Chapter 8

How often it happens that a young and inexperienced maid will look about her, will weigh and consider, will pick and choose, and, when she thinks she has found a man to her purpose, will set her cap at him will attract him, enslave him, bring him to her feet, make him propose, accept him as husband, give him all the sweets of engagement, regard herself and proclaim herself his affianced bride,--all with most prudential--it may be, most praise-worthy--motives. On a sudden, the man discovers that this was no real attachment, but a fictitious, almost an enforced, one; that the methods (so he thinks) were artificial, the results delusive. What happens? The man withdraws--politely--gallantly: t'was a mistake; he is sorry; they are unsuited; he did not know his own mind; he is sorry;--and so on, and so forth. They separate. And, in this concatenation of circumstances, action for breach of promise is out of the question.--Besides, often enough, the girl, through pride or through sheer chagrin at the indifference of the man, pretends acquiescence.--What happens to the man? Nothing. If his senses were stirred, he himself is heart-whole. He gave nothing; he merely received. He proposes again to somebody else; is accepted; marries happily; rears a family. What happens to the girl? Everything. The man gave her nothing; she gave all--her lips, her looks, the recesses of her heart; the premonitions of the gift of her self; for, when she leant on him, looked up to him, clung to him, felt his strong encircling arms, was perturbed by his ardor, she gave that which was not to give again. Such woman is to be pitied. For, however much she may strive to make it appear that she gave nothing, that she had all to give again, not even her own soul will bear her witness, and sooner, or later, a subsequent lover (and such girl accepts the first lover that offers) will find a void where he hoped to find an inexhaustible treasure. For the woman cannot forever keep up a fictitious affection; and languid looks, and eyes that will not brighten, and smiles which are so evidently forced, bespeak her sympathies elsewhere.--But, as Heine said, this is an old story often repeated. (1) Wherefore

Let us pity women! The dice they throw are their hearts--and they have only one throw:--when they have thrown away their hearts--Pity women!

Men have so many dice to throw: income, status, title; virility, fortune, fame; good spirits, good connections, good looks; an air, a figure, a soul-stirring voice; manners, breeding, force; a good name, a good bank account. The pity o' it is that

The whole marriage question revolves about a single point:

The man wants him a woman,--a woman who shall be his and only his;

The woman wants her a head of a home. And here again, and once again, we see the difference between the sexes:--

The one thing that the man wants is: a mate;

The one thing that a woman wants is: a head and provider of a household.

The man's thoughts never go beyond the woman;

The woman's thoughts always and at once travel far beyond the man--to the children, the household, the home. This is great Nature's inexorable law. But little knows the woman, and less knows the man, that the nubile girl is merely obeying great Nature's inexorable law.

What price woman pays for her high office! for in this implicit, unquestioning, and unconscious obedience to Nature she performs perhaps her highest function. On all accounts, therefore, let us

Pity women! They obey so faithfully great Nature's law, and Nature so often plays them false--so very false, and so very often. Besides,

The woman who gives her hand without her heart finds in time that she has made a sorry bargain--a sorrier bargain, perhaps, that the woman who gives her heart with out her hand. For,

Passionately as a man desires a woman, the passionately-desired woman will in time discover that, unless she gives her heart with her hand, her gift suffers depreciation. And

Unless a woman gives her heart, how can she give her aid? Surely,

Unless a man's armor is buckled on for the strife of life by feminine sympathy, the fight is apt to be a sorry one at best; since

A woman's true business is to back her husband: if SHE leaves him in the lurch, there is little hope for him. For of a truth

The strongest man is handicapped in the struggle for existence unless he knows and feels that his wife is at his side--not pushing him so much as leaning upon him.

(1) Ein Jungling leibt ein Madchen, Die hat einen Andern erwahlt; Der Andre leibt eine Andre, Und hat sich mit Dieser vermahlt. Das Madchen heirathet aus Arger Den ersten, besten Mann, Der ihr in den Weg gelaufen; Der Jungling ist ubel dran. Es ist alte Geschichte, Doch bleibt sie immer neu; Und wem sie just passieret, Dem bricht das Herz entzwei. --Buch der Lieder, 39.

