Caper-Sauce: A Volume of Chit-Chat about Men, Women, and Things.

Bearing Trouble. – There are persons who emerge from every affliction and trouble and vexation, purified like fine gold from out the furnace. There are others, and they are the more numerous, who are imbittered and soured, and made despondent and apathetic. We think the latter belong to the class who try to stand alone during these storms of life, instead of looking above for aid. When one can truly say, "He doeth all things well," the sting is taken out of affliction, the tears are dried, and the courage given to bear what the future has in store. This, we think, makes the great difference between these two classes.

THE SIN OF BEING SICK

I wish women could be made to understand the importance of flannel under-clothing, and warm outer-clothing, and common-sense generally in food and exercise, when they talk about longing to have a "profession" or a "career." Not that good health should not always be a sort of religion with them; but they should remember that what failings soever men may have, as a general thing they are not such fools as to shiver in insufficient clothing when other may be had, or to go with wet or cold feet, because thick stockings "fill up the boot," or reject thick-soled boots because they make the feet look a size or two larger. They do not, either, think it attractive to bare their throats and necks to a biting wind in the street, thus inviting a blue nose and the pitying contempt of every beholder. Woman's great foe, "headache," is surely invited and perpetuated by these follies, even if no worse punishment follows. "I am so shivery all over!" you will hear these silly creatures exclaim, and the red and white located in the wrong spots in their faces attest the truth of it. One would think that, as a matter upon which their much-valued good looks depend, they would "consider their ways, and be wise;" but no. After this they come in and call for some "hot, strong tea." Tea! that woman's dram! morning, noon, and night. It makes her "feel like another being," she says. I'm sure it makes her act like one. This lasts an hour, perhaps; then she has such a "gnawing at her stomach." Then follows depression after the exhilaration. Then she eats nothing, because she has "no appetite." Then – another cup of tea, to "set her up," as she calls it.

I should like to see such a woman having any "career," except fitting herself speedily for a lunatic asylum. Such a course is reprehensible and suicidal enough, when good food is at hand and enough of it, and the women who practise it have money enough to pay a doctor to come and see them, and tell them lies, and give them nice messes to make believe cure them. But unfortunately our working girls and women, who have only a hospital bed to look forward to when sick, go on after the same crazy fashion. There is some shadow of excuse with them for their intemperate use of tea; the horrible fare of their boarding-places being so unpalatable and disgusting, and their long hours of labor so exhaustive and discouraging that this stimulant has become seemingly necessary to their existence – the one bit of comfort and luxury that they look forward to with eagerness in the interval of work. "I can't do without it," said a young shop-girl to me, when I remonstrated with her on its use, morning, noon, and night. "I couldn't do my work without it." And how did she spend the wages received for "her work"? In a flimsy, showy dress; in a gay hat; in a fashionable pair of boots with high heels. Meantime she had no flannel; she had no thick boots; she had no warm outer garments; she had nothing to insure either health or comfort, and she was in the same alternatives of exhilaration and depression as her richer sisters of whom I have spoken. I don't know why, either, that I should call them "richer," except that they could have a rosewood coffin with silver nails, and be buried in a fashionable cemetery, while the working-girl would have a pine one, and sleep her long sleep in the Potter's Field. Oh, dear! I see all these abuses, and I exclaim, Oh, the rare and priceless blessings of good health and common-sense! How I wish that every clergyman in our land – only that I know that in many cases they are as great sinners themselves in the matter of health – would preach on the sin of being sick.

Now there's a topic for those of them who have the face to speak of it, and a clear conscience to bear them out in it. For those of them who don't sit in their libraries smoking till you can't see across it, when they should be knocking about in the open air, cultivating a breezy, sunny, healthful state of mind and body – just the same as if they were laymen, instead of "ministers," whom the devil desires, of all things, to see solemn and dyspeptic.

