and her cousins and all who were kind to her yet she could not but see that Apollo with his golden lyre and flashing eyes had something more glorious in him than she had ever seen in her father even on the day when he came smiling home bringing the largest fish he had ever caught and Minerva's helmet was certainly more splendid than the piece of cloth Aunt Lydian wore on her head and cupids with fluttering wings were much prettier than her little brown armed cousins without any so she forgot all her old friends and day and night her dreams were full of lofty forms with golden hair and faces like the noonday sun and being an affectionate child she liked to do something for those she loved she began to fancy what she could do for these unknown immortals of whom she dreamed the old woman had retreated into the depth of the cave with her ida did not venture to follow her and she would sit just within it gazing through its dark arch upon the wide waters and wondering if the bright sunbeams which pierced through the clouds and slanted far down upon the distant sea were not stairs by which she might ascend to Olympus then she would think of the boat her father made for her of the ivory tusks he once bought from a far off land of the pile of shells she had herself collected all very valuable to her but she doubted a little whether they would be much valued upon Olympus and she could not go with her without some offering worthy of the immortals one day she found upon the shore a shell curved like a beautiful vase ah this is just the thing she exclaimed I will fill it with honey there is nothing so delicious as honey even the immortals must like that and away she went deep into a wooded dell where the stores of the wild bee were hidden how she found her way to Olympus is known only to herself I believe she first climbed some rocks then a cloud then sprang over a rainbow bridge and at last scaled a long sunbeam which led her straight to the marble steps of Jupiter's high throne how joyfully she mounted sometimes looking up to marvel at the height of the steps which seemed to ascend into the very sky sometimes looking down at her little shell of honey thinking how brightly it shone like pure gold how she would see with it at last she stood upon the summit of Olympus and with timid step walked through the circle of gazing immortals until she came before the throne of Jupiter there she knelt to lift the shell vase and honey nectar to his sceptred hand but trembled so much that she spilt the honey on his jeweled footstool it seemed as if she beheld at once every face in that grand assembly Jupiter apparently did not notice her but Juno fixed her haughty gaze upon her Apollo shot a glance of scorn Minerva frowned Venus turned away her head Bacchus looked annoyed Mercury smiled and poor little Ida covering her face with her apron fled through the great hall and down the marble steps on the very lowest one she sat down with her feet in a cloud and wept most bitterly soon she heard a fluttering in the air and Iris glanced by and vanished in the cloud presently she returned bringing with her a little girl whom Ida had often seen frolicking among the other children a sunny-haired, rosy-cheeked child named Hivi the various romp in the village Ida had always thought her a foolish little thing because she was always playing about like a kitten and never came to the seashore to listen to the winds and to see the great waves roll in and now, here she was ascending the marble stairs with her white feet and rosy smile and rainbow colors from the wings of Iris glittering all around her Ida knew by the crystal vase she bore that Hivi was to serve the immortals and she longed to peep in and see how they would receive her but she feared the haughty gaze of Juno and the scornful glance of Apollo so, bearing her face in her hands she remained weeping on the step after a long while she heard a light motion beside her and looking up saw the beautiful eyes of Psyche looking gently down upon her ah, little girl she said you were sadly awkward I pitied you very much for I know what it is for immortal to stand among the immortals I could never have been here if I had not been brought by love but I also loved them sobbed Ida Psyche smiled a little yes, my child you were dazzled by their beauty and thought you could fly up hither on the first morning breeze but no the gods are not easily approached weary were the works I had to perform before I could be admitted although led by Ida and no also that all who enter must come with fair foreheads and serene eyes you are a wee thing with sad shy eyes and then those dusty feet of yours Jupiter would never like to have those treading upon his golden floors it is useless to sit weeping here Minerva will order you off if she finds you she has care of the steps you had better go back to your village and learn how to spin with your mother but I have no mother cried Ida and my father is always outfishing if I go among the children they will only laugh at me because I told them such grand stories about the immortals and left their plays to wander alone on the shore and how can I go back to seaweed and rocks again after having had a glimpse of this golden Olympus I wish I were only a little brown leaf and she wept more and more as if her very heart would break Psyche looked thoughtfully at her a while and then said would you like to be one of the doves of Venus oh yes exclaimed Ida her eyes brightening but remember you will have to obey her every fancy and fly far and wide her jeweled car is not light nor does she drive with gentle rain but Ida with clasped hands and treated that she might become one of Venus's doves so Psyche kissed her tearful face and she was changed into a dove with soft bright eyes dainty red feet and her breast white as the sea foam she flew into the circle of immortals and none recognized in her the little stumbling girl that mercury who merely smiled to himself and was too good nature to reveal the secret Venus was much pleased to see a new shining dove fluttering at her feet and immediately harnessed it to her car with delicate hands and flew far over land and sea whether the little dove Ida found Venus in her winged car a weary burden to draw I cannot tell you but sometime you may yourself and then you will know all about it end of Venus's dove by Lydia Maria Child on November night this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by Abigail Bartels on November night on November night by Sarah Teesdale there see the line of lights a chain of stars down either side the street why can't you lift the chain and give it to me a necklace for my throat I twist it round and you could play with it you smile at me as though I were a little dreamy child behind whose eyes the fairies live and see the people on the street look up at us all envious we are a king and queen our royal carriage is a motor bus we watch our subjects with haughty joy how still you are have you been hard at work and are you tired tonight it is so long since I have seen you four whole days I think my heart is crowded full of foolish things like early flowers and an April medal and I must give them to you all of them before they fade the people I have met the play I saw the trivial shifting things that loom too big or shrink too little shadows that hurry gesturing along the wall haunting or gay and yet they all grow real and take their proper size here in my heart when you have seen them there's the plaza now a lake of light tonight it almost seems that all the lights are gathering in your eyes drawn somehow toward you see the open park lying beneath us with a million lamps scattered in wise disorder like the stars we look down on them as God must look down on constellations floating under him tangled in clouds come then and let us walk since we have reached a park it is our garden all black and bloomless this winter night in April with us you and I we set the whole world on the trail of spring I think that every path we ever took has marked our footprints in mysterious fire delicate gold that only fairies see when they wake up at dawn in hollow tree trunks and come out on the drowsy park they look along the empty paths and say oh here they went and here and here and here come see here is their bench hands and let us dance about it in a windy ring and make a circle round it only they can cross when they come back again look at the lake do you remember how we watched the swans that night in late October while they slept swans must have stately dreams I think but now the lake bears only thin reflected lights that shake a little how I long to take one from the cold black water cold to give you in your hand and see and see there is a star deep in the lake a star oh dimmer than a pearl if you stoop down your hand could almost reach it up to me there was a new frail yellow moon tonight I wish you could have had it for a cup with stars like dew to fill it to the brim how cold it is even the lights are cold they have put shawls of fog around them see what if the air should grow so dimly white that we would lose our way along the paths made new by walls of moving mist receding the more we follow what a silver night that was our bench the time you said to me the long new poem but how different now how eerie with the curtain of fog making it strange to all the friendly trees there is no wind and yet great curving scrolls of themselves ever changing in the mist walk on a little let me stand here watching to see you too grown strange to me and far I used to wonder how the park would be if one night we could have it all alone no lovers with close arm encircled wastes to whisper and break in upon our dreams and now we have it every wish comes true we are alone now we see world even the stars have gone we too alone end of a November night