Give me back my old poor frock.Let me dance again with the fire-tongs for a partner, and be happy, dreaming."Poor little Cinderella, perhaps it would have been better had god-mamma been less ambitious for you, dear; had you married some good, honest yeoman, who would never have known that you were not brilliant, who would have loved you because you were just amiable and pretty; had your kingdom been only a farmhouse, where your knowledge of domestic economy, gained so hardly, would have been useful; where you would have shone instead of being overshadowed;where Papa would have dropped in of an evening to smoke his pipe and escape from his domestic wrangles; where you would have been REALQueen.
But then you know, dear, you would not have been content.Ah yes, with your present experience--now you know that Queens as well as little drudges have their troubles; but WITHOUT that experience?
You would have looked in the glass when you were alone; you would have looked at your shapely hands and feet, and the shadows would have crossed your pretty face."Yes," you would have said to yourself--"John is a dear, kind fellow, and I love him very much, and all that, but--" and the old dreams, dreamt in the old low-ceilinged kitchen before the dying fire, would have come back to you, and you would have been discontented then as now, only in a different way.Oh yes, you would, Cinderella, though you gravely shake your gold-crowned head.And let me tell you why.It is because you are a woman, and the fate of all us, men and women alike, is to be for ever wanting what we have not, and to be finding, when we have it, that it is not what we wanted.That is the law of life, dear.Do you think as you lie upon the floor with your head upon your arms, that you are the only woman whose tears are soaking into the hearthrug at that moment? My dear Princess, if you could creep unseen about your City, peeping at will through the curtain-shielded windows, you would come to think that all the world was little else than a big nursery full of crying children with none to comfort them.The doll is broken: no longer it sweetly squeaks in answer to our pressure, "I love you, kiss me." The drum lies silent with the drumstick inside; no longer do we make a brave noise in the nursery.The box of tea-things we have clumsily put our foot upon; there will be no more merry parties around the three-legged stool.The tin trumpet will not play the note we want to sound; the wooden bricks keep falling down; the toy cannon has exploded and burnt our fingers.Never mind, little man, little woman, we will try and mend things tomorrow.
And after all, Cinderella dear, you do live in a fine palace, and you have jewels and grand dresses and--No, no, do not be indignant with ME.Did not you dream of these things AS WELL AS of love?
Come now, be honest.It was always a prince, was it not, or, at the least, an exceedingly well-to-do party, that handsome young gentleman who bowed to you so gallantly from the red embers? He was never a virtuous young commercial traveller, or cultured clerk, earning a salary of three pounds a week, was he, Cinderella? Yet there are many charming commercial travellers, many delightful clerks with limited incomes, quite sufficient, however, to a sensible man and woman desiring but each other's love.Why was it always a prince, Cinderella? Had the palace and the liveried servants, and the carriages and horses, and the jewels and the dresses, NOTHING to do with the dream?
No, Cinderella, you were human, that is all.The artist, shivering in his conventional attic, dreaming of Fame!-do you think he is not hoping she will come to his loving arms in the form Jove came to Danae? Do you think he is not reckoning also upon the good dinners and the big cigars, the fur coat and the diamond studs, that her visits will enable him to purchase?
There is a certain picture very popular just now.You may see it, Cinderella, in many of the shop-windows of the town.It is called "The Dream of Love," and it represents a beautiful young girl, sleeping in a very beautiful but somewhat disarranged bed.Indeed, one hopes, for the sleeper's sake, that the night is warm, and that the room is fairly free from draughts.A ladder of light streams down from the sky into the room, and upon this ladder crowd and jostle one another a small army of plump Cupids, each one laden with some pledge of love.Two of the Imps are emptying a sack of jewels upon the floor.Four others are bearing, well displayed, a magnificent dress (a "confection," I believe, is the proper term)cut somewhat low, but making up in train what is lacking elsewhere.
Others bear bonnet boxes from which peep stylish toques and bewitching hoods.Some, representing evidently wholesale houses, stagger under silks and satins in the piece.Cupids are there from the shoemakers with the daintiest of bottines.Stockings, garters, and even less mentionable articles, are not forgotten.Caskets, mirrors, twelve-buttoned gloves, scent-bottles and handkerchiefs, hair-pins, and the gayest of parasols, has the God of Love piled into the arms of his messengers.Really a most practical, up-to-date God of Love, moving with the times! One feels that the modern Temple of Love must be a sort of Swan and Edgar's; the god himself a kind of celestial shop-walker; while his mother, Venus, no doubt superintends the costume department.Quite an Olympian Whiteley, this latter-day Eros; he has forgotten nothing, for, at the back of the picture, I notice one Cupid carrying a rather fat heart at the end of a string.
You, Cinderella, could give good counsel to that sleeping child.
You would say to her--"Awake from such dreams.The contents of a pawnbroker's store-room will not bring you happiness.Dream of love if you will; that is a wise dream, even if it remain ever a dream.
