The Clergyman's Wife and Other Sketches/Long Engagements
LONG ENGAGEMENTS.
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hen the heart surrenders, confirm the blushing promise quickly at the altar's foot!" is the adjuration of every enamored suitor, eager for the climax of the wedding-ring.
But the maiden who reflects will respond with no hasty "amen" to that fond prayer. Reflects? does not King Oberon still walk the earth, performing as fantastic and amazing feats with his magical flower as in the days of Bully Bottom? And did woman ever reflect after the fairy monarch had stolen upon her slumbers and pressed the juice of his purple blossom upon her folded lids? The portals of her heart open with her eyes, when the latter have once received that mystic flower's touch, and the eyes take in and the heart enthrones the being first looked upon. Let him wear what shape he may, he is transformed and glorified to her vision by Love's glamor. That moment Reason is unceremoniously thrust out of doors. In vain she clamors to be heard, and warns the infatuated fair one against precipitancy; in vain she reminds her that her happiness is more easily perilled than man's; that her susceptibilities are keener, that her sufferings will be greater, that her risks are a thousand-fold more numerous. Love fashions a fool's-cap out of his madrigals to bind it upon Reason's brow, and from that hour she passes for Folly.
Goldsmith's "Citizen of the World" quaintly remarks that "marriage has been compared to a game of skill for life; it is generous, then, in both parties to declare that they are sharpers in the beginning. In England, I am told, both sides use every art to conceal their defects from each other before marriage, and the rest of their lives may be regarded as doing penance for their former dissimulation."
Is this a malicious slander or a rudely-expressed truth? Are not lovers, all the world over, zealously engaged in cheating each other? Does not the very state of mental exaltation, produced by an absorbing affection give birth to unpremeditated deception? Nay, has not love, in the dawn of its existence, a beautifying influence upon the whole constitution of man's soul? Are not commonplace minds elevated and rendered poetic by its refining power? What, then, must be its effect upon spirits of finer mould!
The period of an open, prosperous betrothal is the blossoming season of life. The sun of a pure passion calls forth the fairest flowers upon every tree, and the air is filled with the melody of birds carolling joyful promises from the branches. In the sunshine of bright illusions, the exhilarating atmosphere of alternate hopes and fears, the heart glows and swells and takes in all creation with unwonted tenderness; the dullest prospects are tinged with orient hues; the simplest incidents communicate a thrill of joy; Nature puts on her gala dress to welcome the enamored pair wherever they wander, and shakes down odorous tributes upon their heads from every bough.
And it is well. It is better for the soul, even when love is misplaced, to give a boundless devotion, than to entertain a tame affection for an object worthy of the whole wealth of the heart.
The man of her choice is always a hero to a woman who loves heartily; and her fond fancy invests him with an abundance of captivating attributes, which possibly have not the most shadowy existence out of her imagination. On the other hand Shakspeare tells us that to men "women are angels wooing." But O! the bitter disenchantment if, in the glare of Hymen's torch, the ideal charms vanish away, the mantle of glory falls from the hero's shoulders, and the "angel" at whose shrine the lover devoutly worshipped, stands before him a most terrestrial being, full of failings, wants, caprices, inconsistencies!
Unconsciously his eyes must then forget his voice must lose
the roses of her bridal chaplet must wither and leave a martyr's crown of thorns upon the brow they encircled.
The probation of a long engagement is the surest talisman against this rude dissolving of the spell that surrounds lovers. During the interval their various phases of character are revealed by unforeseen chances—by life's inevitable mutations; and, being discovered at this blissful period when no life-shackle makes endurance compulsory, even grave faults and temper-trying peculiarities are readily tolerated and excused. Mental angularities are worn away and rounded off to a graceful smoothness, by the attrition of constant association. Their souls become attuned to the same key. The indispensable lesson of mutual forbearance is conned betimes. Love has leisure allowed him to build his temple upon the rock of perfect trust which no storm can shake. The flashing flame of enthusiam, by which its shrine was illumined at consecration, is gradually replaced by that steady, holy light, which fiercest gales cannot extinguish. Good spirits have whispered to the wife-elect that she will need Martha's executive hands, and Mary's appreciating soul, to keep those altars swept and garnished, and have murmured in her partner's ear that he must reign within those walls with Solomon's wisdom and Jacob's patience. Thus the prolonged betrothal is often the tuneful prelude to a harmonious union, with no harsh discords to disturb its life-long melody.
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