Advice to Young Men Part 3

and the '_expense_' of it, he would grumble more if he had it not. I once saw a picture representing the _amus.e.m.e.nts_ of Portuguese Lovers; that is to say, three or four young men, dressed in gold or silver laced clothes, each having a young girl, dressed like a princess, and affectionately engaged in hunting down and _killing the vermin in his head_! This was, perhaps, an _exaggeration_; but that it should have had the shadow of foundation, was enough to fill me with contempt for the whole nation.

112. The _signs_ of cleanliness are, in the first place, a clean _skin_.

An English girl will hardly let her lover see the stale dirt between her fingers, as I have many times seen it between those of French women, and even ladies, of all ages. An English girl will have her _face_ clean, to be sure, if there be soap and water within her reach; but, get a glance, just a glance, at her _poll_, if you have any doubt upon the subject; and, if you find there, or _behind the ears_, what the Yorks.h.i.+re people call _grime_, the sooner you cease your visits the better. I hope, now, that no young woman will be offended at this, and think me too severe on her s.e.x. I am only saying, I am only telling the women, that which _all men think_; and, it is a decided advantage to them to be fully informed of _our thoughts_ on the subject. If any one, who shall read this, find, upon self-examination, that she is defective in this respect, there is plenty of time for correcting the defect.

113. In the _dress_ you can, amongst rich people, find little whereon to form a judgment as to cleanliness, because they have not only the dress prepared for them, but _put upon them_ into the bargain. But, in the middle rank of life, the dress is a good criterion in two respects: first, as to its _colour_; for, if the _white_ be a sort of _yellow_, cleanly hands would have been at work to prevent that. A _white-yellow_ cravat, or s.h.i.+rt, on a man, speaks, at once, the character of his wife; and, be you a.s.sured, that she will not take with your dress pains which she has never taken with her own. Then, the manner _of putting on_ the dress is no bad foundation for judging. If it be careless, slovenly, if it do not fit properly, no matter for its _mean quality_: mean as it may be, it may be neatly and trimly put on; and, if it be not, take care of yourself; for, as you will soon find to your cost, a sloven in one thing is a sloven in all things. The country-people judge greatly from the state of the covering of the _ancles_ and, if that be not clean and tight, they conclude, that all out of sight is not what it ought to be.

Look at the _shoes_! If they be trodden on one side, loose on the foot, or run down at the heel, it is a very bad sign; and, as to _slip-shod_, though at coming down in the morning and even before day-light, make up your mind to a rope, rather than to live with a slip-shod wife.

114. Oh! how much do women lose by inattention to these matters! Men, in general, say nothing about it to their wives; but they _think_ about it; they envy their luckier neighbours; and in numerous cases, consequences the most serious arise from this apparently trifling cause. Beauty is valuable; it is one of the ties, and a strong tie too; that, however, cannot last to old age; but, the charm of cleanliness never ends but with life itself. I dismiss this part of my subject with a quotation from my 'YEAR'S RESIDENCE IN AMERICA,' containing words which I venture to recommend to every young woman to engrave on her heart: 'The sweetest flowers, when they become putrid, stink the most; and a nasty woman is the nastiest thing in nature.'

115. KNOWLEDGE OF DOMESTIC AFFAIRS. Without more or less of this knowledge, _a lady_, even the wife of a peer, is but a poorish thing. It was the fas.h.i.+on, in former times, for ladies to understand a great deal about these affairs, and it would be very hard to make me believe that this did not tend to promote the interests and honour of their husbands.

The affairs of a great family never can be _well_ managed, if left _wholly_ to hirelings; and there are many parts of these affairs in which it would be unseemly for the husband to meddle. Surely, no lady can be too high in rank to make it proper for her to be well acquainted with the characters and general demeanour of all the _female servants_.

To receive and give them characters is too much to be left to a servant, however good, and of service however long. Much of the ease and happiness of the great and rich must depend on the character of those by whom they are served: they live under the same roof with them; they are frequently the children of their tenants, or poorer neighbours; the conduct of their whole lives must be influenced by the examples and precepts which they here imbibe; and when ladies consider how much more weight there must be in one word from them than in ten thousand words from a person who, call her what you like, is still a _fellow-servant_, it does appear strange that they should forego the performance of this at once important and pleasing part of their duty. It was from the mansions of n.o.blemen and gentlemen, and not from boarding-schools, that farmers and tradesmen formerly took their wives; and though these days are gone, with little chance of returning, there is still something left for ladies to do in checking that torrent of immorality which is now crowding the streets with prost.i.tutes and cramming the jails with thieves.

