Part 7 — A DREAM.

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BY FANNY FORESTER.

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There is a great deal of reading in the world now-a-days, and some strange reading—reading that furnishes food for dreams, and not a little that would starve the intellect of a sleeping butterfly—the pâté de fois gras for the gourmand, and the wholesome brown bread for the multitude. The most, however, is of the first and second kind; both very useful—for even a famine has its uses. Last night I chanced upon a long article which lulled me to sleep in the third paragraph; but its soporific qualities were not sufficiently powerful to put the mind at rest entirely. Oh! how the busy little sprites from dream-land raced through the corridors and tripped it in the dark saloons of my poor brain! And what queer phantasies they braided! As it pleaseth thee, reader mine, a page or two shall be broidered with the shreds they left, when they scampered off at the first day-dawn of waking reason peeping through the windows of their festal palace. It will serve as a clue to the kind of printed lullaby which furnished the wine for their revels.

It seemed a day in winter, chilly and boisterous, and as I drew my stuffed-chair to the window, I mentally thanked God for the comforts of a quiet, happy fireside; and thought with more uneasiness than I should have cared to express of one who, could he have divined my thoughts, would have laughed at me for the womanly sympathy. It is impossible to comprehend a strength or power of endurance beyond our own; and my young brother, with his ready scoff, on the very mention of the word fatigue, and his strong hand playfully pinioning me as with a chain of iron, had always been a perfect marvel to me. I looked out upon the scudding clouds, and whirling snow, and upon the trackless road, and wondered if there were any sufferers abroad; but before the thought had fairly flitted across my brain I caught a glimpse of the figure of a woman. A woman out on such a day! poor creature! Yet—could I be mistaken? No, it was—it surely was—my Cousin ’Bel! I did not wait to wonder whence she came; it was enough to see her there, and in such woful plight. On she came, now nearly buried in an enormous snow-drift, now rising, the mark for the bold wind’s buffetings, her cloak unclasped, and flapping about her like the wings of some great bird, her hood made fast to the back of her neck by the strings which seemed cutting into her reddened throat, her loosened hair streaming out in every direction, all powdered over with the fleecy snow, and her veil caracoling high in air, performing all the antics of a tumbler’s pony. The snow was deep—so deep! ugh! it makes me shiver to think of it! But flouncing on she came, her beautiful face distorted and purple with the cold and exertion—on, unaided, but not alone. Close behind her, leisurely walking in the path she was making, who should I see but big Sam Jones! Everybody knows Sam Jones, at least everybody about Alderbrook, with his brawny shoulders and long, strong locomotives. He might have tucked poor ’Bel into the hollow of his arm, and fancied he was carrying a kitten. But not he. He folded his arms on his tough sinewy chest, and sauntered along, till ’Bel, worn out with toiling and tugging and battling with wind and storm, sunk down at last exhausted.

“Lost footing, Miss? It isn’t much of a storm,” observed Sam, with the most good-natured, though contemptuous indifference; and on he passed, leaving the lady to find footing as best she might. Poor ’Bel! She was (not poetically, but literally) in “snowy vestments, pure and white,” when, panting and struggling, she resumed her way; and, by that time, the tracks of big Sam, “far between” at best, were nearly filled with snow.

“Bless me! ’Bel Forester! What can have brought you out on such a day as this?” I exclaimed, drawing her through the half-opened door, and shivering as the cold air burst in at the gap, and whisked about my ears. “Anybody sick? Any⁠—”

“No-h! no! wait—till—uh!—till—I—get breath—uh!”

Great alarm were we in, and there was rubbing of hands, and chafing of temples, and screaming among the children, and running for salts, till finally the steaming cup was brought from the kitchen, and poor ’Bel was scalded back to life.

“What is it, ’Bella?” I again inquired, when a proper time had elapsed. “Do tell us what has happened!”

“Nothing. I thought I would just step in and bring you a paper. The critics have taken you up.”

“ME!”

There was something shocking in it, inconceivably shocking; and my heart cut an involuntary pigeon-wing, (it hasn’t learned the Polka,) while I mechanically stretched out my hand for the paper. But there was a look on the face of Cousin ’Bel, unlike the one she wore when she first encouraged my first timid sketch; and I felt that I should have but partial sympathy. (Thank Heaven, it was only a dream!) Under such circumstances, it was best not to appear too anxious.

