_Regarding His Sister's Betrothal_
Your request, my dear Clarence, that I try to influence your sister to
change her determination in this matter, calls for some very plain
statements from me.
I have known you and Elise since you were playing with marbles and
rattles, and your mother and I have been very good acquaintances
(scarcely intimate enough to be called friends) for more than a score of
years. You are very much like your mother, both in exterior appearance
and in mind. Elise is the image of her father at the time he captured
your mother's romantic fancy, and as I recollect him when he died.
You were five years old, Elise three, at that time. Your mother lived
with your father six years in months, an eternity in experience. You
know that she was unhappy, and that he disillusioned her with love, and
almost with life. He married your mother solely for her fortune. She was
a sweet and beautiful girl, of excellent family, but your father had no
qualities of mind or soul which enabled him to appreciate or care for
any woman, save as she could be of use to him, socially and financially.
In six years he managed to dispose of all but a mere pittance of her
fortune, and humiliated her in a thousand ways besides. His only decent
act was to die and leave her undisturbed for the remainder of her life.
Your uncle assisted in her support and saved the remnant of her
property, so that she has, by careful and rigorous economy, been able to
educate you and Elise, and keep up a respectable appearance in a quiet
way.
Of course it was impossible to retain her place among the associates of
her better days, and you know how bitter this fact has always made
Elise. Your sister has the physical beauty and the overwhelming love of
money and power which characterized your father. She has a modicum of
your mother's sense of honour, but has been reared in a way not
calculated to develop much strength of character. Your mother has been a
slave to your sister. Elise is incapable of a deep, intense love for any
man, and your mother's pessimistic ideas of love and marriage have still
further acted upon her brain cells and atrophied whatever impulses may
have been latent in her nature, to love and be loved. These qualities
might have been developed had Elise been under the tutelage of some one
versed in the science of brain building, but your mother, like most
mothers, was not aware of the tremendous possibilities within her grasp,
or of the effect of the ideas she expressed in the hearing of her
children. Neither did she seem to recognize the father's traits in
Elise, and undertake the work of eliminating them, as she might have
done. She has been an unselfish and devoted mother, and has made too
many sacrifices for Elise. At the same time, she has awakened the mind
of your sister to ideals of principle and honour which will help her to
be a better woman than her inheritance from your father would otherwise
permit. But now, at the age of twenty-one, it is impossible to hope that
she will develop into a self-sacrificing, loving, womanly woman, whose
happiness can be found in a peaceful domestic life. She has seen your
mother sad and despondent, under the yoke of genteel poverty, and heard
her bemoan her lost privileges of wealth and station. This, added to her
natural craving for money and place, renders a wealthy marriage her only
hope of happiness on earth.
Mr. Volney has an enormous fortune. He is, as you say, a senile old man
in his dotage. As you say again, such a marriage is a travesty. But
Elise is incapable of feeling the love which alone renders marriage a
holy institution. She has undesirable qualities which ought not to be
transmitted to children, and she is absolutely devoid of maternal
instincts.
I have heard her say she would consider motherhood the greatest
disaster which could befall her. But she is unfitted for a
self-supporting career, and she wants a home and position.
She has beauty, kind and generous impulses, and a love of playing Lady
Bountiful. It is not so much that she wants to benefit the needy, as
that she likes to place people under obligations and to have them look
up to her as a superior being.
Old Mr. Volney is a miser, and his money is doing no one good. He has
only distant relatives, and by taking Elise for a wife (according to
law) he will wrong no one, and she will make much better use of his
fortune than his heirs would make.
Your mother will be relieved of worry and care. Many worthy poor people
and charities will receive help, and Elise will have her heart's
desire--fine apparel, jewels, a social position, and no one to bother
her. The valet and nurse will look after Mr. Volney, and his simple old
heart will bask in the pride of an old man--the possession of a pretty
young wife.
Had he full use of his mental faculties, and did he long for love and
devotion, I would try and dissuade Elise from the marriage, but solely
on _his_ account, not on hers.
The young man you mention, as your choice of a suitor for the hand of
your sister, might better go up in a balloon to seek for Eutopia than to
expect happiness as her husband. He has a sweet, gentle, loving nature,
a taste for quiet home joys, fondness for children, and he has two
thousand a year, with small prospects of more in the near future.
He should marry a modest, domestic girl, with tastes similar to his own,
and with no overweening ambitions. Elise would simply drive him mad in a
year's time, with her restless discontent, her extravagance, and her
desire for the expensive pleasures of earth. It is useless to reason
with her, or to expect her to model her ideas to suit her circumstances.
Inheritance and twenty-one years of wrong education must be taken into
consideration. What would mean happiness for many women would mean
misery for her. I can imagine no more dreadful destiny than to be tied
to a senile old man by a legal ceremony, even were I given his millions
in payment. But that will mean happiness to Elise.
I think we should let people seek their own ideals of happiness, when
they break no law, and injure no other life by it.
I shall congratulate Elise by this post on having made so fortunate an
alliance. I could not congratulate her were she to marry her young
suitor. I shall congratulate your mother on having nothing to worry
about, regarding the future of Elise.
And I advise you to take a philosophical view of the situation, and to
remember that, in judging the actions of our fellow beings, we must take
their temperaments, characteristics, and environment into consideration,
not our own.
You have made the very common error of thinking, because Elise is a
handsome young girl, that love, and home, and children would mean
happiness to her.
Women vary as greatly as do plants and flowers in their needs. The
horticulturist knows that he cannot treat them all alike, and he studies
their different requirements.
To some he gives moisture and sun, to some shade, and to some dry, sandy
soil. The thistle pushes forth a gorgeous bloom from an arid bed. It
would die in the pond where the lily thrives.
Too much sentiment is wasted in this world and too much effort expended
in trying to make all people happy in some one way.
When I was a little girl, a Sunday-school superintendent presented every
girl in the class with a doll, and each doll was exactly the same. Most
little girls like dolls, but I never played with one, as they were
always so hopelessly inanimate. If the good man had given me a sled, or
a book, or a picture, I would have been happy. As it was, his gift was a
failure. You want to present your sister with a devoted young husband,
a cottage, and several children, because you think every woman should
possess these things. Your sister happens to be one who prefers a
wealthy old invalid.
Let her have what she wants, my dear Clarence, and let her work out her
destiny in her own way. She will do less harm in the world than if you
forced her into your way. Now you must remember that you asked me to
help you in this matter, and I could only write you the absolute facts
of the situation, as I knew it to be. I feel fairly confident that you
will accept my point of view, and act as best man at your sister's
wedding.