Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, No. 86, February, 1875

My good mother (may Heaven reward her!) often advised me to marry betimes. "Marry early in life, my dear Charles," she would say, "but marry a woman worthy of you."

In her solicitude my mother foresaw the difficulty of the task she had set before me. She had known and admired me from childhood, and of course appreciated my worth. I remember her sad but affectionate gaze as she spoke, and I, unconscious of the future, smiled to reassure her. With the simplicity inseparable from great natures, I did not value the treasures I possessed. I was as the poet before he has touched his lyre-as the sculptor ere he has found his marble. Since then the years have brought knowledge. My eyes have been opened by the actions of those around me-by the admiration I excite whenever I appear; by the respect with which I am listened to when I speak; by the warmth with which I am welcomed wherever I visit. I could produce many examples to illustrate my gradual awakening, but they would be irrelevant to my subject.

I earnestly desired to fulfill my mother's wishes, and as soon as it seemed proper after her decease I set out on my quest as on a pilgrimage. The task which requires from most men some six weeks' or three months' time, perhaps a few moments snatched from business or a few evenings of ball-room devotion, has cost me three years' labor, and it is not yet accomplished. But I suppose it is easier for other men to find some one worthy of them.

I had read the poets: I had conceived an ideal of a faultless creature, and with the enthusiasm of youth I sought for a woman to worship as a star-one whom I should adore-one far above me, from whom it would be honor to win a smile, and-and all that sort of thing. Alas! I found they smiled before I could make my first bow at an introduction. At first I blamed the poets-thought they had been mistaken-had not studied human nature; but the truth gradually dawned upon me. The fault was mine! The imagination of man had not been able to create a hero of fiction like myself: in fact, had authorship attained such a triumph, the most fastidious maiden would have been obliged to fall in love at first sight, thereby spoiling many a fine three-volumed romance and heroic cantos innumerable. How ruinous would the possession of perfection such as mine have been to the chivalry of the Middle Ages!

I do not think any less of the ladies for the ease of my conquests: I know how impossible it is for the poor dears to resist my charms; but oh the happiness of mediocrity!

I was occupied for a whole season searching for the being whom I called my star. My fancy was so pleased with the idea of basking in her radiance, I had so fully persuaded myself to be guided by her light to all things great and high, I had learned to think of her with so much devotion, that I could not give up my hope of finding her somewhere. I went to all the popular summer-resorts in turn, meeting only disappointment. The star type of girls did not seem to be the mode that season: I could see no trace of her I came to find. Though saddened, I was too young to despair: in my usual clear and sensible manner I thought the matter over. After all, I reflected, I suppose I can find a woman worthy of me who is not a star. I doubt not the poets were sincere in their civility to persons of the other sex. The exaggeration arose from the absence of any really superior man with whom to compare them. They seemed stars in contrast with the existing male species: I had not yet appeared.

Another summer found me renewing my search with unabated vigor, but this time on a different basis, having determined to lay romance aside-to seek for nothing above me-to be content with an equal. If with her I should not be ecstatically happy-if our ménage would not quite rival that of Adam and Eve in the garden of Paradise-yet a certain amount of modern bliss might be extracted from the companionship of an agreeable woman who could appreciate and sympathize with my tastes and be my friend through life.

