Sweethearts and Wives CHAPTER 4.
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A week before the day that was to unite Lewis Milnor and Grace Harvey in the holy bonds of wedlock, Grace sat alone in earnest conversation with her aunt, who was a woman of much practical good sense. Indeed, anyone who has lived to the age of forty or fifty, must have lived to little purpose indeed, if some portion of that essential quality of mind has not been acquired.
"How thankful I sometimes feel," Grace remarked, her eyes filling with tears as she spoke, "that I perceived Mr. Armstrong's dictatorial manner before my heart had become so much interested in him as to have caused me blindly to overlook so serious a fault! In other respects, he is a man calculated to captivate a woman's affections; but this alone would have, in the end, rendered my union with him a miserable one. How beautiful the contrast between him and Mr. Milnor! About the latter there is no harshness — no dictation — no pride of opinion — causing everything to bend before it, and even making love its sacrifice. No, no, none of these. And yet he has manliness, strength of character, and a mind as clear and active as the other. Happy was the day when I wisely chose between them!"
"Happy may it indeed be!" Mrs. Ellis said, in a voice that trembled from upswelling tenderness. "And yet, my child, you will not find your path all strewn with flowers, nor your skies always bright."
"I am well aware of that, aunt," Grace said, endeavoring, by an effort to smile, to force back the tears that were ready to gush forth freely. "Life has its clouds — as well as itssunshine; its paths through barren wastelands and dark forests — as well as through pleasant valleys and over smiling meadows; but, cheered by a husband's tender love, strengthened by his arm, and protected by his manly form — who would not calmly bear all these, and even while the storm breaks in the sky, feel her lot to be indeed blessed?"
"To a wife who truly loves her husband, and is truly loved in return, even the darkest Providence will have its pure consolations — yes, even its unspeakable joys. But few, my child, and this is a solemn and painful truth — do truly love each other. And the most painful of all is, that the wife, too often, is ever pouring out the treasures of a fond, confiding heart — for which she receives but a poor return."
"But that will never be my case, Aunt Mary."
"I hope not, Grace."
"I know it will not. If ever a woman was deeply loved — I am; and deeply do I love in return. Come what will, nothing can take from me the tender devotion of the man to whom I have yielded up my whole heart."
To this, Mrs. Ellis did not reply for some moments, during which time she sat in deep thought. At length she said,
"Grace, I would not be true to you, if I did not, at this important period of your life, speak to you frankly and plainly. You love your intended husband with a true and earnest love, I know; and I am sure that he loves you just as truly and earnestly. All now is perfect love and perfect harmony between you. Thus far, not a chord has jarred — not acloud, even as small as a human hand, crossed your sky; but, in the very nature of things, this cannot always remain so. Both you and he have your weaknesses of character, and your hereditary evils to fight against. There will come times when these latter will act freely, and for a time so obscure your minds as to prevent your seeing each other as you now do. In these states, each will make the painful discovery that the other is not perfect; that, in fact, each is primarily a lover of self, and a lover of the other only secondarily."
"Aunt Mary, how can you speak so?" Grace replied, in a quick, rebuking voice. "I know that Lewis Milnor loves me as he loves his own life."
"Don't deceive yourself, my child. Men do not ordinarily love anything above their lives."
"But he does me, I know."
"How do you know?"
"He has told me so," replied, with some hesitation, the blushing maiden.
"And no doubt believed what he said, Grace. But, like most ardent lovers — Mr. Milnor does not really know himself. In the first warm impulses of affection, all selfish feelings disappear from the consciousness of the lover, and it seems to him as if he had suddenly been inspired from Heaven with a love that utterly annihilates every selfish feeling. And yet that very love, is a desire to possess its object, to the end that it may be rendered happy in such possession. And if he thinks that he loves that object as his life, it is because he feels that its possession is absolutely necessary to his happiness; that if he were to lose it, he would be, of all men, the most miserable."
Grace sat silent after her aunt had uttered the last sentence. Mrs. Ellis resumed, but, as she perceived that her words were touching her niece too deeply, in a less serious tone.