116. I am, however, addressing myself, in this work, to persons in the middle rank of life; and here a _knowledge of domestic affairs_ is so necessary in every wife, that the lover ought to have it continually in his eye. Not only a _knowledge_ of these affairs; not only to know how things _ought to be done_, but how _to do them_; not only to know what ingredients ought to be put into a pie or a pudding, but to be able _to make_ the pie or the pudding. Young people, when they come together, ought not, unless they have fortunes, or are in a great way of business, to think about _servants_! Servants for what! To help them to eat and drink and sleep? When children come, there must be some _help_ in a farmer's or tradesman's house; but until then, what call for a servant in a house, the master of which has to _earn_ every mouthful that is consumed?

117. I shall, when I come to address myself to the husband, have much more to say upon this subject of _keeping servants_; but, what the lover, if he be not quite blind, has to look to, is, that his intended wife know _how to do_ the work of a house, unless he have fortune sufficient to keep her like a lady. 'Eating and drinking,' as I observe in COTTAGE ECONOMY, came _three times every day_; they must come; and, however little we may, in the days of our health and vigour, care about choice food and about cookery, we very soon get _tired_ of heavy or burnt bread and of spoiled joints of meat: we bear them for a time, or for two, perhaps; but, about the third time, we lament _inwardly_; about the fifth time, it must be an extraordinary honey-moon that will keep us from complaining: if the like continue for a month or two, we begin to _repent_, and then adieu to all our antic.i.p.ated delights. We discover, when it is too late, that we have not got a help-mate, but a burden; and, the fire of love being damped, the unfortunately educated creature, whose parents are more to blame than she is, is, unless she resolve to learn her duty, doomed to lead a life very nearly approaching to that of misery; for, however considerate the husband, he never can esteem her as he would have done, had she been skilled and able in domestic affairs.

118. The mere _manual_ performance of domestic labours is not, indeed, absolutely necessary in the female head of the family of professional men, such as lawyers, doctors, and parsons; but, even here, and also in the case of great merchants and of gentlemen living on their fortunes, surely the head of the household ought to be able to give directions as to the purchasing of meat, salting meat, making bread, making preserves of all sorts, and ought to see the things done, or that they be done.

She ought to take care that food be well cooked, drink properly prepared and kept; that there be always a sufficient supply; that there be good living without waste; and that, in her department, nothing shall be seen inconsistent with the rank, station, and character of her husband, who, if he have a skilful and industrious wife, will, unless he be of a singularly foolish turn, gladly leave all these things to her absolute dominion, controlled only by the extent of the whole expenditure, of which he must be the best, and, indeed, the sole, judge.

119. But, in a farmer's or a tradesman's family, the _manual performance_ is absolutely necessary, whether there be servants or not.

No one knows how to teach another so well as one who has done, and can do, the thing himself. It was said of a famous French commander, that, in attacking an enemy, he did not say to his men '_go_ on,' but '_come_ on;' and, whoever have well observed the movements of servants, must know what a prodigious difference there is in the effect of the words, _go_ and _come_. A very good rule would be, to have nothing to eat, in a farmer's or tradesman's house, that the mistress did not know how to prepare and to cook; no pudding, tart, pie or cake, that she did not know how to make. Never fear the toil to her: exercise is good for health; and without _health_ there is _no beauty_; a sick beauty may excite pity, but pity is a short-lived pa.s.sion. Besides, what is the labour in such a case? And how many thousands of ladies, who loll away the day, would give half their fortunes for that sound sleep which the stirring house-wife seldom fails to enjoy.

120. Yet, if a young farmer or tradesman _marry_ a girl, who has been brought up to _play music_, to what is called _draw_, to _sing_, to waste paper, pen and ink, in writing long and half romantic letters, and to see shows, and plays, and read novels; if a young man do _marry_ such an unfortunate young creature, let him bear the consequences with temper; let him be _just_; and justice will teach him to treat her with great indulgence; to endeavour to cause her to learn her business as a wife; to be patient with her; to reflect that he has taken her, being apprised of her inability; to bear in mind, that he was, or seemed to be, pleased with her showy and useless acquirements; and that, when the gratification of his pa.s.sion has been accomplished, he is unjust and cruel and unmanly, if he turn round upon her, and accuse her of a want of that knowledge, which he well knew that she did not possess.

