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Title: How to be Happy Though Married: Being a Handbook to Marriage

Author: E. J. Hardy

Release date: March 9, 2011 [eBook #35534]

Language: English

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HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED: BEING A HANDBOOK TO MARRIAGE
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HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED.

PRESS NOTICES ON THE FIRST
EDITION.

"If wholesome advice you can brook,
When single too long you have tarried;
If comfort you'd gain from a book,
When very much wedded and harried;
No doubt you should speedily look,
In 'How to be Happy though Married!'"—
Punch.

"We strongly recommend this book as one of
the best of wedding presents. It is a complete
handbook to an earthly Paradise, and its author
may be regarded as the Murray of Matrimony and
the Baedeker of Bliss."—Pall Mall Gazette.

"The author has successfully accomplished a
difficult task in writing a clever and practical book
on the important subject of matrimony.... This
book, which is at once entertaining and full of
wise precepts, deserves to be widely read."—
Morning Post.

"An entertaining volume.... The new guide to
matrimonial felicity."—Standard, Leader.

"A clever, readable, and entertaining book....
This delicious book."—Literary Churchman.

"This most elucidatory treatise.... As a
'companion to the honeymoon,' this orange
blossom, true-love-knot ornamented volume
should no doubt be highly esteemed."—Whitehall
Review.

"The book is tastefully got up, and its contents
adapt it very well for a present to a young
bride."—Queen.

"One of the cleverest, best written books on the
subject we have read at any time. To girls
contemplating marriage, the volume should be
presented as a wedding gift.... Grave and gay, but
never for a moment dull or tiresome. Each page
sparkles with anecdote or suggestive
illustration."—Ladies' Treasury.

"A highly ornamental yet handy, well printed,
and admirably written volume."—The Lady.

"A rich store of entertaining anecdote, and full
of thoughts beautiful, pious, and wise. Has a
tasteful binding."—Bookseller.

HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED
BEING A

Handbook to Marriage

BY

A GRADUATE IN THE UNIVERSITY OF MATRIMONY.

"Domestic happiness, thou only bliss
Of Paradise that hast survived the fall!
Though few now taste thee, unimpaired and pure,
Or, tasting, long enjoy thee, too infirm
Or too incautious to preserve thy sweets
Unmixed with drops of bitters, which neglect
Or temper sheds into thy crystal cup."—Cowper.
"It is fit that I should infuse a bunch of myrrh into the festival goblet, and, after the Egyptian
manner, serve up a dead man's bones at a feast: I will only show it, and take it away again; it will
make the wine bitter, but wholesome."—Jeremy Taylor.

SEVENTH AND POPULAR EDITION.

LONDON
T FISHER UNWIN
26 Paternoster Square
1887

TO THOSE BRAVE MEN AND WOMEN WHO HAVE VENTURED, OR
WHO
INTEND TO VENTURE, INTO THAT STATE WHICH IS "A
BLESSING TO A FEW, A CURSE TO MANY, AND A
GREAT UNCERTAINTY TO ALL," THIS BOOK
IS RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED IN
ADMIRATION OF THEIR
COURAGE.

PREFACE.

Most of the books intended to give "counsel and ghostly strength" to
newly-married people are so like a collection of sermons that they are given
away rather than read. When writing the following pages I have
remembered that the only kind of vice all people agree to shun is—advice,
and have endeavoured to hide the pill. This is my excuse if at times I seem
to fall into anecdotage.

One day two birds were busy building their nest in Luther's garden.
Observing that they were often scared while committing their petty thefts
by the passers to and fro, the Doctor exclaimed, "Oh, poor little birds! fly
not away; I wish you well with all my heart, if you would only believe me!"
If any birds of Paradise, or, to speak plainly, newly-married people, are a
little scared by the title of this book or by any of its contents, I assure them
that, while trying to place before them the responsibilities they have
undertaken, I wish them well with all my heart, and take great interest in
their nest-building.

To ask critics to be merciful at a time when new books are so numerous
that our eyes ache with reading and our fingers with turning the pages,
would be to ask them not to do their duty. They are the policemen of
literature, and they are bound to make bad and worthless books "move on"
out of the way of their betters. I can only hope that if any notice this little
venture they may not feel obliged to "crush" it "among the stoure," as the
Ayrshire ploughman had to crush the "wee, modest, crimson-tipped flower."

I take this opportunity of thanking M. H., my best friend, without whose
help and sympathy this book would be a worse one than it is, and my life
much more unsatisfactory.

Part of the first chapter was published in Chambers's Journal, and I am
indebted to Cassell's Saturday Journal for two anecdotes. I now tender my
best thanks to the proprietors of those periodicals for permission to reprint
the passages.

PREFACE
TO THE SECOND EDITION.

The "wee, modest, crimson-tipped flower," as I called this book when it
first made its appearance, has not been crushed with the ploughshare of
criticism "among the stoure." On the contrary, it has been so well received
that I am full of gratitude to the reviewers who recommended it and to the
public who bought it. One critic suggested that to make the work complete
a chapter on second marriages should be added. My reason for not writing
such a chapter is that, not having myself been as yet often married, I did not
presume to give advice to widows and widowers who have their own
experience to guide them.

Taking up the book in a lending library a friend read aloud the title to a
lady who accompanied her—"How to be Happy though Married." Lady:
"Oh, bother the happiness; does it tell how to be married?" I hope that I may
be pardoned if I cannot always do this.

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I. PAGE
HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED 1

CHAPTER II.
TO BE OR NOT TO BE—MARRIED? 9

CHAPTER III.
MARRIAGE-MADE MEN 20

CHAPTER IV.
THE CHOICE OF A WIFE 33

CHAPTER V.
THE CHOICE OF A HUSBAND 45

CHAPTER VI.
ON MAKING THE BEST OF A BAD MATRIMONIAL BARGAIN 52

CHAPTER VII.
MARRIAGE CONSIDERED AS A DISCIPLINE OF CHARACTER 65

CHAPTER VIII.
BEING MARRIED 71

CHAPTER IX.
HONEYMOONING 80

CHAPTER X.
MARRIAGE VOWS 87

CHAPTER XI.
"DRIVE GENTLY OVER THE STONES!" 101

CHAPTER XII.
FURNISHING 113

CHAPTER XIII.
MARRIED PEOPLE'S MONEY 119

CHAPTER XIV.
THE MANAGEMENT OF SERVANTS 129

CHAPTER XV.
PREPARATION FOR PARENTHOOD 140

CHAPTER XVI.
"WHAT IS THE USE OF A CHILD?" 146

CHAPTER XVII.
THE EDUCATION OF PARENTS 155

CHAPTER XVIII.
WANTED!—MOTHERS 162

CHAPTER XIX.
"NURSING FATHERS" 172

CHAPTER XX.
POLITENESS AT HOME 184

CHAPTER XXI.
SUNSHINE 192

CHAPTER XXII.
THEY HAD A FEW WORDS 201

CHAPTER XXIII.
PULLING TOGETHER 211

CHAPTER XXIV.
NETS AND CAGES 221

CHAPTER XXV.
HUSBANDS HAVE DUTIES TOO 235

CHAPTER XXVI.
THE HEALTH OF THE FAMILY 244

CHAPTER XXVII.
LOVE SURVIVING MARRIAGE 254

CHAPTER XXVIII.
"HE WILL NOT SEPARATE US, WE HAVE BEEN SO HAPPY" 260

CHAPTER I.
HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED.

"How delicious is the winning
Of a kiss at love's beginning,
When two mutual hearts are sighing
For the knot there's no untying!"—T. Campbell.
"Deceive not thyself by over-expecting happiness in the married state. Look not therein
for contentment greater than God will give, or a creature in this world can receive, namely,
to be free from all inconveniences. Marriage is not like the hill Olympus, wholly clear,
without clouds."—Fuller.

"How to be happy though married." This was the quaint title of one of
Skelton's sermons, which would certainly cause a momentary cloud of
indignation, not to say of alarm, to pass over the minds of a newly-married
couple, should they discover it when skimming through a collection of old
volumes on the first wet day of their honeymoon.

"Two young persons thrown together by chance, or brought together by
artifice, exchange glances, reciprocate civilities, and go home to dream of
each other. Finding themselves rather uncomfortable apart, they think they
necessarily must be happy together." But there is no such necessity. In
marriage the measure of our happiness is usually in proportion to our
deserts.

"No man e'er gained a happy life by chance,
Or yawned it into being with a wish."

This, however, is just what many novices think they can do in reference
to matrimony. They fancy that it has a magic power of conferring happiness

almost in spite of themselves, and are quite surprised when experience
teaches them that domestic felicity, like everything else worth having, must
be worked for—must be earned by patient endurance, self-restraint, and
loving consideration for the tastes, and even for the faults, of him or her
with whom life is to be lived.

And yet before the first year of married life has ended, most people
discover that Skelton's subject, "How to be happy though married," was not
an unpractical one. Then they know that the path upon which they have
entered may be strewn with thorns instead of with roses, unless mutual
forbearance and mutual respect guard the way. The old bachelor who said
that marriage was "a very harmless amusement" would not have
pronounced such an unconditional judgment had he known more about it.
Matrimony is a harmless and a happy state only when careful precaution is
taken to defend the domain of the affections from harshness and petulance,
and to avoid certain moral and physical pitfalls.

Like government, marriage must be a series of compromises; and
however warm the love of both parties may be, it will very soon cool unless
they learn the golden rule of married life, "To bear and to forbear." In
matrimony, as in so many other things, a good beginning is half the battle.
But how easily may good beginnings be frustrated through infirmity of
temper and other causes, and then we must "tread those steps with sorrow
which we might have trod with joy."

"I often think," says Archdeacon Farrar, "that most of us in life are like
many of those sight-seers who saunter through this (Westminster) Abbey.
Their listless look upon its grandeur and its memorials furnishes an
illustration of the aspect which we present to higher powers as we wander
restlessly through the solemn minster-aisles of life.... We talk of human
misery; how many of us derive from life one-tenth part of what God meant
to be its natural blessedness? Sit out in the open air on a summer day, and
how many of us have trained ourselves to notice the sweetness and the
multiplicity of the influences which are combining for our delight—the
song of birds; the breeze beating balm upon the forehead; the genial
warmth; the delicate odour of ten thousand flowers?"

What is said here of life in general is also true of married life. We go
through the temple of Hymen without noticing, much less appreciating, its
beauty. Certainly few people gain as much happiness from their marriage as
they might. They expect to find happiness without taking any trouble to
make it, or they are so selfishly preoccupied that they cannot enjoy. In this
way many a husband and wife only begin to value each other when death is
at hand to separate them.

In married life sacrifices must be ever going on if we would be happy. It
is the power to make another glad which lights up our own face with joy. It
is the power to bear another's burden which lifts the load from our own
heart. To foster with vigilant, self-denying care the development of
another's life is the surest way to bring into our own joyous, stimulating
energy. Bestow nothing, receive nothing; sow nothing, reap nothing; bear
no burden of others, be crushed under your own. If many people are
miserable though married, it is because they ignore the great law of self-
sacrifice that runs through all nature, and expect blessedness from receiving
rather than from giving. They reckon that they have a right to so much
service, care, and tenderness from those who love them, instead of asking
how much service, care, and tenderness they can give.

No knowledge is so well worth acquiring as the science of living
harmoniously for the most part of a life with another, which we might take
as a definition of matrimony. This science teaches us to avoid fault-finding,
bothering, boring, and other tormenting habits. "These are only trifling
faults," you say. Yes, but trifles produce domestic misery, and domestic
misery is no trifle.

"Since trifles make the sum of human things,
And half our misery from those trifles springs,
Oh! let the ungentle spirit learn from thence,
A small unkindness is a great offence.
To give rich gifts perhaps we wish in vain,
But all may shun the guilt of giving pain."

Husband and wife should burn up in the bonfire of first-love all hobbies
and "little ways" that could possibly prevent home from being sweet. How
happy people are, though married, when they can say of each other what

Mrs. Hare says of her husband in "Memorials of a Quiet Life": "I never saw
anybody so easy to live with, by whom the daily petty things of life were
passed over so lightly; and then there is a charm in the refinement of feeling
which is not to be told in its influence upon trifles."

A married pair should be all the world to each other. Sydney Smith's
definition of marriage is well known: "It resembles a pair of shears, so
joined that they cannot be separated, often moving in opposite directions,
yet always punishing any one who comes between them." Certainly those
who go between deserve to be punished; and in whatever else they may
differ, married people should agree to defend themselves from the well-
meant, perhaps, but irritating interference of friends. Above all, they should
remember the proverb about the home-washing of soiled linen, for, as old
Fuller said, "Jars concealed are half reconciled; while, if generally known,
'tis a double task to stop the breach at home and men's mouths abroad."

Why should love-making end with courtship, and of what use are
conquests if they are not guarded? If the love of a life-partner is of far more
value than our perverse fancies, it is the part of wisdom to restrain these in
order to keep that. A suggestion was recently made from an American pulpit
that there was room for a new society which should teach husband and wife
their duty to each other. "The first article of the constitution should be that
any person applying for membership should solemnly covenant and agree
that throughout married life he or she would carefully observe and practise
all courtesy, thoughtfulness, and unselfishness that belong to what is known
as the 'engagement' period. The second article should be that neither
member of a conjugal partnership should listen to a single word of criticism
of the other member from any relative whatever, even should the words of
wisdom drop from the lips of father, mother, brother, or sister. The rules of
the new society need not extend beyond these two, for there would be
nothing in the conduct of members in good standing to require other special
attention."

The wife, on her part, ought not to be less desirous than she was in the
days of courtship of winning her husband's admiration, merely because she
now wears upon her finger a golden pledge of his love. Why should she
give up those pretty wiles to seem fair and pleasant in his eyes, that were

suggested in love-dreams? Instead of lessening her charms, she should
endeavour to double them, in order that home may be to him who has paid
her the greatest compliment in his power, the dearest and brightest spot
upon earth—one to which he may turn for comfort when sick of business
and the weary ways of men generally.

George Eliot tells us that marriage must be a relation either of sympathy
or of conquest; and it is undoubtedly true that much of the matrimonial
discord that exists arises from the mutual struggle for supremacy. They go
to church and say "I will," and then, perhaps, on the way home, one or other
says "I won't," and that begins it. "What is the reason," said one Irishman to
another, "that you and your wife are always disagreeing?" "Because,"
replied Pat, "we are both of one mind—she wants to be master and so do I."
How shall a man retain his wife's affections? Is it by not returning them?
Certainly not. The secret of conjugal felicity is contained in this formula:
demonstrative affection and self-sacrifice. A man should not only love his
wife dearly, but he should tell her that he loves her, and tell her very often,
and each should be willing to yield, not once or twice, but constantly, and as
a practice to the other. Selfishness crushes out love, and most of the couples
who are living without affection for each other, with cold and dead hearts,
with ashes where there should be a bright and holy flame, have destroyed
themselves by caring too much for themselves and too little for each other.

Each young couple that begins housekeeping on the right basis brings the
Garden of Eden before man once more. There are they, two, alone; love
raises a wall between them and the outer world. There is no serpent there—
and, indeed, he need never come, nor does he, so long as Adam and Eve
keep him at bay; but too often the hedge of love is broken, just a little, by
small discourtesies, little inattentions, small incivilities, that gradually but
surely become wider and wider holes, until there is no hedge at all, and all
sorts of monsters enter in and riot there.

"Out of the very ripeness of life's core,
A worm was bred."

The only real preservative against this worm is true religion. Unhappily
for themselves the healthy and young sometimes fancy that they need not
think of this. They forget that religion is required to ennoble and sanctify

this present life, and are too liable to associate it exclusively with the
contemplation of death. "So 'a cried out—God, God, God! three or four
times: now I, to comfort him, bid him 'a should not think of God; I hoped
there was no need to trouble himself with any such thoughts yet." This
advice, which Mrs. Quickly gave to Falstaff on his deathbed, reflects the
thoughts of many people, but it was not sound advice. Certainly it would be
cruel rather than kind to advise a young pair who have leaped into the dark
of married life not to think of God. He is a Saviour from trouble rather than
a troubler, and the husband and wife who never try to serve Him will not be
likely to serve each other or to gain much real happiness from their
marriage.

The following is related in the memoirs of Mary Somerville. When a girl
she and her brother had coaxed their timid mother to accompany them for a
sail. The day was sunny, but a stiff breeze was blowing, and presently the
boat began to toss and roll. "George," Mrs. Fairfax called to the man in
charge, "this is an awful storm! I fear we are in great danger; mind how you
steer; remember I trust in you!" He replied, "Dinna trust in me, leddy; trust
in God Almighty." In terror the lady exclaimed, "Dear me, is it come to
that!" To that it ought to come on the day of marriage quite as much as on
the day of death. It is not only in times of danger and distress that we want
God's presence, but in the time of our well-being, when all goes merry as a
marriage bell. Live away from Him, and the happiness you enjoy to-day
may become your misery to-morrow.

CHAPTER II.
TO BE OR NOT TO BE—MARRIED?

"A bitter and perplexed 'What shall I do?'"—Coleridge.

"Then, why pause with indecision
When bright angels in thy vision
Beckon thee to fields Elysian?"—Longfellow.

To be or not to be—married? That is the question that may occur to
readers of the last chapter. If so much precaution and preparation are
necessary to ensure a harmless, not to say a happy marriage, is the game
worth the candle? Is it not better for the unmarried to cultivate the contented
state of mind of that old Scotch lady who said, "I wadna gie my single life
for a' the double anes I ever saw"?

The controversy as to whether celibacy or wedlock be the happier state is
a very old one, perhaps as old as what may be called the previous question
—whether life itself be worth living. Some people are very ingenious in
making themselves miserable, no matter in what condition of life they find
themselves; and there are a sufficient number of querulous celibates as well
as over-anxious married people in the world to make us see the wisdom of
the sage's words: "Whichever you do, whether you marry or abstain, you
will repent." If matrimony has more pleasures and celibacy fewer pains, if
loving be "a painful thrill, and not to love more painful still," it is
impossible exactly to balance the happiness of these two states, containing
respectively more pleasure and more pain, and less pleasure and less pain.
"If hopes are dupes, fears may be liars."

It has been said of the state of matrimony that those who are in desire to
get out, and those who are out, wish to enter. The more one thinks on the
matter in this spirit, the more one becomes convinced that the Scotch
minister was by no means an alarmist who thus began an extempore
marriage service: "My friends, marriage is a blessing to a few, a curse to
many, and a great uncertainty to all. Do ye venture?" After a pause, he
repeated with great emphasis, "Do ye venture?" No objection being made to
the venture, he then said, "Let's proceed."

With the opinion of this Scotch minister we may compare that of Lord
Beaconsfield: "I have often thought that all women should marry, and no
men." The Admiral of Castile said, that "he who marries a wife and he who
goes to war must necessarily submit to everything that may happen." There
will, however, always be young men and maidens who believe that nothing
can happen in matrimony that is worse than never to be married at all.

When Joseph Alleine, who was a great student, married, he received a
letter of congratulation from an old college friend, who said that he had
some thoughts of following his example, but wished to be wary, and would
therefore take the freedom of asking him to describe the inconveniences of
a married life. Alleine replied, "Thou would'st know the inconveniences of
a wife, and I will tell thee. First of all, whereas thou risest constantly at four
in the morning, or before, she will keep thee till six; secondly, whereas thou
usest to study fourteen hours in the day, she will bring thee to eight or nine;
thirdly, whereas thou art wont to forbear one meal at least in the day for thy
studies, she will bring thee to thy meat. If these are not mischief enough to
affright thee, I know not what thou art." Most people will think that such
"inconveniences of a wife" are the strongest arguments in her favour.
Nearly all men, but especially bookish men, require the healthy common-
sense influence of women to guide and sweetly order their lives. If we make
fools of ourselves with them, we are even greater fools without them.

With whatever luxuries a bachelor may be surrounded, he will always
find his happiness incomplete unless he has a wife and children to share it.

Who does not sympathize with Leigh Hunt? When in prison he wrote to
the governor requesting that "his wife and children might be allowed to be
with him in the daytime: that his happiness was bound up in them, and that

a separation in respect of abode would be almost as bad to him as tearing
his body asunder."

To be, or not to be—married? This is one of those questions in reference
to which the speculative reason comes to no certain conclusion. Solvitur
ambulando. It has nearly distracted some men, whose minds were sicklied
o'er with the pale cast of thought. They have almost died of indecision, like
the donkey between two exactly similar bundles of hay. An individual of
this description, who was well known to the writer, after dropping into a
letter-pillar a proposal to a young lady, was seen a few moments afterwards
endeavouring to extract with a stick the precious document. Failing in his
attempt, the wretched mortal walked round and round the pillar, tortured
with the recurrence of reasons against matrimony which he had lately
argued away. Fortunately for both parties the lady refused the tempting
offer.

And yet this hesitating lover was, perhaps, but a type of many young men
of the age. Nowadays, it is often said they are giving up matrimony as if it
were some silly old habit suited only to their grandfathers and
grandmothers. The complaint is an old one. It was brought against pagan
youths more than eighteen hundred years ago, and yet the world has got
along. But can all the blame be justly thrown upon the one sex to the
exclusion of the other? Have thoughtless extravagance and ignorance of
household economy on the part of the ladies no share in deterring the men
from making so perilous a venture?

It is said that years ago in Burmah the ladies of the Court met in formal
parliament to decide what should be done to cure the increasing aversion of
young men to marriage. Their decision was a wise one. They altered, by an
order from the palace, the style of dress to be worn by all honest women,
reduced the ornaments to be assumed by wives to the fewest and simplest
possible, and ordained that at a certain age women should withdraw from
the frivolities of fashion and of the fashionable world. Success was the
result, and young Burmah went up in a body to the altar.

Robert Burton, in his very quaint and interesting "Anatomy of
Melancholy," gives an abstract of all that may be said "to mitigate the
miseries of marriage," by Jacobus de Voragine. "Hast thou means? thou hast

none to keep and increase it. Hast none? thou hast one to help to get it. Art
in prosperity? thine happiness is doubled. Art in adversity? she'll comfort,
assist, bear a part of thy burden to make it more tolerable. Art at home?
she'll drive away melancholy. Art abroad? she looks after thee going from
home, wishes for thee in thine absence, and joyfully welcomes thy return.
There's nothing delightsome without society, no society so sweet as
matrimony. The band of conjugal love is adamantine. The sweet company
of kinsmen increaseth, the number of parents is doubled, of brothers, sisters,
nephews. Thou art made a father by a fair and happy issue. Moses curseth
the barrenness of matrimony—how much more a single life!" "All this,"
says Burton, "is true; but how easy a mater is it to answer quite opposite! To
exercise myself I will essay. Hast thou means? thou hast one to spend it.
Hast none? thy beggary is increased. Art in prosperity? thy happiness is
ended. Art in adversity? like Job's wife, she'll aggravate thy misery, vex thy
soul, make thy burden intolerable. Art at home? she'll scold thee out of
doors. Art abroad? If thou be wise, keep thee so; she'll perhaps graft horns
in thine absence, scowl on thee coming home. Nothing gives more content
than solitariness, no solitariness like this of a single life. The band of
marriage is adamantine—no hope of loosing it; thou art undone. Thy
number increaseth; thou shalt be devoured by thy wife's friends. Paul
commends marriage, yet he prefers a single life. Is marriage honourable?
What an immortal crown belongs to virginity! 'Tis a hazard both ways, I
confess, to live single, or to marry; it may be bad, it may be good; as it is a
cross and calamity on the one side, so 'tis a sweet delight, an incomparable
happiness, a blessed estate, a most unspeakable benefit, a sole content, on
the other—'tis all in the proof."

In balancing this question Lord Bacon takes higher ground, and thinks of
the effect of marriage and celibacy on a man in his public capacity. "He that
hath wife and children hath given hostages to Fortune, for they are
impediments to great enterprises, either of virtue or mischief. Certainly the
best works, and of the greatest merit for the public, have proceeded from
the unmarried or childless men, which, both in affection and means, have
married and endowed the public. Yet it were great reason that those that
have children should have greatest care of future times, unto which they
know they must transmit their dearest pledges. Some there are who, though
they lead a single life, yet their thoughts do end with themselves, and

account future times impertinences. Nay, there are some other that account
wife and children but as bills of charges. Nay more, there are some foolish,
rich, covetous men that take a pride in having no children because they may
be thought so much the richer. For perhaps they have heard some talk: 'Such
an one is a great rich man;' and another except to it: 'Yea, but he hath a great
charge of children,' as if it were an abatement to his riches. But the most
ordinary cause of a single life is liberty, especially in certain self-pleasing
and humorous minds, which are so sensible of every restraint, as they will
go near to think their girdles and garters to be bonds and shackles.
Unmarried men are best friends, best masters, best servants, but not always
best subjects, for they are light to run away, and almost all fugitives are of
that condition. A single life doth well with church men, for charity will
hardly water the ground where it must first fill a pool."

After all, these enumerations of the comparative advantages of marriage
and celibacy are of little use, for a single glance of a pair of bright eyes will
cause antimatrimonial arguments to go down like ninepins. The greatest
misogamists have been most severely wounded when least expecting it by
the darts of Cupid. Such a mishap, according to the anatomist of
melancholy already quoted, had "Stratocles the physician, that blear-eyed
old man. He was a severe woman's-hater all his life, a bitter persecutor of
the whole sex; he foreswore them all still, and mocked them wheresoever
he came in such vile terms, that if thou hadst heard him thou wouldst have
loathed thine own mother and sisters for his word's sake. Yet this old doting
fool was taken at last with that celestial and divine look of Myrilla, the
daughter of Anticles the gardener, that smirking wench, that he shaved off
his bushy beard, painted his face, curled his hair, wore a laurel crown to
cover his bald pate, and for her love besides was ready to run mad."

If it be true that "nothing is certain but death and taxes," we must not
seek for mathematical demonstration that the road we propose to travel on
is the right one when we come to crossroads in life. A certain amount of
probability ought to make us take either one or the other, for not to resolve
is to resolve. In reference to such questions as marriage versus celibacy, the
choice of a wife, the choice of a profession, and many others, there must be
a certain venture of faith, and in this unintelligible world there is a rashness
which is not always folly.

There are, of course, many persons who, if they married, would be guilty
of great imprudence, not to say of downright crime. When, however, two
lovers—we emphasise the word—have sufficient means, are of a suitable
age, and are conscious of no moral, intellectual, or physical impediment, let
them marry. It is the advice of some very wise men. Benjamin Franklin
wrote to a young friend upon his marriage: "I am glad you are married, and
congratulate you most cordially upon it. You are now in the way of
becoming a useful citizen, and you have escaped the unnatural state of
celibacy for life—the fate of many here who never intended it, but who,
having too long postponed the change of their condition, find at length that
it is too late to think of it, and so live all their lives in a situation that greatly
lessens a man's value. An old volume of a set of books bears not the value
of its proportion to the set. What think you of the odd half of a pair of
scissors? It can't well cut anything—it may possibly serve to scrape a
trencher!"

Dr. Johnson says: "Marriage is the best state for man in general; and
every man is a worse man in proportion as he is unfit for the married state."
Of marriage Luther observed: "The utmost blessing that God can confer on
a man is the possession of a good and pious wife, with whom he may live in
peace and tranquillity, to whom he may confide his whole possessions, even
his life and welfare." And again he said: "To rise betimes and to marry
young are what no man ever repents of doing." Shakespeare would not
"admit impediments to the marriage of true minds."

The cares and troubles of married life are many, but are those of single
life few? The bachelor has no one on whom in all cases he can rely. As a
rule his expenses are as great as those of a married man, his life less useful,
and certainly it is less cheerful. "What a life to lead!" exclaims Cobbett.
"No one to talk to without going from home, or without getting some one to
come to you; no friend to sit and talk to, pleasant evenings to pass! Nobody
to share with you your sorrows or your pleasures; no soul having a common
interest with you; all around you taking care of themselves and no care of
you! Then as to gratifications, from which you will hardly abstain
altogether—are they generally of little expense? and are they attended with
no trouble, no vexation, no disappointment, no jealousy even? and are they
never followed by shame and remorse? To me no being in this world

appears so wretched as an old bachelor. Those circumstances, those
changes in his person and in his mind, which in the husband increase rather
than diminish the attentions to him, produce all the want of feeling
attendant on disgust; and he beholds in the conduct of the mercenary crowd
that surround him little besides an eager desire to profit from that event the
approach of which nature makes a subject of sorrow with him."

And yet it would be very wrong to hasten young men in this matter, for
however miserable an old bachelor may be, he is far more happy than either
a bad husband or the husband of a bad wife. What is one man's meat may be
another man's poison. To some persons we might say, "If you marry you do
well, but if you marry not you do better." In the case of others marriage may
have decidedly the advantage. Like most other things marriage is good or
bad according to the use or abuse we make of it. The applause that is
usually given to persons on entering the matrimonial stage is, to say the
least, premature. Let us wait to see how they will play their parts.

And here we must protest against the foolish and cowardly ridicule that is
sometimes bestowed upon elderly men and women who, using the liberty of
a free country, have abstained from marrying. Certainly some of them could
give reasons for spending their lives outside the temple of Hymen that are
far more honourable than the motives which induced their foolish detractors
to rush in. Some have never found their other selves, or circumstances
prevented the junction of these selves. And which is more honourable—a
life of loneliness or a loveless marriage? There are others who have laid
down their hopes of wedded bliss for the sake of accomplishing some good
work, or for the sake of a father, mother, sister, or brother. In such cases
celibacy is an honourable and may be a praiseworthy state.

To make "old maid" a term of reproach has mischievous results, and
causes many an ill-assorted marriage. Girls have been hurried into marriage
by the dread of being so stigmatized who have repented the step to their
dying day. The sacredness of marriage and the serious responsibilities it
brings are either ignored altogether or but lightly considered when marriage
is represented as the only profession for women. There is no truth in
Brigham Young's doctrine that only a woman sealed to a man in marriage
can possibly be saved.

Let mothers teach their daughters that although a well-assorted marriage
based upon mutual love and esteem may be the happiest calling for a
woman, yet that marriage brings its peculiar trials as well as special joys,
and that it is quite possible for a woman to be both useful and happy,
although youth be fled, and the crowning joys of life—wife and
motherhood—have passed her by or been voluntarily surrendered.

But this fact that celibacy has many consolations need not prevent the
conclusion that as a rule married life is to be preferred.

"Jeanie," said an old Cameronian to his daughter, who was asking his
permission to marry—"Jeanie, it's a very solemn thing to get married."

"I ken that, father," said the sensible lassie, "but it's a great deal solemner
to be single."

Marriages are made in heaven: matrimony in itself is good, but there are
fools who turn every blessing into a curse, like the man who said, "This is a
good rope, I'll hang myself with it."

CHAPTER III.
MARRIAGE-MADE MEN.

"A wife's a man's best peace, who, till he marries,
Wants making up....
She is the good man's paradise, and the bad's
First step to heaven."—Shirley.

"Th' ever womanly
Draweth us onward!"—Goethe.

"This is well,
To have a dame indoors, that trims us up,
And keeps us tight."—Tennyson.

If there be any man—women are seldom anti-matrimonial bigots—who
seriously doubts that the pros in favour of marriage more than
counterbalance the cons, we commend to his consideration a few historical
instances in which men have been made men in the highest sense of the
word by marriage.

We do not endorse the exaggerated statement of Richter that "no man can
live piously or die righteously without a wife," but we think that the
chances of his doing so are considerably lessened. It is not good for a man
to live alone with his evil thoughts. The checks and active duties of
marriage are the best antidote, not only to an impure life, but to the
dreaming and droning of a useless and purposeless one.

Certainly there are some men and women who without wives or
husbands are marriage-made in the sense of having their love and powers

drawn out by interesting work. They are married to some art or utility, or
instead of loving one they love all. When this last is the case they go down
into the haunts of evil, seek out the wretched, and spare neither themselves
nor their money in their Christ-like enthusiasm for humanity. But the luxury
of doing good is by no means confined to the celibate. On the contrary, the
man with a wife and children in whose goodness and happiness he rejoices
may be much better prepared to aid and sympathize with the erring and the
suffering. The flood-gates of his affections may have been opened, and he
may have become receptive to influences which had upon him beforetime
little or no effect.

Not a few good and great men have confessed that they were marriage-
made to a very considerable extent. The following testimony was given by
De Tocqueville in a letter to a friend: "I cannot describe to you the
happiness yielded in the long run by the habitual society of a woman, in
whose soul all that is good in your own is reflected naturally, and even
improved. When I say or do a thing which seems to me to be perfectly right,
I read immediately in Marie's countenance an expression of proud
satisfaction which elevates me; and so when my conscience reproaches me
her face instantly clouds over. Although I have great power over her mind, I
see with pleasure that she awes me; and so long as I love her as I do now I
am sure that I shall never allow myself to be drawn into anything that is
wrong."

Many a man has been shown the pathway to heaven by his wife's practice
of piety. "My mercy," says Bunyan, "was to light upon a wife whose father
and mother were accounted godly. This woman and I, though we came
together as poor as poor might be (not having so much household stuff as a
dish or a spoon betwixt us both), yet she had for her part 'The Plain Man's
Pathway to Heaven' and 'The Practice of Piety,' which her father had left her
when he died." By reading these and other good books, helped by the
kindly influence of his wife, Bunyan was gradually reclaimed from his evil
ways, and led gently into the way of righteousness.

Nor does this companionship of good wives, which enables men to gain
"in sweetness and in moral height," cause them in the least degree to lose
"the wrestling thews which throw the world." Quite the reverse. Weak men

have displayed real public virtue, and strong men have been made stronger,
because they had by their side a woman of noble character, who exercised a
fortifying influence on their conduct. Lady Rachel Russell is one of the
many celebrated women who have encouraged their husbands to suffer and
be strong. She sat beside her husband day after day during his public trial,
taking notes and doing everything to help him.

In the sixth year of his marriage Baxter was brought before the
magistrates for holding a conventicle, and was sentenced to be confined in
Clerkenwell Gaol. There he was joined by his wife, who affectionately
nursed him during his imprisonment. "She was never so cheerful a
companion to me," he says, "as in prison, and was very much against me
seeking to be released."

There is a sort of would-be wit which consists in jesting at the supposed
bondage of the married state. The best answer to this plentiful lack of wit is
the fact that some of the best of men have kissed the shackles which a wife
imposes, and have either thought or said, "If this be slavery, who'd be free?"
Luther, speaking of his wife, said, "I would not exchange my poverty with
her for all the riches of Crœsus without her." In more recent times the
French statesman, M. Guizot, says in his "Mémoires": "What I know to-day,
at the end of my race, I have felt when it began, and during its continuance.
Even in the midst of great undertakings domestic affections form the basis
of life, and the most brilliant career has only superficial and incomplete
enjoyments if a stranger to the happy ties of family and friendship." Not
long ago, when speaking of his wife, Prince Bismarck said, "She it is who
has made me what I am."

And there have been English statesmen who could say quite as much.
Burke was sustained amid the anxiety and agitation of public life by
domestic felicity. "Every care vanishes," he said, "the moment I enter under
my own roof!" Of his wife he said that she was "not made to be the
admiration of everybody, but the happiness of one." A writer in a recent
number of Leisure Hour relates the following of Lord Beaconsfield: "The
grateful affection which he entertained for his wife, whom he always
esteemed as the founder of his fortunes, is well known. She was in the habit
of travelling with him on almost all occasions. A friend of the earl and of

the narrator of the incident was dining with him, when one of the party—a
Member of the House for many years, of a noble family, but rather
remarkable for raising a laugh at his buffoonery than any admiration for his
wisdom—had no better taste or grace than to expostulate with Disraeli for
always taking the viscountess with him. 'I cannot understand it,' said the
graceless man, 'for, you know, you make yourself a perfect laughing-stock
wherever your wife goes with you.' Disraeli fixed his eyes upon him very
expressively and said, 'I don't suppose you can understand it, B.—I don't
suppose you can understand it, for no one could ever in the last and wildest
excursions of an insane imagination suppose you to be guilty of gratitude!'"

It is true that there have been memorable celibates, but in the main the
world's work has been done by the married. Fame and reward are powerful
incentives, but they bear no comparison to the influence exercised by
affection.

A man's wife and family often compel him to do his best; and, when on
the point of despairing, they force him to fight like a hero, not for himself,
but for them. Curran confessed that when he addressed a court for the first
time, if he had not felt his wife and children tugging at his gown, he would
have thrown up his brief and relinquished the profession of a lawyer.

"It is often the case when you see a great man, like a ship, sailing proudly
along the current of renown, that there is a little tug—his wife—whom you
cannot see, but who is directing his movements and supplying the motive
power." This truth is well illustrated by the anecdote told of Lord Eldon,
who, when he had received the Great Seal at the hands of the king, being
about to retire, was addressed by his majesty with the words, "Give my
remembrance to Lady Eldon." The Chancellor, in acknowledging the
condescension, intimated his ignorance of Lady Eldon's claim to such a
notice. "Yes, yes," the king answered; "I know how much I owe to Lady
Eldon. I know that you would have made yourself a country curate, and that
she has made you my Lord Chancellor." Sir Walter Scott and Daniel
O'Connell, at a late period of their lives, ascribed their success in the world
principally to their wives.

When Sir Joshua Reynolds—himself a bachelor—met the sculptor
Flaxman shortly after his marriage, he said to him, "So, Flaxman, I am told

you are married; if so, sir, I tell you you are ruined for an artist." Flaxman
went home, sat down beside his wife, took her hand in his, and said, "Ann, I
am ruined for an artist." "How so, John? How has it happened? and who has
done it?" "It happened," he replied, "in the church, and Ann Denman has
done it." He then told her of Sir Joshua's remark—whose opinion was well
known, and had often been expressed, that if students would excel they
must bring the whole powers of their mind to bear upon their art, from the
moment they rose until they went to bed; and also, that no man could be a
great artist unless he studied the grand works of Raphael, Michael Angelo,
and others, at Rome and Florence. "And I," said Flaxman, drawing up his
little figure to its full height, "I would be a great artist." "And a great artist
you shall be," said his wife, "and visit Rome, too, if that be really necessary
to make you great." "But how?" asked Flaxman. "Work and economize,"
rejoined the brave wife; "I will never have it said that Ann Denman ruined
John Flaxman for an artist." And so it was determined by the pair that the
journey to Rome was to be made when their means would admit. "I will go
to Rome," said Flaxman, "and show the President that wedlock is for a
man's good rather than his harm; and you, Ann, shall accompany me."

After working for five years, aided by the untiring economy of his wife,
Flaxman actually did accomplish his journey. On returning from Rome,
where he spent seven years, conscious of his indebtedness to his wife, he
devised an original gift as a memorial of his domestic happiness. He caused
a little quarto book to be made, containing some score or so of leaves, and
with pen and pencil proceeded to fill and embellish it. On the first page is
drawn a dove with an olive branch in her mouth; an angel is on the right
and an angel on the left, and between is written, "To Ann Flaxman"; below,
two hands are clasped as at an altar, two cherubs bear a garland, and there
follows an inscription to his wife introducing the subject. Instead of finding
his genius maimed by his alliance with Ann Denman, this eminent sculptor
was ever ready to acknowledge that his subsequent success was in a great
part marriage-made.

It was through the eyes of his wife that Huber, the great authority on
bees, who was blind from his seventeenth year, conducted his observations
and studies. He even went so far as to declare that he should be miserable
were he to regain his eyesight. "I should not know," he said, "to what extent

a person in my situation could be beloved; besides, to me my wife is always
young, fresh, and pretty, which is no light matter."

Sir William Hamilton of Edinburgh found his wife scarcely less helpful,
especially after he had been stricken by paralysis through overwork. When
he was elected Professor of Logic and Metaphysics, and had no lectures on
stock, his wife sat up with him night after night to write out a fair copy of
the lectures from the rough sheets which he had drafted in the adjoining
room. "The number of pages in her handwriting still preserved is," says Sir
William's biographer, "perfectly marvellous."

Equally effective as a literary helper was Lady Napier, the wife of Sir
William Napier, historian of the Peninsular War. She translated and
epitomized the immense mass of original documents, many of them in
cipher, on which it was in a great measure founded. When Wellington was
told of the art and industry she had displayed in deciphering King Joseph's
portfolios, and the immense mass of correspondence taken at Vittoria, he at
first would hardly believe it, adding: "I would have given £20,000 to any
person who could have done this for me in the Peninsula." Sir William
Napier's handwriting being almost illegible, Lady Napier made out his
rough interlined manuscript, which he himself could scarcely read, and
wrote out a fair copy for the printer; and all this vast labour she undertook
and accomplished, according to the testimony of her husband, without
having for a moment neglected the care and education of a large family.

The help and consolation that Hood received from his wife during a life
that was a prolonged illness is one of the most affecting things in biography.
He had such confidence in her judgment that he read and re-read and
corrected with her assistance all that he wrote. He used to trust to her ready
memory for references and quotations. Many wives deserve, but few
receive, such an I.O.U. as that which the grateful humorist gave to his wife
in one of his letters when absent from her side. "I never was anything,
Dearest, till I knew you, and I have been a better, happier, and more
prosperous man ever since. Lay by that truth in lavender, Sweetest, and
remind me of it when I fail. I am writing warmly and fondly, but not
without good cause.... Perhaps there is an afterthought that, whatever may
befall me, the wife of my bosom will have the acknowledgment of her

tenderness, worth, excellence—all that is wifely or womanly—from my
pen."

Mr. Froude says of Carlyle's wife that "her hardest work was a delight to
her when she could spare her husband's mind an anxiety or his stomach an
indigestion. While he was absorbed in his work and extremely irritable as to
every ailment or discomfort, her life was devoted to shield him in every
possible way." In the inscription upon her tombstone Carlyle bore testimony
that he owed to his wife a debt immense of gratitude. "In her bright
existence she had more sorrows than are common, but also a soft
invincibility, a capacity of discernment, and a noble loyalty of heart which
are rare. For forty years she was the true and loving helpmate of her
husband, and by act and word unweariedly forwarded him as none else
could in all of worthy that he did or attempted. She died at London, April
21st, 1866, suddenly snatched away from him, and the light of his life as if
gone out."

What an influence women have exercised upon teachers of religion and
philosophy! When no one else would encourage Mahomet, his wife Kadijah
listened to him with wonder, with doubt. At length she answered: "Yes, it
was true this that he said." We can fancy, as does Carlyle, the boundless
gratitude of Mahomet, and how, of all the kindnesses she had done him, this
of believing the earnest struggling word he now spoke was the greatest. "It
is certain," says Novalis, "my conviction gains infinitely the moment
another soul will believe in it." It is a boundless favour. He never forgot this
good Kadijah. Long afterwards, Ayesha, his young favourite wife, a woman
who indeed distinguished herself among the Moslem by all manner of
qualities, through her whole long life, this young brilliant Ayesha was one
day questioning him: "Now am I not better than Kadijah? she was a widow;
old, and had lost her looks: you love me better than you did her?" "No, by
Allah!" answered Mahomet: "No, by Allah! She believed in me when none
else would believe. In the whole world I had but one friend, and she was
that!"

It will suffice to hint at the scientific value of the little that has been
disclosed respecting Madame Clothilde de Vaux in elucidating the position
of Auguste Comte as a teacher. Some may think that John Stuart Mill first

taught his wife and then admired his own wisdom in her. His own account
of the matter is very different, as we learn from the dedication of his essay
"On Liberty":

"To the beloved and deplored memory of her who was the inspirer, and in
part the author, of all that is best in my writings—the friend and wife whose
exalted sense of truth and right was my strongest incitement, and whose
approbation was my chief reward—I dedicate this volume. Like all that I
have written for many years, it belongs as much to her as to me; but the
work as it stands has had, in a very insufficient degree, the inestimable
advantage of her revision; some of the most important portions having been
reserved for a more careful re-examination, which they are now never
destined to receive. Were I but capable of interpreting to the world one-half
the great thoughts and noble feelings which are buried in her grave, I should
be the medium of a greater benefit to it than is ever likely to arise from
anything that I can write, unprompted and unassisted by her all but
unrivalled wisdom."

In a speech upon woman's rights, a lady orator is said to have exclaimed,
"It is well known that Solomon owed his wisdom to the number of his
wives!" This is too much; nevertheless, Sir Samuel Romilly gave the
experience of many successful men when he said that there was nothing by
which through life he had more profited than by the just observations and
the good opinion of his wife.