* * *

To simulate passion for an hour is possible; to simulate a life-long love--that is hard. For

Love is a thing unique and unalterable (in spite of its various alloys); clip the coin, and it will not pass current. For

Ideal matrimony is founded on a mono-metallic basis: no amount of silver will be accepted for gold. And yet,

How often M loves and N accepts the love! Poor M! Also (in the long run), poor N!

That, indeed, is a happy marriage where M gives and wants just what N wants and gives: where M and N just want each other. For

Give and take is the rule of a community of two, as it is of a community of ten thousand;

The ideal (and probably impossible) industrial community is that in which demand and supply are in exact equipoise. The same holds good in matrimony.

In wedlock, a virtuous, has probably less force than a vicious, example. That is to say,

A frivolous spouse is more apt to drag the couple down than is a serious spouse apt to lead the couple up. And

Many a mate there is (both masculine and feminine) feels like a pack-mule treading a precipitous pass.

* * *

Of every Audrey her Touchstone should be able proudly to say, "A poor. . . . Thing, Sir, but mine own". In other words,

The homely violet deserves as tender cherishing as the rare exotic.

* * *

What portion of himself or herself any one complicated physical and psychological human being really and truly 'conveys' to another by means of the simple contract known as the "plighted troth" or that of a larger deed called the called the "solemnization of matrimony", is a riddle difficult of solution; and as to how much one may claim on the strength of one or other of these indentures, that is a more difficult problem still.

In no amatorial contract, probably, is it possible to include or to enumerate all the hereditaments, messuages, or appurtenances, involved. Certainly

How great so ever the community of interest, M and N remain for ever M and N.

Is there not always something in the "eternal feminine" which cannot quite coalesce with the ephemeral masculine? Probably,

Trust your wife with your purse, and seven times out of ten it will grow heavy.

* * *

Many a woman, by man, is accepted at her face value.

Many a man, by woman, is taken on trust. It is difficult to tell whether

More bad debts are contracted by giving credit than by taking at face value. For

The promissory note of marriage is undated and unendorsed. But

Children act as collateral security.

* * *

How often a girl, even an affianced girl, accustomed to a multiplicity of admirers, forgets the man of her ultimate choice she must then and there set above all other claimants!

If the man the woman chooses for husband does not stand in her estimation absolutely first and all other claimants nowhere there is bound sooner or later to be trouble. For

No man will play second fiddle to any body or any thing; and

The realm amatory is a monarchial, not a republican, one. In all realms, there must be a ruler, whether elected or hereditary.

Always a divided sway results in schism, whether in the family or in the state. And although

Often enough the wife proves herself the more effective Sovereign, the forms of monarchy must be conceded to the man, even though the executive is left to the woman.

* * *

How often the only breast to which one can go on to "rain out the heavy mist of tears" is the one inhibited!

* * *

Two wills are not so easily blended into one as that the task may be left to Cupid. Yet,

Unless Cupid has a hand in blending two wills, it is bound to be a sorry business at best.

Always and in all wedlock there comes a time when will conflicts with will.

If both wills are inflexible, one must break--or both will fly apart. But

Love and tact will relieve many a strain. Though sometimes one discovers that

Human eyes have a certain store of tears. It is not difficult to weep them all away. However,

In the final rupture between man and wife, it is the children that turn the scales. But, O ye young husbands and wives, remember that

Youth regards the whole world as its friend; age finds itself desolate in the midst of friends. Wherefore,

O youth, cleave unto the wife of thy bosom; since

A loving wife is worth a multitude of friends.

