From The Saturday Review. CLEVER MEN'S WIVES. THE supreme difficulty in the achievement of a successful dinner-party is commonly thought, and with justice, to lie in the judicious assortment of the male and female guests. There are some houses where this difficulty is always surmounted, and there are others where it is as uniformly fatal. No small portion of the anguish generally characteristic of the ten minutes before the announcement of dinner may be traced to this source, and a man can scarcely enjoy much tranquillity at a moment when he is anticipating his doom in the shape of a contemptuous dowager or an obviously insipid miss. The want of judgment displayed on these so-called festive occasions by a reckless or superficial minded host is one of the gravest of social offences. People reasonably feel that they have a right to demand at least as much trouble from their entertainer as is bestowed by the proprietor of a happy family on the fitting accommodation of his protégés. If Mr. Wombwell had placed the pelican of the wilderness in the same cage with the lion, or the bear from the North Pole with the Tiger from Bengal, the result in itself would have been an adequate punishment for his temerity or folly. Unhappily, it is not practicable to inflict a well-deserved vengeance upon the man who has condemned you to a penal servitude of some three hours with a feeble being who takes interest in nothing under the sun, and whom no topic can rouse into decent animation. The mental state of the victim, when first consigned to the tender mercies of a vapid partner, is a compound of the two most agonizing feelings recorded in the history of Robinson Crusoe-Lis desolation when he saw ships sail by in the offing unobservant of his signals, and his profound horror on first perceiving the preparations for the repast of the cannibals. The purgatory which awaits him is mournfully familiar to the diner-out. There are a few social salamanders who regard the ordeal with equanimity, and who pass through it with a curiously intrepid sck-possession; but, to most people, this companionship, into which a hospitable fiend has forced them, is a source of genuine distress. And this is aggravated by the consciousness that there are others to whom "the cup has been dealt in another measure. 99 Somebody whom you know to be sprightly and appreciative has been told off with somebody else whom you know to be dull and egotistical. Mr. Snodgrass is directed to offer his arm to Becky Sharp, while Warrington is made over to "Mr. F.'s aunt," who makes oracular and detached statements, such as that "her uncle George's mill was burnt down," or "there's milestones on the Dover road. If the intelligent man is harassed by the vapid woman, not less provoked is the clever woman by a flippant man. Everything goes wrong, and the whole affair collapses in a mixture of surly despair and quiet resignation, simply because the guests were not properly sorted, the fool with the fool, and the clever woman with the clever man, each after their kind. Poets have often compared life to a banquet, and, in truth, the companionships of life are frequently not less incongruous than those of a banquet; but there is one consideration which must manifestly overthrow any argument drawn from one to the other. The most tedious dinner-party with which inhuman host ever vexed the souls of human guests never failed to come to an end. The principle of assortment which ensures success in unions for two or three hours may be less applicable to others which last ten or twenty times as many years. The popular notion, however, seems to be that it is equally appropriate in either case. There can be no doubt that at a dinner-party the most delightful partner for a clever man is a clever woman; and people are generally inclined to think that a clever woman will be equally delightful to him at his own table all the year round. Theoretically, this appears to be the sound view. When a thoughtful or learned man mates himself with a gushing creature without two ideas in her head, it is natural to exclaim, how much happier he would have been with somebody as learned and laborious as himself. Or when a refined and sentimental friend, full of generous schemes and airy aspirations, marries a woman who proves" a good wife to him” in other words, who looks carefully after his children, and his shirtbuttons-it is reasonable to sigh over his unworthy fate. Or the object of sympathy may be a man who takes an eager interest and an active part in public affairs, but whose wife is like the "cold, silly, female fool" mentioned by De Tocqueville, who ran out of the room whenever Bonaparte came in," because he was always talking his tiresome politics." is to wine," and the result of the combination bears a natural resemblance to their detestable compound-negus. The fact is that a clever man, more than all others, requires a slightly acidulous element in his companion. All clever men are more or less infected with vanity. It may be blatant and offensive, it may be excessive but not un All these appear at the first glance to be doubled himself. Once she might have been sheer matrimonial mistakes. It is the wea- to him, in Mr. Tennyson's words," as water risome dinner-party over again, only with the material difference that the dessert never comes and the ladies never withdraw. But our pity for these seemingly ill-mated couples may, after all, be wholly unnecessary. Is it, as a matter of fact, generally to be desired that all the clever men should pair off with all the clever women, and leave the dullards and that large section which is neither dull amusing, or it may show itself just as a bare nor clever to act on the same principle? History does not much help us. There have been illustrious men who found bliss in wives of their own mental stature; but there have been as many others who got on admirably well with