BEAUTY'S HUSBAND.

Temuka Leader, Volume I, Issue 99, 27 November 1878, Page 2

BEAUTY'S HUSBAND.

To live near the rose is proverbially an enviable lot; but if the flower in the fable which bad experience of that position had been possessed of the gift af speech, it would probably have admitted that the position was not without its disarl vantages. Those for whom it is reserved to bask perpetually in the smiles of Beauty soon find that they have a part to play considerably more difficult than the rote of the reigning beauty herself. Vexed with all the troubles of proprietorship, they know comparatively few of its consolations. Like the possessors of some priceless jewel, or of a bank-note of immense value, which they are compelled to carry from place to place, they are agonised with alarms as to the safety of their treasure. If they close their eyes for five minutes during a railway journey, it is but for a feverish unrefreshing doze ; and on awakening they clutch convulsively at their breast-pocket to see whether the costly incubus is still there. It was his c'ear consciousness of all this which wave point to the exclamation uttered °by cynical old Sam Rogers whenever he heard of a man marrying a pretty girl, " Now we shall have our revenge on him.'" The place which in the world's eye such an occupies must be unenviable, and can scarcely help being ridiculous. Rocks and quicksands encompass his course. It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for thi- husband of a reigning beauty so to comport himself that the world shall not find in his conducb cause for-its scandals and its sneers. If he makes it his pleasure and practice to be on /uty as her knieht'y companion prrjfitor, frankly illustrating in a agJfthe antique princip'e, that a whVs best friend is her husband, society Indulges in a kind of satirical snigger, and proves its profound, acquaintance with the text of Shakespeare by making pleasant b'ttle remarks apropos of Desdemona and Othello. Or he may adopt a different line, but. with no more satisfactory result. He has complete confidence in the discretion and fidelity of his wife. He openly states his conviction that she would nwtintentionally violate his smallest wish. The innocent avowal is reo/ivad.

with the scepticism which ™yth ; ne tiiat implies the smallest degree of f ith in .human nature invariably elicits, •••nil • society interprets the marital poii-ey i" lts own way. If he really believes what he savs, then Beauty's husband, from society's point of.view, deserves to be the victim of his own monstrous infatuation. If, on the other hand blind trust is but another word for indisposition to take trouble, then the character of his procedure needs no description. Thus he may institute a rigid Index Expurgalonus for '•lis wife's observance as to her partners m :jj«ne ballroom, and find himself favoured '"■-''' with sundry allusions to the green-eyed monster. Or he may leave the matter to his wife herself ; in which case he must be prepared to hear that he is deliberately throwing her into tV arms of men. There are other grave inconveniences attaching to tbe prestige of the position. If, by independent effort, he has trodden the road to fame simultaneously with the beauty whom he led to the alfcar, or if he has been born to a considerable position, he will have little of which to complain. They are a distinguished couple, and the loveliness of tbe wif'- is recognized as only in proportion to the brilliance of the husband. Beauty and valour, or wit, or high lineage, or achievement, as the case may be, have accidentally met, and have, as is proper, mated. But Beauty's spouse is generally a nonentity, of whose existence the world would be unaware, were it not for the fame of the wife. He is, in fact, Mrs Eawdon Crawley's husband—a kind of appendage to Mrs Eawdon Ciawley herself, but an exceedingly inconvenient one. Lord and master in the eye of the law, he finds that lie has degenerated in practice to the level of a junior partner in a going concern. He is asked to accompany his wife, save on occasions of great ceremony, because society does not exactly see how it can decently do otherwise. But he enters as little into the • atmosphere which she breathes during the evening as the maid who has dressed her, or the coachman who has left them when the hall-door opened. The end of the entertainment will come in time, and with it the brougham and the husband. Meanwhile, he catches but fitful glimpses of her at a -espectful distance. At dinner she is seated on the right hand of her host, and in theiunrediate neighbourhood of the guest and lion of the evening. It is the feast of Juvenal's parasite, with all the additions and improvements of the nineteenth century. Beauty's husband may have the satisfaction of beholding, while he is a great way off, the effect which Beauty is creating at the favoured end of the table ; but as for himself, he feels that he is a kind of poor relation, % tolerated intruder, whose proper place is below the salt, and whom it is necessary to remind of his inferiority by placing him between the dummy young lady, the friend of thp family, who is staying in the house, and the lout from Aldersh nt or Oxford. Nor, when the dinner is over, is" the night's ordeal at m end. There are many weary hours of glitteri:ig dissination'still to be gone through. _ There is'the reception, at which the pair separate as soon as the entrance-hall is passed,

