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The Wife
The treasures of the deep are not so precious
As are the concealed comforts of a man
Lock'd up in woman's love. I scent the air
Of blessings, when I came but near the house,
What a delicious breath marriage sends forth--
The violet bed's no sweeter!
MIDDLETON.
I HAVE often had occasion to remark the fortitude with which
women sustain the most overwhelming reverses of fortune. Those
disasters which break down the spirit of a man, and prostrate him
in the dust, seem to call forth all the energies of the softer
sex, and give such intrepidity and elevation to their character,
that at times it approaches to sublimity. Nothing can be more
touching, than to behold a soft and tender female, who had been
all weakness and dependence, and alive to every trivial
roughness, while threading the prosperous paths of life, suddenly
rising in mental force to be the comforter and support of her
husband under misfortune, and abiding with unshrinking firmness
the bitterest blasts of adversity.
As the vine, which has long twined its graceful foliage about the
oak, and been and been lifted by it into sunshine, will, when the
hardy plant is rifted by the thunderbolt, cling round it with its
caressing tendrils, and bind up its shattered boughs, so is it
beautifully ordered by Providence, that woman, who is the mere
dependent and ornament of man in his happier hours, should be his
stay and solace when smitten with sudden calamity; winding
herself into the rugged recesses of his nature, tenderly
supporting the drooping head, and binding up the broken heart.
I was once congratulating a friend, who had around him a blooming
family, knit together in the strongest affection. "I can wish you
no better lot," said he, with enthusiasm, "than to have a wife
and children. If you are prosperous, there they are to share your
prosperity; if otherwise, there they are to comfort you." And,
indeed, I have observed that a married man falling into
misfortune, is more apt to retrieve his situation in the world
than a single one; partly, because he is more stimulated to
exertion by the necessities of the helpless and beloved beings
who depend upon him for subsistence, but chiefly because his
spirits are soothed and relieved by domestic endearments, and his
self-respect kept alive by finding, that, though all abroad is
darkness and humiliation, yet there is still a little world of
love at home, of which he is the monarch. Whereas, a single man
is apt to run to waste and self-neglect; to fancy himself lonely
and abandoned, and his heart to fall to ruin, like some deserted
mansion, for want of an inhabitant.
These observations call to mind a little domestic story, of which
I was once a witness. My intimate friend, Leslie, had married a
beautiful and accomplished girl, who had been brought up in the
midst of fashionable life. She had, it is true, no fortune, but
that of my friend was ample; and he delighted in the anticipation
of indulging her in every elegant pursuit, and administering to
those delicate tastes and fancies that spread a kind of witchery
about the sex.--"Her life," said he, "shall be like a fairy
tale."
The very difference in their characters produced a harmonious
combination; he was of a romantic, and somewhat serious cast; she
was all life and gladness. I have often noticed the mute rapture
with which he would gaze upon her in company, of which her
sprightly powers made her the delight: and how, in the midst of
applause, her eye would still turn to him, as if there alone she
sought favor and acceptance. When leaning on his arm, her slender
form contrasted finely with his tall, manly person. The fond,
confiding air with which she looked up to him seemed to call
forth a flush of triumphant pride and cherishing tenderness, as
if he doated on his lovely burden from its very helplessness.
Never did a couple set forward on the flowery path of early and
well-suited marriage with a fairer prospect of felicity.
It was the misfortune of my friend, however, to have embarked his
property in large speculations; and he had not been married many
months, when, by a succession of sudden disasters, it was swept
from him, and he found himself reduced to almost penury. For a
time he kept his situation to himself, and went about with a
haggard countenance, and a breaking heart. His life was but a
protracted agony; and what rendered it more insupportable was the
necessity of keeping up a smile in the presence of his wife; for
he could not bring himself to overwhelm her with the news. She
saw, however, with the quick eyes of affection, that all was not
well with him. She marked his altered looks and stifled sighs,
and was not to be deceived by his sickly and vapid attempts at
cheerfulness. She tasked all her sprightly powers and tender
blandishments to win him back to happiness; but she only drove
the arrow deeper into his soul. The more he saw cause to love
her, the more torturing was the thought that he was soon to make
her wretched. A little while, thought he, and the smile will
vanish from that cheek--the song will die away from those
lips--the lustre of those eyes will be quenched with sorrow and
the happy heart which now beats lightly in that bosom, will be
weighed down, like mine, by the cares and miseries of the world.