I employed my second summer in looking for a sympathetic woman, with the intention of making her my wife. May I never see such a hard-working, distracting season again! Not that such women were hard to find-they were only too plenty: at one time I had six who were devoted to me. One sympathized with my love of music; we sang duets together in the evening; it was delightful, for I need hardly say that I sing as I do everything else-remarkably well. Another sympathized with my sketching propensities. We rambled in the woods together with boxes and colors. I found it charming. "Nothing amateurish" about my style, Miss Pinklake said. A third sympathized with my taste for horses: my restive Nero was the "sweetest pet" she ever saw. (My groom says, "He's the divvil hisself, Muster Charley.") With her I rode in the afternoon. She told me-Miss Vernon, you know her? brunette, deuced pretty-she said one day, when we were taking a canter together, "I can believe those wonderful stories of the Centaurs when I see you ride, Mr. Highrank." She had a pleasant voice, and such a figure! I had almost decided to propose to her one day, and was even thinking of the words I should use, when the pale Miss Anabel Lee came walking along the road by us, looking like a fairy, her hat hanging on her arm filled with wild flowers, and her dress looped with ferns. As she passed she raised her beautiful blue eyes to mine, and at the same time-it might have been chance-she pressed a bunch of forget-me-nots to her lips. I remembered I had an engagement to walk with Miss Lee on the beach that night: there was a lovely moon-we talked poetry. It was Miss Annie Darling who said I "waltzed divinely." Miss Annie laid her hand on one's sleeve when she talked to one, mutilated her fan with various tappings on a fellow's shoulder for being naughty, as she called it ("naughty" meant giving her a kiss in a dark corner of the verandah), said saucy things to the snobs, and used her eyes. She walked with the Grecian bend. When I had a serious fit there was young Miss Carenaught, who was plain and read the reviews, spoke sharply against fashion, and knew a man of my education "must despise the butterfly existence of the surrounding throng." Sometimes she would invite me to go with her to catch beetles and queer insects-"not that she needed my help," she would say, "but my intellectual society was indeed a treat in this crowded desert."

All this was very agreeable, but also very perplexing. At the end of the season I found myself as far from making a choice as ever. If I indulged one taste at the expense of the others, I should become a less perfect man; nor could I decide in which of my pursuits I needed sympathy the most-music, painting, dancing, riding, reading. Alas! could I find one woman congenial in all my moods I would marry her immediately. Wearied by the attentions of so many, I yet feared an imperfect life spent with but one. I saw that I had made another mistake, and retired to my country-seat, "The Beauties," to recruit.

I know there is a modern idea that women are the equals of men (the poets, you remember, thought them superior), and many may consider it odd that I did not find it so. I do not wish to offend. To those who hold that opinion I modestly suggest my unfortunate superiority as the probable cause of my failure. I do not blame the ladies, be it understood.

Again I sat down to plan and reflect. I looked mournfully on the past and less hopefully on the future. The obstacles were beginning to dishearten me, but even after a second failure I dared not relinquish my quest: my mother's wishes must be fulfilled. A woman worthy of me: behold the difficulty! What course of action should I now pursue?

At last I had a flash of brain-light on the subject. I would look for the purely good, rejecting the intellectual entirely. I would plunge into the country and seek a bride fresh from the hands of Nature, a wild flower without fashion, guile or brains-one who in leaving me free to follow my own pursuits would yet adorn my life with charms of the heart-a heart that had known no love but mine.

It was in the most beautiful month of autumn that I made this resolve, which I lost no time in putting into execution. I wrote to my old college friend, Dick Hearty, that I would spend a month with him: he had often invited me to visit him in the country. I counted on doing enough love-making in that time to win my wild rose, and at my return I would bring home my bride. I reasoned that in those unsophisticated regions, in the shadow of the virgin forest, the trammels of long courtship and other fashionable follies are unknown: heart meets heart as the pure woodland streams meet each other and become one.

Before I set out I gave a dinner-party at The Beauties to announce to my gentleman friends the joyful event. At the dessert I rose and proposed the health of my future bride.

"And may it be years before she arrives at The Beauties!" mumbled Percy Flyaway when they had drunk the toast.

"I hope you will all welcome her at a grand reception here in-about a month or six weeks." I remembered just in time that I had best not fix a date, as something might intervene.

A storm of questions, exclamations and remarks ensued.

"Lovely?"

"As fair as poet's dreaming."

"Die Vernon?"

"Not for Joe!"

"The Soprano?"

A shake of my head.

"Anabel?"

"No."

"Who is she?"

"Let us drink her health again," said one, getting thirsty, and fearing in the excitement the bottle would not be passed.

