THE FOUR-LEAVED SHAMROCK
We are all looking for it; shall we ever find it? Can it be cultivated
in hothouses by Scotch head-gardeners with high wages and Doric accent?
or shall we come upon it accidentally, peeping through green bulrushes,
lurking in tangled woodlands, or perched high on the mountain’s crest,
far above the region of grouse and heather, where the ptarmigan folds
her wings amongst the silt and shingle in the clefts of the bare grey
rock? We climb for it, we dive for it, we creep for it on our belly,
like the serpent, eating dust to any amount in the process; but do we
ever succeed in plucking such a specimen as, according to our natures,
we can joyfully place in our hats for ostentation or hide under our
waistcoats for true love?
Do you remember Sir Walter Scott’s humorous poem called the “Search
after Happiness”? Do you remember how that Eastern monarch who strove
to appropriate the shirt of a contented man visited every nation
in turn till he came to Ireland, the native soil indeed of all the
shamrock tribe; how his myrmidons incontinently assaulted one of the
“bhoys” whose mirthful demeanour raised their highest hopes, and how
“Shelelagh, their plans was well-nigh after baulking,
Much less provocation will set it a-walking;
But the odds that foiled Hercules foiled Paddywhack.
They floored him, they seized him, they stripped him, alack!
Up, bubboo! _He hadn’t a shirt to his back!_”
Mankind has been hunting the four-leaved shamrock from the very
earliest times on record. I believe half the legends of mythology, half
the exploits of history, half the discoveries of science, originate in
the universal search. Jason was looking for it with his Argonauts when
he stumbled on the Golden Fleece; Columbus sailed after it in the track
of the setting sun, scanning that bare horizon of an endless ocean,
day after day, with sinking heart yet never-failing courage, till the
land-weeds drifting round his prow, the land-birds perching on his
spars, brought him their joyous welcome from the undiscovered shore;
Alexander traversed Asia in his desire for it; Cæsar dashed through the
Rubicon in its pursuit; Napoleon well-nigh grasped it after Austerlitz,
but the frosts and fires of Moscow shrivelled it into nothing ere his
hand could close upon the prize. To find it, sages have ransacked their
libraries, adepts exhausted their alembics, misers hoarded up their
gold. It is not twined with the poet’s bay-leaves, nor is it concealed
in the madman’s hellebore. People have been for it to the Great Desert,
the Blue Mountains, the Chinese capital, the interior of Africa, and
returned empty-handed as they went. It abhors courts, camps, and
cities; it strikes no root in palace nor in castle; and if more likely
to turn up in a cottage-garden, who has yet discovered the humble plot
of ground on which it grows?
Nevertheless, undeterred by warning, example, and the experience of
repeated failures, human nature relaxes nothing of its persevering
quest. I have seen a dog persist in chasing swallows as they skimmed
along the lawn; but then the dog had once caught a wounded bird, and
was therefore acting on an assured and tried experience of its own.
If you or I had ever found one four-leaved shamrock, we should be
justified in cherishing a vague hope that we might some day light upon
another.
The Knights of the Round Table beheld with their own eyes that vision
of the Holy Vessel, descending in their midst, which scattered those
steel-clad heroes in all directions on the adventure of the Sangreal;
but perhaps the very vows of chivalry they had registered, the very
exploits they performed, originated with that restless longing they
could not but acknowledge in common with all mankind for possession of
the four-leaved shamrock.
“And better he loved, that monarch bold,
On venturous quest to ride
In mail and plate, by wood and wold,
Than with ermine trapped and cloth of gold
In princely bower to bide.
The bursting crash of a foeman’s spear
As it shivered against his mail,
Was merrier music to his ear
Than courtier’s whispered tale.
And the clash of Caliburn more dear,
When on hostile casque it rung,
Than all the lays to their monarch’s praise
The harpers of Reged sung.
He loved better to bide by wood and river,
Than in bower of his dame Queen Guenevere;
For he left that lady, so lovely of cheer,
To follow adventures of danger and fear,
And little the frank-hearted monarch did wot
That she smiled in his absence on brave Launcelot.”
Oh! those lilting stanzas of Sir Walter’s, how merrily they ring on
one’s ear, like the clash of steel, the jingling of bridles, or the
measured cadence of a good steed’s stride! We can fancy ourselves
spurring through the _mêlée_ after the “selfless stainless” king, or
galloping with him down the grassy glades of Lyonesse on one of his
adventurous quests for danger, honour, renown—and—the four-leaved
shamrock.
