Nothing to Eat | Page 7

cool off the heat on;

And then with a syllabub, comfit, or cream,
Our dessert of almonds
and raisins we'll nibble,
Till coffee comes in to revive with it's steam,


When cakes in its fragrance we'll leisurely dibble.
I'm sure after all it's a terrible bore
To labor so hard as we do for our
victuals;
I envy the women that beg at the door,
Or hire out for
wages to handle your kettles,
And wash, bake, and iron, and do
nothing but cooking,
So rugged and healthy, and often good looking:

The doctor has told me except when they're mothers,
They never
take tincture, or rhubarb, or pill,
And swears the profession if there
were no others,
Their patients would use up, and starve out and kill.
I'm sure I don't see how that makes them exempt
From all sorts of
sickness and woman's complaints,
With nothing to hinder if appetite
tempt
From eating or drinking as happy as saints.
Oh Lord, now, this pudding so delicate made,
And gravy I'm sure
with nothing that's rich in,
That one of those women who beg as a
trade,
The whole in one stomach could leisurely pitch in,
Is now in
my own so terribly painful in feeling,
Its calls for relief are most
loudly appealing.
Mrs. Merdle Discourseth of the necessity of good Wine and other
Matters.
So while we are eating the fruits of the vine,
Don't let us forget such a
health giving juice,
As Champagne, or Sherbet, or other good wine,

Nor sin by neglecting its 'temperate use.'
Now Sherbet, my husband extols to the skies,
With me though, my
stomach is weak and won't bear it:
And Sherry, though sometimes
affecting my eyes,
A bottle with pleasure we'll open and share it.
Ha, ha, well-a-day--what a queer world to live in,
If one were
contented on little to dine,
We need not be longing another to be in,

Where women, they tell us, exist without wine;
Where husbands are
happy and women content;
Where dresses, though gauzy, are fit for

the street;
Where no one is wretched with purses unbent,
With
nothing to wear and nothing to eat.
Where women no longer are treated la Turk,
Where husbands
descended from Saxon or Norman,
For women when sickly are
willing to work,
And not long for Utah and pleasures la Mormon--

Where men freely marry and live with their wives,
And not live as
you do, mon Colonel, so single.
Such wretched and dinnerless bachelor lives;
You don't know the
pleasure there is in the tingle
Of ears pricked by lectures, la curtain,
au Caudle,
Or noise of young Dinewells beginning to toddle;
While
plodding all day with your paper and quills,
And copy, and proof
sheets, and work for the printer,
Pray what do you know of the
housekeeper's bills,
And other such 'pleasures of hope' for the winter?
You men, selfish creatures, think all of the care
Of living and keeping
yourselves in existence,
Is due to your own daily labor, and share,

From breakfast to dinner of business persistance;
While woman is
either a plaything or drudge,
According to station of wealth or
position,
Which men help along with a word or a nudge
To heaven
high up or low down to perdition.
But what was I saying of a world free from care,
Of eating and
drinking and dresses to wear?
Where women by husbands are never tormented,
And never asked
money where husbands dissented?
And never see others, their rivals,
in fashion ahead,
And never have doctors--a woman's great dread--

And nothing, I hope, like my own indigestion,
To torment and starve
them, as this one does me,
And keep them from sipping--forgive the
suggestion--
The nectar etherial they drink for their tea.
Mrs. Merdle Suggesteth that Dinner being finished, the Gentlement
will Smoke. In the meantime, she Discourseth.

"Now Merdle--now Colonel--I know you are waiting.
And thinking
my talking to eating's a bar,
Still hoping, by tasting, my appetite
sating,
Will give you the license to smoke a cigar.
[Illustration: "WILL GIVE YOU THE LICENSE TO SMOKE A
CIGAR"]
Well then, I've done now, and hope too you've dined,
As well as
down town where you dine for a shilling,
At Taylor's, or Thompson's,
or one of the kind,
Where mortals are flocking each day for their
filling;
Or else at the Astor where bachelors quarter,
Where port
holes for windows give light to the room,
Far out of the region of
Eve's every daughter,
So high they are stuck up away toward the
moon.
Though as for the 'stuck up' no walls built of brick,
Or granite, or
marble, or dirty red sand,
Could stick up a man who himself's but a
stick,
An inch above where he would naturally stand.
To witness the truth of this final assertion,
I call you to witness the
sticks at the door,
Where they make it a daily, a 'manly' diversion,

To ogle each woman, and sometimes do more,
Who passes the hotel
that's named by a saint,
Where boorish bad manners give room for
complaint.
Where idlers and loafers, with gamblers a few,
Make up for the nonce
the St. Nicholas crew.
The 'outside barbarians,' I freely confess,
Who ogle our faces and
ogle our