(_By Mr. Punch's Own Type-writer._)
No. X.--THE MARTYR _INCOMPRISE_.
[Illustration]
The Martyr _Incomprise_ is one who, having in her home erected a stake,
ties to it her husband, and then having set alight the faggots which her
own hands have piled round him, calls the world to witness the
saint-like fortitude with which she bears up under the sufferings
inflicted upon her by her lord and master. She will have been married to
a man who, though he does not pretend to be above the ordinary frailties
and failings of human nature, tries honestly, for many years, to make
her happy. Time after time does this domestic Sisyphus roll the stone of
contentment up the hill of his wife's temper, and time after time does
it slip from his hands, and go clattering down into the plain of
despair. The Martyr is a very virtuous lady, yet she is not satisfied
with the calm and acknowledged possession of her virtues. She adds them
to her armoury of aggravation, and uses them with a deadly effect. Her
morality is irreproachable. She studies to make it a reproach to her
husband, and, inasmuch as her temper is equally compounded of the most
persistent obstinacy, and the most perverse and unaccountable caprices,
it is unnecessary to say that she succeeds marvellously in her
undertaking.
As a girl, the Martyr will have been distinguished by a keen sense of
wrong, and a total lack of all sense of humour. Having been rebuked by
her mother for some trifling fault, she will persuade herself that her
parents detest her, and desire her death. She will spend the next few
days with her breast luxuriously against the thorn of her fancied
sufferings. She will weave romances, in order to enjoy the delicious
sensation of looking on as she withers under injustice into a premature
coffin, and of watching her cruel parents as they water the grave of
their victim with unavailing tears. A somewhat lax method of bringing up
will have enabled her to read many trashy novels. Out of these she
constructs an imaginary hero, all gushing tenderness and a tawny
moustache. Having met a young man who fully realises her ideal in the
latter particular, she promptly assumes his possession of the former,
and accepts his proposal of marriage. After having all but thrown him
over on three or four occasions for an insufficient display of romantic
devotion at dances and tennis parties, she eventually marries him. Soon
afterwards she discovers that he is not a chivalrous wind-bag, but a
Man, whereupon she shatters his pedestal, and abandons herself to misery
amidst the ruins.
And now the full joys of her married martyrdom begin. She withdraws even
from the affectation of interest in her partner, his friends and his
pursuits. She spends her mornings in the keeping of a diary, or the
writing of a novel, in which she appoints herself to the post of
heroine, and endows her creation with a superhuman combination of
unappreciated qualities. From the fact that her husband spends a large
part of each day away from her, either in attending to his business or
in following a sport, she infers that he has ceased to love her. When he
returns in the evening, she locks herself into her room, and, having
thus assured to herself solitude, she converts it, by an easy process,
into the studied neglect of an unfeeling husband.
She now gathers round herself a select company of two or three female
friends, whom the easy good-nature of her husband permits to stay in his
house for months at a time. Into their sympathetic ears she pours the
story of her woes, and gradually organises them into a trained band of
disciplined conspirators, who make it their constant object to defend
the wife by thwarting the husband. They have their signs and their
pass-words. If the callous male, for the enjoyment of whose hospitality
they seem to gain an additional zest by affecting to despise and defy
him, should intimate at the dinner-table that he has ventured to make
some arrangement without consulting them, they will raise their
eyebrows, and look pityingly at the wife. She will inform them, in a
tone of convinced melancholy, that she has long suspected that she was
of no importance to any one, but that now she knows it for certain. She
will then tell her husband that, as she is no longer allowed to interest
herself in what he does, she has of course no opinion on the matter in
hand, and that, if she had one, she would never think of offering it
when she knows that all interference on her part is always so bitterly
resented. Her husband's temper having exploded in the orthodox marital
manner, she will smile sweetly upon him, and, the butler and footman
having entered with the fish, will implore him, in a voice intended
rather for the servants than for him, to moderate his anger, lest he
should set a bad example. She will then weep silently into her tumbler,
and her friends, after expressing a muttered indignation at the
heartlessness of men, will support her tottering steps from the room. If
her husband should invite one or two of his friends to dinner on a
subsequent occasion, she will amuse herself and madden him by recounting
to them this incident, in which she will figure as a suffering angel,
whose wings have moulted under the neglect and cruel treatment of an
unangelic spouse. If, while her story is in progress, she should observe
her husband writhing, she will inform him that she is sure he must be
sitting in a draught, and will order the butler to place a screen behind
him. Having thus called attention to his discomfort, and to the care
with which she watches over him, she will take offence when he
countermands the screen; and, after giving the company in general to
understand that she is not allowed to give orders in her own house, she
will, for the rest of the evening, preserve a death-like calm. This will
be followed, on the departure of her guests, by showers of tears and
reproaches, the inevitable prelude to twenty-four hours of salts and
seclusion in the privacy of her bed-room. It is curious to note that,
although the Martyr, at an early period of her married life, developes a
distaste for going into society, which she attributes to the persecution
of her husband; yet she always contrives to spend as much money as those
who live in a whirl of gaiety. Her bills, therefore, mount up, and, in a
moment of unguarded pecuniary prudence, her husband will remonstrate
mildly with her upon her extravagance. She will, thereupon, accuse him
to her friends of meanness, and avow her determination never again to
ask him for money. For a short time she will pay portions of her own
bills, but, finding her pin-money insufficient for the purpose, she will
sell some jewels, and spend the proceeds on a new tea-gown. Her
increasing liabilities will afford her no anxiety, seeing that her sense
of martyrdom increases in proportion, and that in her heart of hearts
she knows that her husband is prepared to pay everything, and will
eventually have to do so.
After some years of this life her husband will have acquired the
reputation of a domestic ruffian. Friends will shake their heads, and
wonder how long his sweet wife will bear up against his treatment. It
will be reported, on the authority of imaginary eye-witnesses, that he
has thrown a soup-plate at her, and that, on more than one occasion, he
has beaten her. He will find himself shunned, and will be driven for
society and pleasure to his bachelor haunts. His wife will now rage with
jealousy over a defection she has done her best to cause. After a time
she will hire the services of a detective, and will file a petition in
the Divorce Court. The case will probably be undefended, and the Court
having listened to her tale of cruelty, the imaginative boldness of
which will startle even the friend who corroborates it in the
witness-box, will decree to her a divorce from the supposed author of
her sufferings. She will then set up for a short time as an object of
universal pity, but, meeting a bluff and burly widower, she will accept
him as her second husband. After having wearied of her constant recital
of her former misery, this husband will begin to neglect and ill-use her
in good earnest. Under the tonic of this genuine shock, her spirits may
revive; and it is as likely as not that she will enjoy many years of
mitigated happiness as the wife of a real tyrant.
* * * * *
MORE NOVELTIES.--Sir,--The Fasting Man seems to have been a great
success. Why shouldn't he be succeeded by The Stuffing Man, The Eating
Boy, and The Talking Man. The last of these would be backed to talk
incessantly on every possible subject for forty days. In the Recess,
what a chance for Mr. GLADSTONE, or, indeed, for any Parliamentary
orator, who, otherwise, would be on the stump! Instead of his going to
the Country, the Country, and London, too, would come to him. Big
business for Aquarium and for Talking Man. Then there would be The
Sneezing Man, The Smoking Man, The Singing Man, The Drinking Man, and so
forth. It's endless. I only ask for a per-centage on gate-money, and I
place the idea at the disposition of the Aquarium.
Yours,