Sketches by Boz, by Charles Dickens (1836) - Sketches of
Young Couples
SKETCHES OF YOUNG COUPLES
AN URGENT REMONSTRANCE, &c
TO THE GENTLEMEN OF ENGLAND,
(BEING BACHELORS OR WIDOWERS,)
THE REMONSTRANCE OF THEIR FAITHFUL FELLOW-SUBJECT,
SHEWETH,-
THAT Her Most Gracious Majesty, Victoria, by the Grace
of God of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland Queen, Defender of the
Faith, did, on the 23rd day of November last past, declare and pronounce to Her
Most Honourable Privy Council, Her Majesty’s Most Gracious intention of
entering into the bonds of wedlock.
THAT Her Most Gracious Majesty, in so making known Her
Most Gracious intention to Her Most Honourable Privy Council as aforesaid, did
use and employ the words—‘It is my intention to ally myself in marriage with
Prince Albert of Saxe Coburg and Gotha.’
THAT the present is Bissextile, or Leap Year, in which
it is held and considered lawful for any lady to offer and submit proposals of
marriage to any gentleman, and to enforce and insist upon acceptance of the
same, under pain of a certain fine or penalty; to wit, one silk or satin dress
of the first quality, to be chosen by the lady and paid (or owed) for, by the
gentleman.
THAT these and other the horrors and dangers with which
the said Bissextile, or Leap Year, threatens the gentlemen of England on every
occasion of its periodical return, have been greatly aggravated and augmented by
the terms of Her Majesty’s said Most Gracious communication, which have filled
the heads of divers young ladies in this Realm with certain new ideas
destructive to the peace of mankind, that never entered their imagination
before.
THAT a case has occurred in Camberwell, in which a young
lady informed her Papa that ‘she intended to ally herself in marriage’ with
Mr. Smith of Stepney; and that another, and a very distressing case, has
occurred at Tottenham, in which a young lady not only stated her intention of
allying herself in marriage with her cousin John, but, taking violent possession
of her said cousin, actually married him.
THAT similar outrages are of constant occurrence, not
only in the capital and its neighbourhood, but throughout the kingdom, and that
unless the excited female populace be speedily checked and restrained in their
lawless proceedings, most deplorable results must ensue therefrom; among which
may be anticipated a most alarming increase in the population of the country,
with which no efforts of the agricultural or manufacturing interest can possibly
keep pace.
THAT there is strong reason to suspect the existence of
a most extensive plot, conspiracy, or design, secretly contrived by vast numbers
of single ladies in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and now
extending its ramifications in every quarter of the land; the object and intent
of which plainly appears to be the holding and solemnising of an enormous and
unprecedented number of marriages, on the day on which the nuptials of Her said
Most Gracious Majesty are performed.
THAT such plot, conspiracy, or design, strongly savours
of Popery, as tending to the discomfiture of the Clergy of the Established
Church, by entailing upon them great mental and physical exhaustion; and that
such Popish plots are fomented and encouraged by Her Majesty’s Ministers,
which clearly appears—not only from Her Majesty’s principal Secretary of
State for Foreign Affairs traitorously getting married while holding office
under the Crown; but from Mr. O’Connell having been heard to declare and avow
that, if he had a daughter to marry, she should be married on the same day as
Her said Most Gracious Majesty.
THAT such arch plots, conspiracies, and designs, besides
being fraught with danger to the Established Church, and (consequently) to the
State, cannot fail to bring ruin and bankruptcy upon a large class of Her
Majesty’s subjects; as a great and sudden increase in the number of married
men occasioning the comparative desertion (for a time) of Taverns, Hotels,
Billiard-rooms, and Gaming-Houses, will deprive the Proprietors of their
accustomed profits and returns. And in further proof of the depth and
baseness of such designs, it may be here observed, that all proprietors of
Taverns, Hotels, Billiard-rooms, and Gaming-Houses, are (especially the last)
solemnly devoted to the Protestant religion.
FOR all these reasons, and many others of no less
gravity and import, an urgent appeal is made to the gentlemen of England (being
bachelors or widowers) to take immediate steps for convening a Public meeting;
To consider of the best and surest means of averting the dangers with which they
are threatened by the recurrence of Bissextile, or Leap Year, and the additional
sensation created among single ladies by the terms of Her Majesty’s Most
Gracious Declaration; To take measures, without delay, for resisting the said
single Ladies, and counteracting their evil designs; And to pray Her Majesty to
dismiss her present Ministers, and to summon to her Councils those distinguished
Gentlemen in various Honourable Professions who, by insulting on all occasions
the only Lady in England who can be insulted with safety, have given a
sufficient guarantee to Her Majesty’s Loving Subjects that they, at least, are
qualified to make war with women, and are already expert in the use of those
weapons which are common to the lowest and most abandoned of the sex.
THE YOUNG COUPLE
There is to be a wedding this morning at the corner
house in the terrace. The pastry-cook’s people have been there
half-a-dozen times already; all day yesterday there was a great stir and bustle,
and they were up this morning as soon as it was light. Miss Emma Fielding
is going to be married to young Mr. Harvey.
Heaven alone can tell in what bright colours this
marriage is painted upon the mind of the little housemaid at number six, who has
hardly slept a wink all night with thinking of it, and now stands on the unswept
door-steps leaning upon her broom, and looking wistfully towards the enchanted
house. Nothing short of omniscience can divine what visions of the baker,
or the green-grocer, or the smart and most insinuating butterman, are flitting
across her mind—what thoughts of how she would dress on such an occasion, if
she were a lady—of how she would dress, if she were only a bride—of how cook
would dress, being bridesmaid, conjointly with her sister ‘in place’ at
Fulham, and how the clergyman, deeming them so many ladies, would be quite
humbled and respectful. What day-dreams of hope and happiness—of life
being one perpetual holiday, with no master and no mistress to grant or withhold
it—of every Sunday being a Sunday out—of pure freedom as to curls and
ringlets, and no obligation to hide fine heads of hair in caps—what pictures
of happiness, vast and immense to her, but utterly ridiculous to us, bewilder
the brain of the little housemaid at number six, all called into existence by
the wedding at the corner!
We smile at such things, and so we should, though
perhaps for a better reason than commonly presents itself. It should be
pleasant to us to know that there are notions of happiness so moderate and
limited, since upon those who entertain them, happiness and lightness of heart
are very easily bestowed.
But the little housemaid is awakened from her reverie,
for forth from the door of the magical corner house there runs towards her, all
fluttering in smart new dress and streaming ribands, her friend Jane Adams, who
comes all out of breath to redeem a solemn promise of taking her in, under cover
of the confusion, to see the breakfast table spread forth in state, and—sight
of sights!—her young mistress ready dressed for church.
And there, in good truth, when they have stolen
up-stairs on tip-toe and edged themselves in at the chamber-door—there is Miss
Emma ‘looking like the sweetest picter,’ in a white chip bonnet and orange
flowers, and all other elegancies becoming a bride, (with the make, shape, and
quality of every article of which the girl is perfectly familiar in one moment,
and never forgets to her dying day)—and there is Miss Emma’s mamma in tears,
and Miss Emma’s papa comforting her, and saying how that of course she has
been long looking forward to this, and how happy she ought to be—and there too
is Miss Emma’s sister with her arms round her neck, and the other bridesmaid
all smiles and tears, quieting the children, who would cry more but that they
are so finely dressed, and yet sob for fear sister Emma should be taken
away—and it is all so affecting, that the two servant-girls cry more than
anybody; and Jane Adams, sitting down upon the stairs, when they have crept
away, declares that her legs tremble so that she don’t know what to do, and
that she will say for Miss Emma, that she never had a hasty word from her, and
that she does hope and pray she may be happy.
But Jane soon comes round again, and then surely there
never was anything like the breakfast table, glittering with plate and china,
and set out with flowers and sweets, and long-necked bottles, in the most
sumptuous and dazzling manner. In the centre, too, is the mighty charm,
the cake, glistening with frosted sugar, and garnished beautifully. They
agree that there ought to be a little Cupid under one of the barley-sugar
temples, or at least two hearts and an arrow; but, with this exception, there is
nothing to wish for, and a table could not be handsomer. As they arrive at
this conclusion, who should come in but Mr. John! to whom Jane says that its
only Anne from number six; and John says he knows, for he’s often
winked his eye down the area, which causes Anne to blush and look confused.
She is going away, indeed; when Mr. John will have it that she must drink a
glass of wine, and he says never mind it’s being early in the morning, it
won’t hurt her: so they shut the door and pour out the wine; and Anne drinking
lane’s health, and adding, ‘and here’s wishing you yours, Mr. John,’
drinks it in a great many sips,—Mr. John all the time making jokes appropriate
to the occasion. At last Mr. John, who has waxed bolder by degrees, pleads
the usage at weddings, and claims the privilege of a kiss, which he obtains
after a great scuffle; and footsteps being now heard on the stairs, they
disperse suddenly.
By this time a carriage has driven up to convey the
bride to church, and Anne of number six prolonging the process of ‘cleaning
her door,’ has the satisfaction of beholding the bride and bridesmaids, and
the papa and mamma, hurry into the same and drive rapidly off. Nor is this
all, for soon other carriages begin to arrive with a posse of company all
beautifully dressed, at whom she could stand and gaze for ever; but having
something else to do, is compelled to take one last long look and shut the
street-door.
And now the company have gone down to breakfast, and
tears have given place to smiles, for all the corks are out of the long-necked
bottles, and their contents are disappearing rapidly. Miss Emma’s papa
is at the top of the table; Miss Emma’s mamma at the bottom; and beside the
latter are Miss Emma herself and her husband,—admitted on all hands to be the
handsomest and most interesting young couple ever known. All down both
sides of the table, too, are various young ladies, beautiful to see, and various
young gentlemen who seem to think so; and there, in a post of honour, is an
unmarried aunt of Miss Emma’s, reported to possess unheard-of riches, and to
have expressed vast testamentary intentions respecting her favourite niece and
new nephew. This lady has been very liberal and generous already, as the
jewels worn by the bride abundantly testify, but that is nothing to what she
means to do, or even to what she has done, for she put herself in close
communication with the dressmaker three months ago, and prepared a wardrobe
(with some articles worked by her own hands) fit for a Princess. People
may call her an old maid, and so she may be, but she is neither cross nor ugly
for all that; on the contrary, she is very cheerful and pleasant-looking, and
very kind and tender-hearted: which is no matter of surprise except to those who
yield to popular prejudices without thinking why, and will never grow wiser and
never know better.
Of all the company though, none are more pleasant to
behold or better pleased with themselves than two young children, who, in honour
of the day, have seats among the guests. Of these, one is a little fellow
of six or eight years old, brother to the bride,—and the other a girl of the
same age, or something younger, whom he calls ‘his wife.’ The real
bride and bridegroom are not more devoted than they: he all love and attention,
and she all blushes and fondness, toying with a little bouquet which he gave her
this morning, and placing the scattered rose-leaves in her bosom with nature’s
own coquettishness. They have dreamt of each other in their quiet dreams,
these children, and their little hearts have been nearly broken when the absent
one has been dispraised in jest. When will there come in after-life a
passion so earnest, generous, and true as theirs; what, even in its gentlest
realities, can have the grace and charm that hover round such fairy lovers!
By this time the merriment and happiness of the feast
have gained their height; certain ominous looks begin to be exchanged between
the bridesmaids, and somehow it gets whispered about that the carriage which is
to take the young couple into the country has arrived. Such members of the
party as are most disposed to prolong its enjoyments, affect to consider this a
false alarm, but it turns out too true, being speedily confirmed, first by the
retirement of the bride and a select file of intimates who are to prepare her
for the journey, and secondly by the withdrawal of the ladies generally.
