| | | | Is there anything more poetic than woman? Is there | anything more prosaic than man? The piteous little song | has been chanted so often in our ears by lips so pretty and | so infallible that it is hard to whisper a suspicion of its | truthfulness. It is easier to take woman at her word, to | credit her with high ideals, with delicate sensibilities, to | mourn with her over the crash of this tender imaginative | nature when it comes into rough contact with the | coarseness of life and of man. There are moments when | pebbly-hearted man flings his cigar away, as the little light | shines out from Clarissa's lattice, and swears that he is a | brute. It is too bad that that porcelain feminine existence | should have to sail down the stream of life with such iron | pots as we are. We are ashamed of our rough voice, or our | little spurts of temper, or our hard busy life, of our | commonplace aspirations. Why do we find her verses so | wearisome, why do we yawn over her little prattle of | Charlie and papa? It is because we are sheer hard | worldlings, because we have trodden out all that was tender | and innocent in our own soul, and left nothing to respond to | the innocence and tenderness in hers. So man, flinging | away the end of his cigar, as he watches the little light in | Clarissa's window, and sees the longed for shadow flit | across the curtain. And Clarissa laughs her assent to this | abject self-condemnation. Her very defence of her lover | plunges him deeper in the mire. It is so natural that he | should be absorbed in business, poor fellow, and that | business should prison him down to reality and prose. It is | unjust to charge him with the general misfortune of his sex. | Of course he cannot quite understand her; of course he | cannot wholly return a love so pure, so absorbing, so | self-sacrificing as the love she gives to him. Her extenuating | circumstances put a graceful fringe round the ugly verdict | of guilty, but sentence is recorded none the less. | Self-condemned, we watch beneath the casement, and fling | away our meditative cigar for the last time. We stand | before the altar, and poetry comes surging up the aisle ~~ | the poetry of bridesmaids, the poetry of the bride. How | white, how tearful, how confused! The very church, with | its stuffy pews and its dusty galleries, brightens up into a | certain romance. The very mob of lookers on hush their | gabble into whispers of awe and pity as she passes by. But | not a ray of all this poetry lightens upon us. We stand there | simple prose. We feel that we spoil the grace of the | picture. Our

"I will"

rings out dissonant and | unmusical. Then we are swept into a corner, while | sobbings and embraces complete the sacrifice. It is a | victim that we lead away, and we lead her away with the | self-consciousness of a Calcraft. It is a victim who sits | beside us at the wedding-breakfast while scores of eyes | glare incredulity and scorn as we stammer out our promise | to treat her as well as we are able. The lucky slipper allows | us to take refuge in our honeymoon. We have pictured it | all long ago in those hours of contrition beneath Clarissa's | window. What are we to do with this poetic being? How | are we to amuse her, to interest her? We have put a | Tennyson in our traveling-bag. We have coached up | Wordsworth, and have a couple of stanzas ready for the | first sight of Helvellyn. Her shyness will pass away after a | time, and we shall be at her feet, and listen to the hoarded | treasures of her soul. A new life is before us, and even the | study and the counting-house will catch a little of the glow. | A gentle influence will be round us, and our selfishness, | our coarseness, our worldliness will insensibly fade away. | If we can only be tender and good-tempered! if we can only | get rid of our fretfulness and impatience! It is with a | pocketful of good resolutions, of golden incoherent hopes, | that prose whirls away with poetry to the lakes or the sea. | It is with fewer hopes and slightly different resolutions that | prose and poetry whirl back. A new drama has to be | played, and it is not surprising that the actors have changed | parts. At any rate the bridal return finds prose under the | bonnet and poetry under the hat. It is the bride who | pronounces her husband quixotic and ideal. It is the | bridegroom who takes refuge behind his | Times from the chilling common sense of his wife. | He is puzzled, and he is angry at his puzzledom. He has a | dim idea that the whole affair has been a mystification. It | is impossible that the angel of his dreams can have turned | into the woman of the world who lies yawning in the | opposite corner of the compartment. It is impossible that | that tender and delicate nature can in an hour have | developed into obstinacy and common-place. He knows | that the weariness and dullness on the face before him will | be readily translated by the world. She is going, people | will say, through the most common of the disenchantments | of life ~~ a wife's disenchantment as she discovers what a | brute she has married. But is it not as common a | disenchantment for the husband as for the wife? Why is it | that he is haunted by the memory of that last night of | freedom and of his annoyance at his friend's farewell, | | ? He certainly has put his foot in it, and yet it seems | incredible that a month can have done it all. There is a | strange irony in the contrast between the honeymoon of his | fancy and the honeymoon of fact. There has been very | little of the expected alternation of caresses and romance. | The angel has from the very outset turned into a spoilt | child. After so many months of compulsory good | behaviour, of unchequered sunshine, it is an immense | luxury to her to find herself free to live her natural little life | of pouting and petting. And so she brings to the paradise of | expected bliss the frowns and the sulks of the nursery. She | takes out her freedom in a thousand caprices and tempers | and whims. But, after all, hope isn't killed in an hour, and | it is possible to be patient. The real difficult is to be | entertaining. The one thirst of the young bride is for | amusement, and she has no notion of amusing herself. If | she yawns, if she feels sleepy and bored, she looks on the | breakdown of the vague anticipations with which she | married as an injustice and a wrong. It is amusing to see | the spouse of this ideal creature wend his way to the | lending library after a week of idealism, and the relief with | which he carries home a novel. But the novels are last | season's novels, and life is soon as dreary as before. How | often in those nights of expectation has he framed to | himself imaginary talks over the fire, talk brighter and | wittier than that of the friends he forsakes! But | conversation is difficult in the case of a refined creature | who is as ignorant as a Hottentot. He begins with the new | Miltonic poem, and finds she has never looked into | Paradise Lost. He plunges into the | Reform Bill, but she knows nothing of politics, and has | never read a leading article in her life. He tries music, and | she kindles a little at the thought of hearing Nilsson again | next season, at least if there is a royal princess in the house. | Then she tries her hand in turn, and floods him with the | dead chat of town, and oceans of family tattle. He finds | himself shut up for weeks with a creature who takes interest | in nothing but Uncle Crosspatch's temper and the scandal | about Lady X. Little by little in that fatal honeymoon the | absolute pettiness, the dense dulness, of woman's life | breaks on the disenchanted devotee. His deity is without | occupation, without thought, without resource. He has a | faint faith left in her finer sensibility, in her poetic nature; | he fetches his Tennyson from the carpet-bag, and wastes | In Memoriam on a critic who | pronounces it