“Is the criticism so very important,” I inquired, turning my eyes with desperate resolution from the paper, which rustled in my shaking hand, “that you should come to bring it me on such a day as this?”

“Pretty important, as things go now; and, of course, the storm would have no influence in keeping me in doors.”

“Of course!”

“Ay! you act as though you had not heard of the Great Reform.”

How my curiosity was divided between the news and the criticism!

“Alderbrook is an out-of-the-way place,” interposed my mother.

“And so you really have not heard of the mighty revolution—the establishment of principles of equality—the practical adoption of that great first truth upon the face of our constitution, which is the corner-stone of our liberties, declaring that not merely all men, but all mankind are created free and equal.”

How eloquent ’Bel had grown! what could it mean!

“In a word,” said my mother, rather entreatingly, “soberly and simply, ’Bella, we do not understand all this. What is the Great Reform?”

“In a word, then, aunty,” (’Bel forgot for a moment her pompous tone,) “the establishment of Woman’s Rights.”

“Indeed!” (I thought I detected a pleased look even in my mother’s calm eye; and for myself I turned a pirouette. Why, I did not exactly know, but there was something in the words to tickle the ear.) “Indeed! and what has that to do with your exposing your health in such a storm as this?” (Ah! I was mistaken. My mother was older and wiser than ’Bel and I.)

“Health! Never fear; we are not to be so whimsical as to mind those things any more. Since we have succeeded in making men acknowledge, not only our intellectual equality, but our entire fitness for the performance of all the duties which have hitherto devolved on them exclusively, we have set about establishing another point. Indeed, we never shall be secure in the possession of our rights till this point is gained. We find that the general impression concerning our physical weakness and delicacy of constitution is of great disadvantage to us, a drawback on our enterprise, and we intend now to prove that we have as much muscular strength as the other sex. We are their equals in every respect; and if the truth be not willingly acknowledged, it must be done upon compulsion.”

“Bless me, ’Bel!” But I broke off suddenly. Could that be Cousin ’Bel? If so, how metamorphosed! What an unnatural expression had crept over her face! And how completely indurated were the once flexible muscles!

“Our new theory concerning this,” resumed my cousin, “is that the imagination⁠—”

But I lost ’Bel’s explanation, for by this time I had dipped into the criticism, and the Great Reform, thrilling as the news had been, was forgotten. She talked on, and my mother replied, but their voices sounded like the murmur of a sea-shell I had no ear nor eye for any thing but the great iron-shod foot that had suddenly planted itself on my violet-bank.

“Sentimental.” True; but is sentiment, pure sentiment, a sin?

“Young-womanly.” Well, what else should the doings of a young woman be?

“Commonplace.” Ay; so is the poetry written by God the world over. I did not profess to bring original creations—I but copied, here and there, a touch from the simple things I loved.

“No depth of thought or strength of expression.”

I read on. Heavier and thicker came down the stunning blows, till I could think of nothing so like it as Saturn among the poor frightened fairies. I finished, and lifted my hand to see if my head were safe.

“Why this is preposterous!” at last I exclaimed, gaping in utter amazement at the Procrustean bed on which I found my poor little fancies stretched. “Every word is true; but who would think of whipping the poor fawn into becoming an elephant, or of faulting (as the New-lights say) the same timid little trembler for not having the strength and courage of the lion? Robin-red-breasts will not be allowed to fly hereafter, because, forsooth, they have not wings fit to battle with the whirlwind, eyes of flame, and hoarse screaming voices. Why I never professed to be more than a Robin-red-breast, ’Bella.”

“True, but you must profess it now; and attain to something higher, too, or feel your inferiority. Since the Great Reform, women do not talk of one thing’s being proper for them and another improper—every thing is proper that they can do; and they must do every thing that man has done, for it has been decided that they are fully his equals. Henceforth in literature you must cultivate strength at the expense of⁠—”

“But our tastes, ’Bel—if there were nothing else in the way⁠—”

“We must correct our false feminine tastes. Recollect that hereafter we are not to be the toys of the drawing-room, nor dawdle away our time in the practice of airs and graces⁠—”

“Ah! ’Bel, ’Bel! that’s a masculine accusation—don’t copy.”

