THE VALLEY OF HUMILIATION.
Miss Ellery was sufficiently mistress of herself, and of circumstances,
to close our little pastoral in the most graceful and amiable manner
possible.
I received a beautiful rose-scented note from her, saying that the very
kind interest in her happiness which I always had expressed, and the
extremely pleasant friendship which had arisen between us, made her
desirous of informing me, &c., &c. Thereupon followed the announcement
of her engagement, terminating with the assurance that whatever new ties
she might form, or scenes she might visit, she should ever cherish a
pleasant remembrance of the delightful hours spent beneath the elms of
X., and indulge the kindest wishes for my future success and happiness.
I, of course, crushed the rose-scented missive in my hand, in the most
approved tragical style, and felt that I had been deceived, betrayed and
undone. I passed forthwith into that cynical state of young manhood, in
which one learns for the first time what a mere unimportant drop his own
most terribly earnest and excited feelings may be in the tumbling ocean
of the existing world.
This is a valley of humiliation, which lies, in very many cases, just a
day's walk beyond the palace, beautiful with all its fascinations.
The moral geographer, John Bunyan, to whom we are indebted for much
wholesome information, tells us that while it is extremely difficult to
descend gracefully into this valley, and pilgrims generally accomplish
it at the expense of many a sore trip and stumble, yet when once they
are fairly down, it presents many advantages of climate and soil not
other where found.
The shivering to pieces of the first ideal, while it breaks ruthlessly
and scatters much that is really and honestly good and worthy, breaks
up no less a certain stock of unconscious self conceit, which young
people are none the worse for having lessened.
The very assumption, so common in the early days of life, that we have
feelings of a peculiar sacredness above the comprehension of the common
herd, and for which only the selectest sympathy is possible, is one
savoring a little too much of the unregenerate natural man, to be safely
let alone to grow and thrive.
Natures, in particular, where ideality is largely in the ascendant, are
apt to begin life with the scheme of building a high and thick stone
wall of reticence around themselves, and enthroning therein an idol,
whose rites and service are to be performed with a contemptuous
indifference to all the rest of mankind.
When this idol is suddenly disenchanted by some stroke of inevitable
reality, and we discern that the image which we had supposed to be the
shrine of a divinity, is only a very earthly doll, stuffed with
saw-dust, one's pinnacles and battlements--the whole temple in short,
that we have prided ourselves on, comes tumbling down about us like the
walls of Jericho, not without a certain sense of the ridiculous. Though,
like other afflictions, this is not for the present joyous, still the
space thus cleared in our mind may be so cultivated as afterwards to
bring forth peaceable fruits of righteousness.
In my case, my idol was utterly defaced and destroyed in my eyes,
because I could not conceal from myself that she was making a marriage
wholly without the one element that above all others marriage requires.
Miss Ellery was perfectly well aware of the mental inferiority of poor
Bill Marshall, and had listened unreprovingly to the half-contemptuous
pity with which it was customary among us to speak of him. I remembered
how patronizingly I had often talked of him to her, "Really not a bad
fellow--only a little weak, you see;" and the pretty, graceful drollery
in her eyes. I remembered things that these same eyes had looked at me,
when he blundered and miscalled words in conversation, and a thousand
sayings and intimations, each by itself indefinite as the boundary
between two tints of the rainbow, by which she showed a superior sense
of pleasure in my conversation and society.
And was all this acting and insincerity? I thought not. I was and am
fully convinced that had I only been possessed of the wealth of Bill
Marshall, Miss Ellery would infinitely have preferred me as a life
companion; and it was no very serious amount of youthful vanity to
imagine that I should have proved a more entertaining one. I can easily
imagine that she made the decision with some gentle regret at
first,--regret dried up like morning dew in the full sunlight of wedding
diamonds, and capable of being put completely to sleep upon a couch of
cashmere shawls.
With what indignant bitterness did I listen to all the details of the
impending wedding from fluent Jim Fellows, who, being from Portland and
well posted in all the gossip of the circle in which she moved,
enlightened our entry with daily and weekly bulletins of the grandeur
and splendors that were being, and to be.
"Boys, only think! Her wedding present from him is a set of diamonds
valued at twenty-five thousand dollars. Bob Rivers saw them on
exhibition at Tiffany's. Then she has three of the most splendid
cashmere shawls that ever were imported into Maine. Captain Sautelle got
them from an Indian Prince, and there's no saying what they would have
cost at usual rates. I tell you Bill is going it in style, and they are
going to be married with drums and trumpets, cymbals and dances; such a
wedding as will make old Portland stare; and then off they are going to
travel no end of time in Europe, and see all the kingdoms of the world,
and the glory of them."
Now, I suppose none of us doubted that could Miss Ellery have attained
the diamonds and the cashmeres and the fortune, with all its
possibilities of luxury and self-indulgence, without the addition of the
husband, nothing would have been wanting to complete her good fortune;
but it is a condition in the way of a woman's making a fortune by
marriage, as it was with Faust's compact with an unmentionable party,
that it can only be ratified by the sacrifice of herself--herself, and
for life! A sacrifice most awful and holy when made in pure love, and
most fearful when made for any other consideration. The fact that Miss
Ellery could make it was immediate and complete disenchantment to me.
