But there is, as philosophers say, an unguent for
every wound, a solace for every care; and it was
my fate to experience the consolation that one provides
beforehand against the gout, as well as all
other ills man may anticipate, in the person of a
faithful spouse. On the fourth day of my malady,
and just at a moment when I was fairly yelling with
pain, a lady, neither young nor beautiful, but dressed
like a princess, save that her shoes were down
at heel, and her bonnet somewhat awry, stepped
up to my bedside, seized me by the hand, and

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crying out, “Oh my poor dear husband!” burst
into tears.

Her appearance acted like a charm; even my
foot, that seemed to be roasting over one of Nott's
patent anthracite blazers, grew cool and comfortable
in the chill that was diffused over my whole
body. Complaint was silent at the sight of her;
pain vanished at her touch; I forgot that I had the
gout, and remembered only that I had a wife.

I was struck dumb, and presume I should not
have groaned again for twenty-four hours, had not
my consort, in the exuberance of her affection and
grief, thrown her arms around my neck, and thereby
brought the whole weight of her body upon my
foot, which, after having tried all parts of the bed,
I had at last lodged upon the very extremity of the
feathers; by which act of endearment my poor
unfortunate limb was crushed against the horrible
log of mahogany that made one side of the bed-stead,
and ground to pieces. Had my wife been
my wife twenty times over, I must have uttered
just as loud a cry as I did, and repeated it just as
often.

She started up, and regarded me with severity.

“Is that the way you use me?” said she.—I believe
I had rather pushed her away; but how could
I help it?—“Is that the way you welcome me
home, whither I have come,—leaving kinsfolk and
friends,—to nurse you? Barbarous man, you hate
me! yes, and besides having no longer any love
for me, you have not even the slightest regard for

[figure description] Page 102.[end figure description]

my feelings. But don't think, Mr. Higginson, that
I will be treated so any longer; you may break my
heart,—your poor Margaret's heart,—if you will,
but—but—” And here the affectionate creature
was so overcome that she could not utter another
word, but sat down wringing her hands and weeping
as if I had broken her heart, and she had not
crushed my foot! But, as far as my experience
enables me to form any opinion on such a subject,
I must say, that wives have an extraordinary knack
at turning the tables on their husbands.

“For Heaven's sake, madam,” said I, “don't set
me distracted;”—the pain and her absurd reproaches
together made me both frantic and ferocious—
“don't make me believe that Adam's wife was
made out of the bone of a gouty leg, instead of a
good sound rib.”

“What do you mean by that, sir?” said Mrs.
Higginson.

“Only,” said I, gritting my teeth, “that I have
some thoughts she must have been a piece of the
sorest bone in his body.”

My wife marched up to the bed, and looked me
in the face. My wrath went out like a gas-light
before a black frost; my agonies again disappeared.
There was no standing that look, unless one could
stand the look of a Jersey black-snake, famous beyound
all other snakes for its powers of fascination.
And, talking of snakes, I must add, that, while my
wife gave me that look, I felt as if one, just turned
out of winter-quarters, horribly cold and creepy,

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were slipping down my back. She looked at me
with mingled anger and disdain.

“How often have I told you, Mr. Higginson,”
she said, “never to attempt to be witty, since you
only expose your folly—I won't use any harder
word. And whatever you do, sir,” she added, beginning
to cry again, “don't make a jest of your
wife, sir. You're always doing it, sir; you're always
making me appear ridiculous to your friends
and to myself; you treat me as if I were a fool—
you—”

“Madam,” said I, endeavouring to appease her
a little, for I was quite overcome by her violence,
“remember that I have the gout, and am suffering
the—”

“Yes!” she cried; “and you are determined
that everybody else shall suffer as well as yourself,
and me in particular. Oh, Mr. Higginson! how
can you use me so? I'll never speak to you another
word!”

And down she sat again, weeping and wringing
her hands harder than ever, and moping and whining
the Lord knows how long.

“Sheppard Lee! Sheppard Lee!” I muttered
(but I took good care not to mutter aloud), “you
were not the most miserable dog in the world by a
great deal. A gouty constitution and a perverse
wife are—oh! pangs and purgatory!”

I hoped my consort, being so greatly incensed,
would take herself out of the room, when I determined,
though it should cost me a howl for every

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step, to get up and lock the door on her, come of it
what might; but she was not of that mind. She
maintained her seat, sobbing and sighing, and, by
taking off her hat and flinging it pettishly into a
corner, made it manifest that she had determined
to nurse me in earnest, though in a way entirely
of her own. Happily, the paroxysm of suffering,
which was at its height when she entered, soon
subsided; and being left greatly exhausted, and
her sobs having somewhat of a soporific quality, I
managed, notwithstanding my mental disquiet, to
fall fast asleep; whereby I got rid for a time of an
evil in many respects equal to the gout itself.

Two days after I was able to leave my bed,
though not to walk: had I been, I am strongly of
opinion I should have walked out of my house—
out of the city of Philadelphia—and perhaps out
of the United States of America—nay, and upon a
pinch, out of the world itself, to get rid of my
beloved wife. Who would have believed in our
village, that John H. Higginson, who seemed to
have nothing in the world to do but to slaughter
woodcocks, beat his dog Ponto, and ride about in
a fine new barouche with a pair of horses that
cost a thousand dollars; who had a dwelling-house
in Chestnut-street, a brewery in the Northern
Liberties, with an ale-butt as big as the basin of the
Mediterranean, a goodly store of real estate in town
and country, bank-stock and coal-mines, and a
thousand other of the good things of the world—
who, I say, would have believed that this same

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John H. Higginson was decidedly the most miserable
dog in the whole universe? It was truth,
every word of it; and before I was six days old in
my new body, I wished—no, not that the devil
had me—but I was more than willing he should
have the better half of me. I had the gout, my
wife was a shrew, and I was—a henpecked husband.

Yes! the reader may stare, and bless his stars—
the manly John H. Higginson, who seemed to
have no earthly care or trouble, and who was so
little deficient in spirit that he could quarrel with
a Jersey farmer while trespassing on his grounds,
shoot his bull-dog, and take aim at his negro, had
long since succumbed to the superior spirit, and
acknowledged the irresponsible supremacy of his
wife; in the field, and at a distance from his house,
he was a man of spirit and figure, but at home
the most submissive of the henpecked. Resistance
against a petticoat government is, as all know,
the most hopeless of resistance: a single man has
often subverted a monarchy, and overturned a republic;
but history has not yet recorded an instance
of successful rebellion on the part of a married
man against the tyranny of a wife. The
tongue of woman is the only true sceptre; for, unlike
other emblems of authority, it is both the instrument
of power and the axe of execution. John
H. Higginson attempted no resistance against the
rule of his wife; the few explosions of impatience
of which he was now and then guilty, were punished
with a rigour that awed him into discretion.

p016-115

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On this subject I feel myself eloquent, and I
could expatiate on it by the hour. But I am
writing not so much the history of my reflections
as of my adventures; and I must hasten on with
my story.