Household Papers and Stories. Гарриет Бичер-Стоу

appreciation of the woman who figured so largely in Mrs. Stowe’s early life, and the last two papers rose, as the reader will see, to the height of national memories. Mrs. Fields has preserved for us, in her Days with Mrs. Stowe, a striking record of the mingling of the great and the near in this writer’s mind. The period of which she writes is that in which The Chimney Corner series was drawing to a close:—

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      “In the autumn of 1864 she wrote: ‘I feel I need to write in these days, to keep me from thinking of things that make me dizzy and blind, and fill my eyes with tears, so that I cannot see the paper. I mean such things as are being done where our heroes are dying as Shaw died. It is not wise that all our literature should run in a rut cut through our hearts and red with our blood. I feel the need of a little gentle household merriment and talk of common things, to indulge which I have devised the following.’

      “Notwithstanding her view of the need, and her skillfully devised plans to meet it, she soon sent another epistle, showing how impossible it was to stem the current of her thought:—

      “ ‘November 29, 1864.

      “ ‘My dear Friend—

      “ ‘I have sent my New Year’s article, the result of one of those peculiar experiences which sometimes occur to us writers. I had planned an article, gay, sprightly, wholly domestic; but as I began and sketched the pleasant home and quiet fireside, an irresistible impulse wrote for me what followed—an offering of sympathy to the suffering and agonized, whose homes have forever been darkened. Many causes united at once to force on me this vision, from which generally I shrink, but which sometimes will not be denied—will make itself felt.

      “ ‘Just before I went to New York two of my earliest and most intimate friends lost their oldest sons, captains and majors—splendid fellows physically and morally, beautiful, brave, religious, uniting the courage of soldiers to the faith of martyrs—and when I went to Brooklyn it seemed as if I were hearing some such thing almost every day; and Henry, in his profession as minister, has so many letters full of imploring anguish, the cry of hearts breaking that ask help of him.’ ” …

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HOUSEHOLD PAPERS AND STORIES

       Table of Contents

HOUSE AND HOME PAPERS

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I

       THE RAVAGES OF A CARPET

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      “My dear, it’s so cheap!”

      These words were spoken by my wife, as she sat gracefully on a roll of Brussels carpet which was spread out in flowery lengths on the floor of Messrs. Ketchem & Co.

      “It’s so cheap!”

      Milton says that the love of fame is the last infirmity of noble minds. I think he had not rightly considered the subject. I believe that last infirmity is the love of getting things cheap! Understand me, now. I don’t mean the love of getting cheap things, by which one understands showy, trashy, ill-made, spurious articles, bearing certain apparent resemblances to better things. All really sensible people are quite superior to that sort of cheapness. But those fortunate accidents, which put within the power of a man things really good and valuable for half or a third of their value, what mortal virtue and resolution can withstand? My friend Brown has a genuine Murillo, the joy of his heart and the light of his eyes, but he never fails to tell you, as its crowning merit, how he bought it in South America for just nothing—how it hung smoky and deserted in the back of a counting-room, and was thrown in 2 as a makeweight to bind a bargain, and, upon being cleaned turned out a genuine Murillo; and then he takes out his cigar, and calls your attention to the points in it; he adjusts the curtain to let the sunlight fall just in the right spot; he takes you to this and the other point of view; and all this time you must confess that, in your mind as well as his, the consideration that he got all this beauty for ten dollars adds lustre to the painting. Brown has paintings there for which he paid his thousands, and, being well advised, they are worth the thousands he paid; but this ewe lamb that he got for nothing always gives him a secret exaltation in his own eyes. He seems to have credited to himself personally merit to the amount of what he should have paid for the picture. Then there is Mrs. Crœsus, at the party yesterday evening, expatiating to my wife on the surprising cheapness of her point-lace set. “Got for just nothing at all, my dear!” and a circle of admiring listeners echoes the sound. “Did you ever hear anything like it? I never heard of such a thing in my life;” and away sails Mrs. Crœsus as if she had a collar composed of all the cardinal virtues. In fact, she is buoyed up with a secret sense of merit, so that her satin slippers scarcely touch the carpet. Even I myself am fond of showing a first edition of “Paradise Lost” for which I gave a shilling in a London bookstall, and stating that I would not take a hundred dollars for it. Even I must confess there are points on which I am mortal.

      But all this while my wife sits on her roll of carpet, looking into my face for approbation, and Marianne and Jenny are pouring into my ear a running fire of “How sweet! How lovely! Just like that one of Mrs. Tweedleum’s!”

      “And she gave two dollars and seventy-five cents a yard for hers, and this is”—

      My wife here put her hand to her mouth and pronounced 3 the incredible sum in a whisper, with a species of sacred awe, common, as I have observed, to females in such interesting crises. In fact Mr. Ketchem, standing smiling and amiable by, remarked to me that really he hoped Mrs. Crowfield would not name generally what she gave for the article, for positively it was so far below the usual rate of prices that he might give offense to other customers; but this was the very last of the pattern, and they were anxious to close off the old stock, and we had always traded with them, and he had a great respect for my wife’s father, who had always traded with their firm, and so, when there were any little bargains to be thrown in any one’s way, why, he naturally, of course—And here Mr. Ketchem bowed gracefully over the yardstick to my wife, and I consented.

      Yes, I consented; but whenever I think of myself at that moment, I always am reminded, in a small way, of Adam taking the apple; and my wife, seated on that roll of carpet, has more than once suggested to my mind the classic image of Pandora opening her unlucky box. In fact, from the moment I had blandly assented to Mr. Ketchem’s remarks, and said to my wife, with a gentle air of dignity, “Well, my dear, since it suits you, I think you had better take it,” there came a load on my prophetic soul which not all the fluttering and chattering of my delighted girls and the more placid complacency of my wife could entirely dissipate. I presaged I know not what of coming woe, and all I presaged came to pass.

      In order to know just what came to pass, I must give you a view of the house and home into which this carpet was introduced.

      My wife and I were somewhat advanced housekeepers, and our dwelling was first furnished by her father, in the old-fashioned jog-trot days when furniture was made with a view to its lasting from generation to generation. Everything was strong and comfortable—heavy mahogany, 4 guiltless of the modern device of veneering, and hewed out with a square solidity which had not an idea of change. It was, so to speak, a sort of granite foundation of the household structure. Then we commenced housekeeping with the full idea that our house was a thing to be lived in, and that furniture was made to be used. That most sensible of women, Mrs. Crowfield, agreed fully with me that in our house there was to be nothing too good for ourselves—no room shut up in holiday attire to be enjoyed by strangers for three or four days in the year, while we lived in holes and corners; no best parlor from which we were to be excluded; no silver plate to be kept in the safe in the bank, and brought home only in case of a grand festival,