Nature and Human Nature Part 49

Now, Sophy, dear, as I said before, don't get skittish at seeing this, and start and race off and vow you won't ever let the halter be put on you, for I kinder sorter guess that, with your sweet temper, good sense, and lovin' heart, and with the light-hand I have for a rein, our honeymoon will last through life. We will give up that silly word, that foolish boys and girls use without knowing its meanin', and we will count by years and not by months, and we won't expect, what neither marriage nor any other earthly thing can give, perfect happiness. It tante in the nature of things, and don't stand to reason, that earth is Heaven, Slickville paradise, or you and me angels; we ain't no such a thing. If you was, most likely the first eastwardly wind (and though it is a painful thing to confess it, I must candidly admit there is an eastwardly wind sometimes to my place to home), why you would just up wings and off to the sky like wink, and say you didn't like the land of the puritans, it was just like themselves, cold, hard, uncongenial, and repulsive; and what should I do? Why most likely remain behind, for there is no marrying or giving in marriage up there.

No, no, dear, if you are an angel, and positively you are amazingly like one, why the first time I catch you asleep I will clip your wings and keep you here with me, until we are both ready to start together.

We won't hope for too much, nor fret for trifles, will we? These two things are the greatest maxims in life I know of. When I was a boy I used to call them commandments, but I got such a lecture for that, and felt so sorry for it afterwards, I never did again, nor will as long as I live. Oh, dear, I shall never forget the lesson poor dear old Minister taught me on that occasion.

There was a thanksgiving ball wunst to Slickville, and I wanted to go, but I had no clothes suitable for such an occasion as that, and father said it would cost more than it was worth to rig me out for it, so I had to stop at home. Sais Mr Hopewell to me,

"Sam," said he, "don't fret about it, you will find it 'all the same a year hence.' As that holds good in most things, don't it show us the folly now of those trifles we set our hearts on, when in one short year they will be disregarded or forgotten?"

"Never fear," said I, "I am not a going to break the twelfth commandment."

"Twelfth commandment," said he, repeatin' the words slowly, laying down his book, taking off his spectacles, and lookin' hard at me, almost onfakilised. "Twelfth commandment, did I hear right, Sam," said he, "did you say that?"

Well, I saw there was a squall rising to windward, but boy like, instead of shortening sail, and taking down royals and topgallant masts, and making all snug, I just braved it out, and prepared to meet the blast with every inch of canvas set. "Yes, Sir," said I, "the twelfth."

"Dear me," said he, "poor boy, that is my fault. I really thought you knew there were only ten, and had them by heart years ago. They were among the first things I taught you. How on earth could you have forgotten them so soon? Repeat them to me."

Well, I went through them all, down to "anything that is his," to ampersand without making a single stop.

"Sam," said he, "don't do it again, that's a good soul, for it frightens me. I thought I must have neglected you."

"Well," sais I, "there are two more, Sir."

"Two more," he said, "why what under the sun do you mean? what are they?"

"Why," sais I, "the eleventh is, 'Expect nothin', and you shall not be disappointed,' and the twelfth is, 'Fret not thy gizzard.'"

"And pray, Sir," said he, lookin' thunder-squalls at me, "where did you learn them?"

"From Major Zeb Vidito," said I.

"Major Zeb Vidito," he replied, "is the greatest reprobate in the army. He is the wretch who boasts that he fears neither G.o.d, man, nor devil. Go, my son, gather up your books, and go home. You can return to your father. My poor house has no room in it for Major Zeb Vidito, or his pupil, Sam Slick, or any such profane wicked people, and may the Lord have mercy on you."

Well, to make a long story short, it brought me to my bearings that. I had to heave to, lower a boat, send a white flag to him, beg pardon, and so on, and we knocked up a treaty of peace, and made friends again.

"I won't say no more about it, Sam," said he, "but mind my words, and apply your experience to it afterwards in life, and see if I ain't right. Crime has but two travelling companions. It commences its journey with the scoffer, and ends it with the blasphemer: not that talking irreverently ain't very improper in itself, but it destroys the sense of right and wrong, and prepares the way for sin."

