Chapter IV: Part 4

To most men the awakening comes too late if it comes at all. Only when the faded eyes are closed and the worn hands folded forever; when "mother" is beyond the reach of praise or blame, her married boy realises what has been done. With that first shock comes bitterest repentance--and he never forgives his wife. Many a woman who complains of "coldness" and "lost love" might trace it back to the day her husband's mother died, and to the sudden flash of insight, the adjustment of relation, which comes with death.

The comic papers have made the mother-in-law a thing to be dreaded. She is the poster attached to the matrimonial magazine which inspires would-be purchasers with awe. Many an engaged girl confides to her best friend that her fiancé's mother is "an old cat." She usually goes still further, and gives jealousy as the cause of it.

No right-minded mother was ever jealous of the woman her son chose for his wife. But she has seen how marriage changes men and naturally fears the result. The altar is the grave of many a boy's love for his mother. Neither of the women most intimately concerned is blind to the impending possibilities; it is only man who cannot see.

[Sidenote: One in a Thousand]

There are some girls who realise what it means, but they are few and far between. One in a thousand, perhaps, will openly acknowledge her debt to the woman who for twenty-five or thirty years has given her best thought to the man she is about to marry.

Is he strong and active, healthy and finely moulded? It is his mother's care for the first sixteen years of his life. It is the result of her anxious days and of many a sleepless night, while the potential man was racked with fever and childish ills. His chivalrous devotion to the girl he loves is wholly due to his mother's influence. His clean and open-hearted manliness is a free gift to her, from the woman now characterised as "an old cat."

It is seldom that the mother receives credit for his virtues, but she is invariably blamed for his faults. Too many women expect a man to be cut out by their pattern. The supreme mental achievement is the ability to judge other people by their own standards, and a crank is not necessarily a person whose rules of life and conduct do not coincide with our own.

[Sidenote: The Thirst for Power]

To this thirst for power may be traced all of woman's vanity. It is commonly supposed that she dresses to please others, but she often values fine raiment principally because it shows how much her husband thinks of her. If a man's coat is shiny at the seams and he postpones the new one that his wife may have an extra hat, she is delicately flattered by this unselfish tribute to her charm.

From a single root vanity spreads and flowers until its poisonous blooms affect all social life. A woman becomes vain of her house, her rugs, her tapestries, her jewels, horses, and even of the livery of her footman. The things which should be valued for their intrinsic beauty and the pleasure-giving quality, which is not by any means selfish, soon become food for a vice.

She gradually grows to consider herself a very superior person. She is so charming and so much to be desired, that some man works night and day in his office, sacrificing both pleasure and rest, that she may have the baubles for which she yearns.

It is not far from absolute self-satisfaction, in either man or woman, to generous bestowal of enlightenment upon the unfortunate savages who linger on the outskirts of one's social sphere.

In the infinite vastness of creation, where innumerable worlds move according to the fiat of majestic Law, there lies one called Earth. There are planets within reach of the scientific vision of its inhabitants that are many times larger. There are some which have more moons, more mountains and rivers, longer days, and longer years. Countless suns, the centres of other vast planetary systems, lie in the inconceivable distances beyond.

[Sidenote: A Mote in the Sun]

In the midst of this unspeakable greatness, Earth swings like one of the motes which a passing sunbeam illumines. Upon this mote, one fifth of the inhabitants have assumed supreme knowledge and understanding, given them, doubtless, because of their innate superiority. This preferment, also, is theirs by the grace of an infinitely just and merciful God.

The other four fifths are supposedly in total darkness, though the same heavens are over their heads, the same earth under their feet, and though the light of sun and moon and the gentle radiance of the stars are freely given to all.

There are the same opportunities for development and civilisation, but they have not received The Enlightenment. To them must go the foreign missionaries, to teach the things which have been graciously given them on account of their innate superiority.

[Sidenote: Narrowing Circles]

Man's life is a succession of narrowing circles. He admits the force of the heliocentric idea, for it is the sun which gives light and heat. Then the circle narrows, almost imperceptibly, for, of all the planets which circle around the sun, is not Earth the chief?

This point being gained, he is inside the geocentric circle. Earth is the centre of creation. Sun, moon, and stars are auxiliary forces, bountifully arranged by the Giver of all Good for Earth's beauty and comfort. Of all the creatures who share in this, is not man the most important? Thus he retreats to the anthropocentric circle.

[Sidenote: By Strength of Mind and Arm]

Man is the centre of organic life, and it is easily seen that his race is far superior to the others. Their skins are not the same colour, their ships are not so mighty, their cunning with weapons is infinitely less. His race is dominant by strength of mind and arm.

The dark-skinned races must be taught civilisation, with fire and sword, with cannon and bayonet, with crime and death. They must be civilised before they can be happy. The naked savage who sits beneath a palm tree, with his hut in the distance, while his wife and children hover around him, is happy only because he is too ignorant to know what happiness is.

