"Man, on the road hame frae Kirrie Market I was to speer if she wud
marry me . . . but I didna."
We smoked silently for a long minute.
"Ye see," he went on slowly, "Maggie was a bonny lassie and I liked to
kiss and cuddle her, but kissin' and cuddlin' are a very sma' part o'
marriage, dominie. There was something in Maggie that I was aye
lookin' for, but cud never find. Aye, I tried to find it in other
lassies, but I never fund it."
"What was it you wanted to find, Dauvit?"
Dauvit paused.
"Ye micht call it a soul," he said. "Oh, aye," he went on, "Maggie was
a bonny lassie wi' a heart o' gold, but she hadna a soul. Wud ye like
to ken what stoppit me speerin' her that nicht as we cam through Zoar?
Man, I said to mysel: When we come to the toll bar I'll tak Maggie in
my arms and say: 'Maggie, I want ye, lassie!'"
He had to light his pipe here.
"Weelaweel, we got to the toll bar and I said: 'Maggie, we'll sit doon
on the bank for a while.' So we sat doon, and I was just tryin' to
screw up my courage when she pointed to the settin' sun. 'I'd like a
dress like that, only bonnier,' she said. Man, dominie, I looked at
that sunset wi' its gold and purple . . . and syne I kent that Maggie
was nae wife for me. I kent that she had nae soul."
After a time I remarked: "And so, Dauvit, you are a bachelor because
you were a poet!"
He busied himself with the paper sole.
"Maggie married Bob Wilson the farmer o' East Mains. Aye, and the
marriage turned oot a happy one, for Bob never rose abune neeps and
tatties in his life." Dauvit sighed. "But I sometimes used to look at
the twa o' them when their bairns were roond their knees, and syne I
used to gie a big _Dawm!_ and ging back to my wee hoose and mak my ain
tea."
"It doesna pay to hae a soul, dominie," he added with a short laugh.
"Perhaps you could have given her a soul, Dauvit," I said.
He shook his head with decision.
"Na, dominie, a soul is something ye're born wi'; if it isna there it
canna be put there. You say that I'm a poet, and you may be richt;
there may be a wee bit o' the artist in me, and ye never heard o' an
artist that was happily married. Wumman and art are opposites, and a
man canna marry both."
"That is true, Dauvit. But art is the feminine side of a man's nature;
it is the woman in him . . . and the woman is superfluous to him, for
she becomes the rival of the woman in himself."
This thought impressed Dauvit.
"Noo I understand Rabbie Burns," he cried. "Rabbie cudna love a wumman
because he loved the wumman in himsel. She was the wife that bore his
bairns--his poems." He paused, and a pained look came to his face.
"There may be a poet in me, dominie," he said ruefully, "but she has
borne me nae bairns. I am ane o' the mute inglorious Miltons . . . and
I wud ha' been better if I had married Maggie and talked aboot neeps
and tatties a' my life."
"You couldn't have done it, Dauvit," I said as I rose to go.
From the door I looked back at the old man as he stared at the fender.
* * * * *
One of the analysts says that the flirt is suffering from a mother
complex. He has never got over his infantile love for his mother, and
he is always trying to find the mother again in women. Hence he is
like a bee, sipping at one flower and then flying on to another.
I suspect that many a bachelor is a bachelor because his early love is
fixed on the mother. Few mothers realise the danger of coddling their
children. I have heard grown men dying in pain call on their mothers.
It is a hard task for parents, but they must always try to break their
children's fixation upon them.
Women having father-complexes are common. The other day I met a girl
who had no interest in young men; all her interest was in men with
beards. No matter what the conversation was about she managed to
mention her father. . . "Father says!" She will probably marry a man
twice her age. It is well-known that boys of seventeen often fall in
love with women of thirty, while adolescent girls usually fall in love
with men of thirty. They are not really in love; they are looking for
a substitute for the mother or father.
The psychology of the man of forty who falls in love with the girl of
sixteen is more difficult to grasp. I think that in most cases the
man's love interest is fixed away back in childhood; often the girl of
sixteen is a substitute for a beloved sister. Perhaps on the other
hand, a man of forty's paternal instinct has been starved so long that
he wants to find at once a wife and a child.
Few of us realise how much of our love interest is fixed in the past.
Think of the men who want to be mothered by their wives . . . they
generally address their wives as "Mother." I know happily married men
who are psychically children; "mother" won't allow them to carry coals
or wash dishes or brush clothes; she treats them as they unconsciously
desire to be treated--as babes.
It may be that Dauvit has a strong mother complex. He often talks of
his mother, and more than once I have heard him say that she was the
best woman he had ever known. It may be that he was unconsciously
looking for the mother in Maggie and the other girls, and failed to
find her. Maggie's remark about the sunset and the dress was not
enough to stifle his love declaration. The soul he longed to find in
Maggie may have been the soul of the mother he knew as an infant . . .
the soul of his ideal woman.
The more I see of men the less importance I pay to their conscious
reasons for attitudes. "I hate Brown; he never washes"; "I dislike
Mrs. Smith; she uses bad language." "Murphy is a rotter; he has no
manners." Statements like these are rationalisations; the real reason
for the dislike lies deeper in every case.