The Wit of Women

by Kate Sanborn

  “She. ‘You ugly Bear! You are worse than any of those that walk on four legs. Let me loose! Let me loose, else I shall bite you!’ And as he would not let me loose I bit him. Yes, Maria, I bit him really on the hand, at which he only laughed scornfully and said: ‘Yes, yes, my little wife, that is always the way of those who are forward without the power to do. Take the paper. Now, take it!’

  “She. ‘Ah! Let me loose! let me loose!’

  “He. ‘Ask me prettily.’

  “She. ‘Dear Bear!’

  “He. ‘Acknowledge your fault.’

  “She. ‘I do.’

  “He. ‘Pray for forgiveness.’

  “She. ‘Ah, forgiveness!’

  “He. ‘Promise amendment.’

  “She. ‘Oh, yes, amendment!’

  “He. ‘Nay, I’ll pardon you. But now, no sour faces, dear wife, but throw your arms round my neck and kiss me.’

  “I gave him a little box on the ear, stole a quire of paper, and ran off with loud exultation. Bear followed into the kitchen growling horribly; but then I turned upon him armed with two delicious little patties, which I aimed at his mouth, and there they vanished. Bear, all at once, was quite still, the paper was forgotten, and reconciliation concluded.

  “There is, Maria, no better way of stopping the mouths of these lords of the creation than by putting into them something good to eat.”

  I wish I had room for my favorite Irishwoman, Lady Morgan, and her description of her first rout at the house of the eccentric Lady Cork.

  The off-hand songs of her sister, Lady Clarke, are fine illustrations of rollicking Irish wit and badinage.

  At one of Lady Morgan’s receptions, given in honor of fifty philosophers from England, Lady Clarke sang the following song with “great effect:”

  FUN AND PHILOSOPHY.

  Heigh for ould Ireland! Oh, would you require a land

  Where men by nature are all quite the thing,

  Where pure inspiration has taught the whole nation

  To fight, love, and reason, talk politics, sing;

  ‘Tis Pat’s mathematical, chemical, tactical,

  Knowing and practical, fanciful, gay,

  Fun and philosophy, supping and sophistry,

  There’s nothing in life that is out of his way.

  He makes light of optics, and sees through dioptrics,

  He’s a dab at projectiles—ne’er misses his man;

  He’s complete in attraction, and quick at reaction,

  By the doctrine of chances he squares every plan;

  In hydraulics so frisky, the whole Bay of Biscay,

  If it flowed but with whiskey, he’d store it away.

  Fun and philosophy, supping and sophistry,

  There’s nothing in life that is out of his way.

  So to him cross over savant and philosopher,

  Thinking, God help them! to bother us all;

  But they’ll find that for knowledge ‘tis at our own college

  Themselves must inquire for—beds, dinner, or ball.

  There are lectures to tire, and good lodgings to hire,

  To all who require and have money to pay;

  While fun and philosophy, supping and sophistry,

  Ladies and lecturing fill up the day.

  So at the Rotunda we all sorts of fun do,

  Hard hearts and pig-iron we melt in one flame;

  For if Love blows the bellows, our tough college fellows

  Will thaw into rapture at each lovely dame.

  There, too, sans apology, tea, tarts, tautology,

  Are given with zoology, to grave and gay;

  Thus fun and philosophy, supping and sophistry

  Send all to England home, happy and gay.

  From George Eliot, whose humor is seen at its best in “Adam Bede” and “Silas Marner,” how much we could quote! How some of her searching comments cling to the memory!

  “I’ve nothing to say again’ her piety, my dear; but I know very well I shouldn’t like her to cook my victuals. When a man comes in hungry and tired, piety won’t feed him, I reckon. Hard carrots ‘ull lie heavy on his stomach, piety or no piety. I called in one day when she was dishin’ up Mr. Tryan’s dinner, an’ I could see the potatoes was as watery as watery. It’s right enough to be speritial, I’m no enemy to that, but I like my potatoes mealy.”

