American essays -- 19th century; Short stories, American
“This had, from the very beginning of their acquaintance, induced
in her that _awe_, which is the most delicious feeling a wife can
have toward her husband.”
“Awe!”--awe of a man whose whiskers you have trimmed, whose hair you
have cut, whose cravats you have tied, whose shirts you have “put into
the wash,” whose boots and shoes you have kicked into the closet, whose
dressing-gown you have worn while combing your hair; who has been down
cellar with you at eleven o’clock at night, to hunt for a chicken-bone;
who has hooked your dresses, unlaced your boots, fastened your
bracelets, and tied on your bonnet; who has stood before your
looking-glass, with thumb and finger on his proboscis, scraping his
chin; whom you have buttered, and sugared, and toasted, and tea-ed; whom
have seen asleep with his mouth wide open! Ri--diculous!
A WORD TO PARENTS AND TEACHERS.
Why _will_ New York women be eternally munching cake and
confectionery? What is more disgusting than to see a lady devouring at a
sitting, ounces of burnt almonds, and sugared wine and brandy-drops, or
packing away, in her rosy mouth, uncounted platesful of jelly-cake or
maccaroons? “But shopping is hungry business;” that is true, and many a
shopper comes hungry distances to perform it; but are cake and
confectionery wholesome diet between meals? and is not ice-cream at such
a time rank poison? Call for a sandwich or a roll, and you may not be
considered suicidal.
Every body knows that young girls are foreordained to go through a
regular experience in eating slate-pencils, burnt quills, pickles, and
chalk; but this green age passed, one looks for a little common sense. I
have often seen New York women, not content with ruining their own
constitution in this way (and consequently periling their prospective
offspring), buy, before leaving the confectioner’s shop, five or six
pounds of candy for _nursery distribution_, and ask Betty, the next day
(the sapient mother!), “what can ail those children to fret so?” It were
more merciful to purchase a dose of strychnine, and put an immediate end
to their misery, than thus murder them by inches. Are the rosy, robust,
beautiful English children, candy-fed? Are they suffered to gorge
themselves on hot bread, preserves, cake and pastry, _ad libitum_? Do
they have any thing but the plainest puddings, the stalest bread, and
the most unmitigated roast and boiled meat, unpoisoned by those
dyspepsia-breeding gravies of ours?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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