121. For my part, I do not know, nor can I form an idea of, a more unfortunate being than a girl with a mere boarding-school education, and without a fortune to enable her to keep a servant, when married. Of what _use_ are her accomplishments? Of what use her music, her drawing, and her romantic epistles? If she be good in _her nature_, the first little faint cry of her first baby drives all the tunes and all the landscapes and all the Clarissa Harlowes out of her head for ever. I once saw a very striking instance of this sort. It was a climb-over-the-wall match, and I gave the bride away, at St. Margaret's Church, Westminster, the pair being as handsome a pair as ever I saw in my life. Beauty, however, though in double quant.i.ty, would not pay the baker and butcher; and, after an absence of little better than a year, I found the husband in prison for debt; but I there found also his wife, with her baby, and she, who had never, before her marriage, known what it was to get water to wash her own hands, and whose talk was all about music, and the like, was now the cheerful sustainer of her husband, and the most affectionate of mothers. All the _music_ and all the _drawing_, and all the plays and romances were gone to the winds! The husband and baby had fairly supplanted them; and even this prison-scene was a blessing, as it gave her, at this early stage, an opportunity of proving her devotion to her husband, who, though I have not seen him for about fifteen years, he being in a part of America which I could not reach when last there, has, I am sure, amply repaid her for that devotion. They have now a numerous family (not less than twelve children, I believe), and she is, I am told, a most excellent and able mistress of a respectable house.

122. But, this is a rare instance: the husband, like his countrymen in general, was at once brave, humane, gentle, and considerate, and the love was so sincere and ardent, on both sides, that it made losses and sufferings appear as nothing. When I, in a sort of half-whisper, asked Mrs. d.i.c.kENS where her _piano_ was, she smiled, and turned her face towards her baby, that was sitting on her knee; as much as to say, 'This little fellow has beaten the piano;' and, if what I am now writing should ever have the honour to be read by her, let it be the bearer of a renewed expression of my admiration of her conduct, and of that regard for her kind and sensible husband, which time and distance have not in the least diminished, and which will be an inmate of my heart until it shall cease to beat.

123. The like of this is, however, not to be expected: no man ought to think that he has even a chance of it: besides, the husband was, in this case, a man of learning and of great natural ability: he has not had to get his bread by farming or trade; and, in all probability, his wife has had the leisure to practise those acquirements which she possessed at the time of her marriage. But, can this be the case with the farmer or the tradesman's wife? She has to _help to earn_ a provision for her children; or, at the least, to help to earn a store for sickness or old age. She, therefore, ought to be qualified to begin, at once, to a.s.sist her husband in his earnings: the way in which she can most efficiently a.s.sist, is by taking care of his property; by expending his money to the greatest advantage; by wasting nothing; by making the table sufficiently abundant with the least expense. And how is she to do these things, unless she have been _brought up_ to understand domestic affairs? How is she to do these things, if she have been taught to think these matters beneath her study? How is any man to expect her to do these things, if she have been so bred up as to make her habitually look upon them as worthy the attention of none but low and _ignorant_ women?

124. _Ignorant_, indeed! Ignorance consists in a want of knowledge of those things which your calling or state of life naturally supposes you to understand. A ploughman is not an _ignorant man_ because he does not know how to read: if he knows how to plough, he is not to be called an ignorant man; but, a wife may be justly called an ignorant woman, if she does not know how to provide a dinner for her husband. It is cold comfort for a hungry man, to tell him how delightfully his wife plays and sings: lovers may live on very aerial diet; but husbands stand in need of the solids; and young women may take my word for it, that a constantly clean board, well cooked victuals, a house in order, and a cheerful fire, will do more in preserving a husband's heart, than all the '_accomplishments_,' taught in all the '_establishments_' in the world.

125. GOOD TEMPER. This is a very difficult thing to ascertain beforehand. Smiles are so cheap; they are so easily put on for the occasion; and, besides, the frowns are, according to the lover's whim, interpreted into the contrary. By '_good temper_,' I do not mean _easy temper_, a serenity which nothing disturbs, for that is a mark of laziness. _Sulkiness_, if you be not too blind to perceive it, is a temper to be avoided by all means. A sulky man is bad enough; what, then, must be a sulky woman, and that woman _a wife_; a constant inmate, a companion day and night! Only think of the delight of sitting at the same table, and sleeping in the same bed, for a week, and not exchange a word all the while! Very bad to be scolding for such a length of time; but this is far better than the sulks. If you have your eyes, and look sharp, you will discover symptoms of this, if it unhappily exist. She will, at some time or other, show it towards some one or other of the family; or, perhaps, towards yourself; and you may be quite sure that, in this respect, marriage will not mend her. Sulkiness arises from capricious displeasure, displeasure not founded in reason. The party takes offence unjustifiably; is unable to frame a complaint, and therefore expresses displeasure by silence. The remedy for sulkiness is, to suffer it to take its _full swing_; but it is better not to have the disease in your house; and to be _married to it_ is little short of madness.

