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

Good-Night. – How commonplace is this expression, and yet what volumes it may speak for all future time! We never listen to it, in passing, that this thought does not force itself upon us, be the tones in which it is uttered ever so gay. The lapse of a few fatal hours or minutes may so surround and hedge it in with horror, that of all the millions of words which a lifetime has recorded, these two little words alone shall seem to be remembered.

Good-night!

The little child has lisped it, as it passed, smiling, to a brighter morn than ours; the lover, with his gay dreams of the nuptial morrow; the wife and mother, with all the tangled threads of household care still in her fingers; the father, with the appealing eye of childhood all unanswered.

Good-night!

That seal upon days passed, and days to come. What hand so rash as to rend aside the veil that covers its morrow?

RAINY-DAY PLEASURES

I like a rainy day. None of your drizzling, half-and-half affairs, but an uncompromising, driving, wholesale, gusty whirlwind of water, that comes rattling, pell-mell, against the windows, that floods sidewalks, and swells gutters, and turns umbrellas inside out, and gives the trees a good shaking. I am sure on that day of slippers and a morning dress till bedtime. I am sure of time to look over the piles of magazines and newspapers that have been accumulating. I can answer some of those haunting letters, or write autographs; I can loll and think; I can put that wretched-looking desk to rights; I can polish up that time-worn gold pen; I can empty and refill my inkstand. I can do a thousand necessary things which a bright, sunshiny day would veto. Of course I don't want it to keep on raining a month. I shall want to wake some day and find a bright sky and clean pavements; but meanwhile I delight in these rattling windows, which make the bright coal-fire look so pleasant, and secure to me an uninterrupted morning; for whoso robs me of my morning, robs me of that which does not enrich him, and leaves me poor indeed. After midday, "come one, come all," etc. But how to make anybody save a writer understand this, is the question. Why you can't write at another portion of the day just as well; why you can't make an exception in their particular case; why an interruption of half an hour or an hour more or less in the morning should matter – this is incomprehensible to persons who, at the same time, would think you quite an idiot, should you undertake to explain to them why uncorked champagne should be after a while flat and stale. "But I can't come at any other time," once urged a person, with more frankness than consideration, who came on her own personal business. Now it is very disagreeable to be obliged to say "no" more than once to the same person; and yet when one's necessary and imperative arrangements of time are disregarded, it is manifestly pardonable. It is a curious fact, however, that authors themselves, who better than anybody else should understand the necessities of the case, are often culpable in this regard; they who, more than anybody else, revel in rainy mornings, or any morning which secures to them uninterrupted time and thought. I am not sure, after all my preaching, of not doing the same thing myself. If I should, I trust nobody will have any scruples about turning me out.

CHIT-CHAT WITH SOME OF MY CORRESPONDENTS

The epistles which public persons receive, if published, would not be credible. Begging letters are a matter of course; often in the highwayman style of, "hand over and deliver." I had one recently from a perfect stranger, who wished a cool hundred or so, and mapped out the circuitous way in which it was to be sent, so that "his folks needn't know it," with a belief in my spooniness, which an acquaintance with me would scarcely have warranted. Following close on the heels of this, came another from a woman, whose ideas of my spare time and common-sense were about equally balanced. This stranger of the female persuasion, being hard-up for amusement, wished "a long, racy letter from me, such as I alone could write, with no religion in it, because she got enough of that from the minister's wife." It is unnecessary to add that both these missives found a home in my waste-paper basket. Autograph letters I do not object to, as they keep me in postage stamps, and my little "Bright Eyes" in cards to draw dogs and horses upon.

A friend of mine has been delivered from manuscripts sent for perusal, with the modest accompanying request to find a publisher for the same, by stating her price to be $200. She has received no request of the kind since this announcement.

These are some of the annoyances of authors; but, verily, they have their rewards too. Here comes a letter from my native State, Maine, with a box of wood mosses and berries to place round the roots of my house-plants; and as an expression of affection from a stranger who knows from my writings how well I love such things. She says, in closing, that she hopes that myself and Mr. Beecher will continue to write so long as she lives to read. Mr. Beecher may step up and take his half of this sugar-plum, since he has announced himself a champion of "candy."

