IT was just like Fitz-Herbert to break in upon the conversation in his insufferable, dawdling manner, merely because Old Blobbs was absent and could not reply to him. F. H. had heard a story that he was about to be married, and he protested against it with all the indignation and power of which he was capable, somewhat in the following manner: "'Pon honor, that story isn't twue. Would be vewy absurd to sacwifice my fweedom."

This was the longest speech F. H. had ever been known to deliver at one time, and it naturally created quite a sensation in the company. He seized this occasion to deliver it, as I have said before, because Old Blobbs was absent. The latter is confined to his room with a painful illness, and it would do you good to see the courage with which the old veteran bears his serious indisposition, and the calm serenity with which he awaits the decision of fate. I had no idea, however, of letting Fitz-Herbert off so easily, and, much to his astonishment, therefore, I replied to him, as he sat uneasily twirling his moustache, in words to the following effect:

My dear Fitz-Herbert: I cannot allow your very silly remark to pass unnoticed, for two reasons:

First. You would never sacrifice anything in marrying any woman. The woman who marries you will do all the sacrificing. The hymeneal altar, in her case, will be eminently a sacrificial altar, and she will be the garlanded and orange-blossomed victim, to be carved up with the sacrificial knife. You have everything to gain—she has everything to lose.

Second. Neither your reason, nor any other, is valid against marriage. I am often amused at the excuses men make when they approach this question. Brown thinks it is too expensive, and, of all silly excuses, I think this is the silliest. Brown is earning a good salary, and yet Brown, at the end of the year, has no more money than when he commenced. He has expenses for cigars and meerschaums, for suppers for his bachelor friends, for fast horses, for baskets of champagne, for wagers based on trifles, for the wear and tear of clothes, and for a thousand and one little items, none of which he would or need incur in married life. Then, again, if Brown knew, as any milliner can tell him, how many seasons that same bonnet is made over; how it comes out bran new every spring and fall, by some of those mysterious alterations, of a bit of lace here or a few flowers there, of which only women are capable; how that same dress is made over from year to year by the cunning hand of some dressmaker; how a piece of lace, which may seem costly at first, does duty in a dozen different ways—now serving a term on a bonnet-crown, now appearing on the sleeve of a basque, anon reappearing as the trimming of a dress, then laid away, only to appear once more in some useful and graceful manner, connected with the gear of the little folks; and if Brown further knew that nine women out of ten, not only in low life but in high life, practice this economy—making the old new, and serving up old dishes in new forms—Brown would be ashamed to offer such a flimsy excuse. Marriage is the essence of economy. Brown, alone, with two thousand a year, lays up nothing. Brown and a wife, with the same amount per year, would lay up five hundred.

And now comes Jones, like Fitz-Herbert, with his twaddle of sacrificing his freedom. The plea is so flimsy that it is hardly worth an answer. Jones may lose the freedom to get drunk; the freedom to waste his money; the freedom to squander his earnings at the gaming-table; the freedom to indulge in dissipation; and the freedom to practice unlimited selfishness. And the sooner he loses all these freedoms, the better it will be for him. In the place of these losses, he gains the freedom to be the emperor of a little household; to love a woman; to make the future President of the United States; to make some one happy; and to show a certificate that he is a Man, and has fulfilled the mission of a Man.

