is not love, but attraction, fascination, or whatever the psychologists
may please. A man chooses his wife, not because there are no other
women, but in spite of them. It is a pathetic acknowledgment of his poor
judgment, if he lets the world suspect that his choice was wrong.
There are some souls that hie them faraway from civilisation, to
convents, monasteries, and western plains, that they may keep away from
temptation. In the same fashion, woman tries to isolate her lord and
master. If he meets women at all, they are those invisibly labeled "not
dangerous."
The world makes as many saints as sinners, and the man who needs to be
kept away from any sort of temptation is weak indeed. There are many of
his kind, but he is the better man in the end who meets it face to face,
fights with it like a soldier, and wins like a king.
[Sidenote: The Thousand Foes]
The mother of Sparta bade her son return with his shield or on it, and
the thought has potential might to-day. If a man honestly loves a woman,
she need have no fear of the thousand foes that wait to take him from
her. If he does not, the sooner she understands the truth, the better it
is for both. There are many people who consider love a dream, but they
usually grow to think of marriage as the cold breakfast.
Men are but children of a larger growth. A small boy forgets his promise
to stay at home and tears madly down the street in the discordant wake
of a band. The same boy, in later years, will follow his impulses with
equal readiness, for he is taught conformity to outward laws, but very
seldom self-control.
The fear of "the other woman" may be largely assuaged by a spinster's
confidence in her ability to cope with the difficult situation, should
it ever present itself, but there are other considerations which act as
a discouragement to matrimony.
The chains of love may be sweet bondage, but freedom is hardly less
dear. The spinster, like the wind, may go where she listeth, and there
is no one to say her nay. A modern essayist has pointed out that "if a
mortal knows his mate cannot get away, he is apt to be severe and
unreasonable."
The thought of being compelled to ask for money, and perhaps to meet
with refusal, frequently acts as a deterrent upon incipient love. A man
is often generous with his sweetheart and miserly with his wife. In the
days of courtship, the dollars may fly on wings in search of pleasure
for the well-beloved, and yet, after marriage, they will be squeezed
until the milling is worn smooth, the eyes start from the eagle, and
until one half-way expects to hear the noble bird scream.
[Sidenote: Unlimited Credit]
There are girls in every circle, married to men not by any means
insolvent, who have unlimited credit, but never any money of their own.
They have carriages but no car fare; fine stationery, monogrammed and
blazoned with a coat of arms, but not by any chance a postage stamp.
Many a woman in such circumstances covenants with the tradespeople to
charge as merchandise what is really cash, and sells laces and ribbons
to her friends a little below cost. When a girl is approached with a
plea to have her purchases charged to her friend's account, and to pay
her friend rather than the merchant, is it not sufficient to postpone
possible matrimony at least six months? Adversity has no terrors for a
woman; she will gladly share misfortune with the man she loves, but
simple selfishness is a very different proposition.
[Sidenote: "Wedded to their Art"]
There are also the dazzling allurements offered by various "careers"
which bring fame and perhaps fortune. The glittering triumphs of a prima
donna, a picture on the line in the Salon, or a possible book which
shall sell into the hundred thousands, are not without a certain charm,
even though people who are "wedded to their art" sometimes get a divorce
without asking for it.
The universal testimony of the great, that fame itself is barren, is
thrust aside as of small moment. She does not realise that it is love
for which she hungers, rather than fame, which is the admiration of the
many. Sometimes she learns that "the love of all is but a small thing to
the love of one" and that in a right marriage there would be no
conscious sacrifice. If she were not free to continue the work that she
loved, she would feel no deprivation.
Happiness is often thrust aside because of her ideals. She demands all
things in a single man, forgetting that she, too, is human and not by
any means faultless. Some day, perhaps too late, she understands that
love and criticism lie far apart, that love brings beauty with it, and
that the marks of individuality are the very texture of charm, as the
splendour of the opal lies in its flaws.
[Sidenote: The Vital Touch]
There is always the doubt as to whether the seeker may be the one of all
the world to find the inmost places in her heart. Taste and temperament
may be akin, position and purpose in full accord, and yet the vital
touch may be lacking. Sometimes, in the after-years, it may be found by
two who seek for it patiently together, but too often dissonance grows
into discord and estrangement.
The march of civilisation has done away with the odium which was
formerly the portion of the unattached woman. It is no disgrace to be a
spinster, and apparently it is fitting and proper to be an old maid,
since so many of them have "Mrs." on their cards, and since there are
so many narrow-minded and critical men who fully deserve the
appellation.
There is no use in saying that any particular girl is a spinster from
necessity rather than choice. One has but to look at the peculiar
specimens of womankind who have married, to be certain that there is no
one on the wide earth who could not do so if she chose.
[Sidenote: "A Discipline"]
Some people are fond of alluding to marriage as "a discipline," and
sometimes a grey-haired matron will volunteer the information that "the
first years of marriage are anything but happy." To one who has hitherto
regarded it from a different point of view, the training-school idea is
not altogether attractive.
Men and women who have been through it very seldom hold to their first
opinions. It is considered as a business arrangement, a social
contrivance, sometimes as an easy way to make money, but by very few as
the highest form of happiness.
[Sidenote: Small Extravagances]
The consolations of spinsterhood are mainly negative, but the minus sign
has its proper place in the personal equation. "The other woman" does
not exist for the spinster, save as a shadowy possibility. She is not
asked what she did with the nickel which was given her day before
yesterday, and thus forced to make confession of small extravagances, or
to reply, with such sweetness as she may muster, that she bought a lot
on a fashionable street with part of it, and has the remainder out at
interest. She does not have to stay at home from social affairs because
she has no escort, for the law has not apportioned to her a solitary
man, and she has a liberty of choice which is not accorded her married
friend.