Then before me on my desk is a smiling baby face sent by its parents, who are strangers to me, if those can be strangers whose hearts warm toward each other; sent me, they add, "not for a silver cup, but because some chance words of mine touched their hearts, and so this little one was named Fanny Fern."

She smiles down upon me whether my sky be cloudy or clear, and in the light of that smile I will try to write worthily; for "their angels do always behold the face of my Father."

Here lie two letters on my desk from strangers regarding an article of mine. One warmly indorses the sentiments therein expressed, and calls upon "God to bless me" for their expression. The other dissents entirely, and commends me to the notice of a far different Power, for disseminating such wrong-headed notions. Thank you both! I am used to both styles of epistles. There's nothing I contend for more than individuality of opinion; this would be a stupid world enough if we all thought, felt, and acted after one universal programme; everybody must see things from their own standpoint and through their own spectacles; and, provided they use civil language, should "have the floor" in turn to air their ideas. It might be well to suggest that, in commenting on a newspaper article, care should be taken that it be first thoroughly read, that the writer's meaning be not misinterpreted; if this were done in many cases, the foundation for an adverse opinion would be quite knocked from under. Authors must expect the penalties as well as the rewards of their labors; but one of the most trying is to be accused of sentiments and feelings which they hold in utter abhorrence. Still, he would make small progress on a journey, who should stop to hurl a stone at every barking creature at his heels; therefore, in such cases, let patience have her perfect work, and let the victim keep steadily moving on, with an eye fixed upon the goal in the distance. But when you have unintentionally wounded a gentle spirit, which grieves all the more because it conscientiously believes that you have done harm, ah! then, none would be sorrier than the present writer; none would go farther to soothe the hurt; none would try harder to agree in opinion, consistently with self-respect. But if every writer stopped to consider whether his readers would be pleased, or the contrary, with his sentiments, instead of busying himself with the subject on hand for the moment, it would be like the clouding in of the sun on a clear morning. Everything would be reduced to one colorless level. The bright tints taken away, made brighter by the sometime shadows, could give a landscape tame enough, spiritless enough, to engender hypochondria. Surely the world of to-day is more liberal than this. Surely it is learning "to agree to differ." Surely it knows by this time that a good life is of more importance than creeds or beliefs. Surely in this year of our Lord, 1867, the days of the Inquisition are past both for editors and writers, and the watchword of to-day – and, thank God, for to-morrow, and the day after – is progress, not paralysis.

Having said this, I consider that I have cleared the deck for action, as far as my own ship is concerned. A stray shot won't frighten or discourage me; on the contrary, it only makes me step round the livelier, to see that my guns are in working order. Then, again, any one who wishes to hail me, and haul alongside in a friendly manner, shall be always certain of a kind salute from me.

A lady whose life, like that of many others, has not run smoothly through a bed of flowers, writes me "to tell her the secret of courage, which she is sure I know."

I do not profess to speak for others, but the secret of all the courage I ever had is a firm belief in immortality, and in its satisfactory unriddling of this life of seeming cross-purposes. Without this I can never tell how either man or woman can learn to look their dead in the face, or what is oftener much harder to do, to look their living in the face. I can never tell how they can lay their distracted heads upon their pillows at night, without praying that they may never wake to another sunrise, or how they can stagger to their feet seventy times seven, after prostrations of body and spirit, which come one after another, like the blows of some avenging fiend. I cannot tell else how they can see the good crushed and defeated and apparently extinguished, and the unscrupulous and bad receiving all homage, and sitting triumphant in high places. I cannot tell else how the wretched mother can take, lovingly and patiently, to her heart another little one, when her failing strength is already tasked to the utmost to care for little brothers and sisters, who, having a father, are yet fatherless. It must be only because her eyes can see clearly "Our Father who art in heaven." I look with sorrowing wonder upon those who, passing in and out of their pleasant, and as yet unbroken, homes, refuse to see the marks of blood upon their door-post, betokening the death of the first-born. I marvel that these steppers upon flowers childishly make no provision for the pitfalls concealed beneath them. I wonder at those who, laying their treasure all up in one place, never think, in this world of change, of the day of bankruptcy.