To this there ensues a particularly awkward pause, in which everybody essays to
be facetious, and nobody succeeds; at length the bridegroom makes a mysterious
disappearance in obedience to some equally mysterious signal; and the table is
deserted.
Now, for at least six weeks last past it has been
solemnly devised and settled that the young couple should go away in secret; but
they no sooner appear without the door than the drawing-room windows are blocked
up with ladies waving their handkerchiefs and kissing their hands, and the
dining-room panes with gentlemen’s faces beaming farewell in every queer
variety of its expression. The hall and steps are crowded with servants in
white favours, mixed up with particular friends and relations who have darted
out to say good-bye; and foremost in the group are the tiny lovers arm in arm,
thinking, with fluttering hearts, what happiness it would be to dash away
together in that gallant coach, and never part again.
The bride has barely time for one hurried glance at her
old home, when the steps rattle, the door slams, the horses clatter on the
pavement, and they have left it far away.
A knot of women servants still remain clustered in the
hall, whispering among themselves, and there of course is Anne from number six,
who has made another escape on some plea or other, and been an admiring witness
of the departure. There are two points on which Anne expatiates over and
over again, without the smallest appearance of fatigue or intending to leave
off; one is, that she ‘never see in all her life such a—oh such a angel of a
gentleman as Mr. Harvey’—and the other, that she ‘can’t tell how it is,
but it don’t seem a bit like a work-a-day, or a Sunday neither—it’s all so
unsettled and unregular.’
THE FORMAL COUPLE
The formal couple are the most prim, cold, immovable,
and unsatisfactory people on the face of the earth. Their faces, voices,
dress, house, furniture, walk, and manner, are all the essence of formality,
unrelieved by one redeeming touch of frankness, heartiness, or nature.
Everything with the formal couple resolves itself into a
matter of form. They don’t call upon you on your account, but their own;
not to see how you are, but to show how they are: it is not a ceremony to do
honour to you, but to themselves,—not due to your position, but to theirs.
If one of a friend’s children die, the formal couple are as sure and punctual
in sending to the house as the undertaker; if a friend’s family be increased,
the monthly nurse is not more attentive than they. The formal couple, in
fact, joyfully seize all occasions of testifying their good-breeding and precise
observance of the little usages of society; and for you, who are the means to
this end, they care as much as a man does for the tailor who has enabled him to
cut a figure, or a woman for the milliner who has assisted her to a conquest.
Having an extensive connexion among that kind of people
who make acquaintances and eschew friends, the formal gentleman attends from
time to time a great many funerals, to which he is formally invited, and to
which he formally goes, as returning a call for the last time. Here his
deportment is of the most faultless description; he knows the exact pitch of
voice it is proper to assume, the sombre look he ought to wear, the melancholy
tread which should be his gait for the day. He is perfectly acquainted
with all the dreary courtesies to be observed in a mourning-coach; knows when to
sigh, and when to hide his nose in the white handkerchief; and looks into the
grave and shakes his head when the ceremony is concluded, with the sad formality
of a mute.
‘What kind of funeral was it?’ says the formal lady,
when he returns home. ‘Oh!’ replies the formal gentleman, ‘there
never was such a gross and disgusting impropriety; there were no feathers.’
‘No feathers!’ cries the lady, as if on wings of black feathers dead people
fly to Heaven, and, lacking them, they must of necessity go elsewhere. Her
husband shakes his head; and further adds, that they had seed-cake instead of
plum-cake, and that it was all white wine. ‘All white wine!’ exclaims
his wife. ‘Nothing but sherry and madeira,’ says the husband.
‘What! no port?’ ‘Not a drop.’ No port, no plums, and no
feathers! ‘You will recollect, my dear,’ says the formal lady, in a
voice of stately reproof, ‘that when we first met this poor man who is now
dead and gone, and he took that very strange course of addressing me at dinner
without being previously introduced, I ventured to express my opinion that the
family were quite ignorant of etiquette, and very imperfectly acquainted with
the decencies of life. You have now had a good opportunity of judging for
yourself, and all I have to say is, that I trust you will never go to a funeral there
again.’ ‘My dear,’ replies the formal gentleman, ‘I never will.’
So the informal deceased is cut in his grave; and the formal couple, when they
tell the story of the funeral, shake their heads, and wonder what some
people’s feelings are made of, and what their notions of propriety can
be!
If the formal couple have a family (which they sometimes
have), they are not children, but little, pale, sour, sharp-nosed men and women;
and so exquisitely brought up, that they might be very old dwarfs for anything
that appeareth to the contrary. Indeed, they are so acquainted with forms
and conventionalities, and conduct themselves with such strict decorum, that to
see the little girl break a looking-glass in some wild outbreak, or the little
boy kick his parents, would be to any visitor an unspeakable relief and
consolation.
The formal couple are always sticklers for what is
rigidly proper, and have a great readiness in detecting hidden impropriety of
speech or thought, which by less scrupulous people would be wholly unsuspected.
Thus, if they pay a visit to the theatre, they sit all night in a perfect agony
lest anything improper or immoral should proceed from the stage; and if anything
should happen to be said which admits of a double construction, they never fail
to take it up directly, and to express by their looks the great outrage which
their feelings have sustained. Perhaps this is their chief reason for
absenting themselves almost entirely from places of public amusement. They
go sometimes to the Exhibition of the Royal Academy;—but that is often more
shocking than the stage itself, and the formal lady thinks that it really is
high time Mr. Etty was prosecuted and made a public example of.
We made one at a christening party not long since, where
there were amongst the guests a formal couple, who suffered the acutest torture
from certain jokes, incidental to such an occasion, cut—and very likely dried
also—by one of the godfathers; a red-faced elderly gentleman, who, being
highly popular with the rest of the company, had it all his own way, and was in
great spirits. It was at supper-time that this gentleman came out in full
force. We—being of a grave and quiet demeanour—had been chosen to
escort the formal lady down-stairs, and, sitting beside her, had a favourable
opportunity of observing her emotions.
We have a shrewd suspicion that, in the very beginning,
and in the first blush—literally the first blush—of the matter, the formal
lady had not felt quite certain whether the being present at such a ceremony,
and encouraging, as it were, the public exhibition of a baby, was not an act
involving some degree of indelicacy and impropriety; but certain we are that
when that baby’s health was drunk, and allusions were made, by a grey-headed
gentleman proposing it, to the time when he had dandled in his arms the young
Christian’s mother,—certain we are that then the formal lady took the alarm,
and recoiled from the old gentleman as from a hoary profligate. Still she
bore it; she fanned herself with an indignant air, but still she bore it.
A comic song was sung, involving a confession from some imaginary gentleman that
he had kissed a female, and yet the formal lady bore it. But when at last,
the health of the godfather before-mentioned being drunk, the godfather rose to
return thanks, and in the course of his observations darkly hinted at babies yet
unborn, and even contemplated the possibility of the subject of that festival
having brothers and sisters, the formal lady could endure no more, but, bowing
slightly round, and sweeping haughtily past the offender, left the room in
tears, under the protection of the formal gentleman.
THE LOVING COUPLE
There cannot be a better practical illustration of the
wise saw and ancient instance, that there may be too much of a good thing, than
is presented by a loving couple. Undoubtedly it is meet and proper that
two persons joined together in holy matrimony should be loving, and
unquestionably it is pleasant to know and see that they are so; but there is a
time for all things, and the couple who happen to be always in a loving state
before company, are well-nigh intolerable.
And in taking up this position we would have it
distinctly understood that we do not seek alone the sympathy of bachelors, in
whose objection to loving couples we recognise interested motives and personal
considerations. We grant that to that unfortunate class of society there
may be something very irritating, tantalising, and provoking, in being compelled
to witness those gentle endearments and chaste interchanges which to loving
couples are quite the ordinary business of life. But while we recognise
the natural character of the prejudice to which these unhappy men are subject,
we can neither receive their biassed evidence, nor address ourself to their
inflamed and angered minds. Dispassionate experience is our only guide;
and in these moral essays we seek no less to reform hymeneal offenders than to
hold out a timely warning to all rising couples, and even to those who have not
yet set forth upon their pilgrimage towards the matrimonial market.
Let all couples, present or to come, therefore profit by
the example of Mr. and Mrs. Leaver, themselves a loving couple in the first
degree.
Mr. and Mrs. Leaver are pronounced by Mrs. Starling, a
widow lady who lost her husband when she was young, and lost herself about the
same-time—for by her own count she has never since grown five years older—to
be a perfect model of wedded felicity. ‘You would suppose,’ says the
romantic lady, ‘that they were lovers only just now engaged. Never was
such happiness! They are so tender, so affectionate, so attached to each
other, so enamoured, that positively nothing can be more charming!’
‘Augusta, my soul,’ says Mr. Leaver.
‘Augustus, my life,’ replies Mrs. Leaver. ‘Sing some little ballad,
darling,’ quoth Mr. Leaver. ‘I couldn’t, indeed, dearest,’ returns
Mrs. Leaver. ‘Do, my dove,’ says Mr. Leaver. ‘I couldn’t
possibly, my love,’ replies Mrs. Leaver; ‘and it’s very naughty of you to
ask me.’ ‘Naughty, darling!’ cries Mr. Leaver. ‘Yes, very
naughty, and very cruel,’ returns Mrs. Leaver, ‘for you know I have a sore
throat, and that to sing would give me great pain. You’re a monster, and
I hate you. Go away!’ Mrs. Leaver has said ‘go away,’ because
Mr. Leaver has tapped her under the chin: Mr. Leaver not doing as he is bid, but
on the contrary, sitting down beside her, Mrs. Leaver slaps Mr. Leaver; and Mr.
Leaver in return slaps Mrs. Leaver, and it being now time for all persons
present to look the other way, they look the other way, and hear a still small
sound as of kissing, at which Mrs. Starling is thoroughly enraptured, and
whispers her neighbour that if all married couples were like that, what a heaven
this earth would be!
The loving couple are at home when this occurs, and
maybe only three or four friends are present, but, unaccustomed to reserve upon
this interesting point, they are pretty much the same abroad. Indeed upon
some occasions, such as a pic-nic or a water-party, their lovingness is even
more developed, as we had an opportunity last summer of observing in person.
There was a great water-party made up to go to
Twickenham and dine, and afterwards dance in an empty villa by the river-side,
hired expressly for the purpose. Mr. and Mrs. Leaver were of the company;
and it was our fortune to have a seat in the same boat, which was an eight-oared
galley, manned by amateurs, with a blue striped awning of the same pattern as
their Guernsey shirts, and a dingy red flag of the same shade as the whiskers of
the stroke oar. A coxswain being appointed, and all other matters
adjusted, the eight gentlemen threw themselves into strong paroxysms, and pulled
up with the tide, stimulated by the compassionate remarks of the ladies, who one
and all exclaimed, that it seemed an immense exertion—as indeed it did.
At first we raced the other boat, which came alongside in gallant style; but
this being found an unpleasant amusement, as giving rise to a great quantity of
splashing, and rendering the cold pies and other viands very moist, it was
unanimously voted down, and we were suffered to shoot a-head, while the second
boat followed ingloriously in our wake.
It was at this time that we first recognised Mr. Leaver.
There were two firemen-watermen in the boat, lying by until somebody was
exhausted; and one of them, who had taken upon himself the direction of affairs,
was heard to cry in a gruff voice, ‘Pull away, number two—give it her,
number two—take a longer reach, number two—now, number two, sir, think
you’re winning a boat.’ The greater part of the company had no doubt
begun to wonder which of the striped Guernseys it might be that stood in need of
such encouragement, when a stifled shriek from Mrs. Leaver confirmed the
doubtful and informed the ignorant; and Mr. Leaver, still further disguised in a
straw hat and no neckcloth, was observed to be in a fearful perspiration, and
failing visibly. Nor was the general consternation diminished at this
instant by the same gentleman (in the performance of an accidental aquatic feat,
termed ‘catching a crab’) plunging suddenly backward, and displaying nothing
of himself to the company, but two violently struggling legs. Mrs. Leaver
shrieked again several times, and cried piteously—‘Is he dead? Tell me
the worst. Is he dead?’
