Part 20
This is the substance of what the Maiden Aunt said in her letter, and we all talked about it in the fast-fading light until the darkness set in and the rain commenced to patter down upon the lilac leaves with a dreamy sort of sound. We gathered about the piano, and sang those four-part _Lieder_ of Felix Mendelssohn's, and then we pledged the memory of the Maiden Aunt in the golden Verzenay and drank the good night willie wacht, and thus we spent a memorial day at Cherry Valley, nestling down in the hollow of the hills like a callow robin in its nest, and we slept the sleep of the just, lulled to rest by the rain-drops playing merry fantasies on the shingles, each of us agreeing that the day was one to be tied up with white ribbon and laid away among the precious keepsakes. And in our dreams came to each the form of a loved one, and our sleep was made beautiful with all pleasant images.
July 17, 1869.
_LOVE AND THE BLUE FLOWER._
We were all at tea last evening, and at the tea-table we talk more than usual, for the tea is but the shadow of a meal with the harmless inspiration of the tea-pot. Thus it happened that each began to tell of what had occurred in his or her little world during the day. Aurelia had a thousand things to tell about the intellectual and physical miracles performed by that wonderful baby, which, of course, every baby, from Cain down, has performed. But they were performed for the first time for her, and of course we listen to them as if they were new revelations to us, and we would not for the world dissipate the bright colors with which she invests all that little one does by telling her that every mother's world is glowing with the same pretty colors, or that all of us once were just as wonderful babies as hers, only somehow we lost all our supernatural powers as the years came and went. Celeste had been shopping, and her tongue ran glibly on the "beautiful," "sweet pretty," "lovely," "delightful," "loves of," etc., fabrics which she had seen at Hamlin's, and she grew quite indignant when she told how young Yard Stick became angry when he had pulled down seventy-three different pieces of dress goods, only to find that she merely dropped in to look about a little; neither was it any compensation to that intellectual and highly artistic youth when she purchased a ball of tape. Mrs Blobbs said but little, for it had not been with her one of those days which we lay away tied up with white ribbon. Old Blobbs had come home from the office earlier than usual, looking very pale and very feeble. A dark shadow is sweeping across the house--so dark that we do not see any light beyond it, and the waters through which the dear good woman is wading, grow deeper and deeper, and the mists which begin to blind her eyes are those which forever haunt the Valley of the Shadow. Old Blobbs was with us at the table but said nothing. The contracted brow and firmly-set mouth, the great veins in his forehead and the far-off look in his eyes, told us of suffering, and that even now he foresaw a messenger coming to him with tidings, of the purport of which he was well aware. Fitz-Herbert had had nothing to do all the livelong day, and Boosey was not much better off, so these two young gentlemen had little to say for themselves. Mignon had dreamed the day away, feeding the canary, tending her mignonettes, and heliotropes, and fuschias, and weaving delicious little reveries on the piano. She lives only among beautiful things, and could not exist away from them, any more than a humming bird could live, deprived of its roses and tulips.
Blanche's story was supplied by a letter which Mignon had just received from her, and as it contained an important piece of intelligence, she read it to us, as follows:
SARATOGA, August 10.
_Dear, Darling Mignon_:
Lean down your head to me and let me whisper in your ear that I am engaged. You are aware that I have known Harry a long time, and that he is possessed of all those good and noble qualities calculated to make me happy. I am already in a new world in which I know no one but my hero. You do not know how good and kind and beautiful he is. Our world is quite apart from this fashionable world, where every man is a gambler or a fortune-hunter, and every woman an enameled _decolette_. We ask for nothing but each other's society and we are content to let the others play out their little comedies and farces to the bitter end. I have given him my whole heart, and yet, Mignon, there is love for you still, and for all our little circle. I cannot stop now to tell you of Saratoga life, it seems so tame and so tawdry to the great happiness which Harry brought to me last evening, as we were strolling under the elms. It seems to me there is no one here but Harry. He is my world and I live in him, and after him I send to you, Mignon, my best love.
I must stop, for Harry will get impatient. He is waiting to take me to ride, but I could not go until I had informed you of my great happiness.
Your devoted friend,
BLANCHE.
P. S.--Kiss Celeste and Aurelia for me.
B.
P. S. No. 2--Write me soon.
B.
