Character Part 20

No wise person will marry for beauty mainly. It may exercise a powerful attraction in the first place, but it is found to be of comparatively little consequence afterwards. Not that beauty of person is to be underestimated, for, other things being equal, handsomeness of form and beauty of features are the outward manifestations of health. But to marry a handsome figure without character, fine features unbeautified by sentiment or good-nature, is the most deplorable of mistakes. As even the finest landscape, seen daily, becomes monotonous, so does the most beautiful face, unless a beautiful nature s.h.i.+nes through it. The beauty of to-day becomes commonplace to-morrow; whereas goodness, displayed through the most ordinary features, is perennially lovely. Moreover, this kind of beauty improves with age, and time ripens rather than destroys it. After the first year, married people rarely think of each other's features, and whether they be cla.s.sically beautiful or otherwise. But they never fail to be cognisant of each other's temper.

"When I see a man," says Addison, "with a sour rivelled face, I cannot forbear pitying his wife; and when I meet with an open ingenuous countenance, I think of the happiness of his friends, his family, and his relations."

We have given the views of the poet Burns as to the qualities necessary in a good wife. Let us add the advice given by Lord Burleigh to his son, embodying the experience of a wise statesman and practised man of the world. "When it shall please G.o.d," said he, "to bring thee to man's estate, use great providence and circ.u.mspection in choosing thy wife; for from thence will spring all thy future good or evil. And it is an action of thy life, like unto a stratagem of war, wherein a man can err but once.... Enquire diligently of her disposition, and how her parents have been inclined in their youth. [209] Let her not be poor, how generous [20well-born] soever; for a man can buy nothing in the market with gentility. Nor choose a base and uncomely creature altogether for wealth; for it will cause contempt in others, and loathing in thee.

Neither make choice of a dwarf, or a fool; for by the one thou shalt beget a race of pigmies, while the other will be thy continual disgrace, and it will yirke [20irk] thee to hear her talk. For thou shalt find it to thy great grief, that there is nothing more fulsome [20disgusting] than a she-fool."

A man's moral character is, necessarily, powerfully influenced by his wife. A lower nature will drag him down, as a higher will lift him up. The former will deaden his sympathies, dissipate his energies, and distort his life; while the latter, by satisfying his affections, will strengthen his moral nature, and by giving him repose, tend to energise his intellect. Not only so, but a woman of high principles will insensibly elevate the aims and purposes of her husband, as one of low principles will unconsciously degrade them. De Tocqueville was profoundly impressed by this truth. He entertained the opinion that man could have no such mainstay in life as the companions.h.i.+p of a wife of good temper and high principle. He says that in the course of his life, he had seen even weak men display real public virtue, because they had by their side a woman of n.o.ble character, who sustained them in their career, and exercised a fortifying influence on their views of public duty; whilst, on the contrary, he had still oftener seen men of great and generous instincts transformed into vulgar self-seekers, by contact with women of narrow natures, devoted to an imbecile love of pleasure, and from whose minds the grand motive of Duty was altogether absent.

De Tocqueville himself had the good fortune to be blessed with an admirable wife: [2010] and in his letters to his intimate friends, he spoke most gratefully of the comfort and support he derived from her sustaining courage, her equanimity of temper, and her n.o.bility of character. The more, indeed, that De Tocqueville saw of the world and of practical life, the more convinced he became of the necessity of healthy domestic conditions for a man's growth in virtue and goodness. [2011]

Especially did he regard marriage as of inestimable importance in regard to a man's true happiness; and he was accustomed to speak of his own as the wisest action of his life. "Many external circ.u.mstances of happiness," he said, "have been granted to me. But more than all, I have to thank Heaven for having bestowed on me true domestic happiness, the first of human blessings. As I grow older, the portion of my life which in my youth I used to look down upon, every day becomes more important in my eyes, and would now easily console me for the loss of all the rest." And again, writing to his bosom-friend, De Kergorlay, he said: "Of all the blessings which G.o.d has given to me, the greatest of all in my eyes is to have lighted on Marie. You cannot imagine what she is in great trials. Usually so gentle, she then becomes strong and energetic.