I do not wonder, when their household gods are shivered, that such exclaim, "Ye have taken away my idols, and what have I left?" or that suicide or lunacy are often the results.

It is only they who, in such crises, believe in "Him who doeth all things well," that have anything "left." It is only such who have courage for what sorrow soever is yet in store for them, in a life which for the moment seems robbed of all its sunshine. It is only they who have learned to live out of themselves, and who can yield – tearfully it may be, but unrepiningly – their earthly hopes and treasures up.

This is all the "courage" I know which will help us to look upon the dear dead face with patient resignation, or take up again the next morning the weary, vexed burden of life, until we are summoned to lay it down.

Lucia: – I am sorry that in your innocence you should have placed any dependence upon the statements of "a New York Correspondent." It is a pity to pull down any of the fine air-castles they are in the habit of building; still it is my duty to inform you that these gentry often describe, with the greatest minuteness, authors and authoresses whom they have never seen, manufacturing at the same time little personal histories concerning these celebrities, valuable only as ingenious specimen "bricks, made without straw." It matters little to the writers whether nature has furnished the authoress about whom they romance with black eyes or blue, brown hair or flaxen; whether nature made her a six-foot grenadier, or a symmetrical pocket edition of womanhood; the description answers all the same for the provincial paper for which it was intended, and these Ananias and Sapphira gentry find that a spicy lie pays as well as the truth – at least till they are found out. No, madam; notwithstanding the statements of your valuable "New York Correspondent" for the – , I have no "daughters married;" I never "wear a black stocking on one foot and a white one on the other, at the same time, to attract attention;" I never "rode on the top of an omnibus;" I don't "smoke cigarettes or chew opium;" I have no personal knowledge concerning the "mud-scow," "handcart," "cooking stove," and "hotel," that you have his authority for saying have been severally "named for me." I am not "married to Mr. Bonner," who has a most estimable wife of his own. I "never delivered an address in public;" and with regard to "the amount I have made by my pen," you and the special "New York Correspondent" are quite at liberty to speculate about it, without any assistance from me. As to my "religious creed," the first article in it is, "Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor."

A gentleman writes me to know "if it is true that I boldly, and unwinkingly, and unblushingly stated, over my own signature, and contrary to the usual custom of my sex, that I was fifty-eight years old."

Well, sir, I did. Why not? I feel prouder of that fact, and of my being the grandmother of the handsomest and smartest grandchild in this or any other country, than of any other two facts I have knowledge of. I can't conceive why men, or women either – for this squeamishness about one's age, I find, is not at all a thing of sex – should care one penny about it. I say again, I am "fifty-eight," and I am glad of it. I have had my day, and I am quite willing that every other woman should have hers.

Will Parents Take Heed? – On all hands complaints are made of the increasing ill-health of our school-children. Now who is to take this matter in hand? Who is to say there shall be absolutely no lessons learned out of school, unless the present duration of school hours shall be shortened? It needs, we think, only that the parents shall themselves insist upon this to effect it. Why wait till brain-fever has set in? Why wait till little spines are irretrievably crooked? And of what mortal use is it to keep on pouring anything into a vessel when it is incapable of holding any more, and is only wasted upon the ground?