As Mignon closed the letter, she asked me why I was smiling, and I said:
My dear Mignon: I was smiling at this repetition of the old, old story. It is one of the most curious revelations in these _affairs de coeur_, that the engaged parties always leave this world and create one of their own of the most gorgeous description. In that new world the skies are always translucent, the air is full of winged Cupids and young cherubim, flowers grow under their feet, birds sing on every branch, and no inhabitants grosser than fairies dwell in it. In that world there are no storms, no pains, no sorrows. Every breeze is laden with odors, and the beautiful rainbow of promise always spans its sky from one horizon to the other. There are none of the vulgar realities or harassing cares of this world in that. The happy pair feed on ambrosia and nectar supplied for them gratuitously, and have no fears based upon bread and butter or other provender, which troubles us mortals so much to provide for ourselves. They look upon everything through some peculiar medium which transforms it into beauty and clothes it with the sheen of the prism. All gross sounds are turned into music. All the faculties of the soul become merged in the one faculty of the imagination, and that imagination knows no bound especially in the case of the woman. She always makes the man a hero. She surrounds him with a halo just as pious Catholics surround their saints. She looks at him through an atmosphere which magnifies him into something quite above the follies and stupidities of the world. The other day, as I was passing along Lake street, I met an engaged couple. They had just come in from Kankakee to see the sights of the city, and as they wandered along, hand in hand, looking into the shop windows, the future bridegroom munching an apple, and the future bride doing the same to a pear, I could not but regard these two innocent lambs with interest. To be sure, the future bridegroom was a tall, shambling, ungainly, awkward, red-faced lout, but to her he was the Admirable Crichton, the ideal of her dreams, and the hero of her life. She was in that world of which I have spoken. She did not see the smiling faces about her as they regarded this innocent simplicity. She was walking on roses with him. The pear she munched was ambrosia bought of a beneficent old fairy at the street corner, who sold them for ten cents a piece. A year or two hence, when they get settled down upon their Kankakee farm, he will be nothing but the old man and she will be plain Hannah, superintending the dairy and the kitchen garden. But now John Thomas is a hero.
It is another fact that the man himself was not aware that he was such a hero. Neither were those who have been acquainted with him aware that he was made of heroic stuff. To himself and to them, he has been plain Smith or plain Brown, a decent sort of fellow, plodding along, making money enough to pay his board bills with, and never supposing he was destined to set the world on fire. He had never before dreamed that he was a hero. He had never before supposed that the rhythm of his very prosaic life would ever assume the epic form. The same fact is true in fiction. The heroes of the novels are very commonplace people, but the heroines always make them believe they are supernatural people. Auerbach appreciated this weakness in human nature when he made Irma--that splendid, womanly type--fall in love with the King, and invest him with all the attributes of a demi-god, when, in reality, he was nothing but a very ordinary, commonplace, selfish, ungrateful mortal, who could no more rise to the great height of her nature than the clod can rise to the cloud. You will find that same weakness brought out in that new book of Spielhagen's--"Problematic Characters"--where Melitta, a beautiful type of woman, falls in love with Oswald, a vain, shallow, purposeless coxcomb, who adores every pretty face he meets. Yet Melitta invests him with all the heroic attributes, and wastes her great love upon him, as the ancient maiden wasted her kisses upon the marble insensibility of Apollo.
Thus it is that once in every man's life, at least, he becomes a hero, whether he will or not, and it is not the least curious part of the matter that he does not question at all, but accepts the position at once, and allows himself to be set up as an object of idolatry. He knows it is all humbug, but he is willing to accept it, and usually ends by temporarily convincing himself he is a hero and an idol. Of course, after hero and heroine become one flesh, he gets the conceit knocked out of him, takes off his insignia, quietly gets down from his pedestal, and consents to become what he was before his hero-existence--a very ordinary mortal, who has to pay taxes, work for a weekly stipend, earn bread and butter, and eat it. Now, this is precisely the case with our mutual friend, Blanche. Harry is, undoubtedly, a well-meaning, good-natured fellow, who will earn a good living and take care of Blanche in a creditable manner; but Blanche has magnified him into a hero, and looks at him through other spectacles than ours. Usually, these cases suggest their own remedies, and carry their cure with them. The disease wears itself out, like whooping-cough or cold in the head. But there is danger in allowing it to run and get seated, so that the inevitable tumble which must come, sooner or later, will hurt them. After a specified time, the rainbow will dissipate into a dull, leaden color, the flowers will fade, the nectar will grow sour, the gorgeous palaces will transform themselves into wooden cottages or brick fronts, the cupids and cherubim will go in out of the wet, and the birds will hush their songs. In other words, the dull round of life, which every man must tread, the ever-pressing, vulgar cares and anxieties which follow one like a Nemesis, will overtake the hero and the heroine, and it will be well for them to be prepared for the catastrophe. Flying is a pleasant feat to perform, and causes very thrilling sensations, but if you go too near the sun, remember the fate of Icarus, and look out for your head when you fall. If Mignon is so disposed, when she writes to Blanche, she might suggest these things, and mingle a little caution with her congratulations.