“Well, then, we are not to lounge by the fireside—rocking cradles, tending flowers, and arranging pretty dresses. Our influence is extended, our sphere is widened. Our voices are to be heard—”

“What a pity, ’Bel, that the election is over; it would be such a charming thing to ‘Hurrah for Polk and Dallas!’ ”

“Time enough for that four years hence; and, by the way, you may as well begin to prepare for the next campaign. I intend to adopt oratory as a profession; and you would do very respectably in that line, too, I think.”

I looked despairingly at the paper in my hand, and wondered if I could make a speech! At any rate, my literary career was ended. I spoke of the simplicity of my tastes, but I felt

(“My gentle boy, remember this

Is nothing but a dream.”)

a conscious weakness, as though I had suddenly been called upon to swing an axe or lift a sledge-hammer. I could admire St. Paul’s, but (I speak guardedly, lest my capabilities should be questioned,) it would not be in accordance with my taste to conceive the plan or perform the labor of building. So, though I might read some pages of Lord Verulam—nay, actually admire them—their production would not have been to me—agreeable. But the plea would do no longer: the mantle of feminine tastes had suddenly been torn from me, and the wren was to be measured by the king of birds.

“To the stump then,” thought I. “What a glorious reform this is, after all! From being a scribbler in a small way, who knows but I may in time become the first orator in the land? Women are proverbial for tonguely gifts, and orators do not require very great depth. Like the belle with her chit-chat, it is the tone and manner which do execution. To the stump! Hur⁠—”

I didn’t finish the hurrah. I might have done so, but for a little womanly squeamishness, which could not be overcome all in a moment. Then such influences! Up started my birdie with a rustle and twitter, shaking its pretty wing, to tell me I must feed it if I would have it give me music; a “wee toddling thing” tugged at my skirt, and lisped in a way that I thought particularly bright and precocious, “take me up, sissy;” and there was many a thing about the room—the work of my own fingers, the charmed companions of holy hours—many things that laid a finger upon the lip of my spirit. There is an atmosphere hovering about the altar of a happy, love-guarded home, which—no matter! it had a very troublesome, hush-up way, in my dream of the Great Reform.

“I must get away from these reminiscences of past days,” said I, “before I can whoop or hurrah to any purpose. I will get father to take me to the city⁠—”

“Take you to the city! Take you, you say! And why not take yourself there? What an arrant simpleton! I thought you would have more spirit, Fan.”

“And—can I go alone?”

“Alone! certainly; alone and independently. Why, everybody would laugh now-a-days to see you hanging to your father’s arm, like a child that is just learning to walk.”

“Bless me, ’Bel! how could I—excellent! Then I never shall be obliged to stay at home for lack of company, but can go when and where I please. And I am not to be annoyed any more by officious collectors and captains putting themselves every half hour in my way, to know if I am ‘comfortable, Miss?’ Alone and independently! Jubilate!”

“Thoughts have wings,” poets say; and they have said it so often that parrot prose has taken up the echo, and thinks the sentiment its own property. But “thoughts have wings,” nevertheless; and, at a flap of the wing of that last exultant thought, home, Cousin ’Bel, and all vanished; and I was on board a North River steamer, “alone and independent.” But did I shout “jubilate” now? It was the least bit in the world forlorn—that standing on the deck, with crowds of people all about me, no one caring a clay pipe-stem, whether I was happy or miserable, comfortable or suffering from fatigue and chilliness. I looked down into the water, up at the sky, gazed at the shore (rather vacantly, I must own,) and then turned to the people jostling past each other with a care-for-naught air, as though “number one is the first law of nature” had been the creed of everybody. “Independence may be a fine thing,” thought I, “no doubt it is a fine thing, but—heigho!”

Somebody stepped on my dress. “Pardon, Miss!” The words popped pertly from the lips, as men make a kind of pretence for an apology to each other, with the head turned the other way. Dear me! what had I done to forfeit my claim to that respectful deference of manner which I had always considered a woman’s birth-right? My face reddened, half with anger, half mortification; but luckily I soon remembered that “we were equal now;” and that the sacrifice could not all be on one side. There was a leveling up, and a leveling down in the Reform. Of course, we could not gain an equality of strength and independence and maintain a superiority of delicacy. That would be giving us a decided advantage. On reflection I became reconciled; but the incident had disconcerted me a little, and my position was not made more comfortable by observing that staring had become quite the fashion. It was one of the fruits of equality, to be sure; but while I drew my thick green veil, and turned away to gaze into the water, I was very nearly guilty of the heresy of wondering if we had not lost almost as much as we had gained. While I stood here, the bell rang for supper, and there was a general rush to the cabin. I hesitated a moment, (for I was afraid of being knocked down in the confusion,) and then stepped along very timidly behind.

