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+This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements,
+metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be
+in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES.
+
+Procedures for determining public domain status are described in
+the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org.
+
+No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in
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+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #53368 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/53368)
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-The Project Gutenberg EBook of Don't Marry, by James W. Donovan
-
-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most
-other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
-whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of
-the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
-www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have
-to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook.
-
-Title: Don't Marry
- or, Advice on How, When and Who to Marry
-
-Author: James W. Donovan
-
-Release Date: October 26, 2016 [EBook #53368]
-
-Language: English
-
-Character set encoding: UTF-8
-
-*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DON'T MARRY ***
-
-
-
-
-Produced by Demian Katz, Craig Kirkwood, and the Online
-Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (Images
-courtesy of the Digital Library@Villanova University
-(http://digital.library.villanova.edu/).)
-
-
-
-
-
-Transcriber’s Notes:
-
-Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_).
-
-The Table of Contents was created by the transcriber and placed in the
-public domain.
-
-The cover for this book contains substantial text, and this text has
-been included in digital form with a simplified format.
-
-The cover contains a list labeled “CONTENTS:”; however, this is a
-partial list of topics covered in the book rather than a Table of
-Contents.
-
-Additional Transcriber’s Notes are at the end.
-
- * * * * *
-
-TABLE OF CONTENTS
-
- Page
-
- DON’T MARRY. 3
-
- ROMANTIC MARRIAGES. 79
-
- UNROMANTIC MARRIAGES. 101
-
- * * * * *
-
-DON’T MARRY; OR, ADVICE AS TO How, When and Who to Marry.
-
-CONTENTS:
-
- Don’t Marry for Beauty Alone.
- Don’t Marry for Money.
- Don’t Marry a Very Small Man.
- Don’t Marry too Young.
- Don’t Marry a Coquette.
- Don’t Elope to Marry.
- Don’t Dally About Proposing.
- Don’t Marry a Drunkard.
- Don’t Marry a Spendthrift.
- Don’t Marry a Miser.
- Don’t Marry Far Apart in Ages.
- Don’t Marry too Old.
- Don’t Marry Odd Sizes.
- Don’t Marry a Clown.
- Don’t Marry a Dude.
- Don’t Marry From Pity.
- Don’t Marry for an Ideal Marriage.
- Don’t Break a Marriage Promise.
- Don’t Marry for Spite.
- Don’t Mitten a Mechanic.
- Don’t Marry a Man too Poor.
- Don’t Marry a Crank.
- Don’t Marry Fine Feathers.
- Don’t Marry Without Love.
- Don’t Marry a Stingy Man.
- Don’t Marry too Hastily.
- Don’t be too Slow About It.
- Don’t Marry a Silly Girl.
- Don’t Expect too Much in Marriage.
- Don’t Marry a Fop.
- Don’t Marry in Fun.
- Don’t Spurn a Man for His Poverty.
- Don’t Marry Recklessly.
-
-J. S. OGILVIE, PUBLISHER, 57 ROSE STREET, NEW YORK.
-
- * * * * *
-
-TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS
-
---ON--
-
-The Holy Land.
-
---BY--
-
-REV. T. DE WITT TALMAGE, D.D.
-
-No Series of Sermons ever delivered by this famous preacher has created
-such a widespread and intense interest as this. These Sermons describe
-with vivid interest the scenes, incidents and many various experiences
-met with in the Holy Land, the land in which people are now more
-interested than ever before.
-
-Among the hundreds of thousands of people who have read the utterances
-of this wonderfully successful preacher there are none but will be glad
-to have this book. Read the following
-
-TABLE OF CONTENTS.
-
-1. Eve of Departure--2. I Must also See Rome--3. A Mediterranean
-Voyage--4. Paul’s Mission in Athens--5. Life and Death of Dorcas--6.
-The Glory of Solomon’s Reign--7. Peace, Be Still--8. The Marriage
-Feast--9. Christmas Eve in the Holy Land--10. The Joyful Surprise--11.
-How a King’s Life was Saved--12. The Philippian Earthquake--13.
-What is in a Name?--14. The Half was not Told Me--15. I Went Up to
-Jerusalem--16. On the Housetop in Jerusalem--17. The Journey to
-Jericho--18. He Toucheth the Hills and They Smoke--19. Solomon in all
-His Glory--20. The Journey to Bethel--21. Incidents in Palestine--22.
-Among the Holy Hills--23. Our Sail on Lake Galilee--24. On to
-Damascus--25. Across Mount Lebanon.
-
-It contains 320 pages in paper cover, and will be sent by mail,
-postpaid, to any address on receipt of 25 cents. Bound in Cloth, $1.50;
-Half Russia, $2.00. Agents wanted. Address all orders to
-
-J. S. OGILVIE, Publisher, 57 Rose Street, New York.
-
- * * * * *
-
-FOR EDITOR’S USE.
-
-We desire to call your attention to this book, and ask that you give it
-a careful review and criticism. Please send paper containing notice to
-
-J. S. OGILVIE, PUBLISHER, 57 ROSE STREET, NEW YORK.
-
-_PRICE, 25 CENTS._
-
- * * * * *
-
-
-
-
-DON’T MARRY; OR, ADVICE AS TO HOW, WHEN AND WHO TO MARRY.
-
-
- By HILDRETH.
-
- “... The tale that I relate
- This lesson seems to carry,--
- Choose not alone a proper mate,
- But proper time to marry.”
-
- THE SUNNYSIDE SERIES, No. 39. Issued Monthly. October, 1891. Extra.
- $3.00 per year.
- Entered at New York Post-Office as second-class matter.
- Copyright, 1890, by J. S. Ogilvie.
-
- NEW YORK: J. S. OGILVIE, PUBLISHER 57 ROSE STREET.
-
- * * * * *
-
-THE SCIENCE OF A NEW LIFE.
-
-A BOOK ESPECIALLY ADAPTED
-
-To All Who Are Married
-
-Or who Contemplate taking this Important Step.
-
-16 page descriptive Circular sent free to any address by
-
-_J. S. OGILVIE_ Rose Street, New York.
-
- * * * * *
-
-
-
-
-DON’T MARRY.
-
-
-BY HILDRETH.
-
-It is not intended to advise against marriage, nor to draw the line too
-closely as to the don’t-marry class, but simply to hint at the errors
-of some persons who match badly on so long a contract.
-
-The “yes or no” question is the vital one for all young people to
-answer. Some answer too soon, others wait too long, others never reach
-such a climax of happiness as to be invited by an eligible partner. The
-genius of selection is the rarest of faculties.
-
-What most puzzles the will and makes us bear the ills we have is the
-theme of selection. A mother’s or father’s view of a suitor may be at
-variance with the daughter’s wish and destroy the peace of both for a
-lifetime. But quite generally the real trouble arises from a spiteful
-choice or a hasty one, or one in some of the forms here mentioned.
-Should these hints prevent one unhappy marriage, they will well repay
-the little study that their brevity requires.
-
-To avoid much lecturing, only two examples are given at any length,
-in the form of stories. These are as near to the real characters as
-the writer can safely relate them, being founded on actual romantic
-and unromantic marriages. As marriage is the first question that every
-family will discuss, it is well to treat it with exact candor.
-
-_Don’t marry for beauty merely._ Very few have a supply that would last
-a full dozen years in a married life that should continue for three
-decades.
-
-And, more than that, beauty is not the only requisite to happiness.
-Very handsome people are almost always vain, often exacting, and
-generally live on their form, paying little or no attention to the
-rarer qualities of manhood or womanhood.
-
-If one seek beauty alone, he will find it in the fields and flowers
-and gardens, in paintings, art works, and things of nature; while the
-real pleasures of life may be found in a thousand ways outside of the
-worship of beauty.
-
-There are a dozen considerations beyond beauty that should govern the
-choice of a companion. Think for a moment whom you admire most, trust
-implicitly, and love more ardently than all others. Truly, it is not
-the wax-doll face in a milliner’s window; were that so, why not marry
-the model and get the perfection of beauty? The day will come when
-the “rain beats in at the heart windows.” The time may run along so
-fast till the summer is over and the winter snow-drifts shade your
-locks with silver, when one by one of your friends will visit at the
-fireside, when some one will love you for your mind and heart and
-nobleness. Some one suited to your silver-age condition and disposition
-will be beautiful without any name for beauty; as the soldier said of
-Grant’s face, after Shiloh’s bloody battle, “That was the handsomest
-face I ever saw;” yet it was plain and dusty and rugged.
-
-Prize-winners in matrimony have been women of finer mould than mere
-beauties. Women who have won the hearts of statesmen, and painters and
-poets, and the good and great of all time, were women of fascination,
-or what the Southern ladies call sweet women, and not alone noted for
-their beauty.
-
-Many a one has been known to have been plain but social; not always
-unhandsome, but never beautiful. They are the best wives and noblest
-mothers who have more to commend them than mere grace of features,
-shade of skin, or color of eyes, or art of beautifying. Some are
-frivolous, and more are flattered into danger. The most miserable man I
-know is married to one of the most beautiful women. He is jealous; she
-is exposed to insults unawares. Their home is a Hades six days out of
-seven. I’ve heard him wish she were less attractive!
-
-_Don’t marry a man for money._ If money is your real object, the older
-and uglier he is, the better; for nothing should come between you and
-the chosen idol of your affection. If you marry one for his money, he
-will find it out shortly.
-
-What sublime contempt a man must have for one who simply loves his
-pocket-book! Why not love his farm, or lumber-yard, or herd of cattle?
-The love of money is a miserly pretence of affection that leads to
-discontent, distrust, and disgust when they find it out.
-
-Besides, wealthy men are men of care. The wife of a noted millionnaire
-has had her husband’s body stolen from its vault, has been long kept in
-agony, is an object of pity to all who know her. Another wife was heard
-to say, “Why, I don’t have the privilege, nor the money, nor the good
-times that my girl Bridget enjoys. I am poor and anxious and depressed,
-and weary of hearing my husband say, over and over again, ‘You are
-fixing for the poor-house.’ He really thinks and believes we will end
-life in the poor-house; and yet he enjoys a princely income.” Thousands
-of such men carry their load of care, and load of wealth, and load of
-anxiety, and how can they carry any burden of love?
-
-_Don’t marry a very small man_--a little fellow far below all
-proportion; try to get some form to admire, something to shape things
-to, and some one who is not lost in a crowd completely, who is too
-little to admire and too small for beauty. You may need strong arms
-and brave hands to protect you. You will need hands to provide for
-and maintain you, and a good form is a fine beginning of manhood or
-womanhood.
-
-Mental greatness is not measured by size of brain or bodily
-proportions. Great men are neither always wise nor always large; they
-are more often of more medium build, and well balanced in gifts of
-mental and physical development. Of the two, a very large man is better
-than a small one, and a medium large woman likewise.
-
-_Don’t marry too young._ The right age to marry is a matter of
-taste; twenty-one for girls, and twenty-four for men may be a little
-arbitrary, but certainly is sensible. The happy early marriages are
-rare. It too often happens that love is mistaken, or poorly informed,
-or lacks an anchor in good judgment. There is no use of reasoning about
-it,--love is love, and will marry in spite of reason, and in some cases
-it runs away with its choice and repents it a thousand times soon after.
-
-But be sensible, for a life contract should be a sensible one. What
-is the use of throwing away one season--skipping girlhood or boyhood
-to rush into maturity and maternity? The records of divorce courts
-tell the silly and sorrowful stories of many a mismated pair, married
-too young and slowly repenting of their rashness. Ask of your truest
-friends; take counsel; be above foolishness.
-
-_Don’t marry a villain._ Many a girl is ripe for an adventure, and in
-appearance nothing more resembles an angel than a keen and designing
-villain--a thoroughbred; not a gambler merely, but worse, a wreck! Such
-men may be wary, artful, deceitful, attractive. They are crafty; their
-trade compels it. They may be handsome, often so; they may be oily and
-slick--most of them are. They may live rich and expensive lives for a
-season; ill-gotten gains are not lasting. Heaven pity the girl that
-marries one of these adventurers, for the end is bitterness! A friend
-met one on the Pacific road, married him, and learned to her sorrow
-that he drank to excess, swore like a pirate, lived in debauchery,
-and early offered to swap wives for a season with a boon-companion.
-“And that man,” she said, “was as handsome as a dude, as slick as
-an auctioneer, as oily as a pedler; I loved him only one day after
-marriage.”
-
-_Don’t marry a hypocrite._ Of all things get sincerity. Get the genuine
-article. If you get a hypocrite, he is brass jewelry, and will easily
-tarnish. Make careful inquiry, see that he is all that he pretends to
-be, or never trust him. The habit of deceit is one of a lifetime.
-
-Some join churches for no other reason than to cloak iniquity. It is
-not the rule by any means; it is a too common exception. One who goes
-from city to city and captivates too many by his oil of blandness; one
-who has no business, an idler; one who apes the rich and is ground
-down in poverty; one who lacks the courage to live like himself and
-had rather live a lie and deceive the world around him,--is an unfit
-companion, and will bear watching.
-
-_Don’t marry a coquette._ One that is worn out by a long list of
-discarded admirers is like stale bread--worse every day and seldom
-grows better by long standing. There are women, and girls sometimes,
-who glory and revel in the names of discarded lovers; whose sense
-of honesty has been poisoned, numbed, and frozen by cheating their
-victims through pretended affection, until they have lost all heart
-or honesty; who deserve to be left alone to ponder on their cruelty
-for the balance of their miserable existence. Of all the worst forms
-of flirting, coquetry is the most detestable. It is not only trifling
-away the time of both, but casting distrust on the holiest of all
-sentiments, the purity of womanhood. To steal money is honorable
-compared to stealing affection.
-
-The habit of coquetry will, or may, last long after marriage. She
-who practises it will follow up in unpleasant references to her
-conquests, wishing she had married at this offer or that, and wear
-out the happiness of her last conquest by a frequent reminder of his
-inferiority to the others.
-
-_Don’t marry a woman for her money._ These people are tenacious to a
-minute degree. They long to remind you of my house, my property, my
-farm, my lots on Lincoln Avenue, my furniture, my bank account, and the
-like--making one a pensioner all his life for his board and clothing.
-If there is any difference, it should be with the man. He is expected
-to control property. He is the master of his house, or the manager of
-his expenses. Very naturally he says “my” store or “my” lots, but it
-will sound far more fair and considerate even if he says “our” in lieu
-of “my” sometimes.
-
-The only fair way to act about it is to treat marriage as a partnership
-where nobody owns all, but each has an equal interest. It is fair to
-divide a good portion of one’s property with his wife, fair to deed her
-a nice homestead and present her a given allowance--liberal as one’s
-income will warrant--and let her draw from it as her own, and not be a
-beggar each time she needs money.
-
-_Don’t elope to marry._ It is a weak affection that cannot wait
-awhile. Jacob served seven years, then seven more, for Rebecca. She was
-a fine specimen of womanhood--as represented in paintings; housekeeping
-was easy and inexpensive then, but they patiently waited and were
-handsomely rewarded.
-
-Ruth was an excellent example of girlhood. In no great hurry to marry,
-taking the hardships of travel, her devotion to her mother touched the
-heart of a king, and she won a splendid prize for her patience. She
-might have eloped with a stage-driver or a coachman, and ended her life
-with many less historical-society notices.
-
-_Don’t dally about proposing._ What is it to ask a fine girl to marry
-you? The simplest, easiest thing on earth, if you “strike while the
-iron is hot.” Go about it sensibly. To begin with, you never expect
-much encouragement from a discreet maiden; she is in the background;
-her promise is to be invited; she is not her own spokeswoman. Think of
-the embarrassment.
-
-I venture to say, if you like her, that you will say so. Often you may
-have told her how fine her eyes are, or how well you like her singing,
-or talking, and her company; but when you ask a simple question, you
-get down on your knees (they do in novels, not in reality) and beg for
-it. Nonsense! Such a girl is unworthy. Begging is a silly fashion,
-seldom now indulged in, all out of date, and no longer tolerated
-outside of novels and theatres. Use a little sense about it.
-
-Find out first if you have the right one, then settle the matter in
-one of five ways: First, in the parlor (don’t propose in church, or at
-a donation, or in a crowd, or on a street-car, or while the horse is
-prancing), get up your resolution at the right moment and say: “Do we
-understand each other, Clemantha?” Then, if she doesn’t, explain it
-to her in a sensible fashion, and in little short words that cannot be
-mistaken; give her time, if necessary.
-
-The second way is, on a fine walk or drive, “Would you like to walk
-always?” or, “If you were to choose whom you would walk with forever,
-who would it be?” She will say, “I don’t care to be so personal.”
-Certainly then you may be more explicit.
-
-Third, suppose you are to separate, what a grand opportunity! See
-that you improve it earnestly. To tell a girl that she is fairer than
-flowers, clearer than coffee, and sweeter than honey is old, very old,
-and uncalled-for. Tell her she is what she is, and you like her with
-all her surroundings; that you can better her condition sometime. Dwell
-on the “sometime.”
-
-Be honest about it. If she doesn’t love you, let her love some one
-else, and you will be surprised to find how many pure and beautiful
-beings there are all around you, holding their finger-tips to hide
-a smile of welcome and ready--“yes, Edgar”--eager to mate with one
-worthy and ready to marry them, for marriage is a natural hope of every
-right-minded woman.
-
-This is a fourth method: read aloud of characters like Arden, Romeo,
-or Abelard, or Paul and Virginia, and make your comments audibly. You
-will not be long in tracing a conclusion. Be a little ingenious about
-it, find out through your sister. Prepare the way and don’t ask until
-you find she is unpledged, remember; or at least tarry long enough to
-be reasonably certain. And what if refused? No harm done. Like the
-German’s sugar, “The other pound is shust so good as the first one.”
-
-One man I know drew off a list of all his acquaintances worthy of
-marriage, and went about it like a regular wheat-buyer. He was a
-bachelor, of course, and very eccentric. Coming to the first, he
-explained his object, concealing all names, but saying she was first
-of a long list furnished him by a friend (each one was first, always);
-then he would say, “I will give you a week to consider it, and no harm
-done; if not then, I must pursue my list further.” Of all the sold-out
-men, he was sold the cheapest! He married a whole family. The first two
-were disgusted, the third or fourth accepted. This looks too much like
-a purchase and sale, and don’t try the method.
-
-The last way is sensible; by writing--many a proposal is in writing.
-Even in that be a little guarded; once a no, yeses come with
-reluctance. It is best not to give one an opportunity to say no, but to
-parry long enough to test the opposition. If it were a race-horse to
-buy, a house to contract for, or a block to purchase, it would not be
-very hard to strike a bargain. So that, once finding form, character,
-fitness, affection, desire to be mated, go about the rest by a direct
-and sensible method, and don’t wear out the gate-hinges, burn out all
-the oil, weary the old folks, or turn gray with anxiety, but do it.
-
-_Don’t marry a drunkard._ He will promise, by all that’s good, great,
-and holy, to reform. How many more like him have made just such
-promises? He can’t keep such a promise if he would. Make him reform a
-couple of years at least, on trial, before you marry him. It will be
-time enough then to risk a life-partnership, to chain your hopes to an
-unfortunate creature whose sense and judgment are corrupted, not by
-will, perhaps, but by habit stronger than reason. With most men this
-habit becomes a desire. They are bound to feed the fire that burns
-them. They have no voice in the matter, and cannot, if they would,
-break the strong fetters that bind them in irons, like the prison bars
-confine their victims.
-
-It’s a sorry picture to behold a fair young girl chained to a being
-with a will all lost and debauched in appetite for drink; a section
-of the land of departed evil spirits can only equal her daily misery.
-Children must bear it, friends submit to it, and all of character,
-sweetness of temper, or refinement in one’s nature will revolt at the
-coarseness of the wrecked and wretched career of a drunkard’s life. He
-is an object of pity, and a being to be shunned in matrimony, no matter
-how many promises he makes or how good he is otherwise.
-
-To avoid long sorrow, disgrace, and regret, avoid him. If you had two
-lives and one to dispose of, at any cost, mate with a drunkard and die
-a thousand deaths. Your health, peace, and happiness will go with his.
-
- “Art thou mated with a clown,
- Then the baseness of his nature
- Will have weight to drag thee down.”
-
-Such a man will kill his wife, burn his own child, sacrifice everything
-on earth when scourged by this degrading passion. More could be urged,
-but let the starving families, the criminal courts, the idiotic
-children, tell the rest: the story is too dreadful to dwell upon. It is
-monstrous. Life becomes a burden, and death a sweet release from such a
-cross. Of all the matches on earth, the most to be dreaded and avoided
-is the drunkard’s wife.
-
-_Don’t marry a fast man or woman._ Something tells us that black logs
-will darken the whitest garments. The edge of virtue once dulled
-is never quite so keen afterwards. It may be very well to speak
-slightingly of wild oats, but who cares to know that their oats are a
-second crop? Who is willing to believe that they are the last resort of
-one who has pleaded and pledged to hundreds or even dozens before her,
-or waits an opportunity to make as many more pledges as occasion may
-offer? Fast men are not satisfied with one vice merely, but follow on
-to many. They may drink, gamble, sport, and venture, and step by step
-indulge in the kindred vices of lewdness, till disease shall fasten its
-clutches in their burning blood and run in their veins for a lifetime.
-They are rarely satisfied with one home, one wife, and one family.
-
-_Don’t marry a foreigner_,--one who comes from a far-away country and
-returns to it. It is very uncertain; think ahead carefully. The new and
-strange customs of his country may and may not be congenial. They may
-be a dreary dream of home and early separation. Think of the ties of
-friendship, the cords of affection twined and woven around your nature;
-ties that are not severed without many pangs of sorrow. Life is a
-short, strange journey, and, make it when we will or where we will, it
-is pleasant to be made with company. Those who know us best will love
-us most if we deserve it, and few will continue on in friendship long
-after we go to strange and unknown countries. A stranger neighbor soon
-comes nearer than a long-absent friend whom we never hear from.
-
-_Don’t marry a spendthrift._ The habit of living is formed early.
-Either one is bent on rising or going lower. As water seeks its level,
-so men seek their ambition and find it. Prosperity comes not on silver
-trays, ready-made and ready for use to everybody; most men work for
-it, strive for it, and deserve it. The sons of the rich, who inherit
-property and have formed the habit of useless spending, are a little
-bit lower than the poor. It is not disgraceful at all to be born poor;
-but to become so after once being rich, and that through reckless
-spending, is a dishonor to any one. “One thing we can be proud of,”
-said Ingersoll; “we’ve made some improvement on the original implements
-and the common stock.”
-
-A young man who lives on his father’s earnings has very little to
-boast of, but one who squanders his inheritance in riotous living
-is an object of contempt and ridicule. “He is one of the old man’s
-pensioners,” said a business man lately of a rich man’s son. “But for
-his father’s thrift he would be a beggar; he lives like a refined
-beggar on the food furnished by another. What a brilliant genius he is!”
-
-_Don’t marry your cousin._ It may be very tempting; relatives are often
-warmly attached to each other from long and intimate acquaintance.
-Remember that constantly thrown in each other’s society will often
-create such attachments. With many persons, marriage of blood relations
-will more or less lead to deafness, blindness, or deformity. It may
-skip one generation and find another. It may result in disease and
-weakness. It may be all right, but seven to eight it is risky and
-uncertain, and you can’t afford to be uncertain in such matters.
-
-_Don’t marry too far above or below you._ There is no such thing as
-station in this country, like the titles and surroundings of Europe;
-but ignorance mated with refinement must be lost and confused, and ill
-at ease every hour.
-
-Such matches are hasty, and poorly considered. They lead to gossip and
-resentment of relatives, and an uncomfortable ill-feeling, seldom cured
-for a full generation. If one has beauty and refinement and is poor,
-never mind the poverty; the good qualities are more than a balance. But
-the marriage of a millionaire’s daughter with a coachman is supreme
-folly. It ends in disunion, and never in harmony. Water and oil will as
-soon mix as such elements. Avoid them.
-
-_Don’t marry a doubly divorced man or woman_: it’s risky. Something
-is wrong surely. One divorce should cure any one. Two is a profusion.
