and gloom and frustration, I retain a taste for joy and sweetness and
kindliness. Life has so many sharp crosses, so many inexplicable
sorrows for us all, that I hold it good to snatch at every moment of
gladness, and to keep my eyes on beautiful things whenever they can be
seen. During the days when I was pondering the subject of tragic
marriages, I read the letters of the great Lord Chatham. The mighty
statesman was not distinguished as a letter-writer; like Themistocles,
he might have boasted that, though he was inapt where small
accomplishments were concerned, he converted a small state into a
great empire. John Wilkes called our great man "the worst
letter-writer of his age." Yet to my mind the correspondence of
Chatham with his wife is among the most charming work that we know.
Here is one fragment which is delightful enough in its way. He had
been out riding with his son William, who afterwards ruled England,
becoming Prime Minister at an age when other lads are leaving the
University. His elder son stayed at home to study, and this is the
fashion in which Chatham writes about his boys--"It is a delight to
let William see nature in her free and wild compositions, and I tell
myself, as we go, that the General Mother is not ashamed of her child.
The particular loved mother of our promising tribe has sent the
sweetest and most encouraging of letters to the young Vauban. His
assiduous application to his profession did not allow him to accompany
us in learning to defend the happy land we were enjoying. Indeed, my
life, the promise of our dear children does me more good than the
purest of pure air." Observe how this pompous and formal statement is
framed so as to please the mother. The writer does not say much about
himself; but he knows that his wife is longing to hear of her
darlings, and he tells her the news in his high-flown manner. He was
not often apart from the lady whom he loved so well; but I am glad
that they were sometimes separated, since the separations give us the
delicate and tender letters every phrase of which tells a long story
of love and confidence and mutual pride. That unequalled man who had
made England practically the mistress of the world, the man who gained
for us Canada and India, the man whom the King of Prussia regarded as
our strongest and noblest, could spend his time in writing pretty
babble about a couple of youngsters in order to delight their mother.
If he had gone to London, the people would have taken the horses out
of his carriage, and dragged him to his destination. He was far more
powerful than the king, and he was almost worshipped by every officer
and man in the Army and Navy. Excepting the Duke of Wellington, it is
probable that no subject ever was the object of such fervent
enthusiasm; and many men would have lived amidst the whirl of
adulation. But Chatham liked best to remain in the sweet quiet
country; and the story of his life at Lyme Regis is in reality a
beautiful poem.
Why did this imperial, overbearing, all-powerful man love to stay in
retirement when all Europe was waiting for his word? Why did he spend
days in sauntering in country lanes, and chatting during quiet
evenings with one loved friend alone? That question goes to the root
of my subject. Chatham was happily married; when he was torn by bitter
rage and disappointment, when his sovereign repulsed him, and when not
even the passionate love of an entire nation availed to further the
ends on which the Titan had set his heart, he carried his sorrow with
him, and drew comfort from the goodness of the sweet soul who was his
true mate. It is a very sweet picture; and we see in history how the
softening home influence finally converted the, awful, imposing,
tyrannical Chatham into a yielding, fascinating man.
From the world's arbiter to the bricklayer's labourer, the same
general law holds; the man who makes a happy marriage lives out his
life at its best--he may fail in some things, but in the essential
direction he is successful. The woman who makes a happy marriage may
have trials and suffering to bear, but she also gains the best of
life; and some of the purest and most joyous creatures I have known
were women who had suffered in their day. When I think of some
marriages whereof I know the full history, I am tempted to believe in
human perfectibility; and at chance times there come to me vague
dreams of a day when the majority of human beings will find life
joyous and tranquil. What one wise and well-matched couple achieve in
life may be achieved by others as the days go on. Surely jarring and
misery are not necessary in the great world of nations or in the
little world of the family? Confidence, generosity, and complete
unselfishness on both sides are needed to make the life of a married
pair serene and happy. I know that the demand is a heavy one; but, ah,
when it is adequately met, is not the gain worth all the sacrifices a
thousand times over? There may be petty and amusing differences of
opinion, quiet banter, and an occasional grave conflict of judgment;
but, so long as three central requirements--confidence, generosity,
and unselfishness--are met, there can be no serious break in the
procession of placid, happy days. I abhor the gushing talk sometimes
heard about "married lovers;" the people who dignify life and honour
the community are those who are lovers and something more. Of course
we can all feel sympathy with Fanny Kemble when she says that the
poetry of "Romeo and Juliet" went into her blood as she spoke on the
stage; but there is something needed beyond wild Italian raptures
before the ideal match is secured. Some of us are almost glad that
Juliet passed away in swift fashion when the cup of life foamed most
exquisitely at her lips. How would she have fared had that changeable
firebrand Romeo taken to wandering once more? It is a grievously
flippant question to ask when the most glorious of all love-poems is
in question; yet I ask it very seriously, and merely in a symbolic
way. Romeo is a shadow, the adored Juliet is a shadow; but the two
immortal shades represent for all time the mad lovers whose lives end
in bitterness. I say again that only reasonable and calm love brings
happy marriages. It is as true as any other law of nature that "he
never loved who loved not at first sight;" but the frantic, dissolute
man of genius who wrote that line did not care to go further and speak
of matters which wise men of the world cannot disregard. The first
blinding shock of the supreme passion comes in the course of nature;
but wise people live through the unspeakable tumult of the soul, and
use their reason after they have resisted and subdued into calm
strength the fierce impulse which has wrecked so many human creatures.
