LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume V, Issue 526, 24 February 1876, Page 3

LITERATURE.

HOW HE WAS CURED. (From Temple Bar.) Chapter I.— His Disease. What star in the heavens denotes Jealousy, I have never inquired ; but if any such sidereal symbol exist, then, beyond the possibility of a doubt, was Mr Herbert Brooks born exactly under it. He broke off four engagements before he was married. Com pared with Mr Herbert Brooks, many might consider Othello, on the whole, a decidedly sweet-tempered and unsuspicious young man. He was constantly engaged in mental lights with the various youths who visited his father-in-law’s house, in all which, it is needless to say, his opponents were instantly knocked down and maimed for life. He could never take a walk with Nelly, who was a fair-haired girl with fine brown eyes and an arch smile, without thirsting to punch, on an average, live out of every twenty heads that passed him. She was too fond to be afraid of the consequences that promised to result from such grievous jeajousy after marriage ; and by dint of repeated arguments, skilfully backed up by all the poetical quotations he could muster,

Mr Brooks persuaded his adored that not only can no man in love help being jealous, but that the power of love is only to be judged by the amount of jealousy it gives forth.

Nelly’s mother, Mrs Harcourt, tried to cure Mr Brooks of his jealousy, but he was too good a match to be lost. She was reasonably apprehensive of her girl’s future, if Mr Brooks did not clarify his one-eyed jaundiced survey of human privileges. Sometimes, when a young gentleman called, the old lady in Mr Brooks’s hearing would request Nelly to receive him; but Mr Brooks always gave chase, followed his betrothed to the drawing-room, and so emphatically resented every observation the caller addressed to her, that he would transform the man’s visit into an intolerable solicitude to escape. Mr Brooks and Nelly Harcourt were married ; and if Mr Brooks had been put upon oath to state which he considered the most thoroughly miserable day be had ever passed since he was born, he would unhesitatingly have replied that it was his wedding-day. Several young men were invited to the breakfast, and when they offered their congratulations to the bride, and she blushed her thanks, Mr Herbert Brooks felt so inconceivably wretched that, could the marriage have been annulled, he in all probability would have insisted upon the company returning with him to the church to witness the desolemnization of the rites. He felt strongly disposed to quarrel with his wife for crying when she parted with her mother; because he considered that, if she ready loved him, she must be perfectly happy to think that he was her husband, and that, if she was perfectly happy, she couldn’t cry. His jealousy was frequently aroused during the honeymoon, which they spent in the South of France. Fair hair is immensely admired in that nation, and at a table d'hote, Mr Brooks caught his right hand neighbour, a count, glaring in the most abandoned manner, as he conceived, at his wife, who sat opposite. Losing his self-control at last, he gave the count a nudge, and whispered fiercely,— * Monsieur seems ravished !’ ‘ Pardon ! ’ exclaimed the count. Mr Brooks gazed into his full face and blushed. The count’s eye, on Mr Brook’s side, W'as of glass. Jealousy is universally admitted to be a highly comic passion until it takes to pillows and poison. He returned with his wife to England after three months’ absence, and settled in Kent, where he had an estate, Mrs Brooks was very glad to get home. Her honeymoon had been anything but sweet to her. ‘ You must distrust me, to be so jealous,’ she would say, clinging to him and looking into his face with her earnest eyes, * What have I done to make you doubt me ?’ ‘ I don’t doubt you, but the world. Very few men, my dear, have the least [sense of honour. They think pretty women expressly created to amuse and admire them. And they particularly affect young wives, hang them !’

‘ All that may be very true,’ said his wife, who was the sweetest, the most docile creature in the world; ‘but if everybody thought like you, there would be no society. People would be afraid to meet each other. And what would become of us all ?’

‘Formy part,’ said Mr Brooks, gloomily, ‘ I don’t want to meet anybody.’ * But we are sure to be asked out, and we shall have to ask people in return, and if you don’t ’

‘By the way, dearest,’ interrupted Mr Brooks, gently, *it is an understood thing between us, of course, that, should we be asked out, we neither of us waltz—unless with each other ?’

You may easily conceive that he deprecated the visits of his friends, yet all hia hopes and fears couldn’t save him from an invitation. The missive was put into his hands one afternoon by his wife. ‘ What’s this ?’ he asked.

‘An invitation from the Montgomeries,* she replied, her face lighted up with an ineffable smile of pleasure. ‘ Let us refuse,’ he muttered. ‘ No, no! we will not, indeed!’ she exclaimed. ‘ I like the Montgomeries much, their dance will be an enjoyable one,’ And then, clasping her hands upon his shoulder, she asked, affectionately : ‘ Which do you like me in best, dearest—blue or pink !’ Had he been, from the hour of his marriage, the warmest advocate of galops, waltzes, and deserted balconies, she could not have asked the question more earnestly, nor with a more ingenuous forgetfulness of his notorious aversions.

‘ I must have time to reflect,’ he gasped; and added with a sickly smile : ‘As for me, if I go, I shall go in a tail-coat made of saekcloth. ’

Thus is humour wrung out of pathos. Thus does the tortured man grin to the last twist of the rack.

It was an understood thing between them that neither was to waltz—that neither was to galop. Nelly had assured her husband that he was welcome to waltz and galop as much as he pleased ; but he, with a very sacrificial aspect, had declared that he meant to confine himself wholly to quadrilles, —which he had no doubt was Nelly’s intention. She gave a little sigh. _ ‘ All the fun of an evening party lies in the dancing. Herbert, I wish you weren’t so jealous. The evening of the ball arrived : the carriage was ordered for half-past ten; and a quarter of an hour before that time Mr Herbert Brooks might have been found gazing at the moon, with a face made haggard by anticipation of suffering, in patentleather boots which were already drawing his feet as mustard-poultices would. Soon his wife joined him ; and never did she look so pretty. Dressing was no trouble to her, but, on the contrary, a source of deep gratification, whatever it might have been to her maid; and as every article of her attire, from her wreath to her gloves, was quite faultless, she was in the gayest spirits; a bright colour was on her cheeks, her eyes sparkled sweetly, she looked remarkably young, and precisely the kind of married woman to assemble a cloud of men about her the moment she presented herself. ‘Now,’ thought Mr Brooks, ‘had I married a plain woman, my mind would be perfectly at ease. Idiot that lam ! I ought never to have married at all.’

The Montgomeries’ ball was a model affair; plenty of people and plenty of room; a young man for every girl; the old gentlemen for the old ladies, which some persons might not think very considerate. Especially the old gentlemen. {To be continued.)