 | CHAPTER VI.
OF MARRIED MEN, AND THE BEHAVIOUR PROPER FOR
THEM AT THE SPRINGS. The new mirror for travellers and guide to the
springs |  |
6. CHAPTER VI.
OF MARRIED MEN, AND THE BEHAVIOUR PROPER FOR
THEM AT THE SPRINGS.
1. A married gentleman must never take an ugly wife
to the springs, lest he should have to wait upon her
himself; nor a handsome one, lest she should be too
much waited on by others. But if, as we are informed
is sometimes the case, the lady's health absolutely requires
it, and there is no help, the laws of fashion peremptorily
prescribe to the husband a total oblivion of
his wife, in all public places, where she must be left to
the exercise of her own powers of attraction upon
other men, for obtaining the attentions necessary to her
comfort and happiness. If she is handsome, she will
be sure of these; if she is easy of access, and free
from all vulgar airs of prudery, she will stand a fair
chance of coming in for a due share; if she is neither
one or the other, the Lord have mercy upon her—she
must fain take up with some forlorn bachelor in his
grand climacteric.
2. Married gentlemen would do well to keep their
marriage secret as long as possible, were it not for the
great advantage it gives them in flirting with the young
ladies.
3. Married gentlemen should be particular in reserving
all their good humour and spirits for public
use. As to their private deportment, that is of no consequence,
provided they have a discreet wife, who is
thinks her the happiest woman in the world.
4. Married men should never forget, that it is better
to be blamed for neglect and unkindness to their wives,
than to be quizzed for their attentions to them. It is
better to rob a church, than to be laughed at by people
of fashion. We have known several persons of great
sensibility who actually died of it.
5. It has been asserted by certain cynics and blockheads,
that old married men who live in the country, and
who have young, gay and handsome wives, had better
take them to Niagara, Montreal, Quebec, or—home, than
to the springs. Ballston and Saratoga, say they, are
great places for scandal, and it is not absolutely out of
nature, for a lady to gain her health and lose her reputation,
at one or other of these places. We hold these
cautions in utter and prodigious contempt, maintaining
in the very teeth of such heteroxy in fashion, that an
elderly gentleman, with a young, gay, frisky, handsome
wife, cannot do half so well as to take her every season
to the springs. There she will be in her proper
sphere—admired, followed, and caressed; and there,
if there be any virtue in the waters, she will be in a
good humour with her husband, if it be only to repay
him for the admiration of other men. There, if any
where in the world, he will enjoy domestic felicity, and
taste of that peace which surpasseth the understanding
of all vulgar husbands. He ought to go as early, and
stay as long, as there is a sufficiency of admirers to
keep his wife in good humour, for ten to one—and we
confess it, such is the insufficiency of all sublunary
enjoyment of domestic bliss, in their solitary home, the
recollection of past happiness may poison the enjoyment
of the present, and smiles be turned to desperate
frowns. For this, however, there is a sovereign remedy—a
journey to town, and lodgings at a fashionable
hotel.
6. If their wives cannot be happy at home, husbands
are bound to find them amusement abroad, in like manner
as they are bound to find them attendants, when
they dont choose to act the part of cavalier serventé
themselves.
7. As it is a received and inflexible law of the beau
monde here, to imitate all foreign fashions, as a matter
of course, we suggest to the fashionables who constitute
good society, to mince matters no longer, and not
stand shilly-shally, like a horse with his fore feet in the
water, and his hind feet out. We would have them do
exactly as the most elegant and fashionable models of
Europe do—marry for money or rank; for as to love,
that can be got any where. Secondly. To consider
marriage not as tying them up, but letting them loose.
Thirdly. To purchase their matrimonial freedom, by
mutually conceding to each other the right of self government
in all matters whatever, except the enormity
of being out of fashion. It is utterly inconceivable by
those who have not had the advantage of a European
tour, and seeing people of the highest rank—in their carriages
or at the theatres—it is utterly inconceivable how
this mutual freedom conduces to the happiness of domestic
life. But as example is said to be better than
observation, for the benefit of our fashionable readers,
craving only leave to omit the real names.