She watches me without my knowing it; she softens, calms, and strengthens me in difficulties which disturb ME, but leave her serene."

[2012] In another letter he says: "I cannot describe to you the happiness yielded in the long run by the habitual society of a woman in whose soul all that is good in your own is reflected naturally, and even improved.

When I say or do a thing which seems to me to be perfectly right, I read immediately in Marie's countenance an expression of proud satisfaction which elevates me. And so, when my conscience reproaches me, her face instantly clouds over. Although I have great power over her mind, I see with pleasure that she awes me; and so long as I love her as I do now, I am sure that I shall never allow myself to be drawn into anything that is wrong."

In the retired life which De Tocqueville led as a literary man--political life being closed against him by the inflexible independence of his character--his health failed, and he became ill, irritable, and querulous. While proceeding with his last work, 'L'Ancien Regime et la Revolution,' he wrote: "After sitting at my desk for five or six hours, I can write no longer; the machine refuses to act. I am in great want of rest, and of a long rest. If you add all the perplexities that besiege an author towards the end of his work, you will be able to imagine a very wretched life. I could not go on with my task if it were not for the refres.h.i.+ng calm of Marie's companions.h.i.+p. It would be impossible to find a disposition forming a happier contrast to my own.

In my perpetual irritability of body and mind, she is a providential resource that never fails me." [2013]

M. Guizot was, in like manner, sustained and encouraged, amidst his many vicissitudes and disappointments, by his n.o.ble wife. If he was treated with harshness by his political enemies, his consolation was in the tender affection which filled his home with suns.h.i.+ne. Though his public life was bracing and stimulating, he felt, nevertheless, that it was cold and calculating, and neither filled the soul nor elevated the character. "Man longs for a happiness," he says in his 'Memoires,' "more complete and more tender than that which all the labours and triumphs of active exertion and public importance can bestow. What I know to-day, at the end of my race, I have felt when it began, and during its continuance. Even in the midst of great undertakings, domestic affections form the basis of life; and the most brilliant career has only superficial and incomplete enjoyments, if a stranger to the happy ties of family and friends.h.i.+p."

The circ.u.mstances connected with M. Guizot's courts.h.i.+p and marriage are curious and interesting. While a young man living by his pen in Paris, writing books, reviews, and translations, he formed a casual acquaintance with Mademoiselle Pauline de Meulan, a lady of great ability, then editor of the PUBLICISTE. A severe domestic calamity having befallen her, she fell ill, and was unable for a time to carry on the heavy literary work connected with her journal. At this juncture a letter without any signature reached her one day, offering a supply of articles, which the writer hoped would be worthy of the reputation of the PUBLICISTE. The articles duly arrived, were accepted, and published. They dealt with a great variety of subjects--art, literature, theatricals, and general criticism. When the editor at length recovered from her illness, the writer of the articles disclosed himself: it was M. Guizot. An intimacy sprang up between them, which ripened into mutual affection, and before long Mademoiselle de Meulan became his wife.

From that time forward, she shared in all her husband's joys and sorrows, as well as in many of his labours. Before they became united, he asked her if she thought she should ever become dismayed at the vicissitudes of his destiny, which he then saw looming before him. She replied that he might a.s.sure himself that she would always pa.s.sionately enjoy his triumphs, but never heave a sigh over his defeats. When M.

Guizot became first minister of Louis Philippe, she wrote to a friend: "I now see my husband much less than I desire, but still I see him....

If G.o.d spares us to each other, I shall always be, in the midst of every trial and apprehension, the happiest of beings." Little more than six months after these words were written, the devoted wife was laid in her grave; and her sorrowing husband was left thenceforth to tread the journey of life alone.

Burke was especially happy in his union with Miss Nugent, a beautiful, affectionate, and highminded woman. The agitation and anxiety of his public life was more than compensated by his domestic happiness, which seems to have been complete. It was a saying of Burke, thoroughly ill.u.s.trative of his character, that "to love the little platoon we belong to in society is the germ of all public affections." His description of his wife, in her youth, is probably one of the finest word-portraits in the language:--

"She is handsome; but it is a beauty not arising from features, from complexion, or from shape. She has all three in a high degree, but it is not by these she touches the heart; it is all that sweetness of temper, benevolence, innocence, and sensibility, which a face can express, that forms her beauty. She has a face that just raises your attention at first sight; it grows on you every moment, and you wonder it did no more than raise your attention at first.

