You will say that I have left the main element out of the calculation;
that I have looked at marriage only in respect of its material
combinations, in which light it appears but as a body without the
soul; whereas, in its real wholeness it is penetrated by love which
transforms all common scenes, persons, and duties "into something rich
and strange." But will truth permit one to view it otherwise? Is
marriage, as we see it practically carried out, penetrated with this
vivifying and spiritualizing element? Love, indeed, calls nothing
common or unclean; but, as a matter of homely fact, is there love
enough in ordinary housekeeping to keep it sweet? The first year or
two runs well, but how much living love survives the first olympiad?
How much outlasts a decade? In marriages openly mercenary, we do not
count on finding affection; where they are entered into honestly, are
they followed by different results? If a woman marries for money, or
station, or respectability, she may compass her ends, but if she
marries for love, are not the odds against her? Motive affects her
character, but scarcely her fate. Her love will be wasted on a
thankless heart; she may consider herself fortunate if it be not
trampled under a brutal, or perhaps only a heedless foot. Love in
marriage! Marriage is the grave of love. Look at best for association,
habit, support, tranquillity, freedom from outside compassion, in
marriage, but do not look for love.
On such a topic as this the truth must be felt rather than proved, yet
authority is not wanting. So eminent and trustworthy a man as Paley,
in his Moral and Political Philosophy, having spoken of the necessity
that a man and wife should make mutual concession, adds: "A man and
woman in love with each other do this insensibly; but love is neither
general nor durable; and where that is wanting, no lessons of duty, no
delicacy of sentiment, will go half so far with the generality of
mankind as this one intelligible reflection, that they must each make
the best of their bargain."
This work was published in 1785. We have all studied it at school,
under the guidance of men and women, married and single. Its positions
have been variously, frequently, and sometimes successfully assailed.
But I have never heard a whisper breathed or seen a line written
impugning his statement, that love is neither general nor durable.
This statement is not made under the influence of passion, or to
compass any purpose, but is simply the basis of an argument,--a
general truth, as if he should say that man is endowed with a
conscience.
In that most fascinating of biographies, the "Memoirs of Frederic
Perthes," written by his son, and published in Edinburgh, we have a
very charming picture of home life. Perthes, a man known throughout
Germany, the intimate friend of her most distinguished scholars and
statesmen, is the husband of Caroline, a woman whose character,
indirectly but minutely and impressively portrayed in her husband's
memoirs, seems to be without flaw. Fresh, simple, truthful, sensible,
sympathetic, affectionate, educated, and accomplished, the qualities
of her head and heart alike command something deeper than respect. As
daughter, wife, mother, and woman she is equally admirable. Her
letters to her husband and her children are as full of wisdom as of
love. Everywhere she shines white and clear and pure as the moon, yet
warm, beneficent, and bountiful as the sun. It is only as the wife of
Perthes that we know her; but, magnificent as Perthes unquestionably
was, he pales before the most beautiful, most gracious, most womanly
woman whom he won to his heart and home. No suspicion of her own
exceeding excellence ever seems to have dawned upon her own mind. Her
Perthes was the object of her deep respect and her lasting love. This
fact of itself shows that he must have been a man of extraordinary
conjugal merit. His relations to her must have been of a very rare
delicacy. He must have bestowed an attention and been capable of an
appreciation far beyond the ordinary measure, or such a woman as his
wife could not have written after several years of marriage, "The old
song is every morning new, that, if possible, I love Perthes still
better than the day before." If one may not find satisfaction in the
contemplation of a marriage passed under circumstances so favoring,
where shall he look for satisfaction? Nevertheless, listen to a story
lightly told by her son, the biographer, the learned law-professor of
the world-renowned Bonn,--told as the old prophets are supposed to
have frequently uttered their prophecies, with but the most vague and
imperfect comprehension of what it was that they were saying.
