For the rest, I have much abridged the paragraphs, to which this note alludes, and have interpolated some expressions, not found in the original—because I would not allow myself to leave anything equivocal, touching my own views of the importance of Christian morals and example.
It would be useless to add to the beautiful views, presented by the author, of the disposition to oblige, and the necessity of cultivating modesty, and an equal and serene temper. One cannot enlarge upon these beaten topics, as he has foreseen, without running into common-places. These virtues are preëminently their own reward. Whoever chooses to indulge the opposite tempers has only to reflect, that he assumes the thankless office of becoming a self-tormentor, and injures no one so much as himself. Of these fierce passions, the heathen poets have given us an affecting emblem in the undying vultures, gnawing upon the ever growing entrails of Tityus. If you would form the sublimest conceptions of the eternal and underived satisfaction of the divinity, cultivate dispositions to oblige, and seize occasions to practise beneficence. If you would image more impressive ideas of the torment of demons than poets have dreamed, muse upon injuries; cultivate envy and revenge, and wish that you had the bolts of the thunderer, only that you might hurl them upon your foes. If you would experience the eternal gnawing of the vulture allow yourself in the constant indulgence of your temper.
To those, who have already assumed this tie, or contemplate assuming it, not a word need be said upon the most worn of all themes, the paramount influence of marriage, beyond all other relations, in imparting the coloring of brightness or gloom to all subsequent life. The place, in which the only satisfactions of life, that are worth any serious pursuit, are to be found, is within the domestic walls. Honor, fame, wealth, luxury, literary distinction, everything is extrinsic, and hollow, everything the mere mockery and shadow of joy, but the comfort of a quiet and affectionate home. Whoever does not share this faith with me, will hardly be enlightened to the true sources of enjoyment by any lucubrations of mine. Instead of details and declamation upon this truth, I present an unvarnished, unexaggerated view, an abstract, if I may so say, of the circumstances, under which the greater number of marriages are consummated in our country, and I imagine, in most civilized countries. It may not embrace the exact train of the incidents connected with every case; but will serve, in the phrase of the makers of calendars, ‘without material variation,’ as an outline of the history of those courtships that terminate in matrimony. What wonder, that wedded life is so often unhappy!
I am compelled to believe, that very few marriages take place in consequence of such an intimate acquaintance of the parties with each other’s unsophisticated and interior character, as to justify the chances of affection and domestic happiness. The first adverse circumstance is, that both are constantly on such a trial to make a show of wit, good temper, and manners, as to render the whole scene, from commencement to close, a drama, in which all is acting; in which there is no admission to the real life behind the scenes, until after marriage. How often does the actor or actress, who successfully personated a wit, and an angel, detect in the other party a simpleton, a brute, or a termagant! The walk of life, in which they are found, may vary the shades, but it changes not the natural circumstances of a picture, which, in its broader features, applies alike to elevated and humble life.
The parties, in the bloom of life, in all the excitement of juvenile buoyancy, moving in the illumined atmosphere of imagination, meet at the party, ball-room, assembly, church, or other place of concourse, for which the young dress, to look around, and be gazed upon. They are clad in their gayest, and stand on their best. No airs, or graces, that mothers, or friends, or society, or their Chesterfield, or their imaginations can suggest, are pretermitted. No attempted inflictions are spared from any relentings of mercy. Many gratuitous nods and smiles and remarks, and much odious affectation, inspired by the love of conquest, pass well enough in the tinsel illusion of the scene and circumstances. Accident brings the couple into contact. They sing, dance, walk, converse, or, in some of these ways, are thrown together. Or, perhaps, some officious mediator reports, to the one, flattering remarks made by the other. The first impulses to the acquaintance are those of vanity, and the instinctive attraction of persons, so situated, towards each other. A vague and momentary liking, which might be effaced, as easily as mists vanish in the sun, is the result. The lady, from the delicacy of her organization, and the quickness of her perceptions, is the first aware of the new state of mutual feeling; and by conjoining a happy combination of coquetry, shyness, and encouragement, adds fuel to the kindling spark. They converse apart, and the masonic pressure of hands is interchanged. Compliments ensue, more or less polished, and eloquent, according to their native readiness and artificial training. Vanity comes in with her legion of auxiliaries, and, in the same proportion as memory invests this intercourse with pleasant sensations and agreeable associations, conversation with other persons, between whom and themselves these processes have not commenced, becomes tasteless and irksome; and ennui in all other society does its part to put imagination in action. They find themselves weary and sad in separation. Fancy runs riot and begins to weave her fairy tissue, and to build her oriental bowers. The parties are now in love, as they believe, and as the world pronounces. Now commence the hours of poetry and sentimentality; and the spring time of their new born passion. Not a moment, for discriminating observation of each other’s character, has yet occurred.