Next comes Smith, whining that his friend Thompson has married unhappily, and he gets off the old story that marriage is a lottery in which there are a thousand blanks to one prize. Bosh! It may be that his friend Thompson deliberately sought happiness in something which was not capable of affording it. Or it may be that he made money the complement of his desires and the goal of his ambition. In either case, he would be and ought to be disappointed. But it is more probable that Thompson, as obtains in ninety-nine out of a hundred of these disappointments, while carrying his head among the stars, stumbled over the stone at his feet, which he would have seen if he had had his head where it ought to have been. Thompson, like scores of others, indulged in a love which smacked both of the romance and the theatre—made it in a style and clothed it with sentiments which have no more to do with common life than the integral calculus has to do with everlasting salvation, and in his terrific flights of the imagination, soared to heights occupied by angels and cherubim, and other creatures who have nothing in common with human life. He assumed without question that his inamorata was an angel, and, while in his amorous embryo, would have throttled you if you had suggested that he might have been mistaken. Of course, when he had chipped off his shell, got his eyes open, and stepped out into the open air of common sense, he saw his mistake. Women are not angels at all, although it may be ungallant to say so. For certain romantic purposes, and by a sort of poetical license, we call them such. They don't believe they are angels themselves; but they accept the assurance from their lovers, just as the lover accepts the assurance from his mistress that he is a hero, both good and noble, when he is nothing but plain Tompkins. Now, Thompson, before he married his wife, was convinced that she was an angel, and would have considered it a serious defect if you, or any one else had imputed human nature as one of her characteristics. If he had married Mrs. Thompson as a woman with a human nature, subject to diseases, old age, sullenness, peevish fits, and other infirmities to which flesh is heir, possessed of the same bad qualities, and capable of showing just as many good qualities, he would have been a happy man, and by combining an even temper with a sensible judgment, he never would have had any trouble. It might as well be settled now as at any time that there are no angels in this world. Angels dwell in quite another place, and have nothing to do whatever with marriage, their time being mainly spent in playing harps, and, if "Gates Ajar" be true, pianos, fiddles, and other musical instruments, and in eating lotus, which is of a better quality up there than that which grows on the Nile. The other class of angels, if the iron-clad theology be true, is down below, engaged in the anthracite coal and brimstone business; but there is no record of any on earth. If Thompson had married a woman instead of a creature whom, without any reason, he supposed to be an angel, he would have been a happy man. It is, therefore, his own fault that he is not happy. And it is the fault of the majority of men who are not happy.

Now, also, on general principles, I contend that it is a man's duty to be married. Man is not complete when single. He is all head without any heart. Man has his work, woman has hers, and no life-work is complete which is not a union of the two.

Man has the work of the intellect to perform; woman the work of the affections. If man does his work alone, it is cold, hard, selfish and one-sided.

Man represents brute strength; woman represents beauty. If man stands alone, not clothing his strength with beauty, he occupies exactly the position of the horse and the ox.

Man, to sum up, is the head; woman, the heart. United, they are perfect; single, they are simply monstrosities. They were made to go together.

And, again, my dear Fitz-Herbert, did you ever happen to think that you were born in marriage? That without marriage the world would have been deprived of your inestimable entity, which, undoubtedly, is good for something, although, at this present moment, I am not prepared to say what? I contend, therefore, that if you persistently choose to remain single you insult the condition in which you were born, and place yourself in the attitude of the foolish Euripides, who always lamented that he had not been produced by some other agency than that of a mother.

Again, Fitz-Herbert, did you ever stop to think that it is the duty, and equally the pleasure, of man to perpetuate himself? And that, if, by refusing to marry, you do not perpetuate yourself, you tacitly acknowledge you are not worth perpetuating? I will not stop here to explain to you the great beauty and blessing of children, or to point out how much better and brighter the world is for their presence, but I will only state the point in its abstract form—that if you do not marry some woman, and issue a little blue-and-gold-edition of yourself, and then another edition revised and corrected, and so on ad infinitum or ad libitum, you simply say to the world, "I am an incapable and good-for-nothing, not worth perpetuating." This point is worth such attention as you can spare from your back hair and neck-tie; and I advise you whenever you have time enough to put your whole mind upon it, to astonish your mind by doing so.

Now, as my last general principle—or, as Parson Creamcheese would say, eighthly and lastly—I assume that God Almighty has pointed out this duty of marriage, and this fact that you are incomplete when single, in every conceivable manner. The whole of Nature is one grand system of marriage, and without it, Nature could not exist for a single minute. Although the animals cannot feel the influence of love, because they are bereft of sentiment, still instinct teaches them they are happiest in pairs, and compels them to recognize the dual principle. You never saw a flower in your life which was not the personification of the marriage principle, the stamens playing the part of a woman, and the pistil that of a man, although you should not follow the botanical analogy too literally, by taking more than one stamen. All ideas, all beauty, all feelings, all effects in the great world of nature and humanity depend for their existence upon this dual principle, which only takes shape and exerts influence in the form of marriage. Now, you see, my dear Fitz-Herbert, it does not look well in you to set yourself against the inevitable tendency of nature and humanity and the fixed purpose of the Creator, by remaining single, merely because you think you are going to "sacwifice your fweedom." As I said before, it is all bosh.

This is a plain statement of the facts in the premises, and now I am going to suggest a remedy for the wretchedness which is consequent upon their violation and a penalty for their violator.

The penalty does not apply to women, for there is not a woman in the world who would not marry if she had a chance.

