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her in the deep and fervent love of which she is capable, otherwise than humble, and easily subdued; especially when she comes with childlike simplicity to consult the dial of her husband's love, and to read there the progress of the advancing or receding shadows, which indicate her only true position, through the lapse of every hour.

It is an act of injustice towards women, and one which often brings its own punishment upon talented men, when they select as their companions for life, the ignorant or the imbecile of the other sex, believing that because they are so, they must be more capable of loving. If to be incapable of any thing else, implies this necessity, it must be granted that they are so. But of what value is that love which exists as a mere impulse of nature, compared with that, which, with an equal force of impulse, combines the highest attributes of an enlightened mind, and brings them all with their rich produce, like flowers from a delicious garden, a welcome and appropriate offering at the shrine whereon the heart is laid.

Still I must repeat, that it is not the superiority of talent, but the early and the best use of such as we possess, which gives this power and beauty to affection, by directing it to its appropriate end. For as in other duties of woman's life, without knowledge she cannot, if she would, act properly; so in the expression and bestowment of her love, without an intimate acquaintance with the human heart, without having exercised her faculties of observation and reflection, and without having obtained by early discipline some mastery over her own feelings, she will ever be liable to rush blindly upon those fatal errors, by which the love of married life so often has been wrecked.

In connection with this subject, there is one consideration to which sufficient weight is seldom given; and that is, the importance of never trifling with affection after the nuptual knot is tied. To do this at any time, or in any way, is scarcely consistent with the feelings of a deeply sensitive and delicate mind: but leaving the display of caprice to those

who think it gives zest to the familiarity of courtship, it cannot be too deeply impressed upon the female mind, that with the days of courtship it must end.

There are innumerable tests which might be applied to the love of married life, so as to ascertain the degree of its intensity, or the progress of its declension; but who would wish to apply them?-or who, even if they did, would dare to make so critical an experiment? If there be any cause for its existence, the consciousness comes soon enough, that the wife is not all to her husband which the flattering promises of early love prepared her to expect; and if there be no cause for the slightest shadow of suspicion that her star is beginning to go down, why trouble her own repose, and that of her husband, by questioning the reality of what it would be worse than death to doubt?

All teasing, all caprice, all acting, for the purpose of renewing an agreeable effect, are therefore inimical to the mutual trust, and the steady confidence in reciprocal affection, which are, or ought to be, enjoyed by individuals thus bound together by an indissoluble tie. Not that the writer would for a moment wish to discountenance that harmless vivacity with which some women know so well how to charm; or to speak of the privacy of married life as consisting of dull and sombre scenes. So far from this, it is her firm belief, that nothing tends more to animate and renew the feeling of affection in the mind of man, than the cheerfulness of his fireside companion.

It is here, then, that the display of native wit and humor may be enjoyed with the greatest zest, for here it is safe; and the husband who comes home to have his spirit refreshed by an easy, natural, and well-timed description of the amusing incidents which have taken place during his absence, will not be the most likely to prefer another fireside to his own.

Even in illness, but especially when laboring only under a slight degree of indisposition, by those who have made cheerfulness a familiar habit, much may be done to prevent the dou

ble burden of sickness and sorrow falling upon a husband at once.

There is a vast difference between being as ill as you can be, and as well as you can be. To aim at the latter rather than the former, is the duty of every one, but especially of the married woman, the great business of whose life is to soothe and cheer, not to depress, to weary, or to annoy. If therefore, before marriage, she has been deluded into the notion that a multiplicity of little ailments invested her character with an interesting kind of delicacy; the sooner she becomes perfectly well after marriage, the better it will be for herself, and for all around her. Lest, however, the liberty of these remarks should appear to touch unkindly those who are really afflicted, I must refer the reader for a proof of what may be done in the way of bearing pain with cheerfulness and resignation, to those many beautiful instances which adorn the history of woman, where her own sufferings appear to be forgotten in the intensity of her desire to make others happy. And here again we see the necessity of having made such acts of self-sacrifice habitual. No human being, however great the momentary effort, can practise this kind of self-government, or consistently exercise this degree of generosity, merely from the force of transient impulse; and when the greater claims upon the attention of a wife render illness to her a more painful and trying ordeal than it has ever been before, she will feel the greater need of having practised, in her early years, the habit of so far restraining the expression of personal feeling, as by making the best of ber afflictions, and gratefully embracing such opportunities of enjoyment as still remain, to be able to render it not an irksome duty, but a privilege, to be near her in sickness and suffering.