MY LIKING FOR PRETTY THINGS

"Oh, you luxurious puss!" That remark was addressed to me, because I said I would like to be lulled to sleep each night, and awoke each morning by strains of sweet music. There's no harm in imagining things, I hope, provided one goes quietly and ploddingly on in what the ministers call "the path of duty." Now, for instance, sometimes I amuse myself planning beautiful forms for dishes, and cups, and plates, and glasses; beautiful patterns for carpets and wallpapers; beautiful and odd frames for pictures; beautiful loopings and draperies for window-curtains; and beautiful shapes for chairs and tables. Sometimes I eat an imaginary breakfast in a room with long windows, opening out into a lovely garden full of sweet flowers; like lilies of the valley and roses and mignonette and heliotrope and violets – oh, yes! violets everywhere. Then those lovely "pond lilies" should grow in the water, at the bottom of the garden, and some of them should be brought in, fresh, dewy, and cool, and placed on the breakfast-table; and little birds should hop in, over the threshold of the breakfast-room, for crumbs, and sing me a song of thanks; and a great, monstrous dog should lie prone upon the piazza; and vines should wreathe themselves round the pillars thereof; clematis and sweet pea, and honeysuckles, white and red, and the gorgeous trumpet-flower; and nobody should be able to find the chimneys at all, for the lovely blooming Wisteria that should clamber over the roof. Such trees and such velvet grass as I'd have around the house! Giant horse-chestnuts and elms and oaks and maples; and here and there a lovely statue peeping out in some unexpected place. And then I'd invite you, and you, and you; not because I would like to make a show-thing of it, but because I would like to see you enjoy it as much as myself.

Wouldn't it be nice? I do hate ugly things – there's no use in denying it. Sometimes Mr. Librario brings in one of his profound books, and lays it, pro tem., on my parlor-table; he looks for it shortly, and finds it not. "I knew it would be banished when I put it there," he says, "because the binding was so homely."

He pretends, too, that water tastes just as cool poured out from an ugly-shaped pitcher as out of my pet china one, with the graceful lip, and vine-wreathed sides and handle; and when I send for "a headache-cup-of-tea," and add, "Now be sure you bring it in my lovely blue-tinted cup-and-saucer," he laughs, and asks, "if that will make my head any better?" Why, of course it will. Now, you see, if I, like a coward, dodged work and bother, and the disagreeables of life, when they had to be met, that would be one thing; but I don't; I just take 'em vigorously by the horns till I get through with them; and so I maintain that I have a right to my luxurious dreams and my pretties, if they do me any good. Now haven't I? And speaking of that, as I was looking round the other day, I saw such a dreadful waste of ingenuity that my heart bled for the misapplied talent of the inventor. It was a straw-colored butter-dish in the shape of a man's hat, ribbon and all complete. The rim thereof did duty as a saucer, while the divorcible crown was clapped over the butter. Horrible! Then I saw an egg dish, with an executive sitting hen, awfully natural, doing duty as a cover. I left the locality abruptly, fearing I might see a meat-dish cover, in the form of a pig – snout, tail, bristles and all.

Why, I ask in this connection, am I daily tortured with the sight of lamps supported by bronze cherubs, appealing piteously to my wide-awake maternal instincts? And why are my evenings at public places of amusement spoiled by the sight of galleries of heartless people held up whole evenings by wretchedly carved female figures, in every stage of contorted legs, knees, heads, and arms.

"Didn't I tell you that it would be better if you hadn't quite so much imagination," triumphantly retorts Mr. Cynic.

Very true, you did; but still I don't agree with you; because looking at some people through that glorified medium, I have been able to discover virtues – which – otherwise – Yes, sir!

UNSOUGHT HAPPINESS

Old stagers know that the way to be happy is to give up all attempts to be so. In other words, the cream of enjoyment in this life is always impromptu. The chance walk; the unexpected visit; the unpremeditated journey; the unsought conversation or acquaintance.

Everybody feels more or less conscious in their "Sunday clothes." Who does not know the blessing of comfortable everyday apparel, every fold of which has made intimate acquaintance with the motions and postures of the owner; and which can be worn without fear of being spoiled, or rendering the wearer conspicuous. The bonnet which sets lightly on the head and defies rain; the boots which do not constantly remind the foot that a chair would be the greatest of all earthly blessings; in short, that freedom which will let you forget you yourself, is like laying down a huge bundle which has fettered you weary miles on a dusty, sunny road, and sitting down, unencumbered, in a shady spot to dream and rest in a delicious, care-free coolness. It is just so with the mind. The best things written or spoken have not been written or spoken "to order." They "whistled themselves," as the terror-stricken urchin remarked to his irate school-ma'am. They came unbidden, in easy, flowing raiment; not starched and stately, rustling, prim, and conscious. They came without thought of "what people would say." They stepped out because the time had come when they couldn't stay in. In a word, they were natural as little children are, and consequently delicious and fresh.

