 | CHAPTER VII.
THE VALLEY OF HUMILIATION. My wife and I, or, Harry Henderson's history |  |
7. CHAPTER VII.
THE VALLEY OF HUMILIATION.
MISS ELLERY was sufficiently mistress of herself,
and of circumstances, to close our little pastoral
in the most graceful and amiable manner possible.
I received a beautiful rose-scented note from her, saying
that the very kind interest in her happiness which I always
had expressed, and the extremely pleasant friendship
which had arisen between us, made her desirous of informing
me, &c., &c. Thereupon followed the announcement
of her engagement, terminating with the assurance that
whatever new ties she might form, or scenes she might visit,
she should ever cherish a pleasant remembrance of the
delightful hours spent beneath the elms of X., and indulge
the kindest wishes for my future success and happiness.
I, of course, crushed the rose-scented missive in my hand,
in the most approved tragical style, and felt that I had been
deceived, betrayed and undone. I passed forthwith into
that cynical state of young manhood, in which one learns
for the first time what a mere unimportant drop his own
most terribly earnest and excited feelings may be in the
tumbling ocean of the existing world.
This is a valley of humiliation, which lies, in very many
cases, just a day's walk beyond the palace, beautiful with
all its fascinations.
The moral geographer, John Bunyan, to whom we are
indebted for much wholesome information, tells us that
while it is extremely difficult to descend gracefully into this
valley, and pilgrims generally accomplish it at the expense
of many a sore trip and stumble, yet when once they
are fairly down, it presents many advantages of climate
and soil not other where found.
The shivering to pieces of the first ideal, while it breaks
ruthlessly and scatters much that is really and honestly
self conceit, which young people are none the
worse for having lessened.
The very assumption, so common in the early days of
life, that we have feelings of a peculiar sacredness above
the comprehension of the common herd, and for which only
the selectest sympathy is possible, is one savoring a little
too much of the unregenerate natural man, to be safely
let alone to grow and thrive.
Natures, in particular, where ideality is largely in the
ascendant, are apt to begin life with the scheme of building
a high and thick stone wall of reticence around themselves,
and enthroning therein an idol, whose rites and service are
to be performed with a contemptuous indifferenceto all the
rest of mankind.
When this idol is suddenly disenchanted by some stroke
of inevitable reality, and we discern that the image which
we had supposed to be the shrine of a divinity, is only a
very earthly doll, stuffed with saw-dust,one's pinnacles and
battlements—the whole temple in short, that we have prided
ourselves on, comes tumbling down about us like the walls
of Jericho, not without a certain sense of the ridiculous.
Though, like other afflictions, this is not for the present
joyous, still the space thus cleared in our mind may be so
cultivated as afterwards to bring forth peaceable fruits of
righteousness.
In my case, my idol was utterly defaced and destroyed
in my eyes, because I could not conceal from myself that
she was making a marriage wholly without the one element
that above all others marriage requires.
Miss Ellery was perfectly well aware of the mental inferiority
of poor Bill Marshall, and had listened unreprovingly
to the half-contemptuous pity with which it was customary
among us to speak of him. I remembered how
patronizingly I had often talked of him to her, “Really
not a bad fellow—only a little weak, you see;” and the
pretty, graceful drollery in her eyes. I remembered things
and miscalled words in conversation, and a thousand sayings
and intimations, each by itself indefinite as the boundary
between two tints of the rainbow, by which she showed
a superior sense of pleasure in my conversation and society.
And was all this acting and insincerity? I thought not.
I was and am fully convinced that had I only been possessed
of the wealth of Bill Marshall, Miss Ellery would
infinitely have preferred me as a life companion; and it was
no very serious amount of youthful vanity to imagine that
I should have proved a more entertaining one. I can easily
imagine that she made the decision with some gentle regret
at first,—regret dried up like morning dew in the full
sunlight of wedding diamonds, and capable of being put
completely to sleep upon a couch of cashmere shawls.
With what indignant bitterness did I listen to all the
details of the impending wedding from fluent Jim Fellows,
who, being from Portland and well posted in all the
gossip of the circle in which she moved, enlightened our
entry with daily and weekly bulletins of the grandeur and
splendors that were being, and to be.
“Boys, only think! Her wedding present from him is a
set of diamonds valued at twenty-five thousand dollars.
Bob Rivers saw them on exhibition at Tiffany's. Then she
has three of the most splendid cashmere shawls that ever
were imported into Maine. Captain Sautelle got them from
an Indian Prince, and there's no saying what they would
have cost at usual rates. I tell you Bill is going it in style,
and they are going to be married with drums and trumpets,
cymbals and dances; such a wedding as will make old Portland
stare; and then off they are going to travel no end of
time in Europe, and see all the kingdoms of the world,
and the glory of them.”
Now, I suppose none of us doubted that could Miss Ellery
have attained the diamonds and the cashmeres and the
fortune, with all its possibilities of luxury and self-indulgence,
without the addition of the husband, nothing would
is a condition in the way of a woman's making a fortune by
marriage, as it was with Faust's compact with an unmentionable
party, that it can only be ratified by the sacrifice
of herself—herself, and for life! A sacrifice most awful
and holy when made in pure love, and most fearful when
made for any other consideration. The fact that Miss
Ellery could make it was immediate and complete disenchantment
to me.
