A Name for Herself Read online

  But the worm will turn. I have reached my last bound of endurance. I am not going to say what I will do to the next person who tells me I have a cold – but be very sure of this, he or she – for I shall be no respecter of sex or age – will never make a like remark to me again.

  I dare say I’ve said the same thing to people lots of times myself. If so, I beg their pardon, individually and collectively, now, and promise that I won’t ever be so bad again – ’deed and ’deedy, I won’t. I’ve found out what it is like. My friends and acquaintances may go on contracting cold after cold, to the lasting injury of their health and temper, but I shall never tell them what they are doing.

  Neither will I tell people what to do for a cold – unless they ask me, of course. In that case I shall begin at A and go through the whole alphabet of the remedies that people have advised me to try for a cold. I never used any of them myself, so they will be as good as new. They are all reliable, and will cure the most obstinate cold in the world. I know this is so because the folks who advised them said so. And they are good people who speak the truth.

  When we were around the fire the other evening at our house, in a purple winter dusk, with the firelight playing hide-and-seek in the corners, we fell to talking about the people we didn’t like – in a general way, of course.149 We didn’t particularize. That is always dangerous. Theodosia led off.

  “Preserve me from the candid friend,” she exclaimed.150 “I don’t claim this remark as original. Somebody said it or something very like it before. But that was an accident. If he had not said it I would have.

  “The candid friend is the one who sets out to reform you. Now, I don’t like being reformed – nobody does. It is also her province to pull you up on all points of dress and behavior. I have a candid friend. When I see her coming in time I always run, but sometimes she pounces on me unexpectedly.

  “‘Now, my dear Theodosia,’ she says, ‘I hope you won’t mind me speaking about it, but really I wouldn’t wear that hat if I were you. It doesn’t become you at all – it makes your nose look puggier than usual.’

  “I am expected to be grateful for this. Another time it is,

  “‘Now, my dear, do you know if I were you I’d not go around quite so much. You’re overdoing yourself, and you’re looking frightfully thin and miserable. Everybody is noticing it.’

  “Every time I see her she has some speech like this to make about my dress or appearance or doings. She prides herself on saying these things to her friends’ faces and not behind their backs. Now, I wouldn’t care a bit what she said behind my back because then I wouldn’t have to look as if I were pleased and thankful. Some day, when I have scraped up enough moral courage I am going to be candid with her. Perhaps it will cure her. They say that like is apt to cure like.”151

  Aunt Janet’s pet aversion was the meddler. Being a woman Aunt Janet personified her type in the feminine gender, but masculine meddlers may also ponder her protest in their hearts.

  “When I say ‘Good Lord deliver us’ in church,” said Aunt Janet solemnly, “I always add under my breath ‘from the meddler.’ A certain meddling person I know is my besetting sin.152 I never can feel a bit like a Christian with her. All the old heathen in me comes right to the surface. She is always loaded with good advice. She knows what I ought to do much better than I know myself. Her way is always the best and she means to make me take it. The more a thing isn’t any of her business the more she mixes herself up in it. But there, children, I’m going to stop. I shall say too much if I don’t. The mere thought of that kind of people gets on my nerves.”

  “I can get along with anybody except the person who tells me how ill she is or was and how many pills she had to take and what the doctor said and how she used to feel in the mornings,” said Polly in a breath.

  “‘A bore is a person who insists on talking about himself when I want to be talking about myself,’” quoted Ted oracularly.153

  “No,” said Polly severely, “that cap doesn’t fit me, Ted, so I’m not going to wear it.154 I know I’ve lots of faults – you take care of that – but telling people about my pains and aches and woeses is not among them. At the C——s party the other evening Mrs. So-and-so kept me one whole hour telling me about her attack of illness last spring and its consequences. She enjoyed it so much I hadn’t the heart to stop her even if I could have. But I had an ache in every one of my bones myself by the time she got through.”

  Marian, who had dropped in, stopped pulling Bobs’ ears – Bobs is our cat, so christened the day after Paardeberg155 – long enough to say that she hated people who were always smiling.

  “You know the kind,” she said. “They have what Jack calls an ‘everlasting grin.’ I don’t think they ever take it off even when they’re asleep. They smile in season and out of season.156 They never laugh heartily – because it might disturb their smile, I suppose. I’ve never read Dante’s Inferno,157 but I hope he had a special circle for the professional smilers.”

  Ted didn’t like the gag man.

  “One of these chaps who go about propounding conundrums and catches to all and sundry. If you ever hear of me being tried for manslaughter know all men by these presents158 that the victim is one of those fellows. I’m a patient, long-suffering chap – Polly knows that – which is the only reason I haven’t done it before.”

  For my own part I do not like the people who are always right. Not, mind you, the people who merely think they are always right. I can afford to disregard them. But the people who really and truly are always right. They are terrible because they are so infallible. You know beforehand that there is no chance for you if you differ from them and your respect deserts you then and there.

  How we would love them if they made even one weeny teeny mistake! But they never do. They are incapable of it. And so, of course the rest of us, who are always blundering in some way or another cordially detest them for their unlikeness.

