Part 29

The great secret is to learn to bear with each other's failings; not to be blind to them—that were either an impossibility or a folly. We must see and feel them; if we do neither, they are not evils to us, and there is obviously no need of forbearance. We are to throw the mantle of charity around them, concealing them from the curious gaze of others; to determine not to let them chill the affections. Surely it is not the perfections, but the imperfections, of human character that make the strongest claims on our love.

All the world must approve and even enemies must admire the good and the estimable in human nature. If husband and wife estimate only that in each which all must be constrained to value, what do they more than others? It is the infirmities of character, imperfections of nature, that call for pitying sympathy, the tender compassion that makes each the comforter, the monitor of the other. Forbearance helps each to attain command over themselves. This forbearance is not a weak and wicked indulgence of each other's faults, but such a calm, tender observation of them as excludes all harshness and anger, and takes the best and fullest method of pointing them out in the full confidence of affection.

It should be remembered that trials and sufferings are the real test of merit in all life, as they bring out the real character. In married life husband and wife are often adapted to each other through trials, and the closest union is often wrought by suffering, even as iron is welded by heat. As much of the happiness of real life is artificial, so many things in wedded life that to third persons must seem as trials are, after all, only the sweetness of domestic life. How many couples, now in mature life and surrounded by luxury and all the comforts of wealth, look back to the days of early privation as amongst the happiest days of their life! Succeeding years have brought them wealth, but it took with them their domestic happiness.

Marriage is too frequently the end instead of the beginning of love. The dreams of courtship vanish too often into thin air soon after the wedding ring is put on. The realization of that perfect and unalloyed happiness that each partner anticipated is seldom found in the holy bonds of matrimony. Cool and distant, with a feeling that the sweet courtesies of wooing-time are now out of place, they treat each other with an indifference that ends in mutual aversion and contempt. This is altogether wrong. As reasoning men and women they have entered the relation; it is vain to suppose it is one of unmixed delights. It has its trials. You must expect to meet them. The conditions of happiness there are much the same as elsewhere, therefore the only sure way of finding it is to forget self in the furtherance of the happiness of others. The trials of wedded life are seen to be but the approaches to its joys when once the spirit of kindly forbearance is spread abroad in the heart.

It must seem to all who seriously meditate on this subject that many of the trials of married life arise from mistaken notions of economy and the right use of money. Every wife knows her husband's income or ought to know it. That knowledge should be the guide of her conduct. A clear understanding respecting the domestic expenses is necessary to the peace of every dwelling. If it be little, "better is a dinner of herbs where love is, than a stalled ox and hatred therewith." If it be ample, let it be enjoyed with all thankfulness. Partners in privation are more to each other than partners in wealth. Those who have suffered together love more than those who have rejoiced together. Where a wife, seeing her duty, has made up her mind to this, she will brighten her little home with smiles that will make it a region of perpetual sunshine.

We account these two things essential to the happiness of married life,—to have a home of your own, and to live distinctly and honestly within your means. A great proportion of the failures in wedlock may be traced directly to the neglect of the latter rule. No man can feel happy or enjoy the sweets of domestic life who is spending more than he earns. No sensible person will account it a hardship to begin on a moderate scale; and those who do thus begin, and afterwards attain to the possession of wealth, always look back to the days of "small things" with peculiar satisfaction as the golden days of their hearts, if not of their purses. True affection delights in the opportunities of self-denial and in the little acts of personal service, for which there is scarcely any place in the house of the rich.

At the shrine of domestic ambition much of the comfort and happiness of home life is immolated, and, for the sake of appearance, happiness and content are exchanged for wearying cares. To regulate our expenses by other people's income is the height of folly, and to contract debts for a style of living which is of our neighbor's choosing rather than our own is nearly akin to insanity. There is no happiness, social, domestic, or individual, without independence; and no dependence is so bitter as that of debt. And when you reflect how needless this is, you can readily see that in this instance, as in many others, the trials are of our own choosing, and might be avoided by consideration and care.

"O let us walk the world, so that our love Burns like a blessed beacon, beautiful, Upon the walls of life's surrounding dark."

—MASSEY.

The true marriage is the result of years of mutual endeavor to please, and comes of patient efforts to learn each other's disposition and taste. This can be done by all who cherish right views of the duties and pleasures of the marriage relation.

You have but one life to live, and no amount of money or influence or fame can pay you for a life of unhappiness. You can not afford to quarrel with one another. You can not afford to cherish a single thought, to harbor a single desire, to gratify a single passion, nor indulge a single selfish feeling, that will tend to make this union any thing but a source of happiness to you. So it becomes you at starting to have a perfect understanding with one another. It becomes you to resolve that you will be happy together at any rate, or that if you suffer it shall be from the same cause and in perfect sympathy. You are not to let any human being step between you under any circumstances.