126. _Querulousness_ is a great fault. No man, and, especially, no _woman_, likes to hear eternal plaintiveness. That she complain, and roundly complain, of your want of punctuality, of your coolness, of your neglect, of your liking the company of others: these are all very well, more especially as they are frequently but too just. But an everlasting complaining, without rhyme or reason, is a bad sign. It shows want of patience, and, indeed, want of sense. But, the contrary of this, a _cold indifference_, is still worse. 'When will you come again? You can never find time to come here. You like any company better than mine.' These, when groundless, are very teasing, and demonstrate a disposition too full of anxiousness; but, from a girl who always receives you with the same _civil_ smile, lets you, at your own good pleasure, depart with the same; and who, when you take her by the hand, holds her cold fingers as straight as sticks, I say (or should if I were young), G.o.d, in his mercy, preserve me!

127. _Pertinacity_ is a very bad thing in anybody, and especially in a young woman; and it is sure to increase in force with the age of the party. To have the last word is a poor triumph; but with some people it is a species of disease of the mind. In a wife it must be extremely troublesome; and, if you find an ounce of it in the maid, it will become a pound in the wife. An eternal _disputer_ is a most disagreeable companion; and where young women thrust their _say_ into conversations carried on by older persons, give their opinions in a positive manner, and court a contest of the tongue, those must be very bold men who will encounter them as wives.

128. Still, of all the faults as to _temper_, your _melancholy_ ladies have the worst, unless you have the same mental disease. Most wives are, at times, _misery-makers_; but these carry it on as a regular trade.

They are always unhappy about _something_, either past, present, or to come. Both arms full of children is a pretty efficient remedy in most cases; but, if the ingredients be wanting, a little _want_, a little _real trouble_, a little _genuine affliction_ must, if you would effect a cure, be resorted to. But, this is very painful to a man of any feeling; and, therefore, the best way is to avoid a connexion, which is to give you a life of wailing and sighs.

129. BEAUTY. Though I have reserved this to the last of the things to be desired in a wife, I by no means think it the last in point of importance. The less favoured part of the s.e.x say, that 'beauty is but _skin-deep_;' and this is very true; but, it is very _agreeable_, though, for all that. Pictures are only paint-deep, or pencil-deep; but we admire them, nevertheless. "Handsome is that handsome _does_," used to say to me an old man, who had marked me out for his not over handsome daughter. 'Please your _eye_ and plague your heart' is an adage that want of beauty invented, I dare say, more than a thousand years ago.

These adages would say, if they had but the courage, that beauty is inconsistent with chast.i.ty, with sobriety of conduct, and with all the female virtues. The argument is, that beauty exposes the possessor _to greater temptation_ than women not beautiful are exposed to; and that, _therefore_, their fall is more probable. Let us see a little how this matter stands.

130. It is certainly true, that pretty girls will have more, and more ardent, admirers than ugly ones; but, as to the _temptation_ when in their unmarried state, there are few so very ugly as to be exposed to no _temptation_ at all; and, which is the most likely to resist; she who has a choice of lovers, or she who if she let the occasion slip may never have it again? Which of the two is most likely to set a high value upon her reputation, she whom all beholders admire, or she who is admired, at best, by mere chance? And as to women in the married state, this argument a.s.sumes, that, when they fall, it is from their own vicious disposition; when the fact is, that, if you search the annals of conjugal infidelity, you will find, that, nine times out of ten, the _fault is in the husband_. It is his neglect, his flagrant disregard, his frosty indifference, his foul example; it is to these that, nine times out of ten, he owes the infidelity of his wife; and, if I were to say ninety-nine times out of a hundred, the facts, if verified, would, I am certain, bear me out. And whence this neglect, this disregard, this frosty indifference; whence this foul example? Because it is easy, in so many cases, to find some woman more beautiful than the wife. This is no _justification_ for the husband to plead; for he has, with his eyes open, made a solemn contract: if he have not beauty enough to please him, he should have sought it in some other woman: if, as is frequently the case, he have preferred rank or money to beauty, he is an unprincipled man, if he do any thing to make her unhappy who has brought him the rank or the money. At any rate, as conjugal infidelity is, in so many cases; as it is _generally_ caused by the want of affection and due attention in the husband, it follows, of course, that it must more frequently happen in the case of ugly than in that of handsome women.

131. In point of _dress_, nothing need be said to convince any reasonable man, that beautiful women will be less expensive in this respect than women of a contrary description. Experience teaches us, that ugly women are always the most studious about their dress; and, if we had never observed upon the subject, _reason_ would tell us, that it must be so. Few women are handsome without knowing it; and if they know that their features naturally attract admiration, will they desire to draw it off, and to fix it on lace and silks and jewels?

