Man and Wife quotes

“If I could get such a wife as yours,” replied the other, “I would take her from the stage tomorrow. A beautiful woman, a clever woman, a woman of unblemished character, and a woman who truly loves you.

Man alive! what do you want more?

”

“I want a great deal more. I want a woman highly connected and highly bred—a woman who can receive the best society in England, and open her husband’s way to a position in the world.”

“A position in the world!” cried Mr. Kendrew.

“Here is a man whose father has left him half a million of money—with the one condition annexed to it of taking his father’s place at the head of one of the greatest mercantile houses in England.

The rising solicitor lifted his eyebrows in polite surprise. If Mr. Kendrew wanted information, why should Mr. Kendrew ask for it in that way? “Do you wish me to go into the law of the case?” he inquired.

Mr. Delamayn stated the law, as that law still stands⁠—to the disgrace of the English Legislature and the English Nation.

“By the Irish Statute of George the Second,” he said, “every marriage celebrated by a Popish priest between two Protestants, or between a Papist and any person who has been a Protestant within twelve months before the marriage, is declared null and void.

“In two words, Sir,” she said, impatiently, “what is this?”

“In two words, madam,” answered Mr. Delamayn; “waste paper.”

After a moment’s hesitation Lady Jane looked round at Mrs. Vanborough, standing silent at her side—looked, and started back in terror. “Take me away!” she cried, shrinking from the ghastly face that confronted her with the fixed stare of agony in the great, glittering eyes.

Who could imagine a contrast more complete than the contrast between her early life and her mother’s? Who could see anything but a deathbed delusion in the terrible question which had tortured the mother’s last moments:

“Will she end like me?”

But two events of importance occurred in the quiet family circle during the lapse of years which is now under review. In eighteen hundred and fifty-eight the household was enlivened by the arrival of Sir Thomas Lundie.

In the spring of the year eighteen hundred and sixty-eight there lived, in a certain county of North Britain, two venerable White Owls.

The Owls inhabited a decayed and deserted summerhouse.

The summerhouse stood in grounds attached to a country seat in Perthshire, known by the name of Windygates.

And when the world saw it, and said, “Now we shall do!” the Owls shut their eyes in pious remembrance of the darkness, and answered,

“My lords and gentlemen, the Constitution is destroyed!”

But the Owls were equal to the occasion. They ruffled their feathers, and cried, “No surrender!” The featherless beings plied their work cheerfully, and answered, “Reform!” The creepers were torn down this way and that. The horrid daylight poured in brighter and brighter.

The Owls had barely time to pass a new resolution, namely, “That we do stand by the Constitution,”

when a ray of the outer sunlight flashed into their eyes, and sent them flying headlong to the nearest shade.

The ranks of the visitors parted before the last speaker, and disclosed to view, in the midst of that modern assembly, a gentleman of the bygone time.

The manner of this gentleman was distinguished by a pliant grace and courtesy unknown to the present generation.

The attire of this gentleman was composed of a many-folded white cravat, a close-buttoned blue dress-coat, and nankeen trousers with gaiters to match, ridiculous to the present generation.

The friend looked also, and answered, in one emphatic word:

There are certain women whose influence over men is an unfathomable mystery to observers of their own sex.

The governess was one of those women. She had inherited the charm, but not the beauty, of her unhappy mother. Judge her by the standard set up in the illustrated gift-books and the print-shop windows—and the sentence must have inevitably followed.

If you saw her with the eyes of a woman, the results were of quite another kind. In that case you merely turned to your nearest female friend, and said, with unaffected pity for the other sex,

“What can the men see in her!”

The eyes of the lady of the house and the eyes of the governess met, with marked distrust on either side. Few people could have failed to see what the stranger and the friend had noticed alike—that there was something smoldering under the surface here.

Sir Patrick answered, with a total absence of cordiality:

“I don’t smoke, Sir.”

Mr. Delamayn looked at him, without taking the slightest offense:

Mr. Delamayn looked at him, without taking the slightest offense:

“You don’t smoke!” he repeated. “I wonder how you get through your spare time?”

Sir Patrick closed the conversation:

Sir Patrick closed the conversation:

“Sir,” he said, with a low bow, “you may wonder.”

