THE HONEYMOON.
After having given vent to the foregoing lockrum, I took Jehosophat
Bean’s illustrated “Biography of the Eleven Hundred and Seven
Illustrious American Heroes,” and turned in to read a spell; but arter
a while I lost sight of the heroes and their exploits, and I got into a
wide spekilation on all sorts of subjects, and among the rest my mind
wandered off to Jordan river, the Collingwood girls in particular, and
Jessie and the doctor, and the Beaver-dam, and its inmates in general.
I shall set down my musings as if I was thinking aloud.
I wonder, sais I to myself, whether Sophy and I shall be happy
together, sposin’ always, that she is willing to put her head into the
yoke, for that’s by no means sartain yet. I’ll know better when I can
study her more at leisure. Still matrimony is always a risk, where you
don’t know what sort of breaking a critter has had when young. Women in
a general way don’t look like the same critters when they are spliced,
that they do before; matrimony, like sugar and water, has a nateral
affinity for and tendency to acidity. The clear, beautiful, bright
sunshine of the wedding morning is too apt to cloud over at twelve
o’clock, and the afternoon to be cold, raw, and uncomfortable, or else
the heat generates storms that fairly make the house shake, and the
happy pair tremble again. Everybody knows the real, solid grounds which
can alone make married life perfect. I should only prose if I was to
state them, but I have an idea as cheerfulness is a great ingredient, a
good climate has a vast deal to do with it, for who can be chirp in a
bad one? Wedlock was first instituted in Paradise. Well, there must
have been a charming climate there. It could not have been too hot, for
Eve never used a parasol, or even a “kiss-me-quick,” and Adam never
complained, though he wore no clothes, that the sun blistered his skin.
It couldn’t have been wet, or they would have coughed all the time,
like consumptive sheep, and it would have spoiled their garden, let
alone giving them the chilblains and the snuffles. They didn’t require
umbrellas, uglies, fans, or India-rubber shoes. There was no such a
thing as a stroke of the sun or a snow-drift there. The temperature
must have been perfect, and connubial bliss, I allot, was rael jam up.
The only thing that seemed wanting there, was for some one to drop in
to tea now and then for Eve to have a good chat with, while Adam was a
studyin’ astronomy, or tryin’ to invent a kettle that would stand fire;
for women do like talking, that’s a fact, and there are many little
things they have to say to each other that no man has any right to
hear, and if he did, he couldn’t understand.
It’s like a dodge Sally and I had to blind mother. Sally was for
everlastingly leaving the keys about, and every time there was an
inquiry about them, or a hunt for them, the old lady would read her a
proper lecture. So at last she altered the name, and said, “Sam, wo is
shlizel?” instead of Where is the key, and she tried all she could to
find it out, but she couldn’t for the life of her.
Yes, what can be expected of such a climate as Nova Scotia or England?
Though the first can ripen Indian corn and the other can’t, and that is
a great test, I can tell you. It is hard to tell which of them is wuss,
for both are bad enough, gracious knows, and yet the fools that live in
them brag that their own beats all natur. If it is the former, well
then thunder don’t clear the weather as it does to the South, and the
sun don’t come out bright again at wunst and all natur look clear and
tranquil and refreshed; and the flowers and roses don’t hang their
heads down coily for the breeze to brush the drops from their
newly-painted leaves, and then hold up and look more lovely than ever;
nor does the voice of song and merriment arise from every tree; nor
fragrance and perfume fill the air, till you are tempted to say, Now
did you ever see anything so charming as this? nor do you stroll out
arm-in-arm (that is, sposin’ you ain’t in a nasty dirty horrid town),
and feel pleased with the dear married gall and yourself, and all you
see and hear, while you drink in pleasure with every sense—oh, it don’t
do that. Thunder unsettles everything for most a week, there seems no
end to the gloom during these three or four days. You shiver if you
don’t make a fire, and if you do you are fairly roasted alive. It’s all
grumblin’ and growlin’ within, and all mud, slush, and slop outside.