  “You’re right there, Tookey; there’s allays two ‘pinions: there’s the ‘pinion a man has of himsen, and there’s the ‘pinion other folks have on him. There’d be two ‘pinions about a cracked bell if the bell could hear itself.”

  “You’re mighty fond o’ Craig; but for my part, I think he’s welly like a cock as thinks the sun’s rose o’ purpose to hear him crow.”

  “When Mr. Brooke had something painful to tell it was usually his way to introduce it among a number of disjointed particulars, as if it were a medicine that would get a milder flavor by mixing.”

  “Heaven knows what would become of our sociality if we never visited people we speak ill of; we should live like Egyptian hermits, in crowded solitude.”

  “No, I ain’t one to see the cat walking into the dairy and wonder what she’s come after.”

  “I have nothing to say again’ Craig, on’y it is a pity he couldna be hatched o’er again, and hatched different.”

  “I’m not denyin’ the women are foolish; God Almighty made ‘em to match the men.”

  “It’s a waste of time to praise people dead whom you maligned while living; for it’s but a poor harvest you’ll get by watering last year’s crop.”

  “I suppose Dinah’s like all the rest of the women, and thinks two and two will come to make five, if she only cries and makes bother enough about it.”

  “Put a good face on it and don’t seem to be looking out for crows, else you’ll set other people to watchin’ for ‘em, too.”

  “I took pretty good care, before I said ‘sniff,’ to be sure she would say ‘snaff,’ and pretty quick, too. I warn’t a-goin’ to open my mouth like a dog at a fly, and snap it to again wi’ nothin’ to swaller.”

  CHAPTER III.

  FROM ANNE BRADSTREET TO MRS. STOWE.

  The same gratifying progress and improvement noticed in the wit of women of other lands is seen in studying the literary annals of our own countrywomen.

  Think of Anne Bradstreet, Mercy Warren, and Tabitha Tenney, all extolled to the skies by their contemporaries.

  Mercy Warren was a satirist quite in the strain of Juvenal, but in cumbrous, artificial fashion.

  Hon. John Winthrop consulted her on the proposed suspension of trade with England in all but the necessaries of life, and she playfully gives a list of articles that would be included in that word:

  “An inventory clear

  Of all she needs Lamira offers here;

  Nor does she fear a rigid Cato’s frown,

  When she lays by the rich embroidered gown,

  And modestly compounds for just enough,

  Perhaps some dozens of mere flighty stuff;

  With lawns and lute strings, blonde and Mechlin laces,

  Fringes and jewels, fans and tweezer-cases;

  Gay cloaks and hat, of every shape and size,

  Scarfs, cardinals, and ribands, of all dyes,

  With ruffles stamped and aprons of tambour,

  Tippets and handkerchiefs, at least threescore;

  With finest muslins that fair India boasts,

  And the choice herbage from Chinesian coasts;

  Add feathers, furs, rich satin, and ducapes,

  And head-dresses in pyramidal shapes;

  Sideboards of plate and porcelain profuse,

  With fifty dittoes that the ladies use.

  So weak Lamira and her wants so few

  Who can refuse? they’re but the sex’s due.”

  Mrs. Sigourney, voluminous and mediocre, is amusing because so absolutely destitute of humor, and her style, a feminine Johnsonese, is absurdly hifalutin and strained.

  Th
is is the way in which she alludes to green apples:

  “From the time of their first taking on orbicular shape, and when it might be supposed their hardness and acidity would repulse all save elephantine tusks and ostrich stomachs, they were the prey of roaming children.”

  And in her poem “To a Shred of Linen”:

  “Methinks I scan

  Some idiosyncrasy that marks thee out

  A defunct pillow-case.”

