第88章 MISS LURIDA VINCENT TO MRS.EUTHYMIA KIRKWOOD(1)

ARROWHEAD VILLAGE,May 18.

MY DEAREST EUTHYMIA,--Who would have thought,when you broke your oar as the Atalanta flashed by the Algonquin,last June,that before the roses came again you would find yourself the wife of a fine scholar and grand gentleman,and the head of a household such as that of which you are the mistress?You must not forget your old Arrowhead Village friends.What am I saying?---you forget them!No,dearest,I know your heart too well for that!You are not one of those who lay aside their old friendships as they do last years bonnet when they get a new one.You have told me all about yourself and your happiness,and now you want me to tell you about myself and what is going on in our little place.

And first about myself.I have given up the idea of becoming a doctor.I have studied mathematics so much that I have grown fond of certainties,of demonstrations,and medicine deals chiefly in probabilities.The practice of the art is so mixed up with the deepest human interests that it is hard to pursue it with that even poise of the intellect which is demanded by science.I want knowledge pure and simple,--I do not fancy having it mixed.Neither do I like the thought of passing my life in going from one scene of suffering to another;I am not saintly enough for such a daily martyrdom,nor callous enough to make it an easy occupation.Ifainted at the first operation I saw,and I have never wanted to see another.I don't say that I wouldn't marry a physician,if the right one asked me,but the young doctor is not forthcoming at present.

Yes,I think I might make a pretty good doctor's wife.I could teach him a good deal about headaches and backaches and all sorts of nervous revolutions,as the doctor says the French women call their tantrums.I don't know but I should be willing to let him try his new medicines on me.If he were a homeopath,I know I should;for if a billionth of a grain of sugar won't begin to sweeten my tea or coffee,I don't feel afraid that a billionth of a grain of anything would poison me,--no,not if it were snake-venom;and if it were not disgusting,I would swallow a handful of his lachesis globules,to please my husband.But if I ever become a doctor's wife,my husband will not be one of that kind of practitioners,you may be sure of that,nor an "eclectic,"nor a "faith-cure man."On the whole,Idon't think I want to be married at all.I don't like the male animal very well (except such noble specimens as your husband).They are all tyrants,--almost all,--so far as our sex is concerned,and Ioften think we could get on better without them.

However,the creatures are useful in the Society.They send us papers,some of them well worth reading.You have told me so often that you would like to know how the Society is getting on,and to read some of the papers sent to it if they happened to be interesting,that I have laid aside one or two manuscripts expressly for your perusal.You will get them by and by.

I am delighted to know that you keep Paolo with you.Arrowhead Village misses him dreadfully,I can tell you.That is the reason people become so attached to these servants with Southern sunlight in their natures?I suppose life is not long enough to cool their blood down to our Northern standard.Then they are so child-like,whereas the native of these latitudes is never young after he is ten or twelve years old.Mother says,--you know mother's old-fashioned notions,and how shrewd and sensible she is in spite of them,--mother says that when she was a girl families used to import young men and young women from the country towns,who called themselves "helps,"not servants,--no,that was Scriptural;"but they did n't know everything down in Judee,"and it is not good American language.She says that these people would live in the same household until they were married,and the women often remain in the same service until they died or were old and worn out,and then,what with the money they had saved and the care and assistance they got from their former employers,would pass a decent and comfortable old age,and be buried in the family lot.Mother has made up her mind to the change,but grandmother is bitter about it.She says there never was a country yet where the population was made up of "ladies"and "gentlemen,"and she does n't believe there can be;nor that putting a spread eagle on a copper makes a gold dollar of it.She is a pessimist after her own fashion.She thinks all sentiment is dying out of our people.No loyalty for the sovereign,the king-post of the political edifice,she says;no deep attachment between employer and employed;no reverence of the humbler members of a household for its heads;and to make sure of continued corruption and misery,what she calls "universal suffrage"emptying all the sewers into the great aqueduct we all must drink from."Universal suffrage!"I suppose we women don't belong to the universe!Wait until we get a chance at the ballot-box,I tell grandma,and see if we don't wash out the sewers before they reach the aqueduct!But my pen has run away with men Iwas thinking of Paolo,and what a pleasant thing it is to have one of those child-like,warm-hearted,attachable,cheerful,contented,humble,faithful,companionable,but never presuming grownup children of the South waiting on one,as if everything he could do for one was a pleasure,and carrying a look of content in his face which makes every one who meets him happier for a glimpse of his features.