It is a great pity when those trials which render affection so essential to our support, should be made the means of driving it away. Nor is it at all necessary that this should be the case with men; for there is a kindness, and a forbearance, mingled with their higher virtues, which sometimes elicits from them

the most devoted and delicate attentions in the season of illness; and all who have experienced, and felt the real value of such attentions, will estimate them too highly, to be willing that a habit of fretful or unnecessary complaining should thus deprive the hour of suffering of its greatest earthly consolation. It would not be just, even if it were possible, to speak on this subject, and to leave unmarked by expressions of gratitude and admiration, the gentle kindness and untiring patience, with which some men can devote themselves to the duties of a sick-room; or how, by their superior strength, added sometimes to a higher degree of tenderness and delicacy, they can render those services to a weak or suffering wife, which nothing but the love of married life can either purchase or repay. But though one would willingly forgive the wife, who for the gratification afforded by such kindness, would almost wish to suffer, it must ever be remembered, that not by complaining of every little ache and pain, is such kindness to be purchased; but by bearing, with sweetness and serenity, those trials which the all-wise Disposer of human events sees meet to inflict.

It is in seasons such as these, that the perfect identity originating in the marriage bond, is most deeply felt-that identity which gives a spiritual nature to an earthly union. It is true we are told there is no such thing as giving in marriage in heaven; but we are left to enjoy the happiness of believing, that there is something almost heavenly in the "marriage of true minds"-something which brings us nearer, than any other circumstance in this sublunary state, to an apprehension of what must be the enjoyment of those regions of felicity, where all existences are blended into one, and where the essential principle of that one is love.

Nor is it the least wonderful property belonging to this drop of sweetness in life's great ocean, that it can exist almost independently of outward circumstances. How many of the hapless inheritors of poverty and suffering have nothing else; and yet their lot is scarcely to be called bitter, so long

as they have this. On the other hand, how many a desolate but jewelled brow, would doff its envied wreath, for the privilege of sharing this enjoyment with one who was equally loving and beloved!

Let us not, however, fall into the romantic notion, that outward circumstances have nothing to do with the maintenance of this strong feeling of identity. Poverty of itself, or privation in the abstract, would probably never be able to shake the foundation of man's love, or woman's either; but such is the complicated texture of the human mind, that no single portion of suffering or enjoyment exists to us alone, but each draws along with it a train of associating links, by which it is connected sometimes with what is most heterogeneous and dissimilar to its own nature. Thus it is the manner in which poverty is borne, which so frequently constitutes the greatest trial of love-the mutual complainings, recriminations, and suspicions, which it calls forth; not its suffering, its destitution, and its abasement, for under these it is within the province of love to support and to console; and, on the other hand, it is the vanity, the dissipation, and the diversity of interests excited by circumstances of extraordinary prosperity, which often prove fatal to the love of married life; when the wider range of duties and privileges, belonging to an exalted station, might have constituted a stronger bond of sympathy between individuals thus elevated together.

Thus the fault is not in the love of married life, that it gives way so often under the trial of outward circumstances; but in the power so frequently brought to bear against it, from the wrong feelings which circumstances are allowed to call into action.

