than usual, for the tea is but the shadow of a meal with the harmless
inspiration of the tea-pot. Thus it happened that each began to
tell of what had occurred in his or her little world during the
day. Aurelia had a thousand things to tell about the intellectual
and physical miracles performed by that wonderful baby, which, of
course, every baby, from Cain down, has performed. But they were
performed for the first time for her, and of course we listen to
them as if they were new revelations to us, and we would not for the
world dissipate the bright colors with which she invests all that
little one does by telling her that every mother's world is glowing
with the same pretty colors, or that all of us once were just as
wonderful babies as hers, only somehow we lost all our supernatural
powers as the years came and went. Celeste had been shopping, and
her tongue ran glibly on the "beautiful," "sweet pretty," "lovely,"
"delightful," "loves of," etc., fabrics which she had seen at
Hamlin's, and she grew quite indignant when she told how young Yard
Stick became angry when he had pulled down seventy-three different
pieces of dress goods, only to find that she merely dropped in
to look about a little; neither was it any compensation to that
intellectual and highly artistic youth when she purchased a ball of
tape. Mrs Blobbs said but little, for it had not been with her one of
those days which we lay away tied up with white ribbon. Old Blobbs
had come home from the office earlier than usual, looking very pale
and very feeble. A dark shadow is sweeping across the house--so dark
that we do not see any light beyond it, and the waters through which
the dear good woman is wading, grow deeper and deeper, and the mists
which begin to blind her eyes are those which forever haunt the
Valley of the Shadow. Old Blobbs was with us at the table but said
nothing. The contracted brow and firmly-set mouth, the great veins in
his forehead and the far-off look in his eyes, told us of suffering,
and that even now he foresaw a messenger coming to him with tidings,
of the purport of which he was well aware. Fitz-Herbert had had
nothing to do all the livelong day, and Boosey was not much better
off, so these two young gentlemen had little to say for themselves.
Mignon had dreamed the day away, feeding the canary, tending her
mignonettes, and heliotropes, and fuschias, and weaving delicious
little reveries on the piano. She lives only among beautiful things,
and could not exist away from them, any more than a humming bird
could live, deprived of its roses and tulips.
Blanche's story was supplied by a letter which Mignon had just
received from her, and as it contained an important piece of
intelligence, she read it to us, as follows:
SARATOGA, August 10.
_Dear, Darling Mignon_:
Lean down your head to me and let me whisper in your ear that I am
engaged. You are aware that I have known Harry a long time, and that
he is possessed of all those good and noble qualities calculated to
make me happy. I am already in a new world in which I know no one
but my hero. You do not know how good and kind and beautiful he is.
Our world is quite apart from this fashionable world, where every
man is a gambler or a fortune-hunter, and every woman an enameled
_decolette_. We ask for nothing but each other's society and we are
content to let the others play out their little comedies and farces
to the bitter end. I have given him my whole heart, and yet, Mignon,
there is love for you still, and for all our little circle. I cannot
stop now to tell you of Saratoga life, it seems so tame and so tawdry
to the great happiness which Harry brought to me last evening, as we
were strolling under the elms. It seems to me there is no one here
but Harry. He is my world and I live in him, and after him I send to
you, Mignon, my best love.
I must stop, for Harry will get impatient. He is waiting to take me
to ride, but I could not go until I had informed you of my great
happiness.
Your devoted friend,
BLANCHE.
P. S.--Kiss Celeste and Aurelia for me.
B.
P. S. No. 2--Write me soon.
B.
As Mignon closed the letter, she asked me why I was smiling, and I
said:
My dear Mignon: I was smiling at this repetition of the old, old
story. It is one of the most curious revelations in these _affairs
de coeur_, that the engaged parties always leave this world and
create one of their own of the most gorgeous description. In that new
world the skies are always translucent, the air is full of winged
Cupids and young cherubim, flowers grow under their feet, birds sing
on every branch, and no inhabitants grosser than fairies dwell in it.