Mine is not, I suppose, the only case where the ideal
which has been formed under the brooding influence of a
noble mother is shattered by the hand of a woman. Some
woman, armed with the sacramental power of beauty, enkindles
the highest manliness of the youth, and is, in his
eyes, the incarnate form of purity and unworldly virtue, the
high prize andincitement to valor, patience, constancy and
courage, in the great life-battle.
But she sells herself before his eyes, for diamonds and
laces, and trinkets and perfumes; for the liberty of walking
on soft carpets and singing in gilded cages; and all the
world laughs at his simplicity in supposing that, a fair
chance given, any woman would ever do otherwise. Is not
beauty woman's capital in trade, the price put into her
hand to get whatever she needs; and are not the most
beautiful, as a matter of course, destined prizes of the
richest?
Miss Ellery's marriage was to me a great awakening, a
coming out of a life of pure ideas and sentiment into one
of external realities. Hitherto, I had lived only with people
all whose measures and valuations had been those relating
to the character—the intellect and the heart. Never in my
father's house had I heard the gaining of money spoken of
as success in life, except as far as money was needed to
advance education, and education was a means for doing
good. My father had his zeal, his earnestness, his exultations,
but they all related to things to be done in his life-work;
the saving of souls, the conversion of sinners, the
immorality, the advancement of education. My elder brothers
had successfully entered the ministry under his influence,
and in counsels with them where to settle, I had never heard
the question of salary or worldly support even discussed.
The first, the only question I ever heard considered, was
What work was needed to be done, and what fitness for the
doing of it; taking for granted the record, that where the
Kingdom of God and its righteousness were first sought,
all things would be added.
Thus all my visions of future life had in them something
of the innocent verdancy of the golden age, when noble
men strove for the favor of fair women, by pureness, by
knowledge, by heroism,—and the bravest won the crown
from the hand of the most beautiful.
And suddenly to my awakened eyes the whole rushing
cavalcade of fashionable life swept by, bearing my princess,
amid waving feathers and flashing jewels and dazzling robes
and merry laughs and jests, leaving me by the way-side
dazed and covered with dust, to plod on alone.
Now first I felt the shame which comes over a young man,
that he has not known the world as old wordlings know it.
In the discussions among the boys, relating to this marriage,
I first learned the power of that temptation which
comes upon every young man to look on wealth as the first
object in a life race.
Woman is by order of nature the conservator of the ideal.
Formed of finer clay, with nicer perceptions, and refined
fiber, she is the appointed priestess to guard the poetry of
life from sacrilege; but if she be bribed to betray the
shrine, what hope for us? “If the salt have lost its savor,
wherewith shall it be salted?”
My acquaintance with Miss Ellery had brought me out
of my scholastic retirement, and made me an acquaintance
of the whole bevy of the girls of X. Miss Ellery had
been invited and fêted in all the families, and her special
train of adorers had followed her, and thus I was “au
It was curious to remark what a silken flutter of wings,
what an endless volubility of tongues there was, about this
engagement and marriage, and how, on the whole, it was
treated as the height of splendor and good fortune. My
rosy-faced friend, Miss Dotha, was invited to the festival as
bridesmaid, and returned thereafter “trailing clouds of
glory” into the primitive circles of X; and my cynical
bitterness of soul took a sort of perverse pleasure in the amplifications
and discussions that I constantly heard in the
tea-drinking circles of the town.
“Oh, girls, you've no idea about those diamonds,” said
Miss Dotha; “great big diamonds as large as peas, and just
as clear as water! Bill Marshall made them send orders
to Europe specially for the purpose; then she had a pearl
set that his mother gave, and his sister gave an amethyst
set for a breakfast suit! and you ought to have seen the
presents! It was a perfect bazar! The Marshalls are an
enormously rich family, and they all came down splendidly:
old uncle Tom Marshall gave a solid silver dining set
embossed with gold, and old Aunt Tabitha Marshall gave
a real Sévres china tea-set, that was taken out of one of
the royal palaces in France, at the time of the French
Revolution. Captain Atkins was in France about the time
they were sacking palaces, and doing all such things, and he
brought away quite a number of things that found their
way into some of these rich old Portland families. Her
wedding veil was given by old Grandmamma Marshall, and
was said to have been one that belonged to Queen Marie
Antoinette, taken by some of those horrid women when they
sacked the Tuilleries, and sold to Captain Atkins; at any
rate, it was the most wonderful point lace, just like an old
picture.”
Fancy the drawing of breaths, the exclamations, the groans
of delight, from a knot of pretty, well-dressed, nice country
girls, at these wonderful glimpses into Paradise.
“After all,” I said, “I think this custom of loading down a
when she is least able to appreciate it. Why distract her
with gew-gaws at the very moment when her heart must
be so full of a new affection that she cares for nothing else?
