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In choosing these themes, the subject has been covered from a variety of perspectives under the following headings:
When young, one inevitably falls hopelessly in love and it feels as if there will never be another.
When I came home from Eton one vacation, I found a new inmate at Abbot's Calvert: one whom at first I was very much surprised at, and afterwards very much delighted with. This was a little girl, of about fifteen, the daughter of a very distant cousin of my father's, who, having lived a life of privation, partly, I believe, caused by errors of his own, had died prematurely, without either choosing or being able, I do not know which, to interest his noble relatives in his behalf. . . . . . .It was impossible for any creature to be with her for five minutes without loving her. . . . . . She was even then a remarkably graceful girl, tall, and giving great promise of that extraordinary loveliness which two years afterwards she possessed. It was not astonishing, then, that I, a boy of seventeen, used to ladies' society and fond of it, fell desperately in love (with the desperation of seventeen) with this charming little creature.
One of the perceived signs of manhood is to make passes at young ladies.
After an early repast, Charles rode forth with his retinue into the city, and was surprised to find the High-Street so empty, and almost all the houses shut up; but his surprise ceased when he reached the camp at Pitchcroft, and found that the vast plain was covered with people, and resembled a fair. The Scottish soldiers were quiet, and took no part in the profane recreations of the dissolute Cavaliers, who were everywhere swaggering about, and making love to all the pretty damsels.
The lady invariably has higher ideals about love, especially when matchmakers get involved.
"Never any but fools have ever made love to me! Oh, if an honest, noble man did but love me, and I could marry, and get out of this friendless desolation, this contemptible, scheming match-making set, where I and my feelings are talked of, speculated on, bandied about from house to house. It is horrible--horrible! But I'll not cry! No!"
Constance, in A woman's patience, expresses her fears, almost prophetically, about experiencing a less than perfect marriage:
"I can think of nothing more horrible than falling in love with an ideal, and finding out afterwards that it was all a delusion. It would be worse than death, far worse, for there would never be any sweet, sacred memories to cherish. In fact, it would be no better than a dream, and--such an awakening! Don't laugh, I am sure it would kill me."
There are times when the one admired becomes the reflection of the ideal.
He was in love. Love had caught him, and had affected his vision so that he no longer saw any phenomenon as it actually was; neither himself, nor Hilda, nor the circumstances which were uniting them. He could not follow a train of thought. He could not remain of one opinion nor in one mind. Within himself he was perpetually discussing Hilda, and her attitude. She was marvellous! But was she? She admired him! But did she? She had shown cunning! But was it not simplicity? He did not even feel sure whether he liked her. He tried to remember what she looked like, and he positively could not. . . . . . .
Nevertheless the processes of love were at work within him. Silently and magically, by the force of desire and of pride, the refracting glass was being specially ground which would enable him, which would compel him, to see an ideal Hilda when he gazed at the real Hilda.
After many years of childhood friendship, Rohan and Marcelle unexpectedly see one another through different eyes.
Rohan, too, "felt faint."
And why? It was only this--in the excitement and struggle of the passage Marcelle's white coif had fallen back, and her black hair, loosened from its fastenings, had rained down in one dark shower, round cheeks and neck; and cheeks and neck, when Rohan raised his eyes, were burning crimson with a delicious shame.
Have we not said that the hair of a Breton maid is virgin, and is as hallowed as an Eastern woman's face, and is only to be seen by the eyes of him she loves?
Rohan's head swam round.
As his face turned up, burning like her own, the sacred hair fell upon his eyes, and the scent of it--who knows not the divine perfume even scentless things give out when touched by Love?--the scent of it was sweet in his nostrils, while the thrill of its touch passed into his very blood. And under his hands the live form trembled, while his eyes fed on the blushing face.
"Rohan! quick! set me down!"
He stood now on dry land, but he still held her in his arms. The sweet hair floated to his lips, and he kissed it madly, while the fire grew brighter on her face.
"I love you, Marcelle!"