While this little skirmish was proceeding Lady Lundie and her stepdaughter had organized the game; and the company, players and spectators, were beginning to move toward the lawn.

“You said that rather bitterly, Sir,” he remarked. “What has Geoffrey done to offend you?”

“He presumes to exist⁠—that’s what he has done,”

retorted Sir Patrick. “Don’t stare! I am speaking generally. Your friend is the model young Briton of the present time. I don’t like the model young Briton.

Sir Patrick lifted two of his white, wrinkled old fingers, and good-humoredly patted the young sailor on the cheek.

“Yes you did,” he said. “In red letters.”

The little gold lid in the knob of the ivory cane flew up, and the old gentleman rewarded himself for that neat retort with a pinch of snuff. At the same moment Blanche made her appearance on the scene.

Sir Patrick was a privileged person. He had been allowed, in all probability, to try again; and he was succeeding at the second effort. This implied a reprieve of some seconds. Blanche looked back again at Arnold.

“Consider yourself encouraged,” she whispered; and instantly added, with the ineradicable female instinct of self-defense, “within limits!”

Arnold made a last plunge—straight to the bottom, this time.

Arnold made a last plunge—straight to the bottom, this time.

“Consider yourself loved,” he burst out, “without any limits at all.”

It was all over—the words were spoken—he had got her by the hand. Again the perversity of the tender passion showed itself more strongly than ever.

Blanche administered another dose of encouragement.

“Anger, Mr. Brinkworth, is one of the bad passions,” she answered, demurely. “A young lady who has been properly brought up has no bad passions.”

There was a sudden cry from the players on the lawn—a cry for “Mr. Brinkworth.” Blanche tried to push him out. Arnold was immovable.

There was another cry for “Mr. Brinkworth.” Blanche made another effort to push him out.

“Go!” she said. “And mind you get through the hoop!”

She had both hands on his shoulders—her face was close to his—she was simply irresistible. Arnold caught her round the waist and kissed her. Needless to tell him to get through the hoop. He had surely got through it already! Blanche was speechless.

Left alone, Anne Silvester walked slowly to the inner and darker part of the summerhouse. A glass, in a carved wooden frame, was fixed against one of the side walls. She stopped and looked into it—looked, shuddering, at the reflection of herself.

“Is the time coming,” she said, “when even Blanche will see what I am in my face?”

She turned aside from the glass. With a sudden cry of despair she flung up her arms and laid them heavily against the wall, and rested her head on them with her back to the light.

The answer came, this time.

“You villain if you don’t marry me, I am a ruined woman!”

“You know what I mean. Don’t look at me in that way.”

“May I inquire, Miss Silvester, if your sufferings are relieved?”

“I am no better, Lady Lundie.”

“I said I was no better.”

The old gentleman touched the spring in the knob of his cane, and answered, in the courtly manner of the old school:

“I consider no proceeding extraordinary Lady Lundie, which emanates from your enchanting sex.”

He bowed, and took his pinch.

At my age,” added Sir Patrick, cunningly drifting into generalities, “nothing is serious—except indigestion. I say, with the philosopher, ‘Life is a comedy to those who think, and tragedy to those who feel.’ ” He took his sister-in-law’s hand, and kissed it.

“Dear Lady Lundie, why feel?”

Lady Lundie, who had never “felt” in her life, appeared perversely determined to feel, on this occasion. She was offended—and she showed it plainly.

You bring her home, and you discover that it’s the old story of the sugar over again.

Your wife is an adulterated article.

Her lovely yellow hair is—dye. Her exquisite skin is—pearl powder. Her plumpness is—padding. And three inches of her height are—in the boot-maker’s heels.

Sir Patrick sat back in his chair, and stretched out his legs luxuriously.

“That’s the most convincing answer I ever heard in my life,” he said.

“I’m in earnest!” cried Arnold, reckless by this time of every consideration but one. “Put me to the test, Sir! put me to the test!”

That answer appeared to electrify the lounging and lazy athlete. Geoffrey hurried, with eager steps, to the summerhouse. He addressed the groom before the man had time to speak with horror and dismay in his face, he exclaimed:

“By Jupiter! Ratcatcher has relapsed!”

