Samantha at the World's Fair, Marietta Holley [most life changing books txt] 📗

And I see plain that Columbia couldn't help discoverin' her if she wanted to, when she's lifted herself up so, and is showin' plain in 1893 jest how lofty and level-headed, how many-sided and yet how symmetrical she is.

There she stands (Columbia didn't have to take my word for it), there she[Pg 304] wuz a-towerin' up one hundred feet, lofty, serene, and sweet-faced, her calm, tender eyes a-lookin' off into the new order of centuries.

And Columbia wuz a-sailin' right towards her, steered by Time, the invincible.

I see there wuz a great commotion down in the water, a-snortin', and a-plungin', and a-actin' amongst the lower order of intelligences.

But Columbia's eyes wuz clear, and calm, and determined, and Old Time couldn't be turned round by any prancin' from the powers below.

Woman is discovered.

But to resoom. This immense boat wuz in the centre, jest as it should be; and all before it and around wuz the horses of Neptune, and mermaids, and fishes, and all the mystery of the sea.

Some of the snortin' and prancin' of the horses of the Ocean, and pullin' at the bits, so's the men couldn't hardly hold 'em, wuz meant, I spoze, to represent how awful tuckerin' it is for humanity to control the forces of Nater.

Wall, of all the sights I ever see, that fountain wuz the upshot and cap sheaf; and how I would have loved to have told Mr. MacMonnies so! It would have been so encouragin' to him, and it would have seemed to have relieved[Pg 305] that big debt of gratitude that Jonesville and America owed to him; and how I wish I could make a good cup of tea for him, and brile a hen or a hen turkey! I'd do it with a willin' mind.

I wish he'd come to Jonesville and make a all-day's visit—stay to dinner and supper, and all night if he will, and travel round through Jonesville the next day. I would enjoy it, and so would Josiah. Of course, we couldn't show off in fireworks anything to what he does, havin' nothin' but a lantern and a torchlight left over from Cleveland's campain. No; we shouldn't try to have no such doin's. I know when I am outdone.

Bime-by we stood in front of that noble statute of the Republic.

And as I gazed clost at it, and took in all its noble and serene beauty, I had emotions of a bigger size, and more on 'em, than I had had in some time.

Havin' such feelin's as I have for our own native land—discovered by Christopher Columbus, founded by George Washington, rescued, defended, and saved by Lincoln and Grant (and I could preach hours and hours on each one of these noble male texts, if I had time)—

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Bein' so proud of the Republic as I have always been, and so sot on wantin' her to do jest right and soar up above all the other nations of the earth in nobility and goodness—havin' such feelin's for her, and such deep and heartfelt love and pride for my own sect—what wuz my emotions, as I see that statute riz up to the Republic in the form of a woman, when I went up clost and paid particular attention to her!

A female, most sixty-five feet tall! Why, as I looked on her, my emotions riz me up so, and seemed to expand my own size so, that I felt as if I, too, towered up so high that I could lock arms with her, and walk off with her arm in arm, and look around and enjoy what wuz bein' done there in the great To-Day for her sect, and mine; and what that sect wuz a-branchin' out and doin' for herself.

But, good land! it wuz only my emotions that riz me up; my common sense told me that I couldn't walk locked arms with her, for she wuz built out in the water, on a stagin' that lifted her up thirty or forty feet higher.

And her hands wuz stretched out as if to welcome Columbia, who wuz a-sailin' right towards her. On the right hand a globe was held; the left arm extended above her head, holdin' a pole.

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I didn't know what that pole wuz for, and I didn't ask; but she held it some as if she wuz liable to bring it down onto the globe and gin it a whack. And I didn't wonder.

It is enough to make a stun woman, or a wooden female, mad, to see how the nation always depicters wimmen in statutes, and pictures, and things, as if they wuz a-holdin' the hull world in the palm of their hand, when they hain't, in reality, willin' to gin 'em the right that a banty hen has to take care of their own young ones, and protect 'em from the hoverin' hawks of intemperance and every evil.

But mebby she didn't have no idee of givin' a whack at the globe; she wuz a-holdin' it stiddy when I seen her, and she looked calm, and middlin' serene, and as beautiful, and lofty, and inspirin' as they make.

She wuz dressed well, and a eagle had come to rest on her bosom, symbolical, mebby, of how wimmen's heart has, all through the ages, been the broodin' place and the rest of eagle man, and her heart warmed by its soft, flutterin' feathers, and pierced by its cruel beak.

The crown wore on top of her noble forehead wuz dretful appropriate to show what wuz inside of a woman's head; for it wuz made of electric lights—flashin' lights, and strange, w[Pg 308]rought of that mysterious substance that we don't understand yet.

But we know that it is luminous, fur-reachin' in its rays, and possesses almost divine intelligence.

It sheds its pure white light a good ways now, and no knowin' how much further it is a-goin' to flash 'em out—no knowin' what sublime and divine power of intelligence it will yet grow to be, when it is fully understood, and when it has the full, free power to branch out, and do all that is in it to do.

Jest like wimmen's love, and divine ardor, and holy desires for a world's good—jest exactly.

It wuz a good-lookin' head-dress.