Otherwise, it can be the proverbial 'love at first sight'.
At last, while her eyes were vacantly fixed on the door, it opened and admitted--a gentleman. One who--in this instance--truly deserved the name. Katharine looked at him: her gaze was attracted a second time--a third--until it rested permanently on him.
He was, in truth, a man of striking appearance. Not from his personal beauty, for there were many handsomer in the room,--but from an inexpressible dignity, composure of manner, and grace of movement, to which his tall figure gave every advantage. . . . . .. But no description of features would adequately convey an idea of the nameless air which at once impressed the conviction that this man was different to other men. Even slight singularities of dress--usually puerile and contemptible affectations--were by him made so completely subservient to the wearer, that the most captious could not accuse him of conceit or eccentricity.
This was he on whom Katharine's young eyes rested the moment he entered the room. She watched his face with a vague deepening interest, feeling certain that she had seen it before--it seemed so familiar, yet so new. His form appeared at once to individualise itself from every other in the room; her eye followed it with a pleased consciousness that it brought sunshine wherever it moved. Poor Katharine! The world may laugh as it will at "first impressions"--Love at first sight, first-born, and heir to all--but there are in human nature strange and sudden impulses, which, though mysterious in their exercise, and still more so in their causes, are nevertheless realities.
Courtship by storm can achieve instant results.
'Everything's right if we love each other,' said Stephen, expressing a truth by accident.
Deborah was overwhelmed.
'You do love me, don't you, Deborah? I love you madly,' he said boyishly. He stooped and kissed her.
'I don't know.'
'Well, think! Quick! I've never seen any one a bit like you, and I want you, Deb!'
He flung himself at her feet on the pine needles, and lay looking up at her--flushed, triumphant, admiring.
'Now!' he said, 'I shan't give you these pins back till you say, (1) If you'll come to Lammas Fair. (2) If you'll come to what-d'you-call-'em's chair. (3) If you'll sit on my knee now.'
'Well!' was all she could say. Such a wooing was different from anything she had ever dreamed of. Where were the conventions of the countryside, the 'walking-out,' the gradual intimacy, the slow ritual of embraces? Once more she had a sense of insecurity, lack of poise. He was like a storm. He got up as suddenly as he had lain down, and sat by her on the log.
However, delay may result in love's lost opportunity. In this poem, death intervenes:
I loved him not; and yet now he is gone,
I feel I am alone.
I check'd him while he spoke; yet, could he speak,
Alas! I would not check.
For reasons not to love him once I sought,
And wearied all my thought
To vex myself and him; I now would give
My love, could he but live
Who lately lived for me, and when he found
'Twas vain, in holy ground
He hid his face amid the shades of death.
I waste for him my breath
Who wasted his for me; but mine returns,
And this lorn bosom burns
With stifling heat, heaving it up in sleep,
And waking me to weep
Tears that had melted his soft heart: for years
Wept he as bitter tears.
'Merciful God!' such was his latest prayer,
'These may she never share!'
Quieter is his breath, his breast more cold
Than daisies in the mould,
Where children spell, athwart the churchyard gate,
His name and life's brief date.
Pray for him, gentle souls, whoe'er you be,
And, O, pray too for me!
And, in this extract, marriage to another was the result of waiting for ideal circumstances.
"You see it was in this way," he began; "I fell in love with Zillah the first time I set eyes on her. You must have seen that for yourself."
"I did. I never doubted that you loved her, though I often wondered why you did not tell her so."
"When you went away I think Zillah fretted a good deal after you, but she was too proud to confess it even to me, as you had given her no right to think that you loved her."
"No right to think it? Good heavens! What eyes women must have! Couldn't she see that I worshipped the very ground she walked on?"
"But you hadn't said it, you see, and so she couldn't act on it. Women are made like that."
"Then they are very queerly made: that is all I can say. But go on, for pity's sake!"
Adah steadily pursued her tactless way. "She was so hurt at your going away without telling her that you loved her, that she tried to console herself with Owen Griffith's admiration; because he really did admire her, you know, and didn't mind telling her so."
