Samantha Among the Brethren, Complete by Marietta Holley (the reader ebook .txt) đź“–
- Author: Marietta Holley
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A pretty name, I think, and it wuz a beautiful lecture, very, and extremely flowery. It affected some of the hearers awfully; they wuz all carried away with it. Josiah Allen wept like a child durin' the rehearsin' of it. I myself didn't weep, but I enjoyed it, some of it, first rate.
I can't begin to tell it all as she did, 'specially after this length of time, in such a lovely, flowery way, but I can probably give a few of the heads of it.
It hain't no ways likely that I can give the heads half the stylish, eloquent look that she did as she held 'em up, but I can jest give the bare heads.
She said that there had been a effort made in some directions to try to speak against the holy state of matrimony. The papers had been full of the subject, “Is Marriage a Failure, or is it not?”
She had even read these dreadful words—“Marriage is a Failure.” She hated these words, she despised 'em. And while some wicked people spoke against this holy institution, she felt it to be her duty, as well as privilege, to speak in its praise.
I liked it first rate, I can tell you, when she went on like that. For no living soul can uphold marriage with a better grace that can she whose name vuz once Smith.
I love Josiah Allen, I am glad that I married him. But at the same time, my almost devoted love doesn't make me blind. I can see on every side of a subject, and although, as I said heretofore, and prior, I love Josiah Allen, I also love megumness, and I could not fully agree with every word she said.
But she went on perfectly beautiful—I didn't wonder it brought the school-house down—about the holy calm and perfect rest of marriage, and how that calm wuz never invaded by any rude cares.
How man watched over the woman he loved; how he shielded her from every rude care; kept labor and sorrow far, far from her; how woman's life wuz like a oneasy, roarin', rushin' river, that swept along discontented and onsatisfied, moanin' and lonesome, until it swept into the calm sea of Repose—melted into union with the grand ocian of Rest, marriage.
And then, oh! how calm and holy and sheltered wuz that state! How peaceful, how onruffled by any rude changes! Happiness, Peace, Calm! Oh, how sweet, how deep wuz the ocian of True Love in which happy, united souls bathed in blissful repose!
It was dretful pretty talk, and middlin' affectin'. There wasn't a dry eye in Josiah Allen's head, and I didn't make no objection to his givin' vent to his feelin's, only when I see him bust out a-weepin' I jest slipped my pocket-handkerchief 'round his neck and pinned it behind. (His handkerchief wuz in constant use, a cryin' and weepin' as he wuz.) And I knew that salt water spots black satin awfully. He had on a new vest.
Submit Tewksbury cried and wept, and wept and cried, caused by remembrances, it wuz spozed. Of which, more anon, and bimeby.
And Drusilly Sypher, Deacon Sypherses wife, almost had a spazzum, caused by admiration and bein' so highly tickled.
I myself didn't shed any tears, as I have said heretofore. And what kep' me calmer wuz, I knew, I knew from the bottom of my heart, that she went too fur, she wuzn't megum enough.
And then she went on to draw up metafors, and haul in illustrations, comparin' married life and single—jest as likely metafors as I ever see, and as good illustrations as wuz ever brung up, only they every one of 'em had this fault—when she got to drawin' 'em, she drawed 'em too fur. And though she brought the school-house down, she didn't convince me.
Once she compared single life to a lonely goose travellin' alone acrost the country, 'cross lots, lonesome and despairin', travellin' along over a thorny way, and desolate, weighed down by melancholy and gloomy forebodin's, and takin' a occasional rest by standin' up on one cold foot and puttin' its weery head under its wing, with one round eye lookin' out for dangers that menaced it, and lookin', also, perhaps, for a possible mate, for the comin' gander—restless, wobblin', oneasy, miserable.
Why, she brought the school-house down, and got the audience all wrought up with pity, and sympathy. Oh, how Submit Tewksbury did weep; she wept aloud (she had been disappointed, but of this more bimeby).
And then she went on and compared that lonesome voyager to two blissful wedded ones. A pair of white swans floatin' down the waveless calm, bathed in silvery light, floatin' down a shinin' stream that wuz never broken by rough waves, bathed in a sunshine that wuz never darkened by a cloud.
And then she went on to bring up lots of other things to compare the two states to—flowery things and sweet, and eloquent.
She compared single life to quantities of things, strange, weird, melancholy things, and curius. Why, they wuz so powerful that every one of 'em brought the school-house down.
And then she compared married life to two apple blossoms hangin' together on one leafy bough on the perfumed June air, floatin' back and forth under the peaceful benediction of summer skies.
And she compared it to two white lambs gambolin' on the velvety hill-side. To two strains of music meltin' into one dulcet harmony, perfect, divine harmony, with no discordant notes.
Josiah hunched me, he wanted me to cry there, at that place, but I wouldn't. He did, he cried like an infant babe, and I looked close and searchin' to see if my handkerchief covered up all his vest.
He didn't seem to take no notice of his clothes at all, he wuz a-weepin' so—why, the whole schoolhouse wept, wept like a babe.
But I didn't. I see it wuz a eloquent and powerful effort. I see it was beautiful as anything could be, but it lacked that one thing I have mentioned prior and before this time. It lacked megumness.
I knew they wuz all impressive and beautful illustrations, I couldn't deny it, and I didn't want to deny it. But I knew in my heart that the lonely goose that she had talked so eloquent about, I knew that though its path might be tegus the most of the time, yet occasionally it stepped upon velvet grass and blossomin' daisies. And though the happy wedded swans floated considerable easy a good deal of the time, yet occasionally they had their wings rumpled by storms, thunder storms, sudden squalls, and et cetery, et cetery.
And I knew the divine harmony of
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