Sweet are friends, and fame is sweet; but sweeter far a wifely heart whereon to lay a weary head. But

Each married pair must solve its own difficulties as best it can. If any advice were worth the offering, it would be this:

O ye Husbands, and O ye Wives, if not for your own sakes then for your children's, lead a straight, clean, honorable life; any other sort of life leads to despicability, to dismalness, to disaster.--Which only means, after all, that

In the marriage relation, as in every relation--the social, the industrial, the commercial, the political--it is conduct, it is character, that counts, nothing else;

Beauty--Wealth--Culture--Grace--Wit--Intellect--Sprightliness-- Vivacity--Humor--these are much but they are simply naught, and less than naught, when just this simple, single, yet insatiable thing called Man wants to live amicably, affectionately, martially, with that simple, single, but incomprehensible thing called Woman.

Character--Conduct--rule the world, the Matrimonial equally with the Municipal.

* * *

XIV. On this Human Heart

"The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked; who can know it?" --Holy Writ

It does not take much to make two hearts beat faster than one.

* * *

The heart can deceive itself when it cannot deceive another.--Which will be cold comfort to some lovers, though it may console others.

* * *

To admit a sacred visitant into the inner recesses of the human heart, those recesses must be neat indeed. Remember, too, that you can

Never expect an angel to act as a charwoman; the sweeping must be done by the owner. Lastly,

Unless each heart is permitted access to the other, their union is fictitious, perhaps perilous.--Explain these tropes who can.

* * *

No man can tell to whom a woman's heart belongs; not even the man who calls the woman "his". And

Let no man imagine that when he has won him a woman, he has won him a woman's heart. Since,

Sometimes a woman will give her heart to one man and her troth to another. Besides,

Many a heart is hard to read--especially if it is a palimpsest. Indeed, many are illegible to their owners. Nevertheless, That the woman should not know her own heart (as so often happens) terrifies the woman as much as it exasperates the man. Yet,

That must be a curious love that causes the heart to hesitate. And yet,

Many a man has debated for months whether to propose or not; and sometimes a woman will accept on a Friday the man that she refused point-blank of a Tuesday. But perhaps,

Where the heart hesitates, it is not so much a case of love as a case of convenience. For,

An overwhelming love leaves the heart of either doubt or debate. But alas,

The human heart seems to be an anatomical engine of such intricate and delicate mechanism that its workings are uncontrollable even by its owner.

Is a constant heart as hard a thing to manufacture in the world of life as is an immobile thing in the world of matter? And matter, so they say, is immobile only at absolute zero--when bereft of even molecular motion: a thing impossible to produce, and which to produce would require incalculable pressure and almost incalculable cold.

(Is there no chemical formula for fixing the impression of the heart?)

Who really held Burns his heart in thrall, Nelly Fitzpatrick or Mary Campbell or Ellison Begbie or Margaret Chalmers or Charlotte Hamilton or Jenny Cruikshank or Anne Park or Jean Armour or Mrs. Whelpdale or Mrs. Agnes McLehose? and who the heart of Goethe,--Gretchen or Kitty Shonkopf or Frederica Brion or Charlotte Buff or Lily Shonemann or the Countess Augusta or Charlotte van Stein or Bettina Brentano or Mariana von Willemer--or his wife, Christina Vulpius?

However, whether it is a provision of Nature, or whether it is due to the perversity of Man, probably the feminine heart is far more constant than the masculine, and perhaps any one of Goethe's or of Burns his inamoratas would have clung to him had he been faithful to her. And yet,

Would you have had Shelley stick to Harriet Westbrooke? and how shall one interpret his feelings for Amelia Viviani? What would have happened if Keats had lived and married Fanny Brawne--she who flirted with somebody else while he was sick and did not even know that he was a poet? Yet she was an inspiration to Keats, as Mary Godwin (and Amelia Viviani) were to Shelley (1). Ought Byron to have said 'No' to Claire or Lady Caroline Lamb or the Countess Guiccioli or any one of the many maids and matrons that besieged his heart? Could anything have kept Rosina Wheeler and Bulwer Lytton side by side,--Rosina Wheeler to whom, before marriage, Lytton could find write, "Oh, my dear Rose! Where shall I find words to express my love for you?" and to whom, after marriage, he wrote, "Madam, The more I consider your conduct and your letter, the more unwarrantable they appear"?