You are bored to death everywhere. And if it’s English climate it is
wuss still, because in Nova Scotia there is an end to all this at last,
for the west wind blows towards the end of the week soft and cool and
bracing, and sweeps away the clouds, and lays the dust and dries all
up, and makes everything smile again. But if it is English it’s
unsettled and uncertain all the time. You can’t depend on it for an
hour. Now it rains, then it clears, after that the sun shines; but it
rains too, both together, like hystericks, laughing and crying at the
same time. The trees are loaded with water, and hold it like a sponge;
touch a bough of one with your hat, and you are drowned in a
shower-bath. There is no hope, for there is no end visible, and when
there does seem a little glimpse of light, so as to make you think it
is a going to relent, it wraps itself up in a foggy, drizzly mist, and
sulks like anything.
In this country they have a warm summer, a magnificent autumn, a clear,
cold, healthy winter, but no sort of spring at all. In England they
have no summer and no winter.1 Now, in my opinion, that makes the
difference in temper between the two races. The clear sky and bracing
air here, when they do come, give the folks good spirits; but the
extremes of heat and cold limit the time, and decrease the inclination
for exercise. Still the people are good-natured, merry fellows. In
England, the perpetual gloom of the sky affects the disposition of the
men. America knows no such temper as exists in Britain. People here
can’t even form an idea of it. Folks often cut off their children there
in their wills for half nothing, won’t be reconciled to them on any
terms, if they once displease them, and both they and their sons die
game, and when death sends cards of invitation for the last assemblage
of a family, they write declensions. There can’t be much real love
where there is no tenderness. A gloomy sky, stately houses, and a cold,
formal people, make Cupid, like a bird of passage, spread his wings,
and take flight to a more congenial climate.
1 I wonder what Mr Slick would say now, in 1855?
Castles have show-apartments, and the vulgar gaze with stupid wonder,
and envy the owners. But there are rooms in them all, not exhibited. In
them the imprisoned bird may occasionally be seen, as in the olden
time, to flutter against the casement and pine in the gloom of its
noble cage. There are chambers too in which grief, anger, jealousy,
wounded pride, and disappointed ambition, pour out their sighs, their
groans, and imprecations, unseen and unheard. The halls resound with
mirth and revelry, and the eye grows dim with its glittering splendour;
but amid all this ostentatious brilliancy, poor human nature refuses to
be comforted with diamonds and pearls, or to acknowledge that happiness
consists in gilded galleries, gay equipages, or fashionable parties.
They are cold and artificial. The heart longs to discard this joyless
pageantry, to surround itself with human affections, and only asks to
love and be loved.
Still England is not wholly composed of castles and cottages, and there
are very many happy homes in it, and thousands upon thousands of happy
people in them, in spite of the melancholy climate, the destitution of
the poor, and the luxury of the rich. God is good. He is not only
merciful, but a just judge. He equalizes the condition of all. The
industrious poor man is content, for he relies on Providence and his
own exertions for his daily bread. He earns his food, and his labour
gives him a zest for it. Ambition craves, and is never satisfied, one
is poor amid his prodigal wealth, the other rich in his frugal poverty.
_No man is rich whose expenditure exceeds his means; and no one is poor
whose incomings exceeds his outgoings._ Barring such things as climate,
over which we have no control, happiness, in my idea, consists in the
mind, and not in the purse. These are plain common truths, and
everybody will tell you there is nothing new in them, just as if there
was anything new under the sun but my wooden clocks, and yet they only
say so because they can’t deny them, for who acts as if he ever heard
of them before. Now, if they do know them, why the plague don’t they
regulate their timepieces by them? If they did, matrimony wouldn’t make
such an everlastin’ transmogrification of folks as it does, would it?