"A sweetheart and a wife, Grace, are looked upon, let me tell you, with different eyes. And you may as well know this before as after marriage."
"I suppose they are. But you do not mean with less affection?"
"No, I did not mean to convey that idea. But a husband will see faults which, when he was but a sweetheart, were not apparent to his eyes — and exhibit them too. And a wife will do the same."
"I am sure I do not understand how that can be."
"It is plain enough, Grace. During the pleasant season of courtship, each is acting, to a certain degree, a part. All good points are allowed to appear — and foibles andweaknesses are kept out of sight. From this cause, each is led to form too high an opinion of the other. Both are too apt to imagine a perfection and congeniality of characterwhich the subsequent marriage relationship discovers not to exist."
"I cannot believe that this is true in our case. I am not conscious of having acted a part, and I am sure Mr. Milnor has not been guilty of such hypocrisy towards me."
"Not designedly, I am well convinced. But that he has not acted towards you with the honesty he should have done — with something of the honesty which influenced Mr. Armstrong in his fellowship with you, I am well satisfied."
"You are certainly right there, aunt," Grace said. "He has not been quite so honest as Mr. Armstrong, and I never would have tolerated him, if he had. Mr. Armstrong madefaults, or picked up little inadvertencies of expression, and magnified them into dangerous principles! But Lewis understood me better."
"He no doubt understood better how to secure your good opinion, and call out your affections. But his actions towards you have not been in all things, such as I could approve."
"In what has he acted wrong?"
"In consulting so constantly as he has done — your tastes, preferences, peculiarities, and prejudices. From the beginning — he has deferred everything to your wishes. He has not seemed to have a will of his own. Wherever a question involving a mutual action has been concerned — your opinion or desire has been adopted without a word. To know your pleasure, and to do it — has seemed the very delight of his life.
"Now this is not as it will be after your marriage. It is not as it ought to be. The wife should most frequently be led by her husband's reason for doing a thing, and be always desirous of knowing this reason, that she may compare it with her own perceptive desires. He is more in the rational principle of the mind — and she more in the intuitive; and it is by the union of these two into one mind, that the husband and the wife make one. Now cannot you see that it will not be an orderly state after marriage, for your husband to yield up all to your inclinations — as he has done before your marriage? And can you not also see that, in just the degree that you have received pleasure from this constant deference to your wishes — will be the pain you will experience when such a deference is withheld, as it must and will be?
"Mr. Milnor has fallen sadly into the fault of nearly all young men during courtship. They come soliciting the hand of her they love, and, anxious to secure that hand, they conceal all harsh points in their character; and really, or apparently, take no delight in anything except in rendering the object of their preference happy. In doing this, no sacrifice is thought too great, and even serious inconveniences on other occasions become really pleasures.
"As I have said before, this will not long survive the marriage union. Man is naturally a lover of self — and this must come out. Instead of feeling called upon to do everything for the happiness of his wife — he will soon begin to think, and very justly, too — that she ought to try and make him happy also. From the hour when that thought crosses his mind, may be dated the commencement of domestic uneasiness, if not unhappiness, which will continue until both perceive more truly than before, their just relation to each other — and not only perceive, but become willing to act from such a perception. Happy are they, my dear niece, who early learn wisdom; who, foreseeing the evil, hide themselves away in a right understanding of their duty, united with a willingness to perform it!"
"But you surely do not wish to make it appear that a woman occupies a lower place than a man, and must ever look up to and consider him? That she must ever bow in humble deference to his judgment?"
"No, Grace; nor can you draw so strange an inference, justly, from what I have said. I have been condemning the opposite, where the man defers everything to the woman, and have endeavored to show you that this was not only not right — but a relation that ought not, could not, and will not exist after marriage; and that, unless you could see this now, and are willing to act from it — you would experience a degree of unhappiness after marriage which would try severely the foundation of your affection.
