CHAPTER XXXVI
MAMMIES AND GRANNIES
Cupboard love – Every kind of love is more or less selfish except maternal love – Maternal love over-rated – If you never had a grannie, do get one – Reminiscences of grannies – A sacrifice – Grannies are not at all prejudiced in favour of their grandchildren
Every kind of love is more or less cupboard love. I mean to say that love, whatever form it may assume, requires, or, at any rate, expects, some equivalent for it in return in the shape of affection, happiness, or pleasure. I only make one exception in favour of maternal love. The most loving sweetheart, husband, wife, or child expects to be loved, almost demands it. The loving mother expects nothing, demands nothing.
A mother will love her child, however bad that child may be, however unloving and ungrateful, whatever unhappiness and even sorrow he or she may cause to her. A mother will love and bless a child whom the whole world has condemned. A mother's love and forgiveness will follow a child to the scaffold. There is no limit to it. It is infinite.
Maternal love, far above others, is the very sentiment that keeps us in touch with heaven. It is the only holy love.
And that love is so inborn in woman that you see it already written on the face of the little girl who plays with her doll. It is so inborn in woman that I find something incongruous in such a remark as, 'She was a good and loving mother!' All mothers are good and loving. All rules have exceptions, but this one has none.
Therefore it is no extraordinary testimonial for a woman to be fond of her children, because all mothers are fond of their children and good to them, even the fiercest and cruellest of animals. The feeling is given to them by Nature. We all profit by it, we are all happier for it. For being able to dispense maternal love, woman is to be admired and blessed, but not congratulated. A child is part and parcel of a mother. In loving her child, a woman loves part of herself. It is not selfishness, but, somehow, a little self-love. In her love for her child, whether returned or not, she finds happiness.
But for disinterestedness, never mind mammie: give me grannie's love. God ought to spare grandmammas; they never ought to die, the dear, lovely grannies!
'Haven't you a grandma?' once asked a little boy of another. 'No? Well, you should get one!' True, no child should be without one.
Victor Hugo said he submitted to one tyranny only, that of children. The author of 'The Art of being Grandfather' was right: that tyranny ought not only to be submitted to, but proclaimed. And who better than a grandmother will submit to the tyranny of a child? The sacrifices they will be capable of are superhuman, epic. I know one who charms away the last days of her life by a dainty little supper of biscuit and cream-cheese brought to her every day. She never now comes down in the evening, and that frugal repast is taken up to her when dinner is about over.
Her little granddaughter once came up to her room crying bitterly. She was in disgrace, and had been sent away from table before the appearance of the pudding.
'Grannie,' she said, 'I am not to have any pudding; you ought not to have your cream-cheese.'
'But, darling,' pleaded grandmamma, throwing a loving glance at the little dish of her predilection, 'I haven't been naughty.'
'Never mind; you ought not to have any when your little girl cannot have any pudding.' And the little tyrant cried more bitterly than ever.
Grannie rang the bell, ordered the favourite cream-cheese to be taken away, and, drying the little girl's tears, supped that night off a bit of bread-and-butter.
Antiquity has not recorded anything like it.
People say that mothers are prejudiced in favour of their children. Of course they are. We are all of us prejudiced in favour of what belongs to us, especially if it is of our own manufacture. But for the opinion held of a child, give me grannie's – that is sublime.
Once a lady of my acquaintance, on a visit to her mother, was in the drawing-room with her own little girl on her knees. Grandmamma, in ecstasy, was worshipping baby, challenging the world to produce such another. A lady called, took some notice of the child, and talked a great deal about her own baby, a great deal too much to please grandmamma, at any rate. When the visitor had gone, the dear old lady gave expression to her feelings:
'How silly women are, to be sure! Did you hear that woman talk and talk about her child? Good heavens! one would imagine, to hear her praise her baby, that there was no such a one in the world.'
And she laughed heartily at the presumption of that silly, conceited young mother.
'But, grandmamma,' quickly said my lady friend, 'you must forgive her. I have heard you many times declare that this, our baby, was by far the best and finest the world has ever seen.'
