The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 07, No. 41, March, 1861

O Earth, thy summer-song of joy may soar
Ringing to heaven in triumph! I but crave
The sad, caressing murmur of the wave
That breaks in tender music on the shore.

TWO OR THREE TROUBLES

If there are only two or three, I am pretty sure of a sympathetic hearing. If there were two-and-twenty, I should be much more doubtful: for only last night, on being introduced to a tall lady in deep mourning, and assured that she had been "a terrible sufferer," that her life, indeed, had been "one long tragedy," I may as well confess, that, so far from being interested in this tall long tragedy, merely as such, I stepped a little aside on the instant, on some frivolous pretence, and took an early opportunity to get out of the way. Why this was I leave to persons who understand the wrong side of human nature. I am ashamed of it; but there it is,—neither worse nor better. And I can't expect others to be more compassionate than I am myself.

One of my troubles grew out of a pleasure, but was not less a trouble for the time. The other was not an excrescence, but ingrained with the material: not necessarily, indeed,—far from it; but, from the nature of the case, hopelessly so.

The penny-postman had brought me a letter from my Aunt Allen, from Albany. This letter contained, in three lines, a desire that her dear niece would buy something with the inclosed, and accept it as a wedding-gift, with the tenderest wishes for her life-long happiness, from the undersigned.

"The inclosed" fell on the floor, and Laura picked it up.

"Fifty dollars!—hum!—Metropolitan Bank."

"Oh, now, that is charming! Good old soul she is!"

"Yes. Very well. I'm glad she sent it in money."

"So am I. 'T isn't a butter-knife, anyhow."

"How do you mean?" inquired Laura.

"Why, Mr. Lang was telling last night about his clerk. He said he bought a pair of butter-knives for his clerk Hillman, hearing that he was to be married, and got them marked. A good substantial present he thought it was,—cost only seven dollars for a good article, and couldn't fail to be useful to Hillman. He took them himself, so as to be doubly gracious, and met his clerk at the store-door.

"'Good morning!—good morning! Wish you joy, Hillman! I've got a pair of butter-knives for your wife.—Hey? got any?'

"'Eleven, Sir.'

"Eleven butter-knives! and all marked Marcia Ann Hillman, from A.B., from C.D., and so on!"

Laura laughed, and said she hoped my friends would all be as considerate as Aunt Allen, or else consult her. Suppose eleven tea-pots, for instance, or eleven silver salvers, all in a row! Ridiculous!

"Now, Del, I will tell you what it is," said Laura, gravely.

Laura was the sensible one, like Laura in Miss Edgeworth's "Moral Tales," and never made any mistake. I was like the naughty horse that is always rearing and jumping, but kept on the track by the good steady one. Of course, I was far more interesting, and was to be married in three weeks.

"Now, Del, I'll tell you what it is. Are you going to have all your presents paraded on the study-table, for everybody to pull over and compare values,—and have one mortified, and another elated, and all uncomfortable?"

"Why, what can I do?"

"I know what I wouldn't do."

"You wouldn't do it, Laura?" said I, looking steadily at the fifty-dollar note.

"Never, Del! I told Mrs. Harris so, when we were coming home from Ellis Hall's wedding. It looked absolutely vulgar."

We all swore by Mrs. Harris in that part of Boynton, and it was something to know that Mrs. Harris had received the shock of such a heterodox opinion.

"And what did Mrs. Harris say, Laura?"

"She said she agreed with me entirely."

"Did she really?" said I, drawing a good long breath.

"Yes,—and she said she would as soon, and sooner, go to a silversmith's and pull over all the things on the counter. There were knives and forks, tea-spoons and table-spoons, fish-knives and pie-knives, strawberry-shovels and ice-shovels, large silver salvers and small silver salvers and medium silver salvers. Everything useful, and nothing you want to look at. There wasn't a thing that was in good taste to show, but just a good photograph of the minister that married them,—and a beautiful little wreath of sea-weed, that one of her Sunday-school scholars made for her. As to everything else, I would, as far as good taste goes, have just as soon had a collection of all Waterman's kitchen-furniture."

Laura stopped at last, indignant, and out of breath.

"There was a tremendous display of silver, I allow," said I; "the piano and sideboard were covered with it."

"Yes, and thoroughly vulgar, for that reason. A wedding-gift should be something appropriate,—not merely useful. As soon as it is only that, it sinks at once. It should speak of the bride, or to the bride, or of and from the friend,—intimately associating the gift with past impressions, with personal tastes, and future hopes felt by both. The gift should always be a dear reminder of the giver; a picture,—Evangeline or Beatrice; something you have both of you loved to look at, or would love to. But think of the delight of cutting your meat with Edward's present! forking ditto with Mary's! a crumb-scraper reminding you of this one, table-bell of that one; large salver, Uncle,—rich; small salver, Uncle,—mean; gold thimble, Cousin,—meanest of all. Table cleared, ditto mind and memory, of the whole of them—till next meal, perhaps!"