"With her lively fancy, and a heart ever seeking sympathy, she felt it
to be hard that Perthes, laden with cares, business, and interests of
all kinds, could devote so little time to her and the children. 'My
hope becomes every day less that Perthes will be able to make any such
arrangement of his time as will leave a few quiet hours for me and the
children. There is nothing that I can do but to love him, and to bear
him ever in my heart, till it shall please God to bring us together to
some region where we shall no longer need house or housekeeping, and
where there are neither bills to be paid nor books to be kept. Perthes
feels it a heavy trial, but he keeps up his spirits, and for this I
thank God.' To these and kindred feelings which she had long cherished
in her heart Caroline now gave expression in letters which she wrote
to Perthes during his absence. After eighteen years of trial and
vicissitude, her affection for her husband had retained all its
youthful freshness; life and love had not become merely habitual, they
remained fresh and spontaneous as in the bride. She always gave free
utterance to her feelings, in a manner at once unrestrained and
characteristic, and felt deeply when Perthes, as a husband, addressed
her otherwise than he had done as a bridegroom. During Perthes's
detention for some weeks in Leipsic, this state of feeling found
expression on both sides, half in jest and half in earnest. 'You
indeed renounced all sensibility for this year, because of your many
occupations,' wrote Caroline a few days after her husband's departure;
'but I, for my part, when I write to you, cannot do so without deep
feeling; for the thought of you excites all the sensibility of which
my heart is capable. Not a line have I yet received. Tell me, is it
not rather hard that you did not write me from Brunswick? At least I
thought so, and felt very much that your companion G. should have
written to his newly-married wife, and you not to me. It is the first
time you have ever gone on a journey without writing to me from your
first resting-place. I have been reading over your earlier letter to
find satisfaction to myself, in some measure at least, but it has been
a mixed pleasure. Last year, at Blankenese, you promised me many happy
hours of mutual companionship. I have not yet had them; and yet you
owe many such to me,--yes, you do indeed.' Perthes answered: 'You
write, telling me that I have renounced all sensibility for this year.
This is not true, my dearest heart; it is quite otherwise. I think
that, after so many years of mutual interchange of feeling and of
thought, and when people understand each other thoroughly, there is an
end of all those little tendernesses of expression, which represent a
relationship that is still piquant because new. Be content with me,
dear child, we understand each other. I did not write to you from
Brunswick, because we passed through quickly. Moreover, it is not fair
to compare me with my companion, the bridegroom; youth has its
features, and so also has middle age. It would be absurd, indeed, were
I now to be looking by moonlight under the trees and among the clouds
for young maidens, as I did twenty years ago, or were to imagine young
ladies to be angels. Nor would it become _you_ any better if you were
to be dancing a gallopade, or clambering up trees in fits of love
enthusiasm. We should not find fault with our having grown older; only
be satisfied, give God the praise, and exercise patience and
forbearance with me.'"
Can anything be more natural than Caroline's gentle remonstrance? Can
anything be more hopeless than Perthes's shuffling reply? Lonely wife,
languishing for a draught of the olden tenderness, and with nothing to
medicine her weariness but the information that it had all come to an
end; reaching out for a little of the love that was her life, and met
by the assertion that climbing trees was not becoming to a woman of
her age! It is good to know that she replied with spirit, though still
with no diminution of her immeasurable love. "Your last letter is
indeed a strange one. I must again say, that my affection knows
neither youth nor age, and is eternal. I can detect no change, except
that I now _know_ what formerly I only hoped and believed. I never
took you for an angel, nor do I now take you for the reverse; neither
did I ever beguile you by assuming an angel's form or angelic manners.
I never danced the gallopade, or climbed trees, and am now exactly
what I was then, only rather older; and you must take me as I am, my
Perthes;--in one word, love me, and tell me so sometimes, and that is
all I want."
Men, you to whose keeping a woman's heart is intrusted, can you hear
that simple prayer,--"Love me, and tell me so sometimes, and that is
all I want"?
