Part 36

Courtship is to many a dreamy resting-place betwixt the joys of youth and the cares of maturity. Under the light of hope married life is nearly always a land of rainbows to the youth; but, as to produce the rainbow it requires the falling rain as well as the shining sun, so, when the nature of these prospective joys is carefully investigated, it will not surprise one to find that trials and duties are interposed between their present stand-point and the pure happiness of domestic life.

To many a young couple, when life's realities come, come also the discovery of traits of character in each other which perfectly astonish them. Every day reveals something new and something unpleasant. The courtship character slowly fades away, and, with sorrow be it said, too often the courtship love as well. Now comes disappointment, sorrow, regret. They find that their characters are entirely dissimilar; they also awake to the fact that married life is full of cares, vexations, and disappointments. This, indeed, should have been expected; but it is human to see naught but joys in the future, especially from the stand-point of youth. This discovery often shipwrecks the happiness of the unfortunate couple.

We have all seen the trees die in Summer-time. But the tree, with its whispering leaves and swaying limbs, its greenness, its umbrage, where the shadows lie hidden all the day, does not die all at once. First a dimness creeps over its brightness; next a leaf sickens here and there, and fades; next a whole bough feels the palsying touch of coming death; and finally the feeble signs of sickly life, visible here and there, all disappear, and the dead trunk holds out its stripped, stark limbs, a melancholy ruin. Just so does wedded love sometimes die. Wedded love, blessed with the prayers of friends, hallowed by the sanction of God, rosy with present joys, and radiant with future hopes, it dies not all at once. A hasty word casts a shadow upon it, and the shadow deepens with the sharp reply. A little thoughtlessness misconstrued, a little unintentional negligence, deemed real, a little word misinterpreted,—through such small channels do dissension and sorrow enter the family circle. Love becomes reticent, confidence is chilled, and noiselessly but surely the work of separation goes on, until the two are left as isolated as the pyramids, nothing remaining of the union but the legal form—the dead trunk of the tree, whose branches once waved in the sunlight. Is it not a melancholy reflection on human nature that petty trials and difficulties, from which no life is free, should have wrought such a startling effect?

The great secret is to learn to bear with each other's failings; not to be blind to them—that were either an impossibility or a folly. We must see and feel them; if we do neither, they are not evils to us, and there is obviously no need of forbearance. We are to throw the mantle of charity around them, concealing them from the curious gaze of others; to determine not to let them chill the affections. Surely it is not the perfections, but the imperfections, of human character that make the strongest claims on our love.

All the world must approve and even enemies must admire the good and the estimable in human nature. If husband and wife estimate only that in each which all must be constrained to value, what do they more than others? It is the infirmities of character, imperfections of nature, that call for pitying sympathy, the tender compassion that makes each the comforter, the monitor of the other. Forbearance helps each to attain command over themselves. This forbearance is not a weak and wicked indulgence of each other's faults, but such a calm, tender observation of them as excludes all harshness and anger, and takes the best and fullest method of pointing them out in the full confidence of affection.

It should be remembered that trials and sufferings are the real test of merit in all life, as they bring out the real character. In married life husband and wife are often adapted to each other through trials, and the closest union is often wrought by suffering, even as iron is welded by heat. As much of the happiness of real life is artificial, so many things in wedded life that to third persons must seem as trials are, after all, only the sweetness of domestic life. How many couples, now in mature life and surrounded by luxury and all the comforts of wealth, look back to the days of early privation as amongst the happiest days of their life! Succeeding years have brought them wealth, but it took with them their domestic happiness.

Marriage is too frequently the end instead of the beginning of love. The dreams of courtship vanish too often into thin air soon after the wedding ring is put on. The realization of that perfect and unalloyed happiness that each partner anticipated is seldom found in the holy bonds of matrimony. Cool and distant, with a feeling that the sweet courtesies of wooing-time are now out of place, they treat each other with an indifference that ends in mutual aversion and contempt. This is altogether wrong. As reasoning men and women they have entered the relation; it is vain to suppose it is one of unmixed delights. It has its trials. You must expect to meet them. The conditions of happiness there are much the same as elsewhere, therefore the only sure way of finding it is to forget self in the furtherance of the happiness of others. The trials of wedded life are seen to be but the approaches to its joys when once the spirit of kindly forbearance is spread abroad in the heart.