Obviously it did not grow in the tilt-yards at Caerleon or the palace
gardens of Camelot; nay, he had failed to find it in the posy lovely
Guenevere wore on her bosom. Alas! that even Launcelot, the flower of
chivalry, the brave, the courteous, the gentle, the sorrowing and the
sinful, must have sought for it there in vain.
Everybody begins life with a four-leaved shamrock in view, an ideal
of his own, that he follows up with considerable wrong-headedness
to the end. Such fiction has a great deal to answer for in the way
of disappointment, dissatisfaction, and disgust. Many natures find
themselves completely soured and deteriorated before middle age, and
why? Because, forsooth, they have been through the garden with no
better luck than their neighbours. I started in business, we will
say, with good connections, sufficient capital, and an ardent desire
to make a fortune. Must I be a saddened, morose, world-wearied man
because, missing that unaccountable rise in muletwist, and taking the
subsequent fall in grey shirtings too late, I have only realised a
competency, while Bullion, who didn’t want it, made at least twenty
thou.? Or I wooed Fortune as a soldier, fond of the profession,
careless of climate, prodigal of my person, ramming my head wherever
there was a chance of having it knocked off, “sticking to it like a
leech, sir; never missing a day’s duty, by Jove! while other fellows
were getting on the staff, shooting up the country, or going home on
sick leave.” So I remain nothing but an overworked field-officer,
grim and grey, with an enlarged liver, and more red in my nose than
my cheeks, while Dawdle is a major-general commanding in a healthy
district, followed about by two aides-de-camp, enjoying a lucrative
appointment with a fair chance of military distinction. Shall I
therefore devote to the lowest pit of Acheron the Horse Guards, the
War Office, H.R.H. the Commander-in-Chief, and the service of Her
Majesty the Queen? How many briefless barristers must you multiply to
obtain a Lord Chancellor, or even a Chief Baron? How many curates go
to a bishop? How many village practitioners to a fashionable doctor in
a London-built brougham? Success in every line, while it waits, to a
certain extent, on perseverance and capacity, partakes thus much in the
nature of a lottery, that for one prize there must be an incalculable
number of blanks.
I will not go so far as to say that you should abstain from the liberal
professions of arts or arms, that you should refrain from taking your
ticket in the lottery, or in any way rest idly in mid-stream, glad to
“Loose the sail, shift the oar, let her float down,
Fleeting and gliding by tower and town;”
but I ask you to remember that the marshal’s baton can only be in one
conscript’s knapsack out of half a million; that wigs and mitres,
and fees every five minutes, fall only to one in ten thousand; that
although everybody has an equal chance in the lottery, that chance
may be described as but half a degree better than the cipher which
represents zero.
There is an aphorism in everybody’s mouth about the man who goes to
look for a straight stick in the wood. Hollies, elms, oaks, ashes, and
alders he inspects, sapling after sapling, in vain. This one has a
twist at the handle, that bends a little towards the point; some are
too thick for pliancy, some too thin for strength. Several would do
very well but for the abundant variety that affords a chance of finding
something better. Presently he emerges at the farther fence, having
traversed the covert from end to end, but his hands are still empty,
and he shakes his head, thinking he may have been over-fastidious in
his choice. A straight stick is no easier to find than would be a
four-leaved shamrock.
The man who goes to buy a town house or rent a place in the country
experiences the same difficulty. Up-stairs and down-stairs he travels,
inspecting kitchen-ranges, sinks and sculleries, attics, bedrooms,
boudoirs, and housemaids’ closets, till his legs ache, his brain swims,
and his temper entirely gives way. In London, if the situation is
perfect, there is sure to be no servants’ hall, or the accommodation
below-stairs leaves nothing to be desired, but he cannot undertake to
reside so far from his club. These difficulties overcome, he discovers
the butler’s pantry is so dark no servant of that fastidious order
will consent to stay with him a week. In the country, if the place is
pretty the neighbourhood may be objectionable: the rent is perhaps
delightfully moderate, but he must keep up the grounds and pay the
wages of four gardeners. Suitable in every other respect, he cannot
get the shooting; or if no such drawbacks are to be alleged, there
is surely a railway through the park, and no station within five
miles. Plenty of shamrocks grow, you see, of the trefoil order, green,
graceful, and perfectly symmetrical. It is that fourth leaf he looks
for, which creates all his difficulties.
The same with the gentleman in search of a horse, the same with
Cœlebs in search of a wife. If the former cannot be persuaded to put
up with some little drawback of action, beauty, or temper, he will
never know that most delightful of all partnerships, the sympathy
existing between a good horseman and his steed. If the latter expects
to find a perfection really exist, which he thinks he has discovered
while dazzled by the glamour surrounding a man in love, he deserves
to be disappointed, and he generally is. Rare, rare indeed are the
four-leaved shamrocks in either sex; thrice happy those whom Fate
permits to win and wear them even for a day!
