We have learned in these days that blood runs out as well as in (on the very principle I am seeking to prove), and the nobleman and woman of genius appear quite as often outside the charmed circle of hereditary distinction as within it. Still, the law is inflexible, and never evaded. Beauty is not born of cowardice, subserviency, or grief. The more culture, the more the blood is worked over, the finer the types, provided we grow more related to humanity, and less to a class.
Pure, unselfish love is in very fact the mother of beauty, as happiness is the mother of song. And what can awaken gladness in a wife so certainly as the ever-watchful kindness of her husband?
[DAISY B——.]
I was at one time intimate with a couple who were noticeably plain and angular in appearance. He, from ill-health, had an irritable disposition. She was easily excited. But they were truly mated, and whatever of these peculiarities appeared in society, they disappeared before the door-step of the home was reached. A perfect confidence existed between them, and the unvarying respect and courtesy shown by the husband toward his wife did honor to them both.
It was a late marriage, and one daughter alone came to bless them. A child lovely from her birth, bearing scarce any resemblance to either parent. A delicate, oval face, creamy complexion, soft, intelligent black eyes, a sweet mouth, and a shower of golden curls; not an angle about her, simply a beauty from babyhood to womanhood.
“You think it unaccountable,” said the father to me, “that my wife and I, who are both so plain, should have so pretty a child as Daisy. But I have studied it out, and I settle it this way. My great-grandmother was a famous beauty and a noted belle in her day, and it is her features that have cropped out in Daisy.”
“And let me tell you,” I answered, with equally impressive gesture of the forefinger. “Let me tell you that both of your great-grandmothers might have been as handsome as the Venus de Medici and the Venus of Milo in one, but if you had not bestowed the most chivalrous attention on your excellent wife while she was bearing Daisy—if you had not made her so thoroughly happy by your loving words and thoughtful care, there would have been no cropping out of beauty in the little daughter. Sweet and lovely thoughts resolve themselves into symmetry of form and face. Mental and physical traits do undoubtedly reappear in the same family after a longer or shorter period, but never without the right conditions for their re-incarnation. You may take at least half the credit of Daisy’s good looks to yourself, and the other half belongs to her good mother.”
[MINISTERS’ CHILDREN.]
There is a common proverb which says that ministers’ children are worse than other people’s. We shall not inquire into the case, but we would suggest that there is no power without freedom, and no deep sentiment without solitude, and the minister’s wife can enjoy neither freedom nor solitude where the parishioners provide the salary; for she is considered the property of the parish—her words and actions are forever criticised. She must conciliate the easily offended, steer clear of church factions, abstain from downrightness of speech. The dangers of her situation are permanently impressed upon her, for is not the bread they eat dependent on unanimity of opinion in the society respecting their worth? If she can think her own thoughts, she certainly must not express them. If she has any doubt concerning any part of the creed, she must force it back and make believe that the strait-jacket is as easy as a knitted shirt.