Part 25 (2/2)
But to keep alive this honest preference, there must be,--in addition to other good qualifications which have heretofore pa.s.sed under review,
1. _Constant cheerfulness and good humour._ A wife and mother who is perpetually fretful and peevish; who has nothing to utter to her husband when he returns from his daily occupation, whatever it may be, or to her children when they are a.s.sembled around her, but complaints of her hard lot and miserable destiny; who is always brooding over past sorrows, or antic.i.p.ating future evils; does all she can, unconsciously it may be, to make her hearth desolate, and to mar for ever domestic happiness. And the husband and father who brings to that hearth a morose frown, or a gloomy brow; who silences the prattling tongue of infancy by a stern command; who suffers the annoyances and cares of life to cut into his heart's core, and refuses to be comforted or charmed by the thousand endearments of her whom he has sworn to love and cherish; such a one does not deserve domestic happiness.
Young reader, and expectant of future domestic bliss take a word of advice: Be good-tempered. You have not much to try your patience now; by-and-by your trials will come on. Now, then, is the time to practise good-temper in the little vexations of life, so as to prepare you for future days. No doubt there are many little rubs and jars to fret and shake even you; many small things, not over and above agreeable to put up with. Bear them you must; but do try and bear them without losing your temper. If a man have a stubborn Or skittish horse to manage, he knows that the best way to deal with it is by gentle, good-humoured coaxing. Just so it is in other things: kindness, gentleness, and downright good-humour will do what all the bl.u.s.tering and anger in the world can not accomplish. If a wagon wheel creaks and works stiff, or if it skids instead of turning round, you know well enough that it wants oiling. Well, always carry a good supply of the oil of good temper about with you, and use it well on every needful occasion; no fear then of creaking wheels as you move along the great highway of life.
Then, on the part, still, of domestic happiness, would we earnestly advise a decent, nay, _a strict regard to personal habits,_ so far, at least, as the feelings of others are concerned. ”It is seldom.”
writes a traveller, ”that I find a.s.sociates in inns who come up to my ideas of what is right and proper in personal habits. The most of them indulge, more or less, in devil's tattooing, in snapping of fingers, in puffing and blowing, and other noises, anomalous and indescribable, often apparently merely to let the other people in the room know that they are there, and not thinking of anything in particular. Few seem to be under any sense of the propriety of subduing as much as possible all sounds connected with the animal functions, though even breathing might, and ought to be managed in perfect silence.” Now, if it were only in inns that disagreeable personal habits are practised, it would not much interfere with the happiness of nine-tenths of the people in the world; but the misfortune is that _home_ is the place where they are to be noticed in full swing--to use a common expression. Indeed, perhaps there are few persons who do not, in a degree at least, mar domestic happiness by persisting in personal peculiarities which they know are unpleasant to those around them. Harmless these habits maybe in themselves, perhaps; but inasmuch as they are teasing, annoying, and irritating to others, they are not harmless. Nay, they are criminal, because they are accompanied by a most unamiable disregard to the feelings of others.
To make home truly happy, _the mind must be cultivated._ It is all very well to say that a man and his wife, and their children, if they have any, ought to be company enough for each other, without seeking society elsewhere; and it is quite right that it should be so: but what if they have nothing to say to each other, as reasonable and thinking beings?--nothing to communicate beyond the veriest common-places--nothing to learn from each other?--nothing but mere animal enjoyments in common? Imagine such a case, reader, where father, mother, and children are sunk in grossest ignorance, without knowledge, without intellectual resources, or even intellectual powers, without books, or any acquaintance with books, or any desire for such acquaintance! What domestic happiness can there be in such a case? As well might we talk of the domestic happiness of a Dog-kennel or sheep-pen, a stable or a pig-stye. And just in proportion as ignorance predominates, so are the chances of domestic happiness diminished. Where there is great ignorance, and contentment with ignorance, there is vice; and vice is not happiness--it cannot be. Therefore, all other things equal, that family will have the greatest chance of the greatest share of domestic happiness where each member of it has the mind to take in, and the heart to give out, a constant succession of fresh ideas, gained from observation, experience, and books. Reader, think of these things.
A SYLVAN MORALITY; OR, A WORD TO WIVES.
”These summer wings Have borne me in my days of idle pleasure; I do discard them.”
”And, Bened.i.c.k, love on; I will requite thee, Taming my wild heart to thy loving hand.”
WE have a young relative, about whom we are going to relate a little anecdote connected with insect history, which requires, however, a few prefatory words.
At the age of seventeen Emily S. ”came out,” gilt and lettered, from the Minerva Press of a fas.h.i.+onable boarding-school, and was two years afterwards bound (in white satin) as a bride. In the short period intervening between these two important epochs, she had had a prodigious run of admiration. Sonnets had been penned on her pencilled brow, and the brows of rival beauties had contracted at the homage paid to hers. All this Emily had liked well enough--perhaps a little better than she ought; but where was the wonder? for besides excuses general (such as early youth and early training) for loving the world and the world's vanities, she had an excuse of her own, in the fact that she had nothing else to love--no mother, no sister, no home--no home at least in its largest and loving sense. She was the orphan but not wealthy ward of a fas.h.i.+onable aunt, in whom the selfish regrets of age had entirely frozen the few sympathies left open by the selfish enjoyments of youth.