"pretty".

He still takes her love of | caresses as a sing of an affection passing the love of men, | and he unfolds to her his hope that a year or two more may | give him the chance of a retreat into the country and a quiet | life of conjugal happiness. The confession startles the | blighted being into a real interest at last. She has not | escaped from the dulness of the nursery to plunge into the | dulness of home. She amuses herself with her spouse's | indifference to all that makes life worth the living. But | then men are such odd creatures, so Quixotic, so | unpractical, so romantically blind to the actual necessities | of life! It is this idleness, this boredom of the honeymoon, | that begets dreams so absurd, so fanciful. The dear, odd | creature must be got back to town, to his business, to his | books, and the honeymoon must end. It is time, in fact, that | it did end, for boredom has done its work, and the | disenchantment of man is complete. | Absurd, fanciful as these dreams of a rural future may be, | they have startled the poetic being into the revelation of her | own plans of life. As you whirl together she tells you all | about them with a charming enthusiasm, but with the | startling coolness of a woman of the world. They are not | the crude fancies, like your own, of a moment of romance. | Long ago, in those hours of mysterious musing when her | lover watched her figure at the casement, she was counting | the cost of the season, the number of her dresses, the | chance of a box at the Opera, the cheapest way of hiring a | brougham. That morning of saddest farewell, when both | walked hand in hand through the coppice with hearts too | full for even a word of affection she was laying her plans | for eclipsing her married cousin, and, forcing her way into | Lady Deuceace's set. One sees dimly, as the honeymoon | ends, what an immense advantage this poetic being has | gained over her prosaic spouse in the completeness of her | previous study of the position. In the presence of his | confused dreams her practical well-arranged plan of life | gives her a lead that she means to keep. She is reasonable, | of course, ready to listen to objections if those objections | are based on a plan not absolutely romantic and absurd. | But the hard, coarse, masculine creature refuses to reason, | and buries himself in his Times. | Reasoning, calculating, planning ~~ this was the very life | from which he had fled to fling himself into the arms of his | ideal. He is mystified, puzzled, indignant. His dim | conceptions of imaginative woman float sadly away, but | they leave him no formula to which he can reduce this hard | cynical being who has taken her place at his fireside. | Woman, on the other hand, is far from being puzzled or | mystified. It is part of her faith that she thoroughly | understands her husband. There is a traditional theory of | spouses that one feminine generation hands down to | another, and into this theory he is simply fitted. While he | was flinging away his last cigar, and confessing his | worldliness and unworthiness, she was taking from mamma | a series of practical instructions in the great art of managing | a husband. The art is somewhat like the Egyptian art of | medicine; it is purely traditional, and it assumes a certain | absolute identity in the patients, which the patients | obstinately deny. But woman clings to it with a perfect | faith, and meets with it every problem of domestic life. | She knows the exact temper in which her spouse had better | be induced to go to the club; she knows the peculiar mood | in which he had better be let alone. The same frivolous | creature who lay sulking on a sofa because the honeymoon | was dull wastes the patience and skill of a diplomatist in | wheedling her husband out of his season on the moors. | Her life is full of difficult questions, which nothing but tact | and time can solve ~~ questions like the great question of | husbands' friends, or the greater question of husbands' | dinners. The exact proportion in which his old | acquaintances may be encouraged to relieve him of the | sense of boredom at home without detaching him | absolutely from it, the precise bounds within which his | taste for a good dinner may be satisfied without detriment | to that little bill at the milliner's ~~ these are the problems | which the poetic nature is turning over as she bids farewell | to the honeymoon. The poor iron pot has no particular fear | now of the possible consequences of a collision with the | fine porcelain. He finds himself floating whichever way he | is guided; wheedled, managed, the husband ~~ as women | tell him ~~ of an admirable wife. He does his weary round | of work, pumping up the means for carrying out her | admirable projects of social existence. But the dreams, the | romance, the poetry, the sentiment ~~ , as the | song runs, ? He thinks sometimes of other things | that turned to dust with the ashes of that last cigar. Is there | anything more poetic than woman? Is there anything more | prosaic than man?