The Memorial of A. B., or Matilda Muffin

THE MEMORIAL OF A. B.

Humbly Showeth :—

Ladies and gentlemen, — enlightened public, — kind audience,— dear readers,— or whatever else you may be styled, —whose eyes, from remote regions of east, west, or next door, solace themselves between the brown covers of this magazine, making of themselves flowers to its lunar brilliancy, — I wish to state, with all humility and self-disgust, that I am what is popularly called a literary woman.

In the present state of society, I should feel less shame in declaring myself the elect lady of Dunderhed Van Nudel, Esquire, that wealthy Dutch gentleman, aged seventy, whom we all know. It is true, that, as I am young and gay and intelligent, while he is old and stupid and very low Dutch indeed, such an announcement. would be equivalent to saying that I was bought by Mr. Van Nudel for half a million of dollars ; but then that is customary, and you would all congratulate me.

Also, I should stand a better chance of finding favor in your eyes, if I declared myself to be an indigent tailoress; for no woman should use her head who can use her hands, — a maxim older than Confucius,

Or even if I were a School-ma’am ! (blessed be the man who has brought them into fashion and the long path !) In that ease, you might say, “ Poor thing ! isn’t she interesting ? quite like the school-mistress ! ”—And I am not averse to pity, since it is love’s poor cousin, nor to belonging to a class mentioned in Boston literary society. I really am not!

But the plain truth is, I earn my living by writing. Sewing does not pay. I have no “faculty” at school-keeping; for I invariably spoil all the good children, and pet all the pretty ones,-— a process not conducive, as I am told, to the development of manners or morals ; — so I write : just as Mr. Jones makes shoes, Mr. Peters harangues the jury, Mr. Smith sells calico, or Mr. Robinson rolls pills.

For, strange as it may seem, when it is so easy to read, it is hard work to write,

— bonâ fide, undeniable hard work. Suppose my head cracks and rings and reels with a great ache that stupefies me ? In comes Biddy with a letter.

“ The editor of the ‘ Monthly Signpost’ would be much obliged to Miss Matilda Muffin for a tale of four pages, to make up the June number, before the end of next week.

“ Very respectfully, etc., etc.”

Miss Muffin’s head looks her in the face, (metaphorically,) and says, “ You can’t!”—but her last year’s bonnet creaks and rustles from the bandbox, finally lifts the lid and peeps out. Gracious! the ghost in Hamlet was not more of an “airy nothing” than that, ragged, faded, dilapidated old structure of crape and blonde. The bonnet retires to the sound of slow music ; the head slinks back and holds its tongue; Miss Muffin sits down at her table ; scratch, scratch, scratch, goes the old pen, and the ideas catch iqt> with it, it is so shaky ; and the words go tumbling over it, till the ts go out without any hats on, and the eyes — no, the is (is that the way to pluralize them?)

— net no dots at all; and every now and then the head says, softly, “Oh, dear!” Miss Muffin goes to something called by novel-writers “ repose,” toward one o'clock that night, and the next night, and the next; she obliges the “ Monthly Signpost ” with a comic story at a low price, and buys herself a decent little bonnet for Sundays, replenishing her wardrobe generally by the same process; and the head considers it work, I assure you.

But this is not the special grievance to which I direct this Memorial. I like to work: it suits me much better to obtain my money by steady, honest effort than it would to depend on anybody else for one round cent. If I had a thousand dollars unexpectedly left me by some unknown benefactor, I don’t think it would be worth five cents on the dollar, compared with what I earn ; there is a healthy, trustworthy pleasure in that, never yet attained by gifted or inherited specie. Neither is it the publicity of the occupation that I here object to. I knew that, before I began to write; and many an hour have I cried over the thought of being known, and talked about, and commented on,— having my dear name, that my mother called me by, printed on the cover of a magazine, seeing it in newspapers, hearing it in whispers, when Miss Brown says to Miss Black under her breath,—That girl in the straw bonnet is Matilda Muffin, who writes for the ‘ Snapdragon ’ and the ‘ Signpost.’ ”