The way cupidists scratch their head and open their eyes and stare
after they are married, reminds me of Felix Culpepper. He was a judge
at Saint Lewis, on the Mississippi, and the lawyers used to talk
gibberish to him, yougerry, eyegerry, iggery, ogerry, and tell him it
was Littleton’s Norman French and Law Latin. It fairly onfakilised him.
Wedlock works just such changes on folks sometimes. It makes me laugh,
and then it fairly scares me.
Sophy, dear, how will you and I get on, eh? The Lord only knows, but
you are an uncommon sensible gall, and people tell me till I begin to
believe it myself, that I have some common sense, so we must try to
learn the chart of life, so as to avoid those sunk rocks so many people
make shipwreck on. I have often asked myself the reason of all this
onsartainty. Let us jist see how folks talk and think, and decide on
this subject. First and foremost they have got a great many cant terms,
and you can judge a good deal from them. There is the honeymoon, now,
was there ever such a silly word as that? Minister said the Dutch at
New Amsterdam, as they used to call New York, brought out the word to
America, for all the friends of the new married couple, in Holland, did
nothing for a whole month but smoke, drink metheglin (a tipple made of
honey and gin), and they called that bender the honeymoon; since then
the word has remained, though metheglin is forgot for something better.
Well, when a couple is married now, they give up a whole month to each
other, what an everlastin’ sacrifice, ain’t it, out of a man’s short
life? The reason is, they say, the metheglin gets sour after that, and
ain’t palatable no more, and what is left of it is used for picklin’
cucumbers, peppers, and nastertions, and what not. Now, as Brother
Eldad, the doctor, says, let us dissect this phrase, and find out what
one whole moon means, and then we shall understand what this wonderful
thing is. The new moon now, as a body might say, ain’t nothing. It’s
just two small lines of a semicircle, like half a wheel, with a little
strip of white in it, about as big as a cart tire, and it sets a little
after sundown; and as it gives no light, you must either use a candle
or go to bed in the dark: now that’s the first week, and it’s no great
shakes to brag on, is it? Well, then there is the first quarter, and
calling that the first which ought to be second, unless the moon has
only three quarters, which sounds odd, shows that the new moon counts
for nothin’. Well, the first quarter is something like the thing,
though not the real genuine article either. It’s better than the other,
but its light don’t quite satisfy us neither. Well, then comes the full
moon, and that is all there is, as one may say. Now, neither the moon
nor nothin’ else can be more than full, and when you have got all,
there is nothing more to expect. But a man must be a blockhead, indeed,
to expect the moon to remain one minute after it is full, as every
night clips a little bit off, till there is a considerable junk gone by
the time the week is out, and what is worse, every night there is more
and more darkness afore it rises. It comes reluctant, and when it does
arrive it hante long to stay, for the last quarter takes its turn at
the lantern. That only rises a little afore the sun, as if it was
ashamed to be caught napping at that hour—that quarter therefore is
nearly as dark as ink. So you see the new and last quarter go for
nothing; that everybody will admit. The first ain’t much better, but
the last half of that quarter and the first of the full, make a very
decent respectable week.
Well, then, what’s all this when it’s fried? Why, it amounts to this,
that if there is any resemblance between a lunar and a lunatic month,
that the honeymoon lasts only one good week.
Don’t be skeared, Sophy, when you read this, because we must look
things in the face and call them by their right name.
Well, then, let us call it the honey-week. Now if it takes a whole
month to make one honey-week, it must cut to waste terribly, mustn’t
it? But then you know a man can’t wive and thrive the same year. Now
wastin’ so much of that precious month is terrible, ain’t it? But oh
me, bad as it is, it ain’t the worst of it. There is no insurance
office for happiness, there is no policy to be had to cover losses—you
must bear them all yourself. Now suppose, just suppose for one moment,
and positively such things have happened before now, they have indeed;
I have known them occur more than once or twice myself among my own
friends, fact, I assure you. Suppose now that week is cold, cloudy, or
uncomfortable, where is the honeymoon then? Recollect there is only one
of them, there ain’t two. You can’t say it rained cats and dogs this
week, let us try the next; you can’t do that, it’s over and gone for
ever. Well, if you begin life with disappointment, it is apt to end in
despair.
