have never been any one’s husband; and a married man, because you have a
wife living; and to all intents and purposes a widower, because you have
been deprived of that wife; and a consummate ass for going off to Benicia
in the first place, while things were so mixed. And by this time I have
got myself so tangled up in the intricacies of this extraordinary case
that I shall have to give up any further attempt to advise you–I might
get confused and fail to make myself understood. I think I could take up
the argument where I left off, and by following it closely awhile,
perhaps I could prove to your satisfaction, either that you never existed
at all, or that you are dead now, and consequently don’t need the
faithless Edwitha–I think I could do that, if it would afford you any
comfort.
“ARTHUR AUGUSTUS.”–No; you are wrong; that is the proper way to throw a
brickbat or a tomahawk; but it doesn’t answer so well for a bouquet; you
will hurt somebody if you keep it up. Turn your nosegay upside down,
take it by the stems, and toss it with an upward sweep. Did you ever
pitch quoits? that is the idea. The practice of recklessly heaving
immense solid bouquets, of the general size and weight of prize cabbages,
from the dizzy altitude of the galleries, is dangerous and very
reprehensible. Now, night before last, at the Academy of Music, just
after Signorina had finished that exquisite melody, “The Last Rose of
Summer,” one of these floral pile-drivers came cleaving down through the
atmosphere of applause, and if she hadn’t deployed suddenly to the right,
it would have driven her into the floor like a shinglenail. Of course
that bouquet was well meant; but how would you like to have been the
target? A sincere compliment is always grateful to a lady, so long as
you don’t try to knock her down with it.
“YOUNG MOTHER.”–And so you think a baby is a thing of beauty and a joy
forever? Well, the idea is pleasing, but not original; every cow thinks
the same of its own calf. Perhaps the cow may not think it so elegantly,
but still she thinks it nevertheless. I honor the cow for it. We all
honor this touching maternal instinct wherever we find it, be it in the
home of luxury or in the humble cove-shed. But really, madam, when I
come to examine the matter in all its bearings, I find that the
correctness of your assertion does not assert itself in all cases.
A soiled baby, with a neglected nose, cannot be conscientiously regarded
as a thing of beauty; and inasmuch as babyhood spans but three short
years, no baby is competent to be a joy “forever.” It pains me thus to
demolish two-thirds of your pretty sentiment in a single sentence; but
the position I hold in this chair requires that I shall not permit you to
deceive and mislead the public with your plausible figures of speech.
I know a female baby, aged eighteen months, in this city, which cannot
hold out as a “joy” twenty-four hours on a stretch, let alone “forever.”
And it possesses some of the most remarkable eccentricities of character
and appetite that have ever fallen under my notice. I will set down here
a statement of this infant’s operations (conceived, planned, and earned
out by itself, and without suggestion or assistance from its mother or
any one else), during a single day; and what I shall say can be
substantiated by the sworn testimony of witnesses.
It commenced by eating one dozen large blue-mass pills, box and all; then
it fell down a flight of stairs, and arose with a blue and purple knot on
its forehead, after which it proceeded in quest of further refreshment
and amusement. It found a glass trinket ornamented with brass-work
–smashed up and ate the glass, and then swallowed the brass.
Then it drank about twenty drops of laudanum, and more than a dozen
tablespoonfuls of strong spirits of camphor. The reason why it took no
more laudanum was because there was no more to take. After this it lay