Mine is not, I suppose, the only case where the ideal which has been
formed under the brooding influence of a noble mother is shattered by
the hand of a woman. Some woman, armed with the sacramental power of
beauty, enkindles the highest manliness of the youth, and is, in his
eyes, the incarnate form of purity and unworldly virtue, the high prize
and incitement to valor, patience, constancy and courage, in the great
life-battle.
But she sells herself before his eyes, for diamonds and laces, and
trinkets and perfumes; for the liberty of walking on soft carpets and
singing in gilded cages; and all the world laughs at his simplicity in
supposing that, a fair chance given, any woman would ever do otherwise.
Is not beauty woman's capital in trade, the price put into her hand to
get whatever she needs; and are not the most beautiful, as a matter of
course, destined prizes of the richest?
Miss Ellery's marriage was to me a great awakening, a coming out of a
life of pure ideas and sentiment into one of external realities.
Hitherto, I had lived only with people all whose measures and valuations
had been those relating to the character--the intellect and the heart.
Never in my father's house had I heard the gaining of money spoken of as
success in life, except as far as money was needed to advance education,
and education was a means for doing good. My father had his zeal, his
earnestness, his exultations, but they all related to things _to be
done_ in his life-work; the saving of souls, the conversion of sinners,
the gathering of churches, the repression of intemperance and
immorality, the advancement of education. My elder brothers had
successfully entered the ministry under his influence, and in counsels
with them where to settle, I had never heard the question of salary or
worldly support even discussed. The first, the only question I ever
heard considered, was _What work was needed to be done_, and what
fitness for the doing of it; taking for granted the record, that where
the Kingdom of God and its righteousness were first sought, all things
would be added.
Thus all my visions of future life had in them something of the innocent
verdancy of the golden age, when noble men strove for the favor of fair
women, by pureness, by knowledge, by heroism,--and the bravest won the
crown from the hand of the most beautiful.
And suddenly to my awakened eyes the whole rushing cavalcade of
fashionable life swept by, bearing my princess, amid waving feathers and
flashing jewels and dazzling robes and merry laughs and jests, leaving
me by the way-side dazed and covered with dust, to plod on alone.
Now first I felt the shame which comes over a young man, that he has not
known the world as old wordlings know it.
In the discussions among the boys, relating to this marriage, I first
learned the power of that temptation which comes upon every young man to
look on wealth as the first object in a life race.
Woman is by order of nature the conservator of the ideal. Formed of
finer clay, with nicer perceptions, and refined fiber, she is the
appointed priestess to guard the poetry of life from sacrilege; but if
she be bribed to betray the shrine, what hope for us? "If the salt have
lost its savor, wherewith shall it be salted?"
My acquaintance with Miss Ellery had brought me out of my scholastic
retirement, and made me an acquaintance of the whole bevy of the girls
of X. Miss Ellery had been invited and fêted in all the families, and
her special train of adorers had followed her, and thus I was "_au
courant_" of all the existing girl-world of our little town. It was
curious to remark what a silken flutter of wings, what an endless
volubility of tongues there was, about this engagement and marriage, and
how, on the whole, it was treated as the height of splendor and good
fortune. My rosy-faced friend, Miss Dotha, was invited to the festival
as bridesmaid, and returned thereafter "trailing clouds of glory" into
the primitive circles of X; and my cynical bitterness of soul took a
sort of perverse pleasure in the amplifications and discussions that I
constantly heard in the tea-drinking circles of the town.
"Oh, girls, you've no idea about those diamonds," said Miss Dotha;
"great big diamonds as large as peas, and just as clear as water! Bill
Marshall made them send orders to Europe specially for the purpose; then
she had a pearl set that his mother gave, and his sister gave an
amethyst set for a breakfast suit! and you ought to have seen the
presents! It was a perfect bazar! The Marshalls are an enormously rich
family, and they all came down splendidly: old uncle Tom Marshall gave a
solid silver dining set embossed with gold, and old Aunt Tabitha
Marshall gave a real Sévres china tea-set, that was taken out of one of
the royal palaces in France, at the time of the French Revolution.
Captain Atkins was in France about the time they were sacking palaces,
and doing all such things, and he brought away quite a number of things
that found their way into some of these rich old Portland families. Her
wedding veil was given by old Grandmamma Marshall, and was said to have
been one that belonged to Queen Marie Antoinette, taken by some of those
horrid women when they sacked the Tuilleries, and sold to Captain
Atkins; at any rate, it was the most wonderful point lace, just like an
old picture."
Fancy the drawing of breaths, the exclamations, the groans of delight,
from a knot of pretty, well-dressed, nice country girls, at these
wonderful glimpses into Paradise.
"After all," I said, "I think this custom of loading down a woman with
finery just at her marriage hour, is giving it when she is least able to
appreciate it. Why distract her with gew-gaws at the very moment when
her heart must be so full of a new affection that she cares for nothing
else? Miss Ellery is probably so lost in her love for Mr. Marshall, that
she scarcely gives a thought to these things, and really forgets that
she has them. It would be much more in point to give them to some girl
that hasn't a lover."
