Domestic Happiness

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Title:     Domestic Happiness
Author: T. S. Arthur [More Titles by Arthur]

THERE are certain pairs of old-fashioned-looking pictures, in black frames generally, and most commonly glazed with greenish and crooked crown glass, to be occasionally met with in brokers' shops, or more often, perhaps, on cottage walls, and sometimes in the dingy, smoky parlour of a village tavern or ale-house, which said pictures contain and exhibit a lively and impressive moral. Some of our readers, doubtless, have seen and been edified by these ancient engravings; and, for the benefit of those who have not, we will describe them.

The first picture of the pair represents a blooming and blushing damsel, well bedecked in frock of pure white muslin, if memory serves us faithfully, very scanty and very short-waisted, as was the fashion fifty years ago, and may again be the fashion in less than fifty years hence, for aught we can tell. Over this frock is worn a gay spencer, trimmed with lace and ornamented with an unexceptionable frill, while the damsel's auburn curls are surmounted with a hat of straw fluttering with broad, true blue ribbons, which fasten it in a true love-knot, under the dimpled chin.

Her companion (for she has a companion) is a young countryman in glossy boots, tight buckskins, gay flapped waistcoat, blue or brown long-waisted and broad-skirted coat, frilled shirt, and white kerchief, innocent of starch, who smiles most lovingly, as with fond devotion [here, gentle reader, is the moral of the picture], he bends lowlily, and chivalrously places at the disposal of the fair lady, hand, arm, and manly strength, as she pauses before a high-backed stile which crosses the path, leading, if we mistake not, to the village church. Beneath this picture, reader, in Roman capitals, are the words:--"BEFORE MARRIAGE."

We turn to the second picture; and there may be seen the same high-backed stile, the same path, and the same passengers. Painfully and awkwardly is the lady represented as endeavouring, unaided, to climb the rails, while beyond her is the companion of her former walk--her companion still, but not her helper--slowly sauntering on, and looking back with an ominous frown, as though chiding the delay. Beneath this picture are the significant words:--"AFTER MARRIAGE."

One could wish these pictures were only pictures; but, in sober earnest, they are allegories, and too truthfully portray what passes continually before our eyes: the difference, to wit, between the two states there presented. Truly, indeed, has it been said, "Time and possession too frequently lessen our attachment to objects that were once most valued, to enjoy which no difficulties were thought insurmountable, no trials too great, and no pain too severe. Such, also, is the tenure by which we hold all terrestrial happiness, and such the instability of all human estimation! And though the ties of conjugal affection are calculated to promote, as well as to secure permanent felicity, yet many, it is to be feared, have just reason to exclaim,

"'Once to prevent my wishes Philo flew;
But time, that alters all, has altered you.'

"It is, perhaps, not to be expected that a man can retain through life that assiduity by which he pleases for a day or a month. Care, however, should be taken that he do not so far relax his vigilance as to induce a belief that his affection is diminished. Few disquietudes occur in domestic life which might not have been prevented; and those so frequently witnessed, generally arise from a want of attention to those mutual endearments which all have in their power to perform, and which, as they are essential to the preservation of happiness, should never be intentionally omitted."

This witness, dear reader, is true. The neglect of those little attentions which every married couple have it in their power to show to each other, daily, hourly, is a sure method of undermining domestic happiness. Let every married reader bear this in mind, and reflect upon it; for it is an undeniable truth.

It was a full quarter of a century ago that the writer first saw the pair of engravings which he has described. They were hanging over the fire-place of a newly-married cottager. "There," said she, laughing, as she pointed to the second picture; "you see what I have to expect."

She did not expect it, though! Such an attentive, kind, and self-denying lover, as her "old man," as she called him in sport, had been, would never change into a morose brute, who could suffer his wife to climb over an awkward stile without help, and scold her for her clumsiness.

Reader, not many months since we saw poor Mary, prematurely gray and time-stricken. For years she has been living apart from her husband, her children scattered abroad in the world, and she is sad and solitary. And thus it was:--_He_, the trusted one, tired of being the fond lover of the picture, soon began to show himself the husband. _She_, the confiding one, stunned by some instances of neglect, reproached and taunted. He resented these reproaches as unjust, and to prove them so, redoubled his inattentiveness to her, absented himself from home, and bestowed his attentions elsewhere. _She_ copied his example, and by way of punishment in kind, lavished her smiles and kindnesses in other quarters. _He_--but why go on? Years--sad years of crimination and recrimination, of provocation, and bitter reproaches, and suspicion, and mutual jealousy, and dislike, and hatred, wore away. At length they parted. What became of the pair of pictures, we often wonder.

"For about two years after I was married," says Cobbett, in his Advice to a Husband, "I retained some of my military manners, and used 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," continues he, "to bear this in mind; for, on some trifle of this sort the happiness or misery of a long life frequently turns. If the mind of a wife be disturbed on this score, every possible means ought to be used to restore it to peace; and though her suspicions be perfectly groundless--though they be wild as the dreams of madmen--though they may present a mixture of the furious and the ridiculous, still the are to be treated with the greatest lenity and tenderness; and if, after all, you fail, the frailty is to be lamented as a misfortune, and not punished as a fault, seeing that it must have its foundation in a feeling towards you, which it would be the basest of ingratitude, and the most ferocious of cruelty, to repay by harshness of any description."

