Professor Owen, it is said, will, if you submit to his notice a couple
of inches of the bone of any bird, beast, fish, or reptile, at once
describe to you the characteristics of the animal to which it belonged;
its habits, and everything connected with it; besides telling you when
and where it lived and died, and whether it existed at the pre-Adamite
period or not--and that, too, without your giving him the least previous
information touching the osseous substance about which you asked his
opinion.
But, granting that the most gigantic theory might be built up on some
slighter practical evidence, I would defy anyone--even that
philosophising German who evolved a camel from the depths of his inner
moral consciousness--to determine the capabilities of any young lady for
the future onerous duties of wife and mother, and mistress of a
household, merely from hearing her say what coloured ice she would have
after the heated dance; or, from her statements that the evening was
"flat" or "nice," the season "dull" or "busy," and the heroine of the
last new novel "delightful," while the villain was correspondingly
"odious."
He couldn't do it.
The commonplace conversation of every-day society is no criterion for
character.
With Jemima, the maid-of-all-work, and Bob, the baker's assistant, her
"young man," it is quite a different thing. They have no trammels
placed in the way of their free association; and, I would venture to
assert, know more of one another in one month of company-keeping than
Augustus and Laura will achieve in the course of any number of seasons
of fashionable intercourse. A "Sunday out" beats a croquet party
hollow, in its opportunities for intimacy--as may readily be believed.
It is, really, curious this ignorance common in middle-class husbands
and wives, sons-in-law and daughters-in-law, respecting their several
attributes and characteristics before they became connected by marriage,
and time makes them better acquainted--very curious, indeed!
An American essayist, writing on this point, says--"When your mother
came and told her mother that she was _engaged_, and your grandmother
told your grandfather, how much did they know of the intimate nature of
the young gentleman to whom she had pledged her existence? I will not
be so hard as to ask how much your respected mamma knew at that time of
the intimate nature of your respected papa, though, if we should compare
a young girl's _man-as-she-thinks-him_ with a forty-summered matron's
_man-as-she-finds-him_, I have my doubts as to whether the second would
be a fac-simile of the first." And yet, young men and women of
respectable standing "over the way," are allowed far greater latitude
for intercommunication than our own; so much so, that I must say, I
would not like our budding misses to go the lengths of the American
girl, who receives her own company when she pleases, without any
previous permission, and can go abroad to places of public amusement,
or, indeed, anywhere she likes, without a chaperon.
Still, there is a medium in all things; and, without verging to the
extreme of our Transatlantic cousins, our conventionalities might be so
tempered by the introduction of a little genuine human nature, as to
admit of a trifling freer intercourse between our youth and young
maidenhood of the upper classes.
Goethe, you may remember, makes Werther, whose "sorrows" fascinated a
generation in the days of our great grandmothers, fall in love with
Charlotte, entirely through seeing her cutting bread and butter--nothing
more or less!
A very unromantic situation for fostering the growth of the tender
passion, you say?
Ah! but the literary lion of Weimar meant a good deal more in his
description than lies on the outer surface. He wished to teach a
frivolous school that true affection will ripen better under the genial
influences of domestic duties and home surroundings, than the masked
world believes.
A girl's chances of marriage, the usual end and aim of feminine
existence, are not increased in a direct ratio with the number of her
ball dresses!
Let your eligible suitors but see those young ladies who may wish to
change their maiden state of single blessedness, _at home_, where they
are engaged living their simple lives out in the ordinary avocations of
the family circle; and not only abroad, in the whirligig of society,
where they have no opportunities for displaying their _real_ natures.
Enterprising mammas might then find that their daughters would get more
readily "off their hands," at a less expense than they now incur by
pursuing Coelebs through all the turnings and windings of Vanity Fair.
Besides, they would have the additional assurance, that they would be
better mated to those who prefer studying them under the domestic
regime, than if they were hawked about to parties and concerts without
end, to be angled for by the butterflies of fashion, who can only exist
in the atmosphere of a ballroom and would die of nil admirari-ism if out
of sight of Coote's baton!