When writing on "Ill-Assorted Marriages," I urged that men and women
who are about to take the terribly momentous steps towards marriage
must be guided by reason, and I repeat my adjuration here. When Lord
Beaconsfield said, "I observe those of my friends who married for
love--some of them beat their wives, and the remainder are divorced,"
he knew that he was uttering a piece of mockery which would have been
blasphemous had it been set down in all seriousness. He meant to say
that headlong marriages--marriages contracted in purblind
passion--always end in misery. No marriage can bring a spark of
happiness unless cool reason guides the choice of the contracting
parties. A hot-headed stripling marries a handsome termagant--her
brilliant face, her grace, and rude health attract him, and he does
not quietly notice the ebullitions of her temper. She is divine to
him; and, though she snarls at her younger brother, insults her
mother, and to outsiders plainly exhibits all sorts of petty
selfishness, yet the stripling rushes on to his fate; and at the end
of a few miserable years he is either a broken and hen-pecked creature
or a mean and ferocious squabbler.
How different is the case of those who are not precipitate! Take the
case of the splendid cynic whose words we have quoted. With his usual
sagacity, Lord Beaconsfield waited, watched, and finally succeeded in
making an ideally happy marriage in circumstances which would have
affrighted an ordinary person. All the world knows the story now. The
brilliant young statesman dared not risk the imputation of
fortune-hunting; but the lady knew his worth; she knew that she could
aid him, and she frankly threw over all the traditions of her sex and
of society and offered herself to him. No one in England who is
interested in this matter can fail to know every detail of a bargain
which makes one proud of one's species, for Lord Ronald Gower has told
us about the married life of the brilliant Hebrew who mastered
England. The two kindred souls were bound up in each other. The lady
was not learned or clever, and indeed her husband said, "She was the
best of creatures; but she never could tell which came first--the
Greeks or the Romans." But she had something more than cleverness--she
had the confidence, generosity, and unselfishness which I have set
forth as the main conditions of happiness. I must repeat an old story;
for it cannot too often be repeated. Think of the woman who gathered
all her resolution and uttered no sound, although the end of her
finger was smashed by the closing of the carriage-door! Mr. D'Israeli
was about to make a great speech; so his wife would not disturb him on
his way to Westminster, though flesh and bone of her finger were
crushed. She fainted when the orator had gone to his task; but her
fortitude did not forsake her until her beloved was out of danger of
being perturbed. That one authentic story is worth a hundred dramatic
tales of stagey heroism. And we must remember how the statesman repaid
the simple devotion of his wife. All his spare time was passed in her
company, and the quaint pair wandered in the woods like happy boy and
girl. Then, when the indomitable man had raised himself to be head of
the State, and was offered a peerage, he declined; but he begged that
his wife might be created countess in her own right. Could anything be
more graceful and courtly? "You are the superior," the first man in
England seemed to say; "and I am content to rejoice in your honours
without rivalling them." All the fanciful rhymes of the troubadours
cannot furnish anything prettier than that.
If we leave the Beaconsfields and the Chathams and come among less
exalted folk, we find that the same laws regulate happy marriages.
Confidence, generosity, unselfishness--that is all. In this beautiful
England of ours there are happy households which are almost
numberless. The good folk do not care for fame or power; their
happiness is rounded off and completed within their own walls, and
they live as the lordly Chatham lived when he was free from the ties
of place and Parliament. On summer days, when the quiet evening is
closing, the wayfarer may obtain chance glimpses of such happy homes
here and there. Some are inhabited by wealthy men, some by poor
workmen; but the essential happiness of both classes is arrived at in
the same way.
