Life — October 25, 1883 — page 11: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

> LIFE: female monkeys would declare he was really too stylish to live, and even the most virulent of male monkeys would be compelled to admit, in monkey language, he was what in the French language is called chic, It would, therefore, be incumbent upon every monkey who took the least pride in himself to dye his back hair magenta, and paint his tail with a lively cobalt, or forever acknowledge himself to be the inferior of the monkey who set the fashion and of the monkeys who followed it, Dismissing this lurid subject with a little bromide, we can apply the moral of it to the human species, and convey the result by a litule illustration, Several years ago it occurred unto Mr. RICHARD SARSANETT that he would like to possess a wife. In the earlier days of his struggle with fortune, he had been similarly seized with a con- nubial impression, but his courage had failed when he contem- plated the gulf yawning between six dollars a week and happiness asa married man, Later on, when fortune was his and friends plenty, the club and turf furnished excitement enough, without an appeal to millinery bills and babies. Now, however, grown tired of baccarat and bacchanals and the carelessness of land- ladies, his thoughts turned wifeward with a vigor which surprised his old sin-weary heart, and his eyes were cast about for a chance to put the thought into execution. > About this time, strangely enough, it occurred to Miss EFFIe VAN TINSLE that she would like to have a husband. Six years before, when first she blossomed in the field of gayety, and Jack Van Dazzte, the great beau of the season, was laying floral siege to her, and the fortunes of such catches as GORDON DEsBRO and LisPENARD VAN VRIES went begging for her acceptance, she laughed at the thought of tying herself to one man, and so danced heart-whole through traps and snares which many as fair a maiden just ached to get into, But, Time—that great scamp, who, in the end, gets the better of the best of us—Time finally bethought him that Miss Errre had reigned long enough, and so he brought out new stars and set them a-glimmering, and the poor merry ex-favorite found herself a drug on the market. Now, it happened, likewise, that just in exact proportion to Mr. SARSANETT'S desire for a wife in general, was Mr. SARSA- NeEtT’s desire for an aristocratic wife in particular. Also did it happen that Miss Errie’s abstract ambition to secure a husband was in no ways inferior to her concrete preference that that hus- band should be rich, Hence, it was not surprising, that when Mr. SARSANETT met Miss VAN TINSLE and knew her to be aris- tocratic, he proposed to her, nor that Miss VAN TINsLE, on hear- ing that Mr. SARSANETT was worth several millions, accepted him, So it came to pass that the bells of Grace rang out one day a merry chime, and the two were wed. This, as may be Seen, was just one of those matches that Cupid delights in—one of those ennobling unions which dignify the name of love, and render the ceremony of. marriage worthy of being called a sacrament. There were only two objections to it. One was that Miss VAN TINSLE’s haughty nostrils were exceed- ingly sensitive to the odor of calico, The other, that Mr. Sar- SANETT had unfortunately acquired a vulgar and obsolete notion that a wife should not flirt with other men. Now there was just the least little suspicion of the odor of calico about Mr. SARSANETT, acquired during twenty years han- dling of that valuable material, and it would cling to him despite his most violent endeavors to shake it off. There was likewise in Miss VAN TiNSLE a chronic dislike to the monotony of one Clergyman: DRIVE ME TO NiBLo’s THEATRE, Cabby: ALL RIGHT SIR; STAGE DOOR, I suPPOSE. man's attentions, and a pardonable partiality for the attentions of a plural number. Neither of these maladies took wing because of the nuptial benediction, pronounced by the fashionable Dr. PALIssy, strangely enough—for surely his fashionable blessing, from a fashionable church, filled with fashionable worshippers, should certainly have been ratified by the God who loves fashion- able people. Soit came unto the hearing of men, that Mrs, ErFiz SARSANETT, née VAN TINSLE, was most miserably wretched on account of the constant detection by her aristocratic nostrils of the odor of calico, and that Mr. SARSANETT himself was not made the most wildly happy of men by the discovery that Gorpon Dessro, JACK VAN Dazz.e and LisPENARD VAN VRIES, who had not for two years taken notice of the woman, now his wife, were now more desperately attentive than in the days of her girlhood, completely neglecting for her sake the several spouses whom they had taken and sworn to cherish. If all this had happened among the Lower CLasses, what a vulgar and discourteous row there would have béen. It would have been said at once that as Miss Errie had marked her sweet self at a certain figure and was for sale at public. auction to the highest bidder, st: had no right to complain of the quality of the purchaser, so long as he paid the price demanded in legal coin. It would also have been said that Mr. SARSANETT, having bought her ashe would buy a bale of calico, after due inspection, had no tight to blame her for imperfections, mildew or colors which would not stand the laundry. She was sold as a chattel and comicbooks.com