Most people are acquainted with husbands who have lost almost all self-
reliance and self-help because their wives have been only too helpful to
them. Trollope and George Eliot faithfully portrayed real life in their stories
when they put the reins into the hands of good wives and made them drive
the domestic coach, to the immense advantage and comfort of the husbands,
who never suspected the real state of the case. No man has so thoroughly as
Trollope brought into literature the idea which women have of men—
creatures that have to be looked after as grown-up little boys; interesting,
piquant, indispensable, but shiftless, headstrong, and at bottom absurd.

But this consciousness which good wives have of the helplessness of
husbands renders them all the more valuable in their eyes. Before
Weinsberg surrendered to its besiegers, the women of the place asked

permission of the captors to remove their valuables. The permission was
granted, and shortly after the women were seen issuing from the gates
carrying their husbands on their shoulders. Indeed it would be impossible to
relate a tenth part of the many ways in which good wives have shown
affection for and actively assisted their wedded lords. Knowing this to be
the case, we were not surprised to read some time since the following piece
of Irish news: "An inquiry was held at Mullingar on Wednesday respecting
Mr. H. Smythe's claim of £10,000 as compensation for the loss of his wife,
who was shot whilst returning from church. The claim was made under the
nineteenth section of the Crime Preservation Act, Ireland." The result of the
inquiry we do not know, but for ourselves we think that £10,000 would
barely compensate for the loss of a really good article in wives.

Some one told an old bachelor that a friend had gone blind. "Let him
marry, then," was the crusty reply; "let him marry, and if that doesn't open
his eyes, then his case is indeed hopeless." But this, we must remember,
was not the experience of a married man.

A friend was talking to Wordsworth of De Quincey's articles about him.
Wordsworth begged him to stop; he hadn't read them, and did not wish to
ruffle himself about them. "Well," said the friend, "I'll tell you only one
thing he says, and then we'll talk of other things. He says your wife is too
good for you." The old poet's dim eyes lighted up, and he started from his
chair, crying with enthusiasm, "And that's true! There he's right!" his
disgust and contempt visibly moderating. Many a man whose faith in
womankind was weak before marriage can a few years afterwards
sympathize most fully with this pathetic confession of the old poet.

A Scotch dealer, when exhorting his son to practise honesty on the
ground of its being the "best policy," quietly added, "I hae tried baith." So is
it in reference to matrimony and celibacy. The majority of those who have
"tried baith" are of opinion that the former is the best policy.

It would be absurd to assert that the marriage state is free from care and
anxiety; but what of that? Is not care and trouble the condition of any and
every state of life? He that will avoid trouble must avoid the world.
"Marriage," says Dr. Johnson, "is not commonly unhappy, but as life is

unhappy." And the summing up, so to speak, of this great authority is well
known—"Marriage has many pains, but celibacy no pleasures."

CHAPTER IV.
THE CHOICE OF A WIFE.

"Go, draw aside the curtains, and discover
The several caskets to this noble prince:—
Now make your choice."—Shakespeare.
"If, as Plutarch adviseth, one must eat modium salis, a bushel of salt, with him before he
choose his friend, what care should be had in choosing a wife—his second self! How
solicitous should he be to know her qualities and behaviour! and, when he is assured of
them, not to prefer birth, fortune, beauty, before bringing up and good conditions."—
Robert Burton.

Whether a man shall be made or marred by marriage greatly depends
upon the choice he makes of a wife. Nothing is better than a good woman,
nor anything worse than a bad one. The idea of the great electrician
Edison's marrying was first suggested by an intimate friend, who made the
point that he needed a mistress to preside over his large house, which was
being managed by a housekeeper and several servants. Although a very shy
man, he seemed pleased with the proposition, and timidly inquired whom
he should marry The friend somewhat testily replied, "Any one;" that a man
who had so little sentiment in his soul as to ask such a question ought to be
satisfied with anything that wore a petticoat and was decent.

Woe to the man who follows such careless advice as this, and marries
"any one," for what was said by the fox to the sick lion might be said with
equal truth to Hymen: "I notice that there are many prints of feet entering
your cave, but I see no trace of any returning." Before taking the irrevocable
step choose well, for your choice though brief is yet endless. And, first, we
make the obvious suggestion that it is useless to seek perfection in a wife,
even though you may fancy yourself capable of giving an adequate return

as did the author of the following advertisement: "Wanted by a Young
Gentleman just beginning Housekeeping, a Lady between Eighteen and
Twenty-five Years of Age, with a good Education, and a Fortune not less
than Five Thousand Pounds; Sound Wind and Limb, Five Feet Four Inches
without her shoes; Not Fat, nor yet too lean; Good Set of Teeth; No Pride
nor Affectation; Not very Talkative, nor one that is deemed a Scold; but of a
Spirit to Resent an Affront; of a Charitable Disposition; not Over-fond of
Dress, though always Decent and Clean; that will Entertain her Husband's
Friends with Affability and Cheerfulness, and Prefer his Company to Public
Diversions and gadding about; one who can keep his secrets, that he may
open his Heart to her without reserve on all Occasions; that can extend
domestic Expenses with Economy, as Prosperity advances, without
Ostentation; and Retrench them with Cheerfulness, if occasion should
require. Any Lady disposed to Matrimony, answering this Description, is
desired to direct for Y. Z., at the Baptist's Head Coffee-house,
Aldermanbury. N.B.—The Gentleman can make adequate Return, and is, in
every Respect, deserving a Lady with the above Qualifications."

This reminds us of the old lady who told her steward she wished him to
attend a neighbouring fair in order to buy her a cow. She explained to him
that it must be young, well-bred, fine in the skin, a strawberry in colour,
straight in the back, and not given to breaking through fences when it smelt
clover on the other side; above all, it was not to cost more than ten pounds.
The steward, who was a Scotchman, and a privileged old servant, bowed his
head and replied reverently, "Then, my lady, I think ye had better kneel
down and pray for her, for ye'll get her nae other way, I'm thinkin'."

While the possession of a little money is by no means a drawback, those
do not well consult their happiness who marry for money alone.

"In many a marriage made for gold,
The bride is bought—and the bridegroom sold."

Though Cupid is said to be blind, he is a better guide than the rules of
arithmetic. We have false ideas of happiness. What will make me happy—
contented? "Oh, if I were rich, I should be happy!" A gentleman who was
enjoying the hospitalities of the great millionaire and king of finance,
Rothschild, as he looked at the superb appointments of the mansion, said to

his host, "You must be a happy man!" "Happy!" said he, "happy! I happy—
happy!" "Aye, happy!" "Let us change the subject." John Jacob Astor of
America, was also told that he must be a very happy man, being so rich.
"Why," said he, "would you take care of my property for your board and
clothes? That's all I get for it." In taking a dowry with a wife "thou losest
thy liberty," says an old writer: "she will ride upon thee, domineer as she
list, wear the breeches in her oligarchical government, and beggar thee
besides."

Better to have a fortune in your wife than with her. "My wife has made
my fortune," said a gentleman of great possessions, "by her thrift, prudence,
and cheerfulness, when I was just beginning." "And mine has lost my
fortune," answered his companion, bitterly, "by useless extravagance, and
repining when I was doing well." The girl who brings to her husband a large
dowry may also bring habits of luxury learned in a rich home. She may be
almost as incapable of understanding straitened circumstances as was the
lady of the court of Louis XVI., who, on hearing of people starving,
exclaimed, "Poor creatures! No bread to eat! Then let them eat cakes!"

Nor is it wise to marry for beauty alone: as even the finest landscape,
seen daily, becomes monotonous, so does the most beautiful face, unless a
beautiful nature shine through it. The beauty of to-day becomes
commonplace to-morrow; whereas goodness, displayed through the most
ordinary features, is perennially lovely. Moreover, this kind of beauty
improves with age, and time ripens rather than destroys it. No man is so
much to be pitied as the husband of a "professional beauty." Yet beauty,
when it betokens health, or when it is the outward and visible sign of an
inward and spiritual grace, is valuable, and has a great power of winning
affection.

Above all things do not marry a fool who will shame you and reveal your
secrets. For ourselves we do not believe the first part at least of Archbishop
Whately's definition of woman: "A creature that does not reason, and that
pokes the fire from the top." The wife who does not and cannot make use of
reason to overcome the daily difficulties of domestic life, and who can in no
sense be called the companion of her husband, is a mate who hinders rather
than helps. Sooner or later a household must fall into the hands of its

women, and sink or swim according to their capacities. It is hard enough for
a man to be married to a bad woman; but for a man who marries a foolish
woman there is no hope.

"One must love their friends with all their failings, but it is a great failing
to be ill," and therefore unless you are one of those rare men who would
never lose patience with a wife always in pain, when choosing you should
think more of a healthy hue than of a hectic hue, and far more of good lungs
than of a tightly-laced waist "See that she chews her food well, and sets her
foot down firmly on the ground when she walks, and you're all right."

As regards the marriageable age of women we may quote the following
little conversation: "No woman is worth looking at after thirty," said young
Mrs. A., a bride with all the arrogant youthfulness of twenty-one summers.
"Quite true, my dear," answered Lady D., a very pretty woman some ten or
fifteen years older; "nor worth listening to before."

Please yourself, good sir! only do not marry either a child or an old
woman. Certainly a man should marry to obtain a friend and companion
rather than a cook and housekeeper; but yet that girl is a prize indeed who
has so well prepared herself for the business of wifehood as to be able to
keep not only her husband company, but her house in good order. "If that
man is to be regarded as a benefactor of his species who makes two stalks
of corn to grow where only one grew before, not less is she to be regarded
as a public benefactor who economizes and turns to the best practical
account the food products of human skill and labour."

Formerly a woman's library was limited to the Bible and a cookery-book.
This curriculum has now been considerably extended, and it is everywhere
acknowledged that "chemistry enough to keep the pot boiling, and
geography enough to know the different rooms in her house," is not science
enough for women. It is surely not impossible, however, for an intending
husband to find a girl who can make her higher education compatible with
his comforts, who can when necessary bring her philosophy down to the
kitchen. Why should literature unfit women for the everyday business of
life? It is not so with men. You see those of the most cultivated minds
constantly devoting their time and attention to the most homely objects.

The other day, speaking superficially and uncharitably, a person said of a
woman, whom he knew but slightly, "She disappoints me utterly. How
could her husband have married her? She is commonplace and stupid."
"Yes," said a friend, reflectively, "it is strange. She is not a brilliant woman,
she is not even an intellectual one; but there is such a thing as a genius for
affection, and she has it. It has been good for her husband that he married
her." In the sphere of home the graces of gentleness, of patience, of
generosity, are far more valuable than any personal attractions or mental
gifts and accomplishments. They contribute more to happiness and are the
source of sympathy and spiritual discernment. For does not the woman who
can love see more and understand more than the most intellectual woman
who has no heart?

A vacancy in the floor sweeping department of a public institution having
been advertised, the testimonials to the intellectual and moral eminence of
an old woman were overwhelming; but after the election it appeared she
had only one arm! Not less unfitted to be a wife is the woman who, with
every other qualification, has no genius for affection.

Dress is one of the little things that indicate character. A refined woman
will always look neat; but, on the other hand, she will not bedizen and
bedeck herself with a view to display. Again, there is no condition of life in
which industry in a wife is not necessary to the happiness of a family. A
lazy mistress makes lazy servants, and, what is worse, a lazy mother makes
lazy children.

"But how," asks Cobbett, "is the purblind lover to ascertain whether she,
whose smiles have bereft him of his senses—how is he to judge whether the
beloved object will be industrious or lazy?" In answer to this question
several outward and visible signs are suggested, such as early rising, a
lively, distinct utterance, a quick step, "the labours of the teeth; for these
correspond with those of the other members of the body, and with the
operations of the mind."

Then we are told of a young man in Philadelphia, who, courting one of
three sisters, happened to be on a visit to her, when all the three were
present, and when one said to the others, "I wonder where our needle is."
Upon which he withdrew, as soon as was consistent with politeness,

resolved never to think more of a girl who possessed a needle only in
partnership, and who, it appeared, was not too well informed as to the place
where even that share was deposited.

It would be impossible even to allude to every point of character that
should be observed in choosing a wife. Frugality, or the power to abstain
from unnecessary expenditure, is very important, so is punctuality. As to
good temper, it is a most difficult thing to ascertain beforehand; smiles are
so easily put on for the lover's visits. We know the old conundrum—why
are ladies like bells? Because you never know what metal they are made of
until you ring them. An ingenuous girl thus alluded to the change that is
frequently perceptible after marriage. "Your future husband seems very
exacting: he has been stipulating for all sorts of things," said her mother to
her. "Never mind, Mamma," said the affectionate girl, who was already
dressed for the wedding; "these are his last wishes."

There is, however, one way of roughly guessing the qualifications of a
girl for the most responsible position of a wife. Find out the character of her
mother, and whether the daughter has been a good one and a good sister.
Ask yourself, if you respect as well as admire her, and remember the words
of Fichte: "No true and enduring love can exist without esteem; every other
draws regret after it, and is unworthy of any noble soul."

Thackeray said of women: "What we (men) want for the most part is a
humble, flattering, smiling, child-loving, tea-making being, who laughs at
our jokes however old they may be, coaxes and wheedles us in our
humours, and fondly lies to us through life." And he says of a wife: "She
ought to be able to make your house pleasant to your friends; she ought to
attract them to it by her grace. Let it be said of her, 'What an uncommonly
nice woman Mrs. Brown is!' Let her be, if not clever, an appreciator of
cleverness. Above all, let her have a sense of humour, for a woman without
a laugh in her is the greatest bore in existence." It is, we think, only very
weak men who would wish their wives to "fondly lie" to them in this way.
Better to be occasionally wound up like an eight-day clock by one's wife
and made to go right. There is no one who gives such wise and brave advice
as a good wife. She is another, a calmer and a better self. The heart of her
husband doth safely trust in her, for he knows that when her criticism is

most severe it is spoken in love and for his own good. Lord Beaconsfield
described his wife as "the most severe of critics, but a perfect wife."

Burns the poet, in speaking of the qualities of a good wife, divided them
into ten parts. Four of these he gave to good temper, two to good sense, one
to wit, one to beauty—such as a sweet face, eloquent eyes, a fine person, a
graceful carriage; and the other two parts he divided amongst the other
qualities belonging to or attending on a wife—such as fortune, connections,
education (that is, of a higher standard than ordinary), family blood, &c.;
but he said, "Divide those two degrees as you please, only remember that
all these minor proportions must be expressed by fractions, for there is not
any one of them that is entitled to the dignity of an integer."

Let us add the famous advice given by Lord Burleigh to his son: "When
it shall please God," said he, "to bring thee to man's estate, use great
providence and circumspection in choosing thy wife, for from thence will
spring all thy future good or evil. And it is an action of thy life, like unto a
stratagem of war, wherein a man can err but once.... Inquire diligently of
her disposition, and how her parents have been inclined in their youth. Let
her not be poor, how generous (well-born) soever; for a man can buy
nothing in the market with gentility. Nor choose a base and uncomely
creature altogether for wealth, for it will cause contempt in others, and
loathing in thee. Neither make choice of a dwarf or a fool, for by the one
thou shalt beget a race of pigmies, while the other will be thy continual
disgrace, and it will yirke (irk) thee to hear her talk. For thou shalt find it to
thy great grief that there is nothing more fulsome than a she-fool."

The ideal wife is either what Crashaw calls an "impossible she," or—

"Somewhere in the world must be
She that I have prayed to see,
She that Love assigns to me."

But then—

"Shall we ever, ever meet?
Shall I find in thee, my sweet,
Visions true and life complete?"

To the old question, "Who can find?" it may too often be replied, Who
seeks "a virtuous woman"? Is she wealthy? is she pretty? is she talented?
are questions asked more frequently than Is she good, sensible, industrious,
affectionate? And yet that man takes to himself one of the bitterest of earth's
curses who marries carelessly instead of seeking with all diligence for those
qualities in a wife that are the foundation of lasting happiness.

A minister's wife falling asleep in church, her husband thus addressed
her: "Mrs. B., a' body kens that when I got ye for my wife I got nae beauty;
yer frien's ken that I got nae siller; and if I dinna get God's grace I shall hae
a puir bargain indeed." If men would seek for wives women with the grace
of God, if they would choose them as they do their clothes, for qualities that
will last, they would get much better bargains.

One reason for this carelessness about the character of a wife may be
found in the prevailing opinion that there is little or no room for choice in
matters matrimonial. Sir John More (father of the Chancellor, Sir Thomas)
was often heard to say, "I would compare the multitude of women which
are to be chosen for wives unto a bag full of snakes, having among them a
single eel. Now, if a man should put his hand into this bag, he may chance
to light on the eel; but it is a hundred to one he shall be stung by a snake."

Perhaps the lottery theory of marriage was never stated more strongly or
with greater cynicism; but is it true? If it were, to expend care and attention
in choosing a wife would be to labour in vain. If, however, marriage is by
no means such an affair of chance, a prudent choice may prevent a man
from being stung by a snake, and may give him a goodly eel as his marriage
portion. The important thing to do is to keep well in mind the fact that a
man's prospect of domestic felicity does not depend upon the face, the
fortune, or the accomplishments of his wife, but upon her character. The son
of Sirach says that he would rather dwell with a lion and a dragon than to
keep house with a wicked woman. "He that hath hold of her is as though he
held a scorpion. A loud crying woman and a scold shall be sought out to
drive away the enemies." On the other hand, "the grace of a wife delighteth
her husband, and her discretion will fatten his bones. A silent and loving
woman is a gift of the Lord; and there is nothing so much worth as a mind
well instructed."

CHAPTER V
THE CHOICE OF A HUSBAND.

"How shall I know if I do choose the right?"—Shakespeare.

"God, the best maker of marriages, bless you!"—Ibid.
"And while thou livest, dear Kate, take a fellow of plain and uncoined constancy; for he
perforce must do thee right, because he hath not the gift to woo in other places; for these
fellows of infinite tongue, that can rhyme themselves into ladies' favours, they do always
reason themselves out again. What! a speaker is but a prater; a rhyme is but a ballad. A
good leg will fall; a straight back will stoop; a black beard will turn white; a curled pate
will grow bald; a fair face will wither; a full eye will wax hollow; but a good heart, Kate, is
the sun and the moon; or, rather, the sun, and not the moon; for it shines bright, and never
changes, but keeps his course truly."—Ibid.

They that enter into the state of marriage cast a die of the greatest
contingency, and yet of the greatest interest in the world, next to the last
throw for eternity. Life or death, felicity or a lasting sorrow, are in the
power of marriage. A woman, indeed, ventures most, for she hath no
sanctuary to retire to from an evil husband; she must dwell upon her sorrow
and hatch the eggs which her own folly or infelicity hath produced; and she
is more under it, because her tormentor hath a warrant of prerogative, and
the woman may complain to God, as subjects do of tyrant princes; but
otherwise she hath no appeal in the causes of unkindness. And though the
man can run from many hours of his sadness, yet he must return to it again;
and when he sits among his neighbours he remembers the objection that is
in his bosom, and he sighs deeply. "The boys and the pedlars and the
fruiterers shall tell of this man when he is carried to his grave that he lived
and died a poor, wretched person."

In these words Jeremy Taylor puts before men and women the issues of
choice in matrimony. What, however, concerns us in this chapter is that "a
woman ventures most." "Love is of man's life a thing apart, 'tis woman's
whole existence." How important that a treasure which is dear as life itself
should be placed in safe keeping! And yet so blind is love that defects often
seem to be virtues, deformity assumes the style of beauty, and even hideous
vices have appeared under an attractive form.

In Shakespeare's play Cleopatra speaks of an old attachment which she
had lived to despise as having arisen in her "salad days," when she was
green in judgment. In extreme youth love is especially blind, and for this, as
well as for other reasons, girls, who are yet at school, do not consult their
best interests when they allow love to occupy their too youthful minds. It
prevents the enjoyment of happy years of maidenhood, and sometimes leads
to marriage before the girl is fit, either physically, mentally, or domestically,
for the cares of married life.

"I believe," says R. W. Dale, of Birmingham, "in falling in love. The
imagination should be kindled and the heart touched; there should be
enthusiasm and even romance in the happy months that precede marriage,
and something of the enthusiasm and romance should remain to the very
end of life, or else the home is wanting in its perfect happiness and grace.
But take my word for it, solid virtues are indispensable to the security and
happiness of a home."

You would not like to live with a liar, with a thief, with a drunkard, for
twenty or thirty years. A lazy man will make but a weak band or support for
his and your house; so will one deficient in fortitude—that is, the power to
bear pain and trouble without whining. Beware of the selfish man, for
though he may be drawn out of selfishness in the early weeks of courtship,
he will settle back into it again when the wear and worry of life come on.
And remember that a man may have the roots of some of these vices in him
and yet be extremely agreeable and good-looking, dress well, and say very
pretty and charming things. "How easy is it for the proper-false in women's
waxen hearts to set their forms!"

In their haste to be married many women are too easily satisfied with the
characters of men who may offer themselves as husbands. They aim at

matrimony in the abstract; not the man, but any man. They would not
engage a servant if all they knew of her were that she had, as a housemaid
lately advertised, "a fortnight's character from her last place;" but with even
less information as to their characters they will accept husbands and vow to
love, honour, and obey them! In comparison how much more honourable
and how much less unloved and unloving is the spinster's lot! Women marry
simply for a home because they have not been trained to fight the battle of
life for themselves, and because their lives are so dull and stagnant that they
think any change must be for the better.

A friend—let us say Barlow—was describing to Jerrold the story of his
courtship and marriage: how his wife had been brought up in a convent, and
was on the point of taking the veil, when his presence burst upon her
enraptured sight. Jerrold listened to the end of the story, and by way of
comment said, "Ah! she evidently thought Barlow better than nun." When
girls have been given work in the world they do not think that any husband
is better than none, and they have not time to imagine themselves in love
with the first man who proposes. How often is it the case that people think
themselves in love when in fact they are only idle!

There are hearts all the better for keeping; they become mellower and
more worth a woman's acceptance than the crude, unripe things that are
sometimes gathered—as children gather green fruit—to the discomfort of
those who obtain them. A husband may be too young to properly appreciate
and take care of a wife. And yet perhaps the majority of girls would rather
be a young man's slave than an old man's darling. "My dear," said a father
to his daughter, "I intend that you should be married, but not that you
should throw yourself away on any wild, worthless boy: you must marry a
man of sober and mature age. What do you think of a fine, intelligent
husband of fifty?" "I think two of twenty-five would be better, papa."

Prophecies as to the probable result of a marriage are as a rule little to be
trusted. It was so in the case of the celebrated Madame Necker. She had
been taken to Paris to live with a young widow, to whom Necker—a
financier from Geneva—came to pay his addresses. The story goes that the
widow, in order to rid herself of her admirer, got him to transfer his
addresses to her young companion, saying to herself, "they will bore each

other to death, that will give them something to do." The happy pair,
however, had no such foreboding. "I am marrying a man," wrote the lady,
"whom I should believe to be an angel, if his great love for me did not show
his weakness." In his way the husband was equally satisfied. "I account
myself as happy as it is possible for a man to be," he wrote to a mutual
friend; and to the end of the chapter there was no flaw in that matrimonial
life.

Never to marry a genius was the advice of Mrs. Carlyle. "I married for
ambition. Carlyle has exceeded all that my wildest hopes ever imagined of
him, and I am miserable." As the supply of geniuses is very limited, this
advice may seem superfluous. It is not so, however, for there is enough and
to spare of men who think that they are geniuses, and take liberties
accordingly. These are very often only sons of fond but foolish mothers,
who have persuaded them that they are not made of common clay, and that
the girls who get them will be blessed. From such a blessing young women
should pray to be delivered.

Perhaps it may be said that though it is easy to write about choosing a
husband, for the majority of English girls, at least, there is but little choice
in the matter. Dickens certainly told an American story—very American—
of a young lady on a voyage, who, being intensely loved by five young
men, was advised to "jump overboard and marry the man who jumped in
after her." Accordingly, next morning the five lovers being on deck, and
looking very devotedly at the young lady, she plunged into the sea. Four of
the lovers immediately jumped in after her. When the young lady and four
lovers were out again, she said to the captain, "What am I to do with them
now, they are so wet?" "Take the dry one." And the young lady did, and
married him. How different is the state of affairs on this side of the Atlantic,
where, if a young woman is to be married, she must take not whom she
will, but whom she can. "Oh me, the word choose! I may neither choose
whom I would, nor refuse whom I dislike." But is it necessary to marry? Far
better to have no husband than a bad one.

There is a great deal of human nature in the account which Artemus Ward
gives of the many affecting ties which made him hanker after Betsy Jane.
"Her father's farm jined our'n; their cows and our'n squencht their thurst at

the same spring; our old mares both had stars in their forrerds; the measles
broke out in both famerlies at nearly the same period; our parients (Betsy's
and mine) slept reglarly every Sunday in the same meetin-house, and the
nabers used to obsarve, 'How thick the Wards and Peasleys air!' It was a
surblime site, in the spring of the year, to see our sevral mothers (Betsy's
and mine) with their gowns pin'd up so thay couldn't sile 'em affecshunitly
bilin sope together and aboozin the nabers."

In this matter more than in most others "we do not will according to our
reason, we reason according to our will." True desire, the monition of
nature, is much to be attended to. But always we are to discriminate
carefully between true desire and false. The medical men tell us we should
eat what we truly have an appetite for; but what we only falsely have an
appetite for we should resolutely avoid. Ought not choice in matrimony to
be guided by the same principle?

Above all things young ladies should ask God, the best maker of
marriages, to direct their choice aright.

CHAPTER VI.
ON MAKING THE BEST OF A BAD MATRIMONIAL BARGAIN.

"How poor are they who have not patience!
What wound did ever heal, but by degrees?"—Shakespeare.

"E'en now, in passing through the garden walks,
Upon the ground I saw a fallen nest,
Ruined and full of ruin; and over it,
Behold, the uncomplaining birds, already
Busy in building a new habitation."—Longfellow.

But "the best laid schemes of mice and men gang aft a-gley." We are
none of us infallible, "not even the youngest." When the greatest care has
been taken in choosing, people get bad matrimonial bargains. From the
nature of the case this must often happen. If not one man in a thousand is a
judge of the points of a horse, not one in a million understands human
nature. And even if a young man or woman did understand human nature,
there are before marriage, as a rule, opportunities of gaining only the
slightest knowledge of the character of one who is to be the weal or woe of
a new home. It is related in ancient history, or fable, that when Rhodope, a
fashionable Egyptian beauty, was engaged bathing, an eagle stole away one
of her shoes, and let it fall near Psammetichus the king. Struck with the
pretty shoe, he fell in love with the foot, and finally married the owner of
both. Very little more acquaintance with each other have the majority of the
Innocents who go abroad into the unknown country of Matrimony to seek
their fortunes or misfortunes.

And then the temper and manner of people when making love are so
different from what these become afterwards! "One would think the whole

endeavour of both parties during the time of courtship is to hinder
themselves from being known—to disguise their natural temper and real
desires in hypocritical imitation, studied compliance, and continued
affectation. From the time that their love is avowed, neither sees the other
but in a mask; and the cheat is often managed on both sides with so much
art, and discovered afterwards with so much abruptness, that each has
reason to suspect that some transformation has happened on the wedding-
night, and that by a strange imposture, as in the case of Jacob, one has been
courted and another married."

Our conventional state of society curtails the limits of choice in
matrimony and hinders the natural law of the marriage of the fittest. We
knew a young gentleman living in a London suburb who bore an excellent
character, had sufficient income, and was in every respect marriageable. He
wished to try the experiment of two against the world, but—as he told the
clergyman of his parish—he was in the city all day, and never had an
opportunity of becoming acquainted with a young lady whom he could ask
to be his wife.

We have heard of the stiff Englishman who would not attempt to save a
fellow-creature from drowning because he had never been introduced to
him. In the same way unmarried ladies are allowed to remain in the Slough
of Despond because the valiant young gentlemen who would rescue them,
though they may be almost, are not altogether in their social set.

Every one knows Plato's theory about marriage. He taught that men and
women were hemispheres, so to speak, of an original sphere; that ill-
assorted marriages were the result of the wrong hemispheres getting
together; that, if the true halves met, the man became complete, and the
consequence was the "happy-ever-after" of childhood's stories. There is
much truth in this doctrine, that for every man there is one woman
somewhere in the world, and for every woman one man. They seldom meet
in time. If they did, what would become of the sensational novelists?

But are there not in reality too many artificial obstacles to happy
marriages? Why do the right men and women so seldom meet? Because
mammon, ambition, envy, hatred, and all uncharitableness step between and
keep apart those whom God would join together.

It is true that newly-married people when going through the process of
being disillusioned are liable to conclude much too quickly that they have
got bad matrimonial bargains. In a letter which Mrs. Thrale, the friend of
Dr. Johnson, wrote to a young gentleman on his marriage, she says: "When
your present violence of passion subsides, and a more cool and tranquil
affection takes its place, be not hasty to censure yourself as indifferent, or to
lament yourself as unhappy. You have lost that only which it was
impossible to retain; and it were graceless amid the pleasures of a
prosperous summer to regret the blossoms of a transient spring. Neither
unwarily condemn your bride's insipidity, till you have reflected that no
object however sublime, no sounds however charming, can continue to
transport us with delight, when they no longer strike us with novelty."

Satiety follows quickly upon the heels of possession. A little boy of four
years of age told me the other day that he wished to die. "Why?" "Oh, just
for a change!" There are children of a larger growth who require continual
change and variety to keep them interested.

We expect too much from life in general, and from married life in
particular. When castle-building before marriage we imagine a condition
never experienced on this side of heaven; and when real life comes with its
troubles and cares, the tower of romance falls with a crash, leaving us in the
mud-hut of every-day reality. Better to enter the marriage state in the frame
of mind of that company of American settlers, who, in naming their new
town, called it Dictionary, "because," as they said, "that's the only place
where peace, prosperity, and happiness are always to be found."

It would be contrary to the nature of constitutional grumblers to be
satisfied with their matrimonial bargains, no matter how much too good for
them they may be. They don't want to be satisfied in this or in any other
respect, for, as the Irishman said, they are never happy unless they are
miserable. They may have drawn a prize in the matrimonial lottery, but they
grumble if it be not the highest prize. They are cursed with dispositions like
that of the Jew, who, very early one morning, picked up a roll of bank-notes
on Newmarket Heath, which had been dropped by some inebriated betting-
man the night before. "What have you got there?" exclaimed a fellow
Israelite. "Lucky as usual!" "Lucky you call it?" grumbled the man in reply,

rapidly turning over the notes. "Lucky is it! all fivers—not a tenner among
them!"

Even a perfect matrimonial bargain would not please some people. They
are as prone to grumble as the poor woman who, being asked if she were
satisfied when a pure water supply had been introduced into Edinburgh,
said: "Aye, not so well as I might; it's not like the water we had before—it
neither smells nor tastes."

There is a story told of a rustic swain who, when asked whether he would
take his partner to be his wedded wife, replied, with shameful indecision,
"Yes, I'm willin'; but I'd a much sight rather have her sister." The sort of
people who are represented by this vacillating bridegroom are no sooner
married than they begin to cast fond, lingering looks behind upon the state
of single blessedness they have abandoned, or else upon some lost ideal
which they prefer to the living, breathing reality of which they have become
possessed. They don't know, and never did know, their own minds.

Let us suppose, however, that a bad matrimonial bargain has been
obtained, not in imagination, but in sad earnest—How is the best to be
made of it? We must do as Old Mother Hubbard did when she found the
cupboard empty—"accept the inevitable with calm steadfastness." It may
even be politic to dissemble a little, and pretend we rather enjoy it than
otherwise. Above all, do not appeal to the girl's friends for comfort or
consolation. They will only laugh at you. Take warning from the
unfortunate young man who, every time he met the father of his wife,
complained to him of the bad temper and disposition of his daughter. At
last, upon one occasion, the old gentleman, becoming weary of the
grumbling of his son-in-law, exclaimed: "You are right, sir; she is an
impertinent jade; and if I hear any more complaints of her I will disinherit
her."

A writer in Chambers' Journal gives some instances of matrimonial
tribulation that were brought to light in the last census returns. Several
husbands returned their wives as the heads of the families; and one
described himself as an idiot for having married his literal better-half.
"Married, and I'm heartily sorry for it," was returned in two cases; and in

quite a number of instances "Temper" was entered under the head of
infirmities opposite the name of the wife.

Confessions of this sort, besides being, as we have already hinted,
somewhat indiscreet, are often also supererogatory; for conjugal dissension,
like murder, will out; and that sometimes in the most provoking and
untimely manner. It would be much better to call in the assistance of proper
pride than to whine in this cowardly fashion. "We mortals," says George
Eliot, "men and women, devour many a disappointment between breakfast
and dinner time; keep back the tears and look a little pale about the lips, and
in answer to inquiries say, 'Oh, nothing!' Pride helps us; and pride is not a
bad thing when it only urges us to hide our own hurts—not to hurt others."
"To feel the chains, but take especial care the world shall not hear them
clank. 'Tis a prudence that often passes for happiness. It is one of the
decencies of matrimony."

"Biddy," said Dean Swift one day to his cook, "this leg of mutton is over-
done; take it down and do it less." "Plaze, your Riverence," replied Biddy,
"the thing is impossible." "Well, then," rejoined her master, "let this be a
lesson to you, that if you must commit mistakes they, at all events, shall not
be of such gravity as to preclude correction." Well would it be if people
never made mistakes that preclude correction in reference to more
important matters! Yet, for all this, it is a good thing that we have no "fatal
facility" of divorce in this country, and that a marriage once made is
generally regarded as a world-without-end bargain.

A story has been told of a graceless scamp who gained access to the
Clarendon printing-office in Oxford, when a new edition of the Prayer-book
was ready for the press. In that part of the "forme" already set up which
contained the marriage service, he substituted the letter k for the letter v in
the word live; and thus the vow "to love, honour, comfort, &c., so long as
ye both shall live," was made to read "so long as ye both shall like!" The
change was not discovered until the whole of the edition was printed off. If
the sheets are still preserved it would be a good speculation to send them to
some of the States in America, where people are "exceedingly divorced."
May they long remain useless in Great Britain! For nothing is more

dangerous than to unite two persons so closely in all their interests and
concerns as man and wife, without rendering the union entire and total.

In that very interesting Bible story of Nabal and Abigail, a noble woman
is seen making the best of an extremely bad matrimonial bargain. If her
marriage with Nabal, who was a churlish, ill-tempered, drunken fool, was
one of the worst possible, does not her conduct teach the lesson that
something may be done to mitigate the miseries of even the most frightful
state of marriage? Who shall say how many heroines unknown to fame
there are who imitate her? Their husbands are weak-willed, foolish, idle,
extravagant, dissipated, and generally ne'er-do-weel; but instead of
helplessly sitting down to regret their marriage-day, they take the
management of everything into their own hands, and make the best of the
inevitable by patient endurance in well-doing. It is sometimes said that "any
husband is better than none." Perhaps so; in the sense of his being a sort of
domestic Attila, a "scourge of God" to "whip the offending Adam" out of a
woman and turn her into an angel, as the wives of some bad husbands seem
to become.

"I will do anything," says Portia, in the "Merchant of Venice," "ere I will
be married to a sponge;" and in answer to the question—"How like you the
young German, the Duke of Saxony's nephew?" she answers: "Very vilely
in the morning, when he is sober; and most vilely in the afternoon, when he
is drunk: when he is best he is a little worse than a man; and when he is
worst he is little better than a beast: an the worst fall that ever fell, I hope I
shall make shift to go without him."

When a poor girl has not had Portia's discernment to discover such faults
before marriage, what can she do? She can do her best.

"What knowest thou, O wife, whether thou shalt save thy husband?"
Endeavouring to do this, you will not only have the answer of a good
conscience, but will have taken the best precaution against falling yourself,
so that it never can be truly said of you—

"As the husband is, the wife is; thou art mated with a clown,
And the grossness of his nature will have weight to drag thee
down."

It has been said that to have loved and lost—either by that total
disenchantment which leaves compassion as the sole substitute for love
which can exist no more, or by the slow torment which is obliged to let go
day by day all that constitutes the diviner part of love, namely, reverence,
belief, and trust, yet clings desperately to the only thing left it, a long-
suffering apologetic tenderness—this lot is probably the hardest any woman
can have to bear.

"What is good for a bootless bane?—
And she made answer, 'Endless sorrow.'"

This answer should never have been made, for none but the guilty can be
long and completely miserable. The effect and duration of sorrow greatly
depends upon ourselves. "If thou hast a bundle of thorns in thy lot, at least
thou need'st not insist on sitting down on them." Nor must we forget that
there is a "wondrous alchemy in time and the power of God" to transmute
our sorrows, as well as our faults and errors, into golden blessings.

It is an old maxim that if one will not, two cannot quarrel. If one of the
heads of a house has a bad temper, there is all the more reason for the other
to be cool and collected, and capable of keeping domestic peace. Think of
Socrates, who, when his wife Zanthippe concluded a fit of scolding by
throwing at him a bucket of water, quietly remarked, "After the thunder
comes the rain." And when she struck him, to some friends who would have
had him strike her again, he replied, that he would not make them sport, nor
that they should stand by and say, "Eia Socrates, eia Zanthippe!" as boys do
when dogs fight, animate them more by clapping hands.

If we would learn how to make the worst instead of the best of a
matrimonial bargain, Adam, the first husband, will teach us. He allowed
himself to be tempted by Eve, and then like a true coward tried to put all the
blame upon her. This little bit of history repeats itself every day. "In the
state of innocency Adam fell; and what should poor Jack Falstaff do in the
days of villainy?"

There is another way in which people make the worst instead of the best
of their bad matrimonial bargains. "Faults are thick where love is thin," and
love having become thin they exaggerate the badness of their bargains. A

man, having one well-formed and one crooked leg, was wont to test the
disposition of his friends, by observing which leg they looked at first or
most. Surely the last people we should draw with their worst leg foremost
are our life partners. The best of men are only men at the best. They are, as
Sterne said, "a strange compound of contradictory qualities; and were the
accidental oversights and folly of the wisest man—the failings and
imperfections of a religious man—the hasty acts and passionate words of a
meek man—were they to rise up in judgment against them, and an ill-
natured judge to be suffered to mark in this manner what has been done
amiss, what character so unexceptionable as to be able to stand before
him?" Ought husbands and wives to be ill-natured judges of what is amiss?

"Let a man," says Seneca, "consider his own vices, reflect upon his own
follies, and he will see that he has the greatest reason to be angry with
himself." The best advice to give husband and wife is to ask them to resolve
in the words of Shakespeare, "I will chide no breather in the world but
myself, against whom I know most faults." Why beholdest thou the mote
that is in the eye of thy matrimonial bargain, but considerest not the beam
that is in thine own eye?

When you find yourself complaining of your matrimonial bargain, think
sometimes whether you deserve a better one. What right and title has thy
greedy soul to domestic happiness or to any other kind of happiness?
"Fancy," says Carlyle, "thou deservest to be hanged (as is most likely), thou
wilt feel it happiness to be only shot." We may imagine that we deserve a
perfect matrimonial bargain, but a less partial observer like Lord Braxfield
might make a correction in our estimate. This Scotch judge once said to an
eloquent culprit at the bar, "Ye're a verra clever chiel, mon, but I'm thinkin'
ye wad be nane the waur o' a hangin'." Equally instructive is the story of a
magistrate, who, when a thief remonstrated, "But, sir, I must live," replied,
"I don't recognize the necessity." It is only when we cease to believe that we
must have supreme domestic and other kinds of felicity, that we are able
with a contented mind to bear our share of the "weary weight of all this
unintelligible world."

In reference to marriage and to everything else in life, we should
sometimes reflect how much worse off we might be instead of how much

better. Perhaps you are like the man who said, "I must put up with it," when
he had only turkey and plum pudding for dinner. If, as it has often been
said, all men brought their grievances of mind, body, and estate—their
lunacies, epilepsies, cancers, bereavement, beggary, imprisonment—and
laid them on a heap to be equally divided, would you share alike and take
your portion, or be as you are? Without question you would be as you are.
And perhaps if all matrimonial bargains were to be again distributed, it
would be better for you to keep what you have than to run the chance of
getting worse. A man who grumbled at the badness of his shoes felt
ashamed on meeting with one who had no feet. "Consider the pains which
martyrs have endured, and think how even now many people are bearing
afflictions beyond all measure greater than yours, and say, 'Of a truth my
trouble is comfort, my torments are but roses as compared to those whose
life is a continual death, without solace, or aid, or consolation, borne down
with a weight of grief tenfold greater than mine.'"

"Oft in life's stillest shade reclining,
In desolation unrepining,
Without a hope on earth to find
A mirror in an answering mind,
Meek souls there are, who little dream
Their daily strife an angel's theme,
Or that the rod they take so calm
Shall prove in Heaven a martyr's palm."

One of these "meek souls" is reported to have said to a friend, "You know
not the joy of an accepted sorrow." And of every disappointment, we may
truly say that people know not how well it may be borne until they have
tried to bear it. This, which is true of disappointment in general, is no less
true of the disappointments of a married pair. Those who have not found in
marriage all that they fondly, and perhaps over sanguinely, anticipated, may,
after some time, become to a certain extent happy though married, if they
resolve to do their best under the circumstances.

CHAPTER VII.
MARRIAGE CONSIDERED AS A DISCIPLINE OF CHARACTER.

"Certainly wife and children are a kind of Discipline of Humanity."—Bacon.

"I well remember the bright assenting laugh which she (Mrs. Carlyle) once responded to
some words of mine, when the propriety was being discussed of relaxing the marriage
laws. I had said that the true way to look at marriage was as a discipline of character."—
Froude.

"Did you ever see anything so absurd as a horse sprawling like that?"
This was the hasty exclamation of a connoisseur on taking up a small
cabinet picture. "Excuse me," replied the owner, "you hold it the wrong
way: it is a horse galloping." So much depends upon the way we look at
things. In the preceding chapter we spoke of making the best of bad
matrimonial bargains. Perhaps it would help some people to do this if they
looked at marriage from a different point of view—if they considered it as a
discipline of character rather than as a short cut to the highest heaven of
happiness. Certainly this is a practical point of view, and it may be that
those who marry in this spirit are more likely to use their matrimony rightly
than those who start with happiness as their only goal. That people get
happiness by being willing to pass it by and do without it rather than by
directly pursuing it, is as true of domestic felicity as of other kinds.

"Ven you're a married man, Samivel," says Mr. Weller to his son Sam,
"you'll understand a good many things as you don't understand now; but
vether it's worth while going through so much to learn so little, as the
charity boy said ven he got to the end of the alphabet, is a matter o' taste: I
rayther think it isn't." Strange that a philosopher of the senior Mr. Weller's
profundity should underestimate in this way the value of matrimony as a
teacher. We have it on the authority of a widower who was thrice married,
that his first wife cured his romance, the second taught him humility, and

the third made him a philosopher. Another veteran believes that five or six
years of married life will often reduce a naturally irascible man to so
angelic a condition that it would hardly be safe to trust him with a pair of
wings.

Webster asks—

"What do you think of marriage?
I think, as those do who deny purgatory,
It locally contains either heaven or hell,
There is no third place in it."

Is this true? We think not, for we know many married people who live in a
third place, the existence of which is here denied. They are neither intensely
happy nor intensely miserable; but they lose many faults, and are greatly
developed in character by passing through a purgatorial existence. Nor is
this an argument against matrimony, except to those who deny that "it is
better to be seven times in the furnace than to come out unpurified."

Sweet are the uses of this and every other adversity when these words of
Sir Arthur Helps are applicable to its victims or rather victors: "That man is
very strong and powerful who has no more hopes for himself, who looks
not to be loved any more, to be admired any more, to have any more honour
or dignity, and who cares not for gratitude; but whose sole thought is for
others, and who only lives on for them."

The young husband may imagine that he only takes a wife to add to his
own felicity; taking no account of the possibility of meeting a disposition
and temper which may, without caution, mar and blight his own. Women
are not angels, although in their ministrations they make a near approach to
them. Women, no more than men, are free from human infirmities; the
newly-married man must therefore calculate upon the necessity of
amendment in his wife as well as of that necessity in himself. The process,
however, as well as the result of the process, will yield a rich reward. At a
minister's festival meeting "Our Wives" was one of the toasts. One of the
brethren, whose wife had a temper of her own, on being sportively asked if
he would drink it, exclaimed, "Aye, heartily; Mine brings me to my knees in
prayer a dizzen times a day, an' nane o' you can say the same o' yours."

