Part 3
_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.