Now, I won't call these commandments, for the old man was right, it's no way to talk, I'll call them maxims. Now, we won't expect too much, nor fret over trifles, will we, Sophy? It takes a great deal to make happiness, for everything must be in tune like a piano; but it takes very little to spoil it. Fancy a bride now having a tooth-ache, or a swelled face during the honeymoon--in courtship she won't show, but in marriage she can't help it,--or a felon on her finger (it is to be hoped she hain't given her hand to one); or fancy now; just fancy, a hooping-cough caught in the cold church, that causes her to make a noise like drowning, a great gurgling in-draught, and a great out-blowing, like a young sporting porpoise, and instead of being all alone with her own dear husband, to have to admit the horrid doctor, and take draughts that make her breath as hot as steam, and submit to have nauseous garlic and brandy rubbed on her breast, spine, palms of her hands, and soles of her feet, that makes the bridegroom, every time he comes near her to ask her how she is, sneeze, as if he was catching it himself. He don't say to himself in an under-tone d.a.m.n it, how unlucky this is. Of course not; he is too happy to swear, if he ain't too good, as he ought to be; and she don't say, eigh--augh, like a donkey, for they have the hooping-cough all the year round; "dear love, eigh--augh, how wretched this is, ain't it? eigh--augh," of course not; how can she be wretched? Ain't it her honeymoon? and ain't she as happy as a bride can be, though she does eigh--augh her slippers up amost. But it won't last long, she feels sure it won't, she is better now, the doctor says it will be soon over; yes, but the honeymoon will be over too, and it don't come like Christmas, once a-year. When it expires, like a dying swan, it sings its own funeral hymn.

Well, then fancy, just fancy, when she gets well, and looks as chipper as a canary-bird, though not quite so yaller from the effects of the cold, that the bridegroom has his turn, and is taken down with the acute rheumatism, and can't move, tack nor sheet, and has camphor, turpentine, and hot embrocations of all sorts and kinds applied to him, till his room has the identical perfume of a druggist's shop, while he screams if he ain't moved, and yells if he is, and his temper peeps out. It don't break out of course, for he is a happy man; but it just peeps out as a masculine he-angel's would if he was tortured.

The fact is, lookin' at life, with its false notions, false hopes, and false promises, my wonder is, not that married folks don't get on better, but that they get on as well as they do. If they regard matrimony as a lottery, is it any wonder more blanks than prizes turn up on the wheel? Now, my idea of mating a man is, that it is the same as matching a horse; the mate ought to have the same spirit, the same action, the same temper, and the same training. Each should do his part, or else one soon becomes strained, sprained, and spavined, or broken-winded, and that one is about the best in a general way that suffers the most.

Don't be shocked at the comparison; but to my mind a splendiferous woman and a first chop horse is the n.o.blest works of creation. They take the rag off the bush quite; a woman "that will come" and a horse that "will go" ought to make any man happy. Give me a gall that all I have to say to is, "Quick, pick up chips and call your father to dinner," and a horse that enables you to say, "I am thar." That's all I ask. Now just look at the different sorts of love-making in this world. First, there is boy and gall love; they are practising the gamut, and a great bore it is to hear and see them; but poor little things, their whole heart and soul is in it, as they were the year before on a doll or a top. They don't know a heart from a gizzard, and if you ask them what a soul is, they will say it is the dear sweet soul they love. It begins when they enter the dancing-school, and ends when they go out into the world; but after all, I believe it is the only real romance in life.

Then there is young maturity love, and what is that half the time based on? vanity, vanity, and the deuce a thing else. The young lady is handsome, no, that's not the word, she is beautiful, and is a belle, and all the young fellows are in her train. To win the prize is an object of ambition. The gentleman rides well, hunts and shoots well, and does everything well, and moreover he is a fancy man, and all the girls admire him. It is a great thing to conquer the hero, ain't it? and distance all her companions; and it is a proud thing for him to win the prize from higher, richer, and more distinguished men than himself. It is the triumph of the two s.e.xes. They are allowed to be the handsomest couple ever married in that church. What an elegant man, what a lovely woman, what a splendid bride! they seem made for each other! how happy they both are, eyes can't show--words can't express it; they are the admiration of all.

If it is in England, they have two courses of pleasure before them--to retire to a country-house or to travel. The latter is a great bore, it exposes people, it is very annoying to be stared at. Solitude is the thing. They are all the world to each other, what do they desire beyond it--what more can they ask? They are quite happy. How long does it last? for they have no resources beyond excitement. Why, it lasts till the first juicy day comes, and that comes soon in England, and the bridegroom don't get up and look out of the window, on the cloudy sky, the falling rain, and the inundated meadows, and think to himself, "Well, this is too much bush, ain't it? I wonder what de Courcy and de Lacy and de Devilcourt are about to-day?" and then turn round with a yawn that nearly dislocates his jaw. Not a bit of it. He is the most happy man in England, and his wife is an angel, and he don't throw himself down on a sofa and wish they were back in town. It ain't natural he should; and she don't say, "Charles, you look dull, dear," nor he reply, "Well, to tell you the truth, it is devilish dull here, that's a fact," nor she say, "Why, you are very complimentary,"

nor he rejoin, "No, I don't mean it as a compliment, but to state it as a fact, what that Yankee, what is his name? Sam Slick, or Jim Crow, or Uncle Tom, or somebody or another calls an established fact!" Her eyes don't fill with tears at that, nor does she retire to her room and pout and have a good cry; why should she? she is so happy, and when the honied honeymoon is over, they will return to town, and all will be sunshine once more.