Of man's love it must ever be remembered too, that if once destroyed, it is destroyed forever. Woman has the strong power of her sympathy and her imagination, by which interest can be re-awakened, and the past can be made to live again; but the nature of man's affection admits of no very potent stimulus from such causes. When once his tenderness toward the object of his affection

is extinguished, his love may too truly be said to have lost its bloom, its freshness, and its intensity. A sense of duty may still supply what propriety requires, and a feeling that his doom is fixed may prevent any great expenditure of thought in sad and unavailing regrets; but who that has looked "on this picture and on that"-who that has observed the dull and leaden aspect presented by married life under these circumstances, could contemplate with equanimity of mind, the possibility of its succeeding in the place of that bright and glowing picture first brought to light by the early promise of mutual love?

It should then be the first and last study of every married woman, to preserve this picture in all its purity, and all its freshness; remembering ever that it is not from the great and stirring accidents of time, that the most danger is to be apprehended; but that sometimes

"A word unkind or wrongly taken;

Or Love, which tempest never shook, A breath a touch like this hath shaken." It is not, therefore, by exemption from outward calamity, that woman can preserve this treasure of her life; but by maintaining through all the little incidents of daily intercourse a true and faithful heart towards her husband-true in its own affections-true also to the various requirements of human nature -and true in its attachment to his interests, both as they relate to time and to eternity.

CHAPTER VII.

TRIALS OF MARRIED LIFE.

IF in describing the domestic happiness of English homes, the love of married life were all which had to be dwelt upon, the task of the writer would be like that of one who enters a garden for no other purpose than to cull the flowers; but as among the fairest productions of nature, the intrusion of noxious weeds must ever be anticipated; so among the brighter scenes of human life, dark pas

sages must occasionally be expected; and happy will it be if they only appear like passing clouds over the landscape, leaving the aspect of the whole more vivid and beautiful, for the trifling interruption to its sameness and repose.

fairs, at all to be compared with those which belong to the close intercourse of persons of dissimilar habits bound together for life.

It is a curious fact, that however irritable the temper may be, a stranger has comparatively no power to ruffle it; while, on the That married life has its peculiar trials, it other hand, the closer the intimacy, the would imply great ignorance of the actual greater is the liability both to pain and prostate of human affairs to attempt to disprove; vocation, where that intimacy is made use of and while we gladly admit the fact, that it is as a key to the secret passages of the heart. possible to be happier in this state, than any Hence the bland and patient smiles with human being can be alone; we must also which a stranger is sometimes listened to, bear in mind, that it is possible to be more when a sister or a brother conversing in the miserable too-perhaps for this very reason, same style, would scarcely be endured; and that the greatest trials connected with this hence the peevish answer sometimes bestate of existence, are such as cannot be told, stowed upon a husband, when a guest is imand therefore such as necessarily set the suf-mediately spoken to in the gentlest and most ferer apart from all human sympathy and conciliating tone. consolation. Many of these, however, may be greatly ameliorated by a willingness to meet them in a proper way; but more especially, by an habitual subjection of self to the interests and the happiness of others.

Among the trials peculiar to married life, we will first speak of those of temper; and here it is necessary to refer again to the common delusion prevailing among young women, which leads them to look forward to the time of marriage, as the opening of a scene of unlimited indulgence, where every wish will be consulted, and every inclination gratified to its full extent, and where consequently it will be impossible that offences should ever come.

There is something, too, in the bare fact of being indissolubly bound together, which, instead of rendering it for that reason an object of supreme desire that the bondage should be one of silken cords, rather than one of weary chains, seems to produce in the human mind, a sort of perverse determination to bear, whatever must be borne, as badly as we can.

