A newly married couple are invited to a wedding dinner. Though the lady, perhaps, has run off with a person below her in rank and station, see when they enter the room, how differently they behave.—How gracefully she waves her head in the fine recover from the withdrawing curtsy, and beautifully extends her hand to the bald-pated individual grinning to her on the rug! While the poor spoon, her husband, looks on, with the white of his eyes turned up as if he were sea-sick, and his hands dangle dangle on his thighs as if he were trying to lift his own legs. See how he ducks to the lady of the house, and simpers across the fire-place to his wife, who, by this time is giving a most spirited account of the state of the roads, and the civility of the postilions near the Borders.
Is a man little? Let him always, if possible, stoop. We are sometimes tempted to lay sprawling in the mud fellows of from five feet to five feet eight, who carry the back of their heads on the extreme summit of their back-bone, and gape up to heaven as if they scorned the very ground. Let no little man wear iron heels. When we visit a friend of ours in Queen-street we are disturbed from our labours or conversation by a sound which resembles the well-timed marching of a file of infantry or a troop of dismounted dragoons. We hobble as fast as possible to the window, and are sure to see some chappie of about five feet high stumping on the pavement with his most properly named cuddy-heels; and we stake our credit, we never yet heard a similar clatter from any of his majesty's subjects of a rational and gentlemanly height—We mean from five feet eleven (our own height) up to six feet three.
Is a man tall? Let him never wear a surtout. It is the most unnatural, and therefore the most awkward dress that ever was invented. On a tall man, if he be thin, it appears like a cossack-trouser on a stick leg; if it be buttoned, it makes his leanness and lankness still more appalling and absurd; if it be open, it appears to be no part of his costume, and leads us to suppose that some elongated habit-maker is giving us a specimen of that rare bird, the flying tailor.
We go on a visit to the country for a few days, and the neighbourhood is famous for its beautiful prospects. Though, for our own individual share, we would rather go to the catacombs alone, than to a splendid view in a troop, we hate to balk young people! and as even now a walking-stick chair is generally carried along for our behoof, we seldom or ever remain at home when all the rest of the party trudge off to some "bushy bourne or mossy dell." On these occasions how infinitely superior the female is to the male part of the species! The ladies, in a quarter of an hour after the proposal of the ploy, appear all in readiness to start, each with her walking-shoes and parasol, with a smart reticule dangling from her wrist. The gentlemen, on the other hand, get off with their great, heavy Wellingtons, which, after walking half a mile, pinch them at the toe, and make the pleasure excursion confine them to the house for weeks. Then some fool, the first gate or stile we come to, is sure to show off his vaulting, and upsets himself in the ditch on the opposite side, instead of going quietly over and helping the damosels across. And then, if he does attempt the polite, how awkwardly the monster makes the attempt! We come to a narrow ditch with a plank across it—He goes only half way, and standing in the middle of the plank, stretches out his hand and pulls the unsuspecting maiden so forcibly, that before he has time to get out of the way, the impetus his own tug has produced, precipitates them both among the hemlock and nettles, which, you may lay it down as a general rule, are to be found at the thoroughfares in every field.
We hold that every man behaves with awkwardness when he is in love, and the want of the one is a presumption of the absence of the other. When people are fairly engaged, there is perhaps less of this directly to the object, but there is still as much of it in her presence; but it is wonderful how soon the most nervous become easy when marriage has concluded all their hopes. Delicate girl! just budding into womanly loveliness, whose heart, for the last ten minutes, has been trembling behind the snowy wall of thy fair and beautiful bosom, hast thou never remarked and laughed at a tall and much-be-whiskered young man for the mauvaise honte with which he hands to thee thy cup of half-watered souchong? Laugh not at him again, for he will assuredly be thy husband.
Love, when successful is well enough, and perhaps it has treasures of its own to compensate for its inconveniences; but a more miserable situation than that of an unhappy individual before the altar, it is not in the heart of man to conceive. First of all, you are marched with a solitary male companion up the long aisle, which on this occasion appears absolutely interminable; then you meet your future partner dressed out in satin and white ribbons, whom you are sure to meet in gingham gowns or calico prints, every morning of your life ever after. There she is, supported by her old father, decked out in his old-fashioned brown coat, with a wig of the same colour, beautifully relieving the burning redness of his huge projecting ears; and the mother, puffed up like an overgrown bolster, encouraging the trembling girl, and joining her maiden aunts of full fifty years, in telling her to take courage, for it is what they must all come to. Bride's-maids and mutual friends make up the company; and there, standing out before this assemblage, you assent to everything the curate, or, if you are rich enough, the rector, or even the dean, may say, shewing your knock-knees in the naked deformity of white kerseymeres, to an admiring bevy of the servants of both families, laughing and tittering from the squire's pew in the gallery. Then the parting!—The mother's injunctions to the juvenile bride to guard herself from the cold, and to write within the week. The maiden aunts' inquiries, of, "My dear, have you forgot nothing?"—the shaking of hands, the wiping and winking of eyes! By Hercules!—there is but one situation more unpleasant in this world, and that is, bidding adieu to your friends, the ordinary and jailor, preparatory to swinging from the end of a halter out of it. The lady all this time seems not half so awkward. She has her gown to keep from creasing, her vinaigrette to play with; besides, that all her nervousness is interesting and feminine, and is laid to the score of delicacy and reserve.
Blackwood's Magazine.