'Ah, my dear,' replied grannie, not in the least disconcerted and in absolute earnestness, 'that's quite different. In our case it's the truth, and no one could deny it.'
Certainly not! Who would dare?
The love of a grandmother, with its delightful weaknesses, with that complete collapse of all power of resistance to a child, is no sign of senility; it is only the love of a mother multiplied by two.
CHAPTER XXXVII
ON MOTHERS-IN-LAW
How to deal with them – Difference between a misfortune and an accident – 'That will spoil the whole thing' – Shoot her!
Adam, they say, must have been a happy man: he had no mother-in-law.
I once heard a Frenchman give the following definition of the difference that exists between an accident and a misfortune. Suppose you walk along the bank of a river in the company of your mother-in-law. If she should fall into the water and be drowned, it is an accident; if she fall into the water and be pulled out alive, it is a misfortune.
The mother-in-law is not dreaded in England. An English mother has no authority over her son: how could she dream of having any over a son-in-law? The mother-in-law is an object of terror in France, where the ascendancy of woman over man is a powerful factor in the social life of the country.
The French woman leads her husband by the nose, and her sons are submissive to her as long as they remain unmarried, and even when they are married they remain more or less under her influence until she dies. That French mother is queen at home, and when she sees that her daughter has started an establishment of her own, she generally at once goes there to settle for a little while, sometimes for a long while, to put her daughter up to a few points about the management of man.
That often causes difficulties and spoils the game; but as nine times out of ten the young wife will take her mother's part in any little unpleasantness that may arise, the husband submits. He knows that the mother-in-law is the drawback of matrimony. He has taken his wife for better and for worse, and 'worse' includes mamma. The bargain is fair. He has signed, and he honours his signature. Besides, he has a consolation, that of knowing that his mother-in-law will give his wife plenty of good and useful advice on housekeeping, teach her economy, and be ever ready to come to her help in times of need.
I know very little of private life in America, but I know, at all events, the supremacy of woman in social and family life, and, therefore, I should feel inclined to suspect the American mother-in-law to be as unpopular as the French one. The most striking point of resemblance between America and France is the way in which women treat men and are treated by them.
Was it not in America that I heard the following story? A man enjoyed the possession of a beautiful and loving wife and a very uncongenial mother-in-law. The latter fell ill, and her daughter went to nurse her. At last the husband one day received the following telegram: 'Mother dead; shall we have her embalmed, cremated, or buried?' The husband wired back: 'Do the three; take no chance.'
How like the following, which is French: A man loses his wife. As the funeral is about to leave the house he is ushered into the first mourning-carriage. His mother-in-law is there. 'I cannot, I will not go in that carriage!' he exclaims. 'My mother-in-law is in it.' 'But you must,' he is told; 'you are the husband of the corpse.' 'Must I?' he says. 'Well, if I must I will, but it will spoil the whole thing.'
I have always wondered how it is that men so much complain of their mothers-in-law and that women so seldom do. Poor, dear little women! They do have mothers-in-law, too – mothers-in-law to find fault with their housekeeping, and to remind them that before they married their sons were attended at home by most devoted sisters. The mother-in-law of a man, no doubt, is often in the way. You sometimes wish she was not there, but with a little diplomacy you can manage her, and even get rid of her.
I recommend the following plan; it proved a big success with a friend of mine. A short time after his marriage his mother-in-law arrived and installed herself in his house. My friend welcomed her, and lavished the most assiduous attentions upon her. He was not a church-goer; he went to church, and insisted on carrying the excellent lady's books of devotion. When a walk was taken, it was to her he offered his arm. 'Your mother is old,' he said to his wife, 'and so kind, too! I am getting awfully fond of her.' In the evening, after his wife had retired, he sat up with his mother-in-law and took a hand at piquet. At the end of the week the mamma-in-law had vanished as if by magic. The young and neglected wife had managed the affair.
But for a woman to get rid of her mother-in-law I am afraid I have no advice to offer, not even that offered by the greatest French dramatist, Victorien Sardou, who says in that delightful play 'Seraphine': 'If ever you have to choose between living with your mother-in-law or shooting yourself, do not hesitate a single moment – shoot her.'