Now, a moment’s reflection might have convinced the
loving wife, that unless her husband were endowed with some most surprising
powers of muscular action, he never could be dead while he kicked so hard; but
still Mrs. Leaver cried, ‘Is he dead? is he dead?’ and still everybody else
cried—‘No, no, no,’ until such time as Mr. Leaver was replaced in a
sitting posture, and his oar (which had been going through all kinds of
wrong-headed performances on its own account) was once more put in his hand, by
the exertions of the two firemen-watermen. Mr. Leaver then exclaimed,
‘Augustus, my child, come to me;’ and Mr. Leaver said, ‘Augusta, my love,
compose yourself, I am not injured.’ But Mrs. Leaver cried again more
piteously than before, ‘Augustus, my child, come to me;’ and now the company
generally, who seemed to be apprehensive that if Mr. Leaver remained where he
was, he might contribute more than his proper share towards the drowning of the
party, disinterestedly took part with Mrs. Leaver, and said he really ought to
go, and that he was not strong enough for such violent exercise, and ought never
to have undertaken it. Reluctantly, Mr. Leaver went, and laid himself down
at Mrs. Leaver’s feet, and Mrs. Leaver stooping over him, said, ‘Oh
Augustus, how could you terrify me so?’ and Mr. Leaver said, ‘Augusta, my
sweet, I never meant to terrify you;’ and Mrs. Leaver said, ‘You are faint,
my dear;’ and Mr. Leaver said, ‘I am rather so, my love;’ and they were
very loving indeed under Mrs. Leaver’s veil, until at length Mr. Leaver came
forth again, and pleasantly asked if he had not heard something said about
bottled stout and sandwiches.
Mrs. Starling, who was one of the party, was perfectly
delighted with this scene, and frequently murmured half-aside, ‘What a loving
couple you are!’ or ‘How delightful it is to see man and wife so happy
together!’ To us she was quite poetical, (for we are a kind of cousins,)
observing that hearts beating in unison like that made life a paradise of
sweets; and that when kindred creatures were drawn together by sympathies so
fine and delicate, what more than mortal happiness did not our souls partake!
To all this we answered ‘Certainly,’ or ‘Very true,’ or merely sighed,
as the case might be. At every new act of the loving couple, the widow’s
admiration broke out afresh; and when Mrs. Leaver would not permit Mr. Leaver to
keep his hat off, lest the sun should strike to his head, and give him a brain
fever, Mrs. Starling actually shed tears, and said it reminded her of Adam and
Eve.
The loving couple were thus loving all the way to
Twickenham, but when we arrived there (by which time the amateur crew looked
very thirsty and vicious) they were more playful than ever, for Mrs. Leaver
threw stones at Mr. Leaver, and Mr. Leaver ran after Mrs. Leaver on the grass,
in a most innocent and enchanting manner. At dinner, too, Mr. Leaver would
steal Mrs. Leaver’s tongue, and Mrs. Leaver would retaliate upon Mr.
Leaver’s fowl; and when Mrs. Leaver was going to take some lobster salad, Mr.
Leaver wouldn’t let her have any, saying that it made her ill, and she was
always sorry for it afterwards, which afforded Mrs. Leaver an opportunity of
pretending to be cross, and showing many other prettinesses. But this was
merely the smiling surface of their loves, not the mighty depths of the stream,
down to which the company, to say the truth, dived rather unexpectedly, from the
following accident. It chanced that Mr. Leaver took upon himself to
propose the bachelors who had first originated the notion of that entertainment,
in doing which, he affected to regret that he was no longer of their body
himself, and pretended grievously to lament his fallen state. This Mrs.
Leaver’s feelings could not brook, even in jest, and consequently, exclaiming
aloud, ‘He loves me not, he loves me not!’ she fell in a very pitiable state
into the arms of Mrs. Starling, and, directly becoming insensible, was conveyed
by that lady and her husband into another room. Presently Mr. Leaver came
running back to know if there was a medical gentleman in company, and as there
was, (in what company is there not?) both Mr. Leaver and the medical gentleman
hurried away together.
The medical gentleman was the first who returned, and
among his intimate friends he was observed to laugh and wink, and look as
unmedical as might be; but when Mr. Leaver came back he was very solemn, and in
answer to all inquiries, shook his head, and remarked that Augusta was far too
sensitive to be trifled with—an opinion which the widow subsequently
confirmed. Finding that she was in no imminent peril, however, the rest of
the party betook themselves to dancing on the green, and very merry and happy
they were, and a vast quantity of flirtation there was; the last circumstance
being no doubt attributable, partly to the fineness of the weather, and partly
to the locality, which is well known to be favourable to all harmless
recreations.
In the bustle of the scene, Mr. and Mrs. Leaver stole
down to the boat, and disposed themselves under the awning, Mrs. Leaver
reclining her head upon Mr. Leaver’s shoulder, and Mr. Leaver grasping her
hand with great fervour, and looking in her face from time to time with a
melancholy and sympathetic aspect. The widow sat apart, feigning to be
occupied with a book, but stealthily observing them from behind her fan; and the
two firemen-watermen, smoking their pipes on the bank hard by, nudged each
other, and grinned in enjoyment of the joke. Very few of the party missed
the loving couple; and the few who did, heartily congratulated each other on
their disappearance.
THE CONTRADICTORY COUPLE
One would suppose that two people who are to pass their
whole lives together, and must necessarily be very often alone with each other,
could find little pleasure in mutual contradiction; and yet what is more common
than a contradictory couple?
The contradictory couple agree in nothing but
contradiction. They return home from Mrs. Bluebottle’s dinner-party,
each in an opposite corner of the coach, and do not exchange a syllable until
they have been seated for at least twenty minutes by the fireside at home, when
the gentleman, raising his eyes from the stove, all at once breaks silence:
‘What a very extraordinary thing it is,’ says he,
‘that you will contradict, Charlotte!’ ‘I
contradict!’ cries the lady, ‘but that’s just like you.’
‘What’s like me?’ says the gentleman sharply. ‘Saying that I
contradict you,’ replies the lady. ‘Do you mean to say that you do not
contradict me?’ retorts the gentleman; ‘do you mean to say that you have not
been contradicting me the whole of this day?’ ‘Do you mean to tell me
now, that you have not? I mean to tell you nothing of the kind,’ replies
the lady quietly; ‘when you are wrong, of course I shall contradict you.’
During this dialogue the gentleman has been taking his
brandy-and-water on one side of the fire, and the lady, with her dressing-case
on the table, has been curling her hair on the other. She now lets down
her back hair, and proceeds to brush it; preserving at the same time an air of
conscious rectitude and suffering virtue, which is intended to exasperate the
gentleman—and does so.
‘I do believe,’ he says, taking the spoon out of his
glass, and tossing it on the table, ‘that of all the obstinate, positive,
wrong-headed creatures that were ever born, you are the most so, Charlotte.’
‘Certainly, certainly, have it your own way, pray. You see how much I
contradict you,’ rejoins the lady. ‘Of course, you didn’t contradict
me at dinner-time—oh no, not you!’ says the gentleman. ‘Yes, I
did,’ says the lady. ‘Oh, you did,’ cries the gentleman ‘you admit
that?’ ‘If you call that contradiction, I do,’ the lady answers;
‘and I say again, Edward, that when I know you are wrong, I will contradict
you. I am not your slave.’ ‘Not my slave!’ repeats the
gentleman bitterly; ‘and you still mean to say that in the Blackburns’ new
house there are not more than fourteen doors, including the door of the
wine-cellar!’ ‘I mean to say,’ retorts the lady, beating time with
her hair-brush on the palm of her hand, ‘that in that house there are fourteen
doors and no more.’ ‘Well then—’ cries the gentleman, rising in
despair, and pacing the room with rapid strides. ‘By G-, this is enough
to destroy a man’s intellect, and drive him mad!’
By and by the gentleman comes-to a little, and passing
his hand gloomily across his forehead, reseats himself in his former chair.
There is a long silence, and this time the lady begins. ‘I appealed to
Mr. Jenkins, who sat next to me on the sofa in the drawing-room during tea—’
‘Morgan, you mean,’ interrupts the gentleman. ‘I do not mean
anything of the kind,’ answers the lady. ‘Now, by all that is
aggravating and impossible to bear,’ cries the gentleman, clenching his hands
and looking upwards in agony, ‘she is going to insist upon it that Morgan is
Jenkins!’ ‘Do you take me for a perfect fool?’ exclaims the lady;
‘do you suppose I don’t know the one from the other? Do you suppose I
don’t know that the man in the blue coat was Mr. Jenkins?’ ‘Jenkins
in a blue coat!’ cries the gentleman with a groan; ‘Jenkins in a blue coat!
a man who would suffer death rather than wear anything but brown!’ ‘Do
you dare to charge me with telling an untruth?’ demands the lady, bursting
into tears. ‘I charge you, ma’am,’ retorts the gentleman, starting
up, ‘with being a monster of contradiction, a monster of aggravation,
a—a—a—Jenkins in a blue coat!—what have I done that I should be doomed
to hear such statements!’
Expressing himself with great scorn and anguish, the
gentleman takes up his candle and stalks off to bed, where feigning to be fast
asleep when the lady comes up-stairs drowned in tears, murmuring lamentations
over her hard fate and indistinct intentions of consulting her brothers, he
undergoes the secret torture of hearing her exclaim between whiles, ‘I know
there are only fourteen doors in the house, I know it was Mr. Jenkins, I know he
had a blue coat on, and I would say it as positively as I do now, if they were
the last words I had to speak!’
If the contradictory couple are blessed with children,
they are not the less contradictory on that account. Master James and Miss
Charlotte present themselves after dinner, and being in perfect good humour, and
finding their parents in the same amiable state, augur from these appearances
half a glass of wine a-piece and other extraordinary indulgences. But
unfortunately Master James, growing talkative upon such prospects, asks his
mamma how tall Mrs. Parsons is, and whether she is not six feet high; to which
his mamma replies, ‘Yes, she should think she was, for Mrs. Parsons is a very
tall lady indeed; quite a giantess.’ ‘For Heaven’s sake,
Charlotte,’ cries her husband, ‘do not tell the child such preposterous
nonsense. Six feet high!’ ‘Well,’ replies the lady, ‘surely
I may be permitted to have an opinion; my opinion is, that she is six feet
high—at least six feet.’ ‘Now you know, Charlotte,’ retorts the
gentleman sternly, ‘that that is not your opinion—that you have no
such idea—and that you only say this for the sake of contradiction.’
‘You are exceedingly polite,’ his wife replies; ‘to be wrong about such a
paltry question as anybody’s height, would be no great crime; but I say again,
that I believe Mrs. Parsons to be six feet—more than six feet; nay, I believe
you know her to be full six feet, and only say she is not, because I say she
is.’ This taunt disposes the gentleman to become violent, but he cheeks
himself, and is content to mutter, in a haughty tone, ‘Six feet—ha! ha!
Mrs. Parsons six feet!’ and the lady answers, ‘Yes, six feet. I am
sure I am glad you are amused, and I’ll say it again—six feet.’ Thus
the subject gradually drops off, and the contradiction begins to be forgotten,
when Master James, with some undefined notion of making himself agreeable, and
putting things to rights again, unfortunately asks his mamma what the moon’s
made of; which gives her occasion to say that he had better not ask her, for she
is always wrong and never can be right; that he only exposes her to
contradiction by asking any question of her; and that he had better ask his
papa, who is infallible, and never can be wrong. Papa, smarting under this
attack, gives a terrible pull at the bell, and says, that if the conversation is
to proceed in this way, the children had better be removed. Removed they
are, after a few tears and many struggles; and Pa having looked at Ma sideways
for a minute or two, with a baleful eye, draws his pocket-handkerchief over his
face, and composes himself for his after-dinner nap.