"Owen Griffith? That brute!"
. . . . . . .
Adah went on in her calm merciless voice. It was meet that Nicholas should suffer, she felt, seeing that he had brought suffering upon Zillah. "And then Owen begged Zillah over and over again to marry him, and promised that if she would, I should share their home. So she married him a year ago last January,"
"Married Griffith--married that creature? Oh, Adah, how could you let her do such a thing?"
But the romance does not end there! If the love is true then be prepared to wait for it--for two decades??
"But, Nicholas, I told you long ago that it would not be fair to you for me to marry you unless I loved you."
"I know you did: but I am the best judge of that. Anyhow, it would be a great deal fairer than letting me go on indefinitely like this. I'll take you at your own terms, and if you cannot give me love, I will be content with affection, and will never bother you for anything warmer."
"No, Nicholas: I will never marry a man unless I love him with all my heart."
"Then, my dearest, you are very cruel. Is all my love for you to count for nothing? Am I to have no reward? Though I came too late for the first and greatest blessing, is there not a second blessing reserved for even me? Esau sold his birthright and was supplanted a second time; yet he was not altogether sent empty away. Is there no alternative except all or nothing?"
Gwynneth looked at Nicholas with eyes full of gratitude. What woman could stand unmoved in the presence of such faithfulness and such unselfish love as this? "No, my dear," she repeated, "there is no alternative: I could never be guilty of marrying you unless I could give you a full measure of love in return for all that you have lavished upon me. But that does not mean that I am going to give you nothing. At last I do love you, Nicholas: I really do. Not only as the dear friend and companion of so many years, but as the man whom a woman chooses out of all the world as her husband."
Ingoldby's ugly face was so transfigured with joy that for a moment it was almost beautiful. "My darling!" was all that he could say, as he took Gwynneth in his arms.
The poet questions whether the lover can be true to any love, if the first love was not the last love. . . . .
Friends, whom she lookt at blandly from her couch
And her white wrist above it, gem-bedewed,
Were arguing with Pentheusa: she had heard
Report of Creon's death, whom years before
She listened to, well-pleas'd; and sighs arose;
For sighs full often fondle with reproofs
And will be fondled by them. When I came
After the rest to visit her, she said,
"Myrtis! how kind! Who better knows than thou
The pangs of love? and my first love was he!"
Tell me (if ever, Eros! are reveal'd
Thy secrets to the earth) have they been true
To any love who speak about the first?
What! shall these holier lights, like twinkling stars
In the few hours assign'd them, change their place,
And, when comes ampler splendour, disappear?
Idler I am, and pardon, not reply,
Implore from thee, thus questioned; well I know
Thou strikest, like Olympian Jove, but once.
. . . . . . and this thought is echoed in William Shakespeare's sonnet. . . . . .
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixéd mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wand'ring bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out e'en to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.
. . . . . . and the bard describes how the true lover should feel.
Shall I compare thee to a Summer's day?
Thou are more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And Summer's lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd:
But thy eternal Summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st:
So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
William Wycherley, the libertine playwright, had a cynical view on love and marriage:
L. Flip. Though I did so mean a thing as to love a fellow, I would not do so mean a thing as to confess it, certainly, by my trouble to part with him. If I confessed love, it should be before they left me.
Lyd. So you would deserve to be left, before you were. But could you ever do so mean a thing as to confess love to any?
L. Flip. Yes; but I never did so mean a thing as really to love any.
Lyd. You had once a husband.
L .Flip. Fy! madam, do you think me so ill bred as to love a husband?
Lyd. You had a widow's heart, before you were a widow, I see.
L. Flip. I should rather make an adventure of my honour with a gallant for a gown, a new coach, a necklace, than clap my husband's cheeks for them, or sit in his lap. I should be as ashamed to be caught in such a posture with a husband, as a brisk well-bred spark of the town would be to be caught on his knees at prayers--unless to his mistress.
