My Wife and I. Harry Henderson's History

I don't mean to lay all the blame on them, either. I have been worldly, too, and ambitious, and wanted to shine, and been only too willing to fall in with all their views.

But it really is hard for a person like me to stand alone, against my own heart, and all my relatives, particularly when I don't know exactly, in each case, what to do, and what not; where to begin to resist, and where to yield.

Ida says that it is a sin to spend nights in dancing, so that one has to lie in bed like an invalid all the next day. She says it is a sin to run down one's health for no good purpose; and yet we girls all do it – everybody does it. We all go from party to party, from concert to ball, and from ball to something else. We dance the German three or four nights a week; and then, when Sunday comes, sometimes I find that there is the Holy Communion – and then I am afraid to go. I am like the man that had not on the wedding garment.

It seems to me that our church services were made for real Christians – people like the primitive Christians, who made a real thing of it; they gave up everything and went down and worshiped in the catacombs, for instance. I remember seeing those catacombs where they held their church far down under ground, when I was in Rome. There would be some meaning in such people's using our service, but when I try to go through with it I fear to take such words on my lips. I wonder that nobody seems to feel how awful those words are, and how much they must mean, if they mean anything. It seems to me so solemn to say to God, as we do say in the communion service, "Here we offer and present unto Thee, O, Lord, ourselves, our souls and bodies, to be a reasonable, holy, and living sacrifice unto Thee" —

I see so many saying this who never seem to think of it again; and, oh, my dear friend, I have said it myself, and been no better afterward, and now, alas, I too often turn away from the holy ordinance because I feel that it is only a mockery to utter them, living as I do.

About this marriage. Mr. Sydney is not at all a religious man; he is all for this world, and I don't think I shall grow much better by it.

I wish there were somebody that could strengthen me, and help me to be my better self. I have dreams of a sort of man like King Arthur, and the Knights of the Holy Grail – a man, noble, holy, and religious. Such an one I would follow if I broke away from everyone else; but, alas, no such are in our society, at least I never have met any. Yet I have it in me to love, even to death, if I found a real hero. I marked a place in a book the other day, which said:

"There is not so much difficulty in being willing to die for one, as finding one worth dying for."

I haven't, and they laugh at me as a romantic girl when I tell them what I would do if I found my ideal.

Well, I suppose you see how it's all likely to end. We drift, and drift and drift, and I shouldn't wonder if I drifted at last into this marriage. I see it all before me, just what it will be, – a wonderful wedding, that turns all New York topsy turvy – diamonds, laces, cashmeres, infinite flowers, and tuberoses of course, till one's head aches, – clang and ding, and bang and buzz; – triumphal processions to all the watering-places; tour in Europe, and then society life in New York, ad infinitum.

Oh, dear, if I only could get up some enthusiasm for him! He likes me, but he don't like the things that I like, and it is terribly slow work entertaining him – but when we are married we shan't see so much of each other, I suppose, and shall get on as other folks do. Papa and mamma hardly ever see much of each other, but I suppose they are all right. Aunt Maria says, love or no love at the beginning, it all comes to this sort of jog-trot at the end. The husband is the man that settles the bills, and takes care of the family, that's all.

Ida says – but I won't tell you what Ida says – she always makes me feel blue.

Do write me a good scolding letter; rouse me up; shame me, scold me, talk hard to me, and see if you can't make something of me. Perhaps it isn't too late.

Your affectionate bad girl,

    Eva.

[Letter from Mrs. Courtney to Eva Van Arsdel.]

My Dear Child: – You place me in an embarrassing position in asking me to speak on a subject, when your parents have already declared their wishes.

Nevertheless, my dear, I can but remind you that you are the child of an higher than any earthly mother, and in an affair of this moment you should take counsel of our holy Church. Take your prayer-book and read her solemn service, and see what those marriage vows are that you think of taking. Are these to be taken lightly and unadvisedly?

I recollect, when I was a young girl, we used to read Sir Charles Grandison, and one passage in the model Harriet Byron's letters I copied into my scrap-book. Speaking of one who had proposed to her, she says:

"He seems to want the mind that I would have the man blessed with that I am to vow to love and honor. I purpose whenever I marry to make a very good, and even dutiful wife; must I not vow obedience, and shall I break my marriage vow? I would not, therefore, on any consideration, marry a man whose want of knowledge might make me stagger in the performance of my duty to him; who would, perhaps, command from caprice or want of understanding what I think unreasonable to be complied with."

I quote this because I think it is old fashioned good sense, in a respectable old English novel, worth a dozen of the modern school. To me, there is indicated in your description of Mr. Sydney, just that lack of what you would need in a husband, which would make difficult, perhaps impossible, the performance of your marriage vows. It is evident that his mind does not impress yours or control yours, and that there are no mental sympathies between you.

That a man is a good business man; that he is fitted to secure the rent or taxes of the house one lives in, and to pay one's bills, is not all. Think, my child, that this man, for whom you can "get up no enthusiasm," whose company wearies you, is the one whom you are proposing to take by the hand before God's altar, and solemnly promise that forsaking all others, you will keep only unto him, so long as you both shall live, to love, to honor, and to obey. Can you do it?

