These are the spoiled children of the world, whose fate it is to get the best of everything without regard to their deserts. Others may be warm, may shiver with cold, may be weary, may be ill, but they must not complain. The burden of lamentation comes from those who were never too warm or too cold, never weary or ill, but who tremble lest in some cruel way they should be forced to suffer, and thus provide against it beforehand. To these spoiled children the system of things in general has no other design than to give them comfort in particular. And by some subtle law of attraction the good things of the world are almost certain naturally to gravitate toward them. They sleep well; they dine well; they are petted by everybody; they have no despairs; they never suffer from other people's mishaps.
A woman who marries one of these spoiled children may be sure of an opportunity to practise all the feminine virtues. She is certain to have been very much in love with him, for he was handsome, could dance and flirt to perfection, and was the very ideal of a charming lover. The little dash of selfishness in his ante-nuptial imperiousness and tender tyranny pleased her, for it seemed to be the expression of a more ardent love than that of every-day men. It depends very much upon her generosity and largeness of heart whether she soon wakes up to the fact that she has married a being destitute of sympathy, wholly careless and ignorant of others' needs and requirements, full of caprices, allowing every impulse to carry him away, and thoroughly bent on having his own will and bending everybody about him to his own purposes. Self-renunciation and absolute devotion and self-sacrifice are natural to women of a certain quality of intellect and heart, and possess the most powerful charm to their imagination, provided they can have a dash of romance or a kindling of sentiment. Hence this form of martyrdom offers the female sex the pose in which it has sat for its portrait all the centuries since civilization began, and the picture stands out impressively against a background we all can recognize. As a school for heroism nothing can equal marriage with a spoiled child.
But, although probably quite as many instances may be found in one sex as in the other, the characteristics of a spoiled child are distinctly feminine, and in no measure belong to robust masculinity. Thus, for a study, let us take a girl who from her cradle has found everything subordinate to her princess-like whims, inclinations and caprices, and has had her way by smiles and cajoleries or sobs and tears, as the case may be. She finds out at an early age that it is pleasanter and more profitable to be petted and pampered than to be forced to shift for herself. She learns that an easy little pitiful curve of her coral lips and upward glance of her baby orbs is answered by certain manifestations of tenderness and concern: thus she "makes eyes," flirts, as it were, before she can talk, and studies the art of successful tyranny. The nursery—in fact, the entire house—rejoices when she rejoices and trembles when she weeps. She wants everything she sees, and sulks at any superiority of circumstances in another; but then she sulks bewitchingly. Wherever she goes she carries an imperious sway, and keeps her foot well on the necks of her admirers.
The spoiled child blossoms into perfection as a young lady. That is her destiny, and to the proper fulfilment of it her family and friends stand ready to devote themselves. It may be they are a trifle weary of her incalculable temper, that her fascinations have palled a little upon them, and that her mysterious inability to put up with the lot of every-day mortals and bear disagreeables contentedly has worn out their patience. They want her to marry, and, without wasting any empty wishing upon a result so certain to come, she wants to marry herself. She is not likely to have unattainable ideals: what she demands is a continuation of her petted existence—a lifelong adorer to minister to her vanity and desires, to find her always beautiful, always precious, and to smooth away the rough places of life for her.
Nothing can be more bewitching than she is on her entrance into society. Nothing could seem more desirable to an admirer than the possession of the beautiful creature, who, with her alternations of sweetness and imperiousness, tenderness, and cruelty, stimulates his ardor and appears more like a spirit of fire and dew than a real woman. It seems to him the most delightful thing in the world when she confesses that she never likes what she has, but always craves what she has not—that she hates everything useful and prosaic and likes everything which people declare she ought to renounce. She is unreasonable, and he loves her unreason—it bewitches him: she is obstinate, and he loves to feel the strength of her tiny will, as if it were the manifestation of some phenomenal force in her nature. Her scorn for common things, her fastidiousness, her indifference to the little obligations which compel less dainty and spirited creatures,—all act as chains and rivet his attachment to her.
