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About The west shore. (Portland, Or.) 1875-1891 | View Entire Issue (Sept. 20, 1890)
WEST SHORE. 85 BY ELLA HlOUNSON. THE SEA OF OPAL. (FDOR SOOSD). 0, mm; a lime on tie See of Opel, The dij and the night have nanowli mieeed ; And mini a tim on h tramalou boeom The ma end the moan tuTt pawionatelj lined. 0, mania etar in the fa of Opal Hu eperkled, and ahWered, and aonk from new ; And hare frown dim with waiting and watobimj lor ahlpa that were lost in the ehimmerinf bine. 0, many a heart on the B of Opal Hu aailed awar in the cold gny miat ; And hearta that were left have tainted of doobtini, With eoola unietiined. 11 pe nnkiiaad. O.aweetheart! Life ii a See of Opel The inn U happineie, aorrow the miat ; And the atari that are loet in ita tremnlona boaom Are teare nnihed and kiaaee nnkiiaed. I like a beautiful child, but I lore well-behaved one. 0, you mothers whoepoll your children 1 you are doing them an irreparable wrong. " I hate that child," I heard a gentlemen say the other day; " I am ashamed to hold uch a feeling toward a little child, but, at least, I am only confess ing the truth. It is his parents' fault, but still I detest the very sight of him." There Is much to be said on both sides of this question; and the woman who has children, and the woman who has none, should each make allowance, one for the other. I believe It to be next to impossible to make a really good child out of one whose disposition is naturally vicious; but you can, at least, make him well behaved. You can not put the na ture of a lamb Into the breast of the lion, but you can so train the lion that he will obey your slightest command. It may require time, patience, and an unbreakable will to bring up a child In the way he should go; but better it were to cast him Into the sea at his birth than to so humor his whims, and yield to his " tempers," and spoil him generally, that your warmest friends will be unable to tolerate your child. Let him talk at bis own sweet will at home, but teach him to sit quietly and silently in your friends' homes, unless he is addressed; and until he Is old enough to understand and obey this rule, do not take him out with you unless he has a special In vitation. Let him ask questions galore at home, and patiently give him the desired information, but teach him that it is an onslaught on nerves, on pa tience, on good breeding, and on poor, suffering humanity in general to auk questions when away from home. I know one ex-United States senator who has twelve children, and each is a model for good behavior, good breed ing, simple, natural elegance of manner, and cheerful, kind consideration for old and young, high and low. The mother of those children had the sole care of each of them, and was so devoted to them that, although she en tertained graciously and hospitably the friends for whom she really cared, she found neither time nor desire to be " In the swim " of the empty, use less vanities and frivolities of what is wrongly called " society." I know another United States senator who has several children, each one of whom is a model for bad behavior, bad manners, disgusting lack of consideration for others, and unbearable insolence. Their mother is a leader of society ; she Is celebrated for her beauty, her style, her wealth, ber diamonds ; and, to keep np her reputation for these things, she neglected her children, leav ing them to the caie of incompetent nurse girls. I met her at a hotel one summer, where her promising, three-year-old daughter made life one black nightmare to all other guests. More than all others should those " of high degree" teach their children to be simple, natural, well behaved, and con sideiate of others. Yet many a wood chopper's child could teach real re finement of manner to many a governor's son. An eastern maaiine not long ago contained a graphic account of seal fishing, the writer of which had, himself, accompanied a sealing expedi tion Into Alaskan waters. He is evidently a man of just soul and tender feeling, and his very pen seems to writhe with the torture of recollection, as he writes of the sickening scenes of butchery he was forced to witness. He tells how the seals are surprised and surrounded where they are congre gated In thousands on the los or the rocks, and pitilessly beaten to death with clubs In the hands of the fishermen. He went out with them one day, ambitious to share the work, but a few hours of the terrible slaughter were enough to fill his soul with phantoms for a life time. He went back to the ship, sick at heart, and crept into his bunk feeling that he must hide his guilty face from the sunlight of heaven. The Innocent, helpless way In which those beautiful, defenseless creatures looked into the merciless eyes of their murderers, and uttered their little, plaintive, murmuring " meow eow," as the brutal club was lifted above them, cut Into his soul and left a scar that time can not efface. In the light of this inhuman picture how must we feel when we reflect that at the present moment some of the ablest statesmen of two of earth's greatest nations are wrangling and " arbitrating " for supremacy of right to conduct this slaughter of Innocent creatures In Behring sea? Think of It, lovely reader ; you, who In winter days, wear a seal cape about your milk-white throat and shoulders, or thrust dainty hands hands that would shrink from that butchery into seal muffs ! Here comes in the law of cause and effect-and are not you and I tht came and all the rest of the wretched business the effect? The pivot upon which rests the whole, vast sealing industry is the principle of demand and supply . Let you and me put an end to the demand, and would not the supply cease as if by miglc? If there be a God who Judges the just and the unjust, how much higher do you think we stand In His sight than the fishermen who do the disgusting work at our behest? For a few hours' gratification of our empty vanity, we yearly issue the death-warrant of thousands of helpless creatures, as fair in their form as we are In ours, and as justly entitled to the Ufa that my God and your Ood has given them. Our hireling, the bronied and hardened sailor, can at least plead a semblance of self-justification In that he toils and murders for a livelihood for himself and for his loved ones. Are we less red-handed than he with these slips of costly seal about our throats? The roads are dark this September morning, instead of white, for last night It rained a gentle, steady, warm rain; I lay awake half the night listening to it, and thinking how glad the flowers would be, and how sweet the woodB, in the morning, and wondering how many other people were ly ing with wakeful eyes listening to the soft fall of the summer rain on the roof. And now all the thick white dust Is packed down lightly, and my horse's feet sink into it noiselessly, leaving clear-cut tracks. On either side the road, run narrow, white ribbons where some early wagon has gone, probably laden down with luscious fruits and vegetables, with some merry, whistling farmer's boy holding the " lines " in careless fingers. Oat In that wood one little bird is fairly mad with the joy of living-one can almost hear the drops of last night's rain trembling through his notes as hs flings them out from that ruffled, swelling throat and breast. Ah I a good shot I -a kind, keen shotl My horse shrinks violently from it, but I-I shrink only from the hand that cut down that little glad, Innocent life, that a red breast or wing might flame on some frivolous woman's hat, I wonder If the women who wear those little dead things ever think of the tiny little hearts and the tender sonjs that stopped forever that their cruel pleas ure might be gratified I There Is something In the air this morning that warns us the autumn of another year is with us; It is an Indescribable something a faint, subtle change, pure, sweet, tremulous, as the change in a young girl's face after love's first kiss. A mellow goldennesi lies over everything, even blending with the purple hats that sleeps over the sea; here a maple stands like a scarlet stain against the dark background of the forest ; a squirrel scampars, scolding, up a tree ; a gray rabbit flashes across the road and plunges through the wet ferns ; and all about me fir cones are falling softly there Is something mournful about the sound of a falling cone. The " sweet, sad days " of the year are with us ; and somethingIt may be the drenched perfume of the air, or the softer blue of the tea and iky, or yet the bailness, the languor, the loneliness of the waning year brings back to many of us the remembrance of the other days and other places ; of voices long silent, of Hps long dumb, of forms long vanished. Only think of itl Borne of the London duchesses have swelled out and rallied up their feathers and decided that no more plebeian rich Americans shall have the entree to their high-born " society." It Is the height of snobbishness that titled ladles with haiy reputations and titled roues with no reputations at all should bold themselves better than pure American women and honest American men. I wWh with all my soul that America had one leading society woman who would " decide " that no more dissi pated princes should be admitted to her home. We might, then, keep more of our rich girls at home, and make noble American wives and mothers of them. Do not ever forget that the man who Is the pink of courtesy to other women Is very frequently an unmannerly boor to his wife. An arrogant and haughty bearing is frequently but the mask of extreme sensitiveness. The frivolous mother buildeth the foundation for a fool to stand upon.