Now, Sophy, dear, as I said before, don’t get skittish at seeing this,
and start and race off and vow you won’t ever let the halter be put on
you, for I kinder sorter guess that, with your sweet temper, good
sense, and lovin’ heart, and with the light-hand I have for a rein, our
honeymoon will last through life. We will give up that silly word, that
foolish boys and girls use without knowing its meanin’, and we will
count by years and not by months, and we won’t expect, what neither
marriage nor any other earthly thing can give, perfect happiness. It
tante in the nature of things, and don’t stand to reason, that earth is
Heaven, Slickville paradise, or you and me angels; we ain’t no such a
thing. If you was, most likely the first eastwardly wind (and though it
is a painful thing to confess it, I must candidly admit there is an
eastwardly wind sometimes to my place to home), why you would just up
wings and off to the sky like wink, and say you didn’t like the land of
the puritans, it was just like themselves, cold, hard, uncongenial, and
repulsive; and what should I do? Why most likely remain behind, for
there is no marrying or giving in marriage up there.
No, no, dear, if you are an angel, and positively you are amazingly
like one, why the first time I catch you asleep I will clip your wings
and keep you here with me, until we are both ready to start together.
We won’t hope for too much, nor fret for trifles, will we? These two
things are the greatest maxims in life I know of. When I was a boy I
used to call them commandments, but I got such a lecture for that, and
felt so sorry for it afterwards, I never did again, nor will as long as
I live. Oh, dear, I shall never forget the lesson poor dear old
Minister taught me on that occasion.
There was a thanksgiving ball wunst to Slickville, and I wanted to go,
but I had no clothes suitable for such an occasion as that, and father
said it would cost more than it was worth to rig me out for it, so I
had to stop at home. Sais Mr Hopewell to me,
“Sam,” said he, “don’t fret about it, you will find it ‘all the same a
year hence.’ As that holds good in most things, don’t it show us the
folly now of those trifles we set our hearts on, when in one short year
they will be disregarded or forgotten?”
“Never fear,” said I, “I am not a going to break the twelfth
commandment.”
“Twelfth commandment,” said he, repeatin’ the words slowly, laying down
his book, taking off his spectacles, and lookin’ hard at me, almost
onfakilised. “Twelfth commandment, did I hear right, Sam,” said he,
“did you say that?”
Well, I saw there was a squall rising to windward, but boy like,
instead of shortening sail, and taking down royals and topgallant
masts, and making all snug, I just braved it out, and prepared to meet
the blast with every inch of canvas set. “Yes, Sir,” said I, “the
twelfth.”
“Dear me,” said he, “poor boy, that is my fault. I really thought you
knew there were only ten, and had them by heart years ago. They were
among the first things I taught you. How on earth could you have
forgotten them so soon? Repeat them to me.”
Well, I went through them all, down to “anything that is his,” to
ampersand without making a single stop.
“Sam,” said he, “don’t do it again, that’s a good soul, for it
frightens me. I thought I must have neglected you.”
“Well,” sais I, “there are two more, Sir.”
“Two more,” he said, “why what under the sun do you mean? what are
they?”
“Why,” sais I, “the eleventh is, ‘Expect nothin’, and you shall not be
disappointed,’ and the twelfth is, ‘Fret not thy gizzard.’”
“And pray, Sir,” said he, lookin’ thunder-squalls at me, “where did you
learn them?”
“From Major Zeb Vidito,” said I.
“Major Zeb Vidito,” he replied, “is the greatest reprobate in the army.
He is the wretch who boasts that he fears neither God, man, nor devil.
Go, my son, gather up your books, and go home. You can return to your
father. My poor house has no room in it for Major Zeb Vidito, or his
pupil, Sam Slick, or any such profane wicked people, and may the Lord
have mercy on you.”