"Tell us all about her," cried another.

"Gentlemen," said I seriously when the noise had slightly abated, "you know I am a deuced good fellow."

"Hear! hear!" they cried.

"That you are!" said Percy.

"Well, I am going to get a deuced good wife."

"Congratulate you, old fellow!"

"Do you think of going up in a balloon for a wedding-trip?"

They all came around me, clinked their glasses with mine, shook hands with me, and drank my health, her health, the health of my mother-in-law, and any other toast that would serve as an excuse for emptying a glass.

"I say, will she cut rough on us chaps?" asked Percy in a plaintive voice as the hubbub subsided.

"Gentlemen," cried I, waving my hand, "my wife that is to be is an angel."

"Wish she would stay in heaven!" muttered Percy.

"What I mean by an angel is a perfect woman."

"Worse still," said the irrepressible Perce. (By the by, the wits had nicknamed him "Perce sans purse," because he was poor, you know, but he was a good fellow, quite.)

"Gentlemen, let me explain."

"Hear! hear!"

"I have been looking for a wife for the past year: I have thought much on the subject, for I think it an important one."

"Solomon!" said Perce out of his wine-glass.

"Now, a good wife must be a refined, gentle, kind, loving, beautiful woman, with no nonsense about her."

"Amen to the last clause!" cried Bear de Witt.

"You have found her?" asked Percy, absently watching the sparkling bubbles rise one after the other in his glass.

"Ah-aw-I will bring her home," I answered, evading the question-"my love, my bliss, my delight!"

"He is awful spoony on her," said Bear in a disgusted tone.

"He is tipsy," whispered Percy as I sat down with a tremor in my voice and wiped my eyes with a napkin.

Then Perce began to lecture me in an injured tone: "I say, it is really too bad of you. I should not have believed it if you had not told us yourself. To go and get married like any fool of a fella' that hasn't forty thou' a year, like any common man-it's too rough."

"I know it, Perce," I replied, "but we superior people must set an example-the world expects it of us. The only question is, how to make a proper choice."

I remember very little after, except that the lights shone dimmer through the cigar-smoke, that there was much noise from popping corks, and occasionally a breakage of glass, and I think I made another speech. Next morning I awoke with a very robust and well-defined head-ache.

A few days later I started for the back-woods, with Wordsworth packed in my trunk, he being the writer most congenial to my present state of mind. Once seated in the cars, I looked with pleasure on each pastoral scene as it came into view, and gazed at the milkmaids while thinking romantically of my love. I took a nap, and awoke respectfully pressing the handle of my portmanteau and murmuring a proposal to my wild flower.

It was late when I arrived at the little village near which my friend resided, and I resolved to spend the night at the modest inn of the place. The gay singing of birds, mingled with the ringing of Sunday bells, caused my drowsy eyes to open on the morrow. A happy thought came to me as I lay enjoying the delightful freshness of all around me: "I will go to church: my little Innocence will be there. I know she is pious. As unconscious as the birds, and with as sweet a voice, she will, like them, be praising her Maker this bright morning."

I began to dress, looking each moment from the window with the hope that she might pass by. The street was quiet-no one to be seen. Presently, from a house near, tripped two pretty girls, and I eagerly came forward to see them. "If it is not my rose herself," I thought, "it maybe some relation-cousin, sister, friend: I am interested in the whole town since she lives here." The girls came nearer. They walked without affectation: you could imagine that the spirit of Modesty herself had taught them that quiet demeanor. Suddenly they looked up and saw me. Am I Mephistopheles, to produce such a dire effect? They looked down, they simpered, they laughed a laugh that was not natural: their voices grew louder.

"Did you see him?" said one.

"So perfectly lovely!" said the other.

"I wonder who he is?" remarked the first.

"My fate," I muttered as I turned away.

After breakfast I sallied forth, humming "Pure as the Snow." Taking a reconnoissance of the town, I came to a pretty house with woodbine-covered porch, and a slender figure at the window.