CHAPTER XXXVIII
ON WIDOWS
Women do have grievances – Various specimens of widows – The jolly widow – The inconsolate widow – The plump widow – Marriageable widows – Mourning and black – Last wills and testaments – How long should a widow mourn her husband? – 'You should have seen me yesterday!'
Mothers-in-law are for ever a target for men's sarcasms. Stepmothers are supposed to be the embodiment of everything that is mean. On the other hand, I have never heard fathers-in-law turned into ridicule, and stepfathers are invariably painted by novelists as unselfish, devoted men who come to the rescue of widows, and help them to bring up their children in comfort and happiness.
Poor women do have grievances, and no mistake!
And the widows – oh, the widows! Now, what have they done that they should be the butts for the jokes that are made at their expense? Why should they provoke the sarcasms and excite the scorn of men instead of their pity or, at all events, their kind sympathy?
If a widow's grief is great and she wears the deepest mourning, she is called an 'inconsolable, desolate widow,' and people smile, saying with a sneer: 'She will soon be cured.' If she bears up bravely and well, she is called a 'jolly widow,' and people say: 'She is already better.' If she remains amiable and attractive, she is immediately baptized a 'wily widow,' and if her good constitution is such that even her sorrows and worries do not make her get thin, but the contrary, she is called a 'plump widow,' and people wink. And all the time the widower escapes scot-free. Men respect his sadness, are prepared to write odes about him if he remain faithful to the memory of his wife, and send him hearty congratulations if he remarry. Never a smile; no sarcasm, no scorn!
What awful cowards men are! And what surpasses me is that, as a rule, women are to be found who join them in all the jovial remarks that are passed on widows.
However, widows are not altogether without their revenge. They get many advantages. They have the best of young girls in the matrimonial market. The most-courted woman in the world is the rich young widow. She has a fascination that very few unmarried women possess, and many men prefer her. Why? Don't ask me. Widows know the world, have experience in dealing with men. There are teachers, destitute of patience, who prefer advanced pupils to beginners. Mere laziness, my dear friends, nothing else!
Men are so conceited, too! If they were not, how would they dare marry a widow and constantly run the risk of being found far less loving, pleasant, and attractive than number one was? It is true that if, after a quarrel, a man's wife should exclaim, 'How I do regret my first husband!' he would have a chance to cure her of that expression, by remarking quietly: 'My dear, you will never regret him as much as I do!' But all this does not suggest to the mind a happy condition of matrimonial affairs.
Widows are less marriageable in England than in other countries, for this reason: that their husbands, in their wills, almost invariably stipulate that they leave so much to their wives on the condition that they will not remarry. If they do, they forfeit everything. Of course, to a certain extent, I understand that a man does not feel anxious to know that if, by his industry and carefulness, he has succeeded in amassing a plump little fortune, Smith, Brown, or Robinson will one day enjoy it in the company of his wife. Still, why not? What does it matter? If his wife has been good to him and she is still young when he dies, why should he condemn her to solitude for the rest of her days? What good does it do to him, when he is under the grass, to have his wife lonely and miserable? If I were a woman ever so fond of my husband, I would so much resent that stipulation that I would tear his will in pieces and marry the first respectable and attractive man who sought my hand.
Compared to the Englishman who makes such a will, how I admire that Frenchman who penned the following one: 'I leave to my dear wife, for her sole and absolute use, everything I possess and everything I may become possessed of. She may remain a widow or remarry, just as she pleases. I am not afraid of competition!' I cannot help thinking that this is the proper way to treat a woman who has been a true friend to you, the partaker of your pleasures, of your joys and sorrows, and that, on leaving her, you may as well pay her the compliment of taking it for granted that she will know what is best for her and act accordingly.
In France, a widow wears deep mourning for her husband during a year, and half mourning during another year. Many a French widow wears mourning during her lifetime. For that matter, there is no country in the world where mourning is worn so long as in France, in the provinces especially, where half the population is in black for somebody or other. This outside show of grief may be exaggerated, for real mourning is worn in the heart, not in the clothes; yet if a French widow in a small provincial town should shorten her widow's veil by an inch, people would say: 'If she never cared for her husband, she might have the decency not to advertise the fact and fish already for another!' And you have to conform to the usages of a country, especially when you live in one which, like provincial France, is built of glass houses.