Well, to make a long story short, it brought me to my bearings that. I
had to heave to, lower a boat, send a white flag to him, beg pardon,
and so on, and we knocked up a treaty of peace, and made friends again.
“I won’t say no more about it, Sam,” said he, “but mind my words, and
apply your experience to it afterwards in life, and see if I ain’t
right. _Crime has but two travelling companions. It commences its
journey with the scoffer, and ends it with the blasphemer:_ not that
talking irreverently ain’t very improper in itself, but it destroys the
sense of right and wrong, and prepares the way for sin.”
Now, I won’t call these commandments, for the old man was right, it’s
no way to talk, I’ll call them maxims. Now, we won’t expect too much,
nor fret over trifles, will we, Sophy? It takes a great deal to make
happiness, for everything must be in tune like a piano; but it takes
very little to spoil it. Fancy a bride now having a tooth-ache, or a
swelled face during the honeymoon—in courtship she won’t show, but in
marriage she can’t help it,—or a felon on her finger (it is to be hoped
she hain’t given her hand to one); or fancy now; just fancy, a
hooping-cough caught in the cold church, that causes her to make a
noise like drowning, a great gurgling in-draught, and a great
out-blowing, like a young sporting porpoise, and instead of being all
alone with her own dear husband, to have to admit the horrid doctor,
and take draughts that make her breath as hot as steam, and submit to
have nauseous garlic and brandy rubbed on her breast, spine, palms of
her hands, and soles of her feet, that makes the bridegroom, every time
he comes near her to ask her how she is, sneeze, as if he was catching
it himself. He don’t say to himself in an under-tone damn it, how
unlucky this is. Of course not; he is too happy to swear, if he ain’t
too good, as he ought to be; and she don’t say, eigh—augh, like a
donkey, for they have the hooping-cough all the year round; “dear love,
eigh—augh, how wretched this is, ain’t it? eigh—augh,” of course not;
how can she be wretched? Ain’t it her honeymoon? and ain’t she as happy
as a bride can be, though she does eigh—augh her slippers up amost. But
it won’t last long, she feels sure it won’t, she is better now, the
doctor says it will be soon over; yes, but the honeymoon will be over
too, and it don’t come like Christmas, once a-year. When it expires,
like a dying swan, it sings its own funeral hymn.
Well, then fancy, just fancy, when she gets well, and looks as chipper
as a canary-bird, though not quite so yaller from the effects of the
cold, that the bridegroom has his turn, and is taken down with the
acute rheumatism, and can’t move, tack nor sheet, and has camphor,
turpentine, and hot embrocations of all sorts and kinds applied to him,
till his room has the identical perfume of a druggist’s shop, while he
screams if he ain’t moved, and yells if he is, and his temper peeps
out. It don’t break out of course, for he is a happy man; but it just
peeps out as a masculine he-angel’s would if he was tortured.
The fact is, lookin’ at life, with its false notions, false hopes, and
false promises, my wonder is, not that married folks don’t get on
better, but that they get on as well as they do. If they regard
matrimony as a lottery, is it any wonder more blanks than prizes turn
up on the wheel? Now, my idea of mating a man is, that it is the same
as matching a horse; the mate ought to have the same spirit, the same
action, the same temper, and the same training. Each should do his
part, or else one soon becomes strained, sprained, and spavined, or
broken-winded, and that one is about the best in a general way that
suffers the most.
Don’t be shocked at the comparison; but to my mind a splendiferous
woman and a first chop horse is the noblest works of creation. They
take the rag off the bush quite; a woman “that will come” and a horse
that “will go” ought to make any man happy. Give me a gall that all I
have to say to is, “_Quick, pick up chips and call your father to
dinner_,” and a horse that enables you to say, “_I am thar_.” That’s
all I ask. Now just look at the different sorts of love-making in this
world. First, there is boy and gall love; they are practising the
gamut, and a great bore it is to hear and see them; but poor little
things, their whole heart and soul is in it, as they were the year
before on a doll or a top. They don’t know a heart from a gizzard, and
if you ask them what a soul is, they will say it is the dear sweet soul
they love. It begins when they enter the dancing-school, and ends when
they go out into the world; but after all, I believe it is the only
real romance in life.
