The eloquent Pater, after the colloquy between Death and the soldiers of Vienna, as given in a former number, turns from Mars, and, by an easy transition, passes to Venus, and begins his homily to maidens. He mentions the miracle wrought by the prophet with the widow's cruise of oil, and draws from it a reflection we do not recollect to have yet heard 'improved' in the pulpit.
'Now, when this widow found no help in her trouble, she bethought herself of the prophet Elisha, to whom she told her story with tears in her eyes. Elisha was moved by these widow's tears, and asked her, what she had in the house. Think, for the love of heaven, what it was! 'And thereupon she answered, I have nothing in the house but a little oil, to anoint myself withal.' To anoint herself! Only think, in the midst of her poverty, she still took pains to be a pretty creature, even if a poor creature! In a word, beauty is the only aim of womankind!'
'How many long timbers, how many short timbers, how many large timbers, how many small timbers, how many thick timbers, how many thin timbers, how many round timbers, how many square timbers, how many straight timbers, how many crooked timbers, were used in building up the tower of Babel! How many large stones, how many small stones, how many round stones, how many square stones, how many rough stones, how many smooth stones, how many white stones, how many red stones, how many common stones, how many marble stones, were needed to build and adorn the tower of Babel! It is nearly the same with a woman. What taffeta stuffs, what silken stuffs, what worked stuffs, what embroidered stuffs, what flowered stuffs, what wide stuffs, what narrow stuffs, what colored stuffs, doth she not require; and all to be beautiful, to be thought beautiful, to be called beautiful!'
But Death is blind to all their beauty:
'This rude fellow saith, 'I never learned respect for beauty, I never practised it, I never used it! He who will look for modesty in a peacock, honesty in a fox, and fasting in a wolf, may look for respect in me; not a pound, not a half a pound, not a quarter of a pound, not an ounce, not a grain of respect is to be found in all my stock!''
From the maiden we pass to the matron, under which head we find an unhappy married life described with a pungency which savors rather of an experienced husband, than of a bare-footed bachelor:
'As odious as is a lyre, wherein the strings do not accord, so is marriage, where tempers do not agree. What is such an union but a disunion, a battle-ground, a school of affliction, a scolding-match, a grind-stone, a nest of hedge-hogs, a rack, a briar-bush, a clock always striking, a mental harrow, a pepper-mill, a summing up of all wretchedness!'
On the other hand, take his description of a happy marriage:
'It is known how vast was the temple of Solomon. In the first place, there were assembled there seventy thousand laborers, eighty thousand masons and stone-cutters, three thousand overseers. But the most wondrous part is, that during the work, not a stroke of steel or hammer was heard; nec ferrum audie batur. This was a miracle! Some say that this was clearly through God's work and aid; others, that Solomon caused to be got a store of the blood of a certain beast, by which the hardest stones were split in twain, without need of hammer or steel; be this as it may, true it is, that in all the work, neither blow nor stroke was heard.
'To this house of God can we compare the house of two loving spouses, where no sound of strife is heard, but every thing fits itself into place without struggle or labor. Such an union is a clock which always stands at one; a garden wherein nothing grows but hearts'-ease; a grammar in which nothing is conjugated but amo, and rixa is declined; a calendar, whose chiefest saints are St. Pacificus and St. Concordia.'
The following veracious tale we earnestly recommend to the attention of the ladies of the present day, without, however, meaning to insinuate for a moment that they have fallen away in the least from the conjugal devotion of the fair Francisca Romana: