Since the world began, there probably never was a marriage of which somebody did not "disapprove." That somebody, and everybody, including relatives, have a perfect right to an opinion on such a subject, nobody doubts. But how far you prove your greater love for "Tom," by whispering round "confidentially" your foreordained determination not to believe that "that woman" can ever make him happy, is a question. Poor fellow! and she of all people in the world; the very last woman you would have selected; which of course is sure to get to Tom's wife's ears, and produce a fine foundation for belief in the reality of your regard for him, and your good nature generally.
Now as there were seldom, or never, two parties bound together in any relation of life, whether as business partners, pastor and people, teacher and pupil, master and subordinate, mistress and maid, who always moved along with perfect unanimity, it is hardly to be expected that the marriage of "Tom" and his wife will effect a total revolution for the better in human nature, any more than did your own marriage. Perhaps even Tom and his wife, though loving each other very much, may have a difference of opinion on some subject; but what is that to you? They don't need your guardianship or supervision in the matter. It is very curious that those persons who clamor most loudly when "Tom" marries without their consent and approbation, are, ten to one, those who have themselves married clandestinely, or otherwise offended against the rigid rule which they would apply in his particular case.
Broad philanthropists! Tom can surely be happy in no way but theirs. They love him so much better than "that woman" possibly can. Poor "Tom!" He looked so poorly last time they saw him. Her fault, of course. They knew it would be just so. Didn't they say so from the first? Poor Tom! such a sacrifice! It is unaccountable how he can like her. For the matter of that, they never will believe he does, (and they might add, he shan't if we can help it.) And so, when they see him, they inquire with a churchyard air, "Is he well?" "Is anything the matter?" "Ah, you needn't tell us; we know how it is; poor Tom—we know you try to bear up under it. Come and see us. We will love you. You never will find us changed."
No. That's the worst of it! No hope of their changing. Bless their souls! How lucky "Tom" has somebody to tell him what a "sacrifice he has made," or he never would find it out! Well, it is astonishing that such people don't see that this is the last way to convince any person with common sense, that they are better qualified to be installed guardians of "Tom's" happiness than "that woman."
It is very strange that men, as a general thing, should be proud of that, of which they should be ashamed, and ashamed of that, which ennobles them. Now, to my eye, a man never looks so grand, as when he bends his ear patiently and lovingly, to the lisping of a little child. I admire that man whom I see with a baby in his arms. I delight, on Sunday, when the nurses are set free, to see the fathers leading out their little ones in their best attire, and setting them right end up, about fifty times a minute. It is as good a means of grace as I am acquainted with. Now that a man should feel ashamed to be seen doing this, or think it necessary to apologize, even jocularly, when he meets a male friend, is to me one of the unaccountable things. It seems to me every way such a lovely, and good, and proper action in a father, that I can't help thinking that he who would feel otherwise, is of so coarse and ignoble a nature, as to be quite unworthy of respect. How many times I have turned to look at the clumsy smoothing of a child's dress, or settling of its hat, or bonnet, by the unpractised fingers of a proud father. And the clumsier he was about it, the better I have loved him for the pains he took. It is very beautiful to me, this self-abnegation, which creeps so gradually over a young father. He is himself so unconscious that he, who had for many years thought first and only of his own selfish ease and wants, is forgetting himself entirely whenever that little creature, with his eyes and its mother's lips, reaches out coaxing hands to go here or there, or to look at this or that pretty object. Ah, what but this heavenly love, could bridge over the anxious days and nights, of care and sickness, that these twain of one flesh are called to bear? My boy! My girl! There it is! Mine! Something to live for—something to work for—something to come home to; and that last is the summing up of the whole matter. "Now let us have a good love," said a little three-year older, as she clasped her chubby arms about her father's neck when he came in at night "Now let us have a good love." Do you suppose that man walked with slow and laggard steps from his store toward that bright face that had been peeping for an hour from the nursery window to watch his coming? Do you suppose when he got on all fours to "play elephant" with the child, that it even crossed his mind that he had worked very hard all that day, or that he was not at that minute "looking dignified?" Did he wish he had a "club" where he could get away from home evenings, or was that "good love" of the little creature on his back, with the laughing eyes and the pearly teeth, and the warm clasp about his neck, which she was squeezing to suffocation, sweeter and better than anything that this world could give?
Something to come home to! That is what saves a man. Somebody there to grieve if he is not true to himself. Somebody there to be sorry if he is troubled or sick. Somebody there, with fingers like sunbeams, gliding and brightening whatever they touch; and all for him. I look at the business men of New York, at nightfall, coming swarming "up town" from their stores and counting-rooms; and when I see them, as I often do, stop and buy one of those tiny bouquets as they go, I smile to myself; for although it is a little attention toward a wife, I know how happy that rose with its two geranium leaves, and its sprig of mignonette will make her. He thought of her coming home! Foolish, do you call it? Such folly makes all the difference between stepping off, scarcely conscious of the cares a woman carries, or staggering wearily along till she faints disheartened under their burthen. Something to go home to! That man felt it, and by ever so slight a token wished to recognize it. God bless him, I say, and all like him, who do not take home-comforts as stereotyped matters of course, and God bless the family estate; I can't see that anything better has been devised by the wiseacres who have experimented on the Almighty's plans. "There comes my father!" exclaims Johnny, bounding from out a group of "fellows" with whom he was playing ball; and sliding his little soiled fist in his, they go up the steps and into the house together; and again God bless them! I say there's one man who is all right at least. That boy has got him, safer than Fort Lafeyette.
If there is an experiment which is worse than any other for a young married couple to make, we believe it to be that of trying to make a home in a hotel. What possible chance has a young wife there to acquire domestic habits? To do anything, in short, but dress half a dozen times a day, and sit in the public parlor, or her own, to gossip with idle women or bandy compliments with idle men. And how—I ask any thinking person—can a young married woman be fitted for quiet home-cares and duties, after a year or two of such idleness and vacuity; Let no young husband expect any favorable result from such an experiment. Better a house with only one room, in a quiet place by yourselves—than such a hollow, shallow life as this. Many a husband has dated from it the loss of all quiet, home happiness; lucky for him, if no more. Go to housekeeping; unambitiously if need be—as the old folks did before you. But have a place sacred to yourselves—have a place which your children in after years will love to think of as home. Do it for their sakes if not for your own. No sight is sadder than that of a weary little one—wandering up and down the entries and halls of a large hotel, peeping into parlors, offices and bar-rooms—listening to what childhood should never hear, and with no alternative but the small, dreary nursery, whose only-window prospect, nine times in ten, is a stack of brick chimneys or a back-shed full of flapping clothes hung out to dry. A father should hesitate long before he dooms a young child to such a "home" as this.