Papa and Mamma Blake, like prudent generals, so long as they saw the forces of the enemy daily wasting before them; so long as they could with impunity carry on the war at his expense,—resolved to risk nothing by a pitched battle. Unlike the Dalrymples, they could leave all to time.
Oh, tell me not of dark eyes swimming in their own ethereal essence; tell me not of pouting lips, of glossy ringlets, of taper fingers, and well-rounded insteps; speak not to me of soft voices, whose seductive sounds ring sweetly in our hearts; preach not of those thousand womanly graces so dear to every man, and doubly to him who lives apart from all their influences and their fascinations; neither dwell upon congenial temperament, similarity of taste, of disposition, and of thought; these are not the great risks a man runs in life. Of all the temptations, strong as these may be, there is one greater than them all, and that is, propinquity!
Show me the man who has ever stood this test; show me the man, deserving the name of such, who has become daily and hourly exposed to the breaching artillery of flashing eyes, of soft voices, of winning smiles, and kind speeches, and who hasn’t felt, and that too soon too, a breach within the rampart of his heart. He may, it is true,—nay, he will, in many cases,—make a bold and vigorous defence; sometimes will he re-intrench himself within the stockades of his prudence; but, alas! it is only to defer the moment when he must lay down his arms. He may, like a wise man who sees his fate inevitable, make a virtue of necessity, and surrender at discretion; or, like a crafty foe, seeing his doom before him, under the cover of the night he may make a sortie from the garrison, and run for his life. Ignominious as such a course must be, it is often the only one left.
But to come back. Love, like the small-pox, is most dangerous when you take it in the natural way. Those made matches, which Heaven is supposed to have a hand in, when placing an unmarried gentleman’s property in the neighborhood of an unmarried lady’s, which destine two people for each other in life, because their well-judging friends have agreed, “They’ll do very well; they were made for each other,”—these are the mild cases of the malady. This process of friendly vaccination takes out the poison of the disease, substituting a more harmless and less exciting affection; but the really dangerous instances are those from contact, that same propinquity, that confounded tendency every man yields to, to fall into a railroad of habit; that is the risk, that is the danger. What a bore it is to find that the absence of one person, with whom you’re in no wise in love, will spoil your morning’s canter, or your rowing party upon the river! How much put out are you, when she, to whom you always gave your arm in to dinner, does not make her appearance in the drawing-room; and your tea, too, some careless one, indifferent to your taste, puts a lump of sugar too little, or cream too much, while she—But no matter; habit has done for you what no direct influence of beauty could do, and a slave to your own selfish indulgences, and the cultivation of that ease you prize so highly, you fall over head and ears in love.
Now, you are not, my good reader, by any means to suppose that this was my case. No, no; I was too much what the world terms the “old soldier” for that. To continue my illustration: like the fortress that has been often besieged, the sentry upon the walls keeps more vigilant watch; his ear detects the far-off clank of the dread artillery; he marks each parallel; he notes down every breaching battery; and if he be captured, at least it is in fair fight.
Such were some of my reflections as I rode slowly home one evening from Gurt-na-Morra. Many a time, latterly, had I contrasted my own lonely and deserted hearth with the smiling looks, the happy faces, and the merry voices I had left behind me; and many a time did I ask myself, “Am I never to partake of a happiness like this?” How many a man is seduced into matrimony from this very feeling! How many a man whose hours have passed fleetingly at the pleasant tea-table, or by the warm hearth of some old country-house, going forth into the cold and cheerless night, reaches his far-off home only to find it dark and gloomy, joyless and companionless? How often has the hard-visaged look of his old butler, as, with sleepy eyes and yawning face, he hands a bed-room candle, suggested thoughts of married happiness? Of the perils of propinquity I have already spoken; the risks of contrast are also great. Have you never, in strolling through some fragrant and rich conservatory, fixed your eye upon a fair and lovely flower, whose blossoming beauty seems to give all the lustre and all the incense of the scene around? And how have you thought it would adorn and grace the precincts of your home, diffusing fragrance on every side. Alas, the experiment is not always successful. Much of the charm and many of the fascinations which delight you are the result of association of time and of place. The lovely voice, whose tones have spoken to your heart, may, like some instrument, be delightful in the harmony of the orchestra, but, after all, prove a very middling performer in a duet.
I say not this to deter men from matrimony, but to warn them from a miscalculation which may mar their happiness. Flirtation is a very fine thing, but it’s only a state of transition after all. The tadpole existence of the lover would be great fun, if one was never to become a frog under the hands of the parson. I say all this dispassionately and advisedly. Like the poet of my country, for many years of my life,—
“My only books were woman’s looks,”
and certainly I subscribe to a circulating library.
All this long digression may perhaps bring the reader to where it brought me,—the very palpable conviction, that, though not in love with my cousin Baby, I could not tell when I might eventually become so.