THE DOUBLE DREAM.
——"and saw within the moonlight of his room——
An angel, writing in a book of gold."—Leigh Hunt.
"And so you like the text, do you? Very well, I will now see how much better you will be pleased with the sermon. Listen:
"'I cannot and will not stand this any longer. Here am I, yet a young man—in the very prime and heyday of life, and I do believe that I shall be a regular corpse in less than no time, if a change for the better don't very soon take place in my family; that's just as certain as "open and shut." She, ah, she, is killing me by inches—the vampire! Would that I had been thirty-five million of miles the other side of nowhere the day I married her. Don't I though, Betsey—Betsey Clark is killing me! No love, no kindness, not a soft look, never a gentle smile. Oh, don't I wish somebody's funeral was over; but not mine; for I feel quite capable of loving, of being happy yet, and of making somebody's daughter happy likewise. People may well say that marriage is a lottery—a great lottery; for, if there's one thing surer than another, then it is perfectly certain that I have drawn the very tallest kind of a blank; and hang me, if it wasn't for the disgrace of the thing, if I wouldn't run off and hitch myself for life to one of the Hottentots I have read about; for anything would be better than this misery, long strung out. Oh, don't I wish I was a Turk! When a fellow's a Turk he can have ever so many wives—and strangle all of 'em that don't suit him or come to Taw—as they ought to. Bully for the Turks! I wish I knew how to turn myself into one. If I did, I'd be the biggest kind of a Mohammedan afore mornin'!'
"Such was the substance of about the thousandth soliloquy on the same subject, to the same purport, delivered by Mr. Thomas W. Clark, during the last seven years of his wedded life.
"The gentleman named delivered himself of the contented and philanthropic speech just recited, on the morning of a fine day, just after the usual morning meal—and quarrel with his—wife, de jure—female attendant would better express the relation de facto. Mr. Clark was not yet aware that a woman is ever just what her husband's conduct makes her—a thing that some husbands besides himself have yet to learn.
"Every day this couple's food was seasoned with sundry and divers sorts of condiments other than those in the castor. There was a great deal of pickle from his side of the gay and festive board, in the shape of jealous, spiteful innuendoes; and from her side much delicate sauce piquante, in the form of sweet allusions to a former husband, whom she declared to have been 'the very best husband that was ever sent to'—a premature grave by a vixen—she might have added, truthfully, but did not, finishing the sentence with, 'to be loved by a tender, gentle wife'—like her! The lady had gotten bravely over all her amiable weaknesses long ago. Gentle! what are tigresses? Tender! what is a virago? So far the man. Now for his mate.
"Scarcely had her lord—'Mr. Thomas W.,' as she was wont to call him—gone out of the house, and slammed the door behind him, at the same time giving vent to the last bottleful of spleen distilled and concocted in his soul, than 'Mrs. Thomas W.,' or poor Betsey Clark, as I prefer to call her—for she was truly, really pitiable, for more reasons than one, but mainly because she had common sense and would not exercise it sufficiently to make the best of a bad bargain—threw herself upon the bed, where she cried a little, and raved a good deal, to the self-same tune as of yore. Getting tired of both these delightful occupations very soon, she varied them by striking an attitude before a portrait of the dear defunct—badly executed—the portrait, not the man—whose name she bore when she became Mistress Thomas W. This picture of a former husband Tom Clark had not had courage or sense enough to put his foot through, but did have bad taste sufficient to permit to hang up in the very room where he lived and ate, and where its beauties were duly and daily expatiated upon, and the virtues of its original lauded to the skies, of course to the intense delight of Mr. Clark.
"Madam had a tongue—a regular patent, venom-mounted, back-spring and double-actioned tongue, and, what is more, knew well how to use it when the fit was on, which, to do her justice, was not more than twenty-three hours and a half each day. Never did an opportunity offer that she did not avail herself of to amplify the merits of the deceased, especially in presence of such visitors as chance or business brought to their house, all to the especial delectation of her living spouse, Mr. Thomas W. Clark.