Sir Patrick and Arnold looked at each other in blank amazement.

Something wrong—depend upon it, something wrong! “We had much better go away. My dear, order the carriage”—“Louisa, love, no more dancing; your papa is going.”—“Good-afternoon, Lady Lundie!”—“Haw! thanks very much!”—“So sorry for dear Blanche!”—“Oh, it’s been too charming!”

So Society jabbered its poor, nonsensical little jargon, and got itself politely out of the way before the storm came.

This was exactly the consummation of events for which Sir Patrick had been waiting in the seclusion of the garden.

The time of the afternoon was about the time when Geoffrey Delamayn had started in the train, on his journey to London. About the time also, when Arnold Brinkworth had crossed the moor, and was mounting the first rising ground which led to the inn.

Mistress Inchbare was tall and thin, and decent and dry.

Mistress Inchbare’s unlovable hair clung fast round her head in wiry little yellow curls. Mistress Inchbare’s hard bones showed themselves, like Mistress Inchbare’s hard Presbyterianism, without any concealment or compromise. In short, a savagely-respectable woman who plumed herself on presiding over a savagely-respectable inn.

Arnold’s heart went back, at that dreadful question, to the one woman who was eternally sacred to him—to the woman from whose bosom he had drawn the breath of life.

“Does the man live,” he said, “who can think of his mother⁠—and despise women?”

That answer set the prisoned misery in her free. She gave him her hand—she faintly thanked him. The merciful tears came to her at last.

Anxious as she was, miserable as she was, a faint smile flitted over Anne’s face.

“Sir Patrick would tell you, Mr. Brinkworth, that nothing is impossible where women are concerned.”

She dropped her momentary lightness of tone, and went on as earnestly as ever. “You can’t put yourself in Blanche’s place—I can. Once more, I beg you to go. I don’t like your coming here, in this way! I don’t like it at all!”

He swung round as the dog was passing him, and kicked it with his heavy boot. The little creature fell on the spot, whining piteously. “My lady’s pet dog!” exclaimed the butler. “You’ve broken its ribs, Sir.”

“I’ve broken it of barking, you mean,” retorted Geoffrey. “Ribs be hanged!”

He turned to his brother. “That settles it,” he said, jocosely. “I’d better defer the pleasure of calling on dear mamma till the next opportunity. Ta-ta, Julius. You know where to find me. Come, and dine.

At those magic words the closed door of the council-chamber flew open; and Julius found himself among the athletes of his native country, in full parliament assembled. Is any description of them needed? The description of Geoffrey applies to them all.

The manhood and muscle of England resemble the wool and mutton of England, in this respect, that there is about as much variety in a flock of athletes as in a flock of sheep.

Julius looked about him, and saw the same man in the same dress, with the same health, strength, tone, tastes, habits, conversation, and pursuits, repeated infinitely in every part of the room. The din was deafening;

The Library at Windygates was the largest and the handsomest room in the house. The two grand divisions under which literature is usually arranged in these days occupied the customary places in it.

On the shelves which ran round the walls were the books which humanity in general respects⁠—and does not read.

On the tables distributed over the floor were the books which humanity in general reads—and does not respect. In the first class, the works of the wise ancients;

The two grand divisions under which literature is usually arranged in these days occupied the customary places in it. On the shelves which ran round the walls were the books which humanity in general respects—and does not read.

On the tables distributed over the floor were the books which humanity in general reads⁠—and does not respect.

In the first class, the works of the wise ancients; and the histories, biographies, and essays of writers of more modern times—otherwise the solid literature, which is universally respected, and occasionally read.

Geoffrey nodded. “That’s it!” he said, eagerly.

“My experience, Mr. Delamayn, is that any single man, in Scotland, may marry any single woman, at any time, and under any circumstances. In short, after thirty years’ practice as a lawyer, I don’t know what is not a marriage in Scotland.”

“In plain English,” said Geoffrey, “you mean she’s his wife?”

Authorities are everywhere at variance throughout the Report. A haze of doubt and uncertainty hangs in Scotland over the most important contract of civilized life. If no other reason existed for reforming the Scotch marriage-law, there would be reason enough afforded by that one fact.

An uncertain marriage-law is a national calamity.

