VII. THE CONSEQUENCES.

Did you ever play the game of “consequences?” If not, I will tell you how, and you shall determine for yourself if it is not very like the game of life which we are all playing every day, whether we will or not.

Take two slips of paper, perhaps two inches wide and as long as ordinary note paper. Two persons and two pencils are the rest of the simple apparatus, and sitting so that they do not overlook each other, each writes at the head of his or her slip the name of a man known to both, either by personal acquaintance or historical renown.

This done, the name is folded out of sight and the slips exchanged, when each writes a woman’s name, and again folds it out of sight and exchanges the slips. Next is, “Where they met,” and next “What he said,” then, “What she said;” then, “What the world said,” and finally “The consequences.” The fun comes in when the two slips are unfolded and the queer conjunction of persons, places, speeches and consequences are read out, as for instance: “Henry Ward Beecher and the Infanta Eulalie met at Barnum’s show. He said, ‘Rock me to sleep, mother.’ She said, ‘Rataplon, Rataplon!’ The world said, ‘What’s bred in the bone will come out in the flesh.’ The consequences were:

Of course if the subjects are among one’s own acquaintance the whole thing is funnier, and sometimes rather embarrassing if the persons happen to be present—as, for instance, if your maiden aunt is said to have met “the wickedest man in New York” at a “masquerade,” and the consequences were “a sweet, sweet kiss.” The maiden aunt is apt to afford “very pretty sport” on such occasions, to use an angler’s phrase.

But, as I said before, how strangely fond the fates are of playing at this game among themselves and to our cost. Just fancy Clotho writing your name at the head of one slip of parchment and Lachesis yours on another, while Atropos grimly adds that of some other human being, and each, folding down what she has written, handing it to her sister, the two regarding each other with that calm, ironical glance of conscious power and half-malicious purpose which one must ascribe to the fates.

The papers filled and read out, a destiny is declared for him and her who have thus been coupled together, and the wild absurdities which complicate this destiny are the puzzle of a lifetime to the hapless victims.

This theory may be held fanciful by some persons, but really it seems to me a very satisfactory explanation of a state of things in the world not to be accounted for in any other way. The next time you notice or perhaps experience a most absurd conjunction of persons leading to a disastrous or perhaps highly ridiculous state of affairs, when next you hear some virulent gossip tell how Mrs. So-and-so and Mr. Whatever were seen together at such and such a place, and the world, with a very big W, expresses her opinion and foretells the direst results, just say to yourself, “Ah, the fates have been playing at consequences!” And in our own lives how very often we wonder what under the sun possessed us to take a certain course, almost certain, as our calm common sense now tells us, to lead to the annoying consequences under which we now smart! Why, we ask ourselves, should my name ever have been so coupled with that name? When I went to that place, why did that person blindly select that very time to go also? Why, when he said what he did, should I have replied as I did? Surely I was not a free agent in all this, but was blindly impelled forward by some unknown force. Truly

And then some so-called friend kindly points out to us “what the world says” anent our affairs, and our hearts sink at the injustice and unfairness of its verdict and the treachery of those in whom we trusted for loyalty, and we feel angry at the stupid levity of those who cannot know the real meaning of the tragedy they insist upon treating as a farce, got up for their amusement, and altogether we retreat sick and tired from the contest and ask ourselves: Why am I thus placed? Why has the world a right to pass its judgment thus upon what it does not understand? Why am I set upon its pillory before the gaze of every fool or knave or idler or enemy who chooses to point at me and make a mock of my distress?

Did you ever have the occasion to ask yourself these questions? If not, give the gods thanks that they as yet have let you alone, and at the same time strengthen yourself for the future by remembering that when next the fates feel like amusing themselves with a game of consequences, your name may head one of the lists, and the fates alone know whose will be penciled under it. Only be sure that if the collocation admits of ridicule, or of obliquy of annoyance and disturbance to yourself, the thing will come to pass, the game will become a reality, the passing amusement of Clotho and her sisters will be a destiny. And then as the game goes on, do not we often feel that we are but blind agents, carrying out, in our own despite, a plan of which we in our inmost hearts feel the evil promise?

A woman, let us say, although these catastrophes are as common to one sex as the other, but we will say a woman, alone and lonely, oppressed with the weight of worldly affairs and even more oppressed with that “need of loving” which the French rightly place at the root of a woman’s nature—such a one as this meets a man of plausible exterior and ready tongue, who, perceiving her lonely and brooding condition of mind, sets himself to convince her that he is the very person out of all the world capable of filling the aching void of heart and life, and turning the gray rainclouds that environ her into the roseate dawn of a brighter and better day than she ever yet has known. Such a promise as this is enough to bewilder the judgment and blind the eyes of the wisest woman that ever lived—that is, supposing her to be loving by nature and lonely by circumstance. It is like the song of the sirens to wave-worn Ulysses and his comrades—they well knew, those hard-headed mariners, that the Circean shore was not that for which they had embarked. They knew or should have known that to linger here was to risk the loss of all besides and to defeat the high hopes with which they had been sent forth by trusting friends, but Circe and her nymphs sang of love and shelter and rest, and a loving barrier between them and the hard, cold world; and to a man they abandoned all else and fell into the snare. You see, the fates had been playing at consequences, and one slip bore the names “Ulysses, Circe, met at,” and all the rest of it.