Then there is young maturity love, and what is that half the time based
on? vanity, vanity, and the deuce a thing else. The young lady is
handsome, no, that’s not the word, she is beautiful, and is a belle,
and all the young fellows are in her train. To win the prize is an
object of ambition. The gentleman rides well, hunts and shoots well,
and does everything well, and moreover he is a fancy man, and all the
girls admire him. It is a great thing to conquer the hero, ain’t it?
and distance all her companions; and it is a proud thing for him to win
the prize from higher, richer, and more distinguished men than himself.
It is the triumph of the two sexes. They are allowed to be the
handsomest couple ever married in that church. What an elegant man,
what a lovely woman, what a splendid bride! they seem made for each
other! how happy they both are, eyes can’t show—words can’t express it;
they are the admiration of all.
If it is in England, they have two courses of pleasure before them—to
retire to a country-house or to travel. The latter is a great bore, it
exposes people, it is very annoying to be stared at. Solitude is the
thing. They are all the world to each other, what do they desire beyond
it—what more can they ask? They are quite happy. How long does it last?
for they have no resources beyond excitement. Why, it lasts till the
first juicy day comes, and that comes soon in England, and the
bridegroom don’t get up and look out of the window, on the cloudy sky,
the falling rain, and the inundated meadows, and think to himself,
“Well, this is too much bush, ain’t it? I wonder what de Courcy and de
Lacy and de Devilcourt are about to-day?” and then turn round with a
yawn that nearly dislocates his jaw. Not a bit of it. He is the most
happy man in England, and his wife is an angel, and he don’t throw
himself down on a sofa and wish they were back in town. It ain’t
natural he should; and she don’t say, “Charles, you look dull, dear,”
nor he reply, “Well, to tell you the truth, it is devilish dull here,
that’s a fact,” nor she say, “Why, you are very complimentary,” nor he
rejoin, “No, I don’t mean it as a compliment, but to state it as a
fact, what that Yankee, what is his name? Sam Slick, or Jim Crow, or
Uncle Tom, or somebody or another calls an established fact!” Her eyes
don’t fill with tears at that, nor does she retire to her room and pout
and have a good cry; why should she? she is so happy, and when the
honied honeymoon is over, they will return to town, and all will be
sunshine once more.
But there is one little thing both of them forget, which they find out
when they do return. They have rather just a little overlooked or
undervalued means, and they can’t keep such an establishment as they
desire, or equal to their former friends. They are both no longer
single. He is not asked so often where he used to be, nor courted and
flattered as he lately was; and she is a married woman now, and the
beaus no longer cluster around her. Each one thinks the other the cause
of this dreadful change. It was the imprudent and unfortunate match did
it. Affection was sacrificed to pride, and that deity can’t and won’t
help them, but takes pleasure in tormenting them. First comes coldness,
and then estrangement; after that words ensue, that don’t sound like
the voice of true love, and they fish on their own hook, seek their own
remedy, take their own road, and one or the other, perhaps both, find
that road leads to the devil.
Then, there is the “ring-fence match,” which happens everywhere. Two
estates, or plantations, or farms adjoin, and there is an only son in
one, and an only daughter in the other; and the world, and fathers, and
mothers, think what a suitable match it would be, and what a grand
thing a ring-fence is, and they cook it up in the most fashionable
style, and the parties most concerned take no interest in it, and,
having nothing particular to object to, marry. Well, strange to say,
half the time it don’t turn out bad, for as they don’t expect much,
they can’t be much disappointed. They get after a while to love each
other from habit; and finding qualities they didn’t look for, end by
getting amazin’ fond of each other.