Human character, by a wise provision of Providence, is infinitely varied, and there are not two individuals in existence so entirely alike in their tastes, habits of thought, and natural aptitude that they can keep step with one another over all the rough places in the journey of life. There must be a leaning to one another. The compromise can not be all on one side. You can be happy together if you will, but the agreement to be happy must be mutual. Draw your souls closer and closer together from year to year. Get all obstacles out of the way. Just as soon as one arises attend to it, and get rid of it. At last they will all disappear. You will have become wonted to one another's habits and frames of mind and peculiarities of disposition, and love, respect, and charity will take care of the rest.

If you observe faults in your companion keep them to yourself. What right have you, who should be the very one to kindly conceal faults, to inform others of their presence? Neither father nor mother, neither brother nor sister, have any right to be informed of the secrets of your domestic life. A husband and wife have no business to tell one another's faults to any body but themselves. They can not do it without shame. Their grievances are to be settled in private between themselves, and in all public places and among friends they are to preserve towards one another that nice consideration and entire respectfulness which their relations enjoin. With a true wife the husband's faults should be secret. A wife forgets when she condescends to that refuge of weakness, a female confidant. A wife's bosom should be the tomb of her husband's failings, and his character far more valuable in her estimation than life.

Happiness between husband and wife can only be secured by that constant tenderness and care of the parties for each other which are based upon warm and demonstrative love. The heart demands that the man shall not sit silent, reticent, and self-absorbed in the midst of his family. The wife who forgets to provide for her husband's tastes and wishes renders her home undesirable for him. In a word, ever-present and ever-demonstrative gentleness must reign, or else the heart starves.

There is propriety in all things, and though public displays of affection, familiarity of touch, and half-concealed caresses are always distasteful to men and women of sense, yet love is of such a nature that you must give it expression or it languishes. There are husbands so cold and formal that they have no kiss or caress for the wives whom they really love. There are wives to whom a single demonstration that shall tell to their hearts how inexpressibly pleasant their faces and their society are, and how fondly they are loved, would be better than untold gold.

The affection that should link together man and wife is a far holier and more enduring passion than the enthusiasm of young love. It may want its gorgeousness or its imaginative character, but it is far richer in its attributes. It should not call for such daily proofs of existence as is demanded of the lover, but it is human to wish for the freshness of morning to continue far into the day and evening. True, it is vain to expect this, but humanity continually wishes for what can not be; and, though the glow and sparkle of the morning of love will fade away, yet it should be as fades the bewitching charm of morning into the quiet splendor of the Summer day; and, though recognizing that exhibitions of tenderness so appropriate for the morning of life are out of place in its noon, yet, as long as it is human to love, so long are exhibitions of it, quiet though they may be, gratifying to the one beloved.

We exhort you who are a husband to love your wife even as you love yourself. Continue through life the same manly tenderness that in youth gained her affections. Reflect that though her bodily charms may not now be so great as then, yet that habit and a thousand acts of kindness have strengthened your mutual friendship. Devote yourself to her, and after the hours of business let the pleasures which you most highly prize be found in her society. The true wife wishes to feel sure that she is precious to her husband—not useful, not valuable, not convenient simply, but that she is dear to him; let her be the recipient of his polite and hearty attentions; let her notice that her cares and loves are noticed, appreciated, and returned, her opinions asked, her approval sought, and her judgment respected; in short, let her only be loved, honored, and cherished in fulfillment of the marriage vow, and she will be to her husband a well-spring of pleasure.

We exhort you who are wife to be gentle and considerate to your husband. Let the influence which you possess over him arise from the mildness of your manner and the discretion of your conduct. Whilst you are careful to adorn your person with new and clean apparel—for no woman can long preserve affections if she is negligent on this point—be still more attentive in ornamenting your mind with meekness and peace, with cheerfulness and good humor. Lighten the cares and chase away the vexations to which he is inevitably exposed in his commerce with the world by rendering, as far as is in your power, his home pleasant. Keep at home. Let your employment and pleasures be domestic.