Perthes, shamed out of his worldliness into at least an attempt at
sympathy, replies: "Your answer was just what it ought to have been;
only don't forget that my inward love for you is as eternal as yours
is for me; but I have so many things to think of."
Undoubtedly, after all his evasion, the truth came out at last,--"I
have so many things to think of." It was the best excuse he could
offer, and it is a great pity he had not brought it forward in the
beginning. He had suffered the cares of this world and the
deceitfulness of business to choke his love; but it would have been
far more honorable to himself and far more comfortable to his wife to
confess it frankly, than to affirm his indifference and neglect to be
the natural course of events. A love overgrown with weeds may be
revived, but for a love lost by natural decay there is no
resurrection. "I did not write to you from Brunswick, because we
passed through quickly." Did he pass through any more quickly than his
companion G., who found time to write to his newly-married wife? "We
understand each other thoroughly, and therefore there is an end of all
those little tendernesses of expression"; but there was no end of them
on Caroline's part. Her understanding was not less thorough than his,
yet her love craved expression. "My inward love for you is as eternal
as yours for me"; yet just before he had been pleading his increasing
years as an excuse for his diminishing tenderness, while Caroline's
stanch heart declared, "My affection knows neither youth nor age, and
is eternal. I can detect no change, except that I now _know_ what
formerly I only hoped and believed." Shortly afterwards, while
spending a summer at Wandsbeck for her health, almost daily letters
were exchanged between herself and her husband. "While those of
Perthes were devoted to warnings and entreaties to take care of her
health, (a cheap substitute for affection which Perthes was not alone
in employing,) the few lines in which Caroline was wont to reply were
full of expressions of love, and of sorrow on account of their
necessary separation. 'I am seated in the garden,' she writes, 'and
all my merry little birds are around me. I let the sun shine upon me,
to make me well if he can. God grant it! if it only be so far as to
enable me to discharge my duties to my family.'--'I hope, my dear
Perthes, that you will again have pleasure in me; the waters seem
really to do me good. Come to-morrow, only not too late. My very soul
longs for you.'--'You shall be thanked for the delightful hours that I
enjoyed with you yesterday,' she writes, after a short visit to
Hamburg, 'and for the sight of your dear, kind face, as I got out of
the carriage.'--'I only live where you are with me. Send Matthias to
me, if it does not interfere with his lessons: if I cannot have the
father, I must put up with the son.'--'The children enjoy their
freedom, and are my joy and delight.... But you, dear old father! you,
too, are my joy and delight. Let me have a little letter; I cannot
help longing for one, and will read it, when I get it, ten times
over.'--'It is eighteen years to-day since I wrote you the last letter
before our marriage, and sent you my first request about the little
black cross. I have asked for many things in the eighteen years that
have passed since then, dear Perthes, and what shall I ask to-day? You
can tell, for you know me well, and know that I have never said an
untrue word to you. Only you cannot quite know my indescribable
affection, for it is infinite. Perthes, my heart is full of joy and
sadness,--would that you were here! This day eighteen years ago I did
not long for you more fervently or more ardently than now. I thank God
continually for everything. I am and remain yours in time, and, though
I know not how, for eternity, too! Be in a very good humor, when you
come to-morrow. Affection is certainly the greatest wonder in heaven
or on earth, and the only thing that I can represent to myself as
insatiable throughout eternity.'"
Do these extracts indicate that many years of mutual interchange of
feeling and thought had put an end to little tendernesses of
expression? Does his love seem as eternal as hers? It is true that he
falls back upon "inward" love; but we only know saints in their
bodies. Inward love that denies outward manifestation may satisfy men,
but it will never pass current with women. Little children, who have
been idle during their study-hour, will often excuse their failures by
declaring that they "know, but cannot think." No teacher, however, is
imposed on. A scholar that does not know his lesson well enough to
recite it, does not know it at all. A love that does not, in one way
or another, express itself sufficiently to satisfy the object of its
love, is not love. To satisfy the _object_ of its love, I say, for
love can never satisfy itself. It was not love that Perthes's letter
contained, but an apology for its absence.