It must seem to all who seriously meditate on this subject that many of the trials of married life arise from mistaken notions of economy and the right use of money. Every wife knows her husband's income or ought to know it. That knowledge should be the guide of her conduct. A clear understanding respecting the domestic expenses is necessary to the peace of every dwelling. If it be little, "better is a dinner of herbs where love is, than a stalled ox and hatred therewith." If it be ample, let it be enjoyed with all thankfulness. Partners in privation are more to each other than partners in wealth. Those who have suffered together love more than those who have rejoiced together. Where a wife, seeing her duty, has made up her mind to this, she will brighten her little home with smiles that will make it a region of perpetual sunshine.

We account these two things essential to the happiness of married life,—to have a home of your own, and to live distinctly and honestly within your means. A great proportion of the failures in wedlock may be traced directly to the neglect of the latter rule. No man can feel happy or enjoy the sweets of domestic life who is spending more than he earns. No sensible person will account it a hardship to begin on a moderate scale; and those who do thus begin, and afterwards attain to the possession of wealth, always look back to the days of "small things" with peculiar satisfaction as the golden days of their hearts, if not of their purses. True affection delights in the opportunities of self-denial and in the little acts of personal service, for which there is scarcely any place in the house of the rich.

At the shrine of domestic ambition much of the comfort and happiness of home life is immolated, and, for the sake of appearance, happiness and content are exchanged for wearying cares. To regulate our expenses by other people's income is the height of folly, and to contract debts for a style of living which is of our neighbor's choosing rather than our own is nearly akin to insanity. There is no happiness, social, domestic, or individual, without independence; and no dependence is so bitter as that of debt. And when you reflect how needless this is, you can readily see that in this instance, as in many others, the trials are of our own choosing, and might be avoided by consideration and care.

"O let us walk the world, so that our love Burns like a blessed beacon, beautiful, Upon the walls of life's surrounding dark."

—MASSEY.

The true marriage is the result of years of mutual endeavor to please, and comes of patient efforts to learn each other's disposition and taste. This can be done by all who cherish right views of the duties and pleasures of the marriage relation.

You have but one life to live, and no amount of money or influence or fame can pay you for a life of unhappiness. You can not afford to quarrel with one another. You can not afford to cherish a single thought, to harbor a single desire, to gratify a single passion, nor indulge a single selfish feeling, that will tend to make this union any thing but a source of happiness to you. So it becomes you at starting to have a perfect understanding with one another. It becomes you to resolve that you will be happy together at any rate, or that if you suffer it shall be from the same cause and in perfect sympathy. You are not to let any human being step between you under any circumstances.

Human character, by a wise provision of Providence, is infinitely varied, and there are not two individuals in existence so entirely alike in their tastes, habits of thought, and natural aptitude that they can keep step with one another over all the rough places in the journey of life. There must be a leaning to one another. The compromise can not be all on one side. You can be happy together if you will, but the agreement to be happy must be mutual. Draw your souls closer and closer together from year to year. Get all obstacles out of the way. Just as soon as one arises attend to it, and get rid of it. At last they will all disappear. You will have become wonted to one another's habits and frames of mind and peculiarities of disposition, and love, respect, and charity will take care of the rest.

If you observe faults in your companion keep them to yourself. What right have you, who should be the very one to kindly conceal faults, to inform others of their presence? Neither father nor mother, neither brother nor sister, have any right to be informed of the secrets of your domestic life. A husband and wife have no business to tell one another's faults to any body but themselves. They can not do it without shame. Their grievances are to be settled in private between themselves, and in all public places and among friends they are to preserve towards one another that nice consideration and entire respectfulness which their relations enjoin. With a true wife the husband's faults should be secret. A wife forgets when she condescends to that refuge of weakness, a female confidant. A wife's bosom should be the tomb of her husband's failings, and his character far more valuable in her estimation than life.

Happiness between husband and wife can only be secured by that constant tenderness and care of the parties for each other which are based upon warm and demonstrative love. The heart demands that the man shall not sit silent, reticent, and self-absorbed in the midst of his family. The wife who forgets to provide for her husband's tastes and wishes renders her home undesirable for him. In a word, ever-present and ever-demonstrative gentleness must reign, or else the heart starves.

There is propriety in all things, and though public displays of affection, familiarity of touch, and half-concealed caresses are always distasteful to men and women of sense, yet love is of such a nature that you must give it expression or it languishes. There are husbands so cold and formal that they have no kiss or caress for the wives whom they really love. There are wives to whom a single demonstration that shall tell to their hearts how inexpressibly pleasant their faces and their society are, and how fondly they are loved, would be better than untold gold.