A few months later, when she has become his wife, and he is forced to look at her tempers and her caprices, at her fastidiousness and expensiveness, from an altered standpoint, her whole character seems to be illuminated with new light. He no longer finds her charming when she has an incurable restlessness and melancholy: her pretty negations of the facts life present to her begin to seem to him the product of a mind undisciplined by any actual knowledge that she is "a human creature, subject to the same laws as other human creatures." He has hitherto considered that her scorn for the common and usual indicated an appreciation of the rarest and loftiest, but she seems to have no appreciation for anything save enjoyment. She has no idea of the true purposes of life: she likes everything dwarfed to suit her own stature. It is not by compliance that her husband can give her more than temporary pleasure. If she wants to see Europe, Europe will not satisfy her. "Sense will support itself handsomely in most countries," says Carlyle, "on eighteen pence a day, but for fantasy planets and solar systems will not suffice."
L. W.
PRAYER-MEETING ELOQUENCE.
Weekly prayer-meetings in New England villages offer a variety of singular experiences to the unaccustomed listener, and it seems almost incredible at times that they can furnish spiritual sustenance even to the devout. There are apt to be two or three among the regular attendants who being, according to their own estimate, "gifted in prayer," raise their voices loud and long with many a mellifluous phrase and lofty-sounding polysyllable. Mr. Eli Lewis is one of the most eloquent among the church-members in the village of C——, and if left to his own way would engross the entire evening with his prayers and exhortations. Nothing is too large for his imagination to grasp nor too small for his observations to consider. "O Lord, Thou knowest!" he repeats endlessly, sometimes qualifying this statement by putting into the next phrase, "O Lord, Thou art probably aware!" He is fond of poetry too, and frequently interpolates into his petition and thanksgiving his favorite verses. His fellow-worshippers are fully conscious of his excellent intentions, but there is some jealousy of the surpassing length of his prayers. The other evening he was standing, as his custom is, with his long arms upraised with many a strange gesture. He had been on his feet half an hour already, and there began to be signs of restlessness among the bowed heads around him. Still, there was no sign of any let up. He was engaged in drawing a vivid picture of the condition of the universe in the abstract, the world in general and his country and native village in particular, and required ample time fully to elucidate his views regarding their needs, but proposed to illustrate it by quotations. "O Lord," said he, "Thou knowest what the poet Cowper says—" He paused and cleared his throat as if the better to articulate the inspired strains of poetry, and began again more emphatically: "O Lord, Thou art probably aware what the poet Cowper says—" but the second time broke off. He could not remember what it was the poet Cowper said, but with a view to taking the place his memory halted at, went back to the starting-place and recommenced: "O Lord, Thou recollectest what the poet Cowper says—" It was of no use: he could not think of it, and with a wild gesture put his hand to his head. "O Lord," he exclaimed in a tone of excessive pain, "I cannot remember what the poet Cowper says," and prepared to go on with other matter; but Deacon Smith had been watching his opportunity for twenty minutes, and was already on his feet. "Let us pray," he said in a deep voice, which broke on Brother Lewis's ears with preternatural power, and he was obliged to sit down while the senior deacon held forth. No sooner, however, had Deacon Smith's amen sounded than Mr. Eli Lewis started up. "O Lord," he cried in a tone of heartfelt satisfaction, "I remember now what the poet Cowper says;" and, repeating it at length, he finished his remarks.
It was Deacon Smith who one Sunday asked his pastor to put a petition for rain into his afternoon prayer, as moisture was very much needed by the deacon's parched fields and meadows. Accordingly, Dr. Peters, who was something of a rhetorician, alluded in his prayer to the melancholy prospects of the harvest unless rain should soon be sent, and requested that the Almighty would consider their sufferings and dispense the floods which He held in His right hand. After service, as the reverend doctor left the church, he saw Mr. Smith standing rigid in the porch, perhaps looking for a rising cloud, and remarked to him, "Well, deacon, I hope our petition may be answered." He received only a snort of wrath and defiance in reply. Rather puzzled as to what had vexed his parishioner, Dr. Peters said blandly, "You heard my prayer for a shower, Deacon Smith?" The deacon turned grimly: "I heard you mention the matter of rain, Dr. Peters, but, good Heavens, sir! you should have insisted upon it!"