But there is one little thing both of them forget, which they find out when they do return. They have rather just a little overlooked or undervalued means, and they can't keep such an establishment as they desire, or equal to their former friends. They are both no longer single. He is not asked so often where he used to be, nor courted and flattered as he lately was; and she is a married woman now, and the beaus no longer cl.u.s.ter around her. Each one thinks the other the cause of this dreadful change. It was the imprudent and unfortunate match did it. Affection was sacrificed to pride, and that deity can't and won't help them, but takes pleasure in tormenting them. First comes coldness, and then estrangement; after that words ensue, that don't sound like the voice of true love, and they fish on their own hook, seek their own remedy, take their own road, and one or the other, perhaps both, find that road leads to the devil.

Then, there is the "ring-fence match," which happens everywhere. Two estates, or plantations, or farms adjoin, and there is an only son in one, and an only daughter in the other; and the world, and fathers, and mothers, think what a suitable match it would be, and what a grand thing a ring-fence is, and they cook it up in the most fashionable style, and the parties most concerned take no interest in it, and, having nothing particular to object to, marry. Well, strange to say, half the time it don't turn out bad, for as they don't expect much, they can't be much disappointed. They get after a while to love each other from habit; and finding qualities they didn't look for, end by getting amazin' fond of each other.

Next is a cash match. Well, that's a cheat. It begins in dissimulation, and ends in detection and punishment. I don't pity the parties; it serves them right. They meet without pleasure, and part without pain. The first time I went to Nova Scotia to vend clocks, I fell in with a German officer, who married a woman with a large fortune; she had as much as three hundred pounds. He could never speak of it without getting up, walking round the room, rubbing his hands, and smacking his lips. The greatest man he ever saw, his own prince, had only five hundred a-year, and his daughters had to select and buy the chickens, wipe the gla.s.ses, starch their own muslins, and see the fine soap made. One half of them were Protestants, and the other half Catholics, so as to bait the hooks for royal fish of either creed.

They were poor and proud, but he hadn't a morsel of pride in him, for he had condescended to marry the daughter of a staff surgeon; and she warn't poor, for she had three hundred pounds. He couldn't think of nothin' but his fortune. He spent the most of his time in building castles, not in Germany, but in the air, for they cost nothing. He used to delight to go marooning1 for a day or two in Maitland settlement, where old soldiers are located, and measured every man he met by the gauge of his purse. "Dat poor teevil," he would say, "is wort twenty pounds, well, I am good for tree hundred, in gold and silver, and provinch notes, and de mortgage on Burkit Crowse's farm for twenty-five pounds ten shillings and eleven pence halfpenny--fifteen times as much as he is, pesides ten pounds interest." If he rode a horse, he calculated now many he could purchase; and he found they would make an everlastin' cahoot.2 If he sailed in a boat, he counted the flotilla he could buy; and at last he used to think, "Vell now, if my vrow would go to de depot (graveyard) vat is near to de church, Goten Himmel, mid my fortune I could marry any pody I liked, who had shtock of cattle, shtock of clothes, and shtock in de Bank, pesides farms and foresht lands, and d.y.k.e lands, and meadow lands, and vind-mill and vater-mill; but dere is no chanse she shall die, for I was dirty (thirty) when I married her, and she was dirty-too (thirty-two). Tree hundred pounds! Vell, it's a great shum; but vat shall I do mid it? If I leave him mid a lawyer, he say, Mr Von Sheik, you gub it to me. If I put him into de pank, den de ting shall break, and my forten go smash, squash--vot dey call von shilling in de pound. If I lock him up, den soldier steal and desert away, and conetry people shall hide him, and I will not find him no more. I shall mortgage it on a farm. I feel vary goot, vary pig, and vary rich. If I would not lose my bay and commission, I would kick de colonel, kiss his vife, and put my cane thro' his vinder. I don't care von d.a.m.n for nopoty no more."

1 Marooning differs from pic-nicing in this--the former continues several days, the other lasts but one.

2 Cahoot is one of the new coinage, and in Mexico, means a band or cavalcade.

Well, his wife soon after that took a day and died; and he followed her to the grave. It was the first time he ever gave her precedence, for he was a disciplinarian; he knew the difference of "rank and file," and liked to give the word of command, "Rear rank, take open order--march!" Well, I condoled with him about his loss. Sais he: "Mr Shlick, I did'nt lose much by her: the soldier carry her per order, de pand play for noting, and de c.r.a.pe on de arm came from her ponnet."