What men love is the comforts of the married state, not the person who
provides them,--wifely duties rather than the wife. A man enjoys his
home. He likes the cheery fireside, the dressing-gown and slippers,
the bright tea-urn and the brighter eyes behind it. He likes to see
boys and girls growing up around him, bearing his name and inheriting
his qualities. He likes to have his clothes laid ready to his hand,
stockings in their integrity, buttons firm in their places, meals
pleasant, prompt, yet frugal. He likes a servant such as money cannot
hire;--attentive, affectionate, spontaneous, devoted, and trustworthy.
He likes very much the greatest comfort for the smallest outlay, and
certainly he likes to be loved. His love runs in the current of his
likings, and is speedily indistinguishable from them; but does he love
the woman who is his wife? Would he say to her, as poor Tom sadly
pleaded in "A Half-Life and Half a Life,"--"But I love you true and if
you can only fancy me, I'll work so hard that you'll be able to keep a
hired girl and have all your time for reading and going about the
woods, as you like to do"? Would he say, as Von Fink said to
Lenore,--"You will have no need to make my shirts, and if you don't
like account-keeping, why let it alone"? Listen, for it is good to
know that a man has lived and written who did not look for his
domestic happiness entirely in a bread-pan and a work-basket. "Just as
you are, Lenore,--resolute, bold, a little passionate devil,--just so
will I have you remain. We have been companions in arms, and so we
shall continue to be.... Were you not my heart's desire, were you a
man, I should like to have you for my life's companion; so, Lenore,
you will be to me not only a beloved wife, but a courageous friend,
the confidante of all my plans, my best and truest comrade."
Lenore shook her head; "I ought to be your housewife," sighed she (the
new love not yet having quite purged out the old leaven).
Fink--(but no matter what Fink did. We are concerned now only with
what he said.) "Be content, sweetheart," said he, tenderly, "and make
up your mind to it. We have been together in a fire strong enough to
bring love to maturity, and we know each other thoroughly. Between
ourselves, we shall have many a storm in our house. I am no easy-going
companion, at least for a woman, and you will very soon find that will
of yours again, the loss of which you are now lamenting. Be at rest,
darling, you shall be as headstrong as of yore; you need not distress
yourself on that account; so you may prepare for a few storms, but for
hearty love and merry life as well." Would your latter-day lover sign
such articles of agreement on his marriage-day?
Of course he would not. The shirts and the account-keeping are what he
marries for, and it would be a manifest absurdity to annul the
conclusion of the whole matter. It is not a question what women _like_
to do; they must bake and brew and make and mend, whether they like it
or not. Men do not marry for the purpose of making women happy, but to
make themselves happy. A girl looks forward in her marriage to what
she will do for her husband's happiness. A man, to what he will enjoy
through his wife's ministrations. "He needs a wife," say the good
women who were born and bred in these opinions and do not suspect
their grossness.
"It is a grand good match; I don't know anybody that needs a wife more
than he," said one of these at a little gathering, speaking of a
recent marriage.
"Why?" innocently questioned another woman, who was supposed to have
somewhat peculiar views concerning these things.
"O, you never want anybody to marry!" burst out a chorus of
voices,--which was surely a very broad inference from one narrow
monosyllable.
"But why does he need a wife?" persisted the questioner.
"For sympathy and companionship," triumphantly replied the first
woman, knowing that to such motives her interlocutor could take no
exception. But a third woman, not knowing that anything lay behind
these questions and answers, and feeling that the original position
was but feebly maintained by such unsubstantial things as sympathy and
companionship, being also a near neighbor of the person in question,
and acquainted with the facts, proceeded to strengthen the case by
adding, "Well, he was all alone, and he wa'n't very well, and he was
taken sick one night and couldn't get anybody to take care of him."