to meet again, by preconcerted arrangement, at a definite spot There is the ft baJJ. at Avlii h lie will have further op- - portunities for practically learning the virtue of humi'i'y, and for pursuing upon a noticeable scale the policy of self-efface-ment. To h.s tired eyes the beauty is intermittently visible—a dream of loveliness in mazy involutions of soft creamy costume, whir'ed round in the arms of princes and Grand Transparencies He has indeed the satisfaction, as he stands wearily rubbing his shoulders against the wad, of knowing that he is not alone. There are the husbands of other beauties, equally patient and equally forlorn. There are the miserable fathers of marriageable daughters, on whom the despotic will of a wife or other circumstances have imposed the purgatorial task of playing chaperon. If Beauty's husband is troubled with no scruples, and if he be a professor of a '". very depraved, hut not unfashionable kind of. iniquity, the incidental inconveniences of his position will not in the slightest degree trouble him. lie will, in his own parlance, have a real good time of it. He will live in an eligible mansion or a bijou residencp, and will have a soul above the thought of rents and rates. He will have yachting, hunting, shooting, good dinners, .good wines, and good cigars provided for him. and no questions 'asked. Fen-the autumn a pleasant iit+le continental trip will be arranged, during which he will use somebody else's courier, and only pay a modest moiety of travelling expenses. But to suppose' this is to suppose the Beauty's husband is a scoundrel, and we would rather bid him adieu on the assumption that he is an honest man. At. the same time, to be an honest man in such a predicament is to be of all men most miserable. His misery is intensified still further if he have a profession to follow, and upon his application to which his success in life depends. In the first place, the very hours he is compelled to keep are incompatible with the comfor+able exercise of professional industry. He goes to bed jaded, and he rises unrefreshed. There will be always present to him the knowledge that the real lives of himself and his wife are far apart. He leaves home for his chambers, his office, or his hospital, at an hour when Mrs Beauty is tranquilly reposing. A little later, while the wretched and devoted man is absorbed in the business of his calling. Mrs Beauty will be riding in the Park, escorted by cavaliers whom he knows not, or lunching at houses in the

company of persons who to him are almost strangers. The friends of the wife are barely the acquaintances of the husband, and the little that he knows of them he does not like, and perhaps imperfectly understands. The fashionable jargon which they talk is unintelligirle to the man who lives for other ends than the distractions of what is called pleasure. The allusions which spice their conversation are couched in an unknown tongue. He detests the scandal which gives its flavour to their dialogue. He is horrified at the flippancy with which the sins and follies of fashion are dismissed. He finds the whole environment as distasteful to him as to all who are not prepared to take life as a good, and not too delicate, joke it must necessarily be. The taste of Dead Sea apples is in his mouth, and there are worse anxieties which are already beginning to gnaw rt his heart. It is rTo easy businees to combine hard work and "Society." It is even more difficult to accommodate the expenditure of the one totheincomings of the other; and when Beauty's husband meets Lord Bui [ion.

who is probably her banker, at one of the soirhs of the great, he feels as the victim o "immin's little dinner felt when his wif..i secured the of the senior parnier i-i tin firm ->f Stump and Rowdy, at lht- little Lou-.j in Lil!ipat-s J reet. T' ere .-.re otb«r tilings quite as painful as these which B auty's husband is condemned to suffer For Beauty herself it may be, or may seem, well enough. There is no time for her seriously to think on the drift and purpose of it all. Her pretty head is fairly turned by the unparalleled lustre of her triumphs ; and admirably clear as she contrives to steer of compromise, she would be more than mortal if she could subsist on a diet of homage, flattery and excitement, without its results making themselves felt. She has no leisure for calm reflection, no eyes to note plain facts. But her husband has both. He is one of those onlookers who sees most of the game, and who may be trusted to explain its laws and to criticise the players. He knows what Beauty herself does not know, and will not heed : that, in the popular slang of tbe day, husband and wife are " not in it ;" that whatever Beauty's trophies may be, society secretly considers wife and husband outsiders. Mentally he compares their one-horse brougham with the equipages of the great, and he knows that he is not the only one who goes through such a process of comparison. He too knows—how should he hdp it I —that the little house which they inhabit is but a gilded pill-box by the side of the mansions of their highly-placed hosts. He has observed, and he cannot forget, the effort with which the servants of these stately palaces conceal astonishment at his attendance upon his wife. He knows that there is as little demand for Beauty's husband in the houses where Beauty is a welcome guest as there is for his photograph in the shop-windows. What has he done to deserve it all ? Why, when years ago he read the famous warning against the prayer for personal attractions, in the famous lines of the satirist who, writing for imperial Rome, has given us by anticipation the truest sketch of nineteenth century London, did lie not profit more fully by the. spirit of that caution, and thus decline resolutely in later days the perilous distinction of becomingBeauty's husband.