"Her eyes have a mild light, but they awe when she pleases; they command, like a good man out of office, not by authority, but by virtue.

"Her stature is not tall; she is not made to be the admiration of everybody, but the happiness of one.

"She has all the firmness that does not exclude delicacy; she has all the softness that does not imply weakness.

"Her voice is a soft low music--not formed to rule in public a.s.semblies, but to charm those who can distinguish a company from a crowd; it has this advantage--YOU MUST COME CLOSE TO HER TO HEAR IT.

"To describe her body describes her mind--one is the transcript of the other; her understanding is not shown in the variety of matters it exerts itself on, but in the goodness of the choice she makes.

"She does not display it so much in saying or doing striking things, as in avoiding such as she ought not to say or do.

"No person of so few years can know the world better; no person was ever less corrupted by the knowledge of it.

"Her politeness flows rather from a natural disposition to oblige, than from any rules on that subject, and therefore never fails to strike those who understand good breeding and those who do not.

"She has a steady and firm mind, which takes no more from the solidity of the female character than the solidity of marble does from its polish and l.u.s.tre. She has such virtues as make us value the truly great of our own s.e.x. She has all the winning graces that make us love even the faults we see in the weak and beautiful, in hers."

Let us give, as a companion picture, the not less beautiful delineation of a husband, that of Colonel Hutchinson, the Commonwealth man, by his widow. Shortly before his death, he enjoined her "not to grieve at the common rate of desolate women." And, faithful to his injunction, instead of lamenting his loss, she indulged her n.o.ble sorrow in depicting her husband as he had lived.

"They who dote on mortal excellences," she says, in her Introduction to the 'Life,' "when, by the inevitable fate of all things frail, their adored idols are taken from them, may let loose the winds of pa.s.sion to bring in a flood of sorrow, whose ebbing tides carry away the dear memory of what they have lost; and when comfort is essayed to such mourners, commonly all objects are removed out of their view which may with their remembrance renew the grief; and in time these remedies succeed, and oblivion's curtain is by degrees drawn over the dead face; and things less lovely are liked, while they are not viewed together with that which was most excellent. But I, that am under a command not to grieve at the common rate of desolate women, [2014] while I am studying which way to moderate my woe, and if it were possible to augment my love, I can for the present find out none more just to your dear father, nor consolatory to myself, than the preservation of his memory, which I need not gild with such flattering commendations as hired preachers do equally give to the truly and t.i.tularly honourable. A naked undressed narrative, speaking the simple truth of him, will deck him with more substantial glory, than all the panegyrics the best pens could ever consecrate to the virtues of the best men."

The following is the wife's portrait of Colonel Hutchinson as a husband:--

"For conjugal affection to his wife, it was such in him as whosoever would draw out a rule of honour, kindness, and religion, to be practised in that estate, need no more but exactly draw out his example. Never man had a greater pa.s.sion for a woman, nor a more honourable esteem of a wife: yet he was not uxorious, nor remitted he that just rule which it was her honour to obey, but managed the reins of government with such prudence and affection, that she who could not delight in such an honourable and advantageable subjection, must have wanted a reasonable soul.

"He governed by persuasion, which he never employed but to things honourable and profitable to herself; he loved her soul and her honour more than her outside, and yet he had ever for her person a constant indulgence, exceeding the common temporary pa.s.sion of the most uxorious fools. If he esteemed her at a higher rate than she in herself could have deserved, he was the author of that virtue he doated on, while she only reflected his own glories upon him. All that she was, was HIM, while he was here, and all that she is now, at best, is but his pale shade.