fools; and, lastly, there has been a brilliant class who preferred to eschew female alliances altogether. Some few have enjoyed the good fortune of David Copperfield, and, being providentially relieved of the fool, have rushed into the arms of common sense. But from the nature of the case this must be a rare privilege, and when you have once made the silly Dora your own, it is too much to expect that a timely consumption will prevent her from long continuing so, in order that you may turn experience to account by marrying Agnes. soupçon, but it is never entirely absent, and needs to be counteracted by something much more potent than a hot and sugary intellectual negus. A clever husband, like the good despot, will be all the better for a little constitutional opposition. If his most constant companion is ever flattering, ever kind, his natural share of self-love is sure to grow both unhealthily large in quantity, and unworthily little in quality. The height of domestic felicity would not probably be attained by a man whose wife could set him right in a Greek quotation, or oppose his views about Hebrew points, or thwart him in his theory of the origin of evil; but still less where he is never treated to an occasional dose of wholesome and vigorous dissent, and is allowed to make assertions and advance opinions without fear of criticism or chance of opposition. Solitude tends to make a man think a great deal too highly of himself, but this quasi-solitude is still worse, where he only sees his own mental shadow, and hears his own mental echo. Of course, in many marriages, the wife is no more a companion to her husband than his housekeeper or his cook; and there may be no more genuine intercourse between them than is implied by two men going into partnership in business, In such cases mental qualities are not of much importance. A head equal to the arithmetic of weekly bills, and a heart that does not quail before the emergencies of the nursery, are amply sufficient to answer all purposes. But where a man makes a companion of his wife, the variety of woman that he selects palpably makes a great difference, not solely in external comfort, but in maintaining the vigor of his own A clever man, like anybody else, may marry a clever woman, a merely sensible woman, a fool, or an echo. Of these four varieties of wives, the last is unquestionably the least to be coveted. Habitual fractiousness is a deeided drawback in the partner of one's joys, and flippancy or frivolity is not always congenial; but neither a fractious woman nor a flippant woman can do a husband any serious harm, though they may be exceedingly unpleasant at the time. It is different when he awakes to find himself married to his shadow —to a woman who may have been accomplished and even slightly thoughtful, but who is so weakly endowed with individuality that before they have been married three months she has sunk into a mere echo of himself. Originally, perhaps, she was able to pronounce opinions worth listening to, and which he was glad to have, but all her powers have fled before his superiority like a badly character. fixed photograph before the sun. From being It is remarkable that the conditions which a stimulant she has degenerated into a sheer absorbent. He married in the hopes of finding a sort of" guide, philosopher, and friend,” and discovers that, after all, he has only prevent a man from ever appearing a hero to his valet should not operate equally in the case of his wife. IIe probably has less insight into his wife's foibles than her maid, because what it is the fashion to call the it in public, it is difficult to conceive a more "inner life" of woman is like her apparel, thoroughly useful domestic institution than infinitely more complex than that of the ordi- a sternly critical wife. Hence it may be nary run of men. But a wife, although she argued that the clever man must pair off does not shave him, and brushes neither his with the clever woman, for otherwise how hair nor his clothes, generally knows more should she be competent to criticise him? of her husband's character than his valet, Unless he selects somebody as good as himand the domestic hero-worship flourishes not-self, the only criticism he is likely to enwithstanding. A dull blockhead, who is no- counter will come in the form of Caudle lectorious among his acquaintances for stupidity tures or Naggleton wrangles. But this is and folly, appears to his faithful spouse an just the same sort of mistake as people make archangel in the house. And with a clever who sneer at journalists for reviewing books man the case is far worse, for the blockhead, they could not write, or commenting upon in spite of the enfolding fumes of domestic campaigns they could not have conducted. incense, never quite loses the suspicion that The fallacy has been so frequently refuted in other men think him a fool, and that his wife the latter case that we need scarcely repeat is rather a fool for thinking him anything the arguments against its employment in the clse. But a clever man does not, to begin former. A woman may be quite unable to with, underrate his own powers; and, con- originate, and yet very competent to pass an scious that there is some foundation for the intelligent judgment upon what has been conjugal idolatry, he magnifies this founda- originated by somebody else in whom she is tion into something like ten thousand times interested. However, it is obviously as imits actual dimensions. If his wife is clever, possible to generalize about the sort of women too, the ill is aggravated still further, and whom clever men would do well to marry as he exaggerates his intellect to a still greater it would be to prescribe what kind of things extent on a kind of laudari ab laudato princi- clever men should eat for dinner. Some ple. A clever man will really find it worth would be happiest with babies like poor