And now I finish with a fable. A knight surprised a giant of enormous size and wickedness sleeping, his head lying under the shade of a big oak. The knight prayed to heaven to aid his strength, and lifting his battle-axe dashed it with all his might on the giant’s forehead. The giant opened his eyes, and drowsily passing his hand over his eyes, murmured, “The falling leaves trouble my rest,” and straight he slumbered again. The knight summoned his energies for another stroke, again whirled his axe in the air, and furiously dashed it to the utter destruction of the giant’s scull. The latter merely stirred, and said, “The dropping acorns disturb my sleep.” The knight flung down his
axe and fled in despair from an enemy who held his fiercest blows and his vaunted and well-tried might but as falling leaves and dropping acorns. Reader, so do I. My hardest blows shall seem but as leaves and acorns to the giant with whom I am at war, and would fain destroy.
CHAPTER XII.
LONDON MATRIMONIAL.
Last year 25,924 couples were married in the metropolis. The Registrar-General tells us the increase of early marriages chiefly occurs in the manufacturing and mining districts.
In London 2.74 of the men and 12.11 of the women who married were not of full age. There is an excess of adults in the metropolis at the marrying ages over 21; and there are not apparently the same inducements to marry early, as exist in the Midland counties.
Sir Cresswell Cresswell must have but a poor opinion of matrimony. At the very moment of my writing, I am told there are six hundred divorce cases in arrear; that is, after the hundreds whose chains he has loosened, there are, it appears, already twelve hundred more of injured wives and husbands eager to be free. The evil, such as it is, will extend itself. Under the old system there was, practically speaking, no redress, and a man and woman tied together would endeavour to
make the best of it; now, if they feel the more they quarrel and disagree with each other, the better chance they have of being at liberty, it is to be feared, in some cases, husband and wife will not try so heartily to forget and forgive, as husbands and wives ought to do. I do not say there ought not to be liberty, where all love has long since died out, and been followed by bad faith and cruelty, and neglect. I believe there should be, and that the Divorce Act was an experiment imperatively required. Where mutual love has been exchanged for mutual hate, it is hard that human law should bind together, in what must be life-long misery—misery perhaps not the less intense that it has uttered no word of complaint, made no sign, been unsuspected by the world, yet all the while dragging its victim to an early or premature grave. But human nature is a poor weak thing, and many a silly man or silly woman may think that Sir Cresswell Cresswell may prove a healing physician, when their malady was more in themselves than they cared to believe. I hear of one case where a lady having £15,000 a-year in her own right, has run off with her footman. Would she have done that if there had been no Sir Cresswell? I fancy not. Again, another married lady, with £100,000 settled on her, runs off with the curate. Had it not occurred to her that Sir Cresswell Cresswell would, in due time, dissolve her union with her legitimate lord, and enable her to follow the bent of her passions, would she not have fought with them, and in the conquest of them
won more true peace for herself, than she can ever hope for now? I believe so. In the long commerce of a life, there must be times, when we may think of others we have known, when we may idly fancy we should have been happier with others; but true wisdom will teach us that it is childish to lament after the event, that it were wiser to take what comfort we can find, and that, after all, it is duty, rather than happiness, that should be the pole-star of life. Southey told Shelley a man might be happy with any woman, and certainly a wise man, once married, will try to make the best of it. But to return to Sir Cresswell Cresswell, I wish that he could give relief without stirring up such a pool of stinking mud. Who is benefitted by the disgusting details? It is a fine thing for the penny papers. They get a large sale, and so reap their reward. The Times, also, is generally not very backward when anything peculiarly revolting and indecent is to be told; but are the people, high or low, rich or poor, the better? I find it hard to believe they are. How husbands can be false, how wives can intrigue, how servants can connive, we know, and we do not want to hear it repeated. If Prior’s Chloe was an ale-house drab, if the Clara of Lord Bolingbroke sold oranges in the Court of Requests, if Fielding kept indifferent company, we are amused or grieved, but still learn something of genius, even from its errors; but of the tribe Smith and Brown I care not to hear—ever since the Deluge the Smiths and Browns have been much the same. What am I the better for
learning all the rottenness of domestic life? Is that fit reading for the family circle? I suppose the newspapers think it is, but I cannot come to that opinion. Can it have a wholesome effect on the national feeling? Can it heighten the reverence for Nature’s primary ordinance of matrimony?
In the Book of Common Prayer I read that matrimony is “holy;” that it was instituted of God in the time of man’s innocency, signifying unto us the mystical union that is between Christ and his Church, which holy estate Christ adorned and beautified with his presence and first miracle that he wrought in Cana of Galilee; and is commended of St. Paul to be honourable among all men, and, therefore, is not by any to be enterprised, “nor taken in hand unadvisedly, lightly, or wantonly, to satisfy men’s carnal lusts or appetites, like brute beasts that have no understanding; but reverently, discreetly, advisedly, soberly, and in the fear of God, duly considering the causes for which matrimony was ordained.”