From my own Apartment, November 16.
There are several persons who have many pleasures and entertainments in
their possession, which they do not enjoy. It is, therefore, a kind and
good office to acquaint them with their own happiness, and turn their
attention to such instances of their good fortune which they are apt to
overlook. Persons in the married state often want such a monitor; and
pine away their days, by looking upon the same condition in anguish and
murmur, which carries with it in the opinion of others a complication of
all the pleasures of life, and a retreat from its inquietudes.
I am led into this thought by a visit I made an old friend, who was
formerly my school-fellow. He came to town last week with his family for
the winter, and yesterday morning sent me word his wife expected me to
dinner. I am, as it were, at home at that house, and every member of it
knows me for their well-wisher. I cannot, indeed, express the pleasure
it is to be met by the children with so much joy as I am when I go
thither. The boys and girls strive who shall come first when they think
it is I that am knocking at the door; and that child which loses the
race to me runs back again to tell the father it is Mr. Bickerstaff.
This day I was led in by a pretty girl, that we all thought must have
forgot me, for the family has been out of town these two years. Her
knowing me again was a mighty subject with us, and took up our discourse
at the first entrance. After which they began to rally me upon a
thousand little stories they heard in the country about my marriage to
one of my neighbour's daughters. Upon which the gentleman, my friend,
said, "Nay, if Mr. Bickerstaff marries a child of any of his old
companions, I hope mine shall have the preference: there is Mrs. Mary is
now sixteen, and would make him as fine a widow as the best of them. But
I know him too well; he is so enamoured with the very memory of those
who flourished in our youth, that he will not so much as look upon the
modern beauties. I remember, old gentleman, how often you went home in
a day to refresh your countenance and dress, when Teraminta reigned in
your heart. As we came up in the coach, I repeated to my wife some of
your verses on her." With such reflections on little passages, which
happened long ago, we passed our time, during a cheerful and elegant
meal. After dinner his lady left the room, as did also the children. As
soon as we were alone, he took me by the hand; "Well, my good friend,"
says he, "I am heartily glad to see thee: I was afraid you would never
have seen all the company that dined with you to-day again. Do not you
think the good woman of the house a little altered, since you followed
her from the play-house, to find out who she was for me?" I perceived a
tear fall down his cheek as he spoke, which moved me not a little. But,
to turn the discourse, said I, "She is not indeed quite that creature
she was, when she returned me the letter I carried from you: and told me
'she hoped, as I was a gentleman, I would be employed no more to trouble
her, who had never offended me; but would be so much the gentleman's
friend as to dissuade him from a pursuit which he could never succeed
in.' You may remember I thought her in earnest, and you were forced to
employ your cousin Will, who made his sister get acquainted with her for
you. You cannot expect her to be for ever fifteen." "Fifteen!" replied
my good friend; "ah! you little understand, you that have lived a
bachelor, how great, how exquisite a pleasure there is, in being really
beloved! It is impossible, that the most beauteous face in nature should
raise in me such pleasing ideas, as when I look upon that excellent
woman. That fading in her countenance is chiefly caused by her watching
with me, in my fever. This was followed by a fit of sickness, which had
like to have carried her off last winter. I tell you sincerely, I have
so many obligations to her, that I cannot, with any sort of moderation,
think of her present state of health. But as to what you say of
fifteen, she gives me every day pleasures beyond what I ever knew in
the possession of her beauty, when I was in the vigour of youth. Every
moment of her life brings me fresh instances of her complacency to my
inclinations, and her prudence in regard to my fortune. Her face is to
me much more beautiful than when I first saw it; there is no decay
in any feature, which I cannot trace from the very instant it was
occasioned by some anxious concern for my welfare and interests. Thus,
at the same time, methinks, the love I conceived towards her for what
she was, is heightened by my gratitude for what she is. The love of a
wife is as much above the idle passion commonly called by that name,
as the loud laughter of buffoons is inferior to the elegant mirth of
gentlemen. Oh! she is an inestimable jewel. In her examination of her
household affairs she shows a certain fearfulness to find a fault, which
makes her servants obey her like children: and the meanest we have has
an ingenuous shame for an offence, not always to be seen in children
in other families. I speak freely to you, my old friend: ever since
her sickness, things that gave me the quickest joy before turn now to a
certain anxiety. As the children play in the next room, I know the poor
things by their steps, and am considering what they must do, should they
lose their mother in their tender years. The pleasure I used to take
in telling my boy stories of the battles, and asking my girl questions
about the disposal of her baby, and the gossiping of it, is turned into
inward reflection and melancholy."