“It will be so awkward to go in and brush about for a seat!” said bashfulness, pinching at my cheeks until there seemed to have been a fire kindled on each.

“Pooh!” answered the Reform-spirit, “elbow your way through the crowd, and allow yourself to be bullied by nobody.”

Bashfulness attempted another faint remonstrance, but I choked down the foolish suggestions, as quite unworthy a woman of spirit, and made my way resolutely along. My troublesome timidity had made me slow of foot; for, by the time I gained the door, all the passengers were seated, and the earnest clatter of knife and fork made my heart quake. “It is nothing,” thought I, “I will go in.” But I didn’t; I was alone. “This is foolish,” urged common sense, “just step in quietly; nobody will mind it.”

Ah! that was the thing. Nobody would mind it, except to look up with that rude stare which I had already learned to dread; and if there should be any trouble about finding a vacant seat—oh, it would be too much! An ounce more of mortification, and I should jump into the river. I was pretty hungry, but supper was nothing in comparison, and I retreated to the deck. By and by, the passengers returned; and by this time I had become sufficiently composed to watch others instead of thinking all the time of myself. Men were sitting, and women standing all about the deck, engaged in arguments which I found partook not a little of the tone and manner which characterized most of the contentions of last autumn. There is less of courtesy; men are more bitter and vituperative in an argument on politics than on any other subject, for the reason that they have not merely that one proposition to defend, but pride of party to support; they are not holding an argument with one man simply to establish a truth, but they are opposing a party which it is conducive to their interest—whether right or not, they think so—to put down. Precisely so was it in this case; though a few of the more magnanimous among men, or a few, tired of “making themselves slaves to keep their wives and daughters on a throne,” as somebody has it, might not have been annoyed by the Great Reform, yet the generality felt the party-spirit strong within them, and a theory did not gain any thing in their eyes by being broached by a woman. I remembered that in former days women were always the winners in a controversy; though sometimes there was a biting of lips, and a forcing of smiles, and bows, to let it be so; but now it was exactly the reverse. Perhaps you will think the cause of truth gained by the change. No such thing. There was no more impartiality than before. The volubility of the women tried hard to match itself against the stentorian voices of the men, and sometimes succeeded; the former were gainers in the light-artillery of wit, but the latter invariably came in with a heavy cannonade of put-down-ism, which would never have been attempted even by a stage-driver, in such a presence, under the old régime. While I was watching these doings, and wondering what would become of myself in this new state of things, we were all of us startled by a sudden bustle in another part of the boat—loud, angry voices in altercation, accompanied by blows. The confusion lasted but a moment, and I saw the combatants separated—a very pretty, spirited woman, and a fat elderly gentleman, who looked as though he might, in general, be quite temperate in the matter of treating himself to a fit of anger. But this time he had been provoked beyond endurance, by taunts that would have roused the good old Doubter, and had resorted to caning. The lady did not carry a cane, but she used the sharp point of her parasol to very good purpose, until the spectators interfered, and the combatants were obliged to content themselves with looking canes and parasols. The next stirring incident was the jingling of a bell along the saloon, by way of an accompaniment to “Those passengers as has not paid their fare, please step to the cap’n’s office and se-et-tle!” What next? I had hoped for a few moments of quiet, and now to commit myself to the tender mercies of the crowd! I saw a great broad-shouldered woman thrust a baby into the arms of a sheepish-looking man, probably her husband, and pull from her capacious pocket, with some ostentation, an enormous leathern-wallet. “She is going to the cap’n’s office,” thought I, and I twitched her sleeve.

“Will—will you, madam, be kind enough to procure a ticket for me?” To make such a request of a woman! But she smiled and bowed very condescendingly, flattered by the compliment I had paid her superiority. “This is a little too bad,” thought I, as the woman put the ticket in my hand. “I do not care to pass for an idiot, and I must make an effort; I see what it is that I need.” So I thought all night of the landing, and resolved, and re-resolved to “act worthy of myself” on that occasion.

