to those daughters' credit if they did something in the line of honest
and honorable toil to support themselves, rather than live on the
heart's blood of an unselfish and overworked father; and as for the
wife who exacts the income of a duchess to keep up the silly parade of
Vanity Fair, there may come a day for her, when, shorn of the generous
and loving support of a good husband, and forced to earn her own
livelihood, as the penniless widows of bankrupt men are sometimes
forced to do, she will appreciate, too late, the blessing that Heaven
has taken from her.

XV.

WHAT I'M TIRED OF.

I am tired of many things. I am tired of the miserable little god,
"worry," shrined in every home. I am tired of doing perpetual homage
to the same black-faced little wretch. I am tired of putting down
pride and curbing a righteous indignation. I am tired of keeping my
hands off human weeds. I am tired of crucifying my tastes, and
cultivating the nickel that springs perennial to meet my needs. I am
tired of poverty and all needful discipline. I am tired of seeing
babies born to people who don't know how to bring them up. I am tired
of folks who smile continuously. I am tired of amiable fools and the
platitudes of unintelligent saints. I am tired of mediocrity. I am
tired of cats, both human and feline. I am tired of being a soldier
and marching with the advance guard. I am tired of girls who giggle
and of boys who swear. I am tired of married women who think it
charming to be a little giddy, and of married men who ogle young girls
and other men's wives. I am tired of a world where love is like the
blossom of the century plant, unfolding only once in a hundred years.
I am tired of men who are worthless and decayed to the core, like
blighted peaches. I am tired of seeing such men in power. I am tired
of being obliged to smile where I long to smite. I am tired of
vulgarity which glides forever through the world like the snake through
Eden. I am tired of women who bear the hearts of tigers, and of men
who roar like lions, yet show the valor of mice. I am tired of living
shoulder to shoulder with my pet antipathies. I am tired of the
everlasting inveighing against capital, when any idiot knows that
capital is the king-bolt that holds the world together. I am tired of
wearing shabby clothes, and meeting folks who judge of a parcel by the
quality of wrapping paper it is incased in. I am tired of being
well-behav