In Stretton, Eleanor has a patronizing attitude to marriage.
"What did he say?" said Mrs. Evans, eagerly.
"Well," said Eleanor, coolly, "he merely, as I believe men do (and dreadful fools they look when they do it), asked me if he might consider himself engaged to be married to me."
"And what did you say?" asked Mrs. Evans.
"I said that I was at a loss to conceive what he had seen in my conduct which induced him to take such an unwarrantable liberty."
"Good heavens!" said Mrs. Evans. "Then are you off with him?"
"I never was on with him that I know of," said Eleanor. "He is a good fellow, and I like him well; but I don't see why I should marry him. We shouldn't get on. He is not religious, and does not care for his estate."
"Your influence would have made him care for both his estate and his religion," said Mrs. Evans.
"Not a bit of it," replied Eleanor. "George is a man, although we never hit it off together."
"Is it hopeless?" said Mrs. Evans. "How did you dismiss him?"
"Well, I kissed him, and as he went out of the room, I gave him a pat on the back, and I said, 'Go on, George; go off to Greenwood. There is a girl there, worth fifty of me, who is dying for you. You would never have made such a fool of yourself about me, if it had not been for our two families.' And then he wanted to kiss me again, but I would not stand that. And so he rode off to Greenwood, and I think you will find that Laura Mostyn will be announced as Lady Homerton next week."
"You will never be married at this rate," said Mrs. Evans, biting her lip.
"Never mean to make such a fool of myself," replied Eleanor.
In Bladys of the Stewponey, Bladys was the victim of an unscrupulous father who devised a solution to an instant marriage for her.
"O yes! O yes! O yes! This is to give notice that this 'ere evening, at six o'clock, at Stewponey, there will be a grand champion match at bowls on the green. The prize to be Bladys Rea, commonly called Stewponey Bla. Admittance one shilling. 'Arf-a-crown inner ring, and ticket admits to the 'oly function, by kind permission of the proprietor, in the Chapel of Stourton Castle. At six o'clock per-cise. No 'arf-price. Children and dogs not admitted.
. . . . . . .
"Well," answered the bellman, rubbing his nose with the handle of the bell and holding the same by the clapper, "I can't say exactly. My instructions don't go so far. But I fancy the gentlefolk want a spree, and Cornelius Rea at the inn is going to marry again, and wants be rid of his daughter first. It's an ockard affair altogether, and not altogether what it ort to be; and so it has been settled as a mutual accommodation that there shall be a bowling match on the green--and she's to go to the winner. That's about it. O yes! O yes! O yes!"
Anna stays true to her promise to one she does not love . . . . . .
Some may argue that Anna, knowing she loved another man, ought not to have married Mynors. But she did not reason thus; such a notion never even occurred to her. She had promised to marry Mynors, and she married him. Nothing else was possible. She who had never failed in duty did not fail then. She who had always submitted and bowed the head, submitted and bowed the head then. She had sucked in with her mother's milk the profound truth that a woman's life is always a renunciation, greater or less. Hers by chance was greater. Facing the future calmly and genially, she took oath with herself to be a good wife to the man whom, with all his excellences, she had never loved.
. . . . . . but Richard scorns and dismisses the promise he made.
At last Kate looked up and dried her tearful eyes.
'Richard,' she said, 'I have thought it all over, and there is only one way. When we are married--'
As she spoke the word, he started, and frowned darkly.
'When we are married, we will go to my brother and ask his forgiveness. He will be angry at first perchance, but seeing 'tis too late, he will work round in time. Dear Richard, let us speak to the parson, and when we are wedded man and woman before God, perchance we may be forgiven.'
The young man looked at her in growing dislike and dread, and after a brief silence replied:
'Listen, Kate!--Let there be an end to this folly between us twain. I am in no mood to marry, and if I were, I could never marry one of your house. Nay!' he continued, as she wrung her hands with a low wail, ''tis no use to cry and plead. Be a wise woman, Kate. Keep our secret, and when you marry some honest yeoman, as you may, I will take care you shall not lack for dower.'
