CONCERNING THE BEST KIND OF WIFE FOR A POET
We are apt sometimes to complain that so much of importance in our lives
is at the dispensation of accident, yet how often too are we compelled
to confess that some of the happiest and most fruitful circumstances of
our lives are due to the far-seeing diplomacies of chance.
Among no set of circumstances is this more true than in the fateful
relations of men and women. While, in a blind sort of way, we may be
said to choose for ourselves the man or woman with whom we are to share
the joys and sorrows of our years, yet the choice is only superficially
ours. Frequently our brains, our antecedent plans, have no part in the
decision. The woman we choose appears at the wrong time, in the wrong
place, in an undesirable environment, with hair and eyes and general
complexion different in colour from what we had predestined for
ourselves, short when we had made up our minds for tall, and tall when
we had hoped for short. Yet, in in spite of all our preconceptions, we
choose her. This is not properly a choice in which the intelligence
confessedly submits to violence. It is the compulsion of mysterious
instincts that know better than our brains or our tastes.
Now had she been asked beforehand, Esther might not have sketched out a
Mike as the ideal of her maiden dreams, nor indeed might Henry have
described an Angelica, any more than perhaps Mike an Esther, or Angelica
a Henry. Yet chance has only to place Esther and Mike, and Angelica and
Henry in the same room together for less than a minute of time, and they
fly into the arms of each other's souls with an instant recognition.
This is a mystery which it will take more than biology to explain.
A young man's dreams of the woman he will some day marry are apt to be
meretricious, or at all events conventional. A young poet, especially,
is likely to err in the direction of paragons of beauty, or fame, or
romance. Perhaps he dreams of a great singer, or an illustrious beauty,
ignorant of the natural law which makes great singers and illustrious
beauties, in common with all artists, incapable of loving really any one
but themselves. Or perhaps it will be some woman of great and exquisite
culture. But chance knows that women of great and exquisite culture are
usually beings lacking in those plastic elemental qualities which a
poet, above all men, needs in the woman he shall love. Their very
culture, while it may seem to broaden, really narrows them, limits them
to a caste of mind, and, for an infinite suggestiveness, substitutes a
few finite accomplishments.
Critics without understanding have wondered now and again at attachments
such as that of Heine for his Mathilde. Yet in some ways Mathilde was
the type of wife best suited for a poet. She was just a wondering child,
a bit of unspoiled chaos. She meant as little intellectually, and as
much spiritually, as a wave of the sea, a bird of the air, a star in
the sky.
Another great poet always kept in his room a growing plant in a big tub
of earth, and another tub full of fresh water. With the fire going, he
used to say that he had the four elements within his four walls; and to
people unaccustomed to talk with the elements these no doubt seemed dull
and even remarkable companions,--like Heine's Mathilde.
Now Angel, though far more than a goose intellectually, having, indeed,
a very keen and subtle mind, was only secondarily intellectual, being
primarily something far more important. You no more asked of her to be
intellectual, than you expect a spirit to be mathematical. She was just
a dream-child, thrilling with wonder and love before the strange world
in which she had been mysteriously placed,--a dream-child and an
excellent housewife in one, as full of common-sense on the one hand, as
she was filled with fairy "nonsense" on the other. She was just, in
fact, the wife for a poet.
The interest taken in each other by Angel and the Man in Possession had
not been unobserved by Angel's family. Her sisters had teased her
considerably on the subject.
"Why have you changed the way of wearing your hair, Angel?" they would
say, "Does Mr. Mesurier like it that way?" or, "My word! we are getting
smart and particular, now a certain gentleman has come into the
office!" or again, "How small your writing is nowadays, Angel! What have
you changed it for? I like your big old writing best; but I suppose--"
and then they would retreat to a safe distance to finish--"Mr. Mesurier
isn't of the same opinion!"
Sometimes Esther would start in pursuit, and playful scrimmages would
ensue, the hilarious uproar of which would turn poor Mrs.
Flower's brain.
Mrs. Flower had certainly not been unobservant, and one may perhaps
suspect that those cakes and other delicacies which she had so often
sent up the yard, had not been sent entirely without those ulterior
designs which every thoughtful mother may becomingly cherish for her
daughters.
After Angel and Henry's excursion to the country together, Henry felt
that some official announcement of the state of his heart was demanded
of him, and lost no time in finding Mr. Flower alone for that tremulous
purpose. However, it was soon over. There were no questions of _dots_
and marriage settlements to discuss. Genealogically, both sides were
about equally distinguished, and, socially, belonged to that large
undefined class called "respectable"--though it must not be supposed
that, when so minded, families of that "respectable" zone do not
occasionally make nice distinctions. "Do you know what you are asking
for?" once said a retired tradesman's wife in Sidon to her daughter's
suitor. "Do you know that both Katie's grandfathers were mayors?"
But there were no traditional mayoralties to keep these two young hearts
asunder. It was understood on both sides that they had nothing to bring
but each other, and they asked nothing better. Angel was going to marry
a poet, and Henry a fairy; and not only they themselves, but the whole
family, was more than satisfied. Mr. Flower was undisguisedly pleased,
and the tears stood in his eyes as he gripped Henry's hand.
"I've liked you," he said, "since the first time we shook hands. There
was something honest about your grip I liked, and I go a good deal by
these things. It is not many men I would trust with my little Angel; for
when you take her, you take her father's great treasure. Guard her well,
dear lad, guard her well."