-It may be that the doubly divorced is innocent,--he will claim to be;
-but if he seeks a new party to a possible divorce case (it will be a
-habit by this time), tell him to wait a little longer. Grass widows may
-be very lovable creatures, but unless their other halves were clearly
-blamable, beyond reasonable question, give them a wide road and avoid
-them entirely. It is a very bad sign, possibly a habit, that a man and
-woman mate and divide soon after; the fault may belong to either, and
-most likely relates to both, in similar proportions.
-
-_Don’t marry a miser._ Of all the old “curmudgeons” on earth, deliver
-me from crabbed, narrow-minded, pinch-penny, miserable misers.
-
-They begrudge you your meals and clothing. They count your shillings
-and control your pin purchases; they make life a burden, by owning much
-and using little, and eternally twit you of every quarter used ever so
-sparingly.
-
-Life is made to live in and enjoy. We make only one journey. We need
-not open up our purses and leak out the pennies, just to see them roll
-around promiscuously; but cutting notches on a stick for each one of
-them, and never spending, even for necessaries, without dread and
-grudging, is intolerable. I had rather be poor and enjoy something.
-
-_Don’t marry too far apart in ages._ June and December is a long, long
-distance in matrimony. Some people are as young-hearted at sixty
-as others are at forty. Some men at forty-five have hardly reached
-their manhood. But old, white-headed men, marrying girls in their
-teens--servants generally--are pitiable spectacles. To the girl it is
-suicide; to the man sheer folly; no need of marrying the man. The girl
-is the most interested in this don’t sentence. Why not, if you love
-him? This is the reason, not jealousy,--that is a partial reason,--but
-consistency. Think of a trip round the world or across the continent
-with one older than your father, to be called your husband, to be your
-husband! It must be humiliating. It is annoying. It is foolishly silly
-and inconsistent. Money is a small compensation for such a sacrifice.
-Love, and love only, should govern marriage, and I doubt its sincerity
-when the difference goes beyond reason.
-
-Marry one whom you trust, admire, respect, look up to, and confide in,
-can be true to, and one whom you love from good and earnest motives.
-“Respect is a cold lunch in a dark dining-room. Love is a picnic in the
-woods.” Think of a picnic and an old man escort!
-
-_Don’t marry too old._ Be in earnest about it. Here is the thought in a
-nut-shell:
-
- TOO OLD TO LOVE.
-
- I.
-
- “I never loved but one,” she said;
- “I loved him just for fun,” she said;
- And, saying this, she swung her head--
- Had she been frank, they had been wed.
- I saw her at a ball that night,
- Her eyes so dark and face so white,
- Her tone and manner wild delight;
- I knew she served him not aright.
-
- II.
-
- “I am too old to love,” she said;
- “The one I loved in fun is dead!
- I plant these flowers above his head,
- Here lies my idol, dead!” she said.
- “’Tis sad to think it might have been;
- ’Tis sadder yet to feel my sin.
- Love learns too late; but then, but then,
- He loved me once--the best of men.
-
- III.
-
- “I never see a pure, good face,
- Nor painting outlines ever trace,
- But he is near, his love is dear,
- Had I been earnest; he were here!”
- She veiled her dark eyes with her hand;
- I turned away,--“True love is grand,”
- I murmured, in an undertone;
- “Life gives no more than love of one.”
-
-_Don’t marry odd sizes._ A tall man with a little woman looks awkward
-enough; but a tall woman with a little, tiny man is a misfit, surely.
-
-See if you can’t find someone of your size, as the school-lads say in
-a wrestle. Pair off like soldiers in time of dress parade, with an eye
-to unity.
-
-This caution relates to extremes, of course, and not to small
-variances. Some change and grow portly after marriage, but none get
-very much taller after twenty-four.
-
-Just for the looks of the thing, pair off in uniform lines.
-
-_Don’t marry a man or woman without a character._ Soon enough you’ll
-see the value of this caution. Character is a matter that grows through
-a lifetime, but enough of it crops out early to be noticed. One is
-known not only by his company but by his habits, his tastes, and his
-inclinations. It is said that some whole families are born fast; some
-thievish, some inclined to crabbedness, others mild, upright, honest,
-and reliable. It runs in the blood in some cases.
-
-Suppose one is to marry for virtue, purity, and uprightness, he will
-seek it in the blood as much as he would look for quality in a racer.
-
-If a woman loves a rakish “man of the world,” so called,--a name too
-often used to varnish a bad character,--she will very easily find him
-around the different bar-rooms of almost any crowded hotel in the city
-or village. He will be after marriage what he was before.
-
-Tell me where a man goes, and I will tell you what he is. If he is
-fast, he will cultivate fast habits, live a rapid life, and earn that
-character very early. If these are the traits you are looking for,
-“inquire within” and you will find them. It may be a woman you are
-asking about, a girl for a wife, a life-long companion. Which are you
-seeking for? A dashy, fly-away dancer, or a domestic home-lover, and
-one whom you can trust with your keys, your secrets, your conscience?
-Look to her character. In either case, the man or woman has lived
-somewhere. Find out about it,--how long, how well, how faithfully.
-
-A well-to-do widow, was crazy to marry a man that she fancied, and
-who actually refused to give more than his name and hotel, and no
-references. On careful inquiry such a person was known by no less
-than two to four names,--changed to suit circumstances. The spell was
-broken, the match ended.
-
-Men and women often rush into matrimony as game is run into a trap, for
-the little tempting bait set to catch them (a catch-as-catch-can race).
-They marry and risk a life-long happiness on less actual information
-of each other’s real nature than a good horseman would exact of his
-carriage horse’s pedigree. This may do in the country, but never will
-answer in a city. Sense and reason dictate that men and women, to enjoy
-each other’s society, should see well to the match beforehand. A fine
-hand, a small foot, a becoming hat, a twist of the head, a simper,
-or a half-witty saying will do well in their places; but colors must
-_wash_ and _wear_ to stand a lifetime.
-
-_Don’t marry a clown._ A silly fellow that jokes on every subject never
-did amount to anything, and never will. All he says may be very funny,
-very; but how many times can he be funny?
-
-Fun will grow stale and threadbare; one cannot live by it. Life is a
-trip that costs car fare, wash bills, board bills, trinkets, notions,
-and actual outlays. Real providers are never clowns; the clownish
-fellow is a favorite in school-days. He is so cute, just as cute as a
-cotton hat, so cunning, so witty, so nice. Is he? Wait a few years,
-until his nice nonsense turns to active business!
-
-_Don’t marry a dude._ Of all milk-and-water specimens, a dude is
-the lowest,--a little removed from nothing; a dressed-up model for
-a tailor-shop (sometimes it’s in woman form); a street flirt, a
-hotel-step gazer, an eye-glass ogler, a street strut; one who finds his
-enjoyment in the looking-glass--a masher.
-
-Very many are called, but few are chosen. The many that are called are
-ridiculed. The time will come when a tailor’s suit and a fancy outfit
-will no more make one respectable than it would make a gentleman of a
-wooden Indian in front of a cigar-stand.
-
-Men, real men of business, and men fit to marry, are not dudes, but
-manly, upright beings, with sense, integrity, and genius or industry;
-who come upon the stage of life as real actors in its affairs, not as
-“supes” and sham soldiers in “Pinafore” battle-scenes, where a few
-parade in fancy feathers as commodores for the amusement of spectators.
-
-Life is too earnest to spend on silly, tawdry, fancy colors or showy
-clothing; and the one who has the less of it is the most likely to be
-marked for a gentleman, and the brand will be correctly designated.
-With women, no less than men, is this silly street-walking habit quite
-prevalent. A flirting woman on a public street is a sorry picture;
-even one who stoops to notice her must secretly know her measure. She
-deceives no one, for her character, like the dude’s, is so transparent
-that no one mistakes its meaning. The habit of going nowhere for
-nothing is as foolish as it is injurious.
-
-Character grows out of little things. It may be that being seen with a
-disreputable person three times, or even once, will change the whole
-current of our career. Don’t practise the vices of dudes nor the habits
-of street flirts.
-
-_Do not marry a boy or girl who is not good at home._ That is the
-golden test of duty,--to do one’s duty alone, away from the eyes of
-men and the notice of the world; to be good from a right disposition.
-
-There is no safer rule to marry by than this: “She loves her mother,
-and isn’t afraid to work. She has a good name at home among her near
-neighbors. She is neat, sweet, and tidy. Seven days each week she is
-never off guard, always a lady.”
-
-And of a man may it be said, “He is a man, take him all in all; he
-is manly, he is truthful; he loves his home; he treats his sisters
-and mother kindly. He is capable of good deeds, and incapable of mean
-ones. He has a good name.” He deserves success, and it will follow
-him. He is plain, perhaps, but man outgrows it. He is not a painting,
-an imitation, a counterfeit, but simply a man. He will do to marry; so
-will she, the last-named.
-
-_Don’t marry from pity._ It may be akin to love, but the kinship
-is quite distant. Many a weak woman has so married, and only once
-regretted it--each and every day afterwards. A life-long regret must
-follow. What a cold respect is that compliment to any woman, “I took
-pity on her!” Away with such base uses of pity! Many a woman has had
-pity on a rakish man or a drunkard and married him to reform his
-nature. Better, far better, trust a child with a runaway horse or a
-mad dog. Danger seen and not avoided is criminal carelessness. Surely
-you can save one life, and its happiness, in such cases. One is quite
-enough to be sacrificed. Let bravery be shown by demanding a full
-surrender and reasonable atonement.
-
-_Don’t marry for an ideal marriage only._ The girlish dream of marriage
-is so wide of the reality as to be dangerous. She is to grow up and
-go away, off to Italy, or some far-away clime of sunshine; there to
-be taught music and the classics. On some clear moonlight evening,
-in a summer-time, where birds sing all day long, near a brook or
-flower-garden, she is to be surprised by a creature of form and make
-and mental endowment that shall thrill her whole being into rapturous
-joy. They will go to the parlor, and there, by a grand-piano, she will
-unseal the pent-up currents of her heart, till tears flow from all eyes
-around her; there she will seem to hear the childhood melodies, the
-song of departed friends, the harmony of all the senses, mingling in
-one sweet welcome to her new-found happiness.
-
-Her prisoned soul is no longer grovelling in common themes; all the
-latent power of her being is to burst forth in gladness; and music of
-the heart is to bear her up until the cottage walls are narrow, till
-flowers and falling water, brilliant company, ease and riches, smile
-upon her glad career.
-
-She is to be lifted up, and raised to heights before unknown to
-mortals. He of whom she dreams of now is fit for Paradise. Finer and
-finer every day will his genius grow, and nearer to her liking every
-hour. There is just such joy and just such glory in a new-born love,
-that seems to reach a grander height each moment, as on eagle’s wings.
-
-And this is but the generous dream that Nature gives, as a preface to
-a real life after,--so very, very different. The girl that twines her
-tender arms around her mother’s neck, and thrills with joyous pride in
-telling of the brilliant prize that’s offered her, thinks not of rainy
-days ahead. Perhaps it is just as well; who would begrudge her such
-half-hours of happiness? But, seeing sometime she must break the spell
-and know all, it may be safe to drop a hint in season, and say, This
-way lies safety, that way danger!
-
-_Don’t marry a man of even doubtful character._ No matter how handsome
-or brilliant, a bad man has in him elements that are always repulsive;
-they are poison to his blood and his surroundings, and the only safe
-guide is his character.
-
-No matter how many promises of reformation; you need not turn reformer
-for his sake. If you will take the risk, do it after he proves himself
-reformed, and be in no great haste about it.
-
-No amount of spicing and seasoning can make tainted meat palatable, and
-no amount of promising will reclaim a character tainted with vicious
-habits once seated.
-
-Young ladies who enter upon the reforming mission furnish more women
-and children for prisons, later in life, by their own misfortunes than
-any one class. Cases of reclaimed men after marriage are so rare as to
-be exceptional. It’s always a dangerous experiment.
-
-_Don’t marry too cautiously as to perfection._ It has before been fully
-stated that men and women are human, and imperfect. That is, if you are
-hunting angels it’s a fool’s errand; there are none unpledged. If you
-look for tall, handsome, rich, manly, cultivated, talented, brilliant
-men, or pure, refined, fascinating, beautiful women, and one for each
-man the world over, the supply never equals the demand of either sex.
-
-But to presume that the persons marked under head of “don’t marry”
-cover all the rest is unreasonable. There are thousands of noble women
-and men, possessed of sterling sense, strong bodies, affectionate
-natures, ability to conduct a home, become a genial companion, raise a
-family, shine in society, and bear their full share of life’s earnest
-work. Occasionally a man or woman will tower above their fellows, but,
-generally, the real difference is less than is often supposed. The
-great majority are good, and live and go to their reward unheard of
-outside of their neighborhood.
-
-One has put it rather strongly in this, to many: “The lives of men
-and women, the best of them, are marred and ruined by uncongenial
-marriages. They mostly suffer in silence, ashamed to complain of
-the chain they cannot break. Men and woman cannot know what their
-sweethearts will be after marriage. I have known a sensitive man,
-a genius with a soul like a star, whose life was a pilgrimage over
-burning coals, because his wife was a coarse termagant. Many a gifted
-woman, fit to be a queen or an empress, is chained to a clod of a
-husband, whose forced companionship is to her the tortures of Inferno.”
-
-_Don’t marry expecting all the virtues in one person._ If you do, the
-disappointment will be startling. There are no perfect characters.
-History gives none since the Saviour. Even Joseph was willing to
-punish his enemies.
-
-The majority of men and women are good and pure and fair-looking.
-The numbers who go to the bad are few compared to the good. Take the
-country population, and ninety per cent will be good; and sixty per
-cent of all cities are people of fair characters.
-
-It is a mistake to think that most people are bad because the bad
-ones get so often chronicled in public journals. The good, like the
-virtuous, live and die and demand no praise of their virtue. The great
-mass of men are sensible, and honest and upright and sober, and worthy
-to marry.
-
-_Don’t break a marriage abruptly._ This is the wrong way to break a bad
-match. It intensifies affection. It leads to elopement, or that slow
-canker in a girl’s nature ending in melancholy, or insanity.
-
-Love is a plant so tender that to uproot or transplant it may touch a
-vital part. There are ways enough to change its current; but of all
-food to increase its growth, give it a little opposition. Tell a child
-to leave something alone, and he sulks to touch it. Tell a girl that
-the man she admires is distasteful to her relatives, and she half
-despises them from a simple motive of resentment. Lead her by reason to
-see with her own eyes, and she will be convinced.
-
-The great London actor, Garrick, played the drunkard to disenchant a
-girl, and succeeded. Her parents might have tried it a lifetime and
-failed. Human nature is queer. It will lead when the way is enticing.
-It will magnify discoveries, but they must be discovered in the right
-manner. Remove not the prop till the safety of the structure is secure
-without it.
-
-_Don’t oppose one’s marriage choice suddenly._ Should a girl fall in
-love with one of bad character, it is best not to call him so at one
-breath; but say, “What are his habits? Is he good enough and worthy of
-so pure and comely a person as you are?” Let this task be performed by
-some girl of same age and class as the one you seek to change. Let them
-be often together, and find ways of expressing the objections by this
-method--coming from a classmate, a friend, a chum or companion--and
-your object may be easily accomplished. A proposed absence without
-showing why, a long journey with genial company, may have the desired
-effect. At least use one caution; see that the girl knows the real
-habits and character of the man you are opposed to her marrying. It
-will do more than all the urging, scolding, coaxing, or threatening.
-
-_Don’t marry for spite._ Why should you? If the one whom you loved most
-has deceived you and taken another, it will be folly to try to punish
-him by hanging yourself, or committing a double suicide in a loveless
-marriage.
-
-You will learn this lesson all too dearly when it’s over. Life is too
-short for those who love it and are well mated; but many a miserable
-marriage has made one or the other wish for death a million times, to
-be rid of its burden.
-
-You are the one most interested. You will find out, after the knot is
-tied, that there are many conditions in life better and easier to be
-endured than a silly marriage to spite some one. You will spite them
-better by showing what a noble choice they had missed when they took
-another in your place.
-
-_Don’t propose on a wash-day, in the rain, at breakfast, or in a
-tunnel._ There is no room for fainting in the former, and a narrow
-chance for time in the latter.
-
-Many ladies have singular notions on how proposals should be accepted,
-and to such any rudeness is extremely shocking. A very modest fellow,
-in deep anxiety, took up his fair lady’s cat, and said, “Pussy, may I
-marry your mistress?” when the young lady replied, “Say yes, pussy,
-when he gets brave enough to ask for her.” More than likely this
-brought the young fellow to his senses. It certainly brought matters to
-a crisis.
-
-Most young people talk to each other as though a tall stone wall stood
-between them and they must find a door in it. Strange enough, the
-difference in views vanishes at the merest mention of each other’s
-sentiments.
-
-_Don’t mitten a mechanic_, simply on account of his business. If he is
-worthy, never mind his business. He can grow out of it, and will grow
-out of it. Collier was a blacksmith, Wilson a shoemaker, Andrew Johnson
-a tailor, Peter Cooper a glue-maker, Grant a tanner, and Lincoln the
-humblest of farmers. In this country it is not a question what a man
-was, but what he is; not even what he is, but what he may be, and what
-he is capable of yet attaining.
-
-Many a girl has turned away a mechanic and married a rich loafer, only
-to find in good season that the mechanic was at heart a gentleman, with
-growing possibilities, and the loafer remained such for all time.
-
-Advice is seldom heeded in such matters, but it may do to mention it.
-The true test of manhood is seen in the mettle of boyhood. If you wish
-to forecast the future, study the past history of your subject. If one
-is selfish, tyrannical, and overbearing by being rich, he will be a bad
-man to marry. If, on the other hand, he is pleasant, kind, genial, and
-forbearing, loves his kind, is attentive to his mother and sisters, and
-has made friends and character in early life, he is not very likely
-to change his notions later. There is often more manhood in a poor
-one-armed man than a rich athlete.
-
-_Don’t marry a man too poor._ It is the height of folly to mate,
-and attempt to raise seven children on what will bring up three
-indifferently. Have a little discretion. Think that eating, dressing,
-etc., cost something, and no one can live happily without some of these
-common comforts. If they cannot buy them single, it is folly to double
-one’s misery by marrying in the jaws of starvation. It is suicide: it
-is worse,--it is double suicide, and may lead to pauperism and crime
-and disgrace.
-
-_Don’t marry where the woman is older than the man._ Men are restless
-creatures and exacting. They expect grace, beauty, and refinement; they
-prefer youth to age, generally. At least it is the fashion to marry a
-wife some years younger than the husband. Women mature earlier; they
-have less expectancy of long life, and on an average live seven to ten
-years less, and show age at fifty more than a man does at sixty-five.
-Of the two, a woman should look smaller and younger and better than a
-man. This accords with the belief of all refined people.
-
-_Don’t marry a crank._ This class of men will be wordy and persuasive.
-They tell all sorts of stories of life,--how the world is mismade; how
-they could improve upon this thing or that; how marriages should be
-made between blondes and brunettes; how, with their philosophy, society
-would reach perfection.
-
-Such men are invariably tyrannical. They are exacting to the last
-degree; they have neither faith, hope, nor charity, but run in one
-groove. They distrust the powers that be, and generally mount some
-hobby, and forever prattle about the rights of free love or the wrongs
-of government. Avoid them as you would a tramp.
-
-_Don’t marry fine feathers._ Chesterfield was _well up_ on manners,
-and gave his son this rule, among his twenty-one maxims to marry by:
-“Let not the rustling of silk entrap you into matrimony.” Fine clothing
-has a certain fascination to many. Some choose a wife by the becoming
-effect of a tasty garment. Some select a fine dancer; others rely upon
-a small hand or a petite form. These points may be all well noted,
-but they are but parts of a greater whole that should govern a wise
-selection.
-
-_Don’t marry a “masher”--man or woman._ A regular professional flirt
-will never settle down to love one woman or one man. Habits once formed
-will cling to them in after-life. They are like runaway teams--liable
-to take fright and go when least expected.
-
-Civil attention, by a lady or gentleman, to the other sex is natural
-and courteous, but the thought that every fair lady is common prey
-is repulsive. The traveller who avoids all vacant car-seats but the
-nearest to a handsome young woman, and forces his conversation against
-her will, has an eye to his business of one more conquest; but the too
-often insulted woman who complains of over-attention from gentlemen is
-generally one who walks much unattended and shows some willingness to
-be not wholly unnoticed.
-
-_Don’t marry without love._ It will be plain enough after a while.
-You will not mind it at first, perhaps, but the time will come when,
-by a song, or a face, or a voice, or a form, you will awake as from a
-dream, to find you have chosen carelessly. It will be too late then.
-A loveless marriage may stand throughout a honeymoon. It may last in
-youth, but not when storms and trials come in after-years. It
-lacks that something which words do not well express,--continuity,
-heart-bound devotion, and endurance.
-
-No matter how plain each or either may be, if they love each other
-they will overlook little things, and live patiently and happily to
-the end. But once, at least, must come this joy and glory of wedlock,
-that seems to be the wise design of Nature,--a love for one another.
-It endures through age and trouble, and is a more lasting tie than all
-others together.
-
-_Don’t marry an idle spendthrift_; one whose money comes without
-effort at first, and goes as rapidly, will one day come to want as
-certainly as waters reach their level. Nature has fashioned us all for
-work,--work of mind or work of body, mental or physical labor,--and
-with it comes strength of muscle and of will. Listless life of
-idleness, without motive, without aim, is open to every form of
-temptation.
-
-It is not a crime to be rich, or to be poor. It is a crime to be
-listless in a busy world. He would be disgraced who, standing on a
-wharf, saw a drowning crew without offering relief. He would be a
-coward who would not defend a woman in distress; yet all around us are
-the needy, helpless, drowning, starving, whom it is our duty to rescue
-and lift up in life; and marriage is the place where society is born,
-and grows and ripens into use.
-
-_Don’t marry a stingy man_; of all narrow, mean men, he is worst who
-has money, and has no will to do good with it. A “dog-in-the-manger”
-man, who can improve his town, his church, his neighborhood, and does
-not, is a drone in life’s hive and deserves no success.
-
-One who is poor and has no means is excusable; one who locks and buries
-treasures deserves the Bible sentence of him who hid his talent in the
-earth--to be taken from him and placed with the active one’s talent.
-
-A narrow, selfish, stingy man will count your pennies spent, and
-postage used, and clothing worn, as wasted. One must live in constant
-dread of such a creature--we need not name him man; it would disgrace
-the term. A miser’s wife lives a loveless life.
-
-_Don’t marry too hastily._ Some rush into matrimony like a steam-engine
-going to put out a fire, as though one moment lost would be eternal
-defeat, and the first there gain the highest prize. Many a one has
-repented more leisurely and in sorrow for such conduct. But of all
-things, marry at a good opportunity.
-
-_Don’t be too slow about it._ Girls who give up the society of all but
-one, and turn their homes into special receptions for one person, will
-be worried to death in a year or two, if things move too moderately.
-
-Brace up and proceed to business, or release your claim and let
-some one else have an opportunity. Long engagements lead to lovers’
-quarrels; they, in turn, fail to make up sometimes, and then follow
-scandal and gossip over broken ties; and later two go down to their
-early sleep disheartened, ruined by a trifling neglect and a reasonable
-inventory of prospects. You will see it all plainly when it is over. It
-will be a “might have been” then, sure enough, but too late.
-
-_Don’t marry a silly girl._ It’s something of an art to select a
-sensible person, but many are captivated by frivolous sayings and
-coquettish acts of simpering school-girls and marry them. They make
-better playmates than wives. They are generally shallow, nonsensical,
-and superficial. They seldom learn anything; a tittering girl is
-wearisome in real life. They are ever unstable as water and changeable
-as wind; get some one that you can rely upon in confidence.
-
-_Avoid slovenly dressed girls or heedless men._ Life seems very short
-sometimes, but if ill-mated it may be a long and tiresome life. A woman
-with shoes run down, a man with slouched and battered hat, reckless of
-neatness, will grow worse, and seldom better.