"The truth is," adds the same writer, "that the greatest security of all against jealousy in a wife is to show, to _prove_ by your acts, by your words also, but more especially by your _acts_, that you prefer her to all the world; and I know of no act that is, in this respect, equal to spending in her company every moment of your leisure time. Everybody knows, and young wives better than anybody else, that people, who can choose, will be where they like best to be, and that they will be along with those whose company they like best. The matter is very plain; and I do beseech you to bear it in mind. Nor do I see the use, or sense, of keeping a great deal of company as it is called. What company can a man and woman want more than their two selves, and their children, if they have any? If here be not company enough, it is but a sad affair. This hankering after company proves, clearly proves, that you want something beyond the society of your wife; and _that_ she is sure to feel most acutely; the bare fact contains an imputation against her, and it is pretty sure to lay the foundation of jealousy, or of something still worse."

Addressed, as these sentiments are, to the husband, they are equally applicable to the wife; and on the part of domestic happiness, we urge upon our readers, all, to prove their constancy of attachment, by mutual kind offices and delicate attentions, in health and in sickness, in joy and in sorrow; by abstinence from all that may wound; and by an honest preference of _home_ enjoyments above all other enjoyments.

But to keep alive this honest preference, there must be,--in addition to other good qualifications which have heretofore passed under review,

1. _Constant cheerfulness and good humour._ A wife and mother who is perpetually fretful and peevish; who has nothing to utter to her husband when he returns from his daily occupation, whatever it may be, or to her children when they are assembled around her, but complaints of her hard lot and miserable destiny; who is always brooding over past sorrows, or anticipating future evils; does all she can, unconsciously it may be, to make her hearth desolate, and to mar for ever domestic happiness. And the husband and father who brings to that hearth a morose frown, or a gloomy brow; who silences the prattling tongue of infancy by a stern command; who suffers the annoyances and cares of life to cut into his heart's core, and refuses to be comforted or charmed by the thousand endearments of her whom he has sworn to love and cherish; such a one does not deserve domestic happiness.

Young reader, and expectant of future domestic bliss take a word of advice: Be good-tempered. You have not much to try your patience now; by-and-by your trials will come on. Now, then, is the time to practise good-temper in the little vexations of life, so as to prepare you for future days. No doubt there are many little rubs and jars to fret and shake even you; many small things, not over and above agreeable to put up with. Bear them you must; but do try and bear them without losing your temper. If a man have a stubborn Or skittish horse to manage, he knows that the best way to deal with it is by gentle, good-humoured coaxing. Just so it is in other things: kindness, gentleness, and downright good-humour will do what all the blustering and anger in the world can not accomplish. If a wagon wheel creaks and works stiff, or if it skids instead of turning round, you know well enough that it wants oiling. Well, always carry a good supply of the oil of good temper about with you, and use it well on every needful occasion; no fear then of creaking wheels as you move along the great highway of life.

Then, on the part, still, of domestic happiness, would we earnestly advise a decent, nay, _a strict regard to personal habits,_ so far, at least, as the feelings of others are concerned. "It is seldom." writes a traveller, "that I find associates in inns who come up to my ideas of what is right and proper in personal habits. The most of them indulge, more or less, in devil's tattooing, in snapping of fingers, in puffing and blowing, and other noises, anomalous and indescribable, often apparently merely to let the other people in the room know that they are there, and not thinking of anything in particular. Few seem to be under any sense of the propriety of subduing as much as possible all sounds connected with the animal functions, though even breathing might, and ought to be managed in perfect silence." Now, if it were only in inns that disagreeable personal habits are practised, it would not much interfere with the happiness of nine-tenths of the people in the world; but the misfortune is that _home_ is the place where they are to be noticed in full swing--to use a common expression. Indeed, perhaps there are few persons who do not, in a degree at least, mar domestic happiness by persisting in personal peculiarities which they know are unpleasant to those around them. Harmless these habits maybe in themselves, perhaps; but inasmuch as they are teasing, annoying, and irritating to others, they are not harmless. Nay, they are criminal, because they are accompanied by a most unamiable disregard to the feelings of others.

To make home truly happy, _the mind must be cultivated._ It is all very well to say that a man and his wife, and their children, if they have any, ought to be company enough for each other, without seeking society elsewhere; and it is quite right that it should be so: but what if they have nothing to say to each other, as reasonable and thinking beings?--nothing to communicate beyond the veriest common-places--nothing to learn from each other?--nothing but mere animal enjoyments in common? Imagine such a case, reader, where father, mother, and children are sunk in grossest ignorance, without knowledge, without intellectual resources, or even intellectual powers, without books, or any acquaintance with books, or any desire for such acquaintance! What domestic happiness can there be in such a case? As well might we talk of the domestic happiness of a Dog-kennel or sheep-pen, a stable or a pig-stye. And just in proportion as ignorance predominates, so are the chances of domestic happiness diminished. Where there is great ignorance, and contentment with ignorance, there is vice; and vice is not happiness--it cannot be. Therefore, all other things equal, that family will have the greatest chance of the greatest share of domestic happiness where each member of it has the mind to take in, and the heart to give out, a constant succession of fresh ideas, gained from observation, experience, and books. Reader, think of these things.

[The end]
T S Arthur's short story: Domestic Happiness

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