After visiting Anna for a short time, he offered his hand. If it had not been that her sixteenth birthday was so near, Anna would have declined the offer, for Thomas Elliott did not grow dearer to her every day. There were young men whom she liked much better; and if they had only come forward and presented their claims to favour, she would have declined the offer. But time was rapidly passing away. Anna was ambitious of being engaged before she was sixteen, and married, if possible. Her mother had rejected two offers, and she was anxious to do as much. Here was a chance for one rejection—but was she sure of another offer in time? No! There was the difficulty. For some days she debated the question, and then laid it before her mother. Mrs. Wyman consulted her husband, who did not much like Elliott; but the mother felt the necessity of an early marriage, and overruled all objections. Her advice to Anna was to accept the offer, and it was accepted, accordingly.
A fond, wayward child of sixteen may chance to marry and do well, spite of all the drawbacks she will meet; but this is only in case she happen to marry a man of good sense, warm affections, and great kindness, who can bear with her as a father bears with a capricious child; can forgive much and love much. But give the happiness of such a creature into the keeping of a cold, narrow-minded, selfish, petulant man, and her cup will soon run over. Bitter, indeed, will be her lot in life.
Just such a man was Thomas Elliott. He had sought only his own pleasures, and had owned no law but his own will. For more than ten years he had been living without other external restraints than those social laws that all must observe who desire to keep a fair reputation. He came in when he pleased and went out when he pleased. He required service from all, and gave it to none—that is, so far as he needed service, he exacted it from those under him, but was not in the habit of making personal sacrifices for the sake of others. Thus, his natural selfishness was confirmed. When he married, it was with an end to the good he should derive from the union—not from a generous desire to make another happy in himself. Anna was young, vivacious, and more than ordinarily intelligent and pretty. There was much about her that was attractive, and Elliott really imagined that he loved her; but it was himself that he loved in her fascinating qualities. These were all to minister to his pleasure. He never once thought of devoting himself to her happiness.
On the night of the wedding, which took place soon after Anna's sixteenth birthday, the bride was in that bewildered state of mind which destroys all the rational perceptions of the mind. Her whole soul was in a pleasing tumult, and yet she did not feel happy; and why? Spite of the solemn promise she had made to love and honour her husband above all men, she felt that there were others whom she could have loved and honoured more than him, were they in his place. But this, reason told her, was folly. They had not presented themselves, and he had. They could be nothing to her—he must be every thing. To secure a husband early was the great point, and that had been gained. This thought, whenever it crossed her mind, would cause her to look around upon her maiden companions with proud self-complacency, They were still upon the shores of expectancy. She had launched her boat upon the sunny sea of matrimony, and was already moving steadily away under a pleasant breeze.
Alas! young bride, thy hymeneal altar is an altar of sacrifice. Love is not the deity who is presiding there. Little do they dream who have led thee, poor lamb! garlanded with flowers, to that altar, how innocent, how true, how good a heart they were offering up upon its strange fires. But they will know in time, and thou wilt know when it is too late.
Two years from the period of their marriage, Elliott and his wife were seated in a small room moderately well furnished. He was leaning back in a chair, with arms folded, and his chin resting on his bosom. His face was contracted into a gloomy scowl. Anna, who looked pale and troubled, was sewing and touching with her foot a cradle, in which was a babe. The little one seemed restless. Every now and then it would start and moan, or cry out. After a time it awoke and commenced screaming. The mother lifted it from the cradle and tried to hush it upon her bosom, but the babe still cried on. It was evidently in pain.
"Confound you! why don't you keep that child quiet?" exclaimed the husband, impatiently casting at the same time an angry look upon his wife.
Anna made no reply, but turned half away from him, evidently to conceal the tears that suddenly started from her eyes, and strove more earnestly to quiet the child. In this she soon succeeded.
"I believe you let her cry on purpose, whenever I am in the house, just to annoy me," her husband resumed in an ill-natured tone.
"No, Thomas, you know that I do not," Anna said.
"Say I lie, why don't you?"
"Oh, Thomas, how can you speak so to me?" And his young wife turned toward him an earnest, tearful look.