'Oh, Richard, speak not so! You will keep your promise!
'What promise?'
'To make me your wedded wife.'
'I never promised, and if I did I repent me. Our two houses can never be united; but what we know, no other living soul need know, if you are wise.'
Dinah Craik proposes that marriage, without love, and for one of the following reasons is inconceivable: malice, obligation, compassion, persuasion, gratitude, wealth.
For a moment the thought came--let me confess it--how cruel things were, as they were; how happy had they been otherwise, and I could have made him happy--this good honest soul that loved me, his dear old mother, and every one belonging to us; also, whether anyhow I ought not to try.--No: that was not possible. I can understand women's renouncing love, or dying of it, or learning to live without it: but marrying without it, either for "spite," or for money, necessity, pity, or persuasion, is to me utterly incomprehensible. Nay, the self-devoted heroines of the Emilia Wyndham school seem creatures so weak that if not compassionating, one would simply despise them. Out of duty or gratitude, it might be possible to work, live, or even die for a person, but never to marry him.
. . . . . . but Madeleine has convinced herself that she is too close to thirty to be unmarried.
'Every woman has an enormous influence for the time over a man who is in love with her,' said Di, who seemed to have frozen perceptibly. 'It is nothing peculiar. It is one of the common stock feelings on such occasions. The question is, Do you really care for him?'
. . . . . . 'I think you are very unkind, Di,' Madeleine said, between her sobs.
. . . . . . 'Am I?' said Di gently, as if she were speaking to a child; and she knelt down by the little sobbing figure and put her arms round her. 'Never mind about the bridesmaids' gowns, dear. It was very nice of you to think how they would suit me. Never mind about anything but just this one thing: Do you think you will be happy if you marry Sir Henry Verelst?'
'Others do it,' sobbed Madeleine. . . . . . . I don't know how I could bear to live if I was thirty and was not married!'
Di . . . . . . said:
'But think of Sir Henry. The bridegroom is part of the wedding, after all; think of what he is. What can you care for in him? Nothing. I don't see how you could. And he is twice your age. Be a brave girl, and break it off.'
. . . . . .
'No,' she gasped; 'I can't--I can't! It has been in all the papers. Half my things are ordered; I have asked the bridesmaids. I can't go back now. It is wicked to break off an engagement. God would be very angry with me.'
Constance's mother teaches her that marriage is God's ordinance. . . . .
"But, mamma, I suppose I shall be married some day?"
"Well, yes, my dear; I suppose so. I think I may say I hope so. Married life has its trials; but, on the whole, it is the happiest life for a woman."
"I don't see why a woman should not live her own life without troubling herself--I was going to say hampering herself--with a husband? I cannot say I like the idea of being married. I have everything I want in my own home, and I am quite satisfied with being loved by you and papa. I could not be happier, mother dear; I am sure I could not."
"My child, you do not know. A girl may love her parents very tenderly--very deeply; but the love she bears her husband is all that and something more. For this cause, you know, both man and woman leave father and mother, and cleave to one another. It is God's ordinance: it must always be so."
Mary Webb questions whether one needs to get married as long as love is sincere.
'Deb, I want to ask you a big thing.' She shut her eyes, and the sun fell on her calm face as it falls on a field of ripe wheat.
'I want to ask you, Deb,' he went on, his voice trembling a little with suspense and eagerness, 'if you'd live with me without--' He paused. The enormity of the thing in her eyes and in the eyes of her people suddenly appeared to him; but he was not of the kind to hesitate.
'Without marriage,' he finished.
Deborah lay back, motionless.
'You see,' he went on, very anxious to explain, 'it's such a mockery to me now, this last week--all that. I don't believe in it, and it seems such rot. And I always did hate fuss and promises and to be tied down.'
. . . . . .
'Oh, I dunna know. It's all dark, Stephen.'
'But it's no different really. If people love each other, they stay together, whether they're married or not. If they don't, they don't.'
This young man shrank from the idea of marriage.