She is not subjected to the humiliation of asking a man for money to pay
for his own food, his own service, and even his own laundry bill. She
can usually earn her own, if the gods have not awarded her sufficient
gold, and there is no money which a woman spends so happily as that
which she has earned herself.
The "career" lies before her, and she has only to choose the thing for
which she is best fitted, and work her way upward from the lowest ranks
to the position of a star of the first magnitude. Opportunity is but
another name for health, obstacles make firm stepping-stones, and that
which is dearly bought is by far the sweetest in the end. Of course
there are "strings to pull," but no one needs them. Success is more
lasting if it is won in an open field, without favour, and in spite of
generous measures of it bestowed upon the opposition.
[Sidenote: The Greatest Consolation]
But of all the consolations of spinsterhood, the greatest is this,--that
out of the dim and uncertain future, perchance in the guise of a
divorced man or a widower with four children, The Prince may yet come.
"On his plain but trusty sword are these words only--Love and
Understand." Across the unsounded, estranging seas, with a whole world
lying immutably between, he, too, may be waiting for the revelation. He
may come as a knight of old, with banners, jewels, and flashing steel,
to the clarion ring of trumpet or cymbal, or softly, in the twilight,
like one whose presence is felt before it is made known.
Out of the city streets The Prince may come, tired of the endless
struggle, when the tide of the human has beaten heavily upon his jaded
soul, or through the woods, with the silence of the forest still upon
him. His path may lie through an old garden, where marigold and larkspur
are thickly interwoven, and shadowy spikes of mignonette make all the
summer sweet, or through the frosty darkness, when the earth is dumb
with snow and the midnight stars have set the heavens ablaze with spires
of sapphire light.
[Sidenote: At the First Meeting]
Sometimes, at the first meeting The Prince is known, by that mysterious
alchemy which lies in the depths of the maiden soul and often, after
long waiting, a friend throws off his disguise and royalty stands
revealed. Sometimes he is the comrade of the far-off childish years, the
schoolmate of a later time, or someone whose hand has proved a strength
and solace in times of deepest grief.
"To Love and Understand!" All else may be forgiven, if he has but these
two gifts, for they are as the crest and royal robe. Bare and empty his
hands may be, but these are the kingly rights.
Slowly, and sometimes with a strange fear which makes her tremble, there
steals into her heart a great peace. With it comes infinite tenderness
and an unspeakable compassion, not only for him, but for all the world.
Love's laughter changes to questioning too deep for smiles or tears--the
boundless aspiration of the soul toward all things true.
Playthings and tinsel are cast away. The music of the dance dies in
lingering, discordant fragments, and in its place comes the full tone of
an organ and the majestic movement of a symphony. The web of the daily
living grows beautiful in the new light, for the Hand that set the
pattern has been gently laid upon her loom.
[Sidenote: Through all the Years to Come]
Through all the years to come, they are to be together; he and she.
There will be no terror in the wilderness, no sting in poverty or
defeat--hunger and thirst can be forgotten. Wherever Destiny may point
the way, they are to fare together--he and she.
Somewhere, in a world whose only shame is its uncleanliness, they two
are to make a home and keep the little space around them wholly clean.
Somewhere, they two will show the world that the old ideals are not
lost; that a man and a woman may still live together in supreme and
lasting content. Somewhere, too, they will teach anew the old lesson,
that it is unyielding Honour at the core of things that keeps them sound
and sweet.
There is nothing in all life so beautiful as that first dream of Home; a
place where there is balm for the tortured soul, new courage for the
wavering soul, rest for the tired soul, and stronger trust for the soul
caught in the snares of doubt and disbelief--a place where one may be
wholly and joyfully one's self, where one's mistakes are never faults,
where pardon ever anticipates the asking, where love follows swiftly
upon understanding and understanding upon love.
[Sidenote: The Sceptre of the King]
"To Love and Understand!" He who holds the sceptre of the king may rule
right royally. There is solace for the tired traveller within the
cloister of that other heart, and the pitiful chains which some call
marriage would rust and decay at the entrance to that holy place.
The spotless peace within the inner chamber is his alone. There his
motives are never questioned, nor his words distorted beyond their
meaning, and his daily purposes are ever read aright.
The dream is forever centred upon the coming of The Prince. Sometimes,
with the grim irony of Fate, he is seen when both are bound--and there
are some who deem a heartache too great a price to pay for the
revelation. Now and then, after many years, he comes to claim his own.
[Sidenote: The Grey Angel and the Prince]
And sometimes, too, when one has long waited and prayed for his coming;
when the sight has grown dim with watching and the frosty rime of winter
has softly touched the dark hair, the Grey Angel takes pity and closes
the tired eyes.
The lavender and the dead rose-leaves breathe a hushed fragrance from
the heaps of long-stored linen; the cricket and the tiny clock keep up
their cheery song, because they do not know their gentle mistress can no
longer hear. The slanting sunbeams of afternoon mark out a delicate
tracery upon the floor, and the shadow of the rose-geranium in the
window is silhouetted upon the opposite wall. And then, into the quiet
house, steals something which seems like an infinite calm.
[Sidenote: The Exquisite Peace]
But the dainty little lady who lies fast asleep, with the sun resting
caressingly upon her, has gained, in that mystical moment, both
understanding and love. For there comes an exquisite peace upon her--as
though she had found The Prince.
THE END.