"Pah! don't try to melt me with your crying. I never believed in it.
Women can cry at any moment."
There was a convulsive motion of Mrs. Elliott's head as she turned quickly away, and a choking sound in her throat. She remained silent, ten minutes passed, when her husband said in a firm voice,
"Anna, I'm going to break up."
Mrs. Elliott glanced around with a startled air.
"It's true, just what I say—your father may think that I'm going to make a slave of myself to support you, but he's mistaken. He's refused to help me in my business one single copper, though he's able enough. And now I've taken my resolution. You can go back to him as quick as you like."
Before the brutal husband had half finished the sentence, his wife was on her feet, with a cheek deadly pale, and eyes almost starting from her head. Thomas Elliott was her husband and the father of her babe, and as such she had loved him with a far deeper love than he had deserved. This had caused her to bear with coldness and neglect, and even positive unkindness without a complaint. Sacredly had she kept from her mother even a hint of the truth. Thus had she gone on almost from the first; for only a few months elapsed before she discovered that her image was dim on her husband's heart.
"You needn't stand there staring at me like one moon-struck"—he said, with bitter sarcasm and a curl of the lip. "What I say is the truth. I'm going to give up, and you've got to go home to them that are more able to support you than I am; and who have a better right, too, I'm thinking."
There was something so heartless and chilling in the words and manner of her husband, that Mrs. Elliott made no attempt to reply. Covering her face with her hands, she sunk back into the chair from which she had risen, more deeply miserable than she had ever been in her life. From this state she was aroused by the imperative question,
"Anna, what do you intend doing?"
"That is for you to say"—was her murmured reply.
"Then, I say, go home to your father, and at once."
Without a word the wife rose from her chair, with her infant in her arms, and pausing only long enough to put on her shawl and bonnet, left the house.
Mr. and Mrs. Wyman were sitting alone late on the afternoon of the same day, thinking about and conversing of their child. Neither of them felt too well satisfied with the result of her marriage. It required not even the close observation of a parent's eye, to discover that she was far from happy.
"I wish she were only single"—Mr. Wyman at length said. "She married much too young—only eighteen now, and with a cold-hearted and, I fear, unprincipled and neglectful husband. It is sad to think of it."
"But I was married as young as she was, Mr. Wyman?"
"Yes; but I flatter myself you made a better choice. Your condition at eighteen was very different from what hers is now. As I said before, I only wish she were single, and then I wouldn't care to see her married for two or three years to come."
"I can't help wishing she had refused Mr. Elliott. If she had done so, she might have been married to a much better man long before this. Mr. Carpenter is worth a dozen of him. Oh dear! this marriage is all a lottery, after all. Few prizes and many blanks. Poor Anna! she is not happy."
At this moment the door opened, and the child of whom they were speaking, with her infant in her arms, came hurriedly in. Her face was deadly pale, her lips tightly compressed, and her eyes widely distended and fixed.
"Anna!" exclaimed the mother, starting up quickly and springing toward her.
"My child, what ails you?" was eagerly asked by the father, as he, too, rose up hastily.
But there was no reply. The heart of the child was too full. She could not utter the truth. She had been sent back to her parents by her husband, but her tongue could not declare that! Pride, shame, wounded affections, combined to hold back her words. Her only reply was to lay her babe in her mother's arms, and then fling herself upon the bosom of her father.
All was mystery then, but time soon unveiled the cause of their daughter's strange and sudden appearance, and her deep anguish. The truth gradually came out that she had been deserted by her husband; or, what seemed to Mrs. Wyman more disgraceful still, had been sent home by him. Bitterly did she execrate him, but it availed nothing. Her ardent wish had been gratified. Anna was engaged at sixteen, and married soon after; but at eighteen, alas! she had come home a deserted wife and mother! And so she remained. Her husband never afterward came near her. And now, at thirty, with a daughter well grown, she remains in her father's house, a quiet, thoughtful, dreamy woman, who sees little in life that is attractive, and who rarely stirs beyond the threshold of the house that shelters her. There are those who will recognise this picture.
