Breakup

“ The hesitation of the first steps of marriage, the explanation of love, the abandonment, the amazing tendernesses, the secret rivalry in affection for each other—those are the moments of greatest dramatic intensity. Stories give us, as is natural for them, perhaps, the odd cases—the ill-matched couples—but for the great number of people who follow nature and are led by her there never comes again greater poignancy in life than steeps the wedding night and the hour of the birth of their children. ”

“ How the true heart beat with growing passion during the remainder of the merry festivity, and as the final announcement of separation was whispered from ear to ear, the gradual wane of Love’s lofty right would fain have dwindled into pompous nothing as the thought kept tickling his warm enthusiasm with the nimble fingers of jealousy. That she whom he had ardently hoped should share his future with sheer and loving caresses of constant companionship 31 and wife-like wisdom should be trapped in probably vowing to another her great devotion for him! ”

“ It was at this point in his confused misery that he recalled her anguish; after all, it might not have been altogether pity for him. He reddened at that thought, but, perhaps, she was already aware of her mistake, already plunged into the misery that now apparently was the common result of marriage and made divorce appear as a boon to those unfortunates who desire another opportunity, like the man in the nursery rhyme who jumped into a bramble bush and scratched out both his eyes, only to jump into another bush and scratch them in again. ”

“ If the marriage of our lovers conform to the majority of marriages, the first year of their wedded life will determine whether they are able to share bed and board through the lengthening years. For this first year—often the first months of it—marks the transition from love to conjugal affection, or witnesses a rupture which nothing less than omnipotence can ever mend. ”

“ All unmindful of the withering curses invoked upon their devoted heads, the young and newly-wedded pair went on their homeward way, as happy and light-hearted as they had come, little dreaming of the reception that awaited the announcement of their mad freak—little dreaming of the sudden and cruel separation in store for them—that the bright day so happily begun, and well-nigh spent, was to close, as it were, in a night of black despair, and long, long years of weary sorrow and heart-pangs intervene ere joy and reunion would come again to them. ”

“ Marriage is the end of your little story, so you take it for granted it must be the end of his. The more you love him, the sooner you bore him. You go bankrupt in the honeymoon—you're a back number to him before you've been married a month—he knows all your life, and all your mind, and all your moods. ”

“ Why not end unhappiness, and try joy? She had done her best to make her first marriage a success, and she had failed. Why not, with all kindness, with all generous good wishes, end the long experiment? Who, in all her wide range of acquaintances, would think the less of her for the obviously sensible step? The world recognized divorce as an indispensable institution: one marriage in every twelve was dissolved. ”

“ Whither can a lover go but to the land of his beloved? and what seeker findeth rest away from his heart’s desire? To the true lover reunion is life, and separation is death. His breast is void of patience and his heart hath no peace. A myriad lives he would forsake to hasten to the abode of his beloved. ”

“ Why do you make me love you so? Why must your image intrude itself into every plan, and all be done as you would approve, if, after all, you are to marry another? You would not wonder at the effect of what you have told me, if you knew how the hope that you would forgive me and yet be mine, has been my only comfort a long, dreary time. ”

“ And then, when all this is over, when the lights are out, the wedding garments folded away, the practical domestic life begun and the period of romance passed, the interest which followed the pair from the first blossom of their love expires, and, as far as sentiment is concerned, their day—a time full of pleasant things, of grateful happiness in the present and joyful expectation for the future—is done for ever. Thenceforward their lives will be but prosy and dull to the world, however full to them the years may be of serenity and peace. ”

“ What if, after marriage, the sky is ofttimes clouded and the path of life grows stormy, and the smiles disappear in frowns--and we know that such a change does sometimes come over the spirit of the most beautiful of matrimonial dreams--what if some of the early illusions are mercilessly murdered?--there is always that pre-nuptial period to be looked back upon with fondness, if also with regret. ”

“ So the faithful, patient lover is at last rewarded, and there appears a prospect of happiness for him and his bride. But the terrible tragedy in which she has played a part has shattered her constitution, and just as she is beginning to rest happily in her husband's love, she droops and dies. ”

“ If the slight formalities that are the bulwarks of love as well as friendship, many forbearances, and more of the small, sweet courtesies of life, were but permitted to blossom forth like unexpected flowers beneath the family rooftree, fewer unhappy marriages would catalogue their miseries in the divorce court. ”

“ Desertion and Divorce.—For a young man to court a young woman, and excite her love till her affections are riveted, and then (from sinister motives, such as, to marry one richer, or more handsome) , to leave her, and try elsewhere, is the very same crime as to divorce her from all that she holds dear on earth—to root up and pull out her imbedded affections, and to tear her from her rightful husband. First love is always constant. The second love brings uncertainty—too often desertions before marriage and divorces after marriage. ”

“ It is six weeks since I repaid all your loving kindness, brought shame and sorrow to you and ruin to myself, by deserting from West Point when my commission was but a few short months away. In an hour of intense misery, caused by a girl who had won my very soul, and whose words and letters made me believe she would become my wife the month of my graduation, and who, as I now believe, was then engaged to the man she married in January, I threw myself away. My one thought was to find her, and God knows what beyond.
“It can never be undone. ”

“ With the virgin wreath, the bride! To the love-feast clearly ringing, Tolls the church-bell far and wide! With that sweetest holiday, Must the May of life depart; With the cestus loosed—away Flies illusion from the heart! Yet love lingers lonely, When passion is mute, And the blossoms may only Give way to the fruit. The husband must enter The hostile life, With struggle and strife To plant or to watch. ”

