The Wedding Guest | Page 3

future husband can never
degenerate thus. He has one virtue which will preserve him as he is for
ever. A deep sense, an indestructible feeling for everything that is great
and good and noble, dwells in his bosom. And this delicate
susceptibility to all that is noble dwells in me also, I hope, as well as in
him. This is the innate pledge and security for our happiness."
"But if it should grow old with you; if it should change to hateful
excitability; and excitability is the worst enemy of matrimony. You
both possess sensibility. That I do not deny; but beware lest this grace
should degenerate into an irritable and quarrelsome mortal."
"Ah, Dearest aunt, if I might never become old! I could then be sure
that my husband would never cease to love me."
"Thou art greatly in error, dear child! Wert thou always as fresh and
beautiful as to-day, still thy husband's eye would by custom of years
become indifferent to these advantages. Custom is the greatest
enchantress in the world, and in the house one of the most benevolent
of fairies. She render's that which is the most beautiful, as well as the
ugliest, familiar. A wife is young, and becomes old; it is custom which
hinders the husband from perceiving the change. On the contrary, did
she remain young, while he became old, it might bring consequences,
and render the man in years jealous. It is better as kind Providence has
ordered it. Imagine that thou hadst grown to be an old woman, and thy
husband were a blooming youth; how wouldst thou then feel?"
Louise rubbed her chin, and said, "I cannot tell."
Her aunt continued: "But I will call thy attention to at secret which--"
"That is it," interrupted Louise, hastily, "that is it which I long so much
to hear."
Her aunt said: "Listen to me attentively. What I now tell thee, I have
proved. It consists of two parts. The first part, of the means to render a
marriage happy, of itself prevents every possibility of dissension; and
would even at last make the spider and the fly the best of friends with
each other. The second part is the best and surest method of preserving
feminine attractions."
"Ah!" exclaimed Louise.
"The former half of the means, then: In the first solitary hour after the

ceremony, take thy bridegroom, and demand a solemn vow of him, and
give him a solemn vow in return. Promise one another sacredly, _never,
not even in mere jest, to wrangle with each other_; never to bandy
words or indulge in the least ill-humour. _Never!_ I say; never.
Wrangling, even in jest, and putting on an air of ill-humour merely to
tease, becomes earnest by practice. Mark that! Next promise each other,
sincerely and solemnly, never to have a secret from each other under
whatever pretext, with whatever excuse it may be. You must,
continually and every moment, see clearly into each other's bosom.
Even when one of you has committed a fault, wait not an instant, but
confess it freely--let it cost tears, but confess it. And as you keep
nothing secret from each other, so, on the contrary, preserve the
privacies of your house, marriage state and heart, from _father, mother,
sister, brother, aunt, and all the world._ You two, with God's help, build
your own quiet world. Every third or fourth one whom you draw into it
with you, will form a party, and stand between you two! That should
never be. Promise this to each other. Renew the vow at each temptation.
You will find your account in it. Your souls will grow as it were
together, and at last will become as one. Ah, if many a young pair had
on their wedding day known this simple secret, and straightway
practised it, how many marriages were happier than, alas, they are!"
Louise kissed her aunt's hand with ardour. "I feel that it must be so.
Where this confidence is absent, the married, even after wedlock, are
two strangers who do not know each other. It should be so; without this,
there can be no happiness. And now, aunt, the best preservative of
female beauty?"
Her aunt smiled, and said: "We may not conceal from ourselves that a
handsome man pleases us a hundred times more than an ill-looking one,
and the men are pleased with us when we are pretty. But what we call
beautiful, what in the men pleases us, and in us pleases the men, is not
skin and hair and shape and colour, as in a picture or a statue; but it is
the character, it is the soul that is within these, which enchants us by
looks and words, earnestness, and joy, and sorrow. The men admire us