In order to be rightly happy, he must have a fine house, carriages, and servants, and live in a crowded city where tall buildings and smoke limit one's horizon to a narrow patch of blue. He must struggle daily with his fellows, not for the necessaries of life, but for small pieces of silver and bits of green paper, which are not nearly as pretty as glass beads.

The savage, unaccustomed to refinement, stabs or beheads his enemy. Civilisation will teach him the uses of poison, and that putting typhoid germs into the drinking water of an Emperor is much more delicate and fully as effectual.

[Sidenote: The Sublime Egotism]

From this small circle, it is only a step to the centre and to that sublime egotism which has been named Vanity.

Man repeats in his own life the development of a nation. He progresses from unquestioning happiness to childish inquiry and wonder, from fairy tales of princes and dragons to actual knowledge; through inquiry to doubt, through faith to disbelief, through civilisation to decay.

He is not content to let other nations and others races pursue their normal development. He insists that the work of centuries be crowded into a generation. And in the same manner, the growth and strivings of his fellows call forth his unselfish aid. Having infinite treasures of mental equipment, gained by superior opportunity and wider experience, he will generously share his noble possessions.

[Sidenote: Personal Vanity]

It is personal vanity of the most flagrant type which intrudes itself, unasked, into other people's affairs. There are few of us who do not feel capable of ordering the daily lives of others, down to the most minute detail.

We know how their houses should be arranged, how they should spend and invest their money, how they should dress, how they should comport themselves, and more definitely yet do we know the things they should not do. We know what is right and what is wrong, while they, poor things! do not. We know whom and when they should marry, how their children should be educated and trained, and what servants they should employ.

We know for what pursuit each one is best fitted and how each should occupy his spare time. We know to what church all should go; what creed all should believe. We know what particular traits are faults and how these can be corrected. We know so much about other people that we often have not time to give due attention to ourselves. We neglect our own affairs that we may unselfishly direct others, and sometimes suffer in consequence, for nobody but a lawyer makes a good living by attending to other people's business.

[Sidenote: Theoretically]

Theoretically, this should be pleasing to each one. Every person of sense should be delighted at being told just what to do. It would relieve him from all care, all responsibility; the necessity for thought, planning, and individual judgment would be wholly removed.

The musical student would not have to select his own instrument, his own teacher, nor even his own practice time. Every author would know just how and when to write, and in order to become famous, he need only act upon the suggestions for stories and improvement of style which are gratuitously given him from day to day, by people who cannot write a clear and correct sentence. This thing actually happened; consequently it is just the theme for fiction. This plot, suitably developed, would make the nations sit up, and send the race by hundred thousands to the corner bookstore.

The cares incident to selecting a wardrobe would be wholly removed. Every woman knows how every other should dress. Her sure taste selects at a glance the thing which will best become the other, and over which the Unenlightened may ponder for hours.

[Sidenote: A Common Vanity]

There is no more common vanity than claiming to "know" some particular person. We are "all things to all men." The two who love each other better than all the world beside, have much knowledge, but it is not by any means complete. "Souls reach out to each other across the impassable gulfs of individual being." And yet, daily, people who have no sympathy with us, and scarcely a common interest, will assume to "know" us, when we do not fully know ourselves, and when we earnestly hide our real selves from all save the single soul we love.

To assume intimate knowledge of the hundred considerations which make up a single situation, the various complexities of temperament and disposition which the personal equation continually produces in human affairs, of the imperceptible fibres of the web which lies between two souls, preventing always the fullest understanding, unless Love, the magician, gives new sight--amounts to the proclamation of practical Omnipotence.

[Sidenote: "I Told You So"]

There is no position in life which is secure. No complication ever comes to our friends, which our advice, acted upon, would not immediately solve. If our most minute directions are not thankfully received and put into effect, there is always the comforting indication of superiority--"I told you so."

And when the jaded soul revolts in supreme defiance, declaring its right to its own life, its own duties, its own friendships, and its own loves, there is much expressed disgust, much misfortune predicted, and, saddest of all, much wounded vanity.

The dominant egotism forbids that anything shall be better than itself. No success is comparable to one's own, no life so wisely ordered, and there is nothing so sad as the fame attained by those who do not follow our advice.

Adversity is commonly accepted as the test of friendship, but there is another more certain still--success. Anyone may bestow pity. It is fatally easy to offer to those less fortunate than ourselves; whose capabilities have not proved adequate, as ours have; but it requires fine gifts of generous feeling to be genuinely glad at another's good fortune, in which we cannot by any possibility hope to share.

[Sidenote: Advice]

Advice is usually to be had for the asking. In the case of a corporation attorney or a specialist, there is a high value placed upon it, but it is to be freely had from those who love us, and, strangely enough, from those who do not.

It is one of the blessings of love, that all the experience of another, all the battles of the other soul, are laid open for our better understanding of our own path. But there is a subtle distinction between the counsel of love and that of vanity. The one is unselfishly glad of our achievements, taking new delight in every step upward, while the other passes over triumphs in silence and carps upon the misfortune until it is not to be borne.

From the intimate union of two loving souls, Vanity is forever shut out. Jealousy dare not show her malignant face. These two are facing the world together, side by side and shoulder to shoulder, each the other's strength and shield.