“Have a cab?” “ ’ve cab?” “ ’ve cab?” “cab?” “carriage?” “cab?” Fifty voices, and fifty whips pointing, and twice fifty arms extended in a manner which seemed to me at least threatening. Oh! what could “a poor lone woman” do? I was stunned, frightened—it was very silly, and I knew it was, but that consciousness did not make me wiser. Trifles became matters of mighty import, now that I was alone, and should be obliged to look after every thing myself. I made a great effort, and at last got ashore, my baggage beside me.

“ ’Ve cab?” “ ’ve cab?” “have a cab?” Somebody was peremptory, and I might as well answer. I opened my mouth, but something choked back the sound.

“ ’Ve cab?” “carriage?” “cab?” It was like being amid a troop of yelling savages; I could bear it no longer, and I pronounced “yes!” with something between a shriek and a howl. On the instant, together went a half dozen bent heads with a tremendous thump; five recoiled—not speaking very gently—and left my trunk the prey of one, who was probably superior to the others in hardness of skull. I was very glad to escape that test of equality, at least. The man whisked my trunk lightly over his shoulder, took my carpet-bag in hand, and strode away. If I should lose sight of him! He went very fast, and my trembling limbs were nearly helpless. Then all the men looked alike; all had trunks on their shoulders, and carpet-bags in their hands, and all had very funny caps, and very red ears, so—if I should lose sight of him!—If he should carry off my trunk! was my next practice in the use of the mood subjunctive. (Lest it should be thought that ladies are subject to such fears, which everybody knows would be, like mine of the cabman, a wrongful suspicion, I must again remind the reader that this is only a dream.) If he should carry off my trunk! There was something alarming in the supposition; I was sufficiently fatigued and excited before; my limbs were trembling, my face burning, and my heart fluttering; I gave a bound forward and—fell headlong. I heard a coarse burst of laughter, and thought of all those red, bloated faces turned toward me; and then my dream became a kind of nightmare, and so ended or changed.

Next, I was before a large public building, around which a crowd of people had gathered, and I was trying to force my way in. Nobody moved. Some dreamer, whose remembrance of past things was assisted by good nature, said something about “a lady;” but the crowd, instead of parting and standing back, as in other times, at the talismanic word, laughed my Don Quixote in the face. How I got in I know not, but I was in, at last.

“Better ’ave staid on the outside!” said a burly individual near me, “there aint no seats to be had for love nor money.”

It was easy enough to be seen that nobody would owe a seat to courtesy. So I leaned against a pillar, and tried to forget that I had a body. It was no easy task, for here was an ache, and there a tremor, and there a faintness, which made me very sensible of not being all spirit. I seemed to be in a court-room, and a woman was speaking with great earnestness in behalf of her client, a dog-stealer. She was very red in the face, and very fierce in the eye; her voice, which was roused to its topmost pitch, had a shrill squeak to it, which grated on my nerves like the finger-nail upon dried plaster; and I could see the eyes of her “honorable colleague” intently regarding her dress, from which two or three hooks had bounded, apparently scared from their post by the vehemence of her eloquence. He was undoubtedly meditating a joke at her expense. One of the judges was a very pretty woman, who seemed to have just come in possession of a new bracelet; for she kept up a constant clasping and unclasping, and was evidently very well satisfied with the curve of her arm, whatever she might have thought of the lawyer’s speech. Another one observed the arm too—a neighbor on the bench, whom I suspected of being a susceptible sort of a widower—and I thought to myself that I should be very sorry to be a prisoner, looking for justice to those two pre-occupied judges. The jury were half men, half women. But I will not record my observations, lest it should be thought that I dreamed very perversely. Suffice it, that I again pitied the poor prisoner.

Oh! the difficulty of imagining oneself a spirit, with such fleshly reminders! Could I stand another moment? I looked as pleadingly as I could about me, but nobody moved. Getting out seemed impossible, for the passage was crowded. Oh! how I longed for “the good old days, the dear old time, and all my peace of mind”—not forgetting somebody to find me the best seat! It was no place to be in love with equality. I was (it was very wrong, I know, and I might not be so tempted when awake,) I was ready to sign myself Esau, jun.—barter my birthright of intellect, and power, and independence, in short, every thing we had gained by the Reform, for but the strong arm and protecting presence to take me through that crowd. Luckily, I lacked the means of making my madness practical, for not an arm offered itself, and not a face turned toward me for any better purpose than to favor me with a familiar stare—an expressive acknowledgment of equality, which had been one of the first features of the Reform.