-
-Trifling as it may appear, the tidy dress, the tasty every-day apparel,
-the ladylike appearance, and general style of man or woman, go a long
-way to form character. Beecher was right in saying that “clothes do not
-make the man, but they make him look better after he is made.” The same
-rule is true of women.
-
-_Don’t expect too much in marriage._ The story pen-pictures and
-fashion-plate models of men that we see and read about are always
-exaggerated. Not one man in a million would equal their description.
-Men are plain flesh-and-blood creatures; women are not angels. They
-build their hopes too high who expect otherwise. Take the handsomest
-person you know and ten years’ wear will dull the edges; and of all
-faded features, the once very handsome show change the soonest. There
-are many little odd-faced fellows who grow up to be fine manly men.
-The growth from boyhood or girlhood to youth, and youth to manhood or
-womanhood, and so on to old age, is marvellous. It takes a keen sense
-of foresight to measure the future of many boys and girls by their
-beginning. There is no rule safer than choosing a good form, a good
-brain, a good temper, and a good character, and waiting for the other
-developments.
-
-Endure what cannot be cured, and don’t wish your wife or husband were
-as handsome as some neighbor or as rich as some nabob. Youth and good
-qualities are riches. It may be he is richer by far than the very one
-envied. The richest are not always those who own the most--many of
-these are poor indeed, and often miserable.
-
-_Don’t marry a fop._ Vanity in a woman is bad enough, in men it is
-intolerable! A man-milliner, a namby-pamby female male, a walking
-model for ready-made furnishing-stores, may think himself exceedingly
-stunning, but to a real lady or gentleman he is a nonentity. Such
-husbands never could be satisfied with the admiration you would give
-them; they would weary your mirrors and try your patience. What are
-they good for, anyway? There is room for women and room for men, but a
-half-woman or a half-man is never great. They are not very likely to
-marry at all, and less likely to make home happy.
-
-_Don’t expect everything of one person._ Some expect to marry love,
-beauty, talent, riches, and affection all in one. It is unreasonable;
-you will never find it, and may as well give up looking in good season.
-
-“Waukeen” Miller was requested to rewrite an article sent to a New York
-magazine and returned this pithy reply: “I can’t re-copy it. I can’t
-do everything. What do you expect of a man, anyway--to be a genius,
-an inventor, and a writing-teacher? No, I can’t bother my brains with
-copying worth four to six hundred a year at the highest.” This covers
-the whole subject in a sentence. But it is well to add that Nature is
-sparing of her gifts. To one she allots beauty, to another strength,
-to another wisdom, to a third courage, to a fourth ability to acquire
-riches, to another that to write and speak, to teach, to manage, to
-paint, or to control armies: all are not alike, and to no one belong
-all virtues.
-
-_Don’t expect too much of a wife._ If she is beautiful, that will be
-her pride and ideal. If plain, she may make it up a thousand times in
-goodness, gentleness, industry, virtue (the plainest are the least
-tempted). Earnest in her duty, she may be of all women the most suited
-to your station. If talented, she will devote herself to it. You
-cannot own beauty, talent, domestic drudgery all in one.
-
-“Looking for angels, are you?” said an advanced maiden in the country.
-“Well, you’ll not find ’em fit for kitchen work; and, while I think of
-it, how would you look by the side of an angel, you brute you?” and he
-subsided.
-
-No, they are not much suited to kitchen work, the so-called angels;
-but many a mother who has brought up a large family as her own kitchen
-maid, without servants, who has braved the hardships of poverty and
-privation, has led a life but little lower than the angels, after all.
-
-_Don’t marry and cross your husband._ While on this division, don’t
-cross your wife just at dinner-time. After the cares of business he is
-tired, fretful, and she is of similar humor. To make a dispute is much
-easier than to make a coal fire. Wait!
-
-Don’t flash up and speak back, and irritate by quick answer. Wait!
-
-If man or woman could only wait in seasons of anger, all would blow
-over and harmony return like spring flowers, that are not always in
-blossom.
-
-Don’t both speak at once, nor both get angry at once, nor both be too
-determined at once. No one is ever convinced by angry tones. It is
-horribly repulsive to talk so; besides, you will both be sorry for
-it very many times. Wait, and let your judgment mature after dinner;
-quarrel, if you must, in whispers; that is the new fashion. Try the
-newer form.
-
-About ten thousand new divorces could be prevented each year by
-observing these rules of common sense and reason. When will married
-people and unmarried people, and lovers and neighbors, learn how
-pleasant peace is, and how awkward it is to quarrel together?
-
-One man pounds his finger with a tack-hammer and blames his wife for
-it a month later; one man’s goose gets in a neighbor’s garden and is
-killed--perhaps served him right--and yet they are sworn enemies for
-five years later; and not until some child is rescued from a burning
-building or a mad dog, by the enemy neighbor do the two know how
-pleasant and useful it is to dwell in harmony.
-
-Families who have been estranged for years are some day--ah, some
-day!--called to look into the sightless eyes that once flashed in
-anger, or lay away in its earthy home the form they shunned for some
-trifling answer in a passion. If we knew how soon, how cautious we
-would be! Life is so short to quarrel and make up in; they who quarrel
-may never make up.
-
-_Don’t marry in fun._ Be in earnest about a matter of so much moment.
-It may seem funny to a lot of girls out on a sleigh-ride to call in
-some one and wind up an escapade by a double wedding; but few of such
-marriages ever end well.
-
-Sudden and ill-considered matches are mismatches. You may have a
-mother, a sister, or a family to consult; then the old-fashioned way is
-the best. It’s a left-handed marriage at best that will not allow the
-forms used for ages to strengthen its solemnity.
-
-Let the world know by open dealing that you have married above any
-secrecy, elopement, or underhanded fashion. Be brave enough to follow
-the form of society in a manner that concerns every neighbor and every
-relative.
-
-Marry at home or at church, in good form, without display; marry
-according to the best usage of the best people, and you will reap some
-benefit from the sensible conclusion.
-
-_Don’t marry without an eye to comfort._ A man that expects to live
-thirty years or more with a partner will investigate his likes and
-dislikes; so should a woman. Are you ready to attend a cattle ranch and
-brave the frontier? Then look the matter clearly in the face at the
-first hint of the man’s proposal who expects it.
-
-Do you prefer the city to the country? Look to the earliest
-opportunity. Can you endure a soldier’s absence, or wait for an
-explorer? or will you prefer a domestic relation that brings you both
-under one roof daily? These questions should be answered soon enough
-to prevent regret, remorse, or separation. The greatest of all dangers
-in marriage is the color-blindness of lovers: they never use but one
-color--rose color--till a few weeks after the wedding.
-
-_Don’t spurn a man for his poverty._ “Prosperity is the parent of
-friends; misfortune is the fire by which they are tried.” One may be
-poor by an honest failure, another may be rich on ill-gotten gains.
-The first the lord of honor, the last a prosperous knave.
-
-“I would give it all willingly and work by the day if we could be
-placed back where we were, and be free from the worry and dread and
-anxiety,” said a rich man’s wife to a waiting friend by her sick
-bedside.
-
-Who does not know of poor, plain boys who endured the poverty of youth,
-struggled with their studies, carved out a fortune as from flinty
-marble, and enjoyed it in maturer years, all the more for the effort
-it cost them, all the more likely to last and continue to bless other
-generations?
-
-Franklin commenced poor with a penny loaf; Greeley was homely and
-awkward. Few would have looked for Lincoln’s rise. Giddings and Collier
-and Garfield all started low on the ladder, and ended high in honor and
-worthy of any woman’s affection.
-
-If we could only get near enough to Genius to comprehend its superior
-worth; if we could reverence talent and admire integrity and take true
-measure of prospective greatness, what a fortune we would possess!
-
-Like high-priced lots in large cities, the discoverers of rare
-locations seldom knew the value of their purchases. It takes time for
-development; more time in genius and character than we are always ready
-to wait for; but the far-seeing are always rewarded, so with the prizes
-of matrimony.
-
-_Don’t marry and expect a husband to be wealthy while young._ Only the
-older men should be looked to for high financial standing. In a hopeful
-country like ours, few are rich under fifty, seldom under sixty.
-
-Young men who earn their education, and begin and learn a business are
-barely partners at thirty or thirty-five. It takes time to prosper.
-Several mistakes may be made. Scarcely a wholesale house in New York
-or Boston has run on twenty years without a failure. Failure is the
-rule, success the exception. Patience, pluck, and perseverance win the
-victory, but they who spend freely in the forenoon have little left in
-the evening. Those who save early double in like ratio later on.
-
-_Don’t marry in opposite religious views._ If possible, marry near
-your own belief. This may seem strained, but the story of divorces
-will confirm its wisdom. Children and parents very often disagree on
-religious subjects. The farmer’s “Betsey and I are out” controversy,
-“was a difference in our creed. And the more we argued the matter, the
-less we ever agreed.”
-
-It is pleasant to agree on a subject so vital in families, more
-especially so in Protestant and Catholic families, where education is
-sometimes controlled by church government, and marriages are held
-illegal in one church if not solemnized by its forms and between
-regular believers in its faith and doctrines.
-
-_Don’t marry a duke_, or any man who travels on his title. The most of
-such men are very common, and the most of young people who seek their
-company are sold, deceived, and seriously disappointed.
-
-They expect a fortune to begin with, and will be the most exacting
-of all mortals. This is a mere matter of birth and surroundings.
-Novels tell many beautiful stories (pretty visions) about brave and
-noble dukes and their princely palaces, attentive servants, and
-flower-arbors. Experience tells far different stories.
-
-The history of nine out of ten of such unnatural unions is a record
-of a half million or so squandered on a petted daughter to satisfy a
-mother’s ambition, and ending in misery entailed by the dearly bought
-purchase. Don’t marry so much out of rank as to be a burden, or carry a
-burden.
-
-_Do marry a man that you can look up to_, and see that he can
-do likewise. There are plenty of farmers, mechanics, merchants,
-conductors, doctors, lawyers, and men of general business, who are
-worthy, trusty, generous, noble, and will make excellent husbands.
-
-Seek them out from their character, their conduct at home, their
-treatment of sisters and mothers, their devotion to business and
-adherence to principle. Show them that you trust them. Be ready to
-marry. Become accomplished and useful. Make yourself worthy of a home,
-and know how to manage it with skill and kindness. Loving natures are
-not long neglected. The worn-out belles and women who fade and wither,
-and die snappish and single, were insincere, or lacked some quality of
-winning manners.
-
-_Do marry a President._ That is the correct form now. It’s so romantic.
-Waive all the hints of other objections,--age, love, spite, money, and
-the like. Get a President,--just for the position, you know!
-
-Then all the little jewels and diamonds and presents will come rolling
-in like flowers to a favorite singer. All little objections vanish in
-the presence of a President. He must be suited to any condition of
-beauty, genius, or intellect. Don’t refuse a President’s offer; you may
-never get but one such in a lifetime.
-
-_Do marry a plain man._ Just a plain, common-sense man; be he banker,
-lawyer, doctor, farmer, builder, merchant, so he is a man; for manhood
-is at a premium to-day in home life! The world is full to overflowing
-with brilliant men. Public offices are public trusts, and all that such
-responsibility implies, and there are women in stations where the word
-home has very little meaning, and other women who long for the quiet
-and comfort of true domestic life away from the cares of office and the
-demands of lofty stations.
-
-Two of the things that lead to greatest misery of the masses to-day are
-over-ambition and reckless marriages.
-
-_Don’t coax a woman to love you._ If you wish to win, that is certainly
-the wrong way. If they have any notion of it, you are in the opposite
-direction of success.
-
-Women despise a fawning, cringing nature. “Fortune and women, born to
-be controlled, stoop to the forward and the bold.”
-
-A far more sensible way to win will be by indifference. Show enough
-willingness to reassure her, and enough courage to act manly.
-
-Ten to one you have mistaken her temper by lack of frankness. Nothing
-is more touching than truth. If you are really bent on marrying and
-have told the right person the whole story, earnestly and truthfully,
-the answer should be decisive.
-
-Keen dealers seldom banter; they may hesitate, they may explain their
-wants and wishes, they never parley very long or express much anxiety
-to strike a bargain.
-
-_Winning a wife or a lover is a rare art._ To be worthy of either
-is the first essential. It is better to be worthy of it than to be
-President and unworthy.
-
-It must be consoling even to a jilted lover to feel that he is superior
-to the one successful. The next thing to being worthy is being ready.
-Many a youth begins driving, sleighing, and dressing for society who
-pays his clothing bills by instalments, and whose salary is wholly
-unequal to his outlay.
-
-Fairness demands that a girl in marrying should better her condition.
-How can one expect her to marry into misery?
-
-Chesterfield quotes an old Spanish saying of great force and aptness:
-“It is the beginning that costs in everything. The first step over, the
-rest is easy.”
-
-_Don’t marry recklessly._ Before two or more men form a partnership,
-they learn each other’s means of furthering the business to be engaged
-in; the confidence that each is worthy of, the skill, attention, etc.,
-each can give, and the prospects of a mutual agreement and prosperity.
-
-Without some inquiry on these vital requisites, no company concern
-would be founded. It would be a foolish investment to purchase goods
-and fit up stores or warehouses without some forecast of results; and
-yet this is precisely in the line of marriage.
-
-Partnerships are business marriages. It is not best to be too cool and
-calculating about it; one caution may let another take the venture and
-draw the premium. But some common-sense may as well be mixed with a
-matter so vital as a life-long engagement.
-
-Firms are limited to a few years; marriages are unlimited save by
-death, or divorce, for over a third of a century, on an average. While
-it is very difficult to tell whom to marry,--for no one can foresee
-your circumstances,--still, it is well to mention a large class that no
-one should marry, at least till all others are no longer accessible.
-
-If one could foresee the extent of happiness depending on this
-selection of partners, if he would take a simple business caution
-and investigate enough to be considerate, he might save society from
-disgrace and himself from lasting misery. For the fact is, that the
-most glaring of all our American evils is the looseness of marriage
-ties, and the misery it entails on domestic relations.
-
-If these hints or reminders should induce one woman to avoid a bad
-marriage, and one man to contract a good one, or save a long quarrel,
-or keep families in harmony, or help some poor bashful fellow to gain
-his Yes by a sensible proposal, the time in reading will be well spent,
-the trifling cost will be a splendid investment.
-
-
-
-
-ROMANTIC MARRIAGES.
-
-
-Caroline Crofton had completed her course at Vassar, one of its
-earliest graduates, and one of the most brilliant in her class of
-thirty odd young New England, graceful, gifted, and generous girls,
-that have long been noted for their purity of principles and perfection
-of character. She was smaller than her classmates, an only daughter of
-Judge Crofton, whose manner and training marked him as a classical,
-refined, and upright gentleman, and a dignified and just judge.
-
-All that culture could impart, or character add to the graces of
-nature, was bestowed upon Caroline, who never assumed the fashion of
-shortening her name by fancy contractions. Carline was the shortest
-way of calling her, and this was not a favorite with her mother. From
-her father she inherited the qualities ascribed to her, while her
-mother, like a clinging vine wound around the oak, was of a trusting,
-lovable, nature, of darker hair and eyes than the Judge; and the two
-mingled in the daughter, and formed a slender figure and a graceful
-form, an ardent, lovable character, as one could easily discover.
-
-Diligent by nature and proud of her progress in early studies, Caroline
-had entered Vassar’s advanced classes and employed all her energy to
-excel in each department.
-
-She literally lived in her books for four full years, to the exclusion
-of modes, society, or even the newspapers; her one ambition seemed
-ever to be excellence, and when the graduating day arrived, and the
-long row in white were seated in breathless awe to read their papers
-and receive their reward, something more than a common interest was
-awakened.
-
-Such are the days when young men of wealth and ambition, and poorer
-men with an eye to the beautiful, come in and listen to the overdrawn
-pictures of school-girls’ first productions.
-
-The theme of Caroline Crofton was “Pioneers;” how they had founded
-our government in the little log school-houses of New England, in
-the sixteenth century; how they had established their town meetings
-and voting precincts; how they had gradually driven back the Indians
-(“noble redmen”) from the rich, fertile valley of the Mohawk in New
-York, cleared away the underbrush from the fertile plains of Northern
-Ohio and Pennsylvania, and boldly evaded the massive pineries of
-bleak, cold Northern Michigan; dauntlessly, fearlessly, and bravely
-establishing schools and churches in the very midst of Indian huts and
-wigwams, taking their lives in their hands, to improve and populate a
-great and growing nation; and how wonderfully they had all prospered.
-
-In her vivid and graphic picture of a fruitful theme (a theme learned
-from books and stories), she dwelt on the part that mothers had borne,
-and brothers were bearing, in this tide of prosperity and improvement,
-till tear-drops came fast to the earnest eyes of the old gray-haired
-professors, who were judges, and many a mother’s heart leaped with
-joyous pride at the mention of brave sons battling with the Western
-wilderness, for their sons were among them.
-
-Caroline Crofton could feel the hush of silence, always such applause
-as is irresistible; she could feel the emotion, and conveyed that
-emotion to her audience; she forgot herself, forgot her hearers,
-and read with a girlish animation born of deep-seated belief in the
-grandeur of the theme she advocated. Round after round of applause
-greeted her conclusion, and she staggered to her seat literally
-overcome by the brilliant effort which resulted in a handsomely
-inscribed medal as first of her class of Vassar.
-
-Whether the influence of that essay on the mind of Caroline, or its
-greater influence on Cyrus Arthur (a newly arrived resident of Vassar)
-was the most potent means of a quick acquaintance between them, is not
-well known to the writers; certain it is that an early friendship soon
-refined into affection, and meagre inquiries into his character being
-satisfactory to Caroline, he was promptly admitted as a suitor at the
-dignified household of Judge Crofton, on the banks of the beautiful St.
-Lawrence. The Judge was led to believe that a long acquaintance had
-ripened between schoolmates, when in fact it was a love at first sight
-affair, and on very little consideration.
-
-That these young and ambitious lovers enjoyed all that is allotted
-to their class is forever a secret, for their after-life reveals but
-little of its mystery. Their after-life was a struggle for bread first,
-and position soon after. They really put off living, very foolishly.
-
-Cyrus Arthur was a large, strongly built, dark-haired, handsome fellow,
-of considerable assurance in the social gatherings, and generally
-managed to lead off with the dances and parties from his size and
-commanding way more than from any merit of talent or real goodness in
-himself; one of the village leaders who gained favor by fine looks and
-outward appearance; one of the petted class of forenoon brilliants
-whose afternoons are often more shaded.
-
-There was a smile of serene contentment and half-satisfaction on the
-haughty face of young Arthur as he offered himself to the Judge’s
-daughter in that manner assumed by generals in battle. He obtained his
-prize, and she obtained her ambition. He married beauty, she married a
-leader. Her highly colored future was a life of intellectual greatness;
-his first pride was of conquest, then of distinction.
-
-A large man in a small place may be a little man in a large city.
-
-In good season they were married, of course; and of their courtship
-little need be said, for it was all unromantic.
-
-Arthur’s father was a merchant of limited means, and the younger having
-high notions of going West to grow up with the country, early settled
-in a lumber-making city of North Michigan, where he took his fair young
-companion, who soon realized that her rose-colored romance of brave
-pioneers was not a living reality.
-
-Dreams are one thing, real life is another; work was scarce in the big
-overgrown city, but plentiful in the pineries; and after the first
-day of married life wore into weeks, and living expense came around
-with painful regularity, the new couple were forced to economize, then
-look for employment, which they first found in tending store and camp,
-cooking for a large lumber-ranch; certainly far less refining than the
-vision of a Vassar schoolgirl’s essay had pictured.
-
-But they prospered, and by dint of close saving, always coming from the
-wise counsel of the weaker one, they became managers, then owners, of
-a portable saw-mill and a ranch, and gradually a store building partly
-paid for.
-
-From the letters home, showing their thrift and economy, gradually
-came small sums lent to the far-away idol of the staid old Judge’s
-household. Cyrus was surprised and delighted one day to find a large
-bill of goods sent on to fill up their store and give them a start in
-their hard beginning.
-
-It was the work and influence of that little brainy wife, whose tender
-hands had grown harder by cooking, mending, and working for forty or
-more robust workmen, and the reward it brought and the encouragement
-to both. With a well-stocked grocery and comfortable surroundings,
-Cyrus began to look the world in the face quite complacently, and take
-matters easier. Meanwhile, the silent ambition of Caroline determined,
-if growing up with the country meant anything, she would fathom its
-mystery, and she continued to delve and save, and plan and execute, and
-encourage her husband in his extensive contracts.
-
-Here was a profit on forty laborers, a margin on their payment in
-goods, a rise in lumber, and a golden opportunity to buy vast tracts
-of pine timber at very low figures in cash payments. Drawing on her
-savings the little wife advised wise investments.
-
-
-II.
-
-Fifty-seven, eight, and nine were the three trying years in Northern
-Michigan. Many a man would cheerfully trade a load of shingles for
-a bag of corn, and a thousand feet of timber for a single ham. New
-England thrift was in the market, and the little daughter of a discreet
-judge balanced the chances and made hay in sunshine most effectually.
-
-Four years passed by, and a rapid rise in prices gradually increased
-the value of timber, then lumber, then shingles, then lands, and long
-before the war ended, Arthur and his once timid wife were among the
-wealthy citizens of the Rapids.
-
-A large, strong frame, and but little anxiety; a dark, swarthy
-complexion, with a heavy black beard; the face of such a man at
-thirty-eight showed less signs of wear than his little fair-faced
-companion at six years younger.
-
-Age, climate, work, and care were telling on the slender build of
-Caroline. The rapid birth of three children in ten years told also
-their story of a mother’s anxiety, written in shading lines on her once
-delicate features.
-
-Absorbed in her duties as a wife, she had little room for society,
-while he, a man relieved by riches from hard labor, was approaching
-that prime of maturity when the world looks complacently upward to one
-who has prospered, not even asking how, or why, or any reason.
-
-Long trips to large cities, absence from home, mingling often with
-wealthy lumbermen, and assuming that position that wealth ever commands
-in society, were doing for Cyrus Arthur what they will do for many in
-like situations.
-
-He craved a larger field for usefulness, he moved and settled in
-a large city; he craved society, he was a favorite with women; he
-developed a fondness for the more forward class. He fell; he fell often.
-
-If he had ever loved his devoted wife, the author of all his success
-and prosperity, he now grew unloving, haunted by the caresses of more
-passionate women. Driven by appetite to seek the companionship of the
-brazen and deceitful, he lost his self-respect, his love of home, and
-grew madly in love with a most bewitching character, lately divorced
-from her husband.
-
-A spell came over him; “the trail of the serpent is over them
-all,”--the “twelfth temptation,” as shown in the powerful drama of
-its name, that takes a farmer-boy in innocence, carries him safely
-through the perils of a great city, saves him from saloons and wine,
-and larceny and dishonesty, and at last when weakened by tampering with
-sin, brings him face to face with such dazzling beauty that his fall
-before it seems as natural as his ruin later is effectual.
-
-The trail of the serpent had crossed by the path of Arthur. The coil
-wound around him, for he loved the bold siren who enchanted him, and
-yielded to the twelfth temptation.
-
-
-III.
-
-“For a woman can do with a man what she will;” yet a man who knows a
-woman thoroughly and loves her truly--and there are women who may be so
-known and loved--will find, after a few years, that his relish for the
-grosser pleasures is lessened, and that he has grown into a fondness
-for the intellectual and refined amusements without an effort, and
-almost unawares.
-
-Fettered and controlled by the witchery of his evil genius, Cyrus
-Arthur lost all power but that borrowed of his seducer. Her counsel
-replaced the once wise confidence of a better companion. Her influence
-was as a loadstone in a compass,--it carried him in dumb obedience to
-her will. He was absorbed, confused, bewitched, stranded, lost!
-
-As often as they met in their evil way, she demanded a divorce and
-insisted on early proceedings.
-
-“But the cause?” he would say. “Cause?” she would answer; “make a
-cause!” “Not so easily done,” replied her willing admirer.
-
-“Money will do anything,” was her ready answer.
-
-“Money will do anything,” repeated the fond lumberman; “true, money
-will do everything.”
-
-But how? When, and where?
-
-These questions were all puzzling.
-
-
-IV.