"But the loss of your wife?" said I.

Well, that excited him, and he began to talk Hessian. "Jubes renovare dolorem," said he.

"I don't understand High Dutch," sais I, "when it's spoke so almighty fast."

"It's a ted language," said he.

I was a goin' to tell him I didn't know the dead had any language, but I bit in my breath.

"Mr Shlick," said he, "de vife is gone" (and clapping his waistcoat pocket with his hand, and grinning like a chissy cat), he added, "but de monish remain."

Yes, such fellows as Von Sheik don't call this ecclesiastical and civil contract, wedlock. They use a word that expresses their meaning better--matri-money. Well, even money ain't all gold, for there are two hundred and forty nasty, dirty, mulatto-looking copper pennies in a sovereign; and they have the affectation to call the filthy incrustation, if they happen to be ancient coin, verd-antique. Well, fine words are like fine dresses; one often covers ideas that ain't nice, and the other sometimes conceals garments that are a little the worse for wear. Ambition is just as poor a motive. It can only be gratified at the expense of a journey over a rough road, and he is a fool who travels it by a borrowed light, and generally finds he takes a rise out of himself.

Then there is a cla.s.s like Von Sheik, "who feel so pig and so hugeaciously grandiferous," they look on a wife's fortune with contempt. The independent man scorns connection, station, and money.

He has got all three, and more of each than is sufficient for a dozen men. He regards with utter indifference the opinion of the world, and its false notions of life. He can afford to please himself; he does not stoop if he marries beneath his own rank; for he is able to elevate any wife to his. He is a great admirer of beauty, which is confined to no circle and no region. The world is before him, and he will select a woman to gratify himself and not another. He has the right and ability to do so, and he fulfils his intention. Now an independent man is an immoveable one until he is proved, and a soldier is brave until the day of trial comes. He however is independent and brave enough to set the opinion of the world at defiance, and he marries. Until then society is pa.s.sive, but when defied and disobeyed, it is active, bitter, and relentless.

The conflict is only commenced--marrying is merely firing the first gun. The battle has yet to be fought. If he can do without the world, the world can do without him, but, if he enters it again bride in hand, he must fight his way inch by inch, and step by step. She is slighted and he is stung to the quick. She is ridiculed and he is mortified to death. He is able to meet open resistance, but he is for ever in dread of an ambuscade. He sees a sneer in every smile, he fears an insult in every whisper. The unmeaning jest must have a hidden point for him. Politeness seems cold, even good-nature looks like the insolence of condescension. If his wife is addressed, it is manifestly to draw her out. If her society is not sought, it is equally plain there is a conspiracy to place her in Coventry. To defend her properly, and to put her on her guard, it is necessary he should know her weak points himself.

But, alas, in this painful investigation, his ears are wounded by false accents, his eyes by false motions and vulgar att.i.tudes, he finds ignorance where ignorance is absurd, and knowledge where knowledge is shame, and what is worse, this distressing criticism has been forced upon him, and he has arrived at the conclusion that beauty without intelligence is the most valueless attribute of a woman. Alas, the world is an argus-eyed, many-headed, sleepless, heartless monster.

The independent man, if he would retain his independence, must retire with his wife to his own home, and it would be a pity if in thinking of his defeat he was to ask himself, Was my pretty doll worth this terrible struggle after all? wouldn't it? Well, I pity that man, for at most he has only done a foolish thing, and he has not pa.s.sed through life without being a public benefactor. He has held a reversed lamp. While he has walked in the dark himself, he has shed light on the path of others.

Ah, Sophy, when you read this, and I know you will, you'll say, What a dreadful picture you have drawn! it ain't like you--you are too good-natured, I can't believe you ever wrote so spiteful an article as this, and, woman like, make more complimentary remarks than I deserve.

Well, it ain't like me, that's a fact, but it is like the world for all that. Well, then you will puzzle your little head whether after all there is any happiness in married life, won't you?

Well, I will answer that question. I believe there may be and are many, very many happy marriages; but then people must be as near as possible in the same station of life, their tempers compatible, their religious views the same, their notions of the world similar, and their union based on mutual affection, entire mutual confidence, and what is of the utmost consequence, the greatest possible mutual respect. Can you feel this towards me, Sophy, can you, dear? Then be quick--"pick up chips and call your father to dinner."

CHAPTER XXII.

A DISH OF CLAMS.