"So liberal was he to her, and of so generous a temper, that he hated the mention of severed purses, his estate being so much at her disposal that he never would receive an account of anything she expended. So constant was he in his love, that when she ceased to be young and lovely he began to show most fondness. He loved her at such a kind and generous rate as words cannot express. Yet even this, which was the highest love he or any man could have, was bounded by a superior: he loved her in the Lord as his fellow-creature, not his idol; but in such a manner as showed that an affection, founded on the just rules of duty, far exceeds every way all the irregular pa.s.sions in the world. He loved G.o.d above her, and all the other dear pledges of his heart, and for his glory cheerfully resigned them." [2015]

Lady Rachel Russell is another of the women of history celebrated for her devotion and faithfulness as a wife. She laboured and pleaded for her husband's release so long as she could do so with honour; but when she saw that all was in vain, she collected her courage, and strove by her example to strengthen the resolution of her dear lord. And when his last hour had nearly come, and his wife and children waited to receive his parting embrace, she, brave to the end, that she might not add to his distress, concealed the agony of her grief under a seeming composure; and they parted, after a tender adieu, in silence. After she had gone, Lord William said, "Now the bitterness of death is pa.s.sed!"

[2016]

We have spoken of the influence of a wife upon a man's character. There are few men strong enough to resist the influence of a lower character in a wife. If she do not sustain and elevate what is highest in his nature, she will speedily reduce him to her own level. Thus a wife may be the making or the unmaking of the best of men. An ill.u.s.tration of this power is furnished in the life of Bunyan. The profligate tinker had the good fortune to marry, in early life, a worthy young woman of good parentage. "My mercy," he himself says, "was to light upon a wife whose father and mother were accounted G.o.dly. This woman and I, though we came together as poor as poor might be [20not having so much household stuff as a dish or a spoon betwixt us both], yet she had for her part, 'The Plain Man's Pathway to Heaven,' and 'The Practice of Piety,' which her father had left her when he died." And by reading these and other good books; helped by the kindly influence of his wife, Bunyan was gradually reclaimed from his evil ways, and led gently into the paths of peace.

Richard Baxter, the Nonconformist divine, was far advanced in life before he met the excellent woman who eventually became his wife. He was too laboriously occupied in his vocation of minister to have any time to spare for courts.h.i.+p; and his marriage was, as in the case of Calvin, as much a matter of convenience as of love. Miss Charlton, the lady of his choice, was the owner of property in her own right; but lest it should be thought that Baxter married her for "covetousness," he requested, first, that she should give over to her relatives the princ.i.p.al part of her fortune, and that "he should have nothing that before her marriage was hers;" secondly, that she should so arrange her affairs "as that he might be entangled in no lawsuits;" and, thirdly, "that she should expect none of the time that his ministerial work might require." These several conditions the bride having complied with, the marriage took place, and proved a happy one. "We lived," said Baxter, "in inviolated love and mutual complacency, sensible of the benefit of mutual help, nearly nineteen years." Yet the life of Baxter was one of great trials and troubles, arising from the unsettled state of the times in which he lived. He was hunted about from one part of the country to another, and for several years he had no settled dwelling-place. "The women," he gently remarks in his 'Life,' "have most of that sort of trouble, but my wife easily bore it all." In the sixth year of his marriage Baxter was brought before the magistrates at Brentford, for holding a conventicle at Acton, and was sentenced by them to be imprisoned in Clerkenwell Gaol. There he was joined by his wife, who affectionately nursed him during his confinement. "She was never so cheerful a companion to me,"

he says, "as in prison, and was very much against me seeking to be released." At length he was set at liberty by the judges of the Court of Common Pleas, to whom he had appealed against the sentence of the magistrates. At the death of Mrs. Baxter, after a very troubled yet happy and cheerful life, her husband left a touching portrait of the graces, virtues, and Christian character of this excellent woman--one of the most charming things to be found in his works.

The n.o.ble Count Zinzendorf was united to an equally n.o.ble woman, who bore him up through life by her great spirit, and sustained him in all his labours by her unfailing courage. "Twenty-four years' experience has shown me," he said, "that just the helpmate whom I have is the only one that could suit my vocation. Who else could have so carried through my family affairs?--who lived so spotlessly before the world? Who so wisely aided me in my rejection of a dry morality?.... Who would, like she, without a murmur, have seen her husband encounter such dangers by land and sea?--who undertaken with him, and sustained, such astonis.h.i.+ng pilgrimages? Who, amid such difficulties, could have held up her head and supported me?.... And finally, who, of all human beings, could so well understand and interpret to others my inner and outer being as this one, of such n.o.bleness in her way of thinking, such great intellectual capacity, and free from the theological perplexities that so often enveloped me?"