He would have gone on in this tender way, when the good lady entered,
and, with an inexpressible sweetness in her countenance, told us "she
had been searching her closet for something very good, to treat such an
old friend as I was." Her husband's eyes sparkled with pleasure at the
cheerfulness of her countenance; and I saw all his fears vanish in an
instant. The lady observing something in our looks which showed we had
been more serious than ordinary, and seeing her husband receive her with
great concern under a forced cheerfulness, immediately guessed at what
we had been talking of; and applying herself to me, said, with a smile,
"Mr. Bickerstaff, do not believe a word of what he tells you. I shall
still live to have you for my second, as I have often promised you,
unless he takes more care of himself than he has done since his coming
to town. You must know he tells me that he finds London is a much
more healthy place than the country, for he sees several of his old
acquaintances and school-fellows are here young fellows with fair
full-bottomed periwigs. I could scarce keep him this morning from going
out open-breasted." My friend, who is always extremely delighted with
her agreeable humour, made her sit down with us. She did it with that
easiness which is peculiar to women of sense; and to keep up the good
humour she had brought in with her, turned her raillery upon me. "Mr.
Bickerstaff, you remember you followed me one night from the play-house;
suppose you should carry me thither to-morrow night, and lead me into
the front box." This put us into a long field of discourse about the
beauties, who were mothers to the present, and shined in the boxes
twenty years ago. I told her, "I was glad she had transferred so many
of her charms, and I did not question but her eldest daughter was within
half a year of being a Toast."
We were pleasing ourselves with this fantastical preferment of the young
lady, when on a sudden we were alarmed with the noise of a drum, and
immediately entered my little godson to give me a point of war. His
mother, between laughing and chiding, would have put him out of the
room; but I would not part with him so. I found upon conversation with
him, though he was a little noisy in his mirth, that the child had
excellent parts, and was a great master of all the learning on the other
side eight years old. I perceived him a very great historian in AEsop's
Fables: but he frankly declared to me his mind, that he did not delight
in that learning, because he did not believe they were true; for
which reason I found he had very much turned his studies for about a
twelve-month past, into the lives and adventures of Don Bellianis of
Greece, Guy of Warwick, the Seven Champions, and other historians of
that age. I could not but observe the satisfaction the father took in
the forwardness of his son; and that these diversions might turn to some
profit, I found the boy had made remarks which might be of service
to him during the course of his whole life. He would tell you the
mis-managements of John Hickathrift, find fault with the passionate
temper in Bevis of Southampton, and loved Saint George for being the
champion of England; and by this means had his thoughts insensibly
moulded into the notions of discretion, virtue, and honour. I was
extolling his accomplishments, when the mother told me that the little
girl who led me in this morning was in her way a better scholar than he.
"Betty," says she, "deals chiefly in fairies and sprites, and sometimes
in a winter-night will terrify the maids with her accounts, till they
are afraid to go up to bed."
I sat with them till it was very late, sometimes in merry, sometimes in
serious, discourse, with this particular pleasure, which gives the only
true relish to all conversation, a sense that every one of us liked each
other. I went home, considering the different conditions of a married
life and that of a bachelor; and I must confess it struck me with a
secret concern, to reflect, that whenever I go off I shall leave no
traces behind me. In this pensive mood I return to my family; that is to
say, to my maid, my dog, and my cat, who only can be the better or worse
for what happens to me.