The friends of the contradictory couple often deplore
their frequent disputes, though they rather make light of them at the same time:
observing, that there is no doubt they are very much attached to each other, and
that they never quarrel except about trifles. But neither the friends of
the contradictory couple, nor the contradictory couple themselves, reflect, that
as the most stupendous objects in nature are but vast collections of minute
particles, so the slightest and least considered trifles make up the sum of
human happiness or misery.
THE COUPLE WHO DOTE UPON THEIR CHILDREN
The couple who dote upon their children have usually a
great many of them: six or eight at least. The children are either the
healthiest in all the world, or the most unfortunate in existence. In
either case, they are equally the theme of their doting parents, and equally a
source of mental anguish and irritation to their doting parents’ friends.
The couple who dote upon their children recognise no
dates but those connected with their births, accidents, illnesses, or remarkable
deeds. They keep a mental almanack with a vast number of
Innocents’-days, all in red letters. They recollect the last coronation,
because on that day little Tom fell down the kitchen stairs; the anniversary of
the Gunpowder Plot, because it was on the fifth of November that Ned asked
whether wooden legs were made in heaven and cocked hats grew in gardens.
Mrs. Whiffler will never cease to recollect the last day of the old year as long
as she lives, for it was on that day that the baby had the four red spots on its
nose which they took for measles: nor Christmas-day, for twenty-one days after
Christmas-day the twins were born; nor Good Friday, for it was on a Good Friday
that she was frightened by the donkey-cart when she was in the family way with
Georgiana. The movable feasts have no motion for Mr. and Mrs. Whiffler,
but remain pinned down tight and fast to the shoulders of some small child, from
whom they can never be separated any more. Time was made, according to
their creed, not for slaves but for girls and boys; the restless sands in his
glass are but little children at play.
As we have already intimated, the children of this
couple can know no medium. They are either prodigies of good health or
prodigies of bad health; whatever they are, they must be prodigies. Mr.
Whiffler must have to describe at his office such excruciating agonies
constantly undergone by his eldest boy, as nobody else’s eldest boy ever
underwent; or he must be able to declare that there never was a child endowed
with such amazing health, such an indomitable constitution, and such a cast-iron
frame, as his child. His children must be, in some respect or other, above
and beyond the children of all other people. To such an extent is this
feeling pushed, that we were once slightly acquainted with a lady and gentleman
who carried their heads so high and became so proud after their youngest child
fell out of a two-pair-of-stairs window without hurting himself much, that the
greater part of their friends were obliged to forego their acquaintance.
But perhaps this may be an extreme case, and one not justly entitled to be
considered as a precedent of general application.
If a friend happen to dine in a friendly way with one of
these couples who dote upon their children, it is nearly impossible for him to
divert the conversation from their favourite topic. Everything reminds Mr.
Whiffler of Ned, or Mrs. Whiffler of Mary Anne, or of the time before Ned was
born, or the time before Mary Anne was thought of. The slightest remark,
however harmless in itself, will awaken slumbering recollections of the twins.
It is impossible to steer clear of them. They will come uppermost, let the
poor man do what he may. Ned has been known to be lost sight of for half
an hour, Dick has been forgotten, the name of Mary Anne has not been mentioned,
but the twins will out. Nothing can keep down the twins.
‘It’s a very extraordinary thing, Saunders,’ says
Mr. Whiffler to the visitor, ‘but—you have seen our little babies,
the—the—twins?’ The friend’s heart sinks within him as he answers,
‘Oh, yes—often.’ ‘Your talking of the Pyramids,’ says Mr.
Whiffler, quite as a matter of course, ‘reminds me of the twins. It’s
a very extraordinary thing about those babies—what colour should you say their
eyes were?’ ‘Upon my word,’ the friend stammers, ‘I hardly know
how to answer’—the fact being, that except as the friend does not remember
to have heard of any departure from the ordinary course of nature in the
instance of these twins, they might have no eyes at all for aught he has
observed to the contrary. ‘You wouldn’t say they were red, I
suppose?’ says Mr. Whiffler. The friend hesitates, and rather thinks
they are; but inferring from the expression of Mr. Whiffler’s face that red is
not the colour, smiles with some confidence, and says, ‘No, no! very different
from that.’ ‘What should you say to blue?’ says Mr. Whiffler.
The friend glances at him, and observing a different expression in his face,
ventures to say, ‘I should say they were blue—a decided blue.’
‘To be sure!’ cries Mr. Whiffler, triumphantly, ‘I knew you would!
But what should you say if I was to tell you that the boy’s eyes are blue and
the girl’s hazel, eh?’ ‘Impossible!’ exclaims the friend, not at
all knowing why it should be impossible. ‘A fact, notwithstanding,’
cries Mr. Whiffler; ‘and let me tell you, Saunders, that’s not a
common thing in twins, or a circumstance that’ll happen every day.’
In this dialogue Mrs. Whiffler, as being deeply
responsible for the twins, their charms and singularities, has taken no share;
but she now relates, in broken English, a witticism of little Dick’s bearing
upon the subject just discussed, which delights Mr. Whiffler beyond measure, and
causes him to declare that he would have sworn that was Dick’s if he had heard
it anywhere. Then he requests that Mrs. Whiffler will tell Saunders what
Tom said about mad bulls; and Mrs. Whiffler relating the anecdote, a discussion
ensues upon the different character of Tom’s wit and Dick’s wit, from which
it appears that Dick’s humour is of a lively turn, while Tom’s style is the
dry and caustic. This discussion being enlivened by various illustrations,
lasts a long time, and is only stopped by Mrs. Whiffler instructing the footman
to ring the nursery bell, as the children were promised that they should come
down and taste the pudding.
The friend turns pale when this order is given, and
paler still when it is followed up by a great pattering on the staircase, (not
unlike the sound of rain upon a skylight,) a violent bursting open of the
dining-room door, and the tumultuous appearance of six small children, closely
succeeded by a strong nursery-maid with a twin in each arm. As the whole
eight are screaming, shouting, or kicking—some influenced by a ravenous
appetite, some by a horror of the stranger, and some by a conflict of the two
feelings—a pretty long space elapses before all their heads can be ranged
round the table and anything like order restored; in bringing about which happy
state of things both the nurse and footman are severely scratched. At
length Mrs. Whiffler is heard to say, ‘Mr. Saunders, shall I give you some
pudding?’ A breathless silence ensues, and sixteen small eyes are fixed
upon the guest in expectation of his reply. A wild shout of joy proclaims
that he has said ‘No, thank you.’ Spoons are waved in the air, legs
appear above the table-cloth in uncontrollable ecstasy, and eighty short fingers
dabble in damson syrup.
While the pudding is being disposed of, Mr. and Mrs.
Whiffler look on with beaming countenances, and Mr. Whiffler nudging his friend
Saunders, begs him to take notice of Tom’s eyes, or Dick’s chin, or Ned’s
nose, or Mary Anne’s hair, or Emily’s figure, or little Bob’s calves, or
Fanny’s mouth, or Carry’s head, as the case may be. Whatever the
attention of Mr. Saunders is called to, Mr. Saunders admires of course; though
he is rather confused about the sex of the youngest branches and looks at the
wrong children, turning to a girl when Mr. Whiffler directs his attention to a
boy, and falling into raptures with a boy when he ought to be enchanted with a
girl. Then the dessert comes, and there is a vast deal of scrambling after
fruit, and sudden spirting forth of juice out of tight oranges into infant eyes,
and much screeching and wailing in consequence. At length it becomes time
for Mrs. Whiffler to retire, and all the children are by force of arms compelled
to kiss and love Mr. Saunders before going up-stairs, except Tom, who, lying on
his back in the hall, proclaims that Mr. Saunders ‘is a naughty beast;’ and
Dick, who having drunk his father’s wine when he was looking another way, is
found to be intoxicated and is carried out, very limp and helpless.
Mr. Whiffler and his friend are left alone together, but
Mr. Whiffler’s thoughts are still with his family, if his family are not with
him. ‘Saunders,’ says he, after a short silence, ‘if you please,
we’ll drink Mrs. Whiffler and the children.’ Mr. Saunders feels this
to be a reproach against himself for not proposing the same sentiment, and
drinks it in some confusion. ‘Ah!’ Mr. Whiffler sighs, ‘these
children, Saunders, make one quite an old man.’ Mr. Saunders thinks that
if they were his, they would make him a very old man; but he says nothing.
‘And yet,’ pursues Mr. Whiffler, ‘what can equal domestic happiness? what
can equal the engaging ways of children! Saunders, why don’t you get
married?’ Now, this is an embarrassing question, because Mr. Saunders
has been thinking that if he had at any time entertained matrimonial designs,
the revelation of that day would surely have routed them for ever. ‘I am
glad, however,’ says Mr. Whiffler, ‘that you are a bachelor,—glad
on one account, Saunders; a selfish one, I admit. Will you do Mrs.
Whiffler and myself a favour?’ Mr. Saunders is surprised—evidently
surprised; but he replies, ‘with the greatest pleasure.’ ‘Then, will
you, Saunders,’ says Mr. Whiffler, in an impressive manner, ‘will you cement
and consolidate our friendship by coming into the family (so to speak) as a
godfather?’ ‘I shall be proud and delighted,’ replies Mr. Saunders:
‘which of the children is it? really, I thought they were all christened;
or—’ ‘Saunders,’ Mr. Whiffler interposes, ‘they are all
christened; you are right. The fact is, that Mrs. Whiffler is—in short,
we expect another.’ ‘Not a ninth!’ cries the friend, all aghast at
the idea. ‘Yes, Saunders,’ rejoins Mr. Whiffler, solemnly, ‘a ninth.
Did we drink Mrs. Whiffler’s health? Let us drink it again, Saunders,
and wish her well over it!’
Doctor Johnson used to tell a story of a man who had but
one idea, which was a wrong one. The couple who dote upon their children
are in the same predicament: at home or abroad, at all times, and in all places,
their thoughts are bound up in this one subject, and have no sphere beyond.
They relate the clever things their offspring say or do, and weary every company
with their prolixity and absurdity. Mr. Whiffler takes a friend by the
button at a street corner on a windy day to tell him a bon mot of his
youngest boy’s; and Mrs. Whiffler, calling to see a sick acquaintance,
entertains her with a cheerful account of all her own past sufferings and
present expectations. In such cases the sins of the fathers indeed descend
upon the children; for people soon come to regard them as predestined little
bores. The couple who dote upon their children cannot be said to be
actuated by a general love for these engaging little people (which would be a
great excuse); for they are apt to underrate and entertain a jealousy of any
children but their own. If they examined their own hearts, they would,
perhaps, find at the bottom of all this, more self-love and egotism than they
think of. Self-love and egotism are bad qualities, of which the
unrestrained exhibition, though it may be sometimes amusing, never fails to be
wearisome and unpleasant. Couples who dote upon their children, therefore,
are best avoided.
THE COOL COUPLE
There is an old-fashioned weather-glass representing a
house with two doorways, in one of which is the figure of a gentleman, in the
other the figure of a lady. When the weather is to be fine the lady comes
out and the gentleman goes in; when wet, the gentleman comes out and the lady
goes in. They never seek each other’s society, are never elevated and
depressed by the same cause, and have nothing in common. They are the
model of a cool couple, except that there is something of politeness and
consideration about the behaviour of the gentleman in the weather-glass, in
which, neither of the cool couple can be said to participate.