One of the brave Dr. Livingstone's greatest trials during his travels in South Africa was the death of his affectionate wife, who had shared his dangers, and accompanied him in so many of his wanderings. In communicating the intelligence of her decease at Shupanga, on the River Zambesi, to his friend Sir Roderick Murchison, Dr. Livingstone said: "I must confess that this heavy stroke quite takes the heart out of me. Everything else that has happened only made me more determined to overcome all difficulties; but after this sad stroke I feel crushed and void of strength. Only three short months of her society, after four years separation! I married her for love, and the longer I lived with her I loved her the more. A good wife, and a good, brave, kindhearted mother was she, deserving all the praises you bestowed upon her at our parting dinner, for teaching her own and the native children, too, at Kolobeng. I try to bow to the blow as from our Heavenly Father, who orders all things for us.... I shall do my duty still, but it is with a darkened horizon that I again set about it."

Sir Samuel Romilly left behind him, in his Autobiography, a touching picture of his wife, to whom he attributed no small measure of the success and happiness that accompanied him through life. "For the last fifteen years," he said, "my happiness has been the constant study of the most excellent of wives: a woman in whom a strong understanding, the n.o.blest and most elevated sentiments, and the most courageous virtue, are united to the warmest affection, and to the utmost delicacy of mind and heart; and all these intellectual perfections are graced by the most splendid beauty that human eyes ever beheld." [2017] Romilly's affection and admiration for this n.o.ble woman endured to the end; and when she died, the shock proved greater than his sensitive nature could bear.

Sleep left his eyelids, his mind became unhinged, and three days after her death the sad event occurred which brought his own valued life to a close. [2018]

Sir Francis Burdett, to whom Romilly had been often politically opposed, fell into such a state of profound melancholy on the death of his wife, that he persistently refused nourishment of any kind, and died before the removal of her remains from the house; and husband and wife were laid side by side in the same grave.

It was grief for the loss of his wife that sent Sir Thomas Graham into the army at the age of forty-three. Every one knows the picture of the newly-wedded pair by Gainsborough--one of the most exquisite of that painter's works. They lived happily together for eighteen years, and then she died, leaving him inconsolable. To forget his sorrow--and, as some thought, to get rid of the weariness of his life without her--Graham joined Lord Hood as a volunteer, and distinguished himself by the recklessness of his bravery at the siege of Toulon. He served all through the Peninsular War, first under Sir John Moore, and afterwards under Wellington; rising through the various grades of the service, until he rose to be second in command. He was commonly known as the "hero of Barossa," because of his famous victory at that place; and he was eventually raised to the peerage as Lord Lynedoch, ending his days peacefully at a very advanced age. But to the last he tenderly cherished the memory of his dead wife, to the love of whom he may be said to have owed all his glory. "Never," said Sheridan of him, when p.r.o.nouncing his eulogy in the House of Commons--"never was there seated a loftier spirit in a braver heart."

And so have n.o.ble wives cherished the memory of their husbands. There is a celebrated monument in Vienna, erected to the memory of one of the best generals of the Austrian army, on which there is an inscription, setting forth his great services during the Seven Years' War, concluding with the words, "NON PATRIA, NEC IMPERATOR, SED CONJUX POSUIT." When Sir Albert Morton died, his wife's grief was such that she shortly followed him, and was laid by his side. Wotton's two lines on the event have been celebrated as containing a volume in seventeen words:

"He first deceased; she for a little tried To live without him, liked it not, and died."

So, when Was.h.i.+ngton's wife was informed that her dear lord had suffered his last agony--had drawn his last breath, and departed--she said: "'Tis well; all is now over. I shall soon follow him; I have no more trials to pa.s.s through."

Not only have women been the best companions, friends, and consolers, but they have in many cases been the most effective helpers of their husbands in their special lines of work. Galvani was especially happy in his wife. She was the daughter of Professor Galeazzi; and it is said to have been through her quick observation of the circ.u.mstance of the leg of a frog, placed near an electrical machine, becoming convulsed when touched by a knife, that her husband was first led to investigate the science which has since become identified with his name. Lavoisier's wife also was a woman of real scientific ability, who not only shared in her husband's pursuits, but even undertook the task of engraving the plates that accompanied his 'Elements.'