”

What was the meaning of this disturbance in the inner man? Now that he had committed himself to the betrayal of the friend who had trusted and served him, was he torn by remorse?

He was no more torn by remorse than you are while your eye is passing over this sentence.

He was simply in a raging fever of impatience to see himself safely landed at the end which he had in view.

No such sense as that exists among the instincts of the natural man. And no such feelings as these troubled Geoffrey Delamayn; for

Geoffrey Delamayn was the natural man.

When the idea of his scheme had sprung to life in his mind, the novelty of it had startled him—the enormous daring of it, suddenly self-revealed, had daunted him.

The more he thought of it, the more persuaded he felt of his own cleverness here, and the hotter and the angrier he grew.

There is a way out of everything.

And there was surely a way out of this, if he could only see it.

“You’re married already to Arnold Brinkworth.”

Without a cry to warn him, without an effort to save herself, she dropped senseless at his feet; as her mother had dropped at his father’s feet in the bygone time.

He disentangled himself from the folds of her dress. “Done!” he said, looking down at her as she lay on the floor.

… guessed the truth, without feeling the slightest suspicion of it in their own minds—there stood Discovery, presenting itself unconsciously to eyes incapable of seeing it, in the person of the man who had passed Anne Silvester off as his wife at the Craig Fernie inn!

The terrible caprice of chance, the merciless irony of circumstance, could go no further than this.

The three had their feet on the brink of the precipice at that moment. And two of them were smiling at an odd coincidence; and one of them was shuffling a pack of cards!

It is the nature of truth to struggle to the light.

In more than one direction, the truth strove to pierce the overlying darkness, and to reveal itself to view, during the interval between the date of Sir Patrick’s victory and the date of the wedding-day.

“What do you do with a fire, when you can’t extinguish it?” said Sir Patrick. “You let it blaze till it goes out.

What do you do with a woman when you can’t pacify her? Let her blaze till she goes out.

”

That for her health! It’s trouble on her mind.” Mr. Karnegie said, “Is it now?” Mrs. Karnegie replied, “When I have said, it is, I consider myself insulted if another person says, is it?”

Mr. Karnegie agreed with his wife.

There was another interval. Mrs. Karnegie added up a bill, with a face of disgust. Mr. Karnegie looked at her with a face of wonder. Mrs. Karnegie suddenly asked him why he wasted his looks on her, when he would have “Mrs.

“I wish you a better temper!”

A minute since the two young ladies had been like twin roses on one stalk.

Now they parted with red cheeks and hostile sentiments and cutting words. How ardent is the warmth of youth! how unspeakably delicate the fragility of female friendship!

“I am not in the secrets of the lady and gentleman whom you mention,” she replied, dryly.

A heavy body is slow to acquire movement⁠—and slow to abandon movement, when once acquired.

The playfulness of Lady Lundie, being essentially heavy, followed the same rule. She still persisted in being as lively as ever.

It’s little I know that’s gude aboot ye, in yer unconvairted state. Ye’re a type o’ human life, they say. I tak’ up my testimony against that.

Ye’re a type o’ naething at all till ye’re heated wi’ fire, and sweetened wi’ sugar, and strengthened wi’ whusky; and then ye’re a type o’ toddy⁠—and human life (I grant it) has got something to say to ye in that capacity!

”

You know this is a tyranny of your own making, you know you don’t really believe in it, you know you don’t really like it—why do you submit?

The freest people on the civilized earth are the only people on the civilized earth who dare not face that question.

The evening dragged its slow length on; the welcome time drew nearer and nearer for oblivion in bed.

There was the proper and pitiless staring of all the female spectators when the bride was led to the altar. There was the clergyman’s preliminary look at the license—which meant official caution. And there was the clerk’s preliminary look at the bridegroom—which meant official fees.

All the women appeared to be in their natural element; and all the men appeared to be out of it.

Then the service began—rightly-considered, the most terrible, surely, of all mortal ceremonies—the service which binds two human beings, who know next to nothing of each other’s natures, to risk the tremendous experiment of living together till death parts them—the service which says, in effect if …

“

The law will argue anything, with anybody who will pay the law for the use of its brains and its time.

Let that view of the matter alone now. Delamayn can set the case going, if he likes, without applying to any lawyer to help him.