In fixing this penalty, it is necessary to assume the indisputable fact that for every man in the world there is a woman somewhere waiting and waiting anxiously. She may be in the same house with you, in the same neighborhood, or the same city, or she may be in a distant quarter of the globe. You may not meet her this year or next year, but, nevertheless, Fitz-Herbert, there is a woman waiting for you somewhere, who wants to be married to you, to be loved by you, to be fed by you, to have you take her to the opera and the concerts, and to have you pay her milliner and dressmaker. In return, she will be your best friend, will make a man out of you, will suffer for you, never cease to love you, and, if necessary, die for you. Now, it is your duty to set about and find that woman, and go to work loving and feeding her, and paying her bills without grumbling, because all you can do for her will not be worth mention by the side of that wonderful love she will bestow on you—the same love which your father had for your mother. You probably won't have to look long or far for her. You will be astonished at the ease with which you will find her, if you commence looking for her in earnest. She must be supported by some one. If you don't support her, then some other man must be taxed to do it, and thus the burden falls upon those who already have wives. This, of course, is unfair. No man should be compelled to take care of more than one woman.

This is your plain duty, and my penalty to be imposed upon those who won't perform it is simply levying of a tax. Granted that there is a woman for every man, ready to be supported by that man, then I propose to compel that man to support that woman, whether he will marry that woman or not. I would do nothing rashly. I would give him a lee-way for choice until he was thirty years of age. If he didn't make a choice in thirty years, I should take it for granted that he didn't intend to at all, and I should then commence the operation of my tax levy. At the age of thirty, I should impose a yearly tax, equivalent to a woman's yearly legitimate expenses; at the age of thirty-five, an equivalent for a woman and two children; at forty, an equivalent for a woman and four children; at forty-five, an equivalent for a woman and six children. If the man were sickly, or absent any considerable length of time, the number of children might be reduced one-half. After the age of forty-five, the juvenile tax might cease increasing. At the age of fifty, however, I would impose a special tax upon him as a general fund for the support of aged and decayed spinsters. At the age of sixty, he should be compelled to contribute a special sum to maintain Old Ladies' Homes. And when he died, he should be compelled to bequeath a portion of his property to building orphan asylums, and the balance should go towards the maintenance of the public schools. If, in addition to his refusal to marry a woman, he should be a confirmed woman-hater, then I would force him to equalize male and female wages by paying the difference to sewing girls, factory girls and female clerks in our dry goods stores, who do a man's work for a woman's stipend.

You see this is perfectly fair. Not only would every woman be properly provided for, but married men would be relieved from the onerous burden of supporting more than one woman, which is improper, but these old bachelors who are of no account would be turned to a good use by contributing to the support of spinsters, old women and little children. Then, when they got to the gate of Heaven, they could at least have their tax-receipts, to show that their punishment might be mitigated, and that a few of the thousand years of purgatory on the banks of the Styx might be omitted.

I trust, Fitz-Herbert, that you coincide with my views, or, at least, that you will give them some attention. F. H. had evidently never looked at the subject in this light, for he seemed quite bewildered, and twirled his moustache very vigorously, especially when Mignon and Celeste and Aurelia all chimed in with me, and said I was quite right.

August 21, 1869.

I am glad to notice that my letter of two Sundays ago, upon the subject of marriage, has had such good effects. During the past week, the number of marriages has trebled, and even quadrupled, in this city. To be sure, the number of divorces has kept even pace, and, for every pair which has come boldly up to the altar and joined hands in eternal friendship, another pair has severed the bond in twain and parted company, like two ships which meet upon the ocean, hold converse for a little minute, and then set sail for the different horizons. The Clown in Twelfth Night spoke more wisely than he knew, when he said that many a good hanging prevented many a bad marriage. From the ease with which divorces are now obtained, it seems to me a few good hangings would have a healthy influence upon this matter of marriage, and would make that declaration of the minister's, upon which he dwells with such solemn unction, "What God hath joined, let not man put asunder," savor less of the ridiculous.

And all this reminds me of several letters I have received during the past two weeks, taking issue with me upon one small remark contained in my letter. "Ferniania," "Ada," "Kitty," and a half a dozen other anonyma, are highly indignant that I should have said "Any woman who has a chance will get married."

I expected to be overwhelmed with an avalanche of female indignation when I wrote that sentence. I wrote it with a realizing sense of the wrath to come.

The wrath has come, and I find at least a dozen female gauntlets on the floor before me which I am expected to take up.

I confess I do not like anonymous gauntlets. I should like to know the antecedents of some of them before I accept the wager and do battle for my proposition.