"I will not startle her with a rude glance," thought I, for I could see without appearing to look. As my step resounded the figure turned.

"Oh, do come here, Jessie! Who can he be?" said the slender figure to some one inside.

I raised my eyes slowly, and my hat. "Could you tell me the way to Mr. Hearty's?" I asked, not thinking of any other excuse for speaking to her.

Blushing, she told me.

"And might I ask you," looking beseechingly at her as a person who might be my future wife-"might I ask you to give me one of your roses?"

"Take as many as you like," she said courteously.

"I would rather you gave me one," with a smile.

She hesitated for an instant, then quickly plucked a bud from the side of the open window, threw it to me and ran away.

"I shall find my Rose later," sighed I.

I sauntered on to church, a pretty little building of mossy gray stone, and seated myself on a shady bench under the elms to watch the people assembling.

Ye gods! could it be? Here were last summer's styles, airs and grimaces, served up as it were cold. I could pick out bad copies of each girl I had flirted with the past season. You remember Florence Rich at The Resort?-here was her portrait in caricature. Florence was the vainest girl I ever knew, and showed it too. But she was vain of herself. This country Florence was vain of a new silk that I would have taken the odds she was wearing for the first time. She looked as if she were saying with every rustle, "Admire me!" though of course she wasn't, you know. She was constantly arranging her bracelet or smoothing her glove, and looking on this side and that to see if any one was observing her. By this means she gave her admirers the benefit of her full face, showing both earrings; then of her profile, showing one earring and her curls; and then of the back of her head, showing her fall bonnet. Her little black veil ended just where her nose needed a shade. It is needless to mention that she looked at me as she passed and gave me a smile à la profile, which was ostensibly aimed at a pale young man near the church-door.

On they came, looking like the remnants of my summer's feast-the supper after my season's dinner-stale and repelling to my satiated palate. On entering I saw the ghost of "the Soprano" at the head of the choir, with less voice and more affectation. The same glances of envy that had been shot from angry eyes at The Resort I now saw passing between angry eyes here. The church was full of imitations of this kind, or were they only inferior originals of the same type?

I learned afterward that the girls of the town were divided into two classes-the followers of Miss Loude, who was fast and flashy, and the imitators of Miss Weighty, who affected the quiet style, did not visit indiscriminately, and was considered "stuck up" by the townspeople, being the daughter of a retired grocer. During the service they all looked at me. Some who were of the Loude school did it openly: those after the Weighty pattern peeped clandestinely over their prayer-books, through their fans, or between their fingers when praying. The more clever would use strategy, shivering as if in a draught of air, and looking around in my direction to see if a window were open, while the mammas eyed me steadily through spectacles.

"I might have known it," I thought, exasperated: "'tis the same everywhere, unless I should go to a country where the people are blind."

Dick Hearty, who was there with his sisters, came up after the service and spoke to me. "Looking well, old fellow!" he said, as if I was not sick of looking well. "Let me introduce you to my sisters."

His sisters were of the fast and flashy school. Both of them fell in love with me before I left, though I tried hard to make myself disagreeable, not thinking it right to disappoint them, being a friend of the brother, and all that. But unless I wear a mask I cannot prevent such accidents. I hope they will get over it in time. They were deuced nice girls too, but more like peonies than wild roses.

Well, as I was saying, Dick introduced me, and insisted on taking me home with him at once. I already began to fear for the success of my object, but could not turn back at the very beginning of the promised land; so I went with him.

It would be tiresome to tell of all the flirtations and adventures I had while there, or of all the girls who devoted themselves to me. Like skillful leaders, Miss Loude and Miss Weighty set the example to their imitators-an example which none were slow to follow. Indeed, it seemed as if the struggle consisted in seeing who should be first at my feet. I averaged half a dozen conquests daily: Dick's house was overwhelmed with lady visitors, and it was usually love at first sight with them all. A second interview was sufficient to win the most intractable. Not that I cared to win: I was fatigued with victory-my laurels oppressed me. I began to wish, like that nobby old emperor, Au-I used to know his name-that all womankind had but one heart, that I might finish it with a look, and then turn my attention to more important matters.