You say you can get up no enthusiasm for this man, yet you have a conception of a man for whom you could leave all things; whom you could love unto the death.

It is out of just such marriages, made by girls with just such hearts as yours, that come all these troubles that are bringing holy marriage into disrepute in our times. A woman marries, thoughtlessly and unadvisedly, a man whom she consciously does not love, hoping that she shall love him, or that she shall do as well as others do; then by accident or chance she is thrown into the society of the very one whom she could have loved with enthusiasm, and married, for himself alone. The modern school of novels are full of these wretched stories, and people now are clamoring for free divorce, to get out of marriages that they never ought to have fallen into.

Amid all this confusion the Church stands from age to age and teaches. She shows you exactly what you are to promise; she warns you against promising lightly, or unadvisedly, and I can only refer my dear child to her mother's lessons. Marriage vows, like confirmation vows, are recorded in Heaven, and must not be broken.

The time for reflection is before they are made. Instead of clamoring for free divorce, as a purifier of marriage, all Christians should purify it as the church recommends, by the great care with which they enter into it. That is my doctrine, my love. I am a good old English Church-woman, and don't believe in any modern theories. The teachings of the prayer-book are enough for me. I know that, in spite of them all, there are thoughtless confirmation vows and marriage vows daily uttered in our church, but it is not for want of clear and solemn instruction. But you, my love, with your conscientiousness, and good sense, and really noble nature, will I am sure act worthily of yourself in this matter.

Another consideration I suggest to you. This man, whom I suppose to be a worthy and excellent man, has his rights. He has the right to the whole heart of the woman he marries – to whom at the altar he gives himself and all which he possesses. A woman who has what you call an enthusiasm for a man, can do much with him. She can bear with his faults; she can inspire and lead him; she can raise him in the scale of being. But without this enthusiasm, this real love, she can do nothing of the kind; it is a thing that cannot be dissembled, or affected. And after marriage, the man who does not find this in his wife, has the best reason to think himself defrauded.

Now, if for the sake of possessing a man's worldly goods, his advantages of fortune and station, you take that relation when you really are unable to give him your heart, you act dishonestly. You take and enjoy what you cannot pay for. Not only that, but you deprive him through all his life of the blessing of being really loved, which he might obtain with some other woman.

The fact is, you have been highly cultivated in certain departments; your tastes would lead you into the world of art and literature. He has been devoted to business, and in that way has amassed a fortune, but he has no knowledge, and no habits that would prepare him to sympathise with you.

I am not here undervaluing the worth of those strong, sterling qualities which belong to an upright and vigorous man. There are many women who are impressed by just that sort of power, and admire it in men, as they do physical strength and courage; it dazzles their imagination, and they fall in love accordingly. You happen to have another kind of fancy – he is not of your sort.

But there are doubtless women whom he would fully satisfy; who would find him a delightful companion who, in short, would be exactly what you are not, in love with him. My dear, men need wives who are in love with them. Simple tolerance is not enough to stand the strain of married life, and to marry when you cannot truly love is to commit an act of dishonesty and injustice. Remembering, therefore, that you are about to do what never can be undone, and what must make or mar your whole future, I speak this in all sincere plainness, because I am, and ever must be,

Your affectionate and true friend,

    M. Courtney.

[Ida Van Arsdel to Mrs. Courtney.]

My Dear Friend: – I am glad you have written as you have to Eva. It is perfectly inexplicable to me that a girl of her general strength of character can be so undecided. Eva has been deteriorating ever since she came from Europe. This fashionable life is to mind and body just like a hotbed to tender plants in summer, it wilts everything down. Eva was a good scholar and I had great hopes of her. She had a warm heart; she has really high and noble aspirations, but for two or three years past she has done nothing but run down her health and fritter away her mind on trifles. She is not half the girl she was at school, either mentally or physically, and I am grieved and indignant at the waste. Her only chance of escape and salvation is to marry a true man.

But when people set out as a first requisite that the man must be rich, how many are the chances of finding that?

The rich men of America are either rich men's sons, who, from all I have seen of them, are poor trash enough, or business men, who have made wealth by their own exertions. But how few there are who make money, who do not sacrifice their spiritual and nobler natures to do it? How few with whom the making of money is not the beginning, middle, and end of life, and how little can such men do to uphold and elevate the moral nature of a wife!

Mr. Sydney is a man, heart, soul, and strength, interested in that mighty game of chance and skill by which, in America, money is made. He is a railroad king – a prince of stocks – a man going with a forty thousand steam power through New York waters. He wants a wife – a brilliant, attractive, showy, dressy wife, to keep his house and ornament his home; and he is at Eva's feet, because she is, on the whole, the belle of his circle. He chooses en Grand Seigneur, and undoubtedly he is as much in love with her as such a kind of man can be. But, in fact, he knows nothing about Eva; he does not even know enough to know the dangers of marrying such a woman. With all her fire, and all her softness, all her restless enthusiasms, her longings and aspirations and inconsistencies, what could he do with her? The man who marries Eva ought to know her better than she knows herself, but this man never would know her, if they lived together an age. He has no traits by which to estimate her, and the very best result of the marriage will be a mutual laisser aller of two people who agree not to quarrel, and to go their own separate ways, he to his world, and she to hers; and this sort of thing is what is called in our times a good marriage.