  She preserved, however, a long list of the various solicitations sent her to furnish poems for special occasions, and I think this shows that she possessed a sense of humor. Let me quote a few:

  “Some verses were desired as an elegy on a pet canary accidentally drowned in a barrel of swine’s food.

  “A poem requested on the dog-star Sirius.

  “To write an ode for the wedding of people in Maine, of whom I had never heard.

  “To punctuate a three-volume novel for an author who complained that the work of punctuating always brought on a pain in the small of his back.

  “Asked to assist a servant-man not very well able to read in getting his Sunday-school lessons, and to write out all the answers for him clear through the book—to save his time.

  “A lady whose husband expects to be absent on a journey for a month or two wishes I would write a poem to testify her joy at his return.

  “An elegy on a young man, one of the nine children of a judge of probate.”

  Miss Sedgwick, in her letters, occasionally showed a keen sense of humor, as, when speaking of a certain novel, she said:

  “There is too much force for the subject. It is as if a railroad should be built and a locomotive started to transport skeletons, specimens, and one bird of Paradise.”

  Mrs. Caroline Gilman, born in 1794, and still living, author of “Recollections of a Southern Matron,” etc., will be represented by one playful poem, which has a veritable New England flavor:

  JOSHUA’S COURTSHIP.

  A NEW ENGLAND BALLAD.

  Stout Joshua was a farmer’s son,

  And a pondering he sat

  One night when the fagots crackling burned,

  And purred the tabby cat.

  Joshua was a well-grown youth,

  As one might plainly see

  By the sleeves that vainly tried to reach

  His hands upon his knee.

  His splay-feet stood all parrot-toed

  In cowhide shoes arrayed,

  And his hair seemed cut across his brow

  By rule and plummet laid.

  And what was Joshua pondering on,

  With his widely staring eyes,

  And his nostrils opening sensibly

  To ease his frequent sighs?

  Not often will a lover’s lips

  The tender secret tell,

  But out he spoke before he thought,

  “My gracious! Nancy Bell!”

  His mother at her spinning-wheel,

  Good woman, stood and spun,

  “And what,” says she, “is come o’er you,

  Is’t airnest or is’t fun?”

  Then Joshua gave a cunning look,

  Half bashful and half sporting,

  “Now what did father do,” says he,

  “When first he came a courting?”

  “Why, Josh, the first thing that he did,”

  With a knowing wink, said she,

  “He dressed up of a Sunday night,

  And cast sheep’s eyes at me.”

  Josh said no more, but straight went out

  And sought a butcher’s pen,

  Where twelve fat sheep, for market bound,

  Had lately slaughtered been.

  He bargained with a lover’s zeal,

  Obtained the wished-for prize,

  And filled his pockets fore and aft

  With twice twelve bloody eyes.

  The next night was the happy time

  When all New England sparks,

  Drest in their best, go out to court,

  As spruce and gay as larks.

  When floors are nicely sanded o’er,

  When tins and pewter shine,

  And milk-pans by the kitchen wall

  Display their dainty line;

  While the new ribbon decks the waist

  Of many a waiting lass,

  Who steals a conscious look of pride

  Toward her answering glass.

  In pensive mood sat Nancy Bell;

  Of Joshua thought not she,

  But of a hearty sailor lad

  Across the distant sea.

  Her arm upon the table rests,

  Her hand supports her head,

  When Joshua enters with a scrape,

  And somewhat bashful tread.

  No word he spake, but down he sat,

  And heaved a doleful sigh,

  Then at the table took his aim

  And rolled a glassy eye.

  Another and another flew,

  With quick and strong rebound,

  They tumbled in poor Nancy’s lap,

  They fell upon the ground.

  While Joshua smirked, and sighed, and smiled

  Between each tender aim,

  And still the cold and bloody balls

  In frightful quickness came.

  Until poor Nancy flew with screams,

  To shun the amorous sport,

  And Joshua found to cast sheep’s eyes

  Was not the way to court.

