There is now, in the city of New York, an artist whose pictures are scarcely dry from the easel ere they meet with purchasers at a liberal price. His portraits are among the finest that are produced, and he is, consequently, never without a sitter. Money flows in to him by thousands, and from the proceeds of his own work, he has surrounded himself with all the elegances of life that a man of taste could desire. That artist is Ellison. Fifteen years have elapsed since the painful events we have described transpired. But success has not entirely obliterated the marks they left behind. To let his mind go back and linger thoughtfully on the past, is but to throw a shadow over his spirit. Often, as he looks into the face of his wife, comes upon him the remembrance that he sought her, at first, less for herself than for the external advantages she would bring him, and that she knows of the mercenary feelings which drew him to her side.
“If she had been poor, like myself,” he often sighs, as he turns away from some memory of the past, “there would have been nothing to dim the sunshine of our happiness; nor, if I had won my way to success by the force of my own talents, ere I asked to lead her to the altar. Alas! that the fine gold of affection should have been dimmed by the base alloy of selfishness!”
That the inflamed spot, fretted into painfulness by the touch of even a feather, still remains, is evident from the fact, that he has settled ten thousand dollars upon his wife, and will not touch a farthing of the income it yields. By this act he keeps alive in his own mind, as well as in that of Clara, the memory of things that should be buried with the mistakes and errors of the past, and thus robs both her and himself of a portion of the happiness that is rightfully their due. On this subject, suffering has made him little less than a monomaniac; and such he will probably remain while he lives. How true is it that our motives give quality to our acts, and mar all the effects that flow from them if they be stained with selfishness. Most true is this of marriage. If a base or mercenary end influence us in entering into this relation, unhappiness must inevitably follow. A reaction, such as that which occurred in the case of Ellison, may not take place; but there will come a reaction of some kind, and that a painful one, as surely as an effect follows its producing cause. Thousands around us fail to secure a true union in marriage, that consummation above all things desired by the heart, and for no other reason than the one here assigned. Of all motives from which we act, let those leading to marriage be freest from alloy. We may err in other things, and escape without a severe penalty; but never in marriage. We cannot do violence to the heart’s best affections without after years of pain and unavailing repentance.
THE SECRET.
I told my wife a secret—
“And did she keep it?” say you.
Ah! therein lies the moral, man,
To which give heed, I pray you!