At length he came to me one day, and related his whole situation
in a tone of the deepest despair. When I had heard him through, I
inquired: "Does your wife know all this?"--At the question he
burst into an agony of tears. "For God's sake!" cried he, "if you
have any pity on me don't mention my wife; it is the thought of
her that drives me almost to madness!"
"And why not?" said I. "She must know it sooner or later: you
cannot keep it long from her, and the intelligence may break upon
her in a more startling manner than if imparted by yourself; for
the accents of those we love soften the harshest tidings.
Besides, you are depriving yourself of the comforts of her
sympathy; and not merely that, but also endangering the only bond
that can keep hearts together--an unreserved community of thought
and feeling. She will soon perceive that something is secretly
preying upon your mind; and true love will not brook reserve; it
feels undervalued and outraged, when even the sorrows of those it
loves are concealed from it."
"Oh, but my friend! to think what a blow I am to give to all her
future prospects,--how I am to strike her very soul to the earth,
by telling her that her husband is a beggar! that she is to
forego all the elegancies of life--all the pleasures of
society--to shrink with me into indigence and obscurity! To tell
her that I have dragged her down from the sphere in which she
might have continued to move in constant brightness--the light of
every eye--the admiration of every heart!--How can she bear
poverty? She has been brought up in all the refinements of
opulence. How can she bear neglect? She has been the idol of
society. Oh, it will break her heart--it will break her heart!"
I saw his grief was eloquent, and I let it have its flow; for
sorrow relieves itself by words. When his paroxysm had subsided,
and he had relapsed into moody silence, I resumed the subject
gently, and urged him to break his situation at once to his wife.
He shook his head mournfully, but positively.
"But how are you to keep it from her? It is necessary she should
know it, that you may take the steps proper to the alteration of
your circumstances. You must change your style of living--nay,"
observing a pang to pass across his countenance, "don't let that
afflict you. I am sure you have never placed your happiness in
outward show--you have yet friends, warm friends, who will not
think the worse of you for being less splendidly lodged: and
surely it does not require a palace to be happy with Mary--"
"I could be happy with her," cried he, convulsively, "in a
hovel!--I could go down with her into poverty and the dust!--I
could--I could--God bless her!--God bless her!" cried he,
bursting into a transport of grief and tenderness.
"And believe me, my friend," said I, stepping up, and grasping
him warmly by the hand, "believe me, she can be the same with
you. Ay, more; it will be a source of pride and triumph to
her--it will call forth all the latent energies and fervent
sympathies of her nature; for she will rejoice to prove that she
loves you for yourself. There is in every true woman's heart a
spark of heavenly fire, which lies dormant in the broad daylight
of prosperity; but which kindles up, and beams, and blazes in the
dark hour of adversity. No man knows what the wife of his bosom
is--no man knows what a ministering angel she is--until he has
gone with her through the fiery trials of this world."
There was something in the earnestness of my manner, and the
figurative style of my language, that caught the excited
imagination of Leslie. I knew the auditor I had to deal with; and
following up the impression I had made, I finished by persuading
him to go home and unburden his sad heart to his wife.
I must confess, notwithstanding all I had said, I felt some
little solicitude for the result. Who can calculate on the
fortitude of one whose life has been a round of pleasures? Her
gay spirits might revolt at the dark, downward path of low
humility suddenly pointed out before her, and might cling to the
sunny regions in which they had hitherto revelled. Besides, ruin
in fashionable life is accompanied by so many galling
mortifications, to which, in other ranks, it is a stranger. In
short, I could not meet Leslie, the next morning, without
trepidation. He had made the disclosure.
"And how did she bear it?"
"Like an angel! It seemed rather to be a relief to her mind, for
she threw her arms around my neck, and asked if this was all that
had lately made me unhappy.--But, poor girl," added he, "she
cannot realize the change we must undergo. She has no idea of
poverty but in the abstract; she has only read of it in poetry,
where it is allied to love. She feels as yet no privation; she
suffers no loss of accustomed conveniences nor elegancies. When
we come practically to experience its sordid cares, its paltry
wants, its petty humiliations--then will be the real trial."