Her figger wuz noble, jest as majestic and perfect as the human form can be. And it stood up there jest as the Lord meant wimmen to stand, not lookin' like a hour-glass or a pismire, but a good sensible waist on her, jest as human creeters ort to have.

I don't know what dressmakers would think of her. I dare presoom to say they would look down on her because she didn't taper. And they would probable be disgusted because she didn't wear cossets.

But to me one of the greatest and grandest uses of that noble figger wuz to sta[Pg 309]nd up there a-preachin' to more than a million wimmen daily of the beauty and symmetry of a perfect form, jest as the Lord made it, before it wuz tortured down into deformity and disease by whalebones and cosset strings.

Imagine that stately, noble presence a-scrunchin' herself in to make a taper on herself—or to have her long, graceful, stately draperies cut off into a coat-tail bask—the idee!

Here wuz the beauty and dignity of the human form, onbroken by vanity and folly. And I did hope my misguided sect would take it to heart.

And of all the crowds of wimmen I see a-standin' in front of it admirin' it, I never see any of 'em, even if their own waists did look like pismires, but what liked its looks.

Till one day I did see two tall, spindlin', fashionable-lookin' wimmen a-lookin' at it, and one sez to the other:

"Oh, how sweet she would look in elbow-sleeves and a tight-fittin' polenay!"

"Yes," sez the other; "and a bell skirt ruffled almost to the waist, and a Gainsboro hat, and a parasol."

"And high-heel shoes and seven-button gloves," sez the other.

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And I turned my back on them then and there, and don't know what other improvements they did want to add to her—most likely a box of French candy, a card-case, some eye-glasses, a yeller-covered novel, and a pug dog. The idee!

"How sweet she would look!"

And as I wended on at a pretty good jog after hearin' 'em, I sez to myself—

"Some wimmen are born fools, some achieve foolishness, and some have foolishness thrust on 'em, and I guess them two had all three of 'em."

I said it to myself loud enough so's Josiah heard me, and he sez in joyful axents—

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"I am glad, Samantha, that you have come to your senses at last, and have a realizin' sense of your sect's weaknesses and folly."

And I wuz that wrought up with different emotions that I wuz almost perfectly by the side of myself, and I jest said to him—

"Shet up!"

I wouldn't argy with him. I wuz fearful excited a-contemplatin' the heights of true womanhood and the depths of fashionable folly that a few—a very few—of my sect yet waded round in.

But after I got quite a considerable distance off, I instinctively turned and looked up to the face of that noble creeter, the Republic.

And I see that she didn't care what wuz said about her.

Her face wuz sot towards the free, fresh air of the future—the past wuz behind her. The winds of Heaven wuz fannin' her noble fore-top, her eyes wuz lookin' off into the fur depths of space, her lips wuz wreathed with smiles caught from the sun and the dew, and the fire of the golden dawn.

She wuz riz up above the blame or praise—the belittlin', foolish, personal babblin' of contemporary criticism.

Her head wuz lifted towards the stars.

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But to resoom, and continue on.

CHAPTER XII.

After we reluctantly left off contemplatin' that statute of Woman, we wended along to the buildin' of Manafactures and Liberal Arts, that colossial structure that dwarfs all the other giants of the Exposition.

This is the largest buildin' ever constructed by any exposition whatsoever.

It covers with its galleries forty acres of land—it is as big as the hull of Elam Bobbet's farm—and Elam gets a good livin' offen that farm for him and Amanda and eight children, and he raises all kinds of crops on it, besides cows, and colts, and hens, grass land and pasture, and a creek goes a-runnin' through it, besides a piece of wood lot.

And then, think to have one buildin' cover a place as large as Elam's farm! Why, jest the idee on't would, I believe, stunt Amanda Bobbet, or else throw her into spazzums.

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For she has always felt dretful proud of their farm, and the size of it; she has always said that it come hard on Elam to do all the work himself on such a big farm. She has acted haughty.

And then, if I could have took Amanda by the hand, and sez—

"Here, Amanda, is one house that covers as much ground as your hull farm!"

I believe she would have fell right down in a coniption fit.

But Amanda wuzn't there; I had only my faithful pardner to share my emotions, as I went into one of its four great entrances, under its triumphal arches, each one bein' 40 feet wide and 80 feet high—as long as from our house to the back pasture.

The idee! the idee!

Why, to change my metafor a little about the bigness of this buildin', so's to let foreign nations git a little clearer idee of the size on't, I will state—

This one house is bigger than all those of Jonesville, and Loontown, and Shackville, and Zoar. It is the biggest house on this planet. Whether they have got any bigger ones in Mars, or Jupiter, or Saturn, I don't know; but I will say this—if they have, and the Marites, and Jupiterians, and Satens, are made up as we be, and calculate to go through the buildin's, I am sorry for their legs.

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It faces the lake, in plain view of all admirin' mariners, the long row of arches, and columns; is ornamented beyend anything that Jonesville ever drempt of, or Zoar, and a gallery fifty feet wide runs all round the buildin'; and from this gallery runs eighty-six smaller galleries, so nothin' hinders folks from lookin' down into the big hall below, and seein' the gorgeous seen of the Exposition, and the immense throng of people admirin' it.

As Josiah and I wuz a-wendin' along on the gallery a-frontin'