Nature and Human Nature

by Thomas Chandler Haliburton

Well, to make a long story short, it brought me to my bearings that. I had to heave to, lower a boat, send a white flag to him, beg pardon, and so on, and we knocked up a treaty of peace, and made friends again.

“I won’t say no more about it, Sam,” said he, “but mind my words, and apply your experience to it afterwards in life, and see if I ain’t right. Crime has but two travelling companions. It commences its journey with the scoffer, and ends it with the blasphemer: not that talking irreverently ain’t very improper in itself, but it destroys the sense of right and wrong, and prepares the way for sin.”

Now, I won’t call these commandments, for the old man was right, it’s no way to talk, I’ll call them maxims. Now, we won’t expect too much, nor fret over trifles, will we, Sophy? It takes a great deal to make happiness, for everything must be in tune like a piano; but it takes very little to spoil it. Fancy a bride now having a tooth-ache, or a swelled face during the honeymoon—in courtship she won’t show, but in marriage she can’t help it,—or a felon on her finger (it is to be hoped she hain’t given her hand to one); or fancy now; just fancy, a hooping-cough caught in the cold church, that causes her to make a noise like drowning, a great gurgling in-draught, and a great out-blowing, like a young sporting porpoise, and instead of being all alone with her own dear husband, to have to admit the horrid doctor, and take draughts that make her breath as hot as steam, and submit to have nauseous garlic and brandy rubbed on her breast, spine, palms of her hands, and soles of her feet, that makes the bridegroom, every time he comes near her to ask her how she is, sneeze, as if he was catching it himself. He don’t say to himself in an under-tone damn it, how unlucky this is. Of course not; he is too happy to swear, if he ain’t too good, as he ought to be; and she don’t say, eigh—augh, like a donkey, for they have the hooping-cough all the year round; “dear love, eigh—augh, how wretched this is, ain’t it? eigh—augh,” of course not; how can she be wretched? Ain’t it her honeymoon? and ain’t she as happy as a bride can be, though she does eigh—augh her slippers up amost. But it won’t last long, she feels sure it won’t, she is better now, the doctor says it will be soon over; yes, but the honeymoon will be over too, and it don’t come like Christmas, once a-year. When it expires, like a dying swan, it sings its own funeral hymn.

Well, then fancy, just fancy, when she gets well, and looks as chipper as a canary-bird, though not quite so yaller from the effects of the cold, that the bridegroom has his turn, and is taken down with the acute rheumatism, and can’t move, tack nor sheet, and has camphor, turpentine, and hot embrocations of all sorts and kinds applied to him, till his room has the identical perfume of a druggist’s shop, while he screams if he ain’t moved, and yells if he is, and his temper peeps out. It don’t break out of course, for he is a happy man; but it just peeps out as a masculine he-angel’s would if he was tortured.

The fact is, lookin’ at life, with its false notions, false hopes, and false promises, my wonder is, not that married folks don’t get on better, but that they get on as well as they do. If they regard matrimony as a lottery, is it any wonder more blanks than prizes turn up on the wheel? Now, my idea of mating a man is, that it is the same as matching a horse; the mate ought to have the same spirit, the same action, the same temper, and the same training. Each should do his part, or else one soon becomes strained, sprained, and spavined, or broken-winded, and that one is about the best in a general way that suffers the most.

Don’t be shocked at the comparison; but to my mind a splendiferous woman and a first chop horse is the noblest works of creation. They take the rag off the bush quite; a woman “that will come” and a horse that “will go” ought to make any man happy. Give me a gall that all I have to say to is, “Quick, pick up chips and call your father to dinner,” and a horse that enables you to say, “I am thar.” That’s all I ask. Now just look at the different sorts of love-making in this world. First, there is boy and gall love; they are practising the gamut, and a great bore it is to hear and see them; but poor little things, their whole heart and soul is in it, as they were the year before on a doll or a top. They don’t know a heart from a gizzard, and if you ask them what a soul is, they will say it is the dear sweet soul they love. It begins when they enter the dancing-school, and ends when they go out into the world; but after all, I believe it is the only real romance in life.

Then there is young maturity love, and what is that half the time based on? vanity, vanity, and the deuce a thing else. The young lady is handsome, no, that’s not the word, she is beautiful, and is a belle, and all the young fellows are in her train. To win the prize is an object of ambition. The gentleman rides well, hunts and shoots well, and does everything well, and moreover he is a fancy man, and all the girls admire him. It is a great thing to conquer the hero, ain’t it? and distance all her companions; and it is a proud thing for him to win the prize from higher, richer, and more distinguished men than himself. It is the triumph of the two sexes. They are allowed to be the handsomest couple ever married in that church. What an elegant man, what a lovely woman, what a splendid bride! they seem made for each other! how happy they both are, eyes can’t show—words can’t express it; they are the admiration of all.

If it is in England, they have two courses of pleasure before them—to retire to a country-house or to travel. The latter is a great bore, it exposes people, it is very annoying to be stared at. Solitude is the thing. They are all the world to each other, what do they desire beyond it—what more can they ask? They are quite happy. How long does it last? for they have no resources beyond excitement. Why, it lasts till the first juicy day comes, and that comes soon in England, and the bridegroom don’t get up and look out of the window, on the cloudy sky, the falling rain, and the inundated meadows, and think to himself, “Well, this is too much bush, ain’t it? I wonder what de Courcy and de Lacy and de Devilcourt are about to-day?” and then turn round with a yawn that nearly dislocates his jaw. Not a bit of it. He is the most happy man in England, and his wife is an angel, and he don’t throw himself down on a sofa and wish they were back in town. It ain’t natural he should; and she don’t say, “Charles, you look dull, dear,” nor he reply, “Well, to tell you the truth, it is devilish dull here, that’s a fact,” nor she say, “Why, you are very complimentary,” nor he rejoin, “No, I don’t mean it as a compliment, but to state it as a fact, what that Yankee, what is his name? Sam Slick, or Jim Crow, or Uncle Tom, or somebody or another calls an established fact!” Her eyes don’t fill with tears at that, nor does she retire to her room and pout and have a good cry; why should she? she is so happy, and when the honied honeymoon is over, they will return to town, and all will be sunshine once more.

But there is one little thing both of them forget, which they find out when they do return. They have rather just a little overlooked or undervalued means, and they can’t keep such an establishment as they desire, or equal to their former friends. They are both no longer single. He is not asked so often where he used to be, nor courted and flattered as he lately was; and she is a married woman now, and the beaus no longer cluster around her. Each one thinks the other the cause of this dreadful change. It was the imprudent and unfortunate match did it. Affection was sacrificed to pride, and that deity can’t and won’t help them, but takes pleasure in tormenting them. First comes coldness, and then estrangement; after that words ensue, that don’t sound like the voice of true love, and they fish on their own hook, seek their own remedy, take their own road, and one or the other, perhaps both, find that road leads to the devil.

Then, there is the “ring-fence match,” which happens everywhere. Two estates, or plantations, or farms adjoin, and there is an only son in one, and an only daughter in the other; and the world, and fathers, and mothers, think what a suitable match it would be, and what a grand thing a ring-fence is, and they cook it up in the most fashionable style, and the parties most concerned take no interest in it, and, having nothing particular to object to, marry. Well, strange to say, half the time it don’t turn out bad, for as they don’t expect much, they can’t be much disappointed. They get after a while to love each other from habit; and finding qualities they didn’t look for, end by getting amazin’ fond of each other.