I lately read an article in one of our papers headed, "Have we a Healthy Woman among us?" I fully indorse what the writer says as to the marvellous amount of invalidism among our girls and women, and I deplore it as sincerely as he does. But let us have fair play on this subject. If there are few of them who ever ought to be wives and mothers, I ask, how much better qualified – physiologically speaking – are the young men of the present day to be husbands and fathers? Go to any physician of large practice and experience, and if he answers you frankly and truthfully, you will learn that it is six of one and half a dozen of the other. When boys of eight and twelve go to school with a satchel in one hand and a cigar in the other, I wouldn't give much for their future vitality, even without leaving a margin for other violations of the laws of health. It would be well, while publicly deploring "tight lacing" and "tight shoes" for girls, privately to inquire about the practice of smoking for boys in short-jackets. To be sure, I cannot see with what face a father, who is himself a bond-slave to this habit, can ask his boy to refrain from doing that which he, as a man, has not had self-control enough to accomplish. But don't let him then write or speak dolefully about the miserable ill-health of our girls and women, not, at least, till he moves out of his own "glass-house." If the truthful inscriptions were placed upon the myriad little graves in our cemeteries, it would be fathers, not mothers, in many cases, who could not read them without pangs of remorse.

The day will, I hope, come, when the marriage question will cease to be decided by Cupid or cupidity; when parents, and lovers, themselves, will consider a sound, healthy body to be of primary importance. Oh! the weary years of watching and dosing and misery for two, consequent upon the neglect of this precaution! Oh! the army of puny and idiotic children, doomed, if they live to adult years, to be a blight in themselves and to all around them! And how distressing is it to see a wife, made gloriously as a woman should be, with a broad chest, a free, firm, graceful step and a beaming face, married to a man whose only claim to be a living being is, that he has not yet ceased to breathe! And still as mournful is it, to look at a kingly man, whose very presence is so full of life that it is like stepping from a close room into the glad, free, balmy sunshine even to come where he is, married to a little pink-eyed, feeble dwarf of a creature, with little paws like a bird's, and not life enough left even to chirp to him.

"Well, what are you going to do about it?" as the pre-Raphaelite friend asked of a disconsolate widow who kept on crying for her dead husband.

That's just the point where I want to bring you, my reader. I want you individually to look first for good health in the chosen wife who is to be the mother of your children. And you, young girl, look first for that rarity, a clean bill of health, with your future husband. A brown-stone house and a carriage and livery are nothing to it. Take my advice. Don't take copper for gold on the health question, and don't give it.

ARE MINISTERS SERFS?

We hear a great outcry occasionally about "ministers who work outside of their profession," as it is called – that is, in the lecture field, or in writing newspaper or magazine articles for pay, or in editing newspapers; and this although the ministers thus censured are faithful to their pastoral duties, and bring forth every Sunday, and during the week, fresh, vigorous thoughts for the profit and pleasure of these complainers.

Now in our view this is a great impertinence.

Suppose a clergyman has a decrepit mother or sister, whose only pecuniary reliance is himself? Suppose he is not willing, from delicacy toward them, to turn his family affairs inside out, and explain why he does this "outside work," which may enable him to meet this or some similar outside demand? Is it properly anybody's business? If he do not defraud his parish, have they any right to hold a coroner's inquest over his "outside" earnings and their possible appropriation? How would his deacons or church-members stand such a scrutiny over their own private affairs? We think that the "old Adam" in them would soon rear and plunge at it. Well, ministers are men too, though you sometimes seem to forget it; and they don't like it either. The parish has not purchased their souls, as I understand it, no more than have husbands those of their wives. Let us hope, in this enlightened age, that neither are serfs. Let us hope that all ministers, and all wives too, all over the land, may honestly and innocently earn money, and keep it in a private purse too, without accounting to either the parish or their husbands for the expenditure of the same; or without, in either case, causing unfounded suspicion or breach of the peace, or officious meddling, no more, in my opinion, to be justified, than as if the "boot was on the other foot," where Mrs. Grundy would consider it a great wrong to place it, or to insist upon its being worn, regardless of the limping or contortions of the wearers.