Harwhile to reflect whether it is not better for riet Shelley, the chief source of whose nuphim to marry a downright fool than a mere tial joy was that "the house had such a nice petticoated edition of himself, unrevised and garden for her and Percy to play in." Othuncorrected, with all the original flaws faith-ers, like Voltaire or D'Alembert, would be fully reproduced. Mr. Disraeli dedicated Sybil to" the most severe of critics, but-a perfect wife." Perhaps the "but " might be appropriately replaced by "because." At least, no wife is perfect who cannot be a severe critic upon occasion. To a very clever man perhaps it is the most considerable of her functions. If his cleverness lies in the region of romance or poetry, and more especially if he loves to air better pleased with women like Madame du Chatelet or Mdlle. L'Espinasse, who could solve abstruse astronomical problems, and write treatises on fluxions. Perhaps the majority of clever men are well contented with wives as like mothers as possible. But if it is impossible to lay down any more definite rule, the clever man may at all events be warned to marry somebody else, and not himself in another form. partaken of. Some of them seem, however, to have possessed but little charm besides that of novelty, for Mr. Barnal Osborne declared flatly that he would rather starve than eat conger-eel soup. The chairman, in calling attention to the more important objects of the Society, reminded THE annual dinner of the Acclimatization So- | non, and many other novelties were cautiously ciety was held at St. James's Hall, on Wednesday. Our modern explorers and wild hunters were well represented, Captains Speke and Grant, M. du Chaillu and Mr. Grantley Berkely all being present. The dinner comprised all kinds of strange food-conger-eel soup, ostriches' eggs, poulets the members that there was a time when the only a l'émancipation des nègres "there is some chance of emancipation becoming fashionable after this-frogs dressed like chickens, bear's ham, sand grouse, "bourgoul" from the Leba vegetable grown in England was the cabbage, when wheat was unknown, and the only trees in our forests were the oak and the beach. From The Reader. Old New Zealand: being Incidents of Native of at least two such characters; and the present Queen of the Hawaiian kingdom is, it must be remembered, the descendant of a common sailor, to whose wise counsel the first Kamehameha-the Egbert of the Sandwich Islands-was indebted for much that is admired in his policy. The work at the head of our notice gives a curious insight into this very state of things as it existed in New Zealand long before that country became a British colony. The author, who often calls himself a Pakeha Maori—a foreign New Zealander-but does not give his real name, is evidently a man of superior education, and possessed of much wit and humor. He went to Maori-land when the first introduction of gunpowder caused as thorough a revolution there as it did in Europe a few centuries ago. Before that time the natives used to live on the tops of hills in pabs or fortified places; but after fire-arms had become more general, hilly localities-as our feudal castles-were deserted for houses built in the plains, very often situated in low marshy ground, and exercising a most baneful influence on the health of the population. A tribe possessing fire-arms easily established its superiority over such of its neighbors as had only bows, arrows, and spears to fight with. Not to be exterminated or enslaved, every tribe had to make a desperate effort to procure these new weapons. MANY nations have traditions that, at a time when they were still steeped in barbarism, beings of a superior order suddenly appeared amongst them, who, by instructing them in arts and manufactures to which they had been strangers, bringing with them useful plants and animals, establishing a firm Government, and introducing a code of morals, conferred so many great and lasting benefits that, in grateful acknowledgment of the services rendered, the crowd willingly admitted them amongst the list of gods to be worshipped and looked up to by unborn generations Manco Capac and Mama Ocllo, the founders of the Peruvian empire, and many of the gods of whom mythology speaks, were doubtless of this description. The circumstances under which they established themselves amongst the barbarians whom they benefited are, of course, entirely hidden from us; but there are still many spots in the world where a really good and clever man may become a Manco Capac on a small scale and show us how the thing works. The benefits which a European, even of the lowest extraction, is able to confer upon savages are so great that most barbarous tribes make it a point to in- "The value of a pakeha to a tribe was sure the presence of one. In nearly every enormous. For want of pakehas to trade one of the South Sea Islands are one or more with, and from whom to procure gunpowder white men, who live like chiefs and are treated and muskets, many tribes or sections of tribes as pets. They have good houses, plenty to were about this time exterminated, or nearly eat and drink, are generally intermarried got pakehas before them, and who conseso, by their more fortunate neighbors, who with the first families of the tribe, and have quently became armed with muskets first. a decided influence in the national councils. A pakeha trader was therefore of a value, In return for all these advantages they have to exercise their knowledge and accomplishments for the benefit of their newly adopted countrymen, aid them in time of war, the medium of communication between them and the foreign traders, and amuse the chiefs and native aristocracy by telling stories of the white men and their doings. form say, about twenty times his own weight in muskets. This, according to my notes made at the time, I find to have represented a