University of Virginia Library

3. III.
Lighted with a Match.

I HATE a match. I feel sure that brimstone
matches were never made in heaven; and it is
sad to think, that with few exceptions, matches are all
of them tipped with brimstone.

But my taper having burned out, and the coals
being all dead upon the hearth, a match is all that is
left to me.

All matches will not blaze on the first trial; and
there are those, that with the most indefatigable
coaxings, never show a spark. They may indeed
leave in their trail phosphorescent streaks; but you
can no more light your cigar at them, than you can
kindle your heart, at the covered wife-trails, which
the infernal, gossipping, old match-makers will lay
in your path.

Was there ever a bachelor of seven and twenty, I
wonder, who has not been haunted by pleasant old
ladies, and trim, excellent, good-natured, married
friends, who talk to him about nice matches—`very
nice matches,'—matches, which never go off? And
who, pray, has not had some kind old uncle, to fill
two sheets for him, (perhaps in the time of heavy
postages) about some most eligible connection,—`of
highly respectable parentage!'

What a delightful thing, surely, for a withered
bachelor, to bloom forth in the dignity of an ancestral
tree! What a precious surprise for him, who
has all his life worshipped the wing-heeled Mercury,
to find on a sudden, a great stock of preserved, and
most respectable Penates!

—In God's name,—thought I, puffing vehemently,—what
is a man's heart given him for, if not to
choose, where his heart's blood, every drop of it is
flowing? Who is going to dam these billowy tides of
the soul, whose roll is ordered by a planet greater
than the moon;—and that planet—Venus? Who is
going to shift this vane of my desires, when every
breeze that passes in my heaven is keeping it all the
more strongly, to its fixed bearings?

Beside this, there are the money matches, urged
upon you by disinterested bachelor friends, who
would be very proud to see you at the head of an

establishment. And I must confess that this kind of
talk has a pleasant jingle about it; and is one of the
cleverest aids to a bachelor's day-dreams, that can
well be imagined. And let not the pouting lady
condemn me, without a hearing.

It is certainly cheerful to think,—for a contemplative
bachelor,—that the pretty ermine which so sets
off the transparent hue of your imaginary wife, or the
lace which lies so bewitchingly upon the superb
roundness of her form,—or the graceful boddice,
trimmed to a line, which is of such exquisite adaptation
to her lithe figure, will be always at her command;—nay,
that these are only units among the
chameleon hues, under which you shall feed upon her
beauty! I want to know if it is not a pretty cabinet
picture, for fancy to luxuriate upon—that of a sweet
wife, who is cheating hosts of friends into love, sympathy
and admiration, by the modest munificence of
her wealth? Is it not rather agreeable, to feed your
hopeful soul upon that abundance, which, while it
supplies her need, will give a range to her loving
charities;—which will keep from her brow the
shadows of anxiety, and will sublime her gentle nature,
by adding to it the grace of an angel of mercy?

Is it not rich, in those days when the pestilent humours
of bachelorhood hang heavy on you, to foresee in
that shadowy realm, where hope is a native, the quiet

of a home, made splendid with attractions; and made
real, by the presence of her, who bestows them?—
Upon my word—thought I, as I continued puffing,—
such a match must make a very grateful lighting of
one's inner sympathies; nor am I prepared to say,
that such associations would not add force to the most
abstract love imaginable.

Think of it for a moment;—what is it, that we
poor fellows love? We love, if one may judge for
himself, over his cigar,—gentleness, beauty, refinement,
generosity, and intelligence,—and far above
these, a returning love, made up of all these qualities,
and gaining upon your love, day by day, and month
by month, like a sunny morning, gaining upon the
frosts of night.

But wealth is a great means of refinement; and it
is a security for gentleness, since it removes disturbing
anxieties; and it is a pretty promoter of intelligence,
since it multiplies the avenues for its reception;
and it is a good basis for a generous habit of
life; it even equips beauty, neither hardening its
hand with toil, nor tempting the wrinkles to come
early. But whether it provokes greatly that returning
passion,—that abnegation of soul,—that sweet
trustfulness, and abiding affection, which are to clothe
your heart with joy, is far more doubtful. Wealth
while it gives so much, asks much in return; and

the soul that is grateful to mammon, is not over
ready to be grateful for intensity of love. It is hard
to gratify those, who have nothing left to gratify.

Heaven help the man who having wearied his soul
with delays and doubts, or exhausted the freshness,
and exuberance of his youth,—by a hundred little
dallyings of love,—consigns himself at length to the
issues of what people call a nice match—whether of
money, or of family!