Before either parishes or husbands complain of outside honest earnings, let them inquire if the salaries they give are just and ample. Let them both inquire whether the objection they have to outside earning in both cases, does not mainly arise from the fear that the curious public will imagine that they are not.

Of course, in saying all this, I am referring to those clergymen and those married women who are sensible and judicious, as well as blessed with ability, and it is my opinion that Mrs. Grundy has meddled long enough with the proper independence and self-respect of both.

One thing I've forgotten, namely, parishes are not to suppose that an increase of a clergyman's salary is to padlock his lips afterward, if he is requested, or if he feels inclined, to deliver his sentiments, even "for pay," on the platform, as well as in the pulpit they have called him to fill. Nor after that, are they to handcuff him either, lest he should write a line "for pay" in a paper or magazine? In short, do try to be willing that your "minister" should stand up straight like any other man, and not go cringing round the world a bought serf, with his "white choker" for a badge of the same. I'm sick of seeing it. If I were a minister, it would take all the religion I could muster to keep me from saying wicked words about it.

"Our minister was away six weeks this summer," said a person complainingly, the other day. Well, are not ministers human? Must they not eat, drink, rest, sleep, sorrow and grieve, like other mortals? Have they not, in addition to all this, a constant and exhaustive demand upon their sympathies for the griefs of other people? And must they not constantly be racking their brains, in and out of the pulpit, to have all their words set fitly, like "apples of gold in pictures of silver"? And is it not better that a minister should rest "six weeks" than be laid useless upon the shelf for six months, or that his voice should be silenced forever because of the exactions of the unthinking portion of his hearers? And would it not be well if the persons thus complaining spent the time instead in looking to it that they had profited by what they had already heard?

Whatever else you grudge, never grudge a good, faithful minister a breathing spell.

BLAMING PROVIDENCE FOR OUR OWN FAULTS

Napoleon is said to have lost a battle on account of an underdone leg of mutton. Now, there are many who, shaking their heads, would say, it was "an overruling Providence." I have to smile sometimes at poor "Providence" – that convenient scapegoat for all the human stupidity extant; – who kills little babies, and puts a tombstone over young girls who should have lived to be the healthy mothers of healthy sons and daughters. This "All-wise Providence," who, as some would have us believe, is malignantly and perpetually employed in tripping up the heels of human beings for the benefit of the undertaker – what a convenient theology for bad cooks, for unwise school-teachers, for selfish, careless, ignorant parents!

Now "Providence" does no such things. Providence approves of live, fat, rollicking babies; of deep-chested women; of round, healthy girls; of muscular men; and sound physical specimens of every kind. Bless you —he don't bend spines, nor make drunkards, nor thieves, nor write a shameful history on the pure brow of any woman who ever has or ever shall live; he don't ordain perpendicular ghosts of ministers, to defile sepulchrally through creation, and scare people into heaven. He don't smile on those suicidal mothers, who run breathlessly round and round the nursery treadmill, thinking they are doing God service, till they drop dead in the harness, and leave eight or nine children motherless, at an age when they most need maternal guidance. He don't manufacture scrofulous constitutions out of unwholesome food, and bad ventilation, and dissipated habits. It is not one of the ten commandments that babies should be taught Greek and Latin before they have cut their teeth, that they may become idiots before maturity; or that school-boys should smoke pipes and cigars; or that school-girls should drink strong coffee for breakfast, and eat rich pastry and pickles for luncheon. It is high time that people shouldered their own sins, and called things by their right names, and told the truth at funerals, and on tombstones, if they must say anything there. In my opinion, an "All-wise and inscrutable Providence" has borne quite blasphemy enough in this way.