"But why not hire a nurse?"
"Well he did, and she was very good; but she wouldn't do his washing."
Only wait long enough, and you are tolerably sure to get the truth at
last. It was not sympathy and companionship, after all, that the man
wanted: it was his washing!
You see a most unconscious, but irrefragable testimony concerning the
relations which are deemed proper between a man and his wife in the
very common use of the phrase, "kind husband." It is often employed in
praise of the living and in eulogy of the dead. Compared with a cruel
husband, I suppose a kind husband is the more tolerable; but compared
with a true husband, there is no such thing as a kind husband. You are
kind to animals, to beggars, to the beetle that you step out of your
path to avoid treading on. One may be kind to people who have no
claims upon him, but he is not kind to his wife. He does not stand
towards her in any relation that makes kindness possible. He can no
more be kind to his wife than he can be to himself. His wife is not
his inferior, to be condescended to, but his treasure to be cherished,
his friend to be loved, his adviser to be deferred to. It is an insult
to a woman for her husband to assume, or for his biographer to assume
for him, that he _could_ be kind to her. Did you ever hear a woman
praised for being kind to her husband? Did you ever hear an obituary
declare a woman to be a dutiful daughter, a kind wife, a faithful
mother? You may be sure the phrase is never used by any one who has a
just idea of what marriage ought to be.
If love cannot outlast a few years of life, it is idle to lament that
it is so surely quenched by death. Absence cannot be blamed for
dissipating a love that has been already conquered by presence.
Nevertheless, in the alacrity with which one is off with the old love
and on with the new may be read the shallowness, the flimsiness, the
earthliness, of that which passes for the deepest, the most lasting,
and the most divine. Weary feet, aching brow, and disappointed heart
are at rest; or a vigorous young life is smitten before its heyday was
clouded; or the ripened sheaf is garnered at the harvest-time; but no
proprieties, no shock of premature loss, nor the "late remorse of
love," avails to make the impression indelible. The dead past may bury
its dead out of sight; the resurrection may adjust its own
perplexities; but in this world there must be good cheer. The funeral
baked meats shall coldly furnish forth the marriage-table. _La Reine
est morte: Vive la Reine!_ And when the loving wife is gone away from
the heart that entertained its angel unawares, people will tell you
with a sober face how "beautifully he bears it!" "perfectly resigned!"
"Christian calmness!" "kiss the rod!" It were to be wished he did not
bear it quite so beautifully. When a wife is prematurely torn from her
home, the only proper attitude for her husband is to sit in sackcloth
and ashes. It is fit that he should be stricken to the dust. It is not
becoming for him to indulge in pious reflections. Ill-timed
resignation is a breach of morals. He is not to be supposed capable of
a lasting fidelity, but he may be expected to be temporarily stunned
by the blow. It would be more decorous for him to follow the example
of the powerful and wealthy king in the fairy-tale, who, having lost
his wife, was so inconsolable that he shut himself up for eight entire
days in a little room, where he spent his time chiefly in knocking his
head against the wall!
It is pitiful to see a strong man tottering into a wrong path from
sheer lack of strength to walk in the right one, which yet he does not
lack clear vision to see. But the spectacle may be profitable for
doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in
righteousness. Perhaps no more faithful and graphic presentation of
the diplomacy that is employed in compassing a second marriage can be
given than is found in the proceedings of Perthes. When, after
twenty-four years of married life, his wife, the mother of his ten
children, left him, he repaired to Gotha and lived three years in the
family of a married daughter. In an early stage of his bereavement he
writes of his loneliness, and mentions, but almost with repugnance,
certainly with no apparent intention of entering it, or any intimation
of a possibility of receiving joy from it, "a new wedlock."
Nevertheless, the thought is there. His daughter's sister-in-law, a
widow of thirty years, and mother of four children, lives next door.