He wondered how the affair would end? It could not indefinitely continue on its present footing. How indeed would it end? Marriage...He apologized to himself for the thought...But just for the sake of argument...supposing...well, supposing the affair went so far that one day he told her...men did such things, young men! No!...Besides, she wouldn't...It was absurd...No such idea really!...And then the frightful worry there would be with his father about money, and so on...And the telling of Clara, and of everybody. No! He simply could not imagine himself married, or about to be married. Marriage might happen to other young men, but not to him. His case was special, somehow...He shrank from such formidable enterprises. The mere notion of them made him tremble.
In Notwithstanding Roger is prepared to forgo his inheritance for Annette.
"Do you never think of yourself?" he stammered. "You chucked your name away to please poor Dick. And you're ready to marry me and brave it out--to please me."
"You are enough for me, Roger." She clung to him.
He trembled exceedingly, and wrenched himself away from her.
"Am I? Am I enough? A man who would put you through such a thing, even if you're willing, Annette. You stick at nothing. You're willing. But--by God--I'm not."
She looked dumbly at him, with anguish in her violet eyes. She thought he was going to discard her after all.
"I thought I wanted Hulver more than anything in the world," he said wildly, tearing the will out of his pocket, "but the price is too high. My wife's good name. I won't pay it. Annette, I will not pay it."
And he strode to the nearest bonfire and flung the will into it.
Bladys' illegal marriage was still a hindrance to getting married again until all were made aware of the situation.
"Look you, Crispin," proceeded the schoolmaster; "let it be granted that in our eyes the wedding in Stourton Chapel was nought--was in fact illegal--nevertheless you cannot take her to you as wife without an ill name attaching to her, and all respectable women will hold aloof from her. She will have no companions but the abandoned and godless. You love her?"
"Indeed, indeed I do!" answered the young man with fervour.
"Then respect her. A love that is without respect is most volatile. As certain dyes are fixed by salt, so is love made fast for life by reverence." Crispin looked up and would have spoken, but was checked by something that rose in his throat. "You are the stick to this fair lily. Very well. First let it be made clear to the whole world that the Stourton marriage was nought--and that can be established without a doubt--then in God's name marry her."
Marriage to one with a different outlook on life can result in an insecure relationship.
After the first novelty had worn away, John Morley, though retaining his passionate and proud love of his young wife, fell back into his old studious habits; lost himself, and her, and all his new life, in the books which came almost daily to his hand. If she invaded his quiet room where he sat all day long, and which was too heavy and sombre for a butterfly creature like her, to ask him for some new indulgence, or to display some new possession, he put down his book only for a few minutes, and soon grew absent if she prolonged her visit. He had no thought of any unkindness in this neglect. Hester's mother had been willing to sit hour after hour, his silent companion, ready to hear him if he should like to read aloud some sentence which pleased him more than others, a sentence which to her stood alone, with none before or following it, and he had taken it for granted that Rose would do the same. Since she did not do it, but avoided his dull room, he did not complain; but it never occurred to him to alter his own habits. Besides, after the lapse of a few months his eyes were opened to the snare into which he had fallen. He had been guilty of a blunder, he would not call it a sin, which he had formerly blamed harshly in others. He, a chief member of the church, a deacon, had entered into marriage with a worldly woman.
How easy it is to take love for granted after many years of marriage:
Seven years of married life had only added to the wonder and romance of Deryck's love. Each time he took her away with him, was like a fresh honeymoon, more perfect than the last. Why did she forget when she came home how sweet it was to be away with him? Why had she defrauded herself and him of the perfect hours which might have been theirs this day? Why had she failed him in his time of need?
Disappointed in love Seraphine becomes a Bride of Heaven:
"My child," she said, "there are things we are called to suffer which we can best tell to our blessed Lady, herself. Try to unburden your heart and find comfort. . . . Does your mind hark back to the thought of the earthly love you resigned in order to give yourself solely to the heavenly? . . . . Are you troubled by fears lest you wronged the man you loved, when, leaving him, you became the bride of Heaven?"