How long should a widow mourn the loss of her husband?
Two days after the funeral of her husband, a young widow received the visit of a friend, who remarked, on seeing the sadness engraven on her face:
'Poor dear! how sad, how haggard you look!'
'Ah, dear, that's nothing,' sighed the young widow; 'you should have seen me yesterday!'
As a rule husbands are mourned as long as they deserve.
And so are we all.
CHAPTER XXXIX
ON OLD MAIDS
Different types of old maids – Many of them are undisguised blessings – Few men are good enough for women – Old bachelors and old maids
Next to the mother-in-law, the stepmother, and the widow, it is the old maid who comes in for the largest share of scorn and sarcasm, and this is all the more mean that, nine times out of ten, she is not responsible for her position. The more generous-minded call her 'unclaimed blessing,' but many are found, women amongst them, who whisper 'Cat!' And all this is perhaps nothing compared to 'ancient spinster.'
I cannot help thinking, however, that feelings of quite a different nature ought to be entertained towards the old maid. If it is owing to her bad looks or her poverty that her hand has not been sought, or if she was once engaged to be married and then jilted and disgusted out of all idea of ever marrying, she should be pitied. If she has had offers of marriage and has declined them, she should be respected for not having married a man she could not love. If she was once engaged, and her lover died, she should be admired for wishing to remain faithful to his memory. If she simply wished to remain free and independent and use her fortune, as many old maids do, in philanthropic work, she should be blessed. If she refused to accept matrimony as a means of livelihood (the hardest and most thankless of all), her example should be followed. And, finally, if there do exist old maids crabby, sulky, peevish, selfish, and with all the other defects that are generally and most ungenerously attributed to old maids, they should be thanked by a grateful community for having spared men the risk of leading with them a life of wretchedness and misery.
I am of opinion that old maids and widows should inspire nothing but generous feelings of sympathy in the heart of man. Old maids are the wallflowers of that great dancing-party which is called Life. Let men who have overlooked them and women who have found partners be charitable, and let men whom they declined to associate with in the bonds of matrimony be gentlemanly, manly enough to take no mean revenge by scorning them.
No doubt there are despicable old maids – women who shirk all their duties in life, and on whom not even a dog or a parrot depends for its happiness, but they are the great exception, and for selfishness and self-indulgence I should decidedly feel inclined to give the palm to old bachelors. Some old maids are the comfort of parents in their old age, others are the devoted mothers of brothers' and sisters' children, while others are the friends of the poor and the nurses of the sick.
A great prejudice on the subject of old maids is that they are poor forlorn creatures, who spend their lives wailing and mourning over the absence of that man who never proposed. There is nothing to mourn over in that. It is no loss, nothing to regret; not more than one man out of ten is worth having. Most old maids ought to spend their lives in glee and gratitude for a narrow escape. I know very little about women, but I am afraid I do a great deal about men, and it is my firm conviction, and I will express it with all the frankness, all the brutality I am capable of, that there are very few men indeed who are good enough for women.
I know of nothing more pleasant than the company of a jolly, broad-minded, intelligent old maid, who knows that she can let herself 'go' and be a good 'pal' to you, without running the risk of hearing remarks passed of a more or less objectionable character. I know of nothing more enjoyable than the pleasure of such an old maid's company. I count old maids among my most cheerful and companionable friends.
The old bachelor is a social failure, a sort of rebellious outcast, who ought to pay an income-tax of ten shillings in the pound. But the old maid who is bright, clever, cheerful, generous, charitable, hospitable, is an ornament to society and one of its most useful members.
CHAPTER XL
SHOULD PEOPLE REMARRY?
The excuse most people give for remarrying – St. Peter's opinion of men who have been married more than once – Stepmothers
In some countries of the Far East the question has been settled, so far as women are concerned: they burn their widows. In many places much nearer home it is not unfrequent to hear the opinion expressed that widows should be disposed of as in Malabar. Our genial friend Mr. Sam Weller, senior, entertained, on the subject, views which did not much differ from those of the sages of Malabar.