Heaven help you—(I brushed the ashes from my
cigar) when you begin to regard marriage as only a
respectable institution, and under the advices of staid
old friends, begin to look about you for some very
respectable wife. You may admire her figure, and
her family; and bear pleasantly in mind the very
casual mention which has been made by some of
your penetrating friends,—that she has large expectations.
You think that she would make a very
capital appearance at the head of your table; nor in
the event of your coming to any public honor, would
she make you blush for her breeding. She talks
well, exceedingly well; and her face has its charms;
especially under a little excitement. Her dress is
elegant, and tasteful, and she is constantly remarked
upon by all your friends, as a `nice person.' Some
good old lady, in whose pew she occasionally sits on a
Sunday, or to whom she has sometime sent a papier

maché card-case, for the show-box of some Dorcas
benevolent society, thinks,—with a sly wink,—that
she would make a fine wife for—somebody.

She certainly has an elegant figure; and the marriage
of some half dozen of your old flames, warn you
that time is slipping and your chances failing. And
in the pleasant warmth of some after-dinner mood,
you resolve—with her image in her prettiest pelisse
drifting across your brain—that you will marry.
Now comes the pleasant excitement of the chase;
and whatever family dignity may surround her, only
adds to the pleasurable glow of the pursuit. You
give an hour more to your toilette, and a hundred or
two more, a year, to your tailor. All is orderly,
dignified, and gracious. Charlotte is a sensible woman,
every body says; and you believe it yourself.
You agree in your talk about books, and churches,
and flowers. Of course she has good taste—for she
accepts you. The acceptance is dignified, elegant,
and even courteous.

You receive numerous congratulations; and your
old friend Tom writes you—that he hears you are
going to marry a splendid woman; and all the old
ladies say—what a capital match! And your business
partner, who is a married man, and something
of a wag—`sympathizes sincerely.' Upon the whole,
you feel a little proud of your arrangement. You

write to an old friend in the country, that you are to
marry presently Miss Charlotte of such a street,
whose father was something very fine, in his way;
and whose father before him was very distinguished;
—you add, in a postscript, that she is easily situated,
and has `expectations.' Your friend, who has a wife
that he loves, and that loves him, writes back kindly
—`hoping you may be happy;' and hoping so yourself,
you light your cigar,—one of your last bachelor
cigars,—with the margin of his letter.

The match goes off with a brilliant marriage;—at
which you receive a very elegant welcome from your
wife's spinster cousins,—and drink a great deal of
champagne with her bachelor uncles. And as you
take the dainty hand of your bride,—very magnificent
under that bridal wreath, and with her face lit
up by a brilliant glow,—your eye, and your soul, for
the first time, grow full. And as your arm circles
that elegant figure, and you draw her toward you,
feeling that she is yours,—there is a bound at your
heart, that makes you think your soul-life is now
whole, and earnest. All your early dreams, and imaginations,
come flowing on your thought, like bewildering
music; and as you gaze upon her,—the admiration
of that crowd,—it seems to you, that all that
your heart prizes, is made good by the accident of
marriage.

—Ah—thought I, brushing off the ashes again,—
bridal pictures are not home pictures; and the hour
at the altar, is but a poor type of the waste of years!

Your household is elegantly ordered; Charlotte
has secured the best of housekeepers, and she meets
the compliments of your old friends who come to dine
with you, with a suavity, that is never at fault. And
they tell you,—after the cloth is removed, and you
sit quietly smoking in memory of the old times,—
that she is a splendid woman. Even the old ladies
who come for occasional charities, think Madame a
pattern of a lady; and so think her old admirers,
whom she receives still with an easy grace, that half
puzzles you. And as you stand by the ball room
door, at two of the morning, with your Charlotte's
shawl upon your arm, some little panting fellow will
confirm the general opinion, by telling you that
Madame is a magnificent dancer; and Monsieur le
Comte, will praise extravagantly her French. You
are grateful for all this; but you have an uncommonly
serious way of expressing your gratitude.

You think you ought to be a very happy fellow;
and yet long shadows do steal over your thought;
and you wonder that the sight of your Charlotte in
the dress you used to admire so much, does not scatter
them to the winds; but it does not. You feel
coy about putting your arm around that delicately

robed figure,—you might derange the plaitings of her
dress. She is civil towards you; and tender towards
your bachelor friends. She talks with dignity,—adjusts
her lace cape,—and hopes you will make a
figure in the world, for the sake of the family. Her
cheek is never soiled with a tear; and her smiles are
frequent, especially when you have some spruce
young fellows at your table.

You catch sight of occasional notes perhaps, whose
superscription you do not know; and some of her admirers'
attentions become so pointed, and constant,
that your pride is stirred. It would be silly to show
jealousy; but you suggest to your `dear'—as you
sip your tea,—the slight impropriety of her action.

Perhaps you fondly long for some little scene, as a
proof of wounded confidence;—but no—nothing of
that; she trusts, (calling you `my dear,') that she
knows how to sustain the dignity of her position.

You are too sick at heart, for comment, or for
reply.