  I suppose the law of the association of ideas is remotely responsible for the story that has just popped into my head in connection with the foregoing paragraph. I read or heard it somewhere recently.

  A woman who believed in the possibility of attaining to sinless perfection was arguing with one who didn’t.

  “Well,” said the latter, “did you ever hear of any human being who was really perfect?”

  The former nodded and looked sad.

  “Yes,” she said, “I did – just one. She was my husband’s first wife.”159

  All my foregoing remarks are just bristling with morals, but I will refrain from commenting on them. I will leave them to point themselves.

  How are your New Year resolutions coming on?

  [The Fierce White Light of Perfect Truth]

  Saturday, 18 January 1902

  THESE ARE THE DAYS WHEN WE HEAR THE SLEIGH BELLS tinkling along city streets and winding country roads, in the daytime and beneath the stars. Don’t they sound exhilarating? Especially if you are behind them! I have always thought that the very soul of music was expressed in the clear far-away tinkles of sleigh bells drifting across snowy hills on the clear, crisp air of a moonlit winter night or in that perfect half hour that follows the rose and saffron of a fine sunset.

  There are different kinds of sleigh drives. Polly now, likes the snug, furry little cutter, “built for two,”160 behind a sleek-coated nag with a “half-past two” record. Well, that isn’t a bad way. But there are others!

  I think the way to get the most real, genuine fun out of a sleigh drive is for about a dozen cheerful folks to pile into what is known in country districts as a “pung,” with plenty of straw and fur robes, and start off somewhere in a happy-go-lucky fashion, singing all the good old sleighing glees you can think of – or hymns if you are going to prayer-meeting. Of course in town you can’t very well do this – you would probably get run in as public nuisances and at least would attract a good deal of undesirable attention.

  Speaking of hymns reminds me. Once upon a time I was w
ith a party of friends out to just such a sleigh drive. We had just escaped from the thralldom of high school examinations and we felt very light-hearted. It was a pitchy dark night – that is to say the night was dark and the roads pitchy, oh very – and we were all singing merrily and enjoying ourselves. It was “Old Hundred”161 we finally struck into and we were making such a noise that we never heard or saw a sleigh coming towards us until we were all tangled up with it. The driver thereof was an honest old farmer from Wayback and I suppose he didn’t like to have his meditations so rudely disturbed. He was very cross and he said some horrid swear-words, really and truly he did. They hurt our feelings so much that when we finally got sorted out and started on our way again we didn’t sing any more of “Old Hundred,” but struck up instead, “Hark from the Tombs a Doleful Sound” as being more appropriate.162

  The next time you are out in the country on a good snowy road full of pitches get your driver to gallop through them. It’s the most exciting sport I know of. You get about sixteen different kinds of exercise all at once, including the vocal chords. Because, of course, you must scream at every pitch. There’s no fun if you don’t.

  Did you ever stop to think how hard it is to tell “the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth”?163 Of course, I don’t mean that you or I deliberately tell falsehoods in our daily walk and conversation, or even concoct more than our necessary share of little cream-colored fibs. Neither do I mean those rash statements we make in moments of irritation, such as “I’d give the world for something-or-other,” when we know perfectly well we would make a terrible fuss if we had to pay a dollar for it. I just mean that probably hardly a day passes in which all we say would bear investigation in the fierce white light of perfect truth.

  Don’t get angry, please. I’m just as bad as the rest. I’ll tell you how I found it out.

  The other night, around the table, we were talking of this, and Ted gave utterances to the views recorded above. Polly and Theodosia and I were very angry.

  Theodosia said, just a little bit priggishly:

  “Ted, I always tell the truth. I am very careful to – the plain, unvarnished truth. It is horrid for you to insinuate that I do not.”

  Ted’s eyes twinkled.

  “That’s because you never caught yourself. Do you girls really suppose that you can go through a day without telling a little fib unless you want to get yourselves into hot water?”

  “Why, of course we can,” I said indignantly.

  “Well, I dare you to,” said Ted.

  Of course that was unbearable. We couldn’t take a dare. So the three of us vowed that the next day we would watch every word we said and prove Ted’s statements to be false.

  You know, I thought it would be easy.

  Well, the next morning I started out confidently; and I did really get on pretty well through the morning, although I meditated so long before answering any question put to me that people all thought something was the matter. But at lunch time my troubles began. I went to lunch with Jen. She had on a new hat. Really, it was the worst-looking hat I’ve seen for a long time. It was in glaring taste and it made her look like a fright – there is no other way of putting it.

  Well, presently Jen said:

  “Cynthia, how do you like my new hat? I trimmed it myself and I am quite proud of my success.164 Don’t you think it is very becoming. Tell me honestly what your opinion of it is.”

  Wasn’t I in a nice fix? I knew Jen would never forgive me if I did tell her my honest opinion. I hesitated. We all know that the woman who hesitates is lost.165

  “I – I – think it’s very pretty,” I said feebly.

  “And becoming?” persisted Jen.

  “Very,” I said shamelessly. The second step is always so much easier than the first. But as I said it I thought I could see Ted’s impish grin over Jen’s shoulder.