In the first place, I would like to know how many of these pretty Amazons have had a chance to get married, and if they had a chance, then I want to know why they didn't get married. I have no more sympathy for a woman who won't get married than I have for a man. She is just as much a jug without a handle or a bow without the arrow as the man is. The very first record we have of the very first woman that ever lived, after she got her fig-leaf panier made, is of her marriage to Adam, and the next thing of any consequence is the birth of the rapscallion Cain, and the good little boy Abel. It is just as much the woman's duty to get married as the man's.

Good heavens! my dear Madame, or my dear Mademoiselle, what would you have done, if your parents hadn't got married? Would you have written me that indignant letter? Would you ever have gone to see Enoch Arden? Would you have ever known the Paradise of new fall hats and George Eliot's last new book?

I should say not.

At least it strikes me that way upon a mere glance.

Then wherein are you any better than your parents? I would like to be assured, therefore, that you have had a chance to get married, and why you refused the chance, before I answer you.

Of course I expect a very torrent of affirmation. A woman had better be dead than never to have had a chance. I would rather face a Nubian lion than tell a woman to her face that she had never had an opportunity to get married. Do not the dear, delightful old women, sitting in their arm-chairs, grow garrulous over their tea, and tell their grand-daughters of the numberless chances they had when they were young and their faces were smooth and the wrinkles and crows-feet had not been written upon their foreheads by the implacable Time? Do not mature married ladies, who have just gone round the corner, and are beginning to feel just the slightest touch in the world of neuralgia, now and then delight to give their husbands a realizing sense of their inferiority, by recalling the number of chances they have had and how they might have done better here and lived easier there? Do not young ladies in les confidences with their numerous bosom friends—confidences which are as mysterious as a sum in simple addition and as eternal as the life of a sand-fly—divulge to each other the chances they have had, and the prospects for chances ahead, with the stereotyped exactions of promises never to tell, upon penalty of immediate severance of the ties which bind, etc.? Do not the delightful little creatures from five to ten display the first sign of womanhood in getting up flirtations with the little boy in the next house, and writing the most astonishing little notes to the effect that

etc., etc.?

This story of chances is an old, old story. It is a failing of human nature. There isn't a young woman in the world who has been gazed at admiringly by a young man, but has imagination strong enough to convert that look into a chance. That story won't do. I want something more definite.

In the second place, I would like to know if any of my correspondents who have had so many chances improved one of them and got married? If so, I would like again to know, what in the world you are complaining of? Is it quite complimentary to your other half, who buys your bonnets, provides your beefsteaks, pays your washerwoman, and looks after the pocket-book side of your marital contract? With that estimable man in your eye—and I should hate to deny in your presence, Madame, that he was not estimable—how can you have the assurance to deny that there are women who would marry, if they had the chance? Are the grapes which grow on your vines soured? Has the honeymoon grown bitter in its waxings and wanings? Have you put your finger in the fire and been burned?

I hope not, but it looks so, my dear—it looks so.

I have a letter from still another correspondent—written in a savage, vinegary sort of chirography—who lugs in that stale crowd, Anna Dickinson, Miss Anthony, etc., to prove that women will not always marry when they have a chance. I do not recognize anything womanly in these clamorous individuals bawling from stumps, and crying themselves hoarse for rights which any of them can have if they have sense enough to take them. If a woman will deliberately unsex herself, she has no right to expect chances. If she ever, by some mysterious dispensation of Divine Providence, gets a chance, it is kindness to the dumb brute who gave her the chance, when she refuses it. The good God, when He established the relation of the sexes, never intended that man should ally himself to a woman with ice-water in her veins and a head full of syllogisms. He might as well marry a treatise on metaphysics and have done with it. I am sick of this crowd of one-idea women who are invariably trotted out when it is necessary to do or say anything. They are exceptions to all rules, and prove nothing. A cow with five legs and a hen with no tail furnish no data from which to judge of the general family of cows and hens.

It is rather curious that nearly all my correspondents hurl my Maiden Aunt in my face to prove that I am wrong in asserting that every woman would marry if she had a chance. The Maiden Aunt did have a chance, and would have accepted the chance, had not Death stepped in and taken it away from her. She could not love twice, and so she preferred to wait until she could be united to him eternally. It would have been the crowning glory of her life, if she could have married him for whom she wore the forget-me-not so long, and her life therein would have been more perfect than it was. She was ready to marry when she had the chance, but Fate ordered it otherwise, and she bowed her head and submitted to the decree which forbade the chance, but could not forbid the love. And they who were divided in life were united in death, and I know are quite happy now.

September 4, 1869.