The cool couple are seldom alone together, and when they
are, nothing can exceed their apathy and dulness: the gentleman being for the
most part drowsy, and the lady silent. If they enter into conversation, it
is usually of an ironical or recriminatory nature. Thus, when the
gentleman has indulged in a very long yawn and settled himself more snugly in
his easy-chair, the lady will perhaps remark, ‘Well, I am sure, Charles!
I hope you’re comfortable.’ To which the gentleman replies, ‘Oh yes,
he’s quite comfortable quite.’ ‘There are not many married men, I
hope,’ returns the lady, ‘who seek comfort in such selfish gratifications as
you do.’ ‘Nor many wives who seek comfort in such selfish
gratifications as you do, I hope,’ retorts the gentleman.
‘Whose fault is that?’ demands the lady. The gentleman becoming more
sleepy, returns no answer. ‘Whose fault is that?’ the lady repeats.
The gentleman still returning no answer, she goes on to say that she believes
there never was in all this world anybody so attached to her home, so thoroughly
domestic, so unwilling to seek a moment’s gratification or pleasure beyond her
own fireside as she. God knows that before she was married she never
thought or dreamt of such a thing; and she remembers that her poor papa used to
say again and again, almost every day of his life, ‘Oh, my dear Louisa, if you
only marry a man who understands you, and takes the trouble to consider your
happiness and accommodate himself a very little to your disposition, what a
treasure he will find in you!’ She supposes her papa knew what her
disposition was—he had known her long enough—he ought to have been
acquainted with it, but what can she do? If her home is always dull and
lonely, and her husband is always absent and finds no pleasure in her society,
she is naturally sometimes driven (seldom enough, she is sure) to seek a little
recreation elsewhere; she is not expected to pine and mope to death, she hopes.
‘Then come, Louisa,’ says the gentleman, waking up as suddenly as he fell
asleep, ‘stop at home this evening, and so will I.’ ‘I should be
sorry to suppose, Charles, that you took a pleasure in aggravating me,’
replies the lady; ‘but you know as well as I do that I am particularly engaged
to Mrs. Mortimer, and that it would be an act of the grossest rudeness and
ill-breeding, after accepting a seat in her box and preventing her from inviting
anybody else, not to go.’ ‘Ah! there it is!’ says the gentleman,
shrugging his shoulders, ‘I knew that perfectly well. I knew you
couldn’t devote an evening to your own home. Now all I have to say,
Louisa, is this—recollect that I was quite willing to stay at home, and
that it’s no fault of mine we are not oftener together.’
With that the gentleman goes away to keep an old
appointment at his club, and the lady hurries off to dress for Mrs.
Mortimer’s; and neither thinks of the other until by some odd chance they find
themselves alone again.
But it must not be supposed that the cool couple are
habitually a quarrelsome one. Quite the contrary. These differences
are only occasions for a little self-excuse,—nothing more. In general
they are as easy and careless, and dispute as seldom, as any common
acquaintances may; for it is neither worth their while to put each other out of
the way, nor to ruffle themselves.
When they meet in society, the cool couple are the
best-bred people in existence. The lady is seated in a corner among a
little knot of lady friends, one of whom exclaims, ‘Why, I vow and declare
there is your husband, my dear!’ ‘Whose?—mine?’ she says,
carelessly. ‘Ay, yours, and coming this way too.’ ‘How very
odd!’ says the lady, in a languid tone, ‘I thought he had been at Dover.’
The gentleman coming up, and speaking to all the other ladies and nodding
slightly to his wife, it turns out that he has been at Dover, and has just now
returned. ‘What a strange creature you are!’ cries his wife; ‘and
what on earth brought you here, I wonder?’ ‘I came to look after you, of
course,’ rejoins her husband. This is so pleasant a jest that the
lady is mightily amused, as are all the other ladies similarly situated who are
within hearing; and while they are enjoying it to the full, the gentleman nods
again, turns upon his heel, and saunters away.
There are times, however, when his company is not so
agreeable, though equally unexpected; such as when the lady has invited one or
two particular friends to tea and scandal, and he happens to come home in the
very midst of their diversion. It is a hundred chances to one that he
remains in the house half an hour, but the lady is rather disturbed by the
intrusion, notwithstanding, and reasons within herself,—‘I am sure I never
interfere with him, and why should he interfere with me? It can scarcely
be accidental; it never happens that I have a particular reason for not wishing
him to come home, but he always comes. It’s very provoking and tiresome;
and I am sure when he leaves me so much alone for his own pleasure, the least he
could do would be to do as much for mine.’ Observing what passes in her
mind, the gentleman, who has come home for his own accommodation, makes a merit
of it with himself; arrives at the conclusion that it is the very last place in
which he can hope to be comfortable; and determines, as he takes up his hat and
cane, never to be so virtuous again.
Thus a great many cool couples go on until they are cold
couples, and the grave has closed over their folly and indifference. Loss
of name, station, character, life itself, has ensued from causes as slight as
these, before now; and when gossips tell such tales, and aggravate their
deformities, they elevate their hands and eyebrows, and call each other to
witness what a cool couple Mr. and Mrs. So-and-so always were, even in the best
of times.
THE PLAUSIBLE COUPLE
The plausible couple have many titles. They are
‘a delightful couple,’ an ‘affectionate couple,’ ‘a most agreeable
couple, ‘a good-hearted couple,’ and ‘the best-natured couple in
existence.’ The truth is, that the plausible couple are people of the
world; and either the way of pleasing the world has grown much easier than it
was in the days of the old man and his ass, or the old man was but a bad hand at
it, and knew very little of the trade.
‘But is it really possible to please the world!’
says some doubting reader. It is indeed. Nay, it is not only very
possible, but very easy. The ways are crooked, and sometimes foul and low.
What then? A man need but crawl upon his hands and knees, know when to
close his eyes and when his ears, when to stoop and when to stand upright; and
if by the world is meant that atom of it in which he moves himself, he shall
please it, never fear.
Now, it will be readily seen, that if a plausible man or
woman have an easy means of pleasing the world by an adaptation of self to all
its twistings and twinings, a plausible man and woman, or, in other
words, a plausible couple, playing into each other’s hands, and acting in
concert, have a manifest advantage. Hence it is that plausible couples
scarcely ever fail of success on a pretty large scale; and hence it is that if
the reader, laying down this unwieldy volume at the next full stop, will have
the goodness to review his or her circle of acquaintance, and to search
particularly for some man and wife with a large connexion and a good name, not
easily referable to their abilities or their wealth, he or she (that is, the
male or female reader) will certainly find that gentleman or lady, on a very
short reflection, to be a plausible couple.
The plausible couple are the most ecstatic people
living: the most sensitive people—to merit—on the face of the earth.
Nothing clever or virtuous escapes them. They have microscopic eyes for
such endowments, and can find them anywhere. The plausible couple never
fawn—oh no! They don’t even scruple to tell their friends of their
faults. One is too generous, another too candid; a third has a tendency to
think all people like himself, and to regard mankind as a company of angels; a
fourth is kind-hearted to a fault. ‘We never flatter, my dear Mrs.
Jackson,’ say the plausible couple; ‘we speak our minds. Neither you
nor Mr. Jackson have faults enough. It may sound strangely, but it is
true. You have not faults enough. You know our way,—we must speak
out, and always do. Quarrel with us for saying so, if you will; but we
repeat it,—you have not faults enough!’
The plausible couple are no less plausible to each other
than to third parties. They are always loving and harmonious. The
plausible gentleman calls his wife ‘darling,’ and the plausible lady
addresses him as ‘dearest.’ If it be Mr. and Mrs. Bobtail Widger, Mrs.
Widger is ‘Lavinia, darling,’ and Mr. Widger is ‘Bobtail, dearest.’
Speaking of each other, they observe the same tender form. Mrs. Widger
relates what ‘Bobtail’ said, and Mr. Widger recounts what ‘darling’
thought and did.
If you sit next to the plausible lady at a dinner-table,
she takes the earliest opportunity of expressing her belief that you are
acquainted with the Clickits; she is sure she has heard the Clickits speak of
you—she must not tell you in what terms, or you will take her for a flatterer.
You admit a knowledge of the Clickits; the plausible lady immediately launches
out in their praise. She quite loves the Clickits. Were there ever
such true-hearted, hospitable, excellent people—such a gentle, interesting
little woman as Mrs. Clickit, or such a frank, unaffected creature as Mr.
Clickit? were there ever two people, in short, so little spoiled by the world as
they are? ‘As who, darling?’ cries Mr. Widger, from the opposite side
of the table. ‘The Clickits, dearest,’ replies Mrs. Widger.
‘Indeed you are right, darling,’ Mr. Widger rejoins; ‘the Clickits are a
very high-minded, worthy, estimable couple.’ Mrs. Widger remarking that
Bobtail always grows quite eloquent upon this subject, Mr. Widger admits that he
feels very strongly whenever such people as the Clickits and some other friends
of his (here he glances at the host and hostess) are mentioned; for they are an
honour to human nature, and do one good to think of. ‘You know
the Clickits, Mrs. Jackson?’ he says, addressing the lady of the house.
‘No, indeed; we have not that pleasure,’ she replies. ‘You astonish
me!’ exclaims Mr. Widger: ‘not know the Clickits! why, you are the very
people of all others who ought to be their bosom friends. You are kindred
beings; you are one and the same thing:- not know the Clickits! Now will
you know the Clickits? Will you make a point of knowing them? Will
you meet them in a friendly way at our house one evening, and be acquainted with
them?’ Mrs. Jackson will be quite delighted; nothing would give her more
pleasure. ‘Then, Lavinia, my darling,’ says Mr. Widger, ‘mind you
don’t lose sight of that; now, pray take care that Mr. and Mrs. Jackson know
the Clickits without loss of time. Such people ought not to be strangers
to each other.’ Mrs. Widger books both families as the centre of
attraction for her next party; and Mr. Widger, going on to expatiate upon the
virtues of the Clickits, adds to their other moral qualities, that they keep one
of the neatest phaetons in town, and have two thousand a year.
As the plausible couple never laud the merits of any
absent person, without dexterously contriving that their praises shall reflect
upon somebody who is present, so they never depreciate anything or anybody,
without turning their depreciation to the same account. Their friend, Mr.
Slummery, say they, is unquestionably a clever painter, and would no doubt be
very popular, and sell his pictures at a very high price, if that cruel Mr.
Fithers had not forestalled him in his department of art, and made it thoroughly
and completely his own;—Fithers, it is to be observed, being present and
within hearing, and Slummery elsewhere. Is Mrs. Tabblewick really as
beautiful as people say? Why, there indeed you ask them a very puzzling
question, because there is no doubt that she is a very charming woman, and they
have long known her intimately. She is no doubt beautiful, very beautiful;
they once thought her the most beautiful woman ever seen; still if you press
them for an honest answer, they are bound to say that this was before they had
ever seen our lovely friend on the sofa, (the sofa is hard by, and our lovely
friend can’t help hearing the whispers in which this is said;) since that
time, perhaps, they have been hardly fair judges; Mrs. Tabblewick is no doubt
extremely handsome,—very like our friend, in fact, in the form of the
features,—but in point of expression, and soul, and figure, and air
altogether—oh dear!
But while the plausible couple depreciate, they are
still careful to preserve their character for amiability and kind feeling;
indeed the depreciation itself is often made to grow out of their excessive
sympathy and good will. The plausible lady calls on a lady who dotes upon
her children, and is sitting with a little girl upon her knee, enraptured by her
artless replies, and protesting that there is nothing she delights in so much as
conversing with these fairies; when the other lady inquires if she has seen
young Mrs. Finching lately, and whether the baby has turned out a finer one than
it promised to be. ‘Oh dear!’ cries the plausible lady, ‘you cannot
think how often Bobtail and I have talked about poor Mrs. Finching—she is such
a dear soul, and was so anxious that the baby should be a fine child—and very
naturally, because she was very much here at one time, and there is, you know, a
natural emulation among mothers—that it is impossible to tell you how much we
have felt for her.’ ‘Is it weak or plain, or what?’ inquires the
other. ‘Weak or plain, my love,’ returns the plausible lady, ‘it’s
a fright—a perfect little fright; you never saw such a miserable creature in
all your days. Positively you must not let her see one of these beautiful
dears again, or you’ll break her heart, you will indeed.—Heaven bless this
child, see how she is looking in my face! can you conceive anything prettier
than that? If poor Mrs. Finching could only hope—but that’s
impossible—and the gifts of Providence, you know—What did I do with
my pocket-handkerchief!’