Success may come only after many failures; the tide may not turn till after long discouragement and great despair. But in the union with that other soul, so gently baring its inmost dream that the other may understand, defeat loses its sting.

[Sidenote: The Sanctuary of that Other Soul]

Ambition forever beckons, like a will o' the wisp. When realisation seems within easy reach, the dream fades, or another, seemingly unattainable, mockingly takes its place. But in the sanctuary of that other soul, there is always new courage to be found. Long aisles and quiet spaces lessen the fever and the unrest. Darkness and cool shadows soothe the burning eyes, and in the clasp of those loving arms there is certain sleep.

Vanity cares for nothing which is not in some way its own, and it is perhaps an amorphous vanity, as carbon is akin to a diamond, that makes a hard-won victory doubly dear.

There are always sycophants to fawn and flatter, there are hands that will gladly help that they may claim their share of the result, but that realised dream is wholly sweet in which only the dreamer and the other soul have fully believed. Failure, even, is more easily borne if it is entirely one's own; if there is no one else to be blamed.

[Sidenote: The Bitter Proof]

"Vanity of vanities, all is vanity." So spake the prophet in Jerusalem and the centuries have brought the bitter proof. Vanity has reared palaces which have vanished like the architecture of a mirage. Vanity has led the hosts against itself.

Where are Babylon and Nineveh; the hanging gardens and the splendour of forgotten kings? Where are Cæsar and Cleopatra; Trianon and Marie Antoinette? Where is the lordly Empire of France? Is it buried with military honours, in the grave of the exiled Napoleon?

Vanity's pomp endureth for a day, but Vanity itself is perennial. Vanity sets whole races of men in motion, pitting them against each other across intervening seas.

One woman has a stone, no larger than a pea, brought from a mine in South Africa. Vanity sets it proudly upon her breast and leads other women to envy her its possession, for purely selfish reasons. One woman's gown is made from a plant which grows in Georgia and she is unhappy because it is not the product of a French or Japanese worm.

One woman's coat is woven from the covering of a sheep, and she is not content because it has not cost a greater number of silver pieces and more bits of green paper, besides the life of an Arctic seal, that never harmed her nor hers.

Vanity allows a tender-hearted woman, who cannot see a child or a dumb brute in pain, to order the tails of her horses cut to the fashionable length and to wear upon her hat the pitiful little body of a song-bird that has been skinned alive.

Vanity permits a woman to trim the outer garments of the little stranger for whose coming she has long waited and prayed, with pretty, fluffy fur torn from the unborn baby of another mother--who is only a sheep. Vanity permits a woman to insist that her combs and pins shall be real tortoise-shell, which is obtained from the quivering animal by roasting it alive before a slow fire.

[Sidenote: All is Vanity]

"Vanity of vanities, all is vanity!" The mad race still goes on. It is insatiate vanity which wrecks lives, ruins homes, torments one's fellows, and blinds the clear vision of its victims. It harms others, but most of all one's self.

[Sidenote: The Conqueror]

There is only one place from which it is shut out--from the union with that other soul. Great as it is, there is still a greater force; there is the inevitable conqueror, for Vanity cannot exist side by side with Love.

Widowers and Widows

Widowers and Widows

Next to burglars, mice, and green worms, every normal girl fears a widow. Courtships have been upset and expected proposals have vanished into thin air, simply because a widow has come into the game. There is only one thing to do in such a case; retreat gracefully, and leave the field to her.

[Sidenote: The Charm]

A widow's degree of blandishment is conservatively estimated at twenty-five spinster power. At almost every session of spinsters, the question comes up for discussion. It is difficult to see just where the charm lies.

A widow has, of course, a superior knowledge of ways and means. She has fully learned the value of silence, of food, and of judicious flattery. But these accomplishments may be acquired by the observing spinster who gives due attention to the subject.

The mystery lies deeper than is first suspected. It is possible that the knowledge of her own limitations has something to do with it. A girl who has been flattered, adored, placed upon a pedestal and worshipped, naturally comes to the conclusion that she belongs there. She issues her commands from that height and conveys to man various delicate reminders of his servility.

[Sidenote: The Pedestal Idea]

When the same girl is married and by due operation of natural law becomes a widow, she doubtless has come to a better understanding of the pedestal idea. Hence she does not attempt the impossible, and satisfies herself with working those miracles which are comparatively simple.

A widow has all of the freedom of a girl, combined with the liberty of a married woman. She has the secure social position of a matron without the drawback of a husband. She is nearer absolute independence than other women are ever known to be.

Where a girl is strong and self-reliant, a widow is helpless and confiding. She can never carry her own parcels, put on her own overshoes, or button her own gloves. A widow's shoe laces have never been known to stay tied for any length of time, unless she has shapeless ankles and expansive feet.

A widow's telegrams must always be taken to the office by some man. Time-tables are beyond her understanding and she never knows about trains. It frequently takes three or four men to launch a widow upon a two-hundred-mile journey, while a girl can start across the continent with considerably less commotion.