In that world there are no storms, no pains, no sorrows. Every breeze
is laden with odors, and the beautiful rainbow of promise always
spans its sky from one horizon to the other. There are none of the
vulgar realities or harassing cares of this world in that. The happy
pair feed on ambrosia and nectar supplied for them gratuitously, and
have no fears based upon bread and butter or other provender, which
troubles us mortals so much to provide for ourselves. They look upon
everything through some peculiar medium which transforms it into
beauty and clothes it with the sheen of the prism. All gross sounds
are turned into music. All the faculties of the soul become merged
in the one faculty of the imagination, and that imagination knows no
bound especially in the case of the woman. She always makes the man a
hero. She surrounds him with a halo just as pious Catholics surround
their saints. She looks at him through an atmosphere which magnifies
him into something quite above the follies and stupidities of the
world. The other day, as I was passing along Lake street, I met an
engaged couple. They had just come in from Kankakee to see the sights
of the city, and as they wandered along, hand in hand, looking into
the shop windows, the future bridegroom munching an apple, and the
future bride doing the same to a pear, I could not but regard these
two innocent lambs with interest. To be sure, the future bridegroom
was a tall, shambling, ungainly, awkward, red-faced lout, but to her
he was the Admirable Crichton, the ideal of her dreams, and the hero
of her life. She was in that world of which I have spoken. She did
not see the smiling faces about her as they regarded this innocent
simplicity. She was walking on roses with him. The pear she munched
was ambrosia bought of a beneficent old fairy at the street corner,
who sold them for ten cents a piece. A year or two hence, when they
get settled down upon their Kankakee farm, he will be nothing but the
old man and she will be plain Hannah, superintending the dairy and
the kitchen garden. But now John Thomas is a hero.
It is another fact that the man himself was not aware that he was
such a hero. Neither were those who have been acquainted with him
aware that he was made of heroic stuff. To himself and to them,
he has been plain Smith or plain Brown, a decent sort of fellow,
plodding along, making money enough to pay his board bills with,
and never supposing he was destined to set the world on fire. He
had never before dreamed that he was a hero. He had never before
supposed that the rhythm of his very prosaic life would ever assume
the epic form. The same fact is true in fiction. The heroes of the
novels are very commonplace people, but the heroines always make
them believe they are supernatural people. Auerbach appreciated
this weakness in human nature when he made Irma--that splendid,
womanly type--fall in love with the King, and invest him with all
the attributes of a demi-god, when, in reality, he was nothing but a
very ordinary, commonplace, selfish, ungrateful mortal, who could no
more rise to the great height of her nature than the clod can rise
to the cloud. You will find that same weakness brought out in that
new book of Spielhagen's--"Problematic Characters"--where Melitta, a
beautiful type of woman, falls in love with Oswald, a vain, shallow,
purposeless coxcomb, who adores every pretty face he meets. Yet
Melitta invests him with all the heroic attributes, and wastes her
great love upon him, as the ancient maiden wasted her kisses upon the
marble insensibility of Apollo.
Thus it is that once in every man's life, at least, he becomes a
hero, whether he will or not, and it is not the least curious part
of the matter that he does not question at all, but accepts the
position at once, and allows himself to be set up as an object of
idolatry. He knows it is all humbug, but he is willing to accept it,
and usually ends by temporarily convincing himself he is a hero and
an idol. Of course, after hero and heroine become one flesh, he gets
the conceit knocked out of him, takes off his insignia, quietly gets
down from his pedestal, and consents to become what he was before
his hero-existence--a very ordinary mortal, who has to pay taxes,
work for a weekly stipend, earn bread and butter, and eat it. Now,
this is precisely the case with our mutual friend, Blanche. Harry
is, undoubtedly, a well-meaning, good-natured fellow, who will earn
a good living and take care of Blanche in a creditable manner; but
Blanche has magnified him into a hero, and looks at him through
other spectacles than ours. Usually, these cases suggest their own
remedies, and carry their cure with them. The disease wears itself
out, like whooping-cough or cold in the head. But there is danger
in allowing it to run and get seated, so that the inevitable tumble
which must come, sooner or later, will hurt them. After a specified
time, the rainbow will dissipate into a dull, leaden color, the
flowers will fade, the nectar will grow sour, the gorgeous palaces
will transform themselves into wooden cottages or brick fronts, the
cupids and cherubim will go in out of the wet, and the birds will
hush their songs. In other words, the dull round of life, which every
man must tread, the ever-pressing, vulgar cares and anxieties which
follow one like a Nemesis, will overtake the hero and the heroine,
and it will be well for them to be prepared for the catastrophe.