I am out of patience with Eva for her very virtues. It is her instinct to want to please and to comply, and because mamma and aunt Maria have set their heart on this match, and because she is empty-hearted and tired, and ennuyeuse, she has no strength to stand up for herself. Her very conscientiousness weakens her; she doubts, but does not decide. She has just enough of everything in her nature to get her into trouble, and not enough to get her out. A phrenologist told her she needed destructiveness. Well, she does. The pain-giving power is a most necessary part of a well organized human being. Nobody can ever do anything without the courage to be disagreeable at times, which I have plenty of. They do not try to control me, or enslave me. Why? Because I made my declaration of independence, and planted my guns, and got ready for war. This is dreadfully unamiable, but it did the thing; it secured peace; I am let alone. I am allowed my freedom, but everybody interferes with Eva. She is conquered territory – has no rights that anybody is bound to respect. It provokes me.

As to the religious part of your letter, dear friend, I thank you for it. I cannot see things as you do, however. To me it appears that in our day everything has got to be brought to the simple test of, What good does it do? If baptism, confirmation and eucharist make unworldly, self-denying, self-sacrificing people just as certainly as petunia-seed make petunias, why, then, nobody will have any doubt of their necessity, and the church will have its throngs. I don't see now that they do. Go into a fashionable party I have been in, and watch the girls, and see if you can tell who have been baptized and confirmed, and who have not.

The first Christians carried Christianity over all the pomp and power of the world simply by the unworldly life they lived. Nobody doubted where the true church was in those days. Christians were a set of people like nobody else in the world, and whenever and wherever and by whatever means that kind of character that they had is created, it will have power.

I like the Episcopal Church, but I cannot call it the church till I see evidences that it answers practically the purpose of a church better than any other. For my part I go to hear a dreadfully heretical preacher on Sunday, who lectures in a black-coat in a hall, simply because he talks to me on points of duty, which I am anxious to hear discussed. Eva, poor child, wears down her health and strength with night after night in society, and spends all her money on dress; doing no earthly thing for any living creature, except in the pleasure-giving way, like a bird or a flower, and then is shocked and worried about me because I read scientific works on Sunday.

I make conscience of good health, early hours, thick shoes, and mental and bodily drill, and subjection. Please God, I mean to do something worthy a Christian woman before I die, and to open a path through which weaker women shall walk out of this morass of fashion-slavery, and subjection, where they flounder now. I take for my motto that sentence from one of Dr. Johnson's allegories you once read to us: "No life pleasing to God that is not useful to man." I hope, my dear friend, I shall keep the spirit of Christ, though I wander from the letter. Such words as you have spoken to me, however, can never come amiss. Perhaps when I am old and wiser, like many another self-confident wanderer, I may be glad to come back to my mother's house, and then, perhaps, I shall be a stiff little church-woman. At all events I shall always be your loving and grateful pupil.

    Ida.

[Eva Van Arsdel to Isabel Convers.]

My Dear Belle: Thanks for your kind letter with all its congratulations and inquiries, – for though as yet I have no occasion for congratulation, and nothing to answer to inquiry, I appreciate these all the same.

No – Belle, the "old sixpence" is not gone yet, – you will have to keep to your friend a while longer. I am not engaged, and you have full liberty to contradict that report everywhere and anywhere.

Mr. Sydney is, of course, very polite, and very devoted, very much a friend of the family and all that, but I am not engaged to him, and you need never believe any such thing of me till you hear it directly, under my own hand and seal.

There have been a lot of engagements in our set lately. Lottie Trevillian is going to marry Sim Carrington, and Bessie Somers has at last decided to take old Watkins – though he is twenty-five years older than she, – and then there's Cousin Maria Elmore has just turned a splendid affair with young Livingstone, really the most brilliant match of the winter. I am positively ashamed of myself, under these circumstances, to be sitting still, and unable to report progress. My old infelicity in making up my mind seems to haunt me, and I dare say I shall live to be a dreadful example.

By the by, I have had a curious sort of an adventure lately. You know when I was up at Englewood visiting you last summer, I was just raving over those sonnets on Italy, which appeared in the "Milky Way" over the signature of "X." You remember those verses on "Fra Angelico" and the "Campanile," don't you? Well, I have found out who this X is. It's a Mr. Henderson that is now in New York, engaged on the staff of "The Great Democracy." We girls have noticed him once or twice walking with Jim Fellows – (you remember Jim;) Jim says he is a perfect hermit, devoted to study and writing, and never goes into society. Well, wasn't it odd that the fates should have thrown this hermit just in my way?