And then the children sing Old Hundred, and the audience rising, sings it with them. And they sing well, for there are only 9,000 of the choristers in the audience. Isn't it sublime?
"Praise Him above, ye heavenly host,Praise Father, Son and Holy Ghost."
"Praise Him above, ye heavenly host,Praise Father, Son and Holy Ghost."
And the Jubilee is over. The music is hushed. The voice of the great organ is silent. The great waves of the chorus have subsided. The singers and the players have gone, but I think, to their latest day, they will not tire of telling their children that they sang and played at the great Peace Jubilee.
There are a few parting incidents in the press room, and among them a very graceful deed upon the part of the orchestra in presenting Mr. Gilmore with an elegant watch and chain. And then everybody gives Gilmore three cheers.
The man who has carried this thing in his head two years, and finally organized it into a success, smilingly says:
"Gentlemen: We propose to repeat this Jubilee as a centennial—one hundred years hence. You are all engaged."
One hundred years hence! Every heart in the great sea of humanity which has surged in and out of the Coliseum this week will be silent then. We shall all be silent then. We shall all be sleeping the sleep of thejust, with a stone at our heads and a stone at our feet, where no sound of music can reach us. Other voices will sing above us, and other instruments play, and little shall we reck of it. The record of the Jubilee will outlive us all. But will they have in the music of the future anything better, anything grander, anything sublimer than the music of this week has been?
I think not. And so to the great chorus whose sound has been as the voice of many waters; to the great orchestra which has given us the immortal Fifth Symphony as Beethoven never heard it given; to the mighty pulsation of the great organ heart; to the voices of the children in their sweet, fresh unison; to her that died in the midst of the music, and was translated to the heavens in a chariot of harmony, whose beauty, and loveliness, and true womanliness will be forever sacred to those who knew her; to the Peace Jubilee, with all its pleasant associations and grand accomplishments, hail and farewell.
"Let us have peace."
I WRITE from the pleasant little hamlet of Cherry Valley, under the grateful shade of the locusts and poplars. Scarlet fuschias, pendant from their curved stems, are swaying in the gentle west wind, which is the favorite wind of the flowers. The odorous breath of the geranium and sweet-briar loads the languid air with fragrant blessing. The leaves of the trees overhead just ripple in the wind, like little green waves, and sometimes seem to be whispering together about some of those secrets of nature which you and I can never know, as our ears are too gross—the same secrets which little bugs tell each other in the grass—which the lightnings tell the clouds, as they dart in and out their ragged fringes, like swallows darting in and out the eaves—which the night-winds tell the mountain-tops in the solemn darkness—which the birds sing to each other in umbrageous tree-tops—which the fairies above the earth and gnomes under the earth tell to each other at sunrise and set—the secrets which the Faun knew when he called the animals to him. Some drowsy birds in the trees are piping summer songs to each other. A magic stillness broods in the air in this enchanted valley. Enchanted, because all sounds—thepatter of the leaves, the songs of birds, the laughter of children, the lowing of herds, even the drowsy hum of the house-fly—somehow seem to you to be at a distance and, in traveling the distance, come to you fraught with suggestions of music and like veiled spirits of sound, rather than the real substance. The leaves of the corn are flashing like green blades in the sunshine, and the grain-fields on these fertile hill-sides map the country in alternate strips of green and emerald. And overhead, the great concave of the sky, which shuts down upon this valley like a cover, is enameled in blue and white, and scrolled with tufts and whirls of fleecy clouds, past the skill of all cunning architects.
