Marietta Holley

“ HOW SEREPTA CARRIED THE MEETIN’ HOUSE. Never did the year let a lovlier day slip offen his string (containin’ jest 365) than the day my pardner and me set off on our tower. Never did a brighter light rest upon a more peaceful realm and a serener wave, than that mornin’ sun a shinin’ down on our door-yard, and the crystal waters of the canal. Sweeter winds never blew out of the west, than the fresh mornin’ breeze that sort o’ hung round our bed-room winder where we was a fixin’, and gently waved the table-cloth, as Sister Doodle shook it offen the back steps. ”

“ We work by faith every day of our lives; we plant seed in the dark earth, believin’ that though the seed perishes, it will break the bands of death, and rise in greenness and bloom; though jest how it does that job you cant tell, nor I cant, nor Josiah. ”

“ No slave bound to the chariot wheels of a conqueror is so deplorable a sight as the captive of wine. His face does not shine like the face of an angel, as did a captive in the old time—but with so vacant and foolish an expression, that you can see at once that he is hopelessly bound, body, mind and soul to his conqueror’s chariot. ”

“ Think how those bloody warfares are powerful for all sorts of evils and crimes; how they turn human beins into wild beasts of prey; think how humanity, and mercy, and purity and all goodness are trod down under the feet of the great armys; and how the more ghastly army of pestilence, and disease, and crime, and want, foller on after them—a phantom host shadderin’ the land for years, mightier for evil than the army they foller. ”

“ There is help, inspiration and delight in the presence of those who are more nearly and truly related to us than if they was born on our father’s or mother’s side unbeknown to them. And friends of our soul, it would be a hard world indeed, if we could never meet each other. And I would advise Serepta as a filler of the bottle she was brought up on, and a well-wisher, to visit back and forth occasionally, at proper times and seasons, and neighbor considerable with all who might wish to neighbor, be they aliens or friends, Horns or softer material. ”

“ In lookin’ upon such a scene, another wonder awakens in me, whether Satan, who with all his faults is uncommonly intelligent, is not ashamed of his maudlin friend. Or is the consummation of glory in the next stage, where with oaths and curses a man dashes his clenched fists into the faces of his best friends, pursues imaginary serpents and fiends, thrusts his wife and children out into the cold night of mid-winter, and bars against them the doors of home. ”

“ When it is mine, when it is mother’s boy that is lyin’ murdered by this trade of death—when the cold snow has drifted down over the shinin’ curls that are every one wove into her heart strings, and the colder drifts of disgrace and shame are heaped over his memory—how does the poison look to her that has killed her darling? ”

“ They don’t want anybody to run and complain to, in the little storms of temper that sometimes darken the honeymoon. Good land! if they are let alone the little clouds will disperse of themselves. And there is another moon, what you may call the harvest moon of married life, that rises to light true married lovers on their pilgrimage. It may not be so brilliant and dazzlin’ as the honeymoon, but its light is stiddy, and calm, and mellow as anything, and it shines all the way down to the dark valley, and throws its pure light clear acrost it to the other side. ”

“ Says I, “Sunshine and air;” says I, “our house haint a big one, but it is comfortable and clean, and big enough to hold Josiah and me, and comfort, and the childern.” Says I, “My parlor looks well, everybody says it does. The carpet has got a green ground work that looks jest like moss, with clusters of leaves all scattered over it, crimson and gold colored and russet brown, that look for all the world as if they might have fell offen the maple trees out in the yard in the fall of the year. ”

“ You see the way on’t was, Loon Town is a great place for politics; lots of congressmen make it their home here summers, and so it is run down in its morals—lots of drinkin’ saloons, and other places of licenced ruination, and billiard-rooms, and so 4th—and Tom bein a bright, wide-awake lad, got kinder unstiddy for a spell. You know boys at that age take to fun and amusement as naterally as a duck takes to water; its nater, jest as much as the sun is nater or the moon, and can’t be helped any more than they can. ”