There is another view of love which is very sad, because it is fatal. Ordinarily these attachments are part and parcel of that world-spirit which is ever changing and yet ever constant, which allies the present and past together, and convinces you there is nothing new, but that each event, although it may seem to be done for the first time, is only a repetition of the old miracle. This fatality of love, for which there is no cure, has been beautifully likened in one of Novalis' works to a Blue Flower, for which a lone Minnesinger once pined in vain and died. No eye of mortal ever saw this flower, no man knows where it blooms. Yet its beauty is known of men, and its fragrance fills the world. There are few whose senses are delicate enough to perceive this perfume; few whose eyes can see the Blue Flower, even though it blooms right before them. Novalis further says that the nightingale, pouring out its sad songs to the moon, knows and loves this flower; that all men and women, who have tried to voice their sorrow in poetry, and yet could not tell their feelings, have inhaled this perfume of the Blue Flower. The perfume of this flower is in music. It is in Beethoven's sonatas and symphonies, and in some of Mendelssohn's songs, although it was not in Mendelssohn's life, but there are few souls sensitive and delicate enough to feel it. Dante felt it, and the Blue Flower blossomed through all their lives. They inhaled its perfume, and then there was no more peace, for he who once breathes it lives forever after in sorrow. It is a malady which can never be cured. I pray that none of you may ever breathe its fatal breath.
And as I closed my screed, Old Blobbs looked at me with a look full of unutterable pain, and I knew at once that down under all his asperity of manner and his sarcasm of speech; under all his seeming philosophical composure and his hearty hatred of shams, this Blue Flower had blossomed, and that he had inhaled its fatal fragrance. He had presented to us but one side of his double life, and that was so honest that we could not but love him while we winced at his utterances of truth. But in that other life which he had lived within himself, and of which he had given us no token, but which was now rapidly making itself apparent, because it was his true life, was the Blue Flower, which entails only suffering, and for which there is no remedy but death.
And he said to us with his weak, trembling voice, so unlike his hearty, powerful tones of a few months ago: "You have spoken rightly. There is a Blue Flower, and I pray God you may never know its fearful influence, beautiful as it is. I have found that flower, but I think its beauty is fading now, and its perfume is dissipating, and that for the pain He will give pleasure, and for the trial He will give rest." And then he arose from the table and leant upon my arm and we walked out into the garden together. And then the twilight stole in upon us, and the darkness fell out of the heavens, and the stars peeped out of the sky, and all the world was veiled with a holy hush. We talked long together, and as we retired for the night, he shook me warmly by the hand and only said: "When you grow old you will feel the wonderful beauty of that line, 'He giveth His beloved sleep,' as you have never felt it before, for the old have a long, long night in which to sleep. After the battle comes Peace; after the toil, Rest."
I knew what he meant, but I could not speak of it to the others.
August 15, 1869.
_MARRIAGE._
It was just like Fitz-Herbert to break in upon the conversation in his insufferable, dawdling manner, merely because Old Blobbs was absent and could not reply to him. F. H. had heard a story that he was about to be married, and he protested against it with all the indignation and power of which he was capable, somewhat in the following manner: "'Pon honor, that story isn't twue. Would be vewy absurd to sacwifice my fweedom."
This was the longest speech F. H. had ever been known to deliver at one time, and it naturally created quite a sensation in the company. He seized this occasion to deliver it, as I have said before, because Old Blobbs was absent. The latter is confined to his room with a painful illness, and it would do you good to see the courage with which the old veteran bears his serious indisposition, and the calm serenity with which he awaits the decision of fate. I had no idea, however, of letting Fitz-Herbert off so easily, and, much to his astonishment, therefore, I replied to him, as he sat uneasily twirling his moustache, in words to the following effect:
My dear Fitz-Herbert: I cannot allow your very silly remark to pass unnoticed, for two reasons:
First. You would never sacrifice anything in marrying any woman. The woman who marries you will do all the sacrificing. The hymeneal altar, in her case, will be eminently a sacrificial altar, and she will be the garlanded and orange-blossomed victim, to be carved up with the sacrificial knife. You have everything to gain--she has everything to lose.
Second. Neither your reason, nor any other, is valid against marriage. I am often amused at the excuses men make when they approach this question. Brown thinks it is too expensive, and, of all silly excuses, I think this is the silliest. Brown is earning a good salary, and yet Brown, at the end of the year, has no more money than when he commenced. He has expenses for cigars and meerschaums, for suppers for his bachelor friends, for fast horses, for baskets of champagne, for wagers based on trifles, for the wear and tear of clothes, and for a thousand and one little items, none of which he would or need incur in married life. Then, again, if Brown knew, as any milliner can tell him, how many seasons that same bonnet is made over; how it comes out bran new every spring and fall, by some of those mysterious alterations, of a bit of lace here or a few flowers there, of which only women are capable; how that same dress is made over from year to year by the cunning hand of some dressmaker; how a piece of lace, which may seem costly at first, does duty in a dozen different ways--now serving a term on a bonnet-crown, now appearing on the sleeve of a basque, anon reappearing as the trimming of a dress, then laid away, only to appear once more in some useful and graceful manner, connected with the gear of the little folks; and if Brown further knew that nine women out of ten, not only in low life but in high life, practice this economy--making the old new, and serving up old dishes in new forms--Brown would be ashamed to offer such a flimsy excuse. Marriage is the essence of economy. Brown, alone, with two thousand a year, lays up nothing. Brown and a wife, with the same amount per year, would lay up five hundred.