Presently comes down his mother-in-law to pay a visit. "She was much
concerned about Perthes's situation, and one day, while they were
walking in the orangery, expressed herself openly to him. She told him
that he was no more a master of his own house, that soon his younger
children would be leaving him, and that his strong health gave promise
of a long life yet to come; that for him solitude was not good, that
he could not bear it, and consequently that he ought not to put off
choosing a companion for the remainder of his life." All of which of
course came to him with the freshness of entire novelty. But
immediately we find that at these words "the thought of Charlotte shot
like lightning through his soul." So it seems that he had already
outstripped his mother-in-law. She dealt, only in generals, but he had
advanced to particulars. However, "he made no reply, but he had a hard
battle to fight with himself from that time forth. In September he
communicated to his mother-in-law the _pros_ and _cons_ which agitated
him so much, but without giving her to understand that it was no
longer the subject of marriage in general, but of one marriage in
particular, which now disquieted him. After stating the outward and
inward circumstances, which made a second marriage advisable in his
case, he goes on to say: 'I am quite certain that Caroline foresaw,
from her knowledge of my character and temperament, a second marriage
for me, and I am equally certain that no new union could ever disturb
my spirit's abiding union with her. [It is to be hoped that Charlotte
was duly made acquainted with this fact.] My inner life is filled with
her memory, and will be so till my latest day; but I must own that
this is possible only while I incorporate in thought her happy soul,
and think of her as a human being, still sharing my earthly existence,
still taking interest in all I do; and I cannot disguise from myself,
while viewing her under this aspect, that my dear Caroline would
prefer my living on alone, satisfied with her memory. Again, there can
be no doubt that Holy Scripture, although permitting a second
marriage, does so on account of the hardness of our hearts. The civil
law contains no prohibition either, and yet there has always existed a
social prejudice against such a marriage, and youth, whose ideal is
always fresh and fair, and women who are always young in soul, look
with secret disgust upon it. I know, too, that my remaining alone
would be, not only with reference to others, but in itself, the
worthier course; but, on the other hand, I know it would be so in
reality only if this worthiness were not assumed for the purpose of
appearing in a false light to myself, to other men, and perhaps even
before God, or for the purpose of cloaking selfishness under the guise
of fidelity to the departed.' It was not, however, by answering this
question, nor by reflecting upon the lawfulness of second marriages in
general, that Perthes's irresolution was subdued, but by an increasing
attachment to the lady whose character had attracted him."
Very honorable appears Perthes here, in that he argues the case
against himself with fulness and frankness, revealing to himself
without disguise the weakness under which he finally falls, and
conscious all the while that it is a weakness. He does not attempt to
hide the fact that Caroline would have preferred to live alone in his
memory, and he falls back on his only defensible ground,--the hardness
of his heart. Confession is forgiveness. Let him pass on to the new
bride, and the second family of eleven children that will spring up
around them.
But there are men, and women too,--there are always women enough to
echo men's opinions,--who assume that the spirit of the departed will
be delighted in her heavenly abode to know that the husband decides
not to spend his life in solitude. Some women indeed show the last
infirmity of noble minds by _recommending_ their husbands to take a
second wife, although it seems a pity to waste one's last breath in
bestowing advice which is so entirely superfluous. If a man will
marry, let him marry, but let no patient Griselda "gin the hous to
dight" for the "newe lady." If a man will marry, let him marry, but
let him not offer the world an apology for the act. The apology is
itself an accusation; a dishonor to both wives instead of one. He
knows his own motives and emotions. If they are upright and
sufficient, it is no matter what people say about him; he and the
other person immediately concerned should be so self-satisfied as to
be indifferent to outside comment. If they are not upright and
sufficient, attempting to make them appear so is an additional
offence.
I have said on this subject more than I intended. I meant only to
state a fact clearly enough to use it. The rest "whistled itself."
Practically, I do not know that I have any quarrel with any marriage
that is real, whether it come after the first or fiftieth attempt.