If even bad matrimonial bargains have so much influence in disciplining
character, how much more may be learned from a happy marriage! Without
it a man or woman is "Scarce half made up." The enjoyments of celibacy,
whatever they may be, are narrow in their range, and belong to only a
portion of our nature; and whatever the excellences of the bachelor's
character, he can never attain to a perfected manhood so long as such a
large and important part of his nature as the affections for the gratification
of which marriage provides, is unexercised and undeveloped. There are in
his nature latent capabilities, both of enjoyment and affection, which find
no expression. He is lacking in moral symmetry. The motives from which
he keeps himself free from marriage responsibilities may be worthy of the
highest respect, but this does not hinder his character from being less
disciplined than it might have been.

"For indeed I know
Of no more subtle master under heaven
Than is the maiden passion for a maid,
Not only to keep down the base in man,
But teach high thoughts and amiable words,
And love of truth, and all that makes a man."

On both sides marriage brings into play some of the purest and loftiest
feelings of which our nature is capable. The feeling of identity of interest
implied in the marriage relation—the mutual confidence which is the
natural result—the tender, chivalrous regard of the husband for his wife as
one who has given herself to him—the devotion and respect of the wife for
the husband as one to whom she has given herself—their mutual love
attracted first by the qualities seen or imagined by each in the other, and
afterwards strengthened by the consciousness of being that object's best
beloved—these feelings exert a purifying, refining, elevating influence, and
are more akin to the religious than any other feelings. Love, like all things
here, is education. It renders us wise by expanding the soul and stimulating
the mental powers.

"Yes, love indeed is light from heaven:
A spark of that immortal fire
With angels shared, by Allah given,

To lift from earth our low desire.
Devotion wafts the mind above,
But heaven itself descends in love;
A feeling from the Godhead caught,
To wean from self each sordid thought;
A ray of Him who formed the whole;
A glory circling round the soul!"

It has been well said, "The first condition of human goodness is
something to love; the second, something to reverence." Both these
conditions meet in a well-chosen alliance.

Married people may so abuse matrimony as to make it a very school for
scandal; but it may and ought to be what Sir Thomas More's home was said
to be, "a school and exercise of the Christian religion." "No wrangling, no
angry word, was heard in it; no one was idle; every one did his duty with
alacrity and not without a temperate cheerfulness." This atmosphere of love
and duty which pervaded his home must have been owing in a great
measure to the household goodness of Sir Thomas himself. For though his
first wife was all that he could have desired, his second was ill-tempered
and little capable of appreciating the lofty principles that actuated her
husband. "I have lived—I have laboured—I have loved. I have lived in
them I loved, laboured for them I loved, loved them for whom I laboured."
Well might Sir Thomas add after this reflection, "My labour hath not been
in vain;" for to say nothing of its effect upon others, how it must have
disciplined his own character!

"There is nothing," you say, "in the drudgery of domestic life to soften."
No; but, as Robertson of Brighton says, "a great deal to strengthen with the
sense of duty done, self-control, and power. Besides you cannot calculate
how much corroding rust is kept off, how much of disconsolate, dull
despondency is hindered. Daily use is not the jeweller's mercurial polish,
but it will keep your little silver pencil from tarnishing."

"Family life," says Sainte-Beuve, "may be full of thorns and cares; but
they are fruitful: all others are dry thorns." And again: "If a man's home at a
certain period of life does not contain children, it will probably be found
filled with follies or with vices."

Even if it were a misfortune to be married, which we emphatically deny,
has not the old Roman moralist taught us that, "to escape misfortune is to
want instruction, and that to live at ease is to live in ignorance"? Misfortune
to be married? Rather not.

"Life with all it yields of joy and woe
And hope and fear....
Is just our chance o' the prize of the learning love—
How love might be, hath been indeed, and is."

CHAPTER VIII.
BEING MARRIED.

"If ever one is to pray—if ever one is to feel grave and anxious—if ever one is to shrink
from vain show and vain babble, surely it is just on the occasion of two human beings
binding themselves to one another, for better and for worse till death part them."—Letters
and Memorials of Jane Welsh Carlyle.

An elderly unmarried lady of Scotland, after reading aloud to her two
sisters, also unmarried, the births, marriages, and deaths in the ladies' corner
of a newspaper, thus moralized: "Weel, weel, these are solemn events—
death and marriage; but ye ken they're what we must all come to." "Eh,
Miss Jeanny, but ye have been lang spared!" was the reply of the youngest
sister. Those who in our thoughts were represented as being only in
prospect of marriage are spared no longer. They have now come to what
they had to come to—a day "so full of gladness, and so full of pain"—a day
only second in importance to the day of birth; in a word, to their wedding
day.

"Are [they] sad or merry?
Like to the time o' the year between the extremes
Of hot and cold: [they are] nor sad nor merry."

And yet few on such a day are as collected as the late Duke of Sutherland
is said to have been. Just two hours before the time fixed for his marriage
with one of the most beautiful women in England, a friend came upon him
in St. James's Park, leaning carelessly over the railings at the edge of the
water, throwing crumbs to the waterfowl. "What! you here to-day! I thought
you were going to be married this morning?" "Yes," replied the duke,
without moving an inch or stopping his crumb-throwing, "I believe I am."

To men of a shyer and more nervous temperament, to be married without
chloroform is a very painful operation. They find it difficult to screw their
courage to the marrying place. On one occasion a bridegroom so far forgot
what was due to himself and his bride as to render himself unfit to take the
vows through too frequent recourse on the wedding morn to the cup that
cheers—and inebriates. The minister was obliged to refuse to proceed with
the marriage. A few days later, the same thing occurred with the same
couple; whereupon the minister gravely remonstrated with the bride, and
said they must not again present themselves with the bridegroom in such a
state. "But, sir, he—he winna come when he's sober," was the candid
rejoinder. It is possible that this bridegroom, whose courage was so very
Dutch, might have been deterred by the impending fuss and publicity of a
marriage ceremony, rather than by any fear of or want of affection for her
who was to become his wife. Even in the best assorted marriages there is
always more or less anxiety felt upon the wedding-day.

The possibility of a hitch arising from a sudden change of inclination on
the part of the principals is ludicrously illustrated by the case of two couples
who on one occasion presented themselves at the Mayoralty, in a suburb of
Paris, to carry out the civil portion of their marriage contract. During the
ceremony one of the bridegrooms saw, or fancied he saw, his partner
making "sheep's-eyes" at the bridegroom opposite. Being of a jealous
temperament, he laid his hand roughly on her arm, and said sharply:
"Mademoiselle, which of the two brides are you? You are mine, I believe:
then oblige me by confining your glances to me." The bride was a young
woman of spirit, and resenting the tone in which the reprimand was made,
retorted: "Ah, Monsieur, if you are jealous already, I am likely to lead a
pleasant life with you!" The jealous bridegroom made an angry reply; and
then the other bridegroom must needs put his oar in. This led to a general
dispute, which the Mayor in vain endeavoured to quell. The bridegrooms
stormed at each other; and the brides, between their hysterical sobs,
mutually accused each other of perfidy. At length the Mayor, as a last
resource, adjourned the ceremony for half an hour, to admit of an amicable
understanding being arrived at, both brides having refused to proceed with
the celebration of the nuptials. When, at the expiration of the half-hour, the
parties were summoned to reappear, they did so, to the amazement of the
bewildered Mayor, in an altogether different order from that in which they

had originally entered. The bridegrooms had literally effected an exchange
of brides—the jealous bridegroom taking the jealous bride; and the other,
the lady whose fickle glances had led to the rupture. All four adhering to the
new arrangement, the Mayor, it is recorded, had no alternative but to
proceed with the ceremony.

The ruling passion is not more strongly felt in death than in marriage. Dr.
Johnson displayed the sturdiness of his character as he journeyed with the
lady of his choice from Birmingham to Derby, at which last place they were
to be married. Their ride thither, which we give in the bridegroom's own
words, is an amusing bit of literary history. "Sir, she had read the old
romances, and had got into her head the fantastical notion that a woman of
spirit should use her lover like a dog. So, sir, at first she told me that I rode
too fast, and she could not keep up with me: and when I rode a little slower,
she passed me, and complained that I lagged behind. I was not to be made
the slave of caprice; and I resolved to begin as I meant to end. I therefore
pushed on briskly, till I was fairly out of her sight. The road lay between
two hedges, so I was sure she could not miss it; and I contrived that she
should soon come up with me. When she did, I observed her to be in tears."

On the wedding-day of the celebrated M. Pasteur, who has made such
extraordinary discoveries about germs, the hour appointed for the ceremony
had arrived, but the bridegroom was not there. Some friends rushed off to
the laboratory and found him very busy with his apron on. He was
excessively cross at being disturbed, and declared that marriage might wait,
but his experiments could not do so.

He would indeed be a busy man who could not make time for a marriage
ceremony as brief as that which was employed in the celebration of a
marriage in Iowa, United States. The bride and bridegroom were told to join
their hands, and then asked: "Do you want one another?" Both replied:
"Yes." "Well, then, have one another;" and the couple were man and wife.
Most people, however, desire a more reverent solemnization of marriage,
which may be viewed in two aspects—as a natural institution, and as a
religious ordinance. In the Old Testament we see it as a natural institution;
in the New, it is brought before us in a religious light. It is there likened to
the union of Christ and the Church. The union of Christ and the Church is

not illustrated by marriage, but marriage by this spiritual union; that is, the
natural is based upon the spiritual. And this is what is wanted; it gives
marriage a religious signification, and it thus becomes a kind of semi-
sacrament. The illustration teaches that in order to be happy though married
the principle of sacrifice must rule the conduct of the married. As no love
between man and wife can be true which does not issue in a sacrifice of
each for the other, so Christ gave Himself for His Church and the Church
sacrifices itself to His service. The only true love is self-devotion, and the
every-day affairs of married life must fail without this principle of self-
sacrifice or the cross of Christ.

"Would to God that His dear Son were bidden to all weddings as to that
of Cana! Truly then the wine of consolation and blessing would never be
lacking. He who desires that the young of his flock should be like Jacob's,
fair and ring-straked, must set fair objects before their eyes; and he who
would find a blessing in his marriage, must ponder the holiness and dignity
of this mystery, instead of which too often weddings become a season of
mere feasting and disorder."

A new home is being formed in reference to which the bride and groom
should think, "This is none other but the house of God, and this is the gate
of heaven. As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord." The parish
church is called "God's House;" but if all the parishioners rightly used their
matrimony, every house in the parish might be called the same. Home is the
place of the highest joys; religion should sanctify it. Home is the sphere of
the deepest sorrows; the highest consolation of religion should assuage its
griefs. Home is the place of the greatest intimacy of heart with heart;
religion should sweeten it with the joy of confidence. Home discovers all
faults; religion should bless it with the abundance of charity. Home is the
place for impressions, for instruction and culture; there should religion open
her treasures of wisdom and pronounce her heavenly benediction.

An old minister previous to the meeting of the General Assembly of the
Church of Scotland used to pray that the assembly might be so guided as
"no to do ony harm." We have often thought that such a prayer as this
would be an appropriate commencement for the marriage service.
Considering the issues that are involved in marriage—the misery unto the

third and fourth generation that may result from it—those who join together
man and woman in matrimony ought to pray that in doing so they may do
no harm. Certainly the opening exhortation of the Church of England
marriage service is sufficiently serious. It begins by proclaiming the
sacredness of marriage as a Divine institution; hallowed as a type of the
mystical union between Christ and His Church; honoured (even in its
festive aspect) by Our Lord's presence and first miracle at Cana of Galilee;
declared to be "honourable among all men; and therefore not by any to be
enterprised, nor taken in hand, unadvisedly, lightly, or wantonly; but
reverently, discreetly, advisedly, soberly, and in the fear of God; duly
considering the causes for which Matrimony was ordained." These are
explained in words plain-spoken almost to coarseness before allusion is
made to the higher moral relation of "mutual society, help, and comfort"
which marriage creates.

Then follows "the betrothal" in which the man "plights his troth"
(pledges his truth), taking the initiative, while the woman gives hers in
return:

"The 'wilt thou,' answered, and again
The 'wilt thou' asked, till out of twain
Her sweet 'I will' has made ye one."

The "joining of hands" is from time immemorial the pledge of covenant
—we "shake hands over a bargain"—and is here an essential part of the
marriage ceremony.

The use of the ring is described in the prayer that follows as the token of
the marriage covenant—from the man the token of his confiding to his wife
all authority over what is his, and for the woman the badge of belonging to
his house. The old service has a quaint rubric declaring it put on the fourth
finger of the left hand, because thence "there is a vein leading direct to the
heart." The Prayer Book of Edward VI. directs that "the man shall give unto
the woman a ring, and other tokens of spousage, as gold or silver, laying the
same upon the book." This is clearly the ancient bride price. Wheatly's
"Book of Common Prayer" says, "This lets us into the design of the ring,
and intimates it to be the remains of an ancient custom whereby it was usual
for the man to purchase the woman." The words to be spoken by the man

are taken from the old service, still using the ancient word "worship" (worth
—ship) for service and honour. They declare the dedication both of person
and substance to the marriage bond.

The Blessing is one of singular beauty and solemnity. It not only invokes
God's favour to "bless, preserve, and keep" the newly-made husband and
wife in this world, but looks beyond it to the life hereafter, for which
nothing can so well prepare them as a well-spent wedded life here.

It is said that among the natives of India the cost to a father of marrying
his daughter is about equal to having his house burnt down. Although brides
are not so expensive in this country much money is wasted on the wedding
and preliminaries which would be very useful to the young people a year or
two afterwards.

We would not advise that there should be no wedding-breakfast and that
the bride should have no trousseau; but we do think that these accessories
should be in accordance with the family exchequer. Again, wedding
presents are often the very articles that the young couple need least, and are
not unfrequently found to be duplicates of the gifts of other persons. But we
cannot linger over the wedding festivities.

Adieu, young friends! and may joy crown you, love bless you, God speed
your career!

"Some natural tears they dropp'd, but wip'd them soon;
The world was all before them, where to choose
Their place of rest, and Providence their guide.
They, hand in hand, with wand'ring steps and slow,
Through Eden took their solitary way."

CHAPTER IX.
HONEYMOONING.

"The importance of the honeymoon, which had been so much vaunted to him by his
father, had not held good."—The Married Life of Albert Durer.

The "honeymoon" is defined by Johnson to be "the first month after
marriage, when there is nothing but tenderness and pleasure." And certainly
it ought to be the happiest month in our lives; but it may, like every other
good thing, be spoiled by mismanagement. When this is the case, we take
our honeymoon like other pleasures—sadly. Instead of happy
reminiscences, nothing is left of it except its jars.

You take, says the philosophical observer, a man and a woman, who in
nine cases out of ten know very little about each other (though they
generally fancy they do), you cut off the woman from all her female friends,
you deprive the man of his ordinary business and ordinary pleasures, and
you condemn this unhappy pair to spend a month of enforced seclusion in
each other's society. If they marry in the summer and start on a tour, the
man is oppressed with a plethora of sight-seeing, while the lady, as often as
not, becomes seriously ill from fatigue and excitement.

A newly-married man took his bride on a tour to Switzerland for the
honeymoon, and when there induced her to attempt with him the ascent of
one of the high peaks. The lady, who at home had never ascended a hill
higher than a church, was much alarmed, and had to be carried by the
guides with her eyes blindfolded, so as not to witness the horrors of the
passage. The bridegroom walked close to her, expostulating respecting her
fear. He spoke in honeymoon whispers; but the rarefaction of the air was
such that every word was audible. "You told me, Leonora, that you always
felt happy—no matter where you were—so long as you were in my

company. Then why are you not happy now?" "Yes, Charles, I did," replied
she; sobbing hysterically; "but I never meant above the snow line." It is at
such times as these that awkward angles of temper make themselves
manifest, which, under a more sensible system, might have been concealed
for years, perhaps for ever.

Boswell called upon Dr. Johnson on the morning of the day on which he
was to leave for Scotland—for matrimonial purposes. The prospect of
connubial felicity had made the expectant husband voluble; he therefore
took courage to recite to the sage a little love-song which he had himself
composed and which Dibdin was to set to music:

A Matrimonial Thought.

"In the blythe days of honeymoon,
With Kate's allurements smitten,
I loved her late, I loved her soon,
And called her dearest kitten.

But now my kitten's grown a cat,
And cross like other wives,
Oh! by my soul, my honest Mat,
I fear she has nine lives."

Johnson: "It is very well, sir, but you should not swear." Whereupon the
obnoxious "Oh! by my soul," was changed on the instant to "Alas! alas!"

If the kitten should develop into a cat even before the "blythe days of
honeymoon" are ended, it is no wonder, considering the way some young
couples spend the first month of married life, rushing from one continental
city to another, and visiting all the churches and picture-galleries, however
scorching may be the weather or however great may be their secret aversion
to art and antiquity. The lady gives way to fatigue, and is seized with a
violent headache. For a while the young husband thinks that it is rather nice
to support his Kate's head, but when she answers his sympathetic inquiries
sharply and petulantly, he in turn becomes less amiable, dazzling,
enchanting, and, in a word, all that as a fiancé he had been.

Winter honeymooning is even more trying to the temper, for then short
days and unfavourable weather compel the young couple to stay in one
place. Imagine the delights of a month spent in lodgings at the seaside, with
nothing to do except to get photographed, which is a favourite pastime of
the newly-married. The bride may be indifferent to the rain and sleet
beating against the windows, for she can spend the time writing to her
friends long and enthusiastic descriptions of her happiness; but what can the
unlucky bridegroom do? He subscribes to the circulating library, reads a
series of novels aloud to his wife, and illustrates every amatory passage
with a kiss. But the "dear old boy" (as the bride calls him) tires of this sort
of thing after a week, and how can he then amuse himself? He stares out of
windows, he watches the arrival of the milkman and the butcher with the
liveliest interest; he envies the coastguardsman, who is perpetually on the
look-out for invisible smugglers through a portentously long telescope.
Cases have been known where the bridegroom—a City man—being driven
to desperation, has privately ordered the office journal and ledger to be sent
down by luggage train, and has devoted his evenings to checking the
additions in those interesting volumes.

When Hodge and his sweetheart crown their pastoral loves in the quiet
old country church, they take a pleasant drive or a walk in their finery, and
settle down at once to connubial comfort in the cot beside the wood. Why
do their richer neighbours deny themselves this happiness and invent
special troubles? Why, during the early weeks of married life, do they lay
up sad memories of provoking mistakes, of trunks which will not pack, of
trains which will not wait, of tiresome sight-seeing, of broiling sun, of
headache, of "the fretful stir unprofitable, and the fever" of honeymooning
abroad? Many a bridegroom but just returned from a "delightful tour on the
Continent" will be able to sympathize in the remark of the country farmer to
a companion in the train, as he went to town to buy hay. "Yes, it's been a
bad winter for some folk. Old Smith's dead, and so is Jones, and my wife
died yesterday. And how be the hay, master?"

We do not want excitement during the honeymoon, for are we not in love
(if we are not we ought to be ashamed of ourselves), and is not love all-
sufficient? Last week we only saw the object of our affections by fits and
starts as it were; now we have her or him all to ourselves.

"Who hath not felt that breath in the air,
A perfume and freshness strange and rare,
A warmth in the light, and a bliss everywhere,
When young hearts yearn together?
All sweets below, and all sunny above,
Oh! there's nothing in life like making love,
Save making hay in fine weather."

Let cynics say what they will, the honeymoon, when not greatly
mismanaged, is a halcyon period. It is a delightful lull between two distinct
states of existence, and the married man is not to be envied who can recall
no pleasant reminiscences of it. What profane outsiders consider very dull
has a charm of its own to honeymoon lovers who "illumine life with
dreaming," and who see—

"Golden visions wave and hover,
Golden vapours, waters streaming,
Landscapes moving, changing, gleaming!"

Still, we cannot but think that if a wedding tour must be taken it should
be short, quiet, free-and-easy, and inexpensive. At some future time, when
the young people are less agitated and have learned to understand each
other better, the time and money saved will be available for a more
extended holiday. During the honeymoon there should be "marches
hymeneal in the land of the ideal" rather than globe-trotting; "thoughts
moved o'er fields Elysian" rather than over the perplexing pages of
"Bradshaw's General Railway and Steam Navigation Guide."

In reference to the honeymoon, as to other matters, people's opinions
differ according to their temperaments and circumstances. So we shall
conclude this chapter by quoting two nearly opposite opinions, and ask our
readers to decide for themselves.

In the "Memoir of Daniel Macmillan" his opinion is thus stated: "That
going out for the honeymoon is a most wise and useful invention; it enables
you to be so constantly together, and to obtain a deeper knowledge of each
other; and it also helps one to see and feel the preciousness of such intimacy
as nothing else could. Intercourse in the presence of others never leads

below the surface, and it is in the very depths of our being that true calm,
deep and true peace and love lie. Nothing so well prepares for the serious
duties of after-life."

"As to long honeymoons," says the Bishop of Rochester, "most sensible
people have come utterly to disbelieve in them. They are a forced homage
to utterly false ideas; they are a waste of money at a moment when every
shilling is wanted for much more pressing objects; they are a loss of time,
which soon comes to be dreary and weary. Most of all, they are a risk for
love, which ought not so soon to be so unpleasantly tested by the inevitable
petulances of a secret ennui. Six days by all means, and then, oh! happy
friends, go straight home.... Whenever you come back, six weeks hence or
one, you will have just as much to stand the fire of a little hard staring
which won't hurt you, and of bright pleasantness which need not vex you;
and the sooner you are at home, the sooner you will find out what married
happiness means."

CHAPTER X.
MARRIAGE VOWS.

"Better is it that thou shouldest not vow, than that thou shouldest vow and not pay."—
Ecclesiastes v. 5.

The honeymoon is over, and our young couple have exchanged their
chrysalis condition for the pleasures and duties of ordinary married life. Let
them begin by forming the highest ideal of marriage. Now, and on every
anniversary of their wedding day, they should seriously reflect upon those
vows which are too often taken, either in entire ignorance of their meaning
and import, or thoughtlessly, as though they were mere incidents of the
marriage ceremony.

A Hampshire incumbent recently reported some of the blunders he had
heard made in the marriage service, by that class of persons who have to
pick up the words as best they can from hearing them repeated by others.
He said that in his own parish it was quite the fashion for the man, when
giving the ring, to say to the woman: "With my body I thee wash up, and
with all my hurdle goods I thee and thou." He said the women were
generally better up in this part of the service than the men. One day,
however, a bride startled him by promising, in what she supposed to be
language of the Prayer Book, to take her husband "to 'ave and to 'old from
this day fortn't, for betterer horse, for richerer power, in siggerness health,
to love cherries, and to bay." We have heard of an ignorant bridegroom,
who, confusing the baptismal and marriage services, replied, when asked if
he consented to take the bride for his wife: "I renounce them all!" It is to be
hoped that the times of such ignorance are either passed or passing; still, a
little instruction in reference to marriage vows might be given with
advantage in some churches.

In one of his letters Byron tells a story of a learned Jew, who was
remarkable, in the brilliant circles to which his learning gained him
admittance, for his habit of asking questions continuously and fearlessly, in
order to get at the bottom of any matter in discussion. To a person who was
complaining of the Prince Regent's bad treatment of his old boon
companions, this habitual interrogator cried across a dinner-table: "And
why does the prince act so?" "Because he was told so-and-so by Lord ——;
who ought to be ashamed of himself!" was the answer. "But why, sir, has
the prince cut you?" inquired the searcher after truth. "Because I stuck to
my principles—yes, sir, because I stuck to my principles!" replied the other,
testily, thinking that his examination was ended. "And why did you stick to
your principles?" cried the interrogator, throwing the table into a roar of
laughter, the mirth being no more due to the inquisitor's persistence than to
his inability to conceive that any man would stick to his principles simply
because he believed them to be right. Are there not some educated as well
as uneducated people who seem to be quite as incapable of conceiving that
they should keep their marriage vows, simply because it is dishonourable
and wicked to break them?

A mother having become alarmed about the failing state of her daughter's
health, and not being able to get much satisfaction from a consultation with
the village doctor, took her to a London physician for further advice. He
asked a few questions as to the girl's daily habits and mode of life, carefully
stethoscoped her heart and lungs, and then gave an involuntary sigh. The
mother grew pale, and waited anxiously for a verdict "Madam," he said, "so
far as I can discover, your daughter is suffering from a most serious
complaint, which, for want of a better name, I shall call 'dulness.' Perhaps it
is in your power to cure it. I have no medicine which is a specific for this
disease." Girls, who suffer in this way, too often prescribe for themselves
marriage with men whom they cannot love, honour, and obey. This is as bad
as dram-drinking, or gambling; but what else can the poor things do? They
have not been trained like their brothers to useful work, and have always
been told that woman's first, best occupation is—to be a wife. To which it
may be answered—

"Most true; but to make a mere business of marriage,
To call it a 'living,' 'vocation,' 'career,'

Is but to pervert, to degrade, and disparage
A contract of all the most sacred and dear."

Nor will those vows be regarded with greater sanctity which are taken
against the inclination. Better to be as candid as the girl who, forced by her
parents into a disagreeable match, when the clergyman came to that part of
the service where the bride is asked if she will have the bridegroom for her
husband, said, with great simplicity, "Oh dear, no, sir; but you are the first
person who has asked my opinion about the matter!"

Let us think now what the vows are which, at the altar of God, and in the
presence of our fellow-creatures, we solemnly vow. Both the man and the
woman vow to love, honour, cherish, and be faithful, for better for worse,
for richer for poorer, in sickness and health, till death part them. Then the
husband promises to comfort his wife, and the wife to serve and obey her
husband.

A Scotch lady, whose daughter was recently married, was asked by an
old friend whether she might congratulate her upon the event. "Yes, yes,"
she answered; "upon the whole it is very satisfactory; it is true Jeannie hates
her gudeman, but then there's always a something." The old friend might
have told this Scotch lady that in making light of love she made light of that
which was needful to hallow her daughter's marriage; and that even the
blessing of a bishop in the most fashionable church does not prevent a
loveless alliance from being a sacrifice of true chastity.

Contrast the indifference of this Scotch lady in reference to matrimonial
love, with the value set upon it in a letter which Pliny the Younger, who was
a heathen, wrote concerning his wife, Calpurnia, to her aunt. It is quoted by
Dr. Cook as follows: "She loves me, the surest pledge of her virtue, and
adds to this a wonderful disposition to learning, which she has acquired
from her affection to me. She reads my writings, studies them, and even
gets them by heart. You would smile to see the concern she is in when I
have a cause to plead, and the joy she shows when it is over. She finds
means to have the first news brought her of the success I meet with in court.
If I recite anything in public, she cannot refrain from placing herself
privately in some corner to hear. Sometimes she accompanies my verses
with the lute, without any master except love—the best of instructors. From

these instances I take the most certain omens of our perpetual and
increasing happiness, since her affection is not founded on my youth or
person, which must gradually decay; but she is in love with the immortal
part of me."

The second vow taken by both the man and the woman is to "honour."
"Likewise, ye husbands, dwell with them according to knowledge, giving
honour unto the wife as unto the weaker vessel." "And the wife see that she
reverence her husband." The weaker vessel is to be honoured, not because
she is weak, but because, being weak, she acts her part so well.

And even if the wife's courage and endurance should sometimes fail, a
good husband would not withhold honour from her on that account. He
would remember her weaker nature, and her more delicate physical frame,
her more acute nervous sensibility, her greater sensitiveness and greater
trials, the peculiar troubles to which she is subject.

In a lately published "Narrative of a Journey through the South China
Border Lands," we are told that a wife in this part of the world, when
mentioned by her husband, "which happens as seldom as possible," is called
"My dull thorn," "The thorn in my ribs," or "The mean one of the inner
rooms." This is the way not to honour a wife. But the honour which a
husband should give is not merely that chivalrous bearing which the strong
owe to the weak, and which every woman has a right to expect from every
man. In describing a husband who was in the habit of honouring his wife,
Dr. Landels remarks that "one could not be in his presence without feeling
it. Never a word escaped his lips which reflected directly or indirectly on
her. Never an action he performed would have led to the impression that
there could be any difference between them. She was the queen of his
home. All about them felt that in his estimation, and by his desire, her
authority was unimpeachable, and her will law. And the effect of his
example was that children and friends and domestics alike hedged her about
with sweet respect. A man of strong will himself, his was never known to be
in collision with hers; and, without any undue yielding, the homage which
he paid to his wife made their union one of the happiest it has ever been our
privilege to witness."

And the wife, on her part, is to reverence and honour her husband as long
as she possibly can. If possible, she should let her husband suppose that she
thinks him a good husband, and it will be a strong stimulus to his being so.
As long as he thinks he possesses the character, he will take some pains to
deserve it; but when he has lost the name he will be very apt to abandon the
reality altogether. "To treat men as if they were better than they are is the
surest way to make them better than they are." Keats tells us that he has met
with women who would like to be married to a Poem, and given away by a
Novel; but wives must not cease to honour their husbands on discovering
that instead of being poetical and romantic they are very ordinary, imperfect
beings.

There are homes where poverty has never left its pinch nor sickness paid
its visit; homes where there is plenty on the board, and health in the circle,
and yet where a skeleton more grim than death haunts the cupboard, and an
ache harsher than consumption's tooth gnaws sharply at the heart. Why do
those shoulders stoop so early ere life's noon has passed? Why is it that the
sigh which follows the closing of the door after the husband has gone off to
business is a sigh of relief, and that which greets his coming footstep is a
sigh of dread? What means that nervous pressing of the hand against the
heart, the gulping back of the lump that rises in the throat, the forced smile,
and the pressed-back tear? If we could but speak to the husbands who haunt
these homes, we would tell them that some such soliloquy as the following
is ever passing like a laboured breath through the distracted minds of their
wives: "Is this the Canaan, this the land of promise, this the milk and honey
that were pictured to my fancy; when the walks among the lanes, and fields,
and flowers were all too short, and the whispers were so loving, and the
pressure was so fond, and the heart-beat was so passionate? For what have I
surrendered home, youth, beauty, freedom, love—all that a woman has to
give in all her wealth of confidence? Harsh tones, cold looks, stern words,
short answers, sullen reserve." "What," says the cheery neighbour, "is that
all?" All! What more is needed to make home dark, to poison hope, to turn
life into a funeral, the marriage-robe into a shroud, and the grave into a
refuge? It does not want drunkenness, blows, bruises, clenched fists, oaths,
to work sacrilege in the temple of the home; only a little ice where the fire
should glow; only a cold look where the love should burn; only a sneer
where there ought to be a smile. Husband! that wife of yours is wretched

because you are a liar; because you perjured yourself when you vowed to
love and cherish. You are too great a coward to beat her brains out with a
poker lest the gallows claim you; but you are so little of a man that you
poison her soul with the slow cruelty of an oath daily foresworn and
brutally ignored. If the ducking-stool was a punishment of old for a
scolding wife, a fiercer baptism should await the husband who has ceased to
cherish his wife.

As regards the vow of fidelity we need only quote these words of the
prophet Malachi: "The Lord hath been witness between thee and the wife of
thy youth, against whom thou hast dealt treacherously: yet she is thy
companion, and the wife of thy covenant. And did not he make one?
Therefore take heed to your spirit, and let none deal treacherously against
the wife of his youth." But there are absentee husbands and wives who,
though they are not guilty of breaking the seventh commandment, do by no
means keep the promise of keeping only to their wives and husbands. If a
man come home only when other places are shut, or when his money is all
gone, or when nobody else wants him, is he not telling his wife and family,
as plainly by deeds as he could possibly by words, that he takes more
delight in other company than in theirs? Charles Lamb used to feel that
there was something of dishonesty in any pleasures which he took without
his lunatic sister. A good man will feel something like this in reference to
his wife and children.

But though men should love their homes, it is quite possible for them to
be too much at home. This at least is the opinion of most wives. There is
everywhere a disposition to pack off the men in the morning and to bid
them keep out of the way till towards evening, when it is assumed they will
probably have a little news of the busy world to bring home, and when baby
will be sure to have said something exceptionally brilliant and precocious.
The general events of the day will afford topics of conversation more
interesting by far than if the whole household had been together from
morning till night. Men about home all day are fidgety, grumpy, and
interfering—altogether objectionable, in short.

As a rule it is when things are going wrong that women show to the best
advantage. Every one can remember illustrations. We have one in the

following story of Hawthorne, which was told to Mr. Conway by an
intimate friend of the novelist. One wintry day Hawthorne received at his
office notification that his services would no longer be required. With
heaviness of heart he repaired to his humble home. His young wife
recognizes the change and stands waiting for the silence to be broken. At
length he falters, "I am removed from office." Then she leaves the room;
she returns with fuel and kindles a bright fire with her own hands; next she
brings pen, paper, ink, and sets them beside him. Then she touches the sad
man on the shoulder, and, as he turns to the beaming face, says, "Now you
can write your book." The cloud cleared away. The lost office looked like a
cage from which he had escaped. "The Scarlet Letter" was written, and a
marvellous success rewarded the author and his stout-hearted wife.

The care some wives take of their husbands in sickness is very touching.
John Richard Green, the historian, whose death seemed so untimely, is an
instance of this. His very life was prolonged in the most wonderful way by
the care and skill with which he was tended; and it was with and through his
wife that the work was done which he could not have done alone. She
consulted the authorities for him, examined into obscure points, and wrote
to his dictation. In this way, when he could not work more than two hours in
the day, and when often some slight change in the weather would throw him
back and make work impossible for days or weeks, the book was prepared
which he published under the title of "The Making of England."

The husband's vow to "comfort" was never better performed than by
Cobbett. In his "Advice to Young Men" he says: "I began my young
marriage days in and near Philadelphia. At one of those times to which I
have just alluded, in the middle of the burning hot month of July, I was
greatly afraid of fatal consequences to my wife for want of sleep, she not
having, after the great danger was over, had any sleep for more than forty-
eight hours. All great cities in hot countries are, I believe, full of dogs, and
they, in the very hot weather, keep up during the night a horrible barking
and fighting and howling. Upon the particular occasion to which I am
adverting they made a noise so terrible and so unremitted that it was next to
impossible that even a person in full health and free from pain should obtain
a minute's sleep. I was, about nine in the evening, sitting by the bed. 'I do
think,' said she, 'that I could go to sleep now, if it were not for the dogs.'

Downstairs I went, and out I sallied, in my shirt and trousers, and without
shoes and stockings; and, going to a heap of stones lying beside the road,
set to work upon the dogs, going backward and forward, and keeping them
at two or three hundred yards' distance from the house. I walked thus the
whole night, barefooted, lest the noise of my shoes might possibly reach her
ears; and I remember that the bricks of the causeway were, even in the
night, so hot as to be disagreeable to my feet. My exertions produced the
desired effect: a sleep of several hours was the consequence, and, at eight
o'clock in the morning, off went I to a day's business which was to end at
six in the evening.

"Women are all patriots of the soil; and when her neighbours used to ask
my wife whether all English husbands were like hers, she boldly answered
in the affirmative. I had business to occupy the whole of my time, Sundays
and week-days, except sleeping hours; but I used to make time to assist her
in the taking care of her baby, and in all sorts of things: get up, light her
fire, boil her tea-kettle, carry her up warm water in cold weather, take the
child while she dressed herself and got the breakfast ready, then breakfast,
get her in water and wood for the day, then dress myself neatly and sally
forth to my business. The moment that was over I used to hasten back to her
again; and I no more thought of spending a moment away from her, unless
business compelled me, than I thought of quitting the country and going to
sea. The thunder and lightning are tremendous in America compared with
what they are in England. My wife was at one time very much afraid of
thunder and lightning; and, as is the feeling of all such women, and indeed
all men too, she wanted company, and particularly her husband, in those
times of danger. I knew well of course that my presence would not diminish
the danger; but, be I at what I might, if within reach of home, I used to quit
my business and hasten to her the moment I perceived a thunderstorm
approaching. Scores of miles have I, first and last, run on this errand in the
streets of Philadelphia! The Frenchmen who were my scholars used to
laugh at me exceedingly on this account; and sometimes, when I was
making an appointment with them, they would say, with a smile and a bow,
'Sauve le tonnerre toujours, Monsieur Cobbett!'"

Much is said both wise and otherwise in reference to the obedience
which a wife vows to yield to her husband. One who wrote a sketch of the

Rev. F. D. Maurice tells us that he met him once at a wedding breakfast.
Maurice proposed the health of the bride and bridegroom. The lady turned
round, and in rather bad taste exclaimed, "Now, Mr. Maurice, I call you to
witness that I entertain no intention of obeying." Maurice answered with his
sad, sweet smile, "Ah, madam, you little know the blessedness of
obedience."

Of course no one believes that it is a wife's duty to obey when her
husband wishes her to act contrary to the dictates of conscience. As little is
she expected to conform to a standard of obedience and service such as was
laid down in a conversation overheard between two children who were
playing on the sands together. Small boy to little girl: "Do you wish to be
my wife?" Little girl, after reflection; "Yes." Small boy: "Then pull off my
boots." We all rejoice in the fact that woman's rights are very different now
from what they used to be, at least in Russia, where, Dr. Lansdell tells us,
anciently at a wedding the bridegroom took to church a whip, and in one
part of the ceremony lightly applied it to the bride's back, in token that she
was to be in subjection. Is there not still, however, much truth in the old
couplet:

"Man, love thy wife; thy husband, wife, obey.
Wives are our heart; we should be head alway"?

On a great many points concerning the pecuniary or other interests of the
family, the husband will usually be the wisest, and may most properly be
treated as the senior or acting partner in the firm.

"The good wife," says Fuller, "commandeth her husband in any equal
matter, by constantly obeying him. It was always observed, that what the
English gained of the French in battle by valour, the French regained of the
English in cunning by treaties. So if the husband should chance by his
power in his passion to prejudice his wife's right, she wisely knoweth by
compounding and complying, to recover and rectify it again." This is very
much what the well-known lines in "Hiawatha" teach—

"As unto the bow the cord is,
So unto the man is woman;
Though she bends him, she obeys him;

Though she draws him, yet she follows;
Useless each without the other!"

But indeed it is a sign of something being wrong between married
people, when the question which of the two shall be subject to the other
ever arises. It will never do so when both parties love as they ought, for
then the struggle will be not who shall command and control, but who shall
serve and yield. As Chaucer says—

"When mastery cometh, then sweet Love anon,
Flappeth his nimble wings and soon away is flown."

CHAPTER XI.
"DRIVE GENTLY OVER THE STONES!"

"It were better to meet some dangers half-way, though they come nothing near."—
Bacon.

"Rocks whereon greatest men have oftest wreck'd."—Milton.

"Drive gently over the stones!" This piece of advice, which is frequently
given to inexperienced whips, may be suggested metaphorically to the
newly-married. On the road upon which they have entered there are stony
places, which, if not carefully driven over, will almost certainly upset the
domestic coach. To accompany one's wife harmoniously on an Irish car is
easy compared to the task of accompanying her over these stones on the
domestic car.

The first rock ahead which should be signalled "dangerous" is the first
year of married life. As a rule the first year either mars or makes a marriage.
During this period errors may be committed which will cast a shadow over
every year that follows. We agree with Mrs. Jameson in thinking that the
first year of married life is not as happy as the second. People have to get
into the habit of being married, and there are difficult lessons to be learned
in the apprenticeship.

A lady once asked Dr. Johnson how in his dictionary he came to define
pastern the knee of a horse; he immediately answered, "Ignorance, madam,
pure ignorance." This is the simple explanation of many an accident that
takes place at the commencement of the matrimonial journey. The young
couple have not yet learned the dangerous places of the road, and, as a
consequence, they drive carelessly over them.

How many people starting in married life throw happiness out of their
grasp, and create troubles for the rest of their days! The cause may be
generally traced to selfishness, their conceit taking everything that goes
amiss as meant for a personal affront, and their wounded self-esteem
making life a burden hard to bear, for themselves and others. We can all
recognize in every circle such cases; we are all able to read the moral
elsewhere; but in our own case we allow the small breach—that might be
healed with very little effort at first—to get wider and wider, and the pair
that should become closer and closer, gradually not only cease to care for,
but have a dread of each other's society.

There is one simple direction, which, if carefully regarded, might long
preserve the tranquillity of the married life, and ensure no inconsiderable
portion of connubial happiness to the observers of it: it is—to beware of the
first dispute. "Man and wife," says Jeremy Taylor, "are equally concerned to
avoid all offences of each other in the beginning of their conversation;
every little thing can blast an infant blossom; and the breath of the south
can shake the little rings of the vine, when first they begin to curl like the
locks of a new weaned boy: but when by age and consolidation they stiffen
into the hardness of a stem, and have, by the warm embraces of the sun and
the kisses of heaven, brought forth their clusters, they can endure the storms
of the north, and the loud noises of a tempest, and yet never be broken. So
are the early unions of an unfixed marriage; watchful and observant, jealous
and busy, inquisitive and careful, and apt to take alarm at every unkind
word. After the hearts of the man and the wife are endeared and hardened
by a mutual confidence and experience, longer than artifice and pretence
can last, there are a great many remembrances, and some things present,
that dash all little unkindnesses in pieces."

Every little dispute between man and wife is dangerous. It forces good-
humour out of its channel, undermines affection, and insidiously, though
perhaps insensibly, wears out and, at last, entirely destroys that cordiality
which is the life and soul of matrimonial felicity. As however "it's hardly in
a body's power to keep at times from being sour," undue importance ought
not to be attached to "those little tiffs that sometimes cast a shade on
wedlock." Often they are, as the poet goes on to observe, "love in
masquerade—

"And family jars, look we but o'er the rim,
Are filled with honey, even to the brim."

In the Life of St. Francis de Sales we are told that the saint did not
approve of the saying, "Never rely on a reconciled enemy." He rather
preferred a contrary maxim, and said that a quarrel between friends, when
made up, added a new tie to friendship; as experience shows that the
calosity formed round a broken bone makes it stronger than before.

Beware of jealousy; "it is the green-eyed monster, which doth make the
meat it feeds on." Here is an amusing case in point. A French lady who was
jealous of her husband determined to watch his movements. One day, when
he told her he was going to Versailles, she followed him, keeping him in
sight until she missed him in a passage leading to the railway station.
Looking about her for a few minutes, she saw a man coming out of a glove-
shop with a rather overdressed lady. Blinded with rage and jealousy, she
fancied it was her husband, and without pausing for a moment to consider,
bounced suddenly up to him and gave him three or four stinging boxes on
the ear. The instant the gentleman turned round, she discovered her mistake,
and at the same moment caught sight of her husband, who had merely
called at a tobacconist's, and was now crossing the street. There was
nothing for it but to faint in the arms of the gentleman she had attacked;
while the other lady moved away, to avoid a scene. The stranger, astonished
to find an unknown lady in his arms, was further startled by a gentleman
seizing him by the collar and demanding to know what he meant by
embracing that lady. "Why, sir, she boxed my ears, and then fainted,"
exclaimed the innocent victim. "She is my wife," shouted the angry
husband, "and would never have struck you without good cause." Worse
than angry words would probably have followed had not the cause of the
whole misunderstanding recovered sufficiently to explain how it had all
happened.

A jealous wife is generally considered a proper subject for ridicule; and a
woman ought to conceal from her husband any feeling of the kind. Her
suspicions may be altogether groundless, and she may be tormenting herself
with a whole train of imaginary evils.

On the other hand a husband is bound to abstain from even the
appearance of preferring any one else to his wife. When in the presence of
others he should indulge her laudable pride by showing that he thinks her an
object of importance and preference.

In his "Advice to Young Men" Cobbett gives this interesting bit of
autobiography. "For about two or three years after I was married, I,
retaining some of my military manners, used, both in France and America,
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 to bear this in mind; for on
some trifle of this sort the happiness or misery of a long life frequently
turns."