“ But there she has stood and seen the old things become new, and the new, old; the sun of knowledge go down, and the night of barbarism sweep its black shadders over her, and the sun rise up on her again, each one takin’ thousands of years, and she a mindin’ her own business, and keepin’ her affairs to herself through it all; foolin’ the hull world, and not smilin’ at it; nations runnin’ crazy with new idees, and risin’ up and crashin’ down on each other every few hundred years, and she lookin’ on with the calmness and patience of eternity wrote down on her forward. ”

“ Slidin’ down hill is fun, but you can’t slide down hill over sweet clover blows, for clover and snow don’t blow out at the same time. And you can’t have peace, and rest, and quiet of mind, at the same time with delerious enjoyment, and highlarious mirth. ”

“ And if I can’t head a army, and lead the vanguard on to glory and to victory, I can tussle with the little guerillas of wrong, that are let loose in society; I can grapple with the solitary pickets that Error sends out ahead of his army to see how the land lays, and if the enemy is asleep on a post. ”

“ I catched almost wildly at the massive table to try to save myself, and I’ll be hanged if that didn’t give way and spilte on my 300hands, as you may say; it tottled and fell right over onto me; and then I see it was made of rough shackly boards, but upholstered with a gorgeous red and yeller cotton spread, like the chair; they both looked splendid. I gathered myself up, and righted the table murmurin’ to myself, “Put not your trust in princes, nor turkey red calico, Josiah Allen’s wife; set not down upon them blindly, lest you be wearied and faint in your mind, and lame in your body.” ”

“ But instead of that, instead of throwin’ open the doors of your heart and your house to the free air of heaven, and the sunshine;—instead of keepin’ your husband’s and childern’s love and makin’ their happiness and hisen and your own life beautiful by culture, and sweet thoughts, and generous deeds; instead of liftin’ your eyes heavenward and seein’ with the eyes of your soul some divine ideal and pursuin’ after it, you have set your aim in life on a fly and chase that aim blindly, and prefer to go through life on all fours with a scrub rag. ”

“ And a wonderful conqueror is he, so weak in seeming as to hide beneath the ruby glitter of a wine cup, and yet so mighty as to fill our prisons with criminals, our asylums with lunatics—and our graveyards with graves. Mightier than Time or Death, for outstripping time, he ploughs premature furrows on the brow of manhood and alienates affection Death has no power over. ”

“ No! for pure loneliness give me the presence of an alien soul, whose thoughts can never be your thoughts, whose eyes can no more see what your eyes see than if they wore leather spectacles, whose presence weighs you down like four Nite Mairs and a half. ”

“ Why, the farm she had left to her by her uncle George, is so big that the sun don’t never go down on it; larger in dimensions than we can hardly think on with our naked minds; and all over that enormous farm of hern, the flowers turn no more constant to that sun, and that sun is no more consolin’ and inspirin’ to them flowers, than is the thought of this kind, gracious lady to them that work her farm on shares. ”

“ You have chased me round with a mop, and kinder limbered me up, so I feel like marchin’ forred nobly in the cause of Right;—and I say to you, and I say it in a friendly way,—that if there was ever any brightness to your intellect, there is dust over it now a inch thick. You twit me about lettin’ things go, and bein’ off on a tower; you say you wont let things go; in my way of thinkin’ you do let things go; you let all the beauty and brightness of life go; all the peace and enjoyment and repose of home go; all your husband’s and childern’s rest, and enjoyment, and love, and respect for you, go. ”

“ THE BABY We think, and we know—Josiah and me do—that there never was such a child before. It is only eleven weeks old but its intellect is sunthin’ wonderful to study on. It understands everything that is goin’ on jest as well as I do, and it does have such a cunnin’ look to it, and so sensible. Its eyes are big, and a goin’ to be a sort of grey brown; they have a unworldly, innocent look, sort o’ deep and dreamy, jest as if it could tell if it was a mind to, a awful sight about the world it had come from so lately. ”

“ The blackness of despair that is dark enough to veil the very heavens from innocent eyes, and make them doubt the existence of a God—who can permit a nation to make such a traffic respectable and protect it with the shadow of the law. ”