[Sidenote: The Inference]

The inference is, of course, that she has been accustomed to these delicate attentions--that the dear departed has always done such things. The pretty way in which she asks favours carries out the delusion. He would be a brute, indeed, who could refuse the little service for which she pleads.

The dear departed, naturally, was delighted to do these things, or he would not have done them--such being the way of the married man. Consequently, the lady was very tenderly loved--and men follow each other like sheep in matters of the heart.

The attraction a widower has for a girl is in inverse proportion to a widow's influence over a man. It is true that the second wife is usually better treated than the first, and that the new occupant of a man's heart reaps the benefit of her predecessor's training. But it is not until spinsterhood is fully confirmed by grey hair and the family Bible that a girl begins to look with favour upon the army of the detached.

[Sidenote: The Food of her Soul]

It seems to her that all the romance is necessarily gone--and it is romance upon which her soul feeds. There can be none of that dear delight in the first home building, which is the most beautiful part of marriage to a girl. Her pretty concern about draperies and colours is all an old story to the man. She may even have to buy her kitchen ware all alone, and it is considered the nicest thing in the world to have a man along when pots and pans are bought.

If widowers and widows would only mate with each other, instead of trespassing upon the hunting grounds of the unmarried! It is an exceptional case in which the bereaved are not mutually wary. They seem to prefer the unfair advantage gained by having all the experience on one side.

The normal man proposes with ease and carelessness, but the ceremony is second nature to a widower. If he meets a girl he likes, he proceeds at once to business and is slow indeed for his kind if he does not offer his hand and heart within a week.

A clever man once wrote a story, describing the coming of a girl to a widower's house. With care and forethought, the dying wife had left a letter for her successor, which the man fearlessly gave her before she had taken off her hat, because, as the story-teller naïevely adds, "she was twenty-eight and very sane."

[Sidenote: A Nice Letter]

This letter proved to be various admonitions to the bride and earnest hopes that she might make her husband happy. It was all very pretty and it was surely a nice letter, but no woman could fail to see that it was an exquisite revenge upon the man who had been rash enough to install another in the place of the dead.

There was not a line which was not kind, nor a word which did not contain a hidden sting. It would be enough to make one shudder all one's life--this hand of welcome extended from the grave. Yet everything continued happily--perhaps because a man wrote the story.

A woman demands not only all of a man's life, but all of his thoughts after she is dead. The grave may hide much, but not that particular quality in woman's nature. If it is common to leave letters for succeeding wives, it is done with sinister purpose.

Romance is usually considered an attribute of youth, and possibly the years bring views of marriage which are impossible to the younger generation. No girl, in her wildest moments, ever dreams of marrying a widower with three or four children, yet, when she is well on in her thirties, with her heart still unsatisfied, she often does that very thing, and happily at that.

[Sidenote: The Hidden Heartache]

Still, there must be a hidden heartache, for woman, with her love of love, is unable to understand the series of distinct and unrelated episodes which make up the love of a man. It is hard to take the crumbs another woman has left, especially if a goodly portion of a man's heart is suspected to lie in the grave.

It is harder still, if helpless children are daily to look into her face, with eyes which are neither hers nor his, and the supreme crucifixion in the life of a woman whose ideals have not changed, is to go into a home which has been made by the hands of a dead and dearly loved wife.

To a woman, material things are always heavily laden with memories. There is not a single article of furniture which has not its own individuality. She cannot consider a piece of embroidery apart from the dead hands that made it, nor a chair without some association with its previous occupants.

Sometimes the rooms are heavily laden with portraits which are to confront her from day to day with the taunting presence. She is obliged to tell callers that the crayon upon the opposite wall is "the first Mrs. ----." There are also pictures of the first wife's dead children, and here and there the inevitable photograph, of years gone by, of bride and groom in wedding garments--the man sitting down, of course, while his wife stands behind him, as a servant might, with her hand upon his chair.

[Sidenote: Day by Day]

Day by day, those eyes are fixed upon her in stern judgment. Her failings and her conscious virtues are forever before that other woman. Her tears and her laughter are alike subjected to that remorseless scrutiny.

[Sidenote: A Sheeted Spectre]

Does she dare to forget and be happy? The other woman looks down upon her like a sheeted spectre conveying a solemn warning. "You may die," those pictured lips seem to say, "and some other will take your place, as you have taken mine." When the tactlessness, bad temper, or general mulishness of man wrings unwilling tears from her eyes, there is no sympathy to be gained from that impalpable presence. "You should not have married him," the picture seems to say, or; "He treated me the same way, and I died."

She is not to be blamed if she fancies that her husband also feels the presence of the other. As she pours his coffee in the morning and he looks upon her with the fond glance which men bestow upon women about to give them food, she may easily imagine that he sees the other in her place. Even the clasp of her hand or the touch of her lips may bring a longing for that other, hidden in the far-off grave.

Broadly speaking, widowers make better husbands than widows do wives. The presence of the dead wife may be a taunting memory, but seldom more. It is not often that she is spoken of, unless it is to praise her cooking. If she made incomparable biscuits and her coffee was fit to be the nectar of the gods, there are apt to be frequent and tactless comparisons, until painful experience teaches the sinner that this will not do.