"But," said I, "now that you have got over the severest task,
that of breaking it to her, the sooner you let the world into the
secret the better. The disclosure may be mortifying; but then it
is a single misery, and soon over: whereas you otherwise suffer
it, in anticipation, every hour in the day. It is not poverty, so
much as pretence, that harasses a ruined man--the struggle
between a proud mind and an empty purse-the keeping up a hollow
show that must soon come to an end. Have the courage to appear
poor, and you disarm poverty of its sharpest sting." On this
point I found Leslie perfectly prepared. He had no false pride
himself, and as to his wife, she was only anxious to conform to
their altered fortunes.
Some days afterwards, he called upon me in the evening. He had
disposed of his dwelling-house, and taken a small cottage in the
country, a few miles from town. He had been busied all day in
sending out furniture. The new establishment required few
articles, and those of the simplest kind. All the splendid
furniture of his late residence had been sold, excepting his
wife's harp. That, he said, was too closely associated with the
idea of herself it belonged to the little story of their loves;
for some of the sweetest moments of their courtship were those
when he had leaned over that instrument, and listened to the
melting tones of her voice.--I could not but smile at this
instance of romantic gallantry in a doating husband.
He was now going out to the cottage, where his wife had been all
day superintending its arrangement. My feelings had become
strongly interested in the progress of his family story, and, as
it was a fine evening, I offered to accompany him.
He was wearied with the fatigues of the day, and, as we walked
out, fell into a fit of gloomy musing.
"Poor Mary!" at length broke, with a heavy sigh, from his lips.
"And what of her," asked I, "has anything happened to her?"
"What," said he, darting an impatient glance, is it nothing to be
reduced to this paltry situation--to be caged in a miserable
cottage--to be obliged to toil almost in the menial concerns of
her wretched habitation?"
Has she then repined at the change?
"Repined! she has been nothing but sweetness and good-humor.
Indeed, she seems in better spirits than I have ever known her;
she has been to me all love, and tenderness, and comfort!"
"Admirable girl!" exclaimed I. "You call yourself poor, my
friend; you never were so rich,--you never knew the boundless
treasures of excellence you possessed in that woman."
"Oh! but, my friend, if this first meeting at the cottage were
over, I think I could then be comfortable. But this is her first
day of real experience; she has been introduced into a humble
dwelling,--she has been employed all day in arranging its
miserable equipments,--she has, for the first time, known the
fatigues of domestic employment,--she has, for the first time,
looked around her on a home destitute of every thing
elegant--almost of every thing convenient; and may now be sitting
down, exhausted and spiritless, brooding over a prospect of
future poverty."
There was a degree of probability in this picture that I could
not gainsay, so we walked on in silence.
After turning from the main road up a narrow lane, so thickly
shaded with forest-trees as to give it a complete air of
seclusion, we came in sight of the cottage. It was humble enough
in its appearance for the most pastoral poet; and yet it had a
pleasing rural look. A wild vine had overrun one end with a
profusion of foliage; a few trees threw their branches gracefully
over it; and I observed several pots of flowers tastefully
disposed about the door, and on the grass-plot in front. A small
wicket-gate opened upon a footpath that wound through some
shrubbery to the door. Just as we approached, we heard the sound
of music--Leslie grasped my arm; we paused and listened. It was
Mary's voice singing, in a style of the most touching simplicity,
a little air of which her husband was peculiarly fond.
I felt Leslie's hand tremble on my arm. He stepped forward, to
hear more distinctly. His step made a noise on the gravel-walk. A
bright beautiful face glanced out at the window, and vanished--a
light footstep-was heard--and Mary came tripping forth to meet
us. She was in a pretty rural dress of white; a few wild flowers
were twisted in her fine hair; a fresh bloom was on her cheek;
her whole countenance beamed with smiles--I had never seen her
look so lovely.
"My dear George," cried she, "I am so glad you are come; I have
been watching and watching for you; and running down the lane,
and looking out for you. I've set out a table under a beautiful
tree behind the cottage; and I've been gathering some of the most
delicious strawberries, for I know you are fond of them--and we
have such excellent cream--and everything is so sweet and still
here-Oh!"--said she, putting her arm within his, and looking up
brightly in his face, "Oh, we shall be so happy!"
Poor Leslie was overcome.--He caught her to his bosom--he folded
his arms round her--he kissed her again and again--he could not
speak, but the tears gushed into his eyes; and he has often
assured me, that though the world has since gone prosperously
with him, and his life has, indeed, been a happy one, yet never
has he experienced a moment of more exquisite felicity.
-THE END-
The Wife [Washington Irving's short story]
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