Judging from general observation, I should suppose that most people
might marry half a dozen times, and not be completely married then.
If, as Perthes seems to have thought, all this is the natural course
of events, why do you make all womanly honor and happiness converge in
the one focus of marriage, unless like a Mussulman you believe that on
such condition alone can women aspire to immortality? But even then it
would be a hard bargain. Immortality is dearly bought at the price of
immorality. When all other arguments fail, and you would mount to your
sublimest heights of moral elevation, you assure a woman that, no
matter how lofty her life may be, nor how deep her satisfaction may
seem, if she fails of marriage she fails of the highest development,
the deepest experience, the greatest benefit. You tell her that she
misses somewhat which Heaven itself cannot supply. But, on the other
hand, you have previously shown that marriage is but a temporary
arrangement, an entirely mundane affair. Love belongs as completely to
this world as houses and barns,--is in fact rather supplementary to
them,--especially to the house. It is of the body, and not of the
spirit; for the spirit lives forever, but when the body dies, love
dies also. There are no claims beyond the grave. Nay, it does not
reach to the grave. The delight, the spontaneity, the satisfaction,
the keenness, all die out before the person dies. The pulp shrivels,
and only a wrinkled skin of habit remains. But a woman is immortal.
Can a mortal love satisfy an immortal heart? Is it possible that an
undying soul must find its strongest development in a dying love? Does
a creature of the skies incur an irreparable loss, miss an
irreclaimable jewel, suffer an incurable wound, when it loses, or
misses, or suffers _anything_ which is but of the earth earthy? Can
anything finite be indispensable to an infinite life?
Again, if this accession of toil, and this diminution and decay of
perceptible love, and this falling back on inward love, is the natural
course of events, why not say so in the beginning? If inward love be
satisfactory at one time, why not at another, as well before marriage
as after? Why, when a man has once made and received affidavit of
love, should he not be content, and neither proffer nor demand
manifestations? Let men be satisfied with inward love during
courtship, and the honeymoon, if inward love is so all-sufficient. Not
in the least. Men are not one tenth part so capable of inward love as
women,--I mean of an inward love without outward expression. Their
inward love becomes outward love almost as soon as it becomes love at
all. They are ten times more tumultuous, more demonstrative, more
_phenomenal_, than women. They are as impatient as children, and more
unreasonable. They cannot, or they will not, brook delay, suspense,
refusal. Women accept all these drawbacks as a part of the programme,
and with "the endurance that outwearies wrong," while men fiercely, if
vainly, kick against the pricks and talk about _inward love_!
And if the true object of marriage be to help accumulate or frugally
to manage a fortune, to cook dinners, and act as a sewing-machine,
"warranted not to ravel," say that frankly also in the beginning. Tell
women plainly what you want of them. Do not lure them into your
service under false pretences. Do not wait till they are irrevocably
fastened to you, and then lay on them the burdens of labor and take
away the supports of love, and lecture them into acquiescence through
the newspapers. While there is yet left to them a freedom of choice,
make them fully acquainted with the circumstances of the case, that
they may be able to choose intelligently. When one does not expect
much, one is not disappointed at receiving little. One is not chilled
at heart by snow in winter. It is walking over sunny Southern lands,
and finding frosts when you looked for flowers, that freezes the
fountains of life. If you do not overwhelm a woman with your
protestations, if you do not lure her to your heart by presenting
yourself to her and praying her to be to you friend, comrade, and
lover, when what you really want is cook, laundress, and housekeeper,
she will at least know what is before her. But do not swear to her
eternal fidelity, knowing that, as soon as you thoroughly understand
each other, there will be an end of all little tendernesses of
expression. Do not span her with a rainbow, and spread diamond-dust
beneath her feet, knowing all the while that a very little time will
bring for the one but a cold, penetrating rain, and will change the
other into coarse, sharp pebbles that shall bruise her tender feet.
