III. LOVE OR MONEY?

There is no smoke without at least a little fire to kindle it, and there is no popular belief without some foundation in fact. Popular proverbs especially are almost always indices to popular conviction founded on experience, and for that reason are generally worthy of attention.

Sometimes, however, the convictions thus expressed are thoroughly repugnant to those—what shall I say?—finer sentiments, perhaps, of our nature which, starting with us on the journey of life, are apt to fray out, grow ragged and dubious, and finally wear away altogether, much as the fringes and ribbons and laces of a smart gown will gradually disappear, if the garment is taken for everyday wear.

One of these proverbs, as we all know, is, “When poverty comes in the door, loves flies out of the window,” and our question just now is to discover how much fire goes to the manufacture of this smoke, how much hard, angular fact underlies this glittering generality.

Of course, we none of us wish to believe it. Human nature, left to itself, is very sentimental, and the advanced optimists are simply the people who decline to be convinced of the deceitfulness of sentiment. For myself, I like to be deceived by pretty sentiments. I like to be optimistic, and to cherish my childish faith that there is a gold cup at the end of the rainbow, and some day I shall find it; that the moon is made of green cheese, and that a bit of this same cheese, with bread and kisses added, is a wholesome and sufficient diet for man or woman, and especially for both together.

I say I like to cherish these beliefs; but the ugly question still arises, Are they beliefs?

Well, how is it with you yourself? Are you perfectly satisfied of the truth of any one of these suggestions—or rather, to throw aside hyperbole, are you perfectly satisfied that bread and cheese and kisses, with the man of your choice, is better than assured comfort for yourself and your family with the man whom you didn’t choose, but who chose you?

Mind you, I am not saying that I think it is or it is not, for, in very fact, I do not know and never have quite made up my mind. As I say, I love to be cheated by sentiment, but the trouble is that there is a shrewd little demon of common sense lurking somewhere in my composition who is forever pulling my pretty sentimental beliefs to tatters and showing the hollowness of their foundations. Sometimes, I am sure, I am able to convince myself that he is mistaken. Sometimes I can boldly silence him and shut him up in a closet. But in a general way I must confess that he has the best of the argument, and it is the sentiment that gets put in the closet. But putting in the closet is not death, you know, and both common sense and sentiment soon creep out again, and the never-ending conflict is renewed. Probably my experience is also yours, and that of plenty of other persons, for I rather think it belongs to human nature in general, and, thank heaven, “there is a good deal of human nature in man—especially in the woman.”

Riches or love—which will you have, if you can’t have both? Of course, to have both—that is, an unlimited amount of love and not too large an amount of money—is the ideal condition; but who possesses it or hopes for it?

Not too much money, I say, for the multi-millionaire is so hampered and harassed and badgered and pursued and intrigued for money that he has neither time nor heart left for love; for Eros is a very exacting little deity, and will not give the fullness of his gifts to any but those who give him their lives—that is to say, their lives for the time being.

No, a man who is too rich cannot be a good lover, for not only are his mind and time preoccupied, but before reaching maturity he has become imbued with the conviction that every man he meets is trying to cheat him, and every woman intends to marry him, either to herself or some of her family. This condition of mind is fatal to the mingled humility and courage essential to the true lover’s character. A hare would not make a good guardian for a confiding but timid traveler, and if, as is often the case with hares, he was conceited as well as timid, it is so much the worse.

The over rich woman is not likely to be a good lover either, because as a general thing she does not believe that every man she meets wants to marry her simply for her money. The natural vanity of the sex works to her destruction by suggesting that she herself is quite competent to inspire all the devotion and admiration professed by her adorers, and she nothing doubts that were she the beggar maid King Cophetua would woo her just as ardently as he does to-day. Well, perhaps he would, but my little demon of common sense suggests that more probably he would not, and in this case I feel inclined to agree with him.

But the unlucky millionairess, accustomed from her cradle to the servile adulation which surrounds such persons, has very likely never made the acquaintance of cold, cruel Master Common Sense, and not only does she believe that her own charms and merits evoke the attention she receives, but she has become so accustomed to having her own way, and fancying her own taste, and her own opinion, and her own prejudices to the law of the world, that she is quite destitute of that grace of adaptability which is the chief virtue of the woman lover.

Men are not adaptable—and we do not want that they should be, since the principal attraction of their sex is its strength. Women, to be sure, are just as strong in their own way, but it is quite a different way—the difference between the oak and the birch. When the tornado comes, the oak is snapped off at the root, but the birch prostrates herself in the dust—submits utterly and abjectly—and when the storm has passed, blithely resumes her upright attitude, shakes the raindrops from her tresses preens herself a little, and is as good as new.

Probably the oak admires the birch very much and calls her a sweet little thing, trembling at every breeze, and therefore loving to shelter herself under the protection of his “heart of oak.”

Well, now, a woman born to millions doesn’t grow up a birch at all; she doesn’t want to be protected or sheltered, and she doesn’t know enough to pretend that she does. She hasn’t the strength of the oak, but she has all his arrogance; she hasn’t the flexibility and adaptability of the birch, but she has her softness and slenderness of build. When the tempest comes and blows away the wall of gold which protects her while it lasts, her poor, little unyielding stem is very quickly snapped, and she falls a wreck.

So, after all, I am afraid we must concede that riches are inimical to love, that Plutus is the enemy rather than the ally of Eros, and that millionaires, men and women, are not likely to become ideal lovers.