So much for being engaged at sixteen!
THE DAUGHTER
IT often happens that a daughter possesses greatly superior advantages to those enjoyed, in early years, by either her father or mother. She is not compelled to labour as hard as they were obliged to labour when young; and she is blessed with the means of education far beyond what they had. Her associations, too, are of a different order, all tending to elevate her views of life, to refine her tastes, and to give her admission into a higher grade of society than they were fitted to move in.
Unless very watchful of herself and very thoughtful of her parents, a daughter so situated will be led at times to draw comparisons between her own cultivated intellect and taste and the want of such cultivation in her parents, and to think indifferently of them, as really inferior, because not so well educated and accomplished as she is. A distrust of their judgment and a disrespect of their opinions will follow, as a natural consequence, if these thoughts and feelings be indulged. This result often takes place with thoughtless, weak-minded girls; and is followed by what is worse, a disregard to their feelings, wishes, and express commands.
A sensible daughter, who loves her parents, will hardly forget to whom she is indebted for all the superior advantages she enjoys. She will also readily perceive that the experience which her parents have acquired, and their natural strength of mind, give them a real and great superiority over her, and make their judgment, in all matters of life, far more to be depended upon than hers could possibly be. It may be that her mother has never learned to play upon the piano, has never been to a dancing-school, has never had any thing beyond the merest rudiments of an education; but she has good sense, prudence, industry, economy; understands and practises all the virtues of domestic life; has a clear, discriminating judgment; has been her husband's faithful friend and adviser for some twenty or thirty years; and has safely guarded and guided her children up to mature years. These evidences of a mother's title to her respect and fullest confidence cannot long be absent from a daughter's mind, and will prevent her acting in direct opposition to her judgment.
Thoughtless indeed must be that child who can permit an emotion of disrespect toward her parents to dwell in her bosom for more than a single moment!
Respect and love toward parents are absolutely necessary to the proper formation of the character upon that true basis which will bring into just order and subordination all the powers of the mind. Without this order and subordination there can be no true happiness. A child loves and respects his parents, because from them he derived his being, and from them receives every blessing and comfort. To them, and to them alone, does his mind turn as the authors of all the good gifts he possessed. As a mere child, it is right for him thus to regard his parents as the authors of his being and the originators of all his blessings. But as reason gains strength, and he sees more deeply into the nature and causes of things, which only takes place as the child approaches the years of maturity, it is then seen that the parents were only the agents through which life, and all the blessings accompanying it, came from God, the great Father of all. If the parents have been loved with a truly filial love, then the mind has been suitably opened and prepared for love toward God, and an obedience to his divine laws, without which there can be no true happiness. When this new and higher truth takes possession of the child's mind, it in no way diminishes his respect for his earthly parents, but increases it. He no longer obeys them because they command obedience, but he regards the truth of their precepts, and in that truth hears the voice of God speaking to him. More than ever is he now careful to listen to their wise counsels, because he perceives in them the authority of reason, which is the authority of God.
Most young ladies, on attaining the age of responsibility, will perceive a difference in the manner of their parents. Instead of opposing them, as heretofore, with authority, they will oppose them with reason, where opposition is deemed necessary. The mother, instead of saying, when she disapproves any thing, "No, my child, you cannot do it;" or, "No you must not go, dear;" will say, "I would rather not have you do so;" or, "I do not approve of your going." If you ask her reasons, she will state them, and endeavour to make you comprehend their force. It is far too often the case, that the daughter's desire to do what her mother disapproves is so active, that neither her mother's objections nor reasons are strong enough to counteract her wishes, and she follows her own inclinations instead of being guided by her mother's better judgment. In these instances, she almost always does wrong, and suffers therefore either bodily or mental pain.
