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.