-
-There was a dark-faced inspector, a man-of-all-work in lumber camp,
-called Roland, who had often called at Arthur’s, and who occasionally
-partook a little too freely of Northern fire-water, as the Indians term
-it, and whose poverty at such times would consent to almost anything,
-on one pretence and another.
-
-Young Roland was sent to inquire if Mr. Arthur was in, or if Mrs.
-Arthur needed shopping done, or errands attended to, with instructions
-to hint that his employer was seen riding out with the enchantress
-in a cutter, seemingly on the way to another village. These little
-irritations were to be repeated for effect, but no effect seems
-probable. They did create some inquiry, and at such dates of
-confidential conferences Mrs. Arthur was alone with the hireling spy
-and listened to his inferences of her husband’s indiscretions.
-
-Neither by word nor deed nor murmur did Caroline exhibit a sign
-or symbol of her unhappiness, save by the deeper lines and paler
-countenance that easily escaped detection to one who barely looked her
-in the eyes twice a day for months together.
-
-It was a failure; she would never act, he must take the initiative.
-
-Armed with a sworn affidavit of her infidelity with Roland on a recent
-occasion, together with further papers to complete their separation
-and settle an alimony of a few thousand dollars as her share of their
-large property, Cyrus Arthur visited his wife late at night as a robber
-would call for her jewels, and demanded a complete surrender. Stunned
-and shocked, and overcome by the intelligence, she wept most bitterly,
-pleaded, begged, and implored her husband, in the name of Heaven, to
-spare her and her _children_ from a disgrace so terrible. The sighing
-of the pines in a Northern forest would have moved him as soon from his
-purpose. She was between him and an envied object; he must succeed.
-He was already goaded to desperation. Seizing the part of her plea
-relating to her little girls, he made the worst of it.
-
-“If you would spare yourself and them from disgrace eternally, make no
-denial and all shall be secret, and no one the wiser.”
-
-“Can this be true?” asked the distracted mother of the other’s lawyer.
-
-“Yes,” he replied, cases have been heard on default and divorces
-granted, and not one scrap of bill or answer ever published.
-
-“What is a bill and answer?” questioned the little woman in her tears,
-for she never dreamed of a divorce between her and her husband till
-that moment.
-
-“It is the ground and denial for divorce,” replied the attorney.
-
-“Cyrus Arthur,” said his wife, as she looked at the eyes that evaded
-her earnestness, “do you mean this proceeding, or are you trifling?”
-
-“I am in earnest,” he answered.
-
-“Have you forgotten my home, my surroundings, the shock to my mother,
-my father, my own feelings, my neighbors, our children? Do you realize
-how you sin, and wrong me?
-
-“How I have toiled and helped you, planned our success! How I have
-suffered, gone almost in the grave, in bringing you these children! Are
-you in earnest?
-
-“If your heart is not iron, speak to me; shall I deny such a foolish
-slander? Shall I tell you before God, who will one day judge us all,
-that every one of the charges are infamous lies and perjuries; shall I
-place my word against his and you deny me?”
-
-“But you cannot swear in court in such cases,” said the ready lawyer.
-
-“Then Heaven will hear me; I am innocent. And may the Almighty end my
-life right here, if I have ever, by act or look, or word or deed, done
-aught that a true woman should not do in every day of our married life,
-from first to last, as God is my witness!”
-
-“But your children?” he pleaded, as if he had heard not a word of her
-earnest protest.
-
-On and on they argued, later and later grew the hour, till, worn out at
-midnight they passed her the papers, and eight thousand dollars, with
-which she was to return to her home in New England, and abandon all
-defense to the proceeding, including a release of all dower interest in
-his estate, real and personal.
-
-You may smile at the absurdity, you may question the reason of such
-haste and compulsion.
-
-“But who, alas! can love and still be wise?”
-
-Ask of the court records in every American city, and you will find
-stronger cases and stronger instances, more degradation, greater
-hardship, and equal perjury. Ask of _one_ court and find this case!
-
-No sleep nor rest comes to Caroline Arthur. Early dawn found her
-surrounded by her weeping children, in alarm at the sudden illness, for
-she only called it illness.
-
-Twice she started for the City National Bank to deposit her money, and
-twice relented. Once she determined to consult a neighbor, and later
-concluded she would bear alone her sorrow.
-
-Hastily filing his bill and securing her appearance, an early demand
-for a hearing before a commissioner, in less than a _single week_ came
-a divorce on the ground of infidelity.
-
-Elated by his victory, with his deeds well recorded, and the court’s
-great seal granting their divorcement, Cyrus Arthur stalked the streets
-in supreme confidence as a man of victory.
-
-It is said that Roman generals, once victorious ever bore about with
-them the marks of conquerors; so did our modern general, but for a
-brief duration.
-
-Once in the newspapers, and the busy streets were vocal with open
-denunciation. “Eight thousand dollars from a property worth one hundred
-and fifty thousand dollars!” came from bankers. “The wife that made
-him what he is,” said another. “A shame to our civilization,” said the
-third. “A fraud, a sham, a pretext,” said another.
-
-And the majority joined in the last anthem,--“a sham, a pretext,” a
-trick to turn off his worn-out wife and marry that impious trader in
-unvirtue and immorality.
-
-Press interviews were had, and the dear little lady of clean hands
-and honest heart, whose soul shone as a diamond in the filth of foul
-slander around her, utterly and consistently refuted and denied the
-whole story, and related its history with marvellous circumstantial
-evidence to convince any reasonable person of her truthfulness.
-
-Indignation knew no bounds; a firm of able lawyers at once filed a
-cross bill, and a prayer to set aside the fraudulent bill and another
-to annul all conveyances to Arthur; and within almost as brief a limit
-as he had secured his decree she had been restored to her rights with a
-divorce from Arthur and a thirty-thousand-dollar settlement.
-
-He was driven from the city in infamy, and she lived on in honor; but
-the stain on the children was of a nature more permanent.
-
-
-
-
-UNROMANTIC MARRIAGES.
-
-
-Grace Hartwell graduated at Hillsdale College in 18--, and settled as
-an assistant teacher in the Union school on College Hill, living with
-her mother across the narrow river near by, where she would pass the
-old homestead of Richard Baker, son of a well-to-do farmer adjoining
-the village, and who early became interested in the fair young teacher.
-
-Grace was a full brunette, of fairer complexion than is common to her
-school of beauty.
-
-She was beautiful, with well rounded arms, heavy black hair, rosy lips,
-white hands, eyes of marked expression--eyes that stood out full, and
-shone in striking contrasts, the black portion and the white being
-clear and sharply defined.
-
-Grace was no less a beauty than a dreamer, and longed for the kind of
-change that best suits a girl of her quick, passionate, and impulsive
-nature--a marriage.
-
-Richard was below the medium size, with very light hair, of slim
-figure, reticent of speech, shy and bashful, especially so in the
-presence of Grace, whom he met at parties, donations, and college
-receptions, so frequent and amusing in their lively village.
-
-Both went too long a distance for their dinner to make the trip
-agreeable, and both often carried their daily lunches in little baskets
-for convenience.
-
-On their homeward trips they met occasionally, bowed, passed the time
-of day, chatted of the last night’s party. It was growing so much of a
-custom with Richard to meet these road-side appointments, self-made,
-and well timed to match his lonely companion, that they soon became a
-matter of each day’s history.
-
-Grace was willing to listen, Richard was anxious to turn aside from his
-regular pathway and go round a square to bear her company.
-
-They were in love without romance, and against both the belief and
-expectation of all their associates.
-
-She was the prize of the village; he was neither well-off nor popular,
-but plain and unhandsome. He was not her only suitor, but the first had
-taken some pique at her attentions to a stranger in the village, that
-offended the haughty admirer of her beauty, and each was claimant for
-her entire devotion.
-
-Miss Hartwell’s father was a tall black-eyed Virginian, warm-blooded,
-swarthy, and impulsive, and liked not the manner of his daughter’s new
-friendship.
-
-He put his foot down with emphasis. He insisted on obedience. He wanted
-position, old family, wealth and social standing, or no marriage.
-
-Grace could not always govern her scholars, but herself she was
-determined to control.
-
-Herein both father and daughter were much alike.
-
-Time passed; attachment increased by opposition. Such is more often the
-way of lovers separated; but these were not wholly separated.
-
-At the death of Richard’s stepfather a division of the estate netted a
-round three thousand to the young farmer, who had done nearly all the
-farm work lately, and now started on an early Northwestern visit to
-the wheat-growing regions, resolved on a test of climate, comparison
-of prices, and general outlook for an investment. He bought early and
-largely in prairie lands of finest quality. He struggled, prospered,
-and grew well-to-do as a farmer.
-
-And what became of Grace, the teacher? Letters to and from Dakota,
-neatly written, choicely worded, and carefully punctuated, from one
-side; hurried notes, badly composed, from the other. The mind is never
-quite full of two subjects at once, and the surest cure for heartache
-is active employment and earnest work.
-
-The increasing cares of farming, the magnitude of the business, the
-constant desire for money (for the seed-time of farming is in its early
-stages), were a source of daily anxiety to Richard. “My poor Richard”
-was not a common name for a heading to Grace’s letters; truly she had
-found a fit name for her absent lover; a lover of land and of cattle, a
-lover of acres and of reapers, a lover of fences and shade-trees, and a
-growing Northwesterner; but poor, indeed, in actual happiness.
-
-They were married; Grace removed to her rude quarters and furnished
-them by taste, skill, and refinement. She took to her new home all the
-delicacy of rare machine-work, neat stitching, and tidy ornaments of
-her Eastern education; the sewing of many odd hours of industry.
-
-It seemed like an endless harvest, a long busy day, a strife and a
-struggle, in a wilderness of bleak broad fields at great distance from
-market. They raised vast crops, but sold at low prices.
-
-The panic of ’73, and the cold winter following, made not a very happy
-honeymoon to both, but they endured it all, risked all in a fond large
-hope of abundant future riches. In a land of no railroads (it’s changed
-now; it’s as much more brilliant to-day as an electric light compared
-with the light of a common candle), Dakota was then rather a dreary
-country.
-
-Sometimes, it is true, there would come over Grace a feeling of
-lonesome homesickness. It comes to a far-away settler many times in a
-lifetime; but she would choke it under, and resolve to be a brave wife
-and a worthy companion.
-
-Ten years have rolled by, and times are better; both are older, worn a
-little by climate, larger, changed.
-
-On the way to the National Park I chanced past their village one
-evening on the great Pacific Railroad, and mentioned “Hillsdale”
-incidentally.
-
-I saw a woman turn half-way round and look towards me, but went on
-unmindful of the situation. Suddenly her companion arose and asked me
-if I said Hillsdale, to which I assented, and then a vacant seat was
-made and both came back and questioned me. They were strange people,
-truly.
-
-He a stout-built, long-bearded man, half gray, with buffalo
-overcoat, fur cap and mittens on; she well wrapped in beaver; both
-Western-looking in every particular.
-
-“You spoke of Hillsdale, sir,” began the woman; “and we lived there
-once, and feel curious to know if you would not remain all night with
-us. We have a farm near by next station. I hope you will consent to
-spend the night with us;” clearly the woman was the social leader.
-
-There was a pleading in the look, a frank expression that said, Please
-do, and I consented.
-
-Two miles, a drive by a cold open sleigh-ride--cold is hardly strong
-enough to mark the term,--and we found a low unpainted farm-house,
-plastered below, with chamber-floor for ceiling overhead, and rudely
-formed walls; a house of three rooms, mainly in two; a farm of six
-thousand acres, five teams, three tenant-houses, wagons and sleighs and
-farming-tools without stint, but comfort nowhere.
-
-After breakfast the farmer fed his flocks and attended to his general
-chores, while I stayed in and chatted by a sickly pretence of fire
-made of bad coal and green kindling-wood. I had seen, each time as he
-came in, how gently he handled his little pet dogs, that seemed their
-only children, how deeply absorbed he was in farm and stock, and how
-anxious he was I should see the ranch, but how little he noticed his
-superior companion.
-
-“Where are your children?” I ventured to inquire.
-
-“They are all three yonder in the field,” she said, and I knew they
-all slept in narrow houses there. This seemed to let loose the flood
-that held her feelings since the night before. “But for my husband,”
-she added, “I should go home ere this. He promised me to go as soon as
-the road was built; but then it costs so much, we keep on putting off
-from year to year. But I am longing so much to go! And when I heard
-that word Hillsdale last night, it filled me so full of home I could
-not contain myself. I hope you were not offended; but it seemed if
-some one would come and talk to me, my life would all be new again! It
-is so blank, so bleak, so cold and desolate, and I am heart hungry.”
-The tears came fast, and filled her large dark eyes and softened down
-her voice to tones of confidence. With eagerness she spoke of care, and
-work and trouble, sorrow and neglect; for, in his greed of gain, he had
-forgotten her as year by year rolled on, and both were growing older
-fast, and he not heeding it,--living on in his farm, reapers, sheep and
-crops; his heart was full of such, and had no room for her, no room for
-life.
-
-“And you have been out here for fifteen years?” I said. “How many years
-in that long time have you really lived?”
-
-“Lived!” said Grace--for this was Grace and Richard, as you must know
-ere this--“lived!” she replied;--“in work and trouble a long life
-indeed; in happiness, not one year yet. We have been waiting every year
-for that good time to come when we would find our happiness; we have
-not found it yet. The more he gets, the more he wants. Land means care,
-and taxes, and hired men, anxiety of crops, and overwork.
-
-“I had rather live _one year_ back by the old farm school-house, when I
-carried my dinner to my school, and had a loving group of faces looking
-into my eyes each noon, and loving me, than own all our acres and be
-here a dozen years.
-
-“Life is not all in years to me! I have learned that lesson dearly,
-learned it living where we see so little of real life that memory is
-all the hope I have.”
-
-“Starving amid plenty is cruelty,” I said. “Sell half and live while
-you may. You are wasting your whole lives in a fruitless hunt for
-happiness.”
-
-I have since learned that my visit was a revolution and reform, and
-that they are living better.
-
-And I thought, as I turned to the States and cast a long sad look
-at the lonely form in the doorway, and one at the bundle of robes
-beside me, who was driving me to the land of daily enjoyment, if their
-children had grown up and lived in such a place, where would have
-been their hope? In land and horses! Where their company? The company
-of flocks and cattle. The hope of sometime finding more congenial
-quarters. I turned in sadness, saying inwardly, “God pity the land-poor
-farmers, and pity their wives, and show them the lives they are
-leading!”
-
- * * * * *
-
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-
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-
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-Transcriber’s Notes:
-
-The author of this book is listed in other sources as James W. Donovan
-using the pseudonym Hildreth.
-
-Punctuation has been made consistent.
-
-Variations in spelling and hyphenation were retained as they appear in
-the original publication, except that obvious typographical errors have
-been corrected.
-
-The following changes were made:
-
-p. 54: that removed (and trials come)
-
-p. 65: it added (for it a)
-
-
-
-
-
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-
-The Project Gutenberg EBook of Don't Marry, by James W. Donovan
-
-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most
-other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
-whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of
-the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
-www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have
-to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook.
-
-Title: Don't Marry
- or, Advice on How, When and Who to Marry
-
-Author: James W. Donovan
-
-Release Date: October 26, 2016 [EBook #53368]
-
-Language: English
-
-Character set encoding: UTF-8
-
-*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DON'T MARRY ***
-
-
-
-
-Produced by Demian Katz, Craig Kirkwood, and the Online
-Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (Images
-courtesy of the Digital Library@Villanova University
-(http://digital.library.villanova.edu/).)
-
-
-
-
-
-
-</pre>
-
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 609px;">
-<img id="coverpage" src="images/i_001.jpg" width="609" height="850" alt="Cover." />
-</div>
-
-<div style="margin-top:2em">
-<div class="transnote">
-<h2 style="margin-top: 0em">Transcriber’s Notes:</h2>
-
-<p>The Table of Contents was created by the transcriber and placed in
-the public domain.</p>
-
-<p>The cover for this book contains substantial text, and this text
-has been included in digital form with a simplified format.</p>
-
-<p>The cover contains a list labeled “CONTENTS:”; however, this
-is a partial list of topics covered in the book rather than a Table of
-Contents.</p>
-
-<p><a href="#TN_end">Additional Transcriber’s Notes</a> are at the
-end.</p>
-</div></div>
-
-<hr class="tb" />
-
-<div class="chapter"></div><!--Page break for ePub-->
-
-<p class="center xlargefont boldfont">TABLE OF CONTENTS</p>
-
-<div class="center">
-<table class="toc" border="0" cellpadding="1" cellspacing="0" summary="Contents">
-<tr><td class="tocpage" colspan="2">Page</td></tr>
-<tr><td class="toctitle">DON’T MARRY.</td><td class="tocpage"><a href="#Page_3">3</a></td></tr>
-<tr><td class="toctitle">ROMANTIC MARRIAGES.</td><td class="tocpage"><a href="#Page_79">79</a></td></tr>
-<tr><td class="toctitle">UNROMANTIC MARRIAGES.</td><td class="tocpage"><a href="#Page_101">101</a></td></tr>
-</table></div>
-
-<hr class="tb" />
-
-<div class="chapter"></div><!--Page break for ePub-->
-
-<p class="center xxlargefont" style="line-height:125%">DON’T MARRY;<br />
-<span class="mediumfont">OR, ADVICE AS TO</span><br />
-<span class="xlargefont">How, When and Who to Marry.</span></p>
-
-<p class="center">CONTENTS:</p>
-
-
-<div class="boxit-three">
-
-<p>
-Don’t Marry for Beauty Alone.<br />
-Don’t Marry for Money.<br />
-Don’t Marry a Very Small Man.<br />
-Don’t Marry too Young.<br />
-Don’t Marry a Coquette.<br />
-Don’t Elope to Marry.<br />
-Don’t Dally About Proposing.<br />
-Don’t Marry a Drunkard.<br />
-Don’t Marry a Spendthrift.<br />
-Don’t Marry a Miser.<br />
-Don’t Marry Far Apart in Ages.<br />
-Don’t Marry too Old.<br />
-Don’t Marry Odd Sizes.<br />
-Don’t Marry a Clown.<br />
-Don’t Marry a Dude.<br />
-Don’t Marry From Pity.<br />
-Don’t Marry for an Ideal Marriage.<br />
-Don’t Break a Marriage Promise.<br />
-Don’t Marry for Spite.<br />
-Don’t Mitten a Mechanic.<br />
-Don’t Marry a Man too Poor.<br />
-Don’t Marry a Crank.<br />
-Don’t Marry Fine Feathers.<br />
-Don’t Marry Without Love.<br />
-Don’t Marry a Stingy Man.<br />
-Don’t Marry too Hastily.<br />
-Don’t be too Slow About It.<br />
-Don’t Marry a Silly Girl.<br />
-Don’t Expect too Much in Marriage.<br />
-Don’t Marry a Fop.<br />
-Don’t Marry in Fun.<br />
-Don’t Spurn a Man for His Poverty.<br />
-Don’t Marry Recklessly.
-</p>
-</div>
-
-<p class="center">J. S. OGILVIE, <span class="smcap">Publisher, 57 Rose Street, New York</span>.</p>
-
-
-<hr class="tb" />
-
-<div class="chapter"></div><!--Page break for ePub-->
-
-<div class="boxit-one">
-
-<p class="center xxlargefont boldfont" style="margin-right:2em">TWENTY-FIVE<br />
-<span style="padding-left:6em">SERMONS</span></p>
-
-<p class="center boldfont">&mdash;ON&mdash;</p>
-
-<p class="center xlargefont boldfont">The Holy Land.</p>
-
-<p class="center">&mdash;BY&mdash;</p>
-
-<p class="center largefont"><span class="smcap">Rev. T. De Witt Talmage</span>, D.D.</p>
-
-<p>No Series of Sermons ever delivered by this
-famous preacher has created such a widespread and
-intense interest as this. These Sermons describe with
-vivid interest the scenes, incidents and many various
-experiences met with in the Holy Land, the land in
-which people are now more interested than ever
-before.</p>
-
-<p>Among the hundreds of thousands of people who
-have read the utterances of this wonderfully successful
-preacher there are none but will be glad to have
-this book. Read the following</p>
-
-<p class="center largefont boldfont">TABLE OF CONTENTS.</p>
-
-<p>1. Eve of Departure&mdash;2. I Must also See Rome&mdash;3. A Mediterranean
-Voyage&mdash;4. Paul’s Mission in Athens&mdash;5. Life and
-Death of Dorcas&mdash;6. The Glory of Solomon’s Reign&mdash;7. Peace,
-Be Still&mdash;8. The Marriage Feast&mdash;9. Christmas Eve in the Holy
-Land&mdash;10. The Joyful Surprise&mdash;11. How a King’s Life was
-Saved&mdash;12. The Philippian Earthquake&mdash;13. What is in a Name?&mdash;14.
-The Half was not Told Me&mdash;15. I Went Up to Jerusalem&mdash;16.
-On the Housetop in Jerusalem&mdash;17. The Journey to Jericho&mdash;18.
-He Toucheth the Hills and They Smoke&mdash;19. Solomon
-in all His Glory&mdash;20. The Journey to Bethel&mdash;21. Incidents in
-Palestine&mdash;22. Among the Holy Hills&mdash;23. Our Sail on Lake
-Galilee&mdash;24. On to Damascus&mdash;25. Across Mount Lebanon.</p>
-
-<p>It contains 320 pages in paper cover, and will be
-sent by mail, postpaid, to any address on receipt of 25
-cents. Bound in Cloth, $1.50; Half Russia, $2.00.
-Agents wanted. Address all orders to</p>
-
-<p class="center largefont boldfont" style="margin-right:4em">J. S. OGILVIE, Publisher,<br />
-<span style="padding-left:8em">57 Rose Street, New York.</span></p>
-</div>
-
-<hr class="tb" />
-
-<div class="chapter"></div><!--Page break for ePub-->
-
-<div class="boxit-one">
-<p class="center xxlargefont">FOR EDITOR’S USE.</p>
-
-<p class="xlargefont">We desire to call your
-attention to this book, and
-ask that you give it a
-careful review and criticism.
-Please send paper
-containing notice to</p>
-
-<p class="center xlargefont" style="margin-top:1em">J. S. OGILVIE, <span class="smcap">Publisher</span>,<br />
-<span class="smcap" style="padding-left:3em">57 Rose Street,</span><br />
-<span class="smcap" style="padding-left:6em">New York</span>.</p>
-
-<p class="center xlargefont" style="margin-top:1em"><em>PRICE, 25 CENTS.</em></p>
-</div>
-
-<hr class="tb" />
-
-<div class="chapter"></div><!--Page break for ePub-->
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 426px;">
-<img src="images/i_005.jpg" width="426" height="650" alt="Title page." />
-</div>
-
-<hr class="tb" />
-
-<div class="chapter"></div><!--Page break for ePub-->
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[1]</a></span></p>
-
-
-
-
-<div class="boxit-one">
-<h1 style="line-height:175%">DON’T MARRY;<br />
-<span class="mediumfont">OR, ADVICE AS TO</span><br />
-<span class="xlargefont">HOW, WHEN AND WHO TO MARRY.</span></h1>
-
-<p class="center largefont">By HILDRETH.</p>
-<div class="poetry-container" style="margin-top:2em">
-<div class="poetry">
-<div class="stanza">
-<div class="indentquotebase">“... The tale that I relate</div>
-<div class="indentone">This lesson seems to carry,&mdash;</div>
-<div class="indentbase">Choose not alone a proper mate,</div>
-<div class="indentone">But proper time to marry.”</div>
-</div></div></div>
-
-<p class="center smallfont" style="margin-top:2em">THE SUNNYSIDE SERIES, No. 39. Issued Monthly. October, 1891. Extra. $3.00 per year.<br />
-Entered at New York Post-Office as second-class matter. Copyright, 1890, by J. S. Ogilvie.</p>
-
-<p class="center" style="margin-top:2em"><span class="smcap">New York</span>:<br />
-J. S. OGILVIE, <span class="smcap">Publisher<br />
-57 Rose Street</span>.</p>
-</div>
-
-<hr class="tb" />
-
-<div class="chapter"></div><!--Page break for ePub-->
-
-<div class="boxit-two">
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[2]</a></span></p>
-
-<p class="center xxlargefont">THE SCIENCE OF A NEW LIFE.</p>
-
-<p class="center largefont">A BOOK ESPECIALLY ADAPTED</p>
-
-<p class="center xlargefont">To All Who Are Married</p>
-
-<p class="center largefont">Or who Contemplate taking this Important Step.</p>
-
-<p class="center largefont">16 page descriptive Circular sent free to any address by</p>
-
-<p class="center xlargefont" style="padding-right:5em"><em>J. S. OGILVIE</em></p>
-<p class="center xlargefont" style="padding-left:5em">Rose Street,</p>
-<p class="center xlargefont" style="padding-left:10em">New York.</p>
-</div>
-
-<hr class="chap" />
-
-<div class="chapter"></div><!--Page break for ePub-->
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[3]</a></span></p>
-
-
-
-
-<h2>DON’T MARRY.</h2>
-
-<p class="center largefont boldfont" style="margin-bottom:1.1em">BY HILDRETH.</p>
-
-
-<p>It is not intended to advise against marriage, nor
-to draw the line too closely as to the don’t-marry
-class, but simply to hint at the errors of
-some persons who match badly on so long a
-contract.</p>
-
-<p>The “yes or no” question is the vital one for all
-young people to answer. Some answer too
-soon, others wait too long, others never reach
-such a climax of happiness as to be invited by
-an eligible partner. The genius of selection is
-the rarest of faculties.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[4]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>What most puzzles the will and makes us bear
-the ills we have is the theme of selection. A
-mother’s or father’s view of a suitor may be at
-variance with the daughter’s wish and destroy
-the peace of both for a lifetime. But quite
-generally the real trouble arises from a spiteful
-choice or a hasty one, or one in some of the
-forms here mentioned. Should these hints prevent
-one unhappy marriage, they will well repay
-the little study that their brevity requires.</p>
-
-<p>To avoid much lecturing, only two examples are
-given at any length, in the form of stories.