But to return to our supposititious case—the wave-worn and weary “she” listens to this siren chant and yields to its tempting, “he says,” “I love you beyond all else in the world; will you be my wife, and let me love you forever and a day?” “She says,” “It is all that I have been longing for.” They marry, and in a few years or months or weeks, or even hours, “he says,” “You’re a fool and cry for the moon,” and “she says,” “Oh, how could I have mistaken you for my ideal man! Yes, I was a fool, but you are worse; you are a brute!” Of course the remarks vary with the persons and the circumstances, and in a good many cases they do not occur at all, but when the fates take to playing with our lives all this and more is on the cards, and it is well to be prepared for it.

Naturally, if such a state of things does come to pass, an “unpleasantness” arises in the family which cannot long be concealed from the public eye, and presently we hear what “the world says.” And, oh, what cruel and venomous and foolish things the world does say when once it finds the chance! Why is it that the world is so lukewarm and languid when praise is demanded, and so phenomenally active where there is an opening for censure? Let a man or a woman perform an act of heroism or of saintly self-sacrifice, let him or her spend life and fortune in doing good to the poor, or the unfortunate, or the wicked, and the world yawns and says, “Very good of him, I’m sure, but isn’t he just a little bit of a crank?” Or, if it is a woman, Mme. World smiles pityingly and says: “Ah, yes, poor thing! A woman who doesn’t marry must do something to make herself of importance. Did you ever hear that she was disappointed when young Crœsus married her cousin instead of her?” Or perhaps it says: “Oh, gone into a convent, has she? What a blessed asylum for unattractive girls a convent must be! It is so much prettier to be called a sister of charity than an old maid!”

Whatever the form of virtue may be, Mme. World is sure to find some flaw or pit in the fair fruit she cannot choose but praise, and cleverly detracts even in her approval.

But if it is not a question of right and shining virtues, but of mistakes and follies and wrongdoings upon the one side or the other of a matrimonial difference—ah, then Mme. World sits up straight in her chair and adjusts her lorgnette to her peering eyes, and finds so many flaws and pits in the apple of discord that she hardly leaves flesh enough to hold it together. What industry and energy the old lady suddenly develops! When virtue and noble deeds were under discussion, she seemed almost to fall asleep over her slurring comments and bits of half-praise, but now, now no girl in her teens dancing at her first ball or playing her first grown-up game of tennis displays more ardent zeal and activity. She calls her carriage, or she dons her walking gear, for Mme. World is of all stations and conditions of life, and she sallies forth, her eyes sparkling, her lips quivering with eagerness to be at work, and the number of visits that old lady can achieve in one afternoon is something to marvel at. And, when the preliminaries of weather and health have been hastily disposed of, how she plunges at her real business, dragging it in by the head and shoulders, perhaps in the midst of her hostess’ plaintive lamentations over the ugly new styles of gowns and hats upon which Mme. Elise insists. “Yes, my dear, perfectly hideous, as you say. I saw it on that poor, dear Mrs. Erlymarter yesterday. Have you heard what a cat-and-dog life she and her husband are leading? Oh, I assure you it is quite so, quite so! They say he,” etc., and dear Mme. World draws near enough to murmur and whisper all the shocking things she can think of into the eat of the listener, who presently remarks: “That is all very well, but my opinion is that there is always fault on both sides, and I dare say she drives him to it. For all her sweet looks, I fancy she has a temper of her own,” and so on and so on.

No doubt you have heard it all a hundred times, and perhaps—God forgive you—have joined in it, more’s the pity. If you have, all I will say is, please don’t any more, for it is only playing into the bands of malicious fates, who are greedily listening for “what the world says,” to make out their little game.

And then come the consequences—those sad consequences which not infrequently involve a life in their toils. But perhaps we all know better than any one can tell us the consequences of our own faults and follies, and, worst of all, our own delusions. I suppose every woman who has character enough to enable her to suffer has committed blunders and has allowed herself to be deluded, and she has heard what the world has to say about them, and she has experienced the consequences. She knows what sleepless nights and weary days, what aching heart and bewildered brain may achieve toward a misery she never dreamed before; she knows how hard is the struggle to “keep up” before the eyes of that merciless world, and how complete her abandonment to passionate grief and rebellion the lonely hours of night may cover; she knows what it is to see friends turn into foes or strangers, to find that those she most thoroughly trusted have used her confidence as the weapon wherewith to wound her most sorely; she knows what it is to feel her own heart grow cold and hard, to lose her faith in man and woman both, and all but to lose faith in the God who permits such things.

But once again I say don’t do so any more, for in doing so you are only carrying out the plan of Clotho, Lachesis and Atropos, those malign old women who so love to amuse themselves with us poor mortals. If they have begun to play their game with you as one of the counters, break it off just where you are; don’t indulge them; don’t play into their hands; don’t be their victim.

For, after all, the human will is stronger than the fates, and if we use it vigorously can break down all their combinations. No matter if they have successfully brought you to “what the world says,” the consequences are still in your own hand, and you can control them as you will.