No; it was the old story of most interruptions. Idleness that considers nothing, had come to look at industry that bears everything.

It is a law of nature, apparently, that the people in this world who have nothing to do cannot support the sight of an uninterrupted occupation in the hands of their neighbors.

Blanche produced a new specimen from Arnold’s collection of hats. “I have been thinking about it in the garden,” she said, quite seriously. “Here is the brown one with the high crown.

“I can tell you,” said Sir Patrick, in his gravest and dryest manner. “

You are suffering, Blanche, from a malady which is exceedingly common among the young ladies of England. As a disease it is quite incurable⁠—and the name of it is Nothing-to-Do.

”

“Do I think it decent,” he repeated to himself, as he closed the door, “to leave the widow of the late Sir Thomas Lundie in the dark?

When a lady’s temper is a little ruffled, I think it more than decent, I think it absolutely desirable, to let that lady have the last word.

” He went into the library, and dropped his sister-in-law’s remonstrance into a box, labeled “Unanswered Letters.” Having got rid of it in that way, he hummed his favorite little Scotch air—and put on his hat, and went out to sun himself in the garden.

What are we to conclude from that? Am I the object of a supernatural warning of misfortune to come? Or am I the object of a temporary derangement of the functions of the liver? There is the question. Who is to decide it?

How contemptible is humanity, Arnold, rightly understood! Give me my candle, and let’s hope it’s the liver.

”

Keep a secret if ye can frae the pawky ears o’ yer domestics in the servants’ hall!—Eh! she’s aff, without a word at parting!” he exclaimed, as Anne left him without ceremony in the middle of his dissertation on secrets and servants’ halls. “

I trow I ha’ gaen out for wool, and come back shorn,

” he added, reflecting grimly on the disastrous overthrow of the promising speculation on which he had embarked. “My certie! there was naething left for’t, when madam’s fingers had grippit me, but to slip through them as cannily as I could.

Glenarm’s eye was on her—no matter whether she destroyed herself in her first cool moment afterward or not. The small sting had planted itself at last in the great nature.

The noblest woman is only a woman, after all!

“I forbid your marriage to Geoffrey Delamayn! I insist on his performing the promise he gave me, to make me his wife! I have got it here in his own words, in his own writing.

The scene opens on a bedroom—and discloses, in broad daylight, a lady in bed.

Persons with an irritable sense of propriety, whose self-appointed duty it is to be always crying out, are warned to pause before they cry out on this occasion.

The lady now presented to view being no less a person than Lady Lundie herself, it follows, as a matter of course, that the utmost demands of propriety are, by the mere assertion of that fact, abundantly and indisputably satisfied.

What does a right-minded woman do, when she has reason to believe that she is cruelly distrusted by the members of her own family?

A right-minded woman feels it so acutely that she falls ill.

Lady Lundie fell ill accordingly.

The sparkling treasures of the toilet-table glittered in the dim distance, the jugs and basins were of a rare and creamy white; spotless and beautiful to see.

Look where you might, you saw a perfect room. Then look at the bed⁠—and you saw a perfect woman, and completed the picture.

It was the day after Anne’s appearance at Swanhaven—toward the end of the afternoon.

After committing herself to the physician (and to the red lavender draught) the commonest regard for consistency made it necessary that she should keep her bed for that day. And yet it was essential that the proposed inquiries should be instantly set on foot.

On the one hand, the problem was not an easy one to solve; on the other, her ladyship was not an easy one to beat.

How to send for the landlady at Craig Fernie, without exciting any special suspicion or remark—was the question before her. In less than five minutes she had looked back into her memory of current events at Windygates—and had solved it.

The next course came in—and there was an end of the subject again.

Sir Patrick enjoyed his mutton, and entered on a long and interesting narrative of the history of some rare white Burgundy on the table imported by himself.

Arnold resolutely resumed the discussion with the departure of the mutton.

“How to cook an olive!

Put an olive into a lark, put a lark into a quail; put a quail into a plover; put a plover into a partridge; put a partridge into a pheasant; put a pheasant into a turkey.