Flying is a pleasant feat to perform, and causes very thrilling
sensations, but if you go too near the sun, remember the fate of
Icarus, and look out for your head when you fall. If Mignon is so
disposed, when she writes to Blanche, she might suggest these things,
and mingle a little caution with her congratulations.
There is another view of love which is very sad, because it is fatal.
Ordinarily these attachments are part and parcel of that world-spirit
which is ever changing and yet ever constant, which allies the
present and past together, and convinces you there is nothing new,
but that each event, although it may seem to be done for the first
time, is only a repetition of the old miracle. This fatality of love,
for which there is no cure, has been beautifully likened in one of
Novalis' works to a Blue Flower, for which a lone Minnesinger once
pined in vain and died. No eye of mortal ever saw this flower, no
man knows where it blooms. Yet its beauty is known of men, and its
fragrance fills the world. There are few whose senses are delicate
enough to perceive this perfume; few whose eyes can see the Blue
Flower, even though it blooms right before them. Novalis further says
that the nightingale, pouring out its sad songs to the moon, knows
and loves this flower; that all men and women, who have tried to
voice their sorrow in poetry, and yet could not tell their feelings,
have inhaled this perfume of the Blue Flower. The perfume of this
flower is in music. It is in Beethoven's sonatas and symphonies, and
in some of Mendelssohn's songs, although it was not in Mendelssohn's
life, but there are few souls sensitive and delicate enough to feel
it. Dante felt it, and the Blue Flower blossomed through all their
lives. They inhaled its perfume, and then there was no more peace,
for he who once breathes it lives forever after in sorrow. It is a
malady which can never be cured. I pray that none of you may ever
breathe its fatal breath.
And as I closed my screed, Old Blobbs looked at me with a look full
of unutterable pain, and I knew at once that down under all his
asperity of manner and his sarcasm of speech; under all his seeming
philosophical composure and his hearty hatred of shams, this Blue
Flower had blossomed, and that he had inhaled its fatal fragrance.
He had presented to us but one side of his double life, and that
was so honest that we could not but love him while we winced at his
utterances of truth. But in that other life which he had lived within
himself, and of which he had given us no token, but which was now
rapidly making itself apparent, because it was his true life, was
the Blue Flower, which entails only suffering, and for which there is
no remedy but death.
And he said to us with his weak, trembling voice, so unlike his
hearty, powerful tones of a few months ago: "You have spoken rightly.
There is a Blue Flower, and I pray God you may never know its fearful
influence, beautiful as it is. I have found that flower, but I think
its beauty is fading now, and its perfume is dissipating, and that
for the pain He will give pleasure, and for the trial He will give
rest." And then he arose from the table and leant upon my arm and
we walked out into the garden together. And then the twilight stole
in upon us, and the darkness fell out of the heavens, and the stars
peeped out of the sky, and all the world was veiled with a holy hush.
We talked long together, and as we retired for the night, he shook me
warmly by the hand and only said: "When you grow old you will feel
the wonderful beauty of that line, 'He giveth His beloved sleep,' as
you have never felt it before, for the old have a long, long night in
which to sleep. After the battle comes Peace; after the toil, Rest."
I knew what he meant, but I could not speak of it to the others.
August 15, 1869.
_MARRIAGE._
It was just like Fitz-Herbert to break in upon the conversation in
his insufferable, dawdling manner, merely because Old Blobbs was
absent and could not reply to him. F. H. had heard a story that
he was about to be married, and he protested against it with all
the indignation and power of which he was capable, somewhat in the
following manner: "'Pon honor, that story isn't twue. Would be vewy
absurd to sacwifice my fweedom."
This was the longest speech F. H. had ever been known to deliver at
one time, and it naturally created quite a sensation in the company.
He seized this occasion to deliver it, as I have said before,
because Old Blobbs was absent. The latter is confined to his room
with a painful illness, and it would do you good to see the courage
with which the old veteran bears his serious indisposition, and the
calm serenity with which he awaits the decision of fate. I had no
idea, however, of letting Fitz-Herbert off so easily, and, much to
his astonishment, therefore, I replied to him, as he sat uneasily
twirling his moustache, in words to the following effect:
My dear Fitz-Herbert: I cannot allow your very silly remark to pass
unnoticed, for two reasons:
First. You would never sacrifice anything in marrying any woman.
