Part 25 (1/2)
From a desire to break the somewhat awkward silence, or from some other motive, he praised each favourite dish, and declared he had seldom eaten so good a supper.
Rising from table, they proceeded as usual to the parlour; and now Mary was amply rewarded for the sacrifice of her own taste, if sacrifice it could be called, by the surprise and pleasure visible in her husband's countenance as he looked around, and by the affectionate kiss which he imprinted upon her cheek.
”And you will forgive my hasty words, will you not?” Mary whispered softly as he bent his head to hers.
”They will never again be remembered,” was the reply; ”and I have also much to ask your forgiveness for, Mary, for I have thought much and deeply, to-day, dearest, and I find that I have been very deficient in many of the most essential qualities of a husband. But let us sit down together in this old chair, which with me is so strongly a.s.sociated with the memory of my dear mother, that it seems as if her spirit must be near to bless us; and we will review the past year a little, and you will let me peep into your heart, and give me a clearer insight into its feelings and wants.”
A long and free conversation followed, in which the husband and wife gained more real knowledge of each other's characters than they had obtained in the whole of their previous acquaintance. All coldness and doubt was dispelled, and they felt that they loved more tenderly and truly than ever before.
”And now, dearest, we will sum up the lesson which we are to remember,” said Arthur, playfully, as the lateness of the hour reminded them that the evening had pa.s.sed unheeded away. ”_I_ am to think _more_ of trifles, and you are--”
”To think _less_” added Mary, smilingly. ”Let us see who will remember their lesson the best.”
DOMESTIC HAPPINESS.
THERE are certain pairs of old-fas.h.i.+oned-looking pictures, in black frames generally, and most commonly glazed with greenish and crooked crown gla.s.s, to be occasionally met with in brokers' shops, or more often, perhaps, on cottage walls, and sometimes in the dingy, smoky parlour of a village tavern or ale-house, which said pictures contain and exhibit a lively and impressive moral. Some of our readers, doubtless, have seen and been edified by these ancient engravings; and, for the benefit of those who have not, we will describe them.
The first picture of the pair represents a blooming and blus.h.i.+ng damsel, well bedecked in frock of pure white muslin, if memory serves us faithfully, very scanty and very short-waisted, as was the fas.h.i.+on fifty years ago, and may again be the fas.h.i.+on in less than fifty years hence, for aught we can tell. Over this frock is worn a gay spencer, trimmed with lace and ornamented with an unexceptionable frill, while the damsel's auburn curls are surmounted with a hat of straw fluttering with broad, true blue ribbons, which fasten it in a true love-knot, under the dimpled chin.
Her companion (for she has a companion) is a young countryman in glossy boots, tight buckskins, gay flapped waistcoat, blue or brown long-waisted and broad-skirted coat, frilled s.h.i.+rt, and white kerchief, innocent of starch, who smiles most lovingly, as with fond devotion [here, gentle reader, is the moral of the picture], he bends lowlily, and chivalrously places at the disposal of the fair lady, hand, arm, and manly strength, as she pauses before a high-backed stile which crosses the path, leading, if we mistake not, to the village church. Beneath this picture, reader, in Roman capitals, are the words:--”BEFORE MARRIAGE.”
We turn to the second picture; and there may be seen the same high-backed stile, the same path, and the same pa.s.sengers. Painfully and awkwardly is the lady represented as endeavouring, unaided, to climb the rails, while beyond her is the companion of her former walk--her companion still, but not her helper--slowly sauntering on, and looking back with an ominous frown, as though chiding the delay.
Beneath this picture are the significant words:--”AFTER MARRIAGE.”
One could wish these pictures were only pictures; but, in sober earnest, they are allegories, and too truthfully portray what pa.s.ses continually before our eyes: the difference, to wit, between the two states there presented. Truly, indeed, has it been said, ”Time and possession too frequently lessen our attachment to objects that were once most valued, to enjoy which no difficulties were thought insurmountable, no trials too great, and no pain too severe. Such, also, is the tenure by which we hold all terrestrial happiness, and such the instability of all human estimation! And though the ties of conjugal affection are calculated to promote, as well as to secure permanent felicity, yet many, it is to be feared, have just reason to exclaim,
”'Once to prevent my wishes Philo flew; But time, that alters all, has altered you.'