Obedience in childhood is that by which we are led and guided into right actions. When we become men and women, reason takes the place of obedience; but, like a young bird just fluttering from its nest, reason at first has not much strength of wing; and we should therefore suffer the reason of those who love us, like the mother-bird, to stoop under and bear us up in our earlier efforts, lest we fall bruised and wounded to the ground. To whose reason should a young girl look to strengthen her own, so soon as to her mother's, guided as it is by love? But it too often happens that, under the first impulses of conscious freedom, no voice is regarded but the voice of inclination and passion. The mother may oppose, and warn, and urge the most serious considerations, but the daughter turns a deaf ear to all. She thinks that she knows best.
"You are not going to-night, Mary?" said a mother, coming into her daughter's room, and finding her dressing for a ball. She had been rather seriously indisposed for some days, with a cold that had fallen upon her throat and chest, which was weak, but was now something better.
"I think I will, mother, for I am much better than I was yesterday, and have improved since morning. I have promised myself so much pleasure at this ball, that I cannot think of being disappointed."
The mother shook her head.
"Mary," she replied, "you are not well enough to go out. The air is damp, and you will inevitably take more cold. Think how badly your throat has been inflamed."
"I don't think it has been so very bad, mother."
"The doctor told me it was badly inflamed, and said you would have to be very careful of yourself, or it might prove serious."
"That was some days ago. It is a great deal better now."
"But the least exposure may cause it to return."
"I will be very careful not to expose myself. I will wrap up warm and go in a carriage. I am sure there is not the least danger, mother."
"While I am sure that there is very great danger. You cannot pass from the door to the carriage, without the damp air striking upon your face, and pressing into your lungs."
"But I must not always exclude myself from the air, mother. Air and exercise, you know, the doctor says, are indispensable to health."
"Dry, not damp air. This makes the difference. But you must act for yourself, Mary. You are now a woman, and must freely act in the light of that reason which God has given you. Because I love you, and desire your welfare, I thus seek to convince you that it is wrong to expose your health to-night. Your great desire to go blinds you to the real danger, which I can fully see."
"You are over-anxious, mother," urged Mary. "I know how I feel much better than you possibly can, and I know I am well enough to go."
"I have nothing more to say, my child," returned the mother. "I wish you to act freely, but wisely. Wisely I am sure you will not act if you go to-night. A temporary illness may not alone be the consequence; your health may receive a shock from which it will never recover."
"Mother wishes to frighten me," said Mary to herself, after her mother had left the room. "But I am not to be so easily frightened. I am sorry she makes such a serious matter about my going, for I never like to do any thing that is not agreeable to her feelings. But I must go to this ball. William is to call for me at eight, and he would be as much disappointed as myself if I were not to go. As to making more cold, what of that? I would willingly pay the penalty of a pretty severe cold rather than miss the ball."
Against all her mother's earnestly urged objections, Mary went with her lover to the ball. She came home, at one o'clock, with a sharp pain through her breast, red spots on her cheeks, oppression of the chest, and considerable fever. On the next morning she was unable to rise from her bed. When the doctor, who was sent for, came in, he looked grave, and asked if there had been any exposure by which a fresh cold could be taken.
"She was at the ball last night," replied the mother.
"Not with your approval, madam?" he said quickly, looking with a stern expression into the mother's face.
"No, doctor. I urged her not to go; but Mary thought she knew best.
She did not believe there was any danger."
A strong expression rose to the doctor's lips, but he repressed it, lest he should needlessly alarm the patient. On retiring from her chamber, he declared the case to be a very critical one; and so it proved to be. Mary did not leave her room for some months; and when she did, it was with a constitution so impaired that she could not endure the slightest fatigue, nor bear the least exposure. Neither change of climate nor medicine availed any thing toward restoring her to health. In this feeble state she married, about twelve months afterward, the young man who had accompanied her to the ball. One year from the period at which that happy event took place, she died, leaving to stranger hands a babe that needed all her tenderest care, and a husband almost broken-hearted at his loss.
This is not merely a picture from the imagination, and highly coloured. It is from nature, and every line is drawn with the pencil of truth. Hundreds of young women yearly sink into the grave, whose friends can trace to some similar act of imprudence, committed in direct opposition to the earnest persuasions of parents or friends, the cause of their premature decay and death. And too often other, and sometimes even worse, consequences than death, follow a disregard of the mother's voice of warning.