“Rather tiresome standing,” observed the burly individual before mentioned, seeing me balance on my toes, and twist from side to side, and try by various other methods of equal importance to rid myself of my fatigue. “Rather tiresome standing,” and he changed his comfortable position for one of like comfort; and stretched his arms along the back of his seat with provoking complacency. I assented with a sigh.

“Missed it not coming earlier,” and he lolled back, resting his big head on his own shoulders. Wouldn’t I have liked to be Robin Goodfellow, to give him a pinch or two? There was no prospect of any body’s vacating a seat; my limbs ached, I gasped for breath, reeled, and clutched instinctively at the nearest object. It was the shaggy locks adorning the big head; and they shook like a lion’s mane, recalling me to my senses in time to evade the compliment of a doubled fist, which the bewildered and resentful owner seemed inclined to offer me.

“I wonder if anybody would carry me out if I should faint,” thought I; but I was not given to fainting, and I doubted whether I could do it with the proper grace, though to be sure, gracefulness was a matter of little moment, since (pardon! sleeping ears are dull, and my harsh word is from Dreamland) help one’s-self-fulness came into vogue. “What will become of me?”

“You little trembling simpleton,” whispered the Reform-spirit, “strengthen up your head, and plant your foot firmly. Your fatigue is all in the imagination. See how patiently those men are standing yonder!—imitate them.”

“If I could. But what a hero the imagination must be to bring upon me all these tortures!”

“You must control it—though, perhaps, it is expecting rather too much of you at once; particularly as regards the physical woman.” (Woman was the new name for the human race, not that the arguments in favor of its adoption had been so very potent, but, luckily, the women had the majority in the Senate.) “There is a barber’s shop over the way; you had better walk in and rest yourself.”

“But how shall I get out? the passage is crowded.”

“Oh, never mind that—you can easily make an opening. Just put on a look of resolution and walk straight-forward. They will grumble and push some, but they will let you pass.”

“Ah! the look of resolution! Where am I to get it?”

“Why, if you are a miserable, paltry coward, of course, the meanness will be visible on your countenance, and you cannot hope to deceive anybody. The truth is, modesty has been stripped of its false charms lately, and shown to be nothing more nor less than rank cowardice. What is it that makes your head droop, and your cheeks redden? Are you afraid anybody will harm you?”

This was a little too much; and my cheeks grew redder, but my head elevated itself. “No! it is a something which God planted in my bosom, something of which no Reform can rob me, an inherent principle to which that judge, that lawyer, and those jury-women, are all doing violence to-day—a light electric chain circling the fairy ring, which Heaven intended should be our sphere; a chain which makes its subtle fluid tell on every nerve, when it is handled too rudely, and which, when broken—oh, wo to those who have the strength or daring to break it!”

“Heresy! rank heresy! Why, you would be hooted at, mobbed in the streets, if you were heard to avow such sentiments.”

“Ay, I know it. That is one of our rights, secured to us by the Reform—the right to be mobbed—and behold, another!”

The lungs of the lawyeress had been exerted until her voice had broken and sunk into a hoarse whisper. “Louder!” “Louder!” “Louder!” came the cries from every part of the court-room. “Order!” “Order!” “Order!” rung out the echo. The court put on all its dignity, and looked very portentous; the constables exerted themselves manfully (womanfully;) the lawyeress raised a last screech, and the crowd hissed and groaned.

“Carry her out! carry her out! she has swooned!” shouted several voices; and an old seaman at my elbow, gave, with a round oath, his opinion that it was “only a woman’s trick to steer clear of the breakers.” He added a grumbling word or two about the doings of a certain captainess in a late storm; but at this moment I caught a glimpse of the face of the lady-lawyer as she was borne past me; I started with surprise, and awoke. That I should have such a vision of my cousin “ ’Bel!” Well,

“If it comes three times, I thought, I’ll take it for a sign.” Oh! if it should!