Letters of Peregrine PickleUpton, George P. (George Putnam)
General
Letters of Peregrine Pickle
Upton, George P. (George Putnam)
Chicago (Ill.) -- Social life and customs -- 19th century -- Fiction
I regret to say that Aurelia paid no regard to the advice I gave
her two weeks ago. In spite of all my efforts to persuade her to
the contrary, she persisted in the hallucination that she was the
first woman who had ever been torn away from distracted parents and
led, a garlanded victim, to the matrimonial altar. I think she was
disappointed that the heavens were not hung with white favors, and
that deputations were not present from the various races of the
globe, and that business was not suspended. The number of invitations
was only limited by the capacity of the house. Everyone of the young
ladies invited was a very dear friend, not to have invited whom would
have given mortal offence, and sundered friendships, in many cases
of several weeks' existence, without which life would have been a
blank--Sahara without an oasis--Heaven without a star.
M. Arsene Houssaye, rash man, says that woman is the fourth theologic
virtue and the eighth mortal sin. Upon this standard it is safe to
say there was present a frightful amount of theologic virtue and
mortal sin. I am sure of the latter fact.
The hour for the ceremony had been appointed at 6 P.M. Deeply
impressed as was Aurelia with the idea that Columbus, discovering the
New World; Galileo, fixing the motion of the earth round the sun;
Newton, discovering the laws of gravitation, and Harvey, finding the
circulation of the blood--were but every-day common-places compared
with this event,--she had, nevertheless, found it impossible to
convince the Directors of the Michigan Central Railroad of that fact.
The result was that trains ran at the usual hour, and would not wait,
even one little minute, and it was vulgarly necessary, therefore, to
have the wedding promptly at six.
After the wedding was over, I invited old Blobbs up to my den to
smoke, and we compared notes on this occasion, and mutually arrived
at this result: That the good old-fashioned custom of a large family
wedding, celebrated in hospitable style, followed up with wit,
sociality, games, and a dance, the guests departing at a seasonable
time, well lined with capon and punch, trusting to Providence and
instinct that the young couple would find their way through the
night, somehow, to the breakfast table the next morning, the bride
dressed in the rosiest of blushes, and the groom very plucky and
defiant, each commencing the race in life from the starting point of
home, was much more sensible than this modern custom of gathering
together all their dear friends, hurrying through the ceremony,
and then running off a thousand miles, as if the couple had done
something they were ashamed of.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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