Sister Seraphine smiled--a scornful little smile. "Nay," she said, "I was weary of Wilfred. But--there were others."
The voice of the Prioress grew even graver, and more sad.
"Is it then the Fact of marriage which you desired and regret?"
Sister Seraphine laughed--a hard, self-conscious, little laugh.
"Nay, I could not have brooked to be bound to any man. But I liked to be loved, and I liked to be First in the thought and heart of another."
Evelyn decides that once is enough.
For nearly twenty years Evelyn had been a widower. Six weeks after his marriage a daily series of inescapable facts had compelled him to admit to himself that his wife was a furiously self-centred neurotic who demanded as a natural right everything in exchange for nothing. An incurable. He had excused her on the ground that she was not to be blamed for her own mental constitution. He had tolerated her because he was of those who will chew whatever they may have bitten off. He had protected himself by the application of the theory that all that happens to a man happens in his own mind and nowhere else, and therefore that he who is master of his own mind is fortified against fate. A dogma; but it suited his case. At the end of three years Adela had died, an unwilling mother with a terrific grievance, in childbed; and the child had not survived her. The whole experience was horrible. Evelyn mourned. His sorrow was also a sigh of transcendent relief. Agonising relief, but relief. Not till the episode was finished did he confess to his mind how frightfully he had suffered and how imperfectly he had been master of his mind. He had never satisfactorily answered the great, humiliating question: "How could I have been such a colossal fool, so blind, so deaf, so utterly mistaken in my estimate of a woman?" He was left with a quiet but tremendous prejudice against marriage. I have had luck this time, he thought. Once is enough. Never again! Never again!
Sam Raingo wonders why he married his wife:
Her car was continually breaking down; she would drive it and clean it herself--one of her contributions to war economy in labour. He said nothing. She had quite forgotten the time-question. He gazed at the enigma of his existence. She was nearing fifty and slim; she did not look her age; in fact to him she had scarcely changed in twenty-three years. A face not uncomely, but uninteresting. Pale grey eyes that saw through you and through everything into distances. Self-absorbed, placid, tepid, vague. Above all, tepid and vague. Neither kind nor unkind. Unobservant. Untidy and disorderly. No interest nor taste in dress. Her lingerie was about as attractive as a cotton sheet. Instead of her watching over his clothes, he watched over hers. But herself, she had style and dignity and carriage. She was rarely at a loss. She talked adequately and easily--whether to a servant or to a General Officer Commanding. She had race. He hadn't. He did not quite know why she had married him, unless through nonchalance; certainly she had not married him for his money; nor from passion; for she carried nonchalance into love, and in moments of intimacy would emit such remarks as "I wonder where I left my umbrella this afternoon."
. . . . . . and then pursues an affair with all vigour.
The affair was begun. He told her his age and circumstances. He used his money dazzlingly. He did not tell her that he was in love with her; but she discovered that for herself. What helped him with her was the plain fact that he was a tyro--he had never wandered from his nonchalant wife; it had never till then seriously occurred to him to do so. Delphine resisted him. She fought him on equal terms. Her youth and beauty and his passion for her, against his money. She fought illogically, and when according to all rules and precedents she ought to have yielded, she grew stiffer and stiffer. He won his victory only after a really terrible, ugly, messy affray. But her surrender was complete. She adored him without reserve. She worshipped him. She was acquiescence incarnate. They were in heaven.
Colonel Tempest's marriage of infatuation became his ruin.
His marriage had been the ruin of him, he said to himself, reviewing the last few years. It had done for him with his brother. He had been a fool to sacrifice so much for a pretty face, and she had not had a shilling. He had chucked away all his chances in marrying her. He might have married anybody but he had never seen a woman before or since with a turn of the neck and shoulder to equal hers. Poor Di! She had spoilt his life, no doubt, but she had had her good points, after all.
Marriage can be a liability to an ambitious man.