What prompts the mother, who dotes upon her children, to
comment to her lord that evening on the plausible lady’s engaging qualities
and feeling heart, and what is it that procures Mr. and Mrs. Bobtail Widger an
immediate invitation to dinner?
THE NICE LITTLE COUPLE
A custom once prevailed in old-fashioned circles, that
when a lady or gentleman was unable to sing a song, he or she should enliven the
company with a story. As we find ourself in the predicament of not being
able to describe (to our own satisfaction) nice little couples in the abstract,
we purpose telling in this place a little story about a nice little couple of
our acquaintance.
Mr. and Mrs. Chirrup are the nice little couple in
question. Mr. Chirrup has the smartness, and something of the brisk, quick
manner of a small bird. Mrs. Chirrup is the prettiest of all little women,
and has the prettiest little figure conceivable. She has the neatest
little foot, and the softest little voice, and the pleasantest little smile, and
the tidiest little curls, and the brightest little eyes, and the quietest little
manner, and is, in short, altogether one of the most engaging of all little
women, dead or alive. She is a condensation of all the domestic
virtues,—a pocket edition of the young man’s best companion,—a little
woman at a very high pressure, with an amazing quantity of goodness and
usefulness in an exceedingly small space. Little as she is, Mrs. Chirrup
might furnish forth matter for the moral equipment of a score of housewives, six
feet high in their stockings—if, in the presence of ladies, we may be allowed
the expression—and of corresponding robustness.
Nobody knows all this better than Mr. Chirrup, though he
rather takes on that he don’t. Accordingly he is very proud of his
better-half, and evidently considers himself, as all other people consider him,
rather fortunate in having her to wife. We say evidently, because Mr.
Chirrup is a warm-hearted little fellow; and if you catch his eye when he has
been slyly glancing at Mrs. Chirrup in company, there is a certain complacent
twinkle in it, accompanied, perhaps, by a half-expressed toss of the head, which
as clearly indicates what has been passing in his mind as if he had put it into
words, and shouted it out through a speaking-trumpet. Moreover, Mr.
Chirrup has a particularly mild and bird-like manner of calling Mrs. Chirrup
‘my dear;’ and—for he is of a jocose turn—of cutting little witticisms
upon her, and making her the subject of various harmless pleasantries, which
nobody enjoys more thoroughly than Mrs. Chirrup herself. Mr. Chirrup, too,
now and then affects to deplore his bachelor-days, and to bemoan (with a
marvellously contented and smirking face) the loss of his freedom, and the
sorrow of his heart at having been taken captive by Mrs. Chirrup—all of which
circumstances combine to show the secret triumph and satisfaction of Mr.
Chirrup’s soul.
We have already had occasion to observe that Mrs.
Chirrup is an incomparable housewife. In all the arts of domestic
arrangement and management, in all the mysteries of confectionery-making,
pickling, and preserving, never was such a thorough adept as that nice little
body. She is, besides, a cunning worker in muslin and fine linen, and a
special hand at marketing to the very best advantage. But if there be one
branch of housekeeping in which she excels to an utterly unparalleled and
unprecedented extent, it is in the important one of carving. A roast goose
is universally allowed to be the great stumbling-block in the way of young
aspirants to perfection in this department of science; many promising carvers,
beginning with legs of mutton, and preserving a good reputation through fillets
of veal, sirloins of beef, quarters of lamb, fowls, and even ducks, have sunk
before a roast goose, and lost caste and character for ever. To Mrs.
Chirrup the resolving a goose into its smallest component parts is a pleasant
pastime—a practical joke—a thing to be done in a minute or so, without the
smallest interruption to the conversation of the time. No handing the dish
over to an unfortunate man upon her right or left, no wild sharpening of the
knife, no hacking and sawing at an unruly joint, no noise, no splash, no heat,
no leaving off in despair; all is confidence and cheerfulness. The dish is
set upon the table, the cover is removed; for an instant, and only an instant,
you observe that Mrs. Chirrup’s attention is distracted; she smiles, but
heareth not. You proceed with your story; meanwhile the glittering knife
is slowly upraised, both Mrs. Chirrup’s wrists are slightly but not
ungracefully agitated, she compresses her lips for an instant, then breaks into
a smile, and all is over. The legs of the bird slide gently down into a
pool of gravy, the wings seem to melt from the body, the breast separates into a
row of juicy slices, the smaller and more complicated parts of his anatomy are
perfectly developed, a cavern of stuffing is revealed, and the goose is gone!
To dine with Mr. and Mrs. Chirrup is one of the
pleasantest things in the world. Mr. Chirrup has a bachelor friend, who
lived with him in his own days of single blessedness, and to whom he is mightily
attached. Contrary to the usual custom, this bachelor friend is no less a
friend of Mrs. Chirrup’s, and, consequently, whenever you dine with Mr. and
Mrs. Chirrup, you meet the bachelor friend. It would put any
reasonably-conditioned mortal into good-humour to observe the entire unanimity
which subsists between these three; but there is a quiet welcome dimpling in
Mrs. Chirrup’s face, a bustling hospitality oozing as it were out of the
waistcoat-pockets of Mr. Chirrup, and a patronising enjoyment of their
cordiality and satisfaction on the part of the bachelor friend, which is quite
delightful. On these occasions Mr. Chirrup usually takes an opportunity of
rallying the friend on being single, and the friend retorts on Mr. Chirrup for
being married, at which moments some single young ladies present are like to die
of laughter; and we have more than once observed them bestow looks upon the
friend, which convinces us that his position is by no means a safe one, as,
indeed, we hold no bachelor’s to be who visits married friends and cracks
jokes on wedlock, for certain it is that such men walk among traps and nets and
pitfalls innumerable, and often find themselves down upon their knees at the
altar rails, taking M. or N. for their wedded wives, before they know anything
about the matter.
However, this is no business of Mr. Chirrup’s, who
talks, and laughs, and drinks his wine, and laughs again, and talks more, until
it is time to repair to the drawing-room, where, coffee served and over, Mrs.
Chirrup prepares for a round game, by sorting the nicest possible little fish
into the nicest possible little pools, and calling Mr. Chirrup to assist her,
which Mr. Chirrup does. As they stand side by side, you find that Mr.
Chirrup is the least possible shadow of a shade taller than Mrs. Chirrup, and
that they are the neatest and best-matched little couple that can be, which the
chances are ten to one against your observing with such effect at any other
time, unless you see them in the street arm-in-arm, or meet them some rainy day
trotting along under a very small umbrella. The round game (at which Mr.
Chirrup is the merriest of the party) being done and over, in course of time a
nice little tray appears, on which is a nice little supper; and when that is
finished likewise, and you have said ‘Good night,’ you find yourself
repeating a dozen times, as you ride home, that there never was such a nice
little couple as Mr. and Mrs. Chirrup.
Whether it is that pleasant qualities, being packed more
closely in small bodies than in large, come more readily to hand than when they
are diffused over a wider space, and have to be gathered together for use, we
don’t know, but as a general rule,—strengthened like all other rules by its
exceptions,—we hold that little people are sprightly and good-natured.
The more sprightly and good-natured people we have, the better; therefore, let
us wish well to all nice little couples, and hope that they may increase and
multiply.
THE EGOTISTICAL COUPLE
Egotism in couples is of two kinds.—It is our purpose
to show this by two examples.
The egotistical couple may be young, old, middle-aged,
well to do, or ill to do; they may have a small family, a large family, or no
family at all. There is no outward sign by which an egotistical couple may
be known and avoided. They come upon you unawares; there is no guarding
against them. No man can of himself be forewarned or forearmed against an
egotistical couple.
The egotistical couple have undergone every calamity,
and experienced every pleasurable and painful sensation of which our nature is
susceptible. You cannot by possibility tell the egotistical couple
anything they don’t know, or describe to them anything they have not felt.
They have been everything but dead. Sometimes we are tempted to wish they
had been even that, but only in our uncharitable moments, which are few and far
between.
We happened the other day, in the course of a morning
call, to encounter an egotistical couple, nor were we suffered to remain long in
ignorance of the fact, for our very first inquiry of the lady of the house
brought them into active and vigorous operation. The inquiry was of course
touching the lady’s health, and the answer happened to be, that she had not
been very well. ‘Oh, my dear!’ said the egotistical lady, ‘don’t
talk of not being well. We have been in such a state since we saw
you last!’—The lady of the house happening to remark that her lord had not
been well either, the egotistical gentleman struck in: ‘Never let Briggs
complain of not being well—never let Briggs complain, my dear Mrs. Briggs,
after what I have undergone within these six weeks. He doesn’t know what
it is to be ill, he hasn’t the least idea of it; not the faintest
conception.’—‘My dear,’ interposed his wife smiling, ‘you talk as if
it were almost a crime in Mr. Briggs not to have been as ill as we have been,
instead of feeling thankful to Providence that both he and our dear Mrs. Briggs
are in such blissful ignorance of real suffering.’—‘My love,’ returned
the egotistical gentleman, in a low and pious voice, ‘you mistake me;—I feel
grateful—very grateful. I trust our friends may never purchase their
experience as dearly as we have bought ours; I hope they never may!’
Having put down Mrs. Briggs upon this theme, and settled
the question thus, the egotistical gentleman turned to us, and, after a few
preliminary remarks, all tending towards and leading up to the point he had in
his mind, inquired if we happened to be acquainted with the Dowager Lady
Snorflerer. On our replying in the negative, he presumed we had often met
Lord Slang, or beyond all doubt, that we were on intimate terms with Sir
Chipkins Glogwog. Finding that we were equally unable to lay claim to
either of these distinctions, he expressed great astonishment, and turning to
his wife with a retrospective smile, inquired who it was that had told that
capital story about the mashed potatoes. ‘Who, my dear?’ returned the
egotistical lady, ‘why Sir Chipkins, of course; how can you ask! Don’t
you remember his applying it to our cook, and saying that you and I were so like
the Prince and Princess, that he could almost have sworn we were they?’
‘To be sure, I remember that,’ said the egotistical gentleman, ‘but are
you quite certain that didn’t apply to the other anecdote about the Emperor of
Austria and the pump?’ ‘Upon my word then, I think it did,’ replied
his wife. ‘To be sure it did,’ said the egotistical gentleman, ‘it
was Slang’s story, I remember now, perfectly.’ However, it turned out,
a few seconds afterwards, that the egotistical gentleman’s memory was rather
treacherous, as he began to have a misgiving that the story had been told by the
Dowager Lady Snorflerer the very last time they dined there; but there
appearing, on further consideration, strong circumstantial evidence tending to
show that this couldn’t be, inasmuch as the Dowager Lady Snorflerer had been,
on the occasion in question, wholly engrossed by the egotistical lady, the
egotistical gentleman recanted this opinion; and after laying the story at the
doors of a great many great people, happily left it at last with the Duke of
Scuttlewig:- observing that it was not extraordinary he had forgotten his Grace
hitherto, as it often happened that the names of those with whom we were upon
the most familiar footing were the very last to present themselves to our
thoughts.
It not only appeared that the egotistical couple knew
everybody, but that scarcely any event of importance or notoriety had occurred
for many years with which they had not been in some way or other connected.