[Sidenote: "A Shining Mark"]

On the contrary, a widow's second husband is often the most sincere mourner of her first. As time goes on, he realises keenly what a doleful day it was for him when that other died. "Death loves a shining mark," and that first husband was always such a paragon of perfection that it seems like an inadvertence because he was permitted to glorify this sodden sphere at all. She keeps, in heart at least, and often by outward observance, the anniversaries of her former engagement and marriage. The love letters of the dead are put away with her jewels and bits of real lace.

Small defections are commented upon and odious parallels drawn. Her home is seen to be miserably inadequate beside the one she once had. Her supply of pin money is painfully small, judged by the standard which has hitherto been her guide. Callers are entertained with anecdotes of "my first husband," and her dinner table is graced with the same stories that famous raconteur was wont to tell.

If her present husband pays her a compliment, he is reminded that his predecessor was accustomed to say the same thing. The relatives of the first wife are gently made aware that their acquaintance is not desired. His manner of life is carefully renovated and his old friendships put away with moth balls and camphor, never to see the light again.

[Sidenote: The Best Advertisement]

Yet the best possible advertisement of matrimony is the rapidity with which the bereaved seek new mates. There is no more delicate compliment to a first marriage than a second alliance, even when divorce, rather than death, has been the separating agency. A divorced man has more power to charm than a widower, because there is always the supposition that he was not understood and that his life's happiness is still to come.

[Sidenote: Forgetting]

Forgetting is the finest art of life and is to be desired more than memory, even though Mnemosyne stands close by Lethe and with her dewy finger-tips soothes away all pain. The lowest life remembers; to the highest only is it given to forget.

Yet, when the last word is said, this is the dread and the pity of death. It is not "the breathless darkness and the narrow house," but the certain knowledge that one's place can almost instantly be filled. The lips that quiver with sobs will some day smile again, eyes dimmed by long weeping will dance with laughter, hearts that once ached bitterly will some day swell and overflow with a new love.

This knowledge lies heavily upon a woman's soul and saddens, though often imperceptibly, the happiest marriage. All her toil and striving may some day be for naught. The fruits of her industry and thrift may some day gleam in jewels upon the white throat of another woman. Silks and laces which she could not have will add to the beauty of the possible woman who will ascend her vacant throne.

Sometimes a woman remains faithful to a memory, and sometimes, though rarely, a man may do the same. There is only one relation in life which may not be formed again--that between a mother and her child.

[Sidenote: The Child Upon Her Breast]

The little one may have lived but a few days, yet, if it has once lain upon her breast, she has something Death may never hope to destroy. Other children, equally dear, may grow to stalwart manhood and gracious womanhood, but that face rises to immortality in a world of endless change.

No single cry, no weak clasp of baby fingers is ever forgotten. Through all the years, unchanging, and taking on new beauty with every fleeting day, the little face is still before her. And thus in a way Death brings her a blessing, for when the others have grown she has it still--the child upon her breast.

Love's best gifts are not to be taken away. Tender memories must always be inwoven with the sad, and the sympathy and unselfishness which great loves ever bring are left to make sweet the nature of one who is chastened by sorrow. Grief itself never stings; it is the accusing conscience which turns the dagger remorselessly in the heart.

[Sidenote: Our unsuspected Kindness]

Life, after all, is a masquerade. We fear to show our tenderness and our love. We habitually hide our best feelings, lest we be judged weak and emotional, and unfit for the age in which it is our privilege to move. Sometimes it needs Death to show us ourselves and to teach our friends our deep and unsuspected kindness.

The woman who hungers throughout her marriage for the daily expression of her husband's love, often looks longingly towards the day to come, when hot tears will fall upon her upturned face and that for which she has vainly thirsted will be laid upon her silent lips. But swiftly upon the vision comes the thought, that even so, it would be of short duration; that the newly awakened love would soon be the portion of someone else.

It would be a beautiful world, indeed, if we were not at such pains to hide our real selves--if all our kindly thoughts were spoken and all our generous deeds were done. No one of us would think of Death as our best friend, if we were not all so bitterly unkind. Yet we put into white fingers the roses for which the living might have pleaded in vain, and too often, with streaming eyes, we ask pardon of the dead.

[Sidenote: Atonement]

Atonement is not to be made thus. A costly monument in a public square is tardy appreciation of a genius whose generation refused him bread. A man's tears upon a woman's hands are not enough, when all her life she has prayed for his love.

There is no law so unrelenting as that of compensation. Gravitation itself may be more successfully defied. It is the one thing which is absolutely just and which is universal in its action, though sometimes as slow as the majestic forces which change rock to dust.

We cannot have more joy than we give--nor more pain. The eternal balance swings true. The capacity for enjoyment and the capacity for suffering are one and the same. He who lives out of reach of sorrow has sacrificed his possible ecstasy. "He has seen only half the universe who has not been shown the House of Pain."