But also he was thinking again, obscurely, that he must in some strange way have made an impression on her. And that she was bringing something new into his life. He was an extremely successful man. He had achieved his ambition. He had a passion for his work. He was at the very top of his world, secure. He had scaled Mount Everest, and there was no higher peak on earth. What else had he to live for, he, still under fifty? But she was bringing something new into his life. He had glimpses of vistas hitherto unnoticed. Was it conceivable that she was in love with him? Or was he a fatuous ass? . . . . . . She was a marvellous girl. In two seconds he lived again through the whole of his day with her. Marvellous! He was free to marry. But as a wife, what a hades of a nuisance would the marvellous girl be! Liability; not asset.
If marriage is a game of chance, as William Hutton suggests, then he seems to have drawn the long straws.
No event in a man's life is more consequential than marriage; nor is any more uncertain. Upon this die his sum of happiness depends. Pleasing views arise, which vanish as a cloud; because, like that, they have no foundation. Circumstances change, and tempers with them. Let a man's prior judgment be ever so sound, he cannot foresee a change; therefore he is liable to deception. I was deceived myself, but thanks to my kind fate, it was on the right side. I found in my wife more than ever I expected to find in woman. Just in proportion as I loved her, I must regret her loss. If my father, with whom I only lived fourteen years, who loved me less, and has been gone forty, never is a day out of my thoughts, what must be those thoughts towards her, who loved me as herself, and with whom I resided an age!
Marriage is built on love and trust but its future is unknown.
Constance's words were almost prophetic but, in the end, her husband falls in love with her sincerely.
And so the dying benediction of Constantine Walker is, at last, accomplished--"The Lord give thee thy heart's desire!" The daughter of his love is happy--loving and beloved. The heart of her husband trusts in her, rests in her, and thanks God daily for the blessing which He has bestowed. And sometimes he tells his wife that her motto ought to be--Patientiâ et Spe. (BY PATIENCE AND HOPE.)
Tom achieved a successful marriage the second time around.
Withal Tom lived a double life. He was the most steady, uxorious male ever born, had been married twice, and kept the second wife and two strings of children--one still lengthening--in a tiny house and garden at Raynes Park. The wife and the two strings of children and the garden were all perfect, and the most successful of their kind. His youngest son had gained eight ounces and a tooth in the same week as his eldest daughter had won a scholarship at Bedford College.
Wedded bliss is snatched away from Katharine as she dies within an hour after her marriage to Paul.
Lynedon took his bride in his arms, and endeavoured to calm her. He half succeeded, for she looked up in his face with a faint smile. "Thank you! I know you love me, my own Paul, my"--
Suddenly her voice ceased. With a convulsive movement she put her hand to her heart, and her head sank on her husband's breast.
That instant the awful summons came. Without a word, or sigh, or moan, the spirit passed!
Katharine was dead. But she died on Paul Lynedon's breast, knowing herself his wife, beloved even as she had loved. Let us not pity her. Oftentimes, living is harder than dying.
Though married, still in love? Perhaps a condition that is achieved more rarely today than in Victorian times.
The only person intimately acquainted with Ursula Derinzy, who trusted her, was her husband. Though often harsh, he was never untrue to the loyalty he had sworn to her. Ursula had not spoilt his faith in women. She was the only one whom he had ever loved, and though they had been married five-and-twenty years, he loved her still.
In this extract, an unfaithful marriage is used as a metaphor.
Mr. Cobbett's theories are compared to a young man who, as quickly as he tires of his wife, marries again.
Fresh theories give him fresh courage. He is like a young and lusty bridegroom, that divorces a favourite speculation every morning, and marries a new one every night. He is not wedded to his notions, not he. He has not one Mrs. Cobbett among all his opinions. He makes the most of the last thought that has come in his way, seizes fast hold of it, rumples it about in all directions with rough strong hands, has his wicked will of it, takes a surfeit, and throws it away. Our author's changing his opinions for new ones is not so wonderful; what is more remarkable is his felicity in forgetting his old ones.
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