Washington telegraph., 1852-06-23
A DaugIter's Marriage.

The departure of son from beneath the
paternal roof does not present any spectacle
of desolation. Masculine life has, from in.
fancy, an individuality, an independence,
an exoticism so to say, which is essentially
wanting to female existence. When son
abandons his parents to create for himself a
separate interest, this separation causes but
little interruption in their mutual relations
A man marries and still maintains his
friendships, his habits, and his filial affec-
tions Nothing is changed in his life; it is
only an additional tie. His departure is
consequently mere simple separation
while the departure of a young girl, become
the wife of few hours is a real desertion
with all it's duties and feelings still fresh
about it. In one word, the son is sapling
which has always grown apart from the
trunk; while the daughter has, on the con
trary, formed an essential portion of it, and
to detach her from her place is to mutilatc
the tree itself. You have surrounded her
youth with unspeakable tcnderness-the ex-
haustless tenderness of your paternal and
maternal hearts; and she, in return, has ap-
peared to pour forth upon you both an equal
ly inexhaustible gratitude; you loved be-
yond all the world and she seemed to cling
to you with a proportionate affection. But
one day, one ill-omened day man arrives
invited and welcomed by yourselves; and
. this man of your own choice carries off to
his domestic eyry your gentle dove, far
from the soft nest which your love had
made for her, and to which hers had clung.
On the morrow you look around you you
listen, you await, you seek for something
which you cannot find. The cage is empty;
the tuneful linnet has flown; silence has sue
ceeded to its melodious warblings; it does
not come as it did only on the previous
morning, fluttcring its perfumed wings about
your pillow, and awakening you by its soft
caresses. Nothing remains but a painful
calm a painful silence, painful void. The
chamber of the absent darling offers only
that disorder which is so melancholy for a
mother to contemplate; not the joyous and
impatient disorder of occupation but that
of abandonment. Maidenly garments scat
tered here and there girlish fancies no
longer priced; chairs heaped with half-worn
dresses; drawers left partially open, and
ransacked to their remotest corners; bed
in which no one has slept; crowd of charm
ing trifes, which the young girl loved, but
which the young wife despises. and which
are Uttered over the carpet like feathers
dropped by the linnet, when the hawk made
the timid bird its prey Such is the de-
pressing sight which wrings tears from the
mothers heart
Nor is this all from this day she occu-
pies only the second place in the affections
of her departed idol; and even that merely
until the happiness of maternity shall have
taught her whom she wecps to assign to her
one still lower. This man, this stranger,
unknown few months. it may be bat
few weeks previously, has assumed a right
over affections which were once almost en-
tirely her own; a few hours of feeting and
it may be Of assumed tenderness, have, in a
great degree, sufficed to efface twenty long
years of watchfulness, of care and of self-ab-
negation; and they have not only rent away
her right to be the first and best beloved,
but they have also deprived her of the filial
caresses, the gentle attention and the adored
presence of the hearts idol, whom she has
herself given to him for life. Nothing is
left to the mother but the attachment of re-
spect All the warmer emotions are en-
crossed by the husband, to whom this young
bride owes alike obedience and devoted
ness.
If she loves him. she leaves her home
without regret, to follow his fortunes to the
end>of the world if she does not love him,
she will perform the same duty with resig-
nation. Nature and law alike impose the
obligation on her and her own heart must
decide whether it will continue her JOY or
her trial; but in either case the result to the
mother is the same. Nor can that mother
reproach her with this painful preference,
for she has reared her in the conviction of
the necessity of marriage, she has herself
offered to her its example in her own per-
son; Heaven itself has pointed it out as
duty whose omission is culpable; and, there
fore, far from venturing to wish that the lost
one should restore to her all the tenderness
which time and habit may enable her to
withdraw from her husband, the mother is
bound, on the contrary, to pray that they
may every day become dearer to each other,
even at the expense of her own happiness.
This misfortune is the mothers last bles-
sing.
a number of gentlemen, interested in
the progress of internal Improvement in