What a man desires in a wife is her companionship, sympathy, and love. The way of life has many dreary places in it, and man needs a companion to go with him. A man is sometimes overtaken by misfortune; he meets with failure and defeat, trials and temptation beset him, and he needs one to stand by and sympathize. All through life, through storms and through sunshine, conflicts and victory, man needs a woman's love. Let him think upon his duty in return for this love. You who have taken a wife from a happy home of kindred hearts and kind companionship, have you done what you could to make amends for the loss of those friends and companions? Remember what your wife was when you took her, not from compulsion, but from your own choice—a choice based on what you then considered her superiority to all others. She was young—perhaps the idol of her happy home; she was as gay and blithe as the lark, and the brothers and sisters at her father's cherished her as an object of endearment. Yet she left all to join her destiny with yours—to make your home happy, and to do all that womanly ingenuity could do to meet your wishes, and to lighten the burdens which might press upon you.

Consult the tastes and disposition of your husband, and endeavor to give him high and noble thoughts, lofty aims, and temporal comforts. Let the husband see that you really have a strong desire to make him happy, and to retain the warmest place in his respect, his admiration, and his affection. Enter into all his plans with interest. Sweeten all his troubles with your sympathy. Make him feel that there is one ear always open to the revelation of his experiences, that there is one heart that never misconstrues him, that there is one refuge for him in all circumstances, and that in all weariness of body and soul there is one warm pillow for his head, beneath which a heart is beating with the same unvarying truth and affection, through all gladness and sadness, as the faithful chronometer suffers no perturbation of its rhythm, whether in storm or shine.

"Trifles light as air, Are to the jealous confirmation strong As proofs of holy writ."

—SHAKESPEARE.

There is no passion more base, nor one which seeks to hide itself more than jealousy. It is ashamed of it itself when it appears. It carries its stain and disgrace on its forehead. We do not wish to acknowledge it ourselves, it is so ignominious, but hidden in the character we would be confused and disconcerted if it appeared; by the which we are convinced of our bad minds and debased courage.

It is difficult sometimes to distinguish between jealousy and envy, for they often run into one another, and are blended together. The most valid distinction seems to be that jealousy is always personal. The envious man desires some good which another possesses; the jealous man suspects another of seeking to deprive him of some good that he already possesses.

Jealousy is, in many respects, preferable to envy, since it aims at the preservation of some good which we think belongs to us; whereas envy is a frenzy that can not endure, even in idea, the good of others. Jealousy is such a headstrong passion, that therein doth consist its danger. All the other passions condescend at times to accept the inexorable logic of facts. But jealousy looks facts straight in the face, ignores them utterly, and says she knows a great deal better than they can tell her.

Jealousy violates contracts, dissolves society, breaks wedlock, betrays friends and neighbors, thinks nobody is good, and that every one is either doing or designing them an injury. Its rise is in guilt or ill-nature; as he that is overrun with the jaundice takes others to be yellow. If jealousy were not a hardened offender, he must have disappeared ere this by the abuse which poets and moralists have alike delighted to heap upon him. Yet he still lives and flourishes, exerts his influence and displays his power, as though he were a favored friend or a welcome guest.

Did jealousy always make its appearance in its ordinary form of detraction, it would be, comparatively speaking, harmless; but it is surprising how many different masks it can assume, and how it lurks and tries to conceal itself under some less mean and unlovable quality. Sometimes it appears in the character of injustice; sometimes it takes the form of rudeness and want of courtesy; occasionally a bitter or sarcastic way of speaking. At other times it borrows the garb of a virtue, and shows itself under what might be mistaken for humility or sincerity; lying coiled up like a serpent under some flower, and darting forth its venemous sting where and when you least expect to find it.

No stronger proof is needed to show how contemptible a fault jealousy is than that no one is willing to acknowledge that they are jealous. It is jealousy that is the root and foundation of many offenses, but they are charged to other causes. Jealousy is singular in this: every trifling circumstance is regarded as confirming and strengthening the previously aroused suspicions. It is a sorer curse, a more certain and fatal blight to the heart on which it seizes, than it can be to those against whom its spite is hurled. Jealousy is as cruel as the grave; not the grave that opens its deep bosom to receive and shelter from further storms the worn and forlorn pilgrim, who rejoices exceedingly and is glad when he can find its repose; but cruel as the grave is when it yawns and swallows down from the lap of luxury, from the summit of fame, from the bosom of love, the desire of many eyes and hearts.

Among the deadly things upon the earth, or in the sea, or flying through malarial regions, few are more noxious than jealousy. And of all mad passions there is not one that has a vision more distorted or a more unreasonable fury. To the jealous eye white looks black, yellow looks green, and the very sunshine turns deadly lurid. There is no innocence, no justice, no generosity that is not touched with suspicions save just the jealous person's own. Once lodged within the heart, for life it rules ascendant and alone. It sports in solitude. It pants for blood, and rivers will not sate its thirst. Minds strongest in worth and valor stoop to meanness and disgrace before it. The meanest soul, the weakest, it can give courage to beyond the daring of despair. No balm can assuage its sting. Death alone can heal its wound. When it has once possessed a man he has no ear but for the tale that falls like molten lead upon the heart.