There may be a fanaticism in love as well as in belief, and where people
love much they are apt to be exacting one to the other. But although
jealousy does imply love, such love as consists in a craving for the affection
of its object, it is love which is largely dashed with selfishness. It is
incompatible with love of the highest order, for where that exists there is no
dread of not being loved enough in return. In this relation as well as in the
highest, "There is no fear in love, but perfect love casteth out fear, because
fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love."

It is generally admitted that conjugal affection largely depends on mutual
confidence. A friend quoted this sentiment the other day in a smoking-room,
and added that he made it a rule to tell his wife everything that happened,
and in this way they avoided any misunderstanding. "Well, sir," remarked
another gentleman present, not to be outdone in generosity, "you are not so
open and frank as I am, for I tell my wife a good many things that never
happen." "Oh!" exclaimed a third, "I am under no necessity to keep my wife

informed regarding my affairs. She can find out five times as much as I
know myself without the least trouble."

"How," said a gentleman to a friend who wished to convey a matter of
importance to a lady without communicating directly with her, "how can
you be certain of her reading the letter, seeing that you have directed it to
her husband?" "That I have managed without the possibility of failure," was
the answer; "she will open it to a certainty, for I have put the word 'private'
in the corner."

These anecdotes put in a lively way the well-known fact that it is
impossible for married people to keep secrets the one from the other. But
even to make the attempt is to enter upon ground so dangerous that scarcely
any amount of cautious driving will prevent a catastrophe. Unless husband
and wife trust each other all in all the result will be much the same as if they
trusted not at all.

We believe that the Delilahs are few who would sell their Samsons to the
Philistines when these Samsons have told them the secret source of their
great strength. Still, there are secrets entrusted to the clergyman, the
physician, the lawyer, the legislator to betray which, even to a wife, would
be dishonourable and disgraceful.

A case beautifully illustrating this difficult point in matrimonial relations
occurs in the memoirs of Lady Fanshawe, wife of Sir Richard Fanshawe,
who was a faithful Royalist during the civil war. Soon after Lady
Fanshawe's marriage, she was instigated by some crafty ladies of the court
to obtain from her husband a knowledge of some secret political events.
The matter is best described in her own words: "And now I thought myself
a perfect queen, and my husband so glorious a crown, that I more valued
myself to be called by his name than born a princess, for I knew him very
wise and very good, and his soul doted on me; upon which confidence I will
tell you what happened. My Lady Rivers, a brave woman, and one that had
suffered many thousand pounds' loss for the King, and whom I had a great
reverence for, and she a kindness for me as a kinswoman—in discourse she
tacitly commended the knowledge of State affairs, and that some women
were very happy in a good understanding thereof, as my Lady Aubingny,
Lady Isabel Thynne, and divers others, and yet none was at first more

capable than I; that in the night she knew there came a post from Paris from
the Queen, and that she would be extremely glad to hear what the Queen
commanded the King in order to his affairs; saying, if I would ask my
husband privately, he would tell me what he found in the packet, and I
might tell her. I that was young and innocent, and to that day had never in
my mouth, what news?—began to think there was more in inquiring into
public affairs than I thought of, and that it being a fashionable thing, would
make me more beloved of my husband, if that had been possible, than I
was. When my husband returned home from council, after welcoming him,
as his custom ever was, he went with his handful of papers into his study
for an hour or more; I followed him: he turned hastily and said, 'What
would'st thou have, my life?' I told him, 'I heard the Prince had received a
packet from the Queen, and I guessed it was that in his hands, and I desired
to know what was in it.' He smilingly replied, 'My love, I will immediately
come to thee; pray thee go, for I am very busy.' When he came out of his
closet I revived my suit; he kissed me and talked of other things. At supper,
I would eat nothing; he as usual sat by me, and drank often to me, which
was his custom, and was full of discourse to company that was at table.
Going to bed I asked again, and said I could not believe he loved me, if he
refused to tell me all he knew; but he answered nothing, but stopped my
mouth with kisses. So we went to bed; I cried, and he went to sleep. Next
morning early, as his custom was, he was called to rise, but began to
discourse with me first; to which I made no reply; he rose, came on the
other side of the bed and kissed me, and drew the curtain softly and went to
court. When he came home to dinner, he presently came to me as was usual,
and when I had him by the hand, I said, 'Thou dost not care to see me
troubled;' to which he, taking me in his arms, answered, 'My dearest soul,
nothing upon earth can afflict me like that; and when you asked me of my
business, it was wholly out of my power to satisfy thee, for my life and
fortune shall be thine, and every thought of my heart in which the trust I am
in may not be revealed; but my honour is my own, which I cannot preserve
if I communicate the Prince's affairs; and pray thee with this answer rest
satisfied.' So great was his reason and goodness, that upon consideration it
made my folly appear to me so vile, that from that day until the day of his
death, I never thought fit to ask him any business but what he
communicated freely to me, in order to his estate and family."

When a man comes home tired, hungry, and put out about something that
has gone wrong in business, this is not the time for his wife to order him to
stand and deliver his secret troubles. Rather, she should give him a well-
cooked dinner and say little or nothing. Later on in the evening, when he is
rested and has smoked a pipe of peace, he will be only too glad to give her
his confidence in return for her sympathetic treatment of him. It seems to
me that there is more of vulgar familiarity than of confidence in a man and
wife at all times opening each other's letters. A sealed letter is sacred; and
all persons like to have the first reading of their own letters. Why should a
close relationship abrogate respectful courtesy?

Artemus Ward tells us that when he was at Salt Lake he was introduced
to Brigham Young's mother-in-law. "I can't exactly tell you how many there
is of her, but it's a good deal." Married people require to drive gently when
there is in the way the stumbling-block of "a good deal" of mother-or other
relations-in-law. Certainly Adam and Eve were in paradise in this respect.
"When I want a nice snug day all to myself," says an ingenuous wife, "I tell
George dear mother is coming, and then I see nothing of him till one in the
morning." "Are your domestic relations agreeable?" was the question put to
an unhappy-looking specimen of humanity. "Oh, my domestic relations are
all right; it is my wife's relations that are causing the trouble." It is true we
read in the Graphic a year or two ago an exception to the usual dislike to
mothers-in-law, but the exception was scarcely reassuring. A well-dressed
young woman of nineteen informed a magistrate that her own mother had
run away with her husband. This mater pulchrior came to stay with her filia
pulchra, won the affections of the husband, and, at last, withdrew him from
his hearth and home. Still it is the duty of people to keep on terms of at least
friendly neutrality with their relations-in-law. Where there is disunion there
are generally faults on both sides.

We know of a working-man who on the eve of his marriage signed a
promise to abstain from intoxicating liquor. He put the document into a
frame and presented it to his wife after the wedding as a marriage
settlement. And certainly there cannot be a better marriage settlement than
for a young husband to settle his habits.

The young husband or wife who is in the least degree careless in the use
of intoxicating drinks should read the following account which Mr. Gough
gives of a case which he met in one of the convict prisons of America. "I
was attracted, while speaking to the prisoners in the chapel, by the patient,
gentle look of one of the convicts who sat before me, whose whole
appearance was that of a mild-tempered, quiet man. After the service, one
of the prison officers, in reply to my question, stated that this same man was
serving out a life term. I asked what was the possible crime for which he
was serving a life term in a State prison. 'Murder.' 'Murder?' 'Yes, he
murdered his wife.' Having asked if I might have an interview with him, my
request was granted, and I held a conversation with him. 'My friend, I do
not wish to ask you any questions that will be annoying; but I was struck by
your appearance, and was so much surprised when I heard of your crime,
that I thought I would like to ask you a question. May I?' 'Certainly, sir.'
'Then why did you commit the crime? What led you to it?' Then came such
a pitiful story. He said: 'I loved my wife, but I drank to excess. She was a
good woman; she never complained; come home when or how I might, she
never scolded. I think I never heard a sharp word from her. She would
sometimes look at me with such a pitying look that went to my heart;
sometimes it made me tender, and I would cry, and promise to do better; at
other times it would make me angry. I almost wished she would scold me,
rather than look at me with that patient earnestness. I knew I was breaking
her heart; but I was a slave to drink. Though I loved her, I knew I was
killing her. One day I came home drunk, and as I entered the room I saw her
sitting at the table, her face resting on her hand. Oh, my God! I think I see
her now! As I came in she lifted up her face; there were tears there; but she
smiled and said, "Well, William." I remember just enough to know that I
was mad. The devil entered into me. I rushed into the kitchen, seized my
gun, and deliberately shot her as she sat by that table. I am in prison for life,
and have no desire to be released. If a pardon was offered me, I think I
should refuse it. Buried here in this prison, I wait till the end comes. I trust
God has forgiven me for Christ's sake. I have bitterly repented; I repent
every day. Oh, the nights when in the darkness I see her face—see her just
as she looked on me that fatal day! I shall rejoice when the time comes. I
pray that I may meet her in heaven.' This was said with sobbings and tears
that were heart-breaking to hear."

"There goes me but for the grace of God!" "What, is thy servant a dog,
that he should do this great thing?" No! not a dog, but a young man or a
young woman who is liable to forget that "small habits well pursued
betimes may reach the dignity of crimes." If you do not measure your liquor
with as much care as strong medicine; if you are not on your guard against
those drinking habits of society and business which first draw, then drag,
and then haul—beware lest tyrant custom make you a slave to what has
been called "the most authentic incarnation of the principle of evil."

CHAPTER XII.
FURNISHING.

"By wisdom is a house built; by understanding it is established; and by knowledge the
chambers are filled with all pleasant and precious treasures."—Solomon's Practical
Wisdom.

"We cannot arrest sunsets nor carve mountains, but we may turn every English home, if
we choose, into a picture which shall be no counterfeit, but the true and perfect image of
life indeed."—Ruskin.

A condition of pleasantness in a house has a real power in refining and
raising the characters of its inmates; so home should not only be a haven of
rest, peace, and sympathy, but should have an element of beauty in all its
details. Ugliness and discomfort blunt the sensibilities and lower the spirits.
D'Israeli said, "Happiness is atmosphere," and from this point of view a few
words about furnishing may not be out of place in our inquiry as to how to
be happy though married. Certainly the fitting up and arranging of a home
will not appear unimportant to those who think with Dr. Johnson that it is
by studying little things that we attain the great art of having as little misery
and as much happiness as possible. "Pound St. Paul's church into atoms and
consider any single atom; it is, to be sure, good for nothing; but put these
atoms together, and you have St. Paul's church. So it is with human felicity,
which is made up of many ingredients, each of which may be shown to be
very insignificant."

The expense of furnishing is often a source of considerable anxiety to
young people about to marry. We think, however, that this matrimonial care
is, or should be, much more lightly felt than in past years. Competition has
made furniture cheaper, and it is now considered "bad form" to crowd
rooms or to have in them the large heavy things that were so expensive.
Elegance displayed in little things is the order of the day. A few light chairs

of different sizes and shapes, a small lounge, one or two little tables, the
floor polished round the edges and covered in the centre with a square of
carpet, or, if the whole room be stained, with Oriental rugs where required;
the windows hung with some kind of light drapery—what more do newly-
married people require in their drawing-room? Oh! we have forgotten the
piano, and we suppose it is inevitable, but it can easily be hired.

It is a great gain for a young couple to be compelled to economize, for,
rich as they may become afterwards, habits of thrift never quite leave them.
Their furniture may be scanty and some of it not very new, but common
things can be prettily covered, and the dullest of rooms is set off by the
knick-knacks that came in so plentifully among the bridal spoils. Besides, if
they start with everything they want, there is nothing to wish for, and no
pleasure in adding to their possessions. George Eliot has a subtle remark
about the "best society, where no one makes an invidious display of
anything in particular, and the advantages of the world are taken with that
high-bred depreciation which follows from being accustomed to them."

No doubt there will be pictures and photographs, the hanging of which
occasions considerable discussion, and perhaps involves the first serious
divergence of opinion. We must remember, however, that it is much better
to have no pictures than bad ones, and that photographs of scenery are
rarely decorative. As regards one's relations when they are really decorative,
even Mr. Oscar Wilde can see no reason why their photographs should not
be hung on the walls, though he hopes that, if called on to make a stand
between the principles of domestic affection and decorative art, the latter
may have the first place.

It is a safe rule to have nothing in our houses that we do not know to be
useful or think to be beautiful. We should show our love of art and beauty in
our surroundings, and bring it to bear in the selection of the smallest
household trifle. To have things tasteful and pretty costs no more than to
have them ugly; but it costs a great deal more trouble. Simplicity,
appropriateness, harmony of colour—these produce the best results. When
we enter a room, the first feeling ought to be, "How comfortable!" and the
second, as we glance quickly round to discover why, ought to be, "How
beautiful!" Not a touch too much nor too little. The art is to conceal art.

Directly affectation enters, beauty goes out. But while there should be
nothing bizarre in our method of furnishing, rooms should reflect the
individuality of their owners. They should never look as if they were
furnished by contract. People should allow their own taste to have its way.
Whatever we have, let it not be flimsy, but good of its kind. Good things are
cheapest in the end, and it is economy to employ good dependable
tradespeople.

When he heard of the occurrence of some piece of mischief, George the
Fourth used to ask, "Who is she?" This question may be asked with much
more reason when we enter a pretty room. Who is she whose judgment and
fingers have so arranged these unconsidered trifles as to make out of very
little an effect so charming? Compare a bachelor's house with the same
house after its master has taken to himself a helpmate. "Bless thee, Bottom!
bless thee! thou art translated!" the friends of his former state may well
exclaim. Of course we are supposing the lady's head to be furnished, for if
that do not contain a certain amount of common sense, good taste, and
power of observation, the result will soon be observed in her house. A
drawing-room should be for use and not for show merely, and should be
furnished accordingly. It should be tidy, but not painfully tidy. Self-respect
should lead us to have things nice in our homes, whether the eyes of
company are to see them or not. It was surely right of Robinson Crusoe to
make his solitary cave look as smart as possible. Who does not respect the
wife whose dinner-table is prettily adorned with flowers even on days when
no one but her husband has the honour of dining with her?

To furnish the kitchen is a troublesome and unsatisfactory business. It is
unsatisfactory because one expends on kitchen utensils, which are rather
dear, a considerable amount of money without having much to show. And it
is troublesome to have to distinguish between the many implements a cook
really does require and those which she only imagines to be necessary. Still,
cook must be supplied with every appliance that is really necessary. Without
these there may be an expenditure of time out of all proportion to her task.
On the equipoise of that lady's temper depends to a not inconsiderable
extent the comfort of the house. Have in the kitchen a good clock, and teach
your servants to take a pleasure in making sweet and bright their own
special chambers.

Our present sanitary ideas will tolerate no longer curtains on beds, or
heavy carpets on the floors of sleeping apartments. Both foster dust, and
dust conceals the germs of disease. That carpets are sometimes made a too
convenient receptacle for dust is evident from the answer that was once
given by a housemaid. Professing to have become converted to religion, she
was asked for a proof of the happy change, and thus replied: "Now," she
said, "I sweep under the mats." For bedrooms there should be narrow,
separate, tight-woven strips of carpet around the bed and in front of
furniture only. These are easy to shake, and in every sense in harmony with
the simplicity and cleanliness which, if health is to be preserved, must
pervade the bedroom. The more air it contains the better, and hence
everything superfluous should be banished from it. But we shall not specify
the different things which, in our opinion, should, or should not, be found in
the several rooms of a house, for after all it is the arrangement of furniture
rather than the furniture itself that makes the difference.

If the question be asked, Is it better to pick up furniture at auctions or to
buy it in shops? we reply, Avoid auctions. Things are varnished up to the
eye, and it is seldom possible to examine them. So you generally find on
returning home from a sale that your purchases are by no means what they
seemed.

As regards the expense of furnishing a small house such as young
housekeepers of the middle class usually hire when first they settle down in
life, this of course varies with circumstances, but even one hundred pounds
ought nearly to suffice. To estimate the cost rightly, one should know the
tastes of the people concerned, their social position, the size of their house,
and the style of the locality in which they propose to live. Very good
furniture can sometimes be obtained secondhand, but one must be on their
guard against "bargains" that are worthless. There are certain articles, such
as lamps, beds, and bedding, that should as a general rule be purchased new.

People are generally in too great haste when furnishing. They should be
prudent, deliberate, and wait with their eyes open until they see the sort of
things that will suit them. They should buy the most instantly necessary
articles first with ready money, and add to these as they can afford it to
carry out ideas formed by observation. They should buy what can be easily

replaced after legitimate wear and tear, what their servants can properly
attend to, and what will save labour and time.

CHAPTER XIII.
MARRIED PEOPLE'S MONEY.

"Never treat money affairs with levity—money is character."—Sir E. Bulwer Lytton.

A Scotch minister, preaching against the love of money, had frequently
repeated that it was "the root of all evil." Walking home from the church
one old person said to another, "An wasna the minister strang upon the
money?" "Nae doubt," said the other, and added, "Ay, but it's grand to hae
the wee bit siller in your hand when ye gang an errand." So too, in spite of
all that love-in-a-cottage theorists may say, "it's grand to hae the wee bit
siller" when marrying; unless, indeed, we believe that mortality is one of
the effects of matrimony as did the girl, who, on meeting a lady whose
service she had lately left, and being asked, "Well, Mary, where do you live
now?" answered, "Please, ma'am, I don't live now—I'm married." To marry
for love and work for silver is quite right, but there should be a reasonable
chance of getting work to do and some provision for a rainy day. It is only
the stupidity which is without anxiety, that complacently marries on
"nothing a week; and that uncertain—very!" And yet such flying in the face
of Providence is often spoken of as being disinterested and heroic, and the
quiverfuls of children resulting from it are supposed to be blessed. As if it
were a blessing to give children appetites of hunger and thirst, and nothing
to satisfy them.

On the other hand, there is some truth in the saying that "what will keep
one will keep two." There are bachelors who are so ultra-prudent, and who
hold such absurd opinions as to the expense of matrimony that, although
they have enough money they have not enough courage to enter the state.
Pitt used to say that he could not afford to marry, yet his butcher's bill was
so enormous that some one has calculated it as affording his servants about

fourteen pounds of meat a day, each man and woman! For the more
economical regulation of his household, if for no other reason, he should
have taken to himself a wife.

Newly-married people should be careful not to pitch their rate of
expenditure higher than they can hope to continue it; and they should
remember that, as Lord Bacon said, "it is less dishonourable to abridge
petty charges (expenses) than to stoop to petty gettings." That was excellent
advice which Dr. Johnson gave to Boswell when the latter inherited his
paternal estate: "You, dear sir, have now a new station, and have, therefore,
new cares and new employments. Life, as Cowley seems to say, ought to
resemble a well-ordered poem; of which one rule generally received is, that
the exordium should be simple, and should promise little. Begin your new
course of life with the least show, and the least expense possible; you may
at pleasure increase both, but you cannot easily diminish them. Do not think
your estate your own, while any man can call upon you for money which
you cannot pay; therefore begin with timorous parsimony. Let it be your
first care not to be in any man's debt."

The thrifty wife of Benjamin Franklin felt it a gala day indeed when, by
long accumulated small savings, she was able to surprise her husband one
morning with a china cup and a silver spoon, from which to take his
breakfast. Franklin was shocked: "You see how luxury creeps into families
in spite of principles," he said. When his meal was over he went to the
store, and rolled home a wheelbarrow full of papers through the streets with
his own hands, lest folks should get wind of the china cup, and say he was
above his business.

Although the creeping in of luxury is to be guarded against at the
commencement of married life, people should learn to grow rich gracefully.
It is no part of wisdom to depreciate the little elegances and social
enjoyments of our homes. Those who can afford it act wisely when they
furnish their houses with handsome furniture, cover the walls with
suggestive paintings, and collect expensive books, for these things afford
refined enjoyment. One day a gentleman told Dr. Johnson that he had
bought a suit of lace for his wife. Johnson: "Well, sir, you have done a good
thing, and a wise thing." "I have done a good thing," said the gentleman,

"but I do not know that I have done a wise thing." Johnson: "Yes, sir, no
money is better spent than what is laid out for domestic satisfaction. A man
is pleased that his wife is dressed as well as other people; and a wife is
pleased that she is dressed."

We should be particular about money matters, but not penurious. The
penny soul never, it is said, came to twopence. There is that withholdeth
more than is meet, but it tendeth to poverty. People are often saving at the
wrong place, and spoil the ship for a halfpenny worth of tar. They spare at
the spigot, and let all run away at the bunghole.

She is the wise wife who can steer between penuriousness and such
recklessness as is described in the following cutting from an American
periodical. "My dear fellow," said Lavender, "it's all very nice to talk about
economizing and keeping a rigid account of expenses, and that sort of thing,
but I've tried it. Two weeks ago I stepped in on my way home Saturday
night, and I bought just the gayest little Russian leather, cream-laid account-
book you ever saw, and a silver pencil to match it. I said to my wife after
supper: 'My dear, it seems to me it costs a lot of money to keep house.' She
sighed and said: 'I know it does, Lavvy; but I'm sure I can't help it. I'm just
as economical as I can be. I don't spend half as much for candy as you do
for cigars.' I never take any notice of personalities, so I sailed right ahead. 'I
believe, my dear, that if we were to keep a strict account of everything we
spend we could tell just where to cut down. I've bought you a little account-
book, and every Monday morning I'll give you some money, and you can
set it down on one side; and then, during the week, you can set down on the
other side everything you spend. And then on Saturday night we can go
over it and see just where the money goes, and how we can boil things
down a little.' Well, sir, she was just delighted—thought it was a first-rate
plan, and the pocket account-book was lovely—regular David Copperfield
and Dora business. Well, sir, the next Saturday night we got through supper,
and she brought out that account-book as proud as possible, and handed it
over for inspection. On one side was, 'Received from Lavvy, 50 dols.' That's
all right! Then I looked on the other page, and what do you think was there?
'Spent it all!' Then I laughed, and of course she cried; and we gave up the
account-book racket on the spot by mutual consent. Yes, sir, I've been there,
and I know what domestic economy means, I tell you. Let's have a cigar."

It is the fear of this sort of thing, and especially of extravagance in
reference to dress, that confirms many men in bachelorship. A society paper
tells us that at a recent dance given at the West-end, a married lady of
extravagant habits impertinently asked a wealthy old bachelor if he
remained single because he could not afford to keep a wife. "My innocent
young friend," was the reply, "I could afford to keep three; but I'm not rich
enough to pay the milliner's bills of one."

A wife who puts conscience into the management of her husband's
money should not be obliged to account to him for the exact manner in
which she lays out each penny in the pound. An undue interference on his
part will cause much domestic irritation, and may have a bad influence on
social morals.

In "Memoirs of the Life of Colonel Hutchinson," his wife says, "So
liberal was he to her, and of so generous a temper, that he hated the mention
of severed purses; his estate being so much at her disposal that he never
would receive an account of anything she expended."

No one can feel dignified, free, and happy without the control of a certain
amount of money for the graces, the elegant adornments, and, above all, for
the charities of life. The hard-drawn line of simply paying the bills closes a
thousand avenues to gentle joys and pleasures in a woman's daily life.

We would advise all wives to strike the iron when hot, so to speak, by
getting their husbands, before the ardour of the honeymoon cools, to give
them an annual allowance. The little unavoidable demands on a husband's
purse, to which a wife is so frequently compelled to have recourse, are very
apt to create bickering and discord; and when once good-humour is put out
of the way, it is not such an easy matter to bring it back again.

A Chicago young lady, on being asked the usual question in which the
words "love, honour, and obey" occur, made the straightforward reply:
"Yes, I will, if he does what he promises me financially." The conduct of
some husbands almost justified this answer.

As regards the important subject of Life Insurance there are few
husbands and fathers who can afford to be indifferent to the possibility of

making adequate and immediate provision for those dependent upon them,
in case of their sudden removal.

This matter of Life Insurance should be settled before marriage, as well
as all other monetary and legal arrangements that have to be made either
with the wife that is to be, or with her relations, because post-matrimonial
business details may introduce notes of discord into what might have been a
harmonious home. "When I courted her, I took lawyer's advice, and signed
every letter to my love—'Yours, without prejudice!'" It may not be
necessary to be quite so cautious as the lover who tells us this; but he was
certainly right in transacting his legal business before marriage rather than
afterwards.

"Do not accustom yourself to consider debt only as an inconvenience;
you will find it a calamity." Douglas Jerrold says that "the shirt of Nessus
was a shirt not paid for." Those who would be happy though married must
pitch their scale of living a degree below their means, rather than up to
them; but this can only be done by keeping a careful account of income and
expenditure. John Locke strongly advised this course: "Nothing," he said,
"is likelier to keep a man within compass than having constantly before his
eyes, the state of his affairs in a regular course of account." The Duke of
Wellington kept an accurate detailed account of all the moneys received and
expended by him. "I make a point," he said, "of paying my own bills, and I
advise every one to do the same. Formerly I used to trust a confidential
servant to pay them, but I was cured of that folly by receiving one morning,
to my great surprise, dues of a year or two's standing. The fellow had
speculated with my money, and left my bills unpaid." Talking of debt, his
remark was, "It makes a slave of a man." Washington was as particular as
Wellington was in matters of business detail. He did not disdain to
scrutinize the smallest outgoings of his household, even when holding the
office of President of the American Union.

When Maginn, always drowned in debt, was asked what he paid for his
wine, he replied that he did not know; but he believed they "put something
down in a book." This "putting down in a book" has proved the ruin of a
great many people. The regular weekly payment of tradesmen is not only
more honest, but far more economical. I know a wife who says that she

cannot afford to get into the books of tradesmen, and who prides herself
upon the fact that she will never haunt her husband after her death in the
shape of an unpaid bill. These principles will induce married people to
always try to have a fund reserved for sickness, the necessity of a change of
abode, and other contingencies.

Perfect confidence as regards money matters should exist between
married people. In a letter to a young lady upon her marriage, Swift says, "I
think you ought to be well informed how much your husband's revenue
amounts to, and be so good a computer as to keep within it that part of the
management which falls to your share, and not to put yourself in the
number of those polite ladies who think they gain a great point when they
have teased their husbands to buy them a new equipage, a laced head, or a
fine petticoat, without once considering what long score remained unpaid to
the butcher."

With regard to keeping up appearances it must be remembered that few
people can afford to disregard them entirely. A shabby hat that in a rich man
would pass for perhaps an amiable eccentricity, might conceivably cause
the tailor to send in his bill to a poorer customer. In this matter, as in so
many others, we may act from a right or from a wrong motive. Nowhere is
the attempt to keep up appearances more praiseworthy than in the case of
those who have to housekeep upon very small incomes. The cotter's wife in
Burns's poem who—

"Wi' her needle and her sheers,
Gars auld claes look amaist as weel's the new"—

deserves the title of heroine for her efforts to keep up appearances.

But the senseless competition that consists in giving large entertainments,
the huge "meat-shows" which got under the name of dinner-parties, have no
tendency to promote true happiness. Homes are made sweet by simplicity
and freedom from affectation, and these are also the qualities that put guests
at their ease, and make them feel at home. A Dublin lady took a world of
trouble to provide a variety of dishes, and have all cooked with great skill,
for an entertainment she was to give in honour of Dean Swift. But from the
first bit that was tasted she did not cease to undervalue the courses, and to

beg indulgence for the shortcomings of the cook. "Hang it," said Swift, after
the annoyance had gone on a little, "if everything is as bad as you say, I'll
go home and get a herring dressed for myself."

I once heard of a lady, who, not being prepared for the unexpected
visitors, sent to the confectioner's for some tarts to help out the dinner. All
would have gone off well, but that the lady, wishing to keep up
appearances, said to the servant: "Ah! what are those tarts?" "Fourpence
apiece, ma'am," was the reply.

There are thousands of women in these islands who cannot marry. But
why can they not marry? Because they have false notions about
respectability. And so long as this is the case, young men will do well to
decline the famous advice, "Marry early—yes, marry early, and marry
often."

"Why," asked a Sussex labourer, "should I give a woman half my victuals
for cooking the other half?" Imagine the horror of this anti-matrimonial
reasoner if it were proposed that he should give half his victuals for not
cooking at all, or doing anything except keeping up appearances. "He was
reputed," says Bacon, "one of the wise men that made answer to the
question, when a man should marry? A young man not yet, an elder man not
at all." This answer would not appear so wise, if we had less erroneous
notions on the subject of keeping up appearances.

CHAPTER XIV.
THE MANAGEMENT OF SERVANTS.

"A good mistress makes a good servant."—Proverb.

In England materfamilias is always complaining of servant difficulties.
Those, however, who have lived in some of our colonies know that the very
thought of an English servant conveys a certain soothing sensation to
feelings that have been harassed by the servants—if we may so name such
tyrants—in these places. A friend of mine in Bermuda wished to hire a
nurse. One day, as she was sitting in her verandah, a coloured person
appeared before her and suggested, laying great emphasis on the words in
italics, "Are you the woman that wants a lady to nurse your baby?"

The servants in this and some other parts of the world consider
themselves not merely equal but much superior to their employers, and
there is a consequent difficulty in managing them. If you show any
disinclination to their giving to friends much of the food with which you
had hoped to sustain your family, they will disappear from your
establishment without giving the slightest warning. A servant wishes to
keep one or two members of her family in your house. If you dare to object,
your widely-spread reputation for meanness will prevent any other servant
applying for your situation for months. In a word, the employers of these
helpful beings are every day reminded of the servant who said to his master:
"I don't wish to be unreasonable, but I want three things, sir: more wages,
less work, and I should like to have the keys of the wine-cellar."

Though matters are not quite so bad at home, there are nevertheless many
much-tried masters and mistresses. Certainly some of them deserve to
suffer. They have not given the very least attention to the art of managing

servants. As parents spoil their children and wonder at the results, so do
these masters and mistresses their servants. At one time they provoke them
to anger about trifles, at other times they allow them to do as they like. Now
they treat them with extreme coldness, on other occasions undue familiarity
is permitted. In a word, they forget the fact that there is a common human
nature between the kitchen and the parlour which must be admitted and
well studied.

The ancient Romans, though they were heathen, and though with them
servants meant slaves, included in the idea of familia their servants as well
as their children. So, too, it was once amongst ourselves. Servants used to
"enter the family," and share to some degree its joys and cares, while they
received from it a corresponding amount of interest and sympathy. All this
is changed. Servants are now rolling-stones that gather no moss either for
themselves or their employers. They never dream of considering themselves
members of the family, to stick to it as it to them through all difficulties not
absolutely overwhelming. To them "master" is merely the man who pays,
and "missis" the woman who "worrits." They think that they should change
their employers as readily as their dresses, and never imagine that there
could be between themselves and them any common interest. Only the
other day I heard of a lady who had in one year as many as fourteen cooks!
How could this mistress be expected to take any interest in or to consider
herself responsible for the well-being of such birds of passage?

And yet surely the heads of a household are nearly as responsible for
their servants as they are for their own children. We are the keepers of these
our brothers and sisters, and are in a great measure guilty of the vices we
tempt them to commit. A lady was engaged in domestic affairs, when some
one rang the street-door bell, and the Roman Catholic servant-girl was
bidden to say that her mistress was not at home. She answered, "Yes,
ma'am, and when I confess to the priest, shall I confess it as your sin or
mine?"

It is an unquestioned fact that many of the faults of servants are due to a
want of due care on the part of their mistresses, who put up with badly-done
work and make dishonesty easy by leaving things about.

If we want really good servants we must make them ourselves; so even
from selfish motives we should do all we can to influence them for good.
But it is much easier to mar than to make, and with servants the easiest way
of doing this is to let them see that we are afraid of them. People spoil their
servants from fear oftener than from regard. Some are afraid of the manner
of their servants. They pass over many faults because they do not like the
sulky looks and impertinent reply with which a rebuke is received.

Fifty years ago servants might be allowed to consider the warning of
masters as a poor attempt at wit, as the Scotch coachman evidently did who,
on being dismissed, replied, "Na, na; I drove ye to your christening, and I'll
drive ye yet to your burial;" and the cook who answered in similar
circumstances, "It's nae use ava gieing me warning; gif ye dinna ken when
ye hae gotten a gude servant, I ken when I hae a gude master." As, however,
servants are now seldom attached to a family by old associations they look
upon the withdrawal of notice as a sign of weakness, and give themselves
airs accordingly.

We should give our orders in a polite but firm manner, like one
accustomed to be obeyed. It sometimes simplifies matters considerably to
make a servant understand that she must either give in or go out. When fault
has to be found, let it be done sharply and once for all, but nagging is
dispiriting and intolerable. "Why do you desire to leave me?" said a
gentleman to his footman. "Because, to speak the truth, I cannot bear your
temper." "To be sure, I am passionate, but my passion is no sooner on than
it's off." "Yes," replied the servant, "but it's no sooner off than it's on." Still
we must never forget that the greatest firmness is the greatest mercy. Here is
an illustration. The Rev. H. Lansdell tells us in his book "Through Siberia,"
that a Siberian friend of his had a convict servant, whom he had sent away
for drunkenness. The man came back entreating that he might be reinstated,
but his master said, "No; I have warned you continually, and done
everything I could to keep you sober, but in vain." "Yes, sir," said the man;
"but then, sir, you should have given me a good thrashing." Many a servant
girl has gone to the bad because at some critical moment her mistress did
not give her a good tongue-thrashing.

It cannot spoil tried servants to ask their opinion and advice on certain
occasions, but we should not expect them to think for us altogether. To do
this makes them as conceited as the Irish servant who replied to his master
when that inferior being suggested his views as to the way some work
should be done, "Well, sir, you may know best, but I know better!" Still, it
is well to let servants know as often as we conveniently can the reason of
our commands. This gives them an interest in their work, and proves to
them that they are not considered mere machines. Never let a mistress be
afraid of insisting upon that respect which her position demands. In turn she
can point out that every rank in life has its own peculiar dignity, and that no
one is more worthy of respect than a good servant. We should feel just as
thankful to our servants for serving us, as we expect them to be for the
shelter and care of the home which we offer them. There is a perfectly
reciprocal obligation, and the manner of the employer must recognize it.
"Whereas thy servant worketh truly, entreat him not evil, nor the hireling
that bestoweth himself wholly for thee. Let thy soul love a good servant,
and defraud him not of liberty." We have no right to every moment of a
servant's time, and he or she will work all the better for an occasional
holiday.

Those who feel that they are responsible for the character of their
servants will endeavour to provide them with innocent amusements. When
papers and books are read above stairs they might be sent down to the
kitchen. If this were done, literature of the "penny dreadful" description
would to a great extent be excluded.

Many employers behave as if the laws of good manners did not apply to
their dealings with servants. Apparently they consider that servants should
not be allowed any feelings. This was not the opinion of Chesterfield, who
observes: "I am more upon my guard as to my behaviour to my servants,
and to others who are called my inferiors, than I am towards my equals, for
fear of being suspected of that mean and ungenerous sentiment of desiring
to make others feel that difference which fortune has, perhaps too
undeservedly, made between us." It is difficult, perhaps, to strike the exact
mean between superciliousness and excessive familiarity, but we must
make every effort to arrive at it. There is nothing more keenly appreciated
by servants than that evenness of temper which respects itself at the same

time that it respects others. A lady visited a dying servant who had lived
with her for thirty years. "How do you find yourself to-day, Mary?" said her
mistress, taking hold of the withered hand which was held out. "Is that you,
my darling mistress?" and a beam of joy overspread the old woman's face.
"O yes!" she added, looking up, "it is you, my kind, my mannerly mistress!"

Part of Miss Harriet Martineau's ideal of happiness was to have young
servants whom she might train and attach to herself. In later life, when
settled in a house of her own, she was in the habit of calling her maids in
the evening and pointing out to them on the map the operations of the
Crimean war, for she thought that young English women should take an
intelligent interest in the doings of their country. Mrs. Carlyle was another
tender mother-mistress to her servants, though her letters have made the
world acquainted with the incessant contests which she was obliged to wage
with "mutinous maids of all work" as Carlyle used to call them. "One of
these maids was untidy, useless in all ways, but 'abounding in grace,' and in
consequent censure of every one above or below her, and of everything she
couldn't understand. After a long apostrophe one day, as she was bringing in
dinner, Carlyle ended with, 'And this I can tell you, that if you don't carry
the dishes straight, so as not to spill the gravy, so far from being tolerated in
heaven, you won't be even tolerated on earth.'" It was better to teach the
poor creature even in this rough way than not at all, that she ought to put
her religion into the daily round and common tasks of her business; that

"A servant with this clause
Makes drudgery divine:
Who sweeps a room as for Thy laws
Makes that and the action fine."

So much of the comfort of home depends upon servants that a wise
mistress studies them and values their co-operation.

"She heedeth well their ways,
Upon her tongue the law of kindness dwells,
With wisdom she dispenses blame or praise,
And ready sympathy her bosom swells."

She sees that their meals are regularly served, and that they are undisturbed
during the time set apart for them. She does not think that any hole will do
for a servant's bedroom. When caring for the children that they may have
their little entertainments and enjoyments to brighten their lives, she
includes the servants in the circle of her sympathies; and is always on the
watch to make them feel that they are an integral part of the home, and that,
if they have to work for it and to bear its burden, they are not excluded from
a real share in its interests and joys. In a word, she feels for them and with
them, and as a rule they do their best for her. That servants are not always
ungrateful every good mistress is well aware. Among the inscriptions to the
early Christian martyrs found in the catacombs at Rome there is one which
proves that there were in those days, as no doubt there are now, grateful
servants. "Here lies Gordianus, deputy of Gaul, who was murdered, with all
his family, for the faith. They rest in peace. His handmaid, Theophila, set up
this." Gentle, loving Theophila! There was no one left but thee to remember
poor Gordianus, and perhaps his little children, whom thou didst tend.

In managing servants a little judicious praise is a wonderful incentive.
The Duke of Wellington once requested the connoisseur whom the author of
"Tancred" terms "the finest judge in Europe," to provide him a chef. Felix,
whom the late Lord Seaford was reluctantly about to part with on
economical grounds, was recommended and received. Some months
afterwards his patron was dining with Lord Seaford, and before the first
course was half over he observed, "So I find you have got the duke's cook
to dress your dinner." "I have got Felix," replied Lord S., "but he is no
longer the duke's cook. The poor fellow came to me with tears in his eyes,
and begged me to take him back again, at reduced wages or no wages at all,
for he was determined not to remain at Apsley House. 'Has the duke been
finding fault?' said I. 'Oh no, my lord, I would stay if he had; he is the
kindest and most liberal of masters; but I serve him a dinner that would
make Ude or Francatelli burst with envy, and he says nothing; I go out and
leave him to dine on a dinner badly dressed by the cookmaid, and he says
nothing. Dat hurt my feelings, my lord.'"

On the vexed question of "visitors," mistresses might say to their
servants, "When we stay in a lady's house, we cannot ask visitors without
an invitation from our hostess, and we wish you to observe the same

courtesy towards us. When we think it advisable, we will tell you to invite
your friends, but we reserve to ourselves the right to issue the invitation;
and if your friends come to see you, we expect that you shall ask our
permission if you may receive them." A mistress who does not forget the
time when she used to meet her affianced thus writes. "I always invite their
confidence, and if I find any servants of my household are respectably
engaged to be married, I allow the young men to come occasionally to the
house, and perhaps on Christmas Day, or some festival of the kind, invite
them to dine in the kitchen, and I have never yet found my trust misplaced.
I should not like my own daughters only to see their affianced husbands out
of doors, and, though the circumstances in the two cases differ materially,
as a woman I consider we ought to enter into the feelings of those other
women who are serving under us."

Half the domestic difficulties arise from a want of honesty among
mistresses in the characters which they give each other of the servants they
discharge. Many a servant receives flattering recommendations who does
not deserve any better than the following: "The bearer has been in my house
a year—minus eleven months. During this time she has shown herself
diligent—at the house door; frugal—in work; mindful—of herself; prompt
—in excuses; friendly—towards men; faithful—to her lovers; and honest—
when everything had vanished."

It is often advocated that training-schools should be established for
domestic servants, as a remedy to meet the domestic-servant difficulty. But
improvement must begin at the head. If we are to have training-schools for
domestic servants, the servants may very well say that there ought to be a
training-school for mistresses. To rule well is even more difficult than to
serve well.

The mistress then should learn how and when everything ought to be
done, so that in the first place she can instruct, and, in the second, correct, if
her orders be not carried out. If she does any of the household work herself,
let it be to save keeping a servant, not to help those she has. The more you
do in the way of help, the worse very often you are served. Let your
servants understand that you also have your duties, and that your object in
employing them is to enable you to carry on your work in comfort. So much

have young women been spoiled by this system of auxiliary labour, that one
cook who came to be engaged asked who was to fill her kitchen scuttle, as
she would not do it herself. Mistresses must unite in the interest of the
servants themselves, as much as in their own, to put down this sort of thing,
for the demands have become so insolent, that, as a smart little maid once
expressed it, "They're all wanting places where the work is put out."

CHAPTER XV.
PREPARATION FOR PARENTHOOD.

"If a merchant commenced business without any knowledge of arithmetic and book-
keeping, we should exclaim at his folly and look for disastrous consequences. Or if, before
studying anatomy, a man set up as a surgical operator, we should wonder at his audacity
and pity his patients. But that parents should begin the difficult task of rearing children
without ever having given a thought to the principles—physical, moral, or intellectual—
which ought to guide them, excites neither surprise at the actors nor pity for their
victims."—Herbert Spencer.

Whether as bearing on the happiness of parents themselves, or as
affecting the characters and lives of their children, a knowledge of the right
methods of juvenile culture—physical, intellectual, and moral—is a
knowledge of extreme importance. This topic should be the final one in the
course of instruction passed through by each man and woman, but it is
entirely neglected.

"If by some strange chance," says Mr. Herbert Spencer, "not a vestige of
us descended to the remote future save a pile of our school-books or some
college examination papers, we may imagine how puzzled an antiquary of
the period would be on finding in them no sign that the learners were ever
likely to be parents. "This must have been the curriculum for their
celibates," we may fancy him concluding: "I perceive here an elaborate
preparation for many things, but I find no reference whatever to the
bringing up of children." They could not have been so absurd as to omit all
training for this gravest of responsibilities. Evidently, then, this was the
school-course of one of their monastic orders."

Parents go into their office with zeal and good intentions, but without any
better knowledge than that which is supplied by the chances of unreasoning
custom, impulse, fancy, joined with the suggestions of ignorant nurses and

the prejudiced counsel of grandmothers. "Against stupidity the gods
themselves are powerless!" We all understand that some kind of preparation
is necessary for the merchant, the soldier, the surgeon, or even for making
coats and boots; but for the great responsibility of parenthood all
preparation is ignored, and people begin the difficult task of rearing
children without ever having given a thought to the principles that ought to
guide them.

How fatal are the results! Who shall say how many early deaths of
children and enfeebled constitutions, implying moral and intellectual
weakness, are caused by ignorance on the part of parents of the commonest
laws of life? Every one can think of illustrations. Our clothing is, in
reference to the temperature of the body, merely an equivalent for a certain
amount of food, for by diminishing the loss of heat, it diminishes the
amount of fuel needful for maintaining heat. Those parents cannot be aware
of this who give their children scanty clothing in order to harden them, or
who only allow a dawdling walk beside a grown-up person instead of the
boisterous play which all young animals require and which would produce
warmth.

Fathers who pride themselves on taking prizes at cattle-shows for their
sheep and pigs are not at all ashamed never to ascertain the best kind of
food for feeding children. They do not care if their children are fed with
monotonous food, though change of diet is required for the preservation of
health.

And then as to the intellects of children. Ignorance puts books into their
hands full of abstract matter in those early years when the only lessons they
are capable of learning are those taught by concrete objects. Not knowing
that a child's restless observation and sense of wonder are for a few years its
best instructors, parents endeavour to occupy its attention with dull
abstractions. It is no wonder that few grown-up people know anything
about the beauties and wonders of nature. During those years when the
child should have been spelling out nature's primer and pleasurably
exercising his powers of observation, grammar, languages, and other
abstract studies have occupied most of his attention. Having been
"presented with a universal blank of nature's works" he learns to see

everything through books, that is, through other men's eyes, and the greater
part of his knowledge in after life consists of mere words.

