The Clergyman's Wife and Other Sketches/Bachelorhood in Love
BACHELORHOOD IN LOVE.
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f we place beside our slight, imperfect sketch of "Maidenhood in Love," its corresponding pendant of Bachelorhood in Love, be it understood, that the latter, ruder portrait is designed solely for the contemplation of our fair young sisters throughout the land. Their lovers may naturally raise an outcry against this unceremonious lifting of the finely painted masks which they assume for the courting field, as punctiliously as knights of old, who battled for ladye love, let down their vizors for the tournament. But the alarmed wooers have little to fear from our revelations. Though we should unsparingly tear from their faces the charming counterfeit, every love-blinded maiden would refuse to recognize the beloved one's lineaments beneath; would cling to the bewitching mask, and fondly pronounce it the veritable countenance.
And yet, gentle sister, the mask your suitor wears, though it may be impalpable to you, is not less a reality. The exaltè state of mind produced by his very passion, causes—nay, compels him to practice deception; often an unintentional deception—sometimes an unconscious deception—always a fascinating deception—but not the less deception, though you believe so trustingly in its illusions. What is stranger still, your admirer, while his infatuation lasts, honestly imagines himself to be all that he seems to be to you, who look at him through the idealizing medium of love. And the universe holds no such idealizer as the glamor of this same love. Neither man nor woman is susceptible of an emotion into which the poetical element is so largely infused as love. There is no beautifier in creation so subtle and marvellous in its workings as love. Your lover sees his own image mirrored in your eyes, and is enchanted with the flattering reflection. No wonder; all the harsh lines are softened—the most insignificant features acquire character—the most sombre coloring glows with fervid hues. He may be a dull man, but your presence animates him; he may be coldly taciturn, but, by your side, his silence is eloquent; he may be rough and insensate, but to you he is all gentleness and feeling; he may be proud and self-sufficient, but at your feet he is humble and self-forgetful; he may be prosaic to the last degree, but there is voiceless poetry in his devotion to you. However narrow his nature, it expands at your touch; however frigid his temperament, it grows impassioned beneath your smile; however superficial his emotions, they are intensified by your response; however great his failings, they melt into the background in your sight; while every attractive attribute of mind or person which he actually possesses, is magnified and thrown into bold relief.
How elated you become by the ardor with which he pursues you! What obstacles will he not combat, what stratagems will he not use, what victories will he not gain over "that unspiritual god" called Circumstance, to win you! And how delightfully he fosters your love of rule by making you feel your boundless power over him. He may be a despot to all others, but he glories in becoming the slave of your wishes; he even makes laws of your wildest whims. He is enraptured by your most trifling token of favor, and deeply wounded by your lightest displeasure! A transient smile, a passing word, is to him a rich guerdon; a cold expression, an averted look, is a transfixing sword! How charmingly he gratifies your vanity by placing you high above all other women, and discovering traits and gifts that you never imagined were yours! And how entrancing you find the sphere of congeniality that encompasses you both, and draws you closer and closer in ecstatic union! You are amazed that his tastes are in such complete harmony with yours; that his views of life, his hopes and aims accord so entirely with your own; that there is such perfect sympathy between you! How can you fail of life-long happiness linked with one who is so thoroughly your counterpart—your completing self? You never dream that the sweet seeming of this temporary similarity may only have been wrought through that delusive magnetism men miscall love.
But when the inspiring excitement of pursuit is over, when the hope of gaining and the fear of losing no longer fan love's flame, when the sober realities of life take the place of rapturous anticipations, when the fancied angel descends from the clouds to which her lover's imagination lifted her, and softly takes her wingless place by his hearthstone, then, fair sister, prepare to see the mask which you resolutely ignored, drop at your feet! Nerve yourself to behold all that is unreal in the past vanish away. Be strong to bear the knowledge, if you have drawn a blank in the great blindfold lottery. Thank God, with a never-slumbering, never-exhausted gratitude if you have received that rare and sumless prize which will make you rich in heart, beyond fear of bankruptcy, during your whole existence.
When you pass from the delicious trance of courtship into the clairvoyant state of matrimony, if the apparent sympathies which existed between you and your lover gradually fade, if the accordant traits mysteriously disappear, if his fervor subside, or evince itself only by a fitful fondness, if his admiration cool, or can only be roused by some unwonted stimulus, if indifference close his eyes to your malaise, or leave him unmoved by your suffering, if he see you without seeing, and hear you without noting, if he seek any companionship, be it of man or woman, in preference to yours, if he regard you merely as a pretty toy, a useful ornament in his home; then you have been cheated with a blank, and God's mercy alone can soften your desolate doom, and strengthen you against besetting temptations, and save you from the destroying sin of filling that miserable void in your aching, yearning, unsatisfied heart, with some secret and unhallowed idol.
Young maiden, standing beneath Hope's arching rainbow, with its glory reflected upon your furrowless brow, and its light in your earnest eyes, you turn away doubtingly, yet fearingly, from this disheartening but every-day picture. See, we place another before your wishful gaze; another, as real but more rare. Your lover's transports are over, but they are succeeded by a thoughtful tenderness that unfailingly prefers your well-being to his own; his ardor changes to a steady devotion that daily increases in strength; he ceases to talk to you of his love, because it has become too deep to find, or require expression; but his actions are more eloquent than his most impassioned words have ever been. He lifts you in his strong arms above the angry waves that dash around his own feet; he takes you as a dove into his warm bosom, and shelters you from the rude winds that fiercely assail him; he is never, for a moment, oblivious of your tastes, wishes, comforts; he turns to you with a longing need for your presence; he is solitary without you, and never lonely when you are near; your companionship which was a luxury, grows an absolute necessity; he pours the history of his triumphs and failures into your cars without a doubt that you will help to bear the latter as willingly as you share the former; he thinks you as attractive when bowed down and overshadowed by sorrow as when uplifted and radiant with joy; he lingers by your side when you are prostrated by sickness, as gladly as when you are glowing with health; he fears death because it will part him from you, and prizes life because you live! The great Dispenser has entrusted to your keeping, to wear proudly, in the face of the world, the very choicest of all the earthly jewels in his vast treasury!
A pair of speaking eyes ask, "How shall we know when it is this gem of price, or its cunning imitation, which a lover offers for our acceptance?" Alas! we have no answer for that question. She who receives must pray for the power herself to distinguish between the precious stone and its glittering counterfeit.