A CHAPTER ON NURSES

Can anybody tell why nurses are fat? Is there anything in the atmosphere of a sick room, or in the sight of phials, pills, leeches, potions, blisters, and plasters to give one an appetite? I solemnly affirm that I never saw a bony nurse – never. There's a horrid mystery about it which I have in vain tried to solve. With what a lazy waddle they roll round the apartment, and how your flesh creeps as they fix their unsympathizing eyes upon you; you are so sure that they had just as lief bring you your shroud as a clean nightcap; that it is quite immaterial to them whether the next thing that comes through the door is a bowl of gruel or your coffin; in fact, that they would be immensely gratified if you'd hurry up your dying, and let them off to the pleasurable excitement of a new subject.

And then that professional sniffle when a visitor asks, "How is your patient, nurse?" It is a poor satisfaction, to make faces at her under the sheet, as she answers; but I have done it; I shouldn't be surprised now, if you thought that was unamiable. Ah! you never had her twitch down the curtain over a lovely sunset, that was soothing you like a cool hand on your forehead, and light a little, nasty "nurse-lamp," merely because she knew you hadn't strength enough to say, "Please don't." A nurse-lamp! that you have contemplated night after night in the silent, dreary watches, till it seemed like an evil eye, glimmering and glowing, fascinating you in spite of yourself, till the perspiration stood in cold drops on your forehead, while the watch went "tick," "tick," and the fat, old nurse snored away, and each nerve in your body seemed a separate and more perfect engine of torture. No wonder you hate to see her unnecessarily shorten the daylight and repeat the horror. But she'll do it; of course she'll do it. If you had not wanted her to, you should have told her that of all sublunary things, you fancied a night-lamp. Now I leave it to you, if, after that and kindred crucifixions of momentary occurrence, you could stand that pious sniffle with which she answers the question, "How is your patient, nurse?"

And then, if she wouldn't be so excruciatingly officious at such a time, one might swallow one's disgust. If, when a visitor comes in, she wouldn't twitch your pillow from under your head, just as you are knowing your first comfortable moment, and giving it a shake and a pat, thrust it under your head again, forcing your chin down into your breastbone, and half dislocating your neck, just to show them how attentive she is; if she wouldn't strip down the blanket, or pile on a dozen quilts, when you are just the right temperature, for the same reason, I think it would be more jolly. Then if, after all that, she wouldn't stand, and keep standing, so near the corner of your mouth, that you couldn't call her some "rantankerous" name by way of relief; though, at another time, when you were dying for a glass of water, she'd leave you all alone and take half an hour to get it; if she wouldn't do all these things; but she will. She grows fat on thwarting her patients: I know it. Of course, if your strength equalled your disgust, you wouldn't be thwarted; you'd obstinately persist in admiring everything she did, though she should comb your hair with a red-hot poker, but being sick and babyish, one can only whimper; and there is where they have us.

"Ill-natured article." Well, suppose it is an ill-natured article? Am I to be the only saint in the world? Am I to pussy-cat round a subject, and never show my claws, or stick up my back, when I catch sight of the enemy! I cry you mercy; in that case I should have been devoured long ago. Beside, wasn't the handle broken off a lovely little porcelain "gift cup" this morning? and isn't it raining cats and dogs, though I must go out? and are not these as good reasons for making somebody uncomfortable as you had, Sir, or you, Madam, for that little thing you did or said this morning to some poor soul in your power, who couldn't resent it? Please get out of your own glass-house before you throw stones at mine.

"But there are good, kind nurses." Well, I am glad to hear it. Upon my soul, I believe it. Since you say so, and I have had my growl out, I think I remember two or three. They'll go to heaven, of course. What more do you want?

A Reasonable Being. – If there's anything I hate, it is "a reasonable being." Says the lazy mother to her restless child whom she has imprisoned within doors and whose active mind seeks solutions of passing remarks, "Don't bother, Tommy; do be reasonable, and not tease with your questions." Says the husband to his sick or overtasked wife, when she cries from mere mental or physical exhaustion, "How I hate tears; do be a reasonable being." Says the conservative father to his son, whom he would force into some profession or employment for which nature has utterly disqualified him, "Are you wiser than your father? do be a reasonable being." Says the mother to sweet sixteen, whom she would marry to a sixty-five-year old money-bag, "Think what a thing it is to have a fine establishment; do be a reasonable being."