[Sidenote: Emerson's "Compensation"]

"And yet the compensations of calamity are made apparent to the understanding also after long intervals of time. A fever, a mutilation, a cruel disappointment, a loss of friends, seems at the moment unpaid loss and unpayable. But the sure years reveal the deep remedial force that underlies all facts. The death of a dear friend, wife, brother, lover, which seemed nothing but privation, somewhat later assumes the aspect of a guide or genius; for it commonly operates revolutions in our way of life, terminating an epoch of infancy or youth which was waiting to be closed, breaks up a wonted occupation or a household or style of living, and allows the formation of new ones more friendly to the growth of character. It permits or constrains the formation of new acquaintances, and the reception of new influences that prove of the first importance to the next years; and the man or woman who would have remained a sunny garden flower, with no room for its roots and too much sunshine for its head, by the falling of the walls and the neglect of the gardener is made the banian of the forest, yielding shade and fruit to wide neighbourhoods of men."

[Sidenote: Upon the Upland Ways]

That life alone is worth the living which sets itself upon the upland ways. To steel one's self against joy to be spared the inevitable hurt, is not life. We are afraid of love, because the might and terror of it has sometimes brought despair. We are afraid of belief, because our trust has been betrayed. We are afraid of death, because we have seen forgetfulness.

We should not fear that someone might take our place in the heart that loves us best--if we were only loved enough. The same love is never given twice; it differs in quality if not in degree, and when once made one's own, is never to be lost.

There are some natures whose happiness is a matter of persons and things; some to love and some to be loved; the daily needs amply satisfied, and that is enough for content.

There are others with whom persons and things do not suffice, whose love is vital, elemental, and indestructible. It has no beginning and no end; it simply is. With this the Grey Angel has no power; the grave is robbed of its victory and death of its sting.

"Love never denied Death and Death will not deny Love." When the bond is of that finer sort which does not rely upon presence for its permanence, there is little bereavement to be felt. For mutely, like a guardian angel, that other may live with us still; not as a shadowy presence, but rather as a dear reality.

That little mound of earth upon the distant hill, over which the sun and stars pass in endless sequence, and where the quiet is unbroken through the change of spring to autumn, and the change of autumn to spring, has not the power to destroy love, but rather to make it more sure.

The one who sleeps is forever beyond the reach of doubt and misunderstanding. Separation, estrangement, and bitterness, which are sometimes concealed in the cup that Life and Love have given, are forever taken out by Death, who is never cruel and who is often kind.

[Sidenote: The Wanderer's Rest]

We tread upon earth and revile it, forgetting that at last it hides our defects and that through it our dead hearts climb to blossom in violets and rue. Death is the Wanderer's Rest, where there is no questioning, but the same healing sleep for all. In that divine peace, there is no room for regret, since the earthly loves are sure of immortality.

[Sidenote: While the Dream Seemed True]

As much as is vital will live on, unchanging, changeless, and taking on new sweetness with the years. That which is not wholly given, which is ours only for a little time, will fade as surely as the roses in the marble hands. Death has saved many a heartache, by coming while the dream still seemed true.

In a single passage, Emerson has voiced the undying beauty and the everlasting truth which lie beneath the perplexities of life.

"Oh, believe as thou livest, that every sound which is spoken over the round world, which thou oughtest to hear, will vibrate on thine ear. Every proverb, every book, every byword which belongs to thee for aid or comfort, shall surely come home, through open or winding passages. Every friend, whom not thy fantastic will, but the great and tender heart in thee craveth, shall lock thee in his embrace. And this, because the heart in thee is the heart of all; not a valve, not a wall, not an intersection is there anywhere in nature, but one blood rolls uninterruptedly an endless circulation through all men, as the water of the globe is all one sea, and, truly seen, its tide is one."

[Sidenote: The Everlasting Love]

Sometimes, into two hearts great enough to hold it, and into two souls where it may forever abide, there comes the Everlasting Love. It is elemental, like fire and the sea, with the depth and splendour of the surge and the glory of the flame. It makes the world a vast cathedral, in which they two may worship, and where, even in the darkness, there is the peace which passeth all understanding, because it is of God.

When the time of parting comes, for there is always that turning in the road, the sadness is not so great because one must go on alone. Life grows beautiful after a time and even wholly sweet, when a man and a woman have so lived and loved and worked together, that death is not good-bye, but rather--"auf wiedersehen."

The Consolations of Spinsterhood

The Consolations of Spinsterhood

[Sidenote: "A Great Miration"]

The attached members of the community are wont to make what Uncle Remus called "a great miration," when a woman deliberately chooses spinsterhood as her lot in life, rather than marriage.

There is an implied pity in their delicate inquiries, and always the insinuation that the spinster in question could never have had an offer of marriage. The husband of the lady leading the inquisition may have been one of the spinster's first admirers, but it is never safe to say so, for so simple a thing as this has been known to cause trouble in families.

If it is known positively that some man has offered her his name and his troubles, and there is still no solitaire to be seen, the logical hypothesis is charitably advanced, that she has been "disappointed in love." It is possible for a spinster to be disappointed in lovers, but only the married are ever disappointed in love.

