on earth. Many a one has all his pleasure spoiled, even in the most agreeable society, if one happens to be present against whom he has a grudge, especially if the two enemies, who cannot bear the sight of each other, happen to sit together. Oh, then the best meats lose their savor, the choicest drinks become insipid; every word uttered by the one is a thorn in the side of the other; the hours seem lengthened into years by the efforts at enforced courtesy that have to be made to keep up appearances. And yet either, if he chose, might get up and go away.
As experience shows in unhappy marriages. What torment it must then be for two or more who are at enmity to have ave to live together, as is often the case in unhappy marriages! Infallible is the truth spoken by the Holy Ghost: “It is better to dwell in a wilderness than with a quarrelsome and passionate woman.”[1] And there is not a doubt of it. I often think with heartfelt pity of the poor man who is tied to such a disagreeable partner; he hears nothing at home but nagging and complaining, scolding and abuse; so that he is forced to go out of the house to get a little quiet, nor does he come home except with the greatest reluctance and counting the hours till it is time for him to go out again. And still greater is the pity I feel for the poor wife who, good and innocent as she is, must live with a husband who is addicted to drink, or what is worse, is unfaithful to her, and ill-treats and beats her as if she were a servant or a dog. Deserving indeed of pity is the poor woman, who when she hears her drunken husband knocking at the door, trembles in every limb, and has to make up her mind, as she knows by sad experience, to be dragged along by the hair, or kicked, or beaten. Unhappy companions, I think with deep sympathy, when husband and wife regard each other with mutual hatred and aversion; when both drink to excess and curse and abuse each other, and fight and tear each other by the hair; while the children and servants follow the example of their parents and superiors in cursing, and abusing, and fighting; and yet all have to live together. Truly that is a great cross!
The torment thus caused shown by a simile. In ancient times the laws ordained that parricides should be tied up in a leathern sack with a living serpent, a cock, and an ape, and be thrown into the sea, in order that when those animals, that are natural foes to each other, should begin to fight the criminal might be torn to pieces between them. That is a
- ↑ Melius est habitare in terra deserta, quam cum muliere rixosa et iracunda.—Prov. xxi. 19.
