LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume II, Issue 147, 23 November 1874, Page 3

LITERATURE.

OUR CHRISTMAS EXCURSION. (From St. Paul's Magazine.) How sad, and how angry, I felt that Christmas Eve, as I paced up and down, or rocked myself to and fro on a low seat, in my room in the bungalow in the Marine Lines ! Angry with Nellie, my sister, who first lectured me solemnly, and afterwards said something sharp about my ' monopolising Captain Brown's attention ;' angry with my good-natured brother-in-law, Phil Woods, Nellie's husband; angry with Captain Browne, the tiresome, pretty-faced ' lady'sman " that my little sister is proud of calling her ' great friend, Stanhope Browne,' a little fop who had never, till that miserable evening, amused me for live consecutive minutes; angry, very angry, with George Mainwaring, because he broke an engagement and would not dance with me, because he spoke to me harshly, meaningly, darkly, and because he accompanied his words with stern and disapproving looks ; angry too, and unreasonably angry, with my baby nephew and his ayah, who might be disturbed by my restlessness, as they slept in a room which was only screened off from mine ! How often I told over the events of the evening, hating the cocoa-nut matting for crackling as I crushed it under my impatient feet. 1 was not in an amiable mood that night. This was how it came about :

We had gone to Phil's colonel's that Christmas Eve, to what is called in •Bombay a ' carpet-dance ' (carpets being conspicuous by their absence on the floors of that part of India). Mr Mainwaring had previously told me he would be there, and I promised to dance with him. He had alluded to this engagement as if he attached some importance to it. For a while I looked out patiently for his tine, thoughtful face, towering above the heads of the blond lteutenants who were grouped about the entrance to the dancing-room ; but as the evening wore on, piqued at his non-appear-ance, 1 tried to amuse myself. without him. Captain Browne's pretty compliments, and young Smallboy's unfeigned admiration, pleased ami excited me ; but I had flirted quite within bounds until Nellie, vexed at her friend's transfer of allegiance, told me with much asperity that ' people would be making remarks ;' that I ' had danced quite enough for one evening with that ridiculous little cavalry officer ;' and that ' there were other partners to be had, besides Mr Smallboy and Captain Browne." Nellie's pretty childish face looked very cross. One minute afterwards I was sailing round the room in a waltz with Captain Brown. From a spirit of opposition I now flirted out-right. Afterthewaltz was over and until another dance had been partly gone through, my partner and I rested in the verandah, playing at love-making—a game of which, from long practice, he knows every move—when George Mainwaring passed us. He returned, and said in a sharp tone, and with rather a threatening look at my companion :

' As I passed, I did not recognise you for a moment, Miss Massej r . If lam not interrupting you, will you let me remind you, you promised me a dance ?' Captain Browne simpered, and said: ' I almost fear you are too late.' I hardly know what I said. It was nothing conciliatory, at all events. I felt defiant. He looked displeased and haughty. Why had he come so late, I asked myself, if he really wanted to keep his engagement to me ? I think I told him I had kept a dance for him for a while, but had given up all thought of his coming long ago. In a low tone, which reached my ear alone, he said he was quite willing to cancel any engagements we had jointly entered into ; and then he was gone I

Fifty times that night I seemed to see again the scene in the verandah. The eastern moon that had been shining, literally, as bright as day, just before, seemed to grow dim ; the music was, to my ear, changed into a braying of harsh instruments; the night air struck chill: it felt treacherous. I was aware of a dull kind of pain in my head. My partner's voice, of which I had been vaguely conscious for what seemed to me to be a very long time—ever since George Mainwaring's abrupt departure—ceased at last. The sense of what he had been saying had not reached my mind, for my thoughts had all been given to the subject of my quarrel. I said: ' It is cold, very cold. Surely it sometimes freezes here. I will go to Nellie, now please.' My voice sounded strange to my own ears, but my partner did not perceive any alteration ; he said, in his usual simpering way. ' Rather an abrupt change of subject. We were talking of ' ' Excuse me,' I interrupted, feeling very irritable, ' I did not quite follow you in what you were saying. Here is my sister's place. Thank you.' Nellie was dancing. Would George relent, I asked myself, and give mc an opportunity of saying a word to him, —one little apologetic word? Would he let me renew our other engagements—a dance together at the assembly, a ride also—which he seemed so willing to cancel just now?

Before I had enjoyed the luxury of being alone for many minutes, Mr Smallboy and another young officer claimed mc for the next dance. 1 said that ' I could not dance; I felt ill.'

' Very kind of you, Miss Massey,' said poor Smallboy, always ready to |applaud anything I did; ' pon my word, very kind indeed, not to dance with either of us. If yon had danced with that other fellow, Miss Massoy, really now, I don't think I could have stood it; could I, now.' Then Nellie came back, asked me where Stanhope Browne was, sent Mr Smallboy to look for him, and reproached me with "monopolising" her friend. How she irritated me ! And then Phil came, bringing the metaphorical 'last straw" for the 'camel's back,' in the shape of his well-meant, but unwelcome, enquiries : and some intelligence which was still more unwelcome.