Honorious and Honoria married for love: it was the
fashion then—or it was the fashion for people to persuade
themselves they did so. The husband was a
first rate man of fashion; for he dined well, drove a
handsome carriage, gave parties, and lived in a three
story house, with folding doors and marble mantel
pieces; and the wife was indubitably a fashionable
lady; for she had a fashionable milliner, a fashionable
air, a fashionable coach, a fashionable acquaintance,
could not exist without silver forks, and her family was
of the first respectability—for it could show more bankrupts
than any in town. According to the most approved
fashion, Honorious gave punch, and Honoria
saw company, in the first style, with eight grooms and
groomesses of the first fashion; one of the former was
a foreigner of great distinction—for he could play the
piano divinely, and was third cousin to a principal tenant
of an English prince of the blood—no, we
mistake—to an English duke—the princes of the
blood in England having no land to plague themselves
with.
After seeing company, they moved into Broadway,
or Hudson Square—it matters not—into a three story
house, with folding doors and marble mantel pieces,
and for a time were as happy as the day is long, for the
whole town visited them, and admired the folding doors,
the marble mantel pieces, the carpets, and the damask
chase of happiness is nothing but the little boy running
after the rainbow, and falling into a ditch, unless people
set out at first in the right path. The twenty-ninth evening
after marriage, Honorious was detected in a yawn
at the fireside—for Honoria had insisted, before marriage,
that they should give up the world, and live to
themselves in the pure enjoyment of quiet domestic
bliss. A yawn per se is nothing; but with certain combinations
and associations, it becomes extremely formidable.
Honoria was unfortunately sufficiently awake
to see it, and it went nigh to break her heart. But as
she was too proud to show her real feelings, she only
exclaimed a little sharply: “Lord, my dear—I wish
you would leave off that practice of yawning, and showing
off those great black teeth in the back part of your
head.” Honorious had well nigh jumped out of his
skin at this speech, so wanting in tournure, and had
some trouble to answer mildly, that “Really he was so
stultified with want of exercise and variety, that he was
grown quite stupid.” “You had better say at once you
are tired of my company,” cried Honoria, bursting into
tears. Honorious assured her that he was not tired of
her company—that he never was tired of her company
—that he never would be tired of her company—and—
here he was stopt by another yawn, that was absolutely
irresistible.
That night neither party slept a wink, for the last
yawn was followed by a keen encounter of wits, that
ended in what might be called a matrimonial segregation.
However, people must be very bad tempered, if
A reconciliation soon took place, and Honorius,
to prove that he never was, and never would be
tired of his wife's company, staid at home all day, and
all the evening, although his health suffered materially
in the direful struggles to repress those violent impulses
towards yawning which sometimes beset the animal
man when he has nothing to say and nothing to think
about. Too much fat puts out the candle, and too much
of a good thing is good for nothing. Tedium is the
mother of ill nature, and testiness the offspring of ennui.
Honorius did not go out, and consequently brought
home no news, no topics of every day chit-chat—no
food for raillery, laughter, or ridicule, and thereupon
it actually came to pass, that our young and faithful
couple, actually sometimes came to want topics of conversation,
and took to disputing and contradicting,
merely to pass the time.
Peu a peu—by those imperceptible snails paces,
which so often lead from passion to indifference, from
indifference to dislike, from dislike to antipathy, the
good Honorius, who was a well dispositioned man, and
the amiable Honoria, who was really a reasonable
woman, as times go, came at length, to quarrel once,
twice, yea thrice a day; nay oftener, for being always
at home, they were continually coming in contact, and
when people have no other topics, they generally fall
out with each other. It is indeed quite indispensable
that we should have certain out door acquaintance to
criticise, for the security of peace within doors. This
is considered by some sensible people, as the principal
with Honoria, and Honoria found fault with Honorius
even when they were both as free from blame as their
little infants. They fell out about the children—they
fell out about the servants, the inside of the house and
the outside of the house, the stars, the planets, the
twelve signs, and the weather, which never suited both
at a time. In short, they fell out about every thing,
and they fell out about nothing.