A young man wisely waits until his judgment is matured, and then
proceeds to choose his mate; he does not blunder into heroic fooleries
in the way of self-abnegation; for, if his choice is judicious, the
lady will prevent him from hurting his own prospects. Whether he be
aristocrat or plebeian, he knows the worth of money, and he knows how
to despise the foolish beings who talk of "dross" and "filthy lucre"
and the rest. Mere craving for money he despises; but he knows that
the amount of "dross" in a man's possession roughly indicates his
resources in the way of energy, ability, and self-control. When he
marries, his wife is reasonably free from sordid cares. It may be that
he has only seventy pounds in a building society, it may be that his
cheque for fifty thousand pounds would be honoured; but the principle
is the same. When the woman settles in her new home, she is free from
sordid anxieties, and she can give the graces of her mind play. How
beautiful some such households are! An old railway-guard once said to
me--"Ah, there's no talk like your own wife's when she understands
you, and you sit one side of the fire, and she the other! It don't
matter what kind of day you've had, she puts all right." The man was
right--the most delightful conversation that can be held is between a
rational man and woman who love each other, who understand each other,
and who have sufficient worldly keenness to keep clear of lowering
cares. A man rightly mated feels it an absolute delight to confide the
innermost secrets of life to his wife; and the woman would feel almost
criminal if she kept the pettiest of petty secrets from her partner.
They are friends, gloriously mated, and all the glories of birth and
state ever imagined cannot equal their simple but perfect joy. When
the tired mechanic comes home at night and meets one whom he has
wisely chosen, he forgets his sharp day of labour as soon as his
overalls are off. No snappish word greets him; and he is incapable of
being ill-natured with the kind soul whom he worships in his rough
way. I have always found that the merriest and most profitable
evenings were passed in houses where neither of the principal parties
strove for mastery, and where the woman had the art of coaxing
imperceptibly and discreetly. I reject the suggestion made by cynic
men that no married pair can live without quarrelling. No married pair
who were fools before marriage can avoid dissension; but, when man and
wife make their choice wisely and cautiously, the notion of a quarrel
is too horrible to dream of.
IX.
SHREWS.
The greatest masters who ever made studies of the shrew in fiction or
in history have never, after all, given us a strictly scientific
definition of the creature. They let her exhibit herself in all her
drollery or her hatefulness, but they act in somewhat lordly fashion
by leaving us to frame our definition from the picturesque data which
they supply. Mrs. Mackenzie, in "The Newcomes," is repulsive to an
awful degree, but the figure is as true as true can be, and most of
us, no doubt, have seen the type in all its loathsomeness only too
many times. Mrs. Mackenzie is a shrew of one sort, but we could not
take her vile personality as the basis of a classification. Mrs.
Raddle is one of that lower middle-class which Dickens knew so well,
still she is not hateful or vile, or anything but droll. I know how
maddening that kind of woman can be in real life to those immediately
about her, but onlookers find her purely funny; they never think of
poor Bob Sawyer's cruel humiliation; they only laugh themselves
helpless over the screeching little woman on the stairs, who humbles
her wretched consort and routs the party with such consummate
strategy. Mrs. Raddle and Mrs. Mackenzie are as far apart as two
creatures may be; nevertheless they are veritable specimens of the
British shrew, and it should be within the resources of civilisation
to find a definition capable of fitting both of them. As for Queen
Elizabeth--that splendid, false, able, cruel, and inexorable
shrew--she requires the space of volumes to give even the shadow of
her personality and powers. She has puzzled some of the wisest and
most learned of men. She was truly royal, and wholly deceitful;
self-controlled at times, and madly passionate at others; a lover of
pure literature, and yet terribly free in her own writings; kind to
her dependants, yet capable of aiming a violent blow at some courtier
whom she had caressed a moment before the blow came; an icy virgin,
and a confirmed and audacious flirt; a generous mistress, and an
odious miser; a free giver to those near her, and a skinflint who let
the sailors who saved her country lie rotting to death in the open
streets of Ramsgate because she could not find in her heart to give
them either medical attendance or shelter. Was there ever such another
being known beneath the glimpses of the moon? Some might call her
superhuman; I am more inclined to regard her as inhuman, for her
blending of characteristics is not like anything ever seen before or
since among the children of men. She was a shrew--a magnificent,
enigmatic shrew, who was perhaps the more fitted to rule a kingdom
which was in a state of transition in that she was lacking in all
sense of pity, shame, or remorse. She was the apotheosis of the shrew,
and no one of the tribe can ever be like unto her again. Carlyle's
Termagant of Spain is a shadowy figure that flits through all the
note-books on Frederick, but we never get so near to her as we do to
Elizabeth, and she remains to us as a vast shape that gibbers and
threatens and gesticulates in the realms of the dead. Jael, the wife
of Heber the Kenite, must have been a terrible shrew, and I should
think that Heber was not master in the house where Sisera died. The
calm deliberation, the preliminary coaxing, the quick, cool
determination, and the final shrill exultation which was reflected in
Deborah's song all speak of the shrew. Thackeray had a morbid delight
in dwelling on the species, and we know that all of his portraits were
taken from real life. If he really was intimate with all of the cruel
figures that he draws, then I could pardon him for manifesting the
most ferocious of cynicisms even if he had been a cynic--which he was
not. The Campaigner, Mrs. Clapp, the landlady in "Vanity Fair," Mrs.