  Then I met Mrs. B. Mrs. B. is not a favorite of mine. Speaking candidly I do not like her. She wanted me to do something for her. I didn’t want to do it but to refuse without any good reason would have stamped me as a crank. So I said I would.

  “You don’t mind, do you?” she said. “Oh, not at all,” I answered.

  When I went home Great-Aunt Rachel was there. The next day was my birthday and she had brought me a present. It was an ugly old-fashioned brooch with a lock of Great-Uncle Hezekiah’s hair in it. I had never seen Great-Uncle Hezekiah, who died years before I was born, and I couldn’t feel very enthusiastic. Besides, I knew that I would have to wear that brooch continually, or the donor would never forgive me. I had to thank her for it and I didn’t feel one bit thankful.

  When I went upstairs I found Polly crying in her snuggery.166 She was a poor little woe-begone Polly. It seems that she had told the truth all day and in some very trying situations. Polly has a good deal of moral backbone, you know.

  “But oh, Cynthia,” she sobbed. “I’ve made more enemies to-day than I did in all my life before. And they will never forgive me, I am sure. And, oh dear! Jack came in this evening – and – and – we got to talking about – about faults – and Jack said wouldn’t I honestly tell him what – what I thought was his most g-glaring fault – s-so he could correct it – and I d-did – and he got so angry – and we quarrelled – and I wish – I were dead – I do.”

  Then Theodosia came in and told her experience. She had got into a peck of troubles too and had not even Polly’s consolation of success, for at the last she had told her hostess at an afternoon tea that she had had a lovely time when the truth was she had been bored to death.

  “I never thought what I was saying until it was out,” she declared. “Won’t Ted exult.”

  But Ted was good as gold. He didn’t rub it in a bit and he praised Polly’s grit and told her Jack would be all right again soon.

  It’s all very sad when one thinks of it.

  Do you want to read your friends’ characters from their handwriting? Here are a few hints:

  Lines standing upward indicate a hopeful disposition; downward, the writer easily desponds. Straight across the page, a well-balanced mind. If the o’s and a’s are always well closed the writer is secretive; if open, inclined to be confidential. Heavy down-strokes, dashes or cross marks indicate strong will and intensity. Unnecessary flourishes indicate vanity or conceit. If the letters grow smaller towards the end of a word, don’t trust the writer. If larger, a good disposition is indicated. Extreme care in punctuation, etc., means a finicky bent. Many dashes indicate a rollicking temperament. Letters straight up and down are the sign of a logical mind; slanted, of a sentimental turn. Large, free running hand means generosity; sometimes extravagance; small, cramped writing, the reverse. Also, if there are a lot of x’s in the lower left hand corner it is probably a love-letter.

  There are different ways. Here is one I read about recently:

  He had his little speech all written out for several days beforehand and it ran thus:

  “I have called, Mr. Wealthyman, to tell you frankly that I love your daughter and I have her assurance that my affection is returned and I hope you will give your consent for her to become my wife. I am not a rich man, but we are young and strong and are willing to fight the battle of life together, and –”

  There was a great deal more to it and he could say it all glibly before he left home. When he stood in the presence of Papa Wealthyman this is what he said:

  “I – I – that is – Mr. Wealthyman – I tell you frankly that – that – I – your daughter loves me – and – and – I have called – to – to – to – to – frankly ask you to – to – be my wife – that is – I – we – she – no – we are willing to fight – that is – we – we are young and can fight – er – no – I hope you understand me?”

  I hope he did, too, don’t you? What is the moral of this? Oh, there isn’t any.

  [Seeing and Perceiving]

  Monday, 27 January 1902

  NOWADAYS FOLKS ARE DOING THINGS FOR WHICH, HAD they done or tried to do
them a couple of hundred years ago, they would have been sent to Heaven in the shape of smoke. Marconi167 would probably have been regarded as the very archfiend himself and instead of travelling comfortably around Cape Breton and Newfoundland and being feted and honored everywhere he goes he would have been treated to the rack and thumb screws and finally have made his exit from the stage of life as the “star” in an auto-da-fe performance.168 I really believe that the world is getting a little more sensible as it grows older. Nowadays it does honor to its wizards instead of burning them.

  But really all this wireless telegraphy business makes me ask what are we coming to? I read an article recently wherein it said that before long a thought-reading process would be perfected by which we could all read – and be read by – our friends as easily as the latest book. Whereat I murmured softly and devoutly to Theodosia:

  “May the present scribe be dead.”169

  I am very thankful to reflect that the thought-reader will not be perfected in my time. But when it is we can imagine something like this taking place:

  Mrs. A., armed with a concealed thought-reader, calls upon Mrs. B. Mrs. B. receives her enthusiastically and exclaims:

  “You dear thing! I’m so glad to see you. It seems a perfect age since you’ve been in.”

  Mrs. A. smiles grimly. She knows that Mrs. B. is thinking,

  “Bothersome old thing! What ever made her come today. She’s always gadding about somewhere.”

  Then the conversation, on Mrs. B.’s part, proceeds as follows, all perfectly intelligible to Mrs. A.