God in heaven! what a pitiful game it all is! And alas! as George Sand says, "All this, you see, is a game that we are playing, but our heart and life are the stakes, and that has an aspect which is not always pleasing." (2)

(1) See the Dedication of "The Revolt of Islam" (and see the "Epipsychidion").

(2) Letter to Alfred de Musset.

* * *

Many a man's heart has been treated as a football. Yes; but many a woman's heart has been treated as a shuttlecock.

* * *

Human beings there are--both men and women--out of whom, at a mere touch, virtue seems to go: converse with them is stimulating; contact enthralling. And yet,

Powerful as physical or as mental attraction may be, permanently to retain the attracted object requires a profounder force. Perhaps, though,

Beauty and grace and brilliancy may attract; it is only something far more deep-seated that retains. In other words,

Charm of body and mind may appeal to body and mind; only the heart appeals to the heart. Those who know not this, and they are

Many, permit the heart to leak through the senses; with the result that, when demands are made upon the heart, that cistern is found to have run dry. So,

To philanderers and to flirts, when a great and true love comes, they do not comprehend it, and they cannot appreciate it. Wherefore,

Would-be lover, keep thy heart intact until it be required of thee.

* * *

You need not imagine that, because you have once been permitted to see some way down into a human heart, that you will necessarily ever again be so permitted.

* * *

Hard words break no bones. But they often break hearts.

* * *

Drink is too often the refuge of the masculine, and a rich husband the refuge of the feminine, broken heart.

* * *

Extreme youth thinks the world is a toyshop--where anything may be had for the asking; old age regards it as a museum--where nothing may be touched.

* * *

No heart, under repeated temperings, can remain forever keen. And

As a little body sometimes has a very big pain; so an aching heart wonders that it can bear so much. And

What takes place in the quiet deeps of a troubled heart, who shall know?

* * *

The way to the heart is not through the head:

Between heart and heart, there are many channels. But three are in universal use: the eyes, the lips, and the finger-tips. Now the greatest of these is the eyes.

* * *

The masculine heart will never wholly understand the feminine, nor the feminine the masculine. (O the pity o' it!) And yet, after all,

The human heart is much more the same, whether it beats under a cuirass or under a corset.

Between the masculine heart and the feminine, perfect frankness is perhaps of questionable import. But why? It is difficult to say. Perhaps because

The aspirations and desires of the human heart are infinite and unappeasable. To attempt to formulate them is to frustrate them. For

It is as impossible for any two human hearts, as it is impossible for any two material things, to occupy the same space. Especially when we remember that

Between the masculine heart and the feminine is a great gulf fixed. Nay, rather

From youth to age, each human heart seems unwittingly to build about itself a high and ever higher-growing wall, impenetrable, indelapidable, not to be scaled by the look or speech or gesture. Never can heart coalesce with heart. And yet

The absolute and intimate coalescence of heart with heart--is not this, after all, the consummation that every lover seeks? To attempt that consummation by mere speech, it is this that is of questionable import. Since

Between heart and heart, speech is the paltriest of channels.

What a thin--yet what an invisible and impenetrable--film separates those two worlds: the one, that of the visible, audible, and tangible, the world of chatter and laughter, of convention, often of make-believe; and the other, the world of deep and voiceless emotions, of the feelings which know not how to give themselves utterance, of affections which crave so much and are so impotent to say or to seek what they crave! It is like a layer of ice separating the hidden and soundless deeps from the aerial world of noise and motion.--What would not one heart give to break the icy crust and see and know what was really passing in another? --And how often we drown if we do break through!

The isolation of the individual human heart is complete. It is the most pathetic past in the universe, and it is that against which the individual human heart rebels most.

