The Essential Oil of Life's Machinery - A Priceless Possession - The Want of Humour of Engaged Couples - A Working Arrangement - Settlement Day" - Humour Under Difficulties

A sense of humour is the oil that keeps the marriage machine running smoothly.

Like all other machines, it works very well when it is new, but after a few weeks the dust of convention begins to clog the wheels.

That part called " Rosamond " is not so obedient as it was at first, and that part called " Ferdinand " seems to prefer its own way, regardless of other parts.

A little oil would soon work wonders. But this is where the metaphor fails, for it is no machine of hard, unliving metal, that needs a minder's ceaseless attention, and an ever-ready oil-can, nor is the oil to be bought at the nearest chandler's. For the marriage machine is very human.

Saving A Situation

The sense of humour has saved more situations than the lifeboat has saved lives. Of all virtues, it is the most priceless, for it is in reality a piled-up heap of virtues which stand unseen, but solidly, as a background. And its value is very largely measured by the fact that, like "the crown of laurels," it is won by fighting, not by inheritance.

There are cases of people who appear to have an inborn sense of humour. But really it is never inborn. Their fathers and mothers have taught them the A B C, and they have in later life learnt the rest of the alphabet with as many tears, and as much trouble, as the average girl learns the sixth book of Euclid.

Girls and boys rarely have the smallest sense of humour; they take life in deadly, D 26 exasperating seriousness, and are very much offended when older people point out the great mistake. When they fall in love, they do so with a solemnity worthy of the strictest religious ceremonial, and "Love's young dream " sinks from gloom to gloom until it is about as melancholy a thing as an undertaker's face. Extreme indignation is aroused when someone suggests that they are spinning cobwebs of worry and anxiety and gloom over the loveliest, happiest, brightest thing the world gives.

They talk vehemently and incoherently of "the holiness of love," "the blissful unity of souls," and " the profane frivolity " of all other lovers, not realising that a sense of humour would prevent them mentioning such hallowed subjects even to the empty air.

During courtship, this analysis and introspection brings considerable gloomy pleasure to the couple. But marriage needs its other side nurtured as well, and the couple who do not make up their minds to look at most of life's circumstances in a humorous light have a very bad time indeed.

A Wise Ordinance

A couple who realised at the end of the first married year what the lack of a sense of humour would mean to them in middle life were those who ordained that all quarrelling, scolding, fault-finding, worrying, recrimination, should be saved up for an evening, and only one evening, every week.

" Rosamond " declared she was thunderstruck to find that two people who were

N really devoted to each other could have quarrelled so much, and have said such peculiarly nasty things.

" Ferdinand " felt inclined to say in excuse that he had not known his wife had a temper until after he married. Then he remembered it was only the day before that he had declared she was a " stupid little baby," because she refused to walk straight across a crowded street when the London theatres were closing, and taxis were darting about like large destructive glow-worms, and motor 'buses, like cars of Juggernaut, were trampling mercilessly on their way.

How It Worked

So they thought over together that first year's downhill path. At first their quarrels had been earthquakes of two moments, followed by avalanches of sunshine - all kisses, tears, and protestations of sorrow.

Not so very long after he had called her " a little idiot," with variations, and she had worked out quite a theme on the words, " a bullying brute of a hooligan." Regrets that they ever married proved the next step on the easy road of the quarrellers, then, one much-to-be-deplored day, he had seized her by the shoulder and shaken her, and she had grabbed his most carefully assorted and collected papers and hurled them in wild disorder out of the window on to the flowerbeds.

This recital of the year's doings happened the next day after that. "Rosamond " finished laughing : " You'll soon be in Bow Street, charged with ill-treating your wife, and you'll get a month's hard labour, and I shall be a glorious, independent grass widow ! "

"The mischief with us is " - discovered Ferdinand - "we've got no sense of humour in regard to our quarrels."

So together they concocted a plan. Wednesday evening was to be " settlement day." Any digression from manners, any unconsidered remark, any vexed question was to be settled on that day, and on that day alone. The plan succeeded well, but it required a sense of humour to keep it going.

Recording Angels

" Ferdinand " came down to breakfast one morning late, and found his wife very quiet and subdued. He liked her always to be bright and cheerful, and so asked the reason. "Only the servants," was the brief reply. He resented this curtness, and began sharply,

" Well, don't be------" when she held up a warning finger, smiling, " Not till Wednesday."

They even bought a penny exercise book, and entered " Ferdinand " on one page, and " Rosamond " on the other, and either could write down the other's misdeeds. When " settlement day " came, it was generally found that the misdeeds about balanced, and so cancelled one another. In time they both improved, and "settlement day" became unnecessary - but that was when his black hair was streaking with grey, and her merry eyes were lining with wrinkles.

The story told me by another young couple, who moved from the heart of the city to the depths of the country under even more trying " removal " circumstances than usual, was another instance of the sense of humour that saves. She suggested, while she stood in the little bedroom, almost hidden beneath packing-cases, dress-baskets, newspapers, and her husband's extensive wardrobe of under-garments, that they should treat the whole matter as a joke. "You must smile even when the men bump the case containing your most precious books down every one of the hundred stairs."

"And you," he answered, " must peal with laughter like a comic opera heroine when you see the silver chest plumped down on your best' tea-party ' hat."

Heroic Resolves

When at half-past eleven the same evening they wearily made the beds in the new home and crawled into them, they sleepily acknowledged that but for a sense of humour they could never have survived the day, sane and still good-tempered.

The married couples who find life dreadfully dull and tedious when alone with each other for any length of time, lack the saving grace of humour. The arrangment of furniture, escapades of Eliza Ann, flirtations of the latter with the milk-boy, correspondence with the landlord about a leaky gutter which the landlord repudiates his obligation to mend, can all be turned into jokes which keep good temper in the house, and drive worry and loneliness from the door.

A young married couple of very small means, who could not afford to go to theatres very often, decided that even the smallest of their little outings should be means of entertainment. A visit to a picture gallery - by the amusement which they got out of some of- the pictures, or some of the picture-gazers - was a very good afternoon's entertainment ; an expedition to a shop where strange and weird foods were sold as "reformed foods" gave them plenty of merriment ; and a visit to the Zoological Gardens on a Sunday, with a Fellow's ticket, gave them as much, if not more, entertainment than the wealthy man who lounged in a half a guinea stall watching the latest comic opera.

Mutual Tolerance

Many things in marriage war against perfect happiness, but an easy tolerance, each going his and her own way, which many couples believe in doing, will never lead to that happiness, for it is bound to lead the two apart.

A continually combined attempt to swim or sink together, to work together, and, above all, to laugh together, is the only real means to happiness, and that is only possible if in both exists the saving sense of humour.