The woman who marries you will do all the sacrificing. The hymeneal
altar, in her case, will be eminently a sacrificial altar, and she
will be the garlanded and orange-blossomed victim, to be carved up
with the sacrificial knife. You have everything to gain--she has
everything to lose.
Second. Neither your reason, nor any other, is valid against
marriage. I am often amused at the excuses men make when they
approach this question. Brown thinks it is too expensive, and, of
all silly excuses, I think this is the silliest. Brown is earning a
good salary, and yet Brown, at the end of the year, has no more money
than when he commenced. He has expenses for cigars and meerschaums,
for suppers for his bachelor friends, for fast horses, for baskets
of champagne, for wagers based on trifles, for the wear and tear of
clothes, and for a thousand and one little items, none of which he
would or need incur in married life. Then, again, if Brown knew, as
any milliner can tell him, how many seasons that same bonnet is made
over; how it comes out bran new every spring and fall, by some of
those mysterious alterations, of a bit of lace here or a few flowers
there, of which only women are capable; how that same dress is made
over from year to year by the cunning hand of some dressmaker; how a
piece of lace, which may seem costly at first, does duty in a dozen
different ways--now serving a term on a bonnet-crown, now appearing
on the sleeve of a basque, anon reappearing as the trimming of a
dress, then laid away, only to appear once more in some useful and
graceful manner, connected with the gear of the little folks; and
if Brown further knew that nine women out of ten, not only in low
life but in high life, practice this economy--making the old new, and
serving up old dishes in new forms--Brown would be ashamed to offer
such a flimsy excuse. Marriage is the essence of economy. Brown,
alone, with two thousand a year, lays up nothing. Brown and a wife,
with the same amount per year, would lay up five hundred.
And now comes Jones, like Fitz-Herbert, with his twaddle of
sacrificing his freedom. The plea is so flimsy that it is hardly
worth an answer. Jones may lose the freedom to get drunk; the freedom
to waste his money; the freedom to squander his earnings at the
gaming-table; the freedom to indulge in dissipation; and the freedom
to practice unlimited selfishness. And the sooner he loses all these
freedoms, the better it will be for him. In the place of these
losses, he gains the freedom to be the emperor of a little household;
to love a woman; to make the future President of the United States;
to make some one happy; and to show a certificate that he is a Man,
and has fulfilled the mission of a Man.
Next comes Smith, whining that his friend Thompson has married
unhappily, and he gets off the old story that marriage is a lottery
in which there are a thousand blanks to one prize. Bosh! It may be
that his friend Thompson deliberately sought happiness in something
which was not capable of affording it. Or it may be that he made
money the complement of his desires and the goal of his ambition. In
either case, he would be and ought to be disappointed. But it is more
probable that Thompson, as obtains in ninety-nine out of a hundred
of these disappointments, while carrying his head among the stars,
stumbled over the stone at his feet, which he would have seen if he
had had his head where it ought to have been. Thompson, like scores
of others, indulged in a love which smacked both of the romance and
the theatre--made it in a style and clothed it with sentiments which
have no more to do with common life than the integral calculus has
to do with everlasting salvation, and in his terrific flights of
the imagination, soared to heights occupied by angels and cherubim,
and other creatures who have nothing in common with human life.
He assumed without question that his inamorata was an angel, and,
while in his amorous embryo, would have throttled you if you had
suggested that he might have been mistaken. Of course, when he had
chipped off his shell, got his eyes open, and stepped out into the
open air of common sense, he saw his mistake. Women are not angels
at all, although it may be ungallant to say so. For certain romantic
purposes, and by a sort of poetical license, we call them such.
