Part 12 (1/2)
”I hope you don't intend to insinuate that matrimony isn't paradise!
Guess you forget how bewitching they look when they stand up before the minister, promising all sorts of pretty things and afraid to look each other in the eye! Orange wreaths and bouquet de humbug--alabaster kid gloves--hair curled within an inch of their lives--Brummel neck-tie, patent boots, satin slippers and palpitating hearts! Oh, Sambo! can't make _me_ believe a cloud ever comes over such a blue sky--no indeed! They're just as contented a twelve month after, as a fly in a spider's web.
”You never saw a husband yet, that wasn't as docile as a lamb _when everything went to his mind_. Don't they always love and cherish their wives as long as there is a timber left of them? Wouldn't they extinguish the lamp of life for any man, or woman, who dare say a word to their dispraise? Would they ever do that same _themselves_? Answer me that?
”And as to wives; they are as easily driven as a flock of sheep when a locomotive comes tearing past. _Oh!_ y-e-s, Sambo, matrimony is a 'blessed inst.i.tution,' so the ministers say, (finds 'em in _fees_, you know!) and so everybody says--except those who have _tried it_? So go away, and don't be _wool_-gathering. You'll never be the 'Uncle Tom'
of your tribe.”
x.x.xVI.
A WHISPER TO ROMANTIC YOUNG LADIES.
”A crust of bread, a pitcher of water, a thatched roof, and love,--there's happiness for you.”
Girls! _that's a humbug!_ The very _thought_ of it makes me groan.
It's all moons.h.i.+ne. In fact, men and moons.h.i.+ne in my dictionary are synonymous.
”Water and a crust! RATHER spare diet! May do for the honey-moon.
Don't make much difference _then_, whether you eat shavings or sardines--but when you return to _substantials_, and your wedding dress is put away in a trunk for the benefit of posterity, if you can get your husband to _smile_ on anything short of a 'sirloin' or a roast turkey, you are a lucky woman.
”Don't every married woman know that a man is as savage as a New Zealander when he's hungry? and when he comes home to an empty cupboard and meets a dozen little piping mouths, (necessary accompaniments of 'cottages' and 'love,' clamorous for supper, '_Love_ will have the _sulks_,' or my name isn't f.a.n.n.y. Lovers have a trick of getting disenchanted, too, when they see their Aramintas with dresses pinned up round the waist, hair powdered with sweeping, faces scowled up over the wash-tub, and soap-suds dripping from red elbows.
”We know these little accidents never happen in novels--where the heroine is always 'dressed in white, with a rose-bud in her hair,' and lives on blossoms and May dew! There are no wash-tubs or gridirons in _her_ cottage; _her_ children are born cherubim, with a seraphic contempt for dirt pies and mola.s.ses. _She_ remains 'a beauty' to the end of the chapter, and 'steps out' just in time to antic.i.p.ate her first gray hair, her husband drawing his last breath at the same time, as a dutiful husband _should_; and not falling into the unromantic error of outliving his grief, and marrying a second time!
”But this humdrum life, girls, is another affair, with its was.h.i.+ng and ironing and cleaning days, when children expect boxed ears, and visitors picked-up dinners. All the 'romance' there is in it, you can put under a three-cent piece!
”St. Paul says they who marry do well enough, but they who _don't_ marry do WELL-ER! Sensible man that. Nevertheless, had _I_ flourished in those times, I would have undertaken to change his sentiments; for those old-fas.h.i.+oned gentlemen were worth running after.
”One half the women marry for fear they shall be old maids. Now I'd like to know why an old maid is to be snubbed, any more than an old bachelor? Old bachelors receive 'the mitten,' occasionally, and old maids have been known to _outlive several 'offers.'_ They are both useful in their way--particularly old bachelors!
”Now _I_ intend to be an old maid; and I shall found a mutual accommodation society, and admit old bachelors honorary members. They shall wait on _us_ evenings, and we'll hem their pocket hand-ker_chers_ and mend their gloves. No _boys under thirty_ to be admitted. Irreproachable d.i.c.keys, immaculate s.h.i.+rt-bosoms and faultless boots _indispensable_. Gentlemen always to sit on the _opposite_ side of the room--no refreshments but _ices_! _Instant expulsion_ the consequence of the first attempt at love-making! No allusion to be made to Moore or Byron! The little '_bye-laws_' of the society _not_ to be published! Moonlight evenings, the sisters are not at home! the moon being considered, from time immemorial, an unprincipled magnetiser!”
x.x.xVII.
A WOMAN WITH A SOUL.
”A new affectation is to speak of the soul as _feminine_.
For example, the London papers announce the third edition of 'The Soul, HER sorrows, and HER aspirations.'”
I always _thought_ John Bull was a goose; now I _know_ it! _A woman with a soul!_ I guess so! (made out of an old _spare-rib_!) What on earth does _she_ want of a _soul_? First thing you know, she'd be eating of the 'tree of knowledge,' and we had enough of that in _Eve's_ day; I tell you there are none but _masculine souls_.