The Sketch-Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. Washington Irving (the lemonade war series TXT) đ
- Author: Washington Irving
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At length he came to me one day, and related his whole situation in a tone of the deepest despair. When I had heard him through, I inquired: âDoes your wife know all this?ââ âAt the question he burst into an agony of tears. âFor Godâs sake!â cried he, âif you have any pity on me donât mention my wife; it is the thought of her that drives me almost to madness!â
âAnd why not?â said I. âShe must know it sooner or later: you cannot keep it long from her, and the intelligence may break upon her in a more startling manner than if imparted by yourself; for the accents of those we love soften the harshest tidings. Besides, you are depriving yourself of the comforts of her sympathy; and not merely that, but also endangering the only bond that can keep hearts togetherâ âan unreserved community of thought and feeling. She will soon perceive that something is secretly preying upon your mind; and true love will not brook reserve; it feels undervalued and outraged, when even the sorrows of those it loves are concealed from it.â
âOh, but my friend! to think what a blow I am to give to all her future prospectsâ âhow I am to strike her very soul to the earth, by telling her that her husband is a beggar! that she is to forego all the elegancies of lifeâ âall the pleasures of societyâ âto shrink with me into indigence and obscurity! To tell her that I have dragged her down from the sphere in which she might have continued to move in constant brightnessâ âthe light of every eyeâ âthe admiration of every heart!â âHow can she bear poverty? She has been brought up in all the refinements of opulence. How can she bear neglect? She has been the idol of society. Oh, it will break her heartâ âit will break her heart!â
I saw his grief was eloquent, and I let it have its flow; for sorrow relieves itself by words. When his paroxysm had subsided, and he had relapsed into moody silence, I resumed the subject gently, and urged him to break his situation at once to his wife. He shook his head mournfully, but positively.
âBut how are you to keep it from her? It is necessary she should know it, that you may take the steps proper to the alteration of your circumstances. You must change your style of livingâ ânay,â observing a pang to pass across his countenance, âdonât let that afflict you. I am sure you have never placed your happiness in outward showâ âyou have yet friends, warm friends, who will not think the worse of you for being less splendidly lodged: and surely it does not require a palace to be happy with Maryâ ââ
âI could be happy with her,â cried he, convulsively, âin a hovel!â âI could go down with her into poverty and the dust!â âI couldâ âI couldâ âGod bless her!â âGod bless her!â cried he, bursting into a transport of grief and tenderness.
âAnd believe me, my friend,â said I, stepping up, and grasping him warmly by the hand, âbelieve me, she can be the same with you. Ay, more; it will be a source of pride and triumph to herâ âit will call forth all the latent energies and fervent sympathies of her nature; for she will rejoice to prove that she loves you for yourself. There is in every true womanâs heart a spark of heavenly fire, which lies dormant in the broad daylight of prosperity; but which kindles up, and beams, and blazes in the dark hour of adversity. No man knows what the wife of his bosom isâ âno man knows what a ministering angel she isâ âuntil he has gone with her through the fiery trials of this world.â
There was something in the earnestness of my manner, and the figurative style of my language, that caught the excited imagination of Leslie. I knew the auditor I had to deal with; and following up the impression I had made, I finished by persuading him to go home and unburden his sad heart to his wife.
I must confess, notwithstanding all I had said, I felt some little solicitude for the result. Who can calculate on the fortitude of one whose life has been a round of pleasures? Her gay spirits might revolt at the dark, downward path of low humility suddenly pointed out before her, and might cling to the sunny regions in which they had hitherto revelled. Besides, ruin in fashionable life is accompanied by so many galling mortifications, to which, in other ranks, it is a stranger. In short, I could not meet Leslie, the next morning, without trepidation. He had made the disclosure.
âAnd how did she bear it?â
âLike an angel! It seemed rather to be a relief to her mind, for she threw her arms around my neck, and asked if this was all that had lately made me unhappy.â âBut, poor girl,â added he, âshe cannot realize the change we must undergo. She has no idea of poverty but in the abstract; she has only read of it in poetry, where it is allied to love. She feels as yet no privation; she suffers no loss of accustomed conveniences nor elegancies. When we come practically to experience its sordid cares, its paltry wants, its petty humiliationsâ âthen will be the real trial.â
âBut,â said I, ânow that you have got over the severest task, that of breaking it to her, the sooner you let the world into the secret the better. The disclosure may be mortifying; but then it is a single misery, and soon over: whereas you otherwise suffer it, in anticipation, every hour in the day. It is not poverty, so much as pretence, that harasses a ruined manâ âthe struggle between
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