Part 30 (1/2)

4. THE CLIMAX.--It has been said that a man is never utterly ruined until he has married a bad woman. So the climax of woman's miseries and sorrows may be said to come only when she is bound with that bond which should be her chiefest blessing and her highest joy, but which may prove her deepest sorrow and her bitterest curse.

5. THE FOLLY OF FOLLIES.--There are some lessons which people are very slow to learn, and yet which are based upon the simple principles of common-sense. A young lady casts her eye upon a young man. She says, ”I mean to have that man.” She plies her arts, engages his affections, marries him, and secures for herself a life of sorrow and disappointment, ending perhaps in a broken up home or an early grave.

Any prudent, intelligent person of mature age, might have warned or cautioned her; but she sought no advice, and accepted no admonition. A young man may pursue a similar course with equally disastrous results.

6. HAP-HAZARD.--Many marriages are undoubtedly arranged by what may be termed the accident of locality. Persons live near each other, become acquainted, and engage themselves to those whom they never would have selected as their companions in life if they had wider opportunities of acquaintance. Within the borders of their limited circle they make a selection which may be wise or may be unwise. They have no means of judging, they allow no one else to judge for them. The results are sometimes happy and sometimes unhappy in the extreme. It is well to act cautiously in doing what can be done but once. It is not a pleasant experience for a person to find out a mistake when it is too late to rectify it.

7. WE ALL CHANGE.--When two persons of opposite s.e.x are often thrown together they are very naturally attracted to each other, and are liable to imbibe the opinion that they are better fitted for life-long companions.h.i.+p than any other two persons in the world. This may be the case, or it may not be. There are a thousand chances against such a conclusion to one in favor of it. But even if at the present moment these two persons were fitted to be a.s.sociated, no one can tell whether the case will be the same five or ten years hence. Men change; women change; they are not the same they were ten years ago; they are not the same they will be ten years hence.

8. THE SAFE RULE.--Do not be in a hurry; take your time and consider well before you allow your devotion to rule you. Study first your character, then study the character of her whom you desire to marry. Love works mysteriously, and if it will bear careful and cool investigation, it will no doubt thrive under adversity. When people marry they unite their destinies for the better or the worse. Marriage is a contract for life and will never bear a hasty conclusion. _Never be in a hurry_!

JEALOUSY--ITS CAUSE AND CURE.

Trifles, light as air Are to the jealous confirmations strong, As proofs of holy writ.--SHAKESPEARE.

Nor Jealousy Was understood, the injur'd lover's h.e.l.l.--MILTON

O, beware, my lord, of jealousy; It is the green-eyed monster which doth mock The meat it feeds on.--SHAKESPEARE.

1. DEFINITION.--Jealousy is an accidental pa.s.sion, for which the faculty indeed is unborn. In its n.o.bler form and in its n.o.bler motives it arises from love, and in its lower form it arises from the deepest and darkest Pit of Satan.

2. HOW DEVELOPED.--Jealousy arises either from weakness, which from a sense of its own want of lovable qualities is not convinced of being sure of its cause, or from distrust, which thinks the beloved person capable of infidelity. Sometimes all these motives may act together.

3. n.o.bLEST JEALOUSY.--The n.o.blest jealousy, if the term n.o.ble is appropriate, is a sort of ambition or pride of the loving person who feels it is an insult that another one should a.s.sume it as possible to supplant his love, or it is the highest degree of devotion which sees a declaration of its object in the foreign invasion, as it were, of his own altar. Jealousy is always a sign that a little more wisdom might adorn the individual without harm.

4. THE LOWEST JEALOUSY.--The lowest species of jealousy is a sort of avarice of envy which, without being capable of love, at least wishes to possess the object of its jealousy alone by the one party a.s.suming a sort of property right over the other. This jealousy, which might be called the Satanic, is generally to be found with old withered ”husbands,” whom the devil has prompted to marry young women and who forthwith dream night and day of cuck-old's horns. These Argus-eyed keepers are no longer capable of any feeling that could be called love, they are rather as a rule heartless house-tyrants, and are in constant dread that some one may admire or appreciate his unfortunate slave.

5. WANT OF LORE.--The general conclusion will be that jealousy is more the result of wrong conditions which cause uncongenial unions, and which through moral corruption artificially create distrust than a necessary accompaniment of love.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SEEKING THE LIFE OF A RIVAL.]

6. RESULT OF POOR OPINION.--Jealousy is a pa.s.sion with which those are most afflicted who are the least worthy of love. An innocent maiden who enters marriage will not dream of getting jealous; but all her innocence cannot secure her against the jealousy of her husband if he has been a libertine. Those are wont to be the most jealous who have the consciousness that they themselves are most deserving of jealousy.

Most men in consequence of their present education and corruption have so poor an opinion not only of the male, but even of the female s.e.x, that they believe every woman at every moment capable of what they themselves have looked for among all and have found among the most unfortunate, the prost.i.tutes. No libertine can believe in the purity of woman; it is contrary to nature. A libertine therefore cannot believe in the loyalty of a faithful wife.

7. WHEN JUSTIFIABLE.--There may be occasions where jealousy is justifiable. If a woman's confidence has been shaken in her husband, or a husband's confidence has been shaken in his wife by certain signs or conduct, which have no other meaning but that of infidelity, then there is just cause for jealousy. There must, however, be certain proof as evidence of the wife's or husband's immoral conduct.

Imaginations or any foolish absurdities should have no consideration whatever, and let everyone have confidence until his or her faith has been shaken by the revelation of absolute facts.

8. CAUTION AND ADVICE.--No couple should allow their a.s.sociations to develop into an engagement and marriage if either one has any inclination to jealousy. It shows invariably a want of sufficient confidence, and that want of confidence, instead of being diminished after marriage, is liable to increase, until by the aid of the imagination and wrong interpretation the home is made a h.e.l.l and divorce a necessity. Let it be remembered, there can be no true love without perfect and absolute confidence, jealousy is always the sign of weakness or madness. Avoid a jealous disposition, for it is an open acknowledgment of a lack of faith.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

THE IMPROVEMENT OF OFFSPRING.

Why Bring Into the World Idiots, Fools, Criminals and Lunatics?

1. THE RIGHT WAY.--When mankind will properly love AND marry and then rightly generate, carry, nurse and educate their children, will they in deed and in truth carry out the holy and happy purpose of their Creator. See those miserable and depraved scape-goats of humanity, the demented simpletons, the half-crazy, unbalanced mult.i.tudes which infest our earth, and fill our prisons with criminals and our poor-houses with paupers. Oh! the boundless capabilities and perfections of our G.o.d-like nature and, alas! its deformities! All is the result of the ignorance or indifference of parents. As long as children are the accidents of l.u.s.t instead of the premeditated objects of love, so long will the offspring deteriorate and the world be cursed with deformities, monstrosities, unhumanities and cranks.