You see, Old Blobbs and Mrs. Blobbs, and Mignon and Celeste, and Aurelia and the baby, and even Boosey and Fitz-Herbert, are all out here together. The circle is complete, save the link that was broken last winter, when the Maiden Aunt went to rejoin him she had mourned so long and for whom she had waited so patiently. But, somehow, we never think of her as gone, although she is sleeping in sound of the surf she loved to hear and in sight of the waves which used to talk to her, in the nights when the storms were all abroad and great ships hurried by in the darkness, like cloudy ghosts of argosies long since rotted in the sands. She seems always to be with us, she was so lovable, so closely bound to us, so gentle in soul, and yet so mysterious in her life—or, rather, in her double life; for I do not think she lived altogether here. Have you never had the feeling come over you, suddenly as a flash leaps from a cloud, that your soul has left the body—that you have shed, as it were, the physical shell which hashemmed you in, and that you are no longer confined within the bounds of matter, but are free as a bird to roam through space? I sometimes think this must be the feeling when death severs the connection between soul and body, and that the effect must be ecstatic to a degree of which we have little comprehension, when every emotion is tempered with this "vesture of decay." I think the Maiden Aunt lived this double life. Sometimes she was intensely human, and her love and care for us all were unbounded. But again there came a strange expression in her eyes and a strange look in her face, as if a chink in the heavens had suddenly opened, and the glamor of its light shone upon her, and through the cloudy rent she were talking with some familiar friend who had gone before. At such times, she did not seem to see us, or even to be aware of our presence. Her eyes had that far-off, penetrating look which you sometimes see in children; and we always left her alone at such times, for she was then very sacred to us.
In the sunset light last evening—and what a sunset it was!—the whole West a sea of rare transparent greenish-blue, flecked with clouds of gold, and purple, and pink, and mother-of-pearl, which floated in it like islands, melting into all fanciful shapes, as the ferns, and palms, and turrets melt in the mirage, the whole landscape bathed in a translucent flood of golden light—in such a sunset, we took one of the Maiden Aunt's letters, which we keep tied up with a lock of her dark and silver-sprinkled hair, and I read therefrom an extract, in which she says:
"I think we live two lives. One of them is the life of this world, a thoroughly material and physical life.It is made up of toils and cares, burdens and pains. It grows out of the lives of others, is closely interwoven with them, and almost depends upon them for its existence. It attaches itself, sometimes, to one other life, as a vine attaches itself to the tree; sometimes it draws sustenance from many. It is, more or less, a superficial life, although it may accomplish great deeds and suffer heroic sufferings. It is of the earth, however, and never soars beyond it. No mystery attaches to it, for it is never called upon to perform mysterious deeds. It is comprised within the limits of threescore-and-ten, and has no past or future. Its mission belongs to the body, and when the body perishes, its mission ends. It has no recollections coming from any time before itself. It makes no prophecies of events in the future.
"The other life we live in ourselves, and it is as mysterious as was the enigma of the Sphinx in the solemn silence of the desert. It takes no thought for the body, for it is the life of the soul. We cannot explain this life to others, for we do not understand it ourselves. It is a starry stranger, imprisoned within the corporeal bars and of mysterious origin and destiny. The fates who weave the fabric of our lives, and Atropos, who stands by with the unerring shears to sever the thread, have no power over it. Have we not lived this life before, and shall we not live it again when the light of this physical life is snuffed out like a farthing rush? If not, how is it that sometimes a sweet strain of music we have never heard before, a solemn voice in the wash of the waves, a perfume of some flower by the wayside, a tone in some human voice, will recall the dim image of something we are confident has never happened in thisphysical life? If not in this physical life, when and where did it happen? Have we ever lived before this life, and shall we live in it again after this body has decayed? Do we fulfil the mission of this world in the brief span of one life-time? If our life has no end, has it ever had a beginning? Has immortality or eternity a commencement? These are questions which occur to me, especially after those moments when, as I confidently believe, the soul leaves the body, and expands into space and embraces the infinite. I acknowledge that I cannot answer these questions. They are a part of the great mystery of life, which not only envelopes us, but all nature, in its cloud, and reaches, in its influences and its developments, from the grain of sand on the sea-shore up to the Throne of God.
"I think this life, also, is not altogether of itself. Other lives, other fates and other natures are working together in us to add to its mystery. These mysterious influences at work within us compel us to commit acts, which we call impulses, for which we are no more accountable than the hurricane for its destruction. They give us moments when we are filled with a joy almost hysterical, for which we cannot account; and other moments when we are sunk into depths of despair, and all the world seems veiled in black, although we know the sun is shining. At such times, others are acting in us and through us. It may be some old ancestor, who died hundreds of years ago, whose life was so strong in some trait that he sent it down through the years from this one to that one, and it makes its first appearance in you. He or she—he whose life was lost in the passion of some great ecstasy, or she whose life was eclipsed ina cloud of despair which dethroned reason—is speaking with your tongue, and is looking out of your eyes. At such times, your voice assumes a tone not your own; your eyes show a light which is foreign to you. Another has entered and taken possession of you. You cannot estimate the great influence which all those men and women who hang upon your walls and look down upon you from their dim canvasses exercise upon you.