Laura ceased talking, but rocked herself swiftly to and fro in her chair. It is not necessary to say we were in our chambers,—as, since our British cousins have ridiculed our rocking-chairs, they are all banished from the parlor. Consequently we remain in our chambers to rock and be useful, and come into the parlor to be useless and uncomfortable in fauteuils, made, as the chair-makers tell us, "after the line of beauty." Laura and I both detest them, and Polly says, "Nothing can be worse for the spine of a person's back." To be

"Stretched on the rack of a too-easy chair,"

let anybody try a modern drawing-room. So Laura and I have cane sewing-chairs, which, it is needless to add, rock,—rock eloquently, too. They wave, as the boat waves with the impetus of the sea, gently, calmly, slowly,—or, as conversation grows animated, as disputes arise, as good stories are told, one after another, so do the sympathizing and eloquent rocking-chairs keep pace with our conversation, stimulating or soothing, as it chances.

And now I come to my first trouble,—first, and, as it happened, of long standing now; insomuch that, when Laura asked me once, gravely, why I had not made it a vital objection, in the first place, I had not a word to reply, but just—rocked.

She, Laura, was stitching on some shirts for "him." They were intended as a wedding-gift from herself, and were beautifully made. Laura despised a Wheeler-and-Wilson, and all its kindred,—and the shirts looked like shirts, consequently.

I linger a little, shivering on the brink. Somehow I always say "him,"—nowadays, of course, Mr. Sampson,—but then I always said "he" and "him." I know why country-folk say so, now. Though sentimentalists say, it is because there is only one "he" for "her," I don't believe it. It is because their names are Jotham, or Adoniram, or Jehiel, or Asher, or some of those names, and so they say "he," for short. But there was no short for me. So I may as well come to it. "His" name was America,—America Sampson. It is four years and a half since I knew this for a fact, yet my surprise is not lessened. Epithets are weak trash for such an occasion, or I should vituperate even now the odious practice of saddling children with one's own folly or prejudice in the shape of names.

There was no help for it. There was no hope. My lover had not received his name from any rich uncle, with the condition of a handsome fortune; so he had no chance of indignantly asserting his choice to be Herbert barefoot rather than Hog's-flesh with gold shoes. His father and mother had given his name,—not at the baptismal font, for they were Baptists, and didn't baptize so,—but they had given it to him. They were both alive and well, and so were seventeen uncles and aunts who would all know,—in good health, and bad taste, all of them.

"He" had four brothers to keep him in countenance, all with worse names than his: Washington, Philip Massasoit, Scipio, and Hiram Yaw Byron! There was the excuse, in this last name, of its being a family one, as far as Yaw went; but–However, as I said, language is wholly inadequate and weak for some purposes. There was a lower deep than America,—that was some comfort.

Hiram Yaw wasn't sent to college, but to Ashtabula, wherever that is, and I never wish to see him. But to college was America sent,—to be "hazed," and taunted, and called "E Plury," and his beak and claws inquired after, through the freshman year. I never knew how he went through,—I mean, with what feelings. Of course, he was the first scholar. But that, even, must have been but a small consolation.

The worst of all was, he was sensitive about his name,—whether because it had been used to torment him, and so, like poor worn-out Nessus, he wrapped more closely his poisoned scarf, (I like scarf better than shirt,)—or whether he had, in the course of his law-studies and men-studies, come to think it really mattered very little what a man's name was in the beginning; at all events, he had no notion of dismissing his own.

My own secret hope had been, that, by an Act of the Legislature, which that very season had changed Pontifex Parker to Charles Alfred Parker, Mr. Sampson might be accommodated with a name less unspeakably national.

Dear me! Alfred, Arthur, Albert,—if he must begin with A.

"A was an Archer, and shot at a frog."

I should even prefer Archer. It needn't be Insatiate Archer. So I kept turning over and over the painful subject, one evening,—I mean, of course, in my mind, for I had not really broached this matter of legislative action. Luckily, "he" had brought in the new edition of George Herbert's Works. We were reading aloud, and "he" read the chapter of "The Parson in Sacraments." At the foot was an extract from "The Parish Register" of Crabbe, which he read, unconscious of the way in which I mentally applied it. Indeed, I think he scarcely thought of his own name at that time. But I did, twenty-four times in every day. This was the note:—

"Pride lives with all; strange names our rustics give
To helpless infants, that their own may live;
Pleased to be known, they'll some attention claim,
And find some by-way to the house of fame.
'Why Lonicera wilt thou name thy child?'
I asked the gardener's wife, in accents mild.
'We have a right,' replied the sturdy dame;