The freshness of the vernal inclination acquires the fervor of settled and summer passion. The preliminaries of form are commenced; and under such associations, and with such mutual inclinations, incompatibility, unfitness, opposition of friends, all obstacles that are not absolutely insurmountable, disappear. What parent can resist the impassioned eloquence of a child, or contemplate for a moment the prospect of inflicting the agony of a disappointed and hopeless love! Have they measured each other’s understanding and good sense? No: this requires a discrimination, for which in the fever, the delirium of the senses, they have no capacity. Know they aught of each other’s worth and good temper? No. Lovers find nothing to jar their temper, or try their disposition. Surrounded by a halo of imagination, everything about them is invested with its brilliancy. The silliest remark of the inamorata sounds in the ears of the lover, like the response of an oracle; and he is astonished and enraged that all others do not see, and hear with him. Everything that is said becomes wisdom, and everything done noble and graceful. Who has not heard all these ascriptions, all these extravagant eulogies, applied to a fair female, uttering nothing, and incapable of uttering anything, but voluble and vapid nonsense; or worse, ebullitions of envy, detraction and bad feeling! Meanwhile, the parties, enveloped in illusion, would not see real character, if they could; and could not, if they would. Is this extravagant, or exaggerated? Let the well known fact, that sensible men oftener marry fools, and gifted women coxcombs, than otherwise, be received as evidence, that this great transaction is generally commenced, and terminated under a spell, in which the actors see nothing, as it really is, and as it appears to disinterested spectators. After having united many hundred pairs myself, and seen all aspects of society, such seem to me the most common circumstances appended to the beginning, progress and issue of courtship, in its common forms.
When ambitious views, the lust of wealth, and purposes of aggrandizement, are the prompting incitements, the order of circumstances indeed may be essentially varied, without much altering the result. The excitement of the senses and the illusions of the imagination give place to these more sordid motives. They are, however, equally absorbing with the former. The faculties, having converged to the point of cautious and keen speculation, allow no greater scope, and furnish no happier facilities, for noting the development of understanding, character and temper, than in the other predicament. The appetite for money, and the burning of ambition may as effectually blind the aspirant to the silliness and bad temper of her who is seen through the flattering medium of his plans and his hopes, as could his vanity and his youthful inclinations. How can a person be expected to compare, and discriminate traits, and the almost imperceptible lights and shades of character, whose whole mind is intensely concentrated on the chances of his speculation, the fear of rivals, the danger of mishap, and the means of hastening the issue? Who, under such circumstances, inquires about the elements of happiness or misery, the good sense, the regulated temper, the discretion, health, temperament, and habits, that appertain to the means, by which a fortune and a name are to be obtained? These are passed by, as subordinate considerations. Suppose inquiries touching these points to glance through the mind. Suppose the speculator to have lucid glimpses, and some startling premonitions of the importance of settled and discriminating views, in relation to these matters; contemplated through golden associations and in the glare of ambitious hopes, they will be hardly likely to undergo a very severe or sifting scrutiny.
The marriage, whether of love, of ambition, of convenience or mere animal impulse, takes place. The music and dancing are no more, and the brilliancy of the bridal torch is extinct, and with those physical parapharnalia, one mental illusion after another begins to melt into thin air. The discriminating faculties, judgment and the critical vision, now become morbidly sensitive and severe, since satiety and the extinction of fancy and the imagination have left these capacities to unchecked action, beholding the object of their scrutiny continually, and close at hand. The medium becomes as unnaturally dark, as it was unnaturally light before. A thousand circumstances, never dreamed of in the philosophy of love and courtship, crowd upon this disposition to cynical and bilious criticism. Manifestations of temper and character, that once indicated to the lover, amiability and intelligence, become, to the moody husband or the discontented wife, marks of a weak understanding and a bad heart; and in proportion, as they nourish despondency and disappointment, they destroy the capability of indulgence and forbearance, and resist efforts to soothe, and correct, and conciliate.
In proportion as they become dissatisfied with each other, by a mental progress, exactly the reverse of that which brought them together, home is enveloped with associations of gloom. The imagination finds sunshine in every other place; and every other person is sensible and attractive, but the one they have sworn to love and honor until death.