132. As to _manners_ and _temper_ there are certainly some handsome women who are conceited and arrogant; but, as they have all the best reasons in the world for being pleased with themselves, they afford you the best chance of general good humour; and this good humour is a very valuable commodity in the married state. Some that are called handsome, and that are such at the first glance, are dull, inanimate things, that might as well have been made of wax, or of wood. But, the truth is, that this is _not beauty_, for this is not to be found _only_ in the _form_ of the features, but in the movements of them also. Besides, here nature is very impartial; for she gives animation promiscuously to the handsome as well as to the ugly; and the want of this in the former is surely as bearable as in the latter.

133. But, the great use of female beauty, the great practical advantage of it is, that it naturally and unavoidably tends to _keep the husband in good humour with himself_, to make him, to use the dealer's phrase, _pleased with his bargain_. When old age approaches, and the parties have become endeared to each other by a long series of joint cares and interests, and when children have come and bound them together by the strongest ties that nature has in store; at this age the features and the person are of less consequence; but, in the _young days_ of matrimony, when the roving eye of the bachelor is scarcely become steady in the head of the husband, it is dangerous for him to see, every time he stirs out, a face more captivating than that of the person to whom he is bound for life. Beauty is, in some degree, a matter of _taste_: what one man admires, another does not; and it is fortunate for us that it is thus. But still there are certain things that all men admire; and a husband is always pleased when he perceives that a portion, at least, of these things are in his own possession: he takes this possession as a _compliment to himself_: there must, he will think the world will believe, have been _some merit in him_, some charm, seen or unseen, to have caused him to be blessed with the acquisition.

134. And then there arise so many things, sickness, misfortune in business, losses, many many things, wholly unexpected; and, there are so many circ.u.mstances, perfectly _nameless_, to communicate to the new-married man the fact, that it is not a real _angel_ of whom he has got the possession; there are so many things of this sort, so many and such powerful dampers of the pa.s.sions, and so many incentives to _cool reflection_; that it requires something, and a good deal too, to keep the husband in countenance in this his altered and enlightened state.

The pa.s.sion of women does not cool so soon: the lamp of their love burns more steadily, and even brightens as it burns: and, there is, the young man may be a.s.sured, a vast difference in the effect of the fondness of a pretty woman and that of one of a different description; and, let reason and philosophy say what they will, a man will come down stairs of a morning better pleased after seeing the former, than he would after seeing the latter, in her _night-cap_.

135. To be sure, when a man has, from whatever inducement, once married a woman, he is unjust and cruel if he even _slight_ her on account of her want of beauty, and, if he treat her harshly, on this account, he is a brute. But, it requires a greater degree of reflection and consideration than falls to the lot of men in general to make them act with justice in such a case; and, therefore, the best way is to guard, if you can, against the temptation to commit such injustice, which is to be done in no other way, than by not marrying any one that you _do not think handsome_.

136. I must not conclude this address to THE LOVER without something on the subject of _seduction_ and _inconstancy_. In, perhaps, nineteen cases out of twenty, there is, in the unfortunate cases of illicit gratification, no seduction at all, the pa.s.sion, the absence of virtue, and the crime, being all mutual. But, there are other cases of a very different description; and where a man goes coolly and deliberately to work, first to gain and rivet the affections of a young girl, then to take advantage of those affections to accomplish that which he knows must be her ruin, and plunge her into misery for life; when a man does this merely for the sake of a momentary gratification, he must be either a selfish and unfeeling brute, unworthy of the name of man, or he must have a heart little inferior, in point of obduracy, to that of the murderer. Let young women, however, be aware; let them be well aware, that few, indeed, are the cases in which this apology can possibly avail them. Their character is not solely theirs, but belongs, in part, to their family and kindred. They may, in the case contemplated, be objects of compa.s.sion with the world; but what contrition, what repentance, what remorse, what that even the tenderest benevolence can suggest, is to heal the wounded hearts of humbled, disgraced, but still affectionate, parents, brethren and sisters?

137. As to _constancy_ in Lovers, though I do not approve of the saying, 'At lovers' lies Jove laughs;' yet, when people are young, one object may supplant another in their affections, not only without criminality in the party experiencing the change, but without blame; and it is honest, and even humane, to act upon the change; because it would be both foolish and cruel to marry one girl while you liked another better: and the same holds good with regard to the other s.e.x. Even when _marriage_ has been _promised_, and that, too, in the most solemn manner, it is better for both parties to break off, than to be coupled together with the reluctant a.s.sent of either; and I have always thought, that actions for damages, on this score, if brought by the girl, show a want of delicacy as well as of spirit; and, if brought by the man, excessive meanness. Some damage may, indeed, have been done to the complaining party; but no damage equal to what that party would have sustained from a marriage, to which the other party would have yielded by a sort of compulsion, producing to almost a certainty what Hogarth, in his _Marriage a la Mode_, most aptly typifies by two curs, of different s.e.xes, fastened together by what sportsmen call _couples_, pulling different ways, and snarling and barking and foaming like furies.