As near as I can get at it, to be a reasonable being, is to laugh when your heart aches; it is to give confidence and receive none; it is faithfully to keep your own promises, and never mind such a trifle as having promises broken to you. It is never to have or to promulgate a dissenting opinion. It is either to be born a fool, or in lack of that to become a hypocrite, trying to become a "reasonable being."

DO AMERICAN WOMEN LOVE NATURE?

I read an article in The Nation the other day, in which the writer deplores "that American women are not lovers of Nature." Now, sins enough both of omission and commission are laid to their charge, without adding to the list those that are baseless. "American women not lovers of Nature!" Where does the writer keep his eyes, that he does not see, even here in the city, in mid-winter, the parlor-windows of almost every house he passes, decorated by the American ladies who preside over it, with hanging baskets of flowering plants, with ivies and geraniums tastefully arranged, besides bouquets of fresh-cut flowers always upon the mantel? Even the humblest house will have its cracked pitcher filled with green moss; as if unwilling to do without that little suggestion of Nature, although the fingers which tend it are coarse with washing, or sewing on shirts at six cents apiece. Did the writer never notice the "American women" going up and down Broadway? How impossible it is for them to resist stopping at the street corners to invest a few pennies in the little fragrant bunch of pansies or tuberoses, for private delectation, and the adornment of their own pretty rooms at home! Then, too, I am a great haunter of green-houses and florists' shops generally; whom, by the way, I consider in the light of missionaries in this work-a-day world, to educate and stimulate our artistic propensities, by the various and beautiful arrangements of form and color, in their floral offerings; and I find there plenty of "American women" enthusiastic in their praises and lavish in their expenditures in this direction. Many of them are flowers themselves, bright, beautiful, lovely, beyond all the buds and sprays and tinted leaves they hover over, like so many humming-birds.

Then, again, when I go into the country each summer, I find "American ladies" rambling in the woods, with a keen appreciation of Nature in all its varied forms, from a lovely sunrise to the last faint chirp of the sleepiest little bird who is safely nestled for the night in his leafy little home. I meet them too in the odorous warm autumn noons, with branches and garlands of gay-tinted leaves, so embarrassed with their wealth of richness that they cannot carry more, and yet unwilling to leave so many "real beauties" still trembling, unplucked, on the boughs above them. I see them taking infinite pains to press these bright leaves in books prepared for the purpose, that they may beautify their homes for the cold winter days. Sometimes the result of this painstaking is seen in the form of an ingenious lamp-shade, far more beautiful than one could purchase for any amount of money. Then, again, it will be in the leafy frame for a favorite picture; then again in a vase, the grouping of branches and tints in such perfect taste, that the most trained artistic eye could find no flaw or blemish.

Now, with all due deference to The Nation, in which this article appeared, I beg leave most emphatically to express a difference in opinion; the more so as this increasing interest in floral decorations, particularly those of the parlor windows, has been a matter of great congratulation with me; since the latter gives pleasure to many a passer-by who has neither the means nor time to spend in aught save the bare necessities of life. How many times I have seen some ragged little shivering child stand, spell-bound, before some sunlit window, gay with blossoming plants, and forgetting for the time the dirt and chill and squalor of her own wretched home! How many times the weary seamstress, resting her bundle upon the fence outside, while her eyes drank in their freshness! How many times the laboring man, with his little child beside him, have I seen, as he raised him upon his shoulder to "see the pretty flowers." And this is principally why I rejoice that American women do love Nature. Those people who stop to look from the outside, are being educated the while to the beautiful, quite unknown to themselves; and these ladies are providing them this pleasure without cost.

I was very much struck, while in Newport last summer, with the educating effect of the superb floral decorations about the villas of the wealthy in that place; for no house there, how humble soever, but had its little emulative patch of bright flowers, or its climbing vines, or its window bouquet. No, no; The Nation must have been taking a Rip Van Winkle nap, I think, when it made this unfounded charge against "American Women."