I knew all this, as I say. I dreaded and hated it. I hate it now. But I had to work, and this was the only way open to me; so I tried to be brave, and to do what I ought, and let the rest go. I cannot say I am very brave yet, or that I don’t feel all this ; but I do not memorialize against it, because it is necessary to be borne, and I must bear it. When I go to the dentist’s to have a tooth out, 1 sit down, and hold the chair tight, and open my mouth as wide as it will open, but I always say, “ Oh ! don’t, doctor ! I can’t! I can’t possibly!” till the iron what-d’you-call-it enters my soul and stops my tongue.

Yes, when I began to write, I knew I should some day see my name in print. I knew people would wonder who and what I was, and howl looked; — I had done it myself. I knew that I should be delivered over to be the prey of tongues and the spoil of eyes. I was aware, I think, I am aware now, of every possible “ disagreeable ” that can befall the state. I am accustomed to hear people say, if I venture a modest opinion about a dinner, “ Dear me ! as if a literary woman knew anything about cooking ! ” — I endure that meekly, sustained by the inner consciousness that I can cook much better than any artist in that line I ever yet encountered. Likewise I am used to hear people say, “ I suppose you don’t waste your valuable time in sewing?” when a look at my left forefinger would insure me a fraternal grip from any member of the Seamstress’s Friends Society anywhere. I do not either scold or cry when accidentally some visitor discovers me fitting my dress or making my bonnet, and looks at me with a “ fearful joy,” as if I were on a tight-rope. I even smile when people lay my ugly shawl or passé bonnet, that I bought because they were cheap, and wear for the same reason, at the door of the “ eccentricities of genius.” And I am easehardened to the instantaneous scattering and dodging of young men that ensue the moment I enter a little party, because “gentlemen are so afraid of literary women.” I don’t think gentlemen are ; I know two or three who never conceal a revolver in the breast, of their coat when they talk to me, and who sometimes even offer to go home with rue from a tea-party all alone, and after dark too. It is true, one or two of these are “ literary” themselves; the others I knew before I was dyed blue ; which may account for it. Also I am impervious to anonymous letters, exhorting me to all kinds of mental and moral improvement, or indulging in idle impertinences about my private affairs, the result of a knowledge about me and the aforesaid affairs drawn solely from my “ Pieces in Prose and Verse.”

Then as to the matter of the romantic stories that are afloat concerning me, I am rather amused than otherwise by them. I have a sentimental name, by the religious and customary ordinance of baptism, legally my own ; and at first, being rather loath to enter the great alliterative ranks of female writers by my lawful title of Matilda Muffin, I signed my writings “ A. B.”

Two reprobatory poems addressed to those initials came to me through the medium of the “ Snapdragon,” immediately after my having printed in that spicy paper a pensive little poem called “The Rooster’s Cry”: one, in Spenserian measure, rebuking me for alluding lightly to serious subjects,— a thing I never do, I am sure, and I can’t imagine what “ J. H. P.” meant; and another, in hexameter, calling upon me to “ arouse,” and “ smile,” and “ struggle on,” and, in short, to stop crying and behave myself,— only it was said in figures. I'm much obliged to “Quintius” for the advice ; but I should like to explain, that I am subject to the toothache, and when it is bad I cannot possibly write comic poetry. I must be miserable, but it’s only toothache, thank you !