"And this life also manifests itself in sleep, when it takes us into the gorgeous cloudland of dreams, and paints such fantastic images, and unveils a world of which we get glimpses in no other manner—a world of prophecies and strange presentiments, in which, freed from the trammels of the body, the soul roams at will, and sees what has passed and what is to come; in which we suffer tortures keener than those of earth, and enjoy the beatitudes of the blest; in which the poor man is richer than Dives, and Lazarus finds rest from his troubles; and in which all of us get compensation for the loss of all we held precious, in communion with and possession of them, although only for a little moment."
This is the substance of what the Maiden Aunt said in her letter, and we all talked about it in the fast-fading light until the darkness set in and the rain commenced to patter down upon the lilac leaves with a dreamy sort of sound. We gathered about the piano, and sang those four-partLiederof Felix Mendelssohn's, and then we pledged the memory of the Maiden Aunt in the golden Verzenay and drank the good night willie wacht, and thus we spent a memorial day at Cherry Valley, nestling down in the hollow of the hills like a callow robin in its nest, and we slept the sleep of the just, lulledto rest by the rain-drops playing merry fantasies on the shingles, each of us agreeing that the day was one to be tied up with white ribbon and laid away among the precious keepsakes. And in our dreams came to each the form of a loved one, and our sleep was made beautiful with all pleasant images.
July 17, 1869.
July 17, 1869.
WE were all at tea last evening, and at the tea-table we talk more 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 pulleddown 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 enameleddecolette. 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 theseaffairs de cœur, 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 futurebridegroom 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 himwith 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 thisflower, 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 histrue 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.
August 15, 1869.
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 marryingany 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, notonly 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 amongthe 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 ahappy 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 onad infinitumorad 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.
In fixing this penalty, it is necessary to assume the indisputable fact that for every man in the world there is a woman somewhere waiting and waiting anxiously.She may be in the same house with you, in the same neighborhood, or the same city, or she may be in a distant quarter of the globe. You may not meet her this year or next year, but, nevertheless, Fitz-Herbert, there is a woman waiting for you somewhere, who wants to be married to you, to be loved by you, to be fed by you, to have you take her to the opera and the concerts, and to have you pay her milliner and dressmaker. In return, she will be your best friend, will make a man out of you, will suffer for you, never cease to love you, and, if necessary, die for you. Now, it is your duty to set about and find that woman, and go to work loving and feeding her, and paying her bills without grumbling, because all you can do for her will not be worth mention by the side of that wonderful love she will bestow on you—the same love which your father had for your mother. You probably won't have to look long or far for her. You will be astonished at the ease with which you will find her, if you commence looking for her in earnest. She must be supported by some one. If you don't support her, then some other man must be taxed to do it, and thus the burden falls upon those who already have wives. This, of course, is unfair. No man should be compelled to take care of more than one woman.
This is your plain duty, and my penalty to be imposed upon those who won't perform it is simply levying of a tax. Granted that there is a woman for every man, ready to be supported by that man, then I propose to compel that man to support that woman, whether he will marry that woman or not. I would do nothing rashly. I would give him a lee-way for choiceuntil he was thirty years of age. If he didn't make a choice in thirty years, I should take it for granted that he didn't intend to at all, and I should then commence the operation of my tax levy. At the age of thirty, I should impose a yearly tax, equivalent to a woman's yearly legitimate expenses; at the age of thirty-five, an equivalent for a woman and two children; at forty, an equivalent for a woman and four children; at forty-five, an equivalent for a woman and six children. If the man were sickly, or absent any considerable length of time, the number of children might be reduced one-half. After the age of forty-five, the juvenile tax might cease increasing. At the age of fifty, however, I would impose a special tax upon him as a general fund for the support of aged and decayed spinsters. At the age of sixty, he should be compelled to contribute a special sum to maintain Old Ladies' Homes. And when he died, he should be compelled to bequeath a portion of his property to building orphan asylums, and the balance should go towards the maintenance of the public schools. If, in addition to his refusal to marry a woman, he should be a confirmed woman-hater, then I would force him to equalize male and female wages by paying the difference to sewing girls, factory girls and female clerks in our dry goods stores, who do a man's work for a woman's stipend.