We are aware that it will provoke laughter to hint that for the proper
bringing up of children a knowledge of the elementary principles of
physiology, psychology, and ethics are indispensable. May we not,
however, hold up this ideal of Mr. Herbert Spencer to ourselves and to
others? "Here are," he says, "the indisputable facts: that the development of
children in mind and body follows certain laws; that unless these laws are in
some degree conformed to by parents, death is inevitable; that unless they
are in a great degree conformed to, there must result serious physical and
mental defects, and that only when they are completely conformed to can a
perfect maturity be reached. Judge, then, whether all who may one day be
parents should not strive with some anxiety to learn what these laws are." "I
was not brought up, but dragged up," said the poor girl in the tale; and she
touched unconsciously the root of nine-tenths of the vice and misery of the
world.

Great as is the importance of some information, if children are to be
properly reared, still knowledge is by no means all that preparation for
parenthood should include. While Doctor Johnson was musing over the fire
one evening in Thrale's drawing-room, a young gentleman suddenly, and, as
Johnson seems to have fancied, somewhat disrespectfully, called to him:
"Mr. Johnson, would you advise me to marry?" Johnson (angrily): "Sir, I
would advise no man to marry who is not likely to propagate
understanding."

Would the doctor have extended this restriction to all men and women
who are not likely to propagate good bodies and souls? We know that there
are people whose misfortunes and vices will spoil and ruin, not merely the
lives of those they marry, but the lives of their children too. The miserable
inheritance of their imperfections will be transmitted to coming generations.
If it were only possible to keep all these people single, those who will be
living thirty years hence would be living in a very different world from this.

The only restriction public opinion now puts to any marriage is that it
should not be forbidden by the "Table of Kindred and Affinity" contained in
the Prayer Book. When will all improvident marriages be equally illegal?

When will scrofula, madness, drunkenness, or even bad temper and
excessive selfishness be considered as just causes and impediments why
parties should not be joined together in holy matrimony. Only the best men
and women of this generation—could these be discovered—should become
the parents of the next.

It has been flippantly asked why we should consult the interests of the
next generation since the next generation has done nothing for us. The
answer is plain. We have no right to bequeath to it an heritage of woe.
Every man and woman can do much to make themselves worthy of the
honour and responsibility of being a parent. Let them preserve their health,
cultivate their social affections, and, above all, abstain from those sins
which science and bitter experience assure us are visited on children. It is
only when they do this that a new edition of themselves is called for.

"Who is the happy husband? He
Who, scanning his unwedded life,
Thanks Heaven, with a conscience free,
'Twas faithful to his future wife."

And who are the happy parents? Those who, scanning their unwedded lives,
thank Heaven they were faithful to future children.

It is to be hoped that few men now are as careless or as ignorant of
consequences to children as was Mr. Tulliver in George Eliot's "Mill on the
Floss," when he picked his wife from her sisters "o' purpose, 'cause she was
a bit weak, like." We have come to see that, in order to be good mothers,
women must be very unlike Mrs. Pullet in the same story, who was bent on
proving her gentility and wealth by the delicacy of her health, and the
quantity of doctor's stuff she could afford to imbibe.

But parents have not altogether given up sacrificing their own health and
the health of their children to the Moloch of fashion. They have not quite
ceased to burn incense to vanity. We have still to complain, as did Frances
Kemble, that the race is ruined for the sake of fashion. "I cannot believe that
women were intended to suffer as much as they do, and be as helpless as
they are, in child-bearing; but rather that both are the consequences of our
many and various abuses of our constitutions and infractions of God's

natural laws. Tight stays, tight garters, tight shoes, and similar concessions
to the vagaries of feminine fashion, are accountable for many of the ills that
afflict both mother and child."

When King David was forbidden to build a temple for God's service
because he had shed blood abundantly, with noble self-forgetfulness he laid
up before his death materials with which Solomon his son might have the
honour of building it. If parents would imitate his example and lay up the
materials of good character and health, what glorious temples they might
erect to God in the bodies, minds, and souls of their children!

CHAPTER XVI.
"WHAT IS THE USE OF A CHILD."

"A dreary place would be this earth
Were there no little people in it;
The song of life would lose its mirth
Were there no children to begin it.

"No babe within our arms to leap,
No little feet toward slumber tending;
No little knee in prayer to bend,
Our lips the sweet words lending.

"The sterner souls would grow more stern,
Unfeeling natures more inhuman,
And man to stoic coldness turn,
And woman would be less than woman.

"Life's song, indeed, would lose its charm,
Were there no babies to begin it;
A doleful place this world would be,
Were there no little people in it."—John Greenleaf
Whittier.

When Franklin made his discovery of the identity of lightning and
electricity, people asked, "Of what use is it?" The philosopher's retort was:
"What is the use of a child? It may become a man!" This question—"What
is the use of a child?" is not likely to be asked by our young married friends
in reference to the first miniature pledge who is about to crown their
wishes. They believe that one day he will become "the guardian of the

liberties of Europe, the bulwark and honour of his aged parents." What a
bond of union! What an incentive to tenderness! That husband has an
unfeeling disposition who does not find himself irresistibly drawn by the
new and tender tie that now exists.

I hope I appreciate the value of children. We should soon come to
nothing without them. What is a house without a baby? It may be
comparatively quiet, but it is very dull. A childless home misses its
discipline and loses its music.

Children are not "certain sorrows and uncertain pleasures" when properly
managed. If some parents taste the stream bitter it is very often they
themselves who have poisoned the fountain. They treated their children
when very young merely as playthings, humouring every caprice, and
sacrificing to present fancies future welfare; then, when the charm of
infancy had passed, they commenced a system of restraint and severity, and
displayed displeasure and irritability at the very defects of which they
themselves laid the foundation.

"In an evening spent with Emerson," says one who knew him, "he made
one remark which left a memorable impression on my mind. Two children
of the gentleman at whose house we met were playing in the room, when
their father remarked, 'Just the interesting age.' 'And at what age,' asked Mr.
Emerson, 'are children not interesting?'" He regarded them with the eye of a
philosopher and a poet, and saw the possibilities that surround their very
being with infinite interest. Each of his own children was for him a
harbinger of sunny hours, an angel sent from God with tidings of hope.

Jeremy Taylor says, "No man can tell but he that loves his children how
many delicious accents make a man's heart dance in the pretty conversation
of those dear pledges; their childishness, their stammering, their little
angers, their innocence, their imperfections, their necessities, are so many
little emanations of joy and comfort to him that delights in their persons and
society." And what shall be said of the man who does not love his children?
That he, far more than the unmusical man—

"Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils;
The motions of his spirit are dull as night,

And his affections dark as Erebus.
Let no such man be trusted."

"Civic virtues, unless they have their origin and consecration in private
and domestic virtues, are but the virtues of the theatre. He who has not a
loving heart for his child, cannot pretend to have any true love for
humanity."

"I do not wonder," said Dr. Arnold, "that it was thought a great
misfortune to die childless in old times, when they had not fuller light—it
seems so completely wiping a man out of existence." "Write ye this man
child-less." Cuvier's four children died before him. In his sixty-seventh year
we find Moore writing, "The last of our five children is now gone, and we
are left desolate and alone. Not a single relative have I left now in the
world." How Hallam was successively bereaved of sons so rich in promise
is well known. There is a touching gravestone in the cloisters of
Westminster Abbey with the inscription, "Jane Lister, deare child, died Oct.
7, 1688." These parents knew only too well the value of a child.

A merchant in the city was accustomed to demand an excuse from his
clerks whenever they arrived late. The excuse given, he invariably added,
"Very well; but don't let it happen again." One morning a married clerk,
being behind time, was promptly interrogated as to the cause. Slightly
embarrassed, he replied, "The truth is, sir, I had an addition to my family
this morning, and it was not convenient to be here sooner." "Very well,"
said the merchant, in his quick, nervous manner, "very well; but don't let it
happen again."

There are people who think one, or, at most, two children, very well, but
they don't wish it to happen again and again. So frequently do additions
happen at Salt Lake City that nine families can, it is said, fill the theatre.
One must love children very much to see the use of possessing the ninth
part of a theatre-ful. And yet a family that is too small is almost as great an
evil as one that is too large. It may be called a "large little family." Often an
only child gives as much trouble as a large family. Dr. Smiles tells us that a
lady who, with her husband, had inspected most of the lunatic asylums of
England and the Continent, found the most numerous class of patients was

almost always composed of those who had been only children, and whose
wills had therefore rarely been thwarted or disciplined in early life.

What constitutes a large family? Upon this point there is much difference
of opinion. A poor woman was complaining one day that she did not receive
her proper share of charitable doles. Her neighbour Mrs. Hawke, in the next
court, came in for everything and "got more than ever she was entitled to;
for Mrs. Hawke had no family—not to speak of; only nine." "Only nine!
how many then have you?" was the natural rejoinder. "Fourteen living," she
replied. But even fourteen is not such a very large number when one is used
to it. Some one is said to have begun a story of some trifling adventure
which had befallen him with the words, "As I was crossing Oxford Street
the other day with fourteen of my daughters"—Laughter followed, and the
narrator never got beyond those introductory words. We do not believe this
anecdote, but if it were true, was there not something heroic in the
contented, matter-of-fact way in which the man spoke of his belongings?
"Fourteen of my daughters!" An unsympathizing spectator might have said
that any one with such a following ought to have been crossing not Oxford
Street, but the Atlantic.

A nursery-maid was leading a little child up and down a garden. "Is't a
laddie or a lassie?" asked the gardener. "A laddie," said the maid. "Weel,"
said he, "I'm glad o' that, for there's ower mony women in the world."
"Heck, man," was the reply, "did ye no ken there's aye maist sown o' the
best crap?" This rejoinder was more ready than correct, for as a matter of
fact more boys are born than girls. It is natural for parents to desire
offspring of both sexes. Both are required to complete a family. Being
brought up together the boys acquire something of their sisters' delicacy and
tact, while the girls learn something of their brothers' self-reliance and
independence.

"Desire not a multitude of unprofitable children, neither delight in
ungodly sons. Though they multiply, rejoice not in them, except the fear of
the Lord be with them. Trust not thou in their life, neither respect their
multitude: for one that is just is better than a thousand; and better it is to die
without children, than to have them that are ungodly." In reference to
children quality is far more to be desired than quantity. Without accepting

pessimism, we may deny that the mere propagation of the human race is an
object which presents itself as in itself a good. The chief end of man is not
simply to have "the hope and the misfortune of being," but to glorify God
and to serve humanity. What is the use of a child who is likely to do
neither?

If it be the will of God to withhold offspring from a young couple,
nothing should be said either by the husband or wife that could give the
other pain on the subject. To do so is more than reprehensible; it is odious
and contemptible. How unlike Elkanah, when, with sentiments at once
manly and tender, he thus addresses his weeping wife—"Hannah, why
weepest thou? and why eatest thou not? and why is thy heart grieved? am
not I better to thee than ten sons?"

"We, ignorant of ourselves,
Beg often our own harms which the wise powers
Deny us for our good; so find we profit
By losing of our prayers."

Writing on this subject a lady tells us that she had a relation who was
married some years without having a child. Her feelings partook not only of
grief, but of anguish: at length, a lovely boy was granted her. "Spare, O
God, the life of my blessing," was her constant prayer. Her blessing was
spared: he grew to the years of manhood; squandered a fine fortune;
married a servant-maid; and broke his mother's heart!

Another intimate friend of the author's was inconsolable for not having
children. At length, the prospect of her becoming a mother was certain, and
her joy was extreme. The moment of trial arrived: for four days and nights
her sufferings and torture were not to be allayed by medical skill or human
aid. At length her cries ceased; and, at the same moment that she gave birth
to two children, she herself had become a corpse. "Give me children," said
the impatient and weeping Rachel, "or else I die" (Gen. XXX. 1). Her
prayer was heard, and in giving birth to her boy the mother expired.

Another impassioned mother, as she bent over the bed of her sick infant,
called out, "Oh, no; I cannot resign him. It is impossible; I cannot resign
him." A person present, struck with her words, noted them down in a daily

journal which he kept. The boy recovered; and that day one-and-twenty
years he was hanged as a murderer!

How terrible it is when a much-desired child is born to a comparatively
useless existence by reason of some deficiency or deformity. Very touching
is the story of a lady who, though deaf and dumb, became the wife of an
earl through her beauty. In due course the king o' the world, the baby,
presented himself—a fine child, of course, and a future earl. Soon after its
birth, as the nurse sat watching the babe, she saw the countess mother
approach the cradle with a huge china vase, lift it above the head of the
sleeping child, and poise it to dash it down. Petrified with horror,
wondering at the strange look of the mother's face, the nurse sat powerless
and still; she dared not even cry out; she was not near enough to throw
herself between the victim and the blow. The heavy mass was thrown down
with a tremendous force and crash on the floor beside the cradle, and the
babe awoke terrified and screaming, clung to his delighted mother, who had
made the experiment to discover whether her child had the precious gift of
voice and hearing, or was like herself, a mute.

In his "Bachelor's Complaint of the Behaviour of Married People,"
Charles Lamb speaks of "the airs which these creatures give themselves
when they come, as they generally do, to have children. When I consider
how little of a rarity children are—that every street and blind alley swarms
with them—that the poorest people commonly have them in most
abundance—that there are few marriages that are not blest with at least one
of these bargains—how often they turn out ill and defeat the fond hopes of
their parents, taking to vicious courses, which end in poverty, disgrace, the
gallows, &c.—I cannot for my life tell what cause for pride there can
possibly be in having them. If they were young phoenixes, indeed, that were
born but one in a hundred years, there might be a pretext. But when they are
so common——"

It is, however, far better for married people to take pride in their children
than to be as indifferent to them as was a certain old lady who had brought
up a family of children near a river. A gentleman once said to her, "I should
think you would have lived in constant fear that some of them would have

got drowned." "Oh no," responded the old lady, "we only lost three or four
in that way."

What is the use of a child? Not very much unless its parents accept it, not
as a plaything, much less as a nuisance, but as a most sacred trust—a talent
to be put to the best account. It is neither to be spoiled nor buried in the
earth—how many careless mothers do this literally!—but to be made the
most of for God and for man. Perhaps there was only One who perfectly
understood the use of a child. "Suffer the little children to come unto me,
and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of God." In some lines to a
child Longfellow has well answered the question we have been considering.

"Enough! I will not play the Seer;
I will no longer strive to ope
The mystic volume, where appear
The herald Hope, forerunning Fear,
And Fear, the pursuivant of Hope.
Thy destiny remains untold."

In the next chapter we shall point out how useful children are in
educating their parents.

CHAPTER XVII.
THE EDUCATION OF PARENTS.

"O dearest, dearest boy! my heart
For better lore would seldom yearn,
Could I but teach the hundredth part
Of what from thee I learn."—Wordsworth.
"How admirable is the arrangement through which human beings are led by their
strongest affections to subject themselves to a discipline they would else elude."—Herbert
Spencer.

"My friend," said an old Quaker, to a lady who contemplated adopting a
child, "I know not how far thou wilt succeed in educating her, but I am
quite certain she will educate you." How encouraging and strengthening it
should be for parents to reflect that, in training up their children in the way
they should go, they are at the same time training up themselves in the way
they should go; that along with the education of their children their own
higher education cannot but be carried on. In "Silas Marner," George Eliot
has shown how by means of a little child a human soul may be redeemed
from cold, petrifying isolation; how all its feelings may be freshened,
rejuvenated, and made to flutter with new hope and activity.

Very simple is the pathos of this matchless work of art. Nothing but the
story of a faithless love and a false friend and the loss of trust in all things
human or divine. Nothing but the story of a lone, bewildered weaver, shut
out from his kind, concentrating every baulked passion into one—the all-
engrossing passion for gold. And then the sudden disappearance of the
hoard from its accustomed hiding-place, and in its stead the startling
apparition of a golden-haired little child found one snowy winter's night
sleeping on the floor in front of the glimmering hearth. And the gradual

reawakening of love in the heart of the solitary man, a love "drawing his
hope and joy continually onward beyond the money," and once more
bringing him into sympathetic relations with his fellow men. "In old days,"
says the story, "there were angels who came and took men by the hand and
led them away from the city of destruction. We see no white-winged angels
now. But yet men are led away from threatening destruction; a hand is put
into theirs which leads them forth gently towards a calm and bright land, so
that they look no more backward, and the hand may be a little child's."

Children renew the youth of their parents and enable them to mount up
with wings as eagles, instead of becoming chained to the rock of
selfishness. We do not believe that "all children are born good," for it is the
experience of every one that the evil tendencies of fathers are visited upon
their children unto the third and fourth generation. Nevertheless all men are
exhorted by the highest authority to follow their innocency, which is great
indeed as compared to our condition who—

"Through life's drear road, so dim and dirty,
Have dragged on to three-and-thirty."

"Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child, he
shall not enter therein." Evil tendencies are checked and good ones are
educated or drawn out by children, for they call to remembrance—

"Those early days, when I
Shined in my angel-infancy,
Before I taught my tongue to wound
My conscience with a sinful sound,
Or had the black art to dispense
A several sin to every sense,
But felt through all this fleshly dress
Bright shoots of everlastingness."

When daily farther from the east—from God who is our home—we have
travelled, children are sent to recall us or at least to make us long "to travel
back, and tread again that ancient track."

Whatever we attempt to teach children we must first practise ourselves.
Whatever a parent wishes his child to avoid he must make up his mind to
renounce, and, on the other hand, if we leave off any good habit, we need
not expect our children to continue it. Only the other day I heard a boy of
five say to his father, "You must not be cross, for if you are, I shall be that
when I grow up." "Mother," said a small urchin, who had just been saying
his prayers at her knees; "Mother, when may I leave off my prayers?" "Oh,
Tommy, what a notion! What do you mean?" "Well, mother, father never
says his prayers, and I thought I was old enough to leave them off."

In young children the capacity for mimicry is very strong. They imitate
whatever they see done by their elders. How wrong, then, is it for people to
say or do before even a very young child what they would not say or do
before an adult, supposed to be more observant! We must not say, "Oh,
there's no one present but the child," for "the child" is reading, marking, and
inwardly digesting character as it is exhibited in words, looks, and deeds.
For the sake, then, of their children, if not for their own sakes, parents
should seek to be very self-restrained, truthful, and, above all things, just.
Right habits are imparted to children almost as easily as wrong ones.

The education of parents begins from the day their first child is born. A
young man and woman may be selfish and egotistical enough until the
"baby" comes as a teacher of practical Christianity into their home. Now
they have to think of somebody beside themselves, to give up not a few of
their comforts and individual "ways," for the one important thing in the
house is King "Baby." If they really love their children, parents will become
truthful in act as well as in word, knowing that truthful habits must be
learned in childhood or not at all. They will be so just that "You'r' not fair"
will never be rightly charged against them. And, as regards sympathy, they
will try to be the friends and companions in sorrow and in joy as well as the
parents of their children.

Nor is it only the moral nature that is developed in the school of
parenthood. Even to attempt to answer the wise questions of children is a
task difficult enough to afford healthy exercise to the greatest minds. When
a child begins to cross-examine its parents as to why the fire burns, how his
carte-de-visite was taken, how many stars there are, why people suffer, why

God does not kill the devil—grown-up ignorance or want of sympathy too
often laughs at him, says that children should not ask tiresome questions,
and not only checks the inquiring spirit within him, but misses the
intellectual improvement that would have come from endeavouring to
answer his questions.

"Little people should be seen and not heard" is a stupid saying, which
makes young observers shy of imparting to their elders the things that arrest
their attention. Children would gladly learn and gladly teach, but if they are
frequently snubbed they will do neither. Men such as Professor Robinson of
Edinburgh, the first editor of the "Encyclopædia Britannica," have not been
above receiving intellectual improvement and pleasure from a little child. "I
am delighted," he wrote in reference to his grandchild, "with observing the
growth of its little soul, and particularly with its numberless instincts, which
formerly passed unheeded. I thank the French theorists for more forcibly
directing my attention to the finger of God, which I discern in every
awkward movement and every wayward whim. They are all guardians of
his life and growth and power. I regret indeed that I have not time to make
infancy and the development of its powers my sole study."

Some parents seem to imagine that they sufficiently perform their duty
when they give their children a good education. They forget that there is the
education of the fireside as well as of the school. At schools and academies
there is no cultivation of the affections, but often very much of the reverse.
Hence the value to the young of kindly home influences that touch the heart
and understanding.

Among the poems of George Macdonald are the following pretty and
playful lines called simply "The Baby"—

"Where did you come from, baby dear?
Out of the everywhere into here.
Where did you get your eyes so blue?
Out of the skies as I came through.
What makes your forehead smooth and high?
A soft hand stroked it as I went by.
What makes your cheek like a warm white rose?
I saw something better than any one knows.

Whence that three-cornered smile of bliss?
Three angels gave me at once a kiss.
Where did you get that coral ear?
God spoke, and it came out to hear.
Where did you get those arms and hands?
Love made itself into bonds and bands.
Whence came your feet, dear little things?
From the same box as the cherubs' wings.
How did they all first come to be you?
God thought about me, and so I grew.
But how did you come to us, you dear?
God thought about you, and so I am here.

Yes, God is thinking about our highest interests when He sends children
to us. They are sent as little missionaries to turn us from evil and to develop
within us the Divine image. When we see sin stirring in our children, no
stroke seems too heavy to crush the noxious passion before it grows to fell
dimensions and laughs to scorn the sternest chastisement. Heaven is saying
to us, "Physician, heal thyself; strike hard, strike home; purge thine own
heart of the evil. Lest your children should suffer, restrain your temper, curb
your passions, master your unholy desires."

This, then, is one of the most important reasons why God "setteth the
solitary in families." He desires not only that they should train up children
in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, but also that they may by doing
so be brought to Him themselves. When the day of account comes, after
life's brief stormy passage is over, He wishes them to be able to say, "Here
am I, for I have been educated by the children whom Thou hast given me."

CHAPTER XVIII.
WANTED!—MOTHERS.

"There are comparatively very few women not replete with maternal love; and, by the
by, take you care if you meet with a girl who 'is not fond of children,' not to marry her by
any means. Some few there are who even make a boast that they 'cannot bear children,' that
is, cannot endure them. I never knew a man that was good for much who had a dislike to
little children; and I never knew a woman of that taste who was good for anything at all. I
have seen a few such in the course of my life, and I have never wished to see one of them a
second time."—Cobbett's "Advice to Young Men."

Napoleon Buonaparte was accustomed to say that "the future good or bad
conduct of a child depended entirely on the mother." In the course of a
conversation with Madame Campan he remarked: "The old systems of
instruction seem to be worth nothing; what is yet wanting in order that the
people should be properly educated?" "Mothers," replied Madame Campan.
The reply struck the emperor. "Yes!" said he, "here is a system of education
in one word. Be it your care, then, to train up mothers who shall know how
to educate their children."

"She who rocks the cradle rules the world," for she it is who guides and
trains the opening minds of those who shall influence the coming
generation. In its earliest years, the mother's every look, tone of voice, and
action, sink into the heart and memory of her child and are presently
reproduced in its own life. From this point of view the throne of
motherhood ought, as Madame Lætitia Buonaparte believed, to take
precedence of that of kings. When her son, on becoming an emperor, half
playfully, half gravely offered her his hand to kiss, she flung it back to him
indignantly, saying, in the presence of his courtiers, "It is your duty to kiss
the hand of her who gave you life."

No wonder that a good mother has been called nature's chef d'œuvre, for
she is not only the perfection of womanhood, but the most beautiful and
valuable of nature's productions. To her the world is indebted for the work
done by most of its great and gifted men. As letters cut in the bark of a
young tree grow and widen with age, so do the ideas which a mother
implants in the mind of her talented child. Thus Scott is said to have
received his first bent towards ballad literature from his mother's and
grandmother's recitations in his hearing long before he himself had learned
to read. Goethe owed the bias of his mind and character to his mother, who
possessed in a high degree the art of stimulating young and active minds,
instructing them in the science of life out of the treasures of her abundant
experience. After a lengthened interview with her a traveller said, "Now do
I understand how Goethe has become the man he is." Goethe himself
affectionately cherished her memory. "She was worthy of life!" he once said
of her; and when he visited Frankfort, he sought out every individual who
had been kind to his mother, and thanked them. The poet Gray was equally
grateful to his mother. On the memorial which he erected over her remains
he described her as "the careful, tender mother of many children, one of
whom alone had the misfortune to survive her." In a corner of his room
there was a trunk containing the carefully folded dresses of his dead mother,
whom he never mentioned without a sigh.

When a mother once asked a clergyman when she should begin the
education of her child, then four years old, he replied: "Madam, if you have
not begun already, you have lost those four years. From the first smile that
gleams upon an infant's cheek, your opportunity begins." Cowper's mother
must have well used this opportunity considering the impression her brief
companionship made upon the poet. She died when he was six years old,
and yet in after-life he could say that not a week passed in which he did not
think of her. When his cousin one day presented him with a portrait of his
mother he said: "I had rather possess that picture than the richest jewel in
the British crown; for I loved her with an affection that her death, fifty-two
years since, has not in the least abated." Surely it is better for a mother to
merit such love than to leave the care of her children almost entirely to
servants because all her time is occupied "serving divers lusts and
pleasures."

"Give your child to be educated by a slave," said an ancient Greek, "and
instead of one slave, you will then have two." On the other hand, "happy is
he whom his mother teacheth." One good mother is worth a hundred nurses
or teachers. If from any cause, whether from necessity, or from indolence,
or from desire for company, children are deprived of a mother's care,
instruction, and influence, it is an incalculable loss.

Curran spoke with great affection of his mother, as a woman of strong
original understanding, to whose wise counsel, consistent piety, and lessons
of honourable ambition, which she diligently enforced on the minds of her
children, he himself principally attributed his success in life. "The only
inheritance," he used to say, "that I could boast of from my poor father, was
the very scanty one of an unattractive face and person, like his own; and if
the world has ever attributed to me something more valuable than face or
person, or than earthly wealth, it was because another and a dearer parent
gave her child a portion from the treasure of her mind."

Mrs. Wesley, the mother of John Wesley, made it a rule to converse alone
with one of her little ones every evening, listening to their childish
confessions, and giving counsel in their childish perplexities. She was the
patient teacher as well as the cheerful companion of her children. When
some one said to her, "Why do you tell that blockhead the same thing
twenty times over?" she replied, "Because if I had told him only nineteen
times I should have lost all my labour." So deep was the hold this mother
had on the hearts of her sons, that in his early manhood she had tenderly to
rebuke John for that "fond wish of his, to die before she died." It was
through the bias given by her to her sons' minds in religious matters that
they acquired the tendency which, even in early years, drew to them the
name of Methodists. In a letter to her son, Samuel, when a scholar at
Westminster, she said: "I would advise you as much as possible to throw
your business into a certain method, by which means you will learn to
improve every precious moment, and find an unspeakable facility in the
performance of your respective duties." This "method" she went on to
describe, exhorting her son "in all things to act upon principle;" and the
society which the brothers John and Charles afterwards founded at Oxford
is supposed to have been in a great measure the result of her exhortations.

The example of such mothers as Lord Byron's serves for a warning, for it
shows that the influence of a bad mother is quite as hurtful as that of a good
one is beneficial. She is said to have died in a fit of passion, brought on by
reading her upholsterer's bills. She even taunted her son with his personal
deformity; and it was no unfrequent occurrence, in the violent quarrels
which occurred between them, for her to take up the poker or tongs, and
hurl them after him as he fled from her presence. It was this unnatural
treatment that gave a morbid turn to Byron's after-life; and, careworn,
unhappy, great, and yet weak as he was, he carried about with him the
mother's poison which he had sucked in his infancy. Hence he exclaims, in
"Childe Harold"—

"Yet must I think less wildly:—I have though
Too long and darkly, till my brain became,
In its own eddy boiling and o'erwrought,
A whirling gulf of phantasy and flame:
And thus, untaught in youth my heart to tame,
My springs of life were poisoned,"

In like manner, though in a different way, the character of Mrs. Foote, the
actor's mother, was curiously repeated in the life of her joyous, jovial-
hearted son. Though she had been heiress to a large fortune, she soon spent
it all, and was at length imprisoned for debt. In this condition she wrote to
Sam, who had been allowing her a hundred a year out of the proceeds of his
acting: "Dear Sam, I am in prison for debt; come and assist your loving
mother, E. Foote." To which her son characteristically replied—"Dear
mother, so am I; which prevents his duty being paid to his loving mother by
her affectionate son, Sam Foote."

Mothers ought not to deceive themselves so far as to think that when they
over-indulge their children they are exhibiting genuine mothers' love. In
reality they are merely shifting their method of self-pleasing. We believe the
love of God to be the supreme love; but have we ever reflected that in that
awful love of God for His poor children of clay there must be mingled at
once infinite tenderness and pity, and at the same time a severity which
never shrinks from any suffering needed to recall us from sin? This is the
ideal of all love towards which we should strive to lift our poor, feeble,

short-sighted, selfish affections; and which it above all concerns a parent to
strive to translate into the language of human duty. This is the truest love,
the love which attaches itself to the very soul of the child, which repents
with it, with tears bitterer than its own, for its faults, and, while heaping on
it so far as may be every innocent pleasure, never for an instant abandons
the thought of its highest and ultimate welfare.

The loving instruction of a mother may seem to have been thrown away,
but it will appear after many days. "When I was a little child," said a good
old man, "my mother used to bid me kneel down beside her, and place her
hand upon my head while she prayed. Ere I was old enough to know her
worth she died, and I was left too much to my own guidance. Like others, I
was inclined to evil passions, but often felt myself checked and, as it were,
drawn back by a soft hand upon my head. When a young man I travelled in
foreign lands, and was exposed to many temptations; but, when I would
have yielded, that same hand was upon my head, and I was saved. I seemed
to feel its pressure as in the happy days of infancy; and sometimes there
came with it a voice in my heart, a voice that was obeyed: 'Oh do not this
wickedness, my son, nor sin against God.'"

With children you must mix gentleness with firmness. "A man who is
learning to play on a trumpet and a petted child are two very disagreeable
companions." If a mother never has headaches through rebuking her little
children, she shall have plenty of heartaches when they grow up. At the
same time, a mother should not hamper her child with unnecessary, foolish
restrictions. It is a great mistake to fancy that your boy is made of glass, and
to be always telling him not to do this and not to do that for fear of his
breaking himself. On the principle never to give pain unless it is to prevent
a greater pain, you should grant every request which is at all reasonable,
and let him see that your denial of a thing is for his own good, and not
simply to save trouble; but once having settled a thing hold to it. Unless a
child learns from the first that his mother's yea is yea, and her nay nay, it
will get into the habit of whining and endeavouring to coax her out of her
refusal, and her authority will soon be gone.

Unselfish mothers must be careful not to make their children selfish. The
mother who is continually giving up her own time, money, strength, and

pleasure for the gratification of her children teaches them to expect it
always. They learn to be importunate in their demands and to expect more
and more. If the mother wears an old dress that her idle son may have a new
coat, if she works that he may play, she is helping to make him vain, selfish,
and good-for-nothing. The wise mother will insist upon being the head of
her household, and with quiet unobtrusive dignity she will hold that place.
She should never become the subject of her own children. Even in such
mere external matters as dress and furniture her life should be better
equipped. The crown should be on her head, not on theirs. Thus from
babyhood they should be habituated to look up to, not down on, their
mother. She should find time, or make it, to care for her own culture; to
keep her intellectual and her art nature alive. The children may advance
beyond her knowledge; let her look to it that they do not advance beyond
her intellectual sympathies. Woe to both her and them if she does not keep
them well in sight!

Happiness is the natural condition of every normal child, and if the small
boy or girl has a peculiar facility for any one thing, it is for self-
entertainment. One of the greatest defects in our modern method of treating
children is to overload them with costly and elaborate toys, by which we
cramp their native ingenuity or perhaps force their tastes into the wrong
channel. The children of the humbler and the unpampered classes are far
happier than are those children whose created wants are legion and require
a fortune for their satisfaction.

Some mothers believe that they are exhibiting the proper "maternal
feelings" in keeping their children at home when they should send them
forth into the world, where alone they can be taught the virtue of self-
dependence. A time will come when the active young man who is checked
by foolish fondness will exclaim with bitterness—

"Prison'd and kept, and coax'd and whistled to—
Since the good mother holds me still a child,
Good mother is bad mother unto me!
A worse were better!"

Far more truly loving is the mother who sends her son into the battle of
life preferring anything for him rather than a soft, indolent, useless

existence. Such a mother is like those Spartan mothers who used to say to
their sons as they handed to them their shields, "With it or upon it, my son!"
Better death than dishonour was also the feeling of the mother of the
successful missionary William Knibb. Her parting words to him were
"William, William! mind, William, I had rather hear that you had perished
at sea, than that you had dishonoured the Society you go to serve."

Never promise a child and then fail to perform, whether you promise him
a bun or a beating, for if once you lose your child's confidence you will find
it all but impossible to regain it. Happy is the mother who can say, "I never
told my child a lie, nor ever deceived him, even for what seemed his good."
Robert Hall once reproved a young mother because, in putting a little baby
to bed, she put on her own nightcap, and lay down by it till it went to sleep.
"Madam," said the eloquent preacher, "you are acting a lie, and teaching the
child to lie." It was in vain that the mother pleaded that the child would not
go to sleep. "That," said Hall, "is nonsense. Properly brought up it must
sleep. Make it know what you want; obedience is necessary on its part, but
not a lie on yours."

CHAPTER XIX.
"NURSING FATHERS."

"And kings shall be thy nursing fathers."—Isaiah xlix. 23.

It is an old saying, "Praise the child and you make love to the mother;"
and it is a thing that no husband ought to overlook, for if the wife wish her
child to be admired by others, what must be the ardour of her wishes with
regard to his admiration! Cobbett tells us that there was a drunken man in
his regiment, who used to say that his wife would forgive him for spending
all the pay, and the washing money into the bargain, "if he would but kiss
her ugly brat, and say it was pretty." Though this was a profligate he had
philosophy in him; and certain it is that there is nothing worthy of the name
of conjugal happiness unless the husband clearly evince that he is fond of
his children.

Where you find children loving and helpful to their mothers, you
generally find their father at the bottom of it. If the husband respect his wife
the children will respect their mother. If the husband rises to offer her a
chair, they will not sit still when she enters the room; if he helps to bear her
burdens, they will not let her be the pack-horse of the household. If to her
husband the wife is but an upper servant, to her children she will easily
become but a waiting-maid. The first care of the true, wise husband will be
to sustain the authority of the wife and mother. It must be a very remarkable
exigency which allows him to sit as a court of appeal from her decisions,
and reverse them. But although husbands ought not to vexatiously interfere
with their wives in the management of children, especially of young
children, still they must not shirk their share of care and responsibility. It
was not without reason that Diogenes struck the father when the son swore,
because he had taught him no better.

There is no effeminacy in the title "nursing fathers," but the contrary.
Fondness for children arises from compassionate feeling for creatures that
are helpless and innocent.

Napoleon loved the man who held with a steel hand, covered with a silk
glove; so should the father be gentle but firm. Happy is he who is happy in
his children, and happy are the children who are happy in their father. All
fathers are not wise. Some are like Eli, and spoil their children. Not to cross
our children is the way to make a cross of them. But, "Ye fathers, provoke
not your children to wrath." That is, do not irritate them by unwise or
capricious rules and ways. Help your wives to make the home lively and
pleasant, so as to keep the children from seeking pleasure and excitement
elsewhere. The proverb says that "Clergymen's sons always turn out badly."
Why? Because the children are surfeited with severe religion, not with the
true religion of Christ, who was Himself reproved by the prototypes of such
severe men.

"Where," asks Mr. James Payn, "is the children's fun? Boys are now
crammed with knowledge like turkeys (but unfortunately not killed at
Christmas), and there is absolutely no room in them for a joke." An idol
called "success" is put up for worship, and fathers are ready to sacrifice the
health and happiness of their children upon its altar. "The educational
abomination of desolation of the present day," says Professor Huxley, "is
the stimulation of young people to work at high pressure by incessant
examinations." Some wise man (who probably was not an early riser) has
said of early risers in general, that they are "conceited all the forenoon, and
stupid all the afternoon." Now whether this is true of early risers in the
common acceptation of the word or not, I will not pretend to say; but it is
too often true of the unhappy children who are forced to rise too early in
their classes. They are "conceited all the forenoon of life, and stupid all its
afternoon." How much unhappiness might children be spared if fathers
would goad them less, and sometimes cheer up that dulness which has
fallen to most of us, by saying:

"Be good, dear child, and let who will be clever;
Do noble things—nor dream them all day long;

And so make life, death, and that vast for ever
One grand, sweet song."

What to do with our boys and girls is certainly a serious question, but the
last thing we should do with them is to make them miserable. Why not
disregard all false notions of gentility, and have each child well taught a
manual trade? Then they will have riches in their arms, and you will have
escaped the unpleasant alternative of the Jewish proverb, which says that he
who does not teach his son a trade teaches him to steal.

We give here a sketch of Canon Kingsley as a father, because we do not
remember any home life more beautiful and instructive. Because the
Rectory-house was on low ground, the rector of Eversley, who considered
violation of the divine laws of health a sort of acted blasphemy, built his
children an outdoor nursery on the "Mount," where they kept books, toys,
and tea things, spending long, happy days on the highest and loveliest point
of moorland in the glebe; and there he would join them when his parish
work was done, bringing them some fresh treasure picked up in his walk, a
choice wild-flower or fern or rare beetle, sometimes a lizard or a field-
mouse; ever waking up their sense of wonder, calling out their powers of
observation, and teaching them lessons out of God's great green book,
without their knowing they were learning. Out-of-doors and indoors, the
Sundays were the happiest days of the week to the children, though to their
father the hardest. When his day's work was done, there was always the
Sunday walk, in which each bird and plant and brook was pointed out to the
children, as preaching sermons to Eyes, such as were not even dreamt of by
people of the No-eyes species. Indoors the Sunday picture-books were
brought out, and each child chose its subject for the father to draw, either
some Bible story, or bird or beast or flower. In all ways he fostered in his
children a love of animals. They were taught to handle without disgust
toads, frogs, beetles, as works from the hand of a living God. His guests
were surprised one morning at breakfast when his little girl ran up to the
open window of the dining-room, holding a long, repulsive-looking worm
in her hand: "Oh, daddy, look at this delightful worm!"

Kingsley had a horror of corporal punishment, not merely because it
tends to produce antagonism between parent and child, but because he

considered more than half the lying of children to be the result of fear of
punishment. "Do not train a child," he said, "as men train a horse, by letting
anger and punishment be the first announcement of his having sinned. If
you do, you induce two bad habits: first, the boy regards his parent with a
kind of blind dread, as a being who may be offended by actions which to
him are innocent, and whose wrath he expects to fall upon him at any
moment in his most pure and unselfish happiness. Next, and worst still, the
boy learns not to fear sin, but the punishment of it, and thus he learns to
lie." He was careful too not to confuse his children by a multiplicity of
small rules. "It is difficult enough to keep the Ten Commandments," he
would say, "without making an eleventh in every direction." He had no
"moods" with his family, for he cultivated, by strict self-discipline in the
midst of worries and pressing business, a disengaged temper, that always
enabled him to enter into other people's interests, and especially into
children's playfulness. "I wonder," he would say, "if there is so much
laughing in any other home in England as in ours." He became a light-
hearted boy in the presence of his children. When nursery griefs and broken
toys were taken to his study, he was never too busy to mend the toy and dry
the tears. He held with Jean Paul Richter, that children have their "days and
hours of rain," which parents should not take much notice of, either for
anxiety or sermons, but should lightly pass over, except when they are
symptoms of coming illness. And his knowledge of physiology enabled him
to detect such symptoms. He recognized the fact, that weariness at lessons
and sudden fits of obstinacy are not hastily to be treated as moral
delinquencies, springing as they so often do from physical causes, which
are best counteracted by cessation from work and change of scene.

How blessed is the son who can speak of his father as Charles Kingsley's
eldest son does. "'Perfect love casteth out fear', was the motto," he says, "on
which my father based his theory of bringing up children. From this and
from the interests he took in their pursuits, their pleasures, trials, and even
the petty details of their everyday life, there sprang up a friendship between
father and children, that increased in intensity and depth with years. To
speak for myself, he was the best friend—the only true friend I ever had. At
once he was the most fatherly and the most unfatherly of fathers—fatherly
in that he was our intimate friend and our self-constituted adviser;
unfatherly in that our feeling for him lacked that fear and restraint that make

boys call their father 'the governor.' Ours was the only household I ever saw
in which there was no favouritism. It seemed as if in each of our different
characters he took an equal pride, while he fully recognized their different
traits of good or evil; for instead of having one code of social, moral, and
physical laws laid down for one and all of us, each child became a separate
study for him; and its little 'diseases au moral,' as he called them, were
treated differently, according to each different temperament.... Perhaps the
brightest picture of the past that I look back to now is the drawing-room at
Eversley, in the evenings, when we were all at home and by ourselves.
There he sat, with one hand in mother's, forgetting his own hard work in
leading our fun and frolic, with a kindly smile on his lips, and a loving light
in that bright gray eye, that made us feel that, in the broadest sense of the
word, he was our father."

Of this son, when he was an undergraduate at Cambridge, his father (then
Professor of History) writes: "Ah! what a blessing to be able to help him at
last by teaching him something one's self!" And to a learned "F.G.S." he
says very seriously: "My eldest son is just going off to try his manhood in
Colorado, United States. You will understand, therefore, that it is somewhat
important to me just now whether the world be ruled by a just and wise
God, or by o. It is also important to me with regard to my own boy's future,
whether what is said to have happened to-morrow (Good Friday) be true or
false."

Writing to his wife from the seaside, where he had gone in search of
health, he says: "This place is perfect; but it seems a dream and imperfect
without you. Kiss the darling ducks of children for me. How I long after
them and their prattle! I delight in all the little ones in the street, for their
sake, and continually I start and fancy I hear their voices outside. You do
not know how I love them; nor did I hardly till I came here. Absence
quickens love into consciousness. Tell Rose and Maurice that I have got
two pair of bucks' horns—one for each of them, huge old fellows, almost as
big as baby."

Writing from France to "my dear little man," as he calls his youngest son
(for whom he wrote the "Water Babies"), he says: "There is a little Egyptian
vulture here in the inn; ask mother to show you his picture in the beginning

of the bird-book." There was little danger that the sons of such a clergyman
as this would turn out badly.

A companion picture of Dr. Arnold as a father, has been drawn by Dean
Stanley: "It is impossible adequately to describe the union of the whole
family round him, who was not only the father and guide, but the elder
brother and playfellow of his children; the gentleness and tenderness which
marked his whole feeling and manner in the privacy of his domestic
intercourse. Enough, however, may perhaps be said to recall something at
least of its outward aspect. There was the cheerful voice that used to go
sounding through the house in the early morning, as he went round to call
his children; the new spirits which he seemed to gather from the mere
glimpses of them in the midst of his occupations—the increased merriment
of all in any game in which he joined—the happy walks on which he would
take them in the fields and hedges, hunting for flowers—the yearly
excursion to look in the neighbouring clay-pit for the earliest coltsfoot, with
the mock siege that followed. Nor, again, was the sense of his authority as a
father ever lost in his playfulness as a companion. His personal
superintendence of their ordinary instructions was necessarily limited by his
other engagements, but it was never wholly laid aside. In the later years of
his life it was his custom to read the Psalms and Lessons of the day with his
family every morning; and the common reading of a chapter in the Bible
every Sunday evening, with repetition of hymns or parts of Scripture by
every member of the family—the devotion with which he would himself
repeat his favourite poems from the Christian Year, or his favourite
passages from the Gospels—the same attitude of deep attention in listening
to the questions of his youngest children, the same reverence in answering
their difficulties that he would have shown to the most advanced of his
friends or his scholars—form a picture not soon to pass away from the mind
of any one who was ever present. But his teaching in his family was
naturally not confined to any particular occasions; they looked to him for
information and advice at all times; and a word of authority from him was a
law not to be questioned for a moment. And with the tenderness which
seemed to be alive to all their wants and wishes, there was united that
peculiar sense of solemnity, with which, in his eyes, the very idea of a
family life was invested. The anniversaries of domestic events—the passing
away of successive generations—the entrance of his sons on the several

stages of their education, struck on the deepest chords of his nature, and
made him blend with every prospect of the future the keen sense of the
continuance (so to speak) of his own existence in the good and evil fortunes
of his children, and to unite the thought of them with the yet more solemn
feeling, with which he was at all times wont to regard 'the blessing' of 'a
whole house transplanted entire from earth to heaven, without one failure.'"