That the prospect of having to combat with any trial of temper but for a very limited space of time, has a peculiar effect in rendering it more tolerable, we have sufficient proof in the conduct of hired nurses, who, perhaps, of all human beings, have the most to put up with in the way of provocations of this kind. It requires but little reflection to perceive, It cannot be supposed that persons of this that even if the husband had been sincere in description possess any peculiar advantages all the promises, which as a lover he held in the way of mental discipline, to give them forth, it would not be in his power to render this power of self-command; nor is it a questhe lot of any woman one of uninterrupted tion of self interest, for of all persons, that enjoyment; for however faithfully his own would be most likely to operate upon part might be fulfilled, it would still be the wife; either have they time or opportuinevitable consequence of thus setting cutity, in the majority of cases, for attaching together in the serious business of conducting themselves by any feelings of affection to the a household, that circumstances should press objects of their care. It is the simple fact that upon both, so as either to thwart their incli- all will soon be over, and that to them it is nations, or bend them to submission. Be- ultimately of no sort of consequence, which yond these, however, it must be allowed, that enables them to bear with such amazing equathere are no trials of temper arising out of nimity the trials of patience to which they the cross occurrences incident to family af- are so frequently subjected; while, on the

the

other hand, the consideration that it must be thus, and thus always, appears at once to excite a spirit of resistance where resistance is most vain.

One thing, however, is certain in such a case-it is not by ebullitions of momentary indignation that an idle man can be stimulated into action. So far from it, he will rather be made worse, and rendered more obstinately idle by any direct opposition to the indulgence of his personal inclinations. Whatever good is to be done in such a case, can only be effected from the convictions of his own mind, brought about by the quiet operation of affectionate and judicious reasoning; for if the wife should be unguarded enough to throw out reproaches against him, repre

But granting that there is, inherent in the human mind, this spirit of contradiction, and granting also that men, with all their dignified and noble attributes, are sometimes, though often unconsciously, indescribably provoking to an irritable temperament; there is one consideration which a generous mind will be ever willing to dwell upon with so much candor, as at least to make concessions when it has been betrayed into any excess of irrita-senting the disgusting nature of idleness in bility, if not wholly to submit with cheerfulness and resignation to this peculiar dispensation, regarding it as among the appointments of Providence, designed for purposes inscrutable perhaps to human reason, yet not the less in accordance with mercy, and with wisdom.

But in order to judge more candidly on this subject, let us single out a few instances of the most familiar kind on both sides; and if the merit of unconsciousness, and absence of design, does not preponderate on the side of man, I shall be much mistaken in my calculations.

I have always been accustomed to consider it as the severest trial to the temper of a married woman, to have an idle husband; and if in addition to neglecting his business, or such manly occupations as an exemption from the necessities of business would leave him at liberty to pursue, he is personally idle, sitting slipshod at noontime, with his feet upon the fender, occasionally jarring together the whole army of fire-irons with one stroke of his foot, agitated at intervals by the mere muscular irritation of having nothing to do, or not choosing to do any thing; and if he should happen to have chosen for his wife a woman of active bustling character, as such men not unfrequently do, I believe I must, as in some other instances, leave it to the reader to suggest some possible means by which such a woman may at all times control her temper, and keep the peace at her own fireside.

its true colors; or if she should seek to es-
tablish her own claims to his exertions, so as
to convey an idea of her arguments tending
to a selfish end, she might as well
go kindle fire with snow,"

11

as attempt to rouse her husband into healthy and consistent habits of activity by such

means.

Here, too, we might mention as pre-eminent among the trials of married life, though I question whether it operates so immediately upon the temper as some others, the ruinous propensity inherent in the nature of some men, to spend their own money, and sometimes the money of their friends, in vague speculations and visionary schemes.

The man who is possessed with this mania, for in certain cases it deserves no other name, is neither to be convinced by argument nor experience, that after ninety-nine failures, he is not very likely to succeed the hundredth time; and the wife who knows that the maintenance of herself and her family is entirely dependent upon him, has abundant need for supplies of strength and patience beyond what any earthly source can afford.

Among other causes of irritation, and forming reasonable ground of complaint, is the disposition evinced by some men to be inconsiderate and cruel to animals; and this I must think, is one of the cases in which we are recommended to be angry, and sin not. Yet even in this instance, when we look at the education of boys-and consider the absence there is of all regard to the feelings of

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