“ The divorce trial of a handsome young woman and her wealthy husband, brings up the story of her early environment and her unfortunate mother’s disappointed life. The woman now seeking a divorce was reared in the midst of matrimonial unrest and social misery—what other ending could the world expect in her own case? Where the union is not purely a union of heart and soul, a harmony of taste and temperament, where the souls are not tuned to respond to the same vibrations, conjugal happiness is simply impossible. ”

“ So he shed copious tears and repeated the following verses:
The lover is drunken with love of his fair; In longing and heat he redoubles fore’er.
Love-maddened, confounded, distracted, perplexed, No dwelling is pleasant to him and no fare.
For how, to a lover cut off from his love, Can life be delightsome? ’Twere strange an it were.
I melt with the fire of my passion for her And the tears down my cheek roll and never forbear. ”

“ But as months passed on, and he again became immersed in his business, his true character, or, more properly speaking, his habitual manners, were again resumed, and the heart of the wife was often pained by an appearance of coldness and indifference, which seemed to chill and repulse the best affections of her nature.
Tears and remonstrance were useless, for the husband was himself unaware of the change. Was not every comfort amply provided, every request complied with? What more could any reasonable woman desire? ”

“ Several evenings past in the same manner, when the bride, mortified at such coldness, could no longer restrain herself, and said, "Why, my lord, if you disliked me, did you take me to wife? but if you love not as other men, tell me so, and I will suffer my misfortune in silence." ”

“ And the first thing to note about the most tragic of them is that they are not tragedies of marriage at all They are tragedies of sex; and might easily occur in a highly modern romance in which marriage was not mentioned at all. It is generally summarised by saying that the tragic element is the absence of love. But it is often forgotten that another tragic element is often the presence of love. The doctors of divorce, with an air of the frank and friendly realism of men of the world, are always recommending and rejoicing in a sensible separation by mutual consent. ”

“ We marry—I wonder how many marriages are the result of a passion that is burnt out before the altar-rails are reached?—and three months afterwards the little lass is broken-hearted to find that we consider the lacing of her boots a bore. Her feet seem to have grown bigger. There is no excuse for us, save that we are silly children, never sure of what we are crying for, hurting one another in our play, crying very loudly when hurt ourselves. ”

“ Having renounced all idea of finding in marriage those transports of love on which our minds used so often, and with such perilous rapture, to dwell, I found a gentle calm settling over me. "If debarred from love, why not seek for happiness?" ”

“ The marriage ceremony is but a mockery, if the two who exchange vows are not expecting to find their chief earthly joys in each other’s society. But when they can bring their minds to a separation of weeks or months, just for pleasure, we think they little dream of the heartaches they are laying up in store for one another. ”

“ The idea of divorce is repugnant to you—though you have ceased to love the husband who deeply wronged you. You shrink even more from marrying again because your children's father is still alive. If he were dead, the bar would be removed, and you would not hesitate. I appeal to your common sense, Constance. What sound reason is there why you should sacrifice your happiness—the happiness of us both? ”

“ But try breaking-off with love when you want it most, when it’s fairest, most devilishly alive. Try breaking off, not because you’re annoyed with the girl, childishly pettishly annoyed,—but for the sake of keeping love unsated, and the memory of love like a sword-blade. ”

“ It seemed that her father died two months after marriage, right in the midst of the mellow light of the honeymoon, before he had had time to drop the exstatic sweetness of courtship and newly-married bliss and come down into the ordinary, everyday, good and bad demeanors of men. ”

“ While free love seems to me a heresy, divorce does really seem to me a superstition. It is not only more of a superstition than free love, but much more of a superstition than strict sacramental marriage ”

“ But whether, most blessed evening, thou delightest us in the country or in the town, thou equally disposest us to make and to feel love!—thou art the cause of more marriages and more divorces, than any other time in the twenty-four hours. ”

“ XCIV. A husband will be best avenged by his wife’s lover.
MEDITATION XXVIII. OF COMPENSATIONS.
The marital catastrophe which a certain number of husbands cannot avoid, almost always forms the closing scene of the drama. At that point all around you is tranquil. Your resignation, if you are resigned, has the power of awakening keen remorse in the soul of your wife and of her lover; for their happiness teaches them the depth of the wound they have inflicted upon you. You are, you may be sure, a third element in all their pleasures. ”

“ I lived that year, our second honeymoon, and the last of our life together, torn between the joy of my returned happiness and the terrible knowledge of my coming loss. The wedding day came and I could have cried out in my agony, but I could give my pain no voice. I had no tears, only smiles and laughter that must be gone through with, though my heart was breaking. Imagine it if you can, sirs. Was ever a man so tried? ”

“ It is something for him to look forward to, all through the honeymoon. These little gatherings are so delightfully home like—it is reassuring to feel that you are all members of the same club.
BACK TO THE START AGAIN This little scene is the sort of thing that divorce leads to,—hope springs eternal, and all that. A divorce simply gets one into the right frame of mind for a fresh start in matrimony. After all, Nature will have its own way; there’s nothing like love—it is the passion to which the best divorce lawyers attribute their success. ”

“ When her lover leaves her, and wanders off to wooings far away, she reproaches him by her silence; and when he has time to think, he remembers with regret and longing the restful loveliness that was once about him like a mantle of peace. ”

“ His young and lovely wife, scarce past her bridal year,—she who had, long before his marriage, been the secret object of his ardent love, and who, p. 170upon the death of his father, became the object of his choice—of her grief it was scarcely possible to think without affright; for, in that convulsion of soul into which, in the first horror of eternal separation from all we love, we invariably fall, she had withdrawn herself from all consolation of her friends—all succour of her attendants ”