Thus we learned that when the well-known attempt upon the life of George the
Third was made by Hatfield in Drury Lane theatre, the egotistical gentleman’s
grandfather sat upon his right hand and was the first man who collared him; and
that the egotistical lady’s aunt, sitting within a few boxes of the royal
party, was the only person in the audience who heard his Majesty exclaim,
‘Charlotte, Charlotte, don’t be frightened, don’t be frightened; they’re
letting off squibs, they’re letting off squibs.’ When the fire broke
out, which ended in the destruction of the two Houses of Parliament, the
egotistical couple, being at the time at a drawing-room window on Blackheath,
then and there simultaneously exclaimed, to the astonishment of a whole
party—‘It’s the House of Lords!’ Nor was this a solitary instance
of their peculiar discernment, for chancing to be (as by a comparison of dates
and circumstances they afterwards found) in the same omnibus with Mr. Greenacre,
when he carried his victim’s head about town in a blue bag, they both remarked
a singular twitching in the muscles of his countenance; and walking down Fish
Street Hill, a few weeks since, the egotistical gentleman said to his
lady—slightly casting up his eyes to the top of the Monument—‘There’s a
boy up there, my dear, reading a Bible. It’s very strange. I
don’t like it.—In five seconds afterwards, Sir,’ says the egotistical
gentleman, bringing his hands together with one violent clap—‘the lad was
over!’
Diversifying these topics by the introduction of many
others of the same kind, and entertaining us between whiles with a minute
account of what weather and diet agreed with them, and what weather and diet
disagreed with them, and at what time they usually got up, and at what time went
to bed, with many other particulars of their domestic economy too numerous to
mention; the egotistical couple at length took their leave, and afforded us an
opportunity of doing the same.
Mr. and Mrs. Sliverstone are an egotistical couple of
another class, for all the lady’s egotism is about her husband, and all the
gentleman’s about his wife. For example:- Mr. Sliverstone is a clerical
gentleman, and occasionally writes sermons, as clerical gentlemen do. If
you happen to obtain admission at the street-door while he is so engaged, Mrs.
Sliverstone appears on tip-toe, and speaking in a solemn whisper, as if there
were at least three or four particular friends up-stairs, all upon the point of
death, implores you to be very silent, for Mr. Sliverstone is composing, and she
need not say how very important it is that he should not be disturbed.
Unwilling to interrupt anything so serious, you hasten to withdraw, with many
apologies; but this Mrs. Sliverstone will by no means allow, observing, that she
knows you would like to see him, as it is very natural you should, and that she
is determined to make a trial for you, as you are a great favourite. So
you are led up-stairs—still on tip-toe—to the door of a little back room, in
which, as the lady informs you in a whisper, Mr. Sliverstone always writes.
No answer being returned to a couple of soft taps, the lady opens the door, and
there, sure enough, is Mr. Sliverstone, with dishevelled hair, powdering away
with pen, ink, and paper, at a rate which, if he has any power of sustaining it,
would settle the longest sermon in no time. At first he is too much
absorbed to be roused by this intrusion; but presently looking up, says faintly,
‘Ah!’ and pointing to his desk with a weary and languid smile, extends his
hand, and hopes you’ll forgive him. Then Mrs. Sliverstone sits down
beside him, and taking his hand in hers, tells you how that Mr. Sliverstone has
been shut up there ever since nine o’clock in the morning, (it is by this time
twelve at noon,) and how she knows it cannot be good for his health, and is very
uneasy about it. Unto this Mr. Sliverstone replies firmly, that ‘It must
be done;’ which agonizes Mrs. Sliverstone still more, and she goes on to tell
you that such were Mr. Sliverstone’s labours last week—what with the
buryings, marryings, churchings, christenings, and all together,—that when he
was going up the pulpit stairs on Sunday evening, he was obliged to hold on by
the rails, or he would certainly have fallen over into his own pew. Mr.
Sliverstone, who has been listening and smiling meekly, says, ‘Not quite so
bad as that, not quite so bad!’ he admits though, on cross-examination, that
he was very near falling upon the verger who was following him up to bolt
the door; but adds, that it was his duty as a Christian to fall upon him, if
need were, and that he, Mr. Sliverstone, and (possibly the verger too) ought to
glory in it.
This sentiment communicates new impulse to Mrs.
Sliverstone, who launches into new praises of Mr. Sliverstone’s worth and
excellence, to which he listens in the same meek silence, save when he puts in a
word of self-denial relative to some question of fact, as—‘Not seventy-two
christenings that week, my dear. Only seventy-one, only seventy-one.’
At length his lady has quite concluded, and then he says, Why should he repine,
why should he give way, why should he suffer his heart to sink within him?
Is it he alone who toils and suffers? What has she gone through, he should
like to know? What does she go through every day for him and for society?
With such an exordium Mr. Sliverstone launches out into
glowing praises of the conduct of Mrs. Sliverstone in the production of eight
young children, and the subsequent rearing and fostering of the same; and thus
the husband magnifies the wife, and the wife the husband.
This would be well enough if Mr. and Mrs. Sliverstone
kept it to themselves, or even to themselves and a friend or two; but they do
not. The more hearers they have, the more egotistical the couple become,
and the more anxious they are to make believers in their merits. Perhaps
this is the worst kind of egotism. It has not even the poor excuse of
being spontaneous, but is the result of a deliberate system and malice
aforethought. Mere empty-headed conceit excites our pity, but ostentatious
hypocrisy awakens our disgust.
THE COUPLE WHO CODDLE THEMSELVES
Mrs. Merrywinkle’s maiden name was Chopper. She
was the only child of Mr. and Mrs. Chopper. Her father died when she was,
as the play-books express it, ‘yet an infant;’ and so old Mrs. Chopper, when
her daughter married, made the house of her son-in-law her home from that time
henceforth, and set up her staff of rest with Mr. and Mrs. Merrywinkle.
Mr. and Mrs. Merrywinkle are a couple who coddle
themselves; and the venerable Mrs. Chopper is an aider and abettor in the same.
Mr. Merrywinkle is a rather lean and long-necked
gentleman, middle-aged and middle-sized, and usually troubled with a cold in the
head. Mrs. Merrywinkle is a delicate-looking lady, with very light hair,
and is exceedingly subject to the same unpleasant disorder. The venerable
Mrs. Chopper—who is strictly entitled to the appellation, her daughter not
being very young, otherwise than by courtesy, at the time of her marriage, which
was some years ago—is a mysterious old lady who lurks behind a pair of
spectacles, and is afflicted with a chronic disease, respecting which she has
taken a vast deal of medical advice, and referred to a vast number of medical
books, without meeting any definition of symptoms that at all suits her, or
enables her to say, ‘That’s my complaint.’ Indeed, the absence of
authentic information upon the subject of this complaint would seem to be Mrs.
Chopper’s greatest ill, as in all other respects she is an uncommonly hale and
hearty gentlewoman.
Both Mr. and Mrs. Chopper wear an extraordinary quantity
of flannel, and have a habit of putting their feet in hot water to an unnatural
extent. They likewise indulge in chamomile tea and such-like compounds,
and rub themselves on the slightest provocation with camphorated spirits and
other lotions applicable to mumps, sore-throat, rheumatism, or lumbago.
Mr. Merrywinkle’s leaving home to go to business on a
damp or wet morning is a very elaborate affair. He puts on wash-leather
socks over his stockings, and India-rubber shoes above his boots, and wears
under his waistcoat a cuirass of hare-skin. Besides these precautions, he
winds a thick shawl round his throat, and blocks up his mouth with a large silk
handkerchief. Thus accoutred, and furnished besides with a great-coat and
umbrella, he braves the dangers of the streets; travelling in severe weather at
a gentle trot, the better to preserve the circulation, and bringing his mouth to
the surface to take breath, but very seldom, and with the utmost caution.
His office-door opened, he shoots past his clerk at the same pace, and diving
into his own private room, closes the door, examines the window-fastenings, and
gradually unrobes himself: hanging his pocket-handkerchief on the fender to air,
and determining to write to the newspapers about the fog, which, he says, ‘has
really got to that pitch that it is quite unbearable.’
In this last opinion Mrs. Merrywinkle and her respected
mother fully concur; for though not present, their thoughts and tongues are
occupied with the same subject, which is their constant theme all day. If
anybody happens to call, Mrs. Merrywinkle opines that they must assuredly be
mad, and her first salutation is, ‘Why, what in the name of goodness can bring
you out in such weather? You know you must catch your death.’
This assurance is corroborated by Mrs. Chopper, who adds, in further
confirmation, a dismal legend concerning an individual of her acquaintance who,
making a call under precisely parallel circumstances, and being then in the best
health and spirits, expired in forty-eight hours afterwards, of a complication
of inflammatory disorders. The visitor, rendered not altogether
comfortable perhaps by this and other precedents, inquires very affectionately
after Mr. Merrywinkle, but by so doing brings about no change of the subject;
for Mr. Merrywinkle’s name is inseparably connected with his complaints, and
his complaints are inseparably connected with Mrs. Merrywinkle’s; and when
these are done with, Mrs. Chopper, who has been biding her time, cuts in with
the chronic disorder—a subject upon which the amiable old lady never leaves
off speaking until she is left alone, and very often not then.
But Mr. Merrywinkle comes home to dinner. He is
received by Mrs. Merrywinkle and Mrs. Chopper, who, on his remarking that he
thinks his feet are damp, turn pale as ashes and drag him up-stairs, imploring
him to have them rubbed directly with a dry coarse towel. Rubbed they are,
one by Mrs. Merrywinkle and one by Mrs. Chopper, until the friction causes Mr.
Merrywinkle to make horrible faces, and look as if he had been smelling very
powerful onions; when they desist, and the patient, provided for his better
security with thick worsted stockings and list slippers, is borne down-stairs to
dinner. Now, the dinner is always a good one, the appetites of the diners
being delicate, and requiring a little of what Mrs. Merrywinkle calls
‘tittivation;’ the secret of which is understood to lie in good cookery and
tasteful spices, and which process is so successfully performed in the present
instance, that both Mr. and Mrs. Merrywinkle eat a remarkably good dinner, and
even the afflicted Mrs. Chopper wields her knife and fork with much of the
spirit and elasticity of youth. But Mr. Merrywinkle, in his desire to
gratify his appetite, is not unmindful of his health, for he has a bottle of
carbonate of soda with which to qualify his porter, and a little pair of scales
in which to weigh it out. Neither in his anxiety to take care of his body
is he unmindful of the welfare of his immortal part, as he always prays that for
what he is going to receive he may be made truly thankful; and in order that he
may be as thankful as possible, eats and drinks to the utmost.
Either from eating and drinking so much, or from being
the victim of this constitutional infirmity, among others, Mr. Merrywinkle,
after two or three glasses of wine, falls fast asleep; and he has scarcely
closed his eyes, when Mrs. Merrywinkle and Mrs. Chopper fall asleep likewise.
It is on awakening at tea-time that their most alarming symptoms prevail; for
then Mr. Merrywinkle feels as if his temples were tightly bound round with the
chain of the street-door, and Mrs. Merrywinkle as if she had made a hearty
dinner of half-hundredweights, and Mrs. Chopper as if cold water were running
down her back, and oyster-knives with sharp points were plunging of their own
accord into her ribs. Symptoms like these are enough to make people
peevish, and no wonder that they remain so until supper-time, doing little more
than doze and complain, unless Mr. Merrywinkle calls out very loudly to a
servant ‘to keep that draught out,’ or rushes into the passage to flourish
his fist in the countenance of the twopenny-postman, for daring to give such a
knock as he had just performed at the door of a private gentleman with nerves.