And now comes Jones, like Fitz-Herbert, with his twaddle of sacrificing his freedom. The plea is so flimsy that it is hardly worth an answer. Jones may lose the freedom to get drunk; the freedom to waste his money; the freedom to squander his earnings at the gaming-table; the freedom to indulge in dissipation; and the freedom to practice unlimited selfishness. And the sooner he loses all these freedoms, the better it will be for him. In the place of these losses, he gains the freedom to be the emperor of a little household; to love a woman; to make the future President of the United States; to make some one happy; and to show a certificate that he is a Man, and has fulfilled the mission of a Man.
Next comes Smith, whining that his friend Thompson has married unhappily, and he gets off the old story that marriage is a lottery in which there are a thousand blanks to one prize. Bosh! It may be that his friend Thompson deliberately sought happiness in something which was not capable of affording it. Or it may be that he made money the complement of his desires and the goal of his ambition. In either case, he would be and ought to be disappointed. But it is more probable that Thompson, as obtains in ninety-nine out of a hundred of these disappointments, while carrying his head among the stars, stumbled over the stone at his feet, which he would have seen if he had had his head where it ought to have been. Thompson, like scores of others, indulged in a love which smacked both of the romance and the theatre--made it in a style and clothed it with sentiments which have no more to do with common life than the integral calculus has to do with everlasting salvation, and in his terrific flights of the imagination, soared to heights occupied by angels and cherubim, and other creatures who have nothing in common with human life. He assumed without question that his inamorata was an angel, and, while in his amorous embryo, would have throttled you if you had suggested that he might have been mistaken. Of course, when he had chipped off his shell, got his eyes open, and stepped out into the open air of common sense, he saw his mistake. Women are not angels at all, although it may be ungallant to say so. For certain romantic purposes, and by a sort of poetical license, we call them such. They don't believe they are angels themselves; but they accept the assurance from their lovers, just as the lover accepts the assurance from his mistress that he is a hero, both good and noble, when he is nothing but plain Tompkins. Now, Thompson, before he married his wife, was convinced that she was an angel, and would have considered it a serious defect if you, or any one else had imputed human nature as one of her characteristics. If he had married Mrs. Thompson as a woman with a human nature, subject to diseases, old age, sullenness, peevish fits, and other infirmities to which flesh is heir, possessed of the same bad qualities, and capable of showing just as many good qualities, he would have been a happy man, and by combining an even temper with a sensible judgment, he never would have had any trouble. It might as well be settled now as at any time that there are no angels in this world. Angels dwell in quite another place, and have nothing to do whatever with marriage, their time being mainly spent in playing harps, and, if "Gates Ajar" be true, pianos, fiddles, and other musical instruments, and in eating lotus, which is of a better quality up there than that which grows on the Nile. The other class of angels, if the iron-clad theology be true, is down below, engaged in the anthracite coal and brimstone business; but there is no record of any on earth. If Thompson had married a woman instead of a creature whom, without any reason, he supposed to be an angel, he would have been a happy man. It is, therefore, his own fault that he is not happy. And it is the fault of the majority of men who are not happy.
Now, also, on general principles, I contend that it is a man's duty to be married. Man is not complete when single. He is all head without any heart. Man has his work, woman has hers, and no life-work is complete which is not a union of the two.
Man has the work of the intellect to perform; woman the work of the affections. If man does his work alone, it is cold, hard, selfish and one-sided.
Man represents brute strength; woman represents beauty. If man stands alone, not clothing his strength with beauty, he occupies exactly the position of the horse and the ox.
Man, to sum up, is the head; woman, the heart. United, they are perfect; single, they are simply monstrosities. They were made to go together.
And, again, my dear Fitz-Herbert, did you ever happen to think that you were born in marriage? That without marriage the world would have been deprived of your inestimable entity, which, undoubtedly, is good for something, although, at this present moment, I am not prepared to say what? I contend, therefore, that if you persistently choose to remain single you insult the condition in which you were born, and place yourself in the attitude of the foolish Euripides, who always lamented that he had not been produced by some other agency than that of a mother.