The Marriage Book Read Free Page B

STEVENS, 2012
    A frequent contributor to The New Yorker , Mick Stevens caused a stir with this take on Adam and Eve. The magazine’s popular Facebook page was temporarily shut down because the cartoon was judged to violate the social media site’s nudity and sex guidelines, forbidding “naked ‘private parts,’ including female nipple bulges.” The Facebook page was soon back up, but “Nipplegate” lingered online for some weeks as a topic of discussion.

“Well, it was original.”

ANNIVERSARIES
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    NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE
    NOTE TO SOPHIA HAWTHORNE, 1843
    Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804–1864) was thirty-eight when he married Sophia Peabody, who was thirty-two. Their ages (old for newlyweds at the time) did nothing to dampen their apparently childish glee: They used her diamond ring to engrave their names on their study window. They also shared a notebook in which they took turns recording their impressions and, as in the case below on the occasion of their first anniversary, writing love notes to one another.
    For more Hawthorne, see Infidelity .
    Dearest love,
    I know not what to say, and yet cannot be satisfied without marking with a word or two this holiest anniversary of our life. But life now heaves and swells beneath me like a brimfull ocean; and the endeavor to comprise any portion of it in words, is like trying to dip up the ocean in a goblet. We never were so happy as now—never such wide capacity for happiness, yet overflowing with all that the day and every moment brings to us. Methinks this birth-day of our married life is like a cape [of land], which we have now doubled and find a more infinite ocean of love stretching out before us.
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    CLEMENTINE CHURCHILL
    LETTER TO WINSTON CHURCHILL, 1909
    Winston Churchill was already a respected member of Parliament when in 1908 he married Clementine Hozier (1885–1977). He was thirty-three; she was ten years his junior. Through his legendary career as orator, author, home secretary, lord of the admiralty, and wartime prime minister, he remained devoted to his “Kat” or “Clemmie Cat” (her nickname for him was “Pug,” and they signed many of their letters with little drawings of dogs and cats). Their anniversary letters are one example of the loving gestures they extended to each other throughout a fifty-seven-year marriage in which they were often geographically separated but in which “too busy to write” never seemed to play a part.
    Blenheim was the Churchill family estate. St. Margaret’s, Westminster Abbey, was where the Churchills were married.
    My Darling,
    How I wish we were together today—It is just 5 o’clock—This time last year we were steaming out of Paddington on our way to Blenheim—The Pug was reading an account of the wedding presents in the Westminster aloud to the Kat!
    Then the Pug embraced the Kat, but unfortunately another train was just passing us quite slowly & its occupants caught him in the very act— My Beloved Winston I hope you are having a very happy holiday. I do long to see you again—Tell Eddie & Freddie that if they don’t return you to me in the pink of health I will never forgive them. . . .
    Your most loving
    Clemmie Kat
    Miaow
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    WINSTON CHURCHILL
    LETTER TO CLEMENTINE CHURCHILL, 1909
    Churchill (1874–1965) was in Strasbourg on the couple’s first anniversary.
    My darling Clemmie,
    A year to-day my lovely white pussy-cat came to me, & I hope & pray she may find on this September morning no cause—however vague or secret—for regrets. The bells of this old city are ringing now & they recall to my mind the chimes which saluted our wedding & the crowds of cheering people. A year has gone—& if it has not brought you all the glowing & perfect joy which fancy paints, still it has brought a clear bright light of happiness & some great things. My precious & beloved Clemmie my earnest desire is to enter still more completely into your dear heart & nature & to curl myself up in your darling arms. I feel so