Then I have heard several times, in the strictest confidence, the whole history of “ A. B., who writes for the ‘ Snapdragon.’” Somebody told me she was a lady living on the North River, very wealthy, very haughty, and very unhappy in her domestic relations. Another said she was a young widow in Alabama, whose mother was extremely tyrannical, and opposed her second marriage. A third person declared to me that A. B. was a physician in the navy,— a highly educated man, but reduced in circumstances. I think that was a great compliment,— to be actually taken for a man! I felt it to be “ the proudest moment of my life,” as shipcaptains say, when they return thanks for the silver teapot richly chased with nautical emblems, presented by the passengers saved from the wreck, as a token of gratitude for the hencoops thrown overboard by the manly commander. However, I called myself a woman in the very next contribution, for fear of the united wrath of the stronger sex, should I ever be discovered to have so imposed upon the public ; although I know several old women who remain undiscovered to this day, simply because they avail themselves of a masculine signature.

There were other romances, too tedious to mention, depicting me sometimes as a lovely blonde, writing graceful tales beneath a bower of roses in the warm light of June; sometimes as a respectable old maid, rather sharp, fierce, and snuffy; sometimes as a tall, delicate, aristocratic, poetic looking creature, with liquid dark eyes and heavy tresses of raven hair; sometimes as a languishing, heart-broken woman in the prime of life, with auburn curls and a slow consumption.

Perhaps it may be as well to silence all conjecture at once, by stating that I am a woman of ——— no, I won’t say how old, because everybody will date me from this time forward, and I shall not always be willing to tell how old I am ! I am not very young now, it is true; I am more than sixteen and less than forty; so when our clergyman requested all between those ages to remain after service for the purpose of forming a week-day Bible-class, I sat still, and so did everybody else except Mrs. Van Doren, whose great-grandchild was christened in the morning ; — our church is a new one.

However, this is digressing. I am not very tall, nor very short; I am rather odd-looking, but decidedly plain. I have brown hair and eyes, a pale light complexion, a commonplace figure, pretty good taste in dress, and a quick sense of the ludicrous, that makes me laugh a great deal, and have a good time generally.

I live at home, in the town of Blank, in a quiet by-street. My parents are both living, and we keep one Irish girl. I go to church on Sundays, and follow my trade week-days.

I write everything I do write in my own room, which is not so pleasant as a bower of roses in some respects, but is preferable in regard to earwigs and caterpillars, which are troublesome in bowers. I have a small pine table to write on, as much elderly furniture as supplies me places for sleep and my books, a small stove in winter, (which is another advantage over bowers,) and my “flowing draperies” are blue chintz, which I bought at a bargain ; some quaint old engravings of Bartolozzi’s in black and gilt frames; a few books, among which are prominently set forth a volume of “The Doctor,”—Nicolò de’ Lapi, in delightful bindings of white parchment,— Thomas à Kempis,— a Bible, of English type and paper,— and Emerson’s Poems, bound in Russia leather. Not that I have no other books, — grammars, and novels, and cook-books, in gorgeous array,— but these are within reach from my pillow, when I want to read myself asleep ; and a plaster cast of Minerva’s owl mounts guard above them, curious fowl that it is.

The neighbors think I am a pretty nice girl, and my papa secretly exults over me as a genius, but he don’t say much about it. And there, dear public, you have Matilda Muffin as she is, which I hope will quash the romances, amusing though they be.

But when, after much editorial correspondence, and persevering whispers of kind friends who had been told the facts in confidence, A. B. became only the pretext of a mystery, and I signed myself by my full name, the question naturally arose,—“ Who is Matilda Muffin?”

Now, for the first time in my life, do I experience the benefits of a sentimental name, which has rather troubled me before, as belonging to a quite unsentimental and commonplace person, and thereby raising expectations, through hearsay, which actual vision dispelled with painful suddenness. But now I find its advantage, for nobody believes it is my own, but confidently expects that Ann Tubbs or Susan Bucket will appear from a long suppression, like a Jack-in-a-box, and startle the public as she throws back the cover.