What Luther was as a father may be imagined from a letter which he
wrote when absent at the Diet of Augsburg, to his little boy, aged five years.
The mother had written the home news, especially telling the loving father
about his first-born, so to him, as well as to her, Luther wrote the following
letter, full of fatherly fondness and charming naturalness.

"Grace and peace in Christ, my dear little boy. I am pleased to see that
thou learnest thy lessons well, and prayest well. Go on thus, my dear boy,
and when I come home I will bring you a fine fairing. I know of a pretty
garden where are merry children that have gold frocks, and gather nice
apples and plums and cherries under the trees, and sing and dance, and ride
on pretty horses with gold bridles and silver saddles. I asked the man of the
place whose the garden was, and who the children were. He said, 'These are
the children who pray and learn and are good.' Then I answered, 'I also have
a son, who is called Hans Luther. May he come to this garden, and eat pears
and apples, and ride a little horse, and play with the others?' The man said,
'If he says his prayers, and learns and is good, he may come; and Lippus
and Jost [Melanchthon's son Philip, and Jonas' son, Jodecus] may come, and
they shall have pipes and drums and lutes and fiddles, and they shall dance,
and shoot with little crossbows. Then he showed me a smooth lawn in the
garden laid out for dancing, and there the pipes and crossbows hung. But it
was still early, and the children had not dined, and I could not wait for the
dance. So I said, 'Dear sir, I will go straight home and write all this to my
little boy; but he has an aunt, Lene (great-aunt Magdalen) that he must
bring with him.' And the man answered, 'So it shall be! go and write as you
say.' Therefore, dear little boy, learn and pray with a good heart, and tell
Lippus and Jost to do the same, and then you will all come to the garden
together. Almighty God guard you. Give my love to Aunt Lene, and give
her a kiss for me.—Your loving father, Martin Luther."

What is chiefly wanted in the education of children is a wise mixture of
love and firmness. Parental authority should be regarded as vicegerent
authority, set up by God and ruling in His stead. A parent is to a child what
God is to a good man. He is the moral governor of the world of childhood.
Parental government is therefore only genuine when it rules for the same
ends as God pursues.

When children accord willing obedience the end of family government is
gained. To attain this end a parent should be careful to observe the
following rules. First, never to hamper a child with arbitrary restrictions,
but, if possible, always to let the reasons of each command or prohibition be
apparent; secondly, to let every punishment have some relation to the
offence, and so imitate the great laws of nature, which entail definite
consequences on every act of wrong; and, thirdly, never to threaten a
punishment and afterwards shrink from inflicting it; finally, punishments
should be severe enough to serve their purpose, and gentle enough to ensure
the continuance of affection. Nor should the child be left alone until he feels
that the punishment has been for his own good, and gives assurance of this
feeling by putting on a pleasant face.

Human nature requires amusement as well as teaching and correction.
One of the first duties of a parent is to sympathize with the play of his
children. How much do little children crave for sympathy! They hold out
every new object for you to see it with them, and look up after each gambol
for you to rejoice with them. Let play-time and playthings be given
liberally. Invite suitable companions, and do everything in your power to
make home sweet. Authority, so unbent, will be all the stronger and more
welcome from our display of real sympathy. If family government were
well carried out in every home, children would be happier and better than
they are now. Then there would be, even in our own great towns, a partial
realization of the words of the prophet Zechariah, in reference to Jerusalem
delivered: "And the streets of the city shall be full of boys and girls, playing
in the streets thereof."

The home of our children ought never to be a prison where there is plenty
of rule and order, but no love and no pleasure. We should remember that

"he who makes a little child happier for an hour is a fellow-worker with
God."

It was bitterly said of a certain Pharisaical household that in it "no one
should please himself, neither should he please any one else; for in either
case he would be thought to be displeasing God." This reminds us of the
Scotchman who, having gone back to his country after a long absence,
declared that the whole kingdom was on the road to perdition. "People," he
said, "used to be reserved and solemn on the sabbath, but now they look as
happy on that day as on any other." It is a blessed thing for the rising
generation that such grotesque perversions of religion are seldom presented
to them now; for every well-instructed Christian ought to be aware that
religion does not banish mirth, but only moderates and sets rules to it.

CHAPTER XX.
POLITENESS AT HOME.

"Manners are of more importance than laws. Upon these, in a great measure, the laws
depend. The law teaches us but here and there, now and then. Manners are what vex or
soothe, corrupt or purify, exalt or debase, barbarize or refine us, by a constant, steady,
uniform, insensible operation, like that of the air we breathe in. They give their whole form
and colour to our lives. According to their quality, they aid morals, they supply laws, or
they totally destroy them."—Burke.

About twelve thousand police in London are able to take care of about
four million people. How is it done? Chiefly by moral force, and, above all,
by civility. Sir Edmund Henderson, the Chief Commissioner of the force,
said on a recent occasion that it was by "strict attention to duty, by sobriety,
and, above all, by civility," that the police endeavoured to do their duty. "I
lay great stress upon civility," said the Chief Commissioner, "for I think it is
the great characteristic of the metropolitan police force."

If civility and politeness have such an influence upon the hard, rough
world of London how much greater will be the effect of good manners or
beautiful behaviour, not only in rendering comparatively safe the many
difficult crossings in the path of newly-married people, but also in adorning
even the smallest details of family life! True courtesy exhibits itself in a
disposition to contribute to the happiness of others, and in refraining from
all that may annoy them. And the cultivation day by day of this sweet
reasonableness is almost as necessary to the comfort of those who live
together as the daily calls of the milkman and the baker. If no two people
have it so much in their power to torment each other as husband and wife, it
is their bounden duty to guard against this liability by cultivating the habit
of domestic politeness. It is a mistake to suppose that the forms of courtesy
can be safely dispensed with in the family circle. With the disappearance of
the forms the reality will too often disappear. The very effort of appearing

bright under adverse circumstances is sure to render cheerfulness easier on
another occasion.

Good manners like good words cost little and are worth much. They oil
the machinery of social life, but more especially of domestic life. If a
cheerful "good morning" and "good evening" conciliate strangers they are
not lost upon a wife. Hardness and repulsiveness of manner originate in
want of respect for the feelings of others.

"Remember," says Sydney Smith, "that your children, your wife, and
your servants have rights and feelings; treat them as you would treat
persons who could turn again. Do not attempt to frighten children and
inferiors by passion; it does more harm to your own character than it does
good to them. Passion gets less and less powerful after every defeat.
Husband energy for the real demand which the dangers of life make upon
it." Good manners are more than "surface Christianity." Rowland Hill was
right when he said, "I do not think much of a man's religion unless his dog
and cat are the happier for it."

"Woman was made out of a rib from the side of Adam—not out of his
head to top him, not out of his feet to be trampled on by him, but out of his
side to be equal to him: under his arm to be protected, and near his heart to
be loved."

"Use the woman tenderly, tenderly;
From a crooked rib God made her slenderly:
Straight and strong He did not make her,
So if you try to bend you'll break her."

Men are cautioned by the Jewish Talmud to be careful lest they cause
women to weep, "for God counts their tears."

There are some people who stretch their manners to such an unnatural
degree in society that they are pretty sure to go to the opposite extreme
when relaxing at home. Feeling released from something that was hanging
over them they run wild and become rude in consequence of their late
restraint.

Is it not, to say the least, probable that such patient humility as the
following would be followed by a reaction? Bishop Thirlwall was generally
regarded, except by the small circle of those who knew him intimately, with
much awe by his clergy, who thought that they had better keep as far as
possible out of the way of their terribly logical and rather sarcastic
diocesan. The legend was that he had trained a highly sagacious dog into
the habit of detecting and biting intrusive curates. An amusing story is told
of a humble-minded Levite who was staying at Abergwili Palace on the
occasion of an ordination. An egg was placed before him, which, on
tapping, proved a very bad one indeed. The Bishop made a kindly apology,
and told a servant to bring a fresh one. "No, thank you, my lord," replied the
young clergyman, with a penitential expression of countenance; "it is quite
good enough for me." We think that the clergyman's wife would have acted
rashly if, soon after this occurrence, she should have tried the patience of
her Job with an antiquated egg.

The proverb "familiarity breeds contempt" suggests another reason why
the manners displayed at home are not, generally speaking, as good as they
should be.

There is generally greater harmony when a husband's duties necessitate
his remaining several hours of the day from home. "For this relief, much
thanks!" will be the not unnatural sentiment of a grateful wife. And to the
husband, on his return, home will appear far sweeter than if he had idled
about the house all day with nothing to do but torment his wife. Richter
says that distance injures love less than nearness. People are more polite
when they do not see too much of each other.

Madam! no gentleman is entitled to such distinguished consideration as
your husband. Sir! no lady is entitled to such deferential treatment as your
wife.

Awkward consequences that could not have been foreseen have
sometimes followed domestic rudeness. It is related of Lord Ellenborough
that, when on one occasion he was about to set out on circuit, his wife
expressed a wish to accompany him; a proposition to which his lordship
assented, provided there were no bandboxes tucked under the seat of his
carriage, as he had too often found there had been when honoured with her

ladyship's company before. Accordingly they both set out together, but had
not proceeded very far before the judge, stretching out his legs under the
seat in front of him, kicked against one of the flimsy receptacles which he
had specially prohibited. Down went the window with a bang and out went
the bandbox into the ditch. The startled coachman immediately commenced
to pull up, but was ordered to drive on and let the thing lie where it was.
They reached the assize town in due course, and his lordship proceeded to
robe for the court. "And now, where's my wig?—where's my wig?" he
demanded, when everything else had been donned. "Your wig, my lord,"
replied the servant, tremulously, "was in that bandbox your lordship threw
out of the window as we came along."

Sir Robert Walpole used to say that he never despaired of making up a
quarrel between women unless one of them had called the other old or ugly.
In the same way married people need not despair of realizing truly united
and therefore happy lives if they will only study each other's weak points,
as skaters look out for the weak parts of the ice, in order to keep off them.

Nothing is more unmanly as well as unmannerly than for a husband to
speak disparagingly of either his wife or of the marriage state before
strangers. Lord Erskine once declared at a large party that "a wife was a tin
canister tied to one's tail;" upon which Sheridan, who was present when the
remark was made, presented to Lady Erskine the following lines:

"Lord Erskine, at woman presuming to rail,
Calls a wife a tin canister tied to one's tail;
And fair Lady Anne, while the subject he carries on,
Seems hurt at his lordship's degrading comparison.

But wherefore degrading? Considered aright,
A canister's polished and useful and bright;
And should dirt its original purity hide,
That's the fault of the puppy to whom it is tied."

The "puppy" only got what he deserved.

When a husband happens to be a mere goose, happy if only a goose,
though he may keep up the delusion that he is the "head of the family," it

becomes the wife's duty to exercise real control. But she may be a
responsible Prime Minister without usurping, much less parading, the
insignia of Royalty. And if she have the feelings of a gentlewoman she will
not allow every one to see the reins of government in her hand as did a
colonel's wife known to me, of whom even the privates and drummer boys
in her husband's (?) regiment used to say: "Mrs. ——, she's the colonel."
What Burke said of his wife's eyes describe woman's proper place in the
domestic Cabinet: "Her eyes have a mild light, but they awe when she
pleases; they command, like a good man out of office, not by authority, but
by virtue." Too often it is the poor wife who has to bear the heaviest part of
the burdens of domestic life while the unchivalrous husband struts before as
head of the house quite unencumbered.

Even the youngest child may claim to be treated with politeness. "I feel,"
said President Garfield, "a profounder reverence for a boy than for a man. I
never meet a ragged boy in the street without feeling that I may owe him a
salute, for I know not what possibilities may be buttoned up under his coat."
Fathers should look upon their children with respect, for he who is "only a
child" may become a much better and greater man than his father.

Without spoiling our children we should make their lives as pleasant as
we possibly can, always remembering that the poor things never asked to be
born, and that they may "not long remain." The boy dies perhaps at the age
of ten or twelve. Of what use then all the restraints, all the privations, all the
pain, that you have inflicted upon him? He falls, and leaves your mind to
brood over the possibility of your having abridged a life so dear to you.

For good and for evil home is a school of manners. Children reflect, as in
a mirror, not only the general habits and characters of their parents, but even
their manner of gesture and of speech. "A fig-tree looking on a fig-tree
becometh fruitful." If "a gentleman always a gentleman" and "a lady always
a lady" are the examples set by papa and mamma, the children will take
them in almost through the pores of the skin.

"For the child," says Richter, "the most important era of life is that of
childhood, when he begins to colour and mould himself by companionship
with others. Every new educator affects less than his predecessor, until at
last, if we regard all life as an educational institution, a circumnavigator of

the world is less influenced by all the nations he has seen than by his
nurse."

CHAPTER XXI.
SUNSHINE.

"Love is sunshine."—Longfellow.
"God wishes us to have sunlight in our homes. He would have in them a tender play of
laughter and humour, a pleasant interchange of light and colour and warmth, in word and
mirth, which makes the brightness perfect, and is as much the work of the sunlight in the
house, as the delightful gaiety of nature is the doing of the sun."—Stopford Brooke.

It is a comparatively easy thing to preserve a cheerful appearance when
away from home, or even to present a brave front to meet the great
emergencies of life. And yet the most genial-hearted of diners-out may be a
domestic bully in the privacy of his own household; and the hero who has
faced a battery without shrinking may be unable to take a cup of lukewarm
coffee from his wife's hands without a grumble. The real happiness of a
home depends upon a determination to lay no undue stress upon little
matters, and a resolve to hold one's own irritability in constant check. For it
is the sum of trivial affairs that make up the day's account, and it is the—

"Cares that petty shadows cast,
By which our lives are chiefly proved."

True home sunshine, if it consistently brighten the features of one member
in a family, is pretty sure to be reflected from the faces of the rest.

"I thought," said a father, the other day, "as I sat in the railway carriage
on my way home, of my impatience with the members of my family, and I
felt ashamed. As soon as they are out of my sight I see clearly where my
mistakes are; but when they are around me I forget my good resolutions."

It is quite true that the dear ones at home are more to us than Kings and
Queens, than House of Lords or House of Commons, than the mightiest and
noblest in the world. And yet we often treat them worse than we treat
strangers. With others, whom we meet in business or in society, we are half
unconsciously on our guard. Hasty words are repressed, and frowns are
banished. But the dear ones at home usually have the pleasure or the pain of
seeing us precisely as we are in the mood of the moment. To their sorrow
we "make no strangers" of them. If our nerves are overstrung, or our
tempers tried, so far from endeavouring to conceal the fact we make them
feel it. The hero in great crises may be moved by the pressure of small
annoyances to throw a boot at his valet de chambre, or to snarl at his wife.
Individually these faults of temper may be small, but so are the locusts that
collectively conceal the sun. "Only perfection can bear with imperfection."
The better a man becomes the more allowance will he make for the
shortcomings of others.

In order to have sunlight at home, it is not enough negatively to abstain
from fault-finding and general peevishness. We should recognize praise as a
positive duty. If a thing is done wrongly, better sometimes to say nothing
about it. Wait until it happens to be done rightly, and then give marked
praise. The third time, the charm of your approbation will produce a much
better performance. If it is possible to "damn with faint praise," how much
more damaging must be—no praise at all. How much potential goodness
and greatness would become actual but for the wet blanket of sullen
silence! "As we must account for every idle word, so we must for every idle
silence." This saying of Franklin should suggest speech in season to
ungrateful husbands who never throw a word of encouragement to their
wives however deserving. In military riding schools may often be heard the
command—"Make much of your horses!" The horses have been trotting,
galloping, and jumping. They have had to stand quietly while the men
dismounted and fired their carbines kneeling before them. They have gone
through their parts well, so after the men have again mounted, the order is
given—"Make much of your horses!" and all the riders pat simultaneously
the proudly-arched necks of their deserving steeds. Husbands, take the hint
and make much of your wives!

We may here introduce some words of Miss Cobbe in reference to the
moral atmosphere of the house, which depends so immensely on the tone of
the mistress. "I conceive that good, and even high animal spirits are among
the most blessed of possessions—actual wings to bear us up over the dusty
or muddy roads of life; and I think that to keep up the spirits of a household
is not only indefinitely to add to its happiness, but also to make all duties
comparatively light and easy. Thus, however naturally depressed a mistress
may be, I think she ought to struggle to be cheerful, and to take pains never
to quench the blessed spirits of her children or guests. All of us who live
long in great cities get into a sort of subdued-cheerfulness tone. We are
neither very sad nor very glad; we neither cry, nor ever enjoy that delicious
experience of helpless laughter, the fou rira which is the joy of youth. I
wish we could be more really light of heart." We all share this wish; but
how is it to be realized? By living simple, well-regulated lives, and by
casting all our anxiety upon God who careth for us.

Professor Blaikie commences a paper on "How to Get Rid of Trouble,"
by saying that once he had occasion to call on the chief of the constabulary
force in one of our largest cities. "The conversation having turned on the
arrangements for extinguishing fire, the chief constable entered with great
alacrity into the subject, and after some verbal explanations, added, 'If you
can spare half an hour, I will call out my men, and you shall see how we
proceed.' I was taken aback at the idea of the firemen and engines being
called out on a fine summer day to let a stranger see them at work; so I
thanked him for his offer, but added that I could not think of giving him so
much trouble. 'Trouble!' said he; 'what's that? That's a word I don't know.'
'You are a happy man,' was the reply, 'if you don't know the meaning of
trouble.' 'No, indeed,' he said. 'I assure you I do not. The word is not in my
dictionary.' As I was still incredulous, and wondering whether or not he had
lost his senses, he rang the bell, and bade his clerk fetch him an English
dictionary. Handing it to me, he said, 'Now, sir, please look and see whether
you can find the word "trouble."' I turned to the proper place, and there, to
be sure, where the word had been, I found it carefully erased by three lines
of red ink. Of course I caught the idea at once. In a great work like that of
the police in such a place, trouble was never to be thought of. No inroad
that might be required on the ease, or the sleep, or the strength of any
member of the force was ever to be grudged on the score that it was too

much trouble. In the work of that office the thought of trouble was to be
unknown. I felt that I had got a sermon from the chief of police, and a
notable sermon, too. The three lines of red ink were as clear and telling as
any three heads into which I had ever divided my discourse. It was a
thrilling sermon, too—it set something vibrating within me."

This incident refers to trouble in the active sense; but even trouble in the
sense of sorrow and disappointment may be to a large extent effaced from
the family circle by certain red lines. Here is one of them. Do not make the
trouble worse than it really is. Rather let us resolve to look at the bright side
of things. If we had nothing more to think of, the proverbs that have been
coined in the mint of hope ought to encourage us. "Nothing so bad but it
might have been worse;" "'Tis always morning somewhere in the world;"
"When things are at the worst they mend;" "The darkest hour of night is that
which precedes the dawn." Let us try to form the habit of thinking how
much there is to cheer us even when there may be much to depress; how
often, on former occasions of trouble, we have been wonderfully helped;
how foolish it is to anticipate evil before it comes.

"How dismal you look!" said a bucket to his companion, as they were
going to the well. "Ah!" replied the other, "I was reflecting on the
uselessness of our being filled, for let us go away ever so full, we always
come back empty." "Dear me! how strange to look at it in that way!" said
the other bucket. "Now I enjoy the thought that however empty we come,
we always go away full. Only look at it in that light, and you will be as
cheerful as I am."

Another red line which effaces trouble is patience. Speaking of the
cheerful submission and trust of the London poor a well-known clergyman
says: "Come with me; turn under this low doorway; climb these narrow
creaking stairs; knock at the door. A pleasant voice bids you enter. You see a
woman sixty-four years of age, her hands folded and contracted, her whole
body crippled and curled together, as cholera cramped, and rheumatism
fixed it twenty-eight years ago. For sixteen years she has not moved from
her bed, nor looked out of the window; and has been in constant pain, while
she cannot move a limb. Listen—she is thankful. For what? For the use of
one thumb; with a two-pronged fork, fastened to a stick, she can turn over

the leaves of an old-fashioned Bible, when placed within her reach. Hear
her: 'I'm content to lie here as long as it shall please Him, and to go when
He shall call me.'"

The third red line we would suggest is—Try to get good out of your
troubles. Undoubtedly it is to be got, if the right way be taken to extract it.
Scarcely any loss is without compensation. How often has the dignity of
self-support and self-respect been gained when an external prop has been
removed! How often have we been eventually glad that our wishes were not
fulfilled! Plato tells us that "just penalties are the best gifts of the gods," and
Goethe said he never had an affliction that he did not turn into a poem. The
daylight must fade before we can behold the shining worlds around us, and
the rigour of winter must be endured before our hearts can thrill with
delight at the approach of Spring.

For the sake of household sunshine we should endeavour to keep in
health. Lowness of tone, nervous irritability, the state of being ill-at-ease—
these and many other forms of ill-health may, as a general rule, be avoided
by those who endeavour to preserve their health as a sacred duty. If most
people have but little health, it is because they transgress the laws of nature,
alternately stimulating and depressing themselves. For our own sake and for
the sake of others whom we trouble by irritability, we are bound to obey
these laws—fresh air, exercise, moderate work, conquest of appetite.

"The deception," says Sydney Smith, "as practised upon human
creatures, is curious and entertaining. My friend sups late; he eats some
strong soup, then a lobster, then some tart, and he dilutes these esculent
varieties with wine. The next day I call upon him. He is going to sell his
house in London, and to retire into the country. He is alarmed for his eldest
daughter's health. His expenses are hourly increasing, and nothing but a
timely retreat can save him from ruin. All this is the lobster: and when over-
excited nature has had time to manage this testaceous encumbrance, the
daughter recovers, the finances are in good order, and every rural idea
effectually excluded from the mind. In the same manner old friendships are
destroyed by toasted cheese, and hard, salted meat has led to suicide.
Unpleasant feelings of the body produce correspondent sensations in the
mind, and a great scene of wretchedness is sketched out by a morsel of

indigestible and misguided food. Of such infinite consequence to happiness
is it to study the body!"

On the other hand, "A merry heart doeth good like a medicine." We
should "laugh and be well," as enjoined by an old English versifier.

"To cure the mind's wrong bias, spleen,
Some recommend the bowling-green;
Some, hilly walks; all, exercise;
Fling but a stone, the giant dies;
Laugh and be well. Monkeys have been
Extreme good doctors for the spleen;
And kitten, if the humour hit,
Has harlequined away the fit."

It is the bounden duty of those who live together to cultivate the sunny
side of life. To rejoice with those who rejoice is as much a duty as to weep
with those that weep. Many have not that "great hereditary constitutional
joy" which springs from a natural genius for happiness, but all may at least
try to add to the stock of the household's cheerfulness. It is about the most
useful contribution that any member of a family can make.

"As, although in the season of rainstorms and showers,
The tree may strike deeper its roots;
It needs the warm brightness of sunshiny hours,
To ripen the blossoms and fruits."

Sunlike pleasures never shine in idle homes. If a useful occupation or
innocent hobby be not provided for the several members of a family, they
are sure to spend their time in maliciously tormenting each other.

Those whose only care in life is to avoid care make a great mistake. They
forget that even roses have thorns, and that pleasure is appreciated and
enjoyed for its variety and contrast to pain. After all there is but one way of
producing sunshine in our homes. We must first let the light into our own
souls, and then like burning glasses we shall give it out to others, but
especially to those of our own household. And whence comes the soul's
calm sunshine and joy in right doing but from the Sun of Righteousness?

If there are many unhappy homes, many wretched families—more by far
than is generally supposed—what is the cure for this? "Sweet
reasonableness" as taught by Jesus Christ. If we would let Him into our
houses to dwell with us, and form one of our family circle, He would turn
our homes into little Edens.

CHAPTER XXII.
THEY HAD A FEW WORDS.

"Something light as air—a look,
A word unkind or wrongly taken—
Oh, love, that tempests never shook,
A breath, a touch like this hath shaken,
And ruder words will soon rush in
To spread the breach that words begin."—Moore.
"Married life should be a sweet, harmonious song, and, like one of Mendelssohn's,
'without words.'"—Judy.

When the sunshine of domestic bliss has become more or less clouded by
quarrels between a husband and wife, observers very often describe the
state of affairs by the euphemism at the head of this chapter. "They had a
few words"—this is the immediate cause of many a domestic catastrophe. A
young man was sent to Socrates to learn oratory. On being introduced to the
philosopher he talked so incessantly that Socrates asked for double fees.
"Why charge me double?" said the young fellow. "Because," said Socrates,
"I must teach you two sciences; the one how to hold your tongue, and the
other how to speak." It is impossible for people to be happy in matrimony
who will not learn the first of these sciences.

We do not know whether Simonides was or was not a married man, but
we fancy he must have been, for he used to say that he never regretted
holding his tongue, but very often was sorry for having spoken. "Seest thou
a man that is hasty in his words? There is more hope of a fool than of him."
Sober second thoughts suggest palliatives and allowances that temper
prevents us from noticing. The simple act of self-denial in restraining the
expression of unpleasant feelings or harsh thoughts is the foundation stone

of a happy home. For nothing draws people so closely together as the
constant experience of mutual pleasure, and nothing so quickly drives them
asunder as the frequent endurance of pain caused by one another's presence.

"One doth not know
How much an ill word may empoison liking."

Sometimes the husband blames the wife and the wife the husband when
neither of them is at fault. This always reminds us of Pat's mistake. Two
Irishmen walking along the same street, but coming from opposite
directions, approached, both smiling and apparently recognizing one
another. As they came closer they discovered that it was a mutual mistake.
Equal to the occasion one of them said, "Och, my friend, I see how it is.
You thought it was me, and I thought it was you, and now it's naythur of
us."

Burton tells of a woman who, hearing one of her "gossips" complain of
her husband's impatience, told her an excellent remedy for it. She gave her a
glass of water, which, when he brawled, she should hold still in her mouth.
She did so two or three times with great success, and at length, seeing her
neighbour, she thanked her for it, and asked to know the ingredients. She
told her that it was "fair water," and nothing more, for it was not the water,
but her silence which performed the cure.

There are people who are kind in their actions and yet brutal in their
speech, and they forget that it is not every one who can bear, like Boswell,
to be told he is a fool. A woman may think she is always right and her
husband always wrong, but it does not make the wheels of domestic life run
smoother to say this in plain English. A man may have a contempt for his
wife's dearest brother, but to tell the wife or brother so is not conducive to
harmony.

It has sometimes been remarked that the marriage of a deaf and dumb
man to a blind woman would have obvious advantages. Each of the parties
would acquire an opportunity to practise little pantomimic scenes from
which ordinary married folks are debarred. When they quarrelled, for
instance—the wife being unable to see, while the husband could not hear or
speak—she could hurl at him broadside after broadside of steel-pointed

invective; and the poor man could but stand there, study the motion of her
lips, and fondly imagine she was telling him how sorry she was that
anything should come between them. He, on the other hand, could sit down,
shake his fists, and make hideous grimaces, she all the while thinking he
was sitting with his face buried in his hands, and hot remorseful tears
streaming from his eyes. Husbands and wives who are not deprived of the
use of their faculties might take the hint and resolve not to use them too
keenly on certain occasions. In a matrimonial quarrel they need not hear or
see everything.

"If you your lips would keep from slips,
Five things observe with care:
Of whom you speak, to whom you speak
And how, and when, and where.

The "last word" is the most dangerous of infernal machines. Husband and
wife should no more fight to get it than they would struggle for the
possession of a lighted bomb-shell. What is the use of the last word? After
getting it a husband might perhaps, as an American newspaper suggests,
advertise to whistle for a wager against a locomotive; but in every other
respect his victory would be useless and painful. It would be a Cadmean
victory in which the victor would suffer as much as the vanquished. A
farmer cut down a tree which stood so near the boundary line of his farm
that it was doubtful whether it belonged to him or to his neighbour. The
neighbour, however, claimed the tree, and prosecuted the man who cut it for
damages. The case was sent from court to court. Time was wasted and
temper lost; but the case was finally gained by the prosecutor. The last of
the transaction was that the man who gained the cause went to the lawyer's
office to execute a deed of his whole farm, which he had been compelled to
sell to pay his costs! Then, houseless and homeless, he thrust his hands into
his pockets, and triumphantly exclaimed, "I've beat him!" In the same way
husband and wife may become bankrupt of heart-wealth by endeavouring to
get the last word.

Men sometimes become fractious from pure monotony. When they are
unable to find subjects for profitable conversation there arises a propensity
to "nag" and find fault. In a Russian story, the title of which in English is

"Buried Alive," two prisoners are talking in the night, and one relates: "I
had got, somehow or other, in the way of beating her (his wife). Some days
I would keep at it from morning till night. I did not know what to do with
myself when I was not beating her. She used to sit crying, and I could not
help feeling sorry for her, and so I beat her." Subsequently he murdered her.
Are there not men above the class of wife-beaters who indulge in fault-
finding, "nagging," and other forms of tongue-castigation? They have got
into the habit. They do not know what to do with themselves when not so
employed. The tears of their wives only irritate them.

Of course some wives are quite capable of giving as much as they get. It
is said that at a recent fashionable wedding, after the departure of the happy
pair, a dear little girl, whose papa and mamma were among the guests,
asked, with a child's innocent inquisitiveness: "Why do they throw things at
the pretty lady in the carriage?" "For luck, dear," replied one of the
bridesmaids. "And why," again asked the child, "doesn't she throw them
back?" "Oh," said the young lady, "that would be rude." "No it wouldn't,"
persisted the dear little thing to the delight of her doting parents who stood
by: "ma does."

"As the climbing up a sandy way is to the feet of the aged, so is a wife
full of words to a quiet man." She who "has a tongue of her own" has
always more last words to say, and, if she ever does close her mouth, the
question suggests itself whether she should not be arrested for carrying
concealed weapons. On the tombs of such wives might be inscribed
epitaphs like the following, which is to be found in a churchyard in Surrey
—

"Here lies, returned to clay,
Miss Arabella Young,
Who on the first of May
Began to hold her tongue."

Poor Caudle, as a rule, thought discretion the better part of valour, and
sought refuge in the arms of soothing slumber; but there are some men who
do not allow their wives to have it all their own way without at least an
occasional protest. "Do you pretend to have as good a judgment as I have?"
said an enraged wife to her husband. "Well, no," he replied, deliberately;

"our choice of partners for life shows that my judgment is not to be
compared to yours." When they have "a few words," however, the woman
usually has the best of it. "See here," said a fault-finding husband, "we must
have things arranged in this house so that we shall know where everything
is kept." "With all my heart," sweetly answered his wife, "and let us begin
with your late hours, my love. I should much like to know where they are
kept."

Such matrimonial word-battles may amuse outsiders as the skill of
gladiators used to amuse, but the combatants make themselves very
miserable. Far better to be incapable of making a repartee if we only use the
power to wound the feelings of the one whom we have vowed to love.
There is an art of putting things that should be studied by married people.
How many quarrels would be avoided if we could always say with courtesy
and tact any unpleasant thing that may have to be said! It is related of a
good-humoured celebrity that when a man once stood before him and his
friend at the theatre, completely shutting out all view of the stage, instead of
asking him to sit down, or in any way giving offence, he simply said, "I beg
your pardon, sir; but when you see or hear anything particularly interesting
on the stage, will you please let us know, as we are entirely dependent on
your kindness?" That was sufficient. With a smile and an apology that only
the art of putting things could have extracted, the gentleman took his seat.
There is a story of a separation which took place simply because a gracious
announcement had been couched by a husband in ungracious terms. "My
dear, here is a little present I have brought to make you good-tempered."
"Sir," was the indignant reply, "do you dare to say that it is necessary to
bribe me into being good-tempered? Why, I am always good-tempered; it is
your violent temper, sir!" And so the quarrel went on to the bitter end.

It is a very difficult thing to find fault well. We all have to find fault at
times, in reference to servants, children, husband, or wife; but in a great
number of cases the operation loses half its effect, or has no effect at all,
perhaps a downright bad effect, because of the way in which it is done.
Above all things remember this caution, never to find fault when out of
temper. Again, there is a time not to find fault, and in the right perception of
when that time is lies no small part of the art. The reproof which has most
sympathy in it will be most effectual. It understands and allows for

infirmity. It was this sympathy that prompted Dr. Arnold to take such pains
in studying the characters of his pupils, so that he might best adapt
correction to each particular case.

The very worst time for a husband and wife to have "a few words" is
dinner-time, because, if we have a good dinner, our attention should be
bestowed on what we are eating. He who bores us at dinner robs us of
pleasure and injures our health, a fact which the alderman realized when he
exclaimed to a stupid interrogator, "With your confounded questions, sir,
you've made me swallow a piece of green fat without tasting it." Many a
poor wife has to swallow her dinner without tasting it because her
considerate husband chooses this time to find fault with herself, the
children, the servants, and with everything except himself. The beef is too
much done, the vegetables too little, everything is cold. "I think you might
look after something! Oh! that is no excuse," and so on, to the great
disturbance of his own and his wife's digestion. God sends food, but the
devil sends the few cross words that prevent it from doing us any good. We
should have at least three laughs during dinner, and every one is bound to
contribute a share of agreeable table-talk, good-humour, and cheerfulness.

"In politics," said Cavour, "nothing is so absurd as rancour." In the same
way we may say that nothing is so absurd in matrimony as sullen silence.
Reynolds in his "Life and Times" tells of a free-and-easy actor who passed
three festive days at the seat of the Marquis and Marchioness of ——
without any invitation, convinced (as proved to be the case) that, my lord
and my lady not being on speaking terms, each would suppose the other had
asked him. A soft answer turns away wrath, and when a wife or a husband is
irritated there is nothing like letting a subject drop. Then silence is indeed
golden. But the silence persisted in—as by the lady in the old comedy, who,
in reply to her husband's "For heaven's sake, my dear, do tell me what you
mean," obstinately keeps her lips closed—is an instrument of deadly
torture. "A wise man by his words maketh himself beloved." To this might
be added that on certain occasions a fool by his obstinate silence maketh
himself hated.

"According to Milton, 'Eve kept silence in Eden to hear her husband
talk,'" said a gentleman to a lady friend; and then added, in a melancholy

tone, "Alas! there have been no Eves since." "Because," quickly retorted the
lady, "there have been no husbands worth listening to." Certainly there are
too few men who exert themselves to be as agreeable to their wives (their
best friends), as they are to the comparative strangers or secret enemies
whom they meet at clubs and other places of resort. And yet if it is true that
"to be agreeable in our family circle is not only a positive duty but an
absolute morality," then every husband and wife should say on their
wedding day—

"To balls and routs for fame let others roam,
Be mine the happier lot to please at home."

In one of the letters of Robertson, of Brighton, he tells of a lady who
related to him "the delight, the tears of gratitude which she had witnessed in
a poor girl to whom, in passing, I gave a kind look on going out of church
on Sunday. What a lesson! How cheaply happiness can be given! What
opportunities we miss of doing an angel's work! I remember doing it, full of
sad feelings, passing on, and thinking no more about it; and it gave an
hour's sunshine to a human life, and lightened the load of life to a human
heart for a time!" If even a look can do so much, who shall estimate the
power of kind or unkind words in making married life happy or miserable?
In the home circle more than anywhere else—

"Words are mighty, words are living:
Serpents with their venomous stings,
Or bright angels, crowding round us,
With heaven's light upon their wings:
Every word has its own spirit,
True or false that never dies;
Every word man's lips have uttered
Echoes in God's skies."

CHAPTER XXIII.
PULLING TOGETHER.

"When souls, that should agree to will the same,
To have one common object for their wishes,
Look different ways, regardless of each other,
Think what a train of wretchedness ensues!"

Said a husband to his angry wife: "Look at Carlo and Kitty asleep on the
rug; I wish men lived half as agreeably with their wives." "Stop!" said the
lady. "Tie them together, and see how they will agree!" If men and women
when tied together sometimes agree very badly what is the reason? Because
instead of pulling together each of them wishes to have his or her own way.
But when they do pull together what greater thing is there for them than "to
feel that they are joined for life, to strengthen each other in all labour, to rest
on each other in all sorrow, to minister to each other in all pain, to be one
with each other in the silent unspeakable memories at the moment of the
last parting?"

What is meant by pulling together may be explained by referring to the
custom of the "Dunmow flitch," which was founded by Juga, a noble lady,
in A.D. IIII, and restored by Robert de Fitzwalter, in 1244. It was that any
person from any part of England going to Dunmow in Essex, and humbly
kneeling on two stones at the church door, may claim a gammon of bacon if
he can swear that for twelve months and a day he has never had a household
brawl or wished himself unmarried. Hence the phrase "He may fetch a
flitch of bacon from Dunmow," i.e., He is so amiable and good-tempered
that he will never quarrel with his wife. To eat Dunmow bacon is to live in
conjugal amity. There were only eight claimants admitted to eat the flitch

between the years 1244-1772, a number that seems to justify Prior's
sarcastic couplet:

"Ah, madam, cease to be mistaken,
Few married fowl peck Dunmow bacon."

It is a great pity that "few married fowl peck Dunmow bacon," for those
that do are so happy that they may be called birds of Paradise.

"A well-matched couple carry a joyful life between them, as the two
spies carried the cluster of Eshcol. They multiply their joys by sharing
them, and lessen their troubles by dividing them: this is fine arithmetic. The
waggon of care rolls lightly along as they pull together, and when it drags a
little heavily, or there's a hitch anywhere, they love each other all the more,
and so lighten the labour." When there is wisdom in the husband there is
generally gentleness in the wife, and between them the old wedding wish is
worked out: "One year of joy, another of comfort, and all the rest of
content."

When two persons without any spiritual affinity are bound together in
irrevocable bondage, it is to their "unspeakable weariness and despair," and
life becomes to them "a drooping and disconsolate household captivity,
without refuge or redemption." Such unions are marriages only in name.
They are a mere housing together.

However, this doctrine may easily be exaggerated, and certainly married
people ought to be very slow in allowing themselves to think that it is
impossible for them to hit it off or pull with the partners of their lives.
Those who cherish unhealthy sentimentalism on this subject would do well
to brace themselves up by reading a little of the robust common sense of Dr.
Johnson. Talking one evening of Mrs. Careless, the doctor said: "If I had
married her, it might have been as happy for me." Boswell: "Pray, sir, do
you not suppose that there are fifty women in the world, with any one of
whom a man may be as happy as with any one woman in particular?"
Johnson: "Ay, sir, fifty thousand." Boswell: "Then, sir, you are not of
opinion with some who imagine that certain men and certain women are
made for each other; and that they cannot be happy if they miss their
counterparts." Johnson: "To be sure not, sir. I believe marriages would in

general be as happy, and often more so, if they were all made by the Lord
Chancellor, upon a due consideration of the characters and circumstances,
without the parties having any choice in the matter."

The following, too, is interesting, for we may gather from it how, in
Johnson's opinion, the feat of living happily with any one of fifty thousand
women could be accomplished. The question was started one evening
whether people who differed on some essential point could live in
friendship together. Johnson said they might. Goldsmith said they could not,
as they had not the idem velle atque idem nolle—the same likings and the
same aversions. Johnson: "Why, sir, you must shun the subject as to which
you disagree. For instance, I can live very well with Burke; I love his
knowledge, his genius, his diffusion, and affluence of conversation; but I
would not talk to him of the Rockingham party." Goldsmith: "But, sir, when
people live together who have something as to which they disagree, and
which they want to shun, they will be in the situation mentioned in the story
of Bluebeard, 'You may look into all the chambers but one.' But we should
have the greatest inclination to look into that chamber, to talk over that
subject." Johnson (with a loud voice): "Sir, I am not saying that you could
live in friendship with a man from whom you differ as to some point: I am
only saying that I could do it."

In matrimony, as in religion, in things essential there should be unity, in
things indifferent diversity, in all things charity.

In matrimony, though it is the closest and dearest friendship, shades of
character and the various qualities of mind and heart, never approximate to
such a degree, as to preclude all possibility of misunderstanding. But the
broad and firm principles upon which all honourable and enduring
sympathy is founded, the love of truth, the reverence for right, the
abhorrence of all that is base and unworthy, admit of no difference or
misunderstanding; and where these exist in the relations of two people
united for life, love, and happiness, as perfect as this imperfect existence
affords, may be realized. But the rule is different in matters that are not
essential. In reference to these married people should cultivate "the
sympathy of difference." They should agree to differ each respecting the
tastes and prejudices of the other.

At no time are husbands and wives seen to greater advantage than when
yielding their own will in unimportant matters to the will of another, and we
quite agree with a writer who makes the following remark: "Great actions
are so often performed from little motives of vanity, self-complacency, and
the like, that I am apt to think more highly of the person whom I observe
checking a reply to a petulant speech, or even submitting to the judgment of
another in stirring the fire, than of one who gives away thousands!"

In all things there should be charity. Dolly Winthrop in "Silas Marner"
was patiently tolerant of her husband, "considering that men would be so,"
and viewing the stronger sex "in the light of animals whom it pleased
Heaven to make troublesome like bulls or turkey cocks." This sensible
woman knew that if at times her husband was troublesome he had his good
qualities. On these she would accustom herself to dwell.

A Scotch minister, being one day engaged in visiting his flock, came to
the door of a house where his gentle tapping could not be heard for the
noise of contention within. After waiting a little he opened the door and
walked in, saying, with an authoritative voice: "I should like to know who
is the head of this house?" "Weel, sir," said the husband and father, "if ye sit
doon a wee, we'll maybe be able to tell ye, for we're just tryin' to settle the
point." Merely to settle this point some married people are continually
engaging in a tug of war instead of pulling comfortably together. But what a
mean contest! How much better it would be only to strive who should love
the other most! To married people especially are these words of Marcus
Aurelius applicable: "We are made for co-operation, like feet, like hands,
like eyelids, like the rows of the upper and lower teeth. To act against one
another, then, is contrary to nature."

That union is strength is forcibly, if not very elegantly, illustrated by
Erskine's description of a lodging where he had passed the night. He said
that the fleas were so numerous and so ferocious that if they had been but
unanimous they would have pulled him out of bed. If husband and wife
would be but unanimous they would be a match against every enemy to
their felicity. On the other hand, how impossible it is for those who work
against each other to live together with any advantage or comfort. We all
remember the illustration of Æsop. A charcoal-burner carried on his trade in

his own house. One day he met a friend, a fuller, and entreated him to come
and live with him, saying that they should be far better neighbours, and that
their housekeeping expenses would be lessened. The fuller replied, "The
arrangement is impossible as far as I am concerned, for whatever I should
whiten, you would immediately blacken again with your charcoal."

One secret of pulling together is not to interfere with what does not
concern us. A man who can trust his wife should no more meddle with her
home concerns than she should pester him with questions about his
business. He will never be able to pull with her if he pokes over the weekly
bills, insists on knowing how much each thing is per pound, and what he is
going to have every day for dinner. It is indeed almost a sine quâ non of
domestic felicity that paterfamilias should be absent from home at least six
hours in the day. Jones asked his wife, "Why is a husband like dough?" He
expected she would give it up, and he was going to tell her that it was
because a woman needs him; but she said it was because he was hard to get
off her hands.

Of course, like every other good rule, this one of non-intervention may
be carried too far, as it was by the studious man who said, when a servant
told him that his house was on fire, "Go to your mistress, you know I have
no charge of household matters." No doubt occasions will arise when a
husband will be only too glad to take counsel with his wife in business
cares; while she may have to remember all her life long, with gratitude and
love, some season of sickness or affliction, when he filled his own place
and hers too, ashamed of no womanish task, and neither irritated nor
humiliated by ever such trivial household cares.

"Parents and children seldom act in concert, each child endeavours to
appropriate the esteem or fondness of the parents, and the parents, with yet
less temptation, betray each other to their children; thus some place their
confidence in the father, and some in the mother, and by degrees the house
is filled with artifices and feuds." These words point to a danger to be
guarded against by married people who desire to pull together. It is sad
when a child is not loved equally by both its parents. In this case, however
innocent and blessed the little one may be, it is liable to become the
disturber of parental peace.

Perhaps the way Carlyle and his wife pulled together is not so very
uncommon. His mother used to say of him that he was "gey ill to live with,"
and Miss Welsh whom he married had a fiery temper. When provoked she
"was as hard as a flint, with possibilities of dangerous sparks of fire." The
pair seem to have tormented each other, but not half as much as each
tormented him and herself. They were too like each other, suffering in the
same way from nerves disordered, digestion impaired, excessive self-
consciousness, and the absence of children to take their thoughts away from
each other. They were, in the fullest sense of the word, everything to each
other—both for good and evil, sole comforters, chief tormentors. The
proverb "Ill to hae but waur to want" was true of the Carlyles as of many
another couple.