' Why, Moll, what's the matter ?' he said. ' Not dancing ? Not well ? Then why on earth did you hang about with Browne in the verandah ? I'll make you go home as soon as ever I find Mainwaring. He wants to say good-bye to Nellie.' 'Oh, if that be all,' said Nellie, still out of humor, ' we can go at once. It is a very stupid party. I saw Mr Mainwaring. He told me he was going away.' 'Good-bye!' 'Going away!' Yes, 1 thought to myself bitterly, perhaps he looked more ill than angry when I saA\- him. Where was he going to? Could he manage to absent himself for long from the courts

when he was engaged in an important case which I knew was soon coming 09 ? If her went home for his health, shduld I ever see him again ? I had not the courage to question Phil about George Mahiwaririg's plans while we were going back to our' bungalow. Once in my own room, I framed a hundred queries, and each one I asked myself a hundred times over. How unreasonable is this reiteration, but who can avoid it in times of anxiety ? Why, I thought, had Phil been so extra kind ? Why had he given me the friendly but somewhat unintelligent advice, to "take care of myself?" Could Phil be pitying me, because George Mainwaring did not care for me? How maddening, how humiliating, was this notion ! Why should Phil meddle in my affairs ? His compassion was galling to me. But perhaps he only pitied my white face—a tired, old-looking face the moonlight showed me in my glass. Phil had my full permission to pity me for being tired. I began to cry. Fearing to wake baby and his ayah, I went into our verandah. What a heavenly night it was ! Some lines would come into my head over and over again—lines from a poem which, because comic, was most uncongenial to my then mood and circumstances :

' Oh India, land of glorious eves ! Of nights all but divine ! Thy moonshine trembling on the leaves Is not thy sole moonshine !' The poor pun seemed somehow to aggravate my distress. But the sight of the stars is a great calmant; particularly, I think, the sight of the Indian stars. I was looking upon the Southern Cross. I remembered then, what I had for a while forgotten, that it was Christmas Eve. How wrong it seemed to be so absorbed at such a season with this world's cares; and how much more wrong to be so angry, so dissatisfied ! By this time it was Christmas morning. The dear ones at home, and bygoue Christmasses, came to my mind. My tears were now gentler and better, less feverish and passionate. I began to wonder if I had behaved very ill. On reflection I admitted that I had certainly flirted. Now, to flirt is undignified; it is dishonorable, perhaps ; it is rather a s : gn of Vanity to flirt; but girls almost unconsciously fall into a way of doing it, particularly if they have gone out eight or nine seasons as I had done. Flirting is catching : it is "inthe air" of ball-rooms, and if you have not some flirtation in the course of an evening, you feel as if you had no business at a ball at all. I never would have flirted, if I had had anything better to do ; for with an occupation of an engrossing nature, I never should have gone to balls. I should have stayed at home, as all the lucky people, who have the happiness of being busy, do. Dr Wattt is ever to be commended for having invented the aphorism : " Satan finds some mischief still for idle hands to do." Amongst Anglo-Indians there are many "idle " brains, and "idle" tongues, and "idle" eyes, and the " mischief " Satan sends them to do is, often, flirting. Even in England, a girl "in society " has little else she can make a pursuit of. She perhaps despises the "accomplishments," as I despise them. She may lack the strong will that would enable her to study for knowledge's sake; and a girl's learning leads up to nothing, for, under our present regime, how can she use it ? We cannot all become authoresses : and teaching is irksome, even if it were always possible. ("Work, without hope, draws nectar in a sieve, And hope, without an object, cannot live,* 5 Coleridge says. When a man, who was only fitfully energetic, like Coleridge, calls work "nectar," it is a strong testimony in favor of the joys of labor.) And the faintest suspicion of "blue"-ness only makes a girl unpopular in the fashionable world. Would ever little Smallboy have given me his heart —or rather lent it, for after comporting himself for a week or ten days as if it were mine for ever, he bestowed it on somebody else—if I had "talked books" to him? Like the fiend in the fable who was perpetually making ropes of sand, work is a necessity of our being. People say, very truly, " we must be doing something," when they wish to make excuses for the futility of their occupation. In India, especially, it is difficult to abstain from flirting; it is always to be had; there is some interest in it as a pursuit—a A r ery unworthy kind of interest, I frankly admit; but the fiend found sand-rope-making possible, and doing nothing is quite impracticable to most of us. It is arranged, very cruelly and mischievously as I think, that the existence of three-fourths of the girls of the middle and upper classes shall be passed idly. Flirtation is the natural consequence of such an existence. But, even if I had been flirting, was it not very summary to judge and condemn me at a glance ? Would anyone who really cared for me look like a thundercloud when I displeased him a little ? Did it not seem as if 1 were his slave, and that Mr Mainwaring would tolerate none but obedient slaves ? I believe the reality, the being his slave, would have been possible to me then, but the idea of it made me angry again, and all my better thoughts were put to flight. Very late I crept into the large black-wood bed in the middle of my room, and I had a little broken sleep. Wretched, wretched night J Dear good Phil had given orders I was not to be disturbed. I was tired, ho told the ayah. The sound of guns awoke me, and as there were two reports, I thought, with a glad start of surprise, that the English mail must be in. When i was fairly awake, my trouble began to fill my mind again. It is terrible to awake to the remembrance of great and recent trouble. I was sick at heart, and to my shame be it spoken, nearly as much out of temper as I was out of spirits. George and I had been good friends, the best of friends, till the evening before, and now I was at war with him, and with all the world. Tennyson says — " That is truth the poet sings, That a sorrow's crown of sorrow Is remembering happier things.'' I deserved my trouble, probably, for I had brought it about myself ; but even if I had not been too proud at the time to acknowledge this, it would have been no comfort. To be continued.

The following anecdote was told by an American preacher for a fact. He was praying, and in his prayer he said, " I pray that the power of the devil maybe curtailed." Just then an old darkey in the congregation cried out, " Yes! Amen ! Bress me I Cut him taii right smack smoove off." Some years ago the following heartless inscription was chalked upon an apothecary's door by some Oxford undergraduates—" Hie venditor Catharticum, Emeticum, Narcoticum, et omne quod exit in um, prseter romedium,"