-These are as near to the real characters as the
-writer can safely relate them, being founded
-on actual romantic and unromantic marriages.
-As marriage is the first question that every
-family will discuss, it is well to treat it with
-exact candor.</p>
-
-<p><em>Don’t marry for beauty merely.</em> Very few have a
-supply that would last a full dozen years in a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[5]</a></span>
-married life that should continue for three decades.</p>
-
-<p>And, more than that, beauty is not the only requisite
-to happiness. Very handsome people
-are almost always vain, often exacting, and generally
-live on their form, paying little or no attention
-to the rarer qualities of manhood or
-womanhood.</p>
-
-<p>If one seek beauty alone, he will find it in the
-fields and flowers and gardens, in paintings,
-art works, and things of nature; while the real
-pleasures of life may be found in a thousand
-ways outside of the worship of beauty.</p>
-
-<p>There are a dozen considerations beyond beauty
-that should govern the choice of a companion.
-Think for a moment whom you admire
-most, trust implicitly, and love more ardently
-than all others. Truly, it is not the wax-doll
-face in a milliner’s window; were that so, why
-not marry the model and get the perfection of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[6]</a></span>
-beauty? The day will come when the “rain
-beats in at the heart windows.” The time may
-run along so fast till the summer is over and
-the winter snow-drifts shade your locks with
-silver, when one by one of your friends will
-visit at the fireside, when some one will love
-you for your mind and heart and nobleness.
-Some one suited to your silver-age condition
-and disposition will be beautiful without any
-name for beauty; as the soldier said of Grant’s
-face, after Shiloh’s bloody battle, “That was
-the handsomest face I ever saw;” yet it was
-plain and dusty and rugged.</p>
-
-<p>Prize-winners in matrimony have been women of
-finer mould than mere beauties. Women who
-have won the hearts of statesmen, and painters
-and poets, and the good and great of all time,
-were women of fascination, or what the Southern
-ladies call sweet women, and not alone
-noted for their beauty.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[7]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>Many a one has been known to have been plain
-but social; not always unhandsome, but never
-beautiful. They are the best wives and noblest
-mothers who have more to commend them
-than mere grace of features, shade of skin,
-or color of eyes, or art of beautifying. Some
-are frivolous, and more are flattered into danger.
-The most miserable man I know is married to
-one of the most beautiful women. He is
-jealous; she is exposed to insults unawares.
-Their home is a Hades six days out of seven.
-I’ve heard him wish she were less attractive!</p>
-
-<p><em>Don’t marry a man for money.</em> If money is your
-real object, the older and uglier he is, the better;
-for nothing should come between you and
-the chosen idol of your affection. If you marry
-one for his money, he will find it out shortly.</p>
-
-<p>What sublime contempt a man must have for one
-who simply loves his pocket-book! Why not
-love his farm, or lumber-yard, or herd of cattle?<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[8]</a></span>
-The love of money is a miserly pretence
-of affection that leads to discontent, distrust,
-and disgust when they find it out.</p>
-
-<p>Besides, wealthy men are men of care. The
-wife of a noted millionnaire has had her husband’s
-body stolen from its vault, has been long
-kept in agony, is an object of pity to all who
-know her. Another wife was heard to say,
-“Why, I don’t have the privilege, nor the
-money, nor the good times that my girl Bridget
-enjoys. I am poor and anxious and depressed,
-and weary of hearing my husband say,
-over and over again, ‘You are fixing for the
-poor-house.’ He really thinks and believes we
-will end life in the poor-house; and yet he enjoys
-a princely income.” Thousands of such
-men carry their load of care, and load of
-wealth, and load of anxiety, and how can they
-carry any burden of love?</p>
-
-<p><em>Don’t marry a very small man</em>&mdash;a little fellow far<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[9]</a></span>
-below all proportion; try to get some form to
-admire, something to shape things to, and
-some one who is not lost in a crowd completely,
-who is too little to admire and too small for
-beauty. You may need strong arms and
-brave hands to protect you. You will need
-hands to provide for and maintain you, and a
-good form is a fine beginning of manhood or
-womanhood.</p>
-
-<p>Mental greatness is not measured by size of
-brain or bodily proportions. Great men are
-neither always wise nor always large; they are
-more often of more medium build, and well
-balanced in gifts of mental and physical development.
-Of the two, a very large man is
-better than a small one, and a medium large
-woman likewise.</p>
-
-<p><em>Don’t marry too young.</em> The right age to marry
-is a matter of taste; twenty-one for girls, and
-twenty-four for men may be a little arbitrary,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[10]</a></span>
-but certainly is sensible. The happy early
-marriages are rare. It too often happens that
-love is mistaken, or poorly informed, or lacks
-an anchor in good judgment. There is no use
-of reasoning about it,&mdash;love is love, and will
-marry in spite of reason, and in some cases it
-runs away with its choice and repents it a
-thousand times soon after.</p>
-
-<p>But be sensible, for a life contract should be a
-sensible one. What is the use of throwing
-away one season&mdash;skipping girlhood or boyhood
-to rush into maturity and maternity?
-The records of divorce courts tell the silly and
-sorrowful stories of many a mismated pair,
-married too young and slowly repenting of
-their rashness. Ask of your truest friends;
-take counsel; be above foolishness.</p>
-
-<p><em>Don’t marry a villain.</em> Many a girl is ripe for an
-adventure, and in appearance nothing more
-resembles an angel than a keen and designing<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[11]</a></span>
-villain&mdash;a thoroughbred; not a gambler merely,
-but worse, a wreck! Such men may be wary,
-artful, deceitful, attractive. They are crafty;
-their trade compels it. They may be handsome,
-often so; they may be oily and slick&mdash;most of
-them are. They may live rich and expensive
-lives for a season; ill-gotten gains are not lasting.
-Heaven pity the girl that marries one
-of these adventurers, for the end is bitterness!
-A friend met one on the Pacific road,
-married him, and learned to her sorrow that he
-drank to excess, swore like a pirate, lived in
-debauchery, and early offered to swap wives for
-a season with a boon-companion. “And that
-man,” she said, “was as handsome as a dude,
-as slick as an auctioneer, as oily as a pedler; I
-loved him only one day after marriage.”</p>
-
-<p><em>Don’t marry a hypocrite.</em> Of all things get sincerity.
-Get the genuine article. If you get a
-hypocrite, he is brass jewelry, and will easily<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[12]</a></span>
-tarnish. Make careful inquiry, see that he is
-all that he pretends to be, or never trust him.
-The habit of deceit is one of a lifetime.</p>
-
-<p>Some join churches for no other reason than to
-cloak iniquity. It is not the rule by any
-means; it is a too common exception. One
-who goes from city to city and captivates too
-many by his oil of blandness; one who has no
-business, an idler; one who apes the rich and is
-ground down in poverty; one who lacks the
-courage to live like himself and had rather live
-a lie and deceive the world around him,&mdash;is an
-unfit companion, and will bear watching.</p>
-
-<p><em>Don’t marry a coquette.</em> One that is worn out by
-a long list of discarded admirers is like stale
-bread&mdash;worse every day and seldom grows better
-by long standing. There are women, and
-girls sometimes, who glory and revel in the
-names of discarded lovers; whose sense of honesty
-has been poisoned, numbed, and frozen by<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[13]</a></span>
-cheating their victims through pretended affection,
-until they have lost all heart or honesty;
-who deserve to be left alone to ponder on their
-cruelty for the balance of their miserable existence.
-Of all the worst forms of flirting, coquetry
-is the most detestable. It is not only
-trifling away the time of both, but casting distrust
-on the holiest of all sentiments, the purity
-of womanhood. To steal money is honorable
-compared to stealing affection.</p>
-
-<p>The habit of coquetry will, or may, last long after
-marriage. She who practises it will follow up
-in unpleasant references to her conquests,
-wishing she had married at this offer or that,
-and wear out the happiness of her last conquest
-by a frequent reminder of his inferiority to the
-others.</p>
-
-<p><em>Don’t marry a woman for her money.</em> These people
-are tenacious to a minute degree. They
-long to remind you of my house, my property,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[14]</a></span>
-my farm, my lots on Lincoln Avenue, my furniture,
-my bank account, and the like&mdash;making
-one a pensioner all his life for his board and
-clothing. If there is any difference, it should be
-with the man. He is expected to control property.
-He is the master of his house, or the
-manager of his expenses. Very naturally he
-says “my” store or “my” lots, but it will sound
-far more fair and considerate even if he says
-“our” in lieu of “my” sometimes.</p>
-
-<p>The only fair way to act about it is to treat marriage
-as a partnership where nobody owns all,
-but each has an equal interest. It is fair to
-divide a good portion of one’s property with
-his wife, fair to deed her a nice homestead and
-present her a given allowance&mdash;liberal as one’s
-income will warrant&mdash;and let her draw from it
-as her own, and not be a beggar each time she
-needs money.</p>
-
-<p><em>Don’t elope to marry.</em> It is a weak affection that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[15]</a></span>
-cannot wait awhile. Jacob served seven years,
-then seven more, for Rebecca. She was a fine
-specimen of womanhood&mdash;as represented in
-paintings; housekeeping was easy and inexpensive
-then, but they patiently waited and
-were handsomely rewarded.</p>
-
-<p>Ruth was an excellent example of girlhood. In
-no great hurry to marry, taking the hardships
-of travel, her devotion to her mother touched
-the heart of a king, and she won a splendid
-prize for her patience. She might have eloped
-with a stage-driver or a coachman, and ended
-her life with many less historical-society notices.</p>
-
-<p><em>Don’t dally about proposing.</em> What is it to ask a
-fine girl to marry you? The simplest, easiest
-thing on earth, if you “strike while the iron is
-hot.” Go about it sensibly. To begin with,
-you never expect much encouragement from a
-discreet maiden; she is in the background; her<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[16]</a></span>
-promise is to be invited; she is not her own
-spokeswoman. Think of the embarrassment.</p>
-
-<p>I venture to say, if you like her, that you will say
-so. Often you may have told her how fine her
-eyes are, or how well you like her singing, or
-talking, and her company; but when you ask
-a simple question, you get down on your knees
-(they do in novels, not in reality) and beg for
-it. Nonsense! Such a girl is unworthy. Begging
-is a silly fashion, seldom now indulged in,
-all out of date, and no longer tolerated outside
-of novels and theatres. Use a little sense
-about it.</p>
-
-<p>Find out first if you have the right one, then settle
-the matter in one of five ways: First, in the
-parlor (don’t propose in church, or at a donation,
-or in a crowd, or on a street-car, or while
-the horse is prancing), get up your resolution
-at the right moment and say: “Do we understand
-each other, Clemantha?” Then, if she<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[17]</a></span>
-doesn’t, explain it to her in a sensible fashion,
-and in little short words that cannot be mistaken;
-give her time, if necessary.</p>
-
-<p>The second way is, on a fine walk or drive,
-“Would you like to walk always?” or, “If you
-were to choose whom you would walk with forever,
-who would it be?” She will say, “I don’t
-care to be so personal.” Certainly then you
-may be more explicit.</p>
-
-<p>Third, suppose you are to separate, what a grand
-opportunity! See that you improve it earnestly.
-To tell a girl that she is fairer than
-flowers, clearer than coffee, and sweeter than
-honey is old, very old, and uncalled-for. Tell
-her she is what she is, and you like her with all
-her surroundings; that you can better her condition
-sometime. Dwell on the “sometime.”</p>
-
-<p>Be honest about it. If she doesn’t love you, let
-her love some one else, and you will be surprised
-to find how many pure and beautiful<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[18]</a></span>
-beings there are all around you, holding their
-finger-tips to hide a smile of welcome and
-ready&mdash;“yes, Edgar”&mdash;eager to mate with one
-worthy and ready to marry them, for marriage
-is a natural hope of every right-minded woman.</p>
-
-<p>This is a fourth method: read aloud of characters
-like Arden, Romeo, or Abelard, or Paul
-and Virginia, and make your comments audibly.
-You will not be long in tracing a conclusion.
-Be a little ingenious about it, find out
-through your sister. Prepare the way and
-don’t ask until you find she is unpledged, remember;
-or at least tarry long enough to be
-reasonably certain. And what if refused?
-No harm done. Like the German’s sugar,
-“The other pound is shust so good as the
-first one.”</p>
-
-<p>One man I know drew off a list of all his acquaintances
-worthy of marriage, and went
-about it like a regular wheat-buyer. He was a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[19]</a></span>
-bachelor, of course, and very eccentric. Coming
-to the first, he explained his object, concealing
-all names, but saying she was first of a long list
-furnished him by a friend (each one was first,
-always); then he would say, “I will give you a
-week to consider it, and no harm done; if not
-then, I must pursue my list further.” Of all
-the sold-out men, he was sold the cheapest!
-He married a whole family. The first two
-were disgusted, the third or fourth accepted.
-This looks too much like a purchase and sale,
-and don’t try the method.</p>
-
-<p>The last way is sensible; by writing&mdash;many a
-proposal is in writing. Even in that be a little
-guarded; once a no, yeses come with reluctance.
-It is best not to give one an opportunity
-to say no, but to parry long enough to test
-the opposition. If it were a race-horse to buy,
-a house to contract for, or a block to purchase,
-it would not be very hard to strike a bargain.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[20]</a></span>
-So that, once finding form, character, fitness,
-affection, desire to be mated, go about the rest
-by a direct and sensible method, and don’t
-wear out the gate-hinges, burn out all the oil,
-weary the old folks, or turn gray with anxiety,
-but do it.</p>
-
-<p><em>Don’t marry a drunkard.</em> He will promise, by all
-that’s good, great, and holy, to reform. How
-many more like him have made just such
-promises? He can’t keep such a promise if he
-would. Make him reform a couple of years at
-least, on trial, before you marry him. It will
-be time enough then to risk a life-partnership,
-to chain your hopes to an unfortunate creature
-whose sense and judgment are corrupted, not
-by will, perhaps, but by habit stronger than
-reason. With most men this habit becomes a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[21]</a></span>
-desire. They are bound to feed the fire that
-burns them. They have no voice in the matter,
-and cannot, if they would, break the strong
-fetters that bind them in irons, like the prison
-bars confine their victims.</p>
-
-<p>It’s a sorry picture to behold a fair young girl
-chained to a being with a will all lost and debauched
-in appetite for drink; a section of the
-land of departed evil spirits can only equal her
-daily misery. Children must bear it, friends
-submit to it, and all of character, sweetness of
-temper, or refinement in one’s nature will revolt
-at the coarseness of the wrecked and
-wretched career of a drunkard’s life. He is an
-object of pity, and a being to be shunned in
-matrimony, no matter how many promises he
-makes or how good he is otherwise.</p>
-
-<p>To avoid long sorrow, disgrace, and regret, avoid
-him. If you had two lives and one to dispose
-of, at any cost, mate with a drunkard and die a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[22]</a></span>
-thousand deaths. Your health, peace, and happiness
-will go with his.</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
-<div class="stanza">
-<div class="indentquotebase">“Art thou mated with a clown,</div>
-<div class="indentbase">Then the baseness of his nature</div>
-<div class="indentbase">Will have weight to drag thee down.”</div>
-</div></div></div>
-
-<p>Such a man will kill his wife, burn his own
-child, sacrifice everything on earth when
-scourged by this degrading passion. More
-could be urged, but let the starving families,
-the criminal courts, the idiotic children, tell the
-rest: the story is too dreadful to dwell upon.
-It is monstrous. Life becomes a burden, and
-death a sweet release from such a cross. Of
-all the matches on earth, the most to be
-dreaded and avoided is the drunkard’s wife.</p>
-
-<p><em>Don’t marry a fast man or woman.</em> Something
-tells us that black logs will darken the whitest
-garments. The edge of virtue once dulled
-is never quite so keen afterwards. It may be<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[23]</a></span>
-very well to speak slightingly of wild oats,
-but who cares to know that their oats are
-a second crop? Who is willing to believe
-that they are the last resort of one who has
-pleaded and pledged to hundreds or even dozens
-before her, or waits an opportunity to
-make as many more pledges as occasion may
-offer? Fast men are not satisfied with one
-vice merely, but follow on to many. They
-may drink, gamble, sport, and venture, and step
-by step indulge in the kindred vices of lewdness,
-till disease shall fasten its clutches in
-their burning blood and run in their veins for a
-lifetime. They are rarely satisfied with one
-home, one wife, and one family.</p>
-
-<p><em>Don’t marry a foreigner</em>,&mdash;one who comes from a
-far-away country and returns to it. It is very
-uncertain; think ahead carefully. The new
-and strange customs of his country may and
-may not be congenial. They may be a dreary<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[24]</a></span>
-dream of home and early separation. Think
-of the ties of friendship, the cords of affection
-twined and woven around your nature; ties
-that are not severed without many pangs of
-sorrow. Life is a short, strange journey, and,
-make it when we will or where we will, it is
-pleasant to be made with company. Those
-who know us best will love us most if we deserve
-it, and few will continue on in friendship
-long after we go to strange and unknown
-countries. A stranger neighbor soon comes
-nearer than a long-absent friend whom we
-never hear from.</p>
-
-<p><em>Don’t marry a spendthrift.</em> The habit of living
-is formed early. Either one is bent on rising
-or going lower. As water seeks its level, so
-men seek their ambition and find it. Prosperity
-comes not on silver trays, ready-made and
-ready for use to everybody; most men work for
-it, strive for it, and deserve it. The sons of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[25]</a></span>
-rich, who inherit property and have formed the
-habit of useless spending, are a little bit lower
-than the poor. It is not disgraceful at all to
-be born poor; but to become so after once being
-rich, and that through reckless spending,
-is a dishonor to any one. “One thing we can
-be proud of,” said Ingersoll; “we’ve made some
-improvement on the original implements and
-the common stock.”</p>
-
-<p>A young man who lives on his father’s earnings
-has very little to boast of, but one who squanders
-his inheritance in riotous living is an object
-of contempt and ridicule. “He is one of
-the old man’s pensioners,” said a business man
-lately of a rich man’s son. “But for his father’s
-thrift he would be a beggar; he lives like
-a refined beggar on the food furnished by another.
-What a brilliant genius he is!”</p>
-
-<p><em>Don’t marry your cousin.</em> It may be very tempting;
-relatives are often warmly attached to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[26]</a></span>
-each other from long and intimate acquaintance.
-Remember that constantly thrown in
-each other’s society will often create such attachments.
-With many persons, marriage of
-blood relations will more or less lead to deafness,
-blindness, or deformity. It may skip one
-generation and find another. It may result in
-disease and weakness. It may be all right,
-but seven to eight it is risky and uncertain,
-and you can’t afford to be uncertain in such
-matters.</p>
-
-<p><em>Don’t marry too far above or below you.</em> There is
-no such thing as station in this country, like
-the titles and surroundings of Europe; but
-ignorance mated with refinement must be lost
-and confused, and ill at ease every hour.</p>
-
-<p>Such matches are hasty, and poorly considered.
-They lead to gossip and resentment of relatives,
-and an uncomfortable ill-feeling, seldom
-cured for a full generation. If one has beauty<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[27]</a></span>
-and refinement and is poor, never mind the
-poverty; the good qualities are more than a
-balance. But the marriage of a millionaire’s
-daughter with a coachman is supreme folly. It
-ends in disunion, and never in harmony. Water
-and oil will as soon mix as such elements.
-Avoid them.</p>
-
-<p><em>Don’t marry a doubly divorced man or woman</em>: it’s
-risky. Something is wrong surely. One divorce
-should cure any one. Two is a profusion.
-It may be that the doubly divorced is
-innocent,&mdash;he will claim to be; but if he seeks a
-new party to a possible divorce case (it will be
-a habit by this time), tell him to wait a little
-longer. Grass widows may be very lovable
-creatures, but unless their other halves were
-clearly blamable, beyond reasonable question,
-give them a wide road and avoid them entirely.
-It is a very bad sign, possibly a habit, that a
-man and woman mate and divide soon after;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[28]</a></span>
-the fault may belong to either, and most likely
-relates to both, in similar proportions.</p>
-
-<p><em>Don’t marry a miser.</em> Of all the old “curmudgeons”
-on earth, deliver me from crabbed, narrow-minded,
-pinch-penny, miserable misers.</p>
-
-<p>They begrudge you your meals and clothing.
-They count your shillings and control your pin
-purchases; they make life a burden, by owning
-much and using little, and eternally twit you of
-every quarter used ever so sparingly.</p>
-
-<p>Life is made to live in and enjoy. We make only
-one journey. We need not open up our purses
-and leak out the pennies, just to see them roll
-around promiscuously; but cutting notches on a
-stick for each one of them, and never spending,
-even for necessaries, without dread and grudging,
-is intolerable. I had rather be poor and
-enjoy something.</p>
-
-<p><em>Don’t marry too far apart in ages.</em> June and December
-is a long, long distance in matrimony.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[29]</a></span>
-Some people are as young-hearted at sixty as
-others are at forty. Some men at forty-five
-have hardly reached their manhood. But old,
-white-headed men, marrying girls in their teens&mdash;servants
-generally&mdash;are pitiable spectacles.
-To the girl it is suicide; to the man sheer folly;
-no need of marrying the man. The girl is the
-most interested in this don’t sentence. Why
-not, if you love him? This is the reason, not
-jealousy,&mdash;that is a partial reason,&mdash;but consistency.
-Think of a trip round the world or
-across the continent with one older than your
-father, to be called your husband, to be your
-husband! It must be humiliating. It is annoying.
-It is foolishly silly and inconsistent.
-Money is a small compensation for such a sacrifice.
-Love, and love only, should govern marriage,
-and I doubt its sincerity when the difference
-goes beyond reason.</p>
-
-<p>Marry one whom you trust, admire, respect, look<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[30]</a></span>
-up to, and confide in, can be true to, and
-one whom you love from good and earnest motives.
-“Respect is a cold lunch in a dark dining-room.
-Love is a picnic in the woods.”
-Think of a picnic and an old man escort!</p>
-
-<p><em>Don’t marry too old.</em> Be in earnest about it.
