第24章 HAPPY MARRIAGE.(2)

The love of a wife is as much above the idle passion commonly called by that name,as the loud laughter of buffoons is inferior to the elegant mirth of gentlemen.Oh!she is an inestimable jewel.In her examination of her household affairs she shows a certain fearfulness to find a fault,which makes her servants obey her like children:and the meanest we have has an ingenuous shame for an offence,not always to be seen in children in other families.I speak freely to you,my old friend:ever since her sickness,things that gave me the quickest joy before turn now to a certain anxiety.

As the children play in the next room,I know the poor things by their steps,and am considering what they must do,should they lose their mother in their tender years.The pleasure I used to take in telling my boy stories of the battles,and asking my girl questions about the disposal of her baby,and the gossiping of it,is turned into inward reflection and melancholy."He would have gone on in this tender way,when the good lady entered,and,with an inexpressible sweetness in her countenance,told us "she had been searching her closet for something very good,to treat such an old friend as I was."Her husband's eyes sparkled with pleasure at the cheerfulness of her countenance;and I saw all his fears vanish in an instant.The lady observing something in our looks which showed we had been more serious than ordinary,and seeing her husband receive her with great concern under a forced cheerfulness,immediately guessed at what we had been talking of;and applying herself to me,said,with a smile,"Mr.Bickerstaff,do not believe a word of what he tells you.I shall still live to have you for my second,as I have often promised you,unless he takes more care of himself than he has done since his coming to town.You must know he tells me that he finds London is a much more healthy place than the country,for he sees several of his old acquaintances and school-fellows are here young fellows with fair full-bottomed periwigs.I could scarce keep him this morning from going out open-breasted."My friend,who is always extremely delighted with her agreeable humour,made her sit down with us.She did it with that easiness which is peculiar to women of sense;and to keep up the good humour she had brought in with her,turned her raillery upon me."Mr.Bickerstaff,you remember you followed me one night from the play-house;suppose you should carry me thither to-morrow night,and lead me into the front box."This put us into a long field of discourse about the beauties,who were mothers to the present,and shined in the boxes twenty years ago.I told her,"I was glad she had transferred so many of her charms,and I did not question but her eldest daughter was within half a year of being a Toast."We were pleasing ourselves with this fantastical preferment of the young lady,when on a sudden we were alarmed with the noise of a drum,and immediately entered my little godson to give me a point of war.His mother,between laughing and chiding,would have put him out of the room;but I would not part with him so.I found upon conversation with him,though he was a little noisy in his mirth,that the child had excellent parts,and was a great master of all the learning on the other side eight years old.I perceived him a very great historian in AEsop's Fables:but he frankly declared to me his mind,that he did not delight in that learning,because he did not believe they were true;for which reason I found he had very much turned his studies for about a twelve-month past,into the lives and adventures of Don Bellianis of Greece,Guy of Warwick,the Seven Champions,and other historians of that age.I could not but observe the satisfaction the father took in the forwardness of his son;and that these diversions might turn to some profit,I found the boy had made remarks which might be of service to him during the course of his whole life.He would tell you the mis-managements of John Hickathrift,find fault with the passionate temper in Bevis of Southampton,and loved Saint George for being the champion of England;and by this means had his thoughts insensibly moulded into the notions of discretion,virtue,and honour.I was extolling his accomplishments,when the mother told me that the little girl who led me in this morning was in her way a better scholar than he.

"Betty,"says she,"deals chiefly in fairies and sprites,and sometimes in a winter-night will terrify the maids with her accounts,till they are afraid to go up to bed."I sat with them till it was very late,sometimes in merry,sometimes in serious,discourse,with this particular pleasure,which gives the only true relish to all conversation,a sense that every one of us liked each other.I went home,considering the different conditions of a married life and that of a bachelor;and I must confess it struck me with a secret concern,to reflect,that whenever I go off I shall leave no traces behind me.In this pensive mood I return to my family;that is to say,to my maid,my dog,and my cat,who only can be the better or worse for what happens to me.