What is it we expect to find? In this matter of marriage more than
in any other our anticipations are so exorbitant that we cannot be
surprised if our “come-down” is disheartening in proportion.
“Where is the maiden of mortal strain
That may match with the Baron of Triermain?
She must be lovely, constant, and kind,
Holy and pure, and humble of mind,” etc.
(How Sir Walter runs in my head to-night.) Yes, she must be all
this, and possess a thousand other good qualities, many more than
are enumerated by Iago, so as never to descend for a moment from the
pedestal on which her baron has set her up. Is this indulgent? is it
even reasonable? Can he expect any human creature to be always dancing
on the tight-rope? Why is Lady Triermain not to have her whims, her
temper, her fits of ill-humour, like her lord? She must not indeed
follow his example and relieve her mind by swearing “a good, round,
mouth-filling oath,” therefore she has the more excuse for feeling at
times a little captious, a little irritable, what she herself calls a
little _cross_. Did he expect she was an angel? Well, he often called
her one, nay, she looks like it even now in that pretty dress, says my
lord, and she smiles through her tears, putting her white arms round
his neck so fondly that he really believes he _has_ found what he
wanted till they fall out again next time.
Men are very hard in the way of exaction on those they love. All “take”
seems their motto, and as little “give” as possible. If they would but
remember the golden rule and expect no more than should be expected
from themselves, it might be a better world for everybody. I have
sometimes wondered in my own mind whether women do not rather enjoy
being coerced and kept down. I have seen them so false to a kind heart,
and so fond of a cruel one. Are they slaves by nature, do you conceive,
or only hypocrites by education? I suppose no wise man puzzles his head
much on that subject. They are all incomprehensible and all alike!
“How unjust!” exclaims Bones, interrupting me with more vivacity than
usual. “How unsupported an assertion, how sweeping an accusation, how
unfair, how unreasonable, and how like a _man_! Yes, that is the way
with every one of you; disappointed in a single instance, you take
refuge from your own want of judgment, your own mismanagement, your
own headlong stupidity, in the condemnation of half the world! You
open a dozen oysters, and turn away disgusted because you have not
found a pearl. You fall an easy prey to the first woman who flatters
you, and plume yourself on having gained a victory without fighting a
battle. The fortress so easily won is probably but weakly garrisoned,
and capitulates ere long to a fresh assailant. When this has happened
two or three times, you veil your discomfiture under an affectation
of philosophy and vow that women are all alike, quoting perhaps a
consolatory scrap from Catullus—
‘Quid levius plumâ? pulvis. Quid pulvere? ventus.
Quid vento? mulier. Quid muliëre? nihil?’
But Roman proverbs and Roman philosophy are unworthy and delusive.
There _is_ a straight stick in the wood if you will be satisfied with
it when found; there _is_ a four-leaved shamrock amongst the herbage
if you will only seek for it honestly on your knees. Should there be
but one in a hundred women, nay, one in a thousand, on whom an honest
heart is not thrown away, it is worth while to try and find her. At
worst, better be deceived over and over again than sink into that
deepest slough of depravity in which those struggle who, because their
own trust has been outraged, declare there is no faith to be kept with
others; because their own day has been darkened, deny the existence of
light.
“You speak feelingly,” I observe, conscious that such unusual
earnestness denotes a conviction he will get the worst of the debate.
“You have perhaps been more fortunate than the rest. Have _you_
found her, then, this hundredth woman, this prize, this pearl, this
black swan, glorious as the phœnix and rare as the dodo? Forgive my
_argumentum ad hominem_, if I may use the expression, and forgive my
urging that such good fortune only furnishes one of those exceptions
which, illogical people assert, prove the rule.” There is a vibration
of his teeth wanting only lips to become a sneer, while he replies—
“In my own case I was _not_ so lucky, but I kept my heart up and went
on with my search to the end.”
“Exactly,” I retort in triumph; “you, too, spent a lifetime looking for
the four-leaved shamrock, and never found it after all. But I think
women are far more unreasonable than ourselves in this desire for the
unattainable, this disappointment when illusion fades into reality.
Not only in their husbands do they expect perfection, and that, too,
in defiance of daily experience, of obvious incompetency, but in
their servants, their tradespeople, their carriages, their horses,
their rooms, their houses, the dinners they eat, and the dresses they
wear. With them an avowal of incapacity to reconcile impossibilities
stands for wilful obstinacy, or sheer stupidity at best. They believe
themselves the victims of peculiar ill-fortune if their coachman gets
drunk, or their horses go lame; if milliners are careless or ribbons
unbecoming; if chimneys smoke, parties fall through, or it rains when
they want to put on a new bonnet. They never seem to understand that
every ‘if’ has its ‘but,’ every _pro_ its _con_. My old friend, Mr.