-Here is the thought in a nut-shell:</p>
-
-<p class="center" style="margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:-0.25em">TOO OLD TO LOVE.</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
-<div class="stanza">
-<div class="indenttwo">I.</div></div>
-<div class="stanza">
-<div class="indentquotebase">“I never loved but one,” she said;</div>
-<div class="indentquotebase">“I loved him just for fun,” she said;</div>
-<div class="indentbase">And, saying this, she swung her head&mdash;</div>
-<div class="indentbase">Had she been frank, they had been wed.</div>
-<div class="indentbase">I saw her at a ball that night,</div>
-<div class="indentbase">Her eyes so dark and face so white,</div>
-<div class="indentbase">Her tone and manner wild delight;</div>
-<div class="indentbase">I knew she served him not aright.</div></div>
-<div class="stanza">
-<div class="indenttwo">II.</div></div>
-<div class="stanza">
-<div class="indentquotebase">“I am too old to love,” she said;</div>
-<div class="indentquotebase">“The one I loved in fun is dead!<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[31]</a></span></div>
-<div class="indentbase">I plant these flowers above his head,</div>
-<div class="indentbase">Here lies my idol, dead!” she said.</div>
-<div class="indentquotebase">“’Tis sad to think it might have been;</div>
-<div class="indentbase">’Tis sadder yet to feel my sin.</div>
-<div class="indentbase">Love learns too late; but then, but then,</div>
-<div class="indentbase">He loved me once&mdash;the best of men.</div></div>
-<div class="stanza">
-<div class="indenttwo">III.</div></div>
-<div class="stanza">
-<div class="indentquotebase">“I never see a pure, good face,</div>
-<div class="indentbase">Nor painting outlines ever trace,</div>
-<div class="indentbase">But he is near, his love is dear,</div>
-<div class="indentbase">Had I been earnest; he were here!”</div>
-<div class="indentbase">She veiled her dark eyes with her hand;</div>
-<div class="indentbase">I turned away,&mdash;“True love is grand,”</div>
-<div class="indentbase">I murmured, in an undertone;</div>
-<div class="indentquotebase">“Life gives no more than love of one.”</div>
-</div></div></div>
-
-<p><em>Don’t marry odd sizes.</em> A tall man with a little
-woman looks awkward enough; but a tall
-woman with a little, tiny man is a misfit, surely.</p>
-
-<p>See if you can’t find someone of your size, as the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[32]</a></span>
-school-lads say in a wrestle. Pair off like
-soldiers in time of dress parade, with an eye to
-unity.</p>
-
-<p>This caution relates to extremes, of course, and
-not to small variances. Some change and grow
-portly after marriage, but none get very much
-taller after twenty-four.</p>
-
-<p>Just for the looks of the thing, pair off in uniform
-lines.</p>
-
-<p><em>Don’t marry a man or woman without a character.</em>
-Soon enough you’ll see the value of this caution.
-Character is a matter that grows through a lifetime,
-but enough of it crops out early to be
-noticed. One is known not only by his company
-but by his habits, his tastes, and his inclinations.
-It is said that some whole families
-are born fast; some thievish, some inclined to
-crabbedness, others mild, upright, honest, and
-reliable. It runs in the blood in some cases.</p>
-
-<p>Suppose one is to marry for virtue, purity, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[33]</a></span>
-uprightness, he will seek it in the blood as much
-as he would look for quality in a racer.</p>
-
-<p>If a woman loves a rakish “man of the world,”
-so called,&mdash;a name too often used to varnish a
-bad character,&mdash;she will very easily find him
-around the different bar-rooms of almost any
-crowded hotel in the city or village. He will
-be after marriage what he was before.</p>
-
-<p>Tell me where a man goes, and I will tell you what
-he is. If he is fast, he will cultivate fast habits,
-live a rapid life, and earn that character very
-early. If these are the traits you are looking
-for, “inquire within” and you will find them. It
-may be a woman you are asking about, a girl
-for a wife, a life-long companion. Which are
-you seeking for? A dashy, fly-away dancer,
-or a domestic home-lover, and one whom you
-can trust with your keys, your secrets, your
-conscience? Look to her character. In either
-case, the man or woman has lived somewhere.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[34]</a></span>
-Find out about it,&mdash;how long, how well, how
-faithfully.</p>
-
-<p>A well-to-do widow, was crazy to marry a man
-that she fancied, and who actually refused to
-give more than his name and hotel, and no
-references. On careful inquiry such a person
-was known by no less than two to four names,&mdash;changed
-to suit circumstances. The spell
-was broken, the match ended.</p>
-
-<p>Men and women often rush into matrimony as
-game is run into a trap, for the little tempting
-bait set to catch them (a catch-as-catch-can
-race). They marry and risk a life-long happiness
-on less actual information of each other’s
-real nature than a good horseman would exact
-of his carriage horse’s pedigree. This may do
-in the country, but never will answer in a city.
-Sense and reason dictate that men and women,
-to enjoy each other’s society, should see well to
-the match beforehand. A fine hand, a small<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[35]</a></span>
-foot, a becoming hat, a twist of the head, a
-simper, or a half-witty saying will do well in
-their places; but colors must <em>wash</em> and <em>wear</em> to
-stand a lifetime.</p>
-
-<p><em>Don’t marry a clown.</em> A silly fellow that jokes
-on every subject never did amount to anything,
-and never will. All he says may be very
-funny, very; but how many times can he be
-funny?</p>
-
-<p>Fun will grow stale and threadbare; one cannot
-live by it. Life is a trip that costs car fare, wash
-bills, board bills, trinkets, notions, and actual
-outlays. Real providers are never clowns; the
-clownish fellow is a favorite in school-days. He
-is so cute, just as cute as a cotton hat, so cunning,
-so witty, so nice. Is he? Wait a few
-years, until his nice nonsense turns to active
-business!</p>
-
-<p><em>Don’t marry a dude.</em> Of all milk-and-water
-specimens, a dude is the lowest,&mdash;a little removed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[36]</a></span>
-from nothing; a dressed-up model for a
-tailor-shop (sometimes it’s in woman form); a
-street flirt, a hotel-step gazer, an eye-glass
-ogler, a street strut; one who finds his enjoyment
-in the looking-glass&mdash;a masher.</p>
-
-<p>Very many are called, but few are chosen. The
-many that are called are ridiculed. The time
-will come when a tailor’s suit and a fancy outfit
-will no more make one respectable than it
-would make a gentleman of a wooden Indian
-in front of a cigar-stand.</p>
-
-<p>Men, real men of business, and men fit to marry,
-are not dudes, but manly, upright beings, with
-sense, integrity, and genius or industry; who
-come upon the stage of life as real actors in its
-affairs, not as “supes” and sham soldiers in
-“Pinafore” battle-scenes, where a few parade
-in fancy feathers as commodores for the amusement
-of spectators.</p>
-
-<p>Life is too earnest to spend on silly, tawdry, fancy<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[37]</a></span>
-colors or showy clothing; and the one who has
-the less of it is the most likely to be marked for
-a gentleman, and the brand will be correctly
-designated. With women, no less than men, is
-this silly street-walking habit quite prevalent.
-A flirting woman on a public street is a sorry
-picture; even one who stoops to notice her
-must secretly know her measure. She deceives
-no one, for her character, like the dude’s, is so
-transparent that no one mistakes its meaning.
-The habit of going nowhere for nothing is as
-foolish as it is injurious.</p>
-
-<p>Character grows out of little things. It may be
-that being seen with a disreputable person three
-times, or even once, will change the whole
-current of our career. Don’t practise the vices
-of dudes nor the habits of street flirts.</p>
-
-<p><em>Do not marry a boy or girl who is not good at
-home.</em> That is the golden test of duty,&mdash;to do
-one’s duty alone, away from the eyes of men<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[38]</a></span>
-and the notice of the world; to be good from a
-right disposition.</p>
-
-<p>There is no safer rule to marry by than this: “She
-loves her mother, and isn’t afraid to work. She
-has a good name at home among her near
-neighbors. She is neat, sweet, and tidy. Seven
-days each week she is never off guard, always
-a lady.”</p>
-
-<p>And of a man may it be said, “He is a man, take
-him all in all; he is manly, he is truthful; he
-loves his home; he treats his sisters and mother
-kindly. He is capable of good deeds, and incapable
-of mean ones. He has a good name.”
-He deserves success, and it will follow him. He
-is plain, perhaps, but man outgrows it. He is
-not a painting, an imitation, a counterfeit, but
-simply a man. He will do to marry; so will
-she, the last-named.</p>
-
-<p><em>Don’t marry from pity.</em> It may be akin to love,
-but the kinship is quite distant. Many a weak<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[39]</a></span>
-woman has so married, and only once regretted
-it&mdash;each and every day afterwards. A life-long
-regret must follow. What a cold respect is
-that compliment to any woman, “I took pity
-on her!” Away with such base uses of pity!
-Many a woman has had pity on a rakish man
-or a drunkard and married him to reform his
-nature. Better, far better, trust a child with a
-runaway horse or a mad dog. Danger seen
-and not avoided is criminal carelessness. Surely
-you can save one life, and its happiness, in such
-cases. One is quite enough to be sacrificed.
-Let bravery be shown by demanding a full
-surrender and reasonable atonement.</p>
-
-<p><em>Don’t marry for an ideal marriage only.</em> The girlish
-dream of marriage is so wide of the reality
-as to be dangerous. She is to grow up and go
-away, off to Italy, or some far-away clime of
-sunshine; there to be taught music and the
-classics. On some clear moonlight evening, in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[40]</a></span>
-a summer-time, where birds sing all day long,
-near a brook or flower-garden, she is to be surprised
-by a creature of form and make and
-mental endowment that shall thrill her whole
-being into rapturous joy. They will go to the
-parlor, and there, by a grand-piano, she will unseal
-the pent-up currents of her heart, till tears
-flow from all eyes around her; there she will
-seem to hear the childhood melodies, the song
-of departed friends, the harmony of all the
-senses, mingling in one sweet welcome to her
-new-found happiness.</p>
-
-<p>Her prisoned soul is no longer grovelling in common
-themes; all the latent power of her being is
-to burst forth in gladness; and music of the
-heart is to bear her up until the cottage walls
-are narrow, till flowers and falling water, brilliant
-company, ease and riches, smile upon her
-glad career.</p>
-
-<p>She is to be lifted up, and raised to heights before<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[41]</a></span>
-unknown to mortals. He of whom she
-dreams of now is fit for Paradise. Finer and
-finer every day will his genius grow, and nearer
-to her liking every hour. There is just such
-joy and just such glory in a new-born love, that
-seems to reach a grander height each moment,
-as on eagle’s wings.</p>
-
-<p>And this is but the generous dream that Nature
-gives, as a preface to a real life after,&mdash;so very,
-very different. The girl that twines her tender
-arms around her mother’s neck, and thrills with
-joyous pride in telling of the brilliant prize
-that’s offered her, thinks not of rainy days
-ahead. Perhaps it is just as well; who would
-begrudge her such half-hours of happiness?
-But, seeing sometime she must break the spell
-and know all, it may be safe to drop a hint in
-season, and say, This way lies safety, that way
-danger!</p>
-
-<p><em>Don’t marry a man of even doubtful character.</em><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[42]</a></span>
-No matter how handsome or brilliant, a bad
-man has in him elements that are always repulsive;
-they are poison to his blood and his surroundings,
-and the only safe guide is his character.</p>
-
-<p>No matter how many promises of reformation;
-you need not turn reformer for his sake. If
-you will take the risk, do it after he proves
-himself reformed, and be in no great haste
-about it.</p>
-
-<p>No amount of spicing and seasoning can make
-tainted meat palatable, and no amount of
-promising will reclaim a character tainted with
-vicious habits once seated.</p>
-
-<p>Young ladies who enter upon the reforming mission
-furnish more women and children for
-prisons, later in life, by their own misfortunes
-than any one class. Cases of reclaimed men
-after marriage are so rare as to be exceptional.
-It’s always a dangerous experiment.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[43]</a></span></p>
-
-<p><em>Don’t marry too cautiously as to perfection.</em> It has
-before been fully stated that men and women
-are human, and imperfect. That is, if you are
-hunting angels it’s a fool’s errand; there are
-none unpledged. If you look for tall, handsome,
-rich, manly, cultivated, talented, brilliant
-men, or pure, refined, fascinating, beautiful
-women, and one for each man the world over,
-the supply never equals the demand of either
-sex.</p>
-
-<p>But to presume that the persons marked under
-head of “don’t marry” cover all the rest is
-unreasonable. There are thousands of noble
-women and men, possessed of sterling sense,
-strong bodies, affectionate natures, ability to
-conduct a home, become a genial companion,
-raise a family, shine in society, and bear their
-full share of life’s earnest work. Occasionally
-a man or woman will tower above their fellows,
-but, generally, the real difference is less than is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[44]</a></span>
-often supposed. The great majority are good,
-and live and go to their reward unheard of outside
-of their neighborhood.</p>
-
-<p>One has put it rather strongly in this, to many:
-“The lives of men and women, the best of
-them, are marred and ruined by uncongenial
-marriages. They mostly suffer in silence,
-ashamed to complain of the chain they cannot
-break. Men and woman cannot know what
-their sweethearts will be after marriage. I have
-known a sensitive man, a genius with a soul like
-a star, whose life was a pilgrimage over burning
-coals, because his wife was a coarse termagant.
-Many a gifted woman, fit to be a queen or an
-empress, is chained to a clod of a husband,
-whose forced companionship is to her the tortures
-of Inferno.”</p>
-
-<p><em>Don’t marry expecting all the virtues in one person.</em>
-If you do, the disappointment will be startling.
-There are no perfect characters. History gives<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[45]</a></span>
-none since the Saviour. Even Joseph was
-willing to punish his enemies.</p>
-
-<p>The majority of men and women are good and
-pure and fair-looking. The numbers who go to
-the bad are few compared to the good. Take
-the country population, and ninety per cent
-will be good; and sixty per cent of all cities are
-people of fair characters.</p>
-
-<p>It is a mistake to think that most people are bad
-because the bad ones get so often chronicled in
-public journals. The good, like the virtuous,
-live and die and demand no praise of their
-virtue. The great mass of men are sensible,
-and honest and upright and sober, and worthy
-to marry.</p>
-
-<p><em>Don’t break a marriage abruptly.</em> This is the
-wrong way to break a bad match. It intensifies
-affection. It leads to elopement, or that
-slow canker in a girl’s nature ending in melancholy,
-or insanity.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[46]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>Love is a plant so tender that to uproot or transplant
-it may touch a vital part. There are
-ways enough to change its current; but of all
-food to increase its growth, give it a little opposition.
-Tell a child to leave something alone,
-and he sulks to touch it. Tell a girl that the
-man she admires is distasteful to her relatives,
-and she half despises them from a simple motive
-of resentment. Lead her by reason to see
-with her own eyes, and she will be convinced.</p>
-
-<p>The great London actor, Garrick, played the
-drunkard to disenchant a girl, and succeeded.
-Her parents might have tried it a lifetime and
-failed. Human nature is queer. It will lead
-when the way is enticing. It will magnify
-discoveries, but they must be discovered in the
-right manner. Remove not the prop till the
-safety of the structure is secure without it.</p>
-
-<p><em>Don’t oppose one’s marriage choice suddenly.</em> Should
-a girl fall in love with one of bad character, it is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[47]</a></span>
-best not to call him so at one breath; but say,
-“What are his habits? Is he good enough
-and worthy of so pure and comely a person as
-you are?” Let this task be performed by some
-girl of same age and class as the one you seek
-to change. Let them be often together, and
-find ways of expressing the objections by this
-method&mdash;coming from a classmate, a friend, a
-chum or companion&mdash;and your object may be
-easily accomplished. A proposed absence without
-showing why, a long journey with genial
-company, may have the desired effect. At
-least use one caution; see that the girl knows
-the real habits and character of the man you
-are opposed to her marrying. It will do more
-than all the urging, scolding, coaxing, or threatening.</p>
-
-<p><em>Don’t marry for spite.</em> Why should you? If the
-one whom you loved most has deceived you
-and taken another, it will be folly to try to punish<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[48]</a></span>
-him by hanging yourself, or committing a
-double suicide in a loveless marriage.</p>
-
-<p>You will learn this lesson all too dearly when it’s
-over. Life is too short for those who love it
-and are well mated; but many a miserable marriage
-has made one or the other wish for death
-a million times, to be rid of its burden.</p>
-
-<p>You are the one most interested. You will find
-out, after the knot is tied, that there are many
-conditions in life better and easier to be endured
-than a silly marriage to spite some one.
-You will spite them better by showing what a
-noble choice they had missed when they took
-another in your place.</p>
-
-<p><em>Don’t propose on a wash-day, in the rain, at
-breakfast, or in a tunnel.</em> There is no room
-for fainting in the former, and a narrow chance
-for time in the latter.</p>
-
-<p>Many ladies have singular notions on how proposals
-should be accepted, and to such any<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[49]</a></span>
-rudeness is extremely shocking. A very modest
-fellow, in deep anxiety, took up his fair
-lady’s cat, and said, “Pussy, may I marry your
-mistress?” when the young lady replied, “Say
-yes, pussy, when he gets brave enough to ask
-for her.” More than likely this brought the
-young fellow to his senses. It certainly brought
-matters to a crisis.</p>
-
-<p>Most young people talk to each other as though
-a tall stone wall stood between them and they
-must find a door in it. Strange enough, the
-difference in views vanishes at the merest mention
-of each other’s sentiments.</p>
-
-<p><em>Don’t mitten a mechanic</em>, simply on account of his
-business. If he is worthy, never mind his business.
-He can grow out of it, and will grow out
-of it. Collier was a blacksmith, Wilson a shoemaker,
-Andrew Johnson a tailor, Peter Cooper
-a glue-maker, Grant a tanner, and Lincoln the
-humblest of farmers. In this country it is not<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[50]</a></span>
-a question what a man was, but what he is;
-not even what he is, but what he may be, and
-what he is capable of yet attaining.</p>
-
-<p>Many a girl has turned away a mechanic and married
-a rich loafer, only to find in good season
-that the mechanic was at heart a gentleman,
-with growing possibilities, and the loafer remained
-such for all time.</p>
-
-<p>Advice is seldom heeded in such matters, but it
-may do to mention it. The true test of manhood
-is seen in the mettle of boyhood. If you
-wish to forecast the future, study the past history
-of your subject. If one is selfish, tyrannical,
-and overbearing by being rich, he will be
-a bad man to marry. If, on the other hand, he
-is pleasant, kind, genial, and forbearing, loves
-his kind, is attentive to his mother and sisters,
-and has made friends and character in early life,
-he is not very likely to change his notions
-later. There is often more manhood in a poor
-one-armed man than a rich athlete.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[51]</a></span></p>
-
-<p><em>Don’t marry a man too poor.</em> It is the height of
-folly to mate, and attempt to raise seven children
-on what will bring up three indifferently.
-Have a little discretion. Think that eating,
-dressing, etc., cost something, and no one can
-live happily without some of these common
-comforts. If they cannot buy them single, it is
-folly to double one’s misery by marrying in the
-jaws of starvation. It is suicide: it is worse,&mdash;it
-is double suicide, and may lead to pauperism
-and crime and disgrace.</p>
-
-<p><em>Don’t marry where the woman is older than the
-man.</em> Men are restless creatures and exacting.
-They expect grace, beauty, and refinement;
-they prefer youth to age, generally. At least it
-is the fashion to marry a wife some years younger
-than the husband. Women mature earlier;
-they have less expectancy of long life, and on
-an average live seven to ten years less, and show
-age at fifty more than a man does at sixty-five.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[52]</a></span>
-Of the two, a woman should look smaller and
-younger and better than a man. This accords
-with the belief of all refined people.</p>
-
-<p><em>Don’t marry a crank.</em> This class of men will be
-wordy and persuasive. They tell all sorts of
-stories of life,&mdash;how the world is mismade; how
-they could improve upon this thing or that;
-how marriages should be made between blondes
-and brunettes; how, with their philosophy, society
-would reach perfection.</p>
-
-<p>Such men are invariably tyrannical. They are exacting
-to the last degree; they have neither
-faith, hope, nor charity, but run in one groove.
-They distrust the powers that be, and generally
-mount some hobby, and forever prattle about
-the rights of free love or the wrongs of government.
-Avoid them as you would a tramp.</p>
-
-<p><em>Don’t marry fine feathers.</em> Chesterfield was <em>well
-up</em> on manners, and gave his son this rule,
-among his twenty-one maxims to marry by:<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[53]</a></span>
-“Let not the rustling of silk entrap you into
-matrimony.” Fine clothing has a certain fascination
-to many. Some choose a wife by the
-becoming effect of a tasty garment. Some
-select a fine dancer; others rely upon a small
-hand or a petite form. These points may be
-all well noted, but they are but parts of a
-greater whole that should govern a wise selection.</p>
-
-<p><em>Don’t marry a “masher”&mdash;man or woman.</em> A
-regular professional flirt will never settle down
-to love one woman or one man. Habits once
-formed will cling to them in after-life. They
-are like runaway teams&mdash;liable to take fright
-and go when least expected.</p>
-
-<p>Civil attention, by a lady or gentleman, to the
-other sex is natural and courteous, but the
-thought that every fair lady is common prey is
-repulsive. The traveller who avoids all vacant
-car-seats but the nearest to a handsome young<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[54]</a></span>
-woman, and forces his conversation against her
-will, has an eye to his business of one more conquest;
-but the too often insulted woman who
-complains of over-attention from gentlemen is
-generally one who walks much unattended and
-shows some willingness to be not wholly unnoticed.</p>
-
-<p><em>Don’t marry without love.</em> It will be plain enough
-after a while. You will not mind it at first,
-perhaps, but the time will come when, by a
-song, or a face, or a voice, or a form, you will
-awake as from a dream, to find you have
-chosen carelessly. It will be too late then. A
-loveless marriage may stand throughout a
-honeymoon. It may last in youth, but not
-when storms and trials <a id="Ref_54"></a>come in after-years.
-It lacks that something which words do not
-well express,&mdash;continuity, heart-bound devotion,
-and endurance.</p>
-
-<p>No matter how plain each or either may be, if<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[55]</a></span>
-they love each other they will overlook little
-things, and live patiently and happily to the
-end. But once, at least, must come this joy and
-glory of wedlock, that seems to be the wise
-design of Nature,&mdash;a love for one another. It
-endures through age and trouble, and is a more
-lasting tie than all others together.</p>
-
-<p><em>Don’t marry an idle spendthrift</em>; one whose
-money comes without effort at first, and goes as
-rapidly, will one day come to want as certainly
-as waters reach their level. Nature has fashioned
-us all for work,&mdash;work of mind or work
-of body, mental or physical labor,&mdash;and with it
-comes strength of muscle and of will. Listless
-life of idleness, without motive, without aim,
-is open to every form of temptation.</p>
-
-<p>It is not a crime to be rich, or to be poor. It is a
-crime to be listless in a busy world. He would
-be disgraced who, standing on a wharf, saw a
-drowning crew without offering relief. He<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[56]</a></span>
-would be a coward who would not defend a
-woman in distress; yet all around us are the
-needy, helpless, drowning, starving, whom it is
-our duty to rescue and lift up in life; and marriage
-is the place where society is born, and
-grows and ripens into use.</p>
-
-<p><em>Don’t marry a stingy man</em>; of all narrow, mean
-men, he is worst who has money, and has no
-will to do good with it. A “dog-in-the-manger”
-man, who can improve his town, his church, his
-neighborhood, and does not, is a drone in life’s
-hive and deserves no success.</p>
-
-<p>One who is poor and has no means is excusable;
-one who locks and buries treasures deserves
-the Bible sentence of him who hid his talent in
-the earth&mdash;to be taken from him and placed
-with the active one’s talent.</p>
-
-<p>A narrow, selfish, stingy man will count your pennies
-spent, and postage used, and clothing
-worn, as wasted. One must live in constant<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[57]</a></span>
-dread of such a creature&mdash;we need not name
-him man; it would disgrace the term. A
-miser’s wife lives a loveless life.</p>
-
-<p><em>Don’t marry too hastily.</em> Some rush into matrimony
-like a steam-engine going to put out a
-fire, as though one moment lost would be
-eternal defeat, and the first there gain the
-highest prize. Many a one has repented more
-leisurely and in sorrow for such conduct. But
-of all things, marry at a good opportunity.</p>
-
-<p><em>Don’t be too slow about it.</em> Girls who give up the
-society of all but one, and turn their homes
-into special receptions for one person, will be
-worried to death in a year or two, if things
-move too moderately.</p>
-
-<p>Brace up and proceed to business, or release your
-claim and let some one else have an opportunity.