Sir David Baird and some other English officers, being captured by Tippo
Saib, were confined for some time in one of the dungeons of his palace at
Bangalore. When Sir David's mother heard the news in Scotland, referring
to the method in which prisoners were chained together and to her son's
well-known irascible temper, she exclaimed: "God pity the lad that's tied to
our Davie." How much more to be pitied is he or she whom matrimony has
tied for life to a person with a bad temper!

Over-particularity in trifles causes a great deal of domestic discomfort.
The husband or wife who, to use a common phrase, wishes a thing to be
"just so," and not otherwise, is uncomfortable to pull with. For any person
to be thoroughly amiable and livable with, there should be a little touch of
untidiness and unpreciseness, and indifference to small things. A little spice
—not too much—of the Irishman's spirit who said, "If you can't take things
asy, take them as asy as you can."

There is no more beautiful quality than that ideality which conceives and
longs after perfection; but if too exclusively cultivated it may drag down
rather than elevate its possessor. The faculty which is ever conceiving and
desiring something better and more perfect must be modified in its action
by good sense, patience, and conscience, otherwise it induces a morbid,
discontented spirit, which courses through the veins of individual and
family life like a subtle poison.

Exactingsness is untrained ideality, and much domestic misery is caused
by it. A little bit of conscience makes the exacting person sour. He fusses,
fumes, finds fault, and scolds because everything is not perfect in an
imperfect world. Much more happy and good is he whose conceptions and
desire of excellence are equally strong, but in whom there is a greater
amount of discriminating common-sense.

Most people can see what is faulty in themselves and their surroundings;
but while the dreamer frets and wears himself out over the unattainable, the
happy, practical man is satisfied with what can be attained. There was much
wisdom in the answer given by the principal of a large public institution
when complimented on his habitual cheerfulness amid a diversity of cares:
"I've made up my mind," he said, "to be satisfied when things are done half
as well as I would have them."

Ideality often becomes an insidious mental and moral disease, acting all
the more subtlely from its alliance with what is noblest in us.

The virtue of conscientiousness may turn into the vice of censoriousness
if misapplied. It was the constant prayer of the great and good Bishop
Butler that he might be saved from what he called "scrupulosity." Dr.
Johnson used to admire this wise sentence in Thomas à Kempis: "Be not
angry that you cannot make others as you wish them to be, since you cannot
make yourself as you wish to be." Searching for domestic happiness would
not be as unsuccessful as it is with some people if they were not continually
finding fault.

Jeremy Taylor impresses this fact by one of his quaint illustrations: "The
stags in the Greek epigram, whose knees were clogged with frozen snow
upon the mountains, came down to the brooks of the valleys, hoping to
thaw their joints with the waters of the stream; but there the frost overtook
them, and bound them fast in ice, till the young herdsmen took them in their
stranger snare. It is the unhappy chance of many men finding many
inconveniences upon the mountains of single life, they descend into the
valleys of marriage to refresh their troubles, and there they enter into
fetters, and are bound to sorrow by the cords of a man's or woman's
peevishness."

The Psalmist says that "God maketh men to be of one mind in a house."
Let husband and wife live near Him, and He will enable them to avoid
domestic strife which Cowper declares to be the "sorest ill of human life."

CHAPTER XXIV.
NETS AND CAGES.

"I think for a woman to fail to make and keep a happy home, is to be a 'failure' in a truer
sense than to have failed to catch a husband."—Frances Power Cobbe.

"We think caged birds sing, when indeed they cry."—Vittoria Corombona.

When Mr. Wilberforce was a candidate for Hull, his sister, an amiable
and witty young lady, offered a new dress to each of the wives of those
freemen who voted for her brother. When saluted with "Miss Wilberforce
for ever!" she pleasantly observed, "I thank you, gentlemen, but I cannot
agree with you, for really I do not wish to be Miss Wilberforce for ever."

We do not blame Miss Wilberforce or any other young lady for not
wishing to be a "Miss" for ever; but we desire to point out in this chapter
that all is not done when the husband is gained.

"Even in the happiest choice whom fav'ring Heaven
Has equal love and easy fortune given;
Think not, the husband gained, that all is done,
The prize of happiness must still be won;
And oft the careless find it to their cost;
The lover in the husband may be lost;
The graces might alone his heart allure;
They and the virtues meeting must secure."

According to Dean Swift, "the reason why so few marriages are happy is
because young women spend their time in making nets, not in making
cages." Certainly a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush, and girls are
quite justified in trying in all ways, consistent with modesty and self-

respect, to net husbands. Still, she is the really fine woman who can not
merely net the affections of a husband during the honeymoon, but who can
cage and keep them throughout a long married life. Only the other day, a
man told me that after forty years of married life, he loved his wife almost
better than the day they were married. We are not told that Alexander the
Great, after conquering the world, kept his conquest very long, but this wife
kept her conquest forty years. Woman in her time has been called upon to
endure a great deal of definition. She had been described as, "A good idea
—spoiled!" This may be true of one who can only make nets, but it
certainly is not true of a cage-maker. Always do—

"Her air, her smile, her motions, tell
Of womanly completeness;
A music as of household songs
Is in her voice of sweetness.

Flowers spring to blossom where she walks
The careful ways of duty;
The hard stiff lines of life with her
Are flowing curves of beauty."

Men are often as easily caught as birds, but as difficult to keep. If the
wife cannot make her home bright and happy, so that it shall be the
cleanest, sweetest, cheerfullest place that her husband can find refuge in—a
retreat from the toils and troubles of the outer world—then God help the
poor man, for he is virtually homeless!

In the home more than anywhere else order is Heaven's first law. It is the
duty of a wife to sweetly order her cage so that it may be clean, neat, and
free from muddle. Method is the oil that makes the wheels of the domestic
machine run easily. The mistress of a home who desires order, and the
tranquillity that comes of order, must insist on the application of method to
every branch and department of the household work. She must rise and
breakfast early and give her orders early. Doing much before twelve o'clock
gives her a command of the day.

A friend of Robert Hall, the famous preacher, once asked him regarding a
lady of their acquaintance, "Will she make a good wife for me?" "Well,"

replied Hall, "I can hardly say—I never lived with her!" This is the real test
of happiness in married life. It is one thing to see ladies on "dress"
occasions and when every effort is being made to please them; it is quite
another thing to see them amidst the varied and often conflicting
circumstances of household life. Men may talk in raptures of youth and
beauty, wit and sprightliness; but after seven years of union, not one of
them is to be compared to good family management which is seen at every
meal, and felt every hour in the husband's purse. In the "Records of Later
Life," Fanny Kemble (Mrs. Butler), shortly after she had begun
housekeeping with a staff of six servants, writes from America to a friend,
"I have been reproaching myself, and reproving others, and heartily
regretting that instead of Italian and music, I had not learned a little
domestic economy, and how much bread, butter, flour, eggs, milk, sugar,
and meat ought to be consumed per week by a family of eight persons."
There is no reason why she should not have learned all this, and Italian and
music as well.

Gradually it has come to be seen that practical cookery, which might be
classed under the head of chemistry, is an excellent intellectual training, as
it teaches the application in daily life of knowledge derived from a variety
of branches of study. From this point of view even sweet girl-graduates may
take pride in being good cooks, while as regards women of the working
classes hardly anything drives their husbands to drink so much as bad
cookery and irregular meals.

Leigh Hunt used to say that "the most fascinating women are those that
can most enrich the every-day moments of existence." If we are to believe
Mrs. Carlyle, who lived next door to the Hunts at Chelsea, Mrs. Hunt did
not do much in the way of domestic economy to "enrich the every-day
moments of existence." "I told Mrs. Hunt, one day, I had been very busy
painting." "What?" she asked, "is it a portrait?" "Oh! no," I told her;
"something of more importance—a large wardrobe." She could not
imagine, she said, "how I could have patience for such things." And so,
having no patience for them herself, what is the result? She is every other
day reduced to borrow my tumblers, my tea-cups; even a cupful of
porridge, a few spoonfuls of tea, are begged of me, because "Missus has got
company, and happens to be out of the article;' in plain anadorned English,

because 'missus' is the most wretched of managers, and is often at the point
of having not a copper in her purse. To see how they live and waste here, it
is a wonder the whole city does not 'bankrape, and go out o' sicht';—
flinging platefuls of what they are pleased to denominate 'crusts' (that is,
what I consider all the best of the bread) into the ashpits.' I often say, with
honest self-congratulation, 'In Scotland we have no such thing as "crusts."'
On the whole, though the English ladies seem to have their wits more at
their finger-ends, and have a great advantage over me in that respect, I
never cease to be glad that I was born on the other side of the Tweed, and
that those who are nearest and dearest to me are Scotch.... Mrs. Hunt I shall
soon be quite terminated with, I foresee. She torments my life out with
borrowing. She actually borrowed one of the brass fenders the other day,
and I had difficulty in getting it out of her hands; irons, glasses, tea-cups,
silver spoons are in constant requisition; and when one sends for them the
whole number can never be found. Is it not a shame to manage so, with
eight guineas a week to keep house on! It makes me very indignant to see
all the waste that goes on around me, when I am needing so much care and
calculation to make ends meet."

When Carlyle was working hard to support himself and his wife by
literature at the lonely farmhouse which was their home, Mrs. Carlyle did
all she could to mitigate by good cookery the miseries which dyspepsia
inflicted upon him. She thus writes of her culinary trials: "The bread, above
all, brought from Dumfries, 'soured on his stomach' (Oh Heaven!), and it
was plainly my duty as a Christian wife to bake at home; so I sent for
Cobbett's 'Cottage Economy,' and fell to work at a loaf of bread. But
knowing nothing about the process of fermentation or the heat of ovens, it
came to pass that my loaf got put into the oven at the time that myself ought
to have been put into bed; and I remained the only person not asleep in a
house in the middle of a desert. One o'clock struck, and then two, and then
three; and still I was sitting there in an immense solitude, my whole body
aching with weariness, my heart aching with a sense of forlornness and
degradation. That I, who had been so petted at home, whose comfort had
been studied by everybody in the house, who had never been required to do
anything but cultivate my mind, should have to pass all those hours of the
night in watching a loaf of bread—which mightn't turn out bread after all!
Such thoughts maddened me, till I laid down my head on the table and

sobbed aloud. It was then that somehow the idea of Benvenuto Cellini
sitting up all night watching his Perseus in the furnace came into my head,
and suddenly I asked myself: 'After all, in the sight of the Upper Powers,
what is the mighty difference between a statue of Perseus and a loaf of
bread, so that each be the thing one's hand has found to do? The man's
determined will, his energy, his patience, his resource, were the really
admirable things of which his statue of Perseus was the mere chance
expression. If he had been a woman living at Craigenputtoch, with a
dyspeptic husband, sixteen miles from a baker, and he a bad one, all these
same qualities would have come out more fitly in a good loaf of bread.' I
cannot express what consolation this germ of an idea spread over my
uncongenial life during the years we lived at that savage place, where my
two immediate predecessors had gone mad, and the third had taken to
drink."

Though the life of that tragic muse Mrs. Siddons was girded about with
observance and worship from the highest in the land, though her mind and
imagination were always employed in realizing the most glorious creations
of the most glorious poets, Mrs. Siddons in her home was at once the
simplest and the tenderest of women. She did a great deal of the household
work herself, and her grand friends, when they called, would be met by her
with a flat-iron in her hand, or would find her seated studying a new part,
while, at the same time, she rocked the cradle of her latest born, and knitted
her husband's stockings. When she went to the theatre she was generally
accompanied by one or more of her children, and the little things would
cling about her, holding her hand or her dress, as she stood in the side
scenes. The fine ladies who petted her could not put one grain of their fine-
ladyism into her. To the end of her life she remained a proof of the not-
generally-believed fact that an artist can be, at the same time, a most purely
domestic woman. The same too may be said of a mathematician, for the
greatest woman-mathematician of any age, Mary Somerville, was renowned
for her good housekeeping.

An American newspaper lately addressed the following wise words to
young women: "Learn to keep house. If you would be a level-headed
woman; if you would have right instincts and profound views, and that most
subtle, graceful, and irresistible of all things, womanly charm; if you would

make your pen, your music, your accomplishments tell, and would give
them body, character, and life; if you would be a woman of genuine power,
and queen o'er all the earth, learn to keep house thoroughly and practically.
You see the world all awry, and are consumed with a desire to set it right.
Must you go on a mission to the heathen? Very well, but learn to keep house
first. Begin reform, where all true reform must begin, at the centre and work
outwards; at the foundation and work upwards. What is the basis and centre
of all earthly life? It is the family, the home; these relations dictate and
control all others. There is nothing from which this distracted world is
suffering so much to-day, as for want of thorough housekeeping and
homemaking."

But a cage-making wife is much more than a good cook and housekeeper.
Indeed it is possible for a wife to be too careful and cumbered about these
things. When such is the case she becomes miserable and grumbles at a
little dust or disorder which the ordinary mortal does not see, just as a fine
musician is pained and made miserable at a slight discord that is not noticed
by less-trained ears. Probably her husband wishes his house were less
perfectly kept, but more peaceful. A woman should know when to change
her rôle of housewife for that of the loving friend and companion of her
husband. She should be able and willing to intelligently discuss with him
the particular political or social problem that is to him of vital interest. We
will all agree with Dr. Johnson that a man of sense and education should
seek a suitable companion in a wife. "It was," he said, "a miserable thing
when the conversation could only be such as, whether the mutton should be
boiled or roast, and probably a dispute about that." A good and loyal wife
takes upon her a share of everything that concerns and interests her
husband. Whatever may be his work or even recreation, she endeavours to
learn enough about it to be able to listen to him with interest if he speaks to
her of it, and to give him a sensible opinion if he asks for it. In every matter
she is helpful.

Women's lives are often very dull; but it would help to make them
otherwise if wives would sometimes think over, during the hours when
parted from their husbands, a few little winning ways as surprises for them
on their return, either in the way of conversation, or of some small change
of dress, or any way their ingenuity would have suggested in courting days.

How little the lives of men and women would be dull, if they thought of and
acted towards each other after marriage as they did before it!

Certainly, it does a wife good to go out of her cage occasionally for
amusement, although her deepest, truest happiness may be found at home.
She, quite as much as her husband, requires change and recreation, but
while this is true she must never forget that a life of pleasure is a life of
pain, and that if much of her time is spent in visiting and company, anarchy
and confusion at home must be the consequence. "Never seek for
amusement," says Mr. Ruskin, "but be always ready to be amused. The least
thing has play in it—the slightest word wit, when your hands are busy and
your heart is free. But if you make the aim of your life amusement, the day
will come when all the agonies of a pantomime will not bring you an honest
laugh."

Nothing renders a woman so agreeable to her husband as good humour. It
possesses the powers ascribed to magic and imparts beauty to the plainest
features. On the other hand, the bright, sparkling girl, who turns, after
marriage, in her hours of privacy with her husband, into the dull, silent, or
grumbling wife has no one to thank but herself if he is often absent from his
home.

Men hate nagging, and, indeed, husband-nagging is almost as cruel as
wife-beating. There are women whose perpetual contentiousness is a moral
reproduction of an Oriental torture, that drops water on you every ten
seconds. The butler of a certain Scottish laird, who had been in the family a
number of years, at last resigned his situation because his lordship's wife
was always scolding him. "Oh!" exclaimed his master, "if that be all, ye've
very little to complain of." "Perhaps so," replied the butler; "but I have
decided in my own mind to put up with it no longer." "Go, then," said his
lordship; "and be thankful for the rest of your life that ye're not married to
her."

The methods which women adopt in managing husbands vary with the
characters of the individuals to be guided. In illustration of this here is a
short story. Two women, Mrs. A. and Mrs. B., were talking together one day
with some friends over a cup of tea, when the subject of the management of
husbands came up. Each of these two wives boasted that she could make

her husband do exactly what she liked. A spinster who was present, Miss C,
denied the truth of this statement, and this led to high words, in the course
of which it was agreed that each wife should prove her power by making
her husband drive her on a particular afternoon in a hired carriage to an
appointed place, which we will call Edmonton. The test was considered a
good one, because the two husbands were individuals inclined to economy,
who in the ordinary course of events would never think of hiring a carriage
or driving anywhere, excepting in a 'bus to the City. Mrs. A. was a strong-
minded, determined woman, and Mr. A. was meek and gentle; no one
doubted, therefore, that Mrs. A. could get what she wanted. But Mr. B. was
an argumentative, contradictory, wilful, and pugnacious individual, while
Mrs. B. was sweet and good. It was expected that Mrs. B. would have to
own herself defeated. However, the day arrived and the hour, the
unbelieving spinster repaired to the spot, and up drove the two husbands
with their wives sitting in state by their sides. "How did you manage it?"
said Miss C. "Oh," said Mrs. A., "I simply said to my husband, 'Mr. A., I
wish you to hire a carriage and drive me to Edmonton.' He said, 'Very well,
my dear, but I——,' and here I am." "And how did you manage it, Mrs.
B.?" Mrs. B. was unwilling to confess, but at length she was induced to do
so. "I said to my husband, 'I think Mr. and Mrs. A. are very extravagant:
they are going to hire a carriage and pair to-morrow and drive to
Edmonton.' 'Why should they not do so if they like it?' said Mr. B. 'Oh, no
reason at all, my dear, if you think it right, and if they can afford it; but we
could not do anything of that kind, of course. Besides, I fancy Mr. A. is
more accustomed to driving than you are.' 'A. is not at all more accustomed
to it than I am,' said Mr. B., 'and I can afford it quite as well as he. Indeed, I
will prove that I can and will, for I will hire a carriage and drive there at the
same time.' 'Very well, my dear, if you think so; but I should not like to go
with you, I should feel so ashamed.' 'Then I wish you to go with me, Mrs.
B.; I insist upon your accompanying me.' So," said quiet little Mrs. B., "that
is the way I manage Mr. B."

Neither of these women is to be congratulated on her method of
management. Each despised her husband, and what sort of basis is scorn for
happiness in married life? If a man's own wife does not believe in him, and
look up to him, and admire him, and like him better than anyone else, poor
man, who else will? If he is not king at home, where is he king?

Once upon a time, according to an old heathen legend, the gods and
goddesses were assembled together, and were talking over matters celestial,
when one of the company, who was of an inquiring mind, said, "What are
the people who live on the earth like?" No one knew. One or two guesses
were made, but every one knew that they were only guesses. At last an
enterprising little goddess suggested that a special messenger should be sent
to visit the earth, to make inquiries, and to bring back information
concerning the inhabitants thereof. Off the messenger went. On his return,
the gods and goddesses once more assembled, and every one was very
anxious to hear the result of this mission. "Well," said Jove, who constituted
himself speaker on the occasion, "what have you learnt? What are the
people of the earth like?" "They are very curious people," said the traveller.
"They have no character of their own, but they become what others think
them. If you think them cruel, they act cruelly; if you think them true, they
may be relied on; if you think them false, they lie and steal; if you believe
them to be kind, they are amiability itself."

May not the secret of how to manage a husband be found in this small
fable? A woman has power over her husband (that is, legitimate and
reasonable power, not power to make him hire a carriage, but power to
make him kind, true, and persevering) in proportion to her belief in him.
She is never so helpless with regard to him as when she has lost faith in him
herself.

Milton tells us that a good wife is "heaven's last, best gift to man;" but
what constitutes a good wife? Purity of thought and feeling, a generous
cheerful temper, a disposition ready to forgive, patience, a high sense of
duty, a cultivated mind, and a natural grace of manner. She should be able
to govern her household with gentle resolution, and to take an intelligent
interest in her husband's pursuits. She should have a clear understanding,
and "all the firmness that does not exclude delicacy," and "all the softness
that does not imply weakness." "Her beauty, like the rose it resembleth,
shall retain its sweetness when its bloom is withered. Her hand seeketh
employment; her foot delighteth not in gadding about. She is clothed with
neatness; she is fed with temperance. On her tongue dwelleth music; the
sweetness of honey floweth from her lips. Her eye speaketh softness and
love; but discretion, with a sceptre, sitteth on her brow. She presideth in the

house, and there is peace; she commandeth with judgment, and is obeyed.
She ariseth in the morning, she considers her affairs, and appointeth to
every one their proper business. The prudence of her management is an
honour to her husband; and he heareth her praise with a secret delight.
Happy is the man that hath made her his wife; happy is the child that calleth
her mother."

The married man must have been blessed with a cage-making wife like
this who defined woman as "An essay on goodness and grace, in one
volume, elegantly bound." Although it may seem a little expensive, every
man should have a copy.

CHAPTER XXV.
HUSBANDS HAVE DUTIES TOO.

"A good wife is the gift of a good God, and the workmanship of a good husband."—
Proverb.

"My dear sir, mind your studies, mind your business, make your lady happy, and be a
good Christian."—Dr. Johnson's advice to Boswell.

A highland horse dealer, who lately effected a sale, was offered a bottle
of porter to confess the animal's failings. The bottle was drunk, and he then
said the horse had but two faults. When turned loose in the field he was
"bad to catch," and he was "of no use when caught." Many a poor woman
might say the same of her husband. She had to make many nets, for he was
"bad to catch," and when caught—well, he forgot that husbands have duties
as well as wives. Some men can neither do without wives nor with them;
they are wretched alone, in what is called single blessedness, and they make
their homes miserable when they get married; they are like the dog, which
could not bear to be loose, and howled when it was tied up.

There are men with whom all the pleasure of love exists in its pursuit,
and not in its possession. When a woman marries one of this class, he seems
almost to despise her from that day. Having got her into his power he begins
to bully her.

If it be true that there are more people married than keep good houses,
husbands are quite as much to blame as wives. The proverb tells us that
good wives and good plantations are made by good husbands. In the last
chapter we ventured to suggest that women should make cages as well as
nets; but all their efforts will be in vain if they have ill-birds who foul their

own nests. To complete the subject, therefore, something must be said about
the behaviour of the male bird when caught and caged.

First of all he should sing and not cry. How many women are there who
suffer from the want of a kindly love, a sweet appreciation of their goodness
and their self-sacrifice! How often will wives do tender and loving offices,
adorn the home with flowers, making it as neat as the nest of a bird; dress
their persons with elegance, and their faces with smiles, and find as a
reward for this the stolid indifference of the block or the stupid insensibility
of the lower animal! "She was a woman," wrote one who knew her sex
well; "a woman down to the very tips of her finger-nails, and what she
wanted was praise from the lips that she loved. Do you ask what that
meant? Did she want gold, or dress, or power? No; all she wanted was that
which will buy us all, and which so few of us ever get—in a word, it was
Love."

Priscilla Lammeter, in "Silas Marner," well understood the selfish way
many husbands fall into of relieving their feelings: "There's nothing kills a
man so soon as having nobody to find fault with but himself. It's a deal the
best way o' being master to let somebody else do the ordering, and keep the
blaming in your own hands. It 'ud save many a man a stroke I believe."

"If he would only be satisfied!" Mrs. Carlyle used sometimes to complain
of Carlyle, "but I have had to learn that when he does not find fault he is
pleased, and that has to content me." On one occasion when Carlyle was
away from home Mrs. Carlyle described her charwoman sort of work to get
all in perfect order for her husband's arrival; and when all was complete—
his dinner ready, his arm-chair in its usual attitude, his pipe and tobacco
prepared, all looking as comfortable as possible—Mrs. C. sat down at last
to rest, and to expect him with a quiet mind. He arrived; and "after he had
just greeted me, what do you think he did? He walked to the window and
shook it, and asked 'Where's the wedge of the window?' and until we had
found that blessed wedge nothing would content him. He said the window
would rattle and spoil all." When a great and good man gives such
inordinate prominence to trivial worries, how intolerable to live with must
be the baser sort, who scarcely know the meaning of self-control!

Some men may deserve rewards for distinguished service in action; but
they certainly do not for distinguished service in passion or suffering. In
this respect they are far less brave than women.

The fault of many husbands is not the absence of love, but their failure to
express it in their daily lives, and the self-absorption which prevents them
from knowing that their wives want something more than they give them.
They do not pay that attention to little things on which so much of a
woman's happiness depends.

"Instead of love being the occasion of all the misery of this world (as is
sung by fantastic bards), the misery of this world is occasioned by there not
being love enough." Certain it is, that as time goes on married life is not
usually found to want less love, but more; not less expression of love, but
more. Caroline Perthes, writing to her husband, is not content he should
love her, but wishes the phlegmatic German would sometimes tell her so.

Husbands would be more considerate and less exacting if they realized
the fact that a wife's work is never done. I have heard more than one lady
remark that the greatest pleasure of hotel life, and of a visit to one's friends,
is to be able to sit down to dinner without a knowledge of what is coming in
the various courses.

The wife whose sympathy is always ready for her husband's out-of-door
difficulties naturally expects that he should at least try to understand her
housekeeping troubles. How many they are is known to every one who has
"run" a house for even a short time. A woman may have much theoretical
knowledge, but this will not prevent unlooked-for obstacles from arising.
Annoyances caused by human frailty and the working of natural agents
beset every practical housekeeper.

It is the unexpected that constantly happens, and the daily girding up to
meet the emergencies of the hour is the task of every wife who seeks to
make her home a comfortable, habitable abode. It is work—real, earnest
work, quite as hard in its way as the husband's.

Husbands should know the value and the difficulty of the work of their
wives, and should never forget that a little help is worth a great deal of

fault-finding.

The husband's affection must never be merged in an overweening conceit
of his authority. His rule must be the rule of reason and kindness, not of
severity and caprice. He is the houseband and should bind all together like a
corner-stone, but not crush everything like a mill-stone. Jeremy Taylor says:
"The dominion of a man over his wife is no other than as the soul rules the
body; for which it takes mighty care, and uses it with a delicate tenderness,
and cares for it in all contingencies, and watches to keep it from all evils,
and studies to make for it fair provisions, and very often is led by its
inclinations and desires, and does never contradict its appetites but when
they are evil, and then also not without some trouble and sorrow; and its
government comes only to this, it furnishes the body with light and
understanding; and the body furnishes the soul with hands and feet; the soul
governs, because the body cannot else be happy; but the government is no
other than provision, as a nurse governs a child, when she causes him to eat,
and to be warm, and dry, and quiet."

It sometimes happens that she who ought to have most influence on her
husband's mind has least. A man will frequently take the advice of a
stranger who cares not for him, in preference to the cordial and sensible
opinion of his own wife. Consideration of the domestic evils such a line of
conduct is calculated to produce ought to prevent its adoption. Besides,
there is in woman an intuitive quickness, a penetration, and a foresight, that
make her advice very valuable. "If I was making up a plan of consequence,"
said Lord Bolingbroke, "I should like first to consult with a sensible
woman." Many a man has been ruined by professed friends, because when
his wife, with a woman's quick detection of character, saw through them
and urged him to give them up, he would not do so. And if a wife is the
partner of her husband's cares surely she ought also to be the companion of
his pleasures. There are selfish husbands who go about amusing
themselves; but in reference to their wives they seem to be of the same
opinion as the ancient philosopher, who only approved of women leaving
home three times in their lives—to be baptized, married, and buried! Does
it never occur to such Egyptian taskmasters that all work and no play is
quite as bad for women as for men, and that the wife who makes her cage
comfortable should occasionally be offered and even urged to take a little

amusement? I know of one wife who struck under such treatment.
Whenever her husband spent his money and time too freely away from
home, she used to take her child and go for a little excursion, which of
course cost money. If he gave more "drinks" than he could afford to himself
and to his club-companions, she used to frighten him into good behaviour
by ordering a bottle of champagne for herself. Giving in this way a Roland
for every Oliver, this really good wife soon brought her husband to see that
his selfishness was a losing game.

Cobbett protests against a husband getting to like his club, or indeed any
house, better than his own. When absent from necessity, there is no wound
given to the heart of the wife; she concludes that her husband would be with
her if he could, and that satisfies. Yet in these cases her feelings ought to be
consulted as much as possible; she ought to be apprised of the probable
duration of the absence, and of the time of return.

And what Cobbett preached upon this text he himself practised. He and a
friend called Finnerty were dining with a mutual friend. At eleven o'clock
Cobbett said to the host, "We must go; my wife will be frightened." "You do
not mean to go home to-night," was the reply. "I told him I did; and then
sent my son, who was with us, to order out the post-chaise. We had twenty-
three miles to go, during which we debated the question whether Mrs.
Cobbett would be up to receive us, I contending for the affirmative and he
for the negative. She was up, and had a nice fire for us to sit down at. She
had not committed the matter to a servant; her servants and children were
all in bed; and she was up, to perform the duty of receiving her husband and
his friend. 'You did not expect him?' said Finnerty. 'To be sure I did,' said
she; 'he never disappointed me in his life.'"

We ourselves heard a wife saying to her husband only the other day, "I
would rather you had done that than given me ten pounds." What had he
done? Only put himself out a little to return home at the exact hour he had
appointed to be with her. That the little attention gratified her so much will
not seem strange to any one who has observed the power of little things in
imparting either pleasure or pain.

A kind husband, when he goes from home, generally brings back some
little present to his wife. Attentions like this keep fresh that element of

romance which should never be entirely absent from married life. They
remind the now staid, but still impressible matron, of the days of her
maiden power, when a cold look from her brought winter into the room, and
when the faintest wish would have sent a certain young gentleman on a
walk of a dozen miles for the first violets. Yes, now and then give your wife
a present—a real present, which, without involving undue expense, is good
enough to compel a certain sacrifice, and suitable enough to make her cheek
flush with delight at seeing that just as the bride was dearer than the
sweetheart, the wife is yet dearer than the bride. There is quite as much
human nature in a wife as in a husband (men forget this), and a little tender
petting does her a great deal of good, and may even be better than presents.

What a model husband and father Macaulay would have been if he had
married! His sister, Lady Trevelyan, says, that "those who did not know him
at home, never knew him in his most brilliant, witty, and fertile vein." He
was life and sunshine to young and old in the sombre house in Great
Ormond Street, where the forlorn old father, like a blighted oak, lingered on
in leafless decay, reading one long sermon to his family on Sunday
afternoons, and another long sermon on Sunday evenings—"where Sunday
walking for walking's sake was never allowed, and even going to a distant
church was discouraged." Through this Puritanic gloom Macaulay shot like
a sunbeam, and turned it into a fairy scene of innocent laughter and mirth.
Against Macaulay, the author, severe things may be said; but as to his
conduct in his own home—as a son, as a brother, and an uncle—it is only
the barest justice to say that he appears to have touched the furthest verge of
human virtue, sweetness, and generosity. His thinking was often, if not
generally, pitched in what we must call a low key, but his action might put
the very saints to shame. He reversed a practice too common among men of
genius, who are often careful to display all their shining and attractive
qualities to the outside world, and keep for home consumption their
meanness, selfishness, and ill-temper. Macaulay struck no heroic attitude of
benevolence, magnanimity, and aspiration before the world—rather the
opposite; but in the circle of his home affections he practised those virtues
without letting his right hand know what was done by his left.

Writing to his oldest and dearest friend in the first days of her
overwhelming grief, Her Majesty the Queen described the Prince Consort

as having been to her "husband, father, lover, master, friend, adviser, and
guide." There could scarcely be a better description of what a husband
ought to be.

CHAPTER XXVI.
THE HEALTH OF THE FAMILY.

"Reason's whole pleasure, all the joys of sense,
Lie in three words—health, peace, and competence.
But Health consists with temperance alone,
And Peace, O Virtue, peace is all thy own."—Pope.

"Better to hunt in fields for health unbought,
Than fee the doctor for a nauseous draught."—Dryden.
An eminent physician gave four rules for the preservation of health. When he died, his
books were sold; one, which was said to contain very valuable precepts of health, but
which the bidders were not permitted to open, sold at a high price. When the purchaser got
it home he hastily proceeded to examine it, and was much disappointed at finding that it
contained nothing more than four simple rules. He thought he had thrown his money away.
But on further consideration he was induced to put the rules in practice; by doing so he was
restored to a state of health to which he had long been a stranger. He often spoke of the old
physician's book as the cheapest and most valuable purchase he ever made in his life. The
rules were these: Keep the head cool; Keep the feet warm; Take a light supper; Rise early.

The old word for "holy" in the German language also means "healthy,"
and, in our own, "hale," "whole," and "holy" are from the same root.
Carlyle says that "you could not get any better definition of what 'holy'
really is than 'healthy—completely healthy.'" Mens sana in corpore sano.
There is no kind of achievement you could make in the world that is equal
to perfect health. What are nuggets and millions? The French financier said,
"Alas! why is there no sleep to be sold?" Sleep was not in the market at any
quotation.

What boots it to have attained wealth, if the wealth is accompanied by
ceaseless ailments? What is the worth of distinction, if it has brought
hypochondria with it? Surely no one needs telling that a good digestion, a

bounding pulse, and high spirits, are elements of happiness which no
external advantages can out-balance. Chronic bodily disorder casts a gloom
over the brightest prospects; while the vivacity of strong health gilds even
misfortune. Health is not merely freedom from bodily pain; it is the
capability of receiving pleasure from all surrounding things, and from the
employment of all our faculties. It need scarcely be said that without this
capability even marriage cannot make us happy. Indeed, without a fair share
of health to start with people are not justified in taking upon themselves the
responsibilities of matrimony, and running the risk of introducing into the
world weak children that may be said to be damned rather than born into it.

It has been remarked that the first requisite to success in life is to be a
good animal. Will it seem shockingly unpoetical to suggest that this is also
a very important element of success in marriage? Certainly beauty has great
power in retaining as well as in gaining affection, and health is a condition
of beauty. A clear complexion and laughing eyes, a supple and rounded
form, and a face unmarked by wrinkles of pain or peevishness, are the
results of vigour of constitution.

Overflowing health produces good humour, and we all know how
important that is to matrimonial felicity. I once knew an old lady who used
to say that it was a duty to sometimes take medicine for the sake of one's
friends. She was thinking of the effect of dyspepsia, congested liver, and
other forms of ill-health upon our tempers. The chief misery of dyspepsia is
that it is not merely pain, but pain which affects the intellect and feelings
alike; in Carlyle's vivid words: "Every window of your feeling, even of
your intellect, as it were, begrimed and mud-bespattered, so that no pure ray
can enter; a whole drug-shop in your inwards; the foredone soul drowning
slowly in the quagmires of disgust."

Oliver Wendell Holmes speaks of a man in the clothing business with an
impressible temperament who let a customer "slip through his fingers one
day without fitting him with a new garment. 'Ah!' said he to a friend of
mine, who was standing by, 'if it hadn't been for that confounded headache
of mine this morning, I'd have had a coat on that man, in spite of himself,
before he left the store.' A passing throb only; but it deranged the nice

mechanism required to persuade the accidental human being, x, into a given
piece of broadcloth, a."

How many more happy days would a husband and wife spend together
were it not for confounded headaches which cause foolish, bitter words to
be spoken. If a man cannot do business when the nice mechanism of his
body is deranged, neither can he be gentle and kind in the family circle.
This is what Dr. Johnson meant when he said that a man is a villain when
sick.

"Smelfungus," says Sterne, "had been the grand tour, and had seen
nothing to admire; all was barren from Dan to Beersheba; and when I met
him he fell foul of the Venus de Medici; and abused her ladyship like a
common fish-fag. 'I will tell it,' cried he, 'I will tell it to the world!' 'You had
better,' said Sterne, 'tell it to your physician.'" So too when a man falls foul
of his wife, and abuses her ladyship like a common fish-fag because his
liver is out of order, he had better go to a physician and take every means of
clearing his clouded temper.

How much a husband can do by sympathy and kindness for a sick wife!
Mrs. Carlyle used to say, "The very least attention from Carlyle just
glorifies me. When I have one of my headaches, and the sensation of red-
hot knitting-needles darting into my brain, Carlyle's way of expressing
sympathy is to rest a heavy hand on the top of my head, and keep it there in
perfect silence for several seconds, so that although I could scream with
nervous agony, I sit like a martyr, smiling with joy at such a proof of
profound pity from him." The truth is that happiness is the most powerful of
tonics. By accelerating the circulation of the blood, it facilitates the
performance of every function; and so tends alike to increase health when it
exists, and to restore it when it has been lost.

If acts of kindness from a husband are necessary in all cases, they are
especially so in cases of his wife's illness, from whatever cause arising, and
most of all when there is a prospect of her becoming a mother. This is the
time for him to show care, watchful tenderness, attention to all her wishes,
and anxious efforts to quiet her fears. Any agitation or fatigue at such times
may cause the remaining years of her life to be years of pain and weakness.
If he value happiness in married life and would escape bitter self-reproach,

the husband will be very careful of his wife when in this condition. And it is
the duty of the young wife, on her part, to take care of her own health,
because of the manner in which hers will affect the health of her expected
child. And as the moral and mental nature of the child is scarcely less
dependent on her than the physical, she should cherish only such mental
frames and dispositions as she would like to see reproduced in her child.
How much her husband can help or hinder her in doing so! Then when the
child is born she ought if possible to give it the food which nature provides
and which is its birthright. No other is so congenial, and the consequences
of unnatural methods of feeding are sometimes most injurious to the bodies
and minds of children.

In these hard times of great competition in every kind of business, it is a
sad fact that many men have to overwork themselves, or at least fancy they
have, in order to get a living for their families. But there are others who kill
themselves by overwork and over-anxiety, for what? To amass more money
than they can well spend, or to catch the soap-bubble called fame—

"And all to leave what with his tact he won,
To that unfeathered two-legged thing, a son."

Alas! that such men never think of His considerate words to His disciples
who was the great Physician of the body as well as of the soul—"Come ye
apart, and rest awhile." If they did they would be able to show to their
friends at home what the Lord had done for them. Rest to their overstrung
nerves would make them less peevish, discontented, and generally
disagreeable.

More open-air amusements, and more indoor gaiety, would save a great
many failing brains and enfeebled hearts.

Of course health may be impaired quite as much by doing too little work
as by doing too much. This truth was enforced by Thackeray, when,
addressing a medical friend, he exclaimed, "Doctor, there is not in the
whole of your pharmacopœia so sovereign a remedy as hard work." All
depends upon the temperament and constitution. What kills one man cures
another. General Sir Charles Napier, who was not physically a strong man,
declared that for the first time he had discovered what total immunity from

"malaise" meant when he took to working seventeen hours a day at
Cephalonia, as acting Governor or Commissioner of the Ionian Islands.

Not all but by far the largest part of the cure of nervous depression rests
with the patient. Change, exercise, fresh air, diet, tonics—all these together
will not cure any one who gives up and gives way.

Above all, we should try to be cheerful. A clerical friend, at a celebrated
watering-place, met a lady who seemed hovering on the brink of the grave.
Her cheeks were hollow and wan, her manner listless, her step languid, and
her brow wore the severe contraction so indicative both of mental and
physical suffering, so that she was to all observers an object of sincere pity.
Some years afterward he encountered this same lady; but so bright, and
fresh, and youthful, so full of healthful buoyancy, and so joyous in
expression, that he questioned the lady if he had not deceived himself with
regard to identity. "Is it possible," said he, "that I see before me Mrs. B.
who presented such a doleful appearance at the Springs several years ago?"
"The very same." "And pray tell me the secret of your cure. What means did
you use to attain to such vigour of mind and body, to such cheerfulness and
rejuvenation?" "A very simple remedy," returned she, with a beaming face;
"I stopped worrying and began to laugh; that was all."

We would call the attention of heads of families to the following mistakes
which the "Sanitary Record" lately enumerated: "It is a mistake to labour
when you are not in a fit condition to do so. To think that the more a person
eats the healthier and stronger he will become. To go to bed at midnight and
rise at daybreak, and imagine that every hour taken from sleep is an hour
gained. To imagine that if a little work or exercise is good, violent or
prolonged exercise is better. To conclude that the smallest room in the
house is large enough to sleep in. To eat as if you only had a minute to
finish the meal in, or to eat without an appetite, or continue after it has been
satisfied, merely to satisfy the taste. To believe that children can do as much
work as grown people, and that the more hours they study the more they
learn. To imagine that whatever remedy causes one to feel immediately
better (as alcoholic stimulants) is good for the system, without regard to the
after-effects. To take off proper clothing out of season because you have
become heated. To sleep exposed to a direct draught in any season. To think

that any nostrum or patent medicine is a specific for all the diseases flesh is
heir to."

There are few things more important to health than the due adjustment of
play and work. The school at which a boy ten years of age is made to work
at his tasks for the same time as a lad of sixteen ought to be avoided by all
parents. If health is to be preserved in early youth, the child must be treated
on the same principle as a foal would be. He, or she, must be allowed to a
great extent to "run wild," and "lessons" must be carefully graduated to the
bodily powers.

Those mothers who are inclined to dose their children too much should
be reminded that it was during the days when physic flourished in the
nursery that the greatest amount of disease was found. It is not by medicine,
but by acting in accordance with natural laws, that health of body and
health of mind and morals can be secured at home. Without a knowledge of
such laws, the mother's love too often finds its recompense only in the
child's coffin.

In the management of their children's health some mothers are guided by
everybody and everything except by nature herself. And yet the child's
healthy instincts are what alone should be followed.

Sir Samuel Garth, physician to George I., was a member of the Kit-Kat
Club. Coming to the club one night, he said he must soon be gone, having
many patients to attend; but some good wine being produced, he forgot
them. Sir Richard Steele was of the party, and reminded him of the visits he
had to pay. Garth pulled out his list, which amounted to fifteen, and said,
"It's no great matter whether I see them to-night or not; for nine of them
have such bad constitutions that all the physicians in the world can't save
them; and the other six have such good constitutions that all the physicians
in the world can't kill them."

Probably the carelessness of many people about their health may be
explained in the same way. They think either that their constitutions are so
good that nothing can injure them or else that they are so bad that nothing
can make them better. And often it is a bottle of wine or some other
indulgence of appetite that keeps health away. We have heard of a well-

known character who, having had many severe attacks of gout, and who,
getting into years, and having a cellar of old port wine, upon which he drew
somewhat considerably, was advised by his physician to give up the port,
and for the future to drink a certain thin claret not very expensive. Said the
gentleman in reply to this suggestion: "I prefer my gout with my port, to
being cured of my gout with that claret of yours!" Of a delicate man who
would not control his appetite it was said, "One of his passions which he
will not resist is for a particular dish, pungent, savoury, and multifarious,
which sends him almost every night into Tartarus." Talking of the bad
effects of late hours Sydney Smith said of a distinguished diner-out that it
would be written on his tomb, "He dined late." "And died early," added
Luttrell.

Such people ought to be told that in playing tricks with their health they
are committing a very great sin. "Perhaps," says Mr. Herbert Spencer,
"nothing will so much hasten the time when body and mind will both be
adequately cared for, as a diffusion of the belief that the preservation of
health is a duty. Few seem conscious that there is such a thing as physical
morality. Men's habitual words and acts imply the idea that they are at
liberty to treat their bodies as they please. Disorders entailed by
disobedience to Nature's dictates, they regard simply as grievances, not as
the effects of a conduct more or less flagitious. Though the evil
consequences inflicted on their dependents, and on future generations, are
often as great as those caused by crime; yet they do not think themselves in
any degree criminal. It is true that, in the case of drunkenness, the
viciousness of a bodily transgression is recognized; but none appear to infer
that, if this bodily transgression is vicious, so too is every bodily
transgression. The fact is, that all breaches of the laws of health are physical
sins."

Certainly there are many great sufferers who are not responsible for their
ailments, and sometimes they teach lessons of patience and resignation so
well in the world and in their families, that their work is quite as valuable as
that of the active and healthy. Robert Hall, being troubled with an acute
disease which sometimes caused him to roll on the floor with agony, would
rise therefrom, wiping from his brow the drops of sweat which the pain had

caused, and, trembling from the conflict, ask, "But I did not complain—I
did not cry out much, did I?"

Sydney Smith may have dined out more than was good for his health, but
he never allowed infirmities to sour his temper. At the end of a letter to an
old friend he adds playfully, "I have gout, asthma, and seven other
maladies, but am otherwise very well." For the sake of domestic happiness
let us preserve our health; but when we do get ill we should endeavour to
bear it in this cheerful spirit.