“ How the lake changes to more’n forty pictures a day, every one handsomer than the other, from the time it looks kinder blue, and hazy, and dreamy in the mornin’ twilight, till the settin’ sun makes a shinin’ path on it, that seems to lead right out into that city of golden streets. ”

“ Josiah looked as if he would sink to be accused—right there in company—of sunthin’ he never was guilty of in the world; it took him so aback that he couldn’t say another word to defend himself; he looked as mortified and sheepish as any black sheep I ever laid eyes on; and I jest stepped forred and took his part—for it madded me to see my pardner so brow-beat and imposed upon. Again Josiah says in a meachin’ way, for as mortified as he felt he seemed determined to stick to the truth, and not own up to what he wasn’t guilty of. “I haint a adult,” says he. ”

“ A desert haint to be compared to a crowd of strangers; woods can’t be compared to human bein’s for loneliness, for Nater is a friendly critter, and to them that love her, she has a hundred ways to chirk ’em up and comfort ’em. And solitude is sacred, when the world’s babble dies away, you hush your soul, and hear the footfalls of the Eternal. Hear His voice speakin’ to your heart in better thoughts, purer aspirations, nobler idees. ”

“ For a female woman to talk in public on such momentous and weighty subjects—subjects that weigh I don’t know what they wont weigh but this I know: every one will be hefty;—for a female woman to talk on those deep and perhaps awful subjects as they are a bein’ brung up, would have a dangerous tendency to make a woman feel as if she was equal to man. ”

“ Pretty, and patient, and tender-hearted, and sad, and hopeless, and half broken hearted, I could see that too; and the minute we was introduced, I jest laid holt of her and kissed her as if she had been my own girl. And Josiah kissed her too, and I was glad on it. I haint one of the jealous kind, and I know my companion is one man out of a thousand. He has perfect confidence in my behavior day and night, and I have in hisen; and oh! what a consolin’ comfort that is. Confidence is the anchor of the heart; if it holds fast and firm, what safety and rest it gives ”

“ Says I, “It haint no such thing! A man whose love is worth havin’ would think the more of ’em;” and I went on eloquently—“do you s’pose Delila, that the love of a true man,—a love that crowns a woman more royally than a queen, a love that satisfies her head and her heart and that she can trust herself to through life and death; a love that inspires her to think all goodness and purity are possible to her for its sake,—that makes her, through very happiness, more humble and tender and yet fearless, liftin’ her above all low aims and worryments ”

“ When childern was a bein’ brung up, and mortgages was abroad, my place was to home, and to home I stayed. But when liberated from these cumberin’ cares, and mortgages was flown and childern growed up; my mind was a mind that couldn’t be curbed in, when great questions was before the world: deep conundrums that has puzzled the ages waitin’ for an answer, and them answers to be worked out by individual men and wimmen, by the sweat of their brows and the might of their shoulder-blades, says I. My mind was one that worked nobly for the good of the human race, and women ”

“ Home is a Eden jest large enough to hold Adam and Eve and the family, and when a stranger enters its gate to camp down therein for life with you, a sort of a cold chill comes in with ’em. You may like ’em, and wish ’em well, and do the best you can with ’em, but you feel kinder choked up, and bound down; there is a sort of a tightness to it; you can’t for your life feel so loose and soarin’ as you did when you was alone with Josiah and the childern. ”

“ Bigotry and intolerance never was religion, Uncle Zeb, nor never will be, though they have been called so time and again; religion is sunthin’ different, it is as beautiful as they are hegus; it is gentle, full of joy and peace, pure, easily entreated, full of good works, mercy, and charity—which is love.
“It is not Samantha, but a woman on the battle-field of Right, who is a rakin’ you down with the arrers of Truth; it is a Promiscous Advisor who says to you, that you have for years been doin’ what a great many do in the name of religion ”

“ When a king was chosen in the old time to lead the people of the Lord to victory, he was consecrated by the touch of a royal hand. And it was these women, weak and tender, touched with the divine royalty of sorrow, that God chose to confound the mighty. ”