  “Fanny Forrester” and “Fanny Fern” both delighted the public with individual styles of writing, vastly successful when a new thing.

  When wanting a new dress and bonnet, as every woman will in the spring (or any time), Fanny Forrester wrote to Willis, of the New Mirror, an appeal which he called “very clever, adroit, and fanciful.”

  “You know the shops in Broadway are very tempting this season.

  Such beautiful things! Well, you know (no, you don’t know

  that, but you can guess) what a delightful thing it would be to

  appear in one of those charming, head-adorning,

  complexion-softening, hard-feature-subduing Neapolitans, with a

  little gossamer veil dropping daintily on the shoulder of one of

  those exquisite balzarines, to be seen any day at Stewart’s

  and elsewhere. Well, you know (this you must know) that

  shopkeepers have the impertinence to demand a trifling exchange

  for these things, even of a lady; and also that some people have

  a remarkably small purse, and a remarkably small portion of the

  yellow “root” in that. And now, to bring the matter home, I am

  one of that class. I have the most beautiful little purse in the

  world, but it is only kept for show. I even find myself under

  the necessity of counterfeiting—that is, filling the void with

  tissue-paper in lieu of bank-notes, preparatory to a shopping

  expedition. Well, now to the point. As Bel and I snuggled down

  on the sofa this morning to read the New Mirror (by the way,

  Cousin Bel is never obliged to put tissue-paper in her purse),

  it struck us that you would be a friend in need, and give good

  counsel in this emergency. Bel, however, insisted on my not

  telling what I wanted the money for. She even thought that I had

  better intimate orphanage, extreme suffering from the bursting

  of some speculative bubble, illness, etc.; but did I not know

  you better? Have I read the New Mirror so much (to say nothing

  of the graceful things coined under a bridge, and a thousand

  other pages flung from the inner heart) and not learned who has

  an eye for everything pretty? Not so stupid, Cousin Bel, no,

  no!…

  “And to the point. Maybe you of the New Mirror PAY for

  acceptable articles, maybe not. Comprenez vous? Oh, I do hope


  that beautiful balzarine like Bel’s will not be gone before

  another Saturday! You will not forget to answer me in the next

  Mirror; but pray, my dear Editor, let it be done very

  cautiously, for Bel would pout all day if she should know what I

  have written.

  “Till Saturday, your anxiously-waiting friend,

  “FANNY FORRESTER.”

  Such a note received by an editor of this generation would promptly fall into the waste-basket. But Willis was captivated, and answered:

  “Well, we give in! On condition that you are under twenty-five and that you will wear a rose (recognizably) in your bodice the first time you appear in Broadway with the hat and balzarine, we will pay the bills. Write us thereafter a sketch of Bel and yourself as cleverly done as this letter, and you may ‘snuggle’ down on the sofa and consider us paid, and the public charmed with you.”

  This style of ingratiating one’s self with an editor is as much a bygone as an alliterative pen-name.

  Fanny Fern (Sarah Willis Parton) also established a style of her own—”a new kind of composition; short, pointed paragraphs, without beginning and without end—one clear, ringing note, and then silence.”

  Her talent for humorous composition showed itself in her essays at school. I’ll give a bit from her “Suggestions on Arithmetic after Cramming for an Examination”:

  “Every incident, every object of sight seemed to produce an arithmetical result. I once saw a poor wretch evidently intoxicated; thought I, ‘That man has overcome three scruples, to say the least, for three scruples make one dram.’ Even the Sabbath was no day of rest for me—the psalms, prayers, and sermons were all translated by me into the language of arithmetic. A good man spoke very feelingly upon the manner in which our cares and perplexities were multiplied by riches. Muttered I: ‘That, sir, depends upon whether the multiplier is a fraction or a whole number; for if it be a fraction, it makes the product less.’ And when another, lamenting the various divisions of the Church, pathetically exclaimed: ‘And how shall we unite these several denominations in one?’