Supper, coming after dinner, should consist of some
gentle provocative; and therefore the tittivating art is again in requisition,
and again—done honour to by Mr. and Mrs. Merrywinkle, still comforted and
abetted by Mrs. Chopper. After supper, it is ten to one but the last-named
old lady becomes worse, and is led off to bed with the chronic complaint in full
vigour. Mr. and Mrs. Merrywinkle, having administered to her a warm
cordial, which is something of the strongest, then repair to their own room,
where Mr. Merrywinkle, with his legs and feet in hot water, superintends the
mulling of some wine which he is to drink at the very moment he plunges into
bed, while Mrs. Merrywinkle, in garments whose nature is unknown to and
unimagined by all but married men, takes four small pills with a spasmodic look
between each, and finally comes to something hot and fragrant out of another
little saucepan, which serves as her composing-draught for the night.
There is another kind of couple who coddle themselves,
and who do so at a cheaper rate and on more spare diet, because they are
niggardly and parsimonious; for which reason they are kind enough to coddle
their visitors too. It is unnecessary to describe them, for our readers
may rest assured of the accuracy of these general principles:- that all couples
who coddle themselves are selfish and slothful,—that they charge upon every
wind that blows, every rain that falls, and every vapour that hangs in the air,
the evils which arise from their own imprudence or the gloom which is engendered
in their own tempers,—and that all men and women, in couples or otherwise, who
fall into exclusive habits of self-indulgence, and forget their natural sympathy
and close connexion with everybody and everything in the world around them, not
only neglect the first duty of life, but, by a happy retributive justice,
deprive themselves of its truest and best enjoyment.
THE OLD COUPLE
They are grandfather and grandmother to a dozen grown
people and have great-grandchildren besides; their bodies are bent, their hair
is grey, their step tottering and infirm. Is this the lightsome pair whose
wedding was so merry, and have the young couple indeed grown old so soon!
It seems but yesterday—and yet what a host of cares
and griefs are crowded into the intervening time which, reckoned by them,
lengthens out into a century! How many new associations have wreathed
themselves about their hearts since then! The old time is gone, and a new
time has come for others—not for them. They are but the rusting link
that feebly joins the two, and is silently loosening its hold and dropping
asunder.
It seems but yesterday—and yet three of their children
have sunk into the grave, and the tree that shades it has grown quite old.
One was an infant—they wept for him; the next a girl, a slight young thing too
delicate for earth—her loss was hard indeed to bear. The third, a man.
That was the worst of all, but even that grief is softened now.
It seems but yesterday—and yet how the gay and
laughing faces of that bright morning have changed and vanished from above
ground! Faint likenesses of some remain about them yet, but they are very
faint and scarcely to be traced. The rest are only seen in dreams, and
even they are unlike what they were, in eyes so old and dim.
One or two dresses from the bridal wardrobe are yet
preserved. They are of a quaint and antique fashion, and seldom seen
except in pictures. White has turned yellow, and brighter hues have faded.
Do you wonder, child? The wrinkled face was once as smooth as yours, the
eyes as bright, the shrivelled skin as fair and delicate. It is the work
of hands that have been dust these many years.
Where are the fairy lovers of that happy day whose
annual return comes upon the old man and his wife, like the echo of some village
bell which has long been silent? Let yonder peevish bachelor, racked by
rheumatic pains, and quarrelling with the world, let him answer to the question.
He recollects something of a favourite playmate; her name was Lucy—so they
tell him. He is not sure whether she was married, or went abroad, or died.
It is a long while ago, and he don’t remember.
Is nothing as it used to be; does no one feel, or think,
or act, as in days of yore? Yes. There is an aged woman who once
lived servant with the old lady’s father, and is sheltered in an alms-house
not far off. She is still attached to the family, and loves them all; she
nursed the children in her lap, and tended in their sickness those who are no
more. Her old mistress has still something of youth in her eyes; the young
ladies are like what she was but not quite so handsome, nor are the gentlemen as
stately as Mr. Harvey used to be. She has seen a great deal of trouble;
her husband and her son died long ago; but she has got over that, and is happy
now—quite happy.
If ever her attachment to her old protectors were
disturbed by fresher cares and hopes, it has long since resumed its former
current. It has filled the void in the poor creature’s heart, and
replaced the love of kindred. Death has not left her alone, and this, with
a roof above her head, and a warm hearth to sit by, makes her cheerful and
contented. Does she remember the marriage of great-grandmamma? Ay,
that she does, as well—as if it was only yesterday. You wouldn’t think
it to look at her now, and perhaps she ought not to say so of herself, but she
was as smart a young girl then as you’d wish to see. She recollects she
took a friend of hers up-stairs to see Miss Emma dressed for church; her name
was—ah! she forgets the name, but she remembers that she was a very pretty
girl, and that she married not long afterwards, and lived—it has quite passed
out of her mind where she lived, but she knows she had a bad husband who used
her ill, and that she died in Lambeth work-house. Dear, dear, in Lambeth
workhouse!
And the old couple—have they no comfort or enjoyment
of existence? See them among their grandchildren and great-grandchildren;
how garrulous they are, how they compare one with another, and insist on
likenesses which no one else can see; how gently the old lady lectures the girls
on points of breeding and decorum, and points the moral by anecdotes of herself
in her young days—how the old gentleman chuckles over boyish feats and roguish
tricks, and tells long stories of a ‘barring-out’ achieved at the school he
went to: which was very wrong, he tells the boys, and never to be imitated of
course, but which he cannot help letting them know was very pleasant
too—especially when he kissed the master’s niece. This last, however,
is a point on which the old lady is very tender, for she considers it a shocking
and indelicate thing to talk about, and always says so whenever it is mentioned,
never failing to observe that he ought to be very penitent for having been so
sinful. So the old gentleman gets no further, and what the
schoolmaster’s niece said afterwards (which he is always going to tell) is
lost to posterity.
The old gentleman is eighty years old,
to-day—‘Eighty years old, Crofts, and never had a headache,’ he tells the
barber who shaves him (the barber being a young fellow, and very subject to that
complaint). ‘That’s a great age, Crofts,’ says the old gentleman.
‘I don’t think it’s sich a wery great age, Sir,’ replied the barber.
‘Crofts,’ rejoins the old gentleman, ‘you’re talking nonsense to me.
Eighty not a great age?’ ‘It’s a wery great age, Sir, for a
gentleman to be as healthy and active as you are,’ returns the barber; ‘but
my grandfather, Sir, he was ninety-four.’ ‘You don’t mean that,
Crofts?’ says the old gentleman. ‘I do indeed, Sir,’ retorts the
barber, ‘and as wiggerous as Julius Caesar, my grandfather was.’ The
old gentleman muses a little time, and then says, ‘What did he die of,
Crofts?’ ‘He died accidentally, Sir,’ returns the barber; ‘he
didn’t mean to do it. He always would go a running about the
streets—walking never satisfied his spirit—and he run against a post
and died of a hurt in his chest.’ The old gentleman says no more until
the shaving is concluded, and then he gives Crofts half-a-crown to drink his
health. He is a little doubtful of the barber’s veracity afterwards, and
telling the anecdote to the old lady, affects to make very light of it—though
to be sure (he adds) there was old Parr, and in some parts of England,
ninety-five or so is a common age, quite a common age.
This morning the old couple are cheerful but serious,
recalling old times as well as they can remember them, and dwelling upon many
passages in their past lives which the day brings to mind. The old lady
reads aloud, in a tremulous voice, out of a great Bible, and the old gentleman
with his hand to his ear, listens with profound respect. When the book is
closed, they sit silent for a short space, and afterwards resume their
conversation, with a reference perhaps to their dead children, as a subject not
unsuited to that they have just left. By degrees they are led to consider
which of those who survive are the most like those dearly-remembered objects,
and so they fall into a less solemn strain, and become cheerful again.
How many people in all, grandchildren,
great-grandchildren, and one or two intimate friends of the family, dine
together to-day at the eldest son’s to congratulate the old couple, and wish
them many happy returns, is a calculation beyond our powers; but this we know,
that the old couple no sooner present themselves, very sprucely and carefully
attired, than there is a violent shouting and rushing forward of the younger
branches with all manner of presents, such as pocket-books, pencil-cases,
pen-wipers, watch-papers, pin-cushions, sleeve-buckles, worked-slippers,
watch-guards, and even a nutmeg-grater: the latter article being presented by a
very chubby and very little boy, who exhibits it in great triumph as an
extraordinary variety. The old couple’s emotion at these tokens of
remembrance occasions quite a pathetic scene, of which the chief ingredients are
a vast quantity of kissing and hugging, and repeated wipings of small eyes and
noses with small square pocket-handkerchiefs, which don’t come at all easily
out of small pockets. Even the peevish bachelor is moved, and he says, as
he presents the old gentleman with a queer sort of antique ring from his own
finger, that he’ll be de’ed if he doesn’t think he looks younger than he
did ten years ago.
But the great time is after dinner, when the dessert and
wine are on the table, which is pushed back to make plenty of room, and they are
all gathered in a large circle round the fire, for it is then—the glasses
being filled, and everybody ready to drink the toast—that two
great-grandchildren rush out at a given signal, and presently return, dragging
in old Jane Adams leaning upon her crutched stick, and trembling with age and
pleasure. Who so popular as poor old Jane, nurse and story-teller in
ordinary to two generations; and who so happy as she, striving to bend her stiff
limbs into a curtsey, while tears of pleasure steal down her withered cheeks!
The old couple sit side by side, and the old time seems
like yesterday indeed. Looking back upon the path they have travelled, its
dust and ashes disappear; the flowers that withered long ago, show brightly
again upon its borders, and they grow young once more in the youth of those
about them.
CONCLUSION
We have taken for the subjects of the foregoing moral
essays, twelve samples of married couples, carefully selected from a large stock
on hand, open to the inspection of all comers. These samples are intended
for the benefit of the rising generation of both sexes, and, for their more easy
and pleasant information, have been separately ticketed and labelled in the
manner they have seen.
We have purposely excluded from consideration the couple
in which the lady reigns paramount and supreme, holding such cases to be of a
very unnatural kind, and like hideous births and other monstrous deformities,
only to be discreetly and sparingly exhibited.
And here our self-imposed task would have ended, but
that to those young ladies and gentlemen who are yet revolving singly round the
church, awaiting the advent of that time when the mysterious laws of attraction
shall draw them towards it in couples, we are desirous of addressing a few last
words.
Before marriage and afterwards, let them learn to centre
all their hopes of real and lasting happiness in their own fireside; let them
cherish the faith that in home, and all the English virtues which the love of
home engenders, lies the only true source of domestic felicity; let them believe
that round the household gods, contentment and tranquillity cluster in their
gentlest and most graceful forms; and that many weary hunters of happiness
through the noisy world, have learnt this truth too late, and found a cheerful
spirit and a quiet mind only at home at last.
How much may depend on the education of daughters and
the conduct of mothers; how much of the brightest part of our old national
character may be perpetuated by their wisdom or frittered away by their
folly—how much of it may have been lost already, and how much more in danger
of vanishing every day—are questions too weighty for discussion here, but well
deserving a little serious consideration from all young couples nevertheless.
To that one young couple on whose bright destiny the
thoughts of nations are fixed, may the youth of England look, and not in vain,
for an example. From that one young couple, blessed and favoured as they
are, may they learn that even the glare and glitter of a court, the splendour of
a palace, and the pomp and glory of a throne, yield in their power of conferring
happiness, to domestic worth and virtue. From that one young couple may
they learn that the crown of a great empire, costly and jewelled though it be,
gives place in the estimation of a Queen to the plain gold ring that links her
woman’s nature to that of tens of thousands of her humble subjects, and guards
in her woman’s heart one secret store of tenderness, whose proudest boast
shall be that it knows no Royalty save Nature’s own, and no pride of birth but
being the child of heaven!
So shall the highest young couple in the land for once
hear the truth, when men throw up their caps, and cry with loving shouts -
GOD BLESS THEM.