Virginibus Puerisque, and Other Papers

Virginibus Puerisque, and Other Papers

With the single exception of Falstaff, all Shakespeares characters are what we call marrying men. Mercutio, as he was own cousin to Benedick and Biron, would have come to the same end in the long run. Even Iago had a wife, and, what is far stranger, he was jealous. People like Jacques and the Fool in Lear, although we can hardly imagine they would ever marry, kept single out of a cynical humour or for a broken heart, and not, as we do nowadays, from a spirit of incredulity and preference for the single state. For that matter, if you turn to George Sands French version of As You Like It (and I think I can promise you will like it but little), you will find Jacques marries Celia just as Orlando marries Rosalind. At least there seems to have been much less hesitation over marriage in Shakespeares days; and what hesitation there was was of a laughing sort, and not much more serious, one way or the other, than that of Panurge. In modern comedies the heroes are mostly of Benedicks way of thinking, but twice as much in earnest, and not one quarter so confident. And I take this diffidence as a proof of how sincere their terror is. They know they are only human after all; they know what gins and pitfalls lie about their feet; and how the shadow of matrimony waits, resolute and awful, at the cross-roads. They would wish to keep their liberty; but if that may not be, why, Gods will be done! What, are you afraid of marriage? asks Ccile, in Matre Guerin. Oh, mon Dieu, non! replies Arthur; I should take chloroform. They look forward to marriage much in the same way as they prepare themselves for death: each seems inevitable; each is a great Perhaps, and a leap into the dark, for which, when a man is in the blue devils, he has specially to harden his heart. That splendid scoundrel, Maxime de Trailles, took the news of marriages much as an old man hears the deaths of his contemporaries. Cest dsesprant, he cried, throwing himself down in the arm-chair at Madame Schontzs; cest dsesprant, nous nous marions tous! Every marriage was like another gray hair on his head; and the jolly church bells seemed to taunt him with his fifty years and fair round belly. ......Buy Now (To Read More)

Product details

Ebook Number: 386
Author: Stevenson, Robert Louis
Release Date: Jan 1, 1996
Format: eBook
Language: English