They don't believe they are angels themselves; but they accept the
assurance from their lovers, just as the lover accepts the assurance
from his mistress that he is a hero, both good and noble, when he
is nothing but plain Tompkins. Now, Thompson, before he married his
wife, was convinced that she was an angel, and would have considered
it a serious defect if you, or any one else had imputed human nature
as one of her characteristics. If he had married Mrs. Thompson as a
woman with a human nature, subject to diseases, old age, sullenness,
peevish fits, and other infirmities to which flesh is heir, possessed
of the same bad qualities, and capable of showing just as many good
qualities, he would have been a happy man, and by combining an even
temper with a sensible judgment, he never would have had any trouble.
It might as well be settled now as at any time that there are no
angels in this world. Angels dwell in quite another place, and have
nothing to do whatever with marriage, their time being mainly spent
in playing harps, and, if "Gates Ajar" be true, pianos, fiddles,
and other musical instruments, and in eating lotus, which is of a
better quality up there than that which grows on the Nile. The other
class of angels, if the iron-clad theology be true, is down below,
engaged in the anthracite coal and brimstone business; but there is
no record of any on earth. If Thompson had married a woman instead of
a creature whom, without any reason, he supposed to be an angel, he
would have been a happy man. It is, therefore, his own fault that he
is not happy. And it is the fault of the majority of men who are not
happy.
Now, also, on general principles, I contend that it is a man's duty
to be married. Man is not complete when single. He is all head
without any heart. Man has his work, woman has hers, and no life-work
is complete which is not a union of the two.
Man has the work of the intellect to perform; woman the work of the
affections. If man does his work alone, it is cold, hard, selfish and
one-sided.
Man represents brute strength; woman represents beauty. If man stands
alone, not clothing his strength with beauty, he occupies exactly the
position of the horse and the ox.
Man, to sum up, is the head; woman, the heart. United, they are
perfect; single, they are simply monstrosities. They were made to go
together.
And, again, my dear Fitz-Herbert, did you ever happen to think that
you were born in marriage? That without marriage the world would have
been deprived of your inestimable entity, which, undoubtedly, is good
for something, although, at this present moment, I am not prepared to
say what? I contend, therefore, that if you persistently choose to
remain single you insult the condition in which you were born, and
place yourself in the attitude of the foolish Euripides, who always
lamented that he had not been produced by some other agency than that
of a mother.
Again, Fitz-Herbert, did you ever stop to think that it is the duty,
and equally the pleasure, of man to perpetuate himself? And that, if,
by refusing to marry, you do not perpetuate yourself, you tacitly
acknowledge you are not worth perpetuating? I will not stop here to
explain to you the great beauty and blessing of children, or to point
out how much better and brighter the world is for their presence,
but I will only state the point in its abstract form--that if you do
not marry some woman, and issue a little blue-and-gold-edition of
yourself, and then another edition revised and corrected, and so on
_ad infinitum_ or _ad libitum_, you simply say to the world, "I am an
incapable and good-for-nothing, not worth perpetuating." This point
is worth such attention as you can spare from your back hair and
neck-tie; and I advise you whenever you have time enough to put your
whole mind upon it, to astonish your mind by doing so.
Now, as my last general principle--or, as Parson Creamcheese would
say, eighthly and lastly--I assume that God Almighty has pointed
out this duty of marriage, and this fact that you are incomplete
when single, in every conceivable manner. The whole of Nature is one
grand system of marriage, and without it, Nature could not exist for
a single minute. Although the animals cannot feel the influence of
love, because they are bereft of sentiment, still instinct teaches
them they are happiest in pairs, and compels them to recognize the
dual principle. You never saw a flower in your life which was not the
personification of the marriage principle, the stamens playing the
part of a woman, and the pistil that of a man, although you should
not follow the botanical analogy too literally, by taking more than
one stamen. All ideas, all beauty, all feelings, all effects in the
great world of nature and humanity depend for their existence upon
this dual principle, which only takes shape and exerts influence
in the form of marriage. Now, you see, my dear Fitz-Herbert, it
does not look well in you to set yourself against the inevitable
tendency of nature and humanity and the fixed purpose of the Creator,
by remaining single, merely because you think you are going to
"sacwifice your fweedom." As I said before, it is all bosh.
This is a plain statement of the facts in the premises, and now I am
going to suggest a remedy for the wretchedness which is consequent
upon their violation and a penalty for their violator.
The penalty does not apply to women, for there is not a woman in the
world who would not marry if she had a chance.