Change the formula of your marriage vows, and instead of promising to
love, honor, and cherish till death you do part, promise to do it only
till you understand her thoroughly, and then to make the best of the
bargain!
If we were forced to believe that these right-hand fallings-off and
left-hand defections were indeed the legitimate workings of the human
heart, the natural history of mankind, then should we be forced to
believe that this world is a stupendous failure, and the sooner it is
burned up the better. We should be forced to believe in the thorough
degradation and destructibility of both mind and matter. For the
essence of value is durability. A soap-bubble is as beautiful as a
pearl and as brilliant as a diamond; for what is called practical
service, for warmth, or shelter, or sustenance, one is quite as good
as another. What makes their different worth is, that the soap-bubble
yields up its lovely life to the first molecule that sails through the
air to solicit it, while the gems outlast a thousand years. But if
life is a soap-bubble, and not a pearl, shall a woman sell all that
she has and buy it? What advantageth the possession of a happiness
which melts in the grasp,--which is satisfactory only for the short
time that it is novel? Who would care to enter a path of roses,
knowing that a few steps will take him into a vast and barren desert,
whence escape is impossible? If this is real life, let us rather pitch
our tents in fairy-land; for then, when the Prince is at last restored
to his true manly form and his rightful throne, and united to the
beautiful, constant Princess, we invariably find, not only that their
happiness was quite inexpressible, but it lasted to the end of their
lives.
If we are to believe such propositions, we might as well call
ourselves infidels, and have done with it. To deny the existence of
love takes away no more hope from humanity than to deny the
immortality of love. It is no worse to take away life from the soul
than to give it a life which is but a protracted death. To make a
distinction between earthly and heavenly love hardly affects the case.
The direction of love is not love. All love is heavenly,--"bright
effluence of bright essence increate." If a man gives himself to the
pursuit of unworthy objects, or to the indulgence of unhallowed
pleasures, a pure name need not be dragged down into the mire that his
error may have a seemly christening. If that is love which fades out
long before its object; if, when its object disappears behind the veil
love rightly returns to earth, then are we of all creatures most
miserable; for we abnegate a future. We thought it had been he which
should have redeemed Israel; but thou shalt return unto the ground,
for out of it wast thou taken. Dust art thou, O love, and unto dust
shalt thou return.
Nay, let us have falsehood rather than truth, if this be truth. But
this cannot be truth. Love sets up his ladder on the earth, but the
top of it reaches unto heaven, and if the eye be clear and the heart
pure, the angels of God shall be seen ascending and descending on it.
The fashion of this world passeth away,
"But love strikes one hour,--LOVE."
Hear a woman's voice mingling now with angels' voices,--the voice of a
woman whose pathway to the skies was a line of light shining still
more and more unto the perfect day.
"I classed, appraising once,
Earth's lamentable sounds: the welladay,
The jarring yea and nay,
The fall of kisses on unanswering clay,
The sobbed farewell, the welcome mournfuller
But all did leaven the air
With a less bitter leaven of sure despair
Than these words,--'I loved ONCE.'
"And who saith, 'I loved ONCE'?
Not angels, whose clear eyes love, love foresee,
Love through eternity,
Who by To Love do apprehend To Be.
Not God, called LOVE, his noble crown-name, casting
A light too broad for blasting!
The great God, changing not from everlasting,
Saith never, 'I loved ONCE.'
"Nor ever the 'Loved ONCE'
Dost THOU say, Victim-Christ, misprised friend!
The cross and curse may rend;
But, having loved, Thou lovest to the end!
It is man's saying,--man's. Too weak to move
One sphered star above,
Man desecrates the eternal God-word Love
With his No More and Once.
* * * * *
"Say never, ye loved ONCE!
God is too near above, the grave below,
And all our moments go
Too quickly past our souls, for saying so.
The mysteries of life and death avenge
Affections light of range:
There comes no change to justify that change,
Whatever comes,--loved ONCE!"