At length, after a severe brush, Honorius in a fit of
desperation, one day took his hat and actually sallied
forth into the places where merchants most do congregate.
There he heard the news of the day, the ups and
downs of life, the whys and the wherefores, the fires and
the murders, the marriages and the divorces, and all the
little items of the every day drama of the busy world.
He did not come home till dinner time, and Honoria
received him with the like kindness, as if he were come
off a long journey. They sat down to dinner, and she
asked him the news. He told her all he had heard, and
the dinner passed off without a single quarrel, although
we are obliged to confess Honoria once threw the
gauntlet, by finding fault with his spilling the gravy on
a clean damask table cloth.
In the evening, however, there was another desperate
duet of yawning in andante, succeeded by a quick measure
of altercation. Honorius took his hat once again,
and went to the play, whence he did not return till past
twelve; for what with horses, dogs, and devils, men made
by nature's journeymen, spectacles, singing, dancing,
worth of their money at the play, in quantity if not in
quality. Poor Honoria was so alarmed at his long absence,
that she thought he had drowned himself in a fit
of desperation, and was so glad to see him that she forgot
to ask him where he had been, till the next morning
at breakfast. He told all about the horses, the dancers,
the devils, the flying Dutchman, the flying Indians, the
glums and the gawrs, and the machinery and the
pasteboard, till she laughed herself almost to death, and
accused him of having been at a puppet show. The
breakfast went off charmingly, although Honorius broke
a China tea cup belonging to a set that cost five hundred
dollars, and Honoria put twice as much milk in
his coffee as he liked.
By degrees this habit of going out increased upon
Honorius to such a degree, that he at length got to the
other extreme, and Honoria was often left day after day,
evening after evening, in loneliness and solitude; for her
children were yet too young for companions. She quarrelled
a little with Honorius about it, who coolly answered,
“My dear, why dont you go out too? nobody hinders
you.” “Where shall I go—we have completely got
out of society by visiting nobody.” “O give a rout;
I warrant you'll have company enough, every body will
be your acquaintance.” It was decided; a rout was
given and every body came. This of course entitled
them to invitations from every body, and instead of
spending every day and evening at home, they now
spent every day and evening abroad. This again produced
that desperate monotony, which whether of company
tedious and unsatisfactory in the end. They begun to
dispute their way regularly to and from parties, and
matters became worse than ever. Honorius was too
polite to certain ladies whom Honoria particularly
hated; and Honoria was too free with certain gentlemen
Honorius particularly despised.
“Alas!” said Honorius one day to himself, “is there
no peace to be found in this world!” And Honoria
repeated the same exclamation to herself just at the
same moment. A sudden ray of light broke in upon
Honorius, as if in response to this pathetic appeal. If
we cannot be happy together, is it not possible to be
happy asunder? Honorius went out by himself the
very next night, the night after, and the night after that.
Honoria could hold out no longer, and reproached him
bitterly. “My dear,” answered Honorius, mildly,
“why cant you go out by yourself too?” The carriage
was ordered on the instant by Honoria, who went to
one party, and Honorius went in a hack to another.
They both passed such a delightful evening, that they
repeated the experiment again, and again. Each succeeded
better and better, and the arrangement has subsisted
ever since. Honorius is out all day, and when
he happens to be at home at night, Honoria is out at a
party, or to the play. In the winter they are never seen
together, except by accident, at a public place, when
you would take them for perfect strangers. In the summer
she goes to the springs, he to Long Branch; the
children are left at home with the nurses, to preserve
peace and quiet in the family abroad. Honoria never
is at home to dine with Honoria. She is at a ball till
two in the morning; he at the faro table all night.
They never meet—they never quarrel. Honoria is the
delight of fashionable gentlemen; Honorius of fashionable
ladies, who all envy Honoria the possession of such
an agreeable, witty, polite husband. In short, they have
found the grand secret of preserving domestic peace and
tranquillity at home—by never meeting there.
| CHAPTER VI.
OF MARRIED MEN, AND THE BEHAVIOUR PROPER FOR
THEM AT THE SPRINGS. The new mirror for travellers and guide to the
springs | |