"Intimately connected with this, is another subject that I feel bound to allude to, though reluctantly. Thus far, you have felt that Mr. Milnor was almost faultless. From this dreamyou will have to awaken!"
"Aunt Mary! what are you thinking about?" ejaculated Grace, in fresh surprise.
"About your happiness, my dear child," replied Mrs. Ellis, calmly. "The most common error into which young lovers fall, is the notion that the object of their affection is more perfect than the rest of human kind. Think but for a moment calmly, and you cannot but see that this can be no more true in your case, than in another's. You perceived glaring faults in Mr. Armstrong. There is a most estimable girl, as you know, Ellen Fairchild, who thinks him about the nearest to perfection of any man living. In her case you can readily admit that love is blind, but not so easily in your own case. Still, it is, possibly, as blind in your instance as in hers. It is from this blindness, that you are unable to see Mr. Milnor as he really is — with faults and evils imbedded in the very warp and woof of his character."
A gush of tears from Grace caused Mrs. Ellis to pause. But she felt so anxious to remove the scales from the eyes of her niece, that she resumed as soon as the latter had been restored to a degree of calmness.
"Grace," she asked, in doing so, "are you not conscious of having faults?"
"Oh yes, aunt — a great many."
"Are you not conscious, also, that in the very constitution of your mind, exists evils?"
"I do not know that I clearly understand your question so as to answer it as I should."
"Have you never felt tempted to do wrong?"
"Often."
"Whence came that temptation?"
"I do not know, unless from evil spirits."
"Flowing, with allurements to evil indulgences, into a form of natural innocence?"
"I cannot say that, aunt. There must be something that corresponds to a principle — a form receptive of it — or the principle, be it good or evil, cannot flow in."
"Justly reasoned. Then, if you are tempted to do wrong, is it not clear that there is within you some hereditary form of evil which can be tempted — something for evil spirits to flow into with their direful suggestions?"
"Yes, I suppose there must be."
"It is certainly true. All are born with a tendency to commit sin. But some are more deeply depraved than others, and some are more perfectly skilled in the art of concealingtheir worst faults than others. Too many of us study rather to hide — than subdue these faults — and therefore appear to be really better than we are. As, for instance, you are, as you know — of a somewhat hasty temper. Of course, that is an evil. Now, under what circumstances would you most struggle to conceal that fault? Under circumstances where it would, if it broke forth, be inevitably exposed to your intended husband, would you not?"
"I suppose I would."
"And it would be quite natural for you to do so. And no doubt such has been the guard you have kept upon yourself in this respect, that Mr. Milnor has not the most distant idea that you have this hasty temper."
"And never shall know it, aunt. If I can keep a guard over it successfully before marriage — then I can do so afterward. The same motive for doing so will exist."
"You will perhaps discover your mistake in this matter, before you are married a year," was Mrs. Ellis' quiet answer; "and if so, your husband will find out one instance, at least, in which he has been deceived in his estimation of your character. But there is another fault, all undiscovered by Mr. Milnor, I presume, which will more intimately affect your future happiness; I mean your impatience under opposition, and, I might almost call it, your blind determination to have your own way, if you think that way right."
"But ought I to yield a point, when I know I am right, Aunt Mary."
"Suppose your husband were to differ from you in opinion?"
"Well?"
"And he were as certain that he was right — as you were that you were right?"
"Well?"'
"Who should first give way?"
Grace was silent at this question.
"Do you think that you would be willing to yield the point — if you believed yourself right?"
"I hardly think I would."
"Ought your husband to yield — if he believed himself right?"
"But we could not both be right."
"Of course not; and would not you be as likely to be wrong as your husband?"
"Perhaps so; but you need have no fears on that score, aunt. We have not differed thus far, and I don't believe ever will differ."
"A prudent man foresees the evil, and hides himself."
"But the foolish pass on and are punished," Grace rejoined, laughing merrily, for she suddenly recovered her spirits, and then glided from the room, glad to escape the discussion of a subject by no means agreeable to her, and thus prevented her aunt from freely discharging the duty, which she felt to be required of her.
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