—And is this the intertwining of soul, of which
you had dreamed in the days that are gone? Is this
the blending of sympathies that was to steal from life
its bitterness; and spread over care and suffering, the
sweet, ministering hand of kindness, and of love?
Aye, you may well wander back to your bachelor
club, and make the hours long at the journals, or at

play—killing the flagging lapse of your life! Talk
sprightly with your old friends,—and mimic the joy
you have not; or you will wear a bad name upon
your hearth, and head. Never suffer your Charlotte
to catch sight of the tears which in bitter hours, may
start from your eye; or to hear the sighs which in
your times of solitary musings, may break forth sudden,
and heavy. Go on counterfeiting your life, as
you have begun. It was a nice match; and you are
a nice husband!

But you have a little boy, thank God, toward
whom your heart runs out freely; and you love to
catch him in his respite from your well-ordered nursery,
and the tasks of his teachers—alone;—and to
spend upon him a little of that depth of feeling,
which through so many years has scarce been stirred.
You play with him at his games; you fondle him;
you take him to your bosom.

—But papa—he says—see how you have tumbled
my collar. What shall I tell mamma?

—Tell her, my boy, that I love you!

Ah, thought I—(my cigar was getting dull, and
nauseous,)—is there not a spot in your heart, that
the gloved hand of your elegant wife has never
reached:—that you wish it might reach?

You go to see a far-away friend: his was not a
`nice match:' he was married years before you: and

yet the beaming looks of his wife, and his lively
smile, are as fresh and honest as they were years
ago; and they make you ashamed of your disconsolate
humour. Your stay is lengthened, but the
home letters are not urgent for your return: yet
they are marvellously proper letters, and rounded
with a French adieu. You could have wished a little
scrawl from your boy at the bottom, in the place of
the postscript which gives you the names of a new
opera troupe; and you hint as much—a very bold
stroke for you.

Ben,—she says,—writes too shamefully.

And at your return, there is no great anticipation
of delight; in contrast with the old dreams, that a
pleasant summer's journey has called up, your parlour
as you enter it—so elegant, so still—so modish—
seems the charnel-house of your heart.

By and by, you fall into weary days of sickness;
you have capital nurses—nurses highly recommended—nurses
who never make mistakes—nurses who
have served long in the family. But alas for that
heart of sympathy, and for that sweet face, shaded
with your pain—like a soft landscape with flying
clouds—you have none of them! Your pattern wife
may come in from time to time to look after your
nurse, or to ask after your sleep, and glide out—her
silk dress rustling upon the door—like dead leaves

in the cool night breezes of winter. Or perhaps
after putting this chair in its place, and adjusting to a
more tasteful fold that curtain—she will ask you, with
a tone that might mean sympathy, if it were not a
stranger to you,—if she can do anything more.

Thank her—as kindly as you can, and close your
eyes, and dream:—or rouse up, to lay your hand
upon the head of your little boy,—to drink in health,
and happiness, from his earnest look, as he gazes
strangely upon your pale and shrunken forehead.
Your smile even, ghastly with long suffering, disturbs
him; there is no interpreter, save the heart, between
you.

Your parched lips feel strangely, to his flushed,
healthful face; and he steps about on tip-toe, at a
motion from the nurse, to look at all those rosy-colored
medicines upon the table,—and he takes
your cane from the corner, and passes his hand over
the smooth ivory head; and he runs his eye along the
wall from picture to picture, till it rests on one he
knows,—a figure in bridal dress,—beautiful, almost
fond;—and he forgets himself, and says aloud—
`there's mamma!'

The nurse puts her finger to her lip; you waken
from your doze to see where your eager boy is looking;
and your eyes too, take in much as they can of

that figure—now shadowy to your fainting vision—
doubly shadowy to your fainting heart!

From day to day, you sink from life: the physician
says the end is not far off; why should it be?
There is very little elastic force within you to keep
the end away. Madame is called, and your little
boy. Your sight is dim, but they whisper that she
is beside your bed; and you reach out your hand—
both hands. You fancy you hear a sob:—a strange
sound! It seems as if it came from distant years—
a confused, broken sigh, sweeping over the long
stretch of your life: and a sigh from your heart—
not audible—answers it.

Your trembling fingers clutch the hand of your
little boy, and you drag him toward you, and move
your lips, as if you would speak to him; and they
place his head near you, so that you feel his fine hair
brushing your cheek.—My boy, you must love—
your mother!

Your other hand feels a quick, convulsive grasp,
and something like a tear drops upon your face.
Good God!—Can it be indeed a tear?

You strain your vision, and a feeble smile flits
over your features, as you seem to see her figure—
the figure of the painting—bending over you; and
you feel a bound at your heart—the same bound that
you felt on your bridal morning;—the same bound

which you used to feel in the spring-time of your
life.

—Only one—rich, full bound of the heart;—
that is all!

—My cigar was out. I could not have lit it
again, if I would. It was wholly burned.

“Aunt Tabithy”—said I, as I finished reading,—
“may I smoke now under your rose tree?”

Aunt Tabithy who had laid down her knitting to
hear me,—smiled,—brushed a tear from her old
eyes,—said,—“Yes—Isaac,” and having scratched
the back of her head, with the disengaged needle,
resumed her knitting.