Next is a cash match. Well, that’s a cheat. It begins in dissimulation,
and ends in detection and punishment. I don’t pity the parties; it
serves them right. They meet without pleasure, and part without pain.
The first time I went to Nova Scotia to vend clocks, I fell in with a
German officer, who married a woman with a large fortune; she had as
much as three hundred pounds. He could never speak of it without
getting up, walking round the room, rubbing his hands, and smacking his
lips. The greatest man he ever saw, his own prince, had only five
hundred a-year, and his daughters had to select and buy the chickens,
wipe the glasses, starch their own muslins, and see the fine soap made.
One half of them were Protestants, and the other half Catholics, so as
to bait the hooks for royal fish of either creed. They were poor and
proud, but he hadn’t a morsel of pride in him, for he had condescended
to marry the daughter of a staff surgeon; and she warn’t poor, for she
had three hundred pounds. He couldn’t think of nothin’ but his fortune.
He spent the most of his time in building castles, not in Germany, but
in the air, for they cost nothing. He used to delight to go marooning1
for a day or two in Maitland settlement, where old soldiers are
located, and measured every man he met by the gauge of his purse. “Dat
poor teevil,” he would say, “is wort twenty pounds, well, I am good for
tree hundred, in gold and silver, and provinch notes, and de mortgage
on Burkit Crowse’s farm for twenty-five pounds ten shillings and eleven
pence halfpenny—fifteen times as much as he is, pesides ten pounds
interest.” If he rode a horse, he calculated now many he could
purchase; and he found they would make an everlastin’ cahoot.2 If he
sailed in a boat, he counted the flotilla he could buy; and at last he
used to think, “Vell now, if my vrow would go to de depot (graveyard)
vat is near to de church, Goten Himmel, mid my fortune I could marry
any pody I liked, who had shtock of cattle, shtock of clothes, and
shtock in de Bank, pesides farms and foresht lands, and dyke lands, and
meadow lands, and vind-mill and vater-mill; but dere is no chanse she
shall die, for I was dirty (thirty) when I married her, and she was
dirty-too (thirty-two). Tree hundred pounds! Vell, it’s a great shum;
but vat shall I do mid it? If I leave him mid a lawyer, he say, Mr Von
Sheik, you gub it to me. If I put him into de pank, den de ting shall
break, and my forten go smash, squash—vot dey call von shilling in de
pound. If I lock him up, den soldier steal and desert away, and conetry
people shall hide him, and I will not find him no more. I shall
mortgage it on a farm. I feel vary goot, vary pig, and vary rich. If I
would not lose my bay and commission, I would kick de colonel, kiss his
vife, and put my cane thro’ his vinder. I don’t care von damn for
nopoty no more.”
1 Marooning differs from pic-nicing in this—the former continues
several days, the other lasts but one.
2 Cahoot is one of the new coinage, and in Mexico, means a band or
cavalcade.
Well, his wife soon after that took a day and died; and he followed her
to the grave. It was the first time he ever gave her precedence, for he
was a disciplinarian; he knew the difference of “rank and file,” and
liked to give the word of command, “Rear rank, take open order—march!”
Well, I condoled with him about his loss. Sais he: “Mr Shlick, I did’nt
lose much by her: the soldier carry her per order, de pand play for
noting, and de crape on de arm came from her ponnet.”
“But the loss of your wife?” said I.
Well, that excited him, and he began to talk Hessian. “_Jubes renovare
dolorem_,” said he.
“I don’t understand High Dutch,” sais I, “when it’s spoke so almighty
fast.”
“It’s a ted language,” said he.
I was a goin’ to tell him I didn’t know the dead had any language, but
I bit in my breath.
“Mr Shlick,” said he, “de vife is gone” (and clapping his waistcoat
pocket with his hand, and grinning like a chissy cat), he added, “but
_de monish remain_.”