-Long engagements lead to lovers’ quarrels;
-they, in turn, fail to make up sometimes,
-and then follow scandal and gossip over broken<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[58]</a></span>
-ties; and later two go down to their early sleep
-disheartened, ruined by a trifling neglect and
-a reasonable inventory of prospects. You will
-see it all plainly when it is over. It will be a
-“might have been” then, sure enough, but too
-late.</p>
-
-<p><em>Don’t marry a silly girl.</em> It’s something of an art
-to select a sensible person, but many are captivated
-by frivolous sayings and coquettish acts
-of simpering school-girls and marry them.
-They make better playmates than wives. They
-are generally shallow, nonsensical, and superficial.
-They seldom learn anything; a tittering
-girl is wearisome in real life. They are ever
-unstable as water and changeable as wind; get
-some one that you can rely upon in confidence.</p>
-
-<p><em>Avoid slovenly dressed girls or heedless men.</em>
-Life seems very short sometimes, but if ill-mated
-it may be a long and tiresome life. A
-woman with shoes run down, a man with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[59]</a></span>
-slouched and battered hat, reckless of neatness,
-will grow worse, and seldom better.</p>
-
-<p>Trifling as it may appear, the tidy dress, the tasty
-every-day apparel, the ladylike appearance, and
-general style of man or woman, go a long
-way to form character. Beecher was right in
-saying that “clothes do not make the man,
-but they make him look better after he is
-made.” The same rule is true of women.</p>
-
-<p><em>Don’t expect too much in marriage.</em> The story
-pen-pictures and fashion-plate models of men
-that we see and read about are always exaggerated.
-Not one man in a million would equal
-their description. Men are plain flesh-and-blood
-creatures; women are not angels. They
-build their hopes too high who expect otherwise.
-Take the handsomest person you know
-and ten years’ wear will dull the edges; and of
-all faded features, the once very handsome show
-change the soonest. There are many little odd-faced<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[60]</a></span>
-fellows who grow up to be fine manly
-men. The growth from boyhood or girlhood
-to youth, and youth to manhood or womanhood,
-and so on to old age, is marvellous. It takes a
-keen sense of foresight to measure the future
-of many boys and girls by their beginning.
-There is no rule safer than choosing a good
-form, a good brain, a good temper, and a good
-character, and waiting for the other developments.</p>
-
-<p>Endure what cannot be cured, and don’t wish
-your wife or husband were as handsome as some
-neighbor or as rich as some nabob. Youth and
-good qualities are riches. It may be he is
-richer by far than the very one envied. The
-richest are not always those who own the most&mdash;many
-of these are poor indeed, and often
-miserable.</p>
-
-<p><em>Don’t marry a fop.</em> Vanity in a woman is bad
-enough, in men it is intolerable! A man-milliner,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[61]</a></span>
-a namby-pamby female male, a walking
-model for ready-made furnishing-stores, may
-think himself exceedingly stunning, but to a real
-lady or gentleman he is a nonentity. Such
-husbands never could be satisfied with the admiration
-you would give them; they would
-weary your mirrors and try your patience.
-What are they good for, anyway? There is
-room for women and room for men, but a half-woman
-or a half-man is never great. They are
-not very likely to marry at all, and less likely
-to make home happy.</p>
-
-<p><em>Don’t expect everything of one person.</em> Some expect
-to marry love, beauty, talent, riches, and
-affection all in one. It is unreasonable; you
-will never find it, and may as well give up looking
-in good season.</p>
-
-<p>“Waukeen” Miller was requested to rewrite an
-article sent to a New York magazine and returned
-this pithy reply: “I can’t re-copy it. I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[62]</a></span>
-can’t do everything. What do you expect of a
-man, anyway&mdash;to be a genius, an inventor, and a
-writing-teacher? No, I can’t bother my brains
-with copying worth four to six hundred a year
-at the highest.” This covers the whole subject
-in a sentence. But it is well to add that Nature
-is sparing of her gifts. To one she allots
-beauty, to another strength, to another wisdom,
-to a third courage, to a fourth ability to
-acquire riches, to another that to write and
-speak, to teach, to manage, to paint, or to control
-armies: all are not alike, and to no one belong
-all virtues.</p>
-
-<p><em>Don’t expect too much of a wife.</em> If she is beautiful,
-that will be her pride and ideal. If plain,
-she may make it up a thousand times in goodness,
-gentleness, industry, virtue (the plainest
-are the least tempted). Earnest in her duty, she
-may be of all women the most suited to your
-station. If talented, she will devote herself to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[63]</a></span>
-it. You cannot own beauty, talent, domestic
-drudgery all in one.</p>
-
-<p>“Looking for angels, are you?” said an advanced
-maiden in the country. “Well, you’ll not find
-’em fit for kitchen work; and, while I think of
-it, how would you look by the side of an
-angel, you brute you?” and he subsided.</p>
-
-<p>No, they are not much suited to kitchen work,
-the so-called angels; but many a mother who
-has brought up a large family as her own
-kitchen maid, without servants, who has braved
-the hardships of poverty and privation, has
-led a life but little lower than the angels, after
-all.</p>
-
-<p><em>Don’t marry and cross your husband.</em> While on
-this division, don’t cross your wife just at dinner-time.
-After the cares of business he is
-tired, fretful, and she is of similar humor. To
-make a dispute is much easier than to make a
-coal fire. Wait!</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[64]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>Don’t flash up and speak back, and irritate by
-quick answer. Wait!</p>
-
-<p>If man or woman could only wait in seasons of
-anger, all would blow over and harmony return
-like spring flowers, that are not always in
-blossom.</p>
-
-<p>Don’t both speak at once, nor both get angry at
-once, nor both be too determined at once. No
-one is ever convinced by angry tones. It is
-horribly repulsive to talk so; besides, you will
-both be sorry for it very many times. Wait,
-and let your judgment mature after dinner;
-quarrel, if you must, in whispers; that is the
-new fashion. Try the newer form.</p>
-
-<p>About ten thousand new divorces could be prevented
-each year by observing these rules of
-common sense and reason. When will married
-people and unmarried people, and lovers
-and neighbors, learn how pleasant peace is, and
-how awkward it is to quarrel together?</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[65]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>One man pounds his finger with a tack-hammer
-and blames his wife for <a id="Ref_65"></a>it a month later; one
-man’s goose gets in a neighbor’s garden and is
-killed&mdash;perhaps served him right&mdash;and yet they
-are sworn enemies for five years later; and not
-until some child is rescued from a burning
-building or a mad dog, by the enemy neighbor
-do the two know how pleasant and useful it is
-to dwell in harmony.</p>
-
-<p>Families who have been estranged for years are
-some day&mdash;ah, some day!&mdash;called to look into
-the sightless eyes that once flashed in anger, or
-lay away in its earthy home the form they
-shunned for some trifling answer in a passion.
-If we knew how soon, how cautious we would
-be! Life is so short to quarrel and make up
-in; they who quarrel may never make up.</p>
-
-<p><em>Don’t marry in fun.</em> Be in earnest about a matter
-of so much moment. It may seem funny
-to a lot of girls out on a sleigh-ride to call in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[66]</a></span>
-some one and wind up an escapade by a double
-wedding; but few of such marriages ever end
-well.</p>
-
-<p>Sudden and ill-considered matches are mismatches.
-You may have a mother, a sister, or
-a family to consult; then the old-fashioned
-way is the best. It’s a left-handed marriage at
-best that will not allow the forms used for ages
-to strengthen its solemnity.</p>
-
-<p>Let the world know by open dealing that you
-have married above any secrecy, elopement, or
-underhanded fashion. Be brave enough to
-follow the form of society in a manner that
-concerns every neighbor and every relative.</p>
-
-<p>Marry at home or at church, in good form, without
-display; marry according to the best usage
-of the best people, and you will reap some
-benefit from the sensible conclusion.</p>
-
-<p><em>Don’t marry without an eye to comfort.</em> A man
-that expects to live thirty years or more with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[67]</a></span>
-a partner will investigate his likes and dislikes;
-so should a woman. Are you ready to attend
-a cattle ranch and brave the frontier? Then
-look the matter clearly in the face at the first
-hint of the man’s proposal who expects it.</p>
-
-<p>Do you prefer the city to the country? Look
-to the earliest opportunity. Can you endure a
-soldier’s absence, or wait for an explorer? or
-will you prefer a domestic relation that brings
-you both under one roof daily? These questions
-should be answered soon enough to prevent
-regret, remorse, or separation. The greatest
-of all dangers in marriage is the color-blindness
-of lovers: they never use but one color&mdash;rose
-color&mdash;till a few weeks after the wedding.</p>
-
-<p><em>Don’t spurn a man for his poverty.</em> “Prosperity is
-the parent of friends; misfortune is the fire by
-which they are tried.” One may be poor by an
-honest failure, another may be rich on ill-gotten<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[68]</a></span>
-gains. The first the lord of honor, the
-last a prosperous knave.</p>
-
-<p>“I would give it all willingly and work by the
-day if we could be placed back where we were,
-and be free from the worry and dread and
-anxiety,” said a rich man’s wife to a waiting
-friend by her sick bedside.</p>
-
-<p>Who does not know of poor, plain boys who endured
-the poverty of youth, struggled with
-their studies, carved out a fortune as from
-flinty marble, and enjoyed it in maturer years,
-all the more for the effort it cost them, all the
-more likely to last and continue to bless other
-generations?</p>
-
-<p>Franklin commenced poor with a penny loaf;
-Greeley was homely and awkward. Few would
-have looked for Lincoln’s rise. Giddings and
-Collier and Garfield all started low on the
-ladder, and ended high in honor and worthy of
-any woman’s affection.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[69]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>If we could only get near enough to Genius to
-comprehend its superior worth; if we could
-reverence talent and admire integrity and take
-true measure of prospective greatness, what
-a fortune we would possess!</p>
-
-<p>Like high-priced lots in large cities, the discoverers
-of rare locations seldom knew the value of
-their purchases. It takes time for development;
-more time in genius and character than
-we are always ready to wait for; but the far-seeing
-are always rewarded, so with the prizes
-of matrimony.</p>
-
-<p><em>Don’t marry and expect a husband to be wealthy
-while young.</em> Only the older men should be
-looked to for high financial standing. In a
-hopeful country like ours, few are rich under
-fifty, seldom under sixty.</p>
-
-<p>Young men who earn their education, and begin
-and learn a business are barely partners at thirty
-or thirty-five. It takes time to prosper. Several<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[70]</a></span>
-mistakes may be made. Scarcely a wholesale
-house in New York or Boston has run on
-twenty years without a failure. Failure is the
-rule, success the exception. Patience, pluck,
-and perseverance win the victory, but they
-who spend freely in the forenoon have little
-left in the evening. Those who save early
-double in like ratio later on.</p>
-
-<p><em>Don’t marry in opposite religious views.</em> If possible,
-marry near your own belief. This may
-seem strained, but the story of divorces will
-confirm its wisdom. Children and parents very
-often disagree on religious subjects. The
-farmer’s “Betsey and I are out” controversy,
-“was a difference in our creed. And the
-more we argued the matter, the less we ever
-agreed.”</p>
-
-<p>It is pleasant to agree on a subject so vital in
-families, more especially so in Protestant and
-Catholic families, where education is sometimes<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[71]</a></span>
-controlled by church government, and
-marriages are held illegal in one church if not
-solemnized by its forms and between regular
-believers in its faith and doctrines.</p>
-
-<p><em>Don’t marry a duke</em>, or any man who travels on
-his title. The most of such men are very common,
-and the most of young people who seek
-their company are sold, deceived, and seriously
-disappointed.</p>
-
-<p>They expect a fortune to begin with, and will be
-the most exacting of all mortals. This is a mere
-matter of birth and surroundings. Novels tell
-many beautiful stories (pretty visions) about
-brave and noble dukes and their princely
-palaces, attentive servants, and flower-arbors.
-Experience tells far different stories.</p>
-
-<p>The history of nine out of ten of such unnatural
-unions is a record of a half million or so
-squandered on a petted daughter to satisfy a
-mother’s ambition, and ending in misery entailed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[72]</a></span>
-by the dearly bought purchase. Don’t
-marry so much out of rank as to be a burden,
-or carry a burden.</p>
-
-<p><em>Do marry a man that you can look up to</em>, and see
-that he can do likewise. There are plenty of
-farmers, mechanics, merchants, conductors, doctors,
-lawyers, and men of general business, who
-are worthy, trusty, generous, noble, and will
-make excellent husbands.</p>
-
-<p>Seek them out from their character, their conduct
-at home, their treatment of sisters and
-mothers, their devotion to business and adherence
-to principle. Show them that you
-trust them. Be ready to marry. Become accomplished
-and useful. Make yourself worthy
-of a home, and know how to manage it with
-skill and kindness. Loving natures are not
-long neglected. The worn-out belles and women
-who fade and wither, and die snappish and
-single, were insincere, or lacked some quality
-of winning manners.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[73]</a></span></p>
-
-<p><em>Do marry a President.</em> That is the correct form
-now. It’s so romantic. Waive all the hints of
-other objections,&mdash;age, love, spite, money, and
-the like. Get a President,&mdash;just for the position,
-you know!</p>
-
-<p>Then all the little jewels and diamonds and presents
-will come rolling in like flowers to a favorite
-singer. All little objections vanish in the
-presence of a President. He must be suited to
-any condition of beauty, genius, or intellect.
-Don’t refuse a President’s offer; you may never
-get but one such in a lifetime.</p>
-
-<p><em>Do marry a plain man.</em> Just a plain, common-sense
-man; be he banker, lawyer, doctor, farmer,
-builder, merchant, so he is a man; for manhood
-is at a premium to-day in home life! The
-world is full to overflowing with brilliant men.
-Public offices are public trusts, and all that such
-responsibility implies, and there are women in
-stations where the word home has very little<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[74]</a></span>
-meaning, and other women who long for the
-quiet and comfort of true domestic life away
-from the cares of office and the demands of
-lofty stations.</p>
-
-<p>Two of the things that lead to greatest misery of
-the masses to-day are over-ambition and reckless
-marriages.</p>
-
-<p><em>Don’t coax a woman to love you.</em> If you wish to
-win, that is certainly the wrong way. If they
-have any notion of it, you are in the opposite
-direction of success.</p>
-
-<p>Women despise a fawning, cringing nature. “Fortune
-and women, born to be controlled, stoop
-to the forward and the bold.”</p>
-
-<p>A far more sensible way to win will be by indifference.
-Show enough willingness to reassure
-her, and enough courage to act
-manly.</p>
-
-<p>Ten to one you have mistaken her temper by
-lack of frankness. Nothing is more touching<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[75]</a></span>
-than truth. If you are really bent on marrying
-and have told the right person the whole
-story, earnestly and truthfully, the answer
-should be decisive.</p>
-
-<p>Keen dealers seldom banter; they may hesitate,
-they may explain their wants and wishes, they
-never parley very long or express much anxiety
-to strike a bargain.</p>
-
-<p><em>Winning a wife or a lover is a rare art.</em> To be
-worthy of either is the first essential. It is
-better to be worthy of it than to be President
-and unworthy.</p>
-
-<p>It must be consoling even to a jilted lover to feel
-that he is superior to the one successful. The
-next thing to being worthy is being ready.
-Many a youth begins driving, sleighing, and
-dressing for society who pays his clothing bills
-by instalments, and whose salary is wholly
-unequal to his outlay.</p>
-
-<p>Fairness demands that a girl in marrying should<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[76]</a></span>
-better her condition. How can one expect
-her to marry into misery?</p>
-
-<p>Chesterfield quotes an old Spanish saying of great
-force and aptness: “It is the beginning that
-costs in everything. The first step over, the
-rest is easy.”</p>
-
-<p><em>Don’t marry recklessly.</em> Before two or more men
-form a partnership, they learn each other’s
-means of furthering the business to be engaged
-in; the confidence that each is worthy of, the
-skill, attention, etc., each can give, and the
-prospects of a mutual agreement and prosperity.</p>
-
-<p>Without some inquiry on these vital requisites, no
-company concern would be founded. It would
-be a foolish investment to purchase goods and
-fit up stores or warehouses without some forecast
-of results; and yet this is precisely in the
-line of marriage.</p>
-
-<p>Partnerships are business marriages. It is not<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[77]</a></span>
-best to be too cool and calculating about it;
-one caution may let another take the venture
-and draw the premium. But some common-sense
-may as well be mixed with a matter so
-vital as a life-long engagement.</p>
-
-<p>Firms are limited to a few years; marriages are
-unlimited save by death, or divorce, for over a
-third of a century, on an average. While it is
-very difficult to tell whom to marry,&mdash;for no
-one can foresee your circumstances,&mdash;still, it is
-well to mention a large class that no one should
-marry, at least till all others are no longer accessible.</p>
-
-<p>If one could foresee the extent of happiness depending
-on this selection of partners, if he
-would take a simple business caution and investigate
-enough to be considerate, he might
-save society from disgrace and himself from
-lasting misery. For the fact is, that the
-most glaring of all our American evils is the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[78]</a></span>
-looseness of marriage ties, and the misery it
-entails on domestic relations.</p>
-
-<p>If these hints or reminders should induce one
-woman to avoid a bad marriage, and one man
-to contract a good one, or save a long quarrel,
-or keep families in harmony, or help some poor
-bashful fellow to gain his Yes by a sensible
-proposal, the time in reading will be well spent,
-the trifling cost will be a splendid investment.</p>
-
-<hr class="chap" />
-
-<div class="chapter"></div><!--Page break for ePub-->
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[79]</a></span></p>
-
-
-
-
-<h2>ROMANTIC MARRIAGES.</h2>
-
-
-<p>Caroline Crofton had completed her course at
-Vassar, one of its earliest graduates, and one of
-the most brilliant in her class of thirty odd
-young New England, graceful, gifted, and
-generous girls, that have long been noted for
-their purity of principles and perfection of
-character. She was smaller than her classmates,
-an only daughter of Judge Crofton,
-whose manner and training marked him as a
-classical, refined, and upright gentleman, and a
-dignified and just judge.</p>
-
-<p>All that culture could impart, or character add to
-the graces of nature, was bestowed upon Caroline,
-who never assumed the fashion of shortening
-her name by fancy contractions. Carline<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[80]</a></span>
-was the shortest way of calling her, and this
-was not a favorite with her mother. From her
-father she inherited the qualities ascribed to
-her, while her mother, like a clinging vine wound
-around the oak, was of a trusting, lovable, nature,
-of darker hair and eyes than the Judge;
-and the two mingled in the daughter, and
-formed a slender figure and a graceful form, an
-ardent, lovable character, as one could easily
-discover.</p>
-
-<p>Diligent by nature and proud of her progress in
-early studies, Caroline had entered Vassar’s advanced
-classes and employed all her energy to
-excel in each department.</p>
-
-<p>She literally lived in her books for four full years,
-to the exclusion of modes, society, or even the
-newspapers; her one ambition seemed ever to
-be excellence, and when the graduating day arrived,
-and the long row in white were seated in
-breathless awe to read their papers and receive<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[81]</a></span>
-their reward, something more than a common
-interest was awakened.</p>
-
-<p>Such are the days when young men of wealth and
-ambition, and poorer men with an eye to the
-beautiful, come in and listen to the overdrawn
-pictures of school-girls’ first productions.</p>
-
-<p>The theme of Caroline Crofton was “Pioneers;”
-how they had founded our government in the
-little log school-houses of New England, in the
-sixteenth century; how they had established
-their town meetings and voting precincts; how
-they had gradually driven back the Indians
-(“noble redmen”) from the rich, fertile valley
-of the Mohawk in New York, cleared away the
-underbrush from the fertile plains of Northern
-Ohio and Pennsylvania, and boldly evaded
-the massive pineries of bleak, cold Northern
-Michigan; dauntlessly, fearlessly, and bravely
-establishing schools and churches in the very
-midst of Indian huts and wigwams, taking their<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[82]</a></span>
-lives in their hands, to improve and populate a
-great and growing nation; and how wonderfully
-they had all prospered.</p>
-
-<p>In her vivid and graphic picture of a fruitful
-theme (a theme learned from books and stories),
-she dwelt on the part that mothers had borne,
-and brothers were bearing, in this tide of prosperity
-and improvement, till tear-drops came
-fast to the earnest eyes of the old gray-haired
-professors, who were judges, and many a
-mother’s heart leaped with joyous pride at
-the mention of brave sons battling with the
-Western wilderness, for their sons were among
-them.</p>
-
-<p>Caroline Crofton could feel the hush of silence,
-always such applause as is irresistible; she could
-feel the emotion, and conveyed that emotion to
-her audience; she forgot herself, forgot her
-hearers, and read with a girlish animation born
-of deep-seated belief in the grandeur of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[83]</a></span>
-theme she advocated. Round after round of
-applause greeted her conclusion, and she staggered
-to her seat literally overcome by the
-brilliant effort which resulted in a handsomely
-inscribed medal as first of her class of Vassar.</p>
-
-<p>Whether the influence of that essay on the mind
-of Caroline, or its greater influence on Cyrus
-Arthur (a newly arrived resident of Vassar) was
-the most potent means of a quick acquaintance
-between them, is not well known to the writers;
-certain it is that an early friendship soon refined
-into affection, and meagre inquiries into his
-character being satisfactory to Caroline, he was
-promptly admitted as a suitor at the dignified
-household of Judge Crofton, on the banks of
-the beautiful St. Lawrence. The Judge was led
-to believe that a long acquaintance had ripened
-between schoolmates, when in fact it was a love
-at first sight affair, and on very little consideration.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[84]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>That these young and ambitious lovers enjoyed
-all that is allotted to their class is forever a secret,
-for their after-life reveals but little of its mystery.
-Their after-life was a struggle for bread
-first, and position soon after. They really put
-off living, very foolishly.</p>
-
-<p>Cyrus Arthur was a large, strongly built, dark-haired,
-handsome fellow, of considerable assurance
-in the social gatherings, and generally
-managed to lead off with the dances and parties
-from his size and commanding way more than
-from any merit of talent or real goodness in
-himself; one of the village leaders who gained
-favor by fine looks and outward appearance;
-one of the petted class of forenoon brilliants
-whose afternoons are often more shaded.</p>
-
-<p>There was a smile of serene contentment and half-satisfaction
-on the haughty face of young
-Arthur as he offered himself to the Judge’s
-daughter in that manner assumed by generals<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[85]</a></span>
-in battle. He obtained his prize, and she obtained
-her ambition. He married beauty, she
-married a leader. Her highly colored future
-was a life of intellectual greatness; his first
-pride was of conquest, then of distinction.</p>
-
-<p>A large man in a small place may be a little man
-in a large city.</p>
-
-<p>In good season they were married, of course; and
-of their courtship little need be said, for it was
-all unromantic.</p>
-
-<p>Arthur’s father was a merchant of limited means,
-and the younger having high notions of going
-West to grow up with the country, early
-settled in a lumber-making city of North Michigan,
-where he took his fair young companion,
-who soon realized that her rose-colored romance
-of brave pioneers was not a living reality.</p>
-
-<p>Dreams are one thing, real life is another; work
-was scarce in the big overgrown city, but plentiful
-in the pineries; and after the first day of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[86]</a></span>
-married life wore into weeks, and living expense
-came around with painful regularity, the new
-couple were forced to economize, then look for
-employment, which they first found in tending
-store and camp, cooking for a large lumber-ranch;
-certainly far less refining than the vision
-of a Vassar schoolgirl’s essay had pictured.</p>
-
-<p>But they prospered, and by dint of close saving,
-always coming from the wise counsel of the
-weaker one, they became managers, then
-owners, of a portable saw-mill and a ranch, and
-gradually a store building partly paid for.</p>
-
-<p>From the letters home, showing their thrift and
-economy, gradually came small sums lent to the
-far-away idol of the staid old Judge’s household.