I spoke with a simple, serious air, as if I had most perfect faith in my
words, and a general gentle smile of amusement went round the circle,
rippling into a laugh out-right, on the faces of some of the gayer
girls. Miss Dotha said:
"Oh, come, now, Mr. Henderson, you are too severe."
"Severe!" said I; "I can't understand what you mean, Miss Dotha. You
don't mean, of course, to intimate that Miss Ellery is _not_ in love
with the man she has married?"
"Oh, now!" said Miss Dotha, laughing, "you know perfectly, Mr.
Henderson--we all know--it's pretty well understood, that this wasn't
_exactly_ what you call a love-match; in fact, I know," she added with
the assurance of a confidant, "that she had great difficulty in _making
up her mind_; but her family were very anxious for the match, and his
family thought it would be such a good thing for him to marry and settle
down, you know, so one way and another she concluded to take him."
"And, after all, Will Marshall is a good-natured creature," said Miss
Smith.
"And going to Europe is such a temptation," said Miss Brown.
"And she must marry some time," said Miss Jones, "and one can't have
_every_ thing, you know. Will is certain to be kind to her, and let her
have her own way."
"For my part," said pretty Miss Green, "I'm free to say that I don't
blame any girl that has a chance to get such a fortune, for doing it as
Miss Ellery has. I've always been poor, and pinched and plagued; never
can go any where, or see anything, or dress as I want to; and if I had a
chance, such as Miss Ellery had, I think I should be a fool not to take
it."
"Well," said Miss Black, reflectively, "the only question is, couldn't
Miss Ellery have waited and found a man who had more intellect, and more
culture, whom she could respect and love, and who had money, too? She
had such extraordinary beauty and such popular manners, I should have
thought she might."
"Oh, well," said Miss Dotha, "she was getting on--she was
three-and-twenty already--and nobody of just the right sort had turned
up--'a bird in the hand'--you know. After all, I dare say she can love
Will Marshall well enough."
_Well enough!_ The cool philosophic tone of this phrase smote on my ear
curiously.
"And pray, fair ladies, how much is 'well enough?'" said I.
"Well enough to keep the peace," said Miss Green, "and each let the
other alone, to go their own ways and have no fighting."
Miss Green was a pretty, spicy little body, with a pair of provoking
hazel eyes; who talked like an unprincipled little pirate, though she
generally acted like a nice woman. In less than a year after, by the by,
she married a home missionary, in Maine, and has been a devoted wife and
mother in a little parish somewhere in the region of Skowhegan, ever
since.
But I returned to my room gloriously misanthropic, and for some time my
thoughts, like bees, were busy gathering bitter honey. I gave up
visiting in the tea-drinking circles of X. I got myself a dark sombrero
hat, which I slouched down over my eyes in bandit style when I walked
the street and met with any of my former gentle acquaintances. I wrote
my mother most sublime and awful letters on the inconceivable vanity and
nothingness of human life. I read Plato and Æschylus, and Emerson's
Essays, and began to think myself an old Philosopher risen from the
dead. There was a melancholy gravity about all my college exercises,
and I began to look down on young freshmen and sophomores with a serene
compassion, as a sage who has passed through the vale of years and
learned that all is vanity.
The valley of humiliation may have its charms--it is said that there are
many flowers that grow there, and nowhere else, but for all that, a
young fellow, so far as I know, generally walks through the first part
of it in rather a surly and unamiable state.
To be sure, had I been wise, I should have been ready to return thanks
on my knees for my disappointment. True, the doll was stuffed with
saw-dust, but it was not _my_ doll. I had not learned the cheat when it
was forever too late to help myself, and was not condemned to spend life
in vain attempts to make a warm, living friend of a cold marble statue.
Many a man has succeeded in getting his first ideal, and been a
miserable man always thereafter, and therefore.
I have lived to hear very tranquilly of Mrs. Will Marshall's soirées and
parties, as she reigns in the aristocratic circles of New York; and to
see her, still like a polished looking-glass, gracefully reflecting
every one's whims and tastes and opinions with charming suavity, and
forgetting them when their backs are turned; and to think that she is
the right thing in the right place--a crowned Queen of Vanity Fair.
I have become, too, very tolerant and indulgent to the women who do as
she did,--use their own charms as the coin wherewith to buy the riches
and honors of the world.
The world has been busy for some centuries in shutting and locking every
door through which a woman could step into wealth, except the door of
marriage. All vigor and energy, such as men put forth to get this golden
key of life, is condemned and scouted as unfeminine; and a woman
belonging to the upper classes, who undertakes to get wealth by honest
exertion and independent industry, loses caste, and is condemned by a
thousand voices as an oddity and a deranged person. A woman gifted with
beauty, who sells it to buy wealth, is far more leniently handled. That
way of getting money is not called unwomanly; and so long as the whole
force of the world goes that way, such marriages as Miss Ellery's and
Bill Marshall's will be considered _en régle_.