Your man really worth marrying, in the true sense of the word and not
speaking of the value of his rent-roll, likes to know something more of
his future wife-that-is-to-be, beyond what he is able to pick up from
meeting her in society. Think, how many of her most engaging charms he
must remain ignorant of; and then, what on earth can he know of her
disposition?
The most hot-tempered young lady in the world will manage to control her
anger, and tutor herself to smile sweetly, when her awkward, albeit
rich, partner tears off her train during his elephantine gambols in the
gallop. She may even say, with the most unaffected affectation of
perfect candour that "really it doesn't matter at all," laughing at the
mishap; but I should just like you to hear what she exclaims when her
obnoxious little brother, Master Tommy, playfully dabbles his raspberry-
jam'd fingers over her violet silk dress, or converts her new Dolly
Varden hat into a temporary entomological museum!
Observation in the family would enable Coelebs to mark these little
episodes more closely, judging for himself the temper and tact of the
idol of his fancy; while, at the same time, he might discover many
admirable little traits of kindness and charity and grace, which can
only be seen to advantage when displayed naturally in the home circle.
The moral is obvious.
Depend upon it, if there were a little more of this freedom of
intercourse between our girls and young men, we would have a
considerably less number of sour, disappointed virgins in our annual
census; and, less vice and dissipation on the part of hot-brained
youths, who, frequently, only give way to "fast life," through feeling a
void in their daily routine of existence that stereotyped fashion is
unable to fill. Besides, it would be a perfect godsend to thousands of
unhappy bachelors, who sigh for the realities of domesticity amidst the
artificiality and rottenness of London society.
Some good-natured Mayfair dame, I believe, introduced the "Kettledrum"
for the especial saving of poor young men who did not know what to do
with their afternoons in our arid Belgravian desert. But, a little more
is wanted besides five-o'clock tea; and, until it is granted, we will
continue to have matrimonial infelicity, marriages "of convenience,"
and, no marriages at all!
Now, I think, I have dilated enough upon the great question matrimonial.
I will not apologise for my digression, because I've only said what I
have long wished and intended to say about it on the first convenient
opportunity. However, as I have at last succeeded in making a clean
breast of the matter, I will revert to my original case.
Owing to the fact of our suburb being unfashionable, and our society
humdrum, as already explained, I had the pleasure of associating more
fully with Min, and seeing more of her domestic character than I might
have done if we had been both of "the world," worldly; although, as I
have also mentioned, I was not able to adore her at home very often, in
consequence of my noticing that her mother did not like me--seeing
which, of course I did not push my welcome at her house to too fine a
point.
Don't think that Mrs Clyde was inhospitable. Nothing of the sort. She
gave me a general invitation, on the contrary, to come in whenever I
pleased of an evening "to have a little music;" giving expression at the
same time to the sentiment, that she would be "very happy" to see me.
But, after that affair connected with Dicky Chips, I learnt caution. I
thought it better for me to make my approaches warily. Even to have the
gratification of gazing on one's heart's darling, it is not comfortable,
for a sensitive person, to accept too often the courtesies of a hostess,
by whom you are inwardly conscious that you are not welcomed.
Still, I did see her at home sometimes.
I used to go there, at first only occasionally; and then, when I found
Mrs Clyde did not quite eat me up, in spite of her cold manner, I went
regularly once a fortnight--always making my visit on the same day and
at the same hour of the evening; so, that Min learnt to expect me when
the evening came round, and told me that she would have recognised my
modest knock at the door, out of a hundred others.
Sometimes she and her mother and myself were all alone; but, more
frequently, other casual visitors would drop in, too, like me.
I liked the former evenings the best, however, as I had her all to
myself, comparatively speaking.
I could then watch her varying moods more attentively--the tender
solicitude and earnest affection she evinced for her mother:--the
piquant coquetry with which she treated me.
She had such dear little, characteristic ways about her--ways that were
quite peculiar to herself.