Bishop, of Bond Street, the Democritus of his day (and may he live as
long!), observed to me many years ago, when young people went mad about
the polka, that the new measure was a type of everything else in life,
‘What you gain in dancing you lose in turning round.’ Is it not so
with all our efforts, all our undertakings, all our noblest endeavours
after triumph and success? In dynamics we must be content to resign
the _maximum_ of one property that we may preserve the indispensable
_minimum_ of another, must allow for friction in velocity, must
calculate the windage of a shot. In ethics we must accept fanaticism
with sincerity, exaggeration with enthusiasm, over-caution with unusual
foresight, and a giddy brain with a warm, impulsive heart. What we
take here we must give yonder; what we gain in dancing we must lose in
turning round!
“But no woman can be brought to see this obvious necessity. For the
feminine mind nothing is impracticable. Not a young lady eating bread
and butter in the school-room but cherishes her own vision of the
prince already riding through enchanted forests in her pursuit. The
prince may turn out to be a curate, a cornet, or a count, a duke or a
dairy-farmer, a baronet or a blacking-maker, that has nothing to do
with it. Relying on her limitless heritage of the possible, she feels
she has a prescriptive right to the title, the ten thousand a year,
the matrimonial prize, the four-leaved shamrock. Whatever else turns
up, she considers herself an ill-used woman for life, unless all the
qualities desirable in man are found united in the person and fortunes
of her husband; nay, he must even possess virtues that can scarce
possibly co-exist. He must be handsome and impenetrable, generous and
economical, gay and domestic, manly but never from her side, wise yet
deferring to her opinion in all things, quick-sighted, though blind
to any drawbacks or shortcomings in herself. Above all, must he be
superlatively content with his lot, and unable to discover that by any
means in his matrimonial venture, ‘what he gained in dancing he has
lost in turning round.’
“I declare to you I think if Ursidius[2] insists on marrying at all,
that he had better select a widow; at least he runs at even weights
against his predecessor, who, being a man, must needs have suffered
from human weakness and human infirmities. The chances are that the
dear departed went to sleep after dinner, hated an open carriage, made
night hideous with his snores under the connubial counterpane, and
all the rest of it. A successor can be no worse, may possibly appear
better; but if he weds a maiden, he has to contend with the female
ideal of what a man _should_ be! and from such a contest what can
accrue but unmitigated discomfiture and disgrace?
“Moreover, should he prove pre-eminent in those manly qualities women
most appreciate, he will find that even in those they prefer to accept
the shadow for the substance, consistently mistaking assertion for
argument, volubility for eloquence, obstinacy for resolution, bluster
for courage, fuss for energy, and haste for speed.
“On one of our greatest generals, remarkable for his gentle, winning
manner in the drawing-room as for his cool daring in the field, before
he had earned his well-merited honours, I myself heard this verdict
pronounced by a jury of maids and matrons: ‘Dear! he’s such a quiet
creature, I’m sure he wouldn’t be _much use in a battle_!’ No; give
them Parolles going to recover his drum, and they have a champion and
a hero exactly to their minds, but they would scarcely believe in
Richard of the Lion-Heart if he held his peace and only set his teeth
hard when he laid lance in rest.
“Therefore it is they tug so unmercifully at the slender thread that
holds a captive, imagining it is by sheer strength the quiet creature
must be coerced. Some day the pull is harder than usual, the thread
breaks, and the wild bird soars away, free as the wind down which it
sails, heedless of lure and whistle, never to return to bondage any
more. Then who so aghast as the pretty, thoughtless fowler, longing and
remorseful, with the broken string in her hand?
“She fancied, no doubt, her prisoner was an abnormal creature,
rejoicing in ill-usage; that because it was docile and generous it must
therefore be poor in spirit, slavish in obedience, and possessing no
will of its own. She thought she had found a four-leaved shamrock, and
this is the result!
“But I may talk for ever and end where I began. Men you _may_ convince
by force of argument, if your logic is very clear and your examples or
illustrations brought fairly under their noses; but with the other sex,
born to be admired and not instructed, you might as well pour water
into a sieve. Can you remember a single instance in which with these,
while a word of entreaty gained your point forthwith, you might not
have exhausted a folio of argument in vain?”
He thinks for a minute, and then answers deliberately, as if he had
made up his mind—
“I never knew but one woman who could understand reason, _and she
wouldn’t listen to it_!”