Baynes, and all the rest of the deplorable bevy rest like nightmares
upon our memory. Dickens always made the shrew laughable, so that we
can hardly spare pity for the poor Snagsbys and Raddles and Crupps, or
any of her victims in that wonderful gallery; but Thackeray's,
Trollope's, Charles Reade's, Mrs. Oliphant's, and even Miss
Broughton's shrews are always odious, and they all seem to start from
the page alive.
But I am not minded to deal with the special instances of shrewism
which have been pronounced enough to claim attention from powerful
masters of fiction and history; I am rather interested in the swarms
of totally commonplace shrews who live around us, and who do their
very best--or worst--to make the earth a miserable place. I can laugh
as heartily as anybody at Dickens's "scolds" and female bullies; none
the less however am I ready in all seriousness to reckon the shrew as
an evil influence, as bad as some of the most subtle and malevolent
scourges inflicted by physical nature. All of us have but a little
span on earth, and we should be able to economise every minute, so as
to extract the maximum of joy from existence; yet how many frail lives
are embittered by the shrew! How many men, women, and children has she
not forced to wish almost for death as a relief from morbid pain and
keen humiliation! Our social conditions tend to foster shrewish
temperament, for we are gradually changing the subjection of woman to
the enslavement of man; gentle chivalry is developing into maudlin
self-advertising self-abnegation on the part of the males who favour
the new movement. The sweet and equable lady remains the same in all
ages; Imogen and Desdemona and Rosalind and the Roaring Girl have
their modern counterparts. The lady never takes advantage of the just
homage bestowed on her; she never asserts herself; her good breeding
is so absolute that she would not be uncontrolledly familiar with her
nearest and dearest, and her thoughts are all for others. But the
shrew must always be thrusting herself forward; her cankered nature
turns kindness into poison; she resents a benefit conferred as though
it were an insult; and yet, if she is not constantly noticed and made,
at the least, the recipient of kindly offers, she contrives to cause
every one within reach of her to feel the sting of her enraged vanity.
When I think of some women who are to be met with in various quarters,
from the "slum" to the drawing-room, I am driven to wonder--shocking
as it may seem--that crimes of violence are not more frequent than
they are. It is most melancholy to notice how well the shrew fares
compared with some poor creatures of gentler nature. In the lower
classes a meek, toil-worn, obliging woman is most foully ill-used by a
vagabond of a husband in only too many cases; while a screaming
selfish wretch who, in trying to madden her miserable husband,
succeeds in maddening all within earshot, escapes unhurt, and
continues to lead her odious life, setting a bad example to
impressionable young girls, and perhaps corrupting a neighbourhood.
England is the happy hunting-ground for the shrew at present; for in
America the average social relation between the sexes has come to be
so frank and even that a shrew would be as severely treated as a
discourteous man. In England a sham sentiment reigns which gives
license to the vilest of women without protecting the martyrs, who, in
all conscience, need protection. The scoundrel who maltreats a woman
receives far less punishment than is inflicted on a teacher who gives
a young Clerkenwell ruffian a stripe with a switch; while the howling
shrew who spends a man's money in drink, empties his house, screeches
at him by the hour together, is not censured at all--nay, the ordinary
"gusher" would say that "the agonised woman vents the feelings of her
overcharged heart."