138. But when promises have been made to a young woman; when they have been relied on for any considerable time; when it is manifest that her peace and happiness, and, perhaps, her life, depend upon their fulfilment; when things have been carried to this length, the change in the Lover ought to be announced in the manner most likely to make the disappointment as supportable as the case will admit of; for, though it is better to break the promise than to marry one while you like another better; though it is better for both parties, you have no right to break the heart of her who has, and that, too, with your accordance, and, indeed, at your instigation, or, at least, by your encouragement, confided it to your fidelity. You cannot help your change of affections; but you can help making the transfer in such a way as to cause the destruction, or even probable destruction, nay, if it were but the deep misery, of her, to gain whose heart you had pledged your own. You ought to proceed by slow degrees; you ought to call time to your aid in executing the painful task; you ought scrupulously to avoid every thing calculated to aggravate the sufferings of the disconsolate party.

139. A striking, a monstrous, instance of conduct the contrary of this has recently been placed upon the melancholy records of the Coroner of Middles.e.x; which have informed an indignant public, that a young man, having first secured the affections of a virtuous young woman, next promised her marriage, then caused the banns to be published, and then, on the very day appointed for the performance of the ceremony, married another woman, in the same church; and this, too, without, as he avowed, any provocation, and without the smallest intimation or hint of his intention to the disappointed party, who, unable to support existence under a blow so cruel, put an end to that existence by the most deadly and the swiftest poison. If any thing could wipe from our country the stain of having given birth to a monster so barbarous as this, it would be the abhorrence of him which the jury expressed; and which, from every tongue, he ought to hear to the last moment of his life.

140. Nor has a man any right to _sport_ with the affections of a young woman, though he stop short of _positive promises_. Vanity is generally the tempter in this case; a desire to be regarded as being admired by the women: a very despicable species of vanity, but frequently greatly mischievous, notwithstanding. You do not, indeed, actually, in so many words, promise to marry; but the general tenor of your language and deportment has that meaning; you know that your meaning is so understood; and if you have not such meaning; if you be fixed by some previous engagement with, or greater liking for, another; if you know you are here sowing the seeds of disappointment; and if you, keeping your previous engagement or greater liking a secret, persevere, in spite of the admonitions of conscience, you are guilty of deliberate deception, injustice and cruelty: you make to G.o.d an ungrateful return for those endowments which have enabled you to achieve this inglorious and unmanly triumph; and if, as is frequently the case, you _glory_ in such triumph, you may have person, riches, talents to excite envy; but every just and humane man will abhor your heart.

141. There are, however, certain cases in which you deceive, or nearly deceive, _yourself_; cases in which you are, by degrees and by circ.u.mstances, deluded into something very nearly resembling sincere love for a second object, the first still, however, maintaining her ground in your heart; cases in which you are not actuated by vanity, in which you are not guilty of injustice and cruelty; but cases in which you, nevertheless, _do wrong_: and as I once did a wrong of this sort myself, I will here give a history of it, as a warning to every young man who shall read this little book; that being the best and, indeed, the only atonement, that I can make, or ever could have made, for this only _serious sin_ that I ever committed against the female s.e.x.

142. The Province of New Brunswick, in North America, in which I pa.s.sed my years from the age of eighteen to that of twenty-six, consists, in general, of heaps of rocks, in the interstices of which grow the pine, the spruce, and various sorts of fir trees, or, where the woods have been burnt down, the bushes of the raspberry or those of the huckleberry. The province is cut asunder lengthwise, by a great river, called the St. John, about two hundred miles in length, and, at half way from the mouth, full a mile wide. Into this main river run innumerable smaller rivers, there called CREEKS. On the sides of these creeks the land is, in places, clear of rocks; it is, in these places, generally good and productive; the trees that grow here are the birch, the maple, and others of the deciduous cla.s.s; natural meadows here and there present themselves; and some of these spots far surpa.s.s in rural beauty any other that my eyes ever beheld; the creeks, abounding towards their sources in water-falls of endless variety, as well in form as in magnitude, and always teeming with fish, while water-fowl enliven their surface, and while wild-pigeons, of the gayest plumage, flutter, in thousands upon thousands, amongst the branches of the beautiful trees, which, sometimes, for miles together, form an arch over the creeks.