I solemnly aver that, the moment anybody tries to do or say a good thing, that moment he shall never be delivered of it, but shall only experience throes of mortal pain trying. If you build yourself a beautiful house, and make it a marvel of taste and convenience, in one of its lovely chambers shall your dead be laid; and you shall wander heart-sick away from it, to rid yourself of a phantom that will always follow you, till you turn boldly and face it, and with a strong heart accept its company.

This incessant striving to be happy! Never, never shall mortals be so till they have learned to give it over. Happiness comes. It will not be challenged. It glides in only when you have closed the door and turned your back upon it, and forgot it. It lays a soft hand on your face when you thought to be alone, and brings a joyful flush of surprise to your cheek, and a soft light to your weary eye, and ineffable peace to your soul.

It is a great thing when all that can possibly happen to a person, save one's death, has happened. It is a great thing to have been poor, and friendless, and nameless, and to have been rich, and famous, and flattered. It is a great thing to have been young and to have been old. It is a great thing to have perforated the bubble, Fame, and seen it collapse before a hungry heart. It is a great thing to have had dear ones, who moulded every thought and action, from the rising to the setting sun, and then to have seen them suddenly vanish like stars from the sky, and to have folded one's paralyzed hands in the darkness because there was no earthly future left. It is a great thing to have suffered and agonized in your own Gethsemane on account of it, till that very suffering brings you to be glad and contented that they are in a world where all tears are wiped from all eyes. It is a great thing to rise slowly and take up the burden of life again and plod mechanically on. It is a great thing to be calm and unmoved when brutal pens, to point a coarse paragraph, unearth one's sacred dead. It is a great thing to lock up chambers in one's soul, and sit down by the closed doors, lest some apathetic or unkind ear should hear the pained cries you only want time to smother. It is a great thing to have encountered all of malice, and envy, and uncharitableness, that the world has to offer, so that its repetition can only be to the ear a dull, unmeaning sound. It is a great thing so to have weighed human judgment that its Aye or No is a matter of indifference in the light of —to come.

True; before the sensitive and tender-hearted can reach that point, rivers of tears must have been shed and millions of sighs heaved. Scores of suns must have set on days of torturing length, and scores of mornings too many must have dawned. Uncounted hours must have been spent reaching out in the darkness for that which the soul has never found, or, finding, has lost; and thousands of times must the weary hands have fallen to the side in utter helplessness.

But this churchyard of the soul passed through, where every step is upon some buried hope, what is the petty noise and dust of the highway about which others fume and complain? What is it to the unconscious if rudely jostled in passing? What is it if a malicious whipster spatter mud? What is it if a rude voice accost, or the right of the road be clamorously contended? when all voices, all roads are alike; when delay or speed matters not; when a choice about anything seems utterly ridiculous, and all one's faculties are lost in astonishment at the worry and fret and perturbation of those who have not undergone the same ossifying process as yourself.

After all, some great sorrow is surely essential to the humanizing of every soul. Never till then can it offer anything but lip sympathy to those who have gasped through the sea of trouble. How can he who has known only days of comparative prosperity interpret the despairing sigh of the friendless? How can he who has never dropped tears into the open grave of his own dead measure the agony of that last, lingering look, as they are hidden forever from human sight? Till a vacant chair stands by his own hearth, how can he ever understand why one should still keep on grieving for that which can never be recalled? Till his heart turns sickening away from some festive anniversary in which a missing voice once made music, how can he see why one need be doleful on such a day as that? Till he has closed his ears to some familiar strain which evoked associations too painful to bear, how can he tell "Why you cannot forget all that, since it makes you so miserable"? To answer such, is to talk to the blind of colors, to the deaf of sounds, to the dead of life and motion. Never, till his own house is darkened, till the badge of desolation flutters from his own door, till sunshiny days return merciless in their brightness, and stormy ones send his thoughts shuddering to a shelterless grave; never till he has tried changing the place, but still always only to keep the old pain, can he understand the desperation with which at last one sits helplessly down, to face that which it can neither look upon nor flee from.