Indeed, I am told that not long since a circle of literary experimentalists, discussing a recent number of a certain magazine, and displaying great knowledge of noms-de-plume, ran aground all at once upon “Who is Matilda Muffin?” — even as, in the innocent faith of childhood, I pondered ten minutes upon “Who was the father of Zebedee’s children ? ” and at last “gave up.” But these professional gentlemen, nowise daunted by the practical difficulties of the subject, held on, till at last one, wiser in his generation than the rest, confidently announced that he knew Matilda Muffin’s real name, but was not at liberty to disclose it. Should this little confidence ever reach the eyes of those friends, I wish to indorse that statement in every particular; that gentleman does know my name ; and know all men, by these presents, I give him full leave to disclose it, — or rather, to save him the trouble, I disclose it myself. My name, my own, that would have been printed in the marriage-list of the “ Snapdragon ” before now, if it had not appeared in the list of contributors, and which will appear in its list of deaths some day to come, — my name, that is called to breakfast, marked on my pocket-handkerchiefs, written in my books, and done in yellow paint on my trunk, is — Matilda Muffin. “Only that, and nothing more!” And “A. B.,” which I adopted once as a species of veil to the aforesaid alliterative title, did not mean, as was supposed, “ A Beauty,” or “ Any Body,” or “ Another Barrett,” or “ Anti Bedott,” or “After Breakfast,” but only “A. B,,” the first two letters of the alphabet. Peace to their ashes ! — let them rest!

But, dear me ! I forgot the Memorial! As I have said, all these enumerated troubles do not much move me, nor yet the world-old cry of all literary women’s being, in virtue of their calling, unfeminine. I don’t think anybody who knows me can say that about me; in fact, I am generally regarded by my male cousins as a “little goose,” and a “foolish child,” and “ a perfectly absurd little thing,”— epithets that forbid the supposition of their object being strong-minded or having Women’s Rights; — and as for people who don’t know me, I care very little what they think. If I want them to like me, I can generally make them,— having a knack that way.

But there is one thing against which I do solemnly protest and uplift my voice, as a piece of ridiculous injustice and supererogation,—and that is, that every new poem or fresh story I write and print should be supposed and declared to be part and parcel of my autobiography. Good gracious ! Goethe himself, “many-sided” as the old stone Colossus might: have been, would have retreated in dismay from such a host of characters as I have appeared in, according to the announcement of admiring friends.

My dear creatures, do just look at the common sense of the thing! Can I have been, by any dexterity known to man, of mind or body, such a various creature, such a polycorporate animal, as you make me to be ? Because I write the anguish and suffering of an elderly widow with a drunken husband, am I therefore meek and of middle age, the slave of a rum-jug? I have beard of myself successively as figuring in the character of a strong-minded, self-denying Yankee girl,—a broken-hearted Georgia beauty, — a fairy princess,—a consumptive schoolmistress,— a young woman dying of the perfidy of her lover,— a mysterious widow ; and I daily expect to hear that a caterpillar which figured as hero in one of my tales was an allegory of myself, and that a cat mentioned in “ The New Tobias” is a travesty of my heart-experience.

Now this is rather more than “ human natur” can stand. It is true that in my day and generation I have suffered as everybody does, more or less. It is likewise true that I have suffered from the same causes that other people do. I am happy to state that in the allotments of this life authoresses are not looked upon as “ literary,” but simply as women, and have the same general dispensations with the just and the unjust; therefore, in attempting to excite other people’s sympathies, I have certainly touched and told many stories that were not strange to my own consciousness; I do not know very well how I could do otherwise. And in trying to draw the common joys and sorrows of life, I certainly have availed myself of experience as well as observation ; but I should seem to myself singularly wanting in many traits which I believe I possess, were I to obtrude the details of my own personal and private affairs upon the public. And I offer to those who have so interpreted me a declaration which, I trust may relieve them from all responsibility of this kind in future ; I hereby declare, asseverate, affirm, and whatever else means to swear, that I never have offered and never intend to offer any history whatever of my personal experience, social, literary, or emotional, to the readers of any magazine, newspaper, novel, or correspondence whatever. Nor is there any one human being who has ever heard or ever will hear the whole of that experience,-— no, not even Dunderhed Van Nudel, Esquire, should he buy me tomorrow !