”It is, perhaps, not to be expected that a man can retain through life that a.s.siduity by which he pleases for a day or a month. Care, however, should be taken that he do not so far relax his vigilance as to induce a belief that his affection is diminished. Few disquietudes occur in domestic life which might not have been prevented; and those so frequently witnessed, generally arise from a want of attention to those mutual endearments which all have in their power to perform, and which, as they are essential to the preservation of happiness, should never be intentionally omitted.”
This witness, dear reader, is true. The neglect of those little attentions which every married couple have it in their power to show to each other, daily, hourly, is a sure method of undermining domestic happiness. Let every married reader bear this in mind, and reflect upon it; for it is an undeniable truth.
It was a full quarter of a century ago that the writer first saw the pair of engravings which he has described. They were hanging over the fire-place of a newly-married cottager. ”There,” said she, laughing, as she pointed to the second picture; ”you see what I have to expect.”
She did not expect it, though! Such an attentive, kind, and self-denying lover, as her ”old man,” as she called him in sport, had been, would never change into a morose brute, who could suffer his wife to climb over an awkward stile without help, and scold her for her clumsiness.
Reader, not many months since we saw poor Mary, prematurely gray and time-stricken. For years she has been living apart from her husband, her children scattered abroad in the world, and she is sad and solitary. And thus it was:--_He_, the trusted one, tired of being the fond lover of the picture, soon began to show himself the husband. _She_, the confiding one, stunned by some instances of neglect, reproached and taunted. He resented these reproaches as unjust, and to prove them so, redoubled his inattentiveness to her, absented himself from home, and bestowed his attentions elsewhere.
_She_ copied his example, and by way of punishment in kind, lavished her smiles and kindnesses in other quarters. _He_--but why go on?
Years--sad years of crimination and recrimination, of provocation, and bitter reproaches, and suspicion, and mutual jealousy, and dislike, and hatred, wore away. At length they parted. What became of the pair of pictures, we often wonder.
”For about two years after I was married,” says Cobbett, in his Advice to a Husband, ”I retained some of my military manners, and used to romp most famously with the girls that came in my way; till one day, at Philadelphia, my wife said to me, in a very gentle manner 'Don't do that, _I do not like it._' That was quite enough; I had never thought on the subject before; one hair of _her_ head was more dear to me than all the other women in the world, and this I knew that she knew; but I now saw that this was not all that she had a right to from me; I saw that she had the further claim upon me that I should abstain from everything that might induce others to believe that there was any other woman for whom, even if I were at liberty, I had any affection.”
”I beseech young married men,” continues he, ”to bear this in mind; for, on some trifle of this sort the happiness or misery of a long life frequently turns. If the mind of a wife be disturbed on this score, every possible means ought to be used to restore it to peace; and though her suspicions be perfectly groundless--though they be wild as the dreams of madmen--though they may present a mixture of the furious and the ridiculous, still the are to be treated with the greatest lenity and tenderness; and if, after all, you fail, the frailty is to be lamented as a misfortune, and not punished as a fault, seeing that it must have its foundation in a feeling towards you, which it would be the basest of ingrat.i.tude, and the most ferocious of cruelty, to repay by harshness of any description.”
”The truth is,” adds the same writer, ”that the greatest security of all against jealousy in a wife is to show, to _prove_ by your acts, by your words also, but more especially by your _acts_, that you prefer her to all the world; and I know of no act that is, in this respect, equal to spending in her company every moment of your leisure time. Everybody knows, and young wives better than anybody else, that people, who can choose, will be where they like best to be, and that they will be along with those whose company they like best. The matter is very plain; and I do beseech you to bear it in mind. Nor do I see the use, or sense, of keeping a great deal of company as it is called. What company can a man and woman want more than their two selves, and their children, if they have any? If here be not company enough, it is but a sad affair. This hankering after company proves, clearly proves, that you want something beyond the society of your wife; and _that_ she is sure to feel most acutely; the bare fact contains an imputation against her, and it is pretty sure to lay the foundation of jealousy, or of something still worse.”
Addressed, as these sentiments are, to the husband, they are equally applicable to the wife; and on the part of domestic happiness, we urge upon our readers, all, to prove their constancy of attachment, by mutual kind offices and delicate attentions, in health and in sickness, in joy and in sorrow; by abstinence from all that may wound; and by an honest preference of _home_ enjoyments above all other enjoyments.