The lamps shone o'er fair women and brave men;
A thousand hearts beat happily; and when
Music arose with its voluptuous swell,
Soft eyes looked love to eyes which spake again,
And all went merry as a marriage-bell.—Byron.
uotation of this verse is made, not because it celebrated a marriage—it, rather, commemorated the frightful carnage of Waterloo—- but because it very faithfully represents the fashionable beginning of wedded life, to which it alludes. There seems to be in woman an inherited, instinctive desire for this kind of thing at her marriage. It is cruel to deny her, therefore man usually goes through with it like a martyr. My prejudices are so heartily enlisted against "blow-outs" of this kind that I feel the compunctions of an honest judge at sitting in such a case. Nevertheless, I may relate some things I have seen, to show how badly a couple may start in life. Here is one instance: The dust has filled the air for six blocks around some stately church. The "hacks" and private barouches and coupes have been packed together so that any movement was entirely impossible; the bride has come like a queen of the orient; she has walked on flowers to the vestibule; there she has passed under an arch of tuberoses; half-way down the aisle a gate of jessamines and smilax has opened with a smothering sense of richness; at the altar she has actually knelt on a pillow of camellias (fifty cents apiece); and a fifty-dollar organist has put on his full instrument, as though he were proclaiming the glory of God most mighty, instead of the folly of man most miserable. Into the church have thronged the elect, proud and disdainful; on the outside has stared the vulgar multitude, too ignorant for anything but rapt wonderment. From the temple of high-priced worship the celebrants have passed, in a still more exclusive body, to a residence where a banquet has been prepared by a man who generally makes ice cream for a living, and where a dazzling display of wedding presents has been uncovered to the careless gaze. Then the train bears away the twain of one foolish flesh, and the farce is over.
OF COURSE IT WAS A FARCE.
The elect read the newspapers next morning with a smile. None but he of the vulgar multitude was hoodwinked. The man and the woman have spent all their money to purchase a "swell wedding." The presents were hired, so were most of the "hacks." The florist has got part of his money. The couple, six months afterward, are "beating" some poor landlady out of their board, and the man, in all likelihood, will never again be heard of. But the women have been intensely agitated by the event. They have never thought about the subsequent aspects of the case.
NO ONE OF THE SAME "SET"
would be willing to spare a single "hack" or one double camellia. Why did the young man and the young woman do it? They did it principally out of vanity, in imitation of some rich person who desired to distribute his money among hard-working folks and at the same time create a feeling of envy among his fellows and "please the women folk."