Also, I wish to relieve the minds of many friendly readers, who, hearing and believing these reports, bestow upon me a vast amount of sympathy that is worthy of a better fate. My dear friends, as I said before, it is principally toothache ; poetry is next best to clove-oil, and less injurious to the enamel. I beg of you not to suppose that every poet who howls audibly in the anguish of his soul is really afflicted in the said soul ; but one must have respect for the dignity of High Art. Answer me now with frankness, what should you think of a poem that ran in this style? —

Now just see how affecting it is, when you “ change the venue,” as lawyers say: —

I leave it to any candid mind, what would be the result to literature, if such a course were pursued ?

Besides, look at the facts in the case. You read the most tearful strains of the most melancholy poet you know ; if you took them verbatim, you would expect him to be found by the printer’s —boy, sent for copy, “ by starlight on the north side of a tombstone,” as Dr. Bellamy said, enjoying a northeaster without any umbrella, and soaking the ground with tears, unwittingly antiseptic, in fact, as Mr. Mantalini expressed himself, “ a damp, moist, unpleasant body.” But where, I ask, does that imp find the aforesaid poet, when he goes to get the seventh stanza of the “ Lonely Heart ” ? M hy, in the gentlemen’s parlor of a first-class hotel, his feet tilted up in the window, his apparel perfectly dry and shiny with various ornamental articles appended, his eyes half open over a daily paper, his parted lips clinging to a cigar, his whole aspect well-to-do and comfortable. And aren’t you glad of it ? I am; there is so much real misery in the world, that don’t know how to write for the papers, and has to have its toothache all by itself, when a simple application of bread and milk or bread and meat would cure it, that I am glad to have the apparent sum of human misery diminished, even at the expense of being a traitor in the camp.

And still further, for your sakes, dear tender-hearted friends, who may suppose that I am wearing this mask of joy for the sake of deluding you into a grim and respectful sympathy,— you, who will pity me whether or no,—I confess that I have some material sorrows for which I will gladly accept your tears. My best bonnet is very unbecoming. I even heard it said the other day, striking horror to my soul, that it looked literary! And I'm afraid it does ! Moreover, my only silk dress that is presentable begins to show awful symptoms of decline and fall; and though you may suppose literature to be a lucrative business, between ourselves it is not so at all, (very likely the “ Atlantic ” gentlemen will omit that sentence, for fear of a libel-suit from the trade,—but it's all the same a fact, unless you write for the “ Dodger,”) — and I’m likely to mend and patch and courtpiaster the holes in that old black silk, another year at least: but this is my solitary real anguish at present.

I do assure all and sundry my reporters, my sympathizers, and my readers, that all that I have stated in this present Memorial is unvarnished fact, whatever they may say, read, or feel to the contrary,— and that, although I am a literary woman, and labor under all the liabilities and disabilities contingent thereto, I am yet sound in mind and body, (except tor the toothache,) and a very amusing person to know, with no quarrel against life in general or anybody in particular. Indeed, I find one advantage in the very credulous and inquisitive gossip against which I memorialize; for I think I may expect fact to be believed, when fiction is swallowed whole; and I feel sure of seeing, directly on the publication of this document, a notice in the “Snapdragon,” the “ Badger,” or the “ Coon,” (whichever paper gets that number of the magazine first.) running in this wise : —

“MATILDA MUFFIN. — We welcome in the last number of the 'Atlantic Monthly’ a brief and spirited autobiography of this lady, whose birth, parentage, and home have so long been wrapt in mystery. The hand of genius has rent asunder the veil of reserve, and we welcome the fair writer to her proper position in the Blank City Directory, and post-office list of boxes.”

After which, I shall resign myself tranquilly to my fate as a unit, and glide down the stream of life under whatever skies shine or scowl above, always and forever nobody but

MATILDA MUFFIN.

BLANK, 67 Smith Street.