Chapter 3

The man whom you marry must, of course, have an income; he should have a better social position than you have any right to expect. You know all that--it is a commonplace. But also he must be perfectly even. In everything he should remind you constantly of most other men. Everything in him and about him should be uniform. Even his sins should be so monotonous that it is impossible to call them romantic. Avoid the romantic. Shun supreme moments. Chocolate-creams are very well, but as a daily food dry toast is better. Seek for the man who has the qualities of dry toast--a hard exterior manner, and an interior temperament that is at once soft and insipid. The man that I describe is amenable to flattery, even as dry toast is amenable to butter. You can guide him. And, as he never varies, you can calculate upon him. Marry the dry-toast man. He is easy to obtain. There are hundreds of him in Piccadilly. None of them wants to marry, and all of them will. He gives no trouble. He will go to the Club when he wants to talk, and to the theatre when he wants to be amused. He will come to you when he wants absolutely nothing; and in you--if you are the well-bred English girl that I am supposing--he will assuredly find it. And so you will both be contented.

Do not think that I am, for one moment, depreciating sentiment. I worship it; I am a sentimentalist myself. But everything has its place, and sentiment of this kind belongs to young unmarried life--to the period when you are engaged, or when you ought to be engaged. The young man whom I have described--the crisp, perfect, insipid, dry-toast man--would only be bored by a wife who wanted to be on sentimental terms with him. I remember a case in point. A young girl, whom I knew intimately, married a man who was, as a husband, perfect. They lived happily enough for three or four years; she had a couple of children, a beautiful house, everything that could be desired. And then the trouble came. She had been reading trashy novels, I suppose; at any rate, she fell in love with her own husband. She went in daily dread that he would find it out. I argued with her, reasoned with her, entreated her to give up such ruinous folly. It was of no use. She wrote him letters--three sheets, crossed and underlined. I warned her that sooner or later he would read one of them. He did; and he never forgave her. That happy home is all broken up now--simply because that woman could not remember that there is a time for sentiment and a time for propriety, and that marriage is the time for propriety. The passions are all very well until you are married; but the fashions will last you all your life.

I have no more to say on the choice of a husband. It is quite the simplest thing that a young girl has to learn,--you must find a quite colourless person, and flatter him a little; his vanity will do the rest. And when you are married to him, you will find him much easier to tolerate than a man who has any strong characteristic. Do not get into the habit of thinking marriage important; it is only important in so far as it affects externals; it need not touch the interior of your life.

I have received several letters. ELLA has had poetry sent to her by her _fiancé_, and wishes to know if this would justify her in breaking the engagement. I think not. She can never be quite certain that it is the man's own make; and, besides, plenty of men are like that during the engagement period, but never suffer from it afterwards. The other letters must be answered privately.

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"THE DEADLY CIGARETTE."

Have you heard the Yankee threat to suppress the Cigarette? Ten dollars tax per thousand--as the French would say, _par mille_-- Is the scheme proposed, forsooth, to protect the Yankee youth From poisons just discovered in his _papier pur fil_!

Such things might well have been in staring emerald green, Or even in the paler tint that's christened "_Eau-de-Nil_," But it simply makes one sick to imagine arsenic Is lurking in the spotless white of _papier pur fil_!

Strange the smoking French survive! Surely none should be alive; Fair France should be one mighty _morgue_ from Biarritz to Lille, If there's also phosphorus, bringing deadly loss for us, In Hygiene's new victim, luckless _papier pur fil_.

Yet some Frenchmen live to tell they are feeling pretty well; From dozing _Concierge_ at home to marching _Garde Mobile_, You might safely bet your boots that, with loud derisive hoots, They'd scout the thought of poison in their _papier pur fil_.

Then how foolish to conclude that, because they hurt the dude, Smoking all day in the country, half the night as well _en ville_, After dinner Cigarettes, two or three, mean paying debts Of nature, or mean going mad, from _papier pur fil_!

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VANS DE LUXE.

SIR,--I am going to start a Caravan! It's all the go now, and nothing like it for fresh air and seeing out-of-the-way country places. What's the good of _Hamlet_ with all the hamlets left out, eh? We shall sleep in bunks, and have six horses to pull us up any _Bunker's Hill_ we may come to. I intend doing the thing in style, like the Duke of NEWCASTLE and Dr. GORDON STABLES, No gipsying for yours truly! I've been calculating how many people I shall want, and I don't think I can get on comfortably without all the following (they'll be _my_ following, d'ye see?):--

1. Head Driver; 2. Understudy for Driver; 3. Butler; 4. Footman; 5. Veterinary Surgeon; 6. Carpenter (if wheel comes off, &c.); 7. Handy working Orator (to explain to people that we're not a _Political_ Van); 8. Electrician (in case horses go lame, and we have to use electricity); 9, 10, 11. Female Servants.

The Servants will have to occupy a separate van, of course. They'll be in the van and in the rear at the same time! I'll let your readers know how we get on. At present we haven't even got off.

Yours jauntily, THE HIGHWAY-MAN (_pro team_).

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