-Cyrus was surprised and delighted one day to
-find a large bill of goods sent on to fill up their
-store and give them a start in their hard beginning.</p>
-
-<p>It was the work and influence of that little brainy<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[87]</a></span>
-wife, whose tender hands had grown harder by
-cooking, mending, and working for forty or
-more robust workmen, and the reward it
-brought and the encouragement to both. With
-a well-stocked grocery and comfortable surroundings,
-Cyrus began to look the world in the face
-quite complacently, and take matters easier.
-Meanwhile, the silent ambition of Caroline determined,
-if growing up with the country meant
-anything, she would fathom its mystery, and she
-continued to delve and save, and plan and execute,
-and encourage her husband in his extensive
-contracts.</p>
-
-<p>Here was a profit on forty laborers, a margin on
-their payment in goods, a rise in lumber, and a
-golden opportunity to buy vast tracts of pine
-timber at very low figures in cash payments.
-Drawing on her savings the little wife advised
-wise investments.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[88]</a></span></p>
-
-
-<h3>II.</h3>
-
-<p>Fifty-seven, eight, and nine were the three trying
-years in Northern Michigan. Many a man
-would cheerfully trade a load of shingles for a
-bag of corn, and a thousand feet of timber for
-a single ham. New England thrift was in the
-market, and the little daughter of a discreet
-judge balanced the chances and made hay in
-sunshine most effectually.</p>
-
-<p>Four years passed by, and a rapid rise in prices
-gradually increased the value of timber, then
-lumber, then shingles, then lands, and long
-before the war ended, Arthur and his once
-timid wife were among the wealthy citizens of
-the Rapids.</p>
-
-<p>A large, strong frame, and but little anxiety; a
-dark, swarthy complexion, with a heavy black
-beard; the face of such a man at thirty-eight<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[89]</a></span>
-showed less signs of wear than his little fair-faced
-companion at six years younger.</p>
-
-<p>Age, climate, work, and care were telling on the
-slender build of Caroline. The rapid birth of
-three children in ten years told also their story
-of a mother’s anxiety, written in shading lines
-on her once delicate features.</p>
-
-<p>Absorbed in her duties as a wife, she had little
-room for society, while he, a man relieved by
-riches from hard labor, was approaching that
-prime of maturity when the world looks complacently
-upward to one who has prospered,
-not even asking how, or why, or any reason.</p>
-
-<p>Long trips to large cities, absence from home,
-mingling often with wealthy lumbermen, and
-assuming that position that wealth ever commands
-in society, were doing for Cyrus Arthur
-what they will do for many in like situations.</p>
-
-<p>He craved a larger field for usefulness, he moved<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[90]</a></span>
-and settled in a large city; he craved society,
-he was a favorite with women; he developed a
-fondness for the more forward class. He fell;
-he fell often.</p>
-
-<p>If he had ever loved his devoted wife, the author
-of all his success and prosperity, he now grew
-unloving, haunted by the caresses of more passionate
-women. Driven by appetite to seek the
-companionship of the brazen and deceitful, he
-lost his self-respect, his love of home, and grew
-madly in love with a most bewitching character,
-lately divorced from her husband.</p>
-
-<p>A spell came over him; “the trail of the serpent
-is over them all,”&mdash;the “twelfth temptation,”
-as shown in the powerful drama of its name, that
-takes a farmer-boy in innocence, carries him
-safely through the perils of a great city, saves
-him from saloons and wine, and larceny and
-dishonesty, and at last when weakened by tampering
-with sin, brings him face to face with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[91]</a></span>
-such dazzling beauty that his fall before it
-seems as natural as his ruin later is effectual.</p>
-
-<p>The trail of the serpent had crossed by the path
-of Arthur. The coil wound around him, for
-he loved the bold siren who enchanted him,
-and yielded to the twelfth temptation.</p>
-
-
-<h3>III.</h3>
-
-<p>“For a woman can do with a man what she will;”
-yet a man who knows a woman thoroughly
-and loves her truly&mdash;and there are women who
-may be so known and loved&mdash;will find, after a
-few years, that his relish for the grosser pleasures
-is lessened, and that he has grown into a
-fondness for the intellectual and refined amusements
-without an effort, and almost unawares.</p>
-
-<p>Fettered and controlled by the witchery of his
-evil genius, Cyrus Arthur lost all power but
-that borrowed of his seducer. Her counsel replaced
-the once wise confidence of a better<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[92]</a></span>
-companion. Her influence was as a loadstone
-in a compass,&mdash;it carried him in dumb obedience
-to her will. He was absorbed, confused,
-bewitched, stranded, lost!</p>
-
-<p>As often as they met in their evil way, she demanded
-a divorce and insisted on early proceedings.</p>
-
-<p>“But the cause?” he would say. “Cause?” she
-would answer; “make a cause!” “Not so easily
-done,” replied her willing admirer.</p>
-
-<p>“Money will do anything,” was her ready answer.</p>
-
-<p>“Money will do anything,” repeated the fond
-lumberman; “true, money will do everything.”</p>
-
-<p>But how? When, and where?</p>
-
-<p>These questions were all puzzling.</p>
-
-
-<h3>IV.</h3>
-
-<p>There was a dark-faced inspector, a man-of-all-work
-in lumber camp, called Roland, who had<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[93]</a></span>
-often called at Arthur’s, and who occasionally
-partook a little too freely of Northern fire-water,
-as the Indians term it, and whose poverty at
-such times would consent to almost anything,
-on one pretence and another.</p>
-
-<p>Young Roland was sent to inquire if Mr. Arthur
-was in, or if Mrs. Arthur needed shopping
-done, or errands attended to, with instructions
-to hint that his employer was seen riding out
-with the enchantress in a cutter, seemingly on
-the way to another village. These little irritations
-were to be repeated for effect, but no
-effect seems probable. They did create some
-inquiry, and at such dates of confidential conferences
-Mrs. Arthur was alone with the hireling
-spy and listened to his inferences of her
-husband’s indiscretions.</p>
-
-<p>Neither by word nor deed nor murmur did Caroline
-exhibit a sign or symbol of her unhappiness,
-save by the deeper lines and paler countenance<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[94]</a></span>
-that easily escaped detection to one who
-barely looked her in the eyes twice a day for
-months together.</p>
-
-<p>It was a failure; she would never act, he must
-take the initiative.</p>
-
-<p>Armed with a sworn affidavit of her infidelity
-with Roland on a recent occasion, together
-with further papers to complete their separation
-and settle an alimony of a few thousand
-dollars as her share of their large property,
-Cyrus Arthur visited his wife late at night as a
-robber would call for her jewels, and demanded
-a complete surrender. Stunned and shocked,
-and overcome by the intelligence, she wept
-most bitterly, pleaded, begged, and implored
-her husband, in the name of Heaven, to spare
-her and her <em>children</em> from a disgrace so terrible.
-The sighing of the pines in a Northern
-forest would have moved him as soon from his
-purpose. She was between him and an envied<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[95]</a></span>
-object; he must succeed. He was already
-goaded to desperation. Seizing the part of
-her plea relating to her little girls, he made the
-worst of it.</p>
-
-<p>“If you would spare yourself and them from disgrace
-eternally, make no denial and all shall be
-secret, and no one the wiser.”</p>
-
-<p>“Can this be true?” asked the distracted mother
-of the other’s lawyer.</p>
-
-<p>“Yes,” he replied, cases have been heard on default
-and divorces granted, and not one scrap
-of bill or answer ever published.</p>
-
-<p>“What is a bill and answer?” questioned the little
-woman in her tears, for she never dreamed
-of a divorce between her and her husband till
-that moment.</p>
-
-<p>“It is the ground and denial for divorce,” replied
-the attorney.</p>
-
-<p>“Cyrus Arthur,” said his wife, as she looked at
-the eyes that evaded her earnestness, “do you
-mean this proceeding, or are you trifling?”</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[96]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>“I am in earnest,” he answered.</p>
-
-<p>“Have you forgotten my home, my surroundings,
-the shock to my mother, my father, my own
-feelings, my neighbors, our children? Do you
-realize how you sin, and wrong me?</p>
-
-<p>“How I have toiled and helped you, planned our
-success! How I have suffered, gone almost in
-the grave, in bringing you these children! Are
-you in earnest?</p>
-
-<p>“If your heart is not iron, speak to me; shall I
-deny such a foolish slander? Shall I tell you
-before God, who will one day judge us all, that
-every one of the charges are infamous lies and
-perjuries; shall I place my word against his
-and you deny me?”</p>
-
-<p>“But you cannot swear in court in such cases,”
-said the ready lawyer.</p>
-
-<p>“Then Heaven will hear me; I am innocent.
-And may the Almighty end my life right here,
-if I have ever, by act or look, or word or deed,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[97]</a></span>
-done aught that a true woman should not do
-in every day of our married life, from first to
-last, as God is my witness!”</p>
-
-<p>“But your children?” he pleaded, as if he had
-heard not a word of her earnest protest.</p>
-
-<p>On and on they argued, later and later grew the
-hour, till, worn out at midnight they passed her
-the papers, and eight thousand dollars, with
-which she was to return to her home in New
-England, and abandon all defense to the proceeding,
-including a release of all dower interest
-in his estate, real and personal.</p>
-
-<p>You may smile at the absurdity, you may question
-the reason of such haste and compulsion.</p>
-
-<p>“But who, alas! can love and still be wise?”</p>
-
-<p>Ask of the court records in every American city,
-and you will find stronger cases and stronger
-instances, more degradation, greater hardship,
-and equal perjury. Ask of <em>one</em> court and find
-this case!</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[98]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>No sleep nor rest comes to Caroline Arthur.
-Early dawn found her surrounded by her weeping
-children, in alarm at the sudden illness, for
-she only called it illness.</p>
-
-<p>Twice she started for the City National Bank to
-deposit her money, and twice relented. Once
-she determined to consult a neighbor, and later
-concluded she would bear alone her sorrow.</p>
-
-<p>Hastily filing his bill and securing her appearance,
-an early demand for a hearing before a
-commissioner, in less than a <em>single week</em> came
-a divorce on the ground of infidelity.</p>
-
-<p>Elated by his victory, with his deeds well recorded,
-and the court’s great seal granting their
-divorcement, Cyrus Arthur stalked the streets
-in supreme confidence as a man of victory.</p>
-
-<p>It is said that Roman generals, once victorious
-ever bore about with them the marks of conquerors;
-so did our modern general, but for a
-brief duration.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[99]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>Once in the newspapers, and the busy streets
-were vocal with open denunciation. “Eight
-thousand dollars from a property worth one
-hundred and fifty thousand dollars!” came from
-bankers. “The wife that made him what he
-is,” said another. “A shame to our civilization,”
-said the third. “A fraud, a sham, a pretext,”
-said another.</p>
-
-<p>And the majority joined in the last anthem,&mdash;“a
-sham, a pretext,” a trick to turn off his
-worn-out wife and marry that impious trader in
-unvirtue and immorality.</p>
-
-<p>Press interviews were had, and the dear little
-lady of clean hands and honest heart, whose
-soul shone as a diamond in the filth of foul
-slander around her, utterly and consistently refuted
-and denied the whole story, and related
-its history with marvellous circumstantial evidence
-to convince any reasonable person of her
-truthfulness.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[100]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>Indignation knew no bounds; a firm of able lawyers
-at once filed a cross bill, and a prayer to
-set aside the fraudulent bill and another to
-annul all conveyances to Arthur; and within
-almost as brief a limit as he had secured his
-decree she had been restored to her rights with
-a divorce from Arthur and a thirty-thousand-dollar
-settlement.</p>
-
-<p>He was driven from the city in infamy, and she
-lived on in honor; but the stain on the children
-was of a nature more permanent.</p>
-
-<hr class="chap" />
-
-<div class="chapter"></div><!--Page break for ePub-->
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[101]</a></span></p>
-
-
-
-
-<h2>UNROMANTIC MARRIAGES.</h2>
-
-
-<p>Grace Hartwell graduated at Hillsdale College in
-18&mdash;, and settled as an assistant teacher in the
-Union school on College Hill, living with her
-mother across the narrow river near by, where
-she would pass the old homestead of Richard
-Baker, son of a well-to-do farmer adjoining the
-village, and who early became interested in the
-fair young teacher.</p>
-
-<p>Grace was a full brunette, of fairer complexion
-than is common to her school of beauty.</p>
-
-<p>She was beautiful, with well rounded arms, heavy
-black hair, rosy lips, white hands, eyes of
-marked expression&mdash;eyes that stood out full,
-and shone in striking contrasts, the black portion<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[102]</a></span>
-and the white being clear and sharply
-defined.</p>
-
-<p>Grace was no less a beauty than a dreamer, and
-longed for the kind of change that best suits a
-girl of her quick, passionate, and impulsive
-nature&mdash;a marriage.</p>
-
-<p>Richard was below the medium size, with very
-light hair, of slim figure, reticent of speech, shy
-and bashful, especially so in the presence of
-Grace, whom he met at parties, donations, and
-college receptions, so frequent and amusing in
-their lively village.</p>
-
-<p>Both went too long a distance for their dinner to
-make the trip agreeable, and both often carried
-their daily lunches in little baskets for convenience.</p>
-
-<p>On their homeward trips they met occasionally,
-bowed, passed the time of day, chatted of the
-last night’s party. It was growing so much of
-a custom with Richard to meet these road-side<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[103]</a></span>
-appointments, self-made, and well timed to
-match his lonely companion, that they soon became
-a matter of each day’s history.</p>
-
-<p>Grace was willing to listen, Richard was anxious
-to turn aside from his regular pathway and go
-round a square to bear her company.</p>
-
-<p>They were in love without romance, and against
-both the belief and expectation of all their associates.</p>
-
-<p>She was the prize of the village; he was neither
-well-off nor popular, but plain and unhandsome.
-He was not her only suitor, but the first had
-taken some pique at her attentions to a stranger
-in the village, that offended the haughty admirer
-of her beauty, and each was claimant for her
-entire devotion.</p>
-
-<p>Miss Hartwell’s father was a tall black-eyed Virginian,
-warm-blooded, swarthy, and impulsive,
-and liked not the manner of his daughter’s new
-friendship.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[104]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>He put his foot down with emphasis. He insisted
-on obedience. He wanted position, old family,
-wealth and social standing, or no marriage.</p>
-
-<p>Grace could not always govern her scholars, but
-herself she was determined to control.</p>
-
-<p>Herein both father and daughter were much alike.</p>
-
-<p>Time passed; attachment increased by opposition.
-Such is more often the way of lovers separated;
-but these were not wholly separated.</p>
-
-<p>At the death of Richard’s stepfather a division of
-the estate netted a round three thousand to the
-young farmer, who had done nearly all the farm
-work lately, and now started on an early Northwestern
-visit to the wheat-growing regions, resolved
-on a test of climate, comparison of prices,
-and general outlook for an investment. He
-bought early and largely in prairie lands of finest
-quality. He struggled, prospered, and grew
-well-to-do as a farmer.</p>
-
-<p>And what became of Grace, the teacher? Letters<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[105]</a></span>
-to and from Dakota, neatly written,
-choicely worded, and carefully punctuated, from
-one side; hurried notes, badly composed, from
-the other. The mind is never quite full of two
-subjects at once, and the surest cure for heartache
-is active employment and earnest work.</p>
-
-<p>The increasing cares of farming, the magnitude of
-the business, the constant desire for money
-(for the seed-time of farming is in its early
-stages), were a source of daily anxiety to Richard.
-“My poor Richard” was not a common
-name for a heading to Grace’s letters; truly she
-had found a fit name for her absent lover; a
-lover of land and of cattle, a lover of acres and
-of reapers, a lover of fences and shade-trees,
-and a growing Northwesterner; but poor, indeed,
-in actual happiness.</p>
-
-<p>They were married; Grace removed to her rude
-quarters and furnished them by taste, skill,
-and refinement. She took to her new home all<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[106]</a></span>
-the delicacy of rare machine-work, neat stitching,
-and tidy ornaments of her Eastern education;
-the sewing of many odd hours of industry.</p>
-
-<p>It seemed like an endless harvest, a long busy day,
-a strife and a struggle, in a wilderness of bleak
-broad fields at great distance from market.
-They raised vast crops, but sold at low prices.</p>
-
-<p>The panic of ’73, and the cold winter following,
-made not a very happy honeymoon to both,
-but they endured it all, risked all in a fond
-large hope of abundant future riches. In a
-land of no railroads (it’s changed now; it’s as
-much more brilliant to-day as an electric light
-compared with the light of a common candle),
-Dakota was then rather a dreary country.</p>
-
-<p>Sometimes, it is true, there would come over
-Grace a feeling of lonesome homesickness. It
-comes to a far-away settler many times in a
-lifetime; but she would choke it under, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[107]</a></span>
-resolve to be a brave wife and a worthy companion.</p>
-
-<p>Ten years have rolled by, and times are better;
-both are older, worn a little by climate, larger,
-changed.</p>
-
-<p>On the way to the National Park I chanced past
-their village one evening on the great Pacific
-Railroad, and mentioned “Hillsdale” incidentally.</p>
-
-<p>I saw a woman turn half-way round and look
-towards me, but went on unmindful of the situation.
-Suddenly her companion arose and
-asked me if I said Hillsdale, to which I assented,
-and then a vacant seat was made and both
-came back and questioned me. They were
-strange people, truly.</p>
-
-<p>He a stout-built, long-bearded man, half gray,
-with buffalo overcoat, fur cap and mittens on;
-she well wrapped in beaver; both Western-looking
-in every particular.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[108]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>“You spoke of Hillsdale, sir,” began the woman;
-“and we lived there once, and feel curious to
-know if you would not remain all night with
-us. We have a farm near by next station.
-I hope you will consent to spend the night
-with us;” clearly the woman was the social
-leader.</p>
-
-<p>There was a pleading in the look, a frank expression
-that said, Please do, and I consented.</p>
-
-<p>Two miles, a drive by a cold open sleigh-ride&mdash;cold
-is hardly strong enough to mark the term,&mdash;and
-we found a low unpainted farm-house, plastered
-below, with chamber-floor for ceiling overhead,
-and rudely formed walls; a house of three
-rooms, mainly in two; a farm of six thousand
-acres, five teams, three tenant-houses, wagons
-and sleighs and farming-tools without stint, but
-comfort nowhere.</p>
-
-<p>After breakfast the farmer fed his flocks and attended
-to his general chores, while I stayed in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[109]</a></span>
-and chatted by a sickly pretence of fire made
-of bad coal and green kindling-wood. I had
-seen, each time as he came in, how gently he
-handled his little pet dogs, that seemed their
-only children, how deeply absorbed he was in
-farm and stock, and how anxious he was I
-should see the ranch, but how little he noticed
-his superior companion.</p>
-
-<p>“Where are your children?” I ventured to inquire.</p>
-
-<p>“They are all three yonder in the field,” she said,
-and I knew they all slept in narrow houses
-there. This seemed to let loose the flood that
-held her feelings since the night before. “But
-for my husband,” she added, “I should go home
-ere this. He promised me to go as soon as the
-road was built; but then it costs so much, we
-keep on putting off from year to year. But I am
-longing so much to go! And when I heard that
-word Hillsdale last night, it filled me so full of
-home I could not contain myself. I hope you<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[110]</a></span>
-were not offended; but it seemed if some one
-would come and talk to me, my life would all
-be new again! It is so blank, so bleak, so cold
-and desolate, and I am heart hungry.” The
-tears came fast, and filled her large dark eyes
-and softened down her voice to tones of confidence.
-With eagerness she spoke of care, and
-work and trouble, sorrow and neglect; for, in
-his greed of gain, he had forgotten her as year
-by year rolled on, and both were growing older
-fast, and he not heeding it,&mdash;living on in his
-farm, reapers, sheep and crops; his heart was
-full of such, and had no room for her, no room
-for life.</p>
-
-<p>“And you have been out here for fifteen years?”
-I said. “How many years in that long time
-have you really lived?”</p>
-
-<p>“Lived!” said Grace&mdash;for this was Grace and
-Richard, as you must know ere this&mdash;“lived!”
-she replied;&mdash;“in work and trouble a long life<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[111]</a></span>
-indeed; in happiness, not one year yet. We
-have been waiting every year for that good
-time to come when we would find our happiness;
-we have not found it yet. The more he
-gets, the more he wants. Land means care,
-and taxes, and hired men, anxiety of crops, and
-overwork.</p>
-
-<p>“I had rather live <em>one year</em> back by the old farm
-school-house, when I carried my dinner to my
-school, and had a loving group of faces looking
-into my eyes each noon, and loving me, than
-own all our acres and be here a dozen years.</p>
-
-<p>“Life is not all in years to me! I have learned that
-lesson dearly, learned it living where we see so
-little of real life that memory is all the hope I
-have.”</p>
-
-<p>“Starving amid plenty is cruelty,” I said. “Sell half
-and live while you may. You are wasting your
-whole lives in a fruitless hunt for happiness.”</p>
-
-<p>I have since learned that my visit was a revolution<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[112]</a></span>
-and reform, and that they are living
-better.</p>
-
-<p>And I thought, as I turned to the States and
-cast a long sad look at the lonely form in the
-doorway, and one at the bundle of robes beside
-me, who was driving me to the land of daily
-enjoyment, if their children had grown up and
-lived in such a place, where would have been
-their hope? In land and horses! Where their
-company? The company of flocks and cattle.
-The hope of sometime finding more congenial
-quarters. I turned in sadness, saying inwardly,
-“God pity the land-poor farmers, and pity
-their wives, and show them the lives they are
-leading!”</p>
-
-<hr class="tb" />
-
-<div class="chapter"></div><!--Page break for ePub-->
-
-<div class="boxit-one">
-<p class="center xxlargefont sansseriffont boldfont">THE SCIENCE OF A NEW LIFE.</p>
-
-<p class="center largefont">BY JOHN COWAN, M. D.</p>
-
-<p class="center xlargefont boldfont">A Book Well Worth Possessing by Every Thoughtful
-Man and Woman.</p>
-
-
-<p>The “Science of a New Life” has received the highest testimonials and commendations
-from leading medical and religious critics; has been heartily endorsed
-by all the leading philanthropists, and recommended to every well-wisher of the
-human race.</p>
-
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-
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-
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-Analyzed; Qualities the Man Should Avoid in Choosing; Qualities the Woman
-Should Avoid in Choosing; The Anatomy and Physiology of Generation in Women;
-The Anatomy and Physiology of Generation in Man; Amativeness&mdash;its
-Use and Abuse; The Prevention of Conception; The Law of Continence; Children&mdash;Their
-Desirability; The Law of Genius; The Conception of a New Life; The
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-
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-
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-the diseased and discordant humanity we now have, I heartily recommend the study
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-
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-
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-<em><span class="mediumfont">P. O. BOX 2767.</span> <span class="mediumfont" style="padding-left:4em">ROSE STREET, NEW YORK.</span></em></p>
-
-</div>
-
-<hr class="tb" />
-
-<div class="chapter"></div><!--Page break for ePub-->
-
-<div class="boxit-one">
-<p class="center xxlargefont">ARE YOU THINKING ABOUT BUILDING A HOUSE?</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
-<img src="images/i_118.jpg" width="600" height="525" alt="House." />
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-
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-</div>
-
-<hr class="tb" />
-
-<div class="chapter"></div><!--Page break for ePub-->
-
-<div class="transnote">
-<h2 id="TN_end" style="margin-top: 0em">Transcriber’s Notes:</h2>
-
-<p>The author of this book is listed in other sources as James W. Donovan
-using the pseudonym Hildreth.</p>
-
-<p>Punctuation has been made consistent.</p>
-
-<p>Variations in spelling and hyphenation were retained as they appear in
-the original publication, except that obvious typographical errors
-have been corrected.</p>
-
-<p>The following changes were made:</p>
-
-<p>p. <a href="#Ref_54">54</a>: that removed (and trials come)</p>
-
-<p>p. <a href="#Ref_65">65</a>: it added (for it a)</p>
-</div>
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-<pre>
-
-
-
-
-
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