In the case of widowers I should feel inclined to answer the question in the negative. If you have been happy in your first marriage, do not risk comparisons which might be odious. If you have been unhappy, do not ask for a second dose. In both cases, therefore, I come to the conclusion that the answer should be, Don't!
People who remarry, men or women, have invariably the same excuse. They apologize by saying that they take the important step for their children's sake. If they were to follow their own inclination, they would spend the rest of their natural lives weeping over the graves of the beloved defunct, but they must not be selfish and think of themselves alone, they must remember that they have children who depend on them for their welfare, and they are ready to do their duty and sacrifice their own inclinations and feelings. The devotion of which the human heart is capable, man's especially, will save the race from oblivion when it is gone from the earth.
A widower who remarries invariably reminds his friends that children should be brought up under the sweet and beneficial care of a woman, and he tells them that he remarries to give a mother to his dear little ones – nine times out of ten an indifferent one, and not unfrequently a bad one. If he has no children, he says he is so lonely that he must have a companion, also a housekeeper, and he gives you to understand that all this is 'en tout bien, tout honneur.' And he says it to his friends, and he repeats it to himself so often that he finishes by believing it is so.
The widow with children will tell you that she cannot support her children and that she wants a protector for them and for herself. And she often speaks the truth. At any rate, if you listen to them all, not one will ever tell you frankly that he remarries because he has fallen in love with a woman, and she because she has met a man who appeals to her fancy. When people apologize for what they do, I always suspect them of having done something of which they are not particularly proud, if not absolutely ashamed.
No man has ever been in the next world and returned to earth to tell his fellow-creatures what he saw there except Lazarus; but his contemporaries neglected to interview him, and we are as much in the dark on the subject as if he had never left his grave. However, there is a rumour, in Catholic countries at all events, that St. Peter admits all married men, without any other qualification than the fact that they were married and, therefore, had their purgatory on earth, but that he invariably and rigorously turns out any man who has been married more than once. It is said that, when they protest, suggesting that if he lets in men who have been married once and have thus had their purifying martyrdom on earth, surely he ought to let them in who have been married more than once, he slams the door in their faces, saying: 'Do you take this place for a lunatic asylum?'
I know a Scotchman who, the other day, married his fourth wife. He is only sixty-seven years old, and no widow or old maid should give up hope in the little village of five hundred inhabitants where he lives. He is proud to say that he has never taken a wife out of that village. All his wives have made him happy, and he has made them all happy, as you can ascertain from the epitaphs he has written himself on the tombstone that stands over the grave where they are all at rest in chronological order. He specially praises them for the love and care they bestowed on the children of those that went before.
I believe, in spite of what is said, that such a thing as a good stepmother can be found. Stepmothers, like mothers-in-law, get more abuse than they deserve.
I know stepmothers who have been devoted mothers to their husband's children. I even know some who had children of their own, and who continued to be excellent mothers to the children by a former wife; but it is expecting too much of a woman to ask her to love other people's children as dearly as she does her own. Two broods will seldom live happily huddled together in the same nest. If it sometimes happens to be so, it is the exception.
The world is crowded with young girls who have preferred a rough life of toil and misery to living with cold, indifferent stepmothers, who made them keenly feel the loss they had sustained when their own mothers died.
When the children are grown up, there is no excuse for a man to remarry. Yet he sometimes marries a young girl, but then it is, on his part, a sacrifice again. He wants to give a companion and a playfellow to his daughters, and, to attain that end, he does not hesitate to commit an infamy. Sometimes he marries an old one, and commits an act of profanity, of lèse amour. A man, fond of his wife, does not see her grow old; but no woman above fifty can inspire in a man of any age any other sentiments than those of friendship and respect. He may be the friend of such a woman, but he should not be her husband.
We might philosophize at great length on such topics.
I loathe giving advice, yet I cannot refrain from saying as much as this: If either a widower or a widow fall in love again, let them remarry by all means; but if the real inducement is the love of their children, let them, for the sake of Heaven, for the very sake of their children, engage the services of a good, motherly housekeeper. This has invariably proved to answer very well.