The late Dr. Buckland had another true helper in his wife, who a.s.sisted him with her pen, prepared and mended his fossils, and furnished many of the drawings and ill.u.s.trations of his published works. "Notwithstanding her devotion to her husband's pursuits," says her son, Frank Buckland, in the preface to one of his father's works, "she did not neglect the education of her children, but occupied her mornings in superintending their instruction in sound and useful knowledge. The sterling value of her labours they now, in after-life, fully appreciate, and feel most thankful that they were blessed with so good a mother." [2019]

A still more remarkable instance of helpfulness in a wife is presented in the case of Huber, the Geneva naturalist. Huber was blind from his seventeenth year, and yet he found means to study and master a branch of natural history demanding the closest observation and the keenest eyesight. It was through the eyes of his wife that his mind worked as if they had been his own. She encouraged her husband's studies as a means of alleviating his privation, which at length he came to forget; and his life was as prolonged and happy as is usual with most naturalists. He even went so far as to declare that he should be miserable were he to regain his eyesight. "I should not know," he said, "to what extent a person in my situation could be beloved; besides, to me my wife is always young, fresh, and pretty, which is no light matter." Huber's great work on 'Bees' is still regarded as a masterpiece, embodying a vast amount of original observation on their habits and natural history.

Indeed, while reading his descriptions, one would suppose that they were the work of a singularly keensighted man, rather than of one who had been entirely blind for twenty-five years at the time at which he wrote them.

Not less touching was the devotion of Lady Hamilton to the service of her husband, the late Sir William Hamilton, Professor of Logic and Metaphysics in the University of Edinburgh. After he had been stricken by paralysis through overwork at the age of fifty-six, she became hands, eyes, mind, and everything to him. She identified herself with his work, read and consulted books for him, copied out and corrected his lectures, and relieved him of all business which she felt herself competent to undertake. Indeed, her conduct as a wife was nothing short of heroic; and it is probable that but for her devoted and more than wifely help, and her rare practical ability, the greatest of her husband's works would never have seen the light. He was by nature unmethodical and disorderly, and she supplied him with method and orderliness. His temperament was studious but indolent, while she was active and energetic. She abounded in the qualities which he most lacked. He had the genius, to which her vigorous nature gave the force and impulse.

When Sir William Hamilton was elected to his Professors.h.i.+p, after a severe and even bitter contest, his opponents, professing to regard him as a visionary, predicted that he could never teach a cla.s.s of students, and that his appointment would prove a total failure. He determined, with the help of his wife, to justify the choice of his supporters, and to prove that his enemies were false prophets. Having no stock of lectures on hand, each lecture of the first course was written out day by day, as it was to be delivered on the following morning. His wife sat up with him night after night, to write out a fair copy of the lectures from the rough sheets, which he drafted in the adjoining room. "On some occasions," says his biographer, "the subject of the lectures would prove less easily managed than on others; and then Sir William would be found writing as late as nine o'clock in the morning, while his faithful but wearied amanuensis had fallen asleep on a sofa." [2020]

Sometimes the finis.h.i.+ng touches to the lecture were left to be given just before the cla.s.s-hour. Thus helped, Sir William completed his course; his reputation as a lecturer was established; and he eventually became recognised throughout Europe as one of the leading intellects of his time. [2021]

The woman who soothes anxiety by her presence, who charms and allays irritability by her sweetness of temper, is a consoler as well as a true helper. Niebuhr always spoke of his wife as a fellow-worker with him in this sense. Without the peace and consolation which be found in her society, his nature would have fretted in comparative uselessness. "Her sweetness of temper and her love," said he, "raise me above the earth, and in a manner separate me from this life." But she was a helper in another and more direct way. Niebuhr was accustomed to discuss with his wife every historical discovery, every political event, every novelty in literature; and it was mainly for her pleasure and approbation, in the first instance, that he laboured while preparing himself for the instruction of the world at large.