COUSIN THE TEA ROSE. OUSIN, I have been thinking what you are to do with your pet rose when you go to New York. You know it would be a sad pity to leave it with such a scatter-brain as I am. I love flowers, indeed; that is, I like a regular bouquet, cut off, and tied up, to carry to a party; but as to all this tending and fussing, which is needful to keep them growing, I have no gifts in that line. Florence. Make yourself easy as to that, Kate. I have no intention of calling upon your talents. I have an asylum in view for my favourite. Kate. Oh, then you know just what I was going to say. Mrs. Marshall, I presume, has been speaking to you. She was here yesterday, and I was quite pathetic upon the subject, telling her the loss your favourite would sustain, and so forth; and she said how delighted she would be to have it in her greenhouse-it is in such a fine state now, so full of buds. I told her I knew you would like to give it to her; you are so fond of Mrs. Marshall, you know. Flor. Now, Kate, I am sorry, but I have otherwise engaged it. Kate. Who can it be to? You have so few intimates. Flor. Oh, it is only one of my odd fancies. Kate. But do tell me, Florence. Flor. Well, cousin, you know the little pale girl to whom we give sewing? Kate. What little Mary Stephens! How absurd, Florence! This is just another of your motherly, oldmaidish ways, dressing dolls for poor children, making bonnets, and knitting socks for all the little dirty babies in the neighbourhood. I do believe that you have made more calls in those two vile alleys behind our house than ever you have in Chestnut Street, and now-to crown all-you must give this choice little treasure to a seamstress girl, when one of your most intimate friends in your own class would value it so highly. What in the world can people in their circumstances want with flowers? Flor. Just the same that I do. Have you not noticed that the little girl never comes here without looking wistfully at the opening buds? And don't you remember the other morning she asked me so prettily if I would let her mother come and see it, she was so fond of flowers? Kate. But, Florence, only think of this rare flower standing on a table with ham, eggs, cheese, and flour, and stifled in that close little room where Mrs. Stephens and her daughter manage to wash, iron, and cook. Flor. Well, Kate, and if I were obliged to live in one coarse room, and wash, and iron, and cook, as you say; if I had to spend every moment of my time in toil, with no prospect from my window but a brick wall and dirty lane, such a flower as this would be untold enjoyment to m Kate. Pshaw, Florence! all sentiment! Poor people have no time to be sentimental. Besides, I don't believe it will grow with them; it is a greenhouse flower, and used to delicate living. Flor. Oh, as to that, a flower never inquires whether its owner is rich or poor; and Mrs. Stephens-whatever else she has not-has sunshine of as, good quality as this that streams through our window. The beautiful things that God makes are His gifts to all alike. You will see that my fair rose will be as well and cheerful in Mrs. Stephens's room as in ours. Kate. Well, after all, how odd! When one gives to poor people, one wants to give them something usefula bushel of potatoes, a ham, and such things. Flor. Why, certainly potatoes and ham must be supplied; but, having administered to the first and most craving wants, why not add any other little pleasures or gratifications we may have it in our power to bestow? I know there are many of the poor who have fine feeling and a keen sense of the beautiful, which rusts out and dies, because they are too hard pressed to procure it any gratification. Poor Mrs. Stephens, for example, I know she would enjoy birds, and flowers, and music as much as I do. I have seen her eye light up as she looked upon these things in our drawingroom; and yet not one beautiful thing can she command. From necessity, her room, her clothing—all she hasmust be coarse and plain. You should have seen the rapture she and Mary felt when I offered them my rose. Kate. Dear me! all this may be true; but I never thought of it before. I never thought that these hardworking people had any ideas of taste! Flor. Then why do you see the geranium or rose so carefully nursed in the old cracked teapot in the poorest room, or the morning-glory planted in a box, and twined about the window? Do not these show that the human heart yearns for the beautiful in all ranks of life? You remember, Kate, how our washerwoman sat up a whole night, after a hard day's work, to make her first baby a pretty dress to be baptized in. Kate. Yes; and I remember how I laughed at you for making such a tasteful little cap for it Flor. Well, Katy, I think the look of perfect delight with which the poor mother regarded her baby in its new dress and cap, was something quite worth creating. I do believe she could not have felt more grateful, if I had sent her a barrel of flour. Kate. Well, I never thought before of giving anything to the poor but what they really needed, and I have always been willing to do that when I could without going far out of my way. Flor. But, cousin, if our heavenly Father gave to us after this mode, we should have only coarse, shapeless piles of provisions lying about the world, instead of all this beautiful variety of trees and fruits and flowers. Kate. Well, well, cousin, I suppose you are right, but have mercy upon my poor head: it is too small to hold so many new ideas all at once; so go on your own way. IN GULLIVER'S POCKETS. [Lemuel Gulliver, surgeon to the Antelope, being shipwrecked and cast ashore on the island of Lilliput, was made prisoner and carried up the country to the metropolis. The Lilliputians were a race of pygmies,1 not six inches high.] THE HE emperor desired I would not take it ill if he gave orders to certain proper officers to search me, for probably I might carry about me several weapons, which must needs be dangerous things, if they answered the bulk of so prodigious a person. I said his majesty should be satisfied, for I was ready to strip myself, and turn up my pockets before him. This I delivered, part in words and part in signs. He replied that, by the laws of the kingdom, I must be searched by two of his officers; that he knew this could not be done without my consent and assistance; that he had so good an opinion of my generosity and justice as to trust their persons in my hands; that whatever they took from me should be returned when I left the country, or paid for at the rate which I would set upon them. I took up the officers in my hands, put them first into my coat pockets, and then into every other pocket about me, except my two fobs,3 and another secret pocket I had no mind should be searched, wherein I had some little necessaries that were of no consequence to any but myself. In one of my fobs there was a silver watch, and in the other a small quantity of gold in a purse. The gentlemen, having pen, ink, and paper about them, made an exact inventory of everything they saw; and when they had done, desired I would set them down, that they might deliver it to the emperor. This inventory I afterwards translated into English, and is, word for word, as follows. 66 Imprimis, in the right coat pocket of the Great Man Mountain (for so I interpret the words Quinbus Flestrin), after the strictest search, we found only one great piece of coarse cloth, large enough to be a foot-cloth for your majesty's chief room of state. In the left pocket, wc saw a huge silver chest, with a cover of the same metal, which we the searchers were not able to lift. We desired it should be opened, and one of us, stepping into it, found himself up to the mid leg in a sort of dust, some part whereof flying up to our faces, set us both a-sneezing for several times together. In his right waistcoat pocket we found a prodigious bundle of white thin substances, folded one over another, about the bigness of three men, tied with a strong cable, and marked with black figures, which we humbly conceive to be writings, every letter almost half as large as the palm of our hands. In the left, there was a sort of engine, from the back of which were extended twenty long poles, resembling the palisades before your majesty's court, wherewith we conjecture the Man |