value in New Zealand something about what we total of the national debt. A book-keeper, mean in England when we talk of the sum or a second-rate pakeha, not a trader, might be valued at, say, his weight in tomahawks; an enormous sum also. The poorest laboring Often these Europeans are men of no princi- pakeha, though he might have no property, ple or mental capacity, and then their influence would earn something-his value to the chief is not very great; but occasionally they are and tribe with whom he lived might be estiboth good and clever, and then they have lit- about a hundred thousand pounds or so: mated at, say, his weight in fish-hooks, or tle difficulty in raising themselves to the high-value estimated by eagerness to obtain the est position. The history of the Sandwich article. Islands and Fiji has preserved us the names "The value of a musket was not to be es timated to a native by just what he gave for it; he gave all he had, or could procure, and had he ten times as much to give, he would have given it if necessary; or if not, he would buy ten muskets instead of one. Muskets! muskets! muskets! nothing but muskets was the first demand of the Maori : muskets and gunpowder, at any cost. "I do not, however, mean to affirm that pakehas were at this time valued as such,' like Mr. Pickwick's silk stockings, which were very good and valuable stockings, as stockings; not at all. A loose straggling pakeha-a runaway from a ship, for instance, who had nothing, and was never likely to have anything-a vagrant straggler, passing from place to place-was not of much account, even in those times. Two men of this description (runaway sailors) were hospitably entertained one night by a chief, a very particular friend of mine, who, to pay himself for his trouble and outlay, ate one of them next morning." Stole off with his own head?' says I. 'That's just it,' says he. Capital felony!' says I. You may say that, sir,' says he. Goodmorning,' said I, and walked away pretty smartly. 'Loose notions about heads in this country,' said I to myself; and, involuntarily putting up my hand to my own, I thought Somehow the bump of combativeness felt smaller, or, indeed, had vanished altogether. . . It is a positive fact that, some time after this, the head of a live man was sold and paid for beforehand, and afterwards honestly delivered as per agreement.' The scoundrel slave who had the conscience to run away with his own head, after the trouble and expense had been gone to to tattoo it to make it more valuable, is no fiction either. Even in the good old times' people would sometimes be found to behave in the most dishonest manner. But there are good and bad to be found in all times and places." Our author- we wish he had given his name, to enable us to compliment him on his In those days the New Zealanders had litcapital book-tells many amusing anecdotes tle to give in exchange, except such raw pro-and tragical incidents of New Zealand life in ducts as were produced spontaneously in their the good old times; and, had we sufficient country. Amongst them ranked New Zeaspace, we should select several passages for land flax (Phormium tenax), Kowrie gum, extract. One more, however, must suffice, and-human heads. The skippers of many showing how much superior the Maori spiritof the colonial trading schooners were always mediums were to the article that crops ready to deal with a man who had " out amongst us. See how effectually the good head," and used to commission some of heathen priest raises the spirit of a departed the low whites to supply them with that ar- chief, a great personal friend of the author's, ticle. When our author first came to the and one of the first natives who learned to country he happened to stumble across a col-read and write, and kept a diary which nolection cured for the market, and had the cu-body had been able to find since his death! riosity to examine it. 6 a real poor "We were all seated on the rush-strewn "One had undoubtedly been a warrior; floor-about thirty persons. The door was there was something bold and defiant about shut; the fire had burnt down, leaving the look of the head. Another was the head nothing but glowing charcoal, and the of a very old man, gray, shrivelled, and wrin-room was oppressively hot. The light was kled. I was going on with my observations little better than darkness; and the part of when I was saluted by a voice from behind the room in which the tohunga [priest] sat with, Looking at the eds, sir?' It was one was now in perfect darkness. Suddenly, of the pakehas formerly mentioned. Yes,' without the slightest warning, a voice came said I, turning round just the least possible out of the darkness. Salutation!-salutathing quicker than ordinary. Eds has been tion to you all!-salutation!-salutation to a getting scarce,' says he. I should think you, my tribe!-family, I salute you!so,' says I. We an't ad a ed this long friends, I salute you!-friend, my pakeba time,' says he. The devil!' says I. One friend, I salute you.' The high-handed darof them eds has been hurt bad,' says he. I should think all were rather so,' says I. Oh, no, only one on 'em,' says he; the skull is split, and it wont fetch nothin',' says he. Oh, murder! I see now,' says I. Eds was werry scarce,' says he, shaking his owned.' "Ah!' said I. 6 They had to tattoo a slave a bit ago,' says he, and the villain ran away, tattooin' and all!' says he. What?' said I. Bolted afore he was fit to kill,' says he. ing imposture was successful: our feelings were taken by storm. A cry expressive of affection and despair, such as was not good to hear, came from the sister of the dead chief, a fine, stately, and really handsome woman of about five-and-twenty. She was rushing, with both arms extended, into the dark, in the direction from whence the voice came; but was instantly seized round the waist and restrained by her brother by main |