There must be some profound and cosmic problem underlying this fact which no philosophy--and no religion--can solve. That it is pathetic seems to prove it temporary, earthly, a matter of time and space; but, when will the individual human heart coalesce with the Heart of the Universe-- which, perhaps, is the goal of all Life? For

It may be that these little terrestrial human individuals which we call men and women are after all only tiny and temporary centers of conscious activity in an ocean of infinite consciousness; as atoms are but tiny and temporary centers of energy in an ocean of infinite ether. Could we see the sum total of Supreme and Infinite Consciousness at a glance, perhaps individual men and women would dissolve into a mighty unity, could see and comprehend the whole of the luminiferous ether. Well, perhaps

Love is the only known means by which the individual heart can make any expansion whatsoever beyond its own bounds. Yet, alas! Nothing seems to break down the barriers of sense. The human heart beats its ineffectual wings in vain against the walls of its fleshly tabernacle. Will nothing unite the Boy and the Girl? Will nothing bring the Man and the Woman really together? Yet the Boy thinks that, were the Girl wholly his, he and she would be happy; and the Man thinks that, were the Woman and he to share every thought and every emotion, he and she would want naught else. Is the amalgamation impossible? Is the coalescence of thought and feeling outside the bounds of human possibility? What, then, impels mankind to crave it, to attempt it, to sacrifice so much for it?--There is a cosmic puzzle here with which nor philosophy nor psychology nor religion has yet attempted to grapple.

After all, pitiful as it may be, lamentable as it may be, it is true, and it must be said, that this human heart of ours goes through life hungry, very hungry and unappeased. For what it hungers, what it has missed, whereto it looks for sustenance, it itself does not know. Thus,

This feminine heart sighs without ceasing for because that other masculine heart upon which it staked all its all, and an all that meant so much, proved callous and indifferent;

That masculine heart ceases not to curse itself for resorting to such hasty and violent methods by which to obtain for itself an ephemeral and passing pleasure;

This feminine heart eats out its life with remorse for because it gave itself so unthinkingly when asked; though of a survey it thought that asking was a thing prompted by impulses as noble as they seemed divine; and

That masculine heart, when the tidal wave of heated passion has subsided, wonders how it was led captive by lures so deceptive and untried.

M regrets, and regrets in vain, that he did not await a purer and more permanent passion; and

N chews for a life-time the cud of persistent remorse for an hour's poignant pleasure.

Ach! this human heart knows nothing of itself nor anything of its fellow beating hearts. If it follows its bent, it is cracked; if it holds itself in leash, it aches. If it calls reason to aid, its soaring hopes are dashed, its romance spoiled, and it itself reduced to the level of a machine that calculates. If it acts on impulse and, meeting a heart that beats, so it thinks, in unison, unites itself with it, often enough that other soon palpitates to a different rhythm, or itself cannot keep time, and all things go awry.

Poor aching, beating, human heart! It cannot reason; it cannot count the cost. To it seems that impulse, divine and mighty impulse, is the sole law of the earth; in time it learns that impulse, the mightiest, the divinest, though it may be law in heaven, is sometimes a veritable nemesis on earth: it gives freely, gladly, without compunction; it finds the gift rewarded by consequences too pitiful for tears.

Alas, this human heart! Can no one advise it Is there no advice will help it? Must it always go wrong, and always suffer?--Well, --If one loves, one dare not reason; if one reasons, it is difficult to love.

* * *

There seems to be something cosmic, something transcending the bounds of the visible and tangible universe, in the desires and cravings of this same human heart; this little human heart beating blindly beneath a waistcoat or a blouse. Its owner is little bigger than a beetle or an ant, and the habitat of that owner is a speck in space; a pygmy in comparison with Sirius or Arcturus, and invisible from the ultra-telescopic confines of vision.

What it makes the desires and cravings of this human heart more important, more importunate, to its owner than the measuring of the vastest space? Why is it that the longings, the hopes, the disappointments, the desperate aspirations, and the passionate loves of little human hearts should cause to their possessors such prepotent commotions, such poignant qualms? Rigel and Betelgeuse and Algol rush through space, and about them probably circle numerous planets inhabited by countless and curious beings, each and all, perhaps, possessing hearts as perturbable as our own. And yet, if our own little earthly Jack cannot get our own little earthly Jill, what cares Jack what happens to Vega or Capella or to the great nebula in Orion? Jack wants Jill; and that want is to Jack the only thing in the sidereal heavens that matters.