CHAPTER XXVII.
LOVE SURVIVING MARRIAGE.

"Thou leanest thy true heart on mine,
And bravely bearest up!
Aye mingling Love's most precious wine
In life's most bitter cup!
And evermore the circling hours
New gifts of glory bring;
We live and love like happy flowers,
All in our fairy ring.

We have known a many sorrows, sweet!
We have wept a many tears,
And after trod with trembling feet
Our pilgrimage of years.
But when our sky grew dark and wild,
All closelier did we cling;
Clouds broke to beauty as you smiled,
Peace crowned our fairy ring."—Massey.

Marriage is sometimes said to be the door that leads deluded mortals
back to earth; but this need not and ought not to be the case. Writing to his
wife from the sea-side, where he had gone in search of health, Kingsley
said: "This place is perfect; but it seems a dream and imperfect without you.
Blessed be God for the rest, though I never before felt the loneliness of
being without the beloved being whose every look and word and motion are
the key-notes of my life. People talk of love ending at the altar.... Fools!"

Of course the enthusiastic tempestuous love of courting days will not as a
rule remain. A married couple soon get to feel towards each other very
much as two chums at college, or two partners in a business who are at the
same time old and well-tried friends. Young married people often think that
those who have been in the holy state of matrimony twenty or thirty years
longer than themselves are very prosy, unromantic, and by no means perfect
examples of what married people ought to be. We would remind persons
manifesting this newly-married intolerance of what an old minister of the
Church of Scotland once said to a young Scotch Dissenter who was finding
many faults—"When your lum (chimney) has reeked as long as ours
perhaps it will have as much soot."

"There is real love just as there are real ghosts; every person speaks of it;
few persons have seen it." This cynical remark of Rochefoucauld is
certainly not true in reference to love before marriage and the existence of
love even after it rests on far better evidence than the existence of ghosts. I
have never seen a ghost, but I have seen love surviving matrimony, and I
have read amongst very many other instances the following.

Old Robert Burton relates several cases of more than lovers' love existing
between husband and wife. He tells us of women who have died to save
their husbands, and of a man who, when his wife was carried away by
Mauritanian pirates, became a galley-slave in order to be near her. Of a
certain Rubenius Celer he says that he "would needs have it engraven on his
tomb that he had led his life with Ennea, his dear wife, forty-three years and
eight months, and never fell out." After twenty-eight years' experience,
Faraday spoke of his marriage as "an event which more than any other had
contributed to his earthly happiness and healthy state of mind." For forty-
six years the union continued unbroken; the love of the old man remaining
as fresh, as earnest, and as heart-whole, as in the days of his youth. Another
man of science, James Nasmyth, the inventor of the steam-hammer, had a
similar happy experience. "Forty-two years of married life finds us the same
devoted 'cronies' that we were at the beginning." Dr. Arnold often dwelt
upon "the rare, the unbroken, the almost awful happiness" of his domestic
life, and carried the first feelings of enthusiastic love and watchful care
through twenty-two years of wedded life.

There are such things as love-letters between married people. Here are
two extracts from one written by Caroline Perthes to her absent husband: "I
have just looked out into the night, and thought of thee. It is a glorious
night, and the stars are glittering above me, and if in thy carriage one
appears to thee brighter than the rest, think that it showers down upon thee
love and kindness from me, and no sadness, for I am not now unhappy
when you are absent. Yet I am certain that this does not proceed from any
diminution of affection. If I could only show how I feel towards you, it
would give you joy. After all I may say or write, it is still unexpressed, and
far short of the living love which I carry in my heart. If you could
apprehend me without words, you would understand me better. The children
do their best, but you are always the same, and have ever the first place in
my heart. Thank God, my Perthes, neither time nor circumstances can ever
affect my love to you; my affection knows neither youth nor age, and is
eternal."

If love never survived matrimony would Mrs. Carlyle have written a
letter like the following which she did to a friend who made a special effort
to console her soon after the death of her mother?—"Only think of my
husband, too, having given me a little present! he who never attends to such
nonsenses as birthdays, and who dislikes nothing in the world so much as
going into a shop to buy anything, even his own trousers and coats; so that,
to the consternation of cockney tailors, I am obliged to go about them. Well,
he actually risked himself in a jeweller's shop, and bought me a very nice
smelling-bottle! I cannot tell you how wae his little gift made me, as well as
glad; it was the first thing of the kind he ever gave me in his life. In great
matters he is always kind and considerate? but these little attentions, which
we women attach so much importance to, he was never in the habit of
rendering to any one; his up-bringing, and the severe turn of mind he has
from nature, had alike indisposed him towards them. And now the desire to
replace to me the irreplaceable makes him as good in little things as he used
to be in great."

Carlyle never forgot her birthday afterwards. Once she thought that he
had, and she told the story of her mistake and its correction thus: "Oh! my
dear husband, fortune has played me such a cruel trick this day! and I do
not even feel any resentment against fortune for the suffocating misery of

the last two hours. I know always, when I seem to you most exacting, that
whatever happens to me is nothing like so bad as I deserve. But you shall
hear how it was. Not a line from you on my birthday, the postmistress
averred! I did not burst out crying, I did not faint—did not do anything
absurd, so far as I know; but I walked back again, without speaking a word;
and with such a tumult of wretchedness in my heart as you, who know me,
can conceive. And then I shut myself in my own room to fancy everything
that was most tormenting. Were you, finally, so out of patience with me that
you had resolved to write to me no more at all? Had you gone to
Addiscombe, and found no leisure there to remember my existence? Were
you taken ill, so ill that you could not write? That last idea made me mad to
get off to the railway, and back to London. Oh, mercy! what a two hours I
had of it! And just when I was at my wits' end, I heard Julia crying out
through the house: 'Mrs. Carlyle, Mrs. Carlyle! Are you there? Here is a
letter for you.' And so there was after all! The postmistress had overlooked
it, and had given it to Robert, when he went afterwards, not knowing that
we had been. I wonder what love-letter was ever received with such
thankfulness! Oh, my dear! I am not fit for living in the world with this
organization. I am as much broken to pieces by that little accident as if I had
come through an attack of cholera or typhus fever. I cannot even steady my
hand to write decently. But I felt an irresistible need of thanking you, by
return of post. Yes, I have kissed the dear little card-case; and now I will lie
down awhile, and try to get some sleep. At least, to quiet myself, I will try
to believe—oh, why cannot I believe it once for all—that, with all my faults
and follies, I am 'dearer to you than any earthly creature.'"

Hundreds of other cases of love surviving matrimony might be cited but
we shall only add one more. On the fifty-fourth anniversary of his marriage,
Mr. S. C. Hall composed the following lines, a copy of which I had the
pleasure of receiving from himself:

"Yes! we go gently down the hill of life,
And thank our God at every step we go;
The husband-lover and the sweetheart-wife.
Of creeping age what do we care or know?
Each says to each, 'Our fourscore years, thrice told,
Would leave us young:' the soul is never old!

What is the grave to us? can it divide
The destiny of two by God made one?
We step across, and reach the other side,
To know our blended life is but begun.
These fading faculties are sent to say
Heaven is more near to-day than yesterday."

CHAPTER XXVIII.
"HE WILL NOT SEPARATE US, WE HAVE BEEN SO HAPPY."

"To veer how vain! on, onward strain,
Brave barks! in light, in darkness too;
Through winds and tides one compass guides,
To that, and your own selves, be true.

But, O blithe breeze! and O great seas,
Though ne'er that earliest parting past
On your wide plain they join again,
Together lead them home at last.

One port, methought, alike they sought,
One purpose hold where'er they fare.
O bounding breeze, O rushing seas!
At last, at last unite them there!"—Clough.

"He will not separate us, we have been so happy"—these were the last
words of Charlotte Brontë when, having become Mrs. Nicholls, and having
lived with her husband only nine months, death came to snatch the cup of
domestic felicity from the lips of the happy pair. A low wandering delirium
came on. Wakening for an instant from this stupor, she saw her husband's
woe-worn face, and caught the sound of some murmured words of prayer
that God would spare her. "Oh!" she whispered, "I am not going to die, am
I? He will not separate us, we have been so happy."

Mrs. Elizabeth Fry, when a girl, loved her family so dearly that she used
to wish that when they had to die, two large walls might press towards each
other, and crush them all, that they might die all together, and be spared the

misery of parting. Loving husbands and wives will sympathize with this
wish, for they must sometimes look forward with dread to the misery of
parting from each other.

"To know, to esteem, to love—and then to part,
Makes up life's tale to many a feeling heart!"

In all ages the anticipation and the reality of separation has been the
greatest and sometimes the only sorrow in the lot of united couples. Many
very touching inscriptions have been found in the Catacombs at Rome, but
none more touching than those which record this separation. Here is one of
them. It is in memory of a very young wife, who must have been married
when little more than a child (fourteen), and then left by her husband, a
soldier, called off probably to serve in the provinces. He returns to find his
poor little wife dead. Was she martyred or did she fret herself to death, or
was she carried off with malaria in the Catacombs? We know nothing; but
here is her epitaph full of simple pathos, and warm as with the very life
blood: "To Domina, 375 A.D., my sweetest and most innocent wife, who
lived sixteen years and four months, and was married two years, with whom
I was not able to live more than six months, during which time I showed her
my love as I felt it; none else so loved each other." When Sir Albert Morton
died, his wife's grief was such that she shortly followed him, and was laid
by his side. Wotton's two lines on the event have been celebrated as
containing a volume in seventeen words:

"He first deceased; she for a little tried
To live without him, liked it not, and died."

When Colonel Hutchinson, the noble Commonwealth officer, felt himself
dying, knowing the deep sorrow which his death would occasion to his
wife, he left this message, which was conveyed to her: "Let her, as she is
above other women, show herself on this occasion a good Christian, and
above the pitch of ordinary women." Faithful to his injunction, instead of
lamenting his loss, she indulged her sorrow in depicting her husband as he
had lived. "They who dote on mortal excellences," she says, in her
Introduction to the "Life," "when, by the inevitable fate of all things frail,
their adored idols are taken from them, may let loose the winds of passion
to bring in a flood of sorrow, whose ebbing tides carry away the dear

memory of what they have lost; and when comfort is essayed to such
mourners, commonly all objects are removed out of their view which may
with their remembrance renew the grief; and in time these remedies
succeed, and oblivion's curtain is by degrees drawn over the dead face; and
things less lovely are liked, while they are not viewed together with that
which was most excellent. But I, that am under a command not to grieve at
the common rate of desolate women, while I am studying which way to
moderate my woe, and if it were possible to augment my love, I can for the
present find out none more just to your dear father, nor consolatory to
myself, than the preservation of his memory, which I need not gild with
such flattering commendations as hired preachers do equally give to the
truly and titularly honourable. A naked undressed narrative, speaking the
simple truth of him, will deck him with more substantial glory than all the
panegyrics the best pens could ever consecrate to the virtues of the best
men."

When death removed Stella from Swift, and he was left alone to think of
what he had lost, he described her as "the truest, most virtuous, and
valuable friend, that I, or perhaps any other person, was ever blessed with."
Henceforward he must strive and suffer alone. The tenderness, of which his
attachment to Stella had been the strongest symptom, deeply as it had struck
its roots into his nature, withered into cynicism. But a lock of Stella's hair is
said to have been found in Swift's desk, when his own fight was ended, and
on the paper in which it was wrapped were written words that have become
proverbial for the burden of pathos that their forced brevity seems to hide
—"Only a woman's hair." It is for each reader to read his own meaning into
them.

Dr. Johnson's wife was querulous, exacting, old, and the reverse of
beautiful, and yet a considerable time after her death he said that ever since
the sad event he seemed to himself broken off from mankind; a kind of
solitary wanderer in the wild of life, without any direction or fixed point of
view; a gloomy gazer on the world to which he had little relation. After
recording some good resolution in his Journal he was in the habit since her
death of writing after it his wife's name—"Tetty." It is only a word; but how
eloquent it is! When a certain Mr. Edwards asked him if he had ever known
what it was to have a wife, Johnson replied: "Sir, I have known what it was

to have a wife, and (in a solemn, tender, faltering tone) I have known what
it was to lose a wife. I had almost broke my heart." Nor did he allow
himself to forget this experience. To New Year's Day, Good Friday, Easter
Day, and his own birthday, which he set apart as sacred days dedicated to
solemn thought and high communion with his own soul, he added the day
of his wife's death.

Nor are such separations less felt in humble life. A year or two ago the
newspapers in describing a colliery accident related that upon the tin water-
bottle of one of the dead men brought out of the Seaham Pit, there was
scratched, evidently with a nail, the following letter to his wife: "Dear
Margaret,—There was forty of us altogether at 7 A.M., some was singing
hymns, but my thought was on my little Michael. I thought that him and I
would meet in heaven at the same time. Oh, dear wife, God save you and
the children, and pray for myself. Dear wife, farewell. My last thoughts are
about you and the children. Be sure and learn the children to pray for me.
Oh, what a terrible position we are in.—Michael Smith, 54, Henry Street."
The little Michael he refers to was his child whom he had left at home ill.
The lad died on the day of the explosion.

A writer on The Orkneys and Shetland tells the following. A native of
Hoy went one day to his minister and said, "Oh! sir, but the ways of
Providence are wonderful! I thought I had met with a sair misfortune when
I lost baith my coo and my wife at aince over the cliff, twa months sin; but I
gaed over to Graemsay, and I hae gotten a far better coo and a far bonnier
wife."

That a wife is not always so easily replaced is evident from the following
letter which appeared in the Belfast papers: "Sir,—I request permission to
inform your readers of the fair sex that I have just received a letter from a
young man residing in a rapidly-rising town of a few months' growth, and
terminus of several railways, in one of the Western States of America,
telling me that he has lost his wife, and would wish to get another one—a
nice little Irish girl, just like the other one; that she should be 'between
twenty and twenty-five years of age, of good habits, of good forme,
vertchaus, and a Protestant.' My correspondent, who is a perfect stranger to
me, informs me that he is 28 years of age, and 'ways' 150 lbs.; that he is a

carpenter by trade, and owns a farm of 65 acres, and that he can give the
best of references. I am writing to him for his references and his
photograph, and also for a photograph and description of his late wife, on
receipt of which I will address you again.—Vere Foster, Belfast, Jan. 5,
1883."

This poor, uneducated carpenter was so happy with his nice little Irish
girl that when taken from him he could not help trying to get another one
just like her, and sends more than three thousand miles for a chip of the old
block. If any blame him for seeking for a second wife let them reflect on the
awful solitude of a backwoods settlement when the prairie flower
represented by a nice little Irish girl had faded and died. By desiring to
marry again he paid the highest compliment to his first wife, for he showed
that she had made him a happy man.

It is sometimes said that the happiest days of a man's life is the day of his
wedding and the day of his wife's funeral. And the Quarterly Review, in an
article on Church Bells, related that one Thomas Nash in 1813 bequeathed
fifty pounds a year to the ringers of the Abbey Church at Westminster, "on
condition of their ringing on the whole peal of bells, with clappers muffled,
various solemn and doleful changes on the 14th of May in every year, being
the anniversary of my wedding-day; and also on the anniversary of my
decease to ring a grand bob-major, and merry, mirthful peals, unmuffled, in
joyful commemoration of my happy release from domestic tyranny and
wretchedness."

As a rule, however, no matter how much a husband and wife have
tormented each other the separation when it comes is very painful. How
true to life is Trollope's description of the effect of Mrs. Proudie's death
upon the bishop. "A wonderful silence had come upon him which for the
time almost crushed him. He would never hear that well-known voice
again! He was free now. Even in his misery—for he was very miserable—
he could not refrain from telling himself that. No one could now press
uncalled for into his study, contradict him in the presence of those before
whom he was bound to be authoritative, and rob him of all his dignity.
There was no one else of whom he was afraid. She had at least kept him out
of the hands of other tyrants. He was now his own master, and there was a

feeling—I may not call it of relief, for as yet there was more of pain in it
than of satisfaction—a feeling as though he had escaped from an old trouble
at a terrible cost, of which he could not as yet calculate the amount.... She
had in some ways, and at certain periods of his life, been very good to him.
She had kept his money for him and made things go straight when they had
been poor. His interests had always been her interests. Without her he
would never have been a bishop. So, at least, he told himself now, and so
told himself probably with truth. She had been very careful of his children.
She had never been idle. She had never been fond of pleasure. She had
neglected no acknowledged duty. He did not doubt that she was now on her
way to heaven. He took his hands down from his head, and clasping them
together, said a little prayer. It may be doubted, whether he quite knew for
what he was praying. The idea of praying for her soul, now that she was
dead, would have scandalized him. He certainly was not praying for his
own soul. I think he was praying that God might save him from being glad
that his wife was dead.... But yet his thoughts were very tender to her.
Nothing reopens the springs of love so fully as absence, and no absence so
thoroughly as that which must needs be endless. We want that which we
have not; and especially that which we can never have. She had told him in
the very last moments of her presence with him that he was wishing that she
were dead, and he had made her no reply. At the moment he had felt, with
savage anger, that such was his wish. Her words had now come to pass, and
he was a widower; and he assured himself that he would give all that he
possessed in the world to bring her back again."

Richard Cobden once asked in reference to a famous and successful but
unscrupulous statesman, "How will it be with him when all is retrospect?"
Husband and wife, how will it be when death has separated you, and your
married life is retrospect?

Many a man or woman, going on from day to day in the faithful
performance of duty, without any sweet token of approval to cheer the
sometimes weary path, would find it act as the very wine of life could he or
she only hear by anticipation some few of the passionate words of
appreciation or regret that will be spoken when the faithful heart, stilled for
ever, can no longer be moved by the tone of loving commendation. Do not

in this way let us keep all the good hermetically sealed up till the supreme
touch of death shall force it open.

"Alas! how often at our hearths we see—
And by our side—angels about to be!"

But somehow the selfish absorption of life acts as a soporific to our truer
sense, and our "eyes are holden that we do not know them," until, alas! it is
too late, and they have "passed out of our sight."

"Could ye come back to me, Douglas, Douglas,
In the old likeness that I knew,
I would be so faithful, so loving, Douglas—
Douglas, Douglas! tender and true!

Never a scornful word should grieve ye,
I'd smile on ye, sweet as the angels do;
Sweet as your smile on me shone ever—
Douglas, Douglas! tender and true."

"The grave buries every error, covers every defect, extinguishes every
resentment. From its peaceful bosom spring none but fond regrets and
tender recollections. Who can look down upon the grave of an enemy and
not feel a compunctious throb that he should have warred with the poor
handful of dust that lies mouldering before him?" If the love that is lavished
on the graves of dead friends were bestowed on living darlings in equal
measure, family life would be a different thing from what it sometimes is.

As George IV. put on the statue of George III. "pater optimus," best of
fathers, though he had embittered his father's life, so many a husband tries
to relieve his remorse by extravagantly praising the wife who when alive
never received any kindness from him. What is hell but truths known too
late? and the surviving one of a married pair has to the end of life, if duty in
matrimony has been neglected, the incessant wish that something were
otherwise than it had been. The one regret to avoid is, that when married
life is over, over for ever, to the survivor should come the unutterable but
saddening thought, that now, in the late autumn of life, when experience can
be no longer of any possible value, he or she understands, at last

understands, all that the chivalry of holy matrimony implies and claims on
both sides, in manly forbearance, in delicate thoughtfulness, in loving
courtesy. Too late now!

Over the triple doorways of the cathedral of Milan there are three
inscriptions spanning the splendid arches. Over one is carved a beautiful
wreath of roses, and underneath is the legend "All that which pleases is only
for a moment." Over the other is a sculptured cross, and there are the words,
"All that which troubles is but for a moment." Underneath the great central
entrance in the main aisle is the inscription, "That only is which is eternal."
Make the most of the happiness of your marriage, and the least of its
vexations, for it is a relation that will not last long.

Respice finem, the old monks used to say in their meditations on life. And
if we would behave rightly in married life we must "consider the end."
Affections are never deepened and refined until the possibility of loss is
felt. "Whatsoever thou takest in hand, remember the end, and thou shalt
never do amiss." Spare all hard words, omit all slights, for before long there
will be a hearse standing at your door that will take away the best friend
that you have on earth—a good wife. Then the silence will be appalling; the
vacancies ghastly. Reminiscences will rush on the heart like a mountain
current over which a cloud has burst. Her jewels, her books, her pictures,
her dresses will be put into a trunk and the lid will come down with a heavy
thud, as much as to say—"Dead! The morning dead. The night dead. The
world dead." Oh! man, if in that hour you think of any unkind word uttered,
you will be willing to pay in red coin of blood every drop from your heart,
if you could buy it back. Kindly words, sympathizing attentions,
watchfulness against wounding the sensitiveness of a wife or husband—it is
the omission of these things which is irreparable: irreparable, when we look
to the purest enjoyment which might have been our own; irreparable when
we consider the compunction which belongs to deeds of love not done.

Carlyle never meant to be unkind to his wife, but in his late years he
thought that he had sacrificed her health and happiness in his absorption in
his work; that he had been negligent, inconsiderate, and selfish. "For many
years after she had left him," writes Mr. Froude, "when he passed the spot
where she was last seen alive, he would bare his grey head in the wind and

rain—his features wrung with unavailing sorrow. 'Oh!' he often said to me,
'if I could but see her for five minutes to assure her that I had really cared
for her throughout all that! But she never knew it, she never knew it!'"

Sorrow, however, may teach us wisdom, and if we study patience in the
school of Christ much comfort will from thence be derived. And much hope
too. He is the resurrection and the life, and if we believe in Him we believe
that there is a Friend in whose arms we ourselves shall fall asleep, and to
whose love we may trust for the reunion, sooner or later, of the severed
links of sacred human affection.

"And in that perfect Marriage Day
All earth's lost love shall live once more;
All lack and loss shall pass away,
And all find all not found before;
Till all the worlds shall live and glow
In that great love's great overflow."

INDEX.

Adam and Eve, their history repeated every day, 61;
had no relations-in-law in Paradise, 110.
Advertisement, An, 34.
Affection, A genius for, 39;
conjugal, largely depends on mutual confidence, 106.
Age, Marriageable, of women, 37;
proper for a husband, 48.
A Kempis, Thomas, Wise sentence of, 220.
Alderman, Exclamation of the, 208.
Alleine, Joseph, describes the inconveniences of a wife, 11.
Appearances not to be entirely disregarded nor regarded too much,
126-8.
Arnold, Dr., on dying childless, 148;
as a father, 179-80;
adapted correction to each particular case, 208;
the "almost awful happiness" of his domestic life, 256.
Astor, John Jacob, on the care of property, 35.
Attila, A domestic, 59.
Aurelius, Marcus, on co-operation, 216.

Bacon, Lord, on marriage and celibacy, 14;
on abridging expenses, 120;
quotes the saying of a wise man, 128.
Baird, Sir David, Anecdote of, 218.
Baxter nursed in prison by his wife, 23.
Beaconsfield, Lord, his opinion about marrying, 10;
anecdote of, 23;
his description of his wife, 41.
Beauty, Not wise to marry for, 36;

health a condition of, 245.
Bells, why are ladies like them? 40;
article on, in the Quarterly Review, 266.
Belfast papers, The, letter in, 265.
Bismarck, Prince, made by his wife, 23.
Blaikie, Professor, on "How to get rid of trouble," 195.
Boswell, his "matrimonial thought," 82.
Braxfield, Lord, on the benefit of being hanged, 62.
Bridegroom, Dutch courage of, 72;
driven to desperation, 83.
Brontë, Charlotte, her last words, 260.
Bunyan shown the pathway to heaven by his wife, 22.
"Buried Alive," a Russian story referred to, 205.
Burke on his domestic felicity, 23;
describes his wife's eyes, 189.
Burleigh, Lord, advice to his son on the choice of a wife, 42.
Burmah, Young men of, cured of aversion to marriage, 12.
Bermuda, Servants in, 129.
Burns on the qualities of a good wife, 41.
Burton, Robert, for and against matrimony, 13, 14;
tells of a remedy for a husband's impatience, 203;
gives instances of love surviving marriage, 255-6.
Byron, Lord, tells a story of a learned Jew, 88;
spoiled by his mother, 166.

Carlyle, Thomas, his inscription upon his wife's tombstone, 28;
advice to the discontented, 62;
cautions a servant "abounding in grace," 135;
the way he and his wife pulled together, 218;
his definition of "holy," 244;
on dyspepsia, 246;
his way of expressing sympathy, 247;
birthday presents to his wife, 257-8;
his remorse, 270.
Carlyle, Mrs., her advice, 49;
her "mutinous maids of all work," 135;
describes Mrs. Leigh Hunt's housekeeping, 224-5;

her culinary trials, 225;
"If he would only be satisfied!" 237.
Castile, Admiral of, his saying about marrying a wife, 10.
Catacombs at Rome, Inscriptions in, 136, 261.
Celibacy has less pleasure and less pain than marriage, 10;
an unnatural state, 16.
Cobbe, Miss, on the moral atmosphere of the house, 194.
Cobbett on the wretchedness of old bachelorship, 17;
on industry in a wife, 39;
"comforts" his wife, 96;
an interesting bit of autobiography, 105;
a soldier's philosophy, 172;
"He never disappointed me in his life," 241.
Conjugal felicity, Secret of, 6;
largely depends on mutual confidence, 106.
Connoisseur, Hasty exclamation of a, 65.
Courtship, Love-making should not end with, 5, 229;
people unknown to each other during, 53, 80;
with lawyer's advice, 125;
the tempestuous love of does not remain, 255.
Chambers' Journal gives instances of matrimonial tribulation, 57.
Chesterfield on behaviour to servants, 134.
Chicago, A young lady of, 124.
Children, Only, 149;
quality more to be desired than quantity of, 150;
imitate their elders, 158.
China, Narrative of a journey through the south border lands of, 91.
Clarendon printing-office, 58.
Clergymen, Sons of, 173.
Clerk, A married, excuses himself, 148.
Cowper and his mother, 164.
Curran felt his wife and children tugging at his gown, 24;
his mother and father, 165.

Dale, R. W., of Birmingham, believes in falling in love, 47.
Daughters, Fourteen of my, 150.
David, King, lays up materials for his son, 145.

Dealer, A Scotch, "tried baith," 32;
confesses the failings of a horse, 235.
De Sales, St. Francis, on quarrels, 103.
De Tocqueville, Letter of, about his wife, 21.
Dickens tells an American story, 50.
Dictionary, a town—why so called, 55.
Digestion disturbed by "a few words," 208.
Diogenes, why he struck a father, 173.
Dress indicates character, 39.
Dulness a "serious complaint," 89.
Dunmow flitch, The, 212.

Edison, Anecdote of, 33.
Emerson thinks children always interesting, 147.
Eliot, George, on marriage, 6;
on disappointment, 57;
remarks about the best society, 115,
weak women, 145;
"Silas Marner" referred to, 155, 215, 236.
Ellenborough, Lord, Anecdote of, 188.
Erskine illustrates the fact that union is strength, 216.
Eve "kept silence to hear her husband talk," 209.
Exactingness causes domestic misery, 219.

Family, A "large little," 149;
what constitutes a large, ibid.;
government of, 182-3.
Fanshawe, Sir Richard, and his wife, 107-9.
Faraday on his marriage, 256.
Farmer, country, a, Remark of, 83;
story of, 204.
Farrar, Archdeacon, on non-appreciation, 3.
"Faults are thick where love is thin," 61;
difficult to find fault well, 207.
Financier, Saying of the French, 245.
Flaxman, sculptor, and his wife, 25-6.
Foote, Sam, and his mother, 167.

Franklin, Benjamin, approves of marriage, 16;
afraid of luxury, 121;
answers the question, "Of what use is it?" 146;
on "Idle Silence," 194.
Fry, Mrs. Elizabeth, A wish of, 261.
Fuller on domestic jars, 5;
on the obedience of a wife, 99.
Furnishing, its importance, 113;
A safe rule in, 115:
its expense, 118.

Garfield, President, U.S., reverenced boys, 190.
Garth, Sir Samuel, Anecdote of, 251.
Girl, Question of a little, 205.
Goethe and his mother, 163;
turned every affliction into a poem, 198.
Gough, temperance orator, gives the case of an American convict, 111.
Graphic, The, Case quoted from, 110.
Gray the poet grateful to his mother, 164.
Green, John Richard, the historian, his life prolonged by his wife, 96.
Guizot, his estimate of domestic affections, 23.

Hall, Robert, preacher, reproves a young mother, 170;
"I never lived with her!" 223;
his brave patience, 253.
Hall, Mr. S. C, on the fifty-fourth anniversary of his marriage, 259.
Hamilton, Sir William, greatly assisted by his wife, 27.
Hare, Mrs., Saying of about her husband, 4.
Happiness, A natural genius for, 199;
the most powerful of tonics, 247.
Hawthorne, Story of, 95.
Helps, Sir Arthur, quoted, 67.
Henderson, Sir Edmund, on civility, 184.
Hill, Roland, his practical view of religion, 186.
Holmes, Oliver Wendell, describes the effect of an headache, 246.
Home, a school of manners, 190;
the real happiness of, 192, 200, 202.

Honeymoon, The, "above the snowline," 81;
in winter, 82;
halcyon period, 84;
two opposite opinions about, quoted, 85.
Hood, his gratitude to his wife, 27.
Housekeeping, Knowledge of, 38, 227.
Huber worked with the eyes of his wife, 26.
Humour, Good, has a magical power, 229.
Hunt, Leigh, his happiness in his wife and children, 11;
saying of, 224.
Husbands, absentee, 94, 240;
may be too much at home, 95;
the management of, 230-2;
as much to blame as wives, 236;
often fail to express love, 237;
the duties of, 217, 237, &c.
Hutchinson, Colonel, his generosity to his wife, 123;
his message to her, 262.
Huxley, Professor, on the "educational abomination of desolation,"
174.

Incumbent, A Hampshire, on blunders made in the Marriage Service,
87.
Insurance, Life, 124.
Irishman, The, his reason for disagreeing with his wife, 6;
sayings of, 55, 203, 219.

Jameson, Mrs., 101.
Jealousy, amusing case of, 104;
incompatible with love of the highest kind, 106.
Jerrold, Douglas, a comment of, 48;
defines the shirt of Nessus, 125.
Jews, Anecdotes of, 56, 88.
Johnson, Dr., his estimate of marriage, 16, 32;
his journey to Derby to be married, 74;
his definition of the honeymoon, 80;
"Ignorance, Madam," 102;

influence of little things upon happiness, 114;
on spending money, 120-1;
answers the question, "Would you advise me to marry?" 143;
"Ay, sir, fifty thousand," 213;
a wife should be a companion, 228;
on sickness, 246;
"Tetty," 263.

Keats, 92.
Kemble, Frances, on feminine fashion, 145;
on domestic economy, 224.
Kingsley, Canon, sketch of as a father, 175-8;
letter to his wife, 254.

Lady, Story of a deaf and dumb, 152;
a Scotch, 9, 71, 90;
an old, on the loss of children, 153.
Laird, A Scotch, answer of, to his butler, 230.
Lamb, Charles, and his sister, 94;
on children, 152.
Landels, Dr., describes a husband, 92.
Lansdell, Dr., tells of an ancient Russian custom, 99;
of a convict servant, 133.
"Laugh and be well," 199.
Leg, a well-formed and a crooked, 61.
Legend, An old heathen, 232.
Levite, An humble-minded, 187.
Little things, effect of, on happiness, 4, 7, 193, 241.
Locke, John, on keeping accounts, 125.
Longfellow, his lines to a child, 154.
Lottery, Is marriage a? 43.
Luther, his estimate of marriage, and of his wife, 16, 23;
letter to his little boy, 180-1.

Macaulay, Lord, at home, 242.
Macdonald, George, his lines on "The Baby," 160.
Maginn, his answer, 126.

Martineau, Harriet, and her servants, 135.
Maurice, Rev. F. D., answer of, 98.
Mayoralty of Paris, Marriage at, 73.
Milan, Cathedral of, inscriptions over the doorways, 269.
Mill, John Stuart, dedication of his essay "On Liberty," 29.
Minister, A Scotch, 10, 43, 67, 76, 119, 215, 255.
Money, Do not marry for, 35;
necessary for marriage, 119;
we should be careful but not penurious, 122;
"Spent it all," 123;
a wife's allowance, 124.
Monotony makes men fractious, 205.
Moore, Sir John, on the lottery of marriage, 43.
More, Sir Thomas, his home, 69.
Morton, Sir Albert, grief of his wife for him, 262.
Mothers, true and false love of, 167;
their instruction never lost, 168.

Nabal and Abigail, 59.
Nagging often caused by ennui, 230.
Napier, Sir Charles, benefited by hard work, 249.
Napier, Lady, the literary helper of her husband, 27.
Napoleon Buonaparte on mothers, 162;
referred to, 173.
Nasmyth, James, his married life, 256.
Necker, Madame, Anecdote of, 49.
Nursery-maid, Rejoinder of a, 150.

Orkneys and Shetland, The, a writer on, 264.

Parents, who should and who should not be, 144;
rules for, 182.
Pasteur, M., his marriage, 74.
Payn, Mr. James, asks "Where is the children's fun?" 174.
Perthes, Caroline, and her husband, 238, 256.
Pitt, his butcher's bill, 120.
Plato, his theory about marriage, 54;

on just penalties, 198.
Pliny the Younger, Letter of, 90.
Portia, 59.
Praise a positive duty, 194.
Pulpit, Suggestion from an American, 5.
Putting things, The art of, 207.

Quaker, Saying of an old, 155.
Queen, Her Majesty the, describes the Prince Consort, 243.
Quickly, Mrs., her advice to Falstaff, 7.

Record, The Sanitary, enumerates some common mistakes, 250.
Religion required in marriage, 8, 76;
grotesque perversions of, 183.
Remedy, A very simple, 250.
Reynolds tells of a free-and-easy actor, 209.
Rhodophe, Anecdote of, 53.
Richter, his estimate of a wife, 20;
on love, 187;
on childhood, 190.
Robertson (of Brighton) on the drudgery of domestic life, 70;
a girl's gratitude for a kind look, 210.
Robinson, Professor, on infancy, 159.
Rochefoucauld, An untrue remark of, 255.
Romilly, Sir Samuel, his experience, 30.

Sainte-Beuve on family life, 70.
Scotchman, A, on the Sabbath, 183.
Scott, Sir Walter, ascribed his success to his wife, and to his mother,
25, 163.
Seneca quoted, 62.
Sheridan, his poetical defence of Lady Erskine, 189.
Siddons, Mrs., at home, 227.
Silence may be an instrument of torture, 209.
Simonides never regretted holding his tongue, 202.
Smith, Michael, Letter of, 264.
Smith, Sydney, his definition of marriage, 5;

on the rights and feelings of others, 185;
"All this is the lobster," 198;
on late hours, 252;
his cheerful spirit, 253.
Smyth, H., claims £10,000 for his murdered wife, 31.
Socrates, Quiet remark of, 61;
asks for double fees, 202.
Somerville, Mary, anecdote in the memoirs of, 8;
a good housekeeper, 227.
Spencer, Herbert, on preparation for parenthood, 140, 143;
on physical sins, 253.
Sterne, on the best of men, 61;
answers Smelfungus, 246.
Steward, A Scotch, answer of, 35.
Stratocles a woman-hater, 15.
Submission, Cheerful, of the poor, 197.
Sussex, labourer, a, asks a question, 128.
Sutherland, Duke of, believes he is going to be married, 72.
Swift and his cook, 58;
letter to a young lady, 126;
his answer to a Dublin lady, 127;
reason why so few marriages are happy, 222.

Talmud, The Jewish, on the treatment of women, 186.
Taylor, Jeremy, on choice in matrimony, 45;
offences to be avoided by the newly-married, 102;
on children, 147;
a quaint illustration, 220;
on the dominion of a husband, 239.
Thackeray, on the sort of wives men want, 41;
on hard work, 249.
Thrale, Mrs., letter of, 54.
Trollope describes the idea women have of men, 30;
Mrs. Proudie's death, 266.
Trouble, how it may be effaced, 196-8.

Walpole, Sir Robert, saying of, 188.
Ward, Artemus, and Betsy Jane, 50;
introduced to Brigham Young's mother-in-law, 109.
Webster, what he thought of marriage, 66.
Weinsberg, women remove their valuables from, 31.
Weller, Mr., on matrimony as a teacher, 66.
Wellington, Duke of, on paying bills, 125;
his cook, 136.
Wesley, Mrs., as a mother, 165.
Westminster Abbey, Gravestone in Cloisters of, 148.
Wheatly on the wedding-ring, 78.
Wife, A good, more than a cook and housekeeper, 228;
requires change and recreation, 229, 240.
Wilberforce, Miss, 221.
Wilde, Oscar, on the photographs of relations, 115.
Wish, The old wedding, 212.
Woman, Definitions of, 37, 222, 234;
value of her advice, 239.
Word, The last, what is the use of? 204.
Word-battles, Matrimonial, 206.
Wordsworth, Anecdote of, 31.

Young, Brigham, his doctrine, 19;
his mother-in-law—how many? 109.

UNWIN BROTHERS,
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CHILWORTH AND LONDON.

CATALOGUE
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PUBLICATIONS.
Autumn-Christmas Season, 1886.

"HISTORIA SANCTÆ CRUCIS." With Illustrations.

THE LEGENDARY HISTORY OF THE CROSS: A
Series of Sixty-Four Woodcuts, from a Dutch book
published by Veldener, A.D. 1483. With an Introduction
written and Illustrated by John Ashton, and a Preface by the
Rev. S. Baring-Gould, M.A. Square 8vo., bound in
parchment, old style, brass clasps. 10s. 6d.

"The mediæval romance of the Cross was very popular. It occurs in a
good number of authors, and is depicted in a good many churches in
stained glass.... It would seem that it was made up by some romancer
out of all kinds of pre-existing material, with no other object than to
write a religious novel for pious readers, to displace the sensuous novels
which were much in vogue."—From the Preface.

This pictorial version of the Legend is taken from a work that is now
almost unique, only three copies being known to be in existence. The
Editorial portions contain, besides a full paraphrase of the woodcuts, a fac-
simile reprint of the Legend from Caxton's "Golden Legends of the Saints,"

also much curious information respecting the early History of the Legend,
the controversies in which it has been involved, and the question of relics.
Copies are also given of some Fifteenth Century frescoes of English
workmanship formerly existing at Stratford-on-Avon. Altogether the book
forms an interesting memorial of the quaint lore that has gathered round this
"religious novel" of the Middle Ages.

A VOLUME OF MEDIÆVAL ROMANCES.
Edited by John Ashton.

ROMANCES OF CHIVALRY: Told and Illustrated in Fac-
simile, by John Ashton, Author of "The Dawn of the
Nineteenth Century in England," &c. Forty-six Illustrations.
Demy 8vo., cloth elegant, gilt tops. 18s.

The "Romances of Chivalry" were the Novels of the Middle Ages, from
the 13th to the 16th centuries. They are highly sensational, full of incident,
and never prolix. To render these Romances more interesting to the general
reader, Mr. Ashton has fac-similed a number of the contemporary
engravings, which are wonderfully quaint, and throw much light on the
Manners and Costumes of the period.

"An interesting feature in the book consists in the illustrations, which
are fac-similes done by the author himself, and done with much success,
from the early engravings.... This is likely to prove a useful and
welcome book."—Contemporary Review.

LEGENDS AND POPULAR TALES OF THE BASQUE
PEOPLE. By Mariana Monteiro. With full-page
Illustrations in Photogravure by Harold Copping. Fcap. 4to.,
cloth. 10s. 6d.

Contents.

I. Aquelarre.
II. Arguiduna.

III. Maitagarri.
IV. Roland's Bugle-Horn.
V. Jaun-Zuria, Prince of Erin.
VI. The Branch of White Lilies.
VII. The Song of Lamia.
VIII. Virgin of the Five Towns.
IX. Chaunt of the Crucified.
X.-XI. The Raids. The Holy War.
XII. The Prophecy of Lara.
XIII. Hurca Mendi.

Fine edition of 100 copies of the above, medium 4to., numbered and
signed by the Author, printed on Dutch hand-made paper, with India-proofs
of the Photogravures £1 1s. net.

"Deeply interesting. There is much in them that is wierd and
beautiful, much that is uncouth and grotesque. To the student of folk-
lore they will be as a mine of newly-discovered wealth. As to the
literary merit of the book, it is by no means inconsiderable."—
Scotsman.

MODERN HINDUISM: Being an account of the Religion
and Life of the Hindus in Northern India. By W. J. Wilkins,
of the London Missionary Society, Author of "Hindu
Mythology—Vedic and Purānic." Demy 8vo., cloth. 16s.

A Gift-book for Girls.

IN THE TIME OF ROSES: A Tale of Two Summers. Told
and Illustrated by Florence and Edith Scannell, Author and
Artist of "Sylvia's Daughters." Thirty-two full-page and
other Illustrations. Square Imp. 16mo., cloth. 5s.

Contents.

Capri.—Isolina.—"Good-bye, Capri."—The Yellow Cottage.—The
School Treat.—Home Again!—The Garden Party.—Geraldine makes a
discovery.—Isolina's Flight.—Wedding Bells.

"A very charming story, superior in literary style and as food for the
mind and the taste to most books written for girls. Miss Edith Scannell's
illustrations are very happy."—Scotsman.

A Children's Story-Book.

PRINCE PEERLESS: A Fairy-Folk Story-Book. By the
Hon. Margaret Collier (Madame Galletti di Cadilhac),
Author of "Our Home by the Adriatic." Illustrated by the
Hon. John Collier. Square Imp. 16mo., cloth. 5s.

Contents.

Fairy Folk.—The Great Snow Mountain.—The Ill-Starred Princess.—
The Sick Fairy.—Two Fairies.—The Shadow World.—Prince Peerless.—
Something New.

"Simply delightful in style and fancy, and in its perfect reproduction
of the old fairy world. These stories will be a valuable addition to our
literature for children; and will be read with no less enjoyment for their
literary and artistic excellence by their elders. The illustrations by the
Hon. John Collier are artistical and beautiful."—Scotsman.

A Boy's Story-Book.

BOYS' OWN STORIES. By Ascott R. Hope, Author of
"Stories of Young Adventurers," "Stories out of School
Time," &c. Eight Illustrations. Crown 8vo., cloth. 5s.

"This is a really admirable selection of genuine narrative and history,
treated with discretion and skill by the author. Mr. Hope has not
gathered his stores from the highway, but has explored far afield in less-

beaten tracks, as may be seen in his 'Adventures of a Ship boy' and 'A
Smith among Savages.'"—Saturday Review.

TALES OF THE CALIPH. By Al Arawiyah. Crown 8vo.,
cloth. 2s. 6d.

By Author of "How to be Happy though Married."

"MANNERS MAKYTH MAN." Imp. 16mo., cloth, 6s.;
fine edition, bevelled edges, in box. 7s. 6d.

The First Edition of "Manners Makyth Man" was exhausted on the day of
Publication. A Second Edition is now ready.

Extract from Preface.—"I am showing my gratitude to the public for
their very kind reception of 'How to be Happy though Married' by now
presenting to them another little book with my best 'manners!' It is not a
book of etiquette, for I am by no means a master of ceremonies; nor
does the motto of Winchester College, 'Manners Makyth Man,' refer to
those social rules and forms which are often only substitutes for good
manners, but rather to manners in the old sense of the word which we
see in the text, 'Evil communications corrupt good manners.'"

"The volume is a bright one, and should rival its predecessor in
popular esteem."—Publishers' Circular.

A COMTIST LOVER, and Other Studies. By Elizabeth
Rachel Chapman, Author of "The New Godiva," "A Tourist
Idyl," &c. Crown 8vo., cloth. 6s.

Contents.—Part I.—A Comtist Lover: Being a Dialogue on Positivism
and the Zeitgeist—The Extension of the Law of Kindness: Being an Essay
on the Rights of Animals. Part II.—The Delphine of Madame de Staël—
Some Immortality—Thoughts—Some Novels of William Black.

"Lays of a Lazy Minstrel."

THE LAZY MINSTREL. By J. Ashby-Sterry, Author of
"Boudoir Ballads," "Shuttlecock Papers," &c. With vignette
frontispiece. Fcap. 8vo., cloth, printed on hand-made paper.
6s.