Whiskers and Kisses — 153
The editress of the Lancaster Literary Gazette says she would as soon nestle her nose in a rat’s nest of swingle tow as allow a man with whiskers on to kiss her. We (Petersburg Express) don’t believe a word of it. The objections which some ladies pretend to have to whiskers all arise from envy. They don’t have any. They would if they could; but the fact is, the continual motion of the lower jaw is fatal to their growth. The ladies—God bless them!—adopt our fashion as far as they can. Look at the depredations they have committed on our wardrobes the last few years. They have appropriated our shirt-bosoms, gold studs and all. They have encircled their soft bewitching necks in our standing collars and cravats—driving them to flatties and turn-downs. Their innocent little hearts have been palpitating in the inside of our waistcoats, instead of thumping against the outside, as naturally intended. They have thrust their pretty feet and ankles through our unmentionables, unwhisperables, unthinkaboutables; and they are skipping along the streets in our high-heeled boots. Do you hear, gentlemen?—we say boots!
Everything is beautiful when it is little (except souls!)—little pigs, little lambs, little birds, little kittens, little children. Little Martin boxes of houses are generally the most happy and cozy; little villages are nearer to being atoms of a shattered paradise than anything we know of. Little fortunes bring the most content, and little hopes the least disappointment. Little words are the sweetest to hear, and little charities fly furthest and stay the longest on the wing. Little lakes are the stillest, little hearts the fullest, and little farms the best tilled. Little books the most read, and little songs the best loved. And when Nature would make anything especially rare and beautiful, she makes it little—little pearls, little diamonds, little dews. Agar’s is a model prayer, but then it is a little prayer, and the burden of the petition is for little. The Sermon on the Mount is little, but the last dedication discourse was two hours. The Roman said, “Veni, vidi, vici”—I came, saw, conquered; but despatches now-a-days are longer than the battles they tell of. Everybody calls that little which they love best upon earth. We once heard a good sort of a man speak of his little wife, and we fancied she must be a perfect bijou of a woman. We saw her; she weighed two hundred and ten; we were surprised. But then it was no joke—the man meant it. He could put his wife in his heart, and have room for other things besides; and what was she but precious, and what could she be but little? We rather doubt the stories of great argosies of gold we sometimes hear of, for Nature deals in littles altogether. Life is made up of littles, death is what remains of them all. Day is made up of little beams, and night is glorious with little stars. Multum in parvo—much in little—is the great beauty of all that we love best, hope for most, and remember longest.