When Emily married, and for a few months previous, it was of course to be presumed that she _had_ found something better than the world whereon to fix the affection of her warm young heart. At all events, she had found a somebody to love _her_, and one who was worthy to be loved in return. Indeed, a better fellow than our friend F-- does not live; but though fairly good-looking, and the perfect gentleman, he was not perhaps exactly the _description_ of gentleman to excite any rapid growth of romantic attachment in the bosom of an admired girl of nineteen.
Why did she marry him? Simply because amongst her admirers she liked n.o.body better, and because her aunt, who was anxious to be relieved of her charge, liked n.o.body so well;--not because he had much to offer, but because it was little he required.
Soon after their marriage the happy pair set out for Paris.
F-- though his means were slender and tastes retired, made every effort (as far as bridegroom could so feel it) to gratify his lively young wife by a stay at the capital of pleasure. After subsequent excursion, they returned within a year to England, and settled at a pretty cottage in Berks.h.i.+re, to which we speedily received a cordial invitation. It was no less readily accepted; for we were anxious to behold the ”rural felicity,” of which we little doubted our friends were in full possession.
The result, however, of a week's sojourn at their quiet abode, was the reluctant opinion that, somehow or another, the marriage garments of the young couple did not sit quite easy; though to point out the defect in their make, or to discover where they girted, were matters on which it required more time to form a decided judgment.
One thing, however, was pretty obvious. With her matronly t.i.tle, Emily had not a.s.sumed an atom of that seriousness--not sad, but sober--which became her new estate; nor did she, as we shrewdly suspected, pay quite as much attention to the cares of her little _menage_ as was rendered inc.u.mbent by the limited amount of her husband's income. She seemed, in short, the same thoughtless pleasure-loving, pleasure-seeking girl as ever; now that she was captured, the same volatile b.u.t.terfly as when surrounded and chased by b.u.t.terflies like herself. But her captor? asks some modern Petruchio--had he not, or could he not contrive to clip her pinions?
Poor F--! not he! he would have feared to ”brush the dust” from off them; and, from something of this over-tenderness, had been feeding, with the honeyed pleasures of the French capital, those tastes which (without them) might have been reconciled already to the more spare and simple sociabilities of a retired English neighbourhood. He was only now trying the experiment which should have been made a year ago, and that with a reluctant and undecided hand.
Poor Emily! her love of gayety had now, it is true, but little scope for its display; but it was still strongly apparent, in the rapturous regret with which she referred to pleasures past, and the rapturous delight with which she greeted certain occasional breaks in the monotony of a country life. An approaching dinner-party would raise her tide of spirits, and a distant ball or bow-meeting make them swell into a flood. On one or two of such occasions, we fancied that F--, though never stern, looked grave--grave enough to have been set down as an unreasonable fellow; if not by every one, at least by that complex ”everybody” who declared that his wife was ”one of the prettiest and sweetest little women in the world,” and, as everybody must be right, so of course it was.
Rarely, indeed, had our gentle Bened.i.c.k beheld the face of his ”Young May Moon” absolutely obscured; but then it had always been his care to chase away from it every pa.s.sing or even approaching cloud; and he would certainly have liked, in return, that its very brightest rays should have shone on him direct, instead of reaching him only, as it were, reflected from what in his eyes, certainly, were very inferior objects.
We had pa.s.sed some weeks at our entertainer's cottage when rumours got afloat, such as had not disturbed for many a year the standing and sometimes stagnant pool of Goslington society. The son of Lord W--was about to come of age, and the event was to be celebrated by grand doings; a varied string of entertainments, to be wound up, so it was whispered, by a great parti-coloured or fancy ball. Rumours were soon silenced by certainty, and our friends were amongst those who received an invitation to meet all the world of Goslington and a fragment of the world of London, about to be brought into strange conjunction at W--Castle. What shapes! grotesque, and gay, and gorgeous--ghosts of things departed--started up before the sparkling eyes of Emily, as she put the reviving talisman into F--'s hand.
No wonder that her charmed sight failed to discover what was, however, sufficiently apparent, that her husband's delight at the honour done them by no means equalled hers. Indeed, we were pretty certain that not merely dissatisfaction, but even dissent, was to be read in his compressed lip, and, for once, forbidding eye.
Nothing was said then upon the subject; but we saw the next morning something very like coolness on the part of F-- towards his wife, which was returned on hers by something very like petulance. Ah!
thought we, it all comes of this unlucky fancy ball! We had often heard it declared by our friend that he hated every species of masquerade, and would never allow (though this as certainly before his marriage) either sister, wife, or daughter of his to attend one.
But, besides this aversion for such entertainments in general, he had reasons, as we afterwards gathered, for disliking, in particular, this fancy ball of Lord W--'s. Amongst the ”London World” Emily would be sure to meet several of her quondam acquaintances, perhaps admirers; and though he was no jealous husband, he preferred, on many accounts, that such meetings should be avoided.
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