In nothing is jealousy more commonly shown than when under the fear that some one will supplant us in the affections of another. Here it assumes its most malignant form, here its greatest distress is wrought. The gamester, whose last piece is lost; the merchant, whose whole risk the sea has swallowed up; the child, whose air bubble has burst—may each create a bauble like the former. But he whose treasure was in woman's love, who trusted as man once trusts and was deceived—that hope once gone, there is no finding it again, no restoring it. Let not any too rigorously judge the conduct of a jealous woman or a jealous man. Remember that the maniac suffers. To be sure, the suffering is from selfishness, often it is without the shadow of a cause; but still it is suffering, and it is intense. Pity it, bear with it; you may yourself fall into temptation.

It is said that jealousy is love. This is not true; for, though jealousy may be procured by love, as ashes are by fire, yet jealousy extinguishes love, as ashes smother the flame. Jealousy may exist without love, and this is common, for jealousy can feed on that which is bitter no less than on that which is sweet, and is sustained by pride as often as by affection.

The unfortunate habit of mind which makes one prone to jealousy can not be too strenuously fought against. It were well to constantly remember that jealousy injures and pains no one so much as the person feeling it. It is a self-consuming fire, a self-inflicted torment, an arrow that falls back and wounds only the archer. It becomes one to cultivate a spirit of magnanimity toward all, and to strive to allay, by every means in his power, a too suspicious nature. It has been well said that there are occasions on which a man would have been ashamed of himself not to have been deceived. A man to be genuine to himself must believe and be believed, must trust and be trusted.

Suspicion is no less an enemy to virtue than to happiness. He that is already corrupt is naturally suspicious, and he that becomes suspicious will quickly become corrupt. Suspicion is the child of guilt, the virtue of a coward. It is a vain and foolish pride which would teach that every one is conspiring against your happiness or has designs on your reputation and business. The fact is, probably no one is thinking of you. Yet your jealous disposition magnifies every little circumstance, and thus you are continually making yourself unhappy when no real cause exists. You are to strive against such an unfortunate disposition at all times. And it can be eradicated. It is not the liberally educated, those who have read much and thought more, who are thus suspicious and jealous in disposition; but it is the narrow-minded, the illiterate, and the vulgar.

"For of all sad words of tongue or pen, The saddest are these, 'It might have been.'"

—WHITTIER.

There is not a word in the English tongue which signifies more than the word regret. It expresses every degree of pain in the gamut of sorrow, from the childish regret for a lost plaything, to the remorse which, when the sands of life are almost run, contemplates a wasted life.

There are none who have not felt its potency; no age escapes it, and such will ever be the case as long as it is human to err. But as pain and sickness are the sentinels which guard the life and health of the body, so it is regret which keeps conscience alive in man and sustains the moral faculties in the discharge of duty. Life is full of sorrowful scenes, so much that could not have been avoided; but how much added force there is to sorrow when we reflect that we are to blame—that we knew at the time that we were doing wrong—that we disregarded the warning voice of conscience, contemptuously rejected the proffered advice of others, and have nothing to extenuate the keen regret gathered with the harvest of sorrow sown by our own negligence.

The profoundest sorrow is not brought upon us by the world, by its bitterness, its malice, its injustice, or its persecution. These, indeed, affect us, and make us wiser, more weak, or more brave. We can, if we choose, repel the world's wrongs. We can laugh at the injuries inflicted upon us, and hurl defiance upon them; or, if we can not command this spirit, we may patiently endure what we do not resent. But the sorrows we bring upon ourselves by our own lack of discretion, or heedless obstinacy, when regret adds its sting, then it is that we experience what real sorrow is. We can not then repel its attacks with indifference.

Regret is the heart's sorrow for past offenses,—the soul's prompting to better actions. Have you ever stood by the grave of one dear to you, and been compelled to remember how much happier you might have made that life which has now passed beyond your reach? Has the hasty or unkind word ever come back to you and repeated itself over and over, until you would gladly have given a year of your own life to have recalled it, and made it as if it had never been? Let us remember that those who are now living may soon be dead, and beware of adding to the things done that ought not to have been done, the things undone that ought to have been done. Many a heart has languished for the tenderness withheld in life, but poured out too late in remorse and unavailing regret.