Yes, such fellows as Von Sheik don’t call this ecclesiastical and civil
contract, wedlock. They use a word that expresses their meaning
better—matri-_money_. Well, even money ain’t all gold, for there are
two hundred and forty nasty, dirty, mulatto-looking copper pennies in a
sovereign; and they have the affectation to call the filthy
incrustation, if they happen to be ancient coin, verd-antique. Well,
fine words are like fine dresses; one often covers ideas that ain’t
nice, and the other sometimes conceals garments that are a little the
worse for wear. Ambition is just as poor a motive. It can only be
gratified at the expense of a journey over a rough road, and he is a
fool who travels it by a borrowed light, and generally finds he takes a
_rise_ out of himself.
Then there is a class like Von Sheik, “who feel so pig and so
hugeaciously grandiferous,” they look on a wife’s fortune with
contempt. The independent man scorns connection, station, and money. He
has got all three, and more of each than is sufficient for a dozen men.
He regards with utter indifference the opinion of the world, and its
false notions of life. He can afford to please himself; he does not
stoop if he marries beneath his own rank; for he is able to elevate any
wife to his. He is a great admirer of beauty, which is confined to no
circle and no region. The world is before him, and he will select a
woman to gratify himself and not another. He has the right and ability
to do so, and he fulfils his intention. Now an independent man is an
immoveable one until he is proved, and a soldier is brave until the day
of trial comes. He however is independent and brave enough to set the
opinion of the world at defiance, and he marries. Until then society is
passive, but when defied and disobeyed, it is active, bitter, and
relentless.
The conflict is only commenced—marrying is merely firing the first gun.
The battle has yet to be fought. If he can do without the world, the
world can do without him, but, if he enters it again bride in hand, he
must fight his way inch by inch, and step by step. She is slighted and
he is stung to the quick. She is ridiculed and he is mortified to
death. He is able to meet open resistance, but he is for ever in dread
of an ambuscade. He sees a sneer in every smile, he fears an insult in
every whisper. The unmeaning jest must have a hidden point for him.
Politeness seems cold, even good-nature looks like the insolence of
condescension. If his wife is addressed, it is manifestly to draw her
out. If her society is not sought, it is equally plain there is a
conspiracy to place her in Coventry. To defend her properly, and to put
her on her guard, it is necessary he should know her weak points
himself.
But, alas, in this painful investigation, his ears are wounded by false
accents, his eyes by false motions and vulgar attitudes, he finds
ignorance where ignorance is absurd, and knowledge where knowledge is
shame, and what is worse, this distressing criticism has been forced
upon him, and he has arrived at the conclusion that beauty without
intelligence is the most valueless attribute of a woman. Alas, the
world is an argus-eyed, many-headed, sleepless, heartless monster. The
independent man, if he would retain his independence, must retire with
his wife to his own home, and it would be a pity if in thinking of his
defeat he was to ask himself, Was my pretty doll worth this terrible
struggle after all? wouldn’t it? Well, I pity that man, for at most he
has only done a foolish thing, and he has not passed through life
without being a public benefactor. _He has held a reversed lamp. While
he has walked in the dark himself, he has shed light on the path of
others._
Ah, Sophy, when you read this, and I know you will, you’ll say, What a
dreadful picture you have drawn! it ain’t like you—you are too
good-natured, I can’t believe you ever wrote so spiteful an article as
this, and, woman like, make more complimentary remarks than I deserve.
Well, it ain’t like me, that’s a fact, but it is like the world for all
that. Well, then you will puzzle your little head whether after all
there is any happiness in married life, won’t you?
Well, I will answer that question. I believe there may be and are many,
very many happy marriages; but then people must be as near as possible
in the same station of life, their tempers compatible, their religious
views the same, their notions of the world similar, and their union
based on mutual affection, entire mutual confidence, and what is of the
utmost consequence, the greatest possible mutual respect. Can you feel
this towards me, Sophy, can you, dear? Then be quick—“pick up chips and
call your father to dinner.”