143. I, in one of my rambles in the woods, in which I took great delight, came to a spot at a very short distance from the source of one of these creeks. Here was every thing to delight the eye, and especially of one like me, who seem to have been born to love rural life, and trees and plants of all sorts. Here were about two hundred acres of natural meadow, interspersed with patches of maple-trees in various forms and of various extent; the creek (there about thirty miles from its point of joining the St. John) ran down the middle of the spot, which formed a sort of dish, the high and rocky hills rising all round it, except at the outlet of the creek, and these hills crowned with lofty pines: in the hills were the sources of the creek, the waters of which came down in cascades, for any one of which many a n.o.bleman in England would, if he could transfer it, give a good slice of his fertile estate; and in the creek, at the foot of the cascades, there were, in the season, salmon the finest in the world, and so abundant, and so easily taken, as to be used for manuring the land.

144. If nature, in her very best humour, had made a spot for the express purpose of captivating me, she could not have exceeded the efforts which she had here made. But I found something here besides these rude works of nature; I found something in the fas.h.i.+oning of which _man_ had had something to do. I found a large and well-built log dwelling house, standing (in the month of September) on the edge of a very good field of Indian Corn, by the side of which there was a piece of buck-wheat just then mowed. I found a homestead, and some very pretty cows. I found all the things by which an easy and happy farmer is surrounded: and I found still something besides all these; something that was destined to give me a great deal of pleasure and also a great deal of pain, both in their extreme degree; and both of which, in spite of the lapse of forty years, now make an attempt to rush back into my heart.

145. Partly from misinformation, and partly from miscalculation, I had lost my way; and, quite alone, but armed with my sword and a brace of pistols, to defend myself against the bears, I arrived at the log-house in the middle of a moonlight night, the h.o.a.r frost covering the trees and the gra.s.s. A stout and clamorous dog, kept off by the gleaming of my sword, waked the master of the house, who got up, received me with great hospitality, got me something to eat, and put me into a feather-bed, a thing that I had been a stranger to for some years. I, being very tired, had tried to pa.s.s the night in the woods, between the trunks of two large trees, which had fallen side by side, and within a yard of each other. I had made a nest for myself of dry fern, and had made a covering by laying boughs of spruce across the trunks of the trees. But unable to sleep on account of the cold; becoming sick from the great quant.i.ty of water that I had drank during the heat of the day, and being, moreover, alarmed at the noise of the bears, and lest one of them should find me in a defenceless state, I had roused myself up, and had crept along as well as I could. So that no hero of eastern romance ever experienced a more enchanting change.

146. I had got into the house of one of those YANKEE LOYALISTS, who, at the close of the revolutionary war (which, until it had succeeded, was called a rebellion) had accepted of grants of land in the King's Province of New Brunswick; and who, to the great honour of England, had been furnished with all the means of making new and comfortable settlements. I was suffered to sleep till breakfast time, when I found a table, the like of which I have since seen so many in the United States, loaded with good things. The master and the mistress of the house, aged about fifty, were like what an English farmer and his wife were half a century ago. There were two sons, tall and stout, who appeared to have come in from work, and the youngest of whom was about my age, then twenty-three. But there was _another member_ of the family, aged nineteen, who (dressed according to the neat and simple fas.h.i.+on of New England, whence she had come with her parents five or six years before) had her long light-brown hair twisted nicely up, and fastened on the top of her head, in which head were a pair of lively blue eyes, a.s.sociated with features of which that softness and that sweetness, so characteristic of American girls, were the predominant expressions, the whole being set off by a complexion indicative of glowing health, and forming, figure, movements, and all taken together, an a.s.semblage of beauties, far surpa.s.sing any that I had ever seen but _once_ in my life.

That _once_ was, too, _two years agone_; and, in such a case and at such an age, two years, two whole years, is a long, long while! It was a s.p.a.ce as long as the eleventh part of my then life! Here was the _present_ against the _absent_: here was the power of the _eyes_ pitted against that of the _memory_: here were all the senses up in arms to subdue the influence of the thoughts: here was vanity, here was pa.s.sion, here was the spot of all spots in the world, and here were also the life, and the manners and the habits and the pursuits that I delighted in: here was every thing that imagination can conceive, united in a conspiracy against the poor little brunette in England! What, then, did I fall in love at once with this bouquet of lilies and roses? Oh! by no means. I was, however, so enchanted with _the place_; I so much enjoyed its tranquillity, the shade of the maple trees, the business of the farm, the sports of the water and of the woods, that I stayed at it to the last possible minute, promising, at my departure, to come again as often as I possibly could; a promise which I most punctually fulfilled.