[Sidenote: A Cause of Stagnation]

The married women who ask the questions and who, with gracious kindness, hunt up attractive men for the unfortunate young woman to meet, are, all unknowingly, one great cause of stagnation in the marriage-license market.

Nothing so pleases a woman safely inside the bonds of holy matrimony as to confide her sorrows, her regrets, and her broken ideals to her unattached friends. Many a woman thinks her ideal is broken when it is only sprained, but the effect is the same.

Was the coffee weak and were the waffles cold, and did Monsieur express his opinion of such a breakfast in language more concise than elegant? Madame weeps, and gives a lurid account of the event to the visiting spinster. By any chance, does a girl go from her own dainty and orderly room into an apartment strewn with masculine belongings, confounded upon confusion such as Milton never dreamed? Does she have to wait while her friend restores order to the chaos? If so, she puts it down in her mental note-book, upon the page headed "Against."

The small domestic irritations which crowd upon the attached woman from day to day, leaving crow's feet around her eyes and delicate tracery in her forehead, have a certain effect upon the observing. But worse than this is the spectre of "the other woman," which haunts her friend from day to day, to the grave--and after, if the dead could tell their thoughts.

If she has been safely shielded from books which were not written for The Young Person, Mademoiselle believes that marriage is a bond which is not to be broken except by death. It is a severe shock when she first discovers that death changes nothing; that it is only life which separates utterly.

[Sidenote: That Pitiful Story]

That pitiful story of "the other woman" comes from quarters which the uninitiated would never suspect. With grim loyalty, married women hide their hearts from each other. Many a smile conceals a tortured soul. When the burden is no longer to be borne, a spinster is asked to share it.

A woman will forgive a man anything except disloyalty to herself. Crimes which the law stands ready to punish rank as naught with her, if the love between them is untarnished by doubt or mistrust. Any offence prompted by her own charm, even a duel to the death with a rival suitor, is easily condoned. But though God may be able to forgive disloyalty, in her heart of hearts no woman ever can.

[Sidenote: An Idle Flirtation]

More often than not, it is simply an idle flirtation, or, at the most, a passing fancy which the next week may prove transient and unreal. The woman with the heartache will say, with wet eyes and quivering lips: "I know, positively, that my husband has done nothing wrong. I would go to the stake upon that belief. He is only weak and foolish and a little vain, perhaps, and some day he will see his mistake, but I cannot bear to see him compromise himself and me in the eyes of the world. Of course, _I_ know," she will say, proudly, "but there are others who do not,--who are always ready to suspect,--and I will not have them pity me!"

When nearly all the married friends a spinster has have come to her with the same story, the variations being individual and of slight moment, she begins to have serious doubts of matrimony as a satisfactory career. Women who have been married five, ten, and even twenty years; women with children grown and whom the world counts safely and happily married, will sob bitterly in the embrace of the chosen girl friend.

[Sidenote: Indifference]

Indifference is the only counsel one has to offer, but even so, it gradually becomes the first of the steppes upon the heart-way which lead to an emotional Siberia.

Of course there are women who are insanely jealous of their husbands, and, more rarely, men who are jealous of their wives. Jealousy may be explained as innate vanity and selfishness or as a defect in temperament, but at any rate, it is a condition which is far past the theoretical stage.

It is hard for a spinster to understand why any woman should wish to hold a man against his will. A dog who has to be kept chained, in order to be retained as a pet, is never a very satisfactory possession. It seems natural to apply the same reasoning to human affairs, for surely no love is worth having which is not a free gift.

No girl would feel particularly flattered by a proposal, if it were put in this form: "Will you marry me? No one else will." Yet the same girl, married, would gladly take her husband to a desert island, that she might be sure of him forever.

[Sidenote: Behind Prison Bars]

Love which needs to be put behind prison bars, that it may not escape, is not love, but attraction, fascination, or whatever the psychologists may please. A man chooses his wife, not because there are no other women, but in spite of them. It is a pathetic acknowledgment of his poor judgment, if he lets the world suspect that his choice was wrong.

There are some souls that hie them faraway from civilisation, to convents, monasteries, and western plains, that they may keep away from temptation. In the same fashion, woman tries to isolate her lord and master. If he meets women at all, they are those invisibly labeled "not dangerous."

The world makes as many saints as sinners, and the man who needs to be kept away from any sort of temptation is weak indeed. There are many of his kind, but he is the better man in the end who meets it face to face, fights with it like a soldier, and wins like a king.

[Sidenote: The Thousand Foes]

The mother of Sparta bade her son return with his shield or on it, and the thought has potential might to-day. If a man honestly loves a woman, she need have no fear of the thousand foes that wait to take him from her. If he does not, the sooner she understands the truth, the better it is for both. There are many people who consider love a dream, but they usually grow to think of marriage as the cold breakfast.

Men are but children of a larger growth. A small boy forgets his promise to stay at home and tears madly down the street in the discordant wake of a band. The same boy, in later years, will follow his impulses with equal readiness, for he is taught conformity to outward laws, but very seldom self-control.