Once I thought I had found her. At one of the picnics given in my honor I saw a sober, pretty little thing, with rosy cheeks and chestnut hair, who looked intensely rural. I fancied I should like to talk to her alone for a while, and took her to a spring that was just in sight of the dancing platform, thinking she would be too timid to go far away from the others. I found her very sweet and bashful: I could desire nothing more so. She blushed at each word she said, and made some very innocent remarks, unfettered by the grammatic rules that restrain less ingenuous people. Hoping to put her at her ease, I talked about the country, the beautiful views, and all that.

"If you like lovely views," she said shyly, "I can show you one."

"I shall be most happy to see it," I replied.

To tell you of the walk that the treacherous innocent took me, of the rocks we climbed and the marshy brooks we crossed, and the two hours she kept me at the work! Her stock of conversation was exhausted in the first ten minutes, and I was too angry to be civil. Two hours of such silent torture man never underwent before, and yet when we returned tired, with the perspiration rolling down our faces, I actually overheard her tell one of her companions that it had been "a delightful walk, I was so agreeable." Just my luck! And that walk made her a belle! After it all the country beaux flocked around to pay her attention, and she looked upon them as Cinderella might have viewed her other suitors after the prince had danced with her at the ball. Disgusting!

Dick came to me after a while and said, "Charley, you are so stunning in that velvet coat that all the girls are in love with you."

"I know it, Dick," I said in a complaining voice-"I know it. It always happens just so. Think it's the coat? I would take it off in a minute if I thought it was." Then I added with a burst of confidence, "Dick, 'tis the same with everything I wear: the fascination is in myself. I would do anything to lessen it, but I can't."

"You are a jolly joker," replied Dick with a tremendous slap on my back, as if I had said something very funny. I am often witty when I don't mean to be.

But why continue a history which was the same thing day after day? I stayed in the country more than three weeks. Though doubting, I was conscientious, and left nothing undone to gain my end. The task bored me far more than my sympathizers did in the summer. Indeed, any of those friends were bewitching in contrast to the girls I now met, and had one of them dropped in on me during that tiresome period I think I should have forgotten nice distinctions and made serious love to her, sure of finding more pleasure in having a single taste in common than in having none at all.

I believe country-people are even more egotistic than the dwellers in cities. I sometimes found myself at the most isolated farm-houses looking for my Rose. The men I met there invariably thought they knew all about the weather and religion, politics and farming; the women were convinced they had every kind of knowledge worth having, and that what they did not know was "new-fangled" and not worth a pin; and their daughters believed that they were beauties, or would be if they had fine clothes to dress in. How people can be so mistaken as to their capacity is a mystery to me.

During my stay I came to the conclusion that I would rather press a soft hand than a hard one; that I would rather see a tasty toilette than beauty unadorned; that shy manners are anything but graceful; that the useful and the beautiful are not likely to be found in the same person; and that girls, like articles de luxe, should be carefully kept. I like to recall that well-bred, unconscious air of Miss Haughton; I remember Miss Darling as a model of deportment: why, she could do the naughtiest things in a less objectionable manner than that of these girls when acting propriety.

I discovered some facts regarding wild roses. Their petals are few and faded, and their thorns many and sharp. Their scanty green foliage will always remind me of a calico gown. Take my word for it, and don't ever go to the trouble of seeking one. Give me a full-blown damask rose. What care I if it was nursed in a hot-house or if its beauty is due to the gardener's care? I thank the gardener and take the rose. Or give me a half-open sulphira, with suggestive odors and soft curving leaves, passion-pale in tint, or a gorgeous amaryllis produced by artful development, clothed like a queen in state, bearing erect her magic beauty. No more wild roses for me!