Year: 1869

The Dear Creatures Considered.


The first yawn of her spouse is, nc
doubt, u severe trial to the vanity Of


the bride. There are few girls who
have not built pretty castles in Spain
OF felicity uninterrupted by bore.
dom or butchers bills, and there are


without question, some quiet people
who fancy they attain to il. The
country parsonage, for instance, often
contains two beings who smile be-
nignly on each other for long tracts
of years, whose mornings and moons
and nights are passed i'm one another's
society, and who reach threescore
and ten without the slightest suspic-
ion of weariness or desire for wider
circle of sympathy. In other words,
there are vegetables to whom it Is
natural to vegetate, rs there are wo-
men to whom 1t Is natural to live.-
And life If 1t means anything means
variety and change. 1t is odd to
think how on that one yawn hangs
the freedom of years to come. It Is
the bugle that sings truce. 1t is q
tacit convention which leaves the
husband his club and the wife her in
dependence. No people can be more
touchingly attentive to each others
wants. The spouse finds his break
fast on the table, his Times cut for
him, his letters arranged, his overcoat
brushed in the hall, the timetable
open at the proper page. The one re-
turn asked for Is that of absence for
the day. A sensible husband agrees
with the pretty reasoner before him
that "a man should have something
to do" that lettering at home is
hardly manly thing, that con-
stant association blunts the edge of
affection, that he "has n wife to
think of now" and n world to win
for her, that if he entirely gives up
his old friends, she shall never forgive
herself The sensible man, we repeat,
takes his umbrella and leaves the
pretty little reasoner his name and
her freedom. Not that she has the
least passion for liberty. To the
world she sighs gently for the down
fall of her hopes. Her one joy would
be to have her husband with her.
She would be delighted if he found
more pleasure in her drawing-room,
more charms in her society. She re-
grets that while other people seem to
find her attractive, her attraction
loses its power over the one heart in
the world for which she cares. And
sometimes in an evil hour the one
heart listens and believes. He leaves
his umbrella idle in the hall. The
club sees him no more; men chat In
the billiard room over his luxurious
ness and the pretty little face that
prisons him at home. Only the little
face itself is not quite so pretty as it
was in the tenderness of its regret
The resigned little martyr has no no
ton of being robbed of the halo of
martyrdom. Insensibly the spouse
finds it harder to remain at her feet.
He hates music and he is whirled from
opera to opera. The piano is hard at
work throughout the day, and con-
vcrsation will run on nothing but
Schumann and Weber. He likes pol
itics, and n blank little face listens as
well as it may to his stories of the
last division or his theories as to the
possible Premier. He is used to his
quiet evenings at his club, to his cigar
and his piquet; and he finds a mob
in the drawing-room, and the smell
of the divine weed absolutely insult
fcrable to his wife. In the long run
he takes to his old life of isolation,
and the neglected being wins the
sympathy of her sex as she reassumes
her position of semi-detached wife,
And unfortunately she now and then
wins the sympathy of the other sex
too. Men wonder how Brown can
treat his wife so badly, can leave her
to neglect and to n thousand tempta-
tiOns. He has but one defender, and
that is the wife whom he abandons.
She could have wished it had been
otherwise; that II sympathy of soul
had bound them together. AS it is,
she will only accept just n very little
perfectly innocent sympathy else
where. Friendship of thepurcst and
highest kind may be suffered to adj
minister its inadequate consultations.
But the litany of the church of Plato


must be chauntcd without note Of
pity for herself or of blame for her
spouse. Between such clashing rocks
the friend must steer his boat into
that sweet mysterious sea. Ii is with
touching reserve that the victim Of
his caprice accepts her liberty, for she
is after all wife, and her ring gives
her n liberty denied to maidcns. She
is musical, and can practice for whole
afternoons with that gallant young
tenor in the Guards. She il artistic,
and what can be more charming than
n tctc-a-tete with that blushing Car
mine over his skctch-book ? She has
n taste for poetry, and poets couch at
her feet To read sonncts in the tender
light Of the parting day, The wide
circle Of friendship opens before her.
She listens to the condolences of happy
and unhappy lovers. Life becomes
varied, busy, interesting. Her good
temper, her vivacity, her sunny hap
pinCss redress the wrongs of herhomc,
and society borrows gentle light
and sweetness from the scmi-detached
wife. The picture is pretty; but it