Part 11 (1/2)
Every wife from Maine to Florida knows that. I tell you they expect too much from women and their watches, and it's high ”time” they knew it, and got used to having both run like fury one minute, and stand still the next.
Will people who attend lectures and concerts cease drumming with their fingers on the back of seats, or with canes or feet on the floor, till the services begin? One cannot help remarking, in such vicinity, how few persons are really well-bred. Dress certainly is no indication of it, judged by this rule. If a tattoo must be performed, why not go out in the lobby or vestibule, and have the war-dance out? This thing has come to be such an intolerable nuisance, that the paradoxical regulation, ”No _gentlemen_ are allowed to smoke in the ladies'
cabin,” may as well be imitated by--”No _gentleman_, in a concert or lecture-room, is allowed to drum on the back of a lady's chair before, or after, or during the entertainment.”
”_MY DOCTOR._”
You have one, of course; and of course he never opens his mouth without dropping pearls. (I hope the printer will not print this last word _pills_.) _Your_ doctor believes in flannel next the skin, all the year round. Mrs. Jones' doctor, who ”knows much more than your doctor,” thinks that a person of discretion may occasionally, in the dog-days, lay flannel on the shelf and no coffin be imminent. _Your_ doctor says that young children's necks and shoulders should always be covered, even in warm weather. Mrs. Smith's doctor, who, she says, ”stands at the head of his profession” says that is all nonsense, and that children should go through a toughening process, which will render changes of temperature harmless. _Your_ doctor advises you never to cross the street, or go down-stairs, unless accompanied by quinine. Mrs. Smith's doctor tells her if she wants poison she had better get ratsbane, and then she will know what she is swallowing.
Now each of you believe that ”_my_ doctor” is infallible; that is a great comfort to you, and very satisfactory to them, especially pocket-wise. ”My doctor” hasn't dealt with women so long, and failed to see their blind side. He knows what ”brutes” husbands are, and how like flints they will oppose the sea-sh.o.r.e, merely because their wives want to go there. What is the use of ”my doctor,” unless he comforts you under this affliction, and declares that to be the only place where you can regain your lost appet.i.te? No wonder you like him; no wonder life is a blank to you when his carriage is not before your door. There is healing in the very sight of his beard and moustache; and how much handsomer they are than the ”brute's.” Ah! had you met ”my doctor” years ago, you say; not stopping to reflect, that in that case he would have been attending women who paid fees, and left you, his wife, to some medical friend for pills and consolation. It is better as it is, you see. Well, it _is_ comforting ”that he understands you better than anybody else, and seems to know just what you want.” And then he shows such an absorbing interest in your symptoms, that you almost feel cured by his sympathy alone, before you swallow a single powder; and, since my ears are out of your reach, I will remark, that well you may, when, half the time, nothing in the world ails you but the want of some absorbing occupation or interest.
Colored water and bread pills are safe prescriptions for that complaint; meantime it wont hurt the ”brute” to pay for the wear and tear of the doctor's carriage in coming and going. If ”my doctor”
laughs in his sleeve, occasionally, when he thinks what funny creatures women are, you are none the wiser or the angrier for it. He don't dislike, after all, their little cuddlesome, trusting, confiding ways; possibly not so much as his wife does, whose acquaintance you had better not make. As I before remarked, his medical friends can take care of her; it is no business of yours, her disgusting ails and aches.
But what a thing it is when ”my doctor” was also ”_ma's doctor_”! If he don't know all the ins and outs, then ”may the divel fly away wid--him!”
The moral of all this is, that ”my doctor's” life is not without its consolations, and the most astonis.h.i.+ng part of it is, that husbands are so blear-eyed to this subject. It wont harm them to hint that in sympathy and courteousness they had better not present too sharp a contrast to ”my doctor.”
_A WOMAN AT A LECTURE._
If you want to see a woman act more like a goose than she need, watch her when she enters a place of public performance, where the seats are at the mercy of first-comers. Notice her profound survey of the situation, as she stands, preceding her John, who is supposed to know nothing about such things, poised on one foot, while she measures distances, drafts, and acoustics with the eye of a connoisseur. Now she decides! At last she swoops down on _the_ seat in all the house which she prefers. John follows, with the shawl and family umbrella.
He faintly suggests the possible obstruction of a pillar between the seat she has chosen and the speaker, but he follows. Directly she is seated, and the shawl and umbrella located without inconvenience to themselves, or infringement of the comfort of their neighbors, when she coolly remarks, ”John, 'tis true, that pillar _is_ right between me and the speaker.” John's ears redden; but he is in public, so he don't say, ”Didn't I tell you so?” but rises with shawl and umbrella, the former catching by the fringe on every seat as he pa.s.ses, and the latter slipping to the floor while he tries to disentangle the shawl.
Meantime my lady is on her triumphal march for that ”best seat.”
Now she alights! It wont do. There's a tall man in front of her; she is always fated to sit behind a tall man. She tries another; there's the phantom pillar again. Yet another; that's the end seat, and every horrid man that comes along will be treading on her dress and knocking her bonnet over her eyes all the evening. Meantime John gets redder in the face; he can't even ease himself with a customary growl. Ah! now she has got the seat at last, and stands beckoning to John to follow.
Her friend Miss Frizzle is beside her, and she is happy. There is only one seat, to be sure, but ”John can find one somewhere else, or perhaps he would like to take a walk outside and call for her when lecture is over--only he must be sure to be back in time.” So down she sits, while John wanders off for a possible stray seat. Now she draws off the glove that hides her one diamond ring, and settles the bracelet on the wrist of that hand. Then she tumbles up her front hair, lest it might have got smooth coming. Then she picks out the bows of the natty little ribbon under her dimpled chin. It was that chin that victimized John! Then she draws from her pocket her scented pocket-handkerchief and gives it a little incense-waft into the air, magnetizing a young man in front, who turns round to find the owner of that delicious gale from Araby the blest. Then she takes out her opera-gla.s.s and peeps about, not so much that her sight is defective, but that her diamond-ring and gold bracelets gleam prettily in the operation. John, meantime, has found a seat in a draft, and is sitting with bent brows and a turned-up coat-collar--which last is sufficient to make a ruffian of a man without any woman's help--in the back part of the house. Confidences, millinery, mantua-makery, and matinee-y are meanwhile exchanged between his wife and dear Miss Frizzle, who is an acknowledged man-killer, and keeps a private grave-yard of her own for deceased lovers.
Now the lecturer rises. ”Pooh! he's an ugly man. Well, they need't look at him; and perhaps he'll be funny--who knows?” He isn't funny.
He is talking about Plato and Epictetus; who the goodness are they?
But there's an end to all things, and so there is to the lecture. Now, John is wanted, and, to tell the truth, for the first time thought of!
Ah, there he is! but how sulky, and how ugly he looks with his coat-collar turned up! He might have some regard to appearances when he goes with _her_. People will think she has such a horrid taste in husbands.
”Why don't you talk?” says the little woman, when they get outside.
”It was too bad you couldn't sit by me, John; I missed you so! but, you see, there was but one seat.”--”Not just in that locality, I suppose,” muttered John. But the street-lamp just then shone on that cunning little dimpled chin, and its owner said, coaxingly, ”O-o-h, now, John! don't be cross with its little wife!” and it's my private opinion he wasn't. Would you have been, sir?
_CAN'T BE SUITED._