You see this is perfectly fair. Not only would every woman be properly provided for, but married men would be relieved from the onerous burden of supporting more than one woman, which is improper, but these old bachelors who are of no account would be turned to a good use by contributing to the support of spinsters,old women and little children. Then, when they got to the gate of Heaven, they could at least have their tax-receipts, to show that their punishment might be mitigated, and that a few of the thousand years of purgatory on the banks of the Styx might be omitted.
I trust, Fitz-Herbert, that you coincide with my views, or, at least, that you will give them some attention. F. H. had evidently never looked at the subject in this light, for he seemed quite bewildered, and twirled his moustache very vigorously, especially when Mignon and Celeste and Aurelia all chimed in with me, and said I was quite right.
August 21, 1869.
August 21, 1869.
I am glad to notice that my letter of two Sundays ago, upon the subject of marriage, has had such good effects. During the past week, the number of marriages has trebled, and even quadrupled, in this city. To be sure, the number of divorces has kept even pace, and, for every pair which has come boldly up to the altar and joined hands in eternal friendship, another pair has severed the bond in twain and parted company, like two ships which meet upon the ocean, hold converse for a little minute, and then set sail for the different horizons. The Clown in Twelfth Night spoke more wisely than he knew, when he said that many a good hanging prevented many a bad marriage. From the ease with which divorces are now obtained, it seems to me a few good hangings would have a healthy influence upon this matter of marriage, and would make that declaration of the minister's, upon which he dwells with such solemnunction, "What God hath joined, let not man put asunder," savor less of the ridiculous.
And all this reminds me of several letters I have received during the past two weeks, taking issue with me upon one small remark contained in my letter. "Ferniania," "Ada," "Kitty," and a half a dozen other anonyma, are highly indignant that I should have said "Any woman who has a chance will get married."
I expected to be overwhelmed with an avalanche of female indignation when I wrote that sentence. I wrote it with a realizing sense of the wrath to come.
The wrath has come, and I find at least a dozen female gauntlets on the floor before me which I am expected to take up.
I confess I do not like anonymous gauntlets. I should like to know the antecedents of some of them before I accept the wager and do battle for my proposition.
In the first place, I would like to know how many of these pretty Amazons have had a chance to get married, and if they had a chance, then I want to know why they didn't get married. I have no more sympathy for a woman who won't get married than I have for a man. She is just as much a jug without a handle or a bow without the arrow as the man is. The very first record we have of the very first woman that ever lived, after she got her fig-leafpaniermade, is of her marriage to Adam, and the next thing of any consequence is the birth of the rapscallion Cain, and the good little boy Abel. It is just as much the woman's duty to get married as the man's.
Good heavens! my dear Madame, or my dear Mademoiselle, what would you have done, if your parentshadn't got married? Would you have written me that indignant letter? Would you ever have gone to see Enoch Arden? Would you have ever known the Paradise of new fall hats and George Eliot's last new book?
I should say not.
At least it strikes me that way upon a mere glance.
Then wherein are you any better than your parents? I would like to be assured, therefore, that you have had a chance to get married, and why you refused the chance, before I answer you.
Of course I expect a very torrent of affirmation. A woman had better be dead than never to have had a chance. I would rather face a Nubian lion than tell a woman to her face that she had never had an opportunity to get married. Do not the dear, delightful old women, sitting in their arm-chairs, grow garrulous over their tea, and tell their grand-daughters of the numberless chances they had when they were young and their faces were smooth and the wrinkles and crows-feet had not been written upon their foreheads by the implacable Time? Do not mature married ladies, who have just gone round the corner, and are beginning to feel just the slightest touch in the world of neuralgia, now and then delight to give their husbands a realizing sense of their inferiority, by recalling the number of chances they have had and how they might have done better here and lived easier there? Do not young ladies inles confidenceswith their numerous bosom friends—confidences which are as mysterious as a sum in simple addition and as eternal as the life of a sand-fly—divulge to each other the chances they have had, and the prospects for chances ahead, with the stereotypedexactions of promises never to tell, upon penalty of immediate severance of the ties which bind, etc.? Do not the delightful little creatures from five to ten display the first sign of womanhood in getting up flirtations with the little boy in the next house, and writing the most astonishing little notes to the effect that