147. Winter is the great season for jaunting and _dancing_ (called _frolicking_) in America. In this Province the river and the creeks were the only _roads_ from settlement to settlement. In summer we travelled in _canoes_; in winter in _sleighs_ on the ice or snow. During more than two years I spent all the time I could with my Yankee friends: they were all fond of me: I talked to them about country affairs, my evident delight in which they took as a compliment to themselves: the father and mother treated me as one of their children; the sons as a brother; and the daughter, who was as modest and as full of sensibility as she was beautiful, in a way to which a chap much less sanguine than I was would have given the tenderest interpretation; which treatment I, especially in the last-mentioned case, most cordially repaid.

148. It is when you meet in company with others of your own age that you are, in love matters, put, most frequently, to the test, and exposed to detection. The next door neighbour might, in that country, be ten miles off. We used to have a frolic, sometimes at one house and sometimes at another. Here, where female eyes are very much on the alert, no secret can long be kept; and very soon father, mother, brothers and the whole neighbourhood looked upon the thing as certain, not excepting herself, to whom I, however, had never once even talked of marriage, and had never even told her that I _loved_ her. But I had a thousand times done these by _implication_, taking into view the interpretation that she would naturally put upon my looks, appellations and acts; and it was of this, that I had to accuse myself. Yet I was not a _deceiver_; for my affection for her was very great: I spent no really pleasant hours but with her: I was uneasy if she showed the slightest regard for any other young man: I was unhappy if the smallest matter affected her health or spirits: I quitted her in dejection, and returned to her with eager delight: many a time, when I could get leave but for a day, I paddled in a canoe two whole succeeding nights, in order to pa.s.s that day with her.

If this was not love, it was first cousin to it; for as to any _criminal_ intention I no more thought of it, in her case, than if she had been my sister. Many times I put to myself the questions: 'What am I at? Is not this wrong? _Why do I go?_' But still I went.

149. Then, further in my excuse, my _prior engagement_, though carefully left unalluded to by both parties, was, in that thin population, and owing to the singular circ.u.mstances of it, and to the great talk that there always was about me, _perfectly well known_ to her and all her family. It was matter of so much notoriety and conversation in the Province, that GENERAL CARLETON (brother of the late Lord Dorchester), who was the Governor when I was there, when he, about fifteen years afterwards, did me the honour, on his return to England, to come and see me at my house in Duke Street, Westminster, asked, before he went away, to see my _wife_, of whom _he had heard so much_ before her marriage. So that here was no _deception_ on my part: but still I ought not to have suffered even the most distant hope to be entertained by a person so innocent, so amiable, for whom I had so much affection, and to whose heart I had no right to give a single twinge. I ought, from the very first, to have prevented the possibility of her ever feeling pain on my account. I was young, to be sure; but I was old enough to know what was my duty in this case, and I ought, dismissing my own feelings, to have had the resolution to perform it.

150. The _last parting_ came; and now came my just punishment! The time was known to every body, and was irrevocably fixed; for I had to move with a regiment, and the embarkation of a regiment is an _epoch_ in a thinly settled province. To describe this parting would be too painful even at this distant day, and with this frost of age upon my head. The kind and virtuous father came forty miles to see me just as I was going on board in the river. _His_ looks and words I have never forgotten. As the vessel descended, she pa.s.sed the mouth of _that creek_ which I had so often entered with delight; and though England, and all that England contained, were before me, I lost sight of this creek with an aching heart.

151. On what trifles turn the great events in the life of man! If I had received a _cool_ letter from my intended wife; if I had only heard a rumour of any thing from which fickleness in her might have been inferred; if I had found in her any, even the smallest, abatement of affection; if she had but let go any one of the hundred strings by which she held my heart: if any of these, never would the world have heard of me. Young as I was; able as I was as a soldier; proud as I was of the admiration and commendations of which I was the object; fond as I was, too, of the command, which, at so early an age, my rare conduct and great natural talents had given me; sanguine as was my mind, and brilliant as were my prospects: yet I had seen so much of the meannesses, the unjust partialities, the insolent pomposity, the disgusting dissipations of that way of life, that I was weary of it: I longed, exchanging my fine laced coat for the Yankee farmer's home-spun, to be where I should never behold the supple crouch of servility, and never hear the hectoring voice of authority, again; and, on the lonely banks of this branch-covered creek, which contained (she out of the question) every thing congenial to my taste and dear to my heart, I, unapplauded, unfeared, unenvied and uncalumniated, should have lived and died.

LETTER IV

TO A HUSBAND