Miss Ellery is probably so lost in her love for Mr. Marshall,
that she scarcely gives a thought to these things, and really
forgets that she has them. It would be much more in point
to give them to some girl that hasn't a lover.”
I spoke with a simple, serious air, as if I had most perfect
faith in my words, and a general gentle smile of amusement
went round the circle, rippling into a laugh out-right,
on the faces of some of the gayer girls. Miss Dotha said:
“Oh, come, now, Mr. Henderson, you are too severe.”
“Severe!” said I; “I can't understand what you mean,
Miss Dotha. You don't mean, of course, to intimate that
Miss Ellery is not in love with the man she has married?”
“Oh, now!” said Miss Dotha, laughing, “you know perfectly,
Mr. Henderson—we all know—it's pretty well understood,
that this wasn't exactly what you call a love-match;
in fact, I know,” she added with the assurance of
a confidant, “that she had great difficulty in making up
her mind; but her family were very anxious for the match,
and his family thought it would be such a good thing for
him to marry and settle down, you know, so one way and
another she concluded to take him.”
“And, after all, Will Marshall is a good-natured creature,”
said Miss Smith.
“And going to Europe is such a temptation,” said Miss
Brown.
“And she must marry some time,” said Miss Jones, “and
one can't have every thing, you know. Will is certain to be
kind to her, and let her have her own way.”
“For my part,” said pretty Miss Green, “I'm free to say
that I don't blame any girl that has a chance to get such
a fortune, for doing it as Miss Ellery has. I've always been
poor, and pinched and plagued; never can go any where,
or see anything, or dress as I want to; and if I had a chance,
take it.”
“Well,” said Miss Black, reflectively, “the only question
is, couldn't Miss Ellery have waited and found a man who
had more intellect, and more culture, whom she could respect
and love, and who had money, too? She had such
extraordinary beauty and such popular manners, I should
have thought she might.”
“Oh, well,” said Miss Dotha, “she was getting on—she
was three-and-twenty already—and nobody of just the right
sort had turned up—`a bird in the hand'—you know. After
all, I dare say she can love Will Marshall well enough.”
Well enough! The cool philosophic tone of this phrase
smote on my ear curiously.
“And pray, fair ladies, how much is `well enough?”'
said I.
“Well enough to keep the peace,” said Miss Green, “and
each let the other alone, to go their own ways and have no
fighting.”
Miss Green was a pretty, spicy little body, with a pair of
provoking hazel eyes; who talked like an unprincipled
little pirate, though she generally acted like a nice woman.
In less than a year after, by the by, she married a home
missionary, in Maine, and has been a devoted wife and
mother in a little parish somewhere in the region of Skowhegan,
ever since.
But I returned to my room gloriously misanthropic, and
for some time my thoughts, like bees, were busy gathering
bitter honey. I gave up visiting in the tea-drinking circles
of X. I got myself a dark sombrero hat, which I slouched
down over my eyes in bandit style when I walked the street
and met with any of my former gentle acquaintances. I
wrote my mother most sublime and awful letters on the
inconceivable vanity and nothingness of human life. I
read Plato and æschylus, and Emerson's Essays, and
began to think myself an old Philosopher risen from the
dead. There was a melancholy gravity about all my college
and sophomores with a serene compassion, as a sage who has
passed through the vale of years and learned that all is
vanity.
The valley of humiliation may have its charms—it is said
that there are many flowers that grow there, and nowhere
else, but for all that, a young fellow, so far as I know,
generally walks through the first part of it in rather a surly
and unamiable state.
To be sure, had I been wise, I should have been ready to
return thanks on my knees for my disappointment. True,
the doll was stuffed with saw-dust, but it was not my
doll. I had not learned the cheat when it was forever too
late to help myself, and was not condemned to spend life in
vain attempts to make a warm, living friend of a cold
marble statue. Many a man has succeeded in getting his
first ideal, and been a miserable man always thereafter, and
therefor.
I have lived to hear very tranquilly of Mrs. Will Marshall's
soirées and parties, as she reigns in the aristocratic circles
of New York; and to see her, still like a polished looking-glass,
gracefully reflecting every one's whims and tastes
and opinions with charming sauvity, and forgetting them
when their backs are turned; and to think that she is the
right thing in the right place—a crowned Queen of Vanity
Fair.
I have become, too, very tolerant and indulgent to the
women who do as she did,—use their own charms as the
coin wherewith to buy the riches and honors of the world.
The world has been busy for some centuries in shutting
and locking every door through which a woman could step
into wealth, except the door of marriage. All vigor and
energy, such as men put forth to get this golden key of life,
is condemned and scouted as unfeminine; and a woman
belonging to the upper classes, who undertakes to get
wealth by honest exertion and independent industry, loses
caste, and is condemned by a thousand voices as an oddity
sells it to buy wealth, is far more leniently handled. That
way of getting money is not called unwomanly; and so long
as the whole force of the world goes that way, such marriages
as Miss Ellery's and Bill Marshall's will be considered en
régle.
| CHAPTER VII.
THE VALLEY OF HUMILIATION. My wife and I, or, Harry Henderson's history | |