The fear of "the other woman" may be largely assuaged by a spinster's confidence in her ability to cope with the difficult situation, should it ever present itself, but there are other considerations which act as a discouragement to matrimony.

The chains of love may be sweet bondage, but freedom is hardly less dear. The spinster, like the wind, may go where she listeth, and there is no one to say her nay. A modern essayist has pointed out that "if a mortal knows his mate cannot get away, he is apt to be severe and unreasonable."

The thought of being compelled to ask for money, and perhaps to meet with refusal, frequently acts as a deterrent upon incipient love. A man is often generous with his sweetheart and miserly with his wife. In the days of courtship, the dollars may fly on wings in search of pleasure for the well-beloved, and yet, after marriage, they will be squeezed until the milling is worn smooth, the eyes start from the eagle, and until one half-way expects to hear the noble bird scream.

[Sidenote: Unlimited Credit]

There are girls in every circle, married to men not by any means insolvent, who have unlimited credit, but never any money of their own. They have carriages but no car fare; fine stationery, monogrammed and blazoned with a coat of arms, but not by any chance a postage stamp.

Many a woman in such circumstances covenants with the tradespeople to charge as merchandise what is really cash, and sells laces and ribbons to her friends a little below cost. When a girl is approached with a plea to have her purchases charged to her friend's account, and to pay her friend rather than the merchant, is it not sufficient to postpone possible matrimony at least six months? Adversity has no terrors for a woman; she will gladly share misfortune with the man she loves, but simple selfishness is a very different proposition.

[Sidenote: "Wedded to their Art"]

There are also the dazzling allurements offered by various "careers" which bring fame and perhaps fortune. The glittering triumphs of a prima donna, a picture on the line in the Salon, or a possible book which shall sell into the hundred thousands, are not without a certain charm, even though people who are "wedded to their art" sometimes get a divorce without asking for it.

The universal testimony of the great, that fame itself is barren, is thrust aside as of small moment. She does not realise that it is love for which she hungers, rather than fame, which is the admiration of the many. Sometimes she learns that "the love of all is but a small thing to the love of one" and that in a right marriage there would be no conscious sacrifice. If she were not free to continue the work that she loved, she would feel no deprivation.

Happiness is often thrust aside because of her ideals. She demands all things in a single man, forgetting that she, too, is human and not by any means faultless. Some day, perhaps too late, she understands that love and criticism lie far apart, that love brings beauty with it, and that the marks of individuality are the very texture of charm, as the splendour of the opal lies in its flaws.

[Sidenote: The Vital Touch]

There is always the doubt as to whether the seeker may be the one of all the world to find the inmost places in her heart. Taste and temperament may be akin, position and purpose in full accord, and yet the vital touch may be lacking. Sometimes, in the after-years, it may be found by two who seek for it patiently together, but too often dissonance grows into discord and estrangement.

The march of civilisation has done away with the odium which was formerly the portion of the unattached woman. It is no disgrace to be a spinster, and apparently it is fitting and proper to be an old maid, since so many of them have "Mrs." on their cards, and since there are so many narrow-minded and critical men who fully deserve the appellation.

There is no use in saying that any particular girl is a spinster from necessity rather than choice. One has but to look at the peculiar specimens of womankind who have married, to be certain that there is no one on the wide earth who could not do so if she chose.

[Sidenote: "A Discipline"]

Some people are fond of alluding to marriage as "a discipline," and sometimes a grey-haired matron will volunteer the information that "the first years of marriage are anything but happy." To one who has hitherto regarded it from a different point of view, the training-school idea is not altogether attractive.

Men and women who have been through it very seldom hold to their first opinions. It is considered as a business arrangement, a social contrivance, sometimes as an easy way to make money, but by very few as the highest form of happiness.

[Sidenote: Small Extravagances]

The consolations of spinsterhood are mainly negative, but the minus sign has its proper place in the personal equation. "The other woman" does not exist for the spinster, save as a shadowy possibility. She is not asked what she did with the nickel which was given her day before yesterday, and thus forced to make confession of small extravagances, or to reply, with such sweetness as she may muster, that she bought a lot on a fashionable street with part of it, and has the remainder out at interest. She does not have to stay at home from social affairs because she has no escort, for the law has not apportioned to her a solitary man, and she has a liberty of choice which is not accorded her married friend.

She is not subjected to the humiliation of asking a man for money to pay for his own food, his own service, and even his own laundry bill. She can usually earn her own, if the gods have not awarded her sufficient gold, and there is no money which a woman spends so happily as that which she has earned herself.

The "career" lies before her, and she has only to choose the thing for which she is best fitted, and work her way upward from the lowest ranks to the position of a star of the first magnitude. Opportunity is but another name for health, obstacles make firm stepping-stones, and that which is dearly bought is by far the sweetest in the end. Of course there are "strings to pull," but no one needs them. Success is more lasting if it is won in an open field, without favour, and in spite of generous measures of it bestowed upon the opposition.