Shall we, then, accept the opposing theory, that bread and cheese and kisses are enough for life, and that sensible, well-instructed nineteenth century men and women are justified in marrying on such a basis?

Since love does not thrive in palaces, is he likely to be hale, hearty, and long-lived in the provincial cottage, with roses around the window, birds on the boughs, and nothing in the larder or coal cellar?

Well, no, Common Sense declares he is not, and for once Sentiment finds nothing to say, even when the little demon sneeringly declares, “When Poverty comes in the door, Love flies out at the window, and the ideal cottage has broad casement windows set wide open so that he can leave without too much trouble.”

The beginnings of poverty, combined with love, are by no means unendurable. The fond pair, in all the pride and glory of their proud contempt of fitting surroundings, and all that sort of thing, take possession of their cottage in the country or their cheap flat in the city, and bravely begin life. Phyllis is going to do the trifling little amount of housekeeping for herself, while Corydon pursues the avocation that is to provide the bread and cheese.

For a month, or perhaps three or four, the wheels of the domestic machine run upon velvet. Phyllis washes the cup and plate used by Corydon with a tremulous joy in thinking that it is both her privilege and her duty to do so, and he springs from his couch at peep of dawn to light the fire, fill the teakettle, bring in the coals—in fact, do everything that a man may do to help the angel who has deigned to assume human form and minister to him. Each vies with each in making things light and pleasant for the other, and little inconveniences are laughed to scorn or welcomed as opportunities to prove how well they can be borne for love’s sweet sake.

Phyllis has her trousseau, which, however simple, is at least new, and in perfect order, and probably Corydon has provided himself with a new outfit of shirts and underwear; so there is no mending to do, and no yearnings after a new dress or hat. But, not to dilate upon a process as inevitable as it is painful, this beatific condition comes to an end. He gets tired of building fires and fetching coals. He wants to sleep awhile in the morning and comes home at night too tired to perform the tasks set aside for him.

Worse than this, he is annoyed to find Phyllis too much worn and fretted with her daily routine to be good company. The little domestic details that used to interest him while they were novelties bore and disgust him, now that a querulous tone of complaint runs through them, and finally he snaps and snarls, and says something impatient at hearing that the grate of the stove needs to be taken out, or that a great horrid rat has been seen in the cellar, and he must get a trap and set it, or that the grocer’s boy did not bring the eggs for breakfast, and will he go down and get them?

As for Phyllis, well, it is delightful to wash a plate and cup and knife and fork and spoon for the man you love, a hundred times, or five hundred, if you love him very much, but when it comes to five thousand times and five times five thousand, it does become monotonous to the fondest and truest heart that ever beat. Then, besides the personal dishes of the beloved, there is an array of prosaic disagreeable pots and pans, gridirons and frying-pans, not at all pleasant to handle for even the first three months, and rapidly growing intolerable as the months roll on.

Then there is the inexorable routine of the daily duties of life, hard enough to make attractive if you have no need of laboring personally in them, but liable to become a crushing burden if body as well as mind is compelled to always be in harness and at work. Then the clothes wear out and must be mended and altered and renewed, and if the poverty of our young couple is an absolute fact, and not a pretty fancy, the young wife has to add this labor to that of housekeeping.

She grows thin and haggard and fretful. She no longer puts flowers on the breakfast table, nor folds the napkins in fantastic forms. She no longer makes a pretty toilet to welcome her husband’s return at night, and in fact she feels that he would hardly notice it if she did, for his brow is apt to be clouded and his voice sullen as he says in one form or another, “We must manage to spend less money instead of launching out into new clothes and a servant, and all that you seem to require.”

Then come the babies, and then—then comes the sad “repenting at leisure.” It is not a cheerful picture, and we need not treat it in a pre-Raphaelite spirit, bringing out all its sordid features and details; but allow me to say to all whom it may concern that it is a picture from life coming under my own observation not once alone, but many times, and very likely to reproduce itself in the experience of any one who chooses to attempt “love in a cottage” on a very limited foundation.

Must we say, then, that poverty is also inimical to love; that the goddess Poverta, celebrated by George Sand as one of the most desirable of the Parnassian royal family, is as little likely to abide comfortably with Eros as is her brother Plutus?

Well, yes, I think so. In fact, were I compelled to choose, I should select the loveless wealthy marriage to the loveless poor marriage, for in the former case the ill-mated couple can retreat to the extreme limits of a very long chain, and all sorts of servitors and middlemen and distractions come in between and enable the discordant couple to forget their discordance in a multitude of other interests.

Marriage without love is a very miserable condition, but far more miserable if, through poverty, the married pair are forced into constant companionship and the sight and sound of each other’s worries and complaints.

Happiness lies in the single region, sang the old Latin poet thousands of years ago, and nothing has been said since to supersede his utterance. Nothing is so desirable in its extreme as in its juste milieu, and most certainly this axiom applies to the substantial basis of married life. Two persons of sympathetic tastes, temper, habits and aims, marrying upon an income sufficient to gratify those tastes and habits, and to continue the pursuits they have enjoyed before marriage, stand a far better chance for a happy life than if they were enormously wealthy or extremely poor. Especially is this the case if the wife has a little money of her own, enough for her personal wants, and to make little presents to her husband as well as to other friends. If she has nothing of her own, it is a safeguard to her future happiness for her friends to insist upon her future husband’s making some small settlement upon her and her future children.

A man respects his wife a good deal more if he does not keep her petty purse, and the wife loves the husband a good deal more if she does not have to ask for and account for every penny she expends.