Good. First, partially roast, then carefully stew—until all is thoroughly done down to the olive. Good again. Next, open the window. Throw out the turkey, the pheasant, the partridge, the plover, the quail, and the lark. Then, eat the olive.

He felt next for his purse. His purse was missing too. When he was back again in his own country, intelligent inquiries were addressed to him on the subject of England. He had but one reply to give.

“The whole nation is a mystery to me. Of all the English people I only understand the English thieves!”

In the meantime the two gentlemen, making their way through the crowd, reached a wicket-gate in the fence which surrounded the enclosure.

“I don’t think I shall find them outside,” said Perry.

“They backed him heavily, Sir⁠—and they have all lost.”

Deaf to this unanswerable reason for the absence of friends, Mr. Speedwell insisted on sending Perry out to search among the persons who composed the crowd. The trainer returned with his report. “You were right, Sir. There are some of his friends outside.

Did neither of them see this? Or, seeing it, did they shrink from acknowledging it? In similar positions, who does not shrink?

The occasions are many on which we have excellent reason to laugh when the tears are in our eyes; but only children are bold enough to follow the impulse.

So strangely, in human existence, does the mockery of what is serious mingle with the serious reality itself, that nothing but our own self-respect preserves our gravity at some of the most important emergencies in our lives.

The two ladies waited the coming ordeal together gravely, as became the occasion. The silent maid flitted noiseless upstairs. The silent man waited motionless in the lower regions.

Outside, the street was a desert. Inside, the house was a tomb.

The church clock struck the hour. Two.

Arnold followed them, supporting his wife. For one memorable instant Anne looked back at them all. Then she and her husband crossed the threshold. They descended the stairs together. The opening and closing of the house door was heard. They were gone.

Done, in the name of morality. Done, in the interests of virtue. Done, in an age of progress, and under the most perfect government on the face of the earth.

When does the vain regret find its keenest sting? When is the doubtful future blackened by its darkest cloud? When is life least worth having, and death oftenest at the bedside?

In the terrible morning hours, when the sun is rising in its glory, and the birds are singing in the stillness of the newborn day.

Anne woke in the strange bed, and looked round her, by the light of the new morning, at the strange room.

“Are you my son’s wife?” asked the lady.

“I am your son’s prisoner,” Anne answered.

Lady Holchester’s pale face turned paler still. It was plain that Anne’s reply had confirmed some doubt in the mother’s mind which had been already suggested to it by the son.

“You won’t cultivate your mind,” he said, “with such a book as that.

Vile actions recorded in vile English, make vile reading, Geoffrey, in every sense of the word.

”

Anne gave the key to the girl to let them in. Hester wrote on her slate, as composedly as if nothing had happened: “They’ll find me in the kitchen, if they want me. I shan’t go back to my bedroom.

My bedroom’s full of bad dreams.

” She descended the stairs. Anne waited in the upper passage, looking over into the hall below. “Your brother is in the drawing-room,” she called down to Julius. “The landlady is in the kitchen, if you want her.”

“Aha!” she said to herself, wiping the cold sweat of her agony from her face. “

Candles to other people. God’s light to me. Nothing to be seen! nothing to be seen!

” Taking one of the candles in her hand, she crossed the passage, with her head down, turned her back on Geoffrey’s open door, closed it quickly and softly, stretching out her hand behind her, and retreated again to her own room.

“

Oh, just and merciful Judge, Thou knowest what I have suffered. My trust is in Thee.

”

But once ask them to get on from sitting down and grumbling about it, to rising up and setting it right, and what do you find them?

As helpless as a flock of sheep⁠—that’s what you find them.

“More than six months passed, and I saved a little money again.

My troubles never took that effect on me. I always turned cold under them instead of hot. Bad for me, I dare say; but what you are—you are.

Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots?

“I got away from him once more, and found good employment once more. It don’t matter how, and it don’t matter where. My story is always the same thing, over and over again. Best get to the end.

“He was in rags, and half starved. But that didn’t matter now. All he had to do was to put his hand into my pocket and take what he wanted.

There is no limit, in England, to what a bad husband may do⁠—as long as he sticks to his wife.

On the present occasion, he was cunning enough to see that he would be the loser if he disturbed me in my employment. For a while things went on as smoothly as they could. I made a pretense that the work was harder than usual;