The affection that should link together man and wife is a far holier and more enduring passion than the enthusiasm of young love. It may want its gorgeousness or its imaginative character, but it is far richer in its attributes. It should not call for such daily proofs of existence as is demanded of the lover, but it is human to wish for the freshness of morning to continue far into the day and evening. True, it is vain to expect this, but humanity continually wishes for what can not be; and, though the glow and sparkle of the morning of love will fade away, yet it should be as fades the bewitching charm of morning into the quiet splendor of the Summer day; and, though recognizing that exhibitions of tenderness so appropriate for the morning of life are out of place in its noon, yet, as long as it is human to love, so long are exhibitions of it, quiet though they may be, gratifying to the one beloved.

We exhort you who are a husband to love your wife even as you love yourself. Continue through life the same manly tenderness that in youth gained her affections. Reflect that though her bodily charms may not now be so great as then, yet that habit and a thousand acts of kindness have strengthened your mutual friendship. Devote yourself to her, and after the hours of business let the pleasures which you most highly prize be found in her society. The true wife wishes to feel sure that she is precious to her husband—not useful, not valuable, not convenient simply, but that she is dear to him; let her be the recipient of his polite and hearty attentions; let her notice that her cares and loves are noticed, appreciated, and returned, her opinions asked, her approval sought, and her judgment respected; in short, let her only be loved, honored, and cherished in fulfillment of the marriage vow, and she will be to her husband a well-spring of pleasure.

We exhort you who are wife to be gentle and considerate to your husband. Let the influence which you possess over him arise from the mildness of your manner and the discretion of your conduct. Whilst you are careful to adorn your person with new and clean apparel—for no woman can long preserve affections if she is negligent on this point—be still more attentive in ornamenting your mind with meekness and peace, with cheerfulness and good humor. Lighten the cares and chase away the vexations to which he is inevitably exposed in his commerce with the world by rendering, as far as is in your power, his home pleasant. Keep at home. Let your employment and pleasures be domestic.

What a man desires in a wife is her companionship, sympathy, and love. The way of life has many dreary places in it, and man needs a companion to go with him. A man is sometimes overtaken by misfortune; he meets with failure and defeat, trials and temptation beset him, and he needs one to stand by and sympathize. All through life, through storms and through sunshine, conflicts and victory, man needs a woman's love. Let him think upon his duty in return for this love. You who have taken a wife from a happy home of kindred hearts and kind companionship, have you done what you could to make amends for the loss of those friends and companions? Remember what your wife was when you took her, not from compulsion, but from your own choice—a choice based on what you then considered her superiority to all others. She was young—perhaps the idol of her happy home; she was as gay and blithe as the lark, and the brothers and sisters at her father's cherished her as an object of endearment. Yet she left all to join her destiny with yours—to make your home happy, and to do all that womanly ingenuity could do to meet your wishes, and to lighten the burdens which might press upon you.

Consult the tastes and disposition of your husband, and endeavor to give him high and noble thoughts, lofty aims, and temporal comforts. Let the husband see that you really have a strong desire to make him happy, and to retain the warmest place in his respect, his admiration, and his affection. Enter into all his plans with interest. Sweeten all his troubles with your sympathy. Make him feel that there is one ear always open to the revelation of his experiences, that there is one heart that never misconstrues him, that there is one refuge for him in all circumstances, and that in all weariness of body and soul there is one warm pillow for his head, beneath which a heart is beating with the same unvarying truth and affection, through all gladness and sadness, as the faithful chronometer suffers no perturbation of its rhythm, whether in storm or shine.

"Trifles light as air, Are to the jealous confirmation strong As proofs of holy writ."

—SHAKESPEARE.

There is no passion more base, nor one which seeks to hide itself more than jealousy. It is ashamed of it itself when it appears. It carries its stain and disgrace on its forehead. We do not wish to acknowledge it ourselves, it is so ignominious, but hidden in the character we would be confused and disconcerted if it appeared; by the which we are convinced of our bad minds and debased courage.

It is difficult sometimes to distinguish between jealousy and envy, for they often run into one another, and are blended together. The most valid distinction seems to be that jealousy is always personal. The envious man desires some good which another possesses; the jealous man suspects another of seeking to deprive him of some good that he already possesses.

Jealousy is, in many respects, preferable to envy, since it aims at the preservation of some good which we think belongs to us; whereas envy is a frenzy that can not endure, even in idea, the good of others. Jealousy is such a headstrong passion, that therein doth consist its danger. All the other passions condescend at times to accept the inexorable logic of facts. But jealousy looks facts straight in the face, ignores them utterly, and says she knows a great deal better than they can tell her.